The Killing Floor

"What are you doing with it?", Juri asked Impmon about the Pimp Rings he asked Ikkakumon to rescue from the river.

"You know the Holy Beasts are being held in a stasis field?"

"Yes?"

"If I can figure out how this works, there may be a clue as to how to reverse that stasis field. If we could release the Holy Beasts, they could easily take care of Zhuqiaomon for us".

"You think some good can come of it?"

"If there's a way, I'll find it".

"Any news from the home front?", Jen asked as Takato was arriving.

"Not a single word".

"That's what I said", Shadowkitsumon explained. "They don't think anything special happened to Ganemon's club. One crook getting popped by some other crook taking over his action. Hell, the authorities are probably glad we saved them the bother, and they aren't gonna get too curious as to who whacked him, torched his club. His girls have scattered to the four winds, and they're not gonna bother to track them down for an interview".

"Then..."

"The Tamers are the last thing on their minds right now, even if they're thinking about us at all".

"They let it burn", Kenta said. "Never even sent in the fire boats. The wreckage is still smoldering. Why should they bother? There were no other buildings endangered. They'll probably bulldoze the wreckage. If there was any evidence we were there, they won't find it".

They were still encamped outside the city. Mikemon had gone into town to replenish their supplies as they had plenty of left over credits.

0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

"The next item on the agenda, is where is Guilmon?", Takato asked.

"Do you know anything?", he asked Renamon.

"No, all I was left was a clue: 'Terriermon holds the key'. That's everything"

"Not much to go on", Jen said.

"Terriermon, what key?", he asked.

"I have no idea", he apologized.

"More riddles", Ryo complained.

"Our partners aren't going to make it easy. They want to be found by us, not Zhuqiaomon's agents. We did it before, and we can do it again", Takato reminded.

"Terriermon, what can you tell us?", he asked.

"I've told you everything. I don't know where the others went after we went our separate ways".

"Guilmon left a clue in his message from the Digital World. Perhaps Terriermon said something?", Takato speculated.

They watched Terriermon's messsage to Jen multiple times. No one noticed anything that even resembled a clue, like Guilmon's "Random acts of kindness" hint that sent them to the Chuchidarumon village.

"So useless!", Ryo complained.

"Let's think about this logically", Jen suggested. "It's obviously not here…"

"Then where?", Kazu asked.

"Something that happened here in the Digital World?" Lutramon suggested. "Terriermon, did you do anything unusual, out of the ordinary the last time you were here?"

"Not that I recall…"

The Digital World: Outside Slimbdamon

"What's this?", Kazu asked, "more bullshit from His Highness?"

"Don't know, missed the first part", Kenta explained.

Whatever this event was, it was taking place in a large arena. They thought more narcissistic preening of the Holy One. Zhuqiaomon was in a sky box above the crowd that had gathered, filling every seat in the arena. He was accompanied by his Demon Lord underlings.

A gate at the far end of the stadium opened. Two of the most hideous looking digimon were leading, dragging, one of the most anthroform digimon they'd ever seen.

Their heads, torso, arms and legs were made of what looked like common cardboard boxes. The faces were on-edge. Their right eye looked like a normal eye in a normal socket. The left eye a featureless circle in the middle of a roughly cut hole. The torso another cardboard box with the covers held in place with figure eight strings.

She looked no older than Shiuchon, and about the same height and weight. The only thing about her appearance that could possibly give her away was the mauve coloured hair. She was wearing a dark green vest over a teal dress with a white collar, and sneakers.

"Rhythm, your form is offensive enough as it is. That you would cover yourself in that Outworlder costume makes you even more offensive to me. Remove it at once. At least try to be a digimon", Zhuqiaomon ordered.

She bent down by the knees and hips to unlace her sneakers. She stood, and pulled off the sneaks and socks. She then slipped off her vest, and pulled her teal dress over her head. She pulled her panties below her knees to step out. The guards took each item from her hands, ripping everything to shreds.

"Don't cover yourself!", one of the guards ordered, as he pulled her hands to her sides. She stood there, completely naked.

The guards were leading her towards the center of the arena, to a chair with some apparatus directly overhead.

"Please don't do this", she pleaded, as tears streamed down her cheeks, as she looked to Zhuqiaomon's sky box. Zhuqiaomon and his cronies were obviously enjoying this.

