Chapter 7: The Young Knight

Yggdrasil's Keep, unknown part of the Digital World…

Gallantmon…

I had thought a good night's rest would ease my guilt over what we had done to the humans in the town square. But even in my dreams… the boy Leopardmon killed still haunted me. How many more humans would die before the King's demands were met? We had heard nothing from the human world since the King's ultimatum and it wouldn't be long before more of them fell.

I knew I shouldn't feel the sympathy I felt for the humans. They were straining our world to its breaking point with all of their senseless violence. But yet… the fear in their eyes when that boy fell… this all felt so wrong.

But it was not my place to question my king. We were doing this for the sake of the Digital World. A few lives to save billions more. So why did that fact do so little to ease my troubled mind?

"Gallantmon."

I was pulled from my introspection by the voice of one of my comrades. A centaur in red armor known as Kentaurosmon. "You seem troubled, old friend," he said.

I was reluctant to answer, my worries could sound treasonous to the wrong ears. But, Kentaurosmon was smart and could see through any ill prepared deception I could come up with. "I still question if what we are doing to the humans is right," I confessed.

Kentaurosmon nodded his head, "I understand," he said. "Humans are as wholly neutral as any Digimon species," he continued. "But their race has much to answer for, would you not punish a baby Digimon that was misbehaving?" he then asked me.

"Death seems like a cruel punishment," I pointed out.

"Indeed it is, Leopardmon had no right to take that human's life," he answered. Every knight knew about what happened at the square when Omnimon reprimanded Leopardmon in front of the other knights when we returned to the keep. "But still, humans need to understand and respect the sovereignty of the Digital World, and this is the only way that it happens." he explained to me.

I knew Kentaurosmon was right. But still… "How many do you believe will perish?" I asked.

Kentaurosmon sighed and turned his head away from me. "I cannot say, but I pray it is few," he said.

Just then a beep was heard. Kentaurosmon tapped his wrist and a message appeared. Since we were both together I saw no need to do the same. "It's the report from our young knight," he told me. I had heard Gankoomon had sent his pupil to keep tabs on the humans while we awaited the human world's response. However, as Kentaurosmon read…his eyes grew sadder. "It… appears there was an attack on File City last night, one of the former "boss" Digimon, Fangmon, had gone mad after awakening and attacked the humans," he told me.

I guess this was inevitable, wasn't it? The amount of times those boss Digimon died and were reborn would drive anyone mad. "How bad was it?" I asked.

"Twenty three humans were killed in the attack," he told me, "But that's only counting the ones our scout witnessed personally," he continued to explain.

That made twenty four known human deaths and it hasn't even been a full day yet. But yet… what stopped it? Surely it would have kept killing until every human in File City was dead, right? "Does it say why it stopped at twenty three?" I asked.

"That's the oddest part," Kentaurosmon said, "According to the scout, a human was able to Digivolve his partner and defeat the Fangmon."

That… that can't be right! "Omnimon had told us that severing the humans from the protections of the game would make their Digimon unable to advance past Rookie level!" I said.

Kentaurosmon looked down at the report again, "Well, if our scout is to be believed, one of them found a way around it," he said.

I had little reason to believe our scout would lie about something like this. But it made so little sense. Perhaps there was more to these partnerships between humans and their Digimon than I or any of my comrades had thought?

But, there was something to be concerned about. "Do you think this will give humans the confidence to resist us?" I asked.

Kentaurosmon sighed, "If you were in their position, wouldn't you?" he asked me rhetorically. "We must inform the king of this development," he said. I nodded and we both left to do just that.

All the while I couldn't help but ponder the meaning behind this new development, because if one human could overcome the program and Digivolve his partner, it meant that the influence a human had over their Digimon wasn't just due to the game… but something more…

Meanwhile…

Server Inn…

Jack Tidwell…

It amazed me how easily I was able to fall asleep.

You'd think with everything that happened last night that getting a decent night's rest would be difficult. But I guess all the excitement from everything that happened had sapped all of my energy and I wound up sleeping like a rock.

Even finding out that we could actually get tired at all was a bit of a discovery, none of us saw it coming until it happened. I guess for all intents and purposes, these avatars were our physical bodies now. It was a weird sensation to have these basic bodily needs in a virtual world. Even if its nature as a video game did turn out to be a fabrication if everything that was happening were any indication.

