-chapter 46-
Early the next morning Claire's mechanorimon found us.
"I WAS HURT IN BATTLE. THE FEMALE YOU CALL CLAIRE WAS CHASED OFF BY ANGRY LOCALS, I CAN'T FIND HER. PLEASE ASSIST!" It loudly announced as it stood outside the bus. This is why we covered the back windows with trash bags. Because at that point we were all naked in bed just like the previous morning.
"Shut up!" I grumpily exclaimed, while it spoke, too tired to comprehend anything it just said.
"Make it stop!" Kitty complained, a second later, nearly clawing into my shoulder.
"It's Claire's mechanorimon, it doesn't know where Claire is." Phoebe said as she tried to wake herself up.
"Where's Henry, Zari, and, um Ice luxray man thing?" She asked a few moments later.
"Lion." I said.
"What's a lion?" Phoebe asked, as I had somehow never explained to her what a lion was in four years of marriage.
"THEY WERE IN BATTLE WITH JEWELBEEMON I WAS SENT TO GET YOU TO HELP ALONG WITH THE ONE YOU CALL CLAIRE, BUT WE GOT LOST AND NOW SHE'S LOST AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!" It explained in its monotone voice.
"Do you have a volume switch or something?" I asked as Phoebe, Saphira, and I fumbled around looking for our clothes. Kitty just laid there trying to cover her ears.
"If he keeps it up I'm going to claw out his voice box." Kitty said.
"Here Kitty get your top on, fun's over." I said as I handed her clothes, she was the only one not halfway dressed yet.
"Awe I was hoping I could sleep some more." She replied as she started to dress herself.
"Seriously? You slept like half the day yesterday." I said.
"Yeah, well, I'm still tired." She argued.
"Are you sick or something?" I asked.
"No." She replied, looking somewhat perplexed.
"You know Kitty, you wanna know something about being a hero? You don't get a lot of days off or time just to sit around and do nothing, we had that time yesterday, now we have stuff that needs to be attended too." I said as Phoebe and Saphira were getting dressed.
"So Henry and Zari are in trouble too?" Phoebe asked.
"It sounds that way." Saphira replied.
"Cj I'm going out. Love you." Phoebe said before kissing me on the cheek, at which point I was still trying to get Kitty to get up. I barely had time to respond before started to head for the door, Saphira trailing behind her.
"Love you baby girl." I replied when she was almost out the door.
"Kitty come on, no more bed for you." I said.
"Awe, but." She started to make another excuse.
"Just get up, this is silly." I interrupted.
"Fine" She said as she finally stood up.
"And get your pants on." I said as she was still half naked. "Come out when you're dressed, I'm going to see what's going on." I said.
"Ok master." She sarcastically and grumpily replied.
I just ignored her and walked out the door, met up with my wife and Saphira who were trying to get more information out of the mechanorimon.
"So when did you last see Claire?" Phoebe asked.
"ABOUT SIXTEEN HOURS AGO." The mechanorimon said in a slightly quieter voice than earlier.
"What took you so long to get here then?" I asked.
"Maybe he walked?" Phoebe suggested.
"No, I heard him land." Saphira chimed in.
"AS I STATED BEFORE I GOT LOST WITH THE FEMALE YOU CALL CLAIRE." The mechanorimon replied.
"So you don't have any idea where Claire is?" Phoebe asked.
"THAT IS CORRECT." Replied the overly loud machine.
"I guess I'll have to go look for her then." Phoebe said.
"Where did you lose her at?" I asked.
"145.52 MILES, APPROXIMATELY 157 DEGREES SOUTHEAST OF HERE." It said as it pointed towards the southeast.
"How'd you get that far off track?" I asked.
"SENSORS WERE DAMAGED IN BATTLE, FAILED TO REALIZE IT AT THE TIME." It replied.
"Does this mean you're going to leave me alone with Cj again?" Kitty asked as she stepped off of the bus.
"No, especially since you asked." Phoebe replied.
"Saphira, stay here with Kitty in case Henry and Zari show up. Cj come with me please, I don't want to leave you alone with Kitty." Phoebe continued.
"Awe baby girl." I replied, glad she still felt possessive of me.
We left one mechanorimon behind with the digibabes, while Phoebe and I took the other two. We followed Claire's mechanorimon back to the spot where it had last seen her. Unfortunately, we were too far behind and she was nowhere to be seen.
"THIS WAS WHERE I STOPPED TO REST YESTERDAY." The mechanorimon proudly declared. "SOME ANGRY DIGIMON CHASED THE ONE YOU CALL CLAIRE AWAY AND I NEVER SAW HER AGAIN."
"Okay." I replied. "Pheebles?"
"I can't hear anything." Phoebe replied as she opened her eyes. "She's nowhere nearby."
"Why were they chasing her?" I asked.
"I DON'T KNOW." The mechanorimon unhelpfully replied.
"Maybe they caught her." Phoebe said.
"Would they have killed her if they did?" I asked.
"I don't know, they might have tried." Phoebe said.
"We told you guys before, dark kings aren't welcome here!" Said an angry mushroomon as it emerged from the forest with a sizable group of fellow rookies.
"We're not dark kings, we're just looking for our friend who you chased off yesterday." Phoebe said.
"Dark kings or friends of dark kings, we don't care, YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE!"
"WE CANNOT ALLOW YOU TO ATTACK THE CHOSEN ONES AS PER HIGHANDROMON'S ORDERS!" All three mechanorimon we had with us stepped forward, ready to strike.
"Wait, those tin cans are working with you?" The mushroomon said while looking rather surprised.
"We thought you were being attacked by them." The mushroomon said as it looked at Claire's mechanorimon, which could be identified by its numerous battle scars.
"NEGATIVE! I WAS DAMAGED IN BATTLE FROM EARLIER." Claire's mechanorimon spoke up.
"But that would mean she was innocent?" The mushroomon stammered.
"Good thing we didn't catch her." A tentomon chimed in.
"You didn't?" I asked.
"We followed her into the forest and she managed to slip away." The tentomon explained.
"So now she's lost in the forest?" I asked.
"Yep, sorry, hehe." The mushroomon awkwardly apologized.
"That pathway that leads to the ocean isn't too far from here, maybe she went there." Phoebe suggested.
"Yeah, or she went the other way, and got lost who knows where." I said.
"It would be faster to search that path than the entire southern part of the forest." Phoebe said.
"Yeah probably." I said.
"So let's go." Phoebe urged.
We headed back to the "gap" between the two halves of the forest, and headed west from there. We followed it to the western edge of the forest and found no sign of Claire. So we headed east towards the coastal town and about an hour later we found her trying to flag us down.
"Oh my god I'm so glad you found me, I thought I was going to die for sure." She said, she looked like she hadn't slept in quite a while.
"Why'd you go east? I thought you would've tried to make the trek back to us." I asked.
"The bubble guys." She replied. "I didn't want to risk coming across them on my own."
"Well wherever they are they aren't here anymore. Phoebe and I searched the entire western side looking for you." I said.
"I'm so glad we found you, I didn't know what we were going to say to Henry." Phoebe said.
"Oh that's right! Henry needs your help now, he needed it days ago!" Claire said.
"Ehh, they're probably fine right Pheebles?" I asked.
"No, Cj we should probably go check just to be sure." Phoebe insisted.
"Allright, let's go back to the bus and get our digimon then." I said reluctantly.
"Ok, come on Claire, just follow us back and don't get lost again." Phoebe said as we climbed into our respective mechanorimons.
We arrived at our bus about a half hour later, explained what was going on to our digimon, they entered our digivices, then we followed Claire to the north to look for Henry and Zari, unsure if they were still alive as we were almost half a day late, fortunately, whatever trouble they had gotten into they managed to get out on their own. And unlike Claire, they had their mechanorimon with them so they weren't too difficult to find. We just had to get within a mile of them and the mechanorimon did their thing and led us right to them. We stopped to talk to them for a while, but they seemed to be fine. Henry and Claire reunited, stories were exchanged, and at the end of the day we all made it back to our vehicles. Once there we needed to decide where we were going to go next. IceLeomon could fit in the bus, but just barely.
With an ocean to the east, a possible confrontation with the now massive army of the bubble men to the west, and a similarly dismal looking one with darkdramon to the north, once we got out of the forest, we decided to head south, further south than we had ever gone before.
