Chapter 5: New Developments
Disclaimer: Don't own.
He was angry; there was no doubt about it. Everything bad today, from this whole idiotic battle to interrupting his shower this morning, was caused by those two. If it weren't for Nathan getting that Digimon in the first place, if it weren't for him being Johnny Beckenstein's son, if it weren't for Marcus and his idiotic deal with Ezekiel, none of this would be happening.
He felt his younger brother's knee sock him in the stomach and recoiled from the feeling. However, he had the blue card and was willing to either use it or tear it in half. He looked over and saw both Gaomon and Darcmon taking on Dobermon and beating him.
At the same time, Nathan was trying to disable Veedramon, but the Champion level Digimon proved more difficult to take on than he had expected. There was also his friend, who didn't seem to recognize him. He had to figure out a way to get past the guy whose Digimon was harder to deal with than most of his level.
Then Bearmon came out of the gymnasium with Marcus close behind.
"Ready, man?" Marcus asked the small bear. "Since it looks like Nathan and Claire are having the most trouble, just attack Veedramon after you digivolve. Got it?"
Bearmon nodded. "Got it!"
"Card Slash!" Marcus yelled, sliding an evolution card through his digivice. "Super Evolution Plug-in S, activate!"
"Bearmon digivolve to…!"
Bearmon's form was far larger and bluer and it had a crescent moon on its forehead, spiked, red gloves on his forearm and red shoulder protectors. "Grizzlymon!"
"Remember to just disable him!" Nathan yelled out as Grizzlymon jumped forward, landing in front of Veedramon.
"Hammer Punch!" Veedramon yelled, not knowing that Grizzlymon was poised for a counterattack.
"Bodystrike Reversal!" the bear yelled, using the attack power of Veedramon to slam into the dragon, damaging him heavily.
"Now, Lekismon! Use your 'Moon Night Bomb' on Veedramon to knock him out!" Nathan ordered, much to the surprise of Claire. The attack worked and Veedramon was down on the ground, out cold.
"How did you…" Claire started to ask.
"The analyzer on our D-Arcs told me how their attacks worked. I also encountered these Digimon inside the online games that I played."
Nathan turned around and found himself face to face with Cody. "What are you doing, man?"
Cody didn't answer, but instead lunged forward with his fist. He had a slight bump on his head from Claire's attack earlier, but otherwise was fine. However, Nathan didn't get out of the way quickly enough, despite trying to block with his arm and got a fist dug into his stomach.
Nathan recoiled from the attack, but was able to get out of the way of the second strike. The third one never came, though, since Coredramon grabbed Cody from behind. "Alright, Cody, I'm sorry I have to do this," Nathan said, pulling out his deck and looking through it until he found the card he wanted. "Coredramon!"
"Yeah, what is it?" the dragon asked.
"I'm going to give you and attack using a card. Don't hesitate to use it on Cody."
"That's a bit crazy, Nathan. You better have something good in mind."
"I do." Nathan slid the card through his digivice. "Digi-Modify! Lalamon's Sing-a-song activate!"
Then Coredramon used the technique on Cody who quickly fell asleep. Nathan had to cover his own ears so that he didn't get affected by the attack.
"Alright, now we can help Marika and Diego out once we get Cody to the car," Nathan said, yawning.
"Are you alright?" Claire asked.
"I think so. Just a little drowsy. If we stop by a Starbucks on the way home, I should be fine."
"If you say so."
Gaogamon and Darcmon were actually gaining headway against Dobermon. Even then, Dobermon was able to fit in a few attacks. "Schwartzer Strahl!" he yelled, causing a black beam to come from his mouth and hit Gaogamon head on while Darcmon got out of the way.
"La Pucelle!" Darcmon yelled, pulling out her larger sword to attack Dobermon with.
"Spiral Blow!" Gaogamon yelled after getting up, causing a powerful vortex to come from his mouth and hit Dobermon.
"Great," Ezekiel complained, "This wasn't supposed to be so rough." He pulled out a card to try and form another blue card but it didn't work.
