EQG Frontier

Two weeks had passed since the Rainbooms and their new friends had first entered the Digital World, and in that time things had been oddly quiet. Both in the Real World and the Digital World. Within the walls of Twilight Sparkle's mansion, the ten had gathered together to discuss this very oddity.

"So Azulongmon said our enemy wouldn't be idle," Sapphire said. "He said they'd be relentless. Well it's been two fucking weeks and we haven't really had any trouble."

"That's really weird," Twilight said as she connected her D-Tector to her computer, pulling up her map of the Digital World, courtesy of Azulongmon. "It seems like the Celestial Digimon have been backing off on a lot of their campaigns, focusing their attention on something else. What it is, I couldn't even begin to guess. But I'm sure it's nothing good."

"Maybe they're planning something for the Real World?" Facet suggested. "From what Sunset saw in Ogremon's mind, I don't think they'll be content to wait until they've fully conquered the Digital World to start getting footholds in this one."

"That's exactly what I was thinking," Twilight said as she smiled at him with a blush. "I was hoping it's not, but logic is hard to dispute."

Facet looked over the map intently. "Two weeks and thus far only token attacks are made that require calling in Sunset or Flash to deal with. Something to try to keep our attention."

"So let's go find out what they're up to and kick the shit out of them," Sapphire suggested as she leaned on a wall.

"We can't afford to be reckless, sister," Facet replied. "Especially when only two of us have Spirits in their possession."

Sapphire scoffed and pushed off the wall before walking out of the room.

"Should somebody go after her?" Fluttershy meekly asked.

"Leave her be," Facet said. "My sister doesn't like inaction. Especially when she feels threatened. Just give her some time."

"So all we can really do is just keep going about our business until something changes," Sunset said. "Still. It wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on Sapphire."

"I would appreciate that, Sunset," Facet said as he kept poring over the map. "I feel like something big is about to happen. And these gut feelings tend to be right. None of us should go around alone if possible. Least of all those of us without Spirits."

"I'll follow her," Sunset said before leaving as well, using her D-Tector to track Sapphire's.

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, the basement area of an apartment complex was being explored by Canterlot High's resident fools Snips and Snails.

"Wonder what we'll find down here," Snails said as they walked around, looking at some of the things that were in storage down there.

"No telling. People keep some weird stuff in their basements," Snips replied as they reached the boiler room. Snips' gaze then feel on something that did not belong. "What's that?!"

Before them was what looked like TV static forming in thin air. Static that was slowly widening into some manner of portal. A fog started forming in the boiler room as the portal appeared to stabilize, revealing a laboratory of some sort on the other side. Standing before the portal from the lab side was a strange looking robot thing with its right eye covered by a yellow lens, while the left eye was exposed. Its head was a cylindrical dome that exposed its brain to sight, and it walked on four legs, its long arms and dexterous hands examining the portal. "Stable for the moment just being open," it spoke in an intelligent, if somewhat comically high pitched, voice. "Hm..." It reached out to stick its hand through the portal, which caused the portal to fluctuate chaotically for a briefly moment before it pulled its hand back. "Not strong enough to let Ultimates through just yet."

"As long as we can get through, it'll be fine right now!" An irritated voice out of sight came up. "And what about witnesses?"

"Well there's a couple of humans watching the portal," the machine creature said. "If you can't pass through, I'll just close the portal."

Move it, Datamon!" the irritated voice demanded.

"Be mindful of your manners, Candlemon," Datamon warned in a suddenly menacing tone.

"Right! Right! Sorry!" Candlemon quickly apologized before revealing itself, a living candle with a lit flame atop a candlestick. A flame that was grinning just as wide as the one on the candle. Sticking a hand through the portal, which didn't fluctuate this time, it grinned and hopped through. "Hey there, humans! How's it going?"

Snips and Snails didn't answer, being far too frightened to even move.

"Candlemon, the next test please," Datamon prompted.

"Right," Candlemon said before streams of data started gathering around it in an egg shape. "Candlemon digivolve to... Meramon!" The data scattered to reveal what could be best described as a man shaped creature made of fire. The room's temperature suddenly shot up, Snips and Snails starting to profusely sweat. Turning to the portal, Meramon stuck its arm through, the portal remaining stable.

"Right. Looks like the portal can allow anything below Ultimate through at present," Datamon said as it turned to another creature and knelt in respect. "Given more time and data, I can make it stable enough to let Ultimates through, and in time, Megas as well."

"Well done, Datamon," a deep, reverberating voice that sent chills up Snips and Snails' spines spoke. "You once again demonstrate why you are our chief scientist."

"I live to serve, Lord Cherubimon," Datamon replied. "What of the human witnesses?" Snips and Snails flinched in fear at that question.

