Author Notes: Ok, I'm really really sorry... I know it's been about a year since the last time I posted a chapter... so much has gone on, I just couldn't do it... but all that's behind me now. Digimon Legend is officially back on track.

This chapter starts at the exact same time and place as the previous chapter did... only from a different perspective.

Now I'll leave you to the new chapter. I hope you enjoy it and can forgive me for the excessive delay...

Chapter 7

Bad Luck

"Lily!"

It was them again. I hadn't seen them in… well, I had lost track of time, but I knew it had been several days at least. I thought maybe they had wandered to a different area of the Digital world, but here they were again. Where had they been all this time? They were the only other humans I had seen in the Digital world. I was sure I would have bumped into them several times by now if they were staying nearby.

I looked down from my perch on the roof at what was left of the battle. I could hardly believe that such a defenseless Digimon could be attacked like this, though I had seen it many times. It had to stop. I had to stop it. The other Digimon I could understand, but humans as well? Why would they do this?

"You attack this innocent creature as if it was the enemy?" I asked.

The dinosaur Digimon still focused on the small machine Digimon replied. "It attacked us first!" it hissed. This must have been the Digivolved form of the small reptile we saw before. How had it Digivolved already? Could the other two Digivolve as well? "Besides, orders are orders." Why do they follow these orders so blindly?

"The Overmind is wrong," Salamon said. "There is another way."

"Prove it!" the lizard hissed back.

"We just did," I replied, motioning to the Digimon lying on the ground. As everyone turned to look, it began to climb back to its feet. It looked like it was going to be ok.

"Owww… my head," it said as it began to look around. "What happened?"

"You were infected. We just saved your life," I told the confused Digimon. As usual, the infected Digimon has no memory of what happened during that time. Poor thing…

"Infected?" it cried out. The Digimon was now shaking in fear. "And I'm still alive? Oh thank you, thank you all so very much! How can I ever repay you?" he asked.

"Try to stay out of trouble," I said. I turned and started heading for the other side of the roof.

"Lily, wait!" a voice shouted behind me.

I stopped and turned around. I really didn't feel like playing twenty questions with these guys. "I don't know how you know my name, and I don't really care."

"Lily, we just want to help," offered the taller boy. Help? Was he joking? Why on earth would I need their help?

"Salamon and I don't need help," I responded. "In fact, we seem to be doing better than the lot of you," I added as I turned away again.

"You can't outrun me," hissed the dinosaur Digimon.

I turned my head to look over my shoulder. "I don't need to outrun you. Your partner isn't going anywhere with that injury. And don't be so naive as to think that you are the only one who can Digivolve." Salamon turned to look at me and I gave her a small wink. I ran to the opposite side of the roof and jumped off, landing with a roll. Salamon followed as I took off into the woods.

"Hey! Wait for me!" the machine Digimon shouted from behind us. A tag along was the last thing I wanted right now. After making certain that we were far enough out of sight, I grabbed onto a tree branch and lifted myself up. Salamon and I climbed several branches up and then watched as the machine Digimon we had saved earlier ran by underneath us, still shouting for us to wait. Finally, he was gone, and Salamon and I were alone again.

"Why did you lie to them?" Salamon asked once the coast was clear. "About me being able to Digivolve? I haven't Digivolved yet, Lily."

I looked up through the tree tops. It was getting dark. "To give them another reason to not follow us. Besides, it's only a matter of time." I thought about all that had happened over the past few days. It seemed like my normal life was ages ago. "Let's sleep here tonight," I said, leaning up against the trunk of the tree. Salamon nodded. She walked across the limb to me and curled up in my lap, closing her eyes. She was sleeping peacefully in only a few minutes.

Sleep avoided me for a few hours. Thoughts circled in my head. Where was I, really? What are Digimon? Why had Salamon not Digivolved yet? Who were those other humans? Had they been here as long as I had? Longer? Would I ever find my way home?

Eventually, I found rest. I dreamed of my family. Of my friends. All the people I had left back at home. All of them leaving. I was all alone. No mother. No father. No brothers or sisters. Not even one single friend. Just me and Sala... Sala... who was I thinking about? Whoever it was, they weren't here. It was really just me. Alone in the darkness. It got darker and darker. The silence was painful. I screamed for someone, anyone, to come help me. But I had no voice. There was no sound at all, save the distant noise of the waves. Waves?

