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THE GUARDIANS SHADOW

Part 2 Chapter 4

Over the next several days the Hunter listened into the devices that'd been secretly implanted around the office, but through all the listening into all the different conversations, none of which were of any true use to him. Not a word was spoken within the office that pertained to that of when both he and the Black Renamon were attacked. This led him to become a bit perturbed and even a bit shorter tempered than before to which his only release was to take his frustration out on the Black Renamon. This of course led to a bit of a skirmish between the two and it would often end up with either one cradling an injured limb or whimpering back to the hidey-hole.

It was upon one of these days, that tempers were a bit short, or that the Hunter had taken the last of the fried chicken out of the box before the Black Renamon could get it, that another skirmish began. "Alright then, let's head out to the woods and settle this," the Hunter said as he pressed his forehead against the Renamon's that pushed right back.

"Fine by me, all this sitting around eating fried chicken has me in need of a good workout." To which the Hunter had to hold back a retort about her waist line. Eventually it found both them out in the mountains north of Las Vegas and stretching. Though few words were spoken between them, they could each tell that the other was really looking forward to letting off some steam.

"It should be a simple match," the Hunter said with a sly smile on his face as he took off the saddle bag from his bike and rested it over his shoulder. "We shall start from either side of the wood and to the best person win." The Renamon nodded to the Hunter and by the time he'd looked up, the Renamon was bounding off into the trees. He stares after the vanishing form of the female Digimon, watching as her tail bounces along with each of her leaps, and...'Why the hell am I watching her tail of all things!' After several more shakes of his head and several more with the items from within his saddlebags, he stands up and places his computerized glasses upon his face. 'This should be just like any other hunt,' he thinks to himself as he runs the cord from his wrist computer up to his glasses and plugs them in.

It only takes his computer a few seconds to come online and a few more to connect to his glasses, but in all that time the Hunter goes over his check list of his supplies and to that once more over his weapons. 'Even though this is going to be like any other hunt, I'll probably just use the rubber rounds to...,' he stands there for several moments wondering why his train of thought had him going over the non-lethal to that of the lethal ways to take down 'his' Digimon. He has to shake his head once more at the thought of that Digimon being 'his' and not something more...feral or unwanted. "What's wrong with me...it's not like the two of us are partners or anything...," but in his mind he can't help but recall all the help that she was when placing the bugs in the ladies office and taking on that Beelzemon a week back. In his frustration he slams the magazine of his rifle home and in that he nods to himself, 'it's time to get to the hunt.'

--- (Somewhere in the woods) ---

"It may have taken a while but now the time for a reckoning has come," the black Renamon says silently to herself with a smile as she crouches down upon her branch, bunches up herself, and then leaps deeper into the woods. "Over and over again he has talked down to me...me, one of the Nightmare Clan of the Great Plains. Any who have dared such in the past have met with swift deletion and the scattering of their data, so why has it taken so long for me to do such to this Hunter?" The statement before causes her to slightly slip on the branch she lands upon, almost causing her to fully misstep and take a tumble down the tree the hard way, but in that moment she catches herself by one claw and dangles there for a few moments. As she dangles there, seeming to be like that of a Rock Climber clinging to a single hand hold, she can't help but wonder about a few other things.

She thought her thoughts would go over all the different things she disliked about the Hunter, all the character flaws about him, his insufferable attitude, etc...but was surprised when her train of thought was broken with the fur upon her tail bristled out to have the fur upon her tail stand on end. It'd been quite some time since she'd experienced such a feeling and to that she didn't really know what it meant, but after thinking back did she recall where she'd felt this feeling before, 'A wild one', she realized. It'd been so long since the last time she'd felt this feeling of a tamer-less Digimon that she had almost overlooked it or named it to something else, but there it was, the feeling that she recognized from her days within the Digital Zone/World.

