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Here's Chapter 5... and it's much longer than any of the others so far (by about 2000 words).

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“M16 Assassin!” chorused the assembled mob, pulling the triggers on their assault rifles simultaneously.

Leomon cried out in pain as scores of bullets slammed into his face at extremely close range. Had he still been a rookie then that would have been the end of him, right there. He wouldn’t just have been injured and left to be disarmed and locked up after the battle was over, as had happened to those Commandramon whom they’d beaten during the attack on the Betamon village. No, he’d have been completely destroyed and would have had to be reborn as a digiegg.

As it was, though, all that happened was that the force of the shots pushed him back several steps, cut his face, and gave him a bunch of bruises. His injuries were far from life threatening, but that certainly didn’t mean that they weren’t painful. And what was worse, the more of a beating he took, the quicker he’d go through what little energy he had left, and the sooner he’d need to dedigivolve.

Which meant that he had to end this quickly.

“Fist of the Beast King!” he roared, punching in the direction of the doorway and the tightly jammed together group of cyborg digimon. As his fist moved a corona of orange light formed around it, eventually taking the shape of a lion’s head, before launching at the squad of dinosaur soldiers, who were suddenly panicking, seeming to realise that perhaps they ought not to have crammed themselves quite so closely together.

The blast struck them square on and they scattered like bowling pins. And also like bowling pins, they didn’t get back up. Several of them did groan hoarsely, though, and none shattered into millions of fragments of data, so at least they were all still alive; Leomon wouldn’t hesitate to end the life of a digimon which he knew to be truly evil, but he doubted whether these Commandramon were intelligent enough for genuine malice. Far more likely, they were simply continuing to blindly follow orders with no thought for the consequences of their actions; it was their leader who was the evil one, and once he or she had been replaced with someone less fond of global domination and mass slavery, Leomon was sure that they’d return to doing whatever it was that they’d done before all this began without complaint.

“Stay behind me.” he told the children without turning to face them. A couple of his teeth were wobbling and his mouth was filled with the metallic tang of blood, he wasn’t sure how bad he looked, but was certain that if Abella should see then she’d either end up fussing over him for so long that he dedigivolved before they could even enter the factory, or else she might actually insist that they give up and come back another day when neither he nor Fanbeemon was injured. The champion-level digimon had no intention of going back, though, not until they were done here, at least; every hour they waited meant that more of the black needles were created, and more innocent digimon could be enslaved.

Leomon strode inside, looking around carefully in case of another ambush. There was nothing. All that lay before him was a hallway empty other than for the incapacitated Commandramon sprawled along it. Hearing the others enter behind him, he kept walking, speeding up as he did.

He would have preferred to go slowly, lest he end up running into a trap of some sort, but that didn’t seem much like a viable option at the moment. Unlike Fanbeemon, who’d been able to digivolve for years, and so could now become Waspmon with ease, and maintain that form for a good while, this was the first time he’d ever reached champion-level, and they’d already wasted a large chunk of time hanging around outside, so Leomon knew that he couldn’t have long left.

He was running now, with the others pelting along in his wake, though he was sure that at the very least Pierre (who was still struggling to carry his unconscious partner along) and Santo (who was just a little kid) must be falling behind.

There was something strange about this place, the animal-type digimon noted as he ran. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was, though…

And then, suddenly, he realised. There were no doors.

They’d already passed a couple junctions in the tunnels, but so far had not seen a single door which might actually lead into a room… yet this was apparently supposed to be a factory, so why not? They needed to produce things, so why waste space and money by building this purposeless, confusing series of corridors? This seemed more like a maze than a factory…

Oh… of course. That’s exactly what it was. A maze designed to keep trespassers from breaking in and stealing whatever this place’s inhabitants had built prior to the army’s takeover. It must have been practically impossible for any single person to find their way around without a guide, Leomon observed as he passed yet another side tunnel, which meant that in order to have taken over, the Commandramon forces must have had huge numbers… or else they’d somehow managed to persuade the factory’s denizens that they were on their side, right up until they started jamming those needles in them.

The champion would no doubt have continued to go over what this might mean for them, was it not for the fact that, at that point, a small group of Commandramon rounded the corner, along with some of their slaves. He kept on running, reaching back to draw his Beast Sword, while both the newcomers and the digidestined skidded to a halt; the former group preparing to fire, the latter taking this opportunity to catch their breath, confident that Leomon could overcome these rookies in no time.

Because he’d continued on, however, he was too far away to hear Zofia’s words when she sat down, flipped open her laptop, and pressed a few keys, activating a program which somehow scanned the data of the nearby digimon in the same manner as a digivice and brought up the enslaved digimon’s stat screen from the database which she’d managed to copy from her digivice onto the computer.

“Hagurumon.” she announced to the others. “A virus digimon; machine type and rookie level. It’s special attack is ‘Cog Crusher’, with which it can fire… oh no… no…”

“What is it?” asked Abella anxiously, leaning over the laptop in an attempt to see what was written on its screen. She, like all the others, had simply assumed that as he was a champion, Leomon would be more than a match for the assorted rookies which he was charging fearlessly towards, but now that their girl genius was afraid, the fear was beginning to infect them all.

Zofia didn’t exactly help matters when she roughly shoved the Spaniard aside and leapt to her feet (leaving Candlemon to dive at the laptop and pluck it from the air a moment before it struck the stone floor).

“Leomon!” she cried at the top of her voice. “Don’t let --- ----- ----- ---!”

Leomon didn’t hear the rest of what she said, as it was then that the Commandramon seemed to decide that he was close enough to make shooting him worth their while (though he had no idea why, since none of their attacks had worked before).

“M16 Assassin!” they cried, pulling their triggers as one. The bullets struck him once more, but had no more effect than usual, barely scratching his toughened hide. In mere moments he would be upon them, and the only thing that their yelling and firing had achieved was to create enough noise to drown out the human girl’s voice.

“--- -------!” the gear-shaped digimon said together, their voices also being made completely inaudible when heard alongside the roar of gunfire. Nothing could hide from him what came next, though; from each of their mouths, his enslaved foes issued a gear or two.

A black gear.

