Chapter 35
There was a second of stunned silence before Bokomon burst into tears and ran towards them. Zoe kneeled down and let the sobbing digimon rush into her arms. Bokomon attached himself to Zoe's neck and continued to cry. Zoe hugged him tightly, her own eyes beginning to water.
Neemon finally sat up and looked at the new arrivals in the room. He cocked his head to the side and stared at them, "Are you humans?"
Bokomon whipped his head around and stopped sobbing long enough to yell at him, "Of course they're human you dolt! Don't you know who this is?!" He squeezed Zoe a little tighter. Tears still leaked from his eyes.
"Huh?" Neemon looked at Bokomon confusedly, he obviously was not paying him much attention. He gasped when he saw Bokomon in Zoe's arms. "Bokomon, noooooo!" he ran over and began to tug on his haramaki. "Stranger danger! Stranger Danger!"
"Let go you moron!" Bokomon began to swipe at the confused digimon with one hand, while his other was still clutching Zoe tightly. The whole thing was very comical, making everyone in the room laugh.
"Neemon, it's us," Takuya laughed. Neemon squinted at him and tried to remember if he had met them before.
"He seriously doesn't remember us," Kouji rolled his eyes.
Tommy walked up to Neemon and patted him on the head, "C'mon, I know you wouldn't forget us. It's me, Tommy."
"Nuh uh!" Neemon reacted instantly, and pulled his head away from Tommy's hand. "Tommy is way smaller than you. And he has a bigger hat."
Tommy laughed, "Of course I'm not going to be the same size, it's been years. And my old hat got a little beat up and I needed to get a new one."
"Prove it," Neemon put his hands on his hips, "Name something that happened that only our friends would know."
"I won the Trailmon race," Takuya spoke up.
But Neemon shook his head, "Bokomon put that in his book, anyone would know that." Takuya frowned slightly, what would Bokomon leave out of his book? They tried a few more things, from who made the best burger, to who the digimon that first attacked them at the flame terminal was, but Neemon refused their answers. Bokomon had covered their adventure very thoroughly.
"JP and Takuya ran into the girl's bathroom while Zoe was changing," Kouji said. Zoe, Takuya, and JP blushed as the recalled that moment at the beach. The Chosen Children and their digimon snickered at them. But the remaining warriors had their gaze focused on Neemon, who had frozen.
"It's you!" Neemon sprinted towards them and attached himself to Kouji's leg.
"Yeah, it is," Kouji said and awkwardly patted his head. He began to get irritated when Neemon began to nuzzle his leg. "Okay that's enough." But the digimon ignored him and hugged his leg tighter. Finally fed up, Kouji tore him away from his leg and pushed him towards JP. Instead of protesting, Neemon simply attached himself to JP instead. JP glared at Kouji who smirked at him.
"Wait a second," JP said, "How are you guys even alive? I'm glad you guys are hear and everything, but I thought that digimon didn't live forever." In their excitement they had forgotten that years had passed in the Digital World and there was no way that Bokomon or Neemon could be alive.
"We're a special case," Bokomon said. He stepped away from Zoe and began his little history lesson. "After you left, I continued to write anything and everything regarding the Digital World and its past. I wanted to be able to continue to record the happenings of the Digital World, so I made an agreement with the three great angels that I would have my life put on pause, so to say. I would remain here, but I would no longer have the opportunity to digivolve and would remain in this state forever."
"Not being able to digivolve, that sounds rather harsh," Agumon said.
Bokomon shrugged, "I'm a scholar not a fighter. I have no reason to digivolve."
"That and your too afraid to fight," Neemon threw in helpfully. Bokomon glared at him, that was true too but Neemon didn't need to say it out loud. "You also needed an excuse to-" Neemon was interrupted when Bokomon shushed him and placed both his hands over his friend's mouth. The two of them began fighting and arguing under their breaths. It eventually led to Neemon getting his pants snapped.
