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 12 |
Crystal was captured by Apocalymon while she was in transit to the Haunted Zone with the rest of Xros Heart. After that, she really wasn't sure where Apocalymon had taken her. There was darkness all around them. It was the sort of darkness that had a way of swirling into twisted patterns as shadows moved across shadows with no discernible light source. And yet, there must have been a light source because the digimon holding Crystal captive were clearly visible within the swirling darkness. She felt the cold metal of the claw that was being used to restrain her, but Crystal forced herself to remain calm. She didn't want to give Apocalymon the satisfaction of watching her struggle against him.
"So you are the girl with the silver Xros Loader," Apocalymon spoke while the army of Deathmon that had accompanied him kept their distance. Crystal didn't answer. She just watched him carefully. "You have been a minor annoyance to the Bagra Empire for quite some time now, but now that you have aligned yourself with Xros Heart I'm afraid your transgressions can no longer be overlooked. Although, I sorely doubt you will be able to provide me with any real entertainment. As the general of team Epoch you once had command of the mighty Imperialdramon and other powerful digimon, but you chose to leave them behind when you departed from the Resort Zone. With your strength diminished by this sacrifice you have been forced to depend on the members of Xros Heart to compensate for your loss of power."
"As if," Crystal finally spoke against him. "I didn't join Xros Heart out of any kind of necessity. I decided to join them because I believe in the future that Taiki and Shoutmon are fighting for."
That was when Black Fladramon materialized from the girl's Xros Loader. The black dragon leapt into the air, engulfing himself in crimson flames, before slamming himself against the chain that was connected to the metal claw restraining his general. "Fire Rocket!" The impact created a small explosion, but the chain still held firm so Black Fladramon pushed himself up from the chain and ignited the air around his body before slamming into the chain a second time. This time, the chain shattered and the metal claw that held Crystal became to dissolve into a glowing cloud of data.
"I think you will find that my power is still very much intact," Crystal stated as Black Fladramon skillfully back-flipped away from the debris of the chain to stand behind her.
Apocalymon let out an amused chuckle. "Then perhaps you might be able to provide me with some entertainment after all."
"Just don't say I didn't warn you," Crystal responded. She held up her Xros Loader. She quickly cycled through the available members of her team. "Zapmon, Slashmon, Gururumon, Lighdramon, Black Fladramon, Digi Xros!"
"Digi Xros!" The digimon Crystal had chosen quickly came together. "X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode!"
X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode had roughly the same appearance as X-Slashdramon. The most obvious changes included the addition of Fladramon's chest armor with the symbol for Courage facing outward on X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode's left shoulder, three leather straps matching Fladramon's covering the upper portion of X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode's left arm, and Fladramon's facial helmet facing outward on the lower portion X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode's left arm so that the nose spike formed a respectable backwards facing arm-blade. The flame knee-pads, spiked flame boots and spiked flame gauntlets from Fladramon's armor were also present on X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode.
Mail Birdramon came to a hovering stop when it became apparent that they had somehow run out of sky. In fact, it seemed like an invisible pane of glass obstructed access to the battle that was going on up above. Taiki clenched his fists and began pounding on the invisible barrier in frustration to no effect. Kiriha waited a moment before finally putting a restraining hand on the other boy's shoulder.
"You know that isn't going to get us anywhere," he admonished him.
"There has to be a way to get up there," Taiki persisted. He banged on the alarmingly tangible surface of the sky once more before finally regaining some of his composure.
"If you would just calm down and watch, I think you might find that she really doesn't need to be rescued," Kiriha told him. It looked to him like Crystal had already gotten the situation under control on her own.
Taiki looked up and saw that Crystal had already broken free. In fact, it looked like she had activated a Digi Xros he hadn't yet seen during the time Crystal had spent with his team. Kiriha released Taiki's shoulder when it felt like the goggle head was finally starting to relax.
"You see," Kiriha continued. "That girl can handle herself just fine."
Taiki reached up and tapped the solid surface of the sky separating them from the battle taking place overhead with the back of his hand. "You know, I'm not sure she can tell we're down here."
That was when Nene and Akari flew up to join them on Sparrowmon. Taiki started to panic again when he realized Zenjirou wasn't with them.
"Where's Zenjirou?" he tried to restrain himself from freaking out again.
"We got separated," Nene answered him. "He's probably still in the mansion somewhere."
"Do you think he'll be alright without us?" Taiki heaved a sigh of relief.
