Forbidden Fusion

by killalao

explicit multiversal adventure with lots of cute girls.

42. The insect king Pt1

-chapter 42-

The machine city was completely destroyed overnight, but not without heavy casualties. Volkheim's army retreated as soon as they figured out we weren't there anymore, not even remotely interested in taking on Darkdramon's army. As they left the city, Darkdramon's army continued to ransack the place in search of that damned statue. It was a disaster. Ourselves, a handful of kokuwamon that were able to escape through the labyrinth, and the half dozen mechanorimon that flew us out of there were the only survivors. Most of darkdramon's army survived unscathed. While Volkheim's suffered some substantial losses. Many of the ogremon and musyamon we destroyed had their data absorbed by darkdramon's forces, killing them for good and making darkdramon's army that much stronger. The kogamon would've all been done for if the musyamon hadn't made an effort to save as many as they could.

Anyway, I woke up feeling stronger than yesterday, but everyone woke up sore that morning. Phoebe was asleep, so out of pure love I just kissed her softly until she woke up and kissed me back.

"I'm glad you're ok" She said as she put her hand to my lips to stop to my shenanigans. "But what happened to you trying to make me keep my promise?"

"You're amazing and I love you." I said.

"Oh Cj." She replied. "You'd do the same for me, I know you would, you've done it before."

"That's why I decided I want to take my promise more seriously Cj." She said. " Aside from that, right now you just need to relax, we'll have some fun once we have Henry and Claire's pokemon back, and when you're in better health."

"Does Kitty still think I'm going to die?" I asked.

"Well she wasn't wrong." She replied. "You did die."

"That sounds creepy you know that?" I asked.

"You want me to bring her in here?" She asked with a mischievous smile. "She won't go back into the digi vice until she knows you're ok."

"Naw, I'll talk to her later. Let's just have you and me time now." I said.

"I could use some of that time." She replied with a not so mischievous smile.

"And you were right, everyone got hurt." She said as she rolled onto her back. "You should see Henry, his face looks like a balloon."

"Hehe." I replied.

"Claire got shot." She said in an oddly casual tone.

"What? Is she ok?" I asked.

"It's just in the arm." Phoebe replied. "She was screaming about it, but she'll be fine, Kitty pulled the bullet out."

"With her claws?" I asked.

"No she just turned it into data." She replied. "Anyway, I got burned."

"By what?" I asked.

"The samurai guys." She replied. "Zari gave me some cream and I got it healed last night, it didn't take too much."

"Uh huh, sure." I said.

"No seriously, they have that flaming attack, you know, you've used it before, and even though I dodged it, it burned me." She said. "I didn't get far enough away."

"Did you really dodge it then?" I asked.

"Well I dodged the sword." She replied.

"I guess that is the most important thing." I said.

"I also cut myself trying to save you, there was so much broken glass." She said.

"Yeah, that's understandable." I said. "Anyway, what about Zari ? "

"She got banged up just like Henry." She replied. "Those mechanorimon must not be very safe."

"Well there's no padding, everything is just metal, it's like a tank, but tanks usually don't get knocked down." I said. "Then again it was probably designed for digimon to pilot rather than humans. Now that I think about it, kokuwamon probably doesn't bruise very easily."

"Yeah, probably." She replied.

"So what are we going to do?" I asked.

"We should just take a break, and get a chance to heal." She replied as she turned to face me. "And you need to rest so you can get your strength back.

I'm going to go see if Zari has more of that cream, you stay here. Your back is still cut up pretty bad." She said as she got out of bed.

"Ok." I replied.

She got up, got dressed and headed outside where our friends and digimon were hanging around, she came back about 2 minutes later.

"You get some?" I asked.

"Yeah, but not a whole lot." She replied. "Roll over."

I did as she said, she applied the cream to both my arms and back. It worked its magic, and I felt slightly better. Still a bit tired and delirious though.

"If you keep getting hurt like this you're going to run out of shirts." She said.

"Yeah, well, I don't even know what to say Pheebles." I replied.

"You don't have to say anything." She said as she layed down next to me. "I just wish you wouldn't get hurt so much."

"Well it's not like I try to get hurt baby girl." I replied as I put my arm around her.

"I know, but," She paused for a moment before saying something completely different.

"I guess I should tell you the mechanorimon are still with us. They said roboboy placed them in our command. They don't really have a home to go back to."

"Ok. Well that's interesting." I said as I tried to get up. "Maybe now we can figure out what's in that stupid tower?"

"Not today." She insisted as she pulled me back. "Today you rest."

"Pheebles I'm feeling a lot better, really." I said.

"Not enough." She replied. "I'll stay with you, maybe we can have some fun dreams together? It will help pass the time."

"Yeah, maybe." I replied as I layed back down beside her.

"And then I'll get you some cabbage and everything will be good." She continued.

"If you say so." I replied.

Phoebe made sure I spent the entire day in bed, keeping me occupied by using her powers to keep my mind engaged in countless sexual and romantic fantasies, only waking me up so we could eat.

Sometime later the next morning arrived, and once again I was feeling better than the day before. She seemed to still be sleeping next to me, so I decided to take a look outside and let her rest for a bit.

"Cj wait." She said as she grabbed my arm as I tried to get out of bed.

"Oh you're awake?" I said, just a bit surprised.

"I think I've had enough time to sleep baby girl." I replied. "I haven't seen anyone but you since I got hurt."

"Ok, but let me go with you." She insisted.

"All right, if you want to." I replied. At this point I was wondering if we were the only survivors, but this fear was put to rest five minutes later after we got dressed and left the bus. Everyone cheered as I emerged which was awkward.

"Master, you're ok." Kitty said with relief.

"There you go calling me that again." I said.

"Sorry." She replied as she hugged me. "Phoebe wouldn't let me see you, she said you needed to rest."

"He did need to rest." Phoebe replied.

"I got shot." Claire said.

"Yeah, Phoebe told me you screamed like a banshee." I said.

"She did." Henry chuckled.

"I didn't say it like that." Phoebe blushed as she tried to defend herself.

Zari was busy cutting up the rest of her vest, storing the cream into a plastic soda bottle she apparently found in the back of Henry's car.

"Quit getting hurt so bad, we're running out this stuff." She said. "There's a bit more in my boots and gloves, but not much."

"Noted." I replied.

"So these mechanorimon are with us now?" I asked. There were seven of them all just standing around motionlessly, they were the ones that helped us escape.

"That is correct." One of them said. "HighAndromon ordered us to follow your commands."

"Cool." I replied.

"That means we can fight now right?" Henry asked.

"Yeah, as long as you don't get creamed like I did." I replied.

"That won't be a problem." Zari said.

"As long as I don't get shot again." Claire said.

"Those were the only digimon I've seen that use guns." I said. "Actually you know we should probably go back there, see if we could scavenge some of those guns."

"Maybe you got hit harder than I thought." Phoebe said.

"What?" I asked.

"That is not a good idea, king HighAndromon went offline at precisely 19:37 yesterday." One of the mechanorimon spoke. "The machine city has fallen."

"You guys are all networked together aren't you?" I asked the one that just spoke.

"That is correct." It replied.

"What does that mean?" Phoebe asked.

"It means they basically have telepathy, but only among themselves." I replied. "They can communicate just like you can with me."

"As well as with most other machine digimon." One of them corrected.

"How much range do your communications have?" I asked.

"It depends on the geography of the area." One of them replied. "Approximately 20 miles out here where nothing is in the way, in a forest it would get reduced to about 10, in cities about 5."

"Cool." I replied.

"Allright then, what are we going to do today?" Henry asked.

"We should move, they were after that statue, they're still going to be, and they're probably heading for us right now." Zari said.

"We could go check out the tower." Henry said.

"Yeah we could do that pretty quickly, since we can fly now." I replied.

"I don't think that's a good idea, what if we have to fight the giant spider lady again?" Phoebe asked.

"We have mechanorimon now baby girl, it'll be easier." I replied. "Or atleast it should be, what do you say guys?"

"I say no." Claire disagreed.

"You haven't wanted to do anything since the giant spiders attacked." Henry pointed out.

"I got shot yesterday." Claire replied with a great amount of frustration.

"Yeah and you survived, and you're healed now so what's the problem?" Zari asked. "I say we go, we really shouldn't stay in one place for too long, that army could be coming for us as we speak."

"Allright so it's 3 to 2?" I asked.

"Wait what about our digimon?" Phoebe asked.

"I agree with whatever Cj says." Kitty said.

"Ranamon?" Phoebe asked. "I'll agree with you Phoebe, not that it really helps."

"What about Cloudela?" Phoebe asked. "I know it will agree with me."

"Mhm, that's why it's vote doesn't count." I said.

"Why shouldn't it?" Phoebe asked.

"Because then Bubba would agree with me." I said.

"So you want to settle this with a pokémon battle is what you're saying?" Phoebe asked.

"No." I replied. "That's a terrible idea Pheebles. Waste one of our pokémon in an argument about what we're going to do today?"

"Yeah, you're right, it is." She agreed.

"Well what do the mechanorimon think?" Zari asked.

"We are under your command, we are not worthy of making decisions." One of the mechanorimon decided to answer.

"Yes you are, why wouldn't you be?" Phoebe said.

"I change my vote." Claire suddenly announced after having a separate conversation with Henry over the past minute or so.

"What why?" Phoebe asked.

"Because, what if our pokémon are in that tower?" Claire replied.

"Ok we'll go." Phoebe sighed. "but Cj, please stay back if a fight starts ok, for me, please?" Phoebe asked as she took my hands and looked me in the eye. "I don't want you to get hurt again."

I threw my arms around her and pulled her into a hug.

"Fair enough." I replied.

"Group hug!" Kitty cheered.

"No group hugs." Phoebe said as she briefly used her powers to keep Kitty away from us. Keeping her gaze fixed on me the whole time. This was our moment, which we somehow managed to get lost in. For a moment we forgot we weren't the only ones present and it went on way too long to not be awkward.

"Awwwwwe." Kitty replied in disappointment as we stood there.

"Are we going to go or are you two just going to stare at each other the rest of the day?" Zari finally asked, snapping us out of whatever trance we were in.

"Hehe, yeah, come on let's go." I said as I released my wife.

"Yeah, hehe." She added with a cute giggle.

When we got to the tower, Arukenimon was back along with a hoard of dokugumon and some Cherrymon for good measure. They were waiting for us, but with an army of mechanorimon on our side they weren't as difficult to defeat as they were before. This time, after defeating several dokugumon for the second time, Arukenimon just ran away, changing into her woman form so she could slink between the trees, something our mechanical friends had trouble with. The cherrymon weren't so lucky. None of the mushroomon inside the tower even bothered to put up a fight, so we let them go.

"We just made arukenimon run away like a little baby, so if you guys know what's best for you you'll run away too." Phoebe said as we entered the basement.

"Oh no! They came back!" One of them said.

"Let's get out of here guys." Said another as the whole group began to panic.

"But what about Grankuwagamon?" Another asked.

"Screw him, let's get out of here while Arukenimon is out, we might just escape the forest." Another suggested.

And so they all left peacefully in a procession of scared little mushroom monsters, to this day their fate is unknown. Finally we were able to explore the tower. Inside there was a staircase to the upper floors, and another down to a basement of sorts. Aside from the staircases the first room was basically empty.

Hello? Who is there?" A voice called from the basement that didn't sound like a mushroomon's.

Phoebe, our digimon, and I went to explore the basement, while Henry, Claire, and Zari searched the upper floors. The mechanorimon stayed on guard outside in case any more patrols came strolling by, since they couldn't even fit through the door.

In the basement there were three jail cells, two of which were empty, and a fairly large hole dug into the floor of the basement, like they were mining for something, the hole descended into pitch black darkness. So before we went down there we decided to see who was in the one cell that wasn't empty.

We could barely see him it was so dark, but there was enough light that we could tell he was thoroughly chained to the wall.

"Who are you and why did they lock you up?" I asked.

"Trespassing." The figure replied. "They were going to execute me when Grankuwagamon returned.

"Where is Grankuwagamon?" I asked.

"How should I know? Are you going to unchain me or not?" "The figure asked.

"Who are you?" Phoebe asked.

"Dinohyumon." He replied. "Now please let me out, I have to find my weapons and get back to my boss before I am fired."

"And your boss is?" Phoebe asked.

"Um, none of your concern." He replied.

"Uh huh, how do we know you don't work for darkdramon?" I asked.

"You'll just have to take my word for it." He replied.

"Cj, we should let him go, we have no proof he's a bad guy." Phoebe said.

"Fine, unlock his chains." I said.

"You lay one hand on my baby girl you won't make it out of this forest." I said to him as Phoebe entered his cell.

