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Humon?

-Chapter 4-

Naruto groaned as he held his aching head. Morning had come and the group had set off to find this 'summer camp' while he tried to process all the new information he'd gotten. Not only were digimon now confirmed to not be summons of any kind, they had tried to explain the concept of digivolving to him, unfortunately even the digimon barely understood how it worked past 'friend in danger, we become awesome as Gomamon ever so eloquently summed it up.

The blazing heat didn't help as someone *Cough* Tai *Cough* had the brilliant idea to try and cut through a mini desert to get farther. Naruto was honestly curious now on how and why Gaara and his siblings lived their lives inside such a place as he wiped the sweat building in his forehead off.

Thankfully though, Joe had the smart idea of having him unseal his kettle again and using it to carry water as they trudged along, so at least they weren't to thirsty. Said kettle currently dangled from his tail, something that slightly irked him, as T.K. and Patamon got a drink.

"Oh man, what I wouldn't do for a beach to be attached to all this sand, with a nice refreshing drink stand." Mimi said as she fanned herself with her hat, getting several of the others to nod in agreement, before stopping to route around in her purse. "Oh!" Reacting quickly, the others rushed over to her to see if she was okay only to find her sheepishly rubbing her head while holding up a compass.

"I wanted to check the time, but the heat melted the numbers off." She said, getting deadpan looks all around. Watching as the compass started spinning out of control, Tai said.

"You know, for a girl with so many compasses, you'd think at least one of them would work." Izzy gave a 'Hmm' at that as he knelt to the ground and scooped a handful of sand.

"Actually, there are small bits of a metallic substance inside the sand that could be messing with the compass's needle."

"Yeah, cool, whatever, we should keep moving. The longer we stay here doddling around, the longer we stay roasting under the sun." Matt said getting the rest to remember the blazing heat as they continued along.

Nothing else happened for about two hours or so, but soon enough everyone was running out of steam. Naruto, Gabumon, and Biyomon having it the worst due to their thick fur and feathers. "SOMEBODY HELP UUUUUUUUUSSSSSSS!" ...And now Mimi was having a breakdown.

"Mimi…*huff* for the love*huff* of Kami, stop yelling." Naruto panted out as he held his aching head, dehydration really hitting him hard as he leaned on Joe for support.

"We should head back, we're already out of water and have no idea how much farther this goes!" Sora called to Tai, who was atop a hill while using his mini telescope, as she carried an exhausted Biyomon in her arms.

"Sora's right, foxy here looks ready to conk out any second now." Gomamon said while waddling next to Joe earning him a mild glare.

If Tai heard them, he didn't acknowledge it as he continued to look into the distance as he suddenly got excited. "There's a village up ahead!" He yelled down getting, missing Naruto clutching his head as he slid down the hill. "It's just a bit that ways, and where's there's a village…"

"There's people!" The other kids chorused, before flinching as Naruto literally growled at them.

"Keep. It. Down."

Being much more carefully to stay quiet, the group rushed to the village as quickly as they could. About halfway there though, Agumon pointed to the sky. "What's that?" Following his claw, the others spotted a large black object rapidly flying through the air.

"Oh, it's a UFO, that solidifies my alien abduction theory." Izzy said, only to get shot down as Tai looked at it with his telescope.

"It looks like a... like a gear," He said with surprise as they watched it fly by and crash into a mountain in the distance. "Flying gears? This place just keeps getting weirder and weirder." No one disagreed with him as they continued along, missing the sudden flash of light coming from the mountain the gear landed.

"…"

"…It looked so much bigger from far away." Tai said, standing over the grouping of huts that barely reached his chest in height. While he and the others were focused on this and the local digimon swarming around them, small pink radish shaped critters called Yokomon who Biyomon somehow knew, Naruto's gaze was locked onto something much more important to him. A small fountain with a single stream of water spraying out of it. Hobbling over, he barely registered one of the Yokomon explaining to him how a nearby volcano helped clean the water as he swallowed several refreshing mouthfuls.

By the time the other children finally noticed the fountain thanks to T.K., Naruto had gotten his fill and even refilled the kettle. "Are you sure you aren't part fish or something, cause you sure act like you are." Gomamon joked, getting laughs from most of the others including Naruto as his headache eased up a little bit.

The cheery mood didn't last long though, as water stopped spraying from the fountain. Before anyone could question it though, the entire thing suddenly started shaking and cracking. Naruto was the first to realize what was about to happen as he grabbed T.K. and Patamon and leapt away, just in the nick of time as the fountain exploded into a blaze of fire and molten rock.

