Chapter 68

Before you could really get a chance to come up with a plan of action, the ground shook with loud, thick footfalls and a howl of rage resounded through the air.

"Leomon!" a roar resounded from the stair well up to the platform you were on.

You whirled around, along with everyone else, just in time to see the hall of the stairs smash open, debris flying everywhere and a massive Cyclonemon bound through, rage shining in its one eye.

"I'll gut you pussy!" it roared, and you saw steaming power gather in its maw, before it threw its head forward, unleashing a large red hot beam of plasma towards you all, "Hyper Heat!"

Those around you jumped into action, Leomon grabbed Jeri and jumped out of the way, while Taomon formed a barrier around herself and Ruki.

You didn't bother moving, you just huffed and stood up, holding your hand outstretched and thrust forward. Your palm hit the beam of red hot plasma, and slapped it into the air where it passed seared through the roof easily.

"That was hot." Ruki commented, nodding approvingly from behind the barrier Taomon provided.

"Hilarious," you rolled your eyes, shaking out your hand to rid yourself of the burning sensation, "Though, it did burn a bit."

"W-what the!" Cyclonemon stepped back in fear seeing its strongest attack being negated so easily.

To be fair, it did do some damage to you. But you're stronger than a mere Champion without your gear on, and while that attack would have hurt even an ultimate to a degree, with your gear on, you were sure you could take on even mega level digimon.

And what little damage it did do to you, scalding and blistering your palm, was rectified moments later by the regeneration you got from Cerberumon. So it the outside observer, it looked like you casually negated the attack without issue.

It turned on its massive lumbering feet and raced towards the stairway up out into the real world, but using one of your newest and most versatile abilities, you raised your hand up and clenched it into a fist, and a noose of wind wrapped around the draconic digimon's neck and dragged it into the ground hard enough to crater it.

"Woah!" Jeri shouted from Leomon's arms, "How'd you do that!?"

"..More importantly," Leomon cut in, walking over to you while holding Jeri in one hand and his sword in the other, "Why does this digimon detest me so? It has hounded me since the moment we met eyes when we first appeared."

You shrugged.

"Don't you know anything?" Ruki huffed, casually walking over as Taomon dropped her barrier, she reached into her card box and lifted one out, and handed it up to Jeri, "Here read this."

"Ah, okay," Jeri blinked, taking the card, "Let's see, it says A one-eyed Dragon Man Digimon with an abnormally developed right arm. It was originally a stalwart dragon warrior, but its right eye was crushed by the warrior Leomon, and it became an oni of revenge- oh that's probably why, that was mean Leomon!" she turned from reading to scolding her digimon.

Leomon huffed, "That wasn't me!" he nearly whined, "That was the original Leomon!"

"Exactly," Ruki pointed out, "It's like how we evolved as human's through our surroundings. The same applies to digimon, and it's hard wired into a Cyclonemon's data to hate a Leomon on sight."

"Ah, that's kinda sad," Jeri frowned, before shaking her head and handing the card out to Ruki again, "Here's your card back."

"Keep it, I've got multiple," Ruki replied, pushing her hand back, "And you don't seem to have any cards on you, use it to let Leomon use Cyclonemon's Hyper Heat attack if needed with your digivice."

"Excuse me?" Leomon blinked.

"Digivices can do that?" Jeri gasped.

"Yeah," you chimed in, you felt Cyclonemon struggle with all its might against your wind manipulation powers, but it was far too weak to overpower you, "Just swipe it through the little opening in the side, and say the name of your digimon, Digi-Modify and the name of card, in this case, using Cyclonemon's card to let your digimon use its Hyper Heat or Strength Arm abilities." you explained.

Leomon shook his head in wonder, "Again I am now understanding why so many digimon sought out a tamer of their own," the lion man digimon gasped, "The sheer versatility I would have using the powers of other digimon is hard to imagine."

"You don't know the half of it big guy," Ruki snorted again, eyeing you knowingly, "Either way, what's your plan for this guy?" she asked a moment later, jabbing her thumb at the struggling Cyclonemon.

You shrugged, "I'll just destroy it and let Leomon load the data," you replied easily, you then turned to Leomon and smiled apologetically, "No offense, but you're the weakest digimon here right now, and having to protect you if any really strong digimon pop up could be a pain."

"..That cuts deep." Leomon lamented.

"There, there," Jeri patted him on the shoulder from where she sat in the crook of one of his massive arms, "Just think of it like you started a race a lot later than everyone else by giving them a head start, and now you're catching up."

Leomon sighed, but smiled, "..Thank you Jeri."

"Whatever," Ruki shrugged, "That thing's too weak to give my digimon much anyway. But I call the next one we see unless you need it for something, Saberdramon's my weakest digimon by far right now, he needs to catch up to the other two."

"Fair enough," you shrugged, then clenched your hand and a sphere of wind compressed around the Cyclonemon and crushed it out of existence, leaving nothing but data behind, you winced. "Eesh, that was a lot more brutal than I was going for, I was going for just crushing its head, I'll need to work on control later."

"Suck it up," Ruki walked over and flicked you on the nose, while Leomon began absorbing Cyclonemon's data, "The power gap was so big it died pretty much instantly, it probably didn't even have that much time to feel anything before turning into data."

..It was nice of her to reassure you, but still. You won't be using this skill until you've trained with it a bit. What if you tried to grab Ruki with the wind, and accidentally crushed her to death? Most of your abilities were straight forward, but the ability to manipulate the wind as a whole, that was something else entirely.

It was like flexing a limb you hadn't moved in ten years after being in a coma. you knew how to achieve what you wanted, you just didn't have the control needed to do it right now.

You shook your head, "Let's get a move on alright?"

"Fine with me," Ruki shrugged, "As long as you're done being a wimp and checking out Jeri."

"I wasn't checking her out!" you denied flatly.

"Yeah you were," Ruki rolled her eyes, "I saw your eyes zero in on her tits quite a few times, you really do have a thing for stacked redheads huh?"

Goddamnit, this again?