Chapter 48: Exodus
Paildramon sneered at the giantors. "Don't you even think that you'll get away with taking Tina! Desperado Blaster!" He fired at the giantors, but his shots didn't seem to have much effect.
"Looks like we need to fight fire with fire, Paildramon!" Davis shouted.
"I'm with you," Ken agreed.
"Paildramon, mega digivolve to…Imperialdramon!"
Imperialdramon began firing at the giantors with his huge cannon, and he was having a lot more success attacking them than he did as Paildramon.
"Yon YoNon Gazrii!" one of them shouted back. The holes in its arms opened and revealed a pair of weapons that hurled out waves of energy. Imperialdramon was too fast for them to touch him.
"Back at you! Patriot Marauder!" Imperialdramon spat a volley of missiles at the giantors, and they staggered again. Imperialdramon rushed at one and knocked him over. Unfortunately, the giantor gave him a kick in the belly for that and ended up throwing Imperialdramon on his back. "Ooooooooooh! I'll be feeling that one in the morning…Ultra Cannon!" He shot the giantor again and made him skid along the ground towards one of the two other giantor. The one it was skidding towards stepped over it with unbelievable finesse. "I'm getting sick of this!" Imperialdramon spat. "Imperialdramon, mode-change to…fighter mode!" Imperialdramon made a sword stick out of his cannon. "Payback time!"
"Yon YoNon Gazrii!"
"Imperial Sword!" Imperialdramon reflected the energy wave right back in the giantor's face. Then he spun around and smacked the giantor with his sword, knocking his head off. "Good riddance!"
Meanwhile, Swampangemon was making her way into the enemy's complex. She slowly crept inside and kept to the ceiling, hoping that nobody would think to look for her there. Now, she thought to herself, If I were some "Linonian Empire" goon, where would I hide Tina?
She looked inside one room, and she saw that there were several unconscious gremlins and one unconscious young man. What…could've done that? Unless there's another enemy, or another Digidestined…? Or maybe Takato broke out? She moved on and found that there were a lot of mandroids in that complex…too many to fight, even for an ultimate digimon. So she still kept in hiding by flying close to the ceiling.
******
Sirens suddenly blared a strange warning. "Uh-oh," Tina murmured. "Looks like they found us."
"What do we do?" Takato asked.
"You get back in your little vat-thingies. I'll get in my mandroid disguise and pretend like I'm getting dissected in here."
"Do we hafta stick those needles back in?" Guilmon asked.
"Not if you just shut the lids over your vats. Maybe they won't look inside. Just in case they do, use this on them." Tina tossed Takato one of the weapons Joey had taken off the guards.
They lay motionless for a while---too long a while. "Does Tina think agazriitato would find us yet? Joey asked.
"Yeah, it is a little weird that nobody's found us…"
"Joey fix-it," Joey said. He jumped out of Tina's pocket and hopped to a computer screen. He began working the controls again, and looked at the information on the screen. "This not because somebody in house, this because somebody try get in!" Joey snorted. "We get scared for nothin'!"
"Then…you mean that…someone's attacking this base?" Takato asked.
"Eight bucks says that it's Mom, trying to get us back!" Tina thought aloud, taking off her uncomfortable mandroid disguise.
"So…what else does the screen say?"
"They think somebody already in house!"
"Huh? …You think that could be us?"
Swampangemon seemed to come out of nowhere as she changed from her micro mode to normal mode. "Tina? Takato?"
"Thanks, Swampangemon, but we kind of have the situation under control."
"Oh, really?" Swampangemon asked. "And how are you planning to get out of here, exactly?"
"Simple," Takato answered, brandishing up his D-Arc and his modify cards. "Digi-modify! Digivolution, activate!"
"Guilmon, digivolve to…Growlmon!" Guilmon grew to such an immense height that he burst the ceiling of the lab and had his head sticking out the roof.
"I had to ask," Swampangemon muttered.
"One question: is Mom going to kill me for getting kidnapped?" Tina asked.
"Probably…c'mon," Swampangemon answered. She flew up and stretched out her hands to help Takato and Tina climb Growlmon's back. The second she saw the giantors, she set both Digidestined on Growlmon's shoulders and… "Swampangemon, mode-change to…giga mode!"
