Miranda sat around the fire that someone must have gotten going from the previous night. She was embarrassed that she had fallen asleep as soon as they had gotten stopped for the night, but the second they had sat down, she felt a wave of tiredness come over her that she couldn't fight, and by the looks of the others, so had most everyone else. And based on the speech they were getting from Arthur, they had.
"Tonight, let's make sure that we have an idea about who's going to take watch throughout the night before any of us go to sleep" Miranda thought she heard anger in Arthur's voice as he continued "It's not really fair for only three of us to have stay up all night"
Miranda already felt bad enough, she didn't need a speech on how selfish the rest of them were "Look we get it alright Arthur?" she demanded "There's no need to harp on this, we messed up, it won't happen again"
"It better not" Arthur finished with a dark tone. He sighed and scratched the back of his neck. He didn't say anything more.
Maxwell, however, must of have something else to add "What's our plans for today?" he looked around the eight children "I mean we need to find a way to contact home, right?" Maxwell like the rest of them, was urgent to get home.
"Before that we need to find food and water" Galen pointed out, with his arms crossed. Betamon sat next to him on the ground.
"That's a good point, we can't very well find a way home if we've starved to death" Sarah agreed. "But where would we even find either of those things?"
"Sarah has a point" Miranda agreed "The trees don't seem to have any fruit we can pick, and I haven't seen any water since we got here" an idea popped into her head while the others looked down in thought "What about you guys?" she asked the Digimon "What have you guys been eating and drinking from?"
Pinamon looked thoughtful for a moment, before answering "Well, I'm not sure where there's any nearby water, but the trees always have fruit!"
"Yeah, they do!" Agumon, Will's orange dinosaur looking Digimon agreed from Will's left.
"Well, these must not, the trees don't have any fruit growing on them" Galen reiterated.
At his feet, Betamon gave a small sigh and said, "You guys are probably looking at the wrong trees!" Betamon turned around and headed into the tree line "Come on, I'll show you where to look!"
Miranda and the others followed Betamon, with their Digimon at their respective sides. She looked down at Pinamon through the corner of her eyes, he was just hopping along. Miranda felt comfortable with her by her side, which was odd for Miranda, it was like something had drawn her and Pinamon together, maybe it was the connection that she had mentioned?
"Here is one!" Betamon announced excitedly from the front of the line. The tree in front of the group didn't look all the special, especially when compared to the rest of them in the forest. "You see how it's smooth? And how it's at a weird angle when compared to the others?"
Miranda did notice that and looked around at the other trees in the area, some of them looked like normal trees from back home, while others made loops with the trunks before it began to produce leaves.
"You just go up to it and reach in and grab the fruit!" Betamon finished his explanation by demonstrating it, getting up to the base of the tree, and then poking his head through the base of the tree.
"What the hell!" Galen said with what Miranda thought was concern in his voice. The others must be bonding with their partners as well she thought as she looked back down at Pinamon.
Betamon came back out and quickly hopped around, revealing a red fruit, almost like an apple, in his mouth "Here it is!" he said after he had spit it onto the ground "You try Galen!"
Miranda watched as Galen did just that, walked up to the tree, and touched it, no he didn't touch, his hand went through the trunk of the tree. "Huh, weird" she heard Galen say as he moved around and then brought his hand out of it, now holding two of the apple like fruit"
"I guess that settles how were going to get food" Sarah said happily. Miranda was happy too; it was a relief that something else was going their way.
"Now we just need water" Maxwell reminded them.
"Before we find water, we should pick enough of these plants so were not walking around with empty stomachs" Evelyn spoke up for the first time since they had started their day. Miranda didn't know the girl well, but she had been on watch when they had woken up, so she couldn't be all that bad. And she didn't try to rub it in their faces the way that Arthur did.
There was a general grunt of agreement from everyone, and they split up with their respective Digimon in tow going to the different trees and picking fruit. Miranda was worried the first time she stuck her arm through the tree, butbnothing bad happened, and she was able to get some food. So, it worked out.
They spent what Miranda thought was an hour gathering the fruit. On their way back to their camp, where they had all agreed to meet back up, she remembered something that she had meant to ask Pinamon "What do you know about these devices?" she said indicating the device that now hung from her chain necklace.
