The main entrance was no doubt the heart of the chaos, so Koushiro and Tentomon took the alternate route. They emerged in a cave that stank of large predators and carrion, though neither was actually present. It was just to discourage exploration. It was a convenient, pre-existing piece of nature that now acted as both an excellent location for surveillance and an emergency escape route, fortified to withstand quakes, cave ins, rock slides, and anything else that might threaten to trap them within their own facility. A dense growth of burdock and ferns provided cover for Koushiro and Tentomon as they crawled out. Peeking out, they could see everything happening at the main entrance, scarcely a hundred feet up the slope of the mountain.
The soldiers were swarming and surging toward the main entrance, each wearing markedly different uniforms that signaled their home countries. They were positioning themselves as favorably as possible along the slopes. Koushiro could hear their boots coming down all around him, like so many ants swarming over fallen sugar. Mostly they were higher up, since there were no advantages to having the lower ground in an attack, but Koushiro flattened himself along the ground anyway. He didn't know what getting caught might mean, but he remembered the interrogation he'd received on the plane, and so did the still-discolored bruise on his jaw.
And the roaring, savage face of the man who'd administered it, when Koushiro had escaped his grasp.
He shook his head and focused. From the ground, he could see Hiroshi darting through the trees with Airdramon, moving in wild zigzags to avoid being hit by the flying bullets. They didn't make it look quite as effortless as they had before. The men who had been on the mountain to begin with had long since recovered, and now there were so many more. He remembered the scream, and his eyes searched frantically until they found Reppamon. He was standing protectively over Keiko while his tail reacted to bullets flying their way. Noriko was with her, to Koushiro's horror. She seemed to be acting as the medic, and doing it efficiently, which meant Keiko's wound probably wasn't too bad...but she had no partner to defend her.
There was a shrill whistling noise overhead. Koushiro looked up, and saw Aidramon shoot by like a winged dart, winding deftly through the firs. A shell of some kind overtook them, but it went too high and passed them by, exploding against a slope. The noise of it was deafening, and a spray of wood, stone, and dirt spattered against Koushiro's ducked head.
Airdramon sailed high. Hiroshi was with him, but they were just drawing fire without doing any attacking.
And Koushiro knew why as he looked at his partner.
"Tentomon… We've never fought a human before. Would you, if I asked?"
"Of course," Tentomon replied plainly. "Humans are no more or less real than digimon, and we never frivolously kill digimon. I trust you would only ask under a dire circumstance, but I do hope you never ask."
"Why?"
"I think you know this, but a human doesn't possess the power to defend itself against a digimon anymore than it does tigers and the common cold. We have always destroyed only the biggest, strongest, and most dangerous of our opponents. Mummymon and Arukenimon tried to kill the second generation digidestined many times, but even when the opportunity to destroy them was presented, defeating them was always enough. They just weren't a big enough threat."
Koushiro turned somberly back to the fighting on the mountain. "I think the others feel that way too."
"It's worse for you, because you're humans."
"Is it worse for you when it's digimon?"
"If the opponent says 'to the death' or some even worse fate, we fight without hesitation because they're strong enough to make that reality happen if we don't. There is no human with such raw power in their hands. It is difficult to compare the two."
Koushiro was not sure how much he liked the answer. Humans were perfectly capable of destruction and atrocity, no different from any digimon. But he understood. It was true; these men weren't controlling some immense power that couldn't be stopped without destroying them. They were just people, and once the bullets were gone, all they had was their own hands. He grabbed a short, thick branch, got himself into a crouch, and started moving up the mountain side. They needed to reach the main entrance, and so they moved closer and closer, watching their surroundings and hoping they didn't get shot.
"If…" Koushiro began. "If we were attacked by a human… I don't know if I could kill, but…"
A twig snapped on the other side of a tree, and Koushiro saw a soldier reloading his gun. He was wearing a thick helmet, but his head was bent forward, exposing the back of his neck. In a sudden rush of adrenaline, Koushiro bounded out of his crouch and the soldier had scarcely looked to the side when stars exploded into his vision, filled them, and then faded to darkness.
"Koushiro!" Tentomon whispered, alarmed but attempting to stay quiet. "Why did you do that?!"
