I want to be a Hero, just One Last Time

Chapter 12

Tai brushed off some of the stray dust that settled on his jacket. "He still has the mobility advantage. Keep the pressure up by staying in close range. Rein him in if he tries to disengage and remember, break the pattern."

MetalGreymon glanced down at his partner, as something about his advice seemed incomplete. Tai grinned back before tapping his nose as if the gesture meant something. A moment of clarity flashed across MetalGreymon's face as he finally understood what Tai was trying to say as he stared back at Mihiramon.

The huge armored tiger had spent several moments in what appeared to be uncertainty. Though his body was tense and ready to pounce, the reveal of an ultimate Digimon placed him on edge. He was not expecting it and something in the back of his mind screamed at him to run. He ignored it, though but found himself unable to dive into combat as eagerly as he was before.

The moment turned into a minute and that was all the time MetalGreymon wish to waste on the pointless staring contest before he charged forward. The action had the desired effect as it forced Mihiramon out of his stupor and back into his pattern. The two Digimon charged at each other as the tiger Digimon leaped at his opponent with his opening swing. He was confident that this new Digimon was much too heavy to dodge it with any of the success that the previous ones had. Mihiramon's confidence rose as the distance between his opponent and him began to slowly close with no signs of his enemy making any motion to dodge and then it happened. Contact was made, but not in the way he was expecting. Instead of claw connecting with soft flesh it was metal claw connecting with his face. As the metal claw backhanded him straight on his muzzle it easily interrupted his momentum and spiked his head straight into the concrete floor with enough power to crack to create cracks upon impact.

Dazed from the sheer strength behind the simple attack Mihiramon barely registered that he was being picked up before he was flung straight back down into the floor. Chips of concrete scattered into the air as his massive size made an indention in the stone beneath him. A powerful kick to his side practically shocked him out of his haze. He needed to place distance between this "monster" of a Digimon and quickly.

With the second wind that is normal of something realizing their life was in danger Mihiramon's tail morphed into a steel flail which he swung with all his might at MetalGreymon's head. In connected, stunning the cyborg dinosaur allowing the tiger to recover and leap away. Distance, he needed distance and then he could build up momentum and resume his standard hit and run tactics. His thoughts were interrupted in mid-jump by two words.

"Metal Claw!"

Panic filled Mihiramon's thoughts as he looked down to see MetalGreymon's metal claw launch out of its socket like a rocket straight at him. The claw, which was attached to a chain, quickly caught up to him and snaked around his rear legs. With a mighty pull from MetalGreymon's massive form Mihiramon came crashing down like a shooting star.

"Where do you think you're going, sister. Get over here," MetalGreymon mocked as the gears inside his arm slowly began to turn, reeling the chain back in like a fisherman pulling in his prized catch.

But Mihiramon would not go quietly into the dark. His claws dug deeply into the ground, resisting every inch he was pulled back. He pulled and struggled till the chain binding him was taunt from their struggle.

MetalGreymon was not amused as the gears in his arm suddenly cut off. With no more resistance holding him back, Mihiramon went flying forward and tripped.

"I said…"

As tiger met floor MetalGreymon activated his internal gears once more, but this time a full power. The speed and clanking of the gears sounded like a factory press at high noon as the chain went from slack to taut once more in mere seconds. Mihiramon tried once more to brace himself, his claws creating deep gashes into the floor beneath him before his strength gave out. A roar of fear and pain spilled from his maw as the chain whipped him into the air as it snapped back towards its owner.

"Get over here!"

The armored tiger careened towards MetalGreymon and slammed into the ground before the massive cyborg. Before he could even stand back up, a massive foot came down on the joint of his front claw. The massive cracking of digital bone was drowned out by the huge roar of pain he released.

MetalGreymon sneered at the digimon before him as he removed his foot from the now crippled nub. "I'm not a doctor, but I don't think tiger legs are supposed to bend like that." A slightly mocking tone could be heard with that comment.

In a blaze of white hot anger and fear Mihiramon's tail morphed once more into a flail as the tip began to spin with the activation of its drill mode. Like a cornered scorpion Mihiramon jab his drill tale into MetalGreymon's head. A cry of mild discomfort and pain was heard from MetalGreymon as he easily pulled the tail away and placed one clawed foot on Mihiramon's head to properly subdue the tiger.

"I didn't know Digimon were being made with massage accessories these days," the large ultimate Digimon mocked once more before his metal claw slammed down easily severing the tail from its owner.

