It was a hotel. A plain and simple, ordinary hotel.
Mashimo, Hideaki, adjusted his hat over his golden blond hair and narrowed his green eyes at the building as he smirked just a bit.
By his side, a girl by name of Shinomiya, Rina, with her short neon green hair hidden up under a similar hat, rolled her naturally crimson eyes at him. "This won't work, Hideaki," she said flatly. "He's not going to be here."
"Now now, Rina-chan," Hideaki tisked at her, "we'll be in and out before anyone realizes what we're doing!"
"Fine," the girl fussed with her jacket and prepared to act her part, "But don't think I'm only going along with this because you're cute."
"I wouldn't dream of it! Hahah!"
They entered the hotel lobby, where the present Desk Clerk was furiously trying to make the computer work again.
"Tech service," Rina called out, "you called about having computer problems?"
"Oh thank god-!" The man looked over the two without even noticing their noticeable lack of height and age. "It's been giving me these stupid errors all morning! I'm lucky we haven't had any customers wanting to check in yet! So please get this fixed, or my head's going to be on a silver platter!"
"Don't worry!" Hideaki grinned and gave a dramatic thumbs up, "No matter what ails ya, we'll fix it right up in a jiffy!"
Rina winced slightly at that odd expression- it was her partner in crime's calling card, practically.
But fortunately, the Desk Clerk was too concerned by the broken computer to care about the give-away catchphrase.
And so the con began.
While Hideaki focused on running a distraction on the Clerk (That was pretty much his resigned to job after the last job they'd swapped roles on), Rina questioned him briefly about the security of the building, subtly implying that it could be a hacker or a virus.
The Desk Clerk had replied without even thinking- explaining everything she'd needed to know was accurate, and with that...she sneaked off to do her job.
With a slightly amused smirk, she pulled out her Cyan Xros Loader and activated it's time leap function- slipping into Digi-Quartz with ease.
From there she Reloaded her partner- her other self, a Vmon who went by the name of "Rock"- and together they made their way through the building, climbing floors and breaking down the no longer working doors.
They reached the room of their target, and with the thrill of the rush- she brought them back over to Earth, and together, they began searching the hotel room.
"Here Gane Gane Gane..." Rina chanted as she checked the cabinets and any immediate hiding spaces that would be obvious to any man trying to hide such a digimon.
"Here Gane Gane Gane..." Meanwhile, the Vmon searched all the places that the Digimon itself would think to hide- such as under the furniture and inside the air vents.
And then they hit a break in the case- Rina pulled open the bathroom mirror cabinet- revealing several small, coin-shaped digimon with arms and legs and...single eyes.
"ZENI!" They chirped in surprise, and attempted to flee.
"Gotcha!" Rina swiped her hand out and grabbed the coin-sized digimon from the cabinet- catching them all easily due to their nature as living coins. "I found some Zenimon!"
"I found more of them!" Rock called out as she pulled out an arm full of the struggling Zenimon.
Minutes later after completing a full sweep of the room- Rina and Rock were back in Digi-Quartz, and retracing the path they'd made back down to the main floor.
But before they shifted back to earth again, Rina scanned over the computer area with her Xros Loader. Once it beeped in confirmation, she pressed a button and-
-With a spark, the Zenimon hiding in the computer mainframe were suddenly transformed into tiny beams of energy and sucked into Hideaki's Purple Xros Loader, which was resting firmly in his jacket, hidden from sight.
Hideaki smirked slightly, "Alright, that should do it," and then he rebooted the computer.
As they waited, Rina joined them once more by the computer, saying, "I've cleansed the server of bugs, you shouldn't be having any problems with it infecting other computers again."
"Oh thank god..." The Desk Clerk sighed in relief.
*BING!* The Computer chimed as it finished its boot up.
"And there ya go! One clean computer!" Hideaki tilted his hat and flashed a smile at the clerk, "Now if you run into any more problems just let us know!"
Before anyone at the hotel realized what had happened- the duo had slipped out of the building, and were gone before anyone was the wiser- having slipped out of the normal time stream and forwards back into Digi-Quartz.
"So did we get them all?" Hideaki asked as he took off his hat and "Tech" Jacket through use of his Xros Loader, revealing his street clothing in its place: A green T-Jacket over an orange T-shirt and blue jeans.
"I didn't get any other pings except for that one room," Rina nodded as she pulled off her jacket as well- though her normal clothes seemed a tad odd compared to her companion: a black hoodie jacket that was only half-way zipped up in such a way to frame the shirt (or lack there of) that she was wearing over the black-and white biker shorts she had on. "We should be good except for the fact that we didn't find Ganemon." She paused for a second and then looked over at him, "And the other thing?"
Hideaki pulled out what appeared to be a room card, and flashed a grin at her. "We're set!"
"Well well, the farm boy's good for his word after all," Rina flashed a smile back at him. "That's where they'll be staying next?"
