Blue to Gray

by Besprizornye

When Digimon begin appearing in and around Minneapolis, a group of teenagers are thrown together by their encounters with these strange creatures. Digimon and Tamer alike must learn to understand each other and discover why they have been brought together before it is too late to stop the shadowy forces at work around them.

8. Episode 1-08

Episode 1.08: Gold Guns Girls

"I think I've got one!" exclaimed Lynn as she sat peering down at her Digivice in the front passenger seat of Emily's car. The other girl's green eyes lit up with excitement and she shifted her attention away from the lunch in her lap only to be disappointed.

"No dice, Lynn," Emily sighed. "The blue one's Joshua, remember?"

Lynn frowned and went back to studying her phone. For the last two days, she, Emily, and their Digimon had been trying to find BlackAgumon and his tamer. The trouble was that none of the foursome had actually gotten the young man's name, which ruled out their usual research methods of Googling him or looking him up on Facebook. Early on, an attempt was made to reach out to him through the weird messaging app that had been added to every phone which had been transformed into a Digivice, but all that had yielded had been a condescending reply from someone the girls figured was Paul and a hasty apology for the other boy's rudeness signed by Joshua.

It seemed to Emily, and Lynn agreed, that the best chance they had for getting ahold of their quarry seemed to be waiting for another new Digimon to appear and then trying to run into the other tamer and BlackAgumon there. Plus, Emily had explained to Lynn, a good fight could demonstrate that there actually were benefits to being a team instead of being by himself. The main trouble with that plan was that there didn't seem to be any Digimon currently running amok.

One had appeared not long after Emily had taken Lynn and Kudamon home after their impromptu sleepover with Joshua and Penguinmon, but by the time that Emily had gotten the alert on her Digivice it had almost been time to get the car back to her sister. When Emily had finally been able to check her phone again, the radar had been nonresponsive, leading Emily to figure that one of the less friendly boys had dealt with it.

Since then, there had been nothing, putting Emily in an increasingly foul mood, and her irritability was catching. This morning, when Lynn had suggested driving around and trying to use the detection app to look for their target, she had initially earned a scathing response from Floramon. Even after Kudamon had silently threatened her more humanoid counterpart by charging up the glyphs on her back, Floramon's skepticism had survived as a low string of doubtful muttering. Still, the failure of the girls to find anything, even after an hour of driving around Minneapolis, seemed to vindicate Floramon's prediction that Lynn's idea would prove "a colossal waste of time."

"This is hopeless," Emily groaned, smacking the dashboard with her palm only to immediately jerk her hand away from the sunbaked surface. "We don't even know if these stupid triangles are supposed to be people or their Digimon!"

"Maybe they found a way to avoid being picked up by our phones," Lynn suggested quietly.

That earned an exaggerated sigh from Emily. "If that's the case, then we're doomed to stay a trio of Digimon fighters."

Floramon audibly cleared her throat.

"Or a six pack, whatever," grumbled Emily as drummed her short, nail-bitten fingers on the steering wheel of her sister's car. They had pulled into a McDonald's parking lot after Lynn had rejected Emily's initial suggestion of Popeyes on the basis that it lacked any good vegetarian options and Lynn's own pick, Chipotle, had been shot down in turn as too expensive. So, they all had ended up with a lunch that, like all good compromises, left everyone feeling disappointed. Even Kudamon would have preferred something warmer and more alive than the pieces of chicken Lynn picked off of her salad for her.

"Maybe we should ask Joshua for help," said Lynn in-between poking at her salad with a plastic fork. "We know he's in the area now, right?"

Emily ran a hand through her wavy hair as she replied, "I don't want to distract him if he's having more luck than we are."

Can we please do something, chief?" whined Floramon, who was nursing two bottles of water for her own meal. "If I stay in this oven any longer, you're going to have a baked potato instead of a Digimon!"

Emily was about to joke that the change might actually be an improvement when both girl's Digivices began to vibrate. With well-practiced motions, Emily and Lynn pulled their phones to them.

"Emily, look!" Lynn said excitedly. "A Digimon!"

