Author's Notes: I loathe having a phone connection to connect online. Makes downloading Japanese anime episodes and music videos long and tiring. Well, I'm not going to say too many things right now so on with the story!
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 4.3
"This isn't working, Davis!! I need a change in wardrobe!!" Davis blinked before realizing what his partner meant as Raidramon transformed back into Veemon. The others along with the boy's partner, Gargomon, were engaged in direct combat with Cherubimon. So far, they weren't having much luck as it seemed that the giant rabbit was toying with them. "Here we go!! Digi Armour Energize!!"
"Veemon armour-digivolve to…Flamedramon, the Fire of Courage!!" With his transformation complete, the armoured Digimon went back into the battle to assist his comrades. Gargomon fired another round of bullets from the guns on his paws. "Nothing's working against him!"
"He's a mega level Digimon. What did you expect?!?" asked Bucchiemon in an exasperated tone. As this exchange was going on, Cherubimon was growing quite bored by the pitiful attempts to defeat him. Before the others knew it, a circle of small black spheres formed around him. Then they were fired out simultaneously. Digmon's eyes widened. "Watch out!!"
Within moments, everyone had been forced back to their rookie forms except for Gatomon, who still held on her champion form. "Great! Now we have to start from scratch!! And I don't know if we have enough to take down this creep!!" Yolei was almost on the verge of wailing. "Our Digimon need to be able to digivolve as soon as possible! We should be able to do that already since it has been a few hours after Izzy installed those programs into our D3s!!" exclaimed Cody.
Willis stepped forward to speak. "Look…I appreciate all of your efforts to help but you should all get out of here before my partner causes anymore harm!! And would you mind taking the girl too? I don't think it's suitable for her to be in this type of situation." He noticed that Suzie had Terriermon in her arms again. Suddenly, the Digimon was forced out of her arms as Cherubimon began using his telekinetic abilities to draw everyone towards him. Everyone looked on in shock as he played hackey sack and kicked Patamon, Gatomon, Hawkmon and Armadillomon to the side. Then he proceeded to start a small juggling act with Veemon, Terriermon and Wormmon. From his chuckling, he was most definitely having fun.
"Stop doing that at once!! We're at the place where we first met! Now what?!? What's next on your crazy agenda?!?" cried Willis. The destruction that his partner had created had started to affect the child mentally. Cherubimon quickly tossed the three Digimon away, close to their partners. "Go back…" Willis wanted to explode at that moment until he felt an odd wave wash over him.
'What is he doing?' He noticed that the sky was beginning to get darker and the atmosphere was getting colder. When he breathed, he could have sworn that he saw his own breath in a vapour form, like in winter. Willis looked down at himself and found that he was younger. "He didn't mean go back to the place where we first met but…go back in time to when we first met!" He looked around and saw the other Digidestined around the same age as him. But what caught him off guard was that Suzie had not changed at all. 'She didn't change…she's still the same as before. Why? I don't understand!'
What bothered him even more was the glowing object that Suzie was holding in her hand. She had taken it out of her card collection when she felt an odd tingling sensation there. It was a golden card with two very strange symbols on it. One could ask "Should she slash it through her Digivice?" Considering the fact that there was a giant evil bunny in front of her that could continue his destructive rampage throughout the world, the answer would most definitely be "yes". "Digi Modify!! Golden Card Activate!" Hey…it didn't have much of a name and she wasn't sure if she needed to say a card name then "Activate!" but she decided to play it safe.
The screen on her D-Ark flashed with both symbols briefly before firing out two bursts of golden light. Cherubimon noticed this but before he could react, the lights zipped past him and landed right in the hands of Willis and Davis. They were shocked as the Digiegg of Fate and the Digiegg of Miracles took form. "What…?" Willis was speechless. Davis on the other hand realized what to do. "Just repeat after me, man…"
"GOLDEN ARMOUR ENERGIZE!!!"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
There was a swish in the air as Zero brought the Omega Sword down to attack ArcaDemon. The Bewitching Beast Digimon caught the blade between his claws. Taichi just gasped. "Whoa!! Unbelievable! He caught the sword just like that and that sword is supposed to be painful to all virus type Digimon!!" He tried to figure out what data that he could scan with his Digivice would help against ArcaDemon but so far, there wasn't much coming to mind. "This is going to be tough," muttered Zero as ArcaDemon forced him back and used his Dot Matrix attack.
