Chapter 10: The Rise of DATS
In Dartz and Riou's room
"Well, we've got a week until the next round of the tournament. What are we gonna do until then?" Jeremy asked.
"We could go to the beach." Sharon suggested.
"Or the mall." Aelita and Yumi said in unison. The boys exchanged glances.
"Beach." They said. Everyone went to their dorms to change. Riou and Dartz grabbed their trunks and got changed. The gang met outside Ulrich and Yumi's dorm. Everyone, even Jeremy, had on their swimsuits and each had a towel over his or her shoulders. Garrett had a surfboard in his hands. Everyone also had a duffle bag with a change of clothes.
"Ready to go?" Duke asked. The gang nodded. They walked out of the dorm building and off campus. Once they got to the beach, the towels were laid out and Garrett pulled out his surfboard.
"Great way to spend a day off, isn't it?" Lisa asked.
"Yep. No Xana, no school, feels like old times." Odd said as he sat down next to Sam and began to absorb the sun's rays.
"Let's just hope nothing strange comes around." Ulrich said.
"You mean like that?" Aelita asked pointing toward the river. A giant wave was just crashing onto the shore.
"That's just a wave, Aelita." Garrett said. "They're caused by the pull of the moon's gravity on the water. The moon's gravity just isn't strong enough to pull the water up much. Waves like that mean that the high tide is coming in."
"Yeah, and only you would know." Dartz said.
"Yes. I would. Well, see ya. I got some waves to catch." Garrett ran off in the direction of the water, surfboard in hand.
"Him and that surfboard. They'll never be separated." Riou said.
"And that's the truth." Dartz and Duke said in unison.
"Hey, Sam. I'm gonna go get a hotdog. You wanna come?" Odd asked.
"Sure." Sam responded. She got up and followed Odd to the snack bar.
"I'll go to. Make sure those two don't eat the bar out of house and home." Lisa said
"I'm gonna go make sure Doc doesn't hurt anyone." Duke said. Dartz noticed Jeremy was typing on his laptop. He walked over and closed it.
"Hey, I was working on something!" Jeremy whined.
"Calm down, Einstein. This is a day off. Live a little." Ulrich said. He and Yumi walked a few yards away and lay down on their towels.
"I'm gonna go find Aelita." Jeremy said. The remaining warriors looked around and noticed Aelita was missing.
"She's probably at the snack bar." Sharon said. "That girl can't seem to get enough pretzels." Jeremy nodded and walked in the direction of the snack bar.
"So you found out about her pretzel addiction." William said.
"Yeah. When Sam, Lisa, and I were cleaning out her old dorm we found at least twenty pretzels stashed in the closet."
"Wow. I didn't think Aelita liked pretzels that much." Dartz said.
"Hey, William. Wanna have a race?" Riou asked suddenly. "Last one to the water has to buy the winner a hot dog."
"You're on!" William laughed as he quickly got up and ran ahead. Riou ran after him.
"Seems like everyone has something to do except us." Sharon said. She lay down on her towel.
"Yeah." Dartz said sitting down next to her. "Too bad. It's a great day." The two sat silently for a minute.
"Hey, Dartz?" Dartz looked over at Sharon and saw her blushing a darker shade of red than he ever thought possible.
"Yeah?"
"There's something I've wanted to say since I first met you."
"And?" Sharon sighed.
"I-I l-love you." She stuttered. Dartz was silent for a minute. She looked over at him and saw him smiling at the sky. His eyes were closed and he seemed really relaxed.
"Dartz?"
"I heard you." He said. He turned his head to look at her. "And I love you too." Sharon smiled and strained to hold in a squeal. She moved closer to him and moved her face toward his. When their faces were centimeters apart, an earthquake threw them apart. A giant fissure formed where they had just been. Purple clouds suddenly covered the sun. The beachgoers looked up at the sky and asked questions like "What's going on?" and "Where'd the sun go?"
"Ugh. What was that?" Sharon asked as she stood up. She noticed Dartz was already on his feet staring at the sky with an angry look on his face.
"He's back." He mumbled. Sharon gasped.
"He broke through the firewall?" She asked.
