Here's part 6 at long last. Sorry I'm not too regular with updates any more. My job doesn't allow me as much free time as I used to have. Don't worry though. I will finish all my fics sometime…
Dark Empire
6: Retreats and Reunions
The MDB
"Cloud?! How did you…Tai, don't tell me you…"
"What choice did we have, Matt?" Tai asked back. "I don't know anyone else with an army for rent or who's more powerful."
"You helped us take down Sephiroth before," Cloud pointed out. "We said we'd help out if you needed us. Besides we were getting bored anyway!"
Kari's eyes widened. "We? The others are here too?"
"Some of them." A silver-haired man smoking a large cigar emerged from the MDB with what looked like a red wolf beside him.
"Tai shows up and tells us he's in some serious £$"! so we just dropped everything and came with what we had, which ain't !$^&*%! much!"
The Tamers and their friends and parents gaped in shock.
TK winced. "Nice to see you too, Cid."
Tai sighed too. "You'll have to forgive him. He's real blunt and his language is uh…creative!"
There were more shocks to come.
"You 2 have grown since we last met!" the wolf creature, to the amazement of many, suddenly spoke.
"Good to see you again too, Red," Kari grinned.
"Ok, time out, time out!" Kazu was fed up with being left out. "Who are these guys?"
Tai quickly explained. "These are…old friends of ours; courtesy of Necromon. He sent us into another world to try and get rid of us 3 years ago. We met Cloud and his group then."
"Good thing you did or our world would be toast right now!"
A heavily muscled black man with a large gun on his right arm and a dark-haired girl had joined the party too. It had been the man who had spoken.
"Barret and Tifa! Maybe we still have some good luck after all!" Matt grinned.
Gennai leaned out of the MDB. "I hate to break up the reunion but that Necromon you're talking about? He's bound to send more digimon after us. We've got to get away from here!"
"Yeah, I can't imagine him being happy after we roasted 30 of em!" Barret grinned.
"How, Gennai?" Cody asked. "We can't get everyone in the MDB."
Gennai quickly realised he was right. They'd rescued a lot of people from the park; it would take at least 10 trips in the MDB to transport them all away. Its power reserves wouldn't stand up to that.
"Do you have access to a radio or a phone?" Riley asked. "I think I can help."
"In here," Gennai told her.
Riley quickly ran into the MDB with Gennai.
"So how come you've got a digimon all of a sudden, Kazu?" Kenta asked jealously.
Kazu grinned. "What do you think? The digimon finally realised how much I rock!"
Rika wasn't impressed. To make the point, she pulled Kazu's cap down over his eyes. "Oh, put a sock in it!"
Roof of Hypnos building
"How much longer must we wait?" Daemon asked impatiently.
Metalseadramon wasn't too tolerant either. "Yeah. What are we still sitting here for? There's still plenty of humans to delete and I want to get back to my own turf if you know what I mean…"
Necromon nodded. "Yes, I understand. But trust me. Once the building work here is complete, we'll have another ace up our sleeve. Let me show you the plans."
"Impressive," Daemon admitted. "But have we enough materials for all of this?"
"We should do by the end of tomorrow. I've assigned a whole group of Mechanorimon to the task along with the Drimogemon and the rest of the work crews. The towns we've captured to the north have given us a little more raw materials. The assault on Tokyo will go a lot more smoothly with this."
"You're not worried about human 'resistance', are you?" Daemon asked in disbelief.
"Not at all," Necromon grinned sadistically. "It's only the Digidestined and their friends that are any threat to us."
Thanks to the building's systems, he'd listened in to a few of the humans' conversations over the radio, Internet and TV links. One thing was clear from what he'd heard: the government was in a blind panic. Since they'd lost contact with Yamaki they were all acting like headless Kokatorimon. The humans did have one advantage: the satellites that kept spying on him every time they orbited overhead. In itself, that didn't worry him. But he knew that Gennai could tap in on those satellites too. It was time to take that advantage away for awhile. He reached for his communicator.
"Activate the Shroud!"
"Yes, my lord."
Soon all of West Shinjuku was immersed in a giant fog barrier.
"That should buy us a little time."
"I see," Daemon was amused. "An oldie but a goodie."
"It worked for Myotismon, it'll work for us," Necromon smiled. "At least until we're ready!"
