Chapter 33: Digital World: Dark Evolution IV
There was a flash, a startled sound of surprise, followed by exasperated groaning and mumbled, unfriendly words. Then, for a moment there was silence as the person and digimon who had fallen out of the TV took in the situation they had interrupted.
Ken's wide eyes met Izzy's, whose then proceeded to land on Vamdemon.
There was not much to explain -the situation was bluntly clear- but the human mind was a fragile and limited thing, especially in everyday life, and thought process was limited, slow and desperately narrow. Ken knew this very well, having experienced and remembering how his head had operated when it hadn't been normal. Thought process was also a matter of habit and because he remembered, his brain still tended to work like genius', connecting dots faster, seeing things differently, and that alone was what still gave Ken the title of it despite no longer being one. The only true genius in their group of chosen children was Izzy.
The younger of the two could practically see how thoughts were racing in the elder's mind and how things were falling into place.
Time was slow for Ken's adrenaline influenced head, but it couldn't have been more than half a second before the red head understood the situation.
A second after that, the chamber was filled with the light of evolution and Ken wasted no time getting away from the Vamdemon.
Except for taking only an almost casual swipe at the black haired teen, the vampire digimon didn't even seem to notice the boy's movement behind crates and rocks and material serving as cover. Ken didn't quite know how to interpret that behavior; it wasn't logical. Ken was the easier target.
AtlurKabuterimon quickly took up the space of the chamber, filling the air with its great red beetle armor and humming power of electricity.
The current battle field was not one that was favorable to the parter digimon of the red-head, but battlefield advantages could be turned around easily. Especially when Vamdemon didn't even attempt to use or defend it's advantage. That too, was not normal.
Instead of using its smaller size to outmaneuver the bigger digimon, Vamdemon stood still, observing, before attacking head on, in a way that allowed even Ken, who was not programmed for it, to read the movement.
AtlurKabuterimon quickly shocked it out of the air with a burst of lighting. Vamdemon dropped to the ground, blackened but still moving and got up. Natural or not, illogical or not, Ken fought down his apprehension and glanced at Wormmon in his arms. "Can you fight, Wormmon?"
Wormmon didn't look too good, violet scratches all over his body, but the determination in his big eyes told Ken all he needed to know. Even if he didn't want to acknowledge it.
But the thing was, the two of them had a duty. A duty that was their responsibility and their overriding pull. It was difficult to find a balance between duty and everything else. To never let duty consume everything else, even if concessions had to be made. Right now was such a point. Ken didn't want to let Wormmon fight again, but he had to, because the alternative was worse.
"Leave it to me, Ken."
The dark haired boy nodded, clenching his digivice, but not yet triggering the evolution. "Listen, Vamemon are strong. Even with Izzy and AtlurKabuterimon's help it won't go down easily, but..."
As Ken explained his plan to to Wormmon, Izzy was doing what he was best at; thinking. His partner was an unmovable fortress, an iron wall in the chamber they had landed in and protected him securely. Izzy could afford to think.
And that was good, because Izzy noticed after the first few seconds of the fight that the Vamdemon was not as strong as the one they had faced a six years ago. That or AtlurKabuterimon had gotten stronger. Izzy took several factors into his calculations and came up with a possibility of relatively even odds. It wasn't helpful and he immediately turned his thoughts into a hopefully more productive direction.
He glanced to where he suspected Ken to be hiding. The younger of the two wasn't visible and Izzy bit his lip in worry.
The fight had come to something of a stop. Or a repetition. The Vamdemon demonstrated clearly the limit of the long range control it was under by attempting the very same attack again and again, with the very same pattern. It jumped into the air, prepared for a move, but was struck down by a lightning bolt, falling to the ground. Repeat and repeat. It's movements, Izzy noticed, were fluid, powerful and level-accurate, but that seemed to be all. Like it was operating on barely more than instinct. Izzy filed the observation back for later.
That turned the Ultimate's threat level a few notches down, but the danger was still very much present as Tentomon was not an offensive digimon, or as used to to combat as the others of their generation. Consequently AtlurKabuterimon didn't have the stamina to keep this charade of a fight up much longer, and if he couldn't, then things would turn bad very quickly.
