Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ The Children Of Fate ❯ 13 ( Chapter 14 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: moose_of_doom 
Anime/Manga: Digimon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 08.01.2005 | Pages: 9 | Words: 3.9K | Visits: 264 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Digimon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 08.01.2005 | Pages: 9 | Words: 3.9K | Visits: 264 | Status: Completed
Chapter 13:
********
“She’s REALLY starting to get annoyed now.”
“And I bet you’re doing everything you can to aggravate her, aren’t you?” TK said.
“Naturally.”
The blonde haired man sighed. Kari glared at him.
“What?”
“Has it occurred to you, that maybe provoking her isn’t the best way?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tasha said. “I’m all for pissing her off a little.”
“A little?”
“C’mon, she’s been treating us like shit since we got here. Lets get all the payback we can.”
“My sentiments exactly.” Kari replied smugly.
TK glared at her.
“How am I supposed to make a decent argument when even my own girlfriend gangs up against me.”
“You’re not.” Kari and Tasha replied in unison.
TK threw his hands up in the air.
“I give up!”
“I thought you might.” Tasha said smugly.
=============================================================
They stood opposite each other in the translucent light of the cave, the glimmering reflections of the crystal sediment contained in the wall glinting over their features. Davis flinched as a particularly bright flash flickered over his eye, and in that instant, Dartha moved.
The broadsword the old warrior held flashed up, flickering towards Davis’s neck. The Paladin fell backwards, slamming to the floor. His Katana cut desperately upwards to parry the blow that the master aimed at his neck.
A blow that was remarkably conspicuous in its absence.
Davis got to his feet, and glanced around. The Master was leaning against the shining wall, a couple of feet away. His battered broadsword – a gift from Liam – was held loosely in his hand, and he tapped his boot against the wall.
“You know, you really should pay more attention to what’s going on around you.”
“Maybe… but now you’ve given me the advantage.”
“Have I?”
“Oh yeah…”
Davis leapt at her, his katana flashing towards his friend’s throat. The lunge was brutal, direct, and completely ineffective. At the last second, the Master’s head seemed to slip aside, and the curved blade of the katana went straight past him, to clash against the wall. Davis winced as the new blade clanged angrily on the rock. Then he doubled over as Tetsato Dartha slammed the flat of his broadsword into his belly. He slumped to the floor.
“…ow…”
=============================================================
The village was only small, but Danny Mills, Sergeant, 22 SAS, knew that it contained what he was looking for. It had to be this one – there weren’t any other places suitable for human habitation around anymore. Mind you, anywhere that the Shadowmon had been became unsuitable for human habitation pretty damn fast.
He pulled his rifle up, and glanced round at the seven remaining men of the twenty-five he had bought to the digital world. at thirty, Danny was the oldest of the batch, but he knew that these soldiers were well trained, and they were ready to do whatever it took to get the job done – as the SAS motto states ‘who dares, wins.’
The small SAS squad had been searching for the remaining Digidestined, and the Paladin, for the better part of a month now. They had only been assigned to the digital world to help out in one battle, but that battle appeared to be dragging out into a full on war. Mills sighed.
“Erm, sarge?” a young commando asked him.
“Not now, cooper.”
“Really, Sarge, you might want to look at this.”
“Yeah, you might want to look at this, Mills.” Came another voice. A voice with a Belfast accent.
Danny knew that voice.
He twisted slowly in his position on the ground, and looked up at the smiling face of Liam Dillon.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he burst out, before he could stop himself.
“I’m here to stop you wasting time and ammo, me ould son.” The Irishman said.
Mills glared at him.
“Do you have to do the cod-Irish act, Dillon, it doesn’t wash, you know.”
“Alright, alright. Anyways, as I was saying, you don’t really have any need to attack that village. The Digidestined aren’t there.” The big Irishman grinned. “However…”
“You want to attack anyway?”
“I don’t care what you want, you’re not under my jurisdiction. If you want to come along, fine. If not, then stay the hell out of my way.”
“Nice, isn’t he?” Nick muttered to his fellow Londoner. Mills rolled his eyes.
