Additional Author's Notes: Because this chapter seemed oddly self serving I decided to hold off on submitting it here until I had a few more chapters that didn't exist solely for my own satisfaction. Hopefully they will have been worth the wait.
Disclaimer: Although the severely warped and twisted imagination is my own, Digimon Xros Wars and its characters are the property of Akiyoshi Hongo, Bandai, Toei Animation, and TV Asahi.
| Digimon Xros Wars | Xtra | Part 6 |
"I guess this is it for me..." The faint voice was accompanied by a broken sounding melody. It sounded weak and faraway. Of course, only Taiki and Crystal actually heard it.
"Where are-" Taiki started, having immediately realized that it was the melody of a dying digimon somewhere nearby, but he was cut off by Crystal.
"Black Fladramon," she spoke softly, having recognized the voice. Black Fladramon must have been one of her companions. Crystal didn't waste any time. "Imperialdramon!" she called for the enormous flying dragon that as an aerial transport for the residents of the Resort Zone. "Take me to where Black Fladramon was fighting! And hurry!"
"We're coming too," Taiki decided without pausing to consult with the rest of his team. Since he and Crystal were both hearing things that Akari and Zenjirou were oblivious to, neither of them seemed to be inclined to argue about it. In the next instant they were all beamed onto Imperialdramon's back as the enormous dragon sped out over the canyon between the mountains that surrounded the valley beneath the floating island of the Resort Zone.
"Positron Laser!" Imperialdramon's voice boomed through the air as the cannon mounted between its wings fired off a spiraling beam that split off in multiple directions to take out the stragglers from Megidramon's army that were still in the area. After that Imperialdramon beamed the rest of them down into the mouth of the canyon while it continued to hover overhead.
Crystal rushed over to the fading form of the injured digimon known as Black Fladramon and quickly loaded him into her Xros Loader for recovery. It seemed like they had barely made it.
"Thank goodness," Akari was relieved that the worst of it was over. "We made it."
"You should have just let them kill me," Black Fladramon's voice came from inside of Crystal's Xros Loader. "I failed to prevent Megidramon's land troops from making it into the valley."
"Don't say stuff like that!" Crystal shouted back at him. "You did the best you could even though we were severely outnumbered. I'm just glad you're alive. Besides," she paused and lowered her voice, "if anyone is to blame for this, it's me for hesitating to use lethal force against the enemy."
Black Fladramon became immediately apologetic. "Don't say that. That kindhearted attitude is part of why we respect you. Anyway," he added, "my life is no longer in any danger so you can go ahead and let me out of here."
"Right," Crystal responded. She held her Xros Loader out in front of her. "Reload! Black Fladramon!"
The flame armored dragon man digimon materialized and was immediately pounced by Zapmon. "Sheesh, don't go worrying Crystal like that!"
Black Fladramon snorted at the smaller dragon. "I guess this means that you were worried too."
"As if," Zapmon hastily denied the accusation. "I just can't stand to see Crystal get all upset."
Once that was over, Imperialdramon flew everyone back to the floating island at the heart of the valley beyond the canyon. It was generally decided that the members of Xros Heart who were present would remain in the Resort Zone for the night to get some rest. Crystal was taking that time to decide which digimon to bring with her if she decided to join them. Of course, the digimon she had already been utilizing in combat were taking it upon themselves to make that decision for her by sparring amongst themselves.
Black Fladramon seemed to be an advocate of intensive training because he was pitting himself against the combined forces of Gururumon, Lighdramon, Raptordramon and Togemogumon. When Togemogumon opened with a barrage of the crystalline icy quills launched from its back, Black Fladramon swatted them down with his claws. When Gururumon and Lighdramon ganged up on him by combining Gururumon's purple flame breath and the blue electricity produced from the lightning bolt shaped spines on Lighdramon's back, Black Fladramon shielded himself by engulfing his own body in crimson flames. And when Raptordramon charged at him, Black Fladramon strained to hold his ground as he locked his claws against the black armor that covered most of Raptordramon's body. In the next instant Black Fladramon used the other digimon's forward momentum to lift Raptordramon up off the ground, tossing the other digimon into the air behind him. It didn't look like any of them were holding back.
"Are they always like this?" Akari was staring.
"Always," Crystal confirmed. "Black Fladramon takes his losses very personally. They might be going at it for hours. Don't worry though, they'll be alright."
"Anyway," Slashmon interrupted. "Since this is the Resort Zone and you all are going to spending the night here, might I recommend taking advantage of our recreational facilities while you're here?"
