Hiya guys~
See? I promised I wouldn't wait for another 5 months to upload ^^"
I hope everyone had a nice Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and/or Sinterklaas, or whatever other holiday you celebrate (Haven't I done this before?).
Well, New Years is around the corner so I figured 'What better time to upload a new chapter?'. Unless you live in those parts that already celebrated New Years of course, in which case... Happy New Years?
And of course a Happy New Years in advance (or not) to everybody else. Good luck with your new years resolutions if you have any.
And thank you for sticking with me through this story. I know it has it's ups and downs, but thanks for staying anyways. I appreciate it.
Oh and before I forget. From this chapter on I've officially changed Sophia's last name from Nedena to Daneven (Daa-neh-vuhn). I thought I was being clever with her first one, it being a backwards version of a Dutch surname that's in my family. But it has long lost its charm, not to mention I don't even know for to pronounce it anymore. So yeah...
As always, I hope you enjoy this chapter~
Disclaimer: A new year. Another year of me NOT owning digimon or any of its characters. I only own Sophia, Sonamon, Vibramon, any and all changes to the original plot and any other character that doesn't appear on the wiki page.
The walls of the castle had long since disappeared out of sight. Only the underwater tunnel system and the ocean outside were in view. Not that anyone was actively looking at it. The human warriors were too distracted by the rapid speed of the get-away Trailmon as it took turn after turn. Koji even made the dumb mistake of making a sarcastic comment about the speed towards said Trailmon, who took it literal and sped up much to the dismay of the other passengers.
Adjusting his grip again after a particularly sharp turn, Takuya turned his head to the back. "Zoe! Is everyone okay back there?" He asked her, silently wishing he could just see through the Trailmon, see his team directly.
Zoe did a quick look around the small space. JP was holding onto the wall, trying his best not to fall over. Tommy, Bokomon and Neemon were right next and in front of her, keeping an eye on the egg. Sophia was sitting in the corner next to JP, curled up in a ball similar to her position, and Koichi was next to the brunette on his knees.
All in all… "We've been better." Zoe decided to answer Takuya with. I mean, it wasn't a lie, especially with the castle event still fresh in their mind.
Suddenly the Trailmon spoke up. "One way of fun, the other way we're done."
Wondering what Kettle meant, Koji looked ahead. There was a split in the road. One way fun, other way they're done? Oh crap! Which is which?!
"Oh man." He'd have to inform the others too. "There's two of them!"
"What?" Takuya asked, a little in a panic. Seeing the two roads, he understood what Kettle just said.
"How do you tell which is the right way?" The bandana wearing, blue boy asked their ride.
If Kettle had shoulders, he would've shrugged nonchalantly. "Dunno. The direction of the Trails is up to the rails."
Before the duo could begin to wonder what that meant, they got a demonstration. The rails in front of them switched from left to right, and that without a railroad switch in sight. Did it just do that randomly? Did it know where they needed to go? Or would it send them to their possible doom?
They would need to push those worries aside for now. They went right, which admittedly was a lot smoother. Takuya could finally adjust his grip without fear of falling off in another sharp turn. The humans and digimon out back could finally breathe and move a little.
But Zoe didn't relax. She kept her tensed up position to protect the egg. It had to be kept safe!
"May I have a word?" Zoe's eyes snapped open and up towards Bokomon. She hadn't even realized when she'd closed her eyes… "I want you to give me Seraphimon's egg. I'll take care of it now." Wait what? Without waiting for an answer, Bokomon took the egg from Zoe. "I'm sorry, but I happen to know more about its special needs."
"Special needs?" Zoe asked. "Like what?" How would an egg even have needs? Was it like a chicken egg, in the way it needed warmth to hatch? But, wait… Bokomon said it wouldn't be able to as long as Mercurymon had its data. So then what?
Bokomon answered while trying to stuff the egg in his waistband. "It must be protected and nurtured by someone with life experience."
"Have you been a mommy before?" Neemon asked, confused by Bokomon's reasoning.
"You sure look like one." Tommy remarked. Bokomon with an egg stuffed in his waistband was looking similar to a pregnant woman. Tommy didn't even resist the urge to touch the egg.
