Winning Votes:
[] Sergeant Scratch. You don't think he likes you. It's scary, but… try to ask him why that is.
[] Feel sad for the insect digimon. Not that you know for sure, but you think he lost someone, or rather KoKabuterimon, whoever that is, most likely killed them.
===
The rest of the day passes monotonously if not in a particularly swift manner. More marching, tutoring from Ardat and sparring with Beat to end things before you go to sleep. If the Wormmon is angry about your earlier conversation, it doesn't show. The bout goes almost exactly the same as last time.
Sparks on the other paw spends the next evening and afternoon disgruntled from the entire thing, and glares at Beat every time he sees the insectoid digimon. Your friend gets the exact same direction from the Wormmon, and it's clear there there's at least some manner of animosity between them now.
You hope it won't lead to anything untowards. Despite the smaller rookies abrasive nature you can't bring yourself to dislike him, not very much anyways. His anger, reminds you too much of Sparks and yourself for that. If the theory you have is correct, then Beat is on the path of revenge, only he doesn't have
anyone left at all.
If Sparks had been deleted as well...the thought of being alone after what had happened makes you shiver.
Pidmon attempts to break the ice between them with some talk of comradery and serving the lord. Beyond focusing their glares on him for a moment it doesn't seem to work.
Near the end of the morning, you finally manage to work up the necessary courage required to speak with Sergeant Gladimon.
With weights stuck to your back by hardened wax, you scamper towards the front of the party, wince in anticipation and stand up to talk with him.
"S-Sergeant Scratch" you try not to mumble, looking towards his blank eyes.
"Fledgling" His monotone voice replies. "Speak"
"Well sir I-" you cut yourself off, and take a deep breath. "You don't like me." This time your words come out strong, without hesitation. "Why?"
Gladimon turns his round body to look you straight in the eye.
"You are an anomaly" he states clinically. "Unable to digivolve, destined to die." The Gladimon narrows his eyes, a hint of frustration working its way into his voice. "You are here because the Candlemon would not otherwise leave. A rookie, even a strong one will not survive the coming weeks. They will mature."
That-He means they'll digivolve, and I'll be left behind.
"When you fight something stronger, you will freeze up. He may die trying to prolong your life"
His words create a sinking feeling in your core, along with a surge of nearly uncontrollable wrath. Part of you want to charge the armoured digimon, tear him asunder for his words. Fortunately reason along with a healthy bit of fear wins out, and you step back with a frown. Tears come up to your eye, but you refuse to let them come to the surface.
...he's rig-
"Howling Blaster!"
Before said thought can finish, the champions armored hand impacts your chest and knocks the air out from your chest. Pain blossoms around the area, and sharp crack echoes through the air as you're flung back down the road.
A blast of blinding hot fire singes the tail end your fur, then envelops Sergeant Scratch. You crash back down on the road a moment later, and lay there temporarily stunned by the shock and pain.
"Verge!"
Sparks voice, snaps you out of the funk and a sudden surge of wrath gives your body the strength to surge back up. The weights fall off your back, their wax bindings broken by your impact. With one narrowed eye, you glance around the area, coldly examine the situation.
A pair of
massive wolf-digimon that remind you distressingly of Gnaw double-team the Sergeant, striking at him in a flurry of bites and clawing strikes. However the much smaller digimon moves with surprisingly skill and agility, even his normal movements are still outside your ability to comprehend, you manage to catch still images as he parries and blacks the onslaught.
Nearest to you, albeit on the opposite side of the road, a wave of
Gabumon lunge at Pidmon, clearly trying to overwhelm him with sheer numbers. His rod is in hand, and even as your body continues to turn he lashes out thrice, smacking a rookies skull with each swing. Unfortunately next to the veritable tide of twenty-two remaining rookies, his efforts don't exactly bear much fruit.
Ardat has
vanished, you can't see the strange Witchmon anywhere.
Off towards the very back of your party, a smaller section of the pack, only a half dozen strong burst out of woods. The biggest of them breaks off towards Sparks, followed by a pair of its brethren, while the other three go after Beat.
Deciding who to protect isn't a choice. Not really.
