Silent Hill Fog

[wrecking_yard]

The only comfort about the fog that moved into the waterway was that it wasn't as cold as the fog that tried to eat Ryo.

It moved faster and thicker, muffling sound more; within a couple seconds of it starting to drift through, I couldn't see or hear Takuma or anyone else that'd been more than few feet away. By the time I turned to call for Miu and try to grab her hand, I caught a glimpse of a shape about the right height that vanished into the white; before I could process THAT, Dracmon had vanished right next to me, and I couldn't see my own feet or hear anything, even the background burble of moving water.

I tried to move in the direction I thought I'd last seen Miu, calling for her; my foot found the edge of the walkway and I ended up in the water with an awkward squawk that vanished into the white, floundering to get back up right and on my feet. It was at least four feet deep and had more current than it looked like. I know I ended up somewhere 'downstream', with no idea how far. I managed to catch something - a corner of part of the walkways - and use it to get to my feet and out of the water. From there it was just a matter of dragging myself up out of the water onto the concrete, and taking a second to take check things over and make sure I hadn't lost anything, and catch my breath after fighting the waterway.

The fog seemed to have thinned some in the time I'd spent getting washed away; I could see the wall on the other side and a few meters down the waterway in either direction. There was at least one side path visible, but nobody else, and everything still sounded eerily muffled. There's no way in Hell it's natural - Arukenimon did something to separate and disorient us, and if everybody else had as much trouble as I did, we're all easy marks now.

All isolated in cold, dimly lit, damp tunnels, and I need to find Miu five minutes ago - Before Arukenimon or one of her lackeys does. Stretching back as I'm getting up helps; there's a ceiling overhead, we're underground, not in open dark alleys.

For a few minutes I'm playing right hand on the wall - straight ahead, right down a side path, along that, out into another larger waterway, curving gently ... and having an internal debate. If I call out to her and she answers, it might give her position away to the creatures hunting us.

If I call out to her and she can't hear me or doesn't answer, then I'm drawing attention to myself.

I rest a hand on the dagger and pause, scanning the tunnel - it's still vanishing into the fog a few meters out. "MIU!"

The fog swallows it so fast there's not even an echo.

I keep moving, still trying to keep right-hand-on-the-wall, calling for Miu as the path I've already taken disappears into the fog behind me; all I can hear is the nearby water moving, the current occasionally shifting and changing unnaturally. A side passage goes right, then straight, then out to....

What looks a lot like where I washed up, complete with the puddle where I crawled out of the water, and damp footprints leading away.

Somehow, my phone's still working after getting drug through the water with me, still at full battery, and I'm not gonna question this realm having small mercies; I pull up the basic notebook, toggle it to "draw" mode, and sketch an approximation of the box I just walked, then start straight, following my own footsteps to the side path, across a narrow metal walkway over the water flowing through it. The current to my side keeps shifting strangely, but there doesn't seem to be any visible rhyme or reason to it so far.

Then something standing in the fog ahead catches my attention, and I edge closer, slipping the phone away and keeping a hand on my dagger again. Whatever it is notices me and turns, hands raised, and walks close enough to be recognizable -

It's Dracmon, but something doesn't feel right and I'm not sure if it's the fog, my nerves, or something actually up.

"There you are! I was wondering where you'd stumbled off to."

"Have you seen Miu?" He can take care of himself, and by now he knows where my priorities are.

"Why?"

There's silence for a couple seconds as I'm just staring at him, not quite parsing what just came out of his mass of teeth. "What?"

"Why be in such a hurry to track her down? You know she hates you."

Something is definitely wrong here, and I'm still trying to pin down that 'off' feeling. "Doesn't matter. I need to get her out of here."

"I wouldn't worry about it so much if I were you. She did better here than you did after she ran away from you; you kinda just make problems for her." He's right in front of me, but the place still feels weirdly empty.

"Are you going to knock it off and help me find her, or do I need to do everything myself?"

"Whoa, whoa - Settle down for a second here. Are you really sure she needs your help? I mean, sure, you saved her ass that one time back in the city, but...."