"Do with them what you will," Cherubimon said in a dismissive tone as he turned and departed the lab.

Datamon chuckled as several more Candlemon jumped through the portal into the Real World. "Do with them as I will... Wonderful."

Snips and Snails finally made a break for it, rushing to escape these monsters. "Crimson Flame!" A wall of fire sprang up in the doorway of the boiler room, blocking their escape and raising the temperature even further, the Candlemon closing in around them with grins on their faces.

"You can stop trying to hide, Sunset." Sapphire Valley's words surprised Sunset, who came up and started walking with Sapphire. "I figured out the tracking feature too," she said in answer to the unspoken question.

"Right..." Sunset muttered, wondering why she thought she wouldn't be noticed.

"Did my brother send you?"

"No. I decided to follow you myself. Facet said none of us should go anywhere alone."

"He's always been the practical one," Sapphire muttered. "I used to get into all sorts of trouble, and he was always there to get me out of it."

"Sounds like you two are close," Sunset said with a smile, thinking of her own brother back in Equestria.

"Sure," Sapphire said dismissively before looking at Sunset with a frown. "By no means does this make us friends."

"So what will make us friends?" Sunset asked before the sound of sirens cut the air.

"Police, ambulance, and fire trucks," Sapphire said. "Something big is happening. Like a wreck or something."

Their D-Tectors beeping got their attention. Pulling hers out, Sunset saw Azulongmon's emblem on the screen. "What's going on, Azulongmon?"

"A portal from the Digital World has opened in the Real World not far from your location," Azulongmon answered. "It is the enemy."

"Well then what are we waiting for?" Sapphire asked. "Time to kick some ass!"

Sunset received a beacon pointing toward the portal. "Let's go then." Following the beacon, Sunset and Sapphire were soon led to its location, and gasped in horror. They had been led to an apartment building. And that building was in flames. The police had blocked off the area so that the fire fighters could work more easily, but it almost seemed like the blaze was fighting back.

Sapphire looked around. "I see a back way to get close to the building. Come on." Against Sunset's protests, she led her to a part of the building that wasn't burning yet, and an open door. "We can get in through here."

"You mean I can get in through here," Sunset said. "You don't have your Spirit yet, so just wait here." Lifting her left hand, Sunset formed a ring of fractal code and scanned it as data gathered around her. "Execute! Spirit Evolution! Agunimon!" Now clad in the form of the Warrior of Fire, Agunimon broke the door down and entered the building, soon finding the parts that were burning. And why the fire was fighting back. There were Candlemon everywhere feeding and taking potshots at the emergency workers from within the flames.

What really made her nauseous though was the immolated corpses she could see. And there were other bodies as well that had died from smoke inhalation. Gritting her teeth in fury, Agunimon charged the nearest Candlemon and started using it as a bludgeon against its fellows, digitizing them as she went and making things more workable for the fire fighters.

Wait outside, she said. She doesn't have her Spirit yet, she said. Well Sapphire Valley wasn't one to sit idle and let other people fight. So here she was making her way through the burning building, hair tied back, rag over her face as a mask against the smoke, fire extinguisher in hand putting out any Candlemon she came across and digitizing them.

"Stop! You'll kill me!" Her latest victim protested.

"That's the idea," Sapphire coldly replied. "Like I'm sure the idea behind this attack was to kill humans." Once the Candlemon's fractal code revealed itself, Sapphire lowered the extinguisher and pulled out her D-Tector and digitized the Candlemon. "Next?"

"Burning Fist!" Sapphire rolled out of the way of the fireball that whizzed past her and hit a wall.

"Calling your attacks makes you horrible at sneak attacks," Sapphire noted as she stood and faced the new one. Not a Candlemon, but a Meramon. "You the head honcho of this attack?"

"That doesn't concern you, human," Meramon replied as he walked toward her.

Sapphire raised her fire extinguisher and pulled the trigger, only to discover to her horror that it was now empty. "Aw shit!"

Right before Meramon could attack, Agunimon burst through the wall and tackled Meramon. "Sapphire get out of here! It's too dangerous!"

Meramon punching Agunimon kept her from saying more, but Sapphire saw a beacon come up on her D-Tector, pointing her toward what she really hoped was her Spirit. Following the beacon, she was led further in, where it got hotter. Sweating, she kept low to avoid the smoke, and soon found a storage room that, oddly, was covered in ice that the flames weren't melting. The reason was encased in a block of ice and broke that ice away to reveal a bust of what looked like a snow bear in green armor.

