Yo, Digi-nerds. Not to spoil anything, but it's finally time for the first ultimate battle of the story.
Disclaimer: Digimon is not my property. Isn't that what I've been saying for the past seven chapters?
LAST TIME:
DAICHI: With the cave entrance blocked, we all had nowhere to go but further in. On the way, we met a treasure-hunting Digmon who was searching for Chrome-Digizoid. He told us that if we helped him, he'd take us out of the cave and close to the lake. But Hyogamon apparantly wasn't done with us yet and sent a Drimogemon to finish us off. Fortunately one of his attacks dug up some Digizoid and, after Shadramon was able to mold it to fit Digmon's drills, Digmon sent the mole to the center of the DigiWorld. With stronger drills, we all hung on tight and now its off to the lake!
Chapter 8
Freeze
Hyogamon finally received word on the status of the humans and their Digimon; not only did they survive the avalanche, but Drimogemon had failed to destroy them. To compound the problem, they were now on their way to the lake and would be there very soon. "That's it!" he yelled. "No more punks! This time, I'll crush them myself." As he said this, he brought his fist on his seeing-crystal, destroying it.
Night had fallen on an empty field. No Digimon was in sight. On one end of the field, there was a wall from the nearby canyon. Suddenly, a crack appeared in that wall, and it continued to grow larger. Eventually, a number of drills poked through the stone for a brief moment before chunks of rock exploded violently away from the source, leaving a large hole. That hole was occupied by a large yellow Digimon, two rookie level Digimon, and two humans.
"The express has now arrived at the Serenity Fields," Digmon said, maintaining the act he started in the cave. "Please make sure you have all your belongings and disembark in an orderly fashion."
"Thanks for the lift, Digmon," Daichi said as he jumped to the ground.
"My pleasure," Digmon returned.
"Whoa," Isamu said, looking around him. "I didn't realize how long we'd been down there." Everyone else looked up at the night sky.
"You know what they say," Digmon said. "Time flies when you're havin' fun."
"If your idea of fun is spending hours looking for precious metals and getting attacked by rogue Digimon," Dracomon said, "remind me to never have you schedule any more playdates."
"It all worked out in the end though, didn't it?" Wormmon pointed out.
"Well," Digmon suddenly said, "love to stick around, but I wanna give my new drills a chance to go through their paces. There's supposed to be something a ways east of here and I wanna get to it first."
"We understand," Daichi said. "Good luck."
"And good luck to you guys, too," Digmon said, "with that whole saving-the-Digital-World thing." With that, he sped off to the east.
When he was out of sight, Dracomon said, "Come on. The sooner we get to that lake, the sooner we can beat those Digi-Agents."
"Hold it, Dracomon," Daichi said. "It's late and we'll need our energy."
"Daichi's right," Isamu said. "There's a strong possibility that another Digimon, maybe even Hyogamon, will be there waiting for us. I'd hate to have to fight him after we nearly got killed in that cave." Nobody, not even Dracomon, could argue.
The group set up a makeshift campground and made a small campfire large enough to cook food over. They found a few sticks and used them set some franks over it. When Dracomon asked what the food was made from, Daichi and Isamu just stared at each other blankly.
Everyone fell asleep soon after except Wormmon, who, claiming he was used to staying up nights, volunteered for lookout duty. He stood at the edge of camp keeping an eye on the surrounding areas, but mostly looked up at the stars.
"Is this why you like staying awake?" Wormmon heard a voice say. He turned to find Isamu crawling out of his sleeping bag.
"It's just one benefit, I suppose," Wormmon answered.
"I won't argue with that." Isamu walked over to Wormmon and sat next to him. "I never noticed it before, but the stars here look exactly like the stars back home."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you see those three stars in a line?" After Wormmon spoke affirmatively, Isamu continued, "You'll notice that on the top and bottom of that pattern, there are two pairs of stars, making it look like an hourglass. That's a constellation we call Orion."
"What does that mean?"
"Back in our world, ancient cultures thought the stars had some sort of mystical power. One of these was to create pictures in the sky of legendary beings. Orion was said to be a mighty hunter; no creature would survive when he showed up. The only creature to finally kill him was a scorpion."
"Is that like a Scorpiomon?" Wormmon asked.
"Sort of," Isamu answered, "but they're about as big as my foot in our world."
"Something that small took down one of the strongest humans ever? Amazing."
"Of course, it's just a story," Isamu quickly disclaimed. "But it does make the point that people can win even against impossible odds."
"I hope we have that kind of luck tomorrow."
"If Hyogamon becomes involved, we may need it."
The group woke up the next morning ready for action. After a quick breakfast, they set out for the lake, where they hoped to find something that could help them defeat the Digi-Agents.
"If Digmon was correct," Daichi said, "we should be within 100 Digimeters from the lake. Wish I knew how far that is, though."
"It's not too far," Wormmon said. "If we keep up this pace, we should be there before midday."
