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Author's Note:
"Yeii" is pronounced yay-ee. It's a Navajo word meaning "messenger of the gods."
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Chapter 21
D-Day
--o--o--o--
Yeii Coyomon's wings snapped open with a sharp crack and he leaped into the air. Sakuyamon and Yasuramon watched him arc upward to where Azulongmon carried Jeri into battle, light gleaming from his golden, long-bladed spear. Yasuramon gave Sakuyamon one last venomous glare and soared after him.
Sakuyamon floated slowly upward casting her gaze over the ragged line of battle. Each Mega seemed to have their own idea about how to go about fighting the D-reaper. What they lacked in organization was, fortunately, made up for in numbers. There was one section of the line that was organized. Galantmon lead a tight wedge formation, driving toward the devouring red tide.
The merging of tamer and digimon wasn't total. Rika and Renamon reacted with one will but didn't share their memories or innermost thoughts. They could converse with each other after a fashion when necessary-- a true inner dialog. There were only seconds before the fight erupted but it was time enough for them to trade a few sentences.
I feel so different when I'm with you like this, Renamon, so-- serene. Rika told her partner. But just now-- the anger-- it was so unlike you. Rika had no mouth to smile with but the edges of Sakuyamon's lips quirked upwards a trifle. It was more like me!
How disturbing. Came Renamon's half-joking reply.
Tell me about it! But seriously-- I felt what you felt-- and-- it's so-- so complicated.
If only life were as simple as fighting. Renamon had no voice but her wistful tone was clear anyway.
Yeah, Rika agreed. Good thing we've got a lot of fighting to do-- like right now
Several huge Megas were getting in each other's way and the advancing D-reaper was coming dangerously close to them. Sakuyamon spun her staff lightly and called out in her clear, powerful voice.
"You, true enemy
Of every digimon,
Feel now my anger!"
Her Spirit Strike attack ripped away a large section of the D-reaper and the Megas that had only just started to realize their peril before it was removed for them, gaped at Sakuyamon in wonder.
"Spread out," she told them. "It moves faster than you think."
--o--o--o--
Yeii Coyomon swooped down and unleashed a Destroying Blade attack that tore through the D-reaper and annihilated a huge swath of it. He gave out a joyous howl and did a barrel roll out of sheer exuberance while climbing back up above the other combatants. He continued to rise until the battle lay spread out below him. At first glance, it looked like the digimon were winning. Already a large part of the D-reaper was gone but he knew how fast it could regenerate. The real battle would be won when every last bit of it was tracked down and deleted, and that was a job that would take perseverance rather than brute force-- not something that most digimon specialized in.
"Kayamon?" he called out, searching for his daughter in the mass of Megas.
"Here, father!" Kayamon rode on Yasuramon's back adding her Wind Fang and Song of Light attacks to the Sovereign's Fire Wing and Blazing Tail. Together they burned long strips of the desert clean.
Yeii Coyomon flashed them a salute with his spear. There was nothing for him to worry about there. He turned his attention elsewhere and saw Jeri sliding down one of the huge encircling chains that dangled from Azulongmon's body. He frowned in puzzlement and did a wingover, swooping down to just above the ground as Jeri leaped the last few feet to the sand.
"Jeri?" he said from just behind her. She didn't answer him but began trotting along the ragged edge of the desert, looking carefully at the rippling bits of reforming landscape. He soared past her and landed in front of her.
Jeri lifted her puppet and shouted, "Move!"
Her meaning was clear and Yeii Coyomon sidestepped with blinding speed, dodging the Fist of the Beast King attack that blazed past his shoulder. He turned just in time to see a small piece of D-reaper flame into nothingness.
"It's clever," Jeri said through her puppet, "It knows it's losing and it's trying to hide."
"How small a bit--" Yeii Coyomon began and then stopped, spinning to look at the fragmenting chunks of the D-reaper that the line of Megas were quickly destroying. He flickered out of sight for an instant and when he reappeared he was grinning widely. "It's as black as sin against all that digital energy!" He shouted joyfully. "It can't possibly hide from anyone who can phase shift!"
He flickered out briefly again and pointed. "Two more bits just there under the sand, Leomon! Cook 'em good!" His wings swept down in one powerful motion, throwing him into the sky. When he had climbed high enough he spotted the golden form of Yasuramon in the distance and arrowed toward her.
As he neared the Sovereign Cyberdramon, carrying Ryo, flew up along side him. "I saw you coming in full-throttle," Ryo called out to him, "something up?"
"Yup!" Yeii Coyomon grinned, "I think I know how to track down all the hidden bits of the D-reaper." And he explained what he had discovered.
