So, uh, long time no see, huh? Finally got off my butt and worked on Reality Shift - Destruction a bit more. It's been far, far too long since I've written it, but it happens sometimes. It might not be as high quality as previous chapters, but not all chapters are the same. But, I will say I've been working on something in the meantime, and you can see it on the new Discord I've made for Reality Shift! If all went well, the link should be found at the bottom of my profile. Come on over and chat with other Reality Shifters, and maybe check out my secret project, if you dare. But, that's all beside the point. Enjoy the chapter after a long hiatus.
We may never know what we're going to face at any given point, but we do know we'll face it together every time! Destruction better watch out, because we're willing to go as far as we need to in order to save everything we can! We're not going down without a fight! But in order to do so, we'll need to focus and rethink some of our strategies. With new abilities, we've got a whole new load of problems figuring out how to use them.
Powers locked away inside
Step up to give the gift of divine
There is no knowing what we face
But we know it to be unsafe
The time now to find
Our guiding light
And save everything that is known
To protect our home
The Negative Shifter ran into the main room, unheeding of any kind of restrictions. Destruction turned to him. "What makes you enter without permission?" The Negative Shifter looked right at Destruction.
"He's back." Those two words made Destruction's darkness swirl angrily.
"You mean to tell me that Atom has returned, and you FAILED to defeat him?"
"Sir, please, allow me to explain!" The Negative Shifter hung his head. "You created me specifically to defeat him as he was before."
"So now it's my mistake?"
"No sir! Please, do not be hasty. The bunch of Realities you sent Atom to had one that we couldn't have predicted, and he obtained items that we couldn't have thought of."
"What items?" Destruction stood, looming over the Negative Shifter. "Which Reality has he gained power from?"
"Legend of Zelda." The Negative Shifter heard nothing from Destruction, so he continued. "Breath of the Wild Timeline, to be specific." Still hearing nothing the Negative Shifter looked up, only to see Destruction was no longer there. "Sir?"
Destruction reappeared in a small room, ringed with images. "Atom has returned, and he now bears access to the one, singular Reality that could impede me!" Several black lights lit up from the outburst, quickly quieting down. "Of everything that could've happened, of everything I should've done, the last thing I should've done was send him anywhere near there!" Destruction looked around at the images. "Time to step up my game! Atom may be able to beat me with other stories, so it's time I do the same!" He vanished again, and one light lit up. The image it revealed was of a dark symbol overtaking a light symbol while another symbol seemed to watch.
Atom, Azion, Rika, Renamon and Dragonomon headed through the Realital Gate. Atom was regaining his energy, but slowly. He was at least able to look up and talk. "If I'm right, this Gate should drop us right next to our friends, but with how little energy I had to open it, we might end up further away than I originally plotted for in this route."
"Okay, now you really need to spill." Said Azion. "Just where the heck did you end up that you got these abilities, and how can I get them?" Atom mustered a small laugh.
"Sorry Azion, but I doubt you can attain the same abilities I've gotten." He said. "You really just don't have the connection I do to where I ended up."
"That won't stop me from trying! There's no way I'm letting you get that far ahead of me!"
"So, where did you end up?" Asked Rika. "I mean, let's be honest, before you were sent away I don't think you've ever even touched a sword."
"You're right on that front." Admitted Atom. "But, I was lucky in where I landed. This might just be the tiredness talking, but it might've been fate for me to end up there. I don't know why, but I just feel like I was sent there." He focused on Azion. "But the real news here is you and Pyreon being capable of Attributic Split. That's something I want to know about, because you two never used it before, even when it would've been extremely helpful." A light flashed in front of them.
"Might need to do a raincheck on that." Said Azion. "Because that seems like our exit." The light grew brighter.
"So, does anybody have an ETA on our Realital Gate?" Asked Daniel. "I mean, how long ago did we ask for a lift?"
"One minute less than the last time you asked." Answered Cam. "But I do kinda agree with you, we should've had our transport by now. I wonder why we haven't been able to get back yet."
