Chapter 6: Wrong Way, Wrong Turn

"Choices decide the path we follow,
Whether right or wrong
They decide our destiny.

Nothing is set in stone,
Even the ground under our feet
Is constantly shifting."

Year: May 12, 2308
Location: Rock Pick County, Americanus North Neutral

In the next moment two things happened at once, Chaos was back in his monstrous form: higermon and Wild snapped the infinity token into his digivice.
"Wild, you idiot!" Strike snarled at him but higermon's paw crashed between them, scattering the small band of DigiDestined.
The other two were also back in their digimon forms, vemonbirdramon and blackapemon but Chaos drove them back as he leapt after Strike again.
"Crystal, what's going on?!" Ryan had to shout over the noise as he leapt back beside her.
Crystal was about to respond but Wild started screaming at that moment. "He really is an idiot" she muttered, leaping to his side and snatching him up just in time as dracomon let out his own scream and digivolved into a blackexamon.
"Crystal!" Ryan tried again, yanking Rachel out of the way of the dragon digimon's tail.
"He doesn't know how to use the token and it's trying to merge them." Crystal replied, shifting her gaze to Strike as he pulled out his spirit token "Now don't you be an idiot, merging could get you killed."
Strike shrugged and popped the token in "Better than nothing, if we don't devolve that thing soon we'll lose Wild." He hit the power up button and in a second both he and coronamon vanished, replaced by flaremon.
Crystal shook her head, shoved Wild at Ryan, and pulled out her own digivice "Watch them."
Why am I the only one that can't be stupid? Ryan shook his head and dragged the two younger ones out of the way.
"Come on elecmon" Crystal called to her partner, snapping her spirit token into place and hitting the power up button. In a second grapleomon had taken their place.
Ryan shook his head again, watching the two outnumbered ultimates jump into the battle.
"Reppamon, let's even the odds!"
Ryan twisted to see who had spoken and spotted a boy sitting on a garurumon. The boy had piercing amber eyes and dark reddish-brown hair that nearly hid the strange wolf ears. He only had a second though to take that in before a reppamon shot past him and slashed at the blackexamon.
Grapleomon twisted to look at the newcomer and let out a growl "Zev, I thought you ran out on us."
The boy on the garurumon smiled, revealing canine sharp fangs "You don't have long in that form Chris, what then?" He shrugged then and tossed some tokens to Ryan "Try those, they don't work for me."
Ryan caught the tokens and passed one to Rachel before examining it. A wind token, these must be the elemental tokens we were looking for. Who's the wolf boy though? He cast a suspicious glance at Zev and the garurumon, then he popped the token into the digivice "Here goes Impmon, let's help."
Rachel did the same and they both hit the power up button. Within seconds impmon had digivolved to icedevimon and hawkmon to aquilamon.
Together they managed to drive Chaos and his helpers off and devolve blackexamon, who was reverted back to babydmon.
When the battle finally ended the exhausted DigiDestined gathered around Zev as he leapt off his digimon's back to face them. Everyone, except Wild who was still out cold in Ryan's arms, eyed the wolf boy with suspicion and hostility.
Eventually Zev spoke, kudamon curling around his neck as he did so, "You could at least say thank you, I brought the elemental tokens after all." He smirked and looked ready to jump back on garurumon but he paused to study Ryan "Faith huh? Guess they haven't told you about me, I have Destiny and Light"
Then he was gone as strangely as he had come. Strike shrugged, commenting that he was a lone wolf, and turned back towards their alley. After a moment, the others followed him.

Location: Lucid View, Americanus North Neutral

In a town about a thousand miles away Koko sat in a tree watching as a family sat down to dinner. She sighed quietly and hugged shizumon but started at a voice below her.
"Why do you watch and beg like a dog looking for scraps? I could make it so you never have to beg for a meal again."
Koko glanced down nervously to see a girl that looked a few years older than her with long black hair and brilliant blue eyes. Koko carefully climbed down and glanced around "You mean that?"
The girl smiled "Of course, all you have to do is follow me. I'm called Pride."
Shizumon hissed but Koko cast one glance at the happy family and nodded "Lead the way"