Author's Note

At least I managed to finish this chapter before the end of the year

In any case have a nice new year everyone, I hope the will to write stays with me during it

9: Battle at the edge of the Everfree!

During her walk towards Derpy’s home, Tailmon noticed less activity than previous days from the ponies.

That strange feeling still bothered her, ‘something is definitely wrong here, but what could it be?’

When Derpy’s house was in sight, for a brief moment she could swear she saw a figure in front of the door, “what was that?” she rushed to the house. Upon reaching the fence she saw a note sticking out from the door frame. She jumped the fence and read the note, also noticed there was a drawn map with it. As she read the note her eyes shrunk in shock, “there’s no way…” suddenly she jumped to the roof and confirmed the direction the map was pointing at was correct.

Jumping down; she saw Derpy on her way to the house, she looked nervous and scared.

“Kitty!” Derpy landed and ran to the fence door where she reunited with Tailmon, “is something bad happening? Everypony looked scared and was saying we should go to Town Hall.” The nervous tone in her voice was very prominent.

“Derpy, there’s something attacking the town from an area near the house of someone named Fluttershy. You go to Town Hall with the rest and get to a safe place,” Tailmon decided to tell her what she knew, since lying could probably end up in something worse.

“But Kitty…” Derpy got interrupted by Tailmon’s paw blocking her mouth.

“Derpy, I don’t want you to get hurt. So, please listen to me and go to safety,” Tailmon said softly, ears folded backwards. Then her expression changed to a cocky smile; ears back up, “I’ll take care of this, so don’t worry about it!” she ended with a playful wink.

Even though she wasn’t totally sure about what to make of the situation, Derpy believed in Tailmon’s words. “Ok Kitty, I’ll go with everypony. Just be careful ok?” she asked with concerned eyes, but still had the smallest of smiles.

“Will do, now go to safety Derpy. I’ll go with you later,” Tailmon said before running in the direction marked on the map.

‘I’m sorry Kitty, but… I can’t run away on my own and leave you behind,’ Derpy thought as she followed Tailmon, going against what they just decided. ‘Everything will be fine… I just… I just, need to be careful yeah!’ her nervousness about the situation wasn’t any lower though; especially as she started to see smoke in the distance.

Meanwhile back in road at the edge of the Everfree, some houses were already burning by stray fireballs.

The ponies were focusing on evading the relentless attacks of the ‘dragons.’

“Look at them go, and here I thought master sent us to an easy and boring invasion,” The big one sitting in a rock at the edge of the river had the creepiest of smiles as he chuckled darkly.

Twilight’s group kept on being pushed backwards by the constant pressure, “Girls no matter what, don’t get hit by that black fire!” she yelled as she ducked under a fireball and firing a magic blast of her own, just making her opponent stumble backwards with a shake of his head upon hit. Twilight wasn’t trying to hurt them badly but she expected her magic attacks to do more than just slightly annoy them.

“We can’t keep doing this Twi!” AJ rolled to the side as one of the enemies tried to slam his claw into her. She took the chance and kicked his lower jaw but other than a short rubbing with his claw she didn’t saw any actual damage being done.

“She’s right, darling. If this keeps up, there will be no town to defend anymore.” Rarity and Fluttershy tried just to keep their distance.

Pinkie bounced all over the place dodging attacks, “Why are you so grumpy!?” Then took a pie from her mane, aimed and threw it at one that was trying to launch another fireball, it splashed all over his face upon contact, “have some of the sweetness! Maybe then you’ll be nicer, you grumpy pants!”

Then they heard a hoof stomp, “I’m tired of this!” Rainbow yelled angrily, swiftly side stepped a fireball and then launched herself full speed against her opponent, “You’re going down!”

“Rainbow no!” Twilight helplessly screamed in hopes that her friend would stop but it was to no avail.

Rainbow’s opponent tried to impale her out of the air, but she quickly reacted to it by going to ground level and sliding below the clawed arm, “Surprise!” then with both of her front hooves she jumped with force tackling the black ‘dragon’ to the ground; at which point she delivered a shower of punches at his face surprising everypony. Her opponent’s left arm went her way but she jumped out in reaction, then grabbed the arm that tried to hit her and with all her might she spun her body in the opposite direction, lifting the ‘dragon’ over her head and slamming him in the ground with an audible grunt. “How’s that?” she said with a smirk.

The big one grew an amused grin, “that’s the spirit colorful one, but you need to put a bit more juice into it if you expect to hurt us.”

“Wha-” Rainbow looked back at the one she slammed and saw a claw going her way, without enough time to fully dodge the claw smacked her sideways in the face making her lose balance and fall to the ground in a dizzy state.

