Fanfic: Digimon Mentors XIX
Title: Digimon Mentors
Author: x_eleven
Rating: PG-13 (Rough language)
Genre: Magical Realism
Summary:
This is an "alternative universe" treatment of Season Three: Digimon Tamers. I changed the title because I need one that's distinctive, and because I never liked the original title anyway: we're not dealing with wild animals in need of domestication, but rather foreign visitors who need to learn the ways of their new home. What the "Tamers" were really doing is mentoring. I suppose, given the age demographic, "mentor" would have been a BIG WORD they wouldn't have understood.
Legal Schtuffs: I do not own Digimon; Bandai and Toei Animation do.
19) The Friendly Stranger Appears
Kazu had been watching the on-going battle on the cable, like everyone else. This didn't feel right to him, after all, wasn't he also a Mentor? He decided that he and his partner, despite Guardromon's being a champion who had not, as yet, digivolved, needed to be there. If they could do nothing else, they could always offer moral support, and at least show they were willing to help. Perhaps, there was something they could do?
Guardromon was flying Kazu towards the battle: "They just might need us", he urged Guardromon onwards.
In typical fashion, Guardromon agreed: "Yeah, this will be cool", Kazu wondered if his partner fully appreciated what was being asked of him.
Gallantmon dropped through the chaos mass, realizing he hadn't been deleted after all. Perhaps Guilmon was right, and the D-reaper either could not, or would not, delete anything that wasn't computer code. He passed through a region of uprooted buildings ripped from their foundations, standing atop columns of chaos mass. He saw an area that looked undisturbed. It was a small patch of green belt. He made for it, as he could feel the weakening of the bio-merge.
"We're safe here, Takato", Guilmon said, after making a soft landing just before the bio-merge broke.
"That might be a bit premature, Guilmon", Takato reminded him. "I wonder why this area is the only one that's not totally fucked up? Is it because of the grass and trees?"
Before Guilmon could answer: "It's because organism hasn't been analysed yet, that's all", came an unfamiliar voice. Takato turned as a figure stepped from behind a tree.
"Jeri!", he exclaimed, as Jeri stepped into view. "What are you doing in here?! You have no idea how worried we've all been about you!", Takato didn't stop to think of how incongruous, how illogical this situation really was. All he knew is that he'd found "Jeri" -- or so he believed.
"The specimen you call 'Jeri' was an interesting object of in-depth analysis", "Jeri", told him in that same, mechanical, monotone. "Humans, of substance, that slipped into the networks as data. Algorithm of its behaviour being quite similar to that of the D-reaper"
"Hell're you talking about, Jeri?!". Takato took the figure by the shoulders. "Stop it, Jeri", he reprimanded, "This isn't the least bit funny!", he still could not accept the possibility it wasn't the Jeri he knew. She smiled at him: "The logic of Jeri's thinking is leaning towards something that is nothing but ruinous. Humans call it 'sorrow', it seems"
"Takato! That's not Jeri!", Guilmon warned.
"What are you talking about? She feels so warm and life-like, she has to be Jeri!", he replied. "C'mon, Jeri, snap out of it!", Takato urged.
"D-reaper sampled the autonomous existence known as human which created the networks and D-reaper. At first, we learned the human language", the figure finally began to change, as it looked like some sort of reddish vapour emanated, and enveloped, the form. Next, it sprouted two, light grey, "wings" that obviously weren't meant for flight, just decoration.
"I told you: that's not Jeri. It's D-reaper!", Guilmon called out, "Stop fucking with it!", as he began to growl.
"D-reaper sampled digimon and humans and created bodies that the humans call 'agents'"
"So what have you done with the real Jeri?!", Takato demanded.
"I inform the human that D-reaper has come to a conclusion: humans and digimon should not exist. They are too weak and too filled with inconsistencies -- humans, especially".
The agent advanced towards Takato. It passed a couple of trees, their leaves dying and blowing away instantly. It was learning how to delete the data of that storage medium otherwise known as DNA. Takato backed away.
"We gotta get the hell away from here!", Guilmon announced.