He can't read minds - I know it because he's needled me about needing to say things out loud because even he can only guess so much.

"... I never told you about that." The place feels empty, like I'm alone, and that's never happened around him. I take a big step back, away from whatever this thing is. "Who the Hell are you?"

'Dracmon' makes a frustrated noise and dissolves into colored fog that dissipates fast, leaving me with nothing but the sound of the water splashing against the concrete walkway.

The ceiling above differentiating this waterway from the alleyway back then isn't doing much for my nerves anymore. I get a few meters before I remember to pull out my phone and keep mapping; finding her won't help anything if we're both lost, and I'm never going to find an exit if I can't at least avoid walking in circles.

There's a taller shape up ahead - too tall to be one of the others, but it's a human silhouette. After Arukenimon's performance before, that's more of a red flag than anything. Before I can make out any details, I can tell that it's leaning oddly, not moving right. It's hard to tell if it's seen me or not, so I'm hugging the wall, moving as quietly as I can, dagger drawn in one hand, phone stowed again.

Human, windbreaker, slacks, looks like a guy, too familiar, I can smell blood over the pervasive damp, he turns around and definitely sees me and smiles, parts of the skull bloody and distorted where I'd grabbed a stray rock in blind panic back then, after I'd dropped my pocketknife and he'd tried to strangle me to get me off him.

And then the apparition's gone, as if it were never there.

I do not like this fog. It still seems to muffle everything, but I can hear something scrabbling against concrete and stone occasionally, echoing off somewhere distant; it's impossible to tell which way it's coming from, and the fog's still muffling everything else - so it's got to be another head game on a list of head games, and at this point I really want to just get a chance to jam the dagger in the eyes of Arukenimon and any of her servants involved in this bullshit.

The water's quiet, flowing normally.

It's starting to look more like there's a grid pattern - and I get a decent distance with the water normal before there's another distortion in the current, and another small figure in the fog up ahead. I get close enough to see Dracmon, and then stop, half closing my eyes and trying to focus.

The place feels empty.

"Hey, Kaito! Where've you been?"

"Looking for you, dipshit." The distortion in the water's closest to the side a meter or so ahead; I start closing the distance, trying to at least look like I'm focused on 'Dracmon'.

"Awww, I didn't know you cared."

Before it can say anything else, I lunge to the side, stabbing at the distortion in the water; the dagger hits something solid, there's an inhuman screech, and then I'm getting knocked back in the water by a stretch of scales as some kind of big dark blue serpentine shape suddenly becomes visible. I manage to catch my feet better than last time, although the water's still deep enough to be a pain, and I'm staring down a sea serpent with a bone-armored head that's almost as big as my torso, glowing pale eyes narrowed at me. The fake Dracmon's gone; there's a visible tear in its side with some of the odd red static-mist seeping out, but it's not much of a wound.

I'm keeping the dagger in front, warding, even if it's not the best threat against something like that. "Where's my sister."

"You should be worried more about yourself, human." The voice is deep and rattling, inhuman.

"And you should know I've got practice fighting things bigger than me."

It rumbles, unimpressed; I'm grinning, but I haven't taken down something that big by myself before - did a bit of damage and made distractions for our partners to get an opening, sure, but I've also gotten thrown around and given Aoi a heart attack every time, even with Garurumon who was trying to avoid seriously hurting me.

"Besides, I know you're going to hold back, because you assholes need sacrifices, and it doesn't sound like your 'Master' wants dead meat."

It actually looks irritated, but I still need Dracmon.

The water shifts, and its tail comes up behind me, knocking my legs out from under me; I manage to grab onto it and give the thing another gash, then get knocked into the bottom as it twitches and shakes me off, leaving me awkwardly floundering to the surface, trying to tread water with the knife. It's not easy to split attention when there's a clear threat right in front of me, but I'm trying to dump as much focus as I can into one thing, banking on something Jijimon'd said:

I need Dracmon. I need power that I don't have to get myself out of this, nevermind Miu or anyone else. At first the sense of some kind of connection just feels like wishful thinking, but there's a faint wolf-howl that barely makes it past the fog drowning sound.

