The party had reached the river, which was blue-black in color, swirling around and full of whirlpools and toxins. Identifying 'upstream' would be a challenge, and actually trying to swim would be positively unsafe.
"I'm sorry, Yukio. I can't figure it out either," Floramon said to his partner. "Even dipping my roots in would poison me."
"As I see it," Oikawa responded, "the blight must have a source. So we should go wherever the water is cleanest, and hope that it leads us to Dragon Eye Lake."
"It could be the other way around," Hiroki wondered aloud.
"But would Gennai really live at the very core of whatever's wrong with the water here? That sounds more like a last boss kind of thing, but Floramon and Bearmon haven't even evolved up to Adult yet, let alone Perfect," Daigo said, no less confused than his seniors.
The children were clearly guessing, but they had no choice but to guess. It was impossible to navigate by the sun and stars in the Digital World's current condition. And no one had a map, either, so all they could do was follow the confusing directions that local digimon offered.
They were able, if only barely, to identify which part of the water was blacker, and which was bluer, and therefore to move in the direction they hoped was also upstream, until the river at last opened into an enormous lake.
A giant, teal sea serpent peered out of the water, swimming the other way. Piyomon chirped in the background, as though nature still properly functioned. Betamon darted along the shore, in and out of the water, while fish – not fish digimon, just fish – swam through the lake.
It felt like an oasis, albeit one tucked into a wholly unnatural, artificial, and rapidly spreading desert. One could spend days relaxing here, if they were so inclined. If the place would last that long.
But what they did not find, as they circled around the lake, was a 'Gennai', or indeed any other digimon they did not recognize. Nor was there much in the way of housing. There were no doors to knock on, unless this 'Gennai' was both aquatic and tiny indeed; perhaps this being lived in a Betamon's sandcastle?
"Looking for someone?" one of the frog digimon asked, its orange fin the only thing bringing it up to even their partner digimon in height.
"Does Gennai live here?" Daigo asked.
"He moved after Hangyomon raided his home. I don't know where he lives now," the Betamon said sadly.
"His home?" At least it was a lead. "Where did he live?"
"At the bottom of this lake," the Betamon answered, although the humans found it absurd. Unbelievable, even. Was this digimon just messing with them?
Floramon stepped to the edge of the beach, trying to peer beneath the calm water line, but a flower's eyes were not nearly up to that task. "Floramon, shinka! Ebidramon!"
Oikawa and the others were taken aback by this sudden evolution, and looked around for hostile digimon; were they in danger? Was some menace beneath the water? And if not, how had Floramon managed to evolve? Even the evolutionary line also came as a surprise – not another plant, but a giant brown shrimp (was it an exoskeleton or armor?) with menacing pincers to match.
"I'll dive down and report back. Something has to be down there, Hangyomon can't have taken everything."
The term 'mindlink', alas, belongs to another version of the digital world. The children on the shore – a worried Oikawa most of all – wished that they could see through Ebidramon's eyes, hoped that his evolution somehow did not come with danger. For all they knew, he was fighting for his life deep beneath the sea; it was not lost on his partner that Hangyomon was a perfect level digimon, for whom even an Ebidramon would be no match.
Fortunately, Ebidramon did not meet any attackers on the way down, just a Coelamon who was sleeping soundly at the bottom of the lake bed. There was indeed a house on the lake floor, or at least the ruins of one. Its windows had been smashed, water had poured in, and the papers strewn around the house were too waterlogged to read. The shattered remnants of an aquarium left an intriguing clue about the lake's fish population, but Ebidramon was not a digimon biologist, and it told him little about his real area of interest.
A hangar with two Mechanorimon – but room for three – left a clue about Gennai's route of escape, and at least narrowed down his possible size.
If this 'Gennai' could had left a message to say where he was going, it couldn't be on paper. Fortunately, the digital world has a far more efficient means of storing information; Gennai's own fondness for paper was nothing more than a personal eccentricity carried over from the age of punch cards.
The modern digital world runs on hard disks, SSDs, cloud storage and flash and USB drives. But Cloud Continent did not yet exist in the 1990s; indeed, the digimon knew of no world beyond File Island and the Net Ocean, and Gennai's torn, wet map showed nothing else. In this era, everything from power-ups to recovery to the structure of the world itself ran on floppy discs, and Hangyomon had missed a few.
