I'm really in the zone right now! Another chapters up with only a week between them all (I think)! I also seem to have been too heavily influenced by music… I guess this is what happens when I start thinking of what to listen to where and how to apply it properly. Friendly tip: Sometimes just thinking about what kind of music your characters listen to can help you understand them better. It may or may not help you, but it works for me. I've wasted enough time though:
This is the Real Deal presents:
This is Spirit: Ghosts of the Past!
Chapter 11: Adventure and Friendship
"Welcome to the Digital World!" Emily didn't really know what she was expecting to see, but what she did see was nothing like she'd ever seen in the city before. They were all stood atop a huge cliff, looking down at a vast green plains below. A ring of mountains extended all the way around the plains, thick trees covering them with blue skies speckled with green and orange hues above their heads. Clouds drifted above their heads lazily, oddly painted green with odd wire-like patterns running through them. Trees filled the valley below them, clustered together in small pockets and groups like natural villages. No sun was visible in the sky despite the daytime appearance, but a massive planet was seen hovering above them. Emily would've suspected it of being their own Earth if it wasn't for large rainbow coloured asteroid belt wrapped around it. Despite being the Digital World, it looked completely untainted by any kind of foreign technology. It looked… natural!
Sam ran up to the edge of the cliff excitedly, staring down at the land below in amazement, Starmon floating next to him.
"Wow… This is the Digital World! It looks… it looks… Awesome!" Beautiful was the word that Emily was thinking of, but awesome worked as well. "Starmon, is this really your home? This is where you came from?"
"Right on bro! The Digital World's amazing isn't it? This isn't where I live, but this place is called Chip Forest, and we're probably standing at the base of Login Mountain."
"Chip Forest?" Yoshi questioned from within Sam's Xros Loader before Sam let him out, his landing on the ground causing the ground to rumble slightly. "We're in the right Zone, but on the wrong island. The King lives on Folder, but we're on Eclipse Island."
"Um, can somebody explain these zones to me?" Emily asked. "I remember hearing something about different worlds and the Folder Continent in that weird dream I had, but I really had no clue what that guy was talking about."
"Wait, you've heard of the place?" Lexi asked in shock.
"Well yeah, I told you I entered the Digital World in my sleep, remember?" Lexi stared at her with an odd expression, edging away from her slowly.
"Anyway, let me explain!" Mighty yelled energetically. "Being an android Digi I know loads about the world we come from! Please? It's the one time I know more than you guys about anything!" Mighty cleared his throat, adopting an overly serious expression on his face. "It should be known now that the Digital World exists at the centre of all the separate worlds that exist, whether they're spirit realms or in the real world. It's basically the mainframe for them all. The Digital World itself is split into multiple chunks known as 'Worlds' 'Zones' by those who remember the Xros Wars. During the Xros Wars, it was sliced up into hundreds of pieces which was total chaos, but now they're basically into about… Five or six pieces? Something like that."
"Basically, they're worlds one to six," Jay continued. "Each 'World' has its own special characteristics and traits unique to that world, and some of them are artificially created. Example, Digimon in World five all tend to be massive, class five or four digimon they're called, while other worlds only have class three digimon. A Kotemon would likely be the same height as Emily." Emily tried to imagine Yoshi looking at her at eye level, then looked up at Musyamon and imagined him at twice his size. She didn't even want to know what kind of problems she'd have to go through keeping him hidden…
"Exactly!" Mighty picked up again. "While Digimon in World six can have children and families and stuff, Digimon in World three and most in World five don't necessarily have different… Biological… genders, if you get me. Well, they do, but they can't make more of themselves and stuff, they're just reborn, not… Look, I'm not going into digimon biology here alright? It's gross."
"Understood," Mwape said with an understanding nod.
"It's kinda complicated to explain it all because sometimes you'll run around thinking you're in World four to suddenly find yourself in World six, or find class five digimon in world three, and if you know the routes you can actually walk from one World to the next World to the next World, and even though we know about most of the Worlds we don't know how to get to all of them like World two, and some Worlds may have been mixed together or blown apart… I can't explain it very well so I've probably confused you some more, but this is the important stuff: we're somewhere in World six on Eclipse Island, but the King's main palace, Castle Rock, is on the mainland on Folder Continent, so we've got quite a journey ahead of us."
"So we're gonna be travelling… Across the sea?!" Allison asked enthusiastically, barely containing the excitement in her voice. She squealed in delight, jumping up and down animatedly. "I didn't know the Digital World would be so big or that we'd have to travel across the sea! This is gonna be sooo much fun! Alright, let's go! Wait, where are we going first of all?"
"There's a port city nearby at the other side of the island," Jay said, pointing beyond the forest. "Past Chip Forest and at the edge of Resistor Jungle. From there we can catch a ride to Folder, so down the cliff here and further southwest should get us where we need to go. I'm glad to know most of you packed light cause there'll be a lot of walking involved, but our food supplies and all of Emily's stuff will be a little bit tricky…"
"No need to worry about that," Emily said, pointing her Digivice at them all. "If Eve was really telling the truth, I should be able to suck all this stuff into my Digivice…" A thin red laser shot out of the Digivice, scanning all of the luggage before it all compressed, odd holographic sheets made from thin green wire folding them up into a bundle, folding upon itself until it was in the shape of a tiny SD card. The card shot into the Digivice, slotting itself into one of the many ports it contained. "That's our stuff taken care of. Looks like I can even organise them into food, equipment, recreation… stuff like that."