Whatever the case, it was Koe's idea to go to the File Inn to spend the night. Apparently it was where he and Carly were before the Fangmon attack. What kind of struck me as odd about the Inn was how accommodating the staff were.

As with every other business in this town, it was run exclusively by Digimon. You'd think they'd hold a grudge against us just as Omnimon had implied when he executed the program. But… no. The staff seemed to be embracing its new identity as a shelter for the players trapped in this world, even offering accommodations free of charge.

It made me wonder about the true nature of the Digital World, if things were really as Omnimon had said. So far the only other Digimon we'd encountered since getting trapped here was Fangmon, who was driven insane by his own nature as a boss enemy so he wasn't exactly a reliable example for the rest of Digimon-kind.

Whatever the case, I seemed to be the first one to wake up. We all shared a room with two beds. The Digimon elected to sleep on the floor while Carly got a bed to herself. Forcing me and Koe to share one because she's "not sharing a bed with two men she doesn't know". I can't say I blame her for that, but it was still a little awkward for Koe and I. In fact, if it wasn't for how exhausted we were, it probably would have kept us up all night.

The sun was seeping through the closed blinds of the window. I tried to move as carefully as I could without waking anyone up. A task that proved quite difficult considering the room wasn't too big and the floor was completely covered in the sprawled bodies of sleeping Digimon.

I didn't even know what I was going to do to pass the time until everyone else woke up. There wasn't a TV in the room and my phone was currently on my desk in another dimension. It only struck me now just how much I had relied on technology back in the real world. Between my phone and that new HouseTek AI, I really felt kinda lost without them.

There was a bathroom at least. I managed to navigate the maze of sleepy Digimon and make it into the bathroom. I looked into the mirror just as I found myself doing every morning and… well… it was definitely still me. God, my hair is a mess, and I don't really have access to a hairbrush either. It was kind of spooky how much my avatar looked like me, although I think waking up to a completely different face staring back at me in the mirror would be even creepier, to be honest.

I could never really get over how different things have felt since the program was executed. I could feel everything I would have in the real world. The coldness of the sink I laid my hands on, the tiredness of my eyes, the cold tile beneath my bare feet. It was like actually being here and that had its own unsettling weirdness to it. It was hard to really put into words but it was just this… persistent feeling of… wrongness that never really stopped gnawing at me.

I guess since everything was so calm and quiet now was what was allowing it to really sink in. Honestly, everything had been so chaotic since the program that I never really had a chance to truly let the surreal nature of this situation really set in.

That wasn't the only thing that was sinking in either. The promise I made to Bulucomon yesterday, about finding a way to stop King Drasil. What exactly was my plan? I had no idea where King Drasil was or if he would even listen to us at all. But I knew deep down it was probably going to be the only way we could make it home.

I didn't like the idea of putting my faith in a company like Syncro Technologies caving in to the demands of a digital king they had no way of proving even existed. Hell, even I still questioned the validity of his existence. There was so much about this whole thing I still didn't understand.

So far, my only "plan" was to help Carly find her friend Travis and mindlessly fumble around in the dark from there. That wasn't a plan, Jack, that was just winging it at best. But what else could I do? I can't just sit here and hope for rescue that more than likely will never come, but I also have no means of finding out how to stop all of this either.

I could feel myself getting more anxious the more I thought about it. It kind of made me miss the days when my biggest worry was an embarrassing video of me getting posted on YouTube. I hadn't even thought of Brad's video since this all happened, it seemed almost comical that I was that worried about it after everything that's happened so far.

I leaned myself against the bathroom wall and let out a deep sigh. Let's face it Jack, you're in way over your head just like everyone else trapped in the Digital World.

"Jack?"

I turned my head towards the door to find Bulucomon standing outside the bathroom. It seems while I was overthinking my situation, Bulucomon had woken himself up. "You okay? You look stressed," he asked me.

How do I even explain all this to him? I knew better than not to try though. "I'm just… I kinda feel like I'm in over my head with all this "saving the world" stuff," I said.

"How come?" He asked me.

"I have no plan outside of helping Carly find her friend," I explained. "Do we even know where to start looking for King Drasil?" I asked.

Bulucomon shot me a childlike grin, "You're silly," he said.

