The Crucible: Part 1 [Mission] [Akemi|E&E|Kath|Sasha]

It was a somewhat boring day before Amelie had passed an invitation to Anzu and Akemi to help her with some work, especially now that the latter didn't really have any exams to bog her down. They arrived sort of early to the Blimpmon ride and had been waiting for a bit before it took off, even opting to nap on the blimp until Akemi's d-terminal buzzed...

...And presented Anzu, who was wide-awake, unlike her tamer with a choice. Actually, heck, both were awake right now after that buzz. "Would you look at that," Anzu began, "...I don't think any of these are trustworthy...Sounds about right, considering this is the Dark Area we're speaking of..."

...

Akemi peered around. "So which of the two would make more sense to try negotiating with...?"

    It was still taking a bit of time to get used to the idea that everything that people rode in, in the Digital World, seemed to actually be alive. Neither Evie nor Elsie found it a particularly comforting thing. Were they essentially in the belly of a monster? It really seemed like the best way to describe it. Yet, here they were. All for the sake of a mission to better the group's plans.

    It had better be worth it.

    While both read the instructions, the red-eyed blonde would only scrunch her nose, while the prim-and-proper looking twin didn't even look remotely puzzled. Instead, she was looking at the rest of the group, trying to process who each one was. While easily recognizing Akemi and Anzu, the rest were total strangers to the twins. Were they trustworthy?

    Amy seemed to think so, and nobody else showed themselves to be overly on-edge as far as Evie could identify. So, for now, it must be a fairly acceptable group.

    But, one of the strangers had already cut to the chase. Introducing herself, and then inquiring about power levels. To avoid immediately sounding hostile, Elsie began with, "I'm Elsie, this is--"

    "Evie." But, aside from names, they knew what needed to be answered next. In part, because it was the only question asked so far! The other, because it would be rude to completely ignore the inquiry.

    "We're strong enough to handle our own," Elsie emphasized on the last couple of words.

    Quickly adding in, from Evie, "unfortunately, not strong enough to guarantee that we can keep anyone else safe." Did that answer Katherine's question? No, not really. But, the duo seemed intent on remaining moderately tight-lipped on their own levels for the time being. "While it's surely important to the mission to know each other's strengths, I hope you don't mind that we aren't comfortable sharing with strangers quite yet." Even Akemi and Anzu hadn't seen the twins surpass Rookie, after all. And, they had been in a fight alongside each other!

    Then, to jump to the suggestion. "Do you suppose both settlements will know that we've sent a portion of our group to each of them, and become upset at that also?" A rational question, really. If one group was likely to get upset at being 'second choice', how would they feel about not being the 'sole' first choice? "If things go poorly with Tayichi'tai, it may make negotiations harder with the other group. But, if we're split, and they decide they don't like us," there was a pause, while the teen attempted not to ramble too much on her theories, "the people that go there may suffer more."

    "Means splitting up might be a bad idea," Elsie clarified, in an attempt to give a 'too long; didn't read' of Evie's statement.

    To this, the green-eyed girl gave a nod. "In the case that we do stay together, we should probably visit Tayichi'tai first." And, now, for her own attempt at not sounding too forceful! "But, if everyone else would rather to split up, I would prefer to go with the group that visits Kara-nam."

    Considering Elsie's nodding, it seemed that she would follow wherever her sister went! But, surely, that was expected! Granted, it wasn't guaranteed that they would be able to make that choice. Maybe, Amy had already designed which groups she wanted to go to each settlement, in the case of that choice!

How had Amelie, Akemi and Anzu managed to get her involved on this madness? She wasn't all too sure, honestly. It couldn't have been with the promise of payment, at least not with cash or material earnings of any kind. Greed or not, she wasn't going to risk her life on such a strange world for money. No, there was more to it than that.

Really, it was mostly due to the blonde Sasha's curiosity (both about this strange world and Amelie's plans) and because she felt herself that she felt somewhat indebted to Amelie in a strange way. She had after all been not only the (admitedly accidental) reason she had even discovered such a bizarre world, but she had been nice enough to explain to her the ins and outs of things and supporting her on the way to keep her brain from turning into mush from all this new information. So when the chance to help her new found friend with her endeavours in building a prosperous city came up, it didn't took much thinking for Sasha to say yes.

So now there she was, sitting comfortably inside a blimp (A living blimp, something she still had a bit of trouble wrapping her head around), staring intently through a window at the ground below them as they slowly flew across the land. Surrounding her were a rather colorful group of individuals: besides the already familiar Anzu and Akemi, there were two twin girls who couldn't be much older than 16 years old, a dark haired girl accompanied by a rather bizarre and easily excitable pig girl digimon, and a young boy accompanied by a small fairy like creature. He in particular stood out rather obviously among all the females present, if only for being not only (probably) the youngest, but also the only guy here (well, the only corporeal one at least). She kinda felt sympathy for him, and almost wanted her spirit to be more visible to others, that way that kid would feel a bit less alone in a crowd of girls. Maybe?