Something about that set off alarm bells in his head, but he ignored the feeling. He had other thoughts occupying his mind right now, and besides, something which had worried Elecmon meant nothing to him now. A champion could withstand attacks that would easily delete a rookie.

Leomon continued his rapid advance, beginning to gather another aura around his right hand, and preparing to strike with the blade wrapped in his left, with bullets bouncing off him all the time. But when three gears struck him, one after the other, they sunk in.

He gasped in shock. How could these rookie-level attacks possibly be powerful enough to affect him in this way? He was a champion now!

And suddenly, as he felt the fiery pain of a computer virus coursing through his veins like magma, Leomon remembered why he’d recognised the gears; an evil digimon named Devimon had once used those things to enslave ordinarily good digimon and force them to attempt to wipe out the digidestined… and yet he had no gear-generating attack of his own… which meant what? That he’d found a way to copy another digimon’s attack? That he secretly had an army of these guys hidden somewhere inside File Island?

Leomon didn’t know, and as the pain within him grew to excruciating, maddening levels, he decided that actually, he didn’t really care, all he wanted was for this agony to come to an end, and the only way to achieve that was to surrender himself to the inexplicable rage which he felt building within him, and to attempt – as several other possessed digimon had done, decades before him – to destroy the digidestined.

“No…” mumbled Zofia miserably as she watched the gears strike Leomon, and saw him come to a stop a mere foot or so away from the foremost of his opponents, who had now ceased firing completely.

“What!? What’s going on!? Why won’t you tell me!?” screamed Abella frantically.

“Th-those were black gears… similar to the ones used by Devimon.” Zofia muttered, her voice so low that it was almost a whisper.

Pierre groaned.

“So…? Is that bad?” Abella asked, her tone pleading, as she glanced between the Polish girl and French boy.

“… You don’t know?” Zofia replied incredulously, after a brief pause. Apparently having been so taken aback by the other girl’s question that she’d forgotten her horror at what had just befallen Leomon, who was now visibly shaking, as though holding some sort of internal battle. A battle which, if Zofia was honest with herself, she knew had a foregone conclusion.

“Should we?” said Otto, who – along with Santo – was also looking pretty confused. The Pole turned to share a glance with Pierre, who shrugged back.

“Don’t you guys remember anything from your digital history classes?” he asked, looking at Otto and Abella. Santo was only seven, so there was a good chance that no one had actually told him about the unpleasant truths lurking in the digital world’s past, and Devimon was most certainly an unpleasant truth. He was about as unpleasant as truths could possibly come.

“Seriously? You pick now to moan at us for not paying attention in school?” demanded Otto. “Can’t you just give us the cliff notes?”

Pierre looked over at Zofia again, as though neither of them were quite able to believe what they were hearing; that there were actually two people around their own ages who didn’t actually have a meticulous knowledge of the adventures of the first two groups of Japanese digidestined.

Instead of waiting on the pair getting around to telling the story, however, PawnChessmon unexpectedly began speaking, perhaps under the impression that as time was of the essence, they ought not to waste it by waiting for those two to give each other another incredulous glance every ten seconds or so.

“Thirty six years ago, when the first group of digidestined came to the digital world, they encountered an extremely evil digimon named Devimon, who somehow had the ability to control the black gears which operated File Island, and could use them to control other digimon, making them fight his battles for him… and apparently these Hagurumon actually have the ability to create those gears.”

“So what’s going to happen to Leomon!?” demanded Abella.

“I wouldn’t worry about him.” replied the puppet digimon enigmatically, staring straight past her, down at the other end of the corridor, where Leomon was.

“Oh? Why not?” the Spanish girl asked, calming down a little, but seeming even more confused.

“Because I’d be too busy worrying about us.” he replied, nodding towards her partner, whom the others all turned back to look at.

They gasped. Leomon was striding slowly back towards them, glaring vehemently in their direction, and clutching his Beast Sword tightly. It only just then occurred to the children that when looking at him from an enemy’s point of view, the animal-type digimon no longer seemed like such a noble hero… in fact, he looked downright petrifying.

The children and their digimon backed away under his venomous gaze. All but one of them. Even Leomon’s own partner couldn’t stop herself from taking a step back. And even the eternally composed PawnChessmon couldn’t keep from retreating a little.

There was only one person who refused to back down. Otto.

“Go.” he told them, trying to act brave, despite the fact that he was visibly shaking. “Get out of here. This is all my fault. Leomon didn’t have long left before he’d have needed to dedigivolve, and Fanbeemon was injured… if I’d been a better leader then I’d just have had us head back to the Betamon village to recover… but I didn’t, and because of that Leomon ran straight into a trap… and now he’s joined their army. Because of me. So I’ll stall him. The rest of you get out of here, if you come back later then you might manage to free bust those gears out of him.”

The children and their partners were shocked into silence for a few moments, and the only sounds were the chattering of the Commandramon from the other end of the corridor, and the soft padding of their new foe’s feet upon the stone floor. At last, it was Pierre who spoke up.

“Are you out of your mind!? We can’t just leave you!”

“If we all start running then he will as well, and he could easily catch us. Someone has to stay behind. And don’t even suggest that we all stay here; Fanbeemon would probably be destroyed after taking, like, one hit, in the state he’s in now, and Santo’s just a little kid… I’m sure you care enough to know that dragging the others, especially those two, into a life or death battle with someone like Leomon would be downright stupid.”

“Fine. You’re right. Come on everyone, we’re leaving.” Pierre replied grudgingly.

The others gave him appalled looks, but he just glanced across at Leomon, who was almost upon them.

“If we don’t go now then he’ll kill us all. That’s not an exaggeration. None of us are strong enough to stand up to him, so we must escape, or we’ll be dooming the entire digital world, and possibly our own as well.”

“Well I’m staying!” snapped Agumon, going to stand by his partner. “I don’t care how dangerous it is, I won’t abandon Otto!”

The German boy looked down at his digimon, and the gratitude in his eyes was so obvious that it could have been seen by a blind man.

“Thanks, Agumon.”

“Agumon… I applaud your nobility, and wish that I could aid you, however my first and foremost duty is to the safety of Santo, and so I must go, I’m afraid.” said PawnChessmon sadly.

