Present: The Defragmented Mountains
Cody
and Tsuriai's father both witnessed the monster tearing something out of
HeraldAngemon Advanced. And from their close proximity, they could see
exactly what that something was. In OmniNegabyte's hand laid the lifeless,
glowing figure of a human. "NOOOOO!!!!!" they cried, tears
welling up in their eyes. "SURI!!!!!!"
Kari quickly turned away, unable to handle the horrid scene of OmniNegabyte ripping Tsuriai from HeraldAngemon's body and then tossing the digimon away as if he were nothing more than trash.
OmniNegabyte raised his arm up above his head, dangling the unconscious body of a young girl from his fingertips. "Hahaha," he cackled. Licking his lips like a ravenous beast, he opened his mouth wide. "You've been a thorn in my side long enough."
HeraldAngemon clutched at the gaping wound in his chest, struggling to breathe while he lay in a discarded heap on a pile of jagged rocks. "Suri..." Power slipped away from him, but, because Tsuriai was pulled from him forcibly and not of their will, a residual amount of her energy was still present. And it was hanging on to him for dear life.
"Oh!" The Future Gaurdian cried. Her light lost all its sparkle and turned to nothing more than a faint glow. "HeraldAngemon is starting to lose power!" she gasped. She could see the digimon struggling to save what strength he had left.
"No!" Shakkoumon, Magnadramon, and Seraphimon said at once. They had been throwing attack after attack at OmniNegabyte, but the monster cared more about purging Tsuriai than about the pain he felt from the fighting digimon. "He's going to eat her!"
"RAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!" came a thundering war cry. "Not if I can help it!"
Overhead,
a brilliant white knight zoomed through the air, straight for the black
creature. "It's Omnimon!" the young TK recognized him right away
from a previous battle he had participated in with his brother, Tai, and Izzy.
It was Omnimon who rescued the Real World from the wrath of Diaboramon.
And now, the giant knight had returned.
Tai and Matt hung on to their combined digimon. "Get him, Omnimon!" both of them shouted.
Transected Sword!
"AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!" OmniNegabyte wailed. A fire-hot blade sliced through his arm. It was the same one that grasped his human prisoner.
"Suri!" Cody screamed her name. The second he realized OmniNegabyte's arm was falling to the brutal ground below, he took off running, jumping from floating rock to floating rock as fast as he could.
Magnadramon circled the hovering Omnimon. "Nice of you to join us."
The knight digimon gave a quick nod of his head. "I didn't miss all the fun, did I?"
Shakkoumon opened his belly, getting ready to launch an attack on the distracted OmniNegabyte. "The party's just getting started."
Kachina Bomb!
Supreme Canon!
Tsuriai's father started to take off after the young Cody. His daughter was in trouble. "Suri!" But, suddenly, out of nowhere, a set of hands grabbed his arm, stopping the man from leaving. "Huh?" He spun around, almost angry. But what he saw took his breath away. "Ryo?!?!"
The Future Guardian turned at the call of that
name. "What?!?!" That's when she saw what Tsuriai's father
was seeing. It was incredible.
A ghostly image of Ryoichi Takaishi stood before his father, smiling.
"Ryoichi!" the older TK cried, tears forming in his eyes. He stepped forward, trying to scoop his dead son into his arms, but they just passed right through the boy's body. "Oh!"
Fire Tornado!
Kari and the younger TK held each other, looking on with confusion. The strange boy they had never seen before was not alone. "Is that a Leomon?!" TK raised a questioning eyebrow.
"And Centaurumon, Tonakaimon, and Chulak!!!" the Future Guardian couldn't believe what she was seeing. Their visitors had all been deleted in previous battles of this war against Negabyte. And now, the five of them hovered in the air in front of Tsuriai's father.
"Are they real?!" Kari asked immediately.
"No," the Future Guardian quickly replied. "They are the representations of data yet to be reconfigured."
The young TK cocked his head to one side. "What are you talking about?"
Hallowed Knuckle!
"It's amazing!" the Future Guardian was beside herself with shock. "Ryoichi must have created temporary forms from the deleted data of himself and the other digimon who helped him and Tsuriai on their journeys."
"But how is that possible?!" the young TK pushed. He still wasn't understanding what was going on. "Tsuriai told me that her brother and his digimon were killed!"
"Brother?!?!?!" Kari's burgundy eyes opened wide.
Transected Sword!
"That
is true," the Internet Guardian conceded. "But Ryoichi is the
keeper of the Crest of Perseverance," she explained further. "He
and ArchAngemon are the bringers of the Great Silence. Just as Tsuriai has
a unique bond with newly born digimon, Ryo had a special connection with digimon
who were deleted and awaiting reconfiguration." Then the Guardian
zipped through the air, approaching the ghost-like representation of her
friend. "Isn't that right, Ryoichi?"
Suddenly, the sparkling sphere of luminous light froze in the air, a light-blue mist swirling around her. "Oh!" Kari blinked her eyes in surprise. "What's happening to the Future Guardian?" And then, as if in answer to the girl's question, the colored wisps of wind vanished as quickly as they had come, unveiling the form of a new creature while they disappeared.
Everyone stood frozen in shock. "WHA...?!?!"
But the ghost of Ryoichi simply smiled. He knew who this creature was. Before all the humans and the ghostly apparitions floated a mystical being. She maintained the appearance of a young girl clothed in camping gear and whose long, curly tresses danced in the breeze. Mr. Takaishi sucked in his breath. "She looks human!"
"She's so pretty!" Kari's eyes twinkled.
The young TK took a defensive step forward, bringing Kari behind him. "Who...?" he started to ask. "What are you? And what have you done with the Future Guardian?" He didn't know if she was some kind of digimon or if she was human like himself.
The mysterious girl blinked open her eyes, a tiny smile playing on her lips. Soft-spokenly, she announced, "I AM the Future Guardian."
Ryo's ghost looked on, smiling as if recalling pleasant memories.
"The Future Guardian?!?!" Kari raised her eyebrows.
The new creature gave a small giggle. "Yes," she answered. "As an Internet Guardian," she explained, "my duty is to record history in the Digital Universe. And to do that, sometimes I must disguise myself. But I cannot use any of my other powers while not in my original form." Then she turned to the wraith-like figure of a friend she thought she'd never see again. "This is the form in which I met Ryoichi..."
All of a sudden, the ghostly projection of
Ryoichi turned to look at the glittering human-like being hovering near him, smiling and nodding
his head. He had yet to say a word.
"Why hasn't he said anything?" Tsuriai's father asked, his voice quiet and hoarse. Emotions swelled inside his heart. This was turning out to be the most horrible day of his life. First, his daughter was stolen away from. Then he found her only to watch her put herself in danger. And now, the ghost of his son stood before him. "Why did he stop me from helping Suri?!"
Justice Beam!
"He probably can't speak," the Future Guardian guessed. "For whatever reasons." She looked hard at the translucent image of Ryoichi. She could see in his face the same concern he demonstrated when he refused to let Tsuriai join him in his final battle against Negabyte. "But I think he doesn't want YOU to get hurt. That's why he stopped you."
