"Snivy!" Hideaki ordered- "Use Vine Whip!"
"SNIII~VY! VY!"
SLAP SLAP!
"Ow! That reeeeely hurt you know!" Betsumon sneered at his interrogators. "JUST KIDDING! That barely tickled at all!"
At this exact moment- they were in one of the Interrogation cells in Sally's office building.
Betsumon was proving to be a rather tough nut to crack with regards to information on Quartzmon. Three hours into the causal, normal style interrogation, the little jerk had decided to "Lawyer Up" with himself. Plus, all of the flirting he was doing towards anyone who walked through the door was getting rather annoying as well. (Sally had nearly shot him after the last "Hey, Doll-face!" he sent her way.)
Four hours after Betsumon had been captured- and they'd yet to learn a single thing from him.
Oh he knew quite a lot, as he'd said himself ("Oh I know quite a lot about that Quartz fellow you're talkin'bout, but I ain't spillin' the beans on my clients!"), but getting him to crack and actually 'spill the beans' was another story entirely.
"Do you want a silly answer or a honest answer? Honest? Well...THEN I REQUIRE A PASSWORD!"
"Sees, it's a literal 'metaphorical' mannera' speakin' here. Yous gotta take everythin' I say Literally, while I speak all metaphorically on yous lousy coppas and yer stinkin' ROOM!"
"You know, thos' vines o' yours could really make a guy happy if you used them for somethin'...other than whips."
And the list of insane comments went on past the Forty-Second Page.
We don't have time for that nonsense.
"We don't have time for this nonsense!" Sally growled as she stared through the one-way mirror. "He's toying with us and he knows it!"
"Easy there, Sally," Taiki placed a hand on her shoulder. "We'll get Quartzmon's info out of him eventually."
"Alright then, You've left me no choice..." Hideaki crossed his arms and shook his head. "Snivy?"
"Vyy?" The little green plant Pokemon on the ground looked up at her friend.
"Use Iron Tail on that spot," Hideaki ordered.
"Sniiii!" The Snivy caught on towards what he meant, and turned towards Betsumon with a genuine smile on her face.
"Ermm..." Betsumon grimaced a little, "Why're you lookin' at me like dat for?"
Snivy didn't reply as her leaf tail began glowing silver...
"You really shouldn't have played tough guy, Betsumon," Hideaki shook his head. "You've brought this on yourself."
And with that- Snivy leaped into the air, and spun down upon that spot between Betsumon's legs.
"SNIIIII~~VYYY~!"
SMASH!
"AYYYY CARUMBAAA!" Betsumon squealed in pain.
*cue BURST THE GRAVITY (TV size) by ALTIMA*
DIGIMON XROS WARS
THE YOUNG HUNTERS THAT LEAP THROUGH TIME.
*cue Title Theme*
"Persian Espionage!"
HONK!
Tagiru flinched at the sudden car horn from the street, grimacing slightly. What a day it'd been since yesterday...And it just hadn't ended yet.
After capturing Betsumon (Which in of itself had been a laborious task), everyone had split their different ways to deal with the situation.
Hideaki and Rina had gone off with Kaiyumi and Simon to Sally's office in an attempt to pry what information they could out of Betsumon. Meanwhile- Haruki, Witchmon, Airu, and Gumdramon had all volunteered to search through the rest of the massive clothing piles.
That left Tagiru and Chou with absolutely nothing else to do except live their lives. Of course, by the time all of the Betsumon nonsense had been settled with, it was then well past dinner time, and so Tagiru and Chou had gone to his place to eat.
Tagiru's parents had been there- both out cold, drunk on the floor with several empty bottles of fine wine and whisky around them, and completely blocking the pathway into the kitchen.
A single, drunkenly scrawled note had explained the situation.
"Three Day weekend! Don't mind us!"
Apparently, Tagiru's parents had taken the first vacation they'd gotten off of their work in a long time and had simply decided to get drunk for the first day.
From the state of the kitchen's supplies, Tagiru had to have guessed that they'd been there since well before school had gotten out for him. They didn't even call to let him know to buy more food.
With Dinner scrubbed there- Tagiru and Chou had simply gone to a Ramen Noodle Cart and ordered a few bowls of noodles before wandering through Digi-Quartz for the night.
