Okay, I got chapter three done! All of the pieces are now in play, and things can begin to kick up a notch next chapter.
Chapter 3
To Marsmon, this time alone, with nothing but his own aching muscles and the pounding of his racing pulse to keep him company, is a happy time. It is one of peace and tranquility, in which his cultivates his own physical perfection. Here, at the foot of Infinity Mountain, beneath the mighty weight of a massive waterfall, with many heavy weights tied to his limbs and body, he performs complex katas gracefully and without strain.
When his katas are finished he does 1000 one finger push ups per arm, and then 700 two finger handstand pushups. He does suicide runs from one end of the vast waterfall to the other, and then does them again on his hands. He punches and kicks the solid stone of the mountain face, not using special moves or attacks or channeling any form of power or energy, and pulverizes the solid stone as if it had the resistance of a pillow.
Throughout this training he only grows more and more frustrated.
It's too easy!
He pounds his fists and feet into the stone harder and faster, as metric tons of stone give way easily beneath his strength.
It's not enough! How am I supposed to gain the strength I need when nothing can inhibit my body!?
Solid stone becomes boulders, which become rocks, which become pebbles and finally dust, faster and faster. In the mental fugue of physical strain, Marsmon finds himself reflecting on the past.
"I think… I think he was good, but he was wrong. The world is evil; there can't be heroes when the world is like this."
"Someone like you shouldn't even speak to someone like me unless spoken to! Yeah, I did it, and I'm gonna do it again!"
The god lets out a long, loud, wordless cry of wrath and frustration, as his fists and feet become more like a continuous blast of force than individual blows. By the time the red haze clears from his head, he realizes that he's dug a massive cavern a hundred feet high and wide and a thousand feet deep into the face of the mountain behind the waterfall.
After taking a moment to collect his thoughts, the Mega reaches into his pockets and retrieves the item needed for the final part of today's unfortunately useless session. Red Chrome Digizoid tiles, ten in total. Each slightly curved and three inches thick. Carefully, almost reverently, he stacks them up atop a large, smooth stone, and gets down on one knee.
"This was a wash, but… let's see how many I can break in one this time…" The huge Digimon muses to himself. Then, he breaths deeply and smoothly, chest inflating and deflating from his well-trained lung capacity. He carefully and gracefully gathers his internal energies, and-
"You're under arrest, come on out!" A loud, commanding voice shouts from outside the newborn hidden cave. "You're the one who was detonating bombs back then, aren't you!? Look at what you've done, you've made a huge hole in our beautiful Infinity Mountain, you criminal!" the voice continues on, somewhat obnoxiously.
"Who do you work for?" the mega replies in a neutral tone. "Quit messing around, obviously we're with Honey Base." The captain clarifies, stepping closer to the waterfall. At this point the silhouette comes into focus and it becomes clear just what the captain is from his distinctive body shape: a CannonBeemon.
"Heavy firepower like you leading mere patrols… Honey Base must have gotten their hands on a lot of resources. Your species is decently strong, after all." Marsmon continues musing to himself. He doesn't get much closer to the waterfall itself, but he does step into plain view in the middle of the cave, making his hazy form clear enough to showcase his size.
The insect growls in anger. "Decently strong? You will face additional punishment for that! If you're thinking of resistance, give up! There are fifteen of us, with three ultimates!" He gestures behind him to something the panther-man can't make out – presumably those other fourteen troops. "Come on out right now so we can slap the cuffs on you, or we'll use lethal force! You don't even deserve such mercy after damaging the verdant plant data growing on the mountainside with your destructive digging!"
Marsmon sighs. Rather than slowly calming down, this guy is just getting more worked up the more he yells. He clears his throat, and then speaks up louder than before, so that the entire patrol can hear him over the din of the crashing waterfall. "In that case, would you like to see how I dug this big cavern? It wasn't with bombs like you're assuming."
Fold the fingers one by one at the third and second knuckle, starting with the pinkie.