"No. Not Xana. Something much more powerful. Marukimon." Dartz pulled out a small cell phone-like object and held it in front of him. "Gabumon, realize." A yellow creature with a horn wearing blue striped fur appeared where the object was pointing.
"Ready for action, Dartz." The digimon said.
"Good. You ready to beat an old friend around and about?" Dartz asked.
"Marukimon?"
"The very same. I'll call Duke. You get ready, Gabumon." Gabumon nodded. Dartz pulled his cell out of his duffle bag. He dialed in Duke's number, who picked up on the second ring.
"What's up, Dartz?" Duke asked.
"Did you bring your Digivice?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"A digital gate just opened. I think it's Marukimon."
"Alright. I'll be there in a minute." Dartz hung up and took his Digivice back out. A stream of digital code suddenly appeared around his right hand.
"DNA, Maximum Charge!" He shouted as he slammed his hand onto the digital machine. A similar stream of digital code surrounded Gabumon.
"Gabumon maximum digivolve to… StormGarurumon!" the digimon said as the data stream disappeared. In Gabumon's place was a large white wolf wearing bandages on its legs. It had blue markings on its face and body. Duke ran over with a green imp-like digimon with a horn on its forehead and claws for fingers.
"Good to see you again, Feralmon." StormGarurumon said. The boys and digimon looked up at the sky as the purple clouds parted and a gate appeared. Dartz turned toward Sharon.
"You might want to get out of here. Find the others and get back to Kadic." He told her. She shook her head.
"No way. I'm staying right here." She said.
"This is too dangerous for non- tamers! Unless you happen to have a Digivice you need to get out of here!" Sharon stood up and walked over to Dartz and Duke.
"I'm not going anywhere." Dartz sighed.
"Fine. You'd better stay behind us, though. Marukimon won't hesitate to put you in harm's way to defeat us." Sharon nodded. A giant green lion- human hybrid digimon appeared. He looked down at the three teenagers.
"You two again." He said.
"Good to see you too, Marukimon." Duke said.
"Stop with the wise cracks. Get out of my way before I destroy you."
"Sorry that's not gonna happen." Storm Garurumon said.
"You don't have much of a choice. Thousand Fists!" Marukimon pulled back his fist and shot it forward at lightning speed, hitting StormGarurumon and Feralmon multiple times. Feralmon was the first to recover.
"You think that's gonna stop us?" he asked.
"No, but this will." Marukimon fired a stream of green energy, knocking Feralmon into the water. StormGarurumon got up and growled.
"Typhoon Claw!" he yelled as he jumped into the air and slashed Marukimon's face. "This is far from over." Marukimon looked at the three teenagers and noticed that Sharon didn't have a digimon anywhere. He smirked and picked her up.
"Hey! Let me go!" Sharon yelled. Dartz glared at Marukimon and clenched a fist.
"This is getting annoying." Marukimon said. "Degenerate your digimon and get out of my way." A blast of energy suddenly hit Marukimon in the back. He turned and saw a large dinosaur with a cannon for a left arm, armor on his upper torso, and metallic wings jutting out of it's back floating a few feet away. There was also a blue wolf with jet wings, metal armor, and a targeting visor and a plant- woman hybrid with four leafs on her back. With them were two boys wearing blue jackets and a girl wearing a pink jacket. One of the boys and the girl had brown hair, while the second boy had blonde hair.
"Kick his butt, RizeGreymon!" the brown- haired boy said.
"Go get him, MachGaogamon!" the blonde boy ordered.
"Go, Lilamon!" the girl said. The three digimon fired off their strongest attacks, but Marukimon blew away the smoke unharmed.
"You shouldn't have done that." He said. Marukimon started to tighten his fist around Sharon, cutting off her breathing.
"Aah!" Sharon screamed in pain.
"NO!" Dartz shouted. An aura appeared around him, causing StormGarurumon to become encased in Fractal Code.
"StormGarurumon burst digivolve to… Storm Garurumon Burst Mode!" The fractal stream disappeared and a werewolf with bandages around his legs and arms and claws on his fingers emerged.
"This is over." Storm Garurumon said. "Storm Disaster!" A large wind started blowing, knocking Marukimon off his feet and causing a tidal wave to wash over the beach. Marukimon dropped Sharon as a bolt of lightning hit him. He disappeared, being replaced by an egg with dark blue stripes. The three newcomers ran over. The blond boy collected the egg before following his teammates.
