Present: The Digital World
"Patamon!" TK yelled over the howling wind. He was trapped,
restrained in the gripping claws of a Viral Agent hundreds of meters above the
ground as the monster zoomed through the sky. A few kilometers ahead of
him, two more of them flew, each carrying Kari or Gatomon prisoner.
Another Agent held his own unconscious digimon partner. "Patamon!"
he tried again. "Speak to me! Wake up!"
"Uuuuuuggggghhhh..." the little orange and white digital monster moaned. He felt as if he had been pounded into a pulp.
Suddenly, a shrieking screech sounded from behind him. Instinctively, he turned to see what it was. Another Viral Agent was catching up, flapping its bat-like wings furiously. And, in its clawed feet hung another human. "Oh!" TK's eyes went wide with shock. "Tsuriai! They found her!" Then his stomach twisted into a knot and his throat went dry. "What if they got Cody, too?" he wondered. "All of us have been captured!"
But Tsuriai had no intention of remaining a prisoner. "Ugh!" she growled. Adrenaline coursed through her muscles like electricity. "Let me go!" She clenched her teeth as she struggled. With all her might, she beat on the legs and feet that grasped her. But that quickly proved to be pointless. Then she glanced at her digivice. "Maybe I should try it again," she told herself. But, inside, she had a feeling her anti-virus program would fail, just as it had at the roller coaster in the Real World. "Wouldn't hurt, though," she decided. So she gave it her best shot. "Anti-Virus Activate!" she commanded of her voice-operated wristwatch. A bright light shone from it and struck the monster that grasped her.
But nothing happened.
"Why won't it work?!?!" the blonde
girl cried out in frustration mixed with fear. Her mind was going frantic
as the weight of her predicament settled in. Tsuriai was trapped and
defenseless, and the only ones who could help her were either captured just as
she was or were left behind at the campsite dueling it out with a handful of
Viral Agents. It was obvious now that these dark, malevolent creatures
were quite intelligent and had devised this meticulous scheme in luring and
kidnapping certain humans and their digimon. To everyone else, the
monsters' selection of Digi-Destined may have been random, but Tsuriai saw a
distinct connection: those who had been brought to the Digital World and
now taken prisoner were family. "Oh, no!" the blonde girl
suddenly gasped. "They must have figured out that we're all
related!" She looked ahead with uncertain eyes at the young man named TK,
who would one day be her father, and the young girl even further ahead named
Kari, who would eventually become her mother. But this realization didn't
answer the one question she needed answered. Her heart started to
pound. "What do they want with us?"
Then, out of nowhere, an ear-piercing shriek sounded through the empty sky. "AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!" came the cry of immense pain and aggravation.
TK swung his head around again to figure out what was happening. "I don't believe it!" he breathed in astonishment. He spied the Viral Agent holding Tsuriai floundering in the air, its wings out of control and its claws losing their grip as it wailed in frustration and pain. And then came the call of a voice TK had never heard before...
Sorcerer's Staff!
Suddenly,
out of the corner of his eye, TK spotted a glittering figure appearing from
behind the Viral Agent. It was an unmistakably magical creature; the kind
seen in stories of fairy tales and fantasy. And in this robed creature's
hands, held high above his head, was a glowing rod of wood. With a
vehement energy, the newcomer swung his staff down. "Is that a
digimon?!?!" TK sucked in his breath.
"Wh...whoa!" Tsuriai grunted. The Viral Agent that had kidnapped her was stumbling and stalling in the air. She heard someone call out an attack, but, restrained in the Agent's claws, she couldn't see what was happening and who had arrived to fight her captor. But, as the seconds passed, the Viral Agent struggled with his surprise attacker, trying desperately to hold on to his bounty while dealing with this new bothersome enemy. But the monster's efforts diminished as more and more of his attention turned to his unrelenting assailant. Slowly, Tsuriai could feel her shoulders slipping through the bony grasp...
TK hung in an Agent's claws, staring at the blonde girl he had just met only a few days before. Time seemed to slow as he watched in horror. "Tsuriai!" he called out her name. But there was nothing that could be done, no one to help her. The Viral Agent lost its grip and let the blonde girl go. As she sunk in the air, TK's heart stopped. The worst possible feeling in the world overwhelmed him. And that feeling was helplessness.
"Ooooooh!" Tsuriai cried nervously. But her instincts kicked right in. Opening the control panel to her suit, Tsuriai pressed a button. "Glider Mode!" Instantly, two metal wings extended from the glider pack attached to her back. But she was so high up in the air where winds gusted at ungodly speeds. She was having trouble catching the jet stream with her wings, and, instead of gliding across the sky, she was tumbling through it, dead stick. "AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"
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"RRRAAAHHHH!!!!!" Vikemon
roared. He grabbed the heads of two Viral Agents and slammed them
together. "That's what you get for messing with my friends!" he
growled. Then he let go and allowed the bodies of the monsters to fall
limply at his feet. In the next instant, their forms started to disintegrate,
falling apart and disappearing in a mist of data particles.
"That's all of them, Vikemon!" Cody yelled from his perch on the viking digimon's helmet. "Let's go!"
The goliath digital monster set out in a sprint, crashing through trees and ripping up clods of dirt as he went. He knew what he and Cody needed to do next. "You got it!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"WAAAHHHHH!!!!!!" Tsuriai screamed. Try as she might, she was unable to gain control of herself as the gusting winds tossed her about. But, just when she thought she was going to be sick to her stomach, something miraculous happened. "Unh!" she grunted, landing hard. The blonde girl suddenly found herself wrapped up in two large, protective arms covered in fanciful clothing. "Huh?"
"Are you alright, Suri?" a mysterious voice spoke to her.
Tsuriai turned her head up to see
the face of the creature who had saved her from falling to her death. What
she saw took her breath away. Hugging her to his chest as he flew through
the sky was an elfin creature cloaked in shimmering robes. His ears were
long and his hair was of a familiar brown hue. And, making her savior seem
even more mysterious, a high collar stretched up and masked most of his
face. But what made her heart stop was a pair of passionate brown eyes
that stared right back at her. They were so full of emotion and intensity,
it was like peering through windows into this stranger's soul. But, when
Tsuriai looked into them, she could sense something familiar about this
creature...the brown hair...the way he looked at her...the way he said her
name. Curiously, she tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. "Veric...?"
All of a sudden, her rescuer's soft brown eyes twinkled, as if smiling at her.
"Oh!" Tsuriai gasped, her face lit up with absolute delight. "It IS you!" She couldn't help the huge smile that played across her face. She was so excited. "Look at you!" she exclaimed. "You're incredible!"
"I was finally able to digivolve to Ultimate," Veric explained to her, his eyes forward as he flew through the sky. "Thanks to Cody and Vikemon, I have found the strength to become Majutsumon." Then he narrowed his eyes, his brows knit in a mix of emotions. "But I am having trouble maintaining my..." he started to say.
But he would never finish his sentence.
"SSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!" came the spine-tingling hiss of a very perturbed Viral Agent. It wasn't too thrilled at what Majutsumon had done to him with his magical staff. And it didn't look too happy to see that he now held it's prey.