Koushiro licked his lips, and picked up the soldiers gun. It was big. Complicated. Heavy. He threw it away before he could remind himself how stupid it was to just toss something so volatile down a mountain. He found a pistol instead.
"Like this isn't just as heavy…" He laughed nervously and licked his lips. "Tentomon… You fight digimon because I can't. A… A human is within my power. I may not be able to kill... No, I can't kill. But I can fight. …So you don't have to."
"Koushiro..."
His cell phone vibrated. It was Miyako, but he didn't dare answer. The distraction could cost him his life. Miyako solved the problem with a text message of two ominous, confusing words:
Not human.
Hiroshi took to the ground. It was all he could do to help his partner at this point. The air was rife with bullets, and his teenaged body was fifty-some kilos of worry and weight slowing Aidramon down. He took cover behind Reppamon with the girls, and glared out at the forest.
"What are they waiting for? If they all focused, they could kill us right here!"
Noriko was staring out at the battleground with a quiet, thoughtful gaze. To the casual eye, she would look harmless even if Punimon was with her. Without him, she probably seemed like little more than a burden on the fighters, but that was false. Noriko was the one who organized the plays. Perhaps it was some kind of residue leftover from the dark spores, and perhaps it was just an ability she'd always had, but she was a good tactician. She'd never suspected she would have to deal with a firefight, but she did her best to cope. She convinced herself it was a game. That the bullets were just shots from overambitious water guns. A childish thought yes, but contemplating the idea of coming face to face with her mortality would not have allowed her to remain calm and think.
The problem she faced was difficult. The element of surprise had been on their side last time. They were able to make the enemy think there was only Airdramon while Reppamon found them and incapacitated them. She could try organizing a similar deal with Koushiro, but Kabuterimon was unwieldy in such a densely packed forest, and there were far too many. Word would spread and they would counter. A head on attack might prove useful, but the damage to the area would be massive, and they would be guaranteed to kill someone.
The soldiers likely knew that, and they were perfectly right to attack first. Perfectly right to be afraid.
She sighed. "I think we're out of options, unless you can think of a way to pull a broad area attack without creating a body count. We need to retreat."
"And let them win?!" shouted Keiko. "Not a chance. Not a chance in hell!"
"Keiko. They aren't after us. They want the digimon out of the way. The digimon are the threat for them. Your wound was an accident, and they noticed. That's why they eased fire on Reppamon. Soon they're going to realize they're wasting bullets and try something a little more… precise."
Keiko rose to her feet. "I won't turn back here Noriko! We can't! Even if it's dangerous, we have to stand our ground! If we end up under siege, it only means we'd be making our final stand inside the base where we might accidentally destroy all the hard work the others have done for all these years!"
"Are you suggesting we stay out here and wait to be overtaken?"
Hiroshi stepped in between the two girls before it could get heated. "Noriko is right Keiko. What can we do?"
"Call Airdramon down here," she said reasonably enough.
"What? Why?"
She glared dangerously. "If we can't win this with a thought out plan, we're gonna take a gamble. Just do it."
Hiroshi ran his fingers swiftly through his hair. He looked to Noriko, but her face was a tense sea of apprehension and assent. He whistled sharply, and Aidramon descended, coiling his body defensively around his partner.
"What now?"
Noriko raised a hand for silence, and surprisingly it came. A stray bullet or two zipped by, but they were barely warning shots. The mountains were no longer buzzing with the sounds of footsteps and gunfire. It was impressive, since Noriko had estimated between three and four hundred soldiers out there. She took a step forward, but Keiko moved ahead of her, loop earrings bouncing with the force of her step. She planted her hands defiantly on her tiny hips and shouted aggressively to the surrounding slopes.
"You win this battle! You know we're here, and we can't take you out one by one like last time! We will not take the lives of humans, so stop trying to kill our partners!" Hiroshi grabbed Keiko's arm to pull her back, but she wrenched free. "If you can kill digimon who aren't fighting back, you're murderers! If they wanted they could wipe you out before breakfast! This is mercy!"
