Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

297. Ransei or busted!

-The next morning, Digital Realm, Server City, Southwestern Slums, Uver’s Pad, Pom-

Usually I would wake up first, but when Dolly does… it’s never long before she finds a reason or way to wake me up after getting in a little exercise. The swelling in my face was still quite painful and made getting to sleep rather hard last night, Dolly helped me with getting comfortable.

However being woken up to this morning, I could feel Dolly panicking about something.

“Oh dog, oh dog, oh dog, not again, this cannot be happening again!” Dolly was running about and looking for something seeming in a panic and it was drawing attention from everyone else.

“Dolly… what… what’s wrong…. Where’s the fire?” I said through a painfully bruised face, my voice was a little off do to my entire face still being somewhat swollen as my mind was slowly kicking into gear. I didn’t even touch our bond, it was in my mind within an instant as if I had just read hers without our bond. “Is this about Lit?”

Dolly froze in her panicking and turned to me and winced, because I was giving her a slight look.

“Heh, sorry for waking you Pom, but I just realized that I haven’t seen the little guy since the fighting yesterday!” Yeah, he disappeared before getting the key off Etemon… I think I have an idea of where he went.

“Don’t worry Dolly, I have an idea where Lit got off to.” In fact it was better than a good hunch what Lit had gotten into when it was left sitting there open for the taking.

“You-… do?” My goodness was Dolly adorable sight in the morning, energetic, excitable and not exactly engaging her brain as to what Lit’s habits are like.

“He’s probably at Jijimon’s place.” Probably where he would go after he was done with what he had to do at Fury Clan High School, I still didn’t know if that was a normal name for a school or not.

I really am not a normal lambkin by any stretch of the imagination and now that I didn’t have anything else on my mind, it immediately went back to my lack of real schooling growing up beyond what I taught myself and what Tianhuo helped me with when it came to moving into Huoshan and becoming head of the HCD.

I wasn't normal... and I never have been.

“How do you figure? We left him behind at that really odd high school after we got through with Etemon! Not that I know what a normal High School is like, but you get my point right?” Dolly was quite upset with herself that she forgot Lit and to be fair Lit was kind of easy to forget because he was a 'small' detail. “How can you trust to know where he is?”

Still couldn’t leave Lit behind in this dimension, even if he obviously smart enough to survive on his own.

“Lit knows that our gathering point is at Jijimon’s house. I’m quite sure that you’ve noticed, but Dazzle can talk. So you know all Pokémon are intelligent and we’re not going to leave without your favorite tick and our most recent traveling companion Dolly.” As for what Lit was doing while we were busy with Etemon… I’m pretty sure Hi-Vis was going to be quite upset about it given I’m bound to be entirely right as to my suspicions.

Probably the only tick Dolly would ever appreciate having on her, one that would eat other fleas and ticks, on top of sources of energy and general foods like berries. Lit was a rather benign symbiotic parasite in that respect. However, I would remember the fact that packs of Joltiks were still dangerous and tend to work together to catch large sources of food when not given something else to snack on.

-Fury Clan High School, third floor-

The Black Widow’s destroyed back legs had stopped repairing a quarter of the way, the back of it was still quite destroyed. Still it was slowly repairing itself due in part to the Digizoid materials that it was made of that would fix itself over time, however it was slowed down immensely from doing this due to the full loss of its power source.

Batteries and power sources just weren’t safe around the Pokémon known as Joltik, especially not one so easily tempted like Lit when an exposed power source was just sitting out in the open like that. The little greedy electric tick went to town on sucking it entirely dry by himself.

This would later be a good thing as an entirely upset Hi-Vis Monitamon wouldn’t be able to catch up to the ones leaving the digital world.

-Thirty digital minutes later after a quick breakfast, Jijimon’s house, Dolly-

“Where were you, I was so worried about you little dude, I’m sorry we left you behind at the school!” All Lit did was happily squeak when I hugged him, he didn’t seem angry in the slightest. He just seemed remorseful for having wandered off. I started to pet him with my right paw. “It’s alright bud, I thought you got hurt or something and I should be apologizing because I totally forgot all about you!”

“To be fair I’m sorry I forgot about you too.” The squeak Pom received from Lit was rather reassuring as Lit waved a small blue claw tip at her in a friendly manner.

