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Second Perspective

By nightdragon0

She said he was in the basement…so it should be this way… Eiji made his way across the main compound.

Getting in had been a bit of a hassle, and he’d been tempted to just revert back his normal form and fly over the fence. But the security guard had eventually gotten the message and sounded an alarm, which in turn was getting the workers to evacuate for the time being.

In a way, the blaring alarms might not have been a good idea, as they’d probably scare away whatever Digimon was leeching the electricity by now. Or perhaps he’d overreacted, and this was just a false alarm?

Finally, the agent found the double doors leading to the basement and quickly descended. While the stairs were uneventful, Eiji found the door at the bottom locked.

Strange, they shouldn’t be locking doors during an evacuation procedure. Unless… Eiji put his ear to the door and tried to block out the blaring alarms.

Some muffled cries were coming from the other side. There was some rhythmical thumping too…

“Hey, whoever’s there! Stand back! I’m taking the door down!” Eiji whipped out his Digivice and flipped it open. “Charge! D-Break!”

Sliding the Digivice along the length of his arm had the effect of charging it up with a blue aura.

The D-Break, or Digital Break, was what the name implied: breaking the Digital field that kept up their human disguises. Digital Monster data was still readable even when in human form. And this was the reason for sliding the Digivice along the arm…to allow it to read their data.

Now back in his true XV-mon form, Eiji roared and kicked the door down.

A group of four workers was on the floor, crying out in panic as Eiji poked his draconic head in.

“Hey, I’m the good guy, all right?” Eiji told them, trying his best to put on a smile. And that was actually a scary-looking thing considering he was an almost 7 foot tall dragon with razor sharp teeth. “I’m here to get you out.”

“We’re saved!” The first one gasped.

“They suddenly came out of nowhere! Everyone panicked.”

“We were trapped by debris!”

“Those insect things are back there!” Another of the workers pointed. “I think they were chewing on the circuits.”

“I’ll do everything I can.” Eiji nodded. “You lot get out of here quick.”

“Thank you.” The first man bowed, before gesturing for his co-workers to follow.

“At least they sent an ugly dragon to rescue us.” A passing worker whispered to another. “I couldn’t stand any more insects.”

Eiji still caught the words over the background noise and frowned.

Humph, some gratitude. He thought. Some people have no taste! I’m the most handsome, best-looking dragon Digimon around!

With the workers out of the way, Eiji entered the corridor they’d been trapped in. It was pretty narrow now that he was larger in size. The XV-mon’s tail twitched about in agitation at not having any wing-space.

“Hey, watch your head!” A worker called.

WHAM!

“Rarrggghhh!” The XV-mon’s head went right into a low section of the ceiling. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”

“Your tail…”

“Yargh!” Eiji’s tail snagged a batch of loose wiring, causing him to trip and fall flat on his face.

All the workers present exchanged worried glances (with large sweatdrops).

To say that it was fun would’ve been an understatement. Varon was having the thrill of his life.

Lowering his head, the Gin Ryuumon rammed his foe in the chest. As the latter stumbled from the impact, Varon swept his tail across the floor, taking the Fladramon’s feet out from under him.

Varon brought his tail down, only to have Shinya roll out of the way. The agile blue dragon snapped back to his feet and smashed his tail into Varon’s chest. Despite the Gin Ryuumon’s armor, the impact still hurt.

The blow was followed by a 360 degree spinning side kick. With a Fladramon’s body structure, that meant both his tail and one foot contacting with Varon’s jaw.

Before he knew what was happening, Varon had hit the ground. Feeling a warm, salty liquid in his mouth, Varon rose and spat out a couple of broken fangs. Wiping the blood off his jaws, he turned back towards Shinya.

The armored dragon stood in a battle stance, with his jaw set in grim determination.

In the background, Varon could see his partner, Ignatius, leaping around, firing off his Spiral Blow projectile. His opponent, the Raptordramon, was running up the walls and using leaping lunges with her talons to attack.

Growling, Varon turned back to his own opponent and begun charging his projectile attack. He had no time to be worrying about his partner for now.

Seeing the glow in the Gin Ryuumon’s jaws was enough to get Shinya to fire his own projectile.

“Knuckle Fire!”

Varon swerved back and drew to his feet, rearing back his head. Shinya took it as in indication that Varon was about to fire and leapt away from the projectile’s assumed path.

