The initial attack had worked to cut the creatures off from escape - one was flung to the side from the blow with the tail, the other - the other had been holding a digimon. It had fallen during the chaos, but rapidly got back up on its feet.

"Blazing Fire!" The little digimon cried, pelting the monster with sparks and embers that made it lower one arm as a shield. The little digimon spoke again, words that it neither cared to nor could understand, not before it was attacking again. The dragon lowered its hand to block the Terrier Tornado, snarling and swiping at the little digimon.

Large ears whipped against his body as he spiralled backwards through the air. “Rrrr…” Terriermon growled, clenching his teeth in the most ferocious manner he could muster through his little body. He wanted to look and make sure that his trainer had made a run for it, but there was no time. The big bully was going to need a lot more of his attention than he had hoped, “Blazing Fire!” He bolted, again.

But as the small flames fell upon the beast they merely charred its scales as their oily-slick surface dispersed them. The flames danced thinly but otherwise left their mark undamaged, and the dragon simply hissed in contempt. These constant interruptions and futile struggles were becoming increasingly tiresome, and as it felt one of the morsels trying to run away that frustration approached the limit- and broke through it with a fierce roar.

Giga Crush!

And with its front arms slamming down, a fissure trailed after the fleeing one, not big enough to fall in and be lost, but more than enough to catch their ankle. Feeling the specific rhythm of their escape break down into a panicked stumble and then a tell-tale slam into the ground beneath them, it allowed itself a moment to look for the Terriermon- and as the tell-tale green fire gave their position away, it made its move.

While the dragon’s claws were powerful, bolstered as they were by the pistons it had accrued upon evolution, they weren’t its primary limbs for burrowing. Those were the limbs located above the beast’s shoulder blades, and their power came not from mechanical adaptation, but pure muscle. Strong enough to tear through Huanglongmon ore and whatever other stones and crystals were put before them, they bore something so vast through the ground with frightening speed and ease.

And with the full force behind such an ability, it slammed one of those arms down on Terriermon.

The little horned digimon’s body crushed to the ground. He felt crunches throughout him, and everything went dark. All Terriermon could think about was Ryan. He had to open his eyes to save her, but there was too much pain pulsing through him. He thought he could hear her voice, but he was certain she had gotten away. She had to have. He promised himself she wouldn’t get hurt. He promised himself. “r… y…” And, with one more stretch of consciousness, reassuring himself that Ryan was safe, Terriermon felt himself slip away into small pixels.

The dragon lifted its paw and brought it to its mouth as it approached the human, raking its rough tongue over the data spots left behind. The small digimon’s remains were... slightly fulfilling, but tasted nowhere near as good as the morsels here did. It spared the D’arcmon-like creature one last glance and then seized it in one hand. Even if it were a digimon conscious and capable of speech, it had no words to spare for its new meal. Instead, it brought them closer, stretching its jaw to fit them between its sharp teeth-

-and froze.

Its eyes darted about as its jaw trembled, and it became clear: it had not chosen to stop. Something else had forced it to stop. And, as its vision strained to peer over its shoulder, the answer became clear: there was a scarecrow, around the same height as the two teenagers, both stick-and-straw arms raised and aimed at the draconic digimon. Despite the painted face, the scarecrow was clearly grimacing, pushing all the energy it had into this feat of somehow keeping the monster’s jaw from slamming shut.

“Delta!” the scarecrow shouted before falling to one knee. The beast turned, a distorted growl rising in its throat-

“Mega Dash Impact!”

Which became a startled-cum-indignant yell as something new still came hurtling towards it from just out of the range of its vision, lunging from the cloud of debris it had kicked up to crash into it with the force of a runaway Trailmon. Tightening its grip on its hard-won morsel, it swept a claw in the direction of the scarecrow before it turned to confront the latest pest to interfere with the hunt; but as its eyes narrowed with a fury against the light and the bruise and punctures left in its side by the attack, it saw nothing but dust.