Though he was promptly smacked away. "Hands off, bub!" What's the big deal? When his mom's friend was pregnant, she didn't have a problem with him touching her belly. "We must wash our hands before touching the egg. Honestly what were you thinking? You might get germs on him." Uhh… Bokomon went into overprotective modes. After telling Tommy off, the gnome digimon looked affectionately at the egg. "Don't worry, baby. Mama will keep you save from them."
"Heh, he sounds and acts like a mom too." Sophia snorted lightly, not having moved from her curled up position.
Bokomon just shot her a deadpanned look. "Must you make such remarks every time?" He was just about reaching his limit with this girl.
Sophia rose her head to snap at him. "Well, I'm sorry if that's my way of coping with-…"
"With what?" Bokomon asked, equally as snappy.
The girl just burrowed her head back into her arms. "Nothing!" she growled. "Never mind."
Takuya, who'd still been listening to the guys in the back, wanted to give his say too. Though, before he could he saw something up ahead that made his heart just about stop. The rails ended…in a jump! "Hold on, guys! It's getting rough again!" he warned the others, leaving out the part of the jump to hopefully not worry them.
Apparently that was a mistake, hearing Bokomon's screams. But then again, he had no right to be this scared. He and Koji were holding on to the Trailmon FROM THE OUTSIDE! For Pete's sake!
Luckily Kettle managed to land them onto the rails on the other side and all went fine after that. There were a few more twists and turns, as well as one more split in the path, but they arrived at the end of the trail safely.
Everyone stepped off, glad to be back on solid ground and not in a Trailmon that goes FLYING OFF THE RAILS! As Kettle drove backwards, supposedly back to the castle, the children bid him goodbye.
"That's pretty scary." Tommy said as they watched Kettle leave. "He's gonna go backwards all the way home."
Sophia nodded, crossing her arms. "Yeah, and with that hole in the rails too."
Whelp, it was about time to leave. Takuya noticed that at the end of the rails was a tunnel. It seemed to be the only way out. "Come on, guys. This way!"
He ran towards the tunnel, the group following him close. They may have shaken off the evil warriors for now, but who knows how quickly they could catch up to them. It would be best to get as much distance in between them as possible.
Light shone in the distance. That could mean one thing. "Hey everybody, there's an opening up ahead." Takuya notified the others behind him, who may not have seen it yet.
"Let's just hope it gets us outside." Koji remarked.
When the gang arrived at the opening, the smiles they were wearing dropped. This wasn't outside. It was an underground cavern, as was nicely pointed out by Zoe after JP complained about it. Takuya and Koji did a quick scan around the cavern, looking for an exit. There weren't any obvious ones, though.
"Where's the exit?" Takuya wondered, silently hoping that Koji or any of the others noticed something that he hadn't.
That hope was quickly squashed. "Must be one somewhere." Koji said before he took off to look for one. Takuya soon followed, as well as Tommy.
"We should help too." Koichi said, looking over at Sophia, who simply nodded.
They split off in different directions, each hoping to find something that looked like an exit. There was hardly anything to find, though. Most of the cavern was just solid walls with the odd cave here and there, one of which Sophia happened to find. It was a rather deep one though, deeper than the ones Zoe and Koichi had found earlier.
It was a dead end again, no surprise. "Of course…" Sophia sighed. How long was this going to take anyways? She was about to turn back and help search, when her D-Tector suddenly began making odd noises.
When she took it out of her pocket, she noticed the screen had lit up white. There was a light green symbol faintly glowing.
"...ia?" A voice… "So...ia? Is th... …ou?" And it knew her name.
A quick glance told the girl that nobody was close, so she answered. "Hello? Who's this?" Her eyes didn't leave the faint green glow in the center of all the white. Now that she looked closely… It seemed familiar. Of course! "You're the other warrior, right?"
"I... a...! ...as." There was a pause, or the connection had cut off. It wouldn't surprise her with the awful connection she had. Hardly a word could be understood from the person on the other side. Sophia could just barely make out it was a female voice. "C...ubim... ...ok m... ….rits. I ...d ...ur ….lp."
