Chapter 8: Gold Diggers

The lake was behind them, slowly disappearing over the fields behind them. Chelsie glanced back every so often, trying to spot the small, tree filled area, but every time it seemed to be a smaller dot on the horizon. Now they were on the move, towards what seemed to be the worst idea they'd ever had, the Mighty Mountains. She couldn't climb very well, and she doubted her colleagues could too, but there was a chance that there'd be a path all the way up, maybe. As the trekked, the ground below them began to change rapidly, from a grassy, beautiful field, to a rocky, dull path, the mountains in the distance edging closer every step.

"Are we nearly there?" Axomon piped up. At this point, it was sitting comfortably on Jake's left shoulder, looking like it was about to fall asleep.
"Nope." Christina quickly responded, still staring ahead of them, "it's getting dark anyway, we should probably stop."
"And do what? Sit here in the open? Yeah, great idea." Jake muttered, "I say we keep walking until we find shelter."
"But if I walk any further, my legs are gonna fall off." Christina groaned, "there's gotta be a place to stop somewhere around here."

As if on cue, Cacomon turned its head, "hey look, a tunnel. It might lead us somewhere where we can take shelter."

Everyone turned towards a large hole in the ground, flowers surrounding the gap. As Chelsie stared into it, she noticed that it sloped horizontally, like a covered slide on a children's playground, even the earth inside of the tunnel was smooth and soft looking, as if it wasn't a natural hole at all, but a man-made one.

"Well, I'll go first-" Jake began, but before he could finish, Christina and Chelsie went inside, Cacomon and Mentamon behind them. "-First." Jake trudged over to the hole, before jumping inside, sliding through the darkness with Axomon still on his shoulder.

The eggs trembled as more earth was carved away, the dirt surrounding them seeming to grow as the Radixmon dug. In the midst of the five Radixmon, there was a single, small Gibbamon, who was trying the best it could to help dig out the cave. On the opposite side of the cave, a bird-like, golden Digimon sat, sweeping the dirt into a large, neat pile using its long, dark brown tail.

"Do you think we'll ever hit gold?" One of the Radixmon spoke up, its long, jet black tail covered in specks of dirt,
"of course we will!" A larger Radixmon replied, shaking its head, "we've been digging our entire lives, and we'll continue that tradition until we hit gold."
"I doubt we'll ever even see gold." The bird-like Digimon glanced at the eggs, "if we ever do, it'll be a miracle."
"Stop being such a downer Generemon." Another Radixmon replied, its eyes still focused on the wall of dirt in front of it, "we'll find gold eventually, and when we do, we'll be known as the greatest gold diggers of the Digital World!"

In the nest, one of the eggs began to shake violently, cracks appearing on the shell, white light beaming out of it. But none of the Radixmon seemed to notice, nor did Generemon.

"Yowch!" Chelsie landed harshly on the stony floor. She scrambled away from the tunnel entrance, just before Jake slid down, falling face first into the ground. Christina was standing nearby, looking around them. It was completely black in the cave, most likely due to zero light sources.
"Where are we?" Jake groaned, slowly standing up, Axomon clinging to the front of his shirt.
"I have no clue." Christina shook her head, "its too dark in here."
"I've got an idea!" Chelsie looked at Mentamon, who was sitting down, staring blankly into the darkness, "Mentamon, make your antenna-thing glow!"

The small light began to glow from Mentamon's green antenna, lighting the area up partially. Now, Chelsie could see the dirt and dust around them, all straightened out, as if they were meticulously carved out of the soft material. Behind them, a dirt wall stood, the tunnel the only thing on its surface. In front of them, however, was an endless tunnel of darkness.

"Freaky." Jake murmured, "it's as if some Digimon dug this place out."
"But who'd have the time to dig this much?" Christina looked at him, "maybe it was a bunch of Digimon who worked together to dig it out."
"Well let's find out." Chelsie stated, walking forwards, Mentamon a few paces in front of her. Axomon wordlessly leapt from Jake's shirt, the antenna on its head flopping forwards, a bright yellow light coming from it. It leapt onto Mentamon's head, most likely trying to combine their lights.

