Crystal Tamers
by Tremor3258
Volcano of Metalgreymon!
Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon. sigh
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Kamiya, Taichi - Known as 'Tai' to his close friends, Mr. Kamiya was the leader of the very first group of modern Digidestined, and has possibly the single most experienced Digimon partnered with a human. His exploits include helping prevent Myotismon from destroying Odaiba (twice) and conquering both worlds, restructuring the Digital World from its Spiral Mountain form (and defeating the Apoclypmon 'recycling program' released with the destruction of Spiral Mountain). He later helped defeat a rogue net-born Digimon, and performed the only DNA-Digivolution without the aid of his younger sister's partner, Gatomon's, powers. He later served as spiritual advisor to the second group of Japanese Digidestined, including Demon's invasion and the Malomyotismon crisis.
Mr. Kamiya went through school and studied law, and he served in business for several years before being appointed by Japan as the ambassador to the Digital World on the basis of his extensive knowledge of its inhabitants, and the fact that Japan wished to play on the fact many of said inhabitants feel they owe their lives to him. Later, the UN appointed Kamiya as the ambassador of the world to the Digital World, a post he has filled with distinction until the present day.
Special warning note: In this era of Digimon, it should be noted that Mr. Kamiya is one of only two people whose partner bond possesses sufficient strength to raise to Mega on their own. Considering the fact that Megas could take on entire armies and live, Mr. Kamiya's well-being is of great importance and constant interest to several world governments.
Synopsis of CIA Information File on Taichi Kamiya
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"Not here again!" said Allen in anguish. He was back in his mind, as it were, but it seemed someone had been installing air conditioning. The flames were back a ways, and Allen could see a tag lying just out of reach in the fire. "Shoot, that would come in handy." Allen felt mild amusement radiating off something behind him, as well as more complex emotions coming from around him.
"Indeed it would, but you've already begun to tap its power," stated the older voice. "Congratulations on your accomplishment. You've increased your bond and digivolved your partner. You've reached into a great deal of power, and are continuing to use it correctly. I couldn't be prouder."
"The Crest of Friendship, I presume?" said Allen, "Would it be too much to ask what you're doing? Or, for that matter, why the changes going on?"
"Um," the voice sounded embarrassed, "I wish I knew. I'm just an energy source, based off of a portion of the Digital World's stabilizing program. Any personality I have is a reflection of your virtues. I just know that you called on power to light the darkness around you. I don't know why Agumon transformed to a more powerful state or what happened to your Digivice. Oh, by the way, if you want to try for the tag, you'd better hurry. I think you're about to wake up." Allen hesitated for a second, and then jumped for the tag, but as he approached the fire, everything vanished to black before he opened his eyes to see a concerned looking Jessica, Hikari and Crystalmon looking at him.
"You know, all I needed was a few more seconds, and I could have grabbed a mental version of my tag," groused Allen. He paused, there faces were rocking slightly, and it took Allen a second to realize he was as well. "Are we on Togemon?" he asked.
Jessica said loudly, over Hikari's insistent, 'You get TAGS too?', "No, we're not on Togemon. We're taking advantage of your Digimon," she said. Allen looked apologetic at Hikari for moment, who seemed to be a little miffed, and looked down.
The four were riding on a broad red back with black stripes. Allen looked up and saw a massive head with lots of teeth, topped with grey hair. A tail stretched out behind. Togemon trotted alongside. Allen felt surprise and concern, along with pride, radiate off it. "Hi Allen! Glad you're up! I'm Growlmon, Guilmon's champion digivolution. My pyro blaster attacks make pyro sphere look like a candle, and my dragon slash makes Crystalmon's dragon fang look like a butterknife!"
"Hey!" said the Rookie dragon indignantly, "You probably wouldn't have digivolved if I had been in shape to battle. Besides, we're trying to take steps to avoid battles, which is why we're on the back routes, remember?"
Hikari shrugged, "He just probably wants to stretch a little since digivolving, and I can't blame him for wanting to show off. Still, considering that data and vaccine Digimon are usually peaceful, why do we keep ending up fighting so much lately?" Hikari sighed and looked at her partner. Togemon were definitely one of the more fight-ready Digimon, but even they usually left well enough alone. Very rarely did Digimon fight to the death prior to the involvement of the Digidestined, but the threat then had been severe enough to require reformatting various Digimon. Hikari hoped that she and her friends weren't headed to have to do something like that.
