A/N: Blah, this chapter was slightly more of a pain in the ass than expected. Mainly due to not having internet access (which I still don't have back) while I was writing it so I had to go find attack names and what they did at the local library, as the school library blocks the digimon wiki I use. One of these days I need to figure out how to get past their restricitions, I know some people who know how…. Anyways, I finally came up with a better way to refer to the digivices/cellphones. D-Phones. Also, you know how a couple chapters ago we introduced the Gaomon-Bearmon side-plot? It CONTINUES! And we have some foreshadowing littered in a couple spots throughout the chapter, some of it probably unintentional because of how often I think about WAY too far in advance. If you read the character files in my profile (SPOILERS ABOUND IN THOSE) you might guess something about something…. –falls asleep, as it is half past midnight as he writes this A/N–
Wayne: Excuse the disclaimer as well, Ikaru is in Theatre class and they're working on scenes for a Shakespeare festival. As such, he felt the urge to write in Iambic Pentameter without making a whole chapter out of it (which was his original idea).
Disclaimer: Usually this would be
In prose. But I decided to make it
In Iambic Pentameter. Hooray!
Shakespeare was such a genius, wasn't he?
No, but really, I don't own Digimon.
Chapter Ten: Ghost Stories
23:45DST/Wendigo Plains/Mythic Spire #3
A digimon howled in the distance as Wayne, Jeff, Kyle, Akira, and Felicia and their partners except for Labramon and Gaomon sat around a campfire. Labramon was lying down and staring across the circle at Gaomon. Gaomon was telling a ghost story.
"They say these plains are haunted by evil digimon that eat the flesh of other digimon. They're called Wendigomon, hence the name of the plains. If I were you, I'd be scared of the howl we just heard. Legend has it that Wendigomon always howl like that when the catch the scent of a meal."
"What does it look like?" Felicia asked, already entranced by the idea. She sincerely doubted that Gaomon's legend was true.
"Well, they're tall and brown. They wear a white skull as a hat, and their arms go down to their ankles. They have spikes growing from their shoulders, and the older ones have white bandage wrapped around their left wrist. The older ones are also more powerful." He paused again and sniffed the air briefly before continuing with his story. "The legend begins many years ago, supposedly when a human first put up the story of Wendigos in the real world. A young Mikemon was crossing the plains from the Yanma Desert on his way to the beach. It was around midnight, and the Mikemon decided to stop by a tower for the night. He built a fire and leaned against the tower, staring off into the night. He was half asleep when he first heard the howl. He shrugged it off, figuring it was just a Garurumon. For the humans amongst us, let me clarify that Garurumon are typically very nice creatures that give out rides to smaller digimon on occasion, and happen to be notorious for howling at the moon. He settled down and began to nod off again. Minutes later, he heard the howl again. It was much closer than before. Beginning to be a little more concerned, he glanced up at the sky. The moon wasn't out that night, quite similar to tonight." He pointed up into the sky, where it was in fact so cloudy that the moon could not be seen. The digimon howled in the distance again. It was closer. Gaomon sniffed the air discreetly while the others shivered and glanced around. He smelled something odd, but he wasn't sure what. It was too faint.
"As I was saying, the Mikemon was scared. Insomnia had seized the cat, and now Mikemon stared out around himself in fear, the tower at his back. It wasn't long before he began to smell something horrible. Shortly afterwards, he heard the third howl, seemingly from just the opposite side of the tower. He turned around to find himself face to face with Wendigomon. As the beast lunged towards him, Mikemon realized that the smell was Wendigomon's breath. He later compared it to the smell of an infected wound, or rotting fish. The smell of decay. Mikemon leaped away from Wendigomon only to be caught be his tail. Struggling against his captor, Mikemon soon lost an arm to Wendigmon's endless hunger. Using his remaining arm, Mikemon punched Wendigomon hard enough to get let go. He began running west, towards Digitropolis. Wendigomon followed him. At the time, Digitropolis was little more than a cluster of huts, but it was revered all around because Yggdrasil had supposedly blessed it. And so Mikemon ran towards the closest place he could think of where he could be helped. As it was, he was just barely out of Wendigomon's reach. He got lucky when he came upon a Garurumon that had been on its way to Digitropolis. The Garurumon was sleeping, but Mikemon managed to yell loud enough to wake it up. The groggy Garurumon soon came to his senses and dashed to the Mikemon, picked it up, and ran off towards Digitropolis at top speed. The Wendigomon was nowhere near as fast as Garurumon, and the pair made it to Digitropolis just after dawn, Wendigomon far behind them. They told their story to the locals, and received much hospitality. Mikemon's arm never came back, even after he de-digivolved to Salamon. To this day, some say you can find a one-armed Holydramon in Digitropolis if you look hard enough, and if you ask it, it may tell you of the events that night."
"What's a Holydramon?" One of the humans asked. Let's not bother specifying.
"Masculine Magnadramon." Replied an unspecified digimon.
The same human was about to ask what the difference was when Gaomon shushed everyone and began sniffing the air frantically. His eyes widened just as they heard the third howl. He'd been smelling decay. No one else had noticed because of the fire, but now they began sniffing too. Gaomon muttered briefly "Leormon, Lunamon, digivolve." For his part, Gaomon was busy staring past Labramon at the spire. Or rather, what was standing in front of the spire about to grab Labramon. Tall, brown, white skull for a hat, and arms that reached its ankles. A Wendigomon. He fearfully noted the white bandages on the Wendigomon's left wrist.
Pity them, because Leormon and Lunamon looked at what Gaomon was staring at before they digivolved. That one second meant a much more difficult battle.
"Lunamon digivolve to… Lekismon!"
"Leormon digivolve to… Liomon!"