By the evening, we made it passed the gap. And we camped out several miles south of it by nightfall, unable to find a village in time. The next day we ended up in an area that was sparsely populated by trees, where the ground was also very hilly, making it a bit awkward to drive through. The villages were a lot easier to find here, as the trees weren't as dense and the hills, if we could manage to drive up them, gave us a decent vantage point. The villages were protected by walls primarily constructed of wood, and like most of the other villages, we constructed from various found materials. Somewhere along here we came across a strange, immaculate highway, which even had a sign that said Motown 26 miles. Though the town didn't actually exist. The highway simply headed several miles to the east and west and abruptly ended. My best guess is that it was copied from some sort of video game. There wasn't much reason to stay by it, so as soon as we figured out "Motown" did not physically exist, we moved on. Further on passed that, there was an area filled with perfect geometric shapes, cubes, spheres and prisms, just scattered about in various sizes and colors, some were half buried in the ground, and others were floating in the air, breaking every law of physics. A particular tree seemed to be wearing a large red cone as a hat. While it was truly bizarre, there really wasn't anything of significant interest here either, so we continued on until we came across a trailmon line. We followed it, thinking it would lead somewhere. There were some rudimentary platforms set up alongside it by a few larger villages. The tree population started to get denser again, to the point where it became impossible to follow the railway without driving directly over it, which was not a smart thing to do in case a trailmon came by, so we headed back to the closest platform and waited for a trailmon to come, hoping we could get it to fetch some flatcars so we could move our vehicles further south. The village adjacent to the platform was actually more of a town, a busy one at that. It had its own market place and several hundred residents, the largest settlement we had come across since the big city. We left our vehicles and the mechanorimon to protect them by the platform and decided to explore, and ask the civilians what they knew about the dark kings, particularly if there even was one in the area, we also asked several of them when the next trailmon would come through.
"Can you believe they built this place all by hand?" Phoebe asked as we explored together.
"Well if they have enough time." I replied.
"I know, but most of them are so tiny, how could they even lift most of this stuff?" She continued.
"I don't know Pheebles." I replied. "You know, they're a lot like pokémon, they can be stronger than their size would suggest."
"Where do you think they find all their materials?" She asked.
"Maybe it all comes from those weird furniture machines." I replied.
"Hello Mr. Digimon, do you know anything about the dark kings?" Phoebe remembered our mission and stopped to ask a passing agumon.
"My name is Agumon, I am a girl, and no, sorry I don't have much time to talk, I need to get some things done before the festival tonight." The agumon replied.
"There's a festival tonight?" I asked.
"Yes, to celebrate the completion of our village, the old one was destroyed during the last reformation."
"How old are you?" I asked.
"Cj, don't ask that." Phoebe scolded me.
"Sorry I really have to get going." The female agumon replied before walking away.
"Cj you drove her away!" Phoebe complained.
"Oh come on, she was busy, we'll just have to ask somebody else." I said.
"Well then who should we ask?" Phoebe replied.
"I don't know, just pick somebody, we have plenty of choices." I said.
She went quiet and watched the crowd for a moment as they went through their daily routines, not unlike a human city.
"Why don't you pick somebody? You need more practice." Phoebe insisted.
"Ok fine, I uh . . . "
I paused for a moment to look around until I saw a tentomon, we had met lots of friendly tentomon during our time here so I assumed this one would be the same.
"Hello Tentomon, we're looking around for some dark kings, have you seen any?" I asked.
"Buzz off, I have to move some stuff around before the festival." It replied before buzzing away.
"That was not the answer I was expecting." I said as I looked towards Phoebe.
"What a rude little insect." Phoebe commented. "Guess you'll just have to try somebody else."
"It's your turn." I said with a smile.
She replied with a sigh, and then looked around for her next target, she went for a geckomon that was carrying a box of flowers.
"Those are some nice flowers, where'd you find them?" Phoebe asked.
"They grow all around the forest." The geckomon replied with a noticeable lisp. "I need to get them to the town hall for the festival."
"Ok well could you tell me if you know anything about the dark kings?" Phoebe asked.
"I've heard of them attacking other places, but none have shown up here yet." The geckomon replied. "Maybe you could asked Mayor Etemon, he'll probably know more than us."
"Where is Mayor Etemon then?" Phoebe asked.
"At the town hall, just follow me." The geckomon replied.
So we followed him to the town hall, which was quite a large and impressive wooden structure compared to the other buildings scattered around. There were lots of wooden boxes scattered around, filled with flowers, cabbages, and what seemed to be some kind of ornaments made out of wood in various colorful shapes. Henry and Claire were already there, standing by the door. A red veggiemon would not let them in.
"You can't go in, Mayor Etemon is very busy, he has no time to deal with new arrivals today." The foul smelling plant digimon said to them in a somewhat flamboyant voice as we approached.
"But we have so many questions to ask." Claire explained.
"Well too bad." Red Veggiemon said.
"Hi." Claire said as she noticed us.
"Hi." Phoebe replied.
"I just told them they can't see the mayor and neither can you." The red veggiemon said.
"We just want to know if there are any dark kings around here." I said.
"Well that will have to wait for another day." The red veggiemon replied.
"You know if there's a dark king nearby they could take over this entire city." I said.
"Yes, but if there was one I'm sure Mayor Etemon would already know about it. So you all might as well just go and prepare for the festival tonight." The red veggiemon argued.
"So where's Zari and Iceleomon?" I asked.
"If we wait here long enough they'll probably show up eventually." Henry replied.
"Could you at least tell us when the next train is supposed to come through?" Phoebe asked.
"Trailmon Pheebles." I corrected.
"A trailmon only comes through once every morning to bring in goods from down the line. If you want to see one you'll have to wait till tomorrow." The redveggiemon replied.
"So I guess we're staying for the festival." Phoebe said.
"I guess so." I replied.
We waited around for a few minutes for Zari and IceLeomon to show up. Some digimon were busy decorating the buildings with flowers and ornaments while others were bringing in more decorations and food. We were only there for a few minutes before we were approached by a wizardmon of all things.
"You must be the humans the prophecy speaks of." He said.
"What do you know about the dark kings?" I asked.
"Cj, be nice." Phoebe scolded.
"I'm just being to the point." I said.
"Yes well, I don't know of any operating around here, but you never know." The wizardmon replied.
"Have you heard of Alpha Wizardmon? He had a large tower a few days away from here, I used to work for him before his disappearance."
"Yeah we were at that tower a while ago, we took a few books from there, we still have them in the bus." Phoebe answered.
"Pheebles you don't need to tell him that." I said.
"He has no legs they're just clothes with zippers." A slightly disturbed Claire quietly said to Henry.
"It's fine, alpha wizardmon has been missing for a long time. Those books might be helpful too you on your quest." The normal wizardmon replied.
"Is that a mouth on his pants?" Phoebe asked me telepathically.
"Were you around during the last reformation?" Henry asked.
"I was there to watch this city get destroyed, and here I am as it is being rebuilt. I believe Mayor Etemon was as well, though that was long before he was mayor. Alphawizardmon is even older than that though. One of his books details everything that happened between the reformations. Almost up to the very beginning of the digital world. There's lots of us still around, you just have to know where to look."
"We have that book with us, I've read some of it, and the detail was amazing." Phoebe said with some sarcasm.
"So uh, you here for the festival or did Ophanimon send you to tell us something?" I asked.
"Oh no, I'm here for the festival, didn't even think you humans would be here, but if you ever find alpha wizardmon, tell him I'm here." Wizardmon said before walking away.
"Well that just happened." I said.
"Yep." Phoebe replied.
"What if Alpha Wizardmon is a dark king now?" Claire asked.
"I think he'd rather be recording everything we're doing. He's been around a long time, if he was evil I don't think he would've lasted this long" I said.
"If you say so." Phoebe added.
"I told you they were over here." Iceleomon said to Zari, who was looking off in another direction.
"Oh, hi guys." Zari said.
"Where were you guys?" I asked.
"Just doing what you said, trying to find more information on other dark kings, didn't learn anything new though." Zari replied.
"Neither did we, except for the mayor might have some answers." I said.
"But the smelly red vegetable guy won't let us see him." Phoebe said.
"Maybe I could get us in." Iceleomon said.
"Without smashing him?" Zari asked.
"We'll just have to see about that." Iceleomon replied.
"This should be entertaining." I said as Iceleomon went to negotiate with the redveggiemon that wouldn't let us in earlier.
"I could go for some popcorn right now." Henry said.
I laughed, the girls looked at us like we were crazy.
"He's going to turn that guy into tamato juice isn't he?" Phoebe asked.
"Eh, maybe." I replied.
"And you're just going to let him?" Phoebe asked.
