Life just gets harder and harder. How I wish I was back in high school again! Well here's chapter five (after all this time). I don't know how I incorporated all that classic literature; I guess it just slipped into my subconscious. It wasn't really intentional, so don't feel disappointed if I don't follow through! However, I will try my best to see if anything else can be borrowed from the novels that I have read.
Disclaimer: Ownership of Digimon? Don't look at me!
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Here I was in a bleak underground settlement, in this alternate world of sorts. Before me and beside me were Joe and Cody, respectively, and neither really knew who I was. I now figured it would be best not to act like I know people to avoid further confusion and awkwardness.
Joe examined me and my clothes. The look on his face conveyed curiousity and bafflement. I had yet to answer his question.
"Oh, Sorry!" I apologized. "Sometimes I get ahead of myself. My name's Davis. It's just kind of exciting meeting you after hearing so much about you."
Cody gave me a quizzical yet sarcastic look, and Joe stared blankly at me for a few seconds before finally blinking. I blushed slightly. Covering up my tracks on the spot was never one of my strengths.
"Anyway...Joe, how has the practice going these days?" Cody asked. "I know I haven't been around lately because of my reconnaissance duties, so I thought I would inquire."
"I'm glad to see that you still have a sense of formality, Cody," Joe stated with a small chuckle. "Many resistance fighters lose that."
Ha! I wonder why I wasn't treated with that kind of formality.
"Well look at our leader." Cody smirked, cynically. "He was never one for that. Think of the example he gives."
Joe laughed at this. I had my suspicions on who the leader might be. It had to be Tai.
"With regards to the volume of patients, I'm afraid that there's been a bit of an increase," Joe added, getting serious again. "And a lot of the faces that end up in my clinic these days are young kids that think they can fight alongside their fathers and us Digidestined." The young doctor deeply sighed as he took off his glasses to wipe them clean. "You have to admire their spirit, but they're lacking in wisdom. The frontline is for Digidestined, their digimon, and supporting resistance fighters."
This was too much for me to digest. I never really thought about the fight against the dark digimon in such a warlike context. When it was me fighting alongside my friends, I wasn't really the one in the battle; it was always our digimon. In this world, people were getting seriously injured, and were even dying. And those who were not even on the battlefield were living in such poor conditions.
My heart broke just watching the fear and despair in these people's faces. Did I really make that much of a difference...?
Suddenly a woman dressed up in the same attire as Joe came up to him in a rush.
"Dr. Kido," she panted. "The boy in room six is in critical condition!"
"Damn it!" cursed Joe, as he rushed after his associate.
Cody looked at me briefly and followed where the two were going. I decided to follow as well.
After a brief sprint down the hallway, we arrived at the room. I noticed a family waiting close outside the door, and they appeared to be praying. Cody walked in, while I stood at the doorway and peered inside the rustic room. Joe and several others - which I assumed were doctors and/or nurses - were scrambling around this boy who appeared to be badly injured. His eyes were tightly shut and his head was bandaged. It was horrible. I could see the blood staining the sheets...and there was a copious amount. Upon closer inspection, I estimated that the boy had to be no older than twelve, which is about how old I was when me and the others fought the dark digimon in my world. Things like this shouldn't happen...
The commotion inside the room was intense. Joe and a few others were barking orders around at a constant rate. I heard bits and pieces referring to how the boy had lost too much blood, how they didn't have any adequate supplies or technology, and how the child wasn't going to survive for much longer. I shook my head slightly in disbelief. The whole scene was so surreal
There was a nurse of sorts constantly holding the boy's hand by the wrist. All of a sudden, her face went pale and she calmly told Joe to come over where she was sitting. Joe then took the boy's wrist in his own hands and felt around. Oh no...she wasn't holding his hand for support...she was constantly checking for a pulse! I then noticed that the room did not have one of those machines that monitors the heart rate of a patient.
After about five minutes, Joe quietly told everyone to stand down and back away. He wrote something in a chart next to the bed, and then shut his eyes as he punched the wall beside him. The force of his fist hitting the wall caused some slight debris to fall from the ceiling. The assistant covered the sheet over the child's entire body, and wiped a few tears from her face. Cody went over to console Joe, but the young doctor recoiled when Cody touched his shoulder. I couldn't look away as much as I wanted to do so.