Before she could respond, the phones buzzed again. "Make that two Digimon," Emily said, "one to the north and one to the south."

Both Kudamon and Floramon were leaning on the front seats, trying to get a better look at the Digivices in their tamers' hands. "Which one are we going for?" asked the latter with a toothy grin, her discomfort forgotten.

Another round of Emily and Lynn's phones buzzing made the decision for them. "Joshua's taking the one in the south," Emily relayed to the Digimon. "Guess that means we're going after the other one then!" With that, the young woman gleefully brought the car to thunderous life.

"Do you think Joshua and Penguinmon will be okay?" Lynn asked while she hastily buckled her seat belt and stowed what was left of her salad.

"Yeah, that blue ball of feathers doesn't seem like much of a fighter to me," Floramon offered as she helped to buckle Kudamon in as well as the other Digimon's long body would allow.

"Penguinmon did help us defeat Sagittarimon," countered Kudamon.

That earned a snicker from Floramon. "Only after I took him down."

Their argument did not escalate any further because just then the car tore out of the McDonald's parking lot, sending Floramon bouncing around the backseat as she struggled to gain her balance.

Emily ignored her Digimon swearing at her as she sped down the streets of midtown Minneapolis. "Joshua and Penguinmon'll be fine," she said offhandedly as she cut across two lanes of traffic to squeeze into a left turn lane. "I'm sure they're smart enough not to bite off more than they can chew."

The carful of humans and Digimon screamed north down Lake Street towards the detected Digimon. Lynn held her Digivice steady in her manicured hands to better protect it from the bumps and shocks of her friend's reckless driving. The patchwork of grids on the white and yellow device's screen grew larger as the foursome barreled through traffic. When they reached a cemetery bordered by high iron bars, the brown-haired girl gasped out, "Take the next right!"

With a jerk of the wheel, Emily changed lanes and then rounded the corner. A thick white fog was hanging over the houses and streets of the area, growing more and more opaque as the black four-door approached the unknown Digimon. Even inside of the car, the sound of a low, guttural voice growling, "Pepper Breath!" could be heard, followed by a string of orange flashes lighting up the fog.

Emily forced the car to a stop with one of its front tires halfway up the curb. "Let's go!" Emily shouted and flung her door open. Everyone else poured out of the vehicle and crossed the street to where the fog abruptly grew thinner, bringing a fence-lined football field into view.

At roughly the fifty-yard line, BlackAgumon was watching the skies with sweeping motions of his snub-nosed head. When his green eyes found his target, they widened and his fanged maw opened wide and erupted with a ball of flames punctuated with a roar of "Pepper Breath!" Following BlackAgumon's gaze, the girls saw a white shape flying above the yellowed grass and moving so quickly that it was hard to see what the new Digimon looked like exactly. Todd stood on the sidelines dressed simply in jeans and a white t-shirt and wordlessly watched each of his Digimon's attacks falling short.

Emily and Floramon started to clamber up the thin metal barrier alongside one another, their weight causing the fence to visibly shake. For her part, Emily looked down at her stylish sandals and then called out, "We'll find another way in."

Before Lynn could react, Floramon grumbled, "Oh, for crying out loud," and pulled one of her hands away from the fence. Floramon shot a vine from her blossoming purple hand to seize Lynn around the waist and cause the slight girl to shriek in surprise. Gritting her teeth, Floramon lifted Lynn off the ground before dropping her unceremoniously on the other side of the fence. Emily and Kudamon, who had squeezed her serpentine body through one of the links in the fence, glared at Floramon, but Lynn's own attention was consumed by Todd and the two clashing Digimon, all of whom were suddenly very interested in her.

The first attack came blindingly fast. There was no time for Lynn to do anything but scream, but that was still enough time for Kudamon to protect her tamer. Kudamon rammed Lynn's legs and knocked her to the ground just as the airborne Digimon which BlackAgumon had been attacking dive-bombed the space where Lynn had just been and left great gouges in the dry ground with its claws before taking to the sky again.

