13. Corruptions

"Ah, Baromon. You're awake."
Baalmon looked up from his book.
"I was starting to wonder when you would rejoin us."
Baromon gaped at the canine digimon standing before him. Gaomon wasn't restrained in any way and, judging by his relaxed posture, was not in the room under duress.
"B-Baalmon, sir, this Gaomon - "
"Yes, he told me how you assisted him in getting Blucomon to reveal where he had hidden the information we needed." Baalmon gestured to the screen. "Quite a fascinating device, isn't it? With it, we should be able to get this gate open. We may even be able to gain control of the other gates, in case any more Guardians decide to follow Babamon's misguided example."
He went back to writing in his book.
"It seems your vision came true after all."
"My vision. Yes! Baalmon, I've had another vision! You - "
Baalmon held up the long quill pen in his hand.
"We can discuss your vague premonitions later. I still have work to do." His eye moved to focus on Baromon. "Since you're feeling better, you can join the security detail. The back door guard was injured last night and they need a replacement."
Baromon's arms hung loosely by his sides.
"Are... Are you demoting me?"
"Think of it more as being relocated." Baalmon's attention went back to his writing. "...Was there something else?"
Baromon's mind had gone blank. He wordlessly shook his head and plodded out of the room with his head down.
Gaomon closed the door behind him and turned to Baalmon.
"Now that was callous. You impress me."
Baalmon let out a sigh. His shoulders slumped and his voice cracked with weariness.
"I'll make sure to keep him away from the other lieutenants. He's no threat to you. Please do not harm him."
Gaomon let out a bark of a laugh.
"You honestly think you have any say in what I do? I wouldn't have needed to get involved in the first place if you had done your job properly." He held a gloved fist to his chin. "I'm starting to wonder if you truly understand the terms of our arrangement."
"I understand everything!" Baalmon whirled around to face the Rookie.
Gaomon's eyes narrowed. He took a step towards Baalmon.
The Ultimate quickly dropped to one knee and lowered his head.
"Forgive my outburst. There will be no more failures. I promise."
Gaomon stood looking down at him with barely disguised contempt on his face.
"I'll hold you to that."
Without another word, he turned on his heel and left the room.
Baalmon held his kneeling position until he was sure that Gaomon was gone.
He got to his feet and summoned a talisman from his cloak. Grabbing his pen, he quickly wrote a message on the paper. He opened a nearby window and held the talisman out on his palm. The paper folded and twisted itself into the shape of a small bird. It spread it's tiny wings and flew off into the sky.
As Baalmon watched it go, he noticed his hand was shaking. He pulled it back inside and balled it into a fist.
There was no time for fear. He had work to do.

-

"I'm going to add heights to my growing list of phobias!"
Kartik had his eyes clenched shut and his fingers were going numb from gripping the bars of the cage so tightly.
His and Shinyu's prison was now strapped to Birdramon's right leg and she was flying high above the canyon.
Shinyu called out to the flaming digimon.
"Hey! Hey! You don't have to fly so high! Can't we go a little lower?"
Their captor gave no response.
"I don't think she can hear you!" Tarumon had to shout to be heard through the wind.
"And what have you got to complain about?!" Tigremon added hotly. "My situation's a lot scarier than yours!"
She and Tarumon were still tied to the narrow boulder; only now it was gripped in Birdramon's claws. Tarumon was on the side facing up so he could see the humans clearly; while there was nothing between Tigremon and a very long drop except the wires holding her to the rock.
Something caught Tarumon's eye. He looked over to the pouch on the other side of the cage. Relemon's face was sticking out of the flap, and she was holding the device in her mouth.
"Guys, look!"
"Look at what?" Tigremon called from below.
Shinyu leaned across Kartik, who cracked open an eye and let out a delighted gasp.
"She did it!"
"Who did it? Did what? Somebody tell me what's happening!"
"Relemon's got the device!" Tarumon answered her.
"She does? Great! Tell her to get it to Shinyu so I can digivolve!"
"You can't digivolve up here!" Tarumon yelled to her. "Assuming Smilomon is able to break through the wires, we'll both plummet to the ground!"
"I'll catch you!" Tigremon called back. "And, remember, cats always land on their feet!"
"At this height, it doesn't matter how you land! And what about Kartik and the others?"
"Oh. Uh... Okay, if I use Roar Force at the right time as we fall -"
"No!" Tarumon's angry shout shocked Tigremon into silence. "No more of your half-baked stunts! They'll be plenty of time to make our move when we land!"
"Is everything okay over there?" Shinyu called over to Tarumon.
"It's fine!" He answered. "Tell Relemon to stay put until we reach the ground!"
As the conversation ended and the only sound was the rushing wind, Tigremon sullenly watched the canyon speed by beneath her. Her claws slid in and out of her paws as her frustration mounted.
She'd protected the group from the moment they'd met, yet all they did was criticise her.
Okay, she'd messed up earlier, but they knew Charlie was alive now; so why were they still on her case?
A part of her was tempted to refuse to digivolve until they apologised, but she knew she'd do it regardless. And not just because the others needed her to.
She missed being Smilomon. Every time she started to feel at home in her Champion form, she'd be thrown back to Rookie level. And then she'd have to get used to it all over again the next time she digivolved.
Tarumon acted like he knew everything, but he had no idea how unsettling it was to have to constantly switch between being whole and being half.
Nobody else did.