"Right." Ranamon agreed while Kitty just stood behind me in silence. We watched him closely as Phoebe sent him free, once he was able to move he slowly walked out of his cell.

"I need to find my weapons, I don't know what they did with them." He said. "Then I'll be off."

"They might be upstairs." Phoebe said, always trying to be helpful. "Our friends are up there now, maybe you could ask them."

The reptilian digimon hurried up the stairs without giving any verbal response.

"What the hell?" We heard Claire yell moments later, followed by a bunch of loud crashing noises, some more yelling from Zari and Henry, and finally some broken glass.

"You want to go make sure he didn't just kill our friends?" I asked.

"Yes." Phoebe eagerly replied as she followed me up the stairs.

-A few moments later-

"He just came up here and turned the entire room upside down." Henry said. " I guess he was looking for something, but then he just gave up and jumped out the window."

"He kind of looked like the thief I saw in the city." Zari said.

"I noticed that too." Phoebe said. "But I don't think it's him. What would he be doing over here? "

"He said he was dinohyumon." I said. "I think he was lying."

"Why?" Phoebe asked.

"Because from what I remember, they have more greenish skin, his was more bluish from what I could see, and he just looked too much like a raptor, if that makes sense." I said. "I don't know what digimon he does look like, but dinohyumon he is not. Anyway, so what'd you guys find up here?"

"Nothing." Henry replied. "Just some old furniture and books written by something called alphawizardmon."

"Ring any bells Kitty?" I asked.

"No." She quickly replied.

"He might be one of the elders." Ranamon said. "I can't say for sure though."

"The elders?" I asked. "What there's a council of elders now?"

"No, I mean Digimon that have been alive since before the last reformation, I'm pretty sure HighAndromon was one for example." She replied.

"I see." I replied.

"How many are there?" Phoebe asked.

"It's impossible to know for sure, most of them stay out of the public eye." Ranamon said.

"Yeah, that makes sense." I replied.

"We know how that feels." Phoebe replied.

"How old are you two?" Claire asked.

"We're not that old." I said. "We were just, well."

"We're kind of famous." Phoebe finished for me. "It's a long story."

"Yep." I replied.

"Basically we became the poster couple for the war against team rocket, and before that we did a lot of hero type things while my world was basically being destroyed by super powerful rogue pokémon. And she's also one of the first pokémon to be a pokémon indigo league champion trainer."

"You were the runner up." Phoebe defended.

"And on top of that she's also a." I began only for Phoebe to suddenly cover my mouth.

"NO! You're not telling them that." She interrupted.

"A pornstar?" Henry guessed. Everything just clicked at that moment and I bursted into laughter while everyone else just staired awkwardly.

"No, Arceus, you weirdo." Phoebe vehemently denied. "Nothing of that nature."

"That would make a hell of a lot of sense, but no." I replied trying not to bust a gut.

"Then what could be so crazy you don't want anyone to know?" Henry asked.

"She doesn't want to tell you, or anyone really. She's always been like that." I said.

Of course we were talking about her being the princess of the Sinnoh gardevoir city. She didn't want people to know that because she didn't want the "Royal Treatment" so to speak, plus the extra attention on top of all the rest we were getting. Today I thought she would be fine with it because they were our friends, but apparently she had other ideas.

"But now we want to know." Claire said.

"No, not now." Phoebe refused to tell. "Are you done searching for your pokémon?"

"Um, just a few more floors to go." She replied.

"Ok then, let's get that done." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, we don't have all day, you know? Arukenimon might be trying to get reinforcements." I added.

"Are you going to help look?" Zari asked.

"Yeah we'll help." I said.

"Of course." Phoebe agreed.

We searched the rest of the tower, but didn't find much, there were some more books, a room full of old maps, of what oddly appeared to be the physical, real world, this digital world was connected to, the maps were just a bit off from ours, with a slightly smaller U.S.A such as about half of Texas and California being part of Mexico, and Hawaii being called East Japan. We would never figure out exactly why this occurred, although, according to Zari, a lot of the differences in borders tend to stem from differing outcomes of wars. While differences in people and continents tend to go further back before mankind had anything to do with it.

Anyway, later on that day we left the tower and we were back on our bus traveling further east around the forest, with the mechanorimon following behind us. Zari was once again being our chauffeur so Phoebe and I could basically snuggle in bed for most of the day while we set about trying to make sense of some of the books we found in the tower. There were quite a few of them, and they were all entirely hand written. We brought a few of them with us just for something to look at, as well as to make it so we at least got something for checking out the tower. If alphawizardmon was still around, I don't think they were his greatest concern. One was a guide on how things in the digital world operated. Like how quickly the trees would grow back after being cut down and what various types of wood were useful for, as well as other general commodities, it also included several diagrams intended to be helpful, but ultimately most of them were hard to understand, some weren't even necessary. Another book focused on history and described the digital world before the last reformation, it was an interesting little book, if difficult to read. Another one was even older, it was an absolutely huge history book that included excerpts from books written by digimon that existed in eons passed, a comprehensive collection of accounts dating back to nearly 20 reformations, on a mind-blowing 5000 pages, and it also included outdated maps of what the digital world was like all that time ago. It wasn't something we were ever going to read in its entirety, but it was impressive none the less. If we managed to bring it back home with us, maybe Devon Co. could have a field day with it.

As things were however, Phoebe and I studied the smaller, less intimidating books, while our digimon peacefully enjoyed the scenery.

"It has a chapter over the last humans to come through." Phoebe said. "Although the descriptions of them are pretty useless."

"Like how?" I asked.

"Jeff was short, and like many digimon, had two arms and two legs, and a head with 2 eyes. It was said that the same was true for his companions, Molly, and Timothy. They each claimed to be twelve years old, younger than the humans of the previous reformation, who according to historical record, claimed to be 15. They first arrived in the village of Asperville, which was located in the northeast corner of the western desert, it is assumed that the village did not survive the last reformation as at the time of writing it has yet to be relocated." Phoebe read from the book. "Then it also has a chapter over Deusmon, which supports what Ranamon said a few days ago."

"Does it have a map?" I asked. "That might be useful."

"Um, I don't know." Phoebe replied. "I'll look for one."

"I traveled through that desert, I only saw one village there and it's in the middle, but Indramon and his army own the place so it's not safe." Kitty commented.

"Also, when are we going to fight Grankuwagamon?" She asked. "I'm pretty sure he's one of the dark kings. I think Indramon is one too, but I'm not sure."

"We kind of have to know where he is first." I replied. "We need to find a map or something."

"I told you where Indramon is, why don't we go there?" She asked.

"Because we're already going this way." I replied. It really didn't make sense to start heading west now.

"Do you have anything to report Ranamon? What'd you see on your journey to the hotel?" Phoebe asked.

"Sorry Pheebles it was a pretty quiet journey. " Ranamon replied. "It was mostly just a long trailmon ride, there was a group that tried to derail us, but I dealt with them."

"Do you know who or what they were?" I asked.

"No, I just made it rain all over them and the trailmon left them in the dust." She replied.

"I wonder if that's what happened to the other chosen digimon." Phoebe asked. "Maybe they got attacked before they could make it to the hotel."

"Yeah probably." I agreed.

"No, Ophanimon wouldn't let that happen." Kitty replied.

"They can't be targeting us, we don't even know who the other chosen are." Ranamon said, pointing out a much more logical flaw with that statement.

"Yeah, but with all the random attacks that have been going on they may have gotten caught up in something." I replied.

"He's right." Phoebe said. "If both of you found trouble then they may have found worse."

"I hope not." Kitty replied.

"Well it's either that or they've abandoned us." I replied.

"No, they wouldn't do that would they?" Kitty asked with a hint of doubt.

"Well, if Ophanimon recruited them like she 'recruited' us, I wouldn't be surprised if they did." I said.

"Mhm, if we weren't trying to find a way out of here, we probably wouldn't have tried to help." Phoebe agreed.

"You would've, I wouldn't." I added.

"Hehe yeah probably." She replied.

"But there's so much at stake." Kitty said.

"Deusmon could still come into existence if the remaining dark rulers come across each other. Which they will as they continue to gain more ground." Ranamon added. "If that happens, not just this world will fall, but others as well, possibly even your own."

"Yeah well, crap I guess we would have to help then." I said.

"Yeah." Phoebe agreed.

"Ok, so we got Grankuwagamon, Indramon, darkdramon, who else?" I asked.

"There has to be another one in the south." Ranamon said. "After that I'm not sure."

"And on top of that we still need to find Henry and Claire's pokémon.' Phoebe said.

"Yeah, dam I keep forgetting about that." I replied.

"Hey guys, if you look towards the front you'll see there's a town coming up." Zari announced.

We looked towards the front of the bus to see yet another village that was positioned by a huge lake, the opposite bank just barely visible on the horizon. The lake was too deep for us to drive any further east. We would have to drive around the lake it in order to continue, but since we made it here, we decided to check it out to see what kind of trouble the locals would surely be in. It was a village composed of a wide variety of digimon, from amphibious geckomon and gomamon, to the more plant-like floramon. It was a happy little town that, despite its proximity to the forest, had not yet fallen under the rule of one of the dark rulers.

There were apparently enough plant and insect digimon residing in the forest itself to keep Grankuwagamon occupied for a while. Upon speaking to the residents, a handful of floramon, veggiemon, mushroomon, and tentomon refugees confirmed this. Over the course of the last few weeks they had been driven out of their own villages to escape Grankuwagamon's forces and their enslavement and now many were concerned that the village could be swarmed by dokugumon at any moment. Though most of the refugees had been around for a few weeks by now with the village remaining relatively undisturbed.

While the village itself wasn't in trouble at the moment, these refugees had some useful information pertaining to the location of other villages within the forest itself, villages that were obscured by trees and unlike the tower we had ventured to earlier, could not easily be seen from the outside.

With a tentomon voluntarily acting as our guide, it was a few hours of walking to the closest one, but we had nothing else to do so we went.

The mechanorimon should have stayed with our vehicles, since their big bulky bodies had problems navigating through the forest, but they insisted on following us, only leaving one behind to guard our vehicles. An equal number made it to the village the same time as the rest of us. The others gradually showed up overtime after getting out of whatever situation they had gotten themselves into, as they often got stuck between trees and mud holes. They were strong robots, but pretty clumsy, and oddly, despite the vibes given off by their computerized voice, they were not the brightest. There was video game ai that had better navigation than they did.

"This place is beautiful." Phoebe said when we arrived at what would be the first of many abandoned villages of tree huts. "Can we spend the night here?"

"If we can find somewhere to stay." I said. "Some of these houses are pretty small."

It quickly became clear to me that this place reminded Phoebe of her childhood home, and for that reason she liked it here. In fact it was the happiest I had seen her in a while.

"What if those spider freaks attack?" Claire asked.

"Eh, we'll be fine." I replied. "I doubt they will though, there's nothing here for them to take."

"But what about Grankuwagamon?" Kitty asked." We should try to stop him."

"Ok just tell us where he is and we will." Phoebe said.

"Um, I don't know." Kitty replied.

"Exactly." I said.

"In the middle of this forest there's an old castle carved into a huge old tree." Said the friendly tentomon that had brought us here. "If I show you where it is will you defeat him?"

"We can try if he's there, how long will it take to get there?" I asked.

"At this rate? Just a few days." Tentomon replied. "There's empty villages all around here that we can stop at along the way."

"All right, sounds good." I said.

"Hey um where did the other robots go? Only one followed us here." Henry asked.

"They have gotten stuck in the forrest." The only mechanorimon that managed to follow us here replied. "I'm sending out a radio signal, they will arrive when they can. It would be ninety - percent easier if you would let us fly."

"We told you, it's too risky, it would give away our position." Henry said as everyone else began to explore the place. There were many little structures and buildings to peek inside.

"There is only a twelve percent chance we will be spotted by enemy digimon." The mechanorimon argued.

"Yeah, but it's worth not getting spotted again." Henry replied.

"There is an eighty five percent chance that whatever spots us will not be able to defeat us." The machine digimon said matter-of-factly.

While the machine digimon continued to argue about percentages and statistics it seemed to pull out of nowhere, Phoebe and I went to check out one of the larger houses on our own while Claire and Zari explored on their own.

"Awwwwe Cj, the bed is so tiny." Phoebe said with a hint of disappointment.

Most of the residents of the village were about the size of a child, so their beds were far too small, even for Phoebe.

"Yep, guess we're sleeping on the floor, unless." I said.

"Unless what?" She asked.

"If we got multiple beds we could just line them up and sleep across them." I replied.

"Yeah, but then we have to move a bunch of stuff around." Phoebe replied.

"So?" I asked. "We can make this work, don't worry about it." I said. "Then we can move some more stuff around."