Uh… excuse me.. what? "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

Bulucomon walked over to the bathroom sink and pulled himself up and sat on it so he was facing me. "You always overthink things, it's silly," he clarified.

Considering what was at stake here, I think I could be forgiven for overthinking things! "People's lives are on the line here, if I screw this up-" I began but Bulucomon didn't let me finish.

"You won't screw it up," he told me in a surprisingly stern tone. As if the very idea that I was being this cautious was offensive to him. "You remember what happened when you stopped worrying and just believed in yourself?" he asked me.

"Digivolving isn't exactly going to tell us where King Drasil is," I replied.

"That's not the point," Bulucomon said. "Good things happen when you stop thinking everything's gonna go wrong and have a little faith in yourself," he explained.

I really wish I could see things the way Bulucomon did. To be this unwavering optimist who can throw caution to the wind and just believe he could do anything he sets his mind to with nothing more than a winning smile and a can-do attitude. But I wasn't like that, I was a worrier, it kind of came with the whole anxiety thing. I needed the structure of a well thought out plan provided.

However, before this conversation could go any further, there was a sudden rumbling sound that came from… my stomach. I put my hand on my belly and felt a slight vibration from it. I hadn't even thought about how long it had been since I'd eaten. Could I even eat in this world?

Bulucomon seemed to find this pretty amusing. "I was starting to wonder if humans even got hungry," he commented.

As if on cue, there was a sudden knock on the door. "Room service!" a raspy voice said from the other side of the door. The door quickly flung open and in came a gray cat-rabbit thing wheeling a cart with two metal serving trays on top. "Breakfast courtesy of the File I-" the rabbit began before getting hit out of nowhere with a flying pillow.

"I was sleepin' ya stoopid furball!" slurred the tired voice of a now awake Carly.

Bulucomon and I peered out of the bathroom to find a very tired and annoyed looking Carly sitting up on her bed. Her hair a frazzled mess.

It seemed the File Inn staff had decided to prepare breakfast for us. Which was nice of them, even if Carly nailed the poor bellhop with a pillow mid sentence. I hope he's payed well.

"Oh boy! Breakfast!" said Bulucomon before dashing out of the bathroom in a blue blur.

Deciding that I should probably get to those serving trays before Bulucomon downed everything like the living garbage disposal he was, I exited the bathroom and made my way to the cart.

I lifted the cover and found all of the basic breakfast items you'd expect. Eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns… even some waffles and pancakes. I began taking plates and filling them with each of the items and mindlessly handing them out to everyone. I figured doing this would keep Bulucomon from eating everything before anyone else could have any.

"This is an interesting change, being served breakfast instead of serving it," Carly commented, no doubt remembering the days serving breakfast at her parent's diner that she told us about last night.

"Can we even eat the food here?" Koe asked, having been previously awoken by the bellhop coming in and Carly's subsequent outburst.

It was a good question, but apparently not important enough to Carly for her not to immediately shove a large piece of pancake in her mouth. "They taste real enough to me," she commented.

Koe just shook his head, "Man, this whole thing just keeps getting weirder and weirder," he said as I handed him his plate.

"It's better than starving to death and not being able to do anything about it," I pointed out as I handed Bulucomon his plate, which he immediately snatched out of my hands and began tearing through it like he hadn't eaten in months.

After everyone in the group got their plates, I sat down and cautiously took a slice of bacon off the plate. How does this even work? Digital food being eaten by a digital avatar, I mean? I timidly took a bite out of the bacon and sure enough the familiar taste of meat and maple hit my virtual taste buds.

I guess Omnimon was right about our virtual bodies being every bit as real as the Digimon that inhabited this world. But all this did was add another layer to surviving this place, because now not only did we have to keep our Digimon well fed, we had to make sure we had food for ourselves too.

Apparently I wasn't the only human in the room that had been a lot more hungry than they were expecting either, as Koe and Carly wolfed down their own breakfasts too. "Man, I haven't had a breakfast that good in forever," Koe commented.

Carly nodded before placing her plate neatly upon the bed. "So, now that that's done," she said, "We need to start talking about our game plan, here," she declared.

"Game plan?" Bearmon questioned, syrup dangling from his mouth.

"We can't just go wandering the Digital World like chickens with their heads cut off," Carly explained.