"Let's face it, Ezekiel, it's over," Marika said. "You might as well surrender."
"Yeah, just turn yourself in. There's no use to continuing on, bro," Diego added.
"Yeah, right. You're going to give me that blue card, now, Diego!" He yelled, attempting to punch Diego in the face to take his deck box where he stashed the blue card.
"He's right, Ezekiel," Ezekiel heard though his earpiece. "However, I'm not quite done with your services."
A figure appeared on the roof and tossed a ball down to the ground, smoke coming out of it once it reached the group of Tamers on the ground. It covered the entire area and none of the kids could see in front of them for a few seconds.
"Great, they got away. Gaogamon?" Diego asked, pulling out his digivice.
"Yes, Diego?"
"Let's go after them. I'm sure we can track them down. Most digivices, except for you-know-who's don't have stealth modes so it shouldn't be a problem."
"Uh, dude, what are your plans for when you catch up with them?" Nathan asked.
Diego just ignored him and got on Gaogamon. It was bad enough that Marcus pretty much caused the fight and that Nathan encouraged him. Diego and his Digimon just left.
"Wow, somebody seems to be in a bad mood," Marcus commented, eliciting stares from Marika and Claire. "What?"
"Come on, you played right into his trap. If you guys didn't show up, we'd have been dead meat, got it?" Marika said.
"Hey, he manipulated a villain and now we have another team member," Nathan said, attempting to defend his friend.
"Yeah?" Marika said. "Let's see how long he lasts. For all we know, this guy Ezekiel's working for could have been manipulating us."
"What is it this time?" Johnny Beckenstein asked.
"There are three bio-emergences happening at once, one in Summerlin, one by the Air Force Base, and the third in the middle of West Side," the black operator said.
"What is the status of the team of Tamers?"
"I'm calling Diego… No answer. Now trying for Marika…" After a few seconds she got her answer. "It turns out that they just finished their battle."
"Great, they won't make it in time. Lilly, call the emergency Tamer."
"Are you sure? Most likely he's working right now," Lilly, the black operator asked.
"Just do it! Actually, call the operative that was supposed to pick up the boys earlier. He should still be in the vicinity."
"Alright, it's as good as done."
A few minutes later, a quadruped Mega-Level Digimon was flying through the air. It shot a few missiles from its shoulders that flew through the air, hitting the three targets from across the valley.
"This is Johnny, contacting through satellite uplink. Do you copy?"
"Yeah, what is it?"The Tamer asked through his data-sphere.
"You only deleted two of the Digimon. The other one may have been too fast."
"Got it!" The Digimon flew down to the only remaining digital field, the one by the Air Force Base and performed a peculiar form of digivolution.
"MetalGarurumon! Slide Evolution!" The mechanical, quadruped wolf turned into a more humanoid wolf with massive golden blades. The first form was preferred for travel while the second was preferred for hand-to-hand combat. "AncientGarurumon!" The wolf-man Digimon landed.
"Wow, it's been a long time since we've had to fight anything." The tamer and his partner had been through a lot together. The Digimon went through the digital field, prepared to fight whatever was in there. At first, he didn't see anything, but he knew something was there.
Then he felt something go against his face. It wasn't much and it hardly did any damage, but it was definitely there. "Okay, Gabumon, what is it?" the tamer asked through his data-sphere.
"I can't tell," Gabumon's voice answered. "Something small and fast."
"I guess we have to be fast ourselves."
Time seemed to slow down for a few seconds as AncientGarurumon prepared for an attack. The he struck. The Digimon that emerged was a small, blue mutant Digimon with a thunderbolt on its forehead named Thundermon. Of course, the battle was over in an instant as AncientGarurumon's golden blade sliced through it.
"Well, I'm glad that's over. Now, to get back to work."
"Just a sec," Gabumon said, making AncientGarurumon turn around. The data from Thundermon had reformed into an egg.