“Join the army, they said, see the world, they said…”
The seven digital world troopers, now joined by the seven SAS men, trooped down the hill, their rifles swung low and ready.
Gatomon reached out with her razor sharp claws, and neatly sheared away the last section of the track, glancing around to make sure that Agumon was still on sentry duty and not goofing off.
She’d found that she was doing that a lot lately.
Despite the fact that she’s started out being an enemy of the Digidestined, that cat-Digimon had found that, like her partner, she had become the leader of the small group. Kari was leading the captured Digidestined, so Gatomon was leading their Digimon.
And so they’d begun their rebellious war against Taythe, but more directly, against Wentela. The Digimon has spent an awfully large amount of time in the small fissures of rock that criss-crossed the oridian ore in the mines, spying out guard patrol routes, locations of the other Digidestined, and general intelligence.
What they hadn’t been prepared for, however, was the level of degradation that Wentela was prepared to make her prisoners go through. Already that week, Gatomon has seen the big woman beat a small child into near unconsciousness, seemingly for the mere pleasure of it. The Cat-Digimon knew that she couldn’t reveal the Digimon’s position in the mines, but she had to admit that she felt a strong urge to rip the big woman’s throat out whenever she saw her.
“Gatomon!” Salamandramon whispered. “Quick gathering moonbeams and get back into the tunnel! The carts coming!”
Gatomon came back to her senses, and withdrew next to her friend in the fissure in the rock. The cart that was trundling along at the moment was a standard guard patrol route. The Digimon, however just made their first Guerrilla move.
They’d cute away most of the track. Not all the way through but far enough so that it wouldn’t be able to maintain the weight of the cart, especially with its cargo of troopers.
Wormmon, his luminescent eyes suited for the dark, watched the gap intently. The tracks were directly over a gorge that led down into the central gathering area of the mining complex. No one was there at the moment, so there wasn’t any risk of harming the Digidestined.
“Three, two, one…”
There was an ear-wrenching crash, as the tracks split neatly down their centre. That cart toppled of its rails, and fell through the air, the screams of the guards echoing behind it. Agumon turned to his companions.
“Well, that was fun. Where next?”
=============================================================
“I wonder how Ken and the others are doing?” Kari mused out loud.
Despite her earlier buoyant spirits, Kari was worried. They hadn’t heard from the other Digidestined since the mining operations had finished, and that in itself was bad, but the rumours circulating among the guards were even worse. Rumours of violence by Wentela, and rumours of deaths among the chosen children.
“I’m sure he’s okay, Kari.” TK said encouragingly.
“Yeah.” Matt said. “If anything had happened to them, then the Digimon would have told us, right?”
“I guess…”
“Good, then there’s no problem.”
The conversation ceased as they heard the rumbling of a cart on the tracks outside. Wentela stepped into their chamber, and her face was like a thunderstorm.
“Where are they?” the big woman demanded.
“Where are who?” Sora replied innocently.
“Those scummy little rodents. Where the fuck are they?”
“My, such naughty language.” Kari commented.
Wentela didn’t give a second warning. Straightaway, she moved for her favourite victim, and before the other could stop here, hauled Mimi to her feet.
“You tell me where they are, or I’ll beat this bitch silly.”
Mimi’s eyes came slowly up, leaving the glazed state they had been in for days. She reared back, and spat full in the big woman’s face. A look of pure hatred passed over Wentela’s features.
“You… whore…”
“Yeah, well, you’re a fucking murderer, so don’t try and accuse me of things like that.” Mimi snapped right back.
Wentela, who as Kari had gathered, was not the most verbal of people, backhanded Mimi across the face.
Kari’s hand went to the dagger at the back of her grubby jeans. She almost drew the weapon, when Tai grabbed hold of her arm. She looked round at him, but he shook his head. Kari took a deep breath, and looked back at their oversized captor.
“We don’t know where the Digimon are.”
Wentela raised her hand to hit Mimi again.
“I SAID WE DON’T KNOW!!” Kari yelled.