"Well you want to try to stop him go ahead." I replied.
"Um no." Phoebe replied.
"Ok then."
"You, smelly red vegetable guy. We need to see the mayor, now." IceLeomon said in a commanding tone.
"Mayor Etemon is very busy today, nobody gets to see him until the festival." Red Veggiemon protested.
"Are you sure about that?" IceLeomon asked. "We really need to see him it's important."
"Huh?" I exclaimed, thinking redveggiemon would be tomato juice by now.
"You're right, this is entertaining." Phoebe said.
"I'm sure. If I let you in he would fire me." Redveggiemon said.
"What's he doing that is so important?" IceLeomon asked.
"Mayor stuff, he's getting ready for the festival." Redveggiemon said.
"What's mayor stuff?" IceLeomon asked.
"Ok fine you want to see him go on in, I'll say you beat me up or something, just leave me alone, I got work to do too." Redveggiemon said.
And that was when Iceleomon delivered a moderately hard punch to his face, tossing him aside and making him drop his clipboard.
"Now you punch him?!" I exclaimed.
"I had to make it more convincing." IceLeomon said.
So we headed into the town hall, up the stairs to the second floor as there wasn't much on the first floor, and was greeted with the disturbing visage of an etemon dancing and singing along awfully to what seemed to be early rock music playing on a record player, couldn't recognize the songs exactly because they were from a different universe, but it still sounded like early rock'n'roll. We watched this horror show for nearly a whole minute until he noticed us standing there. He saw us, stopped dancing, and immediately headed to the window.
Mayor Etemon was basically a normal etemon wearing a blue pinstripe suit jacket over his normal monkey suit. I don't know where he got the suit but he was the first digimon I've seen wearing something other than their normal "clothes" aside from the absolutely ridiculous clothes Phoebe tricked Kitty into wearing. Etemon was a strange digimon, as he was basically a humanoid monkey wearing a bizarre monkey suit that seemingly couldn't decide whether it was a suit or his actual body. His face was also not quite human in shape, with a dog-like nose that made him resemble a Dr. Seuss character with just the slightest amount of uncanny valley.
"DAMMIT REDVEGGIEMON I TOLD YOU NOT TO LET ANYONE INSIDE!" He yelled.
"He's sleeping on the job again. You just can't get good help these days." He said as he turned away from the window as everyone silently wondered how this total goofball got to be mayor. "Well, you're here, what do you want?"
"What do you know about the dark kings?" Phoebe asked.
"I know enough to know they don't come around here, why you asking missy?" Etemon replied.
"We must know where they are so we can stop them before they summon deusmon." IceLeomon said.
"That may be a noble cause and all, but I can assure you there are none around here. So you best be on your way." Mayor Etemon said.
"Boss I'm sorry they took me by surprise." An exhausted redveggiemon said as he hobbled up to the doorway. "They beat me up." He said when he arrived.
"Quiet you! Can't you see we're having a meeting?" Etemon said. "Go back to guarding the door!"
Red Veggiemon solemnly hobbled away.
"He's lying, I beat him up." IceLeomon proudly proclaimed.
"I'm not sure that's something you should be proud of." Claire commented.
"Now listen up humans I don't want you ruining the festival so I request that you leave!" Mayor Etemon demanded.
"Why can't we just watch the festival?" Henry asked.
"Because the traditions of green village are sacred and have been down through many reformations, only locals are allowed to witness them and last I checked you humans don't have a house here."
"Ok, but we're waiting on a trailmon to take us further south." I said.
"Well that's fine I'll call one for you." Mayor Etemon said as he retrieved a 1920s looking phone from his desk and dialed a number.
"Hello is this trailmon central? Yes this is Mayor Etemon, I need one of you guys to come out to green village her ! We need to move some people out."
"We need flatcars too, for our vehicles." I interrupted.
"Bring some flatcars too, they have some vehicles to transport." Mayor Etemon added.
"No I need another train, well put it on a different track, it's not loaded yet is it? No I don't know how much their cargo weighs. You better not be late tonight."
"They're sending a trailmon out now, get your butts to the station." Mayor Etemon demanded.
-a few minutes later-
Well at least we got a train, it's too bad we can't see the festival." Henry said as we walked back to the station.
"Who the hell was he talking too? A trailmon or some guy that just dispatches them?" I asked.
"I don't know. Maybe trailmon central is where they all live." Phoebe replied.
"Do they make money or what? Why does Etemon have control over them?" I asked.
"Because he's the mayor?" Phoebe guessed.
"Maybe he's like Mr. Hatt." Claire said. She meant to say Sir Topham Hatt, but had forgotten his full name.
"I don't think he owns the entire trailmon network." I said.
"Maybe it's like a taxi, anyone can call the number and they'll send one to pick you up." Henry said.
"How many numbers was that phone connected too? And why did it look like some antique from the 20's? " I asked.
"Does it really matter Cj?" Phoebe replied.
"Um probably not, but still there's a working phone network in the digital world, a seemingly obsolete one, but still." I replied, but nobody seemed to care.
"Why did he want us to leave so badly?" Zari asked.
"That's what I don't understand, nobody we talked to seemed to care whether we stayed for the festival or not." Phoebe pointed out. "But he really didn't want us to stay."
"I wonder how long he has been mayor?" Zari asked.
"Who knows, what does that have to do with anything? I want to know how he has a working phone" I replied.
"I'm just saying, it didn't seem like he had a lot of experience in being a mayor, and probably hasn't been one for very long." Zari said.
"You all think etemon is up to something too?" A passing babamon asked, a digimon that resembled and spoke in the voice of an old woman.
Everyone said yes except for Zari, who replied with "I don't know" and IceLeomon who was leading the group at the moment and kept heading towards the train station while the rest of us slowed down to find where the voice came from.
"Who are you?" Phoebe asked.
"I was mayor for the last 3 reformations, but this time I wasn't able to secure the election, not enough of the old guard around anymore. I just couldn't appeal to the young'uns like etemon can. "
"Do you have any evidence of his corruption?" Zari asked.
"We did he say your train was coming?" Babamon asked.
"We got time." I said.
"How long have you been following us?" Claire asked only to be ignored.
"Well first off, every other week he spends out of town, he takes a private trailmon to who knows where and doesn't come back until the next week. " She said.
"Ok well, while that may mean he slacks off a lot it doesn't mean he's corrupt." Zari defended.
"Why are you defending him?" I asked.
"Because there's no evidence that he's corrupt." She replied.
"She is kind of right Cj." Phoebe backed her up.
"Kind of?" I asked, wondering what that meant.
"Well he's shipping us out of town because he doesn't want us here for no particular reason. That's not very nice." Phoebe clarified her answer.
"Well what about this Missy. Did you see that phone in his office? Did you know while I was mayor anyone could use it, but now he just hogs it all to himself. He only lets trailmon with supplies stop here, he never lets anyone leave aside from himself! He always gives some silly excuse about not wanting to annoy the trailmon more, trailmon love to work!" Babamon said to Zari.
"Which also begs the question, why is he letting you leave?" Babamon asked.
"Look, all your "evidence" is just hearsay." Zari said.
"What are you crushing on monkey man or something?" I asked, Phoebe giggled, and everyone else ignored me.
"I think she wants his banana." Phoebe said, which made everyone but Zari and IceLeomon laugh, as IceLeomon just kept heading towards the train station without waiting for us.
"Are you done?" Zari asked.
"You think it was something in the way he danced?" I asked.
"Maybe it was his singing." Claire suggested.
"Sorry all my friends are acting like idiots." Zari apologized.
"Don't worry about them, worry about yourself, I'm telling you Etemon is a dirty rotten scoundrel." Babamon said.
"Well when there's evidence other than your words I'll believe it." Zari replied.
"She does have a point, we really don't have any evidence he's done anything wrong." I said.
"Yeah, but, there's something up with him." Phoebe said.
"Hey before you go. Are outsiders welcome to attend the festival?" Zari asked Babamon who was just about to walk away from us.
"Of course, it used to be encouraged. What? He didn't want you to see? I guess he must think you're too strong then, what a fool." Babamon replied. "Anyway, good luck wherever you're going, you're going to need it."
"Thank you, if I find any real evidence I'll get back to you!" Zari said as she waved goodbye.
"So where you think the train will take us?" I asked.
"A beach?" Phoebe suggested.
"Man, with all the babes we got with us now that'd be something to see." I said.
"Weirdo." Phoebe commented, I could have called her out big time, but I didn't want to embarrass her.