"It must've been the Destruction." Said Clate. "Let's face it, he's been outmaneuvering us left and right. Even our best plans go to the wayside. We lost this Reality, another Digimon Reality, and potentially another Reality on top of that. It wouldn't surprise me if he's damaged the Infinity Matrix to slow us down further." Cassie leafed through her book, trying to distance herself from what had happened recently in regards to the team. She was trying to commit the spells and magic she now had access to, to memory. She turned around to try something, and energy coagulated in her hand.
"From times of old to times anew," she started. The energy in her hands escalated, drawing the attention of Dipper and Mabel, "you have always shown the way. Lead me now, and allow us to head away!" Energy erupted from her hand, and she fell forward a bit. Her spell took effect, and light began to bloom from her. One trail of it went further than the rest, lighting up a path of some kind.
"What'd you do?" Asked Mabel.
"I just thought I'd try to make some light." Said Cassie.
"Anything else you were trying to do?" Asked Dipper, looking at the path.
"Well, I was thinking about Atom. I mean, think about it! If I'm back, then surely he can come back too! We just need to find him." The light grew brighter, drawing the attention of some of the others.
"Okay, what's going on?" Asked Takato.
"I dunno." Said Terriermon. "But it's pretty." A few balls of light lifted up from the path, and floated amongst the group.
"So pretty!" Said Suzie.
"Incredible." Said Ford. "I've never seen anything like it!"
"Awesome!" Said Dan. "Who knew Cassie could do that?"
"Uh, I'm not doing anything." Said Cassie.
"Wait, you're not?" Asked Yuri. "Didn't you make that light in the first place?"
"Yeah, I have to agree with him." Said Marucho. "If you're not doing this, then who is?" A Realital Gate burst to life at the end of the light trail, startling everyone.
"Is that the Infinity Matrix?" Asked Daniel. "About time!"
"I don't think it is." Said Shun. "Notice how much smaller that one is compared to the others." The Realital Gate was smaller than those created by the Infinity Matrix.
"Yeah, it is." Said Robbie. "But why?"
"Guys! Is that you?" Called someone.
"That voice." Said Kazu. "It's" Azion, carrying Atom, came through the gate, followed by Rika, Dragonomon and Renamon. "No way!"
"What?" Asked Rika. "Aren't you happy to see us?" She went ahead of Azion and Atom, the latter getting back on his feet. Cassie looked at them.
"Atom!" She yelled. She rushed towards him and Azion, then tackled him into a hug. "I'm glad you got your memory back too."
"Call it what you will, but I don't think it was chance." Rika made it over to the other Tamers.
"You know we are!" Said Takato. "But where did you guys go?"
"That's going to be very important for us to know." Agreed Marucho. "After all, without you guys, we lost this Reality, and the Destruction took out another Digimon Reality. That means the main one is exposed!"
"We figured as much." Said Azion. "But, we went off to Gravity Falls because"
"Hold on, you guys went to Gravity Falls?" Asked Mabel.
"How did you two even get there?" Asked Cassie.
"Rika had a hunch that Destruction was going to destroy it rather than Digimon next." Said Azion. "So, we figured out how to work the transport system and got there. But, from the looks of things here, Clate was right, wasn't he?"
"Not quite." Said Tom.
"Turns out he played us all along." Agreed Marucho. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but we may not be able to outsmart him."
"We are kinda running low on options, aren't we?" Asked Henry.
"Does that mean we give up?" Asked Atom. "I don't know what you guys just went through, but we defeated Magantron in his evolved form. Sure, it wasn't easy, but we still did it."
"Hold on, back up." Said Magnatron. "Magantron evolved?"
"Unfortunately, he did." Said Azion. "And you'll never guess how."
"Forbidden Abilities." Said Dan. "Spectra did the same thing with Probability Helios." He punched his palm. "I've hated them ever since he used them in the first place to take Drago!"
"Dan, focus please." Said Atom. "You've known as well as I that we can't escape from them being used. Not anymore."
"I know. But still." Everyone was silent for a moment.
"Well, what now?" Asked Rika. "What's the plan?"
"We don't know." Admitted Ford. "We've attempted to contact the Infinity Matrix to get transport, but nothing has shown up yet."