"I have to save the real Jeri!", Takato counter claimed.
"That makes no sense", False Jeri pointed out, "All human life shall be deleted in the end anyway, so what difference does it make?"
"I'll never let that happen!", Takato counter challenged.
"Heeeeyyyy!", Sakuyamon and Megagargomon heard someone call out. They looked up to see who that was.
"It's Kazu", Sakuyamon announced, as they landed.
"Never fear: Guardromon is here!", Guardromon announced.
"Don't forget: I'm the one who brought you here", Kazu reminded him.
They had no chance for further discussions, as, first Sakuyamon, then the others, noticed something streaking across the sky. At first, they figured it was a fast, high flying fighter. Then they realized it was a good deal closer, as it was moving far too fast to have been ten thousand feet above them. It landed on top of a building.
"Who is that?", Sakuyamon asked rhetorically.
They watched as the new arrival leaped to the ground to stand before them. Kazu was the only one with access to a digivice to look up the profile:
Samildamon:
Anthro-form warrior digimon
His techniques are Lightening Sabre
and Insatiable Spear
He had lavender skin with long, flowing silver hair. He was wearing Celtic style mail armour, with breast plate. The helmet covering half his face was decorated with three horns, two long horns like those of the Texas longhorn cattle, and a smaller one projecting outward from the forehead. He carried a sword on his belt, and a long spear in his hand.
"Hi", he said, as he raised his right hand in a greeting or salute. "As I saw the events on the news, I knew I couldn't just stand by, doing nothing, so here I am", he declared.
They had no time for questions, as something anthroform and green was also dropping from the roof of that same building.
"It has a cord attached, so it must be D-reaper's", Megagargomon said, just before the new attack drone gave him a kick that sent him to the ground, despite the drone's being a good deal smaller. It backed off, but only to turn its attention to Sakuyamon. Samildamon moved in, kicking it aside.
"I'm here, come and get me!", Samildamon taunted the thing, as he stood on top of a pile of wreckage.
"He's trying to divert its attention, now's our chance", Sakuyamon observed.
The agent tried to deliver a blow, but the new arrival dodged, leaving behind nothing more than some smashed concrete.
"Leave it to me, you go rescue your friends", he told Sakuyamon. The agent finally had some success, tackling Samildamon, as they both went to the ground.
"Let's go!", Megagargomon said.
"OK", Sakuyamon agreed, as Megagargomon fired his rocket pack, and Sakuyamon used her own flight power, to head towards where they saw Gallantmon disappear into the red mass. Kazu and Guardromon were left standing as spectators.
"What about us?", Kazu complained.
"We're fighting", Guardromon told him.
"Cool!", Kazu replied.
Sakuyamon used her staff to create a force field "bubble" around the both of them, to enter the chaos mass. Sakuyamon's shield held, and they emerged inside the chaos mass. Now, all they had to do was track down Gallantmon or Takato and Guilmon. Sakuyamon recognized right away the negative effects of this space. She knew they had little time to do what they needed to do. Fortunately, she also recognized they wouldn't have to search extensively. She, too, noticed the undisturbed green belt, and figured that's where Gallantmon would naturally go.
Yamaki was watching out the window at the growing chaos mass. Janyu Wong and his Wild Bunch were busy trying to analyse the D-reaper. "Has it been in this world?", Janyu asked.
"How do you mean?", Dolphin replied.
"I mean the kernel..."
"I figured there'd be two copies of it: one in this world, and one in the Digital World"
"I'm not certain of that, let's take another look at those records from D-reaper's initial incursion", Janyu said, as he brought up the records.
He noticed that there was a region of temperature that was lower than the rest of the chaos mass. Could that possibly be the kernel? If so, then that meant that D-reaper had sent its kernel to the Material World, and did not leave behind a copy in the Digital World. It also meant that the D-reaper was not acting on two different fronts: it was attacking both worlds as part of the same strategy.
The D-reaper's Jeri impostor was taunting Takato and Guilmon. They could hear it laughing at them, but it was nowhere in sight.
