Himekawa Maki was gone. Abducted. And any of them could be next. Too shocked to stop, the remaining three children continued to push forward along the mountain. It was all they could do.
It felt like only a few minutes before the path opened up again, a fork in the road – the straight path led over Mount Panorama, while the other was vaguely in the direction which the Evilmon had flown away.
Daigo and Bakumon simply turned, hoping it'd lead them to his nest and to Maki, and continued to walk and float, respectively. They didn't ask, didn't say anything; it wasn't even a question in either of their minds.
"Where are you going, kid?" Hiroki asked. "Birdramon said the digimon who could help us was that way."
"We can meet them later. After we rescue Maki," Daigo answered.
"Is Maki even still alive?" Oikawa added. It was a valid question, but one rendered no less troubling by this fact. "And do we actually know where to find that digimon's nest? What if it lives far away and we're just walking into the middle of nowhere?"
"What if it carried her back to its nest to feed it to its young, and the only way to save her is by getting there right away?" Daigo protested.
"A knowledgeable digimon might actually be our best route to finding her…" Hiroki said, but it did nothing to dampen Daigo's conviction.
It would, of course, be easy for the older two to dismiss him an elementary school hothead who didn't know what he was talking about. And yet… "I think Daigo is right." It was Bakumon's voice, this time. "I think Maki's in danger, I think she's up that way, and I doubt we have time for any detours. Oikawa-san, she's not dead. I don't know why she's still alive, but I'd know right away if she wasn't around anymore. We're partners."
A troubling thought crossed Hiroki's mind. Maki was the only female in the group. Perhaps that was why Evilmon had abducted her. Normally, of course, digimon can't reproduce – they reincarnate upon death, and population growth comes from the creation of new eggs in the Village of Beginnings. But Evilmon was just humanlike, or monkeylike, enough that maybe their genetic data was compatible…
Maki was, at least, still too young. Would a digimon realize that? He hoped so; it'd mean an unharmed hostage, enough time to rescue her, and not adding pedophilia to the list of that evil digimon's many sins.
And then a different thought, no less worrisome, but in a different way, crossed his mind. What if they couldn't go home? What if that kid was literally the only human female in this world? What if they were gone from Earth for good, and Evilmon's objective was to ensure that humanity couldn't establish itself here, that they would be the first and last generation?
Hiroki had his own family to worry about; he still had to get back to Fumiko and Iori. Someday, somehow. But if that really was Evilmon's intent, then Maki was truly in grave danger. And the same held if he wanted her as food.
So there was nothing else to do. "Well, Oikawa, we have our first quest. Let's go rescue Maki!"
A vulture's nest of rocks teetered on the secondary peak of Mount Panorama, with little in the way of decoration. There were a couple obsidian stones whose shape almost, but not quite, resembled eggs. and an amulet of a strange creature, a polyhedron with spikes, too small for the Evilmon itself to wear but too precious to throw away.
Apart from some bits and floppy disks, it was all that the digimon who'd grabbed Maki owned.
"Ransom? Do you want a ransom?" the terrified little girl asked. "Maybe my parents can pay you, if you can find a way to contact their world." But Evilmon was silent.
One does not speak to one's meals. It was a rule all digimon who ate other digimon adhered to, from ordinary and ancient carnivores like Tyrannomon to the most recently arrived viruses. It was how they stayed sane. Eventually, the more philosophically minded ones assured everyone, they'd poop them out as a digitama, and maybe their food would do better in their next lifetime.
Evilmon landed in the center of his nest and engulfed Maki's head in his giant mouth… only to let go, repulsed by the sudden appearance of a white light that glowed brighter than the firewall, shining all throughout the human child's body.
"Is that how you greet us, Evilmon?"
It took a moment for the imp to realize just who – no, just what he was talking to. "I saw food, I grabbed food. Is that a problem, now?" he protested.
"Her partner yet lives. Bakumon is undefeated. We can not prevent you from killing digimon, but what you hold is no digimon! You broke the rules, Evilmon."
"And you didn't?! What is something other than a digimon even doing in this world?"
Those with Maki's body were silent, for they had nothing to say.
