Begun 4:52pm on Saturday, January 14, 2012
Completed 12:05am on November 24, 2012
Previously in Digimon: Digital Monsters
This is Rainey speaking. I was wandering around a dark forest with Impmon. I missed Lopmon a lot and tried to find him, but Impmon kept getting mad and saying it was useless. I woke up to find myself alone and then I got kidnapped by a big spider called Dokugumon. She took me back to her home and was going to feed me to her babies when I was rescued by Cameron and Vilemon. Impmon showed up and I realized he was lying to Cameron and DemiDevimon about what had happened between me and Lopmon. I confronted him and Impmon, Cameron, and DemiDevimon left me all alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Castle
They had been walking for some time. The canyons rose all around them, obscuring much from view. Kunemon had Digivolved for a while the previous day to fly around as Kuwagamon with Adam on his back and get a better vantage point. All they could report was that they were approaching the end of the cliffs, and that the forest they'd seen on the other side of the lake seemed more massive than previously thought, as it apparently extended far off and wrapped around in front of them. By their estimate, they would be there sometime later today.
The eleven travelers were weary. It felt as though they'd never had a chance to stop and rest since first arriving in the Digital World, particularly not since Blake and Gizamon had vanished through the vortex. Blake and Conomon agreed with this assessment, and although they'd gotten to spend a brief time of rest back in the Real World, it had been all too fleeting, and it seemed that their travels had become even more difficult as of late.
When they would finally stop for the night, they would all roundly agree that they'd never felt more exhausted in their lives – which was shocking, as they'd all agreed just as much only the night before. However, their rest was insufficient; the stresses of their journey, their separation, the realization that no one back home knew they were missing – it was all too much. A full night's sleep was a thing of the past, and memories of being fully rested seemed like some sort of misremembered fairy tale. They had even started sometimes having nightmares, mostly about Devimon, Etemon, and the various other horrible evils that had tried very hard to kill them in their short time in the Digital World.
Today they trudged wearily onward. The tips of the trees of the forest had just come into view through the canyon, rising over the gentle curve of the rocky ground before them. This was the very forest they had all been in at one time or another, the forest through which they had traveled to get away from the desert where they'd had their final showdown with Etemon to this new area surrounding the lake. This part of the forest, however, would be new to them all, and the trees here seemed darker, the foliage thicker, the air more ominous than the other side of the forest had been. No one was particularly excited about entering the dark wood, but as they'd all essentially gone everywhere else, it was really the only option left. Plus, Cameron could only have gone in this direction after Casey had left him.
The group moved silently. In the past, they had chatted and joked while walking. The children and Digimon had exchanged stories, learning about their different pasts. However, exhaustion was taking its toll. They would all have preferred to simply sit and relax, to take a day off from their seemingly endless and meandering quest. Their feet ached, their eyes drooped, they yawned frequently, they were grumpy from fatigue, they were sore from sleeping on hard ground, and they were altogether in dismal shape for a long trek on foot. However, despite how badly they wanted to complain, to stop, to throw a tantrum until something could be done, they all held their tongues. The need to find their friends – especially Rainey, who was all alone if Cameron hadn't yet found him – drove them forward, and whenever their resolve weakened, they had only to look at Casey, always leading the group, always moving forward with determination, always driving them to walk just a little longer each day. If nothing else, he was a reminder of what was at stake, and why they must all try to ignore their complaints.
The forest was indeed a dark and foreboding place. Even as they approached its edge, they could only see a few yards in with any clarity. It was as if the canopy of the forest stifled any light, and the shadows they saw inside spoke of only gloom. They stopped and looked at the foreboding wood before them, none daring to speak the discomfort they felt at the prospect of this new, more dangerous-looking part of their journey.
Casey stopped and tilted his head inquisitively. After days of walking, complete exhaustion, and restless sleep broken by nightmares of his younger brother in countless life-threatening situations, Casey worried that his grip on reality was slipping. However, it seemed too clear to have been a hallucination.
"Did anyone hear that?" he asked.
"Hear what?" replied Blake.
Casey held up a hand to silence them, and they all trained their ears toward the forest, standing stock-still and listening.
The sound again. He was sure of it this time. Someone's voice. Calling something. His name.
