Chapter 2
While Terriermon slept, he kept revisiting the day that Lopmon was killed. He realized that the fateful day might stay with him for a long time.
"There's one!," shouted Yaamon, Impmon's In-training form, "A champion level. I think that we can take it!"
The digimon all crept behind a large boulder while eyeing an Apemon sleeping in a tree.
"Ok," began Yaamon, "Viximon, do you think that you can distract him?"
"Sure I can," said the fox in-Training cheerfully. Her tail playfully brushed up against Yaamon's cheek as she leapt in front of the Apemon's tree.
"Everyone knows what they're doing?"
"Wait," shouted Kokomon, Lopmon's in-Training form, "You have me with the others blowing Bubble blast at him."
"So?" whispered an exasperated Yaamon. He turned his direction towards Apemon and hoped that Viximon did not blow their strategy.
"'So'", I'm not ready to be on the offensive just yet. Let me be the distraction and let Viximon be the offensive."
"I agree." Piped Terriermon, "She's not ready yet."
Yaamon shook his ears in disapproval.
"You don't understand. I did it this way because Viximon is a lot stronger than you already. You need more fighting experience than her so she won't be overwhelmingly stronger than you. This way, after we digivolve from this fight, we won't have to solely rely on her and I on protection because everyone's strength will be a little more equally distributed. If you really don't wanna follow my orders, then you can just sit back with Calumon and let us all do all the work."
Viximon had awoken Apemon and he was now chasing her. Terriermon's form, Gummymon as well as Gaurdromon and MarineAngemon's In-training form had now stepped in to fight alongside Gigimon. Viximon had returned to the boulder.
"You okay?" asked Yaamon concernedly.
"Yes….I'm…just really tired. Whew."
Kokomon saw Viximon's condition and felt guilty. It seemed that everyone was doing his or her part except for her. She saw that the rest of the digimon were still having trouble defeating the much larger Apemon and reconsidered her choice. She leapt in front of the others and jumped ontop of Apemon.
"Wait!" shouted Yaamon, "Don't do that! Keep your distance. Shoot with Bubble Blow!"
But it was too late. Before Kokomon could process the demand, she was hit over the head wit Apemon's bone and fell to the ground. Apemon's blow proved to be his last as he began to dissolve into data. All of the digimon were finally able to absorb the beast digimon's data.
"Nice try, Lopmon, but you shouldn't have done that." Shouted a newly digivolved Terriermon. He gasped once he saw Kokomon's limp body on the ground.
"Kokomon, no! This….this shouldn't have happened!"
The digimon crowded around Kokomon's pulsating body before she finally dissolved into data. Impmon stood in front of her body and was about to absorb it before Terriermon tackled him to the ground.
"Don't you dare, you pig! Leave her data alone!"
Impmon rolled over on top of Terriermon and switched his attention to the free- floating data that disbanded into the air.
"You don't care about her!" shrieked Terriermon. Tears raced down his cheeks while he laid underneath Impmon. "You never cared about her! That's why you told her to do something she wasn't ready for. I wouldn't be surprised if this whole time, you planned on her dying so that you could take her data!"
"Are you delusional, you little runt? That's not what happened. I'm sorry your friend is gone, but we have to keep going forward. There's nothing more we can do so you better just stop crying like a baby and stop holding everyone else up."
….
Terriermon awoke to find sunlight permeating the fissure. Monodramon, Gaurdromon and MarineAngemon were walking past him to the entrance of the cave.
"Where are you going?" asked Terriermon.
This awoke the other digimon in the cave and they were just as curious as Terriermon was.
"Yeah guys," said Guilmon, "Why are you leaving us?"
"Well, we realized that there is no point in us sticking together since the Tamers aren't coming back so we kind of decided that it was our time to leave. Besides, it's getting kind of tense between all of us here and I guess you could say the Lopmon's death has made us a little bit nihilistic is all." Gaurdromon meant for the last sentence to be a sort of joke, but the dark humor fell rather flat among his audience of exhausted and borderline depressed monsters.
Impmon huffed and laughed at the statement, "Yeah right. More like you had been planning this the whole time and decided to bide your time until we could help you digivolve."
"Did Impmon suddenly get smarter in the past few years?" asked a bewildered MarineAngemon.
