Chapter 2: Traversing the Digital Plane (Part 2)
The screen glowed brighter, nearly blinding Chelsie as she covered her eyes. She could feel herself moving, but how? She was sitting in a chair, in a classroom. She blinked open her eyes, just to find herself falling, falling from the sky. Below her was a park, not just any park though, the park in her town. She plummeted to the ground, somehow not dying as soon as she slammed into the pavement. As she looked around, she could hear screaming, from above her no less. She glanced up, then screamed as well, from the sky fell both Jake and Christina, they too crash-landed into the grass, miraculously unscathed.
Jake was the first to jump to his feet, "where are we? What'd you do dork?" He glanced around, before glaring at Chelsie,
"I didn't do anything!" She yelped, getting up and backing away.
"Christina, back me up! You saw what she did." Jake stared at Christina, before looking back at Chelsie,
"yeah, you got us into this place, we don't know how, but you did!" Christina nodded, standing up beside Jake.
Around them, the trees rustled, as if something was hiding among the leaves. Out of the trees, three small creatures dropped down onto them. One was a small, pink sphere with a cat face, it had two pairs of ears, a pair of purple bat wings and two small nubs, which were most likely it's feet, it had an antenna on its head. The second was a long, dark blue, stick-like creature, it had a sad look on its face, two small nubs holding its chin, it had two small wings on its back, a plume of feathers at the end of its body, and a seeable skeleton through its skin, its antenna hung down over its face. The last creature looked like the Cacomon she saw on the computer, it hung it's head down as it drifted towards the trio of teenagers.
"Gotcha!" The pink creature mewed, jumping onto Chelsie's head.
"Who are you?" Chelsie said, grabbing to creature, holding it out in front of her,
"I'm Catumon!" It cheerily said, "I'm a Protomon! And you're in the Unfinished Lands!"
"What's a Protomon? And why would you even call this place the 'Unfinished Lands'? That just makes it sound stupid." Jake tilted his head, the dark blue creature on his shoulder,
"it is stupid, like everything here." It depressingly said, shaking its head, "we're incomplete here, we're nothing but unfinished code."
Cacomon nodded in agreement, before turning to the group, "you're most likely here to fix a problem in the code." Its voice was hardly more than a whisper, "that problem is probably caused by either another Protomon, or one of those invading Digimon-"
"Digimon? Are you saying I can go and meet living Digimon?" Jake interrupted, smiling like a little kid, "I can't wait, come on guys!" He ran off into the unfinished, blocky landscape, with the dark blue creature still on his shoulder.
"Wait, don't leave yet! There's dangerous Digimon and Protomon lurking around here, and you haven't even gotten your Digivices." Cacomon called after him, frantically shaking its many legs. It slowly turned back to Chelsie and Christina, "here have these." Out of nowhere, two Digivices appeared in the pairs' hands, Chelsie's was a pale green, while Christina's was a light blue. "You'll need those when we come across dangerous opponents, they help us get stronger." The two girls nodded in agreement,
"we should go after Jake, before he gets lost." Christina stated, walking off in the direction the teenage boy ran in earlier, the rest of the group following her.
As they walked, Catumon finally broke the awkward silence, "you guys probably know nothing about us, so we should do some introductions! I'll go first; I'm Catumon! I'm a Lesser Digimon of the Holy element, I can do cool things like flying and jumping really high! I'm not the best at fighting though since I'm still an In-Training II Digimon." It turned to Cacomon, "your turn!"
The insect-like Protomon pretended to clear it's throat, "I'm Cacomon, an Insect Digimon of the Wind element. I Digivolved from a Weepamon not too long along, which makes me a Rookie Digimon."
"I Digivolved from a Napumon!" Catumon exclaimed, "that's after I was hatched from an egg, of course." It smiled at Cacomon, "and Cacomon was a Spookamon when it hatched!"
After it spoke, a loud rustling came from the trees above, a dark, bird-like shape sat on top of a branch, its long, naked, crooked neck pointed down to them. Its dark feathers were ruffled, its sharp beak glistening in the non-existent light. It let out a loud, coarse screech, before flapping its wings defensively, then it flew off, flying towards where Jake had gone.