"My Spirit!" Sapphire breathed. Pointing her D-Tector at it, she pushed the scan button and drew the Spirit into her D-Tector. Grinning, data gathered around her as she formed a ring of fractal code around her left hand and scanned it. "Execute! Spirit Evolution!" The heat ceased affecting her as green armor overlaid itself around her before enclosing her and changing her form. The data scattered to reveal her new form, a short bear in green body armor that seemed made of snow, with a rocket launcher of sorts on its back. "Kumamon!"

Kumamon looked at herself and sighed. "Of course I'm a fucking snow bear," she muttered in dejection. Hearing the hopping of a Candlemon behind her, Kumamon whipped around while drawing her rocket launcher. "Snow Bomber!" She fired a barraged of supercooled snowballs from the launcher at the Candlemon, quickly subduing it and digitizing it. "There's just no end to these things. Gotta cut them off at the source."

Agunimon bursting through a wall courtesy of Meramon knocked Kumamon from her thoughts. "Sapphire?!" Agunimon asked when she saw her.

"Kumamon," she corrected as she looked at Meramon. "Find where these digimon are coming from and see if you can cut it off. I got this."

Agunimon nodded. "Right. I can't hurt them with my attacks anyway." As she ran off to find where the Candlemon were coming from, Kumamon looked eyes with Meramon, the intense heat not even bothering her in the slightest. After a few tense seconds, they moved at the same time.

"Snow Bomber!"

"Burning Fist!"

The two attacks met in midair and made a cloud of steam. Which Kumamon took immediate advantage of. "Crystal Breeze!" Sucking in a deep breath, she exhaled a frigid wind that cooled the walls around and froze them, killing the flames nearby, even forming ice on Meramon.

Growling, Meramon flared up. "Crimson Flame!" Under the increased heat, the ice on its body melted along with what had formed around it and Kumamon. "Magma Bomb!" A superheated rock launched from Meramon's hand at Kumamon, who jumped up to dodge it, letting it impact the floor and knock a hole in it. Kumamon's dodge had placed her directly above Meramon.

"Tsurarara!" Turning her body from the neck down into a sharp icicle, Kumamon drove down into Meramon's back and knocked it down through the hole in the floor down a couple of stories.

"Crimson Flame!" Meramon flared up again, knocking Kumamon away and back into her normal form. Drawing her launcher, Kumamon took aim as Meramon was getting up. "Snow Bomber!" The supercooled snowballs were melted by Meramon's fire aura as it got to its feet.

"Crystal Breeze!" Kumamon exhaled another frigid wind that iced up the hallway and Meramon, who quickly melted the ice.

Agunimon finally made it down to the boiler room, where she found the portal that linked the Digital World to the Real World. "Found the portal. Now how do I close it?"

"Oh there's no closing that portal without my say or if the one holding it open, like Meramon is, is digitized."

Agunimon looked at the source of the voice and saw Datamon. What truly horrified her though, was the sight of Snips and Snails strapped to vertically tilted operation tables with what looked electrodes and heart monitors attached to them. "Let them go!" She yelled as she jumped toward the portal, knocking aside the Candlemon that attempted to stop her.

Datamon simply glanced at her out the corner of its eye and lifted its empty left hand. "Plug Bomb!" Its four fingers opened and released a quartet of dart sized missiles that impacted against Agunimon with greater impact than their size suggested and threw her back against the wall opposite the portal. "Now now, Warrior of Fire. I just acquired these two. I can't just release them. I have so many tests to perform, hypotheses to refine."

"What did they do to you?!" Agunimon demanded as she got to her feet, a glare on her face.

"Oh nothing at all," Datamon replied. "They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. For them anyway. Experimentation, observation, and documentation. That's all a scientist cares about. And I am a scientist." Reaching over to a console, it pushed a button. "And now I must close the portal so I can continue refining it."

"But we still have digimon out there!" a Candlemon protested.

"Do I look like I care?" Datamon asked as the portal began to slowly collapse. "Rookies and even Champions are expendable and easily replaced. More importantly, I cannot have that Warrior continuing to attack me and risk damage to my laboratory and more importantly distracting me from my work."

Agunimon dashed at the portal again. She could grab Snips and Snails, then open her own portal back to the Real World. Just as she jumped at the closing portal, another Plug Bomb salvo knocked her back, and by the time she had recovered from the shock, the portal finished closing. "NO!!!" Gritting her teeth, Agunimon began taking her rage out on the Candlemon surrounding her, beating them to pulp and digitizing them.

Working her way around the complex, Agunimon found Kumamon right as she was digitizing Meramon. "Kumamon! We need to get out of here! There's something we need to tell the others!"

Kumamon nodded and together they made their way out of the complex, Kumamon taking the time to freeze any flaming areas around to help out the fire fighters.

