Act 1: Beating Heart
Segment 3: A Glorious Arms Race
Chapter 3-3: Air-Land Battle
"Ryuuuutaaaa!" Lomamon yelled. "Aaaaasukaaa!" Takaharu, Lomamon, Yuuka, and Falcomon were advancing through a darkly lit tunnel. Lomamon's yelling bounced back. No response. It sighed. All it could sense were vague enemies some distance away. "Haaaawkmooon! Ameeedramoon!"
"Lomamon, I think we've yelled enough. We should keep moving."
"Nnh…" The black throbbing growths on the walls made its fur stand up on end. None of this was reassuring. It looked back.
No way back up.
"Falcomon, what are those things?"
"I don't know. I don't want to know," it muttered. It flew up to them anyway. They pulsed and moved about, as if there were something inside waiting to burst out. "Egg sacs? Of some kind?" It shivered. "We shouldn't stay here."
"No, we shouldn't," Yuuka mumbled. This was bad enough. Only having Falcomon and Lomamon was worse.
"Yuuka? You okay?" Takaharu asked. She seemed to be stumbling around a bit. "Yuuka!"
She bent over and put her hands on her knees. "I'll be fine." Her chest heaved. "I'll be fine." She squatted down and buried her face in her arms.
Takaharu realized she was hyperventilating. He wasn't sure what to do. Should he give her physical support? Or not? If Ryuta found out, he might give him a shiner or something. He cringed. This was harder to deal with than he expected.
"Yuuka!" Falcomon flew down. Yuuka immediately squeezed it in her arms. "Yuuka, I'm here. I'm here!" Her body was shaking. "You're safe with me here!" Her hands were turning cold and moist.
"Falcomon…" she cried.
"I'll hold your hand, okay?"
She swallowed. The air felt crushingly wet, like the height of summer, but draining and cold. "O-o-okay." She struggled back upright and brushed away her hair. Her face was drained of colour. "Takaharu."
"Y-yeah!"
"Let's go. Somewhere. Anywhere."
"Right." They began walking, not knowing where to even go. Everywhere they went seemed the same: expansive, vein-covered, pitch black, throbbing with alien life.
Something squelched underfoot. Takaharu cringed. This was like those grisly horror video games, except now they were in it for real. He hoped deep down it wasn't actually real. He pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. "That's better, at least," he remarked. Yuuka didn't respond. She just kept shuffling forward with Falcomon.
Lomamon tugged on Takaharu's shirt. "Over there!" it pointed. They could see a heart in the distance, apparently dormant.
"Let's go deal with it quickly, before it activates!" They ran forward, ground squishing underfoot. Falcomon and Yuuka were slowly following behind them. Lomamon raised a paw and cut down on it, ripping it open. "Digger Claw!" It tore at it over and over, trying its best to shred it. After several gashes were torn into it, it finally shuddered and shook, and then collapsed.
Nothing happened.
"What?!" Lomamon exclaimed. "Every time, that's been enough!"
Takaharu shook his head. "This place… this place is bad. There must be more."
Lomamon whined. "Oh gods, no…"
"We have no choice but to find them all and eliminate them. Yuuka… do you need a rest?" She was still pale.
"I-I-I'm fine, I swear."
"You don't seem like it."
"I…"
"Look out! Lomamon, cover them!" A giant Plasmid, bug-eyed and with mandibles to match, reared up and lashed out with its whip arms.
"Nyaaa!" Lomamon sliced one of them apart but was slapped back by the other, and landed right at Takaharu's feet. "Ugh…"
"Ahhh, dude, are you good?" He bent down to look Lomamon over.
It rubbed its side. "Gah! That stings!" It massaged the injury more. "It's superficial but it hurts a lot, ow, ow. I'll be good," it said, getting back to its feet.
Falcomon looked up. This thing was towering over it. It might even be taller than Vanadramon. If only it were here… "Yuuka, stay close to the others!" It hopped up into the air. "Genwaku no Jutsu!" It seemed to disappear.
"Falcomon!" Yuuka cried out. "Where-"
"Shuririnken!" It appeared out of the sky up to the Plasmid's left and threw shuriken at it. The little metal daggers pierced the Plasmid, but it barely seemed bothered.
"My chance! Stripe Fire!" A red quill zipped through the air and pierced the Plasmid in the torso. It looked down at the projectiles in its body, and with its three-fingered hands, pulled them out, and then crushed them.
Lomamon stared in horror. How were they supposed to beat this thing? "Uh… nnnh…" it despaired, looking for something, anything, a distraction, a prop, some leverage. The only thing around was a few quivering egg sacs, it seemed. "Aaah!" A shockwave shook the ground as the Plasmid smashed down with its fists, knocking Takaharu, Yuuka, and Lomamon off their feet. It screeched, mandibles roiling, then got on all fours and galloped toward them.