"You tell me: Where's Jeri?", Takato called out. From behind a nearby tree, he saw Jeri's hand puppet.
"Arf! Arf!", it said.
"Huh?", Takato asked.
"D-reaper has already loaded data from the specimen known as Jeri", it was that D-reaper agent.
"What?", Takato asked.
As if to prove its point: "I forgot my recorder", the puppet said. Takato remembered: he was in detention, once again, after school to write another letter of self examination. Jeri had returned after all the other students had left, explaining that she needed the recorder she'd left in her desk. While doing so, she told Takato to take seriously the writing of that letter, so that, perhaps, he might avoid future detentions.
"Arf! Arf! Arf!", then long, sharp talons burst through the hand puppet, ripping it to shreds, startling Takato.
"That's not Jeri", Guilmon told him yet again.
"You're right: that isn't Jeri!", Takato finally agreed.
"Amazing you're not tired of digimon", False Jeri said, as she giggled. "I'm not a good girl at all. Soon after my mother died, I stopped crying. I mean, why should I? My step mother is a nice person, and I've been trying to like her, but it's been so hard..."
Takato recalled all the times Jeri had originally said those things to him, both before and during their visit to the Digital World.
"You stop stealing Jeri's memories!", Takato demanded. As he rushed at False Jeri, it dropped all pretense and disguise: revealing its true appearance: light blue skin, bright yellow eyes with reptilian, vertical pupils, talons on hands and feet, and a good two feet taller than Jeri. "Everything goes back into nothing. Nothing is beautiful", it announced.
"Where is the real Jeri?!", Takato demanded, once again.
The thing was chasing them, along the way, it was deleting living trees just as easily as it had deleted everything data in the Digital World. Whatever it was doing, it had figured out how to completely erase the data stored in DNA, and was as much a threat in the Material World that it had been in the Digital World. It would have had the both of them, as Takato tripped, falling into Guilmon, knocking both to the ground, but for the intervention of something small and white. It launched some sort of violet coloured energy weapon at False Jeri, accompanied by a sound like "Pooh". The thing recoiled from it. Takato finally recognized Marineangemon. It was the first time he'd seen "Ocean Love" in action. It had an unusual property: towards the malevolent, it was highly destructive. To the friendly, it gave strength.
If Marineangemon was here could Kenta be far behind?
"Hey Takato, Guilmon, what're ya doin' sittin' on your asses at a time like this?", he teased them.
"Kenta, did you walk all this way? It's so far", Takato asked, as he got up. Nothing other than his pride hurt.
"We did. We've been looking for you: we know where Jeri is...", Kenta said.
"Where?! How?!", Takato interrupted.
"She's on top of the Hypnos building with Calumon..."
"How do you know that?", Takato asked.
"Heard it from a friend of yours: Impmon... At least I think it was Impmon -- actually I'm pretty sure it was Impmon -- but instead of that little guy from the Ark, he turned himself into a dragon..."
"Raptor", Sakuyamon corrected, "Deinondramon is a raptor, not a dragon". Megagargomon and Sakuyamon had just caught up with them.
"Pooh, pooh, pooh..." Marineangemon fired a half-dozen shots at Sakuyamon, who was beginning to suffer the ill-effects of the region that sapped her strength, threatening to break the bio-merge.
"I feel much better. Thank you", Sakuyamon replied.
"So you know about it?", Kenta asked.
"Yes, we know Deinondramon: Impmon's mega-form. So he found Jeri?".
"Yeah, busted into that sphere where Jeri is to let Calumon in... I wonder where he is, why isn't he here yet?"
"Talk later: we have to get out of here now!", Megagargomon announced. Sakuyamon and Megagargomon led them back to where they'd first entered the chaos mass. "Heavy Missile!", he fired at the chaos mass, blasting a hole from which they made their escape.
As they arrived outside, they saw that the D-reaper attack drone and Samildamon were still going at each other. This time, the attack drone had grown huge, as big as Megagargomon. It may have had the size and strength advantage, but Samildamon had the speed advantage. He could get in a solid kick, and dodge the retaliation.
