Chapter Thirty Six: The Battle For Earth
The arrows of Light and Hope struck Tai and Matt through the heart. Instead of making them dead, or something similar, like everyone had feared, it just turned them into silhouettes of orange and blue light, respectively. It spread out from their hearts until it covered their entire bodies. Then it began to recede. All that energy flowed from their entire bodies into the hand they were holding their Digivices. The energy was absorbed by the device and it, too, began to glow.
And then it exploded outwards. It was like the truest sense of a controlled explosion.
The orange energy crashed into Agumon, flooding him with so much power that he began to automatically jump through his stages of evolution. First was Greymon, of course. Next was Metalgreymon, but even that form wasn't enough to contain all the energy he was receiving, so he evolved further still.
"Agumon, Warp Digivolve to Wargreymon!" Greymon was huge, standing forty feet tall. Metalgreymon was even more so, standing at nearly a hundred. Wargreymon was... not. Still large by comparison against a human, the digimon was now only around nine to ten feet tall. He'd also all but left behind his dinosaur appearance in exchange for something vastly more humanoid. He'd given up nearly everything from his old forms, keeping only the orange scales and the metal head piece with three horns. His eyes had turned green again, and red locks of hair were still coming out of the back of his helmet. His body was covered in armor, too, a chrome chest plate carved to be a tight fit showed off his improved physique, thick muscles covering every inch of his torso. On his lower arms were two odd weapons. They almost looked like they were supposed to be shields and swords at the same time. They were large, had three chromed blade coming out of the ends of each and were capable of blocking his entire upper body from damage if held just right. Finally, on his back a shield with the Crest of Courage appeared, then split in half to act as wings.
Something similar happened to Gabumon. The pure power from Matt's Digivice hit the fur wearing digimon and forced evolution and evolution upon him. Gabumon turned into Garurumon. Garurumon remained that way for all of about three seconds before he was forced into the form of Weregarurumon. Weregarurumon had enough time to howl before he was forced to evolve to his final level.
"Gabumon, Warp Digivolve to Metalgarurumon!" Agumon changed size so many times in his Warp Digivolution that it was almost dizzying. Gabumon... changed size once. Garurumon was larger than a big horse, his proportions stayed the same as WereGarurumon, he just reared up on his hind legs to stand like a man. In his Mega form, Metalgarurumon went back to all fours, but changed his appearance. From the tip of his tail to the end of his snout, he was covered in, you guessed it, metal plating. Spikes and weapons were everywhere on his form, from concealed rockets and gatling guns to the end of his tail which had turned into blade to slash at enemies, Metalgarurumon practically was a weapon himself. The only part of Metalgarurumon that wasn't intentionally meant to be a weapon were the metallic wings coming out of his shoulders.
Izzy had his computer out already from studying the prophecy, so it was easy to pull up the data for the two new digimon right away, "He's Wargreymon. It says his attack is called Terra Force, gathering the energy around him and focusing it in the palm of his hand," he paused to pull up a screen of the other newly evolved digimon, "Metalgarurumon has his Metal Wolf Claw attack shoots a powerful cold blast at his enemies, then blows them to pieces! Mega digimon," the boy said, "They Digivolved into their Mega forms."
"That's great, because we'll need them to beat Venommyotismon," Tentomon said as he stood next to the two boys who's digimon just became more powerful than they ever thought they would be.
"Yeah," Matt said, looking up at the two digimon that were so much smaller than Venommyotismon, but were supposed to be on the same level, "For sure."
"Good luck," the bug digimon added, "I'll wait here."
Wargreymon flew into the air, a growl on his lips. As he approached the giant demon, his body began to glow with an orange light that spread out from him until it was a storm of power that slammed into the monster they were fighting head first. Venommyotismon roared in pain as he was forced backwards and away from the conventions center.
The hit was so powerful, in actuality, that the monster was forced back to his starting point, and then beyond it. It was almost comical when the kids saw the spherical viewing platform roll out of the way of the fall of the evil monster.
The dust cloud that had kicked up from that attack was enough to completely obscure the enemy.
"Way to go, Wargreymon!" Izzy exclaimed excitedly, "You creamed him! I think..."
The group of people had piled back into Ishida's van and were moving to follow Wargreymon and Metalgarurumon to continue the fight.
"Look!" Tai pointed, "There they go! Get after 'im, Wargeymon!"
"Put his lights out!" Kari cheered.
The dust cleared, and, just like last time, Venommyotismon was still kickin'. He stood to his feet ready to fight again, but it just made him a better target for the next attack to his.
"Ice Wolf Claw!" Missile launchers all over Metalgarurumon's body and fired them at the monstrosity. One by one, each rocket hit and caused an explosion, not of fire, but of ice, freezing the demon from top to bottom.
