Disclaimer: Digimon is a franchise owned jointly by Toei Animation and Bandai, and conceptualized by Akiyoshi Hongo. Doctor Who is a property owned by the British Broadcasting Company created by Sydney Newman. The concept of The Tamer v3.0 - Bold New Frontier is a fanfiction idea. Please support the official properties.
The Tamer v3.0 - Bold New Frontier
Chapter 11: A Broken World
It felt like a memory he'd forgotten about a long time ago. The words were so familiar, echoing so clearly that he was sure he was recalling it. It wasn't imagined but real. And yet it seemed so far away. There were two hooded figures standing over him, leaning in to examine him carefully. They were so close he should've been able to make out their faces but they were obscured by a very bright light that was just behind him.
"Are you sure about this?" the first asked.
"Yes, I'm sure. He…the half…thing is the best soldier. He and that damned rogue Koromon. If we are to win this war, we need more like him. Like them!" the second answered with a certainty that bordered on madness.
"Does the council know?" the first asked.
"The council won't care. Not after we show them the results we produce!" the second said.
"They already don't like having one half breed, let alone the wild card Agumon. What makes you think they'll want more?" the first asked again, clearly trying to be the voice of reason between the two.
"When they see what we've created. When they see what we've produced! They won't dare question any of this! They will reward us!" the second said triumphantly, stepping away from the light to disappear into the darkness. There was a clatter of noise as the second began fiddling with devices.
"What are you doing?" the first asked.
When there was no response, the first became more agitated, "Are you ignoring me!? I said, what are you doing!?"
Again no response.
"THIS ISN'T THE TIME FOR A NAP!"
Okay, that part didn't seem right. And had the first figure's voice changed pitch? As he tried to make sense of what was happening, the world started shaking around him as he was startled awake.
"What are you doing!? This isn't the time for a nap! Get up!" Neemon cried as he furiously shook Tamer's shoulder. It seemed no matter how hard the bunny digimon tried, the boy absolutely refused to stir.
"You have to use more force, Neemon!" Bokomon chided his partner, preparing to slam his large book over the head of the boy. Tamer's eyes burst open just as Bokomon brought the book down, and he rolled out of the way as the book slammed into the dirt.
"I hope this doesn't mean you're out to get me, Bokomon," Tamer said dryly as he stood up and dusted himself off.
"Now isn't the time for jokes. We were trying to wake you! We have to hurry and leave as soon as possible!" Bokomon explained quickly, grabbing Tamer's hand and trying to drag him along. However, the boy was deceptively heavy and wouldn't budge.
Tamer tilted his head in confusion, "What? Why?"
"Gigasmon got the Fractal Code! We need to get out of here yesterday!" Neemon added worriedly.
At the sound of that, Tamer jumped up to his feet, "The fractal code? Fffff…We need to go!"
As he said that, the ground beneath them began to tremble, prompting Neemon to tug on the boy's other hand, "THAT'S RIGHT! NOW LET'S GO!"
"Which way do we go!?" Kumamon shouted.
"Anywhere but here is where!" Bokomon declared, scrambling off in the same direction as the fleeing KaratsukiNumemon.
"Let's go!" Neemon shouted again, pulling on Tamer's hand to get him moving. But before Neemon could even get him to take a step, the ground cracked beneath their feet and crumbled to nothing. Beneath that was nothing but darkness - an all encompassing emptiness made of nothing.
"OH CRAP!" Lobomon said as they started falling, the first of a dozen other screams that came from the group.
"AAAAAH!" Kumamon screamed at the top of his lungs.
"KAZEMON! FLY US OUT OF HERE!" Beetlemon shouted at her, only to see an unconscious Zoe. Bokomon darted toward her and tried to stir her awake.
"She's out cold!" Bokomon declared.
"We're dead! We're so dead!" Neemon wailed.
"Will you all be quiet! I can get us out of this! I just really hope this works this time," Tamer shouted, slapping and fiddling with his digivice until he pointed it straight beneath them, "Please work! Please work! DIGIPORT OPEN!"
