Digimon Inheritance: A Heroic Lion's Turbulent Times (Finished)

[] Do nothing. It might bring Lady Ardat to her attention.
[] Rest and recuperate. Your injury is healing, if slowly. Maybe after a long nap your body will be back to normal?

===

Angewomon looks expectantly for a few seconds, then lets out a sigh of annoyance. It looks like she realizes that you're either not going to answer her, or are just unable able to do it properly given your current state. So she simply shrugs, closes his visible eye and leans back against the edge of the box-like saddle to take a nap.

You try to frown at the Ultimate; feeling a little guilty about not pointing your comrade out, but that's washed away by a flood of foreign relief. The past couple hours had been utterly exhausting, both physically from all the fighting and wounds you'd taken, but also the mental stress. So you're completely fine with closing your eye, blocking out the sound of Maildramon's wingbeats and nodding off into a dreamless sleep.

=

"Heavens Cure!"

Pain, white hot and all-consuming, rips you free from your slumber as the bottom and top edges of your throat scream in abject agony. The viral data responsible for your partially healed wounds fight against the wave of powerful healing magic attempting to keep its foothold in your flesh, but loses outright. Within half a moment muscle, sinew and skin reform, completely healing your body of the damage dealt. There's a last flash of light purple mist as the already recovered patches of data are cleansed of the influence, and the foreign viral matter is expelled. Seemingly wholesale.

Before you can so much as let out a sigh of relief, the technique goes after your scarred right eye. It burns bright with an ever greater pain, struggling to keep the healing energy from doing its job. Ultimately Repulsa's mark wins out, throbbing with power to finally repel the healing effect and keeping the horrific scar intact.

"Holy fuck," The feminine angel swears as she brings the technique to an end, her mouth turned down into a heavy frown. "How in the bloody Darkzone did a Drimogemon get something like that?" You look up at the angel, noticing that her helmet has been fully repaired, and grit your teeth as your force yourself to answer.

"A LadyDevimon," You reply quietly, trying hard not to snarl as the memory resurfaces once more. Angewomon nods once in understanding, before leaning back once more.

"I can't heal that piece of work," She explains tiredly. "The bitch that gave that to you has more power than me" You reach up and prod the mark on your face, then wince as the motion itself causes the infected flesh to blossom into fresh agony.

You go to ask the wounded Ultimate more about it, but are cut off as she releases a rather loud snore, proclaiming to all that she's gone back to sleep. Pushing the indignant anger down, you take a second to look around. It's dark now, on the very cusp of true night, meaning your nap must have lasted hours. From the looks of things both Ardat, and the sergeant have taken the liberty of sleeping as well...together for that matter. The Witchmon sits on his lap snuggled comfortably into his chest, with the Mistymon's arms draped protectively around her body.

The sight brings back memories from before you'd been a rookie, when Flamemon had let you sleep in his arms.

"It is good to see thee hale and healthy once again!" Sparks calls out from the side. The one-armed wizard takes his hand and lowers his collar to flash you a grin. "Mine apologies for my conduct during the battle; Count gazed upon me and I believe cast some form of mental technique," he explains, voice growing more and more unhappy. "That prick filled mine mind with overwhelming and fantastic doubts, twas enough to lock me in a trance. Mine thanks for snapping me out of it"

Oh... That uh, makes sense I guess.

"It was er-no problem" You reply, forcing a smile onto your recovered features. "We're going to rip him apart together aren't we?"

"Heh, verily."

After a moment of deeply staring into each others eyes, you nod at each other then turn away before things get weird. However you immediately flinch back as a pair of claws slam onto the edge of the *saddle* for a moment you panic rearing up and raising your paws up into a defensive stance, then breathe a sigh of relief upon realizing that they belong to a Stingmon. A heavily breathing Beat clambers half into the slightly cramped space, looking to rest after having spent so long flying.

Considering that the Maildramon has been flying for what is probably most of the day while not only supporting his own bulk but that of at least five other digimon, the armored Dramon's stamina must be amazing. Adding in the fighting against DarkLizardmon and you're surprised that it hasn't reached its limits yet. Eventually however Maildramon does have to stop, settling down into the forest during the middle of the night. Angemon, Pidmon and the other champion, Airdramon you hear him called, all join him, clearing away trees and setting up a real camp. With nothing else to really do, you take your cue from the others, let Sparks curl up against your thick fur and go back to sleep. Having someone pressed up against you like this again is...nice.

In the morning you get a chance to actually examine the sergeant without worry of being deleted, and despite his nonchalant attitude he's in the most wounded state you've ever seen. Dozens of small round wounds coat his body and limbs, (likely from the Assaultmon) but the most grievous injuries are clearly from Count. His chest armor had been torn nearly in half, only partially hiding the massive hole in his torso from where it looks like some mon had plunged a hand right through, with half of his face basically being one gigantic bruise. Plus you're pretty sure that he has a number of internal injuries given how he's refused to eat anything so far. The only reason why you hadn't noticed it before was how confident Scratch had been, acting; as if the pain didn't affect him at all, and thus making it seem like there was nothing wrong to be worried about in the first place.

You shudder to think of just how powerful Count must be at night if he could manage to do this much damage to Scratch during the day.

