Forbidden Fusion

by killalao

explicit multiversal adventure with lots of cute girls.

74. Bacchusmon's

-chapter 74-

The next day came. I woke up between my two favorite ladies who were on the same plain of existence as me, and progressed in a relatively normal manner as we eventually continued to travel north.

We ran into another small group of IceDevidramon by noon that served as a nice break in the monotony and an excuse to get out of the bus for a while, but the battle was unremarkable and one-sided, so only a few minutes later we were heading north again like nothing had happened, but it was clear these were just scouting forces and soon we would be back in the thick of it.

The mechanorimon started to take the lead, to better protect the vehicles that don't self-heal. And they also started flying higher so they could engage the enemy faster, since so far we had only encountered IceDevidramon, and a mere handful of a new kind, Frostwyvernmon. Another ice dragon digimon that was a bit less demonic looking with icy blue scales. It was maybe a bit swifter when fighting up close, but not as physically strong as IceDevidramon, but it was still a predominantly airborne digimon. Other than that, their main method of combat was basically the same, just fly around and breathe icebeams over everything, in addition they could generate large amounts of razor-sharp icicles, about the equivalent of maybe 20 shellders using icicle spear at once. But it took a few seconds for them to generate and they seemed to need to have their wings spread wide in order to do it.

Anyway, Phoebe was driving the first shift today.

"Wow, I can't believe how boring this has gotten now that everyone is keeping their clothes on. I thought you guys were just being weird at first, but this is worse." Saphy said.

"Yeah, I know, we're going to have to make up for it when we get the chance. But you didn't even play along most of the time when we could." Phoebe replied as she drove.

"No we don't." Kitty said.

"I don't know." I replied.

"Really?" Kitty asked.

"Could be fun, it's been pretty fun so far just need a break every once in awhile." I said.

"Yeah, but it was still fun to watch." Saphy said. "Way better than this."

"Does it really matter that much? You girls do most of the fighting anyway. All we can do is shoot at them and most of the time that doesn't even seem to make a difference." Zari said.

"It does hurt us, trust me." Kitty said.

"Yeah if they're hit enough times they'll go down, so it's not like you're doing nothing." I said.

"Zari, J would let you because it might help keep Cj safe, but, we're running low on condoms, Kitty is not going to like that very much at all, and I know Cj would love to, but he won't go for it either." Phoebe said, hiding the truth that she really didn't want me to be with Zari for a while atleast.

"And I'm not just going to stand by and watch either." Chally said.

"Yeah, if I let you then I have to let Chally, and then Kitty will be really upset." Phoebe said.

"Mhmmmmhhmmmmm." Kitty chimed in.

"Fair enough." Zari said.

"What about me?" Kitty asked.

"If you make me mad I'll let Zari sleep with us and you'll be all alone." Phoebe said, teasingly.

"That's so mean." Kitty said.

"Then don't make me mad, besides we have a guest did you forget?" Phoebe asked.

"Yeah but do we really though? She just keeps looking out the window, she hasn't said anything for hours." Saphy said.

"Yeah sister, I don't think she'll mind." Kitty said.

"I don't care, no means no, stop asking." Phoebe said.

"Awwwe come on." Kitty replied.

"I mean what is she even looking at? There's nothing but trees out there." Saphy said.

"I don't know, she's a digimon like you, I've no idea what goes on in her head and I'm not even sure it's all good things." Phoebe said.

"Is she even aware we're talking about her?" Saphy asked.

"I don't know." Phoebe replied as DarkVioletmon turned to look at Saphy.

"Oh great she's looking at me now." Saphy said.

"I guess she knows then." Phoebe replied.

"You know normally if you look at somebody you kind of have to say something or you just look weird." Saphy said.

Darkvioletmon seemed to be annoyed by this and turned back towards the window.

"Well atleast that got her to stop." Saphy said.

"All of you just remember, at the end of the day he's my Cj, I don't have to let any of you sleep with him." Phoebe said.

"Except for me." Kitty said.

"No, not even you." Phoebe replied.

"Cj." Kitty said like I was supposed to say something.

"Oh relax Kitty Kat." I replied.

"Pheebles?" I asked.

"Mhm?" She replied.

"You my baby girl?" I asked.

"Always and forever." She replied.

"Allright then." I said.

"I love you." She said.

"Love you." I replied.

"That's great that you love each other, but we're still really bored." Saphy said.

"Yep." Zari said.

"Still bored." Challana added.

"You know we have a tv and plenty of movies to watch." Phoebe said.

"We've watched every single one of your video discs several times over, even the one that's more or less a parody of the evil version of you and Cj." Saphy said.

Yes, that was a thing somehow. There was a comedy movie featuring two characters that were parodies of our evil counterparts that existed in the world we bought the bus and the movies, and several other things from, of course on seeing this how could we not buy it, a male gardevoir named JT with skin as black as chally's and some pink haired chick name BB who were arch enemies of team rocket who were somehow the good guys in that universe. The protagonist was a team rocket agent with serious Johnny English vibes, who seemed to have ample amounts of sheer dumb luck as his only real ability, he had an overly stupid growlithe as a pokémon, which was more or less a running joke. With it running into walls and knocking itself out, attacking the wrong person, sometimes attacking inanimate objects, violating enemy pokémon, and even at one point somehow defying all logic and using water gun instead of flamethrower, right up to the climax of the movie where it decides to attack a propane tank instead of BB's persian, blowing up the entire building, which results in its untimely death, though it does lead to BB and JT being arrested, how they or even the protagonist survived is not known.

"Well watch some of them again, maybe you missed something." Phoebe suggested.

"Nah." Saphy said.

"Sister can I take a nap in the bed?" Kitty asked.

"Yeah if you keep your clothes on." Phoebe said.

"Cj?" Kitty asked.

"I don't have a problem with it, go ahead if you want, if nobody is using it, you don't even have to ask." I said.

"Ok." Kitty said before kissing me on the cheek, getting up and heading towards the back of the bus, where the bed was.

"I didn't say you could kiss him." Phoebe said.

"I didn't ask." Kitty replied.

"Cj." Phoebe said.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Now you have to kiss me when I'm not driving.' Phoebe said.

"Ok, if I remember by then." I replied, knowing we wouldn't change drivers for several hours yet.

"Oh don't worry, I will." Phoebe said.

"Still bored." Saphy said.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of traveling." I replied. "How do you think everyone else out there feels? They don't have a bed to fool around in, they can't even play cards. The newbies in the mechanorimon can't even sit down. That's mostly why we stop at night, so they can rest, and also why we stop at every village we come across, even though there's little chance we'll find anything worthwhile. " I said.

"Cj ease up." Phoebe said.

"True, they do have it quite a bit worse." Zari agreed.

"Well we do have these books you can read. I kind of forgot we had them actually, actually forgot where we got them." I said.

"They're from that tower in the forest, back when we were fighting Grankuwagamon a long time ago. I want to get around to reading them, but so far it's been more fun playing with you." Phoebe said.

"Hey actually, I think I see another village up ahead. Or something I'm not sure what." Phoebe said as the silhouette of a massive wall appeared on the horizon. Not just a village, a village that had become aware of what was going on in time to fortify itself before it was attacked. This usually didn't mean much as the walls were just made out of logs, but still, it was the first one we had come across this far north. There also seemed to be a large structure behind the wall, but at the moment it looked little more than a massive black rectangle.

"Oh, well atleast we can do something different now." Saphy said.

"Could go for a run." Zari said.

"In the snow?" I asked.

"Why not? You want to come along?" Zari replied.

"No he's going to come with me." Phoebe said, almost whining.

"Oh ok." Zari replied.

"I'll go with you." Challana said.

"Great." Zari replied.

"And Kitty will probably come with us, and what are you going to do Saphy?" Phoebe asked.

"We'll see." Saphy replied.

"Before we get there, you ever know what happened to Arukenimon?" Saphy asked.

"I don't know, but she should be way back there in the other forest. I think she's ok, if some of these rookies were smart enough to survive I doubt she's had any problems. Why are you asking?" Phoebe said.

"Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to try to find her so we can get some more support for the final fight." Saphy suggested.

"Yeah, maybe. Volkheim is probably still out there too." Phoebe said.

"You think he would help?" I asked.

"You remember him?" Phoebe asked in return.

"Kind of. Enough to feel like I don't think he would help us. That and we really shouldn't waste time fighting him and his army." I replied.

"Well if we can convince him to help us we won't have to worry about that." Phoebe said.

"I don't see it happening Pheebles." I replied.

"Did you sleep with Aruwukenonimon too? I don't remember." Kitty asked.

"In her human form. I thought you were taking a nap?" Phoebe said.

"I was, but it's hard when everyone keeps talking." Kitty said.

"So how'd that go, sleeping with the spider lady?" Saphy asked.

"Don't ask me I don't remember that was a really long time ago." I said.

"Oh you had fun, we all did. I mean she was practically human. Arceus I hope she's ok." Phoebe said.

"The spider lady? Really?" Zari asked.

"In her human form." Phoebe said.

"Who are you talking about?" Chally asked.

"Cj can you show her on your digivice?" Phoebe asked me.

"Yeah, just let me find it." I said.

"Don't lose it!" Kitty said.

"Kitty I've held onto it for all this time. Why would I lose it now?" I asked.

For the record I didn't actually lose it, it was in my pocket.

"That digivice is a symbol of our tamer ship Cj." Kitty said.

"I know." I replied.

"It protects her data in case she's defeated, and she also needs it to reach your ultimate form." Saphy said.

"Lilithmon isn't her ultimate form?" I asked.

"No, there's one higher, but I can't remember how it works though." Saphy said.

"Well you should have said something when we were in that other universe, we could've given you more data." I said.

"It takes more than just data." Saphy said.

"What does it take love too? Because, well, I mean. We can't really be closer than we already are." I said.

"We can't?" Kitty asked.

"Jt's more complicated than that." Saphy argued.

"Sex?" Zari asked.

"No, none of that stuff." Saphy replied.

"You can always be closer Cj, just like we can always be closer." Phoebe chimed in.

"Ok, if you say so Pheebles." I said, unsure what she was talking about.

"We can, I mean it." Phoebe said.

"We'll see." I replied as I browsed through the menus on my digivice.

"Here Chally that's what she looks like." I said.

"You screwed that thing?" Chally asked.

"Press this button." I said. "That's her human form, only a handful of digimon have one, she's one of them."

"Oh, that makes more sense. So now who's this Volkheim guy?" Challana asked.

"Well he's not a digimon so I don't have a picture, but basically, He's some old dude that walks around in what looks like an oversized spacesuit and about half a dozen lackeys in a similar getup. He got a metric ton of digimon to follow him somehow. Him and all others like him are from Henry's homeworld, so if you need more than that ask him. He's been really determined to hunt us down for reasons I don't quite remember, but he's not friendly. His group is a mixture of fringe scientists and ex-military personnel, from a dying world." I replied.

"Yeah, Project Silverwind went haywire and basically wiped out everyone but his group and those that were naturally immune. It was almost like this world but there were skeletons everywhere, it was horrible and no weird indestructible objects of course. Hopefully Ophanimon or whoever gets us out of here will trap him here and he won't be able to follow us anymore." Phoebe said.

"Hopefully." I replied.

"If we can't convince him to help us." Phoebe continued.

"I wouldn't count on it." I replied.

"A class two world ending event? Really?" Zari asked.

"What?" I asked.

"That means that over 90% of the population was wiped out, but the planet is still intact, class 1 means there's nothing left of the planet or its inhabitants but space debris." Zari said.

"Yeah, that's what it seemed like." I replied. As Kitty appeared to have finally dozed off.

The sight of the village got worse as we approached, and it became clear that it was another victim like all the others. The walls didn't do enough to protect the residents, as we got closer it became apparent that numerous sections of it had been destroyed and pushed over. Bullet holes in seemingly every structure indicated it was definitely Darkdramon's forces that attacked. It was disappointing, but not surprising. More interestingly, the structure we had seen turned out to be a huge RV, that was nearly 6 times normal size. One of its wheels was as big as our whole bus. In addition there were also several assorted cars of various scales roughly lined up in a rectangle. None of which could be seen from the other side of the wall.

"Looks like another empty one, I wonder if that Rv can be driven." Zari said.

"I doubt it, I don't think any of us would be able to reach the peddles." I said.

"Or even the steering wheel." Phoebe added.

"Could you imagine though? It's like fuck fighting the dark kings we'll just run them over." I joked.

"They'd dodge it, there's no way it'd be that easy." Phoebe said.

"But then we could make pancakes Pheebles." I joked.

"Not the right kind." Phoebe replied.

"Allright Zari, why don't you and Chally get out first, and maybe Saphy." Phoebe replied as she pulled to a stop near a place where the wall had collapsed and we could get inside.

"Right, we'll just meet back here in a while then. Zari said.

"Mhm." Phoebe said as they both got off the bus and took off running.

"Just a sec I need my shoes." Saphy said, as IceLeomon and his wives climbed down from the roof, rocking the whole bus.

"If you need them that badly you need to keep them on." Phoebe said. "See, look at all this time you're wasting. We could be out there getting hurt and you'd still be in here looking for your shoes." Phoebe said.

"You can get hurt?" I asked, jokingly.

"Cj, this is serious. You know we all can." Phoebe said.

"Anyway Saphy are you coming with us? Going with them, or?" Phoebe asked.

"What's she going to do?" Saphy asked, referring to darkvioletmon.

"I don't know, none of us do." Phoebe said.

"I think I'll just go with you." Saphy said.

"Allright then that's fine." Phoebe said.

About a minute later we were all out of the bus and walking through the remains of the town.