"Yeah!" Agreed McGucket. "We's got no idea if they're even intact! For all we know, they were attacked!"
Destruction walked down the hall, heading for a specific room. He opened the door. "Setne!" Setne jumped from his chair, sending the Book of Thoth to the ground. "It is time. Give me the spell that you've found to bring you back to life now!" Setne slowly reached down to grab the book.
"I've told you before, I haven't found it yet!" Denied Setne. "There's a lot of spells in here, and more than half of them I've never seen before and"
"Lies." Said Destruction. He took a step forward. "Delay tactics." He took another step. "Either give me that spell so I may revive you, or get sent back to your deplorable prison in that snow globe!" Setne stopped in his tracks.
"You wouldn't. You need me! I'm the only one in your group that can use Egyptian Magic!"
"I'm about to rectify that in three, two"
"Okay!" Yelled Setne. "Page 1096, section 3, line 48." He handed the book to Destruction, who began flipping through it. Setne knew how distracting it was to look through the book, so he took his chances. "Now's my chance!" He thought. He quickly went past Destruction and out the room, then ran down the hall as fast as possible. He passed Bill.
"Hey, where are you" Setne ran past him without a second thought, completely ignoring him, "going?" Finished Bill. Destruction got to page 1096, then looked down it.
"Section three, line 48." He read the spell. "That dirty double crossing snake!" Bill felt the entire structure shake from Destruction's anger.
"Uh," he looked down the hall Setne went down, "would that have anything to do with him?" Destruction streaked down the hall after Setne, nearly blasting through Bill. He was lucky he had created a hole in himself. "Whoa!" Bill watched Destruction head down the hallway. He floated away whistling, not wanting to get involved.
"Setne!" Yelled Destruction. Setne entered a room and barred the door.
"I've got to get out of here, warn everybody who's facing him!" Setne looked around the room, and saw he was in a small supply closet. "Perfect!" He grabbed a few things, including a few cleaning agents that contained certain chemicals. "Come on magic, don't fail me now!" He mixed together two cleaners into a small bucket, then levitated the compounds he needed from the mixture. Something banged on the door.
"Setne! If you attempt to leave this place, I will detonate your Negative Gene, killing you!" Setne began working faster.
"And a dash of that, a dump of that!" He was frantic now, attempting to finish his elixir.
"Setne!" The door began to dent, and Destruction was slowly getting in. "I know what you're planning! You will never get a peep out to those Shifters!"
"I think I will!" Setne put the compounds he had amassed into a spray bottle, and attempted to grab it. It started going through him, but he got a firm grip on it.
"You have three seconds to get out here! One!" Setne sprayed himself. "Two!" His body became more solid, and he put the revival elixir down. "Three!" Destruction broke the door down, his rage showing in his darkness.
"Bye!" Said Setne. "Zeheb!" He pressed the symbol on himself, and vanished. Destruction stared down at where Setne was, fury intensifying.
"Setne!" He bellowed. A few sparks rained down from where Setne was, a few landing next to his spray bottle. Destruction looked at it and felt what was inside. "Crafty snake." He said. He looked in the Book of Thoth and quickly scanned through with his darkness. "This wastes so much energy, but I suppose I have more now than ever!" He found a specific section in the book and read it over. "Revival Elixir, huh? So, he did know how to revive himself. I wonder why he never went for it." He felt another page and turned to it. He laughed. "So that's it, huh! He found an entry on me and got scared!" The page Destruction found detailed what Thoth knew about himself. "Pathetic! All I needed was a way to bring people back to life, and now I have it!" Destruction grabbed the spray bottle and vanished, heading elsewhere.
"Syark, how is everything?" Asked the Commander.
"Not all that good, sir. The last attack we took shut down most of our movement options. We're barely online as it is."
"Any word from"
"The Brawlers and Tamers? Nothing, sir." Syark pulled up a few screens. "The Reality they were defending has fallen, along with another Reality. The Main Digimon Reality is still there, but I don't know for how long." The Commander sighed.
"Just do what you can. We need them back, and we need this place back up and running."