"Yup. And to think this was just step three," Hideaki laughed. "Step four's going to be a whole new ball game!"
*Cue How to go (TV Edit) by School Food Punishment*
DIGIMON XROS WARS
THE YOUNG HUNTERS THAT LEAP THROUGH TIME.
*cue Title Theme*
"The Trouble of Money and Soul Control!"
KUDO RESIDENCE_ _ _| THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY MORNING_ _ _|
Sally put the paper down as she chewed on her toast- "That's the fourth assassination attempt this month alone."
"SuperStarmon, then Harpymon, then the Horror Terror," Taiki counted them off, "what's the fourth?"
"This," Sally pointed at the headline- "'Unknown sword user carves up downtown.' That's the Lobomon who just showed up last night- remember?"
"Oh right- the one who was tied up in rope and had a 'happy birthday' card taped to his head?" Taiki asked.
"That very one!" Sally nodded.
"How was he an assassin?" Taiki frowned as he went for a piece of toast of his own.
"Apparently there was a witness to the fight. Said he saw Lobomon fighting it up against a Knight with a two handed long sword," Sally quoted, "'He looked like a Knight of old, wielding his sword with the practiced ease of a Samurai Master, but the speed and cunning of a modern day hero.' He goes on to say that 'The Light Saber user-' Hah! '-insisted that nothing would get in his way of killing the one he'd been hired to finish off.' Now doesn't that sound familiar?"
"We'll have to question Lobomon about that," Taiki nodded in agreement, then his eye caught something on the next page over. He pointed at it with his toast and asked, "Hey, what's that part say?"
"Hm?" Sally looked it over, "Oh! 'Digimon Bank Owner, Ganemon, and Infinitude Banks International Owner, Hermaeous Mora, strike deal to co-fund the first United Space Probe to explore the new, wild, and uncharted space around Earth and the Digital World.' That sounds nice!"
"Hmm..." Taiki chewed on his toast, "I don't think there's actually anything out there. It'll be interesting to see what comes up, won't it?"
Meanwhile, in the abandoned warehouse district of downtown, Rina was waking up to the smell of cooking eggs. "Is it time to get up already?"
"It's time to get up, alright!" Rock, the Vmon, called out from the nearby table to her other-self.
"Wake up sleepy-head!" Hideaki grinned from where he was cooking.
After the disaster that had been the Breakdramon Incident- most of the downtown area was abandoned. Giving these two teens the perfect place to hide out for their planning and execution stages of their mission- not that they hadn't needed one before this either. Like writing two checks with one pen stroke.
These two teens were rather unusual in the grand scheme of things. You see, they had no place to live normally before they'd found this place.
That is to say: These two teens are not from this dimension.
Hideaki, Rina, and Rock had all come from other worlds than this one- they were swept away by a storm of static and time and space, landing in a strange place called Digi-Quartz. It was there that they were rescued from a massive, Volcano Dragon Digimon by a Dobermon. And soon after that- an old man had appeared, pulling them all into his store on his version of earth, and from there the man had given them two Xros Loaders, recruiting them into the "Ever Changing Game" for a chance to be able to return to their own home dimensions at some future date.
However- returning home had soon become an after thought when they'd participated in their first team venture into Digi-Quartz: an epic thrill ride that took them across multiple parts of the globe through various parts of time and space that finally ended in the caldera of a semi-active volcano in Digi-Quartz.
Nothing could beat the thrill of that first adventure- but everything after it had come very close.
It was with that unnecessary recap that Rina pulled herself out of her bed and stumbled across the floor towards where everyone was waiting for her.
Their 'room' was a small, sectioned off part of an even larger warehouse that consisted of a couch pilfered from a furniture store in Digi-Quartz, two fold-out cot-beds borrowed from a camping store in Digi-Quartz, a radio, again, taken from an electronics store in Digi-Quartz, and a propane stove they'd stolen from, surprisingly, a store in Digi-Quartz.
All the other stuff they needed for living- food, water, and clothing- could be handled with a few robbed cashiers from Digi-Quartz, or actually doing a honest day's work fixing someone computer.
Rina sat down at the table next to Rock, and glanced at the newspaper sitting on the center. "So what's with the headlines?"
"Second page," Rock grinned, "Ganemon's in the news!"
"Is he now?" Rina pulled the paper over and opened it.
After a cup of coffee and some fruity swirled cereal, Rina had one thing to say about their newly revised plan: "This is even worse than the last plan we had."
"Aw come on!" Hideaki laughed, "Atleast now we know where he'll be!"
"You're talking about assassinating a known political element, Hideaki!"
"Not "assassinating", per say, just more like... incapacitating him while we take Ganemon for our own!"
As the two began bickering back and forth, Rock took a large bite out of the bacon strip on the end of her fork. As she did this, their rescuer Dobermon stalked in from elsewhere, and put his head on the table like a sad little puppy dog. "I'm hungry," he said simply. "Are they done fighting yet?"