A bright light appeared just beneath them, slowly growing and splitting open like an eye. The light was so bright that they had to close their eyes, but they knew the light was going to swallow them whole as they fell through it. After a few moments, Neemon cracked his eyes open and could see grass coming towards him. He yelped as they hit it with a soft thud, kicking up some dirt and grass as they landed. Neemon didn't think it was possible but he felt pain all over his entire body, and he didn't particularly enjoy this sensation. He lay on the ground for a moment, trying to find the strength to overcome the pain but it seemed illusive right now. The world was still spinning when he finally felt numb enough to try and sit himself up.
"Is everyone alright?" Tamer asked.
"I'm fine," Kumamon answered too soon, standing up just to fall back over. He rolled on to his side and tried to push himself up again, changing back into Tomoki as he tried only to fall back down again.
"Okay, I've seen some weird stuff in the last few days but that takes the cake. What the hell was that?" Lobomon growled, changing back into Koji in a flash of light. Once the world stopped spinning, Neemon stood up and surveyed their surroundings. The little rabbit noticed something amiss but couldn't quite place his finger on it. Something about their surroundings was just off.
"I opened a DigiPort. I didn't think it would work since it hadn't worked before. I'm not sure why it worked that time but I wasn't about to question it," Tamer answered.
"Is that what you were trying to do back at the train station?" Tomoki asked from his spot on the ground.
"Yeah. It would've taken you guys straight to the Hallowed Bastion if I could've gotten it to work before. And before you ask: no, I don't know why it suddenly worked that time," Tamer explained. Tomoki groaned from the ground.
"Any time you guys feel like making sense, I'll be right here," Koji grumbled, clearly annoyed with the events of the last few minutes. Finally, Neemon was able to figure it out what was wrong. He only counted three others here besides himself: Tamer, Tomoki, and Koji.
"Say, where's everyone else?" Neemon asked.
"They should be…right…here…crap," Tamer's voice trailed off as he realized they weren't present.
"Don't tell me we they're still falling in…whatever that was!?" Tomoki gasped. Neemon didn't like the sound of that, fearing that Bokomon may be trapped in his perpetual free fall for all eternity.
"Nonsense! We all fell through the DigiPort," Tamer answered, "AND! To be entirely clear, I was aiming for us to land back at the factory. The fact that we're here means that whatever is affecting my digivice is still screwing with the DigiPort. The others may not be here but we know they are somewhere in the Digital World."
"Okay, then where are they?" Koji asked.
"The only way to know is to go look for them because they could be anywhere," Tamer answered.
"AAAAAH!" Beetlemon screamed as the bright light that had swallowed them was replaced by a large open field of grass beneath them.
"WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" Bokomon wailed, flailing his arms madly as they fell towards the ground.
"NOT HELPING!" Beetlemon cried out as they slammed into the ground, sending shockwaves through his body like he was being zapped by his own electricity. Before he could even summon the energy to stand up, he felt himself regress back into being JP. He turned his head to the side to see Zoe laying unconscious next to her. And past that was Bokomon, trying to push himself up, "Is everyone alright?"
"Zoe," JP mumbled out, reaching his hand out towards the unconscious girl. He wanted to get up and check if she was okay. For some reason he felt tired. More tired than he'd ever been before. As his hand reached out for Zoe, the world faded into darkness.
On Tamer's insistence, the group started moving to find the second half of their group. All the while, he continued fiddling with his digivice, occasionally muttering to himself and smacking it in frustration. With every step, Neemon couldn't help but worry about how the others were doing. He was especially worried for Bokomon. Although they openly bickered a lot, the fact was that he and Bokomon were best friends and he hated to think about what the poor digimon was doing without him. What he had in brains and intelligence, that little digimon lacked in practically everything else.
"I still don't see why I have to come with you guys. They aren't my friends," Koji grumbled quietly.
"Because you would still be dangling from a rope if we hadn't come to help you! The least you could do is help us find the others!" Tomoki argued, barely containing the anger in his voice.
"We really need to work on your anger issues kiddo," Neemon answered quietly.
"I am not angry," Tomoki replied, his voice seething with the very anger that he insisted that he did not have.
