Day 18

They'd make it to the other side of the city, the boundary. The desert was just a ten few meters in front of them. The team and the desert were separated by a wire gate, and two guarding Cyberdramons.

It was such a difference when compare to what they saw the day before, this place was quiet, only occasional sound of wind blowing could be heard. Other than the two Cyberdramons and of course, the team itself, no signs of digimon or human existed. The contrast was too great Akio couldn't quite believe they were in the same city. He didn't say his impression out loud, though everyone could see it on his face. Instead, he asked, 'how do we pass through these guards? They're not gonna just let us walk into the wild, right?'

'Why are there only two guards?' Katsumi asked

'Probably because they don't think there will be some guy dumb enough to get to wild side, that's nearly suicide.' Said Triceramon

'Is it really that bad out there?' asked Chessmon, though being a digimon, she was not born in the digital world, as of Darkdramon and Cerberumon.

'Don't mind that,' said Akio, 'how're we going to get through those guys?'

'Oh, that's simple.' Said Darkdramon, weapon readied

'Wait! You're not gonna..' Kin said, nearly shouted. He knew Drakdramon was always a bit violent, and he afraid his partner would…

'I'm not gonna kill them,' said Drakdramon, sounded annoyed, 'just knock them out. When did you lose you faith in me?' he said ironically

'You're not gonna have all the fun.' Said Cerberumon, stepped a few step to be by Darkdramon's side, 'you save one for me.'

'Okay,' said Darkdramon as both two walked forward, 'but seriously, you think this' fun?'

'No.'

The rest of the group was annoyed by Cerberumon and Darkdramon's action, but they didn't stop them, just stand watch.

'Did you ever think of this?' asked Akio, though not to specific, Kin replied, in another question, 'think of what?'

'When compare ourselves to those two,' Akio said, a sign of laugh then appeared on his face, 'they act more like teenagers then us, or just me.'

'Yeah, kind of.'

The two Cyberdramons were not stupid enough to do nothing when there were two vicious looking digimons approaching them. However, they were not quick enough. As the two Cyberdramons walked up to Darkdramon and Cerberumon, just when they took the first half step, Darkdramon already rushed towards one, knocked him out of conscious, easy as opening a can of jam. While the other one had his attention taken by the first attack for a second, Cerberumon approached him in that second and when Cyberdramon noticed the present of the werewolf digimon, darkness was the only thing followed by, until the time he woke up.

'Alright, now off we go.' Said Cerberumon as he and Darkdramon stepped into the desert, the team followed. Akio turned to see the two Cyberdramons before he finally took his step into the desert. Poor them.

The desert's ground was of course, full of sand, which's colour was like, normal sand, hard to classify accurately, kinda yellow, kinda brown, even kinda pink. Though full of sand, the ground was surprisingly sturdy, Akio made a little stomp, just a few inches underneath the sand, there was a solid rock ground. Many rocks could be seen on the above the sandy surface too, different sizes of big rocks, half of them were as tall as human height, or even higher. The other half could definitely serve as a decent seat. All the rocks were in the sandy colour too.

Without further saying, the group started walking, toward the north where dotAgumon should be. The walk was rather relaxing at the beginning, there were chatting, about all kind of topic, it was almost like they went on a vacation, but not a dangerous quest.

After an hour, or two, or even three, or whatever, Akio had already lost count on the time, though expected, the boredom brought by the endless became more and more unbearable.

'Why can't I sense any other digimons?' asked Cerberumon, 'I though there would be a lot of them in the Digital world.'

Once again, Jun did the explanation job, 'We're still on the margin of the desert,' she said while taking a look at the map in her digivice, 'they don't like to live near the City, when we got to the deeper, you'll miss this quiet.'

Still on the margin? Thought Akio

As if he had said he thoughts out loud, Reiko replied just when he finished thinking, 'we're walking across two-third of a continent, with our own legs, how far do you expect us to travel in just a few hours?'

