Chapter 7
Wolf and Revemon were walking through the forest of Panorama Valley, heading back to Dragon Eye Lake. For a short time, they had been making trips between their build site at the lake to a section on the eastern coast Revemon referred to as "Factorial Town." After their adventure in the canyon with Cyclonemon, they'd assembled all of the supplies needed to build the house with one exception. Wolf hadn't thought about it previously, but when Revemon had mentioned the town offhandedly, Wolf had asked about appliances. They didn't need much to make their lives a little bit more convenient when the house was built, just a couple of things.
On the second day after their encounter with Cyclonemon, the two partners had set off for Factorial Town. It had taken them a little over thirteen hours to walk there, partly because of the distance, and partly because they'd been forced to take detours a few times to avoid large numbers of hostile digimon between them and their goal. When they got there, the sight that greeted them had not been what Wolf was expecting. The name of the area turned out to be slightly misleading, as it was not a town, but more one, huge factory.
Getting into the factory had been no problem. There was a huge section of door in the outer perimeter, wide open to the world. The interior had proved to be a real labyrinth, with many twisting corridors. Wolf and Revemon had gotten lost within its halls. It had only been for about ten minutes, but had been discomforting for Wolf, the tight corridors reminding him of New York streets and alleys. The feeling had not been pleasant after the weeks of wide open spaces of the Digital World. They had eventually found an assembly line putting various different machines and appliances together, and then instantly taking them apart again.
Wolf and Revemon wandered around the factory for over an hour before seeing another sign of life. It started with Wolf hearing a low, mechanical whirring coming towards them. It grew louder over several minutes, until they saw it. A silhouette of a giant, robotic looking, man-like digimon standing in the corridor in front of them. An imposing nature impressing itself upon Wolf, he had instantly begun to scan their surroundings, spotting several helpful items for an improvised plan of defense and retaliation.
Wolf had been prepared for a fight right up until the point that Revemon had informed him that this digimon was friendly. He said that the digimon's name was Andromon, and that he often protected weaker digimon, and had no malice towards anyone. After speaking with him for a little while, Wolf knew that Revemon had been right. Andromon turned out to be kindhearted, nice, and soft-spoken. He had been very interested in Wolf's presence in the digital world, speculating that it could have some kind of significance.
Wolf hadn't thought so, and he'd said as much, but nicely, as he'd quickly come to like the large, cybernetic digimon. After he and Revemon had gotten to the primary reason for their visit, Andromon agreed to let them take any electrical gadgets they wished. It was a simple enough matter of just taking the wanted appliances off of the conveyor belt before they were disassembled.
The first thing to get had been a small amount of solar panels and a generator. With the time the full, round trips to the factory and back took, it had taken almost five days for the two of them to make the subsequent trips to the factory to get everything else. They weren't taking much, just lamps, and wiring to be able to have light in the house after nightfall.
Wolf and Revemon were then cutting through Panorama Valley to take the most direct route back. It had been their final trip to Andromon's factory, taking a large enough supply of light bulbs for the lamps to last for many months. They were two thirds of their way back to the lake when it happened.
A little digimon, no more than three feet tall, emerged from a bush thirty-five feet to their left, running intensely and breathing hard. From the look on its face, and the tone of its gait, it was clearly scared. It was a cat like digimon, running on all fours. It had orange fur over most of its body, accented with stripes of black on its sides, back, limbs, and long tail. A white, fluffy mane of fur was around its neck, and more white over its paws. In addition to the mane, there were also two long appendages running from its neck that resembled the ends of a scarf with bits of fur on the ends in the pattern of two interconnected "x" shapes, and a similar pattern on top in additional black accents. Its eyes were a pea green color, with pupils shaped like small crosses. Wolf noticed on the top of its front paws were small, hexagonal crystals with gold borders.