“I wanna fight! I wanna fight!” cried Goblimon.

“No.” stated Blair unequivocally, and surprisingly, to be honest. “I normally let you do whatever you want, I know, but you don’t stand a chance against a champion… especially not one as powerful as Leomon. You’re not fighting. Not this time.”

Goblimon seemed almost to wither with disappointment, but still, he couldn’t deny having been just a little intimidated by the lion’s horrific glare, and so he allowed himself to be talked out of a fight. This time.

“Otto… thank you.” said Zofia at last. She was intelligent enough to be under no illusions as to what would happen to the German boy and his digimon partner once Leomon got his hands on them, and yet she also knew that there was no alternative… at least, none which wouldn’t leave even more of them in the same predicament as their goggle-headed leader.

“Wait… what’s going on?” asked Abella, who wasn’t intelligent enough to know.

“I’ll explain later.” said Pierre. “Don’t worry, we will be back to rescue Leomon, but for now we have to go.”

“And Otto and Agumon?” she added.

“… Yes… and Otto and Agumon.” the French child lied. “Now go!”

So saying, he broke into as quick a run as he could managed with a giant bee draped over one shoulder. The others followed a moment later. And not one was able to bring themself to look back at the German as he stood his ground. Leomon had practically reached him already, and the Commandramon had begun jeering unpleasantly. It seemed that they were looking forwards to the show.

Otto’s fists were clenched and his jaws were locked. It seemed to Agumon that, despite his promise to distract Leomon, he was really doing nothing more than awaiting the end.

Well, if the human wouldn’t put up a fight, then his partner would just have to do it for him… despite the futility of fighting someone as powerful as Leomon.

“Pepper Breath!” Agumon cried as he stepped forwards, spitting out a fireball.

But his champion-level opponent was ready, and his blade slashed through the air, easily dissipating the much weaker attack. Not that he really needed to; it wouldn’t have done much more than singe his fur anyway. Agumon was undeterred, though. Frankly, at this point he really couldn’t risk being deterred; to give up now would be giving up on life itself.

“Pepper Breath!” he yelled again, this time spitting out two fireballs… at the exact same time that Leomon leapt.

The flames collided with the anthropomorphic lion in mid-air, but as predicted, did practically no damage. Leomon winced, no doubt feeling a twinge of pain… but it wasn’t nearly enough, and so, as a last resort, Agumon dived in front of the German digidestined.

But that also was to no avail. With the back of the hand in which he carried the Beast Sword, Leomon casually swatted the rookie aside, and then drove his other fist deep into Otto’s gut, sending him flying.

Agumon cried out as he struck the stone wall, but one look across at his partner told him that he hadn’t been the one to get the worst of it. Otto had smacked hard against the ground, bounced, and rolled a little way, and was now lying on his side, facing Leomon, and struggling for breath. The champion began to walk towards him once again. Intending to finish what he’d started.

“I… deserved that…” groaned the German once he was finally able to speak. Agumon’s jaw dropped, and Leomon paused. Apparently even when under the influence of the gears, he could still feel curiosity. “I… failed… everyone. I was… the worst… leader… ever… Agumon… I’m sorry… I should… have… made you go… back… with the others… and now we’re… both… going to die…”

“No.” stated Agumon coldly, pushing himself to his feet in one smooth movement. It was odd. He’d struck his head when he hit the wall, and a mere moment ago he’d been struggling to remain conscious, yet after hearing his best friend in the entire world utter those words, he suddenly felt his strength returning, fuelled by his anger.

Despite Otto’s somewhat brash personality, Agumon – who’d hatched out of his digiegg back when the blond boy was only a toddler, and had known him ever since – knew that in his heart, he was really an extremely selfless person, so he hadn’t really been all that surprised when his partner had volunteered to stay behind… but he’d be damned if he’d let it all end like this; with Otto wallowing in guilt, feeling that it was his own fault that he was about to be killed by someone who, mere minutes ago, he had considered a friend.

“No,” the little dinosaur repeated, feeling his anger towards the Digital Army, the fiends behind all this, intensify, lending him further strength, “this is not your fault. It’s theirs’. And they will pay.”

The rage burned him from the inside out, like fire. But Agumon was used to fire. He took that heat and absorbed it. He could feel the power welling up within him, like a tsunami of molten rock.

And then all three of them noticed, at the same time, the brightly glowing light that originated within one of the pockets of Otto’s shorts, easily shining through the fabric. His digivice.

And Agumon felt his body begin to glow as well. It ought to have felt good. Fanbeemon had told all the other partners last night that digivolving felt fantastic, like you were becoming something greater… something utterly inconceivable from your previous point of view. It made you feel warm, happy, and enlightened. It made you feel as though you were strong enough to accomplish anything.

But Agumon felt none of that. He didn’t feel warm, he felt like he was burning. And he didn’t feel happy, he felt only rage. He felt no new surge of great understanding, and though he could feel his strength increasing, he was far from satisfied. He needed more. Much, much more.

Agumon wasn’t digivolving in order to protect someone, as the others had done, he was digivolving in order to make those soldiers suffer.

“Agumon digivolve to…”

For a couple of seconds Otto marvelled at what his partner was becoming, all so that he might protect him. But then he sensed that something was wrong. And he wasn’t the only one. Leomon took a few steps backwards, a look of trepidation replacing the glare which had adorned his face since he was possessed.

“Greymon!”

For a second, Otto’s fears were calmed. He may not have known much about digital history, but everyone knew the story of how Tai Kamiya’s Greymon had become SkullGreymon when he tried to force him to digivolve, and had gone on to wreak utter destruction, yet as Agumon hadn’t become… SkullAgumon…? Well, hadn’t become something other than Greymon, anyway, the German felt that this must mean that he’d digivolved normally after all, and that he and Leomon had merely been confused somehow…

But then the eye moved.

Greymon was huge. So huge, in fact, that in the narrow confines of the corridor, Otto could only see one side of his face, and only one eye. Yet he knew that his earlier assumption had been correct when that malignant orb swivelled madly for a moment, before focusing on him.

He’d heard it said, in TV shows or in books, that some people’s eyes might make it seem as though they were staring straight through you, into your soul… but what he was experiencing now was worse. Much, much worse.

