DISCLAIMER: I do not own Digimon, but I do own the plot, and DRAGOON.

Digimon Continuity

Quest for the Digimon

Chapter 14

The Reunion

:. Digital Plane - Desert Plane

02:24 PM JST

Takato was screaming like there was no tomorrow. Tears stung at his eyes as the air rushed into his face. Takato quickly closed them. He was suddenly yanked upward as if he had opened a parachute when a strong arm grabbed his waist. His mouth felt dry from all the air. He swallowed a bit, and looked behind him to see that his saviour was none other than Ryo's partner, Cyberdramon.

To his surprise, he discovered that Cyberdramon had manage to save all three of them from a lot of pain, not that it mattered if they went unconscious. As Cyberdramon began a slow descent toward the sandy ground - no doubt on Ryo's orders, Cyberdramon would have not been so patient - Takato could have sworn he saw a red object rapidly approaching them.

His suspicions were confirmed when a large red saurian jumped on him the moment his feet touched the ground, sending falling onto his back with more than 60kg of weight on top of him. Takato did not care about that, he was too joyful to even see the red dino. The feeling was mutual with the reptilian Digimon.

"TAKATO!" was the first thing Guilmon shouted when the latter landed on him.

"Guilmon." He managed. It was hard to speak when his lungs were half crushed by red mass.

"TAKATO!" his partner happily repeated. His snout was on Takato's face, tickling it and making it even harder to breathe. Thankfully, Kazu and Kenta stepped in at this point.

"Come on Guilmon," Kazu said as he tried to pull the saurian away, but with little success.

"Yeah. You are going to make him die of either happiness or suffocation. With the color his face is turning, I would say suffocation." Kenta said, trying to pull Guilmon off his friend as well.

Guilmon tilted his head to the side. "What is suffocation?"

Takato, purple faced, choked a reply. "It means I can't breathe, Guilmon." The Digimon's eyes widened and he quickly hopped off his Tamer, pulling him to his feet. Takato put in a few more deep breaths into his relieved lungs and faced Guilmon again.

"Next time, don't do that okay?" Takato told his best friend with mock sternness. In return, Guilmon's bat-like ears fell. One did not need to know Guilmon to know that the latter was feeling guilty. "But I am so glad to see you again, Guilmon." Takato added, with happiness in his voice. Guilmon's ears sprang back up again as he hugged his Tamer in joy, completely forgetting the incident.

"Nice to see you again Takato." Henry Wong said. "I'm glad we followed Guilmon when he ran off." The boy let out a smile.

"Nice to see you are alright, Henry." Takato said. Another awfully familiar Digimon materialized on Henry's shoulder. "TERRIERMON!"

"I know you are all happy to see the star, but don't need to get so mushy, I have had enough of it for one day." The bunny replied.

"Actually Terriermon," the blue-haired boy said. "There wasn't anything mushy about us coming back together."

"I know," The green Digimon replied. "But Takato and Guilmon should make up for it."

Henry sighed. "I don't know how your mind works sometimes."

"Momentai."

"You know, I'm regretting ever teaching you the word."

"Words, Henry. Momentai is three words in Cantonese, isn't it?"

"Great. Now I regret ever saving you." Takato grimaced. Ouch.

"Henry!" Terriermon whined. "I..."

"Will you two quit it!" An extremely annoyed voice of Rika said before Terriermon could continue. "I have had enough!"

Fortunately, and unfortunately, before Rika could go on, an explosion was heard.

Ryo was jogging toward the location of where Cyberdramon was about to land when he heard a Digimon shout an attack name.

"Hyper Cannon!" Instinct took over Ryo as he strafed to one side, the shockwave of the explosion propelling him. His eyes darted to the source, where a huge metal tank was showing a grin that indicated the Digimon believed he had already won. We'll see about that.

His lower jaw, the only part of him visible that was not metal, was down, showing teeth that look like they have been filed to the sharpness that they possessed. It was also the only part of the Digimon that looked out of place, giving Ryo the shivers when he saw how odd the grin looked. Ryo noted that this Digimon was not exactly in the right state of mind. He seemed... sadistic. Not good when you are a walking assault base. Ryo thought.

The Digimon leveled his arm cannons at Ryo before he could even recover. There wasn't time to hold up his D-Power to find data on this Digimon.

"Machinegun Arm!"

The guns clicked and the air was abruptly filled with metal slugs launched from the arm cannon, glowing red as they were overheated by whatever that propelled them. Ryo used the momentum from the explosion earlier to continue a forward roll away from the bullets piercing the ground behind him, and not foolishly try to get to his feet. The bullets followed him relentlessly. Just as they were about to hit him, his feet met the ground as he completed the roll and he sprang to his feet and ran.

He knew that he could not outrun the bullets for long, and it was a miracle that he had been thus far unharmed. He ran forward at full speed. The bullets singed past him hair's breath away. The Digimon followed him with his arm, guns blazing. Ryo abruptly felt a single bullet hit his unshielded leg. Unlike his partner, he did not have thick scales that will allow the bullets to ping off them harmlessly. His was only skin, albeit digitalized skin, and that did not provide much protection from the red hot bullets. Pain shot up his leg. He did not managed to bite back his yell of pain, and he lost his balance. He fell face first to the ground, but still he kept moving forward, crawling on his arms and keeping his head down.

The bullets zinged past above his head as the Digimon swept his gun arm past Ryo's position. He felt his hair stand on end, an all too familiar feeling that indicated he may be going to get out of this with more than just his leg injury. And that was a big may. Silently, he hoped that Cyberdramon was on his way, Ryo didn't know how long his injured leg could keep up with his need to move fast until it failed him completely.