After what must have been hours of waiting, Ebidramon resurfaced, carrying two discs in each pincer. Unfortunately, the children were gone by then – and they had not voluntarily abandoned him, for the footprints left on the beach showed signs of a struggle.
Black flames in the distance gave off the foreboding impression of a signal flare.
"Lobster Step!" Ebidramon hurried in their direction, as fast as his many, small legs would take him; only the fact that he maintained his evolved form reassured him that he was not witnessing the fires of his partner's execution.
The firewall was not breached in a day. Before Apocalymon could rip it open, his followers were hard at work, slowly modifying it, adding corruption and black fire bit by bit.
Dark Lizamon and Saberdramon each claimed pride of place as the first virus to enter the digital world. For others, especially other virus types, this fact might have become cause for rivalry; virus types are famously quarrelsome, after all. But for these two specific digimon, it meant an unbreakable bond.
Corrupted or not, Dragon Eye Lake was no sanctuary – it was beyond Homeostasis' power to create such a thing, or at least to create one so large. Saberdramon regularly flew over the lake in search of rebels, at least since Hangyomon had discovered Gennai's home there, but the Piyomon nearby neither posed a threat nor recognized the black bird as one. And Dark Lizamon, as far as any other digimon were concerned, simply happened to live nearby in the Gear Savanna.
It is easy to recognize a computer virus when it attacks files right away; far more difficult for any antivirus program is the virus which waits in silence for the right condition to activate. In this case, the arrival of the Chosen Children was the right condition. Chosen Children exhausted by their long journey, at that, with one of their four partner digimon already having vanished into the water.
The black bird landed in front of them. Better to solve this the easy way, if possible. "Do you want to go home?" Saberdramon asked.
The children were taken aback by the request. "Can you really do that?"
Going home so soon wasn't a possibility that they'd ever considered. You go home by beating the game, right? That's how these stories always worked, wasn't it? They were here for a reason – they couldn't go home until they saved the world from Apocalymon, right?
"I can fly, can't I? The sky is open now, and Earth is on the other side."
Maki stepped forward, giving serious consideration to Saberdramon's offer. But then she thought of her fatigue problems, of all the issues they'd caused her on Earth. "Can I bring Bakumon with me?" She was holding her digimon, but not looking at her, not asking what her partner thought about being ripped away from her endangered home.
"Sure, I can bring you. However many want to come." Whether Earth would welcome digimon so early was an open question, but then again, that wasn't Saberdramon's problem.
"Will the digimon be okay without us?" Oikawa asked. "Not our partners, I mean. The other ones, all the ones who live in this world."
For this, alas, the black firebird had no answer, and that was enough to stop even Maki from wavering. Daigo mouthed an apology to his friends and family back home, before giving another one to the Saberdramon, not realizing he had made it an enemy.
"I wanted to banish you without fighting, but it seems I have no choice. Mach Shadow!"
Worse, none of them had noticed Dark Lizamon listening in, trying not to get too close to the water, ready to provide backup the moment it was called upon. "Dark Inferno!"
Hiroki and Oikawa wanted to stand their ground, to fight where they stood: "Let's stay here. We can't just abandon Ebidramon!"
"Ebidramon will catch up to us – or do you just want him to find our corpses?!" Maki had already been captured once, and she sped away as fast as her tiny legs would take her. But Saberdramon, of course, could fly, and Dark Lizamon ran faster, and the easiest enemy to strike is always one whose back is turned.
Bakumon was exhausted. Her partner was in danger, but the Evilmon fight had taken a lot out of him; human-induced evolution is never easy for a digimon, especially a young one, to maintain. His Nightmare Syndrome could not make Dark Lizamon do more than yawn, could not even float high enough to reach Saberdramon, whose black flames blocked her exit with a Meteor Wing.
Yet again, it would be Bearmon and Daigo who had to protect her. And protect themselves.
