Chapter 11: The Scholar
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Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. Just the few OCs that are sprinkled throughout this story.
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It was official; Hypnos didn't trust the majority of the Tamers living in the Shinjuku area. As for Keith, he knew that there was a possibility that the Watchmaker was simply using them, though Yamaki didn't take that suggestion seriously one bit. That meant that they were going to be closely monitoring the Tamers and that they only trusted Suzie, Ai and Mako, three that were far too young for the job, and then Jeri, who technically wasn't even a Tamer anymore since she didn't have Leomon.
There's got to be a way of resurrecting that digimon by extracting the data from Impmon. Then again, only the sovereigns or digimon such as Anubimon would know what that entailed, he thought to himself while eating some sushi alone at a local restaurant. He's always liked Japanese food, though he tended to spend his meals alone. He's had too many friendships broken by either their imperfections or death. Then again, there could be Tamers that could arise over the next few weeks. Who knows?
He pulled out a small, handheld device and pressed a button on it, causing the holographic projection to be disabled, revealing the device as a blue digivice with a red ring around the center. It wasn't public knowledge that he was a Tamer. Unfortunately, his partner was currently out of commission, so he wouldn't be useful unless he could somehow get his partner back. Maybe Anubimon would know something about that too. He was the one that turned him back into an egg after…
He didn't want to think about that time, that battle. Instead he turned his attention to the Tamers of Shinjuku that had duplicates in the real world now. Or were the ones in the digital world the duplicates? It wouldn't make sense for that to be the case.
He sat back and put a piece of sushi into his mouth. He still wished he was traveling with the old man through time and dimensions, unfortunately life hadn't been kind to him and he ended up stranded…
So here he was, doing something like what the old Watchmaker did in Mizuki's native reality. He was going to recruit another Tamer. Unfortunately, there was the question of who. He figured that the new Tamer would have to be someone over the age of eighteen, preferably. Either that or someone about to turn eighteen.
Let's see, did any of the newer Tamers of Shinjuku have any older siblings that were in that age bracket? He asked himself, pondering it over. Then he saw him. The heavy teen that he saw walk into the restaurant with a group of fellow jocks had to be Tadashi's older brother. Blond hair wasn't that common in Japan unless this guy dyed it or something.
He shifted his digivice back to its previous mode and used it to log onto the internet, particularly records involving Tadashi and his family. He got what he wanted. Older Brother: Kurita.
Then he looked for any pictures of the blond man. Sure enough, he was the guy at that table. There was only the question of how to approach him and what to give him. Let's see, since Tadashi has a lion for a partner, maybe I should continue with the theme. That would mean Elecmon, ViElecmon or Liollmon. That left the other question… Maybe he should use one of his disguises…
He was already using one as it was. He wasn't even wearing a suit like he was supposed to, instead opting for a pair of jeans and a shirt. Not to mention, this wasn't what he looked like. He didn't even need glasses.
Of course, if anybody found out who he actually was, that would be a disaster. It was bad enough that the state department in the United States had to know about him. Then again, he made sure they didn't recruit him for any of their schemes.
He finished eating. He had to stop eating so much. Of course, it wasn't like it would actually hurt him. He got up and put his tray on the nearest trashcan before walking out the door. He had to go on a trip to the digital world. At least he would remember to mask his life-sign, unlike the Tamers.
###
The storm wasn't letting up. Of course, it had only been a few minutes since it started so they couldn't expect it to. Still, a sandstorm or whatever it was coming out of nowhere like this irked them. They needed to find shelter soon. It didn't help that Solarmon was still incapacitated.
"There's a building in the distance!" Ayaka shouted above the storm, hoping that the others heard her. The sandstorm was getting really grating and the only one who had any sort of eye protection was Yuji who had a pair of sunglasses on him.
They made their way down to the building, which turned out to be some sort of upside down pyramid, much like the one that Etemon used on the TV show. They found an entrance on the side and hoped that there weren't any Elvis-impersonating monkeys around to torment them. Walking inside, it was just another series of ruins with numerous pictographs on the wall as well as symbols in digi-code.
"Well, at least we have a place to stay until this stupid storm passes," Yuji commented as they walked inside. "It is a little dark, though."