"What are you talking about? Of course it was with bombs, dipshit! We heard the noise of the blasts from a mile away! You have ten seconds to come out!" With that said, the CannonBeemon begins counting down from ten, accompanied by the telltale whine of laser cannons charging up.
Now tightly fold them at the first knuckle, starting with the index finger.
Slowly, step by step, the god walks forward. He breaths deeply and smoothly; this workout has served as a good warm-up, so he's all ready to go. The cool mist of the waterfall soaks his body in a pleasing chill, washing away some of his sweat. "3… 2…" says the captain, relishing in his authority and military prestige.
Tighten the clenched fingers and hold them in place with your thumb.
Marsmon's bare, red flesh is baptized by the water as he steps through into full view. Every inch of him radiates a cruel violence.
"FIRE!" shouts the captain. He and his men shoot, but their target is no longer standing where he was.
Marsmon's fist crashes into the captain's head, and the insect's entire main body implodes as a result and crashes at high speed into another CannonBeemon. The missile payloads of both mon explode from the heavy and sudden impact, bathing the area in flames. In that moment of chaos, the god moves again.
When the dust settles, Marsmon alone is alive and back to what he was doing.
In the desert, there is a small village, perhaps a long day's trek from Darude for a quick-moving champion. It is not a place of the young.
It is a place for hiding beyond the interest of others. A dry, colorless place of dust and gloom where sandstorms blow. It is a place for the old; a place of hiding, of withering, of dying. They do not keep much here; nothing that could ever draw the interest of the powerful.
The crone who lives here is one of many. She is quite wise, and once in a while a mon will trek all the way out here to speak with her and hear her advice. For a modest fee, she indulges these requests. There is a deep sorrow in her voice, in her movements, and in the glints of her eyes hidden within the hood of her robes.
Another mon, also in robes but looking not nearly so downtrodden, walks up to the crone and speaks with a less reverent tone than the one she has grown used to hearing from those who come to speak to her. "Things are progressing, but with difficulty. The young student does indeed possess the recycled data you searched for, and his training is going very well, but our organization has been discovered."
She ponders on this for a moment, before clearing her weary throat and beginning to softly speak. "A small setback at most for one of your capabilities, I am sure?" she replies raspily. "Of course." the dramon states with a bit of fire for once, as if saying 'how dare you doubt me?'. "I have a plan to buy more time until the student can handle himself."
The crone slowly rises from her sitting position on the ground and picks up the walking stick beside her to aid her. "That's good to hear. I must once again thank you for your services." She lightly pats Dutch's shoulder.
"But of course." The dramon replies. "I always keep my oaths; that's why I'm careful to never make them." He smiles wryly at that last part. "But you actually got one out of me back then; you're very impressive in your own way, madame."
The withered old creature giggles and swats Dutch's chest with a hand. "Well, now aren't you charming? Get out of here before I fall for you, you dog!" she says sarcastically.
The karate master complies, turning around to leave the way he came without any fanfare. However, before the tall mon can get far, he stops and turns around for one final question. "If you don't mind me asking… why like this? There are much more direct ways of defeating Marsmon, more direct ways I can perform alone, even." The old mon seems to deflate and shrivel up even more in that moment as she considers Dutch's question.
When she speaks up, there's something profoundly different in her voice, something vulnerable that hardly ever comes out. Something she's not used to ever letting out; the weary, cynical sorrow is replaced with another kind of sadness, more raw and vulnerable. "I… I wish to bring that mon peace, even a little. This is the only way I know how to."
For a moment, both are silent and still, with only the sound of the hot, whistling desert wind around them. Then, Dutch turns and leaves, creating a second set of footprints in the sand leading out of the little village. Nothing more is said; nothing more needs to be said.
A small figure lands by the waterfall, the Airdramon who dropped him off flying upwards to roost higher on the mountain and keep watch. "Hey boss, we've got a big problem! I'm here to give my report!" Few people would dare to speak to Marsmon this way, but this mon in particular isn't anxious or stiff around him at all, though there is undoubtedly respect in his tone and body language.