'I know.' Akio mumbled, so quiet that it was almost inaudible

So the team kept going on, by the time the sun went down, their chatting voice also went down, finally nothing but silence. Darkness soon fell, though they had their own flash light, it was still barely visible. Plus, they needed rest, so they decided to end the day's walk. Much to everyone's, or just Reiko's surprise, Akio volunteered for the night watch job. Soon everyone fell asleep, only Akio and his partner Cerberumon were awake.

'They'd actually fell asleep, like here's their own bedroom.' Akio muttered, 'how adoptive.'

'Maybe you're the only one who's homesick.' Said Cerberumon

'Talking about home,' Akio started, 'I wonder how're they doing, mom and dad, back in Japan.'

'What's 'Japan'?' Cerberumon interrupted.

Such a foolish question, had it come from the mouth of a ordinary man, Akio would mock him for the rest of his life. But considered that Cerberumon had no knowledge of human world, Akio just let out a small laugh, and then started again. 'Japan is a place in human world, much larger than Bifrost. My original home was in there.' He paused a while, 'But I don't feel like talking about it now.'

'Then what do you want to talk?' asked Cerberumon, 'We can't stay silent the whole night, we'll be bored to death.'

Akio sighed, then thought of the events of the past few days, 'We just defeated Millenniummon two days ago, but it feels like happened two weeks ago.'

'Yeah, it all happened in such a rush. Sometimes I forget dotAgumon had just gone for like four days, feel like lost him for already a month.'

'Really miss him.'

And so they continued this paten of traveling, walk as much as they could during daytime, each one took turn guarding every night, nothing special happened, repeating the same route everyday. They slowly made their progress day by day. A week soon pasted, and things finally started to change.

Day 25

They did the same thing as they did everyday during the day, but by night fell, Jun called up their attention and said something very important. 'From here, the journey will be much harder, we're about to enter the wild digimons' zone. They may be low in level, but they form tribes, and together they're quite unstoppable, and dangerous.'

Things finally get interesting thought Akio, though he knew that whatever dangers were waiting for him, him was not going to like a single of them.

Jun kept talking, about she going scouting while the others rest, very normally, no one agreed to let her and Triceramon scout alone. They'd eventually came up with the conclusion that Reiko and HiAndromon go with her. Before they went, Jun shared her tracking software with the others, so they could know each other's location. Akio, however, had no digivice, mainning that he had to stick with one of the team all the time, so they wouldn't lose him. That sucks

The two girls and their partners soon set off. Akio, Cerberumon, Katsumi, Chessmon, Kin, and Darkdramon, all six of them, sat in silence, yet no one could sleep. To kick the boredom away, they need to have something to chat.

'We're all worrying, right?' as usual, Katsumi started first

'No, I'm not.' Said Akio with his eyes closed, still trying to sleep, while the others: Kin and Chessmon nodded, in respond for Katsumi's question. 'Who's with me?' Akio asked

Darkdramon raised his arm up out of the blue. Akio opened his eyes, and was as shocked as the others to see Darkdramon's respond. 'Glad to have someone agree with me.'

'Why can you act so indifferent?' asked Kin, with rising volume and raised eyebrows, anyone could sense the anger hidden in his voice.

'As long as Reiko's with her, I can guarantee their safety.' Said Akio

'Sounds very confident,' said Katsumi

'Yeah. Takano, I know you care about Jun much more than any of us do, but you've got to trust her.' Akio stopped, a smile on his face, then talk again. 'To be honest, she's a lot tougher than you.'

'The only thing I worry is if Jun can get along with Reiko.' Katsumi muttered

'That's gonna be interesting,' said Akio, 'Reiko dose have a hard time dealing with people that, well, she's not familiar with. But once they're friends, Katsumi, you know how she is.'

'Yeah, lots of fun time.' said Katsumi with a smile, 'no one knows it better than you.'

'I consider her 'naughty'.' Said Akio

Walking with Reiko was…uncomfortable. She barely said anything to Jun, like her partner, HiAndromon did. Jun couldn't help thinking that, had she done something wrong that made Reiko mad at her, and now she uses silence for revenge?

