...
Filmon launched himself like a missile at the SandYammamon pack; the hedgehog's claws seemed to coalesce into a thin, russet-colored blade that sliced through the insects like paper. After so long using Crimson Slash, his mastery of such an attack had greatly improved, giving him a better understanding of where and when it would be best to slash to cause the most damage possible.
Togemon was not far behind and quickly began firing hundreds of spikes at the insects; some of them managed to dodge the attack but were unable to save themselves from the giant cactus' powerful punches. While Mimi's Digimon was not as fast and lethal as Filmon, it was powerful enough to take down the insects with ease now that it did not have to restrain itself in controlling the force of its blows.
Noah, seeing a movement in the corner of his vision, quickly turned his head before opening his eyes wide. Letting out a grunt of urgency, he quickly grabbed Mimi's hand and lunged backwards, narrowly dodging a wind cut caused by an insect.
Snapping its jaw, the SandYanmmamon pounced on the pair of children, taking advantage of the fact that they were still on the ground. Raising its stinger quickly, it took aim at the children with terrifying accuracy.
Mimi and Noah barely managed to dodge the sting but were unable to evade the lash that followed afterwards, separating them both and knocking them to the sandy desert floor.
Mimi managed to get up quickly only to see the insect pin Noah down with its little legs and open its mouth wide, dropping some greenish slime on the black-haired boy's face. Said boy seemed to be trying with all his might to free himself from the insect as he writhed in panic.
"You're mine—"
Before the SandYanmmamon could bite Noah's head off, its own head was pierced by a reddish blade.
Pulling the blade out of the insect's skull, Filmon pushed the body aside as he helped a pale Noah to his feet. "Are you okay?!"
"Y-Yes, th-thank you, Filmon" Noah said as he felt his heart pounding like crazy. He took a deep breath as he tried to calm himself down. "You're not hurt?"
Filmon blinked for a second. "No, although some slashes managed to hit me in the back, they didn't do much damage. Turns out my spikes got harder than I thought they would."
"Are you okay?!"
"Y-Yeah, God, that's disgusting..."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Maybe I'm a little in shock... it's not every day a copy of a Xenomorph almost eats your face off and lays its eggs inside you," Noah replied in an attempt to lighten the mood. Though at the same time he seemed to hear her empty words in his ears, so he quickly decided to deflect the topic. "So, what do we do about Raremon and the SandYanmmamon surrounding him?"
"I guess you don't have to worry about the SandYanmmamon" Togemon said, causing us to look at her in confusion before looking back towards the large mechanized mass.
"...Hed...oro..." Another unpleasant groan came from Raremon. This time, a thick fog of putrefaction rose from what was left of Raremon's flesh and enveloped the SandYanmmamon in an embrace of death.
The flying insects quickly fell to the ground in spasms as the fog seemed to devour their exoskeletons and Data, leaving only dust and the skulls of their skeletons as proof that they once existed.
This time, it was impossible to contain themselves, and both children ended up emptying what little was in their stomachs onto the desert floor. The level of disgust and cruelty of what they witnessed was simply too much for two ten-year-olds.
Noah spat on the ground as he tried to get the taste of vomit out of his mouth before a strange movement in the distance caught his attention. Some sort of bat was watching from a distance.
Noah squinted his eyes.
On closer inspection, the figure resembled a small imp more than a bat. Although the distance barely allowed Noah to see it, he could make out how small wings protruded from the imp's neck, as well as its disproportionately long limbs for its small size, plus a huge Ogremon-like mouth.
"Mimi, are you seeing that?"
The little imp seemed to notice the red-haired boy's stare. Letting out a mocking chuckle, the little imp seemed to vanish with a strange but tiny burst of black.
Mimi turned to look at Noah with a sick expression on her face. "Um? What's wrong?"
"...Nothing, I must just be imagining things," Noah muttered to himself as he discreetly read the holographic display with the imp's information before frowning and closing it with a thought. He didn't feel much like weighing now that his stomach was practically empty. "Anyway, what do we do about Raremon? We can't just leave him... like this..."