It had to be decided soon. And as things looked, the priority given to their own survival and only-just-started new mission outweighed the individual.
Sometimes Izzy hated how rational his mind operated. It was all analysis and rationality first and emotions second. He felt very cold sometimes.
But still, with that thought in mind, the red head searched the chamber, ignoring the dull thud of a body crashing yet again into the ground.
Something, something...
Catching movement form the corner of his eyes, he saw Ken sneak out of his hiding place, careful to avoid the Vamdemon's sight and breaking an iron rod off from a the leftover bits of a crane.
Izzy's eyes sharpened. Watching the younger boy hurry back behind a pile of crates and disappearing form sight, Izzy's expectations were not disappointed when a few moments later Stingmon burst out form a violet light. The rod in hand.
And Vamdemon's pattern changed. It was struck to the ground, but it didn't jump up again. Instead stood still, watching, limps twitching. Again, Izzy filed the observation away for later.
Then it disappeared. Too fast for Izzy's eyes to track, but not for Stingmon. While Izzy called something to his hovering partner, the bug digimon froze his wings, only just avoiding a bloody strike. The fist brushed over his head, making Stingmon's head ache from the vibrations of energy. The muscles in his arm jumped, and with Ken's voice still resounding his his ears, he used all power he had and rammed the rod into Vamdemon's torso.
Something gave under the force, flesh, bones and metal. The rod curved and finally broke, a piece sticking out of the superior digimon's shoulder.
It didn't even slow the next attack down.
Stingmon fell with too much force, but using gravity to put more distance between him and his opponent was the only thing he could do. He needed distance; or else not even his with his speed he would be able to avoid lethal strikes. The impact into the ground still hurt and his wings numbed. Strain to keep up the evolution and his wounds zapped his energy.
Ken trusted him. Ken needed him. Ken worried.
Stingmon rolled to the side, knowing even without seeing that just he just barely escaped with his life. Dark spots danced before his eyes and the ground didn't seem to stay still, but the air hummed and Stingmon beat his wings in response. Loosing touch to the rough stone with his claws, he had to be in the air, but Stingmon couldn't feel or see it anymore.
Despite his efforts he felt his power unravel, data escape him.
But not just yet. His belly twisted. Not just yet. Ken.
Ken.
Darkness swallowed him. First his sight, then his senses, then his ears. The last thing he heard was Ken.
Mimi eyed the thing suspiciously.
"What is that, Mimi?"
"I don't know," the girl replied, "it looks like a cube, but cubes usually aren't black or of that size."
"Then why did it react to the digivice?"
Poking the object with a stick, she shrugged worriedly. It didn't react to the stick and hesitantly Mimi took a step closer. It didn't look dangerous, but in the digital world that didn't mean much at all.
Mimi was very sure this was one of those moments where appearances meant preciously little. Sighing she looked from the thing once, then glanced at the landscape to gather her courage.
After a long time of wandering Palmon her digivice had suddenly reacted to something. The signal had been fleeting and lead her down the path of destruction left in the Mammothmons' wake. At the time she had dearly hoped that none of their friends had been caught in the stampede and instead of a friend they had been lead to a black cube. About the size of her foot and suspicious only as it was the only thing still having solid form within some few dozen miles other than the ground.
Mimi eyed it. Palmon eyed it, curiously.
"It doesn't look like a Digimental."
Mimi's expression darkened into a glare. "No, it doesn't." She hated this. What was she supposed to do? She was only a high school girl. Not anyone special who would know what to do in this situation.
"You really saved us," said Ken, once Minimon was treated and he remembered his manners. "If you hadn't come out of this TV..."
"Mmmh," returned Izzy absently, eyes focused as always on the screen of his laptop. Ken wasn't offended. It was just how the red-head was.
They were still in the pyramid, still in the chamber. Ken didn't think it wise to stay in one spot for too long, but Izzy had insisted he still had some work to do.
So Ken was waiting, holding an unconscious digimon in his lap, while the child of knowledge was otherwise busy.
"It wasn't luck, actually," said Izzy finally into the echoing silence, that carried no trace of the fierce battle that had occurred just an hour ago. Or of the lightning that had created one death. Only the literal lightning rod was left in the spot where Vamdemon had burst into data. "I told you I was in the internet. Really inside the internet. From there I found out someone with a digivice was here, so obviously I chose this exit. I hadn't known about the fight, though..."