"They will hear of this breach," Evilmon taunted – taunting was all he could do at this point. "Her digimon is weak, and her body can't support the likes of you forever. I'm still hungry, but I will have my meal – and a tapir for dessert."
Evilmon had not actually flown very far, and both human beings and digimon can move remarkably quickly when someone they care about is in sufficient danger. The white light which had possessed Maki shone midway through their detour, a beacon approaching the secondary mountaintop, and Bakumon swore she could feel Maki's warmth in it. Oikawa unhelpfully suggested that it was instead a cooking fire, but the color, at least by Earth standards, was all wrong.
The party sprinted towards the nest as the light began to fade, and Evilmon zeroed in on Maki's own distraught Bakumon. "I thought that these 'partner digimon' were supposed to protect their human companions? Apparently I've gotta beat you before I can eat, so let's get this over with."
"Maki's had way too much trouble in the digital world already – I'm not gonna let you eat her! Bakumon, shinka! Monochromon!"
It is fair to say that the digital world in its old days was never a very colorful place, and the breaking of the bright red Firewall had robbed it of much of its ancient splendor. Monochromon, however, was drab even by those meager standards.
It was difficult, conceptually, to connect the two forms of Maki's partner digimon – they were both low, bulky quadrupeds with long snouts, but there the similarities ended. The silver armor which had once shielded Bakumon's vulnerable trunk had broken into white and black, the former covering her whole spine, her tusks migrating and merging to form a single, enormous horn.
And then, while the fight moved to the very cliffs where her species had first been sighted in the digital world, Monochromon charged. Evilmon flew up above her attack and barely dodged. The imp's possessions were not so lucky; they were scattered as the attack carried the reptile back into the nest, strange stones and disks flying in every direction. The nest had been deep enough that nothing had fallen off the mountain, although one item perched precariously on the ledge.
Evilmon was in no mood to have a battle here; even if he won, Monochromon would surely wreck his home. But he had his pride. Maybe if just a single attack could finish her off. It certainly didn't look easy to pierce the dinosaur's armor, but if he could just put it and the children to sleep, he could deal with them at his leisure… just so long as Homeostasis didn't intervene a second time.
"Nightmare Shock!"
"That's not gonna work on me – I was just a Bakumon! Guardy Tusk!" Monochromon's opponent was not flying quite high enough to avoid its spear, and plunged down the mountain, towards the treetops, and thoroughly out of sight.
Bakumon would have liked to maintain her evolved form for longer, because her partner was out like a light. Total collapse. Whatever she'd been through in Evilmon's nest had to have been rough, and staying there any longer than they needed to steal the various plug-ins and recovery floppies struck everyone as a terrible idea.
Unfortunately, those things didn't work on humans. It was the first thing Bakumon tried, but Maki's teeth couldn't even rip them, and the contents might legitimately have been poisonous to such an alien biology. Hiroki and Gotsumon carried Maki instead, but this would have made for awkward movement on a flat plain, let alone when heading over a small mountain.
Bakumon wasn't really able to help carry her while in child form, but at least she could ensure her partner had sweet dreams.
None of the Flare Lizamon, Meramon, or Unimon who they spotted on Mount Panorama regarded the party as enemies; if someone had followed up Evilmon's attack with another one, they'd have been in real trouble. Or perhaps it'd just lead to another dramatic evolution. Maki was out cold and Bakumon herself tired, so she couldn't help, but there were three other digimon here and maybe one of them had the strength to protect everyone.
Fortunately, they didn't need to – the walk was slow and difficult, but otherwise uneventful. Ultimately, they arrived safely at Jijimon's hut.
What they had reached, more specifically, was a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps the day would come when this digimon elder was surrounded by babies, or perhaps it had long passed. The game placed him in the Village of Beginnings, but the children had learned by now that it was at best an imperfect guide to the digital world of 1996. And Birdramon had not said anything about a village, to be fair, only that Jijimon was the wisest digimon it knew.
After a knock on the door, Jijimon opened the door with his staff, using a lion's paw instead of a hand. Eight futons were laid out for the exhausted children and their digimon, although Maki in particular was wide awake. Getting knocked out had messed with her circadian rhythm, the sun no longer provided them with any assistance, and she could not deny the possibility that finally getting a good night's sleep had also thrown her off.