By the time they'd realized they should have been heading to bed for the night, it was already well past 1:30 A.M., and they were completely lost.
Tagiru yawned as he and Chou walked towards the school building. "Man...why'd they have to come home now of all times?" He asked for the tenth time that hour, fiftieth time that day, and six-hundred and twelfth time since the discovery of his parents' "Three Day Staycataion."
"I dunno..." Chou was half asleep on her feet as she mumbled a reply.
In the end- The duo had simply found an empty hotel room in Digi-Quartz and spent the night there until morning- where they then went on to try to find their way back to school.
Thankfully, they'd found a bus stop, and had shifted back to Earth to make use of it.
All in all, Tagiru thought with a bit of sleep-deprived annoyance, this was looking to be a fairly bad day that was going to probably get much, much worse.
"Oi, what the heck happened to you two?" The Basketball Coach for Xros Heart, Dren Solfield A.K.A. Dorulumon, asked as he saw them walking up to the main doors of the school, "And why are you two here so early anyways? School doesn't start for another hour."
"Don't ask," Chou grumbled.
"Alright, alright," Dorulumon shook his head and thought to himself, 'Good grief, they look about as tired as we were after that all nighter in Dust Zone.'
Kotone hummed to herself as she walked up to the school's main gate- not half an hour after Tagiru and Chou had arrived.
Today had been a good day- counting the fortuitous clothes-napping that Betsumon had inflicted on her and Ren. She was going to be treated to LUNCH- Not once, not twice, not even THRICE!
She'd managed to beat Ren so thoroughly at a made-up-on-the-spot card game that she'd managed to get him into owing her TEN LUNCHES!
Ten!
Today was going to be the first day. What would it be? Purple Slushies from the local Mall? Or maybe Pizza from the local Pizza Parlor?
As she walked up to the gate, Cetus made a curious sound.
"Eh?" Kotone frowned a little. 'What's up?'
'Something doesn't feel right.' Cetus remarked, 'Like there should be more teachers here than there are.'
'Ah, you're probably just imagining things!' Kotone brushed it off.
'Maybe.' Cetus then gave a wry smile and remarked, 'But then by that logic, you're imagining it too. We are about as close to one person as any two individuals can be, after all.'
'Bah!' Kotone grimaced, 'You make it sound like we're clinically insane!'
'But we are. Technically speaking.' Cetus insisted, 'We did work for DarkKnightmon for a time, did we not?'
'Welll...' Kotone was cut off as Tsuwabuki called out to her.
"Kotone-saaan!"
"Sis!" Oh and look, Yuu and Corone were with him.
'This can't be good.' Cetus lamented.
"What's going on?" Kotone asked.
"Something really really bad!" Corone had a flash of panic in her eyes like nothing Kotone had ever seen before.
"I'm sorry to say that several teachers have gone missing today," The Vice Principal, one E. Strickland, said into the intercom. "Attempts to contact them have proven futile, and their homes have since been found abandoned."
Kotone grumbled to Cetus, "You so totally jinxed us."
"Furthermore, I'm afraid to say that I've received some reports that some students have called in today to say that they cannot come in due to the fact that their parents have gone missing as well." Miss Vice Principal Strickland continued, "Due to this sudden loss of Faculty and Students, we will be operating on a half day and with combined classes."
"What!?" A teacher shouted in dismay over the intercom a few moments later, "You're kidding me!"
"I'm afraid that I am not, Mister Mcfly," The Vice Principal sighed.
"So you're telling me that we've got a rash of disappearances and all we've got is a HALF DAY?"Mr. Mcfly shouted at the absurdity of the situation. "We shouldn't even be doing school at this point! We should be investigating and-"
"The Principal is missing too, Mister Mcfly!" The Vice Principal nearly shouted. "I am doing what he would want us to do and that is Continue On with our jobs as teachers while the Police investigate this matter as fully as they can! ...I'm afraid I've already said too much. Now we can either discuss this in private or not at all."
A FEW HOURS LATER_ _ _| DWI STATION_ _ _|
"Damn that Betsumon's persistent!" Sally growled as she refilled her coffee mug. "Eight hours into this and he still hasn't broken!"
"You'd think he'd be tired," Rina agreed before sipping at her own coffee. "I know I am..."
