It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (part 3) a little MummArch fic by Lithrael

Happy discalimers & warnings: This fic is fairly violent, nekkid, sadistic, and more than a little naughty. I don't own nuthin'. I'm just borrowing the characters to be mean to them for a bit and then smoosh them together. On with the fun.

Her dreams that night were not pleasant.

A wide field stretched out before her. At her side stood Mummymon. The sun was out in an almost cloudless sky, and the field was green and tan with life, but there was a tense feeling in the air, fear and anticipation, cool wind in her face. The ground rumbled onimously, then it heaved, splitting into dusty chasms and crushing up into little mountains, control spires bursting out in clumps and lonely needles. The upheaval stuttered to a halt, and then a sound of stressed stone began to fill the air.

The spires were shimmering, vibrating, the dust and dirt sliding from their surfaces like water. Then with a mighty whiplash crack one broke, and another, the heavy stone fragments not falling but ponderously floating in the air, then slowly rising into the sky. They were all snapping now, breaking off and sending showers of pebbles out into the air from the fracture. The huge points of the spires and the dust and scree rose together, enough to make the air heavy on Arukenimon's shoulders.

Suddenly the rubble was all speeding towards one central point. It was like watching an explosion happen backwards. It collected in a massive spherical crush of matter and kept squeezing, growing hot and then molten with pressure. A blaze of white light streamed out from it suddenly, making Arukenimon shade her eyes. Next to her, Mummmon was doing the same. When she could look again, a giant, shimmering figure was holding the tiny blazing sun in its hands. The figure was indisinct, an idea sketched into a humanoid shape, but when it turned to her she knew it was smiling evilly, laughing at her. It pulled the small sun closer to itself. A gulf opened up in the shape of its body, stretched around the miniature star, and closed over it. She could tell the being had drawn both power and pleasure from consuming it.

"How DARE you!?" she saw herself shouting. "Those spires were MINE!" At her side, Mummymon turned, appalled, and tried silently to tell her not to start anything.

It chuckled and thundered a reply. "And him.. Is he yours too?"

She looked over to see Mummymon lifted from the ground by some invisible force. He was frightened. She smirked. "No, he's not mine. You can do whatever you want with him."

"Please... Arukenimon!" he called out, devestation and desperation mixing in his voice as he rose higher in the air, drifting towards the giant of light. He looked like his heart had cracked right across. She shook her head.

"He looks delicious," the giant said, full of decadence.

"Does he? I don't know. He must be awfully stringy."

"Not his flesh, little fool. His soul..."

Mummymon's eye opened wide in a silent moment of some internal torment and then he let out a cry of pain, trying to twist out of a nonexistant grasp. He doubled over, digging at his chest with his fingers, and ripped his coat open, gasping for breath. Then he arched back, losing control entirely, and a sanity-killing scream tore out of his throat.

Something was pushing through his insides, right from the center of him, trying to reach the open air. His ribs splayed out around it, sliding loose of his flesh, and it breached the surface, a shining sphere, full of a bright light that spilled out across him. The sphere worked itself loose of him and his flesh closed behind it, leaving him looking as whole as if nothing had happened. The giant's hand reached out and caught the sphere between two delicate fingers.

"You see this?" the giant murmured, holding the brilliant object up where Mummymon could see it. He focused on it, but his slack and empty body could not show his emotions. "You know what it is..." suddenly the being really was smiling a cruel and evil smile- it had formed a face. "I don't think you'll be needing it any more."

With that, the giant brought Mummymon's Digi-core to its mouth, dragging the shining sphere across its lips sensually, then opened its mouth, showing off perfect, sharp white teeth, and bit down. The Digi-core burst, a bright fountain of light, and a moment later Mummymon's data scatttered on the wind.

Arukenimon wanted to look away, but herself in the dream was still watching nonchalantly. She glared at the laughing giant's face in anger, but she couldn't see its eyes, because they were concealed

behind a pair of dark round shades

Arukenimon woke up with a start, feeling her heart hammering in her chest. She was shaking so hard it was tiring her out. She willed herself to calm down, slowing and deepening her breaths, relaxing her muscles unitl they stopped trembling. Mummymon was a big warm shape at her back, comforting, though hell if she would ever tell him that. She was still very tired, and soon started to fall back asleep. The nightmare would haunt her in the morning for sure, but it was not enough to make her so wound up as to keep her up all night.

Murky sounds reached Mummymon through the haze of injured sleep. Words.. he wasn't awake enough to attatch meaning to.

"I don't see why not. When are we gonna get a better chance?"

"It doesn't seem right to attack them while they're sleeping.."

"They want to kill us- did you forget that?"

"That doesn't mean we have to fight dirty, TK."

