Chapter 20: Land of Shadows
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Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the OCs.
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World 2-0 (Tamer's Universe)
He walked across the land of crystal and onto the gondola that led to the most reasonable of the sovereigns. He hoped this plan worked since he didn't have his partner digimon with him. He took everything in as he moved forward. It wasn't often that he would see such things.
He appreciated the beauty and the incursion of the large number of rogue Tamers on this world astounded him to no end. He hated the Digimon Queen and despised the Legendary Tamer despite once being his ally. Ever since that man came to this world, he had been ordering all the Tamers to destroy villages needlessly. Villages that were being dominated by the Dragonlord in the first place. He was at least glad that Crimson's digimon didn't take part in it.
The gondola stopped and the white-hooded figure walked forward on toward the blue palace of Azulongmon.
Eventually, he entered. He hoped that the fact that he didn't have any digimon with him proved to the giant dragon that he was an ally.
He spoke English in a British accent as soon as he found Azulongmon, roosting inside the palace.
"I am Harbinger and I am here to warn you that once the Dragonlord falls, the Triumvirate will be here next," he spoke in a cultured accent.
"And yet the Triumvirate's forces withdrew. How are you sure that they will come here again?" the blue dragon asked, doubting the man in front of him.
"I came to the Digital World with the Triumvirate leader who has taken the title of the Legendary Tamer for himself. However, I am disgusted by what he has done," the white-cloaked figure stated. "Please accept my warning and evacuate to the planet. I will try my best to bring the Triumvirate down from within, but at the moment I can't do it. I will attempt to turn some of the Legendary Tamer's forces against him in the meantime."
"I will tell the other sovereigns. At the very least, I will evacuate to the surface," Azulongmon assured him.
"Thank you, sir," Harbinger said, turning away and walking back to the gondola. He hoped that the sovereigns would see the wisdom in going to an area where they couldn't be found so easily.
Once he got off the gondola, he boarded an Airdramon that was there waiting for him and flew away.
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World 5-0 (Abby's World)
"Yes, yes, of course! That's what I've been doing wrong!" Gunter shouted loudly, annoying one of the nearby baristas at the coffee-shop in the large bookstore he and Ed went to after working out and cleaning up. Currently, he was busy trying to set up some modify programs for use in the Digital World as well as in the Dark Ocean. The Tamer didn't have any cards with him, since he had left them all in Germany when he went to France.
Of course, getting the program to work so his partner could attack without accidently fainting right after using it was his top priority.
"What have you been doing wrong?" Ed asked, sitting down in front of him with a book in his hand.
"Well, it turns out that if you give your digimon higher attack power, the digimon will use more energy. In other words, you can't give your Rookie-level partner the power of a Mega without killing it," Gunter explained. "So, to use these programs, there needs to be some sort of error-handling to prevent your partner from using an ultra-strong attack when his energy level is below a certain percent, say ten, as well as only using an attack that will only deplete so much energy."
"That's interesting…" Ed replied, somewhat confused by the brown-haired teen's explanation. "What about dealing with the Control Spires once we get to the Digital World?"
"To check those out, I need to actually be around one," he explained before smelling what the black-haired boy was drinking. "Ooh, what are you drinking there?"
Ed looked at his to-go cup and answered. "Just a chai tea."
"Not sure if I've ever had that. So, anyway, I hope this will help us deal with Megas since it might be a while before we biomerge. Plus, we need to prepare in case Tadashi decides to go to the next world in our quest instead of the Dark Ocean."
"Yeah, we do…" Then Ed's device beeped, causing him to instinctively reach down and look at it. "I got mail from Ayaka. It turns out that Tadashi and Miki showed up at Abby's house."
"Awesome!" the large German exclaimed. "So, I guess we might as well head back to the hotel."
Ed nodded. He wasn't sure what to think of Gunter after everything was said and done.