"I'll take your word for it," Isamu said.
The group walked at a brisk pace. They started to feel a light breeze. It contained a scent that was pleasant and soothing. They realized they were close.
Finally they could see a large body of water, calm and peaceful looking. There were few waves because of the lack of forceful winds. "This is it," Wormmon said. "Lake Serenity."
"Good name for it," Isamu said. He set his backpack down and took out a canteen. "Might as well refill this." He opened it and kneeled over the edge. He lowered it to meet with the water, but found it stopping the second its case touched it. He looked and saw the water had frozen. "Guys," Isamu said with apprehension, "I think he's here."
"Who?" Dracomon asked.
"Am I so quickly forgotten?" a familiar voice said. A swirl of icy wind appeared over the now-frozen lake and dissipated to reveal Hyogamon. Isamu stepped back. "I was wondering when you'd get here. You'll be happy to know that I will no longer be sending in any more of my minions. Now you'll have the distinct honor of battling, and losing to, me in person." He formed a weapon of ice in his hand.
"Gee, don't we feel lucky," Dracomon said sarcastically.
"First, though," Daichi said, "why did you want to stop us from getting here? What's so important about this lake that you don't want us to know?"
Hyogamon stared at Daichi for a few seconds and started laughing. "Who said anything about there being anything to do with this lake? I sure didn't."
"But Sepikmon—" Dracomon started.
"Ha!" Hyogamon laughed loudly. "That fool couldn't even tell you what two plus two is. It was only his job to get you humans gone. And when you confronted him, he panicked and started babbling. You ask me, his mask was on too tight."
Hyogamon started laughing again, but this time, it was Isamu's turn to interrupt. "You're lying!" Hyogamon stopped laughing and stared at Isamu. "If there was nothing here, you would have just sent another one of your minions: a Seadramon, Coelamon, Shellmon perhaps; heck, you could've gone a step farther and sent something like a Zudomon. But instead you decided to show up and fight us yourself." He stopped to let the message sink in.
"I don't care what you say," Hyogamon shouted. "But know this; this will be where you finally fall!" He jumped up and shouted, "Ice Cudgel!" He fell toward the group with his icicle in front of him. They all got out of the way as quickly as possible.
"Dracomon!" "Wormmon!"
Digi-Armor, energize! Wormmon Armor Digivolve to… Shadramon, the Inferno of Courage!
Digi-Modify! Digivolution, activate! Dracomon Digivolve to… Coredramon Blue!
Both champion Digimon flew over Hyogamon, ready to attack. "Blue Core Blast!" "Flare Buster!" Both attacks sped toward Hyogamon.
"Snow Barrier!" Two walls of ice suddenly shot out of the ground on either side of Hyogamon. The attacks collided with the walls and disappeared. "Throwing Ice!" He created another icicle in his other hand and threw both of them at the opposing Digimon. Both Coredramon and Shadramon were hit by the ice and fell to the ground. Both weapons returned to their owner's hands
"You're not the only one who can throw ice around," Daichi said. "Digi-Modify! WaruSeadramon Evil Icicle, activate!" Coredramon opened his mouth and released a barrage of ice shards that attacked the ice ogre. Hyogamon was hit, but his own icicles blocked a large portion of the attack.
"Flare Buster! Psychic Wave!" Shadramon released a stream of fire that snaked its way around Hyogamon's body, trapping him in a spiral of flames. "You know what they say; if you can't stand the heat, you might as well surrender."
"I will say, this is clever of you," Hyogamon admitted. He brought his icicles to the front of his face and hummed. Suddenly, a wind not unlike the one that he appeared from blew the flames away, leaving Hyogamon untouched.
"I don't believe it," Shadramon said. "He emits a temperature so cold, it cancels out my fire."
"I figured you would use your Shadramon form to do battle against an ice Digimon," Hyogamon said. "So I've been working on decreasing my body temperature to almost 200 Digidegrees Celsius below zero.
"If that's anything like our scale," Daichi said, "that's almost the coldest you can get!"
"That's how I operate," Hyogamon said. "I look at my opponents and figure out the best strategy to use against them. Your first battle against Tryannomon was little more than a test to gauge your power. Then I had Sepikmon try to stop you by attempting to discourage you peacefully, but you were persistent. DarkLizardmon was my attempt to beat you using pure evil. Golemon, well, you already know about that, but as you can tell, it became a lack of information on my part. Finally, Drimogemon was used to gain a home court advantage in his own tunnels."
"And now we come to you," Isamu finished.
"Because I've watched all your battles, I was able to come up with ideas that you'll never get through." Hyogamon jumped back onto the frozen lake.
"Get him, guys!" Daichi said. Coredramon and Shadramon flew toward Hyogamon, ready to attack.