The passage seemed to stretch for miles, the terrain around them never changing. Even if a group of Digimon dug this out, it must've taken years to, since the tunnel was so incredibly long. Of course, after a while, Jake began to whine,
"my legs hurt…"
"Of course it is." Chelsie grumbled, "what next, is your head going to hurt?"
"Nah," Jake shook his head, "my eyes probably will, since I need to strain them way too much just to see."
"Look!" Christina gasped, "a light! I always thought seeing a light at the end of a tunnel was a bad thing, but it's probably a good sign."
"And it'll stop his whining." Cacomon mumbled.

As they ran towards the light, the tunnel began to turn brownish-gold, dirt glowing as the distant light became closer. Then the end of the passage appeared, a bare, dirty, brown surface, unclean, unlike the rest of the tunnel. Chelsie and Christina skidded to a halt, along with Mentamon and Cacomon, but Jake couldn't in time, slamming into the soft surface.

"Oww…" Jake groaned as he fell backwards, landing roughly on the flat ground. Chelsie glanced around, then spotted eight pairs of eyes behind them, glaring at the group.

"Why couldn't you find a better entrance." Fierimon grumbled, glaring at Lovimon, "it's way to dark in here. How will we ever find what we're looking for?"
"You'll know when we see it." Lovimon quickly answered, "it won't be hard." The narrow tunnel seemed to widen as they went further, the ground more rugged as they travelled. Soon, a dim speck of sunlight broke through the coarse dirt, shimmering down on a certain thing. In front of them sat a pile of bones, a dragon-like skull sitting in front of them. As if on command, with no verbal words spoken, the bones began to shift, quickly forming the shape of a large, quadrupedal, dragon-like Digimon, with large, glowing yellow balls inside of its once-empty eye sockets. It tilted its angular head down, towards Fierimon and Lovimon, silently opening its jaws, as if to speak, but nothing came out.

"See, it wasn't a waste to come here." Lovimon turned to Fierimon, "this is SkullSunmon, we go way back." The snake Digimon then turned to SkullSunmon, "and SkullSunmon, this is Fierimon."
The skeletal dragon stared at Fierimon, its yellow eyes glowing with power.
"Can we start the whole ''destroy the Protomon'' thing now?" Fierimon groaned, "never liked introductions anyway." It whispered afterwards, but neither Lovimon nor SkullSunmon seemed to hear it.
"Yeah, we can do that, right SkullSunmon?" The Ultimate-level Digimon nodded.

"It's a whole bunch of Radixmon!" Cacomon exclaimed, "never knew they could dig."
"Well ya do now." The largest Radixmon snapped, lashing its long, black tail, "what do you lot want anyway? This is our territory!" The other Radixmon nodded in agreement,
"yeah, get them out!"
"They're slowing down progress!"
"Destruction!"
"Ruining the whole set up!"

The group of Radixmon began to close in on them, their green eyes glowing in the small amount of light.

"You lot, cut it out!" A semi-feminine voice broke through the air. From the darkness, a bird-like, dinosaur Digimon with green flames coming from the back of its head, stepped out, a small, dark grey blob on its head. "Why in the world are you so aggressive when anything crawls its way in here. What next, will you freak out when a worm gets in here?" It pushed past the largest Radixmon, its greenish eyes staring up at the tamers, "don't mind them. They're just incredibly brainless." It shook its head, "I'm Generemon, it's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too." Chelsie stammered.
"Can you tell your friends that if they don't want anyone coming down here, they shouldn't put an obvious tunnel in the ground." Christina stated, shaking her head.

"How are we going to get out of here when we find gold?" The largest Radixmon muttered, "if we don't have a way out, no one will know about how great we are."
"So that's why you're angry at us? You just wanted to dig for gold?" Cacomon tilted its head, while the Radixmon nodded,
"it's very important to us. Even our young members will grow up knowing how to dig, so they can be successes too." The nodded to a bundle of eggs, each identical to one another. Those eggs… they looked too familiar. Chelsie reached into her bag, hoping to find a whole egg and not a mess of eggshells and yolk. She felt the familiar, smooth shape of the DigiEgg, but it felt warmer than usual, as she pulled it out, she examined the pattern on the eggshell. It was nearly identical to the cluster of eggs in front of her, except those eggs were only light blue, while her's had a fish pattern. Was this the Radixmons' egg? Maybe it was.

"I didn't know humans stole eggs!" The small Digimon on Generemon's head piped up, "I thought they weren't like the scary bone dragon that steals our eggs every month!"