The gunfire stopped for a while. Ryo looked at the Digimon, who still had the gun trained on him. The Digimon laughed out loud.

"Impressive indeed." The Digimon said with admiration. Ryo, unfortunately, would not be able to make use of that. "Not many Digimon would even survive the first blast long enough to know that it was I who deleted them. Very impressive indeed... for a mere human. You truly are as they say, the Legendary Ryo Akiyama."

Ryo kept silent, slowly being himself to his feet, very much aware of the gun that could pop his head off in one shot if he made any sudden movements. At last, he overcame the initial shock and regained enough of his wits to speak again. "Who are you? Why did you attack me so foolishly? Didn't you know that if I were here, Cyberdramon would be around somewhere?"

The colour of the Digimon's face paled considerably, as he thought about what Ryo had said. After a few moments and some nervous glances around, the Digimon restored the annoying grin to his face. "Nevertheless, I will have you deleted before he can ever arrive. As to why I attacked you, if I delete you, Lord V-" The Digimon abruptly cut off, preventing the name of his lord from being revealed. Ryo raised an eyebrow, one that was joined by a grimace when his brain registered the pain in his leg. "... my lord will reward me with a place on the Council for sure!"

"What Council?" Ryo inquired.

The Digimon grinned even more widely, and replied, "Why don't you find out yourself... after I've absorbed your data!"

The gun clicked once again and went full auto. It suddenly dawned on Ryo that the little accident with the Digimon almost saying his lord's name was a trap, one to make him become curious and lower his guard... and Ryo had fallen right into it. Ryo silently cursed himself as he tried to avoid the new barrage. His good leg accidentally tripped on his injured one when the latter failed to comply quickly enough with Ryo's lightning fast reactions. That caused him to slip on the sandy ground and land painfully on his back, in the process dodging the first wave.

However, that left him trapped, and with no way out other than deletion. Never before did he so regret the loss of his Chrome Digizoid arm device.

The reunited group hurried over to the source of the explosion, following the sounds of gunfire and the sudden scream that made their blood chill in their veins. They arrived at the scene to witness a metal Digimon towering over a Ryo who was backing away from the gun right in his face.

Takato heard Cyberdramon let out an enraged roar that shook his head violently and was sure he had momentarily gone deaf.

The wind swept up sand as Cyberdramon lifted off and flew right at the Digimon at full speed. Takato held up his D-Power on the Digimon.

"Tankmon, Champion level, attacks are Hyper Cannon and Machinegun Arm." He read off his D-Power's projected screen.

Looking up, Takato's eyes found Cyberdramon ramming into the hard metal of the Tankmon's armour, and surprisingly sending the Champion off his wheels and into the dirt.

Suddenly having switched positions of predator and prey, Tankmon became desperate. "Machinegun Arm!"

The bullets flew from the arm cannon and, just like Ryo assumed, bounced off Cyberdramon without even visibly having any effect whatsoever. No, there was an effect. Cyberdramon seemed more annoyed.

"You..." Cyberdramon growled. "You will pay for hurting Ryo." The following statement was spoken with calm unlike Cyberdramon, one that seemed awfully like the calm before the storm.

Takato was right, for at the next second, all hell broke loose.

Cyberdramon picked up Tankmon with ease, and flung the latter into the air. Cyberdramon then proceeded to send Desolation Claws at the flying Digimon. The attacks struck the Digimon such accuracy and brutality that it left Takato rooted to his feet.

It was only when Henry nudged him in Ryo's direction did he pull his eyes away from the battle. No. Takato thought as he recalled how Cyberdramon had slashed his claws through Tankmon's metal armor like paper. He shuttered. No. This is slaughter.

Takato had never fully grasped just how dangerous Cyberdramon was, and just how difficult the Ultimate was to control. He had always thought of Cyberdramon as a Guilmon who had gone feral, one that would become his friend again when he had snapped him out of it. Cyberdramon's Rookie form certainly gave him the wrong impression. Though Monodramon was just like Guilmon, Cyberdramon was not just like Guilmon feral at all. Megidramon fitted the Ultimate as the best example. Thinking about having to tend and restrain a Megidramon every day for a year in the Digital World was just... Takato just couldn't grasp the idea.

Henry and Takato got to a badly injured Ryo, one who was struggling to get up on his leg which was bleeding not just blood but data too. The sight of both reminded Takato that they were digitalized, but still human. And the sight of the bleeding leg made Takato's head feel light.

It was then that Takato heard someone laugh aloud. He was about to turn around and scold Impmon when he found out who exactly was laughing.

Rika.

Takato's jaw dropped. No... way. Everyone was silent, even the one-sided battle between Tankmon and Cyberdramon came to a halt. All watched Rika have the happiest time that they ever knew she could have.

Of all people, Rika is the most... I mean, what on Earth is she laughing at? Rika kept on laughing until she slowly came to a halt. Takato even noticed Renamon staring, disbelief written all over the yellow fox's face. Renamon's surprise added to Takato's growing shock.

"Oh." was all that she said once she stopped. If this is a distraction, it's working perfectly. Henry seemed to be thinking the same thing, for he was looking around for the surprise attacker. None came. Then, Takato realised that no one in their right mind would distract Cyberdramon feral. Unfortunately, it was not Cyberdramon that attacked next but Tankmon.

The tank levelled his nose cannon at Rika, and before anyone could do anything at all, the cannon fired. "Hyper Cannon!"

Sorry I took so long. I had a writer's block.

Not the best of chapters, but still, tell me what you think.