A sharp yelp escapes me as I dive back underwater and hurriedly swim to one side, leaving the sea serpent's attack to strike the surface of the ocean behind me — or rather, pierce it, as the pressurized water jet spears down through the water like a solid object, strong enough to agitate the ocean around it all the way down to the sand below.

I stare in shock for a moment, even as the local, smaller Digimon who weren't already driven off either leap into hiding or flee in all directions. Syakomon duck into their shells as Crabmon scuttle into tiny caves, and a school of the tropical fish Digimon speeds off into the distance.

Suspecting that I should perhaps do the same, I promptly put all I have into swimming away at top speed. The Seadramon slips back below and immediately gives chase, undulating from side to side to propel itself through the water. It's a surprisingly graceful method of motion for a creature whose fang-filled mouth is currently accelerating towards me like a giant mulcher, ready to crunch down on my legs the moment it gets close enough to do so.

A continual stream of curses runs through my mind as I watch the sea dragon steadily gain on me from the back of my vision, the feeling of its teeth ripping through my skin all too vivid in my mind. It's too big, and too fast, there's no way I can escape like this!

Unless-

There's no time for me to consider if it will work, so I just act. Grabbing hold of the water around me, then grabbing myself with it in turn, I force the liquid forward-

My speed, or at least the slowness thereof abruptly stops being my prime concern as I find myself shooting through the water like a particularly fish-shaped bullet. I scream, but the sound is left far behind as I rocket forward, moving so quickly that I can barely even keep track of my own surroundings.

...which might help to explain why I end up smashing into and through several large chunks of coral scarcely a few seconds later. Losing my grip on the water, I end up ingloriously thrown out of my own wake, spinning end over end until I crash down onto the shallow seafloor a couple dozen feet below, landing back-first with a surprisingly soft impact — at least when compared to the previous three I just experienced.

Dazed and in not a little pain, I groan, feeling like I just went several rounds in a tumble dryer. I suppose I can't really say that was my worst idea, as it at least kept me from becoming an oversized chew toy, but the execution could have used some work-

A bone-chilling screech reverberates through the water, leaving me scrambling to reorient myself. I manage to get the sky above me again, just in time to see the Seadramon winding towards me from my left. It's already caught back up?!

Before I can move, the sea serpent opens its jaws again, and this time vomits up what looks like a javelin made of pure ice. The projectile streaks towards me like frozen lightning, so cold that it's visibly flash-freezing the water around it... but that very property seems to slow its movement slightly as well.

Enough so that I have time to hastily grab the water around me again, and shove both it and myself straight upwards.

The javelin streaks by and decimates a portion of the local seabed, but misses me entirely as I break through the surface at top speed, my own frantic actions launching me into the sky like a cannon shot. I shriek as gravity promptly pulls the water I'd surrounded myself with away, and I begin to plummet from the air-

Instinct takes over as my fingers reach out, and I mentally yank at the surface of the ocean.

"Whipping Waves!"

The water below rushes upwards, pulling itself into a spiraling pillar that quite literally reaches up to catch me. My mind still playing catch up with my own actions, I land atop the construct with surprising grace, breathing hard from a combination of surprise and terror. Holy hell, I nearly did myself in there-

The Seadramon, evidently not willing to tolerate even a short lull in its current activities, lunges back out of the water and tackles the base of my pillar. As my construct's connection to the ocean breaks, so too does the rest of it, and I suddenly find myself falling again, not even having the time to cry out before-

*!-SPLASH-!*

I hit the water headfirst, but my swim cap takes the impact so unexpectedly well that I barely feel it, granting me a chance to try and tug myself away again — but in my haste, I just wind up sending myself spinning through the water like a top, with one ill-positioned arm left briefly feeling like it's being yanked out of its socket. Losing focus nigh-immediately, I'm left to dizzily bob back up and face the building-sized Digimon still glaring at me from scarcely thirty feet away. Damn it, I don't have enough control over this technique yet to not just hurt myself with it, but I don't think I have any other way to get away from this thing!

The Seadramon rears up again, its open mouth already leaking water as it readies another titanic jet of- wait, can I-

I seize my chance and quickly reach out, grabbing for control of the water that should be surging up the sea serpent's throat — and fail, only managing to latch onto the tiny streams still trickling from the side of its mouth. An instant later, those streams are blasted away as another rock-crushing rush of liquid erupts from the Seadramon's maw, at which point it's all I can do to yank a tiny rising geyser up beneath myself and let the pressurized torrent slice through the surface of the ocean behind me. Why didn't- do I need line of sight, or is that attack just still code until it's actually out in open air?!

