Chapter 5
The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
T'was half past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Nor one nor t'other had slept a wink!
The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat
(I wasn't there; I simply state
What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)
--The Duel, Eugene Field
Spikemon's low morale lifted a bit as the inhabitants of Digiforum gathered around him, patting him on the back and congratulating him on his battle performance. He was one of the few vaccine types in the village, and always helped defend them from marauding digimon. The only thanks he did not appreciate came from the Gotsumon, who were made of rock, and could not pat anyone on the back without leaving bruises. Everyone stared at Zach in awe, and they all wanted to see his digivice.
The inhabitants had already met Savannah, and Hissmon drew his own crowd of admirers when Savannah mentioned that he had both digivolved and made the winning attack. Spikemon watched Hissmon draw off his own admirers, and growled deep in his throat. Zach nudged him. "Knock it off. You can't be jealous of another Digidestined's partner."
"Oh year?" said the dinosaur, glaring at Hissmon. "Just watch me."
In another ten minutes the crowd had dispersed, as some of the digimon ventured outside the gates to investigate the damage Loricamon had done to the walls. Savannah walked up to Zach. "It's five-thirty. Should we go back before your mom gets home?"
"Oh!" said Zach, clapping a hand to his forehead. "I forgot. Yeah, we'd better go. But what are we going to do with these two?" He motioned to their partners.
Savannah looked at Hissmon. "Do you think you could stay in the Digital World for an hour or two? It'd be better than being locked in Zach's room."
Hissmon and Spikemon regarded each other. "Only an hour?" said Spikemon.
"Yeah," said Zach. "We have to eat dinner. I'll bring some back for you."
Spikemon glowered at Hissmon. "Okay, sure. I can stay in the Digital World for an hour."
Hissmon reluctantly uncoiled from Savannah's shoulders and slithered to the ground. "Hurry back," he said, pulling his length into a shining knot.
Spikemon smiled and waved as Zach and Savannah opened a portal and vanished through it. As the portal closed up on itself, the green dinosaur turned to the snake. "I'm going to thrash you."
The snake bared his venomous fangs. "Are you sure?"
"Heck yeah." And Spikemon pounced.
Zach and Savannah appeared in Zach's room and stood listening for a few seconds. The little house was silent. "She's not home yet," said Zach, exhaling. He stowed his digivice in a desk drawer, and glanced in dismay at his backpack, which contained a formidable amount of homework. Savannah tucked her own digivice into her pocket and followed Zach's gaze. "Uh oh."
"How about we take it to the Digital World after dinner?" suggested Zach, his eyes lighting up. "I'll bet somebody would help us with it."
Savannah pulled out her homework and examined it. "I think I could do half of this over dinner. Think your mom would mind?"
"Naw." Suddenly weary, Zach flopped on his bed. "Man, I'm tired."
Savannah swiped a pencil from Zach's desk and began to fill in answers on a question sheet. "Did you take your medication?"
"I'll take it before dinner," said Zach.
Neither spoke for a few minutes. Outside, a car door slammed, and the front door opened. "Zach, I'm home," called his mother's voice.
"Okay," called Zach without moving.
The bedroom door opened, and a dark-haired woman looked in. "Oh, hi Savannah. Doing your homework over here tonight?"
"Yes, Mrs. Holling," said Savannah, smiling the smile reserved for adults.
Mrs. Holling smiled and said, "Frozen dinners was all I had on the menu for tonight. Is that okay?"
"Sure, that's fine," said Savannah, returning her gaze to her homework.
Mrs. Holling looked at her son. "Zach, are you okay?"
"I'm fine Mom, just tired," said Zach, without opening his eyes. "I'm hungry. And shut the door."
His mother gave him an irritated look and departed, closing the door.
Twenty minutes later, Savannah and Zach covered the kitchen table with homework books and papers, and they had a quiet, distracted meal. Mrs. Holling was tired, and aside from some preliminary small talk, she said little.
