Been a while since we worked on this.
But, yeah, we're finally back.
And I think you all know what this chapter is going to be.
Enjoy!
The Synthetic Evil Beast! Chimeramon Rises!
"Alright, all supplies ready?" Gyro checked.
Weiss quickly went over a checklist, and confirmed each one. "Yes, that's everything," she confirmed.
"We already double checked the RV top to bottom," Lopmon added from where he was standing on a nearby desk. "No abnormalities."
"The new system is working too," Ruby added.
"Looks like we're good to go anytime then," Agumon nodded.
"We should probably hurry up then." Veemon said with a frown.
"That last transmission we got… really didn't like the sound of it." Pierce added in concern.
Just a few hours ago, the Resistance Members that were stationed as spies, keeping tabs on Nero's base for them, sent out a message, one that had set them off in worry as to what exactly they heard.
"You need to hurry! He's-!" and the signal cut off before they got anything else.
Even Rei wasn't able to get any kind of visual, as it seemed Nero had set up a scrambler of some kind to prevent anybody from being able to watch what he was doing.
That was why they were going to head there personally to get a look themselves.
"Alright, everyone clear on the plan?" Jaune checked.
"Yeah, we'll keep an eye on things from this end. Hopefully nothing happens, or if it does, nothing we can't handle, but if worst come to worst, you can get back in a hurry," Oscar nodded, referring to himself and the other Non-Crest Wielders.
"Sorry to dump this on all of you, but with what Nero's been up to, we just can't keep jumping between worlds. That little lag can give Nero more time which at this point would be bad for us to give him," Salamon said apologetically.
"It's fine. You all have your own responsibilities to deal with," Norn smiled.
The group nodded at that. "Alright then, we'll be on our way," Pyrrha said as the Chosen boarded the RV, and with a few preparations done, a Digital Gate appeared before the RV which soon drove into it, sending them into the Digital World.
The RV exited through the portal into the Digital World, right next to one of the TV screens located near Nero's base.
"How's our reception so far?" Yang asked, leaning out one of the windows at the front.
"Pretty good surprisingly." Oren said "I'd honestly thought we'd be getting jammed already, but…"
"Something's not adding up then." Ren said "Rei's surveillance didn't work from at least this far back from the base."
"Well that's weird." Nora frowned "Think he's just blocking video signals or something?"
"Doubt it. If he'd already bothered with jamming, why would he stop at just video signals?" Oren frowned.
"For now let's move with caution," Gyro frowned. "Activating the cloaking mode," he said, hitting a few switches as a field expanded around the RV, and it seemingly turned invisible to everyone outside.
"I've already got the coordinates ready," Weiss said.
"Let's see what Nero has done THIS time," Tentomon frowned.
With that in agreement, the RV soon made its way towards the destination. They soon went around the foot of the mountain where they'd last seen the base. However, while they found a few Dark Towers still, they soon saw something…very wrong.
"...there's a giant hole…where the base used to be," Biyomon said blankly, voicing their general thoughts.
"Did he move his entire base or something?" Yang asked incredulously…before she paused. "Right. Digital World. Why are we surprised?"
"Probably because we only just found out now." Blake sighed "Now we just need to figure out HOW he moved it."
"That trail of Dark Towers might be a clue to where he went," Nora pointed out, as true enough…there were several Dark Towers that were positioned…like a trail.
"...if this isn't secretly a trap, then this guy must be having a power high with whatever new toy he's put together," Terriermon deadpanned.
"Right… well, before we go, let's set up a little something." Gyro said, before pulling out his scroll and calling up one his contacts "Hey Rei? Since Nero's blocking you out, think you could keep tabs on Cinder for us? We'll still pay you, so you don't need to worry there… right, thanks man." he said, before soon hanging up "There, that's taken care of at least."
"Good call there. At least this way we're still gonna get our money's worth." Ruby nodded in approval.
"And we can be sure of how far Cinder is from Mistral itself." Palmon added.
"Gutting her the moment she gets here." Gabumon muttered, crossing his arms.
"Because she's annoying or because she killed me originally?" Pyrrha asked him knowingly.
