[] You'll bear through the pain and do the training with Sergeant Scratch. It can't be that bad...Right? (Counts as 2 Sparring Sessions and 2 Fortitude Training sessions. Will bring General Fighting up to 30)
===
Deciding between the two available paths is a tough choice, and you spend a full eighty-two seconds deliberating on which option is better. However in the end you decide to opt out of studying in favour of accepting the Sergeant's special training. It is a decision you immediately come to regret, as an armored arm grips you by the scruff of the neck and turns the world into a blur.
The *training* if you could even call it that, is the second most painful experience in your entire life. Falling only just behind Repulsa's torture. It's kind of shocking that he's even allowed to do this to his subordinates, really.
Scratch leaves no bone unbroken, no patch of flesh unmarred as the Gladimon mercilessly beats you into the ground. Then, once you're unable to so much as move, he drags you back to Pidmon and has the horrified angel heal you back up before starting the cycle all over again. The devolved Ultimate is precise,
clinical in his methods, hitting your every weak spot, picking through every gap in your defense and painfully showing you what you're doing wrong.
It's not a simple beating - no, the Sergeant has no taste for sadism. He takes the time to explain the flaws and faults in your technique between each attack, and then offers suggestions on how to best to fix these flaws.
At one point you think Sparks shows up to the Sergeant to ask him to halt the training, but you say
something and he backs off. Or something like that at least. It's hard to remember exactly; you think he might have mashed up your brain a little too hard.
What feels like days pass as you cry, scream, and fight in a haze of pain and words. You don't know how long it went on for exactly, or know quite when it finally, mercifully stopped. In the blackness, your mind stirs, feeling almost familiar with what had happened. There's a flash of
grey, more pain, familiar
anger and then you finally wake up-only to start the entire ordeal over again.
If it weren't for the fact that you could feel your body toughening up and your skill at combat improving, you've have begged Scratch to stop. Though you have a feeling he wouldn't have listened anyway. On the plus side, you'll probably never be overwhelmed by pain during a fight in your entire life.
===
*Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep*
You barely suppress a flinch as the time-telling device carried in Scratch's hand lets out a series of high-pitched sounds. Normally it wouldn't be so bad, but in the tight confines of your tunnel the noise reverberates in such a way that you're reminded of Pipismon's screams. The sound of your drills ripping apart rock does at least help dull it a little bit.
"The assault is starting." Scratch announces from behind you, and a moment later the noise stops. "Keep digging, you will breach the sub-level momentarily."
"Y-yes sir." You mumble, trying not to shiver from the sound of his voice. Your tunnel through the mountain has by far been your most ambitious excavation project of your life to date, and you've bored through hundreds of feet of solid rock. Honestly, the hardest part had been making sure the jagged tunnel kept going in a mostly straight line. If it curved too much, then your party would probably miss the fortress entirely! Thanks to your body shape, moving through the long jagged tunnel is fairly easy, but your comrades had all been forced to kneel or in the case of Beat and Pidmon
crawl behind you.
In this instance you're more than a little glad that you've grown so large. If you'd just stayed three feet tall then there would have been absolutely no way for the others to squeeze into the tunnel. Going in alone against an entire fortress isn't something you even want to consider, even if the victory over Pipismon had given you a bit more confidence at your ability to fight against champions.
Several seconds later, the tip of your nose bursts through a section of rock and into empty air.
Aha! I'm in!
Your claws follow suit, clearing the way so you can poke the rest of your head through and look into the supposed storage basement.
It's a wide room, easily dozens of feet across with a roof easily large enough for most champions to stand without worry of hitting their head. A score of familiar looking wooden crates line the spaces to either side of your little entrance, and just from a brief glance, you can see tiny bits of green crystal sprinkled around the sides, liked they'd fallen out. The only light source is a single fixture that looks to have been driven into the roof, not fire but the same weird sort of light that's so prevalent in towns. The room only has one exit, a pair of massive metal doors currently shut at the opposite side of the room.
However, what your eye ends up focusing on the most is the three champions standing guard behind the door. The two
Vilemon stare towards you, surprise clearly etched on their features, though this quickly turns into glee as they see your worried expression
"Hehe, a Drimgemon here?" The first one cackles.
"That counts as an intruder! NeoDevimon said we can do what we want with those!" The second shouts, licking his lips.