"Hey!"
"Shush, MarineAngemon. Well, we had been planning it for a while, but we still recognize that there is a tense atmosphere, so yes and no."
Renamon sat in her corner of the cave. She had a feeling that once Lopmon died, there would be less morale among the other digimon.
"If you two really believe that this is the best thing to do, then you can leave."
Calumon had just awoken from his slumber to hear Renamon say this. He retracted his ears as he shuffled over to MarineAngemon.
"Is she telling the truth, guys? Are you really leaving us?"
"Goodbye guys. Don't forget about us."
With those last words, Gaurdromon and MarineAngemon left the cave and headed towards the jungle.
"I guess it's just us now." Pouted Guilmon. He slouched on the ground and laid his head down with a resounding thud.
Renamon sat still and wrapped her arms around her knees. She traced her eyes over the cracks in the ground.
"Yes Guilmon. I guess it is just the five of us now."
….
It was the late afternoon when Impmon decided to step outside of the cave for some fresh air. In a nearby tree, he met Renamon sitting on its branch.
"What are you up to Foxface?"
"I told you not to call me that, remember?"
Renamon did not even turn around to meet his gaze.
Impmon drew a line on the dirt with his clawed foot.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that, Toots."
"Don't call me that either." spat the fox digimon with thinning patience. "Anyway, what are you planning for us next, O fearless leader?"
Impmon's eyes transformed into slits at the last phrase of hers.
"Are you…making fun of me?"
Renamon turned to see his frustrated visage, but then continued to stare at the strange sky above them.
"Why? It's not like you have any feelings to hurt in case I were making fun of you."
Impmon clenched his small fists and pounded on the tree that she was sitting in.
"How can you even say that?" he pleaded in a hushed tone, "You know I got feelings for ya, babe."
Unaffected, Renamon continued to stare at the sky without so much as changing her expression.
"After what you did to Terriermon last night, I would be surprised to learn that you had any feelings at all. How could you say those things to him? How could you hit him like that?"
"You of all people should know that what I said was right. You of all people should know what it's like to be constantly reminded that you were created for one purpose only. Besides, what happened with me and Terriermon got nothin' to do with what's going on between us."
Renamon jumped down from the tree branch and landed in the grass. She looked Impmon in the eye and crossed her arms.
"Is there something between us?" she asked teasingly.
Impmon smiled mischieviously.
"When I finally digivolve to Beelzemon, you won't ever have to ask that question again."
Renamon was caught off guard by Impmon's quip. She began to blush.
"What…what do you mean by that?"
Impmon's small fangs protruded through his sly smile.
"Come on, babe. Whenever I was in that form, you could never keep your eyes off of me. You loved it."
"Is that reason alone why you are obsessed with returning to it?"
"That among other things." Impmon began to lose focus. A strange sight caught his attention in his peripheral vision.
Hiding in the bushes watching the whole exchange was a Numemon loudly sucking from the bendy straw inside of a soda bottle.
"Hey!" shouted Impmon, "What the?"
The green sludge digimon immediately took off but was pounced upon by Renamon.
"Aah!" it screamed, "Okay, I'm sorry. I just have this habit of spying on people. Come on…It's not that weird, is it?"
"That's not why we're stoppin' ya." Declared Impmon.
Both Renamon and the Numemon were puzzled. It was not the reason after all?
"What I want to know," demanded Impmon, "is where the hell did you get that soda?"
Impmon pointed at the soda and the Numemon struggled to breathe underneath Renamon's grasp.
"Oh, this? Well…uh."
"You better start talkin' freak." Impmon snapped his left hand and a fire ball initiated. He grinned menacingly at the slimy digimon.
"Okay, okay. I got it from that Tamer Colony."
"Tamer…Colony?" repeated Renamon quizzically, "What in the gods is that?"
"You don't know about it? Oh, it's a really weird place. It's a protected city just north of here that the spirits of the Digital world created. It started out with just a few tamers living there because they couldn't find a way back home. But then a whole bunch started showin' up. Now it seems like every couple of months, new tamers start appearing and living there. A few years ago, it was a ghost town, but now due to a lot of the tamers sticking around and with new ones comin' in all the time, it just keeps growing."