Just when the now towering enemy was about to attack her again, a lasso caught him by the muzzle. With a strong tug of the rope Applejack made him turn around, completely missing his target. She then pulled back barely dodging a fireball that burned her rope, which she had to spit out in a rush to not get burned herself, “That was close.”

At that same moment Rainbow recovered and tackled the one with the rope tied to his muzzle again.

Rarity not being a fighter herself wasn’t the most adept to battle, but she saw rolls of fabric from a destroyed store and caught them in her magic just as the brute in front of her pounced for another attack. She extended part of one of the rolls as if trying to block the attack but the enemy easily ripped the piece off, but this was part of Rarity’s plan as she used the cut part to blindfold her opponent then go around him and with the other fabric tightly rolled up, she whipped at him with utmost finesse and malice, the damage wasn’t the best but the initial sting of the whipping was enough to get some yelps out of him. “Take that and that, you brute!” She exclaimed as her leg was in sync with the whipping fabric as if she was slapping him with her own hooves, “I will teach you some manners!”

Rarity was enjoying herself so much that she momentarily forgot what was going on as a fireball was making its way to her, when she noticed her eyes got wide but Twilight managed to teleport and put a shield before it collided, the flame splashing around them harmlessly but still managed to burn Rarity’s fabric whip. “Thank you, darling,” she was grateful nonetheless.

“No problem Rarity,” Twilight said, trying to hide her concern, ‘this isn’t good, they are too resilient. None of our attacks seem to be working. What can we do about this?’ without much thought she tried levitating the one that has been fighting her, it was very heavy but she managed to do it. With all her focus she sent that one to crash against the one that finally managed to get off Rarity’s blindfold, just to get ran over by his friend flying at him at high speed the collision made them roll on ground a few feet.

Twilight wasn’t so sure anymore if putting so much magic into what she just did was actually worth it, she was sweating from the sheer effort and just saw them shaking their heads and getting up again.

Rarity was worried, “Twilight, are you alright?”

Twilight on the other hoof couldn’t hide her concern anymore, “this isn’t good, Rarity. These dragons don’t seem faced by anything we do. Worst of all they have high magic resistance, I can barely lift one of them with a lot more effort than it’s worth.”

Pinkie seemed to fare alright, she was able to bounce around all the attacks that came her way and started countering with her party cannon. This just served to be an annoyance to her opponent though.

Fluttershy just tried her best at hiding, while the one after her was just playing around until he could manage to catch her, licking his muzzle in anticipation.

Rainbow kept on connecting hits, but she also received some. By the looks of things she was doing worse than her opponent, as she was bruised in some places while her adversary barely if at all got affected by all the attacks he received.

She tensed her legs and flared her wings widely, “I have no choice but to risk it, I guess.” The one in front of her could just stare in confusion at her statement, it also picked up the attention of the big one in the back.

Rainbow launched herself head first, seeing that her enemy took the bait and was about to attack her she dodged by jumping above him and landing behind; using her fore legs to lock him from below his arms. Then with all the strength she shot high up in the sky, “You stinkers are heavy, but let’s see how much you enjoy this treat I’m gonna give you!” she went up and up as her body started to give a rainbow colored glow, suddenly she changed trajectory now directly diving down to the ground below.

Twilight took a glimpse of this, “what is she doing?” she saw her friend speeding up each passing moment until she heard familiar explosion, followed by a rainbow ring in the sky.

As the Sonic Rainboom happened, Rainbow started spinning rapidly looking like a drill with a rainbow spiral behind. “RAINBOW SPIRAL CRASH!” She yelled as she let go of her flying partner and bounced upwards midair to stop shortly after. Her companion wasn’t as fortunate, the rainbow colored drill kept going until it crashed in the ground in a rainbow colored explosion by the absurd amount of energy that got build up from such a speed; it left a small crater after impact.

Rainbow panted tiredly, that stunt took a toll on her stamina it didn’t help that she was carrying something heavy with her making the burden of her muscles even more. “How… did you… like that!” she said between heavy breaths.

Everyone stared dumbfounded for a moment trying to process what happened.

“Woo hoo! Go Dashie!” Pinkie cheered soon after.

For the first time it looked like something they did was effective, the one in the crater was wincing in pain still not recovering enough to get up.

“Since when in-tarnation did ya learn ta do that Rainbow?” A.J asked as she took the chance from the distraction to kick the one opposing her in the back of the head making him face plant in the dirt. She hopped backwards avoiding getting back clawed in the face.