That was, until the D-reaper agent picked up a huge section of broken street, and threw it at the smaller warrior digimon.
"Protect Grenade!", Guardromon fired, breaking it up before it could inflict any serious injury.
"Thanks, Guardromon", Samildamon paused to acknowledge the favour.
"Now it's our turn", Sakuyamon announced. "Plasma Foxes!", she attacked, sending the Plasma Foxes burning their way through the D-reaper agent. Megagargomon opened up with his ordinance, scoring multiple direct hits. But still, the D-reaper attack drone wasn't through just yet.
"Lightening Sabre!", Samildamon drew the sword from its scabbard. There was a brilliant flash of light, much brighter than day light, and an ear-splitting roar from the shock wave of air that just jumped in temperature of about 10,000 degrees. As Samildamon was returning the sword to its scabbard, all that was left of the agent was a smoking hole, caused by the 50,000 amp hit it had just taken.
"God. Damn", Kazu said.
"Kazu!", Kenta called out, as he, Guilmon, and Takato, joined him and Guardromon.
"You came too?", Kazu asked.
"Of course, I had to do what I could, and also tell them I know where Jeri is".
"You found Jeri?", Kazu asked.
"Actually, it was Impmon and Calumon, I'm just relaying the message".
Samildamon had disappeared as suddenly as he appeared.
"So, who do you think Samildamon was?", Kazu asked. They had regrouped at Rika's.
"It's obvious: Ryo and Cyberdramon", Kenta replied.
"No way, didn't his parents ground him until he was, like, 55?", Rika replied. "Naturally, you'd assume it had to be Ryo..."
"What're you saying?", Kenta asked.
"Fanboiz", Rika replied, "No way would that egotistical ass decline even a nanosecond's worth of attention and adulation. Anonymous has never been Ryo's style. The way two you fawn over that guy..."
"So, who do you think he was?", Kazu asked.
"I have no idea; I'm just glad he showed up when he did. Either he'll see fit to tell us, or he won't. I can't say I give a rat's ass either way", Rika said.
"Takato! Where are you?", Guilmon ran past the open door.
"I forgot something", Rika said when she had a moment alone with Renamon. "We never thanked that man who brought Rottweilermon to us. We never even learned his name".
"We never got the chance", Renamon explained.
"Still, even a simple 'Thanks' would have been nice".
Guilmon found Takato, staring off at what he now knew was Jeri's prison inside the kernel sphere which D-reaper was no longer bothering to keep hidden from view. Takato didn't take that as an encouraging sign. If D-reaper wasn't hiding the source of its very essence, then it couldn't have been too worried about its ability to defend itself.
"Takato, are you alright?", he asked. "If you look down, the others might get depressed too". Guilmon also understood Takato's depressive episodes, as much as did Henry. "You're not the only one; everyone's worried about her".
"I wonder how she's doing? I want to rescue Jeri ASAP".
"I know".
"Culu? Jeri?", Calumon was still trying without success to get at least some reaction out of Jeri. "Culu?", still no response. "We were worried about you, culu; Impmon and I came looking for you, culu..."
"Imp... mon?", she finally said something. "Impmon became Beelzemon... loaded Leomon... Leomon", she said as she looked at her now useless digivice.
"No, culu? He became Deinondramon, culu?" This was the first he'd heard of it. "Impmon wouldn't do anything like that, culu?".
Jeri said nothing else, leaving Calumon to wonder where she could have gotten such a crazy idea. It was also the first he'd heard that Leomon had died, and this is why Jeri was acting so strangely. He recalled that Impmon had said something about being "partly responsible", but he couldn't bring himself to believe he'd do something like that. Impmon might be annoying, but he wasn't malicious.
Jeri recalled the death of Leomon, and his final words: "This seems to be my destiny".
"Destiny", she recalled another time when she had heard that word. A young Jeri, may be five or six, stood in a hospital room with her father. "Moth... her?", the little girl asked, as she looked on the form lying beneath a white sheet.
"This was all... destined", her father said.
"That is right: it's your destiny", the attending physician said. She could see nothing of his face, but for the shining lenses of his glasses.
