Chapter six: Sinti

Can you people guess where I sent 'em? Here's a hint: Brush up on your Gene Roddenberry. In addition, did you people know you make a really cute pattern in my review box-Kyer, Blackmage, Blackmage, Kyer, Kyer...

Scarecrowmon walked through the door and Ken naively followed.and fell six feet to have the wind knocked out of him. The door opened up six feet in the air and Scarecrowmon knew it, so he levitated. He glanced down at Ken and I promise I heard him giggle. Then he turned to Kari and me and helped us climb down by politely offering his short, slender arms.

I looked around. We seemed to be in the middle of a spaceport. Huge ships with thick hulls floated over us and there were buildings taller then skyscrapers! The air smelled of oil and grease and the sky was black with smog. I coughed. What a horrible, fascinating place!

Kari breathed, "Tell me we're not on earth."

Scarecrowmon pressed the stone on the scythe like a button and then a transcript written in the same illegible language from the doors appeared and hung in the air, "We're on a planet called 'Sinti' someplace out of the Milky Way. That's all I know."

His pale ears perked up and he slowly lifted his head toward the rooftops.

"Why do I doubt that?" I asked dryly.

"Ssshhh!" my friend hissed. "We're being watched. She knows we're here."

Wormmon shook my hand, "Is that good or bad?"

Ken and Kari looked at each other and my partner muttered, "We'd better Digivolve."

Kari reached for her D-3, but Scarecrowmon grabbed her hand, "NO!! Don't, she knows we're here and she has my scent. Digivolving will give our location away faster."

Ken shrugged, "If Sarabi can smell you already then it's only a matter of time."

Scarecrowmon shook his more then half-hidden head, "No. You couldn't survive a fight with her. She generates her own electricity, but has no defenses against it, so it takes more then would kill *you* just to stun her. Electric attacks won't work. She's too fast for a physical assault and by the time your power was concentrated enough to attack, she'll have blasted you out of the sky."

I growled, "But we have an advantage, you can read her mind and tell us when she'll attack."

Scarecrowmon laughed bitterly, "Not if I'm dead and because of my telepathy, *I'll* be the first target!"

Ken scanned the environment, "If Sarabi is electricity-based, then we're sitting ducks! We are surrounded by metal!"

"Best to run and seek cover!" Scarecrowmon shouted. "At least then she may not be able to get a clear shot!"

We ran, staying underneath overhangs and trying to stay in crowds because the little magic master said Sarabi would not be able to see us and her predatory nature would compel her not to waist energy. It seemed to be working, at least we couldn't see her, but the look of fear in my friend's expressive eyes was overwhelming.

"Uh-oh," he muttered.

"Wh-what?" Ken panted.

"She's getting frustrated."

"Uh-oh!" Ken responded.

"There!" Kari shouted and pointed at a small, junkie, cylindrical ship that *might* have been a rusted out cargo ship. Its ground entrance was open.

The blast threw me thirty feet. As soon as I hit the ground, I felt myself Digivolve into the angel, Angewomon. Before I knew it, Stingmon, Scarecrowmon, and I were fighting an aerial battle with a tiger-like beast whose middle name, inherited by custom from her mother, meant "Angel of the Battlefield." And she was, oh, she was strong! One hit forced me back to my Champion level...with a broken rib. I digivolved and tried again. It took me a few knocks upside the head to realize that she was playing with us! And we were losing!

Sarabi, in Sailor Soldier form, had formed a protective barrier of lightening around herself, so no one could get close. She dodged every attack thrown at her, or worse, used her Silence Scythe to rebound them back on us. Then she must have gotten bored because she cried out the name of her attack, Saturn Lightening Strike, and then I was falling right into Scarecrowmon's arms, just like old times.

Scarecrowmon called for a retreat and then ran into the ship with Wormmon, Ken, and Kari tailing behind. A blonde human adult was screaming something, but I couldn't hear her from the ensuing chaos. Scarecrowmon grabbed her arm and then yanked her inside. His reflexes seemed to be faster then anyone else's because he leaped into the pilot's chair and scanned the controls and got frustrated all in record time.

After what seemed like eternity to my pounding heart, he ripped the panel open (much to the protest of the blonde woman) and jammed his fingers into the underlying wires. His green eyes rolled back but remained open, so all you could see was white. I felt the ship start to vibrate and then rumble. Within a few seconds, we were airborne and Sailor Saturn doubtless fell from the skies by the force of the engine's recoil.

At least, until I realized that I underestimated her abilities because someone fired at us in another cargo ship from behind. Scarecrowmon's voice cussed from the ship-wide speakers, but I was too stunned to hear. He was right to be afraid. She-we nearly lost our lives in running. I *never* wanted to try a battle with her again.

I saw some kind of wormhole open up in front of us and we flew straight for it (I was too busy to look at the stars). I felt the world slow down and speed up at the same time. I also felt like I in the dryer after getting into the catnip. We bounced off what might have been walls and each blow felt worse then last, which was already twice as hard as it should have been. To my immense relief, we came to a screeching halt, even though we went with tremendous force. I was in agony by the time we stopped from both the battle and the flight for safety.

Scarecrowmon released his grip on the panel and Ken moaned from somewhere beneath Kari, who was on top of the blonde woman, who was on top of me, who was on top of me, "I think I am going to be sick..."

He perked up a little, "I didn't know you could make a direct mental interface with computers and control them!"

The woman sighed vindictively, "My gosh, you fly Slipstream worse then Trance! You nearly got us killed!"

Scarecrowmon sighed, "Neither did I."

Ken screamed, "NOW I KNOW I'M GOING TO BE SICK!"

We picked ourselves up off the floor to find ourselves staring down the barrel of a very dangerous, futuristic pistol.

"Now I don't know who you guys are or what you think your doing, but if you touch my ship again, I'll-"

"Boss?"

"Beka?"

Two humans, younger then the blonde woman, but older then Kari, Ken, and how Scarecrowmon and Sarabi *looked* (well, I suppose that should go for me, too, but I didn't know it until the day before), jumped down a ladder in the outer hall and stared at us. Alternatively, at least, one was human; the other had pointed ears and gold tones highlighting her otherwise pale-ish skin.

The human, a male, drew his own weapon and stood beside the one he called "boss", "Uh, Beka? Who are they?"

Beka, the woman, answered, "Ain't gotta clue, but they high jacked us, that's good enough for me."

The younger female responded, "No! That's not it at all! They're here to stop that thing that attacked us! Isn't that right?"

Ken shrugged and pointed at Scarecrowmon, "Ask him, he's the brains of the operation."

The red mage looked at the young female and went as stiff as a board and a look of pain and terror crossed his bluish face, and then he fainted sprawled out on the riveted steel floor. About that time, an alarm went off. The magic master had damaged the ship and it was far too disabled to fly.

No one be scared, things don't last long after the main characters die, but can you guess who the "incapacitated asset" is?