Chapter 9: Primary Objective
"What was that?" Tentomon turned to face the direction where Kazemon and Kumamon had left. A few moments later, a scream of pain shot from the darkness of the forest. It was only late afternoon, but the trees blocked the sun. "James! Wake up! I think the others are in trouble!" I was still unconscious from the Demi-darts. "Wake up you lazy jerk! Super Shocker!" The bolt shocked me to life like a defibrillator and I sat up.
"Ow! What was that for?" I looked around. My head was pounding like I had been sitting in front of speakers at a concert. My chest was sore from the Demi-darts, which were still pressed in. I pulled them out slowly, wincing with every slight movement. I asked again when I was done. "Tentomon, what's going on? Where is everybody?"
"Demidevimon said Myotismon had the others. Kazemon and Kumamon went back to find them."
"James! Ahhhh!" Joey's screams pierced my head. I jumped up and ran in their direction.
"No! Don't go James! It's a trap!" Tentomon floated helplessly. "Oh, Izzy was never this hard to deal with."
I could still hear the screams. They were agonizing, each one tearing at me as if I was the one bearing the pain. I stopped short of the source and looked around.
"Now where is this James?" Mytotismon stood looking in the direction Joey had yelled. I was behind a tree though. What could I do? The only one that could defeat Mytoismon before was Angewomon, and I had her digiegg in by pack. I could hear Joey softly whimpering.
"What did I tell you about crying? Crimson Whip!"
"NO!" I dashed out and turned my back to the whip; I could feel it hit, searing my back as if fire had hit it.
"Oh, there he is." The whip came down again, this time on my shoulders. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes from the pain.
"Celestial Fist!" Rage flowed freely inside me. The pain was nothing compared to the hatred I suddenly felt against Myotismon. My fist hit him in the chest and he stepped back.
"That was a mistake." The whip came down again, but I caught it. "Another mistake." I could feel myself get slung into the air and I lost hold of the whip. He began to strike me with it in mid-air. I hit the ground hard and struggled to get up.
"Get up and I'll kill you."
"Kiss my ass." The whip came down again and again.
"Still want to get up?" My arms were shaking and throbbing as I slowly pushed myself up. I wouldn't let him do this.
"Zero Fist!" I jumped up and hit him again, but my attack was different this time. Instead of the light blue flame and streak of energy, it was black. I couldn't control myself anymore. "Zero Fist!" I punched over and over, many of my attacks missing completely. Myotismon was puzzled.
"What's this?" I couldn't see clearly anymore. Everything was changing colors, from red to blue to black, like a dark tie-dye. As I raged, Myotismon looked over me, trying to figure out what was going on. His eyes fell on my digivice and grew wide. "Aha! This changes everything." I was too 'busy' to notice what he was talking about. Tentomon finally caught up with us.
"James! Get out of here and get to Primary Village!" A friendly voice broke me from my attack. I blinked a few times and processed what he had said.
"Oh no you don't, you're coming with me." Myotismon tried to whip me again, but Tentomon flew in the way. The whip knocked him to the ground. I picked up my pack and began to run.
"Hurry! Don't worry about me! I'll meet you there!" Myotismon stomped on Tentomon and held him to the ground with his foot.
"Yes, you will." Myotismon let his whip fly again and blew Tentomon to pieces. He looked back up and around. "Primary Village..." He trailed off into his thoughts and clapped. Two Ogremon ran up to him.
"Take these two to the rest and prepare to move out. We're headed to Primary Village."
"Yes sir!" The two Ogremon saluted their leader and trailed off into the forest carrying Joey and Jennifer over their backs.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I ran. How could I leave Tentomon behind to die like that? I had let Kristen's partner get killed! What would she say to me? More important, would she be able to say anything to me? I stopped for a moment.
"No... he has them all..." I was losing it. All my friends were probably either dead or next to it, and I had let it happen. Thoughts raced through my head as my imagination took over. I could see them being tortured. "God damnit, why!!? Why can't I do anything!? This thing is useless!" I pulled out my digivice and threw it at a tree. It bounced off it and landed near my feet. I looked down at it. The center that had used to be white was now a very dark grey. "What the hell?" I picked it up. I remembered what Ken's digivice had looked like on the show, just like mine. "It figures, now the thing thinks I'm evil." I clipped it to my belt loop and walked on in silence.
Primary Village; Tentomon had told me to go to Primary Village, that he would meet me there. Yeah right, like he could meet me there now. That was where dead digimon were reconfigured. I stopped again. Tentomon would be reloaded there; he had known Myotismon would kill him. All Digieggs hatched there, too, so maybe I could get the ones I had to hatch there and... get the Angels to help me. But where was Primary Village? I pulled out my digivice and went through the functions to the compass. It showed the direction, but nothing else. I kept going through the functions till I came to the radar. I saw dots. Red, pink, blue, yellow; it was the others, and they were moving. "Myotismon heard Tentomon, so maybe he's headed there too." I grinned as I talked to myself; there was still a chance, there was still hope.