"I-I don't understand." Sophia said, trying her best to make out what this girl was saying. Lp? There seemed to be an 'e' sound before that. Elp? Help? "Do you need help?" She decided to test her luck.
"Ye...!" Yes! She was right~! Oh crap! She was right! "W...re ...re you?"
I'm-" Wait… Where was she? She was in a cavern, but that wouldn't help. They were just at Seraphimon's castle, but she highly doubted this person would know where that was. That and she didn't want the girl to get herself in danger by asking about Seraphimon's castle. That could bring wrong attention. "I'm somewhere near the Forest Terminal." she eventually settled on. It would be the safer option to ask about. "Where are you?"
The voice on the other side took somewhat longer to respond this time. "So...wh...e da...k..." Dark? "L...e co...tan... nig...tim..." She could just barely make out the words 'night time'.
Let's see. Dark… And night time. It was still daytime when they arrived at the castle, so it couldn't be nighttime already, right? Even if that was the case, why bring it up?
Dark… And night time… Wait. There was only one place that would be dark during the daytime. "The dark continent?!" she realized in a panicked state. "Get out of there!"
There wasn't anything left to say. The connection had finally dropped. Sophia just hoped her last message had gotten through. With a heavy sigh she pocketed the D-Tector and dragged herself back to the cave entrance.
Though, when she got there, Zoe was blocking the path. The blonde was staring her down, hands on her hips. "What were you doing there?"
"Searching for an exit?" Sophia told her, though it came out more like a question.
"For this long?" Zoe shook her head in disbelief. "Liar… I thought we were friends. Why would you lie?"
Sophia blinked in confusion. "What? Zoe, we are friends. And I'm not lying."
"But you're leaving things out, aren't you?" The silence confirmed Zoe's statement. "Sophia, if we really are friends, shouldn't you be able to talk to me about it? Whatever 'it' is."
The brunette rolled her eyes, sighing. "Zoe, it's no big deal. I just got sidetracked." she explained. Although one look at Zoe's expression told her she didn't buy it. "Do I really have that bad a rep of not telling everything?"
With her hands on her hips, Zoe nodded. "Yeah, you kinda do."
Well then. "Alright…" Sophia gave in. "I… Someone, I mean, contacted me on my D-Tector." This startled Zoe a little. The only one who'd contacted them so far was Ophanimon. "I'm not sure who it was, I didn't get a name. But I know it was a girl and… and she said she's also a Legendary Warrior."
"Another warrior?" Zoe asked almost breathless. But how? Weren't they the only ones? Where had she been this entire time?!
Before Zoe had time to react to it, something happened that distracted her from her thoughts. A burst of water shot from the small pool. Not only that, but it hit JP and Tommy dead on, knocking them into the cavern walls and bruising them front and back.
"Tommy!" A chorus of name-shouting from all warriors came. "Tommy! JP!"
And rightfully so. Tommy seemed to be doing the worst after the blast hit them, concerning everyone including JP, who'd arguably been hit harder since he was closer.
But there was one other thing bothering him. "Hey, how com only Koichi yelled out my name?" Don't they care? Though that thought was shoved back when his eyes landed on the huge pillar of water that shot straight up from the pool.
"Mamma mia!" "Oh mijn god!" The girls exclaimed in shock and worry.
"Definitely-"
"-not good." You know it's bad when Takuya and Koji finish each other's sentences.
The water pillar broke apart, revealing a brown and blue whale-like digimon. He was yelling, struggling about and shouting about how 'he can't stand it anymore'. All the while Bokomon tried explaining how Whamon was usually a gentle digimon, and how he was oddly out of his element here.
Though at the moment Koji couldn't be bothered with that. All he knew is that they had to stop him before he hurt someone else, or before his struggling collapsed the cavern. He turned to Takuya to help him, which he agreed with hesitantly.
"EXECUTE! SPIRIT EVOLUTION!"
"AGUNIMON!"
"LOBOMON!"
Lobomon and Agunimon jumped on Whamon's back, struggling to hold on to the moving digimon.
"Alright, big guy, just calm down." Lobomon told him.