"I'm not sure" Pinamon admitted "Whatever it did, when they materialized into your guy's hands, it gave us the power to digivolve!"
Miranda thought on that for a few moments, what did they do? And why did it allow Pinamon to digivolve when they had a hold of it? "You don't think it's like a siphon, do you?"
"A what?" Pinamon responded.
"A siphon is something that takes a something from somewhere and puts it somewhere else" she explained and then continued "Maybe that's what these are doing, you say that were connected, and I certainly feel a connection to you Pinamon, but maybe that connection isn't enough" she rolled one of the fruits in her hand "Maybe it needs a way to use whatever I have to help you digivolve"
Pinamon scrunched her eyes in thought before nodding her head, or rather her body "Yeah, that explains why we could only digivovle to our rookie level when you had a hold of it!"
"I wonder what else it can do" Miranda mused to herself as they approached the clearing. Sitting around the campfire was Evelyn and Sarah, who seemed to be waiting for the others.
"Arthur mentioned wanting to try to find some high ground and trying to an idea for where we are" Evelyn was telling Sarah and Hackmon as they sat around the now dead fire.
Sarah was nodding her head and replied "Yeah I guess that's a good idea" she sighed, and Miranda could see that something was bothering her sister "I just wish that he had been a bit nicer this morning, thanks by the way for helping with the watch" she added as an afterthought.
"He was kinda mean about what happened last night, thanks as well" Miranda agreed "Being all passive aggressive like he was"
Something in Evelyn's face seemed downcast at her comment "He was just frustrated that he and Will had to stay up most of the night, they only woke me up a couple of hours before you guys woke up" she said quietly.
"They should've woken one of us up, rather than stay up most of the night" Sarah said "he said it's not fair to for us to make them stay up, but they could have woken one of us up"
"Well, that was the plan" Evelyn admitted "I told them to wake me up when they got tired, but by the time that they did, it was so late that I decided not to wake anybody else up"
"Well thanks again, but Arthur just needs to cool it is all" Miranda stated, she wasn't mad at Evelyn for not waking them up, she was mad at Arthur for being an ass about it.
"Well nothing's going to get better by just sitting here and stewing in it, if you have a problem with him, then maybe you should say something?" Evelyn suggested. Miranda thought that she must have been used to having to deal with these sorts of situations "People aren't themselves when they get mad, I doubt Arthur is like that most of the time"
Miranda didn't think that talking about their feelings would do anything but took it under her list of options anyway. She sighed and shared her thoughts on the devices that she had talked through with Pinamon earlier.
By the time that she had gotten done explaining it, and then reexplaining it as Maxwell, Galen and Diane had returned, another twenty minutes had passed. "So, I think that these devices somehow siphon our energy into our Digimon, and aid them in fighting"
Diane ran a hand through her long red hair "It seems interesting, but does that mean that they could go to a higher level than they are now?" she asked "Gazimon said that there three additional levels right?"
"Yes, I did!" Gazimon said with clear delight at having been mentioned "the next ones are Champion, like Sukamon we fought yesterday, Ultimate, and Mega!"
"Have you guys ever run into an Ultimate or a Mega?" Galen asked the Digimon.
All of the Digimon took a moment to think about it. Impmon was the one to answer, with his hand rubbing his chin as he did so "I'm not sure, I only really remember being around the others"
"Yeah, I don't have much memory of other Digimon aside from us either" Hackmon agreed from his sitting position at the base of Sarah's feet.
A rumble deep in the forest shook the children out of their conversation, all of them stood as they waited for whatever caused the shaking to reveal itself, instead the ground rumbled and then again. The Digimon got in front of the children as the shaking and sound of footsteps continued to come closer and closer. A giant white and black furred gorilla came out of the forest charging towards them.
"It's a Gorillamon!" Betamon declared as it rushed forward "Electric Shock" A torrent of electricity sizzled around the green fish before it struck out at Gorillamon. It shook off the attack while continuing to charge them. While doing so, it raised its right hand, revealing not a hand but a large metal cannon where it's hand should've been.
"Energy Cannon!" it roared and several blasts from the cannon rushed towards the group and landed around them, sending mud and dirt flying up into the air and coming back down onto the children.
"Why is it so angry?" Sarah was screaming as they started to run in the other direction.
