Shinsuke smiles a little as he searches through the NXT profiles, tilting his head as he reads them, their partners, abilities, everything else Luke thought to mention. He murmurs under his breath in Japanese before straightening up and looking at his own group. "These are good. Interesting. Now, let's begin."
Things have changed. His group is even more diminished now, and he doesn't have the reserves that he used to. Still, they carry on. There's nothing else to be done for it. He stares at Morrison, relieved that at least Luke and Mike had managed to make this work, so they aren't completely lacking in numbers.
"Where are we going?" the newest member of the Smackdown team asks, feeling Shinsuke's eyes on him and meeting his gaze head on. It's a solid reaction, makes Shinsuke respect him even more. Shinsuke points out the spot on the map, waits until John nods before putting his digivice back in his pocket. "We should go now, there is a darkness in the air. I don't like it," John says quietly.
"Ah, you feel it too then," Shinsuke says, not entirely surprised, but still pleased at the man's level of foresight. "Yes, let's go."
Morrison nods, a bit nervous but determined to see this through. "Alright," he says quietly, his eyes trained on Coronamon as it settles against Shinsuke's shoulder. He feels a strange, sharp sort of yearning before shaking his head, trying to ignore the horrible emotions creeping through him as he watches Mike interact with his partner as well. He sighs.
Shinsuke watches him with a small smile. "Someday soon, that will be you too, John," he says in his stilted attempts at English.
"You still think so, huh?" he mumbles.
"I know so," he says calmly, leading the way to the digiport.
It should be simple enough. Three go through the digiport, three come out on the other side, but... it didn't shake out that way. John feels something strange, a rift in the usual pressure, and when he reforms, he's by himself, sprawled out on the ground, his head pounding. "What the..." His eyes widen when he realizes Shinsuke and Mike aren't in sight. "Nakamura? Miz? Hey, where are you guys?"
There's no answer. The look of horror on his face intensifies. "Oh, no." He gingerly gets to his feet and looks himself over, relieved to find that, other than the pulsing headache which only seems to intensify when he stands up, nothing else seems to be seriously wrong. He squints up into the sky for a second before looking back around. "Shinsuke, Miz!" he calls out once more, before pursing his lips. They're not here, and yelling like this will do nothing but alert potentially evil digimon to his presence.
"Time to go search for them, I guess," he mumbles, fumbling with his digivice and trying to remember where Shinsuke had shown him. There are so many flashing red dots spread across the map, however, he has no close which way to go. "Shit." Deciding just to pick a path and attempt it, he glances once more at the map before putting his digivice away and trudging forward.
He's only made it so far before something shifts under him and, before he can react, the ground crumbles under his feet and he falls down, down, down, his startled yell quieting entirely after a few moments.
-x
"Shit," Mike yelps. "Where is John!? What the hell happened?"
Shinsuke too looks perplexed. Something of this nature hasn't happened since he became a digidestined, and now they're split up from the one digidestined who doesn't have a partner to protect him. "I'm not sure," he says slowly. "Perhaps something interfered with the digiport."
"That can be done?" Mike whispers incredulously, peering at his digivice as if in hope that it would tell him all of its answers. "John, come on. Where are you?" He looks over at Shinsuke and exhales slowly. "What do we do if he's been taken somewhere else? Like, far away, or... or the digital ocean...?"
"I wouldn't worry about the digital ocean," Shinsuke says after a moment. "But it is possible he is a fair distance away. That digiport could've sent him anywhere." He fiddles around with the map and sighs. "Here are the dots that show Luke's caves, and other important markers for the digidestined to know of," he says once he's sorted through different maps to try to find what he wants. "This shows where we're at." He points out their general area to Mike, who squints at the screen through his ever present sunglasses. "One of these..." he points to a number of other dots that are not flashing and simply remain solid on the screen, "are probably John."
Mike groans and shakes his head, kneading his knuckles against his forehead. "Well, let's go and try to find him. I... don't like him out there alone."
Shinsuke nods, feeling much the same, and they walk side by side to try to find a digiport that's relatively closer to these dots.