His breath stopped.
"Rainey!"
He hadn't even truly registered this – the thought to run toward the sound having barely formed – before he found the trunks of the trees rushing past. "Rainey!" he said again, this time a scream that burst from him. A shadowy shape was before him, moving toward him, and slowly, unbelievably, as the figure approached in the oppressive darkness of the forest, Rainey's face became clear.
Casey didn't stop running until he had Rainey in his arms. He fell to the ground, tears of joy and exhaustion bursting forth, flowing freely down his cheeks. He could feel and hear his little brother sobbing happily into his chest, the reunion overtaking them both. The sound of his traveling companions arriving on the scene barely registered, but moments later Kokomon was squeezing into Rainey's arms as well, and Prairiemon wrapped his clawed arms around the two boys sitting on the ground.
The four of them stayed this way for long minutes, unwilling to let one another go after their long separation. Casey could barely believe it. After all this time, he had begun to despair that they would ever find Rainey. He would never allow himself to think the worst, but he knew in the back of his mind the possibility that Rainey had been lost to him was ever present. The relief he now felt was so overpowering that he suddenly felt his eyes droop as the exhaustion of the past few days finally caught up to him.
Everyone else had been calling out to Rainey, adding their own comments at how happy they were to see him, and when Casey finally relinquished his hold on his little brother, the entire group greeted him warmly. After they had all settled down a bit and Rainey and Casey had the chance to wipe their teary eyes, Rainey demanded to know what had happened to Blake and Conomon.
Blake explained yet again their trip to the Real World, how no time had passed since they'd left, how Digimon were the cause of the strange weather back home. Rainey was as amazed as they'd all been, and shared in the sentiment that, either way, he was glad to see Blake and Conomon alive and well.
"But where are Cameron and DemiDevimon?" asked Adam, turning the conversation to Rainey with the question they'd all been avoiding. The group was almost back together, with only these two remaining members to be found.
Rainey's face darkened visibly.
"You've seen him?" Casey asked, dread arising in him from the look in Rainey's eyes.
"Yes," Rainey said. "I saw him just this morning."
Rainey then recounted the tale of his separation from Kokomon. They all knew Kokomon's side of the story, but with Rainey's new insight into Impmon's manipulation, he shed more light on the situation and the mysterious Digimon who had instigated it. He went on to speak of his further travels deep into the forest, how Impmon had refused to allow him to look for or wait for Kokomon to find him, how he had been kidnapped and nearly eaten, how Cameron and Vilemon had saved him, and how they had eventually separated when Rainey refused to follow Impmon anymore and Cameron refused to change his mind about following the Digimon.
The group sat in silence for a moment, absorbing this new information. Could it be true? Would Cameron really have abandoned Rainey to follow a Digimon that Rainey had said couldn't be trusted? It was unbelievable.
"Where did you say they were going?" Meggy finally asked, a grim look on her face.
"They went that way," Rainey pointed back the way he'd come. "At least, I think they did."
"Where were they going?" Prairiemon urged.
"Impmon said he worked for a Digimon named Myotismon," Rainey explained. "He said they were going to Myotismon's castle, and that Myotismon would tell Cameron everything he wanted to know about the Digital World."
They took in this new tidbit as well, beginning to understand the draw it held for Cameron, though still skeptical about his actions.
"Well, we're just going to have to go find him," Blake said at last. They all looked to him. "We've found everyone else. We're all back together, except for Cameron and DemiDevimon. If this Myotismon is as great as Impmon says, then we'll not only find Cameron, but we might find a way home as well. And if he's as bad as Impmon seems, then Cameron will need to be rescued anyway."
"That settles it," Meggy continued. "We can't leave our friend alone."
"Once we find him, we can finally start finding a way home again," Adam agreed.
Casey was unsure. "What if it's a trap?"
They all turned to look at him, and the look on Blake's face showed that he had considered this already. "It doesn't matter. We have to get Cameron back, no matter what."
"We'll be careful," Meggy cut in. "Plus, now that we're all back together, we'll be able to protect one another. With all of us working together, we should be able to find Cameron and stay safe."