“Did you think I was twiddling my hooves during that last week Kona was here?” Rainbow recovered her breath, “Nuh-uh, we were training. I was saving it for the cat if something bad happened, but these guys will do too.” Still her legs felt like jelly and were all woobly, she decided to sit for a moment to let her limbs rest even if it was for a second or two.

‘Heh, this is certainly more entertaining than I hoped it would be,’ the big one mentally laughed from his spot next to the riverbank.

“Umm… excuse me,” Fluttershy asked to her chaser while still keeping well away from him, “can you please… stop chasing me?” she pleaded meekly, “If it’s not a bother that is…”

“Can’t do, I’m hungry and you look delicious,” he frankly told her getting an ‘eep’ from her.

“B-but we could invite you something to eat, wouldn’t that be enough for you?” she keep trying to reason with him.

But to no avail, “that’s too much trouble, when I can just eat you all.” He was decided to eat them no matter what.

“B-but…” she moved away of a collapsing wall her chaser went through.

“Shut up, and stay still!” He demanded with a threatening tone.

“Please… l-listen to me…” even though her voice was barely more than a whisper she sounded slightly annoyed.

“I said stay still!” he then tried to slam his claw into her, but she dodged with a newly formed frown.

“AND I SAID LISTEN TO ME!” Fluttershy’s voice suddenly became a yell, an angry scowl in her features, “Listen here mister, what you’re doing is something really mean! You’re destroying some poor pony’s home with this pointless chase of yours. You should be ashamed of yourself,” she motioned for all them, “all of you should be!” her eyes then fixed into the one in front of her, staring directly into his’ with a certain power behind her stare.

All the ‘dragons’ just stared in baffled amusement at the outburst, while the ponies were hoping that Fluttershy’s Stare could tip the scales in their favor at least a little.

The one receiving the stare was stuck momentarily but the reaction he suffered wasn’t like any of the normal targets of the stare, he started to heavily drool as his yellow eyes were emitting a dim glow giving him a crazed look, well even more than it already was. In a swift movement and due to the concealed space they were in, he smacked Fluttershy in the side of her body and out of the air; making her crash through a support beam and right to the dirt road as the rest of the roof fell down for not having anything else supporting its weight.

The energized black being went through the rubble soon after. Ever so slowly approaching the shaking pegasus in the road, a toothy smirk adorning his face, “I don’t know what you did, but now I want to eat you even more!”

“Fluttershy!” Twilight called as she looked at her downed friend, but her ear twitched at the sound of a fireball being tossed behind her. By reflex she put up a barrier slightly nudging the fireball and changing its direction, this made it blow up on the ground next to her; knocking her out and making her roll on the dirt for a couple of feet. The edge of some of her feathers being charred by the remains of the flame. “Urgh…” she let out a pained grunt, any movement she made was starting to feel painful.

‘Come on, move! Body don’t let me down now!’ Rainbow made her best effort to go help Fluttershy, but her running was uncoordinated and stumbled more than once making her quite slow. To rub salt into the wound her opponent was recovering from her previous technique.

Rarity wasn’t doing much better, beads of sweat were dripping from her forehead along with a labored breath. She didn’t know what else to do at this point other than attacking by throwing pieces of rubble towards her opponent, “Stay away, you ruffian!” regardless this did little to deter him from advancing.

Applejack with some quick thinking ducked below a claw and kicked her enemy’s leg below the knee making him trip forward. She was ready to take off towards Fluttershy but she didn’t think that her opponent was almost as stubborn as she was, as he was falling he tried to chomp the apple pony but only managed to catch the end of her tail, stopping his fall with his claws he threw his head in the opposite direction pulling Applejack backwards by her tail and swung her over his head a couple of times before trying to slam her.

Wanting nothing to do with the feeling of being slammed in the hard ground again, Applejack quickly spun her body midair and softened the impact with her front legs. Then delivered a strong kick in her attacker’s nose prompting him to jerk his head in the other direction indirectly making him bite a little too hard and ripped the tip of Applejack’s tail, freeing her from his jaws. But this small altercation still prevented her from reaching Fluttershy.

Pinkie managed to slip away and made a full speed gallop towards her friend, but was too far away to reach her in time.

They all watched in horror as Fluttershy was about to get bitten in front of them without being able to do anything to prevent it, Fluttershy herself just braced for whatever was going to happen to her.

Until something at great speed collided with the side of his head making him fall sideways, whatever hit him packed quite the punch and it left a small cloud of dust upon impact.

Pinkie didn’t know what happened but welcomed the help regardless, she reached for Fluttershy and carried her away on her back.

“Heh, seems like you need a little help here, don’t you?” everyone turned their attention to the source of the voice, they saw Tailmon in top of a roof holding a piece of rubble in her paw.