"That…is strange," stated Renamon in a confused tone, "Why would such a place exist? Why would humans be stuck here?"
"Well…" the Numemon became very nervous and he began to sweat throughout all of his many pores.
"Well…if I tell you something, will you please let me go?"
"That depends on what you tell us." Said Impmon while flashing his flaming hand in front of the Numemon. The green creature began to sweat even more so and finally snapped.
"Alright! Alright! There is a rumor goin' around that Thanatos is back, okay. That's all I know, really! All I know about the Tamer Colony are what the kid who gave this to me told me. She wouldn't even tell me if the rumors about Thanatos are true."
Renamon opened her arms and the Numemon shot out of her grasp to race across the floor of the jungle. The slime ball would definitely think twice before indulging in one of his voyeuristic habits again.
"Thanks for loosening your grip, you know!" howled Impmon sarcastically.
"I don't think that he knew anything more about the Tamer Colony." replied Renamon, "Although I wish that we would have probed him more about Thanatos."
"I agree," said Impmon as he picked up the Numemon's dropped soda. He then realized that the bottle was covered in mucus so he chucked the bottle into a nearby bush. "It would have been nice if he told us who Thanatos is."
"No, you don't understand," answered Renamon. She was now looking into Impmon's face with worry. "I know who Thanos is, but I am fearful as to why there are rumors saying he has arisen."
Impmon noticed the sky changing to twilight.
"We should head back to the cave and tell the others about what we heard." He said cautiously.
Renamon jumped into a nearby tree and cocked her ear to the wind.
"In the meantime, we should be quiet about what we say. If Thanatos has arisen, then there are sure to be spies among us."
…
In the cave, the three remaining digimon moped and slouched. It seemed that each of the young monsters had something to cogitate. Terriermon was sitting with his head faced towards the ground, his eyes staring at the dirt and rocks while his mind replayed Lopmon's tragedy from years ago. Calumon sat staring vacantly at the fire, wondering if the death of Lopmon as well as the feud between Terriermon and Impmon was the result of him no longer being granted the responsibility of digivolution catalyst. Guilmon was busy drawing a picture with a stick of himself and Renamon on the cave's floor. For years he had suspected that Renamon and Impmon were in a relationship and that he himself had no chance. What was it about Impmon that she liked, anyway? Well…she definitely seemed to be fascinated by his Beelzemon form, but why? Was he more deficient than Impmon in some way?
Perhaps another question that bothered Guilmon was why was Guilmon so attracted to Renamon? Why not, say, Lopmon. She expressed a female gender, somewhat, and they were both digimon, but for some reason, he never found her or many other digimon that they have come across to be quite attractive. For years Guilmon had thought about the reason for the appeal. The red dinosaur lifted his gaze as his brain began piecing things together. Despite being a fox, Renamon was definitely more human-like than most other digimon. So was Beelzemon. Was this quality the one that made them so attractive?
Guilmon shook his head. Well that could not have been right. Impmon hated humans. But then again, Impmon hated humans yet he was so obsessed about becoming Beelzemon. Sure, the little guy was power hungry, there was no doubt about that. But even for a digimon, he seemed to be more obsessed about digivolution than most. If Guilmon was correct, that their human-ness made them somehow more attractive to each other as well as to other digimon, then what did that say about him, or about digimon in general?
"T-terriermon," stammered Guilmon uneasily.
"Yes Guilmon?"
"Do you think that it's possible for someone to be attracted to something that isn't what they are supposed to be?"
"What in the world are you talking about?"
"Well…" Guilmon thought about what he was trying to say. It was a pretty abstract concept and he probably did not know what he was talking about at all. Even he knew that he was not always the brightest of the Digiworld.
"I guess what I mean is…do you think that even though Impmon does not like humans, that he can still have good feelings about them and bad feelings about digimon?"
Terriermon wrinkled his muzzle as he thought about the concept.
"I don't think I know what you are really saying. Could you be a little more specific?"
Guilmon fiddled with his claws.
"I guess that I'm not really sure how to say it…"
At that moment, Impmon and Renamon had returned from their stroll. Renamon announced what they had discovered from the Numemon and they gathered together to listen to her recount the story of how she first heard about Thanatos.
