The Crest of Truth

It was dark out, a week and a half or so later. Cole, Commandramon, and Leormon were sleeping. I was alone, taking watch. It was a creepy night. I was patrolling the edges of our… camp, if you could call it that… when I could hear the faint sounds of an eerie whistling. Not wanting to take any chances, I woke up the others. As we sat there, listening, we began to hear the sounds of large footsteps falling.

I don't know about Cole's, but my digivice was glowing. A sure sign of danger, I knew, by this point. Suddenly, DarkTyrannomon came lumbering into camp.

"DarkTyrannomon again?" I cried out.

Leormon and Commandramon glowed.

"Leormon, digivolve to… Liamon!!!"

"Commandramon, digivolve to… Sealsdramon!!!"

Liamon caught the dinosaur's attention, while Sealsdramon got behind him.

"Thunder of Kings!!!"

"Death Behind!!!"

It was a quick fight. Too quick. I turned around, looking… Then I saw her. Persiamon. "Cole, run!!!"

An army of Koemon and Kamemon surrounded the clearing we were in. There was no escape. I quickly leapt onto Liamon's back, and Liamon jumped over to Cole, who I immediately pulled up beside me. As Commandramon, Cole's partner digimon would be too bulky to fit on Liamon's back, but as Sealsdramon, he would fit, if be a bit big. He got on behind Cole, overshadowing both me and Cole. Liamon ran forward. "Thunder of Kings!!!" It cleared a small path and we took that path as far as we could. Finally, Liamon leapt over a crowd of digimon and landed on a group of Kamemons' heads. It was an escape I never dreamed possible…

Yeah, right.

I awoke in a cold sweat. Sitting straight up, Cole looked at me funny, and I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. From the look of the stick in Cole's hand, it appeared I had good reason to have such a sharp pain.

"You were yelling and tossing and turning in your sleep, dude…"

"So you poke me with a stick?"

"Sorry, I couldn't get you to wake up any other way!!!"

"Geez… I think I'd rather have Leormon turn my head into a scratching post…" I rubbed my shoulder gently.

"What were you dreaming about?"

"It was an attack by Persiamon… she sent in DarkTyrannomon again…"

Leormon sighed. "I don't think she'd use a digimon we'd already defeated to try and get us again."

"Unless she'd made it stronger…"

I fell back to the ground, as I would've done if I was on a regular bed. Bad move. I hit my head on a rock. I shot back up into a sitting position. "OW!!!" I swore violently.

Cole laughed loudly. "Don't do that!! It hurts."

"Yeah, I noticed. Thanks for your professional opinion, wise guy."

Cole smiled cheerfully. "You're welcome!!!"

I was never able to understand how he was able to be so sarcastic like that. I probably never will. I was afraid that Fugamon would be along any minute, so I stood. "Let's get moving. I want to find those crests." It was, as I could tell, almost dawn anyways.

The four of us set out, trying to steer clear of anywhere that Persiamon might have an influence. I was trying to figure out if the stress of doing this was finally getting to me, or if this was actually going to happen. Cole and I kept our tags out, in case they were ready to lead us to where our crests were.

Suddenly, a brown digimon attacked us, he was carrying a bone club. He just barely missed Leormon. My digivice identified him as Fugamon, a relative of Ogremon. He was swinging his club around quite forcefully. As my digivice glowed, so did Leormon.

"Leormon, digivolve to… Liamon!!!"

While Liamon fought against Fugamon, I lost my concentration, because my tag started to glow white. It lifted into the air in a westerly direction, and I followed it, running as fast as I could. I was excited. As I headed into the forest, I found an old abandoned mine. The tag led me into the mine. Eventually, the tag pointed to the wall. I began digging away at the dirt, finally hitting solid stone. By that time, Cole and the digimon had arrived.

"Hey, there you are, Andrew! We've been looking all over for you!!!"

"I went off to find my crest! It's right here, buried under all this dirt!"

So Cole, Leormon, and Commandramon helped me chip away at the dirt covering the stone. Before we could accomplish much, however, Persiamon appeared. I looked at Leormon. "Can you digivolve?"

He shook his head. "No… I'm out of energy…"

Cole turned to Commandramon. "It's your turn then."

"Commandramon, digivolve to… Sealsdramon!!!"

As Sealsdramon did his best to hold Persiamon off, we cleared away the dirt from the stone surface. It was mostly smooth, with an odd symbol in the middle. As I watched, my tag floated into the air again, and the section of stone glowed the same color white my tag was glowing. Cole stared in amazement. The stone began to shrink and soon became a small tablet, which neatly inserted itself into the tag. I goggled at it. It was mind-boggling.

Behind the crest was another passage, and Cole was practically dragging me down the passageway now. After a moment, he spoke. "I wonder what the symbol means."

"The symbol identifies the crest from the other crests, I'm sure. Each crest must represent something unique to that person, probably a personality trait or a unique skill…"

"There you go, being smart again… this is why you don't have any friends… you spend too much time with the books."

"Who cares about friends? I've got you for a friend, that's all I need."

I hadn't meant it in a mushy way, but it had come out in a way that almost made you go, "Awwww…" For a moment, I thought Cole was going to hug me. Then, suddenly, Commandramon was running towards us.

"Time to put our rear ends into high gear, dude."

"I couldn't agree more, Cole."

We ran. We ran like school just got out. As we got away, I heard Persiamon cursing.

"Curse those kids… they got the Crest of Truth…"

I looked down at my crest. "Hmmm… the Crest of Truth…"