Disclaimer: Digimon is a franchise owned jointly by Toei Animation and Bandai, and conceptualized by Akiyoshi Hongo. Doctor Who is a property owned by the British Broadcasting Company created by Sydney Newman. The concept of The Tamer v2.0: In His Name is a fanfiction idea. Please support the official properties.
The Tamer v2.0: In His Name
Chapter 45: Interception
About ten minutes north of Tokyo, a flight of F-15s escorting a B-2 made its way towards Tokyo from Misawa Air Base. As the planes made their way, the pilot of the lead F-15 shook anxiously at the controls. He never thought he'd been given the order to bomb Tokyo, especially without electronic guidance. The risk of civilians casualties and collateral damage was terrifying. It was practically an act of war! He didn't even understand why they were doing it. It's not like they were at war with the Japanese.
At least, he didn't think they were. But political situations changed all the time. Yesterday's friend became tomorrow's enemy - ideals change, the mission shifts, objectives...
It didn't help that they didn't know what exactly they were flying into. Command briefing boiled down to go here and drop the bomb, although they insisted it was because the Japanese government had left them just as much in the dark as it had left them. Much more likely, it was classified behind some bureaucratic government crap. All they had been given were coordinates.
This was just a fact of the world he'd learned to accept after piloting for so many years. Suddenly, two blips flashed on his radar. He scanned the skies for whatever set it off but only saw deep blue sky. It was likely just another passenger jet that had been diverted from the city. Still, he put out the alert, "Warwolf Squadron. Bogeys on radar. Prepare to defend the bomber."
"Captain, it could just be a civilian flight," came his number two.
"I don't see any civilian aircraft," the third pilot remarked, "Besides. No way two civilian flights would fly that close together."
"I know. Stay on alert," he insisted while continuing to scan the skies. The blips were out there somewhere. They just had to keep their eyes peeled. That was when they saw a flying metal wolf followed closely by a golden bird with two sets of wings soon past them. Both were bigger than any of their planes and neither seemed particularly friendly. Already his squadron was in panic.
"Did you see the size of that bird?"
"Forget the bird! That wolf is flying!"
"It has missiles on the back!"
"Does it matter? Warwolf 3, Warwolf 4, protect the bomber. Warwolf 2, on my lead. We're going after the bird," The flight lead ordered, breaking away from their formation to turn on the bird that was circling back to fight them. His number two formed up behind him and asked, "What about the flying wolf, captain?"
"We'll worry about the it later. Stay glued to my tail. We're going after the bird. If you have a shot, take it," and ordered. He wasn't sure how those things could possibly have known about the bomb but that didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that the payload got to the target.
"Copy," the other pilot said, staying on him as they engaged the golden fiery bird. He primed his weapons and fired up the guns as it came into range, tracing the bird's path across the sky as it swerved and dodged. And as he expected, the bird turned hard and out of the way of the gunfire. Warwolf Two panicked, "They're on us!"
WHAM!
The bird's claw dug into the jet's wing, holding tight so that the two went into a tailspin in the air, "It's on me! Losing thrust. I'm going down!"
"Hang on. I'll shoot it off," the flight lead said, turning his plane to line up a shot on the bird. The two spiraled downward making it hard to line up a clear shot that didn't involve nearly shooting down his number two.
"The ground's getting close boss! Whatever you're going to do, do it quick," the other pilot said.
He took a deep breath, weighing the possibilities before them before explaining, "I can't get a clear shot."
"Fuck it. I'm going to bail out," the number two screamed back.
"Negative, Warwolf Two. Steady the plane," he countermanded. It was too late to reason with the man who was in full panic now. After all, there was no precedent or training for this specific scenario. No amount of training could prepare someone for a giant bird latching onto their plane.
"Either that thing will kill me or the ground will. I'm bailing out," the scared pilot said. There was a flash and the plane's canopy burst open. Another flash followed as the chair ejected from the jet. For a moment, it seemed he would get away until the bird grabbed him with its other claw. He screamed, "FUCK! IT'S ON ME! FUCK! GAAH!"