"What sort of recreational facilities?" Taiki wondered aloud.
"I think he means the hot springs," Crystal clarified.
"That's right," Akari realized. "This is supposed to be a hot spring resort. Now that we have time to take a break, we should definitely spend some time in them."
"And since we've already gotten rid of the Bagra Empire's army in this Zone we don't have to worry about being attacked like the last time," noted Shoutmon.
That was how everyone else ended up spending the evening in the hot springs. The boys were separated from the girls by a dividing wall, with the digimon distributed accordingly. Bastemon was lounging on a large, heated rock on the girl's side at a safe distance from the water so as to avoid getting wet. There were several Pawn Chessmonz and Pickmonz on both sides of the dividing wall, although none of the humans could distinguish a difference between any of them. Ballistamon was delightedly being treated to a special oil bath. And the Monitamonz were perched along the top of the dividing wall with very specific instructions to: 1) Make sure the boys didn't try to sneak a peek. Zenjirou, that means you. 2) NOT record anything on the girl's side. And 3) Record the boys side as much as they like.
Just try to figure out who decided that last part. And, if you were wondering when Nene showed up, well...
"The Monitamon told me you were going to be spending time at a hot spring resort so I decided it might be a good time for me to pay you a visit," Nene's explanation should have been obvious.
"Of course." Clearly, this was just something Crystal was going to have to get accustomed to.
There was a yelp from the other side of the dividing wall accompanied by a splash as Zenjirou got acquainted with a small fireball to the face. Apparently he hadn't gotten the memo about no trying to peek.
"I think they've got us under surveillance," Taiki pointed out with some amusement.
"How is that even fair?" Zenjirou pouted.
"No one said it was supposed to be," noted one of the Monitamon.
"How come they get to spy on us, but we don't get to spy on-" Zenjirou trailed off, remembering that Taiki also had a trio of Monitamon now. "We can instruct our Monitamon to spy on them!"
Taiki laughed nervously. "I don't think that's going to work."
"And don't think we can't hear you talking about it!" Zapmon declared from the other side of the dividing wall.
Things seemed to settle down after that. Once everyone had dried off and gotten dressed it was time to browse around the local selection of dining options. These included a ramen cart operated by Bakumon, a small burger bar that was run by a family of Burgemon and Ebi Burgemon, and finally, an expensive restaurant operated by Digitamamon. Digitamamon had no intention of reducing his prices, even if this was the bunch of twerps who had taken down Megidramon's forces, so that kind of removed him from the running.
"I'll admit that DigiNoir is pretty good," Crystal was saying, "but since the food at this resort mimics cuisine from the human world, it's almost like a small touch of home so it's pretty good too."
"I can see why you haven't been in any hurry leave," Taiki agreed.
"I just hope this place will be alright without me here," Crystal became distant, but then she snapped herself out of it. "Of course, once you collect all the piece of the Code Crown this world will be saved and it will probably happen faster if you have more help."
Zapmon hopped onto the girl's shoulder. "Don't forget, Megidramon was the biggest threat to our survival and now that he has been taken care of it will be no problem for Imperialdramon and Cannondramon to defend the area. We can leave the rest up to them."
"That's true," Crystal conceded. Not that it was going to stop her from worrying about it.
That night, beneath the cover of the stars, Crystal found herself unable to get to sleep and snuck out to calm her nerves the only way she knew how. She returned to the area by the fountain decorated with the three clashing Depthmon statues. She picked out a spot and, listening to the sound of moving water, she began moving through the familiar stances of a frequently practiced kata to take her mind off things. She found the disciplined repetition to be somehow therapeutic.
Of course, as often happens with such carefully orchestrated solitary endeavors, her departure from the building everyone was spending the night in hadn't gone unnoticed and she was, in fact, followed. Taiki, being the unknowing athletic prodigy that he is, had a vague notion of what the girl was doing from his experiences with various martial arts clubs he had assisted with, but even then he didn't fully grasp the reasoning behind why she was out here practicing katas in the middle of the night. He could tell that something must be bothering her and his natural compulsion was to find out what it was so he could help.
"You know," he tried to get her attention without startling her too much. "I've helped out with some martial arts clubs before so I could maybe lend you hand if you like."
Crystal snorted in mild amusement. "You do realize that practicing katas is kind of a one person activity, right?"
"So then we could spar," Taiki suggested. "That takes two people, doesn't it?"