“At least you’re not leaving without him, which would have been a real problem to miss a little guy like this! Tsumemon here had so much fun with your little companion.” Turning to GG, Generic Grandpa, I saw he was holding a bug like creature with one eye, two tendril ears and multiple pointy legs. “Say goodbye to your playmate Tsumemon, it’s time to eat.”

The little Digimon whined, I turned Lit in my paws when he struggled a bit and he waved a claw and squeaked back to them. Tsumemon gurgled a bit and waved a claw at Lit with a smiling eye. The interaction between the two was just precious.

“We have to get moving guys, don’t want any complications in meeting up Calumon and the Digi-bot at the anchor point.” We exited the building, Sami and Canard were waiting on their digital vehicles. Canard would be carrying Pom, Lit and Me. Sami would be transporting Dazzle. As for Frizzle she would be in Dazzle’s Digi-vice.

We began driving north and it was pretty quiet, we’ve already made sure that we hadn’t forgotten anything. We had everyone and two more participants waiting at that anchor point so we can get out of here.

The ride was pretty quiet and there was the silent anticipation of know that terrifying large red armored monster was possibly waiting for us between worlds. I don’t know if I was ready to surf the digital tubes again.

-Some time later, Anchor Point, Pom-

I silently thought about having said goodbye to the Dalmamon family before we left the city, as much as we said goodbye to the baby Digimon and a few others we’ve come to befriend before we left the city in a dubious state. I mean it’s not like we imprisoned the Digimon gang leaders we beat up.

We pulled to a stop, Canard was holding onto the key. He would defend it fiercely until we were on our way. We were basically on Arceus’s upper right spike of him facing us, having moved north from the mid-point of the crescent from the city to here.

I still wondered what Calumon looked like and what Digi-bot would he be accompanied by. It wasn’t long before I found out. When two beings showed up, one was immediately infatuated with me, it was of course the Digi-bot with a dog motif. The only difference between Digi-bots was the parts they used and the medals they had inside them to power their artificial minds, their personalities being based on an animal. I didn’t need to have any guesses as to what this Digi-bots personality was going to be like around me.

“Are you Calumon?” Maybe I was expecting a bit too much after all the other Digimon I’ve seen? “What can you do? Do you suddenly grow claws, fire lasers or have any fighting ability whatsoever.”

“Yes, I’m Calumon! Also nope, no ability to fight whatsoever, I can’t even digivolve to save myself, isn’t that amazing!” Cheerful and unafraid of the world around him, the little white critter with a large forehead jewel seemed to be bright and bubbly. Noticing my mood he gave me a cheerful smile, I didn’t feel like smiling with my face still somewhat aching from being almost smashed in by Etemon who was partially sandbagging against us. Etemon would have used a move to at least de-digivolve Lobomon back to Strabimon, but said move wouldn’t have effected Garu or Frizzles. Because Garu was too strong and Frizzle was a digital hazard, which meant Etemon couldn’t have reverted Frizzle to Guilmon form if he tried. “What I can do is grow my ears to fly, that’s pretty unique right!”

“What am I missing here with Calumon?” I asked the infatuated Dog Digi-bot, Calumon looked far too innocent for the title of ‘monster’.

“He’s functionally the power of Digital Evolution given a physical form, apparently digivolution has the physical appearance of being cute and innocent. Also he’s able to help you transfer between realms much faster than you would be able to normally do by yourselves ma’am!” The metal hat that was part of the robots head had two long dog like metal ears poking out the side of it, it had a mechanical tail and paws instead of hands. His torso was basically the upper jaw of a dog and his legs were connected to what looked like the upper jaws tongue. “Model DTT-02 Side-Kicky, support Digi-bot, call me Sideline! I’m good at boosting any digital or mechanical entities abilities, causing opportunistic distractions, creating time and space distortions that both hurt and slows down an opponent in a short range of myself and my special ability, when I’m properly charged up in the heat of danger, is creating illusions… usually to turn invisible. Medal type Dog.”

I blinked, he could do all those things? I narrowed my eyes at him.

“What are your downsides Sideline?” I asked.

