The tunnel breathes. That's the only way to describe it — the walls expand and contract like ribs, and the floor ripples in slow waves that make my stomach lurch. Domimon's psychic pressure isn't just in my head anymore. It's in the concrete, the air, the space between my thoughts.
Peter is on his knees ten feet ahead of him, hands pressed to his temples. His mask is half-pulled up, his face twisted. Gwen's voice comes from everywhere and nowhere — behind me, above me, from inside the walls themselves. I can't tell which direction is real.
My flames gutter. The orange light that usually burns steady in my palms sputters like a candle in a hurricane. I try to take a step forward and my boot sinks into concrete that isn't solid. It gives like wet clay, then hardens around my ankle. I wrench my leg free with a grunt, stumbling sideways.
"Taomon!" I shout. "Now would be a good time!"
She doesn't answer with words. She raises her brush.
The calligraphy tip glows — not the blue of Kyubimon's flames but something older, something that hums at a frequency I feel in my bones. She paints a single character in the air. It hangs there, burning gold, then slams down onto the rippling floor like a nail through plywood.
The concrete goes still. Locked. Real.
Domimon's dual voice — Killgrave's smooth menace layered over Gyuukimon's guttural snarl — echoes from the shadows. "Another fox. Another trick."
Taomon paints a second talisman. Then a third. Each one strikes the tunnel like an anchor dropping into deep water. The illusions freeze mid-shift — a wall that was melting solidifies, a floor that was tilting levels out. The air stops pressing against my eardrums.
Peter's head snaps up. His eyes focus. Gwen grabs his arm from somewhere to my left — her actual location, not a phantom echo.
"The floor is solid now," Gwen says, her voice steady despite everything. "Taomon's locking down real space."
The pressure doesn't disappear. It changes. Instead of a current dragging me under, it becomes a weight — heavy, constant, but something I can push against. I look at Taomon. Her masked face turns toward me, and I feel her voice more than hear it.
I can hold the stage. But the actor still has lines.
"Understood," I mutter. "Keep the stage. I'll handle the actor."
Domimon roars. The sound is physical and psychic at once — a shockwave that cracks the talismans but doesn't shatter them. Gold light fractures across their surfaces, but they hold. The fusion charges. Those massive spider-legs hammer against solid ground now, each impact sending tremors through the tunnel.
I ignite my wings. My cannon-arms glow white-hot. I fire Corona Blaster directly at the Shadowstone embedded in Domimon's chest.
The beam hits dead center. The stone drinks it. Every joule, every photon — swallowed whole. The purple light flares so bright I have to squint.
Killgrave's voice laughs from the fusion's cavernous maw. "Give me more, boy. The stone is hungry."
My stomach drops. The Shadowstone isn't just defending. It's feeding. Every attack I throw at it makes it stronger.
I cut the beam and pull back, wings beating hard. My mind races through options. Force doesn't work. The stone absorbs energy. Taomon's spiritual fire is the only thing that's done any damage — the Dragon Wheel burned through corrupted data where my flames just got eaten.
"Taomon!" I shout. "The stone absorbs energy. Your fire is the only thing that hurts it. But if it starts absorbing yours—"
"I know," she says. Her brush is already moving.
She paints a circle in the air. Spiritual fire rises from the stroke, spinning, tightening. The flames twist and coil, forming a dragon — not a physical creature but a construct of fox flame and sacred calligraphy, its body made of interlocking talismans and blue fire. She names it with a single word that resonates through the tunnel.
"Dragon Wheel."
The dragon spirals upward, then dives. It encircles Domimon, forming a cage of blue flame. Where the fire touches the fusion's body, corrupted data unravels — armor plates dissolve, flesh peels back into raw code. Domimon screams in two voices at once, Killgrave's shriek layered over Gyuukimon's bellow.
The Shadowstone pulses. The blue fire at the Dragon Wheel's edges starts turning purple.
"I see it!" I yell.
"I know," Taomon says again. Her voice is calm, but I can hear the strain underneath. "Overload it. Give the stone more than it can absorb. I will hold the cage. You flood it."
I don't hesitate. I pour everything I have into the Dragon Wheel cage — Wildfire Tsunami, a torrent of digital flame that merges with Taomon's spiritual fire. Blue and orange spiral together, tightening around Domimon like a noose made of two kinds of fire that shouldn't coexist but do.
The Shadowstone can't process it. The absorption maxes out — I can see the stone's surface fracturing, hairline cracks spreading across the purple surface. Excess energy floods into Domimon's body. The fusion convulses, spider-legs scrabbling against stone, Killgrave's human torso thrashing.
The Shadowstone flares white. Blinding. The psychic pressure spikes to a crescendo — then cracks. Every illusion in the tunnel shatters into static. Phantom walls dissolve. The breathing stops. The tunnel is just a tunnel again.
Peter finds his feet. Gwen is already moving, pulling him upright.
Taomon drops the Dragon Wheel. The blue flames dissipate. She raises her brush for one final stroke, and I see it in her posture — the focus, the precision. She's been studying the fusion's data flow since the moment she emerged. She knows where the seam is.
One stroke. A single character. It means sever.
The talisman passes through the Shadowstone like it isn't there and embeds itself in Domimon's chest.
Nothing happens.
One beat. Two.
Then the fusion splits.
Killgrave's human torso pulls free from Gyuukimon's spider-ox body with a wet, digital tearing sound. The Shadowstone catches between them — connections snapping like overloaded circuits, purple energy arcing wildly. Both halves collapse. Killgrave hits the ground gasping, his purple skin flickering like a bad signal. Gyuukimon thrashes on its side, bells ringing in discordant chaos, its body dissolving into raw data from the extremities inward — legs first, then abdomen, then the ox-head crumbling into light.
The Shadowstone hits the ground.
It pulses. Rapid. Desperate. Like something waking up.
I de-Digivolve. The BurningGreymon armor peels away, and I'm just me again — exhausted, energy spent, legs shaking. I stumble toward the stone.
It isn't dormant.
A tendril of purple energy extends from the surface, searching. It points — not at me, not at Peter.
At Gwen.
"GWEN, MOVE!"
She dives left. The tendril misses her by inches, scorching the concrete where she stood a half-second ago. Taomon paints a barrier talisman between Gwen and the stone. Purple energy slams into it. The gold light holds. Barely.
Peter webs the stone. The webbing dissolves on contact, eaten by the dark energy. He webs it again. And again. Each layer lasts a second longer — one second, two, three — buying time, buying distance, buying us a chance to figure out what the hell to do with a Shadowstone that won't stop reaching.
***
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