The forest finally came to an end and I looked out upon the rolling hills. I had walked through the night, making coffee with the water and grains I had from Gennai. I could see Myotismon's convoy. They were moving about as fast as I was.
It was massive. There was an army of Ogremon as well as a cadre of wagons being pulled by a hideous looking black digimon. It had wings and chilling red eyes. I pulled out my digivice. Devidramon... Champion. I looked back up and saw that the one I had scanned was looking straight at me.
"Hey, what's up with him?" The Ogremon began to look at the sinister dragon digimon. "Hey you; move it! You're holding up the rest of the convoy!" The Devidramon just roared in my direction. I quickly moved further back into the forest; he must have been able to tell I was scanning him. "Damn beast!" The Ogremon sitting behind the dragon on the wagon cracked a whip and Devidramon roared. The convoy started moving again and things returned to normal.
"Jeez, I've gotta be more careful or I'm gonna get killed." I was thinking out loud. "How am I supposed to get to primary village in those fields; I'll be wide open!" I sat down a moment and ran my gloves through my hair. I could feel movement in my pack. I opened it up and looked inside; one digiegg was moving about. It was Patamon's. It wasn't hatching yet, but there was certainly movement inside. "I must be close to Primary Village." I pulled out my digivice and looked. It was still black and grey, but not nearly as dark as it had been earlier. The radar showed that the convoy had stopped. I walked out of the forest and looked. There was one, very large, grassy hill between me and those dots.
I ran up it most of the way and crawled a short way to the top, not wanting to be seen. I reached the top and looked over. "Holy God..."
Gone were the once mountainous stacks of inflatable building blocks and vibrant colors. Gone were the fields of digieggs waiting eagerly to hatch and be brought into the world. Gone were the gelatinous baby digimon who one couldn't help but think were cute. They were replaced by a corrupted field, covered in dead plants and fungus; blight. The eggs were muddy and all contained in bowls formed from dead and rotten trees forced into shapes of servitude. The stacks of building blocks were replaced by stone towers emitting dark green glows at the tops. Every once in a while a blast would shoot from them, spreading across the sky and keeping out any light or rain that would dare think to try and fall on the once beautiful valley of innocence. And in the center of it all was one short, dome-shapped building. Attached to it were steel pots for digieggs. Each one was just big enough for one digiegg, and from the looks of it most of them were full; all but two. "Those are... sick bastards!" The digieggs of the digimon of the chosen children were mounted about the bunker, as if trophies to the dark workings of Myotismon, who was nowhere to be seen. They had turned Primary Village from a place of innocence and birth into a fortress of darkness and death.
The convoy was in the valley, circled around the central bunker. I pulled out my digivice and looked; they were in the wagon closest to me. I say wagons, but they looked more like circus cages, without the colors of course. I snuck down the hill, moving from rock to rock, getting ever closer to the cage. When I could see inside I nearly heaved. They were all there, but beaten to a pulp. Scars and bruises covered them all; Myotismon must have used his Crimson Whip on each of them. I winced and remembered the still fresh scars across my back and shoulders; they began to burn again. I walked up to the cage and looked around. There were Ogremon everywhere, but were busy marching about in procedure. Myotismon had organized them to be an army. The Devidramon were all contained in large stables, roaring and screaming over the loud explosive sound the towers made when they emitted their pulses.
"Guys, can you hear me?" I looked inside and noticed that Agumon was missing. I looked through the cage and saw that there was a red egg on the bunker. They had destroyed him too. I looked for a door but couldn't find one; good thing I didn't need one. I focused energy into my gloves and grabbed onto the bars, hopping I could just pull them away like I had at the Gazimon village. The flames were light blue again. I pulled in all directions on various bars, but none would budge. "Damnit." I whispered to myself and kicked a rock. As I did, I noticed the flames around my hands had changed black again. "I wonder..." I grabbed hold of the iron bars again and pulled. They bent at my will, but wouldn't break. "Finally." I bent them to the sides and climbed in the cage. I dropped my pack, took off my gloves, and crouched down by Jennifer and felt around for a pulse. It took a minute, but I found a weak one. "Whew." I checked everybody and decided that they were all alive; barely, but alive none the less.
"Looking for something?" I turned around to find Myotismon standing outside the bent bars of the cage. "You didn't think I'd let you get to them that easily, did you?" I looked around for something to fight with.