"For now," Nene confirmed. "It looks like most of the ghost digimon have migrated out here to watch the fight."
"He might actually have an easier time getting out of there without the ghosts there to scare him," Akari realized.
Meanwhile, Zenjirou was trying to navigate through the mansion with Omekamon still trailing after him. He hadn't stumbled through any trap doors since around the same time he had noticed that the ghostly digimon appeared to be losing interest in sneaking up on him as they gradually dispersed from the mansion. It was somewhat of a relief because Zenjirou's throat was beginning to feel a little strained from all that yelling.
"I don't suppose you know a way out of here, do you?" he looked to Omekamon. The strange digimon stopped in his tracks behind him.
"Omeka," Omekamon responded. Then he shuffled forward and raised his marker to hastily scribble a monocle around Zenjirou's eye using a different color than he had used to scribble a mustache on the boy earlier. Omekamon quickly shuffled backward and pushed open a door before disappearing through it.
Zenjirou was still fairly baffled by Omekamon's behavior, but he decided to follow the strange digimon anyway. Sure enough, he found a staircase leading down from the other side of the door. As long as he could make it to the ground floor he would be able to find his way outside.
"Explosion Eye!" The central eye of each of the Deathmon shined deep crimson before shooting laser beams in the direction of X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode from all sides. For a brief instant it seemed that they had the Digi Xrossed digimon at their mercy, but as X-Slashdramon Dual-blade Mode unflinchingly took the multitude of hits it began to spin rapidly in place before finally moving toward one of the Deathmon.
"Bladed Spin!" The blades extending from the Lighdramon and Fladramon facial masks on each of X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode's arms were on either side of the rapidly rotating digimon as it plowed into its first target. Then it moved on to the next one. Then another. And another. Until, when X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode was finished, there wasn't a single Deathmon left standing. That was when X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode redirected its attention to Apocalymon.
"I'm only going to say this once," X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode declared warningly. "You have absolutely no idea what you are up against."
"We shall see," Apocalymon assured his opponent. He fired out another metal claw attached to a double helix chain and formed the claw into an enormous, shadowed mouth. The mouth opened and produced a huge, frothing bubble of rainbow colored spit. "Rainbow Spit!"
X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode took the bubble full in the chest. It burned. And, before X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode could shake it off and move out of the way, a second bubble hit the Digi Xrossed digimon in the face. The burning sensation intensified, but X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode managed to hold together.
"And now to end this," Apocalymon sounded rather disappointed. The metal claw attached to the chain reformed into the shadowy face of a Metal Seadramon. "Ultimate Stream!" The snout of the Metal Seadramon face glowed brightly before firing off a devastating beam of densely concentrated energy.
"X-Slashdramon, heads up!" Crystal called out in alarm. The surface of X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode's body began to shine with a silver colored aura. The pain forgotten, X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode held its hands out in front of its chest as a white hot fireball quickly formed between them.
"Heat Storm Power Surge!" X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode hurled the white hot ball of fire into the approaching beam of energy. The fireball ripped straight through it and impacted the Metal Seadramon face that had been formed from Apocalymon's metal claw causing it to explode.
"I see," Apocalymon was no longer amused. "It looks like you've still got some fight left in you."
Crystal relaxed slightly now that X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode was no longer in the line of fire. "And that's not all we're packing either," she declared as she once again held up her Xros Loader. "Ryuudamon, Dorumon, Digi Xros!"
The two digimon came together in front X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode before taking on the form of a legendary sword to be taken into X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode's outstretched hands. "Ou Ryuu Ken!"
For the first time since the battle had begun, Apocalymon was genuinely frightened by his opponent. "That's impossible," he declared in full denial. "The Ou Ryuu Ken is a weapon that belonged to Alphamon, but both only exist in legend!"
"Then maybe it's time for a new history lesson," X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode hefted the huge sword with both hands and charged at Apocalymon while performing a downward diagonal slash. "Some legends are real!" There was a rapid series of explosions as X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode cut through Apocalymon with the Ou Ryuu Ken. Apocalymon eventually split down the middle and became engulfed by a huge explosion.
There was a sharp cracking sound as the barrier that had blocked the sky began to shatter visibly now that Apocalymon had been defeated. As such, the sky returned to the Haunted Zone's regular dreary state. And, with nothing there to stand on, Crystal became subject to gravity.