"Me too..." Sally sighed, then leaned back into the counter as she stirred sugar into her coffee, "Then there's that nonsense of teachers and parents going missing from all over the world now..."
"That's concerning, alright," Rina nodded, "I wonder what it means?"
At that moment- Taiki pushed the door open with a concerned look on his face. "Sally, you've got to come check this out."
"It's a list of everyone gone missing so far," Taiki explained as he pointed at the computer monitor showing a list on it. "So far we're seeing losses of people in similar fields- Electronics, Data gathering, Mathematics, High up positions in businesses and schools..."
"Okay," Sally rubbed at the bridge of her nose, "so what's the connection?"
"They're disappearing at exactly three A.M.," Taiki brought up a footage feed from a bar in the United States somewhere. "Just watch this." He clicked play.
The video showed a man coming out of the bar, a drink in hand and an arm around his best buds.
Taiki pointed at that man, "Professor Edward Johnson, yesterday he was given the position of Teacher at the University of Massachusetts Advanced Math class."
The video continued, showing them waiting at a rainy street corner for a taxi cab to arrive...
There was a warp of static on the screen, and when it passed, the man was gone and his friends were shouting in surprise, digging at the ground where he'd been standing moments before.
"What..." Sally stared at the screen, "Play that back again."
Taiki did such.
"Again."
He replayed it.
"Again."
After that, she took the mouse and began replaying the video at will.
"Why are they digging at the ground?" Sally asked as the footage played again.
"According to reports, Professor Johnson melted into a bunch of green and yellow cubes that dissolved away into the rain water," Taiki said simply. "Sally, he's the youngest person to get that job on record."
"How old?" Sally didn't look away from the screen.
"Twenty-four."
"...And the others?"
"It ranges from twenty-two to forty-two at the moment, but that number's growing with every hour."
"...Damn."
"Alright then..." Hideaki finally caved in. "You've forced me to do the second most despicable thing a man can do to another man."
"Ya think?" Betsumon flashed a broken-toothed smile at his tormentor- a smile that faded quickly. "Wait..."
"So...It's time that I do the first most," Hideakie concluded matter-of-fact-ly.
"Wh...What's the first most despicable thing?" Betsumon was actually panicking now. If ALL of what he'd been forced through so far was only amounting to the SECOND most dispicable thing ever...
What was the FIRST?
"Snivy," Hideaki ignored Betsumon, "One last move. And make sure it's Super Effective."
"Vy!" Snivy nodded tiredly, taking a breath and steeling herself in preparation for the next move...
"Wait! What the heck are you doing!?' Betsumon's heart was racing. Oh No, Oh Man Oh HELL No! "What the Hell are you doing~?"
"Snivy."
"Hey! C-C-c-Mon here!" Betsumon was sweating, "Let's be reasonable here! I-I'm sure we can come to an understanding here!"
"USE ATTRACT!"
"WAIT WHAT!?"
"sniii~VY!" Snivy winked at Betsumon and a wave of Pink hearts suddenly circled her before flying out and entraping Betsumon within them.
"OHHH MAN! This is gonna suuuuuckkk!" Betsumon whined as the Hearts converged on him and...
3 Bwinnng! 3
His eyes now had hearts in them. "Tsuuuuuu..." He purred as all of his pain was flooded away in a wash of pure bliss.
"Alright then, Betsumon," Hideaki cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck, "are you ready to tell us about Quartzmon?"
"Whu..." Betsumon's head rolled to the side, "whaadya wanna knooow...?...About my bozz man...?"
"Heh," Hideaki smirked just a bit as he thought to himself, 'I should've tried that hours ago!'
THE SCHOOL_ _ _| GYMNASIUM_ _ _|
Gym class had to be the most crowded class of all at this moment. The regular Gym teacher, Chen Gadyen, was teaching at least three half-classes along side their own present teacher, Dren/Dorulumon.
Four-half classes in total equal to about the usual "Two Classes Per Gym Session"- Tagiru mused.
Of course- it was different from what he was used to.
"HYYYYAAAAHHH!"
For one thing- Chou was in part of the dodge-ball game going on under supervision by Dorulumon, and she was absolutely making a killing in it.
At that exact moment- she'd grabbed a ball with her right hand- holding it's forward momentum back even as it spun on with barely a decrease in side-wards momentum- then with that previously written yell, she threw it right back at the person who had thrown it.
