Chapter 36:  One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Hand Grenade (1)

            The man slid out from under Garurumon's unconscious form.  He looked up at Matt, expecting to go in for the kill…only to find that Matt was holding his own weapon, aimed straight at his head.  "Very clever, Mr. Ishida…we shouldn't have tried to kill you; we should've tried to make you one of us."

            "Forget it!  I want answers!  Who are you?  What're you doing to Earth?  Why did you destroy the Digiworld?"

            The man was raising his arm, and Matt could see some weird glow about to jump out of his hand.  Matt didn't waste any time; he fired at his arm.  The arm fell off, and, in the hole where the arm had once been, he saw bits of metal and jolts of electricity: not flesh and blood.  This wasn't a human being. "What are you?" Matt asked.

            "You are too much of a thorn in the side of the Empire's regime!  I've seen enough."  He opened his mouth, and a noise exactly like a summoning cry of a humbug blared out from his mouth.  Matt shot the head to silence the noise, but not soon enough:  several saberstrikes rushed in, and a huge, crane-like menace machine walked in.  The crane picked up Garurumon and began carrying him away.

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Lift-tor (Rifutōru)
Real Name: Ckinei-tor-r'moh
Caste: Kohgazrii
Modes: One
Special Attacks:
Hin Kou Dra
Yon Sh'rota
Comments:
The lift-tor is composed of twelve Augores that have fused into a single, huge, crane-like tor. It has a high-firepower cannon turret on its underside to defend itself and its construction site. It is often used in building enemy bases and sites. It can somehow raise and lower the mass of the spherical counterweight on its back end. The counterweight is also this machine's weakness: destroy the counterweight, and the lift-tor will lose its balance.

            "Oh, no, you don't!"  Matt pulled out his digivice and mumbled, "If this doesn't wake him up, I don't know what will!"

            "Garurumon, digivolve to…Weregarurumon!"  Weregarurumon shook off the blow the robot's stunner had given him and tore himself away from the crane's hook.  "I'm comin' for ya, Matt!  Hang on!  Wolf Claw!"  He began tearing into the saberstrikes, and sent bits of metal and axe heads flying in all directions.

            "That's great, Weregarurumon, but that crane is still around."

            "I'll fix that!  Garuru Kick!"  A white blade of energy flew out and struck the lift-tor.  The lift-tor staggered backwards, but it didn't seem like it was very hurt.  "You want to give me a hand?" Weregarurumon asked.

            "I'm on it!"  Matt fired his weapon at the lift-tor, and Weregarurumon ran towards one of the legs to try to immobilize the lift-tor.

            "Yon Sh'rota!" the lift-tor yelled, firing a pair of beams out the twin cannons on its underside.  Weregarurumon easily dodged the beams with a little fancy footwork.

            "Wolf Claw!" he shouted, slashing at the lift-tor's legs.  The lift-tor staggered and fell.  Weregarurumon dove at the cannon turret and yanked it loose from the rest of the body.  "If only I had a hand grenade to blow out its insides!" Weregarurumon thought out loud.

            There was a shrill, charging-up noise coming from the dead android's body.  "Sounds like a self-destruct if I've ever heard it," Matt though aloud.  "So much for needing a hand grenade!"

            Weregarurumon threw the robotic body into the lift-tor's insides, and BLAM!  No more lift-tor…none that was alive, at any rate.

            "Now what?" Weregarurumon asked.

            "They know we're here.  We need to move Pixie out of the store…and I guess we tell Gary to get out of here, too."

            "You sure we shouldn't just leave him to get eaten?" Weregarurumon asked.

            "That's not funny, Weregarurumon."

******

            The saberstrike roared at Misty:  to it, Misty was a meal.  Misty ran down the stairs, and she saw the floor behind her explode as a sonic blast tore through it.  The saberstrike thundered after her, but couldn't keep its balance on the stairs and turned into a tumbling ball that rolled down the steps.  Misty threw herself out of the way of the ball.  She ran back up the stairs, hoping the saberstrike would forget about her, but there was a second saberstrike at the top of the steps, smacking its lips for her.  Misty nervously fumbled around in her pockets for a pokéball, but she was too late.  The saberstrike jumped on her and knocked her down, and Togepi flew out of her arms.  The saberstrike roared at her face and opened its jaws…

            Togepi let out a loud, "Tuck-ee-tuck-ee-tuck-ee-tuck-eet-tog-ee-tog-et- Togetic!"

            Misty turned her head and saw that Togepi was evolving!  Togetic snarled at the saberstrike and dove at it.  The saberstrike was knocked to pieces, but Misty saw that Togetic took some damage from the attack, too.  She picked Togetic up in her arms and hugged him tightly…she was still getting the shock of almost having died out of her system.  She hardly even noticed when another sonic blast flew up from the other saberstrike's tail.

            Togetic noticed, and he began waving his arms in his Metronome attack.  The saberstrike was paralyzed in a spray in Stun Spore.  Misty raised her head and looked.  Togetic had a pained smile on his face:  he had grown up, if only to save his mother.

            Misty called Starmie out of his pokéball and had him smash the saberstrike and end his threat.  She sat for a few minutes, letting the feelings of shock and fear get worked out of her system.  Togetic stood on her lap and rested his head on her shoulder, trying to comfort her.  Finally, she said, "Thanks Togetic."  She dusted herself off and called Togetic back into his pokéball.