I've no time to consider it further, as the Seadramon's already-extended body slams down into the water, sending a tidal wave that nearly matches the one I made earlier rushing towards me. Gritting my teeth, I manage to grab hold of the entire massive swell of water and force it to a halt, warring against its momentum for a moment before shoving it back down where it belongs... just in time to spot the flurry of icy arrows spat forth in its wake.

I fall back onto my geyser in reflexive panic, my watery construct nearly losing all cohesion as the projectiles pierce through the space my head occupied a brief moment ago, at which point my fear abruptly flips over to anger. Enough of this, I have to start actually fighting back!

Straightening up, I glare at the towering Seadramon and snap.

"Draining Rain!"

Nothing appears over my fingertips, causing me to immediately blanch. What did I do wrong?! I thought I'd figured this out, did I miss-

A shadow suddenly falls over me. I reflexively glance up to try and spot the source — and gasp as I see the huge, dark gray storm cloud now hovering overhead, nearly twenty times the size of the ones I managed previously.

A silent moment passes before a deluge promptly pours down from the heavens. With as large an area as the cloud I've summoned covers, the rain ends up pelting nearly every part of the Seadramon currently above water, the droplets hitting with such loud and audible impacts that I'd swear they also turned to hail at some point. The Seadramon screeches and reels back, trying to escape the rain's reach, but the sheer breadth of its body only means more surface area to impact, such that after only a few seconds, it collapses. Its body crashes down limply into the water, sending a multitude of tiny waves in every direction as it slowly sinks back into the sea.

I remain frozen in place, too shocked to move, even as the looming cloud slowly dissipates.

Did I... win? I don't know how I did that — maybe it's just because I'm over open water right now, or in actual combat? — but even so, that seemed almost too-

Before I can even complete the thought, I'm proven right as the Seadramon lunges back out of the ocean, moving significantly slower, but by no means down for the count. Thankful I didn't drop my guard, I manage to swerve my geyser to one side before it can impact, letting the serpent's giant head sail past-

An equally giant red tail fin whips around through the air and crashes into my back, forcibly lashing itself around my waist. Before I can even so much as process the impact, the Seadramon's continued forward momentum rips me off my perch, fast enough that the force would probably have broken my normal self's neck. Ahhhhh-!

As the Seadramon falls back onto the water, I'm flung down in turn onto the rest of its body, crashing down upon a thick plane of curving scales. Scrambling to my feet, I try to slip back to the water below, but don't make it more than two feet before those same scales start constricting themselves around me.

The serpent, finally ensnaring its prey.

I cry out in pain as the pressure of the Seadramon's coils rapidly begins to crush me. My hip fins are forced up against my sides, while my hands are trapped between two lengths of scaled muscle, the gauntlets encasing them likely the only thing keeping them from being crushed outright.

As I struggle, the Seadramon lowers its head, moving closer and closer. Its enormous eyes take a moment to leer at me, before its mouth suddenly opens, hissing out the only two words I've heard from it thus far.

"Mind Freezer."

The surrounding temperature drops a solid sixty degrees in the span of an instant, chilling me to the bone. At the same time, tiny glimmers begin appearing in the air all around me, and my frantic thoughts begin to slow, as if now being dragged through sleet to reach the forefront of my mind.

Wha... what is... this...?!

The Seadramon slows and calms, seemingly no longer regarding me as a threat. Looming overhead, it languidly observes me, appearing to almost smile as its coils grow ever tighter.

My eyelids begin to drift shut, even as the life is slowly squeezed out of me. I'm fully aware of my current situation, and know that I need to do something about it before I end up as nothing but data, but my thoughts seem almost buried under ice, refusing to come to me any quicker.

Can't... lose...

Can't... die...

Can't...

Breathe...

A burst of panic breaks through my frozen thoughts, and with the last of my air, a slurred, stuttering scream makes its way past my lips.

"D- Dark Vapor...!"

I feel something change, an additional sense of pressure suddenly building up around my trapped hands. The Seadramon lets out a snarling hiss and abruptly rears back, its coiled body loosening slightly in the process — just enough to let me quickly suck in a dearly-needed breath, as well as release a slow-moving tide of boiling black fog, now flowing unceasingly from the center of my palms. Where it pools, the Seadramon's scales begin to bubble and warp, like a wall exposed to fast-acting paint stripper.

The Seadramon hisses again, louder, angrier, and with more than a little evident pain as it makes an effort to re-tighten its hold on me. While I'm still too slow to react however, or to even have withdrawn my arms while I had the chance, the fog has already begun to surround and spread over the rest my body. The snake-like Digimon's attempts to fortify its constriction thus only cause my attack to come into contact with even more of its skin, which continues to eat away at it like acid... even as I, now almost completely enveloped in the caustic mist, remain utterly unharmed.