"So Pheebles, do you want to ride on the coach or on our bus?" I asked.
"Let's see what the coach is like first." Phoebe replied.
"Ok baby girl." I said.
"Probably the bus though, especially if we can be alone." She said.
"Hehe, oh baby girl." I said.
"Love train WOO! WOO!" Henry cheered.
"Really?" I asked.
"You know it." Henry said.
Eventually we made it to the station.
"What took you so long? I beat you all here." IceLeomon asked.
"I didn't know it was a race." I said.
"We stopped to talk to somebody, didn't you see?" Phoebe asked.
"I did." IceLeomon replied.
"Then why'd you keep going?" Zari asked.
"Somebody has to be here for the train to explain why you're so slow." IceLeomon replied.
"And what if that train turned out to be a trap and we weren't here yet?" I asked.
"Anyone that tries to trap me is a fool." IceLeomon proclaimed.
About an hour passed before a Kettle style trailmon came speeding down the line. It took us another 30 minutes to load our vehicles up and after that we were comfortably seated in the passenger car heading south. The flat cars had a built in ramp system, so getting our vehicles onto them was pretty easy. Phoebe let Saphira out and I woke up Kitty so we could inform them of what was going on. Both of them confirmed, along with IceLeomon, that Mayor Etemon was not one of the chosen. The coach was very roomy, and had an intercom system that let us speak directly to the trailmon.
"So trailmon, buddy, where we going?" I asked.
"The line is clear up to the end." It replied. "I can take you anywhere you want to go, but we have to get passed trailmon central by sunset to make way for another train." The trailmon said.
"Is there a beach?" Phoebe asked.
"No." The trailmon replied.
"Awwee." Phoebe moped.
"Is there a place taken over by one of the dark kings?" I asked.
"I don't know, I never leave the rails." The trailmon replied.
"Ok how about you just start rolling and we tell you when to stop?" Henry asked.
"That will work." The trailmon said as it began to pull away from the station.
"Cj at some point we're going to have to go back west." Kitty said.
"I know, but we haven't explored all the east first." I replied.
"Otherwise we'd waste so much time traveling to opposite ends of the digital world." Phoebe said.
"Yeah, we'll get there eventually, I promise." I said.
"Allright hang on everyone, I've just been informed by central that we only have 10 minutes to clear this section of track. It's going to get bumpy, hold on." The trailmon suddenly announced as the train began to rapidly accelerate until we must have been going at least 100mph. This took everyone by surprise.
"Not this again!" Saphira yelled.
"What the hell?" I said as it suddenly became difficult to move just from sheer acceleration. A few minutes passed as trees and other scenery flew by outside the windows. We were just about to get used to it when there was a loud bang and it seemed that the train rolled right off the rails.
Everything shook violently like an earthquake to the point where there was no telling what was going on. Somewhere in the middle of this Phoebe took my hand and teleported us out of there and we watched the train careen uncontrollably through the forest for several hundred feet until it finally came to a stop.
All the carriages derailed but somehow stayed upright, protecting us as well as our vehicles. The trailmon was stranded and wasn't going anywhere. Thankfully it was a short train so the destruction was minimal.
"What the hell was that?" I asked as I found myself standing on the track next to her.
"I don't know, I panicked and got us out of there. I hope everyone else is ok." Phoebe replied with a great deal of panic in her voice.
"Sorry, the track was out, couldn't stop in time." The trailmon said, apparently unhurt, but stranded none-the-less. There was no way in hell we could get it back on the rails, and if it tried to move on its own it would just dig itself into the ground.
We barely had time to contemplate what just happened before the disabled train was surrounded by these strange demonic teddy bear looking digimon. I didn't think they were monzaemon as they were smaller than I expected monzaemon to be, had very few facial features except for some x's where their eyes should have been, there was something resembling a gas mask where their mouth should have been, they seemed to have numerous stitches all over their bodies and were covered in rather sharp looking spikes.
"It's an ambush." I said. "We were set up."
"What are those things?" Phoebe said.
"I don't know, I've never seen anything like them before." I said.
They shambled towards the derailed coach. Kitty walked out of one of the exits, they saw her and ran towards her. The mechanorimon had been riding on the flatcars prior to the derailment, after the derailment they were all thrown off and just lying about the place, disoriented and trying to recover. They weren't strapped down like the vehicles.
"We should help them!" Phoebe demanded.
"Yeah, we should." I agreed without hesitation as I observed the situation. "Let's attack from behind."
I got the sword out of my digivice, she took my hand and teleported me close behind a group of them. Ironically these things attacked by hugging their victims and impaling them on their spikes, or by generally flailing around attempting to stab them. They weren't very fast however, they were heavier than they appeared to be and were kind of hard to cut through, I found it easier to stab them than to cut them. Phoebe wasn't having much luck with her shurikens either. Not only did it take several hits to bring them down, some of them were even able to deflect them with their spikes. Saphira and IceLeomon got involved when they were able to make it off the train. While Henry, Claire, and Zari stayed put. The mechanorimon eventually recovered and joined in as well. Their laser attacks were not very effective as usual, but they could outfight them up close. Unfortunately the bears were smart enough to attempt to avoid the mechanorimon and focus on things they could actually hurt. It wasn't a very difficult fight, just tedious. They didn't have any projectile attacks so I probably could have gotten away with sending out Bubba and Magnum, but something at the back of my mind told me this wasn't the only thing coming after us and I kept them in their balls thinking something more threatening could show up at any minute. Only moments after I thought this hundreds of arrows started to fall from the sky from an unknown source. Kitty made a move to protect me using one of the teddy bears she had stabbed through the shoulders as a shield. It got struck about 4 times and burst into data shortly afterwards. Most of the arrows hit the ground, others pinged against the train car, a few broke through the windows, some of them even hit the demon teddy bears. It was an artillery style attack, they were just aiming for the general area. An unlucky mechanorimon got hit right in the eye, destroying it instantly. The others destroyed a lot of them in midair by using their lasers, as more arrows harmlessly pinged against them. IceLeomon got hit several times, but none of the arrows went deep enough to cause any serious mortal wounds. He pulled several of them out and just kept fighting. Saphira hid behind one of the mechanorimon.
"Mechanorimon protect the vehicles!" I said, knowing that if the tires were hit, it would be a major inconvenience. The mechanorimon moved to stand in front of them to protect them from the arrows.
Phoebe and I got separated, I didn't know where she went. It turned out she went to investigate where all the arrows were coming from.
"Where'd Phoebe go?" I asked, as I was having a moment of panic where I thought she maybe got hit by the arrows but I couldn't find her body anywhere.
"I don't know, how'd you get out of the train?" Kitty asked.
"Phoebe got spooked and teleported us out when the train went off the track." I said.
"Did she get hit? Where is she?" I asked.
"I don't know, I don't see her anywhere, she probably teleported behind the train or something. Why didn't you take me with you?" Kitty asked.
"Really Kitty? Phoebe could be dying right now and that's what you're worried about?" I replied.
"I'm pretty sure she's fine." Kitty replied.
"Whatever, let's just deal with these guys and figure out how we're going to get back at Etemon for setting us up." I said, realizing she was probably right and this was not a good time for panicking.
"You think Etemon did this?" Kitty asked.
"No, we just have a random demon teddy bear army that derails trains." I said as we climbed back into the passenger car, which was safer.
"Can I see the digivice?" Kitty asked.
"Uh, sure yeah." I said as I handed it to her.
"What are you going to give me spikes for arms or something?" I asked.
"No." She replied.
She pressed one of the buttons and held it like a camera against one of the dying demon teddy bears.
"See you can use this to identify digimon you don't know." She said.
"It says they're Porcupamon." Kitty said.
"Why do you know this and I don't?" I asked.
"Ophanimon told me a long time ago." She replied.
One of the injured porcupamon got up and made a rush for the door, with a growl that I kid you not sounded like the zombies from minecraft. I was about to react, but Saphira came out of nowhere and knocked it down again.
"Come on, they're still coming, we should get back to fighting them." I said.
"Right." Kitty agreed.
We left the coach and joined them in taking down the last few porcupamon as another wave of arrows came, about half as much as the first. Some of them pinged against the coach but were unable to pierce through it, a lot of them were shot down by the mechanorimon.
The mechanorimon's lasers made for an excellent arrow defense system. We seemed to have the situation under control as Henry, Claire, and Zari left the coach and debated amongst themselves whether they should board the mechanorimon or not.
Phoebe walked back around the coach about a minute later.
"Oh hey, you're ok." I said.
