Digimon Adventure Tri: Echo

53) Cracking Facade

For a long time, the Chosen Children could do nothing but stare at Piemon, shock settling heavy over the air of the region. Nobody could figure out what was the right thing to say, and Takeru was no exception. He felt as if all of the breath had been pressed out of his lungs in a desperate attempt by the universe to suffocate everything he had ever understood. Something in the back of his mind was screaming, and a thousand questions spun in his mind before he could fully comprehend the effort necessary to speak the words that had surfaced to him. 

Piemon stared at them for a long moment in return before he let out a laugh that echoed through the heavens like the world's most twisted song. "The looks on your face truly do entertain me. But if you stay caught up in your shock, then you aren't going to be able to make this an interesting battle for me. Perhaps history can repeat itself with me turning each and every one of you into something a bit less... Aggravating. Wouldn't that be interesting?" he asked, each word dripping with masked malice like he was leaking endless poison. 

"How are you here?" Taichi eventually questioned, forcing himself to his feet with some degree of speed despite how sluggish he had been in the aftermath of being thrown from Imperialdramon's back. "You... You should be dead. We saw you disappear. You can't possibly have--"

"Survived?" Piemon finished for him, tone edging on something mocking. "Perhaps you should have checked a bit more thoroughly to make sure that I was truly gone. Instead, you only left me the perfect chance to slip beneath the radar and start planning for the day that I would see you all once again. And now, that moment has finally arrived."

"You were the one responsible for the signal," Yamato muttered under his breath. "You've been in the world of fire all this time, and that's the reason that all of this is happening in the first place."

Piemon let out another laugh, and Takeru wanted to either punch the clown until he fell silent or slam his hands over his ears to block out the noise. "How clever you are! You're much larger than I remember, but it isn't as if wit or age is going to do anything to change the inevitable outcome of this battle," he proclaimed. He was just as dramatic as he always had been, and Takeru felt like the world was going to end. Maybe the world already had ended. It certainly wouldn't have surprised him if that was the case. With all of the fire streaming up into the sky combined with the endless haze of smoke, the area truly did look like many artist interpretations of hell, and that only made the situation worse. 

Imperialdramon was starting to rise back to his full height, and he unleashed an energy blast in the direction of Piemon, the energy cannon on his back sparking to life. The blast was so powerful that it sent a few rocks scattering in all directions, but Piemon didn't even flinch in the face of the attack coming toward him. He simply created a silvery blade and slashed it vertically, cutting a perfect sliver through the blast that was just wide enough for him to slip through without being damaged. The energy continued on either side of him, and it wound up slamming into the fiery creatures that were behind him. Those that were hit by the cannon strike were incinerated essentially on the spot, and data began to fuse with smoke in the sky overhead, further serving to darken the heavens. 

"We need to get more of the Digimon over here," Sora murmured. "We're going to need more power than just Imperialdramon to possibly fight back against Piemon. Now that we're away from the fiery creatures, we can surely spare at least a few of our partners to come over and help us. He's the greater threat, isn't he?"

HolyAngemon was the first one to dive in the area, and all Takeru could do was stare at the sight of his partner suddenly streaking into his vision. HolyAngemon's sword was extended in front of his body, and he was following it downward in a diving motion directed solely at Piemon's back. The clown remained still as could be for a long time, not bothering to shift his focus in the direction of his foe until the last possible moment. He whirled the sword that he had used to deflect Imperialdramon's attack and spun to face HolyAngemon, throwing the blade up to make sure that he was able to block the strike before it made contact. For a long moment, the two clashed the blades against each other's weapons, and sparks started to fly from the sheer energy that was being poured into the strikes.