Weird fact about the internet tubes, they expanded to fit whatever was in them. We'd seen the effect before, with Skullgreymon, but we were a bit too busy flying for our lives to notice. Now that we were traveling with the giant monster, it was much easier to notice.
As Devidramon moved through the tunnel, the walls around her expanded outwards to fit her. Almost like a rubber band stretching out to contain whatever was pulling at it. It was a fascinating sight I wished I could stare at without end.
Instead I had my eyes locked onto the blue ghost digimon sadly floating as the front of our little group. Right behind her was her human partner, giving her a look of sympathy she had no right to be giving out.
A quick interrogation of the two had revealed what had happened. The two of them got to safety only for Ghostmon to convince Luca to go back to fight alongside us. Luca, who was apparently feeling guilty for running away, had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.
Of course, all they ended up doing was helping us drag the older man's mangled, but still living, body to a nearby exit to the internet. Before throwing him out, we tried to destroy his digivice. But as soon as my fingers touched it, it shattered apart into little particles.
I wondered what that was about, but ignored it after a while. I had bigger things to worry about.
Specifically, the two troublemakers right in front of me.
"Alright, so," I dusted my hands after throwing the man out of the internet and turned to Luca and Ghostmon, "It's time to figure out what we're going to be doing with you two."
"But we were only trying to help," Luca muttered as Ghostmon sadly whispered the word help right afterwards.
"Yes, but the only reason we were fighting was to give you two a chance to escape," Devidramon chided, the stern voice getting a bit of a boost from her massive increase in size. "If we hadn't gotten lucky and gotten me to digivolve, you would have been in danger, and we would have needed to get you out again."
"Digivolve? Is that why you're so big now ms. Gazimon?" Luca asked, the attempt to change the subject as clear as day.
"It's Devidramon while I'm like this, and yes it is," Devidramon's four eyes narrowed, "now don't try to change the subject again."
"Yes, Ms. Devidramon," Luca and Ghostmon looked down, not wanting to look Devidramon in the eye. I wondered if it was their guilt or just the fear from how much bigger she was then them.
"If I had the power, I'd ground both of you," she growled before nudging me forward, "but since I don't, I'll have to do the closest I can. Luca, as soon as we leave the internet, you're handing over your digivice to Gabi."
"What but why?" Her head shot back up as she dug her digivice from her pocket and held it close to her.
"Because if you can't listen to us when we tell you to run for life, when can we?" Devidramon pushed her head forward and loomed over the girl. "Either you hand your digivice over, or you're on your own from here on out."
That got a shock out of the girl as I raised an eyebrow at her. I don't think I've ever seen her this angry before. She wasn't yelling, but seemed to just be on the edge. Luca seemed to shrink as Ghostmon quickly moved in front of her.
"And you're just in trouble, you have no idea what kind of danger you could have put her in? If you ever do anything like that again, we're done. Even if Luca hands over her digivice."
Now even Ghostmon was shrinking back as Devidramon got closer and closer to them. Her eyes were glowing redder and brighter as her scowl grew. I could feel some of her anger trying to flow into me and it took a bit of concentration to block it out and keep a clear head.
It was time to step in.
"Devidramon… I think they get the point," I floated in between her and the two shaking children. I placed my hand on the top of her snout and started calmly rubbing it. "I'll handle it from here. Give them a bit, you're scaring them."
And with those last three words, Devidramon's anger broke. Her eyes darkened back to where they'd started as she stared at Luca and Ghostmon before turning away and calmly flying away. I gave the two of them a few seconds to catch their breath before floating over to their side.
"You know," they both jumped a little at my presence. They quickly calmed down when they just noticed it was just me. "I don't think I've ever seen her that angry before. You two must have gotten in there fast."
"Gotten in where?" Luca looked intrigued which only made what I had to say sound even cornier in my head.
"Her heart," I had to fight back the urge to gag, but if there was a time for sappy sentimentality, then the hour was now, "I didn't realize she cared about you two that much."
"But if she cares about us, why did she yell at us?" Luca asked as I tried to think of the best example I could.
"Well, has anyone in your family ever gotten mad at you for doing something dangerous?" My heart sank as Luca's face scrunched up in confusion.
"No, not really," she admitted as both her and Ghostmon shook their heads, "I mean, one time my mom got annoyed at me for breaking a plate. I cut my finger when I tried to clean it up, so she sent me up to my room without dinner, does that count?"
Okay I was pretty sure I'd just heard something I wasn't supposed to hear so let's put a pin on that and come back to it later. Needed to pivot… okay maybe this route would work.
"Probably not," I admitted before changing the subject. "I'll let you in on a bit of a secret, do you want to hear it?" She nodded. "Before she came to our world, Devidramon was part of a tribe. She's used to having a bunch of people around who she cares for. But now all she has is me and two of my friends."