"I was right." Kitty added.
"Hi Kitty, can I have my husband back now?" Phoebe asked.
"Yeah, sure." Kitty replied as Phoebe approached me with arms wide open.
"There was this huge group of these weird guys with these talking birds on their hands standing over there firing arrows." Phoebe said after wrapping her arms around me. "And the birds were so mean! They said whatever they could to try to hurt me as the scarecrows shot arrows at me."
"Ok, if you say so." I replied as I realized where she went. "Did you stop them?"
"I got some of them." Phoebe said. "The others are retreating. Their arrows were getting really close, I had to leave. They were starting to scare me."
"You need help?" I replied.
"If they could almost hit me they'll smoosh you." Phoebe said. "They're retreating anyway."
"How do you know they're not just going to go a short distance away and start firing again?" I asked.
"I don't." She replied. "But I know I probably can't take them, so we'll just have to deal with it."
"Yeah, they'll probably leave once we take out all the teddy bear things." I said.
"He freaked out on me because he thought you could be dying." Kitty interupted.
"Awe, sorry Cj, I wanted to get over there before another wave of arrows came." Phoebe explained.
"It's ok, it's just, you know how many close calls we've had in the past." I said.
"I know." She replied.
"You almost got hit?" I asked.
"Cj, I'm the only one that could get over there to deal with them." Phoebe said.
"Yeah, you're right." I agreed.
"I think he needs a hug." Kitty said.
"I think so too." Phoebe agreed as they both hugged me.
"Ok ok, enough hugs." I said.
"Nyah, you need more." Kitty insisted.
"Mhm." Phoebe agreed.
"Is this really a good time for this?" I asked.
Before those two could continue to emasculate me, we heard a loud engine sound. We looked through the window, and what appeared to be 2 black main battle tanks came out of the trees. They didn't seem to be a digimon at all!
"What the hell?" I said as both girls released me and I held my digivice up to it.
ShadowToyAgumon it said, with a picture that looked absolutely nothing like I was seeing. It turned out that despite being a rookie level, Toy Agumon can merge together with others of its kind into almost anything. Including tanks and giant robots.
"Mechanorimon stop those things!" I said, as the mechanorimon were all still guarding the vehicles. The mechanorimon charged at them, the tanks fired, one round put a gaping hole through the coach, which nobody was inside at this point, the other took down a mechanorimon. Leaving us with 4. Thankfully, despite a rather intimidating appearance and firepower to match, they weren't actually as durable as an actual tank. As soon as the mechanorimon were able to connect, they started to break apart into individual shadowtoyagumon, which were not very strong at all. The tanks started to back away from them. Rearranging their shape to stay functional despite the damage and occasionally firing more rounds. Everyone retreated into the forest to avoid getting hit by them as the mechanorimon proceeded to fight them. More arrows came flying down, most of them taking down whatever porcupamon were still conscious, as well as any toyagumon that got separated from the tanks. Another mechanorimon fell, but as the tanks were getting reduced in size they were also starting to lose their firepower, until eventually they didn't have enough toy agumon in them to remain functional and just reverted to a large group of the things which were all quickly defeated by the mechanorimon. Then everything went quiet for a few minutes, we came out of the forest, wondering if it was over while we located the data streams of the defeated mechanorimon, which was yet another thing our digimon had to show us how to do with the digivice. As there were data streams all over the place now.
The trailmon was scared out of its mind, being unable to move through any of that. The coach was destroyed, the round exploded inside of it and set the interior on fire, by the time the battle slowed down enough that we were able to put it out, most of the interior had melted down to a skeletal frame. The rest of the train, including the trailmon survived, but was still immobile.
Meanwhile, back in the mayor's office in green village.
"What do you mean the attack failed? The Nohemon are retreating? Yes boss, I apologize I thought that would be more than enough to eliminate them. No there's no reason to send her out to deal with them. We'll get the track repaired and your plans for tonight will go through as expected. The attack may have failed, somehow, but they're still stranded miles out in the middle of the forest." Etemon said to a mysterious superior on the phone.
Back at the crash site, we gained more courage with every passing minute until we felt that the attack was officially over, but now we had to figure out what we were going to do. Our train trip was over. Our vehicles were fine, but we couldn't take them very far into the forest before the trees would get too thick to drive through. We finally decided to continue our trip by walking along the tracks, carrying the data streams of our defeated mechanorimon friends with us. We hoped we could make it to another village and maybe get some help from somebody that wasn't trying to kill us. An hour passed, the mechanorimon regenerated and trudged along behind us. That meant our assailants would have regenerated by then as well. Henry climbed into one of the mechanorimon and went to scout out the area ahead. He found a small settlement ahead, so that's where we went, surprisingly, it was occupied mainly by champion level digimon. Greymon, kabuterimon, kiwimon, and a few varieties of veggiemon made the bulk of its population, there were a few rookies around, but they weren't the majority like nearly every other settlement we had come across. Because of this, many of the buildings in this town were substantially larger, but as a whole it was still smaller in area than green village. It didn't even have a train station, it was just built next to the tracks, surrounded by the forest.
"Well, well, we got ourselves some humans, what brings you into town?" A greymon asked.
"Mayor Etemon derailed our train and tried to kill us." Phoebe said as I hoped to god they weren't on his side, thankfully, most of them weren't. Some didn't care, and others didn't like him for a completely different reason.
"He kicked some of us out of his little town. Said we were too strong and could hurt the weaker digimon. "A kiwimon said. "Yet he's pretty strong himself and won't leave, so we set up this village here away from his."
"Well he's definitely crooked so I'm not surprised." I replied.
"Why'd you leave?" Phoebe asked.
"He ran us out of town, most of the digimon that live there are avid fans of his. They even tore down our houses." The greymon replied.
"Why didn't you fight back?" I asked.
"It would only give truth to their claims." The kiwimon said.
"Yet he's not a dark king." I pondered.
"Have you ever seen like these um, demonic teddy bear digimon around him?" I asked.
"Porcupamon?" Kitty suggested.
"Yeah either those or black toy agumon?" I continued.
"Or those scarecrow bird guys." Phoebe added.
"No why?" Greymon asked.
"That's what attacked us. We think they're connected somehow." I said.
"We do?" Kitty asked.
"Well they pretty much have to, I doubt that was just a random attack, even the trailmon was told to hurry just to increase the chance of it derailing. Notice how we've been walking along the track for at least two hours now and no sign of another train. " I said.
"So trailmon central is corrupt too." Phoebe suggested.
"Probably." I said.
"Are we going to have to fight trains now?" Henry asked.
"I have no idea." I replied.
"But still, shouldn't be too hard just stay off the tracks." I replied.
"I don't think they know." Zari said. "Ours was scared for its life when we left it, I doubt it would derail itself on purpose."
We really had no choice but to leave the poor thing behind, even with all the mechanorimon and IceLeomon together, it was too heavy to lift. Phoebe used her powers to put it in a deep sleep so at least it would be unaware if anything was to come after it, the best we could do for it at the time. She was able to put it to sleep, it just took a lot longer for it to work than it would for a pokémon or human, too long to be convenient in most cases.
"What if Mayor Etemon is actually working for a dark king?" Henry suggested.
"He said there were no dark kings around here." Claire said.
"He just tried to kill us, I don't think he'd hesitate to lie." I said.
"Right." Claire replied.
"So who is this guy then?" Henry asked.
"A dark king? Who knows?" I replied.
"Maybe it's a giant teddy bear." IceLeomon suggested. "That would be fun to punch!"
"Oookay." I replied.
"Why would it be fun to punch a cute little teddy bear?" Phoebe asked.
"Because it's soft and if you punch it hard enough you can rip out it's stuffing." IceLeomon replied.
"I shouldn't have asked." Phoebe privately said to me through telepathy.
"Why would something like that be a dark king?" Zari asked.
"Because it would be easy." IceLeomon said.
"That's exactly why it can't be one." I replied.
"Are you all going to spend the night here or what are you going to do?" The Greymon asked.
The mechanorimon needed a rest, they hadn't had one in a long time and even though they regenerated that didn't mean they were at 100%. Half of them were still trying to recover from their battle with Jewelbeemon, and the other half weren't much better.
"I guess we'll stay for a little bit." I said.
"Yeah." Phoebe agreed.