A split-second later, however, it did feel something simultaneously stab into and snap shut like a serrated vice about the muscular flesh of its shoulder. Unable to see their assailant, the beast let loose a strangled roar, instinctively loosening its grip while trying to reach for the digimon now giving it so many issues. Those on the ground, however, would see what appeared to be a creature halfway between a ratite and a theropod doing their best to savage the far-larger creature, a jaw-like beak locking tight onto the base of the arm holding Ryan as it responded to their target’s movement by digging the metallic claws of its talons deeper into the beast’s flesh.

The scarecrow seemed to see its chance - the beast snapped at the quick Champion now, while its claws were pried off the human, letting her fall to the ground. The scarecrow glanced at the other human, who looked out of it, while a plush crow descended from the forest canopy and alighted upon her shoulder.

“Get back to the start- of.. the...” The scarecrow’s voice trailed off as she looked behind them, where the dragon had cracked open the earth to emerge from its burrow. She seemed to be doing quick calculations in her head, shoulders slumped and plush bird looking despondent. “Actually, stay down. It mostly detects movement.” She sighed, drawing an arrow with a smouldering cigarette speared on its head. “By the Host, if they knew this is what we were gonna die for... Derision Crow!” And she raised the plush crow, who laughed with far more confidence than she demonstrated a moment ago. It didn’t wipe the stiff resignation from her pose, nor the fact that the running raptor-bird hybrid was merely distracting, not damaging the massive lizard digimon.

Panic ran through Renamon's mind as the giant digimon threw a tree at her and the human girl. Acting entirely on instinct, she tackled Violet once again and turned so that it was Renamon's back that slid across the ground, pulling the two at high enough speed to do damage to it through the path the tree was travelling. Her quick action was just barely enough to save them from becoming paste under the trunk as it landed. Violet's knife was knocked from her hand, and the headphones attached to her phone scraped along the ground behind her as she slid on top of the fox digimon.


As the dust cleared, Violet found herself in the arms of the yellow fox, who was clearly quite wounded. "Why... why do you keep saving me?"

Renamon tried to smile but could only grimace in pain instead. "I can't just stand by and watch something die. Besides, you're the one from that day, the one who gave me my lucky fabric." Renamon let go of Violet and attempted to stand up, but couldn't. "I at least owe you that back." She said as she unwrapped the scarf and slowly placed it around Violet's neck.

Violet felt tears fill her eyes. "Wha- what?" She was going to continue but Renamon interrupted her with a coughing fit. "You're hurt, really bad." She steeled herself as she pulled her now-returned scarf tighter. "How can I help?"

Renamon paused. There was only one thing she could do, if it were even possible. She'd heard that humans and digimon could combine their power in desperate situations, but she'd never seen it done before. "There might be something. But I don't know what will actually happen." She looked at her shoulder and winced. There didn't seem to be any other way. "If this works, I hate to rope you into this, but... We need to make a contract." She held out her right arm and focused. Will-o-wisps began forming around her in a circular pattern. Violet watched, transfixed, as they did before looking back to Renamon. Finally, she reached out and grabbed the digimon's hand with her own.

"Then let's."

Renamon opened her eyes to see the human smiling at her. She smiled back. "Renamon." she said. As she saw the look of confusion on the human's face she explained. "That's my name."

"Oh! I'm Violet. Evergreen. Not the kind of name you hear around here, I know." Violet said with a slight laugh, despite the danger she had just been in. And with that, the foxfire grew and ingulfed the pair, burning bright blue in a large flame.

---

In a flash of azure, the giant onibi burned itself away and revealed a new entity kneeling in the middle. It bore Violet's red scarf around its neck. As it picked up the blue scarf that lay on the ground next to it, the human mind inside it realized that it could now understand the music that came from the headphones buried in the scarf.


Hey, you holding up okay?

Yeah, I'm doing better than I expected. This is a weird feeling, to say the least. And I can understand Japanese better all of the sudden! That's from you, right?