I felt the ice ball come back, knowing I had no real plan at all and Bulucomon's "just trust yourself" speech hadn't exactly helped me all that much. "W-well, we uh… we should probably st-stock up on supplies, first," I stammered. That was as close to a plan as I could come up with at the moment.

Carly nodded, "Yeah, don't want to be caught in another battle with no healing items," she said. "Thankfully, I've been playing this game for a while and know exactly what we're going to need," she added.

"But we still don't know where to start looking for your boyfriend," Koe pointed out.

"He is not my boyfriend," Carly snarled.

"Whatever," Koe dismissed, "Point is, we don't know where this Travis dude went off to," he then explained.

"I have a pretty good idea," Carly said. "Travis is probably in "survivor" mode right now, which means he's probably trying to grind to make his Digimon stronger and get more Bits so he has a better chance of surviving," she explained.

"Does that even still work?" Koe asked.

"Probably not, but that isn't going to stop him from trying," Carly explained.

"So where would he be, then?" I asked.

"The easiest place to level up… Northern Forest," she answered.

I mean, it was a place to start at least. "So that's our plan then," I said, "We stock up on supplies and head for the Northern Forest."

Everyone agreed and after taking care of the plates and putting our clothes back on, we headed out to begin our shopping spree. We had figured out that we all had a healthy supply of bits, with me having the most thanks to the loot drop I got from Fangmon yesterday.

Carly had led us to a particular item shop she considered the best one for our current needs. Koe and I, having accepted that she knew more about this game than either of us, went along with it and followed her to the item shop in question.

Said item shop was kind of set up like a small grocery store, with isles of items and even having the typical droning "muzak" you'd hear in a grocery store. As for the stuff we ended up buying, it was mostly the usual stuff like healing items, DP Disks, bandages, stuff to cure status ailments like injury and poison, and some chips for stat buffs.

But there were odd things you wouldn't expect to be in an RPG, like the camping tent Carly insisted we needed. She said that, since it was going to be a long journey, we'd need shelter for the night since sleeping out in the open in this game apparently gave your Digimon a stat debuff.

"Okay, that should do for the stuff we can get here," she said before checking out. "We have one more stop we need to make before we head out," she explained.

As we left the store, Carly led us to a part of town I hadn't been to yet. It seemed a little less… "developed" I guess you could say. The cobblestone floors and clay buildings had been replaced by lush vegetation and a more "country" like feel.

Soon enough we found ourselves outside of some kind of garden being manned by some kind of plant like Digimon with a pink flower on its head. The Digimon spotted us immediately, "Hello!" it greeted us, "You're just in time! My new crop is just about ready for harvest!" it said.

Oh I get it, we need to stock up on food items too. Considering just how much the Digimon eat… and the knowledge that we needed to keep ourselves fed too, there was no such thing as "enough" as far as food was concerned. The plant Digimon then led us into the garden and… uh… well… it wasn't what I was expecting, to put it kindly.

There, growing out of the ground in neat little rows were…chunks of meat, just like the ones the Digimon ate at the restaurant last night. "Is… is that meat growing out of the ground?" I couldn't help but ask.

The plant Digimon turned to me. "Where else would it come from?" it asked me as if my question was the stupidest thing it'd ever heard.

I didn't even know if I should answer that question or not. My brain just could not wrap its head around the logic of it. How does meat grow out of the ground? What do you plant to grow a meat crop? Where did vegetables come from in this universe? Would eating an animal in this universe count as eating a vegetable? So many questions I'd probably never get the answers to.

Carly didn't seem too bothered by the strangeness of this whole thing, which made sense, she'd been playing this game a lot longer than either of us had. Koe meanwhile, seemed to share my confusion over the situation.

I also happened to notice Bulucomon staring at the meat crop with hungry eyes and a little bit of drool seeping from his half open jaw. This, despite the fact he'd just eaten not too long ago.

Falcomon noticed this immediately and decided the best course of action was to bap poor Bulucomon upside the head. "Don't even think about it!" snarled Falcomon.

"I was just looking!" whined Bulucomon.

"With a fountain of drool dripping from your mouth," Falcomon added dryly.

"I can't help it!" said Bulucomon "I haven't eaten since this morning," he explained.

Bearmon then suddenly decided to join the conversation. "But that was only a few minutes ago," he said.

"And?" Bulucomon replied.

"Unbelievable," Falcomon sighed as he rolled his eyes.