“See, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
she slapped Mimi a second time, the sound of the blow resounding in the room. Matt dived forward, and caught his friend around her shoulders. Kari, meanwhile, stepped forward until she was eye-to-eye with their captor.
“You hit her again, and you’re a dead woman, you here me?” she hissed
“Anytime, bitch.” Wentela laughed in her face. Spinning, the big woman boarded her cart once more, and set off down the tunnel, leaving Kari trembling with rage. Tai came up behind her.
“Don’t do that, Kari. You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Kari didn’t turn to him.
“You shouldn’t have stopped me. I can take her.”
“I’m sure you can, but then what would be the difference between you and her.”
Kari’s face was still turned away from him, but the shaking in her shoulders gradually changed from an enraged shudder to the gentle pulse of quite sibs as the weeks of pent up emotion finally spilt over. Kari fell to her knees, her head slumped forward.
“I can’t do this, Tai. I can’t lead you all…”
“Sure you can…”
“No, I cant! I’m useless! I can’t even defend us!”
“Oh, give it a rest, Kari.”
The brown-haired girl twisted, as Mimi snapped at her.
“Huh?”
“I said, give it a rest. The waterworks aren’t impressing anyone, least of all Wentela and Taythe.”
Mimi stood, swaying slightly as the knocks she had received caught up with her.
“Who do you think is giving us the inspiration to fight back, huh? If he were here, it’d be Davis. But he isn’t here, so we’re all looking to you. You’ve been so strong so far, Kari. I couldn’t have stood up to Wentela just now unless you’d been fighting back against Taythe all this time! I may not be a Paladin, but I’m damned if I’m gonna let them drive me down. And I get that from you, Kari!”
the pink-haired girl stopped, for once, actually seeming to be embarrassed about talking. Kari looked up at her.
“Arigato… Mimi-chan.”
“No charge.”
=============================================================
The bullets chewed into the side of the wall as Liam Dillon crouched down beside Nick Pallet and Danny Mills.
“How many did you see?” the big Irishman asked. His casual manner had vanished, to be replaced by an air of cool professionalism. Liam was a man in his element.
“Two riflemen in the belltower. Another two, using SMGs (sub-machineguns) are shooting out of that door across the way.” Nick replied.
He flinched as a bullet chipped away a stone very close to his head. Then he casually leaned around, and fired a short burst.
“Make that one with an SMG.”
“What about you, Danny?” Liam asked the SAS man.
“Three riflemen shooting from various upper-level windows along the street.” Mills said casually.
“Only three?”
“They started off with ten.”
“oh. Good.”
Liam stood, and glanced around the edge of the building. Just as he’d hoped, the doors to the countryside style church (he had to talk to whoever designed this place. This was getting to clichéd for his liking) opened, and the Shadowmon ran out into the street, howling insanely. There were at least twenty of the creatures. Liam sprayed a burst from his rifle at the tower, and the shooting tailed off. At a signal from the big Irishman, the troopers drew their swords, hefted their shields, and advanced.
Liam, Nick and Danny swiftly took their places in the line, their shields locking into contact with those of the men next to them.
“You sure this’ll work?” Danny said.
“Trust me.”
The SAS sergeant sighed. “I HATE it when people say that to me.”
The battle took a definite turn for the worst for Taythe’s forces at that point. Liam’s shield-wall may have looked like a pathetically small target to the charging Shadowmon, but the men in it were professional soldiers, and their skills had been honed by a brutal winters fighting. The battle took an even worse turn with a surprise appearance from a group of old friends at the north end of the village.
Liam looked up suddenly from the grim work of butchering the Shadowmon in front of him as he heard a loud voice cursing in German.
Sergeant Morgan Haeder of the GSG-9, the German special forces, was running easily at the head of his own troops, sweeping past the shield wall in a smooth skirmish attack, their rifle bullets decimating the remaining creatures. Haeder turned to look at the shield wall, which warily broke apart as his men finished off the Shadowmon.
“It looked like you could use a hand.” he shrugged.
“Thanks.” Liam replied Dryly. “How many of you are there left?”
Haeder’s face went grim.
