Glacium Frost said:
I used another "Saint Knuckle!" at point blank range, since Matadormon was content to not remove my spear from his body, generous fellow that. Followed up by swinging "Shoulder Blade!" to meet Bulldog at an angle to deflect the attack away from me.
In the end, Light still works better than anything else I have at my disposal, so sticking to melee was probably the better idea compared to letting go of my spear and being left with my fist and axe.
Matadormon holds the spear in place, right up until the moment you empower it with Saint Knuckle. At which point it slips from his grip and is thrust forward. His Bulldog perhaps would have managed to do something about that, but it came about just slow enough that you can activate your Shoulder Blade and deflect it.
As a result the spear is stabbed straight out of his back, drawing a pained gasp from Matadormon and causing his body to begin to flicker into static. "Bu-bulldog!" He desperately shouts, leting go of your spear, which dives even deeper into his body, and stabbing a series of rapiers into your arm. Red blood starts dripping down from the wounds, before it seems to slide along the rapiers as if being sucked in by them. And as it does you can see the flickering starting to slow down as if his body is managing to stabilize itself.
AshlingWaltzes said:
"That's the spirit!" I smiled happily as Sunny raced off, following steadily after him. I couldn't run along the walls after all. Of course, I was more than a little confused by some of the terminology that Sunny was using. I mean, I knew what Search meant in reference to digital stuff, but... well, I had no idea what it meant in the context of Digimon. Was this another thing that had come with the modern age, or something old that I'd just never known about? Either way, I was almost bouncing with excitement to find out.
It was particularly convenient then, that Mary asked me if I knew about it. "Awawa... I don't! What is it?"
Mary nods slowly at your answer, and then picks you up to place you on the desk next to Sunny's place on the wall. "A Search is a controlled release into the Cyberverse. I assign you guys to look up something for me like say... Oh, here." Mary points to a question on her sheet 'How does a Tamer know when they should alert the Crack Team that their Digimon is going to Digivolve to Perfect?' "So I ask you guys to go into the Cyberverse and look that up for me, and Search in places where it might be and come back to me and say 'Using the Affinity Scanner. It will tell you how high your Partner's Affinity has raised out of a faction of what it takes to reach an Adult." And then there's the calculations but that's not important right now."
"Back to Searches, so you guys can look up that, but if the Digivice feels like you guys are going off track then it gives you a warning to get back on topic. And if you ignore that then you get pulled back to my Digivice and I get an alert about what you were trying to do." The girl continues to explain, one finger idly tapping at the device. "But, in exchange if someone attacks while I'm not paying attention to help you then you also get automatically returned, and I get told that you need treatment right away, so it is less dangerous than sending you two off completely on your own."
Leonite said:
I... what? What? They're acting as if I just said nonsense and given what this... Crackun - Yggdrasil above could it not have been a Blue Badger at least? - is saying...
No, I have a good way of putting this together. Logic. Coping mechanism, if nothing else. Ok. Let's see. We know that regular people don't seem to see breaches,
Breaches only seen by us.
And that Digimon wasn't like the last Breach. It was made of 1s and 0s. Like it had been skinned.
Skinned Digimon Breach
But there's also the fact that according to Crackun, nobody saw the Digimon
Skinned Digimon Gone??
"Wait, did none of you see the Digimon I literally had my fist buried into? Looked like it was made of binary data - ones and zeroes?" I asked with wide eyes. "That's... not good. Not good in the slightest. Because I can tell you now, Crackun - firstly, I'm not a tamed Digimon - I understand thats still perfectly fine? And secondly, I can give you proof as to the fact I was in a fight... until a few minutes ago, I had never reached perfect. I was in mid air, and had no way of pushing myself over the edge by myself. No tamer, so that means no power source to fuel it. And I know better than to try and force the Digivolving sensation through - Crackun probably knows what happens if a Digimon or Tamer tries to force a Digivolution, right?"
If they couldn't see the Digimon, and the only difference is that the Skinned Digimon was... Skinned. Then....
Beaches only seen by us + Skinned Digimon Breach + Skinned Digimon Gone??