"Whoa, that's really helpful!" Lexi pointed out in wonder. "How come you couldn't do that with stuff in the Human World?"
"Because everything in the Digital World is digital," Ryuga explained. "That includes the luggage in that chip, and even us human beings. Although I don't think any of us can fit inside an old school Digivice, and it's probably not safe to try put a human in a Xros Loader. So now that's out of the way…"
"What're we waiting for?" Sam interrupted as he flexed his knees by the edge of the cliff. Before anybody could stop him, off he'd leaped over the edge, going flying to the ground far beneath him.
"Sam!" Emily screamed in panic.
"DigiXros!" he roared as he fell, his voice sounding distant. Emily stared in amazement as Sam grabbed onto his back, Flamedramon sticking his claws into the wall as they slowed their descent before he leaped off of the cliff face, flames burning around his feet like rockets. The flames died down mid-flight as they glided through the air, landing in a distant corner of the forest below.
"Well… That's one way to travel… Yoshi?" Yoshi nodded his head, scooping Emily up in his arms before leaping off the cliff himself. The first thing Emily noticed was the queasy feeling of all of her insides suddenly rising inside her, hovering with no forces pulling at them. The wind howled in her ears as they rapidly fell, the cold fingers of air chilling her. Her heart rate tripled, the blood coursing through her veins in torrents. Maybe she should have thought that plan through a little better. At least her glasses lessened the wind on her eyes. The ground that looked so far away was rapidly rushing up to meet her, more than happy to splatter her against it.
Ryuga appeared next to her descent, riding on the back of a now Digivolved DexDorugamon while Angewomon cradled Lexi in her arms opposite her. It looked like Sam had started a trend with Jay on Fangdramon's back high above her, Fangdramon's claws digging into the side of the wall to prevent an all-out free-fall like the others, Lexi and Lycanthmon with his blades digging into the wall, and perhaps most surprisingly of them all, Mwape clutching AdultMegamon's shoulders as he sprinted vertically down it. After feeling the rush of the wind first hand Emily was now struggling to see what it was that was causing everybody to grin so widely. Allison yelled in excitement, her words stolen by the roaring wind.
"Do not be alarmed Emily!" Yoshi yelled above the wind in his deep baritone. "I can never allow harm to befall you. Trust in those words!" Emily nodded her head nervously as she looked down again, some of the tension in her muscles releasing.
The others aren't scared at all… Not much at least, and that's because they trust their partners to keep them safe. I've gotta trust Yoshi to! Emily forced a grin, trying her best to just enjoy the moment. Yoshi unsheathed his sword, sticking the blade into the rock, dirt and pebbles flying wildly everywhere around her, some bouncing off of Emily's face as she tightly clutched Yoshi's chest, finding protection with him. Their descent began to slow down as everybody else also began to come to a halt, DexDorugamon and Angewomon pulling up from their flights. Yoshi's blade began glowing red hot from the friction, but he simply stuck it deeper into the rock.
"You think we've slowed down enough?" Emily asked.
"Yes, it is time!" Yoshi leaped off of the rock, reaching out for a tall tree branch, swinging off of it in one smooth motion so as not to let Emily fall of, slowing down more and more with each swing until he reached the ground, landing gracefully on the ground. Emily bounced in his arms as he landed, even with his gracefulness the shock still affecting her. She suddenly felt ill as all of her intestines suddenly dropped inside her. Her head was spinning, ears ringing, and she was freezing. Yet even with all of that, she still felt thrilled, adrenaline pumping through her body. Mighty was seen flying over their heads, blasting short ranged blue Aura Shots to slow down his fall, twirling and spinning through the air. Fangdramon crashed into the ground next to them, the ground rumbling as they landed. Jay stepped off of his back, steadying himself momentarily. Lycanthmon landed softly next to them, Allison tottering off dizzily.
"That… was… awesome!" she screamed before collapsing on the floor. Angewomon and DexDorugamon landed much more easily, offloading their own passengers as all the digimon degenerated again before everybody heard a yell from behind them followed by rustling leaves and a crash.
"Mighty you idiot!" Mwape yelled as he and his now Rookie level partner stepped out of the bushes. "If you hadn't been showing off so much we might've landed properly!"
"Well sorry for trying to enjoy myself Mwape!" Mighty shot back. "You try building up power with somebody strapped to your back!"
"Maybe if you hadn't decided to push me over the cliff to this would've been fine! Honestly, what did you think you were gonna do? Stick your hand in the wall? Grow a pair of wings? If I hadn't suggested that landing strategy we would've been smooshed by now!"
"And look what good your landing strategy did, crashing straight into a tree. You need to lighten up sometimes…"
"Well it's better than being smooshed! And you need to think with your head!" Emily smiled at the pair's antiques. They were an odd pair really. Mwape was always the serious one, yet his partner was like having a hyper younger brother.
