"Hold on there, Ai!" someone said at that moment. Ai watched in surprise when out of nowhere, Impmon came falling and landed on top of her Blimpmon.
She smiled. "Impmon! It's nice to see you again! Have you come to cheer me on?"
He glared at her, then pointed his index finger at her. "This time, I won't let you go any further, Ai! I have failed you when I let you go with that creep... now I'm going to rectify that!"
Ai blinked. "Oh? And how do you want to do that? You know that nothing you say will ever change my mind, do you?"
"I know," Impmon admitted. "But that's not what I'm going to do. Instead... I'm going to challenge you to a contest."
Ai looked at him in surprise.
On the bridge of the MAGNADRAMON'S GLORY, multiple pairs of eyes were watching the confrontation.
"What's Impmon doing there?" d'Arcmon asked with disbelief. "Doesn't he know that our rays of light are harmful to his kind? We can't fire with him in the way."
"What shall we do, general?" one of the MagnaAngemon asked. "Open fire?"
"No, let him talk to her," Mie said. "I think he may be able to convince her not to start a massacre. After all, he knows what being a Demon Lord is like..."
"Who's in command here, you or me?" d'Arcmon grumbled. "And I know very well that he's one of the Demon Lords... that's why I never trusted him."
"But he has changed, d'Arcmon, don't you see?" Mie said. "If there anyone who can change your daughter's mind, it's him!"
d'Arcmon grumbled something and then reluctantly proclaimed: "I'll give him his chance. Let's just hope he doesn't turn our only chance into a disaster..."
Back on the leading Blimpmon of Ai's fleet, the little Lucemon had tilted her head. "A contest?" she wondered.
"Let's call it a game," Impmon smirked. "A game of tag, to be precise. I will do my best and hide among the ships. You will try your best to find me. If you manage to find me in one hour, you may do what you want. But if you don't catch me before the time runs out... then you call off your fleet and end this little game of cops and robbers."
Ai giggled and clapped her hands. "A game? I love games! Okay, I'll be counting to ten and you hide. But one hour... that's a bit long, don't you think? We don't want to make it too easy for you. How about we shorten it to 30 minutes?"
Impmon gave her an annoyed frown.
"What are you doing?" HolyCalumon asked.
Kei smirked. "I'm giving Impmon the chance to sweeten his deal with Ai. If he gives her the right answer, he may be able to negotiate a longer time, allowing Rika and her team to sneak aboard the blimps."
Stingmon frowned. "But how will he know what the choices will be?"
Kei smirked. "Easy: He will think he came up with the solutions by himself. You see, bro, even though we use this program to change reality, it's just as if everything would have happened like that in the first place."
Stingmon frowned. "Even... the way you and Eiko transformed?"
"EWWWWWWW!" a loud scream came out of Kei's room. "Oh, phew, that's, like, GROSS! How can one little Tanemon make such a mess? Kei, the next time something like this happens, YOU will be the one who changes your mother's diapers."
Kei sweatdropped. "Yes, even that."
The same moment Impmon was thinking about how he could make Ai accept the two hour time limit, Rika and her team arrived in the park.
"Give me a break!" BlueCeratomon gasped. "Now Ai has a fleet as well?"
"I wonder how she managed to bring those Blimpmon here," Dachsmon pondered. "You'd think we would have seen such huge Digimon flying across the city..."
"I don't care how she did it, I just want to end this," Kitsumon grumbled. "It's bad enough that my Dad is stuck at home and has to wear diapers because of Bimon's stupid prank. Let me tell you, I'm in the right mood to blast those blimps out of the sky!"
"Now let's not be hasty!" Renamon said and put a paw on her sister's shoulder. "What if those Blimpmon are transformed victims as well? We don't want any innocents to be hurt, remember?"
"Well then, what can we do?" Spyromon asked. "We can't attack the Blimpmon, because they might be victims, and we can't possibly help Ai attack the Heavenly Fleet. But we have to do something to avoid a bloodshed."
"I know my Mom is aboard d'Arcmon's ship, trying to do her best to stall the attack," Guilmon said. "So I say we try to get up there and stop Ai. If she's out, I doubt her followers will do anything too drastic."
"Oh, is that all?" Rika frowned. "I'm just reminding you, she has the power of a Demon Lord. It won't be exactly easy to stop her. Heck, I don't even know what's stopping her from attacking the Heavenly Fleet right away."
"I know," Cubmon said and pointed upwards. "Look!"
They all followed her gesture and saw the tiny, black figure that was standing in front of Ai.