The cat digimon passed them, and a moment later, a much larger digimon crashed through the trees, flying in chase of the smaller one. The flying digimon had an odd, undistinguished appearance. It looked roughly like a kind of insectoid chimera, but it didn't look organic. It's body looked like an image from one of the first computers, seemingly made of large, connected pixels. It was boxy. It was pure white all over except for black, unblinking eyes, and a large "01" on the bottom of its chest.
"Revemon, what are those digimon?" Wolf asked with urgency.
"I don't know. I've never seen either of them before. The big one doesn't look like any digimon I've ever seen." Revemon answered.
They saw the large digimon fire a laser blast from its eyes. The attack struck the ground near to the cat digimon, making it change course in its run to dodge.
"Doesn't matter, we got to help the little one!" Wolf yelled.
He quickly, but carefully put down his box of light bulbs. Revemon did the same, and they took off running towards the departing figures.
The cat digimon ran panicked through the woods, evading the blasts from its pursuer as best it could. More than one of the lasers came close to hitting the mark and ending the cat digimon's life. The cat digimon jumped up to dodge one attack, landed on the side of a tree, and immediately jumped off again, barely missing the flying digimon swiping at it with one of its large, clawed hands. It tore right through the tree, the force of it ripping the tree's roots out of the ground alongside.
The cat digimon continued to run, becoming more frantic and frenzied as the pursuit continued. After a minute, the cat digimon came to bottom of a cliff wall, blocking it. The cat digimon turned to run again, but the flying digimon had already reached it, blocking off its escape. The cat digimon cowered back against the wall as its aggressor approached. The flying digimon loomed over the cat digimon, its air menacing in its bearing without being outright hostile. Its eyes alighted, charging with a final laser shot.
"Fire Spike Slash!"
Revemon jumped, striking the flying digimon across its face, breaking the charge of its attack, and making it look down with the hit. It saw that Wolf was standing in front of it now, pulling down on a long, thick, tree limb.
"Hello!" Wolf declared and let the tree limb go.
It swooshed up fast, hitting hard into the flying digimon's head, and disoriented it. Wolf then quickly grabbed the little cat digimon up into his arms, and he and Revemon took off, running at top speed.
They didn't stop until they had reached the boxes of light bulbs again. The cat digimon in Wolf's hands grunted in terror and squirmed violently in his arms, causing him to have to let go of it.
"Hey, its alright, you're safe now." Wolf said.
"No! Stay away! Get away from me!" The cat digimon said as it backed away, scooting itself on its butt.
From its voice, Wolf decided that it was a girl digimon. He didn't know how, or even if gender worked among them, but he'd spoken with enough digimon so far to know that he knew they did have different gender personality types. She backed away from them until she was half concealed inside the leaves of a shrubbery.
"Stay away from me!" She yelled again.
"It's okay. We're not gonna hurt you." Revemon said.
"No. No!" She screamed and covered her head with her front paws.
At that moment, the weird, flying digimon burst through the trees again. Even though its head had no expression, and almost no face to speak of, it appeared to be angry.
"Revemon." Wolf said.
"You got it, pal!"
Wolf's digivice glowed upon his wrist.
"Revemon digivolve to... Shradomon!"
Shradomon charged and collided with the flying digimon. Shradomon punched it in the head, and the flying digimon swung at him with its arm. The flying digimon fought hard, but Wolf found it odd. Unlike the other malignant digimon they had encountered previously, Wolf noticed that the flying digimon's style of fighting was kind of slow, cumbersome, and unnatural looking. He also saw that the little, cat digimon had not run away. She was still cowering in the bush, apparently too afraid to even try to flee.
"Tail Flick!"
Shradomon whipped his tail into the flying digimon's side, sending it hurtling seventy feet away to the east, and crashed hard into the ground. It rose back up, beating its wings hard. From its far distance, the flying digimon fired a salvo of lasers from its eyes, the shots coming in far more rapid succession than they had before. One of the blasts struck the ground ten feet to Wolf's right, forcing him to jump away into a dodging roll. He came to a stop near to the cat digimon.
