Chapter 2: Symbols on the Wall
Kasume woke up and lifted herself off of the ground. She felt amazingly dizzy and looked around. On one side of her, she saw Ryu lying unconscious on the ground and on the other side of her was a large red insect with giant pincers.
"AHHHHHHH!" she screamed as the bug started to approach her. Suddenly a three foot tall frogish creature that was on two legs and had a trumpet around its neck came out behind the bug. Following it was a boy with flame red hair that seemed to be about 17 years old.
Kasume felt the device that she had found earlier vibrate in her pocket. She looked at it and on it appeared a picture at the giant bug and a voice said Kwuagamon. Then the device showed a picture of the frog creature Gekomon.
The red-haired boy looked at her and said, " what the hell are you doing in the jungle without your digimon?"
Digimon? Is that what these creatures are? Kasume thought.
"I guess I'll just have to save you." the boy said. He pulled out a device similar to the one Kasume was holding and then he pulled out a deck of cards. "DIGIMODIFY: HYPERSPEED ACTIVATE!" he yelled as he swiped a card through his device.
A strange look came across the Gekomon and he rushed towards the Kwuagamon. "Symphony crusher!" he yelled as a blast of energy shot out of its trumpet at the bug. When the blast hit, the bug exploded into small specks of light that disappeared into thin air.
"What happened? What are these things? And where the hell are we?" Kasume asked frantically.
The boy looked at her as if she was an idiot and said. "I just killed Kwuagamon, these are digimon, and we're in a forest" as if it was perfectly normal.
"Digimon?"
"Yeah" he said with a puzzled look.
"this isn't Japan." Kasume said.
"never heard of it." the boy said in an annoyed tone. "are you lost or something?"
"I was just struck by lightning and transported here. This isn't my world!" she said.
"Right? Another world? Do you like playing around like this? The only other world is the one of…" a look of awe came over his face and he whispered "…digidestined. Are you a digidestined?"
"I don't know" Kasume answered.
He looked at her and then at Ryu who was still unconscious. "If you are a digidestined then is he one too?"
"Um… maybe?"
"If you are digidestined then you are here to save the world! Come with me!" he grabbed her hand and started pulling her."
"w-wait! I cant leave Ryu!" Kasume said to him.
"Okay, when he wakes up, come to the village and find me. You can contact me with your digivice."
"Digi-what?"
"Digivice." He said. He pulled out his device and showed it to her. "punch in my digivice's serial number and we can talk over them." he showed her how to use the digivices as phones and then drew her a map of a village. "By the way, my names Akamaru. To the southeast of here is a village. Use this map to find my shop. See'ya" He waved and walked off without another word.
When he got far enough away his digimon transformed into a large tadpole. Otamamon. Akamaru leaned over to Otamamon and said "look around the forest and try to find the other digidestined and lead them to me."
Kasume stared as the boy walked off into the forest. He didn't even ask me my name she thought and then she thought about all of the strange things he talked about. Her stomach then started growling. I need to find something to eat. she looked around and spotted a tree full with strange fruits I wonder if those are edible? she walked off and grabbed a fruit from the tree. She took a bite and then instantly spat it out. The fruit was incredibly bitter. She looked further and saw another tree with spiraled shaped fruits. She carefully grabbed one of these fruits and took a bite. It tasted incredible, like kiwi and watermelon. She picked a lot of these fruits and brought them over to where Ryu was at.
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Ryu's eyes sprung open. He found himself laying on the ground in the middle of a jungle. He quickly glanced around and saw that Kasume was nowhere to be seen. At least the giant bug was gone too. where is Kasume? And where the hell am I? he thought to himself. Ryu's eyes darted to his left as he heard something rustling in some bushes coming closer to him. He picked up a stick in case it was some dangerous jungle animal. He was prepared to attack whatever was coming when Kasume stepped out of the bushes holding a bunch of strange curly-fry shaped fruits.
"Finally awake are you?" Kasume said "I've been waiting for you to wake up for about half an hour. Oh, I found some fruit for us in case you're hungry. Just take whatever you want. I'll be back in a minute." she left most of the fruit with Ryu and took one with her and started walking in the direction that Akamaru said the village was.
