-chapter 40-
We woke up the next morning on the outskirts of a new village, with new surroundings we had yet to familiarize with. It was more typical of settlements in the digital world, and made out of a hodge-podge of different materials, instead of looking like a misplaced city. Like many mornings before, Phoebe woke me up when she tried to wiggle her way out of my arms. I let her go once I was conscious enough to understand what she was trying to do.
"Goodmorning Cj." She said after she used her recently aquired freedom of movement to turn around and face me.
"Goodmorning." I replied as I got lost in her eyes for a moment.
"Zari you awake yet?" She asked as she smiled at me.
"I am now." Zari grumpily replied from one of the table seats.
"Oookay, sorry." Phoebe said.
Anyway, we made our way out of bed and got dressed, to discover a large crowd of digimon gathered around our bus, there were several kinds, including armadillomon, prairiemon, and sheepmon.
"Ranamon are you awake?" Phoebe asked as she held up her digivice. Ranamon came out a second later.
"Goodmorning, what's going on?" She asked. "I'm always awake it, isn't possible to sleep in there."
"Oookay, well we're surrounded by the local digimon population." Phoebe said. "I was thinking you could help diffuse the situation."
"Oh, ok, let's see what they want." Ranamon said as she walked out of the bus.
Claire and Henry weren't awake yet, which was good as they would probably freak out at all the digimon staring at them through the windows of their car.
As soon as Ranamon stepped off of the bus she had the eyes of the entire crowd.
Several of them asked who she was in voices filled with suspicion.
"Are there humans with you, you gotta help us." Said a few more.
"What do . . . you need help with?" The extremely shy ranamon asked. She wasn't used to this and was quite overwelmed at all the attention she was getting.
"It's ok sweety I'll take it from here." Phoebe said as she realized how shy she was and stepped off the bus behind her.
" We were just staying here for the night." She replied. "But what do you need help with?"
All of them tried to speak to her at once in a completely incomprehensible manner, she hated not being able to read their minds, it would've made things so much easier.
"Ok just one of you answer." She added once the exclamatory roar of the crowd settled down.
They all started to speak again, and at first it seemed nothing had changed, but this time one voice rose above the others, which caused everyone else to shut up. The only armadillomon speaking seemed to be the leader of the group.
"Tactimon has kidnapped many of our friends and neighbors in order to work for him, but we don't know where he took them, we're scared for their safety."
"So you want them back?" Phoebe asked while Ranamon stayed quiet and impishly stood behind her, almost like a child would stand behind it's mother. They were similiar in size so this really didn't work well at all. In fact, if anything ranamon was slightly bigger.
"Really Ranamon?" Phoebe asked. "I thought Cj was bad with people, but you're just ridiculous."
"Sorry." She replied.
"Stand beside me." Phoebe insisted as she moved to the side.
"Ok." Ranamon hesitantly replied.
"We searched Tactimon's castle yesterday, we didn't find anybody in his dungeon, so we don't know where your friends are. Unless they're all ninja guys." Phoebe explained to the crowd. "We were looking for some of our own friends, but we didn't find them either."
"Those ninjas are traitorous scum known as Kogamon, they work for Tactimon along with the musyamon." The leader of the village explained. "If they aren't at Tactimon's castle, I don't know where they would be."
"Is there anywhere else that Tactimon goes? What was he doing yesterday while he wasn't at his castle?" I asked as I approached the steps of the bus.
"How are we supposed to know?" The village leader replied as the crowd focused on me for a brief moment before Phoebe continued to speak.
"I guess we'll just have to watch him and find out." She said.
"Maybe he killed them all." Said a random villager, which cause about half of the crowd to shudder in fear.
"Don't talk like that." The leader replied. " We shouldn't be so quick to give up hope."
"You're right." Phoebe said. "If we find your friends we'll be sure to free them."
"Thankyou mam, it would be much appreciated." The leader replied.
"But first we need to find out where to look." Phoebe said. "Claire, Henry, come here we need to talk."
"Come on Ranamon we need to go figure something out. " She said as she headed back onto the bus. Ranamon followed shortly after, with Henry and Claire arriving a bit later, it took a little bit for them to worm their way through the crowd as it stated to disperse.
"We need to follow Tactimon without him knowing." Phoebe said. "We have to be missing something here."
"But how are we even supposed to find him?" Ranamon asked.
"He'll probably enter the city at somepoint ." Zari said.
"Yeah, looking for us." I added as Henry and Claire made their way up the steps.
"What are we doing today?" Henry asked.
" You heard that guy earlier right? " I asked. "We need to find out where Tactimon is keeping his prisoners.
"So we need to go back to the city and wait for him to show up." Phoebe said.
"Yeah, so uh Phoebe and I will follow him and you guys sit tight for awhile. Maybe you guys could try to find your digimon partners."
"Maybe Tactimon has them." Claire said.
"That could be true." Ranamon said. "It would explain why they haven't shown up yet."
"Are you bringing us with you this time? " Ranamon asked.
"Yes, we will." Phoebe said.
"The rest of you just need to sit tight. I know it sucks, but, I mean, well, you really just have to find your partners and then it won't be an issue anymore."
"What if you don't come back?" Zari asked.
"You take the bus, and you all spread out, find your partners. Then maybe come after us if we're still alive?" I replied.
"Don't be silly Zari, nothing is going to happen." Phoebe added. "We'll follow him until we find where the prisoners are, and then we'll set them free."
"And then we should try to take Tactimon down for good." I added.
"Why?" Phoebe asked.
"It's part of the mission, we have to, Kitty told me earlier." I replied.
"Why isn't Ophanimon helping us with any of this?" I asked.