Tailmon scanned the scene, and saw everyone’s conditions, “Seems like the only one who did something was Blue. I’m kind of disappointed Twilight, Applejack,” she pointed out, getting a smirk from the tired Rainbow and shameful looks from Twilight and A.J. “But don’t worry,” they perked up at that, “I’ll take care of these Black Agumon,” she then aimed at the Agumon that was close to Twilight and threw the piece of rubble, this flew just as fast as the one before and knocked down the dark digimon. She jumped from where she stood and landed next to downed alicorn, “you ok, there Twilight?”

“I h-have been better, I’m n-not going to lie,” Twilight forced a smile through her pained body. Tailmon then helped her back into her hooves, “So, these are digimon too?

“Yes these are rookie level digimon,” Tailmon approached the one she knocked down before, “regardless, it’s time for a cleanup,” she picked him up by the leg and threw him in the air effortlessly before connecting a strong punch in the gut sending him flying towards the big Agumon in the back.

The big Black Agumon finally stood up and growled angrily, he pointed at the small digi-cat, “Focus on that Tailmon, the horses aren’t even worth the hassle.”

Tailmon grinned mockingly, “Well, that will save me some trouble.” Before jumping into action she threw Rainbow a quick glance, “whatever you did, good job Blue. Were you saving that for lil old me, perhaps? I’m so sorry that I couldn’t experience your little surprise first hand.”

“Shut up,” Rainbow said in annoyance, “I’m sure it wouldn’t have worked on you anyways.”

“Maybe,” she started as she ran towards the one close to Rarity, she jumped over two fireballs going her way and slid between her target’s legs grabbing them and swung him in the other direction to block another fireball. “But you never know until you try,” then she tossed him at the closest pile of rubble where he got buried by it. She looked at Rarity, “go with your friends, quick.”

Rarity nodded and ran away, “thank you,” she muttered under her breath.

Pinkie, Fluttershy, Rarity and Twilight regrouped some distance away, only Applejack and Rainbow were separated from the group.

Seeing as how their previous advantage was dissipating quite fast, the big Agumon grew an irritated scowl, “Capture one of the horses, now!” He ordered.

The one Agumon that was fighting Applejack focused on her once again, along the one that fought Pinkie. As well as the one Rainbow managed to hurt was going after her with the one that was after Fluttershy.

Tailmon was split between helping Applejack first because she was closer or going for Rainbow.

“Go with Rainbow! She can barely move, Ah’ can hold ‘em for a bit, so go help her!” AJ yelled as she was assaulted from two different directions at once.

Rainbow herself wasn’t in a very good position, she was cornered against a wall as the injured Agumon closed the distance towards her, and the other one came running from the other side. She didn’t have the energy to fight them, and was barely able to dive under an attempt to grab her from the injured Agumon. But by doing this she landed in front of the other one, her eyes widened as she saw this one trying to grab her as well.

“Not on my watch!” Tailmon came from the side and connected a punch on the side of his head, making him stumble backwards. She then grabbed one of his extended arms and threw him towards the injured Agumon, crashing into him soon after. “Come on, Blue. Let’s get you out of here,” she picked up Rainbow.

“Heh, it feels so strange seeing you trying to help me,” Rainbow admitted and as she was carried by Tailmon her expression also transformed into one of regret, “I’m sorry for fighting Derpy the other day.”

A little smile creeped into Tailmon’s face, “there will be time for apologies later, for now let’s focus on the task as hand.”

Regardless of it, Tailmon was getting very irritated, by how these Agumon were trying to get a cheap shot at her by capturing her friends instead of fighting her head on.

Her eyes widened slightly in shock as she saw how Applejack was doing. She managed to avoid getting caught, but was still getting beat up by the swinging of the arms and the close calls when they tried to grab her. She didn’t notice Pinkie running to help AJ.

With another close dodge ending in a back claw connecting with her stomach, Applejack landed in the dirt with the air forced out of her lungs, and twitching in pain.

Tailmon hurried to leave Rainbow with her friends, and immediately ran back to help.

As one was about to grab Applejack, “Don’t worry Applejack, I got this!” Pinkie cart wheeled multiple times and launched herself hind legs first connecting a double kick on the side of one of the Agumons, moving him out the way. Angry at the interruption that Agumon flailed his arm without seeing and managed to hit Pinkie while she was still midair, making her crash in the ground, “owie…”

Tailmon mentally thanked Pinkie for the help, but saw that the other Agumon was about to grab Applejack now, “Applejack!” she screamed as she put even more effort into running. Then she saw the Agumon stopping mere inches away from AJ, a purple glow surrounded him.

