Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Digimon Protectors - The Highton View Terrace Incident ❯ Unforeseen Consequences ( Chapter 1 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

This is the opening chapter where Archer is thrust into the changed reality he now must face as the world around him is not the only one that exists.

Anime/Manga: Digimon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Martial Arts / Sci-fi | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 11.28.2015 | Updated On: 11.28.2015 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.6K | Visits: 154 | Status: Work In Progress

Unforeseen Consequences

The rain poured down on the streets of Odiba Japan, the black poncho over my shoulders and the black hood over my face. Every few seconds a red cherry at the end of my cigarette burned orange to give my brown goatee a sharp blood mandarin hue. My hands only a little cold behind the charcoal black rough leather gloves as it drew away the dart to exhale the cloud of cancerous smoke, it trailed into the air in a haze until it dissipate among the gray skies above me. The wind was strong at my back as the clocks ticked over to five in the morning. A long night overdue to be over, my ride skipping out and not wanting to pay for the taxi to my apartment. I needed to think about my meeting and how I should either salvage it or just get my plane ticket ready to go back to Seattle.I'm Archer. That's really all you need for now. I was on business in Japan. It was government related and a big conference of those who work on the darker side of the gray lines of work wetter than the rain pouring down on me at the time. I've been lots of places in the world, strange and dangerous all around. Places you wouldn't like. No one would in their right mind for that matter. Angola, Nigeria, Somolia, Yemin, Sudan, Serria Leone to name far more than I should. That was in the last five years. I had been in Japan for about two years but I was actually born on a military base just outside of Toyko. Navy brat turned Army degenerate and then...well it gets classified after that.For the sake of your curiosity, the business I was on had to do with a special project. Nothing involving aliens before you start getting too far out in tinfoil hat land, just a joint effort between NATO and several South Pacific Nations. Due to the growing popularity of global terrorism, there was a push to put together some combined force, spear headed by Japan of all places. They were looking to lift some restrictions on their constitution with US approval, we were looking for more joint training and deployment points in the area. I was just here as an advisory, translator and possibly one in the chain of command of this little outfit. We were stuck on names while we organized our candidates, I put forward Specialized Tactical Anti-Terrorist Interception Command, otherwise known as STATIC Force. When you got two silver bars on your shoulder its amazing what ends up getting jotted down on the drawing board.The rain was starting to die off as I reflected on the meeting. Not often did much get done when you got three different chains of command from five different countries trying to hash out who foots what bill let alone who is going to do what. The droplets pattered lighter and lighter on my head as I saw the clouds thinning out above me. I pulled off my hood to get a good cold breeze going across my scruffy chin and running my hand through my longer on top hair to brush out a few bangs in my field of vision. The sides were still cut down to the quick to keep in regulation with the barrette I had to sport around though so it looked a little off. Making my way across the middle of the street, just about to drag off the last of my smoke I heard a crackling in my ear of the world around me suddenly changing for the stranger.I had a low profile earpiece headset on, connected to my cellphone in my pocket that began to make some weird high pitched whistling noise. Sounds like long draw 'tweeeees' winding up before dropping along with what I could only decipher as digital information downloading feedback. The street lights around me started to flicker, my watch's display flashed and randomized numbers. Electrical interference? From what? Looking down the street to my left I saw building lights flash in random patterns, traffic lights flick from stop, slow and go at random. When I looked up the sky stopped me in mid step.Above me was not the normal stary sky that I expected as the clouds parted. It looked foreign, bands of what looked like stretches of bar codes mixed with DNA sequences unrivaled along the sky. The backdrop to it looked to the striking similarities of the Northern Lights except far more detail and coated the whole sky with faint greens and bright blues. Tilting my neck up I could have sworn I made out what looked like land masses, oceans and even city lights on a world I couldn't be seeing right above me. My cigarette drooped from my lips, fell from it and made its way down to the wet street below me. A second set of lights came from my right, my eyes darting over after a second. Headlights? Horn sounded. Speeding truck. I'm dead.I then was struck but not by the vehicle barreling down at me, instead a flash of robes out of the corner of my eye picked me up in a tackle at full sprinting speed. I was ripped off the ground, my cigarette falling to the pavement as I sailed back towards the sidewalk. I felt my chest almost cave in before my back hit the cement with a slam and a skid up and over the lip of the sidewalk. Only reason I didn't feel the snap of my spine was my concealed Kevlar armor under my jacket and shirt that deadened the blow. Hurt like hell as I rolled over backwards three times, slamming my head off a brick wall. My brain jostled in my head, my arms coming up gripping my scraped up scalp. and I slumped to the side with my vision twisting for a few moments. I saw my cigarette hit the ground. I'm alive?Curled on the ground I heard another voice giving a slight groan, pulling my knees in as I drew my hand back to see if there was any blood. Yup, blood. I shook my head as i barely missed a concussion, realizing I had flown from the middle of the street at the center line all the way back to the corner of the sidewalk. The low wall with a barred spiked fence around it symbolically guarding a large residential building, Highton View Terrance in fact. I looked around to see who had saved my life so suddenly. He was even stranger than the sky was.I thought he was wearing a very baggy tan trench coat but he was actually wearing some type of monk's robes. It was pretty basic but it has some prestige about it, nicely sewn darker tan trimmings, solid leather belt around the middle and some weird wrappings around his hands like fight raps. Short brown hair, almost spiked but he had a very long braided pony tail down his back. Around his neck looked like a religious symbol, more like a seal of some kind with the crosses and a shield and really weird looking