After walking for a little while she found a cliff about 20 feet tall do I have to climb this? Slowly and carefully she made her way o the top. She managed to make it to the top without falling and there she saw a spectacular view of the entire jungle. Further in the direction Akamaru said she could see a river and even further she could see smoke coming from a village.
She was about to climb down the other side of the cliff towards the village when her digivice started vibrating. She took the digivice out and on top of the screen a hologram of a teenage girl appeared. It reminded her of star wars with the hologram coming out of the device.
The hologram of the girl looked at Kasume and then said. "Listen well digidestined, this message is for you and you only. Do not tell of my existence to any non-digidestined. It is important that you and the other digidestined find the cave of destiny and gain your digimon partners. Trust no one in any tamer village. They wish to stop your achieving your destiny. Once you get your digimon come meet me on top of mount Hitsumora. My name is Tetsuko . When you come I shall tell you more of your destiny. Also keep an eye out for my servants, Leomon and Centarumon. They shall help protect you until you can take care of yourselves. Do not forget."
Then the hologram of the girl disappeared and her digivices screen showed a map. From where Kasume was on the cliff she could tell that the map was of that area. In the center of the map was a blue dot in her location. She didn't look at the map long and put it away. She continued down the cliff and followed the river to the village. It was almost an hour since she left Ryu and hoped that she could find him again.
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Ryu started to eat one of the fruits. It tasted like a mixture of watermelon and kiwi. He ate three before he started getting full. He left the last of them for Kasume for when she got back. Ryu waited for her for to come back for nearly an hour. When she hadn't gotten back he started to become worried but he didn't go off to look for her because it wouldn't do them any good if he got lost looking for her if she came back. Another hour passed but still Kasume did not return. Ryu's worry grew and grew as more and more time passed without her return
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Kasume entered the village and saw that in front of the gate were dozens of soldiers all had a flaming digimon next to them. Meramon. she hoped that these weren't the ones that Tetsuko had warned her about. She tried to enter the village as nonchalantly as she could and luckily for her none of the soldiers gave her a second look. Once inside the village she saw a lot of people, all of whom had their own digimon partners.
She took out the map that Akamaru had given her and followed it to a shop in the middle of the village. In the shop window were many different digivices that were for sale. She carefully opened the shop door and peered inside. At a cash register she saw the red haired boy that had saved her life. She slowly walked in and waited for Akamaru to notice her. As she looked around the shop she saw many young kids about ten years old with their parents choosing digivices for their kids. this must be where kids get their digivices when they get old enough. she walked up to a glass case that held several digivices and looked at them. The thing that she noticed was that all of these digivices looked less high tech than hers. maybe mine is special she thought to herself.
She was a little preoccupied looking at the shop that she didn't notice someone coming up behind her.
"Did you find what you are looking for?" a voice from behind said
"Ahh" Kasume turned around to see Akamaru standing behind her.
"So, the first digidestined to arrive in our world is standing in my shop. I want to help you fulfill your destiny so the first thing you need to do is get your digimon. I believe the legend says the first step for the digidestined is to find the …"
"Cave of destiny" they both said at the same time.
"How'd ya know?" Akamaru asked her.
Kasume thought for a second about if she should tell him Tetsuko's message but she decided not to. "So, do you know where this cave is?"
"I'm not sure. It's supposed to be close to this village but there are a lot of caves around here. It's someplace that only the digidestined can get to, I'm sure." Akamaru said.
"How am I gonna find it?"
"Maybe your digivice? It seems different. Can I take a look at it?" Akamaru asked. Kasume handed him her digivice "Can you man the cash register while I take a look at this."
"sure"
Akamaru took the digivice up a flight of stairs that led to the buildings second floor. After ten minutes Akamaru came back downstairs and said, "This thing seems to have a special map on it. None of the ones I've ever seen had one so I think that's the key to it. I also copied most of the data on my computer to analyze it. If you find the cave come back and I should have deciphered the map's legend at least."
He handed the digivice back to her and she hit a button to try to reactivate the map. After a few tries she finally found the right button and activated the map. She looked at it for a moment. In the northwest corner of the map were two blue dots and a yellow one. In the center were many white and yellow dots around a blue dot. Also partway up the river was a blue dot moving towards the village. She examined the map trying to find a clue. Suddenly four purple dots appeared near the river about half a mile from the village.
