It had been 20 minutes since they came to shore, but, as they walked, they could see the endless burden of destruction left behind by the dark masters.
With horror they could see villages and small settlements being consumed by flames while small baby digimon fled crawling for cover.
A pack of these digimon changed direction when they saw the passing by visitors. They were little green blobs with big eyes and mouth, and they yelled, - Help us!, Help Us!
Palmon, leapt forward and raised her arms, - Calm Down! Numemon. – she said to the pack of desperate critters. – We've come to help you!
Some sniffling could be heard among the crowd of small critters. The humans and their digimon did not understand why until they saw that a group of numemon was carrying something and they were coming their way.
- Oh no! – said Carlos when he recognized Elecmon, who was all beaten up and bruised.
The numemon set the miserable creature to the floor and in instants the humans came to his aid.
- What happened! – yelled Veemon as he saw a poor Elecmon who was barely trying to speak.
With tears on his eyes he began slowly to word what had happened.
- They destroyed it!................ Now it's no more………… - he gasped faintly.
- What did they destroy? – asked Carlos approaching the creature.
- …………..The city of the beginning…….. it's gone………..- said Elecmon almost fainting.
- Oh dear……….- murmured Gennai distantly and nodding his head in disapproval. – That cannot be good…………….
All the humans were grasped by an unpleasant sensation. With the city of the beginning gone, their digimon could die in a battle without the possibility of coming back.
- We must head for the council………..- suggested Gatomon. – There must be something we can do.
- I agree. But…………wait…………Where's Agumon? – said TJ looking all around for his friend.
Just then, they saw Agumon coming back from the other side of the village holding something in his claws. TJ almost immediately recognized his goggles, which made him feel optimistic about the situation.
- I figured we might need them…..for luck. – voiced Agumon approaching TJ.
- Let's head for the council and hope we're not too late. – voiced Carlos looking toward the other end of the village.
Everybody followed Patamon toward the site where the council palace was located. He figured that what they were about to see was not a pretty picture, remembering when he heard the blast coming from the palace when Machinedramon attacked.
Gatomon, on the other hand, was not prepared to see such a landscape of destruction before her. The pillars that surrounded the circular structure were completely smashed and they had collapsed inward and certain areas had been turned into smoking ruble.
She got closer and kneeled next to one of the pillars and couldn't contain her anger, so she punched the remains of one of them leaving a deep mark in it.
- They will pay………… - she cursed as she looked all around wondering if the members of the council were unharmed.
Patamon flew around the damaged structure separating from the rest of the group when suddenly he flew back to call the others.
- Come. Quick! – he said flying that way around again.
Everybody followed him to the other side of the palace. The sight was discouraging.
There was a giant pink bluish blob that covered the entire main entrance. Inside, distorted shades of what seemed to be the members of the council were floating suspended in the viscid fluid.
Gatomon full of anger charged the blob but she was immediately rejected backwards along with a surge of energy that shocked her tossing her to the ground.
- Gatomon! Are you Ok? – yelled a very concerned Clara.
- I'm fine…….. – said Gatomon cooling her bad temper trying to analyze the situation at hand.
Just then, something in the blob started twitching and glowing and then a loud female voice could be heard.
- You have reached us finally……..- said the voice.
- Who are you? – asked Carlos.
- I'm Ophanimon, member of the digimon council of angels.
- What happened here? – asked Iori who hadn't talked before because he was fearful of speaking and not being understood.
- Our world is in peril. The threat you managed to eliminate has returned empowered and more dangerous than ever. – said the voice of Ophanimon. - The digimon warriors we called upon to defend our world were utterly defeated and their hope to come back was thwarted when the city of the beginning was destroyed.
- How could they do this? – snarled Gatomon.
- Yes. How could someone cause all this senseless destruction……?- commented Yuki still thinking of her friend Renamon.
