Chapter 8: Double trouble

"Izuku."

"Yeah Shoto?"

"Weren't we going to a park?"

"Yeah."

"Then why are we in the sewers?" The youngest Todoroki tried and failed to understand how it came to that. They had left the Midoriyas' house and hit the street. On the way, Shoto had taught Izuku how to send his partners into his Digivice so they could move faster in a smaller group.

It was actually really easy, he just had to open the connection and let the Digimons import themselves into it. Inside was a reserved space that worked as a safe house for them.

Shoto's looked like a wooden cottage on a snowy mountain, Izuku's was exactly like the boy himself, weird. It was a three stories tall building made from wood, stone, metal, and even crystals with a big tree that was an amalgamation of it all in the center, the strange construction was located in the middle of a valley that bordered a beach, a desert, tundra and every other biome there was.

All Izuku's partners save for Terriermon entered it to start working on the place, the building was empty but had a terminal where they could customize it. After a long debate, it was decided the place was weird already so they could all just go nuts as long as no one got in the other's way.

That led to the group being composed of the two human boys, Shoto's partners and Terriermon. Until that part, the young Todoroki could understand the sequence of events, but then something happened and they were now underground, and he couldn't even remember what exactly, it was as if Shoto blinked and in that time they had gone off track enough to be in a completely different place.

"Oh, that's because there's a Digital Shift here!" Izuku exclaimed while pointing ahead, at the dark tunnel they were tracking through.

"Shouldn't we tell my dad?" Shoto knew what a Digital Shift was, and he also knew they shouldn't be near one.

"He's busy talking with my mom, so we have to go there to solve the problem."

Shoto thought the logic sounded reasonable, "Okay then, let's go."

Terriermon snorted, "See, told you he would go along."

Agumon pouted, "Dang."

Gabumon, the last reasonable being left, facepalmed, "Now I know why they say Izuku's a walking disaster."

Izuku kept leading his friends by the maze that the sewers until finally, the marks of a Digital Shift started to appear. This time, the blue sprites to nothing were accompanied by railways that flowed from one window to the other, crisscrossing through one another.

"I'm starting to regret coming along." Gabumon sighed.

"Don't be like that, it's not that bad." Terriermon barely stop speaking when a rumble sounded from deeper in the tunnel.

Izuku sighed heavily, "Please, stop tempting fate." He begged his first partner.

The clicks of something walking on the rails filled the air, making the group tense. Thanks to the training they received, Izuku from Piximon and Shoto from his father, the boys reacted in time to jump away when a large body crashed into the place they were a second before.

It was a giant spider Digimon, mainly colored black but having some yellow lines on the fur, a yellow helmet covered the upper face but left the nine beady green eyes, the three-piece maw and the red mane of hair exposed, and a white skull-and-crossbones mark on top of the abdomen. All in all, the Digimon was intimidating in appearance alone, add the fact the spider was almost four times taller than the boys and you got a truly terrifying enemy.

Izuku gulped and pulled his Digivice, scanning their adversary.

{Dokugumon: Level Champion, is an Insectoid Digimon. It is a cursed Digimon in the shape of a spider, whose entire body has been parasitized by a computer virus. While it was originally a spider-type, it had a docile personality typical of insect-type Digimon; however, at some point, it was drawn into a powerful electromagnetic storm and infected by a computer virus that had been circulating the Network. Since then, it has become but a lump of poison, or, in other words, a computer virus, that corrodes anything it touches. Not only that, special mention has to be given to its great movement speed, made possible thanks to its eight legs. No matter how desperately one tries to get away, Dokugumon will never be far behind, and it will not stop its chase until the opponent ceases to continue running out of exhaustion. They live in colonies and are presided over by their queen, Arukenimon.}

"Why it had to be a spider?!" Agumon shuddered, he didn't like the eight-legged things, "Urgh, Baby Flame!" He spat a fireball at Dokugumon.

The Champion took the hit without flinching, only becoming angry at the small dinosaur. Dokugumon roared, "Poison Cobweb!" The spider shot a purple blast of sludge from the mouth at Agumon, who yelped and dodged. The gunk hit the ground and hissed.

"I'm sure that's poisonous and almost sure it's acidic too." Izuku nodded to himself, "And that's dangerous."

"You, right. Poison, strong!" The Dokugumon spoke in broken sentences, proof of the virus that infected it also affected its mind, "Me, hunt!" The Champion yelled and lunged at the Prince.