"How did you guys survive with these two as your guides?" Gatomon asked the warriors.
The Warriors laughed and shrugged. "Hey, we were great guides," Bokomon had stopped fighting with Neemon and crossed his arms in front of his chest and pouted at them. His pouting caused another round of laughter to spread throughout the room. Bokomon frowned slightly, while Neemon was ignoring them rubbing his sore tummy.
"Um, excuse me," a timid voice interrupted them. They turned around to see a Bearmon standing in the doorway holding a tray with a plate of cookies.
"Yay, cookies!" Neemon ran over and began to pick the cookies off the tray.
Bokomon thanked him and took the tray and placed it on the already cluttered table, while Neemon continued to stuff his face. "This is Bearmon, he's my assistant," he introduced. He then began to introduce the warriors to Bearmon and faltered when he got to Tai. "Sorry, you're the Chosen Children right? I know of you, but I haven't actually gotten your names."
Tai smiled at him, "Yeah we are, I'm Tai Kamiya and this is my partner Agumon." He then continued on to introducing the rest of his team and their digimon partners. By the end of all the introductions Bearmon's eyes were twinkling with excitement.
"It's so nice to meet all of you," Bearmon bowed respectively towards them, "I've read all about you. It's so cool to get the chance to meet you in person."
"Read about us?" Wormmon asked.
"Of course," Bearmon replied cheerily, "You guys saved the world; it's all recorded in these books." He waved his arm towards the library.
"You really like all this boring stuff?" Veemon asked. Hawkmon nudged him for his rudeness, but his comment didn't seem to bother Bearmon.
"It's not boring at all, in fact I want to be a history keeper just like Bokomon," he answered proudly. Most of the digimon thought the idea of giving up digivolving in order to spend decades surrounded by books was a ridiculous idea. But if that's what Bearmon wanted to do, that was his choice. "And reading about Bokomon's journey with the Legendary Warriors was really inspiring."
Bokomon looked down a bit sadly, "But unfortunately the original book was lost. I made copies of it, but they just aren't the same."
"Oh? Is this it?" Gennai pulled a battered old book from out of his robes.
Bokomon looked up and his eyes widened. "Yes that's it!" Gennai smiled and handed the book to Bokomon who accepted it with shaky hands. His eyes watered slightly as if he were going to cry again. "I never thought I would see it again."
"It's just a book," Neemon said.
"It's sentimental." Bokomon held the book to his chest. After hugging it for a few moments he stuck it into his haramaki for safe keeping.
"Is there more books that talk about the Digital World's history?" Gennai asked. He was sure that he was never getting that book back.
"Sure, follow me." Bokomon strode out the door with Neemon at his heels. Bokomon walked up to the nearest bookshelf and stood in front of it. Within seconds, one of the moving ladders stopped next to him. Bokomon climbed on and moved up a few runs on the ladder to give room for Neemon to climb on too. Once both digimon were secure, the ladder begun to move again.
"That looks like a fun way to travel," Tommy said, "Is there anymore ladders coming this way?" he asked Bearmon.
The bear digimon shrugged, "It's kind of random, but it always seem to come when ever those two need to go somewhere."
"That's not fair, they get to ride while we need to walk," Davis groaned.
"Don't worry we don't have far to go." Bearmon lead them deeper into the library, following the sound of Neemon's giggles as he zipped along on the ladder.
When they finally caught up to the two of them, Neemon was sitting at the foot of the ladder munching on his last cookie and Bokomon was running his finger over each book, searching for the right one. "Here it is!" he exclaimed and pulled out an old dusty book from the shelf. "I added everything about our adventures and information from the original book. I already have the Wisemon making copies, incase anything happens to this one."
Bokomon handed the book to Takuya who quickly flipped to the back of the book and began skimming. "I don't suppose that you have one in Japanese do you?" Takuya chuckled. In his excitement he forgot that Bokomon wrote in an ancient language from the Digital World.
