Digimon: Symbiosis (Remastered)

by Dragon Champion Zero

Everything changed the night the sky lit up. Now, with everything in two worlds laying on the line, they'll have to join together to survive and overcome - in the most literal sense possible.

17. Chapter 17: Soldiers Of Misfortune

Nothing much to say up here. Enjoy the chapter!

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Chapter 17 - Soldiers Of Misfortune

—

The sun had not yet risen, though the sky was lightening in preparation for the new day. Some people were already prepared for the day, though…though some of them would rather have not been.

"What are we doing out here?"

"You serious, Elias? It's all anyone around here can talk about and you still don't know what's going on here?"

"Unsurprising, of course…listening and thinking are not his strong suits, as you can clearly see."

A dark-skinned man glowered at his fairer compatriot, visibly frustrated. "I know damn well what General Sykes told us, and what the major keeps yapping about. That's not my question! Why are we going after them like this?"

"Questioning our mission is not a good look, Corazón," said the lead of the unit, giving Elias an unpleasant look. For someone who already struggled with feelings of being out-of-place, the lack of consideration of his question wasn't helping much. "There are monsters here, we're here to destroy them. And capture one if we can, since Skyes wanted that for whatever reason. He's got the stars, so we follow."

"Or let me guess, are you one of those ridiculous twits who buys into that codswallop fairy tale that they're actually HELPING us?" laughed the smarmy soldier. "You people, you'll believe anything."

Elias's grip on his weapon tightened. He hadn't expected it to take very long, and his expectations were sadly met. Landon Colress never would have been one of his favorite people in the world - a rich bitch who seemed to be more there to play than to treat the role with the gravity it deserved, he wasn't especially capable as a soldier but there were more than a few hints that he was expecting to be able to buy his way up the ranks, and just enough people who didn't care that it seemed like the possibility was there. But it was the veiled racism that got to him more than anything - Landon always toed the line just enough, but if Elias had any doubt that there was much worse under those snide comments, he'd be the foolish one. And it was easy for Landon to get away with it, because the unit was frustratingly bleached - enough that he sometimes wondered if he was filling some unspoken quota, rather than actually respected.

"You don't know anything, Landon. My brother was up there. The only reason he's ALIVE is because one of them rescued him! When he heard what was going to happen he begged me not to get involved, that it would cause a whole lot of crap to fall on our heads!"

"Delusional," scoffed Landon dismissively. "Just another fantasy made up to try to demonize us for doing what we're supposed to be doing, defending this great nation from ANY threat."

"I don't wanna hear any more out of you, Corazón," grumbled another soldier from nearby. "Story time is over, this is serious business. Sykes made it clear those freaks are our enemy, and that's all there is to it. And imagine what it'll look like if we're the ones to plug one of them. Medals and press like you'd never believe."

"Oh, I REALLY hope I get to be the one to take one of them down," gushed Landon with a glee that twisted Elias's stomach. "I'll bet it won't even get a CHANCE to attack me, I'll have the drop on it so well. It's too bad they apparently disappear when they die, I would've loved to have been holding the head up and smiling for the camera. Maybe they can make me a replica…"

"Jesus, that's twisted," Elias seethed.

"I'm starting to question where your sympathies lie," the second soldier said suspiciously.

"Do none of you have any idea what's going on? We're invading one of our own cities! We're flaunting the president's authority! They're planning on blasting a building with who knows how many people inside it to smithereens! If any other country tried to do this to us we'd be bringing the hammer down on them in a heartbeat!"

"Who's gonna do anything to us?" sniped the third soldier. "We're shooting monsters, and we're destroying their sympathizers. Keep that in mind, Corazón - destroying sympathizers. And the iron bitch isn't gonna do jack about it, because then she has to explain why she's undermining the real heroes of this whole mess. All people gotta do here is not get in the way and they'll be fine."

Elias couldn't believe what he was hearing. He'd had some bad unit comrades before but this was way worse than he'd ever had it. He suddenly stood up. "I need to take a walk."

"Shoulda pissed before you got here, boy," cackled the second soldier. "Try not to run into any monsters out there, they might bite it off."

"That might be a benefit, particularly to any women he might come across," added Landon snidely. Elias hastened his steps before he did something he knew he'd only somewhat regret. He very much didn't like the insinuation there, but it was futile, he couldn't prove anything…except that he wanted to be anywhere but there.

He was supposed to stay near his unit, but as he walked, he felt less and less urge to go back. The only thing keeping him was what could potentially happen if he went AWOL and was court-martialed…but everyone involved in this nasty mess deserved a court-martial, as far as he was concerned. They had invaded a city within their own country, becoming a rogue sector of the military, to try to kill creatures that, if his brother was even close to right, were the only reason the city was still standing to be invaded in the first place. He knew there were other soldiers with reservations, but they seemed to be outnumbered by the ones who could apparently only see incoming glory. Sykes included…the almost feral glee that entered his eyes when he spoke of slaughtering the creatures sent shivers down his spine. It seemed like all he could do was try to find a place to lie low, avoid getting into any trouble, but where could he do that in a city like this?

A sound from nearby made him suddenly freeze. "Psst. Hey!"

Elias felt himself start to sweat. He looked around, but saw nothing. His grip tightened on his weapon…had someone followed him? Did they know he was deserting? Were they an ally?

"Hey! Over here…oh. Wait. Right, sorry. Forgot I had my optical camo up." Elias had turned towards the voice, which seemed to be coming from nowhere…until, suddenly, it was coming from somewhere, the last thing he would have expected. Standing and stepping out from its hiding spot was a small, saurian creature that looked almost like it had modeled its dress code off of Elias himself. A military-style vest, gloves, and helmet, and a weapon that looked remarkably similar to the human's…about the only thing that wasn't familiar was the coating of metal on its legs.

And, just because things weren't strange enough, as it stepped out, it gave Elias a wide grin and a familiar salute, which the human returned purely on automatic. "Well met, soldier! Are you here fighting against Emperius as well? Those bastards are planning something nasty, we need all the help we can get!"

"I…what?"

The creature cocked his head. "You're a soldier, right? You look like you can't be anything but."

"Y-yes, I am…what…who are you?"

"Ah, forgive me, sir! Commandramon, soldier within the Knights of Liberty, Assault Force, Squadron Y. I've duped the Emperius invaders into thinking I was on their side to get access to this world as an advance scout so I could warn the heroes fighting bravely over here of a few things! Have they been rallying you? Do you know where they are?"

If Elias thought his life had gone surreal when hearing that a damned dragon had saved his brother from a gruesome death, now he was as fully immersed as he was going to get. His brain might've fried a few synapses trying to process what he was seeing and hearing, a fair amount of it meaning nothing to him. But there was one thing he was sure of: this creature was NOT an enemy. Armed but not firing, conversing with him cordially, even revealing himself when he could have ambushed Elias easily and ended him without him ever knowing what had happened…this 'Commandramon' was on their side. And any of the others back there would have executed him without a second thought.

It wasn't a hard choice to make. "I don't know where they are, but I want to find them myself. Listen, you're caught up in a huge mess right now. We weren't brought in to support them, we were brought in to hunt them down and kill them. Someone's been poisoning their minds to make them think they're the enemy, instead of these, uh, Emperius folks."

"What?! That's horrible news!" exclaimed Commandramon. "After all I'd heard, I thought that they had to be bolstering humanity against Emperius…we need to help them right away!"

Elias nodded in agreement. "Come on, follow me. I don't know this city that well, but I know one of the targets we were given…if there's anywhere they might be near, it'll be there."

"Aye, sir! Lead the way!" And that was how Elias found himself leading the strangest squadron of two he ever could have hoped for. And all he was hoping was that he could keep away from anyone else that might find them…

—

Do we really want to be split apart like this? Feels way more exposed given what's going on.

Breezedramon reported a soldier with a digimon, staying away from the fray. I don't want to spook either of them. We've gotta make sure they know we're the good guys. But believe me, I get it…we're gonna need to get back together as soon as we can.

Reyn and Salmandmon were being as surreptitious as possible - even though they were a bit further from the actual fracas, there was no telling who might try to divert out their direction. And it was particularly critical after the report from their scout - Breezedramon was the lone one of them who could reliably remain invisible and far enough away to be relatively out of harm's way, and he'd been doing an aerial reconnaissance to assess what they were up against. That's when he'd spotted the soldier and a Commandramon taking evasive action, staying away from the rest of the soldiers beginning to make their move. They'd scarcely expected to find an ally out there, but since there was one, they needed to be looped in ASAP. And that was where Burnreptimon's 'wild card' status came in.

Wish we could get him to tell us where they are exactly, but things are getting too hot and heavy for that, pathed Salmandmon as they laid low behind a couple of larger trees, not far away from a church and some connected buildings. We're near the general area Darkvargmon relayed to us, right?

Not quite, but I wanted to try to anticipate where they might go, replied Reyn. They're clearly not interested in fighting, and there aren't too many places to lay low around here without being too close to houses. So I figured they might come towards St. Francis's - there's a bunch of trees flanking the church's community center, and you can see there are no houses along the rest of the block.

So you think they might come this way?

More than think… Indeed, the sounds of footsteps, one booted and one metal, were coming their way. They stayed down and quiet as their two guests ducked into the trees, both breathing heavily.

"Are you…sure this is where we're supposed to be going, sir?"

"Man, I don't know where they're gonna be. I wanted to try to get to our target building, but we can't go right there, too many guys just itching to shoot at you. And probably me too if they see me with you."

"This sounds like a nightmare. I hope we can get to them in time…"

That's gotta be them. Reyn chanced peeking out a bit, looking at the two while they were a bit distracted. Wow, you weren't kidding with that description. Commandramon looks like a grade-A army brat…we've even got a pretty good comparison point right next to him. Even the weapons look similar.

Origin Resonance Theory is gonna have a damn field day with everything I'm gonna be bringing back to them, Salmandmon remarked with no shortage of glee. The whole field's gonna be feasting on all these synchronies.

Let's work on surviving long enough for that to happen first. Reyn motioned for Salmandmon to stay in place for a moment and peeked out from behind the tree more. "Psst…hey, you two!"

Both the soldier and Commandramon jumped a bit, but relaxed as they saw Reyn, who made himself more visible now that they were more at ease. "Kid, you shouldn't be out here, this place is dangerous," said the soldier nervously.

"That's fine…I'm pretty dangerous myself," replied Reyn casually.

"Eh…all due respect, but you don't look the part," noted Commandramon.

"Trust me, I can vouch for him." Salmandmon stepped out now, the tension having been defused somewhat.

Immediately, Commandramon stood upright and saluted with almost a fury. "Zetta Commander Salmandmon! It's been far too long! Boy, am I ever glad to see you!"

"Haven't heard my title in a while…wasn't exactly missing it, though. And who's your friend?"

The human soldier started a bit, having been staring wide-eyed at Salmandmon. "Oh! Uh…Elias Corazón, private first class. At least, until they haul my ass in for desertion."

"I'm sure someone'll put in a good word for you," Reyn replied. "Kind of wish there were more of your kind out there, but it doesn't seem like there's much sympathy for the good guys out there."

"…I wish I could say you were wrong. I also wish I didn't know how right you were."

"He said they were all after the heroes of this world!" Commandramon growled. "Zetta Commander, I know you wouldn't do anything to put anyone here in danger, how could they be so cruel to you?"

"Commandramon…you were promoted to the Assault Force just a couple seasons ago, weren't you?" Salmandmon remained a touch wary, not forgetting what he'd said about potential traitors among their own. But Commandramon seemed an unlikely candidate for that, not after willingly walking with a human soldier for hours. "Are you here on your own, though? I didn't think the KOL would send just one unit."

"I wasn't sent by the KOL, sir." Commandramon's expression fell. "Emperius…they stormed us, sir, just a couple days after you left. One of our own…I didn't see who it was, but they gave Emperius all the access they needed. Everyone who wasn't away on assignment was rounded up by Emperius and taken to their prisons. We weren't prepared to mount a resistance, they had too much power at their side. Commander Dynasmon…they did something to him, hurt him badly enough that he couldn't move…"

"Damnation…" hissed Salmandmon. "Even if he survived, there's no way he could make it on his own…and everyone captured…"

"Deputy Commander Gallantmon was away, sir, he might have found the commander…but I wouldn't know, unfortunately."

"Jesus…I don't know what's going on exactly, but it sounds like a damn nightmare," said Elias heavily.

"I only know a little bit about this part, but I know it's definitely bad news," agreed Reyn.

Salmandmon let out a deep, smoky breath. "That's no good…but, wait. If that's not how you got here…"

Commandramon bowed his head. "Emperius has been trying to break us, sir. They're trying to convince us to turn on the KOL, and on digimonkind in general. They're pretty ruthless…it's terrifying how hard they're trying to peel off our ranks. Our people are resilient, but a few of them have given in…but when we heard that there was a major assault being planned, a few of us hatched a plan. We pretended to go turncoat so that we could get over here and help you guys out instead. It's been gut-wrenching trying to pretend we're all for it, but over here, we have a chance to get some payback on them!"

"Hoo boy…how major is this assault?"

Commandramon hesitated. "I don't know all the details, but…maybe as many as two hundred, from what I've heard."

Elias's eyes widened. "Jesus…two hundred creatures…"

Reyn nodded grimly. "My thoughts exactly. Which means we need to stop this attack as soon as possible…I can't even imagine the mess if we're still working on that when they get here. Do you know anything else?"

"No, sir. I was made to do the 'advance scout' thing and report back with where they could go to do the most damage, because they thought if I didn't come back it wasn't a big loss, so I was sent before a lot of stuff was finalized."

Salmandmon hoped that was the truth, he was going to be very unhappy if he found out he'd been played. "So they sent you over thinking you were on their side. Wait…they were planning for your return? Does that mean you've got some kind of charge to go back?"

"Sir, yes, sir! It's an energy signature that's currently dormant until I activate it!"

"That's excellent news!" Salmandmon looked up at Reyn eagerly. "Reyn! We might be able to use this to help make our own PTM! That signal should be enough for us to find the digital world, it has to have the right signature! We might be able to use that to get over there and get some ideas about what Emperius is actually doing! Maybe we'll be able to avoid flying totally blind here!"

"But how are we going to be able to build a machine like that?" asked Reyn.