Mihiramon felt pain. Pain like he never felt before, but none of it was vocalized as the sheer shock of his situation had frozen his voice. His vision faded black as the pain and tremendous pressure on this skull forced him to the brink of unconsciousness. The only thing that kept him from completely blacking out was his sheer pride as a Digimon warrior and the sound of a second set of footprints walking towards him. He refocused his sight, as blurred as it was, onto the young human who was slowly walking towards him. The smile that adorned his face seemed wrong, though.

"What's new pussycat? Whoa, whoa What's new pussycat? Whoa, whoa, whoa," Tai sang as he knelt down in front of the down Digimon.

"You know it's really creepy when you sing like that Tai. Remember, time and place."

"Does it matter? I don't think a single cognitive thought is going through the alley cat's brain right now. Usually, they'd be ranting by now. I know I said you could break him, but he didn't even last three minutes."

"Sorry, I tried going easy on him, but they don't make Digimon like they use to. "

"How lame, well kitty if you don't have anything to say I think we'll be deleting you now."

"How…" The voice grumbled through clenched teeth.

"What was that?"

"How can a pathetic Digimon who allied itself with humans wield such power? How did you manage to digivolve into Ultimate? How can you so easily beat me, a Deva of the Digimon Sovereigns?"

"We've met one of the Sovereigns before, what do they have to do with this?"

"Lies! The Sovereigns would never meet with a filthy human like you and I, one of their Devas, would never tell you their plans."

"Well, if you're a Deva I guess that makes us Asuras. Delete him," Tai ordered as he stood up and walked away. Just as MetalGreymon's foot was about to cave in the tiger's skull a blinding light flashed before them before exploding outward into a sea of dust, momentarily pausing the fight as everyone looked towards the disturbance. As the dust settled a large red Digimon with an armored chest that looked like it was taken from a spaceship and a pair of armored gantlets each with an enormous curved blade attached to them.

Tai gave a small whistle. "I'm impressed. Looks like you digivolved. Congratulations are in order, but sadly your help won't be needed. A fight can only be so one-sided before it becomes a massacre. Just sit back and enjoy the show."

MetalGreymon gave the new ultimate Digimon a brief nod of acknowledgment before he shifted his attention back to his downed opponent and proceeded to 'stomp the ever living shit out of him'.

"It's a bad habit he picked up from video games, but since he so rarely digivolves he doesn't get the chance to do it that often. Thankfully Digimon just get deleted with no messy business to them. Can you imagine the stain a liquefied Digimon of that size would leave?"

"Stop it..."

"What was that?"

"I said, STOP IT!" The red Digimon commanded, effectively ending MetalGreymon's stomping session as he turned once more to face the new-born Ultimate.

"Say what?" both college student and metal Digimon asked in unison.

"This isn't fighting. There's not even a battle anymore. You won already, yet you two are just getting a sick thrill out of this."

"Help me..." Mihiramon begged as he scratched the floor in a rather desperate and pathetic attempt to dislodge himself from underneath MetalGreymon's foot.

"I'm sure you would have been glad to help all those humans you planned on killing, too you lousy hypocrite cat. Talk about how powerful and better you are to everyone else, but the moment you're crippled and facing deletion you beg for your life just like everything else," MetalGreymon scolded as he placed more pressure on the cat's head. There were a few sick cracking sounds before the foot fell all the way through a see of red data spheres.

"I said stop!" The red dinosaur wearing a spaceship shouted was more as he charge forward and slammed his claw into MetalGreymon's face, sending the other stumbling back a bit.

"I'm going to chalk that sucker punch to something stupid, like resurrection sickness or something, and instead simply ask you why I shouldn't pound your face in for being stupid? You can't possibly be mad because I deleted that guy. You were going to do the exact same thing, so don't act like me deleting him is a deep moral issue."

"I understand that a lose of life is can't be helped, but not like this. We shouldn't make them suffer like that. You off all people should know that. I expected better from you two!"

Tai regarded the new Ultimate. He knew Guilmon wasn't very smart, but would two digivolves really give him enough IQ to start questioning the moral implications of a fight to the death? No, it almost sounded like someone was talking through him but was that possible? Rika had told him on the new digivices they had allowed for the 'tamer' to see through the Digimon's eyes. Perhaps there was a way for them to speak through the Digimon too, but he couldn't be sure. There was still so much he didn't know about the new devices. Either way, there was no point with arguing ethics with a kid and his pet cyborg dinosaur, but there was something else that was bothering him. He couldn't explain why, but he really wanted MetalGreymon to punch this witless idiot to oblivion. He shook his head. When thoughts like that started creepy up he knew it was best to walk away.