-

"It's like I'm missing a part of myself, and I don't know if I'll ever get it back. What if I can't become Blitzmon ever again? Will I have to just digivolve to someone else and forget that I was ever the Master of Thunder?"
Charlie was chewing on some of the lightshrooms she had in her hoodie's pockets. It served as a good distraction. KoKabuterimon had been talking for the past ten minutes and showed no sign of slowing down.
Kumomon was sitting in Charlie's hood with her front legs wrapped around her head, trying to block out his voice.
"A-And I thought I liked to c-complain."
She leaned over Charlie's shoulder and called to KoKabuterimon who was just ahead of them.
"W-Will you stop with the dramatics! You a-act like you're the first digimon to ever r-revert. Your body is intact, so your d-digicore is fine. Just g-give it some time and you'll be b-back to throwing l-lightning around like a lunatic."
KoKabuterimon turned around and glared at her.
"My mastery over electricity involves so much more than throwing lightning around! I can control gravity by manipulating electromagnetic fields. Before the sky disappeared, I could conduct thunderstorms like an orchestra."
"That sounds awesome! I wish I could see that!"
KoKabuterimon seemed to brighten up Charlie's impressed tone.
"By the way, this digicore thing." She went on. "I saw it mentioned in Kartik's book, in the chapter about recovery springs. What is it exactly?"
Kumomon tapped Charlie on the head.
"I-It's a special program inside e-every digimon that functions similarly to your b-brain. It contains our memories, our p-personality traits, even our digivolved f-forms."
"It's also the key to our ability to reincarnate." KoKabuterimon added. "If our bodies are damaged to the point where the digicore itself is in danger, it will break down our physical forms and retreat to the nearest recovery spring."
"A-As long as our digicore remains intact, w-we'll be reborn with our original memories and p-personalities." Kumomon continued. "If it is d-damaged, we could lose parts of ourselves and c-come back as completely different d-digimon. And if it's destroyed..."
"Game over." KoKabuterimon concluded.
"Wow. So it's kind of like a save file for digimon." Said Charlie.
"Th-That's... not actually a bad a-analogy." Kumomon admitted.
"Of course, if a digicore is unable to reach a recovery spring due to - oh, I don't know - being trapped underground; it can become corrupted and turn into something else entirely." KoKabuterimon's voice took on a sinister edge.
Charlie felt a chill run up her neck as she looked at the shadowy ceiling of the tunnel.
"Could that be what Gomamon saw? Some sort of corrupted undead digimon?"
"Th-That's j-just a st-story!" Kumomon spoke firmly but Charlie couldn't help noticing that she was stuttering even more than usual. "Th-There's never b-been any d-documented evidence of s-such a th-thing happening!"
"You can't document something if you don't survive the encounter." KoKabuterimon said teasingly. He seemed to actually be enjoying himself.
"A-Alright! That's the e-end of this s-subject! Let's just f-focus on g-getting through this t-tunnel!"
Kumomon crossed her legs and hunched down deeper into Charlie's hood.
They walked in silence for five minutes before Charlie spoke up again.
"Say, KoKabuterimon - Mon dieu! C'est un peu fort! Can I call you Terimon for short?"
"What? No! And don't talk to me like we're friends. I'm still taking you back to File City once I'm Blitzmon again."
"Yeah, yeah." Charlie waved her hand nonchalantly. "I just wanted to ask you about Baalmon."
"Ha! You think I'll tell you my leader's secrets just because we shared some mushrooms?"
"I'm not asking for his diary; I just want to know what he's like! The way Tigremon and Shinyu described him made him sound super creepy; but you clearly think he's awesome, so I figured there must be more to him. And I wanna hear it."
KoKabuterimon just looked at her for a moment before giving a little shrug.
"Well if you're that curious. Before he became a Gate Guardian, Baalmon spent years travelling the Digital World and gathering every scrap of knowledge he could find.
When Yggdrasil sent him to Login Mountain, the first thing he did was build a huge library. The biggest in the Digital World.
Digimon from all over came to join him and learn all kinds of things. That's why I joined too. I wanted to learn everything I could about electricity so I could become Blitzmon."
"So, Blitzmon isn't your default digivolution?" Charlie cut in.
