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

Barry is faring better than Yamato. His clothes are ripped and the burn on his leg has still got some time to fully heal, but at least he still has all the pieces to his ears.

"We'll see you, Gennai," Barry returns.

Barry watches the portal close then sags a bit, tension bleeding out and he's tired now besides.

Turning to face Yamato, Barry gives him a better look over.

"How are you doing?"

"They'll be fine. Probably. So long as their kernel isn't broken, they'll be alright," Jyou says.

"... I also barely know what dark matter is. Except it's dark. And matter."

Yamato casually lifts one of Barry's hands, positioning it on the back of the undamaged wolf ear poking out of his hair, in a silent demand for scritches. He's earned them, he feels.

"I'm okay. Taichi and I had to deal with a DarkKnightmon, it took more than we expected to get through his armour, and he had a sort of drill thing," Yamato says. He nods over at MadLeomon, arching an eyebrow. "-- And meanwhile, I see you were dealing with one of mine. Beast-types all fall under my domain, after all."

"Okay cool," Cisco says, then cups his hands around his mouth to shout out towards the blimp, "THIS IS A GOOD LESSON NOT TO INVADE OTHER WORLDS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE YOUR ASS HANDED TO YOU!"

Shaking his head at Jyou, Cisco replies, "That's alright. Most people don't know much about it, even the ones who do."

Yay for science and astrophysics.

Barry gives a chuckle and then obliges, scritching Yamato's ear.

"DarkKnightmon, cool name," he comments, feeling like even Cisco would like that one. "Glad you guys are okay."

Looking over at MadLeomon, Barry nods.

"Yeah. He was headed for the broadcast station. Poor guy, I feel kind of bad knocking him out like that." MadLeomon doesn't look so threatening now that he's lying unconscious in the street and no longer trying to chew Barry's face off.

Shifting his focus back to Yamato, Barry says, "I ran into your father while I was clearing people out. I got him and his crew to a safer spot."

"-- Ah, we have company," Jyou says. "The good kind."

'The good kind' here means a big, orange cyborg dinosaur, somehow flying despite not being aerodynamic and its purple, fabric-y wings not looking like they should hold up its weight. But if there's any doubt about whose Digimon it is, Taichi's sat on the dinosaur's helmet, waving over at Cisco.

"MetalGreymon Express," Taichi says, as the dinosaur settles into hovering next to them. "Here to take you to Barry and Yamato, Cisco-chan."

"Speaking of, Taichi's on his way to pick up Cisco. Better to have him here before we open the Gate again."

He glances over at MadLeomon, before reaching over to pat Barry on the shoulder. "He'll be fine. He'll wake up confused and with a sore head, but he got a good fight out of it, so there's nothing to complain about. You did good."

His eyes flick over to Barry at the mention of his father, before he shrugs. "Yeah, I figured he'd be here. I knew you'd make sure he and everyone else here stayed safe."

Cisco's eyes widen and he stares at the impossibility before him.

"Okay, that's awesome," he declares of the flying cyborg dino.

Turning to Jyou, Cisco says, "Thanks you guys for the ride, and for not letting me become fish food."

"Him and Jyou alright?" Barry asks.

Barry's smile turns shades of proud and embarrassed and he ducks his head a moment before looking back at Yamato.

"Thanks. Glad I could help."

Barry starts to examine his ripped up clothes as a kind of distraction to Yamato's reaction to the mention of Yamato's father, though Barry still glances back at Yamato when he says, "He seems... pretty dedicated to his job. He wasn't too keen to leave at first."

"No problem!" Zudomon chirps.

"It was our pleasure," Jyou adds.

MetalGreymon lowers his head, with some difficulty, just enough to align the flat top of his helmet with Zudomon's shell. "Hop on. You can hold onto the horn if you need to."

The horn in question is about as wide as a man, but it looks sturdy, at least.

"Yeah, they were doing fine the last time Garurumon sent out a scanning pulse," Yamato says.

He does grimace a little when Barry mentions Hiroaki's lack of eagerness to leave, but he shrugs a shoulder a moment later. "Well, that's to be expected. He's committed to his work, and he isn't great about acknowledging danger."

Cisco's expression turns nervous as he looks over at Taichi and MetalGreymon.

"Right. Sure. I'll just... hop on over there," he says, trying to act cool about it, but definitely nervous.

Taking a deep breath, Cisco leaves his perch on Zudomon and hurries across to MetalGreymon's helmet, keeping his eyes up and not on the water below.

As soon as he's aboard, Cisco moves for to cling onto the horn.

"Okay, I'm here, it's cool," he says, waiting to make sure everything is actually cool before he'll let go.

"Good. Knew Cisco was in good hands with Jyou."

With a sort of resigned sound over another pair of ruined shoes, Barry forgets about his wardrobe to focus on Yamato.

"He must be a pretty good reporter," Barry comments, then adds, "Once things got serious with MadLeomon showing up your dad was quick to let me get him and his people out of there."

"Don't worry, I promise not to tip you into the water," Taichi says cheerfully.

Once on the helmet, it's possible to notice that while MetalGreymon's metal parts are quite cool, even cold, Taichi himself is radiating heat the same way Yamato radiates cold when using his powers, giving off wave after wave of it.