"Just say you both need a bit of work and end it," Emily said with a smile. "Now where did Sam go? Didn't he land somewhere around here?" Emily closed her eyes in concentration.
"What're you doing?" Ryuga asked suspiciously.
"Trying to listen in for their Digi-Melodies… I think I've got a rough idea of what they sound like…"
"You can hear them at will?" Lexi asked in shock. Emily nodded her head, trying not to shatter her concentration anymore. Sure enough, she heard a sweet melody coming from deeper within the forest, before that to split into two more overlapping melodies. A whole wave of discordant melodies played alongside the ones she heard. The Pickmons maybe?
"Found Starmon and Flamedramon. Or rather, FlaWizardmon and Strikedramon. They've split for some reason." The group trooped deeper within the forest, oak trees or something similar surrounding them. Occasionally Emily picked up the sound of rustling leaves and scurrying feet, but for the most part they were completely surprised. What was she expecting anyway, random encounters with wild digimon? She spotted Sam, Starmon and FlaWizardmon hidden behind a clump of trees, Strikedramon leaning against one. They were all gathered together in a semicircle, their backs turned towards them, blocking whatever they were surrounding. Yellow ringed purple mushrooms large enough to sit on were planted randomly around them, jiggling gently.
"Don't move so far ahead of us next time!" Jay reprimanded. "It might not look it now but this place can get really dangerous if you're not careful!"
"Now isn't really the time for that," Sam said, scratching his head helplessly. "We've got another problem altogether…" Emily walked into their little gathering curiously, then stopped, catching her breath. A teenaged girl was resting against the rock, breathing heavy, laboured breaths. No, there was no way this was a regular girl, something seemed wrong with her.
For one thing her clothes. She wore what looked like a blue swimsuit with a thick brown rope tied around her waist with a big bow behind her, however that was as normal as it got. A huge set of leg armour covered her legs, the grieves being oddly styled after a pig being completely pink with darker pink hooves and silver cylinders with flower designs on her knees. She had a ridiculously huge pair of gauntlets on her arms with a silver metal band at the trim where her elbow was, and instead of fingers, two pig hoof styled nails were there. Pink straps held the boots to the rope and two straps were around her forearm. Her face had red arrows painted on her cheeks and the area around her brown eyes was covered in a black mask. With only her face exposed, the rest of her head was covered in an enormous pig-shaped helmet with stitches running through them, with giant brown buttons for eyes and her face and short green hair showing from its open mouth. It looked like the head from a gigantic doll or an elementary school play. Yellow tags covered her outfit with odd Japanese kanji all over it. From hours wasted spending countless anime, Emily knew instantly what they were, curse tags. Emily felt chills run down her spine at the sight of them. She must have made some powerful enemies in the past to get those.
"Sam, why is there an unconscious digimon by your feet?"
"It's kinda complicated," Sam said with a laugh. "You can thank these two for that."
"Don't pin this on me, he was controlling the flying," Strikedramon said. "With his fire and everything…"
"Hey, we're both just as guilty as me!" FlaWizardmon retorted. "Either way it was an accident… Things went wrong when I was flying and I didn't see where I was going, and she didn't even try to move out of the way…"
"We were flying through the air," Sam took over. "Everything was looking good until we tried to land. She was walking through the forest and we were already coming down hard, really hard actually. It was too late to try and change our course and we…"
"You squished her?" Emily asked.
"It was an accident! And besides, she doesn't look too hurt…"
"You squished her with a flying dragon digimon that was on fire! You can't just shrug this off, fix this!" The digimon groaned, stirring slightly.
"Hey, try not to move so much okay?" FlaWizardmon said, gently pushing her back down to rest as she tried propping herself up. "You could have a concussion for all we know."
"Danger…" she whispered to herself. As if her words were a jinx shivers shot all the way up and down Emily's spine, an array of melodies hitting her ears again.
"Sam, where are the Pickmons?" Emily asked.
"Huh? Safely inside the Xros Loader. Why?"
"She's right, we're not alone! I thought they were Pickmons earlier but I should've guessed that their melodies would mix with Starmon's or something, we've got digimon, and loads of them!" Just as soon as she finished speaking tiny explosions went off around them, the forest becoming covered in colourful clouds of dust. The mushrooms all uncurled, revealing a whole host of mushroom men, all of them hurling smaller mushrooms at them. They were even shorter than their rookie digimon but they definitely meant business, and if Emily hadn't guessed from their bombs then the skulls painted on their pink gloves were a giveaway.
"Mushroom land! Mushroom land!" they chanted excitedly.
"Nobody intrudes on the Mushroom gang's turf," one of them said. "That girl was an outsider and so are you, so we'll just have to teach you all a lesson!" Emily tried her best to ignore them, focusing on how to remove the smoke.
"Yoshi, use a charged Dou slash to clear away the smoke!"
Yoshi's blade began glowing blue as he got into a martial arts stance. Left leg slightly forward, right knee bent.
"Dou!" he roared, slashing his blade horizontally. The smoke billowed outwards, revealing several more mushroom digimon.
