Beelzemon had remained quiet as BanchoLeomon arrived, at first almost oblivious to the lion’s presence as he wallowed in the torrent of emotions running wild in his mind, and then thankful that he was more concerned with talking to Examon than upbraiding him for running off. Not for nothing, but while he could have dealt with that ten minutes ago, it was all he needed now to completely lose his grip on the situation.
‘No more running away, Dirk.’ With uncharacteristic gentleness, Impmon nudged his partner within their mind.
‘I know, I know.’ He didn’t sound sure of it, but a moment later and they turned from Dorugoramon, looking over towards Examon and BanchoLeomon as they spoke, sparing only a slight wince as he watched the lion react to being told about Siggy’s predicament. ‘We have bigger fish to fry.’
Making his way over, Beelzemon gladly accepted the cigarette that BanchoLeomon offered him. Besides the reassurance that the lion could still think rationally, cliche or no, a good smoke would certainly help settle his frayed nerves before they dived into the chaos once more.
“I can’t really add anything to this particular conversation.” He began, taking a steady drag on the cigarette as BanchoLeomon lit it, “But-”
He paused, suddenly noticing that BanchoLeomon had seized up. He narrowed his eyes and leaned in-
“Sovereigns be damned, Ulforce was over the water, wasn’t he?”
The dam burst, the raging waters behind it crashing through Beelzemon’s mind all at once. His cigarette fell from his gaping mouth to the ground as his neck snapped around to look at the waters a short distance away from them, the words and actions of the people around him fading out to a seemingly-distant mumble as the full implications of BanchoLeomon’s words hit him.
He didn’t even process Examon vaulting over him, nor the torrent of water that crashed down onto the ruined asphalt around them as the tell-tale signs of panic crept into his sudden deep, rapid breaths.
Dorugoramon, silent as she has been since talking to Beelzemon, had been listening in eerie silence once again, piecing together the conversation and implications. Given that the two components of the draconic digimon were neither whole nor entirely rational at this point, it took Dorugoramon much longer to finally let the pieces click together. A chirp echoed inside her metallic maw as draconic head turned towards the bay where Examon had given his less-than-stellar diving performance.
“Ulforce… He’s in the bay?” A deep growl, but a more coherent sentence with a feral undertone. Of course, Dorumon once more exerted control with her unstable partner shifted to the back seat, not that Zei was in any condition to make coherent conversations anyway. Suddenly, her feet began to shuffle as she flapped her wings, clearly wanting to follow Examon’s diving performance, but not wanting to go anywhere near the aquatic expanse. Dorugoramon started pacing anxiously, tail sweeping up dust and water from what remained of the asphalt road and screeching angrily at the dark crimson reflection.
—
Meanwhile, in the waters below…
At Examon’s current depth, the waters of Tokyo Bay would have been dark at the best of times. With the obscuring veil of red and black blotting out the light of the day, he could only count himself fortunate that Alphamon’s presence bolstered his life-force enough that the glow from his form and the intense light from his eyes afforded himself enough of a field of vision to pick out some details of the seabed he was descending to.
”You know, I’ve always wanted to try diving myself, but Dorumon wasn’t built for swimming and Zei was, well, not suited for the water,” the ethereal Alphamon quipped, wanting to break the dread while keeping a second pair of eyes out for their missing azure comrade. ”That said, I doubt my own bulky form would’ve made swimming any easier, so I really shouldn’t complain.”
Indeed, it was almost fortuitous that he was the one to make this dive. While not exactly a marine Digimon, the sharp, aerodynamic form and lingering draconic biology of Examon Mordred made their descent through through the bay a relatively simple task, the movement of his tail and the force exerted by his limbs allowing them to cut through the water at a respectable clip.
“Look, if we survive this, I’ll take you diving for Gusokumon when we get back to the Digital World.” But while Examon tried to take Alphamon’s words for what they were, this latest development had clearly put salt in wounds he’d been doing his best to keep closed. “For now, can we focus on finding Ulforce before things get worse?”
Not helping matters was the seeming impossibility of the task before them. Besides their limited vision, the audio interference and pressure of the water around them made it difficult to pick out any signals that may have feasibly led them to a living UlforceVeedramon; as effectively as Examon could swim, that was where his affinity for marine traversal ended, and he was left relying on his severely-limited senses to pick out the possible location of their friend before time ran out.
As if on cue, Alphamon’s presence within Examon Mordred suddenly expanded outwards, his senses flaring with untold power and sharpness as if they’re being supercharged from the inside. The other digimon within began pulling her own weight while the dragon was left to wonder about what had happened, scouring the darkened water for any signs of Ulforce and tuning out the interference like shrugging off a breeze from her jet black armor.
“... Thank you.” It was a start, at least, and if nothing else Alphamon’s contribution was letting him think and act more clearly and confidently amidst the remaining impact of the pressure and interfering stimuli. His senses were still nowhere near as powerful as if on land, but now at least he could see perhaps fifty meters in either direction around him before his vision tapered off into the darkness of the waters, and separate possible tell-tale sounds from the ambience around them.
An ability he was all the more grateful for as the faint sounds of something struggling feebly against the water around it emerged gingerly into the very edge of his senses.