"Frozen!" TK said.
"Solid!" Matt added.
The two good digimon landed before the giant ice sculpture that their enemy had become, looking up at their handiwork. But the moment wouldn't last long.
The ice began to crack, even as the digimons' eyes widened, and then shattered as Venommyotismon flexed every muscle in his enormous body.
"It didn't work," the wolf digimon growled.
"Your miserable attempts to destroy me have failed!" he glared down at the two miniscule digimon that would assume they had the power to destroy him, "Now, you will pay!" he laughed evilly. His eyes began to glow with the light of another attack that he quickly began fire at them.
Luckily, they were small, fast, and hard to hit. The buildings weren't so lucky. They were falling to pieces all around the fight. And that was unfortunate for the people who were driving over to the battle in the van. They were already having to dodge debris that had ripped up the wall, but the moment buildings started to fall towards them, the only thing that Mister Ishida could do to keep them from being squished was to swerve out of the way.
Unfortunately, vans like his were not made to take sharp turns. It began to tip to one side, then simply rolled for a good twenty yards, the screams of the people inside becoming a little jumbled in the rolling. Once it stopped moving, they all piled out, Mister Ishida helping Mister Izumi who appeared to have hurt his leg in the crash.
"Get clear of the van!" Matt's father ordered. Even as he spoke, the battle was kicking up more dust and the group began to unwittingly separate.
+-9
Back at the convention center, Sora, Lucy, Mimi and Joe were watching the tides of the battle shift back and forth. It would seem that they'd be winning one moment then losing the next, then back to winning. It just went on and on like that.
Their digimon stood before them, watching the battle as well, feeling more helpless than ever.
As they watched the battle, Joe's older brother came up to him, "Jim," he greeted, "how's dad, is there any improvement yet?"
"No, still exactly the same," the older Kido brother said. The kids sighed sadly.
"Alright, I'm tired of fooling around," Gomamon said with a frown on his face, "We have to defeat Myotismon once and for all!"
"Our parents always protected us," Mimi said with a frown forming on her face, "Now, it's time we came through for them."
"Mimi, if we do it together, we can beat him!" Palmon said with conviction.
"You think so?" the girl asked with her hands clasped together.
"Mm-hm!" the plant digimon nodded encouragingly.
"I got a right hook for that jerk, too!" Skymomon said, slapping her right fist into her left palm while her tail angrily lashed the ground.
"I'm ready when you are, partner," Lucy held out her Digivice.
"I'll try," Biyomon said, nuzzling Sora's leg.
"You will," the girl asked.
"Yeah, mm-hm!" the pink bird nodded.
Sora looked off into the distance and nodded herself, "Okay."
"But we already tried," Joe said, hanging his shoulders.
"So we'll keep on trying, Joe!" Gomamon insisted, "Because digimon never give up!" He hopped up on the boy, crawling around so that he was resting on his shoulders, getting chuckles from those watching, "Like they always say, all for 'mon and 'mon for all!"
Joe laughed a little himself, then pumped his fists in the air, "You're right, we can do it! Let's get 'im, guys!" He ran forward with a battle scream.
Sora shook her head for a moment before she approached Jim, "You'll have to forgive Joe, he get's a little hyperactive," with that said, the girl ran forward with her own battle cry on her lips.
"Yeah, I still ain't running for a while," Lucy said, looking to her digimon, "Can I beg a ride from my most beautiful, awesome partner?"
Skymomon blushed visibly beneath her fur at the praise, "Aw, Lucy, stop. You don't even need to ask," the monkey quickly Digivolved to her larger form, and picked up her partner, "Let's get this party started!" SkyYetimon took to the air and flew forward at speed.
Mimi smiled at her friends then turned to Joe's older brother, "Please, take care of our parents, Jim!" Then she ran forward with Palmon right beside her.
Jim watched the kids leave him behind to fight a giant monster that was destroying the place they all lived in and could only smile a small smile of encouragement, "Good luck, you guys."
+-9
At the sight of the battle, the fight raged on. It was in a stalemate currently, Wargreymon, Metalgarurumon, Angemon and Angewomon were too small and fast to be hit, and Venommyotismon was so tough that their attacks couldn't put him down for long.
And that was unfortunate for the people already on the scene because they were losing each other in the cloud of dust that was being kicked up by the epic rumble that was happening around them.
"Kari!" Tai yelled out, having lost his little sister somewhere in the rubble and praying that she was okay.
Wargreymon charged the demon again, but he wasn't able to get far before he was blocked from the attack by one of his giant arms.
"Where are you, Tai?" Kari yelled out, trying to find her brother.