symbols looked halfway between Kanji and random computer symbols. He looked in his mid thirties, younger thirties for sure, fair complexion and almost impossibly clean shaven. On his back was something I was a little more concerned with, a very large scabbard for what looked like a massive broadsword. Medieval in nature, a cleaver of men if you will and that just made it all the more confusing. The robed man stood up to his feet as I got to my knees, squinting through the moderate pain. "Are you hurt?" He asked leaning towards me.I shook my head as I got up using the fence to get fully up to my feet. I brushed myself off of the grime and water as the truck that nearly hit me sped down the street. Must have panicked and gunned it to avoid my foot up his ass if he got out. "You must get off the streets it isn't safe." He pointed away."No where is ever safe." I answered with a shrug, "Doesn't bother me much. Thought my number was up. What's with the getup?"He looked confused at my statement. Narrowly avoiding death and not one side of panic he was probably thinking. Been nearly killed a few times, this one was just a little more surprising. I reached for my pack and flicked another cigarette out, I was still expecting an answer. "You know swords aren't legal to carry around here." I said well aware of the hypocrisy of what I had under my tactical jacket."Don't you understand you need to get out of here!" He insisted finally, "I'm trying to---.""Run away Gennai?" A smooth voice called out from the end of the street, "Time to stop running now."I looked over just a block away, walking towards us seemed to be photo negative of the man I was speaking to, but that smile on his face was enough to make my senses start to sharpen up to a fight. The robes he wore were almost the same as the man called Gennai's, except they were black with gray trimmings. They were torn and faded at the cuffs, collar and bottoms worn by time but it looked almost intentional. I would have thought they were twins but the flesh on his face was a pale gray and his hair a solid white sheen against the street lights. What pierced me was his eyes. Blood red. The smile was sinister as he walked all on his own but with every step he took the ground started to form a thick soupy fog that stretched out behind him like a misty cloak, stretching out further and further as he walked. "Who's your friend?" He pointed at me, "Seems a bit old to be someone you might need.""He has nothing to do with me Railius!" Gennai countered.He laughed with a twinge of madness as I started to slip myself into a defensive posture, hand slowly reaching behind my back. Instincts started to kick on as that dark ether that formed along the street started to take human like shapes. My mind was trying to process all of this insanity but training was overriding the crazy for practicality. My hand slipped around the hilt of my belt knife. "Ooops you said my name and he's seen me." Railius answered, "Damn me if you wish. Oh wait you already did. No matter, I was going to kill a human one of these days. Might as well be him."I didn't answer the threat as those forms started to shift up like pulling themselves out of a tar like substance, the smokey cloud beginning to peel away to reveal similarly dressed beings, only they had hoods and tight rapped masks around their faces. The eyes I still saw, glowing and looking right at me. Gennai stepped in front of me, reaching behind his back and drawing out that monstrous blade out in one pull off his back. The silver steel flashed out as the sky's cleared and the lights returned to just flickering in and out. "I'll hold them off!" Gennai looked back over his shoulder, "Run you fool!"I was not going to take a fight like this, ill equipped and unprepared but now I didn't have a choice. Nowhere to run right now. The were knives that looked like they were made to gut crocodiles. Halfway between a kitchen knife crossed with a cleaver, the end was shaped like a fishhook complete with barbs. The pummels had spikes on the end. Nasty but they probably got the job done like they were looking to do to me and this Gennai guy. My heart rate was through the roof now, veins on my neck throbbing but I kept composure. The tan monk stood with his sword out, ready to defend a not so defenseless stranger as he thought. They quickly circled around us, my avenue of escape not there as we were cornered on this corner. I looked around for a path out, fences and walls in my way for the moment but nothing could not be vaulted. "I'll go right and draw them away." He turned back, "I'm sorry for this.""Don't be." I spoke simply, "Wrong place to be tonight."He glanced back at that, again confusion crossing his gaze. "You're not afraid?" He asked, "How?""Death comes for all of us." I answered as two of the dozen were working out who would lead first on me, "Its only a matter of how.""Enough of this kill Gennai!" Railius ordered with a point of his longer verson of their blades.Gennai bolted right like a blur of fabric and flashing steel, ten of them chased after. Railus perused with a casual stride while the others like hungry jackals after a meal. A battle cry followed those that perused, long howling cries of rage echoing through the streets as they vanished after him. Railus walked calmly up the street after them in no hurry, metal boots clanking away as he ran his thumb up his twisted sword. The two circled around me, closing the gap with their blades above their heads, dancing their steps side to side in joyful anticipation to sink them into me. I heard them chuckling like hyenas, Railus looking over at me for a moment in the middle of the street. He too was curious since my expression had not changed. "Human...you fear nothing?" He asked almost offended, "No begging? No barganing? Not a word of why?"I didn't answer, nothing to say really. I was glancing between him and his two remaining creatures of my now real nightmares closing in, keeping tabs with every one of their steps. When I returned to him was a glare, he stopped mid pace. A laser gaze right into his, narrowed and even a little bit of anger was burning away into him. Railius didn't respond well to it, insult bled across his demeanor. "Kill him." He dragged the emphasis out on the words, "I don't want things like him running around."I drew a sneer up my face as he continued now at a faster pace, wanting to catch up on his own prey. The blood red eyes looked away finally and I looked to the two still twenty feet out and orbiting me. A slight wind kicked up as my feet settled on the ground, weight shifting side to side as my breath drew hard in and out. Adrenaline was making my face tingle a bit, fingers twitch and the ones on the knife flex harder into the rubber handle. I looked towards my two attackers and they both halted in place. "A warning." I spoke finally with a raised finger, "I haven't begged for my life yet. Its because I don't fear losing it. How about you?""Death is here now." One spoke back in a bark."Embrace it." The other offered gleefully."Gladly."