"What... did I do... to deserve this? Whyyyy?", she asked between sobs, as the guards bound her arms to restraints projecting off to the sides. They placed a strap just under her arms, another around her middle. Rhythm was sitting, knees together, feet flat on the floor.

One of the cardboardboxmon handed another what looked like a dog collar: two leather straps, one end with a buckle, the other a tongue, held together with a metal ring to which was attached a double ended, spring loaded clip.

"Spread your legs"

She hesitated a few seconds and spread her legs. The leather band was strapped to her upper thigh, the other end of the clip clipped to an eyebolt. This cardboardboxmon attached the other to the opposite thigh. Her legs spread wide enough to reveal her entire, hairless genital region, stretch her labs and reveal the lower insides of her buttocks and ass gap.

"Rhythm: you sold your soul to the human devils, sold out your nature as a digimon, and thereby becoming a traitor to all digimon. .."

"Please... Please... I... I… I didn'tmeantodoanythingwrong! PLEASE! YOUR HOLINESS! HAVE MERCY! FORGIVE ME!"

"Rhythm, you have committed one of the most unforgivable sins that any digimon could ever commit. I therefore sentence you to death".

"WHATEVER I DID WRONG, FORGIVE ME!"

"You are not worthy of life".

As beams fired from above, Rhythm threw her head back and screamed horribly. She kicked her legs. Her hair caught fire and burned away. Her skin blistered and blackened. The screams ended only as she burst into data. The crowd stood, cheered, and clapped. The expression on Zhuqiaomon's face was unmistakable: sadistic, near orgasmic delight.

"Turn that off", Jen ordered. "We've seen more than enough".

Kenta and Kazu stood there, mouths hanging open, speechless. Juri was swallowing hard, blinking back tears.

Ruki had a hand over her mouth. "Oh my God. What has this world become?", she asked no one in particular.

Shiuchon was sobbing into Lopmon's fur. Lopmon reached out, stroking her hair.

The other digimon looked... resigned. Ryo knew their reaction to death was different.

Shiuchon looked up: "I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM! I'M GONNA KILL THAT BASTARD! KILL!..."

The look in her eyes as she said this frightened Jen.

"Shiuchon!", Jen was on a knee to put himself at her eye level. "Get ahold of yourself!", as he shook her lightly. "I know how you feel, but that is not the way", he began to explain gently. "We will stop this, that's why we came, so things like that don't happen again. But you can't let your emotions run away. We need to think and act like professionals... Otherwise we help no one. Shiuchon, I... we ...need you to be a Tamer".

Shiuchon threw her arms around her older brother and sobbed even louder.

"It's OK, Shiuchon. Just let it out", he told her, as he hugged her tight. "Just let it out".

"How could they...", Juri began, as she wiped tears from her cheeks.

"He... he... murdered a little girl?", Ryo said this as he looked at Shiuchon. They were all thinking the same thing: it could just as easily been Shiuchon. "How could they cheer and clap?"

"Don't believe anything you see from any official media: it's all propaganda", Shadowkitsumon explained. "Zhuqiaomon's agents could very well have rounded up random digimon, ordered them to that arena with the warning they'd be next if they didn't put on a convincing show of approval. There is nothing I would put past him".

Juri recalled the crowds of weeping North Koreans after Kim Jong-Il died, how fake it all looked, the "weeping" people, and yet all eyes dry. The obvious over acting, nothing but a show for the cameras. She could believe it; she wanted to believe they didn't really take that much joy in Rhythm's torture/murder.

"He's turning us into savages", Renamon explained. "There is no honour in that death".

"We knew what was coming, and we tried to warn as many as we could. Now it's all coming to pass, just as I feared", Impmon explained.

"Who's 'we'?", Terriermon objected. "You weren't here".

"I mean all the digimon who put their blind trust in the Holy Beasts, going all the way back to the very beginning of D-Reaper's rampage. All the ones who told me 'Who do you think you are, questioning the Sovereign?' All the sheep-like followers who refused to come with me when I knew the gettin' was good. That's who".

"Moumentai".

"I never imagined it could possibly ever get this bad. The four-eyes buzzard is worse than Lucemon, Cherubimon, King Yggdrasil all rolled into one".