Crystal strategically maneuvered into a new stance so that she was facing away from him, but even then she couldn't blow him off completely. "I somehow doubt that was your reason for coming out here this late at night."
"True," Taiki admitted. "If you would rather just talk about what's bothering you, that would be fine too. But," he trailed off deliberately before finishing, "you might not want to talk about it."
"Are you always this observant?" Crystal had ceased moving through the stances of the kata she had been in the middle of performing to face him again.
"Beats me," Taiki simply smiled and propped his arms behind his head. "Did you want to take me up on that offer?"
"Sure," Crystal shrugged. "Why not?" She moved into a defensive stance keeping her arms raised in front of her face the way she had been trained. "Let's see if you've got anything to teach me."
It didn't last long. In fact, it only took a few seconds for it to become abundantly clear that neither of them was likely to make the first move and, with that in mind, Crystal completely altered her fighting stance. Which is to say she lowered her hands, let out a low growl, and performed a running leap to tackle Taiki to the ground all before his brain could register that she had just completely abandoned the notion of sparring in favor of something else entirely. Crystal shoved herself off to the side and immediately started giggling.
"What the heck was that?" Taiki was still slightly overwhelmed by the combination of surprise and the force of gravity.
"That was a raptor pounce," Crystal informed him once she managed to get her laughter under control. She still had a self satisfied grin on her face. "I've used a similar move in grappling class, although the actual technique isn't officially recognized by any martial arts school that I'm aware of."
"And here I thought it might have been something you picked up from living with the digimon," Taiki laughed nervously. That growl before had been fairly convincing, especially in the dark.
Crystal sat up and easily pushed herself onto her feet without bothering to use her hands. "Watching them might have helped me to subconsciously improve on the idea," she admitted scratching behind her ear. "I'm not sure I've ever really given it that much thought. It's more of a defense mechanism." She extended a hand to help Taiki get back on his feet. "I wouldn't stand a chance in a formal sparring match. The padding would slow me down, I'm lousy at taking a hit, and I'm pretty pathetic when I can't rely on unconventional tactics."
Taiki blinked as Crystal helped him up. "I'm guessing you never really planned to fight me seriously, huh?"
"I thought about it," she responded. "But then I realized I didn't stand a chance and we would just wind up exhausting ourselves more than we already have, so I decided it would be better to just end it quickly. Using Digi Xros is pretty draining and you were putting a lot more energy into yours than I was today. I know you mean well, but you really shouldn't overdo it when you're already worn out."
"You can tell?" Taiki stared at her.
"The truth is we both are," she smiled at him. "So, what say you we head back and at least pretend we're trying to get some rest before tomorrow so your friends don't have to worry so much, alright?" She looked past him to where Akari, Zenjirou, Shoutmon, and Ballistamon were all dutifully spying on them from just behind the Depthmon fountain. Then she shifted her gaze to a nearby tree where Zapmon was camouflaged in the shadows. "Zapmon, I know you're there too."
"Drat, foiled again!" Zapmon pouted as she descended from the tree.
"How did you know where we all were?" Shoutmon was in awe of the new girl. He raced over to Taiki and tugged at his shirt, "We're taking this one with us, right?"
"That's really up to them," Taiki reminded the enthusiastic digimon.
"Call it intuition," Crystal added with a shrug. "I'm not really sure how it works, but I've learned to trust it."
Zapmon quickly scrambled up the leg of Crystal's pants, up the back of her shirt and finally settled on the girl's shoulder. "Just remember," she declared. "Crystal is my human. I found her first."
"Relax Zapmon," Crystal tried to calm her partner down. She removed her silver Xros Loader from its holster to reload the rest of her team-Slashmon, Gururumon, Lighdramon, Black Fladramon, Raptordramon, Togemogumon, Thunderbirmon, Dorumon, Gryphomon, Ryuudamon, Yuki Agumon, and several Fan Beemon. "That also goes for the rest of you. Team Epoch is now affiliated with Xros Heart. We're all on the same side here."
"Hang on," Zapmon dropped down from the girl's shoulder and leered at Slashmon. "You're seriously coming with us? But who will look after the resort while we're gone?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Slashmon brushed her off. "The digimon here will look after things. The resort will be in very good hands."
"Besides, we're going to need Slashmon for our Digi Xros to be at full power," Crystal finished. "Once we leave this Zone we can't afford to keep holding back."
To Be Continued... ?
Author's Notes: I decided to combine some ideas for scenes I've been wanting to experiment with. I think it turned out alright.