Man, school is just really trying to completely slam me with work right now. I am drowning in projects, papers, and tests. And yet I still find some spare time to work on this piece. I hope you appreciate how hard it was to fix this for you guys between the school junk.
I noticed that several of you enjoyed Mrs. Kamiya's moment of awesomeness against Mizutani. I'm glad that it went over so well. It was too fun to imagine. Hope you enjoy this chapter as well.
After the agreed upon time had passed without word from their strike team, Izzy was willing to admit that it was indeed a trap at the apartment. Thus, the group genius prepared his mass e-mail to all the digidestined that lived within the city area. He'd devised a system on his computer to be able to select e-mail addressed by a variety of restriction like geographical locations ranging from individual cities to entire continents, the human's age, length of time as a digidestined, level reached by digimon, or even whether the digimon worked better at close-ranged attacks or distant. He set up another search engine that would pull up the top ten digidestined in an area with regard to battle experience and ability to cooperate together. All this information could be used to organize a quick relay of information to a targeted group without having to hunt through his large collection of names of the worldwide digidestined. In this case, he was sending out a warning to the digidestined in the most likely threatened area.
As he typed out his message, Izzy mumbled along, "Emergency. We have reason to believe that a group called Digital Anomaly Detection and Processing could be a threat to our digimon. Furthermore, we have evidence that digidestined may be at risk at being targeted by these or other individuals for reason unknown. I suggest all digidestined and digimon in the area get out of their houses now and seek out a safer location. Go to the park, a non-digidestined friend's house, or any location that someone cannot easily trace you to. Try to find others and stay together. There is safety in numbers. Whatever you do, get our now and beware of strangers or known PAD members. Izzy."
Glancing up, the Digidestined of Knowledge saw Jeri looking nervously. They were waiting on a bench approximately a block away from Tai's house. It made sense to have the majority of the humans away from the destructive chaos that would be occurring now. Judging by the crashing sound they could hear in the distance, the kids would only be in the way. Takato was the distraction, so he had to be there. But the boy took Guilmon for protection and promised to come back quickly.
Tai, on the other hand, insisted on going there with his partner. He argued that since his mom was trapped along with the twins, he had just as much right to go as Beelzemon did. Izzy wanted to argue against it; he wanted to say it would be crazy for him to walk right into a trap likely created to target him and his sister. But the boy couldn't say that after he saw the look in Tai's eyes. For a brief moment, as he asserted that no one would be allowed to treat them like this, the old Tai shown through. Izzy could see the goggle-wearing kid who kept the Digidestined together and pulled them back when they began to drift apart. And he wouldn't deny Tai a chance to regain his old self. So the boy was charging in as well.
"Don't worry, Jeri," Tentomon advised. "I'm sure everyone will be fine."
Sighing, the girl replied, "I hope so."
"Hey guys," shouted Takato, running down the street with Guilmon right beside him. "Definitely a trap. Blond woman in a suit and a scary glare."
Nodding at the younger boy's report, Izzy hit the send button.
The unpleasant scrap of humanity that grabbed hold of Ai hard enough to hurt her nearly shoved Beelzemon's anger over the edge. While he was a tall, winged mega in an apartment designed for normal sized humans and the fact there was a couch in the way, he still covered the distance between him and the idiot in a suit in impossibly short span of time. The idiot barely got a few words out before his clawed hand began to wrap around the man's neck.
"Quiet, brat," the loser dared to order the virus' partner. "I need to aim for…"
At this point, the mega gained his grip on the human and slammed him to the floor. The adult didn't seem to understand the line he'd crossed until that point where Beelzemon ended up snarling to his face.
"Never touch my partners or I'll make you pay," the mega digimon promised.
On the one hand, his current behavior could be upsetting to his young partners. Their partner was acting "scary," and not to a terrifying digimon this time. On the other hand, he was too ticked off that not only were his tamers in a dangerous situation, but they were in this situation because he tried to keep them safe. He left them here so that there wouldn't be any way for them to get mixed up in whatever was in the "building of doom." But trouble found the kids anyway. So Beelzemon was going to get them out and make sure they stayed with the group from now on. And these creeps would not stop him.
Glancing up, he spotted a woman with her blond hair twisted up in a bun, wearing a plain dark suit, and carrying one of these objects that looked as dangerous as one of Mako's toys. Of course, one of those simple pieces of plastic could become one of his more powerful weapons. His emerald eyes met her stormy grey ones for an instant as she held her strange device.
The moment was broken as the Hairball's mother splashed some kind of slimy goo all over the blond woman's face. The parent's expression of satisfaction at the blonde's shrieks and struggles to remove the substance was too perfect. The virus logged this action away into his lists of future pranks. He was not above learning new tricks from others.