"Eh, I don't know Cj, it's not our house." Phoebe said. "I'd rather wait till we're back on the bus and you have more time to heal."

"Now you want to wait?" I asked.

I don't want you to get hurt more" She replied. "These beds don't look very safe."

"Well if you don't want to its fine." I said. "Just thought you might like a reward for taking care of me."

"Awwwwe, Cj." She replied before letting out a sigh. "Let's get the bed made first, then we'll see."

"Ok." I replied.

"What are you two doing now?" Claire asked as she saw us taking a bed out of one of the other houses.

"The beds are too small so we're trying to make a bigger one." Phoebe replied.

And so we went around the village, gathering up the beds from a few different houses. It took four of them arranged side by side to make a bed big enough that both of us could sleep comfortably on. Thankfully their small size also meant they were easy to move. Henry, Claire, and Zari figured out what we were doing and started to do the same. And by the evening we each had our own little house for the night.

"Are you feeling better?" Phoebe asked as we looked at our own handiwork.

"Yeah, a lot better now that all the moving is done." I said.

"There's a lot of gaps between the beds." She pointed out.

"Well we can move the mattresses so they're facing the other way, like a bridge." I replied.

A few minutes went by as we ended up doing just that.

"Now the blankets are too small too." Phoebe pointed out.

"We'll have to use more than one." I said. "It's still better than the floor."

"Yeah, that's true." She replied.

"So what do you want to do now?" I asked.

"Well, I want to try to keep my promise." She replied. "Even though I already broke it."

"Ok." I said after a sigh. "You are strange you know that?"

"I just want to try to do better for you." She said. "Also, I don't trust this bed."

"Oh Pheebles it's perfectly safe see?" I said as I flopped onto the bed in a somewhat reckless manner, the bed frames got pushed apart, the mattresses, there were 2, side by side, collapsed and I basically got stuck in the mattresses as they bent into a U shape between the bed frames. I wasn't hurt, as I basically landed on mattresses, but I looked quite silly.

"Really Cj? We're not even fighting anything and you found a way to hurt yourself." Phoebe teased with a giggle, which to me was partly muffled by the mattress that was now hugging my face as I tried to escape.

"I'm fine, just a bit, stuck." I replied as I attempted to get back up.

Anyway, she kindly helped me get out of whatever situation that was.

"See, it's not safe, we can't have that happening while we're trying to have fun." She said.

"Yeah, well, there's always the floor." I said.

"What floor? It's just dirt." She replied.

"Well if we could find a way to attach the . . . "

She interrupted me with a kiss.

"Not tonight Cj." She said. "Now let's fix this thing so maybe we can snuggle."

"Ok." I said after a sigh.

"I just think that the next time we have fun it should be special." She said.

"Every night with you is special baby." I replied. "Even those nights when you kick me onto the floor because you're having nightmares about some random thing."

"I hate it when I do that." She said. "And besides that, I mean more special."

"Like how?" I asked.

"Like when we get Henry and Claire's pokemon back." She said.

"I love your commitment baby girl, but I think it's a bit misguided." I said.

"What if we just had some dreams together again?" She asked.

"That would just make me want you more." I replied.

"Ok how about this, we can have fun, but you can't put it in me, cause then we won't technically be breaking the promise." She said.

"Ok sure." I replied as I put my arms around her.

"But not right now!" She said. "The others could come by at any moment"

"Ok fine." I replied.

"We could share Kitty again." She suggested after a few moments of silence. "The way she looks at you, sometimes I feel worried."

"Awwe, is my one and only baby girl jealous?" I asked.

"Well I feel like if I wasn't here she'd be all over you." Phoebe said.

"So you brought us into a threesome?" I asked.

"I figured if she was satisfied she wouldn't try so hard to steal you away." She said.

"Woah wait wait wait wait, that's why you're going around starting all these threesomes?" I asked.

"Well its part of it." She replied.

"And then there was Corina." I thought out loud. "You thought she would steal me away? She's like ten years older than us."

"Well the other part's kind of true too." Phoebe said. "And she's still pretty."

"Yeah, kind of." I agreed. "Not as much as you though."

"See it started way way back with Cionna and then I realized, I kind of liked it." She said.

"Ok, well they're not going to steal me away baby girl. Don't worry about that." I replied. "As for the other part, no sleeping around with other women behind my back you understand? That is the same as cheating. And if we're going to share somebody let me know beforehand ok so we can agree on it? Don't ask me if I want to when you're already naked in bed with her."

"I know, I'm sorry." She said.

A few more moments of silence passed.

"Actually here's an idea, why don't we share Ranamon instead?" She asked. "We had one night alone with Kitty already, now we need one night alone with Ranamon, and she's so shy, she reminds me of you when we first met."

"Ok." I replied, not really knowing what else to say to that. "Do you think the bed will support it?"

"If we're careful." She replied.

"Allright then, send her out." I said.

"Not right now, it's still daylight you goofball!" She replied.

"Damn." I said.

"And I don't really feel like it now anyway." She replied.

"Then why did you suggest it?" I asked.

"I thought you would like it more, but now I see we both don't really feel like it so it's kind of pointless."

"Ohhh, Pheebles." I sighed as I gazed into her eyes.

"Cjaaay." She replied.

"Why don't we just start snuggling first and see what happens?" I asked.

"Ok." She replied. "But not right now, let's wait until we know for sure the others won't bother us."

And as if on cue, just a few seconds later we heard a knock on the door.

"Are you two getting busy or what are you doing in there?" Zari yelled.

"Nothing, we're not doing anything." I replied.

"Zari just because we're alone does not mean we're fooling around." Phoebe replied as she used her powers to open the door. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, just checking on you." Zari replied.

"Really?" Phoebe asked.

"We're running out of beds." She said. "Henry and Claire made their own. I'm a few short, and we're out of houses to take beds from. I was wondering if maybe I could join you again tonight?"

"Zari, we'll find something for you, but we kind of just want to be alone, together." Phoebe hesitantly replied.

"Yeah." I added.

"I understand." Zari said.

"Come on then let's go see what we can find for you." Phoebe said.

So we spent the next hour trying to find somewhere for Zari to sleep that night aside from the floor, or the ground.

"Well that's the last house." Phoebe said. "I think we've taken all the beds."

It was a small village, it couldn't have been more than 30 buildings, most were small, one room houses, similar to all the other villages, a few were built into the trees, but there seemed to be a few market stalls as well as a workshop, it was there that we found something interesting. There were a few stacks of logs as well as a strange plant that looked like a cross between cotton but with engorged roots that looked like sweet potatoes. Then there were two large machines of identical appearance. There was a hopper on one side, a large metal box with a touchscreen, and a conveyor belt coming out the other side. The screen displayed some instructions with a diagram featuring text in an unknown language. However given the pictures on the diagram and the layout of the room it wasn't hard to figure out how the machines were supposed to be used. One machine took the logs and "converted" them into furniture through an unknown process. The other took in the strange plants and turned them into things like cushions, matresses, curtains, and other things normally made out of cloth, oddly not including clothes. Other than the input material, a few labels that suggested the input material, and the options that could be selected on the screen, both machines were of identical appearance.

"This is strange." I said.

"I wonder if it's like that machine that made all the mechanorimons." Phoebe asked.

"Where did it even come from?" I asked.

"I don't know. Maybe our digimon could tell us." Phoebe said as she went ahead and summoned Ranamon from her digivice.

"What's the matter Phoebe?" Ranamon asked.

"I was wondering if you would know anything about these machines. " Phoebe politely asked in return.

"They're just data conversion machines, they're pretty common. They convert certain types of data into other, more complicated types" The digimon replied. "Like this one can convert the data of these logs into that of various kinds of furniture. "

"Where do they come from?" Phoebe asked.

"I don't know." Ranamon replied. "Most of them have been around for a while."

"Maybe it can make a few more beds for Zari." I said as I started to load logs into the hopper. They weren't very big logs, just about the right size to be used for firewood, not the kind that would be hauled to the sawmill on the back of a large truck.

"She needs more than one?" Ranamon asked.

"Yes, they're so tiny." Phoebe replied as she fiddled around with the touchscreen. "I wonder if these can just make a bigger bed, hey actually we can Cj, they have every size available."

"What size do you want Zari?" Phoebe asked.

"Just big enough to sleep on." She replied.

"Um ok." Phoebe replied.

She pressed a few buttons on the machine, it turned on, the logs got pulled into it, and a loud grinding noise was heard as the machine began to shake, this went on for about thirty seconds before the machine came to a stop with a prompt coming up on screen indicating that it needed more logs. So I kept loading them in. The machine took in the logs, began to shake again, and another thirty seconds later it stopped and a pile of boards neatly stacked according to size came out the opposite end.

"Um, I guess some assembly is required." Phoebe said.

"Huh?" I asked as I couldn't see the other side of the machine at the moment.

"It just made a bunch of boards Cj." Phoebe replied.

"Great, do we have any power tools?" I asked.

"I don't see any." Zari replied.

"There's a hammer over here." Phoebe said as she retrieved the object from a nearby shelf.

"Pheebles that's a mallet." I replied as I got a look at the tool.

"What's the difference?" She asked.

"Hammers usually have an end on them for pulling out nails or shaping metal. Mallets are generally just round and used for tapping things in. They're also usually made out of wood or rubber so they don't damage whatever they're being used on. Hammers are pretty much always solid steel." I explained.

"So?" She asked.

"I don't know, I just felt like I needed to point that out." I replied. "Which house are you staying in Zari? We might as well move the boards over there."

"Come on, I'll show you." She replied.

"All right then." I replied as I moved to grab some of the boards off the conveyor belt. The boards were smooth and had a few rounded edges, though it wasn't anything fancy, it was still the equivalent of hours of work spat out of a machine in seconds. Oddly enough, some of the boards were actually larger than any of the logs put in the machine.

"Hey what's that? There's a paper here." Phoebe said as I moved a pile of boards away.

It turned out that there was a single piece of paper hiding underneath the pile of boards.

"It's the instructions." Phoebe said as she looked it over.

"Well that's a weird place for them to be." I said as Zari headed out the door. "Bring them over too, I guess."

Ranamon and Phoebe picked up some boards as well and then we brought everything over to Zari's temporary house. Then we tried to figure out how to put it together.

Construction was all based on a system of interlocking tab and slot pieces that required no glue or hardware, but it seemed like there was something strange at play. The best way I could describe it is like the standard beds in a college dorm room. Where there were little metal hooks on the frame that hook onto little metal rods in the supports, except this thing was entirely made out of wood and really should have collapsed as soon as Zari put any weight on it, but somehow the wood was so dense that it didn't. Everything also fit very tightly together to the point that it was actually necessary to use the mallet Phoebe found. The end result was a surprisingly modern looking piece of furniture. After the frame was assembled we decided to try out the other machine to make a mattress. After loading in a lot of the cotton sweet potato mutant plants the entire mattress came out compacted into a navy blue cube just small enough to fit through the slot on the output side of the machine. There was a pull string attached along with what looked like warning labels and instructions embroidered onto the side of the cube, in the same, unknown language. It was more bizarre than it was difficult to figure out, you set the fairly heavy cube on the bed frame, pull the string, and then the mattress violently decompresses and explodes out of it like a life raft on an airplane, and if you did it properly, it ends up exactly where you wanted it to be, on top of the bed frame. The sheets weren't nearly as exciting, they left the machine rolled up, ready to use. Though the machine did offer the option to pick from a selection of 256 different colors. It was the most normal thing we'd seen that day.

Anyway, after ensuring Zari had somewhere comfortable to sleep that night, we headed back to our own house of the night.

"Phoebe I think I'll go help the mechanorimon keep watch if that's ok." Ranamon asked.

"Sure." Phoebe replied. "Take Kitty with you too."

"Ok." She agreed as I summoned Kitty from my digivice, unsurprisingly she was asleep, again.

We took a moment to wake her up before heading our separate ways.

"Well baby girl we're alone." I said once we were behind closed doors.

"I'm think I'm going to let Mr. Cinders out to play for a little bit." Phoebe replied.

"Awwe come on." I begged.

"Oh Cj, it will only be for a few minutes, and then we can snuggle and then, we'll just see what happens I guess." She said as she started to dig around in her purse for Mr. Cinder's pokeball.

"Ok fair enough." I replied.

"Now come on, let's see what Mr. Cinders wants to do today." She said as she released the young pokemon. Mr. Cinders was still just a timid little strange colored Cyndaquil. We didn't really have much of a chance to train him properly. As soon as she let him out he started to explore the little house with the curiosity of a puppy before Phoebe picked him up and sat with him on the bed.

"It's not his fault, but he's making me miss my babies even more." She said with a sigh. "I want to hold my son again."

