Chapter 25:
Some say it is wrong to fight at all, but not fighting at one time can be just as wrong as fighting can be at another time.
The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)
Since monsters were swarming in the city, the Ichijoujis were heading back to their small-town home. Although it wasn't very pretty there, at least it was safe. They had found a few children who had been wandering the streets in St. Paul, and they had the children packed along with themselves in the car, hoping that they could be accommodated for once they arrived.
"So…what're we planning to do about this latest caper?" Tina asked around the head of a seven-year old girl she was holding in her lap.
"It'd be nice if we could hook up with other Digidestined," Yolei answered. "And I wouldn't exactly call hundreds of man-eating monsters a 'caper'. You need to be serious, Tina."
Davis cut in, "What about Mimi? Isn't she still in New York?"
"We could try them, but how would we get there?" Ken asked. "Especially if the cities are all swarming with monsters?"
"Last time we had to travel a long distance, we had Paildramon digivolve up to Imperialdramon," Davis thought aloud.
"Hold on, Davis. It took one of Azulungmon's subspace vacuoles to digivolve up to Imperialdramon. We don't have his vacuole anymore."
"Maybe so, but it also takes Gatomon's tail ring for our digivices to use as a lens to DNA digivolve, and we seemed to be able to DNA digivolve. If we have Gatomon's tail ring, then maybe we have the vacuole back, too."
Ken shrugged. "Okay. We'll give it a try once we get back home and find these kids a place to stay."
After a short pause, one of the children piped up, "Hey, mister! Isn't it against the law for you to be driving before you're sixteen?"
"Relax. I know what I'm doing."
It had been nine hours that they had spent in the basement of that building. Michael and Mimi were both asleep, still sitting on the floor, leaning against each other. Brock felt pangs of jealousy at the sight of this tender scene. He kept thinking to himself, I shouldn't be jealous! It's wrong to feel jealous about her! Besides, she's a little old for me, anyways. Yep, forty-five is definitely out of my league…
Brock was just beginning to fish more canned food from his backpack when he heard a humming noise. He shook the child he'd been holding the previous night and kept a hand over his mouth so he wouldn't make a sound: if that was another weird monster, he'd want to be careful. And it was another weird monster: it was a moth-like creature with a pair of glowing, green eyes. Upon seeing the people, digimon, and Monsters in the basement, it emitted a shrill, unbearably loud screech.
GAZRIITOR:
Nickname: Humbug (Bagutoru)
Real Name: Ilto-tor-oni
Caste: Unuyon Var'ka To'rel
Special Attacks: (None)
Modes: one
The humbug has abilities somewhere between those of a rookie and in-training digimon. Its only means of "defense" is to make an earsplitting noise. Besides hurting attacker's ears, the noise can attract other nearby menace machines. It is used mainly for reconnaissance, finding human beings to hunt for other ator, surveillance, and, on occasion, ambush attacks: two humbugs can combine to form an E-gull, which has noteworthy attacks and is a man-eater.
Brock covered his ears. After a moment of considering the situation, he realized that the scream could attract other creatures. He called Vulpix out of his pokéball. Vulpix couldn't hear Brock's commands over the noise of the humbug, but he knew it was a good idea to destroy the metal bug that was making that noise. "Good work Vulpix."
The noise had been way more than enough to wake Mimi and Michael up. "What was that?" Michael asked.
"It was another monster. That's all that's left of it," Brock answered, pointing to the scorched bits of metal that were left of the humbug. "I don't know what it was trying to do, making that noise."
"I think I do," Suezo yelped, looking at one of the basement windows. There was a saberstrike looking in the window with hungry eyes.
"Hin Tarr!" A pair of yellow heat rods extended from its claws, and it slashed at the window. But it was out of luck: it couldn't squeeze through the window's tiny space. It roared at the people inside and kept trying to squeeze in. It was slowly eroding itself a bigger hole to crawl through in its attempts, so Brock yelled, "Let's get out of here!"
"Which way do we go?" Michael answered, running out the door along with the rest of the crowd.
"If it's away from that thing, I'm satisfied!" Suezo shouted back.
They ran to the upstairs of the building, hoping that the saberstrike wouldn't follow them. It didn't get the chance; it wasn't able to squeeze through the hole in time to track them. The entire group was breathing heavily in a dark, empty room.
Mimi looked around. There was nowhere except the floor to sit. But there was some good news: there was a window in the room. And, since they were several stories up, it would be safer to open the window. Mimi pulled the blinds up and looked out. "It stopped raining and the sun is finally out," she sighed. She slid the window open and took a deep breath. "It's good to get some fresh air again."
"No kidding," Michael agreed, joining her at the window. "I could do with a little less---LOOK OUT!" He and Mimi dove away from the window as a blast of purple energy took a bite out of the wall and the floor of the building.
"Tanemon, digivolve to…Palmon!"
"Koromon, digivolve to…Betamon!"
The two digimon and Vulpix would up their attacks. The strangest thing appeared to fight them: it looked like a solar panel with four rocket engines and a laser cannon attached.
GAZRIITOR:
Nickname: Luftwaffle (Rufetewāpā)
Real Name: Nne-tor-atet
Caste: Var'ka To'rel
Special Attacks: Yore Dar
Modes: one
Luftwaffles are solar powered menace machines, which put them at a disadvantage: the sun is hardly ever in the sky, thanks to Earth's damaged climate. The Luftwaffles will become dormant when the sun isn't in the sky, stacking themselves across a building's side to catch what light they can. The Luftwaffle has two "heads," and, on each, there is a beam cannon and a pair of eyes. The Luftwaffle is unlike most other ator in that it is intelligent: it knows how to work with other luftwaffles to herd around humans and digimon and eliminate them. It also knows to keep away from other, stupider ator. It can siphon energy from some beam attacks to replenish its own power cells.
"Chlorophyll Ray!" Palmon yelled. A ball of green light appeared in the blossom on her head and shot out at the luftwaffle. The luftwaffle didn't seem to be affected as the beam smacked its solar panel.
"Vulpix, try Dragon Rage!"
"Betamon, use Beta Slugger!"
The two wound up and fired. They scored a pair of direct hits, and the luftwaffle went flying out from the building and went smash on the ground.
Michael and Mimi got up. Michael went to check on Betamon's welfare, while Mimi walked closer to the opening to see if any more monsters were swarming outside. She said, "I'm not sure it's safe for us to stay here if we're going to---" Just as she had been saying this, the floor beneath her gave way, weakened by the luftwaffle's attack, and Mimi fell forward towards the street twelve stories below…