Walking with a crutch and with one leg in a brace, bandaged up all over and with one eye now mechanized, replaced with a somewhat bulky but powerful red-lensed mechanical eye. Truly, he's a sight for sore eyes.
"Flint! Are you alright? What in the world happened?" The god kneels down to get a closer look at his general, face contorted into an expression of concern. "I'll be alright, I've had worse. Just had to take a detour to a chop shop before I got here, is all." The much smaller mon chuckles and rubs the back of his head.
"Heh. I guess there's no need to ask you how you've been; just looking at you answers that." With a practiced motion, Marsmon lifts the general up and onto his shoulder. Flint grumbles a bit but doesn't fight it, throwing his gun arm around his old friend's neck giving him a playful noogie. "My, you're affectionate today. Good mood?" questions the MetalMamemon.
"Last time I was only able to break seven Red Digizoid tiles with a chop, and this time I broke eight! I'm still getting stronger!" Marsmon explains gleefully. However, he quickly returns to a sour expression. "Don't sugarcoat anything; just tell me what happened and what you saw."
Flint's face falls, and he sighs deeply. "It's real bad in Darude, boss. The whole team I brought was killed. Assassins all over the place, networks of spies and informants, it's absolutely nuts. Practically a city-sized enemy base." Marsmon sits down cross-legged, causing his companion to wobble a little, and strokes his chin. "It's really that severe?" he questions. "It's fucked!" the MetalMamemon rants. "I honestly can't think of any way to snuff the rebels out entirely without completely razing the town."
The god scoffs. "That's absurd, and far too cruel! I'm not destroying a city completely just to put down a rebellion!" He shoots back. The mon on his shoulder sighs. "Yes, you're correct, of course. Even discounting the needless cruelty, it's a valuable source of resources. It's just… I genuinely can't think of anything else." The general scratches his head in thought. "If we thrash them normally they'll have thousands of places to hide and regain their strength to try again later. We'll never get them all."
"Well, don't worry about it. Just return to the front for now. I'll think of something..."
In an underground room that officially doesn't exist, with padded walls, weights, a treadmill and much more, Coronamon trains. He trains long and hard, like he does every day, reaching heights rookies were ever intended to attain.
This is his personal world, in a way, one which he was born into and which was made for him. 'You will be a great hero, but first you must be strong, and to be strong you must work hard.' Very simple stuff. The cat is certain that he'll evolve any day now; he's shocked that he hasn't already.
Finally, something breaks up the monotony of Coronamon's exercise: the door opens and a very familiar mon enters. "I see you're already warmed up. That's very good; your diligence is commendable." Dutch's voice is still monotone, but not nearly as lifeless as it is while teaching academics. Coronamon gets the feeling that deep down, the bandaged mon hates it as much as he does.
"You're late, old mon. That's not like you." notes the little lion, taking the opportunity to get as many seconds of rest as possible. However, the godling's jovial tone does nothing to lift the corners of Dutch's deeply frowning mouth. An awkward silence passes between the two, stretching out to the breaking point.
"We're leaving." The tall martial artist finally says. "The organization has been discovered, and the Great Mars Army is also aware that we have a secret weapon, but not of any details beyond that. You're being covertly taken to a new location to ensure you have more time to develop."
Coronamon stumbles backwards, outraged at this revelation. "Now why should I do that? I care about the people here, I can't leave them behind!" His usual calm demeanor begins to gradually crumble away.
"You are the only one of them who matters. Well, that's a little unfair. I should say that you're the only one who's truly crucial." Dutch replies bluntly with an almost eerie calmness. "But everyone here has staked their lives on defeating Marsmon!" the rookie shoots back. "Exactly, so they know just how expendable they are in pursuit of this goal. They will still fight, but instead as perhaps the loudest and most well-armed diversion of all time."