"Accept it", the nurse even father back in the shadows said.
"Yes", her father agreed with a nod.
Jeri ran, but it didn't look like a normal hospital room anymore. She was running down a dark tunnel, as she passed other, indistinct forms.
"You can't run away", one said as she ran past.
"You should give up", said another.
"It's no use running away from destiny", said yet another.
She stopped running, brought up by the image of her ten year old self. This figure had her back turned to her. The figure turned, and her face had no features. On her hand was the familiar hand puppet. However, when it opened its mouth, the mouth was filled with sharp, pointed teeth, as saliva dripped from the teeth, and dribbled down the sides of the mouth. The puppet's eyes were white, and blank. "It's destiny", the hand puppet told her. She backed away from the frightening apparition, only to back into someone who'd come up behind her. It was the doctor, and a phalanx of nurses.
"It's destiny, it's destiny, it's destiny...", they all chanted in unison.
The D-reaper's kernel sphere glowed more brilliantly, and chaos mass grew faster.
A black Hypnos van was rolling down the street. Inside were: Rika, Takato, Kenta, Kazu, Henry, Suzy, Guilmon, Terriermon, Lopmon, and Marineangemon. Outside, Renamon was running, keeping up, while Guardromon flew along side with his jet pack. There wasn't enough room inside the van, and no possibilities of a return trip.
"It differs from area to area, but it's growing by about a kilometer to a kilometer-and-a-half a day", the driver was explaining, as the others studied the latest maps, showing where the chaos mass had spread. "It's growing at an incredible rate".
"My house", Rika said. The chaos mass had overrun her neighborhood, as she could plainly see from the latest map.
"The place we were staying couldn't be considered safe anymore either, so we decided to take Mr. Yamaki up on his offer, and join him and his staff. I also heard that they're transferring government functions to somewhere else, little by little as well".
"Well, there they are", Mr.Mizuno said as the Mentors made their entrance. Their parents, and Mr. Cho, were already there, making for a somewhat crowded environment for the Wild Bunch to work in.
Daisy was showing Yamaki what she'd come up with so far. On the screen, she showed the original design of the Ark. Next, she brought up the design modifications the Wild Bunch had made: a sleeker nose to replace the current, rather blunt, non-aerodynamic design, two sets of wings, decoratively resembling bat wings, and a sleeker tail piece.
"Is that slick, or what?", Carley asked.
"What's even slicker is what it's made of: Chrome-digizoid -- a virtual metal from the Digital World. We're calling it "Zero Arms Grani", Yamaki explained.
"Yeah, but what's the point?", Babel asked.
"After the Ark realized, it was supposed to have remained in the real world. We had a crane and flatbed standing by to return it to Hypnos. Based on what Impmon told us, after it unexpectedly disappeared along with the digiwarp field, we thought that it must've crashed and burned, breaking up into disorganized data. Somehow, it managed to land intact after returning to the Digital World. Even then, we should have had no way of knowing this, and we basically didn't care, since it had fulfilled its purpose: returning the Mentors and their partners to the real world. However, the Ark, nearly out of power, sent a message to my comm -- the same comm I lent Takato and the others. It barely got out a usable signal. It should not have been able to do this, however, Wong used the digimon core program for the basis of its AI. As a result, it became self aware, and has been trying to turn itself into a full fledged digimon. All we're doing here is helping it finish what it started. That way, the Mentors will have another ally here to assist them: hence, Grani", Yamaki explained.
"May I borrow your digivice?", Mr. McCoy asked Henry. He just happened to be the one he asked, it really didn't matter whose digivice it was.
"OK", Henry said, handing it over.
As he opened its USB connector, and while connecting it to a workstation computer, Terriermon asked: "What do you need it for?"
"I need it for realization. Do you know what 'realization' means?"
"Fuck no, never heard of it before", came the sarcastic reply.
"Terriermon!", Henry reprimanded.
"Moumentai".
"Takato?", Guilmon called out. Rika and Takato came to see what he was calling them for.
"Who're they?", Rika asked.