"Grr, that's right." The third champion in the room snarls out. You freeze, staring at the
BlackGarurumon with abject surprise.
"Gnaw? Is... is that you?" Hope fills your voice, for a moment before reality comes crashing back down, smashing it into tiny pieces.
There's no way, it can be him. Gnaw… he'd never work for the Gloaming.
"What?" The Beast digimon asks in confusion, before shaking its head and growling again. Fear erupts from your core as the three advance, and it's a struggle not to back away into your tunnel once more. Fortunately you don't have to make that choice, as a hand shoves at your rear, pushing you out of the tunnel with a surprised (and rather unflattering) yelp.
A grey blur tumbles forth after you, not leaving the BlackGarurumon a chance to so much as a yelp before two sabers
plunge into its head. One twist later, and the champion's skull is twisted around, snapping its neck.
"Wha-" The first Vilemon is cut off as a spike nails it right between the eyes. Before the second small devil can so much as utter a sound, a second spike blows off the left side of his head. Beat, crawls out of the tunnel a second later, not bothering to so much as look at the fading mon's data.
Wow! That's… ugh, don't throw up. Amazing.
Pidmon crawls out next, unfurling and stretching his wings with a sigh of relief, with Sparks and Ardat popping out just afterwards. The Witchmon carefully dusts herself off using her broom, while Sparks stares at the rapidly fading BlackGarurumon. You turn and tell the Wizardmon that the champion wasn't Gnaw, and he nods with a notable slump of relief.
Scratch stands completely still in the chamber's center for a few seconds, before his body warps once more, stretching up into Mistymon and claiming his spot as the tallest digimon amongst the squad. Beat moves towards the door, ready to try his luck at pushing it open, but the caster stops him with a word.
"Hold." Your sergeant slowly steps across the uneven ground towards one of the crates bearing green crystals, casually uses his sword to slice one open, causing a steady stream to leak out onto the ground.
Wait this is...This must be where they've been storing all the stuff they've mined! But...why? I mean, what do they even use it for?
No answer is forthcoming.
The Ultimate casually snatches one of the crystals up in his hand, examining it closely. His head tilts back and forth a few times, and it almost looks like he's having some sort of conversation in his head. Finally the Mistymon nods, then seems to mentally command his Core Dart to begin hovering over the pile. You're not sure why he's doing it though.
Sparks walks over the broken crate and nonchalantly begins to shovel in handfuls of the material into his red bag.
Ah right that-it's valuable! Worth like a lot of bits. I could buy so much stuff! Like, uh… for food and maybe training stuff? Um, what else would one buy with money anyways?
You quickly move to follow the magic champion's example, and soon have your grey satchel filled to the brim with two hundred fifty-eight pieces of the valuable green crystal. You don't even know what it's called...
Upon turning back around, you spot Ardat, Pidmon and Beat staring at the two of you in confusion. Sadly before you can stammer out an explanation, Scratch barks for everyone to stand at attention. Your leader spends a moment to reaffirm his plan, calls Pidmon and Beat to his side, then moves over to the doors in order to gently pull them open.
The party slowly begins to make their way through the large hall carved through the stone, taking care not to make too much noise. The silence and dimly lit areas fills you with a certain amount of dread, but turning corners and not knowing what's on the other side are the most frightening moments. At the very least since you take up the rear, you're not the first one that has to face whatever could be on the other side. You take your duty as rearguard very seriously, making sure to check the empty area behind the party every couple seconds. Though you'd probably be doing that anyway if you were alone...
Beat's newly evolved Stingmon form is very useful here, as his speed and powerful armaments allow him to cause lethal damage on unsuspecting digimon quickly and very quietly. The first (well, technically third) to suffer this fate is an enemy Witchmon, seemingly on guard duty. Unfortunately for her, she was facing towards the exit. She wasn't able to so much as scream after your comrade stabbed a spike through the back of her skull. Surprisingly, Sergeant Scratch prevented him from loading the magical digimon, instead ushering over Sparks to take in the fading champions power.
If Ardat was put off by seeing her lookalike be brutally deleted and then loaded, she doesn't show it. Mostly, she's been pouting and sulking the whole time, ever since Scratch had ordered her not to use her more powerful spells.
Your group continues to roam through the lower levels for a dozen minutes or so, with Beat or the Sergeant knocking off the occasional enemy that has the misfortune of running across his path. You don't end up seeing half of the killings, something you're more than a little glad for. Once all the inhabitants on the lower level have been dealt with, your squad advances up an inclined section of tunnel up to the next floor.
