Chapter 11: Cannon Fodder

"Uh, what exactly is that?" Tai asked, staring at the swirl which Blitz had vanished into.

"It's the end of the wormhole," Shadow said. "The wormhole stretches your body over an insane distance. That barrier is the point where your body is recompressed again."

"What?" Gatomon asked.

"Don't worry, you don't have to understand it," Shadow said. "Now come on, I'd like to get moving." Shadow floated back into the swirl, vanishing as Blitz had. Lica followed immediately. Garret gave us a slightly perturbed look and followed as well.

"Come on Tai, let's go," I said, turning around and letting the bracelet drag me toward the barrier.

"Kari I don't know if that's . . ." but he was cut off by an odd whirring sound. The colored light seemed to envelope my body, swirling around it in a mystical twisted of glowing threads. A strange feeling came over me, kind of like what I'd imagine jelly would feel like if it were alive.

I was looking back at where Tai had been, and thus I didn't see the ground. I felt myself fall out of the air and land hard on my back. I must have only fallen a few feet, because I felt just fine after a few seconds. Above me, I could just barely see little wisps of light hovering in the air. I shifted my head a little, and the wisps vanished. Then Gatomon seemed to materialize out of thin air, small threads first appearing and then seeming to wrap themselves together into my digimon. She dropped to the ground, landing on all fours right next to me. I suddenly thought that Tai might accidentally land on me, and so I scrambled to my feet and backed up a few steps. Sure enough, Tai and Agumon appeared out of the air as well, dropping to the ground with a little more grace than I had, having gone through it forward.

I looked around at the world we were now in. The sky was black with clouds, but no rain or lightning fell from the heavens. All around me the scene was absolutely desolate. The land was scarred and gray, and scrap metal was scattered like grains of sand all across the expanse. A few rolling hills and very short cliffs held the wrecked remains of what must have been tanks or bunkers. I suddenly realized that none of the rest of the team was anywhere to be seen.

"Wow, what happened here," Gatomon said, staring around at the scene with a look of awe on her face.

"This doesn't look good," Tai said. "Where'd those guys go?"

"I don't know. I can't see them anywhere," I replied. Off in the distance, I heard a faint boom. I turned in the direction of the sound, but I couldn't see anything. Suddenly, I felt something grab my wrist and ankle. I looked down and saw black chains gripping them, leading off to the left slightly. They suddenly jerked me toward them, pulling me up into the air and dragging me up over the hill. I was faintly aware of the fact that Gatomon, Tai, and Agumon had also been caught by the chains and were flying over the hill with me. As I passed over the crest, I saw a half wrecked bunker down at the foot of the other side of the hill. Shadow stood within the bunker, all the chains connected to his hands and dragging us toward him. Just as we dropped onto the other side of the hill, a shell exploded in a mass of fiery fury and shrapnel on the other side of the hill. I screamed, covering my head as I landed on the side of the hill. Tai, Agumon, and Gatomon landed next to me, but it was less than a second before the chains yanked us once again, dragging us the rest of the way into the bunker. I felt someone grab me and drag me behind the wall, just as another shell exploded on the hill. I saw shrapnel fly through the hole we had entered through, scattering inside on the floor of the bunker. My heart was going a million beats a minute. I looked around quickly, finding Gatomon, Tai, and Agumon next to me. Another explosion sent a shockwave through the bunker. It must have been a direct hit, because the walls and fragile ceiling shook with the impact.

"What's going on?" Tai yelled. He and Agumon were being held by Garret, who had dragged them into the corner and out of the way of the shrapnel. Blitz was the one who had grabbed me, while Lica had snatched Gatomon into safety.

"We're on a battle field. Luckily there's no battle right now," Blitz explained, releasing me.

"That sounded like a battle," Tai said. Who was shooting at us?"

"I'm going to guess it was one of the two local armies," Shadow replied, peering cautiously around the half-collapsed wall of the bunker. "I don't think they're firing shells anymore." As I watched him looking around for any signs of whoever had attacked us, I saw something fall from his hand and splat on the ground, where a small dark spot was forming.

"Shadow, are you bleeding?" I asked him. He pulled his head back in and looked at his hand.

"Yeah, some of that shrapnel caught my. It's not bad," he replied. His hand wasn't bleeding badly, but it was bleeding. "Mind taking care of that?"

"No problem," Blitz said, reaching his hand out. A small white light surrounded their hands and the wound stopped bleeding.

"Hey, that's pretty cool," Agumon said.

"It's not that special," Garret said. Agumon turned to say something, but Garret was already moving on to the next conversation. "Lica, see if you can find out where they are."

The bird-like person simply nodded. She stood up perfectly straight and wrapped her wings around her body, as if hugging herself. Her eyes closed and her body went completely still.

"What's she doing?" Gatomon asked, looking up at her.

"She's sending out her spirit to possess somebody," Shadow said. "Lica is an acolyte spirit caller. Traveling with Gaustal's ship is part of her exile which she has to go through to become a spirit caller."

"Weird," Tai commented. "So what do we do now?"

"We wait for her to return to her body and tell us what she found out," Garret grunted.

"About how long will that take?" I asked.

"Depends on what she finds out," Shadow said, peeking around the side of the wall again. "Oh crap,"

"What?" Garret and Blitz were instantly at attention.

"If Lica doesn't get back get ready to pick her up and carry her," Shadow said. "There's some dudes in red heading for us."

