The maned figure bats aside the few pellets that came close with a swipe of its sword. "Are you prepared," it asks, "to die?"

And there's a girl at the sidelines, maybe eight or nine, eyes wide. 

"Hey! Stop!" she calls, fists tightening.

And there's a shadow, darkness curling like fur, looming behind and around and above her, wisps revealing a face almost like a fox's skull.

The leonine feature half-turns, dropping his attack stance but remaining on guard. His poise shows signs of recent injury.

"Traveler," he says, "you have come at a dark time. Are you safe here?"

"I'm safe. I've got my Boogey. But fighting is bad! You shouldn't be saying you'll kill someone!"

"In thirty minutes the X-Program will sweep through this forest, killing any Digimon not quick enough to have boarded the train nor lucky enough to bear the X-Antibody. The nearest railway is hours' travel away and this youth bears the only Antibody I've seen in days. Do you mean to fight me for it?"

(The quivering "youth" attempts to sidle behind the lion-man.)

"Will it kill the girl?" hisses a voice from the thing behind her. The fox skeleton gains a depth it didn't have before, shadows flickering and billowing menacingly. 

" - Boogey, we need to get everyone else out, too."

To the fox shadow he says, "Humans do not weigh on the world as we do, and so the X-Program has no interest in them. But you and I would be well advised to seek protection."

(He takes a step diagonally backwards in the muddy ground, keeping his prey in sight.)

"He can hide in my head or the dream-world - but I gotta save everyone here, too! Including you two!"

"How, child, will you save two or more ’mon with a single Antibody? Can you cache more than only your partner? Can you produce additional Antibodies? Can your partner fight the tide?"

He steps within arm's reach of the cliff, cutting off that line of retreat for the purple creature.

"Stop being mean to the other mon! And I can make portals into the dream-world, 's long as people behave around the dream-doors and don't make the Sandman angry or go near the Mage. And I can imagine stuff."

"I place my fate in your hands, then, traveler. My name is Leomon. Lead and I shall follow."

He sheathes his weapon and stands at rest.

The purple creature dashes across to the forest-line, but stays there looking back, rather than flee into the woods.

And she concentrates, and the shadow surges - 

And a shimmering portal opens in the darkest shadow around that isn't the Boogeyman.

"You gotta go through that. Don't touch the dreams - they're the stuff that's not sand - and if you see a really tall star-person walk the other way until you don't see her."

"Affirmative." Leomon strides into the shimmer in the shadow of the cliff.

"Stay? Go?," asks the purple creature - the first words it's said since calling its attack.

"If you think you'll be safe here, maybe you can tell us how to find others? But if you think other people might hurt you, you can go?"

It dips its head in a nod, then strides into the woods, sniffing the air.

"Thanks!" she calls, starting to follow. To her shadow: "Can you sense anyone?"

He shakes his head. "Just you." Which might be a problem when he needs to feed; right now the girl is scared enough for him, but he dislikes scaring her if she calms down...

"...It's okay. We'll find people anyways."

They follow the creature through the woods to a meadow of soggy flowers; in the center is a humanoid sunflower, of perhaps double Leomon's adult-human proportions, flopped listlessly in the rain.

She calls out. "Hey! We're trying to evacuate people ahead of the X-thing!"

"oh hey," she says raising her head, "that's pretty cool of you." Then drops her head back down onto her hands.

" - That includes you. Don't you wanna get out of here? And we gotta hurry - "

"oh sure, thanks." She puts one hand and then the other under her and lifts herself, head and sodden leaves drooping, onto her haunches. She lifts her head long enough to say, "where ’we go?"

"Through there," she says, forming another portal.

"hey cool all right," she says, and plods through.

And their guide can lead them to another straggler, and another, until their time estimate from Leomon has run down to just a couple minutes.

They go as fast as they can - which is really fast, with Nausicaa riding Boogey.

"Boogey, can you - just drop everything moving in a portal?" Nausicaa asks, worried. "But don't risk yourself!"

"I can try." And he bows to let Nausicaa slide off his fur, and then - 

He's not really every shadow under every bed, but if he twists his mind correctly...

He is very, very fast.