MetalGreymon lifts his head again, carefully keeping it level, and sets off back towards the shore, flying close to the water with the very tips of his claws skimming it.

Yamato gives a faint chuckle at that noise, knocking one foot-claw against Barry's shoes in what might be meant as a wordless apology.

"I'll chalk that one up to him realising that you could just speed him away to a shelter quicker than he could react," he says, a little dryly.

"I trust you guys," Cisco says, "I'm more worried about dropping myself into the drink."

The ride isn't very bumpy at all though, and before too long Cisco finally relaxes to have a look around and enjoy it.

"Man, I wish I had my own giant/mech flying dino transport. That would be awesome."

"Yeah, I was trying to avoid having to go that route," Barry replies with a bit of a chuckle.

"If you want to check in on him I can take you to where I left him," he offers.

"Thanks. It took some work unlocking this form -- the first time I tried to access the powers of my Crest, all of Greymon's flesh melted off and he tried to kill Yamato instead," Taichi says cheerfully. "It wasn't until a few weeks later that I managed to do it properly and unlock this form instead."

"He'll be fine, probably," Yamato says wryly, and nudges a foot-claw against Barry's foot. "I'm more worried about you right now. Looks like you might've gotten hurt a little, not that it seems to have slowed you down any."

"Oh damn... " Cisco says, eyes widening and immediately rethinking the having a Digimon partner thing. "I didn't know the learning curve was that steep. I think maybe I'll just build myself a robot. Or finally get around to getting one of the Milliways Jaegars up and running."

Barry bumps his shoulder against Yamato's and shakes his head.

"I'll be alright. I took some damage, but nothing speed healing won't fix up."

"I don't know what a Jaeger is, but everyone loves a giant robot," Taichi says. "We're lucky in that the flesh-melting evil skeleton thing only ever happened to me and Agumon, and Gennai sent us to train with Piccolomon to fix it right away."

"I'll spare you the ice bath and bandages for your leg, then," Yamato says wryly. He nods towards the sky, and specifically towards the distant, but getting closer, shape of MetalGreymon. "Look, Taichi and Cisco should be here soon."

"Giant robot that fights kaiju monsters," Cisco explains simply.

"I guess that's lucky," he replies. "Still, it must've sucked."

"Well I appreciate the thought anyways," Barry says with a laugh.

Turning his head, Barry looks out and spots the trio en route.

"Yeah, you're world is definitely way weirder than mine," he notes, watching the approaching somehow flying dinosaur.

"I kind of didn't want to evolve Agumon at all for a while afterwards," Taichi says, with a slight laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. "-- Which annoyed Yamato more than the murder attempt."

Yamato snorts, shaking his head, and dismisses his hybrid form, claws and ears vanishing into data as his hair turns from white to ash blond. It leaves him barefoot -- evidently his shoes didn't survive the initial transformation -- but he doesn't seem too concerned.

"I don't know what you mean. It's just a flying cyborg dinosaur. Your world'll be full of them before long, probably."

"Dude, I don't blame you," Cisco says. "I know when I've had projects or experiments go bad I don't want to touch it with a stick for a while after."

When the ears vanish Barry reaches over to ruffle Yamato's hair in the spot where they used to be.

"You're about as kind to footwear as I am," he notes, nodding down at Yamato's bare feet.

"Whatever you say, man," Barry says with an amused eye roll that shows just how not not-weird flying cyborg dinosaurs are.

As said flying cyborg dino gets closer, Barry raises his hand in greeting.

"What's up, guys?"

"Well, we were stuck in the Digital World at the time. Not like any of us had the option of staying out of fights."

MetalGreymon lands in the middle of the carpark, lowering his head to rest against the ground, although it's still a ten foot climb to get down. Taichi just slides down instead of climbing, letting friction do the work of slowing him down.

"We ready?" He asks Yamato.

Yamato, who had briefly nudged his head against Barry's hand at that hair ruffle, but probably wouldn't admit it, gives a quick nod, pulling his digivice from his belt.

"Everyone," he says, tapping his earpiece, "get ready to open the Gate again."

He and Taichi hold up their digivices, and there's a faint glow of blue and orange from their screens. Up in the sky, symbols start appearing one by one: Taichi's eight-pointed sun first, then Yamato's two-pronged moon, then a heart, two circles, a teardrop, a cross, a half sun over a mountain, and finally an eight-pointed star. The sky splits open between them, opening wider and wider, until the edges of the Gate can't be seen at all and there's just the Digital World floating above them, hanging in the sky.

MadLeomon vanishes into a streak of light, racing up towards the floating planet, and before long there are more streaks of light flying towards it. When the last one lands somewhere around a large desert, the Gate shuts again, the normal blue sky folding over it before everything settles back to normal once again.

Barry looks up and watches as the sky lights up and the portal opens. He glances down at MadLeomon and watches him dissolve and then fly skyward as a beam of light, followed by others from around the city.

"Woah," he says, astonished and impressed as the sky returns to normal.

Cisco watches the light show from atop MetalGreymon, raising his phone up above his head to capture pictures of the open portal in the sky.

When it's over he takes a picture of Yamato, Barry and Taichi below, then shouts out, "Hey! A little help?"

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