"Welcome... Chosen Children... I understand you have many questions…" The old digimon spoke slowly, with long pauses between every phrase. "Ask away…"
"What's going on? In the digital world, I mean. It seems like there's a lot of trouble," Hiroki asked.
"The firewall… has been broken. Viruses have infected our peaceful world, through the crack in the sky… the source is a creature called Apocalymon..."
"Why are we here?" Daigo asked.
"A good question, and an ancient one… Wisemon is searching for the answer right now, although I'm afraid that the best I can do is paraphrase my best recollection of his findings… do you not have philosophers in your world? I have heard mentions of one called Berkeley…"
The boy was if anything even more confused. "No, I mean, why are we, humans, in the digital world? I just wanted to play video games..."
"Really?" Oikawa asked Daigo, genuinely surprised. "It may be dangerous, but this place is really fascinating. I'm so happy to meet Floramon for real… though I can't say I'm not curious too."
"Humans are also called programmers… because they have a strange power over digimon." Jijimon answered, "I imagine… that you have been summoned here… to save us…"
"You imagine?" Maki followed up. "You don't know?"
"I was not the one who summoned you… and I do not know who was. But I do know that we digimon are in great danger… restore the firewall, and banish our enemy… this world will thank you," Jijimon said.
"Why don't you do it yourself?" Oikawa asked, and the other kids looked at him, surprised. "You're way stronger than any of our partners."
"Why does Tom Bombadil not dispose of the ring? Why did Frodo not take the eagles to Mordor?" Jijimon's allusion was a fair metaphor, albeit one likely to be lost on a bunch of Japanese children from the mid-1990s.
But Oikawa had actually read the books in question. "There are forces in the digital world far older than the current crisis," he tried to paraphrase, "but they don't intervene in the world, and if they did it might lead to even greater problems. This is our quest, and one way or another, we'll have to fix the firewall and beat this Apocalymon guy."
"But how do we get stronger?" Hiroki asked, troubled. Jijimon sounded like he expected them to just do it on their own, like it all happened naturally, or like they knew what they were doing. "We're not expert programmers, we're just kids."
"Have your digimon not already become stronger?" Jijimon said.
Yet "just keep going" wasn't satisfying, not when the road ahead was so long – and did they actually have a road? Even the question of which direction to walk in once they left stymied them. Admittedly, the game often just had them explore in a random direction; it was the kind which later generations would call "open world". But the game was quite forgiving when losing battles, and if all else failed, one usually had a save file to reload from. Real life was never so kind.
"If this was not enough help… there are those who know what even I don't... Gennai lives under Dragon Eye Lake… away from the mountain..."
There was something incredibly refreshing about a nice, warm breakfast – meat with mushrooms, food humans could actually eat – and a good long sleep indoors. Had it just been a single late night, or were they up for days on end? Did their bodies even need food and drink and sleep in this world, or did they just think they did? How much time were they experiencing, and how much had passed back home? (For, as Oikawa had reminded a distraught Daigo, time often flowed at different rates between different worlds.)
But all they had left was a set of questions Jijmon couldn't answer. So they thanked him for his hospitality and continued their journey.
A Nohemon stood watch over a group of rice paddies, its beak shifting to show them the way to the associated settlement, and they thanked the scarecrow and made their way on.
The digimon who grew this food were apparently child level – Agumon, Patamon, and Plotmon all shared the settlement. There were probably more species, the human children thought, still in their little homes. The places they lived were much smaller than Jijimon's hut, and far too small for any of the humans to fit, even if they crawled.
The crowd parted as a samurai digimon walked by, with purple wings, brown fur, and red armor. One Plotmon moved too slowly, dragging an injured leg, and the Mushamon kicked it out of the way for this disrespect; the puppy did not protest, relieved to get away before he swung his sword.
"Hey! Stop that!" Hiroki shouted, to Mushamon's evident surprise, while many eyes nervously watched at the windows of their tiny homes. "That's no way to treat someone who's injured!"
