9: Mission of Mercy (Part 1)
The MDB
"That was merely a beginning, humans," Necromon continued coldly on the screen. "As you can see, Humanity's day on this world has ended, digimon now rule supreme. You'll be hearing from us again…very soon."
There was a stunned silence for a minute.
"Somebody tell me this isn't happening!" Davis finally broke the silence.
Gennai ran several checks. "It happened alright. Satellites registered a massive explosion, miles wide, in Tokyo. Clean with no fallout but Tokyo no longer exists."
Riley gasped. "There were millions of men, women and
children living there!"
"Not anymore…" Gennai concluded sadly.
Choking back tears, Riley started trying to get hold of General Sato again. Jeri, Kari and Yolei were less successful and had to be escorted out by Tai and Cloud. Everyone else was barely holding it back too; this probably qualified as the worst day in their lives. The strain was certainly showing on Tai as he sat around a campfire later.
"We did the best we could, Tai," Takato tried to reassure him. He didn't do very well.
"It wasn't good enough, Takato," was the cold reply.
"We did some good. We actually hurt them!" Kazu joined in but none of it was getting through to Tai.
"It won't help those people tonight."
"Tai!" Tai looked round at that voice. It was Cloud's. "Don't you remember anything I taught you? You can't beat yourself up for things you're not responsible for."
"But…"
"But what? You could have stopped this invasion before it begun? No, you
couldn't, as you didn't know about it in time. You couldn't stop it in West
Shinjuku either, you got blown out of the air, remember? You've given your all
and then some. You can't be held responsible for the actions of a few fools in
Tokyo who brought this on themselves…and a few million other innocents
unfortunately. The real one to blame is Necromon and he's still out there."
"He's right, Tai," Red XIII joined them by the fire. "We
can't help those people now but we can still kill him and stop him from doing
this to others."
"Yeah sure," Tai didn't sound entirely convinced but he wasn't as cold. "I just
hope we can actually do that…"
Necromon smiled as he finished his broadcast and opened communications to the other carriers.
"Well, everyone? What do you think now?"
"Magnificent," Daemon replied.
"Please tell me this isn't a dream!" Metalseadramon added. "It's so good it's just like one."
"It is no dream!" The cold voice of Machinedramon actually sounded emotional for once. "The humans have finally learned who the dominant race really is."
"True Machinedramon, for the humans it's the biggest living nightmare; one from which they'll never awaken! Now we must build on our success. Metalseadramon, take your carrier to the remains of Tokyo. You should be able to access the seas and waterways from there. Cause whatever havoc you like."
"Finally, you've just made my day!"
"The rest of us can restart our main offensive. We will head to the north first. Standing orders are simple: burn everything you encounter and scatter the ashes!"
Necromon felt a surge of exhilaration as he signed off. This was the best day of his life. With a single action, he'd surpassed the achievements of all the dark digimon who had come before him. By the time this was over he and his fellow commanders wouldn't just be Dark Masters, they'd be Dark Emperors ruling an empire that would span the entire digital realm, the human worlds and perhaps beyond. All he had to do first was to finish conquering this world, and after today he didn't see that as being too difficult.
The MDB: east of Hiroshima 2 days later
Riley switched on her recorder once again.
"Personal journal of Riley Otori: November 28th. The
Digimon War, as it's become known, continues to worsen with each passing day.
The destruction of the Juggernaut and Tokyo has destroyed any hope of a swift
end to the war. The invaders have overrun 6 more towns in the last 2 days
alone. Wherever they strike, nothing is left alive. Civilians, animals…even
children; people who are plainly incapable of fighting are targeted and killed.
Surrender to these monsters is obviously no option, but having said that, we
are struggling to find any actual options. We are fighting an enemy that has us
outgunned, outsmarted and pretty much outclassed. I can only hope that my
meeting with General Sato later today produces something worthwhile…"
"Riley, there's a couple of army trucks coming up the road," Janyu's voice came
from outside the MDB.
Good timing. Riley shut off the recorder and went out with Gennai and the others as the 2 trucks pulled up alongside. The General, however, was nowhere to be seen in the front of either of them. A dark haired man in his late thirties jumped down to meet her.
"Miss Otori? I'm Colonel Hiroki. I'm afraid the General couldn't make the meeting. He's got his hands full with a lot of things right now but he's asked me to take his place."
"All right, Colonel. But tell me, is it as bad out there
as I've been hearing?"