It was the opposite, in fact. He felt as though he were being allowed a glimpse into Greymon’s soul… and what he saw horrified him.

There was not a trace of his friend in there. Agumon was gone. Whether it was permanent or not, he had no idea, but for the moment, all that this Greymon held inside his head was rage. Rage and fire.

And then the gigantic dinosaur-type digimon bellowed, using every bit of lung power that he possessed. Despite the fact that every movement caused him pain, Otto quickly jammed his hands against his ears, struggling to block out that hellish sound, which seemed as though it was shattering his skull from the inside.

Greymon closed his ferocious maw, toning his roar down to a mere growl, as he turned back to Leomon, who seemed to have been frozen in place, despite the black gears which sought to force him to do battle.

And then the immense champion-level digimon charged at his smaller opponent, with no thought of holding back. To this Greymon, Otto knew, Leomon was nothing more than kindling. Rage and fire. That was all he knew now, nothing more.

Greymon struck Leomon head first, and rapidly twisted his neck at the same time, sending the animal digimon flying back down the passageway and crashing into the group of Commandramon and Hagurumon, who were sent sprawling.

They were given no time to recover, though, as the dinosaur monster continued to charge, bellowing once more, as his huge strides covered the ground at an incredible rate.

And just before he charged straight into their midst, Greymon stopped suddenly, and was silent.

His pause lasted the whole of a single second, and then his voice, sounding louder and more ferocious than ever, reverberated around the corridor… and most likely the rest of the building as well; “NOVA BLAST!”

An instant later, a tide of blue flames enveloped the group who lay before him. Greymon’s bulk prevented Otto from seeing what was happening, but it didn’t stop him from hearing the screams.

For a time, all that the German boy could hear were those shrieks, and all he could see was his partner – driven insane by rage – as a black silhouette outlined with blue fire.

At long last, though, that came to an end, and Greymon’s head swivelled round so that that unspeakable eye could turn and stare in his direction once again. He shuddered.

His own digimon… the one who he should have been able to trust above all others… horrified him.

And was probably about to incinerate him.

Where had he gone wrong? Otto wondered. He hadn’t tried to force Agumon to digivolve at all… so why was this happening? Why!?

And then Greymon began to glow… and started to shrink.

A couple seconds later Agumon lay unconscious upon the stone floor. A little way away was Elecmon, looking thoroughly charred. Of the other victims of the nova blast, there was no sign.

Shakily, and wincing with every move he made, Otto climbed back to his feet, and began to stumble over towards the two digimon.

Walking was difficult, but he was managing it… at least, until he got within a few metres of Agumon, at which point his sluggishly functioning brain finally put two and two together, and he fell to his knees, barely even noticing the jarring impact as they struck the floor.

He hadn’t heard anyone running. He’d heard screams. But no footsteps. Or any counter attacks. Leomon had been a champion level, so he’d been able to take more damage, but the others… they were gone… they hadn’t escaped, but they’d gone… they were dead.

Agumon had known not to try and actually kill the Commandramon or their slaves… yet he’d completely lost control after digivolving. And, of course, Otto blamed himself.

There was only one instance he knew of in which a partner digimon had gone crazy after digivolving, and in that instance, it had been the digidestined’s fault, so why should things be any different this time round?

******

The other digidestined had almost reached the exit (despite taking a wrong turning at one point and having to backtrack a little way) when they heard Greymon’s first bellow, at which point Pierre told them all to wait, and to listen, just in case…

He never explained why, or what they were listening for, but they obeyed anyway. And then they heard another roar. And they heard Greymon scream the name of his nova blast attack.

Pierre smiled, thinking that Agumon had digivolved and rescued his partner after all, and so he told this to the others, and they promptly turned and began running back the way they’d come, expecting to find a triumphant Otto, along with Greymon and an un-enslaved Leomon meet up with them at any moment.

But then they heard the screams.

Upon reaching them, they found Agumon unconscious, Elecmon torched (and also unconscious), Otto on all fours, crying while muttering miserably to himself about something, and no sign whatsoever of the Commandramon and Hagurumon group.

And once they got closer, they were able to make out the German’s words.

“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.” he wept. Over and over again.

“Oh, no.” moaned Zofia, realising what must have occurred here. And judging by the look on his face, Pierre must have quickly worked it out as well.

The French kid handed Fanbeemon over to Candlemon without a word and strode up to their so-called ‘leader’ and pulled one of the injured boy’s arms over his shoulder, then hauled him up to his feet.

Abella had already rushed over and picked up Elecmon, of course, and was now hugging him as tightly as she dared, given his somewhat fragile state.

“Abella, we’re getting out of here, can you carry Elecmon?” Pierre asked, and she nodded in reply. “Good. Blair, get Agumon… and no, don’t dare have Goblimon carry him, the last thing we need right now is for your idiot partner to try and eat him.”

Blair looked like he might object for a moment, but then he also nodded and obeyed, apparently thinking better of it. And together they dragged their friends from the scene of the battle.

It was going to be even harder crossing that small stretch of desert this time around; having to carry along their injured, and already being dehydrated enough from walking through it once. Assuming, that was, that they could even make it out of the factory without being ambushed again… they’d only just begun their adventure yesterday, yet already things weren’t looking good for the European digidestined.

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Okay, so things ended up looking pretty gloomy... something which I didn't actually intend when I started writing, to be honest. I hadn't even been planning on having Leomon controlled until I looked up Hagurumon on the Digimon Wiki and discovered what his attack was, so yeah, the story ended up changing quite a bit... and Agumon's now a killer.

One of the things which I like about the first three seasons is that they make a big deal out of killing digimon, just like you'd expect if they were discussing the deaths of sentient beings, unlike in Frontier. In Season 4, right from the first episode, they have no problems whatsoever murdering whoever gets in their way... and I don't even remember if it ever gets explained why they act this way (i.e. whether or not they think that digimon aren't real people, like Ken and Rika did at one point)... it's like the writers just assumed that a young kid's first response to being attacked by someone and subsequently gaining awesome superpowers would be to guiltlessly kill their attacker.

Anyways, thanks for reading!

