the Fire of Courage

by NinjaMare


Chapter 1: the Journey of Flamedramon Begins [Edited]

The digital world, a truly outstanding world where creatures called Digimon reside, all of whom come in varying sizes, appearances, and power scaling. And in this world of magnificent creatures, there are some Digimon that live in towns or out in the wilds living nice peaceful lives, while there are other Digimon that live in isolation, either because they despise the company of others, or because they prefer the peace and quiet that their solitude grants them. But then there are those that have wicked and malicious intentions, where they enslave other Digimon so that they can rule over them, or those that conquer the world itself to hold untold power in the palm of their hands. But these wicked and foul Digimon are always met with opposition, either by Digimon that fight them as heroes, or as partners to brave humans that work together with the good-aligned Digimon to stop these evil beings.

And this story follows one such Digimon who fights for not only the good and safety of the digital world, and its inhabitants, but all worlds that he would visit if he could. Currently in the digital world numerous factions comprised of dark and evil Digimon are trying to expand their territories, trying to expand their forces and influence to ensure that they are the sole dominating force of the world. And while these dark factions fight each other, or forces of good Digimon that try to stop them, many towns, villages, and cities have been caught in the crossfire of these conflicts. Which forced the Digimon living there to either join the fighting, flee from the battle, or end up being reduced to mere fractal codes.

Far off in the northern territories of the digital world, there was a town situated amongst the jagged cliffs and hills of the land, which was filled with Palmon, Floramon, and a few Blossomon, with an old Cherrymon acting as their leader. For a time the village lived peacefully, growing crops to feed themselves and staying out of the conflicts between the warring factions, using the cliffs and hills as natural defensive walls to secure themselves behind. But unfortunately today the towns inhabitants peace and tranquility was disrupted. The town was now a battlefield, with the inhabitants trying as hard as they could to fended off an invading force of Vegiemon, RedVegimon and Zassoumon that have invaded their home. All of these wild and violent plant Digimon were being led by a Zamielmon, who was acting as their commander, and could be seen from a tall hill watching everything occurring within the village. The two forces of plant-type Digimon have been in a state of deadlock for beginning of the invasion, as the invading force weren’t able to push too far into the town they sought to take over, but the towns inhabited didn’t have the strength to fully repel the enemy forces for long. Soon enough the residence of the town lost their ground and were being pushed back further and further into their village, while Zamielmon’s forces claimed more and more ground.

“Poison Ivy!” a group of Palmon shouted as their purple thorny tendrils extended outward towards a trio of Vegiemon that were hopping down an alleyway.

“Sharp Leaf!” the trio of Vegiemon proclaimed as each one throws three sharp red leaves from their backs. The leaves collided with the tendrils, cutting, and slicing them almost with little effort, forcing the Palmon to withdrawal them and continue to try and run away from the perusing enemy Digimon.

“Now get them!” the center Vegiemon shouted as they all hopped towards the Palmon who cowered in fear as they came to a dead end. As the Vegiemon approached the Palmon they could only huddle together and cowered as the invaders closed in.

“Thorn Whip!” But then before Vegiemon reached the Palmon they all looked to their left, and saw several large thorn covered vines with hungry looking flowers on their ends coming towards them, and knocking the Vegiemon into a wall on the other side of the lane. The Palmon looked to see the vines retreat and found a Blossomon coming towards them.

“Are you guys alright?” the large flower monster asked the smaller Digimon as it approached to the frighten trio.

“Yeah.” One of the Palmon said as she, and the others rushed to the larger Digimon’s side. “If you didn’t come when you did those Vegiemon would’ve gotten us.”

“Don’t get to comfortable now ya hear.” The group turned to look down the lane when a new voice announced itself, and what they saw was a pair of large RedVegiemon standing tall on their beefy red vines. Blossomon then put himself between the three Palmon who cowered behind the large flower as the RedVegiemon glared at them.

“Ya’ll better surrender this town to us, or we’re going to have to make things ugly.” The RedVegiemon on the right said as he, and his fellow RedVegiemon smirked at the group.