"What about the others?" Evelyn yelled as she too was running as the Digimon covered them.
"We will have to find them after we deal with this!" Maxwell yelled over the chaotic sound of the battle being done around them. Miranda spared a look and saw Gazimon knocked into a tree, and then heard Diane grunt in pain.
"Diane, are you okay?" Miranda asked as they got into the tree line and turned to watch the battle.
"My back just lit up in pain" she breathed, she reached her hand around and rubbed the spot for a second "I should be fine now"
Miranda looked back to the battle, where things were not going well. Hackmon was being pushed into the ground by Gorillamon's free hand, while he shot blasts at Pinamon and Impmon, who were doing their best to dodge the attack.
Gazimon stood back up and charged back into the fray of things. It combined with Betamon sent out another electric blast at Gorillamon, who simply shook off their attack and then picked up Hackmon and threw it at the two Digimon. The three Digimon collided and didn't get back up.
Kotemon chose that moment to launch his own attack, and jumped up and actually punched Gorillamon. The attack seemed to faze Goriallmon for a moment, and Miranda watched as Galen, Diane, and Sarah rushed forward to get their partners out of the battle.
"Good job Kotemon!" she heard Evelyn encourage Kotemon, before Gorillamon recovered and kicked Kotemon into the ground. Pinamon and Impmon continued to throw attacks at it, but nothing seemed to faze it. Gorillamon swung its cannon arm around and shot towards the two last Digimon, Pinamon managed to dodge it, but not Impmon, who took the full brunt of the blast.
Miranda realized with alarm that the other's partners were knocked out "It's just us Pinamon" she screamed "You can do this!" she added in way of encouragement.
"You know I can Miranda!" her voice rang out as it generated what Miranda felt, not thought, but felt was electricity around it's fangs and charged the enemy. It's scratched and bit at Gorillamon's feet and legs while hopping around it's attempted attacks.
Miranda watched Pinamon fight by herself in determination as the others returned from collecting their injured Digimon. Pinamon was like something else out there, gracefully dodging Gorillamon's cannon attack and its stomping feet, until she didn't. Time seemed to slow for Miranda as she watched in horror as Pinamon was narrowly hit by one of Gorillamon's cannon attacks. She was thrown back further into the clearing, and Miranda could tell that she was hurting, her fur was scorched in some places, but she was still standing.
They couldn't end like this; this couldn't be the end for them Miranda thought darkly to herself. "Come on Pinamon, I know you can do this!" she yelled towards her partner, if her theories about the device were correct then maybe her feeling positive emotion about her partner would make her more powerful? Miranda focused on her connection to the tiny Digimon, who seemed to accept her despite her flaws and everything else wrong with her. Pinamon seemed to perk up as Miranda focused on sending these energies towards her when suddenly Gorillamon was rushing towards her "PINAMON" Miranda screamed, and then a bright light encompassed them all.
"Pinamon digivolve to!" Miranda opened her eyes and gaped at the sight in front of her, gone was Pinamon and now standing there was a large birdlike standing on two legs, wearing a red and gold tunic, and wielding two large samurai sword "Buraimon!" Buraimon finished her digivolution and took a fighting stance towards the now backing away Gorillamon.
"Let's see you fight a Digimon your own level" Buraimon declared and rushed forward, two blades in hand and struck at the Gorillamon. Goriallmon dodged one of the slashes, but Buraimon caught one of her blades in its thigh, cutting through it like butter. Gorillamon focused its energy cannon on her and fired, which Buraimon ducked under in superhuman speed, and then jumped up, and brought her blades over her head and slashed downwards and lopped the energy cannon arm right off.
Goriallmon roared in pain, and with its arm and one of its legs gone, fell to the ground defeated. Buraimon landed and sheathed one her blades and stood over the Gorillamon. She felt her partner's pity for the Gorillamon. "I'm sorry it came to this" Buraimon said as the Gorillamon began to dissolve.
"It's dying" Diane said, holding Gazimon up to her chest as they all watched as Goriallmon vanished dissolving. Something stayed in the air around where Gorillamon for a moment before it itself rose into the air.
"Buraimon, you did great!" Miranda found herself running out towards her partner without thinking. Buraimon turned to look at her as a golden light encompassed her and Pinamon emerged from it and jumped into Miranda's arms.