So we hung out around this village for a while, until eventually a trailmon went by that caught our attention. I couldn't recognize the model, it wasn't one that had been on frontier, but it was long, black, had a huge steel wedge on the front with a little slot cut out of it for a single, menacing red eye, and a pair of cannons on its roof. It was carrying a lot of coaches, but it was what was in them that caught our attention. For they appeared to be full of the various digimon that attacked us earlier. Large groups of nohemon, toyagumon, and porcupamon. The coaches were followed by a line a flatcars, which were hauling some kind of armored car looking thing. The vehicles resembled a Daimler scout car from ww2, but was colored black and generally looked more modern. They were likely made out of several toyagumon just like the tanks we had faced earlier.
"Cj did you see that?" Phoebe asked.
"Yeah, it looks like it's Etemon's troop train or something." I said.
"Something is going on, that must be the other train he was talking about." Phoebe replied.
"I wonder where they're going." Zari said.
"Maybe they're meant for us?" I said.
"They're not stopping here." Henry said. The trailmon wasn't moving very fast, but there was no sign of it slowing down.
"Cj you want to come with me and investigate?" Phoebe asked.
"I guess." I said.
"I'm going too." Kitty said.
"Ok then just get in the digivice." I said.
"Hurry up before the train passes. You too Saphira." Phoebe said.
"What about us?" Henry asked.
"I can't take all of you, just stay here." Phoebe replied.
"I guess you could follow us with the mechanorimon." I said.
Our digimon entered our digivices then Phoebe took my hand and we teleported onto one of the passing flatcars. I nearly fell on my butt as I wasn't ready for the train to be moving. If Phoebe wasn't still holding my hand I probably would've just fallen off.
My digivice confirmed the armored cars were in fact groups of shadow toy agumon. The turrets of the vehicles appeared to be slowly looking around, in a manner that would be cute had that gun not had the ability to disintegrate me if it saw me. They seemed to be only able to "see" where the turret was pointing, and because they were busy watching the scenery pass by alongside the train, they weren't really paying attention to us. We both just took a seat on the edge of the flatcar and stayed there for a while as the train headed down the tracks.
"So what do you think they're doing?" I asked my beloved, the train was loud enough she was the only one that could hear me, but still she insisted on replying telepathically. "I don't know, but these are the same guys that attacked us, so it can't be anything good."
"So you just want to hang out here then?" I thought.
"Until either the train stops or they spot us." Phoebe replied.
I put my arm around her and pulled her close.
"They could see us at any moment you know?" She said.
"Yeah, I know." I replied, to which she responded by kissing me on the cheek.
"I need to watch them in case they notice us." She said before pulling away.
"Allright, if you say so." I replied.
Henry, Claire, and Zari eventually began to follow us in the mechanorimon. Leaving IceLeomon behind with the other three. They were flying high enough in the air that the toy agumon couldn't spot them unless they just happened to look up at them. Even though the mechanorimon are quiet loud, they still couldn't be heard over the ambient noise of the train.
Everything went fine, until we passed the wreckage of our previous train. The tracks had been mysteriously repaired and most of the digimon we had defeated earlier were recovering and just watching the train go by. We were spotted, the toy agumon that were there converged into a pair of attack helicopters. This got the attention of all the toy agumon on the train which were now looking around. Which meant Phoebe had to constantly teleport to avoid being seen while the attack helis attempted to line up a shot. The scout car toyagumon eventually drove off the side of the drain and began to follow it. Then Henry, Claire, and Zari began to rain down lasers at them as machinegun fire engulfed the train. This drew the attention to them and soon the attack helis were ascending in order to fight them. Zari descended and quickly took them both out with the mechanorimon's melee attacks, causing a lot of shadowtoyagumon to comically rain down from the sky, bursting into data streams on impact. Phoebe teleported us to the roof of the coaches where they were a little more hesitant to fire, as the scout cars began to fire their main cannons at Henry, Claire, Zari, and the mechanorimon. Unsuccessfully, their guns weren't fast enough to really have a chance in hell at hitting them. The scout cars began using their machineguns to sweep across the roof of the passenger carriages, Phoebe began to teleport us around unpredictably to avoid their fire, but there was no safe place to go, so eventually Phoebe got tired from teleporting, made a mistake and teleported us off the edge of the train into the forest.
"What the hell?" I exclaimed after we both came to rest after a series of violent rolls and sliding. There weren't many parts of me that felt like they didn't just smack into a wall after that.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Phoebe apologized. "I, I missed the train, I messed up."
"Please don't be mad, please."
"Are you ok?" I asked.
"I'll be fine." She replied as she hugged me.
Fortunately the scout cars had no idea where we went, so they just kept following the train and taking shots at Henry, Claire, and Zari, who were too high up in the air to see that we weren't on the train anymore. By the time we made it back to the rails we could see the last car of the train disappear over the horizon, Phoebe was already tiring out before this, so there was no way we could get back on it.
"I'm sorry." Phoebe said, feeling like she seriously messed up. The reality was there was no way we would have survived on that train anyway. Her mistake was actually a stroke of luck.
"I'd rather you be sorry than dead." I replied.
"What do we do now?" She asked.
I released Kitty from my digivice, Phoebe followed my lead and did the same with Saphira.
"What happened?" Kitty asked as she looked around and saw nothing but trees.
"If it's another train crash I swear." Saphira began.
"We lost the train." I said.
"You got to be kidding me." Saphira replied. "Are there any survivors we have to deal with?"
"No I mean we lost it." I said.
"I teleported us off the side." Phoebe nervously explained.
"It's allright baby girl." I said, covered in bruises. "I guess we just have to walk."
"Can I go back to sleep then?" Kitty asked.
"No, you walk with us." I said. "They could still turn around and start looking for us, it's better if you're out, awake, and ready to go."
Henry, Claire, and Zari kept following the train, too high in the air to see what had happened, high enough that the scout cars stopped firing at them.
The train came to a stop at green village station right as the festival was going on. Hundreds of porcupamon piled out and invaded the city while the nohemon stayed back to rain arrows from the sky if necessary, and the toyagumon converged into about a half dozen IFVs to back up the porcupamon. In this form they vaguely resembled a bunch of old soviet bmps . The scout cars followed suit as Mayor Etemon was giving a speech in the town square. "Green village has a history of endurance that spans back over 6 reformations, and now today it has once again been reconstructed thanks to the efforts of all of you. And now, as your mayor I hereby declare this town and the data of all of its citizens the property of Marionamon , if you look around you, you'll see some friendly escorts ready to take you to Marionamon, who will use your data to become even stronger!"
The citizenry went from joyous to horrified as they realized they had been betrayed, but there was nothing they could do because Marionamon's army already surrounded them. Etemon stood there with a big dumb grin on his face as the crowd protested. While the porcupamon "escorted" them back to the train. Some of them fought, but were beaten severely for it. Of course, Etemon received the entire city as payment for his betrayal, as well as not being a target of Marionamon, for the moment at least.
Henry, Claire, and Zari watched from the skies as nearly all of green village's citizens were stuffed into the toy agumon bmps and then carried over to the train to be packed like sardines into the numerous passenger carriages.
The whole process took about an hour, Etemon thought he was alone, and headed back to his mansion wanting to get some sleep because he thought tomorrow was going to be a busy day ransacking all the other houses in the city for valuables. The porcupamon were still going through the houses, looking for any holdouts, but the once busy streets were empty.
"Etemon, how could you do such a horrible thing?" Babbamon asked.
"How are you still here granny? Get your little old butt on the train before I call my friends back here and force you out." Etemon commanded.
"How could you be so heartless? So greedy." She asked, completely unfazed.
"Well I uh…" Etemon tried to explain.
"They voted for you thinking you would help them, you sold them out to be consumed by a monster even bigger than you." Babamon interrupted.
"Well what do I care? They were a bunch of weaklings!" Etemon retorted.
Babamon angrily stared at him.
"Now get out of my city!" Etemon yelled as he tried to kick her, but she was surprisingly able to dodge, and even more surprisingly she was easily able to trip him with her broom, causing him to fall on his face and allowing her to escape.
"You have no right to call it your city!" She said as she scurried away.
"I'll get you for this granny, just you wait and see!" Etemon said as he got back on his feet only to be struck by a ball of lightning.
"Etemon, what have you done?" Wizardmon asked as he suddenly walked out from behind a building.
"I thought I ran you out of town last week." Etemon said as he glared at him angrily.
"I snuck back in to see the festival, but it looks like you've ruined it." Wizardmon replied.
"That's not the only thing I'm going to ruin if you don't get out of my sight." Etemon said.
"You can't beat him wizardmon. He's a level above you." Babamon said.
"I can't just stand here and let him send all those citizens off to be slaughtered." Wizardmon said as he prepared another thunder squall.
