Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Naruto or Digimon franchises. Comments/Criticism is fine as long as it isn't just hate or flaming. If you do not like, no one is forcing you to read and you can just leave.

Thank you and please enjoy

Humon

-Chapter 26-

-Last Time-

"Meh, it's pretty traumatizing the first few times sure, but after your sixth or seventh near death experience they tend to get a bit repetitive." Naruto admitted with a shrug. He lived a dangerous lifestyle, one where he had been in several extremely close calls and expected many more to come until he either finally died or retired.

His words only made the group around him more uneasy, no more than Mimi herself, having personally gone through a near-death experience. She couldn't even begin to imagine being able to go through such a thing again, let alone six or seven times. The mere thought of it made her stomach churn and her hold on Naruto to unconsciously tighten.

Desperate for a change of subject, she looked around and thankfully spotted something in the distance. "Look, a giant cactus!"

-And Now-

"Whoa, that thing is massive." Matt said with a low whistle as the group gazed at the giant spikey plant not too far away in the distance.

"Yeah, it's even bigger than I am as Togemon." Palmon agreed as she tilted her head back to see the top.

"It's also not real." Izzy commented, getting the others to look at him in confusion. "What? It's clearly a mirage, it's wobbling way too much to be simply high thermal waves distorting our ocular reception."

"…"

*Sigh* "It also doesn't have a shadow." He said exasperatedly while pointing at the bottom of the 'plant'. As soon as he did this, the entire plant gradually vanished from view, proving his point.

"Ah man, and I was looking forward to some nice shade." Gomamon pouted while wiping the sweat off his forehead.

Sora was about to say something, but paused when she felt the ground start lightly trembling beneath her. Eyebrow raised in confusion, she glanced around and felt her jaw drop. "You might still get it, we've got incoming!" She yelled while jabbing her finger to the side.

Snapping to the direction she pointed, the whole group gapped in shock as they saw a luxury cruise liner sailing through the sand right at them. Scrambling out of its path, everyone was forced to shield their eyes as the ship past due to the large clouds of sand that the massive boat kicked up.

However, instead of just continuing on its way, the boat quickly ground to a halt before them with a loud hiss of its engines. As it settled down, a Numemon in a sailor outfit peeked over the railing at them. Its eyes narrowed as it glared down at the group before widening and turning into hearts as they settled onto Mimi.

Giving off a creepy chuckle, the slug digimon suddenly turned away from them with a scoff of fake disinterest. Sadly for it, none of the kids or there digimon bought the act as they gazed at the green slug with deadpan expressions, especially since it kept glancing back at them with expectant looks every few seconds.

"Does anyone else think this is a trap?" Joe asked dully.

"Yep,"

"Definitely,"

"It's rather obvious,"

"How could it NOT be one?"

"Good, it's not just me," The slight hypochondriac muttered, "So what do we do about it? We can't just ignore it since whoever is steering that ship will probably just keep following us."

"We do the only thing we can do," Naruto said as he squirmed out of Mimi's arms and clambered up onto her shoulder before being engulfed in a puff of smoke. "We trap the trappers and hijack that ship-Ttebayo!" He declared dramatically once the smoke cleared, revealing that he was now dressed like a pirate, hooked hand and eyepatch included.

"Eh, not like we have much choice about it anyway." Matt said with a shrug as he pulled out his digivice, with the other kids minus Tai nodding in agreement and doing the same. "Let's be pirates."

-Elsewhere-

"Mwahaha!" Inside the ships bridge, a chicken looking digimon the size of two men laughed darkly as it watched the group talking on one of several monitors. "Once those foolish digidestined step on board, they'll be so amazed at the luxurious commodities my ship has to offer that they'll drop their guards completely."

Breaking into another fit of laughter, the giant chicken walked over to a large mirror on the other side of the room and puffed its chest ant tail feathers out pridefully. "And then I, the mighty Cockatrimon, will be able to come it and take them all out in one fell swoop! Mwahaha-"

*Boom!*

"GAH! WHAT THE HELL!?" Cockatrimon cried in shock as several small explosions suddenly shook the ship. Rushing back to his console, the chicken's eyes widened in shock when instead of seeing his targets carelessly boarding his ship, he was greeted with the sight of several champion-level digimon causing havoc.

"Hoi! Those brats are wrecking my beautiful boat!" He cried out indignantly when Kabuterimon blasted the front deck, not even caring that several of his Numemon crew were sent overboard by the attack.

Clucking angrily, the giant chicken slammed a wing against the console, creating a large dent before turning around and marching towards the only door in the room. "If they think I'm going to just stand here and let them get away with that, they have another thing coming."

Slamming the door open, Cockatrimon barely made it three whole steps outside the room before a large red fist burst through a window and decided to introduce itself to his face. Flying back with a cry of pain, he crashed into the far wall and sunk in several inches.

"Greetings me matey," Naruto said cheerfully from Mimi's shoulder as she walked into the room, the blonde's pirate hat now atop her head. "Sorry for the inconvenience, but once we saw this ship our little gaggle decided we just had to have it. Hope you don't mind if we help ourselves."

Groaning slightly as he pulled himself out of the wall, Cockatrimon glared hatefully at the pair standing before him. "How dare you talk to me, the great Cockatrimon, like that. This is my ship, bestowed upon me by his mightiness Etemon himself! My trap may have failed, but I will not! I will kill you all for his glory!"

"Oh, if that's case," Mimi started as she stepped to the side and the red fist from earlier shot through the doorway and grabbed Cockatrimon. "Then we're definitely not feel sorry about it, or this next part."

Before the giant chicken could do more than squawk in surprise, he was dragged outside and promptly beaten into a paste by the six champion digimon waiting for him. Ignoring his cries of agony and pleas for mercy, Mimi walked over to the ships controls and looked them over nervously.