The tunnel became still and quiet.

"The what?" Christina mumbled,
"the scary bone dragon! Every month he comes to steal our eggs and we have to hide them!"

As if on cue, the wall in front of them began to crack, loud thumps coming from the other side. Within seconds, the thumping grew louder, until the dirt wall came crashing down, turning into a pile of mud. A large dragon made up of bones started to push through the dirt barrier, the fiery orbs that seemed to be its eyes glowing with hunger as its skull turned towards the batch of eggs sitting in plain sight in front of it.

"Why did you have to mention it!" The smallest Radixmon yelped. All of the Radixmon fled towards the eggs, holding their tails high into the air in a threatening manner. But the dragon didn't seem to care and if it did, it didn't show it. It opened its jaws, before sending a barrage of tiny, black bones at them.

"Gatling Stapes!" Cacomon cried, "that's one of SkullSunmon's attacks."
"At least we know what it is." Jake humoured, "but that's not going to help us defeat it."
"We could just Digivolve our Digimon." Chelsie stated, "then we'll surely beat it."

All three of their Digivices began to glow.
"Mentamon Digivolve too…" Mentamon's glowing body began to morph into its Digivolution, "Symbomon!"
"Axomon Digivolve too…" Axomon's body began to shift, before becoming its Digivolution, "Toximon!"
"Cacomon Digivolve too…" Finally, Cacomon's body began to glow, before it shifted into its Digivolution, "Bugmon!"

"White Beam!" Symbomon spat a bright beam at SkullSunmon,
"Champion Wave!" A large, golden wave of water appeared behind Toximon, before sweeping towards SkullSunmon, passing through Toximon, Symbomon and Bugmon as if they were ghosts.
"Ghost Needles!" Hundreds of turquoise darts shot from the tip of Bugmon's tail, aiming straight at SkullSunmon's skull.

As the attacks contacted the Skeletal Dragon Digimon, it hoarsely yelped, before opening its bony wings, golden rays of sunlight bursting past the gaps, burning the ground as they touched it.
"Bone Fire, yet another one of SkullSunmon's attacks." Bugmon stated,
"who would've guessed." Jake grumbled, "I wonder who's attack it is, especially when it is using it!"
"Calm down, Jake. At least Bugmon told us what the attack's called."
"I could've just looked at a card, it would've been much easier."

"White Beam!"
"Axolotl Splash!"
"Strong Winds!"
As the attacks blasted into the dragon, Chelsie heard a sharp crack from in between her hands. She glanced down, shock filling her. Had she dropped the egg? Did she just ruin everything? The gift those Notemon gave to her for saving their leader, destroyed by her own clumsiness. Maybe she should've left it at the Protomon Nursery, where it would've been protected forever. Instead of seeing a smashed egg on the ground, she saw the exact opposite. The egg was perfectly fine, a large crack along the shell, white light pouring out of the crack. The egg began to shake rapidly, more cracks forming along the surface, the light nearly blinding Chelsie. Suddenly, the shell broke away, disappearing into a mist of 1s and 0s, as a white sphere floated in the air, before falling into Chelsie's open palms. The light faded, leaving a small, pale orange, egg-like Digimon. It had large, white eyes, and golden yolk sticking out of a crack that was scratched horizontally along its entire body.

"Yolk Spit!" The small Digimon spat some egg yolk at SkullSunmon, causing the dragon to turn to it. It shook its head, before turning away,
"Baby attack, unfair fight against baby." The dragon hoarsely spoke, "can't hurt baby. No longer food." It walked out of the hole it created, disappearing into the shadows.

"That was… Anti-climactic." Jake grumbled, "I didn't even get to do anything!"
"Maybe SkullSunmon doesn't like to fight baby Digimon." Christina shook her head, "maybe it had sympathy for a baby."

"Look! Its gold!" A Radixmon ran up to a golden, feathered crown on the ground, "we're reach!" The rest of the Radixmon, even Generemon, ran up to it,
"we can finally leave this tunnel!"
"we're gonna famous!"

"Maybe it was anti-climactic, but we made them happy." Chelsie nodded to the group of Rookie Digimon. She looked down at the Digimon in her hands, "I think I'm gonna keep you." The egg-like Digimon began to chirp excitedly.