“I’m not great at doing damage directly to someone in a fight unless I’m transformed into dog mode ma’am, the reason I was chosen to watch Calumon are entirely based in my ability to evade trouble as much as Calumon can get into it.” Assuming Sideline’s sudden infatuation with me is making him honest, I had to wonder why he, specifically, was chosen to be the protector of Calumon. “I may not sound like much to any of you, but I can and will do my job well while helping you to the best of my ability. Dog mode means I lose the ability to do some of my bipedal mode functions, but I get a pretty mean bite and can fire a sound cannon from my mouth.”

So Sideline was basically me in a fight while in dog mode, really Yggdrasil.sys? You didn’t have anyone more capable or scary than Rokusho and Metabee are said to be? Someone who wouldn’t be trying to constantly look up to me… I knew Arceus wasn’t subtle, but I’m getting the feeling neither was Yggdrasil.sys.

“Fine… let’s get moving… who’s going to close up the portal and relock the anchor point once we’re through?” My question was answered by Uver appearing on moosemon in a flash.

-Origin Space, Mew-

“So… Calumon is basically me, but has no combat ability to speak of whatsoever?” I said as I looked into the fact that Calumon was carrying the data of just about every single Digimon in his tiny floating form. “Yggdrasil is playing risky business with that venture sending him to Ransei now.”

“Yes, but with Pom there it is a good opportunity to speed things up, I can see why Yggdrasil is making such a move. I believe Calumon is the intended to eventually be the delegate that Yggdrasil wants in a position of safety for obvious reasons and looking through Sideline’s history he is very good at combat outside his natural Digi-bot abilities.” Arceus was grinning at Sideline for some reason. “He may not be damage focused, but Sideline is still a very good choice for protecting Calumon. Moon Cell is going to try to intercept them no doubt.”

“Why is Moon Cell so determined to target Pom father? She’s not even aware Moon Cell is actually a very huge problem for everyone yet.” Looking at back those data ants called ‘shadows’ gave me the creeps, data derived from world eaters was not something I wanted anywhere near the Mystery Dungeon Realm.

“Yes, but Pom is going to have a very good reason to actively seek Moon Cell’s destruction when she learns of one key factor Mew. It’s something of a recent discovery of mine, once Pom calls ‘Baa-Ram-Ewe’, there is a good chance nothing will be able to stop her.” Arceus was staring at Dolly and Pom with a warm smile. “We have all the heroes we need in various parts of the world, especially Ransei, starting to come into their own. While we do not necessarily need Pom… it’s always a good idea to have an ace in the hole and now all factions are aware she’s on the board, but not what movements she will actually take. Even I cannot see the full end of what she’ll accomplish. Digimon and Pokémon are inevitably going to come to blows, if we can broker peace fast enough, then Moon Cell won’t have as great an opportunity to destroy both our worlds.”

“Ugh… politics, I’d rather take combat training with Palkia and Dialga both wailing on me any day.” Though what he said made it clear to me, Pom would greatly help ease things into place for Digimon and Pokémon kind even if she was an unnecessary variable in what was coming, being unnecessary was not the same as being unimportant. “So… got any mochi dad?”

-Network Connection Tube, Pom-

Everything was quiet when we appeared in the tubes again, Calumon immediately got us moving and everyone noticed an exceedingly immediate difference in speed.

“Whoa, we’re going like three times faster, what gives?” Dolly asked as the little white rabbit like Digimon known as Calumon hovered in front of us with the red crystal on his head glowing.

“Choo-choo, chugga chugga chugga, we’re not going to be late for a very important date of me seeing the local reality!” Calumon stated cheerfully. “I’m going to find us the closest exit, then I was told that can have all the fun I wanted! All I have to do is make friends and that’s easy, I already made so many minutes ago already.”

Calumon was continuing to be a bundle of pure positivity, innocence and quite frankly blind exceedingly naïve optimism. He was adorable enough that I wanted to protect him on the principle of his very existence, which I’m fairly sure was the point of him being entirely helpless in a fight. He’s not an active threat to anyone and couldn’t be, so what was his secret?

“Be advised unknown entity detected, similarities to Chaosdramon X noted, unknown issues may occur in transit and I will get a better scan once the creature gets closer to you.” Oh trust me Yggdrasil, we weren’t going to ignore the fact that it was coming after us again… but wait… it wasn’t Chaosdramon X? “Entity seems much slower than Chaosdramon X, but is still picking up speed, sealing digital realm off from hostile entity. Firewall defenses will actively slow them down and not attack you this time. Leaving local Yggdrasil.sys instance in local digital realm to continue assisting digi-destined. Yggdrasil Proper cannot be compromised… I am sorry, truly, for every inconvenience that will occur from here on. I will inform you when entity enters visual range.”

