The Chosen Children looked around, away from the Misty Trees, towards the rest of their surroundings. "Where are we?"
Nowhere else had File Island's terrain looked so blighted, so affected by the broken firewall. The forest soon gave way to a rocky, barren plateau. Portions of its ground were cracked, revealing a deep black abyss lined by green 0s and 1s.
A colorful clown floated in the air, with a red shirt, green pants, yellow boots, a black and white mask, and four swords on his back. He pointed and laughed at them. "Are these the prophesied Chosen Children? A bunch of weak, lost kids are supposed to stop us? Pull the other one, Homeostasis!"
"Piemon? What are you doing here?" an interrupted Digitamamon asked – he was still walking with Bakumon, yet to say his goodbyes.
"And what are you doing outside the Misty Trees? I didn't pay you to leave!" Piemon said.
"And I didn't work for you so you could doom the Digital World! Jureimon will hear of this!"
"Jureimon will hear nothing from the likes of you. Trump Sword!" Piemon's very presence had shocked Digitamamon, and now that this clown was attempting a murder, the children were no less so. Digitamamon closed his shell, which prevented the blades from slicing through him, but the force of the large, metal weapons still hurt. A large crack formed in the top of his shell, where the attack had struck, and it did not mean that he was hatching.
"Nightmare Syndrome!" This time, Digitamamon and Bakumon attacked at once, combining their attacks; it was not enough to stop Piemon's laughter, even for a second.
"Are you trying to give a Nightmare to the King of the Nightmare Soldiers?! That's a good one!" He floated directly into the path of the spreading darkness and white smoke, to demonstrate just how little their attack had affected him.
"You're supposed to be our king? I didn't vote for you!" Bakumon angrily protested, either oblivious to the fact that Piemon had the power to back up his title, or simply too angry to care.
"Digitamamon helped us out! He's a good guy, and he'd make a way better king then you!" Maki added a protest of her own.
"Bakumon, shinka, Monochromon!"
"That won't be enough," Ukkomon said, fixing his gaze on the dinosaur. "But don't worry, I'll make sure you can protect both your partner and mine!"
"Monochromon, chou shinka! Megadramon!"
Maki was in truth somewhat frightened of her partner digimon's new form. The color and purple wings differed in color, but she otherwise looked so much like the Gigadramon she had witnessed blowing up innocent digimon in Terminal Port. It was only when her digimon spoke, when she heard that deeper yet still familiar voice, that she was reassured.
"Don't worry, Maki. I'll protect you! Ultimate Slicer!" The digimon left her missiles in her arm and swung the blades of her closed holster; her claws gave the impression of a gun-sword or a bayonet, and one of them actually sliced Piemon across his stomach.
"You can do no such thing. Congratulations on your evolution, but do not think that attack name will allow you to stand up to an Ultimate digimon!" Piemon was taking her seriously now, no longer pointing and laughing at the very thought of resistance. "Toy Wonderness!"
"How is such a small digimon able to create such a strong gust?" Maki wondered aloud; even on the ground, she held tight to Hiroki's Gotsumon for fear of being blown away, and the vastly larger Megadramon was struggling to cope with the stronger winds up in the air.
"Miniaturization," Oikawa answered. "Bigger isn't always better in computing. You could fill a room with the supercomputers from the old days, but they still didn't have as much processing power as a Wonderswan."
Maki didn't entirely understand, and neither did the others, but it gave them something to ponder other than the wind blowing them all away.
"Hop on!" Megadramon had half-fallen, half landed, slowly stabilizing herself and dangling her tail just a little above the ground. The children and their digimon all grabbed hold for dear life. Digitamamon, who lacked hands, took the back of her tail inside his shell; her wings would have to be enough to keep herself stable.
"There's only one way out of this. DG Dimension!"
Whatever damage the digital world's structural integrity had been suffering was only worsened by this attack, which ripped open yet another crack in the sky, a black portal which Megadramon hurriedly flew through before the gate closed behind them.
The children emerged in a giant boneyard, with the skeleton of an ancient sauropod giving the impression of a great tunnel. Tuskmon and Tyrannomon walked around the area, on opposite sides of said 'tunnel'. Neither digimon had noticed their strange arrival, but the chosen children could not help but hear the locals' ground-shaking footsteps.