“Thorn Whip!” Blossomon shouted in response as he launched his attack at the invading Digimon.

“Have it your way then.” The sour plant monster on the left said before raising one of his arms, along with the other doing the same before they both shouted.

“Chili Pepper Pummel!” Both RedVegiemon’s sent out their long beefy vines out, clashing with Blossomon’s own vines. The thorny vines of the Ultimate continued to lash out against the sour plant’s own tendrils, all elongated limps snapping, and cracking against one another like whips.

Near the center of the town crowds of Palmon & Floramon were running in terror, while squads of Vegiemon and Zassoumon chased after them, and managing to either hurt some while also reducing others into fractal codes and absorbing them. Luckily though most of the Palmon and Floramon were able to get to safety, as Cherrymon was leading his town into the towns great hall and keeping up their defenses, with the help of the other Blossomon of the community as they all acted as the heavy attackers. But the Palmon and Floramon weren’t just going to run and hide, once they were safe within the town hall they all used hit-and-run tactics to disrupt the enemy, and provide support for the main unit lead by Cherrymon. But the onslaught of Vegiemon, Zassoumon, and the few dozen RedVegiemon was starting to become too much for them to try and keep at bay. As the main unit tried to keep the main enemy forces at bay, Cherrymon spotted a group of Vegiemon and Zassoumon lead by a RedVegimon chasing after a group of injured Floramon, as they tried to get back to main force, but their injuries were hampering their movements.

“We got ’cha now!” the Zassoumon said as he leapt at the group of Floramon, followed by his fellow invaders.

“Oh no you don’t!” Cherrymon shouted as he faced towards the group.

“Cherry Blast!” a barrage of small glowing red cherries were launched from Cherrymon’s bushy head, and came soaring through the air towards the group and striking the invaders with small yet powerful multi-explosions, knocking the RedVegimon and its cohorts away, causing a few of the Vegiemon & Zassoumon to turn into pure data, which the Floramon gawked at in astonishment.

“Don’t just stand there, hurry up and get over here!” Cherrymon called out to the injured Digimon, getting the Floramon to re-collect themselves and running towards the town’s central plaza.

But before the Floramon could even reach the plaza, a barrage of red glowing arrows came raining down from the sky down upon them, turning them into fractal codes and destroying them out right! Cherrymon, and the other Blossomon, and the main force of the town watched in horror as their friends were destroyed, but their shock was short lived as it quickly turned to fear, as another barrage of arrows came soaring towards them. Acting quickly the Blossomon used their Thorn Whip moves, alongside with Cherrymon using his Vine Attack move to shieled not only themselves, but the rest of the towns Digimon by swatting away the arrows. Then after a solid minute of arrows being knocked away, the barrage ended and the group of ultimate plant Digimon retracted their limbs, and saw the main force of the invading force come towards the plaza, with Zamielmon slowly making his way to the forefront. Clapping his hands slowly as a cocky smile was plastered on his face.

“Well now, color me impressed.” Zamielmon said as he kept clapping his hands in mock praise for a few more seconds before stopping, and resting his hands on his hips.

“I’m surprised you were able to block my Arrow Lance attack with such skill, very impressive indeed.” Cherrymon then made his way to the front of his main unit and stamped the ground with his staff as he addressed the humanoid Digimon.

“Why are you attacking our town Zamielmon? There’s nothing worthwhile out here, so why don’t take your Vegiemon, and their sub-species and leave us in peace.” Cherrymon said as he stood tall in front of the invading forces, keeping himself between them and the rest of town who were all shouting at the invaders to leave them alone, and to get out of their town. But the archer Digimon didn’t seem to care as he spoke up.

“At first glance this town is not all that special, being out of the way and surrounded by hills and cliff faces. But… with this town being so far out of the way and not on any maps, and having these nice natural defensive walls we can use it as a secret base when we conduct our raids to gather supplies for the Wood Spirit Army. Or launch surprise attacks to the other factions.” Zamielmon chortled as his eyes glowed for an instant as he started to wickedly grin.