They had finished eating, and Zach and Savannah were racing through their homework, when something began to beep in Zach's room. The three looked at each other, and then Zach and Savannah stampeded to the rear bedroom. Concerned, Mrs. Holling followed them. "What is that? Is something wrong?"
Zach arrived first and yanked open his desk drawer. His digivice screen was flashing red. He glanced at Savannah, who pulled out her own digivice. It began to beep and flash in her hand. Then they turned in horror as Zach's mother entered behind them, and saw their digivices.
There was a split second of frantic silence. Then Zach held out his digivice and said unconcernedly, "These are gigapets. They're all the rage at school, and--" His eyes shifted to Savannah. "--I think we forgot to feed them."
"Oh, that's cute," said Mrs. Holling. "Can you turn them down, please?" She walked back into the kitchen, and the two Digidestined exchanged terrified glances.
The screens of their digivices read, "Warning! Spikemon/Hissmon status critical! Damage 100%! Warning!"
"What do we do?" whispered Savannah.
"We've got to go back," whispered Zach. "Go now, I'll feed Mom a story and come as soon as I can." He darted out of the room as Savannah held her digivice toward the computer screen.
Trying to calm his thundering heart, Zach gathered up their neglected homework from the kitchen table. "We're going to do our homework in there," he said, hoping his voice wasn't quavering. "Then, uh, we're going to watch a movie on my computer, so..." He trailed off, aware of how quickly he could ruin everything. Avoiding his mother's questioning look, he lifted the books and papers and sprinted for his room. He slammed the door, dumped everything on his bed, and snatched up his digivice. Then he hesitated. He was unarmed, and if Spikemon was down, he had no way of defending himself. On impulse he grabbed the baseball bat he had menaced Spikemon with, and opened the digiportal.
It was night again in the Digital World, but the light was a dark blue instead of black, and Zach could see. His digivice still flashing, he dashed across the now-familiar meadow and through the woods toward Digiforum.
He smelled moke as he neared the crest of the hill, and stopped for breath at the top. Below him, Digiforum was in flames. Small, half-lit figures ran about, confused and terrified. Loricamon was there, and in the dim light it seemed he had grown twice his former size, and was demolishing a section of the walls with sweeps of his powerful tail.
"I hate you," whispered Zach. Then he lifted his bat and charged down the slope.
Savannah was one of the small figures fleeing the town. Hissmon was slung over her shoulder, as limp as a spaghetti noodle, and she was dragging Spikemon by one arm. "Take him," she gasped as Zach ran up.
Zach hooked his arms under Spikemon and lifted him, grunting at the dinosaur's weight. Spikemon moaned and flopped his head over Zach's shoulder. "What happened?" Zach asked, his breath coming in jerks from running. Savannah was leading the way back up the hill, and had no breath for a reply.
Halfway up they had to stop and rest, and laid their digimon on the grass. In the combined light from the bright stars and the burning town, they examined their partners. Hissmon was bleeding from four deep bites along his body, and was unconscious, his unlidded eyes staring at nothing. Spikemon had three small bites on his right forearm, but they had hardly bled at all. He looked up at Zach and smiled.
"What happened?" Zach asked.
"We fought," said Spikemon dreamily. "I jumped Hissmon ... and he bit me ... and I bit him ... his venom is making the world turn funny colors..." His speech died away in an insensible giggle.
Zach and Savannah looked at each other. "It made him high," said Savannah, fighting back a laugh.
Zach would have laughed, too, had he not been so frightened. "High nothing, he's overdosed. Spikemon, don't go to sleep!"
But Spikemon was slipping into unconsciousness with a smile on his face, and Zach's digivice began to flash again. "No!" wailed Zach, shaking Spikemon. "Don't do this!" Perhaps Loricamon heard him, or perhaps a superior directed the stegosaur toward them. At any rate, the clawed, armored monster abandoned his demolition of Digiforum and stalked up the hill toward the Digidestined, snorting fire with every breath.