“Alphamon, do you hear that?” Wasting no time, Examon began to swim towards the noise; adjusting himself as he went to get his bearings for where the sound was coming from in the vast three-dimensional space around them.
”... 4 o’clock from our position.” Alphamon calmly replied, reinforcing Examon’s intuition on the matter. ”No other enemies, fortunately. Keep swimming.”
“On it.” Without another word or thought, Examon adjusted his trajectory again, moving through the water in the direction Alphamon beckoned. As he went, closing in on the sound, he began to focus, pushing against the remaining interference to attempt to tap into the link of the Hazard-users; it had been drowned out by the chaos of the enclosed space before, but anything was better than nothing to put the others at ease.
“No need to panic, I think I’ve found him. Hang tight, and keep an eye on things up there.”
—
A number of increasingly heavy minutes had passed since Examon dived into the waters of Tokyo Bay, with a similarly heavy and tense silence settling over the group gathered by its edge as they waited for something- anything- to clear the air on UlforceVeedramon’s survival. Besides the barely-repressed anxiety of Dorugoramon and Beelzemon, even Parasimon seemed visibly rattled despite his vocal dislike of the blue knight, with his copy of Avalon flickering impatiently as he looked out over the dark waters, as if he himself were debating following Examon into the depths below.
‘I –hink I’-- -oun- -im.’ But as a static-riddled noise intruded into his thoughts, he froze as the flickering stopped, straightening up and looking around in confusion. A moment later, something seemed to occur to him, and he raised one of his hands to his temple, and forced himself to concentrate upon the strange noise with all the focus he could muster.
“... It’s faint, but I think I’m picking something up from Examon,” he said after a moment, as he confirmed his suspicion; the other Hazard Knight was attempting to reach him over the link their kind shared.
At that, Beelzemon started with a jolt out of the wordless panic that had come over him, looking up hopefully towards Parasimon. Likewise, like a deranged beast, Dorugoramon’s head made a sharp turn towards Parasimon before the rest of her body followed suit, crawling in a mad frenzy towards the person on the other end of Examon’s Hazard-hotline. Any news was better than no news, but the zeal from the metallic dragon was certainly more intense than normal.
“I’m having trouble making it out,” Parasimon clarified himself, clearly not wanting to give the others too much hope if he wasn’t correctly picking out the garbled communications from Examon, “But it sounds like he’s found something that might be that blu- that might be UlforceVeedramon.”
“Thank fuck,” was Dorugoramon’s succint reply. While the dragoness hadn’t stopped whipping up dust and water droplets, she had at least stopped tenderizing the already battered asphalt road.
Meanwhile, BanchoLeomon paced impatiently back and forth as he waited with Beelzemon at the waterfront.
“I’m almost surprised drowning for this long hasn’t caused Ulforce to devolve and end the Biomerge.” He grunted, gazing out over the water.
“We’re already going to have to explain one unfortunate disappearance to a family member as it is. Wasn’t looking forward to making it two.” A pointed look at Beelzemon.
At that, Beelzemon turned to BanchoLeomon, staring at him with a mixture of shock and indignance. But before he could say anything-
“You lot are unfairly tough, take it from me.” Parasimon was the first to respond, sighing as he stared down at BanchoLeomon. “That aside, let’s just be thankful for whatever we can get at this point. If he’s still with us, maybe you all have a chance of getting through this in one piece.”
It seemed as if the lion’s words had hit the giant insect somewhere too, and Beelzemon was suddenly reminded of the profoundly uncomfortable conversation that they had had mere moments before Examon and Dorugoramon had turned up.
No, he thought, shaking his head. He couldn’t dwell on that now, Parasimon had said as much himself. He’d fucked up, he really had, but despite everything he was there with everyone else right now to put their best foot forward against the monster above them. He had come back from death to end this. If it wasn't too late for UlforceVeedramon, then perhaps it wasn't too late for all of them to join him, throw themselves into the dark waters and sink quietly into oblivion.
Beelzemon choked violently, his claws moving to his throat in a panic as he fell back to his knees. As he did, Parasimon tore his attention away from BanchoLeomon, staring down at the Demon Lord in confusion. Okay, that had been a low blow from the lion, and neither the Demon Lord or the human whose lingering soul upheld his form were known for subtle expression, but this was nowhere near the reaction he’d have expected.
"You all should have just laid down and faded away, and spared us the trouble of crushing you like the insignificant pests you are." Neither would he have expected the Demon Lord’s next words, a chill coursing through his body as he spat venom in a monotone voice alarmingly devoid of any of the impertinence, cockiness or wryness that the others had come to expect from the duo.
But perhaps more alarming yet was the vicious red light that suddenly cut through the dark haze and burned at his turned back. The chill deepened, and Parasimon was suddenly very conscious of how every single byte in his body was screaming at him to run.
"Before we smite your festering nest of a world, we shall relish every moment of your painful demise," Beelzemon finished, Moon=Millenniummon's baleful glare bearing down upon those gathered at the bay as the fog around them tore into a frenzied, roaring gale of red and black; and as the air above them exploded into a violent hail of crystal.
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