Dolly whimpered as she and Lit clung to me when they saw the Guardromon, but they didn’t fire any of those annoyingly loud whistling missiles at us and the Machinedramon didn’t try to eat us or fire their cannons in our direction.

“It’s kind of scary to see these guys again.” I stated plainly, they were just silently and disturbingly watching as we passed by them with dead emotionless stares, it made me somewhat nervous to see them again.

“Please note they are not the same Machinedramon and Guardromon you saw on the way in, their data was destroyed and their eggs retrieved to safety for reconstitution into firewall defenses as they are now via reincarnation.” Well that was sad to hear Yggdrasil, these guys got reincarnated back into exactly what they were. “Network security recognizes you now, the prior incident of being attacked will not occur.”

I mean it made some sense and get the idea behind it, but still… that kind of job security was nuts and I wouldn’t want to be them stuck in a loop like this. Though if they really were soulless Digimon, then it was less an issue on my mind to worry about their wellbeing and still very much disturbing to see entities that could have souls but don’t. Giving them souls would have been kind of cruel.

“Excited Canard?” Sami asked from where she was resting inside Canard’s Digi-vice.

Sami and Frizzle were both working on their Digi-homes, Sami less so because of Hea-Gatomon orders to rest. That and them not being out was probably making this much faster transference on top of Calumon pulling us through the tubes.

“Yeah, can’t wait to taste some real fresh air. Unfortunately I’m going to be naked and my puck pistol is going to stop working when we come out.” Thanks for the reminder to not be looking your way once we’re out Canard. “Going to need to make some clothes when we get to this Ransei place, at least it’ll put me one step closer to my team.”

Hm… maybe… yeah, that could work!

“We could actually get you in contact with them using our Digi-vice.” I said earning Canard’s attention. “Dolly’s family has recently gained a lot of odd connections from our adventures and one of them is to the Mighty Ducks hockey team if they ever need help. Since our Digi-vice can connect to that world…”

“Thank you…” Canard said in the most heartfelt manner he could while wiping his eyes and beak on his arm.

“Don’t thank me yet Canard, it might take a while to get into contact with the… ‘flock’ so to speak and Dolly is going to want to talk with her family first to set that up.” Getting a nod in understanding, I turned back to face the direction we were heading in the tube. “Also there’s this chameleon guy and they had some trouble with him mimicking you once.”

“I’ll convince them of who I am, because there are some things only I would know to say. Whether I return or not, Wildwing is still going to be Team Captain.” There was a smile on Canard’s beak. “This is the fastest I’ve ever moved in a network tube, but I’m quite thankful for that even with the threat of an unstoppable Digimon coming at us.”

Mostly unstoppable, because we didn’t have the requisite firepower to actually deal with it.

“So quick question, how weak are Digimon going to be when we get into reality?” It was important because we were going to have several Digimon and a Digi-bot in the Pokémon realm.

“Depends on the digital energy available, it’s probably going to be exceedingly thin given the lack of heavy technological levels. Meaning we’ll be pretty weak as a result.” Sami stated with a surety that made me worry about her safety. “We Digimon are basically nothing without technology.”

“Speak for yourself, Digi-bots can make a full digital to physical conversion, we don’t have the issues of lacking digital energy like Digimon meaning we’re as capable in a physical reality as we are in a digital one. However we are severely limited to the parts we have equipped and as a reminder lack digital evolutionary abilities barring some set Digi-bot pairs ability to fuse into Digimon. I am not a Digi-bot with a fusion capability or have yet to meet a Digi-bot I’m capable of fusing with.” Speaking up Sideline was changing the gun like protrusion coming from one of his arms. “Until we get there, I’m going to be running a self-system diagnostics before entering reality for conversion to digital to physical, this will be my first time doing this and I’m a bit nervous. I hope to be of great service to you ma’am as much as I am Calumon.”

After he said that last part to me with smiling blue glowing orbs, Sideline continued checking his body over.

