Though essentially unharmed, Dante’s fall kept him on the ground for a few moments more before he was able to climb back to his feet. Now that his blood had stopped beating in his ears from panic and he was able to distract himself from the sheer bizarrity of what had happened, he could see what was going on around him.
The thing that had ‘impaled’ him was still here. That almost made him want to get back on the ground and play dead, but fear wasn’t going to claim him just yet. It didn’t seem to be paying him any mind: instead darting about in the air, sending down more of those crystals to strike at the others. The two children who had ran into the woods ahead of him and Rubani before were at the fringe of the commotion, one carrying the other. Minor panic set in again. Had he just been lucky? Had they lost one of them already? How long was it before they lost another?
Indecision had taken over Rubani. She could only kneel, paralyzed where she had fallen. No matter what she decided to do, it seemed as if the monster child would be unstoppable. Even with her best efforts, she couldn't protect anyone. In her dazed state, her eyes drifted over to the first corpse of the day.
Poor Dante. She had told him to stay behind, but it might have been better for a little boy like him not to have been left alone, no matter what the circumstances. Now, there was nothing she could do to help him. “I'm sorry, Dante” she said almost to herself.
“Don’t be sorry, just get moving!” Rubani may not have expected a response, but it came clear as day. After a few moments of standing around in shock and near-panic, Dante had made his mind up. Whatever the hell was going on, staying here to find out was without a doubt the worst way to go about it.
The girl’s eyes snapped open in surprise. Her previous mood of sadness was forgotten by one of both shock and confusion. “You're alive!?” she asked, “B-but what about… that thing… he stabbed you in your back!” her shaking finger pointed to where the crystal impaled Dante.
It took a moment for Dante to respond. On the one hand, the best thing they could all do now was make a break for it and hope for the best. On the other, it was incredibly suspicious that he was alive, and he himself wasn’t sure how that was possible.
“I… I don’t know.” There was no time to waste theorizing, nor to wait around. As he answered, he was quick to run over towards her, anxious and aware that it wouldn’t be long until the child turned his attention back to them. But it wasn’t so easy to banish the possibilities from his mind: “I felt it, but there isn’t a wound or anything. It’s like it went right through me.”
This was all starting to look a little strange. That's twice now that what Rubani thought was there actually wasn't. She'd start questioning how much of what they saw was actually there if she didn't just fall over a wall that popped out of the ground. There was also the fact that the monster made Dante float in the air, or at least she thinks so. The more she thought about it, the more it confused her. “What's going on here?” she wondered out loud, “And why exactly is that thing toying with us?”
“Let’s not stick around to find out.” Whatever was happening with the child and his seemingly fruitless attempts to kill them, Dante had a gut feeling that this was more than just some kind of practical joke. He remembered the awful smell from earlier, and the sensation of being lifted into the air: the crystal may have been nothing in the end, but those definitely weren’t. Once again, self-preservation won out over curiosity. “I’m not hurt, at least not enough to slow me down. How about you?”
“I'm okay,” she replied. The shock was starting to wear off; she could at least stand up. What she wanted to do next was go after the other two, but what then? She was just leaving Dante behind again, and he was almost killed. Then again, he might be killed by the creature after it realizes that he isn't dead yet.
Maybe, just this once, she could let him decide where he wants to go? It isn't as if she knew how to keep him alive in this strange place. She cleared her throat nervously. “So… I think we should go after the other two. might still be able to help them.” She'd feel even worse if Dante didn't get to decide what he risked his life for, so the least she could do was to let him decide where he wants to go.
Fortunately, it seemed as if Dante was on the same page as her. “The best thing we can do is to help each-other,” he said, with a nod. He’d seen the other two struggling to get away: with his and Rubani’s help, maybe escape would be a possibility rather than a fledgling hope.
Maybe the situation wasn’t entirely unsalvageable. At the very least, they were all still alive. Maybe it was the adrenaline talking, but that itself was encouraging enough to keep him going.
Rubani nodded in agreement. “Then it's settled,” she said. “We should hurry if we want to catch up” Without another word, she turned to chase after the masked creature. Her legs were still unsteady under her, but she told herself she could at least keep going long enough to catch up to it.