Noah grimaced as he looked at the agonized Digimon, still crawling through the desert with no apparent end in sight. As much as he felt disgust and revulsion at the Digimon's appearance, he wasn't so blind as to ignore that Raremon was suffering in a way incomprehensible to any human.
"Filmon uses Lightning Stinger and Crimson Slash to cut him down as quickly as possible. If you sense Raremon trying to do anything, get out of there immediately, got it?" Noah ordered quietly as he clenched his Digivice tightly. 'I don't want to lose you either.'
Filmon nodded resolutely with a small but imperceptible smile on his face.
Fully charging himself with energy, Filmon launched himself like an arrow towards Raremon. In less than a second, slash after slash began to appear around the mechanized mass as lines of red, and yet the mechanized mass seemed almost indifferent to how its skin was erased from the world's existence.
Filmon finally had to stop due to the great pressure of keeping Lightning Stinger active. The large hedgehog gasped slightly as he caught his breath, his fur and quills bristling as he watched Raremon simply freeze completely despite the several cuts all over his body.
That stunned Filmon for a moment; so far the only Digimon that had withstood his cuts had been Etemon because of that unfair ability. He was about to leap back onto the wretched mass of flesh and metal when a groan, almost resembling a sob of relief, echoed.
"...tha...nk ...you..."
As if those words had triggered something, the mechanized mass began to swell like a balloon. Raremon quickly reached a height of 5 meters before exploding, releasing a literal shower of Red Data.
***
I stood completely still as I watched the red rain fall on us.
I hadn't seen that color in the Data since that day on the beach, where that presence shook my bones and hammered my brain into unconsciousness. Looking at the Data falling from the sky, it made me wonder what Digimon could have had that overwhelming amount of Data in his body that seemed to have filled the entire sky of the world with it.
"Don't worry about your old mother; you're doing just fine with your friends in that strange world. Just...be strong for Mommy, okay?"
I felt my breath catch for a moment before shakily catching my breath; it had been a while since I'd thought about Mommy.
'I promise to stay strong, Mom.'
I looked at Mimi to warn her about not absorbing that Data for anything in the world, but it seemed the girl in the hat was already aware of its danger by her frown and how she seemed to shield herself with her hat.
When Raremon's Data finally disappeared into thin air, my Digivice emitted a small beep before two holographic screens appeared on top of each other.
[-New Information Obtained: Digivolution: Evolution System!]
[-New Information Obtained: Digievolution: Blast Evolution!-]
I closed both notifications; momentarily I could see Mimi ordering both Digimons to start absorbing the Data of all the eliminated SandYanmmamon. I asked Herissmon to listen to Mimi as I began to read the newly obtained information.
I couldn't help but be amazed at the huge screen I now had in front of me; it was possibly the most information I had collected so far.
[=====]
Stages of Digivolution: -Touch to open-
State of Evolution: It is well known that, when a Digimon reaches a certain Data threshold, it is able to reach a state called -Digievolution-. However, few know the real system behind this state.
When a Digimon reaches its threshold, the Data inside its body begins to modify its Digicore, which causes a radical bodily change in the Digimon's digital structure, and, as a consequence of this structural change, its bodies are also modified, increasing the complexity of the Digimon's code and, consequently, increasing its 'presence' in the World.
This particular occurrence of events is what we call -Digievolution-.
+: While this state is the prelude to the birth of a Digimon more powerful than the previous one, it is also, paradoxically, the Digimon's most fragile moment. This is because any influence during this brief period of time can cause permanent damage to its digital structure, weakening the Digimon instead of strengthening it.
Blast Evolution: The Digimon temporarily evolves to a more powerful form that it would otherwise not be able to access at that time; depending on the medium, it may evolve to a higher stage or an improved version of the same species. However, as a consequence of this evolution, the original Digimon will lose a certain amount of Data each time it accesses it.
+: All Data obtained during this period will be stored in that specific evolution and will not be shared with its pre-evolution.
[=====]
I blinked twice as I read the huge information screen again; suddenly it was as if a piece of a puzzle fit together in my head. I quickly opened another screen with all the information related to Digivolution and Data; a conclusion was starting to form in my head, and I don't think I like that conclusion at all.