"Awwe Pheebles don't get sad now." I replied. "We'll get back to them soon."

"I almost lost you too." She said. "You don't even realize how scared I was when you died."

"What are you talking about baby girl? We never lost them, we're going to make it home, some day." I replied. "And then Charley's going to look up at you with those big blue eyes of his and demand that you make him a tv and pancakes before throwing something at Nina."

"Arceus Cj. I forgot that." She said while Mr. Cinders seemed content to just listen quietly. "He can be so silly sometimes."

"What? You're forgetting him already?" I asked.

"No, never Cj." She sternly replied. "How could you even think that?"

"Just messing with you baby." I said. "Gotta get you out of that downward spiral."

"Well, you are pretty good at it. " She replied.

"Yeah, well, it comes with experience." I said as I sat down beside her. "Atleast you have Mr. Cinders for comfort."

Cinnnnda !" Mr. Cinders suddenly chirped.

"What's that mean?" I asked.

"He agrees with you." Phoebe said.

"Ok, well thanks little guy." I said.

"Hmm, I wonder where Henry and Claire's pokemon are." She said.

"I don't know, you'd think one of the dark kings would have them."

"Well maybe we just haven't found the right one yet."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Cinda! Cindaquiil, Cinnda." Mr. Cinders spoke up.

"No I don't think they're under the bed." Phoebe replied.

"If only it were that easy." I added. "What are the bad guys even going to do with them anyway? Even our strongest pokemon have problems fighting champion level digimon, their pokemon are barely trained and would probably struggle to even defeat a rookie level. "

"That's a good question, but I don't have an answer." Phoebe replied. "I just hope they're ok Cj, for our friend's sake."

"Yeah." I agreed.

"Hey Mr. Cinders you want to go outside and explore?" Phoebe asked.

"Cinda!" The pokemon happily replied.

"All right then come on." Phoebe said as she got up and slipped on her shoes. "I'll let Cloudela out too."

"It's going to get dark soon." I said as she walked towards her purse.

"We'll be fine, come on Cj." She said as she dug around in her purse for Cloudela's pokeball. "After this we can snuggle I promise."

"Ehh ok." I replied with a sigh.

I let Bubba out too, and we all explored the village together with our only able-bodied pokemon. Bubba was still able to fight, but I had been reluctant to use him recently as he was my last remaining pokemon. Phoebe had a point, it was a nice change just to be able to let him out so we could hang out without any present danger. It was a small village, so there really wasn't much to see, and by the time that Mr. Cinders had seemingly smelled everyone and everything it was dark and time to turn in for the night. So we headed back home and returned our pokemon.

"Ok now what baby girl?" I asked as we entered our house for the night.

"Let's snuggle!" She said as she playfully hugged me.

"Allright." I said as I picked her up and carried her to the bed.

And we snuggled in silence for a while until I decided to speak up.

"Are your feet sore? You want a foot massage?" I asked.

"No Cj, I know what you're trying to do." Phoebe replied.

"I want you so badly right now." I said.

"I know, but we can't." Phoebe replied." I want to show you that I don't need to be dependent on it because I love you."

"What if we just did it one last time tonight and then committed to the promise?" I asked.

"No, because we'll just keep using that as an excuse." She said.

"Forget about the promise Pheebles, its ok, I told you I was going to be reasonable remember?"

"That was just a few days ago." She replied. "That's all you wanted me to wait?"

"It probably seemed like more to you at the time didn't it?" I said.

"Ok, ok, fine, but not tonight Cj." She replied with a sigh.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I want to see if you can hold yourself to the same standards." She said.

"Should have seen this coming." I said.

"Yep." She cheerfully replied.

I had to settle for snuggling that night, there was no arguing with her. She had her mind made up.

It was a long night, but the next day eventually arrived. I had no luck with my beloved that morning either, she was really sticking with it. Anyway, as soon as everyone was ready we left the village and headed on another trek to the next one, with our new tentomon friend leading the way. 3 days of walking through the forest, and five abandoned villages later, we were finally getting close to the castle.

We always had to make sure at least one mechanorimon was still following us, so the others would find us eventually, occasionally we had to slow down so atleast one of them could catch up. We were very deep into the forest now and the trees towered over us. Even some of the largest digimon would find it easy to hide here. This also meant there was more space between the trees so the mechanorimon had it a little easier.

By this time I had fully recovered from my injuries, Phoebe was still adamant about keeping her promise, which impressed me as much as it annoyed me, and Claire began to think that her chikorita absolutely had to be somewhere in Grankuwagamon's castle. Henry and Zari were in good spirits and just enjoying the journey, while our digimon were getting anxious. Kitty in particular really wanted to fight something, she also seemed to hug me every chance she got, which would usually prompt Phoebe to kiss me out of jealousy. Though she wouldn't admit it.

My relationship with Kitty was awkward, mostly thanks to Phoebe and the circumstances regarding how I became her tamer in the first place. Anyway, they fought for my attention constantly and really didn't get along well at all. Despite Phoebe knowing full well that I would never cheat on her. As Kitty's tamer, however, I couldn't just distance myself from her either. Over the past 3 days, I couldn't even tell you all the times she interrupted our conversations we had when we thought we were alone, or simply just came up out of nowhere to hug me for no apparent reason other than to annoy my beloved.

Ranamon, on the other hand, was more quiet and reserved, even more so than me. She also seemed to know a lot more about the digital world than Kitty did most of the time. She got along well with everyone, but it was hard for her and Phoebe to really connect. Kitty was also a better fighter, despite the fact that she seemed to be asleep in my digivice most of the time.

"Just a bit further we'll be at Big Tree Village which is right around Grankuwagamon's castle." Said our tentomon guide. "Then I'll be leaving, I don't want to be anywhere near Grankuwagamon when you fight him."

"Yeah I can't blame ya." I said.

"Be careful heading back." Phoebe added as the small insectoid digimon flew further ahead.

"The deeper we go into this forest the more it reminds me of home." Phoebe said as we walked side by side, just far enough ahead of our friends to be out of earshot.

"Yeah, it does kind of look like your forest almost doesn't it?" I replied. "With all the big trees and such."

"The trees aren't the right color, but its close." She said. "Anyway . . . . "
"CJ!" Kitty exclaimed, interrupting Phoebe as she suddenly ran up to me while Phoebe and I exchanged a look that meant 'what could she possibly want now? '

"What is it?" I asked as she wrapped her arms around me to Phoebe's dismay.

"I can't find any enemy digimon. " She said.

"Did you look all around?" I asked.

"Mhm, I'm going to go look some more." She said before kissing me on the cheek.

"Was that really necessary?" I asked.

"No, but I like hugging you." She replied as Phoebe rolled her eyes. "What's the problem?"

"I meant the kiss." I replied.

"Um, I'm sorry." She awkwardly said.

"Hey maybe we can go search together? " She asked.

"No." Phoebe replied. "He's not ready to fight yet if you do find anything." She lied.

"Awe well then maybe we can play together tonight?" She asked.

"No!" Phoebe exclaimed as she lost her composure.

"Why not?" Kitty asked. "You're not playing with him, I know, I heard."

"Oh really?" Phoebe asked.
"Mhm, you have to turn the digivice off when I'm inside otherwise I can hear everything you say." Kitty replied in a slightly mischievous tone.

"Ok, but the answer's still no." I replied.

"But why?" Kitty asked.

"You see this beautiful girl over here Kitty?" I asked as I pulled away from Kitty and put my arms around my beloved.

"Mhm, so?" She asked.

"This is my wife." I said before amorously kissing my baby girl, to which she exclaimed
"Oh Cj."

"I know, you've told me before." Kitty replied as Phoebe just stared into my eyes.

"You are my digimon partner." I said.

"Mhm." Kitty agreed.

"He's mine, not yours." Phoebe said before I could think what to add to my little explanation.

"Oh wait." Kitty said as she turned to Phoebe. "Can I have permission?"

"No! " Phoebe vehemently replied.

"But we need to be closer." Kitty insisted.

"There's other ways." Phoebe replied.

"Like what?" Kitty asked.

"Like, ok you know what? Just go back to looking for enemies, we'll talk once we've found somewhere to spend the night." Phoebe said out of frustration.

"Um, master Cj?" She wondered whether she should follow Phoebe's orders or not.

"Do what she says." I replied. "I don't need you two getting in a fight, we got enough to deal with."

"Ok then, I guess, I'll see you later." Kitty said before sprinting off into the forest.

"What is wrong with her?" Phoebe asked once she was out of earshot.

"Well if we didn't sleep with her to begin with she probably wouldn't act like this." I said as we began to catch up to our tentomon guide.

"I know, but I didn't know she was going to be your digimon afterwards." She replied. "But you know, as much as I hate to say it, she's right about one thing though, you two should be better friends."

"So should you and Ranamon." I said.

"Ranamon is easy to work with." Phoebe replied. "I just need to build up her confidence a bit and she'll be fine, but you, big boy, have got a situation on your hands."

"Mhm and whose fault is that?" I asked.

"I know it's my fault, and now I'm afraid to leave you alone with her." She replied.

"Why? I resist you all the time." I said.

"Yeah, but we haven't in a while and I know you really want to." She replied.

"Well you know, there's an easy solution to that." I said.

"I know, but I don't want to break the promise yet." She replied.

"Yet? Like you intend on breaking it?" I asked.

"Well, I don't think Henry and Claire's pokémon are going to be in this castle. I think that lizard guy we came across a few days ago was the thief and that he's working for somebody else." She replied. "So it's going to be awhile before we find them and I really really want you tonight."

"Well then just wait until tonight." I said. "You strange girl."

"But first you need to talk to Kitty." She said." I guess I'll watch you from a distance or something so I can intervene if she gets too frisky."

"Hehehe, allright then." I said.

"And Cj?" She suddenly asked.

"Yeah?" I asked in return.

"Before the others catch up can I get another kiss?" She asked.

I pulled her close and kissed her again, only to find out it was too late as we were spotted by Henry.

"Woooweee, looks like we got ourselves a couple of lovebirds!" He called out.

"Seriously dude?" I asked, feeling slightly embarrassed while my beloved just smiled awkwardly.

"How much farther is it?" Zari asked on a more serious note.

"I don't know." I replied.

Suddenly, the ground started to shake. Several kuwagamon, woodmon, assorted veggiemon, and dokugumon erupted from the ground. The closest mechanorimon to us fired lasers over our heads, knocking one of the kuwagamon down right away. Phoebe took my hand and teleported us about 50ft off to the side. The dokugumon fired their webs just a split second later, there was so little time to react that Henry and Claire were quickly immobilized, while Zari, somehow, managed to dodge. The mechanorimon called the others in and the rest of them took to the skies and rallied around us. While we took up defensive positions. This also drew the attention of our digimon as well, and soon they attacked from behind, bringing down a few dokugumon. Phoebe went to save Henry and Claire. While the mechanorimon rained lasers down upon our attackers. After five minutes the fight was over, but then things turned from a casual stroll through the woods into a raid against Grankuwagamon's castle. We didn't have the element of surprise anymore, if we ever had it to begin with.

"They were waiting for us! " Henry exclaimed as we regrouped.

"I swear I had nothing to do with that." Tentomon claimed as he came out from wherever he was hiding.

"Pheebles?" I asked.

"I can't read his mind Cj, remember?" Phoebe replied. " But I think if he was going to betray us he would've done so sooner."

"Yeah, good point." I agreed, it made no sense for him to lead us into an ambush three days into the forest when he could have just as easily attacked us on the first.

"We need to get moving, all the mechanorimon flying around probably got their attention." Zari said.

"I apologize for the inconvenience, but according to my calculations it seemed like the quickest way to end the fight." What seemed to be the most intelligent mechanorimon said. Most intelligent as in the one that always seemed to be able to keep up with us.

"It's ok, don't worry about it." Phoebe replied.

"How much further do we have to go?" Henry asked.

"Not much further, but we're getting close enough that there's going to be more patrols." Tentomon said.

And what was a peaceful day proceeded into madness.

"Allright then, I guess the attack is on." I said.

"What do you mean?" Claire said.

"There's no way we can spend the night in that village if it's right next to the castle." I replied. "They'll find us for sure. It'd be best to rush the place and try to beat Grankuwagamon by sunset."

"He's right." Henry agreed. "Especially since some of them seem to know where we are."

At that point we still hadn't figured out that there were several Cherrymon hiding around and using their roots to detect our movements. The big insect digimon started coming at us in waves about ten minutes apart. This greatly slowed our progress, but between our digimon and our mechanorimon buddies, we were still making progress.