"Isaac and Data will be able to figure out that part! But that means we need to get Commandramon to the BICI as soon as possible. If anything happens to him out here, we'll be out that option!"

"Sir, I was hoping to fight alongside you…" Commandramon looked a little crestfallen.

"Don't worry, Commandramon, this fight's nowhere near being finished, you'll have plenty of opportunity. Right now, this is the most important thing you can do for us." Commandramon didn't look entirely mollified, but nodded in understanding. "Okay, we need to hurry. Elias, I know it's probably not an easy ask, but would you be willing to help play defense for the BICI? We're trying to keep people away as much as possible, but we've only got so much firepower there, and that's basically our last stand area."

Elios gave a hesitant nod. "I'll do what I have to…it sounds like you guys are the only real chance we've got. I hope you've got something up your sleeve more than just the two of you running there, though."

Salmandmon grinned up at Reyn. "Time to show 'em, ya think?"

"Perfect time." The two joined hands, and their forms swirled once again into that combined form of Burnreptimon, startling both onlookers.

"Holy shit!" Elias cried out. "You're one of those…I had no idea that it was…"

"They…they meant LITERALLY combining?!" exclaimed Commandramon. "I thought that was just a figure of speech!"

"Y'know, I don't think I'm ever gonna get totally tired of wowing people with that," snickered Burnreptimon. "Follow me, and stay a bit behind! We're about to feel the heat and I don't want you feeling MY heat."

—

Peace was hard to find in downtown Braun that morning. Several tanks and armored vehicles were on the streets, planes were flying overhead, and far too many soldiers looking to ice a monster were roaming around. They were hunting to kill, while their targets were trying to do everything they could to avoid it, taking a severe yet calculated risk to try to keep the enemy from having ready-made propaganda on their side. It was about the worst possible situation to be in, not being able to give their all to fight for their lives, forced to pull their punches when their foes weren't pulling theirs…and it took on an even greater pressure with the knowledge that a very different, but no less malevolent, army was on its way, and they needed to be alive to take that one on as well.

Blazereptimon had somewhat hoped luck would be with him and they would be too occupied with the others to track him, letting him get the escorts to safety. But, as usual, he couldn't be that lucky…they were still several blocks away when he caught sight of soldiers moving in on his position. He put a hand up behind him to keep Elias and Commandramon hidden away, leaving himself as the lone target out there…his Thermal Zone went up as soon as he had enough space, and it barely took any time before it got put through its paces, bullets cutting in from multiple guns. Thankfully it was more powerful than Burnreptimon's Heat Field, vaporizing the bullets before even melted dollops could reach him. "Okay, you guys can cut that out ANYTIME!"

"Shut that creature up!" yelled a soldier commandingly. The bullets just intensified, making Blazereptimon growl in annoyance. I can do this all day, but it won't help anyone. Really wish I could attack from behind this, even if I have to dial it back to next to nothing…

"Dervish Bolt!" A rain of electricity sailed down over the assailants, dropping most of them to the ground. The few who managed to escape the brunt of the attack turned their guns towards Ionfalkemon, who quickly raised a barrier of her own. "Static Arc!" The wall of electricity in front of her stopped the onslaught of bullets cold, and she directed some of her wild bolts around it, forcing them to retreat. They didn't get far before a sudden surge of electricity rocked them, an electric mine going off and discharging forcefully, incapacitating the remaining lot.

"Electric land mines?" remarked Blazereptimon. "You have no idea how much I envy you right now."

"The Charge Fields have been working wonders," agreed Ionfalkemon, directing her Static Arc away and up while scanning for other assailants. "Being able to leave places guarded without being there directly, it's like being in several places at once. Which I need to be because there's way more of them than me."

"We need all the help we can get. I've got an escort right now, Commandramon. He's telling us that Emperius has a huge force coming, probably today."

"Ugh. When it rains, it pours, huh? Just what we needed. Emperius couldn't schedule their onslaught at a more convenient time?"

"Apparently they aren't about being convenient for us, the jerks." The roar of jets overhead brought Blazereptimon pause…there weren't a large number of them, but they were an enemy he couldn't truly fight, certainly not with any level of safety for the pilots. "Those planes are making me nervous…I hope nothing happened to Jetdramon."

"He's delayed. Urgent business."

"More urgent than this?"

"This is part of it. Don't drop anything yet, Burner," warned Ionfalkemon. "We're still in danger here…we've got a sniper and we're in his field."

"Just the one?"

"It was about a half dozen. Wolf neutralized most of their threats, but there's one on the roof of one of the buildings, and Wolf couldn't get up there - not enough shadow for him to materialize."

Blazereptimon put two and two together after a moment. "…SKYLAR went to confront him?! You gotta be kidding me."

"I know how crazy it sounds. We're all getting a bit bolder, I suppose. Oh, hey, that looks to be our cue." She pointed over the trees, where a rather sizable twister had just formed. "You'd better book it, I don't know how wide the window is."

"Got it!" Blazereptimon dropped his Thermal Zone and waved Elias and Commandramon in his direction. "Let's move it!"

Ionfalkemon watched the two emerge, raising an eyebrow. "You've got a human soldier with you?"

"He broke from his unit, ran into Commandramon out there. He's on our side, are you gonna turn him down?"

"Not a chance, I wish there were more." Elias was staring at Ionfalkemon as he approached, and she gave a slight wave which he returned. "You stay safe out there, I don't have to tell you it's a mess."

"I, uh…same to you, I guess," replied Elias nervously.

"Is…is that you, Shockavimon?" Commandramon asked in awe. "With a human like Zetta Commander?"

"We'll give you a full debrief if we make it out of this alive," replied Ionfalkemon. "Book it, guys."

"Be careful," said Blazereptimon as they started off again, rushing past the battery of downed soldiers, most of whom where conscious but writhing in pain. As he passed, he let off some hot spots to try to render their guns unusable, though he wasn't sticking around to make sure it took. They needed to get inside as soon as possible…it would be safer for Elias and Commandramon in the BICI, not entirely safe but better than out in the open. There weren't many places he could hide as they neared, though, so being careful was of the utmost importance.

They were getting close, within a few blocks of the building, when another squadron tried to catch them. Nowhere for Elias and Commandramon to hide this time, so they hunkered down as Blazereptimon shielded them from the gunfire once again. "I'm getting really tired of this!"

"Do you want covering fire, commander?" Commandramon called out.

"NO! We're trying to keep the damage to a minimum!"

"We might not have a choice!" shouted Elias urgently.

A very real possibility…unless Ionfalkemon came back over, Blazereptimon wasn't sure what he was going to do. But before he could figure that out, he heard a shout from the other end. "Go, go, go! Throw it out there, don't let it get it before it's in range!"

Blazereptimon didn't have time to wonder what that was - from some kind of launcher he couldn't see directly, an object that looked disturbingly unidentifiable flew through the air, landing several meters in front of him. Indecision gripped him - dropping his shield would leave him a sitting duck to the bullets, not doing so would protect him from the bullets but not whatever was in front of him, it had to be some kind of weapon but he didn't know what kind…before he could decide to act, though, there was a loud bang from the thing, and Blazereptimon felt something rush over him, some kind of shockwave. He shivered a little from it, but found himself standing there just fine.

"What?! It didn't work?! Retreat! Retreat!" Suddenly the soldiers were scurrying away, a respite that Blazereptimon hadn't been counting on, but he was extremely grateful to get it. Cautiously he lowered his barrier, hoping that they could make it the rest of the way without further incident…but as he turned back to try to get the others going again, he saw Elias frantically shaking Commandramon, who was laying on the ground, not moving.

He rushed over, hurrying to try to check on the cyborg's state. "Elias! What happened?"

"I don't know!" Elias replied, sounding terrified. "When that thing went off, he just…started breathing hard, and then he collapsed!"

"Dammit!" Suddenly Blazereptimon had an awful feeling about what that bomb had actually been. "Unbelievable…they have a weapon meant to target digimon?! How?!"

"But…but it didn't hurt you!"

"It didn't…I guess it doesn't work on our combined forms." Blazereptimon growled. "How's your upper body strength, Elias?"

Elias didn't look like he liked the sound of that. "As good as it's gonna get."

"You're going to need to carry him. I need to be ready to defend you two, and I can't protect him in my shield. Follow as fast as you can, we're just going to bum-rush it, we can't afford anything else anymore."

The soldier nodded, grabbing Commandramon bodily and hefting him in his arms. It was a strain, but he seemed to be doing fine with it, which was the best Blazereptimon could hope for. He took off, the human on his heels, hoping they could do something about this before it was too late - and that they could even get there before something else happened.

—

Merely minutes before, the sniper had Blazereptimon in his crosshairs. All he needed was the opening…but the reptile wasn't providing. "Drop that damned protection, you beast…c'mon, you're not even being fired on anymore, what are you waiting for…"

"Beautiful weather today, isn't it?"

The sniper nearly jumped out of his skin, whipping around in a panic. His hand clung tightly to his rifle as he registered the presence of the white-haired boy on the rooftop with him - where had he come from? He hadn't made a sound until speaking up! "Jesus christ, kid, don't sneak up on people like that! Where the hell did you come from?"

"How rude. I DO live in this city, you know. Really, I should be asking YOU that question."

"Wh…are you…ngh, kid, listen, we're here to take care of the monsters. You shouldn't be up here, this place is dangerous!"

The boy adjusted his glasses, a gesture that should have looked relatively benign but somehow registered as far too ominous to the sniper. "Seems to me you're only making it more dangerous. Haven't you heard? Some of those 'monsters' are the only thing standing between us and the others. If you take them out, then we're screwed."

"A-are you…have you lost it, kid? These are dangerous freaks! If you live here, you've seen what they can do!"

"I live here, I see what they've BEEN doing, all of it. Maybe you should learn to listen to people…instead you're out here adding to the danger we're in. Between you, the invading monsters, and the tornado that just dropped, who knows how we'll make it through?"

"Tornado? Are you cracked, kid? Theres' not even a damn cloud in…the sky…" the sniper's voice trailed off as a weird sound came up from behind him. He almost didn't want to look, but he did…and sure enough, there was a twister traveling along the road below, tall enough to be easily visible, sending soldiers scattering and a few of them flying through the air to land roughly on the ground. An ugly feeling rose in his gut…he turned slowly back to the boy, who suddenly seemed a lot more threatening. "N-no…y…you?!"

"Me," the boy replied calmly. "Sorry, nothing personal, but this world can't afford for you to kill us. Maybe when you have the whole story, you'll rethink whose side you ought to be on…but for now, we just need you out of the way."

It was all too much for the sniper, who was already reeling…instinct told him he needed to try to fire on the boy, if that was what he really was, but he couldn't respond, unable to truly believe what he was seeing…and that gave more than enough time for something else to swoop down and pounce on him, knocking the gun away from him as he was planted on the rooftop. His eyes widened…it was a literal goddamned DRAGON, albeit a tiny one.

"Hiya!" Oh, hell, it spoke, too. "We're gonna make you sleep now! Don't worry, you'll wake up…can't say if you'll like it when you do, though, but that ain't my problem!"

No, he couldn't…he needed to fight this, he needed to get away, to do something…but the dragon's eyes glowed, and suddenly he found himself gasping for air, getting none, it was like there was nothing in front of him to draw into his lungs! His vision blurred, and his struggles rapidly faded as he passed out into unconsciousness.

—

Breezedramon held things there for a couple more seconds before releasing the air lock and letting the downed sniper breathe properly again. "…Phew, looks like he's out, but not gone. I'm glad I asked Reyn about how long humans can go without air!"

"As am I, if that was your trick." With the enemy out, Skylar was able to drop his stoic facade, trembling as he wiped his brow…he could hardly believe he managed to hold it up as long as he did. "THAT'S your 'super-secret incapacitaciplacitication technique?'"

"Yeah! Most things have to breathe, so if you take away the stuff they breathe for juuuust long enough, they'll be out like a light! But not too long, 'cuz that, uh, puts them out a bit TOO long…"

"Yeah, like forever." Skylar stepped up, picking up the sniper rifle and tossing it down into the alleyway, where it hit a metal garbage pail with a loud clang. "That should be enough to keep this guy from being a threat, at least."

"I thought we were gonna hit that with an Aero Nail as Skydramon?" asked Breezedramon.

"Mr. Katran wanted us to try to get some weapons accessible for them, so they could try to pick them up and use them to help defend themselves if there's a second wave. Not sure what they'd do with a sniper rifle, but anything has to help, right?"

Breezedramon wasn't totally sure, but the drone of approaching planes overhead rendered any argument moot. "Sky…those planes are coming back."

"Yeah, and they're gonna be on close air support soon. We've been held back long enough, let's get going up there."

"Yeah! Let's show 'em who's really boss of the skies!" Breezedramon leapt towards Skylar, and they glowed and merged together, forming Skydramon once more. They rose up a bit in the air, and then another glow ascended them to Jetdramon. The jets on his wings flared to life, and he zipped up into the skies, leaving a noticeable trail for the planes to follow - hoping that they would track him rather than the ground assault.

He wasn't ready for an odd buzzing in his ears, though. The heck's this about? That wasn't happening last time…wait. Don't tell me… He focused a bit, putting a claw to his helmet and twisting it a bit…and then, he heard it, crackling through slightly distorted but clear enough.

"Should we break formation, sir?" A male voice that sounded sharp and hot.

"Negative, Lark 3. Focus fire on the one in the air. We don't know what it can do to us, I don't want to take chances." Another male voice, deeper and more controlled. Definitely the one in charge here.

"Acknowledged. Moving to engage?"

"Affirmative. Let's show this 'dragon' OUR firepower."

No way…I can pick up their comms? Oh, they aren't gonna be happy about that…I wonder if I can intrude on theirs? Let's wait a bit before trying to find out. Jetdramon rose up a little higher, but let the planes tail him…it was the first time he was really showing his speed, the planes were flying more slowly than they could but he felt sure he could outpace them if he had to. It was too bad that max speed was rarely necessary in battle, but he could still go plenty fast in a more useful way…

"Target acquired, sir! There in front of us!" A female voice this time, very tight and no-nonsense.

"Blasted thing doesn't show up on radar…keep your eyes on it, don't lose it!"

"Weapons hot! Lark 1, Fox 2!" That was Jetdramon's cue to action - he needed to make sure that missile didn't hit him! But he didn't panic, leading the missile on for a second or two before whipping upwards, banking almost immediately and soaring up a bit, far faster than the missile could possibly compensate for. It sailed off into the sky, exploding harmlessly a distance away.