Bokomon laughed, he forgot about that little snag. "I will inform the Wisemon to begin working on a translated version."
"May I see that? In the old one, the words were really worn away and difficult to read," Gennai said. Takuya nodded and handed the book over to him. Gennai opened the book and began to skim the first few pages. "This is fascinating, it goes way back to the very beginning of the Digital World." Bokomon puffed out his chest proudly.
"You may hold on to that for now. Just make sure to give it back when you're done," Bokomon said. Most of these book's contents were lost to the recent residence of the Digital World or was written off as mere legends.
The conversation was interrupted by a low rumbling that began to shake the ground around them. The rumbling would stop for a moment, and then pick up again seconds later. "What's happening?!" Mimi asked.
"It looks like the enemy may have finally found us," Gennai said with a dark look. The rumbling began to increase and books began to fall from the shelves. "Come on!" Gennai ran back towards the entrance of the library with the rest of the group following close behind.
When the rumbling stopped and Neemon bent down to pick up one of the fallen books. When he stood up, he saw Bokomon running after them. "Where are you going?" he shouted.
"After them of course; there is no way I'm going to miss this," Bokomon hollered over his shoulder. Neemon thrust the book into a startled Bearmon's arms and chased after Bokomon. Bearmon smiled at the two of them and placed the book back on the shelf. This is what the two of them have been waiting so long for.
They raced upstairs, mentally preparing themselves for what was waiting for them. The rumbling had stopped for now, but they knew it wasn't over yet. As they raced along the passageway, other digimon were coming out of the rooms and other hallways and began to run alongside them. As they began to near the outside, they could hear the familiar shouts and explosions that accompanied battles. When they finally reached the doorway, they were shocked at what they saw. It looked like the fight had already started without them, the trees around them were scared and blackened and the occasional tiny creator spotted the land.
A mixture of different levels and species of digimon were facing off against a rather large unit of Commandramon and DarkTyrannomon. The Commandramon were small dinosaur digimon with blue grey oddly textured skin. They wore an army helmet and gear along with a rather deadly looking gun. There were about a hundred of them accompanied by four DarkTyrannomon. The Commandramon at the front lines had their guns raised and were shooting at any of the resistance digimon that got too close. Occasionally, a Commandramon from the back of the group would pull a bomb from one of the pockets of their vest and throw it at group of resistance digimon. The bombs created small explosions and craters where they landed. Now they knew where the rumbling was coming from.
"Oh my," Bokomon said as he peaked around Tommy's legs and took a look at the battle field. It has been ages since he and Neemon had even left the library. Jumping directly in the middle of a dangerous battleground was a bit hard on the nerves. Neemon was holding onto his shoulders and tying to hid behind the smaller digimon. Maybe this was a bad time to come outside.
"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Davis shouted.
"Hold on," Gennai grabbed Davis' shoulder and kept him from rushing off into the battle.
"Why?" Davis asked confused. There was a fight going on right in front of them, and he was expecting them to just sit back and watch? No way.
"They have this under control just watch," Gennai said. His forces had greatly improved since last they were here. Now was a good chance to show them just how strong they are.
They watched nervously as the battle continued. Shots were fired back and forth, but no one was taking any significant damage. The two sides were weary and afraid to make the first push forward. Two of the DarkTyrannomon stepped forward and breathed jets of fire at the resistance forces, breaking the line that separated them. They gasped as the wave of fire advanced toward them and the smaller digimon scurried across the ground trying to get away.
But before the fire could do any damage a dark figure jumped forward to meet the fire. The digimon was wearing black samurai armor and wielded two crooked swords. He crossed two swords in front of his chest until they began to glow. He made quick slashing movements and two blades of light burst forward and went straight through the fire. The fire was extinguished and the two DarkTyrannomon were hit in the chest by the blades of light, and destroyed.