All bets were off now. He primed his guns and started firing at the bird, only to watch it drop the plane and zoom out of the line of fire. Warwolf Two's screams filled the radio the entire time as he cried out, "FUCK! FUCK! GET! DAMMIT! LET GO!"
Then a woman's voice said over the radio to try and calm him down, "Will you calm him down! We're not going to hurt you so stop screaming!"
"What the fuck!?" Warwolf Two's panicked voice said, "Captain! Got a woman here on the bird! Repeat! I got a-"
Then the woman's voice spoke again, "You're worse than Matt after a bad day. Just stop screaming and let us help you!"
"Who the hell is this? Warwolf Two, can you identify who that is?" he said into the radio but it was useless to even try as the pilot continued screaming in terror. All he could do was stay on that bird and try to get it to drop the chair so he could deploy his parachute. As he turned hard to continue the pursuit, he heard a roar beside him and noticed the metal wolf again. And now that he could see it so closely, he saw what looked like a man riding on its back gesturing at him. It took him a second to register the arm waving and hand gestures - friendly. It was the signal for friendly.
What the hell did that mean? Friendlies that attacked a plane carrying a bomb? He doubted it. Before he could do anything else, the metal wolf sped ahead to join the golden bird and the man riding him began pulling at something on the bird. As he did, Warwolf Two's screams got quieter, "What're you doing!? Who the hell! Hey! Get that off! Stop! Let that go! HEY!"
He went quiet and another man's voice spoke over the radio in really broken english, "Attention all American fighters. Disengage and stand down."
"Who is this?" the flight lead said over the radio, "Identify yourself!"
"Just some friends trying to stop a lot of people dying for no reason. Stand down," the man said again. It didn't take a genius to figure out it was probably the man riding the metal wolf. All the same, he wasn't about to take orders from a foreigner. He said back, "Negative. This is a military operation. Disengage or be destroy-"
He was suddenly blinded by a flash of light and felt a heavy weight land on him, "Finally! That took more tries than it should've. Doesn't help this is a very fast, moving target."
When the pilot could finally see again, he could make out a ten year old boy sitting on his lap. It took all the self control he had to not send the plane spiraling out of control as he demanded, "What the hell? Who are you? How'd you get in here!?"
"No time to answer. Need to get that bomb you're carrying but before that, I need to stop you from shooting my friends. Apologies in advance!" the boy answered as he reached between the pilot's legs for the eject lever beneath him. He realized what was going on too late to stop the boy; the plane's canopy blew open and he felt the chair rocket out of the aircraft. There was another flash as the boy disappeared from his lap but his radio was still working. Through it, he could hear the man talking to the kid.
"TAMER! What are you doing here!?"
"Sorry! When Kari said they didn't see any planes, I thought I'd come check over here. I was trying to land on Hououmon but I missed a couple of times. Not that it matters since I saw all the planes. Speaking of which, that pilot should've eje-"
Whatever he was saying was drowned out by the parachute deploying and him suddenly lurching upward. He had no idea what was happening right now. What he did know was he was never coming back to Japan once he was retired.
Imperialdramon suddenly stopped in the air and said, "Okay! That makes the second time we've gone around the entire Digital World. We have to scanned everyone by now!"
"All the survivors, at least. There's more of that thing than there are digimon now," Ken said grimly as they hovered over the fight going on miles below. The sky had turned as red as the ground from all the D-Reaper spread. At several points, it would expand skyward when it couldn't expand outward - turning it from an advancing sea to an advancing wall.
"I'm going to message the others now," Davis produced his D-Terminal and started typing away, "We just circled the Digital World twice. Are we ready to go ahead?"
No sooner after he sent it, The Tamer and Guilmon appeared beside them in a flash of light. As soon as they landed, Guilmon hurled all over Imperialdramon's feet and the dragon roared in frustration, "AW! COME ON!"
"I don't like this. Please stop," Guilmon pleaded painfully as he struggled to keep himself up.
"Sorry buddy," Tamer remarked, massaging his back, "You're sure this is everyone, right?"
"It's as many as we can find. We've covered the Digital World twice and the Digital World won't last much longer. We need to move this plan now!" Ken said, hoping the urgency in his voice would carry over to the boy staring back at him. Instead, he paced for a second before answering, "It's ahead of schedule but it's the best we can do. Let's go. Digiport Open!"