Shooting a final glance at his captive on the ground, Beelzemon slammed the man's head against the ground. He took care to ensure he didn't apply too much force, just like when he slapped the other guy against the wall. Humans tended to be far more fragile than the giant creatures the mega generally dealt with. And even if these specific individuals were doing their best to get on his bad side, he didn't want to kill them. The idiots who tried to hold the twins hostage could still, in theory, be someone's loving parent, favorite sibling, or best friend that didn't deserve to lose someone. So, as satisfying for his temper it would be to snap the loser's neck, he settled for knocking him out.
"Beelzemon…?" whimpered Ai, her hesitant voice breaking her partner's heart. Did he succeed in terrifying the twins? They were the ones who always trusted him, never doubting for a moment that he was on their side. Did he destroy that trust and instill fear in them? Would they see him as a monster because of his behavior? "You came back? But we were fighting and being bad…"
Sighing with relief that they weren't scared of him, the viral mega quickly reassured, "Of course I came back, munchkins. When I promised to always come back, I meant it. Now, we need to grab Hairball's mom and get out of here."
At this point, the damaged wall the digimon entered through earlier gained further harm as metal claws tore through. In seconds, an armored reptilian mega and a spiky-haired youth were peering through the larger opening. The back-up, Tai and WarGreymon, had arrived.
"Mom, come on," the boy shouted across the wrecked living room. "Time to go."
"Give her a minute, Hairball," chuckled Beelzemon. "She's busy showing one of those jerks who's boss."
The parent looked up from her splattered victim. Her eyes narrowed for a moment, as if mentally considering how to scold her son about what a dangerous stunt it was to be perched on the mega's shoulder as WarGreymon tore through their home, but began moving towards her rescue party.
"Time for us to go, too," grinned the virus, wrapping his arm around his young twins protectively.
Twisting slightly in his partner's grip, Mako began pointing urgently, "The bad guys are after Leomon."
Jerking around, Beelzemon was just in time to see the champion collapsing as another dork in a suit held one of those weird toy-like guns. In fact, the large leonine shape vanished from sight and left a smaller, red figure. The human looked relieved as the transformed being remained still.
Glaring at the man, the mega shifted the twins into his left arm and growled, "Hang on tightly."
There was a hierarchy of people you didn't mess with in Beelzemon's mind if you wanted to avoid facing a vengeful digimon. Obviously, kidnapping or threatening his partners (let alone harming them) was the fastest way to get on his bad side to the most extreme extent possible. A close second would be to do anything to Jeri or Leomon. Both had suffered enough because of him and the viral mega refused to let anything else hurt them. If someone thought of doing something that would break that girl's heart, they would learn she had more than a humanoid lion watching out for her. And if anyone thought of trying to take away her partner…
This time, the digimon shoved the couch away with enough force to crack the dry-wall as it hit. Even with the chaos by WarGreymon's arrival, the dark-winged creature's charge with the twins in his grip caught the two men's attention. One began scrambling towards Beelzemon's first victim, fumbling for the fallen man's weapon. The other, looking vaguely more confident, aimed the dish-like end of his device.
There was no sound or real evidence when the weapon fired. All he felt was a mildly draining sensation. It made him feel a little more tired, but nothing he couldn't handle. Other than the lack of the unpleasant buzzing, it reminded him of his experience with the bug-zapper building on a far weaker scale. The mega shrugged off the annoyance without slowing down.
The man who was firing his weapon lost all evidence of confidence as the virus grabbed his shirt and yanked him off the ground. The human stared into the digimon's emerald eyes with an expression of horror.
"Bye," Beelzemon growled before tossing him towards the only other man still trying to move.
Checking to make certain the Hairball's parent reached the armored reptile, the winged virus gently scooped up the small, reddish creature that once was Leomon with his free arm. Without turning back to look at the chaotic destruction left behind, Beelzemon exited the apartment through the hole in the wall. He had his partners, the creeps who tried to hold them hostage were taken care of, and he even picked up some new tricks to try (thanks to Mrs. Kamiya and that goo). And even if Jeri's partner had shrunk, the entire rescue team was unharmed and uncaptured by the trap. In his mind, that was all that really mattered.
"I'm sorry that I get you out of the shower, sir, but I won't take more than a moment of your time," he announced into his headset. "I would like to talk about this wonderful, limited time opportunity…"
The slam of the other person hanging up interrupted Mr. Maki's prepared sales pitch. He sighed. Telemarketers never get any respect. Of course, he never wanted to call people at the worst time in order to sell them a piece of junk. He thought he'd get an exciting career, a wonderful girlfriend, and a nice house, in that order. Instead, the short, bright red-haired man in his early twenties lived with parents while working odd jobs that required no skills. And not a girl to be seen. His current source of income only proved he was at an all-time low. He hated what he tried to sell to people.
"Hello ma'am, I would like to talk about this wonderful, limited time opportunity. If you buy this special edition china set, half the cost will be donated to the Parents Against Digimon, or PAD, to help end the threat to our youth," he recited to the next customer, smiling as the frustrated woman cut the connection. Happily, the hatred of annoying telemarketers outweighed the people's desire to help remove the digimon from society. True, he'd likely be losing his job soon because he couldn't fill his quota. But he didn't mind. There was always the next job. "Nice talking to you too," the red-head muttered.