There was silence in the mountains, and to their surprise, a man came forward. Koushiro, still crawling in the ferns several yards down the mountain, recognized him. It was the American man who had tried to 'rescue' him. The bruise on Koushiro's jaw, still not quite healed, suddenly throbbed as he realized who they were surrounded by. They were the soldiers who crashed the plane. He had only seen the American ones, but he remembered all the noise coming from outside and the excessive amount of activity. There had been a melee on that plane, even though it should have been a simple rescue. There was more than one country on the mountain, and they were willing to fight together just to get him in their claws.
To her credit, Keiko didn't bat a single dark lash at the imposing presence of the commander, and their stand off was almost comical for it. Keiko was just a girl; maybe sixteen or seventeen, her poncho tucked into her waistband and her chest puffed out haughtily. Everything about her posture said she had no fear, right down to the beret sitting on her head at a decidedly jaunty angle. The military man was the size of a bear in comparison, grizzled and cold with not so much as a fiber of his uniform out of place.
And then Noriko stepped in between them.
Noriko, who made it somehow far less funny, perhaps because she was smaller and so different from Keiko. Where Keiko had the cocky approach, Noriko stood straight and her expression was somber. Her growth spurt hadn't arrived, making her youth more obvious, but she had a severity that Keiko couldn't match. Despite her partnerless state and her runty size, she had the greater gravity.
"It was wise of you to surrender," the man said in extremely polite Japanese.
"We surrendered nothing," she countered immediately. It was difficult to match such unusual politeness, but she knew he spoke that way to intimidate her. "We said that our partners would not kill you. You have won the battle against them, but you still have us to deal with."
"You?" He chuckled. "What can you do? You're just a child."
Her stare intensified. "Children can be stubborn."
"You have no means to fight."
"We have the will."
To Noriko's surprise, the man closed the gap between them and in an instant, she was down. Her arm twisted painfully behind her back, and all she could feel was the man's huge hands locked around her tiny wrists. One of his knees pressed painfully down on her calves. It hurt just to be still, so she didn't dare to move.
"Willpower is worth terribly little against a superior opponent. Now, you have two options. You can call Koushiro Izumi out here, or I dislocate your arm. What's it going to be?"
The digimon were bristling with fury that was almost tangible, but they didn't dare make any fast moves. Even the single step forward by Keiko made him twist Noriko's arm harder, until she was grunting into the dirt between her stubbornly grinding teeth.
From the dust, Noriko saw Koushiro just down the slope. She saw the pistol he was carrying, and she saw him get ready to throw it aside and come forward.
"Don't even," she snarled. "Don't even for one second it's going to happen like that! Koushiro is our only hope to fix this, and we won't give him to you! Not ever!"
"A pity."
She heard a dull crunch in her shoulder that sounded almost as bad as it felt. The pain was a blinding white arrow that seemed to ricochet on every nerve in her body in the space of a split second. She thought she might be screaming, but it was only a high ringing in her ears. She felt mud on her cheeks where her tears were pouring soundlessly into the dirt. The pain faded to a sharp red glow, and yet all she could do was think of her partner, who would never have let this happen to her.
This place was not Primary Village. Somehow, he was sure it wasn't even File Island. Were those places important? Yes, he should have been there. He was a hatchling; a fresh digimon. So why was he beside a river? And why were there mountains?
Punimon…
His tiny red ears (could they really be called ears?) pricked up, and he was filled with a sudden panic. He knew that voice. She was calling for him. How had he been separated from her in the first place? He recalled Amphimon dimly. He recalled being sick, being…incomplete. He was better now, he hoped. He felt better. As soon as he found her, he would digivolve. They would find out what he became together.
But where was she?
He didn't know, but he had an urgent, itchy feeling that she needed him. He tried looking around, hoping she was nearby. She wasn't.
"Noriko…"
It was dark. Anything might hear him. He couldn't help himself.
"Norikoooo!"
Air Shot!
He dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the speedy bullet of wind that parted the grass. His training had apparently not left him, and he braced for a fight as he searched for his opponent. To his surprise, a human boy appeared first, startled out of his sleep. A flashlight clicked on, exposing a Patamon on his chest who looked only slightly more alert.
"A baby digimon...?" the boy asked.
"I didn't hurt him, did I Takeru?"
Punimon recognized them as partners. He couldn't see the digivice, but what other explanation could there possibly be? He bounced forward, until he was right in front of them, only one question on his mind.
"Do you know where Noriko is?"