I took a second to pause and look at Devidramon's distant form. She was too far away to hear us, but stayed close enough to get back here in case anything happened.
"Ever since she found you two, she's been different. Showing of a side of herself I'd never really seen. I think she was missing something from her old routine, and you two were it."
Luca looked down as Ghostmon stared ahead at Devidramon's back. After a couple of seconds, they both turned to each other and nodded. The two floated over so they'd be right in front of me.
"Here," And just like that, there was a digivice being held out right in front of me. I took it making sure Luca could see which pocket I was putting it in. "I don't want you and Ms. Devidramon to stop teaching us."
"Don't worry, I'm sure she'll calm down and let you have it back before you know it." I reassured her before she suddenly rushed forward to hug me. She sniffled for a bit, and I was worried she was about to cry, but when she looked up there was a smile underneath the tangled mess she called her hair.
"Thank you Mr. Gabriel." Ghostmon quickly rushed over to join in and by the time Devidramon came flying back, I was buried underneath the pile.
"Well it looks like you three are enjoying yourself." She smirked as Luca quickly let go of me.
"We're sorry for making you worry about us like that, Ms. Devidramon." Ghostmon appeared by her side and whispered the same.
"Just make sure you two don't do it again," She gave them a gentle smile before placing the tip of her finger on top of each of their heads in turn. They both giggled at that as I pulled out Luca's digivice and silently showed it to Devidramon.
She did a small nod right before pulling her finger off Ghostmon. "Okay, I think we've had enough excitement for one lesson. Let's get you two home," She said just as she began to glow purple. I started floating towards her as she began to shrink in size.
I picked Gazimon up in a princess carry before turning to the other two. "Okay, you heard her, let's get you guy's home. We need to start early tomorrow to start looking for the two other kids who're lost here."
"Is she okay?" Luca floated over to get a closer look at the sleeping Gaizmon.
"Yeha, she just gets tired whenever she digivolves." I pointed out as I started floating forward. With everything else taken care of it was time to take that pin out of the wall and let the subject fall over us. "So what were you saying earlier about your mom sending you to bed without any dinner?"
"Three more digivices have been destroyed. Are you sure you know what you're doing?" A man in a suit and tie asked another in a brown robe as they looked over at a wall showing a screen with sixty-six sections. Ten of them were empty.
"It's fine, one of the destroyed ones was responsible for the other two, and that one was taken care of by candidate 3S." The man in brown robes looked over at a different screen, this one showing only 6 sections.
"One of your 'special devices' was involved?"
"Oh come on man, call them by their proper names. Even some of the candidates are calling them 'rebel drives'. I worked really hard on them."
"And yet there are only six." The man in the suit grumbled as the man in robes's face fell.
"I told you, each and every rebel drive is a work of love and art. They're not like the normal digivices which you can mass produce at the snap of your fingers. Each one has to be built by hand in order to make sure they can fit any of the six codes in play."
"I don't appreciate the implications that I 'snapped my fingers' to acquire the other digives, nor that they seem to be redundant to our plan." He pulled on his collar as a bead of sweat ran down his brow. "I still get flashbacks to dealing with Mastertyranomon."
"Hey now, just because the rebel drives have the best odds of acquiring a code, doesn't mean they're guaranteed to end up in the hands of the sixth child. Only the crest can decide that." The man in the brown robes patted his fellow on the back before looking back at the screen with fifty-six lit sections. "And at the rate we're going, we'll have plenty of candidates by the time it reveals itself."
"Are you sure about that? We've already lost almost a seventh of our candidates in only three months." The man in the suit pointed out. "And judging by the way some of the other candidates are going, these first ten won't be the last."
"Yes, but most of those ten happened in the first few weeks of the process." The man in robes countered while pointing to some of the empty sections. "Outside of this last spike, the frequency of lost digivices is going down. If you take these last three as a single incident, the trend keeps going."
"And what about the two children lost on the internet. Traumatized because you thought giving a common criminal a digivice." The man in the suit gave his fellow a stern gaze, an old argument on the edge of flaring back up.
"Listen, we've had this argument. I thought candidate twenty-nine would get a digimon who would help him reform and become a better person. It was sheer dumb luck he ended up with one of the few digimon who would encourage his demons instead. As for the children… Candidate 3S has already planned to look for them with candidate sixty-four's support. I'm planning on sending them a bit of a helping hand in tracking them down."
"Normally I would point out our non-interference policy, but in this case I would rather see you take the minimum effort to fix your own messes."
The two men fell back into silence before starting to review the remaining candidates. They needed to set the stage for the crest. If either world were to have a chance, they would need the power of whatever crest they could get.