"Yeah, what is the matter with you?" Agunimon asked, neither of them sounding very friendly or calming. Way to be sensitive…
Their order and question didn't help, and it showed when Whamon jumped halfway out of the water yelling. "Leave me alone!"
Seeing how this wasn't working, Sophia decided to try another approach. After all, Sonamon had a nice little trick up her sleeve.
"EXECUTE! SPIRIT EVOLUTION! …SONAMON!"
Hovering in front of the frantic digimon, she readied her move. "SOOTHING SOUND!"
A nice, calm melody filled the cave*. Like magic, it seemed to calm down Whamon when he actually stopped screaming. It even lessened the pain Tommy and JP were feeling, though not a lot. Sonamon stopped only when Whamon was calmly floating in the water.
Zoe was the first to speak up when the music stopped. "You seem to be feeling a little bit better now, Whamon." she noted. "Can you tell us why you were so upset?"
"Ooh, I hate this place." Whamon whimpered. "I just wanna go back to my home, the ocean. Until very recently I was swimming, happy and free under the sea not a care in the world. Then one day I saw this delicious looking glowing plant, I couldn't help myself I decided to take a little nibble. Oh, they were good." He'd flashed back to what happened afterwards. The loud noise that came from the surface. The strong current, stronger than what he could swim through. Falling down, the rocks, getting deeper and deeper and farther away from home. Oh, it was horrible and scary. "Next thing I knew I was stuck in this place with no way out." he cried. No, literally. He began crying his eyes out, and he didn't even have (visible) eyes.
Agunimon rolled his eyes at the sight. "Here we go again."
"You don't have to be such a big cry-baby." Lobomon commented, also annoyed at this step backwards. They had just gotten him calm!
"He's sure losing a lot of water. Is that normal?" "No idea." Bokomon and Neemon's comments didn't help either…
JP had just about enough of this guy. First he hurts him and Tommy, then goes around blathering nonsense, then when he's finally calmed down he goes on another crying spree! "This is embarrassing. Does he really think all that blubbering is gonna help him?" JP complained, before a jab of pain shot through his stomach, which he quickly clutched tightly.
"Hey, are you okay JP?" Tommy asked. Why was he still feeling pain, while he barely felt anything? Just how hard was he hit?
"I'll be fine once I get this pain to go away." JP said through gritted teeth, not noticing Sonamon playing the melody from earlier again.
This only caused Whamon to cry even louder, being reminded of what he did in his panic. "And-and-and-and-and it's all my fault that you guys got hurt, I'm so sorry!"
"You're forgiven, alright!" JP snapped, not sounding too forgiving.
Zoe finally decided to defuse the situation before it got any worse. "Well, at least you have some company now." she started with the positive. "We're stuck here too. Maybe with your help we can figure out a way to escape."
Whamon immediately and abruptly stopped crying. "Huh? Okay!"
All seemed well…for like 2 seconds. There was a sudden earthquake and all the water in the pool disappeared. Whamon whimpered in pain at the bottom of the hole, worrying the children. Though, the worry was quickly pointed towards the lump of earth rising up in front of Whamon. They unfortunately recognized that everywhere by now.
"Grumblemon!"
Indeed, Grumblemon had caught up with them. He stared up at the group of children with that stupid grin plastered on his face again. "Nowhere hide now." He was just so proud to have found them. "Me find you. Me so glad we see each other again, only this time me steal Spirits good!"
Lobomon struck a defensive pose. No way he was gonna get caught of guard this time. "You're an annoying little gnome, you know that?"
"Yeah, what he said!" Agunimon agreed. "Oh and by the way, you're not stealing anything from anyone ever again! We're not afraid of you anymore, Grumblemon!"
"Nananana nene, Grumblemon." the gnome digimon mocked the warrior of flame. He pulled out a familiar flask. "You will be."
He pulled the cork off the bottle, spraying the contents everywhere. Circles appeared everywhere in the cavern, on the floor and the walls and even the ceiling.