"You sure about this, Hiroki?" Oikawa whispered, and he wasn't alone. Every digimon in town, except for their own partners, was amazed at his defiance.
"Apologize before he cuts your head off," a Patamon had flown up to his ear to say. "Mushamon-sama might forgive you if he's in a good mood."
"Why are you digimon all just accepting this? It's messed up," Hiroki answered. "It's not right, he's just kicking you around! Why are you still calling him your lord!"
"Not right?" Mushamon said, sounding incredibly insulted, even offended. "You may be travelers, but don't think you can question my honor and get away with it! Kiri-sute gomen!"
Gotsumon leaped in front of Mushamon's sword, and this was the only reason Hiroki wasn't decapitated. His rocks were tough – tougher than those of anyone else in the village, tough enough that the sword didn't just slice through Hiroki's partner the way they would have literally anyone else in town.
Bladed or not, however, Gotsumon had still been whacked with a large, heavy peace of metal from an adult level digimon. It hurt, and he doubted he could handle another one.
"One insult, one strike. You have a brave retainer, traveler; do not forget that he saved your life," Mushamon said, and the group was surprised by his mercy.
The natural thing to do, when arriving at a town, is to talk to the locals. But after that encounter, no digimon were brave enough to approach Hiroki and his companions – and of course, going to the local manor was a bad idea when Mushamon was the one running the place.
Hiroki never thought of himself as a radical or a revolutionary – a hero, sure, but the kind who looked up to police and superheroes, the kind who dreamed of fighting crime. All he wanted was to bring a villain to justice, to raise a family in a peaceful world.
But justice for these digimon would be hard to come by without a revolution, and one Agumon's warnings in particular disturbed him: "Don't cause trouble for Mushamon, he's the one protecting us!" Only the wounded Plotmon – the one who had inspired their resistance in the first place – actually approached them as they walked through town, or even showed any willingness to speak with them. "I know I shouldn't be saying this, but thank you."
"You shouldn't be saying this?" a puzzled Hiroki asked. It was natural to thank someone who stood up for you, wasn't it? He'd heard of bullying victims trying to avoid intervention before, but this was on a whole different level.
"I don't want to say anything that Mushamon-sama might construe as an insult. And it was my own fault for being too slow and weak to get out of his way."
"Do you know where to find Dragon Eye Lake?" Daigo changed the subject.
"Just follow the current upstream," Plotmon answered, but Hiroki wasn't accepting his diversion.
"You've gotta stand up for yourself. And so do the other digimon, for that matter. It's sad just letting this Mushamon tyrannize you, it's not right."
Even the word 'tyrannize' elicited a shocked reaction from Plotmon, and any other digimon within earshot, if possible, backed even further away.
"Mushamon-sama... has his faults. I won't deny that. I know he's a virus type. But compared to all the other digimon invading, he's almost like an antivirus. He really has protected this village, so long as we hand over our taxes, and it could be a lot worse. We're still here, we can grow food, no one destroyed our houses, we were even able to take in some refugees from what they're now calling Devidramon's Domain."
Let it go. It was what all the world was telling Hiroki. It was what any reasonable adult would do. And yet there was something so incredibly dissatisfying about the prospect of walking away.
"Shouldn't we be heading to the water? That direction's the manor," Maki asked.
"I can't let Mushamon get away with treating digimon like this," Hiroki said.
"This is stupid," Daigo protested. "If you want to pick a fight with that guy, suit yourself. But none of the digimon here want us to. Meet us at Dragon Eye Lake, if you survive." He began heading off in the opposite direction, but no one followed except Bearmon. "Guys? Why aren't you coming?"
"Hiroki's my best friend," Oikawa said. "I agree he's being a bit thick-headed, but I'm not gonna abandon him. He needs a second for the duel anyway."
"There's strength in numbers." Maki added. "And we have so little strength as it is…"
"Which is why we can't waste it on meaningless sidequests!" Daigo shouted, but the thought of going out on his own, with only Bearmon, struck him as an even worse idea. "Fine, take on this fight if you have to. But make sure you survive."
"Taking on tyrants is never meaningless! If we're here to save the digital world, we can't just ignore this village."
