Chapter 6: Blazing A Trail
Me and Tobu carefully made our way through the forest...We must have walked a good half a mile with nothing happenening and no signs of Rena or her mysterious capture. I was starting to wonder if we would ever get out of the desolate, forsaken land...It was a forest in the loosest sense of the word. Forest implies life and growth...This place had neither. It was full of dead twsiting trees that were oozing something unmistakably green and putrid smelling. Every now and then we would stumble on some qicksand or a bit of mucky, slimy water.. But it was so..So..Quiet. There was no sound at all...Not even any bugs buzzing around, no birds, no twigs snapping from animals..Just utter quiet and an overwhelming feeling of death and oblivion, for it was as cold as it was lifeless...It wasnt normal cold...It was like the air was simply full of fear. All the tiny hairs on my body stood up. I wondered how such a beautiful world could have spawned such a terrible place..Wasnt the digital world supposed to be a beautiful haven, ripe with green growing things and teeming with life? My thoughts that nothing was in the forest but us was quickly shattered as a net scooped us both up into the treetops. I heard Tobu mutter a slight curse as we were jumbled together on our way up. I looked at him fearfully, but what emotion had spawned his outburst was gone..He was probably trying to put on a brave face for me...
"Whats going on?" I asked simply, voice quivering slightly
"A net, Gradius..Nothing to worry about..." He calmly replied, then sighed "What we have to worry about is what set the net and how often it checks its traps...Can you move your sword arm?"
I tried. By some miracle, my right arm was threaded neatly through a hole in the net. I could move it fairly well. "Yeah.."
"Good. Help me cut this thing up a bit..Only cut the ones I point out or we'll get tangled up. Got me?"
I nodded
"Good..And whatever you do, DONT stop cutting, no matter what you see or hear..."
He quickly looked at the severel strands of crude rope that formed the net, and put a small claw mark on half a dozen of them. He started gnawing on one of them. I joined in and sawed at one of them with my sword while holding it still with my other arm. I started to hear things...Quiet though they were, the utter silence up till then made them sound very loud. My guts tied themselves in a knot and I stopped ever so breifly. I received a light kick to the skull from Tobu, who muttered through a mouthful of rope something I couldnt make out. I could guess he was telling me to keep cutting, so I mustered myself and ignored the surroundings, cutting feverishly at what held me. I let out a breath as one of the strands snapped, and heard another go too. I started on another, but suddenly the cold went to startling new lows. It got so bad that couldnt control my shivering and almost cut my hand off. I had too look around. I deeply regretted it when I did.
The clearing was swarming with ghosts. These werent Bakimon..They looked like ghosts of actual digimon...
"T-Tobu!!"
"I know, Gradius! Now, stay strong and keep cutting...They always wait a while to feed on your fear, so we have a while before they really attack..."
I heard two ropes snap and started again to hack away at mine. My panic lent me strength, and I severed one with a deft upward slice. The rope suspending us from a tree gave a creak and we lowered startlingly. Tobu didnt miss a beat before chewing away at another, but I [aniced and grabbed onto whatever rope I could grab. I cursed loudly as I dropped my sword. As if that werent bad enough, the digi-ghosts were tightening theyr circle around us..One raised a spectral claw and struck at me. I felt sheer coldness rip across my face, the blood actually freezing for a moment in the shallow wounds before melting through and coursing down my face. It stung! Luckily, that one seemed the only one eager to get me...I reached down to get hold of my sword. Another crack sound and I inched a foot closer..I just needed a little bit more! I pried open the cross section of the rope and managed to slide most of my shoulder in. Yeah! I got hold of my blade and severed the last marked rope. We tumbled to the ground...
Tobu hit the ground running. Not running, but fighting. he closed his eyes and muttered something, his claw charging with electricity. I was much less graceful. I had to worry about not landing on my sword, so I twisted in mid air and thumped hard on my back. Once more, the sword flew from my grasp, this time enbedding itself in a tree. I scrambled up and ran for it, hearing a large zapping sound behind me and a few ghostly moans. I turned around to see Tobu absorbing the creatured data..It somehow sickened me...I looked back toward my sword and found it guarded by a nasty looking Wizardmon ghost with very torn up clothing and a mask over one half of its face. It raised its rod to strike, and I rolled backwards just in time to see it crash down in front of me. It wordleslly floated closer toward me....Out of desperation, I looked around, seeing my pack laying on the ground. I jumped for it, and opened it up, intent on retrieving my wooden one. I foudn something much better...A shotgun. I looked at it like it was a bag of gold, and picked it up, whirling around. I pumped it once, loading up the barrels. The ghost looked at it strangely, not knowing what it was. I enlightened him...