While Lynn was getting back to her feet, Emily and Floramon hopped over the fence with the red-haired young woman pulling out her Digivice and aiming it at the Digimon which had just tried to attack Lynn. The picture she was presented depicted a monstrous yet undeniably feminine creature with gold-trimmed wings, white-furred legs ending in wicked-looking ruby red talons, and a face that resembled a golden mask sculpted into an ugly grimace. "Harpymon," Emily read off. "Data attribute… Oh, good it's only a Champion-level. Shouldn't be too tough to beat, right?"

"Yeah, sure," Lynn replied shakily as she rose to her feet. "Piece of cake."

"Hey!" yelled Todd from across the barren field. "This one's mine!"

"I don't see your name on it!" Emily shouted back.

Lynn shook her head even as she continued to shiver. "This is ridiculous." As she started to creep across the open field towards Todd, Lynn kept an eye on Harpymon as best she could. Luckily, the flying Digimon was preoccupied with dodging BlackAgumon's newest barrage, and Lynn was able to reach Todd, followed quickly by the rest of her party.

Taking charge, Emily thrust out her hand and said, "Howdy, fellow tamer. Need some help?"

Todd looked at her outstretched arm briefly before ignoring it and going back to attempting to track Harpymon's flight. "No."

"Oh? How long has short, dark, and ugly been launching fireworks with absolutely nothing to show for it?" sniped Floramon.

"We'll land a hit sooner or later," Todd said dispassionately.

The group watched BlackAugmon's ineffectual attacks for nearly a minute. Then Lynn asked Todd, "Doesn't BlackAgumon have any other attacks?"

Todd turned to her and asked with evident confusion in his usually steady voice, "Why would he need another one?"

Emily's mouth curled into a smile and she said sweetly, "Well, we could help speed things along. For the right price."

"No way," Todd snarled, "you aren't getting any of this thing's data. I already told you she's mine."

Emily threw up her pale hands in a calming gesture. "Relax, we don't want data, just information."

"What kind of information?"

"Your name and phone number," Emily said, her smile widening.

Todd's dark eyebrows shot up. "If you're that desperate for a date, why don't you try Farmers Only? I don't think I'm your type."

"Ha, lucky me!" laughed Emily.

"Okay, fine. I'm Todd, Todd Russell," the young man said haltingly.

Lynn chirped, "It's nice to meet you, Todd. I'm Lynn."

"And I'm Emily," the smiling young woman said and she seized Todd's unprepared hand for the handshake that she had been denied earlier. "And now that the formalities are out of the way, let's do what we do best, gals!"

Lynn and Kudamon responded to Emily's enthusiasm with blank stares. "And what is that, exactly?" questioned the former.

"Beating things up!" With that battle cry, Floramon charged forward to take up a position next to BlackAgumon and began aiming at the swooping Harpymon with her flowering hands. Kudamon slithered over to BlackAgumon's other side with significantly less enthusiasm. The trio of Digimon then all began launching attacks at their common foe, but the chaotic and uncoordinated barrage was largely ineffectual. "Watch where you're shooting, Jurassic dork," Floramon snapped after an ill-timed blast reduced her own burst of pollen to ashes.

BlackAgumon only gave a derisive snort and grumbled something about "overlapping fields of fire" before producing another salvo of fireballs.

His frown hardening and his voice dark, Todd said, "Keep your useless Digimon in line, or I'll do it for you."

Choosing to ignore the other tamer's threat, Emily shouted to Floramon, "She's too fast! Try slowing her down!"

"You've got it, chief!" Floramon replied and she widened her stance, aiming her blooming hands in different directions as she did so. Then, with a declaration of "Stamen Rope!", Floramon produced two green vines, each of the thin cords of vegetation going for a different target. The first vine looped around a row of the bleachers making up the football field's stands while the second found one of Harpymon's ankles. The entangled Digimon struggled against the restraint, flapping her wings furiously and shrieking in high-pitched frustration.