Coronamon freezes and blinks rapidly in confusion as his teacher moves to the center of the room and presses a button, causing cage walls to rise up around them, about fifteen feet from wall to wall. Finally, he speaks up. "What do you mean 'diversion'? I don't understand." The other mon does not answer, instead seemingly changing focus entirely.
"If you want to stay so badly, then fine; I have a plan that will give you a chance." The enigmatic mon unclasps his hands and begins stretching, causing a series of popping sounds from all over his body. "Just tear the bandages off my face. If you can do that then it will prove you're ready for real combat. If you can't then it means you are still a neophyte and thus need to be protected."
"What's your game, Dutch?" Coronamon questions his teacher suspiciously. "Staking a major course of action on a game? I wanted to convince you but…" Dutch's face, or rather the parts of it that are visible, betray nothing. "Are you turning down my offer, then?" he asks playfully. Or rather, as playfully as his voice ever gets.
"Of course not, let's go, right now!"
Deep in the jungle of Aramount, General Thresh wades through ankle-deep bog water, accompanied by several squads of Great Mars Army soldiers. "This had better not be a waste of my time that you could have handled yourself." warns the general.
"This is the real deal, sir, we're sure of it!" the lieutenant normally in charge of this detachment assures him. "Entire squads snatched away in the blink of an eye! No one even saw the mon doing it!"
"Oh, did I finally cause enough havoc to draw the tin man out? Kikikikiki!" A deranged and raspy, but rather feminine voice calls out from the treetops. The soldiers around Thresh, understandably startled, look around frantically in search of the source of the voice.
"Who's there!? Who the hell are you!?" one of them calls out. The voice laughs again, this time closer. "To the rightful denizens of Aramount I'm everyone's favorite grandma, but to colonizers like you, I'm the boogeyman!"
A massive figure suddenly crashes to the ground behind the group, sending marshy water spraying in all directions. "I love the rainy season. The humid air carries the scent of spilled data for miles." One soldier, a Galgomon, turns and aims his guns at the enemy, but is stopped in his tracks by what he sees.
A HerakleKabuterimon is already frighteningly enough, being a powerful species of mega with a horrific face. This one also has two people he recognizes with her, bodies maimed and mangled but still barely alive, clutched in her lower hands. "What's wrong, brat!? Shoot me already if you've got the guts!" She then tosses the two mon straight up and snips them in half with her pincers. She does it with total ease, as if she were cutting through nothing but air. A torrent of data spills onto her head and drips thickly down her face and body, making her visage even more horrifying.
"To think a worthwhile enemy was in a place like this." The general, seemingly without any fear, waves away the troops around him. "I, General Thresh, would get much farther away if I, General Thresh, were you. You're all in the splash zone." The troops with him, many of whom are battle-hardened ultimates, are quite eager to back away as the knight commands.
"Kikiki! Cocky bastard!" the beetle taunts. Little sparks of lightning jump between her pincers threateningly. "If you're so eager to die, that's fine by me! Your rampage ends today! I am the Guardian of Aramount, and you won't move even a step further!"
"You're not just great at intimidation, you've got a flair for the dramatic too, nice. You sure know how to set a stage!" The black knight says enthusiastically as he summons his shield and lance, which appear in his hands in a whirl of black smoke. "I can't see why you're so against a bit of civilization around here, though. We're going to be taking in these feral babies and rookies and giving them an education, some structure, a purpose. What's so bad about that?" Thresh spreads his arms wide, gesturing to the marsh around them. "As it is now this place is a shithole!"
"A purpose!?" the golden beetle yells. "Is that what you call training them to be your beasts of war, knowing nothing but bloodshed and conquest!? I've lived a very long time and seen a lot of two-bit wannabe colonizers come into this jungle, and they were all scum in the end!" She takes a wide-legged stance, stomps her feet to plant them firmly and spreads her four arms wide.