Grumblemon snickered. "You may taken Gigasmon Spirit, but me have other powers! You no can beat me! Your Spirits be mine!" Rocks floated from the circles, forming into Golemon in an instant. "Me first to find you, so Mercurymon and others no will have you now! It too late for them! Meet my new friends!" A final, bigger chunk of rock appeared under Grumblemon, forming the biggest Golemon of the group. "Get them!"
The Golemon jumped into action, immediately aiming to attack the group. On Agunimon's command, Lobomon, Sonamon and himself jumped in to defeat them and defend the others.
"PYRO TORNADO!" Agunimon, after appearing out of the tornado, kicked four Golemon that were surrounding him. There was an explosion from where they were kicked, making them disappear into dust.
Lobomon grabbed his light sword. "LOBO KENDO!" He ran towards a group of Golemon, swinging his sword all the way, beating 5 or 6 of them.
Sonamon was surrounded by 5 Golemon, all jumping for her. "SONAR BOOM!" She used her attack in shield form, getting it up just in time for the impact. The shield grew bigger and, with a final burst of power, burst apart and exploded into soundwaves, taking out the Golemon.
Meanwhile, the other kids were surrounded by Golemon and driven into a corner. Koichi had already Spirit evolved into Lowemon, but there were too many for him to take out while still protecting his friends.
Frantic, Bokomon called out. "Excuse me, gentlemen. We could use some assistance over here."
"Be right there." "We're on the way." "I'm not a gentleman, but I'm coming anyways."
The trio of warriors went to help Lowemon, but two hands stopped the male part of that group. Arbormon, who'd arrived to help his fellow warrior, had disconnected both his arms to grab Agunimon and Lobomon by the throat. Sonamon stopped mid-flight to turn back.
'Oh no…' She looked back and forth between the warriors held by Arbormon and her friends cornered by Golemon. What to do, what to do?
Grumblemon noticed her hesitation and snickered. "What you do now? Both need help, but only one you save."
Sonamon gritted her teeth at his taunting. 'Sonamon! Sonamon, can you hear me?' she heard Agunimon's voice in her head. 'If you can, then don't worry about us. We'll get ourselves out of this. You go help Zoe and the others.'
Looking over at Agunimon, she nodded. The flame digimon grinned, knowing she heard his thoughts.
Sonamon surprised Grumblemon by turning her back to the warriors of flame and light and heading for the others. This couldn't be! He'd counted on her saving those warrior runts! Oh well, time for plan B.
He jumped from Golemon's shoulder towards the flying warrior. "SEISMIC SLEDGE!" He brought his hammer down on the unsuspecting warrior's back, sending her falling to the ground, making her de-spirit evolve.
This and seeing Agunimon and Lobomon in the grip of Arbormon spurred something in JP. "Let them go!" he yelled, running forward to help. But a jolt of pain stopped him in his tracks.
Zoe and Tommy quickly jumped in to help him and stop him from running into danger. "No! You can't fight in this condition." Zoe told him.
"She's right, the best thing we can do now is hide!" Bokomon exclaimed from where he was hiding already.
Whatever he and Neemon were talking about didn't matter to JP. He couldn't just hide and give up like that! Even if Tommy said he was too badly hurt, he just had to do something!
"Come on, Zoe, think." Zoe muttered to herself. JP caught her looking at her static D-Tector. "Oh, if only I could Spirit evolve."
While that was going on, Arbormon had pulled the two warriors back to 'make them dance' by repeatedly punching them up and down. Sophia had also finally woken up, just in time to dodge being crushed by a Golemon. Lowemon who'd been fighting Golemon vigorously was also brought to his knees, along with Agunimon and Lobomon. All three could barely keep up their Spirit forms, as shown by the fractal code surrounding them.
"Don't stop." Grumblemon told Arbormon. "Me can smell Spirits. Hurry up and get for me!"
Tommy watched his brother figures from the sidelines. The fractal code worried him. "I don't know how long they can keep this up." When he saw JP walking forward from the corner of his eye, he got even more worried. "JP, what are you doing?"
"Tommy?" JP barely waited for confirmation of the younger boy. "I'm going in. You watch out for Zoe."
"He'd lost it!" "Yeah, he can't stop them." Zoe and Tommy were equally worried about JP's safety. He was the most hurt out of all of them, and he still wanted to go out and fight?!