"You see: you say that but you sound angrier than Koji. And Koji seems like he doesn't know how to not be angry," Neemon answered, wondering why Tomoki was now gawking at him.
Before Tomoki could begin to counter, Koji added, "The way I see it, I already saved you guys from that group of angry Pagumon. As far as I'm concerned, we're all even."
"Stop arguing you two! We have enough problems right now without the two of you at each other's throats! We have to find the others," Tamer snapped at them. Koji just glowered quietly but Tomoki appeared genuinely taken aback, as if he had not expected to be yelled at.
"I don't have to do anything because I'm not with you guys," Koji pointed out to Tamer's disgust.
"Yes, you are because there are digimon running around with the power of the Guardian Spirits in case you haven't noticed. I don't know where they got this power or why, but I do know that them having it cannot be a good thing!" Tamer fired back quickly.
Neemon had no idea what that meant and looked back at the others for some kind of simplified explanation. But they looked back with the same confused looks that he had. What he wouldn't give to have Bokomon hear to use less boring, simpler words.
"And how is that my problem?" Koji finally asked.
"Because if that digimon has the power of a Guardian Spirit, that means it can take that power. It already took the fractal code of an entire part of the Digital World. There's only one reason digimon do that: to get stronger. If this digimon is ready to destroy parts of the Digital World to get stronger, imagine what it must think about getting the power of your Guardian Spirit," Tamer said with a pointed finger, "Which makes it especially important that we all stick together if we don't want to be killed."
Koji was stunned silent, opening his mouth a few times to retort but seeming never able to do that. Eventually, the silence was broken by Tomoki asking, "So there's another digimon running around trying to kill us?"
"No. I mean, not on purpose. It just wants to get stronger. Killing us is just an unfortunate side effect of that," Tamer answered, turning around and marching ahead of the group, looking back and gesturing at the others to follow. Both Tomoki and Koji looked between each other, then down to Neemon.
"What do you think?" Koji asked suspiciously.
"I think I want to find my friend. I hope Bokomon is okay," Neemon answered quietly, looking forward and walking after Tamer.
"Do you think they're okay?" a female voice asked.
"They're Legendary Warriors. How could they not be?" Bokomon's voice answered.
Zoe cracked her eyes open and felt something cold on her forehead. She turned her head towards the voices to see Bokomon talking to what looked like a giant cactus wearing boxing gloves. Suddenly, a digimon that looked like a little blue fur-ball wearing a metal helmet. The little ball blinked as it stared at her, then it started bouncing next to her head.
"YAY! YOU'RE AWAKE! YOU'RE AWAKE! YOU'RE AWAKE!" the little blue digimon shouted, bouncing up and down next to her.
"AAAH!" Zoe jumped up, startled by the presence of the little creature beside her and accidentally flinging it across the room, where it slammed into a wall and rolled along the floor.
"YAY! THAT WAS FUN! DO IT AGAIN!" it squealed in delight.
"Hey! I want to go!" another digimon squealed, bouncing along to join them.
"Me too! Me too!" another one joined in. The sight of so many of these tiny ball creatures just appearing out of nowhere beside her was terrifying and it was all Zoe could do to not run away screaming. Although, even if she could, there was no where she could step off the bed that wasn't crawling with the tiny little creatures bouncing all around the floor.
Not helping was the giant cactus with boxing gloves marching towards them, shushing them and trying to corral them to one side, "Settle down, children! Settle down! Thank goodness you're awake, human! You really surprised us when you just fell out of the sky like that."
Children? Zoe looked from one small digimon to another and pondered how any of these could be mistaken for children. They looked like bugs at best.
"They're In-Training level digimon. They won't gain legs or feet until they digivolve," the Guardian Spirit's voice echoed inside her head. That just raised further questions for Zoe - like where did food go? Where were their brains? Was there nothing between the mouth and wherever the food came out? Where did the food come out? Each new question made her shudder in horror as she realized she was a lot happier not having answers to any of those questions. Although there was another question she wanted an answer to right now - how was JP not being woken by any of this?
"Is JP alright?" she asked.
