William leaned his back against the wall. Despite his best efforts, everything had gone wrong. The jury had declared Emma innocent, and now poor Mr. Rosh was under suspicion of being some sort of criminal mastermind. The only bright side had been getting his dad to back down.
And even that was canceled out by what had followed immediately after. Apparently there was now talk of sending him to juvenile detention. Him, a hero who had saved the world, and had only been trying to keep doing so.
So instead of going back to his house where his only real family was, he had to sit here in this holding cell. At least they hadn't taken any of his belongings. Apparently the person who'd made the call felt sorry for him. A normally kind gesture, but a fatal mistake in this case.
So now he had a choice. He could either stay here and let this face take its course, freeing up the rebel to continue his evil ways or…
He glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room. There was no way it wasn't recording his every move. He reached down into his pocket and felt the two objects he needed for his escape. He didn't know how long he had to make his choice, so might as well make it now.
He got to his feet and placed his phone down on the bed, the only raised surface in the entire room. Once that was done, he took a few steps back, looked back at the camera, and took out his digivice.
A minute later he was gone, and the only evidence he'd ever been there was the abandoned phone left on the bed.
From there, he floated around the internet for a while. He'd done it, he'd… well he hadn't revealed the existence of digimon to the wider world, but he had created the first clue someone could use to find them.
Some of the other digidestined argued that between the digimon randomly appearing in the internet, and the organization handing out digivices at random, their existence getting revealed was inevitable. He always maintained that as long as they were careful, they could stay secret forever.
Of course now he'd been anything but careful. He wondered if this had proved his point before forgetting about that part. He had more important things to worry about. He needed to find Betamon, and then rescue Sarah. His little sister would be better off with him then left in that house.
But before he could rescue his sister by taking her with him into the internet, he needed to make sure it was safe. Any threat to her safety needed to be removed and the biggest threat of all was the one which had just ruined his plan at the last moment.
The rebel needed to go down. His digivice would be destroyed and his digimon would have to be taken down. With any luck, the poor thing would come back as a digiegg and lead a better life.
"William, how did the trial go?" Betamon asked as he touched down in his home PC. It'd taken a bit of trial and error, but he'd managed to combine a section of the PC and the digital home into a virtual lake and surrounding swamp for Betamon to live in. The same lake Betamon was resting next to when he found him.
"Not well," he understated before telling Betamon everything.
"Well, look's like you've gotten yourself into a big old pickle," Betamon waddled up to his partner, "I told you doing all of this stuff at once was a bad idea. You have to take like in little chunks."
"Yeah I know, I should have dealt with each thing on its own, instead of making one giant plan, but it all felt too perfect." he punched his open palm as he looked up at the top of the PC, "So are you ready to go after this rebel."
"Of course I am. Sarah's a sweetheart and if you're sure he'd go after her, then I'm all in on taking him down." He nodded, always a strange action considering Betamon's lack of neck.
"Good, then all we have to do from here is wait until the rebel appears and…"
"I'm already tracking them."
William paused before looking down at Betamon.
"What do you mean you're already tracking them?"
"He's been on the internet for the last few hours straight. Almost since the start of the trial," Betamon explained as William felt his grip tighten, "I've had hours to track the bit of data you left on him. We should have him… now actually."
"He's taunting us," William whispered as he looked at the web browser before taking out his digivice, "Betamon, let's go."
A bright light erupted from the digivice as William raised it to the sky. "Betamon Digivolve to…" The light reached Betamon as he loudly announced the words. A blue egg appeared around him, before quickly growing to the size of a tall tree. "Seadramon!"
The egg burst as the blue shell broek apart and then evaporated to reveal the green sea serpent. Seadramon knelt down and allowed William to climb aboard before starting to snake his way into the internet.
I let out a sigh as I rubbed my thigh through the tough cloth of my new pants. I'd needed to replace the old pair I'd used in the rebel 1 costume for a new pair. It'd taken out a fair bit of my money, but I couldn't show up with torn pants.
The jacket was a bit harder to replace. Not only was its color a custom job, I needed it to hold the now three 'modification cards' I'd collected. I wasn't sure we'd need Snimon Slicer, Pepper breath or Chile Pepper Pummel, but better safe than sorry.
So here I was, in an old abandoned website wearing a tattered jacket with Gazimon sitting a foot away from me with her eyes closed and ears open.
"You know I can't keep an ear out for him if you keep sighing," she complained while keeping her eyes closed.
"I know, but…" I got my feet and tried stretching out one of my legs, "I just can't get the same range of movement out of these things like I could with the old pants. Remind me to track down the old pair to see if I can get another one just like it later."
"Wouldn't be surprised if Roxie threw that old thing… Wait, I think I hear them coming."
Well it was about time. Ever since we'd discovered the bit of tracking data the green sphere had left behind, the next step in our concentration almost wrote itself.
Gazimon stood upo and walked next to me as I looked down at where I'd chosen to make my stand.
had once been part of someone's dream. A dream to open Dryden's first Mexican restaurant. The whole place had fallen apart quickly once a burrito bell had opened next door and a Siracha's across the street. Personally the whole thing smelt like a conspiracy, but the restaurant was already on its last legs by the time I'd started acting as Rebel 1.