"Both." he responded.
"Eh, fair enough. Let's just make sure she STAYS dead. I swear, the writers were simping for her with how much plot armor she had," Pierce shrugged at the last bit.
"So we should probably remove the head too just to be safe then?" Jaune said plainly. He didn't like Cinder anymore than Gabumon did for the same reasons.
"Definitely," Gyro and Pierce nodded.
"Okay, Cinder's inevitable murder aside, let's focus on finding Nero first. He's an actual threat right now," Ren said, wanting everyone to focus on the immediate issue at hand.
"Right. First things first, we should probably try and see if we can at least guess what he's doing right now," Palmon frowned.
"We're following a trail of Dark Towers, so he's definitely been making a lot. Question is how he's deploying them," Rusty frowned.
"I don't see any tracks either…could he be in the air?" Hawkmon mused.
"So he could have made some kind of aerial base? Wouldn't put it past him…" Oren frowned. "Actually its highly likely…"
"...let me guess, you had plans for an aerial base yourself, didn't you?" Weiss said a bit dryly.
"They were only ever in design phase, but yes," Oren sighed.
"Doubt only having basic designs would stop Nero from putting together another knockoff," Terriermon frowned.
"Huh…now that you mention it…he does seem good at taking designs from others then modifying them to his own design. That…could be problematic if we're not careful," Ruby frowned, already imagining how annoying it'd be if they had to face knockoffs of their weapons or equipment.
"Yeah… but I doubt he'd actually copy our equipment. He'd probably consider it beneath him or some BS like that." Emerald said with a roll of her eyes "I know his type. Stole from them a lot, they all think like that."
"Guess that's one less thing to worry about," Morphomon chuckled.
"Either way, we should hurry along, see if we can't catch up to him." Wormmon suggested.
"Right," everyone nodded as they continued on the trail. The trail led them out of the rocky area, and eventually went into a grassland area, the trail of Dark Towers remaining until they eventually found something.
"Hey…what's that in the sky?" Agumon said, to which Gyro put on his goggles and tried to focus on whatever Agumon had seen.
"It's…something. But I honestly am not fully sure what it is," Gyro blinked.
"Can you try to describe it?" Pierce asked.
"It's like… I guess an egg but it's missing a quarter of it." he said, not thinking of any other way to describe the shape of what he saw.
There was a pause at that. "Okay…I don't think I want to know what he was thinking when he picked a design like that," Lopmon sweatdropped.
"Whatever he was thinking, that thing is dropping more Dark Towers, so we've definitely found him," Gyro frowned.
"So, should we just strike at him right now?" Bemmon asked.
"Probably not so brazenly." Jaune said with a wince.
"We'll want to try and sneak onto his base. For now we should probably follow him and stay cloaked, watch what he does and wait for a good moment." Ruby suggested.
"Right. We'll want to know what that fortress can do too," Gomamon nodded.
"Beyond dropping Dark Towers all over the place that is," Aile snickered a little.
"So it's a horse that's walking along then." Terriermon snickered, before being slapped over the head by his brother.
"He's not wrong though," Hawkmon snorted.
"Jokes aside, that's still our best bet. Though I think we can all agree that if that thing starts attacking a town or village…we're going in, yeah?" Blake said, earning nods of agreement from everyone around.
The RV continued to follow after the floating base, seemingly just floating forward with no real goal. They continued to follow it for a whole day and night, the group regularly rotating who was at the wheel…even if it wasn't exactly hard to follow something that was going mostly straight, and before long, finally something changed, namely something that started to come into view in the distance.
"That's…!" Emerald, who was part of the current driving shift immediately hit the alarm so that everyone would gather. "The fortress is headed straight for a city up ahead. Looks like he's going to finally make his move!" she said quickly.
"Let's see what he's been creating then," Oren frowned as everyone quickly got their equipment together, ready to move at a moment's notice.
Meanwhile, inside of the fortress…
"All systems are working normally," the woman in red smirked.
"We can rain hell on these sorry saps anytime Boss," the man in blue laughed as both of them were working on consoles, while Nero was sitting on a main control system that naturally looked like a throne, slouching a bit as he looked at the images of the city ahead of them.