"Nope," Rock chewed on some bacon, "they just started, actually."
"Oh," Dobermon's ears folded back a bit. "How just started is 'just started'?"
"Like just before you came in."
"Oh." His ears folded back even more. "So what's the plan?"
"Me and other-me're gonna shoot a bank president and steal Ganemon away so we can make him confess to the con he's pullin' on everyone," Rock explained before biting away at more bacon.
"Oh," Dobermon's ears perked a bit, "that sounds fun."
"Maybe, maybe not," said through a mouth full of bacon, then followed by a shrug and, "what'd the local hounds have to say?"
"Oh," Dobermon's ears fell, "just the usual..."
"Ah, I see."
"Though there was some news about that guy we're after."
"Oh?"
A SHORT TIME LATER_ _ _| THE CONCERT HALL FOYER_ _ _|
"So why'd we come to this again?" Kaiyumi asked, not sure why she'd been brought along.
"I'm sort of curious too," Tagiru scratched at his nose. Why was he here?
"Astronomy," Taiki said simply, "or rather, the study of the stars of our new solar system."
"But it's just earth and the Digital World, right?" Kaiyumi frowned as they followed the flow of the line up towards ticket purchasing. "You didn't actively put any stars in. Right?"
Tagiru blinked in confusion. What did Kaiyumi, Taiki's sister, mean by that?
"No, I didn't," Taiki shook his head.
"Besides," Sally spoke up, "that's why we're here," she reached a hand out towards a nonexistent star above her, "to find out what's Far Out There in the skies above and beyond!"
Tagiru raised an eyebrow, glancing at Taiki oddly. "Is she okay?"
"She's been a bit hyper since that last episode of Doctor Who aired. Something about it being epic beyond all reason," Taiki shrugged. "I haven't caught up with it all yet, so I can't say for sure."
"Ah, right," Tagiru nodded in understanding, though he really didn't understand most of it. Despite all the truths about Time Loops and Time Travel he'd been clued in on, there were still some odd facts that he hadn't been clued in on fully.
Like the fact that, apparently, Taiki had something to do with moving the planets. It was a given fact that Xros Heart had done that unintentionally due to Xrossing Earth and the Digital World, but that Taiki specifically had a role in it...? Nobody knew.
Which was odd, because now that he thought on it, Tagiru felt a nagging feeling that Taiki HAD done something big during that battle. He...he just couldn't remember what that was.
A lot of that occupation of Earth, in fact, was somewhat of a blur. Bagura had arrived...and then Xros Heart had... then... there was lightning and then...
Then what?
Tagiru shook his head out. He'd have to ask later when they weren't in such a public place.
Soon, the entire Concert Hall itself was filled up with eager people ready to learn about what was about to come.
On stage were the businessmen, Ganemon and Hermaeous Mora. Ganemon was a golden coin Digimon about as tall as a toaster. Unlike his Zenimon, he had two eyes, and a mouth with a mustache in place of a nose. Hermaeous Mora was a tall, stout, and round kind of man. He very much looked like Ganemon would as a human- what with his similar mustache, and his pinstripe suit that looked straight from the Victorian era. Both of them had Monocles over their left eyes, and canes held in their right hands.
"And so-" Mora began in a loud, booming voice, "-we enter the dawn of a new age of space exploration! We all find ourselves in a strange new environment." Ganemon clicked to the first slide on the roof mounted slide projector- A view of Earth and The Digital World as seen from the window of a Trailmon. Both tiny planets orbiting a massive sun. "But that alone does not prevent us from doing the very things we've done over the centuries!" Tagiru noticed that Taiki flinched at that comment. "And so we present to you the means of exiting our new solar system, and exploring the space beyond!"
The slide changed- revealing the design of what looked to be a dragon shaped Space-craft.
"I give you-" Hermaeous Mora held his arms to the roof, and shouted the name: "SPACE DOVAH ONE!"
*cue Black (Homestuck Vol 4.)*
Meanwhile in Digi-Quartz... Or about as Meanwhile as Digi-Quartz can be...
[0:04]
In a wide open space far away from any inhabited building, Hideaki, Rina, and Rock stood by, each preparing for the moments to come.
[0:08]
Hideaki raised his Xros Loader and mouthed a command.
And moments later and twin flashes of light later- a giant metallic Digimon appeared before him.
It was hour-glass shaped in it's body, and had the swooping neck of a bird, while its wings were instead giant jet engines attached to its side. It's face seemed to be a mask that was covering two glimmering blue eyes. It's name was SpaceTrailmon.
[0:20]
On it's back rested a giant machine gun that was not a part of it normally- and in fact, had come from a Digi-Xros just performed. Manning that machine gun was Rina...or at least most of her. Having been Xrossed with Rock, she now had the Vmon's tail, tail spines, facial markings, horn/ears, and a now dark blue hair color. Her clothes had been altered somewhat as well: her shorts had become smaller to allow for the Vmon tail to fit comfortably- her sneakers had changed into knee length, laced up boots- her jacket was now fully unzipped, now having a white star embroidered over the heart- and a pair of finger-less gloves had appeared on her hands- one of which was invisible under the Gatling gun.