"Jeri's father and step mother", he really wasn't expecting them to show up.
"They left their home, worrying about their daughter", Rika's mother told them.
"What's this?", Kenta asked as he looked on at what Janyu was doing, "A game?", it looked a lot like a very early video game.
"It's the original model of D-reaper".
"So how did this thing", referring to the screen, "Turn into that thing out there?"
"Like digimon, it's been evolving", Janyu explained.
Carley was explaining to Janyu: "It would seem that there's an intense concentration of data over here", referring to the kernel sphere.
"If that's true", Janyu said, "Then could that be the 'brain' of the D-reaper? If we destroy it, then we might be able to wipe out all of D-reaper?"
"There's a high probability", Carley replied.
Takato overheard: "You can't!"
"Huh?", they both asked.
"Because, right in the middle of it...", Takato looked over, noticed Jeri's father wasn't there with her step mom. He ran off before finishing. He had to do something else. Fortunately, the elevator had delayed his departure.
"Mr, Katou", Takato called out. "Please sir: don't be so angry with Jeri. It isn't her fault, believe me... Please believe me!", he pleaded. All he did was glare nastily at Takato. Without saying a word, he got on the elevator. "Whatever, Jeri isn't to blame at all!", he called out as the doors shut.
"I'm so sorry about all the trouble we've caused you", Jeri's step mother apologized to Rika's mother. "What would Jeri's late mother say all about this?", she asked.
"I understand how you feel... well... uhhhh", she was at a loss for words, as she saw that Rika overheard, and was going up the stairs.
Rika was sitting by herself, outside: "Who knew?", she asked herself. "She always seemed happy enough, was always smiling, and looked like she was living a happy life. At least I thought so, but the truth doesn't sound very nice. It's worse than my case. Even though my parents got divorced, my dad's still alive, and I could see him if I wanted to. But Jeri... I should really try harder"
"I'm gonna show 'em I care", Rika declared out loud, as she headed back.
Yamaki was taking a phone call: "Why did your van run our roadblock?!", a none too pleased cop was on the other end.
"The van's gone! I must've left the key... I'm really sorry", the driver of the van who had brought the Mentors said, as he'd just discovered the missing van himself.
"Thank you for the information, officer", Yamaki said before hanging up.
"I apologize", the driver said again.
"Who the hell...?", Yamaki said to himself.
Tadashi Katou pulled the van he "borrowed" from the motor pool up to the red chaos mass, got out and walked up to it: "Jeri!", he called out as loud as he could shout. "Jeeeerrrriiii!", over and over, he called out his daughter's name.
In the kernel sphere, Calumon heard: "Someone is calling you, Jeri", he said to her, as he pushed at her legs, to get her attention. Tadashi recalled scenes from Jeri's early childhood, dressing Jeri. He had been rougher with her than he should have: "I'm clumsy by nature", he'd told himself at the time. Was that really the reason? He didn't want to admit the truth: he just plain didn't want kids. Jeri had been an accident. Jeri was always in the way -- in everything.
Then there was the problem Jeri had with her step mom. Jeri couldn't accept her as her mother. She acted cool towards her step mom, and that served to further resentments towards Jeri.
He recalled getting the call from Hypnos, telling him Jeri was on her way back to the Material World: "You tell her she can come home by herself", had been his curt reply to a well meaning employee who didn't deserve that treatment.
"I could pick her up", her step mother offered.
"I didn't ask you to do any such thing, did I?", he snapped at her. "That child is too spoiled, gets too much attention: it'll do her good", he explained why he forbid her step-mom from going to retrieve her, and bring her to their temporary home in Matsumoto.
"I said such horrible things...", he told himself.
"Destiny, destiny, destiny...", he heard, in Jeri's voice.
"Is that you, Jeri?", he asked as he looked all around, but didn't see her anywhere. "Jeeeerrrriiii!", he called out again.
"Mr Katou!', Takato called out. Takato and Guilmon, Rika and Renamon, Kazu and Guardromon had figured out who took the van and why. They located it through its GPS locator. Something nasty erupted from the chaos mass: it was large, reddish-pink, vaguely anthro-form, with two arms. However, its "head" was just a swelling at the top, covered in round, yellow, "mouths". Its body, arms, and hands also sported these "mouths".