"Cj, remember you owe me a kiss." Phoebe said.

"Fine, come here." I said as I rolled my eyes.

"This place is just as empty as the others." Saphy said as I playfully kissed my beloved.

"Yep." Phoebe replied.

"CJ, now that Zari isn't here, Kitty and I think you're getting too close to her, so, we're not going to let you spend any more time with her than necessary." Phoebe said as she held my hands for a moment.

"As long as I get to be with you instead." I said.

"Of course. And maybe even Saphy." Phoebe replied.

"Maybe." Saphy said.

"Unless you just want to watch." Phoebe said.

"Noooo." Saphy said.

"Well good." Phoebe said.

"Or maybe if we let you have a night alone with her it could work itself out?" Phoebe asked.

"It won't, I let him be alone with her more times than I can remember. We went from having one single threesome with her to him boinking her by the pool and after almost every workout section." Kitty said.

"Yeah, ok so that's not going to happen." Phoebe said.

"Right." Kitty replied.

"And if he does that with me he's going to be in big trouble." Phoebe said.

"Mhm." Kitty said.

"As well as if he's with you without my permission." Phoebe said.

"Hmm.?" Kitty asked.

"Then you're both in trouble." Phoebe said.

"But not Zari?" Kitty asked.

"I'll be more mad at you cause I've been so generous." Phoebe said.

"But that's not fair." Kitty said.

"Just don't do it then." Phoebe said.

"Pheebles, don't work her up." I said.

"I'm just saying the way things are." Phoebe said.

"Anyway ladies, tonight he's mine, I'm not sharing him." Phoebe said as she huggled me.

"Awwe." Kitty said, disappointed.

"Hey how many times have I let you be alone with him?" Phoebe asked.

"A lot." Kitty said.

"Exactly, and I don't even have to, so be quiet." Phoebe said before kissing me in a somewhat aggressive and showy manner.

"Pheebles, hey! Calm down." I said.

"I am calm. I'm just showing my love for you. You're my Cj." Phoebe replied before letting go of me.

"So where are we going to go?" Saphy asked.

"I don't know let's see if we can get inside that giant RV." Phoebe said.

"What do you think is inside?" Kitty asked.

" I don't know, the world's biggest shower?" Phoebe suggested.

"Yeah hehe, probably." I agreed.

"So hell then, there is hell in there." Kitty said.

"Well also probably the world's biggest bed too." I said.

"Well that's not that bad." Kitty replied. " I hope it's comfortable."

"Well come on let's go see." Phoebe said.

We made our way over to the massive door, the handle way too far out of reach, so Phoebe teleported us inside, and then up a few steps since everything inside was roughly six times bigger than normal and compared to this thing we were basically the size of action figures.

"You know, if this is like that city, then nobody can touch us in here." I said.

"You can't get out of here without me either though." Phoebe said.

"True." I replied.

"So I could just leave you in here and you'll be perfectly safe." Phoebe teased.

"Don't get any ideas." I replied, to which she just smiled at me mischievously.

"Pheebles." I said, sternly.

"I won't, but still." Phoebe said.

"Where is the bed?" Kitty asked.

"Probably towards the back, just like on the bus, but nicer looking." I said.

If it were normal-sized and functional, this was easily a quarter million dollar Rv, possibly more, compared to our bus which was just a haphazardly converted bus that used to give tours on an alternate version of Cinnabar Island. That said it did the job and it was a lot nicer than the last bus we had. Just a bit bigger and without the horrid memories of the state it was in when we first found it.

From our perspective the aisle looked like a massive canyon. We could easily walk four abreast no-problem. We could drive the bus down it, no problem, if we could get the bus in here. No interior lights were on but plenty of light came in through the windows. There was a large countertop and some cabinets overhead and probably a sink, but it towered over us so we couldn't tell for sure. The carpet at this scale was gray and maybe slightly fluffier, but not much taller. Not enough to be out of the ordinary, aside from that there was a vast expanse of it. It was a solid minute, maybe even two, of walking towards the back, where a bed took up the whole width of the interior space. It was also darker here as the window blinds were closed.

"Well there's the bed Kitty Kat, you want to go up there?" Phoebe asked.

"Sure." Kitty said as Phoebe took our hands so we could teleport.

"Hey Cj I wonder how many women we could fit in this?" Phoebe asked after teleporting us up there.

The bed was ridiculously huge, it was soft, but at this size we barely weighed enough to compress the springs. There was more than enough room for a multitude people to sleep side by side comfortable, and even then they'd only take up just a small fraction of it's length. It as big was as big as a basketball court. The only major flaw was that the thread count was pretty damned low at this scale, and all the countless individual threads were of course several times thicker than normal.

"Too many for one night." I replied.

"None, because nobody is going to get naked when it's this cold in here." Saphy pointed out.

"Yeah, that's true. We got blankets though." Phoebe said.

"That's only going to help so much." I said.

"We could bring in some wood and light a fire." Kitty said.

"Then we'll all die from smoke inhalation." I said.

"You will?" Kitty asked.

"If this weren't the digital world, yes, for sure, I don't know how that stuff works here though, but I'm not going to risk it, it's a sealed space Kitty, there's nowhere for the smoke to go." I said.

"Up." Kitty said.

"Yeah, until it hits the ceiling and then proceeds to fill the RV. And that's if we don't set this entire mattress on fire." I said.

"It's probably invincible." Phoebe said.

"Probably, but we're not sure yet." I said, prompting Kitty to attempt to stab it with her claws.

"I can't cut it. So it won't burn." Kitty said. Which actually made sense in this context.

"Yeah well, anyway we probably shouldn't spend too much time in here in case the others get attacked, they don't have any way to tell us." Phoebe said.

"Right, so let's check out the others cars then." I said.

"Any you have in mind?" Phoebe asked.

"That big green caddilac looking thing." I said.

"Ok let's go see that then." Phoebe replied.

A couple minutes later were standing outside this massive sedan. A generic looking mint green 1950s style caddilac, or atleast that's what it resembled, there were no markings on it to be seen. A digimon-built wooden staircase went up to the window line, the side window was either wide open or non-existent.

"What are the stairs for?" Kitty asked.

"Maybe they live inside the cars they can get into?" I asked.

"Let's go up and see." Phoebe said.

"If the cars are indestructible that means there might be some survivors." Saphy pointed out.

"I hope so." Phoebe said.

After climbing up a decent sized stair-case, we were greeted with yet another staircase that went down to the front bench seat which was very plushy, and would also make a ridiculously big bed, though not quite as big as the one in the RV. Curiously anywhere there would be any brand markings there was just basic chrome shapes, such as a big chrome circle in the middle of the steering wheel, and some chrome rectangles on the door panels. A ladder went down from the seat to the driver's footwell, which seemed to have been converted to a living area, with some drawers, a couch, and a woodburning stove, with another room on the passenger's side, and in the back as well. The whole car had been turned into a 4 room house of sorts, with staircases everywhere. Sadly however it appeared that Darkdramon's forces got in just as easily as the former residents, it wasn't as obvious as the normal houses, but on close inspection there were bullet holes and other signs of damage present in some of the furniture.

"I heard of people living inside their cars, but this is insane." I said as we made it down to the living room.

"Is there anybody in here?" Phoebe asked loudly.

"Darkdramon's goons must have gotten in here too, look at the dresser, there's a bullet-hole right there, and there, and it looks like it got grazed here." I said.

"Awwwe, there's gotta be somewhere up here they didn't reach." Phoebe replied, disappointed.

"Hey I'm on the other side over here." Kiera yelled back, somewhat unexpectedly.

"Kiera? What are you doing here?" Phoebe asked.

"Just checking some things out." Kiera replied.

"Find anything interesting?" I asked.

"Yeah, I looked under this thing earlier, and the engine is literally just a solid block of steel." Kiera replied.

"Yeah that's called an engine block." I said as she made her way over to us. Not many people in the last universe knew anything about cars, thanks to the prevalence of space travel, though they were still used planet side and occasionally on larger stations, the later almost always being electric, the former heavily depended on the particular planet, hell there were modern steam-powered cars in some places.

"Yeah I know I've seen an engine block before, I've built them, actually, in high school, what I mean is, it looks like it's just one solid piece, no bolts or anything. Like this is just a model of a car, not an actual car, there's no badges, wires, or anything either. Anyway it looks like a jet-age model." Kiera said as she came over yet another staircase that went up and down the transmission tunnel.

Because different planets reach certain technological milestones at wildly varying years, hell even their calendars can vary. It's easier to sort unknown vehicles into milestone eras rather than actual decades. Because what we came up with in the 1950s another planet could have come up with in what they perceive as the 1730s, there's very rarely any consistency. Aside from the hilarious fact that at about the time a civilization develops jet planes, their cars tend to display fins and other aircraft inspired styling cues. It doesn't always happen, for instance sometimes a civilization stumbles across jets before they even have cars, but it happens so often that cars with those attributes are nearly always referred to as belonging to the jet age. And of course this isn't the only example.

"Well all these cars are definitely an anomaly so who even knows what they really are?" I asked.

"And this is one of the more believable ones, some of the smaller ones just have solid metal strips for door handles." Kiera said.

"So where's the other newbies?" Phoebe asked.

"Celly is right outside, I think Lussy is talking with the goddesses." Kiera replied.

"We went inside that huge RV before this. There's this huge bed in the back and I swear everybody could fit in it at once, 5 times over." Phoebe said.

"It also has no heat, is just as cold as it is outside, and we've already gone over this." I said.

"Yeah." Saphy agreed.

"I know, I'm just saying." Phoebe replied.

"Were there any signs of digimon inside?" Kiera asked.

"I don't think they can get inside, only reason we were able to is because I teleported everyone passed the door." Phoebe replied.

"So if we could just get some heat in their, we'd be safe from attackers." Kiera said.

"Yeah and we could have a massive orgy on a giant bed." Phoebe said.

"Here's a better idea, we could leave Blacklillymon in there and then nobody but us can get to her." I said once I regained my composure.

"Or yeah we could do that." Phoebe said.

"No, what if there's another opening we missed? She can fly you know?" Saphy pointed out.

"Yeah, it is kind of risky. We'd have to investigate it more to be sure there's not even a tiny opening, but if there's not then that could be an idea." Phoebe said.

"How?" Kitty asked.

"If the RV is invincible and she's inside it, they can't do anything to get to her. Then again that could also just cause them to give up and go forward with resurrecting Deusmon too." I said.

"They can't, as long as her code still exists, then again if we leave her alone in there, she might delete herself." Saphy said.

"You can do that?" I asked.

"Normally no, but with her being a dark ruler and all, she's not exactly a normal digimon, just like all the others we've taken down so far." Saphy said.

"Yeah well, it was just an idea. Maybe that way we can keep the bus out of the crossfire if they ever figure out she's on it or something like that. They might try to steal her back from us, if they find out." I said.

"They know something is up at this point I'm sure." Saphy said.

"Yeah, which means they'll have reason to attack the bus." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, and if we lose the bus, we're screwed." I said.

"So do you think it's worth taking the time to make sure that rv has no opening she can escape through or not?" Kiera asked.

"I don't know." Kitty said.

"Pheebles, if she can't escape from there, we can force them to come to us instead of having to go to them." I said.

"But that means we'd have to fight both IceDaemon, and Darkdramon and who knows what else here, and there's not a whole lot of places to hide here." Phoebe said.

"Go get the other newbies and tell them to check it out. This could be too good to pass up." I said to Kiera.

"Cj." Phoebe scolded me.

"We have plenty of time and you can hide in the rv with BlackLillymon if you want. Besides that wasn't a final decision, I just want to know if it's a decision we can make." I said.

"mmmmm, ohhh, ok. " Phoebe reluctantly replied before hanging her head. Still worried this place wasn't ideal for a final battle.

"Just go Kiera, maybe he's onto something." Phoebe said.

"Ok then I guess I'll see you in a bit." Kiera said before heading back over the transmission tunnel.

"You want to go back over there and help them?" I asked.

"With the mechanorimon they'll be able to look it over way faster than we can. So let's go check out some of the other cars and keep looking for survivors." Phoebe replied.

"Allright then." I said.

So if we can keep her in there, then we're just going to wait here for the dark rulers to try and come get her?" Saphy asked.

"Yep. It will be a lot easier that way, if we can force them to fight on our terms." I said.

"I think it would be better if we could fight them in a city, with more places to hide. Especially with darkdramon and his gun-carrying lizards. It's too open here." Phoebe said.

"We don't even know if there is one up there." I replied.

"Isn't there another trailmon terminal? That should be one." Phoebe suggested.

"So they can drop the roof on us again?" Saphy asked.

"Even if there is, we can't guarantee they'll be there, either we fight them here if this pans out with the RV, or we don't get to choose where we fight them." I said.

"Well where are they all gathering at though then, because if this doesn't work we'll probably end up fighting them there." Phoebe said.

"No idea, if we come across a rail line we might follow it to the terminal, but, I don't know if they're there or not."

"Darkvioletmon might know, but good luck getting her to say." Saphy replied.

"Well now I have to try, so let's go back to the bus then." Phoebe said.

"Really? Right now?" I asked.

"Mhm let's go Cj." Phoebe cutely replied.

So we headed back to the bus only to find that surprise surprise Darkvioletmon wasn't there anymore and apparently went exploring on her own.

"Great where'd she go?" Phoebe asked.

"Kitty Kat, your time to shine babe." I said.

"What?" Kitty asked.

"Can't you find her by scent?" I asked.

"She was in this seat right?" Kitty asked.

"I think so." I replied shortly before she started sniffing around.

"Well obviously she went outside." Kitty said.