In the morning, I awoke to a strange noise. Far in the distance, I could barely make it out. A bell? It rang a few times, and then was quiet. It must have been miles away. Was that the noise I had heard in my dream. More like a nightmare. Or was it? My memory of the dream was fading quickly.

"Did you hear that, Salamon?" I asked?

Still sitting in my lap, Salamon looked up at me. "Yes, but I've never heard any noise like that before." I faintly recognized the sound of the bell, but I couldn't quite place what it was from. It had definitely made me curious though.

"Wanna go investigate it?" I asked.

"Sure," she replied. "But, I couldn't tell what direction it was coming from." Neither could I. It must have been echoing off of the trees.

"Well, there's no point in staying up here all day," I said as I began to climb down the limbs of the tree. When I reached the bottom limb, a strong gust of wind knocked me off my balance. "Whoa! Salamon!" I cried as the wind picked up stronger and I fell off the branch.

~doko desu ka~

I slammed onto my back on the ground. "Ow…" Did I hear a voice in the wind? Salamon jumped down next to me.

"Are you ok?" she asked, worried.

I slowly climbed to my feet. "Yeah, I'm fine. Did you hear a voice when I fell, Salamon?"

"I dunno," she replied. "I could barely hear your scream through the noise of the wind in the trees." Maybe I had just imagined it. Even if it was a voice, I couldn't understand what it was saying. It just sounded like gibberish. "Hey, Lily, was that there before?"

I looked at Salamon and followed her gaze about twenty feet away. "A scarecrow?" I said, puzzled. It certainly looked like a scarecrow. It had a broad brimmed hat with a light on the front and matching brown gloves and boots. It wore a green tunic and large amounts of straw were sticking out of various patches and joints. A bow and quiver of arrows was visible sticking out from behind its back. A black bird flew down and landed on its right shoulder, pecked at it's yellow hair a few times, and then flew off again. It appeared the scarecrow was doing a rather poor job of scaring crows.

"Who puts a scarecrow in the middle of a forest?" Filled with curiosity, Salamon and I began to walk slowly towards the scarecrow. A gentle breeze came winding through the trees, carrying a blanket of leaves with it, as I finally stood face to face with the scarecrow. All of its facial features appeared to have been drawn by hand with a broad marker. I slowly reached out with my left hand. Inches from one of the scarecrows eyes, the wind picked back up and blew so hard I almost fell over. I had to shield my eyes from the debris that came whipping up with it. I heard Salamon yell as she tumbled backward several yards.

~umi~

There was that voice on the wind again. I still couldn't make out any words though. When the wind finally died, I removed my hands from over my eyes, but the scarecrow was gone. I turned and looked all around, but I couldn't see it anywhere. Salamon stood back up and started walking back to me. "Where did it go, Lily?" I was at a loss.

"I dunno. Could it have been a Digimon?" I asked.

Salamon did what I could only guess was a shrug. "I've never seen any Digimon like that before." It did appear very strange, but there seemed to be no other explanation for its sudden disappearance. After all, normal scarecrows don't walk around whispering in peoples' ears.

I shook my head. "Whatever, let's just get out of these woods." I looked around. "Eh, let's go that way," I said, pointing off to my right. It was as good a direction as any. I had no idea what direction the bell was or what direction the scarecrow went. It was, however, the direction that the strong gusts of wind had been blowing. So perhaps that was the direction that the scarecrow had gone. It was at least worth a shot, if nothing else. I started walking with Salamon at my side.

"Lily, why are you avoiding the other humans? Don't you think it would be better to join with them and work together?"

"You saw them attacking that other Digimon," I replied. "They were going to destroy it."

"But Omekamon did attack them first. And they didn't know about the shadow that was controlling him. It was just a misunderstanding. I'm sure if they knew, they wouldn't have been so aggressive against him."

"Hmph. Ignorance is no excuse. I don't need them anyway. They don't have anything that I don't."

"Except clean clothes," Salamon said. Clean clothes? I froze. Clothes. All three of them were wearing different clothing yesterday than they were the first time I saw them. But how was that possible? Could it be? Did they find a way home? But how? I had looked everywhere. How could they have found a way back and not me? How could they have found a portal home?