'Odd…by now, Neo would have started crowing about how his partner is the best and all that junk.' His thoughts were interrupted when he felt a strong blow to the head and the stomach. Taichi fell to the ground, out of breath. He then noticed Neo preparing to assault him again. Fighting back the pain, he rolled back out of Neo's reach. "I see that you switched tactics…" Neo simply gave a sadistic grin. "A true tamer must constantly come up with new battle tactics. But that's something that you would have never known."
He quickly ran forward to punch Taichi in the face but the boy ducked before he threw a punch of his own. Neo had a tiny look of surprise as he felt the blow. Taichi noticed this. "Zero taught me a few basics…" The other tamer coughed a bit before chuckling. "So you know how to do something else other than bark commands! How rich!!"
Taichi was about to reply when he heard Zero crash somewhere after being tossed by ArcaDemon. "Hang on, buddy!!" He dashed off towards his partner. Neo was about to follow him when he heard a voice in his head. It was soft, filled with a rare purity that he had not heard in a long time. "Neo…" He felt himself go pale as he heard the voice and immediately tried to find the source of the voice.
'It's impossible!! She's in a coma back at home…' His thoughts were interrupted when he saw the ghastly image of his younger sister, Rei Saiba. "Neo…what happened to you? You used to be so nice. Why did you decide to become mean to everyone?" asked the image softly. He shut his eyes as memories started playing themselves in his mind.
(flashback)
"Hey!! You won't believe what happened!!" Rei and Neo turned back to see their friend, Hideto Fujimoto wave his arms frantically. "My virtual pet had digivolved to Metalgarurumon and Wargreymon!! Is that cool or what? I've thought up of names for them! Org for Wargreymon and Meruuga for Metalgarurumon!" A smile made its way onto the girl's face. "Wow!! I have to see this!!"
Before Neo could react, she started crossing the street without looking just as a bus made a left turn to drive across the crosswalk. Hideto gasped and tried to warn the girl but it did little good. The image of Rei being struck by that bus was seared into Neo's mind forever. While Hideto went to get help, Neo stayed by his younger sister, who was now unconscious. "Hang on…stay with me, Rei!!" The scene then shifted forward from the street to the ambulance. Medical personnel were attending to Rei to keep her stable.
The next scene was in Rei's room at the hospital. "We did all that we could but…at the moment, she's in a coma. Her chances of recovery are pretty slim. And because of that accident, she won't be able to walk for the rest of her life. I'm sorry." The doctor left the room to allow the family to be alone with Rei. Neo decided to slip out at that moment and saw a masked boy, a blonde girl and the one responsible for Rei's accident waiting outside.
The blonde girl, Mari Goutokuji, went up to him and gave him a hug. He barely even flinched as she touched him. "I'm so sorry, Neo…" He gently pushed her off before glaring at Hideto. "It's…it's my fault that Rei had this accident. God…" There was no reaction from the other boy until he grabbed Hideto and punched him.
"Damn straight, it's your fault!!! Because of you, Rei is never going to walk again!!!" Hideto gasped as this revelation as he held his swollen cheek. Neo then dashed out of the hospital. Mari and Hideto had concerned looks on their faces and were about to go after him when the masked boy, Sigma, stopped them. "He needs to be alone right now. Just let him be."
(end flashback)
Every single detail of that accident was slowly replayed in his mind when he first laid eyes on that ghastly image. "This can't be…you're not my sister…you can't be my sister!!!" Taichi had finished helping Zero recover when he noticed Neo ranting like a madman. He then noticed the ghastly image of a girl. "What is she doing here? Who is she?"
At the same time when Neo was going through this, ArcaDemon was seeing things himself. He could see transparent images of three humans and three Digimon. From the look of things, the Digimon seem to be introducing themselves to the humans while the humans are quite unsettled at the fact that Digimon are quite real. One particular Digimon had caught ArcaDemon's eye. It was the same one that he had absorbed when he was a baby…
(flashback) [AN: The place where ArcaDemon came from does not follow the V-Tamer manga storyline. I made up a few things to ensure continuity when I mentioned ArcaDemon absorbing Ebonwumon back in the early chapters of the Second Arc]
When he had become aware of everything around him after his hatching, he could hear the angry protests of a boy. For a newborn, he had very good senses. He was a white haired boy, who was being restrained by a blonde girl and another black haired boy. They were trying to calm the white haired boy down but they were having trouble so a female Digimon had to come in and restrict the white haired boy's movements. "This was what Neo was obsessing about?" The baby noticed two boys towering over him. One had a strange mask on while the other had a very odd hairstyle.
