Blitzmon = Beetlemon

Bolgmon = Metalkabuterimon

Chapter 46: Digital World: unassuming and beautiful Thunder

Honestly JP felt way in over his head.

He was a simply guy with simple needs. Those included a comfortable social circle, friends he could rely on when he needed them (like for an umbrella back home), chocolate, and excluded pressure, responsibility-by-default and trouble he was pulled into.

Unfortunately, it seemed to be the theme of JP's life that whatever he wanted to have the least to do with ran straight into him. Case in point, there was little that could put more pressure on one than a fight for his life, responsibility always fell to him because the others had too much of a one track mind, and when trouble wasn't dogging his steps, it was dogging the others and thus it became his as well.

He wasn't quite sure who the trouble had sought out this time, but fact was that, for one reason or another, the only thing that he really understood about his current situation and whereabouts was that Fairymon was fighting, which meant that Zoe was fighting, which automatically meant that JP was going to join the fray. He was a simple guy. He didn't need to know more.

Except of course, the whereabouts of his D-tector. Which wasn't there. Which as it turned out, he didn't need. Odd, but lucky.

For now at least. Because in truth, he was crazily confused.

Where am I? How did I get here? Why am I here? How in Zoe here? Why? Why don't I need D-Tector? Where are the others? Who's the enemy? Who are the others? What is going on? Who is against who? Why are there so many digimon fighting each other? Who's that Rosemon? Just what is happening?

And most importantly: Who is this frighteningly strong guy?

Not just anyone was able to survive Shutmon and Bolgmon's combination attacks. Combination with Wind was smooth after all for everyone besides Koji and Koichi. Even fewer could hold a candle to them when the Spirits of Lighting got their tactical gears moving. The number of digimon who could beat them into the ground and make it look easy went against nil. Yet here was one.

His current confusion was only about equaled by the first hours of the first trip to the digital world. It was not a nice feeling. JP liked to know at least the basics so that he could plan. In his life, everything was strung along some rough plan, if only in the form of routine or habits. It gave him safety and stability, made him comfortable.

Right now, he had none of it.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) it wasn't exactly something new. JP was experienced enough with feeling like a duck just learning to swim. (Takuya was a wild card on the best of days and since he set their pace whenever they happened to be in the digital world – well...)

Still if only inside his own head, out of habit and for peace of mind, he planned again. It went like this: back up Shutmon/Fairymon to end the fight, then ask questions/find things out.

More he hadn't needed to know, and still didn't.

Bolgmon readied his canon, anchored to the ground, and shot. The positron laser combined on impact with a cyclone of Shutmon's doing that was already swirling around razor sharp rose petals with in. It was like a wall, like a prison field, limiting and concentrating the explosion Bolgmon's attack caused and making the whirlwind collapse inwards. Double damage.

Ideally.

Bolgmon wheeled back, retreating on the highest gear to ideal distance. The gun turret on his head was still sparking with residual electricity.

"Did we get him this time," asked Rosemon, trying not to sound hopeful without getting discouraged. The how many times was it now? Bolgmon was losing track.

He let his actions speak for him when he readied his arms, aiming at where the target was at most suffering from electrical shocks. And it had been a full powered Field Destroyer, too. "Ultimate Thunder!"

Two thunderbolts whirled away, penetrating the not yet settled dust clouds, and the Spirit of Thunder slid down and small, into a different form and Blitzmon higher mobility just barely let a streak of return energy miss him. By a hair's breath. The three digimon scattered.

Bolgmon had firepower, but was slow. Blitzmon was comparatively much faster, but not all that fast. In fact for all the Human Spirits, he was part of the slower half. It was a weakness he was well aware of and one he could only conquer with tricks. Blitzmon in comparison to Bolgmon was fast. So someone aiming for Bolgmon would not hit Blitzmon.

This was the second time he had used that trick, and it was going to be the last. One miss due to luckily timed evolution could be written off. Two could not. At least not by someone of the likes they were facing.