They all stood still for a moment, silently taking in this new plan, understanding that this could be a very dangerous mission, realizing that for the first time in a while they would be knowingly walking into danger. And then, without cue, they all turned as Rainey lead them into the forest, back the way he'd come, on into the oppressive gloom that pressed in all around them.
The castle loomed before him, a towering, imposing structure constructed of grimy, dark grey stones. The sky was dark and overcast, and though the clouds obscured the sun Cameron knew that it was well past noon and that evening would soon blanket the surrounding forest in even deeper shadows than the ones that covered it during the day.
"We're here," Impmon announced unnecessarily. The castle was enormous, imposing, filling Cameron's entire field of vision. He would have to be literally blind to have missed seeing the massive structure before him.
"Myotismon's been waiting for you," Impmon continued. "He knew how curious you were about the nature of the Digital World, and he's anxious to share his knowledge with you."
Something struck Cameron as off about this sentiment. "Why is he so anxious to share it with me?"
"Because it's rare that someone comes along who might actually understand," Impmon replied, smiling broadly. "That's why we had to get you away from your friends – because they would never understand. This is exclusive information."
Cameron felt much better then. It was no doubt that he was mentally capable of grasping complex systems and ideas, and he was particularly well armed to understand those relating to computer systems and programs after years of teaching himself how to program in a number of different programming languages. He'd always been the top of his class, and at an early age he'd taken an IQ test at the urging of one of his teachers. They'd placed him into the gifted program, which took the place of one of his otherwise regularly scheduled class blocks. It was an exclusive group, available only to those who had been chosen for IQ testing, been tested high enough, and whose parents had actually chosen to let them in.
Cameron had always felt that this group had given him a kind of elite status. It wasn't true that his classmates envied him – far from it. While they certainly should have given him more respect for having earned such treatment, most kids treated it with mild disinterest, and some even with derision. However, Cameron had attributed himself the respect he deserved enough for all of them, and he knew that as he grew, more people would come to appreciate his mental prowess.
Here was proof positive. After having spent a great deal of time in the Digital World searching for clues about its nature and origins, someone had seen his efforts, understood, and realized that he was worthy of the true nature of the complexity of this place. It was a shame his friends couldn't be here, really. Knowledge is power, and Cameron fully believed in the pursuit of it. His Crest of Knowledge was clearly a perfect match for him. However, after all this time in the Digital World, he'd come to realize that his travelling companions were less interested in the way this fantastic world worked and more interested in the way to get out of it. Cameron certainly understood their desire to return to their normal lives, but when faced with such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study something hitherto wholly unknown, there had never been a question of priority as far as he was concerned.
Impmon was staring at Cameron expectantly. Cameron glanced at DemiDevimon, who shot him a look of encouragement. Cameron could tell that his partner was a little uncomfortable with the situation, but was trying to be supportive of Cameron's goals. He flashed a knowing look at his partner before turning to Impmon and nodding.
The doors before them were ornate wooden doors. They looked thick and ancient, and they were wrought in weathered carvings that seemed to depict a story or myth of some sort whose tales were being lost to the passage of time and the erosion from the elements. Impmon snapped his fingers and the doors parted and began to swing open in a slow arc, releasing a creaking groan.
Cameron felt the cool, dank air from inside blow lightly against his face. Impmon walked into the darkness and Cameron followed. DemiDevimon, perched upon Cameron's shoulder, squeezed lightly with his talons as a sign of reassurance – or perhaps an involuntary sign of tension.
"It's okay, DemiDevimon," Cameron said quietly, his voice swallowed by the dark hall they were entering.
The doors began slowly to swing shut, again seemingly of their own volition, and with them the dim light was diminishing.
"Shouldn't we light a match or something?" DemiDevimon asked nervously.
Impmon laughed. "Not a problem." He snagged an unlit torch from the wall as the last beam of light vanished. "Badda Boom!" A small ball of red flame formed above Impmon's pointer finger. He touched it to the torch, which instantly flared to life. The warm, flickering light did more to calm DemiDevimon than it did to actually penetrate the gloom, though the Digimon still glanced warily all around from his perch on Cameron's shoulder.
They walked through the large entry hall for a full minute, Cameron and DemiDevimon peering into the darkness around them as much as possible – Cameron, searching for any new, fascinating discovery, and DemiDevimon, searching for any sign of trouble. Finally, they came upon another set of ornate wooden doors, which creaked open upon their approach. As the doors opened toward them, they were bathed in flickering golden light.