Though Harpymon's frantic efforts to fly away caused Floramon's feet to briefly lift off of the ground, her vines held fast. Witnessing the distress his erstwhile ally had inspired in Harpymon, BlackAgumon readied an attack of his own. Before he could launch his fireball, however, Harpymon gave up on fleeing and instead turned to face the three smaller Digimon. With a grating scream of "Wind Seeker!", Harpymon flapped her wings in a single powerful motion that sent two invisible blades of air at Floramon, Kudamon, and BlackAgumon. The first two Digimon scrambled to safety, but Floramon was stuck in place unless she wanted to give up her grip on her vines. Fortunately, the twin daggers of razor-sharp air passed harmlessly over Floramon's head. Unfortunately, one of them struck the line of vegetation tying Floramon to the bleachers and cut the vine in twain.

"Uh-oh," was all Floramon managed to say before the limp cord hit the ground, Harpymon's off-white wings flapped rapidly, and the flying Digimon took Floramon with her into the sky.

Emily watched Floramon grow smaller and smaller with wide, fear-stricken eyes and shouted, "Floramon! Let go!"

"Not until someone gets in a hit," Floramon shouted back as she wrapped herself around the vine dangling from Harpymon's leg.

"You heard her!" Todd added his own yell to the commotion. "BlackAgumon! Take them down!"

BlackAgumon ignored Emily and Lynn's frantic protests, but as soon as he opened fire with a roar, Harpymon looped through the air and entered a perilous dive, pulling Floramon along for the ride.

BlackAgumon's attack thankfully missed Floramon, but it was only one part of the danger which she faced. Being jerked around by Harpymon and feeling the heat from BlackAgumon's near miss were bad enough, but when her plunging captor pulled out of her dive, Floramon kept going. The momentum caused the smaller Digimon to crash into the grassy field. Before Floramon's body could even register how much pain she was feeling, Harpymon was skimming just above the grassy ground towards the stunned trio of teenagers.

The three tamers leapt out of the way of the cackling beast's path and Harpymon slowly gained altitude as she passed the frightened tamers. Behind her trailed Floramon, still connected to the larger Digimon by one of her vines. As Floramon was being violently dragged over the chalk-marked surface of the high school football field, she was gritting her teeth and was working through the pain to pull herself further up the vine tethered to Harpymon's ankle. "Almost there," Floramon spat out along with a clump of grass she had nearly swallowed.

Floramon's progress towards her goal was brutally interrupted as Harpymon suddenly rose back into the sky and sent her unsuspecting passenger careening into the metal bleachers. The blow knocked what little air was left in the smaller Digimon's lungs, but Floramon still refused to let go.

"Floramon!" Emily screamed. Todd and Lynn had been reduced to staring dumbstruck at the one-sided fight.

Harpymon pulled Floramon back up into the air, higher than before. Her vision was blurred and her head pounding, but Floramon pulled herself up the vine a final time. One of her hands let go of her tether and its purple petals started to fan out as Floramon smiled through the pain and forced out, "Rain of Pollen!"

Harpymon was flapping her motley gold-trimmed wings steadily to maintain altitude when she looked down at Floramon. A sinister grin spread across Harpymon's mask-like face, and she said mockingly, "Bye bye!" Then her unencumbered leg swiped across the other limb so that Harpymon's sharp talons cutting through the vine connecting her and Floramon.

Floramon's mind was blank as she began to fall out of the foggy sky. Her eyes glazed over and she did not bother to try and fight gravity's pull. All of her determination and all of her planning had been for nothing and all Floramon wanted to do now was to stop fighting and rest. Something broke through her foggy state of mind. A terrified voice was screaming her name. "Emily?" wondered Floramon shortly before her bruised and battered body struck the ground.

At the sound of the impact, muffled by the dying yellow grass yet still painfully loud, four figures, three Digimon and one human, started towards the fallen Digimon's crumpled body. BlackAgumon and Kudamon raced with Harpymon while Emily found herself being held back by Todd's steely hold on her arm, but his grip could not quiet the young woman's continued screams of "Floramon!"

"You can't do anything to help her," Todd said in a pitiful albeit honest attempt at comforting the girl struggling in his arms.

Floramon could faintly hear the approach of her allies, but the swooping form of Harpymon demanded all of her attention. As the other Digimon came closer, Floramon tried to raise her still unsheathed hand at her oncoming attacker. Multiple smirking Harpymon crowded her vision, so Floramon took aim at the centermost figure and, with a raspy cough of "Rain of Pollen", hoped for the best.