"We should find as many digimon who can phase shift as possible," Ryo said. "There's renamon, of course, and ninjamon--"
"You know the Digital Dimension better than any of the rest of the humans," Yeii Coyomon said. "Do you think you could organize that?" Cyberdramon immediately began snarling angrily. "What's his deal?" Yeii Coyomon frowned at Ryo's partner.
Ryo grinned ruefully. "I think he wants to finish the fight here first."
Yeii Coyomon raised one eyebrow. "Well, of course we're going to finish here first! Ryo, did you ever consider hooking up with a partner that wasn't a belligerent moron?" Cyberdramon roared and swung a vicious attack at him and Yeii Coyomon phased out just long enough to let Cyberdramon's claws pass through the air where he'd been before reappearing. "Seriously, Ryo-- you can't always be doing his thinking for him."
Cyberdramon bellowed in rage and his Desolation Claw attack energy rose in him. Yeii Coyomon spun in the air and hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "The enemy is that way, chuckles."
There was a tense moment before Ryo got his partner under control and by that time they had reached Yasuramon.
--o--o--o--
When most of the major sections of the D-reaper were eliminated, it took on a new tactic. The frontal attacks stopped and small bits started to ambush the digimon, erupting from beneath the concealing sand. Many Megas were killed before Galantmon called them back from the line of battle and organized them into groups lead by digimon who could shift out of phase.
Kayamon pounced on every bit of D-reaper she could, only pointing out hidden bits to the digimon following her when there were more than she could attack at once. Afterwards, nobody could decide if the D-reaper had been intelligent enough to set up a complicated trap or Kayamon had just been very unlucky.
Whatever the reason, Kayamon was concentrating on a small bit of the D-reaper that lay just below the surface of the sand when a large piece of it erupted from deep under the desert directly behind her. As fast as she was, she still had no time to get away before it washed over her.
Yeii Coyomon heard her scream and snapped into a sharp turn, leaving his group and flying as fast as could toward his daughter's shriek of pain. He dove for the roiling mass of red, and saw Kayamon still desperately trying to leap free of the clinging substance. He tore through the air just above the surface of the desert and grabbed a fist full of Kayamon's mane as he passed over her. The shock of her sudden weight jerking at his arm nearly slammed him into the ground but he frantically thrashed his wings and gained a few precious meters of altitude, dragging his daughter away from the D-reaper.
He had acted instinctively. He knew that anything touched by the D-reaper dissolved into nothingness within seconds and that pulling Kayamon from its grasp was a futile gesture but he wasn't thinking then-- just reacting.
He phased out and scanned the desert for a safe place to land. There wasn't much of the red Chaos left-- the piece that had ambushed Kayamon was some of the last-- and he saw that the ground immediately below him was clean.
He also saw something unexpected. The energy armor that surrounded his daughter was fragmented and partially destroyed but it was still in place-- still circling her form at a short distance. As he watched, it shuddered and vanished but Kayamon remained whole. He phased back in and set her gently down on the sand. She groaned wearily and shivered once before reverting to her Champion form, Ceyamon.
"Coyomon?" came Sakuyamon's concerned voice from overhead. "Is she-- ?"
"I think she's okay," he said wonderingly.
Ceyamon took a deep, shuddering breath and opened her eyes. "Father? It-- it-- hit me from behind. Am I--" she looked down at her own hands in puzzlement, "Am I dying?"
"No, sweetie," Yeii Coyomon said shakily, brushing a tender hand over the top of her head, "I think you're going to be okay." He spread his hand across her chest just below her throat and pushed restoring energy into her.
Ceyamon leaped to her feet and angrily looked around her, flickering in and out of phase, growling, "That sneaky, bloody goo! I'll--" She stiffened and her eyes narrowed and shot out fiery darts of light that blasted into the desert. Each pulse of her Razor Gaze attack destroyed a tiny fragment of the D-reaper as it tried to slither away to safety.
"Oh yeah," Yeii Coyomon smiled, "she's fine."
The landscape went suddenly dim as a huge figure moved between them and the sky. All three looked up to see Yasuramon gliding overhead.
"She's well, it seems," the Sovereign called down, and began a sweeping turn to return to her battle group.
"It was that strange energy armor!" Yeii Coyomon yelled up to her. "It took the hit and disintegrated. It took a lot of her energy with it but it acted like a-- a-- fire break between her and the D-reaper."
Yasuramon kept turning and circled overhead. "Indeed? Then luck is on our side for once." Her long banner of a tail swept down and brushed across Yeii Coyomon and his daughter. It would have touched Sakuyamon as well but she dodged away from it with a scowl. Yasuramon shrugged. "Suit yourself, fox maiden."