“Five of us, out of twenty-five. I’ve lost a lot of good men.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They did their best. How can we help?”
Liam looked at the surrounding buildings.
“Some of Taythe’s troopers are holed up in this town. We need to root them out, and send them back to her.”
“You don’t want them killed?”
Liam grinned wolfishly.
“It’s a political move.”
“Ah. Politics.” Haeder nodded knowingly. Mills laughed at the gesture.
Ten minutes later, a man was thrown into the dust at Liam’s feet by two smiling DWDF (Digital World Defence Force) soldiers. The big Irishman booted the man in the chest, and looked down at him.
“I want you too take a message back to Taythe.”
“What?”
“Tell her the Paladin’s back in town. You got that? Daisuke Motomiya is back, and he’s ready for her.”
“And what do I get?”
“You get to live. Don’t push me, or you might just lose that privilege. There are others who can move as fast as you, I’ve no doubt.”
The guard got to his feet, gave Liam once fearful look, and ran for the edge of the town. A few of the soldiers decided to give him a helping hand. Or boot, as the case may be.
Nick, Liam, Mills and Haeder watched him go.
“I presume you’ve got a secure command centre?” Mills asked.
“As secure as they come.”
“Then it might be an idea to get out of the place with all the bullet ridden corpses and potentially anger-inducing bloodstains.”
“You could be right.”
=============================================================
The katana skidded off the surface of the rock once more as Davis, his frustration mounting, attempted to attack Tetsato Dartha.
It was becoming an increasingly futile exercise.
Every time Davis lunged or slashed or cut, the Master found some way to slip out of the range of the blade, a divert his form past it, or jerk back a matter of centimetres. So far, the Katanas blade hadn’t even touched him.
After that first attack of slamming the flat of his sword into Davis’s stomach, Dartha had made no move to attack himself. All he had done was avoid. He hadn’t even raised his own blade to parry. That fact that he hadn’t needed to was beside the point. Davis found it mildly insulting.
“Enjoying yourself, Daisuke?” Dartha asked from behind him.
“Not particularly.” Davis snapped at him.
“And why not? We’re in a beautiful surrounding…” he dodged Davis’s attack once more. “It’s a nice day…” his head twitched to the side as Davis’s lunge passed within a hairs-breadth of his right ear. “And we’re having an entertaining little practice bout.” He spun, and in what was only his third attack, planted a kick into the centre of Davis’s chest. “What’s not to enjoy?”
“How are you DOING THAT???” Davis asked exasperatedly.
“Doing what?”
“I haven’t even been able to touch you!”
“Maybe you’re out of practice.”
“No, I’m not. What are you DOING?”
Dartha sighed.
“You’re fighting the wrong way. You’re moving as if you expect your attacks to be countered, and that’s why you can’t recover when I don’t even stop them.” He grinned. “Your attacks are going further than you anticipate, so you’re of balance when I’m ready to counter.”
Dartha raised his own sword.
“Try and stop me.”
The short lunges were easily parried by the Katanas blade, but what surprised Davis was the speed at which they came. Finally, one of them slipped inside his guard, opening a light cut in the material of his shirt. Davis felt determination well up inside him.
He watched the next lunge carefully. Dartha was working in a definite pattern, and he stepped aside as the Master jabbed the blade towards him. The next lunge was aimed at his eyes, and he moved his head quickly to the left, the allowing the balde to move past him.
Time seemed to slow. He saw easily how he could have countered the jabbing attacks, but instead he allowed their momentum to carry the Master past him. Finally, Dartha swung a huge overhand blow.
Davis saw it coming, and spun to his right. His Katana came up, and slashed down, as the Master, in the same position that Davis had been so many times that day, slammed his sword into the wall.
The Katanas cut would have been lethal, had it connected. Instead, Davis stopped the attack a breath away from his friend’s neck.
“Having fun yet?” he needled.