"Bearmon, shinka! Leomon!" It was odd to think that a bear cub becoming a lion was perhaps the most natural, normal evolution that any of the group had experienced – compared to Revolmon, Monochromon, and Ebidramon, Leomon was positively normal. But not too normal to drive off multiple sources of black fire with his sword, nor to shoot back with a lion-headed fist of energy.
The children continued to run away, hoping Leomon could hold off their foes. But Saberdramon was simply too fast, and the fight transformed into a maneuver battle. Gotsumon actually got an Angry Rock into Dark Lizamon's stomach, and the rock only slowly burnt, but the combined fire attacks slowly wore down Daigo's partner. Gotsumon blocked a Black Saber from the air only to get torched by a Dread Fire, while a homing Beast King Fist finally connected with Saberdramon's wings.
Daigo was throwing the recovery floppies they'd stolen from Evilmon's nest into Leomon's mouth, and it at least kept him into a fight which soon became two on one – Gotsumon, rock body or not, could not withstand the heat for much longer, and he lacked the energy to evolve up into Monochromon again. But they only had so many disks, and he ran out before either of their opponents fell.
Was this the end? Was it time to ask Saberdramon to change its mind, to see if it'd still be willing to accept banishing the children? Would it even accept that deal now?
And if not, were they going to die? Would they perish in another world, their friends and family forever wondering what had happened, left to stage a funeral without a body?
No, they wouldn't.
Oikawa saw him first, in the distance, over the horizon, but he didn't believe it; he had never imagined that a crustacean could move so fast. They had not heard the call of "Lobster Step!" which allowed him to accelerate, only saw a brown blur crab-walking at speeds more suited to an antelope or a big cat, faster than even Saberdramon could fly.
"Twin Pincers!" One giant pincer whacked a Dark Lizamon who was already visibly struggling against Leomon's sword, and the other sent Saberdramon plummeting out of the sky.
"Welcome back, Ebidramon!" a happy Oikawa said, jumping up to hug his significantly larger partner; with the battle finally over, it would be a tired Floramon who returned his embrace.
"So you visited this Gennai's house and got those disks? That Betamon wasn't just pulling our legs?" Daigo asked Floramon, once they had some time to catch their breath after the intense fight.
"Well, I didn't code them myself!"
"How do we use them? We don't have a computer with us or anything," Maki asked.
"Good job finding them," Oikawa said; at least his partner was happy. "Come to think of it, where would we find a public computer? I know this place is called the Digital World, but I haven't actually seen a single terminal since we got here,"
"Check the vending machines," Gotsumon said. "A lot of them let you insert discs as well."
"No way," Floramon retorted. "You don't want to risk putting valuable data like this into a vending machine, you could overload the whole thing.
"If the data is valuable, why not go to Terminal Port?" Bakumon added, while the children listened to their digimon and tried to wrap their heads around their conversation; although they felt at times like mirrors of their own spirit, they had seen so much before they'd ever met. Even child level digimon knew so much more than any of them realized.
"The second word in that name," a tired Bearmon said. "We've been playing it safe so far – you really think we're ready to be right up against the Net Ocean?"
"All of us are able to reach the adult level by now," Floramon said. "It's dangerous, but nothing is ever safe in the digital world these days."
More time has passed between the Pharaohs who built the pyramids and Cleopatra than between Cleopatra and the present day. The Library of Ashurbanipal had many tablets on ancient history, some of them thousands of years old. And the same can be said for the digital world; the original Chosen Children lived closer to our own time than they did to ENIAC, and the world had been around for fifty years by the time the firewall was breached.
Terminal Port was many things – a major trade city, a great center of scholarship, a way for digimon across File Island to access the internet – but perhaps foremost among them was a repository of the digital world's history. The D-Terminal was developed here, although at this time it was little more than a portable and incomplete reference book; the age when it stored digimentals was still seven years in the future, and the events of those seven years in the Digital World might as well have been an eternity.
The population of Terminal Port also suggested its great antiquity, although this was lost on the human children, for whom the Ancient Dino Region surely would have felt far older. It hosted ancient digimon without attributes, V-Mon and Hawkmon and Armadimon. Meeting even a single one elsewhere would have been a remarkable experience, but here they walked around like the digital world was still in the vacuum tube era.