"Is that... Impmon?" Dachsmon asked. "What's he doing up there?"
"If I'm not wrong, I'd say he's trying to stall some time himself. Let's just hope he can stall for long enough... so we can reach our little angel girl in time."
"Okay, I guess the plan is set," BlueCeratomon said and took out the Digital Stabilizer. "Anyone wanna digivolve?" he grinned.
Impmon was frantically trying to find a solution. In his mind, he thought of everything he could say. His next words would determine whether Ai would accept his time limit, use her own... or even shorten it even further. She was also waiting for a reply, now!
He took a deep breath. "Ai... if you give me more time, then... I will buy you a whole bag of chocolate chip cookies, just for you! What do you say?"
A surprised look appeared on Ai's face. Then a faint smile, which quickly turned into a wide grin. Impmon sighed in relief when she succumbed to the one and only Achilles' heel of every little child...
"COOKIES!" she yelled. "Yay! Impmon, you're the best! If you do that for me, I'll willingly grant you TWO hours!"
Impmon was surprised. He didn't expect his ruse to work that good. He then smirked. "All right, then turn around and count to ten. I will go and hide somewhere in one of the airships. If you can find me within two hours, you have won."
"Okeydokey!" Ai grinned. "But the two hours will begin after I'm done with counting. And no cheating!"
Impmon grinned. "Do I look like a cheater? All right, here I go!"
And while Impmon dashed off, Ai closed her eyes and began to count: "One, two, three, four..."
While Ai was counting, the Hybrid Tamers were using their Ultimate forms to fly up to the Blimpmon. Takato was the only one who was only in his Champion form Bariomon, since Giganotomon would have been to big... neither of them would have been able to carry him up here. Right now, he was riding on Sphinxmon, while AuraRenamon was sitting on Jackalmon's back.
"All right," Excalimon shouted. "Looks like the little guy managed to hold her off for now. Now all we have to do is to fly up there and..."
He gasped in surprise, when suddenly, a flock of little angels came flying out of the park.
"Ai is playing a game with Impmon," Manami said. "If you help him, it would be cheating. So stay back and let them play in peace!"
"Sorry, I'm not in the mood for games right now..." Sorceressmon grumbled as she raised her staff.
Manami smiled. "Oh, but we have a fun game we'd like to play with you... try to catch!"
The ChibiAngewomons and TinyAngemons all raised their index fingers and focussed their holy energies. While shining balls appeared at the tips of the boys' fingers, the girls summoned golden circles that looked identical to an angel's halo.
"HEAVENLY PITCH!" the boys shouted as they hurled their balls of light.
"HEAVENLY CIRCLE!" the girls added as they hurled their shining rings.
The Hybrid Tamers braced themselves when they saw this massive assault of holy attacks coming their way.
"I really hate this game..." Sorceressmon grumbled.
On top of the leading Blimpmon, Ai had just then finished counting and shouted: "TEN! Ready or not, here I come!"
"Um... did you plan that as well?" Holy asked while gesturing at the little angel icons that had appeared in the window next to her.
"No!" Kei snarled. "That's not fair! It was such a good plan... damn you, Bio!"
"You... think it was him?" Stingmon asked.
"Of course I did! Who else could have made that change, and even in the last minute after I came up with my own plan? I hate him so much... oh well, at least it can't get worse..."
Suddenly, the door bell rang. Stingmon and Kei froze in shock while Eiko ran to answer the door. "I'll go!"
Holy sighed. "Ai, I thought we all agreed on never using that sentence again..."
And then, they heard Eiko's frightened yelp.
"Hello?" a familiar voice asked. "Um, I don't know if this is the right place, but maybe you are Miss Asaji? The mother of Kei? I am Eiko's mother, and this is her sister, Yui... well, even if she acts a bit oddly right now..."
"Goo ga ga!" another voice babbled.
"I have come to pick her up, because of, well... you have seen the Digimon fleet flying towards the park, haven't you? And now Yui's acting so strangely again... can you tell Eiko I'm here?"
"Um... just a moment, please..." Eiko squeaked before running back to her Lillymon friend.
"Kei, my Mom doesn't recognize me anymore," she whispered. "What do we do now?"
Kei was going to answer, when she saw how her mother came toddling out of the bathroom, dragging a long trail of toilet paper behind. She giggled.
"No, Mom, don't do that!" she shouted. She picked up her regressed mother and groaned. "Why? Why me? God, why do you hate me so much?"
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(Posted Thu, 15 May 2008 20:20)
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