"Everybody, don't split up to fight alone!" Emily ordered before anybody else could say anything. "Chill together in a circle and fight. It doesn't matter if they surround us because in terms of power we should win, so long as DexDorumon and AxeHounmon can clear an escape route with their speed!" Everybody gathered around the wounded digimon, blasting, clawing, and punching at any mushrooms that came too close to them.
"Aura Pellet!" Mighty roared, firing small blue energy blasts at the mushroom bombs before they could get close to them.
"Digi-Modify!" Lexi roared, slashing a card through her Digivice. "Howling Cannon activate!" Gatomon got down on all fours, yelping like an angry cat, the force of the scream pushing back ten small mushrooms at once, the mushrooms roaring commands to each other in panic.
"Digi-Modify!" Ryuga added. "Digmon's Drill!" they both yelled. DexDorumon's tail lengthened, a large silver drill appearing on it. The tail spun rapidly as he pointed it at them with an evil grin.
"Dorulu Tornado!" he roared, a large tornado building around it as it spun. A host of mushroom warriors all spun into the air in a panic before Yoshi slashed them all, finishing the job.
"Wooden Stake!" AxeHounmon roared, firing the stake in his tail at a mushroom warrior, four more stakes appearing from nowhere, knocking down the others like bowling pins. For every fighter that fell three more would simply replace them. Mushroom bombs went off around them, all of their digimon shielding themselves from the blasts but Yoshi. More of them leaped out of the ground around them, five of them leaping at Yoshi at once, tackling him to the ground. Dorumon howled as he blasted them off with a tornado, only to find himself getting targeted instead, a series of fists hammering into him.
"There's too many of them!" Ryuga yelled. Emily tapped her glasses as she rapidly thought of a strategy, an idea striking her like lightning.
"Sam, Xros Devimon with Mighty and cover us from the sky, make the Starmons use an underground Meteor Squall to! That should do the trick!" Sam nodded his head, his Xros Loader glowing with power.
"Devimon, Megamon, DigiXros!" Devimon and Mighty clashed together in purple and yellow light, the lights clashing with each other before the new figure appeared before them. Megamon had turned completely black, sprouting a pair of bat wings and what looked like a sub-machinegun in his hand made from bones.
"Xros Up Megamon!" he yelled as he flew into the air. He aimed down, grinning evilly as he selected a target. "Rapid Aura!" he yelled, firing down a hailstorm of blue and black bullets. The mushrooms all cowered in terror from the onslaught, bullets shredding through their purple parabolas.
"It's our turn to shine now!" Starmon yelled. "Alright boys, you know what to do! Meteor Squall: Underground mode!" All of the Starmons dug into the grass, shooting out from beneath the mushroom fighters, slashing through them and creating a living wall of pain.
"You'll pay for this!" a mushroom fighter yelped. "Nobody messes with the Mushroomon bandits and gets away with it!" The trees all bent sideways with a groan, what looked like rotting tree stumps walking past them, roaring angrily. That was the only way to describe them, with tree bark for skin, and wooden legs and arms with faces cut into them. Behind them was a large green digimon with enormous rabbit ears, standing almost as tall as Musyamon. The rabbit oddly enough was wearing blue jeans and a chain of bullets wrapped around its chest. Instead of having regular arms instead two large Gatling guns were in place instead of arms.
"Hey, you there!" the rabbit yelled. "What're you doing to my subordinates?"
"Your subordinates?" Sam asked. "You mean you're the boss of all these mushroom guys?"
"Yeah, these are my Mushroomons! I'm Gargomon, the boss over Chip Forest and everything in it, with my Not-So-Royal Woodmon guards! You wanna piece of me?"
"No, we don't want a piece of any of you!" Jay said. "We're just trying to get across this forest, that's all. Now can you leave us and the girl alone?"
"Now why would we do that?" Gargomon asked with a cocky smile. "If you wanna pass through our territory then pay the toll and we'll let you go."
"A toll? Why didn't you say something about a toll before attacking us?!" Gargomon blinked in surprise.
"Did none of you bozos tell them about the toll?" None of the Mushroomon answered. Gargomon shook his head. "Whatever… Half of everything you carry, and leave the girly behind. The girl has some answering to do…"
"Half of everything?! We can't afford to give away that much, and I don't feel comfortable leaving her with you guys anyway. What did she do that was so despicable?"
"She wrecked half our camp in a matter of minutes! She's a hazard to herself and those around her! I can't let a walking insult like her just go now can I? Men, charge!" The remaining Mushroomons all charged at once, accompanied by the larger Woodmons. Sam grinned with a mischievous smile, adjusting his goggles.
"You ready Starmon? It's time to Super Digivolve!"
"Right! Super Digivolve!" Nothing happened, the forest filled with only the sounds of the other digimon fighting around him. "Huh? Sam, what're you doing?"
"I dunno, I'm trying but it's not working!" Sam frantically pushed every button on his Xros Loader with no success, unresponsive sounds coming from it. "This is stupid!"
"Not good enough!" Gargomon laughed, punching Starmon hard into a tree. Sam growled angrily.
"Reload, Greymon!" Greymon shot out of the Xros Loader, flames spewing from his mouth angrily. "No! Wait! You'll set the forest on fire! You can't use your fire!"