======================================================================== =====
(A/n)
Don’t get used to it, I’m not planning on making ALL my chapters this long. ^_^
I looked through my A/Ns the other day, and noticed that I still haven’t let anyone KNOW the answer to the question about Davis’s daughter’s names. Both are in Japanese and mean the following:
Gekkou = Moonlight
Hinode = Sunrise
R+R
-Ben
********
“She’s REALLY starting to get annoyed now.”
“And I bet you’re doing everything you can to aggravate her, aren’t you?” TK said.
“Naturally.”
The blonde haired man sighed. Kari glared at him.
“What?”
“Has it occurred to you, that maybe provoking her isn’t the best way?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tasha said. “I’m all for pissing her off a little.”
“A little?”
“C’mon, she’s been treating us like shit since we got here. Lets get all the payback we can.”
“My sentiments exactly.” Kari replied smugly.
TK glared at her.
“How am I supposed to make a decent argument when even my own girlfriend gangs up against me.”
“You’re not.” Kari and Tasha replied in unison.
TK threw his hands up in the air.
“I give up!”
“I thought you might.” Tasha said smugly.
=============================================================
They stood opposite each other in the translucent light of the cave, the glimmering reflections of the crystal sediment contained in the wall glinting over their features. Davis flinched as a particularly bright flash flickered over his eye, and in that instant, Dartha moved.
The broadsword the old warrior held flashed up, flickering towards Davis’s neck. The Paladin fell backwards, slamming to the floor. His Katana cut desperately upwards to parry the blow that the master aimed at his neck.
A blow that was remarkably conspicuous in its absence.
Davis got to his feet, and glanced around. The Master was leaning against the shining wall, a couple of feet away. His battered broadsword – a gift from Liam – was held loosely in his hand, and he tapped his boot against the wall.
“You know, you really should pay more attention to what’s going on around you.”
“Maybe… but now you’ve given me the advantage.”
“Have I?”
“Oh yeah…”
Davis leapt at her, his katana flashing towards his friend’s throat. The lunge was brutal, direct, and completely ineffective. At the last second, the Master’s head seemed to slip aside, and the curved blade of the katana went straight past him, to clash against the wall. Davis winced as the new blade clanged angrily on the rock. Then he doubled over as Tetsato Dartha slammed the flat of his broadsword into his belly. He slumped to the floor.
“…ow…”
=============================================================
The village was only small, but Danny Mills, Sergeant, 22 SAS, knew that it contained what he was looking for. It had to be this one – there weren’t any other places suitable for human habitation around anymore. Mind you, anywhere that the Shadowmon had been became unsuitable for human habitation pretty damn fast.
He pulled his rifle up, and glanced round at the seven remaining men of the twenty-five he had bought to the digital world. at thirty, Danny was the oldest of the batch, but he knew that these soldiers were well trained, and they were ready to do whatever it took to get the job done – as the SAS motto states ‘who dares, wins.’
The small SAS squad had been searching for the remaining Digidestined, and the Paladin, for the better part of a month now. They had only been assigned to the digital world to help out in one battle, but that battle appeared to be dragging out into a full on war. Mills sighed.
“Erm, sarge?” a young commando asked him.
“Not now, cooper.”
“Really, Sarge, you might want to look at this.”
“Yeah, you might want to look at this, Mills.” Came another voice. A voice with a Belfast accent.
Danny knew that voice.
He twisted slowly in his position on the ground, and looked up at the smiling face of Liam Dillon.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he burst out, before he could stop himself.
“I’m here to stop you wasting time and ammo, me ould son.” The Irishman said.
Mills glared at him.
“Do you have to do the cod-Irish act, Dillon, it doesn’t wash, you know.”
“Alright, alright. Anyways, as I was saying, you don’t really have any need to attack that village. The Digidestined aren’t there.” The big Irishman grinned. “However…”
“You want to attack anyway?”
“I don’t care what you want, you’re not under my jurisdiction. If you want to come along, fine. If not, then stay the hell out of my way.”
“Nice, isn’t he?” Nick muttered to his fellow Londoner. Mills rolled his eyes.
“Join the army, they said, see the world, they said…”
The seven digital world troopers, now joined by the seven SAS men, trooped down the hill, their rifles swung low and ready.