Regardless, it didn't took much long until someone stepped forth to try and break the ice, specifically the girl accompanied by the piggy, that introduced herself as Katherine Jasso and Jazz. After everyone else had made their own proper introductions, Sasha also stood up from her seat.

"Name's Sasha Robinson, pleased to meet you all." She greeted, before falling back to her seat, but not before adding, "Oh and uh my spirit Siegfried is also probably happy to meet you all. You...most likely can't see him but trust me, he's happy alright." At least that's what the body language of the translucent Gladimon next to her suggested, what with the small wave in the general direction of the group. He had more or less gotten used to the idea of only being visible to the russian girl, but hey, you never knew if some of the other spirit wielders would be actually capable to see him this time!

While Sasha would have rather Evie or Elsie giving a more straightforward answer, she supposed she could understand why they rather keep that to themselves for now. She shrugged, and answered the question to the best of her ability.

"We can go up to the...uh, how was it called?" She wondered outloud seemingly to herself, though in reality she was double checking with Siegfried, her first spirit.

"Armor Champion." The voice of the knight simply said.

"Right! We can evolve up to Armor Champion. Though what we can actually do with that is...something I'm not entirely sure of? I haven't played around with it much." Well, she did know one or two things about how it worked, but the things that stood out the most (besides its slightly monstrous appearance) it was taller than her usual height, which was a huge improvement, plus it came witha big sword! Surely those things would come in handy, right?

The discussion soon moved to the matter at hand: how to approach their assignment. Everyone brought up valid points, though there seemed to be an obvious preference for avoiding any plan involving splitting up. Sasha's opinion was no different.

"Yeah, gonna have to agree with the rest here, splitting up does seem like a pretty lousy idea, if things went wrong on any of the negotiations there wouldn't be any way to support the other group. And if things went badly in both settlements at the same time...well to be blunt, we'd be screwed."
She chuckled a bit at their predicament. As if the odds weren't stacked against them already.

"Well, there's a chance the people at Kara-nam will find out that we sent the group to the other settlement first, but if we go to Tayichi'tai first then it's almost a guarantee Kara-nam will find out." She said, mulling about it for a moment before adding, "That aside? One of them has a huge military force, the other doesn't. Which one do you guys think is the most immediate threat?"
She asked in a somewhat sarcastic tone, assuming everyone would know what she assumed to be "right" answer. That being of course, Tayichi'Tai: what good was having information when you had a huge army knocking down your door?

And yet, having to deal with egocentrical warmongers seemed a lot more easy than dealing with spies and information brokers. At least with the former you could usually know what to expect.
"Personally, I say we take our chances with Tayichi'tai first, stroke their ego a bit and see if we can at least get some strong protection in case we end up screwing up on the other place."

Two things were bothering Katherine right off the bat. First, what kind of a team had she gotten into if their members didn’t feel like they could trust each other regarding their power levels? Holding that kind of information was definitely not good if they were aiming for the best possible development of this endeavor. Still, she was not going to say a thing, of course. Jazz, on the other side… “Haha! So you’re weak! Don’t worry, I’ll protect you!” The pig girl said intensively, clenching a fist. “Shut up.” Katherine stomped her foot immediately. “Please, forgive her. She really means well.” The girl immediately bowed to the twins, Jazz lowering her gaze right after. “Sorry…” The Cho-Hakkaimon mumbled.

No, that couldn’t be it, right? If these girls were so overconfident, it had to mean they were strong, especially after saying they could take care of themselves. Souji, on the other side? Yes, that statement was not true, and that was even worse than hiding information. Not much time had gone by since she saw this kid having trouble to control an untamed rookie spirit, so if he was saying that he could take care of himself either he was lying or he was stupidly overconfident. And, to be honest, both were probably equally bad. Could anyone really say that they could take care of themselves without knowing the enemies they were facing? Could they really be sure they wouldn’t be needing any help later on? Assuring that right now was preposterous, in Katherine’s opinion. “Yes! I know you. It’s great to see you’re doing well now, Isabella.”

Now, about the other thing bothering the green-eyed… “No last names…” She muttered, almost inaudibly. Damn it, why did people keep insisting in introducing to her by their first name? It was hard for her getting used to calling people like that; she wasn’t even done with getting accustomed to calling Akemi by her first name, and now she had to do the same with both Elsie and Evie. At least, since they didn’t tell her any last name, she really couldn’t call them otherwise, and that was a plus.