"Yeah, obviously." I replied before we all got off the bus again.

"Has she done this before?" Phoebe asked.

"It doesn't come up much, but yeah a couple times, just give her a moment. She's like a damned bloodhound it's insane." I said.

"Oh stop it." Kitty replied, feeling somewhat embarrassed.

"She'd find our daughter for us sometimes." I said.

"Your's and Arania's" Phoebe said.

"Mhm." I replied.

"You'd love her too though wouldn't you? If she was still around." I said.

"Of course." Phoebe replied.

"Kitty you find anything?" I asked.

"Um maybe, come on." Kitty said as she began to lead the way.

"She has to be out here somewhere." Kitty said.

"Really you think so?" Saphy joked.

"She headed over this way." Kitty said, ignoring her.

We followed her away from the bus, towards some building-sized muscle car with bizarre plus shaped headlights and a grill composed of interlocking triangles, looking absolutely nothing like any model I was familiar with, aside from it having the proportions of a typical fastback pony car, like the Cadillac lookalike it had been made into a house as well, albeit smaller. Darkvioletmon had somehow managed to get up onto the roof, probably by taking the stairs up to the window line and climbing up the gently sloped backside. As usual we didn't bother seeing if that was even possible and Phoebe just took our hands and teleported us up so we could chat, or atleast attempt to.

"Violet we need to talk." Phoebe said.

Darkvioletmon looked at her for a brief moment then went back to looking at whatever she saw in the distance that caught her attention before we got here, if there ever was anything at all that is.

"It's cold." She said after a few seconds of silence later.

"Holy crap, how did you do that Pheebles?" I teased, though we were all genuinely surprised she responded at all.

"I don't know." Phoebe replied before turning back to her.

"We should get you a coat, it will help keep you warm."

Several seconds of silence passed, to the point where we were beginning to think she was just going to ignore us like she had before, until Phoebe continued to try to get her to speak.

"What are you even doing up here anyway?" Phoebe asked.

"Being cold." She replied a considerable amount of time later.

"Yes it's cold, we all think it's cold out here, but what does that have to do with you being up here?" Phoebe asked. "I know I said this before, but I mean it this time we're not going to go away until you talk to us, atleast a little bit. We think you know something that might be useful to us, and you're creeping Saphy out."

"Right." I agreed.

"Mhm." Kitty backed me up.

"Really? I'm the only one?" Saphy asked.

Then Darkvioletmon turned to face Phoebe and they silently stared into each other's eyes for what seemed like an eternity.

"What would . . . . . . . you like to know?" She asked

"Where was Blacklilymon going exactly, did she ever say anything to you about it?" Phoebe asked.

"If you know you need to tell us, I can't wake her up and ask, it's too risky." Phoebe added after another sustained period of silence.

"Do you . . . . . know why I'm . . . . . like this?" Darkvioletmon asked several seconds later.

"No, I don't, you can tell me that too." Phoebe said.

"The darkness." DarkVioletmon said.

"Is that all?" Phoebe asked.

"It makes me hungry, but I can't eat." Darkvioletmon elaborated.

"We have plenty of cabbages." Kitty said.

"Not cabbages! Data! Fresh living data!" Darkvioletmon briefly snapped.

"Aren't the cabbages technically data?" I asked.

"Not the right kind!" Darkvioletmon replied.

"Why?" Phoebe asked.

"Because I must grow stronger, or I won't survive. I must be the strongest or I will die. That is how things are, in the dark zone." Darkvioletmon said.

"Sorry." Darkvioletmon turned away in embarrassment.

"You're not in the dark zone anymore." Phoebe said.

"I still see it." Darkvioletmon replied.

"I see, you're traumatized, well hold still then it shouldn't be hard to fix." Phoebe said as she held up her hand.

"Pheebles wait!" I said as I grabbed her arm.

"What?" Phoebe asked.

"You realized if you read her, you're going to see their version of hell?" I said.

"You think I'll get traumatized too?" Phoebe asked.

"Probably yeah." I said.

"Yeah, maybe that's not the best idea." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, exactly." I replied.

"Then I'll do it hold still." Kitty said as she touched her head.

"Um, did I miss something?" Saphy asked.

"Um, Kitty Kat?" I said as she closed her eyes.

"What? It's not that bad. I don't see anything. I just feel her head, it's kind of soft and warm." Kitty said.

"Babe, you've never been able to do that, not sure why you think you can now." I said.

"Huhwa? Oooooooh, right, hehe, sorry, I got confused." Kitty said as she pulled her hand away in embarrassment.

"Are you serious?" Phoebe asked in disbelief.

"I don't feel any different." Darkvioletmon said.

"You won't, I don't know what she thinks she's doing, her powers don't work like that." Phoebe said.

"I . . .. was . . . . . normal . . . . once." Darkvioletmon said.

"What happened?" Phoebe asked.

"Found a stray data cloud out in the forest . .. . . . no form. . . . . . . so I took it . . . . . . . it didn't seem to belong . . . . . to anyone else. . . . ., she was so wrong, the nightmares . . .. . . they came . . . . . all these thoughts . . . . . . these memories . . . . . . . . . they came . . . all at once . . . . they consumed me . . . . . . I transformed into someone new . . . . . . You all. . . . . look like …... monsters. … it's hard to resist . . . . . . . . . the call to attack . . . . . . to feed. I'm so used to . . . . . . . eating . . . . . . to avoid . . . . . . being eaten."Darkvioletmon said.

"Why were you following blacklilymon then? She's a big monster." Phoebe said.

"Yes, but, she was strong . . . . . . she wanted to use me . . . .for a while . . . . instead of just consuming me . . . . . . . straight away . . . . . . It was the safest I felt in a long time . . . . . . . . . . . . . and she was still going to betray me in the end . . . . . . . . . just like you will . . . . . . . . . some day." Darkvioletmon said.

"We won't " Phoebe said.

"You don't understand . . . . . . how little your words mean." Darkvioletmon said.

"Well you're just going to have to figure that out for yourself then, if you won't give my words any meaning. Still, if you know where Blacklilymon was going, that would help us tremendously. " Phoebe said.

"She never told anybody." Darkvioletmon replied.

"Then IceLeomon is just going to have to lead us around then." I said.

"Then we're screwed." Saphy replied.

"No worse than when Kitty led us around while we were looking for Indramon." I said.

"Yeah, exactly, then we all got separated in that other universe for 100 years." Saphy said.

"That wasn't really her fault, if anything it was Henry's for suggesting we destroy the portal machine." I said.

"Nobody knew that would happen, it's nobody's fault." Phoebe said.

"Anyway somebody should probably tell IceLeomon he's going to have to play guide soon." I said.

"We can take care of that before we leave, but right now since we got her talking I wanna see what else she has to say." Phoebe said to the three of us somewhat quietly.

"What do you want to talk to her about?" I asked.

"Why don't we start with something simple?" Phoebe said to me before turning back towards Darkvioletmon.

"Hey violet do you remember what village you're from?" Phoebe asked.

"No." Darkvioletmon replied.

"Do you remember ever being a rookie?" Phoebe asked.

"I was a lalamon once. . . . . . . . . but that was a really long time ago. . . . . . . . . , but, I also vaguely remember being a vilemon . . . . . . . . . . That was even longer ago. And before that, I was an impmon, born in the darkzone, forced to fend for myself, I guess I was one of the lucky ones, so many others never had a chance." Darkvioletmon said.

"Ok then." Phoebe said.

"No . . . more . . . questions." Darkvioletmon said, seemingly disturbed by her own memories.

"Oh come on but we just got you talking. We all feel a lot more at ease when we know more about you." Phoebe said.

"No." Darkvioletmon replied.

"Pwease?" Phoebe asked in the overly cute way she normally does, but Darkvioletmon decided to go back to staring off into the distance.

"Oh come on! I know you can hear me now!" Phoebe said.

"Rrrrr, so rude!" Phoebe said after waiting for a response in silence for atleast another minute or so.

She turned back towards us, completely giving up on getting her to say anything more, it wasn't the first time I'd seen her do so.

"Let's go, she's done talking I guess. She's just going to go back to starring off into nowhere." She said, obviously annoyed.

"Don't be too upset that's more than she ever said before." Saphy said.

"I know, but now she's just being stubborn, and we all know it." Phoebe replied.

"We do?" Kitty asked.

"Were are we going to go now?" I asked.

"I guess we could try to find IceLeomon." Phoebe replied.

"Can we see him from up here?" I asked.

"I don't know let's look." Phoebe replied, calming down a lot.

"Actually this might be kind of hard he blends in with the snow on the ground." I said.

"Well look for his wives then, they're wearing these shiny gold dresses now they should be easier to see than him." Phoebe said.

"Can you hear his wives?" I asked.

"Um, let me try." Phoebe replied before closing her eyes.

"Is this one of those times I'm supposed to be quiet?" Kitty asked.

"Mhmm." Phoebe replied.

"Ok." Kitty said.

"Shhh." Phoebe said.

"Sorry." Kitty replied.

Taking a hint from last time Phoebe didn't bother to say anything more, so Kitty stayed quiet like she needed to for the next few seconds.

"I think they're on the other side of the RV, definitely in that direction for sure." Phoebe said after opening her eyes again. She pointed to the RV, which was easily towering over us even with the giant car we were standing on.

"Allright then let's get down." I said as I offered my hand to her.

"Just a second." Phoebe said.

"What?" I asked.

"Darkvioletmon you want to get down the easy way?" Phoebe asked.

Several seconds passed without a response.

"I guess not, allright come on everybody let's go." Phoebe said with a sigh as she took my hand and offered her other one.

We made our way back over to the RV, and walked around to the other side. Where one of the newbies or maybe even one of the goddesses was flying around overhead in one of the mechanorimon, too high up for me to tell which one. Then another one flew out of the RV through the passenger side window, which wasn't closed all the way.

"Well crap. If they can get in and out that means Blacklillymon can." I said.

"I guess that means we're going to have to keep heading north then." Phoebe said.

"Yep unless we can stick her in one of these cars." I replied.

"It looks like IceLeomon is over there with his wives, looks like Ninjamon is over there too." Phoebe said.

"What are they doing?" Kitty asked confused.

"It looks like they're just chasing each other around and having a snowball fight." I said.

"Yeah, it's kind of adorable. Maybe I should make you chase me?" Phoebe said.

"That's not fair, you can teleport." I said.

"Well what if I don't teleport?" Phoebe said.

"You two can play around later, we need to talk to IceLeomon." Saphy pointed out.

"Yeah let's get this done first Pheebles, then we'll fool around for a bit." I said.

"Ok then. IceLeomon come here for a bit we need to talk to you!" Phoebe said as we headed over to him and his wives.

"What is it? Did you find more survivors?" He asked as we arrived.

"No sadly, but you see DarkVioletmon has no idea where BlackLillymon was going exactly, so once we get far enough north you're going to have to be our guide since you're from here. " Phoebe said.

"I'm not sure how much help I can be, you know how long it's been, I barely remember this place, but we'll see. For starters, I have faint memories of passing through this place before, and there's a pretty large village somewhere north of here but I can't remember the exact direction. " IceLeomon replied.

"Well hopefully the newbies can spot it and we can head over that way after this." Phoebe replied.

"I hope so, it was a pretty big place, I'd like to see it again. Even if it, didn't make it." IceLeomon replied.

"Well this place didn't fare so well and they had a wall and all these indestructible cars to hide out in." I said.

"Cj, others have survived without anything more than a hole in the ground, so there's still hope." Phoebe said.

"If you say so." I replied.

"I know so." Phoebe insisted.

"I wonder if we missed some of those holes." Phoebe said.

"Maybe." Saphy said.

"That means they'll be trapped down there forever!" Kitty said.

"No it doesn't, they dug themselves down there they can dig themselves out, whenever they get brave enough to do so." Phoebe said.

"Hi Saphy." Ninjamon said.

"What do you want?" Saphy asked.

"Just wanted to say hi and that you look kind of stunning today. Flashy, super flashy." Ninjamon said.

"Of course you do. What does that even mean?" Saphy asked.

"Anyway that's all we had to say, so you can go back to whatever you were doing." Phoebe said.

"You want to join in the fun?" IceLeomon asked.

"Oh I think we're going to go off and play our own game. If that's ok." Phoebe said.

"Certainly it's ok, except when are we going to leave?" IceLeomon asked.

"Well we have one more thing for the newbies to look for and then we'll probably head out if they can't find it." Phoebe said.

"What's that thing?" IceLeomon asked.

"A jail for Blacklilymon, we were thinking about using the RV but that one window is down. Cj said if we could trap her in one of those we could force the dark kings to come here after her. I don't really like that idea, I think this isn't the best place to have a fight like that, too many open spaces, but yeah, we're going to have them look for some cars that might be completely closed up, and then I guess we'll all have to vote on it." Phoebe said.

"Not the worst idea." I said.

"Yeah but it'd be better if we could fight them in a more normal city with more buildings to hide in, or even a forest." Phoebe said.

"We could hide in the cars, take them down as they come down the stairs." I said.

"Yeah, except some of them can fly and once they fly into the cars it's like catching magicarp in a bucket, and you and everyone else that thinks that's a good idea is the magicarp." Phoebe said.

"If you say so." I said.

"Cj I know so, just trust me, I'm trying to protect you." Phoebe said.

"Well let's find out if we even have the option first." I said, not wanting to go into how I really felt about her insisting on protecting me.

"We will, but trust me, it's not the best idea, and right now." Phoebe said before tagging me on the shoulder and running away.

"Really Pheebles?" I asked.

"Come on Saphy!" She yelled.

"Bye!" Saphy said, happy to leave ninjamon behind.