"Whatever, we don't have time to deal with dumb kids and their idealistic ideas on how to deal with murderous Digimon. We're leaving MetalGreymon," Tai ordered as they both walked past the rookie.

"I'm not done talking to you," the red Digimon said as he grabbed MetalGreymon by the shoulder. And it was here that Tai snapped. Though few would ever understand the reasoning why he did, it would never the less be one of the scariest moments Takato and WarGrowlmon ever faced in their lives.

"Don't fucking touch him!" Tai shouted as Metalgreymon, reacting off their empathic bond, spun around and clobbered WarGrowlmon in the face.

"Don't delete him MetalGreymon. Just teach him to respect his betters."

WarGrowlmon charged forward and swung into MetalGreymon. The elder cyborg lizard took the blow before he punched back with equal force. WarGrowlmon continued to slam his claws into MetalGreymon, but the elder's endurance was already proving superior as the attacks were doing little to slow him down. WarGrowlmon sadly was starting to feel the attacks.

"Come on! Hit me harder!" MetalGreymon shouted as he took another clawed punch. "Harder I say. Harder! You can't expect to beat me if you are to afraid to hurt me." MetalGreymon wasn't even retaliating anymore, opting instead to simply take each hit and allow the younger Digimon to tire himself out. "How sad. Is this the all the strength of your ideas of right have?"

"Don't mock our strength!" A double fist, bladed, backhand slammed into MetalGreymon's face staggering him.

"We may not be as old as you two!" The two armored blades came back down on MetalGreymon's face.

"And we may not be as strong!" A powerful uppercut connected with WarGrowlmon's opponent.

"But in our heart we know what is right!" WarGrowlmon hooked his arm under MetalGreymon's and flipped him over, slamming the larger cyborg into the ground and causing MetalGreymon to bounce a bit from the impact.

"And that's why we can't let you or anyone else get away with it. ATOMIC BLASTER!" The forward chest cannons on WarGrowlmon lit up before unleashing their powerful attack on the unsuspecting MetalGreymon, the attacking carrying him off and slamming him into one of the nearby antenna structures. An assortment of concrete and steel collapsing onto the older Digimon.

WarGrowlmon released a held breath as he looked down at Tai. "I'm sorry I had to do that."

Tai just laughed, "So am I. I think you honestly got him mad." A small explosion rang out as MetalGreymon broke free from his makeshift tomb. His cybernetic eyes glowing a deep crimson to reflect just how furious he was at that moment.

"Congratulations New-Gen. You have my attention!"

The speed of that attack was blinding. Even with their semi-merged consciousness neither Takato nor WarGrowlmon were able to register just how fast MetalGreymon moved before a heavy muscled tail slammed into them knocking them to the ground. There was no time to rest though as WarGrowlmon didn't even give the benefit of being able to stand back up before MetalGreymon pressed his attack. MetalGreymon l simply pinned WarGrowlmon down and began to rain punishment on his pinned opponent.

"Mach Jab" The attack rang out as a sound like thunder cracked with ever punch. That sound wasn't from a storm brewing but was the result of the air pressure exploding as each punch broke the sound barrier.

"You don't know anything, New-Gen!" The pull up was the least painful thing that happened.

"Everyday we risk our lives. Fight to save this ungrateful world." The body slammed that followed was painful, though.

"We know our ways aren't perfect, but it's war New-Gen. It's an ugly, painful, and horrible thing that we must take part in everyday." A painful foot stomp accompanied every descriptive term.

"We've saved your lives more times than we can count and guess what? We'll gladly do a few more ugly, painful, and horrible things if it means we can keep saving the lives of you and everyone else." WarGrowlmon was pulled into the air by his throat.

"So forgive me for saying that you are 100 years too young to even think you have the right to cast judgment on us." Once more WarGrowlmon found himself slammed into the ground, any fight left in him swiftly leaving.

"Come on! Where's that strength you had earlier? Fight back. Prove me wrong!" MetalGreymon shouted as he finally backed off.

WarGrowlmon forced himself up. Though battered and hurt his eyes still shined with defiance. "So, is this what courage looks like? I show you what real courage is, the courage to stand up to your hero when you know he's wrong."

Tai signed. That whole courage line really got to him and, as a result, this whole affair wasn't fun anymore. "Takato, I don't know if you can hear me, but you are way too much like me when I was a kid. Stupid and idealistic. Maybe you're right, but this isn't the time or place to have that talk. Come on MetalGreymon, we're going home." MetalGreymon leaned down a bit and allowed Tai to climb onto his back.

