Chapter 34: By the Moon's Light

You were having an odd dream. A tall person with the face of a fox had saved you from a giant talking loogie. It had brought you someplace calm and quiet though you were having some difficulty breathing. Then it set you down and leaned in close.

"You'll be safe from him here. But finish locating the rest of the human and beast spirits. Only with them all together will you have the strength to defeat your enemy."

Then the fox-person was gone and you were left all alone, except for a faint voice calling from the end of a long dark tunnel. You followed it, diving headfirst into the light and suddenly -

You jerked awake with a cough and the very first thing you saw was all of your spirits gathered around you, looking down at you with concern.

"Ally!" cried Dramon. "Thank goodness you're awake! Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I think so," you answered, rubbing your head. "What on earth happened?"

"It seems our enemy was indeed too strong for us to challenge alone," Mercurymon admitted.

"That's putting it lightly!" Dramon snapped. "You nearly got Ally killed and the rest of us stolen! I hope you're satisfied now!"

"You'd do well to watch the tone you take with me, Dramon!"

Your spirit growled and clenched a fist, looking like she was about to punch Mercurymon in his 'face' and leave a giant dent behind. At the same time, Mercurymon wasn't about to just let her smack him without any resistance. He lifted one of his shields and frowned with concentration.

"Hey, hey," you said, scrambling uncertainly to your feet. "Everyone settle down. We're all okay and there's - why is the ground pink?"

It wasn't just the dusty pink dirt under your sneakers that you had noticed; the scruffy grass growing from it was a deep reddish color as was the thick forest springing up off in the distance. The sky was weird too - even though the sun was out the sky was dark and the stars were shining clear overhead. And the Digiworld was -

Your jaw dropped. "There's - how's - WHAT?!"

"Told you she notice world in sky," Grumblemon commented.

"How is THAT in the SKY?!" you shrieked. "And if it's up there, then where the hell are we?!"

"It's okay, Ally! We're on one of the moons!" Dramon explained, motioning for you to calm yourself.

"We were brought here by an expert in teleportation," Mercurymon informed you. "Luckily. Otherwise you'd be at the bottom of a river of sewage right now."

"But human children still in danger," Grumblemon said.

"We need to get back down to the surface, sugah. That big brute isn't going to leave your friends alone while we hold a garden party up here."

"Yeah, so how we s'posed to get back, kid?" asked Arbormon.

"Wait a minute," Dramon said, holding up a hand.

You had barely heard anything that the souls had been saying. You were on the freaking moon! The planet was up in the sky! Shock was the least of what you were feeling.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" you shrieked, running in circles with panic. "What the hell is this?! How did I get on the damn moon?!"

You ran and screamed until your breath ran out and you had to stop, bent over with your hands on your knees, panting rapidly. The exertion had worn you out and pushed the panic back but you weren't even close to being calm.

"Better?" Dramon asked.

"Not really," you gasped. "But I can deal."

"You'll have to," Dramon said. "We can't afford to be stuck here any longer than necessary."

"Then how do I get off of here?" you asked. "I mean, we didn't get here in a rocket or nothing. And I doubt any of you could survive out in space. Even if you could, it's not like we could swim there from here."

"That's a problem you're going to have to solve on your own," Mercurymon sniffed. "After all, you're the solid one."

"Don't give me that!" you snapped. "I've never been farther off the ground than a roller coaster before! How the frak am I supposed to get all the way to another planet?!"

Suddenly Mercurymon slapped you from out of nowhere and snapped your neck sharply to one side. It stopped your outburst cold and you went wide-eyed with pure surprise, as did all the other souls. For a second everything was silent except for the gentle rustling of the trees.

"Uh oh," said Grumblemon.

But you amazed them all by not trying to leap onto the Steel Warrior and beat him to splinters. You didn't even get upset. You just rubbed the side of your face, which had flushed from the impact, trying to ease the sting. "Well, thanks for that. I think."

"Anytime." He needed to work on the smug tone in his voice. "In fact I found it entirely enjoyable."

"Okay, Mercurymon. Dial it back a little." Dramon didn't seem any more happy at his pleasure than you felt. "We need her conscious to get us all off this rock."

"True. Very well, girl, get started."

You threw your arms up in exasperation. "We just went over this! I don't know how to get off the freakin' moon!"

All of a sudden there were slow pounding footsteps behind you and you nearly jumped a mile. Wheeling around, you saw what you first thought were four moving tree trunks; then your brain pieced it together and you understood that you were looking at something's legs. You tilted your chin back, eyes headed towards the darkened sky and up the long neck of the beast that had come up behind you. When you finally got to its head, crunching away happily in the treetops high in the air, you were struck dumb. It was like you had been dropped into one of those disaster movies.

"That's a dinosaur," you whimpered numbly. You pointed a trembling finger in the dinosaur's direction. "And it's eating leaves…"

Then the sight and sound faded out and you hit the ground in a faint.

~Junpei POV~

"Okay, seriously you guys, something is wrong," I said again, louder so they couldn't ignore me this time. "We've searched the whole factory and she's not anywhere."

"Maybe she ran off again," Kouji muttered.

"No way," Kouichi and I replied at the same time.

"Maybe I cut her up!" Giromon shouted as he waved his smoke-belching chainsaw in the air. "Was she big and flat and gray?!"

"That was the floor, you dunce," said one of the Hagurumon.

"Yeah, you dunce," added another.

"Oh, yeah…"

"I last saw her when we were running," Kouichi mused. "We were running down the hall and then all of a sudden she wasn't there anymore."

"But I didn't see any other passages," Izumi said.

"Because there weren't," said Andromon. "The path you humans took had no branches."

"Then where could she have gotten to?" asked Tomoki.

"I don't know, humans. But wherever she is, it's not in this factory."

"Then I suppose we should head back to the Forest Terminal," stated Bokomon. "The angels may be able to tell us what's happened to Ally.-han"

"No," I said, "I don't think we should go back so far."

"It's the best chance we have of finding her," the little Digimon argued. "We could spend years searching the world for her without luck. But the angel Digimon would be able to find her easily and direct us on where to go."

"But if Ally really is somewhere around here," I countered, "and she sees we're not around, she might think we've abandoned her."

"And what would she know about that?" Kouji grumbled.

"Hey!" I barked. "Listen Kouji, I now the two of you got off on the wrong foot but I'm telling you she's not a bad person!"

"It's true, brother." Boy, I was glad to have Kouichi on my side. "She saved us when we were up against SkullMeramon even though she could've run away if she had wanted to."

"Hmph."

"Listen, you two," Izumi interrupted. "If you mean what you said then we ought to take this seriously and go back. The angels will know where we can find her before something happens to her."

I grumbled but I had to admit that she had a point. We had to find Ally fast, not only to make sure she was safe, but also to locate the rest of the spirits. And I guess if Ophanimon and all could help with that then it was the best option. Reluctantly I agreed to the plan, the whole time feeling that we were making a mistake.