The Gin Ryuumon did fire. However, instead of letting his spear-shaped projectile fly, Varon grabbed the energy spear as it emerged. With a spin, he redirected the projectile. His efforts were rewarded by a roar of pain from Shinya.

The Fladramon crashed into a pile of crates with the spear embedded in his left thigh. Varon charged up to him and assaulted his foe with a fury of punches and claw slashes. The lightly armored Fladramon was too stunned to defend himself as Varon tail swiped him to the ground.

“Here, let me help you with that.” Varon grinned, grabbing hold of the short spear, which was firmly stuck in Shinya’s thigh.

“Rarrrgghhh!” Shinya let off a howl of agony as Varon shoved the spear all the way through the scale and flesh. The sharp point had emerged from the other side of Shinya’s leg, effectively disabling it.

Moving to the side, Varon launched his claws for Shinya’s neck. The Fladramon grabbed hold of Varon’s claws and suddenly smirked. Immediately, the Gin Ryuumon felt heat emitting from his foe’s claws. Roaring, he tried to let go, only to be held back by Shinya’s vice-like grip.

Varon felt his opponent’s good foot against his torso and was suddenly tossed into the air.

“Claw Express!” Shinya’s gauntlets glowed with a blue aura as he launched a series of slashes against Varon’s airborne form.

Varon hit the floor in a daze, struggling to his feet. He suddenly felt a sharp pain in his right thigh and looked down to find his own spearhead embedded in the scales there. Snarling, he realized that Shinya had broken off the spearhead and thrown it right back at him, hitting the unarmored part of his leg.

With a howl, Shinya ripped the remains of the spear out of his leg, tossing the pieces aside.

“Now we’re even!” The Fladramon roared, spitting out a mouthful of blood, as well as several broken fangs. However, he was clearly limping because of his injured left leg.

“Hahahah!” Varon laughed, despite the pain. “This is the best fight I’ve had in ages!”

“That’s enough you two.” A deep male voice sounded over Varon’s earpiece.

Varon frowned, having completely forgotten that the earpiece was hidden beneath his helmet.

“You’ve done enough. As long as you have the part, fall back for now.”

Panting and dripping with sweat, Ignatius landed beside Varon, having heard the same message.

“Remember what I’ve thought you.”

By this time, Yuri had stepped up to Shinya’s side. The raptor was a little bruised, but otherwise in better shape than Shinya.

Ignatius shot Varon an uncertain glance, as if waiting for approval. In response, Varon pointed downwards with his claws, and then moved to face the D-PRED agents.

“Remember this!” Varon roared. “This is only the beginning!”

With that, Ignatius fired a Spiral Blow into the ground, stirring up a huge cloud of dust and concrete chips. Both D-PRED agents could only draw back and cover their faces.

The corridor eventually opened into a larger area, something Eiji was quite thankful for. The alarms had stopped by this time, but the dimly lit area didn’t exactly make him feel much better.

However, a soft buzzing caught his ears and the blue dragon sped up in his stride. His quarry turned out to be just around the next bend, and in plain sight.

Kokuwamon, a small machine Digimon resembling a sliver stag beetle. Three of the Child-level Digimon were clustered around a power box in the wall, nibbling at it with their mandibles.

Eiji let off a roar, causing the trio to scatter. The dragon lunged for the nearest one, slicing it down with his claws. Another of the insects flew around and sank its scissor arms into the scales of his leg.

The XV-mon struggled and shook it off, leaving a bleeding scar along the wounded section of his leg. The other two had now come round and zapped him with bursts of electricity.

“Rargh!” Eiji dropped to his knees, but managed to let off one X-laser before he fell. The energy beam caught one of the Kokuwamon in the air and disintegrated the mechanical insect completely.

Enraged by the loss of their own, the remaining two Kokuwamon lunged at him from either side. Eiji managed to tail whip one away, while the other latched on to his wing. Roaring, the dragon reached over and managed to rip the insect off.

“Strong Crunch!” Eiji clamped his jaws down on the beetle, ripping the Digimon in half. Tossing the pieces aside, the dragon turned to the last Kokuwamon.

The beetle let off a terrified yelp and abruptly burrowed into the ground.

Eiji walked over and examined the hole, which was much too small for him to follow. It was also too dark to see anything below.