Dante wasn’t far behind her, only slightly delayed by the remaining stiffness in his body. “What do we do about him?” He didn’t want to rely on the possibility that he couldn’t hurt them: it could have been dumb luck or the child toying with him that had him still breathing right now.
“So, why in a hurry to leave anyways? Where do you got to go?” The little demon laughed and then almost seemed to freeze - color rushed out, rushed forward in front of Bart and Ryan, leaving behind a transparent outline hanging in the air that rapidly vanished as the colors reassembled back into their proper places. “Why can’t we all play for a bit? Last guys don’t seem interested anymore, and, sure you guys cheat, but beats boredom, right?” He flexed his fingers, and the dirt under him seemed to twitch in response, the dead trees trembling.
“Why do you want to go so soon?” His voice almost seemed to be distorting.
---
In the clearing, one of the figures began to stir.
He hadn't fully lost consciousness after what had happened. He was too used to pain, too desensitized against it for it to send his mind completely reeling into the indistinct white. Perhaps miraculously, too, he hadn't lost enough blood to force him along.
That was small comfort, however, when that meant he was awake to experience the sensation of the splinter driven all the way through his chest.
His face had regenerated enough from the child's curious experimentation that he could see again. His vision was blurry, but clear enough to make out the now-blunt point jutting out from his torso, stained red and a variety of other unspeakably vivid colours from his blood and organs. His qi had manifested as a searing heat running through his body, cauterizing the wound before it could drag him under. That, however, only made the pain more intense.
There was no time to disable his receptors. He raised his head. The three retainers who had fought alongside him were in similarly dire straits. Two of them, he could only make out as dark shapes lying prone on the ground. The remaining one, right besides one of the others and similarly indistinct, was now starting to move as he was.
He couldn’t wait to gauge their ability to fight. His gun was nowhere near at hand, and neither was it in any state to fire. That left one sure-fire way of continuing the fight.
The qi running through his body was forced into overdrive. A black aura highlighted his form and forced strength back into him, and he reached down to the holster at the side of his broken right leg.
A hint of silver caught the sun, a small light amongst the black of its owner's energy and the gruesome earthy reds of his mangled body. Squinting as the aura helped his vision recover and focus, his line of sight passed the clearing and into its surroundings. A moment later, his target appeared in his vision. He was small. He was a distance away. He was floating in the air as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
None of that mattered one bit.
In an instant, the dark energy swallowed the knife up entirely. Pulling his arm back, Astamon flicked his wrist as hard as he could. With the qi coursing through both him and his knife, the blade fired forth with the speed and power of an anti-tank round on a direct course to a single target.
---
It all happened almost too fast to process.
The shiny object flew through the air, and only now was it clear how much the childish monster had been holding back. The object glinted for only a second in the vision of the group, and the child still managed to respond, arm raising and catching the glowing dagger in its black skin. The color almost seemed to ooze out of the wound. The group could then hear the pounding footsteps - something tall and vaguely humanoid had rushed from the clearing, red lines trailing from about hip height. It pushed off the ground, momentum carrying it through the air, and gave the group a better look at its snarling cat-like face and the massive claws pushed forward to strike the child-
Who abruptly moved about two feet to the right and let the cat being crash with a loud crack and a scream.
The child shook his head, pulling the dagger out of his arm. The hole sealed up even as the group watched, covering up glowing letters and characters, and the child looked back at the clearing - the other two were staggering back to their feet as well, the lion-like monster clearly trying to hold its innards in and the multi-faced being still bleeding terribly. The cat-like being tried to get up, but it was clear its lower legs no longer responded to its will.
“Is that all you’ve got?” The child sighed. “One set of playmates don’t know when they’re done, the other cheats...” The child trailed off. While the mask remained impassive, his posture relaxed as he spread his fingers.
“But I think I can fix that!” His fingers curled to his palms. None of the other monsters had time for a chance to stop the act or even for final words. As if tethered by strings, a glowing orb burst out of each their chest, flying to the being’s hands, and all four burst into white pixels, dissipating into the ether. The child flicked his fingers outward-
And a core flew into each person.
Digital code detected. Digivolution initiated.
Each one glowed, the human forms growing, altering into beastial appearances. The child chuckled.
“Now this is where it gets fun!”
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