SMASH! The ball hit the far wall- and a few cracks splintered up from the point of impact.
Slowly but surely, everyone stopped to stare at the impressive display...then they started clapping.
Tagiru whistled. Apparently, even in a half-awake state, his girlfriend could pull off impossible things when her blood started boiling. And considering that with Chou's power added in with his own near-boundless energy, was it any wonder their future daughter was already Queen of the Digital World?
Tagiru never noticed Mami glaring daggers at him and Chou.
"Guys!" Hideaki ran into the office where Taiki and Sally were talking about the consequences of people vanishing. "We've got a mega bad problem!"
"What's up?" Sally looked up.
"Betsumon blabbed!" There was genuine panic in the boy's eyes, whatever he'd been told, it was NOT good.
EYE CATCH!
Tagiru and Gumdramon stand 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!
Kotone was displeased.
First- her perfect day had been ruined by the fact that some disturbances off the coast of Japan had taken not only her brother, but her own Ninja partner as well, out on a trip to investigate a signal an old friend of theirs had sent them.
Second- Cetus had been right and people WERE missing. Lots of them, if the news reports were to be believed. Neither of them were liking the idea that people- in mass- could just go missing from their homes.
The Media would be having a field day with this.
It was then that she spotted one of Tagiru's classmates walking towards the center of the room, which, for some reason, was completely wide open space.
Cetus gave off the feeling as if... as if there were some odd feeling coming off of that girl that made her feel...
Just plain weird.
Kotone frowned. The girl looked like any normal student in gym class. White T shirt, blue gym shorts...Okay, that was odd.
The girl wasn't wearing sneakers or socks.
Now that she'd noticed that oddity- the second strangest thing was they way she walked. Hips swaying as if there were something trailing off of her waist like a coat or something...
Takahashi, Mami, surveyed the room with a smirk. Nobody was looking her way...Not just yet.
"Wait- he said WHAT?" Taiki shouted in surprise.
"Exactly what I said," Hideaki insisted. "If we don't warn Yuu and Kaoru right now, they'll be caught up in the-!"
Kotone blinked in surprise as the girl dropped her shorts to the floor before stepping out of them and yanking her shirt off in one smooth motion.
The act itself was startling enough- but Kotone and Cetus had another reason to stare on:
There was a familiar green hourglass inside of a red circle tattooed to the girl's back.
"But besides that-" Hideaki continued on as Sally dialed a number on her phone, "He told me that one of Quartzmon's backup plans is activating TODAY! The people disappearing is just the SIGNAL for someone else to start it!"
"What?" Taiki couldn't understand any of the new facts rolling in with how they fit in with what they knew previously... "Where? Who's triggering it?"
"Takahashi-san!" Gym Teacher Gadyen shouted at Mami, "What the hell are you doing?! Put your clothes back on right this second!"
This- of course- had the intended result of drawing everyone's attention towards her.
"How about..." Mami rolled her eyes as she pretended to think. "No?"
And with that, she flung her arms out wide as the symbol on her back flashed with a nearly blinding light.
Tagiru had looked towards the center of the room just in time to watch his classmate transform into a blinding sphere of light.
He instinctively covered his eyes with his arm.
"It's one of Tagiru's classmates, Mami Takahashi," Sally pinpointed the name among the online student Year Book before returning to her call, "Yes! I said I want that bay sealed off this SECOND!"
"We need to get to Tagiru's school right now," Taiki said before willing a teleport...
FIZZLE.
...That failed to work.
"What?" Taiki blinked in surprise. "How the...?"
When Tagiru opened his eyes- his classmate and stalker Mami Takahashi had vanished- becoming replaced with a Female Digimon who- at a first glance- would appear to be the well known species of Bastemon.
On a second glance- you'd see all the subtle differences: Three tails instead of two, a Tiger's fur pattern rather than a leopards, more humanoid hands that had blood red fingernails, and a pair of fangs that appeared to be more like a saber cat's than any house cat's.
This was no Bastemon. She was a VamPersiamon, the vampiric (well, extremely more so) subspecies of Bastemon. (And yes, she still wasn't wearing any clothes. Not that it matters what with all the fur.)
