Chapter 6
"Mmm... I'm sorry, but my family is split up...I'll be in Martynville by Friday...you know what's happened...Mmm.Wha? Where am I? He had awoken and sat up. The room had a bed and a blond-haired boy sleeping in a chair in a corner. A floor rug and a table, wood walls and ceilings, and the sounds of life outside. "Where's my clothes!" He was in robe, all purple and fluffy. "I feel like a fruit! Where's my clothes!"
Jon stirred from a covered frame chair. "Who do you think you are?" He was disgruntled. "I was dozing." The new kid stood up and stretched his arms. "Where's everybody?
Oh, I know you. Orinda Shores 5K last October. You're Jon Parker." Jon's small eyes widened, as if trying to search and find in his mind how he knew that. Then his eyes lowered slightly to normal. "You're Chris Lacona. I beat you by twenty seconds." "That's a perfect greeting. Where's everyone?" Jon analyzed this for a moment and said; "There's five people and five digimon.""No, six.""No, nine Lacona." Chris sighed. "It's Chris. Not Lacona, Chris. I saw you on the rival team, Ginlan Middle of Cielo." "And Roxbury Middle of Martynville sucks. Anyways, you want to know what's going on, don't you?" Chris sat down on the bed and frowned. "Yeah, something had to happen. The last I knew, we saw a powerful digimon and a wave. That was all."
Jon looked him in the eye, with a cold stare. "No, that wasn't all. News in the village says that digimon near Taura Cove at the tip saw a Celierimon with passengers knocked out of the sky by a digimon, but they were too far to be seen. A giant wave, from what they say. The Celierimon was digitized, or killed so to speak. We aren't sure if anyone else is alive. We found a digimon on the beach near you. A Zoremon of the village who visited Mindalay Island. Meanwhile, we need everyone here for the tower. But service out of the islands has been cancelled until they clear up this mess."
Chris's fingered were intertwined in front of his mouth. He raised his head slightly. "Oh..I see...so you've organized search parties? There are four other people and four digimon. Are you sure there was no Nemeamon?" His eyes teared slightly. "Positive." Chris buried his face in his hands. Although Jon thought he was crying, Chris looked up unabashed. "Let me see Zoremon and whoever is in your group." "Where's my clothes?" "At the foot of the bed." "Please leave. I need to change."
Jon leaned against the wall outside the room. A moment later, Chris walked out dressed. "Hey, my clothes smell fresh...!" WHO TOOK MY CLOTHES OFF ME." Chris was showing his nasty side as he spoke with an icy, seething voice. "An old digimon. What, did you think I changed you you perverted homo?" "Screw you to hell you f- oh, so this is the village?"
They were on the narrow porch of a two story building. Below, digimon of all shapes and creeds went about from the small shops to the two story rooms and other larger buildings. By far the largest was to the South on the opposite side of the building, near the stairs. A skyscraper stood before the hills, like a strange obelisk. It looked like it was straight out of NYC. Rows of windows 60 stories up to a culminating point, like the Chrysler Building only with minor differences. John stared as well. "That's Web Tower. It's a tourist site here."
"And that's where we are supposed to meet up with everyone else." Chris said blankly. The walked down the stairs and entered the dirt road. Oddly enough, several trucks sat unused on the curb. Small tents and stands were on the sides as well, and digimon walked the streets going about their own lives. As they crossed the street, a group of Deramon ran past, knocking over Chris. "Damn it! Run over by peacocks. This is not a good day..." At the opposite side of the street stood a shabby inn, which in faded lettering proclaimed "The Hard Drive Inn." "Can you say slum?""Okay, Chris, I suggest you shut it. They were the only place that would let us in."
In the lobby, three kids and five digimon sat on old chairs, doing nothing it seemed. When they saw Chris though, they smiled. "It's about time." The dark haired boy walked over and stood face to face. Or what could be, considerd he was three inches shorter than Chris. "My name's Ian. Ian Villarhemos. (Pointing to the plump girl) That's Lu Gonzalez, and that's Hanna Brown next to her. You already met Jon." Chris lowered his eyes as he received a cold stare from Jon's soft blue eyes. "Uh...yeah." Suddenly, a lizard like digimon, looking similar to a blue iguana but on two feet and with red eyes, yanked Chris's hand.