I'd assume so. Now then, are you okay with getting a spot of revenge on that giant digimon? I'm not a fan of vengeance, but it could hurt too many others if we don't stop it.

Renamon felt a shiver from Violet's self before getting a response, the combined digimon wrapping the blue scarf around its waist as she heard it.

Yeah... Yeah. Let's kick it up. Show them all the things we can do.

Wha-

Don't worry about it. Let's go!

The digimon went over, picked up the knife that had been knocked aside, and looked once more at the remnants of the tree that had been chucked at its component beings before turning and beginning towards the sound of violence. As it began to move, it noticed another digimon nearby and called out to it.

"Hey! Are you on the dragon's side or what?"

By the time Groundramon threw a log in the direction of a nearby human and Digimon it was clear to Stingmon who the hostile was here. Unfortunately there was no way for him to stop the log from where he was so he helplessly watched as Renamon pushed the human out of the way and took the full brunt of the hit.

As he wondered if he should try to help out the clearly dying digimon or go after the threat it seemed they handled things themselves as they clearly formed a contract and combined into a single entity. Relieved to see things ending on a decently happy note he was about to go chase after Groundramon when something he hadn't expected happened.

"Hey! Are you on the dragon's side or what?" Asahi couldn't believe the accusation. "What, are you stup..." Luckily he never got to finish that sentence as Jewelbeemon took over. Forgive my partner, but no we're not. In fact we were just about to deal with him.

@The World

Between the dying sounds and echoes of passing transit, a figure clad in purple strolled down the street. Suddenly, they stopped, as what would otherwise be described as a shrieking sound was felt by the individual.
... digital rift came the muffled voice in Ai's head as they shot a glance to the window of a nearby storfront.

As their eyes were cast to the glass, the image of the speaker was reflected there, stooping low to fit in the reflection, "What was that?" Ai muttered under their breath.

A slight sigh echoed within the helmet, It feels like there's been a Digital Rift. Which probably means a harmless one like me, or, well...

"A train with teeth, right," Ai replied, leaning their head back and casting a glance into the window as their pace quickened, "Pity, just finished my top coat. So should we-"

Probably best to save our energy. We can't be like that for very long, it seems.

"Guess you're right, yeah?" Ai replied under her breath with a sigh, "So where're we heading?"

The phantasm pointed an armored finger in the reflection, which caused Ai to look out towards the edge of the city.
"Looks like the bird sanctuary, yeah?"

"Ya gotta say it, mate," the lizard said. "All it takes is your word, mate." The lizard's front paw seemed to become more solid as it reached out towards him.

"Alright," Riku mumbled. He could feel himself losing consciousness. "Let's make a contract, little guy."

"Call me Bruce, mate." The lizard seemed to smile. The air around the two felt charged with electricity, and the sand around Riku began swirling around him and Bruce. Riku's body felt hot, as if his very blood was boiling in his veins. As the sand swirled around in a tornado, a light came from within, shining brighter and brighter until the sand blew away, revealing a single figure where there had once been two.

Things had escalated quickly. Hey, is that guy seriously dead?

"Calm down, buddy, I got this!" He did, in fact, not have this. If he didn't act more decisively, more aggressively, he was going to miss out on some serious data!

In a couple leaps, he got closer to the fray. On the second leap, as he was coming back down to earth, he called out another attack- "Bigfoot Crash!!" He stomped both feet into the landing, causing a fissure to open up, over flowing with energy, almost like lightning charging at the Groundramon.

Normally, Ai wouldn't have put much stock in rumors. People tended to leap to conclusions, particularly in the dark. From their experience, this went doubly so for those with lower intelligence. It was basically the basis on which their daily life continued to function. However, even without Medieval Gallantmon having detected a digital rift, the existence of Digimon in their world themselves did cast the slightest shadow of doubt. Not wanting to waste time in investigating, they dropped a handful of yen on a rental bike, and began making their way to the bird sanctuary.
Medieval Gallantmon was keeping quiet. With either the meeting of a potentially injured Digimon or a possible threat, perhaps both, on the horizon, he felt it best not to incite any perceived sleight on either side that would fester during their encounter. After all, it wasn't like he could just leave and handle the issue himself. And even if he could, stealth wasn't his strong suit, even in the Digital World.
Pedaling slowed as Ai began to hit the stone path. They paused beneath the gate, and unslung the bike from beneath them. The cool hush that would be expected was immediately broken by a crash in the distance. The telltale sound and sight of falling trees followed.