The sea serpent lunges, and instead of trying to dodge, I kick to grab the bone armor on the top of its head, clinging for all I'm worth and scraping the dagger's edge along the side of its face. It roars, twisting around, then the dagger sinks into something softer and it screeches, trying to shake me off. I cling harder, using the knife wherever it sunk in as an extra anchor point, and try to focus all of this bullshit that needs to stop on the one solution I have, incoming from further down the tunnel.

I catch a glimpse of Sangloupmon charging into a leap, then a chaotic jumble of light and darkness and much, much larger red-lined bat wings in a mass of shadows, hitting the sea serpent and flapping for balance - I manage to drop off into a roll as its head passes over the concrete, awkward on the side. There's large white claws dug into its side and whatever the new shape is, it's humanoid, but it's hard to see through a cloud of oddly solid shadows, shapes of wings and claws and eyes and teeth eating into the serpent until it stops thrashing.

The body's breaking up into red static faster than normal, and Dracmon's new form is absorbing it. The shadow-shapes are fading, and I can see the new form better now.

He's humanoid, almost human looking at first glance, but almost blueish pale; the wings are mantling overhead, claws on his hands sunk into the disintegrating corpse. He's still got a mouthful of sharp teeth and glowing eyes, with what looks like a very archaic dark blue suit.

Once the last of the red haze vanishes, he half-levitates onto the walkway in front of me, the wings folding around him like a cloak. His presence is much bigger than what it has been, he's easily seven or eight feet tall, and his feet aren't quite touching the ground.

"You changed again." I've got a minute or two before I'm out of being dazed by getting thrown around by the sea serpent.

"You opened yourself to me and wished for power; this is the answer." It's still definitely him, but his speech is more formal and composed than I've ever heard him act. "And this power is now yours to command." It doesn't look or feel like he's being any more subservient than usual - which is 'not really at all'.

Figuring out what he becomes later, high threat situation now. "Good. We're going to need it." We also need to get moving, but after rodeo-fighting a sea serpent, I need a minute to catch my breath and let the new bruises settle. "At this point, I really want to break that spider hag's teeth in."

He chuckles and grins, showing a mouthful of sharp teeth, and flexes his claws.

I take another moment to get a deep breath, then get back to my feet, putting my dagger back in its sheath and wringing some of the brackish water out of my shirt. "Right. we need to find Miu, and if these bastards have pulled even half the shit on her they have on me, then we have some murdering to do."

"And the others?"

Right. I want to say they can take care of themselves, but... Takuma is probably okay - the other illusions might mess with him but I can't see him falling for a fake Agumon at all. Haru and Miyuki have survived here longer than any of us, but they're also more defenseless against a direct attack. Minoru should be genre-savvy enough to figure it out, especially since he's seen Arukenimon pull this shit before, but if he second-guesses himself at all it might roll him. Saki fell for Arukenimon before and is way more high strung than she lets on. Aoi has next to no confidence in herself and her judgment. Ryo's a craps shoot who will either be perfectly fine or an easy mark. Shuuji's dog meat...

Which I'd care less about, but I don't want to see Lopmon die because his partner's an asshole.

"Yeah. We need to find them, too." I pull my miraculously still working phone out to keep mapping. "Alright, let's get looking."

He falls into step next to me, dropping back down to Dracmon. I'm not sure if it's easier on my nerves or not. The sense of power from his new form makes it easier to face the fog without being completely on edge, but it's also like standing next to a leashed tiger.

Dracmon couldn't sense any further through the fog than I could see or hear. The map was helping avoid going in circles, but it didn't help find clues to anyone else, and the place was a lot bigger than any of us had expected. Dracmon is abusing his hand-eyes constantly, peering around to keep track of the water, the tunnel, the side paths, and the ceiling. The scrabbling sound is echoing off and on in spite of the fog, without any sign of what's making it or where it is. There were occasional odd shifts in the water, but none coming close enough to strike at.