Other than this (maybe) minimal details, Katherine was happy to be dealing with a group that didn’t want to take anything for granted, even if this was sort of a contradiction for the attitude some of its members had shown. It was true that assuming they had the firepower to afford splitting up was not a good idea, and that’s why she was, in the end, glad she questioned them about it. The results showed that this group was definitely not strong enough to take the risk of splitting in this sort of situation. Feeling like she was one of the strongest members, definitely added some pressure to the green-eyed, but at the same time pushed her to be better and take the best possible calls for the sake of the team's wellbeing.

Last but not least, Sasha Robinson had made her introduction. The blonde girl's first words seemed pretty straightforward and without hiding any type of info. “I like you- You seem badass.” Jazz immediately said, pointing aggressively at the short girl. “You can’t go pointing at people.” Katherine said, lowering the pig-girl’s arm. This was no doubt, internally, the same Jazz that usually agreed with her on what they initially thought of both human and digimon, based on a first impression; Katherine couldn’t agree more, along with Akemi and Anzu, Sasha seemed like the most trustworthy of these people right now. Of course, this was only based in their introductions and initial statements, so everything could change from then on.

“It’s very nice to meet you all, Elsie, Evie, Robinson.” A slight bow ensued, coming from the curly-haired girl. Overall, the group seemed pretty solid. In all honesty, she wouldn’t expect different from a group her best friend built herself.

“Yes. Considering the firepower we currently have and taking into account all of your opinions, I will agree with sticking together.” Katherine was not a stubborn person, and it was easy for her to see that this was the best call to take. “I also think that, taking their egos into consideration, Tayichi'tai Stronghold is the place to go.” Of course, there was something important to say, regarding this decision, and she decided to clear that out, in case the group wasn’t aware of this. “Nevertheless, I do consider appropriate to state my worrying. By picking the strongest faction first and by leaving Kara-nam for later, we are losing the chance to get any intelligence regarding Tayichi’tai that Kara-nam could give to us, assuming that we succeeded there. So, since we’re going there with no info about what we could be facing in combat, I suggest we avoid fighting as much as possible, until we ran out of any other options, at least. And in order to do this, of course, our best move would be exploiting the ego they allegedly have.” The girl made a brief pause to gather her final thoughts. “What I’m trying to say is that, even if I do think this decision is the best, it is one that sends us to the strongest faction trying to avoid fighting as much as possible, and that’s something not so easy to accomplish.”

If everyone agreed to this and didn’t have any final objection, the girl would pull her D-Terminal out and press number 1 in Amelie’s message.

Souji was happy that his opinion seemed to be shared by the majority of the party, everyone agreed on going to the same strong hold. But Katherine brough some interesting concerns regarding the thing they will miss out on if they do not go to the other one, she made a lot of good points but he still believed that they made the optimal decision. "I am glad I can say the same about you two, I see Jazz is still as excited as before." Bella said with a playful tone.

Souji then sat idly by as he saw Elsie, Evie and Katherine argue about the mission. He wanted to say something but he was too shy to even say it, Bella however was very interested in the twin girls. She turned towards Souji with a smile on her face, she gestured to him that she will be right back. Moments later she floated towards Elsie and Evie, with a gentle smile on her face Bella waved at the twins. "Hey there, I just wanted to drop by and say hello Elsie and Evie. We could try to get to know each other better, I think that'd be fun dont you think ?" The fairy said in a cheery and delighted tone, the reason she approached the twins was that, they were the first human twins she sees. And the fact that they were extremly adorable helped alot as well.

Souji was sitting there playing with his thumbs, he was worried about a bunch of things. Least of those was he might be the one who contributes nothing to the mission, he continued to think about these negative thoughts until he heard the spirit talk to him. (Hey kid, instead of wallowing in your self pity and feel sorry for yourself. How about you go approach the blonde spirit user, maybe she could provide some help.) The spirit said, Souji stopped for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and approache sasha.

"Uhh, you said your name was Sasha right ? That name is simlar to a comic book character, w-which means its good and cool." Did he just say cool ? My god Souji is bad at this "I just wanted to say hi and since we both are spirit users maybe we can be friends ? If you want." Souji said as he struggled to look Sasha in the eyes.

The decision seemed to be fairly obvious. Tayichi'tai Stronghold won by popular vote; with that out of the way, the Blimpmon's began to accelerate again, its body taking a small turn to adjust its course accordingly.

It was only a matter of time before a set of impressively tall, yet crude walls that enclosed a gigantic stronghold atop a cliff could be seen. Slowly, the Blimpmon began to descend near the fortification's entrance.

And, interestingly enough, everyone's D-Terminals beeped once more.

---

Subject: A small favor.

Yup. it's me being annoying again! May be butting in, but I think that you all made the right choice in regards to which place to visit first.