Within 20 minutes another group consisting of only snimon and kuwagamon found us. The snimon were better at melee fighting, and gave Kitty more trouble than the others. This new enemy was proficient enough to slow us down even further, but since we were rarely attacked by more than ten digimon at a time we rarely faced any problems.

Then what amounted to Grankuwagamon's airforce came in, consisting of large numbers of stingmon and flymon. These guys were annoying. They were hard for the mechanorimon to hit, and could easily outfly them as well. This was further exacerbated when roachmon started showing up. These flying insect digimon had one of the strangest and most annoying attacks I've ever seen. They can generate various items of low quality furniture at will and drop it on things. Their projectiles included things like dressers, broken crt television sets, nightstands, coffee tables, and chairs, all of which were made largely of particleboard that basically ensured that it would fall to pieces on impact. They flew around dropping these things like a bomber would drop bombs. After about ten minutes of them flying around and bombarding us with worthless furniture items, the area we were fighting in resembled a landfill.

Thankfully these attacks weren't very accurate and easy to dodge, but as the stingmon and flymon were swooping down on us at the same time, we were in an increasingly dire situation. Henry, Zari, Claire, and I found a mechanorimon to climb inside, while Phoebe, Kitty, and Ranamon fought with their own abilities. A stingmon swooped down on my mechanorimon and nearly knocked us over. On the ground we were stronger than them, the trick was getting them on the ground. The flymon's projectiles were hard to avoid, but they did little against the mechanorimon's metal body. Though Phoebe and our digimon needed to avoid them. The roachmon were harder to dodge inside the mechanorimon however and we were constantly shaken by falling pieces of furniture that would break up against the mechanorimon's hard body. With mechanorimon's aiming improved by our occupancy, we eventually started to shoot a few of them down. Only for more Dokugumon and kuwagamon to arrive. There were so many god damned enemies. Knowing nothing but the general direction of big tree village we started to head that way when we could, if nothing else the buildings would provide some shelter. I don't even know how many digimon we fought before we got there. It seemed like hundreds. We were just about to enter the village during what we all knew would likely be just a brief window of peace when my mechanorimon was suddenly tackled by something big and silver. We landed on the grass so the canopy stayed intact, though I still managed to smack my head on the back wall.

"Armor failing, catastrophic failure eminent." The mechanorimon complained as I heard its metal skin start to bend. Whatever tackled us was crushing us.

"Get out while you can." It said as the canopy opened up.

I crawled out to see my mechanorimon get crushed in half by the claws of a massive silver digimon that resembled kuwagamon. My former ride dissolved into data and the silver son of a bitch absorbed it, killing it completely. Then it set its eyes on me only for Henry, Claire, and Zari to shoot it in the face with their own mechanorimon. It was annoyed by this and started to go after them.

"Cj are you ok?" Phoebe said as she teleported in behind me and then teleported me again to somewhere safer.

"Better than last time." I said.

She slapped me.

"I told you to be more careful." She said.

"I didn't even see the fucker." I replied. "And now I'm going to have to walk back."

We were relying on the mechanorimon to quickly take us back to the village when this was all over.

"No you won't." Kitty said. "If we can kill that big silver bug, I can separate mechanorimon's data from his own, but we have to do it fast before it gets changed."

"What is that big silver bug anyway?" Phoebe asked. "He looks like just a slightly bigger version of the red ones."

"I don't know." I replied.

"You will not defeat me fools, I am Okuwamon, beetle lieutenant of Grankuwagamon." The big silver bug like digimon proudly proclaimed as our mechanorimon squadron failed to injure it. "You have been marked for death, give up now and I'll make it quick."

"Well that answers that." I said to my beloved."

"We need to go help them, you stay here." Phoebe said. "Ranamon, Kitty, let's go."

"But you're not my tamer." Kitty objected.

"We don't have time to deal with that now our friends are in trouble." Phoebe said as she grabbed her by the arm and teleported away before she could even react. It was clear she was getting tired of her crap. Anyway, they left me in a relatively safe place away from the battle with Okuwamon, but alone, at least until some approaching stingmon found me and I had to use the sword to fight them off. Okuwamon was ridiculously strong, though without the element of surprise his attacks were predictable and easy to avoid, they could easily cut through the mechanorimon if they managed to land. It's defensive abilities were also extremely high, as multiple laser beams, Phoebe's shurikens, Kitty's claws, and Ranamon's water balls barely even hurt it. Thankfully there was only one of them to worry about and it lacked any kind of ranged attack.

Anyway after about 20 minutes of fighting the damned thing Phoebe got tired, returned her shurikens to her digivice, and teleported over to check on me, only to find that I was trying to fight off some enemy stingmon, particularly the twelfth one that had attacked me after she left me here to begin with. Needless to say my arms were writhing in pain by now as the sword did most of the work, and even with that there was still a few times the damned bugs almost skewered me.

A well-aimed shadow ball caught it off guard, allowing the sword to deal a killing blow.

"You looked like you needed some help." Said my beloved.

"Where's our digimon?" I asked as I buried the sword in the ground and gave my arms a much needed rest.

"They're still fighting that ugly silver bug monster thing." She replied.

"Why aren't you?" I asked.

"My head hurts." She replied. "And it sounded like you were in trouble."

"I was fine, haven't you noticed all these bodies lying around?" I asked.

"You were getting tired too." She replied. "Don't lie to me, I know you feel like your arms are going to fall off again."

"I can take a few more." I proudly proclaimed.

"Good thing there isn't any more for you to take for now then." She replied.

"Oh, just give it time, they'll come." I said. "They've been coming all day."

"Don't get hurt again Cj, you came so close earlier." She complained. "You scared me."

I noticed a low flying flymon in the distance. The beast noticed me noticing it and began to charge at me as I quickly pulled my sword out of the ground.

"Shogun Sword!" I yelled, casting a flaming dragon-like projectile at the approaching monster. I never got tired of that attack. There were guns, and then there were magic swords that shot dragon-shaped fireballs. It made me interested in seeing if I could wield even more digimon equipment, but so far we hadn't come across any other digimon that used any. The flymon was briefly set aflame, and crashed into the ground, but it instinctively rolled around in the grass and put the fire out before it could mortally wound it. I was sure it was going to dissolve into data, but after writhing in pain for a few seconds, it got back up and, bravely, but haphazardly hobbled towards me.

"Really, you still want to fight?" I asked as the badly injured creature approached.

"Grankuwagamon has ordered your death human, I intend to deliver it!" The beast proudly proclaimed in a very distorted voice.

"You can barely walk." I said.

"You can barely swing that sword." Phoebe point out.

"It didn't need to know that Pheebles." I said, annoyed by her slight betrayal.

"Then this will be easy." The creature announced. "Since your digimon partner is apparently too lazy to help you."

"I'm not his digimon I'm his wife you idiot." Said an extremely annoyed Phoebe. "and I am not lazy."

"Pheebles I got this don't worry." I replied as the flymon fired a stinger at me that just wizzed passed my head. I had just enough time to turn and look at it before it fired another one, and another, and another. I would have been dead right there if the sword couldn't block for me, and before I could even think to go on the offensive Phoebe snuck out a shuriken that embedded in the beast's skull, causing it to die and explode into a cloud of free-floating data.

"I told you I had it Pheebles." I said.
"Oh you did not Cj, it was kicking your butt." She replied as she used her powers to retrieve her shuriken.

"Oh waah, so it got a few shots off, so what?" I replied.

"So, you let it." Phoebe replied.

"Well waah." I replied.

Anyway, while we were just kind of hanging out, the others were fighting Okuwamon.

It was an intense and chaotic fight since all our friends and our digimon were trying to attack him at once. They were doing well, but even with all of them working together it was going to be a long battle as they gradually began to wear okuwamon down. Of course at that point the mechanorimon as well as their pilots were wearing down as well, their once shiny steel skin now covered in numerous scratches. Kitty and Ranamon weren't hurt, but they were exhausted. The only mechanorimon that was unoccupied was taken first. Without a pilot, it couldn't keep up with the others and was quickly singled out as the weakest link. As soon as I saw it fall I wished I would have just piloted it, but I forgot we had more mechanorimon than pilots. Okuwamon snapped it in half just like my own and absorbed its data as well.

A few minutes of near misses and laser beams passed until eventually a particularly hard hit snipped the leg off of Claire's mechanorimon. Henry and Zari were able to keep Okuwamon away from her while she climbed out of the stricken digimon. Then Phoebe took a break from nagging me and teleported over to take her to safety. Her mechanorimon was spewing what looked like oil everywhere, but still surviving, well enough to occasionally fire lasers at Okuwamon, who was such a big target he was hard to miss.

Phoebe had been resting long enough, but she insisted on 'babysitting' me. Which was about as annoying as it was touching. Fortunately, once Claire was out of the battle, Phoebe ended up having to protect her more than me, as she didn't have any weapons yet and was pretty defenseless against the occasional enemy digimon that crossed our path.

The fight with Okuwamon carried on, Henry's mechanorimon eventually took one hit too many and collapsed, turning into data without any severe damage. Zari covered for him while Phoebe took him to safety. Claire's mechanorimon was still conscious at this point and still firing lasers. And our digimon were still doing whatever they could to try to slow Okuwamon down, whatever type their attacks were seemed to be at a disadvantage to him. And as we watched from the sidelines we were all thinking that this was just one of his lieutenants, what was Grankuwagamon himself capable of?

Anyway, Phoebe took a moment to release Cloudela and then she decided to rejoin the battle herself, fighting alongside Ranamon and attempting to keep the beast from getting a critical hit on Zari's mechanorimon, as usual she pelted it with shadowballs, but she also occasionally made use of her telekinesis to screw up its attacks and keep it from getting its claws around Zari's mechanorimon's vulnerable limbs. Which was about all she could do with it, it was too heavy and too metallic for her to have too much of an effect on it. Cloudela did its usual thing and spammed light beams at it. Okuwamon now appeared to have multiple burn marks on its body from all the lasers, as well as a few dents from being punched. Another twenty minutes of fighting passed, Kitty and Ranamon joined us on the sidelines, completely exhausted. Zari's mechanorimon, which looked like it had spent a day in a blender, fell to its knees. Claire's mechanorimon, which had been casually firing lasers since it lost it's leg, fired one more shot as Okuwamon was about to end Zari's Mechanorimon. A shot that somehow managed to break through Okuwamon's metallic exoskeleton. Blood gushed from the wound and the giant shiny bug digimon began to wobble before collapsing completely.

"You can get those mechanorimon back now right?" I asked Kitty as she layed down beside me, completely exhausted.

"Maybe in a minute, if he's out now, we'll have a few hours." She replied before closing her eyes.

Phoebe returned Cloudela, helped Zari climb out of her exhausted mechanorimon, and teleported back over to us as Okuwamon began to dissolve.

Zari was banged up pretty bad. We all were to an extent, and the stingmon and flymon troops were still showing up and attacking us. Claire's mechanorimon finally seized up and dissolved into data just minutes after firing the killing shot, leaving Zari's as the sole survivor. With Okuwamon's data floating before us, we needed to recover our robotic allies. Kitty refused to do anything but sleep so Ranamon had to do it for us. She instructed Phoebe to press a few buttons on her digivice in a specific sequence, this caused the screen to flash and all the data to get sucked inside it, from there, her digivice separated okuwamon's data into that of all the digimon it had absorbed, which then came back out of the machine and formed several different clusters. Thus restoring the three mechanorimon he had absorbed, albeit they were all still unconscious clouds of data hovering over ethereal bodies vaguely resembling their physical forms. There were also other digimon as well, a mix of floramon, woodmon, mushroomon, and tentomon, innocent residents of the forest, as well as okuwamon itself, slightly smaller and weaker from all the data loss. It would be a few hours for them to regenerate and wakeup. The only problem with this being that all the digimon that we defeated nearby would regenerate beforehand. This meant we really needed to get out of here before that could happen. The surviving mechanorimon had to carry the other's data clouds along with Ranamon as we tried to put as much distance between us and the village as possible. They had to carry them as digimon were the only ones that could manipulate the data clouds and Kitty was either too tired or being extremely difficult, I couldn't tell which was more applicable. If any of the rest of us tried to carry them our hands would simply pass through like if they were a ghost, which in this state wasn't too far from the truth. Not even Phoebe's telekinesis could affect them. For whatever reason, in this state they were only tangible to other digimon. Thankfully, it seemed that clouds of data also weighed absolutely nothing. So both Ranamon and the mechanorimon could carry as many as they could fit in their arms. There was also no way to carry them in our digivices, despite them being inside the device for a moment while the data was being separated, the reason for this was never made clear.

Anyway, around nightfall the mechanorimon recovered along with many 'civilians' and wherever that happened was where we set up camp for the night, amongst the giant trees. It was an interesting night when we suddenly had a lot more friends in our rescuees. Once we got a campfire going we got to talking.

