Chapter 5

A week later, after a considerable amount of hard work, hauling trees back to their spot at Dragon Eye Lake, Wolf and Revemon had collected all of the wood they thought they would need for the house. Having just finished bringing the final tree to the edge of the beach, Wolf and Revemon were half sitting, half lying on the sand, leaning back on their elbows.

"Well, that last one was a workout." Revemon said, a little out of breath.

"Yeah. Sorry again about that, pal. Really should have noticed that hole in the ground. Thanks for keeping the weight off of me." Wolf said.

"Eh, it's okay." Revemon said. "So, what's next with this whole thing?"

"I'll show you."

Wolf stood up and stepped over to the remains of the fire from the night before at their small campsite. From among some rudimentary tools he'd fashioned, he took a knife made from a smooth stone he'd sharpened and had a thick, strong leaf tied around it's base for a handle. Wolf then returned to Revemon, sat beside him again, and used the knife to carve into the earth a slightly more detailed version of the rough blueprint he'd made in the beach sand before.

"So, we've got the wood now, but that's really just for the primary structure. There's still a number of supplies we need to collect, and Revemon, we're really going to be relying on your knowledge of the island to find them." Wolf said.

"What do we need?"

"Glass for windows, although, I think with a little working, we could make that ourselves. If we could find some strong clothes, I could make us hammocks to sleep in after the house is finished. Also, my first day here, I think I spotted some kind of factory at one part of the island, if we could go there and find some screws and hinges, I could make a proper door for the house."

"Seems pretty simple. Anything else?" Revemon asked.

"Well, it isn't vital, but I was thinking that if we could find enough rocks and some kind of resin or something to hold them together, we could build a fireplace and chimney so that we could cook inside the house."

"Resin, is that some kind of glue or something?" Revemon asked.

"Yeah, that's right."

"Then, I think I know where we could find some. It'll be a real long walk, though. Of course, it's not like we'll be able to get any of these supplies without some serious schlepping."

"Schlepping?" Wolf asked with a smile.

"What?"

Wolf chuckled. "Nothing, nothing. Just a little surprised by that word choice. But, I don't mind walking. I've hardly ever gone anywhere by any other means."

"Alright. But, do you mind if we take a break for a while, first?" Revemon asked.

"Nah, pal. We'll take a few hours off. We've earned it."

OOO

After they'd rested for a good long while, Wolf allowed Revemon to lead him into the interior of the island to get the first of their next set of build materials. As they walked, the two friends both thought to themselves that it was a good thing they'd started their day so early, as it took them nearly two hours just to clear the forest. After another forty minutes of trekking through hot, dry desert which seemed to have a limitless number of telephone poles planted in the ground, they found themselves coming into a village.

Wolf thought to himself that "small" was the most apt way of describing the village, as the huts which made it up all hardly reached three feet tall, and covered an area of roughly about fifteen-hundred square feet. The huts all had roofs made of straw, but their walls were made of stone, so Wolf thought they probably had come to the right place.

"Hey! Anybody home?!" Revemon shouted, the words swiftly drifting into silence along the flat plain.

One by one, tiny little digimon no taller than one and three-quarters feet with pink, spherical shaped bodies, insect like feet, and blooming flower petals growing out of their heads emerged from the huts. They surrounded Wolf and Revemon and Wolf saw that there were at least two to three thousand of them.

"Yokomon! It's great to see you again!" Revemon enthused.

"Do we know you?" One of them asked in a high, breathy voice Wolf would have normally associated with a girl.

"Come on, it's me. I used to be Chararomon."

At the mention of his in-training level name, all of the Yokomon's faces collectively brightened and smiled beaming smiles. They all gathered in more closely, and although it didn't technically frighten him, Wolf had a flash to a scene of a guy disappearing under a seething mass of evil rats that he'd once seen in a movie.

"You're so much bigger." One Yokomon said to Revemon.

"You digivolved!" Another squealed out.