If there's one thing I've learned about Bulucomon since he became sentient, it's that he really really liked food. More so than even the other Digimon did. It would be kind of amusing if it wasn't about to become a massive drain on our resources.

Speaking of, Carly was already arranging payment for the… ugh… "meat harvest". Suddenly a very large stack of meat found itself in my inventory. "Holy crap… How much did you buy?" I asked.

"I'm a high level player," Carly said. "You get larger meat crops when you get to higher tamer levels," she said.

There are tamer levels? Guess that goes to show just how little about this game I knew. With our meat in tow, we bid our farewell to the meat gardener, which, yes, is a sentence that did hurt me a little inside, thanks for asking.

With all that done, we headed towards the entrance to Northern Forest. It felt weird to be back here again after all that's happened. I still remember the feeling I got upon coming here the first time, excited to see what this game had in store for me. Suffice to say, I wasn't feeling the same way right now.

It wasn't just that I knew I could die here now either, strangely I had gotten pretty used to the feeling by now. It was more the fact I had no idea what it would be like in there now that the enemies weren't shackled to the game's programming anymore. Who knows what was waiting for us there.

"So… we ready for this?" Koe asked.

"As ready as we'll ever be," replied Carly.

"Then let's do this," I said before we all walked through the gate and out of the safety of File City for the first time since the game became more than a game.

So far the forest didn't feel too different. We even still managed to find a few items here and there. I kept waiting for us to run into a Psychemon or any other enemy Digimon. But so far, all I saw were trees and rocks.

It only really dawned on me now that we could spend days searching this forest and never find a single sign of this Travis guy anywhere. "Guys… we need a change of plans here, I'm not seeing any signs of anyone here at all," I said.

We all pondered for a moment, trying to think of a plan here that would make this search a lot easier. It was then I noticed Bearmon out of the corner of my eye, or more specifically, his big black nose. "Carly, you think Bearmon can scent track?" I asked Carly.

Bearmon turned to me. "K-Kinda?" he stammered.

Carly turned to her partner, "You remember Travis' scent?" she asked him.

Bearmon nodded, "No, you guys were just avatars back then," he said. "But I know his Digimon's scent!" he then added. It was just as good, considering Travis would be an idiot not to be with his own Digimon right now.

Bearmon began to sniff at the air before finally picking up a scent. "He's not too far from here," he said before turning to his left. "This way!" he said before he got on all fours and started tracking, not unlike a hunting dog.

We all followed closely behind, this was the only real lead we had and to be honest I was kind of shocked it was working. Having Bearmon track Travis' scent was little more than a shot in the dark on my part. But hey, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth here.

Eventually Bearmon led us to a little stream that fed into a giant river. He began to sniff around at the air before slumping onto his rear and making a disappointed whimper. "The scent ends here," he said.

Kind of an odd place for it to go cold. I mean, I guess his Digimon could have gotten swept up in the river, but I didn't want to think of what that meant for him, or his Digimon for that matter.

"So, what do we do now?" Asked Koe. That was a pretty good question, I guess we could search the area and hope to find something. But who knows if we'd even find anything… we'd have to get real lucky and-

"HEY! YOU THERE!"

A very loud voice was calling from my left. "Yeah you! Carrot top! I'm talkin' ta you!" the voice called again before I heard gurgling sounds. I looked to where the voice was coming from and followed it down the river until I found a little red glove holding onto an outstretched tree branch.

Attached to the glove was a little purple imp creature wearing a red bandanna around its neck. "Don't just stand there gawkin' at me! HELP ME OUT HERE!" the imp yelled at me.

"Guys! I found something!" I called out to the others before moving to help the little imp.

I grabbed onto the back of his bandanna and pulled him out of the river. The imp quickly began to cough up some water from his mouth before turning to me. "Ya really know how ta keep a guy waitin' don'cha?" he snarled at me before getting to his feet and shaking the water off of his body, not unlike a dog. "Geeze, some people ain't got no sense," he said.

Koe and Carly soon arrived on the scene with their partners. Carly recognized the little imp immediately. "Yup, that's Travis' partner alright," she said. "But where's Travis?" she asked.

The imp seemed somewhat offended for some reason. "Oh I'm fine, thanks for askin'!" he snarled. "As for Travis, I dunno where he went and quite frankly I don't really care," he then said.