For the moment, the Digidestined were blinded and it didn't matter what the pathetic humans in Tokyo did now. By the time those fools realised what was happening he and the other Dark Masters would be paying them a visit…with about 2000 other digimon. All that remained was keeping the Digidestined out of the way.
"Machinedramon, since you love rat-catching, I'm sure you'll love my next suggestion. Hunt those brats down and keep them on the defensive. Make sure they can't interfere with the next stage of the plan. Oh and if you get the opportunity to destroy them, make it slow and painful, would you?"
The MDB
By now, Riley had managed to call for help from the government and had trucks sent over to collect most of the freed people from the town.
"Mr Gennai, what happens now?"
"Just call me Gennai. What happens now is we leave and regroup…alone."
Riley didn't like the sound of that. "But I have to contact Tokyo for orders. If we're to win this we have to work…"
"…Together?" Gennai was scornful. "I had a chat with Mr Wong. Your government hasn't exactly helped much has it? I'd rather keep the Digidestined and the Tamers out of their grip so they can't lose them like they did this city!"
Riley winced at that, knowing he was right. Yamaki had been right too, in a way, when he'd called the big shots in Tokyo fools. They'd arrogantly stood off in Tokyo, expecting Yamaki to stop anything and everything that tried to bio-emerge. Riley now knew what pressure Yamaki must have been under and his desperation to solve the digimon 'problem'. Which reminded her, she was still holding his briefcase.
Opening it up, she found a large stash of computer CDs and disks and a videotape.
"Can I…"
"Yes. This base comes fully equipped," Gennai grinned. "Bucket seats, radio, computers and a VCR system. If it's important we'd best have the whole team watch it. I'll make you a deal, Riley. We won't work for you but we will work with you. As you said, we're going to have to do that if we're to have any chance of winning."
Riley nodded in agreement; knowing it was probably the best she was going to get.
"Then let's get everyone aboard and get out of here."
Meanwhile Takato was having a problem of his own. Namely his overprotective mother.
"Takato, there's nothing to talk about. You have to come with us!"
"I can't Mom! My friends need Guilmon and me, the world needs us!"
His parents were still trying to get their heads around all that had happened. West Shinjuku had been invaded and decimated by digimon who weren't supposed to be real, Takato was a Tamer and now had a red dinosaur with him and to top it all, he was staying to fight the digimon invaders against overwhelming odds.
"Son, you and Guilmon have done all you can," his Dad butted in. "Maybe you should leave it to the army, they'll know what to do."
Gennai came out of the MDB at that point and overheard the last part. "I hate to burst your bubble, Mr Matsuki, but the army has already tried. Last I heard they were reeling backward after losing 90% of their group, courtesy of Machinedramon."
Takato sighed. "See, Dad? We're the only ones who can stand up to them!"
Takato's Mom couldn't believe it. "You expect us to let our only son go back and get killed fighting those…things?"
Gennai hated this but he knew what he had to do. "Would you prefer to turn this world over to Necromon and his thugs without even a fight?"
"It's that serious?" Rika's Grandma was aghast.
"It's that serious," Gennai said bluntly. "You saw what happened in the city. Draw your own conclusions."
"I hate to admit it too but he's right," Riley added. "I saw some of it back at the Hypnos building. Gunships, tanks, bombs…they're like toys against them!"
Just then Kazu, who had been experimenting with his new digivice, suddenly started to get a lot of readings on it. "Hey Chumly, what's with all these signals on this thing?"
Takato didn't like the sound of that so he checked his digivice. His worst fears were confirmed. "There's another load of digimon coming in!"
"Right, everyone into the MDB! We're leaving now," Gennai ordered.
Kazu quickly realised he had a problem. "How am I going to get Guardromon through that door?"
"You don't," Gennai replied quickly. "Take him round the back and I'll open the storage bay. Both of you get in that way."
"It's getting like the Black Hole of Calcutta in here!" Mr Wong complained as everyone piled into the MDB. For all the mobile base's size, it was now getting overcrowded with the Digidestined, the Tamers, their digimon, their parents and friends and Cloud's group.
"If you're not sitting down, try and hold on to something," Gennai warned. "This could be rough!"
"What's here could be rough too!" Yolei was shaking in terror and for good reason. Machinedramon had come out of the trees and stood in front, illuminated by the MDB's headlights.
"Well, well, catching these rats was easier than I thought. All nicely done up in one package too. How ridiculously easy!"