Then in addition to their manual rescues, they can transport an indeterminate number of other creatures. Most won't know what's going on, or how to behave, or whether they've been deleted after all and this is what follows - but they'll be safe from the X-Program.

And then the forest starts to... ripple. Eyes open in the trees, in the cliffs, in the ground.

Most of them close after a few seconds, but the ones facing Boogey's skull remain open.

He rushes back to Nausicaa.

New eyes open in his path, some at odd angles to the previous ones.

He'll get to Nausicaa very quickly, curling around her and hissing at the eyes.

She screams - half in fear, half in anger.

The eyes do nothing further but watch the small group. After a minute or so, they close, and the forest is as it was - trees, rain, Nausicaa, Boogey, and their guide.

That is very intensely creepy!

Kurama still is making a very angry noise after the eyes go away.

The rain continues to run in rivulets through the trees to the moist earth below. Thunder rumbles gently in the distance. The purple creature rests on the ground, catching its breath. The only other motion in the forest is the two travelers.

His fur gradually unruffles.

"Are you okay?" she calls to their friend.

"Okay!," it says, getting back to its feet. "Wow."

"Where do we go now?"

"Friends? Railway?"

"...Guess we should get the people in the dream-realm, yeah."

She has Boogey make a portal - she technically can but it's hard when she's this anxious - and steps through, looking around for people.

The sky is a dark off-red, the sand glittering, a mixture of colors like rainbow static. 

This area is flat, featureless, though rocky crags rise in the distance. There aren't any dream-bubbles, not here.

With the open sight lines of the flat sands, it's possible to trace out the full area of Boogey's rescue by the displaced Digimon scattered around. Some are staying put, some are wandering, some are grouping up, and some are starting to fight.

None of them notice her immediately.

The Boogeyman produces a very loud, very shrill whistle that carries over the plain.

Dozens of Digimon break off whatever they're doing and turn to face the whistle.

"Hey, there's the X-Program!," says a talking tree-snag.

    "That can't be the X-Program, I'm immune to the X-Program," says a wolf with spiky wing-shaped protrusions.

        "How would the X-Program be in Silicon Limbo anyway?," asks some sort of excavation equipment.

She climbs on top of Boogey, and calls out, "We're not the X-Program!" which carries farther than it should but perhaps not to everyone.

She starts riding towards them.

Her leonine follower speaks up. "The child is correct. She and her partner have saved us from the X-Program, at least for now."

(A murmur passes around: "A child!" "A child." "We're saved!" "Personally, I don't believe in children." "A child, though!")

"I don't know that I got everyone. But, yeah, s'long as you don't mess with the dreams or the Sandman or the First Mage, here's safe. I can put people back in the other world, if they want to go, but I don't know that that program thing won't happen again. What was that?"

"The X-Program is the final reaper of the known world. King Drasil ordered an evacuation of one percent of the population, then left it to kill off the rest of us. I know not what form it takes. No one has seen it and survived."

    ("I did!," says a cactus with a hat.)

"No one without the X-Antibody has seen it and survived."

"It was like eyes opening upon the trees, watching me, for a time," the Boogeyman says. 

"That's really bad, killing all those people..." Nausicaa seems overwhelmed. "We need to stop it."

"Most whom it would kill are already dead, but some can yet be saved. The X-Program cannot be all places at once.

"If you cannot fight it head on, you might travel ahead and conduct your own evacuation, or you might seek some way to disrupt it, or to spread the immunity beyond the few who have it.

"If you are confident in your speech, you might even seek to persuade the King to call off his program. But I do not think it wise to come to his attention before you must."

"I can imagine things, too. I made Boogey. I might've made some other stuff. I - don't know how to get specific things. But I might be able to do something weird? But yeah evacuating - that's easy. Kind of."

"Can you make the X-Antibody?," asks an armored rhinoceros. "Only if you could make enough for all of us, we'd all be safe and you could move on to the next."

    ("I'm already safe," gripes the wolf. "What did you bring me here for anyway?")

"This is the dream world. The X-program can't get here," she says, "But it'd be nice if you guys could go home. And - I can't make the antibody, but I could probably make a blanket that'd be safety? Like how Boogey is fear."

