The Reaper Mons
888
"Arbormon!" Kazemon shouted as the wooden soldier was slammed against a marble pillar, pinned there by arrows.
"Arrow Lance-" A steel arrow sliced through the wooden soldier, splintering the digimon into shards that exploded into dust.
"I would be more worried about yourself…" growled a huge crimson, bipedal dragon, it clenched its fists. Blood red flames wrapped around its arms. "Tyrant Collbrande!"
Waves of crimson flames roared forward.
"Get down!" A man made of mirrors leapt in front of Kazemon and lifted a shield affixed to its arm. "Dark Reflection!"
The flames were swallowed into the mirror the man lifted his other arm. The mirror shield on that arm glowed and the flames fired back black and swirling. The dragon cross his arms across his chest as the flames smashed against his forearms.
"Mercurymon…" Kazemon whispered.
"How interesting…" Kazemon looked up to see a human like digimon standing in front of a pillar he had green armor and a sharp nose and quivers of arrows on his back, the wispy clouds that bathed the ground curling up around him. A long, tail with a gloved hand reached up pulling an arrow and one of its arms with a bow-enhanced gauntlet lifted. "A digimon who reflects others' attacks."
"One wonders…" another digimon stepped forward. This one a hulking man-beast in burnished golden armor, the shoulders looking not dissimilar to treasure chests. The man-beast reached behind his back and unhooked a battled axe. "How it would do against an axe?"
"Is this really all the continent of Cloud can present as a defense?" a fourth digimon asked. This one was completely hidden in the darkness of a shadow only red eyes glared out from the darkness. "You warriors three?"
"Eh, let's be happy that it only took us to get this done…" the armored beast-man said as he lifted his axe above his head. "Imagine if we needed help from the other three…against this."
"I just regret not having to do anything…at all…" the digimon in the shadows demurred as it reached out revealing a hand with long claws. "Maybe I'll have just a bite…"
"Hurricane WAVE!" Kazemon pushed her hands forward, straining her insect wings as blasts of wind roared forward snapping a the dark digimon's fingers.
"Dragon Breastronic Fire-" A blast of blood crimson flame erupted forward towards the wind fairy.
"Kazemon!" she heard Mercurymon shout. Kazemon winced and looked over towards Mercurymon.
"Dual Tomahawk!" An axe smashed through the mirror that comprised Mercurymon's torso. The mirror digimon grunted and fell forward.
"MERCURY-"
"Again, worry about yourself, fairy." Kazemon looked up to see the full form of the dark digimon, it's vampiric fangs emerging as its lips curled back to form a smile.
"Tyrant Collbrande!" roared the dragon.
"What?" The vampire growled and lurched sideways as flames roared towards Kazemon.
The wind fairy leapt backwards and skidded behind a pile of rocks and broken masonry.
"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT! WHO DOES THAT!?" roared the vampire. "I was about to EAT HER!"
"I just thought-" the dragon started.
"No, you didn't! Anyone got an eye on her?" the vampire's voice shouted.
"Sorry the smoke and everything…" One of the other digimon said.
"Great…you better hope we do better against those kids!" snarled the vampire. "I for one don't want to get melted back into the darkness for this!"
Kazemon gulped and slowly made for a hatch that she caught sight of behind another pile of rubble.
888
"Ugh, I forgot how…gross it was down here!" Mimi grumbled as they delved into the underground maze. "Is it me or is it a heck of lot smaller in there than I remember?"
"We were much smaller when we were in here last…" Koushiro said as he walked slowly forward, the light from his laptop slightly glowing.
"No, she's correct, the world's smaller…" Gennai tutted as he turned a corner. "For instance, no Centarumon. The Nothing's work, undoubtedly, couldn't wipe the world out completely but it definitely excised several exobytes here and there when reality wasn't looking."
"Or maybe Centarumon is out for groceries…" Jyou said with a smile that was trying to be hopeful.
"Unlikely, the store delivers, no need to leave you homey cave or ancient labyrinth ruins…" Gennai's voice replied from around the corner. "Ah, here we are…."
The rest of the kids and their digimon came around a corner to find a large, well larger, open room. Gennai was putting a lit torch into a fitting on the wall revealing a small stage with a plinth off its center. The walls were covered in glyphs.
"More Digital World hiragana…" Koushiro whispered as he ran forward, with Tentomon buzzing close behind him.
"Lines are missing…" Gennai grumbled, narrowing his perennially narrowed eyes.