"That's right, Sigma. He wanted to raise ArcaDemon as his partner. This guy is supposed to be amazingly strong. Man…I owe you guys for helping us get rid of Daemon. I don't know what would have happened if he continued his reign of terror in the digital world. Too bad the price of victory was Omnimon's life. Hideto must be devastated…" Sigma made a small motion with his head and a clown Digimon stepped forward. "We have to kill this baby, Piedmon."
Taichi shot a quick look at his partner, who was in ultimate form. "Zero, you help out too." Both Digimon positioned themselves in attack positions. "Trump Sword!!" "Dragon Impulse!!" Before either attack hit, the baby had sprung forward and attacked Piedmon. Using his tentacles, he attacked certain spots on the clown Digimon. Within moments, he was uploading the data.
"Good lord!!" cried Sigma in horror. Neo on the other hand started to laugh out loud, happy that his baby was alive and thriving. Mari quickly took hold of Neo. "We have to get out of here before that little kid sets his sights on the rest of us! Rosemon, create some cover and don't do anything foolish!! Hideto, Sigma…give me a hand here! I don't want Neo getting out of control!"
As soon as that last bit of data was absorbed, ArcaDemon digivolved straight to his rookie form, which consisted of an odd pink humanoid body. "Alright, big boy…I'm over here!!" ArcaDemon just gave a puzzled look at the mega Digimon who was trying to get his attention. 'If the guy can delete Piedmon like that, then who knows what he could do at full power!!'
Hideto ground his teeth slightly. "We've got to find a way to stop this guy before he gets even stronger! If we leave him…he'll probably be able to nuke the entire digital world by the end of the month or something!!" Sigma slowly backed up. "It's called a strategic retreat. If we don't leave now, we won't be able to do anything in the future!!"
That was the last time he ever saw Neo. He didn't pursue them because he was still trying to get oriented with everything else around him. Throughout his time in the digital world, he engaged the Rosemon and the one called Zero from time to time but they always pulled back and allowed him to continue on his way. They had constantly tried to use a plan to stop him but each one was not good enough to do anything serious.
It started to bother him greatly as he grew stronger and older. The fact that they kept annoying him was a key part in his decision to hunt and kill them all. He eventually got his claws into Rosemon but Zero and Taichi had a strong will to survive. ArcaDemon had to understand their instinct for survival and perhaps the only way to do that was by absorbing the data of the Sovereign himself. It gave him quite a different perspective…
(end flashback)
Taichi and Zero slowly backed up, wondering why their opponents were acting so strange and what those transparent images were doing around them. The images seemed to stay for a bit before they vanished. This raised even more questions but he had no time to ponder them as he heard Neo shout an order to his Digimon. "ArcaDemon…destroy…kill…now!!!" The white haired tamer had one final goal on his mind and that was to defeat Taichi. To him, that would solve everything and make the world and everything else in it right again. Zero quickly prepared an attack of his own. "Hyper Prominence!!"
ArcaDemon swung wildly and redirected the attack with his claws into another direction away from them. Taichi noticed the way he was breathing. "I don't like this!! I think that they might be going nuts over something…this is going to make them a lot more unpredictable and dangerous!!" Before Zero could reply, ArcaDemon dashed towards him and knocked the Omega Sword out of his hands. Then he started attacking with his claws. Zero kept moving and blocking the physical blows as best as he could but the other Digimon kept hitting his armour. Finally, he forced Zero back and fired his attack right in his face. "Dot Matrix!!!"
"Zero!!! Get up, buddy! ArcaDemon's going to attack again!" It was difficult for Taichi to imagine that a majestic Digimon such as Imperialdramon Paladin Mode could end up as a battered and broken Digimon. The armour had several cracks and there were some parts that were broken, revealing bruised blue and purple skin underneath. Neo was laughing loudly. "That's right!! All you can do now is watch helplessly as your partner is deleted before your eyes!! ArcaDemon…attack!!!"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
'Man…I am bored.' Ryo Akiyama lay inside the room, still trying to recover from the kick that Kuzuhamon had given to him a few hours ago. Gennai had came by and fed them lunch before heading out to do some work. The legendary tamer had wondered if there was a faster way to recover from a powerful kick to the crotch. 'Some recovery plan…I've got to lie here and let it recover naturally. It'll all work out…yeah, right.' He didn't notice the nudging that was given to him by Monodramon. "Ryo!! We've got to get out of here!!