###
A few minutes later, the duo made it back to the hotel. However, since Tadashi was going to be there, Ed knew he had to tell Gunter something. Thinking about how to tell it to him so that even if Tadashi heard, he wouldn't understand, the black-haired boy decided to test out how many of the Queen's abilities the German still had.
"Cualquier cosa que hagas, no digas a Tadashi quién es mi padre." Whatever you do, don't tell Tadashi who my dad is, Eduardo told him as they got off the bus.
"¿Quién es tu padre?" Who's your dad? Gunter asked in confusion, using a European accent in Spanish.
"¿Qué? ¿No sabés quién es mi padre?" What, you don't know who my dad is? the black-haired boy asked, surprised.
"Eh, no quiero ofenderte, pero no sé quién es tu padre." Uh, I don't want to offend you, but I don't know who your dad is. Then the large German sized up his friend as they walked, trying to figure out why the American would think he knew who his father was. Then he realized it. "¡Ay, caramba! ¡Eres el hijo del profesor Antonio Urrutía!" Holy crap, you're the son of Professor Antonio Urrutía!
Ed looked at him in surprise. "¿Por qué hablás en una voz tan alta? No quiero que Tadashi nos oiga." Why are you talking so loud. I don't want Tadashi to hear us.
"¿Por qué actúas como si haya más que una persona aquí?" Why are you acting like there's more than one person here? Gunter questioned.
"No actúo como si haya más personas aquí que vos. ¿Por qué me preguntás eso?" I'm not acting like there's more than one person here than you. Why do you ask me that? Ed responded as they climbed the steps to the run-down hotel room.
"Porque usas vosotros." Because you're using y'all, the large German replied.
Ed had never thought about what pronoun he was using. In fact, vosotros wasn't even used in Latin America. As far as he knew, he was talking to Gunter in Spanish in the same way that his mother and step-father talked to him.
"Pero no lo creo. Eres el hijo de Antonio Urrutía. ¿Cómo fue crecer con él como padre?" But I don't believe it. You're the son of Antonio Urrutía. How was it growing up with him as a dad? the brown-haired German inquired enthusiastically.
"Solo lo conozco desde hace seis meses, más o menos." I've only known him for the past six months ,more or less. Ed responded, grinning wildly as he approached the door. "Acordáte que no debés hablar a nadie de esto." Remember that you shouldn't talk to anybody about this.
"No voy a decir nada." I'm not going to say anything, Gunter responded with a gesture, grinning wildly as well.
As he opened the door, he saw Abby, Tadashi, Miki, Ayaka and all of their partners. "So, how'd your shower go?" Prokyomon asked.
"We worked out and then showered," Ed replied. "And then we went to the bookstore because Gunter wanted to."
"So, the big dumb guy wanted to go to the bookstore?" Miki asked in surprise. "How does that work."
Everyone glared at Miki, especially Gunter. Ed was amazed that the German's icy glare didn't freeze everyone to death. Then Ayaka cleared her throat.
"Miki, Ayaka's partner cured Gunter of whatever the Digimon Queen did to him," Ed told the girl. "So, since when do you speak English?"
"Since the Digimon Emperor made me speak it to try to get me to join him," Miki explained.
That was when Gunter had an outburst. "I'll let you know, lady, that I'm not dumb. I have straight A's. Alongside German, I speak English and French fluently and I'm studying Latin."
"Not to mention Spanish," Ed added, chuckling.
"No, I don't speak Spanish. I've never even been to Spain," Gunter contradicted him. "It would be a fun place to go, though, especially Barcelona or Pamplona." He scratched his chin. "Maybe even Seville or Andalucía."
The black-haired American was taken aback by that answer. Weren't we just speaking Spanish? He even thought I was using vosotros. Then he realized what accent the German Tamer was using, namely, the continental accent with the whole lisp and everything.