"Whoa, wait-"
Ken tried to protest but it was too late. In another brilliant flash of light, they were teleported away from the Digital World and suddenly found themselves in the skies over Tokyo surrounded by the other partner digimon - MetalGarurumon, Hououmon, Magnadramon, Rosemon, HerculesKabuterimon, and the rest. Ken was about to yell but Davis snapped first, "Give us some warning first Tamer! I can feel my lunch turning in my stomach."
"Tell me about it. Please make it stop," Guilmon pleaded again before retching over the side of Imperialdramon.
"Sorry, things are happening faster than I can keep up and I'm just trying to keep it all from blowing up in my face. Henry can explain the plan while I…go back to the Digital World and get that separation started. Dammit, I forgot to do that," he answered before raising up his digivice again, "Digiport Open!"
"Oh no," was all Guilmon managed to say before disappearing in another flash of light. Ken stamped his foot angrily at once again being left out of the loop while Imperialdramon groaned, "I've already been puked on. Please don't kick me too!"
"Sorry, Imperialdramon," Ken pocketed his hands quietly and turned his head in shame, "It's just…too much like old times."
"Don't sweat it, Ken. Just go with it and things'll work out," Davis said with a thumbs up, "So what's the next part of the plan guys?"
Henry massaged his neck and explained nervously, "We rescue Juri. Tamer said we drop this bomb on the D-Reaper right above where the train was and it should create an opening that'll get us to Juri. Once we do that...well, we're not really sure where to go from there."
"Got it. Wing it," Davis nodded ecstatically "But...uh...where'd you get the bomb!? And why does it have the American flag on it?"
"Let me guess: Tamer?" Ken asked, already sure he knew where the answer was going.
"Tamer," Taomon nodded quietly.
Ken buried his face into his hands, letting out a great big sigh before remarking, "Great! So besides avoiding our own government, now we have to worry the Americans are going to come after us."
Matt cracked a smile, "To be fair, that's really more a problem for Hypnos than it is for us. And since they're the ones responsible for putting us in this mess, I say we keep on going. I mean, they're the reason our partners and TK went missing for so long. Speaking of...is everything ready in the Digital World."
"Yeah...what about over here?" Davis thumbed his nose. Kari was already messaging on her D-Terminal, "I'm checking with Izzy now. Hopefully they'll be ready soon because who knows what that thing is going to do once the ball gets rolling."
"Who cares!? Can we just get back to kicking ass already!?" a leather clad digimon holding a shotgun roared. Ken looked over at Davis with a raised eyebrow, seeing the equally confused look on his face meant he was just as lost as he was. And now it was his turn to ask, "So who's this? And who's the digimon with the scarf?"
"Name's Beelzemon," the leather clad digimon grunted angrily, "Are we done talking now? I'm getting antsy just standing here."
"Name's Justimon," the scarf wearing digimon said, "Or...well...if you remember, it's me. Y'know, Ryo."
"Ryo?" Ken repeated for a moment, staring at him in disbelief until it finally clicked, "RYO!?"
"Hey Ken," the digimon waved nervously. His mind reeled at the realization that the boy he thought went missing so many years ago was in fact right there in front of him. And as a digimon. How was that even possible? Last he knew the boy had fallen into a black hole going who knows where.
"Whatever the heck is going here, can it wait until after this is all over? I'm getting kinda sick of all the warm fuzzy crap coming from those two," he gestured angrily at both Justimon and Rika, "That's right! I said it. Get a room."
Izzy and Mimi's daughter promptly kicked Beelzemon in the shin, making the leather clad digimon jump in pain. It would've been funny if the fate of their worlds wasn't at stake. Ken sighed, "So...when do we start?"
"On Tamer's signal," Henry sighed.
Kazu and Kenta paced the room anxiously, annoyed that they weren't able to help in any capacity while they were stuck inside the Metropolitan Building and both wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible. Their partners however, were content to simply hover over the many scientists and engineers working to get the Juggernaut back online. They watched with a fascinated curiosity, as if trying to get some kind of understanding of what they were doing.