"Who's that?" Takuya asked. Not only was that new digimon cool, he was extremely powerful.
"That's Gaiomon," Gennai said with a bit of pride, "He's one of the generals. He's a member of the Greymon family, and a great warrior." After hearing that this new general was a distant relative, Agumon watched Gaiomon with admiration shining in his eyes. Gaiomon had a slight resemblance to WarGreymon, with had a similar helmet and build. The main difference between them is Gaiomon's different style of armor, dark skin, and pearly white hair.
"Show no fear! Push these small fry back!" Gaiomon raised his sword and shouted to the resistance forces. The appearance of their general and his confidence raised all the digimon's morale. They gave their own battle cries and followed Gaiomon into battle.
Gaiomon brought his swords down in two Commadramon that weren't fast enough to get away. The attack instantly destroyed the smaller digimon causing them to burst into bits of data. That was only the beginning, Gaimon continued to advance and cut down more of the Commandramon. Trying to save their comrades, a few of the Commadramon stopped their retreat and began to shoot Gaiomon. But the bullets simply bounced off the samurai digimon's armor. When they realized that their attack had no effect they dropped their weapons and ran away as fast as they could. It was now every man for themselves.
With Gaiomon boosting the resistance army's moral, the rest of the digimon followed his lead and chased away the enemy. Within moments the enemy was retreating, and the resistance were victorious. "Victory!" Giaomon cheered as the last of the Commandramon dashed into the forest and disappeared. Cries of excitement and happiness rose up from the digimon. With the base secured, the digimon slowly began to head back into the building.
Gennai and the groups remained outside and watched the digimon file into the base. Once the last digimon were safely inside, Gaiomon came up to greet them. "Gennai," he nodded his head in greeting, "Enjoying the show?"
"Great job as always," Gennai praised.
"Are these the humans you were talking about?" Gaimon asked as his eyes scanned over the group. Gennai nodded, and smiled proudly at them. "It's an honor to finally meet you." Gaimon bowed deeply towards them.
"You're a really good fighter," Agumon complimented him.
Gaimon laughed lightly, "These guys weren't even a challenge. They were just a scouting group, this was nothing compared to some of the other battles that have happened recently."
"Nearly a hundred digimon for a scouting unit?" JP asked. That was a rather large number for just a group of scouts.
"They're looking for any resistance bases, so they would need a decent number with them. This base is the largest one, but there are smaller ones that would have had a much harder time fending off attacks like this one." Gaiomon tuned away from them and surveyed the partially destroyed landscape. "But now that they found us we need to be expecting larger attacks with stronger digimon. This is only the beginning."
"Then let us all get a good night's rest and prepare for a new day tomorrow," Gennai said. Today was extremely exciting and tiring. The battle in the human world was over; but the war for control of the Digital World was just beginning.
It has been almost a week since they arrived in the Digital World. Just like Gaiomon had predicted, the base was getting hit by a new wave of soldiers almost every day. With each failure, the enemy sent stronger digimon to attack them. Monochromon and Airdramon had been added to the list of digimon that accompanied the attacking forces. They managed to hold out for now, but they were beginning to get nervous, holed up in the base and constantly on alert for another attack.
Gennai called a meeting of the five generals and allowed the Chosen Children and the warriors to sit in. After leading them into the meeting room, Gennai stepped out for a second to go collect the five generals. With all the chaos, they hadn't had a chance to meet any of the others besides Gaimon.
"Why are we even here? It's not like they let us do anything anyway," Gomamon complained. During the past few days they were told repeatedly not to interfere, and to let the resistance do everything. They were getting fed up with sitting on the sidelines, but Gennai kept telling them that they had everything under control.
"Let's just hear what they plan on doing next. Maybe they will finally let us help," Tai said.
"I doubt it," Kouji scoffed. Emotions were running high and everyone was on edge, but for some reason Kouji had been extremely tense for the past few days.