-x
John lands hard, the oxygen forced from his lungs, and he groans softly, squinting up at what little sky he can see from this far down. "Ow," he mutters. It's a pretty deep tunnel, and the dirt is packed in such a way that he can't get a handhold, losing all hope of crawling back out. "Shit." He leans back against the earth and frowns upwards. "Well, what am I supposed to do then..."
He fiddles with his digivice, hoping its light could shine and form a staircase or something along those lines for him. Nothing happens and he exhales slowly. "Of course not," he sighs, trying once more to get a foothold and climb his way out. This too doesn't work so he looks around, carefully, trying to find something, anything, that could help him up and out. He's just about to give up when he pauses, leaning closer. There's a space dug into the edge of the tunnel and he picks at it before shrugging, digging around it to widen it enough for him to fit. Once he opens it up some, he slides all the way inside, blinking.
Before he can fully gather himself, there's an inhuman squeeching noise and this strange rodent type creature with long ears and horrifying claws of steel ending in bright red tips comes rushing at him, eyes flashing viciously in the faint light. "Oh shit," John mutters just before it impacts with him.
He tumbles back into the original tunnel, and chokes on dirt and grime as Prairiemon embeds its claw into the ground next to him, pinning him down. "Digidestined ruin everything," she says. "Will not ruin my home as well!" She raises her free claw, about to impale him straight through the chest, when he does the only thing he can think of and lifts his digivice towards her, hoping it'd do something- ANYTHING...
But when Prairiemon starts to laugh coldly, he knows, opening his eyes and watching as Prairiemon cackles derisively at him. "Oh come on," he mutters, biting his lip. She moves in for another attack, about to end all of this- when there's a flash of something overhead, and John yelps as flames drip down into the tunnel and start to singe against his coat and hair, the most of it, however, targetting Prairiemon as she roars out and tries to beat out the fire burning at her fur.
John grimaces as he extinguishes the flames coating his own skin before a dark shape drops down before him with a huff. "Hold on," a voice urges him, arms wrapping around him before they leap. He blinks, startled at suddenly seeing the sun again, and peers down.
There's a red dinosaur type digimon kneeling before him, peering down into the tunnel, strange circles of metal around its tail and arms, around its body, and John swallows. He looks really badass. "Who are you?" he wonders.
"Guilmon," the digimon says. "No time for proper introductions, your little friend down there is coming back up, and she is pissed." Sure enough, when John peers down into the dark tunnel, he can see flashing red eyes coming closer and closer and- Guilmon grips him by the jacket and leaps backwards, putting distance between them and Prairiemon as she lands heavily on the ground before them, claws moving in a blur as she tries desperately to slice them both in two.
Guilmon grunts and tries to defend with his own claws but Prairiemon is faster, stronger, and he quickly finds himself overwhelmed and pinned down against a hill, eyes widening as she lunges at him, claws extended viciously. He rears back and throws a fireball at her, watching with some relief as she dodges to avoid it, but... all relief dies away when she course corrects and slams right into him, her claws puncturing his middle and embedding straight through to the dirt on the other side. His mouth drops open in a quiet scream as data pours from the wounds and John lets out a startled yell of his own, it all had happened so quickly.
Prairiemon laughs cruelly and pulls her claws free before stepping back, allowing Guilmon to collapse to his knees as he slowly deletes before her. "Pathetic," she murmurs, eyes agleam in bloodlust as John falls to his knees as well, staring at the digimon who had merely tried to save him.
Guilmon forces his face up, and squints at John, exhaling shakily. "John..." he says, startling the man. "I'm sorry..."
"How did you know my name?" Morrison breathes out, and Guilmon smiles sadly, his body destabilizing further. John thinks he knows, his fingers clutching around his digivice. "You... you're my partner, aren't you?"
Guilmon's eyes slip closed and he inclines his head. "Yeah," he says quietly. "I... I'm glad I was able to meet you once. I'm, I'm sorry I wasn't there for you sooner. I was... wasn't able to leave this place, I had to wait for you to come to me... and you did." His smile grows. "Perhaps we'll meet again..."