He hadn't been this outmatched since... not the Royal Knights. Not even they had managed this. Lucemon? Fall Down Mode? Satan Mode? Horrible enough in any case that Blitzmon doubted anyone but Susanoomon would be a match.

Because of it, he was under no illusions. When that digimon decided it had enough, the fight would be over. Was it testing them? Why? Something else? Or did that eye cause it more trouble than Blitzmon had expected? Possible, considering for all that it seemed furious, Blitzmon was still conscious to think.

Keep calm. Don't think beyond the fight. Don't get scared. Do everything you can to keep up your part.

In any case, it couldn't continue like this. Even three way combination attacks were doing no damage to speak of, and that was tiring, pressure like steel weights coming down on his back. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew without a doubt that time was running out.

"Not yet?" He demanded from Rosemon, Bolgmon again as Shutmon drew the enemy's attention and he had another few seconds to fire from a distance. Getting in close would be a fatal mistake. Blitzmon unfortunately was a close combat fighter. Except for Mjöllnir Thunder, but the floor was somehow absorbing all energy attacks, so that was no good.

The other digimon didn't let him shoot. A red beam pierced through digital steel armor of his right shoulder like paper where he had been too slow to dodge. Blitzmon tumbled, rolling over the floor, coming up in a crouch only through sheer practiced motion. The pain from his shoulder at that was almost enough to dissolve his evolution.

He was too late, too slow. The digimon stood in front of him, far too close. Before he had time for another realization, Blitzmon was knocked back down, an incredible heavy weight pressing him down. A foot.

"How dare you," the digimon muttered. "How dare you. How dare you How-." The digimon didn't even seem to be speaking to him, didn't even seem to expect an answer. The remaining eye was alight with red fury. "How dare you?"

With every repetition, the foot was heavier on Blitzmon's chest. He heard his armor crack before he felt it. Pain exploded in his mind in a white screen and for a moment he must have blacked out, because the next thing he knew, the digimon no longer stood over him, there was uncomfortably loud screaming, and shouts and more fighting.

His mind reminded him that there had been other digimon fighting each other. Maybe that was that? His first attempt at moving didn't work so easily, but JP -and he was JP again- had expected that. So he pushed through the pain and at least managed to get his head off the ground.

Then his mind froze.

What is that? What the hell is that?

Zoe -and she too was Zoe again- was on the ground, half pushed up and staring at the approaching digimon. It was what that digimon held in its hands that drew all of JP's attention and that made him understand how that expression of blank fear and horror could be put on Zoe's face. It was blank, dark and it was black.

It was the most terrible back JP had ever seen, and in some part of his mind that was still working, he had never been so much at a loss for words. Black and horrible, like a black hole, sucking him in just by looking at it. The more JP stared the less he could tear his eyes away, the less he felt the will to move. The more he felt the gears in his head stop, the less he felt anything.

It sucked him in, and all that JP could see was black, black and more black. It filled his vision, swallowed his mind and erased his identity, even when it wasn't even approaching him.

On some instinct, Zoe scrambled backwards, also not managing to tear her eyes away, not even on her feet, eyes wide.

JP did nothing as that black black and black approached her. Could do nothing. Felt nothing that could make him do anything. Nothing but absolute horror and terror at the very thing that likely made JP's expression a mirror image of Zoe's.

He should move. He really should. He ought to protect her when he could. He ought to help her. Helping each other out. Being the eldest and the one who had responsibility even when he hadn't. Being terrified out his mind was nothing new. It shouldn't stop him from doing something.

But it did. JP didn't even have enough in him to care that it did. Everything was just black, black and more black.

And without determination, there was nothing to keep him clinging to consciousness, fight off the pain. A different kind of blackness encroached.

"PLEASE DON'T!"