"A notice of challenge?" a surprised Mushamon asked, reading over the letter affixed to his door in deijmoji, slowly written out in Gotsumon's hand. "I understand it's a matter of honor, but I'm sorry; I don't duel with children."
"And if Gotsumon was no longer a child?" Hiroki had come with him for the challenge – no, not 'come with him', he appeared to be the driving force behind his partner. Humans were strange, after all, and not only in their customs – despite the evident difference in their power, this boy didn't respect him at all.
"I suppose in that case, I would have no reason to avoid a fight. I am not a coward, but neither do I enjoy slicing open stupid rocks." Mushamon was puzzled by the hypothetical, at least until Hiroki held out his square and blocky digivice: the only kind of digivice which existed in 1996.
"Gotsumon, shinka! Revolmon!"
Now there was an opponent! Samurai, after all, were never purely masters of the sword; they once defined themselves through archery, and quickly fell in love with the arquebus. Mushamon was personally a sword user, admittedly, but most digimon did not share that choice; a true sword master, he felt, could defeat any sort of weapon.
Even a living gun. One with two more guns, one in each hand. And a strange hat, a style worn in some distant barbarian country; the term 'cowboy' simply did not exist in Mushamon's frame of reference.
"Well then, Revolmon-dono! I accept your challenge! Step into my dojo."
The dojo in question reminded Hiroki of somewhere used for kendo, but either samurai duels had taken place in similar settings, or the computers building the digital world had scanned the wrong piece of data in designing it. He honestly was a little concerned about whether the paper walls would stop Revolmon's bullets, should his partner miss, but Mushamon assured him that the walls had 'wireframe backing', whatever that meant, and that there was no risk to bystanders.
"Kotemon and Oikawa Yukio will officiate." Hiroki had never met this 'Kotemon', never even seen this species before, but between the mask and the wooden sword the creature at least looked qualified. "The fight begins on their count of three."
Revolmon and Mushamon faced each other and made an awkward attempt to shake hands, or at least shake fingers, the thumbs of both combatants' right hands still wrapped around their respective weapons. And then, as the human and digimon counted down, Revolmon stepped back to try to maximize distance, and Mushamon crouched, prepared to leap forward.
"3, 2, 1, fight!"
"Shiratori-Maru!" With the grace of a swan and the speed of a falcon, Mushamon closed what little distance Revolmon had amassed, and launched a swift strike with his blade. The sword swipe clanged off his opponent's gun barrel stomach.
"Justice Bullet!" Yet all he had done to Revolmon was give him the chance for a point-blank shot. Blasted in the face, Mushamon was flung across the arena and toppled over, but still tried to rally to his feet, using his sword like a cane.
"Battle completed! Revolmon is the winner!" Kotemon announced, despite the fighting spirit of its lord. "I apologize, Mushamon-sama, but it's not safe for you to continue."
"I'm sorry I mocked you, Gotsumon-dono. I did not realize such a brave warrior was contained in your small form, or that the human beside you possessed the power of evolution. Are you satisfied?"
"Apologize to that Plotmon," Hiroki ordered.
"Anything else?" Mushamon asked.
Hiroki puzzled over what to say. He expected the tyrant to be killed in battle, or to be handed over to the authorities – that was how these stories worked, right? But Mushamon was alive, although humbled, and there were no authorities.
Worse, Hiroki couldn't stay in one village. He had to save the rest of the digital world, had to get back to Iori and Fumiko, and as afraid as all the digimon around here were… none of them sounded like they actually wanted him overthrown.
He'd have to stake everything on this one digimon's sense of honor. "Ease up on your subjects. Right now, they're all afraid of you. No more kiri-sute gomen on anyone except actual invaders, no more kicking anyone out of the way. Lead by example."
"It is not easy to be admonished for one's rule," Mushamon admitted. "If I am to be pardoned, I thank you, and I swear I will not waste this second chance."
Hiroki handed over a recovery floppy to the samurai digimon, and accompanied him to the village for his public apology. For a moment, he had upheld his sense of justice – even if Gotsumon was the only one who agreed with him on what 'justice' meant.
All he could do was hope it would be enough.
At least the crowd cheered – Mushamon included – when he followed the water away.