"Look out!" Shoto's cry was followed by the boy using his quirk with a stomp. Shoto was a special case, his quirk, like his hair and eyes, was a heterogeneous fusion of both his parents' ones, he could use fire from his left side, and, as he just made use of to stop Dokugumon, ice from his right.

Izuku stared at Shoto and the glacier coming from his right foot with stars in his eyes, "That's so cool!"

"Fight now, geek out later!" Terriermon complained, snapping his little bro back to reality. The bunny jumped on top of Dokugumon's head, holding on to his foe's mask with one hand, he started to pummel it with the other.

"Shoto, can you trap Dokugumon's legs?!" Izuku already had the start of a plan, but he needed to know what Shoto was and wasn't able to do before anything.

The bichromatic boy blinked, "Huh, I think so? I never tried on someone with more than four legs before."

"That will do, on my signal!" Izuku then turned to Agumon and Gabumon, "You two, help me to reach that!" He pointed at one of the floating rails.

Agumon asked his friend, "Fastball special?"

"Yup." Gabumon nodded. Both Rookies grabbed Izuku, one arm and one leg each. They lifted the boy, got a running start, and then threw him up. The Prince sailed to his target and hit it with a perfect three-point landing.

"Now Shoto!" His cue given, the boy stomped down and spread his ice wide, overshooting a little but getting all the spider Digimon's legs stuck.

Izuku jumped from his perch the second he saw his enemy stopping, falling with an impressive frontflip, the boy brought his leg down on an ax kick, "Smash!" He was still an All Might fanboy, and always would be. The Prince's attack made Dokugumon buckle and one last swing from Terriermon's fist brought it down.

Both landed and traded a high five, "We did it!" They cheered.

"A little help?" Shoto broke the moment, the boy accidentally iced his own foot to the floor and he didn't want to risk burning himself to melt it, he knew how to use his right side better than his left, maybe because he was right-handed?

Agumon and Gabumon grabbed their human partner and pulled, freeing Shoto, "Thanks."

"So, are we done?" Agumon asked, only for a loud noise to come from deeper in the tunnel, "Yeah, guess not."

"C'mon, let's go check it out!" Izuku called, already rushing ahead, Terriermon hot on his trail.

"Hey, wait up!" Gabumon cried out, the three stragglers running after them. As the children regrouped, they soon found themselves in a well, big enough to house a football field and then some, large pipes flowing with dirty water letting it fall freely to its depths hanged from the walls of the pit.

That was not what made the view surprising, the fact a complex array of rails and webs covered most of it, rising from the well's bottom and up and up, to the limits of the boys' sight and beyond. Crawling on the fantastical structure were at least thirty different Dokugumon.

"The entry said they lived in colonies," Izuku said dizzily, not expecting something like that.

"It also said they had a queen right?" Shoto gulped.

"We're doomed." Gabumon deadpanned.

"Guys, I think they saw us." Terriermon pointed down, at three Dokugumon fast approaching. He traded a glance with his little bro, "Evolution?"

Izuku nodded, "Evolution!" He pulled his Digivice and started to go down the path for the right directory. After their adventure with Mina, Izuku and Terrieirmon trained incessantly to achieve control over it, with help from Pixiemon and countless tries, they reached enough mastery of it for Terriermon to evolve to Champion for twenty minutes, Izuku just hope that would be enough.

{EVOLUTION}

"Terriermon digivolves to…" The bunny Digimon threw himself out the tunnel's edge just as his form was once more cocooned by a white dome with green grid-like patterns, "Gargomon!" The Champion burst from inside the shell and started to shoot, using his ears to glide down.

Unlike before, the projectiles stopped the Dokugumon in their tracks. Gargomon gunned all the targets he could see until landing on one of the rails, "C'mon, there's a lot more from where that came from!" He raised his gauntlets in challenge, daring more enemies to show their faces.

Izuku saw his partner charging ahead and nodded to himself, walking back, he got a running start and jumped after him. Shoto looked at his partners and shrugged, doing the same.

"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Agumon grabbed Gabumon, much to his protests, and threw him before jumping, both falling behind their partner.

"I didn't agree with this!" Gabumon cried. Turning to Shoto, he shouted, "Beef me up!"

"Okay!" Pulling his own Digivice, it looked like a blocky radio, having an ergonomic grip on the left side along with a d-pad, two buttons on the right, one blue on the right and one orange on the left, and a screen the size of a flip phone one, Shoto started his partner's own digivolution.

{EVOLUTION}

"Gabumon digivolves to…" The same white dome formed around Gabumon, but this time the grid over it was glowing blue, "Garurumon!"

