Author's Notes: I'll do my best to give everyone as much spotlight time as I can but there are a lot of people and Digimon in the main cast so it's not easy. Also, the title of "Ascension" refers to a lot of cast members as they ascend to higher forms (whether they have quested for it or not). If you wish to be in the omake, just give me a general description of yourself like gender, nationality and age so that I can portray you as best as I can. Last…the three Digimon characters I wrote about in the opening sequence were part of a Frontier story idea that I had earlier but dropped due to Frontier not inspiring much. Catch you at the end!
Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon in any form whatsoever. Bandai, Toei and ABC own the rights and all that stuff. All names mentioned in the omake are not mine except for my own.
Ascension – V 3.0
"Owwww!! Get off of me, you oafs!!" In another district of the ruined town of West Shinjuku, another quantum rift had opened, spitting out three Digimon. The first one to exit the aperture was used as a landing cushion for the other two. The two quickly scrambled off the third Digimon and both offered their hands. "My apologies, Lilithmon. I had not intended to use you as a landing cushion and-"
The female demon lord just brushed some dust off of her body as she got up. "Forget about it, LordKnightmon. Nobody had expected that to happen." The pink armoured holy knight gave a nod in agreement. Before they could figure out what was going on, they heard voices coming closer towards their location. Without wasting any time, the three Digimon leapt up to a rooftop so they could observe the events unfolding below.
There was a group of Gizamon that were engaged with a group of humans and Digimon. What was peculiar was that these particular Gizamon had a strange implant on their foreheads. "Submit yourself to Parallelmon's rule!! Or face the consequences!!" Alice gave a defiant glare. "We're not doing anything of the sort!! Do your worst!!"
As soon as she said that, the Gizamon started to roll their eyes, like they were concentrating on something. The implants on their foreheads started to react and then they all just burst into data. "Uh…what was that?" asked Kazu. Andromon's sensors started flaring up wildly. "There's some sort of strange particle that's been released into the air. It seems to have some characteristics related to a virus…everyone get back!!"
The others started to step back not Beelzemon didn't change his position. "Don't start getting panicky just yet. I got this one covered." He spread out his large black wings and started to flap them, creating some wind. Jeri smiled. "What a good idea! Leomon, you help out too!!" She rummaged through her cards for a suitable one. "Digi Modify!! AncientIrismon Activate!!" Infused with the power of the Ancient Warrior of Wind, Leomon began to assist Beelzemon in his efforts.
"Any thoughts Dynasmon?" The white armoured holy knight narrowed his eyes as he watched what was going on below. "Obviously we have traveled to another place where the events that have taken place in this history have shaped the situation before us. I know for a fact that a Digimon of Beelzemon's status would not be helping those humans. He would be killing them along with their weaker Digimon partners too."
Their conversation broke when they saw something small and white come out of nowhere and land on Jeri's head as the group was preparing to leave. As they noticed this, an odd feeling swept over Lilithmon. 'That creature carries a strange power inside of him. It feels familiar…' She remembered reading Lucemon's notes when she had begun the mission of resurrecting him and restoring the rightful order of the digital world. There was a particular note that had described a gentle golden light strengthening all it touched and allowing them to reach their next level. It was because of this that it took more time to create a cease fire between the Human Digimon and the Beast Digimon.
'Lucemon had described it as an evolutionary aid…a catalyst. Such a catalyst would surely bring us a giant step closer to our goal!! And that Digimon seems to be radiating with that light!' "Royal Knights…I have a new mission for you. You are to capture the white creature. He may have something that could assist us in resurrecting Lucemon." Both holy knights bowed. "As you wish, my lady. However Beelzemon's presence may complicate matters."
Lilithmon frowned when she thought about that matter. They had no information on the nature of the relationship between him and the Catalyst. A direct attack could work but she preferred to get what she wanted by indirect means. And there was the matter of getting back. As she thought about this, her decoy dropped out of a rift that had opened up several metres behind them. Dynasmon and LordKnightmon stood on guard in case something unexpected and nasty popped out. But all that popped out was a human girl.
