The Seal Man, and Other Tales, with Barry and Cisco

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Jyou's located a short walk away -- a little way south-east, over a bridge to another one of the islands that make up Odaiba, past a construction site repairing some light damage from a Digimon battle, and to the southernmost tip of one of the islands.

But he's there, sat on a bench with a textbook in hand and a white, orange-mohawked sea lion slumped around his shoulders like a scarf.

"Hope we didn't keep you waiting," Yamato says, as Jyou looks up at them and flicks down his glasses.

Comments

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"All my patients are terrible in different ways," Jyou says sourly. "They don't leave me much choice."


MadLeomon's gaze follows Barry as he breaks away, and as he comes to a stop, the Digimon lifts a claw and curls it into a fist, purple fire igniting around it.

"Fist ..." he begins, hauling back, "... of the Fallen Beast King."

As he punches forward, a lion's head of snarling purple flame comes rushing out, moving towards Barry.

[makes_the_toys]

"I'm sure Barry and Yamato and them are out there doing their very best not to get hurt and stuff," Cisco says to Jyou, not very sure of that at all.

[run_barry]

Barry looks down at his leg, grimacing and hissing in pain. His attention whips back to MadLeomon when the Digimon calls out his attack, and Barry moves trying to avoid the purple blast headed his way.

He doesn't get very far out of the way and ends up diving for cover at the last moment, landing on the pavement on his belly as the flames blast close by over head.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Jyou snorts. "Maybe Barry is. A few of my team too, probably. Yamato and Taichi have never cared about not getting hurt in their lives, though. They've probably left enough of their blood splattered across the worlds that someone could build several life-size models of them out of it."


The blast lands against a bus stop, and the glass and plastic rot away in moments, the entire structure curving in on itself before collapsing.

MadLeomon frowns, then lifts a foot and slams it down, sending streams of black liquid snaking across the ground towards Barry.

[makes_the_toys]

"Ew, bloody clone army. That's both gross and kind of cool," Cisco replies, considering the possibilities and very weird mental imaging that thought produces.

[run_barry]

Barry scrapes his palms and shreds the denim of his jeans on one knee against the pavement when he lands.

Knowing he's in danger, Barry scrambles to get back to his feet. Panicked, he uses a burst of speed that shoots him forward and across the street where he collides with a parked car and tumbles over the hood.

Out of sorts and reeling, Barry tries to shake out the cobwebs as he gets back to his feet to face MadLeomon again.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"Nobody wants a Yamato blood clone running around. Think how messy the fistfights would be," Jyou says sourly.

As the Mantaraymon come around for another pass, Zudomon lifts his hammer, summoning a bolt of lightning down onto it. The bolt splits the moment it touches the metal, arcing around them in a dome, sending the Mantaraymon skittering backwards.


MadLeomon seems momentarily confused by Barry's sudden burst of speed, looking left, then right, then behind him, before he finally locates Barry.

He gives a grunt of frustration, hauling back and throwing another blast of purple flame towards him and the car.

[makes_the_toys]

"Yeah, the worst part is, they'd probably start fighting each other, he's that feisty."

Cisco ducks when the lightning rains down, then reaches a hand up and smooths it over the top of his head.

"Okay dude, two very important questions; one, how long can he keep this up? And two, is all this electricity making my hair frizzy?"

[run_barry]

That blast of purple flame comes roaring at him and Barry slows it down by speeding himself up. He falls out of sync with the rest of the world, standing in place with gold lightning crackling around him as he takes a moment to recover and to finally assess.

While MadLeomon's attack creeps towards him, Barry looks around at the destruction he and the Digimon have caused; the wrecked cars and ruined asphalt, the still spurting fire main, and the melted bus stop.

Looking past the purple wave of fire to MadLeomon, Barry's frown is both disappointed and determined. Taking a deep breath and heaving his shoulders, Barry makes a decision and takes off, running away from the fight.

Time snaps back into place and MadLeomon's attack continues on course, but when it reaches the spot that Barry should be, he's gone.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"He is much too feisty," Jyou says, shaking his head.

Zudomon turns his head, angling it up so that one huge blue eye is staring at Cisco. "Only a little frizzy. Barely at all, really!"

"He's drawing energy from me to fuel his attacks, so he can keep it up as long as I can," Jyou says. "Which is a long time. I might not be Taichi or Yamato, but I'm still a Crestbearer, I've got energy to spare."