"It's too late for that." Etemon chuckled in a sinister manner. "Train's about to leave."
"Boss, blocks A, B, and C have been cleared successfully, still waiting on D, what's going on here?" Redveggiemon said as he hobbled to Etemon's side.
"You're just in time Redveggiemon. Take this wizardmon here out of the city." Etemon said.
"Right, um, come on now wizardmon. " Redveggiemon nervously said.
"You will do no such thing." Babbamon demanded.
"And take granny out too while you're at it." Etemon added.
"Don't you dare." Babamon said.
"Do it, or I'll put you on the train as well." Etemon threatened.
Redveggiemon panicked and hobbled away, Etemon generated a dark orb in his hand, not unlike a shadowball, but slower and more powerful, and tossed it at redveggiemon, it hit him, knocked him down, and, unlike a shadowball, enshrouded his entire body until it finally caused him to burst into data a few seconds later. It was his dark network attack.
"You can't get good help these days." Etemon said.
"You could if you weren't such a wicked fool." Babamon replied.
"Just for that, you're next granny." Etemon declared as he threw another dark orb at her.
She somehow managed to deflect it with just her broom, to Etemon's surprise.
"Don't try your luck Etemon." Babbamon replied.
"That was a lucky break." Etemon declared. " You won't be able to dodge this next one!"
"You bore me, I'm going home." Babbamon said.
"But you can beat him!" Wizardmon protested.
"What's it matter if I can? He's not really the one in charge here, Marionamon is." Babbamon replied as she easily deflected another one of a now frustrated Etemon's attacks.
Henry, Claire, and Zari carefully landed a little ways outside the village to avoid drawing unwanted attention, before leaving the mechanorimon behind and approaching the city on foot. There was a literal trainload of enemies, so they were hesitant to start fighting them. The scout cars had lost sight of them before the train even came to a stop, so while they were aware they could still be around, they had no idea where to look. The rest of the train's passengers heard the gun fire and were well aware of a potential threat, but had no idea what they were looking for, so they proceeded with their task at hand, forcing villagers onto the train.
"Where's Cj and Phoebe?" Claire asked.
"I don't know, I thought they were on the train." Henry replied.
"Maybe if we weren't hiding they could find us easier?" Zari suggested, unaware of how Phoebe's powers worked.
"Are you crazy? Do you want to get hugged by those teddy bear monsters?" Claire freaked out.
"Shh, don't get their attention." Henry said.
Many porcupamon gathered around the train station. With all the new passengers, there was only enough room on the train for a few of them, others had to walk back to wherever their base was in a militaristic fashion. An odd sight to see.
Once nearly all the citizens were onboard, the well armored trailmon blew it's horn and began to reverse back down the tracks, taking most of green village's citizens with it. The toy agumon driving alongside it in their various vehicle forms, and a large number of porkupamon and nohemon marching behind as there was no room for them. The train quickly gained distance on them and soon they were all marching home alone.
-meanwhile-
"How long do we have to keep going?" Kitty asked, we had been walking for an hour at this point.
"Until we get there." Phoebe replied.
"Can't you teleport?" Kitty asked.
"I'm tired, I can't teleport very far." Phoebe said. "It makes my head hurt."
"Well why don't you just rest for a little while and then you can teleport us right there." Kitty said.
"I don't know where "right there" is, and even if I did, I'd just tire myself out again, and then we could end up somewhere surrounded by enemies." Phoebe replied.
"And then we're screwed." I added.
"Mhm." Phoebe agreed. "It's better just to walk for now, so I can get my strength back before we have to fight again."
"Well this is dumb." Kitty complained.
"I just hope we don't have to get on another train again." Saphira said.
"Are you crazy, then we wouldn't have to walk anymore!" Kitty replied.
"I'm sick of being in train crashes, it's like every train I ever get on is doomed." Saphira said.
"Oh don't be silly, that's ridiculous." Phoebe said. "You were on that last one with me and it didn't have any problems, I just accidently teleported us off of it."
"What are you talking about Saphira, we've only ever been in one train crash." I said.
"You've been in only one, that was my third." Saphira replied. "It wasn't an easy trip getting to that hotel, those trailmon go nuts if they feel threatened."
"You never said anything about this before." I pointed out.
"I didn't think we'd ever need to get on a train again." Saphira replied.
"I know how you feel, I feel the same way every time Cj gets near the controls of a plane." Phoebe said.
"Hey, I can fly, I just don't know how to land." I defended.
"But that's the most important part." Phoebe argued.
"And when is the last time I was near the controls of an airplane anyway?" I asked.
"I don't know, all I know is the last time you tried to fly a plane it ended in a huge explosion." Phoebe replied.
"You crashed a plane?" Kitty asked.
"That was years ago." I said.
"Oh, um, what's a plane?" Kitty asked.
"It's a giant metal tube with wings that flies through the air. It's like a train, but it flies." I attempted to explain.
"Oh, ok." Kitty replied.
"Good thing they don't exist here." Phoebe said.
"Even the H.A.V.A.C almost crashed and he was just standing near the controls." Phoebe said.
"What's a H.A.V.A.C? " Kitty asked.
"It's a humongous metal tube with giant wings that flies through the air and has big shooty death guns." I replied. "And Pheebles, that incident literally had nothing to do with me."
"I know, but still." Phoebe replied.
"But still, but nothing." I argued.
"The train's coming back!" Phoebe yelled as the tail end of the train appeared on the horizon.
"Great." Saphira said with heavy sarcasm.
"Hey Pheebles, you think we can destroy the tracks and make it crash?" I asked.
"I don't know how we're going to do that without Aggron or nidoqueen." Phoebe said.
"Dam, you're right. I guess we'll just have to board it again." I said.
"We need to hide, those evil cars are coming too!" Phoebe exclaimed.
"Right again." I said as we began to sprint into the forest before the toy agumon saw us.
We watched the train pass by again, only this time instead of the expressionless faces of porkupamon we could see the panic, tearful, and horrified faces of the numerous citizens of green village in the windows.
"You see that?" I asked.
"They don't look like they want to be on there." Phoebe said.
"Where are they going?" I asked.
"I don't know." Phoebe said.
"Kitty get in the digivice, and don't fall asleep." I said.
"Ok."
"You too Saphira." Phoebe added.
"Phoebe can you get us on the locomotive?" I asked.
"I'll try." She replied as she took my hand.
The trailmon passed by a few moments later, Phoebe teleported and we ended up on it's roof. It knew we were up there almost instantly, but couldn't do anything about it because we were between its two cannons, and if it were to fire at us, it'd shoot itself. Instead, a pair of shadowtoyagumon came out of a hatch on the roof and charged at us. However they were alone, so all Phoebe had to do was hit them with a shadowball and they both fell off the train.
The trailmon then started to shake violently attempting to throw us off as well. It felt like it had derailed, even though it hadn't.
We crawled down the hatch to find 2 more shadow toy agumon manning the turrets and a large, suspicious radio by the control stand, which turned out to be 3 more toy agumon that were communicating with another trio on the back of the train, so the trailmon wouldn't accidently back into anything. The radio was huge and rather silly looking, it only drew our attention after we took out the other two agumon as it attempted to defend itself by making some really high pitched sounds. Phoebe couldn't concentrate, so I ended up putting my sword through it, which caused it to separate into 3 toy agumon that were then quickly mowed down.
"Marionamon isn't going to like this." The trailmon said. "I can't let you leave."
The hatch we climbed down from slammed shut and all the interior lights went out leaving us in pitch black darkness.
"Marionamon?" I asked.
"Must be who he works for." Phoebe said.
"Never heard of that one." I replied.
"Really? You had to turn out the lights?" I asked. "You realize you either let us out or we carve our way out right? It probably won't end well for you."
"It won't end well for me if I let you stop this delivery." The trailmon replied.
"Rerouting exhaust, goodnight." The trailmon said as it quickly became difficult to breathe.
"I guess we're going to . . . . . have to . . . Pheebles . . . . I don't feel so good. " I said as the lack of air began to make me feel rather weak.
She just took my hand and teleported us off of the train again. Another violent landing, but it was better than suffocating.
"That was close." I said as my breathing gradually caught up.
"Mhm." Phoebe said.
The trailmon began to fire its cannons at us. She teleported us right next to the tracks so it was easy for it to spot us. It fired in a high arc, so we had a little bit of time to get out of the way. But its firing did get the attention of the entire armored division escorting it, and within seconds they were all coming to investigate.