"Coronamon?" Tadashi asked and the lion-like digimon caused his crystal to glow brightly, showing the insides of the ruins for him to see. "Wow, that's digi-code."
Taizou promptly pulled out a piece of paper. "It's not the syllabary," he remarked. "It doesn't correspond to the Kana like it should."
"So you can't read it?" Yuji asked, looking at his friend with disappointment. He was the smart one! "What a drag."
"Well, no," Taizou responded. "We'll probably have to wait until Solarmon wakes up to look at it. A shame."
"Oh well, at least we're out of that horrible storm," Miki remarked. "But now I need a shower!"
"Then again, we've been here in the digital world for a couple days. I think we all need showers," Tadashi commented.
"No kidding. Man, I need to wash my hair," Yuji added. "Too bad there's nothing like that in here. Stupid ruins!"
"Hey! These ruins are a view into the digital world's past," Taizou objected.
"Yeah, and the digital world's been around how long? About twenty years?" the long-haired boy shot back.
"For all we know, time here could have run faster at one point kind of like on the show," Taizou responded.
"Alright, prove it," Yuji replied, smiling deviously.
"These ruins imply a digital world that's been around for centuries when we know that digimon were created in the '80s. That means that there had to have been a time when the two worlds weren't in sync. Maybe there was some sort of ancient civilization that built this."
"You're absolutely right!" The team heard the enthusiastic voice of a yellow reptile standing further into the cave.
"An Agumon?" Tadashi asked, surprised. Though this Agumon was slightly different and had a graduation cap and gown on.
"Yes, Agumon Hakase at your service," the reptile greeted the boy. "I'm a scholar from the newly-founded University of Oppidum Septentrionale on an expedition to explore these ruins."
"Cool!" Taizou exclaimed, enthralled by the prospect.
"So, you learn about the history of the digital world? That's pretty neat!" Ayaka commented, smiling at the yellow lizard.
"And plus you get to travel. That's pretty awesome," Tadashi remarked.
"Lame!" The group turned around to glare at Yuji, who looked at them in confusion. "What? It's not like he's going to ever do anything with this information."
"But, don't you have a curiosity about how things were in the early digital world?" Taizou asked.
Yuji shook his head. "No, not really. I just want to go in, rescue Eddy, find our friends and get out."
"Well, it's not like we have anything else to do, even though this is going to be so boring," Miki remarked, agreeing to go along with the plan.
Yuji looked at the dark-haired girl, annoyed that he was defeated. "Okay, I'll come. Just don't expect me to enjoy myself."
###
"This pyramid belongs to one of the oldest cultures in the digital world," Agumon Hakase explained. "If you look at the inscriptions, they're actually in ancient digi-code instead of in the modern language. The ancient language used an alphabet instead of the modern syllabary. For instance, if transliterated, this forms the indecipherable phrase IMPERATORSYMANSKICLAVISDIMENSIONALISEST."
"So, are there any rooms in this thing that have anything other than a bunch of symbols we can't read?" Coronamon asked, bored out of his skull.
"Actually, there is. I was about to show you the tomb of the ancient king of digimon, Pharaohmon!" the yellow reptile exclaimed, leading the team into a new room. "Here we have it!"
"Whoa!" the group exclaimed. The room that they entered into had a golden casket in the middle along with numerous pictographs on the wall, detailing the reign of this ancient king.
"Wow, what is this?" Tadashi asked, gesturing toward the pictographs.
"These tell the story of the digital world. Once, there were only a few digimon in existence, but when they ended their lives after acquiring large amounts of data, their data was the basis for the digi-eggs of numerous other digimon. Eventually, there were digimon on every corner of the digital world. At one time, a group of holy digimon decided to create a city in the sky. These digimon included Pharoahmon, who expanded that sky city, and created a vast civilization in the northern area. Using the forces of numerous digimon such as Volcamon and PileVolcamon, he created a new area of the digital world that could be used for farming and agriculture. He even enlisted the help of numerous water digimon."
"Interesting," Taizou remarked.
"Are you kidding me, this whole history thing is incredibly boring," Yuji complained.
"I have to agree with Fabio here," Miki said, yawning.