"I don't know what's been eating you Kouji, but you seriously need to relax," Davis frowned at him. Kouji looked away and mumbled under his breath. Kouichi looked worriedly at his brother but chose to remain silent.
"C'mon guys, there's no reason to fight," Sora spoke quietly, trying to defuse the building tension. It seemed to work; for now.
The door to the meeting room opened and Gennai walked back in, the five generals right behind him. The Chosen were excited to see the familiar faces of Leomon, Andromon, and Piximon. They had been working with Gennai from the beginning, it only made sense that they would be chosen to help lead the resistance forces. Alongside their old friends stood Gaimon, and a rather small digimon covered in metal armor with a cannon for a left hand.
"Who are the brats?" the small digimon asked when he noticed the humans in the room.
"Well, that's not very nice," Palmon commented, her hands on her hips.
"They are the ones that defeated Lucemon," Leomon said, "You should give them a bit more respect MetalMamemon." The small general just shrugged and walked towards the table in the center of the room. Leomon sighed and shook his head at his companion. "Sorry about him. He's not the friendliest of digimon."
"Eh, forget about him," Piximon interrupted, "Let's get this thing underway." Gennai, Leomon, Andromon, and Gaiomon sat on the chairs, while Piximon and MetalMamemon preferred to stand on the table. Their small sizes made using a chair on such a large table rather ridiculous. The meeting began smoothly, as they recapped the events of the past week.
"I'm a bit worried for some of the refugees that reside here; not all the digimon are fit to fight. When we first came here, it was meant to be a safe haven, not a battlefield," Andromon began to voice his concern.
"Why are we still hanging around here? We shouldn't let them corner us like this; we need to get out there and take them out!" MetalMamemon stamped his foot in aggravation.
"And I thought Takuya was a hot head," Neemon laughed rather loudly making Takuya glare at him, but that was the least of his worries.
"What was that?!" MetalMamemon spun around and pointed his cannon towards Neemon who let out a frightened squeak and dove behind Bokomon.
"Don't hide behind me!" Bokomon ran behind Veemon, who was the closest to them, Neemon quickly following him. Veemon looked over his shoulder uncomfortably, as the two of them clung to his back. But before the situation could get more out of hand, Gaiomon put his hand on MetalMamemon's head and pushed him down. Rather than letting go right away, Gaimon kept his hand in place, pinning MetalMamemon to the table face first. That led to the smaller general to begin flail around, cussing violently. Piximon laughed loudly while the other generals tried to hide their amusement.
"Alright let's get back to the task at hand," Gennai said calmly. Gaimon nodded and released MetalMamemon, who immediately shot up and glared at him.
"I still think that we should take the fight to them. Sitting around here isn't getting anywhere," MetalMamemon complained.
"You're right, but we can't waste our forces by trampling around looking for a fight," Leomon argued.
"I'm way ahead of you," Piximon spoke up cheerfully, "I sent a small squadron of Ninjamon to investigate and try to locate where the enemy is coming from."
MetalMamemon scoffed, "It's obviously Daemon's castle. It's not like that guy is trying to hide."
"We need to take out a limb or two first before targeting the head," Gaimon said," Daemon is our main concern, but we can't take him out right away; he has a massive force behind him that would make a direct on his castle difficult.
"So by targeting these smaller groups, it will eventually lead us to Daemon," Piximon clarified. MetalMamemon crossed his arms stubbornly and nodded. He still thought they were taking the long way around, but what his colleagues were saying made sense.
"But that still leaves the problem of the refuges," Leomon brought up, "It's not safe for them to stay here anymore."
"There is another base about two day's travel from here. It's smaller, but it would be safer for the refugees to say there until things settle down," Gaiomon said.
"Two days are quite a long time to be walking around out in the open these days, especially with such large numbers," Andromon said, "I will volunteer myself and my troops to escort them safely."
"That won't be enough to keep them safe; I'll come too," Piximon offered.