"Yeah, my partner finally showed up!" Revemon exclaimed with pride.

It was only then that all the Yokomon seemed to really take notice of Wolf himself.

"Huh. It's been a long time since we've seen a human." One of them said.

"Really?" Wolf asked.

From the way they were all staring at him, he hadn't known what to say, but felt he had to say something.

"Yeah, I don't think there's been any on the island since the original digidestined were here." One said.

"When was that?" One asked another.

"I think it was about twenty years ago."

That captured Wolf's attention. "Twenty years?"

It didn't make any sense in his mind. From the articles written by the Izzy kid he had read, he had figured that Izzy was one of the digidestined, and although he didn't mention any of the others by specific names or ages in the writings, Wolf had never thought they could be any more than a few years older than himself at the most.

"Hey, Wolf, let me explain." Revemon said. "There used to be a big difference in the way time moved between the Digital World and your world. It used to be that for every day that passed here, only a minute passed in the human world. I don't know about before hand, but it's been about seven years since the original eight digidestined destroyed the Dark Masters, and after that, our two worlds synced up with time passing at the same rate of speed for both."

Wolf quickly did the math in his head to work it all out. There were sixty minutes in every hour, and twenty-four hours in every day, making one-thousand, four-hundred and forty minutes in every day. One-thousand, four-hundred and forty days equaled three years, four months, and twenty days. For it to have been twenty years since the Yokomon had seen any humans, and it having been seven years since the digidestined had last been there meant a difference of roughly thirteen years, and by that math, Wolf knew that at some point during the original's time in the Digital World, they had returned to Earth for a time of four Earth days. However, these were mere musings which Wolf worked out in his mind in less than a second, and did not interest him very much.

"So, then, you haven't seen any humans since then?" Wolf asked the Yokomon.

They all answered with multiple variations of the word "no" almost simultaneously.

"From what we've heard and as far as we know, you're the only human on the island." One of them told him.

That bit of information made Wolf's mind drown in pleasure as it affirmed his own assumptions and killed the small fear he'd had that they had been wrong.

"Oh, that's just terrible." He said with obvious sarcasm.

"Revemon, so, what are you two doing here? Is something wrong?" A Yokomon asked.

"There aren't any evil digimon around here, are there?" Another asked, her expression becoming a little afraid.

"Nah, it's nothing like that, everyone." Revemon assured them.

"Why would there be any evil digimon around here?" Wolf asked.

"It's just that the last time digidestined were on the island, it was because they were needed to help stop evil digimon." One said.

"Whenever there's a digidestined around, something's always going on." Another said.

"I don't think there's anything to worry about." Revemon said. "We haven't come across any really evil digimon yet. I think it's just a happy accident that my partner finally came here."

At that moment, Wolf's eyes darkened by a slight degree as he remembered just before he had come to the Digital World, the words "Found you" written on those computer and TV screens. He had been trying not to think about it, and for the most part had succeeded, but it was now in the forefront of his mind again. Those simple words meant two things beyond any doubt; someone, or something, had been looking for him, and they had some kind of designs on him. Revemon's voice then brought Wolf back out of his thoughts.

"We're here to ask a favor. Wolf and I are working on building a house by Dragon Eye Lake. We were hoping you could give us some of the resin you guys use to build your huts." Revemon said.

"Oh, so you're planning to be here a while then?" One Yokomon asked.

"I hope to never leave." Wolf thought. Out loud, he said, "Yeah, well, I'm just not really much for sleeping outdoors."

"I think we can help you out." One of them said sweetly.

Wolf couldn't help but smile happily down at all the little digimon. So far, he had met some mean and nasty digimon, but he was still finding most of them to be eminently sweeter and more pleasant than any human he had ever met.

"Thanks a lot. We really appreciate it." Revemon said.

"Definitely." Wolf added. "You all ever need anything, feel free to come to us."