"HEY!" Ian stared at the digimon and blushed. "Kelsaramon, will you stop that! I'll be damned if you don't enjoy annoying people like that. Kelsaramon and I are partners.""Oh, you met COM?" Hanna spoke up. "Well, we're on par with your group..whereever they are." A green digimon, with leafy hair and a sepal skirt and rooty bits as feet began to whisper to her. The digimon had a round face, and expressive large orange eyes. Even its arms were stemmy. "Are you a giant plant?" The digimon took slight offence to this. "No, I beg your pardon. I'm Dilanmon." It had a high, dreamy voice.
"Well, I'm not sitting through this." Who are the other two digimon?" A green hale like thing ws next to her. "I'm Betamon." It sounded peppy and cheery enough. The other was like an animal, with white fur and looking like a falcon. He was not so nice, like Jon. "I'm Calemon." He was curt and cold, and had grey eyes that made it seem he was staring through you. He had arms with wings on top. All and all, he was a odd bird. Zoremon looked at Chris and then rolled his eyes. "Never mind me."
Chris gave a icy stare back. "Well, we need to find the others. I need help. Check the sea, the island, everywhere. Come o-"
An icy wind blew the door open. "Now what?" They ran outside, and saw web tower was a pinnacle of pure light. Streamers of different colors flew off in all directions. Thirteen total. Five came straight at them. "Ah, Crap!" "Lu, shut up! Get in" "You shut up Ian! No one gives me that attitude!" Too late. The steamers flew into the palms of their right hands. They looked, and saw strange devices. And the sky turned bright again.
"DIGIVICES. THEY WILL HELP YOU EVOLVE AS WELL AS FIND THE OTHERS. THEY ARE ALL HERE, BUT IN DANGER. CHRIS, WHAT YOU MET YESTERDAY WAS THE EVIL HERE. BE CAREFUL AND GOOD LUCK, WE ARE DEPENDING ON YOU...(TURN OFF. I HATE THIS THING...)"
As quick as everything happened thingsd were back to normal. Hanna looked at her digivice. It had a small screen and six buttons, and a grip on the side was celadon in colour. It was only the size of a large egg though. "Well, first things first. Let's start moving out."
On a small globe she was watched. A boy stared in to it. The black Magnamon stood behind him in the dark room. The boy smiled at the group on the screen. "Well, it's time to have some fun..."
Meanwhile, Alexx was sitting in the shallow water cleaning herself when the device hit her. She didn't know it, but she had the same message as the others. Just then, Marin came strolling along...
Chapter 7
"HELLO! Anybody hear me? Elecmon! Somebody!" Apparently, he was oblivious to Alexx washing the sand off herself. "He can be so clueless," she thought. "Hey, Alexx, seen anyone? I only noticed the look on your face when tha tthing ricocheted off your head. No offense, but it was priceless. I wish I had camera." Alexx blushed violently and walked back to the white sandy beach. "Oh, were comedians now. Let me slap you so I can have a laugh, and because you were watching me clean myself. What are you, a pervert?""No, because then I'd have the Internet at home. So, what do you recall from the cloud?"
Alexx folded her arms and stared at the azure ocean waves. "I don't remember falling. It was that thing, the one that caused the wave. I think he's our enemy we were told about. All I remember was waking up here with a seagull picking at a crab on my back." Crandall's smile had faded, and he began to look cocerned. "Alexx, I remember about as much. Except I remember being carried to shore by a dolphin-like digimon. I'd not be here otherwise. I've come up with two questions so far; how do we find everyone and how we can defeat such a digimon. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. Speaking of which, have you noticed we don't have to go to the bathroom here? I just thought that was weird."
Alexx looked bored. "Mmm...I have doubts about Tim. I think something's wrong, that he's not telling us something.""I agree, Alexx. But for now, we'd have to trust him. We have no choice. We need to find any other people too. Hey, what are those devices for? A sky blue colored ray of light hit me, and I got this strange little thing that had a screen and stuff. But I don't know how to use it. You have a orange covering, judging by the light."
Alexx dug into her pocket. "Yeah. After this thing hit me, I was tempted to throw it, but something made me hold onto it. Do you have your compass?" Crandall rummaged through the pockets of his jeans. "???...No. Wait, wasn't Chris the pickpocket next to me. Hey, my quarter's gone too! Damn him! OW! What, if you can call Tim a smart-OWW! THAT WAS MY TOE! For being short, you sure have powerful feet! "Well, then watch your mouth. What if they were little kids around?" "Do you SEE any?"
