NOTE: This chapter is edging on Christianity, but then again, for all anyone who is taking this out of context would know, I might be using Sikh philosophy! ...I'm not, by the way...
Chapter 3: Struggle to Survive
Ken felt like he was being watched as he slowly woke up. When he opened his eyes, he found, that his daughter, Tina, was the one who was looking at her. "Daddy," she said, wrapping her arms around him.
"…Good morning to you, too, Tina."
"I---I'm sorry if I woke you up."
"That's okay."
"I…have a reason for it. It's that…I'm not taking you for granted the way I took Mom for granted." She gave him a kiss on the cheek before she was done embracing him.
"Don't worry. We're going to find her back."
"Dad…I know you're just trying to make me feel better. But I'm old enough to understand that there is a good chance we won't find her back alive."
"There's just as good a chance that we will."
"Dad, you're starting to get optimistic. That is not called for."
Ken brushed his daughter's hair. "Don't bet on it, kiddo."
Tina sighed. "So…what now? We need to look for the others, and we need to find them."
"I understand that. But Wormmon and Veemon aren't 100%, yet. Before we send out search parties, we need to let them recover so we'll have a mega if we need it."
Tina looked at the ground. "How long?"
"Definitely by tomorrow morning. Probably sooner."
"I don't know if I can wait even that long." Tina got up.
"Wait, where are you going?"
"I'm going to have a look outside. I won't go far from the building, I promise."
"A look…?"
"I just have a feeling that I'll see something."
"Not yet. If you get attacked, who's going to defend you? You and Youngdramon can look outside after you and Youngdramon eat breakfast."
"But to get breakfast, we need to go outside. The boxcars are still out there."
"Oh…well, then, all right. Have a look. But make it quick."
Tina, Ash, and Brock walked out of the bank and to the boxcar to get some food to carry back. "I…couldn't help but notice that you were kind of mourning over your mother," Brock said.
"Don't you have a mother?"
"Yeah, but she died a few years ago. And my dad moved away from home---for a while. But, anyway, I was just thinking…there's more than one kind of family."
"…Uh…what's your point?"
Ash could see where this was going: Brock was about to talk about marriage. Just as Brock was about to open his mouth, Ash stomped on his foot. "He means we're here for you if you need a shoulder to cry on."
"Thanks…" There was a short pause, then Tina added, "Boy, I wish I could get that much out of Rika!"
"Rika? That girl I thought was Misty when I first saw her?"
"Yeah, her. She's a genuine stick-in-the-mud! She will not come to terms with her own feelings! She like a boy! ---No offense to either of you."
"Oh, none taken," Brock answered. "But you should know that what you just said isn't always true: unlike Ash, I am very in touch with my emotions!"
No lie, Ash thought to himself. But I take that as a compliment to me!
Tina continued, "She was crying last night, and she forced herself to stop. You know how much that really hurts someone, to stop crying like that?"
"I have a guess," Ash answered. "I know what it's like to cry. It happened when I had to say goodbye to an…old friend of mine."
"He died?"
"No…more like our destinies drew us apart."
"Hmm. Destiny. What is destiny, anyways?"
"Aren't you guys called 'Digidestined'?"
"Well…yeah…"
"Then you should know what destiny is all about, right?"
"Well, I don't. I just don't get it: if God is controlling destiny, then why does this kind of thing happen?"
Ash gave the question some thought as he loaded dead fish into an unused poncho to carry back to the bank. "I'm not really good at questions like that. Pokémon training is hard enough, let alone philosophy."
"A-HA!" Tina answered. "That proves my point."
"You have a point?"
"Well, yeah."
"What is it?"
"It's that…uh…destiny is weird."
"I could've told you that!" Ash shot back.
Brock let out a hormone-induced sigh. "But some things are just meant to be! Like you and---"
Ash stomped on his foot and stopped his sentence dead cold, finishing it with a, "Youngdramon! I mean, you two couldn't be better partners! It was a match made in…purgatory!"
Tina rolled her eyes.
They entered the bank with their meals. "Now, how to cook them…?" Ash wondered. Then he slapped his forehead. "Duh! Quilava, I choose you! Start up you flame, Quilava!" Ash and Brock brought out whatever cooking gear they had in their backpacks, and they used Quilava's back as a stove to cook the fish.
After about half an hour… "Great breakfast. Now what?" Tina asked.
"We sit tight until Veemon and Wormmon recover, like I said earlier," Ken answered. "And I know you're getting cabin fever, but you must not go anywhere!"
Tina rolled her eyes. "If the suspense doesn't kill me, the boredom will!"
"Boredom and suspense can't kill you. A hungry saberstrike can. You stay put."
Tina sighed. There was only one thing she knew to do when there was nothing to do: sing.
So she began a duet with Youngdramon: (1) "♫♪There's Antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,"
"♪And hydrogen, and oxygen, and nitrogen, and rhenium, ♫"
"And nickel, ♫ neodymium, neptunium, germanium,"
"And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium! ♪"
"…Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium, ♪"
"♪And lanthanum and osmium, and astatine and radium,"
"And gold, protactinium, and indium, and gallium, ♫"
"And iodine, and thorium, and thulium ♫ and thallium."
"…There's yttrium, ♫ ytterbium, actinium rubidium,"
"And boron, gadolinium ♪, niobium, iridium,"
"And ♪ strontium, and silicon, and silver, and ♪ samarium,"
"And bismuth, bromine, ♫ lithium, beryllium, and barium! ♫"
"There's ♪ holmium, and helium, and hafnium, and erbium,"
"And phosphorus, ♫ and francium, and fluorine and terbium, ♫"
"And manganese, and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,"
"Dysprosium, and ♫ scandium, and curium, ♪ and cesium."
