I don't own digimon

A Call to Arms

888

"Chaos Piedmon," called the voice. The grey clown sneered quietly. The voice rang again, "Chaos Piedmon, you must report…"

"What, do you wish for me to report?" replied the harlequin as he stood at attention to nothing in particular.

"What is the progress with the barrier?" asked the voice quietly. The clown's eyes narrowed. The voice continued, "I suspect all is going to plan, Chaos Piedmon. I need the human…"

"Why not the children that have already arrived; why must we search out some retired actor from a theater that has long since been closed?" growled the clown.

"I need a human with large amounts of darkness in its heart," replied the voice quietly. "I need a human that is depressed, and I have been monitoring things since the reconstruction, he is one of the few that still retain the seeds of depression from the time before the reformat…"

"Why him?" growled Chaos Piedmon. "Why not use some suicidal teen with enough angst to fill volumes?"

"I need the data from the energy he possesses," replied the voice. "It is the only thing that will allow me to realize completely into this world…"

Chaos Piedmon snarled softly. "Why not drain the angel? He is from the proper scene?"

"He has been reconfigured and his data is incompatible," replied the voice quietly. "I can not properly digest his data stream."

"Fine," growled Chaos Piedmon. He stood and turned, "I will have one of my more competent underlings deal with the Human World."

"Do not fail me Chaos Piedmon," called the voice warningly, "I have fulfilled my side of the deal, and you have yet to fulfill yours. I do not plan to be short changed…"

"Do not worry," the clown turned and bowed, "This director plans to fulfill the greatest expectations of the audience!"

888

The tunnel had finally lead out to a small chamber in a stone room. They had slept at least twice with in the tunnel. Brendan was pretty sure that it had been at least a day and half since they'd entered the tunnel.

The stone room was open to the air and the children walked outside to see a sandy desert.

"Ugh!" grimaced Amy as she turned to return to the room. "Stupid deserts!"

"This is a representation of the Sahara," whispered Brendan he looked up at the pyramids, "North East Sahara to be precise."

"I don't care, it's dry and hot," growled Amy as she disappeared into the large structure they were in. Brendan looked up.

"The Great Sphinx…" said Brendan. He walked around the creature and noticed large wings and large rubies in the eyes, "Or...something very close…"

"This is the statue of Ancient Sphinxmon!" yelped Tapirmon loudly. "He was one of the fighters in the battles before the Great Reformat."

"Ah…" whispered Brendan.

"Uh oh…" Kevin looked past Brendan to the pyramids. "Do you guys see what I see?"

"Mecha Norimon!" growled Labramon.

"Why are they here?" grimaced Janet quietly.

"Because Assaultmon has sent them," replied Jason.

"Duh!" growled Steven, "but why here? Do you think…Ornyxmon ratted us out…?"

"No," Mark said sternly. He held his crest up and looked at it, "Ornyxmon wouldn't have been destroyed if…" Tears filled his eyes. He shook his head and looked at them. "Ornyxmon was trying to protect us…"

"Plus if Ornyxmon had ratted us out, wouldn't the Mecha Norimon be stationed here?" asked Michelle. She looked over at the little, tongue shaped tin men.

"I don't know…but we should get back inside, who knows how far they can scan…" said Lucemon as he herded Mark into the statue.

The others followed Lucemon back into the statue. Everyone sat down. The opening let in light from the sun. Brendan looked around. Hieroglyphs covered the walls. They were like the hieroglyphs in the Temple of Calumon and the chapel at the Mission.

"I wonder what these mean…" whispered Brendan as he walked up to the walls.

"It's all that information," said Lucemon quietly, "about the connection between the Human World and the Digital World."

"Can you answer a question of mine?" asked Brendan to the angel.

"Maybe," replied the angel quietly.

"Do we exist in both worlds?" asked Brendan. "I've been thinking about it...our parents must be sick with worry…and they would've sent a search party by now…but if we were just downloaded then, we may just exist in this world as data and our physical bodies may still be in the Human World…"

The angel looked up. "It's a theory."

Brendan blinked in surprise, "You've been…"

"Do not confuse me with the thing that attacked twenty years ago," said Lucemon with an uneasy calm. "Plus after the reformat I am sure things have been changed…"

"Then…we may be nothing but highly complicated pieces of data," whispered Brendan.

"What's that mean?" Kevin looked up at Brendan.