"That shouldn't happen, at least not in this reality," the Tamer commented. The digital field started to disperse, revealing a crater where the missile had struck earlier. They were in the middle of a park on the far northeast end of town. AncientGarurumon fastened the two blades to his back and walked over to the egg to pick it up. "Johnny Beckenstein, can you still hear me?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"I think you should see this."
"Great, we've got a new mission," Marika said, hanging up her phone.
"So, what are we going to do now?" Nathan asked.
"Well, we're going to go on an egg hunt. It turns out that the Digimon that were deleted by our Tamer-on-Call all turned back into eggs after being deleted."
"What the… No way, man! That's just jacked up," Marcus responded.
"You willing to come with me, Claire?" Marika asked the girl, who was recovering from the battle.
"Huh? Yeah. As long as there's no fighting involved," the girl responded, somewhat sullen from the battle that had just finished.
Marika smiled and put her arm around the blond girl's shoulders. "Don't worry; I know what you're going through. There shouldn't be any fighting this time."
"So, what about Cody?" Nathan asked.
"Great, um, you guys take the car while we take Darcmon. I hope that what's-his-face took the egg he found back, because there's no way we'd get both in time."
"How about this, we each get an egg while the driver takes Cody to Somnus ."
"Sounds like a good enough idea to me. You guys willing to get the West Side one while we get the one in Summerlin?" Marika asked, "Please?"
"Might as well," Nathan responded. Nathan, Marcus and Bearmon took Coredramon while the girls and Lunamon took Darcmon.
Diego was continuing on with his hunt for Ezekiel when he road Gaogamon down a street in an industrial area. When he got to a turn, he checked his digivice for the location, he had lost him.
"Great!" Diego exclaimed. As far as he could tell, there was absolutely no sign of the other boy.
"So, what now, Diego?" Gaogamon asked.
"Let's just go home. I can e-mail Beckenstein my report. Later on, we can check this area."
Ezekiel's employer walked into the building and activated the defenses. There was already a dampening field that prevented the Tamers or Somnus from tracking the two of them down here by their digivices. Still, the air was tense.
"I failed you, Blaine," Ezekiel admitted.
Blaine wasn't mad, though. In fact, as the armor disappeared and the mysterious man took the suit off, still being obscured by the shadows, he gave a rather unexpected response. "Actually, Ezekiel, I wouldn't call this a failure. This wasn't part of the plan to begin with. Even with the loss of Cody, my plan is still going on."
"Yet, we don't have a team."
"Yes we do, Ezekiel. In fact, due to this debacle today, I can move on to a more interesting part of the plan. You see, Marcus wasn't supposed to get his Digimon until next week after Nathan and Diego settled into their roles, nor was he supposed to get a Bearmon, either. I was intending on giving him a Shoutmon as a partner. Oh well, Shoutmon are rather annoying Digimon anyway."
"I apologize for my lack of knowledge, but what's a Shoutmon?"
Blaine turned away from Ezekiel. "Of course, you wouldn't be expected to know what one was." Blaine stared into the darkness, while typing a few keys on his massive computer.
"What's going on?"
"It seems my partner is trying to contact me."
The group all made it back to Somnus headquarters after about a half an hour. It took some work and Nathan and Marcus had to call for a car to pick them up since they didn't know the way to Area 51 other than it being north of Vegas. That and it was hot outside so they goofed off at some game store for a few minutes.
Unfortunately for Nathan and Marcus, Johnny Beckenstein was absolutely furious. Of course, when Beckenstein was angry, he didn't show it. Nathan knew his father was angry, because he was quiet, eerily quiet. It was as if the middle-aged man was going through various methods of punishing his son and didn't have to voice them.
"Hey, dad, we've got the egg you wanted," Nathan told him cautiously. He shook slightly, putting the egg on the table along with the other two. Marika and Claire were sitting around the lobby talking about something.
Johnny looked at his son. Oh, the situation was dire: three bio-emergences at once with this unexpected addition to their already growing list of problems. They needed to find the perpetrator of this travesty and figure out how he's doing it. For all they knew, he was using stolen technology from either Somnus or Hypnos. Yet, none of the tech they had could cause bio-emergences.