Upon closer inspection, the demonic Digimon realized that this girl was a Chosen. Note the word was because the screen on her Digivice is filled with static. "A Chosen…we should put her out of her misery." Dynasmon picked up the Digivice, which was similar to Ryo's but there was yellow instead of blue, and crushed it. Then he prepared to attack the human when she started murmuring. "Beelzemon…why did you do it, Beelzemon? Why?"
Her eyes were puffy from crying so much and the tears had stained her cheeks. That meant she couldn't see very well at the moment. So when she turned and saw Lilithmon, she whispered a single word. "Mama?" A smile was on the lips of the demonic Digimon as she prepared to set up what was necessary for the decoy to do its job. "Hush, little one. Go to sleep…" The girl could not ignore the hypnotic tone and lost consciousness.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
As the scene unfolded before the group, Shadowgallantmon smirked underneath his helmet. "So much for you following your ethics not to harm a lady. In this case, do you mind if I can help out? Just give me five minutes alone and I should be able to beat the truth out of her." GCM did not turn around. "Tell us who you are underneath. If we're going to embark on this mission, then I need to be sure that I can count on everybody to do their part."
Sakuyamon gave a small frown. "In that case, wouldn't you be more worried about Megidramon? How about Kuzuhamon or Shadowgallantmon?" The crimson knight narrowed his eyes. "Stop trying to avoid the issue. At the moment, I'm considering you as a hostile entity which has taken over that body. Unless you can prove otherwise."
There was a moment of silence as the tension rose even higher. "I don't exactly know who or what I am. I can feel the weakening persona within this body and I also have some of Renamon's instincts which consists of protecting Rika. But other than that, I have nothing. This is my first time living as a sentient being. I wish I could offer some more answers but I just can't do that at the moment. I swear to you that I have no hostile intentions." Gallantmon blinked once. "So you don't even know what you were before you became…uh, what was the word again? Sentient!"
She gave a nod and waited for the crimson knight's reaction. There was a storm of emotions reflecting in his eyes as he kept thinking of what choice to make and the possible consequences of those choices. Finally, he made a decision and lowered his blade. "For the moment, I'll have to trust you." He turned his attention away to the more pressing matter. "Now we're going to have to figure out how to complete the ascension to this…level that could match Daemon-"
He was cut off by someone giving a frustrated growl. That came from Kuzuhamon who was throwing her arms up in disbelief. "I don't believe this!! You're actually going to trust her?!? For a guy who is supposed to be the most mature out of all you dorks, you're a pathetic excuse for a leader!! Then again, you are a goggle head and I can't expect that much from you…" Shadowgallantmon crossed his arms. "I'm going to have to agree with the psycho bitch queen on the trust issue."
Terriermon was snickering silently and made sure to hide it well as the dark knight was quickly smacked on the head for that comment. Ignoring Kuzuhamon's hit, he continued to speak. "You blindly give out your trust and that is what makes you a fool. One day, it will backfire on you and the consequences shall be quite severe. I would normally suggest killing her but since you three stooges wouldn't like that very much, I'll settle for restraining her until they can go back to just being one bitch overall."
GCM shot a cold look at his dark counterpart. "We need all the help we can get on this mission. She probably has some abilities that would be a great asset to us. She may turn out to be the key to our ascension. Who knows?" Shadowgallantmon returned the cold look. "Or she may be the key to our destruction. A walking, talking, ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment. I would rather not take that chance."
The crimson knight then spoke his next words with a bit of amusement in his tone. "You've always seemed to be the type of person who would love to take crazy and great risks to get what you want." He gave a chuckle as his counterpart smiled icily underneath his helmet. "Ironic how our roles are slowly starting to switch. Perhaps it's better that way. This means I'm the leader and I no longer have to put up with the leadership of a coward who doesn't know what he's doing!"