Ken had never been in it. "Do you know where any one else is?"
Izzy sighed as he disconnected his PC from the TV. "No. I suspect I only piked up your signal, because you were near a TV. Since the TV is the direct connection to the internet, it might have something to do with that."
The path was Digiworld-internet-Reality, though usually it wasn't really traveling through the internet. But the internet was, in the most accurate terms, something of a shadow of both the real world and the digital counterpart as well as a rough prototype of the latter. The connection to both worlds was strong, yet very fragile and thin, usually not able to allow entry to a life form. That said a lot. "What did you find out then," Ken asked, because there was no way Izzy would not have used the opportunity or left before he was done with it.
Izzy grimaced as if tasting something bitter, pronouncing the exhaustion carved onto his face asTentomon nervously clicked his claws. "Do you want the bad news or the worse news first?"
Izzy was not one for dramatics. Offering a weak smile, Ken ran a hand over his partner's soft skin. "Whatever you want."
Making a sound in the back of his throat, Izzy rose to his feet. Ken followed and they started making their way out of the chamber. "Did you know that despite the elemental control, Quinlongmon hadn't been affected? Well, that stopped some time ago. It underwent a Dark Evolution into DarkQuinlongmon. So our lone Sovereign got turned into a puppet and that means that pretty much all rights in the digital world are now under the control of the enemy. That's only the bad news."
Ken's eyes widened and he stumbled over a small rock. "Wha..." Even without Izzy telling him, he could see what was even worse than loosing the one being that symbolized the stability of the digital world. By 'rights' the read-head didn't mean the human interpretation of the word -like laws, physics and such- but the much more basic, electronic meaning of it. "Administration rights," he breathed. Gate regulation, holy light of the evolution, were only some of the things Quinlongmon watched over. Had watched over.
Nodding grimly, Izzy continued. "They have promptly started to use that ability, too. You said the Guardromon evolved. Dark evolution too. That was probably how you were found, too. By your digivice. It is full of energy that they can monitor now." Ken swallowed hard. "That means if we want to remain undetected we can't allow our partners to evolve, no matter what. Or devolve. ...though, that doesn't explain how they found the Warrior Children...," he muttered absently, before returning to his explanation. "And beyond that, I bet you can think what anyone could want with control over the gates. I noticed that and built a bit of a firewall, but I don't know how long it will hold. Or even if...," Izzy trailed off, sighing as he ran a hand through his hair and messaged his temple.
There were still Chosen Children left in the real word. More, in fact, than their group. They counted into the hundreds and thousands, but most of them were young children, and all of them were weak. Only those who had gained their digivice between the First and Second Generation could evolve their partners to Champion level and they were few and far between. And even they didn't have combat experience. That was the reason the twelve original children operated alone in the first place.
With the enemy's dark evolution now it was a save bet that soon all digimon would be forced to Ultimate. And the real world had no defense. And them, who were depended upon, were locked up in the digital world.
"...how many?" Ken asked, afraid to hear the answer. The real world...
Izzy just shook his head, carefully glancing out of the pyramid into the nightly desert. "I don't know yet. Gennai and I created another firewall that can't be opened -at all. It's self-generating, too, because it is powered by a virus I leaked to all electronic devices with access to the net. And even the first firewall isn't broken yet."
It was cold out in the desert. The sky was clear and stars hung in the sky, an exact copy of its real world counterpart. With the moon they gave enough light to oversee the waves of sand for a long while.
"...so we still have time?"
Izzy twitched strangely. "...Yes."
Ken swallowed the lump in his throat and the panic screaming in the back of his mind. "How long?"
The other just shook his head again. "I'll know when we don't have time any more. I also leaked a second virus. It is gathering and decoding information and sending them to me." He tried a smile, but with the dark rings under his eyes, the tenseness of his shoulders that Ken was only now beginning to understand, it made him look more dead than alive in the darkness. "With a bit of luck we'll soon know where the others are, what has happened to us, and everything else we could possibly need to know..."
Ken didn't feel reassured as the two humans and two digimon left the pyramid behind, following the sinking moon.