The knight pauses his movements and stoops dead, shoulders shaking slightly. After a moment he erupts into laughter. "Oh, I, General Thresh, have a lot of strong opinions on that topic, but I, General Thresh, am not here to debate philosophy. In fact, I, General Thresh, am done talking to you at all!" With a loud, wordless battlecry, the general charges straight ahead at his opponent, lance humming with energy.
The two mega level Digimon slam together, with the larger of the two parrying her opponent's lance aside and having her punch stopped cold by the knight's shield in turn. This escalates into a frenzied exchange of blows that none of the troops present can fully follow. Shockwaves emanate every time their mighty bodies clash, spraying more mud and water all over the place.
The Guardian grabs the knight's foot as he attempts to leap over her and attack from above. Her tendons bulge grotesquely as she slams him into the ground several times with all of her strength. She seems keen on continuing, but lets go and pulls away mid-swing to save her hand from a thrust of Thresh's lance, which scores a glancing hit and draws a stream of data from her wrist.
Having been released but still retaining the momentum of the swing, Thresh bounces off the ground on his back. The HerakleKabuterimon charges horn-first, attempting to press her advantage, but he reacts with incredible speed, spearing his lance into the ground and using it to launch himself over her head. He then grabs her horn with both hands from behind and slams his knee into her back, to the satisfying(to him anyways) sound of an exoskeleton cracking open.
Of course, he missed something; The Guardian's wings are open. Then, suddenly, they're not. The heavy wing shields snap painfully around the ChaosDukemon's leg, and the beetle capitalizes on this by bending her legs and back and slamming the knight into the ground yet again in the world's most bizarre suplex. She immediately releases him, turns around and backs away, knowing full well how risky that move was to pull. She's a tad too late, however; Balmung's thrust goes right through her thick armor and clips her side, and what would have been a fatal impalement instead simply becomes a deep, thickly-bleeding cut.
"W-w-what happened!?" "All of that in less than two seconds…" "General, are you alright!?" Murmurs of amazement break out amongst the gathered onlookers at this clash of titans as Thresh gets back on his feet, breathing heavily. "Gotta say, that was really damn impressive." The black knight says as he cracks his neck and his knuckles, then levels a glare with a bloodlust so intense that it feels more like a nightmare than a reality. Once again, many of those gathered around see not a knight, but an evil, vast-bodied dragon. "I, General Thresh, am all warmed up now."
The old bug just laughs off his intimidation and gets back into her previous stance. "Yeah, same here. It looks like I'll need to use real moves to crack that armor open. You live up to the rumors of the royal knights; you'll be a pain to kill." There are no hallucinations induced by the beetle's imposing, proud and savage presence, but it matches Thresh's own in ferocity. "If a young punk like you thinks just because he's got a title, a fancy stick and a big tin suit he take me on, you're in for a harsh lesson in reality!" She boasts.
"Oh, and what makes you so great and mighty that you can speak ill of the Royal Knights, you thug?" an unknown voice calls out from above. As one, the gathered soldiers and their leaders turn upwards and see a blue-scaled knight clad in gold armor descending from the sky. "Ser ChaosDukemon, do you require my assistance?"
"Feh, two on one, huh? Figured you were above that sorta thing." The HerakleKabuterimon spits, holding her ground warily. "I, General Thresh, didn't call him, and he's not getting involved here; I, General Thresh, promise you that." The black knight assures, turning to glare suspiciously as his gold-clad peer.
"I am not going to judge your hobbies, Ser ChaosDukemon, but I assure you this is an urgent matter, much moreso than some duel over a strip of land." Magnamon lands facing Thresh, hands folded behind his back in a dignified fashion.
Thresh sighs frustrated and turns to his opponent. "Would you mind if we postpone this and settle things later? I, General Thresh, will pull my troops out for now and come back once all this is taken care of." says the knight, somewhat apologetically.