"If you couldn't see the Digimon... then something about that Digimon was hiding it. In other words, it was invisible to normal eyes - invisible like the breach a breached Digimon creates!"
And that means I need to get that data to Ash, ASAP. That Breach isn't going to last long, but if I can get the message to Ash...
I even de-digivolve out of sheer shock - would I still have the battle damage from before? I genuinely didn't know, I haven't done this before!
"..." There is a moment of silence, followed by Crackun in a much deeper and less cutesy voice muttering to himself. "Damn, this one got infected with something Nasty didn't he?" You expect you weren't supposed to hear that, because in the next moment he is back to using mascot voice and says "No no we saw it." As he gests to the crowd that has backed up around him.
"I think you're feeling a bit confused though. Why don't you just come along with me and we can get you all checked out." Crackun then suggests with an arm placed on your shoulder. One that weakly pushes you to follow along with him. "We can get you some tasty snacks hwile you wait, and the Doctors will fix up whatever mean virus is making you talk like that. Ok?"
tzeench said:
"Hmm...good." I say with a nod. "I don't feel any particular desire to use it, so unless and until we decide to test it out I'm not going to touch it thanks. I've already told you the situations I'll bring it out and I doubt I'll be seeing them any time in the foreseeable future."
"Oh please do. Let me know if you have any worries about it and I'll take it seriously." I say, I already agreed to monitoring. I know what the risks here are. I flash her a thumbs up. I'm still on board with everything we agreed on after all.
As for the next part..."Hmm, I'll let you know when I am, we can plan a time for it, hopefully I won't be gone more than a few weeks subjectively." I know in the timeline we First create I'll have vanished until I arrive but when I get back it should only be roughly as long as I was gone from our testing. "For now though it's back to business as usual~" I say lightly, happy to help her feel better.
"Hmm, actually I think I have a pretty good idea of how it works, having felt it myself and just, what I know so far." I say, before humming as I put the pieces together in my head. "So, this is not 100% confirmed, but I'm fairly confident I have the broad strokes right. The crests are attracted to people who exhibit the Sin to a certain level. Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Sloth, Envy, or Pride depending on the crest in question. Now everyone has a Bit of at least some of them, they're more or less universal after all, but most people don't have anywhere near enough of any specific one to attract a crest so at most they get maybe one of the minor manifestations. To get the crest, I would say there's Two main paths to it. A faster, more dangerous path where you indulge in excess and don't care about who you harm or how, or even worse Relish in it. That produces sins with the drawbacks you mentioned. It is also, and I can say this with certainty, Absolutely faster than the other path."
I tap my cheek. "The second path is the one I took, where you indulge...well not moderately, you'd never get the Crest that way. But you indulge consciously and push to levels You find reasonable without diving into excesses that would prompt the negative. Let's call that threshold the invisible line for now." I draw a line with my fingers. "Now if two individuals, one who didn't cross the invisible line and one who did competed for the crown, the one who crossed it would win a hundred times out of a hundred. The crest is Absolutely going to pick that person first, last, and always. The resulting demon lord is going to be as awful as expected, because the person who crossed the finish line to get the crown was the awful one. Sins encourage more of themselves, and the easier path is Always one that comes at the expense of others." Excessive loading for gluttony, Taking what you want for others for greed and lust, envy...is self explanatory. Pride is Pride, sloth...not entirely sure there. And Wrath is Easy to turn on others. "So evne if there might be a more reasonable candidate for the demon lord position, they are...barring maybe Beelzemon, never going to take that role because it's first come first serve, and these things are Not going to let go easily once they're in." You don't say now and forever and leave after a week. I expect it is going to be a Fight if anyone ever tries to claim it from me...and even if I lose they might not even be favored enough to take it.