"Hey, Maki," shouted the numbing voice of his boss. "I know you don't take this job seriously." He indicated the jeans, the "Red-heads Rule!" t-shirt, and the backwards cap nestled on his frizzy hair that made up his current outfit. "But even you should know not to have family show up at work. Go tell your sister to go home."
"But I don't…" he tried to argue, but the annoying, pimply, middle-management man was already ignoring the telemarketer's excuse of not having a sister. Lacking any other option, he removed his headset and slid his blue cap to the forward position. "Stupid job," he muttered.
He wandered over to the office (the source of all on-the-job annoyance) to find a girl with dark-brown hair and deep blue eyes. The child's appearance sharply contrasted with Maki's frizzy red hair and sea-green eyes. How anyone could think they were related was a mystery. She sat on the desk, flicking through the papers that shared the surface with her.
She glanced towards him, "Greetings Hiroshi Maki. Or perhaps, I should say Hiro Maki as you were once called in your childhood days."
"Who are you? Mr. Shiozawa said my 'sister' was here and I don't have one," he frowned.
"I did not claim to be related, but that guy seemed to be an expert at inserting words into people's mouths," she grinned. "But I came to talk about something important."
"If it isn't about some hot blonde wanting my number, I'm not interested," he remarked.
"Not even," she suggested carefully, "if I concerns Entomon?"
He paused. Memories of the hard, shiny bluish-black shell and iridescent reddish eyes that marked his partner flashed through his mind. The name belonged to a insectoid creature that he once knew, so very long ago. Those memories were part of the reason he felt guilty in his current jobs.
"You know him? You know my partner? I haven't seen him in years. And at this rate, I never thought I'd ever see or hear about him again," commented Hiro slowly. "All that stuff, all those adventures in the digital world, doesn't even seem real anymore. It just seems impossible."
"No, the idea that one of the first digidestined could assisting the promotion of anti-digimon sentiment seems impossible," she answered coldly. "But the impossible often occurs when you deal with digimon and their partners." The red-head felt his pale face grow red with embarrassment at the knowledge of what he did daily by trying to sell the stupid plates. She continued in a more friendly tone, "A danger rises up once more and I come to call you to arms. Rejoin the fight rather than stand on the sidelines selling knick-knacks. Come with me now, regain your partner and teammates, and rediscover your destiny."
Glancing out at the dozen or so other telemarketers still trying to pester the people of Odaiba into purchasing junk, he wondered how he could have stood working there for as long as he did. He hated the job, his fellow employees, and his boss. And now, if he took the girl's offer, he had nothing to lose from these people. Grinning, he opened the door.
"All of you are a bunch of pathetic losers and everyone hates your stupid job," he shouted out at them, earning several looks of pure shock. "Honestly, name one person who actually likes getting called by one of you." He met Mr. Shiozawa's astonished gaze, "And just in case you haven't guessed yet, I quit."
The dark-haired girl smirked, "I take it you're coming then. This way, Hiro."
By the time the furious Shiozawa made it to his office, neither of the pair remained.
No one was ready for the arrival of the rolling figure that struck Raidramon at full force. Especially not the Armor digimon who couldn't even start to protect himself before impact. All he could do was turn his body slightly so that the humans and rookie on his back wouldn't be hit by the attack. His efforts resulted in Davis, Ken, and Wormmon remaining unharmed and a small blue rookie tumbling across the ground.
"Veemon," the brown-haired boy yelped.
The attacker, a young girl-looking digimon wearing a snakeskin and carrying a large sword, smiled cheerfully, "Don't worry yet. We've just got started fighting. There's plenty of time for your friend to really get in trouble."
Rapidmon, pausing only long enough for Henry to jump off, tried to ram the female creature away from the group. Unfortunately, the metallic rabbit was intercepted by another mega. Dianamon forced the vaccine ultimate to move out of the way of her dual-bladed weapon. After her initial strike, her blue eyes glanced over at the other mega.
"Minervamon, do you actually listen to yourself at times?" she asked.
"Nope," replied the happy-sounding digimon. "I just say whatever I want."
This momentary exchange gave the humans and their partners a moment to regroup. Davis snatched up his unconscious rookie. Henry ran his eyes across the deck of cards in his hand. Ken pulled out his dark-colored D-3.
"Wormmon digivolve to… Stingmon!"
Another chapter finished and posted. And the twins are finally out of the apartment and back with their partner.
Hiro and Entomon are my creations and are the Izzy and Tentomon look-alikes. Entomon comes from the word "entomology," which is the study of insects. I figured that would be a better name than "Bugmon" or "Insectmon."
Reviews are always welcome. Feel free to tell me what you think of the story so far.