"Do any of you remember the Nursery?" asked Renamon.
"Oh, the Primary Village? The one on the tv show with all the nice toys?" asked Terriermon excitedly.
"Well. The real Primary Village is a little bit different from that. It was a place in the digiworld with many nests dispersed throughout fields upon fields for almost as far as the eye can see. You see, after digimon mate, they have to arrive at the Nursery at the right moment so that the data for their digi eggs can be purged from them. The eggs are then raised in the many nests by the digi-gnomes and in some cases, they are transported by the digi-gnomes to their tamers. In some cases, if the timing needs to be just right, digimon are kept in the Nursery until they are rookie level before their tamers can take them. All of the other digimon who were never assigned a tamer were raised until they became in-Trainings. At that point, they are taken from the Nursery and forced to defend themselves in the digiworld. I had not been assigned a tamer then, so I was one of the digimon who were released with the other feral digimon."
"Oh," shouted an excited Terriermon, "I think I remember one time I was there. I was just a baby, but I think I remember something about it. A rookie level was one of the helpers for the digignomes because their tamer wasn't ready for them yet."
"I remember too," added Impmon, "I remember the first time I saw a digivolution. It was a Botamon that had just digivolved into a Koromon. Once it was done, it was put to sleep by a bunch of digignomes and it was carried away. I always wondered why it happened, but I couldn't talk then, so I could never ask."
Guilmon pouted.
"Takatomon made me, so…I never been to the Nursery."
"Anyway," continued Renamon, "I remember listening to two helper digimon talking about Thanatos."
"Why are all of the functions of the Nursery stopping? Just one day without datacycles puts us months behind!"
"I'll tell you why. It's because a demi-god called Thanatos materialized in the memorial lands near us and it started resurrecting all of the dead data."
"What? That's impossible! Once a digimon dies, its data is gone forever! How could it resurrect it?"
"When digimon data is deleted, its never deleted permanently. Even when the Digiworld dumps its memory every once in a while, the digital residue of a digimon stays behind."
"Like a footprint?"
"More like a placeholder. A space in this world that tells our gods what was there and what will always be. You see, as a demi-god, Thanatos was created to assist in the deletion of digimon who have strayed too far away from their purpose."
"What is its purpose?"
"Who knows? Only the gods know at this point."
"Well if the gods know how to handle things, then why are we interfering when they decide to resurrect dead digimon?"
"Why? Well it's because Thanatos has rebelled against his original purpose. Would one of the main gods ever call for the reanimation of a digimon? No! They were dead for a purpose!"
"I'm not sure if I'm buying this."
"What happened yesterday was proof."
"How?"
"Thanatos has many digimon on his side throughout the digiworld. There are even specific cults dedicated to him. Just yesterday, a group of rogue digimon that we had to scare away from the Nursery were invoking his name and saying that he will arrive in this area. And of course, he did!"
"Thanatos destroyed large amounts of land near the Nursery then, but we all assumed that he had disappeared. I was the only one who overheard what those two said, so no one from my litter really knew or remembered what happened. I didn't really make much since of the whole conversation until I was old enough to let it sink in. But now, guys," concluded Renamon, "Thanatos may be back and we should be careful with how we travel."
Impmon bursted into a fit of laughter before composing himself.
"Okay kiddies. Now that storytime is over, we can now discuss the Tamer Colony thing."
"What?" asked Renamon irritably, "Are you saying that they are unrelated?"
"I don't care if they are related," began Impmon, "I'm just saying that if there is a Tamer Colony, then we should probably stop by there."
"Why?" asked Calumon, "You hate humans!"
"Oh, I know why!" exclaimed Guilmon, "He thinks that Ai or Mako might be some of the kids stuck there!"
Impmon's face turned beet red.
"Okay, that is not true. I don't give a damn about those brats!"
"It's ok if that's why you want to go," squeaked Calumon, "Maybe the rest of your tamers are there too?"
Impmon crossed his arms in anger.
"Well, maybe I do want to check up on them." He whispered sheepishly.
Renamon walked to the edge of the cave and reclined.
"How about we leave first thing tomorrow, then?"
The rest of the digimon relaxed and tried to sleep. But one red dragon stayed awake as he was still bothered by his questions from earlier.