MadLeomon pauses when he sees his attack hit nothing. Looks left. Looks right. Looks left again. Behind him?

He gives a slow rumble in the back of his throat, then jabs his thumb at his chest. "Victory."

Because that's got to be what Barry vanishing means, right? Right? He's sure it's something like that.

[makes_the_toys]

"Kind of hard not to love him for it," Cisco notes, then adds, "Of course, I'm not the guy who has to patch him up when that feistiness gets out of hand."

Cisco fusses with his hair a bit more, nodding as he listens.

Raising his voice to shout at their attackers, Cisco yells, "You hear that, losers? We can do this all day!"

[run_barry]

Oh, it's something all right.

This is going to be tricky. Odaiba is more cramped than Central City and Barry isn't exactly familiar with its streets. Not to mention all the throngs of people currently running around trying to evacuate. This means Barry is going to have to improvise.

Streaking down the road, he runs it as far as he can, and when the straightaway street ends in a building, Barry runs straight up the building's side; coming to a stop at the top.

Looking out across the city, Barry can see the broadcast building but he's too far away and there's too much in the way now for him to be able to see MadLeomon on the ground. Barry takes a moment to check out his leg, which still hurts, but the acid burns are starting to heal. It's slowing him up, but Barry knows he's just going to have to make this work.

Steeling himself, Barry takes a few deep breaths and then he runs.

A racing streak of lightning, Barry races down the side of the building and takes off like a shot when he hits the ground. Windows burst and cars on the street rock in his wake as Barry pushes the boundary between sub and supersonic. It finally bursts with a boom just as Barry arrives back at the square around the broadcast building.

MadLeomon is still standing in the street as Barry runs up on him and swings at the side of the Digimon's face, throwing a right hook backed by every ounce of momentum Barry has just built up.

Barry sure hopes this works, and that he's not about to break his hand again.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"... I'll allow that it's cute when he gets all fight-ed out and goes to sleep after a battle," Jyou allows. "Usually on the battlefield."

There's a rather insistent beeping from his digivice, and he opens up a holographic map, squinting at a trail of energy signatures moving through the streets of Odaiba. Across the Bay, up in the sky, there's a twinkle of red light as another digivice starts reacting.

"-- I'm going to guess that's the Fastman," Jyou says. "Because that's a lot of kinetic energy."


MadLeomon barely even realises Barry's coming. His eyes start to widen, a split-second before that punch lands, as if he's suddenly clocked the lightning and the blur and the way the air's being disturbed, but that realisation doesn't help.

His head snaps to one side, and a moment later he goes flying backwards, his entire body flickering like a computer glitch, before it vanishes and a glass sphere, blue with a tiny spark of blue light buzzing about it, drops to the ground. It stays there for a moment, humming, before MadLeomon's body rematerialises around it, breathing but unconscious.

A few seconds pass. He doesn't seem to be waking up any time soon.

There's a brief pause, before a hologram starts to appear next to Barry. Not Yamato this time, but Koushiro. "I'm picking up some -- ..." He doesn't get to say anything more, as the hologram turns staticky and vanishes.

But there is someone applauding now. A slow, almost sardonic clap, as they approach, stepping over MadLeomon.

"Well, that's something to see." It's Yamato's voice, but not Yamato's inflections, and by the looks of the speaker, it's Yamato's face and body -- albeit lacking any of the bruises or blood he had when he called Barry earlier -- but with a sunny smile that's distinctly unlike him.

The not-Yamato speaker makes a show of holding up his hands in mock-surrender, slowing to a stop. "Don't worry, aniki, I'm not here to fight. My interests are purely scientific."

[makes_the_toys]

"You absolutely have to get me a picture of that sometime," Cisco says with glee, "For the 'Gram."

Looking at the map and following the trail, Cisco nods.

"That's him alright. Looks like he's delivering the supersonic punch smackdown on somebody." Which is awesome, but also worrisome.

Cisco's brows knit and he looks towards the city.

"I wonder who he's tangling with."

[run_barry]

For a heart stopping moment Barry worries he went too far. When the sphere re-materializes into MadLeomon Barry breathes out a sigh of relief, then finally realizes his hand is screaming at him and his shoes are on fire.