"Well, here's the exciting part. On the surface of the digital world, the D-Reaper emerged and started to destroy everything in his path. In response, the digimon that created this section of the Digital World launched the sky city and Pharaohmon's domain even further into the sky, into the orbit of the Digital World in expectation of the D-Reaper. The D-Reaper barely touched this section of the digital world, the orbital world."
"So, that's how Takato's team could get lost and come back to the same place so easily. This isn't the whole digital world," Ayaka realized. "And the original digital world was destroyed, wasn't it?"
"Not quite. You see, much like in your world, when the D-Reaper was reverted back to its original form, everything in the digital world that was destroyed was returned back to normal except for the digimon. Let me show you something." Agumon gestured for the group to follow him even further into the pyramid.
"Oh, please, even more touring this stupid place?" Yuji asked, indignant as he followed the rest. "Surely the storm must be over with."
"Yes, but this is actually pretty interesting. There's a lot I didn't know about my world," Commandramon told him.
"What? You too?" the long haired boy asked in surprise, making an annoyed face at his partner.
The group continued on down the steps further into the pyramid. Eventually, after a couple minutes, they found light at the end of the tunnel. Stepping into the light, they saw something they didn't expect.
"Beautiful!" Ayaka and Salamon exclaimed, seeing the blue and green globe beneath them. Clouds covered the planet below and it looked like there were several huge landmasses beneath those clouds. However, on the dark side of the world, there wasn't light from any cities like one would expect from Earth, showing that the vast majority of the world was uninhabited.
"No way," Tadashi said. "Takato never mentioned this."
"That's because the planetary digital world was completely encompassed by the D-Reaper while your friends were here," Agumon explained, looking downward. "In fact, I was amazed upon seeing this, myself. Personally, I think that once the digimon all find out about this, a mass colonization effort will be made."
"Still, that's pretty cool," Miki said, looking downward.
"You know, prior to the orbital digital world coming up here, there had never been any mention of data-streams or the globe in the sky in the records," Agumon added. "I wouldn't be surprised if they've only been noticed because of our location. I'm sure that since the globe in the sky seems smaller the farther away from it you go, it's probably invisible from the planet. In fact, that theory is explained by how data-streams are pretty much non-existent in the sovereign's level."
"And yet the D-Reaper didn't let anybody go anywhere near it…" Tadashi mumbled to himself looking over the railing of the bridge they were on. "So, where do these walkways go?"
"I don't know," Agumon admitted. "I have a theory that some of them may lead to the Sovereigns' level or even the catacombs of Oppidum Septentrionale but I haven't had a chance to explore them as of yet."
Yuji looked over at the catwalks that lead throughout the bottom of the various areas of the orbital digital world and thought about it. "Maybe if we kept walking until we reached Oppidum Septentrionale we could avoid the storms," he suggested to the rest of the group.
"Oppidum Septentrionale is a little over twenty kilometers from here," Agumon told the group, unsure about walking all that way. "I'm not sure if that's a good idea."
"Oh, sure it is!" the long-haired boy exclaimed, moving forward. "Plus, this way we can avoid whatever wild digimon are on the surface. Come on, it's a great idea. Better than boring tomb-raiding. I mean, do I look like Lara Croft?" Yuji chuckled as he kept on walking.
"What do you guys think?" Tadashi asked the rest of the group, liking the idea somewhat.
"Sure, why not. As long as we don't get lost under here," Taizou said before looking down at the planet below once again. It was definitely a long way down. He continued on with Solarmon in his arms.
###
It was a peaceful day in the Northern Village of Beginnings that Oppidum Septentrionale surrounded. The various eggs and baby digimon that were around were looking quite content and the few digimon that were caring for them, namely the Elecmon and Swanmon, were having an easygoing time despite being busy. Because of that, they didn't seem to notice the television just appear out of nowhere until it lit up and a certain blond walked out, holding his D-Arc in front of him with his right hand.
"Let's see," he mumbled to himself while he looked at his digivice's settings. "My digivice signal's still masked and the biofield scrambler's still intact. It looks like I'm good to go." He then scanned the area for the digimon he was looking for, moving from egg to egg and examining them with the D-Arc using a special program that he designed.
When he reached his tenth egg, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around. "Oh, hey, Anubimon. What's up?" he asked, looking at the Egyptian god-lookalike that was behind him.