"Akira biovolve to… Akira Lekismon Mode!"
"Kikinakasoki biovolve to… Kikinakasoki Liomon Mode!"
Cue chaos.
Shouts of "Thunder of the Kings!" and "Moon Night Bomb!" filled the air as the non-champions in the group began to back away. Well, aside from Gaomon and Jeff, who ran in to get Labramon out of there before running over to the others.
Returning to the chaos, Wendigomon was actually batting away their attacks with its bare hands. The beast was apparently much stronger than it's rank as a Champion level digimon let on. Of course, Akira, Kyle, Liomon, and Lekismon didn't need to see their attacks being batted away to know the Wendigomon was powerful. Oh no, they just needed to see what happened when the beast shouted "Howling Destroyer!"
Well, and they had to feel it too. After all, when six cannons pop out of your opponent's chest and you don't expect it, there isn't much time to dodge the energy bullets that follow. Akira and Kyle were sent flying backwards as they de-biovolved while Liomon and Lekismon slammed into their partners arms after being sent back to Frimon and Moonmon.
"We're screwed." Felicia said.
Meanwhile, Gaomon was once again sniffing the air, grimacing as he did so. It was obvious that he wasn't paying attention to Wendigomon, and as such when the champion shouted "Club Arm!" he was quite surprised and didn't move out of the way. He cringed as Wendigomon's arm extended towards him and Jeff and made a sweeping motion.
Then the entirely unexpected happened. "Idiot! Maul Attack!"
Gaomon glanced up just in time to see a bear-like digimon mauling the arm and pushing it in the opposite direction. A Grizzlymon, if he remembered correctly. Recognition flared in his eyes as a strange symbol flashed unnoticed on Jeff's D-Phone. Gaomon glowed white with the light of digivolution as the symbol disappeared from the D-Phone and the screen began glowing the normal white color from the digivolution.
"Gaomon digivolve to… Gaogamon!" Standing in Gaomon's place was a much larger version of him, standing on all fours with claws coming out of the boxing gloves, which remained on the two front feet for some reason. The red headband had now become a scarf with both ends flapping in a nonexistent wind behind Gaogamon. Gaogamon immediately jumped forward and roared "Dash Double Claw!"
Instead of heading towards Wendigomon though, he slashed at Grizzlymon. Grizzlymon immediately turned towards the Wendigomon, which was now clutching a badly mauled wrist, shouted "Crescent Moon!" while shooting an energy beam in the shape of a crescent moon at Wendigomon, and then managed to backhand (backforepaw?) Gaogamon. "Save it for later, your partner and his friends are in trouble." The bear digimon growled quietly, so only Gaogamon could hear it. Grizzlymon turned and fired another energy beam at Wendigomon before jumping out of the way of the energy bullet barrage it launched in retaliation.
Gaogamon merely looked confused for a few seconds as he jumped out of the way before turning towards Wendigomon and shouting "Spiral Blow!" A tornado shot out of Gaogamon's mouth and slammed into Wendigomon.
"Club Arm!" The beast shouted, only to have that wrist viciously mauled by Grizzlymon as well. It was down to the energy bullets now. "Howling Destroyer!"
As the energy bullets flew at him, Gaogamon briefly wondered what would happen if one of them ended up going into one of the cannons in Wendigomon's chest. Deciding that it might explode, he didn't jump out of the way. Instead, he shouted "Spiral Blow!" and deflected the bullets back at Wendigomon along with a nice tornado. A couple of the bullets went into the chest cannons, but most merely hit Wendigomon's actual chest. But then again, only a couple were necessary, as proven when Wendigomon literally blew up into thousands of tiny data particles that slowly dissolved.
Jeff and everyone else moved to go congratulate Gaogamon as the spire, which they would have noticed was black had they arrived during the day, turned white. But Gaogamon was instead running after the Grizzlymon. Raised eyebrows ensued, as Jeff became the center of a circle of accusing looks.
Time Irrelevant/Unknown Location in the Digital World
Meanwhile, an epic battle had already begun. Standing on one rocky spire was Gaogamon. On another stood Grizzlymon. There was nothing special about the spires except for their sheer height and durability. The spires were roughly the same height and stood so far above ground that distance couldn't be accurately judged.
Not that it mattered to the two combatants, who launched across the gap at each other for what could've been the hundredth time or the thousandth time. Both were covered in blood, burns, and slash marks. They panted heavily as they landed on the opposite spires; new sets of slash marks abundant on both of them. Turning slowly around, they moved to jump across again, but Grizzlymon tripped over his own paw and fell into the open air while Gaogamon merely collapsed on the spire, too tired to move.
It was quite a few hours later, or so it seemed, when Gaogamon stood up apparently entirely healed and ran off, back to the Wendigo Plains.
Down at the bases of the spires, a small digimon resembling a teddy bear awoke, digivolved into a Bearmon, and began walking off to another location.
00:47DST/Wendigo Plains/Mythic Spire #3
Gaogamon ran back to the group apparently moments after he had left. He muttered "Long story," and accepted their congratulations for a while before de-digivolving back to Gaomon and falling into a deep sleep on the spot. Taking this as their cue to do the same, everyone else fell asleep on the spot as well; Lunamon and Leormon having digivolved back to Rookie during Gaogamon's brief absence.
00:47DST/The Complex/Dan and Arkadimon's room
All the while, Dan and Arkadimon slept soundly in their beds (or chair, in Arkadimon's case. He refused, nonverbally of course, to de-digivolve to In-Training so he could sleep). They knew nothing about what had happened that night, nor would they care when BlackAgumon informed them of it in the cafeteria the next morning. After all, soon enough they would reach Ultimate, and then they would really kick the other Digidestined's collective butt.