"This sure doesn't look good for the visiting team," Takato thought to himself. "Let's see if I can do this…" He held up a hyper wings card and stared at it intently. "C'mon! Change into a blue card! I need a digivolution to ultimate! These cards are supposed to change when I need them to! It happened before!" But the card didn't change. Disgusted, he returned it to the deck he held in his right hand…only to find that his upgrade card had turned into a blue card. He quickly swiped it through his D-Arc. "Digi-modify! Matrix Digivolution, activate!"
"Growlmon, digivolve to…Wargrowlmon!" Wargrowlmon flew up and joined the fight with Swampangemon and Imperialdramon.
"Tina, go to the others," Takato yelled as Firabbit flew down to pick Tina up. "DNA digivolve with June to make Mermon!"
"Will do," she answered as Firabbit tucked her inside his wings to shield her from a stray mandroid's shot. "One question---how's my mom going to take me coming home in one piece…uh, what was your name? There are so many creatures fighting for us that I can't keep track of them all."
"The name's Firabbit," he answered. "And I dunno how your Mom will react; I hope there'll be promotions involved, though."
"Knowing her, there might be…" she got off and found two people rushing towards her: Yolei and Youngdramon. She ended up in a group hug with them, which felt strange, considering that it was so near such a huge battle.
June ran up to her with her digivice in hand. Tina also heard a "Tibemon, digivolve to…Savamon!" Then there was silence (or, considering the noise of the battle, a pause in dialogue), highlighted only by the huge emotion of her mother, having caught her daughter out of the jaws of death. After a few moments, June, who had been standing there, waiting to DNA digivolve, let out a loud, "Ahem!" Tina stuck her arm out of the hug with her digivice in hand. Youngdramon popped out of the hug, leaving only Tina and Yolei.
"Youngdramon, digivolve to…Ikudramon!"
"Ikudramon!"
"Savamon!"
"DNA digivolve to…Mermon!" Mermon flew up into the fight to give Swampangemon and Imperialdramon support.
"Hey, Mom," Tina got out of her squeezed lungs. She didn't dare exhale; her mother was hugging her so hard that she was worried that, if she let out her breath, she wouldn't be able to get it back in, again.
"Tina…!" Yolei sobbed.
"It wasn't that big a deal, Mom! All in a day's work, me being a Digidestined and all that---"
"But we almost lost you!"
Joey slithered out of the embrace and hopped onto Tina's shoulder. "Joey want breathe!" he spat. "Tina no sleep forever when Joey in Tina's pocket!" (He had to say "sleep forever" because he didn't know the word for "die".)
"…Say, Mom…I'd kind of like to breathe, too."
Yolei stopped hugging and clutched Tina's elbows. She looked into her daughter's eyes, and didn't see the same emotion that she felt in her heart: Yolei was dying to get her daughter, her baby back from the enemy base. But Tina wasn't so worried; she wasn't afraid to die for the cause, and so she wasn't terrified by getting captured.
"So, Mom…miss me?" Tina asked as a joke.
Yolei slapped her own forehead and covered her eyes, leaving a fingerprint on her glasses.
Meanwhile, not fifty meters away, the battle raged on. Swampangemon had gone through so much and stayed in her ultimate form so long that she couldn't handle it any more. She regressed back to Hawkmon and Gatomon, and were barely strong enough to dodge the attacks that the enemy machines were throwing their way. Thunderdog picked them both up and raced with all speed to the congregated pack of defending monsters and humans in the middle. He let Gatomon and Hawkmon off, and Kari raced to pick up both of them, since Yolei was busy with Tina. She took off her raincoat and wrapped them both up in it. "Don't worry; you'll both recover form this."
"Not anytime soon," Hawkmon muttered. "Even though we never took a hit, I feel like I've been run over by a freight train!"
"No kidding!" Gatomon agreed. "What I wouldn't give for a warm bed!"
"There's another problem," June thought aloud. "That big guy Swampangemon was taking care of is starting to get the upper hand!"
It was no lie…and that giantor was planning to go after Imperialdramon, who was still locked in a draw with the other giantor…