Digiworld Adventure

Part Nine

"What is it?" I cried, Guilmon and I stepping back until the ocean lapped at our heels.

"I don't know," he replied, his voice low.

The crater got deeper at a rate unheard of, and I knew that it couldn't be a natural effect; it had to be a digimon. It stopped sinking at about ten feet deep and twenty in diameter. In the middle, a hole started to grow, and then there was an explosion of sand. Digimon everywhere screamed, and Guilmon and I covered our faces. The sand came crashing down on us, and then there was a piercing roar that filled the air.

When the sand cleared the air, my jaw dropped in not only fear, but also awe. It was a giant squid-like digimon, and by giant I mean it was at least forty feet tall. Tentacles were flailing everywhere, and it reared its hideous body over us all, casting a shadow over the beautiful sky.

My breath was gone, and I found it difficult to think clearly until I heard other digimon attacking. "Fist of the Beast King!" one roared, while another joined in with, "Subzero Ice-Punch!" I watched as an upstanding lion digimon and a snow-bear digimon attacked the monster, but the didn't seem to do much. In fact, the giant digimon merely looked down as if a mosquito had bitten it. Then, it raised one of its massive tentacles and swiped down at that part of the beach sending seven digimon flying.

"Guilmon," I said quietly, "you need to digivolve."

"I can't," he moaned sadly, "it's not working!"

"What? What isn't working?" I was already unclear on the subject of digivolution, but this was just throwing another wrench into the works. "Do you not have enough energy?"

He shook his head. "I don't know," he replied, his head drooping, "I haven't been able to since the desert. Something just isn't right."

I whipped out my digivice and looked into it; nothing was happening. I had no idea what to do then! Every time we had been in any trouble, Guilmon had been able to digivolve and save me, but now I didn't know what to do. Wherever I looked, there were digimon both big and small fighting the monster, but none of it was doing anything. Whether it was blasts of energy, ammunition being fired off, or just plain brute strength, nothing was working.

Guilmon lifted his head and shot off a blast of his own red energy. "Pyro sphere!" The blast hit the giant digimon in the side, and it seemed to notice that it was a new direction of attack. Another tentacle came out and swung at us, crashing directly into us and sending us flying out into the water. A scream tore out of my mouth along with an explosion of pain from my side until it was drowned out by both of us landing in the ocean. The salt water quickly covered my head, and I threw out my arms and legs trying to right myself. Beside me, or rather a few feet away, Guilmon had already righted himself and started swimming towards me. He grabbed my hand and we started to swim back to shore.

"Dragomon's not going to be beaten that easily!" I cried in despair. My feet quickly found solid ground under the water and we were soon back on the shore in the same position we were in before.

"Bunny Blaster!" another digimon roared.

Guilmon looked around, trying to find something – anything. "I don't know what to do!" he moaned again.

Suddenly I heard someone shout, "isn't that a human child by the water?"

Another voice joined it. "What's a human child doing in a battle like this? Someone get him to safety!"

I looked around, trying to find the source of the voice, but the next thing I knew the lion digimon was in front of us scooping both Guilmon and I up under his arms. He bolted off, not looking back for a second. He ran up the hill and dashed into the village, which if possible was in even more chaos than the beach. At any rate, he flew into a large, one story building that turned out to be a bar. Everything was happening so fast that I didn't have much time to register it. The digimon leapt over the counter and landed softly on the opposite side, then dropped us down to the ground. "What are you doing here, young digidestined?" he asked, dropping to the ground and passing his hands over the floor. "You shouldn't be in the middle of a battle like that!"

"It's a long story," I replied briefly as he found whatever he was looking for. He hooked his finger around something and pulled up revealing a hidden passageway beneath the floor. It was made of stone, so it looked safe.

"Go on," he said, pointing into it. "It goes down for a while then you have to crawl for a bit before you find a small room. There isn't much light, though, but you will be safe here."

I looked up at the digimon. "Who are you?" I asked, knowing perfectly well that this was probably the worst time for introductions.

"My name is Leomon," he replied. "And you're…?"

"I'm Ian," I answered, putting out a hand.

He took it in his own, but his hand was much, much bigger than mine. "Great," he said. "Now please."