"Oh they'll witness hell alright," Nero smirked, before typing a few commands.
"Deploying it already?" the woman blinked in surprise.
"Of course. If it can't even destroy a single city then I wasted my time," Nero smirked before finishing the command.
In a different section of the fortress, several lights came on, as a platform moved something large… and definitely alive. As the platform rose, a hatch at the top of the base opened as the creature emerged and shot up into the air. The beast was appearing as a blur as it moved, but soon stopped, revealing the creature.
Its appearance was… like a kitbash of various parts. The torso and lower jaw of Greymon, the back legs of Garurumon, the tail of Monochromon, four arms, two of which belonged to Devimon, one to SkullGreymon, and the other to Kuwagamon, two pairs of wings, one from Angemon and one from Airdramon, and finally, the helmet of Kabuterimon, with holes on the side to reveal yellow eyes with slit pupils, a tuft of red hair on the back of his neck, likely for flair.
Nero laughed, looking at his creation through the screens in his base. "Go forth and destroy them! Chimeramon!" he laughed as the abomination he'd created descended on the city and wasted no time in wreaking havoc.
Digimon Analyzer(?): Chimeramon
Chimeramon. Data Type. A Perfect Level Composite Digimon. My ultimate creation! Chimeramon is the fusion of data from various Digimon, giving him all the strengths with absolutely no weaknesses. With him at the head of my forces, nothing can stop me anymore! His special attacks are Heat Viper, which lets him generate heat rays from both his mouth and hands, and Hybrid Arms, a rapid attack from all four of his arms.
Chimeramon roared as it smashed right through a building causing it to topple over, the Digimon of the city running in fear both from the sudden attack and at the sight of the abomination suddenly terrorizing their home. The local defense tried to fight back, several fliers tried to fight back, but their attacks barely even scratched the armor on the head of Chimeramon, before it countered with Heat Viper, the attack hitting them dead on and utterly destroying them in a single hit. The ground defenses did what they could, but once again, no effect when they aimed for the armored parts, while shots aimed for the seemingly unprotected parts…no effect as Chimeramon moved quickly, easily evading all the attacks before closing in and one Hybrid Arms later, the defenses were destroyed.
Needless to say, the city was completely caught off guard, and what defenses it could mount in a hurry…they were utterly useless against this new creation of Nero's. A city that must have taken a few years minimum to build…was quickly decimated in just a few minutes.
The Chosen were watching in shock and horror from the RV. "What the hell did that maniac create?!" Emerald gasped. That thing made some of the things Salem cooked up look tame in comparison.
"Somehow he made an unholy matrimony of playing frankenstein, and making a living weapon," Oren growled, fist clenched in anger at the sight of that mockery of life that was now tearing apart the city. "We have to stop that thing. Now!"
"Agreed! Let's go everyone!" Gyro said in a hurry.
"We'll keep manning the RV." Pierce said to Emerald, earning a nod from her as she relinquished the seat to him, letting him sit down as she and everyone else ran out to go and fight that monster of a Digimon.
Nobody hesitated and as they were on the way, everyone triggered their Armor Evolutions, the group racing as fast as they could to the city, and as soon as they were in range…they opened fire on the monster Nero had created.
"Well now, it seems the main event has finally arrived," Nero smirked from his fortress as the cameras shifted focus and looked at the Chosen, their attacks having managed to draw Chimeramon's attention.
Chimeramon growled slightly. The bullets that hit hadn't actually done any damage, but it was still an annoyance. Anything that annoyed it and/or got in the way of its orders would be destroyed! With that in mind, it turned to face the Chosen and without so much as a warning, it fired a Heat Viper at them.
"Scatter!" Gyro ordered as everyone quickly evaded, the ground they had been on burning up from the attack. "Find an opening but keep moving! And maintain distance!"
"Easier said than done, but we'll do what we can!" Vanguamon shouted as he and Rusty started peppering Chimeramon with shots, but the attacks didn't seem to be doing any real damage to the thing.
"Go for the joints! That might give us some results!" Weiss shouted as ForceBeemon used his Drill Missile to try to break through the skin but so far no results.