Cody approached me and motioned for us to leave. He needed to tug at me slightly for me to come to my senses. As we walked down the hallway, I peered back to see Joe slowly come up to the family outside. His expression was solemn, though I could see his eyes twitching. His lips moved, but his words were inaudible to me as I walked away with Cody. I saw the family huddle together and I could clearly hear them begin to wail. Joe just stood there silently and kept his head down. I felt just as bad for Joe as I did for the bereaved family...maybe even more so. It must be very difficult to be in Joe's position. I respected him and pitied him at the same time.
As we exited the clinic, Cody started heading off in a direction that was different from where we came. He took one of the lit torches that were draping the walls of the tunnel, and referred to a piece of paper that he unfolded from his pocket. I kept close behind him.
"Are you still going to follow me?" he asked, obviously annoyed with my presence. "I have a lot of duties to carry out and several places to go. It is not smart to stay alongside me."
"I'm a slow learner," I said sarcastically with a slight smile on my face. "Right now I have nowhere else to go. Perhaps I could be of help to you."
"I doubt that," Cody responded cynically, rolling his eyes. "But if you wish to continue following me, then suit yourself."
And so we continued away from the main area down another sewer pipe.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The majority of our journey was traveled in silence. I was never one for awkwardness like this, so once again I began to converse with my guide to feel more at ease. There was one question in particular that I never got to ask, but should have.
"You're a Digidestined, correct?" I inquired to confirm. Cody nodded. "Then where is your digimon?"
"My digimon partner, Ankylomon, is at the frontline where he is needed most," He answered.
"Ankylomon? He doesn't stay in rookie form?" I questioned. I then covered my mouth quickly due to my outburst of revealing too much knowledge.
"What?" He said, stopping and looking back at me. I gave him a sheepish look and he scoffed, beginning to walk again. "I sometimes go many days without seeing my partner. It is necessary to keep him in champion form so he can battle any possible threats, even when I'm not present."
"That makes sense," I concurred. I faked ignorance in my next question. "Is Joe a Digidestined as well?"
"Yes, he is," Cody confirmed. "Though Joe has been without a partner as of late." He took a deep sigh, while my eyes went wide with shock. "It must be really lonely for him at times. Gomamon always kept Joe from getting too serious, so now that he's gone...Joe just buries himself in his practice. He rarely ever steps outside his clinic, and usually just sleeps in his office."
"That's terrible," I uttered in a whisper.
I wouldn't want to know the feeling of losing a partner like that. If I recall correctly, only TK and Ken ever lost their partners, and even then they both were reformatted. I doubt Primary Village was up and running given this world's bleak situation. I wonder where the other Digidestined were...
"Where are we headed right now?" I asked, realizing that I was clueless about our destination.
"We are on our way to a major command post," answered Cody. "This specific one houses most of our intelligence for situations happening in Japan, as well as the rest of the world. It is one of the few places we have that can give insight to global occurrences. We coordinate several tactical plans within this base. Much of the data gathered and compiled here is so essential to our survival. As such, we remain discrete about the location."
"If it's so important, then why are you telling me?" I queried, confused at his exposition. "Do you think you can trust me?"
"You know, I have been asking myself that same question," he replied, tilting his head as he seemingly processed his actions. "I cannot quite pinpoint why...but for some reason I feel like you can be trusted. There is something about you that makes me feel like I can hold you in the same regard as a friend. It makes no sense, considering how much of a hindrance you have been ever since I found you, but you strike me as the type that I can confide in...as odd as that sounds. I don't know. I always trust my instincts, and I am a good judge of character. I owe my grandfather for that..."
He slowed down to a halt and appeared to be reflecting somewhat. I put a hand on his shoulder, and he turned back to see me smiling weakly at him. It looked like his serious demeanor expression would soften, but he turned back and started walking again. The Cody I know is serious as well, but he knows when to smile. War really does change people...
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After about fifteen minutes or so of walking through the underground labyrinth, we finally reached this large, metallic door. Cody knocked in a unique, rhythmic pattern, and a small, narrow panel on the door slid open. It quickly slid back to its original position and the door itself began to creak open. As I peered inside the room, I noticed all the technological equipment right away. The walls were decorated with wires and monitors, all giving off different readings. It was a fairly large room, and there were several people carrying out different tasks. All of them wore badges that appeared to be in the shape of a digivice. I assumed they were part of this resistance I had been hearing so much about.