On and on they went, everything was peaceful, the two girls didn't need to spend much effort on the scouting. As they decided to return, Reiko spotted something, hiding in the shadow, a shad of a digimon that shaped like a dragonhead with two short legs on its side and a short tail on its rear.

'What's that?' pointing at the digimon, Reiko spoke after long silenced

'That's..' Jun mumbled as she leaned forward for a clearer vision, 'hey! It's Gaossmon!'

Reiko made a firm grip on the seemingly excited blonde girl's right shoulder and pulled her back.

'What are you doing?' Jun asked

'We're not sure if it's an enemy.'

'They not!' Jun yelled, obviously angered at what Reiko had said

'Calm down, Jun.' Said Triceramon

'I'm sorry.'

'Those Gaossmons,' Triceramon began

While no one noticed, the Gaossmon stared at the scout team, quietly observing.

'they belong to Dorugoramon's tribe, which helped us a lot before.' Said Triceramon

'Yeah, they're harmless.' Jun added

'If they're,' said Reiko while making a 360 degree turn to see her surroundings. 'then why are they surrounding us? And they look pretty menacing.'

About ten or more Gaossmons formed a circle surrounding the two girls and their digimon partners, they slowly walking toward the humans.

'Hey! It's me,' Jun shouted, in case those Gaossmons didn't recognize her, 'it's Jun, and Monochromon!'

No responds in the first few seconds, the Gaossmons still marching forward. Then they stopped, one of the Gaossmon's mouth glowing orange light.

'Get down!' Reiko yelled as she grabbed Jun by her shoulder, forced both of them to duck down, just quick enough that the fireball fired by Gaossmon flew above their head.

'Lucky my hair didn't catch fire.' Reiko mumbled as she pulled out few cards from her pocket. 'Andromon!'

HiAndromon jumped and landed in fronted of Reiko, posed ready for combat and protecting his partner.

Akio's camp was still silent, they did have a little chat an hour ago, but the silence returned soon after the chat was done.

So quiet, they could hear the wind and their breathing. Already got tired of hearing just these two sounds, the group was glad, but also worried to hear the beeping noise from Katsumi's digivice. The beeping noise meant Katsumi had received a call, the call could only be came from the scout team, and if they had to make an immediate conversation, that couldn't be too good a thing, after all.

'What's it?' the two boys shouted and jerked to Katsumi's side without hiding their anticipation, Akio to her left and Kin to her right.

'It's me,' Reiko's voice came from Katsumi's digivice, yet nothing shown on the screen, 'we're kinda in trouble right now.' Mixed with all kind of sounds of explosion and digimons' roar, her voice could barely be heard.

'Whst's it? Why the screen shows nothing?' Katsumi asked in anxious

'You won't wanna see this.' Reiko joked, trying to lower the tension, but was obviously in vain.

'On our way.' Kin said as he got on his foot

'That's why I'm calling you,' Reiko shouted seriously, 'Stay where you are, they out numbered us….' The connection was then cut off.

Without hesitation, Kin was on his way, as he said, only to be pulled back by Akio.

'You heard what she saud.' The red haired boy said, calmly as if nothing was going to happen

'You want me to leave them? They're most possibly dying out there!'

'Man, you need to learn to trust others.'

'Atomic Ray, Offence Plug-in A.'

HiAndromon fired two blasts of energy from his palms, they didn't hit right on the Gaossmons, but the shockwave of explosion sent them flew meters away.

More and more Gaossmons came out of nowhere and charged into battle. Just when HiAndromon finished firing another blast, at least two Gaossmons smashed into HiAndromon's back with their head, and then gripped the robotic digimon with their tiny feet. Due to lost of balance, HiAndromon fell forward, just a bit. Soon he regained his balance and stood up straight, he tried to swing the two Gassomons off his back, failed the first time. But with a little bit more effort, he did it, easily. However, the Gaossmons weren't as dumb as they looked, almost on the contrary. A few others grabbed the gap when HiAndromon swung off the two on his back, they smashed him from behind, hit his knees, and this time, HiAndromon did fall to the ground. Some other Gaossmons shot fire at him.