"Gennai!" Tai warned.
"No time to set precise co-ordinates. Oh well, anywhere's better than here, right?" He reached for the start button.
"Time's up, Digidestined!" Machinedramon cackled as he powered up his guns. "Giga Cannon!"
Machinedramon shot out a tidal wave of energy at the MDB…just as it dematerialised and moved elsewhere. Much to Machinedramon's chagrin, all he'd succeeded in doing was blowing up a small section of woodland.
150 miles south-west of West Shinjuku
In the end, the MDB materialised on the top of a hill in open country.
"Man, that was too close!" Matt sighed as everyone piled out of the base.
"Hey, can someone let us out of here!" screamed a voice from the back of the MDB.
Takato grinned. "Kazu's still stuck in there, Gennai."
Terriermon couldn't resist it. "Maybe we should leave him there for awhile, we'd get a lot more peace and quiet around here."
"Terriermon!" Henry groaned.
"However tempting it is let's get him out," Matt grinned. "We might need him at the next fight."
"What was that thing that nearly cooked us? A metal dinosaur on steroids?" Barret asked.
"That was Machinedramon," Gennai answered. "A very powerful and very malignant digimon. He's also one of the 4 leaders of this invasion. We haven't seen the last of him."
"You got that right," Tai added as he let Kazu and Guardromon out of the rear storage bay. "Hey, isn't that…?"
Tai had noticed a Mechanorimon in the bay alongside where Guardromon had stood.
"Yes, it's the same one I stole from the Dark Masters all those years ago," Gennai explained. "If you need help, I'll come out to fight with you if necessary."
"Not until tomorrow, I hope," Takato yawned.
"He's right, I'm beat," Kenta added.
"We could barely travel in that thing. I don't even want to think about us all sleeping in it!" Riley complained.
"We've got some tents and we're used to roughing it," Cloud said. "Our lot can sleep outside."
Kazu chipped in. "That storage bay's pretty big, but the floor's not too cosy."
Rika's Mom wasn't done complaining. "Can't we get to a hotel?"
Tai groaned. "You want to walk 5 miles more now? It's near midnight!"
"Matt, give me a hand and let's get some more beds set up," Gennai stated. "We'll finish this conversation tomorrow…"
Later that night
It had taken some doing, especially with Kazu celebrating that he had a partner now, but eventually everyone had gotten off to sleep. Gennai checked cautiously to see that everyone was, then he walked away a short distance and activated his own private portal back to the Digital World for a special meeting. Namely with one of the 4 Sovereigns, Azulongmon.
"You look annoyed, Gennai. I can't say I blame you."
"Annoyed doesn't even begin to cover it! How was this ever allowed, Azulongmon?"
"Even my dominion doesn't extend into the Dark Ocean, Gennai. I didn't know that Necromon was still alive any more than you did. He fooled us all unfortunately. There was nothing I could do to stop this, but you might still have a chance."
"A million to one chance, Azulongmon? How can we possibly stand up to something like this, even all together as we are?"
"Learn from your new allies' example. They have more experience of this kind of fighting than you. Whether you believe it or not, you can still achieve victory. The new Dark Masters are not invincible despite what they'd like you to think. You just have to find the right targets. Now go, your friends need your guidance."
Enigmatic as ever, Gennai thought angrily. But he was puzzled too. What made Azulongmon so confident in him and his friends? The smart money would be on Necromon and Daemon now, surely?
He was so deep in thought as he stepped through the portal back that he didn't notice the reception committee waiting for him.
"Road trip, Gennai?"
Gennai looked up to see Matt, Tai and Cloud waiting for him. All of them were sporting a few cuts and bruises. Matt and Tai, though, looked like they'd gone 5 rounds each with Evander Holyfield.
"What happened to you?!" Gennai spluttered.
"Just a 'little' training session!" Matt grumbled, shooting a frigid glance at Tai and Cloud as he did so.
Cloud had been eager to see if Tai and Matt had kept up their fighting skills since they'd left his world 3 years ago so he challenged them in hand to hand. Despite having a 2 to 1 advantage Tai and Matt had still come out second best, which was obvious from the rivers of blood that ran down their faces.
"Hang on," Cloud quickly used a Cure technique and erased all their wounds. "Don't feel too bad. I may have beaten you, but you're still good!"