"F-k," Ai exclaimed under their breath.

'Come now, it might not be so bad,' came the reply from their mental cohabiter, 'Stay observant. There might be another injured Digimon like me, or...'

"Train with teeth, got it," came their barely voiced reply, as they headed into the clearing.

Then came the screams. Figures in the distance, other Digimon, it seemed, were being thrashed about. Smote by the massive claws of-

"Shit, is that a dragon?" they incredulously blurted.

'A Ground Dragon, as a matter of fact; Groundramon, Virus Attribute, Ultimate Level, Perfect Class, a member of the Dragon's Roar Family. It is said to boast both great offensive and defensive abilities. However, it seems to be less than quick witted, and has poor eyesight, from what I've heard. If we're able to find some allies, we might be able to eek out an advantage.'

Not wasting a moment, Ai produced a device, gripping it firmly in their palm. It was their D-tector, the contract they had made between them given physical form. As the red and purple device was drawn back, a blue ring of what appeared to be scan lines formed around Ai's hand. With focus, they drew the top of the D-tector across the ring, which erupted into orange sparks. With the sparks flashing, their arm raised to the sky, as the bands of light flowed from the D-tector, and surrounded them in an iridescent orb.

The shadow of Medieval Gallantmon drifted into the orb, becoming a staticy mist that filled the confines of the light. Rigid sheets of data began to collect the mist, as Ai's body floated mid air, arms outstretched, ankles crossed. As their forms integrated, a layer of woven scales snapped over Ai's skin, yanking their body into position. From Medieval Dukemon's presence, a white helmet with horns sprouting from the brow appeared. Each hand was encased with wooden gauntlets, affixed to which were shield like planks. Tattered hakama aligned with their body, before their chest was strapped with belts and lashed with vines. Falling from their suspended position, Ai now took a new form, with fluttering red hair, ghostly blue skin, and feet tipped in white claws. Two wooden swords were grasped from the air as this new form landed, before twitching and convulsing as if pulled by too many strings.

"Yaksamon!"

Gauntleted hands gripped the aged bokuto tightly, drawing them into an 'X' shape. Inhaling a sharp breath, Yaksamon suddenly surged into action, dragging sword against sword. The Demon Man scanned the area, noting the positions and directions of the other humanoid Digimon taking part in the battle.

"Ittoryodan!" hopping not to accidentally hit the rapid but, at least from this angle, unseen combatant, the recently spirit evolved Ai loosed a shockwave from the connected blades.
As strong as two strikes at once, the pressure wave hurtled through the air, aimed to catch the beast at its flank, where it was less likely to be able to evade in time. Unless those modified wings on its back could still allow it to fly.

The energy that surged through Riku's new form was incredible. He felt like he could take on the world. Or, at the very least, a weird-looking dragon monster. He cracked a lopsided grin.

"Fair suck of the sav! The hell is this? I thought I was s'posed to be in control of this body?" Bruce's voice was in his head, and he sounded both surprised and angry. He let out a frustrated huff. "The hell with it. We're in this blue whether we like it or not. How 'bout we teach this bounce a lesson, eh?"

Wait, so you only offered to help me because you wanted my body? Riku thought. He sounded offended, bordering on disgusted.

"Cripes, no! You might know how I can get back home. If you up and drop dead, there go any chances for me to get back to the Digital World."

Digital World?

"Best getcher head in the game, mate. Groundramon ain't gonna be nice and wait for you."