"Destiny, destiny, destiny...", they all said simultaneously.
"Jeri! Where are you, Jeri!", he called out again.
"You have to understand: that is not Jeri!", Takato explained. "The D-reaper has stolen her voice".
"Stop speaking in Jeri's voice!", Takato demanded, as he rushed forward. Guilmon instantly followed.
"Wait!", Renamon called out.
A tendril came at them, startling Tadashi so much that he fell backwards. From the end of this tendril projected a video camera which D-reaper had stolen from a military video crew. It pointed at him, viewing from various angles.
"Checking with Jeri's memory", it announced. "Retrieval completed: "Katou, Tadashi, human, father". "Father?", it asked.
"What's it doing?", Guilmon asked.
"It's studying", Renamon said.
"Studying?", Rika asked, either incredulous and/or offended.
"The D-reaper doesn't understand the concept of parent and child. Digimon barely understand it -- our concept of family is completely different -- and we have been able to figure it out by living and experiencing here in the Material World. At least we have something to base our understanding on. D-reaper doesn't have even that much to go on. It's confused", Renamon explained.
"Retrieving another memory..."
The memory D-reaper had selected was her recollection of how she had been severely reprimanded for coming downstairs from her room to get Leomon a glass of orange juice. Of how her father had followed her to the stairs leading to their living quarters, curtly telling her to remember to wash that glass.
"I beg you, please, give Jeri back to me. She's my little girl... You can't take her from me. Please! Please!"
"Processing suspended: Current behaviour doesn't correlate with collected memory of Jeri... Why? Why? Why? Why?..."
"How could you understand?! A creature like you could never understand how Jeri feels!", Rika told it.
"Why? Why? Why? Why...", it continued to ask, as the video camera retracted into the tendril, which also retracted back towards the main body of the thing. Tadashi suddenly grabbed onto it: "Stop! Stop! Give my daughter back!" he ordered.
"No!", they called out at once. He hung on tight, as the tendril whipped around, trying to throw him off.
"Renamon!", Rika ordered.
"Right"
Renamon and Rika digivolve to...
...Sakuyamon!
Just in time, as Tadashi was thrown clear, and Sakuyamon leaped to catch him, preventing an otherwise nasty fall.
"Culu?!", Calumon exclaimed. "It's Jeri's father, culu?!"
"Father?", Jeri asked. "Father... father", she said. she could see what was going on below her through the translucent sphere.
"Detected: Jeri's thinking is in adaptive mode. Starting memory collection"
"I've had enough of your bullshit!", Takato said. "Get the fuck out of Jeri's head now!", he ordered.
Guilmon and Takato digivolve to...
...Gallantmon!
"Royal Sabre!", Gallantmon attacked, blowing one of its hands off. He watched in horror as a new one regenerated, shot forth to grab him. Next, several of the yellow "mouths" shot out, being spherical objects tethered with a cable to the main body of this D-reaper agent. Gallantmon ducked, avoiding being hit with them.
He was wondering what to do when Samildamon appeared, slicing off the hand with one blow of his sabre.
"He's a tough sumbitch", Gallantmon warned.
"I know", Samildamon, said, "But thanks for the heads up".
"Let's go!", Sakuyamon urged.
More of those extensible "mouths" shot out, trapping Sukuyamon, Gallantmon, and Samildamon. These were trying to either bite them in half, and/or rip them apart. It was fast.
"Gallantmon and the others are caught, culu?", Calumon informed Jeri. "C'mon, Gallantmon, Sakuyamon, Samildamon: c'mon, c'mon, c'mon", he said, jumping up and down.
"It's no use", Jeri said.
"Culu?"
"Because it's destined".
"Destined, destined, destined...", the agent repeated, from the mouths that were otherwise unoccupied.
"Believe me: You can change destiny!", Sakuyamon called out. For that, the D-reaper agent tried to pull her apart.