The restaurant was due to close next week and its website would soon be abandoned. With no one else using it, I figured I could use it for my face off with the blond kid. Yes I knew his name now, but I refused to use it.
And what a better place for a face up. The website looked like a southwestern desert at first. A mostly flat plain of dry ground broken up by cacti and the single large mesa at the very center. But get a bit closer, and the weirder things would get. The 'cacti' were made of metal and had taps which let out water. They also exploded if you touched one of the thorns, shooting them all over the place. The sky in here had two modes, high noon or late night with a crescent moon overhead. We were in high noon now, and would turn over at night at six which was in a couple of minutes.
But none of that compared to the crown jewel of weirdness which was the Mesa we were standing on. Despite first appearances, it wasn't solid stone. If you approached it from the front, you would spot an entrance to an inner section.
It was a food court where every single restaurant lining the walls sold the food the real world restaurant did. Or at least I assumed they did since every single one of them was covered in what I assumed was 'Mexican food'.
Gazimon and I could even see in there through the skylight over the center of the food court. It even had calm blue tiles which clashed horribly with the wild west theme the rest of this palace had.
Well it wasn't like it matters in the long run. I needed this palace for its outside, not the food court inside.
A minute or so after Gazimon heard something, both the blond boy and his sea serpent arrived. We locked eyes before he broke off to look at the maze of metal cacti in front of him.
"Did you think this would be enough to stop me? Seadramon, clear the way."
"Icy blast!" Seadramon reared back before spewing out a wave of ice, freezing the cacti solid. It didn't take long for the wave of ice to reach the base of the mesa. When it cleared, there was a clear path of frozen cacti leading through the maze.
Seadramon pushed forward, its mass crushing the frozen cacti as its scales kept it safe from the broken metal.
It was time to start the game. I reached into my pocket and grabbed a modification card.
"Digimodify," I slammed down the card on the rebel drive as Gazimon took aim, "Pepper Breath, activate!" She let loose a series of small fireballs at a few cacti in Seadramon's path. The blast was nowhere near enough to melt the ice, but they thawed them just enough for Seadramon to set off the spines.
I smirked as explosions ripped through the cacti field, bits of metal hitting other cacti and setting them off in turn. Seadramon stopped in place and wrapped himself in a coil, with blond boy taking cover behind the scales.
By the time the explosive chain came to an end and the smoke cleared, a wide swath of the cacti field had been cleared. Seadramon undid its coil as the sun suddenly started to set on the battlefield, it was time.
"Are you ready?" I asked Gazimon as she looked back up at me.
"You do realize that if we guessed wrong, this whole thing falls apart right?"
"But think how amazing it'll be if we're right," Gazimon chuckled at my point before jumping off the Mesa as I reached for the rebel drive. As I reached for the right button, I thought back to the moment which had led us here.
"Okay," I said simply as I sat back. "So then, where do we go from here?"
"You said that the Blond guy went after his sister to get us, right? Feels kind of wrong to just leave her like that," I smirked, looked like she was already on the same page as me.
And at that very moment, I could feel something building in both of us. A force, a direction, a goal made realized. A voice whispered words in my head, strange words which would have made no sense until right this moment. We were almost there, it just needed one last push to take it all the way there.
"Gabi," Gizmo gulped as she pointed to my wrist. I glanced down at the rebel drive and saw the purple circle floating above it. All it took was one glance and I knew what would happen if I pressed it. My fingers reached for it and then stopped.
"No, not here," I calmed myself, "no, we need to save this for a special occasion."
Gazimon grumbled before finally sitting back down.
"Fine, but this better be worth it." Despite her disappointed words, the smirk on her face let me know she could see where I was going.
I pressed the button as the purple circle appeared over the rebel drive once more. The words appeared in my head, clear as the crescent moon materializing overhead.
"Warning: sin detected."
Gazimon landed on the ground as a purple egg appeared around her.
"Code:Undefined"
"Gazimon, dark digivolve to…" We both screamed out as one. Every dark desire wrought by an uncaring world called out from within us. The words demanded justice be done, but our own hand if by no one else would take up the task.
"Purgatory level:0"
The Egg expanded outwards. Doubling, tripling, going even further. By the time it was done, it was as tall as a two story building. Seadramon could maybe reach the top if he uncoiled himself and stretched as tall as he could.
The egg finally stopped growing before suddenly bursting open to reveal the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
She was a towering being of dark black skin, long limbs, a powerful tail covered in belts, and four black angel wings on her back. Four ruby eyes glowed in the gloom of the night, the small bat wings growing from the back of the head contrasting with the moonlight. Her long arms ended in blood red claws and were covered in belts and bandages. On one shoulder were a trio of metal studs, and on the other a white skull.
She was a living monument, a declaration to the world that their desires for a better, more just world would no longer be denied. Proof that the weak could rise up and take down the kings and gods which trampled those underneath.
A dark angel for those who had been left behind in the shadows for far too long.
She opened her mouth and we roared out the name of the new Madonna of the lost and forgotten.
"Devidramon!"