Another laser then hit the ground to his and the cat digimon's side, kicking up a cluster of rock and earth shrapnel speeding towards them. Acting on reflex, Wolf dived in front of the cat digimon to cover her. The shrapnel hit heavily into his back, forcing the breath out of him, and sending him down to his hands and knees. Lifting his head, Wolf looked at the cat digimon with concern.
"You okay?" He asked.
The little digimon looked back at him with a combination of confusion and wonder in its eyes.
"You're hurt." She said.
"Don't worry, we won't let that other digimon get you." Wolf responded with a smile.
A new, thundering sound of impact drew both of their attentions. Shradomon was lying on the ground, the flying digimon hovering overhead, a barrier wall projecting from the "01" on its chest. Wolf did not even hesitate as he got to his feet and sprinted flat out towards his partner. Close up, the flying digimon took a swing at Wolf. He ducked underneath it, and pulled his stone knife from the back of his pants. The flying digimon stabbed down at him again, and Wolf dodged, grabbed onto its arm, and hauled himself up on top of it. The digimon's epidermal layer didn't feel like anything resembling skin, but more like rock. Wolf ran up its arm as far as he could, leaped, and tried to bury his knife in its eye. His knife bounced right off, the eye proving to be as dense as the rest of the outer surface. Wolf fell through the air six feet until the flying digimon bashed him away backhanded. He hit the ground and skidded for forty feet before coming to a stop.
The flying digimon turned its gaze upon Wolf, preparing to shoot him with a laser. Just before it could fire, Shradomon revitalized and wrapped his body around the enemy digimon.
"Super Squeeze!"
Shradomon compressed with everything he had, but it had no effect on the other. The flying digimon reached up and grabbed Shradomon's head in its hand, squeezing back.
"Ah! Ah!" Shradomon grunted in pain.
Lifting himself to his knees, Wolf was surprised to find that he did not feel very hurt. He saw that his bomber's jacket was scuffed up from scraping against the ground, but that seemed to be the extent of the damage. Wolf then looked across the way, and saw the danger his partner was in. He scanned all around, looking for something he could use to improvise, but there wasn't anything. There was nothing but trees and rocks, and he couldn't see a way to combine what was directly surrounding them to do any significant damage to the flying digimon. He looked over to where the little, cat digimon was. She was still cowering in the same bush. She clearly wasn't going to be of any help.
Wolf climbed to his feet. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he had to do something. He had one, half of an idea, but it was as dangerous as what he had done with the Flymon. But, there was no way he was going to let Shradomon get hurt, even if he was injured himself in the process. Wolf dashed forward at his top speed, even though he didn't know what he was going to do to get the flying digimon's attention off of Shradomon.
As he ran, Wolf began to feel something weird. There was something like a churning wave building inside of him. The closest experience he could liken it to was the beginnings of growing pains at puberty. Before he knew what was going on, Wolf's digivice blazed with light again, and he was swept away by the swell of power and energy.
"Wolf Wilson digivolve to... Apachemon!"
Apachemon found himself lengths taller than he had been, standing at least forty-five feet in height. That was the only aspect he had the time to analyze, never stopping his push forward despite the circumstances. Apachemon punched the flying digimon in the head with his newly larger and stronger fist. He grabbed the flying digimon's hand, pried it off of Shradomon's head, and then took it by the shoulders and bodily hurled it away.
"Wolf, is that you?" Shradomon asked.
"Yeah, but, this isn't over, so we'll figure this out later. Also, I think my name's 'Apachemon' in this form. I don't know how I know, but I know it."
"Right. Any plans?"
"I got an idea. Follow my lead. Where we were a minute ago." Apachemon said.
"Got it."
The two turned to face their opponent. The flying digimon had already recovered from Apachemon's onslaught. It looked from them to the cat digimon, and took a beeline for the latter.