Johnny's eyes narrowed. He gestured for Nathan and Marcus to walk into his office.
"Wow, I bet he's going to thank us for saving the day again," Dracomon commented.
Bearmon just followed the two tamers quietly into the office. The entire situation was new to him and he didn't have anyone telling him what was going on. He was too afraid to ask and just preferred to try to figure things out from context.
"Marcus, could you shut the door and sit down?" Beckenstein asked calmly and the kid complied. The man sat down at his desk which had a flat-screen monitor on top.
"I'm sure you're wondering why you're in here," Beckenstein started saying. Dracomon looked like he was expecting something good, but those expectations were dashed when Beckenstein started to explain the reason. "I am aware that the battle this morning was because of Bearmon." Bearmon shrunk back.
"Yeah, those two idiots decided to attack the girls while they were getting my Digimon!" Marcus said, all proud.
"And why, may I ask, did they want to get your Digimon?"
"How should I know? They were rogues, man."
Nathan had a terrible feeling, and it got even worse as his dad continued with the briefing. "And how did you bio-emerge the Digimon?"
"Using a blue card."
"Where did you get that card?"
"Oh, it just appeared out of nowhere in my collection. That's how's Nate got his, right?"
Johnny Beckenstein just rolled his eyes. "Marcus, I know when you're lying to me." He turned the monitor around. "I'm sure you're aware of the details I received in a report from one of my other tamers?"
The two boys looked at the monitor for a second. It was plain as day.
"It turns out that the whole incident was caused because Marcus (I don't know his last name yet), the friend of Nathan decided to take Ezequiel Guevara's blue card when offered and made his Digimon emerge into the real world. Somehow, someway, the enemy decided to use this to set a trap. Obviously, it was going to be a matter of either Marcus joining the rogues or his Digimon getting pulverized by my brother.
"In conclusion, if it weren't for Marcus taking my brother's bait, we wouldn't have had this fight and most of us would still be on the north side of town to take on the three emergences this afternoon. That way, you wouldn't have had to call…" The next word was past the bottom of the screen.
"You see what I'm getting at?" Johnny Beckenstein asked.
"Uh, yeah," Marcus said. "I guess."
Johnny Beckenstein then turned to Nathan. "So, you supported Marcus even though his actions were incredibly foolish. If something like that happens again, you shouldn't commend your friend for it. As it is, we shouldn't go around causing fights, got it?" Nathan was visibly shaking, but he nodded.
"However, I do have this for you. You managed to deal with your friend from New Mexico without dealing anymore damage than what was already inflicted by Claire. Good job. Oh, and thanks for taking initiative with Diego and Marcus when the car didn't come. There was a car accident on the freeway and he turned up far too late."
Nathan didn't know how to respond. He was so relieved. "Alright, thank you… I guess."
"Don't. You both still have that mark against you and need to learn responsibility. You especially, Marcus."
Marcus nodded.
"Alright, we have a meeting in a few minutes. If you want, you can get a bite to eat in the cafeteria. I'm going to try to get you up to speed on what has been happening the past few years from the first emergences until now."
Marcus' eyes narrowed. Oh, how he disliked boring history lessons. Then again, it wasn't like he had anything else to do.
Diego reached his house and headed straight for his room, not even bothering to say hi to his mom or younger brother. Gaomon followed him, but stopped at his door. He could tell that his tamer was going through a lot, even though he never had any relations like a human family.
Of course, he had comrades in arms during the D-Reaper invasion, a story that even Diego doesn't know about.
After he finished typing up his report, Diego lay facedown on the bed. He didn't cry, then again, he hasn't cried in years. He just tried to sleep; tried to wish his problems away. Of course, he knew with all the logic in his mind that it wouldn't.
Gaomon just stood at the side of the bed. Giving comfort wasn't something that he was good at. In fact, it made him uneasy.