Angewomon didn't escape the onslaught completely uninjured though. She dodged the beams of destruction that were coming from the eye marks on the lower abdomen of the monster, but a flying piece of debris smashed into her, sending her to the ground.
"Tai!" Matt yelled as he stood up on a pile of rubble that gave him a semi clear view of the area, "TK!"
Metalgarurumon tried to draw Venommyotismon's attention by flying right in front of his face, hopefully opening him up for another attack from one of the other digimon. He dodged the destructive eye beams then turned around and fired off more of his freezing missiles. But it did not good.
TK was watching all of this with wide eyes and a slack jaw. He saw his digimon approaching from the monster's right side and cheered him on, "Get him, Angemon!"
The angel digimon flew forward, twirling his staff, but it was for naught when he was smacked out of the air by one of Venommyotismon's humongous hands. He was slammed into a wall near the only three adults in Odaiba that weren't under the influence of the sleep spell.
"Mom, dad!" Izzy shouted, running towards them, now that the dust had settled enough to see them, "I'm coming!" Tentomon was right behind him.
"Look, Izzy," Tentomon said, drawing the boy's attention, "all the others have Digivolved, too! There's Ikkakumon and Togemon and Birdramon!" He paused then, "But where's-"
"SkyYetimon," Izzy pointed over to the flying digimon with four green wings that had just landed next to his parent to drop off Lucy.
Then she was obscured in the light of Digivolution again as the Crest of Faith was absorbed into her body. Izzy watched as the yeti sank into her fully evolved form, Wildangemon, then flew into the battle with the rest of the digimon.
"I'm going in!" Tentomon said, moving forward through the air, Digivolving into Kabuterimon.
Seeing the back up that had come to help defeat this monstrosity, Wargreymon stood up and said, "Everyone! Attack at the same time!"
Without a single argument, the digimon all began to launch their attacked at the middle of the four eye marks on Venommyotismon's lower torso.
"Needle Spray!"
"Harpoon Torpedo!"
"Meteor Wing!"
"Electro Shocker!"
"Wild Tempest!"
"Hand Of Fate!"
"Celestial Arrow!"
"Metal Wolf Claw!"
All eight of the attacks converged at that one point on the demon digimon's body, creating a soft spot that was glowing with the massive amounts of energy that was converging.
Wargreymon flew up into the air and held his weapons together over his head, "And now to wind things up!" He began to spin, faster and faster until he was only an orange and yellow dervish, then he spun faster still, making a huge vortex with him at the head, "Mega Claw!" As he roared out this attack, he slammed, spinning claws first, right into the center of the glowing weak spot on their larger than average enemy.
At first, the only thing to happen was Venommyotismon being pushed back by the power of the attack, growls of the pain the constant drilling was causing him the only signs that it was working. Then, suddenly, the growls, turned into an angry roar as Wargreymon broke skin and quickly drilled through the monster. The roar grew more intense when the much smaller mega digimon actually came out on the other side, having torn a hole from front to back.
As everyone watched, Venommyotismon collapsed to one knee, breathing exceptionally hard as Wargreymon came out of his spin.
"That did it," Mister Ishida was sure.
"Or not," Lucy said from right near by when the monster just roared louder than ever, getting back to his feet and clenching his enormous hands into fists.
"You think you can defeat me?!" he laughed, his entire form twitching from the pain, "You've only awakened the Beast within!" As he spoke, the hole that had been ripped into his lower stomach widened and another creature with stubby little arms showed its face. It was also wearing a red opera mask, had dark skin and blue eyes. It seemed to be held back by red teeth keeping it in the monster's body.
All of the children reared back from the sight, frightened by this development.
"What is that thing?!" Tai yelped.
"Bad news," Matt replied.
Just as they finished saying this, the monster peeking out from Venommyotismon's stomach breathed a blast of black at the ground. It didn't directly hit any of the digimon, but they still fell to the ground, as if they'd taken a direct hit from the monster.
"Wargreymon!" the wild haired boy gasped when the Mega level digimon hit the ground right before him.
"Now, I'll devour all you so called Digidestined!" Venommyotismon roared out, "You've stood in my way for the last time!"
'It can't end like this!' Mimi thought, looking up at the twin beasts with fear.
'I've let everyone down again,' Matt grit his teeth as he frowned at the monsters.
'I wish I could have done more,' Sora thought next, her own thoughts on how she should have been able to help more than she had.
'It's impossible he survived that!' Izzy marveled in his horror.
'Maybe we should just surrender,' Joe would never say it aloud, but he secretly wished that was an option, just to stop everyone from being hurt.
