80
Spirit
"For man's only weapon is courage that flinches not from the gates of Hell itself, and against such not even the legions of Hell can stand." – Robert E. Howard, "Skulls in the Stars"
As WarGreymon shot forward, Lilithmon leaped to meet him. To all appearances, his would be the advantage in a physical struggle, but he knew that it was best to get in the first strike. As she drew within range he thrust one of the Dramon Killers towards her, aiming for the center of her body. But instead of trying to dodge as he had expected, Lilithmon shot her right hand up to intercept his attack. Her golden claws closed on the three blades of WarGreymon's weapon. His momentum pushed her back a distance, but her grip was unbreakable.
WarGreymon looked into her face, surprised, and saw the maniac smile she wore. His eyes darted to the Dramon Killer itself, and he saw what she was smiling about. The Chrome Digizoid of his weapon was beginning to discolor and darken. Lilithmon swung around, taking WarGreymon with her. Her hand tightened its grip on the metal of the Dramon Killer and crushed it, breaking off the weapon's points and sending Taichi's partner flying.
Halting himself, WarGreymon looked at his ruined weapon in disbelief. Chrome Digizoid was among the most resilient materials in existence, and Lilithmon had destroyed it effortlessly. He could see her in the distance over the shattered claws, still grinning fiercely.
"This time it will be your skin!" she yelled, flinging herself towards him once more. But he had no intention of letting her come within grasping distance.
"Gaia Force!"
Lilithmon didn't slacken her approach. She met the sphere of red-hot energy head-on, greeting it with her gray phosphorescence and cleaving right through it. She emerged ready to strike again with Nazar Nail – but she didn't see WarGreymon.
"Gaia Force!"
This time his attack came from behind, and it struck home as Lilithmon whirled to meet it. The burning orb exploded on impact, and for a moment Lilithmon disappeared in the blast.
"Nice, WarGreymon!" Taichi called. The Chosen Children had regained their balance, and while most of them went to make sure their partners were alright, Taichi had started running through the aether to close some of the distance between himself and his partner. He stopped part of the way there, because now Lilithmon could be seen again. She stood where she had been, damaged by the Gaia Force, but far from dead.
"Think you're clever?" she snapped, addressing WarGreymon. "You'll regret taking me for a fool. Come," she said, stalking forward on black air. "Feel my touch!"
In the meantime, Yamato had reached MetalGarurumon where he lay. Apart from their devolution, the other partner Digimon seemed to be fine, but MetalGarurumon's condition was only worsening as Lilithmon's terrible attack ate into him.
"MetalGarurumon?"
Yamato knelt beside his partner, not hesitating to place his hands on MetalGarurumon's flank, from which ever-widening sections were missing. "Can you hear me?"
"Ya…mato…" The Digimon's eyes regained something of their former focus. "I'm – I'm glad you're safe. This is…okay now…"
"No," Yamato said. "No, it's not okay. What are you talking about? Dying!?" His tone was angry, but his partner knew it for concern. "You're going to beat this!"
MetalGarurumon tried to reply, but only succeeded in shuddering through the length of his body. Sora came to stand behind Yamato, cradling a battered Piyomon in her arms.
"What did she do to him?" she asked, gently.
"I don't know," Yamato said, not looking at her. He leaned again over his partner. "I know it hurts," he said, "but you can't give up now. You didn't let me give up on myself, and I'm going to do the same for you."
"It's hard… Yamato…" MetalGarurumon whispered. "It's…the worst thing…I've ever felt."
"So what?" Yamato said, choking back tears. "You can do it. Like always. Aren't we going to be friends together, forever?"
"Forever…"
MetalGarurumon tensed and trembled, but if he was trying to rise to his feet he was unable to. In Sora's arms, Piyomon stirred, and indicated that she wanted to be let down.
"That's right," she said to her friend. "Sora and Yamato and the others still need us. We've got to stick together."
Sora nodded as she put a hand on Yamato's shoulder and gave it a little squeeze.
"The fight's not over," Gomamon said. Jou and the others had gathered at Yamato's back, and Gomamon was watching the dance to the death that was playing out beyond Taichi. "WarGreymon needs your help."
MetalGarurumon made another attempt to move, growling with the effort.