Description
Here's Chapter 5... and it's much longer than any of the others so far (by about 2000 words).

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“M16 Assassin!” chorused the assembled mob, pulling the triggers on their assault rifles simultaneously.

Leomon cried out in pain as scores of bullets slammed into his face at extremely close range. Had he still been a rookie then that would have been the end of him, right there. He wouldn’t just have been injured and left to be disarmed and locked up after the battle was over, as had happened to those Commandramon whom they’d beaten during the attack on the Betamon village. No, he’d have been completely destroyed and would have had to be reborn as a digiegg.

As it was, though, all that happened was that the force of the shots pushed him back several steps, cut his face, and gave him a bunch of bruises. His injuries were far from life threatening, but that certainly didn’t mean that they weren’t painful. And what was worse, the more of a beating he took, the quicker he’d go through what little energy he had left, and the sooner he’d need to dedigivolve.

Which meant that he had to end this quickly.

“Fist of the Beast King!” he roared, punching in the direction of the doorway and the tightly jammed together group of cyborg digimon. As his fist moved a corona of orange light formed around it, eventually taking the shape of a lion’s head, before launching at the squad of dinosaur soldiers, who were suddenly panicking, seeming to realise that perhaps they ought not to have crammed themselves quite so closely together.

The blast struck them square on and they scattered like bowling pins. And also like bowling pins, they didn’t get back up. Several of them did groan hoarsely, though, and none shattered into millions of fragments of data, so at least they were all still alive; Leomon wouldn’t hesitate to end the life of a digimon which he knew to be truly evil, but he doubted whether these Commandramon were intelligent enough for genuine malice. Far more likely, they were simply continuing to blindly follow orders with no thought for the consequences of their actions; it was their leader who was the evil one, and once he or she had been replaced with someone less fond of global domination and mass slavery, Leomon was sure that they’d return to doing whatever it was that they’d done before all this began without complaint.

“Stay behind me.” he told the children without turning to face them. A couple of his teeth were wobbling and his mouth was filled with the metallic tang of blood, he wasn’t sure how bad he looked, but was certain that if Abella should see then she’d either end up fussing over him for so long that he dedigivolved before they could even enter the factory, or else she might actually insist that they give up and come back another day when neither he nor Fanbeemon was injured. The champion-level digimon had no intention of going back, though, not until they were done here, at least; every hour they waited meant that more of the black needles were created, and more innocent digimon could be enslaved.

Leomon strode inside, looking around carefully in case of another ambush. There was nothing. All that lay before him was a hallway empty other than for the incapacitated Commandramon sprawled along it. Hearing the others enter behind him, he kept walking, speeding up as he did.

He would have preferred to go slowly, lest he end up running into a trap of some sort, but that didn’t seem much like a viable option at the moment. Unlike Fanbeemon, who’d been able to digivolve for years, and so could now become Waspmon with ease, and maintain that form for a good while, this was the first time he’d ever reached champion-level, and they’d already wasted a large chunk of time hanging around outside, so Leomon knew that he couldn’t have long left.

He was running now, with the others pelting along in his wake, though he was sure that at the very least Pierre (who was still struggling to carry his unconscious partner along) and Santo (who was just a little kid) must be falling behind.

There was something strange about this place, the animal-type digimon noted as he ran. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was, though…

And then, suddenly, he realised. There were no doors.

They’d already passed a couple junctions in the tunnels, but so far had not seen a single door which might actually lead into a room… yet this was apparently supposed to be a factory, so why not? They needed to produce things, so why waste space and money by building this purposeless, confusing series of corridors? This seemed more like a maze than a factory…

Oh… of course. That’s exactly what it was. A maze designed to keep trespassers from breaking in and stealing whatever this place’s inhabitants had built prior to the army’s takeover. It must have been practically impossible for any single person to find their way around without a guide, Leomon observed as he passed yet another side tunnel, which meant that in order to have taken over, the Commandramon forces must have had huge numbers… or else they’d somehow managed to persuade the factory’s denizens that they were on their side, right up until they started jamming those needles in them.

The champion would no doubt have continued to go over what this might mean for them, was it not for the fact that, at that point, a small group of Commandramon rounded the corner, along with some of their slaves. He kept on running, reaching back to draw his Beast Sword, while both the newcomers and the digidestined skidded to a halt; the former group preparing to fire, the latter taking this opportunity to catch their breath, confident that Leomon could overcome these rookies in no time.

Because he’d continued on, however, he was too far away to hear Zofia’s words when she sat down, flipped open her laptop, and pressed a few keys, activating a program which somehow scanned the data of the nearby digimon in the same manner as a digivice and brought up the enslaved digimon’s stat screen from the database which she’d managed to copy from her digivice onto the computer.

“Hagurumon.” she announced to the others. “A virus digimon; machine type and rookie level. It’s special attack is ‘Cog Crusher’, with which it can fire… oh no… no…”

“What is it?” asked Abella anxiously, leaning over the laptop in an attempt to see what was written on its screen. She, like all the others, had simply assumed that as he was a champion, Leomon would be more than a match for the assorted rookies which he was charging fearlessly towards, but now that their girl genius was afraid, the fear was beginning to infect them all.

Zofia didn’t exactly help matters when she roughly shoved the Spaniard aside and leapt to her feet (leaving Candlemon to dive at the laptop and pluck it from the air a moment before it struck the stone floor).

“Leomon!” she cried at the top of her voice. “Don’t let --- ----- ----- ---!”

Leomon didn’t hear the rest of what she said, as it was then that the Commandramon seemed to decide that he was close enough to make shooting him worth their while (though he had no idea why, since none of their attacks had worked before).

“M16 Assassin!” they cried, pulling their triggers as one. The bullets struck him once more, but had no more effect than usual, barely scratching his toughened hide. In mere moments he would be upon them, and the only thing that their yelling and firing had achieved was to create enough noise to drown out the human girl’s voice.

“--- -------!” the gear-shaped digimon said together, their voices also being made completely inaudible when heard alongside the roar of gunfire. Nothing could hide from him what came next, though; from each of their mouths, his enslaved foes issued a gear or two.

A black gear.