True to its name, Terminal Port had digimon typing away on keyboards even at the gate, while giant screens floated high overhead, displaying whatever they typed. The city was full of water that had become black and polluted, with a rotten stench that led the children to cover their noses as they crossed its many bridges; Floramon was most affected, for her roots had begun to droop.
"Get into the library. We'll be safe in there." Gotsumon said, and the children followed.
The Terminal Port Library is linked to the Digital World's kernel, and any damage to it would be catastrophic to the world's very structure. As such, the inner rooms were closely guarded by Knightmon, while Guardromon stood at the entrance to wave the children and their digimon through.
The size of the building dwarfed even that of Japan's National Library, or indeed any Earth building within the children's frame of reference; it took up half the city, with a dazzling away of entrances and exits that recalled the most confusing subway stations they had ever had to navigate.
All this just to hook into a computer.
"This better be worth it," Maki said.
"It's our only lead," Oikawa answered.
They all looked up nervously at the screen floating above them as Floramon booted up the machine – expecting a text document on the disks, or some photos, some kind of clear information on where they should go and what they should do.
What they found was a photograph of a young man, his hair in a ponytail, riding in a Mechanorimon. At least now they knew what this "Gennai" looked like, or at least they had a lead, as the file wasn't actually named. What, not why – why was a human already in the digital world? What was he doing there? Did he have a predecessor, and had he succeeded or failed? Was Gennai why there were digimon here who knew what a human was – and if so, how long had he been here, and what had happened to him?
Another floppy disk offered a series of computer programs, none of which had any obvious relevance. A graphic of a Chuumon popping a balloon, another one of Yukidarumon and Monzaemon dancing in a way which led an embarrassed Bearmon to avert his eyes, and a shogi game that differed from the kind they knew on Earth mainly in having replaced the pieces with digimon from the Chessmon family.
"Well, you said these disks were just lying around his house, right? It makes sense that not everything would be relevant," Oikawa said, consoling his disappointed and confused companions.
The third had multiple files, all written – Floramon clicked through to the one labeled '1996', on being informed of the Earth year, as the one numbered 1999 or the ones with question marks seemed less obviously relevant. The text, written on an old tablet (or was that just the font?), but in human letters, was regarded by the boys as a prophecy, perhaps an explanation of the digital world's cosmology, and by Maki as a strange kind of Fushigi Yuugi fanfic.
Light is born of darkness...
Darkness sails north to become water…
Light sails south to give birth to fire…
Wind flows in between light and darkness…
Light sinks into darkness and returns to Earth…
The chosen four who hold great power, reveal your true powers.
Blue Dragon, Vermillion Bird, White Tiger, Black Tortoise,
A great sacrifice shall save two worlds.
It was not easy to comprehend. This Gennai, whoever he was, clearly had not figured it out himself – comments in the file suggested the Vermillion Bird might evolve from Birdramon, and wondered if Mihiramon was related to the White Tiger, but the terrors facing the Digital World clearly demanded far stronger monsters than any they had now.
Maki found herself fantasizing about evolution – did this mean Bakumon would turn into one of the four gods? And which god suited it best? None of them seemed all that similar to a tapir, although perhaps Monochromon might eventually evolve up to the tortoise. Digimon evolutions were so weird, and it was clear they hadn't finished yet.
Terminal Port's computer couldn't open the question mark file, so she took the third floppy disc out and hoped the last one had better clues. And then a series of explosions rocked the library.
"Evacuate. Evacuate."
Strangely, despite the message over the loudspeakers, few of the child level digimon were leaving the building; instead, they ran deeper inside, towards the stronghold where the kernel could be accessed. Stranger still, the Guardromon and PawnChessmon there were directing them in.
Yet the Chosen Children and their own digimon – child level, but by now more than energized enough to evolve – were not among them. "We're here to save the world, so let's do it!"
It was hard to get past the crowd, all the digimon pushing in the other direction, many rushing and flying into the library from outside.
"What kind of monster attacks a library anyway?" Daigo asked.
The answer to that question, evidently, was a tank. Actually, a bunch of tanks. Tanks with eyes and a mouth and a lower face by their tank treads, but Tankmon's body left no illusions about the mercenary digimon's origin.