“Ryouta, you there?” Eiji brought up his Digivice.

“I’m almost at the plant.” The speaker carried over the sound of the Strikedramon’s panting.

“Chill, I just took care of them.” Eiji smirked. “Just a bunch of Kokuwamon.”

“So the target was there…”

“Yeah, but the last one just fled.” Eiji continued, walking over to the power box. “Hmm, looks like they were draining the electricity in small quantities. I’m guessing they were doing that at certain intervals too. No wonder the workers didn’t realize it.”

“Save the theories for the report.” Ryouta growled.

“What, are you disappointed that the technician got to have all the action?” Eiji chuckled. “Well, I…”

That was when the floor gave way beneath him. Eiji was quite literally so startled that he forgot to fly, dropping his Digivice in the confusion.

“Eiji? Eiji! What’s going on?” Ryouta’s voice called.

There was apparently a lower level of the basement, one which Eiji’s face smacked hard into. He got up to find himself staring straight into the face of an Adult-level Kabuterimon. The four-armed insect was larger than him, covered in a dark blue carapace with the grey horned head of a beetle.

At least half a dozen more Kokuwamon were clustered around the Kabuterimon, chattering excitedly. The larger beetle lunged forward, seizing Eiji’s right arm as he tried to move. Eiji swiped with his left claw, only to have that caught as well. The Kabuterimon’s remaining arms caught hold of his left leg in one hand, his right leg and tail in the other.

“X-las…” The XV-mon was in the process of launching the energy beam from his chest when the Kabuterimon suddenly spun him around, readjusted its grip, and shoved him chest-first into the wall.

“Rarrr! No fair!” Eiji groaned, realizing that he couldn’t fire his laser in this position. Then, he noticed all the Kokuwamon flying excitedly around him. “Oh shit! Nice bugs…nice bugs…”

The insects were suddenly all over him, clawing at his scale and flesh.

“Damn!” Shinya cursed, limping over to the newly formed pit in the ground.

Peering in, the Fladramon realized the tunnel had already been blocked off.

“Man, how did they manage to seal that off so fast?” He panted.

“The answer is because they never even used it!” Yuri growled, pulling Shinya’s head up and pointing him to a neatly formed hole in the wall. “Come on!”

Forgetting about Shinya’s injured leg, Yuri dragged the limping Fladramon out through the hole.

“Grrr…” The Raptordramon growled, glancing around.

“Hey!” A voice called.

Yuri turned to see a pair of young humans (she guessed aged approximately 20 to 22) standing by the side of the road. Both were dressed in blue coveralls, probably some workers at the warehouses.

However, the taller one was rather fair and had his blond hair in a crew cut. The other was black with his head shaven bald. The two seemed to be of Western descent, but both immediately spoke in fluent Japanese.

“These two Digimon just ran past.” The dark-skinned one said.

“Yeah, this armored dragon and a blue dog thing.” The blond-haired one added in.

Unbeknown to Yuri, the black man was about to say something when his companion kicked the back of his leg.

“Eh yeah, those weird things.” The black man continued. “They sure ran off in a hurry.”

“We’re apprehending them.” Yuri told the two, flipping open her phone-Digivice and showing off the D-PRED badge within. The badge was commonly recognized as another ‘police badge’ by the general public.

“Which way did they go?” Shinya asked.

Both men pointed to the left.

“Grrr…that bastard couldn’t have gotten far!” Shinya snarled, breaking into a half limp, half run. “Wait till I get my claws on him!”

“Thanks.” Yuri replied. “I suggest you two leave this area for now. It might not be safe.”

“Uh sure thing.” The humans nodded, before running around the corner and disappearing.

At least some humans are pretty helpful. Yuri thought as she broke into a run.

Zeta Terminal, Digital World. 6 years ago…

“Hey, a call just came in!” Sakurai walked over.

“What?” Ryouta looked up, his jaws still full of sizzle hot meat. “Our shift just finished.”

“Some bunch of kids fooling around on the high bridge again.” The Shadramon reported, glancing down at the message on his Digivice’s screen.

A Shadramon was an insect type Digimon with a humanoid body structure. Clad in fiery red armor similar to a Fladramon’s, with a pair of butterfly-like wings.

“Um…” Ryouta nodded, still chewing.