Then a flash of light appeared followed by a yelp. Tamerkato and Guilmon appeared once again in the center of the room. Guilmon proceeded to retch onto the floor and covered a sizable chunk of the carpet with half digested bread and meat that smelled to high heaven, "Please! No more!"
"Sorry buddy. I swear there's just two more. Then we're done," Tamerkato said, dusting himself off, "Yamaki! Where's Yama-there you are! Yamaki, how much longer until Juggernaut is ready?"
His tone was grim as he answered, "Maybe another half hour? But that's making a lot of hopeful wishes and assumptions. Juggernaut is far from ready to fire and there's a good chance that all we'll do is get ourselves blown up again."
"Damn. I need to separate the Digital Worlds now. The digimon can't hold out much longer," Tamerkato said urgently, "Once the Digital Worlds are split, it'll be able to focus itself entirely on this building."
"So you're going to make us decide who's lives are on the line?" Yamaki asked.
"Not at all. I was giving you a warning," Tamerkato said with a deceptively big smile, "Because I'm making that decision. I'll do everything I can to hold it back but Juggernaut needs to be ready to fire."
"Hold on! You said our daughter is in that thing! You're not just leaving her in there to die, are you?" Juri's father jumped into the conversation quickly, "That's my little girl! And it's your fault she's even in this mess!"
"I know. And I'll do everything I can to set it right," Tamerkato added quietly, "I...I am so sorry for that. It wasn't...she wasn't supposed to get hurt."
"Wasn't...or you weren't going to stop it?" Rika's mom scoffed from the other side of the room.
He didn't look at her, keeping his eyes solely on Juri's father, "I will save her. I promise you."
"Like you saved their son?" he gestured at the Matsudas who were sitting quietly in the corner, away from all this. It was obvious to everyone that the dad wanted to get up and punch Tamerkato in the face, and it was Miss Matsuda restraining him from actually doing it. All the same, that didn't stop Tamerkato's eyes from turning to the floor, "No...not like him...Excuse me."
As he stepped away from Juri's father, Kazu and Kenta rushed over to him, "Takato! Dude! When are you going to get us out of here!?"
"Not my name," he replied dryly, almost annoyed at the way they chose to call him by that name now of all times. And the way the Matsudas eyed him bitterly made it clear that they didn't appreciate it either.
Kazu was pretty sure he knew what was going through his mind and tried to pull him away. Tamerkato barely stopped though and Kazu had to urge him, "Dude. Leave them alone."
"No...I need to say this," Tamerkato freed himself from Kazu's hold and proceeded towards his not-parents. This wasn't going to be good and he stepped back towards Kenta, "Here come the fireworks. I can't watch."
"Two rare cards says he gets punched at least once," Kenta added dryly, "Three rare cards says they swear at him too."
"That's a safe bet," Kazu added quietly. Even though he was trying his hardest to ignore it, it was all he could hear. The whole place should've been busy with noise from all the engineers fixing machines and computer programmers typing away. But it was like the whole room had stopped to watch the events play out between the not-quite a family.
Tamerkato tried to get the first word in, "I'm so-"
Mister Matsuda got up and walked away before he could finish what he was saying, leaving his wife there reaching after him solemnly. Then she looked off to Tamerkato quietly, her eyes barely restraining the pain she was feeling just by the sight of him. He massaged the back of his neck nervously, "I...I'm sorry. About everything. About lying to you. About your son. All of it. I'm sorry."
Mrs. Matsuda was quiet for the longest time, trying to find the words to say to him but it was obvious she wasn't even able to look at him. Then she asked a single question, "Does your sorry bring him back?"
"That's the worst question anyone could ask, huh?" Kenta whispered to Kenta, "I'm counting that as a hit. It's a gut punch."
"No way. She needs to actually hit him," Kazu whispered back just as Mrs. Matsuda stood up to slap Tamerkato. The sound was so sharp and the sight so painful that Kazu had to wince. Tamerkato barely flinched from the hit, but his gaze didn't go back. Meanwhile, Kazu whispered, "Okay, you win."
"Is now really the time for this?" MarineAngemon asked.