They said they wanted to help me. Maybe they knew I was trying to find a way home and they were trying to help me. Home. All I want to do is go home. But I can't ask them for help. I have to do this on my own. For once in my life, I will do something on my own. Without any help from anyone else.

"Lily, are you ok?" Salamon asked from a few yards ahead, breaking me from my thoughts.

I shook my head and shrugged. "Yeah, let's just keep going. We're almost out of here.

A few minutes later, we emerged from forest into a large clearing. "Where to now, Lily?"

"Let's keep going this way," I replied. "Those strong gusts of winds were blowing this direction. So the scarecrow may have gone this way, and we still have no idea which direction the sound of that bell is coming from."

We continued walking for hours. I didn't mind that we were going so far away. I needed to find a new place to set up camp anyway. The others had found where I was staying, and in their battle with Omekamon, had destroyed one of the walls. It was time to find new shelter.

After several hours, we decided to stop for a while and rest. Salamon went out to find some food for us to eat. She knew what berries and plants were safe to eat. I had no idea, as they were all plants that I had never seen before. Once she had disappeared over the nearby hill, I returned to my thoughts.

It had been only a few days since I had arrived in the Digital world. Even though it hadn't been that long, much of my memory of the first couple days was blurry, likely due to stress. I remember showing up, finding Salamon, running into the other humans, and going to sleep that night. At some point between then and yesterday morning, we found out about the Overmind and his ruling that aggressive Digimon should be reformatted. And that Salamon had the ability to remove the cause of that aggressive behavior without reformatting the Digimon. And that the other humans were enforcing the Overmind's regulation. I couldn't remember how we got this information, but so far it seemed to be accurate.

Of course, there was always another explanation for all of this. Maybe this was all a dream. That too would explain my difficulty remembering events of the last few days. A complete fantasy land devoid of civilization. Filled with a large variety of creatures that weren't real. Maybe that bell was my alarm clock, and once I found the source in my dream, I would wake up. Then this would all be over. I could finally say goodbye to this Digital nightmare. To this whole Digital world. To Salamon. Salamon...

Ignoring the dream possibility for a while, Salamon brings up another problem. Why was Salamon not able to Digivolve yet? That other human's Digimon had Digivolved just yesterday, but Salamon hadn't yet, despite all of the Digimon that we had fought while saving them from the dark shadows. If she could Digivolve, it would certainly make everything a lot easier.

I heard Salamon's voice in the distance. She must have been returning with food. She was talking to someone. I stood up to get a better look, but I still couldn't see over the hill. I could barely make out her words. And I couldn't hear who she was talking to at all.

"Don't know what they're up to..."

"Yeah, that's what we were told, but..."

"I dunno, I'm just not sure anymore..."

"Something is different. Something has changed..."

"I dunno, we'll figure something out..."

There was a few minutes of silence and then Salamon came walking over the crest of the hill holding a bag made of large leaves in her mouth. I kept looking, but saw no one else come over the hill. Human, Digimon, or otherwise. She walked next to where I was standing and set the bag down on the ground. The bag unfolded to reveal a large supply of various berries and nuts.

"Who were you talking to, Salamon?" I asked, sitting back down.

"Huh?" she replied, cocking her head to the side. "Oh, ummm... just a friend. He left though. Kinda shy."

"Oh, that's too bad," I said. "I would have liked to have met your friend. You'll have to introduce me to him sometime."

"Yeah, no problem. Well, let's eat."

After eating the food, we set out again. Apart from this morning, it had been a rather uneventful day. Which did seem rather odd. Not that we weren't appreciative of the quiet walk through the gently rolling hills. It was quite relaxing. But I did find myself wondering where all of the other Digimon could have been. Usually if you walk for five minutes, you'll see at least five Digimon. We had been walking since this morning, and aside from the possibility of the scarecrow being a Digimon, we hadn't seen even one. This might also be worth investigating.

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud noise. The bell was ringing again. And this time, it was close. Just off to the right. Salamon and I looked at each other and quickly took off in the direction that the sound of the bell was coming from.