'Defense Plug-in C.' that was all Reiko could do to help HiAndromon, at least lowered some damage.

Triceramon wasn't doing very good as well. Much like HiAndromon's situation, there were always some free Gaossmons available to attack him from different angles.

'Arrrr,' frustrated, Reiko yelled, 'That's it, we surrender!'

As if the Gaossmons could understand her, they stopped attack at once. And then talking to each other in some kind of a weird language, like they were discussing what to do with the scout team.

Jun's heart sank when she heard that language, and she did nothing to hid her emotion.

'What's wrong?' Reiko whispered

One of the Gaossmon walked forward, that must be the leader. Reiko thought. The leader Gaossmon swung its head back and forth, while saying something Reiko couldn't understand.

'He told us to go with them.' Triceramon translated

'You know what they're talking?' Reiko muttered as she connected her digivice to Katsumi's again, this time with vision. She showed her index finger at the camera, telling the other side to shut up.

The scout team followed the group of Gaossmons, they walked a long long way, finally reached a giant boulder that had a big hole, or door way on it. They entered, then walked some staircases that led them to the under ground.

The cave was massive. And it was bright, making a great contrast to the night outside. It was lighted up by countless torches on the walls, the fuel source was unknown. Countless more Gaossmons were down here, with countless Gotaumons, all had their jobs to be busy with. Far opposite to the entrance was a wall, a throne set in the middle, and a giant digimon that looked like a ball of crystal with a small head and strong limbs sat on there.

'That's Blastmon.' Triceramon whispered to Reiko

The scout team was brought to the front of Blastmon. They were still surrounded by a bunch of Gaossmons, as well as Gotaumons, who were aimed at the humans, readied to fire if them did anything stupid.

Blastmon spoke, still the unknown language. His voice deep and menacing, echoing in the cave. He tone showed that he seemed to be mocking at the scout team.

'Look after Jun.' Triceramon whispered to Reiko. He then spoke Blastmon's language, loud and firm. Blastmon replied something, and then Triceramon stepped a few step forward, and started talking, still using the unknown language.

Look after Jun. That was what bothers Reiko the most. What was that suppose to mean? Though younger, the blonde had proven that she was capable taking care of herself in the passed week. The white haired girl looked at the blonde, something was happening to her, her body was shaking, uncontrollably. Reiko took a few step to her side, 'You okay?'

No respond. Things were definitely wrong.

Reiko decided to focus on the conversation between Blastmon and Triceramon. Not a single word could she understand, but judging from their reactions, blastmon seemed to have got the upper hand. The always calm Triceramon looked stunned after the last sentence told by Blastmon. The big fat crystal digimon said the sentence slowly, word by word, sounded pure evil. Triceramon glanced back, and Reiko knew something was going to happen, or already happened.

She looked back at Jun. The blonde was barely standing, about to fell off ground at any moment. Reiko held each of her shoulders, to help her stand. At a closer look, Reiko found tears on Jun's face, not knowing what was going on, or what to do, she decided to stay silent.

Blastmon shouted a few words and gestured. The Gaossmons and Gotaumons brought them to another cave, passed through tunnels after tunnels, they arrived at a place that seemed like a cellar, and they were being thrown inside. Gate locked, and a wall of stone separated the girls and their partners.

'How the hell did they got this gate?' Reiko uttered, 'can't you guys just blown a way out?'

'No,' Triceramon answered, 'any impact, the cave will collapse and bury you alive.'

'Lucky that dumb fat ass didn't figure out a way to torture us.' Reiko said, 'So we stay here and wait for rescue, got that? Akio'

She looked back to Jun, she curled up, arms wrapped around the knees, head tugged in, weeping.

There was nothing Reiko could do to help the poor girl.

Back at the camp, Akio sighed. The girls were safe. All they needed to do was to came up with a plan to rescue them as soon as possible.