"Should we be worried about that?" Miyako asked as she walked forward. "I mean if I remember correctly these glyphs act like the base code of a computer program, except you know…"
"They control the actual functioning of the world…" Ken said, as he inspected the wall. "If the code is missing lines then…"
"The program shouldn't you know…work." Miyako said as she looked down to Gennai who was shuffling cards in his hands.
"Very prescient, these newer ones aren't half bad…" Gennai said as he walked up to the plinth. He looked to the older digi-destined. "Provide their own exposition, I like that, less work for me, you older ones should learn a thing or three from them."
"The missing lines don't seem to be anything vital to the program itself." Koushiro said as he looked from the wall to the computer. "Just sort of flourishes of flavor…"
"That's says a lot about you Koushiro…" Tentomon buzzed as he hovered just above the cinnamon-haired boy's head. "That flavors aren't important…."
"He lost his sense of taste from all that oolong tea long ago…" Taichi giggled.
"Right, overall Koushiro is correct, this should work…" Gennai looked down at the plinth. "Now, I think this works on Stargate rules, if I remember correctly, been a eon or three since I've used this…six cards define spatial and temporal coordinates, the seventh is a locking mechanism…."
"Wait isn't that the gate thing from Myotismon's castle!" Sora yelped as she ran to the plinth.
"Similar tech, different application, this one is a teleporter of sorts, a fast travel facility, when your plot can't be bothered to, you know, wait for you actually travel across a continent." Gennai said as he looked at the spaces on the plinth. "Used to be bunches of these all over the place…"
"Wait, we could've used one of these things when we were first here!?" Jyou yelped. "Instead of you know, building a raft and getting eaten by a giant Whamon!"
"Absolutely not!" Gennai harrumphed. "Being eaten by Whamon was very important to your growth and identity, plus…I had no idea where the tags were, so whilst yes technically you'd have made it to the continent of Server, Etemon would've had you for lunch."
"Plus you'd forgotten this thing was here, didn't you?" Yamato said demurely.
"I didn't forget!" Gennai grouched as he stamped his cane. "I just…failed to remember."
"Right…" Yamato said as he stood on the stage.
"So this will take us to Cloud huh?" Takeru asked as he followed Yamato onto the stage.
"That's the plan." Gennai said quietly. "Now let's see if I remember the address. No one goes to Cloud, you see; it's heavily defended, or it used to be…not even the Dark Masters bothered, too much effort, plus hardly anything there but data storage."
"If it's that heavily defended why didn't Cloud help fight back against well…everything!?" Iori asked as he sat on the edge of the small dais.
"Not their job." Gennai replied as he started setting cards carefully on the plinth. "Cloud serves as a repository, it's not Cloud's purpose to interfere with the rest of us down here on the ground."
"Don't they care?" Hikari asked as she looked at everyone that was now milling around the room. "I mean, they are part of the Digital World too…"
"It's not a question of them not caring, it's a question of them understanding how to express that caring." Gennai said softly, looking up to Hikari. "By staying out of it, the denizens of Cloud are caring. They remember, they observe, they do not interfere."
"So they are useless." Flamon grumbled. The red, child-like oni hopped onto the dais. "They just let things happen."
Gennai sighed laboriously. "They represent the memory of everything in this world, without them," Gennai pointed quickly to the ceiling, and one presumed the sky beyond, "these little reboots that happen periodically would be almost impossible." Gennai sniffed slightly as he returned his attention down to the plinth and placed another card in a slot. He furrowed his brow and looked up. "They are the reason why digimon in this world are able to return as digi-tama and retain their memories, rather than in other worlds where death is…death, and or reformatting is total and the previous self is lost." Gennai looked to Ken and TK and then to Hikari. "They mourn the loss of digimon that can't be retrieved, the war with the dragons was probably the most cataclysmic event they ever had to suffer, even if they largely were untouched by the dragon's attack." Gennai took a deep breath. "On Cloud they have a saying, 'Nothing is lost as long as it is remembered…if you can remember it, it can be restored'. For them the memory of the thing is the same as the existence of the thing…but when digimon go to the human world, when those digimon are lost there; they are forgotten by this world, their memory is erased as if they never were. A small shard of the Digital World is inexorably deleted…and it's a tragedy far greater than any evil digimon's rampage against the innocent."
Miyako shivered slightly remembering the digimon that were burnt in the war and even before that. She remembered LadyDevimon.