Still, because of Gunter's rant, the dark-haired girl was humbled a little bit. Actually, she looked quite embarrassed. The large German was definitely looking at her with a bit of a glare, but it had let up somewhat. "Well, anyway, my name is Gunter Kaufmann." The brown-haired teen started to smile as he looked around. "Keramon, where are you?" He looked back at Tadashi and Miki. "My partner's probably hiding again, but he'll be back soon. I hope."
Then the little blue alien jumped out at him from behind the newcomers, landing in the large German's arms. "Horray! I'm glad you're back!"
"Me too." Gunter chuckled a little bit. "Anyway, what's up?"
"We're going to the Digital World tomorrow," Tadashi began to explain. "I just found the Dimensional Corridor and we can use it to either find Takato and the others or go to the Dark Ocean and destroy the source of these Control Spires."
"Alright!" the brown-haired teen exclaimed.
"What about rescuing Taizou and Yuji?" Ed asked with a little bit of confusion. "Shouldn't we go get them before taking on the Dark Undersea Master?"
"Are you kidding me? The Digimon Emperor's base is deep inside his territory," Tadashi responded.
"Plus, there are control spires all over the place there," Abigail added.
"So, out of curiosity, what does the base look like?" Gunter asked. "Is it a giant toilet like on the TV show?" The rest of the group burst out laughing.
"You know, I never thought of that," Ed mumbled, chuckling a little bit. "Of course, that begs the question of whether there are tons of control spires in the Dark Ocean as well."
"We'll deal with that when the time comes," Tadashi explained.
"Just one problem: how are we supposed to know that the Digimon Emperor's base gets its power from there?" Ed asked. "Not that I don't agree with you about going there, but still. I even thought about going to the Dark Ocean."
"Well, a lot of the things about the show were right so far," Abby said, smiling at her black-haired friend. "How much of Tamers matches what happened in your world?"
"From what I've seen, most of it," Ayaka replied.
"Wait, Tamers?" Tadashi asked, confused.
"In this world, Takato's adventures were on a TV Show," Ed explained, folding his arms and leaning against a nearby wall.
"What?" the blond boy responded in disbelief.
"So, that might mean that what happened on other seasons may have happened in other worlds as well," Miki deduced. "Oh, man, I totally want to meet Ken or Matt!"
"What about Tai or Davis?" Tadashi asked.
"Oh, they're nothing special," Miki replied in excitement. "Can you imagine all that bishounen goodness?"
"No, not really," the blond boy responded, narrowing his eyes at his friend. At least she wasn't criticizing him for his weight anymore.
"Oh, and by the way, I translated the rest of that passage," Gunter told the group.
"What passage?" Tadashi asked, slightly confused.
"I found a message in Latin on the wall of these ruins in the digital world," Ed explained.
"What the heck was that doing there?" Miki asked, not buying it.
"Beats me," the black-haired boy responded, shrugging.
Then Gunter told them the translation. "It said: 'Emperor Symanski is the Dimension Key. He has a sister with the crest of Light and a brother with the crest of Destiny. The Destroyer of Worlds will steal the Dimension Key.'"
"What?" Tadashi asked. "Was it some sort of prophecy?"
"Do you actually believe in that kind of stuff?" Miki inquired scornfully.
"I do, but this can't be it," Ed responded. "My thoughts are that the Watchmaker put it there or something."
"That sounds like a reasonable conclusion," Gunter said before grinning. "This makes me wonder what else he has planned."
"So, what now? When do we go?" Tadashi asked the others, who all shrugged. "When should we go?"
"How about tomorrow morning," Abby suggested. "My parents should be out of the house. I'll just need to bring you guys in so that you can use the portal."
Tadashi looked the brunette and nodded. "Sounds like a good idea to me."
"At least we have six of us to do this," Gunter told the group, causing Abby to look at her feet nervously.
Ed noticed this. "Your parents don't want you to come," he guessed and she nodded, frowning.
"Don't listen to them. We need all the help we can get!" Tadashi exclaimed.