Noticing the slight twitch from GCM, Shadowgallantmon continued to speak. "That's right!! I question your leadership and your ability to figure out what's best in the long run!! I question your combat skills because as I recall, we were whooped badly by Daemon!!" Kuzuhamon snickered as that fact was mentioned. "I wonder what else is left in you that I should poke at…your honour?"
At the mention of that word, GCM whipped out his sword faster than the eye could see but it was deflected by the dark knight. "Do not question my honour!!!" thundered the crimson knight. Shadowgallantmon was certainly enjoying this. "Now what? You're gonna duel me to defend your pathetic honour?!? Alright…let's go!! Right here, right now!!"
"If you two want to fight, take it outside!! Now!!!" Gennai had a furious look on his face as the last reserves of his patience had been depleted. As the shouting was going on, Ryo slightly moaned to himself since he was missing all the action. Terriermon was visibly scared and quickly hopped on to Henry's head for support. "This is really turning bad…you gotta do something!!"
The tamer nodded and chose his words carefully. "Can't you guys deal with these problems at another time? The red Sakuyamon said it herself…time is against you. This fight is a waste of time and energy and we need to put that at better use!!" The next thing he knew, he was being lifted up by Kuzuhamon. She quickly hissed something in his ear. "Shut up, Einstein!! If all goes well, then the whole dork patrol will be done for!!"
GCM placed his sword away again. "As usual, you're right. Thank you for always being the voice of reason, Henry." Kuzuhamon released the boy and started to pout, much to everyone's surprise. "I swear, somebody up there must really hate me since I'm going through so much anguish…"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
'I had better go over this again. This goes there, ensuring continuity with that event which then triggers that possibility. My goodness…how is Millenniumon able to manipulate reality so easily?!?' Amaterasu frowned as she worked on the necessary manipulations that would have to be made to completely restore the barrier between her quantum plane and the quantum planes of others.
'Being a Digimon of time and space, this stuff is second nature to him.' This thought worried her as she was growing more concerned about the synthetic Digimon completing his new body before the Chosen had a chance to find out who contained the hidden powers that originated from Kotoamatsukami. AMATERASU? DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT THAT YOU CAN SPARE?
Had she been a human, she would have probably jumped out of her skin. Instead she turned around to face Emma-o calmly. "Is there something that I can help you with?" The God of Death held up the life counter of Takato Matsuki, which was fluctuating. She blinked once. "Care to explain?" THE COUNTER BEGAN TO FLUCTUATE APPROXIMATELY TWO HOURS AND FOURTEEN MINUTES AGO.
"Hold that thought for a minute." 'Two hours and fourteen minutes ago. That was about one minute after I sent the four personas of Takato Matsuki back to the digital world in the eastern realm. And by the way the four personas of Rika Nonaka were positioned…' She forced herself not to give an impish smile. "I didn't realize that Kuzuhamon was still beating up Shadowgallantmon. She's quite a bundle of energy, isn't she?"
The God of Death blinked underneath his hood. ER…YES. AS SOON AS THE COUNTER BEGAN TO FLUCTUATE, ALL DETAILS ON TAKATO MATSUKI'S LIFE HAVE UNDERGONE A RADICAL CHANGE AND ARE NOW IN A STATE OF FLUX. I CANNOT PINPOINT HIS TIME OF DEATH OR ANY OTHER DETAILS LIKE THAT. THE SAME GOES FOR RIKA NONAKA'S LIFE COUNTER. He pulled out another life counter from his robe which was fluctuating like the other one.
Any humorous thoughts had dissipated as Amaterasu started to feel even more worried. There was only one thing that she could think of that could possibly have this kind of effect on the counters. "Quantum bio-mergence…with their life counters being affected, that meant that their life-force was beginning to weaken under the strain of holding four corporeal forms." The God of Death blinked again. I BEG YOUR PARDON?