"And Boogey was just grabbing people really fast 'cause we didn't have time."

"I would take safety," says the rhino.

    "I would too," says the excavator.

        "Me too, me too!," says the cactus.

            "You're already safe, prickstick," says the tree snag.

        "Well safety's always good," it replies.

"I'll wanna test that it works against normal kindsa danger first," she says. "But once it's tested imagining things is pretty fast?"

"Then I will accept the risk. What must I do?"

"I'll do the thing."

She closes her eyes and scrunches up her face, and imagines safety, like being wrapped in Boogey's shadows, like a warm heavy blanket keeping the screaming wind out, like friends and her nanny and everyone who's ever protected her - 

This is the dream world. In the real world, Nausicaa once made a whole entire person.

Nausicaa is exceptionally more powerful here.

It feels rather like getting hugged by the world's best armor, except that armor is made of very friendly shadows.

A cloak of shadows rolls over Leomon's shoulders, spilling down his back and pooling around his feet, where it ripples and cavorts to its own imagined winds.

(The tree snag whistles and exclaims, "Snazzy duds!")

"Awesome!" Nausicaa says, clapping. "It worked!"

"Well done, Chosen Child," says the rhino, kneeling its front legs to her.

    ("Okay, maybe I believe in children a little bit," says the drill-nosed creature.)

"Thank you," she says. "Though we should still test it, I think, and then I can make everyone safe."

Leomon extends his off arm towards Boogey.

Sharp stabby shadows, that are stopped entirely by Leomon's cloak.

"It works!" 

And knowing this - it's power.

Nausicaa takes a deep breath and draws a blanket over everyone she can see. They'll be safe and cozy and en-shadowed...

"Aww heck yes!," says the shadow-cloaked cactus-being, amid the general murmur of approval. Some of the other creatures start experimentally testing each other's safety.

They're really safe!

"I can get people back to your normal world now," she says, pleased.

"Then let's get home and get on with our lives," grouses the wolf.

    "Thanks for the power-up!," says the snag.

        "I'll always remember you!," says the mole.

A couple of portals shimmer open. "You guys are welcome! Goodbye!"

"Bye bye," says her purple guide. "Thank you!" And it slips off through a portal.

Eventually she's left alone with Boogey, Leomon, and the handful of ’mon that have managed to ignore the entire process.

She'll check to make sure if the mon who've been ignoring stuff are okay, and if they want to go home. (This isn't a very safe place to live, even if you've got a safety blanket.)

The sunflower is much perkier now! "Oh, thank you so much for getting me out of that thunderstorm! I just can't do anything at all after a day or two without sun, you know."

(This platypus-looking guy is still grooving to his own beat.)

"There's no suns here, except for around the First Mage maybe, so you should really go back to your own world."

Can platypus guy be talked to? If he really doesn't seem to care she might have Boogey just pick him up.

If she's determined she can get his attention and direct him through a portal, and Boogey can carry the couple of ’mon that are completely non-responsive.

And with the dream world at last cleared out, she can return to the rainy forest herself, with Boogey and Leomon in tow.

"Well done, Chosen Child. You have saved many lives today. Where will you go next?"

"Thanks. Do you know where and when the next X-program will be? I want to try to stop it, but if there's another one soon..."

"The next area would be somewhere near this forest; I don't know which area exactly. But when it comes it's always at the same time of day. With Bogeymon's speed you have some time to prepare."

She nods. (Still, she's worried). "When do they announce what area's being hit?"

"There is no announcement as such. I knew this area would be next to fall since all but one neighboring area had been cleared and deleted."

"Where's the next area, then?"

"Most likely the desert. Perhaps a day's hike that way, and faster for Bogeymon.

"Many of your rescuees will be traveling that way as well, for the desert or for the rail."

"How many people live in each area?"

"Fewer in the desert - sand makes poor food. Everywhere, fewer than there once were, between the evacuation and the fighting for the Antibodies.

"Likely similar to what you saw here. Perhaps a bit more, closer in, as people flee from the edges toward the Tree."

"We might try to grab everyone a lot before the thing, then, so I can safe them, and then we can go to the next most likely place, and do a lot of places."

"Very good, my Child. Will I be able to aid you in this or would I just slow your travel?"