"Hey were you going?" Ninjamon said, chasing after her.

"Why are they running?" Kitty asked.

"You aren't going to?" I asked.

"Why?" Kitty asked.

"It's a game, Kitty Kat. You know what? Just come with me, I'll need you to help me catch her if she starts teleporting." I said.

"Ok. You mean Phoebe right?" Kitty said.

"Yeah." I said as we started running after her.

"Wait is Kitty it too? Is that what's going on here?" Phoebe asked as she stopped to let us catch up.

"Ninjamon why are you here and why are you chasing Saphy?" Phoebe asked.

"I just wanted to talk and she took off running." Ninjamon said.

"We're playing a game you can talk later." Phoebe said.

"No please." Saphy said.

"If Saphy wants to talk to you." Phoebe said.

"Fine, guess I'll go back to playing with the others." Ninjamon said as he turned around and walked the other way looking completely dejected.

"So is Kitty it too?" Phoebe asked.

"Yeah, in case you start teleporting around." I said.

"Why would I do that?" Phoebe asked.

"Because you don't like to lose." I said.

"I don't need my powers to beat you." Phoebe said.

"What is it?" Kitty asked.

"It is it." I replied.

"Yeah, but what is it?" Kitty asked.

"Just let it go." I said.

"Ok, but how do we win?" Kitty asked.

"You just have to touch her." I said.

"And Saphy." Phoebe added.

"No, just you, you started this." I said.

"But Saphy wants to play too." Phoebe said.

"I do?" Saphy asked.

"Well then you can chase her when you're it, but we're just going to chase you." I said.

"Yeah." Kitty agreed mischievously.

"Well then Saphy you have to protect me, from them." Phoebe said.

"That sounds fun." Saphy replied.

"No powers." I said.

"You can spray them if you want." Phoebe said.

"Pheebles it's freezing cold." I said.

"Yeah ok no powers Saphy." Phoebe said.

"Awwwe." Saphy replied in disappointment.

"Well I don't want to turn Cj into a Popsicle he's fun enough to lick as is." Phoebe said.

"Weird." I said.

"I was hoping it'd be funnier, but it came out weirder." Phoebe said.

"It's mostly just weird." I said.

"Yeeeeeah." Saphy agreed.

Kitty decided the best course of action was to lick me on the cheek.

"Hehe Kitty what the hell?" I asked.

"Yeah really?" Phoebe asked.

"I wanted to see how weird it was." Kitty said.

"Just my luck I end up with two absolute babes and they're both fucking weird." I said.

"Oh don't be like that, let's play." Phoebe said.

"OK come here kitty." I said as I pulled her close.

"What are we doing?" Kitty asked.

"Just kiss me babe come here." I said.

"We don't have her permission." Kitty said.

"Good Kitty kat." Phoebe said.

"We don't need it." I said before kissing her up.

"Cj what the? Why?" Phoebe asked.

"Stop, stop it, both of you." Phoebe said as she walked towards us.

"We should stop." Kitty said.

"No, not yet, just keep kissing me babe, give me some tongue." I said as I just continued to make out with Kitty.

"Cj, please stop you're starting to hurt me." Phoebe said.

"Please." Phoebe said as she stood right in front of us.

"Got you." I said as I let go of Kitty, put my arm around Phoebe and pulled her close, as she was now close enough for me to do so, and kissed her on the head.

"Arceus you naughty, you owe me a million kisses you better start now." Phoebe said.

"Gladly." I said before repeatedly kissing her sweet little head.

"Huh?" Kitty asked.

"He tricked me." Phoebe said.

"Mhm, you jealous little gardevoir." I said.

"And I fell for it." Phoebe said.

"Mhm." I said.

"Guess that's why I love you." Phoebe said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Part of it anyway." Phoebe said.

" So wanna play again?" Phoebe asked.

"Eh I don't know." I said.

"Oh come on you're it." Phoebe said.

"Um guys." Saphy spoke up as one of the newbies was approaching us in the mechanorimon, it turned out to be Kiera again, once she was on the ground and we could see her.

"There's no way we can keep her in there, that window is wide open." She said.

"Yeah we noticed." Phoebe replied.

"Anything else we can check out?" Kiera asked.

"See if any of the other cars are completely closed up, then get back to us." I said.

"Right." Phoebe agreed.

"Ok, I'll tell the others." Kiera replied before climbing back into the mechanorimon and taking to the skies again.

"Where's Henry and Claire?" Saphy asked once the mechanorimon was far enough away that everyone could hear each other properly without having to yell.

"Mushroom caves." Phoebe said. "Who knows what they're doing in there?"

"Well it's still freezing cold in there so probably nothing that will get you excited." I said.

"A lot of things can get me excited." Phoebe replied.

"I'm fully aware of that baby girl, but still." I said.

"So what are we going to do now?" Kitty asked.

"Let's play again, but no dirty tricks this time Cj, you two are not allowed to touch at all, you can't even hold hands." Phoebe said.

"Awwwe, my little babe is jealous." I said.

"No duh. You know you're not allowed to kiss her without my permission." Phoebe replied.

"You were kissing her plenty last night never asked my permission." I said.

"Don't be stupid, you kissed her too." Phoebe replied.

"Well then kiss her and everything will be ok." I said.

"I don't want to, I want you." Phoebe said.

"Well come back over her I'll give you all the kisses you want." I said.

"Not now, tonight." Phoebe insisted.

"Ok then. Just know I wasn't trying to hurt you I was playing around." I said.

"I know, it was just part of the game." Phoebe replied.

"Right." I replied.

"Are we going to go back to playing or not?" Saphy asked.

"Yeah, I just want a kiss first." Phoebe said.

I gave her another kiss on the head shortly after she said that.

"Alliright we good to go again?" I asked.

"Mhm, you get a five second head start." Phoebe replied.

"Oh you're chasing me now?" I asked.

"No, you all better run." Phoebe replied.

"Huh?" Saphy asked as I started to run away with Kitty following me.

"Run Saphy." Phoebe said.

"Ok." Saphy said as she started to run away while Kitty and I were already way ahead.

"You're going to be it next at this rate." Phoebe said.

"Right sorry Phoebe." Saphy replied.

We chased each other around for a bit, it was good exercise, and helped break up the monotony of riding around in the bus, especially since being on high alert limited what we could do while traveling, but, like many of the other abandoned villages we had come across, it was eventually time to leave again.

Not one of the many oversized vehicles was fully closed up, and attempting to see if the window mechanisms could actually function was a lot more trouble than it was worth. Not only were the controls way out of reach and likely unfunctional, but if they were functional, one would need superhuman strength just to use them, not to mention the majority of them had crank windows, so that just made things even more difficult, and then there was no guarantee Blacklilymon couldn't figure out how to use them herself. So it wasn't feasible to trap her within one. The idea just got sillier as the day went on until we abandoned it entirely along with the whole area. Continuing with just keeping her unconscious on the bus. With hope that IceLeomon's memory was right and the next town would be more of a city.

It was supposed to be my turn to drive, but now Zari was trying to teach Chally how, it was probably not the best time for it, but she insisted. Kitty drifted off to sleep in the bed, Darkvioletmon stared ominously out the window as usual. While Phoebe, Saphy, and I sat at the table and talked about what our lives were like so very long ago.

"So you had a house before all of this?" Saphy asked.

"Yeah, of course." Phoebe replied as she casually worked on her game like she had been doing on and off for the last few days after setting it aside for a little bit. The rules of which now occupied atleast 12 pages of Zari's notebook, she wouldn't let me read it but as far as I knew it still just used playing cards, she wouldn't let anyone read it until it was ready. if anyone could read it entirely because I noticed through passing glances that she had added a few notes in gardevoirian, which I could honestly just barely remember how to read at that point since it had been so long. It's a strange language comprised mostly of triangular symbols.

"We found it abandoned, we've lived there for nearly 3 years and still haven't seen sign of the original owners or anyone telling us we couldn't stay there. I guess they either didn't make it or went to live somewhere else." I said.

"Did you find any bodies?" Saphy asked.

"Ew, Saphy, they didn't die there, they left, there was no car in the driveway when we found the place. They've been missing for years like many, many others." Phoebe said.

"They were an older couple maybe they went to Florida?" I suggested.

"Why?" Phoebe asked.

"People like to retire there. Maybe they went there, found another abandoned house outside of the major cities that would've been hit pretty hard, and decided to stay." I said.

"Where would the people who lived in that house go?" Saphy asked.

"I have no idea, but Saphy, in that world, we're far from the only ones that decided to move houses, it was a disaster, giant overpowered pokémon caused billions in damage to almost every major city across the globe, militaries fought hard to combat them, as well as trainers in a lot of cases as they usually refused to acknowledge the difference between properly trained pokémon and 100 ft tall hacked rogue legendaries so they usually took aim at all of them. And then in addition to that you have random criminal organizations trying to seize power during the inevitable vacuum as the gov collapsed and anarchy set in. It was just a great big mess of a war where you could really only trust other trainers, most of whom were kids." I said.

"So you were fighting alongside kids?" Saphy asked.

"Well we were both only 18 at the time, so, we were basically just kids too. Fuck that was a long time ago. I mean it was mostly high schoolers, most of the "little" kids were just too young to do anything but comply with their parents, who usually complied with the national guard. There were a few out there, but they probably really shouldn't have been. A lot of kids too that really shouldn't have had pokémon that powerful. It was a mess." I said.

"Yeah, definitely, but it brought us together." Phoebe said.

"Well atleast something good came of it." I replied.

"Yeah and you got a house too." Saphy said.

"Yeah, maybe if we can make it back all of you can see it." I said.

"We could have a big party." Phoebe said.

" Yeah, get some booze . . . . " I began to say

"No we're not drinking around Charley." Phoebe interrupted me.

"Ok no booze, but still. Get some rock playing, Kitty can start dancing, it will all be fun." I said.

"She is not going to dance around Charley." Phoebe said.

"Oh he won't understand, and besides it's not like she's going to strip or anything, unless she drinks too much, and if you get the right songs playing you can't tell her not too." I pointed out.

"Wait what? " Saphy asked.

"Not to dance I mean, hehe, she's not a stripper." I said.

"Unless she's drunk?" Saphy asked.

"Well she's not going to be drinking. We're not having any booze! " Phoebe said.

"Right so there shouldn't be a problem then." I replied.

"I guess not, as long as we can make it back." Phoebe said.

"We will, and then everyone will get to see how cute of a momma you are." I said.

"You think so?" Phoebe asked.

"Mhm." I replied.

"I think they'll be more focused on how cute our little baby boy is." Phoebe replied.

"Eh we'll see." I replied.

"I wonder how cute of a mom Zari was." Phoebe said somewhat quietly so she wouldn't hear, she was too distracted talking to Chally anyway.

"She doesn't like to talk about it, you know that." I said.

"I know, but that just makes me wonder more." Phoebe replied.

" Well I don't know what to tell you baby girl, it'd be rude to press her on it." I said.

"I know, oh well." Phoebe replied.

"Have you ever heard her say anything, while you were exercising with her back on the ship?" Phoebe asked.

"She has some regrets about not being there for him, because of her job, but that's about it. From what I understand she was the breadwinner, her husband stayed home most of the time. They weren't that close." I said.

"I never told you how he got into trouble." Zari said.

"Sorry I just wanted to know." Phoebe said.

"Well, I guess it's not as rude as just reading my mind." Zari said.

"Right?" Phoebe asked.

"But this is a pretty small bus so you're going to need to remember that." Zari said before the bus violently turned to the left, throwing Kitty out of bed, smacking Blacklilymon against the window, and causing the rest of us to brace for impact.

"Challey?" Zari asked.

"What? I'm sorry, there was a tree." Challana replied.

"What just happened?" Kitty asked as she woke up confused.

"There was a tree." I said.

"Why?" Kitty asked.

"I don't know. Why are there trees?" I replied.

"I don't know. I'm going back to sleep." Kitty replied as she climbed back into bed.

"Ok." I replied.

"Are we still going the right direction?" Phoebe asked.

"I'll go make sure." Zari said.

"WHOEVER IS DRIVING, BE MORE CAREFUL! I ALMOST LOST MY GRIP!" An annoyed Iceleomon yelled loudly from the roof.

"Yeah Challey don't throw your king off the roof." Saphy said half-jokingly.

"Sorry sorry sorry." Challey nervously apologized.

"You need to turn back to the right a little bit. See the compass, you're off the mark." Zari said.

"Ok." Challey replied.

"Gently, and remember, if you see any strange trees just stop, we don't need to drive into another snow pit again." Zari said a bit more sternly.

"Right." Challey replied.

" This takes me back to when I had to train new recruits. She's doing all right, but there's some I had to teach that I swear, if I looked away for five seconds they'd find a way to lose one of their limbs." Zari said as she came back over to us.

"Really?" I asked.

"It's happened before." Zari replied.

"So how'd your son get into trouble?" Phoebe asked. "What was his name even you never ever talk about him."

"Pheebles, what did we just talk about?" I asked.

"Sorry, but I must know." She embarrassingly replied.

"It's ok, she's already being polite by not just reading my mind, I guess." Zari restated.

"Not as polite as she could be by just letting it go." I said.

"But I don't want to let it go." Phoebe said, annoyed.

"Fine, you want to see some pictures?" Zari asked.

"Yes please." Phoebe replied.

"Ok just give me a moment, hopefully the battery is still good." Zari replied as she started going through one of her bags on the cargo rack to retrieve a small holographic picture display. She powered it up and it briefly displayed a company logo before continuing on to a menu.

"65 percent, should be enough for this atleast." She said before sitting next to me at the table.