The hall they were approaching was very well lit. Torches, like the one Impmon now carried, lined the columns of the hall, which extended all down its great length. The three entered the great hall and marveled at the sight as the wooden doors slowly closed behind them. The edges of the room and the ceiling still vanished in gloomy shadows, ringing the merry walkway with contrast, but the lighting made all the difference.
At the end of the hall was a beautiful golden throne carved with gorgeous designs and adorned with red velvet cushions, and in that throne sat a figure. Cameron was shocked at how incredibly human the man in the chair looked.
"Welcome," said the figure, smiling with glinting white teeth. His voice was deep and silky smooth, and he stood to greet the newcomers.
He stood very tall, much taller than a grown man, and was extremely thin. He was dressed in a luxuriously deep midnight blue coat and matching pair of pants, the coat adorned with golden thread lining and shiny gold buttons, below which his waist was cinched with a tight black belt. He wore large black boots that came to his shins, adorned with shining silver emblems evocative of skulls on the toe of each. The coat was hemmed at the wrist, revealing silky green, also sporting shining golden buttons, above clawed hands with long, thin fingers hidden in black gloves. The coat's poufy shoulders had little bat symbols embroidered in crimson. He wore a long black cape with red silk on the interior side, with a collar that extended far around the sides and back of his head, and which was clasped at his neck with a large, ornately carved golden bat with leering ruby eyes. His face was pale white, like glue, and he wore a red mask across his eyes, which had stylized bat wings extending off to the sides. A few strands of his straight, slicked back blonde hair fell down across his eyes and mask.
"This is the child you were asking about, Lord Myotismon," Impmon said, bowing low. "The Child of Knowledge."
"Cameron," Myotismon said, surprising Cameron a little that he already knew his name. "Welcome to my castle."
Cameron bowed, imitating Impmon. DemiDevimon, not having expected this, reacted unthinkingly by clutching harder to Cameron's shoulder, digging his talons into his shoulder slightly and causing him to wince in pain. "Thank you for welcoming us," Cameron said, managing to avoid sounding as if he was pained.
"Impmon has been watching you and your friends," said Myotismon, "reporting back to me on your actions. I have been waiting to see if I should make contact with any of you, and finally decided to welcome you to my castle."
Cameron smiled and thanked Myotismon again for his kindness before the humanoid Digimon continued. "I know there are many questions in your mind about this Digital World, and while I cannot offer all the answers, I know that I can open your mind to a whole host of new ideas." Myotismon smiled at Cameron again, and this time Cameron noted the glint of sharp, pointed canine teeth.
"That's exactly what I've been looking for this whole time," Cameron said hungrily, eliciting an even greater smile from Myotismon.
"Wonderful!" the Digimon exclaimed. "Then why wait? If you're ready, we can begin immediately."
Cameron looked at DemiDevimon for a moment. His Digimon partner was still tense and grim-faced, seemingly afraid of this castle and its inhabitants. DemiDevimon would love nothing more than them taking several hours to rest and recuperate before proceeding, that was clear. Honestly, Cameron thought, DemiDevimon would probably prefer that they left right then and never turned back. But then, DemiDevimon had never shared Cameron's penchant for knowledge and exploration, and surely he could go and rest on his own if it was truly too much for him.
"Absolutely I'm ready," Cameron responded.
Myotismon's smile had grown so large now that it threatened to become grotesque, and his pointed, vampiric teeth glinted in a vaguely unsettling way. He gestured grandly to yet another ornate door behind him, this one with gold leaf trim, and it began to open, as if at his wordless command. "Through there are the answers you seek."
Cameron peered into the unlit room beyond. He felt DemiDevimon squeeze his shoulder lightly. Don't, he was surely saying. Let's leave. Let's forget this. Let's find the others and leave this behind.
But Cameron was not so easily scared, and though the room had a somewhat ominous feel to it, he knew that he could not deny the promise that lay therein. So he mustered his courage and stepped forward, walking past the towering humanoid who ruled this place, through the doors, and into the darkness beyond.
"Good," Myotismon said from behind him. "Now I will leave you, and soon you will have a whole new understanding of things."