As we ran over the top of a hill, a large lake came into view, and just as the bell rang for the last time, I saw the tower come into view. A large bell tower that sat in the middle of the lake. But there was something off. I knew this bell tower. It was only a few miles from my house in the real world. But it was around other buildings, and definitely not in the middle of a lake. What's going on? Every day, this place gets more confusing.

"Damnit!" I yelled, dropping to my knees.

"Lily, what's wrong?" Salamon asked, looking concerned.

What does this mean? Why is this here? I don't understand. I let out a sigh. "It's nothing, Salamon. Don't worry about it."

Salamon nuzzled her head against my leg. "Lily, I..."

"Lily!" A shout rang out from behind us. A voice that I recognized. I turned around to see one of the boys from yesterday riding atop the dinosaur Digimon. They were approaching quickly. Very quickly. There was no way to get away from them this time. Just what this day needed to get even worse. As they came skidding to a halt, I rose to my feet.

"Finally," the boy said. "We've been looking all over for you."

"What do you want? I already told you I don't need your help," I said, glaring up at the boy.

"Leomon attacked us in the woods. We think whatever was controlling Omekamon is also controlling him, but we don't know how to get it out. My friends are holding him off right now, but we need your help to get rid of the evil shadow thing. Will you please help us?"

I couldn't believe it. Salamon was right. They just didn't know about the shadows. And what's more, they wanted me to help them. To help Leomon. They weren't trying to hurt the Digimon, they wanted me to help them remove the shadow from him without hurting him. Maybe they weren't so bad after all.

"This isn't some kind of trick, is it?" I asked, still cautious.

"What reason do I have to trick you?" he asked in return. Good question. Now that he had mentioned it, I could hardly think of why I was so defensive around them in the first place. But something still felt wrong. I just couldn't quite put my finger on what.

Salamon brushed my leg with her head. "Let's help them, Lily. Leomon is a nice kind Digimon, and I'd hate to leave him like that."

She was right. My uneasy feeling was unnecessary. The information we had about the other humans seemed to be wrong now. I couldn't even remember how we got that information, so there seemed to be little reason to follow it blindly. The least I could do is actually confirm it with my own eyes. And this would allow me to do just that. Leomon and the other humans both needed my help right now. It was go time.

"Alright, let's do it," I said, taking a step toward the human and his Digimon.

"Great," He said, holding down a hand. "Climb on."

I took his hand and sat down behind him. Salamon jumped up and sat down in my lap. "How far away are they?" I asked.

"Several miles," he replied. "Hold on tight, and try not to swallow any Flymon." With that, the Digimon broke into a run. The speed was unbelievable. We must have been going over a hundred miles per hour.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot the other day," He shouted over the wind. "My name's Ryan. This is Machdramon."

"I'm Lily," I shouted back.

"Lily Hope, I know. We saw you on the news the other day. Your parents are worried sick about you. We figured you didn't know how to get home. That's what we were trying to tell you yesterday."

"You can get me back home?" I asked.

"Yeah, no problem," he replied instantly.

"Why would you help me? After the way I treated you all yesterday, why?"

"Cause friends help each other out. Especially when they're in trouble."

Friends. I all but hated those three, and they think of me as their friend. I wanted nothing to do with them, and they were doing everything they could to help me. "Some friend I am," I said, looking down at Salamon.

She looked back up at me. "It's never too late to be a good friend, Lily."

Suddenly there was a bright light blinding me. As I tried to adjust my eyes, I noticed the light getting more concentrated around its source. It was coming from the palm of my hand. In just a few seconds it had condensed into a small bright light, which began to take shape and become a physical object. It looked like a small electronic device of some sort, like an MP3 player. The screen was glowing and displayed the message "DIGIVOLUTION". I remembered seeing one of these being held by Ryan yesterday. Only this one was pink on gray instead of red on white.

"Lily!" Salamon cried out. "That's a Digivice! With that, I can Digivolve!"

"And the timing couldn't be better," Ryan said from in front of me. "We're here. And it looks like Khanemon is getting worn out holding him off." In all the excitement of getting the Digivice, I hadn't even noticed that we had arrived back in the forest where we left this morning. And up ahead, two Digimon were fighting each other. A bipedal lion and a bipedal tiger with pants. A small distance behind the tiger, was a human holding another Digivice. I remembered him standing next to a small tiger Digimon yesterday. The large tiger Digimon must have been Khanemon, his evolution. Leaving the lion to be Leomon.

