Chapter 7: Hope and Despair

As far as anybody else in the building knew, nothing had happened in the bathroom the previous night---except that somebody had spilled window cleaner all over the bathroom floor. They didn't know there had been a fight. In fact, they thought that Tina and Rika had reconciled and were friends again, considering that they found Rika asleep in Tina's embrace wearing Tina's rain jacket for warmth, as her own shirt was hanging on a line, freshly washed.

Rika was a little speechless after that morning, and more introverted than usual. She didn't lash out at anyone because she knew she'd been wrong before. She was still ashamed and scared. Tina knew how she felt and kept a close eye on her, and every time they made eye contact, Tina smiled at her. (Tina was careful not to have too big a smile; she didn't want to look like she was gloating.)

"So…" Ash asked impatiently as he got up. "Are we ready to leave yet?"

"I feel a load better now," Veemon answered as he polished his helmet. "But you try being a mega digimon for twelve hours straight, and we'll see how great you feel!"

Wormmon got up and crawled next to him. "I'm ready to leave when you are."

"Then let's get out of here, already!" Ash shouted.

Tina rolled up her sleeping bag and packed up what they had brought along. "So…what're we going to do about those two containers of food?" she asked her dad.

"The bananas are only going to stay fresh for so long," Ken answered, sadly. "I guess we just have to leave them there…"

Tina wasn't looking so somber. She had a look on her face like she had an idea, and that look scared Rika: it was the same look Tina got when she had an idea for a prank. But Tina's idea wasn't a prank at all: her idea was to have several of the flying fighters pick up the fruit and meat boxcars, and then carry them to the top of Mt. Fuji…or, at least, partway up slope. High enough so that it would be could enough to refrigerate them.

"This is the craziest idea you've ever had," Ikudramon said as she, Stingmon, Charizard, Pidgeot, Exveemon, and Firabbit carried the boxcar higher and higher into the air.

"You think it's a bad idea?"

"It sure f-f-f-feels like it!" Ash answered, shivering from the cold.

"Oh, quit complaining!" Tina shot back. "Don't worry about the weather, it's just---"

As she said this, a spray of sleet filled the air. Ash pulled his raincoat out of his backpack, and thought to himself how he really wished that he had with him something warmer than a slicker. "Any other things you want to talk about?" Ash asked.

"Oh, cool off!"

"That's not very funny!" Ash spat as he inched closer to Firabbit, and the hot exhaust that was flying out of his feet. But it was about then that Ash noticed how angry and distracted Firabbit seemed to be. "Hey, what's got you all grouchy?"

"Oh, nothing much…just the thought of Tiger, back at the ranch with Renamon!"

"…Do I want to know?"

Firabbit grumbled. "Has anyone ever stolen your girlfriend before?"

"I don't think so…well…maybe once. But I don't think of her as a girlfriend."

"Do I want to know?" Noticing the look on Ash's face, Firabbit answered his own question: "Probably not. But you're lucky that it was only once! Tiger has been trying to steal her for weeks!"

"Renamon is your girlfriend?"

"I hope," Firabbit muttered. "I bet he's back there, trying to woo her!"

"I dunno…Renamon is a pretty faithful gal; if she's really your girlfriend, then she'd ignore him. I wonder what is going on back there…?"

******

"I thought that we were too close to a power plant to be attacked!" Brock shouted.

"I guess we aren't," June answered, throwing her younger brother's digi-egg to Tiger.

"Tiger, module-evolve to…Thunderdog!" Thunderdog fired bolts of lightning at the incoming gorillouts, but it just wasn't cutting it. More gorillouts kept coming, and, for every one he destroyed, it seemed like the rest came five meters closer.

"YoNon Gazrii!" They started firing blue spheres of energy at Thunderdog and the boxcar full of grain.

"Tibemon, digivolve to…Savamon!" Savamon drew her spear. "Ebony Javelin!" she shouted, reflecting the shots back in the gorillouts' faces. "Boy, I wish that Ikudramon were here!"

"Now's not the time for wishful thinking," June answered. "We need to destroy those things, and we need to get this boxcar out of here when we do defeat them! If they know where we are, and destroy the grain in that boxcar---"

"I hear you," Savamon yelled. "Cetacean cage!" she hurled a row of whale ribs at the gorillouts, but it did little damage. "Boy, this isn't going great!"

"Help is on the way!" Brock answered. "Steelix, I choose you! Gary, care for a piece of the action?"

"I'm all over it! Gyarados! Arcanine! Go!"

"♪♫Gary, Gary, he's our man! If he can't do it, no one can!"

"That's right!" Gary shouted to his cheerleaders. "Gyarados, Hyper beam! Arcanine, take down!"

"Steelix, iron tail!" The monsters did their best to slice through the gorillouts, and they were doing well until the last five gorillouts decided to…

"Praze-tor-ortei! Noh kreshnaiona djom…Praze-tor-arliitu!"

