Chapter 39: Trouble With The Neighbors

"Tornado!" Golem and Big Blue shouted as waves of incoming gorillouts advanced. The gorillouts took a lot of damage from the titans' attacks, but they weren't about to be destroyed in one fell swoop like that.

"Lightning!" Pixie added, firing a few of her own attacks into the droves. They gorillouts were slowly getting picked off…too slowly: they returned fire.

"YoNon Gazrii!" they shouted, opening fire.

"Suezo, module-evolve to…Saw-grass! Roto-saw!" Suezo reflected as many shots as possible back into the gorillouts' ranks. "Blossom Blade!" he added, firing jagged bits of metal back at them.

"We're going to need more help, if we're going to take these!"

Takato shouted back, "More help you'll get: Digi-modify! Warp digivolution, activate!"

"Guilmon, warp-digivolve to…Gallantmon! Lightning Joust!" Gallantmon fired blasts of electricity out of his lance at the gorillouts, and they couldn't stand a hit. "So much for them," he said.

"Why couldn't ya have done that before we went to all this trouble?" Saw-grass asked. "It's not like we have all the energy in the world to waste on these fights, you know."

"It won't be wasted," Gallantmon said, looking over their shoulders at wave two.

Saw-grass rolled his eye. "I had to ask, didn't I? Roto-saw!" he shouted, driving back into the incoming C-birds.

"Lightning!" Pixie added.

"Milady, this battle---"

"I'm not going to let these people die, Big Blue!"

"…I was only going to suggest that you module-evolve, yourself."

"…That's a better idea! Takato! The digi-egg of adventure!"

"I have it, here! Tina gave it to me, in case you'd need it!"

"Throw it up to me! Pixie, module-evolve to…Mole Sprite! Laser Shell!" Mole Sprite's shots bit into the flock of C-birds, but it would take more than that to get them all. So she decided to do something that was completely irrational: she decided to fight the C-birds, hand-to…wing.

"Milady, this is insanity---" she wasn't even listening to Big Blue. One C-bird was heading straight for her. She wound up for a kick, and the C-bird stopped cold and fell to the ground. More C-birds met similar fates.

"Isn't it just a little unsettling that they know exactly where to attack us?" Saw-grass asked.

"You're right! Chances are good that they're attacking the others from below, too! I think that some of us had better get down there!" Mole Sprite shouted.

"Which ones?" Saw-grass asked.

"The ones that fit!" Mole Sprite answered, flying down the manhole. She didn't like what she saw when she got to the bottom: there were mandroids coming out of the water and attacking everything, and this particular type of machine was especially a problem: mandroids had a lot of explosives in their bodies, and there were enough man-droids to start a chain reaction if one blew up. So she began punching and kicking the robots to disable them. "This is slow, but…well, it works."

She heard someone screaming for help, so she flew above the ruckus of man-droids toward the source of the scream. The man-droids shot at her, but their shots didn't do much damage when they managed to hit. "What's the deal?"

"There's no way out of here!" Mimi shouted. "We need someone who can dig out!"

"That would be me," Mole Sprite began digging into the walls and upwards. "Keep your digimon in their rookie forms, we'll need them later, if we're attacked again…and keep Tiger from using lightning!"

Tiger spat, "Like you think I don't know not to blow them up? Blizzard!" Tiger blew streams of ice into the man-droids, and that was too cold for them to stand. Fortunately, it was also too cold for them to use their self-destruct attack: it used a chemical reaction that wouldn't work at too low of temperatures.

Refugees began piling into the tunnel that Mole Sprite was making, but there was another problem: there were tor-mites burrowing up through the ground and into the tunnel to ambush them. Even though the tor-mites couldn't use their energy cannons in that close of quarters, they could use their sonic attacks. People bent over in nausea, and couldn't move.

"Not this again!" Mole Sprite shouted. "Laser Shell!" she fired at a few of the tor-mites, and they didn't survive her firepower. "This is getting old! This tunnel isn't going to get finished by itself!" Mole Sprite kept working at the wall, and heard another shout from behind.

"Chlorophyll Ray!" Palmon fired at the augore, but she missed.

"V'ver Dra!" it answered. The shot hit the ground in front of Palmon's feet, and she was knocked backwards.

"Marching Fishes!" Gomamon's attack knocked the augore off its feet, and it was essentially dead, after that. "Well, that was pretty easy! You okay, Palmon?"

"I will be," she answered.

"That may change," Joe said, with a bead of sweat trickling down the back of his neck.

Gomamon rolled his eyes. "Okay, I admit that being underground and under attack isn't the best of circumstances, but why do you always have to look at the negative side, Joe?"

"Because if I'm looking at the negative side, then I know when to duck!" he answered, as an orange sphere of energy flew over his head.