"Nice to hear that," Tai sighed. "So where did you go, Gennai?"
"Just to the Digital World for a chat with Azulongmon. He was taken by surprise just as we were with this invasion. But he still thinks we can win."
"How?" Matt didn't bother to hide his scepticism.
"I wondered that myself. He said Cloud and his group were important, that they had more experience. Whatever that means."
Cloud was a little confused. "We've never fought digimon until yesterday but…oh, I think I see what he meant. It's going to be that kind of war, is it? Lucky for us!"
"What's that supposed to mean? You've got a plan?" Tai asked.
"I'll tell you in a minute when everyone else wakes up," Cloud said. "We can win this, Tai. But it's going to be a long fight…"
Outside the MDB: next morning
Gennai called everyone together at the first opportunity in the morning. Tai started the ball rolling.
"Ok, Cloud. What's this great plan you've got to beat Necromon?"
"Who said anything about a great plan? I don't have anything like that. If you're looking for a quick win, keep dreaming. That's not going to happen."
"How do we win then?" Henry asked worriedly. "How can we possibly beat all those digimon?"
Cloud shrugged his shoulders. "We can't. So we don't even try to do that. What we've got to do is hit their war machine where it'll hurt them…and then escape before they know we're there."
"Guerrilla war," Riley realised.
"Exactly, we've got to fight on our terms. If we play the game by their rules, we'll lose. It's the way we beat Shinra; it's the way we've got to go now. It may take a long time though."
Yolei then asked the leading question. "So what do we do first?"
"Simple, we cut off their supply line."
"What he means is we go back to the Dark Ocean and destroy his dimension gates and whatever else we can," Gennai said. "We can't possibly win while they keep bringing over more dark digimon. I noticed another 1000 come across last night before they put up the fog barrier."
"Fog barrier?" Cody asked.
"Somehow they put up a massive fog barrier around West Shinjuku overnight. Even the satellites can't penetrate it. It's just like Myotismon's barrier around Odaiba."
"They're up to something…something they don't want us to know about!" Henry realised.
"Exactly," Cloud agreed. "So we've got to split up. One group goes to the castle, one group checks the city out."
"How are we going to check the city out? We just ran out of there, remember?" Kazu wasn't keen on going back.
"We sneak in. Before the fog barrier went up, I detected a lot of Mechanorimon coming and going from the city. It looked like they had cargo containers on their backs. If we find out where they're coming from…"
"We can sneak in with the cargo…whatever it is," Matt realised. "But Gennai, that means…"
"Yes, I'll have to go with group 2 with my Mechanorimon. Don't worry, I'm no stranger to battle."
"So who goes where?" Yolei asked.
"Red XIII and Tifa are going with me to the castle," Cloud decided. "Barret, you and Cid stay here and give the others some back up."
"I've got to go with Cloud's group," Ken said. "I'm the only one who can open a portal to the Dark Ocean anyway."
In the end, all the new Digidestined decided to go with Cloud. Tai, Matt and the Tamers would stay behind.
"Everyone who's going to the castle get aboard," Gennai said. "I won't be long, Tai. I'll drop them off back home and come right back."
"Got it, Gennai. See you in a few."
Digital World: Gennai's house
"So what's the plan, Cloud? Have you got one in mind?" TK asked.
"He always did before!" Patamon reminded him.
"First we go and collect this new leader of yours, Davis wasn't it?"
"But Davis was hurt badly, that'll be a problem," Yolei broke in.
Cloud grinned. "This worked for Tai," he pointed to the Materia in his sword, "so that's no problem at all."
"He'll be glad to see us," Kari smiled.
"He'll be more glad just to see you, Kari!" Gatomon teased.
"Cute, Gatomon!" TK didn't look amused. Nor did Kari, come to that.
"If we're done playing around, shall we go home?" Cody asked.
Yolei agreed. "Good idea, Digiport open!"
Tamer World
"What do you think, Tai? Can we win this? We've never been up against this much power before."
"We've won everything else, Matt. We can't start thinking like that!"
"He's right!" Gabumon chipped in. "If we do, Necromon has already won."
Matt nodded. "What do you think of these Tamers? You think they're good enough?"
"You have to ask that after last night? They're real good. So's Takato's taste in clothes!"
Matt rolled his eyes at that. So did Agumon and Gabumon.