"Hopefully we'll get some answers when we arrive, Hikari," consoled Jessica. The group was silent for a while as Growlmon trotted along with various cars and trucks as the group made their way up out of the city and towards the hills north of Kyoto.
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Angie Misamaru lay on the cot in the cold building and tried not to shiver. This place was a study in contrasts. People had come in, and the only thing that stopped constant fighting was Skulsatomon showing what his Nail Bone could do. Angie had felt like that when she came in, but one glance at her D-3, which seemed stained with black, had startled her out of it. No one who spent time around Jessica, she of the walking Digi-database, without knowing about black D-3s. Angie wondered what had happened on the playground. One minute, I was trying to help, the next minute I'm here...
Then people had been led, somewhat in a trance, out of the barracks and had never come back. Biyomon had been willing to try and get out, but she hadn't been able to access a digivolution in here. Then, a few people had started to come back, and they were in major guilt trips, as if aware of how they were acting, before they started digivolution training. "What's odd is, I was like that once I got here. Biyomon, I think we're going to have to try and get selected for getting tested. It may be the only way out of here." Biyomon nodded her agreement. The way to purge the dark power, evidently, was to get walked out by one of the demons, and she still felt it lurking inside her.
"Good news everyone! Your survival rates have just gone way up!" announced a cheerful Skullsatomon over a P.A. system. "We think we've found all the candidates we need for now, so just stay like good little zombies for the time being!"
"So much for that idea," said Biyomon, pouting.
Angie shook her head, "Nah. Jessica may be more the planning type, but I've got the tactical edge. They figure no one is going to try and get out, since some people haven't moved since we got here. Let's go hang around by the entrance." The pink bird followed her partner off the cot and made their way to the heavy black stone door. Biyomon looked at it distrustfully. It seemed to soak up light, though it was warm, and Biyomon was certain neither world had such a stone.
Skullsatomon, however, had moved away from the door, and seemed to be talking animatedly to a Lady Devimon. After a moment, she slapped him and stomped off. Skullsatomon ran afterword. "Now's as good a chance as any, let's go!" The two started running, but Angie stopped when she saw the giant pillar of flame as she moved away from the barracks. "Whoa, what's that?"
Biyomon gasped as she saw something out of the Digital World's horror stories, "That's the Wall of Fire. It's one of the containment programs against the Dark Ocean. It's supposed to have a purifying effect."
"Let's see. People dark digivolving, and then they disappear, and come back realizing what they've done, while more people leave. Let's get close, Biyomon! I bet the demon digimon can't get close to it, and we can see if we can see and exit from there." Biyomon agreed, and the two trotted closer. Biyomon looked behind her when she noticed Angie was no longer with her, she seemed to be in pain. "Angie!"
"I'm fine," her partner said, "Healing occasionally involves pain! Look!" The D-3's stains were leaving, leaving it a shimmering pink and white. "If this thing is so powerful, maybe we can use the D-3 to locate a portal." Biyomon nodded. She was fine with the light, and Angie felt hotter just getting closer. She continued on though, trying to ignore the heat until her D-3 started to shimmer with sudden power, glowing more and more brilliant.
Demon jumped away from his desk in astonishment as the orb and stand combination began to glow brilliantly. However, even that light was no match for the sudden darkness behind him, and Demon found something twisting at his insides. Demon twisted to see the Firewall was down, leaving only a gaping void into blackness, a sinkhole into the area where Digimon go to be reformatted before rebirth at Primary Village. Acting in a fear-filled haze, Demon held the brilliantly shining object from his desk in front of him. After a moment, the Firewall restarted..
It took a few moments for Demon to recover, though most of the other Digimon were gasping as they lay wherever they had fallen when the Firewall went out. Demon shuddered., and he knew every other being in the dimension shuddered with him. The entire Digital World had come very close to suddenly being wiped out. "The situation is more desperate than I believed if they drain at the barrier between worlds. We cannot stay here, as surely they will come to check on the situation! Lady Devimon, begin the evacuation at once!" Demon roared. He turned and began to cast a spell. It would drain his energy greatly, but it would help keep attention focused off them when they were moving to the secondary base. A new Construct began to form.