I nodded, jumping into the hole, my feet finding ground before my head was in. "Thank-you, Leomon," I said as I went down into the hole. Guilmon soon followed me in, but before the door was closed, Leomon said, "come out when you can't hear any type of battle left out here. There will be someone who comes and finds you if you don't show up." Then he dropped the door down and we were enveloped in almost total darkness.

With no other option in sight, I continued crawling forwards until my head wasn't touching the ceiling when on all fours. I could hear Guilmon behind me, having just as much difficulty as I was. After several metres of this, my hands happened upon rock that was much smoother than the other rock we had been crawling on. My head wasn't touching the ceiling anymore either, so I tentatively lifted a hand and found that I couldn't even reach the top anymore. So, carefully as I could, I tried standing up. I was almost entirely upright before my head touched the top, so I crouched down and moved forwards again. There was a bit more than two metres of more space before I came to a wall, so I slumped down on the floor at the base of it.

Guilmon had realised that we were no longer in a small tunnel, and he quickly shuffled forwards until he found me. "It's very clean down here," he said quietly, "and quiet."

We both were silent then, and our ears gradually picked up the rumbles of the battle that was going on a ways away. "This was very kind of Leomon," I said in a hush. "We don't even know him, or any of the digimon out there, and they helped us." I let my body calm down from the chaos that we had just been part of. My heart rate finally started to return to normal and I let my mind slow back down. Then, I leaned over and rested on Guilmon's side.

Every so often there would be a particularly large rumble, and I would get a bit nervous for the digimon out there. "How are they going to defeat that monster? We saw them; they were hardly doing any damage to it! And then it could attack seven of them in one sweep; how can they fight something like that?" Guilmon seemed to be thinking the same thing, but neither of us spoke our fears aloud. "I wonder how long we're going to wait here," Guilmon said.

As minutes slipped away, I started to get worried. "What was that thing, Guilmon?" I asked.

"Dragomon," he replied in a hiss. "It's an ultimate level digimon. Virus type."

Wolfemon had already explained to me that there were three types of digimon: Vaccine, Data and Virus. Usually on the virus type were bad, but anyone could be tempted by power. "Do they stand a chance?" I dared to ask.

Guilmon remained silent at this. "There were a lot of champion digimon out there," he said after a long pause. "I hope so."

There was a particularly powerful rumble that seemed closer to us than any of the others had been. We both quieted then, and listened intently.

Crash.

It had left the beach.

Rumble.

Dragomon was closer.

RUMBLE.

"Guilmon…" I started.

"It's getting too close," he replied.

There was a crashing of wood, and the ceiling above us shook off a sprinkle of dust. "We're sitting ducks if we're trapped in here," I continued.

"How would he know about such a small trapdoor?" Guilmon asked.

"He could tear the floor off," I suggested in a frightened voice. I was getting quite nervous now; my chest still hurt from where we had been hit, and I knew that there would be a bruise there soon.

Guilmon took my hand in his. "We're not getting separated again," he said firmly.

"Thanks," I whispered, holding his hand tighter.

Another giant crash, louder than any of the others, and I heard a sickening crack from around us.

My opposite hand shot out and felt around, freezing when it passed over a deep crack in the ceiling. "Is it looking for us? How could it be looking for us?"

"Calm down," Guilmon said gently.

I didn't even need to feel his trembling to know that he was scared too; his voice completely gave it away.

There was another huge crash before the small tunnel that we crawled through practically exploded. It seemed like half of it had been torn away and light flooded the cave, momentarily blinding us. When the dust settled and we could somewhat see, I cried out in fear: it was one of Dragomon's giant tentacles. "PYRO BLASTER!" Guilmon shot out another blast of red energy and it collided with the tentacle making it retreat immediately.

"Guilmon, we need to get out of here," I said in a rush.

"There's nowhere to go!" he retorted as another tentacle entered the cave. He blasted it away too, but there were a lot of tentacles that Dragomon had, and I knew that we wouldn't be able to keep this up for long.

He blasted away one more tentacle before two more tore the hole wider and we started to hear the chaos from the battle. There were battle cries everywhere, screams of agony, and roars of frustration. Guilmon blasted at them, but it didn't do anything. They reached in, and I screamed when one touched me. I tried kicking it, but it swarmed in and wrapped tightly around my legs and lower waist. "Guilmon!" I shouted in fear. I wrapped my arms around him, and he me, as Dragomon dragged me towards the hole.