"Allright that's him shortly after he was born." Zari said as she turned the screen around to show Phoebe.

"Awwwe, so cute, and purple, really purple." Phoebe said.

"You should have seen the nursery there. They had babies in every color of the rainbow and then some." Zari said.

" And here he is at five, with his daddy." Zari said.

"He's not purple anymore." Phoebe said.

"No, he kind of pinked up after growing a little bit. You can see where the purple came from though." Zari said.

"Mhm." Phoebe agreed.

"I think he's still five in this one but here we are all together, this is my favorite actually." Zari said.

"And here he is before his first day of school." Zari continued.

"Cute." Phoebe chimed.

"He's like a little rookie human." Saphy said.

"Yeah basically," Phoebe said.

"And here's when we went on vacation, I think he's like probably 7 or 8 here." Zari said.

"How come you don't have this many pictures of your daughter?" Phoebe asked me.

"Ronnie just never got into taking pictures, she kind of grew up without them. She wanted to find somebody to paint portraits of us, you have any idea how much that cost?" I explained.

"Did you ever find somebody?" Phoebe replied.

"Yeah we hired a photographer." I said.

"Is it really that big of a deal Pheebles?" I asked.

"Yes, those two pictures you took from the ship are all you have to remember them by." Phoebe said.

"Yeah well, it's better than nothing." I replied.

"And when we get home you can take all the pictures you want." I said.

"I know and I will." Phoebe said with a smile.

"Ready for the next one?" Zari asked.

"Mhm, anytime Zari." Phoebe replied.

"This is, when he started playing belseball." Zari said.
Belseball was kind of a cross between baseball and soccer and maybe just a bit of golf too. A lightweight but fairly large ball would be kicked towards a batter who would smack it as far as he could with a wide, flat bat, before running around 4 bases in a diamond pentagram patttern, that was quite a bit larger than a traditional baseball field. Before the other team could kick it into him. they would only be counted out if the ball touched them, there were no basemen, bases were safe places, and the defending team could station it's players wherever the coaches wanted, aside from the "pitcher" of course. There were also only 6 players per team. Use of hands by anyone but the batter was prohibited and penalized. An intergalactic league was eventually formed in Zelusian space. By the time we left that universe it hadn't quite caught on in USC space, not even managing to reach an interplanetary level.

"Cute." Phoebe said.

"And here he is just playing with his toys. He bought it himself with his allowance." Zari said.

"And here he is with me, on the first ship I ever captained." Zari said.

"I think he's about twelve here, I don't remember when this was taken. Maybe it was his birthday? It's on that same ship though for sure. We spent a few years there together, it was great." Zari said.

"And this is when he got his pilot's license at 16." Zari said.

"And this the total deathtrap of a ship he bought really cheep a few weeks later without telling anybody." Zari said.

"Doesn't look that rusty." I said.

"Just wait for it." Zari said before scrolling to the next picture.

"And this is him after we rescued him after that same ship left him stranded out in the middle of empty space for a day." Zari continued.

"And this is him trying to fix his ship after I called in a favor from our resident technicians and had them look it over and even they told him it was a lost cause." Zari said.

"Did he fix it?" Phoebe asked.

"No the reactor core was found to be leaking a few days later, which meant it was now a biohazard and not allowed to fly anymore unless it could be replaced, which, you know, easily cost more than the ship itself, so it was stripped, the core was removed, and he sold whatever was left that was still usable, ended up making more than he spent on it." Zari said as she scrolled to the next picture.

"Then he bought this other ship with that money and all was good for a while."

"So you said he got in trouble?" Phoebe asked.

"I'm getting to it, just, wait." Zari said.

"I wasn't there, because I was deployed, but my husband called one evening and said he got arrested. He got in with the wrong crowd and some things happened and, I don't want to talk about it anymore ok? I sent enough money to bail him out, and he stayed at home for a couple days before leaving in the middle of the night without telling anyone, I don't know where he ever went to after that, I'm not sure if I even want to know. He very nearly got his father arrested and almost got me demoted. And it's going to bother me forever because I never found out where he went or what happened to him." Zari said.

"Did you ever think about having another?" Phoebe asked.

"Pheebles don't ask questions like that." I sternly reprimanded her for being so rude.

"I just, I want to know. It's ok, she's ok with it." Phoebe replied.

"That was kind of rude." Saphy said.

"Phoebe I didn't have near the time then. If I got pregnant as an admiral they would've demoted or discharged me for sure." Zari said.

"So?" Phoebe asked.

"It was my best shot at finding you guys." Zari said.

"Do you still love him?" Phoebe asked.

"Yeaaaaahh, sometimes I regret that I couldn't have been home more, and I'll always wonder where he went and what he became, now, no more about that." Zari said as she took back the display device and shut it off.

"Cj?" She asked.

"What?" I replied. To which she sensually kissed me the moment our eyes met catching me completely off guard.

"Hey what's the big idea? Get your lips off my husband you big red boobed buffoon." Phoebe said.

"Maybe I'll have another with Cj." Zari said, jokingly as she hugged me affectionately.

"No, he's my baby daddy, get your own." Phoebe said, possessively.

"Are you trying to piss her off?" I asked.

"Just a little bit. You want another?" Zari said.

"GRRR." Phoebe growled as her eyes lit up with purple jealousy.

"Ooh the eyes are a nice touch." Zari said.

"Pheebles settle down. She's toying with you." I said.

"You're my Cj." Phoebe said, possessively as her eyes faded back to normal.

"Yeah, I know, like I would let her go through with that." I replied.

"Maybe you don't have a choice." Zari joked.

"Oh really?" I said as Phoebe looked like she was about to throw a fit.

"You're right, he doesn't, he's mine." Phoebe said.

"Yep." I agreed.

"Even though he liked it when you kissed him." Phoebe said.

"Really Pheebles? You think I should kiss her again to make sure?" I asked teasingly, as I wasn't sure why she felt the need to point that out.

"No, I think you, should stop looking at her and just look at me." Phoebe said.

"Yeah just look at her. I bet you like it when she kisses you too." Zari said.

"Yeah, fuck you're all beautiful." I replied.

"Phoebe, you know I'm just playing with you." Zari said.

"I know, or else you would be pinned against the wall, and if you really want to have his baby that badly maybe we could make you our virara too, like Kitty." Phoebe said.

"Hehehehe, no, I was only joking, nothing more." Zari said.

"Good." Phoebe replied.

"Really?" I asked.

"Well atleast about the baby part, the virara part, we'll see." Zari said.

"Oh Cj was like that too before he got me pregnant, he didn't want kids either." Phoebe said.

"You mean before you drugged me so I could get you pregnant and hypnotized me so I thought we were having a foursome?" I said.

"Yeah, but it all worked out so what's the problem?" Phoebe asked.

" Well if she becomes our virara you going to try to drug her too? Or Kitty even?" I asked.

"Yeah, that's kind of an important question." Zari said.

"No. It was a crazy night ok? We were a lot younger, I just won the league, I wanted a new adventure to move onto. And Cj was being so so stubborn, and we were all happy together, so it worked out." Phoebe said.

"Hey Zari I'll forgive you faster if we could switch places." Phoebe said.

"Ok." Zari replied as they switched seats.

"There we go, now I can snuggle with my CJ." Phoebe said as cuddled against me.

"Love you baby girl." I said with a sigh as we snuggled together.

"Love you." She replied.

"My Cj." She said as she gave me an affectionate squeeze.

"Always and forever." I replied.

"You're welcome." Zari said.

"Can I get a kiss?" Phoebe asked.

"You can get all the kisses baby girl." I replied.

"Oh good grief you made them all sappy again." Saphy said.

"That's just the way they are." Zari replied with a sigh.

"I bet Saphy wishes she could get kisses." Phoebe said as she set her head on my lap and made herself comfortable.

"Yeah probably" I replied, just going along with it.

"Not from you when you're trying to get on my nerves like that." Saphy said.

"I know she likes you cock too." Phoebe said just to embarrass, well probably everyone but her to be honest.

"You think so?" I replied as she looked up at me.

"I know so." Phoebe teased.

"Well she is fun to fuck I'll say that much." I said.

"Why aren't we fucking right now?" Zari asked.

"Cause we could get attacked at any moment, you were an admiral Zari, did you ever get laid on the bridge?" Phoebe asked.

"No." Zari replied.

"And why is that?" Phoebe asked.

"Because I was busy working and that would be wildly inappropriate." Zari said.

"Exactly, we're all working right now." Phoebe said.

"Except for Kitty." Saphy pointed out.

"Well she's asleep so." Phoebe said.

"You're not supposed to do that on the bridge either." Zari said.

"Well, it's Kitty." Phoebe said.

"I got her on the bridge." I said, referring to the ship we had in the space fairing universe.

"And me." Zari said as she rolled her eyes.

"Yep, me too." Phoebe said. "Saphy?"

"Nope." Saphy replied.

"Yeah, but you had him in the pool with Kiera. Cj was a very naughty boy." Phoebe said.

"Well at that point Kitty and I, well things got stale and she's just not as in to threesomes as you are, we never married because I wanted to find out what happened to you first, and she was cool with it because we were all bored out of our minds, and then you came back baby girl." I said.

"Mhm." Phoebe agreed.

"Let's talk about something else now, no more naughty talk." Saphy said.

"Like what else Saphy?" Phoebe asked.

"What were your lives like before all this?" Saphy asked.

"Well we already told you we had a house, a big train set in the basement that Nina plays with sometimes, we had a microwave, a tv, what else do you want to know?" Phoebe asked in return.

"Guys, the mechawhatevers are shooting at something!" Challana yelled from the driver's seat.

"See this is exactly why we can't be messing around right now." Phoebe said, sitting up, as now we needed to prepare to leave the bus until the potential threat was dealt with, and also help the newbies if possible or necessary.

"Just pull over and stop the bus." Zari said.

"Right ok." Challana replied.

"Wake up Fluffybutt!" Phoebe yelled at Kitty to wake her up.

"Awww . . . What the fuck?!" Kitty said, mildly annoyed and upset.

"The newbies found the enemy, we need to get off the bus." Phoebe hastily explained.

"Cj she's being mean to me again." Kitty said.

"Oh she's just teasing you, let's get going, we can't risk losing the bus." I said as Chally, Saphy, and Zari headed out the door and IceLeomon got his wives down from the roof.

"Why would we lose the bus?" Kitty asked, tiredly.

"Cj I'm going, I love you, get her out there." Phoebe said as she kissed me on the cheek before heading for the door.

"Love you too babe." I said before turning back to Kitty.

"Because there's enemies out there, and if we're all onboard when they get here they'll start attacking it." I said.

"Ok." Kitty replied.

"So come on." I said.

"Right." She replied as she finally got up.

We were the last ones off the bus but this time it didn't matter that much because the enemy force was still pretty far away. I distributed weapons to the fire support team as Phoebe and the digimon advanced towards the enemy group, minus ninjamon, who stayed with the fire support, probably because that's were Zari and Chally were.

A few Icedevidramons, a few icewyvernmons, and what looked to be icedevimons in the distance, maybe. Icedevimons are primarily melee fighters, so we needed to close the distance for them to be a threat. They're strong, but they don't walk much faster than a human, and they fly about as well as a chicken, meaning they can jump pretty far off the ground but can't actually fly anywhere. They have sharp claws and their arms can stretch out just a bit, so they have a bit more range than their appearance would suggest. They can also generate and fire icicles a short distance, in a similar but weaker manner than Frostwyvernmon. A little less than lethal, but enough to keep one in place so it can use its claws. They look almost like a human wearing a latex devil suit, but bizarrely, in a similar manner to Etemon, and unlike many clothes-wearing digimon, the suit is their actual skin, they have horns on their head, are unnaturally cold to the touch, have tattered, nearly useless wings, red, pupiless eyes, and unnaturally long and slender" arms that reach down past their knees, with bony hands tipped with razor sharp claws. Some seemed to be slightly taller, shorter, bluer, or grayer, or more or less stockier than others, but they all looked like they could be related. We approached them slowly and cautiously, as everything in the air fought against itself.

"How fortunate, we were getting so bored searching for you." One of them said in a voice that bared an uncanny resemblance to that of a certain actor.

"Yes, indeed, what great fortune, now we can end this and help deusmon destroy the digital world." Another said in a nearly identical voice.

"Of course there is one question we must ask though." The first one said.

"Yeah and what is that?" Phoebe asked.

"One of the rulers went missing." It continued. " They know it hasn't been destroyed. So where is it?"

"If we knew that why would we tell you?" Phoebe asked.

"Well I think we are more than capable of finding a way to make you." He said.

"Allright, no more fooling around, let's go." He said as he lunged at her, causing her to teleport to safety, much to his confusion. The rest of the enemy horde advanced as well, Henry and the others on fire support started firing at them, and soon we had a fight on our hands.

I fought with the sword, Phoebe got her shurikens out, Saphy started weakening them with draining rain, until they used their own abilities to freeze it solid, effectively neutralizing it, so she digivolved and went on the offensive, something she still wasn't quite used too yet. Phoebe really had to keep more of an eye on her than anyone else. Kitty and Iceleomon did their usual thing, and started cutting them down in short order. Henry, Claire, Ninjamon, Chally, Iceleomon's wives, and Zari, were on fire support, and basically kept their distance and started shooting at them. While bullets and other projectile weapons weren't particularly effective against most digimon, it would wear them down over time, and could be lethal if they all fired at the same one at once. But mainly their job was to keep an eye on them and quickly take out any that might get the drop on us. The guns and other projectile weapons in this universe effectively had anomalously regenerating ammo, bows will spontaneously rerack themselves, guns will refill their magazines if they are removed in the normal manner, and energy weapons that couldn't normally exist anyway, don't seem to have any sort of battery, so the sound of gun fire was almost constant. Ninjamon did the same but used his own shuriken instead. Like usual we occasionally had to dodge icebeams and icicles raining down from the sky, but the digimon flying overhead were far enough away their accuracy was pretty terrible.