"It's not like we're going to delete them-"

"Kill, Davis. The word is kill."

"We're not going to kill them! We just have to find out what their plan is..."

"You really think they have a plan?"

Youthful laughter, breaking the tension.

"Well, what's our plan? I don't like the way that Cyberdramon is watching us. I bet it's going to attack the minute we make a move, so we better hit it from a couple sides at once. See if we can't take it out before it can react too much."

"Shh, guys! we don't want to wake them up..."

The voices continued, but hushed now, distant.

The next thing he knew he was in the air, falling- or being thrown- his head ringing with the Cyberdramon's final roar even as its data particles flew past his field of vision. He hit the ground fast, too disoriented to roll with it properly, and skid-rolled to a painful halt, his bad shoulder positively screaming in protest. He lay there in a heap for a few moments, trying to get his bearings, and trying to get used to yet another set of aches. Arukenimon was already on her feet, he could hear her venting spleen on the little human kids from a few meters away. Then she yelled in surprise and roared in futile anger. That was enough to pull Mummymon into crisp awareness.

He managed to get up on one knee and scanned the situation. Four of the Digidestined kids were standing in a semicircle around Arukenimon, shouting questions at her, about the spires, about their mission, about Blackwargreymon... The boy with the Veemon, the boy with the Patamon, the youngest boy, Gatomon, and Kari- she was the only one whose name he had picked up. Pegasusmon stood behind them, ready to provide support.

And Exveemon was standing behind Arukenimon, holding her captive, his clawed hands pinning her arms to her sides. Mummymon shot to his feet. "Take your hands off of her," he growled, outraged and dangerous. The kids turned to face him, surprised.

A massive paw thudded into his back, knocking him over and pinning him down. Ankylomon beamed at the littlest boy and said, "Don't worry, I've got him." Arukenimon rolled her eyes and shook her head, slumping defeatedly in Exveemon's grasp.

"Wow," Ankylomon added after a moment, noticing the livid black bruise deepening on Mummymon's grey shoulder. "Look at his shoulder. I wonder what happened to these guys."

"Blackwargreymon happened," Arukenimon returned angrily, simplifying things a little.

Kari gave her a sour look. "Well isn't that poetic justice."

"Shut up, you little brat." Arukenimon twisted to look at Exveemon. "Listen, you big blue galoot, if you don't let me go, you're going to regret it..."

"Oh, yeah. I'm shaking. You can't even stomp on my toes with those soft soles."

Arukenimon growled.

"I mean really. What are you going to-"

Suddenly she kicked up and back, bringing the bone of her heel hard up between Exveemon's legs.

There was a moment of strained silence, during which everyone present sweatdropped.

"I, um.." Exveemon started, thrown a little off by the attack.

"...FUCK," Arukenimon said, vehemently, making Kari, Cody and Davis wince.

TK turned to Mummymon, who hadn't even tried to get more comfortable after the faceplant. "Hey. We're going to let you up. If you behave, we won't hurt Arukenimon. Okay?" He paused, but Mummymon didn't respond. TK looked at Ankylomon. "Alright. Let him up."

Ankylomon raised his paw off of Mummymon's back and set it back down on the ground. Mummymon didn't move. "Um.."

Davis looked worried. "You didn't crush him, did you?"

"No! I was careful! He was breathing fine the whole time!" Ankylomon was frantic. Stingmon might be ready to kill, but *I'm not!*

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?" Arukenimon thundered, straining against Exveemon's hold.

TK had jogged over to see what was wrong. He rolled Mummymon over onto his back and leaned over him to check if his eye was responding to light, like he had seen paramedics do on TV. Cody took an apprehensive step forward. "I don't think that's a good-"

Mummymon lunged, tackling TK and rolling to his feet with the boy held in front of him like a shield. The width of his forearm pressed across TK's neck forced the boy's head back more cruelly than he normally would have liked, and when he twisted the boy's arm back, it was astonishingly small in his hand. but at the moment his blood was up and Arukenimon was his only concern. "I'm not just 'the other one,' you know," he said, sounding much more badass than he had really expected. "Now let her go. And if you behave," he mocked in a dangerous and angry voice, "I won't hurt him."

Cody and Davis stared in disbelief, while Pegasusmon and Ankylomon stood by in tense readiness. Gatomon stepped forward in front of Kari. "Well, now your problem," said Gatomon, "is whether you care about Arukenimon more than you care about winning."

He blinked, incensed. "What?"

"We won't let her go. And if you hurt TK, we'll hurt her."

Exveemon looked very uncomfortable with this idea.

"If you let her go, I won't have to-"

"We WON'T let her go," Kari joined in, looking just as resolute Gatomon.