"Where did tentomon go?" Phoebe asked. "I haven't seen him since before the big silver bug guy appeared."

"I'm over here." Said one of the digimon we rescued that just happened to be a tentomon.

"Not you, a different tentomon, the one that led us out here." Phoebe replied.

"Oh, sorry." Replied a saddened tentomon.

"You can tell the difference?" Claire asked.

"Yeah, that one over there is smaller and has a darker shell." She replied. "It's not that hard."

"I think he ran off." I replied. "We already found the village anyway, it doesn't matter."

"Are you guys going to fight Grankuwagamon now?" Asked another rescuee, a floramon.

"Tomorrow, we need some rest." Phoebe replied.

"Yeah if we went for him now we'd get creamed." I agreed.

"He's going to be stronger than that silver thing right?" Henry asked.

"I would think so." I replied. "Otherwise the silver guy would be in charge and then we might as well just head back tomorrow cause we already beat him."

"My entire body is sore." Kitty complained after waking up from yet another nap.

"Welcome to the club." I replied while everyone else seemed to agree.

"You better get ready for tomorrow." Claire said. "It's going to be another long fight."

"Awwwwwwwwe. " Kitty moped. Ranamon rolled her eyes.

"Hopefully I won't get taken out so early." I said.

"Yeah hopefully." Henry said.

"That thing came out of nowhere." Zari replied. "You're lucky you escaped."

"I got taken out too." Claire said. "That fall really hurt."

"Yeah we need to just fill the mechanorimon with pillows or something." I said.

"Yeah." Henry agreed.

"Or get like some custom leather upholstery." I said. "Maybe put a tv in it."

"Excuse me?" A friendly woodmon asked.

"Yes Mr. Tree?" Phoebe asked.

"If we head back to our homes, we might get attacked again, but there's no way any of us are strong enough to take on Grankuwagamon's cronies." The woodmon explained.

"Yeah well, aren't you a champion level?" I asked.

"Look, the point is we're screwed no matter what we do." The woodmon explained.

"Actually I have an idea." Henry spoke up.

"What did you have in mind?" The woodmon suggested.

"I was wondering if some of you would be willing to do some scouting for us tomorrow. They might not take you as much of a threat as us." Henry began.

"You want to turn them into spies?" I asked.

"We could use the intel." Henry replied. "If they could find out where this grankwagaman is hiding, we could come up with a better attack plan and try to go directly for him. We could also try to find a path of least resistance into the castle."

"Actually that doesn't sound like a bad idea." I replied.

"If they're up for it." Phoebe replied.

"That's great for them, they're fast." Woodmon complained. "If they spot me, I'm a gonner."

"You're a champion, fight like one." I replied. "We got mechanorimons fighting with us, you can too."

"You just have to believe in yourself." Phoebe added.

"Um ok." Woodmon replied with a high degree of doubt.

"Allright then." Henry said. "Who wants to volunteer to do some scouting for us?"

"Does it involved getting eaten again?" A mushroomon asked.

"No, not if everything goes well." Henry replied.

"I'll go." A floramon jubilantly volunteered.

"It won't work." Another woodmon spoke up.

"Why not?" I asked.

"The cherrymon," The woodmon replied. "They've been tracking your every movement. If you send them out there they'll die."

"How? We've barely even seen any cherrymon." I asked.

We hadn't seen one since we were fighting Arukenimon.

"Are they psychic?" Phoebe asked.

"No, it's their roots." The woodmon replied as it extended several roots from its arm as a demonstration. "They bury them in the ground, and they can sense vibrations from miles away, and then they can relay this information to other Cherrymon by using a code."

"So that's how they knew where to wait for us." I asked.

"Probably." The woodmon replied.

"So they know where we are now?" Zari asked.

"Well they could." Woodmon explained. "It's hard to tell, as late as it is they could also be asleep right now."

"How do you know all this?" Zari asked.

"Okuwamon thought I was too weak to serve him, so he destroyed me." The woodmon replied.

"And now you want revenge?" I asked.

"Yes" Woodmon replied.

"How could you work for that monster?" A floramon asked while all the other rescuees seemed to be angry with him, including the other woodmon.

"With the kind of power he had it was either work for him or be destroyed by him." The woodmon replied. "Then again I got destroyed anyway, so it really didn't help much."

"What if just the ledyba guys did the scouting?" Phoebe asked.

"You mean the tentomon?" I asked.

"Mhm." She replied. "They can fly."

"That might work." I said. "Then maybe we can try to locate the cherrymon."

"That's not very easy either." The woodmon said. "They look like trees and we're in a forest, chances are you may have even passed by one without noticing it already."

"Wouldn't they be significantly smaller than most of the trees around here though?" I asked.

"They don't need to be here though, their roots can extend several miles if given enough time." The woodmon said. "They could be miles away, hiding out near trees that resemble themselves, tracking your every move and giving your information to grankuwagamon's forces."

"So we need to find a way to take them out." Zari said.

"Or some way to circumvent them." I added.

"Got any ideas Pheebles?" I asked.

"Setting them on fire seems to work." She replied.

"Yeah, but we have to find them first." I said.

I guess I should say there were three woodmon that we managed to save, along with six floramon, three tentomon, and five mushroomon, quite a crowd of digimon.

"We could try to find their roots, and then follow them back to the source, but it's risky." Another woodmon suggested.

"We'd be dead before we'd even manage to find them." The woodmon that used to work for Okuwamon claimed.

"We could try to confuse them, have the tentomon and mechanorimon fly around and land in various places." I suggested. "While the rest of us go straight for the village. If we combine that with Phoebe's teleporting they won't know where to strike."

"Well if that's what we're going to do I need a lot of sleep tonight. " Phoebe said.

And once we got them spread out, the tentomon can keep confusing them while the mechanorimon come to help us at the castle." I continued.

"Sounds like a plan." Henry agreed.

"That might be our best shot." Zari added.

"What do the tentomon think?" Phoebe asked.

"And what about the rest of us?" Asked the former enemy woodmon.

"The rest of you might as well come with us for now." Even if you get defeated we could probably just pull you out again." I said. "No sense in chickening out, you got nothing to lose."

They all looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world.

"He's right, you all know it." Ranamon spoke up. "If we can't stop Grandkuwagamon, there's nothing stopping him from taking over this entire forest. You might be able to escape for a while, but someday, one of the dark kings is going to come knocking."

"Well said." Phoebe applauded her normally shy digimon.

The woodmon agreed first, then the mushroomon, then the tentomon, the floramon seemed to be the most stubborn, but after winning over everyone else, even they eventually gave in. With our plan finally set in stone, we quietly sat around the fire for a few minutes, knowing the hell that would await us tomorrow. Until Phoebe decided to break the silence.

"Cj. Let's get some sleep. Tomorrow isn't going to be easy. She said with a yawn.

"Allright then, if you say so" I agreed as we got up and walked away from the fire so we could have some privacy.

"Remember there's no private rooms out here you two!" Henry called out as we disappeared into the darkness. We already knew that very well and ignored him.

Anyway, we all tried to sleep on the oddly comfortable grass while the recently recovered mechanorimon guarded us. With no little bugs crawling around to worry about, it was a lot more comfortable then it would be in a "real" world, though a proper bed would still be preferable. Big Tree village was too close to the castle to stay in, so tonight we had our camp out in the middle of nowhere.

Phoebe used her powers to help us fall asleep really quickly so I don't remember much after walking away from the fire that night. All I know is that I awoke sometime the next morning between Phoebe and Kitty, who probably layed down next to me sometime later that night. I was irrationally horrified what Phoebe would think so I made sure she woke up with my arms around her.

Everyone else, including the rescuees, found places to sleep all over the place around the fire, within the loose pentagon of mechanorimon keeping a silent watch for anything that dared to attack us.

Over the next hour everyone gradually began to wake up.

"Cj?" Phoebe softly said as soon as she awoke.

"Mhm, what's up baby girl?" I asked.

"I'm sorry I kicked you again it's these stupid bugs they're so scary and ugly they're giving me nightmares."

"What?" I asked, not knowing what she was talking about.

"Never mind, good morning." She said with a hint of awkwardness.

"Good morning baby girl." I replied, contemplating what she said first as she turned to face me.

"How are you feeling?" She asked.

"I'm allright. Why?" I said just as I managed to comprehend what she said when she first woke up, but I didn't feel anything so I just let it go.

"I just want you to know that if we take down Grankuwagamon and survive, tonight I'm going to screw your brains out." She said after a few moments of silence.

"Hehe, if you say so." I replied.

"I mean it, I don't care what you say we're doing it." She added. "I need a release these fights are getting crazy."

"Wha-what about me?" Kitty nervously asked as I wished she was still asleep and wouldn't have the nerve to ask. I don't know how, but Phoebe hadn't noticed her up until that moment and completely freaked out.

"KITTY ? ! ? ! ? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE ? GO AWAY !" Phoebe suddenly yelled.

"Pheebles, that's my ear." I said.

"Oh, sorry." She replied.

"Ahh, what the hell? ! " An aggravated Zari exclaimed in the distance.

"Does master want me to leave?" Kitty asked, visibly upset.

"Kitty I never asked you to lay by me in the first place." I said in a much calmer tone. "You should know it's not appropriate."

"That's right." Phoebe agreed. "Just like kissing."

I put my arms around both of them.

"But listen, both of you, today isn't going to be easy, all right, we need to focus on bringing down granquagomon or whatever and then we can worry about, whatever this is. Ok?"

"What do you mean whatever this is? You're my husband, she doesn't understand boundaries." Phoebe said.

"Mhm, and whose fault is that?" I asked.

She just went real quiet for a moment.

"Arceus!" She suddenly exclaimed.

"No, he's not even here." I jokingly replied.

"I know Cj, it's just." She hesitantly tried to explain before I interrupted her with another kiss.

"You fucked up, relax. It's fine." I said. "It's not like I'm ever going to stop loving you. We've been over this already, we shouldn't have to talk about this every day."

I kissed her on the cheek in an attempt to calm her down a bit. Thankfully Kitty had enough sense to apologize.

"It's ok Phoebe, seriously." Kitty said. "I won't do it again, I promise. Don't be mad at me."

"Ok, fine, but still, go away and leave us alone." Phoebe replied.

"Awe." Kitty complained.

"Actually go find Ranamon." Phoebe said.

"See you in a few minutes." I said, expecting her to question Phoebe's authority again.

"Ok." Kitty said before she got up and went to find Ranamon.

"So, how mad are you?" I asked my beloved once Kitty was too far away to hear us.

"I'm not mad, just annoyed." Phoebe replied. "I don't trust her at all."

"It's because you can't read her mind isn't it?" I asked.

"And the fact that she adores you." Phoebe said.

"So? You adore me." I said.

"Mhm, exactly." She agreed. "And I don't know what she's going to do about it."

"Hehe, well what are you going to do about it?" I asked with a grin.

"I don't know, something, but not right now." She replied. "If only Ranamon acted just as crazy then you'd know how I feel."

"Pheebles, I get that you're jealous it's not like it's impossible to understand." I said. "But it's going to be fine ok? Cause you're my baby girl. Stop letting it bother you so much. She's trying to respect you, she's just, well, you kind of started us on a bad place, you know that."

"I know." She replied. "Stop reminding me."

"And you also know that I would never hurt you." I said.

"Look Cj, you need to talk to her if we get any time today, maybe on the way to the village, I'll just walk behind you and keep my distance."

"Ok, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say, but." I began.

"Just try to find out more about her, it's not that hard." Phoebe interrupted with a suggestion before kissing me on the cheek as a rather annoyed Zari approached. "Try to be her friend, not her master."

"I keep telling her to stop calling me that." I replied.

"Why were you yelling earlier?" Zari interrupted.

"Kitty was invading our personal space, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Phoebe replied.

"Yeah, well you did." Zari replied. "You probably woke up half the camp as well."

"Sorry." Phoebe apologized again.

It was an awkward morning, but it was still more pleasant than what the rest of the day would eventually have in store for us. We all woke up, more or less with Phoebe's help, did some stretches, scraped together whatever strength we had and proceeded towards Big Tree Village and the castle within.

The tentomon and a pair of mechanorimon began running a diversion. For the next few hours we would have no communication with them whatsoever as they travelled around the vicinity of the village. This bought us some time to advance, we still had to fight off several guards, but not nearly as many as the day before. While the tentomon were running a purely diversionary roll, the mechanorimon pair took down a few guards that came across them. This enticed the enemy to go after them even more. The other 3 mechanorimon were being piloted by Henry, Zari, and Claire as they went straight for the castle like the rest of us. As we left our camp behind, I attempted to talk to Kitty while Phoebe kept an eye on us.