"No, and no one else either. We'll patrol the beaches." Wait. If the sun is there and Taura Island was south, let's assume this is that and we walk north. Which is...that way." Crandall pointed to his right. Soon they were walking slowly, leaving footprints to be washed away by the foamy waters. Crandall stopped and looked at Alexx. "If this were a vacation, I'd have enjoyed it. What's happening at home? If they discovered five kids missing, that'd be a huge splash in our towns." Alexx kept walking, to the point were Crandall ran to catch up to her. "I don't think we're missing yet. If we have to save both worlds, then they aren't running, or at least at different speeds. It would be a hassle otherwise."
The sun was past noon. "Hey, Alexx, everyone's probably up and walking if they're here. Maybe I should look in the forest while you wait in case anyone comes.""yeah...sure." "Okay. I'll be back before nightfall." Crandall walked into the tropical forest and that was it. Three hours later, Alexx had amused herself by collected wood for a fire and by fiddling with her device. By pressing the buttons, she dicovered it was called a Digidex, told time, identified digimon and registered basic data about Alexx, like age and physical description. The top button didn't work. It displayed the word rookie, with a bar that want halfway up the screen. The last button, however... "It's a map!" she whispered to herself. It showed that North was where Crandall said it was, and it showed him as a red dot "6.3 km ESE of location." Three more dots were 13.5 km S and 12.2 km NNE. Beside him were two yellow dots. It showed they were walking back to the beach. "I'll give them a minute," she thought happily to herself. "Hmmm...its getting dark quick. Are those storm clouds?"
Meanwhile, Tim and Julie were on the southern tip of the island, a small sandbar that jutted out in to the sea. Tim was wringing out his T-shirt while Julie was mesmerised by the seagulls and the breeze. "We should be going you know. It's not worth waiting here for anyone to show up, they'd be near the beaches walking to find us, if they made it on land. Plus, its getting late." He gave a halfhearted smile towards Julie, but she didn't return it. Tim wondered if she was even paying attention. "You don't look so bad now that you washed the sand and slime out of your hair. Kinda nice." Still no response. "Hmmm...I wonder...you look kinda cute..." Suddenly she snapped back to attention. "Did you say something? I guess I was lost in thought." "No, I didn't say anything. But we should go."
They started to walk aimlessly up the beach. Tim seemed to be enjoying it by walking barefoot and letting the warm water lap over his feet. Julie was less interesting. "Tim, what do you think of those things? They match a dream that the others and myself had in color. Mine's got the same plum cloring I saw as a plastic grip on the side. It's weird.""We'll find a use for these things sooner or later Julie. I had a similar dream, and mine's a matching color." He held out the bronze device at arm's length. "I don't know what happend back there on the Celierimon. But I 'm sure it was intentional. First things first. We find the digimon and the others. Then we go to the tower.""Yeah..."
They continued to walk up the beach. Thick black clouds were coming in from the west. Tim turned to Julie. "Hey, a storm's coming! We'd better get to the edge of the woods to try and find some shelter there!" Tim and Julie walked into the woods, which was filled with cycads, palms, and plants never seen or extinct to man. suddenly, there was a rustling of leaves. "Julie, did you hear something?""No." More rustling. "I swear I hear something." "Okay then."
Tim gave her a look of frustration. "Just stay here. I'll look around." Tim began walking slowly around the trees and leaves, when he heard a rustling behind him. He whipped around. Back away slowly...slowly..." and straight into Elecmon, who he promptly tripped over. Super- "Oh, sorry Tim. Its okay Nemeamon. You can come out." Nemeamon bounded out of the bush while Elecmon helped Tim up. Nemeamon smiled gleefully. "Hi Tim! Chris is with you, right?"
He gave a sad but well meaning look. "No, only Julie. We haven't seen anyone else." "Oh..." Both Nemeamon and Elecmon looked crushed. Well, we can go back to Julie and keep looking. We'll find them, trust me (characteristic grin)."
They soon were back to where Julie was. She appeared to be frozen. "Is something wrong?" "I'm just worried. I just want to find the others." The clouds were still near the horizon. It was early evening. "Well, we still have time. Let's go...(Tim waves finger above head) that way, pointing to his left to the direction they were already going. Lets go."