"Ah! Captain, did you see that?!" Another female voice, younger-sounding and much more nervous. Jetdramon was trying to track which plane matched which voice, but except for guessing the lead was the captain he couldn't quite hack that.

"Of course I saw it, Lark 4! Damn thing shot up like a rocket on the fourth! Don't lose track of it!"

"How can this thing move this fast?!"

"Is it really some kind of jet dragon? The rumors are true?"

"I don't care what kind of creature it is, we can beat it! Keep your eyes on it!"

That was going to be easier said than done for those pilots, as Jetdramon had no intentions of making it easy for them. And hopefully they would treat him as a challenge they had to focus on, and leave the ground alone…he'd have to make sure he kept them engaged. Playing dodge-the-missile sounds a lot more fun in my head than it's gonna be in real life…

—

Thankfully, the lobby area of the BICI was empty, otherwise Blazereptimon's unceremonious barging in might have startled someone into thinking the wrong thing. Elias hurried behind, panting hard; Commandramon was a fairly good load of dead weight at the moment. And hopefully the first part of that wasn't going to be literal, he hadn't done more than shake and moan the whole trip.

Blazereptimon cut a trail inside, where most of the area was cleared of people but there were plenty of desks for cover if needed. "EMIL! ELLIOT! WE NEED SOMEONE HERE NOW!"

It barely took seconds for Emil to rush in at the sound of Blazereptimon's voice. "Burner! What's going on? Who is that?"

I'm so glad we gave them the shorthands…hf, gonna have to apologize to Skyder later. "Two allies, one isn't in good shape. Did anyone give you any idea that they had an anti-digimon weapon prepared?"

Emil's eyes widened. "What? No! How even?"

"That's what I wanna know, but I don't think we're finding out at the moment. Is Rudy in his lab?"

"Yes…you think he can help?"

"I don't know, but we can't do nothing. This little guy's got something important that could turn the tide of this whole thing, we can't let him die!"

Emil nodded. "Right! Head on up, hopefully he's got some idea!"

Blazereptimon didn't hesitate, motioning for Elias to follow, which the soldier did with a strained groan. The steps were not an easy ascent with that kind of weight, but but he was managing - clearly his training had done him plenty of good. Blazereptimon made sure the way was clear of obstacles and people - even if he was on their side, no one was about to stay in the way when he was on the warpath. He nearly took Rudy's door off the hinges as he stormed in, startling the tech badly. "Rudy! I need you to take a look at this digimon!"

"What? There's another one?"

"Recent arrival, long story, no time, he's hurt!" Blazereptimon motioned for Elias to set Commandramon down on the long seat at the side of the room, which he did as quickly as possible before collapsing nearby, panting hard. Rudy rushed over to take a look, eyes scanning over the cyborg curiously.

"…I…don't know what to tell you," the tech said grimly after several seconds of silence. "I can't tell what's going on with him…all I know is that he doesn't look good. I need some way to delve deeper into this…"

"Right…then I guess I need to get back out there and get someone who can make that happen." Blazereptimon turned and charged out, focused on that task and nothing else. They needed Commandramon alive, they needed to make sure he would be all right from whatever happened…only one of them had the tools necessary to help Rudy with that.

—

Finding who he was looking for wasn't the hard part - Blazereptimon just had to follow the racket that the tanks were making. The problem was getting there in the first place, with messes of soldiers who might have been just about anywhere, and then figuring out how he could get Mecharexmon away from the fray long enough to do something about their problem. They certainly couldn't leave the tanks alone - those were what they expected were gunning most determinedly for the BICI, since it would be a lot harder for anyone in there to do anything to them than it would be to infantry. That was a problem he needed to tackle in the moment, though.

The cries of startled and shocked soldiers rang out not far away from him - Ionfalkemon was still swooping around unleashing bolts here and there, and that seemed to be taking a lot of their focus. Right now she's the one doing most of the direct counterattacking against them, they must be trying to go for her directly…much as I don't want those guns pointed at any of us, I hope she can draw their attention for a while longer. It made for a less stressful rush towards the next point of action, at least, though he was still as vigilant as possible in case anyone snuck through.

Vigilance took a back seat once he arrived at his destination. A trio of tanks were in the roadway, and Mecharexmon was in a standoff with them, dangerously out in the open - but he'd already said he wasn't going to hide behind buildings and dare them to shoot through them at him, because he didn't trust they wouldn't do it. As Blazereptimon closed in, one of the tanks fired a shell out at the cyborg, who fired on it with his own shot and blew it up in midair; the shockwave rushed over him, but he stood resolutely through it.

Okay, he's fine at least, but we're definitely not getting him away without doing something about those. Step one, of course, was getting him on the same pace. "Rex! We've got a problem!"

Mecharexmon let out an annoyed growl. "Burner, I swear, if you don't think THIS is a problem…"

"Bigger than this. Someone snuck through. Commandramon, Assault Force. He was warning us about an oncoming Emperius onslaught. There might be up to 200 coming through within hours."

"…I swear, the universe is messing with us with this timing."

"We'll complain to whoever's in charge as soon as we find them. But that's not why I'm here, we were taking him to the BICI and someone launched a weapon that only affected him. We need to figure out what's going on with him and what we can do to stop it, and Rudy can't do anything about it without some technology."

"And you need me to build something for him…your timing sucks just as bad, Burner."

"Not like I had much choice. What do we have to do?"

Mecharexmon paused as two more shells careened their way, unloading a barrage of swarm missiles to intercept; several of them hit the tanks as well, rocking them a bit but not damaging them significantly. "I've had them stopped here for too long at this point. They aren't retreating, and I can't let them get closer to the BICI. We need to disable their treads and guns, or I can't spare a moment for anything else."

"How have you not been getting shot at?"

"I have been. This defense program I whipped up has been just enough to keep me from getting turned into swiss cheese, at least until I blasted off the machine guns. But I don't think it'll stand up to a tank round, that's why I haven't been able to risk getting closer. And if I try to blow up the shells before they fire, I'm absolutely killing whoever's inside them."

Blazereptimon considered that for a moment. He couldn't just use his fire willy-nilly for that, either…but he could still provide coverage, and surely Mecharexmon had the firepower to do what he needed to do. "They're waiting until you're distracted and going on the offensive to try to ambush you, right? Let me provide some decoy."

"Okay, but be careful."

"You worry about shooting out the treads. Go hard on them." Blazereptimon took a deep breath and channeled some of that fiery energy inwards. "Blaze Stoker!" The glow around him was a burning haze that signified an amplified speed and power - though, only the former of those was his focus at the moment. He went off like a shot, rushing towards the tanks which were trying to turn their barrels towards him, but were unable to keep up with him. Mecharexmon took that moment of advantage, loosing a partly-charged Saur Blaster into the treads of the lead tank, making it rock as they were blown apart on one side. Blazereptimon launched himself up on top of that lead tank and then leapt off and up into the air, flipping over and focusing on the treads of one of the flanking tanks, eyes glowing as he unleashed his own attack. "Incendiary Ring!" A potent fiery blast coalesced at a point on the treads, blasting hard out and shredding one of them in the conflagration, just in time for Blazereptimon to right himself and land on the side of a building, planting a hand quickly down to stabilize himself as his sticky digits worked their magic. Those guns were trying to turn back towards him, at least on two of the tanks - one was still trying to make life hard for Mecharexmon.

A thought occurred to him then. I can't just fling fire at the barrels, I don't know if something's loaded inside…but they won't fire if their barrels are compromised…

His free had reached out towards the tank focused on Mecharexmon, channeling his Incendiary Ring at the middle of the barrel. The metal rapidly got red-hot, rendering any further fire dangerous, and giving Mecharexmon his opening. Another barrage of Swarm Missiles launched out, directed at the treads of the tank, several impacting on both sides and breaking them apart. Their mobility compromised, they were much less of a threat, but not completely out of it - they could still fire off from their positions, and if any of them got herded into the middle of the line of fire, it would be a mess…

But Mecharexmon had been given an idea, and he hurried forward while he had an opportunity. "Burner! Heat up those barrels! Stay out of their way as you do it!"

"Got it!" Blazereptimon launched himself off the building and back onto the road behind the tanks, then leapt up onto the one across the street, from which point he hit the lead tank's barrel with the same heat treatment. Mecharexmon jumped in right away, grabbing onto the barrel and using his mountainous strength to bend the barrel at the heat-weakened point, disabling it completely - it would be impossible to fire like that, and impossible to fix by anyone available to them at the moment. With no close support or close-quarters combat ability, the other two were disabled in the same fashion quite rapidly, finally neutralizing that threat.

Blazereptimon hustled over to Mecharexmon, feeling his surge wear off as he did; the rebound left him slightly gassed. "Good?"

"Good," affirmed Mecharexmon. "Let's get this dealt with."

—

Blazereptiman was back at the BICI well before his more sluggish companion, but that was by design - he wanted to get back and check in on Commandramon as soon as possible. And he wasn't liking what he was seeing when he got in there…

"He's been looking worse and worse by the minute," Rudy reported anxiously. Commadramon seemed to be unconscious, but there was a contorted look on his face that spoke of considerable pain, and his was shivering and slightly distorting. "I don't know what's going on, but clearly something is doing a number on him…you said he was hit with some kind of bomb?"

"The shockwave from the bomb hit him. It hit Elias and myself as well, but neither of us was affected by it."

"The hell's been going on that they have something ready for them?" asked Elias blankly. "We didn't even KNOW about them until just weeks ago! What are these things made of that something could even do that?"

"We'll have to get someone to fill you on the important points," sighed Blazereptimon. "But we gotta get him back in shape first."

Just as he finished saying that, a loud thunk and a growled curse came from the lab doorway. Mecharexmon stooped inside, rubbing his head. "Frickin' doorways…NOT built for me…"

"Hopefully you didn't knock any screws loose, we kind of need you at full capacity," remarked Blazereptimon.

"My screws are tight as ever." Mecharexmon took a look over at Commandramon, and immediately growled. "Oh, for the love of…someone is going to REALLY get it for this."

"What do you mean?" asked Rudy.

"I mean I can tell from here that he's experiencing cascading failures. His body's trying to fight against something that's trying to systematically disrupt it…and my guess is he's probably losing."

"What?!" Blazereptimon shouted. "That sounds barbaric! They built some kind of bomb to make digimon suffer a slow, agonizing death?!"

"Whether they built it for that or not, that's what we seem to be getting. Are you sure it's really a weapon built for digimon?"

Before Blazereptimon could answer, a voice spoke up from seemingly nowhere, making them all jump. "Perhaps you should ask the recon person if you want recon information, you know."

"Wolf! NOT the time!" roared Mecharexmon.

"I daresay there's never not the time." Darkvargmon suddenly popped into view from the shadowed corner of the room. "I've heard them talking about their 'secret weapon' - supposedly, the formal term for it is a Data Fracture Bomb. Somehow, they determined what the digimon are and came up with something that works against them…those details I'm not privy to, but someone must know them."

"Data Fracture Bomb…we gotta get more info on these," huffed Blazereptimon. "If they're inventing digimon torture devices, that needs to be nipped in the bud as soon as possible."

"Not the only thing that needs a speedy resolution, either. I heard you two talking out there. We've got an invading force on the way from the other side of the equation, if I glean correctly?"

"Yeah. And if they come in when this whole mess is going on…"

"Indeed. I daresay it's time to aim for the head. I've been working my way to figuring out where the command post is…I've managed to pinpoint the location of General Sykes."

Mecharexmon cocked his head. "You did? Why? He's a nutcase, he's not going to listen to us, and confronting him is only going to end with one of us dead."

Darkvargmon nodded. "I daresay he won't accept us as the good guys. But perhaps he can be coerced to backing off…the general is apparently quite eager for a swordfight. Perhaps it's time to give him one."

"Go for it," Blazereptimon said, before Mecharexmon could object. "Just make sure that you win it, and try not to lop off anything important on him."

"Of course. Best of luck to you, too." Darkvargmon slipped back into the shadows and faded from sight.

"…You did NOT just tell him to duel that idiot," Mecharexmon growled at Blazereptimon. "What were you thinking?!"

"I was thinking that a guy like Sykes isn't going to let someone steal a moment of glory from him, and that when faced with what he's really up against, he'll flee like a craven coward until he can regroup and find a way to get the advantage again," replied Blazereptimon evenly. "Which at the very least should buy us time, maybe enough for them to see what kind of crap is REALLY about to hit the fan. I don't know if he'll be cowed, but the rank-and-file might think twice about gunning for us when there's a LOT more monsters that they don't know how to deal with coming."

"…Damn you for making sense."

"Yes, yes, I'm horrible. Fixing Commandramon?"

"Tch, right. I can't do it myself, but I know what I can do, and it might be a good thing for us to do anyway." Mecharexmon trudged over to Rudy's computer and plugged himself into it with a cord extending from a hatch in his side, while his cannon shifted to a different shape, three pronged protrusions around a spherical electrode. "I'm gonna build a device to interface with this computer, which will allow for scanning and modulation of digital life forms as well as organic ones. With this, you should be able to combat the data failures and restabilize Commandramon."

Rudy was gaping at that. "You're going to…BUILD a device? How?"

"Essentially? I'm reformatting digital information into a physical form, much like a digimon, except this is in a machine format. We did this on a small scale with the power suppressors we used to restrain Shadowdramon and Crestmon, but this is gonna be a good bit beefier…and I'm probably gonna need to rest for a bit after making it, because that takes a LOT of energy."

"You're…actually…just gonna will some big-ass machine into reality like it was nothing?" Elias queried in disbelief. "Ain't no way, this is all the way into sci-fi nonsense, I was NOT ready for this…"

"It doesn't even seem possible!" Rudy's excitement sure didn't sound like someone who couldn't believe it. "It violates every rule of physics we know of and probably some we don't!"

"Believe me, I was pretty surprised as well," agreed Mecharexmon. "I thought it was supposed to be a lot harder to connect with this stuff…and I think the reason I can do it so well is because of this symbiosis thing we've got going on. Because I'm partly digital and partly organic, I can connect a lot better to every aspect of this existence, and manipulate things a lot more easily than any normal digimon could without a lot of help and a lot of technology. Don't ask me how it all works, just be glad that it does."