As we walked into the room and people cleared away, I noticed the large table in the centre of the room...or more so what was on it. It was somewhat scratched, but there was no mistaking it. It was a Pineapple laptop. Cody went ahead of me and made his way through the small crowd. I followed closely and sure enough, we were face-to-face with a very scruffy and long-haired Izzy. He quickly greeted Cody.
"Who's your companion?" Izzy asked as he inspected me.
"This is Davis," Cody introduced. "I recently found him laying unconscious in the sewers, and he's been following me ever since. For some reason, I feel that he might be useful. I believe he is safe to see and hear sensitive information."
"I trust your judgment, Cody," Izzy affirmed. "If someone as cautious as you can trust him, then I can, too." He turned to me. "Welcome to DigiCommand 1, Davis. I consider it the best tactical command site in all of Japan."
"DigiCommand 1? Did you name it?" I inquired.
"That I did," responded Izzy with a smug grin on his face. I laughed inwardly at Izzy's predictable nature. "It's powered by a large generator, which is in turn powered by my digimon partner's electrical energy."
"Before I forget, here's the data you wanted, Izzy," Cody mentioned, reaching into his pocket. He retrieved a diskette and handed it to Izzy. "As you requested, that is all the recent combat data from the intelligence post nearest the frontline."
I was never one for technical jargon, so I wandered off to look at some of the different screens lining the inner perimeter of the room. One monitor in particular instantly caught my attention. It was a three-dimensional layout of a world that was completely dark and barren.
"That looks like the world of the Dark Ocean," I said to no one in particular.
"I wish it was," A familiar, feminine voice said from behind me. I turned around to see a young lady with messy purple hair, and fogged glasses. She shook my hand and 'introduced' herself. "My name's Yolei. Who might you be?"
"Davis," I simply stated.
"Well, Davis, that is the Digital World," she revealed. Part of me was expecting that to be the case, but I was still shocked to see how badly the world had deteriorated. "It's practically inhospitable now. Most digimon have fled to our world, but ours is deteriorating as well..."
"These are truly dark times," I sadly muttered.
"Tell me, Davis, do you think that things will get better? That we'll win?" she inquired. When I said that I did think so, she smirked at me. "I'm amazed there are still people like you." I was confused. "Most of us believe...no...know that there is no chance of winning this war."
"Then why do you continue fighting?" I questioned. "What is the point if you know you cannot win?"
"We continue to fight so that we can go on existing," Yolei solemnly answered. "There is no way we can reclaim either this world or the Digital one. We just do not have the strength required to fight the Three. We fight to survive - to live. People get injured and killed so often just so that the rest may live...and even that can't be guaranteed. It's funny how we take being alive for granted..."
"How can you say that?!" I retorted. "Don't you have faith in your people and digimon?"
"Faith is insufficient to win this war," she smirked. "What we need is a miracle. And I doubt we'll be getting one anytime soon...or at all." I cringed slightly. "We're on our own here. And-"
A siren started blaring in the room, cutting Yolei off from what she was saying. Amidst the flashing lights, I noticed some text on the central screen. It read, "Incoming Emergency Message". The screen then changed and displayed the panicked face of a beautiful girl with brown, frizzy hair. She appeared to be in some sort of bunker. To my shock, it was Mimi.
Her pretty face had a few scratches on it, but she was still rather radiant. The signal was adjusted so we could properly hear what she was trying to say. Me and Yolei approached the central desk where Cody and Izzy were situated. Izzy was desperately trying to ensure the signal's integrity, while everyone huddled around the middle of the room.
"...situation in New York is critical...command circuit...overrun...losses too great...I-"
We saw her turn around as the start of an explosion was seen behind her only a few meters from where she was broadcasting. Suddenly, the screen was nothing but static. There was a brief and awkward moment of silence.
"No...not again...not again..." Izzy muttered while he frantically tried to establish a connection. Everyone began talking in worried, yet hushed tones. "Damn...damn...not again..."
"Mimi..." I gasped, her name barely escaping my mouth. Could she be...?
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To be continued...
-Sorry for the gastronomical delay! I've gotten back in the groove of writing, so expect an update soon.
-I expect to finish this story next chapter, so stay tuned!