"If you really want to give me a free advantage like that, then fine by me." says the Guardian, chuckling. She then turns to leave, and her powerful wings carry her off into the trees. The way she disappears seems almost unnatural.
Either not noticing or not caring about his fellow knight's seething frustration, Magnamon continues. "Ser ChaosDukemon, as a Royal Knight, your purpose is to serve Yggdrasil's will. With that in mind, why exactly are you getting involved in such petty conquest and creating chaos?"
The response the golden knight was probably not expecting was for his taller compatriot to get closer, looming over him at a distance just shy of 'in your face'. "And to that I, General Thresh, have two things to say." He holds up two fingers. "The first is that to me, being a Royal Knight is indeed my duty, but it is a secondary one. I, General Thresh, will serve Lord Yggdrasil when he calls me, so long as its orders do not conflict with my partnership with Lord Marsmon. And the second, well…" Thresh shrugs and looks around. "Look at this world, so divided and chaotic. Difficult to control or influence. By serving Lord Marsmon I, General Thresh, am serving Yggdrasil as well, for his new world will be more orderly, and thus much easier to enact Lord Yggdrasil's will upon."
Beneath his helmet, Thresh smiles in a half-insincere way as he places a hand upon Magnamon's shoulder. "Do you understand now, Ser Magnamon?" he says in a sweet, passive-aggressive tone. The smaller knight scoffs and pushes his hand away. "An… interesting philosophy, I suppose. Well, I do not intend to quarrel with you on your position; I will just get to the point." The men who brought Thresh here watch in confusion and worry as the two Royal Knights perform their courtly games of dominance.
Nonplussed, Magnamon returns his hands to their previous position behind him. "The message is such: 'You have been summoned to Yggdrasil's sanctum to attend the induction of a new member of the Royal Knights. This summons is not mandatory, but attendance is encouraged so as to build rapport and companionship with your new comrade.'" He then falls silent, the message finished.
"…that's it?" Thresh gets a bit closer, enough for the fellow knight to faintly feel the hot breath emerging from within his helmet on his scales. "You came down here and interrupted my duel to deliver a non-mandatory message? And it was so urgent that you couldn't wait for the fight to finish?"
Magnamon still doesn't back down even an inch, even though he has to crane his neck a bit to look Thresh in the eye at this distance. Indeed, he simply glares back, eyes narrowed. "All messages from Lord Yggdrasil are urgent. Perhaps if you had this little colonization of yours well in order and were winning the battle I would have waited until you were free, but you didn't, and you weren't, so I stepped in."
"You doubt my capabilities?"
"I do not blindly trust them."
Several seconds pass like this, with none among Thresh's men daring to speak a word for fear of setting off a battle to put the previous one to shame. After careful consideration, the taller knight finally speaks, his voice eerily calm. "Alright, I, General Thresh, will be at the big old induction bash, if only so that my fight was not cut off in vain."
With that, the tension begins to slowly drain away. "Wonderful. A portal will be sent in one day's time to your location. I assume you can arrange for things to be handled in your absence in that time?" informs the dramon knight.
With that, Thresh orders the men back to the camp as he and Magnamon hash out the details.
Coronamon hits the ground yet again, face bloodied, body bruised and with several teeth knocked out. He attempts to rise once more, but stumbles and falls to the ground.
"Your growth within this evolutionary stage is truly remarkable, but time is not a resource we have in abundance." Dutch reaches out through the cage's bars and hits the switch to make the walls go back down. "We will go elsewhere, and Marsmon's forces will continue to assault Darude, thinking the 'secret weapon' is here, and buying us a bit more of that precious time."
The godling manages to struggle back up to his hands and knees. "Our comrades… do they really mean so little to you?" He says accusingly. "Of course." Dutch replies coldly. "They are ablative armor built up around you. There are a few other promising fighters, but none of them have the potential to ever challenge Marsmon's power – only you can do that." The dramon lifts the small rookie off the ground and over his shoulder. "One day, you will thank me for all I have done for you. Now, let's get going."
