Disclaimer: If I owned Digimon, I could do a heck of a lot better job that the people that do. You'd better agree with me or else!

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Tales from the Shadow Guardians

The Great War Begins

To recap our last session, we covered the end of the fifth Imperial Dynasty and the Imperial War and the also the Dark Ages up until Sieryu came on the scene. That's quite a bit to cover in only one session, but all in all, there isn't much to tell beyond that. Baring that in mind, this will be our last session together.

So we shall finish out with the beginning of the Great War. When Sieryu realized that he was a slave in the Enemy's world, he was one of the extreme few that decided to try and do something about it. If I am correct, I told you all last time that he built up his underground militia. It is now time to tell you how he did it.

Like the some of the Emperor's before him, it was not a question of who was loyal to the current administration, but a question of who was brave enough to enlist. The first to enlist in his militia was his own best friend, a champion named Clark.

The two started with anonymous propaganda with which they papered Musplshiem. They received only a handful of what they had hoped for at their first organizational meeting. (They met under the guise of a committee to celebrate the fifteen hundred-year anniversary of the Enemy coming into power).

Someone, though, leaked the information on accident to a blind loyalist and the entire cast had to turn and flee from the city. Clark (a fire elemental) and Sieryu, who had elemental forms of his own, fled into the fires of the Musplshiemian wilderness.

From the reports of my fellow Guardians (I was busy keeping the fires from consuming them completely), I learned that the Enemy had assumed Sieryu and Clark both dead and of no further consequence. Poor him, if you ask me. The demon made a fatal mistake.

But anyway, the two finally found their way to Guess Where... You probably wouldn't know, seeing as how I never actually told you the name of the Salamander city. I wouldn't know what to call it so you could understand. It isn't pronounceable in human-speak. But I suppose that it could roughly be translated to "City of Fire."

Anyhoo, that is where they went. And either of them only just barely made it. To my knowledge, the two were half-baked, half starved and entirely dehydrated. Since Salamanders don't drink liquid water, it took quite a while for their systems to adjust to liquid dentenite.

If you'll remember our session on Creation, you'll know that I said that dentenite was not actually drinkable. That only applies to those who can't survive the equatorial regions of Musplshiem. Only water vapor exists there, and that is used to water the farms that supply the food for those people. (They're a race which is entirely vegetarian).

It was months before they were at full power again. I would say nearly a year. When at last Sieryu was well enough to speak, he was brought before one of the city chiefs to give his case. That was explained with some difficulty in the fact that the dialect of the Salamanders is different to the point of translators from normal nonhuman-speak.

It took several hours, quite a few gestures and some unfortunate misunderstandings to get it right. But finally, they were offered help. An army was formed from the city to invade and capture Musplshiem. All of the army had to be trained in cold weather combat (two hundred and fifty degrees is considered too cold to most Salamanders) and all of them had to at least have one form to go into the city with.

They only succeeded in capturing a few of the minor cities of Musplshiem. But with the army Sieryu and Clark had from the City of Fire and the refugees, it was inevitable that they would capture Musplshiem proper within a year. And so it happened. Quite to the Enemy's dismay, the city was captured and one more was added to the top ranks of the Refugee Army.

The newbie was a stray from the Human World, who had come in while being hunted in that world for his fur. How Byako avoided detection was a mystery to anyone who thought about it. But from the old Guard Stations, he made his way to Valhalla and then to Musplshiem proper.

With their army gaining momentum, the news spread across the Digital World with blindingly fast speed. Kishar heard of the capture of Musplshiem and the slaves there were in awe. With a new hope, they also became more defiant. It was there that Drake came into the picture. He was only a slave boy for a puppet governor of Kishar. He assassinated the puppet and took over.

At first the Enemy thought this was a good thing. (Poor misguided fool... I still laugh at him). Drake took his power and seceded from the Enemy's dominion. Then he freed the slaves of that country, reformed their masters into lawful citizens, and formed his own army.

With Kishar and Musplshiem taken, and Valhalla under siege, the Enemy had begun losing his power. Gaia was soon under siege as well, but was fortified and it took a whole half-decade to capture the plane's gate. Another fifty years was required to take Zion and from there, Gaia itself fell just two years before Valhalla.

I know this is probably going to be one of our shortest sessions, but it's near the present right now. In Gaia, the last of the Sovereigns were found. And at that point, the two armies merged and started cooperating from different points. Ea is currently about half way to being taken by the new Sovereigns' Army (as it was being called).

Hold on... I think I may tell you just how Sieryu (Azulongmon), Clark (that would now be Ebonwumon), Byako (Baihumon), Drake and of course Zhuqiaomon came to be called Sovereigns. It wasn't really anything more than a desire for a title. After hundreds of years as slaves, I think it is understandable that they would want something other than the title of "freed slaves."

It wasn't their idea though. The people had not wanted another imperial dynasty. And that made since because all they had known was the Enemy. It was also good because it saved a lot of feuding between the Five. It was because of this that someone suggested the idea of five rulers rather than just one. That same person also decided that he would start calling them "sovereigns" rather than anything else anyone else had thought of. So the Five thought that that was best and took a liking to the new title.

Now, during the process of freeing Ea proper, they all got to the point where they were stretching beyond Mega level. All of them had at least gotten to three stages past, the level we now call Sovereign. Drake was the one exception to that rule. He was not a sovereign level. He was two stages past and no one had a name for that level. And for his strength (and kindness, wisdom, and a regal air about him) he was made the leader of the Sovereigns.

Some people, including the Enemy thought that that air around him was because he was the heir of the Imperial thrown. I can't be quite sure if he was or not. Even something of importance could be lost to time. It would have made all of us Shadow Guardians glad to know that. But we won't know for sure until the End Days.

So now we conclude. As of right now, the Great War is still going on. Yggdrassil is the target of both armies. Both are rich in natural resources that could be crucial for the overall victory. I can't tell who will win, or even where the first battle for Yggdrassil will take place. Only the Creator can tell who will win.

But, it has been my extreme pleasure to tell you this history. I now bid you farewell and good bye. And maybe in the near future, the End Days will come and we'll meet again. Good night.

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A/N: That is the end of it. I would like to thank those who read all of this and even if they didn't review, God bless and thanks for reading.

One last bit: Dedicated to INSDragonclaw because he told me to get to work.