Shoto grabbed onto his partner's back, now a giant beast resembling a wolf with light blue fur, a white underside, dark blue tiger stripes, magenta claws, dark blue-tipped blades, and a very curly tail, "Garurumon, stay on the move!"

Using his new form, Garurumon jumped from rail to rail, never staying in the same place for more than a second. Using the speed advantage, Shoto started to throw streams of flames from his left hand, burning the webs and spider Digimon alike.

Izuku watched that with stars in his eyes, pulling his Digivice, he analyzed Garurumon.

{Garurumon: Level Champion, is an Animal Digimon. It is covered in blue, white, and silver-colored fur as hard as "Mithril", which is called a legendary rare metal, and since the blades growing from the tips of its shoulders have sharp edges, anything that touches them is cut to pieces. As it possesses a furious combat instinct and sinews honed in freezing lands, as well as carnivore-like agility and the accuracy to reliably bring down its targets, it is a being feared by other Digimon. However, its intelligence is very high, and it faithfully obeys those who it recognizes as its master or leader.}

"So cool!"

"Heads up!" Agumon divebombed one Bokugumon that was sneaking behind Izuku while he was distracted. Trying to blow a fireball at the spider Digimon again, with the same results, Agumon cried out. "Sho! A little help for me too, please?!"

The boy riding Garurumon sighed, "This is going to make getting out of bed tomorrow hard." He fidged with his Digivice again, activating another stance of the evolution sequence.

{EVOLUTION}

"Agumon digivolves to…" The third Rookie to evolve had an orange shinning grid covering his white dome, from it a bipedal reptilian Digimon who looked like a Ceratosaurus burst out, "Greymon!" The new Champion had orange scales with blue stripes covering his body, three clawed fingers on his hands, and three clawed toes on his feet, with claws protruding from the heels. Greymon was even wearing a rhinoceros beetle-like skull on his head, adding to the intimidating new form.

Izuku wasted no time in pulling his record up too.

{Greymon: Level Champion, is a Dinosaur Digimon. Greymon's cranial skin has hardened so that it is covered in a rhinoceros beetle-like shell. It is an extremely aggressive Digimon, with a body like a lethal weapon covered in sharp claws and gigantic horns. However, it is highly intelligent, and if you're able to tame it then there probably isn't any monster as strong.}

"Mega Flame!" This time, a colossal fire orb flew from the dinosaur Digimon's mouth, completely engulfing the Dokurumon in flames, "Hah, take that you overgrown bug!"

"Spiders are not bugs," Garurumon commented while passing by.

"Shush you!" Greymon snapped back before charging at more approaching enemies.

Seeing Shoto evolve both his partners, he got an idea. Fidgeting with his Digivice, he found the right program and smiled.

{DEPLOY}

A green pillar of light formed at his side, and from it, Dracomon stumbled out, "Get your paws off my grill!" The small dragon looked from side to side and realized he was not inside the Royal Stronghold, the name they gave to the safe house, but in a mess of a battlefield, "Huh, what did I miss?"

"Dracomon, we need your help!"

"I can see that!" He quickly pushed Izuku aside and spat a fireball at a Dokugumon. Unlike Agumon, Dracomon did some damage, but not much.

"You need to evolve, we need to burn our way up." Izuku pointed at the spiraling way up, the rails making a path but being covered in too many webs for them to use.

"Fine, what do I need to do?"

At Dracomon's question, Izuku drew a blank, he only had Terriermon's evolution sequence, and only Gargomon and nothing beyond the Champion, "I should have thought this through."

"Well, think fast then!" The Rookie yelled as one of the spider Digimons lunged at him. Dracomon braced for impact, but even them the heavy body pushed him back. Planting his feet on the ground, clawed toes tearing the rails under him apart, the dragon roared, "You think you're strong? Well, I'm stronger!"

Izuku, seeing one of his partners in need of help, rushed to his side. The young Prince helped the dragon push back his enemy, "Yeah, we're stronger! I don't know why you guys are trying to come to this world, but I won't let you do it just to mess it up!"

"We won't! If you want to fight, you'll have to fight all of us!" Just as their fighting spirits were set ablaze, the Digivice in Izuku's pocket lit up.

{CONDITIONS MET}

{ACTIVATING NEW MODULE}

{EVOLUTION}

"Dracomon digivolves to…" Izuku was pushed away as the white dome from the evolution formed, this one with an azure grid. With a flash and a violent wave of force a larger, more powerful version of Dracomon, exploded the shell enveloping him with a roar, "Coredramon!"

His body was now much more developed compared to his Rookie form, his limbs, wings, and horns lengthening in comparison until the full-grown dragon stood taller than his enemy, showing that the simple evolution only brought out the power he already had.