[0:35]
With a thrust of force- the SpaceTrailmon's twin engines pushed it off of the ground, and up into the air. Hideaki just smirked at it as he moved off to change locations.
The SpaceTrailmon lifted up high into the air, higher and higher, and then finally, it adjusted it's engine level, then began soaring forwards like a leaf on the wind with one final push of the thrusters.
[0:47]
On top, Rina and Rock, xrossed together, simply held a grim look on her face as they quickly began racing towards their destination. They flew over buildings and towers and ruined skyscrapers- all of them inconsequential except for their target.
The Concert Hall where Ganemon the C01N-Artist was hiding.
[0:59]
Faster and faster- they flew over whole islands and districts and cities and towns- all so they could build up the speed necessary for them to punch through the party they were about to crash.
On the massive gun- Rina watched as the speedometer's power line grew higher and higher into the burning red zone.
[1:12]
The SpaceTrailmon put on more speed- pushing raw plasma out of the extra booster- the massive engine that made up the back half of the hour glass shaped body.
Time Spun around them-
[1:22]
- Meanwhile, in the present, Hideaki glanced to his watch as he checked the time count down. "-1:02" it said.
All around him- people stared up in awe at the things Hermaeous Mora was saying. But Hideaki knew the truth- It was all just a lie.
Taiki glanced to his left- spotting Hideaki looking at his watch- and frowned.
[1:34]
The Time Stream whirled around them as Rina and Rock powered up the Cannon- blue sparks and flames leaped from the vents on the massive gun as they readied to fire.
[1:40]
Taiki looked up- feeling the massive time disturbance in the sky as it formed outside the building.
Tagiru wondered just what was going on with Taiki all of a sudden.
Sally recognized that pained look on Taiki's face and tensed up in preparation.
Kaiyumi was just watching the stage.
[1:44]
Rock's cannon built up a massive swirling five pointed star of dark blue flames at the mouth- and prepared to fire.
Through the single scope on the cannon, she lined her eye up and prepared to make the world's most impossible sniper shot.
She winced slightly as they broke through the Time Jump, and then-
BAM!
Fired.
[1:57]
The bullet- a massive star shaped bullet- launched out of the cannon- flying straight through as if a comet hurtling through the heavens.
[2:08]
Before anyone knew what had happened- the bullet crashed through the roof of the Concert Hall, aimed straight at old Herma Mora.
As the massive blue projectile descended upon him- the man looked up upon his doom in abstract horror- as he realized this was his end.
Everyone barely had the time to take in the sight they were seeing- it was impossible! There was no way that this could be even happening!
Taiki was so caught up in sensing the time rift that by the time he realized something had come through it at an impossible speed-
It was too late.
The Bullet crashed into the ground in-between Herma Mora's feet, and sent a cloud of blue smoke into the air- quickly filling the entire room before anyone knew what had happened.
[2:20]
Before the smoke could even clear- there was another explosion- a part of the roof had just been completely disintegrated- allowing the SpaceTrailmon to float into position.
"ATTENTION!" The Trailmon called out- "Nobody move or we'll blow a new crater on this tiny, tiny moon!"
While everyone baffled at the odd comment- with a ton of confusion from the smoke grenade bullet- Hideaki swiftly moved through the fog, grabbing the dazed and confused Ganemon and pulling him out of the immediate line of sight with his Xros Loader.
Moments later- the boy performed an impossibly high leap from the ground up onto the lowered docking ramp of the SpaceTrailmon courtesy of two green vines that shot out of the back of his jacket, allowing him to escape without harm.
"Thank you for participating in this Enrichment Center Thought Experiment Activity!" The Trailmon added- and then pulled back away before taking off, straight up into the atmosphere, where moments later, they escaped through a Time Gate back to Digi-Quartz.
Soon, the smoke began to clear through the newly made hole in the roof of the Concert Hall, revealing Hermaeous Mora standing there, coughing to clear his throat of all the smoke, but otherwise unharmed.
EYE CATCH!
Tagiru and Gumdramon stood in front of a glowing clock face, both looking ready to take on whatever might come to fight them...
The camera pans out, and the clock flips over, revealing a red outline of Arresterdramon roaring, with the number 69 painted onto the back of the clock in what appeared to be rather thick brush-strokes of red paint.
EYE CATCH!
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" Sally shouted to the skies as the four of them walked away from the concert hall.
"How should I know," Kaiyumi grumbled, "I was just as confused as you were."
"Taiki," Tagiru asked, "what just happened?"