“So that’s it! You’re going to use our town to conduct raids and ambushes on other poor unfortunate towns, destroy them and take what rightfully belongs to them!” Zamielmon spread his arms wide as he looked squarely at Cherrymon with a joyful expression.

“Give the Ultimate a prize, he got it in one shot…just like, this.” the demon man Digimon said as he held his left hand out, which caught Cherrymon off guard at what Zamielmon meant, before it was too late!

“Snipe Headshot!” a large red arrow covered in a thin outline of yellow energy erupted out of Zamielmon’s hand at blinding speed, and was already more than half way towards Cherrymon, who was unable to react in time to make a counter attack to block the attack. But before the arrow could reach its intended target, a sudden voiced cried out which caught everyone off guard.

“Fire Rocket!”

A sudden barrage of fireballs came raining down from the sky, striking the arrow and smashing it into the ground and dispersing it as small patches of fire lingered on the ground. Then the barrage of fireballs started to tilt towards Zamielmon and his forces, striking down all of the lower-level plant Digimon, causing them to cry out in panic as most of them were reduced to fractal code, while a small portion of them were only badly injured. As for Zamielmon he was now royally pissed off as his body smoked and had small wisps of fire on it.

“Who did that?!” the ultimate cried out as he looked for the source of the fireballs, only to receive a flaming punch to the face from a nose-diving Digimon.

“Flame Fist!” the townsfolk all watched as Zamielmon was sent flying back, face smoking and burning as they saw him soaring for a few feet before crashing into a building. Looking away from where Zamielmon was sent flying the whole town looked towards where the Ultimate was a moment ago, and they all saw the attacker which caused the townsfolk to look relieved and even cheer.

“Flamedramon is here!” the Palmon and Floramon said unison as they cried out in happiness, as a well-known heroic Digimon came to their aide.

“Flamedramon! How…how did you know we were in trouble.” Cherrymon asked as he made his way over to the Armor Digimon, but was stopped when the hero held out an armored claw.

That’s when he, and the rest of the town saw Zamielmon come bursting out of the building, and started running over to Flamedramon with the large red arrow on his back held like a short spear. Cherrymon and his town then watched as Flamedramon and Zamielmon started duking it out in hand-to-hand combat, and while Zamielmon was technically stronger than the Armor Digimon, Flamedramon appeared to be faster, and far more agile so he was able to dodge the Ultimate’s attacks no sweat. And was matching the Ultimate’s arrow lance attacks with flaming punches and kicks.

“Try this on for size!” Zamielmon growled as he tosses his arrow up into the air, and quickly brought out the iron bow that was strapped to his back. “Bow Cutter!”

“Flame Fist!” Flamedramon countered all of the Ultimate’s attacks with his slashing bow strikes with his flaming armored fists meeting each swung bow strike, causing whisps of fire and sparks to fly as the attacks clashed. As the duel between the two Digimon continued on, the town started to cheer on the hero Digimon to win and beat the dark Digimon.

“Why are you sticking your nose into this Flamedramon?!” Zamielmon shouted as he continued to lash out, unable to push back the Armor Digimon who was starting to land more blows onto him than he was to the smaller Digimon.

“Your just a wandering vagabond with no allegiance to any faction! So why get in my way!” Zamielmon roared as he raised his bow high and readied to land a critical strike onto his armored opponent.

“Because—” Flamedramon said as he knocks the bow out of Zamielmon’s hands, causing the Ultimate to be stunned for the briefest of moments, before the armored Digimon coiling back his right arm that was still ablaze with fire.

“I don’t want to see any more innocents Digimon being destroyed for your selfish conquests!” the Armor Digimon shouted as he then shot his right fist forward, claws outstretched as they and the palm glowed bright hot yellow.

“Express Claw!”

The armored Digimon’s claw slammed squarely into Zamielmon’s chest, where a powerful explosion occurred, punching right through Zamielmon’s chest armor and out his back. Retracting his clawed gauntlet the armor Digimon watched as the Ultimate-level Digimon falls backwards, slumping to the ground as his armor clattered against the cobble stone, all the while the remnants of the invading force just looked upon the sight with awe and terror. They all then looked towards Flamedramon, who just glared back at the remaining Vegiemon, Zassoumon, and RedVegiemon who shrieked in fright as the Digimon raised his left gauntleted claw.