Savannah lifted Hissmon's yard of limp body and ran for the hilltop. Swearing, Zach tried to pull Spikemon to his feet, but it seemed that the dinosaur's weight had increased, and he could not. Loricamon was coming fast, his eyes glowing red against the night. Zach sat still for half a second, panting, gripping his baseball bat in one hand and Spikemon's forepaw in the other. His rage was becoming cold fear. Loricamon was bigger, uglier and scalier than he had realized, and those claws could tear him in half with one swipe. All he had to defend himself with was a stoned digimon and a baseball bat.
He got up and retreated several steps, then paused and looked back. Loricamon was looking at Spikemon with a grin, as if he meant to exact revenge for Spikemon's attack of a few hours before. He swaggered up to Spikemon's fallen form and sniffed it, fire sparking from his nostrils.
There was no chance in a million that Zach would survive a fight with a champion-level digimon, but he was not thinking rationally. With a battlecry he ran forward and struck Loricamon across the face with his bat.
The dinosaur recoiled, jaws open, but before he could attack, Zach hit him again with a crack of metal on bone. Loricamon swiped at him with his long claws, but Zach jumped aside. Fear, anger and adrenaline were so mixed in him that the data his body was composed of began to rewrite.
Zach leaped in and struck Loricamon on the jaw, the eyebrow, the cheek, anywhere he could land a blow. But Loricamon lunged forward, jaws open, and nearly knocked Zach over. Zach scrambled away, panting, then turned again to face his enemy. He raised his bat, but before he could swing it, something clicked in his mind and he felt the bat become a digital weapon. "Strike one!" he yelled, and swung. The path the bat traced through the air became a green arc that slashed into Loricamon's side like a laser beam. "Strike two!" he yelled, and the beam this time was yellow. "Strike three, you're out!" he yelled, and swung the bat again.
A blast of energy erupted from the end of the bat, and struck Loricamon with such power that it knocked the enormous beast off its feet and sent him tumbling down the hill.
Zach stood still, holding the bat, gasping, not quite believing what had just happened. Down the hill, Loricamon lay in an unmoving heap. "I killed him," breathed Zach, looking in awe at his bat. For a second he thought it winked at him, but he had no time to look closer, for Spikemon stirred and groaned. Zach moved to his side. His adrenaline was wearing off, and suddenly he was dog-tired. His arms shook as he lay down the bat and touched Spikemon's head.
"I feel sick," said the dinosaur, struggling to rise. "What happened?" He cocked his head and saw the burning village, and Loricamon's fallen body. His eyes widened. "Who took out Loricamon?"
"I did," said Zach, "with my baseball bat."
Spikemon gazed at his partner in newfound admiration. "Boy, I'm glad you didn't use it on me that night!"
"Look out!" came Savannah's distant shriek.
Zach and Spikemon ducked as something enormous swept overhead, something that blotted out the stars with wings as wide as a circus tent. It flew down the hill and landed on Loricamon. In the light of the fire, Zach saw it was a bird, an enormous black bird with chains around its feet and stretched across its back. It stood over Loricamon for a moment, then beat its massive wings and soared away into the night, the wind from its wings flattening the grass.
Loricamon lifted his head and heaved himself onto his feet.
"Oh heck," muttered Spikemon and Zach in unison.
Zach picked up his baseball bat and stood, but the fight adrenaline had left him, and his body felt slow and heavy. The bat felt as if it weighed fifty pounds. "We'd better run," he said to his partner.
"Right," said Spikemon, struggling to stand. He only managed this by hanging on to Zach's pantleg, and he was trembling from the after-effects of Hissmon's poison.
Loricamon roared and charged toward them, completely recovered.
Spikemon looked up at Zach, then rested his head against Zach's knee and closed his eyes. Zach gripped his bat with both hands. "I took him out before. I can take him out again. He stepped forward to defend Spikemon a second time.
