Chapter 33: Tactics
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Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the myriad of characters within (okay, there aren't quite that many, those who know what a myriad is).
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The dark-haired boy entered the classroom, holding a slip to give to the teacher, a brunette woman in her thirties with brown-rimmed glasses. He was definitely a bit on the chubby side and he had fair skin, showing his European ancestry.
"Well, class, it seems we have a new student," the teacher told the classroom. "This is Ed Diaz and he just moved here from Lancaster, California." The boy waved at the class shyly. "Ed, there's an empty seat right next to Matt Armstrong. Matt, raise your hand." A black boy in the back of the class raised his left arm into the air, smiling.
Ed just moved to the front of the class nervously, not wanting to be there and preferring to be back in California with his friends there. He got in his seat and sat his backpack on the ground, a Lion King one with Timon and Pumba on the back.
###
"How's it going?" Matt asked him a little later on when they were about to head out for recess. Ed just looked at him nervously before replying.
"I don't know. I don't really like it here," he responded.
"Yeah, why's that?" the black boy asked, grinning.
Ed shrugged. "I just don't know anybody here, that's all." Matt chuckled.
"Don't worry man, you just need to get to know them. Where are you from?"
"California," the chubby boy responded. "You?"
Matt smiled again. "Born and raised here. Hey, you want to come over after school? I got a Nintendo 64."
"Uh, sure."
"Well, this works, man. Everybody else says I'm too annoying. Oh, and I've never been friends with a Mexican before." Ed looked at him confused.
"Uh, I'm not Mexican. Uruguayan, actually."
"Oh, I have no idea where that is, but cool!" Matt smiled.
That was the start of a rather ridiculous friendship between two very different kids.
###
Beelzemon pulled out his Berenjena shotguns and fired at RustTyrannomon. "Double Impact!" The bullets hit the armor, causing small dents in it, but not big enough to matter to the enemy digimon's health.
"Asuramon!" Matt called out before imitating his partner's stance as the digimon attacked "Flare Fist of Shiva!" The four-armed digimon unleashed a quartet of burning fists from his for hands, each heading straight for RustTyrannomon and striking the enemy digimon.
"Wow, good job," Gus told the black boy.
"Thank's man! But dude, it didn't hurt him or anything," Gus said, indicating that there were only a few slight burns along the enemy digimon's armor. "Gosh dang it!"
"Wow, you guys are like insects: small, annoying and harmless," Phillip Goddard commented from within RustTyrannomon. "I guess it's time I finished this mess. You guys don't even give me much of a challenge. Activate program: Back-up Digi-Modify: Light Training Manual."
"Oh crap on a stick!" Matt exclaimed, a terrified look on his face. "He figured out how to use Digi-modify while in Mega!"
"Beam of Decay!" the crimson tyrannosaur shouted, unleashing a blue beam from his chest straight at Beelzemon, who felt the brunt of the attack go all over him, getting damaged heavily by the attack's radiation. The powerful Mega then fell back and reverted back to Impmon.
"Impmon!" Ai and Mako shouted in shock as they ran to their partner digimon.
Jeri was frightened by the prospect of the two kids running into the battlefield and ran after them. "No, don't! It's too dangerous!" she yelled out.
"Don't worry, I won't touch them," Phillip assured the others. "Wait a sec. Does that girl not have a partner or something? What the heck is wrong with these guys?"
Matt looked at the girl, knowing that she most likely had a partner at one time but that he was gone for some reason even though she still had a digivice. She hadn't told them how that happened.
"I have to admit, though. She's kind of cute," the enemy Tamer commented. "Maybe when I take you guys all to Roger, I can have her come with me."
"Don't lay a finger on her, man!" Matt yelled out. Despite only knowing his teammates for only a couple of days, he was protective of them.
"Okay, okay, I wasn't thinking of anything creepy," Phillip said, noticing the angry look on the black boy's face.
"Hey, I'm going to take Ardillamon and see what I can do with Impmon, okay?" Art told Matt.
"Yeah? What can you do, dude?" the black boy asked, confused.
"My partner has healing powers," the dark-skinned Greek boy informed Matt, surprising him. The black boy had a bit more respect for his usually-irate teammate.
"Go on!"
"Crimson Warhead!" RustTyrannomon shouted, unleashing a missile at Asuramon. The attack hit Matt's partner at full force, and due to the black boy attempting to perform a sync with his partner like he did earlier, he felt the pain head-on. Matt recoiled from the attack.
"Okay, man, that's all," Phillip told Matt. "Well, my friend, it's too bad that I have to turn you in. Shame, I was probably your best friend back in Vegas."
Matt looked up, despite the pain. He had an objection to that statement. "Yeah, right! My best friend was Ed Diaz or Urrutía or whatever name he goes by now days. Most likely Urrutía, since that's his dad's name and all."
"Huh? I don't remember meeting him or him taking you in after your parents kicked you out of your house," Phillip countered.