"Wait!" WarGrowlmon shouted

"No, you two need to rest and heal up and don't let your loss here hurt your confidence either. Even if it was for only a moment, not many Digimon can live through that many attacks from MetalGreymon when he's serious. Who knows, in 10 years, if this lifestyle hasn't broken you yet, we can do this again. You know a friendly battle minus the whole us trying to kill you part," Tai assured as MetalGreymon took to the skies.

Jun pushed and clawed her way through the crowds of people. Everything that was happening now, it was similar to how things happened all those years ago when she first learned about Digimon. She had thought she had given up on learning about this world. Left it behind, forgotten and buried like the painful memories of her loss. It was amazing the effect of reality splitting powers could have on the human psyche. She wasn't sure what she was hoping to learn at the source of this phenomenon, but she felt compelled to follow it.

She eventually figured out that the fastest way to the building in question was through the nearby park. She continued on a swift sprint until she broke out of the park and onto a bridge. She now stood behind a group of children watching another group of children and Digimon further ahead. From here she could make out three small children ahead of her along with three Digimon. Two, for lack of a better word, normal sized ones and one huge one as it slowly descended to the ground.

The boy who ran up to this larger Digimon seemed familiar to Jun. His messy hair and the silly goggles on his head struck at long forgotten memories as she found herself slowly walking up to the group. She couldn't see him clearly from the distance she was at and only from the back. Her eyes moistened as a memory she tried desperately to forget forced it's way to the forefront of her mind. It was a memory of a boy, not to different from this one, and his Digimon. Though in her mind's eye, that Digimon was a blue not red.

"Davis…" She nervously called out to the boy. The young lad and his friends turned towards in her, a look of confusion on all their faces. "Of course you're not. Now that I look at your face, you look nothing like him. How silly of me," She said through a forced smiled which held back her tears.

After a brief moment of silence, a moment that Jun desperately needed if she didn't want her voice to crack with emotion. "My name is Jun, Jun Motomiya. What's your name?"

Tai slammed himself into the sofa in his apartment. This had to have been one of the worst ways he could have ended a day. It wasn't easy getting back home either. They had to fly in the opposite direction of the apartment, lose the surveillance choppers, de-digivolve in an abandoned warehouse and hoof it back home. They lucked out by making it on time to catch a bus.

As Agumon quickly busied himself by eating the many leftovers to replenish his energy Tai tried to drift to sleep only for the sound of his phone receiving a text message waking him up. He groaned as he picked it up. It was from an unknown number and the message was puzzling to say the least.

"Play Solitaire"

Tai groaned in annoyance as he stood up.

"What's wrong, Tai?" Agumon asked as he headed out a half filled glass of jack & coke to him. Tai took the drink and downed it quickly.

"Kaiser is demanding a chat."

"I hate that guy. Why can't he just every be forthcoming about things?"

Tai shrugged as he began heading off to the back room where he kept his computer equipment. He had barely taken two steps before he promptly fell over in a strong coughing fit.

"Tai!" Agumon ran forward and did his best to support his best friend.

"It's alright. It's just a side effect of the data overflow. Nothing to be concerned about," Tai assured his friend in between fits of coughs. It took several moments before the coughs subsided enough for Tai to properly support himself again.

"You sure you're OK, Tai?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Tai guaranteed once more as he quickly wiped his lip with his sleeve. "I'll take a rest after I check in with Kaiser, though."

"You promise?"

"Scouts honor."

Agumon seemed content with this and went back to the living room to continue his meal. Meanwhile, Tai regarded the dark red streak on his sleeve with nothing short of annoyance before he pulled off the shirt and threw it into the corner of the computer room.

The computer room was a small enclave of a room. It was about the size of the kitchen with multiple small windows lining the upper side of the wall. There were no chairs, only a series of pillows to sit down on. The computer is question was a rather impressive display of Tai's tech savviness over the years, consisting of three monitors and three separate computer towers. The first housed his standard OS, the second consisted of nothing but huge memory hard drives and served as a back-up of his first complete with redundancy back-ups. The third was just a non-network connected back-up of the first two. If it was one thing Tai had learned, redundancy is usually a good thing in computers.

He turned it on his main one and after a moment of waiting through start-up he was at his main screen. He shuffled a bit through the files till he found a long game file name and double clicked it. A rather unassuming version of Solitare appeared before him and he casually played a few moves before a red queen appeared. With that, the game window closed as a black dos window popped up. Various commands about running secure connection tests before several lines of dialogue appeared on the screen.

