Kaji leaned back in the seat, putting every effort in ignoring the stunningly loud car sounds he'd normally have blocked out. He shot a glare back down at the device he'd been left with.
Absolutely none of the people around him seemed to have comprehended what he'd meant by sharing information. Well none save the one called Shin anyway. He was the only one who'd actually managed to bring them to the core issues that had been raised. And yet none of the group that had been with him when that little creature came had even thought to bring up anything it had said. He sighed lightly, shooting a glance at the purple thing, Monodramon he'd said it was called.
'Then again with this thing I probably could have learned that myself.' His eyes lingered on the creature a moment before he finally closed them, relaxing on the seat as he tried to block out the bus noises again. 'Are they one of a kind or do they all just have names like that...'
The lingering feeling of eyes falling on him seemed to last a few moments before they must have realized he wasn't going to voice much more than he already had. Kaji decided to trust one of the others to note that something of what the little vampire monster had said might prove useful, particularly if it would lead them to their supposed partners.
'Partner...' The word echoed in his thoughts a few moments as they thoughts drifted to the reptile again. He honestly wasn't expecting much for whatever he ended up with, and he wasn't particularly clear on what the notion entailed anyway. 'Whatever's fine as long as I can get to the end of this game.'
Eye's opening blearily at the light shining through the window beside him, Kaji allowed them to drift back down at the sonar on the device. The two whites were a lot closer now. Would probably only take another minute or two before they could actually see them, which meant the distance on the sonar wasn't particularly far even when zoomed out. However now a number of red indicators could be seen among the large black force the two whites were heading for.
"Only a truly desperate and stupid Digimon would want to be shackled up with some human." The bizzare creature's menacing grin widened. "Like those poor survivors up north a ways who got captured by the Dark Chosen's minions. Getting all caged up and prepared to be taken to the sea to be eaten once one of them shows up to upload them. I'd bet they'd take any chance to escape if someone came to save them."
"Then again it's probably smarter to just let them die. After all, every mon for himself."
Kaji's face darkened slightly as he allowed himself to lean back, resting his palm on his forehead. A single memory played in his mind as his annoyance rose. "One person cannot determine the value of a someone's life."
The hand slid down his face before he leaned forward again. "Ha... what a pain."
Just as his eyes drifted, he barely caught it. A single flash of a new color appeared, before vanishing an instant later. Kaji's mind snapped to attention as he focused on the device again, but the moment had past and the new color was gone, having apparently streaked across the entire range before he could properly notice it.
'This just gets more and more complex.' The boy thought, annoyed as he fiddled with the device again as he tried to decide whether to be relived it hadn't been green, or alarmed that it was another factor he didn't know. 'What the hell could purple mean?'
Naturally before he could properly consider the new factor added to the mess they'd found themselves in, a new problem arose. A black dot had broke off from the group and was heading straight for them.
Kaji scanned the horizon, noticing nothing a nice outcropping not too far. He got up and moved briskly to their designated 'driver', Ryan if he recalled.
"Turn in there, something's coming after us." He said, pointing at the set of ruined, but still standing buildings. A large foreboding opening, just wide enough for the bus to fit through stood under an overhang. 'It probably would be the first place to look for from the ground, but given the speed the thing was heading for us at, it's was probably a flier, so it would probably completely miss it.'
The bus suddenly swerved much sharper than Kaji would have liked as Ryan accelerated, a glint in his eye as he aimed the bus right into the opening.
Of course just before they crossed a sudden thought struck. 'Wait, if that thing is tracking us by a similar sonar, then would being in a building even help? Alarmed, Kaji just barely opened his mouth to yell out a warning to turn, before the bus rushed into the opening.
And then a after a few moments of the bus decelerating in total blackness, the sonar on the device went dark as well.
"The hell?" He heard someone mutter, probably the rowdier of the two cosplayers. "The map thing stopped working."
A sudden crash sounded at the front of the bus, as some kind of purple boy-wolf thing stood on the front of the bus. Kaji turned down to the device, expecting some kind of data to pop up, but it remained completely void of anything save static.
"Scanners and databases won't work roughly within the area of this building." The thing said, seemingly relieved once as it glanced through their devices one by one.
'I guess we're not the only one with these.'
"And why not?" Someone quipped from the back.
The thing gave a menacing grin. "That's thanks to that little thing." It said, pointing down to a piece of black metal sitting in the middle of the floor. Around it stood several more varied monsters, including several slime looking things hiding behind a little orange beast with a flame on its head that stood glaring at them.
"So much for them all being unique." Kaji muttered. Under the gaze of the creatures each of them shambled out of the bus.
"Now what are a group of humans like you doing in a place like this?" The purple monster asked after they'd all managed to shamble out.
"A few people who had a similar signal to us appeared on the radar not too far from here, heading for some black ones." Shin said.
"Also we heard from another creature like you that a group of you had been captured by those things. We'd hope to rescue them before that guy suddenly made us turn in here."
'Well it's about time someone mentioned what we'd learned from that thing.' He thought as the cosplayer finished.
"You wanted to rescue them?" The purple thing said, giving them a confused look a moment before wider grin appeared on its face. "What a coincidence. So did we."
The smile it gave them became outright menacing as more creatures stepped out from the shadows and into the light of the orange creature's flame.
~*~
"You do realize it's a miracle you didn't crash into anything do you?" The creature grumbled as laid it's rocky palms onto the surface of the ground. Steadily the vibrations echoing on the earth began to resonate with him.
"Now now, old chum, you know as well as I do that my reactions even when enhancing my already potent speed allow me to easily keep up with something as simple as a jog through the old city." His companion's expression dimmed somewhat as he looked at the state the city had be left in, before forcing it back. "And it's not like we're on the wrong side of the map like the last three times. Why look, over there's the sanctum, so we must be close."
"Yeah, yeah. You're just lucky you lost as much power as you did otherwise we'd probably be in the middle of the ocean. Again." He muttered. Slowly the locations of each movement on the earth steadily became vivid in his mind. "Looks like you didn't overshoot it too bad, and we ended up outside their range anyway. They've moved closer to the shore, but they're pretty much directly south west. I can't find the partner but give it's a flier I wouldn't be surprised if it's close to her."
"Why is that a hint of a grin I'm seeing on your rocky face old chum? What's got you in such good spirits?" The strange looking creature said, a small chuckle escaping him.
His companion groaned, before a small laugh escaped him as well. "I felt something else further back." He said, faintly.
"Well speak up old chum."
"It was faint, a little further than I'm usually comfortable sensing, and they were a tad more spread out than I'd have figured, but it was definitely humans."
His friend's face looked confused for a moment, before a faint grin lit his strange looking face. "Chosen." He said softly. "There may be hope yet."
A wide grin suddenly lit his face. "Well, let's make sure we're there in time to save them old chum!" Quickly he grabbed his companion's stone arm before a faint light surrounded him before he turned directly around, preparing himself for a good run.
"Wait, no, that's-!"
"I CAN'T WAIT!" He yelled, cutting him off as both their forms sped forth into the distance.
Faintly the sound of a long suffering voice yelling "That's south you moron!" echoed into the distance.