"What's different in our case is well..." I point at myself. "One: I'm already predisposed to the reasonable path to Lust. I knew that going in and it's Why I even decided to in the first place. As you saw, I have never crossed that invisible line, nor do I have any reason to do so in the future. I'm already indulging in lust in ways I'm Entirely satisfied with, and will be so in the future." I know myself Pretty well. At most I'm just going to you know, find new things I enjoy indulging in and find more people to date with the agreement of my two girlfriends. Happiness of those I care about is Also something I indulge in~
"Second...well I was put into a good environment for it. I have enough free time especially over these last few months to do as I like with it." Even if I haven't been training as much as I could have been, Clearly that paid off. "I'm in an area where I could find people and things I'm interested and wanted, and there aren't any huge roadblocks in my way in that area." No huge cultural taboos to mess with, nor any super restrictive culture in general. Either of which would have made this Much slower.
"Third...We're early enough in the scheme of things I didn't have any real competition, so I could Afford to go slower." Lust especially probably only really kicks into full gear when people hit Mega, though Perfect is enough Some of the time. "I clearly didn't have someone who was doing the fast path anywhere Near as well as they could have. It took me what, only...five months?" I bet I was Very fast for the slow path.
I shake my head a bit. "Either way, my point is...I'm pretty sure the reason demon lords are so routinely awful is that it is far, far easier and faster for someone who is already awful to get it than someone who isn't, and the path to get them only tends to encourage it once you start. Once you get it, you Already qualify it, so the crest doesn't need to do any sort of influence on you." There's no point, again, nobody who doesn't already qualify is ever going to get one, and the sins themselves are self reinforcing, doubly so if you go the faster route. It makes no sense to put a mental influence on top of that. "The long and short of it, is if I go bad it will have been because I." And i point at myself. "Made those choices for my own reasons. I'm already as Lustful as I need to be for my position, and there's no point for me to do more of it than I'm comfortable with." And I already know, and are more than comfortable with myself. Maybe others might be tempted to do more but quite frankly? I'm good. If I want new things I'll aim for them in ways that leave me happy with myself.
"A few weeks, and a few thousands of years." Norn comments with a sort of smile that is impossible to read with half of her face covered in the way that it is. Before you suddenly go off explaining many, many thoughts that you have been having on the topic of Sins, Crests, and Demon Lords.
There is a chance that a human would have been overwhelmed by the sheer amount that you suddenly gave to her. But a human would not have the sort of Processing Power that Norn has backing her. And so instead she just needs a second before she can say, "Beelzemon... I suspect that is one of the other Demon Lords? As I've said, the other Yggdrasil have determined that we should not know the names of the Seven until they manifest in our world, but I suppose it is ok if Lilith tells me one's name. Especially if she is trying to say there is a chance that his rise is something that should be considered allowable."
"The knowledge was banned so that we would not be tempted to try and prevent their existence." Norn's lights dip down to the side, giving the impression that she is looking away from you. "The Providence of the Universe will not be denied. Attempting to do so will only worsen the state of our Digital Worlds."
"But I... believe I understand your attempts at reassuring me. If you are correct, the Crests are no more corruptive than the temptation to use any other power that exists is. What makes them such terrors is that the powers they offer naturally attract the worst sorts of people. And the Crests adore such people as they fit their Sins." Norn brings up either hand and then pushes them together. "So they are drawn to one another, and anyone such as yourself who is forced to compete would lose because they are unable to match the attractive force between them. Even if they are able to match the Sin such as yourself."
TheFictionAddict said:
Good.
I couldn't help the grin on my face.
Good they both worked.
But-
"Tsk." Yeah, it was odd they hadn't tried swarming me before this, sure...
But well.
I couldn't help my mocking grin towards them."Get me? If you can!!"
My legs already tense from trying to brace myself just in case before...Instead I direct that force into bent knees-
And what was it, did ol' Jack say?
Ah, right.
Jump good.
I jumped up, and out, past their heads, the head of their bullheaded boss, and hope fully away from the village...
But not before firing a few potshots at Minotaurmon along the way, really distract him from the fact I was moving away from the village for now-
-bur once I'm back on my feet I call back to them, already beginning to run outside.
"YOU'RE FAILING BY THE WAY!!"
You leap into the air, and while you might not be particularly fast compared to Minotaurmon, you are still as fast as you were as Gatomon. And you have a much greater strength in your limbs now. As such, just as you hoped you go soaring into the air, over the heads of the baffled Adults and off balance Minotaur. And over the village's borders, which none of them seem to realize after the pot shots you take at their leader.