And then, Tagiru realized with dull horror, they were in the Digi-Quartz version of the school gym.
'And me without my Xros Loader,' he lamented.
It had worked. Mami laughed, and laughed, and laughed. She'd successfully pulled off the plan to shift everyone into that alternate world Miho had discovered as well as shifting forms and paralyzing everyone in the room in the same breath.
One sight of the light from her tattoo had done the job well enough- the one who provided it had certainly came through on his promises.
"Oh man, I wasn't expecting that to actually work," She said once she finished laughing.
Kotone was on the floor, and it was there that she found that she couldn't move a muscle.
She was as still as a statue.
Almost everyone else was frozen as well.
'What the hell?' Kotone couldn't blink. 'What's going on?'
'We're frozen, I don't know-' Cetus was rather uncertain, 'She did something. I can't...I don't know what the hell she just did, but it's frozen our motor control.'
'And probably everyone else's too...' Kotone glanced about as best as she could- Ah- it looked like some people were twitching- either the effect would wear off or some people didn't get hit hard by whatever had stunned them.
Tagiru was playing dead as best as he could. Mami, for the moment, was stalking about without a care in the world.
"Hahah! Oh man, this is just perfect!" Mami continued to ramble to herself, "I've got enough genetic diversity here that I can convert you all and start fresh on a new world! Haha!"
What the hell? Tagiru frowned. What was she going on about here?
Mami went to pull a paralyzed student up off of the ground- one of the students from Tagiru's class that Tagiru recognized as someone who'd hung out with Mami on more than a few occasions- and smiled a fang-y grin. "Oh yes...you'll do nicely for a first convert...!"
The girl- Midori- had her eyes widen ever so slightly due to the fear factor pumping her blood fast enough to slightly overcome the paralyzing effect. "N...N..." She couldn't talk, however.
"Oh don't worry...It won't hurt at all!" Mami's twin saber teeth seemed to glow with the power of a building attack. "Well..I kid, It will hurt just a little! No, well...I lie. It'll hurt a LOT. But once that's gone, you're not going to feel a damned thing except for what's good for you!" Mami adjusted her grip and held the girl by the front of her shirt with her left hand, and then, with her right, pulled Midori's left arm out at an angle she could bite down on. "Itdakimasuuu~" She opened her mouth and...
SPANG!
-Was thrown to the side as a dodge ball hit her in the side of the head. "OW!"
Midori was dropped to the ground in surprise, and although it hurt just a little to land as she did, relief flooded her body at being spared a painful death.
"Okay!" Mami turned on her heel to face her attacker, "WHO THE HELL DID THAT!?"
Her sight settled on Chou- whose glasses glinted what little light was in the room back at Mami with a killing intent.
"Don't." Chou said simply as she shifted her line of sight ever so slightly as to dismiss that glare, "Don't you DARE try that again!"
"Che~" Mami grit her teeth, "I should've figured it'd be you."
"Me?" Chou blinked in surprise at that.
"Yeah! You!" Mami snarled- "You're the tramp that stole my Tagiru away from me!"
"...Wait what?" Was thought by every person in the room at that exact moment- said only by Chou, however.
"Yeah! You head me you little thief!" Mami continued to snarl.
"But...I didn't steal him." Chou corrected the girl's faulty logic, "If anything, he's the one who stole ME away!"
"OH don't you DARE play that shit with me!" Mami bared her claws, "You stole him from me with that little 'tutoring' LIE of yours. You just wanted him in your grubby little claws so *I* wouldn't have him!"
"..." Everyone in the room would have face palmed at that. Chou did a Face-palm X2 Combo to compensate. "Seriously? I was offering tutoring because my teacher thought it'd be good for me... I didn't even know Akashi-kun then."
"AKASH-" Mami let loose an uncontrolled squeal of anger, "You're seriously sticking to his LAST NAME even after I've smelled your SCENT on him for over a MONTH now!?"
Tagiru realized rather belatedly that that was what Mami had been doing when she'd sniffed him that one day.
"I call him what I call him! Akashi-kun is Akashi-kun and that is that," Chou crossed her arms and stared straight at Mami. "Wait- is all this why you trapped us all here!?" She blinked, incredulously, "Oh by the Denizens you are so Shallow!"