Something about that set off alarm bells in his head, but he ignored the feeling. He had other thoughts occupying his mind right now, and besides, something which had worried Elecmon meant nothing to him now. A champion could withstand attacks that would easily delete a rookie.

Leomon continued his rapid advance, beginning to gather another aura around his right hand, and preparing to strike with the blade wrapped in his left, with bullets bouncing off him all the time. But when three gears struck him, one after the other, they sunk in.

He gasped in shock. How could these rookie-level attacks possibly be powerful enough to affect him in this way? He was a champion now!

And suddenly, as he felt the fiery pain of a computer virus coursing through his veins like magma, Leomon remembered why he’d recognised the gears; an evil digimon named Devimon had once used those things to enslave ordinarily good digimon and force them to attempt to wipe out the digidestined… and yet he had no gear-generating attack of his own… which meant what? That he’d found a way to copy another digimon’s attack? That he secretly had an army of these guys hidden somewhere inside File Island?

Leomon didn’t know, and as the pain within him grew to excruciating, maddening levels, he decided that actually, he didn’t really care, all he wanted was for this agony to come to an end, and the only way to achieve that was to surrender himself to the inexplicable rage which he felt building within him, and to attempt – as several other possessed digimon had done, decades before him – to destroy the digidestined.

“No…” mumbled Zofia miserably as she watched the gears strike Leomon, and saw him come to a stop a mere foot or so away from the foremost of his opponents, who had now ceased firing completely.

“What!? What’s going on!? Why won’t you tell me!?” screamed Abella frantically.

“Th-those were black gears… similar to the ones used by Devimon.” Zofia muttered, her voice so low that it was almost a whisper.

Pierre groaned.

“So…? Is that bad?” Abella asked, her tone pleading, as she glanced between the Polish girl and French boy.

“… You don’t know?” Zofia replied incredulously, after a brief pause. Apparently having been so taken aback by the other girl’s question that she’d forgotten her horror at what had just befallen Leomon, who was now visibly shaking, as though holding some sort of internal battle. A battle which, if Zofia was honest with herself, she knew had a foregone conclusion.

“Should we?” said Otto, who – along with Santo – was also looking pretty confused. The Pole turned to share a glance with Pierre, who shrugged back.

“Don’t you guys remember anything from your digital history classes?” he asked, looking at Otto and Abella. Santo was only seven, so there was a good chance that no one had actually told him about the unpleasant truths lurking in the digital world’s past, and Devimon was most certainly an unpleasant truth. He was about as unpleasant as truths could possibly come.

“Seriously? You pick now to moan at us for not paying attention in school?” demanded Otto. “Can’t you just give us the cliff notes?”

Pierre looked over at Zofia again, as though neither of them were quite able to believe what they were hearing; that there were actually two people around their own ages who didn’t actually have a meticulous knowledge of the adventures of the first two groups of Japanese digidestined.

Instead of waiting on the pair getting around to telling the story, however, PawnChessmon unexpectedly began speaking, perhaps under the impression that as time was of the essence, they ought not to waste it by waiting for those two to give each other another incredulous glance every ten seconds or so.

“Thirty six years ago, when the first group of digidestined came to the digital world, they encountered an extremely evil digimon named Devimon, who somehow had the ability to control the black gears which operated File Island, and could use them to control other digimon, making them fight his battles for him… and apparently these Hagurumon actually have the ability to create those gears.”

“So what’s going to happen to Leomon!?” demanded Abella.

“I wouldn’t worry about him.” replied the puppet digimon enigmatically, staring straight past her, down at the other end of the corridor, where Leomon was.

“Oh? Why not?” the Spanish girl asked, calming down a little, but seeming even more confused.

“Because I’d be too busy worrying about us.” he replied, nodding towards her partner, whom the others all turned back to look at.

They gasped. Leomon was striding slowly back towards them, glaring vehemently in their direction, and clutching his Beast Sword tightly. It only just then occurred to the children that when looking at him from an enemy’s point of view, the animal-type digimon no longer seemed like such a noble hero… in fact, he looked downright petrifying.

The children and their digimon backed away under his venomous gaze. All but one of them. Even Leomon’s own partner couldn’t stop herself from taking a step back. And even the eternally composed PawnChessmon couldn’t keep from retreating a little.

There was only one person who refused to back down. Otto.

“Go.” he told them, trying to act brave, despite the fact that he was visibly shaking. “Get out of here. This is all my fault. Leomon didn’t have long left before he’d have needed to dedigivolve, and Fanbeemon was injured… if I’d been a better leader then I’d just have had us head back to the Betamon village to recover… but I didn’t, and because of that Leomon ran straight into a trap… and now he’s joined their army. Because of me. So I’ll stall him. The rest of you get out of here, if you come back later then you might manage to free bust those gears out of him.”

The children and their partners were shocked into silence for a few moments, and the only sounds were the chattering of the Commandramon from the other end of the corridor, and the soft padding of their new foe’s feet upon the stone floor. At last, it was Pierre who spoke up.

“Are you out of your mind!? We can’t just leave you!”

“If we all start running then he will as well, and he could easily catch us. Someone has to stay behind. And don’t even suggest that we all stay here; Fanbeemon would probably be destroyed after taking, like, one hit, in the state he’s in now, and Santo’s just a little kid… I’m sure you care enough to know that dragging the others, especially those two, into a life or death battle with someone like Leomon would be downright stupid.”

“Fine. You’re right. Come on everyone, we’re leaving.” Pierre replied grudgingly.

The others gave him appalled looks, but he just glanced across at Leomon, who was almost upon them.

“If we don’t go now then he’ll kill us all. That’s not an exaggeration. None of us are strong enough to stand up to him, so we must escape, or we’ll be dooming the entire digital world, and possibly our own as well.”

“Well I’m staying!” snapped Agumon, going to stand by his partner. “I don’t care how dangerous it is, I won’t abandon Otto!”

The German boy looked down at his digimon, and the gratitude in his eyes was so obvious that it could have been seen by a blind man.

“Thanks, Agumon.”

“Agumon… I applaud your nobility, and wish that I could aid you, however my first and foremost duty is to the safety of Santo, and so I must go, I’m afraid.” said PawnChessmon sadly.