- All this destruction is not senseless at all. – interrupted Ophanimon. – The dark masters were seeking the sacred stones which were hidden in all the four cardinal points of our world after your last battle (See Digimon Legend)
- How could that be? – asked Gennai very surprised.
- You were wise modifying and hiding the remains of their program that turned flesh into data, but the dark masters and their lord were able to come back and track the monitor programs that you had designed to protect the stones. The dark masters managed to trap the essence of Qinglongmon (Azulongmon), Zhuqiaomon, Baihumon and Xuanwumoninside the stones holding them captive for their new plan.
- New plan? – said everybody almost in unison.
- A conscience from outside of this world warned me that this new nameless identity intends to use the data of the sacred stones along with the data of an advanced digimon to produce a detonation; a detonation that will cover this whole world in darkness and corrupt the data of any of the remaining peaceful digimon.
This comment made everyone feel fearful. Now everybody knew why Renamon was kidnapped.
- I wanna go home!...........- cried Leslie.
Aurora looked discouraged and could only stare at Hector trying to find some hope.
- Wait!! – yelled Gennai as nobody has heard him before. – Ophanimon. I need to contact a friend in my world who might have the solution we need.
- Very well then………..- said Ophanimon.
Gennai's cell phone levitated toward the blob and glowed for brief instants. Then a dial tone could be heard. The phone was dialing out loud to Daisy's cell phone. After two rings everybody heard the sound of someone picking up.
- Henry!!? Thank god!! – said Daisy with a tone of relief. – Where are you?
- I'm on the other side. – yelled Gennai replying.
- But how? - replied Daisy very impressed.
- A high authority of this world brought us in. Now listen. Have you completed the search?
- Yes. With the letters you requested. I, O, P, A, R, K. There are still many combinations and I can't figure it out.
- Wait. – said Ophanimon. The entity that is upon us has turned away from his origin, and hence he turned away from his name.
- What's that supposed to mean? His name was Alphamon, right? – asked Daisy very confused. Omega which is the opposite of Alpha doesn't have those letters.
In the confusion Pablo commented the situation.
- This looks like an apocalypse to me……… - he murmured.
- Wait! – Said Gennai. – That's it. We were getting very literal with the opposites. Of course! In the bible the last book is the apocalypse. Try to match those letters.
- Ok. I typed: APOKARI.mon. – replied Daisy. Then there was a long silence.
Henry was getting very impatient. He even feared that the communication was cut off.
- Daisy?!! - queried Henry anxiously.
- Henry. You're facing a database so big, that it cannot be deleted……….
- What? – said Henry.
- It would take years to clean this data electronically……….- replied Daisy.
- Any suggestion? – asked Henry.
- Wait! Do you remember when the project was in development that the rest of the team was working on containment of data?
- Oh yeah! I remember……..You're talking about the firewall…………
- Exactly. You may not be able to delete it, but you may contain him so he can not do any more harm.
- Cool! Let's try that……- replied Henry.
After a few minutes the voice of Daisy sounded discouraged.
- I cannot get though…………
Everybody lowered their heads, expecting impending doom.
- Quick. – said Ophanimon. – Upload the program at my signal and I will try to give it a physical shape so it can be set directly from here.
A white glow appeared in front of the blob and instants later in front of it, floating above Henry's head there was a cylindrical shape. It was a 30 cm bar that glowed as it descended toward Henry's hand.
Once on his hands, the glow fainted, and Henry contemplated the cylindrical piece of gray metal that had inscriptions engraved all around that glowed with different colors.
- Behold of the task that's ahead of you………..-said Ophanimon. - You have to find your way into their lair and set the program inside of one of the sacred stones.
With these words everybody looked toward the darkest spot of the digiworld. They guessed this was the location of Spiral Mountain and they were filled with fear.
- No way!!! – said Pablo. – If those monsters could defeat you, they are gonna make dust out of all of us………
- I agree with that! – said Carlos. – We have no way to defeat them.