'... How can I be so stupid?!'
"Stop!" I exclaimed loudly as I motioned for Togemon and Herissmon to stop in their tracks before they turned to look at me as if I had sprouted a second head.
"What's wrong?" asked Mimi in confusion.
Before explaining the reason for my urgency, I quickly asked Filmon and Togemon to return to their previous forms. The big cactus was reluctant to my request until Mimi asked him to do so; then I asked them to absorb the SandYanmmamon's Data to the confusion of both Digimons.
"Are you going to explain what that was or are you going to lie to me like you lied to Sora?"
I rolled my eyes at Mimi's accusatory tone. "I already said I wouldn't lie to you. And you got the two notifications just now too, didn't you?"
"Yes, but I just ignored them" Mimi shrugged before frowning at the look I was giving her. "Hey, that's as boring as the books Izzy reads; we're in a Fantasy World, not school!"
"Whatever." I shook my head before explaining my thought. "You do know that Digimons can evolve into their Adult forms any time we want them to, right? Well, that evolution isn't natural, or at least it's a very rare type of evolution!"
I crouched down on the ground as I started drawing little shapes and names around it. The first is a Herissmon-like form, while the other was similar to Filmon.
"An already evolved Digimon is not supposed to revert back to its previous form, as their evolutions are superior and more complete versions of our Digimon. This change in Digimons comes at the price of a decrease in the amount of Data they possessed before the evolution, being a sort of price for accessing that evolution or more powerful version of the Digimon. As we have been abusing this type of evolution, we have been losing a great amount of Data slowly but surely. If we can get our Digimons to reach that threshold and Digievolve naturally, we won't lose any more Data, and we may even be able to evolve them to their next evolutionary stage!"
"...I just got a bunch of notifications while you were talking."
"That just proves I'm right!" I replied with a smile as I tapped my finger on my temple smugly.
As I left Mimi checking her new notifications, I only had one more matter left to attend to.
I opened the strange imp's information again, which was terribly sparse. Apparently, depending on the distance, the Digivice can more quickly analyze some Digimon's information; since the imp was too far away, I was barely able to collect some of its information.
[=====]
Name: Evilmon
Level: -Insufficient Data-
Type: Virus - Nightmare Soldiers
Data: -Insufficient Data-
...
Description: -Insufficient Data-
Special Attack: -Insufficient Data-
[=====]
"...What does it mean to be a 'Nightmare Soldiers' to all this?" I muttered to myself and definitely didn't jump when a small notification popped up on my face.
[-Information Locked-]
I let out an annoyed groan as I read the now usual notification; sometimes it made me wonder if it would ever give me real information. I shook my head as I closed the notification and looked at Herissmon and Palmon, both of whom had finished absorbing the SandYammamon's Data.
I opened the information for both Digimons and couldn't help but let out a low whistle at the drastic increase in power.
[=====]
Name: Herissmon
Data: 139 / 150
[=====]
[=====]
Name: Palmon
Data: 127 / 150
[=====]
'Just a little more and Herissmon won't have to evolve Filmon anymore... if I had known this, I wouldn't have let Filmon absorb the Data from those Alquilamon! What a waste!' I thought to myself as I tried to calm my growing anger with slow, leisurely breaths; my carelessness and stupidity caused me to miss such an obvious and clear detail. 'If Herissmon had Digievolved from that moment to Filmon, the whole problem with Etemon would have been hundreds of times easier!'
I rubbed my forehead in frustration as I wondered how different the last month would have been if only I had realized it sooner.
"Noah!"
"What's wrong-?" I spun around to look at Mimi with an angry frown before stopping dead in my tracks with my gaze fixed on her Tag.
Mimi looked at me with a wide grin as she pointed at her Tag with her finger; said object flickered with a faint flash of greenish light. I could feel a little tingle in the back of my mind echo as I remembered that strange dream in the church.
I looked up in shock as Mimi's smile grew wider and wider. "You know what this means, don't you?"
I let out a sigh as I thought to myself that maybe I should have stayed overnight at camp.
"This is going to be a long day..."
...
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