Everyone was kind of caught off guard by that last bit, especially the Digimon. "B-But he's your partner, isn't he?" Bulucomon asked.

"He was a pretty lousy one if ya ask me,'' said the imp. "We spent all day in this stinkin' forest tryin' ta find clues on how ta get you humans home, I kept tellin' him he was wastin' his time but no one ever listens to ol Impmon," he continued to complain, at least we knew what his name was now.

"So, how'd you end up in the river?" I asked.

Impmon seemed caught off guard by that question. "I-I was getting to that!" he stammered. "It was the craziest thing, this Digimon in a red cloak came outta nowhere and started attacking us," he explained. "I of course showed him what for but the bastard got a lucky shot on me and sent me into the river, he then chased Travis off to who knows where," he added.

I kinda felt like he wasn't being completely honest with us and Carly immediately saw right through it, "You mean you got your ass kicked and this attacker chased Travis off," she said dryly.

Impmon immediately got offended by this accusation. "WHAT DO YOU KNOW?! YOU WEREN'T EVEN THERE!" He screamed.

"Call it an educated guess," Carly said. "What direction did they run off to?" she then asked.

"Why should I tell you anything?" Impmon huffed.

It didn't seem like Impmon was too fond of his partner, his reasons as to why were a complete mystery but right now it was causing us to hit a brick wall. He was the only one here who knew where Travis was.

I then realized something. "Because you owe me," I said.

Impmon quickly whipped around so fast it actually startled me. "Like hell I do!" he snapped.

It was Bulucomon's turn to get offended. "If it weren't for Jack you'd still be in that river!" he snapped.

"That don't mean I owe him nothin, frost face!" Impmon snapped back.

Bulucomon then got right into Impmon's face. "You're one to talk about lousy partners, leaving your human to fend for himself because you're too grumpy to help anyone!" he accused Impmon.

"You-he… you see- uh" Impmon floundered before holding his head in his hands and roaring in anger "FINE!" he yelled. "They went that way, okay?" he said, pointing to his right.

Bulucomon let a smug grin creep across his face. "Was that so hard?" he asked.

"Shut up!" Impmon pouted. "Lousy good for nothin' snow lizard," he then grumbled under his breath.

I then turned to the others, "It's about as good as we're gonna get," I shrugged.

"Then what are we waiting for? If Travis is in danger we have to move, and fast," Carly said.

I nodded and went to leave with everyone else, but as we did. "HEY! Wait for me!" cried the voice of Impmon as he quickly followed us.

"I thought you didn't care about your "lousy partner"?" Carly said snidely.

"I-I just don't wanna risk you bums messin' it up and getting yourselves killed, that's all," he said. I knew he was lying, but there wasn't really that much point in calling it out right now. Travis needed his Digimon if he was gonna survive here, so it's not like it was a good idea to tell Impmon to piss off.

Ya know, I had always wondered if any of the partner Digimon felt negatively about their partners, and Impmon seemed to prove that there were some who did resent their humans. But… I dunno… he did end up caving when Bulucomon accused him of being a bad partner, so who knows how Impmon really felt about Travis.

He was certainly a vibrant personality though, I'd give him that much. "So, I know who blue tips is, but who are you two bozos?" Impmon asked, referring to Koe and I.

"I'm not a bozo!" Koe objected. "The name's Koe," he introduced himself.

"I-I'm Jack," I said. "So… how long were you in that river?" I asked.

Impmon seemed reluctant to answer, "I dunno, a few minutes?" he guessed.

Koe let a snicker escape his lips, which Impmon immediately took offense to. "You got something ta say ta me baldy?!" he snapped. Boy, Impmon was pretty high strung, wasn't he?

Koe just threw his hands up. "I'm not saying nothing, man," he said, unable to keep himself from chuckling as he said it.

"I can't swim! Okay?" Impmon said defensively. "Sue me."

Carly then turned to Impmon, "As captivating as this conversation is, I'd like to know a little more about this Digimon that attacked Travis," she said.

"I didn't exactly ask him his life's story," Impmon said. "He was wearin' white and red, that's all I saw before he knocked me into the river," he then clarified.

Bearmon seemed confused, "But I thought you said you beat him up?" he questioned.

Impmon's cheeks immediately became red in embarrassment upon being caught in a lie. "I-uh- you see-" he stammered, trying to salvage his little lie before finally giving up. "Just keep walkin'," he groaned.