"Don't let him get away you idiots!" Said leader shouts as he defends himself from your bullets. His minions of course scramble to agree, and he starts chasing you out after the bullets stop. Resulting in all of them running straight out of the village in pursuit of yourself.
OathToOblivion said:
Well it's about what I figured with Flash Heal. Well, always room for improvement. Just gotta be careful with when to use it.
At any rate, the opportunity was there for me to revert down to Flymon and slide over to Ginryumon. As I did though, I got a good look at the state of the battle.
Two of the Triceramon were down, and people were reengaging with other parts of the battle. Odds are high that it's the kids, so hopefully we'll have this wrapped up soon.
But speaking of wrapped up...The Triceramon was taking a beating from Marine Devimon, even as it tried to fight back. It was flickering with static...which means it's near deletion.
...I feel a bit guilty for that. Yeah, it's feral, but it didn't ask for this.
Alright then, one good turn deserves another! It helped me out, so I'll help it out in return.
And what will help the most here?
"Ginryumon, digivolve to-!"
I wrapped myself up in the egg once more, transforming in a mass shifting metal that grew exponentially larger. Becoming not a dragon, but a serpent that towered overhead. Its eight necks stretching out as if to consume the very sky itself.
I have no interest in that. My interest is, as it has always been...to protect the people I care about, and to help people out. After all, it is what's right.
...But hiding from the things I've messed up with isn't going to help either. I stopped using Ginryumon once I understood what had happened...and I could say that it was because of the economic cost, I could say that it was because it was basically outclassed by Flymon.
But I guess the truth is...I was scared. Scared of what it would mean to tie myself to a sin like that. Scared of myself...
But...I was also scared of Flymon originally. But all of my forms...they're all a part of me. Orochimon and Ginryumon are no less parts of me than Flymon and Lilamon are. Whatever comes of Drimogemon, whatever else I turn into...
No matter what, despite everything, it's still me.
So I can't hide from it anymore. I have messed up. That's part of living. But I will keep pushing on anyway, for everyone's sake! No matter what...
Orochimon is no less valid than Lilamon, despite the circumstances and despite my suspicions on what caused it to come out. I have to keep everything in check, everything in moderation. I have no desire to become a Demon Lord of anything.
But this power is still mine, and I will use it to write the happy ending we're all working towards!
And for that to happen...I've got to defeat Marine Devimon!
"Orochimon!" I hissed from eight heads as I towered overhead, my body coiling underneath to take up as little room as possible. Right, I have many many options right now. But one that'll definitely hurt him more than it would Triceramon?
"Inferno Blast!" I declared from my black head, lunging forward to breathe fire all over the marine-attuned devil while he was distracted by Triceramon.
But I don't just have one head. Time to use this to my advantage. The head that most resembled Pteromon slithered low to the ground, creeping up to Triceramon...and then once Inferno Blast had gone through, tried to get some Flash Heals going on Triceramon so it could better withstand Marine Devimon's assault. At the very least, keep it from being deleted. I do owe it for the help it gave me.
Two of my other metallic heads, the Ginryumon and Cyber Dragon-looking ones, lunged forward to snap at the hopefully-toasted devil, and maybe clip his tentacles.
My remaining four heads surveyed the battle field, trying to keep a watchful eye on everything, and also make sure the kids are doing okay. If they need a hand, or a head in this case, I'll certainly oblige.
You evolve into Orochimon, and find that this might have taken longer than you realized. Because when your sixteen eyes look out upon the world you find that it has changed much more in the span of time it took you to emerge from your eggs than you would have expected.
The Triceramon you were fighting before has now popped and turned into a cloud of data. Which Marin Devimon has not been able to load for reasons that you suspect have something to do with the wings samurai nearby him. It is hard to be certain however considering they are both scrambling away from your heads. Particularly the black scaled one that comes down to breach a large stream of fire onto Marin Devimon. The flames do not appear to harm him much in particular, but you do see a familiar feeling error flash across his skin. [Burn Status Detected. Attempting Water Purge. Purge failed. Retry?]