"I felt a time rift just before it all happened- but I couldn't do anything about it. Whatever flew through the roof like that was too fast for me to even sense." Taiki mused on that for a moment, "They must have retreated to Digi-Quartz, and came from there too..."
"So we go after them, right?" Sally asked.
As if she even needed to ask.
Digi-Quartz was a big place- an entire planet, in fact- but Ganemon had no clue how big "Big" actually was until that moment.
He was in space.
Or what would pass as space had Digi-Quartz been in anything remotely resembling space.
The planet just seemed to...float. Never moving, never changing. The space around it was static-debris filled. Whole chunks of solid pieces of 'time' just... floating.
Whole moments- whole universes-
Just floating there.
"See all this?" Hideaki motioned with one at the space below them as he held Ganemon out over the planet with the other- the pink colored murk that was a sub-par replacement for the midnight blue of actual space. "This is what people won't find because of your little con."
The "Earth"- Digi-Quartz- silently spun beneath them through no momentum of its own. Their ship- the SpaceTrailmon- was drifting in orbit. Simply said, Hideaki was exploiting the little coin's fear of falling from a great height. And there was no greater height than half-lunar orbit.
Ganemon stared in dismay. "I...We..." He gulped, "We just wanted to make some cash-"
"Over ten Million dollars-" Hideaki scowled and started to lean forward as if to drop Ganemon towards the planet below, "-does NOT count as just 'some cash', mister!"
"Alright alright alright!" Ganemon yelped, "I'll admit! It's a very attractive offer! We were serious about it at first! But then the cash just started flowing in and then we couldn't actually *find* any way out into space!"
"Explain," Hideaki said as he pulled Ganemon in a bit closer.
"We've *gotten* Trailmon out to the edge- no fancy ship needed at all!- but it's impossible to go any further! If you try pushing past it, you just sort of run into a wall! Not anything that could crush you with enough speed but solid enough to just stop you from going anywhere!"
"And?"
"And we couldn't figure out any way of pushing past it! It's like a shell made out of pure diamond!" Ganemon sweated a bit, "Herma just decided it'd be easier to take the money for our own rather than reporting a failure and leaving that kind of mark on our records! I swear! It was his idea to begin with! HONEST!"
Hideaki glanced to his right, where Rina stood leaning against the docking bay wall, holding a tape recorder in one hand. She smirked, and he smirked right back. "Alright then, that's pretty honest then. We'll be taking you back- you'll turn yourself into the police, and if you don't tell them all exactly what you've just told us, then we'll be putting that tape on the internet."
"So my options are either come clean of my own volition or be blackmailed into it!?" Ganemon sweated a bit more, "You guys drive a hard bargain! You've got yourselves a deal. I'll tell on Herma to the cops."
"Perfect!" Hideaki grinned...
Moments later- they shifted back to Earth's normal time plane, and began their descent towards the surface.
Digi-Quartz was a large place- that much was certain. And when you had a Digimon that could fly- you had a lot of ground to cover.
And so they'd split up.
Tagiru and Gumdramon were left to search all of the local areas while Taiki and Sally spread out and covered everywhere else through teleporting.
Kaiyumi had simply stayed due to the absurdity of the situation, and was presently investigating on the earth side of things.
Arresterdramon could circle large areas rather well- but even so- after half an hour of this nonsense- not a trace of the kidnappers could be found.
Just when he was about to tell Arresterdramon to land so they could give up- he saw something near an abandoned warehouse.
A Dobermon, curled up as if sleeping, though clearly keeping an eye out for something.
Or someone!
"Down there!" Tagiru pointed down at the Dobermon, "See if you can land us on the rooftop across from him!"
"Gotcha!"
Moments later- they'd landed just out of the Dobermon's line of sight on a nearby rooftop, and began sneaking their way to the edges to spy on the building.
"So what'd'ya think we'll find?" Gumdramon asked with a bit of excited energy to his voice and a bounce to his steps, "Cold Blooded Mafia types with torture tables that tear you in two pieces!?" Tagiru paled at the thought of being ripped in half. "Maybe Space-faring aliens who don't want us expanding out into the multiverse?" Aliens? Oh please Let it NOT be Aliens. "Or maybe they're Digimon renegades who want all the money for themselves!?" That would make some sense. "Or maybe-"
"Or maybe they're just a couple of kids with Xros Loaders?" Tagiru said as they reached the edge of the rooftop in time to watch Hideaki and the still-Xrossed Rina and Rock walking up to the warehouse in question.
"Or they could be that, yeah," Gumdramon stared for a few moments. "Kids, huh?"
"They look like they'd be about our age, maybe," Tagiru guessed at a distance. "Funny though, I don't think I've ever seen them before."
"Maybe they live here in Digi-Quartz?" Gumdramon guessed.
"Maybe-" Tagiru blinked as Hideaki pulled out his purple Xros Loader and opened a time gate. "We should follow them!"
"Good idea," Gumdramon nodded as he watched the Dobermon leap through, followed by the girl, and then Hideaki.
