Hasty Ambush

"Damnit Quinnlen, don't die on me!" The lieutenant continued to drag the lifeless body of his radio operator along the pavement in a hopeless attempt to save his life.

"LIEUTENANT! Get off the damn road!" SFC Harrison bellowed out from the ditch next to the road.

"I gotta help Quinnlen, Sergeant!" Stubbornly, the 2LT Joseph kept dragging his RTO's corpse.

"He's GONE, L-T! Come on! Get off the road!" The lieutenant looked down at SPC Quinnlen's legless corpse, and the fact of his death sank in.

"Goddamnit." He grabbed the radio, dropped the body, and ran to the ditch, sliding in next to his PSG.

"Are you alright, L-T?"

"I was here when he just got here, fresh from A-I-T."

"I know it's hard, sir, but he's gone now. We can't change that." The SFC gave the 2LT a look of consolation. "This is accurate mortar fire. We have to find their spotters."

The lieutenant nodded slightly, but he had a blank stare.

"Sir?" No response. "L-T?" Nothing. "Mike?... Mike!"


"Mike!" An urgent whisper registered in the lieutenant's ears.

"What?" He snapped out of his trance, looking around quickly, eyes wide, to find the source of the disturbance. His eyes settled on his digimon partner, Renamon.

"I sense a digimon nearby, and I don't think it's friendly." The lieutenant panned his head, trying to spot the potential hostile.

"Okay, let's move to some cover ant try to get eyes on. Do you know where the…" When the lieutenant looked back to his partner, she wasn't there anymore. "Renamon?" He did a whole 360º in hopes of spotting her, but found nothing. "Shit."

The lieutenant moved to the edge of a small clearing, in hopes of finding his partner there. Instead, he saw in the distance… something else. He crouched behind a small evergreen sapling, and peered at his discovery.

2LT Joseph was observing a large bug-like creature, standing out amongst the trees, from quite a distance away, using the scope on his rifle. The bug was larger than man sized, probably about eight feet tall. It had head with no visible eyes and a large pair of mandibles in front of a snarling mouth. It had six insect legs, but each had a claw-like hand at the end. It stood on only two of them, with the rest free to move at its sides. It was sniffing for something, probably the Lieutenant and his partner.

Where the fuck is she?

The lieutenant's digivice started to vibrate, so he grabbed it and looked at it. The screen lit up with information.

"Kuwagamon, an insect digimon, virus type." he whispered to himself. More auxiliary information was presented, but he decided not to read the rest.

Looking back up, he noticed the insect was looking straight at him. He then noticed it was visibly closer than before. He deduced that it was moving at a slow, steady pace towards him.

"Fuck."

He flipped the safety of his rifle off and aimed at the bug's head. *BANG* The rifle round connected with the target, and bounced off. The insect, seemingly undamaged by the bullet, yet quite a bit angrier, snarled and moved at a considerably faster pace. It started about 150 yards away from 2LT Joseph, but it was now within 100 yards and closing fast. Joseph emptied the rest of the magazine, pumping round after round out, each one bouncing off like the first, in a futile attempt to stop, or even slow, the bug creature down.

"Shit, shit, shit, shIT, SHIT!"

*Whoomp* He fired a grenade from his grenade launcher at it. The grenade connected, and exploded on the bug's chest. This stopped the creature, but only for a few short seconds. It screeched out, and began to charge at 2LT Joseph's position.

"Fuck, Renamon! Where are you!?" he yelled out as he reloaded his rifle's magazine and struggled to reload his grenade launcher. With a fresh grenade in the chamber, he looked back up to see the menacing creature only 15 yards away. He could see the insect in much more detail and was much more afraid than he was before. He fell to his back and fired the grenade launcher once again. The round also connected, and caused the creature to stop once more.

"Diamond Storm!" a voice yelled out from high above the ground, as a rain of glowing crystals began to pelt the bug from the direction of the voice. The crystals stuck to the creature, and once the rain ended, the crystals all exploded in unison. The lieutenant covered his eyes for a moment. Dust and smoke filled the air, and caused a short period of zero visibility. He coughed a few times in response.