"Giantor!" Savamon shouted. "Okay, this is not good! That guy is as powerful as a mega!"

"We'll see about that!" Thunderdog shouted. "Jacob's Ladder!"

"Cetacean cage!"

"Steelix, rock throw!"

"Arcanine, Fire blast! Gyarados, hyper beam!"

The five creatures' combined attacks struck the giantor in the chest…and did just about nothing.

The giantor answered: "Yo YoNon Gazrii!" He fired a wave of energy at the five, and all five were knocked back and disabled.

"Okay, not good!" June thought aloud.

"Rika, I'm the only one left that has a chance! You have to matrix-digivolve me!"

"No, wait!" Rika answered. She drew out the gold card that she'd found. "If that letter W stands for what I think it stands for…Digi-modify! Warp digivolution, activate!"

"Renamon, warp-digivolve to…Sablemon!" Sablemon looked like Renamon, but she had blue armor covering her. What was the most interesting were the two shields on her arms.

"Yo YoNon Gazrii!" the giantor shouted.

Sablemon combined her shields into one and blocked the attack from herself. "You'll pay for that!" She separated her shields and aimed the bottoms of the shields at the giantor. "Laser discus!" She fired a pair of flat, light blue laser bolts at the giantor, and the giantor looked like it was affected. Sablemon leapt up and shouted, "Sablemon, mode change to…surf mode!" Sablemon's two shields combined and became a surfboard, and she flew up on it towards the giantor's head. She jumped off the board, grabbed the board, and smacked the giantor's neck with it. The giantor's head fell to the ground.

"That's great, but what about moving the boxcar?" June asked.

"Leave that to me!" Sablemon answered. She flew down on her hover board and picked up the boxcar by the tethers. "Everyone, grab ahold!"

"Good to know that someone can carry this much," Brock said as he called back Steelix.

"Hold it," June yelled. "We need to wake up Pixie and tell Big Blue to carry her along, since we're leaving. And shouldn't someone stay behind and let the others know that we've left? If they come back and find out that we aren't here---"

"I'll do that," Brock answered. "I still have a few pokémon ready to fight."

"But I have more pokémon than you do!" Gary pointed out.

"That's true, but you'd have more people to defend with your cheerleaders."

"Oh…well then, c'mon girls." Gary muttered to himself, "Now is really the kind of time when I wish I still had my car!"

"♪♫Gary, Gary, he's the best! Unquestionably---"

"Oh, shut up!" June, Tibemon, Rika, Sablemon, and Tiger spat.

******

"Pikachu?!" Misty asked, picking him up off the floor. "You're…you're back!" She shouted, giving him a hug.

"Pi KA!"

"But…where's Ash?"

"Pi ka chu…"

Misty let out a sob. "Oh, Ash! Of all the times you had to leave, you had to pick the same time when that one guy chose to attack!"

"Chu, Chu!" Pikachu insisted.

"How can you say that?" Misty asked. "You know the chances of him coming back!"

"Pika, pika PI chu pika piiiiiiiiii."

"…Okay, I'll give you that much; he is with Imperialdramon. But still…!"

"Ka chu. Pika pi pika chu pika chuu!"

"Oh, don't give me false hope, Pikachu! Let's face it; Ash is gone!"

Pikachu gave her a short jolt of electricity. "KA!"

Misty was stunned. "...I'm sorry, Pikachu…I know Ash wouldn't want me to give up hope, but what if he is dead? Hoping he'll be back would leave me wondering where he is for the rest of my life! I don't want to---"

Tracy cut in. "Misty, are you okay?"

"No! Ash is gone!"

"Your boyfriend?"

Misty slapped him. Once she realized one second later what she'd done, she gasped. "I'm…I'm sorry, Tracy."

Tracy rubbed his slapped cheek. "What was that for?"

"I…I'm just upset that Ash is gone."

"What makes you think he's gone for good? For all we know, he's already back in Japan!"

"For all we know, he might be dead!"

"Misty…thinking that does us no good."

"The alternative is to hope he comes back, and I don't want to be hoping that he'll come back for the rest of my life!"

"No, that's not the alternative. The alternative is to not think about Ash and think about your own survival! …Not to mention the survival of the rest of these people: look at them! Forty is all we got back; they hardly have a hope, and there are seven who are beginning to starve! There has to be something we can do, and we won't be able to do it moping around, waiting for the others to get back!"

Misty sighed.

"Misty…" Tracy sat down next to her. "I'm here for you, even if Ash isn't. And he might come back. Maybe not. But it's not good for us to worry about him more than we worry about those seven people. Come on. We need to get working. The sooner, the better."

Misty leaned on Tracy's shoulder. "What do we do?"

"Get Starmie ready. We're going to have him catch us some fish."