Chapter 8
Back in the village, there was an immideate feeling of awe and confusion around the kids and digimon. Even those digimon around them were staring in dumbstruck with amazement. It was like somepne had blown the world up and they could only watch. Actually, they were surprised that the kids and the digimon seem unaffected as they gathered up the few things they had. Ian seemed to come out as the natural leader. "Okay, here's how we can do it. Hanna and Jon can wait at the tower in case anyone shows up. Lu, Chris, Zoremon and I will begin to check for anyone else and see if they washed up on shore. We'll meet up again at sundown." "This kid must see himself as a leader, and the others just eat it up," Chris assumed as they walked east out of the village. Lu didn't seem at all disturbed by Ian as Chris was. He wondered why. As a matter of fact, she was like the key to his success. Chris grinned. In a very casual manner as they were walking up the beach, he gave a benign look at Lu and asked, "So are you and Ian going out?"
The next ten seconds was a blur. Lu smacked Chris; Ian punched him in the stomach. The digimon only watched in amazement. "Oh, how dare you! I won't go out with this short tempered smartass even if you paid me! He's a lazy snot, and he takes pride in teasing me!""Oh, I'm short-tempered! You're the one who attacked me with a baseball bat when I walked pass your house!""You got a spitball in my hair! What did you expect!""Not a puta!""You dirty-" Chris was laying on the sand watching them bicker back and forth. He whispered under his breath. "Forget I said anything..."
Back at the village, Hanna and Jon had arrived at the base of the tower. It was surronded by a tile plaza and palm trees, and even digimon tourists with cameras. However, th edoors were locked. Jon looked annoyed. "Well, this is as far as we get. I guess we have to wait for everyone else so we can get in. Hanna was a little more upbeat; "It's a nice day, I don't mind. Jon, why do you dislike Chris?" This had caught him off guard, and he felt blood rushing to his cheeks. Or maybe he felt Calemon and Dilanmon giving him curious looks. "What happened between him and me is none of your concern Hanna. I just can't let go the past like he can." Hanna saw this as an opprotunity. "It helps to dicuss things. How difficult is it to forgive?" "Hanna you can go- (here things were said that even years later Hanna would hold against him; she took great offence to already nasty comments)." Jon seemed cold and at ease at saying these things. Hanna was embarassed and looked like someone had beaten her senseless mentally and emotionally. Very slowly, she and Dilanmon walked to the other side of the plaza to wait. Even Calemon looked shocked. "Jon, they are things that shouldn't be said, because you can't take them back afterwards. What made you say that?""Calemon, she was prying. If anyone else does that, I'll do the same and then some."
Ian and Lu finally had calmed down to the point where they just ignored each other. Kelsaramon gave a look of bewilderment to Ian, but he was lost in his own world. Lu just mumbled as Betamon kept trying to whisper "Are you all right", even if there was no chance of Lu hearing her. Zoremon gave Chris a disbelieving glance. "Do you do this to people around you accidentally, or is it a refined talent?" Chris cast his own angry glance. "Alexx can deal with you. All you are is a smartass digimon who acts like he's something better than he is.""And you're a thoughless, careless hellraiser. and the feeling towards you is mutual. If I could bail, I would. I'm glad you're not my partner." Before, they had been walking side by side; now they were at the opposite ends of the beach. Yet both thught the same thing-"Am I as bad as they say I am?"
Chris took out his digivice and began to study it as they walked. The lime colored grip and plastic casing had no screw and no pieces to take apart. The buttons did things, but nothing special in his opinion. Even when he saw the map, he only halfhearted examined it. "Hey, there's a map on these. We should go SW to save time." His yell was flat and weak. The others listlessly moved to a grassy section of the woods where they walked with lead feet. Dunno how they knew SW; they probably assumed it. It was getting late, and rumbles of thunder could be heard in the distance.
The crystal ball was divided into four hemispheres; three were on the groups that met, and one on the last group, who had just arrived on the East shores. The boy watching looked uninteresting. But in the dull light of the spheres, a few features could be discerned. His face looked like it wasn't made to fit, and it stretched over his features. His oval glasses had slipped down over cold gray eyes. Dark slightly curly hair seemed to adorn his scalp, and skin was oddly pale. Among other things, he was wearing a black suit and tie; small cufflinks had the initials E.H. on them. "Arcmagnamon, what do you think we should do? All this searching bores me." The black magnamon like digimon stepped from the shadows. He had orange pupils hidden in his black armour. Well, we either watch now and destroy them later, or we can destroy them now." The boy smiled. His teeth were a gleaming white and completely straight. "Well, its better to be safe than sorry, but they're still weak anyway. We should destroy them while its easy. It's too bad though, it will spoil all the fun." He smiled a evil smirk into the screen, where everyone was unaware of what this child had in store for them.