"You're right, sorry," Kenta admitted sheepishly, looking back to watching the scene unfold.
Tamerkato had stepped away and was massaging his cheek, "I'm not sure what you want me to say...or if there's something you need to hear from me. But I get it if you don't forgive me. I wouldn't forgive me either."
He paused again, seemingly considering his words carefully, "It won't bring your son, the real Takato, back. But...I think he would've wanted you guys to know that you are…were…you're great parents. And he's sorry that he didn't come home but that he was thinking of you guys…even in the end."
Then he was slapped again, "Please...just go away."
Tamerkato massaged his cheek and closed his eyes, "Don't worry. I won't bother you anymore. Guilmon, we're going."
"Coming. Please promise we're done with the digiports," The red dinosaur rushed over to his side and whined, knowing they were about to take off for the Digital World again.
Just as he was about to go, Kazu rushed in, "Hang on. We're coming too."
"Oh no you're not!" his dad protested.
"We've been stuck in here the whole time while everyone else is out there getting themselves in danger! There's no way I'm going to sit around in here one second longer!"
"Yes, you are! We're not letting you get yourself killed!" his dad insisted.
Kazu closed his eyes, "Are we going Tamer?"
"We-," he gestured to himself and Guilmon, "-are. You guys are staying here. I'm not letting anyone else's kids be killed on my watch."
"Oh, so what? You're going to let Rika and Henry and the others stay out there?" Kazu argued with him.
Tamerkato snorted at that point and remarked, "Are you going to tell her what she can or can't do?"
That was also a good point. And he hated it. He hated being stuck in here while everyone else was out there and a part of the action. How could he argue with that? Kenta and Guardromon joined him to try and make their own pleas.
"We can help!" Kenta added.
"Proposition: Victory percentages increase if we were allowed to join," Guardromon stated in his monotone.
MarineAngemon joined in enthusiastically, "I don't know what they're all talking about but it sounds like you're all in need of help and that's what I'm here to do!"
It was pointless though. It was obvious he wasn't going to change his mind. Tamerkato just sighed as he massaged his temple, "I'm not going to drag you with me to the Digital World. But there's not much I can do to stop you guys from grabbing on to me when I say-"
He paused and Kazu didn't understand what he was getting at. Annoyed, he shouted, "We'll tackle you if we have too!"
Tamerkato responded by laughing at the top of his lungs. He wasn't sure why Tamerkato found it so funny though; he was dead serious about holding him down until they were allowed to help. At least until he understood that's what Tamerkato was getting at. Just as he raised up his digivice into the air, everyone grabbed onto Tamerkato as he cried out, "DIGIPORT OPEN!"
Even though they felt a falling sensation, Kazu's spirits were sky high because he could finally get out of that building and do some real good! And that made him so happy! At least, he felt happy and it lasted all of a few minutes until they landed on another cold, hard floor made of concrete and stone.
Once Kazu got his bearings, he groaned, "What? I thought we were heading outside! What's this place?"
"Technically, you're outside the Hypnos Building so you still got what you wanted," Tamerkato remarked matter of factly on the floor in front of him, offering a helping hand. As he took the help up, he saw Guilmon run into a corner and throw up uncontrollably.
Kazu groaned, "Yeah, but we're still inside. What gives? I thought we were going towards the action. Where are we?"
"The Hallowed Bastion," Guardromon explained knowledgeably.
"Wait a second, I know this place! This is the castle Ryo took us to!" Kenta said aloud as he straightened himself out. Now that Kazu got a better look at it, it seemed they were indeed in the castle Ryo had taken them to before when they were trying to reunite with the others before. But this area was different - they'd never been here before.
"We're in a secured area of the Bastion," Tamerkato explained as he helped his poor, nauseated partner up. He rubbed the dinosaur's back to help ease his upset stomach while explaining, "Because this next part of the plan uses a technology that the Guardians only ever used in emergencies - splitting merging worlds and combining separate ones isn't exactly the safest of ideas. There's a lot of risk. One miscalculation and you could find yourself merged into a wall. Someone could blink out of existence or, worse, two people could end up merged into one. Sort of like what happened with Miss Asaji and Kari."