"She has other things to do." Ranamon said.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Keeping the digital world from falling apart." Ranamon replied. "She's very far away and it takes a lot of her strength to communicate with us. It's a long story." Ranamon replied. "In the begining there was nothing but code, then, out of nowhere, Deusmon was created, Deusmon created the first iteration of the digital world, and then the first digimon, but Deusmon wanted more, so he eventually found a way into the human world, and then into even more worlds. He seeked either their destruction or enslavement, but he was eventually destroyed by his own creation, the legendary warriors. Who were in turn destroyed by another evil that arrived much later, time passed, many heros and villians have arisen and have since been destroyed. Many humans have been brought in to help. The digital world has been rebuilt more times then can even be remembered.. And every time the world has been rebuilt, everytime the designated creator or group of creators have perished, the role has been passed down to individuals deemed worthy of withholding the order. But the memory of Deusmon and the legendary Warriors remains. "
"So why does it even matter then?" I asked. "If it can just get rebuilt anyway?"
"Because if deusmon is resurrected, he won't stop at the digital world, he'll destroy this world and all others he find a way into. "
"Do you know who the other chosen digimon are by chance?" I asked.
"No." She replied.
"You didn't have like some sort of meeting with the other chosen." I continued.
"Nope, she contacted us individually." Ranamon replied.
Just then Kitty popped out of my digivice.
"Sorry master, I overslept." She said before realizing that everyone was in the bus and staring at her.
"That's allright." I said.
"You can sleep in their?" Saphy asked, surprised.
"You can't?" Kitty asked.
"No, it's too bright." Saphy said.
"I don't have that problem." Kitty replied. "Anyway, hi everybody. What's going on?"
"Just talking about what we're going to do today." I replied.
"How was your nap?" Ranamon asked with a slightly sarcastic tone. Phoebe glared at her out of jealousy when she put her arms around me, though she probably wouldn't admit it.
"It was good." Kitty replied. "I'm good to go now."
"Good because we're ready." Phoebe said." We're going to follow Tactimon around while the others wait for us to come back."
"Ok." Kitty replied.
"So Claire, Henry, you follow us to the city, Zari can you drive again?" Phoebe asked.
"Yeah sure." Zari replied.
"Good." Phoebe said.
"Right see you there." Henry replied as he and Claire got off the bus and Zari clambered into the driver's seat.
"Can I get a hug too?" Phoebe asked.
"Yeah, just come here baby girl." I said. "I'll give you all the hugs you could want, I'll even throw in a few kisses."
"Awwwee Cj." She replied as I went out of my way to make her feel as special as she was to me.
"You jealous?" I asked my beloved.
"Maybe a little." Phoebe replied as she sat on my lap.
"I'm sorry." Kitty said.
"Oh it's not your fault, Cj's just really huggable." Phoebe said before kissing me on the cheek.
"I know right?" Kitty agreed.
It was a strange trip back to the city with both girls seemingly trying to emasculate me as much as possible. Ranamon just kept to herself, and Zari was too busy driving to comment on much of anything.
As predicted, Tactimon was busy invading the city looking for us. The smoke plumes and fleeing crowds of lesser digimon gave away his location. Using them as a guide, we got as close as we felt we could without being seen by his forces. Then Phoebe and I got off the bus while the others retreated.
"Zari wherever you go, try to stay out of buildings so I can find you later." Phoebe said before our friends drove away. "Find somewhere safe but exposed so I can find you."
"Safe, but exposed, right, got it." Zari replied with some sarcasm as those things were somewhat contradictory.
Anyway while they went to find the mythical oxymoronic place that is safe, but exposed. We took our digimon with us, but they were both inside the digivices, it was easier for Phoebe to teleport that way. We were met with a scene of Tactimon's forces pillaging the city. A scene that was hard to watch, especially because we couldn't do much of anything to stop them without blowing our cover. Or atleast I couldn't, Phoebe managed to keep herself preoccupied by discreetly using her powers to force a few of the Kogamon's shurikens off target. Allowing a few lesser digimon to escape to safety. However there was nothing she could do about the Musyamon setting buildings on fire.
And there was Tactimon, standing in the middle of all this destruction, surrounded by bodyguards, barking commands at his minions. The faster Kogamon were chasing down civilians while the Musyamon were laying waste to the buildings, with their swords. It was quite a thing to see, they could cut through the walls as if they were made of paper. The poor defenseless buildings and market stalls had no chance at all. Anyway, this chaos went on for about ten minutes or so before Phoebe couldn't take it anymore.
"We have to reveal ourselves Cj, or else he'll destroy everything." She whispered as we were watching the destruction from the safety of a rooftop.
I didn't like what she said at all, but I knew she was right. Tactimon was more than willing to take down this entire city just to find us. Whatever digimon survived would be left without homes. Why was she always right?
"Ok. " I agreed. "But let's be smart about this." I said as I carefully scanned the battleground below.
"Let's take down as many as we can without alerting Tactimon, and then we'll go for him." I said.
"We can't kill him yet Cj, or we'll never figure out where the villagers or Claire and Henry's pokemon are." Phoebe said.
"So how are we going to do this then?" I asked.
"You stay here, Ranamon and I will go try to stop those ninja guys trying to kill everyone." She said.
"Ok, and what am I supposed to do?" I asked.
"Try to save the buildings somehow?" She said.
"Without getting caught?" I asked.
"Yeah, exactly, now I gotta go." She said as she planted a kiss on my cheek. "Don't get hurt again."
She teleported away before I could respond. I spotted her on the roof of another building acrosss the street, but it was only a moment before she teleported again.
I was alone, for only a moment before I decided to go and get Kitty out.
"Wah?" She said as soon as she materialized.
"Shh, stay down, we're here." I said as I moved to keep her from getting up which would likely blow our cover completely. I was lucky she was already laying down.
"Where'd mistress Phoebe go?" She asked.
"We split up for the moment." I said. "Now shhh, we can't let them hear us."
"Who?" She asked.
"Tactimon, he's right over there, and any of his goons for that matter." I explained.