"On it, sir." Syark began typing into his console.
Atom growled and shook his head. "This isn't how we're going to go out! We are Reality Shifters, and our enemy is Destruction! Dan, did we ever have a fully baked plan when it came to defeating our past enemies?"
"Well, with Naga, all we had was to have Drago fight him. The Alternative, we just had a loose concept. Barodius, we didn't have too much, nor with Mag Mel. Heck, we never even made a concrete plan to deal with Mechtavius Destroyer!" Atom nodded.
"Shun, have we ever given up on anything, ever?" Shun shook his head.
"Never. If there was a chance to fight, we took it."
"Marucho, we've all had our fair share of problems. But as a team we've gotten past all of them, right?"
"That's right! We've never stopped going forward!" Azion smiled.
"I get it now!" He said. "Takato, Rika, Henry, none of us gave up either, right? We kept moving forward!"
"Yeah, we did." Stated Rika. "We never looked back, even when times got tough."
Heh, even as just kids, we've done so much together. It'd be a shame to throw it all away right now, right?" Asked Henry.
"No way, no how!" Declared Takato. "If there's a chance for us to fight, we've got to take it!" Ryo grinned.
"And don't count the rest of us out!"
"Yeah!" Yelled Suzie.
"We've got you covered!" Claimed Kenta.
"If we fail, we'll fail trying!" Agreed Kazu. The digimon all agreed in tandem, and Atom turned to Chaos and Tom.
"You guys"
"Save it, Atom." Said Chaos. "We're in this to win it!" Tom flashed a smile, and gave a thumbs up. Cassie went up to him.
"And if you're wanting to try and stop me from joining, forget it! We're all in this together!"
"Right!" Agreed Dipper and Mable.
"I'm not sure how we can help, dudes, but I'm down to try!"
"Sure, whatever. It's not like we've got anything better to do." Said Robbie.
"If it'd help, I could work towards making a robit! It might give us a better chance!" Said McGucket.
"Then it's settled." Stated Atom. "We're not backing down!" He opened his hand wide, and focused. "Azion, you've been to the main Digimon Reality before. You know where it is, so guide me." Azion stepped forward, and Atom put his hand out. "We're a team, and we need to act like it. This isn't back home, where we were goofy kids who didn't have a care in the world."
"You need to say nothing more. That battle with Magantron was quite humbling. None of us can do this alone. We need to work together!" Azion grabbed Atom's hand, and Atom's other hand started glowing, showing his Shifter Symbol. The two focused, and soon, a Realital Gate appeared in front of them. Atom slumped a bit, but was caught by Azion. "We've got this buddy. Next stop, Digimon!" He pulled Atom forward, and was followed by everybody else.
Destruction made it to his destination, a seemingly empty void between all Realities. However, his vision wasn't clouded by concepts such as nothingness. He continued looking, and eventually found his target. "Ah ha. There you are." He approached. "With the two of you under me, those pitiful fools won't know what hit them." He sprayed Setne's potion, and stepped back while energy began to coalesce in front of him. "Soon, those idiots will be unable to fight back, for fear of hurting their friends." His laughter rang out loudly.
Syark took notice of a strange anomaly, near where everybody he knew the location of. "What the?" He began running an analysis on it, trying to figure out what it was. As soon as the results came in, he gasped. "Impossible. How could a Realital Gate open between those locations? And why? Unless, no, there's no way someone in their group suddenly gained the ability to form Realital Gates, right?"
The group travelled through the Gate, and Atom managed to turn to everybody else. He took some deep breaths. "Okay, game time. We need to plan." Chaos generated some simple machinery, and Cassie shaped it as needed to create a holographic battle grid. "We'll be spread thin around the Reality, but working together, we'll be able to protect it. Azion, what can you tell me about what you did with Rika?" Atom immediately got his face smacked by Rika.
"Don't say it like that. Makes it sound weird."
"Sorry, my bad." Azion shook his head, then refocused.