            As she entered the room where she'd left Ash, she asked, "Any close calls, Ash?"

            Ash turned to her and got up.  "Nope."

            "I'm surprised.  If Togepi hadn't evolved, I'd be dead, right now."

            "You sure look the worse for wear," Ash thought aloud, looking at the dusty smudges on Misty's face, hands, and clothes.

            "A saberstrike almost got me."

            "Yikes.  Well, she still won't move," Ash said, pointing to the motionless girl that they'd found earlier.  "I don't know why she's so afraid of me."

            "If I couldn't talk and I were in a place where people get eaten alive, I'd be scared of everybody."

            "I know what you mean.  But how can we move her?"

            "Why don't we put her to sleep with Haunter's hypnosis and carry her back?"

            "I guess it's worth a shot.  Come on out, Haunter!"

            Haunter put her to sleep with a little hand waving and a snap.  They carried her to Ghenki and told him to get the Botamon to come downstairs.  How they could manage that was a mystery; the Botamon still didn't fully trust them.

            Pikachu slowly approached the Botamon.  They looked at him with unsure eyes.  "Pika?" he asked them.  They scattered away from him.  Pikachu snorted in disgust and jumped back up to Ash's shoulder.

            "Well, that didn't go too well, did it?" Ghenki muttered.

            "What did you do to get them here the last time?" Ash asked.

            "We spread out food, and they all rushed to it."

            "Do we try that again?"

            "Doubt it," Ghenki thought aloud.  "They just ate, so they won't be hungry."

            "I wonder where they got to," Ash said.  He took out his flashlight and aimed it around.  The second the Botamon were in the beam of light from the flashlight, they scurried into whatever hiding they could find.

            "Seems like they're watching us, if they know when to hide…and if they're watching…hey, I know!  Haunter, I choose you!"  Ash sent out Haunter again.  "Haunter, there are a whole bunch of little creatures in the darkness in this room.  Aim your hypnosis at them, and put them all to sleep."

            Haunter did what Ash said, and Ash shone his flashlight around.  They were all asleep.  He let out Charizard, and the whole room filled with orange light from his tail flame.  They scooped up all the Botamon and carried them down to Blastoise.  It took several trips to get them all down, but they made it, and they carried the Botamon back to the nuke plant.

******

            " 'Special needs', huh?  What is the point in being politically correct when there are no politics?" Tina asked.

            "It's correct, period, Tina," Misty explained.  "What's wrong with her mind is that she can't remember anything.  She isn't mentally retarded."

            "That's what Joe said?"

            "Yeah, Dr. Kido gave her and these Botamon a clean bill of health."

            "Well…I guess I'd better get some clothes on her, then.  What's her name?"

            "We don't know."

            Tina sighed, thinking about how awful it must be to not know anything about where you are, who you are, or what's going on. It was no wonder this child had cringed at every sound before Haunter put her to sleep.  She was still sound asleep from Haunter's attack, though, and so Tina had no trouble washing the new girl off in one of the nuke plant's shower stalls and getting clothes on this new girl. She chose what the child would wear quickly: she wore a heavy-ish, khaki jumper on top of a plain white T-shirt, and, given standard protocol, Tina topped the whole thing off with a light blue blanket and a purple raincoat that was her size. Tina stepped back from her work of art and nodded. She picked her up, wrapped her in her blanket, and brought the new girl to the orphanage. Looking for a place to put her, Tina decided to set her down next to Natasha's group.

            "Who's the new girl?"

            "She doesn't have a name; she's one of the people who can't remember anything."

            "Then I guess we'd better give her one.  How about…Ingrid?"

            "Ingrid?  …Okay, good as any name."

            "When'll she wake up?"

            "Beats me, but she'll wake up hungry.  And…Misty mentioned that she was afraid of everything when she first woke up the last time.  She needs to learn to trust people again."

            "How are we going to get her to trust us?"

            "I have one idea, but it'll have to wait until my shift ends to try it."

            "When's that?"

            Kari walked into the room.  "About…now," Tina answered as she walked over to tell Kari, "I'm on special assignment.  I'm staying here.  I have a 'special needs' girl, here."

            "What does she have?" Kari asked.

            "Total amnesia."

            "Oooo…ouch."

            Tina sat next to Ingrid and rested Ingrid's head on her shoulder.  She tucked a kitten inside Ingrid's arms as she thought aloud, "Natasha, you and I had better start talking.  If we talk while she's asleep, it'll get her more used to hearing our voices."

            "What do we talk about?"

            "It doesn't really matter…random stuff…if we had to, we could just spout out random syllables; just so long as she hears them and it's our voices."

            "Hmm…so…what's it like to be a Digidestined?"

            "Depends on how your personality and your digimon's personality collide."

            "And how does yours work with Youngdramon's?"

            "We get along.  A little duct-taping here, a little digivolution there."

            Natasha laughed.  "Do you ever pull pranks with the duct tape?"

            "We'd go nuts if we didn't.  We duct-taped my roommate down in her bed…'course, she didn't take it very well."

            "What did she do?"

            "She tried to switch rooms and kept giving us dirty looks."

            "Hmm..."

            "Yeah, Rika's a big stick-in-the-mud.  She pushes away every time anyone asks her a personal question---hello!  Ingrid is coming to!"

            "Showtime!"

(1) The title of this chapter isn't exactly a politically correct statement, but somehow I don't think that I'll catch any flak for it…at least, no flak about it not being politically correct.