The boy sighed. "That won't be happening for a while. Anyways, I'm sure the others aren't having too many problems." The rookie Digimon shook his head. "Put it this way…my Double M sense is tingling!!" That was Monodramon's way of saying that he could sense that Millenniumon was on the move.
This got Ryo's attention. "This is bad. We've got to find a way to get better and fast!" Monodramon crossed his arms. "Why don't you first try using a Modify card to make me recover?" It took him a while to reach his cards and find the appropriate one to slash through. Within moments, Monodramon was feeling mostly better.
"Next step…we merge into Justimon." Ryo blinked once. "You sure that as Justimon, we'll be fully ready to go?" Monodramon shrugged. The legendary tamer gave a sigh before taking his D-Ark out. Hopefully, he can figure out what Millenniumon was up to and stop him before he starts causing more trouble. "Bio-Merge Activate!!"
BIOMERGE DIGIVOLUTION… "Monodramon bio-merge to…Justimon!!!"
Ryo then found himself standing upright, without too much difficulty. "Alright!! Now let's get out of here! You can fill me in on the way." The android Digimon stepped out and politely asked Gennai to open the door. He quickly opened up and soon the android Digimon was running in a direction that Monodramon had pointed to. "I think Millenniumon has finished with the towers and now he's getting ready to make a big comeback!"
It frustrated the legendary tamer that he couldn't know all the answers when it came to Millenniumon. "How do you know for sure? Can you give me some piece of evidence that he's coming back other than your tingling Double M sense and the fact that once he was temporarily your neighbour in your head?" He then stopped as he saw a transparent image of a whole bunch of people with their Digimon. The humans all looked like that they were wearing some sort of military uniform.
"Millenniumon's transition to the physical plane can be further evidenced by occurrences like these. You see…he's breaking down the barriers between the realms. The fact that we can see them…" Monodramon paused as the group of humans noticed Justimon and simply stared. "…and they can see us is proof that the barriers are weakening. I don't know what will ultimately happen if Millenniumon emerges."
Ryo had a grim look inside his sphere. "I think I do. There have been some amazingly strong Digimon with abilities similar to Millenniumon's making themselves known. Millenniumon will undoubtedly want to get rid of them all and there'll be a battle of titanic proportions. And if all the fighters attempt to bend space and time to their own advantage in this fight, it's a safe bet that all of reality will implode."
Well, here it is. Thanks for putting up with me for the past two weeks roughly. Procrastination and my trip to Anime North delayed this for a bit. Hopefully, I can beat the procrastination problem. Now that I've finished here, onwards to another instalment of…
THE CASE OF THE MISSING BIKINI SHOT (Part 5)
"Start talking…now!!" Epsilon and Phoenix were in a dimly lit room, with a tied up JP Shibayama. They had bound him and made sure that he couldn't get away since he was the most likely suspect of the entire caper. Currently, Phoenix was playing the bad cop while Epsilon played the good cop.
"I would do as she says…" Phoenix was still a bit sour from the Koji incident earlier. The fact that she had to constantly deal with an unfair life along with crappy stories throughout the Digimon section had put her patience to the limit.
JP was currently freaking out. Wouldn't you freak out if two people grabbed you out of nowhere, emptied your pockets of all its items, tied you up and asked you crazy questions? "I don't know what you're talking about! I swear I don't know anything about the bikini shot!!"
Phoenix massaged her temples before crossing her arms. "Alright then. We'll do this the hard way…"
"You're not going to hurt him, are you?" asked Epsilon in an almost fearful tone.
(Phoenix ^_^) "Of course not! I'm going to torture him in a non physical way…come on in!!"
A boy along with his Digimon entered the room. Epsilon frowned. "Who are you?"
"I'm Akira and this is my partner Lizardmon." The small Digimon waved.
Phoenix was ready to head out. "Alright…the minute you get any useful information out of him, call Epsilon." That was the Chinese author's cue to hand them his cell phone number.