Ceyamon was wrapped in a digivolution vortex and Yeii Coyomon's white buckskin clothing acquired a red trimmed border of black beadwork. His first glance told him that the patterns there were digirunes.
"Oh, come on!" he growled, "That was funny the first time but--"
"They project an energy armor shell just like Kayamon's, " Yasuramon interrupted him, "Read them when you have the time-- you might just be surprised." And she flew off without another word.
Yeii Coyomon had taken the knowledge of runes from Beelzemon along with everything else and looked down at himself again. He could make out his own name but it would take a lot of twisting and turning to see all the rest of the runes along the edges of his clothing and he had more pressing matters to attend to. Kayamon emerged from the vortex fairly glowing with new strength.
"Come on, ladies," he grinned at Kayamon and Sakuyamon, "We've got some clean up to do!" He leaped upward and fairly danced through the air toward his group. Kayamon spun in circles a few times, frisking and yipping like a puppy, before she raced back to her waiting Megas, sand spraying from her flashing paws.
Sakuyamon rose quite slowly and silently from the now empty patch of desert. She knew the runes, too. Renamon had learned them from Coyomon when they had merged in Spirit Mode and the knowledge of the words had passed through both minds that inhabited Sakuyamon as the piercing blue eyes behind the fox mask fell on their shapes as they had formed on Yeii Coyomon's buckskins.
I won't even drink her data! I'll let it stain the desert wind. I'll tear off her wings first and then I'll--
Rika found herself in the bizarre position of being the calm and restrained one of the partnership. No! We have to finish the D-reaper, Renamon. If we kill her now, it would cause chaos. Those words are poisonous lies.
She won't be able to lie without a tongue!
Renamon! Rika's shock nearly separated them.
Very well, Renamon grudgingly acquiesced, We finish the fight. Then I will-- decide.
--o--o--o--
It took them the rest of the day to find every piece of the D-reaper on that plane of the Digital Dimension. Even with their advantage many digimon had been lost but the word was spread as the surviving Megas returned to their home territories. Many of them carried with them energy armor runes that Yasuramon-- and, once she had shown him the configuration, Azulongmon-- had placed on them. Every speck of the six planes and the newer worlds would be scoured until the D-reaper was completely obliterated.
Azulongmon faced the reassembled tamers and their digimon in the darkness of the sudden night, his glowing blue aura lighting their forms in the gloom. "I can never thank you enough. It was only with your help that we found the path to the defeat of our ancient enemy."
"We were glad to help, sir." Takato said to him.
"You have saved the Digital Dimension from destruction and shown me a possible future for digimon and humans together that I did not dream of."
Takato scuffed one sneaker in the sand in embarrassment. He was saved from having to reply when a quiet voice spoke up from behind him.
"Not for some of us."
Takato turned and saw Jeri standing there, bowed with weariness. She had removed her ragged puppet from her arm and was holding it crumpled in both hands. "There's no future for Leomon-- we'll never be together again--" she broke down and sobbed, falling to her knees and letting the puppet drop from her hands.
Several things went through Takato's mind and none of them made it past his lips. It wasn't all right. Jeri had every reason to cry. He finally knelt beside her and hugged her silently. She cried even harder but he didn't let go. Guilmon came to stand beside them, gazing sadly down at his tamer and his friend.
The whole group stood in embarrassed silence until Azulongmon spoke. "Your friends are waiting for you at the South Gate. I will send you to them." A mist began to form around the group and they all began to feel lighter. "You will always be welcome in my realm."
Sakuyamon hadn't separated into tamer and digimon like Mega Gargomon and Galantmon had done. She now took hold of Yeii Coyomon's arm and pulled him clear of the rapidly forming cloud. "We will find our own way back," she told the surprised group, "Don't wait for us."
Several of the group called out startled questions as they began to rise into the air and Kayamon rushed to the edge of the cloud and prepared to leap off.
"Go with them, sweetie!" Yeii Coyomon called up to her. "They need someone prudent to protect them. I'll be along soon! If you're in doubt about what to do, ask that guy who had the smiley faces painted on his missiles-- he's a pretty sensible sort." Terriermon laughed and used one of his ears to give Yeii Coyomon a thumbs-up gesture. Henry groaned.
When the cloud had disappeared in the darkness and Azulongmon had headed back to his realm, Yeii Coyomon turned to Sakuyamon and raised a questioning eyebrow. She raised her head to look up at the bright line of gold that was circling lower and lower in the night sky, growing ever larger. "Soon," she promised him.