Chapter 30: Soliloquy

The shouting had been about Takato finding Henry. Henry was with one of the Digidestined from the television show: Willis. Takato couldn't believe his eyes. "Where are Cleaver and Izzy?"

"They're back at our headquarters."

"Where on earth is that?"

"We're using a certain unreachable corner of the Jacqueline-Keeves Institute for our safe spot," Willis answered. "There was still some lab equipment there, so we tried to use that to keep Cleaver's research going."

"Oh, and guess what? Cleaver made another warp-digivolving card," Henry added, brandishing the gold-plated piece of paper in his hand.

"Tell him to make a third; there's only one between me and Rika!"

"Well, I'd be happy to---"

Terrance cut in, "I hate to interrupt, but…who're these two?"

"These are Willis and Henry! Henry's an old friend of mine, and Willis is another Digidestined. We've been looking for them for ages!"

"So…now that we've found them back, what do we do?"

"Simple: one of them goes back to their base with one of us, and the other two go back to our base."

"So…we each go back to our bases?"

"Yes… Uh, no. I mean---!!!" Takato let out a grunt of frustration. "You go with Willis back to the JK institute, and I go with Henry back to our HQ. Get it?"

"Got it."

"Good. C'mon."

As they were walking away, Terrance heard Henry say, "Still have a communication problem, Takato?" and Takato answer, "What?" and then them laughing.

"So," Willis asked. "How are you guys doing at humanitarian HQ?"

"I don't know; I only just got there, myself."

"Hmm. Well, it's okay at the JK Institute…hey, that's a catchy slogan: 'it's OK at JK.' …Anyhow, since we only have ourselves to feed, and we still have electricity, it's fairly easy for us to survive. And---we don't know why, but the digging menace machines won't come near where our hideaway is."

"Maybe it's because they're finding too many pipes in the walls. That would confuse their sonar."

"How would you know that?"

"Because…I…uh, I studied sound, once."

"Oh. Well, I never studied sound before in my life, so…"

"Have you been having any trouble defending the JK Institute from attacking menace machines?"

"Oh, no. Not since Cleaver made that second gold card."

"And the gold cards let the tamers' digimon reach the mega level?"

"That's what they do."

"Hmm…" More and more ways to mess up their plans, Terrance thought to himself. And I wonder if those cards could be modified to work on my D-Gauntlet?

"Right now, we're working on a dampening field to counteract the effects of the control spires."

"You'd still need to blow them up, though?" Terrance asked.

"Well, yeah, but that would be easier if you could digivolve. Not that I hate golden-armor digivolving, or anything…"

"Say, Willis," Terriermon cut in, "Looks like we're about to have company! Saberstrikes!"

"Great," Terrance thought aloud. Hopefully, my pokémon are recovered enough to fight these things! "Sneasel, Murkrow, Houndoom, I choose you!" he shouted, letting out a trio of dark pokémon.

"Terriermon, digivolve to…um, Willis? I think we're in range of a control spire."

"Then we have to do this the other way…Golden armor, energize!" Willis shouted, holding up the golden egg of intellect.

"Terriermon, golden-armor digivolve to…Rapidmon, the arsenal of intellect!" Rapidmon flew up into the air. "Rapid fire!" he shouted, launching missiles into the crowd of saberstrikes.

"Ferra-tor-grend'l, noh kreshnaiona djom…Ferra-tor-cknii!"

"Looks like that spire doesn't stop their evolution," Terrance thought aloud.

"No, it doesn't," Willis sighed.

"Houndoom, try faint attack on them!" Houndoom seemed to vanish, and then the spiderstrikes felt a few blows get dealt to them.

"Now, Murkrow, you too! If they can't see you, they get confused! Sneasel, you three!"

"Rapid fire!" Rapidmon shouted again as he dodged a few beams of yellow lasers that flew up at him from the spiderstrikes' heads. More and more spiderstrikes were getting picked off left and right until there were none left. Rapidmon flew down and asked, "Do you want me to fly you the rest of the way home?"

"It's probably a good idea," Willis agreed.

Terrance called back his pokémon and climbed on. As they took off, he shouted, "Hey, wait! Slow down, I'm going to throw up if you go this fast!!"

"Hey, what do you expect from a name like 'Rapidmon'?"

******

"…So we think that you'll be able to copy their Co-Op digivolving methods with the information we have," Yolei concluded.

Cleaver exhaled loudly out pursed lips. "There's no telling how long that would take," he answered.

"But this will give us a way to reach a level comparable to the mega level!" Yolei insisted.

"I know, I know…but I'm not making any promises on how long it would take. I mean, it could be months before I'm finished. Then again, it might only be a matter of days. I don't know. But, anyway, where is this D-Gauntlet now?"

"I have it right here," Yolei answered.

Taking the device out of her hands and examining it, Cleaver whistled in admiration. "A real piece of work! I wish I'd made that thing," he thought to himself. "I'll see what I can do. I'm probably going to need one of your digivices, digimon, and pokémon for a field test, though."

"I'll ask around for volunteers."

"There's one last thing, though: it would help me in studying the Co-Op digivolving process if I could study a specimen of one of the digi-clones. That would give me a better idea what those things are, exactly, and how I can adapt the procedure to normal digimon."

"There's good news and bad news about that. The good news is we can get you a dead one. The bad news is that it'll be Shakkoumon."

"That guy was pretty big last I checked…like, eleven stories?"

"About that," Yolei answered. "And he'll be in pieces."

Cleaver sighed. "I don't know what that'll get me. When a normal digimon dies, their body and their subspace matrix become disconnected, and it's the subspace matrix that---for the most part---keeps the body together. That means that the normal-space body disintegrates. But if this guy didn't disintegrate when he died, then either his subspace matrix is still attached, or he keeps himself together without it. We won't be able to tell until we check it out, will we?"

"Should I get you some pieces?" Yolei asked.

"That would be great, yeah."

******

"So they want to implement Protocol Omega," the sub-major thought to himself. "And they blame me for their loss of the home world…this is outrageous!" he muttered. "Since when was I responsible for shipments home? That was just the security for the shipments casting the blame to me!" He sighed. "Why is it that my career must take such turns? I'd be fortunate to escape this situation with my life, let alone my career. …And it gets better: they want me to give the order to the miners in the asteroid belt? They are insane! I will not throw away my life like a worthless piece of trash! I am going to get that crown to the Empire, one way or another. And I know how I will do that…"