Megadramon devolved back to Bakumon, while evidently enough time had passed for Pipimon to evolve again to Floramon.
"Did we go back in time?" Daigo asked.
"No, why would we have?" Bearmon responded, confused.
"We went through that weird portal, and there's nothing but dinosaurs here," Lui said, but none of the digimon saw any reason why that might possibly have been a problem.
"Dinosaurs are extinct. In our world," Hiroki explained.
"That sounds so boring. A world without dinosaurs? I feel sorry for you guys," Floramon said. "What else are you guys missing?"
"You don't know the half of it," Oikawa agreed. "But we're here now, so let's enjoy it."
The children slowly made their way out of the bone tunnel, maintaining a safe distance from said dinosaurs; their movements were impressive, but even Daigo wasn't bold enough to take the chance to try to befriend one. Adult level or not, there was something so frightening about a digimon that looked like an enormous beast with a foot wider than one's body; when a Tyrannomon did try to approach, the children raced in the other direction.
Digitamamon, however, was not the slightest bit afraid. "I think I'm gonna set up shop here, so this is where we part ways."
"Isn't it full of dinosaurs?" Bakumon asked, concerned. "You sure you can handle it?"
"Dinosaurs with appetites to match! It'll be great for business." Digitamamon's enthusiasm was unmistakable.
"Just as long as they don't want eggs for dessert…" Bakumon said.
"Don't worry, my friend. I'm higher level than most of these guys, I can handle myself if something does go wrong." There was no persuading Digitamamon, and in truth, perhaps Bakumon was wrong to try; the fears of the human children were getting to her. Impressed as they were, they wanted to make their way elsewhere as soon as possible.
Were the digital world easier to navigate, they'd have already been gone by the time an Agumon walked up to them. He was smaller than the others, small enough to be eye level with their partner digimon, so no one fled despite his obviously saurian body plan.
And he wanted their help.
"Dinosaur digimon are evolving into Skullgreymon and going berserk! I don't… I don't want to end up that way."
"Aren't you child level?" Hiroki asked, trying to reassure Agumon.
"Children grow up eventually," Agumon answered. "My big bro Tyrannomon is closer and tried to ask you guys for help too, but you ran away."
A large, orange missile landed next to them, in case there were any doubts about what "going berserk" meant in this context. At least this one looked like a dud; it didn't explode.
"Don't just beat them up, please," Agumon begged. "These guys are… were our friends. Please figure out why this is happening, and put a stop to it."
SkullGreymon's bombardment, however intensive, was not particularly accurate. A look at the sky – even a dark, cracked sky – was enough to spot the missiles, and the shot that landed next to them when they were talking to Agumon was by far the closest any had come to a direct hit. Dinosaurs do not build many structures, so there was little debris to worry about, just sand and the odd bone flying in their general direction.
One eventually came closer than most, and Daigo had to grab it out of the air. It looked like a Brachiomon's toe, or perhaps a spear.
"Wow, impressive," Oikawa said.
"I've blocked wilder pitches," Daigo played it down.
"Daigo, do you play baseball?" Lui asked. It wasn't the smartest question – Daigo thought the answer obvious – but the kid was still so young.
"Yeah, I'm on Odaiba Elementary's team. Maybe we can play catch sometime," he suggested, but finding a working baseball in this strange world, let alone two mitts of the right size, was no easy feat.
"You know," Maki noted, "circling around at a distance might keep us safe, but it won't actually solve Agumon's problem. Whatever's causing this is probably in the center of where all these attacks are coming from."
"I wish I could evolve, but I'm so tired," Bakumon added. A Monochromon would be useful for shielding everyone. Golemon (or Revolmon) and Leomon just didn't have the same kind of armor, and (even if Floramon was ready to evolve again, which she doubted) Ebidramon was far better equipped for the water and might very well struggle to move on land.
"Shouldn't we find somewhere to rest up, in that case?" Maki wondered aloud. Whatever crisis the digimon here were facing was nothing new, and one more day of bombardment surely couldn't matter.
"No way." It was Gotsumon who wanted to keep pushing forward. "Didn't you see how scared that Agumon was? And it's not just evolution these guys have to worry about – what if he gets hit?"