At that moment, Emil rushed into the lab. "We've got an incursion! It looks like just two soldiers, but they're pretty well-armed…we need to get them out ASAP!"

"Right…leave this to me." Blazereptimon nodded, but rather than moving, he shifted back down to Burnreptimon, and then split apart into Reyn and Salmandmon.

"You…you're not going down to confront them like this?"

"I'm not going to confront them at all," stated Reyn. "They're looking for monsters, even if they see me, they won't think anything of me right away. And I don't intend to be seen."

Emil didn't look comfortable with that, but he nodded. "…All right…but…be careful."

"Careful as I can be." Reyn slipped out of the lab room and quietly made his way down the stairs. He had to take it slow, a good thing because it helped him take some time to calm himself…bold front aside, this was NOT an easy thing to do. But, he was the safest one of them down there, they'd have to at least hesitate to shoot a minor if they weren't surprised, and he had a feeling he needed to get used to being in confrontations with dangerous creatures while not relying on Salmandmon's help…something told him that if he had the power, the universe was going to demand he use it.

As he neared the first floor, he could hear shouting - the soldiers seemed to have confronted one of the agents. At least Reyn hoped it was an agent, no one else should have been wandering around down there. Peering around the corner, he groaned internally - probably the closest thing to what it shouldn't have been. Of course it would be Tony…how does he keep getting caught up in this stuff?

"Tell us where they are!" The two soldiers were so decked out that Reyn couldn't even tell if they were any different, they were wearing masks and goggles that obscured all their facial features. Despite that, they were still plenty loud, and both had M-16 rifles that were dangerously close to Tony. "Don't hide those monsters from us!"

"We saw two of them come in here!" roared the other - even their voices were barely distinguishable, though that might have been the masks obscuring them a bit. "Don't try to pretend you're not harboring them, they told us what you were doing! Are you going to side with your country or with those trying to destroy it?!"

Naturally, Tony was frozen so stiff Reyn thought he might actually have turned to stone. No surprise there, but at least it was keeping him from saying anything, and keeping the soldiers busy and unaware of Reyn's presence. A fireball to the face might have been satisfying, but with all that facial covering, it probably wouldn't do that much - and if they noticed he was throwing fire, he was not getting out of there alive. Fortunately, he had a different idea…one that had been inspired by what he'd just been doing.

A bit of focus was all he needed to start channeling heat into the guns the soldiers were holding. Dividing it wasn't easy, but the two were close enough together that he didn't have to strain too hard. It took a minute more of listening to them threaten Tony with all sorts of unsavory fates before he got a reaction, once the guns started smoldering a bit. One of the soldier's caught sight of the smoke, followed it down, and let out a yell and recoiled, scrambling to toss the gun down on the ground. "What the holy hell?! My gun!"

"What? Aaah!" The other rapidly followed suit as they noticed their own weapon. Thankfully, they were too fixated on the guns to be paying attention to Reyn peering around the corner, because he was pretty sure he couldn't have kept the heat on if he couldn't see the targets. There was a subtle sense of satisfaction as he saw them step back slowly while the metal started to bubble, the barrels rendered useless under the thermal pressure.

"That…that…that's impossible!"

"What kind of demon are we up against?!"

"We need backup! We need a goddamned platoon!"

"Get out before it comes after us!"

The two soldiers tore out of the room towards the front entrance of the building. Reyn let out a relieved sigh; hopefully Ionfalkemon would be able to deal with them before the promised platoon could come around. He stepped out and approached Tony, eyeing the disabled weapons. "What a couple of wimps…you'd think they'd never seen a gun melt before. You okay?"

Tony was unresponsive, slumped against the wall, breathing hard and eyes looking glassy. Another sigh from the fire-haired boy. "Guess that's a no…all right, let's get you upstairs and see if we can't get your soul reattached to your body. And then we're gotta make sure you're out of the line of fire, because this is definitely NOT good for you." He pulled Tony upright, the man trembling but at least responding on automatic if nothing else as Reyn walked him back towards the stairs.

—

The two soldiers who ran out of the BICI indeed didn't get far, getting put down by a Charge Field partway through their run. Ionfalkemon wasn't exactly happy about that, though - not only did it mean they got past her defenses, but catching just two of them was kind of a waste of a Charge Field. She laid another one down before hauling the unresponsive pair into the air and carrying them a short ways into the thick of another group that was still down. "You all are really starting to get annoying, you know that?"

"I daresay you shouldn't be risking that one of them could respond."

"If they can, better to know now than later. You can't sneak up on me like that, Wolf, you still have an electrical signal."

"Tragic. My one source of amusement on this miserable day." Darkvargmon popped up from a tree shadow. "You're aware of the new arrival?"

"Yeah, Burner crossed my path. They make it there safely?"

"Yes to there, no to safely. There's some effort being made to fix Commandramon now, after an unfortunate encounter with some kind of weapon."

Ionfalkemon turned to the wolf, raising an eyebrow. "Wait, that actually took him down? One of them hucked something at me and it didn't even really tickle me."

"Presumably we aren't 'digital' enough to be impacted. But we should be mindful of whether they have any other nasty surprises up their sleeves. Also, given that we apparently have a time crunch, I'm going to try to push a bit harder to force a retreat. I won't be able to have my eyes on the building, so…"

"I'll have to watch out, then. I think they're changing tactics, they're moving in smaller numbers so it's harder to take down large bunches. Hopefully my Charge Fields hold up. Be careful, Wolf."

"Of course, and same to you." Darkvargmon faded back into the shadows, and Ionavimon took off into the air again - before quickly descending close to the ground as the sound of jet engines roared overhead. They looked to still be engaged up high, but she couldn't track Jetdramon, so she couldn't be sure. I REALLY wish we had more people out here…

—

It took a few minutes, but Reyn finally made his way back into Rudy's lab. And just in time for the grand spectacle: Mecharexmon was unloading what looked like a thick beam of electricity into the space between the computer and the wall, a rather sizable machine cloaked in light as it was being willed into existence by the cyborg. "Cover your eyes, this's gonna be bright!" he warned loudly - and just in time, as only a couple seconds after, light flared into the room, forcing them all to look away.

The flare of light receded after a moment, but the machine took a bit of time to come into view as the veil of light faded away. In Reyn's eyes, it looked very similar to an MRI scanner - his parents had showed him the one at the hospital plenty of times, he was more familiar with it than he really needed to be. "That's a neat trick. But can it construct additional pylons?"

Mecharexmon let out a snort. "That joke is older than YOU are. Have you ever even played Starcraft?"

"Wally had a phase where he was obsessed with it, but it was never my thing." Reyn looked around the machine a bit. "So, uh, do you have any idea how this thing works?"

"Rudy does."

"Rudy…what? You literally JUST made this thing!"

"Yeah, but he's been going over the interface for it that's on the computer now." Indeed, Rudy was very engrossed in what was on the screen, eyes darting around as he scanned through it. "He thinks he's got the hang of it."

"And I think he's full of it," remarked Salmandmon from the bench where Commandramon was still laying, not looking any better but thankfully not looking worse. "No one can learn how to use something that quickly! Especially not something they've actually never seen before!"

"I think it'll be fine!" Rudy declared, eyes still glued to the screen. "I don't know exactly how Mecharexmon got all this hooked up and connected, but the functions list seems pretty straightforward, I've seen much more complicated programs in other scanners. It doesn't seem that far removed from the MRI stuff I helped set up back in my university days, and that was just as easy to follow the first time."

"You helped set up an MRI?" Reyn asked.

"Three of them, technically. Although I really wish they'd've gotten other people to help with the other two, I wouldn't have minded those two weeks to solidify my doctoral thesis."

"…Uh. Okay then. Sal, I think we're taking his word for it. We're dealing with a savant-level dude here."

"I dunno what that means, but I hope you know what you're doing," replied Salmandmon somewhat uncertainly. "So what do we do?"

Mecharexmon pointed to a control panel on the front of the machine. "You can slide the table out and set Commnadramon on it, then slide him in. Rudy can control it from his end too, but since he's still geeking out, you might as well get a move on. I'm going to go recharge for a bit, and keep watch downstairs until I'm good to get back out there…buzz me if you can't figure something out, I'll buzz you if anyone comes, because I don't want to bring this place down on our heads trying to defend it."

"Got it." Reyn week the lead with Commandramon, hauling him up bodily as Mecharexmon vacated the room, which felt considerably tighter with the scanner now installed. "Whoof…well, he's heavier than you are, Sal, that's for sure. Guess metal outweighs a hyperspace stomach."

"He's like three or four times heavier than I am," Salmandmon pointed out. "It's not even close."

"Is he? I didn't think he felt like that big a load."

"You didn't notice Elias nearly falling over trying to carry him around?"

"I mean, I did…hm. Guess I'm getting stronger than I thought…uh, where'd he go, by the way?"

"Emil took him somewhere, to fill him in. Let's focus on Commandramon."

"Yeah, right." It was only a brief trip across the room, and Reyn got the table moved out and ready for Commandramon. He looked like a rather small creature for the scanner, which seemed to be made for someone a fair bit bigger - leaving Reyn wondering if Mecharexmon had more ideas for it than just this purpose. Not his circus, though, and he focused on laying Commandramon down as comfortably as he could, then getting the distressed dinosaur moved in. "Easier than I thought it'd be, really…Sal, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because you're doing the SAME THING he's doing," replied Salmandmon with a hiss of annoyance. "You've never seen this thing before and you're using it like it's been around for years!"

"Uh? This?" Reyn looked over at the control panel. "I mean, this is super simple, it even looks kinda like the ones on an MRI machine. I don't think it'd take a genius to figure it out."

"And you know how to do stuff with this machine you're talking about, how exactly?"

"Heck, you know how many times my parents had me watching MRIs at the hospital? I had to do SOMETHING while I was there, watching them play with the machine was about the most interesting thing I could have been doing."

Salmandmon cocked his head, and then smirked slightly. "You know, I'm starting to think they might be right about you-"

"Doooooon't even start that. Rudy, he's in, you ready to go?" Reyn was very eager to get off that potential subject.

Rudy glanced over. "I think so…I'm starting the scan now, we're gonna see what comes up..." Clicking a key on the keyboard started a lot hum and whir in the machine, a bit loud for the enclosed space but not quite as loud as an MRI would have been. However, it was also a lot shorter than Reyn expected, fading away after not even a minute. "…Huh? That's odd, it shouldn't have ended that soon…"

"Better hope Rex is still down there," remarked Salmandmon.

"It can't have been that long…oh?" Rudy pulled up a window, getting an error message. "Says something's interfering with the scan…a 'bio-encryptor'?"

"Oh! Yeah, Commandramon have bio-encryptors in their armor and stuff, it keeps them from being picked up by scanners. Reyn, we're gonna have to pull him out and strip him down."

Reyn gave Salmandmon a very strange look. "Did you HAVE to put it like that?!"

"Oh, relax. It gets the point across. Come on, out with him, we shouldn't be wasting time!" Salmandmon's pressure got Reyn moving even though his awkwardness, the table sliding out and exposing the fallen soldier once again. Reyn hurried to get him off the table and onto the ground, and the two of them went to work, quickly working off Commandramon's helmet, vest, gloves, and tail armor. The pixelated pattern on his scales was certainly neat, though it looked a bit cloudy at the moment due to his condition…Reyn hoped they weren't too late to get him back into fitness.

He was about to lift Commandramon back up when Salmandmon stopped him. "Whoa, hey, we're not done. The leg armor's gotta come off too."

"Huh?" Reyn looked at Commandramon's legs; that didn't look like armor to him, it looked like his actual legs and feet. "I don't think that comes off."

"Sure it does. Just gotta…find the plug…" Salmandmon prodded around the seam where Commandramon's leg met the metal, and pushed in a bit until he heard a click. The encasement opened up allowing him to separate it into two pieces; what was exposed was muddled by light at first, eventually forming into a surprisingly normal-looking leg for a creature like him, certainly not seeming like it could fit inside that armored piece. A short ways up the leg was a small hole which did perfectly fit the protrusion at the top of the boot, the plug that Salmandmon had been talking about.

Reyn watched all of this in stunned silence, only speaking up as Salmandmon set the pieces aside. "I know you guys are weird, but that is WEIRD weird."

"What? It's just a special data interface. Cyborgs have that a lot."

"I'll get used to that whenever we get cyborgs over there. For now, it's weird."

"Says the guy who merges with a digimon to become some kind of hybrid creature." Salmandmon finished prying off the other boot, and backed away from the now completely disrobed Commandramon. "That should be good, get him back in there fast."

"Er, yeah, okay." Reyn shook it off and picked Commandramon back up - the lack of armor had made an already manageable task a breeze, taking a fair bit of the weight off of him, plus it was easier to lay him down evenly on the table. He brought the table back in, signaling to Rudy. "All right, go for it."

"Starting the scan now!" Rudy started it up again, and that hum and whir was back in action, and lasting distinctly longer this time. Reyn was starting to feel a bit anxious…it had been a fair bit since Commandramon had been hit with that bomb, and while he didn't know exactly what it was doing, the term 'cascading failures' definitely didn't portend anything gentle. Were they going to be too late to save him? Would they be able to save him but not intact? The important data he carried in his body was crucial enough, but at the moment he was more worried about Commandramon himself…

The scanner's noises descended again, and Rudy was flying into action. "Got it! Cascading data degradation, accelerating failures in physical data integrity…goodness, neural response is extreme, the pain register is a magnitude eight, I'm not sure what that equates to but I don't think I want to know. Whoever designed these Data Fracture Bombs either had no idea what they were doing or had EVERY idea what they were doing and need to be put on a few lists."

"Knowing what we know about these assholes, I'm not giving them any benefit of the doubt," growled Reyn. "Even if they didn't know, they used weapons with no idea what they would do! It could have done a hell of a lot worse than this even, and this is bad enough!"

"Rules of engagement forbid any sort of torturous death implement like this," agreed Salmandmon with a dark hiss. "It's savagery! You don't do something like that! You either don't kill or make it quick as you can, to prolong it just to make someone suffer is a war crime! Tell me there's something you can do about this, Rudy!"

"Y-yes, there is, just a moment…" Rudy's hands were almost a blur on both keyboard and mouse, he looked like an old hand at this rather than someone who'd just seen it for the first time within the last fifteen minutes. "There it is, data integrity repair procedure. Uh…I could do without the 'probability of success' measure…hopefully we're in the 73%."