"Hey, Dartz. Duke." The girl said.
"Hey, Yoshi." Duke said smiling.
"Nice to see some familiar faces." Dartz said. He walked over and helped Sharon to her feet. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Just a little bruised." She answered.
"Oh, no! Sharon is bruised! Call an ambulance! Call the FBI! Call the president of the United States!" Odd shouted.
"Ha-ha. Very funny, Della- Robbia." Garrett said sarcastically.
"You know these guys?" Jeremy asked.
"Yeah. We worked with them while we were in Japan." Duke said. "At least Yoshi and Thomas. I guess DATS got a new helper monkey.
"Hey!" the brown- haired boy yelled. "I am NOT a helper monkey!"
"Sure you aren't Marcus." Thomas said. Marcus shot a glare at the blonde before turning his attention to the two boys and their now rookie- level digimon.
"The name's Marcus Damon. I'm the best fighter in the world." He said. Dartz smiled before quickly knocking Marcus into the water.
"Best fighter my foot." Dartz said.
"Hey, where's Keenan?" Yoshi asked while looking around the beach.
"He must still be at the airport." Thomas said.
"Keenan right here." A young boy wearing a yellow shirt under a dark green cape and red sweat pants said. A falcon dressed as a ninja stood behind him. "We take care of stray Nanimon."
"You guys too?" Dartz asked.
"Yep." Thomas said. "We've been getting one of the best work outs ever. There have been more digimon sightings than ever before."
"Well what are you doing here?" Duke asked.
"Reports say that there have been a lot of gate openings around this area." Yoshi said. "Have you two seen anything suspicious?"
"No." Dartz said. "Nothing we haven't been able to handle. Why?"
"Because one of the digimon sightings is a…a…" Yoshi started.
"A Millenniummon." Thomas finished.
"I haven't seen anything like that." Dartz said. He turned to Duke. "Have you?" Duke shook his head.
"The closest thing I've seen to Millenniummon is Diaboromon. Nothing Feralmon couldn't take care of." He said.
"He might be on Lyoko. I do remember seeing something strange happening in sector 5 the last time we were there." Dartz said.
"Come to think of it, I felt something strange when I broke free of Xana's control last year." Ulrich said.
"Me too." William said. "I can't explain it, but it felt like something was inside me."
"I remember feeling something weird on Lyoko a few months ago." Aelita said.
"Millenniummon always was a weird magnet." Thomas said with a smile.
"I'll run a scan of Lyoko tonight. We'll know if something is happening in sector 5." Jeremy said.
"Don't worry about it, Einstein." Dartz said. "With Thomas, Yoshi, Duke, and I Millenniummon won't stand a chance."
"I'm not so sure about that, Dartz." Yoshi said. "Millenniummon has become a lot smarter lately. We might need some help."
"Alright. Jeremy can run the scan and we'll keep an eye out for digital gates." Duke said. Dartz nodded.
"Hey, guys. Shouldn't we head back to school? It's getting late." Yumi said. The others agreed.
"You guys need somewhere to stay?" Duke asked.
"We could use it." Thomas said.
"We'll get you set up at Kadic. You'll be able to stay there for a while." Aelita said.
"I'm not sure." Yoshi said.
"C'mon, Yoshi. We need somewhere to stay anyway." Marcus said. Keenan nodded.
"And Keenan getting hungry." He said. "Keenan want fried eggs." The group of young teens looked at the boy strangely.
"Fried eggs?" Sam asked.
"Sounds tasty." Odd and Impmon said in unison.
"They are." Agumon said. "Boss's mom makes the best fried eggs ever." Dartz and Duke struggled to hold in a laugh.
"Your partner calls you boss?" Dartz asked Marcus.
"Something wrong with that?" Marcus asked.
"No. Just a bit strange." Duke said. "C'mon. We'd better get back." The rest of the gang nodded and the group walked back to the school, duffel bags in hand.
I hope everyone liked the chapter. Next chapter will be the beginning of the Kingdom Hearts leg of the story. Of course it will also be the Data Squad leg of the journey. As before, one review for the next chapter. See ya next time.