In response to her suggestion, Konohamon and Ruby went for the joints, trying to see if they could cause any damage, but they only had a few tries before they had to immediately get some distance lest they get crushed by the large arms of Chimeramon. "Joints don't seem to be all that much weaker!" both of them shouted.
"There HAS to be a weakness here!" Pyrrha frowned as Raimon shot forward with a Shock Crash, the same time as KajiGreymon shot forward with his own Fire Missile. Both attacks hit with full force, pushing Chimeramon back a little…before both lost momentum and were immediately knocked back. Fortunately Robinmon acted quickly and used the wind to slow their fall and allow them to land on their feet.
"If there is…I'm having a hard time seeing it," Jaune gulped a bit.
As the fight was going on, Pierce watched with grit teeth, gripping the steering tightly "Dammit… I feel so useless right now. They're all out there fighting, but because of all the Dark Towers Nero is carrying with him, we can't even help out." he said in frustration.
"If only we could just find our own Digimental!" Veemon added "Where could Yggdrasil have even hidden it?"
"Honestly tempted to suggest we try finding it immediately after this," Pierce said as he and his partner were forced to continue to watch their friends fight this abomination.
Back at the fight, Chimeramon was angrily firing off Heat Vipers at the group, who had to resort to using the remaining buildings as either cover or as platforms to help them get out of the way of the attacks, which further destroyed the area each time it hit.
"Okay, this is getting us nowhere! Let's try an all out attack on one point!" Gyro shouted.
"Great idea, but where should we aim?!" Aile shouted in response.
Oren on Speedermon was flying around the beast, looking at it from every angle he could to try and see if he could see ANY possible weaknesses. "Try the stomach!" he shouted, seeing as the main body was that of a Greymon. Strong sure, but not quite as armored as more advanced forms.
"I hate the part where we might as well be throwing darts to pick a spot," Nefertimon groaned.
"Hey, at least we have somewhere to aim for!" Nora said as everyone did their best to try and maneuver around the wild swings and blasts from Chimeramon, the shockwaves from some of the Heat Vipers threatening to throw them off balance. Fortunately the time they'd spent facing various enemies and of course their regular training allowed them to maintain control as they continued to get into position.
"Hold still!" Konohamon shouted, using her powers to create several vines which wrapped around Chimeramon's legs and two of its arms. Even if she didn't think it would hold Chimeramon for long, it should be enough to keep it still even if just a little. That small opening allowed everyone to get into position and begin charging up their attacks.
"Let them have it!" Jaune shouted as everyone who could opened fire. The attacks all hit, explosions wracking Chimeramon's body as it was briefly obscured in the smoke, before the force actually managed to push it back, smashing into a nearby building, causing it to fall apart and briefly bury Chimeramon.
"Please tell me that worked." Blake said, staring at the rubble intently while smoke still filled the air.
"Whatever you do, don't approach to check. For all we know he's just badly hurt and can still fight." Gyro said with a frown, not willing to take any risks.
At the same time, in the fortress, the man and woman were glaring at the image. "I can't believe they managed to do that to Chimeramon," the woman growled.
"But its gonna take a lot more than that to take it down, isn't that right boss?" the man said, turning to Nero with a grin.
"Of course," Nero chuckled, though he frowned a little. "Still…perhaps a small adjustment to our tactics may be in order," he said, noting how while the typical rabble couldn't do anything to stop Chimeramon, once again the Chosen proved to be…problematic.
Speaking of Chimeramon, the monster had managed to break free of the rubble, but the crash had at least dealt some damage, evident by the scratches and injuries on its body…even if it seemed most of those were superficial at best.
"Of course he made this thing stupidly tough." Ruby said in annoyance.
"What even is it anyway?" Yang wondered, before snapping her hand out when it started to rise, causing the vines Konohamon had used earlier to spring back to life and catch it again, now looking far more healthy than before, and stronger as well as they managed to hold him down for now.
"Give it a minute, he's probably going to come out and gloat over us about it." Weiss said in deadpan.
"Yeah, sounds about right." Aile said with a sigh.