Relay 1 – Russia: Connected

Relay 2 – Finland Connected

Relay 3- Germany Connected

Optimal relays connected. Preparing secure channel….connected.

Kaiser: What does a car lose every time it turns?

Richard I: My patience.

Kaiser: Not the answer I would have preferred, but acceptable.

Richard I: What do you want Kaiser?

Kaiser: I heard there was an incident. Is everything alright?

Richard I: Nothing major. Digimon tried to open a gateway to the real world to allow the takeover of the world.

Kaiser: My sources tell there was interference.

Richard I: Just some kids, nothing to be worried about.

Kaiser: Are you sure? Nothing you're not telling me?

Richard I: Fine, I got a bit mad. We ended up beating one of their Digimon up.

Kaiser: You didn't delete him?

Richard I: NO! I'm not a monster.

Kaiser: I would never suggest that. You just continue to amaze me.

Richard I: Yeah, cause beating up the Digimon of a kid is so amazing.

Kaiser: Don't be like that. It's hardly your fault. Using a hacked device is a huge burden. Though it removes the safety limiters set it places a huge amount of emotional and psychological strain on the user. Aggressive tendencies, especially during high data usage, are a notable and expected side effect. It is a burden that I myself could never be able to handle.

Richard I: You sell yourself short again. You do plenty of things I could never do.

Kaiser: Yet I work in the background. You, Richard, are the star.

Among all of the originals worldwide, few of them still have their partners, and even fewer are willing to allow the device hacking. Consider that the mod only allows a partner's full strength to come forth, yet it is sadly worthless to those who have no said strength.

Kaiser: That's why you are so unique. You meet all the requirements and you have the unique ability to actually control it, especially at high usage levels. This is why I rely on you so much.

Richard I: Make sure to work the shaft, baby.

Kaiser: What?

Richard I: Sorry, for a moment there is sounded like you were going to suck my dick.

Kaiser: I can see you're aggravated. Though I know you probably don't feel good about your actions, just let it be known that it would have been much worse if it was anyone else. With that said, I need to ask you the standard survey questions for large scale usage.

Richard I: Whatever

Kaiser: What was the usage level at?

Richard I: 50%

Kaiser: That's high and the level of enemy.

Richard I: Ulitmate

Kaiser: Upload

Richard I: Yeah.

Kaiser: And you got angry after the upload?

Richard I: Yeah

Kaiser: I see. Seems the extra data from an Ultimate may have strained your data control which is what lead to your loss of temper. One last question, we've been getting reports from some users that prolonged use of the device is causing "heath" issues. Sadly, we've had to lock the mod to prevent them from causing long-term damage to themselves. Have you had or experienced any combination of the following: a dry cough, blood in mucus, blood in spit, blood in urine, vomiting, blood vomit, and or death.

Tai looked over at the corner of the room where his blood-stained shirt sat.

Richard I: No, just the standard exhaustion and dizzy spells on occasion.

Kaiser: I'm glad to hear that, but please contact me if the situation changes as it could be a symptom of something much worse. I'd hate to lose another friend after all this time. Kaiser out.

Kaiser has left the chat.

Disconnect Y/N

Y

End chapter 12

OK, so you may have noticed, but I started using Grammarly app on Chrome for editing. Though I'll be releasing an edited version of chapter 11 with this new chapter, I thought I'd mention it now. It seems like a great help, but there are a few times where it does some "weird" changes. Let me know if you think it's an overall improvement though. If so, I will go back and revise all the old chapters using the new Grammarly system.

In regards to the story, let me be clear on two things. One, Digimon is terrible at time transitions. How much time passes between scenes? I have no clue, so just give me some leniency on that. Two, that whole scene with Takato and Guilmon "mind-merging" in what, episode 14 I think, was stupid. How the hell does that work? I know it's was meant to reflect their deep bond and understanding, but it never really touches on how that works. Is it like when their bio-merged just they're in two separate bodies? How does the damage get transferred to Takato? Is Takato controlling WarGrowlmon? Are they fighting as one? Takato acts like he can feel and see through WarGrowlmon and when he shouts the final attack, Atomic Blaster, it activates on WarGrowlmon's side without WarGrowlmon saying it. It seems to be established that a Digimon for the most part needs to shout out an attack to activate it, yet… wtf is going on in this episode? It's a terrible convoluted mess and I was forced to make some judgment calls on how it works. Again, if possible, just give me the benefit of the doubt here.