The cheerful moment was then destroyed by a number of giant spikes suddenly raining down on all of them. The attack devastated several of the Yokomon's huts and created many small craters, but miraculously managed to miss Revemon, Wolf, and all of the Yokomon. They all then saw diving out of the sky at them what looked like six ugly bees with the same proportions as full sized S. . The huge digimon dive bombed, pulling back up and just nearly grazing the ground at the last moment, a wake of wind knocking all of them off of their feet. Wolf and Revemon each landed with a hard jolt against one of the huts.

"Revemon, what the hell are they?"

"Flymon. They're nasty insect digimon most try to avoid. Their Deadly Sting attack could kill instantly if it connects." Revemon said.

"They're coming back!" Many of the Yokomon screamed.

All six Flymon were indeed coming back for another pass.

"Yokomon, run! Get out of here!" Wolf shouted. "Revemon!"

Wolf then lowered himself to one knee and cupped his hands together in front of himself. Revemon nodded and ran at him, jumping into Wolf's cupped hands and allowing his partner to give him a large boost up, putting Revemon level with the Flymon.

"Reve-chop attack!"

His blow hit the lead Flymon in the side of its head, and while the attack itself didn't do much damage, it did force the first of the Flymon to collide with three of the ones following it.

"Yeah!" Wolf praised his digimon.

His joy, however, was cut short as the fifth Flymon came straight for him.

"Deadly Sting!" Flymon yelled and fired it's stinger at Wolf.

Wolf's mind worked quickly to find a way to save himself. The stinger was coming straight for the upper section of his body. It was coming too fast for him to dodge it by diving to either side, because it would still shred through a significant portion of his torso, and he didn't think he could bend himself backwards by his own flexibility enough to avoid it. There was only one possible way he could see to save himself, and it was a poor chance at best. Wolf raised his hands and grabbed hold of the stinger just before it could stab through his neck. He pushed against it, allowing it's momentum to push him back, off of his feet, and then shoved it upwards with all of his strength so it would pass over him. It just barely worked, the poison dripping barb of the stinger missing his chin and the bridge of his nose by no more than a centimeter. Wolf fell onto his back and watched upside down as the stinger crashed through another Yokomon hut.

"Ha ha ha! I can't believe that actually worked." He laughed to himself.

Revemon then came running up to him. "Wolf! You okay, partner?"

Wolf sat up.

"Still in one piece." He said with a smile.

"Alright, that's it. No more mister nice mon." Revemon said.

Wolf's digivice began to glow.

"Revemon digivolve to... Shradomon!"

The champion level dragon digimon beat his huge wings and took off.

"Wolf, can you make sure the Yokomon don't get hurt?" Shradomon asked.

"Leave it to me, pal!" Wolf said, and ran to catch up with the scurrying little digimon.

He joined them just outside the furthest boarder of the village and gave them all a confident and reassuring smile.

"Don't worry about it, now. Just watch Shradomon make mincemeat out of all of them!"

Up in the sky, Shradomon flew for the Flymon, he and his six opponents staring each other down just before colliding. Shradomon punched one Flymon in the head and clawed another down its side with his other hand. One Flymon then shot its Deadly Sting attack at Shradomon, but he dodged it by simply coiling his thin, serpent like body.

"Tail Flick!"

Shardomon beat his tail into a third one.

"Black Blazer!"

He spewed his plume of black fire at a fourth, but it managed to evade the blast. The Flymon then flew at Shardomon, grabbed him, and took them both down, slamming the two of them into the ground, crashing through dozens of telephone polls.

"Poison claw!" Flymon shouted.

He tried to slash Shradomon with his two frontward claw appendages, but Shradomon again used the maneuverability of his body to easily slip out of reach. Shradomon then wrapped himself around Flymon, making the insect digimon unable to move.

"Super Squeeze!" Shradomon yelled.

He constricted his body tighter and tighter around Flymon while the other digimon tried to writhe and wriggle its way to freedom. Flymon was just beginning to lose steam when one of his compatriots came soaring down.