Diego's mom checked on him real quick but headed back to the living room where her husband was watching TV. She was fairly thin and had her black hair tied back in a pony-tail.
"Something must have happened," the woman commented. "Why don't you talk to him, Geraldo?"
The man spoke in a far thicker accent than his wife's. "I will in a few minutes. Worst comes to worst, I'll talk to him when we go to the gym."
"It's been hard on all of us with Ezequiel missing."
Geraldo nodded. "Don't you worry. We'll find him some day."
Their youngest son looked back at them from the transparent glass kitchen table, before going back to the book he was reading. He looked more like Ezekiel than Diego and had his hair in front combed to the side, though he had some of Diego's soft features.
The history lesson lasted an hour, but it seemed to take on forever. Nathan tried taking notes in the beginning, writing about the Tamers of Japan, but lost his will to do so after the part about the DexDorugamon incursions that started a month after the Parasimon invasion. That was actually around the time Somnus was set up.
"Now," Johnny Beckenstein said, starting his finishing paragraph, "the current roster for Tamers in Shinjuku consists of the three originals: Takato, Jianliang, and Ruki, as well as later additions, Ryo, Hirokazu, Kenta, Shaochung, Ai and Mako, Taizou, Yuuji, Miki, and Tadashi. In addition, they have the former tamer Juri there for emotional support. They are actually split in two teams with Takato leading one while Ryo leads the other. They haven't gone to the digital world since before the D-Reaper invasion with the exception of Ryo. Currently, only the first four can reach Mega while the others can reach Ultimate if need be. Any questions?"
Marcus raised his hand and Beckenstein called on him. "So, how come all this wasn't made into an anime?"
"Well, you see, at one point, Chiaki J. Konaka was considering adapting the Tamers' experience into a full blown anime. However, considering the influence of anti-Digimon groups, even in Japan, it was decided against. There is also the case that the man who originally brought the idea of the V-Pets and the series to Bandai is currently on an extended vacation and his whereabouts are unknown."
"Just took the ideas and ran with them. What a sell-out!"
The other two, Nathan and Claire didn't bother raising their hands. "Alright. Now, just one other thing: because of recent anti-Digimon activities, you are admonished to keep your Digimon out of sight of the general public. This means, not using them as transportation unless you absolutely have to. I would also recommend letting your parents know you have Digimon. If they don't want you to have them, then you can keep them here at Somnus ."
Nathan raised a hand worriedly and was called on. "I don't have to tell my mom about this, do I? If I do, you'll pay for the phone bill."
Beckenstein sighed. "No, she doesn't have to know. You others, on the other hand... Dismissed!"
They all got up and walked out. It was already shaping up to be a long weekend. At least Friday was over.
Ezekiel was playing his guitar on the corner, waiting for money from passerby to drop in his can, when his cell-phone vibrated. His get-up, one that made him look like a Rastafarian with dreadlocks and a funky multicolored hat would fool anybody that knew him if they walked by him. When he finished playing his current song, some song from his superior's computer called 'Calling All Angels' by some band named Train, he called him.
"What is it?"
"It seems an anti-Digimon group in Los Angeles has captured a group of tamers with two others barely escaping. If you want, we can break into their base and claim these as your team-mates."
"Well, that's interesting. I'll come back to the base right away."
"There's no rush. We'll be leaving tomorrow morning. I have a few things to do before then, a few errands to run, if I say so myself. You see, I now have the identity of the mysterious Tamer that can achieve the mega level. He is who I've expected all along."
"So, who is he?" Of course, Ezekiel wasn't surprised when he heard the answer. It did seem like an odd coincidence that Diego was so comfortable around the person. Of course, it was more surprising that the Tamer in question was an adult while most known Tamers were teenagers or younger. In fact, before learning that the Tamer in question was one, Ezekiel thought his brother was the oldest tamer at two months away from turning 15.
A/N: This was a hard chapter to get through. The next one will be a bit of a breather chapter that will set up the next mini-arc a bit more.
Oh, as always, reviews are greatly appreciated.