"We haven't been able to wake him," the giant cactus said.
"JP! WAKE UP!" she called out to him.
The boy rolled away from her and quietly mumbled, "Five more minutes."
Zoe groaned at him, wondering how he was sleeping through all of this. And how was this not bothering anyone else? Or rather, why wasn't Tamer in the middle of these cheering digimon, "Wait, where are the others?"
"It seems we got separated when we fell through whatever that light was. The three of us are the only ones who came through the light," Bokomon answered quietly, gesturing to himself and JP. "I don't know what happened to the others. I do hope that Neemon isn't getting himself into trouble without me there to moderate him. That poor mon would forget his head if it wasn't attached to his neck."
"Great," Zoe frowned, watching as the way back home went further out of their reach. She shooed the little digimon away from the edge of the bed so she could stand up and took in the room she was in. It looked like a preschool classroom - a large chalkboard on the far end of the room covered in alien scribbles, various play mats and desks scattered around haphazardly, a bookshelf on one side of the room with large picture books, and a toy box filled with assorted dolls and toys.
"Wait, is this a classroom?" she asked.
"Yes! Welcome to our preschool for fresh digimon where teach the basics such as reading, writing, math, as well basic survival skills like hunting and foraging!" the large cactus said with a bow. "I am Togemon, the teacher of these digimon!"
"Hi," Zoe said sheepishly, turning her attention back to JP who was still managing to sleep through all of this. She was just about to slap him awake when her stomach made a loud noise and the many children started laughing in glee. Zoe did her best to smile past how red her face was going, although the embarrassment was practically plain on her face.
"Oh my! It sounds like you're quite hungry! It's just as well because it's almost lunch time!" Togemon announced excitedly, prompting JP to suddenly shoot up in his bed.
"Did someone say lunch?" he asked groggily, just a little bit of drool escaping from his mouth.
"Oh come on! That wakes you up!?" Zoe complained, now sure that JP had only been pretending to be asleep.
"I think you should smack some sense into them. It's probably the only way those guys will stop bickering," the Guardian Spirit's voice echoed inside of his head.
"Please stop talking so much. It's making my head hurt," Tomoki whimpered, massaging his head and wishing the Guardian Spirit didn't feel the need to keep going every few minutes.
"Sorry," Tamer said.
"Yeah, sorry," Koji grumbled.
"Not you two. The spirit. It won't stop," Tomoki whimpered, trying to ignore the Guardian spirit's increasingly violent suggestions. That's not to say he would be unwilling to listen to the Guardian Spirit's suggestions if he were going up against a bully or some other digimon, but he liked Tamer and Neemon. Although he was sure Koji deserved at least one good deck on the head.
"Hmph," Koji grunted condescendingly.
"He's judging you! HURT HIM!" the Guardian Spirit's voice roared. Tomoki just closed his eyes, trying to drown out the voice by listening to the world around him. Unfortunately, Tamer and Koji started bickering again as soon as Tomoki closed his eyes, much to his frustration. What he wouldn't give for either a moment's silence or for the voice to just leave him alone already. Or for the headache to go away, but that meant making the voice go away too.
"I can hear your thoughts," the voice echoed inside his head, in defiance of his attempts to ignore it.
"Does anyone else hear that?" Neemon asked aloud.
"The pain in my butt? That's Koji," Tamer replied.
"I'm a pain? You're the one who could apparently teleport wherever the hell you wanted!" Koji spat back, gritting his teeth angrily. "So how come you haven't used that power to teleport the rest of your group here!?"
"I've been trying but it's not working," Tamer raised up his digivice for them to see. "The fact that it only worked in the void means something in this world is affecting the digivice. So unless you want to tear a hole in reality to fall through the void again, we're just going to have to accept that we're going to have to walk for now."
"Not that! That!" Neemon pointed up at a plane flying high above them.
"A plane? In this place?" asked Koji in a suspicious tone.
"A plane!" Tomoki said excitedly, following its path along the sky and starting to run after it. He didn't particularly care where it was going, only that he wanted to get to it as soon as possible. It was practically a free ride out of here, if they could just get to it.