It did amuse Grumblemon, though. "That it biggie boy, Spirit evolve. Fight me! Or is you too weak?"
"He's just egging you on! Get out of there!"
Well it didn't matter to JP. "I'm not gonna let him win. I won't stand here and let Grumblemon hurt my friends."
Tommy had to agree on that. "I'm with ya."
"SHADOW METEOR!" Lowemon got back up, destroying the Golemon that was chasing Sophia.
"Thanks, Lowemon!" She grabbed her D-Tector, like JP and Tommy had already done. The three of them made brief eye contact before turning their attention to their opponents.
"EXECUTE! SPIRIT EVOLUTION!"
"KUMAMON!"
"BEETLEMON!"
"SONAMON!"
"Go, Golemon!"
"You ready to rock these blockheads?" Beetlemon asked Kumamon.
The polar bear gave a quick nod. "Yup, let's roll."
In time too, the Golemon had already closed in on them.
"THUNDER FIST!" Beetlemon attacked the ground, splitting his attack in four streams of electricity. Each went a different way and hit a Golemon, destroying them upon impact.
"CRYSTAL FREEZE!" Kumamon froze three more, which also destroyed them.
Lowemon summoned his lance as a duo of Golemon came closer to him. When they jumped, so did he, jumping right in between them and turning mid-air. "SHADOW LANCE!" He used his lance to more forcefully throw them to the ground where they shattered into dust.
Sonamon again found herself surrounded by a group of Golemon, but this time it was on purpose. She knew what to do this time. "SONAR BOOM!" she surrounded herself in the attack, flying circles and hitting each Golemon repeatedly. Like the ones before, they were destroyed easily.
'Grumblemon should really look into creating better henchmen.' Her eyes widened. 'Err…Nevermind!'
"SULFUR PLUME!" The shout of an attack brought Sonamon back from that dumb thought in time to see Beetlemon de-spirit evolving.
Grumblemon snickered. "Weak human. Fighting you I not even work up sweat!" He grabbed his hammer from Golemon's body, getting ready to strike with it. "Arbormon! Take care them, while me get Spirit!"
"I'm on it Grumblemon." Arbormon replied, reconnecting his hands to where they belong. "But first I've gotta change into something more comfortable."
The warrior of wood was then covered in fractal code. The human warriors knew what this meant by now. The big guy had his Beast Spirit.
"ARBORMON! SLIDE EVOLUTION! …PETALDRAMON!"
Speaking of big guy… That Beast Spirit is huge. Bigger than Gigasmon and probably even bigger than BurningGreymon if he stood on two legs.
While he kept Agunimon and Lobomon busy, Grumblemon jumped off Golemon to attack the kids. Starting with the weakest one. "SEISMIC SLEDGE!"
He brought his hammer down, but before he could hit anything- "BLASTING SPOUT!" He was hit by an attack from behind.
Whamon's attack was powerful enough to send Grumblemon crashing into the wall behind the humans, even denting the cavern wall. Though, no one lingered on that sight too long, especially not JP. He felt it before he saw it. A Spirit.
"No way!" Kumamon exclaimed in surprise. Both surprise that Whamon just took care of a Legendary Warrior and because he just spewed out a Spirit.
"Wha...mon… I can't believe it. A Beast Spirit." JP was frozen, staring at the Spirit. Was it his? Really his? What was he saying? Of course it's his. He could feel it. There were noises around him, but none of it made much sense. He just saw the Spirit and- Wait, who was. Why is Grumblemon getting closer to the Beast Spirit? He can't have it! It's his! No one else is allowed to touch it!
He quickly grabbed his D-Tector. "Not today! It's my turn to play!" JP got the Beast Spirit away from Grumblemon just before he could touch it. Good. It was his! "EXECUTE! BEAST SPIRIT EVOLUTION! …METALKABUTERIMON!"
"Oh my! It's the Legendary Beast Warrior of thunder!" Bokomon exclaimed, somehow still in surprise.