"I even explained that my brother was in the digital world," the brunette responded. "But the answer was still no. It's too dangerous."
"Hey, you should probably respect their wishes," Ed told her. "They are right, after all."
The girl nodded at him, smiling slightly.
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World 2-0 (Tamer's Universe)
David Symanski was not having a good day. Okay, so he was forced to come into the digital world by his friend Roger, completely disobeying his mother in the process. Then he found himself leading a team under Joey, who, in his opinion, was one of the biggest jerks in the whole of Roger's allies.
And now, to make things even worse, he was in the armpit of the digital world, trying to find out where the crush of some girl last was. He couldn't care less about the girl, and he didn't want to be there. He'd rather be at home, studying ahead so that he could make it through the eleventh grade more easily.
And then they had to detect that odd digivice signal. "Can you contact him?" David asked one of his subordinates, a tall, muscular, black man.
"You know man, that's exactly what I've been trying to do," he responded.
"Any information on this guy?" the alternate-reality version of a Digimon Emperor asked.
"Absolutely nothing," a red-haired girl responded. "I can't even tell what digimon this guy has at this range!"
"How long until we reach the portal that Eduardo and the others may have gone through?" David asked the third member of the team who was the partner of the giant red eagle they were flying on, Aquilamon.
"About five minutes. I think there's a shield up ahead," the brown-skinned guy responded. "Oh, man, that's a big one."
"How about that mysterious digivice signal? Anything?" David inquired.
"Still absolutely nothing."
A few minutes later, the group landed. "Okay, now what?" the black man asked.
"We wait and prepare ourselves. I want all our guys at Ultimate in case this guy's hostile," David told the group. The alternate version of the Emperor was ready for whatever enemy they came across. "Super Digivolution Activate!" he yelled out along with each of the others after they landed and got off Aquilamon.
"Koemon digivolve to… Gokuwmon!"
"Psychemon digivolve to… Astamon!"
"Palmon digivolve to… Lillymon!"
"Aquilamon digivolve to… Garudamon!"
They waited and the digimon revealed itself. It was a large, purple, humanoid machine with one camera-like eye in the middle of its head, spindly, grey cables attaching each of its limbs as well as metallic wings that made it look like it had a cloak on.
"Any info?" David asked.
"I'm not getting info on this guy. My guess is that he's an artificial digimon," the black guy responded.
"Hmm… You have no info on my digimon? That's not much of a surprise," a voice, an extremely haughty voice spoke from the inside of the digimon.
"Yeah, who are you and what are you here for? Were you sent by the Triumvirate to help us?" David asked, prepared to attack at a moment's notice.
"Getting straight to the point, are you?" that voice said again. Ever since the digivice upgrade, the voices of biomerged Megas haven't been dual voices like Takato and the others. Generally, they've been a single voice, sounding like a grown-up version of the rookie digimon with the voice of the Tamer showing up every so often. David had to guess that this was the voice of the Tamer.
"Tell us what you're here for or we'll open fire," David told him point blank. He wasn't going to take any chances with a potential rogue Tamer. Then again, he wished that Joey was a rogue so he had an excuse to go after him.
"Okay, I'm here for the Dimension Key," the digimon, or rather its partner responded.
"Well, we don't have it," David told him. "Of course, if you're just going to head in through the portal, we'll let you pass."
The digimon laughed. Nobody in the group liked it one bit.
"Well, it turns out that you're the key," the digimon said right after he finished laughing. "And I'm going to take you with me, Emperor Symanski. BT Laser!"
David's eyes widened as the digimon opened fire on each of his friends and their partners, killing each of them and deleting them. He was the only one left after a matter of a few seconds. Everyone else was just data, data which was promptly absorbed by this new enemy.
"You… You killed them! You monster!" he shouted out at the new enemy in front of him. It was the last thing he knew before getting knocked out.
The Destroyer of Worlds stole the Dimension Key.