Sparks fiery head flares up and with a hoarse scream, he launches a blazing ball towards the trio. It rips into the leftmost Gabumon's chest, and paints the entire area a crispy black. He stumbles in place, trips and slams face first into the ground.
The larger of the two closes in on your friend, their strikes aimed for his waxy body, but it's soon interrupted as several hundred pounds of angry, roaring Drimogemon crashes into into his body.
Your left paw lashes out, digging into his side and picking the squat, four foot rookie up in his entirety. He snarls in pain, and anger, claws ripping across your face. Before his weapons can reach your remaining eye, you slam a foot down into the hard packed dirt of the road, pivot your hips, and
slam him down hard.
"Mach Jab!" Your clenched paw lances out across his face with a satisfying crack. The smaller rookie whips his head black around, and opens his mouth; unleashing a blast of blue fire before your arm can come down for a second strike. The attack washes over your form, burning your fur and singeing your flesh. On instinct you flinch back, and he takes that moment to kick out, striking your bruised chest with his feet.
Pain flares up again, and you stumble back, ripping your claws free from his side with a yelp. Your arms rising up just in time to defend yourself from his follow up pounce. Shallow lines open up across your left arm as he flashes past, and you hurriedly whirl to follow him.
Out past him, you spot Beat grappling onto one of smaller Gabumon attacking him, before pulling himself forward and smashing his skull into the larger rookie's chin. He leaps back a second later to avoid another of the rookie's swipes, and shoots out another strand of silk, continuing to use his greater mobility against them.
Sparks duel with the thirdmost Gabumon in close combat, and it's going better than you might have expected. He hasn't frozen, but your friend's handicap leaves the Candlemon barely able to defend himself. Data leaks from half a dozen wounds across his wax body and remaining arm. Not that he's losing, the enemy is covered in a multitude of burns and is clearly slowing down. But, your glance reveals something horrifying, the burned rookie who'd fallen is rising. Your remaining eye widens in horror as he opens his mouth towards Sparks.
*Schlick*
Only to fall apart into a mass of rapidly dispersing data as one of Sergeant Scratch's swords pierces through his head.
Your opponent renews his attack with a furious snarl, but your defense has dealt and triumphed against far faster digimon. Alruamon, Gazimon, even Beat were all faster, but this Gabumon is far stronger than any of them. While not a single hit actually gets through, your arms end up a ragged mess of leaking wounds.
The agony triggers another flash of wrath and you go on the offensive with a furious swipe. Your paw arcs towards his head, drills rapidly revolving, and ready to end the rookies life. However he ducks the strike, and launches himself forward. The very pointy horn plunges towards your face, ready to pierce through your skull-
-only to be stopped short as a line of silk latches onto his foot. Beat shouts in exertion and pulls back back on the Gabumon. His horn still hits you, but it only glances across your cheek instead of dealing a potentially deadly blow.
I'm sorry.
The large Gabumon doesn't manage to dodge your follow up strike. He screams as the drills pierce into back, then falls lets out a chilling rasp and goes deathly silent.
=== Do you load the strong Gabumon? (Choose One)
[]
Yes, Load him.
[]
No, let the data go.
===
With the feral mon deleted, you spin back towards Sparks and rush over, the minor healing spell on your lips. His badly burnt opponent doesn't have much time to react before you sock him right in the face, sending the unfortunate Gabumon tumbling head over heels back towards the wood. The lizard-rookies pelt comes flying free in mid-air revealing the rest of his body to the world. He hits the tree with a dull *Thud* and goes still.
A moment later your other paw comes to a rest on Sparks body, unleashing a wave of healing energy across his body. The wax surface ripples under your touch, knitting the many cuts and scrapes together. Your friend ignores this in favour of glaring at the defeated lizard digimon and unleashing one last Bonfire.
"
Heh, take that" Sparks chuckles, watching with a smirk as his foe fades away. You spare him a worried glance but don't comment.
Your head turns over to Beat, but the Wormmon doesn't need help anymore. His foes are already laying around him in various states of defeat. Your ally stands defiantly up despite the various wounds on his body, and a very nasty gash across his back. He twists around to glare towards the center of the road.