She felt a bit irritated at the feeling, as this was going to interfere with her fight with that of the Hunter, but how could she pass up the chance to collect some data. 'It could even tip the balance between us if I were just that much stronger/faster,' she thought. The only problem was, where was this Wild One? Flipping around which looked much like a gymnast rotating around a balance beam, she crouched upon the branch she'd nearly overshot and began to scan her surroundings. 'Come out, come out, wherever you are,' she silently said to herself as she slowly looked from left to right; but it all seemed in vain as she couldn't quite pinpoint where this wild one was hiding within the wood.

After another few moments of scanning her surroundings she slowly stood erect and let out a bit of a snort out of her nostrils. 'Now this is frustrating,' she thought as she was beginning to get tired of looking/scanning around for this hidden opponent, 'I am a member of the Nightmare Clan and there shouldn't be a target that I couldn't find and take down.' But there she stood upon the branch, becoming more and more frustrated as this new opponent remained hidden from her. In a bit of rage she turned and delivered a quick jab to the trunk of the tree, only to have her punch do something she hadn't been expecting...caused the whole tree to shudder.

"What in the name of the..."

"VINE ATTACK!"

'Oh no...'

(Meanwhile on the other side of the wood)

The Hunter does one last check over his supplies, and then gives himself a quick nod that all is ready, but when he turns and faces the wood as the countdown clock in his glasses reaches Zero his glasses light up with the alert that there is a Digimon nearby. "Talk about stating the obvious," he says aloud as that is precisely what he is about to hunt, but as he is about to begin the Hunt for the Dark/Black Renamon does he sees that it isn't the alert to the Digimon that he's hunting, it's going off that there is a Wild One nearby. "There must be something faulty with the scanning system," he says to himself as he begins to reach for the reset button, but upon gently placing his finger upon the reset he sees that the number of Wild One's is increasing by ever larger numbers to finally settle on there being around 20 or more. "This can't be right. There's no way that there could be this many Wild One's in one area, much less...," his words slowly catch in his throat as he changes the scan on his glasses to that of identifying what type of Digimon has hidden themselves within the wood.

It only takes his glasses a few moments before the glasses complete their scan of the area, and when the readout display appears on the glasses does the Hunter's mouth fall open. "This wood isn't really a wood; it's a whole bunch of Cherrymon and Woodmon," he said in a stark realization, but in that he also realized that that in itself wasn't entirely true. The wood that he stood just inside of was made up of a lot of the Digimon, but in that not all of it was fake, that was to say that there were real trees mixed in their too. "But why here of all places?"

He doesn't have long to ponder the answer to his question as he sees movement within the wood and to that confirms that his glasses had indeed been accurate in their readout of the area. As he quickly drops to one knee he brings up his rifle to his shoulder and sights along the scope and takes aim upon the movement within the wood. He doesn't have to wait long before the target moves in just the right way and he squeezes the trigger.

"My eye...MY EYE!" Something screams from a short distance away and the Hunter curses under his breath at the mistake he'd made; for instead of using a decent caliber round to shoot out the Woodmon's eye, he'd forgotten he'd loaded his gun with those rubber rounds that were so often used in mock hunts. With quick movements of well-practiced motions, the Hunter quickly switches out the rubber round magazine with that of an explosive head round magazine, and quickly squeezes off another round that makes the target jerk back.

The target freezes up in mid-motion; as its body bows backwards and lifts its body up to the sky in a silent scream, then explodes into million upon millions of tiny bits of data that quickly jet off in two different directions. 'That confirms it then. There are definitely more Woodmon in there and one of which has probably just absorbed the data of the Woodmon that I'd just killed.' The other bit/cluster of data that didn't jet into the wood jetted off towards the nearest data-node (Cell Tower most likely) where it would be reconfigured back in the Digital World as a Digi-Egg. But his thoughts weren't really on the whole topic of the whole rebirthing process of a Digimon, but on that of what he was to do now.

"I guess this hunt just got interesting."