"I did it! I did it! I went to Champion!" Pinamon was saying excitedly.
Miranda fell to her knees "You most certainly did Pinamon, you saved us all!"
Pinamon slowly stopped moving in her arms and she looked down to see a bleary eyes "I'm tired, digivolving took a lot out of me"
Miranda smiled at her partner as she fell asleep in her arms. She stood up and looked at the others, and felt exhausted, from what she wasn't sure.
Line Break
Arthur and Will ran through the woods, as the trees became thicker and thicker.
"Come on!" Arthur wheezed and stole a glance behind him, Will and their Digimon were keeping up, but their attacker was slowly gaining on them. Arthur looked to his front, hoping to find somewhere to hide, seeing something, he pointed and yelled "There" and prayed that the others heard him.
He slid feet first into what turned out to be a three feet ditch. He dropped on his left leg and felt his angle roll and probably result in a sprain, but he quickly stood anyway, Arthur put weight on his ankle and felt pain, cursing he limped out of the water and over to the closest wall of dirt, where he had fallen from, and hoped that the Digimon that was chasing them didn't notice that they had hid down here.
Elecmon slid as close as he could to Arthur and wrapped his paw around Arthur's sprained ankle. Relief flowed through him as the tightness of the sprain gave way and his ankle went back to normal. What the hell? Arthur thought to himself as he looked down at the red and blue furred Digimon. He looked back up towards Will, who had his head tilted upwards, at the sky, trying to hear the Digimon who was attacking them.
"We might have to fight" Arthur breathed to his friend. Will shot a questioning look at Arthur, and then slowly started nodding his head. He looked down to Agumon, to which Agumon gave him a single head nod. "Okay, then, when it gets above us, attack"
The other Digimon didn't give them a lot of extra time to wait, as right after Arthur had finished explaining his plan, the white Digimon stood above them, its legs straddling the narrow ditch.
"Pepper Breath!"
"Super Thunder Strike!" Their partners released their attacks, Arthur saw a ball of fire hit on leg, whole several bolts of electricity hit the other. The Digimon was knocked off balance and one its legs gave way and fell into the ditch, where there Digimon continued their attacks, with lightning and fireballs attacking the digimon's horned feet.
Arthur thought that things were going well, until the digimon pulled the foot from the ditch and yelled "Lightning Stinger!" Several thin spikes flew from the digimon and into the ditch, all around their partner digimon.
The two rookies managed to avoid most of the attacks by jumping away, the sheer force of the spikes hitting the water had the water splash up and drench both Arthur and Will. While they were dodging, both rookies continued to pepper what Arthur was assuming to be a champion level, with attacks.
Arthur turned to look at Will when he suddenly felt a burning pain in his stomach, and he quickly looked back to see the enemy had gotten Elecmon with that spike attack. He grunted in pain but didn't look away. Agumon continued to throw fireballs at the enemy digimon.
"Come on Agumon!" he heard Will shout in what Arthur thought he recognized as excitement. Why was Will excited? Arthur watched as Agumon jumped up to give battle on even ground. He felt Will move forward, out from their cover.
His hand shot out and grabbed him by his shoulder "Where are you going?" he chastised.
Will shook free and replied, "I'm going to get up there and support Agumon!" he said as he turned back and started crawling his way out of the ditch. Arthur shook his head and looked back to Elecmon, who had recovered and was looking better.
"You good Elecmon?" he asked, hoping that he was still up for the fight.
Elecmon gave him a pained smile but said "You betcha Arthur!"
Arthur smiled back, and while he still felt that pain in his chest, it was no where near as bad as it had been "Good then let's get up there!" Elecmon scrambled up out of the ditch, as Arthur pulled himself out.
The sight that greeted Arthur worried him, fire had consumed much of the forest that they had been chased through, about thirty feet ahead of him, in amongst the fire stood Will, who in turn watched as Agumon and the enemy danced around each other and fought.
The heat from the fire felt like it was overwhelmed Arthur, but he pushed on through it, hopping over some of the smaller flames as he ran towards Will. Up ahead, Agumon seemed to be slowly losing the fight, the enemy digimon was slowly starting to catch up his attacks, and more and more Agumon was just narrowly avoiding them, and no longer had anytime to return his own attacks.