JP blinked. It was a fearful scream, panicked. He didn't have the strength to pull his eyes away from that black orb, his eyes just barley staying open anyway, but somewhere he was relieved that it wasn't him that scream was directed at. He didn't want more expectations on him, not more hope that he would disappoint, because everything felt heavy and sluggish. Even though there was something to protect.

"Why can't you just leave her alone?!"

There were more shouts, more screams, and a scramble for steps, echoing, another shout before everything was drenched in white noise.

The vessels were gone. There was no doubt about it. The Fortress had been searched from front to end, top to bottom, more than twice and there wasn't a trace of them. To make it worse, the human was gone as well. It was the first thing Murmuxmon had gone to check, looking for a target to divert His Majesty's wrath, and had come up empty. Workstation abandoned, screens lit with red warnings, but the human nowhere in sight.

Its death sentence had already been set with the miscalculation (though Murmuxmon was slowly thinking more and more that it was by design) on Operation Nobel Revival. That the compartments storing the elemental vessels had released their holdings was just the icing on the cake, as was that the dimensional gate didn't seem to be opened all the way.

Yes, looking at it objectively, Murmuxmon could see how productive the humans sabotage was. If it wasn't by its design, it was by someone else's. Too convenient coincidences didn't exist. The timing was perfect, the damage maximized, the culprit gone without a trace and leaving mountains of work for the Datamon to fix.

Oh yes, it was brilliantly done. Murmuxmon could allow himself to admit to that in his mind and now could even allow it to reflect on his face (thought he wasn't so stupid as to give anything away), thanks to His Majesty losing the gift of farsight. No longer was the warlord omniscient.

Murmuxmon smelled weakness.

If His Majesty hadn't lost that eye, then he would probably be making his own preparations for a clean escape, having no intention of falling victim to a temper tantrum, but as it was now, well, there was no way to know if he twisted the truth some or other, or pushed others in the way of the fall.

"Lord Murmuxmon," a Datamon spoke up. "Please look at this."

Murmuxmon stepped to its side and looked at the screen. It was a security footage of the very same room they stood in right now. It was the human. And a Tailmon. The Tailmon was saying something, but since the recording was without tone, he didn't know what. They had digimon that could probably tell him, but Murmuxmon decided that wasn't needed, not when the Datamon added that the recording was dated only hours before the first unexpected of Operation Nobel Revival.

It was that Tailmon, too.

Shame that Phelesmon had already been deleted, or Murmuxmon would have someone to point at. Sadism was a stupid habit.

The Datamon had uncovered more still and that was where things got really interesting. The footage from the last couple hours not only showed the human sabotaging various projects and in fact, as suspected, being the one responsible for opening the storage, but also that it reaped the benefits of it. That was how the human got out. Only moments before digimon came to drag it to His Majesty (turning up empty handed they had not survived, by the way), the human changed into a digmion, folded into the mirrors that made up its own body and disappeared with a snip of the fingers of the remaining hand.

How interesting. I think it's safe to say that with this the human's death sentence will have to be canceled. Not good for me, though.

Murmuxmon supposed that it would be a good thing to have the guards be the next ones to report to His Majesty. Knocking each other out, they'd have deletion coming. He himself would not dare to face him until someone had found the answer as to how that human female appeared and then disappeared along with all the vessels and all the present digimon.

"How are they?" Mimi asked, flopping down on the ground, boneless.

Kari sat next to Tailmon, skin of a sickly parlor from worry and stress alone. "Going to be fine," she said, letting her eyes leave her partner's form to glance over the others that were out of commission. Boy one, boy two, and Palmon. "Thanks to the Sandilyamon. They don't much look like, but they really do have a good understanding of medicine." Thankfully, went unsaid. Mimi didn't know and didn't want to think about what they might be doing now if it weren't first for their miraculous escape and the aid of the digimon that had been teleported with them and finally, finally, returned to a less panic driven state of mind where they didn't attack everything that moved and could be talked to.

Mimi tore the plants in her hands into smaller pieces. It didn't look nice, but it didn't have to. Apparently it was important to get past the skin and more didn't matter. "They are mean, though. I don't like them."

