"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.