NOTE: Christian content.

Chapter 20: Aspiration

"There's only one way I know of to translate Linonian languages," Yolei thought aloud. "Ash, I take it you've met Tina?"

"I think so. She's your sister?"

"My daughter, actually."

"Whoa. …How would she know anything about Linonian?"

"She doesn't. Her---I guess you could call him her pet---knows about them. She found him outside our house a few months ago, and he had a datacube with him. We have his datacube, but we don't have a computer to read it with."

"I see…but how would her pet know Linonian?"

"He's not a digimon, he's not a pokémon, and he's not a Monster---or a menace machine, either. He says his race has been fighting the Linonians for decades, and he seems to know some of their language and the real names of some of their menace machines."

"…Okay. We'll play the tape for him and see what he thinks."

Joey listened to the camera's playback through the earphones. It was more difficult for him to hear, considering that the earphones were about four times the size of his ears, but he was able to listen and decode most of what they were saying. "Joey hears that they picking up kamnalatato."

"What's kamnalatato?" Tina asked.

"Maybe he means sand," Ash suggested.

"Joey not know word for 'sand'."

Ash thought for a moment, then took off his shoe and shook out a small pile for Joey to look at. Joey immediately began jumping and whistling excitedly, dancing around the pile.

"What's got you so excited?" Tina asked, picking Joey up.

"We're richy! We're richy-richy-rich!"

"We…are?" Tina asked.

"This stuff kamnalatato! This stuff make people richy-richy-rich!"

"Uh-huh…we have a lot of this stuff on our planet. It hasn't made very many people here rich," Tina said.

"Lots??!" Joey asked. "There lotsa kamnalatato on this world???"

"…Yeah…"

Joey paused for a minute to think. "Joey no wonder why Linonians try take over. Want get richy-richy-rich."

"How does sand make people rich?" Misty asked.

"There not any kamnalatao anyplace but here!" Joey answered. "Almost none!"

"…You're saying that Earth has some kind of rare element, and it's like a gold mine to the Linonian Empire?"

"Yep-yep!"

"Then…well, now we know what they're doing here, don't we?"

"Yep-yep. Joey want go back in Tina's pocket, now. Got cold."

"Okee-dokee," Tina answered, kneeling and opening her overalls pocket. "In you go."

"Thanks." Joey hopped in and snapped the pocket shut.

"He lives in your pocket?" Misty asked.

"Yeah. He gets too cold if he doesn't; room temperature is actually pretty cold to him. I don't know why."

Ash sighed. "So…they're attacking because Earth is a gold mine…so what do we do now?"

"Good question," Tina sighed.

******

"So…this thing is supposed to secure the island?"

"It is, indeed."

"What exactly is it?"

"It is a tor, and yet you are able to take control of its systems as you see fit."

"So…it's like some kind of smart vehicle?"

"Put basically, yes."

"I see…how long before we secure the whole island?"

"Once they are all in place."

"…The word 'they' referring to…?"

******

"At least it's not raining," June sighed as she fluffed up her sweater. "Yep…snow is better than rain any day of the week…"

Tina stretched her arms and sighed. "Well, I dunno…but you can't do this with rain, can you?" she asked, making a snowball.

"You throw that thing, and you will die. I am serious!" June shouted.

"Okay, okay! You don't have to yell at me!" Tina sighed, dropping the snowball. "What is it with you and fun, anyways?"

"I could ask you the same thing: there's isn't much fun in these little outings of ours, but you take all the fun out them!"

"Well, now…uh, June?"

"What?"

"Youngdramon, it's not that I---" Tina's sentence trailed off as Youngdramon bombed June from the air with a specially-constructed snowball that dumped a huge amount of snow onto June.

June let out a loud scream. "I am going to pull your scales out!" June yelled at Youngdramon.

"Oh, are you?" Youngdramon asked.

"Yes, I am! You come down from there right now!!!"