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Growlmon trotted along the road merrily. Traffic had thinned out, though there was a Veedramon up ahead of him, and he was still feeling rather strong. I doubt my very first evolution would be a natural one, thought Growlmon, so what's up? In Growlmon's experience, Digimon took years to gain enough energy to maintain a champion level, and most of the partnered ones could turn it off if need be. Growlmon wondered if the 'off-switch' was a discipline thing he was missing. Not that it mattered too much to Growlmon. In the old days, having a champion all the time would be problematic, but a lot of stuff was built to larger-scale Digimon now days. Besides, Growlmon had once reached the Greymon stage when Allen was still walled in, so he was rather used to being able to see things from so high.
Growlmon's thoughts were cut off by a rending scream that went through his head, matched by the roars from his own mouth and his passengers. The group collapsed. Through tear-soaked eyes, Growlmon noticed that Veedramon was merely staggered. "Construct?" moaned Growlmon. This was worse than any ice cream headache.
"If it is, it's REALLY, really big," moaned Jessica. Growlmon had noticed she was better at the sensing thing than Allen was. It was probably related to her powers. Togemon and Hikari seemed to be suffering merely from headaches, but Crystalmon and Jessica were slumped over, holding their heads in pain. Togemon had dropped down to Tanemon again. Allen was worse off, curled into a ball and whimpering. Oh no! thought Guilmon, I've got better senses as a champion, and he can feel my pain as well. Still, Allen didn't look like he was about to die. Cars went off the road in confusion as Digimon passengers suffered, or they swerved to dodge the two downed champions. Growlmon wondered why no one was stopping to either yell or help. They seemed in a pretty bad mood. Growlmon slowly got to his feet, head still ringing, only to collapse as ANOTHER bolt of pain struck him mentally. This one, though, felt more like the regular nausea, though it was quite strong and close.
"Dark shot!" roared a voice from the next curve on the road, and a fireball rolled into view along with the sound of an explosion. Painfully, Growlmon raised his head to look, and watched a huge Digimon stomp into view ahead of them.. It looked like it had walked out of a museum display, as it was a massive skeletal dinosaur, blackness throbbing in its rib cage instead of a heart and a huge missile on its back. Laughing, the monster picked up the Veedramon and chewed it down, chuckling sadistically as the blue Dragon-Man Digimon was reduced to data.
Jessica raised her hand shakily and activated the analyzer. "Okay, this is Skullgreymon. He's a viral ultimate undead Digimon, and we should probably be running about now, even if he is a construct, Skullgreymon are really powerful!" Jessica tried to get to her feet, but her legs refused to support her.
Skullgreymon looked at the group for a minute, and then sniffed several times. "Food!" roared the undead dinosaur gleefully, before stomping forward.
"Pyro Blaster!" Growlmon whispered, but he couldn't even get a cloud of smoke out. Suddenly, two massive explosions obscured the skeleton for a moment, and when the smoke cleared, several ribs had been cracked and the black void resting inside Skullgreymon's rib cage had started to leak out. Wheezing for breath, Skullgreymon pressed one massive claw there, and then started to run away in the direction of the mountains.
"Sorry Tai!" rumbled a deep, slightly metallic voice, "Whatever just hit meant my giga blaster wasn't at full power!" The group looked up the hill to see a massive orange dinosaur, with armor over its chest, head, and left arm. Sitting on top of its head was a well-trimmed man, hair coming in grey, wearing a sweatsuit.
"Don't worry about it Metalgreymon. You drove him off, and he won't think of attacking inhabited areas for a while. You'll probably recover your strength faster than he can heal," consoled the man, before shouting down, "Is everyone all right?"
"Oh, just dandy," muttered Tanemon, "If I had enough strength to do more than twitch. What was that?" Metalgreymon worked his way down the slope carefully to the downed sextet. It took a few minutes for feeling to come back into their limbs, though having a giant cyborg dinosaur standing next to them did help get the adrenaline pumping.
Tai said, "Whatever just happened, you were practically sitting on top of it. Agumon was knocked around a bit too, but the Crest of Courage managed to do at least a partial recharge."
Jessica said, "I don't know what happened. Just something wiped us out, and then you have the Construct nausea on top of that. I'm lucky I didn't faint." Tai looked confused, and the group quickly explained what was going on.
Hikari said at the end, "Yeah, it's a shame Wargreymon couldn't have shown up. That Construct would have been smashed to pieces in a single swipe." Tai looked rather uncomfortable now by the various oddities he probably should have been aware of.
