108

Menaced

"…for one instance I saw a Form, shaped in dimness before me, which I will not farther describe. But the symbol of this form may be seen in ancient sculptures, and in paintings which survived beneath the lava, too foul to be spoken of… as a horrible and unspeakable shape, neither man nor beast…" – Arthur Machen, "The Great God Pan"

BlackTailmon felt numb and limp; the only clear sensations were the continued ringing in her ears and the unreasoning fear that gripped her. And it was unreasoning. It took her a few moments to even recall what had just happened. As she looked about with blurred vision it came back to her. It must have been an attack of some kind. The Digimon's horn had amplified its heart-stopping shriek into a weapon, fortunately directed past BlackTailmon rather than at her, the Chosen Children's partners apparently taking the full force of the blast. At a glance she couldn't see the hulking forms of Ikkakumon or Garudamon. They might have been obliterated.

That wasn't her concern anyway. She tried to focus and figure out what she should be concerned about, but before she could really collect her wits she realized that Panimon was standing nearby, and looking down at her.

"Good, you survived," he said. Maybe he was trying to sound solicitous, but that voice wasn't built for it. "What about you, Chosen Children? I trust you're still among the living."

At first there was no response, but Panimon surveyed the scene with satisfaction. From his higher vantage point, with senses not at all affected by his lethal scream, he could see that the partner Digimon had not been destroyed but had been reduced to their Baby II forms. Of the two Chosen Children, the boy lay motionless, probably unconscious rather than dead. The girl was stirring – Garudamon had shielded her somewhat. Panimon smiled his terrible smile.

Sora twitched, making short, jerky motions as if repeatedly startled. For her part, she felt terribly afraid, though what exactly she feared was vague. That ear-splitting screech had filled her with a desire to flee from this place as fast as possible, but her body refused to answer the urgent signals of her brain. She tried to get a grip on herself. In a few moments she'd recovered sufficiently from the effects of the attack to think clearly and control her motions. She remembered Panimon, sat up quickly in the grass, and began to get to her feet, looking around for her friends.

Pyocomon she spotted immediately as a splash of pink on the dark grass. Kneeling beside her partner Sora was relieved to see movement. With that fear laid to rest she looked up to see what Panimon was doing. He still stood near BlackTailmon, the small black Digimon seeming tiny by comparison. Some distance to the left, Jou and Pukamon were out cold.

"Glad to see you're alright," Panimon said. "I'll check your friend for you…"

He took a step towards Jou.

"Hey!" Sora shouted, standing up again. Panimon stopped and looked at her. A chill went through her then, and she had trouble finding her voice. There was something very terrible in confronting a creature that until now might only have existed in a nightmare.

"What?" Panimon asked. "Do you not want me to? What would you do if I didn't care what you wanted?"

Sora glanced quickly down at Pyocomon, who apparently had lapsed back into unconsciousness. The answer to the question was that she could do nothing. A full-grown human could not have stood up to a beast with Panimon's physique, and since he was a Digimon there was no telling what his true strength might be.

While the silence lengthened, BlackTailmon stayed crouched where she was, a little behind Panimon, unsure of what to do. Was Panimon a possible ally? He had to be working with the Dark One like the rest, didn't he? She wondered if a fight was coming, or if that soundwave attack had ended it before it began. It might be wise to put some distance between her and the group. Slowly she began to slink away.

Quicker almost than the eye could follow, Panimon whipped round and caught the feline Digimon with one great hand, pinning her to the turf. BlackTailmon cried out in protest and tried instinctively to wriggle out of his grasp, but may as well not have bothered.

"Where are you going?" Panimon asked.

"S-sorry." BlackTailmon stammered a little. She wasn't used to apologizing. Not daring to make another move, she offered no resistance when Panimon curled one of his thick fingers around her right hind leg.

Sora, even standing at a distance, heard the snap. BlackTailmon's yowl of pain followed, and it was hard to tell which was more shocking. Combined, the two sounds made the already keyed-up girl's legs weak. Panimon looked at her, flashed a goat's smile, but said nothing.

In the meantime BlackTailmon was trying to function through the agony. There was a bush nearby, and trees beyond it. She started crawling. If she could just get under cover… Long seconds passed. She had almost made it when the great hairy hand fell on her again and dragged her back to Panimon's feet, stringing together little jolts of pain in her broken leg.

She had played this game before, though never in this role. The thought didn't occur to her. She wondered frantically why this was happening to her. It didn't seem right. While she lay there shivering two fingers took hold of one of her forelegs, and snapped it without effort.

Sora looked on, sick with horror. She had no reason to care for BlackTailmon, but the display of inhuman cruelty tore at her heart. "How – how could you—!?" she cried.

"You're not going to save her?" Panimon asked. Sora could only stare, tears forming in her eyes. "Then we'll move on." He raised BlackTailmon's limp, twitching body and sank his teeth into it. The small black shape disintegrated.

Sora choked down a sob. Her hands clenched into fists as she tried to keep from giving in to the waves of nausea that swept through her. After a few moments she managed to meet Panimon's gaze. She could feel his eyes going up and down her, and as the moments passed her disgust was slowly blotted out by icy fear.

