Windie_ACY – Glad you think it's so good, never thought it was that good myself.
Theo 'Blitz' Leung – Thanks, but I'm not being that mean am I? *Hunts round for halo prop ^_^. Best to just wait and see when the agony will end, as I have not the slightest idea myself.
Immaterium (Part 23)
The Greater Daemon spun on the spot for effect and morphed one of its swords into a pulsating purple guitar. Faces leered out of the surface, hollow eye sockets straining to see as mouths silently screamed and noses leaked blood. Wide eyed with revulsion they looked at the thing for the first time this close. Their eyes helplessly drawn to the instrument as it emitted a few soft screams and wails of pain. Faces raced round, crashed into each other and disappearing under a tide of new horrors. A larger, human, face morphed out of the handle and stared at them pleadingly with his one eye before being shoved back into the guitar by a violent prod and a few mumbled words from the Greater Daemon. It strummed a few chords, wails escaping from the mouths of the faces to make the notes as the strings moved.
"Feel free to sing along as you die."
Eight mouths screamed in unison as they turned and ran straight back into the forest. It smirked as it heard the screams and did its best to incorporate them into the music as it ambled after them. A low-pitched wailing sound rocked around them, instantly forcing them to cover their ears. A thump to their right sounded. Joe risked a glance round, stumbled once, almost stopped, and ran even faster. The trees danced, writhed, and plodded towards them. Inexorably falling behind, yet constantly catching up as the trees ahead began to spring towards them. Torturous parodies of trees smashed through each other, storms of leaves slicing through the air at them as they ran. Matt glanced to the side, saw the hail of leaves and ducked his head down further as he put on an extra burst of speed.
Silence.
Only the regular and rapid thump, thump, thump, of their hearts and the crashes as the blundered through the firmly rooted trees. They slowed to a stop and crashed to the ground, explosive pains burning at their lungs as they breathed deep mouthfuls of cool, soothing air.
"Got to… keep… moving…." Tai managed to gasp as he got to his feet and started to stumble away. He vaguely motioned for the rest of them to follow him before crashing into a tree and falling down.
"We can't run… from that thing forever. Sooner or later… it's going to catch us. I don't think it… cares when. You saw it following us. It was walking."
"What else can we do for now? Fight? Just how are we meant to fight it Joe? If you haven't noticed we currently lack any means of attacking it."
Mimi giggled inwardly "Izzy, can't you use that computer door that we used against Etemon?"
Everyone turned to face her, no one knowing what to say for a few moments. Izzy powered up his laptop and his hands flew across the keyboard. He heard a maniacal music start up again, high-pitched squealing shooting out towards them.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are…."
They glanced backwards, saw a mass of trees explode. Wood shards rocketed at them, sliced into their skin as they cried out and blood seeped out of their wounds. Everyone nervously glanced at Izzy as he slammed his hand down on the keyboard. Eight digivices started beeping, eight glowing pools of light that spread out around them. They looked at the bubble of fluorescence that encased them, almost separating them from the outside world. One by one the digivices grew silent. And the world exploded.
The Greater Daemon laughed hard as he brought his giant axe towards a towering office block. Pathetic humans screamed in fright as they saw the five-story tall weapon arc towards them.
He swung the axe.
Light exploded.
Blinded.
Felt the axe pass through empty air.
He blinked his eyes clear and stood there for a few seconds. All trace of the thriving city he had been about to demolish had vanished. Instead he was standing in a desert, poles sticking out of the ground at regular intervals. Anger flooded into him as he worked out an inkling of what had happened.
He glanced up as he heard a bellowing roar reverberate across the land. A smirk passed across his face. Sounds like that large oaf failed to smash something with his oversized axe. I do so love when that happens. He turned his attention back to the spherical stone in front of him. All around the ground was scorched black and gaping craters were exposed in the ground where he had tried to unlock it. If you think this will stop me Azulongmon, then you are wrong! I will unlock these, and I will have my revenge on you. He swung out his staff, shining with internal power. Flames and ice shot out and smashed into the ring.
Nothing.
He looked towards the sky, graceful wings unfurled as he shot upwards. He looked back down at the stone, nothing more than a speck from this height and raised his staff high above his head. A stream of magic flowed out of the staff, pure energy smashed into the forest near the stone. Gouges scoured hundreds of feet through the ground and an inferno instantly engulfed the forest. He flew away, some of his anger now vented, in search of the things he needed, all eight of them.
It fell to the ground, its guitar like weapon broken into fragments. Transparent faces streamed out of it and fled upwards. The colour drained out of the weapon and it cracked, splintered, and finally disintegrated in a small puff of dust. The Greater Daemon slowly stood up, blood caking its clothes and skin together. Vaguely it remembered the massive explosion of light that had knocked it unconscious for what it hoped was only a few seconds.
Anger flooded through its mind as it stood there, staring up into the fiery storm. Its mind flickered onto Mimi. What was she doing? She's supposed to make the hunt last longer! Not make random explosions! I'll have to teach her a lesson after the hunt is over.
Out of the corner of its eyes it noticed the pale, lifeless, dissipating pile of dust. Seconds later it recognised what it was.
His favourite doom siren.
Gone.
Destroyed.
Lost forever.
Thousands of souls, escaped.
Freed from the supposedly eternal torture.
Grabbing its sword it let out a scream of anguish as a stream of fire shot out from it, re-igniting the forest into a new firestorm. It kicked at the ground in anger as pain flared through its leg forcing it to drop the sword and stagger towards the ground. Slowly it regained its balance, picked up its sword, and using it as a crutch, limped through the burning and smouldering ruins of the forest as flaming leaves rained down around it.
"…th… re… ight?"
"…on't… omon."
Sounds slowly filtered through the blackness of unconsciousness.
"Come on… Wake up!"
He tried to ignore it. He was comfy as he was.
"…ry to… shes?"
"…ot mu… ioce."
"Marching Fishes!"
Hundreds of nerves flared up and he bolted upright, spluttering as he cleared water from his mouth. Slowly he stopped gasping for breath and started glaring daggers at Gomamon instead. Joe came up to him and handed him some water that he swallowed as quickly as he could, only then realising how dry he felt.
"You've been unconscious for a few days now. How are you feeling?"
"Yeah, you had us worried there Izzy" Mimi piped in.
Unsteadily he got to his feet, glad that Joe rushed to help him when he started to stagger a bit. "Not good."
"You should be a lot worse off, whatever you did blew that forest up we think."
Izzy slowly looked around at the cave they were in. Rubble was strewn everywhere, and thick dust was still settling. "Where are we?"
"Remember the first of those Greater Daemons we destroyed?" Tai asked, "Well, of course you do. But that cave's where we are. Or what's left of it."
The sun shone down behind his back, his wings were spread wide as he glided through the air towards the gate through which the armies had poured through long ago. Faintly in the distance he could see the barrier, an enormous cylindrical mass of flames, searing anything and everything in their way. Even from this distance he could feel the heat, the very energy of the dimension itself, the one thing that made it such a valuable prize, the one thing that stopped it being used.
A nice plan Azulongmon, but leaving the keys with human children was a mistake. I will open this gate up, and Chaos shall come through. Once we have conquered this nexus we can go to any dimension, and they shall know it was your fault, all your fault Azulongmon.
Slowly the dark form moved, two slits opened up and it looked around. Flying around it was a small spherical digimon with wings. "Energy…. I need energy…. Now…."
PeterN: That seemed too anti-climatic after the last part -_-. Please read and review.