"But loosing that many troops will leave us vulnerable." Leomon was concerned that if too many of their soldiers left to escort the refugees they wouldn't be able to defend this base.
"Then let us help," Takuya spoke up, "We can easily take on these chumps." Everyone else felt the same way, their power was just being wasted standing on the sidelines.
"I say we let them. I want to see how well these heroes do on the battlefield," MetalMamemon taunted. He received warning looks from the other generals, which was ignored.
Gennai sighed, "I wanted you to save your strength for the fight with Daemon, but it looks like we don't have much choice but to rely on you." Takuya gave a satisfied smile that was mirrored on Tai's face. It's about time they got some action.
"We can head out tomorrow then. The sooner the refugees are taken to safety the better," Andromon said. With a new plan set up, they called the meeting to a close. Gaiomon and MetalMamemon left the room and the remaining generals came over to see how their old friends were doing.
"It's great to see you all again. We have heard much about your victories in the human world," Andromon smiled at them.
"Where is Centarumon?" Cody asked. Centarumon was normally always helping Gennai with some kind of project, but he was the only one that they hadn't seen since returning to the Digital World.
"He's away at one of the other bases. This one is abnormally nice," Piximon chucked, "Most of the other bases resemble what our first one looked like. He's working on getting those run down one in better shape."
They left the meeting room and began walking down the hall towards the rooms that the children were staying in. The Chosen Children chatted happily with their friends. Not having known the three digimon as well, the warriors hung back slightly and let them reminisce with their old friends.
Leomon finally noticed Bokomon and Neemon standing near the warriors. "I don't recognize you two. Refugees? We can promise to escort you safely to the nearest base."
"No way!" Bokomon's defiance startled Leomon. "We're staying right here." He didn't mean to sound rude, but he was not going to be separated from his friends so soon.
"He's with us. Don't worry, we'll look after him," Zoe reassured Leomon, who nodded silently.
After a few minutes of walking, a door in front of them opened and a BlackGatomon crept out. This digimon was identical to Gatomon. The only difference separating the two was BlackGatomon's coloring. He had black fur and purple gloves with red stripes.
"Hey! What're you going in there?" Piximon shouted and flew up to BlackGatomon. The cat digimon jumped slightly and turned to face them. He seemed a bit nervous and took a step backwards when he noticed all eyes were focused on him. "Snooping around are we?" Piximon's eyes narrowed.
"Got lost," BlackGatomon responded. He spoke quietly, but his tone was sharp. Before Piximon could interrogate him more, he took off down the hall, giving them a good look at his tail which lacked the classic Gatomon tail ring.
"Who was that?" Gatomon asked. Seeing a discolored mirror image of herself was a bit creepy.
"BlackGatomon. He was brought in with the last batch of refugees. We've been finding him wandering down the halls a lot recently," Leomon said. It was obvious that they were wary of the cat digimon.
"His actions are starting to become suspicious. We need to keep a close eye on him," Gennai said.
"There should be one or two more Ninjamon around. I can ask them to spy on him for us," Piximon said.
"You think he's a traitor?" Ken asked. Gennai stopped and looked toward the ground. Everyone else stopped and looked at him.
"That's what it seems, but I really hope not," Gennai said, "I want to give all the refugees the benefit of the doubt. But I need to think of the safety of everyone else." Gennai didn't want to say that letting him live was risking all their lives, but everyone could understand what he was trying to say. "Let's give him a chance, I don't want to execute someone that is innocent." All three generals nodded with grim expressions.
The remainder of the walk to their rooms was eerily quiet after their confrontation. In the back of the group, Kouji felt a shiver go down his spine. Looking over his shoulder, he saw BlackGatomon peaking at them from around the corner. His golden eyes giving off a dark purple glow.
A/N: Sorry for the delay, been really busy with school and work. Unfortunately it looks like the whole semester is going to be this way so updates are going to be a bit slow. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, it was long overdue.