"That's because he moved to Chile with his dad: Antonio Urrutía!" Matt yelled out.
Art looked at Matt in surprise at that statement and so did Gustavo. "What? You know Eduardo?" the blond asked.
"Uh, heck yeah, man. He and I go way back," Matt said in a pained voice even as he watched his partner devolve back into Kotemon. The black boy ran over to his partner. There was no way he was going to let Phillip defeat him. "Kotemon, are you alright, man?"
"I have seen better days, master, but I will manage. We have fought with honor, my master," the diminutive samurai commented as he lied on the ground. Matt put his hand on his partner's. They could feel each other's pain. He remembered meeting the digimon during winter break just a few days after Ed left town. Ever since then, the samurai was his closest friend and definitely the one he needed over the months that followed.
Art looked down. "I didn't know he had…" He muttered before looking up. "Curse you Alexander Rinaldi for not telling me that," he whispered, clenching his fists.
"Yeah, honor hasn't prevented us from getting beat, dude," Matt commented. Jeri looked on in sorrow while Ardillamon healed Impmon in the background. Even if the little squirrel had enough energy to heal all of the digimon, she doubted they could win.
Unless… She barely remembered how Takato fought against the digimon that was right behind her but he fought together with Guilmon.
"Fight him together!" Jeri yelled out.
"Fight him together… You think we can do that, buddy?" Matt asked with a crooked smile as he felt a twinge of hope, a golden ring forming around the two partners.
"Master, that may be possible," Kotemon responded. "But I don't know how."
"I have an idea," Matt responded, grinning like a madman despite the pain that he was experiencing. Then, he pulled his digivice off his belt and pointed it straight at RustTyrannomon. He didn't know whether it was going to work or not, but he might as well try, especially since the other guy had already done it himself. There would be no harm in trying. "Biomerge Activate, you idiot!"
Phillip grinned from inside his partner. He was going to let this happen. It was about time he got an enemy that was actually strong enough to fight him. As it was, he was strong enough to take on whatever the two turned into.
BIOMERGE DIGIVOLUTION_
"Kotemon biomerge to…" The digimon said as his partner fell back into him, his clothes disappearing as he did so. The two became one: a humanoid figure appeared, black armor connecting to his body and a samurai helmet attaching to his head as the digimon spun around before a long, black cape appeared on the back of the humanoid's body. In the last part of the sequence, the digimon received a giant sword, unsheathing it as a supernova burst in the background.
"…Tactimon!"
The large, black samurai appeared from the sphere of digivolution, holding his massive sword on his right side, ready to fight against the enemy in front of him.
###
It turned out that when Ed went to go meet with Tadashi, someone followed him, having already noticed that Coronamon had left the mess hall suspiciously almost as soon as he arrived, having left a plate full of food behind. That alerted Abby to something wrong, so she followed Ed as soon as she saw that he was leaving and heading for Tadashi's location.
But when she arrived, she was too late. She spotted Witchmon, Tadashi, Firamon and Ed getting sucked out of the observation deck's broken windows but they sealed up as soon as she arrived. She got past her initial shock, not liking this one bit.
"Cutemon, let's go after them," the brunette told her partner.
"But they just jumped out, kyu!" the pink bunny objected.
Still, the brunette headed straight for the window, pulling out her pink D-3 and activating digivolution. Cutemon knew she had to obey her partner's wishes, despite her objections. After all, Abby only wanted to help her friends. Only, instead of simply digivolving to Champion, the rabbit felt the light of her partner's crest as she burst out of a second window, breaking it.
"Cutemon digivolve to… Crescemon!"
Cutemon's new form was like a pink rabbit, but on two legs and taller, wearing armor and holding a pair of black axes in her hands. To top it off, she had a black helmet on that had slits showing her golden eyes.
The rabbit-like Ultimate grabbed her partner as they flew out of the back of the airship and into the thin air of the upper atmosphere, heading straight for Tadashi's digivice signal. It turned out that the blond Tamer was already heading straight for them.
"Firamon super digivolve to… Flaremon!" Somehow, this wasn't the Flaremon Whispered that Antonio and the others had gone up against at Hypnos just before the Unification.
"Ice Archery!" the rabbit shouted, unleashing a frost-covered arrow against the fellow Ultimate, covering Flaremon in ice. The lion promptly broke free of the ice and headed for Crescemon, who floated up toward him.
"Beast-King Wave!" the digimon shouted, unleashing a fiery lion's head at the rabbit, who barely dodge the attack by moving to the side.
"That attack was stronger than I expected," Crescemon commented.
"We have to get past him. Ed's nowhere near here so he has to be with that witch digimon," Abby told her partner.
"And it's getting hard to fight Flaremon with you right here in my arms as well," the rabbit-like Ultimate commented. Then again, Flaremon had the same disadvantage.
Tadashi realized he had to do something as well. He needed to defeat this girl quickly before Antonio caught wind of his son's disappearance and put two and two together. As it was, he was already synced with his partner for the battle. "Flaremon, we need to do better than this."