"They're wrecking the place!" She said.
"Yeah I know we've been watching them for ten minutes." I replied.
" Yeah well are we going to stop them or what?" She asked.
"When the time is right." I replied. "We need to do this carefully. Or they'll all come at us at once, and I highly doubt Tactimon will fall for your usual tricks."
"What makes you so sure?" She asked.
"Well, for starters, even his goons were starting to figure it out yesterday." I replied.
"Yeah, well, that's not the only thing I know how to do." She said. "There's not as many as yesterday, this will be easy."
"Now what makes you so sure?" I asked.
"Because we're together, here go to your inventory on the digivice and get ready to press, um, I think it's the middle button when I give the signal." She replied.
"Why?" I asked.
"I'm going to get you a present." She said before quickly leapin off the edge of the building.
"Hey, what the hell?" I said out of shock which only grew when I looked over the edge and realized that, somehow, she landed it perfectly. She ran to the nearest musyamon which was laying waste to a building, and slashed him across the waist, within the next five seconds it dropped it's sword, fell to its knees and turned into data. She held up its sword, I took that as the signal she meant and pressed the button. It then converted into data as well which then visibly entered the digivice. its screen lighting up as it did so, It's image then appeared on the screen, and after the pressing the button, again it re-materialized on the ground in front of me.
"What the hell ? " Was all I could say.
The sword was a lot lighter than its size would suggest, yet it was also solid and metal. I didn't have much time to examine it or even fully grasp what just happened before another musyamon jumped up to the roof and came at me with it's own sword. Then something even crazier happened as the sword I was holding seemed to have a mind of it's own. It blocked the musyamon's attack and then we got into an intense sword fight that I never would have been able to do with a normal sword. It was like everything I wanted to do, it did, in a manner much faster, stronger, and more precise than I could have done without it. Of course there were drawbacks as well, it was doing quite a number on my arms and after five minutes of matching the musyamon blow for blow they were completely exausted, if I wasn't holding the damned thing they probably wouldn't be able to move at all.
"Just as I thought. You're not worthy to hold such a sword." The musyamon chuckled. "It will rip your arms clean off if you keep going."
"Yeah, well, so what?" I said as the blade held itself up, both my arms throbbing in pain. I was just trying to grin and bear it.
"So, this should be easy." The musyamon replied as it raised its sword as well, meanwhile Kitty was fighting others on the streets below with a bit more success, racking up an impressive number of kills, and Phoebe and Ranamon were somewhere further down the street, trying to intercept a gang of Kogamon who were harassing and attempting to murder innocent civilians. Ranamon's draining rain attack had a good amount of coverage, so it was easy to slow them down. But things were just getting started, because Tactimon decided to attack, and what's he do? He created a giant frigging tornado out of nowhere. I got blown off the roof, probably would've died, but the sword took over and made sure it hit the ground first, in a small square of dirt in the sidewalk where a tree was planted. It somewhat broke my fall, and dislocated my arm again in the process. So much for not getting hurt. I don't know where Kitty went. There were several flying musyamon landing all over the place, as the tornado quickly subsided as soon as it had appeared. The sword yanked itself out of the ground, sending a huge wave of pain through my arm. Everything was happening so fast now. A different musyamon than the one I was fighting before smacked into the side of a building just a few doors down the street. It got up, quickly came to its senses, and charged at me. I had enough time to grab the sword with my other arm and defend, I was pushed back quite a ways and I felt my arm was going to shatter, but the sword deflected the blow and I was able to roll out from under its blade and deal a fatal slash across its back. Somehow I managed to defeat a digimon by hand, but both my arms felt like they were going to fall off, and it was getting to the point where it was starting to take all my effort just to deal with the pain. You know if you've ever worked out you get those microtears in the muscles and they hurt for awhile? It was like that times eleven. My arms were just dead, I couldn't move them at all without the sword, and if I used the sword to move them, they hurt even more, which I guess was a good sign that they weren't completely paralyzed. I was in so much pain I just ducked into an alleyway, and hoped somebody would find me before another musyamon, or even Tactimon himself. I also hoped Zari had enough of that healing goop to cover this. Phoebe was going to freak out again, I knew that for sure, I was well passed just getting hurt.
-meanwhile-
"These spinny things are fun!" Phoebe exclaimed. She had aquired a substantial amount of shurikens from the defeated kogamon, after Ranamon showed her how to load them into the digivice. Jt turned out that I wasn't the only one experimenting with digimon weapons. And when Phoebe combined her own powers with these things it made them even deadlier than when the Kogamon were using them, as she could make them spin extremely fast and manipulate them in air so they could follow a target, with no real drawbacks to speak of. For the first time in a few days, they were both having an easy time.
"Ranamon, can you keep this up for me?" Phoebe asked.
"Why what's wrong?" Her digimon replied out of concern.
"I need to check on Cj, something's not right." She replied.
"Come back soon, I don't know how long I can hold them back." Ranamon replied.
" Oh don't be silly, you were doing fine yesterday." Phoebe replied. "I need to go, I'll be back when I'm sure he's ok."
With her powers and only 4 life forms she could read in the entire city, it wasn't hard for her to find me as long as I was conscious. So she inevitably found me in the alleyway about ten minutes later. Tactimon was busy watching his musyamon destroy the city for him. Kitty was off fighting a few that had separated from the others because of the tornado. We never found out where exactly she went.
"Cj." Phoebe called out as she saw me slumped agains the wall."I told you not to get hurt and look what happened."
"Yeah, hehe, I . . . . can't move my arms." I replied as she walked over to stand in front of me.
"Nice sword." She cutely said.
"Yeah, it's uh, yeah." I struggled to reply as she plopped down in front of me.
"What happened?" She asked.
"I killed a musyamon, and the sword screwed up my arms."
"You killed it? With the sword?" She asked.