"Oh for fucks sake!" I exclaimed.
Phoebe took my hand and teleported us deeper and deeper into the forest until she tired herself out once again. She collapsed, I just layed next to her on the forest floor. Hoping they couldn't make it this far through all the trees.
"Why is this so hard?" I asked.
"I don't know." Said a tired Phoebe.
"How long do you need to rest?" I asked.
"A little while, just look out for me ok?" She asked.
"Will do baby girl." I replied.
Kitty came out of my digivice on her own.
"What happened now, why aren't we on the train?" She asked.
"Things went bad, now a bunch of murderous vehicles are after us." I replied.
"Toyagumon?" She asked.
"Yep." I replied.
"Kitty, help Cj keep an eye out for them so I can rest for a while, at least until my headache goes away." Phoebe said.
"I'll try." She replied.
It took a few minutes before she was ready to go again. Once she was, we did a lot of walking in the same direction the train was heading as well as towards the railroad tracks, staying cautious and alert to avoid the toy agumon that were chasing us. Some of them made the fatal mistake of splitting apart to better explore the forest, only to make themselves easy pickings. Between the four of us, we pretty much cut their numbers in half. One of the scout cars spotted us and opened fire, we took cover behind the trees. Phoebe let Cloudela out which provided enough of a distraction for Kitty and I to get behind it and slowly chip away at it. While it wasn't as tough as an actual vehicle, it still took several hits to take down. Eventually we made it back to the edge of the forest, Phoebe teleported us to the other side of the tracks sight unseen and we carefully followed them until we managed to get some distance between us and the toyagumon, who still thought we were on the other side. They weren't stupid, they were spread out quite a bit, but they didn't realize Phoebe could teleport, or at least the extent of her ability to teleport, and as usual that got us pretty far. The train had long since gone, there was no way to catch up to it. We just kept heading in the same direction until nightfall, where we found a spot away from the tracks to camp out for the night. Starting a fire was easy now thanks to the sword. We didn't really need it for warmth, but if Henry, Claire, or Zari flew by they could use it to find us.
"Saphira, Cj and I are going to head into the woods to have some time alone together. If Kitty wakes up keep her here."
"We are?" I asked.
"Um ok." Saphira replied.
" Yes we are." Phoebe insisted as she took my hand and slowly led me away from the fire.
"I just want you for myself tonight is that so wrong?" She asked when Saphira wasn't able to hear us.
"No it's fine baby girl." I said.
"It's just been go go go all day, no time for us." She continued.
"Yeah, well, we just had a long break." I said.
"I know, but I still need some time, alone, with my loving husband." She said as she wrapped her arms around me.
"We've been together most of the day." I said.
"Without things trying to kill us." She replied as our eyes met.
"Ohhh Pheebles, I love you baby girl." I said as I pulled her close.
"Then show me." She softly replied as we started to make out.
"I'm a bit tired, but." I began.
"As long as you're willing to try it's enough." Phoebe replied before I could finish.
"You can start making it up to me for that night I let you have with Kitty." Phoebe said as her hands flashed and I felt my pants fall to my ankles.
"But first let me make it up to you for teleporting you off of that silly train." Phoebe said as she got down on her knees.
We exchanged "I love yous" and did what we needed to do, got dressed, headed back to the fire and tried to get some sleep only for three mechanorimon and IceLeomon to show up minutes later, thankfully we were dressed by then.
What happened was that, Henry, Claire, and Zari never came by, instead they were determined to catch up to the train, knowing the civilians were going to be executed, which was something we didn't know. Phoebe and I assumed they were just being taken to dig a hole somewhere looking for one of the statues, or other slave labor that, while not right, at least meant we had more time.
They made a quick stop at the champion-filled village and picked up the other 3 mechanorimon, as well as IceLeomon, who figure out he could fly if two mechanorimon carried him. They saw our fire as they passed by and sent the other 3 along with IceLeomon to pick us up.
Together we caught up to the train, whatever toyagumon we hadn't destroyed earlier were miles behind, still looking for us. The trailmon turned out all the lights so it was hard to see in the dark. It fired at us with its cannons, but we were pretty hard to hit, and to make things even better, IceLeomon managed to land on its roof and disable its cannons with a series of punches.
He didn't make the same mistake we did by entering the trailmon, which for him would've been suicide. With little in the way of options, we tried to fly passed the train in order to sabotage the rails ahead of it. The trailmon was smart enough to realize this and put the pedal to the metal. Mechanorimon can't fly particularly fast, and soon the train was pulling away. It had nearly gotten away from us, but then it happened, the enemy of all trains appeared on the horizon, a low speed curve. A curve it had forgotten about and managed to hit at well over 100mph, in reverse no less. What resulted was pure and utter chaos. What was now the front most coach began to tip over, taking the empty flatcar in front of it off the rails as well. The toyagumon standing on the very back of the train to watch the back end for the trailmon jumped off, as the second coach began to tip. One by one the coaches began to tip and fly off the track to the outside of the curve, sliding on their sides along the slick grass at high speed. Unlike the derailment we had suffered earlier this one was a lot less fortunate. The coaches slammed into the trees at high speed, bending many of them at odd angles. The trailmon itself smacked into a tree as well and pretty much burst into a cloud of data on impact which was accompanied by a loud explosion. Many, many data streams erupted from the shattered windows and ripped open sides of the badly mangled coaches making for what seemed like a very bizarre fog. A few enemy porkupamon climbed out of the coaches through whatever exit was convenient for them, but IceLeomon, who was already on the ground and managed to jump clear to safety in the moments before the crash, put a quick end to them. Some civilians survived and managed to climb out on their own, but we spent hours trying to pick out the civilian data streams from the enemy data streams. Thankfully these were digimon, or the death toll would've been ridiculous. What was already a long night became even longer when another vehicular platoon of shadowtoyagumon appeared. We couldn't save everyone. We held them off for as long as we could and gave the civilians time to escape into the forest, but eventually we had to retreat. We were tired, and heavily outnumbered. We barely even escaped as they started to morph into helicopters to chase us. They took whatever data we couldn't save and made off with it. While it wasn't a total victory, we did screw up his operation. Marionamon did not get everyone's data, and tomorrow we would escort the survivors to the champion village with plans to take green village back from Etemon. I realized we would need to change tactics to beat this goon. So, once we escaped and made camp for the night we had this conversation.
"Kitty, Saphira, both of you have to start killing these guys, there's no way we can defeat an enemy this big otherwise." I said.
"Are you sure about that Cj?" Phoebe asked.
"I'm sure, we need to whittle them down, and it will take longer for us to do that than for them to regenerate. Those shadowtoyagumon will be our death if we don't reduce their numbers." I explained.
"I agree." Henry said. "We should've been doing that from the beginning."
"It's either us or them." Zari said.
"And absorbing their data would make you girls stronger wouldn't it?" I asked.
"A little bit." Kitty agreed. "But Ophanimon told us not too."
"And when is the last time you heard from Ophanimon?" I asked.
"Ok, Cj, I understand, if you think it's necessary." Kitty reluctantly agreed.
"You too Saphira, don't just stare at the fire like you're not hearing this." Phoebe insisted.
"Right, I will." Saphira agreed.
"Can I kill them too?" IceLeomon asked.
"You don't have a partner yet, but sure." I said.
"IceLeomon? How could you be so willing to defy Ophanimon's orders?" Kitty asked in shock.
"I agreed to this for one reason and one reason only, to get stronger, and I can't do that if I don't absorb anybody." IceLeomon said.
"Kitty it's going to be fine, but from now on we take no prisoners!" I said.
"Cj, just don't get carried away, remember we're the good guys." Phoebe cautioned.
"I know Pheebles, don't worry." I said.
"If our lives are at stake theirs should be too." Henry said.
"Right, otherwise it's just not fair." Zari agreed.
"If that's what it takes to get through this, I'm tired of getting constantly attacked." Claire said.
"Allright, now that that is settled, I'm exhausted, so I'm going to go to sleep. Goodnight everyone, you coming Pheebles?" I said.
"Of course Cj, I'm tired too." Phoebe agreed as I offered her my hand, she took it, and together we walked a short distance away from the fire. We layed down on the grass, snuggled up to each other, and fell asleep soon afterwards. Everyone else eventually left the fire and found their own place to sleep, aside from the mechanorimon, who were all standing guard, and thus concluded the first day of what would become the war with Marionamon. The digimon would be more important to us now than ever, as despite all our weapons, they were the only ones that could absorb and effectively "kill" another digimon.