"I'm just curious as to what you're doing," the dog said, not sure about what was happening.
"Well, I'm trying to find a suitable partner digimon for someone in the real world, if that's alright with you," the blond man replied, smiling at the digimon in front of him and hoping he doesn't get on his case for that. As it was, he was getting away with a lot. His luck would have to run out sometime.
Anubimon raised an eyebrow. "That's acceptable. It turns out there's talk that a new force has arrived in the digital world from the real world."
"I heard. Hypnos detected them and, well, they're not too impressed," Keith said, turning toward the next egg and scanning it. "So, I take it you actually want me to take one of these to the real world?"
"We do. We're hoping to enlist some Tamers as well while we're at it. Do you know of any that would be willing to help us against the army to the south of us?" Anubimon was almost pleading, or at least that was what it would have seemed like had he been showing much emotion.
"Unfortunately, I don't know of anyone that could help," Keith explained, hating that there wasn't anything he could really do. "Most of the Tamers I know are under eighteen and, because of that, can't go to the digital world. There are other teams out there, but I'm not sure if their governments would be willing to give them up."
"How about you?" the dog-like digimon asked. "Where is your partner, for instance?"
"That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about," Keith said before pulling out his digivice and pressing a few buttons on its holographic screen. He caused a white egg with red spots to materialize in front of him. "He won't hatch."
Anubimon nodded, kneeling down and picking it up, before closing his eyes and scanning the digivice with his powers. "Hmm… there are a few files that are either damaged or incomplete. Strange…"
"Can you do anything about it?" the blond asked, his eyes wide with sorrow for his partner.
"I can try. Let's see, this digi-egg will hatch into Jyaromon, so I might need to search for another egg of its type." The dog moved through the village while Keith followed. The blond proceeded to scan the various digivices along the way as he followed the god-like digimon through the area. The digimon then proceeded to stop by an egg that was almost identical to the one he had in his hands and knelt down.
"Let's see, what I'll have to do is copy the damaged files from this egg and replace the ones in your egg with them," Anubimon explained. "I'll have to warn you, though, that some of the files involved had to do with memory, so there's a chance your partner won't remember you when he revives. This also means you may have to reach your digivolutions again the hard way."
Keith nodded, sad that that would be the case. At least that meant that his partner would be whole again. "What about the digivolution line? Will it be the same one I had before this happened?"
"Yes, it should be since that data is held in your digivice."
Keith nodded.
"Now, where were we?" Anubimon asked. "Oh yes, the partner for that new Tamer you mentioned in the real world. I hope that your plan will help this digimon lead a more peaceful life than if he would have to deal with the invasion."
"So, what about Dorbickmon? Is he still acting up?" Keith asked as Anubimon handed him his egg and then proceeded to move forward toward another set of eggs.
"It turns out that he has actually pulled his forces back to prepare for the army of Tamers that is currently forming in the central digital world," the god-like digimon explained, a hint of worry in his voice. "Since that's happening, the situation must be dire. The other Tamer in the digital world has been amassing an army to take on Dorbickmon and he has recently combined that army with the army of Tamers run by the Digimon Queen."
"She stole Rika's title. What a witch." Anubimon looked at the blond-haired American in front of him. Keith just looked at the god-like digimon with a confused expression. "Hey, I don't cuss. There's nothing wrong with that."
"No there isn't. I actually appreciate your use of discretion around the children. Anyway, here's your egg."
"So, you're actually willing to let me take it without anything else?" the blond asked.
"You helped us save our world, did you not?" the dog-like digimon asked in a tired expression.
"By the way, has Eduardo showed up yet?" the blond asked.
"He has. However, Daemon would like to keep him here so that he can help in the effort against the army to the south," the god explained.
"I was considering taking him with me, but that would cause suspicion, especially if I leave him at his father's house." The blond scratched his chin. He didn't know how to do this, even though he considered using a different disguise.
"Besides, having him here is part of the plan," Keith turned around to see the old Watchmaker, completely catching him by surprise.
"You! What… what are you doing here?" the blond asked, shocked that the old man would show up.
"I'm watching over everyone. Eduardo Urrutía is part of the team that I've chosen. He must remain here if everything is to go as planned," the old man explained. His clock-like partner was behind him. "Besides, this isn't your story, anyway. You're looking pretty good for a man your age, by the way."