"I think it might be these purple dots here." Kasume said as she showed the map to Akamaru.
Akamaru examined the map for a moment and then said "I guess you better check it out.
Kasume left Akamaru's shop alone and made her way out of the village. From there she saw the guards from before starting to march out of the city. She snuck past them and made her way to the river and to the cave she found it pretty easily and sat at the mouth of the cave for a moment thinking about all that had happened so far.
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After three hours, Ryu decided it was finally time to go off and look for Kasume. He hoped that she didn't leave him for dead or that something attacked her. His mind went instantly back to the giant bug that he had a clear image of in his mind. He didn't know if it was in a dream or that he saw it for himself but the image of the giant red bug was still fresh in his memory.
He started to go in the direction that she had gone off in. The trail was pretty easy to follow and soon her footsteps led him to a short cliff about 20 feet high. how the hell did she get over this thing he thought to himself. He started climbing over it. On the top of the cliff, Ryu could see the jungle for miles around. A couple of miles away he could see a river. Down the river he also saw smoke. "YESSS! Must be a village. that's probably where Kasume headed." he climbed down the other side of the cliff and started off towards the river.
In about half an hour he had made it to the river. He walked down the river until he was less than a mile away from where the smoke came from. He decided to take a short break from walking so long. Nearby, he saw a tree that had the same kind of spiraled fruit that Kasume had brought him. He picked a couple of the strange fruits to eat, he called them twister fruits because of their spiral shapes.
Suddenly he felt a vibration in his pocket. He pulled out a device. He suddenly remembered it coming out of the ball of light and transporting him here. It was vibrating like crazy. The screen started flashing unexpectedly. On the screen was a large map. The map looked a lot like where he was at. He could tell from the view from when he was on the cliff.
In the middle of the map was a blue dot, right where he was at. He could only assume that it represented his device. There was another blue dot a little further down the river and two more blue dots and a yellow one in the upper left. In the lower right corner of the screen, near the river, seemed to be where the smoke was coming from. In that corner was a large jumble of white and yellow dots. These he had no idea what they were. Perhaps they were humans because they seemed to be at a village but if one color was humans than what were the other colored dots. As he stared at it, the two yellow dots and a white dot at the lower right corner seemed to be moving closer. BLINK… Four purple dots flashed on the screen on top of the nearest blue dot to him. The dots disappeared. This confused him for a moment but then decided to go there. Perhaps the other blue dot was Kasume's device. He started to move closer to where the map indicated the dots where. He came closer to the place. When he got there he saw a cave. In front of the cave was Kasume with her device in her hand.
"What are you doing here? Why didn't you come back?" Ryu asked Kasume.
Kasume looked at him and said, " a map on this device kept flashing at this place and I'm trying to figure out what's here. I'm guessing that's why you're here. Right?"
KRACKKK… Thunder could be heard in the distance and the sky grew dark. "I guess this is a good place to sleep for the night," Ryu said. He went off and gathered a few twister fruits and took a drink at the river. When he returned to the cave Kasume had started a fire and was examining four symbols carved into the cave wall. "what'cha looking at Kasume?"
"These symbols! I think this is what the device is showing us."
Ryu looked at the symbols. " oh, I know these!" he looked at each symbol as he identified it, " Courage! Sincerity! Intelligence! And Hope!"
"Really? How did you know that Ryu?"
"It says it right there underneath at the base of the rock." Ryu pointed at the bottom of the wall where the translations were. Suddenly their devices started beeping and glowing. "Huh, what's going on with this thing?" the device slipped from his hands but instead of falling to the ground it floated in mid-air and it moved so the screen faced the wall. Then a beam of purple light shot out of the screen and onto the symbol identified as courage. Ryu looked at the symbol. The symbol disappeared off the wall as the beam of light stopped. The courage symbol appeared on the screen of his device.
Kasume looked over Ryu's shoulder at his device. She looked at her own and then pointed it at the wall. A light blue beam of light shot at another symbol. Intelligence! The symbol disappeared from the wall and appeared an her device the same way that the symbol appeared on Ryu's device.