"I agree, master," the digimon replied in a gravelly voice.
"I'm glad, Flaremon. Let's do this together. Biomerge Activate!" he called out, holding his digivice.
BIOMERGE DIGIVOLUTION_
"Flaremon biomerge to… Apollomon Whispered."
Abby looked on in horror. As far as she knew, the D-3s didn't have such a feature and she had just barely reached Ultimate herself so reaching a level higher was out of the question. She knew that she wasn't going to beat Tadashi on her own.
###
"Taizou, I have just detected a pair of hull-breaches coming from the observation lounge," Zeppelinmon informed his partner through the intercom.
Taizou looked at the source of the voice in confusion. Wasn't that where Ayaka said Tadashi was? He pulled out his digivice and checked the location of Tadashi's digivice. It wasn't anywhere near the airship and Abby's signal was right there as well. No… "Everybody, we have an emergency!" The brown-haired boy wasn't going to jump to conclusions, but he had an inkling of what was happening. He checked out the location of Ed's digivice: it was falling through the air. "Ed, Abby, Tadashi and their partner digimon are currently outside the airship!"
"What?" Antonio asked, shocked. "What are they doing out there? I just talked to Ed just a couple minutes ago." Then it dawned on him who Tadashi was and his heartbeat just about ran through the roof. "Oh, no, he's the kid with the Coronamon, isn't he? Veemon, we have to go, now!"
The small blue dragon knew that immediately as soon as his partner mentioned Coronamon. "Yeah, this is definitely an emergency," Veemon said as he chased after his partner.
"Great, they're rushing into battle," Taizou commented.
"You know, I just talked to Tadashi. He was fine," Ayaka told him.
"Well, everything can't be fine if they're all outside the airship. Zeppelinmon, full stop!" the brown-haired boy yelled out. "And open the bay doors."
"I'm already in the process of braking, Taizou. You don't have to worry about that. Also, the bay doors are opening like you requested," the airship responded.
"Thanks," Taizou replied.
"Everyone that can help, come with us!" Ayaka told the assorted teams of Tamers.
###
Antonio and Veemon made it to the bay, expecting to have to tell the airship to open them up but being pleasantly surprised to find that they were already opened. The large man grabbed his digivice and held it in front of him as he and the small dragon ran out over the edge and jumped. "Biomerge Activate!" he yelled as he fell through the air, more than 40,000 feet above sea-level.
BIOMERGE DIGIVOLUTION_
"Veemon biomerge to… UlforceVeedramon!" The small, blue dragon transformed into a powerful, blue armored knight with wings and a yellow sword on his right wrist, ready to take on their enemy. The Royal Knight then flew straight for Apollomon's location. It didn't take him long to reach it just as the Olympus XII digimon was about to launch an attack against Crescemon, which would have surely taken the Ultimate out. Instead, UlforceVeedramon tackled the god, causing the powerful fireball to fly off further into the upper atmosphere.
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The Digimon Queen watched the battle attentively through her link with her partner, StrikeMapachemon. "So, the father has decided to come and rescue the son he has abused all these years? How quaint." The Queen then gave a smirk. She was sitting on her throne while she watched the battle. "Well, I can't have you killing off my new favorite general, can I?"
It was at about that point that a book appeared, seemingly out of thin air. Out of the book came a Wisemon, who promptly deposited Ed on the ground in front of his Queen. What had happened was that Witchmon simply flew Ed to Wisemon's location and then the Ultimate proceeded to bring the pudgy boy straight to the Queen's fortress.
"Now, Wisemon, I need you to retrieve Apollomon. I don't want him losing to UlforceVeedramon on his first day," she told the Ultimate.
"Yes, my majesty," the digimon said, disappearing back into his book before the large record of arcane knowledge disappeared as well.
###
Abby was starting to really feel light-headed; barely registering that UlforceVeedramon had just saved her life. Crescemon was sensing this and decided it would be best to try to land her partner somehow and let the Royal Knight take care of Apollomon Whispered. So, the digimon let go of her flight ability and just freefell out of the battle zone, realizing that there wasn't much she could do as it was.
Meanwhile, during the battle, UlforceVeedramon pulled his first move, extending his yellow sword and bursting forward toward Apollomon. "Ulforce Saber!" The god barely got out of the way in time by evading to the left.
"What the heck was that!" Dark Tadashi exclaimed angrily. This should have been sweet and easy, not difficult.
"Arrow of Whispered!" the god yelled, unleashing a volley of dark arrows from the jewels on his palms.
When the god's attack was mere feet away from UlforceVeedramon, the Royal Knight brought up both arms and formed a shield around himself. "Tensegrity Shield!" The burning blue plasma barely singed the surface of UlforceVeedramon's shell of protective energy, and the Knight prepared another attack.