"Th-There's no telling what a digimon's next f-form will be until they digivolve." Said Kumomon. "I-It usually depends on their p-personality and lifestyle; like if they ch-choose the path of a fighter or a scholar; b-but other factors, like environment, can pl-play into it too."
"That's so cool! You could become anything!" Charlie's face darkened as she muttered to herself. "Instead of being stuck on just one path."
"Excuse me! I thought you wanted to know about Baalmon!" KoKabuterimon interrupted her musing.
"Oh, sorry. So, why doesn't he like humans?"
"I told you, I don't know. There are some things he prefers to keep to himself. And it's not so much him disliking humans as he doesn't think you should be in the Digital World."
Charlie blew out a breath.
"Well that was a big load of nothing."
"W-What? You were expecting to learn s-some tragic backstory that you could u-use to convince Baalmon to ch-change his mind and everybody hugs?"
Kumomon let out a little chuckle before realising Charlie was silent.
"Oh, w-wow."
"Well, it couldn't hurt to try! A little empathy can go a long way, y'know!"
"W-Well, I'm sorry if I'm not feeling p-particularly empathetic to the digimon who a-almost got me killed!"
"Shhhh!" KoKabuterimon halted and raised an arm. "Do you hear that?"
Charlie and Kumomon stopped talking and listened. At first they couldn't hear anything, but then their ears picked up a faint trickling sound, occasionally interrupted by a splash. It sounded familiar.
"Ah!" Charlie slapped her fist into her palm. "It's one of Gomamon's dens!"
She hurried past KoKabuterimon, following the sound as it gradually got louder.
Coming around a bend, she came across a large opening in the tunnel wall, leading to a chamber containing a pool of shining water striping the walls with shadows. Splashing around in it were the same brightly coloured fish they had met before.
"Hey, guys! Remember us?"
Upon spotting Charlie and Kumomon, a small green fish disappeared under the water while the others swam up to the edge of the pool.
Charlie knelt down before them and held a hand out. A fierce looking blue fish approached and let her pat it's head. This seemed to encourage the others who crowded round for their own fussing.
Kumomon pulled Charlie's water bottle from her backpack and hopped down to the ground. As she refilled the bottle from the pool, a winded KoKabuterimon appeared in the cavern entrance.
"Will you stop running away from me! What if that monster shows up?"
Charlie looked up from tickling a grinning red fish's chin.
"We've been walking through this tunnel for hours and we haven't seen any sign of a monster. Maybe Gomamon made a mistake."
"M-More likely, he was just trying to sc-scare us as a joke." Said Kumomon.
"I was not!"
Kumomon jumped back as Gomamon's head broke the surface of the pool. The small green fish was beside him.
"You guys really shouldn't be here." Gomamon looked around the cavern. "Where are the rest of you?"
"We got separated." Charlie explained. "Hopefully, we'll meet up again later."
"Yeah. Back in File City." KoKabuterimon staggered past them and slumped against a large pile of algae at the back of the cavern.
"W-Will you give it a rest?" Kumomon called after him before turning back to Gomamon. "I-If there really is a monster lurking in the t-tunnel; could you at least g-give us some idea what to w-watch out for? Your description last t-time was ridiculously vague."
"I don't know what it looks like." Gomamon held his flippers up helplessly. "I only saw it the one time and it's not like I stuck around to take it's picture. All I remember is that it was big and it blended in with the darkness."
He looked around again, a slight tremble in his voice.
"To tell the truth, this is the first time I've been back here since then. I only came now because I was worried about your humans."
"Tch!" KoKabuterimon shook his head and pointed at Gomamon. "And there's the slip-up. If you haven't been in this cavern for a long time, then where did all this fresh algae come from? Caught in a lie."
For the first time, Gomamon turned around and noticed the large pile KoKabuterimon was relaxing against.
"I didn't collect all that algae..."
A rumbling growl echoed through the cavern. A wide-eyed KoKabuterimon was knocked to the ground as something rose from under the algae pile.
It's image was blurred against the darkness, but it's fierce yellow eyes seemed to shine in the shadows; as did it's sharp white teeth as it let out a terrifying roar.
"Rraaaarrgghh!"