"You don't have to like them for them to be useful," the blond girl said, not looking up as she threw the torn plants Mimi handed her into the empty bento box Mimi had been carrying around in her bag. It was filled with water and the girl had taken the chopsticks and was using them to squish the water and plant mass together. "And they don't have to like you to need your protection."

The blond. Who Mimi had (maybe, somewhat) saved. She was the only one of those that had fought (physically) that was still conscious, and looked the part. Mimi had an eye for such things and could tell the other girl was very pretty usually. Natural long blond hair, smooth skin and green eyes. But at the moment, whatever prettiness she had was overshadowed by exhaustion, sunken eyes, dirt that stuck to her sweaty skin, blood crusting the corner of her mouth, and the scratches and dark bruises that lined her skin. The more Mimi looked, the worse the girl seemed off. "Are you all right? And what was your name again?"

The rescue-ee dragged her head up to face them. Tiredness was in every line of her body, but her eyes were still bright. Adrenaline, she had said when Mimi and Kari had in between suggested that she go to sleep like Palmon, nerves on edge that wouldn't let her rest even if she tried for now. "Sure. It's nothing that won't heal," she said. "The name's Zoe. Koji is the tall one and JP the big one. I don't know who you are either, but thanks for helping us."

Maybe it was a bit backwards for what people usually did, but in between abrupt spatial misplacement, dredging up enough nerves for diplomacy to mediate between more than five dozen digimon of many kinds who were aggressive when unnerved and had been fighting each other until the shock of the floor going missing under their feet had given everything a break, making sure that everyone was there, that no one was dying, that they weren't going to be attacked within moments and deciding on a makeshift camp mysterious teleportation object near or not, there had been no time for introductions.

They were back on the wide plain with people-tall grass where Mimi had been before her digivice had kidnapped her. It was daytime here still, though the sun was sinking, it wasn't too cold, and luckily a river was nearby. The device had flashed, (reacted to her scream? Emotions? Really what was making it do things nowadays?) and by the time Mimi had seen things again, every digimon besides the ones that had been attacking them (not just each other) that had been in that huge hall had been dumped all but on top of Mimi's bag and that stupid box that she had stupidly decided to pick up and carry around.

"I'm Mimi. That's Kari," introduced the Chosen of Purity, feeling emotionally tired and even more tired of things just happening, but smiling, still giddy with relief. No matter how bad it was that out of the seven of them, three were out with more and less severe injuries and out of the only three awake ones Mimi was the only one who didn't look like she had crawled out of a grave. Thing could be lots better, yes, but given what they had been like not even an hour ago, that it was like this was a miracle. She felt decidedly happy about that. "We're the Chosen Children of this world. You don't need to thank us, though. It's true we have been trying to save you for some time, but it was all an accident. I don't know what happened."

"Of this world?" Zoe repeated, weary, too tired to question anything of less importance. "What do you mean of this world? This is the digital world, right? What other worlds could there be?"

Mimi blinked, twice, and Kari tore her eyes away from Tailmon. How much did Zoe not know? "This is our digital world. We are from a different human world and have a different digital world," Kari explained, her voice still strained and trying not to move more of her body to refrain from agitating her back and most of her torso. At the moment she wore only a camisole and her jeans, her pullover put aside in a bloody lump that needed washing.

Mimi still didn't know what had happened to her, but a lot of Kari's skin was red and irritated. It looked a bit like a sunburn, but only at a distance. In truth, it just seemed like her skin was too thin. Rubbed raw, but cleanly and evenly. Even a breeze had to be painful. "You came from another one and were taken because of your Spirits. Those digimon you were fighting against want them to control digimon of the same element."

For a moment Zoe stared, then she frowned, thinking about it, seemingly for now having no problem accepting that not only there were more than one different world and that she was in one of them. "...could be. I haven't heard about other Digital Worlds before, but it wouldn't be the first time someone is after the Spirits." She looked at them anew, somewhat critical and searching. "But if it's like that, don't you have your own Spirits?"