A quick jump back to the present, and the duo continued their impromptu surveillance on a closer-to-ground level, able to peer through one of the many windows thanks to the help of Sagomon. (He was kindly letting Tagiru stand on his shoulders, while Gumdramon stood on Tagiru's.)
For the first few minutes of surveillance, the two teens inside had seemed to be intently listening to the radio, and after whatever it was they were waiting for happened, they cheered.
The Digi-Xrossed girl- who for whatever reason was still Xrossed- even pulled the boy into a kiss.
"Weh?" Gumdramon tilted his head, "What the heck are they doin'?"
"Er-" Tagiru's eyes widened in realization of what was about to happen the moment the Xrossed girl's jacket hit the ground. "Okay, we need to stop watching now!" And he jumped off of Sagomon's shoulders before he could see anything else.
Gumdramon's head stayed stationary in mid-air even as his body stretched down away from him at the neck. Moments later- "NAK!" - his head snaped down to catch up with his body.
Tagiru figured he had about an hour or two to kill before he'd even want to risk watching those two again- so he began doing some investigating.
Using the Wrister, he found out through Kaiyumi that Ganemon had shown up out of nowhere about fifteen minutes after the 'assassination attempt' (could it even really be called that now?) and claimed to having a change of heart. He ratted out his partner, Hermaeous Mora, for trying to steal all the hard earned cash that was being put into funding the "Space Dovah One" that never really would have existed.
It was all thoroughly disturbing, if Tagiru was being honest with himself. These kids kidnapped the Ganemon to convince him to tell the truth? That was actually sort of clever if their means of doing it didn't involve blasting open a hole in a Concert Hall and kidnapping the guy while nearly assassinating his business partner.
After he'd heard that report, Tagiru had switched back to Digi-Quartz briefly to radio Taiki and Sally that they didn't need to keep looking for the Ganemon, but he hadn't told them that he'd found the two 'kidnappers' already. (Or was it Coin Nappers? Ganemon was a Coin type Digimon, after all.)
Regardless, Tagiru found himself in a peculiar situation. Option one: He could let Taiki and Sally know- and they'd come probably arrest the two would-be-thieves. Xros Heart may have been some brave organization that saved the world, but at this point after all the stuff he'd seen with Harpymon (who he only barely managed to keep hold of once he learned of Quartzmon threatning the poor bird), and other stuff of that level that he'd seen in recent times (The Kid who was attacking Kendo students for no reason).
Tagiru wasn't sure if that was the right choice to make. Option two: He could confront the two of them on his own, and he could tell them of where they stood exactly. That was probably the better of the two options, given that if they came forwards of their own free will, they could probably broker some kind of deal and be able to stay together through any situation that could possibly occur once in custody...
From that brief moment- Tagiru was pretty sure that those two were in a similar situation to him and Chou, and he wasn't sure that that said of him if he let them get taken away like that. Once more, Tagiru's mind raced with what-ifs. He knew that Xros Heart as it stood now would have to take the "legal" actions that the world would approve of even if that wasn't the RIGHT decision to make morally.
Tagiru stood there for a long time as he thought it over...
Then he made a decision.
Two hours had passed after their win in the Ganemon case. Rina and Rock were currently off taking a shower in a distant part of the warehouse where a shower room actually resided, and so, for the moment, that left Hideaki alone to cook lunch.
As he started up the stove- there was a flash of light from near by- followed by the sound of a time gate.
"Who's there!?" Hideaki looked up, grabbing a spatula as the first weapon he could find...
Standing before him was Tagiru, waving casually, "Yo! The name's Tagiru."
"Who the hell are you!?" Hideaki spat, nearly ready to throw the spatula if it weren't his only close-quarters weapon.
"I just said that-" Tagiru shook his head, "Look, that doesn't matter. I'm just here to talk."
Hideaki frowned as he lowered the spatula down a bit, "Alright, what about?"
"Well...It's about that thing at the Concert Hall," Tagiru said, "a lot of people are looking for you cause of that. You slipped past a lot of people who want to know better. People I want to keep in the dark right now about where you guys are."
"Really? Like who?" Hideaki asked.
"A guy who can teleport for one thing," Tagiru said simply, "and his girlfriend who works security for immigration."
"Ah right- those kinds of guys," Hideaki laughed a little, "Yeah, Rina figured we'd ruffle some feathers." He shook his head, then introduced himself, "My name's Hideaki."
"Pleasure to meet you, Hideaki-san," Tagiru smiled a bit. "So...Rina's the girl you were kissing earlier?"
"EH!?" Hideaki went stiff, "Y-You saw that!?"
"Well yeah...not intentionally, really."
"How much!?" The poor boy was flushed red from panic.
"I looked away as soon as her jacket hit the floor!" Tagiru crossed his heart with his fingers, "I swear by my own future daughter's name!"
"Odd way to phrase that..." Hideaki frowned a little bit, "You've got a girlfriend?"