Gatomon reached out with her razor sharp claws, and neatly sheared away the last section of the track, glancing around to make sure that Agumon was still on sentry duty and not goofing off.
She’d found that she was doing that a lot lately.
Despite the fact that she’s started out being an enemy of the Digidestined, that cat-Digimon had found that, like her partner, she had become the leader of the small group. Kari was leading the captured Digidestined, so Gatomon was leading their Digimon.
And so they’d begun their rebellious war against Taythe, but more directly, against Wentela. The Digimon has spent an awfully large amount of time in the small fissures of rock that criss-crossed the oridian ore in the mines, spying out guard patrol routes, locations of the other Digidestined, and general intelligence.
What they hadn’t been prepared for, however, was the level of degradation that Wentela was prepared to make her prisoners go through. Already that week, Gatomon has seen the big woman beat a small child into near unconsciousness, seemingly for the mere pleasure of it. The Cat-Digimon knew that she couldn’t reveal the Digimon’s position in the mines, but she had to admit that she felt a strong urge to rip the big woman’s throat out whenever she saw her.
“Gatomon!” Salamandramon whispered. “Quick gathering moonbeams and get back into the tunnel! The carts coming!”
Gatomon came back to her senses, and withdrew next to her friend in the fissure in the rock. The cart that was trundling along at the moment was a standard guard patrol route. The Digimon, however just made their first Guerrilla move.
They’d cute away most of the track. Not all the way through but far enough so that it wouldn’t be able to maintain the weight of the cart, especially with its cargo of troopers.
Wormmon, his luminescent eyes suited for the dark, watched the gap intently. The tracks were directly over a gorge that led down into the central gathering area of the mining complex. No one was there at the moment, so there wasn’t any risk of harming the Digidestined.
“Three, two, one…”
There was an ear-wrenching crash, as the tracks split neatly down their centre. That cart toppled of its rails, and fell through the air, the screams of the guards echoing behind it. Agumon turned to his companions.
“Well, that was fun. Where next?”
=============================================================
“I wonder how Ken and the others are doing?” Kari mused out loud.
Despite her earlier buoyant spirits, Kari was worried. They hadn’t heard from the other Digidestined since the mining operations had finished, and that in itself was bad, but the rumours circulating among the guards were even worse. Rumours of violence by Wentela, and rumours of deaths among the chosen children.
“I’m sure he’s okay, Kari.” TK said encouragingly.
“Yeah.” Matt said. “If anything had happened to them, then the Digimon would have told us, right?”
“I guess…”
“Good, then there’s no problem.”
The conversation ceased as they heard the rumbling of a cart on the tracks outside. Wentela stepped into their chamber, and her face was like a thunderstorm.
“Where are they?” the big woman demanded.
“Where are who?” Sora replied innocently.
“Those scummy little rodents. Where the fuck are they?”
“My, such naughty language.” Kari commented.
Wentela didn’t give a second warning. Straightaway, she moved for her favourite victim, and before the other could stop here, hauled Mimi to her feet.
“You tell me where they are, or I’ll beat this bitch silly.”
Mimi’s eyes came slowly up, leaving the glazed state they had been in for days. She reared back, and spat full in the big woman’s face. A look of pure hatred passed over Wentela’s features.
“You… whore…”
“Yeah, well, you’re a fucking murderer, so don’t try and accuse me of things like that.” Mimi snapped right back.
Wentela, who as Kari had gathered, was not the most verbal of people, backhanded Mimi across the face.
Kari’s hand went to the dagger at the back of her grubby jeans. She almost drew the weapon, when Tai grabbed hold of her arm. She looked round at him, but he shook his head. Kari took a deep breath, and looked back at their oversized captor.
“We don’t know where the Digimon are.”
Wentela raised her hand to hit Mimi again.
“I SAID WE DON’T KNOW!!” Kari yelled.
“See, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
she slapped Mimi a second time, the sound of the blow resounding in the room. Matt dived forward, and caught his friend around her shoulders. Kari, meanwhile, stepped forward until she was eye-to-eye with their captor.