Zoe stared at the digimon in awe. "Monto bene." she breathed. "JP turned into him?" She knew he was pretty bulky as Beetlemon, but really…
MetalKabuterimon stuck out his arms to attack, but it didn't go the way anyone thought. Instead of aiming his bolo thunder at Grumblemon, he began firing it all around. Seems JP couldn't control the Beast Spirit either. That meant only one thing. Run. Which was exactly what Zoe, Bokomon, Neemon and Kumamon did.
Another shot hit the ceiling, causing more debris to fall. Any more of this and they were all gonna be buried.
"He's completely out of control! Head for cover!" Lobomon called out.
"Right behind ya." Agunimon said, running after Lobomon.
Lowemon dodged another chunk of falling debris. "Sonamon, we have to get out of here!" he called up to the flying warrior.
"Right!" she called back, already flying ahead.
Just in time too. The part of the cavern where all of them were standing soon collapsed, burying Petaldramon under a pile of rocks.
While everyone else headed for cover, JP regained a little control over his Beast Spirit. It was enough that he could finally aim his attacks at Grumblemon, who stepped back in fear.
"Easy now, friend." he said, nervously glancing at the canon-arms.
Was he… Was he trying to be buddy-buddy with him now?! After all that he's done, chasing them around the Digital World, attacking them, destroying homes, stealing Zoe's and Tommy's Spirits! He really thought he could try to be all friendly with him?!
No way! He knew who his friends are, and it's certainly not him! "You're no friend of mine, Grumblemon!" he yelled out. "You don't even understand the meaning of friendship!" He had gained complete control now. He went down, leaning on his arms and aimed his turret at Grumblemon. It was time to end this. "ELECTRON CANON!"
The blast from the turret immediately destroyed the last Golemon, and it damaged Grumblemon enough for his fractal code to appear. MetalKabuterimon looked at it in satisfaction, but how was he supposed to scan it? His hands were canons… But Beetlemon had hands!
"METALKABUTERIMON! SLIDE EVOLUTION! …BEETLEMON!" He stepped up to Grumblemon. This has been a long time coming. "It's back to the end for you pal." Urghh… Calling him pal gave such a foul taste in his mouth. "FRACTAL CODE DIGITIZE!"
Grumblemon's body disintegrated into data bits, leaving only an egg in his place. While the egg floated away to who-knows-where, the Spirit of earth was absorbed into JP's D-Tector. Kazemon's Spirit, immediately after being released, floated towards Zoe, who was more than happy to welcome her back.
"Hey, welcome back!" Zoe cheerfully greeted Kazemon back. It felt so good to have her back, like you wouldn't believe.
A sudden thud and groan got Zoe's attention off her reclaimed Spirit. JP had collapsed again, groaning in pain. Oh yeah, he went into that fight badly hurt!
"JP!" Zoe ran towards him, kneeling down next to him when she was close enough. "JP, are you okay?" What was she asking? Of course he wasn't okay. Look at those bruises!
But, JP just smiled at her. "Got your Spirit back." he told her. Was he gonna brag- "At least I did something to make you happy."
Oh. That… "That's so sweet." He just wanted to make her happy? Well, he succeeded. "Thank you, JP. I really mean it."
"Happy day!" Tommy cheered. Zoe's happy, JP's happy, Grumblemon is defeated so Koji and Takuya will probably be happy too. Everyone is happy!
"Run!" Except maybe not. Another earthquake happened as Takuya, Koji, Koichi and Sophia came running their way. "Didn't you hear me?!"
The happy trio soon found out why they were running. The ceiling turned into fractal code. MetalKabuterimon's attacks on it weakened it to the point where it could collapse at any second.
Unfortunately the warning came too late. The second the group was all back together again, a tower of water fell from right above them, filling up the cavern almost instantly. They tried swimming through the currents, tried getting their head out of the water, but it was no use. The currents were too strong, and soon everything turned black.
But not in the way of passing out. Everything just…suddenly turned dark, the water was all gone now too. No one spoke, afraid of finding out what happened.
When another few minutes (or was it minutes? It was hard to tell) passed where nothing happened, Tommy spoke up. "Did we die?" he asked carefully.
"Uhh… I don't think so?" Zoe said, though she was unsure about it herself.