- However, there's a way. – interrupted Ophanimon. - I know that Mr. Gennai has been trying to improve the evolutions but has found difficulties along the way. Deliberating with the council we have decided that since you're the last ones standing we have to give you a power of great proportions. But before we give it to you, you have to understand its source.
Daisy was listening attentively when she felt that something behind her was moving. Henry's briefcase was rattling sideways like if it wanted to take off. Suddenly it got sucked into the computer screen in front of the very eyes of Daisy.
Henry was impressed to see his own briefcase glowing and drifting several feet above the ground. Like if it was magic the briefcase opened and the devices that Henry had been working on floated in midair surrounded by a mysterious glow.
With this, Ophanimon started explaining the nature of the power that was about to be given.
- This world has existed since humans have fancied an imagination. In the beginning, all their positive thoughts drifted thorough the air and collided forming a great disorganized chaos. It remained like this for ages until you found the way to channel the information, manipulating it and organizing it. From this scaffold our world was formed, and then you developed our artificial intelligence that became the last step in our evolution. However as we organized our world we found that we needed to seek protection from outside aggression so we went to the source, the origin of our world and actually we found two origins. The first one, was a world full of color, a small world where human dreams take real shapes that filter to this world as a database. From here we drew the essence of our power.
In that moment the glow in front of the blob took the shape of flat shapped panel with luminous letters. Words started to be spelled on that panel.
COURAGE
LOVE
FRIENDSHIP
PURITY
KNOWLEDGE
SINCERITY
KINDNESS
LIGHT
HOPE
- Human feelings……….- voiced Ophanimon. – A great source of power.
- Feelings indeed!!! – interrupted a voice.
- Cherubimon! Let me finish!
- Aren't you gonna tell them about that other world we found? - protested Cherubimon.
- I'm getting there. Stop pestering me! – Ordered Ophanimon and she continued with her story.
- But then we saw another world. The world of human evil: A world dominated by a huge dark sea that extends as far as the eye can see, where human evil transforms into languid, pathetic creatures that feed others that are huge and powerful. It's the sum of all the dark sides of every human. So, after seeing the extent of your evil, we felt so discouraged that we had relied on the power of human feelings to hold our essence so we decided to create warriors to protect us, but we had to look for a different source of power. That's where we found the elements of you world:
FIRE
WATER
WIND
WOOD
EARTH
STEEL
ICE
THUNDER
ROCK
- We witnessed their great power and decided that these forces were to be used to create powerful warriors that would stand by our side in times of crisis. But, due to disagreements among ourselves we never decided to give true shapes to the warriors so we have been standing here deliberating. Unfortunately the dark masters struck first and unfortunately that power has been buried below the ground you stand. Now comes the time where we have to turn to you and your companions the power of our essence. Our last and only line of defense: The power of human feelings.
When she said this, the small metallic chips that Henry had shown to Daisy drifted out of the briefcase and as glowing fireflies they descended upon the humans.
TJ, Pablo, Laika, Hector, Leslie and Robert received in their hands the small and flat metallic plates along with a golden necklace that had a pendant shaped for the metalic plates to fit in.
- What's the necklace for? - asked Henry impressed by this new item.
- It's a bridge between this new power and the digivices. It's the piece of the puzzle you were missing to perfect the evolution -replied Ophanimon, as five of the words in the flat panel dissapeared leaving only:
KINDNESS
HOPE
LIGHT
- Light and hope, are very powerful forces that will be given to the digimon that belong to this council. The power of light and hope are the only ones that prevail when the rest are gone. Hence, they shine for themselves and they do not require of a human partner to work. So, Gatomon and Patamon you will be able to evolve one step further whenever you want.
- No….wait! I also want this power linked to the feelings of my partner. – said Gatomon looking at Clara compassionately. – I believe in her………
- Wait! What's the use of having hope if you can't share it. –said Patamon flying closer to Yuki. – Please, be my partner. I'll help you get Renamon back.
- You will……? – said Yuki with tears on her eyes. – Of course.