"It's a magic sword or something, I don't know, it makes you way stronger than you actually are." I replied. "But with a cost."
"Come with me." She said as she offered me her hand. "I guess I can't let you out of my sight."
"Honey, I seriously can't move my arms." I replied.
"Where's Kitty?" She asked.
"I don 't know, I haven't seen her since the tornado."I replied.
"There was a tornado?" She asked.
"Yeah, Tactimon can apparently generate tornados." I replied. "Same sword that I think broke every bone in my arms also saved my life. Must've fallen like 100 feet or so."
"That does it, I'm not letting you out of my sight ever again." She insisted. "Come on, let me take you somewhere safe, then I can go find Zari and we can get your arms fixed."
"If you say so, not much going on here." I replied.
"Where's you digivice, you can put the sword inside and take it with you." She said.
"Oh you figured that out too?" I asked.
"Mhm, Ranamon showed me." She replied as she retrieved the device and then pressed a button on it which caused the sword to digitize and flow into it. I can't really think of a better way to describe it. After that was taken care of she wrapped her arms around me, which drove me crazy cause I couldn't do the same to her, and then she teleported us around to a few different buildings before stopping on the roof of one that was pretty far away.
"You should be safe here. I'll go finish off the ninja guys, I won't be long I promise." She said before kissing me on the cheek. "I love you."
"I love you too baby." I replied as I watched her close her eyes in order to teleport away a few seconds later. She didn't need to be so protective, but I guess I was slightly better off than before. Atleast now I didn't have to worry about a musyamon rounding the corner and finding me. I managed to stand up without the use of my arms and look over the edge of the building. I briefly saw her in the distance, but quickly lost track of her after she teleported again, other than that, not much was going on, the streets below were empty as the residents either fled or were hiding.
Meanwhile, Kitty was still MIA and the rest of the gang were staying out of the battle on the other side of town. Ranamon was trying to hold off several Kogamon on her own, but she was starting to get overwhelmed, the kogamon were fast, and many of them were dodging her attacks and pelting her with more shurikens. She was nearly done for when Phoebe returned and began to stem the tide.
"Don't leave again , there's too many of them!" Ranamon desperately cried out, relieved that her tamer showed up just in time to deflect the shurikens that were just moments from striking her face." These things really hurt you know?"
"I know, and I'm really sorry, but Cj's really hurt. " Phoebe replied as she began to release several more shurikens out of her digivice while using her powers to keep them suspended in the air around her. Normally it would be difficult for her to manipulate this much metal, but these shurikens weren't exactly ordinary. Like the sword, they had a habit of boosting the user's abilities, but since Phoebe wasn't using them like a normal person, there wasn't much of a drawback.
"So am I." Ranamon stubbornly replied.
"He can't move his arms. " Phoebe replied. "It's a bit more serious than just a few cuts."
"Oh, really?" She questioned.
"Yes really." Phoebe replied as she projected her shurikens at the enemy Kogamon. A few were caught off guard, others managed to dodge, but since Phoebe's powers essentially gave these things homing abilities, all they could really do was run.
"I'm sorry I left you, but if anything happens to him." Phoebe began.
"I get it, you're in love." Ranamon interupted.
"It's not just that, he's the father of my children." Phoebe replied.
"What does that mean?" Ranamon asked.
"I'll explain it later." Phoebe replied. " What is that thing?" She asked as a karatenmon approached from the sky.
"Another one of Tactimon's army?" Ranamon guessed.
"Identify yourself!" Phoebe demanded as she surrounded the being with shurikens.
The creature span around so fast it threw all the shurikens into the ground, overpowering Phoebe's abilities.
"He's not friendly." Phoebe replied as she recalled the weapons to her digivice.
"I am Karatenmon, Lieutenant under Tactimon, you're going to need more than those toys to hurt me." The being said, cackling as it landed in front of them.
"Good, those ninja guys were getting boring." Phoebe replied as the karatenmon drew its swords and attacked Ranamon with blinding speed.
"Ranamon!" Phoebe called out.
Ranamon was hurt bad, but Phoebe barely had time to check, she had to quickly teleport out of harm's way to dodge karatenmon's blades as he was now after her. Realizing she was outmatched, she called Ranamon back to the digivice and tried to put as much distance between herself and karatenmon as possible. However Karatenmon was fast and somehow able to keep up with her despite her teleporting.
She sent Cloudela out as she started to get tired so the cloud pokemon could do what it seems to do best, pelting things with underpowered lightbeams and causing a distraction as Karatenmon tried to swat it out of the sky to no avail, its swords harmlessly passing through the sturdy pokemon. The lightbeams weren't powerful enough to kill him, but they were painful enough to annoy him and draw his attention. This would buy Phoebe enough time to get her shurikens back out. Then the real fighting began while Ranamon was taking a break inside the digivice.
Karatenmon had to ignore Cloudela in order to defend itself from the stream of shurikens under Phoebe's control. It deflected them with it's swords and sent them flying all over the place, embedding them into the ground, nearby buildings, and one unfortunate newspaper dispenser.
"I told you that won't be enough" It said as it prepared to go on the offensive. It charged at her, Phoebe teleported a fair distance behind it and hit it in the back with a shadowball. It quickly dodged it and charged at her again. This basic sequence repeated itself for awhile, with Phoebe landing about 3 hits, none of which slowed it down. Karatenmon then decided to change tactics. It started flapping it's wings, at a rate that was so fast it generated a projectile shockwave. Phoebe got hit, but not fatally, Cloudela was caught in the wind and though it wasn't hurt, it was blown almost two blocks away. Ranamon recovered from her injuries and left the digivice on her own volition. Immediately launching a draining rain attack that slowed karatenmon and put him back on the defensive. Phoebe started throwing shadowballs again to take advantage of this, and combined with her teleporting, the now lethargic karatenmon was having trouble keeping up.
