The Janissaries (Hunt, solo)

"That... is not good." Tadayoshi couldn't help but moan at the sight in front of him. With their forces now augmented by a band of Missimon, Commandramon thought it might be prudent to return home and find out if they now had what they needed to liberate the place once and for all. For that reason Commandramon, Renamon, Hagurumon, and the newly recruited six identical Missimon along with their General himself had all taken a position on some crags that overlooked Commandramon's and Hagurumon's old abode. It was both for sentimental reason and practical reasons; this was the best spot, the captain knew from previous work with Tadayoshi, for performing long-range recon on the settlement.

"We couldn't have predicted this, General," Commandramon tried to reassure his human partner from his prone position while scanning through a long range scope on his rifle.

"We could have predicted exactly this," Yoshi retorted from beside Commandramon. The teenager was using binoculars instead of a rifle scope like the armed digimon. "In fact it was my job to predict this back during the mission to kill Devidramon. I should have thought long term."

"I should have thought long term," Commandramon couldn't help hissing back then, "You were a boy taken from his world and doing his best to get home while I have been fighting this war for almost two years."

Tadayoshi lowered his binos to turn and try and look the armed dragon in the eye. "I thought you didn't want to use the W-word."

"I didn't. Now it's clear by these defenses that word is now unavoidable." Unfortunately, Commandramon had a good point: the Black Army had indeed retaliated against the assassination of their lieutenant Devidramon with heavy reinforcements. The raw number of Troopmon has multiplied by a number to which Tadayoshi couldn't be quite sure he could count. New enemies, Tankmon, had also taken to patrolling the streets, which seemed completely empty this time of night except for armed digimon; regular residents were nowhere to be found. "They must have imposed a curfew."

"We can't see enough from here," Commandramon insisted.

"-General!" Apparently, it took four different Missimon just to say that one sentence, each of them saying just one word apiece. This was an odd quirk of theirs, always speaking together.

Tadayoshi and Commandramon both stood up. As Yoshi clicked the center button on his loader, both the dragonoid and the vulpine became bright balls of light that at first flew apart from each other a few feet before looping back around to collide in mid air. On collision, the two balls became one larger, taller ball that stopped glowing. "Sealsdramon standing by."

With the help of Tadayoshi's scouting from afar, Sealsdramon managed to infiltrate the village through a flaw in the wall that covered most of the southern end of the village. This structure was not built by the Black Army; it predated them. And yet, they came and got inside anyway, Sealsdramon couldn't help lamenting. Immediately, he had to take cover in order to avoid a coming Troopmon patrol, but Sealsdramon was built for lurking in the shadows. Between himself and his eyes above, Sealsdramon felt confident he could avoid detection from any patrols. Unfortunately, there was one factor for which he was not able to account: they were too far away during recon to catch sight of another new toy the Black Army had brought with them. Just in time, before rounding a corner, Sealsdramon's night vision managed to pick it up and let him duck back behind a corner. "General, there's something else down here: MetalKoromon. Our village has never had MetalKoromon live here, and there's no reason for them to move here, that's for sure."

"MetalKoromon?" Tadayoshi echoed that back to Sealsdramon the same way Sealsdramon had made himself heard: by saying it to his fusion loader. "That's... that's just a baby level digimon. The Black Army is using baby digimon?"

"-General!" The Missimon bunch reminded Tadayoshi. This time each one of them got a chance to say one word of the sentence.

"Almost certainly." Sealsdramon peered back around to look at the MetalKoromon sitting still on the ground in his path. "I think they're security. Watchers. They're like living security cameras, and they seem to be on every street corner. They're everywhere."

"Honestly? I'm afraid so." Sealsdramon grit his teeth. "This isn't right. It's not possible that this many MetalKoromon are here voluntarily. Surely no baby level digimon would want to throw themselves in harm's way like this."

That wasn't spoken word. That was typed text which appeared on Tadayoshi's Xros Loader screen. "What the...?"

"There's something..." Tadayoshi was hesitant to identify it because, frankly, he couldn't. He couldn't call it friendly or hostile, but it seemed to know who Yoshi was. That made some sense since the Black Army already knew of a rare Xros General struggling against it. That was why Tadayoshi was wary of saying anything else. Was... was my Xros Loader hacked somehow?

Those red letters disappeared then and were replaced by new ones. WE NEGATIVE WANT YOUR ENEMIES

Could Yoshi trust it? 'Did it matter?' was the real question. Since they were speaking through his digivice, he felt confident that saying anything through it would go back to them. "...I'm the fusion general fighting the Black Army."

The red letters backspaced one by one rapidly to be replaced by still newer ones. FREE US

Tadayoshi breathed a sigh of relief. "Sealsdramon, I was right. Janissaries. Where can we find all of you MetalKoromon?"

The response wasn't immediate, but it was eventual. "...affirmative."

Acquired: Xros partners MetalKoromon (8)