"Tomoki! Wait!" Tamer shouted after him, but Tomoki was past the point of caring. All he wanted right now was to get home as quickly as possible, no matter what it took.
"I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you," the spirit echoed inside his head. "Think about it. There's nothing but open field as far as the eye can see? Wherever that plane is going has to be far enough away that we can't see. You'll follow it for miles before you get anywhere."
"HEARTS ATTACK!" a voice called out.
Before Tomoki could turn to fave the noise, he found himself trapped in a large blue heart shaped bubble that was floating upward. Tomoki blinked, surprised at the fact that he had been captured.
"How did you even get captured? We're in an open field! You should've seen this coming a mile away!" the voice echoed in his head. Tomoki wanted to be mad about being so easily captured, but he couldn't help but start giggling uncontrollably. Giggling turned to chuckles, and became full on laughter as he struggled to catch his breath. He looked to the others for help, only to see Tamer, Koji, and Neemon had all been captured in the same heart shaped bubbles. And they'd become enraptured by the same laughter that overtook him - bursting into fits that kept them from responding.
"N-no! Ha-hahaha! Are you okay?" Tomoki tried calling out to them between his fits of laughter. If they answered, he couldn't tell because of how busy they were laughing. But then the bubble started rotating on its own to bring him face to face with a giant yellow plush bear doll that leaned in to examine him. Tomoki wanted to cry, but the laughter was just too much for him. But that didn't stop the tears from flowing from his eyes as he kept laughing.
"Ha-hahahaha! Oh-hahahaha c-crap-hahahaha!" Tomoki mumbled out.
The giant bear doll grunted, "Hmph. So intruders have come to toy town! Have they come to play or to make trouble? Well, we like to play trouble here!"
Zoe sat in the back of the classroom with JP and Bokomon, watching as Togemon went about passing out lunch to each of the baby digimon - delicious savory steamed buns. After all the baby digimon had their fill, they returned to their lessons in basic math and reading. It was as adorable as it was fascinating to witness the lessons in the Digital World first hand. Especially as the Togemon taught the children how to read the strange characters that made up the language of the Digital World. The strangest part of it was how alien the symbols were. The Italian language was based on the Latin alphabet, while the Japanese language was based on the Chinese alphabet. But she couldn't make heads or tails of what this language was. Some symbols were familiar, others looked like tally marks, and others still looked like childish doodles.
After the lessons concluded, Togemon ushered the children outside to go play before joining them.
"So humans! I hope you're enjoying yourselves! What did you think of the lessons? The babies are learning quickly, aren't they?" Togemon began, clasping her gloved hands together.
"I guess? I can't imagine reading any of that," JP frowned, scratching his head at the symbols.
"I would assume you humans use a different writing system from us digimon," Bokomon reasoned.
"More than you'd think," Zoe said quietly, looking out the window to see the baby digimon kicking a ball back and forth between each other. Except for a single orange ball with a horn on its head. Whoever this digimon was, the others were intent to avoid passing the ball to them. And any time the ball got too close, another of the digimon would hop in the way and knock the ball away. After a few passes, the dejected digimon quietly hopped away.
"Boy, the others sure are giving that little guy a rough time. What's his story?" JP asked quietly.
If Togemon's expression changed to a frown, it was hard to tell. But her tone carried all the sadness that her face couldn't, "That is Tsunomon. He's always been ostracized by his peers and there isn't much I can do to change it. This war has created a lot of mistrust and dislike between digimon of all types. And such is the case for Tsunomon. You see, the others are what you might call 'natural' but Tsunomon is 'artificial'. He is from the other Digital World that was destroyed during the unification, and they've been led to believe by their families that they shouldn't like him without actually understanding why. They ostracize him for being different but probably don't even know what the difference is."
"That's dumb. No offense, but all the digimon we've seen look different. How can anyone tell just by looking?" JP asked.
Zoe felt her arms trembling with anger as Togemon told the story. It was one she'd known all too well - being the odd one out that was ostracized by her peers. Only in her case, it was because she was a blonde Japanese girl living in Italy. It was fairly obvious she was different. But Tsunomon? The difference was superficial that the only way to know was to flat out ask.