The burst of yellow pollen crackled with its debilitating energy as it sped towards its target. But before it could reach the winged creature, Harpymon swept one of her wings in front of her and the resulting gust of wind redirected Floramon's attack to hit Kudamon and BlackAgumon instead. The paralyzing powder reduced Kudamon to wracking shudders and caused the built-up fireball in BlackAgumon's fanged mouth to fizzle out uselessly as both Digimon fell to ground and were unable to help Floramon.

Now that the lives of their Digimon were on the line as well, Todd and Lynn's horror approached Emily's. Unlike the others, however, Emily was not frozen in shock. Hoarsely shouting, "Let me go, you bastard!", Emily stomped on Todd's foot with the heel of her cowboy boot and then, for good measure, drove her elbow into his firm stomach as hard as she could. Thus freed from the wheezing Todd's good intentions, Emily took off running to Floramon.

Triumphant, Harpymon had decided to prolong Floramon's agony by not tearing the beaten Digimon apart right away, but rather tauntingly savaging her crippled victim with her talons. Harpymon was so fixated on tormenting Floramon and so assured was she of her victory that the feathered Digimon failed to notice Emily until the sprinting girl tackled Harpymon to the ground. While Emily had stopped Harpymon from hurting Floramon, it quickly became clear that Emily had picked a fight she could not win.

One of Harpymon's powerful legs was enough to kick Emily away, and the cruel Digimon's claws tore through the dark blue cotton of Emily's t-shirt to leave long, parallel scratches on the pale skin of her stomach.

Emily crumpled to the ground next to Floramon. Her red hair splayed out fitfully over the yellowed grass and her green eyes welled with tears caused partly by a mixture of turbulent emotions and the pain caused by Harpymon's counterattack. Emily sought out and met Floramon's own set of sad blue eyes.

"Emily," Floramon gasped.

Harpymon had resumed treading air over Floramon. Before she could strike the killing blow, Harpymon felt a tug on her ankle. She looked down, expecting to see another vine, only to see that it was Emily who was grabbing her. "Stupid girl," the feathered Digimon hissed sharply, the sneer on her ornate face growing even more pronounced, and she shrugged off the unwelcome hand and drifted through the air to loom over Emily instead.

As Harpymon lashed out at Emily, Floramon felt a sudden surge of energy welling up within herself and this time when she uttered her tamer's name it was a defiant scream. From where it had fallen from Emily's grip after Harpymon had knocked her to the ground, Emily's white and green Digivice's screen came to life with a single neon green word appearing on the otherwise black screen: "Digivolution".

Floramon was suddenly encapsulated in a brilliant green sphere that was faintly undergirded with a grid of darker green lines. Outside of the shining orb of light, the stunned assemblage of Digimon and humans heard Floramon's voice ring out, "Floramon digivolve to-"

Inside of her cocoon, the nearly-dead Digimon only heard it faintly. She had not actually uttered the words and, to Floramon, the voice seemed as though it was coming from across a great distance. That made sense considering that she appeared to have been transported to an unfamiliar place where she was surrounded by swirling torrents of forest green energy that crackled and burst all around her. The lines of power were like conduits, flowing into Floramon, pushing any thoughts from her addled mind and filling her with power until she felt like she was about to burst, and then she did just that.

Floramon's skin began to peel off of her body, a horribly painful sensation that made the weary little creature writhe and scream in agony and fear. Instead of flesh, the sudden flaying revealed a rudimentary form that was crisscrossed with a network of lines that defined Floramon's shape like a wire frame underlying a character in a video game. The structure underneath Floramon's skin shifted and changed before new skin appeared to cover the expanding limbs, enlarged head, and elongated torso of her new body.