"Good. The less enemies, the better." Lilimon replied to Stingmon, a slight shiver running through the human half of the female digimon, before turning towards the Groundramon that was being assaulted from all sides.

So, how does this work?

Just follow your, or I guess it would be our, instincts.

Got it.

A vine covered in sharp thorns extended from Lilimon's wrist.

"Fairy Vine!" she shouted as the vine shot forwards towards Groundramon, hoping to pierce its hide.

In the moment between attacking and the result of the attack, Lilimon had a lightning-fast conversation between her two halves.

I know it attacked us first, but I feel kind of bad for the dragon. Getting ganged-up on sucks. Maybe we could just talk it down?

Not likely. It's clearly too feral for that. Unfortunately, not all digimon are wise enough to be able to see peaceful solutions. Though I agree with you, I wish there was a non-violent solution. But we can't let it go and hurt others. We have to stop it here.

Yeah, well. Hopefully we can get it to go home once we've beaten some sense into it.

Right. Hopefully.

Though Groundramon was hard-pressed to dislodge or land any substantive blow upon her, it wasn't long before Delta realized that her own position in the fight wasn't much better.

Though the Diatrymon leaping up onto the beast to savage it had certainly drawn its attention away from the girl it had been about to devour, the beast's thick hide held firm against her assault. Though oily blood leaked from split scales, the damage to the flesh beneath was shallow at best, and it was simply the force of the jaws clamped onto it that kept the beast's aggression on her; as time ticked on, her options diminished down to losing this particular battle and being thrown bodily aside by the dragon’s thrashing, or taking the initiative to break off.

Under the circumstances, however, she didn't have the option of disengaging. The moment she dismounted the beast, it would likely make for the girl again, and Nora's hail mary to save her from its jaws had taken a visible toll upon the puppeteer.

She clenched her jaw, feeling the joint creak to near-breaking point as the beast roared with pained fury once more. No, as risky as it was, maybe she had to take a chance. What the beast possessed in strength was compromised by a deficit in intelligence; if she could maintain its aggression while dismounting and pull it away, she could buy enough time for the girl to get away and for Nora to recover the strength to help her keep the situation under control until more agents arrived. With Homura nearby now, they probably wouldn't be too far off themselves; she just had to buy them a little more time.

Moving as fast as she could to deny Groundramon any opening to retaliate or swat her away, she released her jaw’s grip on the beast’s hide before propelling herself off of its back with a mighty kick that managed to jolt the Perfect away slightly. Landing upon the ground with a crash, her keen eyes narrowed to cut through the debris that had been kicked up by the dragon’s thrashing; though she’d previously been unable to see anything but a blur as it attempted to throw her off of itself, she was able to see for a good distance around her in spite of the low visibility. Still no sign of Homura; shortly after rendezvousing with her and Nora, he’d left to find a vehicle he could use to grab any interlopers from the battlefield. As her vision swept across the scene of destruction, however, he was nowhere to be seen. As before, it was just her, Nora and the gi-

... Hold on. Was that-
—
Nora’s crow stared as the girl’s form changed into something a fair bit larger, and far, far more familiar to her.

Aw, damn it all, she thought, almost lowering her bow in shock. We’ve got another one.

She would’ve cursed audibly if that wouldn’t have consumed her shrinking pool of strength. In fact, there was a suspicious amount of digimon now in the area that she didn’t remember sensing. No. No way. She refused to believe it-

There was a light behind her. Nora didn’t even need to look to know it came from the other human she’d spotted when she first arrived. The crow and scarecrow kept their expression carefully neutral, to avoid wasting the energy, but one thought crossed her mind.

I’m going to need a smoke after this. Hell, probably two.

