The Fate of the World: Primary Trials
by Creedogmon
edited by Godeerc VanDrey
Category: Digimon
Genre: Fantasy, Action/Adventure
Rating: PG
Language: English
Summery: The Cave seekers are still only half-way to their destination and in peril in the middle of the ocean. Others arrive to their locations, but things are calm. The morbid prophecy beckons a lot from the DigiDestined, who seems to have very little time as it is just keeping the evil under control, or trying to.
A/N: All right, I am set to finish the series. I've completely the story board and from here, it's smooth sailing. For me, at least. You still have to do all the waiting and bangin your head on the computer desk as I lazily upload these stories on at a time when I'm in the mood. Anyway, from here, there shouldn't be any plot confusions. There shouldn't.
Chapter 12: Primary TrialsDiana atop IceFelismon starts to slow down, and I stop beside her. She pulls the map from her pocket, the original, and looks around. "I think we're here."
I survey the area. It's true we're in a valley. We've been riding at a slight but noticeable downward slope. As I look toward the horizon, it definitely ascends upward into the distance. It's a nice bowl, giving the slight sense of security, though it's a very large, shallow bowl. To the west, the land rises as well and to the ease is a bluff with several caves not too far from us.
"Well, we're in the valley for sure," I state. "So, see any evil?" I ask, a bit of humor in my voice.
"No," she replies, seemingly oblivious to my sarcasm. "I suggest we settle in over there in the caves. We can rest, eat, and so on… save up our strength for any attacks. Jessica said this place was crawling with evil. Or digging," she says, looking at the ground thoughtfully.
We're carrying school-style backpacks, and there is barely have enough room for a single set of clothes, a laptop (which turns out to be an excellent though heavy addition), some first aid supplies, some other supplies, and a day or two worth of food, or rations should I say. Wal-Mart has plenty of camping food, but it tends to be denser. I'm getting tired of summer sausage after only over a day in the DigiWorld.
"Christopher," Diana says to me as I put a sausage-and-cheese cracker sandwich in my mouth, "what's your thing with Jessica?"
I swallow and put the cracker down. This is not mealtime discussion. I breathe in, "Jessica and I have some sort of connection." Diana gives me a confused look. I continue, "Jessica's the Sister, right? Well, I think she's supposed to be my sister. We call it Siblings of Destiny," I say, knowing full well how strange this must sound. How did the others catch on so quickly? "For example, when we're touching, we can more or less use the other person's power, or it's really more of a mental connection." I can tell I'm loosing her. "Remember back there when I said I knew Jessica was in trouble? Well, we can kind of communicate telepathically. We've shared some visions before." I can help but feel I'm not getting anywhere. "For whatever reason, we're connected. It like… have you ever read Madeleine L'Engle's books?" Diana nods. We were on intramural book trivia team together. I know for a fact that she's read the series. "Well, you know how the characters can kithe with one another?" I ask.
"Yeah. Kithing, a telepathic connection with another person. You can relive their experiences in a trance-like state." A dictionary-esque definition I would have loved to have thought up myself.
"Well, it's like Jessica and I can kithe with one another."
"That's awesome," she says, but I don't feel that she means it.
"Diana…" I say, trying to evoke something.
She pulls out her crest from under her shirt. I admire the golden Crest of Truth: a rectangle surrounding a circle with a triangle above it, piercing the top of the box, and a square below it, split into three triangular pieces. "When you first disappeared, I was terrified, Christopher. I thought I'd lost my best friend. That night, when I still had tears in my eyes," she says, having tears right now, "Hawkmon appeared to me. We talked long into the night and the nights following. I was sure that you'd gone to the DigiWorld and that you'd be back. And you did. You came back. But for a week, you showed no sign of having of a digimon, but you had a crest." I mindlessly feel at it under my shirt. "I knew what a crest was. Hawkmon told me everything about the Digital World. Suddenly, you were part of a different group. The Ones with Crests. And now that I have one two, I still feel separated because you're part of a more elite group, a partnership."
I'm lost with words about what to say. I know how emotional Diana can get when it comes to friendship. I spend over an hour talking to her on the phone the night I got back. She needed to know I was okay. "Diana, my connection with Jessica is not the Holy of Holies in this Solomon's Temple of our DigiDestined team. Something supernatural is joining us, just the way something else supernatural joins the two of us: friendship." I don't usually think that well off the top of my head.
Diana smiles. "I'm really glad that we're friends. You know, it's something we had before we were DigiDestined, and it'll be something we have afterwards, and that's the only elite group I need to belong in." She couldn't have said it any better if this were a family-friendly sitcom.
: : :
Jessica heart drops as the glider dives for James. James, however, lowers his eyebrows, and leaps as far as out of the water as he can, grabbing onto the glider as it hits him and tries to pull it underwater. The glider, which apparently wasn't planning on hitting the water so quickly, cracks and dissolves. James, however, gives a painful scream as he holds his forearm, which is bending in the middle, indicating a fracture. Matt grabs James from behind, pulling James's arms close to his body and he spins him around, away from the gliders.
"Delcomon armor-digivolve to… Spiremon." Without a second glance, Spiremon glides into the air, chopping at gliders, smashing them with his wings, and even hunting them down in an enraged fury. The few gliders that do escape explode as they near the water, which is glowing brightly. Matt realizes that James's digivice is in full headlights mode, alighting the entire ocean, even in the daylight.