"Me? SHALLOW?" Mami scoffed, "HAH! NO way No how! I just find this to be an excellent opportunity of coincidental nature!" And with that- she leaped towards Chou with a howl of deprived anger and anticipation.
Chou dodged the first strike and started running- away from where most of the students were ling on the ground. "Hey! What's the rush!?"
Now that the chase was on- so to speak- Tagiru risked moving. He pushed up to his feet and started running towards the doors that lead into the rest of the school from the gym. He quickly leaped over people and past gym equipment- trying to be as stealthy as he could under the sounds of Mami's enraged rantings.
"GRAAAH! STOP RUNNING!"
"No way!"
"PRECISION CLAW STRIKE!" Mami shouted as her blood red finger nails glowed with an even deeper red color- flooding the room with some moderate amount of lighting.
Chou gulped as she leaped to the side. It wasn't the most elegant dodge in the history of dodging, but it worked. She landed in a pile of dodge-balls. Perfect! "Hey!" She shouted, "You really think you ever HAD Akashi-kun in the first place?"
"OF COURSE I DID!" Mami stomped her foot on the ground in frustration.
"Well you DIDN'T!" And with that, Chou stood up, spun around, and threw a dodge ball. Mami scrambled to dodge it. "He didn't ever like you because you were so CLINGY!" Another dodge ball was thrown. "YOU made him so scared of you that he was afraid that something like this would happen!" Another dodge ball was thrown.
Across the room- Tagiru grimaced as he scrambled across the floor- why the hell did he have to be the center of attention here.
"SO WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK THAT *I* HAD TO DO ANYTHING TO "STEAL" HIM AWAY!?" Chou shouted as she started throwing balls rapid fire.
"GRK!" Mami gasped as a dodge ball finally struck her in the shoulder.
"YOU!" Another hit. "NEVER!" And a third! "HAD HIM!" And there was the fourth! "TO BEGIN WITH!" And then a fifth ball smacked Mami straight in the mouth- breaking the two fangs with the impact alone.
Mami hit the ground with a thud- and the room went quiet save for Chou's heavy panting from all that yelling.
Tagiru finally reached the doors and started trying to open them. "Damn it!" He cursed. The doors were barred from the outside. Obviously Mami had planned this out just in case her paralyzing tactic hadn't worked.
And then he heard Chou shout in surprise.
He turned around to see the worst sight possible.
Mami had faked being knocked out. When Chou had come over to check to see if she were still alive, Mami had swung her legs out in a kick that sent Chou tumbling to the floor.
"You, Filthy, LIAARRRR!" Mami flipped over and pinned Chou to the ground- Holding Chou's wrists to the ground with her hands, and Chou's legs to the ground with her outer most tails. "I am going to Kill You for Everything you just said!" Mami hissed at the rather startled Chou. "But first, because you broke my FANGS, I am going to torment you! And torture you! And make sure that you're BEGGING for death FAR before I am even CLOSE to being through with you!"
Anything Chou was going to say in response to that was forgotten the moment she heard a faint whistling sound from outside. "Eh?"
"Oh Don't you DARE play dumb!" Mami continued on- completely ignoring the increasing volume of that whistling.
"Um..." Chou blinked, "don't you hear that?"
"All I hear is a caged bird squawking to avoid it's inevitable FATE!" Mami shouted just as a loud CRACK resounded through the room- and day light shown down upon them like a spotlight for a single moment before-
KLONGGG!
-The Rocket Hammer launched all those weeks/years ago by an inexperienced Airu came to a landing on top of Mami's head- it lightly bounced off of her head and landed on the ground on it's side, while Mami's eyes rolled up into the back of her head as she blacked out into the Dream Bubbles in the Furthest Ring.
"Murma..." Was all Mami said as she fell onto her side, leaving a very confused Chou lying there on the ground- staring up ath Digi-Quartz's sky.
"What the hell..." Chou said quietly before starting to laugh. "Hahah! Airu! You clever, Clever little~~~!"
With Mami unconscious- everyone's motor control soon returned to them, allowing everyone to get back to their feet.
"What the hell is wrong with her?" the girl, Midori, stared at her unconscious friend in abstract horror, "Sure she may have been a bit...uptight...but she never said that she ever wanted to do this...This...!" She fell to her knees and started crying.