"Aw, great! More of these things!" Gomamon muttered as he dodged an attack, himself.

"Ckinei-tor-wadrii, noh unukreshnaiona djom…ckinei-tor-mbili!"

"Oooo, even nicer! There's more of them, too!"

"This is bad," Mimi moaned. "We'll never make it out of here in time!"

"Hey, being pessimistic is my job!" Joe spat. "If you think you can just take my job right in front of my face and not catch flak for it, you're dead wrong, lady! You're dead wrong---"

"Hey, uh…Joe… How about showing some of that aggressiveness towards the menace machines?"

"Okay. Gomamon! Slug 'em with all you've got! Don't leave one standing!"

"Marching fishes!" he shouted, and the droll bits were swept off their feet.

"Now, finish 'em off, Palmon!"

"Chlorophyll ray!" she spread laser fire over the field of crippled robots, and they were all destroyed.

"Great teamwork!" Joe shouted. He motioned for the rest of the refugees to follow them up the shaft, but they were reluctant, and began backing away from him.

"Come on! If we don't keep going, then we'll all be killed!" Joe shouted. But the refugees only backed away and into the darkness of the shaft. "Hmph. Even I'm not that big a coward."

"Joe, look behind you!" Mimi shouted.

Joe didn't look behind himself: he kind stood there hunched over for a second, and then ran towards the refugees. "Wait for meeeeeeeeeee!"

What Joe hadn't seen was that a tor-mite had come out of the wall of the shaft and sent Mole Sprite back down to Pixie. Now it was turning on the people in the shaft, and it had enough elbow room to use its energy cannons…

******

"Fallen Angel Ro---?!"

Avatarmon's staff was being held back by something…but it didn't know what. It looked, and there was Scizor, clamping down on its staff with one of his huge claws.

"Great work, Scizor!" Tracy shouted. "Now, use Fury Cutter!" Scizor began slicing away at Avatarmon, and Avatarmon took damage quickly.

"This isn't working," The Unnamed Figure mused. "Time for some more help…Digi-modify! Firepower, activate!"

Avatarmon hurled another crystal at Scizor, which Scizor caught and pitched right back at Avatarmon.

"It's a wonder that this guy survives any battles at all," Tracy thought aloud.

"I'm just glad I finished off your little friend," The Unnamed Figure said through his nose, throwing a glance at Thunderbard's lifeless corpse. "We won't be hearing from her again!"

"You…killed her?!" June and Ash were both dumbfounded.

"And now, it's time for the rest of you…Digi-modify! Recovery, activate!"

Avatarmon's wounds healed themselves, and it began to fight back against Scizor.

"This isn't getting us anywhere!" Henry shouted.

"I have what we came for, Avatarmon," The Unnamed Figure said, brandishing a datacube. "Let's file out of this hole!"

"Will do," Avatarmon answered, blasting Scizor backwards and picking up its human. It flew out the hallway like there was no tomorrow.

"You know what to do, Terriermon!" Henry said. "We're going after him; you guys concentrate on reviving Thunderbard!"

"'Reviving?' What does he mean?" Ash asked.

Cleaver nodded. "Medical science has come a long ways with SI life forms, like digimon and disc monsters. Thunderbard is a super pokémon, not a digimon, and pokémon's bodies just sit there and rot, like human bodies; they don't disappear like digimon do. We designed the merged subspace matrix to not disappear, so that they'd be easy to revive. If we can revive Thunderbard's normal-space body and force her to go back down to Pikachu and Tibemon, they'll recover on their own."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"The external electric pads to warm up," Cleaver answered.

******

"Digi-modify! Warp digivolution, activate!"

"Terriermon, warp-digivolve to…Megagargomon!"

"Impressive display, Henry, but I have an ace up my sleeve! Digi-modify! Digivolution, activate!"

Another digimon seemed to come out of nowhere and digivolve: "Pangolimon, digivolve to…Glyptodomon!"

"Oh, right! Like two champions will scare me! Gargo Missile!" Megagargomon's attack bit into the pavement and sent the two champions flying.

"Digi-modify! DNA digivolution, activate!"

"Glyptodomon!"

"Avatarmon!"

"DNA digivolve to…Shakkoumon!"

"I'm still not worried," Megagargomon said. "Mega Barrage!" A hailstorm of missiles flew at Shakkoumon.

"Data Vacuum!" Shakkoumon shouted, sucking every missile into its belly.

"You really ought to worry!" The Unnamed Figure shouted back. "Especially since you're outnumbered and outmatched! Digi-modify! Counter-crest digivolution, activate!"

"Shakkoumon, mega digivolve to…Totemmon!"

"Eindramon, mega digivolve to…"