"Thanks. By the way, I don't have any resentment against you for accidently stranding me in case you're wondering," the blond said as the old man turned away.
"That is good to know. You know, that was one of my biggest regrets, leaving you back there. I should have went back to rescue you, even if it had been a year later," the old man explained. "So, how is everything? Bored yet?"
"Are you kidding? What's the alternative?" Keith asked with a chuckle.
The Watchmaker smiled. "Anyway, I have to get going. I just didn't want you screwing up and I thought I'd say hi, seeing as you're still alive and all."
Keith nodded at the old man. He was glad that the geezer was still alive and kicking.
###
"Great, how much farther do we have to go?" Yuji complained. The group had been walking for hours already.
"Hey, you're the one who wanted to go this way," Taizou shot back.
"Yeah, but I didn't think that it would take that long for your partner to recover," the long-haired boy remarked.
"It's not like we can fly anyway," Tadashi commented.
"Yeah, in case you haven't noticed, we're directly under the landmass now," Ayaka added, indicating how they were on a hanging bridge right underneath the floating continent.
"Oh, crap, it looks like we're going to have to make another jump," Yuji complained, pointing at a spot where the bridge had given out and was hanging downward. The small break was about a meter across and there weren't any rails there either. The only thing below them was the planet itself.
The long-haired boy backed up a few feet and leapt across, landing on his feet. Following him was his partner and then Ayaka, who had to carry Salamon.
Tadashi attempted a jump but almost missed, having to be pulled up by Yuji and Ayaka. The blond found himself panting heavily as his partner jumped across. That was a close one. Then Miki and Syakomon soared across gracefully. And finally Taizou and Solarmon made it across, barely followed by Agumon.
"That wasn't my cup of tea," Tadashi remarked, still panting.
"Yeah, it didn't help that you're a bit heavy to lift, man," Yuji commented, inciting a glare from the blond boy as well as Ayaka. "Hey, it's true."
"And you wonder why we haven't completely patched up our friendship," Tadashi mumbled under his breath.
"Hey, guys, look!" Coronamon yelled out, pointing to an area past the stairs that they were about to go down. It turned out there were broken spots of the bridge up and down the area.
"What? Some of those chasms look larger than the one we just crossed," Tadashi complained.
"Somehow I knew this was a bad idea," Taizou mumbled, irritated. "We just had to listen to Yuji for once."
"Dude, I got an idea that we could use, though," Yuji told the group. "I got you guys into this mess and I'm going to get you out."
"Are you kidding me?" Miki asked angrily, putting her palms on her waist. "There's no way we're going along with another one of your stupid plans again. In case you haven't noticed, there's a centimeter between us and falling to our deaths on the planet below us and that's if we don't burn up in its atmosphere or something."
"Come on, just listen to me for a second," Yuji begged the group. "What we should do is have Commandramon digivolve to Sealsdramon and have him carry us across one by one."
"Are you sure that his weight might not just collapse another section of these catwalks," Taizou asked, not buying it.
"Okay, have it your way. Just don't be surprised if the porker ends up falling to the planet," Yuji responded, ticking off Tadashi.
"What did you just call me?" the blond asked, glaring holes in the other boy.
"You heard me… fatso," the long-haired boy replied with a smile, pressing the blond's berserk button.
"Okay, that's it! I'm not even that heavy, you jerk!" Tadashi yelled, causing Yuji to run, jumping across each of the holes in the bridge, while the blond chased after him, even across the wide ones. After the two made their way past each of the holes, Tadashi was exhausted, or at least would have been if the digital world didn't have a way of giving the boy infinite stamina as long as he didn't pay attention to it.
After a few seconds of watching with astonishment, the other kids and their digimon then proceeded to make their way past the holes themselves, even with the aforementioned issues. It was almost as if, as long as they didn't think about their fears, they could get across the catwalk with ease.
###
Keith made it back to the real world shortly after his conversation with the old Watchmaker and made his way through the city. He knew that he wouldn't be able to use the portal program that he had gotten from off a defunct D-3 while traveling with the old man all that time ago much since eventually Hypnos would probably notice the anomaly. Still, it sounded like a good idea at the time anyway.