Your attempts to heal the Triceramon of course fail because of that, but you do get informed of a perk that you had not noticed for this form when you think about doing so. And off to the side you do see that the martial artist that was Puslemon appears to have picked up a few puncture wounds. As has Stiffilmon. The two of htem appear to be taking a moment while surrounded by a group of Qilin. Which all disappear upon your arrival, as the original turns to stare at something on its back. Which the Triceramon are quick to try and take advantage of, the two of them both charging towards the winged unicorn.
Finally, CrysPaledramon seems to have taken over fighting the octopus headed lady at some point, because he is currently holding her clutched between his icy claws as he hovers in the air above one of your heads. Though the way she is clinging to him makes it less look like he has captured her and more like she is holding on for fear of being dropped.
Anixiana said:
Oh, interesting. It's kind of beautiful watching all the Fire Feathers burn through the air like that. Whoever was in front of their lines just... dies. Not all of them, but whoever isn't dying isn't staying in the air either. There's probably value in playing cleanup down there? Not exactly sure if Digimon can take fall damage at all. That does mean that my chosen targets are more focused on evading the other Pidmon than paying attention to me.
Which means I can fall as fast as I want and take one on quickly. It's kind of fun shooting down at extremely high speeds like this, though I do hope that whoever I hit actually dies. My landing creates a crater, which... oh no. I should hope that the data I release into the world when this dies will actually fix that... I should also make sure this Flymon dies. As I go to start actually deleting my opponent however, my attention is immediately drawn by a Woah.
Oh. What? There's a civilian here. Actually, looking at him, he definitely isn't a civilian. I recognize this kid from how he was described to me. "I'm fine. One moment." I need to actually finish my foe off, you confirm your kills, before I start discussing with Ray why the fuck he's here. I'll hop up and hit this Flymon with another Mega Dash Impact, hopefully actually finishing it off this time. Hard to say. But I do need to get this Flymon dead.
After that though, I'll flit back to Pidmon, and look Ray directly in the eyes. "I'm Nyx. Not sure if Oath told you about me. Why are you here, Ray? Did you not hear the announcement? You should get to safety." I'm making the introduction and questioning quick considering there's an actual war going on right now, an actual war that's no place for a teenager. As much as he is a Chosen, I don't feel right putting him in danger. Not one bit.
You do another Mega Dash Impact into the ground, and Flymon bursts into a cloud of data while the crater around it gets bigger. Fortunately, when you direct the data down into the crater it does in fact fill back up like nothing happened at all.
As for Ray, "You're the friend who was trying to become an Angel, right?"
"She told us about you," Herissmon agrees with an eager nod. "She'll be happy to hear about you when we meet back up again!"
"Yea, that'll be great but right now there's a fight going on. And it looks like you guys can use every hand you can get." Ray declares with a firm and determined glint in his eyes. "Those guys are trying to take down everyone in Monitor right? Well then we can't just sit by and watch when we have the power to help." He declares, before demonstrating his point by pulling out his Digivice and tossing Herissmon into the air. "Digivolution Activate!"
"Herissmon warp digivolve to...!" The hedghog cries out, and in a burst of lilac light it transforms into a large, muscular and humanoid version of itself dressed in leather and covered in red spikes poking out of its body almost at random. "Stiffilmon!" He shouts as he lands down next to you and scrapes his spike covered knuckledusters against one another. "So, where do you need us to help?" Ray asks as Stiffilmon picks him upa nd places him down on his own shoulder.
AkumaOuja said:
Hmm...honestly, taking Kuwagamon or Kabuterimon seems risky, we don't have many fliers left, and that's a big advantage over the largely ground bound Chessmon. Still, it was what it was.
"I'll keep a note of it, tell me if you need any heavy lifting or the like done." I said with a few clicks of my mandibles, before departing. Already considering my options as I went. Wanted to know about the interrogator when they showed up, get a feel for them once they were here...really now I had a lot of things to keep me busy.
For my off time...Well I had a couple of projects to work on, the data thing, I had a few ideas for something to try while patrolling if I had the time, and maybe I could take the time to learn a few things, get stronger. All of that. Nothing to do but work, learn, rest, fight as needed, really.