"I don't know what you've been hearing but I'd say it's probably worse than
that. Ah, these must be the Tamers I've heard so much about."
The Tamers were taken aback. "How come you know about us?" Takato asked.
"On the grapevine mostly. Yamaki did send a few reports about you to the government before the invasion and we've heard some stories from West Shinjuku survivors. You've done us proud, it's safe to say that without you we'd have no chance at all."
Riley broke in. "All well and good, Colonel. But we still have no chance unless we can stop this invasion. So far all we've done is hinder it a little."
"Well, I'll bring you up to date with all the Intel we have and we'll take it from there. Are all of you here now?"
Kari looked around to see that Tai, Matt and Cloud were
missing. "No, not all of us."
"Go find them, Kari. We should all be in on this," Gennai advised.
"I can start with one piece of good news," Hiroki went on. "You'll never guess who we picked up among all the survivors."
Several people were emerging from the army trucks. Riley was very familiar with one.
"Talley! Is that you?"
"Riley? I thought you were dead! After I heard about Yamaki and what happened in the city…"
"I thought the same about you!"
Janyu recognised the others too. They were the rest of his 'Monster Maker'
team. "Dolphin? Barrell? Are all of you in there?"
"Tao! How many lives you got man? Hey, where's Daisy?"
Janyu's face darkened. "She…didn't make it. Nor did Yamaki. We're on our own now."
"Not entirely," Gennai said. "We'll be needing you a lot in what's to come."
"Who are all of these guys?" Davis was feeling a little left out.
"They're Dad's old college friends. They studied digimon a long time ago," Henry explained.
"And Talley was my co-worker at Hypnos, before it went down that is," Riley added.
"Well, now you're all together again, hopefully you can do a lot more to help," Hiroki said. "And we need you more than ever now…"
On a mountain top in the Digital World
Zhuqiaomon arrived at the prearranged meeting place to find all the other Sovereigns waiting for him.
"I'm glad to see everyone took my warning seriously…" Zhuqiaomon began.
"We all know of the dire threat facing us, Zhuqiaomon," Azulongmon informed him. "You're not the only one with agents in the human world."
"Aye, and you're both right about it," Ebonwumon, the turtle like Sovereign chipped in. "Having those Dark blackguards back is a catastrophe!"
"I've already begun preparations for countermoves against them," Zhuqiaomon said. "My Devas are rounding up every digimon they can muster and I'm preparing to give the humans a boost in power…"
The tiger Sovereign, Baihumon, was shocked at that. "And I
thought you hated humans, Zhuqiaomon."
"Do not mock me!" Zhuqiaomon snapped. "You know full well my views about
humans. But I can't afford to let that jeopardise the whole Digital World."
"I'm certainly relieved you see it that way," Azulongmon said warmly.
Zhuqiaomon was too worried to care however. "We do have one problem. How do we get our forces to the humans' world without alerting Necromon and his army? Travel there has been erratic at the best of times. It was a miracle that I could get my Devas there at all. We can not afford that now."
Azulongmon was ready for this. "I have a plan to handle that."
With a gesture, Azulongmon revealed 2 figures imprisoned in a blue force field. One was a vicious man sized digimon that looked like he could take on all of the Sovereigns, with or without the force field. The other was a boy dressed in rugged grey clothing and holding a dark blue Tamer digivice.
"What's the meaning of this, Azulongmon?" Ryo Akiyama glowered at the Sovereigns.
"Forgive me, Ryo. But I couldn't afford having Cyberdramon attack everyone here while we talk. We need your help desperately…"
"You've got a funny way of asking for help," Ryo was still annoyed but he took the point. Cyberdramon was hard to handle even on the best of days. "And what could I possibly do for you?"
"Simple human," Zhuqiaomon replied, now knowing what Azulongmon had in mind. "Open a way to your world for an army of ours…"
The MDB
By now, everyone had been reassembled at the MDB so Riley and Hiroki could give an update on the situation. Simply put, it was grim.
"Japan is now under martial law," Hiroki had begun. "With the loss of Tokyo and practically the entire government, we had no choice. That makes it easier for us to call the shots without interference from anyone else but, as everyone knows, things aren't good."
He quickly produced a map of Japan.
"The main bulk of the digimon force seems to be heading north now towards Hokkaido, destroying and killing everything they come across. In addition they've also got access to the open sea, satellite sweeps have detected activity on the eastern coast, so we can now expect attacks on the shipping lanes and anywhere that's got a port or a harbour."