"Way better than zero. Let's get it going."

—

Jetdramon really wished he could follow what was going on on the ground, but the jets were not giving him that luxury. His maneuverability was good, but they had him outnumbered four-to-one, and once it became clear that they were not catching up to him the usual way, they broke formation and were now trying to outflank him and take him down with guns more than missiles. Which probably would have been going better if he couldn't hear everything they were saying.

"Dammit, it's out again! How?!"

"Cool it, Lark 3! We're getting closer, we'll get it hemmed in soon enough!"

Only because I'm trying to keep from running myself dry too quickly, thought Jetdramon as he swerved around again. He wasn't going as fast as he could have, trying to temper a flight which had been pretty long already - it was starting to wear on him a bit, not yet enough to put him at risk of flagging but enough to tell him he could get there if he wasn't careful. I need to do something to get them to back off. I don't want to attack them, but…hm, you know what, maybe just playing the hand I have will do it.

He flew another wide arc around, drawing the planes to fall in behind him, acting like he was getting complacent. As they did, he could pick up on whether they were buying it…he didn't need all of them to, just one of them. And he had a feeling one was more likely than the others…

"Is it getting tired out? It's stopped flying around so swiftly."

"Now's our chance! We've got to go get it!"

"Lark 3, fall back! I don't like this, it's too convenient."

"We can't let it get away! Lark 3, Fox 2!"

"Hold fire!" Too late, though, as the missile came soaring off of one of the jets. Someone's gonna be in trouble later, thought Jetdramon as he led the missile on, getting it a bit of a distance away from the jets while letting it track him for a few seconds…a dicey move, but he wanted to make sure he wasn't putting them in danger when he did was he planned to do.

Once he was safely away, though, there was no holding back. Another sharp cut down, and he flung his hand out, the energy already gathered. "Jet Stream!" The beam of energy burst out and enveloped the missile, blowing it to smithereens safely, and carried on over the tops of the jets. A burst of expletives rang in his ears from that one, their panic almost a little too satisfying.

"What the good holy hell was that?!"

"I don't know! Some kind of…beam of something, I don't want to know what!"

"Don't let it hit you! Watch it closely!"

"Wait…is it…doing something else?"

"It just grabbed something! And it's glowing! Bank, bank!"

That was good to hear, giving Jetdramon the window he was looking for. He'd grabbed and extended his voulge, holding it in both hands as the head glowed brightly. "Be thankful this isn't aimed at you! Gale Voulge!" Raising it high over his head, he slashed it downwards, launching off a streaking cutting wave of wind energy that left a shockwave in its wake. Aimed in the space the planes were vacating, the only thing they got was a bit of rocking from the shockwave trail, but that was enough to put a good bit of terror in them.

"Larks, respond! Did anyone get hit by that?!"

"Negative, Captain, but it nearly sent me into a roll! It was like the wind kicked up around that thing!"

"Just what the hell are we dealing with here?! Sykes didn't tell us these things could do this kind of nonsense!"

"What's even going on here? This thing can't be real, who's imagining some crazy jet-flying dragon with…is that a poleax?"

Jetdramon decided now was probably the best opening he had, and grinned a bit as he tapped into the other end of that signal. "Voulge, actually, but I'm guessing that distinction isn't gonna mean much to you."

He could swear he could HEAR the shocked silence, at least as long as it lasted before the captain of the bunch roared in. "Who the hell are you?! How did you get this frequency?!"

"I'm the guy you've been spending the last half hour trying to shoot down. Not sure I can answer that second question, just kinda happened, but it's been pretty useful, I gotta say."

"WHAT?! You…you're that dragon?!"

"Eeyup. Appreciate how impressed you all are with what I can do, really I am, but if that appreciation could extend to NOT trying to turn me into dust, I'd rather like that."

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" That was the fiery dude again, clearly speaking out of turn - Jetdramon had a feeling that wasn't foreign territory for him.

The dragon rolled his eyes a bit, but tried to keep his voice even in response. "I think I'm one of the very few people around here trying to actually stop the creatures you're terrified of from running roughshod over this city. Maybe you remember hearing about those crazy flying snake things a couple days ago? Yeah, I was helping out with that. That bird that started all this nonsense off? That was me, too. And you don't wanna know how many others, trust me, that's gonna keep you awake at night."

"Absurd!" the older female voice stated sharply. "You expect us to believe you're somehow different from all of those things?"

"Lark 2, don't engage him!" reprimanded the captain.

"Bit late for that, captain," remarked Jetdramon; he didn't want to lose the moment, he had them not attacking at least, if they disengaged now he might not get another chance. "Here's why you should believe it: you've seen what I can do, and you're not dead yet. I can turn at sharper angles than your jets are physically capable of, to say nothing of you blacking out from the G-forces if you even tried, and I can command the power of the wind in ways you can only fantasize about. I'm not not shooting you down because I can't, it's because I don't want to. I just want to keep you from swooping down and turning those missiles and guns on the city trying to find my allies, because we kind of need to live if we want to keep things from getting out of control."

Silence greeted that, which didn't feel like the best-case scenario for Jetdramon. But just as he was about to steel himself for another round, the younger female voice cut in. "That video with the giant bird…that really was you fighting it, wasn't it?"

A bit of hope, he wasn't going to let it float out of reach. "Yeah, it was. I've, ah, upgraded a bit since then, out of necessity. Trust me, there's a lot of monsters that have been coming through that are as dangerous as they say, and there's plenty more of them waiting in the wings for their chance. And if someone had been actually listening to us when we were warning them, maybe you'd be going after the right ones…well, someone other than the guys who set this whole thing up, anyway. Best thing you can do is try to get someone who can help us against them, rather than wasting ammo on me, because I've heard those missiles are absurdly expensive, and also I like having all my blood on the inside of me."

"Kh! Can you believe this cheek?!" snapped the hothead. "Buddy, I don't care if you're a dragon, I'll return you to not-existing so fast-"

"ENOUGH, Lark 3," the captain cut in. Once silence was ascertained, another command came out. "We're returning to base, immediately."

"Captain?! Are you…are you sure?" asked the older female.

"Whether or not I trust this creature, we aren't equipped to fight it like this. It can outfly us, outgun us, and hear everything we say. If we're hanging in there by its good will alone, I'm not willing to test that any further, not until I hear the whole damn story. Sykes can go on this hunt on his own, I don't care what he's promising."

"Your reluctant concession is deeply appreciated," replied Jetdramon, relief flowing through it. "You won't regret this, captain."

"I'd better not, on there'll be more hell to pay than you can afford, dragon. Larks, return to base!"

The jets swung off in another direction, retreating from the city and leaving Jetdramon alone up in the skies. Where he was not interested in staying - if his work up there was done, surely they could use his help down below. And while it was a lot more dangerous for him to throw out attacks down there than it was for Ionavimon, that didn't mean he couldn't do a few strafing runs to put the fear of god into them…he grinned to himself as he swooped down, eyes darting around for good spots to sweep and make a few soldiers think twice about moving forward.

—

Commandramon had never truly gone unconscious. That would have been a blessing.

Conscious didn't mean aware of what was going on around him - his brain was a bit too preoccupied being in untold agony. The moment that blast had hit him, it felt like his body was on fire, and it only got worse from there. As the seconds ticked onto minutes, that fire only intensified, accompanied by what felt like the very fabric of his being trying to tear itself apart, meeting only enough resistance to keep him in pain beyond belief. He couldn't think, couldn't hear or see, couldn't do anything except exist in that state of vicious torment…it threatened to break him multiple times, his resilience fraying more and more as the inescapable pain permeated his whole being.

When it vanished suddenly, it was like a bucket of cold water had been thrown on him. He let out a sharp gasp, and then started to breathe properly again, shakily but heavily, eyes blinking open as he could see again…somewhat, as there wasn't much to see except a cylinder of off-white above him. He started to move around, only to hear a sharp shout from outside. "Oy! Stay still, that's an order!"

Hearing that was a bit jarring, but the voice he recognized…Zetta Commander Salmandmon. He stopped trying to move around, laying as still as possible as commanded. Only now was he becoming aware that his armor had been removed…whether that was something the weapon did or something that happened afterwards, he still didn't know. There was a lot he didn't know, for that matter…

It felt like an eternity, but it was probably only minutes before whatever was making noise around him went quiet, and then he was slid out of the machine on some kind of table. He blinked in the light as he sat up, greeted by the human he'd just met that was with Salmandmon, as well as the lizard himself. "What…what happened? Where am I?"

"You're just where you need to be, and you survived, that's the important part," Reyn said. "How are you feeling?"

"…Tired. And kind of cold…and numb, a little."

"Rudy temporarily deadened your pain response, it'll be a bit before it's back," stated Salmandmon. "As for tired, well, after that, I'm not surprised. Let's get him to a better seat, Reyn."

Commandramon was picked up off the table and carried over to the bench on the other side of the room, set down sitting up and leaning against the back. He could see his armor piled in the corner…at least it was there. "What, uh, what happened, sir?"

"You were hit with something called a Data Fracture Bomb. Didn't even know those were a thing until they chucked one at us. It was trying to degrade your body to death, in the worst way possible. That machine was made to try to fix it."

The saurian soldier looked understandably uncomfortable at that news. "Uh…did it?"

"We'll have to wait and see." Rudy stepped over, looking over some notes on a clipboard. "There's still an ongoing effort in your body to propagate the failure, but it's being counteracted by a rapid repair algorithm and counterfailure module. The hope is that this will be enough to eventually settle things back down, but we may need to do some further intervention. Fortunately, we have recourses, so I'm confident we'll eventually get you completely patched up, but it might not be entirely smooth sailing. The better news: we were able to implement a data integrity preservation code into your body. This should provide a one-time protection against the effects of the Data Fracture Bombs, which can be reapplied after you've had another encounter. Hopefully I can tune this to be more lingering, but we need to know more about how those bombs do what they do first."

"Hoping, of course, that you don't HAVE to have another encounter, but better to be ready for it if you do," added Salmandmon with a dark look. "Nasty things, whoever made them better not get close to me, to say nothing of whoever okayed them being used as is."

"Sal, you should probably get protected too," suggested Reyn. "You guys all should, really…even if it doesn't affect us when we're together, that's no guarantee you're not vulnerable when we're not."

"Yeah, that's a good idea. Rudy, let's maybe hit that now, you said it's only a minute or two, right?"

Rudy nodded. "Yes, it's a far faster process than trying to fight the cascading failures. Let's get you in there and get that applied."

No hesitation from Salmandmon, who was up on the table in a flash - he was in no rush to experience that horror first-hand. As Reyn was sliding the table in, though, they were interrupted yet again, as Neal Collins stuck his head in the door. "Sorry, I hate to be a bother, but, uh, we've got more soldiers forcing their way in…"

"Oh, for crying out loud…" growled Reyn. "What is this, the fifth time? When are these morons going to get the hint? And what's Ionfalkemon doing out there, we can't keep doing this!"

"She's doing her best, Reyn," Salmandmon said sharply from inside the scanner. "I know it's frustrating, but there's like a thousand of them to one of her, and it's not her fault these idiots are stubborn as hell."

"Maybe we should take care of this?" asked Agent Collins.

"No, you get back and keep everyone else in here safe. We don't want to risk any bodies on either side if we can avoid it…hard as they seem to want to make that." Grumbling, Reyn followed the agent out the door, letting Rudy get back to work with Salmandmon.

And watching all of this was a very awkward-feeling Commandramon. "Is…he going to be okay?"

"He'd better be, or I'm going to very strongly rethink trying to be merciful with them." Salmandmon's voice made no mystery of his tension - despite his words, he was feeling some ire with the leaky protection of the building as well. Which was mostly a function of the way they were trying to approach it - being careful was putting them in more danger than they would be if they used the power they had. Even if they had numbers, the human units here would have been far outmatched by their best…the problem was, they needed to send a message that they WEREN'T bloodthirsty menaces. And knowing that his vulnerable human partner was putting himself in the line of fire wasn't setting him at ease any…even if he himself likely wouldn't have fared any better against those guns, at least he was the battle veteran…Reyn was his responsibility, and Salmandmon's stomach turned if he thought about what could happen to him.

Thankfully, Reyn was back in the room safe and sound after a couple minutes, though still looking annoyed. "This is just the rest of my afternoon, I guess…I'd really rather be out there, in here feels uncomfortable just sitting around waiting. Ebonvargmon had better pull through soon, or this could start getting messy."

"How are you getting them out?" asked Commandramon.

"I've found out even soldiers tend to be cowards when they don't have a gun in their hands. I've also figured out the melting point for whatever they make those guns out of is lower than what I can put out. Pyrokinesis is as awesome as I ever hoped, I just wish I wasn't having to use it to save our skins without a bit more practice. Rudy, how's it coming along?"

"…It's not."

Reyn did a double-take. "What now?"

"Can you get Salmandmon out of the machine, please?"

Not exactly a satisfying response, but Reyn did as instructed, knowing that if something was up, better Salmandmon heard it than not. The lizard was pretty confused as well as he sat up. "I felt like I didn't really feel anything in there…I thought I'd get, you know, SOMEthing."

"There's a reason for that, although I'm not quite sure why." Rudy tapped his clipboard with the back of his pen, looking puzzled. "There were errors coming up when I tried to apply the data integrity protection code. It wasn't very clear what was going on, but the best I could glean was some kind of compatibility error…which doesn't make sense, because you're a digimon, and this was made for digimon."

"Are we gonna have to go out and haul Rex back in here to explain things?" asked Salmandmon.

"I don't think we should interrupt him for this, we may have to ask him later but what he's doing right now has to take priority. But I did a brief scan, and there's something…unusual about your data compared to Commandramon's. Mismatches in output parameters, aberrant responses to certain inductions, the machine even hung for a bit doing a validation sequence. It's like it had a hard time recognizing you as a digimon even."

That got Salmandmon blinking blankly. "Hard time recognizing me as a digimon? Jeez, computers can be so fussy sometimes…I'm pretty sure no actual person around here has the same problem."

"Is there a problem with Sal?" asked Reyn nervously. "I'm not really sure what all of that is supposed to mean."