"Datamon why would you abandon our comrades?!" A Candlemon demanded of the scientist as it typed on a massive computer that looked more like a pipe organ, even the keyboards being keys of such an instrument.

"All I care about is my work," Datamon said as it kept typing. "Our lords and lady require only that I get results for them. And I have done so repeatedly. I am above reproach by any but them, and I am valuable enough that they will turn blind eyes to anything I do to any of my lessers or superiors besides themselves so long as I continue producing results. Now begone. I'm busy."

"You could have at least let the Candlemon come back through before-" further protests were silenced by an offhand Plug Bomb, Datamon absorbing the Candlemon's data into itself before continuing to type.

"It's impossible to find help that's nice and quiet to let me work," Datamon lamented as it saved a file and turned to its newest subjects of experimentation. Snips and Snails were trembling in terror as they watched it approach them, their terror causing them to shed some tears. "Now now. No need to fear me. I'm not going to kill you. No. I'm have too much data to obtain from you for that. Now then. Which one to start with..." Its gaze fell on Snails, who froze under its eyes. "Yes. You'll do nicely. Now then, let's have a look at your fractal code."

With a flip of a switch, Snails was made to fill the lab with his screams as he was electrocuted.

Within Twilight's lab, the TV was tuned into a news report on the apartment fire the Candlemon and Meramon had started.

"Authorities are baffled by the blaze that consumed this apartment complex," the on scene reporter said. "Though they have determined the fire to have started in the boiler room, no signs of arson have been found, and there is damage not consistent with a simple fire. This on top of the numerous hallways that were covered in ice that did not melt under the flames. The ice is currently being collected for study. As for the nearly 200 residents, only 50 survived, and only because they were away at the time of the fire. Anybody within the complex was killed by the fire and smoke, however some look as though they were directly cremated in a way that doesn't match the spread of the flames. We will continue to follow this story as more information is-" Rainbow cut the TV off in frustration.

"Dammit!" Rainbow slammed her fist down on a table. "So all this time they were getting ready to attack us here!"

"Rainbow calm down!" Applejack insisted as she took her stetson off.

"Calm down?! Applejack you heard that reporter! Nearly 150 people died in just the first attack!"

"And Snips and Snails have been turned into prisoners on top of that," Sunset said from her seat. "Not just prisoners. Lab rats..."

"Datamon have never been known for much sense of ethics, but the one that acts as the Celestial Digimons' top scientist is particularly unscrupulous." Bokomon's voice came from the computer, Azulongmon having directed Twilight in linking it to the Digital World for ease of communication. "I cannot begin to imagine what he plans to do to those unfortunate boys."

"He's so small... I thought I could take him but he just basically backhanded me!" Sunset said, running her hands through her hair.

"To be expected. Agunimon is merely a Champion level digimon, while Datamon is an Ultimate," Bokomon said. "You were simply outclassed."

"Digimon have levels now?!" Rainbow asked incredulously.

"Have you not been paying attention the last couple of weeks?" Facet asked. "They have six power tiers. Fresh, In Training, Rookie, Champion, Ultimate, and Mega. Mega being the Celestial Digimon and Sovereigns for example. Raw power alone won't see us through this."

"Dammit!" Sunset snapped as she clenched her fists. "I expected an ultimate to be larger, but Datamon's so small I mistook it for a Rookie... And now Snips and Snails are paying for that mistake."

Fluttershy set her hands on Sunset's, prompting Sunset to look her in the eye. Fluttershy's gaze was hard and determined. "We'll get them back. And make Datamon pay for hurting them."

Sunset visibly cheered up at the voices of agreement to rescue Snips and Snails. "Yeah. We'll get stronger. We have to."

"On that note I will put feelers out for your Beast Spirits as well as your Human Spirits," Bokomon said. "The Beast Spirits are on the level of Ultimates, and so will be of more use down the road."

"Speaking of Human Spirits," Twilight said as she started typing. "I've finally put together a program that can locate the Human Spirits. I'll do a scan for them. Unfortunately, it can only track one at a time." After several minutes, the scan locked onto a signal in the Digital World. "Got it. Found one in a place called Flower Village."

"Ah. It's quite famous for its plant life, hence the name," Bokomon said as Twilight typed, sending out the signal to link it to one of the D-Tectors. A beeping from Fluttershy's indicated it was hers.

"Now we can proactively hunt our Spirits," Twilight said with a smirk.

"I'll go with her," Flash said. "I need to blow off some steam, and we're sure to face opposition."

"I'll go too," Applejack said. "Same reason."

"Same," Rainbow said as she stood up.

Twilight nodded and stepped away from her computer, holding up her D-Tector and opening the gate for them. "Be careful."