“You hit her again, and you’re a dead woman, you here me?” she hissed
“Anytime, bitch.” Wentela laughed in her face. Spinning, the big woman boarded her cart once more, and set off down the tunnel, leaving Kari trembling with rage. Tai came up behind her.
“Don’t do that, Kari. You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Kari didn’t turn to him.
“You shouldn’t have stopped me. I can take her.”
“I’m sure you can, but then what would be the difference between you and her.”
Kari’s face was still turned away from him, but the shaking in her shoulders gradually changed from an enraged shudder to the gentle pulse of quite sibs as the weeks of pent up emotion finally spilt over. Kari fell to her knees, her head slumped forward.
“I can’t do this, Tai. I can’t lead you all…”
“Sure you can…”
“No, I cant! I’m useless! I can’t even defend us!”
“Oh, give it a rest, Kari.”
The brown-haired girl twisted, as Mimi snapped at her.
“Huh?”
“I said, give it a rest. The waterworks aren’t impressing anyone, least of all Wentela and Taythe.”
Mimi stood, swaying slightly as the knocks she had received caught up with her.
“Who do you think is giving us the inspiration to fight back, huh? If he were here, it’d be Davis. But he isn’t here, so we’re all looking to you. You’ve been so strong so far, Kari. I couldn’t have stood up to Wentela just now unless you’d been fighting back against Taythe all this time! I may not be a Paladin, but I’m damned if I’m gonna let them drive me down. And I get that from you, Kari!”
the pink-haired girl stopped, for once, actually seeming to be embarrassed about talking. Kari looked up at her.
“Arigato… Mimi-chan.”
“No charge.”
=============================================================
The bullets chewed into the side of the wall as Liam Dillon crouched down beside Nick Pallet and Danny Mills.
“How many did you see?” the big Irishman asked. His casual manner had vanished, to be replaced by an air of cool professionalism. Liam was a man in his element.
“Two riflemen in the belltower. Another two, using SMGs (sub-machineguns) are shooting out of that door across the way.” Nick replied.
He flinched as a bullet chipped away a stone very close to his head. Then he casually leaned around, and fired a short burst.
“Make that one with an SMG.”
“What about you, Danny?” Liam asked the SAS man.
“Three riflemen shooting from various upper-level windows along the street.” Mills said casually.
“Only three?”
“They started off with ten.”
“oh. Good.”
Liam stood, and glanced around the edge of the building. Just as he’d hoped, the doors to the countryside style church (he had to talk to whoever designed this place. This was getting to clichéd for his liking) opened, and the Shadowmon ran out into the street, howling insanely. There were at least twenty of the creatures. Liam sprayed a burst from his rifle at the tower, and the shooting tailed off. At a signal from the big Irishman, the troopers drew their swords, hefted their shields, and advanced.
Liam, Nick and Danny swiftly took their places in the line, their shields locking into contact with those of the men next to them.
“You sure this’ll work?” Danny said.
“Trust me.”
The SAS sergeant sighed. “I HATE it when people say that to me.”
The battle took a definite turn for the worst for Taythe’s forces at that point. Liam’s shield-wall may have looked like a pathetically small target to the charging Shadowmon, but the men in it were professional soldiers, and their skills had been honed by a brutal winters fighting. The battle took an even worse turn with a surprise appearance from a group of old friends at the north end of the village.
Liam looked up suddenly from the grim work of butchering the Shadowmon in front of him as he heard a loud voice cursing in German.
Sergeant Morgan Haeder of the GSG-9, the German special forces, was running easily at the head of his own troops, sweeping past the shield wall in a smooth skirmish attack, their rifle bullets decimating the remaining creatures. Haeder turned to look at the shield wall, which warily broke apart as his men finished off the Shadowmon.
“It looked like you could use a hand.” he shrugged.
“Thanks.” Liam replied Dryly. “How many of you are there left?”
Haeder’s face went grim.
“Five of us, out of twenty-five. I’ve lost a lot of good men.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They did their best. How can we help?”
Liam looked at the surrounding buildings.