“If you don’t want to end up like your general, go back to wherever it is that you came from, and never show your faces around here again!” the remnants of the invading forced shrieked in terror as they hopped and bounced their way out of the town, while the townsfolk cheered for being saved, while Flamedramon visibly relaxed as he gives off calming exhale.

“Flamedramon. I can’t thank you enough for coming to our aide in our time of need.” Cherrymon said as he and other members of his town walked over to the Armor Digimon who turned to face them

“I’m just glad I was able to make it in time.” The fire Digimon said as he looked at the large tree Digimon. “If I didn’t catch the rumors of an armored force coming here, I’m sure that I wouldn’t made it in time.”

“Well I’m just glad that it’s all over.” Cherrymon lamented as the town and Flamedramon all settled down from the commotion and ordeal that they just went through.

“Not…yet!”

Everyone quickly looked to where Zamielmon laid, seeing his body more than half deteriorated into fractal codes. But his head, the right side of his chest and arm remaining, with his hand outstretched with a black data sphere with pulsating spikes in his palm. Before anyone could do anything, Zamielmon fired the data sphere towards the Flamedramon, which the Armor Digimon tried to deflect by backhanding the sphere away, but the moment that his gauntlet touched the black sphere it began merging with his arm, and quickly started to spread all over his body. Naturally Flamedramon was startled by this and tried to remove the ever expanding blackness from his body, he even resorted to setting himself on fire to see if he could burn the dark sphere’s matter off. But nothing he did worked!

“This little gift was given to me by my master in case of emergency, and I’M MORE THAN HAPPY TO USE IT ON YOU SO THAT YOU ARE BROUGHT DOWN WITH ME!”

Zamielmon then started to manically laugh as the last bits of his body disappeared into fractal code, while Flamedramon’s entire body turned pitch black, with dark purple electricity pulsating around him, while also glitching and warping about. Then with one final cry of what sound like distorted pain, Cherrymon, and the townsfolk watched as Flamedramon was being engulfed by a large pillar of black static, and violet lighting that stretched high into the air. A moment later and everyone watched as pillar collapsed upon itself, disappearing, and showing that the Armor Digimon was no longer there.

~~Present Time – Equestria~~

The town of Ponyville was a nice and peaceful rural town, with ponies that go about their lives, blissfully enjoying their peaceful if mundane lives. But today however, the normality of peace and tranquility that was common for the town was changed to one of excitement and intrigue. Near the center of the town, just a few blocks from the town hall, a large bakery called Sugarcube Corner stood proud and tall amongst its fellow buildings, looking like an oversized dessert platter given the royal treatment. And currently the building was being surround by a rather sizable crowd of ponies, all of whom were trying to look through either the door, or the windows as they tried to get a good look at the creature that Rarity and Spike had brought back to the town. From what the ponies could tell and see, the creature looked like a tall and well-built blue skinned dragon, with red armor that had fiery patterns etched on them. At the moment the creature right now was sitting at a table, eating a few pastries from a large platter while it was finishing up telling Rarity and her circle of friends a story. Which was actually a story on who the creature was, where he came from, and what he thinks happened to him to end up in Equestria.

“—that’s when I came across the quarry and heard the commotion from the other side of a ledge, and that’s where I stumbled upon Rarity and Spike as they were being harassed by those dog creatures. After that they brought me here.” The creature, who introduced himself as Flamedramon, said as he grabs a piece of cherry pie with an un-armored claw and then taking a bite out of the pastry.

For any pony that was able to hear Flamedramon’s story they were all astonished by everything he had just told them, especially with the telling on how he saved other creatures like himself, and even defeated most of the invading enemy forces. And even taking down their commanding officer all on his own, though they were all sad to hear that so many of the other creatures died in the end, which the ponies of Ponyville and Equestria as a whole had never dealt with before. But after hearing such a tale many of the ponies wandered if what Flamedramon told them was real or not, but when they all looked at the Digimon’s body, seeing his muscles and well-toned body it was hard to deny what he had just told them was truth. And it seemed that Rarity and her friends were also captivated by the Digimon tale on his battle, and his strange arrival in their world.