"Come on Agumon!" he heard Will over the din of the fire and the battle going on, and Arthur ran faster.
Agumon's luck ran out however, and the enemy digimon, spread his arms and began turning circling around so fast that Arthur could no longer even make him out, this was the attack that got Agumon, who was sent flying. He saw Will fall to the ground and clutch his head in pain.
"Elecmon we have to save Wil!" he yelled and looked over his shoulder, trying to see the little digimon, but he was gone, where Arthur thought he was, there was now a bright light, and he heard Elecmon's voice.
"Elecmon digivolve to" Elecmon roared as the light died down and standing there was Elecmon's new form. He looked like a humanoid lion, with black pants, and sword in its sheath that was tied sideways on his waist, his mane was golden and looked sharp to touch. "Leomon!"
The other digimon stopped it's advance on Will, and instead began to charge at Leomon and Arthur. Arthur felt Leomon's anger through their connection, and in that moment, Arthur knew that this digimon was in trouble. "Lion Sword" he yelled as he pulled the shortsword from the sheath and launched several strikes on the digimon. The digimon saw much of its own golden hair cut off in the first few strikes, as it was forced back towards Will. "Fist of the Beast King" Leomon roared as light emanated from his hand and into the digimon, who fell to one knee. Leomon quickly rushed and grabbed the digimon and began to pummel the white digimon into the ground.
"Pepper Breath!" Agumon had apparently gotten back up and reengaged the enemy. Will had come running back to Arthur's side as they watched the three digimon fight, it was obvious that their partners were winning now.
It finished as Leomon hand disappeared into the digimon's body and emerged on the other side. There was nothing said as the two boys watched as the digimon dissolved into data, where it remained where it the digimon had been for a moment, and then rushed overhead, towards the sky.
Arthur suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion and nausea hit him as he fell to the ground. Leomon to fell to one knee, and he dedigivolved back into Elecmon "I did it! I did it!" Elecmon celebrated as he meagerly jumped up into the air, as Agumon rushed over to celebrate with him.
"Elecmon went to champion" Will said. "Sorry about running off, I'm not sure what came over me"
Arthur shook his head "It was nothing" he waved his hand and stood up "We should go find the others, tell them what happened and that we found a source of fresh water"
Confusion rang through the other boys' features "We did?"
"Yeah, you don't remember the ditch we landed in? or the wet clothes you're wearing?"
Will looked down and felt his clothes, which were wet. "No, I guess I don't"
Arthur chuckled and replied with a slap on his friend's shoulder "Don't worry about it, I'll tell everyone that we found it anyway"
"Well, Agumon did help beat that thing"
"Leomon did the heavy lifting" Arthur replied smugly.
It took them about an hour to reach the clearing where they had spent the previous night, and it looked like a battle had happened in it, craters filled the small area, trees sat uprooted, and the camp sight had been destroyed.
"What did this?" Will asked no-one "You don't think that the others are?"
He was cut off by Evelyn's voice ringing out over the clearing "Over here!" Arthur looked in the direction too see the black haired girl waving her arm in a come over here gesture.
"Thank god" Will breathed as the two of them started running towards the far tree line.
A short time later, they sat in a haphazard matter, everyone digesting what had happened to the two groups in the short time that they had been separated. "So, you two fought off a digimon?"
"Well, Leomon did most of the heavy work" Agumon spoke up from his side next to Will.
"I wouldn't have had the time to digivolve without you Agumon" Elecmon stated from his placed curled up at Arthur's feet.
"Well between Pinamon and Elecmon, we have two digimon that can digivolve" Maxwell stated, "Arthur you said that you and Will found a water source?"
Arthur nodded his head "Well we found a stream; I'm betting if we follow it, we will dump into a lake or an ocean eventually"
"You want us to follow the river then?" Sarah asked, with a tint of hostility in her tone that made Arthur wondered if she was mad at him.
Deciding to focus on that later he answered her question "Well, we should at least camp by it at night, gives us easy access to water"
"And as long as we stay in the forest, we have food" Galen noted he looked around and said "I vote that we follow the river"
Maxwell looked around the group and asked, "Is everyone agreed?" they all nodded their heads in agreement and then they were off again, coming back the way that he and Will had just come from.