What the fuck was that?

Once the dust settled and the smoke cleared, he saw the bug creature, Kuwagamon, visibly wounded from the previous attack, and Renamon, his digimon partner, standing between him and the bug creature, staring it down.

"I will not let you harm my tamer." she calmly stated.

"Must… Kill…" the creature menaced in a raspy voice. The bug let out another screech and charged her. She quickly jumped fifteen feet into the air just before it tackled her. Upon reaching the apogee of her jump, she balled her right paw into a fist and pulled her arm back as she turned to face the bug creature.

"Power Paw!" she yelled out. Her fist began to glow with a blue aura. The bug creature looked up just in time to be greeted with a powerful punch to the face. The bug let out a whine and stepped backwards as it covered its wounded face with its higher set of arms. Renamon continued to assault the creature, circling it and attacking with a fury of punches and kicks, moving much faster than humanly possible. The wounded bug tried to block these attacks with its lower set of arms, but the attempts were fruitless.

During the engagement, 2LT Joseph moved to a better position, one which he had good line of sight on the bug creature's back. The bug then managed to knock Renamon off itself with a strong swing of his lower arms. She flew back into a tree a several feet away.

Ouch! That looked like it hurt.

Visibly shaken, she struggled to stand back up. The bug, seemingly aware of the advantageous opportunity, charged at her. Renamon looked up, but seemed too disoriented to realize the mortal danger ahead of her.

"Renamon!"

*BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG* 2LT Joseph fired half of his magazine into the back of the creature, and the rounds did not bounce off this time, causing a much more desirable effect on the creature. It halted, whined, and turned around to face him.

"Oh, Fuck!" 2LT Joseph said, with a face of realization.

The bug creature charged at him. He fired another grenade at it, connecting again and causing it to stop.

"Diamond Storm!" Another set of crystals rained down onto the creature, and exploded. The creature screeched out one last time, and burst into a bunch of glowing particles, which floated towards Renamon as she slowly glided down onto the ground. The particles seemed to be absorbed by her. Her wounds sealed up and cleared up. The lieutenant stared in awe.

Holy shit.

Once the process was finished, Renamon walked over to the lieutenant.

"Are you alright, tamer?" she asked.

"Uhh … Yeah, I'm okay. I'm just really … confused." He paused to regain composure, but the puzzled look on his face remained. "What the hell just happened?"

"That was a hostile digimon. It attacked us so I destroyed it and absorbed its data." Renamon spoke in a plain tone, making him believe she thought he was supposed to understand what she just said.

"What do you mean absorbed his data?"

"It means I assimilated his data, after he was destroyed." She answered in a plainer tone than before.

"Okay." The young lieutenant did not fully understand what she meant, but accepted her answer to prevent a lengthy explanation from her, or worse, a strain in the shaky relationship they had with one another. There was another issue he had to resolve. "Renamon."

"Yes, tamer?"

"Why did you disappear when we discovered that … Ku-ag-uh… bug looking guy?"

"I rushed ahead to gather more information on him, and then attack him on my terms. He caught your scent first." She bowed her head. "I am sorry I did not come to your aid quicker. I should have noticed him start to move when he did. I di…"

"Hey, listen." He put a hand on her shoulder. "You don't have to be ashamed of yourself for what happened. You did your best in the situation we were in. Both of us are new at this whole partners' thing, okay?" She looked back up at him with a slightly reassured look on her face. He stared into her eyes, noticing how her black scaleras contrasted her glowing blue irises.

He lost his train of thought for a few moments. She stared back at him in anticipation.

"But," he continued, "If we are going to be partners, we are going to have to understand each other more, and most importantly, communicate." She nodded. "You can't just run off like that without telling me what is going on." She lowered her head slightly in shame "Before you do anything like that, I want you to at least communicate your intent to me first. Communication is key." He took his hand off her shoulder and looked around.

"Let's go find somewhere to hunker down for a while so we can go over tactics." He paused, and sized her up. "We need to learn about each other's abilities so we can understand each other better." He smiled. She gave him a small smile back.

The young lieutenant, as always, led the way.