"What?!" Greymon screamed in shock before Gargomon punched him in the face with a metal glove. A group of Woodmon all piled on top of him, Greymon crushing them against a tree angrily. Strikedramon rushed in, clawing them all to pieces while FlaWizardmon held up his matches, a strong gust of wind blowing all of the Mushroomon away from him.
"You thinking of a plan Emily? Cause we can't do this much longer," FlaWizardmon said.
"He's right," Sam added. "Greymon and FlaWizardmon are useless here…" Emily tapped her glasses in thought as she scanned the battlefield.
"Maybe there is something we can do…"
. . .
What happened? The Cho-Hakkaimon thought to herself as she slowly opened her eyes drowsily. Last thing I remember I was being chased by a whole bunch of Mushroomons… Then that weird digimon crashed into me… Am I still being attacked? She blinked as she saw a digimon standing over her, its wooden face flashing her an evil grin. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad… Come on body move! Why don't you want to respond? I can beat this guy with my eyes closed, but if I don't get up then I'll never be able to open them again! The Woodmon brought his arms down, the end of his arms filled with spiky wooden needles. A red flash caught her view, the Woodmon stopping dead in its tracks. Woodmon collapsed onto his back, destroyed data coming off of his body. Standing in front of her was her saviour, the back of his tunic billowing from the wind. A… FlaWizardmon?
The FlaWizardmon tilted his face towards her, giving her a smile filled with attitude.
"Yo, you okay over there?" he asked. Everything about it was picture perfect. His smile, his appearance, his attitude, the wind blowing, his flames… even his stance looked cool! The one moment seemed to last an eternity, yet not long enough, his gaze holding a thousand words… Okay, so maybe not that many words. Her friends did keep calling her a hopeless romantic. Back when she had friends. That wasn't what mattered though. Her heart beat with a passion she'd never felt before as she stared up into his silver eyes. The blood ran hot through her whole body, shivers running up and down her spine. It didn't make sense, it just plain didn't make sense. And yet, here she was, drowning in his eyes, her face turning the same colour as his jacket. Then, all too quickly, it was over, and already he was back in the action. That one look, that one glance alone was more than enough to tell her. That one encounter had to be destiny. Fate had brought them together, nothing would tear them apart…
. . .
Flare deflected a blow from the Woodmon, burning a hole right through him with his match. Not a big hole, not enough flames to start a fire, just enough to char the guy. Flare turned his head towards the girl digimon.
"Yo, you okay over there?" he asked. Honestly, protecting her was too much work already, it would be a waste if she suddenly got eaten right there. Her face turned bright red as her mouth opened and shut uselessly, no words coming out. Flare raised an eyebrow at her before turning back to the battle. "Weird…"
"Flare, you catch all of that?" Sam asked.
"Huh? DigiXros, yeah! Got it!"
"Alright! FlaWizardmon, Strikedramon, DigiXros!"
Here comes the drill, FlaWizardmon thought, bracing himself to the rush of power. So much power it was painful. Maybe that's what digivolving felt like? The trio shot into the air, circling high above the amazed Mushroomon's heads. They clashed in the centre, flames going up around them.
"DIGIXROS!" They both screamed. Their claws shot out of the glowing light, followed by the rest of their limbs, and finally their head. "Flamedramon, the Fire of Courage!" he roared. Mighty, with Devimon still fused with him grabbed Gargomon, Gargomon firing wildly everywhere with his guns before carrying him higher into the air.
"Flamedramon, now's your chance!" Mighty roared.
"Alright!" he yelled back. He held his arms out behind him, flames building all around his claws. Gargomon's face paled as he saw the attack coming, Gargomon squirming and wriggling futilely in an attempt to escape. "Fire Rocket!" A massive fireball flew out of his fist, burning up the very air around it. Gargomon roared in pain as it crashed into him, sending him spinning higher into the air.
"You'll pay for thiiiiiiiiis!" he yelled before he disappeared as a speck off in the distance. The remaining forces all stepped back at the sight of their leader getting so easily defeated, retreating back into the depths of the forest. Flamedramon broke back up into two pieces, FlaWizardmon heaving from the exertion. Strikedramon patted him on the back.
"Nice job kid!" he said gruffly. "If you could just keep yourself together once it's done at least!"
"Shut up, fire rockets like that don't come from thin air you know," FlaWizardmon said with a glare. "Heck you're a dragon digimon! Why can't you use fire? So Sam, we're done here?"
"We've still got to deal with the girl, remember?" Sam said, gesturing towards the recently awoken digimon. She was gazing at Flare adoringly the whole time, Flare edging away from her cautiously.
"What? That's still our problem? Do we have to 'cause she's kinda weirding me out…"
"That look like a love-sick puppy?" Emily suggested.
"Yeah, like that… Umm… can you stand?" The girl nodded her head blankly, slowly getting up on wobbly feet. "You have a name? Something?" She didn't even look like she'd noticed the question, her eyes boring into Flare's. "Umm… hello?" Emily simply pointed her Digivice at her instead seeing as no answer was coming anytime soon.