“Some of Taythe’s troopers are holed up in this town. We need to root them out, and send them back to her.”
“You don’t want them killed?”
Liam grinned wolfishly.
“It’s a political move.”
“Ah. Politics.” Haeder nodded knowingly. Mills laughed at the gesture.
Ten minutes later, a man was thrown into the dust at Liam’s feet by two smiling DWDF (Digital World Defence Force) soldiers. The big Irishman booted the man in the chest, and looked down at him.
“I want you too take a message back to Taythe.”
“What?”
“Tell her the Paladin’s back in town. You got that? Daisuke Motomiya is back, and he’s ready for her.”
“And what do I get?”
“You get to live. Don’t push me, or you might just lose that privilege. There are others who can move as fast as you, I’ve no doubt.”
The guard got to his feet, gave Liam once fearful look, and ran for the edge of the town. A few of the soldiers decided to give him a helping hand. Or boot, as the case may be.
Nick, Liam, Mills and Haeder watched him go.
“I presume you’ve got a secure command centre?” Mills asked.
“As secure as they come.”
“Then it might be an idea to get out of the place with all the bullet ridden corpses and potentially anger-inducing bloodstains.”
“You could be right.”
=============================================================
The katana skidded off the surface of the rock once more as Davis, his frustration mounting, attempted to attack Tetsato Dartha.
It was becoming an increasingly futile exercise.
Every time Davis lunged or slashed or cut, the Master found some way to slip out of the range of the blade, a divert his form past it, or jerk back a matter of centimetres. So far, the Katanas blade hadn’t even touched him.
After that first attack of slamming the flat of his sword into Davis’s stomach, Dartha had made no move to attack himself. All he had done was avoid. He hadn’t even raised his own blade to parry. That fact that he hadn’t needed to was beside the point. Davis found it mildly insulting.
“Enjoying yourself, Daisuke?” Dartha asked from behind him.
“Not particularly.” Davis snapped at him.
“And why not? We’re in a beautiful surrounding…” he dodged Davis’s attack once more. “It’s a nice day…” his head twitched to the side as Davis’s lunge passed within a hairs-breadth of his right ear. “And we’re having an entertaining little practice bout.” He spun, and in what was only his third attack, planted a kick into the centre of Davis’s chest. “What’s not to enjoy?”
“How are you DOING THAT???” Davis asked exasperatedly.
“Doing what?”
“I haven’t even been able to touch you!”
“Maybe you’re out of practice.”
“No, I’m not. What are you DOING?”
Dartha sighed.
“You’re fighting the wrong way. You’re moving as if you expect your attacks to be countered, and that’s why you can’t recover when I don’t even stop them.” He grinned. “Your attacks are going further than you anticipate, so you’re of balance when I’m ready to counter.”
Dartha raised his own sword.
“Try and stop me.”
The short lunges were easily parried by the Katanas blade, but what surprised Davis was the speed at which they came. Finally, one of them slipped inside his guard, opening a light cut in the material of his shirt. Davis felt determination well up inside him.
He watched the next lunge carefully. Dartha was working in a definite pattern, and he stepped aside as the Master jabbed the blade towards him. The next lunge was aimed at his eyes, and he moved his head quickly to the left, the allowing the balde to move past him.
Time seemed to slow. He saw easily how he could have countered the jabbing attacks, but instead he allowed their momentum to carry the Master past him. Finally, Dartha swung a huge overhand blow.
Davis saw it coming, and spun to his right. His Katana came up, and slashed down, as the Master, in the same position that Davis had been so many times that day, slammed his sword into the wall.
The Katanas cut would have been lethal, had it connected. Instead, Davis stopped the attack a breath away from his friend’s neck.
“Having fun yet?” he needled.
======================================================================== =====
(A/n)
Don’t get used to it, I’m not planning on making ALL my chapters this long. ^_^
I looked through my A/Ns the other day, and noticed that I still haven’t let anyone KNOW the answer to the question about Davis’s daughter’s names. Both are in Japanese and mean the following:
Gekkou = Moonlight
Hinode = Sunrise
R+R
-Ben