The Seadramon begins thrashing in place, clearly unwilling to release its prize, but inevitably the blistering vapor becomes too much for it to contain. The glimmers vanish as the sea serpent screeches in agony, the temperature normalizing as it rapidly uncoils and plunges back down into the water, dragging me along with it. As my thoughts return to normal speed, I hastily pull away, slipping from its grasp and pushing myself back up to the surface proper.

With my faculties returned to me, I pull another watery pillar up underneath myself. As I do, the Seadramon bursts out of the sea once more, surging upwards with enough force to completely break free of the water this time. Scales are sloughing off of its body with every movement, but its head is still intact, its fang-filled mouth open wide in rage.

...just like mine as I scream in fury, geysers erupting all around me as more black, acidic fog boils up out of my palm, condensing into an almost-solid sphere. Raising it to the Seadramon's descending head, I force the sphere upwards like a shot put, directly into the serpent's gaping maw — before another geyser bursts forth from below, and forcibly slams its massive mouth shut.

The Seadramon chokes on its final roar of agony as it slows to a halt, all momentum somehow draining out of it in midair. As it comes to complete stop, its body turns black, like a three-dimensional silhouette, and a ring of code spills out of it, encircling and spinning around its middle.

I narrow my eyes at the sight, knowing that this marks the true end of the battle. And while I might otherwise be slightly torn about what now needs to be done, I know full well that if I don't, this thing might just recover and attack me again.

There's no time to overthink this.

Holding out one hand, I beckon the Seadramon's fractal code to myself. Obediently unwinding like a giant spool of thread, the code streams towards me, feeding itself into my palm. A buzzing, not-unpleasant tingling sensation washes over me as I absorb the data, leaving me feeling both soothed and slightly jittery... if not actually any less mentally fatigued for it.

I allow myself to fall back onto my geyser, my breathing finally starting to normalize again. Well... training complete, I guess? Trial by water dragon wasn't exactly my first choice, but I suppose I can't say it wasn't technically effective, even if that was way too damn stressful for what it actually was. However large, Seadramon are still only Champion level, and unless I somehow magically stumble upon the solution to all my problems within the next day or so, there's essentially no chance I won't end up facing far worse eventually. Not to mention I was quite literally in my element here, yet I still nearly got myself killed multiple times by a Digimon that I theoretically should have countered near-perfectly. Even if it was only because I barely knew what I was doing for most of the fight, that's not a great sign...

As the last of the Seadramon's code slips into me, its shadow begins to rapidly dissolve. The lingering remnants surge inwards, condensing together into an oversized blue and green egg with a wave-like design on the shell — which then promptly takes off towards the horizon like a miniature rocket.

I blink, watching on as the egg vanishes into the sky. Ah, right, those literally fly off to the Village of Beginnings in this season. Convenient, if absurd to actually see in action. I suppose the tangible reminder is nice all the same, as I'd probably be more freaked out about having just killed another presumably-sapient life form if I didn't know it was just going to be reborn eventually anyways.

...if possibly only after the data I just sucked up like spaghetti is released, going by how I seem to recall that working with Seraphimon.

Feeling a tiny bit guilty now, but unable to do anything about it, I drag my pillar over to land and allow it to collapse as I step back down onto the beach, letting myself simply lay back on the sand for a minute as the fizzy feeling beneath my skin gradually settles. What a strange sensation...

I idly glance down at my palm, still tingling where the stream of data entered it. Come to think of it, I wonder if I can use any of that Seadramon's attacks now? That's how this worked in Tamers, at least.

Sitting back up, I make a brief effort to replicate the attacks the Seadramon used earlier, just to test the theory, but my efforts ultimately end up being more comical than anything else. I can sort of replicate that water blast attack I didn't get the name of via my newfound abilities, but not with the same sort of laser-focused pressure that made the attack so dangerous, and certainly not from my mouth, so I chalk that up as a failure. My attempts at its ice javelin move go similarly, and I don't even bother with "Mind Freezer" beyond repeating the attack name aloud a few times — it doesn't work — before promptly giving up on that as well.

...strike that idea then. Seems if I want more options in that area, I'll need to get back to questing for Ranamon's beast spirit.

I look out over the ocean. Much as I'd like to take a little more time to recuperate, that battle was just business as usual for this world, and I have to treat it as such. Physically speaking, I didn't even actually come out of it in bad shape, so I should probably get moving again... I think I can just barely see a few isolated specks of land on the horizon now? Though at that distance, they're still essentially forever and a day away. There's seriously got to be a way to speed up my pace a bit-

Oh... right. Duh.