The pain was crushing, and I was desperately afraid of hearing a cracking sound come from my legs. "Ian-mon!" Guilmon shouted as he tried to pull me back. This succeeded in only making the pulling faster, and I was scared that Guilmon might slip from my grasp.

Then, in one swift movement, we were out of the cave and being raised several feet into the air. There were many digimon fighting in the remains of the bar we had been hiding under, and Dragomon was standing in most of it. I screamed again, holding on even tighter to Guilmon.

"He's got the digidestined!" someone shouted.

When we were almost waist level with the giant monster, it squeezed even harder, making my grip on Guilmon loosen considerably. "Don't let go!" Guilmon demanded. "We can do this!"

I screamed in pain as a loud crack emitted from my ankle. "GUILMON!" I cried as he tightened his grip on me.

Suddenly, he tilted his head to the side and sunk his teeth into Dragomon's tentacle, a long trail of blood coming from it. Dragomon roared in rage and lifted another tentacle, slamming it into Guilmon.

"NO!" I screamed as Guilmon's body went limp. I clung desperately to him, ignoring my own pain, while trying to think of something I could do. "But there's nothing I can do! Guilmon's unconscious, and I can't fight a giant squid on my own!" "WHY CAN'T WE WIN?" I demanded.

A burst of golden light shot out from my chest, illuminating the already bright sky. I looked down and could see the blazing gold of the Crest of Life, lifting itself upwards until it hovered around my neck. Even though pain was coursing through my body, I still had energy to be amazed at what was happening. Dragomon roared in anger, but when it brought a tentacle down on it, the tentacle just disintegrated.

All around me on the ground I could see bursts of light similar to the light that emitted from Guilmon when he digivolved. I watched in pure shock as the digimon all started to digivolve until they were all in their new forms.

They didn't take more than a second to be amazed before they aimed more attacks at Dragomon. The monster roared once more, then it started to disintegrate like its tentacle had. I clung to Guilmon's body as the tentacle that was wrapped around me disappeared and we started to hurtle to the ground. I let out another cry, holding onto Guilmon for dear life, but when we should've hit the ground, I merely blacked out.

I awoke with a start finding myself in a sun filled room on a soft bed. I was covered with a soft, white sheet, and there was Guilmon, still asleep. He had an array of bruises on his side, most likely from being hit by the Dragomon.

At that thought, my hand darted to the Crest of Life around my neck. I stared at the little pendant in awe; had it been the cause of all those digimon's digivolution? It seemed like a lot to think of, so I dropped it and returned my gaze to Guilmon. He wasn't unconscious, just sleeping.

I lay back down on the bed, resting my head on his shoulder. "He risked his life again trying to save me! How can I repay such a debt? Guilmon is the best friend I've ever had…" The Digital World had become my life; there was nothing else to think about anymore, and after what happened on the Trainmon, it didn't seem like I would be going home again. There were no other thoughts to cloud my mind from outside of this world. "I wonder where I am?"

I pushed the sheet off of me, leaving Guilmon to sleep, and went to get out of the bed. My right foot made it to the ground all right, but when my left foot tried, a blast of pain shot up my leg. That's when I remembered the cracking sound from when Dragomon had us. My hand reached down and pulled up the cuff of my pants to reveal my ankle: wrapped tightly in bandages.

My feet quickly withdrew from the floor and returned to the bed. "I guess not," I decided. Carefully, I returned my head back to Guilmon's shoulder, trying to get some more rest. It had been a fierce battle for all of the digimon, and I was getting a little worried with all the fighting around that either Guilmon or I would be fatally injured. So far we had been lucky, but in most of the cases it was only luck that had got us out of them, and I didn't know what I would do if he was… "No, I'm not going to think like that. We'll just do out best to keep out of trouble."

I held still as I heard a set of footsteps walk by the opposite side of the door. They didn't hinder, though, so I felt free to let my guard down.

