Chapter 49:  Mission Accomplished!

            Imperialdramon could tell that one of the two giantors was getting ready to attack him and was right behind him.  His first thought was to get out of the line of fire, but that would put the congregated group of humans in the line of fire.  So he took the hit from the giantor's attack, but it cost him dearly.  "Ohhhhhh…you guys, I could use some support, here!"

            "There has to be some way we can deal with those things," Ash thought aloud.  "I wonder what its weakness is…let's try…electric attacks!  Pikachu, use thunder!"

            Thunderdog added, "And I'll try Jacob's Ladder at the same time.  We'll see how that handles."  The two fighters hurled their attacks at the giantor's chest.  It was impossible to miss such a huge target, but---unfortunately---the giantor didn't seem fazed.

            "Aw, great!  What if…maybe it's fire!  Charizard, Quilava, I choose you!"

            Firabbit aimed his cannon at a point where the giantor looked vulnerable.  "Clinker Beam!"

            "Charizard, Quilava, use Flamethrower and help Firabbit attack that thing!"

            The three attacks made giantor's arm glow a hot red, but the giantor shot back, forcing them to stop their attacks and dodge.

            "I wonder if…maybe it's normal beam attacks!" Tracy shouted.

            "Right.  Snorlax, Kingler!  Hyper Beam!"

            "Tempest Cannon!"  The deadly rays smacked the giantor on the chest, but didn't seem to do much.

            "There has just got to be a way to finish that thing without wearing out everyone!" Saw-grass moaned.

            "I have one idea," Takato shouted.  "Digi-modify!  Upgrade, activate!"  Wargrowlmon's firepower increased, and he lined himself up for a shot at one of the giantors.  "Atomic Blaster!"

            "Yon YoNon Gazrii!" the giantor returned his shot and cancelled it completely.  The giantor launched a second shot, and that hit Wargrowlmon squarely, forcing him to regress back to Guilmon.

            "Are you sure there's a way to finish this thing?" Firabbit asked Saw-grass.

            "Not really, no…"

******

            "Uh…Metalgarurumon?  We're a little off-course," Matt thought aloud.  "We were supposed to be at Honshu Island, but we're a little south of there---"

            "You're not kidding, Matt!" he answered.  "But this might not be a bad thing!  Look!"  Right in front of them was Imperialdramon and a whole bunch of other fighters, battling with a group of other menace machines…ones they hadn't seen before.

            "Looks like they could use a hand."

            "Right!  Ice Wolf Claw!" Metalgarurumon shouted, firing a barrage of blue ice out his mouth at the giantor.  It froze solid.

            "…I guess its weakness was ice, then," Tracy thought out loud.

            "Or maybe this guy was just powerful enough to dish out an attack like that," Firabbit said.  "Is he one of ours?"

            "I'm not sure, but it looks like he is," Kari answered.  She shouted up to them, "METALGARURUMON??  MATT?!"

            The digimon flew down and landed...it was Metalgarurumon, all right, and Matt was on his back, looking the worse for wear. He was shivering cold from wind resistance, even though he wore a long raincoat that he had pilfered from the grocery store. "Yeah, it's good to be back…aw, great!  Not you, too?!" he asked, hopping off Metalgarurumon's back and looking at Kari.

            "Yeah, I got turned back into a thirteen-year-old, too.  You're no better; you look more like eleven!"

            "I know, and---"

            "Wait a sec, how did you get Gabumon to digivolve to mega like that?"

            "The same way I did before.  I can't explain it!  It must be that whatever turned me into a kid also gave me back my crest!"

            "Whoa.  There's a good-news-bad-news story."

            "What exactly is the plan, here?" Metalgarurumon asked.

            "At first, it was to get back Tina.  Now, it's take out this Linonian base once-and-for-all!"

            "Linonian?"

            Ash walked up to Matt.  "There was a guy---a human, and he's with whoever's controlling those menace machines.  While he was capturing Tina, he said that Tina was the property of the Linonian Empire."