Lica's eyes opened just then, and she immediately spoke. The first time I had heard her speak so far. Her voice would probably have been soft and gentle if it wasn't so rushed. "They're bringing in foot soldiers. Break east immediately." Without another word, Shadow, Blitz, and Garret took off. We followed as quickly as we could, rushing out of the bunker and chasing them away from where the shells had come previously. I looked back over my shoulder to see about twenty soldiers in red armor giving chase. Even running as hard as I could, I could tell the soldiers were gaining ground on me. Tai as well. Gatomon was keeping her pace even with mine, as was Agumon. The rest of them were already well ahead of us.

"Tai, what are we going to do?" I yelled desperately, trying to run faster.

"Just keep running!" That much seemed obvious, but the soldiers were faster. Looking ahead again, I saw Shadow dropping back.

"When we get back," Shadow panted between breaths, "All of you are getting some serious practice running." Something was forming in Shadow's paws. It was a dark substance that looked slippery and sticky, and seemed to materialize out of his hands. It suddenly solidified into two solid black orbs, which he immediately dropped. He watched over his shoulder as he ran with us. Suddenly I heard an explosion, causing me to look back. A black cloud was rising from the earth, and several soldiers were rocketing through the sky. One of them was actually blown in front of us by a few yards, his gun skidding several meters more away from him. Shadow scooped it up and thrust it into Tai's arms. "Hang on to this, you may need it later." Shadow was forming the black orbs once again in his hands. The soldiers who had avoided the blasts were still after us. They were still too far away to shoot accurately, but not by much. There were about thirteen, from what I could tell. Shadow dropped the orbs again, trying to separate them slightly so that they'd hit more soldiers. Ahead of us, the other three were slowing down to let us catch up. They must have resigned themselves to fighting was all I could figure out. The explosions went off behind us again, but when I looked back only two soldiers had been caught by the blast this time.

"Blitz, Lica, take them on ahead," Garret yelled to the other two. "We'll hold them up!!"

"But we can . . ." Gatomon started to protest.

"You'll get your chance," Blitz said, grabbing Gatomon and carrying her forward. Shadow and Garret both stopped and turned to face the oncoming soldiers. Behind me, I heard gunfire. I was tempted to both turn back and dive to the ground at the same time. I did neither, though, and instead I just kept running. The gunfire faded into the background as we ran. I'm not sure if I heard it stop or if we just managed to get far enough away. It didn't really matter, though. I was still worried about them.

Blitz and Lica stopped running, and the rest of us with them. We all turned to look back over the open battlefield. It certainly was a large one. We could see our tracks trampled into the dirt stretching out over the hills, winding through the scraps of metal that littered the landscape. The devastated plain was still all we could see in any direction.

"Do you think they're okay?" I asked, staring at the horizon. It dawned on me just how far we had run, and just how tired I was, for I dropped to the ground, breathing heavily.

"They'll be fine," Blitz said. "Shadow and Garret won't have any trouble with those guys. But while they catch up, we should keep moving." Blitz turned and started to walk east again. At least, I guessed it was east, as that was the direction Lica told us to run in and we hadn't really changed course. I'm not sure how exactly they knew which way was east anyways. It really didn't matter, though. We had more been running form those soldiers than in any particular direction.

Blitz was still carrying Gatomon. Now he set her up upon his shoulder. "Keep an eye out behind us," he told her. We all started walking. I don't know where we were headed, exactly, but I suppose that either Blitz or Lica must have known. Tai had another question.

"We're looking for some map, right? Are we even sure where it is?" he asked.

"We know that a piece is somewhere on this planet. We need to find some friendlier people and try to get some info on it," Blitz explained.

"And do we know where these people are?" he asked.

"Well, not really. We're in a warzone, so we're pretty much stuck between two armies. That last army certainly won't help us anymore, so we're going to have to try to talk to the other one. Speaking of which, you'd better drop that," Blitz indicated the gun that Shadow had given to Tai. Tai chucked it sideways. He didn't know how to use a gun anyways, so I guess he wasn't terribly attached to it.

"Are you sure those two will be all right?" I asked. I was still awfully worried. Blitz seemed fairly confident in the two of them, but according to my logic eleven soldiers with guns were not easy to fend off.

"Of course I'm sure. I would've stayed too if I thought they'd have any trouble," Blitz replied simply. "Right now we need to just keep moving, preferably away from that army." I wasn't completely convinced. Of course, Caleb had been awfully powerful. Maybe all of whatever he was were also powerful. I suppose if they were he might be able to beat the soldiers. I could only hope, though.

We walked on through the wasteland. Above us, the dark sky was growing even darker. I guess night must have been falling. I suddenly remembered that I had awoken this morning in my own bed back home in Tokyo. It dawned on me that I was now farther away from my home than I had ever imagined. I guess I was already starting to feel a little homesick. The sky at least gave the indication that certain laws of logic still applied. Night and day still seemed to exist. Still, I couldn't tell exactly how long I'd been awake. I was starting to feel tired, and the running earlier in the day didn't help.

"Everyone hold up for a second," Blitz said, snapping me out of my thoughts and back into the situation. Ahead of us I could see something moving on the horizon. It was hard to tell exactly what, but my best guess was that it was more soldiers.

"Should we run?" Gatomon asked, swiveling around to look at the group. They were clad in blue armor, and thus apparently came from a different army.

"No. We stay right where we are and wait for them. As long as we show no signs of aggression they'll probably not attack us," Blitz replied. "And in case they do, I'll just have to protect us all."

"Well why did the red guys attack us?" Tai asked.

"Fair question. I'd guess that our magical appearance from the middle of nowhere startled them. That and Garret is ugly," Blitz replied with a chuckle. Nobody else laughed, and he just shrugged. We all obeyed though, standing stalk still except for my increasing shivering as the soldiers in the blue armor surrounded us.