"You're right," Hiroki said, agreeing with his partner. "We have to help them."
Tyrannomon, Agumon had assured them, were friendly digimon who only wanted their help to avoid a dark evolution. He had not also thought it necessary to mention that real Tyrannomon are also red.
The concept of alternate color digimon being different species, and black ones in particularly usually being an evil different species, was one known to the Chosen Children. They'd met a Birdramon and fought a Saberdramon, after all. But SkullGreymon were by far the biggest threat here, and DarkTyrannomon's viruses meant so little to other dinosaur digimon that it simply slipped Agumon's mind; even if they were overly combative, dinosaurs fought all the time anyway.
So when Lui went up to the DarkTyrannomon, asking if it was a friend, no one tried to stop him. And when it answered not with words, but a Fire Blast, Ukkomon had moved so fast it felt that he'd frozen time. The ancient digimon grabbed his partner with a tentacle and whisked Lui away to safety.
"That's a low blow, going after the youngest! He just wanted to introduce himself!" Hiroki was truly angry now, but it was righteous anger; not the type to spark a new dark evolution.
"Gotsumon, shinka! Golemon!" Perhaps it had forgotten that it was Revolmon once, or perhaps its first evolution was also its most situational; DarkTyrannomon certainly represented a large center of mass which could be filled with bullets. But instead, it became a large, yellow rock monster, the kind that was ready to hold its own in a kaiju fight with the DarkTyrannomon.
A few adult-level dinosaur digimon – Allomon, Stegomon, Tuskmon – had gathered around to watch. None had particularly strong feelings about the fight; Golemon was an outsider, and not even a dinosaur, but the computer virus that had infected a Tyrannomon to create this dark counterpart had also turned him into the kind of digimon that no one would be sorry to see humbled.
Allomon was taking bets on the match, and Hiroki wished to go all in on his partner – unfortunately, they had not actually acquired any digital world currency.
"Curse Crimson!" The phrase 'eruption' came to mind, as Golemon emitted vast plumes of heated and toxic gas. DarkTyrannomon stomped the ground erratically in response – was it having an effect, or had it done nothing but make an already angry digimon even madder?
"Iron Tail!" It was probably not wise to try to ignite an active volcano, so DarkTyrannomon wisely used its other technique. It swiped at Golemon with its long, black tail and made an attempt to trip the pile of rocks. This was, however, clearly not a favorable matchup.
"Golem Punch!" DarkTyrannomon was not the only digimon in this fight capable of hand-to-hand combat, and Golemon was, if narrowly, the stronger of the two. DarkTyrannomon's thick body would not be toppled by a single strike, but it did step back and recoil; the punch had got some of its chin, and it hurt!
One does not generally think of DarkTyrannomon as intelligent digimon, but as berserkers, striking again and again at its opponents until one of the two fighters is defeated. Perhaps the virus was less advanced in the case of this particular one, or perhaps Golemon's punch had scrambled its brain back to rationality and given it a bizarre case of reverse CTE. Either way, its moves weren't doing anything, so it turned around and trudged off.
And then a missile struck ground zero. Big, orange, and this time, with a proper explosion. Tuskmon wasn't able to collect its victory bet; the dinosaurs were blown away by the blast, and only Ukkomon's intervention spared the Chosen Children the same fate.
Golemon was made of rocks, so he endured. But more than a few of those rocks were now hundreds of yards away. Hiroki found it hard to tell which rocks were important and which weren't – he gave up some whenever it attacked – but his partner digimon looked badly wounded, missing fingers and a back spike and with a distinctly smaller stomach.
His digimon was not, however, in any mood to give up. "Where is that coward? And why won't he come out here and fight?"
"It's the correct tactic," Hiroki said. "I mean, I've done similar in FPS games myself. Why put yourself in danger if you don't have to? It's up to us to locate our opponent and get back at them!"
It would be reasonable to expect a digimon of SkullGreymon's immense size to be easy to locate – however, with so many large fossils strewn about the region, it actually blended in with its surroundings. Conversely, SkullGreymon clearly knew by now where they were; reloading did take some time, but after a while another missile fell from the sky, and its shadow suggested that all the chosen children and their partners would be within its blast radius.
"I can't let this happen," Ukkomon said.