Darkvioletmon kept her distance, and rarely, if ever attacked and if she did it was mostly just to defend herself. The only reason she was out there was because Phoebe and Zari made a big deal about her not participating until she apparently relented and without saying a word started getting off the bus to fight like everyone else. However, despite her not actively trying to help, more than a few of the enemy tried to attack her, so it wasn't like she didn't contribute anything.

The battle in the sky ended pretty quickly, so eventually the newbies joined in and started raining lasers down on them, providing a bit of relief, and cutting them down even faster, but when there was only about a dozen of them left, another group arrived from the northwest, unfortunately with a handful of mammothmon which were huge and a lot stronger, and a threat to the newbies and goddesses since they can fire their tusks like guided missiles with limited tracking ability, with enough force to dent the mechanorimon, they automatically disappear and regrow after a while. They are slow in close quarters, but powerful, and they can run fairly fast in a straight line. They can also generate snowballs, at a faster rate than their tusks and fire them with enough force that it feels like getting hit by a baseball pitching machine. Not immediately lethal unless you get smacked in the head, but a major pain, and could be lethal after getting hit several times. Their tusks though, if it doesn't run you through (they're curved and tend to spin through the air like a boomerang, so while it is possible it's not the most likely thing to happen) the force from the impact is enough to shatter multiple ribs. Also, while it's not explosive, if it hits something hard enough it can shatter and create a decent amount of shrapnel.

Like real guided missiles, this attack is dangerous and unpredictable when used up close, as they have a high chance of being deflected and sent off into the distance before they get off to speed, in that situation they're more than likely to use them purely as a melee weapon in the much less anomalous manner. While they're not the best fighters up close, they're built like tanks and can take a lot of damage, but to even get to them we had another 30 or so Icedevimon to defeat.

The newbies and goddesses started attacking them, while we finished off the last of the first group of icedevimon, but they really couldn't do much, the mechanorimon started to get pretty beat up as it was really difficult for them to avoid all the tusks, until Illustria got scared and landed behind us along with Celly and Kiera. Her mechanorimon was in really bad shape to the point where holes were forming in its metal shell, and the other two weren't much better. Celly's got clipped in the shoulder and lost all function in its right arm. Illustria was hurt too, her leg was bleeding pretty bad, probably from shrapnel. They took cover with Henry, Claire, Ninjamon, Iceleomon's wives, Chally and Zari, Zari started dressing her wounds while Kiera and Celly started helping with fire support, along with Celly's mechanorimon, while the other two machine digimon approached the second group in order to fight up close, which was kind of stupid, they took down one icedevimon a piece before getting surrounded and briefly ripped to several pieces before just disintegrating into data, meaning we would have to recover them later.

The goddesses, knowing their mechanorimon were on borrowed time as well, landed further back in the forest, behind everyone, left their mechanorimon behind and decided to attack the second group from the rear. The mammothmon saw this and started to head that way, right as a flight of frostwyvernmon arrived at began to rain down icicles with impunity. I started to seek cover at this point as there was just too much going on to keep track of. Thanks to the fire support team it was pretty easy to break away as the ones trying to chase me immediately got their attention, causing the poor digimon to be immediately reduced to swiss cheese before subsequently collapsing into a cloud of data after being hit by 3 arrows, and an unknowable amount of bullets. I made it to cover behind a nearby tree where I could be somewhat safe from the icicles, and started using the shogun sword attack to start pelting them with flaming dragons that defied all laws of physics. Sadly being ice types they didn't burn very well, but it still hurt them. Anyway, Kitty, the digibabes, and IceLeomon continued to fight in their usual manner, but Phoebe's curiosity got the best of her and she teleported over to see how I was doing.

"You're not hurt are you?" She asked.

"Things were getting too chaotic, had to pull out or I could've been. Get back in there babe, it's not over yet, I'll try to cover you." I said.

"Just don't get hurt." She said, lovingly.

"I'll try not to." I said shortly before she teleported back into the fray. A couple IceDevimon saw me and started to make their way over, neither of which were a real problem as I was mostly just trying to avoid the icicles.

Meanwhile, according to the goddesses, as nobody else was there to see it, Mervamon and Dianamon worked together to split the mammothmon up and then hunted them down one by one. With their attack power and Venusmon's insane mind control abilities, which are even greater than Kitty's when she chooses to weaponize them, they didn't have much of a chance. She has this bizarre ability to summon this somewhat large white dove at will. It looked normal enough, but had pokémon level intelligence, anyway if she couldn't just get the enemy to fall head over heals in love with her, some thing certain digimon seemed more prone to than others, machine types were basically immune for instance. Anyway, this bird could remove their will to fight through inexplicable means, making them easy targets for the others. That said, it had to have contact with them to do this, and being just about as fast as an ordinary dove, it wasn't impossible to avoid and could even be killed or destroyed before it's able to do anything. She also spoke to it like it was its own being, though it is its own life form in a sense, it is also part of Venusmon as well, as it simply vanishes when destroyed and leaves no data cloud like a normal digimon would as its data is part of Venusmon's, though if it is destroyed, Venusmon feels it, and she seems to be able to re summon it again after a while.

Anyway, once the mammothmon were dealt with they sent their mechanorimon back into the sky to deal with the flying enemies that were making a nuisance of themselves and were pretty difficult to hit, even with firearms. Celly took this as a cue to send hers back up on its own as well. Mechanorimon are a bit more lethargic when nobody is inside them but they can still somewhat fight on their own, they really need an operator to take full advantage of their strength though, otherwise their power level is more in line with that of a rookie, aside from being significantly more durable.

The goddesses then started attacking the icedevimon from behind, and with the second attack force surrounded they didn't last much longer, but we didn't even have time to return to the vehicles before a third group arrived from the northeast, a pair of tankmon, 5 mammothmon, several commandramon, which were somewhat hard to see, and several dozen icedevimon. Phoebe grabbed me and retreated as soon as she saw them.

"The gun-lizards are here. Neither of us can survive their attacks, it's too risky to be out there anymore." She said.

"Fuck, they're teaming up, I was hoping we'd have more time before we'd have to fight them. I guess it's all on the digimon now." I said.

"Well, I have an idea." Phoebe said.

"What?" I asked.

"Remember how I used to fight back home, with shadowballs? We could use our weapons instead. We'll attack and then teleport before they figure out where we are." Phoebe said.

"Allright, let's do it then baby girl." I said.

"Ok just let me get a few spinny blade things ready." She said as she pulled out her digivice.

"You mean shurikens?" I asked.

"No duh." She replied as she pulled a few out of her digivice.

Meanwhile the digimon started fighting the enemy icedevimon up close, while the tankmon and commandramon started firing at them, though they could shrug off the shots as to them it was still no more than a rookie-level attack, the tankmon had a bit more of a punch, but were slow and there were only two of them. Their aim also wasn't as good and they even managed to hit some of the Icedevimon. Most of them are shoot first, ask questions never types. While Icedevimon are usually more cold and calculating.

"Hey watch what you're shooting at, you're hurting our own team." One of the Icedevimon standing around them said.

"Well maybe if they stayed out of the way, they wouldn't get hit." One of them replied, in a voice similar to that of a drill sergeant.

"Deusmon does want them to be destroyed doesn't he?" The other asked.

"Yeah and the less of our guys you shoot, the more likely they will be." The Icedevimon replied.

"Well it doesn't look like they've done much so far." The second pointed out.

"That may be, but we're bound to wear them down eventually. We'll destroy all but one of them, and then we'll torture the last to see if they know where the missing piece of deusmon is." The icedevimon replied shortly before 3 shurikens cut him into three separate pieces destroying him almost instantly. The tank mon instinctively withdrew their upper torsos, which are somewhat human-like though the part of their face that is visible is anything but, into the tank body they have in lieu of legs, protecting them and leaving only the top of their head exposed, but preventing them from using their machine guns as they were tucked inside as well. In this form they could easily be mistaken for a regular tank, with the top of their heads being the turret, though it bared no resemblance to any models I was familiar with. This also made them similar to turtles, as their outsides were hard, but their insides were pretty vulnerable.

"About time somebody shut him up." The first tankmon said. They didn't like to be given orders, they didn't like much really, aside from blood and explosions.

-Meanwhile-

"I got him." Phoebe cheered.

"I got mine too, the tanks though, they're too well protected." I said.

"Yeah well they're tanks." Phoebe replied before taking my hand and teleporting us somewhere else so we wouldn't be spotted.

"Allright who are you aiming for now?" Phoebe asked as I took aim at one of the semi camouflaged commandramon.

"I think I'll go for some of those stupid gun wielding lizards, how about you?" I asked.

They were very stealthy, but there was still kind of a blurry silhouette that gave away their location, and every time they moved their skin couldn't adapt fast enough to keep up, so they became a lot more visible than normal, of course all this military tech came at the expense of their physical strength which was bad even by human standards.

"I think I'll just take out another devimon, maybe I'll get more this time without the tankmon in the way." Phoebe said.

"Alright. Ready? , 3, 2, 1, fire." I said as we prepared to attack.

As soon as our projectiles were launched I took her hand and we teleported again, the commandramon were quick to shoot back so we didn't have too much time. Unlike how she normally attacked in this world by controlling her shurikens and guiding them into enemies, she had very little control of them after she launched them, so they kind of just flew into a straight line until hitting something. She also didn't recover them, so after doing this several times she ran out of shurikens entirely as they were now all scattered around on the ground.

At this point the 3rd attack force had been cut down pretty significantly. I kept attacking, with her teleporting me to safety after every shot, though she was unable to attack herself. The mammothmon and tankmon were a lot more resistant to flames than the others, which was bad because the tankmon were even more dangerously armed than the commandramon. With a tank cannon for a nose and a pair of what seemed to be 7.62 machineguns for arms, and armor much thicker than that of the mechanorimon, they were not to be trifled with.

The trick to fighting a tankmon was getting it to expose itself. Because of a lack of speed and legs, they aren't the best fighters up close. They can punch pretty hard, but they can't dodge very well, due to the weight and sheer lack of speed of their lower tank body. Whenever one of our digimon got close enough to attack them they went into "tank mode" and drove away, or straight towards them when able in an attempt to run them over.

While they weighed enough that being run over by them would probably be lethal, they were slow enough that they were extremely easy to dodge. Their cannons fired explosive shells that would probably liquefy a human and were painful, but less lethal to digimon of a similar level, and from observations there seemed to be about a 15 second reload, caliber was probably around 37mm, a bit small for a tank, but they are only champion level, enough firepower to probably insta-kill rookies, standoff against other champions, and chip away at ultimates. Their machineguns are much more annoying really, having a faster fire rate and a deeper magazine than the commandramon's rifles, they can provide a steady stream of fire for an extended period of time. .

They weren't very good shots either. They seemed to hit the larger and more cumbersome mammothmon more than our own digimon even. They definitely were not the most intelligent enemies we had come across.

"We have to do something about those tanks." Phoebe said as she teleported in behind me carrying a stack of shurikens.

"I don't know what we're going to do, they're tough." I said.

"We have to get them to come out of their shells somehow." Phoebe said.

"I guess Kitty can try her mind control, but we have to get her attention." I said.

As she was currently engaged in intense combat, safely getting her attention wouldn't be easy.

"You want me to pull her out?" Phoebe asked.

"If you can do it without getting either of you hurt." I said.

"I bet I can." Phoebe said as she set her shurikens down and closely watched the battle, waiting for the right moment to teleport in and grab Kitty.

Eventually that moment arrived a few seconds later and she teleported away, grabbed her, and teleported back.

"What the? I was doing fine Phoebe. You didn't have to take me out of the fight." Kitty said.

"I know you were doing fine, but we need you to do something different and this was the safest way to talk to you." Kitty said.

"Did Cj get hurt again?" Kitty asked.

"No, he's fine too." Phoebe said.

"Hey Kitty kat." I said.

"Cj." She happily replied as she set her nazzar nail on the ground and hugged me.

"You doing allright so far?" I asked.

"Those tankmon can really hurt, but yeah I'll be fine." Kitty replied.

"You're bleeding all over me." I said as I came to realize the extent of her wounds, the black clothes she wears as a Lilithmon don't show blood very well.

"Yeah, like I said they can really hurt and the mammothmon aren't much fun either." Kitty replied.

"You know we kind of have a time limit. You know Saphy and IceLeomon and the goddesses are still out there getting shot at." Phoebe said.

"I know that. What do you need?" Kitty said.

"We need to take down those tankmon." Phoebe said.

"I tried, but they're too tough, that's why everybody started going after the bigger ones, they're softer and squishier." Kitty said as I examined her injures.

"Ow! Cj don't touch me there that's sore." Kitty said.

"Yeah you're hit pretty bad, looks more like shrapnel wounds than anything, did those lizards hit you any?" I asked.

" I'll be fine don't worry, their bullets hit pretty hard, but they can't even pierce my skin half the time, Even Saphy can take more than a few." Kitty replied.

"Can she bleed out?" Phoebe asked.

"I'm not sure, but she's still beat up pretty bad." I said.

"We've seen others bleed out before haven't we?" Phoebe asked.

"I don't remember." I said.

"I got hit a few times, don't worry about it, it hurts, but it's nothing, you should see Saphy, she barely knows what she's doing." Kitty said.