"Oh, Guilmon," I sighed, "what are we doing here? All we've managed to do since we got to this world is toy with death and try and find each other again. Whatever happens, I'm not going to let us get separated again." I tucked my knees up to my chest, being extremely careful to avoid hurting my ankle. "I just wish there was something that we were doing again. We had a purpose before, but now all we know is that there's an evil coming to form, and there's nothing we can do about it."

I closed my eyes and let myself fall into a half sleep. My mind was still conscious of what was going on, but I was free to let it wander in a dream state.

Hours must've slipped by, and I had fallen asleep for a few minutes several times. There had been more footsteps that passed by, but none of them stopped or even slowed as they went. I was beginning to wonder whether anyone was even waiting for us, or whether we were just lying there without anyone's knowledge.

Finally, after another quick nap, Guilmon woke up.

He rolled to his side, then let out a moan of pain. "Everything hurts," he said quietly. Then, still unaware that I was awake, he pulled the sheet off of himself and let his feet fall to the floor.

That's when I decided to get up too. I pulled myself up into a sitting position emitting a creak from the bed. Guilmon looked back and saw me there and said, "you're awake!" He turned back and hugged me, then let go and asked, "are you alright?"

"My ankle is broken, I think," I said, showing him the bandages, "but otherwise I'm okay. Look at you, though!" I reached out my hand and touched his side where the bruises started. "You've got a huge bruise all down your back! And it's all that Dragomon's fault."

His ears pricked up at the mention of the monster's name. "What happened to him?" he asked quickly. "Did he leave?"

"It was very strange," I said slowly. "Right after you went unconscious, my Crest started to glow, then all the digimon on the ground digivolved and destroyed it. I don't know how it happened, but it's thanks to all of them that we're safe."

Guilmon seemed confused about it, but he dropped it quickly. "That is strange," he agreed after a pause. "I guess we'd better get out of this room, though. Can you walk?"

I shook my head. "I can barely put any pressure on my bad foot at all," I replied.

Guilmon hopped off the bed and came over to my side where I had already stuck my legs out from the bed. He put his shoulder under my left arm, and I put my left arm over his opposite shoulder, and then he helped heave me up out of the bed. It was a bit shaky, but we managed to get me to hobble to the door without putting any pressure on my left foot.

I opened the door with my free hand, and we instantly heard several chairs being pushed back from wherever they were.

We were in the side room of another bar, very similar to the one we had been hiding under, and there were about twenty different digimon standing at attention… for us.

Leomon was among the digimon standing, and he was also the first to speak. "You're both awake," he said lightly, as if in a trance, or in the presence of a god. "There are many digimon that want to meet you and thank you." He gestured to the other digimon that were standing in the room.

"Thank us?" I asked. "For what?"

"You made us all digivolve!" a small little brown rabbit said. It was standing next to one that looked almost identical to it, except it was a creamy white colour. "You gave us the strength to defeat Dragomon!"

Guilmon and I looked at each other with confused looks. "We did?" we asked in unison.

An orange dinosaur spoke next. "Yes!" he said excitedly. "Something about you made us all digivolve! Without you there would be nothing left of our city! You're heroes!"

My mind just couldn't seem to grasp everything that was being said. How could I alone have made all these digimon get powerful enough to do something that they couldn't before? It was just inconceivable. "Um… you're welcome?" I said with uncertainty.

"How did you do it?" another one asked. "We want to digivolve again!"

Leomon stepped in here, which was good because I didn't know what to say anymore. "I think that's enough for the digidestined," he said, shooing them away. "They deserve some time to rest, don't you think?"

Grumbling, the digimon in the room slowly filed out of the bar, leaving us alone with Leomon. There was an uncomfortable pause which, thankfully, I didn't have to break.

"Thank-you for helping us, Leomon," Guilmon said.

"I'm just sorry that it didn't help the way it should've," he said sullenly, his head drooping a bit. "It seems that I put you in more danger than you were in before."

"But we're still here," I pointed out.

"Still…" Leomon seemed to feel really bad about it.

"There was nothing that you could've done to prevent it, Leomon," I continued. "Besides, you were trying to help, and that's all that matters."

"I just wonder how Dragomon knew where we were," Guilmon said. "We were hidden so well…"

Once again, the room filled with silence.

"Where are we?" I asked after a while.