"Yeah, something like that," Tagiru laughed a little nervously. "Time stuff. Really quite complicated."
"Ah, yeah, I know the feeling," Hideaki laughed a little in turn, "though I'm more used to the '
'Different Universes' thing."
"Really?" Tagiru blinked.
"Yeah, I'm not from this Earth. Was just mindin' my own business one day and then- poof!" Hideaki even made a little 'explosion' motion with his hands, "I find myself in Digi-Quartz with a burst of static!"
"Ouch," Tagiru winced, "Same story, 'scept it was just a time leap for me. Not a whole universal leap."
"Yeah- Digimon don't exist in my world," Hideaki shook his head, "we got Pokemon instead."
"Seriously?" Tagiru stared at the other boy, who nodded. "That's awesome!"
"Yeah, well, atleast the monsters in this dimension can talk to you," Hideaki laughed briefly, then paused for a moment before continuing, "I ran into Rina right off the bat. This giant Dragon Digimon was chasing her right into my path. And Rina- let me tell you- she's got an even weirder universe than mine."
"How's that?" Tagiru asked.
"She and Rock- her Vmon partner- are the same person, just split across a dimensional divide," Hideaki explained. "Two dimensions occupying the same space. Sort of like a Living Dream world, or something like that. When one of them got pulled over here, so did the other. It took us a Long time to figure that part out though."
"I only saw one girl though," Tagiru pointed out.
"Ah, that's because they can fuse together since they have the same soul. It makes them really powerful after that." Hideaki shook his head, "Rina and Rock are the only ones that can merge together. She's tried fusing me with other Digimon with her Xros Loader, and I've tried with just Rina and some other Digimon we have, but... It never works. The damned things just beep out otherwise. And even then, it takes like...three hours or so for 'em to split back apart again. So it's not even a proper Digi-Xros."
"Yeesh, interdimensional chaos is chaotic, isn't it?" Tagiru shook his head- shuddering at the thoughts of what might happen if the same person from two different universes met in a third, completely different universe.
"It is!" Hideaki agreed.
Less than a hour later- Rina walked into the living area as she towel-dried off her hair. She stopped in her tracks the moment she saw Hideaki and Tagiru chatting about the nonsensical events that made up their lives.
"So then we find out that there's this big bad guy ripped straight out of a cartoon going around causing trouble, and is the VERY SAME GUY who made Digi-Quartz!" Tagiru was concluding, "How messed up is that?"
"Oh man, not as messed up as the time we had to hunt down a damned CLOWN in an amusement park!" Hideaki was about to launch into another tale of adventure when Rina coughed. "Oh! Hey Rina!"
"And just who exactly is this?" She put her hand on her hip.
"Rina, meet Akashi, Tagiru! Tagiru, meet Shinomiya, Rina!" Hideaki introduced them. "Tagiru here saw our little stunt back in the concert hall- he's got a Xros Loader too!"
"It's nice to meet you!" Tagiru held his red Xros Loader up with a hybrid salute-wave, and flashed a smile at her.
"Um...Right..." Rina looked straight at Hideaki, "Are you sure it's okay for him to be here?"
"He coulda turned us in ages ago," Hideaki brushed it off, "and he didn't. But Besides that! He's got some messed up universal-grand-cosmic-plot goin' on too!"
"How messed up, exactly?" She raised an eyebrow.
"He goes back in time, becomes the father of the current Queen of the Digital World, who he's MET in the present and knows he's a time traveler!" Hideaki explained, "Plus there's a whole bunch of other time loop stuff in there that's all tied up to the static bursts that brought us here!"
"It all sounds so mundane when you say it like that," Tagiru mused. "Like it's just every day stuff...Ya know?"
Moments later- Rock joined them- mirroring Rina's hair drying with a towel, despite not having any hair. She, too, stopped after seeing the newcomer, and, using the exact same tone of voice and inflections of surprise, added, "And just who exactly is this?"
"Does this happen a lot?" Tagiru asked as Hideaki sighed.
"More than you can possibly imagine," Hideaki replied as he planted his forehead to the table.
A few hours later- Taiki had given up on finding the 'coin nappers' via teleporting, and so, upon returning to his house with Sally at his side, was surprised to encounter Shoutmon peering over the Journal of events.
"It's not in here," Shoutmon said before annoyance could ask. "Today's events aren't in here."
"Gumdramon didn't write them down?" Taiki asked.
"The opposite-" Shoutmon pointed to the day's date and it's entry: "Nothing of Importance Happens."
"So...Gumdramon lied in the book so we'd be caught off guard?" Sally frowned. "Don't tell me that there are other entries in the book like that!"
"Most of the quite days so far have been like that, actually," Shoutmon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers as he did such, "it's why I didn't think anything of it. Now I can't be sure how accurate the rest of the entries will be."
"What do you think, Taiki?" Sally looked over at the boy...