Cameron looked back in time to see the doors close behind him and catch a last glimpse of Myotismon and his subordinate, Impmon. He found himself alone, DemiDevimon still perched atop his shoulder, in almost complete darkness. There was a dim, bluish hue mysteriously glinting off the cold, damp stones of the room. It was a stark contrast to the warm yellow light of the well-lit hall they'd just left.
Cameron could feel that DemiDevimon was at the height of tension. He reached up to awkwardly pat him, attempting to be encouraging. "It's okay, buddy. This is why we're here." It has to be. DemiDevimon did not respond, but Cameron could tell that it was only because his partner had stopped himself from saying one of the many things that must be storming through his mind.
They stood in the relative darkness, waiting – for what, no one knew. Cameron briefly considered knocking on the door through which they'd just come to ask if a mistake had been made, but then DemiDevimon somehow tensed even further, digging the point of his claws into Cameron's shoulder.
"What's that?" he asked tremulously.
Cameron looked about, but saw nothing. "What's what?"
"That sound!"
They stood still and silent, listening to the darkness. A few moments passed before Cameron heard the sound that DemiDevimon must have been mentioning. A strange sort of hissing sound.
"I hear it," Cameron muttered, "but I don't know –"
He stopped short. His mind was . . . cloudy. He felt sluggish, disoriented. He was suddenly aware of a reddish tint at the edges of his vision – no, it wasn't his vision. It was all around. It was in the air.
"Some kind of . . . gas . . . or mist, or . . ."
He looked to see if DemiDevimon had heard him in time to see his partner's eyes droop. DemiDevimon's grip loosened and he suddenly fell from Cameron's shoulder. Cameron grabbed for him to stop his fall, but his movements were slow, so slow, and he did little to help as DemiDevimon fell to the stones at his feet. But suddenly Cameron felt that he himself was in danger of losing consciousness. He tried to preempt a fall by lowering himself to the ground but he was dizzy, the room was spinning, filling with the strange red mist.
The last thing that passed through his mind was the image of Myotismon and Impmon as the doors slowly closed, both smirking knowingly, darkly, triumphantly.
And then the door closed, and the darkness flooded in.
The sun had nearly set by the time they arrived at the castle. They'd walked briskly, balancing exhaustion with urgency, knowing that every second they wasted potentially brought them a second closer to being too late. Now the castle was before them, silhouetted against a sky of pinks and purples, a warm orange line drawn across the horizon to prove the sun had been there.
The grimy stone walls they faced looked to be in disuse. They'd originally seen the castle from the front, where a large, weathered, wood door was firmly closed. After some heated debate about whether or not they should try to burst in there and fight their way through, with a few suggestions that they should knock and see what happened sprinkled in, they'd ultimately decided to try and sneak in another way. They skirted the plateau upon which the massive castle stood, hugging the tree line for cover.
The castle stood ominously at the edge of the plateau, but it appeared to have quite a large courtyard with numerous other buildings presumably inside. There had been battlements and guard towers along the walls at one point, though they appeared to have fallen to a level of disrepair, and though the kids scanned warily for any sign of movement, none was seen.
They decided to try to scale the wall. Supposing that Cameron was somewhere in the castle, the plan was to sneak into it and try to keep their presence minimal and unnoticed until they could find and escape with him. In order to get inside, they'd need to find some kind of weakness in the wall, or scale it, and after Rabbitmon had zipped around, hugging the base of the wall to avoid being seen by any hidden sentries, she returned to report that there were no openings.
So now they found themselves with their current plan. Rabbitmon would use her jumping ability to leap to the top of the towering wall, with Kunemon riding on her back. Kunemon would then turn and spin a sticky thread from the top of the wall to the ground to serve as a rope for the rest to climb. The suggestion that Kunemon could evolve to Kuwagamon and carry them up in two or three trips had been made, but that seemed too obvious, which led to Rabbitmon preparing herself for what was easily the mightiest leap of her life.
She was at the base of the wall, staring up at it, flexing her muscles and mentally running through the jump she was about to make. Kunemon crawled atop her back, gripping gently with his spindly blue legs. Kunemon's wormlike body wasn't particularly heavy, but it would still be an additional challenge that Rabbitmon usually had no need to account for.
