And we're back with another chapter of Pierce and Veemon's adventures in an MMO.
I also came up with some fun ideas while writing this that will come up in the next chapter, so hope you'll be anticipating those.
For now, enjoy.
Miracle Quest - Part 3
"Ugh… I hate this floor." Pierce said one morning while eating some… rather bland tasting cereal.
"Tell me about it." Veemon said while munching on toast that was equally bland.
"Yeah, Floor 20's a pain." Annette admitted with a sigh.
The reason all of them were in such a mood?
Floor 20 was a whole open world floor the size of Breath of the Wild's Hyrule, but on a realistic scale.
They'd been on this single floor for a week already, now being in the game a total of 27 days, nearly a whole month.
They knew WHERE the floor's boss was, but reaching it was going to take a while, since they had to reach waypoints to at least mark their progress that they could then warp back to on the next day as they kept going between the wilds and the city.
"Plus it's not JUST the boss we have to reach but the Digimental Temple too." Pierce said with a sigh as he finished his bowl "Since Floor 20 is built like Puppetmon's area, it's probably gonna be a forest temple of some kind."
"At least this isn't MetalSeadramon's area." Veemon snorted "Then we'd probably get one of the Water Temples."
"If we had to face one of those right now I'd literally try and see if we can't hack the game somehow and tear it apart," Pierce deadpanned.
"Please don't. I'm worried you might crash the game…and us with it," Annette sweat dropped.
"Fair enough," Pierce sighed. "So how much further before we get to the Digimental Temple?"
"Well…if the maps are accurate…and at the pace we've been going…two more days I'd say," Annette sighed.
"Great…" Pierce and Veemon groaned.
"Which one even is it?" Veemon asked with a sigh.
"Love and Purity this time. The evolutions they SHOULD give you are Sethmon and Yaksamon." Annette answered.
Pierce hummed at that, opening up his analyzer… before he frowned "Wait, but those barely even look like they're Veemon… and while Sethmon's helmet looks like the Digimental of Love… the fuck do you mean it goes from love to hatred?!"
Annette laughed awkwardly "Yeah… let's just say the design team only cared about the Armor Evolutions that showed up in the anime, which were Veemon with Courage, Friendship and Miracles, Hawkmon with Love and Purity, Armadimon with Knowledge and Reliability, Patamon with Hope, and Gatomon with Light."
Veemon leaned over, looking at the Analyzer entries, before frowning "Let's hope I get actual forms all to myself I guess, because I really don't see how those can work. I mean, Love should give me actual wings to fly with after all."
"Well…yeah. Let's just say the writers didn't always care about making sense…or following lore. Would you believe me if I said someone thought it would be a good idea to have like three VenomMyotismons in one scene and treat them like mooks?" Annette sweatdropped.
"How bad are we talking?" Pierce asked a bit dryly.
"They were mowed down pretty easily after they got grouped up together by a single attack." she answered flatly. "And before you ask, it wasn't a Super Ultimate, it was just a regular Ultimate using a Mode Change."
Oh sure, she knew there was the OTHER Myotismon evolution, but she knew if she told Pierce about that one, things could get worse for him since it was clear he hadn't encountered it yet in his world.
Pierce facepalmed at that. "I'm gonna assume that one was…very mixed in reception?"
"Pretty much yeah. I honestly thought they were gonna try to reboot the series what with the season after that," Annette sweat dropped. "Doesn't help the dub only did HALF of that season and then just… ignored a lot of the other stuff."
"Oookay, that's interesting in a strange way," Veemon sweat dropped. "Kind of surprised we jumped into a rabbit hole over me hoping to get forms that actually you know…look like me."
"Digimon media is a rabbit hole in and of itself with the stories they've told over the years and I'm not just talking Anime," Annette chuckled awkwardly. "So…before we jump into another one by accident…the Digimental Temple?"
"Right. We need to get those first…worry about what comes from them later," Pierce agreed.
"Though if I actually get a form that's powered by hate, I'm throwing the Digimental at Akiyoshi first chance I get," Veemon added.
An hour later, the three of them were heading for the next waypoint, riding on Lighdramon's back to make things faster.
"At least this way we don't have to camp out at night." Pierce sighed as his partner ran as fast as he could with two people on his back.
"Plus each time we activate a waypoint, everyone ELSE can warp up to it as well." Annette said, opening up a map "The other players have been going around mapping out the floor in full to clear out the 'fog' so to speak."
"But nobody's reached the temple or the floor boss yet." Lighdramon said in a bit of annoyance as he leaped across a gorge rather easily.
