Chapter 2: A Frost-Bitten Friend

"Uhhhh... where am I. Ow! My head..."

I finally came to after being slung around by the tornado. My head was pounding, it was inhumanly cold and worst of all, I didn't know where Jennifer was. I sat up and looked around. I was in the middle of a desert, well, sort of. If you can consider Antarctica a desert, then I was in a desert.

I stood up and looked around. There were snow dunes for miles around and little sign anything lived anywhere. So I did what anybody would do; walked. As I did I thought to myself. That device Jennifer had shown me seemed awfully familiar, but where had I seen it before? I wanted to say on TV, but wasn't sure.

Hours passed and still there wasn't much difference in the scenery. I was pale, freezing, and hungry. I didn't have to worry too much about water since I could just scoop up some snow, but it still didn't feel the same. As I finally reached the peak of one really large dune, I looked down. There was something at the bottom of the other side and tracks leading away from it for quite a distance. Could it be Jen? I raced down the hill, falling near the bottom and rolling the rest of the way. When I reached what I had seen, I almost jumped out my skin.

"Justin?" Justin was my little brother, I thought maybe the tornado had hit our house; it was right across the street from the church that was smashed. I looked a little closer and realized it wasn't him, his hair wasn't blonde and besides, my brother was—well, yeah. I crouched down to see if the kid was still alive.

"Oh come on, please wake up." I rolled the boy over and found a device on him just like the one Jen had; only his was blue and white.

"Are you OK?" I was beginning to panic. The first thing to find here would be a dead child. Thoughts began to race though my head as my imagination ran wild.

"Huh? Who are you?" The kid sat up and looked at me. He was paler than I was and much younger. "Where am I?"

"I'm James, but I don't know where we are. Who are you? How old are you? How did you get here?" I felt childish to be asking so many questions.

"My name's Joey." He explained to me about the hole in the sidewalk, the device, and the really cold weather up in New York.

"Are you okay?"

"Sure, but I'm hungry."

"Well I can't help that. Come on, before we both freeze out here." I probably should have been a little less up front about the danger we were in. Joey's eyes grew wide and he looked around himself again. "What's that?"

Well off in the distance there was a small cloud where snow was being thrown into the air. It was still very far away, but was coming at us quickly. "I don't know what it is, but we shouldn't find out, come on."

"But it could be somebody who could help us!"

"Or it could be something that would prefer not to."

"Where are we gonna go anyway?"

"Um... well... over there, um... just come on!"

"No."

"What?"

"No, I'm staying here to get help from whoever that is." Whatever was coming at us would be on us in less than a minute. I could make it out now and it looked like a giant, bluish, purplish bug.

"Joey, I've got to say that he doesn't look friendly." Joey turned around at this and saw the creature coming at us.

"What is that?" There was a slight rattle in his voice; he was getting scared.

"Like I said, lets not find out."

"Okay."

We began to run up the dune I had previously come down, but it was too late. The bug flew past us and landed on the snow ahead of us, causing a small avalanche.

"Um... hi. How ya doing? Could you tell us where we are?" I tried to speak in the friendliest voice I could, but being terrified out of my wits, it just sounded like a shaky joke. He just growled and laughed at the same time. I turned to see where Joey was and noticed he wasn't there. Instead, he was back down the hill racing away the creature.

"Fudge." The creature jumped into the air and let loose his wings, flying straight at Joey.

"NO!" Just as he took off, I jumped on top of him and rode him towards Joey. The bug was much larger than I anticipated.

"Joey! Get down!" Joey dived down and dodged the monster by the hair on his head. I turned back to make sure he was okay, but lost my grip and fell off. I felt the snow cave in around me and sunk in a few feet as the bug continued on. Joey ran up to me and showed me his device.

"Look! It says something!"

"Frostkawagamon... ultimate. How does that help us?"