"Let's go up to my place, and we can compare stories. It sounds like things are going on in the Digital World that nobody wants humanity in general, or the Digidestined, to know about." Growlmon, more or less recovered, let the still trembling humans and one rookie and one in-training, ride on it as they trotted beside Metalgreymon, who was probably at a slow walk, but his massive stride meant Growlmon was downright panting after the ten minutes it took them to reach a large gate set apparently in the middle of nowhere. Ten-foot high walls continued in either direction from the gate, and the Champion Virus-Digimon could see formal old-style gardens with no end in sight.
Allen gave a low whistle. In Japan, space itself was a massive luxury, and this was opulence on the scale of the Imperial Gardens themselves. Tai blushed and said, "Well, I guess they figured they owed it to me, and I spent quite a few years saving up for additions. The actual house is underground, so there's more room for gardening. Mimi has a land grant similar to this in the Amazon, and its about six times as big, and she's expanded that as well."
"Wow," summed Hikari up eloquently, "I had no idea government salaries were so good."
Tai laughed, "Actually, a lot of the income came from book deals from autobiographies, royalty payments on some figurines, as we were the first to explore the Digital World. Davis gave me a few loans to help out as well. Most of the money for this, though, came from V-Tamer and the anime version of our adventures." The group nodded. Tai had licensed his likeness to a manga set in an 'alternate' Digital World. Tai said in a bashful tone, "Now if I had been that smart as the manga in real life, we probably would have had fewer bumps in the road." Metalgreymon quickly dedigivolved in a flare of light, leaving behind the handy travel-sized Agumon.
Growlmon looked embarrassed, "I'm not quite sure I'm low enough energy yet for that."
"Do some jumping jacks," Allen quickly suggested, "You look fairly wiped. It shouldn't take too much to push you over the edge." Growlmon shrugged, and everyone got off his back in a hurry. Tai went inside his estate to go check some messages, leaving Agumon to watch over the kids. At jumping jack three hundred and sixty-three, Growlmon slumped over, was covered with red grid lines for a moment, and in a glow of golden light shifted to his rookie form.
"So very hungry," moaned Guilmon piteously.
Agumon said, "Don't worry. Tai should probably have the staff put something together. You're lucky though. Most champions can't maintain it for very long at all. Lately, I've been getting tired easily as well. Probably all the paperwork," Agumon said lightly. Guilmon, however, was too exhausted to respond to the much smaller Rookie. The two walked through the estates, a few gardeners barely visible through the various flowering plants. Upon reaching a small gazebo after a few minutes, Agumon tapped in a code onto a touchpad on the round structure's support. A hatch slid back in the floor, revealing stairs leading down into a bright light. "After you!" Agumon said cheerfully. The group cautiously treaded into Tai's lair.
Several heavy-looking bulkheads sealed off various areas on the hallway the group entered as the stairway folded up behind them. Agumon referred to them merely as "Where the day job happens." In front of them, however, was a softly lit arch leading into what looked like a traditional home with paper interior screens and brightly polished hardwood floors. Reflexively, the group took off their shoes before continuing. This hadn't been what they were expecting at all.
After they went through the arch, they found that the apparent living or possibly guest section of Tai's house extended farther than they could see, despite an occasional glimpse of what may have been sunlight. "He has gardens above and under the ground?" Jessica asked.
Agumon shook his head, "Tai has holographic projectors combined with some skylights. He can view any part of the garden, and likes to switch them around."
"Note to self: being hero pays well," muttered Allen. Hikari jumped up to smack him on the back of his head.
Jessica, however, seemed a bit angry. Allen really couldn't blame her. This place was almost indecent in terms of sheer value. Meanwhile, Jessica's life had the possibility of constant death from a missed fight over some little piece of land, and there was more land here than had switched hands around Jessica's building in her entire life. The Digidestined, by default, had the most powerful partners of anyone on the planet, and access to the few known Megas in existence.
"You know, even if they can't get rid of the current territory system," Jessica finally exploded, walking past a vase that Agumon casually mentioned as a Ming dynasty piece, "You guys have Imperialdramon, that should be enough to get 'granted' everyone's approval and stop fights. He took out Malomyotismon!"
Agumon winced as he pushed open one last screen, and Jessica turned tomato red when she saw Taichi Kamiya, Digidestined of Courage, and whose partner had direct kills on two Dark Masters, along with several major assists; sitting under a foot warmer with a cup of tea to his lips and a devilish grin on his face. Hikari and Allen stepped slightly away from her as if she was suddenly standing on a radioactive hot spot.