The ground under the Groundramon cracked, catching its leg, and Nora took that as her cue to fire a cluster of arrows upon the lizard-like digimon. Most were deflected by the scales, but one managed to snag a crack Delta made, and one caught the beast in the eye. It seemed everyone else had chosen to take advantage of the distraction as well, raining attack after attack onto the Groundramon. A shockwave knocked it further off-balance before a hail of fire caught it across the face. Then thick thorny vines tore across its hide, followed up by a blast of concussive force from Delta as she snapped out of her brief lull. Individual attacks alone couldn’t do much, but their combined force was starting to crack its tough exterior. Finally, the scaly armor broke, and the Groundramon howled before its legs gave out. At that moment, it no longer seemed like a predator but rather a pitiful creature, incapable of causing anyone harm.
—
With a series of deep, laboured breaths, Groundramon tried to lift itself back up, growling in frustration against both its assailants and its pitiful state; but a moment later and it found the strength beyond it, the pain of its wounds and the suddenly-apparent weight of its body bringing it crashing back down to earth one last time.

Damn it all, was this how it ended? Brought low by mere grubs and reduced to prey for the very morsels it had made to feed upon?

If it were more than a beast, it may have offered a dark laugh at the bitter irony of it all. But as it were, as its body gave out under the assault of the assembled Adults, it just offered them one last defiant roar; which became distorted before fading out entirely with feedback that sent static through the air as it collapsed into a sea of green fractals that dispersed outwards like an emerald blizzard. As that cleared, naught was left but a strange, soon-fading glow- which cooled to reveal a green egg.

Nora sighed and moved to collect the egg. It’d have to be sent to somewhere that could take care of whatever would hatch now. If there was one good thing about working for DATS, they were pretty good about finding such villages and towns in the digital world. It was no longer their responsibility. Though, speaking of responsibilities...

She looked over the group of digimon. Some, she noticed, had vanished - probably cleared out after Groundramon died. But the rest.... Where to even begin?

Wait, the thing turned into an egg?

Renamon mentally hissed. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. But at least everyone is safe, now. We can deal with whatever happens next as it happens.

The strain of their combination was taking its toll on the human and digimon, and they found themselves reverting to their natural states, despite the short time they'd been combined. Violet put her hand to her head.

"Ugh... Migraine." she subconsciously wrapped her red scarf tighter around her neck with her other hand.

...

Wait, her red scarf? She looked over to Renamon next to her, and the digimon was wearing her blue scarf around her neck, a beautiful sight on the fox digimon. The two looked at each other and laughed, the situation catching up to them. After a moment, they began looking around, noticing the others in the area.

"Augh, no!"

The frustrated voice came moments before a tall, lanky, rabbit Digimon skated onto the scene. Blades in their paws scraped against the ice that formed beneath them as it created a ramp to the battlefield. They took a quick spin around the area, a thin sheet of ice trailing behind them during their brief tour. Powder ice spray punctuated a hard stop once they had completed the once-over, Floemon surveying the scene.

"You guys couldn't wait like 30 seconds to take it down?"

The question was asked with a jovial tone, though the expression on the Digimon was unreadable--only partially due to its nearly black fur. Frigid blue eyes watched Nora closely, as if attempting to read her intentions. Jack hadn't caught the contents of the battle, so he was unsure where exactly the decisive blows had originated.

He just wanted to see if they intended on scrambling it properly, that was all. No reason for enormous monsters like that to get a pass just because they ran out of hit points after all.

People get hurt in these attacks.

As the Groundramon began to vanish in a blaze of light, Yaksamon began to approach slowly. Twigs and moss crunched under their feet with each step. Boken still in hand, the masked eyes looked over the scene. Before they could act, however, the strands of blue code began to tear from the Hybrid's body, leaving Ai to settle on the ground as the data crumpled into their pocket, Medieval Dukemon looming behind them as before.
"Ey, new kids," they declared, passing a glance over the spirits and contracted present, "We should get going before things get hairy, yeah? We probably don't have long. Listen, I know a guy. He can catch you up on how this stuff works. Because I sure as hell aren't going to do it."
'Now is that completely necessary A-' the spirit began.
"Do not, say my name. I handle the people-talking, and you handle the monsters, yeah?" they folded their arms across their chest, "Not like I introduce you while you're talking," Ai grumbled.