[center][h3][color=DarkBlue]DemiDevimon[/color][/h3](feat. [color=silver]Shogo Tatsugami[/color] and [color=lightpink]Azumi Akaishi[/color])

Location: Gateway
Skills/items used: Demi Darts[/center][hr]
DemiDevimon watched from her newfound perch as the little wisp pestered the lanky brat- Tatsugami Shogo? What weird names these humans had- before making for the small crowd gathering around the half-dead lizard. She simply did her best to crane her body upwards, trying to get a good look at what was playing out.

“I’m guessing that’s the Corruption?” Shogo asked, in a tone that suggested he knew the answer already but was hoping to be told otherwise. He was more perceptive than she'd have expected of a complete fish out of water: she'd felt his eyes probe into her just as much as hers had into him, as if he'd clocked her as a potentially more reliable guide than Dominimon. It made her wonder how he'd allowed himself to be so easily taken in by a bundle of junk data and secondhand obsessions and the obviously shifty little squirt who'd 'claimed' her-

“We should help, but… shit, if an angel can’t do anything, is there anything we [i]can[/i] do?” But perhaps he was simply earnest, not worn down enough to immediately assume the worst of people when there was a point of familiarity to be found. The lapse in his tone was an obvious tell of genuine concern, so his attempt to navigate the situation clearly wasn’t entirely based around personal gain. 

[color=lightpink]"Uh..."[/color] The little squirt- Akaishi Azumi- furrowed her brows, clearly at a loss. Like with the taller brat, she seemed more complex than the loudmouthed, obviously conniving little shit she made herself out to be, the momentary unwitting slip of her mask suggesting concerns beyond the purely mercenary ones she’d touted. [color=lightpink]"I dunno how the funny digital animal medicine works.”[/color]

She wondered how much of her personality was real and how much of it was her desperately fighting to stay in control: the other brat had spoken highly of her, and she clearly thought as much herself, but DemiDevimon had felt just how tightly she’d held on to her back there. It was as if it had been the only thing stopping the ground from opening up beneath her to swallow her whole. There was clearly something more to this one-

[color=lightpink]” Hey, Auntie, how's it work here besides the angel casting heal? You got doctors? Vets?"[/color] But right now, there were bigger concerns, most significant among them being the Digimon on death’s door. [color=lightpink]”...Leeches?"[/color]

[b]”Something like that.”[/b] DemiDevimon had never exactly been the model of a nurse, always more ready to gouge, stab or outright [i]maul[/i] someone rather than apply anything resembling TLC. But a lifetime of honing her skills and talents hadn’t left her entirely bereft of anything to contribute; she couldn’t heal Vemmon any more than Dominimon had, but if the Corruption hadn’t dug its claws in [i]too[/i] deep… she didn’t have her tools, but she remembered how she’d gotten started, back in the Edge City days. The odds were slim, but not zero. 

[b]“You. Come with me.”[/b] She turned her gaze back to Shogo from the crowd gathering around the other Digimon, barking the brusque order at him without further elaboration before taking from her perch atop Azumi’s shoulders towards them. 

Among the crowd gathered around Vemmon were two of the other humans; she hadn’t had much of a chance to gauge personalities other than the two she’d just spoken with, but besides the one who was seemingly partnered to the wreck, who was huddled over it desperately attempting to establish enough of a link to stabilize them before the inevitable, it seemed another of them had made a valiant but ill-fated attempt to cure the infection coursing through it, moved enough by the urgency of the situation to trigger her first usage of the totem left by a Digimon who [i]hadn’t[/i] made it.

To an extent, she stood by her initial impression of the humans. They were strange and ungainly, the largest among them still seeming frail enough that she could likely tear them asunder even in her current diminished state, not to mention anything else lying in wait. She doubted they’d last long on their own, whether Dominimon decided to throw them straight at the Corruption or not: but whatever they lacked physically, they seemed to make up for in guts. Guts would take you far, and she was willing to bet that was what Dominimon was banking on, appealing to that well-meaning spirit to rope them into affairs before they could comprehend the severity of the situation. 

Her blood began to boil anew, but after a brief moment she took a deep breath to cool it: it was as he said, they were at a limit in dealing with the Corruption before it devoured them all, and at this point pulling humans in felt like a [i]restrained[/i] option compared to whatever else was on the table. But of course, he could only approach the situation the way the other Angels had taught, concealing cutthroat politics beneath holy platitudes and a keen interest in maintaining their preferred order beneath a claim to 'champion the true and righteous'. 

She knew all too well the cost of keeping these ideals, for it was paid in blood. Blood she wasn't willing to see shed once more if it only amounted to a sacrifice to grease the gears of a great and terrible machine that feared its own end more than the demise of those it was meant to serve. 

[b]“You’ve probably figured this much out already, but this isn’t a sickness you can cure or pray away.”[/b] She offered to the two humans as she came to land near Vemmon, offering a pointed glance to their host. There was a lot she wanted to say, to lay into him until he either snapped or gave up his rehearsed nonsense to talk [i]sense[/i]. But it wouldn’t help the humans or their patient any more than he seemed able to: the sound of long footsteps from behind her as Shogo likewise joined the crowd gathering around the dying Digimon brought her fully back to attention, and her gaze back to them. [b]“So long as it’s there, it’ll keep coming back; if you want to help this one, you need to go deeper. Pull it out by the roots so it can’t get them in again.”[/b]

Spreading her wings out again slightly to secure herself some room, she raised a claw, tracing it along the creature’s armoured hide. Like her, they must have reverted when they arrived here. Reversion was a natural, if often unwelcome part of life for Digimon, returning to a simpler form to mitigate the impact of wounds or a scarcity of energy sources, sacrificing power for a shot at survival and clawing your way back up when you were back on your feet. Unlike her, however, Vemmon's reversion had clearly been under circumstances more dramatic than their host’s apparent incompetence; there was no visible external damage left to outline exactly what had happened, but the Corruption’s influence was felt all the same, eating them up from the inside even as Vemmon’s system did their best to compress and contain it. 

Whoever or whatever they’d been before they got here, the poor thing was clearly a fighter. As she withdrew her claw, taking note of the seam it had found in the otherwise pristine armour, she only hoped their efforts would be enough for her to meet them in the middle. 

[b]“I can’t promise this’ll work,”[/b] she said, withdrawing her wings as she decided on her course of action; and as the glint of something long and metallic appeared in the grip of her claw. [b]“But it wouldn’t be the first time I pulled something horrible out of someone.”[/b]

[b]“Hold them steady!”[/b] She barked to Shogo and the human who had been attending to Vemmon, as she turned the Demi Dart in her hand and drove it through the seam of the other Digimon’s armour towards the soft tissue beneath, and the baleful cancer churning within.