"DON'T LET HIM GO, YOU MORON!" Arukenimon yelled, twisting in Exveemon's grip. "They're BLUFFING!"

"We're not bluffing."

"They said they're not bluffing,"

"THEY'RE BLUFFING!"

"I hope we're bluffing," Exveemon whispered to Arukenimon.

"What's 'bluffing?'" asked Ankylomon.

"It's when you say you're going to do something that you won't really do," Cody hissed in a stage whisper, "to psych out your opponent."

"That's right," Arukenimon shouted, "but it doesn't work if they know you haven't got the guts to watch your friend suffer! You've already lost, you weaklings! Rrgh.. WILL YOU LET ME GO!!"

Gatomon gave Mummymon a dark stare, and pulled off one of her gloves, showing him the scars on the back of her paw. "We've got the guts," she said, coldly, her eyes shining. "And we've lost friends before." She noticed the same scars creeping around the edges of Mummymon's shoulders and nodded slowly. It was a common ground nothing could break.

Mummymon stood silent for a moment, considering. "I believe you," he said, and lowered TK to the ground and released him. The boy ran back to the others, and Kari stepped up to greet him with a hug of relief. Davis looked at them, crestfallen despite himself.

Off to the side, Arukenimon screamed in outrage and started cursing enough to put a sailor to shame.

Mummymon stood alone, listening to her abuse and sharing an intense stare with Gatomon. "Please let her go," he said, earnestly. "We're in no condition to put up a fight."

"Seemed like it to me," TK retorted, his voice raw.

"On my deathbed I'll be able to beat one ten year old boy," he answered.

"I'm eleven!"

Mummymon smiled, a little sadly. His eye still had not left Gatomon's. The cat Digimon seemed to reach a descision. "Exveemon," she said, "bring her over here before you let her go. I want them together. I'd rather be flanking them, just in case."

Exveemon obeyed without hesitation, but Davis was less accepting. "Since when are you the leader?" he asked, a little offended.

TK gave him a look that wasn't quite a glare. "Since when are you?"

It was easy to ignore TK, with the show Arukenimon and Mummymon were putting on. As soon as she was free, she had started attacking him, infuriated with him for throwing away their chances.

Davis called out to them. "HEY! What about some answers, huh? We're not just letting the two of you off the hook, you know."

Mummymon looked over at him, and the distraction made him fail to dodge one of Arukenimon's blows. She connected with the side of his head, fairly hard, and he sank to his knees and rolled over on the ground, clutching at it. Arukenimon looked smug for a fraction of a second, then suddenly cracked and fell to her knees, apologising. He propped himself back up and bawled, reaching out for a hug, and amazingly, she leaned into him, tearfully, and they cried and cried in this clench until they stopped, exhausted, possibly asleep, propped up against one another.

"That was... wierd," Cody commented at last. "Maybe we should just leave. I'm starting to think it's just not possible to get any information out of these two."

Kari frowned, but agreed. "You're right. We came to find Blackwargeymon, after all. These two aren't really part of our fight anymore."

As far as any of them knew, she was right.

While they were getting ready to head out, Ankylomon looked troubled. Cody asked him what the matter was. The digimon checked that the others weren't watching before confiding, "He was telling the truth about not being able to fight. They really are hurt pretty bad. They won't be able to recover out in the middle of nowhere like this."

Cody couldn't help but sympathise with the plain emotion on his digimon's face. "Yeah... their car's not anywhere around here, is it. They're stuck."

Ankylomon nodded.

Cody debated to himself. On the one hand, nobody deserved to be left to die, and Mummymon and Arukenimon hadn't seemed to be a real threat for a while now. On the other hand, they did try to feed him to a Dokugomon.

And that had led him to begin to breach the rift between himself and Ken.

Cody slung his backpack off his shoulders and set it on the ground, opened it and unloaded the lunch for four that he had packed that morning. Davis noticed him. "What are you doing?" he asked, curious rather than outraged.

"I'm leaving some food for them. They need it."

"We don't have to help them," TK scowled slightly.

Cody arranged the food in a neat little presentation. "If we really want them destroyed, we should do it ourselves, right now. We shouldn't just leave and hope they don't make it."

"Cody..." Kari started.

Davis stepped up. "No, he's right. Letting them get deleted is just as bad as doing it ourselves. And we don't fight that way, do we?"

Gatomon frowned. "Only if we have to." She looked over at Cody, pointedly. "If they come back and hurt one of us, won't you regret it?"

Cody's face was hard as steel. "Then kill them now."

Gatomon nodded. "I just want to know you've thought this through."

"I have." Cody, finished, straightened up and pulled his backpack on. "Let's go."

part three first draft 9/06/01 - Okay, so I lied. Hardcore hentai in part four. I swear.