Izuku, looking at the back of his partner, laughed joyfully as the entry for Coredramon played in his mind.

{Coredramon (Blue): Level Champion, is a Dragon Digimon. It is the digivolved form of the Dracomon who assimilates plenty of "Blue Diamante", a rare gem mined from mountainous regions with very high altitudes. For them to live on steep mountains, they have grown wings and can fly at a high speed. Digimon having "-dramon" in their names must contain dragon-gene data (dragon DNA) in their DigiCores. The higher the ratio of dragon DNA, the more the body shape is like a dragon type. Having a dragon DNA ratio of 100%, Coredramon is a pure-blooded Dragon Digimon.}

"Blue Flare Breath!" Coredramon roared as a stream of blue fire consumed the Dokugumon in front of him, then with a sharp movement of his head, the dragon drowned every enemy near them in flames.

Izuku's smile was blinding, with childish euphoria he run over Coredramon's tail and back, ending on the Digimon's head and holding one of his red horns, "Coredramon, all speed ahead!"

"You don't have to tell me twice!" With a powerful beat of his wings, the dragon took flight. Similar to Shoto and Garurumon, they threw waves of fire at everything in their path. Passing close to his friend, Izuku shouted over the raging flames, "Shoto! Let's go up!"

"I think we don't have a choice." The youngest Todoroki looked back and only saw webs burning and spider Digimon falling down to the water below.

"Yeehaw!" Gargomon laughed from his perch on Greymon's head, the armed bunny gunning down everything that got close while the charging dinosaur plowed over anything that stood on their path, "The last one to get to the top is a smelly Numemon!"

Shoto blinked, "What?"

"Escape now, get confused by that later!" Garurumon growled, then the lupine Digimon made his best to run away from the inferno burning around them.

The three pairs of raiders and mounts rushed to the top of the construct of rails and ended up face to face with a concrete ceiling. Gargomon huffed, "Gimme a boost!" He jumped on Greymon's tail, giving the chance for him to snap it up and send the bunny flying. Gargomon shouted while closing on the ceiling, "Dumdum Upper!" He threw an explosive uppercut and blew the obstacle in their path to smithereens.

The Prince's first partner looked around and tilted his head, "A train station?"

The others came from the hole just as the flames started to rise from it. Izuku saw the station where they ended up and how it too was covered in the blue sprites of a Digital Shift and gulped, "Guys! We're not out of the fire yet." He stopped, realizing what he said, "Huh, pun not intended." The others chuckled at his embarrassment.

Shoto and Izuku jumped off their perches on their partners' backs, the latter noticing the former had burnt away most of the left side of his shirt, "Hum, Shoto there's a…" He pointed at a patch of cloth still on fire.

The bichromatic boy put it off with some heavy pats, "What do we do now?"

"How about helping me?" A new voice came from the ceiling. The two boys looked upward and saw, dangling by spiderwebs, a train, the most shocking part wasn't that but the fact the train was a Digimon. The young Prince didn't waste a second checking the new Digimon entry.

{Locomon: Level Ultimate is a Machine Digimon. It has the appearance of a steam locomotive, and its purpose in life is to keep running. It is a being that transports the data within the Network across the Digital World. Within the Digital World, where a large quantity of information comes and goes, the meaning of life for Locomon and other Vehicle-species Digimon is in how quickly they can convey that information. However, there are times when old models of Locomon have run completely wild as a result of seeking to go too quickly. Although its range of movement is confined because it can only run on rails, there are occasions when it has generated spacial distortions by continuously running in circles.}

"He's an Ultimate!" The whole group exclaimed in shock. The only other Ultimate Izuku knew was Pixiemon, and his sensei was so absurdly strong that the young Prince not only had never beaten him but also not put a single scratch on the fairy Digimon.

"Huh, yeah, I'm not much of a fighter though." The living train chuckled awkwardly, "I got trapped here by Arukenimon after she ambushed me and I thought I was done, but she's out now and you guys are here, so… a little help?"

"Of course! Just a second." Izuku used the walls to jump from surface to surface until he reached Locomon. Landing on his front cart, he patted the Digimon metal casing, "Don't worry, we'll get you out."

"Hey, you're the Prince!" Now that Locomon had Izuku in his line of sight, he instantly recognized the boy.

"Yeah, I am." He chuckled while scratching the back of his head, "Now keep really still. I'm gonna cut the webs." Using Deploy again, Izuku summoned Zubamon.

"A little to the left- what the heck?!" The sword Digimon looked from side to side, "What happened?"