However his wounds don't end up lasting very much longer. Once the other squad's leader has rested and eaten enough to regain her power, the angel takes care of his injuries, which in turn prompts the officer to devolve back into his preferred form of Gladimon. Angewomon seems a bit disappointed by this, but you're really not able to understand why. She repeats the action on all those still wounded, including herself and shortly thereafter the squads are once again flying away.

As time passes you get to musing, wondering between who's stronger between Angewomon and Scratch. Of course you don't exactly have the necessary scale and scope of their power required for a perfect estimate, but after judging how they each performed in the fortress assault, you decide to give the edge in such an imaginary battle to the sergeant. You doubt that the NeoDevimon who wounded her near-critically was as powerful as Count, and Scratch beat him... Kinda-sorta at least.

Truth be told you still have no idea how in the heck he managed to drop the mountain on his opponent, and just chalk it up to some sort of spell on his part.

During the ride back to town, with nothing really better to do, and talk with Sparks played out, Scratch tutors you a bit more on the Flame Shroud spell. Through that, you manage to get the point of near completion. According to him, it will take you just another few hours of studying until you're finally able to use the incantation properly. Beyond that, you take the free time to lay back and relax, doing an exercise called "meditation" which turns out to be good at relieving stress, if not quite as good as digging.

Maildramon sets down to rest once again late in the evening, during which the others take the opportunity to do some training. Beat faces off against Scratch again, Sparks begins blasting trees, but perhaps the most interesting event is watching Pidmon and Angemon spar against each other.

From what little you'd heard, Pidmon aren't really supposed to be especially powerful champions, so in a normal encounter something strong like an Angemon shouldn't have much trouble in dealing with one. Your friend however is a weird exception to that particular rule and actually turns the match against his mentor into a fight. Hearing the constant *clangs* of their long weapons smacking against each other is annoying, but it's pretty interesting to watch how they try to maneuver against each other. Sure the larger angel is stronger, faster and more skilled, but Pidmon works to make sure it's still not a particularly easy victory for him.

When their practice duel finally ends, the two rod users float down, slam the ends of their respective weapons into the dirt, and bow to each other.

"Congratulations Pidmon, you've become a splendid and powerful warrior for the Lord's will!" Angemon announces with a grin. "It's hard to think that you were once just a Tukaimon gripped in the accursed Gloamings nefarious hold!" The two winged angel's smile falters for a second, flashing to a pained grimace before bouncing back. "Why perhaps one day you could become a Dominimon!" Pidmon pauses for a second to ponder the words, then shakes his head.

"I'm sorry Angemon, but I won't accept that!" he proclaims, thrusting his rod into the sky. "Becoming a Dominimon wouldn't be enough I'm aiming for the very top!" His words boom with something foreign, a sudden deep power that radiates warmth "I'll become a Seraphimon one day and personally carry the lords Wrath!" The surety and will in his voice strikes something in your core, and for a moment you can't do anything but firmly believe that his words will be a reality. "On that day I'll wipe the accursed Gloaming and their filth away from this world!"

Angemon stares at the smaller digimon with a gaping mouth, his body trembling. Then after a second to gather his wits steps forward and rubs his free hand on the Pidmon's helmet. Just like that the effect is lost and you release a breath you don't even remember holding.

"I believe you Pidmon! Go for it!"

"Angemon..." Your friend trails off, looking around as if embarrassed by his words. A moment later, he's swept up in a hug, and take that moment to move on.

=

Maildramon swoops into MasterTyranomon's town early the next morning, and the non-flying members of you party disembark not long afterwards. The others settle down just past the gate, along with Angewomon and wait patiently as Scratch ruffles through a bag and pulls out a number of Bit chits. A few seconds of handing out payment later, and he dismisses everyone for the day with the explicit order to meet him back behind the gate tomorrow morning.

With that accomplished, he leaves with Angewomon towards the Blessed Host trading post.

Beat glances over towards the gym, seemingly eager to train his new body and starts walking towards the structure. To your surprise, Sparks actually moves to join him.

Ardat trudges off towards Frigimon's mansion still in somewhat of a slump, while Pidmon clears his throat to get your attention.

"Friend Verge! I uh... *ahem*. I plan to visit the town barracks and tell the rest of the Garrison about my exploits in the assault! Will you come along to..." The two winged angels shuffles nervously trailing off into a nervous *Hyuk* of laughter before finishing. "-Tell them I'm not lying?"

=== You: (Choose One)

[] Accept his request. He's asking you to back him up, and besides, you're curious about what the local fighting digimon are like!

[] Decline his request so you can go to the gym. You've kind of slacked off on training on the way back, so getting a session or two in there should make up for it.

[] Shake your head, then go after Ardat. The Witchmon is still broken up after what happened, and visiting the orphanage lets you see your wards all the sooner!

===Stat/Skill Changes: (Special & Spirit Training) (BP: Special, Spirit, Endurance X2, Fortitude, Agility)

Skills:

• Basic High Programming: 27/100->28/100
• Flame Weapon Shroud: 15/18->17/18

Stats:

• Strength: 242.25
• Fortitude: 220.50->221.75
• Endurance: 207.25->209.75
• Agility: 178.25->179.50
• Special: 196.75->206.75->209.25
• Spirit: 157.25->164.25->166.00

===

Gained 4200 bits
Note: 12K worth of green Crystal in Satchel

===Authors Note: Woot! Got this done. Originally this update had three choices, but I cut one since it was pointless and the other since the scene did not fit. Beta'd by @TempestK