###
World 5-0 (Abby's World)
Abigail let her new group of friends into her house. "Well, here we are," she said, giggling slightly. "It's not much but it'll do."
"Are you kidding me? This place is huge," Tadashi told her. "I just live in a cramped apartment."
"Eh, it isn't that big, but then again, I live in a mansion," Miki remarked.
"Still, it's nice to be in a new place," Coronamon commented.
The group headed into her brother's room which was relatively unchanged since the last time any of them had been in it. Of course, with how many of them there were, they were pretty cramped.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Tadashi asked Abigail.
"Like I said, my parents don't want me to go," she said.
"Don't worry, that's alright," Ed told her.
"Yeah, guess what, if you want to come, then come," Tadashi said, contradicting the black-haired boy's remark. "This might be the only chance for you to save your brother and it's the only chance you'll get."
The brunette thought about that for a second and looked at her partner. She really didn't want to disobey her parents, but the idea of going to the digital world with these guys was far too tempting. She looked down at her partner. "What do you think, Cutemon?"
"I think we should go, kyu!" the pink rabbit replied.
That increased the temptation. Finally, she couldn't bear it anymore. "Okay, I'll go."
"Are you sure?" Ed asked her. "We might be gone awhile."
"Yes, I'm sure. You guys might need my help even though I can only reach Champion. My partner can also heal." The brunette ran to the back of the house and filled her backpack with supplied before coming back. She took out her D-3 and pointed it at the computer screen. "Okay, to the Dimensional Corridor! Digi-port open!"
Instantly, the Tamers and their digimon were pulled into the screen and into the digital world. On the other side, they landed in a pile. Once they pulled themselves free, they looked around, wary that the Emperor's forces could be around. So far, though, they didn't see any Control Spires or Dark Ring-sporting digimon.
"Okay, the Corridor is over this way," Tadashi said, leading the group.
Ed didn't know what to think of Abigail coming with them. On the way to the corridor, he thought about how she didn't exactly do the right thing in disobeying her parents but at the same time, he reminded himself that he disobeyed his dad when he scanned Prokyomon's drawings while he was in Paris.
That was different, he thought to himself. I thought I might have needed him to get out of that orphanage.
He remembered that day that his digivice appeared. He didn't have a blue card to scan and his older digivice had been destroyed when the anti-digimon group decided to kidnap him at the request of his mother. He had been in Paris for about a week, the only company he had gotten being that of a French girl who didn't even speak English.
Then it appeared, almost out of thin air, a glowing sphere.
Almost instantly he grabbed his drawings of Prokyomon and his evolution line and scanned them, watching the door of that trashy room and hoping that none of the workers of that anti-digimon group-run facility came in. After they were scanned, he saw the egg on the screen and waited, checking the digivice's features. To his surprise, the device had all the same features of his old digivice.
The black-haired boy was brought out of his reverie by his partner. "So, what's up?"
"What do you mean?" Ed asked his partner.
"You look lost in thought," the raccoon replied. "You're thinking about Abby, aren't you?"
"Well, I was thinking about the day I met you and how that related to what Abby did just now," the black-haired boy responded. "You know, sometimes it can be hard to live up to my principles."
"Yeah, it can be. I guess we just have to try our best, right?" Prokyomon asked, falling into his partner's arms.
"I… I wonder if when I get back to my dad if I'll get in trouble," Ed stated, wondering what his father was doing that moment.
"Personally, I think he'll just be happy to have you back," the brown raccoon told him. "I look forward to meeting him."
Ed looked to the side to see Gunter looking at him and his partner before looking forward again.
The group continued on, for what seemed like miles until they reached the domed building that housed the Dimensional Corridor. The group headed straight for the entrance but Tadashi stopped as soon as he saw that it was blocked. "What the heck?"
"The Crest of Light," Ayaka said, looking over the large stone slab before turning to Abigail. "I think that's your crest."