"Their life-forces are weakening and total fragmentation is becoming a bigger possibility the longer they stay like this…this is turning into a disaster!! This is just great…first Millenniumon, then Daemon, then ArcaDemon and now this. They may not even have the chance to find what they're looking for!!" Emma-o replaced the counters in his robe. IF ALL IS NOT GOING ACCORDING TO WHAT YOU HAVE PLANNED, PERHAPS YOU SHOULD STEP IN TO CHANGE EVENTS TO YOUR WILL.
Amaterasu gave a sigh. "It's not that easy. The rules of non-interference with the affairs of mortals have been set up for a reason. The consequences are too high of a price to pay for doing the right thing." FROM WHAT I HAVE OBSERVED, YOU HAVEN'T GIVEN THAT MUCH THOUGHT ABOUT THE RULES WHEN YOU BROUGHT THE FOUR PERSONAS UP HERE. THE HUMANS HAVE AN INTERESTING SAYING…RULES ARE MEANT TO BE BENT.
"Bent, Emma-o. Not broken. Breaking the sacred rules would cause severe disharmony in the cosmos of all four realms." She smiled bitterly. "But those rules won't mean anything if things continue the way they are now. Those rules are going to be our downfall. And when Zeedmillenniumon comes to destroy us all, I'll welcome it with open arms. It'll be our punishment for not doing anything when it really counted."
How's that for the ending of the Third Arc? Well…this is it!! I'm in the final stretch of this story! One more Arc and an epilogue and this fic is done!!! And hopefully, I'll be motivated to finish up my Hacker's Net storyline as well. As for details about the Fourth Arc, all I can say is that it'll be hell…not like the real hell or the hell that Phoenix is planning for her Demon Saga story but close enough. Now that chapter 30 has been wrapped up, it's time for another episode of…
THE CASE OF THE MISSING BIKINI SHOT (Part 2)
For many people, there is always one thing that ruins their day. In BlackTerriermon's case, it would be getting stripped of his TV, Internet and video game privileges. But for Phoenix, it was something else.
HONK!!!
'Great. Another freak hitting on me. Mou…this is getting tiring.' The Authoress of Angst AKA Phoenix kept walking along the sidewalk, ignoring some of the hooting coming from people of the opposite gender. If the entire male population was like that, then she would be justified in saying that there was no hope for mankind at all. But she knew of a few good males who weren't shallow. Speaking of males who aren't shallow, she noticed Epsilon running by.
He then stopped running and glanced over his shoulder. "Hey, Phoenix! How's your day been going?"
"Rather fine other than the fact that I've been hit on more than a Mexican piñata."
"…I see. Well, I better get going to the scene of the crime."
She blinked once. "Something's been stolen?" Epsilon sighed as he prepared to explain what had happened.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
'Excellent…' The bikini shot was placed carefully on a special piece of equipment. Moments later, an enlarging process had begun. 'He is definitely going to enjoy this little present…' A loud laugh was then let out.
At the front counter, Tsunami Wave blinked as the loud laugh came from behind the door of the photocopying lab. Ignoring it, the so-called immortal went back to work on the little mural. 'A little glue here and we're done!! Oh, I've outdone myself!!' (Tsunami Wave ^_^)
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"I had thought there was some hope for the male population but now that hope has shrunken to just you and a few others. It's strange how many people would go gaga over a missing bikini shot of Miss Orimoto."
Epsilon nodded as he completed writing down a small agenda along with a small list of suspects. "Yeah. I've volunteered to solve this little caper and I was hoping to find someone to offer a different perspective. It may be the one kick to get this solved."
Phoenix thought about it. 'Ok…should I go home to study for my APs and increase my stress and probability for a mental breakdown or should I help out Epsilon in something that I think is a complete waste of time?' "Maybe you can ask DC on this one."
And right on cue, DC came up from behind her along with his muse BlackTerriermon. "You heard the news?"