“Tailmon, take the chance while I hold him back!” she heard Twilight’s voice from behind her. It wasn’t much but those precious seconds were enough to close the distance, she jumped and punched the one Twilight was holding back; then spun her body and whipped the other one in the eyes with her tail followed by a kick in the stomach sending him rolling backwards.

As Tailmon was helping AJ up, she heard a fireball being tossed, “You pest!” the growly yell of the big Agumon resounded with the fireball going towards Twilight’s group.

Twilight managed to put up a barrier in time, but her injuries were taking a toll on her and her magic reserves were low at this point. The fireball exploded on contact breaking the barrier, and producing a shock wave that sent the ponies flying in different directions “Ahhhh!” multiple screams sounded in unison.

“Twilight… no…” Tailmon said in a whisper, but she didn’t expect to see a gray pegasus with a blonde mane and tail on this place, then saw the big Agumon grinning maliciously as fire was coming from his mouth along two more that stood up once again despite their injuries, “Derpy!”

Derpy was scared, very scared. She just wanted to see if her friend was ok, she did not expect to see Princess Twilight and everypony else getting hurt so badly, she was trembling in place from shock and fear. She could only watch as the fireballs headed her way.

With fast movement Tailmon managed to swipe one of the fireballs with her paw, the burning sensation still affecting her. But she underestimated the speed of the other ones, with barely enough time she leaped in front of Derpy.

The barely conscious ponies could only watch in horror as the fire closed up on Tailmon and Derpy. Twilight, with almost no energy left tried to ignite her horn, but nothing came out other than a few pathetic sparks.

In a last ditch effort Tailmon pushed Derpy away to be as distant from the explosion as possible.

“Kitty!” was the only thing Derpy could say before the fireball exploded on Tailmon, the produced shockwave sent her crashing into a wall and then the ground hitting her head in the process. She weakly tried to extend a hoof towards her friend who lay in the ground close to her with burn marks, before the world went black for her.

Tailmon opened her eyes. She felt disorientated, her body aching and with a ringing sound in her ears, she shook her head a couple of times to regain some sense. Just for her eyes to shrink in shock as they landed on Derpy’s still form. “Derpy...?” she muttered in disbelief and crawled towards her, “Derpy?” she gently poked her body a few times receiving no response, her eyes started to glisten, “heh… t-this is a joke right…?” she stuttered. Very carefully Tailmon held Derpy and brought her to a hug, “You will be fine, r-right Derpy?” she audibly sobbed at this point, then felt something warm in her paw holding Derpy’s head, looking at it she saw a bloodstain. “No… not again… not you too…” Tears freely fell from Tailmon’s eyes over Derpy’s cheek.

The ponies teared up alongside her, as even if they weren’t able to hear what was being said, just seeing Tailmon’s trembling form and behavior told them what happened.

The Black Agumons on the other hand were cackling amusingly, despite their troubles they enjoyed seeing the despair of their victims.

‘They are responsible for this, for her to have ended like this. Those Black Agumon are the sole reason Derpy ended like this,’ said a voice in Tailmon’s mind, ‘but also my own weakness, I couldn’t protect her because I was weak…’ her tail whipped the ground with force leaving a small crack, ‘but it’s too late now… I don’t care anymore, I don’t care about anything anymore,’ her red gloves with black stripes turned dark purple with red stripes, ‘but…’ she gently placed Derpy in a cushion that flew from a nearby house, and stood there looking at her for a few seconds before turning around.

Something was clearly wrong with Tailmon; that much the ponies could tell. Especially Fluttershy who started seeing a strange dark aura around the digi-cat, this sent a chilling sensation down her spine.

Tailmon suddenly opened her eyes with a frown full of rage. Not only that, but her eyes were bright yellow like the Agumon’s now, “I WILL SEND YOU ALL TO HELL!”

She launched herself against the closest Agumon, she was even faster than before. The Agumon reacted by throwing a fireball but Tailmon effortlessly slashed through it, her gloves having a strange glow when she stopped in front of him and winded up to attack.

“Neko punch!” she yelled as she threw her paw forward, the Agumon tried to block it but Tailmon’s attack went through the arm and subsequently through his torax leaving a gaping hole, defragmenting him as he fell to the ground. Particles of data flew from the disappearing Black Agumon’s body, but soon after these were being absorbed by Tailmon making her tail become black and the fluff at the tip purple.

“One down, six to go,” Tailmon stated in an emotionless voice while looking at the other Black Agumon, who recoiled from the intimidating glare.

‘Is this how it’s going to end? Were all of our efforts in vain?’ was the only thing Twilight could think of after seeing Tailmon killing and reversing back to a cruel fighter.