"I don't even have a tag for it, though," the brunette objected, adjusting her glasses as she walked up to the obstruction. When she stopped in front of it, she noticed that her digivice was glowing pink. Then the slab glowed as well, shrinking until it was its normal size before floating over to the girl's chest. A tag formed around it and hung around her neck. "Wow…"
"I guess that answers your question," Ed told her, grinning widely. She smiled back as they entered into the domed building.
Right in the center of the building was a Heimdallmon just like in the other realities that the team of Tamers had traversed.
"Welcome to the Dimensional Corridor," the massive Mega greeted the group. "Is there any specific world you want to go to?"
"Well," Tadashi had to decide whether to ask about the next world that Kuzuhamon took Takato and the others or to request that they go to the Dark Ocean. He chose the first for now. "A Kuzuhamon traveled through here with a number of Tamers. What world did she go to?"
"I thought we were going to go to the source of the Digimon Emperor's powers," Ayaka whispered just before the powerful digimon spoke.
"They went to world 6-1," Heimdallmon informed them. "However, that world is under quarantine since it is under the control of a Digimon Emperor that has the power over vast areas of the world's surface. It is too dangerous to go to."
"Okay, then how about the Dark Ocean?" the blond requested.
"That is also under quarantine," the guardian stated. "Digital World 6-0 is under the control of the dark lord Dagomon who defeated that reality's digidestined and took over the digital world."
The group all looked in shock at the Mega for saying that. "Wait, you mean that they failed to defeat this guy?" Miki questioned in surprise.
"That's gotta suck!" Coronamon exclaimed.
"Surely, there must be a way for you to allow us there," Ed told the Mega.
"I am to allow no one in either zone," Heimdallmon informed them. "They are my orders from Yggdrasil."
"Okay, I don't know who this Yggdrasil guy is, but we need to go to one of these worlds," Gunter told him sternly. "Take us to whichever world is safer! We need to go to one of them."
"And Dagomon's only an Ultimate, so we should be able to defeat him," Tadashi told the Mega. "Take us there!"
The large digimon narrowed his eyes. "There is no way I am taking you to the Dark Ocean."
"Okay, bozo, this Dagomon guy's been creating Digimon Emperors," Miki explained in a tough tone. "So, if that's the case, you might as well send us there, now!"
Gunter immediately walked over to the circle that had the numbers '6-0' on it and stomped on it. "We're going to this world no matter what! There is no way you can stop us."
"Um, Gunter…" Ed cautioned the large German, narrowing his eyes.
"I am a Mega-level. There is no way any of you are a match for me," Heimdallmon told them before turning to Abigail and noticing the crest around her neck. "You are the bearer of the Crest of Light, one of the true Digidestined of this world. Where is your brother, the bearer of Destiny?"
"I don't know. I only have one brother and that's David," the girl told the towering giant.
"No, you have another, the bearer of Destiny, the one known as Robert," the giant explained, shocking her.
"No, that can't be. He's not my brother, just a friend," the girl stuttered, shaking her head in denial. It was impossible. He was a little older than her. For him to be her brother would mean that… The thought was unthinkable. For her whole life, her parents were happily married. The thought that her father was unfaithful… Did her mother even know about this?
"Still, I was supposed to wait for you and the bearer of Destiny," the large digimon told her before turning to the spot where Gunter still was, causing the brown-haired German to move out of the way. The Mega then stabbed the spot, opening the portal to the Dark Ocean.
"Make haste! The way to the Ocean has been opened!" Heimdallmon shouted and the six Tamers and their digimon made their way through the rainbow-colored portal, falling into it and to the other world.
###
World 2-0 (Tamer's Universe)
"Their last location was right outside the portal that Eduardo had gone through. Examining the crime scene drew up a single digivice, badly damaged and non-operational. However, I was able to get some data off of it." The speaker was a bespectacled red-haired girl who was a bit on the curvy side and who was wearing glasses.