Leomon seemed pleased to be off the topic. "This is a bar about a kilometre away from the beach, but the region is still called Southern Populous Beach. It is for a few miles before you reach the grasslands, and then its open hills and fields for weeks of walking."

"What happened to us?" I asked, "when we fell, I mean. I don't remember hitting the ground." Guilmon wouldn't have remembered anything, so this was news to him too.

"That's because you didn't," Leomon said, confusion entering his voice. "It's like you fell unconscious while you were falling, and then, right before you should've hit the ground, you just sort of floated gently to the ground with Guilmon. We tried to get to you before you hit the ground, but most of us were still expecting battle. When we did get to you, we carried you here, where we knew we were a safe distance away from the beach. You've only been unconscious for a bit more than a day, so you did pretty well as far as most digimon go. It's still a mystery to me what that Dragomon was doing there, but he's not there anymore, so I guess it really doesn't matter. How did you manage to make us digivolve, anyway?"

Guilmon helped me hobble to the nearest couch, and when we sat down in it, Leomon sat down in the sofa chair across from us. "I don't know," I said. "I'm still really curious about it myself. Something just… happened. I don't know what it was, but I think that it had to do with the Crest of Life." I stopped to lift up the Tag and Crest and tossed it over to him.

He caught it delicately, as if it were more precious than any other thing in the world, then proceeded to scour it for any possible reasons as to why it did what it did. When he finished, he walked it over to me and I put it back around my neck. Once he was sitting again, the conversation continued. "Most intriguing," he said. "I've never seen anything like it before. Where did you get it?"

That's when Guilmon decided to jump in. He told Leomon of pretty much everything that had happened since right before he came to my home world, all the way up to I stepped off the Trainmon and appeared at the beach. It took him a considerable time, and I was quite surprised that one so adult-like as Leomon had the patience to wait for it. To me, I had been used to adults not listening to what children had to say, but so far this world was proving to demolish such stereotypes. A grin tugged at my lips as Leomon thought over what had been said.

"You have done a great deal of travelling, the both of you," he said finally, "more than most who're twice your age have. You should be very proud of yourselves. I can't believe how much this must've cost you, Ian, to leave your own world for such an extended period of time. Do you know how you plan to get back?"

I shook my head. "I don't plan to," I said firmly. "I haven't sacrificed much more than some good friends. Besides, this is like living in my dreams, being in a world where I can be who I want to be."

Guilmon seemed happier at this. It was the first time I had voiced this choice aloud, and I could tell the Guilmon had wanted it to be my choice.

"That is a very big decision," Leomon said gravely, "I assume you've put a great deal of thought into it?"

With a nod, I replied, "I have. Although, even if I had been given only a second to decide, it would've been the same. I thank you for your concern, though."

"Now we just have to figure out what to do, now," Guilmon said. "Should we try and find Gennai again? He gave us lots of answers before."

"He gave us fewer answers than he did questions," I retorted. "Each answer only led us to bigger and more important questions, none of which he was able to answer. Maybe there's a greater form of intelligence in this world that can help us. And if there isn't, we still have to worry about this great evil that's supposed to be rising."

"But unless you know where you're going, there's almost no point in even looking," Leomon stated. "The Digital World is unbelievably vast, and without a direction to go in, you could spend many lifetimes looking with no success."

"Well that just leaves us at a dead end," I sighed, "between a rock and a hard place."

"We could stay here for a while, until anything comes up at least," Guilmon suggested. "That way you might get a chance to let your ankle heal. We can't go fast enough to make any real distance with it anyway."

I sighed again. "More waiting for something to find us." "I suppose that that is the best idea," I said. "Do you mind if we do, Leomon?"

The giant digimon seemed lost in thought, but he was quickly brought back into reality. "Of course not," he said. "You helped save our city, so it's the least that we can do. You can stay in your room if you want, or we can find somewhere else that's better. Food isn't a problem; this is a bar, we have lots of it."

The while truckload of information seemed to pile in a bit too quickly, but I did understand everything. "That would be most generous of you," I said, leaning farther onto Guilmon's shoulder. I was getting tired, and at the same time hungry. It wasn't a good combination for me.

"Well, then," Leomon said, standing up, "I guess that means that business is open again." He stood up from the chair and promptly left the building.

"That was nice of him," Guilmon said. But I was already mostly asleep.