"Time to break that new toy in, Lily!" Ryan said, jumping off of Machdramon. Salamon and I jumped off as well, and Machdramon began to glow brightly and shrink back into his smaller form.

"Salamon, are you ready?" I said, looking down at her.

"Let's do it," she replied. I reached my arm out forward, holding the Digivice out.

"Digivolution, activate!"

Digivolution

"Salamon Digivolve to..."

Salamon's body realigned itself to stand upright, and long claws emerged from it's paws. Its head began to change from that of a small puppy to the head of a long eared cat. Her tail stretched out long and tufts of fur sprouted from the tip of her tail and ears. Her eyes turned a deep yellow and her fur turned black, except for a couple of stripes on her tail and the tufts of fur, which turned dark purple. The gold ring around her neck turned dark and shattered, and purple gloves with red marks slid over her front paws.

"Gatomon!"

"Alright Gatomon, we've got to save Leomon. You know what to do," I said.

Gatomon ran forward and leapt into the air. Just as Leomon was pulling back to throw an attack at Khanemon, Gatomon interrupted.

"Thunder Paw!" she shouted as she slashed her claws across Leomon's face. Leomon growled and staggered backward, clutching his face.

"Thanks, Gatomon," Khanemon said.

"My pleasure," she replied. "He's about to regret ever crossing paths with me."

Leomon regained his senses and pulled his arm back. "Fist of the Beast King!"

"Gatomon, Jump!" Khanemon yelled. Gatomon leapt high in the air as Khanemon intercepted the attack with his staff and redirected it into a nearby tree, knocking it to the ground. He continued spinning his staff until finally slamming it into the ground. "Seismic Slam!"

The ground shook hard and Leomon lost his balance and fell to the ground. From high in the air, Gatomon placed her paws over her eyes for a moment and then removed them quickly. Her eyes flashed brightly for a second.

"Feline Hypnotism!"

Leomon became dazed, lying on the ground holding his head as it slowly wobbled around. As Gatomon landed back on the ground, Khanemon turned toward the nearby fallen tree. He closed his eyes and placed one hand on his head, the other stretched out toward the tree.

"Telekinesis." As he spoke, the tree lifted off the ground and followed his direction toward Leomon. Once the trunk was directly over him, Khanemon opened his eyes, and the tree fell on top of him, pinning him to the ground. Gatomon began walking toward the helpless Leomon.

"It's time to finish this," she said. Leomon swung his claws wildly in a vain attempt to strike her. But he just couldn't reach with the tree pinning him to the ground. "Dour Devour!"

Leomon growled loudly and then fell limp. A large black shadow emerged from Leomon's body and flew to Gatomon, who's eyes swirled and turned black as she inhaled it. Her eyes shut tightly for a few seconds and when she opened them again, none of the darkness remained. "Delicious..." she muttered. Then her body began to glow brightly, and she changed back into Salamon. I ran over to her and she jumped into my arms.

"Salamon, you were great," I told her.

"Thanks Lily."

Khanemon walked to the pinned Leomon and raised his staff in the air. "Seismic Slam!" He struck the tree, which shattered into splinters and dissolved into data. He then reached out with one hand to help the still dizzy Leomon get to his feet. Once on his feet again, Leomon let go of his hand, and Khanemon reverted back to the small tiger form I had seen yesterday. Leomon watched in awe, and then looked around at the rest of us. Four humans and four Digimon.

"Digi-Destined..."

Author notes: Savvy readers might have predicted Salamon's evolution based on the title of the chapter.

On a related note, I chose not to include "Black" in Gatomon's name... seems unnessary to me... just rest assured that it will always be the black version any time she is mentioned... I have no plans of including a regular Gatomon at this time... sorry if you were looking forward to one...

I also slightly changed the names of Gatomon's attacks to more reflect the differences...

And of course, congratulations team on officially being dubbed "Digi-Destined" by the cliche Leomon... the only bigger cliche is goggles on the leader... oh wait, Jetomon has those... close enough...

Well, see you all soon... next chapter coming soon...