But that's not the reason why I'm writing. I've gotten some interesting readings from Tayichi'tai, even though I can't precisely pinpoint them. So... if you're up to it, I'll need for exactly one of you (any tamer/digimon pair and Elsie and Evie count as one, for obvious reasons. Don't worry about it) to sneak into the city and check out what's up while the others carry out the diplomatic mission accordingly.

I've prepared up to a pair of cloaking devices on the Blimpmon's back room. If anyone is going to do this, they should pick them up and get inside the city after the main group has gotten in, but before the gate closes. I will be able to roughly lead you, but not precisely; chances are that I won't be aware of any obstacles or enemies you might find along the way, so you'll be on your own on that regard.

I know this is sudden, so there won't be a lot of time for you to debate about it. Whoever wants to do this should press 1, and while I don't mind anyone taking this, you got to consider this will take a lot of stealth and finesse, so please have that in mind.

Oh, and one last thing! Before activating the cloaking device, please evolve or spirit evolve to the form most fitting to do the task; the thing will fizzle if you try to do that while already under its effect.

That's all I gotta say for now. I'll try to keep in touch, but I can't guarantee anything.

—Amelie 🖤

---

It wouldn't be long after that message was sent for the Blimpmon to finish its landing. If anybody decided to participate on the task offered, they would find up to two small, bracelet-like devices in the digimon's back room. They had a single button, but were rather plain otherwise.

Regarding the others? Once out of their transport, they would find themselves a decent distance away from a massive portcullis, big enough to fit two MetalGreymons side by side. It was raised slowly, revealing a single figure behind it.

A Duskmon.

"Waiting for anything in particular?" He spat, his tone as curt as it could be. "Don't make me waste my time and get in."

---

---

Even when the interactions between the team’s members had proven to be pretty interesting so far, there was a certain amount of excitement around both Katherine and Jazz. Admittedly, most of it was coming from the pig-girl who couldn’t really wait to see how these tough guys looked.

In fact, the Cho-Hakkaimon was so excited she didn’t really catch Elsie’s half-comment, which was good, in all honesty. The red-eyed had all the right to make it. Jazz had come as kind of rude, even if unintentionally. Katherine simply nodded at the twins with a smile, like if asking to please ignore the fact that her partner was rather uncouth.

Her attention headed towards Isabella immediately after, regarding Jazz’s status since the last time they met. “Yes…” Katherine spouted, letting go a short sigh right after. “She actually hasn’t come back to being a Lopmon since then. I think it has to do with some frustration inside of her, due to certain things we’ve been through.” It was clear her partner was in a wide necessity to outer her frustration from her lack of strength to fight certain enemies they had faced. She accomplished this by maintaining her stage that was pure energy; which was, of course, Cho-Hakkaimon. “Luckily, she’s not as crazy as that time. She has managed to control her emotions a bit.” The knocking of Jazz’s feet on the floor of the blimp kept echoing through the vehicle. “She’s still too impatient” The green-eyed added, in case that wasn’t clear so far.

“I’ll show you later!” Jazz winked at Sasha, giving her a thumbs up while stopping the knocking for a second. She seemed to be getting along with one of their new acquaintances at least, which at least gave a bit of relief to Katherine.

Apparently, the decision-making time was not over. Another message reached everyone’s D-Terminal, and now they were facing another important resolution. Without even pondering about this for a second, Katherine stated her ground regarding this matter. “I'm sorry; I think Jazz is too hyperactive for us performing a stealthy task right now.” A pained countenance towards the crew, the teenager let go another sight. It seemed like an interesting endeavor, but doing that to Jazz, who was eager to start walking freely and knowing everything the Tayichi’tai Stronghold had to offer, was almost a crime right now, and something the pig-girl would probably not forgive easily.

“Yes! I don’t want to be hiding!” Jazz did a short raspberry, crossing her arms.
“Don’t simplify it like that.” A small nudge coming from Katherine made her turn at her tamer. “Plus, that doesn’t mean if you stay with us you can go around being noisy. I need you to stay calm, please.” Turning towards Tinkermon, the curly-haired then tackled the suggestion about the fairy being fit for this kind of job. “That’s right, Isabella. You did say something about being good at sneaking around and gather intel.” She made a small pause, to wait for confirmation from the fairy. “Would you and Himura be up for this task?”

---

Once it was all decided and they had descended into the fortress’ entrance, they would catch a glance of a dark warrior, with a very disturbing choice of armor, “greeting” them.

Both Katherine and Jazz rushed towards the door, bowing at him once they were close enough. While they walked, Katherine whispered something to Akemi, who she was walking right next to.

“Let’s keep our eyes open, Akemi. Maybe he could be around here.”