"Ha! You have to be kidding me. You actually think you can fight me? I've killed far stronger than you punk." I felt rage building up inside me again. Without turning around and still staring at Myotismon, I reached back and grabbed hold of one of the bars and yanked; it broke off quickly. I held the bar like a sword and readied myself. "The darkness is greater in you than I thought. Is that why Memoriamon was following you around?"
"Shut up." Myotismon smirked and let out a short laugh.
"Why do you deny it? You are almost as evil as I am, even though you may not know it yet. Come now, stop resisting me and join me in bringing a new age of darkness to this land."
"Bite me." Myotismon stepped into the cage. Ogremon had crowded around it waiting to see me get killed.
"You can't beat the dark gods James. No matter how hard you try, they will win. I will not offer you this chance again. You can both work for me and attain power beyond your wildest dreams, or you can die fruitlessly at my hands." He stood with his arms crossed.
"You won't win Myotismon, and neither will Daemon. We have beaten you many times before, and we will win again." I thought about the hundreds, thousands, millions of digidestined back on earth. If we died, at least a few of them would step up.
"You mean those men and women who have grown up and forgotten their little digital world? They threw it aside to let it fall into hands such as my own. They could care less what happens to it, which is why we are going to rule earth and teach them to care. They are the same." He waved his hand at the others lying unconscious on the ground. "They only wish to save this world to save their own. That is why you hate them."
"I do not." I felt like a dam about to burst. My sight began to get hazy; darkness flew across my eyesight as if it were floating about in front of my face. The black flames about my gloves grew and crawled up the iron bar I wielded.
"Yes you do. You hate Chris because he is the leader instead of you. You hate Joey because you envy his innocence and carefree personality. You hate Kristen because she is smarter, yet younger than you. You hate Jennifer because she rips at your heart every day, killing you from the inside." I was shaking violently. Dark clouds of energy enveloped me and flew about my body. I screamed and took a swipe at Myotismon. The bar hit him and threw him out the cage, tearing bars off as he flew back and landed in the crowd of Ogremon.
"I'LL KILLYOU!!!" I jumped out and slashed about the Ogremon, watching in delight as they blew apart into data, powerless to stop my onslaught. Behind me, I could hear movement. It didn't matter anymore, they were as good as dead and I couldn't help them. Myotismon jumped up and glared at me.
"Can't you feel it: the pain, the fear, the sorrow, the hopelessness? It eats and kills you inside, taking control of you when you can't make things the way you want them." I dashed at Myotismon madly and swiped with the iron bar. He dodged easily.
"Crimson Whip!" The whip wrapped around the bar and I watched the dark energy raced up towards Myotismon. "What the...?" I pulled away and watched the whip break apart. I jabbed at Myotismon, but he stepped aside. No longer relying on his special attacks, he dashed up to me and punched me, knocking me to the ground. I jumped up and took another swipe at him. He dodged it and eyed the others in the cage, who were beginning to come to and wake up due to the noise of our fight. Myotismon ran up the hill I had come down.
"I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!" I screamed and sprinted after him. He reached the top of the hill and waited, just as I was within swinging distance, he attacked.
"Grizzly Wing!" Bats flew out and circled me, biting me whenever they had a chance. I couldn't see past the cloud of bats and swung wildly until they were gone. I looked up, but Myotismon was no longer at the top of the hill. I ran up to the peak and looked about on the other side. He was nowhere to be found. I heard fresh screams and turned around. The dark cloud about me doubled in size.
"So you still think there is hope? Try your attack again and they all die! The punks, the digieggs, all of them!" He held Joey in his hand and threw him against the remaining bars of the cage.
"NO!!!" I began to run towards the cage, but Myotismon grabbed Joey's body again.
"Join me and I will let them go. The digidestined and all the eggs will be given safe passage to your world." I hesitated. What could I do? Finally, I dropped the iron bar and dropped to my knees. Jennifer was watching in horror.
"No James! Don't do it!" Tears poured out of my eyes as I looked down upon them from the hill. A cadre of Ogremon was walking up to seize me, now that the dark energy around me had dissipated. I whispered inaudibly out loud to Jennifer. She couldn't hear me, but understood.
"I'm sorry." The Ogremon grabbed me and dragged me down the hill.
"Get all the eggs and put them in the cage. Take them to the gate. They are no longer a concern to us." More Ogremon ran back and forth, placing the digieggs from the bunker and putting them in the packs in the cage. They all were shaking, seemingly about to hatch. As the Ogremon dragged me in front of Myotismon, I looked at Jennifer.
"Any last words?" Myotismon looked at me through squinted eyes.
"Why James?" Tears flowed freely down Jennifer's face.
"I didn't come here to save myself. I came here to save you, and I did." She sat on her knees and stared at me. Myotismon pulled back his fist to knock me out. Just enough time to say one last thing.
"Objective met; mission accomplished." I felt the pain across my face and everything went black.
I knew no more.