"Ranamon you ok?" Phoebe asked.
"I'll hold him back, you take him out." She replied in a strained voice that suggested she was in pain.
"Right, Phoebe said as she began to assemble her shurikens around her with her right hand while throwning tiny shadowballs at karatenmon with her left. It was difficult for her to concentrate, but it was the only way she felt that she could get a decent hit in. Despite the rain sapping his energy and a constant bombardment with shadowballs, Karatenmon managed to assume a defensive position, but it wasn't enough, the shurikens came at him in all directions, he managed to deflect the first few, but then he was too slow, he missed one that struck into the side, and before he could even grasp what happened another struck him in the back, then another, and another, ripping away at his body just like the many kogamon that fell before him, before long he was too weak to stand, until he finally lost conciousness and exposed his data stream.
Both Phoebe and Ranamon fell to their knees in exhaustion. While Cloudela was just making its way back after being blown away earlier.
"We did it, we killed him!" Phoebe exclaimed.
"We just defeated him." Ranamon replied." He'll wake up again in an hour or so."
"How do we kill him?" Phoebe asked.
"We don't." Ranamon replied.
"But what if he attacks us again?" Phoebe asked.
"Hopefully this will be over by then." Ranamon said. "Do you want his swords? They're quite powerful."
"Naah, I like these spinny thingys more." Phoebe replied.
"You can have both, and he'll be less likely to attack us again without them." Ranamon suggested.
"No thanks, I saw what those swords did to Cj." She replied." If I lose my arms I won't be able to take him home."
"Ok, if you say so." Ranamon replied as Phoebe loaded all of her shurikens into the digivice.
"You should get back in too, we need to go check on Cj again." Phoebe asked.
"But the kogamon ?" Ranamon questioned.
"We got most of them." Phoebe insisted. "Now let' go before Cj finds a way to hurt himself more."
"How's he going to do that with no arms?" Ranamon asked.
"He'll find a way, he's good at it, now let's go." Phoebe anxiously replied.
Ranamon finally entered the device and Phoebe set off for whatever building she left me on.
Of course I was still there, there wasn't really anywhere to go. My arms still hurt and I was trying to find a way to mitigate or atleast distract myself from the pain, but there wasn't really much available to do so on the roof of a random building. In the twenty minutes or so after Phoebe left. I accomplished very little aside from getting a vague idea where Kitty was when I saw what appeared to be another tornado rise above the rooftops a few blocks away alongside the numerous columns of smoke from the burning buildings. Which meant that Tactimon was over there atleast. It made me wonder if she went to try to fight him on her own. Did she know I was still alive? Did she even care? Does that even matter? It was a strange thing to think about, but it was the best distraction I could come up with at the time as I stared at that particular row of buildings intently waiting for the next tornado or whatever else Tactimon had up his sleeve.
At some point Phoebe came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my neck, catching me completely off guard.
"Cj!" She said.
"Pheebles don't do that geez." I replied out of shock.
"Sorry." She sweetly replied.
"You find Kitty?" She asked.
"I think she's fighting Tactimon, a few blocks over that way." I said as I pointed towards where I saw the second tornado.
"Ok then let's pick her up and get you healed." She replied.
"And the Kogamon?" I asked.
"Most of them are down." She insisted. "I need to get you healed quick before Tactimon retreats so we can still follow him out."
"You stay here, I'll go check it out real quick."
"Don't fight Tactimon yet." I said.
"I won't, don't worry." Phoebe replied. "I'm just going there to see if Kitty is there. Don't go anywhere."
"Where am I supposed to go exactly?" I replied, but she already teleported away before I could begin to speak.
She came back just a bit later with a very annoyed Kitty in tow.
"Unhand me we need to stop Tactimon now!" Kitty demanded, Phoebe was using her powers to restrain her.
'' We can't kill him yet or we'll never find out where his captives are." I replied. "Also where the heck have you been? You made this deal about staying together, you never thought to look for me when we got separated?
"There were Musyamon everywhere, I couldn't look for you without getting attacked."
"Eh, fair enough." I replied.
"We don't have time to keep talking about this, get in his digivice I need to find Zari so we can get his arms fixed." Phoebe said.
"What's wrong with his arms? Kitty asked.
"They broke." I said.
"They don't look broke." She replied.
"Well they hurt like hell so they might as well be." I replied.
"Was it from the tornado?" Kitty asked. "I saw you get hit, I didn't know if you made it.
"No it was a side effect from the sword." I said.
"The sword that I gave you?" She replied. "I'm sorry master I didn't."
"First off it's ok. I'll probably use it again, it helped me kill a musyamon, secondly, stop calling me master." I replied.
"No you're not using it again what if your arms fall off?" Phoebe replied.
"That won't happen, and it's worth it Pheebles, that way I can do some damage. This could be the offensive boost we've been looking for."
"Arceus, why are we still talking we need to go!" Phoebe demanded.
"You could teleport us anytime." I argued.
"I'm waiting for her to get back in your digivice." Phoebe said.
"Right, sorry. " Kitty said as she promptly dematerialized into the device.
"Ok, let's go!" I said, playfully imitating my beloved.
"Jerk." Phoebe replied.
"Pushy little, pushy person." I replied.
"What?" She asked.
"I don't know. I just want to hug you."
"Awe, Cj." She said as she wrapped her arms around me.
There was a lot of subsequent teleporting around as Phoebe searched for Zari, by the time we found where they were hiding I was starting to feel delirious from all the sudden changes in lighting and scenery. Usually it helps to close your eyes, but the delirium helped distract me from the pain in my arms. By the time we got there, Phoebe was getting a bit tired as well, but we made it.
"Zari, we need more of that healing stuff." Phoebe said the moment we arrived. She caught Zari off guard too. I saw her jump back in shock.