Antonio looked on from within, feeling bad about what he was about to do. True, this guy was the one who blew off his friend's arm, but that didn't make him feel any better about pulling this final attack off against him. In fact, he always preferred to solve problems peacefully, even if they resulted in him losing his own freedoms.
He opened his eyes and let the shield down.
"Ray of Victory!" the Royal Knight yelled out, unleashing his final attack with the hopes of potentially disabling Tadashi. He wasn't going to let this kid get away. Maybe when this was all over, the blond would get help. Perhaps most of his problem was brainwashing. For all he knew, an agent of the Digimon Queen had gone into the Real World and screwed with his head.
But things weren't going to go as he planned.
Just as the final attack almost connected with Apollomon Whispered, a book appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and a Wisemon came out, grabbing the god before the attack struck and pulling him into the book before the book closed. The attack caused massive damage to the outer cover when it hit, but the book disappeared into nothingness.
UlforceVeedramon realized what had happened. "No!" he yelled out.
"There's still a chance he could be nearby," Veemon told his partner inside the blue data-sphere that was covered in yellow lines. Antonio stood nude in the center, gritting his teeth.
"Okay, activate the radar program," he ordered his digivice, causing a map of the area to appear. "Now, locate Eduardo Urrutía."
"Eduardo Urrutía not found. Similar searches: Donaciano Urrutía, Ezekiel Urrutía, Fernando Urrutía, Eduardo Diaz," text on the screen in front of him told him. He thought it strange that his father's name appeared first, but he knew that his dad wasn't a Tamer so he shrugged it off almost immediately.
The heavy man rolled his eyes. "Eduardo Diaz," he snapped back.
"Eduardo Diaz location: 2.5 kilometers southwest." The screen then showed a three-dimensional arrow and Antonio followed it downward as fast as he could, diving toward the location of the digivice. Eventually, he reached it just a few hundred feet above the ground and grabbed it right before it hit.
Ed was nowhere near him.
The man stood there in shock as the biomerge dissipated. Then he yelled out in anguish, grabbing the sides of his head.
###
Tactimon rushed forward just as RustTyrannomon registered he was there, pulling back the sword that was still in its scabbard, ready to strike the massive reptile.
"Ichi-no-tachi!" the digimon yelled, stabbing the ground.
"Is that the best you've got?" Phillip asked from within his partner.
"Hold onto something!" When Tactimon said that, the ground started to shake and the massive, rust-colored dinosaur fell to the ground.
"Oh, please, that didn't even hurt me," the rogue Tamer commented as he got up, grinning. "Amethyst Laser!" The massive laser beam on the front of his body unleashed a blue beam at Tactimon. The samurai promptly took his sword and sliced the beam in half despite the fact that it was still unsheathed within its scabbard.
"Crap, why the heck does your Mega form have so many attacks?" Matt asked his partner from within.
"I do not know, but I would suggest doing something quickly."
The black Tamer grinned. "I know something we can do. Ni-no-Tachi!" The warrior struck the ground twice with his sword and up from the ground came an army of samurai warriors, risen from the dead. Or at least that's what the attack made it look like.
"What was the point of that, Master?"
"You'll see, dude," Matt grinned widely as he planned his next move.
Phillip rolled his eyes. "What the heck? Doesn't this guy know conventional wisdom about ninjas and high numbers of them?" The dinosaur prepped the missile-launcher on his back as the army of samurai headed straight for him. "Crimson Warhead!" he shouted, destroying most of them in one shot. Then, he turned toward the rest. "Amethyst Beam!" That took care of the remaining enemy creatures. He looked around, trying to find Tactimon, until he turned around, getting a taunt from the samurai in the form of him wiggling his index finger.
"Naughty, naughty. By the way, man, I think you're mixing up ninjas and samurais, because those were totally the latter. Oh, yeah, San-no-Tachi!" Before RustTyrannomon could do anything, Tactimon had tapped the ground thrice.
And it shook and collapsed downward around the dinosaur, causing him to fall into a deep pit.
"Well, what do you know?" He then coalesced all his energy into his sword for a final attack. "Shi-no-Tachi!"
He brought the sword attack down hard on the enemy digimon, striking him head-on before he could unleash another Amethyst Beam, damaging the rust-colored enemy all over his body, detaching the coils around his beam and ruining his rocket launcher so that any other rockets would get jammed and explode before he managed to unleash the attack against him.
The heavily-damaged dinosaur fell to the ground, his rust-colored armor smoking before the digimon split in two, a knocked out BlackAgumon and an extremely sore Phillip Goddard. The heavy teen cursed as he got up, aches running all through is body, and faced his victorious opponent. Tactimon stood there in front of him, his cape flowing through the wind.
###
Prokyomon didn't like the sudden disappearance of his partner one bit and the small, brown-furred raccoon made his way to the landing bay, hoping that maybe his partner would be there with his father and friend. However, when he got there as the airship landed, all he saw was a downtrodden Antonio, reeling from the effects of losing his son yet again, Veemon, who felt powerless when it came to helping his partner, and Abby, who was despondent because of having lost her first battle with her partner at the Ultimate level and feeling so useless because of it.