Rudy shook his head. "No issues with health, wellness, or other facets of him as far as we can tell. It's just an odd response, and the machine wasn't able to implement things meant for digimon because of that issue, at least I presume that would be the reason. I'd like to try to explore this further, but we have a lack of sample data to work with here…is there any reason you can think of why you'd be showing up different than Commandramon, Sal?"

Salmandmon rubbed his head. "I'ma just default to the usual answer: if there's anything weird, it's probably got to do with the whole merging thing. Maybe it's affected Reyn, too…I don't think I wanna shove him in there while we're still under attack, though, given that he's the one driving those folks away. Wait, if the machine's not confident that I'm a digimon, do you think that those Data Fracture Bombs would know?"

"I doubt they're smart enough to 'know' anything…hm…" Rudy contemplated that for a moment. "You're wondering if you're 'weird' enough that they wouldn't affect you, aren't you?"

"I mean, that WOULD be nice and convenient, you've gotta agree."

"Of course. I can't say for sure, but…it's possible? I think, though, that I'd rather NOT test that."

"Oh, yeah, definitely not. Let's try to avoid running into those things at all costs. Well, if you can't do anything more for me, I guess that means we figure out what we do next."

"What we do next is sit and wait for more soldiers to show up, because they're probably going to be annoying like that," asserted Reyn. "And we might need to help with Commandramon more, too."

"I'll be fine, sirs, really I will." Commandramon was clearly trying to pick himself up from the bench, though his body still wasn't being very cooperative. "Get me in my armor and I can get out there and help…"

"Yeah, he definitely needs a supervisor." Salmandmon headed over and hopped up onto the bench, pulling Commandramon back. "You need to relax! You're still fighting off that stuff, don't make it worse by running around when you're trying to recover!"

"But, sir, there's still so much danger around!"

"Yeah, trust me, we're not going to have ANY shortage of that for a while. We're trying to get you fixed so you can help us out in the long run!"

"Nnhh…isn't there something I can do? I can shoot from windows, if there's one that's got a good angle! You can even put me on comms, if you need to get word out!"

"Sheeze…I'll never complain about babysitting Cay and Alis again," sighed Reyn. "At least they aren't eager to open fire on things…"

—

"What do you mean the planes left?" Sykes slammed his fist against the armored vehicle, while one of his soldiers cowered in front of him. He was a man of considerable stature, nearing six and a half feet tall, with angry brown eyes, a thin curled mustache, and a distinct scar over his left eye; his uniform was much like a field general's, except for the brown gloves and the broadsword sheathed at his hip.

"They were seen flying away from Braun, and the dragon's been swooping over our forces! I don't know what happened, they didn't seem to be damaged, I didn't notice anything, sir!"

"Grah! Traitors and cowards! How hard is it so stop just five creatures?! Where did the helicopters go? They were supposed to be providing covering fire!"

"What? Sir, we were told earlier that they were compromised at Jordan! Their weapons systems were damaged, they were forced to fly back to base!"

"What?! Why did this not get back to me?!" The rage of Malcolm Sykes was perhaps one reason why that had happened. Unseen from his hiding place, Darkvargmon couldn't resist a grin - that had been a little bit of brilliance on his part, hitting those things before they'd ever had a chance to be a threat. They had enough to deal with the planes and tanks and soldiers, why add helicopters to that trouble?

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't know who didn't report that! They were talking about it all morning!"

"Rrrgh…I am NOT going to be humiliated by a bunch of subhuman…things! I don't care how scrappy they are, we're the mightiest military on Earth, they should be nothing compared to us! Are you even shooting at them?! There's no reason all five of them shouldn't be writhing on the ground, waiting to be executed!"

A rather disgusting sentiment, and Darkvargmon had to keep himself from getting too heated over it. Instead, he kept his cool as he spoke up. "Perhaps you didn't know what you were getting into, 'General.'"

Sykes leapt up, swinging his head around to try to find the voice, as the half-dozen soldiers in the area did the same. "What the hell?! Who said that?! Show yourself!"

"You want to see me? I'll show myself to you…but only you alone." Darkvargmon phased somewhere else, where none of them were looking, and tossed up a Blasting Darkness charge that hit the ground and let out a pulse, rocking everyone in the area - not nearly powerful enough to be a real threat, or to disable them, but meant more to throw them off-balance mentally. He then hid away and reappeared while they were scrambling towards the source of the blast. "This is but a taste of what I'm capable of. I'd rather not use my full power, it would be somewhat counterproductive to harm the people I'm trying to protect…although, for you folks in particular, it's against my better judgment."

"I…I can't follow this thing!" panicked one soldier. "It's like it's everywhere!"

"Shut up!" snarled Sykes. "Don't be an embarrassment! It'll bleed like any other creature! Monster, what do you want with me?"

If I said what I actually wanted, you'd never show your face to me. "Simple enough, Sykes. I challenge you to a duel. A clash of blades, man to man. Win, and you'll have your moment of glory. Lose, and you'll call off this absurd siege. But try to have someone else intervene on your behalf, or bring a gun to a swordfight, and I can't promise that limbs won't be lost, if not lives."

"Sir, we can't let you-" started another soldier.

"Be QUIET! If I want your useless opinion, private, I'll ask for it! Go back up the others, this is MY fight!" Although he wasn't looking as Sykes directly at the moment, Darkvargmon could swear he could hear the bloodthirst in the general's eyes. A predictable foe can be a useful asset…but I'd better make sure he holds up his end if he loses.

The scampering of footsteps away was a good sign, but Darkvargmon checked around a bit before being willing to commit to showing up. Sykes was certainly not the patient type, though. "Right, monster, it's just you and me now! You gonna show your face, or are you just a coward who wanted to try to get the better of me? Because if you think I'm any less dangerous alone than surrounded, your degenerate allies are going to learn a painful lesson about crossing me!"

"Such a pleasant personality. Small wonder that Jonah Wheeler chose you." Satisfied that they were indeed on their own, Darkvargmon shifted to Ebonvargmon and launched himself out of the shadows, landing in front of Sykes and making the man take a couple of steps back. Those blue eyes met the furious brown ones of Sykes fearlessly. "This is what you wanted, is it not? Face-to-face with one of us, with a chance to get the better of us, and prove your worth personally…I hope you've practiced with that blade of yours, because you're going to need it."

If Sykes was cowed, he certainly wasn't showing it. "Feh…what am I even looking at here? Some kind of werewolf? You think you're that scary? You're just some generic fantasy monster, and clearly unprepared for the duel you challenged me to…I'm not about to run screaming from you."

"I'm sure you're not keeping score, but the 'werewolf' crack isn't winning you any points." A pit of darkness formed near Ebonvargmon's hand, and he reached in and drew out his sword, swinging it with purpose in front of him, before pointing it at the human, who finally visibly reacted. "Is this more to your liking?"

"You…flashy tricks aren't going to be worth anything in a swordfight." Sykes drew his broadsword with a flourish, pointing back at Ebonvargmon. The canid had to respect one thing, the general seemed completely unjarred by the prospect of a sword duel with a creature seemingly out of a fantasy work…he really was as nuts as they claimed. "I'll make sure you regret this…and if there's enough pelt on that mangy hide of yours, a fur coat would make for an excellent statement."

"Maybe you should focus on saving your own skin first." Ebonvargmon made his move, jumping forward a bit and swinging, clashing blades with Sykes. The human held against the first clang of swords, but it was a bit of a ruse - Ebonvargmon wasn't using his true strength, wanting to lull the general into thinking he had a chance. Another couple swings, each meeting Sykes' sword at different angles, pushing the human back…the general for the first time seemed out of his element, on his heels as he tried to match and parry Ebonvargmon.

That didn't last, as Sykes managed to get his footing and return the swings in earnest. While he didn't seem like a 'natural' swordfighter, it was clear he had at least learned enough to know what he was doing. He swung with plenty of purpose and passion, and Ebonvargmon had to be careful both to not let him get any openings and also to not overcorrect…he wouldn't have minding leaving a few gashes on Sykes, but not anything too severe. Fortunately, he had plenty of innate talent to draw from despite his limited experience in this body, and while he was fairly certain a more experienced digimon could give him trouble, a human was not on that level.

He didn't want Sykes figuring that out QUITE yet, though.

Sykes was starting to get more confident as they continued to clash blades, swinging more fiercely and wildly; Ebonvargmon made a point of dodging some of the crazier swings, which were hard to predict as to the best way of parrying. He never let Sykes get too much on the offensive, though, counterswinging and forcing the human back here and there, then leaving himself just the slightest bit open for Sykes to get back into the groove. It was giving Sykes a bravado that he hadn't earned. "Hah! You call this a challenge? No wonder you were hiding away, if this was the best you could do!"

"Who says this is my best?" replied Ebonvargmon evenly, only just tugging at the bait.

"Hah, what, are you going to say you're not right-handed? A bloodthirsty creature wouldn't hold back when they had the chance!"

"You seem to be adeptly proving that point, Sykes. You're putting everything you have into this. I, however, am not so quick to shed blood. And neither are the rest of us. Has it not occurred to you how you aren't getting reports of fatalities in en masse?" A slightly harder swing, making Sykes stumble backwards a bit and need to regain his footing. "Despite the fact that fire, electricity, and heavy weaponry are all readily accessible to us?"

"Shut your trap, mutt!" Sykes rushed forward and swung hard, making Ebonvargmon jump back a bit. "I don't care what you and your loathsome ilk are playing at out there! The only thing that matters is that you're monsters and you need to be destroyed!"

Ebonvargmon blocked the next reckless overhead swing, then kicked out, knocking Sykes backwards several steps, the human nearly tumbling over onto his rear. "Really now? Even if we're the ones keeping this city from falling to dust from the real attackers!"

"Especially if you're that!" That stunning line caught Ebonvargmon off-guard, enough that he almost got sloppy and had to scramble to deflect another blow. Sykes's eyes were almost glittering with deranged malevolence now, he was feeling himself and attacking like it, slashing furiously at Ebonvargmon. "Can you IMAGINE the clout we'd gain if we showed our power to defeat even otherworldly monsters?! No human army would ever want to stand up to us again! We could use that to impose our will the world over! Throw our military might at anyone who refused to cooperate with us! Settle every conflict the way WE want! Keep the entire world in line, make OUR way the way of everyone, and they wouldn't raise a finger against us! We could OWN this world like we were meant to, but you want to take that from us, steal our glory! You're monsters just like them, you don't deserve any of it!"

Sykes swing again, but this time Ebonvargmon blocked, and then before he could follow up, Ebonvargmon slammed his sword into that blade, almost dislodging it from Sykes' grip and making him stagger backwards. "You're demented! You'd see Braun in ruins just because you don't want us 'hogging the glory'? You think you should be bloodthirsty conquerors turning violence on everyone just to get YOUR way?! You're just as twisted as the digimon we're fighting against! The notion that they can impose their will on the world and kill anyone who doesn't agree, that's what the real monsters want!"

"I don't take judgments from mongrels! Die!" Sykes rushed forward again, but Ebonvargmon had had enough. He met the human's blade with his own, and then with a fierce burst drove far harder than Sykes was ready for, flinging the blade from his hand and sending it to the grass with a thud. Before Sykes could recover, Ebonvargmon flung his hand forward, eyes glowing black.

"If you won't take judgment, take this instead! Nether Blow!"

A pit of darkness formed under Sykes, and before he knew what was happening, a rush of dark energy shot up from it, enveloping him and making him cry out as he was slightly lifted up from the force of it. When Ebonvargmon cut the attack off, he dropped the few inches he'd been lifted and fell back onto his rear, clenching his jaw and groaning and shuddering. "Wh…what…"

"Remember how I showed you a taste of my power earlier? That was a fraction of a taste compared to this." Ebonvargmon pointed the sword down at Sykes, who glowered defiantly up. "The power of darkness is mine to command, bending to my will. With this power, I have sworn to defend people against raving madmen with ambitions to seize power and commit mass slaughter. Clearly, you're one of those people, and you need to be stopped just as much as any digimon coming through. I could do far worse to you than I'm going to do, and even you must know it by now. You've lost the duel. Call off the attack."

Sykes spat. "And what if I don't?"

"Then…I'll kill you." Ebonvargmon's expression twisted maliciously as Sykes' lost some color. "But…I won't just kill you like this. I'll disable you, make sure your body is as broken as I can make it while still drawing breath…and then I'll take you to the place where the greatest number of your men can see you, can see your abject failure self beaten and broken, make you as obvious a display as I can…and then I'll run you through, in sight of everyone, in the most painful way you can possibly imagine. You'll writhe in pain as your vision goes dark, forced into the knowledge that everyone under your command will know that you were a complete failure, and history will remember you as nothing more than a fool who died to a monster. You'll not be remembered for any deed or accomplishment, but for your utter uselessness…"

For once, Sykes' countenance cracked, the promise of reputational ruin breaking through where no appeal to morality or sense had. "F-fine…you win for now, werewolf. But don't think this is over…I'm not going to stop until you're out of the way. I may have to step back, but I WILL be back…"

Ebonvargmon pulled the blade back and dispelled it into the darkness. "I'll make sure to remember that, when the right people finally get involved. See to it that you comply, because I'll be watching…" He shifted back to Darkvargmon and sank into the shadows, a display just clear enough that Sykes wouldn't think nothing of it, he would have to know that Darkvargmon could make sure he enforced his victory, and comply lest he face ruin. Of course, there was no illusion he had put the madman down for good this way…that would only happen if he had to follow through on his threat. And he was trying not to think about just how easy it was to come up with such a dark idea and how easy it was to play up the savage monster image…he pushed that thought away, focusing on what mattered now. They had bought time, and it likely wouldn't be long before there was another crisis that would have to put things in perspective for their attackers…

—

"They're retreating!" Rudy pumped his fist as he set down the phone, having just gotten word from upstairs. "Finally, some good news!"

"Better news if they stayed away, but I'm not holding my breath," sighed Reyn. "Still, any progress is good progress at the moment. I just wish I knew what kind of luck Mr. Katran and Mr. Conover were having trying to get in touch with someone who can stop this madness."

"We'll have to ask them about that," agreed Salmandmon. "You think there's any hope they'll actually stay away now that they know what we can do?"

"If they're even half as stubborn as Emperius, you know the answer to that question."

"Crud, that's what I thought. Well, at least we get a chance to regroup."