“I wanna fight! I wanna fight!” cried Goblimon.

“No.” stated Blair unequivocally, and surprisingly, to be honest. “I normally let you do whatever you want, I know, but you don’t stand a chance against a champion… especially not one as powerful as Leomon. You’re not fighting. Not this time.”

Goblimon seemed almost to wither with disappointment, but still, he couldn’t deny having been just a little intimidated by the lion’s horrific glare, and so he allowed himself to be talked out of a fight. This time.

“Otto… thank you.” said Zofia at last. She was intelligent enough to be under no illusions as to what would happen to the German boy and his digimon partner once Leomon got his hands on them, and yet she also knew that there was no alternative… at least, none which wouldn’t leave even more of them in the same predicament as their goggle-headed leader.

“Wait… what’s going on?” asked Abella, who wasn’t intelligent enough to know.

“I’ll explain later.” said Pierre. “Don’t worry, we will be back to rescue Leomon, but for now we have to go.”

“And Otto and Agumon?” she added.

“… Yes… and Otto and Agumon.” the French child lied. “Now go!”

So saying, he broke into as quick a run as he could managed with a giant bee draped over one shoulder. The others followed a moment later. And not one was able to bring themself to look back at the German as he stood his ground. Leomon had practically reached him already, and the Commandramon had begun jeering unpleasantly. It seemed that they were looking forwards to the show.

Otto’s fists were clenched and his jaws were locked. It seemed to Agumon that, despite his promise to distract Leomon, he was really doing nothing more than awaiting the end.

Well, if the human wouldn’t put up a fight, then his partner would just have to do it for him… despite the futility of fighting someone as powerful as Leomon.

“Pepper Breath!” Agumon cried as he stepped forwards, spitting out a fireball.

But his champion-level opponent was ready, and his blade slashed through the air, easily dissipating the much weaker attack. Not that he really needed to; it wouldn’t have done much more than singe his fur anyway. Agumon was undeterred, though. Frankly, at this point he really couldn’t risk being deterred; to give up now would be giving up on life itself.

“Pepper Breath!” he yelled again, this time spitting out two fireballs… at the exact same time that Leomon leapt.

The flames collided with the anthropomorphic lion in mid-air, but as predicted, did practically no damage. Leomon winced, no doubt feeling a twinge of pain… but it wasn’t nearly enough, and so, as a last resort, Agumon dived in front of the German digidestined.

But that also was to no avail. With the back of the hand in which he carried the Beast Sword, Leomon casually swatted the rookie aside, and then drove his other fist deep into Otto’s gut, sending him flying.

Agumon cried out as he struck the stone wall, but one look across at his partner told him that he hadn’t been the one to get the worst of it. Otto had smacked hard against the ground, bounced, and rolled a little way, and was now lying on his side, facing Leomon, and struggling for breath. The champion began to walk towards him once again. Intending to finish what he’d started.

“I… deserved that…” groaned the German once he was finally able to speak. Agumon’s jaw dropped, and Leomon paused. Apparently even when under the influence of the gears, he could still feel curiosity. “I… failed… everyone. I was… the worst… leader… ever… Agumon… I’m sorry… I should… have… made you go… back… with the others… and now we’re… both… going to die…”

“No.” stated Agumon coldly, pushing himself to his feet in one smooth movement. It was odd. He’d struck his head when he hit the wall, and a mere moment ago he’d been struggling to remain conscious, yet after hearing his best friend in the entire world utter those words, he suddenly felt his strength returning, fuelled by his anger.

Despite Otto’s somewhat brash personality, Agumon – who’d hatched out of his digiegg back when the blond boy was only a toddler, and had known him ever since – knew that in his heart, he was really an extremely selfless person, so he hadn’t really been all that surprised when his partner had volunteered to stay behind… but he’d be damned if he’d let it all end like this; with Otto wallowing in guilt, feeling that it was his own fault that he was about to be killed by someone who, mere minutes ago, he had considered a friend.

“No,” the little dinosaur repeated, feeling his anger towards the Digital Army, the fiends behind all this, intensify, lending him further strength, “this is not your fault. It’s theirs’. And they will pay.”

The rage burned him from the inside out, like fire. But Agumon was used to fire. He took that heat and absorbed it. He could feel the power welling up within him, like a tsunami of molten rock.

And then all three of them noticed, at the same time, the brightly glowing light that originated within one of the pockets of Otto’s shorts, easily shining through the fabric. His digivice.

And Agumon felt his body begin to glow as well. It ought to have felt good. Fanbeemon had told all the other partners last night that digivolving felt fantastic, like you were becoming something greater… something utterly inconceivable from your previous point of view. It made you feel warm, happy, and enlightened. It made you feel as though you were strong enough to accomplish anything.

But Agumon felt none of that. He didn’t feel warm, he felt like he was burning. And he didn’t feel happy, he felt only rage. He felt no new surge of great understanding, and though he could feel his strength increasing, he was far from satisfied. He needed more. Much, much more.

Agumon wasn’t digivolving in order to protect someone, as the others had done, he was digivolving in order to make those soldiers suffer.

“Agumon digivolve to…”

For a couple of seconds Otto marvelled at what his partner was becoming, all so that he might protect him. But then he sensed that something was wrong. And he wasn’t the only one. Leomon took a few steps backwards, a look of trepidation replacing the glare which had adorned his face since he was possessed.

“Greymon!”

For a second, Otto’s fears were calmed. He may not have known much about digital history, but everyone knew the story of how Tai Kamiya’s Greymon had become SkullGreymon when he tried to force him to digivolve, and had gone on to wreak utter destruction, yet as Agumon hadn’t become… SkullAgumon…? Well, hadn’t become something other than Greymon, anyway, the German felt that this must mean that he’d digivolved normally after all, and that he and Leomon had merely been confused somehow…

But then the eye moved.

Greymon was huge. So huge, in fact, that in the narrow confines of the corridor, Otto could only see one side of his face, and only one eye. Yet he knew that his earlier assumption had been correct when that malignant orb swivelled madly for a moment, before focusing on him.

He’d heard it said, in TV shows or in books, that some people’s eyes might make it seem as though they were staring straight through you, into your soul… but what he was experiencing now was worse. Much, much worse.