- So be it. Gatomon. You will be the warrior of light. When your partner sees the light of truth then you will be able to evolve. Patamon, you have humbly offered to share your hope with this human. When she shares her hope with you, you will be able to evolve further. With these two more metallic plates and necklaces descended upon Clara and Yuki
Veemon, Armadillomon and Hawkmon were puzzled and frustrated. They wouldn't have crests to evolve further.
- Excuse me. –said Carlos approaching the glowing blob. – But, What about them?
- We chose the others because they can't use the other evolution that was provided by Mr Gennai. We haven't forgotten you, because thanks to that modification you will be able to use two of these powers turning them into protecting armors.
The briefcase glowed once again and from it the strange white contraptions came down to Carlos, Aurora, Iori, Clara and Yuki.
- Each of these terminals will contain two digieggs programmed with the power of two crests. This will replace the B mode –said Ophanimon.
Iori looked at the rectangular contraption with curiosity inspecting every corner until he found a switch. When he pressed it the lid popped up revealing a screen beneath. Carlos and Aurora did just they same noticing that on display there was a picture of two items with ornaments around them.
- Look! – said Iori. –On the left there is a symbol of a Christian cross with 4 triangles around it, and on the right a symbol that looks like two circles connected to one another.
- Weird……- voiced Aurora. – Mine are different…..it has a symbol of a heart on the left and on the right a symbol of a rain drop with a circle in the middle.
- Mine are different too! – said Carlos. – On the left a symbol of a sun and on the right a symbol of a coffee grain with projections to the sides.
- What? – said Clara. – Are these for us too? – she said opening the lid and seeing on the center of the screen the symbol of a sun that has its rays resembling flower petals.
- The power of light and hope can take many shapes and advantages. – said Ophanimon explaining the situation.
- I hope we find Renamon on time…….- said Yuki looking at the symbol on the center of the screen of her new device that looked like an angel.
Everybody looked up and noticed that on the flat screen only one word remained spelled:
KINDNESS
- Excuse me…..- asked Aurora very politely. – What do these symbols mean?
- You'll have to discover that for yourselves to unleash their power.
- What about kindness? – asked Carlos referring to the last word on the flat panel.
There was a pause but then the voice of all the members of the angel council rumbled:
- Kindness emits a very bright light capable of covering every corner even if there is total darkness. – then Ophanimon continued: - This power has to be divided in two because it is too strong to be held by only one of you, so I will appoint Gatomon and Patamon to harness this power until it becomes inevitable to use it. Also, be aware that to activated it requires the ultimate proof of faith, so be wise. If this power is used against the enemy our essence will become depleted and we will have to become dormant for ages to come back to this world.
- Ok. There's no time to waste! – said TJ pointing at the place where spiral mountain was located.
- Wait! – said Ophanimon. – Have you chosen a lider?
- A lider?…… - mumbled the humans among themselves.
- Will you be the leader? – asked Aurora to Carlos yanking the sleeve of his brown jacket.
- What? Me? – answered Carlos. – I couldn't possibly…….. – he stammered as he saw that everybody was watching him with a smile on their faces.
- You have been able to settle our differences……- said Pablo.
- You have told me to conquer my fear…… - said Laika who finally decided to integrate to the group.
- You have taught us to stick together… - said Hector.
The glow in the blob became more intense. Ophanimon had also decided that Carlos was the appointed one.
- But you will need a symbol that will bind you. Like a battle flag. – said Ophanimon.
TJ stared at his goggles briefly and then looked up.
- Hey man! – he said tossing the goggles at Carlos.
- What the……..- said Carlos taking the goggles in his hands.
- The bearer of the goggles will be the leader of this group of humans. – said Ophanimon. - None of the digimon warriors that fights on our side will attack you because I will send envoys everywhere in this world to pass the word that a group of humans led by the goggle bearer come in peace and will destroy the evil that's upon us. Good luck.
With these, the glow inside the blob fainted and then everything became very silent.