"This is awful," Mimi said, dropping her eyes. "I just want this fight to be over. Lilithmon didn't need to start it. We shouldn't have to do this!"
"There are always going to be fights starting, Mimi-san," Koshiro said. "But we can't ignore them."
"I know," she said. "That's not what I meant." She looked at MetalGarurumon. "I wish there was more I could do to help…"
In the distance, WarGreymon ducked under Lilithmon's claws and sliced upwards with his undamaged Dramon Killer, but Lilithmon's dodge was equally effortless. Using her left hand she blasted her opponent with another bolt of energy, knocking him away. Coming to a stop he waited for her next move, expecting another attempt to get the corrosive claws into his flesh. But Lilithmon wasn't looking at him. She turned her head towards the place where the Chosen Children, minus Taichi, were gathered about MetalGarurumon.
"Disgusting," she said. "I can feel their idiotic goodness from here." She glanced at WarGreymon, appraising him, as if making a decision about whether or not to step on an insect. But she only shrugged and grinned. "Watch how I end this game," she said, and darted away, towards the humans.
"Damn it!" WarGreymon growled. He took off after her, following in the wake of her dark wings as she swooped towards his friends. She might not intend to kill the Chosen Children, but whatever she had in mind needed to be stopped regardless. "Taichi!"
Taichi saw Lilithmon bearing down on him, but he also saw that WarGreymon wouldn't be able to intercept her, and stood his ground. Her left hand caught him around the neck, knocking the breath out of him as he was swept along towards the other Chosen Children. She spread her wings and came to a stop, floating in the air before them, still holding Taichi. He tried to pry her off with both hands, but was unable to break her vice-grip. WarGreymon was about to tackle her from behind, but he stopped in midflight when he saw that her right hand was hovering threateningly over his partner's forehead.
"Don't you ever get tired of your clichés?" Lilithmon asked, addressing the Chosen Children as a group. The partner Digimon made a move to put themselves between Lilithmon and the humans, but the Chosen Children wouldn't let them, instead standing beside or in front of them, or throwing protective arms about them. The Chosen Children knew that with the Digimon in their Child forms, Lilithmon could erase them effortlessly.
"You can't still have any hope of winning, can you?" Lilithmon asked. She was calm again, but her flirtatiousness had disappeared. She was done bothering with her mimicry of human emotions. "Your Love and Friendship haven't done you any good, and your Courage and Purity cannot protect you." She looked down at MetalGarurumon's trembling form. She looked at Taichi, watching his struggle to free himself. "But you still fight," she said, "Even in the face of annihilation you cling to your illusions. Then I have one last thing to show you."
She withdrew her right hand from Taichi's vicinity, and held it palm upwards in front of her. A pinprick of light appeared in the blackness above, and began to widen into a portal out of the void. Even Yamato looked up from his partner, and the Chosen Children watched to see what the opening would reveal. Some of them, maybe all of them, feared that it would open on their missing friends – already beyond their help, and as carefully and horrifically arranged as the rest of Lilithmon's victims.
Instead, Taichi recognized with relief a sideways view of the room he had discovered after destroying Lilithmon's monster. Atop the table still lay the great transparent globe, with its swirling violet mist within it. As if gravity had been redirected, the globe slid off the tabletop, not rolling, but falling from the dim-lit room and landing in Lilithmon's outstretched hand.
"Any idea what this is?" Lilithmon asked. No one answered. "Last night my subordinate Phelesmon was destroyed, but his collection remains in my possession. These are all the human souls he collected during his time in the real world!"
The Chosen Children gasped in unison.
"W-What do you mean?" Mimi said, loosing her hold on Palmon.
"Exactly what I say," Lilithmon answered. "Before we arrived here he had to settle on the lesser souls of Digimon, using them to increase his power and mine. But these…" Her sharp smile returned as she gazed into the orb in her hand. "These are on a different level."
She flung Taichi away from her, towards WarGreymon, and with a flap of her wings repositioned so that she could see all of her enemies at once. In her hand the glass sphere began to smoke and melt, until only the dense knot of souls was left in her palm.
"Watch this, Chosen Children! I will show you the only good use for your pathetic souls, and your vapid emotions!"