I pulled the trigger as fast as my frozen fingers would let me. A resounding BANG shattered the quiet of the forest and the ghastly wizard was no more. It raised its arms futiley to block, but was torn to bits of data by the rain of pellets...The data swirled around for a while before settling in my backpack. I wasnt sure where it was goingin THERE, but I didnt really care..I whirled around, loading up again, to find every ghost that was left, and Tobu, staring at me. Tobus mouth was slightly agape.
"What..Is that?" He said, swallowing
For once I felt in control "This...Is our salvation." I whirled my aim at the remainging ghosts. They werent willing to tangle with the business end of a shotgun, however, and departed. Some shaking claws, some shaking tentacles, but all vowing revenge...I took a deep breath and settled down, swatting at the saftey latch twice before I heard the click. Tobu was still staring at me.
"What?"
"...Did that little stick cause that huge bang??"
"Yeah...But this isnt a normal stick...This is a human invention...Its called a "Gun" Theyr really terrible things, but I had no other choice..."
"Well..That should make things easier.."
"I uh..Really cant use it all the time...Limited ammo.."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it fired by causing an explosion inside a chamber, which expels the "bullet"..I only have so many bullets, so I should use them wisely"
"...Ok, you lost me at "Bullet"..."
"I cant use it all the time. I have to save it for emergencys"
"Allright...Lets get going though. Our feet we can and should use any time..."
"Good point..."
I yanked my sword out of the dead tree and cleaned it off quickly. I fell into step besides Tobu and we marched for a while. The forest didnt seem to get any better...In fact, it got worse. Tobu was looking more and more worried as we trekked. I would find out why too soon. We had been walking for a looong time, whens uddenly he through up his arms in annoyance and kicked a tree.
"Whats wrong?" I asked nervously
"We're lost"
"Well, we'll just go the same direction until we get out..."
"No..We're LOST. The ghosts are very treacherous, you see....They can make us wander in circles, even if we go perfectly straight..."
"So what do we do?"
"We have to beat the boss ghost"
"I dont like the sound of that.."
"Dont worry..If worst comes to worst, you can use that gun thing on 'er..We dont have to delete her, just a knock out will work..."
"How do we find her?"
"Like this...HEEEEEEEEEY! GET OUT HERE YOU BLOATED BAG OF ECTOPLASM!!!"
"Subtle"
"Thanks...Now get ready.." He readied himself as a lot of ruckus came toward us...
I took out my sword, determined to not be caught off guard again. I heard a lot of cliche ghost noises, hooting, booing, various evil laughs...And the ground was shaking. Then a really really FAT ghost barralled out into the clearing, tailed by a few hundred tiny ones. It was so fat I wondered how it could possibly float like that. It had no discernable body, just a massive blob with tiny black eyes and a large toothy grin. There was slobber dribbling out. Green drool. Green drool was never a good sign.
"First we have to take out the small ones so they dont jump in, then we make the fat lady sing! Now go!!"
He disappeared ion a blur of movement, jumping around in the fray so fast that I could hardly see him. I took a more solid approach. I stood my ground and attacked anything that came into my range, advancing slowly. If I got a little better at handling such a large sword, maybe I would go Tobus way, but now that wasnt going to happen. I dont know how many ghosts were wiped out, or how many shining flows of data made theyr way mysteriously to my backpack, but we must have been fighting for a solid hour before we made much of any headway. Tobu let loose one last beam of electricity and I executed a fancy whirling slash, making it just us and the leader. I expected it to talk me to death first, but instead the thing sprung into the attack. It tackled me. It felt like I was plunged into a pool of freezing cold jello. Except there was nothing. Nothing at all. No light, no sound, no heat. Just infinite darkness. It was like all the dread and negativity of the forest condensed into one point. And that point was me. I curled up and started to shiver and felt very hopeless. Then a furry paw grabbed my shoulder and started to drag me out! I burst out of the coldness into the "warmth" of the forest. Tobu fell over pulling me out, and I tumbled none to gracefully to the ground also. The ghost was on the ground writhing, a large hole torn in her. SHe was a ghost, so there really wasnt much to see, it was just like someone had forgotten to draw some of it in.