“That’s an incredible tale Flamedramon, and it was very honorable of you to come to those other Digimon’s aide when they were being attacked.” Twilight Sparkle, the towns local librarian, said as she finished writing every bit of detail of everything that the Armor Digimon had just said over the past twenty or so minutes ago.

“Heck yeah it was!” Rainbow agreed loudly as she did a flip in mid-air. “I would’ve loved to see how the whole thing played out, seeing all the action go down.” The pegasus threw a few punches and kicks in midair as she shadow boxed with herself, but when the Digimon finished munching away on his piece of pie he looked up to the pegasus and spoke up.

“My world is not exactly the most peaceful or hospitable environment there is, especially right now with all of the various dark factions acting up.” the Digimon gave the pegasus a very sincere expression with a worn out look in his, as if he was trying to explain how ruthless his world was.

“If all you wanted to do is sight see, then you better be ready to defend your very life.” The ponies at and around the table all gulped in fear after hearing the little warning Flamedramon, and while Rainbow tried to play it cool, she couldn’t stop beads of sweat from rolling down her brow as she could feel the seriousness emanating from Flamedramon’s words.

“Is it really that bad?” Fluttershy asked as she hid a little behind her long pink mane while sitting across from the Digimon, who just nodded his head as he then grabbed a muffin from the platter and just stares at it.

“Yes. Aside from the roaming forces of the dark factions armies, there are also Digimon that simply fight each other to gain more power, and care not for who they hurt or destroy to get what they want.” He then looked at the ponies within and outside of the building as a whole.

“Trust me, you’re better off not going to my world.”

Ponies started to quietly murmur to one another in how they would not like to go to the digital world, or meet any one of these more selfish and brutal Digimon, like the ones that Flamedramon and the peaceful plant Digimon had to fight off. Even Twilight’s circle of friends thought it sounded like a bad idea to go to the Digital world, if it was possible. That’s when Applejack looked up to the Digimon, as he took a bite of the muffin in his hand.

“So Flamedramon, are you gonna try to find a way back to your own world?” the Digimon swallowed the bit of muffin in his mouth and just stared at the remaining amount for a moment before speaking up.

“I would like to return so that I can continue to help wherever I can. But I doubt that it’s possible.”

“Maybe not.” Twilight said as she conjures up another blank scroll, and dipped her quill into the inkwell that was sitting on her side of the table. “If you want Flamedramon I can ask my teacher if she can find a way back to your world.” the Digimon seemed to be in deep thought as he considered the question.

“If it’s not too much trouble, then please.”

Twilight nodded and started to write down a message to her mentor, and once she was done she rolled up the scroll and tied it to everything else that Twilight had just written down. After bundling the letter, alongside with the notes about Flamedramon, Twilight asked Spike who was sitting next to her to send everything to her mentor, and with a quick puff of green fire the bundle turned to smoke and then wafted its way out of the nearest window. During all of this the Digimon seemed to be intrigued by Spike’s little trick.

“Well now that is taken care of, do you want us to show you around town Flamedramon?” Twilight asked the Digimon, where Pinkie Pie swooped in and stood on top of the table with a big smile on her face.

“Great idea Twiliy! OH! And I can play tour guide!” Pinkie then pulled out a hat that has, tour guide on it, and placed it on her head while pulling out a what looks like a map of the town.

“Let’s get a moving ponies, time to show our cross-dimensional new friend the sights!” The Digimon couldn’t help but give a small chortle and a smile as he looked at the pink mare, and her friends.

“I’d like that.” the Digimon and the group then got up from the table, and made their way out of the bakery with the crowd giving them space and greeting Flamedramon in person, and even aiding in the small tour by introducing themselves and their work places whenever the group approached one of their businesses.