Tai, however, merely shook his head sadly as Jessica started to go through emotional meltdown, "Things aren't as clear as you think they are when you're young, Jessica, which is the real shame of growing old. For one thing, reaching Mega has been touch and go for a while now, probably because I'm old, and its easy to compromise," Tai smiled bitterly, "And another small thing. Launching the Digital World's equivalent of tactical nuclear weapons around is fine when you're facing the ultimate evil, but a petty person is another thing all together."
Things were silent for a moment, before Tai stood up and bowed to them. Jessica, inwardly started to freak out again, but she was still in too much shock from her prior embarrassment. Hikari had to nudge her a little before she rigidly returned the greeting. "Come in and sit down. I have a LOT of questions to ask."
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Demon watched from his desk as a group of Vilemon busy hauling boxes loaded with equipment out of the complex via some tunnels that would get them as far as the sea. It was only a matter of time before Gennai started to send in the heavy guns. Suddenly, a small black gloved hand grabbed the orb from his desk. Demon blinked, wondering when Lady Devimon had gotten into the room.
"She hasn't," said Angie Misamaru, who had gone from wearing her school uniform to a black body suit and a silver cloak etched with various Digital writings. The cloak's cape was up, partially obscuring her eyes. Biyomon stood placidly by her. Demon actually blinked in surprise, and started to retort, angry and fearful and confused that a *human* could peer into his mind. Then, he stared into her eyes, and actually recoiled. The blackness behind the fire wall seemed to have found residence there. Instead of irises, she had pools of blackness. She ignored Demon for the moment, apparently toying with the device before getting it to light up.
"You've done quite well, considering you only had a vague idea of what you possessed," she said, a trifle sadly. She wasn't what she had been before coming into contact with the Wall of Fire, and could only hope she really was still running the show. However, current events were more important than her, or the other possible Digidestined's mental stability. With a casual twist of the orb's power, she displayed a scene from nearby. Demon gasped in horror at the sight of the four Holy Beasts, the turtle, tiger, bird, and dragon of legend, along with Gennai around an orb.
"Yes, they were able to advance a bit faster in their plans than you anticipated. Considering the danger they pose to both worlds, I'm going to be on your side. Lucky me. Despite the late hour, there's a key component that I should still be able to disrupt, but I'll need to borrow this Digimental," Angie said.
"Take it. You've gotten the Digimental of Darkness to do more than I have in the months with it in my possession," Demon said amiably. This pipsqueak of a girl was definitely a successful capture of a Digidestined, as she was showing that annoying trait of throwing around insane amounts of power. Thus, she was yet another tool, and a tool using a tool was almost the same as keeping it in your hand. Angie merely smiled back slightly as she hugged the orb close to her.
"I suggest you continue your evacuations, or hasten them. This is going to attract a lot of attention," Angie warned. Demon nodded and went to 'encourage' the troops. Angie watched him leave the immediate area and turned to the fire wall.
"Of all the Digidestined to be, why did I have to get the trait at the heart of them all, Biyomon?" she asked sadly.
The strain, now that she had the symbol of her power, was tearing at her soul. Darkness, a symbol of destruction and the void, was really another element to be tapped like everything else. In this case, the emotions involved were actually peace and meditation, but the crest's power source came from the unholy powers, and so Gennai had been afraid to tap it with the other Digidestined. Since this was the flip side of the other energy source all the other myriad Crests called upon, there was more energy involved, and the Digimental of Darkness could mimic the armor of any other Digimental for any ancient Digimon capable of armor digivolution. They'd turn viral, but that wasn't necessarily a horrible exchange. Right now, she was preparing to tap something a bit bigger by combining it with her crests.
"You can do it, Angie!" she said encouragingly, "I have faith in you."
"Thanks Biyomon, but I hope it's enough. If I suddenly turn maniacal or something at any point while I'm holding the crest, promise to tear my throat out," she said grimly. Biyomon paused, shocked, but Angie didn't waver and Biyomon nodded.
With another icy twist of power, Angie summoned the picture of an injured and slowly dying Construct in the Real World, and held the Digimental up to the image of Skullgreymon. She quickly took her cloak off, and opened the top portion of her body suit, revealing a perfect circle of reddened tissue on the center of her collarbone. It glowed with black light for a moment, matching the Digimental, before a similar light surrounded Skullgreymon. After a second, the image collapsed and the light disappeared, and the Digimental dropped to the floor, followed shortly by Angie. "All right, Tamers. Show me what you're made of," she whispered weakly, refusing to fall into the embrace of sleep, but unable to stand up quite yet.