As Kazu's vision adjusted to the darkened halls, he noticed a large silver door before them. It was open just a crack, enough for them to slide through easily to find a large cavernous room with a single pedestal in the center. Tamerkato rushed towards it with a big smile on his face and tapped a curious device he was wearing on his ear. A screen appeared in front of them, floating in front of the boy as he began tracing his finger along the thick layer of dust that had accumulated on the pedestal.
Once the last symbol was drawn, the room came to life with light and Tamerkato gleefully said, "Alright! We're on! Now to set up the data that Davis and Ken scanned."
He poked the floating screen in front of his face and small sparks of light jumped towards the pedestal, bringing it to life with light too. Now that they could properly see the world around them, Kazu asked, "So what is this place?"
"Don't remember the name," Tamerkato answered quickly, "Do remember what it does! It splits worlds apart…usually to destroy them so utterly that nothing is left. But that's not what we're trying to do - we're trying to rip apart two merged worlds. Which is why I needed the data of all the digimon in the Digital World to safely get them to the Natural Digital World when it gets separated from the Artificial One. I'm going to cross reference that information with the information from Database from Izumi's laptop to make sure that we're only pulling apart the Natural Digital World and none of the Artificial One gets taken with it."
"What?" Kazu said, feeling like he was sitting through the most boring lecture of life.
"Would you like me to simplify the explanation?" Guardromon asked.
Kazu wasn't in the mood for more lessons or study plans and just sighed in resignation, "How do you think I would follow any of that just because you used less big words?"
"I think the biggest word in that entire sentence was 'Artificial'. Or maybe it was 'Database'?" Kenta mused quietly.
"Okay, now to message the others and tell them to get ready to attack," Tamerkato said, pulling out what looked like a radio from his hoodie, "Davis! It's The Digimon Tamer! Can you hear me? Get ready to attack. In about twenty seconds, the D-Reaper's going to be thrown off by the biggest headache it's ever felt."
"On it," Motomiya's voice echoed back dryly. Tamerkato waited a few a moments longer as the light gathered around the pedestal before beginning to trace his finger into the pedestal again. Kenta watched him carefully and asked, "What are you doing?"
"Concentrating," was Tamerkato's answer.
"Not all ancient technology works the same. Some work with buttons, others through voice command, and this operates on written language. It was their final fail safe to ensure only their kind could use their more dangerous technologies. Trace the writing onto the device to operate it. It's not convenient but some technologies shouldn't be convenient," Guardromon explained.
"And NOW!" Tamerkato declared as he finished tracing his finger along the pedestal. They felt the castle rumble as Tamerkato ran up to them, "The worlds are splitting apart and we need to get out of here before we gets mixed up in it and get split identities!"
Nobody needed telling twice as they leapt on to him and Tamerkato raised up his digivice, "DIGIPORT OPEN!"
The falling sensation returned but things were different. It was like the world was cracking around them - breaking into fragments like glass. And he could see something…starting back through the cracks at them. It wasn't a digimon…and it wasn't human. Whatever was looking at him, it was all Kazu could do to not scream.
…
Taomon carried Rika in her arm as they flew over the red mass guided by the school teacher atop her own partner Magnadramon. Despite all the danger they'd encountered, Renamon had to admit that she was enjoying herself. Between the ancient threat to the Digital World, meeting the sovereign digimon, and fighting along side the famed heroes of the Digital World; Renamon was unsure if there was anything else she specifically could ask for in the moment. Not to mention getting to help the Digimon Tamer save reality, although she was disappointed that a lot of the stories she'd learned about him in that time weren't as true as they seemed.
Least of all was the part about him being a great warrior. If any part of that story were true, it stopped being the case a long time ago.
Still, for a digimon like herself, this was a once in a life time opportunity. One she was sure she would've been deleted and destroyed long before she had the chance to ever experience it. Then again, that was nothing when compared to what must've been going through Beelzemon's mind.
When they'd first met, he was so dead set on not getting involved and letting others do all the fighting. And now? He was fighting right along side them. Even if the partnership were circumstantial, it brought a smile to her face.
"What's got you all smiles?" Rika asked.
"Just enjoying the moment while it lasts," Taomon answered.