"And lead, praseodymium, and platinum, ♪ plutonium,"
"♫ Palladium, promethium---"
"TINA!" everyone except Youngdramon yelled. "Why did you have to teach Youngdramon that song?!" Davis moaned.
"Hey, I have to do something!"
"You have to avoid singing that song, that's what you have to do!" Davis spat. "Stop it, already! It's annoying!"
Veemon yawned. "Finally, quiet! …Well, g'night!" he said, dropping the visor of his helmet with a crash and plopping on the floor.
"Lucky. He can sleep all day; my metabolism won't let me do that!" Tina muttered.
June nudged Davis. She whispered, "You do know this'll kill us, right? Keeping her cooped up in here, I mean?"
"I know, but it'll kill her if we don't!"
******
Blackwargreymon was royally ticked: he and his allies had been driven out of their "home", and he hadn't been able to defend his turf. They had barely shut down the reactor, let alone escaped with their lives. But now, Blackwargreymon refused to submit himself to eating rats: he had a better idea, and everyone who heard the idea knew it. He silently flew through the air, and spotted a proud-looking male deer. This one had a huge rack of antlers that made one wonder how he managed to get around in the forest: you'd think those antlers would be too wide to let him move between trees, they were so big. As soon as Blackwargreymon saw this deer, he thought to himself, Quarry! Before the deer knew what was going on, Blackwargreymon had killed it and was carrying it back to the storm sewers to feed himself and the refugees. He flew out of the forest and followed the highways back to Tokyo. Given his speed, he made this trip in a few minutes, and was only a few blocks away from the hideout in the storm sewers when…
"So here you are!" The Unnamed Figure sneered.
Blackwargreymon stopped. "YOU!!" he howled in disgust, pointing his claw at The Unnamed Figure. "You're the one who forced us out of our base! This is your fault!"
"That it is. So…interested in revenge?"
Blackwargreymon began to think about this. This young man knows no honor…he must have some reason for attacking me that won't be good… "What's it to you if I am? Maybe it's because you're scared of what I'll do if I decide to take revenge?"
"No: because you should be scared. I'd like you to meet one of my…newer recruits. Darkpatamon?" A black-furred version of Patamon stepped out of the shadows. It had one of its wings pierced with a gold earring, which might've made flying painful. "Digi-modify! Digivolution, activate!"
"Darkpatamon, digivolve to…Avatarmon!" Avatarmon looked like Angemon in that it had six wings and a robe, but the robe was made of jagged gold instead of white wool, and the hood of the robe obscured its face. Only a pair of glowing, purple eyes was visible.
"You would face me with a champion?" Blackwargreymon sneered. "Terra Destroyer!"
"Fallen angel rod!" Avatarmon yelled back as he reflected the fireball back at Blackwargreymon.
I see the game, now, Blackwargreymon thought as he dodged the fireball. His first urge was to drop the deer and use Black Tornado, but his better judgment told him otherwise. "I have better things to do than waste my time fighting faceless cowards like you." Blackwargreymon gripped the deer and flew away as fast as he could.
"That didn't go quite as we had planned," Avatarmon thought aloud. "You know how the sub-major looks upon failure."
"Don't worry, Avatarmon. We can catch up to him."
"You do realize that---in this form---I'm not as much of a match for him as you would have him think?"
"I don't expect you to stay in this form forever. Pangolimon?"
Pangolimon stepped out of the darkness of an alleyway and shouted, "Hit me!"
"Digi-modify! Digivolution, activate!"
"Pangolimon, digivolve to…Glyptodomon!"
"And now, since we stole a copy of the lens from that 'Tina' girl's digivice…Digi-modify! DNA digivolution, activate!"
"Glyptodomon!"
"Avatarmon!"
"DNA digivolve to…Shakkoumon!" This version of Shakkoumon looked like the one that Angemon and Ankylomon had digivolved into, except that, instead of white, this version's color was marble black, and the golden moldings that ringed Shakkoumon's first form were a hard, tarnished platinum.
"Hmm…a good fighter, but tough to ride. ♫Oh, Ewemon…?♫ Digi-modify! Digivolution, activate!"
"Ewemon, digivolve to…Impostrogarurumon!"
The Unnamed Figure climbed onto Impostrogarurumon's back. "Time we got moving! After him, Shakkoumon!" They chased Blackwargreymon down, and it wasn't long before Shakkoumon began to take pot-shots at Blackwargreymon.
Blackwargreymon began to sense that running wouldn't solve this problem. He set down the deer and put his claws together. "Terra Destroyer!"
Shakkoumon opened the port in its belly and suck the fireball in. "You're not beating me! Harmonious Spirit!" It fired a pair of blue beams out its eyes at Blackwargreymon. Blackwargreymon took off his wing panels and made them into a shield to block the attack.
"Frankly, I'm sick of dealing with you! Time to end this! Black tornado!" Blackwargreymon spun himself into a twister of black energy. But he knew that Shakkoumon would try to suck his attack into the port in its chest, so he circled Shakkoumon instead so that Shakkoumon wouldn't be able to get a bead on him.
"This isn't going my way," The Unnamed Figure sighed. "Oh, well…Digi-modify! Counter-crest digivolution, activate!"
"Impostrogarurumon, digivolve to…Houndramon!"
"Shakkoumon, mega-digivolve to…"
(1) The Elements was a song written by Tom Lehrer, from the album "An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer", published by the Reprise Record Company, 1959, #6199. (Mumbling to himself: I will get through that song, someday!)