"Nope, that's obviously going to be on us." Annette sighed "Oh, wait, stop here a second. I see a Gottsumon, just need one more scan of it to finally get my own."
"Why Gottsumon?" Pierce asked, even as Lighdramon skid to a halt, before turning off to where he could see a Gottsumon.
"Because I'm still holding onto that Digimental in my inventory, and using the Friendship one on a Gottsumon turns it into Thunderbirmon. It's dumb, but, hey, it means we'd get a flying option at least." she said with a shrug.
"That WOULD be helpful actually." Lighdramon admitted, soon stopping near the Gottsumon, which DID aggro it, but Annette just held out her digivice, scanning it and finally getting a full scan, before he fired off a single bolt at it and deleted it.
"Alright, go ahead then." Pierce said as they hopped off his partner while Annette held out her Digivice, creating an egg the size of a human child, which hatched a moment later, leaving a Gottsumon in its place.
"And now for the good part." she said with a grin, opening up her inventory and pulling the Digimental out of it, before she applied it to Gottsumon, and one small lightshow later, a large Thunderbirmon stood in front of them, spreading its wings wide with a short screech before it went into its idle animation "And… yes! Thunderbirmon IS a rideable Digimon that can carry at least three people."
"So you can't ride on every Digimon then?" Lighdramon asked curiously.
"No, even though this is a full dive MMO, we've still got some video game limitations, annoyingly enough." she said with a sigh. "Just be glad there aren't any mandatory underwater areas as far as we know. There really aren't many Digimon that can take us underwater…WITHOUT drowning us in the process."
"Whamon could, and Gomamon's own armor evolution is huge and can carry a few people inside of him." Pierce said thoughtfully.
"The one in the show, Submarimon, was a single seater." Annette said with an awkward laugh. "And Whamon could bring people down…but according to the game specs being carried around Monstro style doesn't count as 'riding' apparently."
"What about KingWhamon?" Lighdramon asked as Annette loaded Thunderbirmon into her Digivice for now "I mean, he can make a huge coating bubble to cover the island he carries around."
Annette paused at that "Coating bubble?"
"One Piece." Pierce answered simply.
Annette blinked several times at that "That… holy shit… so it's like you guys have a massive, mobile Sabaody in your world." she said in shock "But, I don't think we have KingWhamon in this game no… I mean, from what I've managed to figure out, the game doesn't even have Veemon in the roster of available Digimon."
"Huh… wonder why that is?" Pierce mused while his partner blinked in confusion.
"No clue. Probably something Akiyoshi decided on his own." Annette said with a sigh.
Before any of them could say anything else, Pierce and Annette both blinked as a window appeared in their vision.
"What the- is this spam?" Pierce said in annoyance.
"No, no, I… think this is an event." Annette said, causing Pierce to pause as she tapped the window, reading what was on it to herself "Let's see… The Great Kuramon Roundup."
Pierce and Lighdramon twitched a bit at that "The genocider?"
Annette winced, remembering the story they'd told her about their encounter with Diablomon in their world "Ah, yeah, I guess in your eyes that's what it would be. But, let's see… ok so we need to gather as many of the Kuramon that are going to appear 5 minutes from now as possible. The more we get, the better rewards we obtain, and lower the strength of the raid boss at the end of the event."
"How's that work?" Lighdramon asked.
"The Kuramon will merge together at the end, probably hoping to form-" she suddenly cut herself off, not wanting to mention THAT Digimon, and lucky for her…
"Diablomon." Pierce frowned, having said the name right as she cut herself off, meaning he didn't notice her pause.
"Right, Diablomon," Annette nodded quickly. "If nothing else the Kuramon are literally harmless…at least until they start merging to make stronger forms. Then we have to fight them"
"Well that doesn't sound so bad. Rounding up a few Fresh levels should be easy enough when they show up," Lighdramon shrugged. "Does the message say where we need to be?"
"Hm…seems like its gonna happen in the area we're in right now, and its covering a pretty sizable area," Pierce mused, reading the message.
"Then that probably means…" Annette trailed off, turning to where the last waypoint was, and she could see several flashes of light coming from it, as other players were starting to come over here, riding on their own Digimon "Yeah, we're about to finally interact with other people for once."
"Well that's… going to be awkward." Pierce admitted, scratching his cheek a bit "Can people see my level?"
"Only if you tell them… though they might know about you since each time you beat a floor boss, everyone would get a message that you slayed it." Annette added with a wince.
"Oooh boy." Lighdramon said with a wince of his own.
True enough, with the other players starting to gather in the area, it really wasn't long before some saw them. "Huh, guess someone beat us here," one of the players commented, a male player riding on a Mekanorimon.
