The humming noise grew stronger. Anne nervously backed away, as did the others. Master Virimon smirked, despite the immense pain that lingered after the Thread had burrowed through his arm. "Running away, are you? Why be so slow? Do you anticipate your deaths?"
"It would seem that you anticipate your own," growled Chouwamon, who was also moving away, slowly.
"Hm? My, whatever are you talking about?"
The humming got louder, then, all of a sudden stopped. This could mean anything, Anne realized. Then she saw a sudden silver flash circle around the black beast. Annoyed, he attempted to swat it away. But it dodged his every move. She held her breath anxiously. How it could be reacting like this if it was just a program? The stinger snapped back and forth, attempting to catch the rogue Thread. A pincer snapped over it, but the Thread glided away. Then it paused. The pincer snapped again, but the silvery Thread skimmed over it and embedded itself into the Master Virimon's chest. He screamed out in pain once more, and then it came out the other side and dropped to the floor, harmless. He stood in shock, unable to move.
Then another Thread came. And attacked. Then another. And another.
Soon, there was a barrage of the Threads, opening up into a fully formed Threadfall. The Master Virimon was powerless against the silver needles of anti-data. Then, suddenly, his arm disappeared in a flash of bloody data. He roared out in pain. Anne almost felt sorry for the mutant. No, not sorry. Scared. Scared of what that thing could do to them. Chouwamon still hovered in the air, expressionless. He had nothing to do in the matter, so he let it be. Another arm deleted. Then a clawed leg. And the stinger. His digital mass was giving in to the blitzkrieg. He collapsed to the ground, moaning in pain. The Threads followed without skipping a beat. More legs started disappearing. Then he threw back his head in one last scream.
"Why?!"
Then he started to fully delete. The Threads began to cling together in clumps to attack every last piece of data until there were none left. The Master Virimon was no more.
That was when Anne started to panic. Because the Threads had stopped in midair. And they looked like they were heading towards them.
Chouwamon instantly realized the imminent danger and descended sharply to the ground and held up his shield. "Unity Shield!" Instantly, a thin, white veil seemed to spread out over the small group, and just in time. The first Thread struck against the barrier, doing nothing. Then the entire onslaught followed. Nothing was really happening. Then more came, and more, even more than the ones that had attacked the Master Virimon. It was obviously taking more of an effort to hold up the shield; Chouwamon was visibly straining to keep it up. Then they started gathering in clumps. The clumps shattered against the barrier, but they were still weakening it. Chouwamon was starting to slide back, little by little, and the barrier was starting to close in on them. Anne started to panic. What was going to happen if the barrier broke, or, even worse, caved in on them?
~
"Ten seconds to total breach, sir…"
Yamaki started counting to himself. What was going to happen if Threadfall was unleashed on the Internet? Nobody would forget about that one. Plus, it was essentially dangerous. There was only one option.
"Riley, shut down the program."
"What? But, sir—"
"You heard me, shut it down!"
~
Anne could see small dents in the barrier. They were doomed. She knew it. She looked up and thought she saw a small crack. Oh no…
Chouwamon noticed, too. Up till now, he had no idea what to do. Then he got an idea. He focused all his energy into the dead center and rim of the barrier. Then, slowly, he started pushing down on the center. Before long, the bottom rims started to curl up.
Any minute now…
Suddenly, much to everyone's surprise, the barrier snapped up far too soon, closing off the Threads. At first, Chouwamon thought it was a success. But then the barrier shattered altogether. He braced himself for the barrage of needles…
Which never came.
The Threads had fully deleted in midair. Anne bristled, expecting something even worse to come. But nothing did. Project Threadfall had been deactivated. She sighed as a wave of sudden elation spread over her. All they needed to do now was just get back home in one piece. Then it was over.
"So…now what?"
Jonathan's voice pierced through her thoughts. She looked back at them and realized that she had basically the same question. "Right. How do we get out of here?"
"Up."
Anne turned back to Chouwamon, who was gazing skywards at a large hole in the skylight. "You're not serious."
"I am."