"Um, ok, I'll see if we have any." Zari replied. "Is Tactimon dead?"
"No he's still trying to wreck the city." Phoebe replied as we began to migrate towards the bus. "We just need a timeout because Cj broke his arms."
"How'd he do that?" Zari asked.
"I don't know, something to do with a sword." Phoebe replied.
"I'm right here." I interjected.
"Mhm." Phoebe agreed, implying she didn't care, maybe she was a bit mad at me for being so wreckless. I don't know. I was doing pretty good considering I got blown off a four story building.
We made it to the bus and I sat down on the table and with a lot of pain and some assistance from Phoebe I laid my arms acrossed it. Zari removed some more of that healing goo from her armor and both her and Phoebe began to rub it across my arms which began to hurt even more and made several strange cracking sounds. Thankfully this only went on for about ten seconds before they healed completely and I was able to use them again. After that Phoebe took a moment to heal Ranamon's wounds, and then we were off to find Tactimon again after only about 5 minutes. The smoke plumes were still highly visible, so it wasn't hard to locate him, but what was difficult was avoiding the musyamon who, because of the tornados, were scattered around the city in a fairly random fashion. Causing widespread destruction. It seemed silly at first that Tactimon would attack his own forces along with us and scatter his troops around the city, but in reality it was quite genius as it let them cover that much more ground, and it also made it that much more difficult to stop them. He wasn't even trying to find us now, he was determined to turn the city to ash and so far he was winning. It was infuriating because we couldn't kill him either, or we'd never find the captives.
So for a while we just ignored him and focused on the rampaging musyamon, trying to minimize the damage as much as possible. This in itself proved to be difficult, for the first time in awhile not because they were hard to defeat, but because there were so many of them scattered all over the place. This was quickly becoming hopeless, by the time we defeated all the Musyamon in this part of the city, the others we defeated earlier would start to wake up. Phoebe could put them out for longer, but her hypnosis abilities didn't work very well on digimon, and we didn't have time to go back and put the ones we already defeated in a deeper sleep. To put things simply, the city was doomed.
"Pheebles, I'm going to have to surrender, it's the only way we might be able to spare the city." I said as I realized the gravity of the situation.
"You can't they'll kill you." She replied.
"Maybe, maybe not. Hopefully I can convince them I'm the only one here." I said.
"Not when the ninja guys wake up." She replied.
"Well, we have to do something." I said. "Take kitty, go find Zari and the others."
"No no no no no." She refused and was close to breaking into tears. "I can't let you."
"He'll destroy the entire city, you know he will." I replied. "Besides, if I can convince him to let me work with his other captives."
"Cj no." She whimpered.
"Hey, you keep it together allright?" I replied as I wrapped my arms around her and handed her my digivice. "I expect you to break me out of whatever hell I'm about to enter."
"Cj." Was all she could say.
"Take me to tactimon, then go." I said.
She really didn't want to, but she took my hand and teleported us anyway, to some random building a few blocks away nowhere near Tactimon.
"Pheebles there's not a whole lot of time. Every few seconds they're putting another building up in flames." I replied after she just held me in sadness for about a minute without saying anything.
"Don't die." She mumbled.
"Well, I'm going to try not to baby." I replied as she drew me into a kiss while we teleported once again. When we close to tactimon she finally let me go and teleported away without saying another word. Knowing her, I knew she was still nearby, just watching somewhere.
I was in yet another alleyway. Tactimon was in the street, guarded by a pair of Musyamon, while talking to a Monitamon. They were childsize digimon, only slightly bigger than the kogamon, with heads that resembled CRT screens, it was surprising how fast they could move, though their offensive capabilities were questionable, about the same as a child. They were also extremely stealthy as we hadn't even realized they were present until now. In reality there was only about a half dozen of them out here, and instead of fighting, they were in charge of relaying communications between Tactimon and the rest of his army, a role they were pretty much designed for. Fearing the worst, I stepped out of the alleyway with my hands up.
"I surrender." I said as I walked out in front of them, immediately gaining their attention.
"What sort of trickery is this human?" Tactimon asked.
"No tricks, just stop attacking the city." I replied.
"What about the others fighting with you, where are they?" He asked.
"They're gone, they left without me." I replied.
"I dunno boss, seems pretty strange. It could be an ambush." One of the musyamon guards commented.
"If I wanted your advice I would ask for it, and no, it can't be an ambush, they would've attacked by now if that were the case." Tactimon replied. "Very well human I shall spare this pathetic excuse of a city, but if you think you can save your friends, you're wrong."
"You arrest the human, take him to the cave and put him to work."
"Ya thin we shod jus kill em?" The other musyamon guard said.
"Not until we find what we're looking for." Tactimon replied. "Then we will."
It was a long walk to the caves, even longer with a musyamon constantly prodding me everytime I so much as made a brief pause. I must have walked for nearly 4 hours. I was forced to work in the caves swinging away at the rock walls with an iron pickaxe alongside several rookie digimon, the captives we had been searching for. Of course, every prison has a warden and this one was no different. The warden here was yet another Musyamon, one that had exchanged its sword for a stun baton. Which was enough to keep the untrained rookies enslaved. My legs were already tired by the time I got there, and as I picked up the pickaxe, I felt my arms would get tired as well, but I knew I was being followed.
"So um, what are we even digging for?" I asked a nearby Armadillomon, who, instead of using a pickaxe, was merely clawing at the walls and basically doing just as well as anyone could with a pickaxe.
"Some kind of statue." It replied. "That's all we were told."
"So we're mining for a statue?" I asked.
"Yep." The armadillomon replied. "I've been here for 4 days, I just want to go home."
"Yeah well, just wait for it." I replied.
"What do you mean?" It asked.
"You'll see, just keep working." I replied.