"It smells like something did." JP complained, pinching his nose to try and block out the smell.
Something opened up in front of them, catching their eye. It looked like…teeth? A mouth? Were they in someone's mouth?! And was that water out there?
"It's the ocean." Tommy realized.
The others made another realization. "It's Whamon!" They were in the mouth of Whamon! Weird, but at least it was safe. And he was safe too! That's a relief.
"I don't know how you saved us, but thank you." Bokomon gratefully thanked the digimon.
Zoe nodded, not that the whale digimon could see it. "Yeah, and welcome home Whamon."
"Oh, I'm the one who should be thanking you." Whamon said. "Without your help, I might have been stuck in that cave forever. Hold on everybody. We should be reaching the island very soon."
Huh? Island? The gang looked up ahead. Sure enough there was an island there. Well, it was still quite a ways away, so they might as well get comfortable.
At least…if there wasn't something on Takuya's mind. "Hey, Sophia?" The brunette girl looked up to him. "What did you mean back at Seraphimon's castle? About the 'previous warriors'?"
Now that he mentioned it, that was something she said, wasn't it. All eyes locked onto the brunette, who began feeling uncomfortable from all the attention.
"Well? Spill it." Koji told the girl. "Just what did you mean by the 'previous humans', huh?"
"Koji." Koichi lightly scolded his younger brother, not that it had much effect.
Sophia shook her head. "It's fine, Koichi. I guess I made a bad reputation of keeping secrets." She took a deep breath and continued. "Well… Back at the TV-forest I… I found some trees. The original twelve that Bokomon was talking about."
Bokomon looked surprised. Had this girl who was constantly mocked him actually remembered something he said? Well, he still had to object there. "That is impossible! Those trees have been hidden away for thousands of years. No digimon has ever found them. They're merely a fairytale by now."
"I know what I saw, Bokomon." Sophia told him. "There were twelve trees in a circle, all connected by the roots. They were separate from all other trees, but also surrounded by them." That's…actually accurate to the fairytale description. "There was a voice that was, for some reason, leading me to them. And-" She stopped herself before she said too much.
Tommy's curious head perked up. "And what?"
She took another deep breath. She was here to spill the beans. No more secrets. "I saw humans. The trees showed other humans, like a slideshow. They weren't in the human world, but here. And they had digimon partners." she paused. "There were humans here before us."
JP crossed his arms, still skeptical. "That doesn't explain why you think they're warriors."
Oh right. "Because I saw them evolve." Sophia said. "It wasn't Spirit evolving, but it was similar. They combined with their digimon and became the Ancient Warriors. They said something like 'DNA evolution'?"
Silence. That was a lot to swallow. There were humans here before them. And they were warriors. The original warriors! How did that work? That was thousands of years ago. Doubt there were subways to take humans to the digital world thousands of years ago. And merging with partners?
Koji perked up scowling at the older girl. "When were you gonna tell us? Why keep it secret until now?!"
"Well, I'm sorry if there was never a right time to tell you!" Sophia snapped back. "First there was the Bakumon incident, then you run away, next the BurningGreymon incident- sorry Takuya." The goggle-headed warrior winced. That was still a sore spot. "Then Gigasmon attacks again, and then there was all that stuff at Seraphimon's castle. I never found a right time to bring it up, not to mention I forgot about it until I heard Seraphimon think about them." She took a couple of heavy breaths. Eventually she stood up and went to the edge of Whamon's still open mouth. "I-I'm gonna get some fresh air." Was all she said as she climbed out and on top of Whamon's head.
The others sat there in silence. This was a lot to take in. If all that was the truth, then humans have been here before. Humans have protected the Digital World before. Well, that would explain why digimon recognized humans in the first place, like Bokomon when they first met. Wait, how did Bokomon know? Urgh- Pocket that question for later.
But really, how were humans here? It was thousands of years ago. People don't live that long- not even close. It shouldn't be possible. Was there something they were missing?
They turned their gaze back outside, to the island that was getting closer and closer. Whatever it was, they would have to push it aside and hopefully figure it out another time.
*I kinda imagine the Poke-flute melody playing here.
Thanks for reading!