"Sora!" Birdramon exclaimed, shrinking to Pyiomon and hushing to her partner's side who had collapsed into the grass.
"What's wrong?" Takuya asked, worried when the girl didn't seem to be moving anytime soon.
Piyomon fretted, carefully rolling Sora onto her back and eyes tearing up.
The girl's skin was reddish from light burns, but what concerned Takuya was that Sora's face was flushed beyond that, and putting two fingers to her neck confirmed erratic heartbeat and dry skin. She was unconscious.
Takuya was familiar with the symptoms even when he himself had never experienced it. "It's a heat stroke," he told the pink bird, who was getting closer to a hysteric breakdown with every second. "She needs shadows and something to drink at least."
"But we don't have water!"
Takuya dug around in his bag. "This'll have to do." He held a ceramic pot in his hands and there was no question about what was inside it. "Help me get her over there." With his head he nodded at the next tree.
Together Takuya and Piyomon build Sora a makeshift bed of leaves, dirt and grass. They didn't have a blanket as such a thing hadn't existed for lack of need underground, but the leaves of the resident tropical trees were big enough to serve as a substitute.
Getting Sora to swallow the pinkish, cool slime was a bit more difficult, but eventually they managed when Sora returned to semi-consciousness for a short moment.
Caring for the sick, who wasn't Shinya, was a first for Takuya, but he rather thought he had managed when around noon the girl was sleeping normally.
Takuya smirked, thinking of her expression when she woke up and realized that the awful smelling goo that was their water supply had been pasted to her forehead and had sunk into her hair. He looked forward to being able to laugh at a girl without fearing to be ripped limb from limb.
"Will Sora be fine?" Piyomon interrupted his thoughts and Takuya glanced at the digimon kneeling faithfully at her partner's side.
"Of course," replied Takuya. "The only way she wouldn't is if we didn't treat her or if she couldn't rest. Which she is doing now." And he added, know it was futile anyway, "don't worry."
Worrying was all fine and good, but only reassuring when the person that one was worried about was awake to appreciate it or if the state was a close thing between life and death where subconscious support could make all the difference. Otherwise? Takuya thought sparing attention to the unstable surroundings and being aware of possible threats was much more important.
With that thought, Takuya eyed the still trees around their small clearing attentively. There were no digimon anywhere. From what he knew that wasn't surprising as they were all either in hiding or drafted into an army against their will and since they were in a forest which were usually populated by wind, wood, or earth typed digimon it would worry Takuya more if there were digimon around.
He sighed, wondering when he was going to see his friends again. When he could finally free the others. Being treated as possessions bothered him. Being captured and imprisoned and unable to even twitch a muscle at will would have been pure torture for Takuya. Imagining even the most basic freedom stolen from him made Takuya itch to do some damage. How dare they?
Gritting his teeth, he reminded himself that the others had different things they valued as Takuya valued his freedom.
And Zoe, if she was conscious, would be making her jailors' lives hell.
It actually amused him to think about it, but it was fleeting and he sighed. Takuya missed his friends. In the four years since they first met, there had never been a time where the six of them had been separated for more than a few weeks at a time. And now it was almost a month already…
Leaves rustled quietly and Takuya glanced up, expecting to see them move softly in a soft breeze.
They weren't.
Within the span of a second, Takuya's mind switched gears from passive observing to active watching and his body went tense for a moment before he forcibly relaxed and casually gazed deeper into the tress, straining his eyes, ears.
He saw nothing and he heard nothing, but he perceived a presence not there before. Not only one. Not two. Not ten.
This was, to state the obvious, troublesome.
Worse actually, because they were in a forest.
Piyomon, to her credit, had noticed their company, too. No matter how worried she was, digimon were all programmed for battle to a degree and not noticing a danger to her partner was rather unlikely.
Takuya swung his bag on his back, hoping it would be treated as normal clothes.
"Can you evolve without Sora?" Takuya asked just for the sake of it, already knowing the answer, as he looked shortly at the girl on the ground before his eyes were drawn back to the coming fight. "Against those numbers I can't protect you," he warned.
Piyomon fluttered her wings, a determined look entering her eyes. "I will protect Sora." Her tone booked no doubt.