'This is scarier than the movies!' TK thought as watched, his mouth hanging open. Kari could only stare at the results of what seemed to be the terrible results of their most powerful attack.
Lucy was staring at the monster with the same fear as the others, but it slowly changed into a frown as, despite the weakness of her body, she stepped forward with her fists clenched, 'No way! It's not ending like this! I have to save that annoying moron,' an image of the hooded man in the dark place flashed in her mind, 'And I'm not letting this jerk stand in my way!' Her Crest began to glow with a mote of light, but she hadn't noticed yet.
Unknowingly, her thoughts closely mirrored Tai's, 'I'll never give up!'
Then, all the Crests, not just Lucy's and Tai's, began to shine brightly.
"Huh?" the wild haired boy said as he pulled it out of his shirt, "My Crest," he looked around and noticed the colored lights coming out all of the other crests, too. "Everybody!" he called, "Look at your Crests! They're glowing!"
By some odd happenstance of fate, all nine of the Digidestined were positioned in a circle around Venommyotismon, all of their Crests glowing at once. Then, one by one, a beam of light shot out of each of the crests, wrapping around the monster, binding him in place. His arms, his legs, his torso, even his neck was bound, holding him prone for an attack, all the children watching this with renewed hope.
The Beast was struggling against it all, trying to get the body he was trapped in to move and destroy those pesky Digidestined, "Curse you, Digidestined! Curse you and your lousy Crests! Let go!" the Beast ordered them.
"Look at that," Tai breathed, "Mega freaky," then his eyes widened as he had an epiphany, "I wonder if that monster represents Myotismon's actual form," he turned to his digimon who had gotten back to his feet in time to hear this revelation, "Wargreymon!"
"Pass me the ball!" the humanoid digimon called out to Metalgarurumon.
The machine wolf moved over to the last piece of the TV station, the spherical viewing platform, and launched it into the air, towards the now flying Wargreymon.
"Nice pass," Sora said softly.
Then, the Digidestined all spoke as one, "Shoot!"
Wargreymon pulled one leg back, then kicked the 'ball' as hard as he could, sending it slamming into the face of the Beast. But neither he nor Metalgarurumon were willing to leave it at that.
"Terra Force!" Wargreymon summoned what appeared to be a miniature sun into his head, then held it over his head as it expanded until it was bigger than his own body. Once he'd charged it with enough power, he through it at the monster.
"Metal Wolf Claw!" Metalgarurumon pulled his head back, gathering energy to his mouth before breathing out a literal storm of freezing energy, right at the Beast.
The two attacks streaked through the air, smashing into the sphere, then the beast itself, creating a sphere of light that all but completely obscured the monster from view.
The children watched with awe as the humongous form of one of their most persistent and powerful enemies began to distort and warp, twisting and writhing as he roared in the anger and pain of his defeat. After a few seconds of this, the monster began to break apart and disintegrate into nothing more than fragments of corrupted data.
There was no putting a cap on the cheers that broke through the children.
Especially not for Lucy when she felt her strength rapidly returning. Looks like her sickness was brought on by the monster after all. She'd have to ask Gennai about that as soon as she got back to the Digiworld. But for now, they'd won!"
+-9
Back at the convention center, all of the adults began waking up, almost all at once. Most of them were confused as to what was happening.
In particular were Mimi's parents who were looking around in bemusement until Mister Tachikawa noticed Joe's brother.
"Hey, what happened, Jim?" he asked.
"It must be Joe and the others!" Jim grinned widely, "They won!"
+-9
Back on the remains of the battle field, while mists began to disperse, the digimon de-Digivolved. Most of them went back to their Rookie phase from the massive amounts of energy they had used just to fight that monster, but Wargreymon and Metalgarurumon went back to In Training
"We did it, Tai!" Koromon shouted happily as he bounced over to his partner, "We did it! Yay!" He hopped into the boys arms and Tai began to do an odd little happy dance, holding the happily laughing Koromon over his head.
While that was happening, Matt had leaned down to meet Tsunomon, rubbing him on his furry head, "Good job, Tsunomon," he grinned at his digimon.
"Look," Mimi said, pointing out a pale colored puppy with large blue eyes and a gold collar, "A stray digimon."
"Don't you recognize me?" The puppy digimon said, "I was Gatomon, what do I have to do, cough up a fur ball?"
"That's Salamon," Kari said, walking over to her partner, "the Rookie form of Gatomon. Isn't she cute? Much more cuddly than her Ultimate form of Angewomon," some of the other children had gathered around to look at the Rookie they had never seen before, "I guess she's back to her Rookie form because she used up a lot of energy during that fight. But what are we gonna do? They don't allow pets in my apartment."
"Drag," Joe breathed, adjusting his glasses.