The first other figure I saw, I picked up the pace; it took Dracmon a second to catch up with a confused noise. I stopped fast as my mother turned around, looking between me and Dracmon in confused horror.

She turned and ran, and I stared after as the image vanished.

"What was that about?" Dracmon had one hand facing the tunnel I was staring down, the other turned to look up at me.

"You didn't see that?" I glanced down at him and the water, but I didn't want to look away from where the appariton had been for too long, just in case.

"Not a thing."

I shift and check the area again; if there was something in the water, it's already left. "Right."

"Do you need me to do reality checks?" He's being guardedly concerned, keeping one eye on me and surveying the area with the other.

I don't like relying on someone else that way or not being able to trust my own senses; I hunch my shoulders and glare at the fog. "... Yeah. I think I need it."

He nods and hangs closer as we pick up the search again.

There's another apparition of the parents, scrambling to get away from me as if I'd turned into one of the bigger monsters. Then another up ahead, where I stop before I can even see it clearly - human, adult, not standing or moving quite right.

Dracmon catches my wrist with a faint claw-prick. "Nothing there."

I nod and try to keep as much attention on the map as on the phantom; he's keeping an eye on the water and ceiling as we head forward. This time, the apparition doesn't even seem to notice me, creeping around the corner down a side path as if following something. When we reach that offshoot, it looks like a dead end with the lights out, and Dracmon tugs until I keep going.

"Let's not walk into any obvious traps, okay?"

There's a stretch of nothing but shifting water occasionally and scrabbling echoes, with more glimpses of that same apparition. The phone clock says I've been in here a few hours now, without any sign of anyone but me and Dracmon and whatever's messing with us. Dracmon's started nudging me to remind me to keep drawing the map, and he's definitely more tense than usual.

There's the figure ahead again, hurring off ahead of us; I didn't even realize I'd moved to chase until Dracmon's digging heels into the ground, holding my wrist to keep me from following. He stays braced for a couple seconds after I stop trying to chase, a hand turned to watch me.

"You good there, buddy? Need a breather?"

I shoot him a sour look and then a glare at the fog. "It's not gonna help until we're out of this crap."

He makes a concerned noise and clicks a couple of his teeth unhappily, but nods.

Eventually something else cuts through the muffling fog - raised voices, sounds of impact and scuffle, Greymon roaring. I stop and look down at Dracmon, not sure if I can hope it's real.

He shifts up to Sangloupmon, dropping a wing and shoulder for me to climb on - it's real, at least some of the others are in a fight, and it's loud and clear enough to follow.

The side passage goes into one of the bigger reservoirs; Sangloupmon jumps down from a walkway to the larger concrete platforms where almost everyone else is, jaws snapping shut on one of the smaller aquatic types as he lands.  

There’s not many of the smaller ones; they’re wising up.  There are a couple more of the seaserpents, and one bigger one with jagged red scales and partial gleaming armor.  I can see Arukenimon up in a darker corner of the walls, with her Dokugumon scattered around the walls in numbers, coming up over the edges of the platforms here and there.  

Greymon’s bigger, with the start of blue wings and metal armor, metal blades for claws; Takuma’s doggedly staying a couple steps behind, just barely keeping enough distance to not get accidentally hit by something but in range for Greymon to react if something grabs at him.   Veggiemon’s covering a defensible spot with Aoi, Miu, and Saki, Shuuji’s sitting on the ground by an edge looking dazed with Ryo standing over him and some taller green insectoid with a spear darting about fending off reinforcements, Haru and Miyuki are sticking to darker corners, Shellmon is helping Greymon push toward the big one.  It takes a second to pick out Lopmon, but there’s a distinctly rabbit-eared figure helping out on the bigger platform.  There’s four black wings crossing the area moving fast and I think Minoru’s with Yatagarasumon.  