"We had no choice…" Hikari said quietly, her hand gently grasping Miyako's arm. "We had to defend ourselves, or else it would've been us, and Hawkmon and Gatomon."
"Right everyone, I've got it figured out, probably." Gennai said as he held the last card in his hand. "Everyone digimon and human get on that dais, and I'll put in the last card and then well, the next thing you'll know is Cloud."
"What about you?" Ken asked as he crowded onto the dais.
"I've got things to attend to, just because the world's falling apart doesn't mean I can just go leave my post!" Gennai said.
"That's when you usually do though!" Yamato retorted in a sing-song fashion.
"It's only what I let you think!" Gennai returned in a correspondingly sing-song fashion as he slotted the last card into place.
Before Yamato or anyone else could respond there was a loud vibrating vrrp and a bright flash of light.
888
The light faded from view. The children and their digimon appeared a few feet above the receiving dais and promptly fell to the ground. There was a mass struggle as each teenager realized their overly intimate position and their digimon squealed and giggled in the tussle to escape each other.
"WHO'S HAND IS THAT!?" Miyako screamed.
"I'm accounted for!" Ken said as he slowly stood straight and dusted himself off with a level of poise and decorum that had made him terribly frustrating as the Digimon Kaiser. He looked around to see that they were in a temple filled with marble pillars and long dark corridors. The ground seemed to be bathed in smoke, or clouds or something.
"Wait…sorry…that may be me…do you feel that?" Koushiro said as he twiddled his fingers.
"YES! PLEASE STOP THAT!" Miyako yelped. This was followed by a loud crack and the sound of pulsating flesh as somehow Miyako's palm met Koushiro's cheek through the labyrinth of legs and arms.
"OW!"
"Guys! Stop!" Takeru grumbled. "We do this every time…everyone just…calm down." Takeru's face suddenly turn bright red. "No really whoever is doing that STOP!"
"Ok, please tell me that's your paw, Salamon-" Hikari said quietly. She looked around to find Salamon with the other partner digimon who had easily extricated themselves and were now standing on the side of the pile. Hikari's eyes shot open. "Nope…that's a claw! That's a claw!"
"Sorry!" Flamon whispered and blushed brightly.
"Someone's butt is in my face!" Jyou grunted.
"I'm sorry but IORI WON'T GET HIS FOOT OFF MY HAND!" Mimi slowly rumbled into a roar.
"I'm sorry but my knee is pinned under Sora's shoulder…" Iori apologized.
"Guys can we just all put our hands up before one of us really regrets something!" Yamato said as he slowly tried to tug his hands free of the scrum.
"I already regret quite a bit!" Koushiro growled.
Miyako huffed loudly. "Well, you don't just twiddle your fingers when you're touching near a lady's-"
"Oi, try being a boy when someone's grabbing your-" Takeru cut in.
"MISTAKES WERE MADE BY ALL INVOLVED! Can we not talk about it!?" Taichi finally shouted. He glared over to Ken who was bemusedly smiling down at the others, standing to one side with the digimon who had largely had no problems escaping; well except for Flamon who was as tangled as others. If not slightly more so.
"Who is pulling my tail…and can they stop?" Flamon grunted as he tried to extricate himself from under Jyou's left knee.
"Someone's elbow is poking me in the back!" Taichi yelped.
"Uh…sorry…that's probably me" Yamato grumbled; his face pressed into Sora's stomach. "And that's not my…."
"KENSUKE ICHIJOUJI! Stop standing there and smiling, and help us out of this!" Taichi shouted as he reached for the lavender haired boy.
Ken helped the others slowly extricate themselves as their digimon giggled and watched from the side. The teenagers were all some deep shade of magenta by the time were free of each other, and Flamon was possibly an even deeper shade of red than he naturally was, he was very closely clutching his tail.
"Not exactly an artful display, now was it?" The kids all looked up to where the voice came from. A man shaped digimon with long, flowing bluish silver hair wearing what looked like a white and blue body suit walked gently forward.
"No, most certainly not." A thin figure that seemed to wrapped in bandages hovered over the man with the flowing hair. The thin figure had cords that fell from its shoulders as well its own lavish flowing black hair. "How would you describe it, my dear brother?"