I set to work and swung that axe a grand total of 14 times before Phoebe entered and subdued the warden, which wasn't too difficult. The passageways were so narrow she could just teleport around him and he would be completely exposed as it was awkward for him to turn around to face her. Anyway, once the warden was shurikened into submission she unchained everybody.
"I have to admit I was getting a bit worried there." I said as my handcuffs clattered on the ground.
"Oh, really? You were worried? I spent the last 4 hours thinking that that guy was going to kill you at any moment." My beloved replied. "I can't even believe that worked."
"Thankyou for saving us!" Another armadillomon said as it made it's way to the exit the one I spoke to earlier had already left the cave at this point.
"Mhm, you're welcome." Phoebe replied. "Why don't you all wait outside so we can take you back to your village?"
"Ok." Many various digimon replied.
"You think Zari and the others are still waiting for us?" I asked.
"I don't know, I hope so." Phoebe replied as I went up to her and kissed her on the cheek.
"Thanks for keeping it together." I said as she wrapped her arms around me.
"Just don't do this again." She said as she looked into my eyes. "This was scarier than that funhouse monster, you know how hard it was to follow you without being spotted?"
"Master! You're safe." Kitty announced as she promptly left the digivice and hugged me.
"Do you mind? We were having a moment. " I replied. "And stop calling me that."
Phoebe just started to laugh.
"Sorry mah- I mean Cj." Kitty replied.
"Let's get out of this stupid ass cave." I sighed.
"Ok." Phoebe replied.
"Come on Kitty, you might as well stay out and help escort the captives back to their village." I said.
"Right, ok." Kitty replied.
We left the stupid ass cave, and began a long and arduous journey back to the village. There were too many digimon for Phoebe to teleport, so we all just had to walk. Of course we couldn't just walk over there either, eventually Tactimon made his way over to the cave with a group of musyamon, for some, it probably had something to do with me, but we weren't really interested in finding out. We had the captives, we could kill him now. Ranamon came out, Phoebe let Cloudela out, I let Bubba out, I drew the sword. Phoebe gave me a death glare for a moment without saying anything, but then drew her shurikens. It was the first time I ever saw them.
"How many of those do you have baby girl?" I asked.
"Enough." She replied.
"Did you get those from the Kogamon?" I asked.
"Is that what those ninja guys are?" She asked.
"Yes those are the little ninja guys." I replied.
"Ok well, Cj just don't break your arms again." She said.
"Hehehehe, I'll try not to."
"This is unacceptable. " Tactimon said. "You will pay for your lies. Twas foolish of me to have not killed you before."
"No, no it wasn't." Phoebe replied.
"We'll see." I added.
We had to separate from the captives in order to try to keep them out of the battle.
The Musyamon charged while Tactimon prepared some sort of attack, Phoebe went straight for him with her shurikens but he was able to deflect them. Using the sword's abilities I was able to quickly defeat another one of the Musyamon that Bubba managed to box rush. I had to end these fights quickly or the side effects would destroy my arms again. All Bubba had to do was hold them still for a moment so I could go in for the kill. It was easier than last time, I wish I thought of it last time. Cloudela was keeping up its game of distraction. Kitty was fighting another Musyamon one on one. While Ranamon was throwing water-based projectiles at them, similar to shadowballs, but made out of water, not, whatever shadow balls are made out of, negative emotional energy projected in a psionically plasmatical projectile form, or something like that. Anyway, with our full combat team assembled it didn't take long before Tactimon's entire entourage was defeated. However that's also when things got more difficult as Tactimon was waiting for his own men to get out of the way so he could use his own abilities.
"It's just starting, you haven't even seen a glimpse of my power." He said.
After fending off another volley of shurikens from Phoebe, and before anyone else could think to attack him, he merely stuck his sword in the ground, and it began to shake. The only things that didn't fall on their butts after five seconds was Phoebe who quickly used her powers to levitate, Cloudela who was always levitating, and Tactimon himself. It was clearly up to them to finish him, I couldn't even get back up with the sword's abilities, Bubba and digimon weren't having any luck either. Bubba withdrew into his shell while Phoebe recovered her shurikens which Tactimon managed to avoid yet again without even using his sword to block them, the rest of us were beaten silly by the earthquake which subsided after about 2 minutes. Tactimon then pulled his sword out of the ground and tried to go after Phoebe. Only for Bubba to pop out of his shell and and shoot him with hydrocannon. It hit him dead on and forced him to the ground but he recovered while Phoebe teleported to safety. I just managed to get up when he forced his sword into the ground for the second time, which unlike the earthquake caused by the first time, annoyingly caused all the Musyamon we had just defeated to instantly revive and get back up. So then we had to beat them again. While Tactimon himself went after Phoebe using the guns on his back, he seemed to be convinced she was the most major threat. Thankfully she was still in top form and able to avoid his attacks. His guns fired projectiles that were kind of slow, but explosive. Easier to avoid than bullets but would really suck to get hit by. Like a grenade launcher basically. The captives had fled after the earthquake subsided, which was probably for the best. With a slight bit of difficulty and a lot more teamwork then before we managed to defeat his entourage for the second time. We were all bruised except for Bubba, but we weren't out yet.
Then he suddenly left Phoebe and made a move towards us, before anyone could react he drove his sword into the ground a third time which instantly caused a massive explosion. We were all helplessly tossed into the air, Phoebe didn't even escape this one, though she was on the edge so she still didn't get hit as hard. The sword did its magic and saved my life again. Bubba withdrew into his shell and recovered without injury. Kitty and Ranamon were conscious, but struggling to get back up. Cloudela, I honestly don't know where Cloudela went, my only guess is that it got sent into the stratosphere. It was just gone.