"FInsih it.." Tobu said tiredly "Im too tired too..."
"Allright.." Feeling a bit hurt in the pride, I lifted my sword and stumbled to her "Sorry" I said sinmply, and finished the gastly digimon with a deft swoop of the blade. I cut it clean in half, and the energy made its way to Tobu, some of it going into my backpack too.
Tobu got up, instantly ready "Shall we go?" he said, as if he hadnt an instant ago been facedown on the ground. I put my sword up warily and followed him. After a good hour of walking, we finally broke out of the forest into a plain. The thing that made this plain stand out was the copious amounts of ash all over.
Tobu spoke up "This is the Ashen Fieild. The volcano on the other side of it coats t constantly with ash and soot. life is hard here, but if you look close enough youll find little bits.."
"Volcano?"
"Dont worry, we dont have to go there..We just go north for a bit then cut east. We should end up in a town" He said, limping out into the feild
"Are you sure your ok?"
"Yeah, Im fine..Dont worry. By the way, if your feeling useless dont. You hurt her very badly while you were in there"
"What do you mean? I didnt do anything
"Really? I figured you were using some sort of advanced magic..It seemed like it was blowing up from the inside while I fought it..."
"Nope..I did absolutly nothing"
He shrugged "Well, you musta done something..And whatever it was, she didnt like it."
I was too tired to argue my point or wonder anything..All i could do was trudge through the feild of fine grey dust and hope nothing attacked. Hopefully, I would strengthen or something, becuase I felt very weak at the time..I had barely done any fighting and even less good fighting..I figured I was just adjusting or something, since I knew I was stronger then this...But I would worry about that later. Tobu seemed to be doing a fine job kicking anything we met to the curb...I would just help whenever I could and handle the nice shiny gun when it was needed.
~~~~~~~~~
We finally make it too the village Tobu was speaking of to find it entirely occupied by virus digimon!! Tobu doesnt seem in the least bit disturbed by this, and we mingle with them, asking questions, resting up and such. But then something funny happens, and in the aftermath I get my first clue as to Rena's whereabouts and maybe a shocking revelation or two.
Chapter 7: The Darkness In The Light
Me and Tobu carefully made our way through the forest...We must have walked a good half a mile with nothing happenening and no signs of Rena or her mysterious capture. I was starting to wonder if we would ever get out of the desolate, forsaken land...It was a forest in the loosest sense of the word. Forest implies life and growth...This place had neither. It was full of dead twsiting trees that were oozing something unmistakably green and putrid smelling. Every now and then we would stumble on some qicksand or a bit of mucky, slimy water.. But it was so..So..Quiet. There was no sound at all...Not even any bugs buzzing around, no birds, no twigs snapping from animals..Just utter quiet and an overwhelming feeling of death and oblivion, for it was as cold as it was lifeless...It wasnt normal cold...It was like the air was simply full of fear. All the tiny hairs on my body stood up. I wondered how such a beautiful world could have spawned such a terrible place..Wasnt the digital world supposed to be a beautiful haven, ripe with green growing things and teeming with life? My thoughts that nothing was in the forest but us was quickly shattered as a net scooped us both up into the treetops. I heard Tobu mutter a slight curse as we were jumbled together on our way up. I looked at him fearfully, but what emotion had spawned his outburst was gone..He was probably trying to put on a brave face for me...
"Whats going on?" I asked simply, voice quivering slightly
"A net, Gradius..Nothing to worry about..." He calmly replied, then sighed "What we have to worry about is what set the net and how often it checks its traps...Can you move your sword arm?"
I tried. By some miracle, my right arm was threaded neatly through a hole in the net. I could move it fairly well. "Yeah.."
"Good. Help me cut this thing up a bit..Only cut the ones I point out or we'll get tangled up. Got me?"
I nodded
"Good..And whatever you do, DONT stop cutting, no matter what you see or hear..."
He quickly looked at the severel strands of crude rope that formed the net, and put a small claw mark on half a dozen of them. He started gnawing on one of them. I joined in and sawed at one of them with my sword while holding it still with my other arm. I started to hear things...Quiet though they were, the utter silence up till then made them sound very loud. My guts tied themselves in a knot and I stopped ever so breifly. I received a light kick to the skull from Tobu, who muttered through a mouthful of rope something I couldnt make out. I could guess he was telling me to keep cutting, so I mustered myself and ignored the surroundings, cutting feverishly at what held me. I let out a breath as one of the strands snapped, and heard another go too. I started on another, but suddenly the cold went to startling new lows. It got so bad that couldnt control my shivering and almost cut my hand off. I had too look around. I deeply regretted it when I did.