At least until Taiki caught her by the arm and dragged her onto Mail Birdramon to keep her from falling too far.
"Nice catch!" Nene called out to him.
Crystal was momentarily disoriented. Somehow she had transitioned from being surrounded by total darkness to falling out of a slightly less darkened sky.
"When did you guys get here?" Crystal wondered aloud.
"We've been here the whole time," Taiki responded. "Although, somehow you weren't able to see us."
X-Slashdramon Dual-Blade Mode was similarly disoriented, but instead of dwelling on the confusion decided to concentrate on reaching the ground before the Digi Xros finally broke down into its component digimon.
"I must have been pulled into some kind of twisted pocket dimension," Crystal concluded as she tried to shake off her confusion. She noticed that Kiriha was staring at her. "What?"
"What's the deal with that sword you Digi Xrossed just now?" Kiriha wanted an explanation. This was the first he had heard of Alphamon or the Ou Ryuu Ken.
"Geez," Crystal scratched behind her ear. "You guys saw all that?"
"Yes," Kiriha responded. "And if you want to avoid having to walk back to the ground, I'd like some answers."
Crystal sighed. "Fine, I'll talk. Give me a second, will you?" She was still trying to properly orient herself to what had taken place just a few moments ago.
Now that the battle was over the ghostly digimon were flooding back into the mansion. It wasn't long until a swarm of them managed to track down Zenjirou. He immediately began shrieking and trying desperately to get away from them.
"Omeka?" Omekamon had somehow managed to get behind him again.
"Basically, the Ou Ryuu Ken is a weapon rumored to have belonged to a legendary digimon called Alphamon," Crystal started to explain. "Even Slashmon isn't sure such a digimon has ever actually existed, but back when I was still just experimenting with different Digi Xros combinations I managed to produce the Ou Ryuu Ken entirely by accident."
"But if you had something as powerful as that why weren't you able to defeat the Bagra Empire during all the time you spent in the Resort Zone?" Taiki felt something wasn't adding up.
"That should be obvious," Crystal responded. "It's derived from a weapon said to have been used by a legendary digimon. I might be able to produce it using Digi Xros, but even X-Slashdramon can barely handle using it. There's no telling how much damage a weapon like that might cause if we lost control." She stared off into the distance. "It's too powerful. I only used it just now because I didn't think we could win otherwise and I didn't think there was anyone else around."
They finally reached the ground so Taiki and Crystal could climb down from Mail Birdramon.
"Well Taiki, it looks like your new team member isn't any better at staying out of trouble than you are," Kiriha commented as he considered taking off to some other Zone.
"And we appreciate your help Kiriha," Taiki assured him. He remembered that they still needed to find Zenjirou. "I guess we'll see you around."
Kiriha shrugged and finally made his departure. He had no intention of going back inside that mansion.
Within seconds, Zenjirou finally burst from the entrance to the mansion trailed by a swarm of Bakemon and Soulmon. He made his way over to Taiki and wrapped around his waist. "I was so scared!" he proclaimed dramatically. Then he realized Nene was still there and dislodged himself from Taiki so that he could cling to her instead. For a moment, Nene was so surprised that Zenjirou had attached to Taiki first that she didn't immediately pry him off of her.
Now that the humans had managed to crowd together they weren't as easy to scare so the swarm of ghostly digimon began to disperse around them. Once they were out of the way, Omekamon ventured over to them.
"Omeka!" He gestured wildly for the group to follow him.
Omekamon led them to the control room near where Zenjirou had first encountered him. And whenever any of the ghostly digimon started to interfere with their progress, Omekamon would blast them with his Rakugaki Rocket to cover them in a splash of vibrant colors before shooing them away. When they did eventually make it to the control room they were greeted by Mummymon who smiled jovially at them.
"You kids have been pretty good sports so I think it's only fair to let you guys have this," he held up a piece of the Code Crown. He gestured toward Zenjirou. "It isn't every day we get this much entertainment."
Zenjirou was hiding behind Nene, hanging onto her shoulders while keeping his eyes tightly closed so nothing could possibly sneak up on him. Mummymon couldn't help grinning. "It's a total riot how easy that boy is to scare."
Then, after retrieving the Code Crown for the Haunted Zone, they were ready to move on to the next Zone.
To Be Continued...
Author's Notes: You know, I sometimes wonder about my sense of humor. I'm hoping the next Zone won't be quite as crazy as this one has been.