"Well, not like we were rushing TOO much ourselves. We only really rushed because of the Raid," another player said, a female player riding on a Peckmon.
"Well, might as well get-huh?" the male player started then abruptly stopped.
"Something wrong?" the female player asked.
In response he got off his Mekanorimon and went over to her. "I want you to slap me as hard as you can."
"Uh…what?" she asked in confusion.
"Just do it," he said…and got what he asked for. However, aside from rubbing his now sore cheek, he just turned to look at Pierce and well…
"I knew it, it IS you! You're that player who's been tearing through all the floor bosses!" he gasped in a very fanboy way.
Pierce laughed awkwardly, looking away "Uh… yeah… that's me I guess…"
However, as it so happened, other players were nearby too and well…
"Wait, seriously? Pierce is here?!"
"It has to be him, who else would be here first? Wait…is that a Lighdramon? I thought the Veemon line wasn't in the game!"
"Must be a super secret Digimon for top tier players like him!"
"Leave me out of this…" Lighdramon muttered, staying in his sitting position, since he knew he had to act like he was just a program right now, otherwise who knew how they'd react… unless they started thinking the Veemon line had a full AI installed into it… actually that might be interesting now that he thought about it.
The increasing number of players was rather overwhelming seeing as they were all crowding the group, and honestly…this was very much a new thing for Pierce so he had no idea how best to react to all this. Fortunately that was a problem for later because at that moment, an alert was given to everyone…right before a tear in the sky opened up…and a FLOOD of white balls which were clearly the Kuramon came through, the little Digimon being effectively dumped all over the area.
"Holy crap that's a lot!" one player shouted.
"What is that, like, several thousands of em?" another added.
"And we only have an hour to round up as many as possible," Pierce said, drawing attention to the timer that had appeared.
There were a few blinks before everyone started scrambling to round up as many of the Kuramon as possible.
"Get Thunderbirmon back out. Try and grab them out of the air since it looks like a lot of them are just going to float around. Lighdramon and I are gonna go for the land route." Pierce told Annette.
"Good call." she said as he mounted his partner and she got her flying mount back out before climbing onto it and making it take off into the air.
"Alright, let's see… looks like the game gives us a net in our inventory to catch them in." Pierce said, checking and having a large butterfly net appear in his hands "That'll be perfect. I don't have to manually do it." he said with a sweatdrop, imagining having to reach out to grab every single one of them.
"That WOULD be pretty tedious," Annette sweat dropped, taking out her own net. With that said they quickly went for the bigger groups of Kuramon, catching as many as they could. Thankfully the Kuramon in the butterfly nets disappeared by themselves, somehow being added to their inventory.
The event soon devolved into a mad dash by everyone present to catch as many Kuramon as possible, making for a rather comedic sight to anyone watching as the various players chased after the little jellyfish-like Digimon all over with overgrown butterfly nets.
Unnoticed by all the players though was one other player standing on a cliff overlooking the event area with a sniper rifle in his hands "Smart of him to set it up where there's a lot less foliage." he muttered to himself, quickly looking through the scope, looking around for someone, until he grinned as he stopped on one "There you are… you're about to make me a pretty penny AND my ticket out of here." he said, as right through the view of his scope, Pierce was visible, still riding on Lighdramon's back.
"Just need to wait for the right moment…" he muttered, a cruel grin on his face. He patiently waited for the perfect opening and pulled the trigger, getting the Critical Hit sign, and winning himself his rewards.
…or that's what he was EXPECTING to happen. What ACTUALLY happened was he pulled the trigger, Pierce's head getting knocked forward a bit, but the guy just rubbed the back of his head as if someone had thrown a stone at him rather than a bullet. The would be assassin's eyes widened and thinking fast he managed to duck out of the way so when Pierce turned to look, he didn't see anyone.
"Huh… guess we kicked up some rocks… thank Oum for Aura." Pierce muttered, looking down at his hand as his Crest flashed "And my luck kicking in I guess." he said, not at all noticing the squished bullet left in the dust behind them as they kept catching Kuramon.
Back with the would be assassin he was busy trying to figure out what the heck just happened. He was SURE he'd scored a critical hit with that shot, and yet Pierce's health bar didn't so much as drop. Well, he wasn't about to give up. He would be getting out of this hell hole and he didn't care how many people he had to trample on or kill to do it.
Maybe… yeah, that could work "Kill the mount, it'll leave him vulnerable, and he won't have time to bring any of his other mons out." he said with a grin, before he quickly moved to another location, setting up his rifle again, searching for Pierce, and this time aiming for his Lighdramon's head "You got a rare Digimon, lucky you, but somebody should have told you that evolving a Digimon into a mount reduces their HP count. You're probably just a stupid rich kid player anyway." he muttered to himself.