Then there were the members of the Japanese team: Ayaka, who felt she should have known something was up and felt as if she failed as a leader, Taizou, who felt as if he let two friends down, and all the others, feeling like they hadn't done what they could.
Prokyomon couldn't read minds like his viral counterpart, Coonmon, but he felt the emotions coming from the group, all negative. And even he felt fear for his partner.
"We can't give up," the raccoon said out loud, breaking the silence. The two teams of Tamers looked down at the raccoon. "Even if we got defeated here, we should regroup and take the Digimon Queen head-on."
Antonio looked down at his son's digivice in his hands. "I feel like such a failure. I can't believe I didn't see this coming. Maybe my ex was right and I'm not a good father."
"Don't say that!" Taizou told him, anger on his face. "Don't listen her! She was the one who kidnapped your son in the first place."
"He's right, Antonio," Prokyomon told the heavy man, climbing up onto his shoulder and barely noticing a jealous Veemon. "You are a good father. Don't let anybody put you down."
"Yeah, you put Ed first, before almost anything else," Abby told him, frowning. "He really looks up to you, you know."
"And you know what? You should have been there with him from the start," Veemon assured his partner. "I don't care what anybody says."
Antonio gave a stiff nod. "We have to regroup. I can't plan his rescue like this." He realized he was far too emotionally compromised to think clearly.
"So, back to base, then?" Zeppelinmon asked the group while closing the bay doors. He got a nod from the kids involved and the one adult among them. The airship lifted off the ground, heading straight for the castle of the former Digimon Emperor.
###
Harbinger walked across the castle's drawbridge, the red-headed Tamer Laura O'Higgins walking with him along with a dozen teams from Roger Volkmann's forces as well as a dozen more that had been forced into the Digital World by the Unification Wave. Katarina Xanthopoulos exited from the front of the castle along with a number of other Tamers of her own that had arrived since the night before, all Coalition-aligned. She hoped that this didn't turn into a battle, since if it did, it would be disastrous.
"Hello, my name is Laura O'Higgins and this is Harbinger," the curvy red-head spoke in an east-coast U.S. accent, adjusting her glasses. "We've separated from the Triumvirate forces and we hope to join your organization."
"That's… flattering," Katarina said. "Why did you decide to do this?"
Laura blurted everything out nervously and hurriedly, emotion spilling out with every word and gesturing wildly. "We realize that Roger Volkmann, our leader, doesn't really care about us. It all began when a team of Tamers got ambushed by a powerful digimon and as far as we know, there were no survivors. Roger decided not to investigate any further, even though this was a serious threat to everyone!"
"Have there been any more sightings of this powerful digimon?" the Greek woman inquired, her curiosity piqued. She was horrified by the thought of a mysterious enemy.
"No, but we feel we need to prepare in case this thing comes back," the red-head spoke, anger in her voice at Roger Volkmann's inaction.
Katarina nodded. "Okay, then I guess part of our goal is going to be to find this enemy. Out of curiosity, who were the Tamers involved that were killed?"
Laura gave a list of names, but Katarina didn't think much of them until the red-head mentioned a certain David Symanski, the former owner of this castle in another reality. That was when the Greek woman's eyes got wide. "What is it?" Laura asked after she finished the list.
"David Symanski is the former owner of the castle the Coalition is using as a base," Katarina informed the red-head.
"That… That's impossible," Laura stuttered out, adjusting her glasses. "As far as I know, he never even reached this continent."
"But he ruled as Emperor from this castle in another world," Katarina replied. "I know it may seem strange to you, but that is what all the digimon here told me. Apparently he had left just before the Unification had happened. Maybe there's a connection. I guess that's something we can investigate. In the meantime, you are also welcome to stay here."
"Good. We'll need shelter, but I'm sure that the digimon can set it all up just right," the red-head responded.
"Excuse me, Katarina, but I need to speak with you." The Greek woman looked behind the red-head at the white-cloaked Harbinger, who was standing right in front of a digimon her digivice had identified as Baalmon. She assumed the digimon was his partner, but she was wrong.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's about a plot to kidnap the son of Antonio Urrutía," the mysterious man responded. Katarina's eyes grew even wider. She felt for her friend who had grown closer to her to potentially become something more.
"Tell me everything," she said, spite in her voice at the Triumvirate for wanting this. At the same time, her thoughts were directed to Ed's father. Oh, Antonio...
###
A half an hour later, Katarina walked into the hangar bay along with Laura O'Higgins. The Greek woman felt fear run through her that the Harbinger's prediction was true. She didn't want that for Antonio, not just after he found his son for the first time in months, but as she noticed the team walk off the airship, it became obvious that Ed wasn't there. The look on Antonio's face confirmed it.
"No…" the Greek woman whispered.