"I don't know..." Taiki scowled, "I really don't know."
"At any rate," Shoutmon coughed, "Tomorrow something big is going down. The Journal says that much at least."
"What's it say?" Sally asked.
"Well..." Shoutmon began...
TO BE CONTINUED.
BEGIN: ACT 3 INTERMISSION 13.
DIGI-QUARTZ_ _ _| SEVERAL MONTHS AGO_ _ _|
Hideaki stared at the changed scenery around him.
One moment, he'd been in his mother's garden, helping to tend to it with the local Snivy clan...
The Next, he was in the middle of some run down middle-of-nowhere town in the middle of a mountain range with a bizzare color scheme.
"What-" He stared at everything for a few moments. "Where am I?"
"Vy?" Hideaki nearly jumped at the quiet voice just behind his ear. It was a Snivy that had been brought along for the trip because it had been resting on his shoulders. "Snivy?"
A few moments later- the ground began to rumble- and he heard screaming coming from down the road.
Hideaki squinted for a moment- straining to see what was coming towards him...
"RUN! YOU IDIOT! RUUUUN!" It was a girl- dressed up in biking shorts and a black zip-up hoodie that barely hid her hair of a yellowish shade of green.
Right next to her was a waist-high blue dragon with a yellow V on its forehead.
And then he saw what was chasing them.
A Massive- gigantic- absolutely towering beast of a monster.
His first thought was that it was a Legendary Pokemon of some sort.
But then he realized- No Pokemon- even the largest of Legendaries- was as large as this beast was- nor were they giant dinosaur shaped beasts made out of molten rock.
For something that large- it was certainly very, very, VERY fast, and the ONLY reason it hadn't caught up to the girl running at him was because it was on the other side of the mountains that the run-down town rested in.
"SHE SAID RUN, IDIOT!" The Girl grabbed Hideaki's arm, and started dragging him along- even though it was the dragon (A girl? And It spoke English too?) that was speaking here.
As they ran- the massive wave of heat rolling off of the Digimon passed over them- and Hideaki suddenly understood that the Walking Volcano Dragon was exactly what it appeared to be.
A Volcano Dragon Monster.
Volcdramon for short.
It certainly wasn't any Pokemon Hideaki'd ever seen personally.
And as he stared back at the beast as he haphazardly ran after the girl(s) now dragging him along, he suddenly realized that he was somewhere very, very, VERY far from home.
Moments later- a dog-monster came running up next to them, barking, "Hey! Hey! You runnin' from that guy too?"
"Oi! Dobermon!" The blue dragon laughed, "Care to give us a lift?"
"I certainly would not be opposed to it!"
And then the girl- who Hideaki would later come to learn was named Rina- threw him onto the dog (Dobermon)'s back before jumping on herself.
It was a miracle that the four of them managed to escape the rampaging path of that beast when they did.
From his silent perch on a mountain top some miles away, The Watch Maker lowered his binoculars and frowned grimly. "And now I have two more loose cannons to worry about." He sighed and stood up, "I suppose I should bring them into the Game for their own safety, if nothing else."
He turned to leave, Clockmon at his side, ever presently chiming "Chi Chi Chi" as she followed after him.
END: ACT 3 INTERMISSION 13.
NEXT TIME!
"I invite you all to the Digimon Hunting Tournament!"
"Cool!"
"In this tournament, your goal is to be the first one to capture the Renegade Digimon, Volcdramon!"
"Damn! That guy again!"
"This Digimon is of a power level rivaling even that of the Denizens themselves!"
"Wait- what?"
"Volcdramon is a beast that would tear the universe apart with fire-y ambition should he escape from this place!"
"You're Kidding me!"
"So...my little challengers...Do Not Fail."
"Oh ho ho...seems like a perfect opportunity to me!"
"Next Time, Digimon Xros Wars! THE VOLCANIC HUNT!"
"I'll catch it for sure!"
"And what of you, gathered friends?"
"I say we punch it in the snout to establish superiority!"
A.N.: Good grief this episode took a long time to churn out. I wasn't sure what direction to take with it at first in the grand scope of the over-all story, given that a BET of the canon episode was pretty impossible by this point... Then it hit me: "Hey! Why not work in that new character from the DIGIMON RE:DIGITIZE game?" And so Shinomiya, Rina, got a co-starring role alongside Hideaki, and it allows me to hit the hammer down on the plot of UNIVERSES BLEEDING OVER as well as setting up the next episode rather Brilliantly! The plot is really simmering now, rising to a boil... Heh... Soon, it's all going to explode! XD ...Alright, lame cooking and Volcano Puns aside, This next chapter is going to be a fun one... Know why?
'CAUSE LANDS SAKE'S ALIVE! WE'RE COOKING WITH PETROL NOW!
...Okay, Okay! Stop pelting me with tomatoes! I promise! I'll stop with the food puns! OW! Stop that! _DTC