"Then how do we get to the Real World after that? Actually, how do we even get through there?!" The hole was jagged and looked rather haphazard. Chouwamon walked over to Anne and picked her up. "Hey, wait, what d'you think you're doing?! Put me down, I don't want to get cut to pieces! Didn't you hear me, PUT ME DOWN!!"
Chouwamon wasn't listening. "Penmon, Digivolve to Sabirdramon and get the others. I'll make the hole bigger."
"What?! If you're going to do THAT, then would you at least mind putting me down first?!"
"Just be quiet and hang on."
When Anne realized that no matter how stubborn she was he wasn't going to put her down, she hastily clung to his neck as they started to fly up towards the hole. Suddenly, another barrier was raised around the two of them seconds before they got to the hole, effectively widening it enough for anything to get through it. Anne blinked, her eyes readjusting to the sudden whiteness of the Cyber. Only then did she realize exactly how dark it was in Nightmare. After a few minutes, Sabirdramon appeared, along with Jonathan, Matt, DemiSatamon, and DemiAngemon. Then she saw a long, greenish-black band some ways away from them. It seemed to just hang in the middle of it all, staying in one place instead of wildly spinning about like Nightmare. She realized it must be the link connecting the Real World and the Digital World. Chouwamon sped toward it, as did Sabirdramon.
When they broke through, they were in the same place that they were in when they first crossed through to the Cyber, through the pyramid. The Real World wasn't very far away. They just needed to get out in the right spot. Luckily, Chouwamon knew exactly where that was. But, still…
"Matt…you're from America, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Are you sure that you're going to get out in the right place?"
He shrugged. "I was just planning on going back to the Digital World. Any idiot can find out how to get back there."
She ignored the last statement. "All right then…see you, maybe."
"You too." That said, he went off in the other direction, DemiAngemon and DemiSatamon not far behind.
"And good riddance," muttered Jonathan under his breath.
"Shut up, Cleese."
"Why?!"
"It doesn't do much for your character," said Chouwamon, looking straight ahead.
"Would you stay out of this?!"
"He has got a point."
"Oh, be quiet…"
After a few minutes of back-and-forth bickering, they saw a glint ahead. At once Anne knew it was the portal they went through to get to the Digital World. Yet…it seemed damaged, somehow. It wasn't the same glimmer that it was when she first saw it; it seemed to glow a dull white, now.
"It's still intact," said Chouwamon, "but not for long. Come on, we need to hurry."
~
William leaned back in his chair. Nothing much had been happening. The count of incidents involving Digimon had been suddenly cut back. Now, there was next to zero. And none of them involved children, either. He puzzled over this. There had to be some sort of catch.
Then he suspected that maybe…just maybe the children had traversed to the Digital World. It was a slim one, but it was a possibility. Maybe…maybe they had partner Digimon? He sighed. It was ages since he ever dug that theory up before. He was still young, in his late twenties, and although Digimon were created twenty years ago, it was only ten years before that Digimon were recreated as physical life forms. He'd made an early discovery of them, although originally, the only people who knew about the project was the Alliance—and the people working on the project, of course. But all the latter were dead. They had all been killed in an explosion. Now, he strongly suspected Digimon to be the cause. But which ones? The matter aggravated him to no end. Still, now that he was part of the Alliance, it didn't matter anymore.
He was right. It didn't exactly matter who did it. What mattered was if the one who did it was seeking revenge.
What also mattered was who or what it was seeking revenge on.
And yet, as he returned to the finer points of the anti-data barrier, he never quite realized all of the possibilities. Only the obvious ones. But those were not the important ones.
~
"Can somebody stop da universe, I wanna get off…"
Kamemon and Kyomon were lying dazed on the ground, in St. James Park. Anne sighed with relief. They'd made it back still in one piece. And she had a new partner, as well as Kamemon. At last, it was over, she thought. In a way, she was right.
In yet another, she was dead wrong.
~:~:~
Well? Ya like? Hmmmmmmm? I got all references to Thread, Threadfall, and Threadscores from the Dragonriders of Pern series, as I said ages ago… And now, I can finally get to work on Reptilia Draco 2. For anyone who cares, though, that's not going to be the actual title…I'm sorta leaning towards "Diamond Secrets", but if anyone has any ideas, then please include them in your REVIEW!! ^_^