"It means that it is quite possible that this may be something akin to a huge video game, like a massively multiplayer RPG," said Brendan quietly as he sat down and tapped on his computer. He turned the laptop around and pointed. "I noted when we arrived that I could gain access to information to our world's internet but I could not send messages just gather information."

Lucemon stood up. He walked over towards the wall of the room. "These symbols here…" he licked his fingers slightly and wiped part of the marking away. A huge globe appeared, "are command codes for a holo-projection…"

Brendan blinked in surprise. "Those lines…look familiar…"

"Communication pathways," replied Lucemon. "Probably ancient communication cables, more than likely the way that Gennai is sending projections to us…"

Brendan tapped furiously at his computer. "I knew it!" The others gathered around behind him. The globe on his computer was identical to the globe hovering in the air. "The communication path ways are identical! Every shred of data our computers use, and maintain is moving through several pathways across earth, this world is in direct correlation to that!"

"Uh…what did you say?" Mark and Kevin looked at the screen and then at the hovering globe.

"He's saying this world, is made or at least very closely related to the computer information of our world," said Steven quietly. He narrowed his eyes. "Then we may just be little pings on a server somewhere along these lines?"

"It is a viable theory…" Brendan nodded. He looked up, "but I think it is more likely we are a packet of information, a file or a program that is being run. We exist because this world needs us, so someone ran a program to put us here…"

"Woah…am I really in this world or back home?" yelped Kevin.

"I'm not sure…" replied Brendan. "For all I know this could be some sort of massive computer game that we signed up for and have gotten so immersed in playing that we forgot it was a game…Let's see if I can get anything from home…" Brendan blinked in surprise. "I have an e-mail…from the Digital World…"

"What?" the others shouted.

"Maybe it's from Gennai!" shouted Jason. He pressed forward, "Open it, open it!"

"Give me a moment!" yelped Brendan as he double clicked on the message. Brendan looked at it. "It's being sent by a person named Helper…it says… 'I am trapped within the pyramid, help me! I am an unjust prisoner of Assaultmon! If you free me I will give up the thing you came to look for…attached is a file that will give you a backdoor entrance to the pyramid.' An unjustly imprisoned digimon or human?"

"Does it matter?" asked Jason as he read the message, "If Assaultmon wants him locked up then it's our duty to unlock him."

"Wait…" Janet looked at the others, "Can we trust him? It could be a trap laid by Assaultmon…"

"Kevin?" Steven and Amy looked at the boy in the red hat.

"What?" the boy asked in surprise.

"Well?" returned the boy and the girl, "Are we going or are we staying?"

"I don't know…why is it up to me?" asked Kevin quietly.

Steven and Amy looked at each other, blinked and then sighed whilst shaking their heads. Steven looked up, "because, you dip, you're usually the one that makes decisions…"

"Oh…" Kevin looked down. "I guess I'll have to think about it…"

The others released an annoyed sigh. Brendan resumed tapping at his computer. "Ah…we can sneak into the pyramid…there is a hatch of sorts on the far side of the pyramid. It's protected by some sort of defense mechanism, a hologram or some sort of illusion…"

"And?" Kevin walked slowly around behind Brendan so he could peer over the shorter boy's shoulder. The pyramid on the picture was in fact a double pyramid of sorts, half of it was above ground and then there was a reflection of the surface pyramid under ground. "So…what do we do?"

"We take the red tunnel…but there are number of traps and such…" whispered Brendan. "Too many to just tell you, I'd have to go with you to navigate…" Brendan furrowed his brow, "The data packets that make this pyramid seem to have had a large amount of degradation…"

"Huh?" Kevin looked at Brendan.

"I think he's saying the pyramid is collapsing," said Janet quietly.

"Not, exactly," whispered Brendan. He looked up. "It just seems that a bunch of the areas have incomplete data, there are weak points in the walls and such…"

"Weak points?" whispered Jason as he looked up.

"I don't know how they manifest, it's just that parallel tunnels seem to have mini-transverses through solid walls," replied Brendan as he furrowed his brow. "I'm also getting a lot of dimensional problems with this map, stretches of tunnel that look like they should be ten or twenty meters long are only three." The boy looked up, "If the pyramid is this unstable…"

"We're going to go," said Kevin quietly. He looked at the surprised looks of the others, "but not all of us, if we get trapped we're going to need help backing out…" The others nodded quietly. He looked down and started to draw in the dust. "Ok, I want Steven, Michelle, Amy and Jason to stay here…" He put a big X on the ground, it was to the right of little pyramid had drawn.