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The children had just about finished their story to Tai, and he was peering at the two D-Powers the two held out before them in interest. "I'll have to talk to Izzy. Data being uploaded like that is definitely a new trick," he said after they finished, "But I don't see anything wrong with the Digivices. They're just a different model with a bit of a new trick to their operation. That said, there's something you should know Hikari."
Tai watched the young girl and wondered if the name was just as tradition or as a homage. Regardless, she didn't resemble the namesake, a little shorter with much darker hair and pigtails. Tai pointed at the Digivice and the sleeping Tanemon, "There's something wrong with the stability of the power source of your Digivice. We don't know quite where the energy is coming from in the first place, but I do know of a Digimon whose exposure to a Digivice led to a similar bit of random digivolving. It also apparently damaged his data fundamentally, so that Leomon never reappeared at Primary Village after he was defeated."
"I'm not quite sure I understand," said Hikari in a puzzled tone.
"Our friend... couldn't be reformatted," Tai said grimly. Hikari took a moment to realize where the term was going and her eyes widened in disbelief. She grabbed the sleepy Digimon and hugged it tight desperately.
"Wait a minute!" said Jessica angrily, "That was after it got killed by a Mega right?" Tai looked at her in surprise and Jessica flushed slightly as she said, "It sometimes pays to be an otaku. Anyway, it's possible his egg never returned, or his memories were a bit more damaged than usual, and he returned to another evolutionary line! He died after the Digital World began its breakdown, unlike most of the other revived Digimon, so it's possible there was a bad transfer. Besides, that was when he got killed, and I won't let it happen to Tanemon, while you're too busy sitting back on your laurels!" Jessica shouted, stomping off. Pausing to glare, Crystalmon quickly followed.
Allen quickly grabbed the teary-looking Hikari and held onto her. She was normally fairly mature, but it looked like what amounted to a death sentence the way Tai had phrased it was cracking her emotional reserve. Jessica's response had come a bit to late to salve the icy feeling in her stomach.
Allen, however, watched the two stomp off and muttered, "Wow. She yelled at Tai Kamiya. She's REALLY mad. She usually only gets this mad when someone threatens gang war back home." That didn't seem to cheer Hikari up. "Listen, she's mad because um, well," 'Tai said something really stupid' died on Allen's lips, but everyone still heard it. "I think I'd better go see how she's doing," Allen lamely offered. Hikari followed him after a moment's glare at Tai.
The scene in the living room held for a moment before Tai slumped over, "I am WAY to used to talking to politicians and not to little girls," the Digidestined noted. After a moment, he turned to look at his partner, "I don't see you contradicting me," he said in mock warning.
"Should I?" asked Agumon in a confused tone, "I agree with you." Tai slumped over again, and Agumon continued, "We haven't been doing a good enough job. We've been relying on the Gennai Squad to deal with a lot of stuff, and we didn't want to get involved into local politics, since that would be rule by force."
"Of course, we ended up with that anyway," Tai noted, before running his hands through his greying hair. Kids didn't normally make him feel old, but when he saw a portion of himself back in the good old days of being chased by Dark Masters, it made him wonder when exactly the young Tai had been replaced by a bureaucrat. After another's moment self-pity, Tai hauled himself to his feet, "I should apologize. Let's go Agumon."
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In a spot in the Digital World that reminded Gennai of the weather around Myotismon's castle, the Four Holy Beasts were meeting amid storm clouds and desolation. Turtle, dragon, fire bird, and tiger, the sacred animals of some Japanese myth were made digital flesh. Gennai occasionally wondered which came first, the Holy Beast or the real world story? Right now, far more important matters were at hand.
The four were arranged, in their cardinal directions, around a massive white glowing sphere, approximately twenty feet in diameter. Gennai could feel the touching warmth of so much of the Digital World's energy in one place, and it took all his willpower to not simply take a running leap and bathe in such power. He was connected to the Four Beasts and their energy, an easy way to keep alive by doing a sort of reformatting on himself. However, the four had not told him the cost and craving for power that would come attached. He pays the price as it comes. Life is a surprisingly addictive thing, and after all, he's the Guardian, so his actions should be good. Or so he continued to tell himself.