"Maybe I'll be able to help out next battle…" Commandramon was sitting on a chair against the wall, still looking weary but much more stable than he had been. He was still unarmored, as Rudy wanted to scan and treat him a couple more times before declaring him free of the effects of the Data Fracture Bomb. Unarmed and unarmored, he looked extremely out of sorts.

"You focus on staying alive and healthy, we're going to need you for what comes next," chided Salmandmon. "And that's an order! Once you're in better shape we'll see about getting you involved, but we need to be able to get over to the digital world at some point and you're our best chance."

"I know, sir. I just…really want to be able to do more. I already feel dirty even pretending to have been doing Emperius's bidding. The others at the KOL probably don't trust me anymore, thinking I turned on them like Meicrackmon did…"

"Meicrackmon?" Salmandmon did a double take. "No way. She really got turned?"

"She did…I don't know what caused her to turn on us, but she's fully on their side now. That hurt a lot of us…and I fear they think I did the same, along with the others…we couldn't tell them what we were doing, because we feared that the truth would get out, so we pretended that we were swayed by Meicrackmon's reversal."

"They'll be set straight soon enough," Reyn assured him. "Hopefully we find those other ones before someone else figures out what's going on and turns on them. If they're part of this assault force, we'll just need to be on the lookout and be careful how quickly we fire. But I'm glad you told us about that, because now we're better prepared…we just need to make sure no one else comes across Meicrackmon and thinks she's here for support."

"No doubt…hopefully they'll be back soon, and we can tell them here rather than having to wander outside," agreed Salmandmon. "We probably don't have a lot of time, we should really get prepared for the next wave."

"I think you'll have some help with that," said Rudy as he put down his phone. "Just got a notice from Elliot, there's pizzas on the fourth floor. You should probably eat something before things get messy again, who knows if you'll have any other opportunities?"

"Oh, sweet!" exclaimed Salmandmon. "I've always wanted to try that stuff!"

Rudy did a double-take, looking wide-eyed at the lizard. "You guys don't have pizza in your world? What kind of tragedy is this?!"

"I know, right? I keep trying to get someone to 'invent' it! But there's some issues with finding ingredients that work the same way on our end, and I'm not really the best one to try to figure that out. I'm hoping that we can get a culinary expert to look into it, but that's kind of on the back burner due to the whole 'a bunch of people want to erase you completely' thing."

"Well, we'll have to fix THAT after we've dealt with this mess. But for now, at least you can enjoy it! Commandramon, you should go too, you'll recover faster if you get some fuel in you."

"Ah, but…I haven't earned my keep yet-" the cyborg started to protest.

"Oh, no you don't!" Salmandmon cut in. "You're part of our support, you're gonna be getting your meals as well! Now come on, let's get up there before it's all gone!"

"No, let's not be in a rush, so that it's NOT all gone by the time the OTHERS get there," countered Reyn.

"C'mooooon…I'll leave some for them!"

"Oh, Zetta Commander! Did you tell him about the time you beat a Tyranomon in an eating contest?"

Salmandmon glowered at Commandramon. "You're not helping."

—

"What do you mean, called off?!"

"Relax, Jonah."

"Don't tell me to relax! You're throwing everything off!"

"JONAH. We aren't pulling out. It's a strategic temporary retreat. I wasn't happy to do it either, but we'll have our chance. One of our intelligence agents picked up on something from their chatter out there - there's about to be an invasion force of monsters. A major spectacle, they'll be quickly occupied trying to deal with them. Either they'll be ended during that attack and we can clean up, or they'll be weary and weakened and perfectly ripe for picking off after the fact."

"…Yes. Yes, that will work. My apologies, General."

"No worries, Jonah. I've also secured a little extra assistance against the sympathizers. They won't be ready for what I've arranged. By the time you arrive, we'll hopefully be ready to move again…and I'll make sure the camera's ready to capture our glory."

—

Reyn and Salmandmon were actually the last ones of their group up in the big conference room on the fourth floor, with Commandramon trailing nervously behind. A few of the agents were already there getting things served up, and they were clearly expecting quite a few more with all the boxes there.

"Hey, look who finally showed his face," remarked Isaac as the fiery duo approached. "You musta been a blur out there, I couldn't even see you."

"Sorry, things kept me busy right in here," Reyn replied. "We wanted to get back out there, but soldiers kept getting here, after a while we just decided it was too risky not to have a dedicated guard."

"They started spreading out a lot more than we were ready for after a while," admitted Shockavimon. "We should've laid more Charge Fields. Lesson learned, hopefully we won't need to use it."

"At least they've retreated for now," Datacarnomon said. "Maybe when they see the invading force that's supposed to be coming, they'll think twice about coming after us again. Provided we can repel them, of course."

"Hopefully being fueled up by pizza will help," snickered Reyn.

"It might help YOU, it won't do a thing for me."

"Dang, you're gonna miss out!" exclaimed Salmandmon. "Everyone over here loves this stuff! Are you sure you're not interested in getting a gastric processor?"

Datacarnomon shrugged. "Maybe after I retire from facing down death for a living. Right now I have to prioritize."

"Talking about it isn't the same as eating it, you know," remarked Skylar, who was already at the boxes. "Also, Sal, you're going last, I've seen you eat."

"Why does everyone think I won't save any for them?" protested the red lizard. "I have manners!"

"Your digestive tract is comparable to a matter disintegration system," needled Blackcanismon. "Modern science has yet to discern its physical boundaries or capacity limitations."

"Sky, while you're over there, why don't you tell us what they got?" asked Derek, trying not to laugh too hard at his partner's jibe while Salmandmon huffed.

"Looks like a mix of the typical and some unfavorable looking specialties," reported the white-haired boy. "Cheese, pepperoni, sausage, veggie lover's, meat lover's, hawaiian…ugh, whoever decided to put pineapple on pizza should be tried for war crimes."

"It's not THAT bad," insisted Iris.

"I'll respect your incorrect opinion as long as I don't have to eat it. Uh…there's a few specialty pizzas here that don't have an ingredients list. Mom and Dad don't order from here so don't ask me, just decide if you're feeling lucky. Oh, of course there's a hot and spicy one, blech…mushroom lover's, also blech-"

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MINDS?!" All eyes turned towards Salmandmon as he stumbled and fell over backwards, scrambling away from the table in panic. "Y-you EAT that stuff?! WILLINGLY?!"

"…Um. Am I…missing something here?" asked Reyn. "What triggered this?"

"Gah! You…ugh, that's the most…disgusting thing…why would you put that on ANYTHING?! Seriously, let me burn it, do the world a favor!"

"Ohhhhhh yeah…" Breezedramon said in sudden realization. "I forgot about Sal's thing about fungi."

"Thing about…what?" Skylar looked between the dragon and lizard like he was about to bust out laughing. "Are you kidding me? You're seriously telling me the walking incinerator is afraid of FUNGI?"

"Hey, that stuff is EVIL!" Salmandmon insisted shakily. "It's rot and decay in physical form! And mushrooms are chock full of the nastiest toxins you could imagine! Why would you ever willingly put that stuff inside your bodies?!"

"…Yeah, I think Sal won't be having any of the mushroom lover's special," remarked Reyn with a fair bit of amusement, leaning down and pulling Salmandmon back to his feet. "C'mon, we'll go get you the meat pizza, I'm sure you'll like everything on that."

"Okay, I can understand most irrational fears, but…how?" asked Iris as they followed Reyn up.

"Salmandmon has regrettably experienced unfortunate histories with the 'mycological menace,'" Blackcanismon reported, with his own reasonable dose of cheek. "Albeit, his phobia preceded any encounter I have borne personal witness to. Although not all instances have been excessively amusing, the majority of them have been."

"He doesn't tend to be comfortable around digimon with a fungal background, either, though he doesn't react as strongly to them as to regular fungi," added Datacarnomon. "You can tell it's an effort, though."

"To be fair, fungi aren't usually something you eat regularly in the digital world," Shockavimon continued off of that. "At least, not straight up. For the most part, mushrooms and fungi in the digital world are there to cause trouble - they have usually unpleasant effects if eaten and the spores can contaminate food and deliver the same effect without warning. Sometimes their extracts are used in medicines, poisons, and the like, but they aren't common foodstuffs and while there might be some examples that you might consider edible or even delicacies somewhere in our world, there definitely aren't any on Tetraquaz. So usually, if you encounter them, it's not a good thing…though, most don't react like Sal does, that's a him thing."

"There's plenty of nasty ones over here, too, for sure," said Isaac. "But lots of mushrooms are edible and won't hurt you if you eat them. I kinda like them myself."

"I don't, but I don't freak out over them, either," added Derek. "You'd think someone who could easily torch them wouldn't be afraid of them like that."

"You'd think so, but it's almost like he forgets he's made of fire when you put him around them!" Breezedramon chimed in with a giggle. "It's kinda fun to drop them on his snout now and then and watch him freak out a bit."

"That sounds kinda mean," Iris said with a frown. "You shouldn't take advantage of a fear like that, you don't know what caused it."

"It's fine! Sal told us straight off that it wasn't off-limits! Not like some other stuff. Like what he did before he worked for the Kaiser. He won't talk about that."

"So long as we don't actually try to make him ingest anything, Sal doesn't mind us poking him about it," agreed Datacarnomon. "He wants to not react so strongly to it, so it's also kind of a test to him to see how well he manages. So far…not so great, clearly. Guess he needs a few remedial courses."

"I'm not THAT far away, you guys," grumped Salmandmon from his seat on Reyn's lap in a nearby chair.

"You're also not that far away from the dreaded mushrooms," Shockavimon jibed back.

"I'm trying not to think about that right now. Non-contaminated pizza is helping."

"Seriously, why mushrooms?" asked Skylar.

"It's not JUST mushrooms, it's ALL fungi. And I don't want to talk about it. I still think you're crazy for putting it willingly on food, you have no idea what it's going to do to you. It could make you itch uncontrollably, it could turn you to stone, it could make your muscles lose all control…"

"That doesn't happen over here," remarked Derek. "Pizza places don't get poisonous mushrooms, for one thing. But even if someone did eat a mushroom, it could make you sick or kill you, but not have any weirder effects. Except for the ones people use as drugs, the ones that make you hallucinate."

Salmandmon's brow furrowed. "Yeah, that can happen, too…I don't know why someone would ever willingly do that."

"Same reason they would do any other drug, I would think. Because they like the experience, regardless of the other problems."

"I certainly hope you're not speaking from experience." Derek jumped a bit as Elliot's voice spoke up from behind him.

"Dad, jeez! No, I wouldn't even know where to get that stuff for one, and for two, I very much like having my wits about me, thank you."

"I have to check. I've heard the stories about musicians, and you're apparently halfway on your way to being one already."

Derek rolled his eyes. "I just like to write music, I can't actually play an instrument to save my life. Closest I'd get is being a songwriter for some band somewhere, and I'm not holding my breath for that."

"Who says you need to be able to play an instrument?" Reyn jumped in. "I listen to a lot of music that's made entirely using some computer program or another. Even if it doesn't totally sound 'authentic' that doesn't mean it can't sound amazing."

"I can vouch for that, we make a lot of our music that way," Datacarnomon agreed.

"He's speaking for robots, not all of us," Breezedramon clarified. "And he's not one of the ones who does it, I've heard him try, trust me, you don't wanna put yourself through that."

"Oy, look who's talking! All you do is bang loudly on things and not even on the beat!"

"Boys, be better friends than your partners are," Shockavimon said, though she was clearly grinning.

—

The end of the meal brought with it an air of tension throughout the room. It was hardly unexpected - everyone was aware that someone was coming, they just didn't know when or what. And it wasn't sitting well with some folks more than others.

"Every interminable moment of dallying consternates me compoundingly…considering their inoccludable intentions, the singular purpose delay serves is our psychological disruption. An appalling dearth of consideration, indubitably…"

"You are muttering an awful lot of nonsense down there, BC," remarked Iris. She and Derek were seated looking out the window, just in case there was a visual sign of something happening. Shockavimon was on Iris's lap, while Blackcanismon was laying on the ground next to Derek's chair, his expression less than content.

"Blasé reductionism of my erudition unto 'nonsense' provides scant upliftment of my emotional valence," riposted Blackcanismon rather tensely.

"He gets this way when he's nervous," said Shockavimon. "He doesn't talk to himself a lot when he's in a good mood, but when he's not…yeah, the joke is that either his tail's wagging or his tongue is."

"I approve of that line," chuckled Derek.

"The veracity of the aforementioned observation can scarcely be rejected, yet provides no particular resolution of my disconcert," huffed the canine. "Should you consider your verbal emissions superior to mine, they must provide dramatically enhanced alleviation of stress."

"I thought you said he was the laid-back one?" Iris asked.

"Usually he is," Shockavimon said with a shrug. "But I can't exactly blame him for not being that way right now…I sure as heck feel stressed out, too." Iris couldn't disagree with that, she was certainly feeling the nerves, all of them were…though, Derek seemed, to her, less wound up than she would have expected of him. He never was great with stress in his own right, but he seems…at least somewhat at ease, at least hiding it better if he isn't. Wonder what that's all about…

"Iris? Derek?" Both of them turned, to see Heather approaching slowly. She looked weary, her eyes somewhat baggy and face somewhat haggard, and though she was trying to smile, there was clearly a weight behind it that belied the image. "Am I…interrupting anything?"

"Nothing that can't be interrupted," Iris replied quickly, motioning her closer. "Are you okay? I mean…well, maybe that's a stupid question…"

"I…guess I'm doing as well as I can be." Heather drew up a nearby chair and sat down, somewhat behind the two, making them turn towards her. She let out a deep breath as she put a hand on each youth's shoulder. "I feel like I should be asking you that question…I was tucked away in here, and you were out there, in the middle of…nn, I don't even want to say it…"

"How's…Mom doing?" Derek asked hesitantly, no longer looking anywhere near at ease.

"She's sedated. It was…too much for her. I did my best, but I couldn't help enough for that. She always was one to get genuinely worried sick…I hope this helps."

"…Am I to interpret that statement as the madame's physical condition is severely diminished?" Blackcanismon asked, with a heaviness in his own voice.