Whatever *luck* your party had enjoyed in terms of staying anonymous ends the very moment Scratch surfaces from the sub-level. Two deep roars of alarm erupt from above, lasting only a moment before something cuts them off. You follow the rest of the squad up, just in time to spot the fading remains of the champions who'd spotted Scratch drop down. From what your remaining eye is able to figure out they were both dinosaur digimon, namely a Tuskmon and something you're not familiar with, a large black dinosaur with wicked looking claws. Though they're both considerably less intimidating now that they've had their heads stricken from their bodies.
Unfortunately your leader's actions come a bit too late. More shouts rise up from down the hall, and what looks like a
Bakemon wearing a hat peaks in from the other end. It barely manages to pull its noggin away in time before a spike punctures the air where it's head had been.
"Tch, missed."
"Our presence has surely been discovered!" Pidmon exclaims, raising his golden rod up into the air. "The need for secrecy is surely past! Onward, to wipe out the Accursed Gloaming's filth!" He takes a step forward-
*Thwack*
-and immediately is driven down to his knees after Scratch smacks him across the back of the head with an open hand.
"We stay cautious," The sergeant warns, throwing the angel digimon a disapproving frown. Pidmon opens his mouth to protest, but seems to realize halfway through forming his next word that he can't exactly win against the Mistymon with words. So he sighs in disappointment and lowers his head.
Your party continues to move forward in formation, progressively making sure that the second floor is also clear, but it looks to have already been evacuated. You realize with greater dread that this means they're probably all waiting for you somewhere else.
When your group exits the second floor and comes into the fortress' *courtyard*, that theory ends up being proven completely true. You examine the rough, barren ground at the foot of the mountain base, noticing hints of debris that must have come from excavating the fortress, and sweep your gaze over the crude half-circular stone wall on the other side, providing a firm barrier against any ground-based digimon looking to enter.
However all of that pales before the *welcoming party* lined up to greet your squad.
A four legged cyborg stands poised outside the exit, its strange weapons (that vaguely remind you of what the Commandramon carries) pointed at Scratch. You find yourself and Sparks being dragged out of the entranceway by Beat just as the enemy opens fire.
"Justice Massacre."
A sudden rush of roaring noise assaults your ears as a hail of tiny projectiles rush towards the Mistymon, who momentarily vanishes from sight, his fiery blade actually moving fast enough to block the worst of the salvo aimed at him. Judging by the occasional loud *ping* his armor manages to stop a number of other rounds as well.
You spot Pidmon flying up above, smacking away the claw of a
Devimon moments before it can plunge its hand through his chest.
Ardat picks herself up from the left side of the entrance, only to immediately be kicked in the gut by a
small black blur.
Beat leaps into the air towards the Devimon engaging Pidmon, but is forced to dodge away as the trident of a
Boogeymon stabs towards his head.
With a grunt, you rear up onto your feet and raise your arms up into a defensive position. Sparks hops to his feet beside you; raising his glowing staff up as the hat-wearing Bakemon and a duo of the normal variant come rushing forward.
We can do this! They're champions but...I'm not scared this time!
You grit your teeth and:
=== Choose One:
[] Stay back to protect Sparks. He can blast them while you defend him from harm. You'll fight together, and more importantly, stop your friend from getting hurt.
-[] You have your own ranged attacks now. Try and use your Holy Light Strike. It'll cut into your healing potential, but it should be extremely effective against undead digimon like this
-[] Stick with your claws and nose for now. Save your magical stamina for later in case you need to heal a lot more.
[] Rush forward to engage the enemy. The sooner you can get into melee, the sooner you can finish this( and hopefully sustain less damage). Then you can help the others with their fights.
===
Skills:
- Digging: 23/100->24/100
- General Fighting: 28/100->30/100
Stats: (Aforementioned training bonuses) (BP: Spirit, Strength, Endurance)
- Strength: 236.25->241.00->242.25
- Fortitude: 206.00->218.00
- Endurance: 202.75->206.50->207.25
- Agility: 176.50->178.25
- Special: 187.00
- Spirit: 153.75->155.50
===
Author's Note: This is another split update. I realized this made a good cut off point as the next part should be fairly big as well. 