And work you do, for the next six months. Part of that is in regards to trying to learn more about those around you, specifically through testing your idea about how one's species affects their personality. From what you see, it looks like that does not appear to be the case very much. The group as a whole does seem to very much believe in communal interests and focus on the group as a whole, but aside from that they are about as diverse as you would expect from a similarly sized group of humans. Especially as the back line stretches and connects the various squads back together.
Aside from that, you also learn some important facts about how the world works, such as Affinities, Types, the Type Chart, and other such important things that effect Digimon, especially in wars like this. And then you learn more about yourself as well, such as the fact that with their experiences with (Ko)Dokugumon they are able to predict a few of your Digivolutions. For example, your Elec Adult should likely be a Waspmon, while it is likely that you can Digivolve to Okuwamon (Plant), Metalife Kuwagamon (Elec), or Chmeramon (Fire) off of Dokugumon. The last is apparently a Highly Restricted Species, which would require you to load one of each of the Digimon that comprise it's body. They are not able to give any information about Ice however, as such a thing should not be possible and they have never encountered a Dokugumon with that Affinity.
Though you are able to prove that it is possible and that you do. And by the end of the six months you feel like have reached a threshold for it in both of your forms. Fire only appears to have reached that level for the Adult stage, but the form feels somehow half locked. Apparently this means that it is some kind of Highly Restricted Species that you have partially completed the condition for, but no one is certain what it is.
None of which is the poof that you offer up though. After all, they cannot see what Thresholds you have reached. What they can see on the other hand is you practicing Ice Manifestations, which they eagerly encourage you to do as much as possible. Especially whenever a new squad linked up and there were more people to show it off too.
Still try and practice Fire too, but things end up leaning a bit towards Ice because of it, and that might be why you were able to reach that Perfect Threshold for Ice. But on the brightside your practice and their assistance did help you get Wolkempalm up to the Beta rank.
Aside from that you also gave a try to creating a 'sensor web' like you have heard of spiders doing. It was a process to do so, which involved having to figure out a good place to do it and then how to do it, but it was worth the effort. Mostly because of how the war has been going.
Which is, in a word? Poorly. Though not for the reasons that you feared.
The Royal Base did see initial success and was able to press forward a bit. But about three months ago things started going wrong, and the Chessmon have started pushing the frontline ever closer to you for reasons that have left the other insects all confused and disturbed.
The Royal Base understands sacrificing for the sake of community, the all would be willing to lay down their lives for the sake of the squad. But the Chessmon Empire? It seems to hold nothing sacred at all. Certainly not the lives of its soldiers which it spills like water. Certainly not honor, with how it has created something that those who came back from the front have named 'Child Wave Tactics.'
The insects have become more disturbed with each new story from the front, and less certain that they understand their foe because of it. One even asks the group, "I don't understand, they're a Light and Metal society. Shouldn't they be more honorable than this?"
The Royal Base has not yet given up, but it is known amongst the troops that the next push may well be the last one. If it goes poorly then everyone will be evacuating to the Royal Base, and it will retreat back into the sky away from this depraved land.
Because of that, rumors about the rest of Forum have started to be discussed, often with the air of wondering where the Royal Base will go next. Apparently Petaldramon has been going around, rampaging past anything that dares to get in its way. In addition, a trio of new Royal Knights have arisen, with two of them pushing hard to expand Yggdrasil's influence on Forum. In response, the Demon Lord of Gluttony has been deployed to Forum with his armies to try and counteract it. Something which actually makes them feel optimistic about how this might influence the various wars on forum.
There was also something big that happened on Edo involving a group of Tamers known as 'The Chosen.' You are not sure how many of them are, early rumors say there are five, then three when the new Royal Knights appear, and then it is up to four? However many there are though, they have been going around Forum attacking known troublemakers.
Some of your squadmates have started hoping that they'd show up to fight against the Chessmon Empire.
Unfortunately, that has not happened yet. Instead, you are going about preparing for the possible evacuation when those senor webs you put down suddenly start blaring warnings....