"You keep slipping up like that you're going to drive my wife insane." I said. "She has enough problems, she's already worried half to death about our children." I said.

"How do you have children?" She asked, genuinely confused.

"Never mind that, just, what happened at the hotel can't happen again, ok?" I tried to explain. "If it was up to me it never would have happened in the first place."

"But then we wouldn't even be partners." Kitty replied.

"You don't know that." I said. "This is hard."

"Why don't just pretend that it never happened?" Phoebe suggested.

"But then we wouldn't even be partners." Kitty replied.

"Well then pretend you met some other way." Phoebe continued.

"Look let's just start over." I said." I'm Cj, that's my wife back there, we're trying to defeat the dark kings so maybe we can get off this rock and find our way back to our children some day."

A few awkward moments of silence later.

"Well go on, who are you and where are you from?" I asked.

"I'm Persiamon, but you can keep calling me Kitty. I come from the western side of the digital world. I want to destroy the dark kings too so the digital world will be safe. Nice to meet you."

"Same here." I replied as I offered my hand. She didn't understand the concept of a handshake so we just ended up holding hands for a few moments.

"Now what?" She asked.

"We're still partners, I guess." I replied.

"Phoebe do you need to patch anything up with Ranamon?" I asked.

"Um, I'll go talk to her." My beloved replied.

"Ok."

"So, how is the west?" I asked.

"It was find before Indramon showed up and tried to take over everything." Kitty replied.

"How do you have children?" Kitty asked. "Did you buy them?"

"You remember the hotel?" I asked.

"Am I supposed to?" She asked.

"That's how children are made." I said.

"What?" She asked in confusion. "So we made children? Where are they?"

"No it's more complicated than that." I said. "See to make children you have to do what we did at the hotel, and then you have to get pregnant, which I don't even think you can. And even if that were the case they don't just instantly appear you have to wait a long time for them to grow. "

"How long?" She asked.

"Nine months or so." I replied. "And then they'll just be a baby."

"A baby?" She asked.

"It's what people are before they grow into children." I replied.

"I know, I was a baby once." Kitty replied.

"What are your earliest memories? " I asked.

"I was born in a village with a bunch of other small digimon." She replied.

"Nobody looked after you?" I asked.

"Well there was frigimon." She replied. "She kept us all bunched together, called us her babies, and kept bringing us cabbages until I was strong enough to digivolve, then she kicked me out."

"So she was basically your mother." I said.

"What?" She asked.

"If you and I were to somehow make a baby, you'd be it's mother." I said. "Like Phoebe is the mother of the um, child we made together, and then I am it's father."

"But she didn't make us, she just took care of us when we were too weak to take care of ourselves." Kitty replied.

"Yeah, well, we have another child we didn't make but we still take care of her." I said.

"Was she born in your garden?" Kitty asked.

"What?" I asked in return.

"Your garden where all the babies are born?" Kitty elaborated.

"Um, no, when we found her, her mother was already dead, she was locked in a cage, captured by people who only wanted to abuse her for money. Babies aren't born in gardens."

"They are here." Kitty replied. "Where are they born where you're from?"

"Anywhere really." I replied. "Most prefer hospitals."

"What? You can choose where they're born?" She asked.

"Just ask Pheebles, whenever she gets back from, wherever she went."

"Um, ok."

"So your mother kicked you out?" I asked.

"Yeah, she was kind of mean, but she also kicked out a bunch of my friends as well, so we traveled together for awhile." She continued. "Then we were ambushed by Indramon's forces, then we weren't together anymore after that."

"They died?" I asked.

"Some died, others ran away, but we never found each other again." Kitty replied.

"From that day forward I knew that no matter what, I had to get stronger so I could destroy Indramon."

"So it's personal?" I asked.

"Yes." She said.

"Well, we'll get to him eventually, don't worry about it." I replied.

"You promise?" She asked.

"He's one of the dark kings isn't he?" I asked in return.

"I think so." She replied as Phoebe teleported in behind us.

"Ranamon is fine." She said.

"Cj said you can choose where babies are born." Kitty said.

"Well, yeah, kind of, but when it's time, it's time sweety." Phoebe replied. "Why are you talking about this?"

"She doesn't understand the concept of parenting." I said.

"Arceus, is she pregnant?" Phoebe jumped to conclusions.

"Oh god I hope not." I replied.

"Why?" Kitty asked. "What's wrong with being pregnant?"

-One lengthy and detailed explanation later. -

"That sounds like it would hurt." Kitty said.

"You don't even want to know." Phoebe replied. "And if you happened to be pregnant, we wouldn't even know what to do."

"So we really can't do what we did in the hotel anymore?" She asked.

"Well, um, I don't think you can get pregnant, but, I, we'll see." Phoebe said.

"Just say no Pheebles." I replied.

"I don't want too, now that we're all getting along." She replied.

"We were so close to having this sorted out." I said.

"Oh relax, stop acting like you won't enjoy it." Phoebe insisted as I rolled my eyes.

"Stop acting like you're not going to change your mind five minutes from now." I said.

"I never changed my mind Cj." My beloved replied. "I'm ok if we share her on occasion, but I don't want her thinking she could ever replace me in your heart. I want you to be friends, but I don't want you kissing and hugging all over my man all the time."

"I won't, I promise." Kitty said.

"She can't replace you baby girl." I said.

"Then everything is fine isn't it?" She asked.

"I don't know, you tell me." I said.

"Well, it would be better if we could hold hands." She replied.

"Ok, fine." I said as I took her hand.

We continued to hold hands until we came across some enemy stingmon, our first fight of the day. At that point Phoebe had to teleport away to combat them more effectively with her usual fighting style of teleporting around and throwing shadow balls until she found enough time to deploy her shurikens.

From that point on we fought several "grunts", That came at us in groups of three to seven with five minutes or less of peacetime in between. We didn't come across any new enemies, most of the digimon we fought today were the same ones we defeated the day before. All of these fights were pretty run of the mill until we made it to the outskirts of the village where Okuwamon and Arukenimon were waiting for us. The former was significantly weaker than yesterday due to all the data we pulled out of him, but he was still stronger than the regular cannon fodder. Arukenimon was also back in spider form. Both lieutenants together meant we had quite a fight, the first major fight of the day.

"This would've been so much easier if we just absorbed their data." I said to Kitty.

"Ophanimon won't allow it." Kitty replied.

"We would basically be killing them Cj." Phoebe interjected.

"You'd think they'd hesitate to do the same?" I asked.

"Your transgressions have angered Grankuwagamon." Okuwamon interrupted.

"You will not proceed any further." Arukenimon added.

"They always say that don't they Pheebles?" I asked.

"Mhm. Always." My beloved replied.

"And yet we always get passed." I said.

"Mhm." Phoebe replied.

"I wonder if they're a couple?" She asked a few moments later.

"How dare you suggest I'd be with such a hideous thing?" Arukenimon said before attacking Phoebe with her acid spit. Phoebe easily dodged it just like the last time we fought her.

"Have you looked in a mirror recently?" I said what everyone else must have been thinking at that point. This was a mistake because now she was spitting acid at me, and it was more difficult for me to dodge. Thankfully I only had to dodge it once as Phoebe quickly started to throw shadow balls at her, regaining her attention while our friends in the mechanorimons began to take on Okuwamon.

The fight only escalated from there as Arukenimon employed her signature move of spawning hundreds of miniature dokugumon. This is where Ranamon really shined, as her draining rain could slow all of them down at once, which made them easy targets for the rest of us. We just had to make sure to be well out of the way, as it would slow down anyone it touched. The real challenge was dealing significant damage to Arukenimon, as all our friends in the mechanorimon were too busy fighting Okuwamon to lend a hand.

Kitty was cutting through the weakened swarm with ease while Phoebe kept Arukenimon's attention. Together we managed to get up close and attack her, which was far more dangerous as her legs were razor sharp and could easily impale us if we were caught off guard. Thankfully, that never happened, but it was an intense fight with many close calls none the less. In addition to that threat, I couldn't even say how many times I was nearly bitten by one of the many mini-Dokugamon.

Eventually Ranamon went on the offensive as well, and with all four of us attacking her at once, Arukenimon was a bit overwhelmed, but still hard to hit. I went up to her thinking I could easily cut through her with the sword, but it was more like trying to cut through a tree, even with the sword's abilities. Kitty was having similar issues with her claws. The refugees were supposed to be staying back out of harm's way, but a few of them were getting in attacks on either of the two lieutenants whenever they could. At their best they did negligible damage, but every little scratch helped. Others were fighting off the mini-dokugas.

It looked like it was going to be a long battle, but after a few minutes of intense combat Arukenimon was convinced that we once again had the upper hand, and, feeling that she was screwed no matter what, she gave up and retreated into the forrest.

"Nooo! I can't lose again, Grankuwagamon will end me." She screamed.

"If you're going I'm going." Okuwamon said as he abandoned his battle with our friends and ran away as well. It was a strange thing to see such large and powerful digimon retreat, but with them out of the way, we were free to enter Big Tree Village.

"That's what happens when you rule out of fear." I said.

"Mhm." Phoebe agreed.

"Why'd she have to run away, I wasn't done fighting yet?" Kitty complained.

"Really?" I asked. "I don't know about you, but my arms need a break."

"I'm just glad you haven't gotten hurt yet today." Phoebe said.

"Oh give it time Pheebles, I'm sure something will come out of nowhere." I said in complete doubt of my luck.

"You guys ready for a boss fight?" I asked Henry and the others after they approached us and opened up the canopies on their mechanorimon so they could talk.

"No, but we're here." Claire replied.

"We have to find the boss first." Henry said.

"Bring on the giant bug king!" Zari demanded.

"We'll stay here and guard your back." A cowardly woodmon said.

"Yeah, those eight-legged freaks were tough." A floramon added.

"Those were the small ones." Phoebe replied. "They're normally bigger than that."

"I know." The floramon replied.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Something that sounded like Okuwamon screamed in the distance.

Phoebe took my hand before I could say anything and teleported us over to the horrific scene, somewhere in the huge trees surrounding the village.

Okuwamon was being held against a tree by a rather larger Cherrymon. Standing in front of him was a rather demonic looking creature I could only assume was Grandkuwagamon.

"You should have known better than to abandon your post, I now know it was a mistake to give you such power, you have wasted my time, so now I will waste your life." Grandkuwagamon said in a voice that was soft and quiet but at the same type seemed unmistakably evil.

"I'm sorry my king, I, they, they were too strong." Okuwamon profusely apologized, only for Grandkuwagamon to impale him against the tree with his claws and clamp his um, mandibles tightly around him. I wasn't really sure what I was looking at exactly. The normally ferocious looking okuwamon let out a cry of agony.

"How dare you question my power?" Grandkuwagamon asked as he easily cut the poor digimon in two, Phoebe had to try her best not to throw up, it was not a pretty sight, thank fully Okuwamon quickly dissolved into data after that so we didn't have to see it for long.

Grandkuwagamon absorbed his data then turned to face us.

"If you would be so kind as to hold on for a moment, I have another loose end I need to take care of. Don't worry, I'll be back to kill you soon enough." The demonic looking insect said. He was likely talking about Arukenimon, but what was more disturbing was that he apparently knew we were there the whole time.

"How did you know we were?" Phoebe began to ask only to be interrupted.

"Your smell." The digimon replied before quickly darting off into the woods after Arukenimon.

"Maybe if I can defeat you before he returns I shall gain his favor." The cherrymon that was holding okuwamon down said to us.

Phoebe, rattled by what she just saw, casually put her hand on my shoulder and teleported us back to the village, before bugging out completely.

"Cj, I've had enough of these giant bugs." She said. "I don't even know what I just saw."

"Where did you go?" Henry asked.

"We found him." I replied. "He's going after his lieutenants, he already killed Okuwamon now he's heading for Arukenimon, and then he'll probably be coming for us."

"He's scary." Phoebe added.

"Don't lose your nerve now baby girl, you've held it this far." I said. "It's just one more giant bug."

"Did we see the same thing?" She asked. "He cut the big silver bug in half, and he knew we were watching."

"So? The big silver bug also cut my mechanorimon in half." I said.

"Yeah, but did you see how fast he moved?" Phoebe replied. "I don't think we can beat him Cj. We should go."

"Phoebe we can't, we made it this far, we can't turn back without defeating him." Ranamon said.

"We can go beat one of the others and get stronger." Phoebe insisted.

"We're already here Pheebles." I replied. "We've spent several days coming out here, we can't stop now."

"I'm not afraid of those bugs." Kitty said as she wrapped her arms around me. "I know we can beat them together. Right Cj?"