"The door's jammed," Dorulumon rolled his neck, "Everyone! Stand back!" he pulled back a hand and took a breath: "DORULU TORNADOOO!"
There was a burst of wind from his hand that completely shattered the locked doors.
Teacher Gadyen whistled in appreciation, "Not bad, Solfield-sensei!"
"Ah, well, thanks, Gadyen-sensei," Dorulumon laughed just a bit.
"I'll surf on over to the warehouse," Kotone said as she took a few steps outside, "I'll go get Airu or Haruki and get them to shift us back over to Earth."
"Sounds like a plan," Tagiru nodded in agreement.
"Just have everyone stay around here for now," Kotone gave a wink, "I'll be back in a flash!"
Chou had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
The only reason she'd been saved by this hammer at the last moment was because it's rocket fuel had run out.
She was saved all because her Genius Cousin had given it a fuel supply of just shy of Ten Years.
And it chose to run out right over her head.
She laughed as she twirled the hammer around almost like a baton. A really heavy baton- but a baton nonetheless.
Mami Takahashi woke up with a pounding headache and the aching pain of having been tied up to a chair for who knows how long.
"Rgha..." She groaned, "What happened...?"
"You tried to do something stupid and got hit on the head by a hammer that got thrown into the sky almost ten years ago now," Tagiru said simply as he tapped his foot on the gym floor, "of course, that hammer was only launched a few weeks ago on earth, but you probably already know that given that it was on the news like it was."
Mami's head snapped up at that- "Tagi-!"
"Stop." And that one word made the smile on Mami's face vanish before it had even appeared. "You just did something really, really stupid, Takahashi." And the fact that he'd reverted to her last name rather than her first name, combined with that dreaded version of "you"...Mami realized she wasn't ever going to get him back. "Just what the hell were you trying to pull off there?"
"..." Mami glanced around the room- seeing quite a few angry students glaring at her... And Chou had that giant hammer. She couldn't get away with anything now... "Alright," She sighed, "I'll tell you."
FLASH BACK_ _ _| FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE CASCADE INCIDENT_ _ _|
It had been a stroke of luck.
She'd moved to earth to gain an education at the behest of her parents- some of the few digimon left of their species.
And it was on that fateful day that, as she toured the school, she'd wandered past the computer room where Miho Sudo was talking to a plant.
While wearing nothing but vines.
"I've got a plan to bring her back..." Miho said simply once Mami had explained the situation. (No, she wouldn't judge. She was an odd ball too.) "I'll take all of those upstarts away, and then I'll be able to bring her back."
"What about the rest?" Mami asked.
"Huh?" Miho blinked in confusion, "What?"
"What about the rest of the students after that?" Mami asked. "Do you have any grudge against them?"
"No, not realy..." Miho tilted her head to the side. "Why?"
"...I'd like to resurrect my own species, actually...This school might be the best place to do it."
END FLASH BACK_ _ _|
"I got my back tattoo from the same guy who gave Miho hers..." Mami explained, "but he requested that I hold back my stage of the plan for a certain event trigger. To 'Maximize' my yield."
"Who was that guy?" Tagiru asked.
"An Ekakimon," Mami said simply, "walking pencil with magic powers."
FLASH BACK_ _ _| DIGI-QUARTZ_ _ _| SEVEN MONTHS AFTER CASCADE INCIDENT_ _ _|
"Ahhh...Ahnd I am Finished!" Ekakimon concluded in a French accent as he finished printing the tattoo on Mami's back. "Now that dis is done, I tell you about the payment, no?"
"Ok..." Mami agreed.
"There will come a day, one years time after the Digital World and Earth reunited..." The Talking Pencil explained, "People shall go missing, all over the world...And when they do... You shall enact your plan, young Takahashi-sama! That is payment for my services. Do you accept?"
"I do," Mami nodded in agreement. It was already almost seven months past that day he said. It would be no problem to wait.
END FLASH BACK_ _ _|
"Did you ever meet this Ekakimon again?" Tagiru asked.
"No, I didn't..." Mami shook her head.
"How'd you meet him?" Chou asked.
"I..." Mami frowned. "I can't remember. It's like there's a blank spot around where we arrived and when we left..."
"Quartzmon," Dorulumon deduced instantly. "That was probably one of his lackeys doing the job for him."