"I'd like the help! And Boogey can carry lots."

"Then let's begin!"

And he prepares to be carried.

Boogey forms into a more solid-looking fox, rather than a billowing mass of shadows that vaguely suggests someone's nightmare of a fox.

He lies down, and says, "I will carry you on my back."

He mounts the noble steed.

And, once Nausicaa has climbed on, they are off, whisking over the landscape.

They whoosh through the rainy woods, zipping over bushes and around trees. Twice they pass little groups of shadow-cloaked rescuees.

At this pace it's not long before the trees and clouds thin out, giving way to an expanse of tangled grass and shrubs, only the occasional trees dotted around. And very shortly thereafter, a cleared swath cuts across their path, rails running along it towards a huge tree on the horizon.

He starts looking for digimon.

Nobody seems to be hanging out in the scrubland along the rails here - whoever's in the desert must be further into the sandy parts.

Along the tracks he does find an area of tumbled-down blocks and bramble-torn fields. Leomon looks uncomfortable among the peeling paint and the thorns.

"This was a holy place, once."

"I'm sorry. What happened?"

"This was the Primary Village, where by ancient truce the new and the reborn could hatch and grow in peace. Some few years ago the arrival of new eggs slowed to nothing. Which was worry enough, but the real panic set in when even the eggs of the reborn stopped.

"Now it's become just another battleground to fight for survival. And if the dead are reborn at all, the living don't know where."

"That's bad."

"Once I fix things, we can rebuild."

"Perhaps then the eggs will return." He doesn't sound hopeful.

They can proceed from there through the scrubland to the desert proper - rocks, dirt, sand, (inanimate) cacti.

There aren't many ’mon in the desert, either, but at Boogey's pace they can find a few.

He'll survey the desert - he has time - then return to those, to explain that they need to step through the portal so the child can make them safe from the X-program.

Some go immediately, or with a slight clarification. Some point out that their antibody already makes them safe from the X Program, thank you, so why should they step into strange effects? And a few seem hesitant to trust the strange trio at all.

"I can't see the antibody so I was checking everyone. Good luck though!" she says to people who have the antibody.

To the hesitation people: "I know it sounds weird, but if the X-program comes through here... Have you seen the people with shadow cloaks? They're the ones I safed."

This guy's worried that a shadow cloak might interfere with his whole "radiant inferno" deal.

She can try putting it on and take it back off if it interferes?

Sure, he'll go for that. Now or should he take the portal?

Thanks.

It's easier if he goes through the portal.

Then he goes!

Another recalcitrant ’mon. She says, "No. Nuh-uh. What if it lets you control me or drain my power or something? I'd rather take my chances fighting for an X-Antibody."

"If I was being mean I wouldn't ask first," she points out, logically.

"What if you were trying to tempt me into being your evil servant?"

"I wouldn't do that! And if you're working for someone and they're being evil you can quit. But I promise I just wanna make people safe and then move on."

"Okay, but I'm watching what you tell me to do!"

And she goes.

One more.

"Creature of darkness," she greets them.

"That's my Boogey! He only looks scary. He's actually really nice."

"...I suppose we cannot be choosy about allies in these end times," she concedes.

"What are your aims here?"

"I'm trying to make everyone safe! I don't want the X-program killing people."

"A worthy aim," she says. "What's your plan for the King and his Knights?"

"I'm trying to make people safe while I figure out what's going on here and what to do. I got here only a bit ago so I don't know much, and then stuff keeps happening."

"It speaks well of you that that's your first priority. Still, if you disrupt the royal plan they'll notice you eventually. You'd best be prepared to fight or avoid them."

She continues, "May I assume, then, that you have no plan for the space crunch? When the survivors are all 'safed,' but they continue to grow and the server is full?"

"I can make places and stuff, and I could try imagining a whole bunch more place for people to be in. The dream-place is infinite and someone imagined that."

"Good enough for me, Child."

And she enters the portal. As far as Boogey can tell, they've cleared out the desert.

She steps through the portal and makes everyone safe, though she makes the flare one safe separate in case something goes wrong.