"No you don't!" yelled Falcomon, producing sticks of bamboo. "Uchitake Otoshi!" The bamboo pieces suddenly exploded into smoke. "Run, guys!" It grabbed Yuuka. It was tiny, but stronger than it looked. Lomamon and Takaharu scampered away as it hauled Yuuka to a safer corner. The Plasmid barreled through and looked about, wondering where they had gone.
It screeched in anger and lashed out at the egg sacs, which popped. Out dropped beasts resembling giant centipedes. They seemed to be covered in glowing red dots. Their rears ended in barbed tails, as though someone had stitched a scorpion body to a centipede.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, really?! Centipedes?" Takaharu yelled. "God damn it, could this have gotten any worse?"
More of them popped open. Spiders. Spiders with too many eyes. Spiders the size of wolves.
"Learn to keep your mouth shut, Takaharu," Lomamon grunted. "Stripe Fire!" It launched another round of red quills. A few of them struck targets, dissolving them, but there were many.
"Shuririnken!" Falcomon launched throwing stars at the centipedes, which dissolved. One of the spiders suddenly glowed red as it was struck – and then exploded. Not into goo. It merely exploded. "Great. Just great," Falcomon moaned. "Exploding spiders. What will they think of next?"
"Aah! Watch out!" The centipedes had scorpion tails, and they were launching some kind of fluid at them. Lomamon didn't want to be around to find out what it was. It dodged a stream of it, but Takaharu was too slow. He yelped as it struck him in the torso, immediately hardening and pinning him to the ground.
"Takaharu!" Lomamon turned around and scrabbled desperately at it. Its claws were scratching it apart, but this would take too long. "Falcomon, help!" But Falcomon was too busy dodging its own problems. Lomamon was hit as well. "Nngh! Rrgh!" It struggled, but the binds were too rigid to break or bite through.
Yuuka's shoulders rose and fell rapidly. She wasn't sure what was more rapid: her breath rate or her heart rate. It all seemed a blur. Falcomon was a blur. The black and red centipedes, the glowing, exploding spiders, the giant Plasmid still bursting egg sacs, it all smeared into one snarling, churning, inky, bloody darkness.
Falcomon screamed as it was knocked out of the air and landed behind her. "Yuukaaa!"
She had enough. A centipede beast skittered in her direction.
Her eyes widened. "Yaaa!" she yelled, foot raised, and crushed its carapace underfoot. It might have been the size of a dog, but she didn't care. She wanted it dead. As dead as possible. She wanted it all dead. Either she died, or they died. And she wasn't about to pick the first option.
Not until she had a chance to see the others again. "Don't you dare touch me!" she shrieked.
A giant spider skittered at her, body glowing. She dodged its mandibles and grabbed it by a leg, then swung around on her heel and flung it in the direction of another bunch of spiders. It crashed into a several other spiders. Its body pulsed and flashed bright red – and then exploded. The explosion caused a chain reaction. Soon the giant hall was shuddering with repeated explosions as egg sacs containing spiders exploded. The giant Plasmid even ducked for cover as the place shook.
Yuuka panted and wiped spit from her mouth. She… she could sense something. Was it that feeling? Ryuta had told her – just before he saw Amedramon's body crack, he could almost sense that it was breaking through and was ready to evolve.
The breaking and cracking of binds behind her told her all she needed to know. "Peckmon!" she commanded. "Go!"
"Kyaaa – Burning Spiraaaal!" Peckmon zoomed forward, feet burning, spinning so fast they seemed to set the air on fire, and smashed right into the giant Plasmid's face. It wailed and flailed its arms uselessly, then melted, and dissolved.
Peckmon landed and scampered back to Yuuka. "Yuuka!" it yelled, catching her before she collapsed. "Yuuka, you were incredible!"
She sighed. "Thank you, Peckmon."
A complaint broke the silence. "Uh, some help here? Guys?" Takaharu and Lomamon were still trapped. Peckmon hopped over and nipped their binds open. Takaharu gasped for air. "Sorry. Sorry I was so fucking useless," he apologized.
"You weren't! You tried your best!" Peckmon retorted.
"And it wasn't enough!" He was annoyed with himself. He couldn't help her earlier, or then. He was too slow to react to everything. He had been since they got here. He'd been too unsure of what to make of it all that he had little ability to think. He started to get up. "All I managed to do was get roped in whatever this black goop is, and-"
Yuuka put her arms on his chest, shoved him back down, and pinned him to the uncomfortably moist ground. Her eyes were burning. He'd never seen that from her before, only from Ryuta. "Yuuka-"
"Shut the fuck up!" she yelled. Takaharu blinked. Okay, so this was one step further. He figured he'd rather have Ryuta's coldness than this. Yikes. The two of them were similar. "Do you want to get out of here or not?!"
"Yes-"
"Then quit whining, get working, stop overthinking, and let's go!"
Takaharu imagined her next to an angry Ryuta. Good god. The world would crumble before their feet. "Okay," he whispered. She took her hands off his chest and swiveled away. He coughed and got to his feet, along with Lomamon. It looked back at him and shrugged. He shook his head.