The clearing was swarming with ghosts. These werent Bakimon..They looked like ghosts of actual digimon...
"T-Tobu!!"
"I know, Gradius! Now, stay strong and keep cutting...They always wait a while to feed on your fear, so we have a while before they really attack..."
I heard two ropes snap and started again to hack away at mine. My panic lent me strength, and I severed one with a deft upward slice. The rope suspending us from a tree gave a creak and we lowered startlingly. Tobu didnt miss a beat before chewing away at another, but I [aniced and grabbed onto whatever rope I could grab. I cursed loudly as I dropped my sword. As if that werent bad enough, the digi-ghosts were tightening theyr circle around us..One raised a spectral claw and struck at me. I felt sheer coldness rip across my face, the blood actually freezing for a moment in the shallow wounds before melting through and coursing down my face. It stung! Luckily, that one seemed the only one eager to get me...I reached down to get hold of my sword. Another crack sound and I inched a foot closer..I just needed a little bit more! I pried open the cross section of the rope and managed to slide most of my shoulder in. Yeah! I got hold of my blade and severed the last marked rope. We tumbled to the ground...
Tobu hit the ground running. Not running, but fighting. he closed his eyes and muttered something, his claw charging with electricity. I was much less graceful. I had to worry about not landing on my sword, so I twisted in mid air and thumped hard on my back. Once more, the sword flew from my grasp, this time enbedding itself in a tree. I scrambled up and ran for it, hearing a large zapping sound behind me and a few ghostly moans. I turned around to see Tobu absorbing the creatured data..It somehow sickened me...I looked back toward my sword and found it guarded by a nasty looking Wizardmon ghost with very torn up clothing and a mask over one half of its face. It raised its rod to strike, and I rolled backwards just in time to see it crash down in front of me. It wordleslly floated closer toward me....Out of desperation, I looked around, seeing my pack laying on the ground. I jumped for it, and opened it up, intent on retrieving my wooden one. I foudn something much better...A shotgun. I looked at it like it was a bag of gold, and picked it up, whirling around. I pumped it once, loading up the barrels. The ghost looked at it strangely, not knowing what it was. I enlightened him...
I pulled the trigger as fast as my frozen fingers would let me. A resounding BANG shattered the quiet of the forest and the ghastly wizard was no more. It raised its arms futiley to block, but was torn to bits of data by the rain of pellets...The data swirled around for a while before settling in my backpack. I wasnt sure where it was goingin THERE, but I didnt really care..I whirled around, loading up again, to find every ghost that was left, and Tobu, staring at me. Tobus mouth was slightly agape.
"What..Is that?" He said, swallowing
For once I felt in control "This...Is our salvation." I whirled my aim at the remainging ghosts. They werent willing to tangle with the business end of a shotgun, however, and departed. Some shaking claws, some shaking tentacles, but all vowing revenge...I took a deep breath and settled down, swatting at the saftey latch twice before I heard the click. Tobu was still staring at me.
"What?"
"...Did that little stick cause that huge bang??"
"Yeah...But this isnt a normal stick...This is a human invention...Its called a "Gun" Theyr really terrible things, but I had no other choice..."
"Well..That should make things easier.."
"I uh..Really cant use it all the time...Limited ammo.."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it fired by causing an explosion inside a chamber, which expels the "bullet"..I only have so many bullets, so I should use them wisely"
"...Ok, you lost me at "Bullet"..."
"I cant use it all the time. I have to save it for emergencys"
"Allright...Lets get going though. Our feet we can and should use any time..."
"Good point..."
I yanked my sword out of the dead tree and cleaned it off quickly. I fell into step besides Tobu and we marched for a while. The forest didnt seem to get any better...In fact, it got worse. Tobu was looking more and more worried as we trekked. I would find out why too soon. We had been walking for a looong time, whens uddenly he through up his arms in annoyance and kicked a tree.
"Whats wrong?" I asked nervously
"We're lost"
"Well, we'll just go the same direction until we get out..."
"No..We're LOST. The ghosts are very treacherous, you see....They can make us wander in circles, even if we go perfectly straight..."