"And now…" Panimon rumbled. He raised one cloven foot and took a slow, deliberate step in Sora's direction. She felt a surge of panic that almost overwhelmed her, but managed to stay where she was. Helpless though she was, after seeing what had happened to BlackTailmon she could not imagine leaving Pyocomon and the others with this monster.

"Going to make it easy for me…" Panimon said, taking another step and another. Only now did Sora think of her D-Terminal. If she pulled it out, could she send a distress message before he could reach her? No, she knew she couldn't, but she had to try. In a moment she had it out and in her hand. In the next moment it was twitched out of her grasp and sent flying into the dusk under the trees. With a cry, she looked up and saw that one of Panimon's hands was raised, and that its segmented fingers were fingers no longer. They had lengthened into boneless tendrils – were still lengthening slowly as she watched, fed by the fleshy cords back at his wrist. The four crazy digits twisted in the air, coming toward her.

Now she ran. The sight had unnerved her completely. She fled in the same general direction that the serpentine fingers had sent her D-Terminal, passing out of the open area into the midst of trees. This was not entirely a conscious action, and she didn't stop to find the missing device in the grass. Her only thought was escape from the thing behind her.

Something swept in, low to the ground, entangling her feet, and she went down. Breaking her fall with her hands, she rebounded quickly, but no sooner was she on her feet than something knocked into her side, spinning her around. Moving noiselessly through the grass, Panimon had caught up with her. In the instant that her eyes took in the satyr body and the awful goat's head, one of his hands nearly doubled in size and pinned her securely against a thick tree trunk. She struggled with all the frantic strength she could muster. It was no use.

"Time to give that dream a proper ending, hmm?" Panimon said. Sora didn't respond; the calmness of despair was on her. The giant hand squeezed a little harder. The palm was entirely covered in fur – to Sora it felt like the pressure of a gargantuan tarantula upon her chest. Panimon's evil eyes squinted at her as his face drew nearer to her own. She turned her head to the side to escape the hot stench of his breath.

"This is the reason I came to this world," Panimon said. "All you delicious human girls…" Sora trembled with anger, fear, and revulsion as his long wet tongue slid slowly up her cheek. "Now… What should we do first?"

He got no answer. There was no response Sora was capable of giving. In another moment he might have decided for himself, but just as he finished speaking the sound of a rushing object could be heard in the sky, and all at once four beams of blue light were burning into him, cutting across his wings and back. With an annoyed grunt he tightened his grip on Sora and the tree – then that grip loosened as a speeding, bluish gray shape caught one of his wings and pulled him half to the ground.

"Sora!"

"Y-Yamato!" she gasped. Trying to balance herself after the abrupt withdrawal of Panimon's hand, she saw him running toward her, apparently having jumped off MetalGarurumon just before the impact.

"Are you alright?" he asked as they moved together away from where the two Digimon grappled on the ground.

"Yeah, I think so," Sora answered. "How—?"

"I got a message from Jou," Yamato said. "That building…"

Before he could explain further their attention was drawn suddenly back to Panimon. He had somehow torn his wing free of MetalGarurumon's jaws undamaged, and with a throaty cackle had rounded on his attacker. MetalGarurumon sprang forward, ready to rake with his front claws, but with blinding speed Panimon's fist rose in an uppercut, smashing into MetalGarurumon's chin and knocking him into the air, where he managed to stabilize himself.

"No, we can't have a real fight here," Panimon told him. "We don't want to hurt your little humans. Don't want to spoil them for me!"

As Panimon spoke his vestigial wings expanded, and with one powerful flap he kicked himself off the ground and launched towards MetalGarurumon. He caught Yamato's partner about the stomach, and the momentum carried both Digimon above and beyond the tops of the park's tallest trees. In a moment the combatants were hidden from sight by foliage and the night's darkness.

Yamato and Sora looked to each other, unsure of what to do. As an automatic gesture Sora wiped at the side of her face, and shuddered with disgust when she noticed.

"Are you alright?" Yamato asked again.

"I'm much better now," Sora answered. "Thank you, for coming back."

"Of course," Yamato smiled. "I owed it to you after that LadyDevimon fight." In spite of everything, Sora couldn't help but smile back. Before either of them spoke again they heard the rapid approach of footsteps, and saw Jou running towards them with Pukamon and Pyocomon cradled in his arms.

Sora went to meet him, and took Pyocomon. Her partner's eyes were half-closed and her expression blank, but she responded feebly to Sora's touch.

"MetalGarurumon and that other monster are headed in that direction," Jou said, pointing with his free hand. "Not sure how we're supposed to follow… Yamato, what happened at the enemy base?"

"I… don't know," Yamato answered. "There was a huge explosion just as we got there." Suddenly his face looked drawn and grim. "Taichi and the others are still there, searching. I just hope…" His voice caught and trailed off.

"Let's go," Jou said. The news of the explosion had left him cold. "There… There might be something we can do to help."

"Right," Yamato nodded. He took off in the direction of the building, which happened to be the direction that the Digimon had been heading. Jou and Sora followed him, not slowed down by the burden of their partner Digimon.

"I'm sure they weren't in there," Sora said as they ran, but then instantly regretted putting their fears into words. She hoped that Yamato hadn't heard. Whether he did or not, he made no response. He kept on running.