"Tai, Cloud could have got rid of that with his magic too," Cid pointed to Tai's scar. "Why didn't he?"
"I asked him not to."
Matt didn't ask the obvious question. It was written all over his face.
Tai sighed. "I wanted to keep it to remind me never to do something so stupid again!"
"It sounds hard to believe, but you probably did the right thing."
Tai looked round to find Riley and the Tamers listening in.
"I saw your fight with them from our building before it went down."
"How come you couldn't stop them?" Henry asked Riley.
"We tried. Somehow they slipped a cascade virus into our computer systems: knocked out everything. We couldn't stop them."
"Neither could we," Tai said apologetically.
"What happened, before they came here I mean," Takato asked gently.
Tai and Matt explained it all. Their unexpected trip to Cloud's world and their encounter with Sephiroth, the Dark Master Civil War and then the sudden re-emergence of Necromon.
"You fought this loony before?" Kazu couldn't believe it. "And he's still alive?"
"We fought him and lost, Piedmon was supposed to have killed him," Matt corrected. "That was how Tai and me got to take a swim in the Lifestream and ended up like this!" Matt flexed his large muscles to make the point.
Takato and the others had wondered about that. The Tai and Matt they'd seen on TV hadn't come with Schwarzenegger physiques and glowing eyes.
"And 3 years later TK and the others fight him; and they lose too," Matt added grimly. "And Kazu? Loony is one thing he isn't."
"Yeah, unfortunately," Tai didn't sound much better.
At that moment, Gennai and the MDB rematerialised on the hilltop.
"What happened, Gennai? You were longer than we thought."
"Sorry, I had to recharge the base. Everything's ready now though."
"Which reminds me," Riley said. "Can we see that tape now?"
"Sure. If you're up to it, that is."
Riley nodded. She was as ready as she was ever going to be.
"Tape? What tape?" Rika asked.
"I think it'll explain itself," Riley replied.
Gennai loaded the tape into the MDB's VCR, and Yamaki's image appeared on the screen. There were sounds of battle and explosions in the background and everyone realised the tape must have been recorded just before the city fell.
"Riley; if you're viewing this tape it will mean that I'm probably dead and the city has fallen to the digimon force that came out of nowhere today. If I am gone now, then command of Hypnos is yours. In that case is all of the research that we ever conducted. Unfortunately if they've accessed our files, they will know all about it too, but it might be of some help."
Riley was amazed. She'd never expected anything like this.
"I'm also able to give you some advice, Riley. Don't bother with those fools in Tokyo, unless you have to. You probably have more intelligence than all of them put together. They're probably panicking mindlessly as I speak. One other thing, find those kids and do whatever it takes to get them on our side. You'll find their profiles on the disks. As much as I hate to admit it, they've had more success against rogue digimon lately than we've ever had. We're going to need every effective weapon we can get in the fight to come. I'll let you in on a secret: I practically wished for something like this to happen, just so I could stop this once and for all. Now I know the real meaning of 'be careful what you wish for'…good luck at clearing up the mess I made, Riley. I know you'll do a better job than I have. Good luck."
"He wasn't such a bad guy after all," Henry had come to realise that in recent days.
"No, he was just overworked and overzealous," Riley said. "We all were."
As the tape finished, Gennai had started scanning a few of the disks. "It's going to take some time to go through all this data. Plus we know it's compromised if Necromon set up shop in your building."
"I'll stay in the base and look over it," Mr Wong offered. "Maybe there's something in it we can use."
"Meanwhile, shall we get going?" Cid asked. "We've got some spying and digimon ass-kicking to do!"
"I'll get the base ready to go again."
Necromon's castle: breeding and enhancement chambers
Back in the Dark Ocean realm, 2 Hahgurumon controllers were monitoring one tank with increasing alarm.
"I know this one wanted to digivolve…but I didn't think he'd go this far. How much has he absorbed?"
"Over 90%! This is impossible!"
What they were seeing said otherwise. There wasn't a lot of Dark Ocean water left in the tank.
"Release him quickly before he overloads on the power!"
"YES! Now this is what I'm talking about!"
Both Hahgurumon couldn't believe what was emerging from the tank.
He was man-sized, wore biker clothing, carried 2 large shotguns and his hands had sharp claws attached.
"Wait till those losers get a load of me! Wait till they feel the wrath of BEELZEMON!"
TO BE CONTINUED…