"Long story, I'll explain later, now we have to cut those webs!"

Zubamon shrugged, saluted, and turned into his weapon form. Izuku grabbed it with both hands and shouted to his friends on the ground, "Get ready to catch us!"

"How are we gonna do that?!" Garurumon panicked. He didn't like the idea of being crushed by a train.

"I have an idea!" Gargomon quickly rallied the others. Up top, Izuku was slashing all the webs he could reach while running on top of Locomon, the Digimon not even breathing in fear of getting hit by accident or worse, making the Prince fall.

With increasingly less force to keep him up, Locomon started to descend, more and more until his weight was too much for the webs remaining and he dropped, "Heads up!" The train warned. He crashed down in a surprisingly soft manner, looking down he saw the reason why, "Snow?"

"Yup! Four Champions were more than enough to powder a glacier in time." Gargomon laughed.

"We did it!" Izuku jumped down from the top of the cart he was on and rushed back. Just as he regrouped with his friends, the Champions started to glow and then returned to their Rookie forms, the human boys almost kneeling over from the energy crash.

"OOF!" Terriermon didn't stop on the almost, he fell on the floor on his back, Dracomon on top of him, Agumon on top of the dragon, and Gabumon on top of them all.

Zubamon, back in his normal form, grabbed them all, "I'll drop them on your Digivices then I'll finish helping Gomamon set the aquarium, call if you need anything." Just as he finished, the armored Digimon and his cargo were covered by a green pillar of light and vanished.

"We should go before Arukenimon gets back. I'll give you kids a lift to the edge of the Digital Shift, from there you can go back to the Real World." Locomon offered, earning thanks from the boys.

Izuku and Shoto hitched a ride on the conductor cart of Locomon while the Ultimate started to make his way across the tracks, leaving the infested station behind. A minute later he stopped, "That's your stop!"

Both boys disembarked on the rails, noticing they were in the middle of a complete blue void, "Thanks Locomon!" Izuku expressed his gratefulness again, earning a chuckle from Locomon.

"I should be the one thanking you two! If you need a ride, just say the word and I'll get you anywhere you want. Bye-bye!" The train Digimon set off his whistle and started moving away.

"What now?" Shoto asked, just as his words sounded, the limbo around them glitched and vanished a second later, leaving both him and Izuku standing on a normal train rail.

"Now I think is better we jump ship before that train hits us." Izuku pointed at the said approaching vehicle. Both traded a glance and a nod, then they threw themselves from the rails. Luckily, it was a suspended line, more luckily, there was a construction site under them, so Shoto had complete freedom to create a glacier and slide down to the floor.

"That wasn't that bad." The youngest Todoroki smiled and clapped some dust from his hands, "Right?... Izuku?" He looked around, not seeing his friend anywhere.

"Help!" Izuku's voice made Shoto snap his head to its source, a cement mixer, which was both on and full.

"Hold on!" Shoto quickly rushed to it and started fidgeting with the buttons and levers on the machine. He did something right, as it spilled its contents on the ground.

Izuku got up, completely covered by fresh cement. The boy spat and whined, "Ew, that tastes horrible!"

"I think it wasn't to be tasted."

"You're probably right."

"And that's what happened." Izuku finished his tale, both he and Shoto sitting side by side on the couch after a good bath and a change of clothes.

Shoto, still staring weirdly at the T-shirt with "T-shirt" written on it that he got from Izuku, nodded, "Walking back was surprisingly calm, even if Izuku was covering everything in cement."

The young Prince's head dropped, "Sorry."

Enji chuckled and shook his head, "Like father like son, at least you remembered to take off your shoes."

Inko laughed, "Yes, it would have been a nightmare to clean everything."

"Hey, dad?" Shoto pulled his father's sleeve and used his best puppy eyes, "Can I go hang out with Izuku more times?"

The second-place hero in Japan looked from his son to Izuku's puppy eyes begging for him to say yes and sighed, already knowing he would get grey hairs before the year ended. Well, at least he would match his wife, "Sure, just keep out of trouble, or at least the collateral to a minimum."

The boys traded a glance, a smile, and a high-five, "Yeah!"

The worlds were doomed, but maybe that was fine, with those two together Enji doubted they would last much anyway.


Done! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Okay, this took a while, but the reason was that I was focusing on my KHxMHA fic. This fic isn't dead, none of my fics are dead, they just take a while to appear.

This thing has the SilverBits seal of approval, guaranteed quality.

Join the discord (it is half the reason my fics other than the KH one take that long to get updated).

discord . gg / stAGY4V