JP looked away from Togemon to Tsunomon, "Poor guy. So he's just on his own? Why can't you make them play together?"
"You misunderstand. I can make them play together. I can't make them like each other!" Togemon added quietly, sounding defeated from repeated failed attempts.
"Oh man. That's rough," JP crossed his arms.
"That is the Digital World. It's been this way for a long time and it's sad to say that the distrust and animosity is the root of the problem here in the Digital World," Bokomon said.
"If you don't mind my asking, Bokomon. Which are you? Artificial or natural?" Togemon asked the little white digimon.
He set his book down and replied, "I am a digimon. That is all anyone need know about me."
"An answer I wish more understood," Togemon nodded in solemn agreement.
"Hey! Where's the little guy going?" JP asked, pointing out the window to Tsunomon who was quietly hopping away from the others into the woods.
"Whoa! That's not safe! A little guy like him shouldn't be wondering off on his own!" Zoe gasped, jumping up off her seat and hurrying towards the door.
Bokomon tilted his head to the side as he watched her, "What happened to wanting to go home?"
"I'm not going to fight a battle! I'm just going after a scared little digimon," Zoe stuck her tongue out at the digimon as she ran outside. The other children stopped playing long enough to cheer at her and squeal with delight, but that delight faded away as she kept running past them. It brought up memories that she'd feel more comfortable forgetting and continued going on.
"Zoe! Wait up!" JP shouted from behind her. Zoe stopped in her tracks, waiting for JP to catch up from behind as he gasped for breath.
"Aw man…why have…we done so…much running today? Ugh…okay…" JP panted out.
"You can take a minute to catch your breath, JP," Zoe said as JP doubled over, hands on both knees to keep himself standing. Zoe patted his back but kept her gaze squarely on the direction that Tsunomon had flown off to, worried that the little digimon would be in trouble.
"I don't get it. Why are you going after Tsunomon?" JP asked as he finally caught his breath. Zoe knew the answer, but she didn't want to say it. Memories of a friendless school life, lunches eaten by herself, spending her afternoons and summer breaks alone…no, she wasn't going to admit to that. She didn't want to look weird in front of JP, and she certainly didn't want to find herself alienated again. Even if she was used to it.
"He's just someone in need. What other reason is there?" Zoe answered.
"Because you're sounding like Tamer and that's weirding me out. I thought we were trying to get home?" JP remarked.
"Well, we can forget about that for now since we're separated from Tamer," Zoe pointed out, continuing to pat JP's back until he was able to force himself back up.
"Fine, I guess you're right. Alright, let's go find the little guy," he answered quietly.
Koji's eyes cracked open as consciousness finally returned to him. The first thing he noticed was that he was tied up by a jump rope and left to dangle from a tree over what appeared to be a felt blanket. The fact that this happened to him twice in the same day made for a disturbing trend. The second thing he noticed was Tamer and Neemon dangling next to him.
"Hey! You're awake! Good, because we were just about to escape and weren't sure how to get you down," Tamer began.
"I'm sure," Koji grumbled, noticing that the jump rope that had him tied up was slowly turning in a circle. At least he was able to get a lay of the land and what they needed to do to escape from wherever here was. As far as the eye could see, there was only felt blanket along side large wooden blocked painted vibrant colors. And wandering around amidst all of them were toys - action figures, dolls, cars, toy planes, and more all moving about of their own volition. He would've assumed he was in a bad movie if he wasn't seeing all of it with his own eyes.
"-and that's our plan for escape! What do you think?" Tamer concluded, snapping Koji's attention back to him.
"What?" Koji snapped, glaring daggers at Tamer.
"Wow, he's dumber than I am," Neemon replied with a big frown.
"He's not that bad Neemon. He probably just didn't hear me because he was spinning around!" Tamer reasoned in his defense, although Koji wasn't sure it could be considered anything like that.