"Skymomon!" Lucy said, holding her digimon, "I am so proud of you! You rock!" She was nuzzling the digimon closely.
"Aw," the digimon said, holding on to her partner, "I'm not that great."
"Sure you are!" the pink haired girl said, "I wouldn't want any other digimon, on either world, to be my partner instead of you!" she hugged the monkey close to her again, making sure to be careful of her wings.
"Hey, look!" Sora said, pointing upwards, "The sky's clearing up!" The rest of the kids turned their gazes upwards. The fog was quickly dissipating now that it's creator was well and truly gone. It began to reveal the early evening sky, mostly dark blues, purples, and upside down continents visible through strips of broken reality.
That last one was the more important part.
"What in the world?" Lucy breathed.
"What?" Sora intoned, while Mimi let out a shocked gasp.
"No way!" TK said, staring directly upwards.
"That's not possible," Joe said, sweat beginning to come down the side of his face as he sensed another battle to come, "There's a giant island, floating in the sky, upside down!"
Kari was of a similar mind, she knew this couldn't be good news. She grabbed onto her big brother's arm and buried her face in his side.
"Things just keep getting weirder," Tai said, unable to take his eyes off the disturbance in the sky. He began to frown, "Man, why does this have to happen now, just when we were feeling good about defeating Myotismon! It's like the world is turning upside down or something!"
+-9
Exiting the convention center, the adults became aware of what was happening as well. At the least of the group were Tai and Kari's parents, Mister and Missus Kamiya.
"Hey, what's going on?" their father asked.
"Whatever it is," Jim began as he revved up Joe's scooter, "it doesn't look too good for our side."
"Oh," Missus Kamiya turned to face him, "Jim, have you seen my children? Do you know where Tai and Kari are?"
"No, but I have an educated guess," he told the worrying mother, "I'm gonna search where the monsters were fighting. I'll come back for you when I find them!" He shouted the last part over the sound of the engine as he rode off to go see if his little brother was alright.
+-9
With the fog gone, the ferries were running again, and the very first one to go into Odaiba was packed with people. They were literally shoulder to shoulder on the boat. At the very front, with her worried blue eyes set on the destruction they could already see from the other side of the bay, was Miss Takaishi.
"TK," she breathed, "Matt. Please, both of you, be alright." The view of the sky wasn't helping her, or anyone else for that matter, to not begin to panic.
+-9
Back at the epicenter of the battle, Izzy had pulled out his computer again. With the fog gone, phones, in the buildings that weren't destroyed, started ringing again, and electronic signals started back up. Even the internet connection that had been disrupted was working now. Izzy had used it to check out if what they were seeing was going on anywhere else.
It was. From New York to Alaska, from Beijing to Antarctica, from Moscow to Great Britain. This thing was everywhere, across every sky.
"It doesn't make sense," Izzy said as he read over the findings that people were getting from the phenomenon, "It looks like an entire, upside down continent in the sky, but it doesn't show up on radar, or on any satellite pictures," he looked over the results of all kinds of tests that the people around the world had done, "In fact, no instrument of any kind can prove that... whatever it is, even actually exists."
"It's the Digiworld," Lucy said softly, looking up at the rips in reality.
"What?" Joe said, looking to the girl, "How do you know?"
"I..." she looked away from the sky and over to the blue haired boy, "I can feel it." And indeed she could, she could feel that warm in her chest that had been missing for the last few days. But something was wrong with it, too. That was obvious from the face that they could see it at all.
"TK!" Miss Takaishi yelled at the top of her lungs as she got off the boat in the Odaiba district, "TK! Where are you?" The cries of TK's mother interrupted the conversation at that point.
The little boy turned around to see his mom and a smile spread out across his face as he waved her over, "Mama!"
Hearing her baby's call, Miss Takaishi ran forward, meeting him halfway in a mutual hug, "Oh, TK! I was so afraid I'd never see you again!" Matt watched as his mom and little brother hugged each other, not really sure how he should feel about it. Behind him, his father lit up a cigarette, needing the nicotine after all the events of the day.
"You must have been terrified," the woman said as she pulled out of the hug to look her little boy over for any injuries.
"Uh-uh!" he shook his head, "Matt was with me the whole time."
The woman looked up to see her older son standing there, conflicting emotions on his face, "Matt."
"Hey, mom," he breathed. The two just kind of stared at each other for a moment, but TK wasn't gonna let that fly.
"Come on!" He said with a smile, grabbing her by the hand, "Let's go see Matt, and daddy, too!" he pulled his mother over to his brother, the grin still on his face while their father watched the interaction out of the corner of his eye. He didn't want to sour this reunion with his opinion on the woman that had divorced him.