"I might have to pull her out too then." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, maybe." Kitty replied.

"Here Cj, take this digiroot paste just in case." Phoebe said as she handed me a jar of the stuff that she had in her digivice.

"Yeah let's get you patched up Kitty Kat, that's a little too much blood to be nothing." I said as I started rubbing a glob of it on her stomach. Not only did it heal her wounds it repaired her clothing and cleaned up the blood as it all counted as part of her.

"Ok while that does its thing, we need to focus here. Kitty listen, we need you to use your powers to hypnotize those tank guys to maybe get them to come out of their shells so we can actually hurt them." Phoebe said.

"OK, I can try." Kitty replied.

"You can do that if you just look into one of their eyes right?" I asked.

"I think so." Kitty said.

"Good, because if you try to look into both they'll be pointing right at you, so don't be trying to do that. If that was what their splash damage can do to you, I don't want to see a direct hit ok?" I said.

"Ok, I think I got it." Kitty replied.

"Good luck babe. Get back out there, we'll be watching." I said as I quickly kissed her on the head while Phoebe glared at me.

"Ok." Kitty said before retrieving her weapon and heading back into the fight.

"Did you have to kiss her?" Phoebe asked when she was out of earshot.

"I love her Pheebles." I said.

"I know, but."

"And I love you too." I said, interrupting her, before I quickly kissed her cheeks and lips to pacify her.

"Don't get jealous, you're the reason I never married her." I said.

"Ok, you goofball, let's see if she can pull this off." Phoebe said before picking up some of her shurikens off of the ground where she had left them earlier.

"Is there any doubt?" I asked.

"Plenty." Phoebe replied.

"Oh, don't be that way." I said.

"I might pull Saphy out after this, to make sure she's ok." Phoebe said.

"Not the worst idea, but keep her in for now so Kitty is free to focus on the tankmon." I said.

"Right." Phoebe replied, as Kitty headed out there and prepared to make her move.

"You know you kissed her plenty of times last night?" I pointed out.

"We do that for you, you know that. We're getting closer, but I don't know if we'll ever be that close. She being the way she is and I'm the way I am I don't have the patience for that. You and I Cj, you know, atleast we're on the same page most of the time, her, you never even know if she has the same book. And I have problems trusting her with you, not in the jealous way, in the she might be dumb enough to get you killed way." Phoebe said.

"Ohhh, Pheebles, she hasn't gotten me killed yet." I said.

"The whole time you spent with her you weren't even fighting anything." Phoebe said.

"And you always seem to think I can't look out for myself." I said.

"It's not that you can't it's that she can't." Phoebe said.

"Eh I'll give you that one." I said.

"And that means she poses a risk to you." Phoebe said.

"And you don't?" I said.

"Exactly." Phoebe said.

"How many times have you had a nightmare and accidently kicked me out of bed?" I asked.

"Not as much as she's scratched you." Phoebe said.

"You know I could have easily snapped my neck any of those times?" I asked.

"Yeah right." Phoebe replied.

"It's happened before." I said.

"What people snapping their necks after getting kicked out of bed?" Phoebe asked.

"No, people just snapping their necks after falling in general." I said.

"Yeah but I mean what are the chances? Not as much as her accidently slicing an artery I'll bet." Phoebe said.

"Actually she's never cut me anywhere remotely that deep." I pointed out.

"Well still." Phoebe said.

"No well still, she's never cut me that deep. The chances of that happening are zero." I replied.

"No they're not. Just because it hasn't happened Cj, doesn't mean it can't." Phoebe replied.

"She doesn't even scratch me most of the time, just when we get, really, into it." I said.

"Into her scratching you?" Phoebe asked.

"No! Just, -frustrated noises-, we'll continue this later, right now we gotta keep an eye on those tankmon." I said.

"Fine with me." Phoebe replied.

At the moment the tankmon were pre-occupied with firing at Saphy and IceLeomon, between their cannons and the rest of the ambient gunfire and fighting noises, it wouldn't too difficult for Kitty to sneak up behind them. What was more difficult, was how she was going to get into their line of sight so she could use her abilities on them without getting shot, our job was the easy one, all we had to do was strike the moment they exposed themselves, but before she could even get to them Dianamon struck them with arrows that somehow penetrated their armor and killed them really quickly.

"That's not possible, my armor. Shoot her, shoot her." One of tankmon said before bursting into a cloud of data.

"Didn't see that coming." Phoebe said.

"She could've done that this whole time? Awe well, I guess that takes care of that." I said.

"That's good though, that she can do that. I doubt those will be the only ones we come across." Phoebe said.

"I'm surprised more haven't shown up already." I replied.

"Don't say that!" Phoebe said.

"What you getting tired baby girl?" I asked.

"I'm going to take Kitty back to the others and then I going to check on Saphy I'll be right back." She replied.

"Ok, I'll wait for you here." I said, surprised that she gave me time to finish speaking before she teleported away.

I stood there by myself for about 30 seconds just watching the battle as the mammothmon were too far away to get an accurate shot with the sword, and hitting anything in the sky was even more unlikely. That said, if another enemy group didn't show up, it looked like it was about over.

Phoebe came back with Saphy a minute later.

"Oooh Saphy, you're hurt even worse than Kitty." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, thanks for pulling me out of there." Saphy said, fighting the pain.

"I can't hold this form much longer Pheebles, I tried, but, I'm just not used to it yet." Saphy continued.

"Does it hurt you to try to hold that form? I mean if it hurts you can revert to your other one, you're safe here." Phoebe asked.

"Yeah, I think I'll do that." Saphy said shortly before reverting back to her ranamon form, which appeared to heal her wounds on the surface level, but her actual code was still tired and hurting.

"That's a little better." She said once she was done.

"I'll say, all your wounds disappeared." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, but it still hurts though." Saphy replied.

"Really?" Phoebe asked.

"Yeah, it's kind of hard to explain." Saphy said.

"Well don't worry we'll get you some white digiroot then. Cj, where's that jar?" Phoebe said.

"Um, over there on the ground." I said after briefly scanning the area for it.

"Oh, ok." Phoebe replied as she went to retrieve it.

"Yeah come here Saphy we'll get you all healed up, and then you can head back out there or are we close enough to being done that they don't need you?" Phoebe asked.

"So while this works, maybe you can help us settle an argument?" Phoebe said as she started to rub the stuff on her.

"What are you two going on about now?" Saphy asked with a laugh.

"Do you think I'm more likely to get Cj killed or Kitty?" Phoebe asked.

"What brought that up?" Saphy asked in disbelief.

"She doesn't trust Kitty to be able to keep me alive, even though we've been together for twenty years, and, here I am." I said.

"Well, she can be kind of careless." Saphy said.

"Right." Phoebe agreed.

"But you can just be downright crazy." Saphy said.

"Not in that way, I've never gotten him hurt." Phoebe said.

"I know, and neither has Kitty." Saphy said.

"She scratched him, when they were, um, you know." Phoebe said.

"She's tends to kick me out of the bed if she has bad enough dreams." I said.

"When did that happen?" Saphy asked.

"Not since before all this, so a very very long time ago, and even then seriously how often have I even done that?" Phoebe said.

"Enough that I get nervous when I'm awake and you start wiggling around in your sleep." I said.

"But you like it when she scratches you?" Phoebe said.

"He does?" Saphy asked.

"I never said that, and you know it." I replied.

"No I'm just pushing his buttons and you know it." Phoebe said as she huggled me.

"Because I wuv my Cj." She said in an overly cute tone.

"Really, you're going to be like that right now?" I asked.

"Mhm." Phoebe said.

"She's a weird one isn't she?" Saphy said.

"That she is, but I still love her." I said.

"So are you going to go back out there now that we got you all healed up?" Phoebe asked.

"I guess so." Saphy said.

"What are you guys doing back here anyway? How can you be fooling around in this cold?" Saphy asked.

"We aren't we're taking part in the fight just like you, but Cj came back here to avoid the icicles and then those gun-toting lizards showed up so I needed to stay back here too, you know they're a lot deadlier to us than they are to you. " Phoebe said.

"Ok, that makes sense." Saphy replied.

"So I've been teleporting us around and so we can take shots at them. As well as keeping an eye on you and the others." Phoebe said.

"Like a good tamer." Saphy said.

"Exactly sweety, if you or Kitty get hurt we're only a few seconds away." Phoebe replied as they cutely hugged for a moment.

"We might need another night alone sometime." Phoebe said.

"Maybe." Saphy replied.

"But not tonight." Phoebe replied.

"Just tell me when then ok?" Saphy asked.

"Probably when we get to another hotel or something." Phoebe said. "We only have the one bed here after all, now get back out there and show them what you can do. Bonus points if you make Kitty mad in the process." Phoebe said.

"Ok." Saphy replied excitedly.

"Pheebles." I scolded her.

"Oh allright, be nice to Kitty, Saphy." Phoebe said.

"Ok, is that everything?." Saphy asked.

"Yep." Phoebe said.

"Ok see you later then." Saphy said as she headed back out there.

"Cj you know if I spend the night with her you get Kitty too." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, that's why I didn't say anything." I replied.

"Good." Phoebe said. "because I need to get closer to her too."

"You know you can do that without sleeping with her?" I asked.

"Yeah, but it's more fun this way, and there's not really anywhere to go on a date here." Phoebe said.

"True." I replied.

"But tonight Cj, it's just you and me." Phoebe said.

"Mhm." I replied.

"Like it should be." Phoebe said as she hugged me with her slender little arms.

"Remember I love you more than anything Cj." She said.

"I know, come on, the battle isn't over yet. Let's get back to it." I said.

"Right, we should." She agreed.

The last mammothmon fell a few minutes later, joined shortly after by the last Frostwyvernmon, of this group of enemies, anyway.

The fire support team stopped firing as Kitty, Saphy, Iceleomon, Darkvioletmon, the goddesses, and the surviving mechanorimon looked around for more opponents. No new groups showed up, so it looked like the battle was over for now. We spent the next few minutes gathering the weapons, treating the other digimon's wounds, and locating the data streams of the fallen mechanorimon, fully aware that another enemy group could arrive at any moment, but eventually it was time to get back on the bus and continue our journey northward, though we headed just slightly to the east as well in an attempt to throw the enemy off, Phoebe made sure Blacklillymon remained unconscious, and we were all on very high alert for the next few hours to the point where things just got really quiet as we tried to talk strategy, Saphy was driving now, while Chally was keeping a lookout.

"So we can't have the girls in the mechanorimon, if there's too many mammothmon around, but that also means we won't have anybody on air targets." I said.

"Well, I can go after them, and maybe Dianamon can." Phoebe said.

"Fire support can too, but I wouldn't rely on it, it's just too inaccurate and too ineffective." Zari chimed in.

"We need better guns." I said.

"Good luck finding any." Phoebe said.

"We got some of those rifles from those lizards." Zari said.

"If we were fighting humans they'd be great, but to the digimon their still rookie level weapons." I said.

As far as non-digital weapons were concerned, it was safe to assume pretty much anything below an assault rifle is treated the same way. It hurts them, but only a fraction of the shots manage to penetrate their skin and they have no vital organs, even if they seem to physically possess them, like characters in a video game, plus when any weapon that uses ammunition reloads, the bullets automatically disappear from wherever they are along with the shell casings. It is impossible to tell whether they are simply deleted and replaced with new ones, or if the same bullets are re-assembled inside the magazine over and over again.

"What we need is a SNX Thunderball 5GW plasma orb projector. " I said.

"Hehehe, you think that would work?" Zari asked.

"What even is that?" Phoebe asked.

"It charges a big sphere of plasma around this little metal sphere and then fires it kind of slowly in a matter similar to a rail gun, it goes up, explodes and basically sends bolts of electricity flying everywhere in random directions and superheats the air around it, to the point where it can severely damage tank armor. Basically it wouldn't have to hit them, it'd just have to explode within 100ft of them or so and we'd be having roast wyvernmon."

"And it shoots farther than that?" Phoebe asked.

"Yeah, about ten times that for a shoulder fired version. Should have took one along, technically it's a rail gun, but it's designed to fire this specialized projectile." Zari said.

"They're expensive and they don't sell them to civilians." I said.

"I was still with the Zelusians, getting ahold of one would have been no problem for me." Zari said.

"Then why didn't you?" I asked.

"Didn't think of it." Zari replied.

"Oh well, I'm sure we can find other ways." Phoebe said.

"Then again, even if we had one it would run out of ammo eventually, and finding more would be next to impossible." I said.

"What's it use for ammo?" Phoebe asked.

"They look like silver balls, about the size of a baseball, but there's so much going on inside that I'm not exactly sure how they're made, they have a specialized coating that reacts a certain way to electricity that is very difficult to replicate. It's like a disco ball, but for lightning bolts. They weigh about five pounds each so carrying a whole lot of them around just isn't feasible." I said.

"And they are expensive." Zari said.

"Oh yeah they also cost about half as much as the gun." I said.

"Really?" Phoebe asked.

"Yeah, but, it'd take down about a dozen enemies a shot if not more." I said.

"And you're sure about that?" Phoebe asked.

"It melts through tank armor Pheebles. I know digimon are tough and normal guns don't do much to them, but they aren't that tough." I said.

"Well it doesn't really matter anyway since we don't have one." Phoebe said.

"True." I replied.

"So let's move on then." Phoebe said.

"So you and Dianamon, maybe, will that be enough though?" I asked.

"I don't know, how fast can she shoot her arrows?" Phoebe asked.

"No idea. We'll have to talk with her and the others when we stop for the night. " I replied.

"Ok, we'll do that then." Phoebe said.