The Authoress of Angst sighed. "Yes, I've already heard about the missing bikini shot."
Before DC could continue, there was a flash of light and before any of them knew it, ZeedMillenniumon was floating in front of them. BlackTerriermon took this next line out of Ascension. "Crap…crap…crap…crap…crap…crap…CRAPCRAPCRAP!!!!!"
"DC, you have completely humiliated me for the last time!!! Prepare to face my wrath!!!!" The author tried to get his partner to bio-merge with him while Epsilon cursed himself for not bringing Galacticmon. ZeedMillenniumon then fired a small ball of white light in front of DC which then stopped. The light then turned into a package of documents.
Then the dark god Digimon stated the next few words that would haunt DC for eternity. "SEE YOU IN COURT!!!! WHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!" Another flash of light and he was gone.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," observed Phoenix.
DC just stared at the package and flipped through it. "I don't believe this…he's launching a civil lawsuit against me for gross misrepresentation of his character in my story Three Worlds Collide!! According to this, because of the fact that I wrote about him being defeated-"
BlackTerriermon added in his thoughts. "Might I add that it took a helluva lot of mega Digimon, mega Digimon who have kicked it up several notches and several high level Pokemon to bring down ONE Digimon!!"
"…his image of being a super tough evil Digimon has been tarnished. Other evil Digimon have mocked him beyond a certain limit because of this story and he's practically suing me for mental anguish!!" DC started to sweat nervously.
"You know, DC…the one thing scarier than a dark god is a dark god with a damn good lawyer," stated Epsilon.
As if things couldn't get any worse, a man in a grey police like uniform walked up to the group. "Excuse me but are you the author known as DigiDestined of Courage?"
DC gave a weary sigh. "That's me. How may I help you?" He then froze as he recognized the uniform of the Digimon Fanfiction Police. These were the readers who nitpicked stories for discrepancies. Any time another person makes a complaint about a fic, these were the people who checked it out. If a fic had severe problems (lousy ACCs, self-insertions that aren't right, really bad grammar and spelling, lousy characterization…basically, general overall cheesiness and corniness), then it would be given a certain amount of demerit points. Once an author gets a certain amount of demerit points for any number of fics under his or her name, he or she had to report to the Chief of the Digimon Fanfiction Police, Alex Warlorn, to discuss how to minimize future errors and levels of cheesiness. Authors who did not comply and mischievous readers (those who abused the complaint system) were then punished by being unable to read or write fanfiction again.
The author started to sweat nervously while the man spoke. "Alex would like to see you tomorrow at four. Good day." He gave a piece of paper to DC and then left.
While DC was still trying to get this through his head, Epsilon checked out the charges. "Let's see here...Digital Eraser got him nine demerit points for rewriting a story, that was already written, for Rukato purposes. Tamers VS Dracula…fifteen!! Wow…that's what you get for mixing two worlds that should clearly be kept separate."
"I told you it would have worked better with Vamdemon, DC." Phoenix shook her head.
"And…Three Worlds Collide…thirty one demerit points!! Talk about harsh charges!! Flawed character interaction, massive self-insertion, insertion of other people…character misrepresentation on Millenniumon. Yow…" Epsilon handed back the paper and patted DC twice on the shoulder. "You'll get through this!! I know you will!"
Phoenix looked at the Chinese author. "Hey, Epsilon. Since DC is going to be busy with legal matters, I suppose I could assist you in your investigation."
"Alright!! Thanks, Phoenix!!" The two of them headed towards the Digimon studio, leaving DC to be alone with his partner.
BlackTerriermon flipped through the pages of the lawsuit. "Well, the good news is that…WE'RE GOING TO BE ON JUDGE JUDY!!!" At that moment, DC fainted.
WHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! That was funny. I definitely enjoyed writing this. Holy moly…there is something seriously wrong with me. I got out three new chapters in about a week!! And I still have exams to write!! What the hell?!?