"What?" Steven looked up in surprise. "Mark shouldn't go on this dangerous of an adventure…"

"I know…but we'll need Lucemon to help us, in case we need to read Digi-code messages," replied Kevin quietly. "Don't worry I won't let Mark get hurt, as long as you promise not to get my sister hurt."

"You best not," growled Steven softly.

"Ok, the rest of us, sneak around to the little hatch…" he drew a line to the pyramid. "We don't want to start a fire fight, so we shouldn't digivolve our digimon…"

"What if one of the Mecha Norimon see us?" asked Janet quietly.

"We run for the pyramid and slip in and hide until they move on..." said Kevin quietly. "After we're in the pyramid then we make a bee line to this Helper guy."

"Then what?" Mark looked up.

"We come back, and get the heck out of here before we are found," said Kevin and he looked at the others. "Once we have all of our crests we can make a stand against Assaultmon." The others nodded and looked at Kevin. The boy turned and looked outside. "We should check on things…then we can go."

They walked slowly to the edge of the sphinx and looked out side. A sudden evening wind had started sweeping the sand into a roaring sandstorm. The shadowy figure of the pyramid was seen through the twisting sand.

"If we moved now…" Kevin looked back at the others.

"It may be enough cover to get us to the pyramid unseen," said Lucemon quietly.

"Or we could get horribly lost, it's dangerous to go through a sandstorm," grumbled Janet quietly.

"Janet's right…" said Kevin quietly, "but we may not get another chance like this again."

"Are we going?" asked Mark innocently as he looked at the older children.

"Yes," said Kevin quietly and he pushed off leaping from the rock stand they were on and landed on the sand. He pulled his hat down over his eyes and put his hands up. "Come on!"

Janet, Brendan, Mark and their digimon leapt after the boy. Lucemon curled his wings around Brendan's eyes to block the sand. Brendan pulled his jacket up over his head and Renamon and Janet up their arms up to protect themselves. Snow Agumon walked behind Kevin trying to keep from being slapped by Kevin's shirt.

"We just have to keep that pyramid ahead of us!" shouted Kevin as he tried to turn and almost was blown away.

"Duh!" shouted Janet against the wind.

"Let's just hurry! It's not far…" gasped Brendan loudly as he pushed past the others.

They walked for several minutes, trying their best to keep the pyramid in their view. The wind dropped suddenly. The sand fell to the ground.

"Uh..oh…" whispered Mark. The others looked up. They were right in front of the Mecha Norimon attack force.

"Let's just back up…really slowly…" whispered Janet as she pulled back.

"Wait…" whispered Brendan. He walked up to the metal creature and swiped his in front of the Mecha Norimon's eyes. "It's not….on."

"What do you mean?" Kevin and Snow Agumon walked forward.

Brendan knelt down and looked at the mouth unit of the mechanical digimon. "Hmm, my guess is…that their intake systems got flooded with sand."

"Right…so forward we go!" said Kevin walking past the digimon.

"Wait! Janet ran behind him. "What if those things wake up, I think we should go around."

"Why?" Kevin looked blankly at Janet. "Let's just get going."

"I don't want to be here when those things wake up!" yelped Janet.

"Oh what are they going to do? Zap us?" Kevin growled loudly. "We'll just get a green mushroom or whatever extra life thing there is…"

"What?" The digimon looked at each other. "The green mushrooms are poisonous…"

"He's referencing a video game," Brendan grumbled. "I never said that it was conclusive that we are part of a game…"

"None the less, we're just data, so let's get on with this and get it over with!" returned Kevin and he turned and walked past the Mecha Norimon.

The other two looked at him and growled but followed him slowly, warily watching the metallic minions for a twitch of movement. They closed in on the pyramids.

"So far…" whispered Mark quietly.

"So good…" finished Lucemon.

A roar filled the air. The digi-destined and the digimon leapt at the sudden explosion of sound. It wasn't the feral roar of a living creature but the gunning of an engine, a very large engine. The humans looked up. A pillar of sand and dust was rolling towards them. There was a metallic glint and after a few minutes the roaring beast was in front of them. It was a large cylindrical trailer of sorts. A side hatch opened. The digi-destined narrowed their eyes.

"Assaultmon…" they growled together.

888

Uh oh, I hope I didn't scare you all away…don't worry, I think the spoileriness will be over tonight so you can all read that secret chapter. Eh…oh well, I hope people aren't all disenfranchised.