The pumping station smells like rotten eggs and something worse underneath. Something old.
Jessica follows Ethan through the rusted doorway, her boots splashing into ankle-black water that shouldn't be this warm. The walls are coated in something iridescent, like oil slick, and it pulses faintly in the dark. Her stomach turns.
Ethan stops at the threshold. He doesn't look back at her, but his voice is low and steady.
"Stay behind me. If I say run, you run."
She nods. He can't see it in this light, but she does it anyway.
They move deeper. The corridor opens into a vast chamber, and Jessica's breath catches. The ceiling stretches up into darkness, supported by concrete columns wrapped in pipes that drip that same iridescent fluid. And in the center, standing in a pool of water that glows sickly green—
Shaujinmon.
His robes hang heavy and dripping. The nine beads around his neck pulse like a heartbeat, and the third one—the cracked one—is leaking something that isn't light and isn't shadow. His eyes find them immediately. That soft, polite smile that makes her skin crawl.
"The Chosen Child," Shaujinmon says. "And the girl who won't stay down. How persistent."
Ethan doesn't waste time on words. He raises his Digivice.
The transformation is blinding. Blue light swallows him, and when it fades, BurningGreymon stands where Ethan was. The heat hits Jessica like opening an oven. The water around his feet hisses and steams.
Gatomon and BlackGatomon leap forward. Golden light erupts from both of them simultaneously. When it clears, Angewomon spreads eight wings on one side of the chamber, and LadyDevimon's bat-like silhouette unfurls on the other. Light and shadow, side by side.
Jessica's heart is hammering. This is happening. This is really happening.
BurningGreymon moves first. He charges straight at Shaujinmon, Corona Blaster firing from both arm-cannons. The beam cuts through the dark water, vaporizing it in a line of steam. Shaujinmon raises his staff and deflects it, but the force drives him back two steps.
Angewomon is already airborne. Celestial Arrow streaks down like a lance of pure light. It strikes Shaujinmon's shoulder and he staggers, his robes burning where the holy energy connects.
LadyDevimon comes from the other side. Darkness Wave rolls across the water's surface, and where it touches Shaujinmon's feet, the ground beneath him cracks and crumbles. He drops to one knee.
Jessica feels something loosen in her chest. They're winning. They're actually winning.
"Now," Ethan's voice rumbles from BurningGreymon's throat. "Jessica. Impmon. The civilians."
She doesn't need to be told twice. She runs along the chamber's edge, Impmon zipping beside her in a blur of purple. She can hear them now—muffled cries from behind a collapsed section of wall. People Shaujinmon dragged here. People he's been draining.
Jessica grabs a chunk of concrete the size of a refrigerator and hurls it aside like it's made of cardboard. The strength still surprises her every time. Behind the rubble, three people huddle together, their eyes glassy and distant.
"Can you walk?" Jessica asks.
One of them nods. She doesn't wait. She grabs two of them under their arms and starts moving. Impmon herds the third, his small hands surprisingly gentle on the man's back.
Behind them, the battle roars. She risks a glance over her shoulder.
Shaujinmon is on his feet again, staff spinning, deflecting Angewomon's arrows and LadyDevimon's shadow strikes. But he's struggling. His composure is cracking. Water splashes wildly with each movement.
Then Impmon shouts something she doesn't understand—words in a language that sounds like grinding stone. He fires a blast of purple flame, not at Shaujinmon directly, but at the base of his staff. The impact disrupts Shaujinmon's stance, and for one critical second, his guard drops.
BurningGreymon doesn't miss. Pyro Punch connects with Shaujinmon's chest, and the sound is like a thunderclap. Shaujinmon flies backward, crashing into a concrete column.
The third bead on his necklace fractures further. A spiderweb of cracks races across its surface.
Jessica sets the civilians down near the corridor entrance. "Keep going. Don't stop."
She turns back. Impmon is already moving toward Shaujinmon again, and she runs to catch up. Together they close the distance while the Digimon press the assault from above and behind.
Shaujinmon rises from the rubble. His face is twisted now, that polite mask gone. His eyes are wide and wild.
"You don't understand," he hisses. "You don't know what you're—"
The third bead shatters.
The sound isn't like glass breaking. It's like a scream compressed into a single note, felt in the bones more than heard. Shaujinmon's mouth opens in a silent howl. His body convulses.
The water changes.
It rises. Not like a wave—like it's alive. Tendrils of corrupted water coil upward, wrapping around Shaujinmon's legs, his arms, his torso. His robes tear. His skin splits along lines that glow purple-black, and something underneath pushes outward. Something that isn't Shaujinmon anymore.
His body distorts. Bones crack and reshape. His spine elongates. His fingers fuse into claws. The water isn't just around him now—it's in him, replacing what he was with something ancient and furious.
The station groans. Pipes burst. Columns crack.
BurningGreymon's flames sputter and die as a wave of cold washes over the chamber. Angewomon's wings falter. LadyDevimon hisses and retreats.
Jessica freezes. The thing that was Shaujinmon towers twice his height now, wreathed in living water that moves with malicious intent. Its eyes—still his eyes, somehow—burn with a light that makes her want to look away and never stop looking.
Ethan's voice cuts through the chaos. It's strained now, the confidence gone.
"Retreat. Everyone retreat. NOW."
Jessica doesn't argue. She grabs Impmon—he's small enough to tuck under one arm—and she runs.
Behind her, the corrupted tide surges. Tendrils of dark water snake across the floor, reaching, grasping. She can hear the Digimon falling back, Angewimon's wings beating hard, LadyDevimon's curses echoing off the walls.
Jessica's legs pump. Her lungs burn. Impmon is heavy under her arm, but she doesn't slow down.
They burst through the corridor. The rusted doorway is ahead. Moonlight. Air that doesn't taste like sulfur.
She doesn't look back. She can't.
Behind them, something roars—not a voice, not a sound, but a pressure that pushes against her back like a hand.
She runs harder.
Impmon looks up at her. His face is scratched, his ribs still tender from before, and his eyes—those green, mischievous eyes—are wide with something she's never seen in them before.
Gratitude. Raw and unguarded and real.
Jessica holds him tighter and doesn't stop running.
***
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