"Oh, Matt," the woman said, though she didn't move to hug her older child, "I'm so proud of you. Thank you, son."
"Yeah, whatever," he averted his gaze, kind of dismissing her compliments.
"Matt, please, don't be like that," the woman begged him softly, the meeting beginning to go down hill quickly.
"Nancy," the man finally said, "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
The woman and the two boys looked over towards Mister Ishida and Nancy said, "Yes, it has."
TK laughed happily, not able or unwilling to sense the tension in the air, "It's been forever since all four of us were together, huh, Matt?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he said, still not sure how he was supposed to react to this.
"You'll want to hear this, everyone," Izzy said suddenly as he was looking over the news casts he was able to get from his internet connection, "I've been monitoring the news reports. The air force is sending everything they have to figure out what this continent in the sky really is. They don't know anything, so far, but they're assuming it's dangerous."
A little ways away, Joe, Mimi and Sora were watching the reunion between Matt, TK and their parents.
"I can't help but be a little jealous that Matt and TK found their parents, and Izzy, too," Mimi admitted as she crouched down next to Palmon, "I just hope that my parents are okay."
"I know how you feel," Sora said, "Me too." Just as they were saying this, the sound of a scooter motor filled the air. "Huh?" Sora turned to look, "Someone's coming!"
"Alright, my brother!" Joe said, drawing the attention of some of the others, "Hey, I didn't tell him he could ride my scooter."
The older Kido son pulled up to the group and was immediately subjected to the cries from the children to know the status of their parents. He removed his helmet as he answered them, "All the other families at the convention center are okay. They're all back to normal!"
"Alright!" Tai said, slapping a high five with his little sister and covert wiping a happy tear out of his eye while Koromon bounced up and down beside him.
"Sora, did you here that?" Mimi said, clasping hands with the other girl, "They're safe!"
"Let's check the news," Jim said as he pulled a miniature TV from his back pocket.
"The latest report from the Air Force Chief of Staff confirms that the strange land mass in the sky is not an illusion of any kind," a woman informed them from the news station, "It is very real and, after several confrontations, apparently very dangerous."
"It's covering the whole sky," Joe said, realizing that this was world wide.
"It has to be Myotismon's doing," Matt said.
"That's impossible," Tsunomon said, "We destroyed him for good this time!"
"Yeah!" Koromon agreed, "We kicked booty!"
"Well, you heard the news report," Joe said, "It's definitely dangerous."
"Of course it's dangerous," Lucy said, "I can bet that being able to see the Digiworld like this isn't good for either world."
"I'm still not sure how you know it's the digital world," the boy said as he looked at her, "What makes you so sure that's what it is?"
"It's my home, Izzy," she said, looking up at the landscape in the sky, "It's as simple as that."
"I'm sorry," the boy said to her, "I can't accept that as a completely valid answer without proof to back it up. Is there anything else that you can give me? Anything at all?"
Lucy looked back down at the boy for a few moments before looking back at the sky, "There," she said, pointing up at a particular mountain in their view, "That mountain, the very big one, right up there. Doesn't it look familiar to you?"
"Hmm?" He followed the line of her finger, calculating which mountain she was pointing at, moving his eyes to where she was indicating, "Now that you've said it..." he mumbled, then gasped, "Yes, it does! That looks like Infinity Mountain! Tai!" he turned to the leader of the group, "Get out your telescope and take a peek at that peak!"
Tai did as ordered, pulling out his mini scope and looking up at the landmass in the broken sky, "Which one am I looking for?"
"The big one," Izzy said, "The one I'm pointing at."
"Oh, like that helps," the older boy grumbled as he scanned the land mass, "There's gotta be dozen's of mountain's up there." He kept searching anyway, "Wha?!"
"Did you find it?" Izzy asked, turning to Tai.
"What I found is a jet liner!" he said, looking at the body of a plane that was flying dangerously close to the barrier between the worlds.
"Not good!" Lucy cried.
+-9
In the captain's cabin of the plane, the pilots were trying their best not to panic when they weren't receiving any contact from the ground.
"Ground Control," one of the pilots spoke into his head set, "This is flight Two-Two- Four, we have lost our vector, over," there was no response.
"Strange," the other pilot said, "why wont they answer?"
"This is Two-Two-Four to Ground Control, do you copy?" the first pilot kept trying, "I repeat, we have lost our landing Vector. Come in, Ground Control!"
They didn't realize that they were flying so close to the barrier between the worlds or what it would do to their flight trajectory.
"This is crazy," the second pilot said, beginning to sweat, "We can't land now and we don't have the fuel to turn around and go back," suddenly, the lights and switches and gauges started to go nuts, "The alarm! All systems failure! We've got about two seconds to figure everything out!"