Takuya nodded. "Look, we have to split up. I'll be the decoy. You just worry about keeping your partner safe." Inwardly he was relieved when Piyomon's priority lay completely with Sora and that he didn't have to worry about being 'protected'. Piyomon had probably forgotten about that. "We'll meet up at sundown a mile or so east from here, alright?"
"Yes." Piyomon agreed, taking position in front of her partner and looking ready to fight whoever dared to come close to Sora tooth and nail. "We will meet again at sundown. Be careful and good luck."
"Right back at you," grinned Takuya, anticipation slowly making itself known in his blood. This was going to be one big fight. One that Takuya didn't feel he could ever lose. For the first action in one week. The first fight with his newly perfectly digitalized body.
Takuya was not going to lose.
Taking a breath, he routinely focused his mind. Then, heading right towards the most malicious presences, he ran into the forest.
His feet raced over the soft ground and he leaped over roots and headfirst through bushes. Feeling eyes following him, he smirked as he grasped a branch, swung up on it, jumped and took hold of a higher one and used his swinging momentum to propel at a digimon hanging from the trees.
Exhilaration pumped though his body, mixed with gleeful triumph when the Dokugumon, clawed against the very same tree, failed to react to his sudden attack.
Takuya kicked it in the head, flames erupting at contact point and setting the spider aflame. It fell from the bark, legs kicking, wiggling and struggling against the flames that were devouring its body alive.
Takuya, along with a couple dozen pairs of eyes hidden in the trees watched impassively as it died. It was understood apparently that this was a warning and had to be observed to the end. Common curtesy.
As the Warrior of Fire, Takuya was at a disadvantage in the forest. Being mostly unable to use Agnimon or Virtamon's attacks, he had to rely on surprise and his element advantage. Digimon living in the forest were weak to fires.
A ring of data built up around the blackened corpse. Takuya palmed it, gathered the data, felt it automatically being purified by his flames and, when the white digiegg had formed, gave the ball of white information back to the egg. It absorbed it neatly and a digiegg fell to the ground.
It was like a start signal.
Threads were spat at him. Takuya didn't bother try dodging, burning the webs when they tried contacting with his skin, preventing the poison from infecting him. At close range and as long as he was careful he could use fire. He didn't want to set the forest ablaze.
Surrounded, outnumbered, outmatched, Takuya quickly realized that in human form he didn't stand a chance. But they wouldn't give him the time he needed for his evolution either. Should have done that earlier. No matter.
Ducking behind a tree, hearing the hissing of poison against the wood, Takuya figured he simply needed to make time. Throwing himself forward, avoiding more poison, he rolled over the ground and took off in a sprint again. Smaller and faster, Takuya ran through the thick forest, skittered down a ledge, made a few sharp turns. The Dokugumon were too big, too bulky follow him quickly and the vicious snapping of their jaws became fainter as he ran.
Takuya didn't hesitate for a second, diving behind a tree and selecting his evolution.
Evolution without D-tector hadn't been that much different from with, but now that he was one body and one mind opposed to one body and three minds, there was a significant difference. Evolution was all about Takuya's psyche now; no longer was he one who made the decision and others, be it his partners or his device, made it happen. No, now he had to do all by himself and that was what took so much time.
It wasn't enough just to imagine the fist of Agnimon in place of his hand. He had to feel it.
He had to feel the gauntlet in place of his skin; he had to feel the three holes for sparking fire in it. He had to feel his muscle structure changed and his bones harden.
In other words, he had to make the right modifications to his data with his mind only by himself.
Very different, very difficult, but Takuya managed and the stream of bluish white, red sparked data surrounding him receded. Only to give place to the violet tinged threads and the grimace of a face splitting mouth and yellow eyes.
This is the chapter for October, and as of this month, this story is two years old, though it certainly doesn't feel that way.
I hope you like it.
Please leave me a review with your thoughts. (If there was something unclear about the battle against the Vamdemon, please say so, as things that seem perfectly to the author aren't quite the same to a reader.)
...
I have opened a new poll about updates and chapter lengths, since it occurred to me that keeping track of everything that is happening at the same time (and the jumping scenes) might be a bit difficult/bothersome.