The flame creature does in fact extinguish, revealing burnt, scarred skin under its safety cloak. But its complaint of "Augh, so cold!" is quickly drowned out—

The angel screams, her body going rigid. Wherever the shadow touches, her feathers darken.

UNSAFE!

The shadows go away and stuff starts working like it's supposed to because Nausicaa heavily believes things should work like they're supposed to - 

No longer protected from its own flames, the fire creature resumes burning, with a sigh audible amid its crackle.

The angel stops screaming; the lighter and darker colors play over her for a minute, as though unsure how far back to go.

Eventually they settle somewhere in between - not the blacks she'd dipped into, but more nuanced than the whites and pinks she'd worn before.

"Ah. Glad that's over with. Perhaps I should have warned you, child - my kind aren't made to compromise with darkness. But in this case I thought it worth it."

"Do you want me to try putting the shadow blanket over you again then? I thought it might be hurting you..."

"I expect I'm as fallen as I can be, now, it shouldn't hurt me any further."

"Okay..."

And she safes the angel lady again.

"And voilà, your lady of shadows. Falldown Angewomon at your service." She strikes a curtsy-esque pose.

She curtsies back. "I'm glad you like it!"

("Now you're tempting angels to fall to darkness?! I don't feel evil yet, but I'm watching you!")

"We good here, or there more to do?," asks a now-safed rock being.

"People are okay to go back! Boogeyman will open portals for people."

So they mostly go back.

"Got a plan B or shall I take my chances?"

"The X-program can't reach here, if you wanna stay here until I stop it, or I can put you back somewhere the program's already passed through?"

"I'd rather stay out of reach, if I can."

"Then you can stay here until I fix it. There's the dream bubbles, though there aren't any near here, and you shouldn't try to interact with those, because if you mess with dreams the Sandman comes after you. He's really big and scary."

"And if you see a super huge woman with glowy stuff around her you should avoid her because it's really dangerous to approach her - she's the First Mage, but I don't think she's anywhere near here right now."

"Thank you," he says, and moseys off.

That leaves Nausicaa, Boogey, Leomon, and Falldown Angewomon.

To Falldown Angewomon: "Do you wanna go back on your own? I could also use help figuring out how to approach the King."

"I've already Fallen for you. I'm going all the way.

"As to the King, personally I doubt he'll see reason. I think you'll have to confront him and all his Knights eventually and delete whoever you can't turn, so the priority would be to pick them off one by one before they know what's happening. For the first few, you could even let them come to you.

"Safety from attacks could let us wear down even a much stronger foe over time - the big challenge would be to stop them from reporting back about your capabilities, giving the Knights time to hit you in force or develop a counter."

"But Nausicaa can create extra space. Could she not expand the world for King Drasil and make the X-Program unnecessary?"

"Oh, I have no doubt that she could. But do you believe that King Drasil made the X-Program only in dire necessity, that he cries over every death and longs for any chance to stop it? Or is he eager to see us all wiped out for the flourishing of his chosen few?"

"I think I can talk to him. I talked to the Primal Fear, and I talked to Sue's wendigo, and I talked to the angel and the Songsmith and lots of other mean scary things. If he's like the Great Wendigo and only takes and takes and takes and makes things bad, then I'll fight him, but even the scariest stuff can be good."

"Far be it from me to stop you. Just please don't bet your life on it; we're counting on you to save the world, not the king."

"I won't risk my life. I promise."

"Thank you," she nods. "As to King Drasil, if you're confident in your protections and your persuasion, you could skip the dance and go confront him directly in his tree? You'd have to be prepared to face his guards as well as him personally."

"How strong are his guards?"

"The Royal Knights are the twelve strongest Digimon known to still live. The king will be guarded by whichever are between missions."

"Boogey once beat a Dread and a whole bunch of Nightmares and the Primal Fear and then helped fight a Great Wendigo which could eat everything it saw, but I dunno what the twelve strongest digimon are like in terms of power?"

"Some are combatants unparalleled here in skill and equipment, though I know no combat comparison between Digimon and Wendigos. Others are masters of special techniques, like Gankumon's spirit projection or Magnamon's power to bend light. Rhodomon can command an army with a thought."

She glances at Boogey.

"Let me gather strength, first. There is much fear here."