To make things worse Tactimon started firing at us, making more explosions, before Phoebe threw more shurikens at him which forced him to go on defense. It became clear we had to keep him from driving his sword into the ground again. Kitty charged at him, Bubba hit him with a hydro cannon, Ranamon threw more water balls at him. I came at him with my sword. Phoebe came at him with her shurikens. Another earthquake occurred. We were all beaten silly, but Tactimon didn't survive the ordeal, he fell dead with his data stream exposed and that ridiculously overpowered sword still stuck into the ground.
Our digimon absorbed his data stream, while his sword was put into my digivice.
"Cj, you can have it, but don't use it." Kitty said. "Don't even remove it from it's sheath."
"Oh hell, he never unsheathed it this entire time did he?" I asked when I realized.
"Yeah I won't use it for a while. I haven't even figured this one out yet." I said as I stashed the other sword in my digivice as well.
"No, never use it, I'm serious, that sword could easily destroy this entire world, and you along with it." Kitty said.
"Where's Cloudela?" Phoebe interjected.
"I don't know baby, I haven't seen him since the explosion." I replied.
"So Kitty is there anything else the digivice can do?" I asked.
"You can monitor my health, so you can kind of do the math and see how badly I'm hurt and hopefully call me into the digivice before I turn into a data cloud. It's on the status screen" She said.
"I see." I replied as I checked it out.
"You're at 86 percent." I said.
"Yeah could use some healing." She replied.
"We'll get to that in a bit." I said.
Pheebles did you get that?" I asked.
"I'm looking around for Cloudela." She said.
Anyway, we had to wait around for about twenty minutes for Cloudela, who finally came down from the sky after apparently being sent into space by the earlier explosion. Kitty was starting to wonder if it survived at all, but Phoebe wouldn't let us leave until it came back or we found proof of its demise. Thankfully it was the former and not the later. About five of the captives that were with us earlier returned, out of atleast 20, but with Tactimon out of the way we were sure they could make it back home on their own. We really needed to get back to Zari and the others, before they skipped town and went off on their own. Unfortunately they already left, but they were nice enough to leave our bus behind as well as a few globs of that healing stuff. It wasn't that big of a deal, we'd catch up to them in the next town or so. Tactimon's army was retreating back to the castle despite Tactimon's demise. We took our bus and went back to the hotel, planning to spend one more night in luxury before what could be several nights without.
Later that evening in the hotel room I was having a chat with my beloved. Our digimon were messing around in the lobby like they had been when we first met them.
"Do you think the others will be fine on their own?" Phoebe asked.
"They seem to think so." I replied. "Maybe they'll have their own digimon next time we see them."
"Maybe." She agreed.
"I didn't kill my arms." I proclaimed.
"Yeah, but you got banged up." She replied.
"So did everyone else." I said. "Cloudela got to be an astronaut."
"Hehehe, it couldn't have gone that high." She giggled.
"That's what it looked like." I replied.
"You're not going to use Tactimon's sword are you? "She asked. "Why do you even have it?"
"I don't know, just seemed cool." I said.
"Look if that other sword broke your arms what do you think that one will do to you?" She asked.
"Turn me into Tactimon?" I asked.
"I just don't want you to get hurt Cj." She replied.
"I don't want you to get hurt." I replied.
"I won't." She cutely said.
"You mean you didn't get caught in that explosion?" I asked.
"Well ok, I got bruised, so what, big deal. " She defended.
There was an awkward pause as we just gazed into each other's eyes.
"You want to have some fun?" She asked.
"We haven't found Henry and Claire's pokemon yet."
"So ?" Phoebe asked.
"So, I'm still holding you to your promise." I replied.
"But it wasn't a promise." She said. "And what if they find them on their own and we have nothing to do with it?"
"Then we'll have an orgy." I replied.
"No, no orgies, just you and me." She said.
"Really? " I asked.
"Yes." She replied.
"I'm impressed." I said.
"Are you sure we can't just have some fun before bed? " She asked. "It would mean alot to me." She said as she tried to look as cute as she possibly could. Too cute, in fact, I just had to kiss her, and she tried to lure me into a deeper kiss, but I had to cut it short because dammit I couldn't let her weed her way out of this. I needed to hold her accountable. As much as I loved her and as much as I wanted to screw her brains out, I couldn't give in. It was too early to sleep yet, so I tried to talk about other things.
"Well, today you saved me again baby girl." I said.
"Mhm, and you didn't get hurt as badly as I thought you were going to. " She replied. "Do I get a reward?"
"In time." I replied.
"Can we do it in the shower?" She asked. "We could use a shower we've been walking around alot."
"No means no Pheebles." I replied. "You're like a teenager bugging their parents about a cellphone."
"Well can you at least play with me?" She asked.
"Honey I really want to, but we can't, if we start playing around we'll probably start doing it."
"Why can't you just forget about that stupid non-promise and take me?" She asked.
"Why can't you just forget about sex until we get Henry and Claire's pokemon back?"
"Because I love you and we need to be together." She said.
"We're together now." I replied.
"Not mechanically." She whined.
"Oh screw it, I can't say no to those eyes." I replied. "Go start the shower up."
"Mmk, wuv you." She cutely said, kissing me sensually before she got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.
"This is going to backfire horribly." I interjected.
"Oh relax, it's been a long day, let's have some fun." She replied. "Then we can fall asleep in each other's arms and wake up tomorrow and nobody will know, and don't even think about leaving the room, I will find you." She replied.
"I know baby girl, they're just, entertaining thoughts." I replied, and yes, for a moment I was considering it, until I remembered she was no ordinary girl.
"Well I'll give you something else entertaining to think about in a little bit." She said.
"I know, you're literally the most entertaining thing in all of my existence." I said.
"Aww, Cj." She cutely replied as she turned on the shower, stripped off her clothes and beckoned me inside when the water was hot.
I've described what happens when we're in the shower together many times before, I don't feel like I need to explain it further other then we eventually stumbled out of the shower and landed in bed naked, in each other's arms. It was getting late, so it wasn't that long before we drifted off to sleep.