The Strikedramon wasn’t in any mood to leave the shopping mall they were having dinner in, especially since they were now off duty. The crowd of Digimon around paid no heed to either of the two D-PRED agents as they continued their conversation.

“Do we really have to go?”

“Not really.” Sakurai shrugged.

“Then let’s leave it to the others.” Ryouta gestured to his own Digivice screen. “Look, some other units have responded already.”

“Well, we happen to be pretty close.” Sakurai stood up. “I’ll just take a quick look since I can fly.”

“If it’s the usual bunch of troublemakers, they’ll be gone before you get there.”

“I expect so.” Sakurai chuckled. “Get some drinks while I’m gone.”

His senior was quite insistent on going, which was just Sakurai’s nature.

“Sakurai…” Ryouta began.

“Hm?”

The Strikedramon felt bad, considering that Sakurai was his upper study, Ryouta should’ve been the one going, and not him. However, he pushed the thought aside.

“You want Espresso, right?” Ryouta asked.

“Haha, you know me too well already.” Sakurai waved a claw as he strode off.

Sakurai would be gone for five minutes. What could go wrong? And protocol certainly didn’t need him to stick to his senior like glue.

A lot went wrong that day… Ryouta shook his head furiously. It’s not going to happen again! I won’t lose another teammate this way!

The Strikedramon tore down the corridor, hopping over debris and ducking beneath low sections until he came to the area with the hole in the ground. Now that the hole had been greatly enlarged, Ryouta could clearly see the entire scene below.

Eiji was being pinned against a wall by a Kabuterimon, with a group of small Kokuwamon chewing on him.

Ryouta readied his Fang Throttle, but there was too great a risk of Eiji being injured in the blast. Instead, he leapt off the upper level and fired the laser weapon at the ground. The small explosion threw up a burst of small rocks, scaring the Kokuwamon away.

“Strike Fang!” Ryouta’s body glowed with orange flames and he charged, ramming the Kabuterimon aside. In the same motion, he spun round and fired the Fang Throttle again, taking out a couple of the Kokuwamon.

“Ugh…better late than never.” Eiji grinned, pulling himself to his feet. The bloodied red patches were clearly visible against his blue scales, but he hadn’t lost his sharp tongue.

“Be quiet and help.” Ryouta snarled.

The Kabuterimon had gotten to its feet and launched a series of energy bolts, its Mega Blaster attack. Ryouta broke into a roll and returned fire with the Fang Throttle, causing the beetle to take to the sky.

“Gotcha!” Eiji appeared from the other side. “X-laser!”

Their opponent dropped down to evade the laser, and found itself right in Ryouta’s path.

“Strike Claw!” Ryouta’s flaming claws slashed across the insect’s body, shoving it across the room.

Eiji dropped out of the air, catching the Kabuterimon around the neck. The force of his motion, plus his added body weight, cracked the insect’s carapace with a loud crunch. The wounded Digimon let off a loud shriek as greenish liquid begun to seep out of the cracks.

“X-laser!” Eiji’s attack couldn’t miss from this range. At the same time, the XV-mon used the motion to propel himself away from the Kabuterimon’s mangled corpse.

The remaining Kokuwamon had fled by this time, leaving Ryouta and Eiji standing in the room, panting.

“You all right?” Ryouta finally asked.

“No, I’m not all right.” Eiji muttered angrily.

The Strikedramon stood in silence, although it wasn’t possible to tell what he was thinking due to his built-on helmet.

“I got like a couple inches of my tail nicked off!” Eiji held his tail up for emphasis. “It’ll take a while to grow back! I need a good, flexible tail tip for picking up the nice hot dragonesses, you know?”

“Keh, whine all you want.” Ryouta huffed, walking away. “I’m going to look for the rest of those Kokuwamon.”

“Hey! I was kidding man!” Eiji called as he retrieved his fallen Digivice. “I’m thankful for you saving me! Hey! Ryouta!”

The Strikedramon had already turned and disappeared around a corner.

“Fine! Be a grouch then! You egoistical purple freak!” Eiji called after him. “This is why we blue dragons are far more popular than you! Hey! Hey! Are you even listening? Hey!”

“This sucks…” Yuri growled, cracking her knuckles.

“Yeah, they gave us the slip.” Shinya finished tying a bandage around his injured left thigh. “Gargh!”