"Yeah," Tagiru nodded, "a plan with that amount of specific detailing has to be his work."
"So this Quartzmon guy's behind all the people disappearing?" Gadyen-sensei asked. "Dang, I really don't like that guy already."
"That looks like it's the case alright," Dorulumon sighed, "Now the only question is, what do we do about it?"
TO BE CONTINUED!
BEGIN: ACT 3 INTERMISSION 18.
"The Eye Of The Storm," Quartzmon laughed to himself.
Things were finally falling into place. A Terrifying Catastrophe played by his Symphony of cause and effect- What a Terrifying Work of Art!
The chaotic time storms that had plagued the universe for as long as he could remember were finally about to begin...
They were the effect, and he was the cause.
It was a world far away from any the heroes of Xros Heart had ever seen- or even stepped foot on.
A world of books and pens and magical creatures.
Those beasts- not even Digimon- were at war. Locust like beings who could warp reality in far more delicate ways than any Super-Ultimate level Digimon ever could.
He plotted silently. He whispered in the ears of a mad man, ages in the past, planting the seed of an idea to answer the riddle the man had long since struggled to find. He guided the daughter of a war lord to near-insanity by altering her very time stream in subtle ways...
And then the unthinkable happened.
A boy- a normal, utterly plain and stupid human- and a beast- also normal, utterly plain and stupid, but in the sense of a lack of experience and age that would give it to him- were pulled out of their time stream when a rogue agent that had gone unseen by Quartzmon's many eyes attacked them- Only for a Time Storm to rip them from their place in the time line and dumped them almost two hundred years into the past.
Then things started getting out of hand.
The Accursed Girl- The so-called "Grower" who could travel through time much like he could- as her ten-year-old-self encountered the boy and the beast on a world that was 'created/realized/found/written' by her mother.
And then he saw the Accursed Girl's friend.
Quartzmon nearly screamed in terror.
The girl! THE GIRL! An older version of that blasted child who had captured his pawn Phelesemon inside her Xros Loader!
Quartzmon took another look at the boy- and realized the horrible, horrible truth.
It was the girl's partner- an older version of the Cutemon's human self!
But HOW? That boy had been born to a normal family! He'd CHECKED. There was no way that they could possibly be the same people...!
And yet they were!
The Girl and the Boy soon fell into familiar rhythms, and the Accursed Girl and the Beast found a strange friendship that should never have existed!
Slowly but surely- the Time Storms used the Boy and the Girl to alter Quartzmon's planning and mechanizations.
Each careful step- each cautious move- UNDONE IN AN INSTANT!
Quartzmon watched and watched and watched- subtly trying to change events for the better.
He corrupted a storm- made an impossible beast rampage through a town.
And then the Boy STOPPED IT.
He took a sword out from who knows where and shot LIGHTNING from it through his creations!
It was the same boy- there was no doubt about it.
Quartzmon felt uneasy observing these changes. The timeline he'd already worked so hard into crafting had become unstable- and then MORE Time Travelers appeared! Things got worse and worse and WORSE...!
And then- remarkably- on that stage he'd set to create the Eye Of The Storm himself...
Suddenly everything fell into place.
The Boy and The Girl confronted The Daughter, and... And...!
END: ACT 3 INTERMISSION 18.
NEXT TIME!
"Kaoru-chaaaan!"
"Oh my god, really? Just shout to the whole world that we're here, why don't you!"
"Mizuki-san, are you sure this is the right place?"
"Positive!"
"EURRAAAARGGHHH!"
"No! No! STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!"
"Screw you, I'm getting out of here!"
"Next Time, Digimon Xros Wars: Undersea Fight! DAGOMON APPEARS!"
"Let's GOOOOO!"
"We're in the eye of the storm now..."
A.N.: And I pushed out another one rather quickly. Turns out writing Snivy using ATTRACT on Betsumon was a better motivator than anything else. HAHAHA! That saiiiid, however...This is the beginning of the end! Quartzmon's final plan has been set in motion. But what's going to happen? I betcha you won't have a clue what's going to happen next...after all! I don't even have a clue what's going to happen in the next episode! XDD
...That was a joke. I actually have a vague idea of what's going to happen. :P So I'm not completely in the dark here! X33 Ehehe... _DTC