"What was that?" Christina stuttered, blinking her eyes,
"A Vulturemon. They're a dangerous Bird Digimon species that preys on weaker Digimon and Protomon. It usually attacks, small, weak prey." Cacomon shook its head, before fluttering its wings, its halo tilting, "which means that its seen Jake and Weepamon."
"We need to go and help them!" Chelsie cried, running off after the large bird, her allies at her heel.
Jake ran across the brick road of the park, nearly forgetting the small creature on his shoulder. "Why are we trying to leave the park? It's pretty secure." It complained, its body slouched.
"Because I want to see a real Digimon, hopefully a cool one too! Like a MetalGreymon or a Growlmon!" Jake responded, a wide grin on his face, "then I can be the best Digimon Master in existence!"
A loud, coarse screech filled the air. He turned and stared up, flying towards him was a large, shadowy, bird-like creature, with its talons extended.
"Look, a Birdramon! One of the cool birds Digimon."
As the bird-like monster came closer to view, it's dark talons began to draw closer to the boy.
"That's not a Birdramon, that's a gross looking vulture!" He turned and began to run away from the Vulturemon, but the Virus Digimon was soon on top of him. It wrapped its talons around him, shoving him to the pavement. Weepamon jumped off of his shoulder just in time, weakly standing before the Champion Digimon.
"Bubble Shot!" The dark blue Protomon cried, before spitting an array of bubbles at the large bird. As the bubbles popped along Vulturemon's featherless leg, it turned its attention to the small monster. The bird simply shrieked, the volume of its cry sending Weepamon flying away.
"Help!" Jake cried, writhing under the tightening grip of Vulturemon's talon.
"Bubble Burst!" He heard Catumon cry from behind them. He felt the bird's grip loosen slightly, before bursting from it, running over to Weepamon, who laid weakly on the ground, curled up in fear, crying loudly.
Vulturemon turned to the group behind it, glaring down at Catumon. The pink Protomon spat more bubbles at the bird, before looking up at it.
"Wind Strike!" Cacomon cried, slashing its wings downwards, causing a burst of wind to hit the dark bird. It flinched, before opening its beak, letting out a loud, thunderous shriek. As the group flew back due to the force, Cacomon spoke up,
"it's too strong for us to fight back. We'll need to find another way to beat it."
Catumon turned to Chelsie, its eyes gleaming, "say 'Catumon, Digivolve!' While holding the Digivice up." It nodded at her, "that'll help us in the battle!"
Chelsie nodded. She slowly got to her feet, brandishing the pale green Digivice in her right hand, as she held it up in the air, she yelled, "Catumon, Digivolve!"
The Digivice in her hand began to glow, and so did Catumon. Blocky bits of data began tear from the small Protomon, before reforming into a quadrupedal, reptilian shape. The light burst from the new Protomon, revealing a Mentamon, looking nearly identical to the pixelated sprite from the program earlier.
Mentamon ran towards the Vulturemon, before leaping into the air, "Light Scatter!" It yelled as balls of pure, white light appeared around it, shooting towards Vulturemon. The bird was shoved back, its talons tearing through the orderly pavement, it shrieked in pain, before turning and flying away, leaving a mess of large, dark feathers were it once stood.
Chelsie ran over to the reptilian Protomon, giving it a pat on the head, "good job Mentamon!" She cheered, before looking over at Jake, who stood in front of him, Weepamon cozily placed on his head.
"Trying to show off, huh?" He snapped, shaking his head, "just because your Protomon is bigger, doesn't mean it's better than mine."
Cacomon drifted over to him, placing a golden Digivice in his hands, "take this then, so you can Digivolve Weepamon later." It told him, before drifting over to Christina again.
"Wow Chelsie, that was cool! I didn't know you could do that." Christina walked over to her, placing a hand on Chelsie's shoulder, "I bet we can make it out of this park easily now."
"But what way are we going to go?" Mentamon piped up, its voice now slightly staticky and less enthusiastic, completely different to Catumon's excitable tone.
"We'll keep going North until we leave." Chelsie deduced, walking beside her partner Protomon, with Christina on her other side, Cacomon attached the back of her head. Jake had already gone on without them, his pace quick as he sped through the blocky park.
Link to the wiki: wiki/Protomon_Wiki