We could have said something before we got on the bus, but we were all tense and in a hurry to leave before more enemies showed up.

"Do you think we should stop? We only have a few hours, maybe it would be safer to run a little longer to gain some distance." Zari said.

"We could, but once it gets dark it's hard for the newbies and the goddesses to keep track of us, much less the enemy that doesn't have headlights." I said.

Inside the mechanorimon, it's hard enough to look down as is, and the way we were traveling now they were taking the lead which meant they flew ahead for a little ways and then looked back to make sure we were still following them.

"But if the newbies can't see then the enemy probably can't either." Zari said.

"They'll see our lights and then head straight for us." I said.

"But if they can't see in the dark they won't be flying." Zari replied.

"Can they see in the dark though?" Phoebe asked.

"I don't know what's the digivice say?" I asked.

"I don't know, I'll check." Phoebe said as she pulled hers out of her purse.

-A minute of watching her read the screen later -

"On Frostwyvernmon's screen, it says they usually choose to live in caves near mountains far from villages, caves are usually pretty dark, so, yeah, they can probably find their way around." Phoebe said.

"Ok, and icedevidramon is a demon so it's probably got night vision too." I replied.

"It's a safe bet." Phoebe said.

"So traveling at night is a no go. They have too much of an advantage." I said.

"Right." Phoebe agreed.

"I guess so." Zari chimed in.

"I can see in the dark, just not in color." Kitty woke up to chime in.

"She can?" Phoebe asked, surprised.

"This is the first time she's ever mentioned it." I said.

"Even if that's true, you can't hit them when it's broad daylight." Zari said.

"But I can see them, and tell you where they are." Kitty said.

"The mechanorimon brigade isn't going to hear you. And even so one set of eyes for the six of them just isn't going to work." Zari said.

"Ok, just trying to help." Kitty replied before closing her eyes and trying to sleep.

"We're going to have to test this." Phoebe said.

"Yeah we are, but how?" I replied.

"Oh we'll think of something, might have to wait until we find a hotel again, but we'll think of something." Phoebe replied.

"Then again she thought she had your powers a while ago." I said.

"True." Phoebe said.

"If you want to help get up and start looking out the window for signs of the enemy." Zari said.

"But I'm sleeping now." Kitty replied.

"She was your lieutenant?" Zari asked me.

"Yeah, like um, fuck 40 years ago." I replied, not knowing what else to say.

"Because that's a court martial right there." Zari said.

"Well it'd only be her 15th." I said.

"How did anyone on your ship survive?" Zari said.

"You know how many bullets she's taken for other people? How many times she's been hit by things that would've easily killed anyone else? I mean she's not a particularly competent enforcer or leader, but she's saved way more people than she's killed, and I also just wanted to keep an eye on her since she was the only other one of our group I was able to find at that point. Most of her infractions were for laziness or generally not doing things right, like she failed to clean a spot on the containers or something minor like that. The others I appointed though, they knew what they were doing, so it all worked out in the end." I said.

"Yeah, I guess it did didn't it?" Zari replied.

"Right, and I just kind of kept her out of things I knew she couldn't handle, and kept her from ever being in the same room as any of the higher ups." I said.

"You mean I was a bad lieutenant?" Kitty asked.

"Babe, I love you, and, you've made a lot of progress, but you're not a leader, and you barely made it through basic training." I said.

"You mean she actually made it through?" Zari asked.

"Yeah, fair and square actually, I mean I had to help her study for her tests, a lot, a hell of a lot, and she wasn't anywhere near the top of the class, but she wasn't failing, but then we finally got to close quarters training, and there wasn't a single person in our class that could touch her, and she wasn't the only one with powers by the way, hers were just, better. So thanks in part to that, she was able to pass." I said, as Kitty curled back up on the bed and closed her eyes.

"So what happened when it came to fire arms training?" Zari asked.

"She switched to her other form, and we got her to shoot well enough to get a passing score, and she hasn't needed to use guns since." I said.

"What about uniforms?" Phoebe asked.

"Huh?" I asked.

"Did you both have to wear uniforms?" Phoebe asked.

"What does that have to do with any of this?" Zari asked.

"Nothing, just the thought of Cj in a uniform." Phoebe said.

"Ok, you do you." Zari said as she rolled her eyes.

"Well Kitty just wore the jacket, and they let her slide with that due to her abilities." I said.

"Ok that sounds pretty cute, and you?" Phoebe asked.

"Yes Pheebles, I had to wear the full uniform." I said.

"Are there any pictures?" Phoebe asked.

"Probably somewhere, back at the academy maybe." I replied.

"Why didn't you show me?" Phoebe asked.

"I didn't know you wanted to see it, and I told you before Ronnie didn't take many pictures." I replied.

"Hey, Kitty kat, you still awake?" I asked.

"No." Kitty replied.

"Ok then." I said while the others laughed.

"Can I see your memories?" Phoebe asked.

"Maybe tonight, not right now I really don't want a headache right now." I said.

"It won't hurt." Phoebe replied.

"Neither would you being patient." I said.

"RRrrrr." She grumbled.

"rrrrrr." I mimicked her grumbling.

"See anything yet Chally?" Zari asked.

"Nope, sky is empty." Challana replied.

:"Come on I just wanna see." Phoebe said after I seized her hand, after she suddenly decided to lunge towards me.

"Fine." I replied, realizing she wasn't going to let it go.

-several seconds later-

"Arceus, you were so handsome! Ronnie you lucky lady." Phoebe cutely chirped.

".Can you show me?" Zari asked.

"No." I said.

"If Cj doesn't want you to see I shouldn't show you." Phoebe said.

"Thankyou Pheebles." I said.

"Besides, he's my Cj, memories and all." Phoebe said as she hugged me.

"What do you want with my memories you crazy girl?" I asked.

"I just want to see some of them, so I can know you more." Phoebe said.

"Allright, that's fine I guess." I replied.

"Well of course it is, I love you." Phoebe said.

"Love you too baby girl." I replied.

"Can I see?" Kitty asked.

"Kitty you were there, you already saw." I said.

"Oh, right, I was, I don't know why I had to wear that jacket, it kept clinging to my arms, and it didn't fit my other form at all so I had to take it off every time I had to change." She replied.

"You had to wear it, because without it you'd probably just get mistaken for one of the officer's wives. And nobody would know what rank you are either, so, yeah, it's kind of important." I said.

"You don't mind the jacket you have now." Phoebe said.

"It's a lot smoother, it doesn't stick to my fur, unlike that one." Kitty said.

It was kind of a vinyl-ish material, as opposed to cloth.

"I see." Phoebe said.

"I'm going back to sleep now." Kitty said before closing her eyes. By this point I was pretty sure she was only pretending to sleep or our talking was keeping her up but she didn't want to say anything about it.

"Ok, you do that." Phoebe said.

A couple hours of uneventfulness passed, then the possibly fake sun set and it was time to quit for the night, and also time to talk strategy with the rest of the group.

"Ok so we were talking about some things." Phoebe began as everyone gathered around for the evening fireside meeting that had pretty much become a normal occurrence.

"So that's what you all do in there." Henry said.

"Sometimes." Phoebe replied.

"Anyway, Dianamon, we need to know how accurately you can shoot those arrows of yours. Do you think you can take down the icedevidramon and the other flying enemies?" Phoebe said.

"If I get enough time to aim, yeah." Dianamon said.

"Cool, because we're going to need some way to deal with them when it's too dangerous to have the mechanorimon up there. Anybody else have any ideas?" Phoebe asked.

"If you girls could lure them up higher, you might be able to get out of the mammothmon's range." Henry suggested.

"Yeah, but if they go too high there's a chance they'll be ignored and the icedevidramon and whatever will just target everyone on the ground." I said.

"It could go either way really." Henry said.

"True, it's a tricky situation." I agreed.

"I can take them down, if Phoebe could take me up there." Kitty said.

"We need you on the ground Kitty Kat, and besides, it's hard enough for me to get up there on my own." Phoebe said.

"It worked on the big red guy." Kitty said.

"Yeah, but that wasn't nearly as long of a fight, there was only one enemy, and we need you on the ground, because Saphy still needs to get accustomed to fighting yet. It's not the worst idea, but it's just not workable." Phoebe pointed out.

"Ok." Kitty replied.

"And you know what happened then, you both got thrown clear out into the forest." I said.

"Yeah but what are the chances we come across an enemy that big again Cj? Except for deusmon maybe." Phoebe said.

"You got hurt Pheebles." I said.

"Yeah I did." She surprisingly admitted.

"Me too." Kitty said.

"Yep." I replied.

"Well if it's just Phoebe and Dianamon going after the air targets when mammothmon show up is that going to be enough?" I asked.

"I don't know what else we're going to do aside from just spraying bullets at them and hope to get lucky." Zari said.

"I ain't got any ideas." Ninjamon chimed in.

"I can't hit them, too far away." Mervamon said.

"Then we're just going to have to rely on Dianamon and me." Phoebe said.

"It looks that way." I replied.

"Ok well, if that's settled, I think Cj and I will retire early tonight, because I'm betting the newbies don't want to be up too long and we need our private time." Phoebe said.

"Really Pheebles?" I asked as everyone laughed because they all knew exactly what that meant, except for Kitty, who probably knew, but just didn't find it funny, for obvious reasons.

"Going to have some more conversations?" Henry asked, jokingly.

"Oh it's not like you and Claire never mess around. Same with the rest of you, come on Cj let's go." Phoebe said.

I reluctantly followed her onto the bus.

"So how are we starting this tonight?" I asked.

"Well, I've been wearing these boots all day so, if you want, you can start with my feet, and then we can proceed from there." She replied.

"Ok, that sounds like a plan." I said as she sat down on the bench and motioned for me to help her with her boots. I helped her get them off and then I proceeded to worship her pretty little feet before we moved onto other more serious and intimate things.

-30 minutes later after making love and ending up naked in bed again.-

"Oh Pheebles, you still have the feet of a goddess." I said, madly in love with her.

"Heheh, ok, well I think that will be the only round tonight, sorry, but I'm kind of tired." She said.

"Oh that's fine with me, I love you baby girl." I replied as I held her close.

"Oh and Cj, while we're still alone, before anyone else comes in here." She began to say.

"What's up baby girl?" I asked.

"Do you think Nina and Kitty will get along?" She asked.

"I hope so. And the two of them together will probably have enough sense to babysit Charley." I replied.

"Well I know Nina will try to keep Charley safe, she adores him, but she can be a bit strange at times." Phoebe said.

"Just don't leave Kitty alone with him, everything will be fine. She means well, but you look away for one moment and she's trying to use a microwave as a hairdryer." I said.

"That's not funny." Phoebe replied.

"I know it's not baby girl, I saw the aftermath. There are probably still surfaces of that kitchen covered in neblong guts." I said.

"Well, technically that kitchen probably hasn't even been built yet." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, but, you get what I'm saying." I replied.

"When we get back is everybody going to squeeze into our house or what? That could be awkward especially when Nina has to get to school." Phoebe brought up after a brief period of silence later.

"I imagine Devon Co will probably set them up with a hotel for a while atleast. You know they're going to want a very thorough explanation for where we've been and where they've all come from." I said.

"Yeah well, we have enough stories to keep them occupied for a while." Phoebe replied.

"That's for sure." I said.

"Do we tell them though? From their perspective we've only been gone for a few seconds." I said.

"Well it's the right thing to do Cj, besides we need to convince them to let us retire for a while, and we're not going to be able to explain everyone else without telling them." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, it's going to be a really long story though." I said.

"Mhm." Phoebe replied.

"Who knows how many more worlds we'll have to go through before we actually get back?" I said.

"I just hope we don't get separated again, you don't want to know how much I missed you." She said.

"It all seems so surreal, you know? How we were able to just pick up again and keep going." I said.

"Mhmm." She replied.

"I loved Aranea, Pheebles, she was good to me, like you she had her quirks, and I love Kitty, I wish she would try to find somebody that could give her the attention she deserves, but, for whatever reason she wants me." I said.

"Well if she's happy she's happy, but she needs to learn that you're mine first and hers second." Phoebe replied.

"What if I married both of you?" I asked.

"You can't marry her, I've decided you're mine. I found you first and I'm not letting you go never ever ever." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, and you more than deserve me, but doesn't she deserve happiness to?" I said.

"If she needs someone to herself, but keeps pursuing you anyway, then no, she doesn't. That's entirely her fault. Last I heard she doesn't want to marry you anyway." Phoebe pointed out.

"And if she's happy with our current arrangement, then she's happy and there's nothing wrong with that." Phoebe said.

"I would hope so, but, it's just so strange Pheebles." I said.

"You keep thinking you don't deserve us, but we give ourselves to you, you keep thinking we deserve more than you, but we take you anyway. Do you know why Cj?" She asked.

"I don't have a single clue in the world." I said.

"Because it's not about what you think you deserve, it's about what we're willing to give, and you, I can see it Cj, all the times you tried to break up with her, you tried to get her interested in other guys, but, she insists on sticking with you, you're doing your best to love both of us. Her love for you is why I let her be our virara Cj, but she can't be your wife, only I can, and if she's happy with that, well, she kept you going for me, so I owe her that much atleast. " She said.

"If you say so Pheebles." I said.

"Cj, I mean it, if she hadn't stepped in, as dumb as a move as it was for her to make, Ronnie's death would have ruined you, and we wouldn't be here right now. Now goodnight, let's get some sleep, I'll help you have good dreams if you need it, but we need to sleep because who knows how hard we'll have to fight tomorrow? I love you, always and forever, now sleep." She replied before kissing me and kind of half-hypnotizing me in the process. I suddenly felt very tired and was out like a light seconds later.