The two had given up and returned to the warehouse after several minutes of fruitless searching. Yuri had come to the decision that there was little chance in catching up now. The varied scents of fuel and chemicals around the warehouse area also made it difficult for the raptor to sniff out anything.

“Good job though.” Yuri told her colleague.

“Thanks.”

“How’s the damage?”

“My leg?” Shinya looked up from his seated position on a crate. “Keh, just a flesh wound. He didn’t hit the bone or anything.”

“Good, then we can head down to the power plant and help the others clean up.”

“Err…actually…rarggh! Arrghh!” Shinya moaned, clutching his stomach. “Garrhh! My spleen!”

“Trying learning where your spleen actually is.” Yuri snarled, jabbing the left side of Shinya’s back, just below his ribcage.

“Ow! Ow! Ok! Ok! But I was running on adrenaline then!” Shinya grunted. “It’s all gone now that I missed the chance to take out the bastard who wrecked my bike!”

“I seem to recall that the bike was your own fault.” Yuri clicked her clawed-talons. “Besides, it’s just a bike…”

“Just a bike?” Shinya blurted out, waving his claws about for emphasis. “It’s not just a bike! It’s a freaking Ducati! And a modified 2008 model! Do you know how much these things cost?”

“You can recover the wreckage later.”

“But…”

“Don’t make me pull these three stripes on you soldier.” Yuri’s eyes narrowed as she flipped open her Digivice, showing off the three stripes of her Sergeant rank.

“All right! All right! I get the idea!” Shinya got off his crate, and then muttered under his breath. “Homicidal female…”

“What was that?” Yuri bared her fangs.

“Uh nothing!” Shinya squeaked, jumping up onto the rooftop.

Smirking, Yuri proceeded to follow Shinya along the ground.

“Hey, Varon?”

“Hmm?” The youth looked up, still continuing to run his hands through his blond hair.

“You really shouldn’t have been picking a fight with that Fladramon, you know?”

Varon turned to his African-American companion, who was standing by his side at the empty bus stop.

“Boss is probably going to be mad dude.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Varon shrugged. “We got the part he wanted. That’ll make him happy.”

A black car pulled up and both men got in. A relatively ordinary sight along just another street in the city.

“I see you got into a bit of a scuffle.” The driver spoke. He was a huge, heavy built Japanese man in his late 40s, with shoulder length black hair. He was currently dressed in a black suit with a tie, as if he’d just gotten back from some executive meeting.

“What you were saying was true Mr. Zola.” Varon said. “D-PRED did finally find out about us.”

“Of course, I didn’t say I was angry at you, did I?” Zola let off a slight grin.

“That’s a relief Sir.” Ignatius breathed from his position in the back seat.

“But they didn’t find out about anything else. Especially these.” Varon tapped a red-colored, rectangular device strapped around his right wrist. “We changed back to our normal forms and we easily lost ‘em.”

“Good.” Zola nodded. “It’s also important that you understand what your Digimon forms are capable off. Nothing short of the real thing, with enough training.”

“I understand that pretty well.” Varon nodded. “Unfortunately, all eyebrow dog back there did was run around in circles.”

“Dude, a Gaogamon’s a wolf!” Ignatius protested. “Hey wait, is it really true? I have big eyebrows when I’m in that form?”

“You chose it yourself, so don’t ask me.” Varon chuckled.

“Well you’re American, and you chose a samurai dragon as your form! How does that make sense dude?”

“I’m half Japanese. Go figure.”

“Enough joking around guys.” Zola said. “You want to hear about your next mission?”

“Do I get a chance to bust those guys asses?” Varon cracked his knuckles.

“The time will come eventually Varon.” Zola replied. “In the meantime, I have to make a few calls, and plan our operations more carefully. We don’t want D-PRED interfering…until the right time…”

Zola raised his arm to turn the steering wheel, causing his sleeve to roll back. Strapped to the wrist there was a grey, cell phone-shaped device. Otherwise known as the Bio-Digivice, used by Digimon to take on human form.

Notes:

Names used for Digimon levels are in Japanese format:

Seichouki (Child) -- Rookie

Seijukuki (Adult) -- Champion

Kanzentai (Perfect) -- Ultimate

Kyuukyokutai (Ultimate/Final) -- Mega