"A most, chaotic display." Whispered what looked like a blue-skinned, armored Leomon with large arching metallic wings or spikes that nearly reached to the top of its head, a small blackened flame flickered above its head in the center of the 'wings' arches. "To believe they are the warriors of destiny that have saved this world so many times...most deplorable…"
"Definitely; deplorable." The thin figure said his mask covering his eyes. His thing limbs crossed over his chest. "To think, we traveled all the way here to do this…pitiable if you ask me…"
"I feel like I've seen this movie before…" Jyou said as he slowly placed his glasses on his head.
There was a massive explosion from behind the kids as four digimon erupted from underground. Marble rained down around the children. A giant bipedal dragon, an arrow weilding wood elf, a tomahawk swinging pirate, and a dark digimon bathed in shadows with large bat-like wings.
"Yep…that feels familiar…" Jyou grumbled as he winced and turned.
"Who are you guys!?" Flamon growled. "Are you the defenses of Cloud?"
"I hope we weren't that weak." The pirate growled as he glared down at the children from atop a pillar that the group of four leapt to.
"Then who are you?" Mimi asked as she looked back and forth between the group of three and four.
"Good question, do we have a name as a group?" The wood elf asked, rubbing his chin.
"Well, we do service the imminent inevitability of all things…" the vampiric digimon said.
"Good point, NeoMyotismon…" the thin figure said nodding.
"GOD DAMMIT! Another Myotismon!?" Yamato growled angrily. "Look, can we at least get a re-roll on that one…please? Skinny mummy-guy, Evil fire-Leomon, Pretty boy, Skeevy wood elf, Captain Douchebeard, Dragon-thing; you guys are fine; but I'm not going through another Myotismon…NOT AGAIN!"
"Matt!" hissed Sora loudly.
"No, you don't get it…he came back from death TWICE…that's two times more than normal for a mid-level bad guy! We're not doing it a third time!" Yamato shouted and crossed his arms over his chest. "I refuse!"
"Actually one of the people in New York had a Myotismon partner…." Mimi said quietly.
"WHAT!?" Yamato yelled.
"AHEM!" growled the man with flowing blue hair. "If this isn't a very important diversion…I believe we were menacing you…"
"That's why this feels familiar!" Jyou said snapping his fingers. "I knew it!"
"Yes, precisely so…" Splashmon grumbled.
"Yes, thank you, Splashmon…" the thin figure said to the pretty boy digimon. He lifted his ludicrously long arms. "As NeoMyotismon…"
"LAME!" Yamato shouted only to yelp as Sora rammed his ribs with an elbow.
"…was pointing out," the thin digimon continued with a small frown, "seeing as we serve the Nothing; maybe our name should reflect that…"
"The Nothing Squad!" the dragon nodded sharply.
"What, no! That holds no poetry at all, Dorbickmon!" the one called Splashmon said.
"The Dark Masters!" The pirate grunted.
"I like that one!" The little wood elf nodded.
"I believe, that's been taken, Olegmon, Zamielmon." NeoMyotismon said.
"Any suggestions, Whispered Apollomon?" the thin digimon asked the armored Leomon.
"The Death Generals…" whispered the lion.
The thin digimon snapped its long fingers and a broad smile played across its lower face. "Yes, that's good. We are the seven generals of death itself! Zamielmon, the unavoidable archer! Dorbickmon the ultimate predatory beast! Olegmon the tireless berserker! NeoMyotismon the shadow of the scythe! Splashmon the inescapable tide! Whispered Apollomon the eclipse of life…and myself…Gravimon…" The thin digimon turned his hand and pinched his fingers together. "The force not even light can escape!"
Before the children and their digimon could react they dropped to their knees as if a great weight had been put upon them. Soon they were all face forward, cheeks smashed against the marble floor.
"What's happening?" Mimi grunted as she felt her face being pushed into the floor of the temple.
"I think he's ramping up our personal gravity!" winced Koushiro. "We're getting crushed under our own weight…"
"Perceptive, human. Shame knowing is only half the battle…so long, children; so long, digimon; so long, everything, ever!" Gravimon said as he clenched his hand into a fist.
The floor cracked, the marble stonework snapped and there was a plume of marble dust and the children were gone.
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AN: I know, I know…I know….it's been a trying period this last…most of a year…this chapter was really hard to get out…largely because I had nowhere to go with what I had…and even now I am…having thoughts…anyways we're here and at the end of the day…I'm kinda happy with it in general(s?) *finger guns (Eh, yeah it's a pun wooo!)*….*sighs* why did I pick a group with seven members in it though…*wipes hand over face* Imma gret this; aren't I? And then I'll regret it…..