It was the opposite, in fact. He felt as though he were being allowed a glimpse into Greymon’s soul… and what he saw horrified him.

There was not a trace of his friend in there. Agumon was gone. Whether it was permanent or not, he had no idea, but for the moment, all that this Greymon held inside his head was rage. Rage and fire.

And then the gigantic dinosaur-type digimon bellowed, using every bit of lung power that he possessed. Despite the fact that every movement caused him pain, Otto quickly jammed his hands against his ears, struggling to block out that hellish sound, which seemed as though it was shattering his skull from the inside.

Greymon closed his ferocious maw, toning his roar down to a mere growl, as he turned back to Leomon, who seemed to have been frozen in place, despite the black gears which sought to force him to do battle.

And then the immense champion-level digimon charged at his smaller opponent, with no thought of holding back. To this Greymon, Otto knew, Leomon was nothing more than kindling. Rage and fire. That was all he knew now, nothing more.

Greymon struck Leomon head first, and rapidly twisted his neck at the same time, sending the animal digimon flying back down the passageway and crashing into the group of Commandramon and Hagurumon, who were sent sprawling.

They were given no time to recover, though, as the dinosaur monster continued to charge, bellowing once more, as his huge strides covered the ground at an incredible rate.

And just before he charged straight into their midst, Greymon stopped suddenly, and was silent.

His pause lasted the whole of a single second, and then his voice, sounding louder and more ferocious than ever, reverberated around the corridor… and most likely the rest of the building as well; “NOVA BLAST!”

An instant later, a tide of blue flames enveloped the group who lay before him. Greymon’s bulk prevented Otto from seeing what was happening, but it didn’t stop him from hearing the screams.

For a time, all that the German boy could hear were those shrieks, and all he could see was his partner – driven insane by rage – as a black silhouette outlined with blue fire.

At long last, though, that came to an end, and Greymon’s head swivelled round so that that unspeakable eye could turn and stare in his direction once again. He shuddered.

His own digimon… the one who he should have been able to trust above all others… horrified him.

And was probably about to incinerate him.

Where had he gone wrong? Otto wondered. He hadn’t tried to force Agumon to digivolve at all… so why was this happening? Why!?

And then Greymon began to glow… and started to shrink.

A couple seconds later Agumon lay unconscious upon the stone floor. A little way away was Elecmon, looking thoroughly charred. Of the other victims of the nova blast, there was no sign.

Shakily, and wincing with every move he made, Otto climbed back to his feet, and began to stumble over towards the two digimon.

Walking was difficult, but he was managing it… at least, until he got within a few metres of Agumon, at which point his sluggishly functioning brain finally put two and two together, and he fell to his knees, barely even noticing the jarring impact as they struck the floor.

He hadn’t heard anyone running. He’d heard screams. But no footsteps. Or any counter attacks. Leomon had been a champion level, so he’d been able to take more damage, but the others… they were gone… they hadn’t escaped, but they’d gone… they were dead.

Agumon had known not to try and actually kill the Commandramon or their slaves… yet he’d completely lost control after digivolving. And, of course, Otto blamed himself.

There was only one instance he knew of in which a partner digimon had gone crazy after digivolving, and in that instance, it had been the digidestined’s fault, so why should things be any different this time round?

******

The other digidestined had almost reached the exit (despite taking a wrong turning at one point and having to backtrack a little way) when they heard Greymon’s first bellow, at which point Pierre told them all to wait, and to listen, just in case…

He never explained why, or what they were listening for, but they obeyed anyway. And then they heard another roar. And they heard Greymon scream the name of his nova blast attack.

Pierre smiled, thinking that Agumon had digivolved and rescued his partner after all, and so he told this to the others, and they promptly turned and began running back the way they’d come, expecting to find a triumphant Otto, along with Greymon and an un-enslaved Leomon meet up with them at any moment.

But then they heard the screams.

Upon reaching them, they found Agumon unconscious, Elecmon torched (and also unconscious), Otto on all fours, crying while muttering miserably to himself about something, and no sign whatsoever of the Commandramon and Hagurumon group.

And once they got closer, they were able to make out the German’s words.

“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.” he wept. Over and over again.

“Oh, no.” moaned Zofia, realising what must have occurred here. And judging by the look on his face, Pierre must have quickly worked it out as well.

The French kid handed Fanbeemon over to Candlemon without a word and strode up to their so-called ‘leader’ and pulled one of the injured boy’s arms over his shoulder, then hauled him up to his feet.

Abella had already rushed over and picked up Elecmon, of course, and was now hugging him as tightly as she dared, given his somewhat fragile state.

“Abella, we’re getting out of here, can you carry Elecmon?” Pierre asked, and she nodded in reply. “Good. Blair, get Agumon… and no, don’t dare have Goblimon carry him, the last thing we need right now is for your idiot partner to try and eat him.”

Blair looked like he might object for a moment, but then he also nodded and obeyed, apparently thinking better of it. And together they dragged their friends from the scene of the battle.

It was going to be even harder crossing that small stretch of desert this time around; having to carry along their injured, and already being dehydrated enough from walking through it once. Assuming, that was, that they could even make it out of the factory without being ambushed again… they’d only just begun their adventure yesterday, yet already things weren’t looking good for the European digidestined.

------

Okay, so things ended up looking pretty gloomy... something which I didn't actually intend when I started writing, to be honest. I hadn't even been planning on having Leomon controlled until I looked up Hagurumon on the Digimon Wiki and discovered what his attack was, so yeah, the story ended up changing quite a bit... and Agumon's now a killer.

One of the things which I like about the first three seasons is that they make a big deal out of killing digimon, just like you'd expect if they were discussing the deaths of sentient beings, unlike in Frontier. In Season 4, right from the first episode, they have no problems whatsoever murdering whoever gets in their way... and I don't even remember if it ever gets explained why they act this way (i.e. whether or not they think that digimon aren't real people, like Ken and Rika did at one point)... it's like the writers just assumed that a young kid's first response to being attacked by someone and subsequently gaining awesome superpowers would be to guiltlessly kill their attacker.

Anyways, thanks for reading!