"She's not on death's door or anything…I don't think, anyway." Heather sounded less sure of that than she wanted to, which didn't alleviate Blackcanismon's concern at all; the dark canid looked away, his expression growing even more uncomfortable. "I've got someone always watching over her, and she's…at least, seems to be better now that she's out. I'm not sure I wouldn't be the same…"

"I'm sorry," Shockavimon said quietly. "I wish I knew a better way…"

"…I know." Heather bowed her head wearily. "All this has been…a lot to take in. When Emil told me everything last night…it was bad enough leading up to that, fearing that you were getting caught up in attacks like that…to hear that you were actually in…in the middle of battle…that you were doing this…and now some crazy army people coming after you…"

"I didn't want to tell you as much for that reason as any," admitted Iris, drawing closer to Heather and leaning into her to try to comfort her. "You and Dad both…you've always worried about me so much, and this is…something you have every reason to be worried about. I wish there was something I could do to make that go away…but there isn't. Even if we stopped going out and fighting, none of us would be safe."

"I know…your father made that clear to me…and I could tell he didn't want to accept it either, even if he knew he had to. I don't know how he's managing to keep himself from falling apart today, running around all over the place and frantically trying to do so much…maybe he's afraid if he stops he'll have to think about what's happening out there. And Elliot…he always tries to keep himself so detached and businesslike, but he's been staring off into space far too much to not be thinking about it himself…"

"…with me out there, and Mom in her state…" Derek trailed off, looking downtrodden.

It was about the worst of moments for Shockavimon, feeling incredibly awkward and at a loss for anything to say. She was used to fighting alongside folks who were there on their own, maybe she heard about family here and there but they weren't actively there expressing their worry. The reality of what burden she was imposing on people for doing what needed to be done…even knowing that it was the best choice they could have made among the feasible options, it still left a bad taste in her mouth. We owe them so much, for what we're putting their kids through…and we owe THEM even more. We have to deliver, for all their sakes…failing them would be a slap in the face for everything they've been through. And looking over at Blackcanismon, just the expression on his face told her his thoughts were very much the same…though she had no idea just how much more the canine was reflecting on.

—

Meanwhile, in another part of the room, a damage report was being reviewed. Elliot and Elias were sitting with Salmandmon and Datacarnomon, going over information they'd picked up from a very handy source.

"Based on what Elias was hearing over the radio, they're down several tanks and two helicopters, and the jets that were helping them have bailed out. They definitely aren't in as good of a position as they were at the start of the day, but I'm not convinced it'll be enough to get them to back off. No word yet on what kind of reinforcements they might get…I can't imagine they'll be able to prolong this siege for long, not when it's completely unauthorized."

"They're going to try to strike again," Salmandmon muttered. "I just know it. We need to make sure they don't get any further than they did before. Did you pick up on any casualties?"

"Briefly. Six confirmed dead, seventeen injured badly enough to be forced to withdraw, a small but nonzero number unaccounted for but we didn't pick up on specifics, so that could be more casualties or it could be desertions. From what we were hearing, there were instances of friendly fire, bad reactions to the shocks, and a few broken bones from that tornado, and two deaths from a grenade that blew up when the nearby soldiers were presumably stunned. Naturally, they're trying to claim that every single one was a deliberate malicious incident by one or all of you…even the friendly fire is apparently your fault."

"Figures," grumbled Datacarnomon. "Making sure no one can question the narrative, and they all push again the next time with no doubts."

"Still more than I'd hoped for," sighed Salmandmon. "But given how chaotic it was out there, I don't think it was realistic to expect it to be totally clean…we're lucky the numbers were that small, if we'd had to break out our real power it would have been so much worse. But if they keep coming, that's going to be more chances for danger for them as well, and more chances for them to spin it poorly. We need something to put a stop to this, period."

"You don't think them seeing a whole invading force will get them to think twice?"

"Maybe it will, but do you really want to take that chance? Agent Katran, have you had any luck getting in touch with anyone higher up? This commander woman they keep talking about, maybe?"

Elliot shook his head. "We've made efforts, but no success. Getting to her directly is impossible, but I was hoping to be able to contact someone who could get word to her…but there's a total lockdown on communications right now. We're cut off from internet access and phone lines…no doubt Wheeler and his crew wanted to make sure we couldn't call out. Trying to send someone out of the city would be almost as good as murdering them, they aren't going to let anyone past they think might be trying to stop them. A campaign like this can't go unnoticed, but I don't know how quickly someone will be able to act."

Salmandmon nodded, his brow furrowed. "Of course they wouldn't want to make this easy. We can't wait and hope, either…we need a plan that we can enact on our own to try to get through to people, to the soldiers on the ground out there, since the people heading them are lost causes."

"Maybe this should be our job," suggested Elias. "You guys are so busy actually fighting out there, we're sitting in here just trying to hold down the fort…we've gotta be able to do something more than just that."

"I don't think we should be putting you guys in more danger," Datacarnomon replied. "Bad enough they're hunting for us, they're also condemning you just for being around us. It's not fair to you the way you're being treated already, I don't want to make it worse by giving them more reason to target you."

"…No. You're wrong, Data." The robot looked over at Salmandmon, who had a firm yet pensive look on his face. "I think it's a good idea…in fact, I wish we'd thought of it before, because it makes more sense than anything else. Why is this something we think we can do better than they can? They've lived in the human world all their lives, we've been here for a few weeks at best. And that time hasn't been getting a deep knowledge and understanding of humankind and the culture, it's been mostly fighting against invaders…what little we know is what we've gleaned from our partners. If there's an idea to be had to convince them to act more reasonably, it's not going to come from people who barely understand humans, it's going to come from those who are much more familiar with them."

"…I'm not going to pretend I always understand them, either, even in spite of living around them for decades," admitted Elliot. "But I have to think I understand them better than you do, as you said, and there are others here who understand them even better than I do. We'll have to try to get some people together to see if we can come up with something…with more minds working on it, we'll probably be able to get a few ideas together. Whether they'll work is another story, but it's worth trying."

The lizard nodded. "Right. We'll be the ones to hold down the fort in the meantime. Maybe we'll be lucky and it won't come to it, but I'm not in any hurry to trust luck these days, for far too many reasons."

Elias rubbed his head. "Man…you know, when I first heard them talking about monsters, I had all sortsa ideas about what that was supposed to mean. All came back around to those old monster movies I used to watch as a kid. But it ain't at all like that here…you guys are actually just…people who look different from us. You'd think that'd give some of them some pause when they talk about just…shooting you like you're trophy animals or something."

"They're actually talking like that?" Datacarnomon asked, somewhat uncomfortably.

The dark-skinned human nodded grimly. "Some of 'em have been talking about taking pictures, even. That was part of what got me bailing in the first place…I couldn't stomach the idea of that, it was just so full of nastiness. And the way they talked about you and thought about you…it hit a little closer to home than I would've liked."

"Some people really just want to latch onto an acceptable target," Elliot said quietly. "Not that I've been totally innocent of that myself…"

"You at least had the excuse of seeing our worst examples much more prominently first," Salmandmon said gently. "And we didn't do the best job of trying to clear things up, either. Emil only figured it out because of a lot of circumstances coming together the right way, and honestly, I wouldn't have blamed anyone for being skeptical of that. I put the blame partly on Emperius for that, too - if we'd had the time to actually put together a proper warning, maybe you would've gotten the idea a lot faster, but we didn't get the chance, and they got to set the first impression. But then we were too nervous to try to get out of the shadows…especially because of what we were doing to actually fight against it. Other elements aside, it was a pretty flawed battle plan on our part, and we didn't do enough to try to rework the problems with it."

"Given the story you've told about what precipitated all this, I could hardly judge you that harshly for not knowing what to do every step of the way," remarked Elliot.

"That may be so, but tactics need to evolve, too, and ours didn't do that well enough. As Zetta Unit's commander, that falls on me."

"Willingly citing your position to someone?" Datacarnomon couldn't help but snicker a bit. "Not sure when's the last time I heard THAT."

Salmandmon rolled his eyes. "Well, since a certain someone won't accept the mantle himself, I have to endure it as long as I need to. And if I'm going to do that, I'd better do a better job at it than what I have been here."

"I think that's a sentiment I can relate to," Elliot agreed. "We'll get some people together and work on something. Elias, much as I get the sense that you weren't…attached to the folks in that unit, you probably know them better than any of us, so I'd value your input as we try to figure out our approach."

"Anything I can do, though I don't know how much help I'll be," stated Elias. "Don't have a lot of good things to say about them, but maybe the bad stuff can be helpful in its own way."

"Believe me, sometimes the bad can be the most important info. Come on, let's get a move on." Both humans stood and headed off, while Salmandmon wandered off in a different direction, looking contemplative. Data stayed where he was at the moment, staring after the lizard. There's a reason I don't accept it, Sal…and you showed exactly why. You understood better how to approach things, exposed a flaw in my own reasoning, and communicated with them far better than I ever could, no matter how much I've got the basic facts down. One of these days, you're going to have to understand why you're the leader of us…and why no one else CAN do it like you can. With a near-silent sigh, he got up and went off to check up on Commandramon. Then again, I suppose it's been four years, what's a little while longer? So long as you do what you do, it'll be fine either way…

—

"It's honestly insane, I have no idea how you managed it."

"I'd tell you, but I'm not sure I really know how either." Skylar shrugged a little bit. "I did help myself a bit by taking advantage of some principles behind tornado formation, but I wasn't expecting it to work as well as it did. I guess the several hours of effort I was allowed paid off."

"Maaaaan…" Reyn shook his head. "I'm still struggling with more than just super-basic fireballs."

"Perhaps part of the issue is that wind is native in the environment, fireballs are not. I don't have to spend as much energy generating the material, leaving more to actually do the manipetulamentations."

"...Huh?"

Skylar rolled his eyes. "Come on, Reyn, don't make me repeat myself. I just said that because I don't actually have to create the air and wind, I can spend more energy on the manipulations."

"Oh…sorry, I…I thought I heard, uh, something…different there."

"What could you have possibly heard that was different?"

"Never mind. No need to get testy."

"Glad to see YOU two are enjoying yourselves," groused Isaac from the next chair over. "Must be fun getting to actually do stuff outside of being merged…"

"Your presence was not made a requirement if you don't want to listen in," Skylar replied unsympathetically.

"Where else am I gonna go? Like hell I want to listen to them talk about how many people got killed in that foolishness out there, and Iris and Derek are having a moment."

"Well, maybe their moment will be all the better for you being there."

"Skylar, remember what we've talked about?" admonished Reyn. "This is something where they shouldn't be interrupted by anyone unless it's actively an emergency."

Skylar cocked his head a bit. "Is it? What are they talking about that's so important?"

"Personal stuff. Don't barge in, it's not something you need to be part of." Reyn looked over at Isaac. "And you, Isaac, I'm sorry that things haven't manifested for you the way they have for us, but we can't just NOT talk about it, this is kind of important."

"I know, I know," Isaac grumbled. "Just can't help but feel a bit left out."

"You'll be fine!" Breezedramon very suddenly swooped in and landed on Isaac's shoulders without warning.

"Gah! What the hell're you doing?!"

"I just landed on you! Chill out, it's not a big deal!"

"Breezedramon, I don't think you're supposed to use people as perches without their permission," remarked Reyn.

"I'm willing to make an exception for him," countered Skylar with a hint of a smirk. "Better that than all the bouncing off the walls he's been doing."

"Hey, I only hit two walls!" Breezedramon stated indignantly.

"That's supposed to be a defense?" Isaac asked dubiously.

"Anyway, you'll be fine, Isaac! You and Data'll come up with something to make for yourself that'll do just fine for you! I know Data'll figure out something you can do with what you all are doing, he's super smart about that sort of stuff!"

Isaac frowned. "I'm not sure it's that easy, bud. We've talked about that before, but I don't interface with that kind of digital stuff like Data or Andrexmon can. I might be able to make some weapons or gadgets, but that's not the same thing as having that kind of access as part of ME. Weapons and gadgets can be gone from you in an instant."

"But you can make better stuff! Stuff that won't be gone until TWO instantses!"

"I think we need to be looking at something more reliable than THAT. Emperius isn't going to stop after two."

Breezedramon wasn't deterred by this. "Well, I know Data'll think of something! And you will too! I mean, you guys came up with that water module thing, that was super cool! So don't get down, you'll be on everyone else's level before you know it!"

"…Well, maybe. But I sure wish we were coming up with it faster, the way things have been going."

"You definitely seem out of sorts," observed Reyn. "Don't think I've heard you doubt yourself this much before."

"You think he's different from usual?" questioned Skylar.

"I just don't like feeling like I'm falling behind," Isaac insisted. "Especially when it's something that's pretty important. We haven't had like any time to actually work on anything since we found out about this, which was literally yesterday. And somehow I don't think Emperius is gonna hear about this and say 'oh, that's fine, we'll wait for you.'"

"You shouldn't be trying to take on Emperius directly with that stuff yet anyway!" exclaimed Breezedramon. "None of you guys is ready for that! They're a heck of a lot hardier than humans are! That's something you wanna still leave to us, in a 'we'll symbiotismatize with you to blow them to bits' way."

"Trust me, I'm not thinking about trying to turn my piddly little fireballs on a digimon any time soon," agreed Reyn. "It's gonna be the same thing for all of us, I think, we do what we can in what time we have, however much that is."

Just as Skylar was about to respond, a loud buzz rang through the room - a warning signal from Rudy. In an instant everyone was on alert. "Well, crud…speaking of not having time…" Skylar muttered.

"They're here…" Reyn balled his hands into fists. "Let's go. I don't want to give them even a moment more to prepare than what they're gonna have."

There wasn't any dispute throughout the entire group, as they hurried towards the door. The mess of the day was a long ways from over…

---

Good lord, did the original version of this make me cringe on a reread. Even considering that the original was less heavy, this was jarringly out of tone. This needed to be a whole lot more serious, and I made it a whole lot more serious. I also made it a whole lot more in general, but that's pretty much par for the course.

Yes, the jet section is very blatantly Ace Combat. No, I'm not sorry.

The parts that make me really glad I went the remaster route are the parts where I can set things up that, in the original, were really out of nowhere because I didn't think of them early on. Salmandmon's fungal phobia is a good example of this - it existed as an extremely minor device of convenience in the original work, now it has a whole lot more build-up AND more relevance.

The Sykes duel was somewhat of an excuse to give Wolf something more useful to do, because he's kind of an afterthought in the original version of this chapter. But I'm glad it happened, because it shows some key things that have relevance in both the short and the long term.