He hoped that everything would work according to his current plan. Still, since the old man was involved, that meant that his theory about the Tamers in the digital world being temporal duplicates was pretty much confirmed, despite Yamaki not taking them at face value or believing that the Watchmaker even existed.
The blond man pressed a few buttons on his disguised digivice's screen and then his appearance changed into that of a slightly older, black-haired Asian man with sunglasses and a black suit. Then he walked out of the bathroom, hoping that nobody would notice the disappearance of a blond European man. He also hoped that he could improve his accent enough to be confused for a native, something he hadn't been able to do yet.
He made his way through the streets until he reached the correct apartment building and then went up the elevator to the correct floor. While he was going up the elevator, he noticed the projection flicker briefly. That thing better not give out, he thought. He kept on walking through the hallway until he reached the correct door and then he knocked.
The door opened, revealing Tadashi, who gave the man a look. "Who are you?" he asked.
The man spoke in as good of Japanese as he could muster. As it was, his goal when speaking was always to avoid making mistakes. Still, he couldn't help it sometimes. "My name is Hideaki Nakamura and I work for Hypnos. Is Kurita at home?" Keith asked, succeeding in his best accent yet.
"Uh, yeah, why do you want to talk to him?" the blond boy asked.
"That is classified," the Japanese-looking man responded. He knew that this version of Tadashi was still annoyed that he couldn't get to the digital world and that he was constantly searching for the Watchmaker in vain, so he felt that he shouldn't get on his bad side. As it was, what he was planning would put him on the boy's bad side anyway, if the boy actually knew who he was.
Turning around, Tadashi moved toward the inside of the apartment. "Kurita, it's for you!"
A few seconds later, the hologram around Keith flickered for a second. Crap, not again, he thought. At least he wasn't in his underwear in public like that one time several decades before. Kurita opened up and walked out of the apartment as the disguised American looked up at him. The large blond was a bit taller than he was. Keith looked up at him and spoke.
"I would suggest closing that door," the disguised man said and the heavy man did so.
"Okay, so what's up?" the blond asked.
"I come from Hypnos with a proposition for you. We have a need for more Tamers and you're the one candidate that we could all agree on," Keith explained, lying through his teeth.
"Okay, so, you're going to give me a partner or something?" Kurita asked, curious and wary.
"Yes, exactly," the disguised man said, holding out a device that appeared as some sort of heavy duty palm pilot to Kurita. After a few buttons, he brought up a white digi-egg with bronze stripes across it. "This is yours."
The large blond man couldn't believe it. He was about to become a Tamer. He was smiling widely when he took the egg. "I would suggest hiding that."
"Okay, that's fine," Kurita said. "My parents wouldn't like me having a digimon anyway. Of course, I just turned eighteen, so I could just move out if they're too upset about it."
"True. However, I'm going to have to ask you to keep this meeting a secret to everyone, including Yamaki when you go to meet him. If he asks where you found your partner, just say that you found the egg randomly."
The large man felt really uncomfortable. Didn't this guy just say that it was part of Hypnos's plans that I get a partner? He asked himself, looking at the digi-egg. When he looked up, the man was gone. He tried to think of a way to get the egg somewhere safe quickly, but he didn't know exactly how.
Then he realized that there was another way to do this. He proceeded to leave the egg on the ground and go inside, hoping that nobody would pick it up. Then he went and grabbed a jacket before coming out and putting the egg inside. Finally, he went back in the apartment and headed straight to his room.
Upon shutting his door, he pulled the egg out, rubbing it in hopes that it would hatch soon. After a couple minutes, a series of cracks started to appear across the surface of the egg before it hatched into its Baby form of Popomon. He didn't trust that man and he was probably going to tell Yamaki about him, but that didn't mean that he would give up his partner so easily.
###
Keith reached the bottom level of the apartment building when the holographic projector on his digivice failed. Thankfully, he was at least wearing jeans and a grey t-shirt, bland enough to prevent anybody from noticing him. After picking up some fast food he headed straight home and, upon entering into the apartment, took off his shirt. He fed Jyaromon a couple burgers he had gotten. One thing was for sure, this digimon was a big eater.
The man sat down in his recliner and watched a little television, trying to think of his next step in finding new Tamers that Hypnos would be able to trust.