Cho-Hakkaimon
Level: Ultimate
Attribute: Data
Type: God-Man
Family: Nature Spirits
Attacks: Crush Crush Smash, Pig's Full Roast
An Ultimate Level Digimon known to have incredible physical strength as befitting of a God-Man type, and equally exceptional lack of coordination. They are normally incredibly optimistic and peaceful and love cooperating with people, however they are so clumsy that they often cause much more harm than good. If they become hungry however their personality becomes horrendously ferocious, and it may even end up roasting its allies. Be very cautious.
"So you're Cho-Hakkaimon?" Emily asked. She nodded her head, still staring at Flare. "Well, I'm Emily. The goggle head over there is Sam, and the digimon you've been staring at without blinking for the past minute is FlaWizardmon, AKA Flare."
"Flare…" She barely paid any attention to anything Emily said as everybody else introduced themselves. Suddenly, she slapped her face with her gloves, as if trying to awaken from her trance. "Ah! This isn't the time to be spacing out! You guys are humans? You're seriously humans? Like, nooo way! What're humans doing all the way out here in the Digital World? Well actually I shouldn't be surprised, we are on Eclipse Island after all, and loads of humans stop by here like all the time, especially the rookies. Well, not so much the rookies since Gargomon set up residence here. Still, why wouldn't there be humans? Are you from Shine City? You all seem so… bright and colourful!"
"No, we just arrived here a few minutes ago when we bumped into those guys. From what they were saying you're new as well right?"
"Yeah, like totally new! I came from all the way up there!" Cho-Hakkaimon pointed straight up into the sky with a big grin on her face. Everybody followed her pointed suspiciously, craning their necks to spot something.
"Umm… up where?"
"There! You know, the Heavens! Well thinking about it, maybe it wasn't actually up anywhere? It sure felt like it was though… Either way I'm basically just wandering around you know, trying to find out what I'm supposed to do, figuring out my purpose you know? Oh yeah, what was that phrase I heard… 'We're not pawns of some scripted fate. It's the invisible ties we forge that bind us.' So this whole encounter may be that invisible fate-bond thing! Yeah, our meeting was fate! It's totally fate! I mean, we're both trying to find our purpose and all!"
"No, we're not trying to find our purpose," Flare butted in. "We're trying to find the king. Loads of digimon suddenly started Bio-Emerging in the real world, and we even ran into a Machinedramon once! So we're trying to find out what's wrong and stop it."
"Wow, that's way cooler than finding your purpose!" Cho-Hakkaimon swooned, grabbing onto Flare's arm tightly much to his discomfort. "It's gonna be really rough though, moving from Eclipse Island to Folder… But I know that you can definitely make it, right? I know you can with your big strong muscles and your awesome magic… And the goggles! Don't forget the goggles?"
"Told you chicks dig the goggles!" Sam laughed.
"Shut, up!" Flare whispered through the side of his mouth. "That's nice and all but we've really gotta get going, right?"
"And that means we can continue our adventure!" Allison yelled energetically. "We've spent enough time here so let's go!" Allison marched ahead of them, AxeHounmon desperately urging her to slow down, reminding her of the trouble Sam went through just moments ago. Emily shrugged her shoulders and followed after her accompanied by everybody else. Flare attempted to wriggle loose from his captor, but her grip tightened like an iron vice, painful to borderline shattering.
"No! You're not getting rid of me! I'm stuck to you like oil on water!"
"I'm pretty sure oil and water don't stick!"
"Even so the more you try escape and the tighter I'll squeeze! Like those Chinese finger traps!"
"I'll have no more arm left to squeeze if you do that! Now please loosen it a little bit!" The journey through the forest was lively to say the least, with everybody sharing stories from a camp trip from one time or another, the only ones who had nothing to share being Allison and Emily much to their discomfort. Every single digimon in Sam's Xros Loader was let out to. Seeing as they weren't in the real world anymore he didn't really feel the need to hide them anymore, and oddly enough Devimon and Greymon were talking amongst themselves about philosophy. Then through some twist of fate Emily both dreaded and was grateful for, they got into singing. On the downside some of their voices were horrible, Mighty's off-key vocals coming as a bit of a shock to everybody even when Emily added instrumentals from her Digivice. On the plus-side everybody had something to share, even the digimon, and their voices were probably scaring away any wild digimon that still felt like jumping out at them.
"The Fires in their eyes and their words are really clear so beat it!" Mighty sung, his voice screeching occasionally.
"Okay, that's enough tone-deaf!" Mwape said with a laugh. "Time to pass it on to somebody else who actually knows what they're doing!"
"I know! Flare and I should do a duet!" Cho-Hakkaimon said.
"No, no way will I do a duet with you!" he objected.
"Aw come on, it'll be fun! I know you'll love it!"
"Sam, do me a solid here. Don't let me do this. Please." As much as Sam wanted to see this chaos, he didn't have the heart to deny his friend.
"In that case then, I know just the girl for the job," he said with a smile, looking straight at Emily.
"Huh? Me?" Emily could feel her face going red as everybody stared at her. They'd stopped for a break by a large clearing dotted with rocks.