"Really? This is the moment you're enjoying?" Rika's tone became skeptical, "We're fighting for our lives against an enemy so powerful that even a bunch of reality altering old farts couldn't think of how to kill it, and you're enjoying it?"
Taomon laughed, "Not that. This...All of us fighting together like this. It's almost amusing to think we were trying to hurt each other when we first met."
"Gotta admit, Rika's certainly not the ice queen she was when this all started," Rapidmon added with a big smile.
"Not everything's changed. You're still as much of an annoying goofball as when all this started," Henry remarked before turning his head over to Justimon, "Thing's probably changed the most for you. After all, you've been in the Digital World this entire time."
"Not really. We're still fighting for our lives every day against a bunch of monsters. All that's really changed is the location," Justimon answered pensively. He paused for a moment, his mood unreadable because of the helmet concealing his face, "Whether it's here or in the Digital World, what difference does it make? I might as well have stayed if I knew all this was going on."
Perhaps Ishida was just getting tired of all the talking but he remarked with his usual bitter tone, "You've all matured so much and you've all grown up. We're proud of you. Blah blah blah. Look, can we save all the touchy feely talk for after we've beaten the world-killing monster thing?"
"Come on, Matt. Go easy on them, they're kids. We were like that too," his wife reminded him calmly, "And don't try and tell me otherwise, mister had to go off and play his harmonica to feel better."
"Honey! Come on," the man sighed reluctantly, his head turning bright red with embarrassment.
"We're here," Kari announced loudly as they reached a part of the city that was half swallowed by the red mass - the roofs of buildings jutted out through the red sea through which they could make out the vague outline of streets and alleys.
"You're sure?" Davis asked.
"Yeah, I remember that roof top specifically! It's where Tamer and I went after the train," Kari said.
Their D-Terminals beeped at the same time and Kari read hers first, "And that's Tamer's message. It's time!"
"Okay, do your thing Matt," Ken cried out as the adult man turned behind him. He pressed a few buttons on the side of the weapon mounted on his partner's back, priming the bomb to blow. Once it was set, he patted his partner's head and the metal wolf listed to his right side so that the bomb could fall off. They all watched with bated breath as the bomb fell towards the red sea below.
As if the D-Reaper anticipated the attack, part of its form bulged upwards and opened up to swallow the bomb whole.
Everything was dead quiet as they watched the bomb disappear into the red mass.
Nothing.
Did it fail? It couldn't have! That was their one chance to save Juri.
Then a small flash inside the red sea, accompanied by a muffled boom rippled its surface. Then came the shockwave, followed shortly by the eruption of noise.
The bomb exploded with enough force to destroy some of the nearby buildings and rip open a hole in the D-Reaper's outer layer - revealing an opening below where a train car sat still on the tracks.
"There it is!" Kari cried out.
"Okay everyone! LET'S SAVE JURI!" Rika cried.
Author's Notes: The fight to save Juri has begun! Will they succeed? Or has the D-Reaper grown too powerful to defeat? And will the Juggernaut be completed in time? Find out all this and more in the next chapter of The Tamer v2.0 - In His Name due out in three weeks on Friday, July 10th at 8 PM CDT. I'm hopeful we'll see COVID-19 begin to at least settle down in my area by then which means we can go back to our regular three weeks of updates, with a one week intermission by then. Hopeful being the keyword. Until then, all of you be safe and take care. If you loved it, let me know in the reviews section. And hey, don't forget to follow the story to keep up with all the latest updates and favorite to show support. That's all I have for now, so let's look at previews for the next chapter!
"This isn't working. We need to change strategies," Henry said aloud. Which was a lot easier said than done. After all, what other strategies could they use? They were outnumbered, outmatched, against an enemy who could change itself on the fly against whatever they could throw at them. What else could they do?
"AAAAAAHHH!"
A flash of light blinded them briefly as they heard disembodied screams come crashing down beside them. Kazu, Kenta, Guardromon, MarineAngemon, Tamerkato, and Guilmon. She wasn't sure if she wanted to celebrate or throw a punch at him in anger, "Goggle head!? Please say you're not about to run off on another part of your plan!"