"Wait! Stop!", Kazu called out, as Jeri's father was back in the van, intentionally trying to ram that thing. He jumped from the van at the last moment: "Now you'll see you son of a bitch", he called to it.
The van crashed, but inflicted no damage. For this affront, the agent threw aside the trapped digimon, to turn the full force of its fury on Jeri's father. As the extensible mouths headed at him, Gallantmon rushed in, using his lance to collect and tie up these mouths, just like stringing beads.
"Protect Grenade!", Guardromon fired at the mass of mouths.
"Lightening Sabre!", Samildamon attacked. Between them, the agent burst into chaos mass.
The victory was very short-lived, as something much bigger rose from the bulk of the chaos mass. This thing towered over the surrounding buildings, and began to release hundreds of the smaller attack drones.
"Insatiable Spear!", Samildamon launched the weapon, whose head began to glow with the characteristic violet of a corona discharge. This was a self-directed weapon that attacked whatever it was aimed at and would not quit until ordered to stand down. It made considerable headway against the attack drones, however, D-reaper was replacing them as almost as fast as they could destroy them.
"We have to beat that big one", Gallantmon pointed out.
Guradromon made a valiant attempt to get close enough to fire Protect Grenades down its throat. From a distance, he found it easy to dodge the bursts from the attack drones. The closer he got, the more difficult this became. He took a direct hit, falling back to the ground. He landed on his back.
"You OK, buddy?", Kazu asked, concerned.
"Running self diagnostics", was his reply. Guardromon showed no sign he'd seen Kazu. It was obvious his systems had been interfered with. Kazu could only wait to see if his partner could self repair.
"We have another communication from Grani", Carley announced. "It's complete, and is asking to be realized".
"So let's help Grani realize", Janyu said.
"How?", Henry asked.
"How else?", his father replied, "One of Shibumi's blue cards". Since Shibumi's recovery, he brought along a good supply, as he was the one who originally made them in the first place. He swiped it through Henry's borrowed digivice.
"Materialize: digimodify!"
"A digital warp field is appearing over Central Park", one of the operators reported. It worked: Grani was beginning the process of realization.
Gallantmon tried attacking, but realized that he just couldn't leap that high. He was wondering what he was going to do, when yet another unknown digimon appeared. This one, dark red, bird-like, and it swooped right under his feet, catching him.
"Huh?", Gallantmon said. "Who're you?". There seemed to be a rush on the appearance of strange, but helpful, digimon lately. He didn't complain, but accepted the gift, as the new vehicle/digimon lifted him upwards, Samildamon's spear clearing the way.
"What is it?", Terriermon asked.
"Grani: named after the legendary war horse of the knight: Sigert. It looks like it's gonna live up to its namesake", Yamaki explained.
Gallantmon charged up his Royal Sabre, and he and Grani flew it right through the "head" (or at least what looked like its head) coming out the other side, he then flew into the port where all those attack drones were launched. He saw a bundle of cables connecting the body with the head. These he severed with the Royal Sabre, and the whole thing turned into chaos mass that fell back into the main body of chaos mass.
"Well done", Gallantmon congratulated, while affectionately stroking the side of this new helper, "Whoever you are".
It answered him: "You know me, but you knew me as the 'Ark', I have made some changes lately. You can call me Grani"
Once back at the temporary Hypnos facility, Grani was given a hangar, and was undergoing further modifications. Guardromon was back to normal, none the worse for the hit he took. The others stood around, except for Samildamon, who, once again, slipped away in all the excitement, unnoticed.
Takato stood outside: "Jeeerrrriiii!", he called out. "I'm coming to rescue you!", he had another reason to believe he could do it.
"Takato?", Jeri said. She heard. Calumon's hopes rose: perhaps Jeri was coming around?
Prologue
Ch 1
Ch 2
Ch 3
Ch 4
Ch 5
Ch 6
Ch 7
Ch 8
Ch 9
Ch 10
Ch 11
Ch 12
Ch 13
Ch 14
Ch 15
Ch 16
Ch 17
Ch 18
Ch 20
Epi