"So… Any idea on who did this?" Crimson asked suavely from his platform. The building they were in had golden tiles and red walls as well as stain glass windows behind the Triumvirate.
"None. We checked the portal room and found no sign of any sort of digimon," the red-haired girl added.
"Did you figure out how to operate the portal?" the Digimon Queen inquired from her platform, thinking of sending a squad in for Ed.
"We couldn't," the girl informed the group.
"Okay, case dismissed," Roger said hurriedly, wanting to move on.
"But, come on, whoever attacked those guys might be a threat," Crimson stated. "We should follow up…"
"I said 'case dismissed!'" the red-haired teen shouted, turning away from the tribunal. "Besides, that loser's probably in some other world."
"But seriously, don't you care about bringing justice to your lost teammates?" the older teen questioned.
Roger just shrugged. "Nah, they're all expendable anyway."
Crimson was taken aback by that attitude and shook his head as the red-head walked away. Plus, the red-haired girl that was reporting to them had heard what her superior had said.
You're going to shoot yourself in the foot, Roger. No, take that back. You're going to shoot all of us in the foot.
"You know, he does have a point about following up on this guy being kind of pointless," the Queen told him, her French accent spicing up her speech a bit. "Since we don't know how the portal works, we can't really do anything."
Crimson nodded reluctantly before the two of them left the tribunal.
The curvy red-head stood in shock at her superior's remarks.
###
World 6-0 (The Dark Ocean)
The team landed in the middle of a canyon. As soon as everyone lifted themselves up off the ground, they came to notice the difference between that world and the one that they had just come from. For one thing, everything was dreary beyond belief. There didn't seem to be color anywhere around them other than black, white and shades of grey. The sky also appeared to be covered in clouds.
"Wow, this place just makes me want to sleep in," Abigail remarked, yawning.
"But we need to defeat Dagomon, kyu," Cutemon told her and she smiled back at the pink rabbit.
"Don't worry. It's not as if I was actually thinking of going to sleep," the brunette told her partner before looking toward Tadashi. The blond was busy checking his digivice out.
"So, where are we headed?" Ed inquired of the lone Japanese boy currently on their team.
"Looking at this, there are two portals, both in completely opposite directions," Tadashi told the group. "I guess that means that this is a one-way trip, pretty much."
"Doing a Digimon search!" Gunter exclaimed, pressing buttons on his digivice's screen. "Oh, yeah, I think I found Dagomon!" Then he pressed a couple more buttons. "Setting up the compass function to lead us to him. You know, this digivice upgrade is awesome!"
Ed sighed. He hoped that the large German teen didn't accidently blurt out the secret he was keeping from Tadashi. So far, though, he seemed to be holding his end of the bargain.
"Alright, I'll do that search and take us there. Okay, let's go!" the blond exclaimed, leading the team toward their next enemy.
"I wonder what this guy's like," Coronamon thought out loud.
"Cthulhu, that's what. He's going to be a giant cosmic horror," Gunter told the lion-like digimon. "I bet you can't look at him or you'll go mad." Coronamon's face blanched from that one.
"This guy sounds kind of freaky!" the orange lion exclaimed in fear as the German laughed.
So the group continued to walk through the canyon, hoping to find a way out. Eventually it was starting to look like they were going to have to climb up the side of the canyon if they wanted to have a straight route to where Dagomon was, though since they didn't have any equipment for that, it was going to be too dangerous.
"Maybe we should digivolve one of our digimon to ferry us up to the top," Ayaka suggested.
"That sounds like a good idea to me," the blond responded, scratching his chin. "You know, it's times like this when I wish we were traveling inside of Blimpmon or Zeppelinmon."
"I can't agree with you more," Miki told him with a smile. "Oh, how I wish I could relax inside a nice, air-conditioned airship."
"I have to say, though, that I feel kind of cold here already," Syakomon commented, shivering.