I slide off Sangloupmon’s back.  “Go get’em, I’m gonna play distraction and stay back.”  The wolf nods, then leaps forward, changing mid-jump to the new form; there’s movement up in the corner, as Arukenimon is clearly tracking his arrival and not looking happy about it.  

One of the few little guys tries to grab onto my ankle as I’m crossing the walkways and platforms, but he’s easy to punt off the edge, little frustrated burbles echoing up from the water after the splash.  

I get to the corner Veggiemon’s defending, ducking under her vines; Miu actually takes a step forward looking relieved before she catches herself, and there’s three almost overlapping calls of “Kaito!”, and a jumble of “You’re okay!”, “You’re alive!”, and “You’re a mess!”.

The last one is punctuated by Aoi grabbing my arm to drag me over, trying to look me over for any blood.  

“I’m fine, just got a bit banged up before Dracmon found me.”  

She frowns at me; I have no idea if there’s any visible bruises.  

“Is everyone alright?  Miu, are you okay?”  

Miu rolls her eyes a little.  

“We’re okay - everybody’s a little shaken but we’re okay.”  Aoi sound like she’s trying to convince herself of that.  She grabs my wrist as I turn to leave the alcove with a frustrated noise.  “You need to stop trying to fight like that!”  

“I’m not charging in with the big guys, I’m just gonna check on everyone else!”  

She hangs onto my wrist, glaring at me.  “You had better not get injured again.”  

I make a couple frustrated gestures at the chaos, and she lets go, folding her arms and glaring at me as I head out.  

Haru hisses at me when I get close, and glares when I point out the alcove Veggiemon’s secured; Miyuki looks fine, so I move on and leave them be.  Takuma’s fine, if harried, doing callouts for our partners.  

Somehow, Ryo looks the least shaken of anyone there besides Takuma - a little jumpy but I’d be surprised if he wasn’t.  Shuuji doesn’t even seem to notice when I get close, although Kunemon’s new form moves to cover me in case anything tries.  

“You all started without me!”  

Ryo half-laughs.  “We tried, man, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer.”  

“What’s with our Lord and Master here?”  I motion at Shuuji, who still hasn’t looked up.

Ryo sighs, the brief bravado vanishing into tired.  “Whatever was up with that fog messed with him harder than any of us - Takuma we think he might’ve been the main target with this one.  Seems like everybody got visions of their partners being jerks on top of the other shit.”  

“Yeah.  Caught the one after me slipping up, then I tried to jump the thing in the water; that’s when Dracmon found me.”  

Ryo nods soberly.  “I had it easier.  Couldn’t understand the fakes at all.  The other crap was pretty bad, but I wasn’t gonna fall for it twice.”  

So he was the best off of anyone; that’s good at least.  

“So they were trying to get us turning on them?”  

“My guess, yeah, and we all know who the easy mark was.  I had to clock him good before I had a shot at snapping my him out of it.”  

“I really missed out.”  

He snerks; I don’t think Shuuji’s even noticed I’m here.

“Anyway he kinda fell apart apologizing to Lopmon and begging them to help, Lopmon finally got their new form, and he’s been like this since; Arukenimon pitched a fit, so we’re keeping an eye on him until we can get out of here.”  

“You know the girls dug in pretty good - think we can get him there?”  I gesture back the way I came.

“Really?  Shit.  I figured they were fine since their partners aren’t freaking out.”  He’s craning around trying to see; looking back, it’s not even visible from here besides an occasional flash of vines.  

“Where Veggiemon is?”  The voice is inhuman, but it’s recognizably related to Kunemon’s normal screeching and chirping, and I need a second to catch up that they can talk in that form.  

“Uh - yeah.”

The big insectoid nods and scoops Shuuji up; he squawks and squirms, then seems to at least recognize that they’re not a threat and balls up against them.  They move out to lead, and even carrying Shuuji, they sweep a couple Dokugumon out of our way easily.  

I peel off before they reach the alcove, letting Ryo know I’m going to back Takuma up.  By the time I get there, the main fight’s moved to a higher platform; Takuma’s hanging back on the stairs, getting covered by Minoru and Yatagarasumon.