-

"Aaarrrgghh!"
Shinyu and Kartik couldn't help but scream as the ground sped towards them.
Birdramon flapped her wings, halting her descent just above the ground. She placed the rock in her claws down and unfastened the cage's strap with her teeth. The humans inside were jostled as their prison hit the ground.
Tucking her wings in, Birdramon walked towards the left wall of the canyon. Just before her lay the exit leading out into a sandy desert.
As she began examining the canyon wall for signs of a tunnel. Relemon slipped unnoticed out of her bag and began crawling quickly towards the cage with the device held in her mouth.
"Yes! Way to go, Relemon!" Tigremon called out to her.
"Shhhhh!" Everyone hissed at her. Fortunately, Birdramon was too focused on her search to pay them any mind.
Relemon squeezed through the bars and hopped into Kartik's arms.
Shinyu took the device and held it tightly in his hand. He didn't know if it was his imagination or not, but he could've sworn his head felt clearer the longer he held it.
"Okay, Tigremon!" He looked to his partner, who was now positioned facing the cage. "Time for round two!"
He held up the device. On it's screen flashed the word Digivolution.
Tigremon opened her mouth and let out a yowl as energy ran through her body. It rose... and rose... and then started to drop.
"Uh, Tigremon?" Shinyu looked at her expectantly. "That was your cue to digivolve."
"I know, just... give me a second..."
Tigremon grit her teeth and strained against the wires. Aside from making some rather disturbing faces, there was no change in her appearance.
Kartik and Shinyu exchanged a confused glance.
"Would it help if we looked away?" Kartik asked Tigremon.
"I don't have stage fright! I just..."
The device's light flickered for a few seconds before dimming; finally going out with a low beep.
Shinyu looked at the screen. A message had popped up.
Low energy. Digivolution not possible.
"What does that mean?" Kartik looked at the screen and then at Shinyu. "Does the device need charging?"
"I don't think it's the device that needs a recharge." Tarumon called from behind the rock. "Tigremon...? Tigremon!"
Tigremon was still letting out yowls as she struggled to transform. She stopped at Tarumon's shout.
"What is it?" She growled at him.
"How do you feel?"
"How do I - How do you think I feel?! I'm mad and frustrated and hungry and tired and -!"
"Okay, I get it." Tarumon replied. "You haven't eaten anything since you last digivolved, and you haven't had any proper rest either. You just don't have enough energy to digivolve."
"Are you kidding me?!" Tigremon kicked up some sand as she flailed her legs in anger. "So even with the device, I'm useless!"
Relemon gave a disappointed squeak.
"It's not your fault, Relemon." Kartik patted her head. "You were really brave."
The baby digimon brought her tail around to her face and started nibbling at the hairs. Kartik wasn't sure if she was grooming herself or if that was some kind of nervous habit. As he reached to take her tail away from her mouth, Relemon pulled her face back revealing a key hanging from her mouth.
"Oh my goodness!" Kartik picked up the key and looked at the padlock fastened to the cage door. "You beautiful little blob!"
Shinyu and Tigremon both let out cheers on seeing what Kartik had.
"What? What is it?" Tarumon asked.
"Relemon took - Oh snap! She's coming back!"
As Birdramon strode back towards them, Kartik pushed Relemon and the key into his bag and Shinyu shoved the device in his back pocket.
Birdramon stopped in front of Tarumon.
"I found the tunnel. It seems you were telling the truth. Now how long do we have to wait for your friends to show up?"
"It shouldn't be too long." Tarumon tried to focus on keeping his voice level. Whatever had the others so excited; he didn't want to alert their captor to it. "You're not going to hurt them, right? They're no threat to you."
"That depends on how much resistance they put up."
Birdramon looked up to the top of the canyon walls; a thoughtful look on her face. She suddenly spread her wings and grabbed the tall rock in her claws.
"Hey, what are you - waaarrgh!" Tarumon cried out as he and Tigremon were hoisted into the air.
Birdramon flew up to the top of the eastern canyon wall. The land was dull and gray with small packets of data hanging just above the ground.
She lifted up the boulder and let it drop from her claws. Tigremon and Tarumon let out yelps as they were jostled by the rock hitting the barren land.
"You'll wait up here." Birdramon informed them.
"What? But the ground's unstable! We'll sink!" Tarumon cried out.
"If your friends show up in good time, like you said; then there's nothing to worry about." Birdramon lowered her head and fixed the prisoners with a baleful glare. "But if Blitzmon isn't with them, then you two will share his fate."
With that, she glided down into the canyon and settled herself beside the cage to wait.
Tarumon looked down at the ground. Already, the data was trembling and shifting beneath the rock and his hooves were starting to sink into the dead soil.
He lifted his head and stared out at Layer Desert. They were so close. He could just make out a gray dot on the horizon that had to be Saurus Fortress.
Had he travelled all this way, only for their goal to be the last thing he would ever see?