None of the sounds of ripping and reforming penetrated the walls of the shining green bubble, and neither did its inhabitant's tortured screams. Rather, the orb shone even brighter and suddenly detonated, an explosion punctuated by a new voice exclaiming, "Sunflowmon!" In the place of the crippled, weakened Floramon was a new Digimon. She stood more than twice as tall as she had previously and possessed thick, powerful arms that hung low at her side and a long, thorn-laden tail that flicked irritably behind her. Two dark green leaves spread out behind her back which didn't bear more than a passing resemblance to any wings found in the animal kingdom. The only part of Sunflowmon's body that was not green was her head, an expressionless yellow face with a fanged mouth and a pink forehead, all ringed with a single continuous circle of yellow petals.

A deathly silence hung over the football field as the changed Digimon unconsciously stretched and became familiar with her new body and the others watched her with varying mixtures of awe and caution. Even Harpymon had seemed to have forgotten about Emily and was studying Sunflowmon, cocking her head from side to side in a decidedly avian manner. Both Lynn and Todd regarded the comical-looking creature with utter amazement, the former because she had no idea what had just happened and the latter because he was stunned that it had not happened to him. Kudamon and BlackAgumon were significantly less surprised since both had seen digivolution occur before, but still kept their guards up as the two smaller Digimon eyed the situation warily.

The uneasy peace broke when Sunflowmon's gaze met Harpymon's. The two small black eyes narrowed and Sunflowmon's powerful legs sprang the flowering creature at Harpymon. Sunflowmon pushed the other Digimon away from Emily with her powerful green hands and then threw the screeching, protesting Harpymon to the ground. Harpymon flapped her wings furiously and attempted to wriggle free, but to no avail. Harpymon's struggles were cut short when Sunflowmon slammed her back to the ground so forcefully that the cracking of multiple hollow bones breaking echoed loudly over the mist-shrouded field.

Harpymon, now finding herself in the same helpless position as Floramon and Emily had been, was reduced to weakly squealing at Sunflowmon, who ignored the pathetic display. Instead of talking, the lanky Digimon began to gather energy in her face, causing the whole brightly-colored surface to glow faintly. Then, with a roar of "Sunshine Beam!", Sunflowmon unleashed a continuous beam of energy which completely disintegrated Harpymon's head and upper torso before Harpymon could do so much as scream.

Harpymon's dead body began to leak a torrent of white data particles that streamed towards the suddenly placid Sunflowmon, causing her long green body to give off a white light as she absorbed the dissolving body of her vanquished foe. Once there was nothing left and the fog had almost cleared up, the glowing Digimon's radiance grew even harsher, concealing the changes the large monster was undergoing as she reverted from Sunflowmon back to Floramon. The bushed Digimon slumped to the ground, next to her tamer, both of them steadying themselves with heavy deep breaths.

"Floramon?" Emily finally said.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm feeling great, chief. I feel like I could sleep for a hundred years though." Floramon flexed her purple, petal-like fingers experimentally. Her wounds from the fight seemed to have been healed for the most part, but there was still a heaviness in her limbs now that she had been cut off from the energizing crutch of adrenaline and digivolving. "How about you?" asked Floramon. "How bad did she get you?"

"I've gone through worse," Emily grunted as she pulled herself up into a sitting position and examined the scratches on her stomach.

The others were approaching them now. Lynn helped Emily to her feet while talking a mile a minute, fretting, questioning, scolding, and congratulating Emily in equal measures. The redhead did her best to take it all in stride. Floramon was assisted back up by the much less talkative BlackAgumon and Kudamon, the former of which quietly offered a brisk, "Good work," before lapsing back into silence.

"We should probably clear out before someone sees the Digimon," Emily suggested.

"Do you need a lift?" Todd asked hesitantly, still standing some ways away from the others.

"It's all good, but actually you could do one thing for me?" In response to Todd's curious look, Emily indicated her fallen Digivice. When Todd had retrieved it, he attempted to hand it over only for Emily to smile impishly, unlock the phone, and return it. "Name and phone number, please."

Todd scowled and muttered something about "kill-stealing", but he entered his contact information into Emily's green and white phone all the same. Once the task had been completed, Todd gave BlackAgumon a sharp look and the two went off on their own.

"Mission accomplished," Emily said with a weary smile.

Lynn helped her back to the car, and wondered aloud, "How do you think Joshua is doing?"