The rest of the kids and Digimon watched anxiously from the deepening darkness of the forest's edge. Becca found herself between Meggy and Adam, both of whom had their eyes glued to their respective partners, concern playing across their faces. She reached out on either side to hold their hands comfortingly.
"Ready when you are," Kunemon whispered, his nerves coming through his tremulous.
"Alright," Rabbitmon said. "Here we go!"
They exploded from the ground, like a rocket taking off toward the sky. Kunemon was sure he'd never moved this quickly, even flying on his own wings as Kuwagamon. The wind whistled past and the ground fell away at a sickening speed, and Kunemon wished his current form had wings. The grimy, moss-covered stones of the castle wall whizzed past dizzyingly as the battlements went from being impossibly out of reach to strikingly near.
And then they were slowing, the momentum of the leap wearing off as gravity began to take over. And then they were stopping, reaching the apex of the jump, about to begin their descent back to earth, and Kunemon felt his stomach lurch as momentum and gravity were momentarily at odds.
And the battlements were just ten feet above them.
So close. So painfully close. And in that moment, Kunemon knew that they had missed, and that the return trip to the hard ground was not going to be pleasant. Rabbitmon knew it too, because he heard her gasp, "Oh no!"
Kunemon knew what he had to do. On the ground, the top of the wall had been inconceivably far away, but Rabbitmon's heroic leap had changed that, and Kunemon realized, in that sickening instant, that the distance was no longer too great.
"Hang on!" Kunemon cried, squeezing his needle legs sharply into Rabbitmon so as not to lose his grip, eliciting a sharp gasp of pained surprise. Kunemon took a quick gasp of air, aimed for the battlements, and fired a string of sticky thread towards his target. As the two Digimon began their descent back to earth, Kunemon felt the thread connect and the adhesive grab hold. Yes! he thought triumphantly, and began sucking the thread in, pulling himself and Rabbitmon closer to the top.
The downward momentum they had begun to gain was halted and transferred as they now swung like a pendulum – straight at the brick wall. "Hang on, yourself!" Rabbitmon called as they sped toward the flat, imposing surface of the wall. Rabbitmon prepared her leg muscles for impact, thankful that they'd been made to handle the return to earth from herculean leaps. They slammed painfully into the wall, and Rabbitmon gritted her teeth to shield Kunemon from the reality that her legs were electric with tingling pain. But they were safe, relatively unharmed, and even though Rabbitmon had not been able to leap to the top of the wall as she'd thought, she had somehow succeeded in at least getting them close enough for Kunemon to finish the job.
Inch by inch, Kunemon pulled them safely to the top of the battlement. As soon as she was close enough, Rabbitmon scrambled over the top and collapsed in exhaustion, panting from the fear and exertion she'd just experienced. Kunemon pulled himself over before clasping a claw across her face to silence her.
"Shh!" he hissed, and pointed with a free leg to the courtyard below.
The adrenaline pumping through her had been enough to make her oblivious to the world around her, but now she heard it: The unmistakable sound of grunts, roars, growls, and other beastly sounds. And above it all, someone yelling orders. Her gaze followed Kunemon's direction and she saw it. In the courtyard, which was hedged on all sides by the wall they'd just scaled, was a veritable army.
Massive monsters of all shapes and sizes were doing what seemed like various drills as an orb of a Digimon barked orders and threats at them.
"This isn't good," Kunemon whispered.
"No. No it is not." Rabbitmon agreed darkly.
"What should we do?"
Rabbitmon shrugged. "What else can we do? We've got to rescue Cameron, one way or the other."
It was clear that they had to continue with the plan, so Kunemon began spinning a sticky thread that extended down to the base of the wall. Once it had reached sufficient length – an exhausting task, to produce that much at once, and after having made some already in a heart-stopping save – Kunemon cut through his end and attached it to the battlement where they waited.
Slowly, one at a time, the children and Digimon crept from their hiding place and began to scale the wall. Rabbitmon and Kunemon stood anxiously at the top, trying to stay low while still staying visible, and as the first child reached the top – Meggy, as it turned out – they put paw and claw to their lips to tell her to be quiet. She looked at them strangely but complied, and stifled a gasp of her own when she reached the top and saw what they had seen.