The pain in Takato's head suddenly got worse. "Man! And there's nothing we can do to stop any of this?"
"Not immediately," Riley said gloomily. "You know the facts. Apart from you anyone or anything that goes up against them loses and you can't be everywhere at once."
"There's another reason I came here today," Hiroki went on. "You're completely free to refuse but we need your help desperately with an upcoming operation."
Davis spoke for everyone. "If we can help anytime or anywhere then we're up for it!"
Hiroki nodded gratefully and turned back to the map. "It's an escort job. As you might have guessed, these attacks have produced a lot of panic and a lot of refugees. People who've escaped from destroyed towns and people who are simply running, afraid that they'll be next. Until yesterday we were running convoys to evacuate them to Kyushu Island."
"Until yesterday?" Cid had caught that part with interest.
Hiroki nodded grimly. "Yes. Yesterday 2 of our convoys were hit and wiped out…along with 5000 people that were travelling on them."
Everyone gasped in horror, dismay and anger. "How?" Tai growled.
"They were hit by a digimon group from the air," Hiroki revealed. "They went straight through our guards and gunships like they weren't even there. They didn't have a chance!"
Gennai cursed under his breath knowing he should have seen this coming.
Davis was livid. "Attacking innocent people like that? That's just cold!"
"Also good strategy on their part," Cloud said. "Keeps the terror factor going. You know: 'we can hit you at any time, you only live at our sufferance'. Plus it keeps us on the defensive."
"It gets worse," Hiroki went on. "Due to those attacks we now have a large number of refugees bottled up near the front line. The local police and army are refusing to run any more convoys until we can guarantee their safety, which alone we can't do. But if we don't move them in the next day or so there's a good chance that some of the digimon ground force could swing around from the North, surround the refugee camps and completely annihilate them. You can imagine what effect that will have."
Everyone did and it didn't bear thinking about.
"Alright, so what do you want us to do?" Rika asked.
"It's a hell of a gamble, I know, but we're going to try and evacuate everyone out of there at once in a few more convoys. We need you to provide cover when we do. You're the only ones who have any chance against these digimon."
"That sounds good in theory," Izzy said, already thinking things through on his feet. "But I don't like the idea of moving everyone at once. With that many people we'd have to use different routes for each convoy and we'd be spread out all over the place. If one group got hit hard…"
Izzy trailed off and left the rest unsaid.
Hiroki nodded comfortably. "I know. I don't like this plan either and I said as much to General Sato. But he feels we've got no choice. But you don't have to do this if you don't want to…"
Henry snorted. "Who are you trying to kid? Of course we have to! If we don't those people will be sitting ducks!"
Everyone else agreed instantly.
"You've got your answer, Colonel. I'm not happy about this but I'll go along with it too," Gennai said. "But we'd like more information. Have you any idea what kind of digimon these attackers are?"
The Colonel brought out a digimon card in answer to that. "I never thought we'd end up using game cards for intelligence, but I've had my men study these. There were one or two survivors from the second attack. They say the bulk of the attackers were this type."
Gennai looked at the card. "Airdramon."
"Well that sounds alright. They're only Champion level digimon, we should be able to handle those," TK said.
"Not so fast. There was another one, a much bigger one acting as leader," Hiroki warned. "The survivors were shown several cards but couldn't identify him."
"Couldn't they say what he looked like?" Gennai asked.
"They said he looked much like the Airdramon but much bigger with metal claws and tail."
"Could be Megadramon or Gigadramon," TK guessed.
Tai disagreed. "Those 2 normally work together."
"And they were among the cards we showed the survivors," Hiroki agreed.
"Great. Another new player," Matt groaned.
"I'll search the digimon analyser and see if I can get any clues," Gennai promised. "Where and when does all of this start, Colonel? If you show us we'll make our own way there."
Hiroki pointed to a spot on the map close to the 'occupied zone'. "Here tomorrow at first light."
Digimon Command Carrier
Necromon stood in the docking bay as the mysterious digimon air leader arrived home. He was among the new breeds of digimon that Necromon had engineered in his breeding tanks. He was a lot like an Airdramon, having the same multi-colour scheme but he was bigger, he had metal claws and the end of his tail was also cold iron metal. His Howling Tornado attack blew enemies off course and often ripped the flesh off their bones, or if he was in the mood for a quick kill his Sky Rockets usually did the job.