A silence fell over our group and we were left to our thoughts, I wondered how Shanty, Smolder and Ocellus are doing. I’d basically let Ocellus paraphrase what I’d tell them into something more understandable.

“Hey, uh… Pom… where do you think we’ll come out at?” Good question Dolly, let’s hope it’s not too important and that we got out before something stopped us.

“Don’t look so worried, we’re almost-“ Calumon was cut off abruptly, he really was helpful in getting us through these tubes quickly.

“Digital entity within visual range, please aim Digivice at it to scan.” Upon Yggdrasil’s need for a Digivice to get an eye on it, and I could barely see it in the darkness beyond the tubes, Dazzle silently angled the device on her belt at it. “Scanning… new Chaosdramon X variant detected, applying new designation. New entities designation is ‘Skull Chaosdramon X’. Extreme data corrosion detected in digital entity has caused this new form, side effects include inability to attack at long ranges due to warped data. While its danger at range has drastically decreased, its claws seem to have gained a significantly devastating deletion field effect. One that can cause immediate core deletion to any Digimon under ultimate strength on contact without a chance of a reincarnation cycle, its tail has also grown and increased striking power with a spear tipped barb sharing the deletion field effect. Warning: do not fight Skull Chaosdramon X in melee or close combat range if you are a digital entity, core deletion will effect all Digi-bots. The loss of a majority of its armor and the weight of its cannons have improved speed significantly, thankfully it is no longer capable of performing Genocide attacks. However it is still going to be marked as a significant digital hazard due to the new severe data destroying properties it contains.”

The roar that came from what was apparently Skull Chaosdramon X was a bone chilling shriek that shook us all up.

“I... did that…” Dazzle stated with a hint of sorrow, this was the end result of her having used toxic on it before we entered the Digital Realm. The end results were definitely not pretty to look at.

“At least it doesn’t have the ability to blow us up at a distance, which is a good thing.” Yeah, so very good for us, I thought bitterly. Just as long as it couldn’t close the distance between us. We were going at three times the speed we had going in and it was still catching up to us.

Skull Chaosdramon X, was a skeleton of its former self. Still red in color from what were decidedly its bones and its claws were glowing a sickly looking purple color. The cannons on its back were inert and its skeletal metal body was coming at us with as much speed as it could put out, its red glowing malevolent eyes on its desiccated corpselike appearance were solely focused on me and I had to wonder why it was me it was focusing on and not say someone like… Calumon.

Sure I know it would be callous of me to wish Calumon was the target of so much ire, but that thing screamed death incarnate and it was currently pointing itself directly at me.

“Diagnostics complete, activating combat defensive protocols and ready to show my stuff!” Sideline stated as he turned and moved to the back of the group. The transforming dog Digi-bot focused on Skull Chaosdramon X as it was quickly closing in.

“I have no illusions about any of us actually winning a fight against that thing!” I screamed loudly.

“We never cured it of my poison, I have to wonder if it’s gained a total immunity to it now?” Which would be something Dazzle, considering how you told me how powerful your poison was and we were seeing the clear effects of it.

“I don’t need to win the fight, I just need to stall them and stalling is kind of my specialty as a 'Combat Support' Digi-bot!” Sideline stated with a bright optimistic tone, in the face of that horrific skeletal demon coming at us.

Skull Chaosdramon X was almost upon us and Sideline moved forward slightly and we all turned to face the monster as it raised its right claw.

“Time-Attack!” A flash from Sideline’s head and the creature slowed down immensely and fell a good distance behind us within a second. “I can only do that once in a while until my head parts cycles back and I bleed off heat. Now using the time that we have… Hypercept!”

Turning, Sideline aimed his right arm gun at… Calumon? The energy struck out at him and flowed around Calumon.

“Whoa… I feel… kind of funny really, ha ha wee!” Calumon started giggling loudly and happily, suddenly our speed doubled much to my disbelief.

“I was right… Calumon, not having much of anything else to improve, the Hypercept improved his capability to up our transference speed to a ridiculous rate.” Sideline’s eyes grinned at us as Skull Chaosdramon X fell into the distance behind us roaring and shrieking angrily while thrashing about.

“Give us ten seconds and I’ll get us out of here in a jiffy and that big meanie won’t be able to hurt any of you!” Calumon continued to glow with a happy amount of energy.