"Golemon, chou shinka! Orochimon!" Even Hiroki, upon witnessing his partner's new form, could not avoid the sense that there was something wrong about the way their digimon were evolving to Perfect – Yamata no Orochi was always, always portrayed as a villain in anime and video games. And if he remembered correctly, Orochimon, with his seven white and one black heads atop a black snakelike body, was himself a virus type digimon.
But eight heads were perfect for a missile falling on them – the first two missed, but the third caught it in his jaws and tossed it harmlessly aside. And Orochimon caught the next one, and the one after that – with eight heads to protect them, the chosen children soon stopped fearing the missiles' shadow.
SkullGreymon itself had realized the futility of this strategy, but could not bring itself to run away; it openly approached Orochimon now, charging with its enormous, skeletal body in an attempt to do with its hands what it could not with its bombs.
"Ame no Murakamo!" Storm clouds appeared before the dinosaur, blinding and disorienting it as it tried to speed through them. A trip from one of Orochimon's snakelike heads was enough to topple the beast; two more coiled around were enough to prevent it from getting back up.
"I give! I give!" Skullgreymon tapped the sandy, rocky ground like it was a wrestling mat, and slowly began to shrink. First organs regrew inside the skeleton, then orange skin with blue stripes and a brown helmet covered the dinosaur's smaller body as it devolved and returned to something approaching sanity.
"Can you tell us anything about what's happening in this region?" the victorious Orochimon asked.
"Where am I? The last thing I remember, I had just won a fight with an Allomon. Was that you before you evolved?" The disoriented Greymon looked around, past the Orochimon. "But those aren't dinosaurs, and… human children? What's going on?"
"You evolved to SkullGreymon and were shooting missiles at us," Daigo said.
"We were summoned to save the Digital World," Maki added. The words sounded silly and arrogant coming out of her mouth; how do you just call yourselves legendary heroes? But the Greymon understood.
"Chosen Children… I must have attacked the Chosen Children. I'm so sorry."
"If it doesn't remember anything, should we just move on?" Oikawa wondered aloud.
"Wait," the defeated Greymon said. "Viruses are infecting this whole region. At their source is a digimon called Pinocchimon, who sits atop a black obelisk and transmits them through his strings."
"Thank you," Lui said. "We'll try to save everyone."
With no missiles falling anymore, it should've been easy to spot anything as large as a Dark Tower. But there was a good reason that a later generation of Chosen Children always hunted them during the day – and a blackened, broken sky was no less effective as camouflage.
No other SkullGreymon, however, were bold enough to attack Orochimon, who maintained a surprising level of (likely Ukkomon-boosted) energy in his Perfect form, after the first one failed. And Pinocchimon himself only had so much patience.
"I'm tired of hide and seek. Gonna come out and play with these kids," Pinocchimon said in a sing-song voice. The digimon that approached them was indeed a small wooden puppet, with a silly red hat, a wooden 'X' on his back, and a metal hammer the size of his body.
"That's it?" Maki couldn't help but fail to take him seriously.
"Rude," Pinocchimon protested.
"Be careful," Bakumon said. "Remember, Piemon wasn't much taller."
"You've met Piemon?" Pinocchimon asked.
"Mugendramon too," Oikawa added.
"I thought these guys were my friends, why am I always the one going last? Oh well, time to play!"
"Last? Aren't there four of you?" Daigo asked. "IceDevimon was saying something about four evil kings…"
"That's right! You still haven't met MetalSeadramon!" Pinocchimon was genuinely pleased with himself, as though being third instead of fourth to meet the Chosen Children was a point of pride. "Maybe I should introduce you guys now? I'd feel bad that he won't ever get the chance otherwise. I'll send him an e-mail." Pinocchimon used some strings to tweak a computer many miles away, and was eventually satisfied that it was done.
"He won't ever get the chance otherwise?" Lui was puzzled. "What game do you want to play? I'm fond of catch, but I can play anything, as long as it's fun."
"Because I'm gonna kill you, of course!" Pinnochimon said with a smile. "Bullet Hammer!"
"I thought you wanted to play with us?" Lui sounded hurt by the fact that he was attacking, even betrayed. "It's no fun if we get hurt! That's just bullying!"
Fortunately, the actual attack hadn't hurt them; six of Orochimon's mouths now held bullets. It was a brilliant display of his blocking skill.