He waited for his opening and pulled the trigger, the bullet once again flying and hitting Lighdramon…only for the Digimon to wince, and quickly shaking his head looking less like he'd been shot…and more like he'd just been stung by something annoying. Instinctively he ducked for cover while his brain was processing what just happened. "That…what is going on here?!" he gasped. That shot should have again been a Critical Hit and armor or not, and yet once again it did basically nothing. "Wait…in the first place why WOULD the Dev want one player gone so badly…unless this guy a hacker. Sure would explain how he got this far so quickly and so easily. Guess I gotta up my game if I want to take him out. Now… how do I take out a hacker?" he said, starting to think hard.
Back with Pierce and Lighdramon…
"You good man?" Pierce asked his partner in confusion.
"Yeah, just felt like something nailed me right above the eye, stung for a bit." Lighdramon told him.
"Man we've really got shit luck with rocks today huh?" Pierce sighed.
"Tell me about it." Lighdramon added with a sigh of his own, before jumping up high as Pierce grabbed a large cluster of Kuramon.
The event continued on and everyone was focused on their task at hand. So focused that nobody noticed the boulder that was soon inconspicuously moving to the edge of one of the hills overlooking the area. The would be assassin huffed as he got the boulder into position, and peeked out of it to make sure his calculations were right. "I can't believe I'm doing this, but if bullets don't work maybe THIS will," he snarled as he pushed a bit more, making sure to aim for where a large number of Kuramon were gathering. He saw Pierce as well as a few other players in the area, and with a detached and uncaring look on his face, pushed the boulder, causing it to roll down the hill.
Down the hill, Pierce was listening to another player talk a bit about a game he was looking forward to play once they were out, smiling a bit, before he frowned when he heard the noise, turning his head and seeing the boulder rolling down towards him as some of the players scrambled to get out of the way.
"Yeah no." he said simply, focusing his aura into his leg, and just kicking it right as it reached him and Lighdramon.
And it went flying up into the air like a soccer ball.
The moment that happened the would be assassin felt his brain short circuit, trying and failing to process what he'd just seen, so much so that by the time he did process it…he noticed the boulder was flying back. Right at him. The boulder soon landed with a thud, bare millimeters away from him, leaving him standing ramrod straight…and looking quite…white…seeing as the colors had drained from him. Eventually he processed that no, he had NOT gone squish and if it were physically possible he would have melted into a puddle from relief…though at this point he was pretty sure his real body HAD in fact wet itself.
However, once the relief passed, it gave way to a new emotion. A dangerous mix of indignation and burning humiliation at Pierce evading his attempts so obliviously.
Over with Pierce, he frowned thoughtfully "That doesn't just happen randomly."
"Yeah… think someone tried to off you?" Lighdramon muttered up at him.
"Could be… as for why… either jealousy, or Akiyoshi's paying them off." Pierce figured, swinging his net and catching a few more Kuramon that drifted by him, right before a buzzer was heard "Well, guess that's time." he said with a blink as a screen appeared in front of all players, showing them the total amount of caught Kuramon, and subtracting them from the total released on a power scale, dropping it down… to Perfect.
"Infermon incoming!" Pierce said quickly, snapping a few other players out of their confusion as they realized he was probably right and they tensed when all the Kuramon that hadn't been caught flew towards each other, starting to form together into one large mass up in the air, which soon solidified into a white and red pod shape… from which the limbs shot out of, slamming into the ground hard, revealing a giant sized Infermon.
The sight of the Raid Boss had everyone on edge, watching to see what move the Infermon would make. Well…everyone except one person that is.
"That does it! I'm through messing around!" The would be Assassin roared, and dropping all pretenses of stealth as he charged out of cover, going straight for Pierce. Unfortunately in his mix of anger, humiliation, and desperation, he completely forgot to factor in the Raid Boss that was currently stomping about. The Raid Boss that just aggroed on him as Infermon fired its Hell's Grenade.
"Hey, look out!" one of the other players shouted, but too late as the would be assassin noticed the attack far too late and could only have his eyes widen in horror as the attack hit, blowing him away in one shot from the direct hit.
There was a pause at the sight of the effect of a direct hit, more than a few thick gulps ensuing, before the Infermon now had its sights on them. The moment it did, everyone scrambled out of the way as it opened fire again, moving rapidly towards them. It was obvious grouping together would be dangerous here.
"Alright, guess we gotta figure out how to fight it without going Perfect… or wasting Magnamon." Lighdramon said as they moved quickly along the ground.