As the duo departed, Akira and Lizardmon prepared to get down to the task at hand. "Seriously…you are the most likely to steal a bikini shot of Zoë so start coughing up answers or else..." Lizardmon eyed the items on the table next to JP. One Digivice, containing the Human Spirit of Thunder…and a hell of a lot of chocolate. "…we start munching on the candy!!"
"I don't know anything, I swear!!" wailed JP. Akira shrugged, took a bar and proceeded to unwrap it. When he took a bite, JP cringed as if he was in brutal pain.
"This is cruel and unusual punishment!!!" cried the boy as Akira and Lizardmon prepared to munch on chocolate to further torture him.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"I don't know if we really should check out Tommy's alibi. I mean…why would he be interested in that type of stuff at his age?" asked Phoenix as they neared the child star's room. A janitor was using a cleaning machine nearby and was making a fair bit of noise.
"I have to check out everybody…even the small and unsuspecting ones…" mumbled Epsilon.
He could hear some noises from the room inside but he couldn't make much out except for bits of mumbled speech. "Yeah, baby…come to papa. That's right…"
Epsilon now had a disturbed look on his face but he restrained himself and continued to listen. Phoenix on the other hand felt that she found another piece of evidence about mankind's deterioration with young boys going gaga over bikini chicks. "So beautiful…give me everything you got! Show me some love!!"
'That's it!!' Epsilon barged into the room and was about to do something drastic when he saw the video game screen with Tommy at the controller. He was so startled that he dropped his guard. Because of that, Ultimate Rugal executed a level 3 Genocide Heaven Super Special Move using the N Groove and wiped out Tommy's character, which was a ratio 4 Shin Akuma using the K Groove.
"Aw, no!!! I was poking him and prodding and teleporting!! I could have won with Shin Akuma against this guy!!"
Phoenix was bewildered. "You were making all that noise because of a video game? I don't believe this!"
"Unbelievable!! Why were you using K Groove with Shin Akuma? It's just wrong! His wussy stamina won't last long enough for the K Groove to charge up for a level 3 move!! Unless you stick to the Just Defend mechanic but that's not really effective!!" exclaimed Epsilon.
Tommy blinked. "Oh? I mostly use K Groove with a lot of my other characters. It seems to work well with everybody…except this guy!"
"Listen to me…if you want to use Shin Akuma against Ultimate Rugal, I suggest C Groove. The Air Blocking mechanic eliminates a TON of punishment…"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Thank you very much. You may leave now…" The delivery boy left the door, having delivered the package to Takuya Kanbara. He closed the door to his room.
"This shot will go nicely with my collection of photographs." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a part of his collection, which had a few shots of Kazemon. He was planning to get some Zephyrmon shots soon to add to the collection.
There was another knock at the door. 'Odd…who could it be?' He opened it and was very startled by the look on his visitor's face.
"Hey! Uh…what's up? Something bugging you?"
There was a chuckle. "Not at all, Mr. Kanbara."
He started to sweat. "Then would you mind…not creeping me out? Please?" He backed into his room nervously as the visitor stepped forward with a very odd smile.
"I have a little surprise for you…" A moment later, a thump was heard, meaning that someone had just collapsed on the floor.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Roll!! Roll!!!" Epsilon pressed a button and had Shin Akuma roll underneath Ultimate Rugal.
'So far, so good…poke and pressure. Minimize combos unless you can pull them off for sure!!' The hit and run tactic was doing quite well as Ultimate Rugal's life bar was at around 20% of full health. But he still had a 5% lead over Epsilon's character.
'Wait…he's teleporting again!' A "HAHAHA!!!" was heard from the television screen.
"EAT THIS…SHUN GOKU SATSU!!!!" Epsilon punched in the sequence for Shin Akuma's Raging Demon super. His character flew across and grabbed Rugal at the end of the teleport sequence. Thirty three hits later, a large piece of kanji was on the screen with Shin Akuma standing over the defeated Ultimate Rugal.
"You did it!! You did it!!!" shouted Tommy. Phoenix shook her head in disbelief as Epsilon and Tommy linked arms and started dancing around, singing 'lalala' like Taichi and Zero in V-Tamer.
"Mou…apparently someone out there has deemed me worthy for eternal damnation…"
Well…the conclusion of the Case of the Missing Bikini Shot should be up in the next chapter. Until then!! By the way…I actually got Ultimate Rugal once with the Shun Goku Satsu!! It was great!!!
Note…I don't claim authorship for Capcom VS SNK 2, alright?!?