Youngdramon had no intention of landing. She flew a little ways away from June, and June kept running after her, shouting threats up at her. She kept in flight until she saw a purple obelisk standing in the middle of a street corner. That's handy! she thought to herself as she landed on the pyramid-like top.

"You come down from there, you troublemaker!" June yelled up to Youngdramon.

"Oh, sure, oh sure! Like I'd be dumb enough to walk straight into…danger…" Youngdramon stopped talking as she realized she was hearing a charging-up noise behind her. "Whoa, boy! This obelisk is a menace machine!" she shouted as she flew down, just in the nick of time to avoid a purple laser blast. "So…which one of us takes this guy?" Youngdramon asked.

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Obelaser (Tāwā)
Real Name: Sawei-tor-yonazig
Caste: Jolii Var'ka
Modes: One
Special Attacks:
Ota V'ver
Qarosh-fla
Comments:
The obelaser is two things: it is a heavily modified barnucle, and it is a steal on Ken's control spires. It taps into the Dark Ocean universe's zero-point energy and, with some of Ken's old software, it creates a purple spire that absorbs energy that would otherwise be used in digivolution. The purple spire is about 40% as tall as the original dark spires, but it is more difficult to destroy, in that the obelaser--sitting on top of the spire--will repair any damage to the spire and has ultimate-level firepower.

"You and Tina take it," June suggested. (Her ulterior motive was to get Youngdramon weak, and then start yanking scales off her back.)

"Done! Youngdramon, digivolve to… ---uh, I'm not Ikudramon, am I?"

"Let's try again," Tina said.

"Youngdramon digivolve to… ---Still not working!!!"

"Let us try, then!" Tibemon grunted. "Tibemon, digivolve to… ---it's not working for me, either!"

"Okay, this is bad," Tina thought aloud as she heard the obelisk charging up for another laser blast. The four of them dodged out of the way as the attack sliced a hole in the pavement.

"That thing has the firepower of an ultimate!" June cried. "And our digimon can't make it past the rookie level!"

"Then…wait, there's one thing we haven't tried, yet!" Tina said.

"What's that?"

"You'll see," Tina answered, switching from her normal brown beret into her yellow rainhat so that she'd match her partner digimon. "Digi-armor, energize!"

"Youngdramon, armor-digivolve to…Gryllotamon, the tunnel of adventure!"

"Whoa…that was quick thinking!" June said. At least Youngdramon will be weak enough so that I'll be able to get her, June thought silently.

"And now, to take that thing out…Laser Mandible!" Gryllotamon shot the obelisk, and cracks started forming in it. Just as Tina was letting out a whoop of victory, the cracks sealed themselves as the obelisk used a self-healing attack.

"What??!!" June said, jaw down.

"Okay, let's try this again…Laser Mandible!" Gryllotamon shot the obelisk several times, and the obelisk crumbled to bits. The pyramid-shaped menace machine at the top tumbled to the ground, but it landed upright. "All right, that looked like it worked!" Gryllotamon sighed.

It hadn't: the pyramid seemed to grow a new purple obelisk beneath its base, and it rose into the air, just as high as before.

Tina groaned. "These things just don't want to give up, do they?"

"Should Kangamon join in?" June asked, brandishing the digi-egg of perseverance.

"Not until we see if there isn't a way for Gryllotamon to beat that thing," Tina answered.

"If you have any ideas, I'd like to hear them," Gryllotamon yelled, dodging another laser blast.

"That pyramid up top seems to be the one causing all the fuss," Tina suggested. "Try attacking that thing with your shot-range attacks!"

"If you say so…"

"Wait until it's charging! That'll give you an opening!" Tina shouted after her.

Gryllotamon waited for it to shoot off its laser, and then she dove in and smacked the pyramid with her glowing mandibles. The purple stone of the obelisk burst into data fragments, and the pyramid fell to the ground in pieces.

"That worked," Gryllotamon sighed as she regressed back to Youngdramon.