"Yes you, unless there's somebody else with massive Harry Potter glasses within the nearest hundred miles…"
"No comments about the glasses! Besides, I'm not even that great at singing…"
"Emily, I've heard you singing more than enough times to know your voice is awesome! A little rough around the edges maybe but awesome nonetheless!"
"Emily can sing?" Lexi asked curiously. "You never told us that before."
"Heck, here I thought all you did was play video games!" Allison added with a laugh. "Come on, we haven't heard you yet! We're all seated, and we're your only audience so no need to worry!" Emily's face turned a deeper red as she saw everybody before her. They were all arranged around the edge of the clearing in a semicircle, Emily at the end facing them all.
"No, I can't, I really, really can't… Besides, I don't even know any good songs to sing, I pretty much just listen to rock and occasional rap…"
"Emily, I believe in you. You can do this," Yoshi said. Emily looked at her toes nervously. It didn't look like she was getting out of it.
"Well… Fine, I'll sing one verse, okay?" The group cheered excitedly. "I'll sing Rise Up by Beyoncé. As much as I normally hate that kinda stuff it's the only thing I know I can sing decently that's not a soundtrack to something…" Emily sucked in a series of deep breaths, trying to calm her nerves.
Deep breaths Emily, deep breaths. In… Out… In… Out… Why is it only me who has this confidence problem? She took one final deep breath, shutting her eyes. The next few words that came out of her mouth transformed the faces of the audience, their eyes widening in surprise, grins spreading across their faces. Of course, Emily didn't see this transformation, just focusing on trying to get the lyrics right and calm her nerves. She'd barely gotten through the chorus when suddenly her voice caught in her throat, the sound refusing to come out. She stood stock still, the world feeling as if it had shattered around her. Come on Emily sing! What kind of performer stops in the middle of a song? That's insanity! Maybe if I couldn't start in the first place but in the middle… Well, gotta try something, fight the power and all! With one final burst of willpower, she continued.
"Fight for you and me, look into my eyes and believe/
Little woman we will fight, we will fight, little woman we will rise!
I see you and me, take my hand and we/
We will stand we will fight, we will fight, we will stand and together we will rise!"
That was more than enough. Hiding her face in her hands, Emily retreated to a tree stump, the nerves too much for her to handle. The whole clearing was filled with the sound of an up roaring applause, everyone clapping and whistling energetically. Emily looked up slowly, surprised that nobody was tossing fruit at her.
"You guys… you guys liked it?"
"Liked it? Emily I told you your voice is awesome! Sure, it's not world class or anything, nowhere close, and your voice kept cracking…" Allison slapped him sharply in the stomach before he continued.
"The point is you're awesome, and you actually managed to sing in front of all of us even with your stage fright! Honestly, you look like you've got one of the worst cases of stage fright ever!"
"Not just us either," Greymon said with a smile. He raised his tail slowly into the air, revealing a whole bunch of bouncing green and brown jellyfish-like digimon and jumping green seed-like digimon with leaves. In-Training levels, twenty of them at least, all cheering happily. "Your singing attracted all of these baby digimon. Maybe it's a little overrated, but it's probably the first time these guys have heard a human singer, especially with such a good voice."
"Wait… I was singing for all of those people to?" Emily asked in shock, the blood leaving her face. It was hard enough singing in front of friends, but in front of strangers to? Sam nodded his head with a smile. "That's… but that's…" All of a sudden she didn't feel very well. The ground swayed beneath her as she fell backwards over, still unable to believe it. Yoshi caught her before she could fall over completely.
"Careful please, we can't have you fall to such a foe as your own confidence!" Emily slowly got back up, her head still feeling like it was filled with helium.
"Yeah, you're right… Sorry…"
"What're you apologising for? You gave us some amazing music! That's not something to apologise for!" The day basically continued like that without much incident as they continued their trek through Chip Forest until nightfall. Night looked odd when it finally came, the sky dimming as expected, but instead of the moon rising in the sky bright iridescent wires streaked through the sky, lining it like a gigantic computer chip. In fact, it was almost as if they were inside a gigantic dome instead of an actual sky. Emily unpacked a bunch of makeshift tarpaulin sheets from her Digivice. Seeing as they were supposed to be at an actual Summer Camp with cottages and sleeping arranged her mother didn't really think she needed actual tents, telling her if they did need them improvising would be more fun. Sure enough once everybody got some pegs and string things proved to be interesting.
Within the first five minutes Sam had tangled himself up in the wires. Within the first five seconds Bitemon had torn a hole through his, so with a grumble Ryuga had to try and sew it back up again (the fact that Ryuga could sow came as a shock to everybody.) The first people who completed their makeshift tent were Lexi and Allison. They'd decided to team up to speed up the process and make one big super cover. They found an area surrounded by rocks and trees to shield them from the wind, then pegged the four corners of their tent to four separate trees, completely covering them like a tiny roof. After finishing his repairs Ryuga went for the basics: stretched his string out between two trees and draped the tarpaulin over it, pegging the sides to the ground to make a long prism in true tent fashion. He and Dorumon both snuggled into it comfortable. Sam and Jay didn't look like they were having much luck with their tent either, though Jay was doomed the minute he thought Sam knew what he was doing. Their tent was meant to be like the girls, but they were one tree short at the only comfortable and warm spot, so their tent slanted down on their heads.