Matt, Daniel, and Jessica look down at the light, seeing it reach deep down into the ocean, where they see shadows of fish and other sea creature, but the light extinguishes. The mesmerizing beauty of the ocean fades as the team realizes their present situation, which although safer in some respects, in still perilous. Spiremon, working on adrenaline energy, is now completely exhausted and unable to carry them any farther. They're floating in the middle of the ocean, still. And one of the team is in need of medical treatment.
The water, which is calm but not glassy, becomes unsettled. The gang can feel movement in the water and there's an inaudible groan in the water. They look down and see a rather large shadow… growing. Jessica debates swimming away but even her strong arms are tired from treading water for so long.
She looks down again and doesn't have time to react when an enormous whale lifts her and her friends out of the water. The whale's body shakes as it shoots water from its spout in a menacing fashion.
: : :
Bullmon sets foot on the ground, a dusty field with sparse grass. In all directions, the lands lays flat into the distance. "Are we here?" Phillip asks.
"I donna know," replies Eric, excitedly pulling out the laptop. He lays his digivice in front of the ports in back of his computer until the icon comes up on the toolbar, which he click and pulls up a map. He sees the two grayish dots blinking on an on-screen map. "Okay, he continues," and clicks to pull up a scan of Diana's map. It looks like we're darn near close. See any evil?"
Phillip does a full 360 of the terrain. Lots of grass in varying densities all around, some trees, but no sign of intelligent life. "No,"
"Man! It's just like a timeshare. You're promised a lot and you don't nothing."
Phillips smiles at how light-heartedly Eric perceives the world. "Let's try to contact the others."
He, too, pulls out his laptop. It seems almost overkill to have a separate computer for each person, but Phillip sees that it's worth it as Eric is playing Hearts on his own computer.
Phillip contacts Christopher and asks for instructions. Christopher has found all sorts of programs on his computer, which seem to be installing themselves automatically, constantly, and quickly.
Phillip pulls up a program that Christopher has directed him to use. It pulls up a 3-D projection of the land. Phillip waves his hands around, zooming out the projection. "Hey, Chris, what do I do now?" he asks, his voice transmitting through the connection.
"You'll see a lot of buttons on the side," Christopher's voice comes through the speakers, "they're labeled with strange symbols. Start clicking on them and it'll show stuff like water movement, areas of high density, and so on. Just keep looking."
Eric, not wanting to miss the action, also begins to search the terrain. "Whoa…"
: : :
Christopher sits in the outer section of a cave, the afternoon sun gleaming across his straight face. Diana sets up camp behind him, looking up ever so often. "What'cha doin'?" she asks.
"I've found a program on my computer. It seems important, but the text is in DigiCode, so I can read it."
"We got two digimon with us. Let them read it for you."
Christopher replies immediately, in an overly ominous tone, "Hawkmon can't decipher it; she's been showing me what some of the symbols mean. It's quite interesting. Did you know it's not a phonetic language? It's symbolic, sort of. Most words consist of three symbols, which each have their own 'partial-meaning,' but put together, mean an entire word? Anyway, I showed her some of the text in this program. Nine out of ten symbols were foreign to her, which was ironic because understanding the symbology is instinctive."
"Well, what do you have so far?"
"From what I can tell, this is a password screen, so to speak. It's asking for input in this little box here, but the keyboard is non-responsive. It works with everything else, but it's like the password box doesn't want keyboard input. I'm going to try to figure it out tonight."
"Hoping to the unlock the secrets of the DigiWorld?" Diana jokes.
Christopher just smiles, "Something like that."
: : :
Justine lowers herself to the ground, and Anna follows her. "We here," the redhead asks her friend.
Justine replies, for once unsure, "I think so."
"You… think so?" Anna pulls out her laptop. "How do you work this thing?" she mumbles, as much to herself as Justine. "How do I find the map program. The map." Her computer beeps and the map program comes up.
"Cool," Anna comments.
"Yeah, it's more than user-friendly; it's fool-proof."
"Yeah. Hey! Anyway, we're here."
Justine looks to her right. Sure enough, between two rock pinnacles is a lagoon-like body of water, looking rather peaceful. "It's the cove," remarks Justine, putting down the fidgety Virginia, who meanders around.
Anna starts to remove her extra sets of clothes, stuffing them in her unpacked backpack in Justine's bag. "I'm burning up."
Justine chuckles, "You know, it would be cartoony for me to make a joke about that."
Anna rolls her eyes, "Feel free. From what I've heard about the digimon show, it is a cartoon with lame jokes."
Neither of the girls, in their conversation, notice the gurgling in the cove's once-peaceful waters.
: : :
A/N: I take it back. This might take quite a few chapters to tell. The problem is that I don't think I should return to a scene in the same chapter if it doesn't feel like I should. Plus, I've got unbalanced story lines, so I'm in the process of killing time in certain places to progress the story in a rather chronological fashion. I'm afraid it's diluting the story. On the other hand, with cliffhangers after every scene, my audience can probably barely breathe. Or maybe I'm overestimating myself again. Sorry. Anyway, read on. You know you want to.
(Sonriso) - He's definitely getting cocky. You don't see me biting my nails. I'm not at the edge of my seat. Granted, I don't have fingernails, or extremities for that matter, or really any body part besides a face. So I'm not at the edge of my seat, because I don't have a… seat… at all.