Pidmon has managed to take down a number more of the rookies with his rod, but by the look of things he's still far from finishing the horde off. The angel digimon winces with every loud crack, being careful to only knock the rookies out rather than delete them. Which is slowing him down considerably even if they don't seem to be hurting him.
Scratch duels the two other champion with only a single sword, however he doesn't seem to be all that troubled in missing it. While his armor is marred in a number of places, your commander doesn't look to be actually damaged. Just based on the flashes of movement you manage to spot from the brawl, he seems to be fighting entirely defensively. Neither of the enemy Garurumon(? after all they're not black) seem hurt either beyond some marring on their claws and fangs. Likely from Scratch deflecting their attacks.
"Thanks-thanks for the help Verge!" Sparks murmurs with a relieved sigh. He turns over towards beat, then snort his fiery head changing to a slightly pleased smirk.
One second he's hopping forward, clearly ready to say something to the Wormmon, and the next your friend is bowled over as a massive gust of wind blows through the area. A sudden storm erupts over the road, buffeting everyone fighting on it. Large opaque clouds of dust, ripped free from the ground begin to swirl around the remaining ferals. Powerful whips of wind roar across the ground, sweeping the snarling young rookies up, and away from Pidmon into a fully fledged Tornado.
Dozens of screaming tendrils erupt from the other direction as well, nimbly flowing together in order to pick up the pair of Garurumon before carrying the surprised champion into the main wind formation. The swirling mass of digimon
try to escape, from the baffling wind formation but the swiftly growing Tornado actually
contains the many attacks sweeping them back into the windstorm. Horrible death-screams and angry barks echo out as the many feral mon are cooked alive by their leaders attacks.
"You dare to attack the friends of Ardat! Master of Wind Sorcery! Pay the price with your lives!"
The Witchmon's er,
enthused voice fades into a haunting laugh, and the tornado travels to the right, moving into the forest itself. Rookie and champion alike crash into the tough trees, some are impaled by branches, some are squished against tree trunks and others are crushed as masses of forested debris join the Tornado. Soon (and much to your horror) every rookie left is gone, deleted by what you can only guess to be Ardat's spell. For a few moments, you think that it's over, that the champion will probably survive and your party will have to finish them off.
Of course, then the Tornado explodes.
You flinch back along with Sparks at the sudden deafening boom, and when your eye opens again the two Garurumon are gone. Along with several dozen meters left of forest.
*Thump*
Ardat, broom in hand crashes into the ground beside you causing Sparks to let out a sudden scared shriek. The witchmon gives you a pointy-toothed grin, and shakily raises her free hand, giving you a weak thumbs up.
Um...O-okay?
Then it drops and her visible eye shuts.
Sparks begins to shiver beside you, clutching your paw with his remaining arm. You however are frozen in a mixture of surprise, horror and interest.
That-that was magic?! I-that's. It's so powerful! It deleted them all!
The last portion of the thought nearly turns your stomach. You'd just deleted a mon yourself, as had Sparks but... So much death. Beat hadn't deleted anyone, and he was kind of the one mon you'd expect to be the most merciless considering his demeanor. Speaking of your abrasive companion, he is hurt and the wound on his back is decided worse than the shallow scrapes around the rest of his body. It will certainly heal, but you know that such things will cause a lingering pain.
But...
You look down towards your raised paws and wince, that large Gabumon had certainly down a number on them. It might even interfere with your studying this evening.
I have one cast left, should I help him?
=== Choose One:
[] Yes, use the healing spell on Beat.
[] No, use the healing spell on yourself.
===Stat Update (For the Day) (Endurance Training, Spirit Training, BP: Spirit, Agility, Strength. Extra from fight: Fortitude)
- Strength: 126.75->128.50->130.25
- Fortitude: 135.25->137.00
- Endurance: 124.00->129.25
- Agility: 108.00->109.50->111.00
- Special: 68.25->70.25
- Spirit: 60.25->64.75->66.25
Holy Light Strike: 6/12->8/12
===
Authors Note:
Hehe, found out a way to make the scene not filler! Still bumped me one post behind schedule mind you.