"Poison Powder!" He shouted and shed a cloud of poison dust over Shradomon as he passed.

Shradomon was unable to avoid this, inhaling the Flymon's poison, and immediately began to feel both sick and drowsy from its effects. Another of the Flymon then came down, preparing to fire his stinger for a finishing blow. However, just before it could happen, Shradomon collected himself enough to register the danger and turned his body and threw the Flymon he was holding into his oncoming companion. Shradomon then placed his front hands/legs on the ground in front of him and breathed heavily, trying to fight away the poison in his system.

"Shradomon!" Wolf yelled as he saw the state his partner was in.

"Hey, human... er, Wolf!" He heard a Yokomon yell at him.

He looked for where the shout had come from, but then noticed the ever growing shadow over them and looked up to see that one of the Flymon had broken from the pack to come after them.

"Yokomon! Bubbles!" Wolf commanded them, thinking quickly.

The in-training digimon obeyed, all of them working together to create an impenetrable smokescreen of bubbles which completely obscured Flymon's vision. He dove through the bubbles, and then was unable to stop himself from colliding head-first into the ground. His impact was so violent, that he fell into unconsciousness.

Looking over, Shradomon saw what had nearly just happened. Refusing to allow any harm to come to his partner or his friends, he forced his wings to beat and lift himself into the air again to fight on.

Back in the fray, Shradomon did his best, but he was faltering. He was every bit as strong, if not stronger than the Champion level Flymon, but between the poison still in his system and the numbers against him, it wasn't going well. Shradomon tried to claw at one, but was then bashed away by another. He tried to hit one with his tail, but missed all together. He shot his Black Blazer attack, but only managed to just singe the side of one of them.

Down on the ground, Wolf was becoming both worried and angered by the fight he was watching.

"Damn it! This isn't good. If something doesn't happen in the next few moments, Shradomon's gonna be destroyed just like Woodmon was! Come on, there has to be something I can do!" Wolf thought.

He turned his head in all directions, scanning for something he could use to help his friend. He became infuriated even further when he couldn't seem to spot anything other than sand and small rocks. A moment later, he found the answer, seeing a single, straggling ember from Shradomon's Black Blazer float down to the ground, make contact with some residue from the Yokomon's bubbles, and expand into a larger flame.

"The bubble residue is flammable?!" He thought. Wolf then said aloud, "Yokomon, there's something we can do to help, follow me, quick!"

He turned and ran, and the Yokomon followed him. They ran a good distance away from the village to a large clearing with no telephone poles.

"All of you, use your bubble attack right on the ground. I want a lake of residue, a hundred feet wide by two-hundred feet long. Hurry, or we'll lose Shradomon, and then we'll be next! Once you finish it, be sure to get clear!" Wolf directed them.

They all set to work on the task right away. Wolf then ran back towards the village and the aerial battle. When he was almost directly underneath the fight, he yelled up as loudly as he could.

"Shradomon! I've got a plan! I need you to use your fire when I give you the sign!"

Wolf then addressed the insects who were battering his digimon.

"Hey, Flymon!"

Despite the situation they were currently engaged in, the five Flymon couldn't help but look down at the sound of their names.

Wolf shouted, "Yeah, I'm talking to you, you pathetic, substandard, cretinous excuse for bumble bees! You call yourselves insects?! You're nothing but overgrown gnats!"

The Flymon's expressions began to harden.

"You think you're so tough?! I've stepped on cockroaches that put you to shame!"

The Flymon's mouths grew tighter with anger.

"Does this puny human have any idea who he's talking to?!" One of them asked.

"Think you're scary?! Ha! I've had mosquito bites that worried me more than you do! And don't get me started on those wings of yours! They look like something a butterfly would be too embarrassed to wear!"

"That's it!" A Flymon shouted.