"Black Blazer!"
Shradomon breathed out his black flames between the flying digimon and its target. Apachemon held his hand out, and a ceremonial decorated bow and arrow materialized within them. He set the arrow and pulled the string taught.
"Apache Arrow!"
He shot it with the expertise of a long trained archer. The arrow soared through the air and struck the flying digimon in the chest before it could deploy its shield barrier. It flew crashing through the trees towards the cliff wall. Before it even halted, Shradomon jetted in front of the other and it hit it with another Tail Flick, making it collide into the cliff wall. Apachemon then ran up.
"Tomahawk Crusher!"
He threw his ax, and it spun end over end until it buried itself in the side of the wall above their adversary. The blow made huge mounds of earth and rock tumble down heavily onto the flying digimon, producing a veiling cloud of dust. It took over a minute for it to settle enough for them to see the result. The digimon was mostly buried under the debris, only its head, one arm, and its wings visible. It started to beat its wings, trying to free itself.
"Black Blazer!"
He released the torrent of fire, and did not let up until the flying digimon broke apart, its data decompiled, effectively dead. The danger passed, Shradomon and Apachemon dedigivolved back into Revemon and Wolf's normal, human form. Wolf felt instantly weak and faintly nauseous. He swayed on his feet so badly, Revemon stepped over and held his hands against Wolf's stomach and back to steady him.
"That was... intense." Wolf said.
"Yeah, digivolving is a big deal. I never once heard of a human doing it, though." Revemon said.
"Me either."
Wolf shook his head back and forth a couple of quick times to clear it, and then also rubbed his eyes to try to get rid of his malaise.
"Think I get now why you eat so much."
Revemon laughed.
"Sure was cool, though. Uh, let's go check on that little cat digimon. Just, just don't let go of me for a couple minutes." Wolf said.
Together they walked back to where they had been. To their combined astonishment, their boxes of light bulbs had not been destroyed by the fight.
"Well, that's one for blind chance." Wolf thought.
They found the cat digimon still cringing in the same bush. Wolf and Revemon knelt down in front of her.
"Hey. Are you okay?" Wolf asked.
She said nothing.
"What's your name?" Revemon asked.
She hesitated for several seconds, looking back and forth between their smiling faces.
"Me... Meicoomon."
"Hi, Meicoomon, it's nice to meet you. He's Revemon, and my name's Wolf. You maybe want to come out of there?"
He gently reached out his hand to help her. Meicoomon cowered away a little further.
"No!"
Wolf pulled his hand back. "That's okay. No problem."
"You're human." She said, stating a fact.
"Yeah, but try not to hold that against him. I know its tough, but I put up with it." Revemon said jokingly.
"But you digivolved. Humans can't digivolve." She said.
"I don't really know how to explain that myself." Wolf said.
"Meicoomon, why was that weird digimon chasing you?" Revemon asked.
"I don't know. I was just trying to figure out where I was, and it just appeared and attacked me!"
"You didn't know where you were?" Wolf asked. "Are you lost?"
Meicoomon started to lightly tear up.
"Yes."
"Where on the island do you live? We can get you back there." Revemon said.
"I don't live here. I don't know how I got here! Mei!"
Wolf and Revemon looked at each other out of the sides of their eyes. They each knew what the other was thinking.
"Do you maybe want to come with us?" Wolf asked.
Meicoomon stopped sniffling and looked at the both of them keenly. In her green eyes, Wolf and Revemon could see that she was thinking it over. After several seconds, she shook her head negatively, and backed a little further into the bush.
"Well then, maybe you don't have to actually come with us." Revemon said. "We're gonna go back to where we stay, and if you were to decide to follow behind us, you technically wouldn't be with us, but you wouldn't be alone either."
Wolf smiled at his digimon. The little guy was clever. By making it clear that they were about to leave, and saying what he had, he made it so Meicoomon could mentally keep her distance, while still coming with them so they could help her.
