By contrast to the agony that had wracked his body moments before, and the fluid discomfort that had washed over him before that, Dante felt a total numbness as whatever was happening to him seemed to draw to a close. 

His vision was still blurry, but was clearing fast, with more and more details of his surroundings reappearing from within the borderless, incoherent shapes dominating his limited sight. His hearing, meanwhile, was still shot to hell. The sound of wind was gone, but had left painful ringing behind in his ears to continue blocking out all sound. Perhaps most pressingly, he felt the full sum of his weight returned to him despite the lack of feeling in his body. The full sum and then some, it seemed, as no sooner had he realized he no longer felt weightless, his footing gave way beneath his fatigue and the return of his mass. 

He felt the shock of his fall course through his body, but it only served to jolt him further back to awareness as his body’s lack of feeling shielded him from the pain. With his limbs already against the ground after the fall, it wasn’t hard to at least push himself upwards into a sitting position. It seemed that the lasting numbness wasn’t the most immediate of his concerns at the very least. 

[i]‘Ah, fuck, come on. I’ve been possessed before, what’s so different [b]this[/b] time?’

That[/i] was the very angry and very real voice cursing away on full volume in his head. 

Dante tried to rise from the ground back up to his feet, but only succeeded in bringing himself to a crouch. Though his body felt nothing, let alone any pain, the ringing in his ears combined with the increasingly incoherent ranting of the voice in his head was enough to make up for that several times over. Whilst feeling slowly returned to his body as he balanced himself on weightless feet, the torturous sensation claiming his head interfered with any attempt he made to bring himself back to full focus. 

Then came an impossibly loud noise. Although at first, the sheer volume of the sound threatened to drown him into unconsciousness altogether, the voice in his head cut out was ultimately the one that ceased to be. The resulting moment of silence in his head was enough for Dante: although shaky, the sudden moment of clarity was sufficient to shakily climb back to his feet and gather his wits. 

“... Oh. Oh fuck.” And that was when he almost wished he’d remained unable to tell what was going on. 

The massive tree from the centre of the clearing had been ripped clean from its roots, and was suspended in the air by some unseen force: the same that had entrapped him minutes before. Directly beneath it, radiating absolute sadistic pleasure, was the child from before- NecroWisemon? Dante may have questioned how he suddenly knew what the horrible thing’s name was, if his thoughts hadn’t been sent into a fresh panic by the gigantic object that was about to be brought down on them. 

[i]‘... Yeah, not gonna lie, getting gored on that was bad enough. Getting crushed is going to be [b]even worse.[/b]’[/i] Once again, the voice in his head was [i]definitely[/i] not helping. 

There was nothing he could do, and both he and the voice knew it. Like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle, with his body and control over it too rattled to even hope to move out of the way of the tree in time, he froze stiff. 

Seconds became minutes. Those minutes became hours. The sudden inevitability of death at the end of a rollercoaster ride of hope and despair stretched his last moments out into a painful eternity of suspense.

But the tree didn’t come down. Precarious movements upon an invisible access ground to a halt, as did everything else around it save Dante’s panicked breathing and the sounds of the other three humans who were about to die. The sudden cessation of movement from the imminent threat of his surroundings, and the resulting silence, once again gave Dante room to think: and that was what led him to the realization. 

He wasn’t the one who’d frozen. It was the world around him. 

“What’s going on? Is everyone alright?” In a mixture of confusion and relief, he blurted out the first two questions that came to mind. But if answers were coming, he wasn’t going to hear them: he hadn’t noticed before, caught up in the panic of the moment as he was, but his voice felt and sounded different. Deeper. Scratchier. 

[i]Identical to the one in his head.[/i]

Everything came together in that instant. The disorientation, the weightlessness, the sensation he’d felt as that mysterious object entered him: he raised his hands to his field of vision, and felt his eyes widen on instinct as he finally realized what had happened to him. The frame was similar enough that he hadn’t connected the dots, but everything else- his height, his garb, the few visible patches of flesh- was different enough that the revelation hit him like a freight train. Grabbing his face, he confirmed in an instant that it was more than a hallucination: where he’d felt the bone of his skull warp and erupt outwards moments before, horn-like structures had emerged and eye sockets had closed up. 

[i]‘Wow, you finally noticed. You really suck at possessing people.’[/i]  Dante was wordless from shock, but the voice- Astamon- had plenty to run off at him as he stared in horror at his transformed body. [i]‘Fuck’s sake, Wyrdmon is never going to let me live this one down.’[/i]

First was the footsteps, and then the rustling bush. Then the face, hooded in red, green eyes wide, appeared between the parted bush branches. Clockmon, he knew. "Oh my stars." It - no, she - also sounded like a young child as she stared at the four. "I - I know there's a lot going on right now and I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but you four - please, this way." She pointed behind her with her mallet and briefly lost her balance, legs stumbling in the shrubbery. "I can't keep this up for much longer, and that tree's going to hurt if it lands on you." She seemed pleased as two of them - humans, digimon, who knew any longer? - moved at her pleading. Even if the young woman - Rubani - Meicrackmon - fell at first.

Although absorbed in his horrified torpor, Dante’s attention found itself split between his state and Clockmon as she entered the clearing: and he lowered his face from his hands as he turned to look at her. Whether from registering her words or sheer frustration, he began to rouse from his mental paralysis as the reality of the situation kicked in. The newcomer seemed to be the source of the sudden lapse in time. The experiences of the last few minutes made Dante want to turn and run as far as he could from any mysterious childlike being that presented itself to him and the others, but something about this one seemed familiar and reassuring, somehow. As if his own instincts were telling him that he could trust her.

That was enough to let him think straight for a moment. Whatever had happened to him, he was already adjusting to it. Though he was still struggling to accept the transformation that had been thrust upon him, there was little physical component to his distress: the voice had quietened down, whether of its own accord or not, and he felt more and more strength and stability return to him as it did. Though he still had more questions than he could think to put together, whether or not he’d be able to move around in this new body didn’t seem to be one of them. 

And, as the newcomer and the voice had so helpfully pointed out, the tree being held over their heads was probably the immediate concern. Looking from Clockmon to the three figures a short distance away, he saw the disturbing visage of NecroWisemon frozen in time, along with the horrified expressions of Piximon and MarineAngemon: steeling himself with a sigh, Dante turned to follow Clockmon and the two figures- Meicrackmon and Baalmon?- who’d made to leave the clearing while they could. He was going to have to take his chances and bank on his instincts being correct about Clockmon.