Azulongmon was the spokesmon on this project, and he observed the energy field with paternal pride, despite the danger of the situation. "Brothers, we are gathered her for our finest moment. The Destiny Stones' power holds sway over our reality, and our position is firmly anchored enough to destroy that which rests beyond the Fire Wall. We have gathered and nurtured the powers of the Crests and the arrows of light and hope. Much of the Digital World has been scoured for energy as well. Luckily, our plan is ready. The entire Digital World felt the Dark Ocean's last attempt to break through. Now, they will feel our counter strike. We begin our spell." The four Holy Beasts voices, joined by the one true Gennai, were joined together.
The powerful sphere of energy crackled. It was not merely a glowing ball of light, instead, it was concentrated Power, as compressed as five of the Digital World's most ancient beings could manage. Though resembling Wargreymon's special Terra Force attack, this was to a Terra Force in terms of raw energy as a Terra Force was to, say, a bubble blow attack. And, the energy sphere was relatively weak besides what they would eventually accomplish. This ball was the sum of much of the Digital World's 'free' energy, things that the structure could do without to little harmful effect. When properly used, this energy ball could be used to temporarily focus much of the Digital World's ENTIRE energy flow to some purpose. Digimon, good, bad, and in between; looked up with a sense of foreboding as the spell began to take hold.
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Tai was headstrong, often impetuous, and if he didn't watch his words, tended to cause trouble, the likely cause of the breakup with his childhood sweetheart. However, Tai had years of training with diplomats to learn exactly when and what to say when on duty, and he had decided his mistake was to treat the meeting with the children as informal, ignoring most of those highly conditioned traits. To say Taichi Kamiya was good at his job was an understatement. He had a full apology ready and composed in the three minutes it took to catch up to the three.
However, Tai was a long way from being chased by half of the known Digital species all over Server. It didn't take an Izzy to figure out something was up when he easily caught up with them. The six, for some reason, were dead stopped and quivering. Jessica and Crystalmon were paused about thirty feet farther along and half-way up the stairwell from the other pairs. Tai took one look at Agumon, who shrugged.
Then a noise like a rock concert slammed down on them, and the two hit the ground. "Construct," Tai spat out. His home was rather well protected, but a certain skeletal figure had decided to mess with his flower beds, and would definitely pay for that. He picked himself up and ran for the stairwell. The shockwave had been enough to refocus the six, apparently, but they didn't seem eager to rush up the stairs. Tai's slightly-out-of-practice eye took critical seconds to identify the problem, while the sound of explosions continued to trickle down. Crystalmon had several nasty purple bruises on other white scales, Guilmon hadn't gotten any food yet and was drooping a bit, and Tanemon just looked wilted.
"This was going to be your, what, third fight of the day?" Tai asked. The group nodded. "All right. Stay here, and I should at least be able to hold him off long enough to make some calls." With that, the Digidestined rushed up the stairs.
And what Tai came face to face with wasn't at all what he was expecting. Instead of a multiple story skeletal dinosaur, a black-armored humanoid reptile was flinging around bolts of sullen, bloody red. Everything about the color scheme was a parody of Tai's partner's Mega form. "Blackwargreymon?" Tai breathed incredulously. Which was all the time had before the monster spotted him.
To be continued
Author's notes: "I will not parody the creepy announcer voice." Pretty much the mantra for when I saw how the last few pages would turn out.
A cliffhanger, yes, but we already had one battle sequence, two or three plot revelations, and several character development pieces in this chapter. The introduction of Blackwargreymon (not the original, this is a Construct) seemed a good place to stop. Especially since this part was a few weeks in coming together. sigh
The usual nausea was greatly amplified in this case because it was a Mega. So far, the more powerful the Digimon constructed, the worse it feeling. Considering how banged around they were, it was that much worse, leaving them effectively crippled despite the potshots.
Why did Hikari pick it up? She's been training with them enough to start to learn the signs. Maybe. We'll see.
Yes, the orb was the Digimental of Darkness. I was wandering around megchan's encyclopedia (prior to it going down), and noted this in the item's section as I was deciding on cards for them to carry. It was, frankly, a great looking Macguffin, so I ran with it. The digivolution powers were taken straight from the translated card text.
Let's see. Next time: The Four Holy Beasts spell is ripping apart the Digital World, the Demon Corps is ripping apart its base, and Blackwargreymon is ripping up Tai's flowers! And the Tamers have been too beat up to give much assistance. It's up to a worn Agumon and a weakened Tai to battle the Mega.