The rest of the group continued in much the same way, but they were all successful in remaining silent and in staying still, quiet, and unseen once they'd arrived at the top. Finally, when Blake arrived, huffing and puffing with Conomon perched on his back, all twelve of them had assembled and, once Blake had experienced the initial shock they'd all had upon first seeing the army, they finally took a moment to truly observe it.
There were giant beasts, evil looking humanoid creatures, and all manner of winged, tentacled, spiked, hairy, slimy, nasty looking things. Most of the creatures below were of a specific species of Digimon which Meggy and Rabbitmon identified as Bakemon. Otamamon claimed to have heard about the orb-shaped Digimon directing them as well, calling him Nanimon.
Nanimon was small, much smaller in fact than most Digimon present in the yard. He was shaped like a bowling ball with arms and legs. The arms and legs were muscular, his hands in red gloves with a star on them and his feet in similar boots, a star on the top and colored blue on the back half. He had hair around the back of his orb-shaped head-body, but was bald on the top apart from one wavy hair that stuck up from the very top of his head. The coarse brown hair was also present in his armpits, on his face in a circle beard, and in thick angry eyebrows. The beard encircled his lips, which were puckered in contempt but which seemed to be covered in shiny red lipstick, and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of futuristic looking sunglasses that wrapped around his head despite the deepening dark of the early evening.
"What should we do?" Meggy asked, clenching her fists.
Becca's voice was tremulous and fearful. "We can't fight them all!"
"No way," agreed Blake.
"Definitely not," Casey added. "Even if we were at full strength we probably couldn't handle all of those guys – I mean, most of them we've never even seen before."
"Who knows what they could do," Adam interjected.
"Exactly," continued Casey. "And we're not even as strong as we could be. Conomon and Kokomon both have to Digivolve just to get to their Rookie stages, and we're missing Cameron completely. Our main goal is to rescue him, keep ourselves safe, and get out of here without starting a fight, and we should stick to that."
Blake smiled. "I couldn't have said it better."
"But what is this army for?" Meggy wondered.
Casey pursed his lips grimly. "Hopefully we'll never find out."
"Let's go," Blake hissed, and began carefully threading his way along the slick, narrow, and in places broken battlement toward the castle. At one point, one of the stones gave way on a particularly decayed and thin patch, and Blake barely managed to stifle a cry as he reached out to steady himself and Adam helped grab him to stop his fall. The stone fell and they held their breaths, but it thankfully crashed into some thick brambles in the shadows of the night and went unnoticed in the din being made by the army of Digimon. Blake pulled himself from the hole his leg had fallen through and took a moment to catch his breath and steady his nerves before continuing to lead the group to the castle.
They made it without further incident, though it was a long and tense process, and when they finally arrived, they were able to slip inside the castle through a narrow guard's door. They found themselves in a cramped stairwell leading down into the shadowy depths of the castle.
"We're in it now," Blake sighed quietly to himself, and was thankful that his partner Conomon was riding on his shoulders. Rainey, who was holding Kokomon in his arms, clutched him close, and Casey squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. The kids and Digimon all exchanged grim looks before proceeding down the stairwell into the darkness.
Moving slowly and trying not to make a sound on slick stone steps was difficult and time consuming, and it felt like ages before they suddenly found themselves in a small landing opening into a large room.
"We must have arrived on the ground floor," Adam whispered. Meggy nodded in agreement.
The room before them was large, unlit, and consequently filled with menacing shadows. They took furtive steps into the gloom, taking care to make as little noise as possible and painfully aware that the twelve of them made more noise than was comforting. But the still dark of the room remained still, and they proceeded unhindered to the center of the room, where the faint outline of a doorway could be seen leading to the deeper core of the castle. Blake decided to risk a whisper.
"Alright, everyone," he murmured, "I see a door ahead. We'll go through there and then maybe split up to cover more ground. Cameron's got to be somewhere in here –"
He was cut off suddenly as his stomach rose to his throat. The floor beneath them had crumbled, completely, the great stones falling away as easily as if they'd never been solid to begin with. His breath caught as he looked around in a sickening moment of stillness at his friends suspended in air over the dark chasm below them.
And then they fell.
