Chapter 48: Family First SECOND
"You know what I'd really like to know?" Willis asked.
"What?" Henry asked. "I thought you knew everything!"
"Don't get me started," Willis shot back. "What I'd like to know is which is worse: snow, or rain."
"I'd say that both at the same time are pretty bad."
"I guess," Willis agreed, readjusting his parka. "You'd think that we've had enough of this weather, but it just keeps coming!"
"Too bad," Michael muttered. "But it's not like we can do anything about it…"
"Hey, Willis, look!" Terriermon shouted. He was pointing to another obelaser spire.
"You think it knows we're here?" Henry asked.
"I doubt it," Betamon said. "Let's blast it now, before it sees us! Betamon, digivolve to… Huh?! It didn't work!"
"We're still in range of the digivolution jamming signal," Henry muttered.
Willis cut in, "There's a way around these spires' power. I have the golden egg of intellect along, so…Golden armor, energize!"
"Terriermon, golden-armor digivolve to…Rapidmon, the arsenal of intellect!" Rapidmon took careful aim at the spire. "Rapid fire!" he shouted, and a pair of missiles flew at the point of the spire. The spire shot one missile out of the air, but didn't recharge itself in time to stop the other.
"One down, who-knows-how-many to go," Rapidmon said.
"Let's just keep at it," Michael shouted over the storm. "And, while we're on the job, we might as well look for some of those unfairy-ring thingies that Tina and June found for us."
"Where would we look for those?"
"The country," Michael answered. "They need loose soil to install the rings!"
"Great…more long-distance hiking in bad weather!" Henry muttered.
"Who said anything about hiking?" Betamon asked. "Betamon, digivolve to…Seadramon!"
They all climbed onto Seadramon's back, and they flew off towards the outskirts of Tokyo. They found a few more spires to strafe, but other than that, their voyage was far from successful. They didn't find a single unfairy-ring in the entire north side of the city. But something found them on the way back.
"Aw, great!" Henry muttered. "Do we fight, or run?"
"If we run, he'll know where we're running to, and he'll figure out where our base is! If we trash him, he won't know anything!" Michael answered.
Rapidmon said, "I dunno, Michael…giantors are pretty tough to deal with…"
"So is Megaseadramon!"
"Seadramon, digivolve to…Megaseadramon! All right…let's try this the quick way: aim for the head, we both use our attacks on the count of three. One…"
"Yon YoNon Gazrii!" Megaseadramon dodged under the blast.
"Three!! Rapid fire!"
"Lightning Javelin!" The two attacks struck the giantor's head. They almost had him down. "Again! Lightning Javelin!"
"Rapid fire!" This time, it was finished. "At least there was only one of them…"
"Yon YoNon Gazrii!"
"Yon YoNon Gazrii!"
"Yon YoNon Gazrii!"
"Yon YoNon Gazrii!"
"…You had to say that, didn't you?!" Megaseadramon asked as he began dodging the blasts of purple flame that flew at him.
"This is crazy!" Rapidmon said as he jumped off Megaseadramon's back. "Rapid fire!"
"Yon YoNon Gazrii!" Another blast of energy flew straight at Rapidmon. In the low visibility of the storm, he didn't see the blast coming before he was knocked to the ground. He regressed back to Terriermon.
"Terriermon!" Willis shouted. "Are you okay?!" There was no answer.
"This is intense!" Henry shouted.
The other Terriermon took off his raincoat and handed it to Henry. "Hit me with a warp-digivolve, Henry!"
"Get ready to rumble…Digi-modify! Warp digivolution, activate!"
"Terriermon, warp-digivolve to…Megagargomon!" Megagargomon opened fire at the giantors, and the repeated hits slowly began picking them off. It was certainly enough to keep them too busy to use their Yon YoNon Gazrii attacks.
Willis shook his Terriermon. "Come on, speak to me! Come on!" There was no answer. He knew Terriermon couldn't be dead, because digimon disappear when they die. But Terriermon might die very quickly if he couldn't do something… He looked around, and he saw that there was a column of shifting shadows and light nearby…it was a temporal eddy. He began running towards it.
"Willis, what're you doing?!" Michael asked.
"I'm getting Terriermon in there!" Willis answered, refusing to stop running.
"Those things are unpredictable! Anything could happen if you go in there!"
"It's worth the risk!" Willis jumped into the vortex of light…and he didn't come out.
"Great…how do we explain this to Yolei?!" Henry asked Michael.
"I don't know…but I think the giantors are a bigger problem! We need to get rid of those things!"
"How are we ever going to do that?! Megagargomon is hitting them with all he's got, and it's too slow…they keep coming at us!"
"Try an upgrade card!"
"I can't: Cleaver told me that, once a digimon from my universe warp-digivolves, we can't use mod-cards on them, anymore. The mods from previous forms will stick if I warp-digivolve them afterwards, but I can't help him now!"
"Then…then Megaseadramon and I will go back to base for reinforcements, while you---"
"Ack!" The noise came from the direction of the temporal eddy. Willis had emerged from it, and he wasn't in the best condition: he looked like he hadn't eaten in a month, and his clothes were worn and full of holes, unable to keep him warm in the slushy weather. But he held two digimon in his arms: one was Terriermon, who had been completely healed but was still tired, and Lopmon, Terriermon's twin brother. Lopmon looked a lot more ready to fight than his brother.
"Willis?!" Henry asked, bewildered.
All Willis said in response was, "Go…Lopmon!"
"Lopmon, warp-digivolve to…Kerpymon!"
Michael's jaw dropped: this eddy had somehow given Willis's digivice the hardware it needed to warp-digivolve Lopmon. How this happened was beyond him, but one thing seemed obvious as Kerpymon and Megagargomon wasted the giantors: Willis needed help. Michael took off his own parka and put it over Willis, and then put one of the standard refugee ponchos over himself. It wasn't as warm as the parka he'd given up, but he knew that Willis needed it more than he did. He hoisted Willis onto Megaseadramon's back. "We need to get him back to base, fast!" Michael shouted.
"At least these won't get in the way," Kerpymon shouted as he finished off the last of the giantor. "What were they, anyhow?"
"It's a long story, Kerpymon: you've been missing a lot, being erased by time," Terriermon said.
"And…who is this?" Kerpymon asked, looking at Megagargomon.
"My doppelganger, that's who!" Terriermon answered. "But there's no time! We need to get Willis back to our home base! Follow Megaseadramon; he knows the way!"
******
"That's the third time we've been attacked by a horde of giantors!" Yolei spat, pounding her fist on her desk.
"I know," Michael agreed. "They must be diverting a lot of backup to Tokyo---"
Yolei shook her head and interrupted, "They didn't use this many machines to attack us before, even when they were attacking the nuke plant. They've got something new…and, if I remember right, giantors were the only type of machine that was attacking you. There weren't any catamarines, saberstrikes, cybertooths, or any other of their favorites. It was just giantors. That's pretty disturbing."
"What could this mean?" Betamon asked.
Yolei sighed and thought the question over. "The only thing I can think of sure isn't good: it's that they have some kind of giantor factory…one we're going to have to deal with."