###
"It turned out that the Digimon Queen's forces were pretty much gathered together at the edge of her territory," Antonio told her, tears in his eyes. "That… and it seemed that they had access to a teleporter that took Tadashi and probably took Ed too."
The woman shook her head. "This is just horrible. Antonio, we have to do something about this."
The large man nodded. "I know. That's why I came here: so I can put my thoughts together and come up with a plan." The two of them were in the servants' dining room, sitting at the same table next to the window that they sat at earlier. Katarina reached over and put her hand on Antonio's. "I've been wondering… Should we be together or should we split up for the time being until this is all sorted out?"
Katarina looked at him in shock before looking down at their hands and thinking. "Here's what I think: Imagine we were married. Would we split up because your son got kidnapped?"
Antonio thought about it for a few seconds. "No, we wouldn't."
"We'd support each other, right?" the olive-skinned woman asked, giving her significant other a sad grin. "That's what I want to do, support you. We just started dating, but extreme circumstances like this shouldn't stop us from figuring out whether we are compatible or not."
The big man nodded, glanced down at their hands and then at her eyes. "You're right. Then again, it's not exactly official. I haven't asked your dad if I could date you yet." Antonio knew what she was getting at.
She chuckled a little bit, tears coming into her eyes as well. "He would probably say no."
"Yeah, you're right that I need you. I need your support. Don't break up with me."
"I won't. I was just worried that you would do the same with me out of guilt," she told him. "I won't abandon you, Antonio. I know, we haven't really gotten to know each other much until yesterday, but I think you're probably the most stable man I've dated. If you need me, I'll do anything for you. Just tell me what you want me to do."
Antonio nodded. "Lead the Tamer's Coalition. They need your leadership and you've been doing good so far. Far better than me…"
Katarina frowned and so did Veemon. "Don't say that, Antonio," his partner told him from next to him.
"It's true. As soon as I found my son, I went to go get him, leaving this all behind."
"But that's because you love him, Antonio," the Greek woman told him, squeezing his hand tighter.
Antonio smiled before breaking down and crying. Just when everything was so close… "Just so you know, Kat, I'm not dating you because I want you to take care of Ed or anything while I'm at work."
"I know," she replied, smiling at him.
"I'm telling you that because one of the last girls interested in me had five kids and tried to guilt me into marrying her to take care of them," he told her, causing her to get a shocked expression across her face.
"Wow, she sounded crazy," Katarina responded, astonished that someone would do that. "So, what did you say to her?"
"That I'm not going to marry except out of love. I also asked her what would happen when all her kids were grown up and out of the house."
The Greek woman nodded, smirking. "Good response. If we get married, I'm keeping my job or at least getting an equivalent job wherever we moved to."
"Yeah, where would you live?" Muchomon asked. "Chile seemed kind of nice."
Antonio chuckled. "It's a bit early to talk about that. Let's wait until the engagement."
"Oh, but being engaged means we're ready to be married, right?" she asked him teasingly. "So, shouldn't we talk about that before the engagement?"
Antonio nodded before looking down sadly. "And to think that I didn't get a chance to introduce you to Ed…"
"I hope he'll like me." She was definitely concerned about that one.
The man nodded. "In the meantime, we'll ask each other stuff like what our favorite colors are."
"Mine's blue," Katarina told him.
"Everybody's is blue. Yellow for me, I guess."
"Okay, favorite food?"
"I like macaroni and cheese," Veemon told her, his stomach growling.
"Personally, I prefer salmon," Muchomon said.
"Antonio's favorite food," she told the partner digimon.
"Supreme pizza with bell peppers, mushrooms, olives, pepperonis, sausage and artichokes," Antonio finally responded. He was still frowning, but at least having Katarina's support seemed to be helping a little. As it was, he wasn't going to be well until he got his son back.
"Okay, that sounds good. Zassomon! Get me a supreme pizza with bell peppers, mushrooms, olives, pepperonis, sausage and artichokes!" the Greek woman called out to the green, tentacle-sporting vegetable.
"Wow, you're demanding! Okay, supreme pizza with craploads of toppings coming right up!" Zassomon shouted.
Antonio sat there in shock. "Uh… Thanks."
Katarina smiled at him. "You're welcome, Tony."
"Just so you know, when I'm really stressed, I tend to eat like a pig," he warned her, gesturing with his left hand.
"Oh, is that what all this is from?" she asked, poking his stomach with a teasing smile.
###
"This just isn't Tadashi," Taizou told the group. "I know he doesn't like adults being Tamers, but this… This is not him. The Digimon Queen probably brainwashed him. What we need is a way to undo the effects of the Queen's influence."
The team of Japanese Tamers was in the middle of the Emperor's private dining room along with Abby, Cutemon and Prokyomon, discussing the events of earlier in the day and how to handle them. "I agree," Ayaka said. She was nervous taking Tadashi's job, but he entrusted her with the position. "Sanzomon can undo the damage the Digimon Queen did to his mind and seal away his dark side for good. She actually helped Gunter right after she first digivolved."