Hyogamon just smiled. "Ice Cudgel!" He spread his arms out, holding the icicles away from him. He began to spin until he became fast enough to move. While the path of his motions was erratic, he successfully made contact with both Digimon several times. He finally slowed down and inspected his handiwork.
"If he uses strategies like that," Daichi said, "we'll have to counteract with our own strategies. Maybe if we use Shadramon's fire—"
"Uh, don't you remember?" Isamu interrupted. "He'll just make it colder again."
"Not right away," Daichi replied. "I noticed it takes him a while to do that, so he needs to concentrate. If we can hit him with a big ball of fire, it'll take him a while to regain his stamina. Maybe we can use that time to land the final blow."
"I see," Isamu said. "But we're going to need a lot of firepower." He thought for a minute. "Wait, remember that deck I gave you?" When Daichi nodded, Isamu continued, "It has a powerful fire Digimon in it." Daichi took out Isamu's deck and found what he was talking about.
"I got ya'," Daichi said.
"Shadramon!" Isamu called out. Shadramon got up with some struggling; Coredramon soon followed. "Get a big fireball ready."
"I don't know what that'll do," Shadramon said, "but…" He held his hands in the air. "Flare Buster! Psychic Wave!" A stream of fire appeared and began to form into a ball.
"You're up next, Coredramon," Daichi said, holding the card in his hand. "Digi-Modify! Volcdramon Volcanic Fount, activate!" Coredramon stood up fully and opened his mouth. "Volcanic Fount!" A large fire that even looked powerful shot out of it and it joined Shadramon's fireball. The ball grew larger and more violent. Coredramon added his Blue Core Blast for good measure.
"Ha!" Hyogamon laughed at their attempt. "Even a Neemon could see through this." He began to move away in an attempt to escape, but Coredramon suddenly came up behind him and grabbed his arms.
"Nuh, uh, uh," he chided. "We wouldn't want you getting away, now would we?"
"You're crazy," Hyogamon said confidently, "when that ball hits it'll take you with it."
"Well, that's a risk I'm willing to take."
"You won't have to," Daichi said, holding a card. "Digi-Modify! Hyper Speed, activate!"
"Now?" Shadramon asked.
"NOW!" Isamu yelled. Shadramon lowered his arms and the fireball moved accordingly. Just before it would land on Hyogamon, Coredramon let go at the last second and flew off; Daichi's Hyper Speed card gave him the extra speed he needed to escape the fire unscathed. Hyogamon, however, was not as fortunate. The fireball hit him and engulfed him in flames.
"It won't last long," Isamu said. "Shadramon, we'll need Stingmon!" Shadramon De-Digivolved and Isamu wasted no time pointing his D-3 at Wormmon.
Wormmon Digivolve to… Stingmon!
Stingmon readied his blade and waited for the fireball to dissipate. Suddenly, the ball dispersed, leaving Hyogamon exhausted. Before he could recover and prepare for another attack, however, he saw Stingmon fly straight toward him. "This is the end for you, hunter. Spiking Strike!" The blade touched Hyogamon's body and pierced it. At first, Hyogamon screamed in pain, but after several seconds, he stopped.
"You may have beaten me," he said calmly as his body started to disappear, "but don't forget; there are other Digi-Agents out there, all of them as strong, if not stronger, than me. And when they win, the Digi-Agents will rule the world!" He laughed one last time as his body finally vanished from sight.
Stingmon and Coredramon flew over to their respective partners and De-Digivolved. "Hey Digimon, hey Digimon!" Isamu exclaimed.
"Well," Dracomon said, "there's one loudmouth I won't soon miss."
"You weren't kidding when these Digi-Agents say 'world' and not 'Digital World,' Wormmon," Isamu said. "I wonder what that means."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Daichi said. "Right now, let's concentrate on searching the lake." Without Hyogamon's ice power, the ice on the lake was beginning to melt. Suddenly, there was a beeping sound. Daichi instinctively checked his D-Power and Isamu his D-3. They were glowing.
"What now?" Daichi asked.
"I say we hold them up to the lake," Isamu suggested.
"What good will that do?" Daichi asked.
"I don't know," Isamu admitted, "but it seems to work in the TV show."
"Good point." The two boys held up their Digivices so the screens faced the lake. The water began to glow and the light came to a certain point in the middle. Suddenly, two small objects splashed out of the water and floated over to them. They resembled necklaces that were made from a single cord and a charm. The charm was shaped octagonally, with the top half stretched upward, and had a sheet of glass across it. It looked as though something needed to be put behind this glass. The boys reached out and grabbed the necklace that was nearest to them. The Digivices and lake stopped glowing.
"Isamu, does this mean what I think it means?" Daichi asked.
"It means that we are definitely one step closer to beating these Digi-Agents," Isamu said, "and that our partners are closer to reaching the ultimate level."
That's one Agent down. But how many are left? And just what are these necklaces for? The answers will be yours on the next Digimon: Digital Monsters!
This is CF, signing out.