John's vision is blurry. Tears well up hot and quick. "No!" he cries out. "I just... you don't get to leave me, not like this!" His fingers tighten around his digivice and he finds his footing, turning to stare at Prairiemon. "I don't know if you're just controlled by darkness, or were always this evil, but I don't care. I will defeat you."
Guilmon swallows. "John, you can't- you're just... just a human..."
John scoffs, anger vibrating off of his usually calm demeanor. "You'd be surprised," he tells his partner. He lifts his digivice towards Prairiemon, but this time, something's different. It feels different in his hand, his entire body is thrumming with power he's never felt before. "You're finished."
Prairiemon's look of boredom alters into something closer to apprehension when power bursts from the digivice, circumvents her, and slams right into Guilmon. John's jaw drops too, and he looks on in horror as the dying digimon's data is stripped further. "No," he chokes out, but then there's a bright burst of light and Guilmon's voice echoes around them.
"Guilmon digivolve to... FlameWizardmon!"
John gapes at the new form his partner has taken, a wizard type creature with matchsticks in his hand and strapped at his side. His clothes are bright red, with flame designs along the seams, and flames flicker from the top of his hat. Belts crisscross his body, goggles atop his hat, and gold bands cross both of his arms. "FlameWizardmon," he echoes, amazed by the appearance of his partner. His partner, who's not dying anymore. His partner, who's about to go kick some serious ass. "FlameWizardmon!"
FlameWizardmon's intense gaze shifts towards John and he smiles at him for a second before turning his focus back onto Prairiemon. With one wave of his arm, the matchstick contained within his grip, everything around them shifts, turns bloodred as flames rain from the sky above. Prairiemon yelps as she is singed once more, her fur curling up and drifting away on the wind. "NO!" she wails, trying and failing to get away. "Please-" She looks up at them, what once was a peaceful, gentle expression now twisted into hate and pain. "Please help me..."
FlameWizardmon nods solemnly and presses his hand to her forehead, feeling her grit her teeth and once more succumb to the darkness swirling deep within her soul, trying desperately to attack him. "Magic Ignition," he breathes out as his matchstick glows with flame, ignoring her futile attempts at offense.
She lets out a sharp, sudden scream as the fire engulfs her, at such a sudden high temperature that she immediately shatters into data, flowing into the sky and slowly disappearing from sight. FlameWizardmon straightens up as soon as it's over and turns to look at John, who seems shaky and in awe at it all. "Hello," he greets him calmly, reaching out to stabilize him when John jerks a little and looks up at him.
"You're ok, right? Like, you're not still in danger of deleting?" he asks, breathless and anxious.
FlameWizardmon shakes his head. "No, I'm just fine now. You and the power of your digivice allowing me to digivolve saved me." He smiles. "I'll show you." When he dedigivolves back to Guilmon, John twitches, watching closely, as if expecting the digimon to start to fall apart before his very eyes again... but Guilmon is solid, as strong and dependable as he was when he pulled John out of that tunnel.
"I... I have so many questions," John breathes out and Guilmon nods, walking up to him.
"I know," Guilmon says softly. "I do too."
Before they can vocalize any of them, however, there's a sudden burst of power nearby and John looks up, recognizing the sound of the digiport activating. "Oh-" he says, realizing he's forgotten all about Shinsuke and Mike in all of this. "I think my friends found us."
Sure enough, Mike and Shinsuke appear, Monodramon and Coronamon by their sides, and as soon as they catch sight of John, Mike comes rushing towards him and John laughs, extending his arms to grab the man in a tight hug. "I'm fine," he promises, squeezing Mike back. "It's ok." Once Mike lets him go, John peers down at Guilmon. "Guys, meet Guilmon." He waits a beat. "He's my digimon partner."
"Oh my God," Mike mutters, kneeling down to look closer at the digimon. "You've finally found him, huh?"
"More like he found me," John says with a smile, resting his hand atop Guilmon's head. "And he's already saved my life."
"Eh," Guilmon shrugs. "We saved each other's lives."
"Yeah, I guess we did." John grins down at him, his eyes gleaming with happiness. There are still a few things he doesn't understand, but for now, he decides to hold off on questioning his newly found partner and just enjoy the moment.
