My whole body was a single ache. The Beetlemon armor around me groaned with every breath, like a car held together with duct tape and hope. That last hit from Jessica had caved in a section of the chest plate, and I could feel the sharp edge of it digging into me.
Her eyes were the worst part. Not angry, not scared—just empty. Like someone had flipped a switch and turned Jessica off, leaving only this perfect, obedient weapon. Her fist was already drawing back again, moving with this awful, robotic precision.
Hitting her back wasn't an option. The thought of it twisted my stomach into a knot. So I just braced, letting the armored plates take the impact, praying they'd hold.
The punch landed with a sickening thud that rattled my teeth inside the helmet. The metal screamed, and I felt a fresh, deep gouge tear open across the dent she'd just made. Sparks of electricity from my own drained systems sputtered across the new wound.
A sharp, insistent alarm started pinging in my head—a System warning about critical energy levels. De-Digivolution imminent. The suit was failing. I could feel the power draining away, the heavy bulk of the Beetlemon form turning from an asset into a clumsy prison.
And then I heard his voice, calm and smooth as oil.
"You're being quite tedious about this, you know."
Killgrave stepped out from the shadow of the ruined carousel, his hands in the pockets of his expensive-looking coat. The dim, sickly light from the broken park lamps washed over him, and he was smiling. Not a triumphant smirk, but the bored, slightly annoyed look of someone watching a slow-moving insect.
"Stand down, Jewel."
Jessica froze instantly, her fist stopping mid-swing. She lowered her arm and took a step back, coming to rest beside him like a statue. Her vacant eyes stayed fixed on nothing at all.
Killgrave sighed, his gaze sliding over my damaged armor. "All this noise. All this… resistance. It's really rather pointless."
Killgrave, now fully in the open, directed his gaze at me from the top of the carousel platform. His purple eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, like two smoldering coals.
His voice, amplified by the Shadowstone's power or just sheer confidence, cut through the air.
"Destroy your Digimon partners."
It wasn't a suggestion. It was a command, delivered with the weight of a final verdict. He let the words hang there for a second, his lips curling into a smirk.
"Starting with that little purple pest."
The wave hit me right after he said "destroy."
It wasn't physical, not like a punch. It was like a sickening, invisible tide washing through my mind. I felt it crawling over my thoughts, sticky and invasive, trying to overwrite my own will with a single, simple order.
My body tensed in Beetlemon's form. My arms, crackling with electricity, twitched. The command dug in, trying to root itself.
Impmon was right there. Gatomon was behind me. The order was to turn my power on them.
My mind screamed against it. It was like trying to hold back a river with my bare hands. The pressure was immense, a psychic weight trying to force my compliance.
And then something inside me shoved back.
It wasn't willpower. It was pure, raw energy. The constant electrical current humming through Beetlemon's form—my form—revolted.
The foreign pheromonal signal met my own buzzing, digital-human biology and short-circuited.
A sharp, painful jolt shot through my skull. It felt like sticking a fork in a live socket. The invasive pressure shattered.
And that jolt didn't just stop at my own head. It traced the command back to its source, a violent spike of pure, unfiltered voltage.
It arced out from me, a visible, snapping line of blue-white lightning that didn't go for Killgrave himself.
It went straight for the Shadowstone on his hand.
The stone pulsed once, a sickly violet light flaring wildly, and Killgrave's smug expression vanished. He gasped, clutching his hand as the artifact sparked and smoked.
The psychic weight lifted. Just like that.
I stood there, my beetle-armored body still crackling, the air smelling of ozone and burnt circuitry.
Oh.
So that's what happens when you try to hack a walking electrical storm.
"Gah—!"
Killgrave's cry wasn't a controlled shout of anger—it was a sharp, genuine yelp of pain. He clutched his hand to his chest, recoiling like he'd been burned. His face, always so smug and composed, twisted into something raw and startled.
And just like that, Jessica hesitated.
Her punch lost its fluid, terrifying precision. Her arm jerked mid-swing, and those vacant eyes of hers flickered. For a single, precious second, the sharp focus was gone, replaced by a dull, confused blur.
The feedback loop. It actually worked. He felt that. The connection isn't as solid as he wants us to think.
Killgrave was sputtering now, staring at his own hand like it had betrayed him. His whole face was a mask of pure, unadulterated disbelief. This was a man who'd never been told 'no' in his life, and my electrical surprise party had just given him a very loud one.
No time to celebrate. This chaotic opening was my only ticket.
"De-Digivolve!"
The command ripped from my throat. My Beetlemon armor flickered violently around me, the blue and yellow plates dissolving in a burst of crackling light. The bulk vanished, leaving me just Ethan again, lungs burning and energy reserves critically low.
Conserve what's left. We're not done.
"Impmon! BlackGatomon! Cover!"
"You got it, boss!"
Impmon, still looking a bit dazed, cackled and unleashed a wild, sweeping barrage of purple fire blasts. They weren't aimed at anything specific—just tore through the air, hitting support beams, the ground, the empty ticket booth, filling the space with noise and heat.
"My pleasure!"
BlackGatomon zipped into the chaos with her usual mischievous glee. She was a blur of black fur and dark energy, dashing between the flashes of fire, creating disorienting after-images and sudden bursts of shadow.
They weren't trying to damage anyone. They were creating the world's most aggressive, magical smoke screen.
Through the strobing flashes of flame and shadow, I bolted.
I didn't look back at Killgrave's furious, pained face. I didn't check on Jessica's frozen form. I just ran, weaving through the skeletal frames of abandoned rides, diving into the deep shadows between concessions stands.
Gatomon was right beside me, a streak of white. We were out of there.
Behind us, the furious, bewildered sputters of a man whose absolute control had just been publicly defied echoed through the empty park. I didn't know what came next, but we'd bought ourselves a few seconds.
Right now, that was all that mattered.
***
Donate Power Stones to support this novel
Advance chapters in patreon.com/Najicablitz