Let's see, other than Kurita, there are Jaarin and Rinchei. I could give them partners, or at least one of them, though that might tip Janyu off. Hmm…
He thought for a while, while his partner ate and then slept. The small, red, bat-eared head just snuggled in his partner's lap.
At least that day was over. He just hoped that he could train his partner back up to the rookie level and soon. The bioemergences were getting stronger.
###
"So, this is the nearest exit to Oppidum Septentrionale. Let's go through it," Yuji said, receiving the glares of the others.
"There's an entrance that leads straight into the city," Tadashi objected.
"Yeah? Look at the digivice, man. If you look at the map of these trails, the entrance into the city is on the far side of it from us. It would be easier to get in through here, not to mention a lot quicker." The long-haired boy just ran up the steps into the exit and the blond followed.
"Hey, wait up. I still haven't forgiven you for calling me fat, you know?" Tadashi called out as the others reached where they were.
"They're going up already?" Taizou asked as he followed the two along with his partner who was still resting in his arms.
"Boys…" Miki mumbled, following the others with Ayaka and their partners behind along with Agumon Hakase.
Tadashi and Yuji made it up to the surface without incident. It was in the middle of the day and the grass beneath their feet was a nice shade of green. There also appeared to be trees in the distance as well as the white walls of the nearby city. The globe in the sky seemed to be quite a bit more distant than when they first landed in the digital world.
Unfortunately, that was about the time when everything went down the tubes.
"Spider Shooter!" The duo and their partners heard, running out of the way of the maroon-colored energy blast.
"What the heck was that? Some wild digimon already here?" Yuji asked, irritated.
Then they saw them. There was a rather muscular boy of European decent in front of them. Muscular, broad-shouldered and looking like a linebacker on a football team. The brown-haired boy was wearing a white shirt and grey pants as well as a backpack. He was definitely more prepared for the digital world than the others.
And, somehow, he spoke fluent, accent-free Japanese. "Tadashi Nakabayashi , you have to come with me on behalf of the Digimon Queen."
"What?" the blond asked, confused that she could have gotten to them so quickly.
"Come with me or your friends will be killed," he said. Tadashi looked into the teen's eyes. He had a vacant look that was similar to the one that Taizou sported while his mind was being invaded by the Digimon Queen.
"Are you kidding me, there's no way I'm giving up Tadashi to you, you dirtbag!" Yuji yelled out. "Digivolution activate!"
"Commandramon digivolve to… Sealsdramon!"
Tadashi realized he had to do the same thing. "Digivolution activate!" he shouted as he held his digivice out.
"Coronamon digivolve to… Firamon!"
"What's happening?" Miki asked.
"This guy wants Tadashi for some reason. He works for the Digimon Queen," Yuji informed the rest of the group, trembling with the realization that they were now fighting an Ultimate and not some weak Ultimate like earlier that week in the real world. This one was one that was a hard time for two Ultimates on the second Digimon movie.
Ayaka, Miki and Taizou knew what that meant. Unfortunately, the brown-haired boy realized his partner was in no position to fight. He needed to find a way to help anyway.
"Digivolution Activate!" Miki and Ayaka both shouted out, holding out their digivices toward their digimon.
"Salamon digivolve to… D'Arcmon!"
"Syakomon digivolve to… Ranamon!"
The four Champion levels readied themselves.
"What is going on?" Agumon asked as he got out of the passageway.
"This guy attacked as soon as Tadashi and Yuji got up here," Taizou told the digimon, fuming because his partner couldn't do anything. This was going to be a far more difficult battle than any that had come between them and the brown-haired boy couldn't do anything about it.
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A/N: Well, that was a good chapter. I wrote most of it on the way to Vegas. Hehe. Road trips do give you plenty of time to do stuff, don't they?
Anyway, I don't want to spoil the next chapter. If you like the story, please review. Even if you don't like it, please review. I like constructive criticism, though if you flame me, I'll just laugh it off.
And another note: The Planetary and Orbital Worlds: Basically, this is a small theory that I have going through my head as to why the Digital World in Tamers is so much different from that in the other series. Hopefully it matches the history provided in the show well and makes sense. It would also explain why Takato's team ended up in the same spot so often (the area they were in was only a small part of the actual world).