"Well now," came Nero's voice, as the group turned to the fortress and his voice was echoing as a holographic screen with his face appeared in the air. "I'm impressed. To think you'd actually manage to hold out so long against Chimeramon. Against my Masterpiece," he smirked.
"You need a better artistic sense if you think THAT is a Masterpiece!" Speedermon T shot back.
Nero frowned at that. "As if rabble like yourselves could comprehend my genius!" he glared at them.
"Hey, you sure he's your brother and not secretly Watts's illegitimate kid?" Emerald whispered to Oren who happened to be nearby.
"I'd actually feel happier if that were the case," Oren grumbled. The similarities in personality were sure there.
"Some genius you are. You're wasting your time on stuff like taking over the world like some cartoon villain," KajiGreymon shot back.
Nero's glare hardened at that. "Be glad that I've already achieved my objective for now. Next time you won't be so lucky," he glared before sending a signal to which Chimeramon, who had been struggling all this time, finally broke free of the vines and roots, before he flew back to the fortress and landed on the roof as the fortress turned to leave, leaving the ruined city behind.
Normally they would have pursued, but the reality was that the recent fight had been a stalemate. This…would require some further planning.
"Chimeramon really went nuts huh?" Rusty said with a frown as they'd moved the RV into town and were helping with relief efforts after Chimeramon's attack.
"Nero didn't even bother with any Dark Rings this time. He really just wanted to terrorise these poor mon." Jaune said with an angered look "We need to figure out a plan to stop that monster of his next time we see it."
"We will. Just gotta take everything into account, yeah?" Gomamon said to his partner, earning a nod.
"First things first, we'll need to warn everyone about it too," Gabumon frowned.
"Not to mention need to learn more about that thing," Tentomon added. "It was way stronger than anything Nero's thrown at us so far, but not the worst thing we've ever faced…"
"Well, considering how he made it by using parts of other Digimon, our best bet would be looking at possible weaknesses for those Digimon." Weiss said "It's a good thing we have the Analyzer and he doesn't."
"So there's a start at least. I guess we should also work on calculating where it would fall on the level scale. It might not be an EXACT science, but at least that should give us some idea on what to expect," Ren frowned.
"Based on what we saw, outside of the lower right arm and the uh…hair…all the components seem to be from Adult level Digimon," Pyrrha mused.
"So it's highly unlikely that Chimeramon is a full on Ultimate," Oren mused.
"Sure hit way too hard to be a normal Perfect though," Lopmon frowned.
"So we're running on the logic that it's probably somewhere between Perfect and Ultimate then?" Agumon guessed.
"Probably our safest bet…which is a problem since our Armor Evolutions are more to the level of Perfects, so THAT wall is there and we can't just go to a higher level to counter it," Gyro frowned.
"And some of us don't even have that option," Pierce grumbled a bit.
Yang put a hand on his shoulder "Hey, don't worry big guy. Even without a Digimental I'm sure there's something you can do to help." she told him reassuringly.
"Yeah, and even then, I'm sure we'll find yours too, then we'll have one more bullet in that chamber." Biyomon added with a sage nod.
"Here's hoping the Digimental of Miracles is overkill then." Nora chuckled.
"It totally will be! I'm sure of it!" Veemon declared in clear eagerness "We're gonna find it, and then we're gonna use it to kick Chimeramon's butt!"
Pierce smiled a bit at all the enthusiasm going around him, letting out a sigh "Well, guess that just means we'll work extra hard until we do find it then!" he said, before running off into the ruined town to help out, Veemon right behind him.
The others watched, smiling a bit at the renewed mood. "He's right. We've got a lot of work ahead of us," Ren chuckled.
"But we're definitely gonna do it and beat Nero. We're gonna save the Digital World again AND Remnant," Nora grinned.
"No doubts there," Blake nodded as the group soon joined Pierce. There would be much to do, but they would do it together.
And there!
Yeah, Chimeramon makes his debut, as you all guessed correctly in the last chapter.
Also, Nero was the one doing the Analyzer, because we felt it would be fitting in this case.
Either way, hope you all enjoyed the chapter, because...
The Adventure Evolves