Shaking out the sting of his (thankfully not broken) hand and stomping his feet to put out the smoldering rubber, Barry turns his head to look at the flickering hologram.

"Koushiro?"

Barry is about to pull out his phone to fiddle with it and try and get Koushiro back when he hears the clapping. Barry starts to smile, a little smirky and embarrassed in one, and then he realizes something is... off.

"You're not Yamato," Barry says, warily.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Jyou and Zudomon both turn enough to watch Cisco out of the corner of their eyes, before Jyou flicks the map off.

"Any Digimon can be a tough opponent, but if he can streak around the city like that, he's probably doing okay," Jyou says, in an attempt to be reassuring.


"I'm not," Not-Yamato confirms, and for a moment there's a flicker of static, as he switches between forms: Sora first, then Taichi, then Jyou, and then settling on Yamato's form again. "Just an old friend of his, eager to meet his new friends."

He touches a hand to his collarbone, bowing low for just a few moments before straightening up again.

[makes_the_toys]

"Yeah, no, totally, he's totally fine," Cisco replies, nodding his head and agreeing, not so convinced but trying to be.

"It's weird not being in front of a bunch of monitors telling me everything that's going on with him."

[run_barry]

Barry sizes the man up as he shifts from one person to another, eying him when he bows.

"Gennai," Barry says, realization settling in.

"This all you again?" Barry asks, making a gesture to indicate everything going on in the city.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"I know the feeling. Sort of. It's usually Koushiro on computers, and Gabumon and Yamato can scan an entire battlefield and track everyone -- but a lot of time Zudomon and I have to take up the rear and can't see what's going on in the thick of the battle," Jyou says, grimacing. "It's not always enjoyable."


"I can't take credit. I only opened the Gate," Gennai says lightly, ambling past Barry and hopping up onto a car to get a better look at the roads leading off from the Broadcast Centre. "The actual forces were contributed by new allies of mine. I, alas, knew from the start that it would be a failure."

[makes_the_toys]

Cisco nods and says, "Well, props to you for having everyone's back. And you fix them up when it's all over."

Being rear-guard or the guy in the chair isn't always the best, but they're still part of the team and contributing.

[run_barry]

Barry moves to keep distance between them and to continue facing Gennai.

"So why come here and make trouble at all?" Barry asks, shaking his head at Gennai. "What do you want?"

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"When they'll let me. Like I said, none of them are good patients," Jyou says. "Half of them would rather bleed out than sit still for a few minutes, and you have to trick them into staying and getting treatment."


Gennai flashes a quick grin. "You've nothing to worry about, you know. My creators never saw fit to grant me abilities with which to fight. One of many things they denied me," he says.

"I came here to collect data. To siphon off the extraneous data of Digimon as they battle. My plans have been set back slightly, but they remain the same," he continues. "The end of all things. Once everything is dead, the task I was programmed with will be fulfilled. And ..."

He cocks his head at Barry. "I did briefly think I could scan you and make a copy, the better to send after Yamato. He would hate that," he says. "But whatever it is that gives you your speed, I'm not able to reconstruct it. I can't even get a clear scan of it. So I suppose that plan's a bust."

[makes_the_toys]

"Geez, no wonder you resort to stabbing them with sedatives," Cisco says.

[run_barry]

"Yeah well, I've learned not to underestimate people," Barry replies, hardly about to believe that Gennai isn't dangerous.

"Yamato told me about your plans," Barry says with a frown. "How you're going to destroy everything to bring about peace and I gotta say, I don't think you understand peace."

Barry's frown sets in deeper when he hears Gennai was attempting to make a copy of him to torment Yamato with.

"He doesn't want to be your enemy, you know," Barry says, shaking his head at Gennai. "He wants to help you, if he can. I think all of his team does."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"It's not like I can just cuff them to a wall or something, after all. If I looked away, Yamato would be half way through gnawing off his arm by the time I looked back," Jyou says.


Gennai's smile fades, just a little. "It's the only peace any of us will ever get," he says. "They gave me an impossible task -- they knew I could never succeed. And then they died in front of me, and I waited for twenty-five thousand years for them to come back, to make the world perfect at last. When they did, they'd forgotten me, forgotten the promises they'd made, and all they were interested in was -- protecting the world as it was."

He gives a derisive snort, shaking his head. "I'm sure he never even imagined that I'd be his enemy. I'll always just be a little kid to him," he says.