"Right" I said as I nervously accepted her embrace. I don't know why, but at that moment I thought maybe a bit of jealousy would be the motivation Phoebe needed to keep fighting, though I couldn't say for sure whether Kitty had the same idea.

"Ok fine." She said.

"Allright, then we need to get moving." I said. "Henry, Zari, Claire, go find wherever Arukenimon ran off to and try to save her. "We're going to need all the help we can get to take this guy down."

"All you refugees just take cover in the village, this could get really bad really fast so, it'd probably be best if you all sat this one out." I said.

"If we need all the help we can get they should come with us." Kitty argued.

"Ok fine, follow us if you want." I said.

"Pheebles, digibabes, let's go"

"Digibabes?" Phoebe asked.

"No time to talk about word choice, we gotta go now." I said as I took her hand along with Kitty's, while Ranamon quickly took her other hand.

"We'll go too." A few of the refugees chanted as they all tried to join in.

"Wait I can't teleport all of you at once." Phoebe replied. "You'll just have to follow us."

Most of them sighed, but they did let go so Phoebe could take us to the fight that was about to take place.

As we followed them from the ground, our friends quickly located Arukenimon from the sky, Grandkuwagamon was hot on her tail, but that changed once Henry and the others started firing lasers at him. Seeing them as the more immediate threat, he abandoned his pursuit and flew up to take them on. Our friends had a very slight advantage as he wasn't quite as strong in the air as on the ground, though he was still faster than the mechanorimon. Instead of trying to help, Arukenimon continued to attempt to escape, but just like okuwamon before her she was quickly snagged by the roots of yet another cherrymon that insisted on holding her against a tree until Grandkuwagamon could deal with her properly, and that was where we found her.

"Oh great, are you going to kill me too?" She asked as more roots burst out of the ground to deal with us.

"Quiet you." The cherrymon demanded.

"You know if they beat you Grandkuwagamon will want you dead as well." Arukenimon said.

"I won't lose to them, unlike you." Cherrymon insisted while he struggled to land a hit on us. He was behind the tree he was holding Arukenimon against so he couldn't see us very well.

"They'll set you on fire." Arukenimon said." I've seen them do it before to other cherrymon."

"First you're a coward, now you're a traitor?" Cherrymon asked.

"You can't beat them you idiot." Arukenimon insisted.

"We'll see about that." Cherrymon replied as we surrounded him.

"Shogun sword!" I said as I unleashed a fireball from the sword. Flames seemed to be the best way to deal with Cherrymon. That said he was still able to block the attack with his many, many roots. Phoebe and Ranamon kept their distance and basically offered fire support as usual, while Kitty and I tried to get closer as the refugees were just trying to catch up to us.

Cherrymon was tough, but not extremely coordinated, it didn't take long to get some good hits in and set him on fire. Without even a word, Arukenimon escaped as he burned into data.

"That fool, I warned him." Arukenimon said as she lashed out at Phoebe who just happened to be closest to her at that point.

"You know if you would help us beat this guy we'd leave you alone." Phoebe said as she easily dodged her attack.

"There's no beating him, there's no beating you, I'm getting out of here while I can." Arukenimon said as she sprinted into the forest. Phoebe went after her on her own while the rest of us just stayed back.

"You don't have to beat us, you can join us." Phoebe said after teleporting ahead of Arukenimon.

Arukenimon ran passed her without saying anything.

This cycle went on for a bit until they were both exhausted.

"Just stop running we need to get back." Phoebe said through heavy panting.

"Stop following me, you'll get the cherrymon's attention." Arukenimon replied in equally heavy breaths.

-meanwhile back where we recently cut down a cherrymon-

"Do you think they're fighting?" Kitty asked.

"I don't know." I said.

"If she doesn't come back can we sleep together again?" Kitty asked.

"Just because you asked, no." I replied, knowing full well Phoebe could hold her own, and slightly peeved Kitty would even ask such a thing. With nothing else to do, I went to see how the others were doing.

Unfortunately they weren't doing very well, Grandkuwagamon was dominating them. All the mechanorimon were beat up pretty bad and knowing what it's like inside those things their pilots, our friends, weren't much better. They wouldn't be able to hold Grandkuwagamon off forever, but while they were in the sky there was little we could do but watch as the mechanorimon were weakened to the point where they struggled to stay in the air. Claire's failed first, the machine digimon clattered to the ground, it's canopy automatically popped open. Claire didn't even have to climb out as the digimon dissolved around her as Kitty and Ranamon darted out to retrieve her. She was conscious, but beat up pretty bad.

"You allright?" I asked.

"Everything hurts." Claire weakly replied.

"Just hang in there, there's not much we can do about it at the moment."

"Where's Phoebe?" She asked.

"Chasing down arukenimon." I replied.

"They're probably both naked right now." Kitty interjected.

"Shut up." I said, though I was wondering what was taking them so long.

"What does that even mean?" She asked.

"Stop talking." Claire replied .
"But I have so much to say." Kitty continued.

"He doesn't want to hear you say things like that about his wife." Claire replied.

"Yeah, she wouldn't do that, not right now." Ranamon said.

"Stop talking about her for a moment, she's fine, right now we have to worry about Henry and Zari." I said.

-Meanwhile-

Phoebe and Arukenimon were both exhausted and taking a break.

"I need to get out of here, you would too if you knew what was good for you." Arukenimon said.

"And where are you going to go?" Phoebe asked.

"Somewhere Grandkuwagamon can't find me." The spider queen digimon replied.

"There's other kings out there you know?" Phoebe replied. "If you're not running from him, you'll have to run from someone else. If we lose, your days are numbered no matter what happens."

"Maybe I would be of value to one of the others then." She suggested.

"And then we'll come after them some time, and then you'll be back in this same situation." Phoebe replied. "You don't have to be evil you know? Our friends are looking for partners, there were supposed to be three other chosen ones, but we never found them."

"You want me to take orders from a human?" She asked.

"At least they won't try to kill you when you mess up." Phoebe replied.

Back at the fight, Henry and Zari started to drift towards the ground, Grandkuwagamon followed suit which allowed us to get involved.

"You were supposed to wait until I killed her." Grandkuwagamon said.

"You really thought we were just going to stand there until you came back?" I asked as I prepared to unleash another shogun sword attack. My arms were hurting to the point where it felt like trying to fight up close would not end well, regardless of the sword's abilities. As usual, Kitty preferred to fight up close. Both mechanorimon were about to collapse, so it was important to try to keep Grandkuwagamon away from them so they could continue to fire their lasers.

"I thought you would have a greater sense of respect for royalty." Grandkuwagamon explained.

"Only when they're not trying to murder and enslave their own people." I replied.

"You will pay for your lack of respect." Said the demonic looking insect.

"You know you can only kill us once right?" I said. He already wanted to kill us, continuing to make threats over some ridiculous transgressions was relatively meaningless. That said Kitty got distracted for a brief moment, only for Grandkuwagamon to slam her into a tree.

"That really hurt." She said as she peeled herself off the tree. "It really hurts. CJ, hellp." She cried in genuine pain, she wasn't joking, she wasn't just trying to get attention, but considering one wrong move would let Grandkuwagamon hit me as well, there wasn't much I could do at the moment. Thankfully Claire ran to her aid. Grandkuwagamon was solely focused on me now, even though Ranamon and the mechanorimon were also firing at him. He was faster than me so it didn't take long for him to close the distance, and while I was able to hold him off for a while my arms felt like they just wanted to collapse into a pile of jelly. I was basically screwed until Henry decided to charge him from behind out of nowhere which bought me some time to get away. Of course have consequences and consequences of this was Henry's mechanorimon, Henry was barely able to climb out and escape as the poor robot was hacked to pieces. Grandkuwagamon absorbed its data, meaning we would have to kill him to get it back. Zari and Ranamon were the only ones able to fight at this point. I was afraid the sword was going to tear my arms off if I kept using it, and I wanted to prove to Phoebe that I could fight on my own without getting seriously hurt. Henry barely escaped, but he somehow managed to make it to the trees and later regrouped with Kitty and Claire. Ranamon hit Grandkuwagamon in the face which prompted him to lunge at her. She was able to dodge prompting him to come for me again. Even just lifting the sword to block sent a resounding wave of pain all the way up my arm through to my shoulder. A gyro break from Zari's mechanorimon, which was incredibly similar to a pokémon's gyro ball attack, changed his target yet again. Zari's mechanorimon was quickly finished, she crawled out as it dissolved, I figured times were desperate so in an agonizing move, I used whatever muscle tissue was in my arms that was still connected to pass the sword to her along the ground allowing her to stay in the fight while I retreated to the growing group of injured.

"I didn't know it would hurt this much." Kitty yelped in pain shortly after I rejoined the group.

"I probably couldn't even hold a glass of water right now if I wanted too." I replied, my arms were almost completely limp.

"Where does it hurt?" Henry asked.

"My back mostly, and my head, and my tails, I think he bent them." She said.

"He bent your head?" I asked.

"No my tails." She replied.

"Hopefully Pheebles will be back with reinforcements soon." I said. "We can't fight him for much longer."

"Kitty you're going to have to get back in there it's only a matter of time before Zari's arms give out, and I don't think Ranamon can hold him off on her own.

Suddenly many vines came out of the ground and grabbed grankuwagamon's legs. The refugees finally arrived. I almost forgot about them. This held him still for a moment which allowed Zari to cut off one of his wings, before he was able to free himself, preventing him from being able to fly. He was getting angry now. The refugees kept their distance, but continued to attack whenever they could. Their attacks did little to no damage, but were occasionally enough of a distraction to allow Zari and Ranamon to get some more powerful hits in.

This worked well for a while, but the sword was taking its toll on Zari just as it had done with me and before long she could barely lift it. After that Henry had his turn with the sword, and it wore him down as well, then I had to send Kitty back in, who was still hurt from earlier. She seemed to be traumatized and wasn't nearly as aggressive as she was before. She never got hit that hard before and now at possibly the worst time imaginable, she felt extremely vulnerable. Everyone was miserable and it seemed like we were royally screwed. I don't think I've ever felt more relief than when Phoebe finally came back not a moment too soon.

"What happened?" She asked.

"We're losing, bad." I replied.

"You can't move your arms again can you?" She asked.

"We can't either." Henry and Zari both replied.

"Great." Phoebe said with heavy sarcasm.

"Where's Arukenimon?" I asked.

"She's coming, just wait." She said.

A few moments passed as she just stood by my side, watching our digimon and the refugees fight the beast.

"Are you going to try to fight Grankuwagamon?" I asked.

"It looks like Kitty's doing a pretty good job of that herself." She said.

"She's hurt, Pheebles, she got hit earlier." I said. "She's not going to be able to keep it up much longer."

"I know I just, she's not hurt enough." Phoebe said.

"Get your butt in there and back her up." I said with as much authority as I could muster.

She looked at me like she thought I was going to take her side.

"I don't know what is going on between you two, but now is not the time for it." Zari said.

"Okaaaaaayyy, I'll go." Phoebe complained and she pulled her shurikens out of her digivice and finally entered the battle. Sadly it didn't do much good as Grandkuwagamon was fast enough that he could bat most of them out of the way, sending them flying in random directions which was pretty dangerous. A few of them nearly hit Ranamon and several ended up embedded in nearby trees.

"That was a bad idea. Sorry Ranamon." Phoebe said.

"It's ok just, Ahhhh!." Grandkuwagamon caught her off guard and sent her flying into a tree.

"RANAMON!" Phoebe cried out as the aquatic human-like digimon slumped to ground, barely alive.

Phoebe's eyes started to glow purple, she was angry now, something I hadn't seen in quite a while. The wind began to pick up, the grass began to pull out of the ground and the leaves began to fly off of the trees along with her shurikens. And for a moment she was winning, Grandkuwagamon felt fear for the first time as he was hit again and again and again by debris flying faster than he could block, but Phoebe couldn't sustain such power levels for long and she ran out before she could finish him off. At that point Arukenimon finally showed up and soon mini dokugumon were everywhere. They crawled all over a badly wounded Grandkuwagamon and formed a pile so thick the only sign of his demise was the pile shrinking and his data stream oozing up through the surface. We separated his data, got our mechanorimon back as well as several more refugees. We even saved Okuwamon. Both former lieutenants got the rest of grankuwagamon's army to disband. We regrouped with our distraction team at the village, and decided to stay there for the night as everyone was banged up pretty bad. Phoebe was in a coma. Ranamon helped me lay her in her own bed that night, hoping she would wake up tomorrow. I was too tired and in too much physical pain to really feel the true horror of the fact that she might not wake up. I made her as comfortable as possible and then went to my own bed. She was the only one that didn't struggle to sleep that night. It took several hours for my arms to be numb enough that I could fall asleep, and I doubt anyone else had it better.