"Whatever you two are whispering about, I don't care," Koji grumbled, already fiddling with the bindings to wriggle loose. The ropes weren't that tight to begin with and, if he had to guess, were that way because whoever tied him up didn't want them to escape. Although it seemed the main deterrent was the fall which wasn't that high in the first place. Now the height up on that mountain with the KaratsukiNumemon? That was a deterrent. This? This was a fall from a jungle gym.
"Oh come on, Koji! We have to save Tomoki from Monzaemon. Which is ironic if you think about it since they're both bears," Tamer thought aloud.
"I don't know what you're talking about and I don't care. That kid isn't my problem," Koji replied, still shuffling in his bindings to finally get loose.
"Don't you have a brother yourself? Would you say that about him?" a voice echoed in his thoughts. He ignored it for now, focusing on getting free of his bindings. But he could tell from the silence that the others were judging him for it.
"If you really felt that way, you wouldn't have helped him the first time. Besides, he helped save you back. It's only fair," Tamer pointed out. Koji stopped fidgeting with his ropes, growing increasingly annoyed with how his day was going.
"That only means we're even," Koji spat back.
"You're half right," Tamer replied.
"What?" Koji raised an eyebrow.
"You helped to save Tomoki, and he helped to save you. That makes you two even. Except I helped to save you which means the two of us aren't even. And if you want to be even, then you can help me rescue Tomoki," Tamer answered, suddenly slipping through his bindings and landing on the plushy ground.
"Wait! Could you do that the whole time?" Neemon asked.
"No, not the whole time. Only when I wanted to. It's not the first time I got tied up and hung from a tree," he replied, raising up his digivice and transforming into Agunimon. As Agunimon, he cut out the ropes holding up Neemon and Koji. Koji yelped as gravity finally gave way and he hit the ground. But to his surprise, the plush ground was exactly as soft as it looked. Like it was a massive pillow with no bottom and enough elasticity to have him bouncing for a moment.
Agunimon helped untie his ropes before he'd gotten loose by himself, "That makes twice that I've helped you today. You owe me twice, now."
"He's not wrong, and he doesn't seem like the kind of guy you want to owe a favor too," the voice echoed in his head. Technically, Koji didn't owe the boy anything. He didn't have to do anything. Koji dusted himself off and remarked, "Thanks for getting me down, but no thanks."
"Oh come on, Koji! He's just a kid! You can't tell me you don't feel a little worried for him?" Agunimon asked as Koji started examining their surroundings again, trying to figure out the fastest way out of here.
"He might just not like little kids," Neemon suggested.
"And what if I don't? Who cares?" Koji snapped, wanting nothing more to do with this conversation. This was why he was better on his own.
"You do, you big softie. Because if there's one thing you like to do, it's help people," the voice echoed inside his head. Koji really hated the fact that he couldn't just mute those annoying thoughts, whatever they were. Even if he left, there was no way the voice was going to let him leave the topic behind.
"Fine! I'll help!" Koji grumbled in defeat.
"Yes! I knew you were a good guy, Koji! Come on! Monzaemon took Tomoki this way!" Agunimon said excitedly, taking the lead on the way towards wherever he was going. Wherever that was. Koji quietly pocketed his hands, annoyed that he was having to do this and wishing he could just leave. If only the voice in his head would stop chiding him about it.
Author's Notes: Will the group reunite with each other? Can Koji, Tamer, and Neemon save Tomoki? Will Zoe and JP reach Bokomon? And where will Gigasmon strike next? Find out all this and more in the next chapter of The Tamer v3.0 - Bold New Frontier due out in three weeks on Friday, September 24th at 8 PM CST. Let me know what you guys thought in the reviews section! And don't forget to follow the story to keep up with all the updates and to favorite to show support! That's all I have for now so let's look at previews for the next chapter!
"WHY WOULD THAT BE A GOOD IDEA!?" Koji shouted as Agunimon just ran on in with alarms blaring all around him.
"They're toys! What's the worse they could do?" Agunimon shouted back, just as one of the toy tanks rolled towards him. The cannon rotated to face him and then fired. The resulting blast missed Agunimon's head and punched a hole in the side of the wooden blocks.
"That! That is the worst they can do!" Neemon exasperatedly sighed.