As one, they all dived for Wolf. He instantly turned and ran, lowering his goggles over his eyes to make sure his vision wouldn't become blurred by anything at this crucial moment. Wolf hauled himself as fast as his legs could possibly carry him. From behind, he could hear the beating wings of the Flymon and the growls they were emanating drawing closer. He had to time everything just right for this idea to work.

Coming back into the clearing, Wolf saw that the Yokomon had finished the bubble residue lake. He ran right into it, cutting across it length ways, focusing hard on not slipping on the newly slick surface. Close to the edge, Wolf looked back over his shoulder to see that the five Flymon were nearly at equal level with him and thirty feet behind, closing fast. At the same time, he looked to his right and saw Shradomon was flying in fast from a different angle.

"Now!" Wolf shouted and jumped out.

"Black Blazer!" Shradomon shouted.

The second the first lick of heat touched the residue, the entire pool ignited into an inferno of black flames like something out of Dante. The Flymon were all engulfed in it and set ablaze themselves. They shrieked in pain for several moments before they all escaped and flew away as quickly as they could.

"YEAH!" Wolf shouted.

Shradomon then floated sluggishly down near to Wolf. Ten feet above the ground, he dedigivolved back to Revemon and began to fall uncontrollably. But, having guessed that might happen, Wolf had moved into position and easily caught his partner.

"Hey Revemon, how you doin?"

"Think I'll be okay. Don't think I inhaled enough poison to actually be a threat." Revemon said.

"Good. You just get some rest." Wolf told him.

A small detachment from the total population of Yokomon then came over to them.

"And how about all of you? Are you guys okay?" Wolf asked.

"None of us were hurt, and it's all thanks to you." One Yokomon said.

"I'm glad to hear that."

"We can help Revemon." Another said. "We have herbs in one of the huts which help heal injuries, and can deal with poisons."

"Wow, that'd be great! Thank you!" Wolf said genuinely.

"Don't think about it. It's the least we can do. You saved all of us, and our homes."

"Well, I got to do something to pay you back. Tell you what, while Revemon's getting treated and resting, I'll help all of you rebuild the huts which were destroyed in the fight." Offered Wolf.

"No, you don't have to do that. You've done enough already." A Yokomon to his left said.

"Please, I want to do it."

The Yokomon looked between themselves for a moment, then made eye contact with Wolf again.

"Alright then, you can help!"

With that, they turned and headed back to the village.

OOO

Between Revemon's recovering and the rebuilding process, he and Wolf ended up staying overnight with the Yokomon. It was well into midday when Revemon was up and the final hut had been repaired. Wolf, Revemon, and all the Yokomon were standing at the edge of the village, saying their goodbyes.

"Thank you again for all you help against the Flymon." The lead Yokomon told them.

"Oh, hey, with all the work we did repairing your houses, I forgot to ask, do you have any idea why that attack happened?" Wolf asked.

"Huh? No. We talked about it amongst ourselves, and we don't." Yokomon said.

"You really didn't do anything that might have provoked them?" Revemon asked.

"Nothing at all."

"That's weird." Revemon said to Wolf. "Flymon are mean as they come, but they don't usually go around attacking other digimon without without some reason, no matter how flimsy it might be."

"Huh. There must have been something that set them off we don't know about." Wolf said. "Makes me kinda glad we didn't actually kill them."

"Anyway, don't forget about this." Yokomon said.

Two groups of Yokomon then came forward, pushing two large, sealed containers with them.

"It's the resin you came for in the first place. We hope you get as much use out of it as we do."

Revemon and Wolf both smiled at all the smaller digimon and bent and each picked up one of the containers.

"Thank you." Wolf said.

"Everything considered, been great seeing you guys!" Revemon said enthusiastically.

"Try not to be strangers." The lead Yokomon said.

"See ya!" Revemon said.

"Good bye." Wolf said.

They then turned and started on their long walk back to the lake. A chorus of happy farewells accompanied them for several minutes, and it made both Revemon, and especially Wolf have a feeling of joy.