Mimi shifted where she sat. "Um, no. We don't turn into digimon." A shudder ran down her spine, even the mushroom in her hands that was going to be part of the next meal looked particularly threatening at the thought. "We have partners. My partner is Palmon and Kari's is Tailmon."

Zoe's expression cleared some, becoming a more puzzled than demanding frown. "Partner? How do you fight then?"

"We help our partners evolve," Mimi said as she broke one mushroom clumsily in half and moved onto the next. It was a good thing that she had a partner that was half plant and that Mimi had had the foresight to learn how to tell what plants were edible and what weren't. After the first time stranded in the digital world, she hadn't wanted to go hungry again.

"And they fight for you? You don't personally," Zoe wondered. There was a note of disbelief in her tone.

Mimi pulled a face. "It's scary enough as it is. I don't want to fight, I can't fight and I don't want Palmon to fight either. But she protects me and of the digimon that attack us, there aren't any that stop by talking to them." Being Digidestined meant that every evil digimon wanting to conquer either or both worlds had to get rid of them first. Davis had proclaimed they were heroes. Joe, rather morbidly had muttered about it being like having a bounty.

"That's interesting," said Zoe slowly after a pause of deliberation. Mimi wondered what it was that came to her mind first, because she was sure there had been something. "Instead you can do things like this." The blond gestured with a wave of her hand around to indicate their sudden displacement. Their saving grace.

Mimi shook her head. "My digivice did that on its own. I've got no idea how that worked." She had deactivated her digivice at first opportunity before it got another bright idea and though it had stopped its odd coloring with that, it hadn't stopped the resonating greenish blue gleam of the stupid box. In fact, if she only walked a few steps into the high grass she could see it dazzle in the center of a ring of flattened fauna. It was eery.

"How does it usually work?" Asked Zoe with polite interest.

"It reacts to danger, feelings or certain mindsets," Kari said when it took Mimi too long to find the words. "And if there are certain conditions, like outside help or digimentals, different evolutions can be triggered." She looked thoughtful. "But I don't actually know more. I haven't ever thought about it even though they save us sometimes and we depend on them. How does yours work?"

With the chopsticks, Zoe picked the blades of grass out of the now green tinged water. It didn't look special or useful, but according to the Sandilyamon, this kind of mixture had nourishing properties. Could be applied directly onto the skin or eaten. "Our mobile phones turn into D-Tectors when we go to the Digital World. Usually at least." She shrugged. "They just make sure our data overlays with that of our Spirits correctly and safely. I know that when we evolve higher, there are some formulas stored in them to how the data has to get arranged, but they don't do anything active." She picked the last piece of grass out and handed it back to Mimi. A bit of the water grass mix splashed over the side. A bento box was too small to substitute for a pot, but given the situation, they were lucky to have any kind of container.

"Basically like railways, I suppose," Zoe added, eventually. "Personally, I'd be interested to know where the energy for stuff like this," again, she gestured with her hand, "comes from, if not from you or your…partners." She yawned. She picked up a piece of mushroom, dipped it into the liquid and ate it. Then she pulled a face, but swallowed bravely.

That didn't look too promising. Mimi eyed the broken mushrooms (breaking stuff into smaller pieces made it seem like it was more). I wish I had packed some seasonings into my bag, just in case.

This is the beta-ed version! Thanks to smfan!

This is the chapter for February. Hope you like it. There is some unexpected girl time happening.

I heard from a friend that there is a continuation of the Adventure 01 anime coming. I didn't believe him at first and did a bit of research. Honestly, I still can't believe it. It going to mess with my timeline, unfortunately. I'm definitely interested, though. 01 and 02 were finished, even with an epilogue. I wonder how they are going to cut that open again.

Do you have suggestions? Critique? Likes? Dislikes? Complains? Or things you just plain noticed?