"It's no use!" the other pilot replied, "Nothing's responding! We're going down!"
Even as he said it, the plane began to take a nose dive and they could hear the people on board screaming in fear for their lives.
+-9
On the ground, Tai had seen as the Plane touched the edge of the digital world and started to plummet towards the ground.
"Oh no!" He exclaimed, "The plane just reached the edge of that thing in the sky and just headed straight down."
"Biyomon!" Sora said, looking to her digimon. The pink bird nodded and took off, flying towards the plan, Digivolving along the way into Birdramon.
The pilots were desperately trying to pull out of their dead fall, but none of the controls were responding in the slightest.
"If I can just get there in time," Birdramon said to herself as she poured on the speed. As she approached the jet, she noticed something flying right behind the falling jet, "It's Kuwagamon! What's he doing here?" as she watched, the bug passed through the wing of the plane and it froze that wing. The whole jet went into a tail spin.
Birdramon was able to get herself underneath it and stop the spinning, but she couldn't get it to slow down.
"Do it, Birdramon!" Joe called from the ground with the rest of the group that was watching this.
"Birdramon!" Sora yelled, seeing her digimon having trouble, "Digivolve!"
With a touch of energy from the Digivice and the Crest of Love, Birdramon turned into Garudamon. With her increased size and strength, it was easier to get the plane to slow its descent. But that wasn't the only worry she had now.
And she wasn't the only one to realize that. Kabuterimon had taken to the sky as well, hoping to help her steady the plane when he noticed the familiar orange carapace of a digimon that had plagued them on the first day the children arrived in their world.
"Huh? Kuwagamon?" He barely dodged the evil beetle, turning around and firing off his special attack. It streaked through the air, but it had no effect, like his Electro Shocker wasn't even real, "It went right through!"
"Kabuterimon, get away!" Garudamon told him, "Don't touch him!" The blue insect dodged the orange one, and moved to go help Garudamon get the plane to the ground safely. He Digivolved to Megakabuterimon along the way.
When that was done, the two flew back to their partners, de-Digivolving into their In Training forms.
"Good going, Birdramon," Tai complimented, "You brought the plane down safely."
"Guys," Tai turned to everyone, "How'd Kuwagamon get here?"
"He came out of that land in the sky," Yokomon said.
"Lucy was right all along," Izzy said, causing everyone to turn to him and the pink haired girl standing behind him, still looking at the sky. "That giant continent is actually the digital world," Izzy explained to them.
"And it's in trouble," Lucy added.
"What? Wait a minute," Joe said, "I don't get it. How can that be the digital world? Why is it upside down?"
"Guys," Jim called to them, "You better have a look at this."
As the kids ran over to look at his mini TV screen, they heard the reporter go on, "We bring you footage now of truly bizarre scenes," A giant white gorilla with a cannon on it's right arm was terrorizing New York, in Taj Mahal a blue, white and red dragon was flying around, "No official explanation has yet been given for what we are seeing," in Paris a Tyrannomon could be seen stomping about, and in a random airport, Kuwagamon was flying about. In every image with digimon, anything they touched was immediately frozen.
"Kuwagamon again!" Yokomon exclaimed, "And if we touch these digimon, we'll freeze, just like the air plane's wing!"
"And when I fired my Electro Shocker, it passed right through!" Motimon said from Izzy's arms.
"Man," Tai breathed, "What's going on here?"
"Salamon, is that your world, up there?" Kari asked her digimon as she looked up at the sky.
"I think so, but the last time I was there, it was definitely right side up," the puppy digimon informed her.
"Just a minute," Izzy said suddenly, "We've been back in the human world for only a few days, but up there," he looked up for emphasis, "time is much faster. Years and years have passed by."
"And since we left the Digiworld in such a mess, it's had years and years to get worse!" Koromon added, "I can only imagine what it looks like now."
Lucy was just staring up at the window into her home reality. She could feel the wrongness of it, even as the warmth began to return to her. The digital world would not be the same as they remembered it when they got back, that she knew for sure.
"And all the problems in the digital world have become our problems here, in our world," Sora concluded as everyone looked up at the sky.
"That's that!" Tai said suddenly after they'd all had a moment of silence to look up at the sky, "We all have to go back!"
"But how are we supposed to get there?" Mimi asked a rather pertinent question.
"The first time we went to the Digiworld, our Digivices led us," Joe said, "You guys try it again."
"You're coming, too, Joe," Izzy drawled.
"Yeah, come on, big guy," Lucy said, nudging the taller boy, "You really want to say, thirty years from now, that you had the chance to save the world, but chickened out for summer school?"