It took them another hour to get to the battle site, which was still burning but not nearly has bad as it had been before they left. "What happened here?" Evelyn asked as she took in the sight of the scorched trees.
"Oh, that was me" Agumon said nonchalantly as they moved through the area, careful not to walk on any of the remaining flames.
"But why did you set the forest on fire?" Diane asked.
To Arthur's surprise it was Will who answered "We tried to collapse a tree on the digimon we were fighting, he dodged, and the tree caught fire and spread like mad, not a whole lot we could do about it at the time"
"You should've put it out" Diane said.
He looked at Will, who seemed to deflate a little and wished his friend would stand up for himself a bit more "Well, we both wanted to come and find you guys" Arthur interjected, to try to help Will save face.
Diane just looked at the two of them and shook her head and went back to talking with Galen and the others. Will had fallen back to his spot at the end of the line, having jumped up from there to speak, Arthur waited for Evelyn and the other half to pass and fell in beside Will and Agumon.
"You need to stand up for yourself more man" he quietly chastised Will, hoping he was out of earshot of the rest of the group.
Will just nodded his head like he always did "I know, I'm just not good in groups"
"I know man, but like it or not, were in a group now, and you need to be able to work in that group."
He hoped he was getting through to him, he had spent years trying to get Will to be more comfortable in groups, and while he was better than he had been, there was still a lot of room to grow.
LINE BREAK
Diane sat around the fire that Arthur had started, taking a bite out of the apple like thing. Arthur hadnt been lying when he said that they had found a stream, and Diane was happy for it, the group had refilled their water bottles, and now were eating a quiet meal under the moon.
Unlike the previous night, no-one had fallen asleep as soon as they made camp and had instead stayed awake speaking with each other. Galen sat off with his feet in the water, speaking with Miranda and Sarah about something, Max sat next to her, also eating away at an apple, she wasn't sure where Evelyn, Arthur and Will had run off to, but aside from Evelyn she wasn't too sorry to see the others go.
She knew that she was being harsh, but it really rubbed her the wrong way that they had just left after burning down a significant part of the forest. She knew that they had been fighting, but so had the rest of them and they hadn't burned anything.
She sighed; her mother was always telling her to fight for what she believed in. She looked down at Gazimon, who sat curled up at her feet, his gray fur shimmied up against her ankles. She wondered briefly about the moment when he had been hit it the back, and she had felt pain in her back, Gazimon had talked about having a connection, did their connection go as far as feeling each other's pain and emotions?
That was a thought that was interrupted with Arthur, Evelyn, and Will's return to camp. "Where did you three go off to? Maxwell asked.
"Oh, we went fishing, or more accurately I did, and the others watched" Arthur answered holding up a clearly dead fish by it's mouth.
"I was just interested in seeing how you caught a fish bare handed" Evelyn admitted, and like usual, Will said nothing.
Arthur placed the fish down and reached into his pocket and pulled out a flip knife "You brought a knife to camp?" She asked him.
He looked at her for a moment and replied "Yeah, I wasn't going out into the woods for a few weeks without it" and then he started cutting the fish up.
Evelyn turned away, not wanting to look at it, and Diane had to agree with her, she stood up away from the fire and went and stood next to the woman "I wish that they didn't do that right here"
"Where else would you have me do it?" Arthur asked from behind her.
She didn't bother responding to him, but Evelyn answered "I would rather wish he didn't either, but well, it's a good-sized fish, maybe we could eat something other than fruit tonight"
"I suppose so" Diane agreed, but she still didn't like it. While fish did sound good, something about the way that Arthur, and Will to a certain extent, acted rubbed her the wrong way.
The rest of the night passed quickly, with a small bite of the fish after it had been cooked for everyone, the group agreed on a watch schedule, with Arthur going first, Will next, Evelyn third, Max fourth, herself fifth, Miranda sixth, and Sarah seventh. As Diane laid down, she hoped that the next day would be easier than the last couple, and not for the first time hoped that this was all just a bad dream, one that she would wake from soon.
A/N: Well, here is the next chapter, I probably won't be able to keep updating this quite like I am, but I'm hoping for at least one update a week. Thanks for reading and I hoped you enjoyed it!