She squeezed her claws into a tight fist. There was no sound, but everyone present could feel the stolen souls screaming in their minds. The violet mists rolled over Lilithmon's body and were absorbed into it. The visible damage that had been done to the demoness over the course of the battle disappeared, washed away by the spiritual tide. Lilithmon floated before the Chosen, resplendent, her image restored and the gold of the right hand shining. Gray non-light pulsed from her as she laughed her derision.
"Isn't it so obvious now?" she sneered. "If you had put all your touchy-feely talk aside and turned to fear and sorrow and hatred, you might have had a chance!" She fixed her eyes on MetalGarurumon's dissipating body. "You're taking much too long to die!" She dived towards him, Nazar Nail ready to strike.
"MetalGarurumon!" Yamato screamed, throwing himself across his partner as if to shield him. Lilithmon came onward. Sora stepped reflexively in front of her boyfriend, and Lilithmon's left hand whipped out to backhand her across the face, knocking her out of the way. Behind her, Lilithmon heard Taichi call out his partner's name, and in the next moment her claws sank at last into flesh – not MetalGarurumon's, but WarGreymon's.
"Idiots!" she shrieked in triumph, working the Nazar Nail deeper into WarGreymon, gratified by his screams, overcome with excitement. "If you all wanted to die so badly, you need only have said the word!"
It took her a moment to notice that Taichi was tugging on her right arm, trying to remove it from his partner. Enraptured as she was with the agony she was causing, she may never have noticed if she hadn't heard the boy speak.
"You're the idiot!" he yelled at her in fury, his eyes wet with tears. "You still don't understand anything!"
"There's nothing to understand," she said, almost sweetly. "Weakness is weakness. Now let go."
"No!"
"Don't trifle with me, boy."
"Shut up!"
Lilithmon rolled her eyes and grasped Taichi's shoulder to move him out of the way, when suddenly six green tendrils wrapped themselves around the same arm he was holding onto so desperately.
"Palmon!" Mimi exclaimed.
"Fighting to save people is the kind of fighting we always need to be doing," Palmon said.
Mimi actually smiled. "You're right… Go, Palmon!"
"Magical Fire!"
"Marching Fishes!"
"Petit Thunder!"
Lilithmon snarled as the other Digimon's various attacks struck her face without dealing damage.
"You—" she stammered, "You – idiots!"
"I think you have a lot to learn about the soul, Lilithmon," Koshiro told her. Strangely, in that moment the statement didn't seem like bravado. It seemed like an obvious fact, and one that deserved to be stated.
"Keep it up, Gomamon!" Jou shouted.
Lilithmon scoffed in disgust. She turned her attention back to destroying WarGreymon from within, but something seemed wrong. She wasn't feeling well. She felt drained. And soon she and the others could see why. The souls she had absorbed were leaking back out of her. Her crawling gray aura began to do strange things – she could see color in it. Orange, where Taichi had hold of her arm, red, near where Sora now stood, blue, around Yamato as he crouched over his partner.
"No…" Lilithmon murmured. "No, no, no. This isn't happening…"
It was happening. More colors began to appear – Mimi's green, Koshiro's purple, and Jou's honest, cleanly gray. Lilithmon watched in horror as the Nazar Nail was thrust out of WarGreymon's body. Taichi and Palmon were forced to release her arm as she was blown backwards, leaving golden fragments in the air as her claws cracked and splintered. The blackness was full of light and colors now, shining brightest about the two Ultimate-level partner Digimon.
Lilithmon shielded her eyes from the glare. When it faded and she looked back, there stood WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon, their armor and bodies restored. The Chosen Children stood by them, looking nearly as surprised as she felt. Slowly a full realization of what had happened came to her, and her face contorted impossibly in her utter hatred, raging fury, and sudden fear. She reared back with a wordless scream of rage, and her mystic circles appeared in the air before her.
"Phantom Pain!"
The black bolts leapt forward, now visible in the new brightness of the cold void, and as they came WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon drew in enormous power with which to greet them.
"Gaia Force!"
"Cocytus Breath!"
Shining blue and orange swirled into a single attack, engulfing and annihilating the black of Lilithmon's spell. Then the blast hit Lilithmon herself. There was an explosion, the demon lord's shrill scream, and, finally, a light that began to dissolve the black abyss.