"Yeah, no kidding," Ed responded. "It feels just a little too cold. I'd say that the temperature is somewhere in the fifties or sixties."
Abigail shivered as well. "You know, maybe we should just get on with this," the brunette suggested, not wanting to spend any more time in this place than necessary."
"She's right, kyu," Cutemon commented.
"We don't know when some of those enemies will come out of the woodwork," Ed indicated. "What were those things from the show called, anyway?"
"I remember a fanfic that called them Deadmon," the bespectacled brunette said before disclaiming her statement. "I'm not saying that the fanfic is canon or anything, but I thought it was at least interesting."
"Deadmon… Let's see what these things are really called," Tadashi said before pulling out his digivice and using it. "Digivolution Activate!" he shouted.
Nothing happened.
"What gives?" the blond asked, irritated that it didn't work.
"Prokyomon, can you climb up there and see whether there are any control spires around?" Ed requested of his partner. The brown raccoon nodded and climbed up the rocky canyon wall quickly, knowing that time was in the essence.
As soon as he got up there, he saw the area surrounding the canyon, consisting of vast plains dotted by control spires, many of them. The clouds gave way to lightning in the distance.
"Oh… crap," was Prokyomon's reaction. He stood there, stunned, looking at all the spires and taking in the view.
The digimon then hurried down the side of the canyon with his horrible news. "There are Spires everywhere!" he yelled, panicking.
"What?" Tadashi asked, dreading the decision to come to this world. For once he wondered if they should have gone after Emperor Damien instead.
"Control Spires everywhere?" Ed muttered, disbelieving. "We'll have to take care of them when needed."
"Okay, maybe we should go up there and just stay close to the Control Spires," Ayaka suggested to Tadashi.
"That's a great idea," the blond commended her. "Let's do that and if we come across any enemy digimon, we'll have all our rookies destroy the nearest Spire and then digivolve and attack the enemy digimon that we come across."
Ed nodded and so did Gunter. Miki reluctantly thought that it was a good idea as well. Abby didn't know what to truly think of this strategy but she figured it was better than nothing. Still, there was something that bugged her.
"What if by destroying the tower, we notify Dagomon of our position?" the brunette asked.
"Then I guess we should only destroy the spires if we absolutely need to," Tadashi told the American girl. "Are you guys up to this?"
"Might as well," Miki responded. "But how are we going to get up there if we can't digivolve?"
"We'll have to take the long way, I guess," the blond replied, grinning and moving forward.
So they all did.
###
A/N: Well, that begins the Dark Ocean part of the arc. I had originally written a version of Chapter 20 that involved Kurita and Rinchei in the world where Takato and the others were, but then I thought about how I had wanted Tadashi and the others to find them instead.
And so this chapter introduces a mysterious entity that I will refer to as the juggernaut. Yes, it's a digimon. It's the Mega form of a canon digivolution line. Who is the Tamer controlling it and what is he planning to do with David Symanski and his alternate counterpart? Find out soon. In a few chapters, he should be making his moves into Emperor Symanski's world. Hehehe.
The scary thing is that the whole Symanski storyline is actually an aborted arc from another story I was writing a couple years ago, Digimon Scammer: Ragnarok. Hopefully it'll work out here. There it was just part of a nasty little Kudzu plot… *shudders*
And finally, for anyone who notices the odd verb forms that Ed uses, if you've never heard of the phenomenon known as 'Voseo', look it up on Wikipedia. That explains the forms he's using. Vos is used in a lot of places in Latin America, such as Argentina, Uruguay and Nicaragua. I have a friend from Argentina named Alan who uses it all the time, for instance (he also has a cool accent. Same with the one Chilean guy I know). Still, if anybody spots any errors in usage or whatever in my Spanish, feel free to let me know in a review. I'm definitely not a native speaker, though I managed to write the scenes in this chapter and the one before without use of a dictionary.