"At least we know what he is now." I turned around and saw that Frostkawagamon was coming at us for another run. "Joey, listen, run, run as fast as you can and don't stop, okay? Don't even turn around for me, just run."

"But what if you get hurt?"

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." Joey reminded me of my brother, only less annoying. Joey began to run off like I told him as Frostkawagamon came flying at us.

"Hey dumbass! Over here!" Frostkawagamon flew at me and with one roar slammed into the snow just below me. Snow and slush flew up in my face as I jumped onto Frostkawagamon's head. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do, but I punched, kicked, and did whatever came to mind. Frostkawagamon couldn't reach me on his back though. He just raged, stomping about on the snow dune causing chunks of it to slide away. Finally he flew into the air again, this time straight up.

"What the... what do you think you are doing?" I kicked Frostkawagamon's head and he roared. Finally, he stopped and began to fly down, back first. I hung on to the beast has he fell out of the sky. This was it, I was a gonner. At least Joey would be long gone by now...

"Hey you stupid bug! Yeah you! Come here and fight me! You don't stand a chance! Leave my friend alone!" Before I could yell at him for coming back, a blast of light shot across the frozen landscape from Joey's device. Dazed, I let go of Frostkawagamon, fell to the snow, and rolled out of the way. Frostkawagamon slammed into the snow, burying himself deep within it. I looked back at Joey only to find that he was no longer there. Instead, what looked like a short polar bear with a sweatband stood in his place. Before I could say anything to it though, Frostkawagamon tore out of the snow bank, finally blowing the entire dune apart. I flipped over myself and hit the ground near the bazooka toting bear.

"Hey James!"

"Wha... who... how... Joey!?"

"Yeah! Check me out! Isn't this cool?"

"Sure, whatever, just do something!" Joey, well I guess it's safe to call him Joey, detached the four-barreled bazooka from his back and aimed at Frostkawagamon, who by now was in a fit of rage from his failure in killing me.

"Eat snowballs!" Joey pulled the trigger and a volley of snowballs hurdled out of the barrel right at Frostkawagamon.

"I think we just made him angrier."

"No way! I kicked butt!"

"Yeah, well that butt is coming back for some more kicking." The attack hadn't even phased the beast. Frostkawagamon roared and came at us with every bit of strength within him, which was quite a bit.

"Maybe you missed; lemme help hold the bazooka."

"Okay, just hurry!" I dashed up behind Joey and mounted the back end of the bazooka. He could have held it himself easily, but I felt I had to do something. Just before Joey fired, I looked up at the sky behind Frostkawagamon. It was dark and light at the same time, like there was a perfect, wavy line between night and day.

"What the..." Before I could look back down Joey fired, this time though much more force came out of the little bazooka. The snowballs glowed like comets, with a light blue flame around them as they impacted into Frostkawagamon. The bazooka emptied and we looked to see what damage we had done. As the last of the snowballs hit Frostkawagamon, we could see parts of Frostkawagamon disintegrating into thin air. We had blown a hole clear through him this time. He gave out one last roar before falling to the ground, blowing into millions of pieces as he landed.

"We did it? We did it! I'm awesome!"

"You sure are kid. Now if you don't mind me asking, how did you become... well... this?" Joey pulled the device out from under his headband.

"When I yelled at Frostkawagamon, a picture appeared and then it got all bright. When the light went away, I was this!" He handed me the device and I looked at it. It was still glowing and had what looked like a crest or logo or something in the background. Beneath it read the word 'Friendship.' In the foreground, there were stats. "Kumamon... Champion."

"I'm a champion alright! We are the champions! We are the champions!" Kumamon started singing and running about.

"Okay Mr. Champion, how do we get out of here?"

"Well, I guess we walk."

"Wonderful. At least it's a beautiful night and day out."

"What do you mean?"

"Look up."

Kumamon looked up and saw the split across the sky. "Wow. I wonder how it does that."

"I dunno but let's go. I don't have fur like you do; jeans and a t-shirt aren't exactly what you would call warm."