"Welcome home, Skydramon. I trust you've had a lot of fun over the last day or so?"
"Hardly, it was too easy burning those humans," Skydramon grunted. "No challenge at all. I felt cheap! I want targets than can fire back; targets that I can take pleasure in fighting."
"You're about to get your wish," Necromon smiled coldly. "Come this way."
Necromon led Skydramon down several wide corridors to a briefing room where Daemon, Machinedramon and a battered and smoking Beelzemon were waiting.
Necromon started the ball rolling. "Everything is going according to plan. Our main offensive is going well and Skydramon has wiped out a great number of fleeing humans as I hoped."
"So our air legion did its job well," Machinedramon nodded in approval at Skydramon before looking coldly at Beelzemon. "Unlike some others I could name."
Beelzemon cursed inwardly at the implied rebuke. He'd survived the beating from Cloud at the castle and, wanting revenge, had travelled to the carrier as soon as he could. The Dark Masters, however, were not so enthusiastic about using him again given his dismal first performance and, since he knew he'd have no chance if they combined against him, Beelzemon hadn't felt brave enough to push the issue yet.
"We'll talk about that later, Machinedramon," Necromon also cast a frigid look at Beelzemon. "Right now we have another surprise for our enemies. The attacks on the convoys were a good first step."
"The first step of what exactly?" Daemon asked.
"Of dealing a heavy blow to the Digidestined and the
Tamers. Actually, it is the Tamers I am targeting with this operation. Allow me
to explain. Our agents report that the human army has approached the
Digidestined and Tamers asking for their help tomorrow. This is just what I'd
hoped for."
"How is this such good news?" Skydramon broke in. "It'll be impossible to
attack again with all the Digidestined and Tamers on guard duty!"
"Not as impossible as you might think, Skydramon. Since they're afraid of another major attack from us they'll have to move all the displaced humans tomorrow and that will be an immense task. They'll have to use different routes miles apart to get all the refugees away from us and that means they'll be spread apart…and vulnerable to a concentrated attack."
"True. But despite us eliminating Tai Kamiya they still have 2 Megas that we know of," Machinedramon warned.
"I would think they'll be too busy watching out for our ground forces," Necromon assured him. "The humans are concerned that we'll swing around from the North and surround them. The Digidestined will move their strongest there to counter that possibility, which leaves us with an opportunity. My spies haven't been able to get the exact formation of the convoys yet, but they do know that the Tamers will be travelling with the southernmost convoy."
"And it's them I'm after, right?" Skydramon grinned.
"Exactly. You'll take your entire attack force with you tomorrow across the sea and hit them from the South. While they set about hitting the convoy and distracting all other attention you will blast the Tamers out of existence. Of all our enemies they concern me the most as they still haven't reached their full potential. You will ensure that they never do."
As Skydramon left Daemon chuckled in approval. "Him and 25 Airdramon should make quite a show. But do you think it will be enough?"
"If they hit hard and fast enough then it should be. It's likely we'll lose most of them when the Digidestined arrive and hit back but the end result will be worth it, don't you think? And even if he fails, I have a plan in reserve that will certainly not fail."
"Hey, what about me? Send me in and I'll deal with those losers!" Beelzemon was really looking to redeem himself.
"Like you did at my castle?" Necromon replied sarcastically. "Until you gain some control, don't bet on dealing with anything!"
"But I'm a Mega, I'm stronger than them now. I…"
Necromon cut him off in mid-sentence. "You don't get it, do you? Just having
power is not the same as being strong! What good is power if you don't know how
to use it? You lost that fight because you were newly digivolved and you didn't
know what you were doing. How did you expect to defeat far more experienced
opponents?"
Beelzemon had no answer to that.
Necromon softened his tone. "You have the potential to be
a very great digimon. But I can't afford any loose cannons. Start training and
learn how to use your new powers and then I'll let you back into the game.
Understood?"
Beelzemon was frustrated but he agreed. He really didn't have much of a choice.
But mentally he swore that he would get even one way or another.
Necromon watched him go coldly. He'd never bargained on Impmon digivolving so far. Still, he'd destroyed other Megas before and what was done once could be done again if Beelzemon became too much to handle.
His train of thought was derailed as Daemon came up to him
with a wine glass. "I think a toast is in order, don't you?"
Necromon smiled in reply as he took the glass and raised it. "Indeed. Here's to
our victory and to the best dead Tamers in this world! HAHAHA!"
TO BE CONTINUED…