There was a twinkle of light at Zach's feet, and the glanced down. Lying on the grass was a plastic strip the size of a stick of gum with a strange symbol on it. Even as the ground began to shake under Loricamon's footfalls, he picked it up and looked at it. It looked like a tiny keycard...
Suddenly Zach understood. He pulled his digivice out of his pocket. So that was what went in those two slots on the side. He inserted the stick with a satisfying click.
Digivolution activate, said the screen.
Spikemon jumped away from Zach with a whoop, and his body melted into a white sphere. Data was sucked out of Zach's digivice as he grew bigger and bigger, and began to reform into a tyrannosaur shape. He whooped again, and this time it was a roar. He whirled, jaws open, as his new form took shape: a dark green tyrannosaur with a short, square muzzle, and a long, metal-tipped horn above each eye. "Carnomon!" he said, towering eight feet above Zach. "It would have taken two more years to grow this big! Time to show Loricamon who's boss, eh?" And he bolted down the hill to meet the stegosaur.
"Yeah! Give it to him! Eat him up!" cheered a strange voice nearby. Zach jumped and looked around, even as Carnomon's "Horn Rush!" echoed over the hillside.
"Who is that?"
"Oh, don't mind me," said the voice. "I love a good fight, that's all. Oh, you shouldn't have quit Little League when you did."
Suspicious, Zach looked down and saw his baseball bat was looking up at him. "You could have hit a home run the way you walloped that lizard," it said. It looked the same as it had while under his bed--silver with a black stripe around the end--but it had sprouted eyes and a mouth just above the handle. Zach picked it up, but was distracted as Carnomon roared, "Flame Breath!" and bathed Loricamon in a torrent of orange flame.
"Go for it! Get him!" whooped the bat.
"Zach?" came Savannah's voice. She was creeping down the hill toward him, cradling Hissmon in her arms. "Where's Spikemon? And who's that talking?"
"My bat," said Zach, holding it up so she could see its face. "It's alive."
"You bet I'm alive," said the bat. "Zach converted me to data when he used me as a weapon. The Digital World has odd rules, doesn't it?"
Savannah was only half listening, staring in awe at Carnomon as the enormous Digimon teased Loricamon. "Is that Spikemon?"
"He digivolved," said Zach. He was suddenly aware that his courage level had gone from 4 to 5, and his power was now 3. He was also aware that he was exhausted.
"I'm going to take Hissmon home," said Savannah, sounding worried. "We have bandages and stuff at home, and I think Mom will let me keep a snake. And it's almost eight."
"Aw, right as it was getting good," complained the baseball bat.
"Go ahead," said Zach. "If Carnomon actually kills Lorry, it probably won't be pretty."
As he spoke, Loricamon gave an anguished cry and sank to the ground, his data streaming away in all directions like smoke. Within sections he was gone, and Carnomon roared in triumph.
"I did not want to see that," said Savannah, opening a digiport. She vanished through it as Carnomon climbed the hill toward Zach. His sides were heaving and his jaws were streaked with foam, but he looked happy. "That was the awesomest battle I ever had! Thanks, Zach."
"Right," said Zach. "Now I've got to make you smaller."
"Try taking out the data stick," said the baseball bat.
"What in the?" said Carnomon, sniffing at the bat. "You can talk?"
"Call me Base," said the bat. "I spent the last five minutes naming myself. I prefer Excaliber, but it's too gaudy, you know?"
Zach pulled the data stick out of his digivice, and Carnomon shrank back into Spikemon, his excess data collecting in the data stick. "Now that's what they call a shrinking sensation," said Spikemon. He shook his head, then looked over his shoulder at Digiforum. The residents were using various water attacks to douse the flames, and a great cloud of steam was rising from it.
"Don't leave me alone again," said Spikemon.
"Okay," said Zach. "We'd better go now, I'm wiped."
"Hey, what about me?" demanded Base. "Don't I get any thanks?"
"Just shut up," said Zach, opening a digiport.
It was a phrase he would use often in the days to come.