            "Empire?  That doesn't sound too good…"

            "I know.  That's why we're destroying the base."

            "With Metalgarurumon's missiles, that'll be a snap!"

            "Hold on," Tina yelled.  "There are people in there, humans!"

            "What?"

            "In their lab, there were a whole bunch of humans, and the Linonians were harvesting their skin oils!"

            "What?!?!" Yolei asked.

            "Mom, I'm not kidding.  There were people and in-training digimon floating in these big, plastic vats and they were in these weird suits that covered their entire skins.  There was fluid running away from the suits in tubes, and those tubes were harvesting the people's skin oils!  I don't know why, but this is what they're doing to people!"

            "…But---"

While Yolei and Tina had been discussing this, Matt suddenly got the feeling that he was being watched. He looked over his shoulder, and saw a wide-eyed and incredulous June. Matt swallowed hard.

"Matt...is it really...you???" she asked.

"Um...who wants to know?"

"...Matt!!! I missed you so much!" June dove into Matt's arms. That was a big mistake: flying over the pacific ocean through two rainstorms and several hours of cold wind tends to draw the heat out of a person's body. So Matt felt like an ice cube to June. "You're not Matt!" June gasped. "You're...you're..." June was so shocked that she was at a loss for words. "You're some kind of wraith, aren't you?"

"Um...what if I am?"

"I knew it was way too good to be true! You couldn't have been Matt! You're some weird figment of my imagination come to life, and taken over by a demon!"

Matt considered the question of whether he should tell her the truth or not. "...Well..."

June ran away from his screaming.

"What was that about?" Youngdramon asked.

"I don't know, exactly," Matt answered, "But I like the way it turned out."

            The situation suddenly worsened:  a group of catamarines, gorillouts, and cybertooths was coming up out of the water.

            "Aw, great!  Even with two mega digimon and all these ultimates and advanced Monsters…I don't think we can take that many," Yolei thought aloud.  "We got what we came for; let's head home!" she shouted.  "Imperialdramon!  Retreat!"

            "Imperialdramon, mode-change to…dragon mode!"  He beamed the heroes into the force field on his back and flew back to Tokyo.

            "Well, all-in-all, this was a great day," Tina sighed.  She picked Joey up and gave him a hug.  "Thanks for saving my neck back there!"

            Joey let out an affectionate whistle.  "It was nothin'!  Joey no let stuff eat Tina!"

            Tina giggled.  "There's one other thing, Mom.  Joey's not a digimon."

            "Then…what is he?"

            "He's from some other race that's been fighting the Linonians for a long time.  He doesn't know much English, so he can't tell us more.  …But I know where we can get more information."

            "Where?"

******

            The sub major slowly came to and picked himself up.  "What was that?" he asked.  "How did we go unconscious?"

            The cloaked young man groaned an answer:  "There was this little baby kangaroo armed with one of your weapons, and he was in that girl's pocket the entire time!"

            "And why wasn't she searched on the way in?!"

            "Hey, don't look at me!  My orders were not to touch anything that was on her!" the thief answered.

            "It…is…the job of security to make sure things like this do not happen!  Guards!  Have those responsible terminated!"

            "Uh…" the human knelt next to the sub major and whispered, "They are the ones responsible!"

            "I am aware of that," he answered, and watched as the guards set their weapons to lethal and shot each other.

            "And…they just did that?"

            "They were under orders, weren't they?"

            "…I guess they were." With a hard swallow, he asked, "So…uh, what're my orders?"

            "Wait until our scientists make for you a new gauntlet and improve on your digi-clones.  We have new information; our operative managed to return us a great deal of data before his body went offline.  It is only too bad that we couldn't make a doppelganger for our other catch."

            "No kidding.  Well, then, I'll be in my quarters."  He walked to his private room, sat down on the bed, and thought about the rewards that were in store for him after his job as an agent was done.  He wondered what it would be like to be able to boss people around, especially hoochies... "Oh, yeah…life is about to get good for me!"