"Right, that's not the way to play with snakes," Pinocchimon said, taking the diagonal cross off his back. "You need something a bit wider. Flying Cross Cutter!"
"Floramon, shinka, Togemon!" The plant monster converged with his counterpart of Palmon at the adult level, and evolved into a giant cactus with boxing gloves. There was no water around here, perhaps had not been any around here since the Digital Mesozoic, so Ebidramon simply wouldn't work.
There was, of course, no good reason to believe an adult level digimon could handle Pinocchimon, but it was better than trying to beat it one on one. Could Ukkomon create more Perfect level digimon right now, or take them to the next level? Togemon might have to find out eventually, but for now, he wanted to do his part.
Pinocchimon's attack indeed connected with Orochimon's necks, slicing four heads off at once and devolving him all the way back to Kapurimon. But he was too busy admiring his handiwork to notice that Togemon had rushed him from the side, until he sent him flying with a "Coconut Punch!"
"We can barely deal with this guy and another digimon just as strong is coming? Let's get out of here!" Daigo said, and even Hiroki, for all his determination to help Agumon and the others, could not question the wisdom of an immediate retreat; he cradled Kapurimon as they ran.
MetalSeadramon was not checking his messages; he was in the process of circumnavigating File Island and in no hurry to stop. When he finally did notice that Pinocchimon had contacted him, he did race over there – but it was deep inland, Pinocchimon was out cold, and the Chosen Children were by then long gone.
Long gone – and, in what had sadly become a very familiar situation, lost and powerless and wishing they knew how to save this world. They'd run out of the boneyard, but they couldn't identify what they'd run into, and weren't thinking about it very much beyond hoping the Dark Masters couldn't reach them there.
The world's foremost authorities on the digital world have described that world as a shadow of Earth, and this is not a bad description of most of its terrain. Tundra, plateaus, forests, deserts, mountains – it was strange to have them all so close together, on a single large island, with none of the underlying rules that governed Earth geography. But the pieces were all there.
This place was different. The blue 'walls' that appeared recalled nothing so much as a computer chip, but when one got closer, they were made of some kind of trees. Not earth trees or even regular digital world trees, but horizontal ones, branching on and on like web forum threads written in digimoji, each of them a miniature maze in their own right.
One might almost get the impression that they had gone too far and reached the glitch part, that the digital world itself had not rendered this land. Yet if so, this corner of the digital world was not empty; wild digimon abounded, but strange ones, creatures who defied easy comprehension. Living blobs of poop, a beast with "what" (or should one say 'nani'?) for a name, green slugs with eye stalks, but this wasn't a sewer; Hagurumon and Solarmon drifted by, repairing the gears in the walls, and giant, living trains called Trailmon occasionally zoomed by upon the rails.
Indeed, it was surprisingly challenging to even confirm that they were underground – if so, what should they make of the Thunderbirmon flying overhead, with its blue streaks of electrical light that lit up the place like stars? Yet it was hard to find a digimon to talk to – everyone was busy, either working hard at some task or another or simply moving around with somewhere to go.
They progressed deeper and deeper into the strange territory, to a point where Monitormon lined the walls, displaying what looked like websites or TV shows. And then they reached an angel-child with eight white wings, who finally introduced himself. "Welcome, Chosen Children. I am Lucemon, the Administrator of the Users' Tunnel."
"The Users' Tunnel?" Oikawa asked.
"It is a sacred place, where the digital world is linked with its shadow," Lucemon elaborated. "Continue, and you would travel through the firewall and return to your world."
"Isn't the firewall broken?" Daigo asked. Did this administrator really understand what was going on? And for that matter, why was this place so… well, not normal, but at least unaffected, unharmed.
Lucemon's mood darkened. "We could not stop them. That is your task. Do not proceed further in this direction – you have been summoned for a reason!" To dissuade them, the angel grew larger, older, half its wings black, with so many that they lost count.
"Wow, he looks so cool," Maki was in genuine awe.
Ukkomon turned to Lui, as if to say "do you want me to take this guy?" But the youngest of the group shook his head.
"Sorry, we didn't know where we were going. We'll help you." Lui said to Lucemon. "I'm not ready to go home just yet."