"So what do we do?"
"We have to beat the boss ghost"
"I dont like the sound of that.."
"Dont worry..If worst comes to worst, you can use that gun thing on 'er..We dont have to delete her, just a knock out will work..."
"How do we find her?"
"Like this...HEEEEEEEEEY! GET OUT HERE YOU BLOATED BAG OF ECTOPLASM!!!"
"Subtle"
"Thanks...Now get ready.." He readied himself as a lot of ruckus came toward us...
I took out my sword, determined to not be caught off guard again. I heard a lot of cliche ghost noises, hooting, booing, various evil laughs...And the ground was shaking. Then a really really FAT ghost barralled out into the clearing, tailed by a few hundred tiny ones. It was so fat I wondered how it could possibly float like that. It had no discernable body, just a massive blob with tiny black eyes and a large toothy grin. There was slobber dribbling out. Green drool. Green drool was never a good sign.
"First we have to take out the small ones so they dont jump in, then we make the fat lady sing! Now go!!"
He disappeared ion a blur of movement, jumping around in the fray so fast that I could hardly see him. I took a more solid approach. I stood my ground and attacked anything that came into my range, advancing slowly. If I got a little better at handling such a large sword, maybe I would go Tobus way, but now that wasnt going to happen. I dont know how many ghosts were wiped out, or how many shining flows of data made theyr way mysteriously to my backpack, but we must have been fighting for a solid hour before we made much of any headway. Tobu let loose one last beam of electricity and I executed a fancy whirling slash, making it just us and the leader. I expected it to talk me to death first, but instead the thing sprung into the attack. It tackled me. It felt like I was plunged into a pool of freezing cold jello. Except there was nothing. Nothing at all. No light, no sound, no heat. Just infinite darkness. It was like all the dread and negativity of the forest condensed into one point. And that point was me. I curled up and started to shiver and felt very hopeless. Then a furry paw grabbed my shoulder and started to drag me out! I burst out of the coldness into the "warmth" of the forest. Tobu fell over pulling me out, and I tumbled none to gracefully to the ground also. The ghost was on the ground writhing, a large hole torn in her. SHe was a ghost, so there really wasnt much to see, it was just like someone had forgotten to draw some of it in.
"FInsih it.." Tobu said tiredly "Im too tired too..."
"Allright.." Feeling a bit hurt in the pride, I lifted my sword and stumbled to her "Sorry" I said sinmply, and finished the gastly digimon with a deft swoop of the blade. I cut it clean in half, and the energy made its way to Tobu, some of it going into my backpack too.
Tobu got up, instantly ready "Shall we go?" he said, as if he hadnt an instant ago been facedown on the ground. I put my sword up warily and followed him. After a good hour of walking, we finally broke out of the forest into a plain. The thing that made this plain stand out was the copious amounts of ash all over.
Tobu spoke up "This is the Ashen Fieild. The volcano on the other side of it coats t constantly with ash and soot. life is hard here, but if you look close enough youll find little bits.."
"Volcano?"
"Dont worry, we dont have to go there..We just go north for a bit then cut east. We should end up in a town" He said, limping out into the feild
"Are you sure your ok?"
"Yeah, Im fine..Dont worry. By the way, if your feeling useless dont. You hurt her very badly while you were in there"
"What do you mean? I didnt do anything
"Really? I figured you were using some sort of advanced magic..It seemed like it was blowing up from the inside while I fought it..."
"Nope..I did absolutly nothing"
He shrugged "Well, you musta done something..And whatever it was, she didnt like it."
I was too tired to argue my point or wonder anything..All i could do was trudge through the feild of fine grey dust and hope nothing attacked. Hopefully, I would strengthen or something, becuase I felt very weak at the time..I had barely done any fighting and even less good fighting..I figured I was just adjusting or something, since I knew I was stronger then this...But I would worry about that later. Tobu seemed to be doing a fine job kicking anything we met to the curb...I would just help whenever I could and handle the nice shiny gun when it was needed.
~~~~~~~~~
We finally make it too the village Tobu was speaking of to find it entirely occupied by virus digimon!! Tobu doesnt seem in the least bit disturbed by this, and we mingle with them, asking questions, resting up and such. But then something funny happens, and in the aftermath I get my first clue as to Rena's whereabouts and maybe a shocking revelation or two.
Chapter 7: The Darkness In The Light