"Uhhhh, you wouldn't happen to know how to steer this thing, would you?" She asked Naruto, blinking in surprise when he nodded.

"Yeah actually, during our first real mission my team spent a month at a fishing village in the Land of Waves place protecting an old bridgebuilder from a greedy midget businessman." Naruto told Mimi while hopping off her shoulder and onto the controls.

"Said midget messed up the places economy pretty bad, so even after we got rid of him (May Gato forever rot in hell) the place had it pretty rough. So, during some of my free time near the end of the mission I helped out the fishermen for free and ended up learning how to sail." As he was talking, Naruto fiddled with several seemingly random switches, dials, and buttons.

"While their boats were nowhere near as complicated as this one, the basic controls are similar enough for me to figure it out. By the way, could you flip that for me?" He asked, pointing to a large lever on the wall while he unlocked the helm.

"Sure," Mimi said, grabbing the handle and pulling it down with a grunt. With a distant groan, the engines rumbled to life and with a heavy lurch the whole ship started moving. At the same time, the digimon finished their beatdown on Cockatrimon and tossed the battered, and now featherless, evil digimon overboard, right on top of the pile of unconscious Numemon.

"Thanks for the ship and pillow stuffing!" Palmon yelled out with an armload of giant down feathers after devolving, earning a chorus of laughter from the others and the children that rapidly grew quieter as the ship gained speed and vanished into the distance.

With the vessel successfully captured, the group quickly split up to explore the ship more thoroughly. Tai, Matt, T.K., and their digimon went in search of the dining deck for something to eat. Joe, Gomamon, Tentomon, and Izzy settled on the top deck with the former three relaxing in the cooling water of the pool and the latter back at work on his laptop.

Finally, Mimi and Naruto regrouped with Sora, Biyomon, and Palmon on the cabin deck after the chibi blonde made the max clones he could, which was five, two to man the bridge and the remaining three to watch the engine room once they found it.

"You know, this turned out great." Sora said with a smile as they walked down the hall. "Not only did we end up dealing with a problem before it got to be… well a problem, but now we have a way to travel quickly without having to tire ourselves out walking everywhere."

"Speak for yourself," Naruto panted out tiredly, wiping the sweat from his forehead while snuggling further into Mimi's hold. "You're not the one having to run Sandoraidā (Sand Sailor) by yourself." He was still exhausted from his fight with SkullGreymon, and it had taken what little energy he had recovered to use Kage Bunshin.

"True, good name by the way, it fits." Biyomon said, getting Naruto to smile at her as Mimi walked up to one of the many doors and opened it to reveal the nicely sized bedroom within. It had a large bed near the back, a kitchenette with built in mini-bar, and a lounge area, and an open door leading to a small bathroom.

"Whoa," Mimi muttered in awe as she stepped inside, heading straight for the bed and flopping down on her back with a sigh. "Now this is what I'm talking about."

"Yeah, it certainly is nice," Sora said as she glanced around the room from the doorway. "Especially if the showers work as well, huh Mimi?"

"…"

"Mimi?" Confused when she got no response from the girl on the bed, Sora got closer to see what was wrong, and just barely managed to restrain a fit of giggles. Both Mimi and Naruto were out cold, soft snores escaping their lips. "I guess they were really tired, huh?"

"No kidding, they are completely out of it." Palmon said as she gently shook her partner, which only caused the girl to roll onto her side with a barely coherent grumble and curl up into a ball with Naruto held snuggly in the middle.

"They're not the only ones," Biyomon said with a yawn while rubbing an eye with her wing, "I'm bushed-*grumble* …and hungry."

"It is getting pretty late. Let's go get something to eat and then hit the hay ourselves." Sora said as she glanced out a window to see the rapidly darkening skies. Neither Palmon or Biyomon said anything, simply nodding in agreement before the trio left the room.

-Meanwhile, in the desert-

Cockatrimon gave a pitiful whimper as he regained consciousness and slowly pushed himself up. Coughing a few times, he looked himself over and seethed in rage as he looked over his plucked form in the dying light. "I swear… I will get revenge for this humiliation… even if it's the last thing I ever doOO!" *Thump*

While he had been talking, the giant chicken digimon had tried to stand up, but ended up slipping on the slimy bodies of his underlings and tumble to the ground. Groaning in agony, he started to get up again only to freeze as a certain sound reached his ears.

"Grrrrrrr,"

Confused, Cockatrimon slowly lifted his head towards the source of the noise, his eyes widening in pure terror at what he saw just as the last rays of sunlight vanished. "W-what are… N-no… stay away n-n-no… not l-like this…" He muttered in fear, his eyes darting all over the place while he desperate scrambled backwards until he bumped into the Numemon again. "S-stay back… b-back I say!"

"GRRRRRRR!"

"No! S-stay away from m-me you beasts! Stay away! AAAAAAAGH!" *Squelch* *Crackle* *Squish* *Squ-crunch* *gurgle*

As Cockatrimon's screams died out, they were replaced with the sickening sound of breaking bone, tearing flesh, and a symphony of howls. In the surrounding darkness, all that was visible were absolutely hundreds of glowing red eyes that held nothing but bloodlust.

-End Chapter-

AN: Given how every time these guys run into anything human related it (The phone booths, the mansion/hotel, Deji mart, vending machines, ect.) it ends up being a trap, it honestly baffles me how these guys still kept blindly trusting these obvious traps. Also, what was the point of Cockatrimon's human disguise? The group never saw him in it while boarding and he got rid of it right after that. Finally, I do not know anything about Cruise ships other than what I googled, so if most of what I wrote is wrong then I apologize. Thank you for reading and please review.