"Yeah… well, maybe…" Pierce muttered, pulling out his digivice, which had partially healed up quite a bit in the last month "I THINK we should be able to go Adult again, and Veedramon has plenty of firepower, so combined with everyone else attacking him, I think we'd be good."
"Let's do it then." Lighdramon said as he skid to a halt, letting Pierce get off as he reverted back to Veemon, his digivice held up and ready to use it again finally.
However, before they could, the both of them heard a scream, looking up sharply- and they saw Annette falling off her Thunderbirmon, the mount having lost a wing and falling out of the sky before turning into light and shooting back towards her.
"Annette!" Pierce gasped as he started running towards where she was falling.
Veemon panted as he ran right next to him, the two of them trying to think of a way to catch Annette before she hit the ground, especially since with how high she was… even if they caught her, the chances of survival were slim.
He needed to get up there. He needed to fly! There was no way they were going to lose a friend like this!
"I need… I need WINGS!" Veemon shouted as he jumped up… right as Pierce's digivice sparked and started glowing brightly.
(Play Brave Heart)
The D-Crest sent out a signal into the sky as code began to appear around it. The signal called forth a bright light which rained down, the light and code being absorbed into Veemon. "Veemon, Evolution!" he called out as he spun rapidly and in a flash he transformed. "X-Veemon!" he called out his new name, revealing a tall and lean reptilian humanoid, a blade horn on his snout, a large X on his chest, and more importantly, two white, draconic wings coming out of his back.
"That's new." Pierce said in surprise as he saw his partner fly up quickly and manage to catch Annette while bleeding off the momentum with a gradually slowed descent, while he activated his Analyzer.
Digimon Analyzer: X-Veemon
X-Veemon. Vaccine Type. An Adult Level Mythical Dragon Digimon. Considered a variant of Veedramon, he is a far more agile fighter capable of taking to the skies, with enough force to destroy a mountain with just a kick. While many are weary of him for this huge power, he has a strong sense of justice, and would never use it against those undeserving. Special attack is X-Laser, firing an x-shaped beam from his chest.
X-Veemon touched down "I… didn't expect this." he said, placing Annette on the ground.
"I can imagine." she said, wincing a bit before she took out some healing potions from her inventory and started drinking them "From what I've seen, a partner Digimon never unlocked two different Adults, well, at least not until Ghost Game. The partner of that series had four adult forms."
"Hmm… I wonder if I could slide evolve?" X-Veemon mused, before shaking his head "Question for later. Right now, I can use this against the big guy." he said with a frown, before looking at his partner "Climb on, I'll get you on his back."
"Got it." Pierce nodded, climbing onto his partner's back and hanging onto his shoulders as he took into the air, quickly flying high above Infermon as it kept firing at random players.
"Ready?" X-Veemon asked with a grin.
"Go for it." Pierce said with a grin of his own, grabbing Pandora X and holding it tightly as his partner went into a dive, before he jumped off right as they were over Infermon and he slammed the blade down right into its back, activating both the flamethrower and tazer functions as he both shocked and burned the giant Digimon from the inside.
The momentary reaction that brought out from the Infermon was the opening several other players needed to open fire, dealing more and more damage, with Pierce quickly positioning himself that the Infermon became his meat shield from any stray shots, even triggering the tazer a few more times to keep the Infermon in place. "Give it a nice strong one, partner!"
X-Veemon smirked and nodded, charging up energy as the mark on his torso glowed brightly. "X-Laser!" he called out, firing the powerful blast of energy at the already weakened Infermon, to which Pierce quickly got away. The blast hit, causing the Infermon to struggle, but it was for naught as the energy broke through its armor, blasting a hole through it.
Immediately the Infermon's struggles stopped before it broke down into data which soon formed words as a digital voice called out 'Raid Clear!'.
(Theme End)
X-Veemon soon landed on the ground and reverted back to Veemon as Pierce rejoined his partner, and Annette joined up with them again, looking better now thanks to the recovery items. All around them they heard other players cheering for the victory.
"Glad that's over. Thanks for saving me again, you two," Annette smiled.
"It's our pleasure. You're our friend after all," Pierce chuckled while Veemon nodded in agreement, still having to remind himself to keep quiet for now.
Annette smiled a bit more warmly at that "Thanks guys."
And there we go.
Yeahp, Veemon's gonna unlock his second evolution line as well.
Now, I'm sure some of you are wondering 'Why are Pierce and Veemon getting special treatment?'
Honest reason? I think some of you can guess.
But for now, hope you enjoyed this chapter, because...
The Adventure Evolves.