Turning back to the Skull Chaosdramon X becoming a dot behind us given how fast we’re moving, I sighed. That… had been much easier than I could have ever expected, a little too easy really…

So where’s the proverbial horseshoe drop? Oh right… where were we coming out at again?

“What’s on your mind Pom, aside from the horrifying skeletal monster that we just left behind?” I turned to Dolly and Lit squeaked in curiosity from her back.

“Has anyone ever considered the fact that we might be in some sort of trouble as we come back out depending on where exactly that happens to be?” There was a long pause after I asked the question, said pause was long enough for Calumon to open a hole back into the reality that was Ransei.

-Approximately three hours, ten minutes and fifteen seconds after entering the digital realms, evening, Violight Capital of Joltenheim, Violight Castle, super computer room, ???-

I have heard some trouble happening in Voltsburg earlier this day a few hours back, the message Proffessor Pong sent me through the system made very little sense and someone messed up his laboratory whether by accident or malicious intention, I would find a way to bring such interlopers that caused that to justice.

Thankfully it doesn’t seem that the kingdoms power production systems were messed up in the slightest, our lights would remain lit for the glory of the Violight Kingdom.

Something sparked slightly in the air near the computer and it wasn’t a bit of electricity, I quickly back up to the entrance of the room and charged my body for an attack.

“Guards, intruders, to arms and alert, something is happening in this very room!” I shouted and the result was immediate as two Eelektross flanked me, some of our kingdoms greatest warriors that were never lazy or idle and these in particular specialized at dealing with Ground Type Pokémon who thought us easy targets to mess with. “Prepare Thunder Waves for possible intruders, should they prove immune, use other attacks to incapacitate.”

Some form of portal opened up in the air, if it was an Ultra Beast it would not feast on my people or take them from their homes. In fact that would happen only over my dead body! If it is a Guzzlord, we would do all we could to kill it before it could destroy our kingdom. If it was one of the other more peaceful ones, I would try to open dialogue. If it was unknown I would immediately use Thunder Wave and worry about the consequences afterwards.

Several forms quickly fell out of the portal, one was a Salazzle, which was all I needed to see to think this might have been some form of assassination attempt on me by those literal snakes in Viperia.

“Unit Command, Thundering Paralysis Wave!” I unleashed my mightiest Thunder Wave with my guards acting in unison with me. We paralyzed all we could before they could get their bearings, the only one not effected was the curious Joltik among them that seemed clearly upset with me and the strange machine with canine attributes.

“Guards, seize them, take anything that looks like a weapon or armor from them!” I shouted and looked over them as my troopers surrounded them, the oversized Psyduck was quite unusual. “I am the Luxray Queen Ginchiyo Tachibana of Violight, I know not why you are here and you have invaded my castle. Know that I will certainly find out your purpose here while you are imprisoned soon enough, take them away!”

-Digi-home, Sami’s Military Bunker Workshop, Sami-

“Frizzle, no! We can still settle this peacefully… do not pop out of your Digi-vice and cause a ruckus.” I thankfully managed to convince Frizzle to not go out there while all our friends were being detained. The communications systems between Digi-vices was silent and then Frizzle started growling in clear frustration, but ultimately listened to me. “At least not yet, stay in your Digi-home for the time being unless destruction is threatened. If that happens, then you can go hog wild. Just make yourself some bread and calm down with a snack… alright? Alright.”

I felt the same as Frizzle at the moment because Canard was one of the ones being detained. In the meantime, while I was thinking of a solution to the problem and healing from my injuries, I could work on some things like a specialized grappling hook.

The digital energy outside our Digi-vices was fairly thin, we wouldn’t be fully combat capable and quite limited in attacks. Fully manifesting wasn’t exactly the issue here, the problem is that we’d be fighting at a huge detriment compared to the local’s capabilities having seen what Dazzle can do. We’d just be caught too, if not outright accidentally forced into reincarnation cycle if they didn’t have an idea of how much damage we could take and went full power on us.

We needed to wait and think about this carefully before doing anything.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Sideline used DOS/Turbo.

Its Super Effective.

Well, so far so good. Now I hope the dungeons are far enough away not to be flattened when that Chaosdramon manageds to follow them and make its Xit.