"Yeah, we should probably get going. Want to get back to the lake before dark." Wolf said.
He and Revemon then both straightened up. They walked over, picked up their boxes of light bulbs, and set off without taking a single look back.
OOO
Meicoomon looked after them as they departed, thinking about them. They had been friendly to her. They had helped her. She could barely remember the last time any human had done that for her. She saw them pass by a tree, and they were lost to sight. Meicoomon suddenly became more scared of being all alone than she was of being near a human, and ran off to follow them.
OOO
Wolf and Revemon heard the light rustle of the leaves, and saw a glint of orange fur out of the corners of their eyes. They were both pleased the little tactic had worked.
OOO
Meicoomon trailed them all the way back to a huge lake. She sat inside the edge of the treeline before the clearing, and just watched them. They didn't do much. They set down their boxes along with several others, and then walked around a small area, looking at a boulder, a huge stack of felled trees, and some other things. She didn't know what they were for, but it seemed to be important to the human, Wolf, and his partner, Revemon.
After only a little while, they set up what looked like fishing poles to her at the side of the lake, the human took most of his clothes off, and then they both ran right into the water, yelling and hollering like they were having a great time. Meicoomon watched with a little bit of wonder as they played and splashed, seeming to have no cares in the world. Seeing how much fun they were having together made her think of her Mei, her own partner.
She could remember the last time she had seen Mei, but no matter how much she wracked her brain, she had no idea how long ago it had been. She wondered if Mei was alright, and if she'd ever see her again. She also felt a small twinge of resentment towards her. Mei had allowed the other digidestined to have their digimon attack and hurt her. Why hadn't Mei tried to help her? Meicoomon looked at the other two in the distance again. They had helped her.
OOO
Night had fallen by the time Wolf and Revemon had the fire lit, and their fish cooking. They ate and cooked them at almost the same time. They'd been fortunate to catch so many, as they were both starving from the fight. Halfway through all of them, the two heard a not too distant rustle of the grass, and a stomach growl. They looked at each other, and smiled a knowing smile.
"You can come out and have some if you want." Wolf called into the darkness.
Nothing happened for about two full minutes. Meicoomon eventually stepped into the far, dim glow of the firelight, hesitancy in her movements. She was standing on her two, hind legs, which they hadn't seen before. She wouldn't come any closer.
"I don't like humans very much." She said. "Humans are mean. They hurt me."
Wolf then stood up, took one of the sticks of cooking fish, and walked only half the distance over to Meicoomon, not wanting to scare her. He went down to one knee to be more on eye level with her, and Revemon joined him at his side.
"Yeah, humans are the worst, aren't they? I don't like them at all, either. They hurt me too, a long time ago. But I promise, I'm not going to hurt you. Not ever." Wolf said.
He tossed the fish so the stick landed on the ground closely in front of her.
"It's true. He loves digimon. He's been a great partner so far, and he's helped a few others. You can trust me on that, if nothing else." Revemon said.
They could see Meicoomon studying their faces, trying to decide. Finally, she picked up the fish and ate it hungrily. The last bite finished, her face lighted up with happy, satisfied pleasure at the taste. Wolf and Revemon both smiled at her, giving small chuckles of delight.
The rest of the meal passed in relative silence. Once it was over, as there wasn't much of anything they could do in the dark, Wolf and Revemon laid down to go to sleep. Wolf looked to his side, and saw that Meicoomon was still standing in the same place she had been the entire time. She didn't make any moves to leave.
"You know, it'll be warmer over here by the fire." Wolf said as way of an invitation.
Meicoomon said nothing, but shook her head "no."
"That's alright. It'd take some time for me too. If you're not here in the morning, I get it, and if you are, then that's fine too." Wolf said.
He then rolled over on his side. Meicoomon laid down on her stomach. They all knew things were going to be a little different from then on.