"BACK OFF MAN!"

We all stopped dead in our tracks the second we heard that voice pierce the otherwise silent forest. While most of us didn't know who it belonged to, Carly knew immediately. "Travis!" she called before pushing past Koe and I to rush to her friend's aid.

Without a word Bearmon rushed after her, immediately followed by Impmon. Koe and I looked at each other before agreeing to follow suit. When we finally caught up with Carly and the others we found two figures in a clearing. A human, and a Digimon.

The human, who I was assuming was Travis, was a young Asian boy in a black long sleeve shirt with some kind of crucifix symbol on his shirt. He was wearing winter camouflage pants tucked into a pair of black combat boots. He was also currently backed into a tree breathing heavily.

"I didn't even do anything to you!" Travis snapped at his attacker.

Said attacker was a little white armored dragon with a red cape staring daggers at him with his golden eyes. "It wasn't what you did to me," he said in a youthful but also cold sounding voice. "You and your little friend murdered those poor Psychemon in cold blood!" he accused Travis. "Now you're gonna pay for what you did, and when I find your little human friend I'll make her pay too!" he said.

Carly immediately rushed between the two. "Like hell he is!" she snarled.

Travis didn't seem nearly as happy to see his friend again as he probably should have. "Carly? Dude RUN! This guy's nuts!" he said.

But Carly didn't seem to care all that much. "Who the hell do you think you are anyway?" she barked at the dragon.

"I'm a Royal Knight!" the little dragon declared, "Hackmon! Disciple of Gankoomon and defender of Northern Forest!" he stated proudly. Another Royal Knight? I have to admit, he wasn't nearly as impressive as his friends we saw yesterday. He was about the size of a Jack Russel terrier and was every bit as imposing as one too.

Impmon immediately approached the dragon, "They let you into the Royal Knights?" Impmon questioned. "Geeze, they'll let anyone into your little murder club," he sneered only for Hackmon to immediately fire a fireball at the imp, causing him to jump back.

"Don't you dare insult the great Royal Knights!" Hackmon snarled. "We stand for justice! We defend the Digital World and it's people from monsters like you," he said directing a hateful glare towards Travis and Carly.

It then dawned on me, this guy was a Royal Knight. If anyone knew where King Drasil was, it'd be him. Although that didn't exactly help me much, as I doubted he'd be all too willing to point us in the direction of his king considering he was currently accusing Travis and Carly of being murderers who needed to be stopped.

But, I have to at least try. "Look… we don't want any trouble," I began, holding my hands up showing I wasn't a threat. "W-we don't want to h-hurt anyone, i-if you could just t-tell us where the king is… so we can talk to him-" I tried to explain but Hackmon wasn't having any of it and I immediately took a fireball to the chest. It felt like getting hit with a flaming cinder block. I immediately fell to the ground with a thud.

"JACK!" Bulucomon cried as he rushed to my aid.

"I would never betray my king!" Hackmon spat. I think I just made this worse. "You humans are evil! You need to be stopped!" he continued.

What the hell was I thinking? Of course he wasn't going to react well to that! You just asked the guy to give up the location of his king to a bunch of humans he thought were murderers! God, I'm such an idiot!

But it was kind of hard for me to lament my own stupidity when my chest currently felt like it was melting. I'd never felt this much pain before in my life! Bulucomon was trying his best to cool down the burns with his ice claws but it was like trying to put a band-aid on a gunshot wound. I was fighting just to not pass out right now.

I then heard a growl come from Bulucomon. "You monster!" he snarled, presumably at Hackmon. I couldn't tell because I was currently curled up in the fetal position on the ground in horrible agony right now. "He was just trying to talk! You had no right to hurt him!" Bulucomon growled.

"As if I'd talk with a human!" Hackmon spat. "They're enemies to all Digimon! And Digimon like you are nothing but traitors!" he declared. "Why? Why would you stand with these… these monsters and not your fellow Digimon?!" he then asked.

But I didn't exactly get to hear the answer as I soon lost my battle to stay conscious and was swallowed by the inky blackness…

A/N: Looks like our heroes are in a sticky situation here! Without Jack, Bulucomon can't Digivolve! And it's clear Hackmon isn't interested in diplomacy right now! How will they get out of this one?