"Aw," He sighed, his shoulders slumping, "You sure it wont just go away?"
"Sure it will," the girl told him, getting his hopes up, "As soon as we solve the problem." He slumped even more at that.
"Alright, everybody," Tai said, "hold out your Digivices!" He did as he ordered them to do, holding out the little device he had received just before he, and everyone else that had met again at that summer camp, had been sucked into the Digiworld. "We're going back!"
One by one, the others held out their devices as well, their digimon sitting right beside them.
"Next stop, the digital world," Tai went on to say, "Arms and legs inside the ride at all times!"
For a half second, nothing happened. Then, each of their Digivices began to glow with a bright rainbow light that shot up into the sky as a single, solid beam.
"I think it's working, Tai," Izzy said, "This light must be hear to guide us."
"Now all we have to do is follow it," Joe said.
"To the digital world," TK grinned.
"TK!" the little boy's mother called.
He turned around to face her, a slightly depressed look on his face as he realized he'd have to leave her behind to go to the Digiworld again.
"Mom," he said, "Oh, I'm sorry that we have to leave, now that we're finally back together again."
"You can't!" Nancy insisted.
"Let him go," Mister Ishida insisted to his ex-wife, "we've made some selfish decisions of our own, remember?" He was thinking particularly of how they'd split up Matt and TK despite their wishes to stay together, "We have to let them do this. This could be more important than you realize."
The woman had tears in her eyes as she realized that her little baby, both of her little babies, were about to walk into a battle that could get them hurt, or worse, and there was nothing she could do to stop them.
"The whole world is doomed if we don't do something, mom," Matt told her, "You know we have to go back. We're doing this to protect you!"
"Matt," she sobbed, her tears falling freely now.
"You guys better get crankin'!" Joe interrupted the emotional moment, "Although, it's hard to believe the fate of the world is in the hands of a bunch of kids like you. I guess if the sun doesn't come up tomorrow, we'll know who to blame!"
"Stop it!" Missus Izumi snapped at the older brother of Joe, "You have to have faith in your brother and his friends! What they're doing is incredibly brave!"
"Whoa, I'm sorry!" The college age boy said, waving his hands wildly to try and placate the woman, "I didn't mean anything!"
"It's okay, he was only kidding," Joe said, opening a pair of eyes that were the most determined that any of the group had ever seen on his face, "And besides," he clenched his fists before him, "I'm gonn make darn sure the sun does come up!"
"Joe," Sora laughed, "I didn't know you had it in you!"
"What a man!" Mimi said too, giggling a bit.
Lucy bumped the other boy playfully on the arm as she said, "Yep, he's a big gosh darn hero!"
The boy blinked for a moment before he realized they were teasing him. In his slight depression at not being taken seriously, he didn't notice it as the beam of rainbow light widened to encompass him and he began to lift into the air.
"Huh?" He intoned, slightly confused by his change in height.
"Alright!" Tai said, seeing this, "All aboard!" He jumped in with Koromon next to him. The others jumped in right behind him and they started to lift up into the air.
Lucy loved it, she almost felt like she was flying.
"Matt, TK," Miss Takaishi called up to her two sons, "Take care of each other!"
The two boys waved to their parents, TK laughing happily at the feeling of weightlessness.
"Sora!" the girl looked up as she heard her name, "I love you, Sora!" Missus Takenouchi was standing just behind the Kamiyas, "Please, come home soon! I'll be waiting here for you!"
"Bye, mama," the girl said softly then leaned forward, raising her voice so her mother could hear her, "Bye, mama!"
"Mama, Papa!" Mimi called down to her parents.
"Bye, dad!" Tai yelled down.
"Bye, Mama!" Kari shouted at the top of lungs.
"Lucy!" the familiar form of her adoptive mother shouted up to the girl, "Lucy! Good luck! And, please, be safe!"
"Mom!" the pink haired girl called back down, "I... I'll try to come back to visit, some day! I promise!"
Right near the beam of light to the digital world, the Kamiya parents were the last to shout their good byes to their children.
"Oh, Tai!" Missus Kamiya called up to him, "Be careful!"
"And take care of your sister, son!" Mister Kamiya ordered.
Lucy, looking at the ground now, specifically at the people that had raised her so far, had to dab her eyes free of tears. She didn't think it would hurt this bad to say good bye to the people that were her parents for almost her whole life. Inside her mind, she promised herself again that she'd try to find some way to at least visit them in the future.
All the children waved goodbye to their loved ones, praying they'd get to see them again. Whatever was messing up the Digiworld was gonna be in for a rude awakening when it tried to stop these kids from finishing the job they had started in summer camp.
Chapter Thirty Six: End.
Please Enjoy.