"Me and Rika discovered a new ability in our D-Powers." He held up his Fusion Loader. "If I combine some of our Digimon together, they become greater than the sum of their parts. For example, combining Dragonomon and Renamon turned them into Mystic Dragonomon." Azion turned to the grid, and uploaded what data he had to create a 3d image of Mystic Dragonomon. "As you can see, when the two merged, they had access to new abilities."
"Get to the point, molasses head." Said Rika. Azion frowned at her.
"The one time it happened before I left, and you somehow recorded it. Anyways, while the two were Mystic Dragonomon, neither me nor Rika could BioMerge with them. But, then I got a vision of something, of two Digivices being used together to make a bigger effect. Then, me and Rika tried to BioMerge at the same time, causing an ability that none of us knew about to activate. Dual BioMerge. Can you imagine the possibilities that will open up for us? With just the 5 of us that can BioMerge, that'll give us 10 more unique options of Digimon to work with. And that's just if we can only go Dual. Imagine if we could go Tri, or Quad. The key is figuring out what would work best when."
"Incredible!" Said Henry. Terriermon jumped on him.
"You can say that again!" Atom nodded, then updated the battle grid.
"You guys get to work figuring out what combinations would work best and when." He looked at Cassie. "Cassie, if I'm right, both of us gained new abilities, right?"
"Yeah, that's right." Cassie stepped forward. "Okay, so I can use magic now. Honest, real magic." She opened up her book. "This book contains a massive library of spells I can and will use. And I'm hoping that at least one other person here is capable of using it with me. You all saw what I could do back against Destruction Helios. If there's two of us on the battlefield wielding that kind of power, we could defend a lot easier than we'd ever imagined." She closed her book, and motioned to Atom. "Now go on, I know you're dying to tell us all what you've gained."
"Well, you're right. I do want to tell you what I've gained. To get the elephant out of the room, I can now generate Realital Gates reliably, kinda. I need some kind of link somewhere to create one, like to a certain Reality, or to a certain person or group, I think. Not fully sure. In other news, I've received training for using a sword and a shield, and from that have gained a link to Legend of Zelda. Plus a few more bits and bobs that might come in handy later on." Ford stepped forward.
"So, with all of that, do we have a plan?" He was met with silence. "As I figured. It's one thing to have new abilities. It's another to use them, and yet another to use them well. Atom, about how long do you think it'll take for us to reach our destination?"
"Probably only another few minutes. Why?"
"We need to discuss what we're going to do to defend, and how. Azion, front and center. You too, Cassie." The two stepped forward. "Azion, work with the other Tamers. Figure out what each Digimon is best at, and how to combine those strengths to balance out, or even rectify their weaknesses. Cassie, look through those spells you've got for anything that can help support everybody. Healing spells, support spells, anything that can give us all any edge."
"But, with the other spells"
"Unless we have someone else on support, we can't rely on you being on the front lines. Plus, you're still new to it. If anything went wrong, it'd be your life on the chopping block. This isn't a game, this is a war, and we need to act like it. If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. If there's any chance for the opponent to gain an advantage, they will take it. We cannot have any cracks in our defense, and we can't lose anybody vital." Atom looked at Ford.
"You're right, we can't. This is for everything we've ever known." He turned towards where they were going. "This is one big mess, and Destruction is the cause. We're the cleaners, and we need to plan how to take him out." A light flashed ahead, signalling that they were reaching their destination. "I hope everybody's ready, because if we're not, Destruction is." The light overtook all of them, and they all exited the Gate.
Destruction continued pouring his darkness into the two in front of him. "This is perfect. These tools will be of much use to me." The darkness continued to build, creating new bodies. "This will distract them." Destruction sensed something, and turned. "Interesting. So, they've already made it to the main Digimon Reality. Oh well, I'll just have to break through their defenses again." He turned back to their task. "Let them play their silly games, they do not know what they're getting into, what I must do!"
We're here at the main Digimon Reality, and this time we've got a plan of action! Mostly. Still working out the details, but if we're lucky, it'll all work out and we'll defeat Destruction here and now! Or, when he gets here. Turns out we're kinda early, but that's okay! It gives us more time to prepare! And some to rest, to make sure we're good to go. We may be down, but we're not out!