Mwape, after ordering Mighty not to put anything in his mouth (Much to Mighty's annoyance as he had to remind him he wasn't a baby) had gone for the basics as well. Emily smiled as she looked at her own. Scraping the idea of a tent entirely, she'd transformed her tarpaulin into a hammock, with a small spare tarpaulin sheet getting stretched over it as shelter. While all the other digimon could fit inside their tents with their partners, Yoshi was far too big to sleep in Emily's hammock, and he refused to go back inside the Xros Loader since he wouldn't be able to watch his partner. Emily felt horrible seeing her partner lying out in the open the way he was, but Yoshi claimed he didn't mind anyway; he was in his home world and that was all that mattered. Still, it somehow felt like her fault he had nowhere to sleep. Emily tossed and turned in her hammock, finally resolving herself to get out.
She leaped out of the hammock, then a little bit more quietly sneaked around them until she was out of earshot. She climbed up the largest tree in the vicinity, carefully reaching from branch to branch. Her progress was slow and she nearly fell out three times. Then again, tree climbing was never her thing. Finally after an effort she reached the highest branch that she could still sit on. She sidled along it and took a seat, letting her feet dangle down to the ground. She let out a sigh, the day's exhaustion wearing on her.
"Tired already?" Jay said. Emily nearly fell out of the tree in shock. She regained her balance, adjusting her glasses back on her face.
"How long have you been here?" she asked.
"I was here first, you just didn't notice…" Emily shook her head.
"Whatever… You couldn't sleep?"
"You could say that. It sometimes helps just to look up at the night sky for me."
"It would be better if there was an actual moon to look at though. I dunno but the moon always helps me when I'm thinking about something a lot or I've got writers block, just to stop and get some fresh night air. Sam says it's creepy, suddenly climbing the roof of the house in the middle of the night."
"Don't worry, you're not alone there! I just stare up at all the stars in the sky and try to figure out which constellations are which and it's like all of my problems melt away…" Emily nodded her head knowingly. An awkward silence filled the air. What was she supposed to say anyway? How's the weather? She stared at her swinging toes below, unsure what to talk about. "You know, for somebody who's still new to all of this, you're pretty good at fighting digimon."
"Huh? Uh, yeah I guess. It just seemed natural to me, I dunno. I play loads of strategy games so I like figuring out ways to defeat enemies, really it was beginners luck…"
"Well then, I guess next time we're in trouble we'll find out if that was luck or not. I'm expecting you and Yoshi to get a lot stronger while we're here. You seem like those rare special Tamers with potential that appear every now and then…"
"I'd normally be happy to hear that, but I've got other things to worry about right now apart from my specialness…" Jay's expression softened.
"Worried about the stuff Eve's been saying?" Emily nodded her head slowly. "Look, I don't think it's really very fair to slot somebody as good or bad simply because of what kind of powers they use in the first place. I mean, look at Devimon and AxeHounmon. They're both virus type digimon, so by Digital World rules they should be evil, and yet they've fought and laughed with us just the same. True, whatever your powers are probably aren't the healthiest things in the world and you should probably limit yourself a little bit, but I know that you guys aren't suddenly gonna turn evil on us for no reason."
"You sure about that? I'm not very sure, I've been feeling different lately even. I mean, how come the first Digi-Melody I could hear was Devimon's? And when I'm in a battle, if I get too caught up in it…" Jay looked at her questioningly but she simply shook her head, as if shaking away her thoughts. "No, you're right. I shouldn't think too much about it. Yoshi and I are a team with you guys to, and no random dark stuff is gonna change that. Heck, its mopey thinking like this that makes people 'join the dark side' in the first place! For now though I should probably just try to get back to sleep." Jay playfully patted her on the shoulder, a little too roughly as she almost fell out of the tree again. She crawled down the side of the tree, heading back for her hammock. Yoshi was, as expected, waiting for her return, sitting with his legs folded underneath him. Honestly, it still didn't look comfortable, couldn't he just cross his legs normally?"
"Welcome back Lady McKenna," he said quietly with a bow.
"L-lady McKenna?" Emily asked in shock. "I think you've been a Musyamon for a little bit too long…"
"Do you not like the title?"
"No! Just Emily is fine, the way you always did, right?"
"Just Emily… That's going to take some getting used to."
"What getting used to? You've been calling me Emily the whole time!"
"I just spent the past hour brainwashing myself to only call you Lady McKenna so…"
"Why would you do that?!" Yoshi laughed heartily, covering his mouth when he saw some of the other tents stirring.
"Sorry… Hey, how long do you think it will take to get to the sea?"
"I don't know, it's an island so I bet it won't take more than a few days, but you never know… Well, goodnight Yoshi, try get some rest."
"Same to you Lady McKenna."
"Emily!"
"Same to you Emily. Better?" Emily nodded her head in satisfaction as she crawled into her hammock, snuggling into her sleeping bag to for warmth. "Rest easy partner, we've got an adventure ahead of us tomorrow, be prepared." Emily sleepily nodded her head as she drifted off to sleep, the dreams of the past and visions of the future replaying themselves within her mind's eye.