"That sounds like a plan," Yuji told her with a grin.
"She can teleport us too, right?" Abby asked nervously, feeling guilt that she couldn't rescue her friend.
"I can only teleport us to places I've been too when I'm at that level, remember?" Salamon informed her. Both felt disappointed by that limitation. Abby just shook her head, sad for Ed.
"And man, we're probably going to have to have Sanzomon fix Ed's head up too, huh?" Yuji asked the group, lounging at the table. He was trying his best to be cool, but he was failing.
"No, that won't be the case," Prokyomon told the group, pulling out a group of papers from Ed's notebook and showing it to the team, balancing the notebook while on his hind legs. "Look at Coonmon's design. After his dad told him that Coonmon was too dangerous to be brought to life, Ed changed the digimon's features a little. One of the features it has is that it can't alter the mind of Ed or anybody related to him. Then he scrapped that and designed me instead."
"So, while he's with the Digimon Queen, he can't be brainwashed at all, huh?" Yuji asked, surprised and relieved.
"But why didn't he just remove the telepathy?" Taizou inquired, heaving a sigh of relief and at the same time coming up with that question.
"He did. In case you haven't noticed, I'm Coonmon's Data counterpart and I'm just a recolor," Prokyomon said.
"What about that other Digimon he made?" Abby questioned. "Ardillamon, right?"
It took a second for the brown-furred raccoon to put two and two together before turning pages in the notebook. "Oh, yeah, him. Well, Ed was considering having Gunter try and make a slide-evolution program for partner digimon so that we could experiment with different lines. He came up with the Ardillamon line for that so that maybe we could have an advantage against the Queen. Ardillamon has healing powers and can reverse the effects of Coonmon's telepathy as well as completely block it. Double points for that if the owner is related to Ed."
"So, we just have to find one of Ed's relatives and have him make that digimon," Yuji suggested before realizing the problem with his idea. "Too bad we're stuck here in the Digital World."
"Looking up the name Urrutía…" Miki said in a sing-song voice, "There are four, not counting Ed since his digivice still has his old last name on it: Antonio, Donaciano, Ezekiel and Fernando."
"Two of those are his cousins," Taizou said.
"And Donaciano's his grandpa's name," Abby stated in confusion, remembering one of the conversations she had with Ed about his family. "Unless he's just somebody named after Ed's grandpa like another cousin or something..."
"What else can you find out about him?" Ayaka inquired, somewhat nervously.
"Nothing… That's weird. The search is coming up with him but there's no info on him," the dark-haired girl responded.
"What about where he is?" Taizou requested.
Suddenly, Miki's digivice sparked and she dropped it after a brief yelp. "Okay, that was really weird."
"So, it won't let you find out where he is? What a drag!" Yuji complained.
"Oh well, I guess that means we'll have to let go of this for now," Ayaka said. "There's supposed to be another meeting tomorrow with Harbinger and Antonio. Maybe we'll figure something out then."
"Yeah, that's a pretty good idea," Taizou told her, not liking that they weren't getting a move on right away. Then again, things like that took planning since the wrong move could lead to disaster, easily.
The meeting was adjourned and everybody left.
###
Ed woke up groggily, pulling himself up. He had no idea where he was other than that the room was dark and that the smell of vanilla and strawberries filled his nose. He felt his clothes. That was a good sign. He got himself out of bed and felt around, being careful not to run into anything. Twice, he had come across the wall. There didn't seem to be an open window in the place, so that didn't help. Eventually, though, he found the door. And it was locked from the outside.
The heavy boy shook his head and rolled his eyes before trying to feel for a switch around the door, finding one after just a few seconds. He flipped it up and was flabbergasted to find himself in a room where everything was either pink or white. The walls were pink. The bed sheets were white with pink hearts all over them. Then there was the pink dresser, the white desk with a mirror that the black-haired boy expected to be filled to the brim with make-up that he'd never wear in a million years, and the plush white carpet.
"Oh, brother…" the heavy boy mumbled before making his way to the window. The reason he couldn't find it before was because the shutters were closed shut without even a trace of light flowing through them. Ed proceeded to open the shutters and look outside at a vast valley that seemed to be on the edge of colossal ice-caps. And from opening the window, he could see that the drop had to be hundreds of feet so escaping that way wasn't an option.
He checked around the room again and noticed a second door before walking over and turning the handle. It actually opened up, but instead of going into a hallway, it led into a gargantuan bathroom fit with sinks, a shower, and a large heart-shaped hot-tub that was bubbling up with scalding water. The black-haired boy rolled his eyes at that.
Glancing around, he saw no more windows, so he headed back into the bedroom. However, what he saw wasn't the empty bed or the pink walls, but rather an illusion of a room with grey-bricked walls belonging in a castle as well as a massive bed in the center. On top of the bed was his father, making out with a woman Ed had never seen before, though he had heard her voice and her delicious foreign accent. "Ay, Antonio, we're so naughty," she said as she grabbed for his shirt.