A light blue dragon flew overhead, shouting "Genocide Gear" as it launched airstrikes against the civilian digimon of Terminal Port. The name did not sound like much of an exaggeration; they were witnessing a massacre, innocent digimon blasted into data with every strike. If these attacks were allowed to continue, genocide would surely be the result.
"How could you?!" Maki shouted through tears, as her digimon evolved. Monochromon's thick armor, at least, was giving it some of the strength required to endure these attacks.
Fortunately, the Chosen Children were not alone. Guardromon launched a return volley of missiles from the library entrance, while an Andromon's lightning blade from the rooftop rent a Tankmon in two. A Giromon flew through the air, whose laugh led the children to question its sanity, before it exploded into the Gigadramon, then took out its chainsaw and tried to saw the dragon in half.
Pirates, raiders, robots out of control – whatever these machine digimon were, their power looked wholly insufficient to sack Terminal Port. If anything, it was a humbling experience to witness just how little Ebidramon, Monochromon, Revolmon, and Leomon meant to the outcome of this battle.
"Then again, we're not perfect level yet," Oikawa said aloud.
Unfortunately, Gigadramon was not their leader.
"I see my initial volley failed. The Metal Empire needs more training and more materials." A mechanical voice, from a speaker covered in white-gray armor with two enormous cannons on his back.
The early digimon games were not clear on the distinction between Perfect and Ultimate digimon. Perhaps the processing power of the Digital World itself was not yet enough to allow for six distinct levels, perhaps the very concept of 'Ultimate' was just a strange error. But even in this period, some Perfect digimon were clearly stronger than others.
"Last Boss." The same shocked and horrified phrase came out of four human mouths all at once. Mugendramon was no stranger to any of them. But he was also not an enemy that they were remotely prepared to fight so soon.
"Ebidramon, can you evolve?" Oikawa asked, pleaded, begged. Their prior evolutions had all been miracles born of need, so maybe they didn't need to level up, just needed the right situation. And could there ever be a greater need?
Was the way to evolve again on the fourth disk they'd taken from Gennai's home? It was their only remaining clue.
"I'm sorry." Ebidramon said.
None of the kids knew if 'leveling up' was a meaningful concept in the digital world outside the game, but if it was, clearly none of their partners had done enough to reach the next step. Nor did they have any illusions about the inevitable outcome, should they fight. Everyone just stood there for a moment, all frozen in fear.
"Let's get out of here!" Daigo yelled, and once they regained their bearings enough to move, none of them doubted the wisdom of retreat. The children and partner digimon all followed him, abandoning the current battle. Mugendramon was an enormous digimon, and his gaze was fixed far too high to notice a few humans in the crowd.
This did not, however, mean they could escape unchallenged. Perhaps, even away from Terminal Port, the MetalTyranomon pursuing them still considered them a threat – or perhaps it simply enjoyed killing. Monochromon blocked a Giga Destroyer II with his armor, but a Nuclear Laser connected with Leomon's stomach. Revolmon's Justice Bullet managed to at least crack the dinosaur's armor in return, but MetalTyranomon did not even notice; he had not slowed the enormous beast down.
The phrase "Infinity Cannon," audible miles away, and the no less loud explosions in the distance offered a disturbing clue about Terminal Port's ultimate fate. They did not look back, did not want to see what had happened.
It was not long before they were out of room to run, pushed up against the black and toxic water. Numemon floated through with ease, but no actual aquatic digimon could be sighted.
"Get on my back!" Ebidramon shouted.
"Are you just gonna dive in there? It doesn't look safe," a concerned Oikawa objected, but he climbed on all the same.
"It's safer than the alternative," Ebidramon said. They could, at least, see a shore on the other side, and MetalTyranomon was far too heavy to swim. Monochromon and Leomon devolved as the kids piled onto the large, brown crab, while Revolmon rode on the crab's head, trying to block Metal Tyranomon's parting shots with his own bullets.
What no one had counted on was the currents in the Net Ocean. Ebidramon, for all his size and strength, was not taken onto the opposite shore; instead, they were helplessly swept away.