"So…what now?" June asked. "I'd really like to get back to base and warm up!"

"Might as well. Another menace machine to catalogue…"

"But there's one thing I need to do first."

"What's that?"

June reached for Youngdramon's back and pulled a scale out. As Youngdramon was groaning in pain, June stuffed a handful of snow into the open spot. "Oo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" Youngdramon shuddered.

"You were saying about me and fun?" June asked.

"Can we get back to base, now, and warm up?" Youngdramon asked in a whispered, scratchy voice.

******

"An obelisk?" Ken asked.

"Yeah. June, Tibemon, Youngdramon, and I all saw it."

"Four sides, you said?" Tracy asked as he continued his sketch.

"Yes, four sides, and it looked like the Washington Monument, except that it was way shorter, and it was purple instead of pale gray. And its top was made of metal, with a laser gun at the point."

"Sounds to me like the tops' a lot like this one menace machine we found in the water. Except that one was a three-sided pyramid, not four-sided. And the water machine shot orange lasers, not purple, and it had a lot less firepower than what you're describing."

"Oh, yeah, there was one other thing I should mention---"

"Here it is," Tracy declared, turning over his sketchpad.

Tina nodded. "That's the thing we saw. And the other thing is that it didn't stop armor digivolution, but it stopped normal evolution to the champion level cold…uh, Dad? Why do you look so shocked?"

Ken was breathing heavily, and his face was a little pale. "I have to speak with your mother, Tina. This---*cough!*---this war just got worse!"

"Dad---Daddy, what is it?" she asked after her father as he walked away.

"It's a dark spire!"

"A dark spire?? What're you---" but he was already out of hearing distance.

"You have any idea what he's talking about?" Tracy asked.

"Uh-uh. …And I'm not sure I want to get an idea, either," Tina added. She gave him a little more information about the obelisk and then she climbed back up to the surface and walked back into the building.

She found Rika next to her bedroll, sulking as usual. "What's got you so down?" Tina asked.

"Oh, just the mysteries of life. Like, 'why does stuff go wrong?' 'why is my life a mess?'"

"Stuff goes wrong because people went wrong."

"What??"

"The first people who ever existed made a few bad choices, and that affected everybody who came after. So everybody makes bad choices…even me. There's no escaping it---well, almost no escaping it."

"Are we just talking hypothetically, here?"

"No, we're not."

"…Is this more stuff about your God?" Rika asked. She didn't sound as annoyed as she usually was.

"Not really---well, actually, it is."

"You were just talking like there's a way to escape making bad choices…what is it?"

"…I don't understand all of it, myself. Basically, Jesus changed the way everything works when He died. One thing he did was He kind of gave some of His characteristics to everybody else---assuming you accept His offers. And perfection is one of his characteristics. You aren't perfect right away, and you don't get perfect until after you're dead, but still…"

"Then…I can be perfect?" Rika asked.

"Well, sort of…yeah."

"And…all I have to do is accept it?"

"Yeah."

"…How exactly do I accept it? Do I need to go on some spirit trip and find some spirit office to file my acceptance---uh, why are you looking at me like I'm crazy?"

"Spirit trip?? Where did you get an idea like that?"

"I heard on this one cartoon show that these Native American witch-doctors went on spirit trips all the time for predicting the future, and stuff."

Tina rolled her eyes. "A cartoon isn't the best source of information for your soul's ultimate destiny."

"…Well, when you put it that way…"

"The way you accept it is you tell Him you accept it."

"…And I don't need a spirit trip to do that?"

"Not at all. You don't have to go anywhere, either; He's right here."

"…Here???"

"Yes."

"…Here now??"

"Yes, here now. He's everywhere at all times!"

"…So, what do I do? I just say things out of my mouth, and He hears it?"

"That's called prayer. And He'll hear it."

Rika gulped. She looked up into the air. "So…here I am…Jesus?"