Ed turned away in an instant and came face to face with the Digimon Queen, standing there with a sorrowful expression. "You expect me to believe this crap?" the pudgy boy asked angrily.
"What I'm showing you is really happening right now. It turns out your father has been having an affair with this woman since before your mother divorced him," the Queen explained.
Ed just looked at her with disbelief. "My parents got divorced before I was born and my dad divorced my mom for cheating on him. I'm sorry, but you really need to check your sources." He had no idea why this woman was continuing with these lies.
"Ed, that was what I got from their minds," the woman told him.
"Alright. Prove it by getting some teleporter to take me to the room where this is supposedly happening," the heavyset boy ordered, pointing at the scene that was becoming more and more lewd with each passing second. After a few seconds, nothing happened and he pointed at her accusingly. "Aha! You're afraid you might be wrong!"
"Ed, I just showed you what was happening. You're making things like your parents getting divorced to cover up the trauma of getting abused by your father for your entire life until your mother escaped with you and took you to France with her."
The black-haired boy scoffed. "Wow, and I thought I was stubborn. My mom didn't run off with me. I was kidnapped! My friend Gus's dad got shot in the leg for crying out loud!"
"Ed, I'm trying to save you," the Digimon Queen was pleading.
Ed shook his head. "No, you're not." He pointed at what was going on in the other part of the room. "My dad would never do that. He's someone who lives by a strict moral code and even if he somehow got together with someone while I was gone, he wouldn't be doing anything like this until his wedding night." He was doing his best not to look at what was happening. As it was, he was right. What was really going on in that room was that Katarina was sleeping with Muchomon on the other side of the bed while Antonio slept elsewhere.
"That's what you want to believe," Marie Cauvin continued to say.
"No, it's true. My dad… tries to be the best example he can be; not only to me, but to everyone he meets. He's nice to everyone, even people who chew him out or treat him like garbage. Like you."
"Ed, that's just a fantasy," the Queen pressed on.
"For crying out loud! This is going nowhere so leave!" Ed practically shouted.
"Ed…" She was becoming even more pleading.
"Marie, I don't love you, nor will I ever. Now, to be honest, I believe you're being manipulated by Coonmon. Get rid of him and you'll be free. Until then, I refuse to talk to you." He was firm, his expression serious and his stance unmovable. He wasn't going to let the Queen get to him, no matter what.
Then she disappeared and a dark-haired man in a black trenchcoat with black eyeliner took her place. "So, my suspicions were right."
"Who are you?" Ed asked, surprised by the sight of a new figure. He looked beyond to see that whatever scene was going on had disappeared.
"I'm StrikeMapachemon. This is the form I chose to communicate with you, Eduardo Urrutía."
"You're the Ultimate form of the first Digimon I designed."
The projection chuckled. "Right, I guess I am. Now, anyway, I see you and your family as a threat to my supremacy so you will all have to die since I can't control any of you."
Ed's eyes widened. "What?"
"You heard me right. Your father, Antonio, your half-brother, Donaciano and his partner, your cousins, Fernando and Ezekiel. Even Katarina Xanthopoulos will have to die if she gets too close to your father."
The black-haired boy was surprised by the second relative. "Half-brother?"
"Oh, please, as if you should be surprised. In most realities, your parents never met and your mother married someone else and had children with him and lived happily ever after, or at least until the mental illness worsened." The projection smiled. "She really did need help, didn't she?"
"Now why the heck do you need me?" Ed asked, clenching his fists. He hated how helpless he was.
The projection laughed. "You're the bait. As long as I keep you here, the others will come and I look forward to killing them all in many strange and unusual ways. Of course, your half-brother's the biggest threat to me, but I'll take care of him."
Ed all the sudden felt protective of this kid he had never met nor seen. He actually felt protective over all of them. There was no way he was going to let his partner get away with this. This also made him realize more and more how much of a puppet the Digimon Queen was, taking the focus away from the true enemy, StrikeMapachemon.
As he stood there alone after the projection disappeared, he realized how powerless he really was. If he at least had his digivice, he could send out a warning to everyone. Don, who the heck are you? He thought. There were so many questions running through his mind.
One thing was certain, he wasn't going to let the Queen get to him.
###
A/N: Well, that's the end of this chapter. Hopefully having a minor character go Mega wasn't too offputting. Don't worry, the team will have better balance, eventually.
And as far as Donaciano… Well, he's actually named after someone I know (who is in a lot of ways an inspiration for Antonio's character). And I first thought up the character for an epilogue taking place farther into the future (about 2015, the year that Mr. Immortal is originally from). Don't worry about the number of characters. For instance, Harbinger is actually someone you met before. Most new characters coming up are generally one-shot characters that you won't see much of again (Kyle, the Chavez twins. I still need to figure out where to put Phillip Goddard. I'll probably just leave him at the castle with Katarina).