Slowly standing up, Naruto winced as he felt several minor burns across his back start to rapidly heal. Looking back at T.K., he was glad to find him and his partner unharmed before looking towards the others. Sora, Matt, Joe, Palmon, and Gabumon were completely unhurt, Tai, Izzy, Tentomon, Agumon, Biyomon, and Gomamon were a bit singed and scuffed up but otherwise fine, Mimi however wasn't so lucky.

"AHH!" She lay on the ground clutching her arm, screaming in pain for several seconds before devolving into whimpers. While everyone else was frozen in shock, Naruto got to her and knelt down.

"Shhhh, easy there, it's okay… it's gonna be okay." He said in a calming voice, slowly moving the trembling girl into a sitting position while rubbing her back, mimicking what he'd seen nurses do while at the hospital to calm down patients.

Once she'd managed to settle down a little, Naruto ha her move her hand away from her arm while holding back a wince. A nasty second degree burn roughly the width of a tennis ball sat on her forearm, just below the elbow. Once again mentally thanking Tsunade, this time for teaching him basic first aid, Naruto turned to the nearest person, Joe, and said, "Get the kettle."

Snapping to his senses, Joe nodded as he hurried over to the dented container as the others crowded around to see if Mimi was okay.

"Oh gosh, are you okay?"

"That does not look good."

"I can't believe that happened."

"Do you need help, what do we do?"

"That's gonna leave one heck of a scar."

"Will you all shut up!" Naruto yelled, all the talking distracting him as he was looking over the injury, getting them all to quiet down.

"Here," Joe said meekly as he handed Naruto the kettle.

Focusing back on Mimi, he startles everyone by placing the side of his hand into her mouth. The reason for this became clear though as he opened the kettle and poured water directly onto the burn causing Mimi to whimper and squirm, her jaw clenching as muffled whimpers sounded. When he finished, Naruto pulled his already healing hand away, using it to tear off a section of his shirt and wrapping it onto her arm as a makeshift bandage.

"There, all done," He said while helping her stand up. "Now can anyone explain why that happened in the first place?" He asked while looking directly at the Yokomon.

"We don't know, nothing like that has ever happened before." One of them said, "All our water does come from Mt Mihirashi, but a Meramon that lives at the top has always guarded it and made sure everything was alright." It told them while pointing to a mountain in the distance.

"Isn't that the mountain that flying gear crashed into?" Agumon asked getting nods all around.

"It could have caused a blockage or something preventing the water from flowing properly." Izzy said before rubbing his chin. "But that wouldn't explain why the water would evaporate so sudd-"

He was cut off as a MASSIVE pillar of fire rose from the volcano as a glowing speck began descending the mountain. "Well maybe that does." Tai said as he looked through his scope. "By the way, would Meramon happen to be a tall orange guy covered in flames?" He asked getting fast nods from the Yokomon.

"Yes, why?"

"Because he's headed this way!"

"That doesn't make any sense though, Meramon never comes down from the mountain and even then, he's a peaceful digimon." At this point the speck had reached the small forested area under the mountain and set the whole thing ablaze.

"Yeah… real peaceful," Naruto drawled sarcastically as the Yokomon started scurrying around in a panic.

"Is there anywhere we could hide and wait for Meramon to leave?" Sora asked getting some of the radish like digimon to calm down.

"The lake! There's always water there!" One cried as the whole village suddenly swarmed away in one direction. Following the pink wave, the group were lead to an empty crater with an old crashed cruise ship in the middle.

"It'll have to do, he's almost here." Tai said as he and the others lead the defenseless digimon into the ship to hide. Naruto was limping along with Mimi, having not fully recovered from both his dehydration and the explosion. As they came out at the top of the ship, he was shocked to see that Meramon had already arrived and had just blasted Biyomon out of the air.

Jumping down to help, Naruto sighed in relief as Sora caught the injured pink bird before she hit the ground. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" He called as several clones appeared from puffs of smoke and charged the fiery digimon only to get popped as soon as they got close from the intense heat. "Pepper Breath!" "Blue Blaster!" "Electro Shocker!" Called Agumon, Gabumon, and Tentomon respectively as they blasted the digimon with their respective attacks.

Unfortunately, this only seemed to make it worse as Meramon doubled in size from the attack. "Ha! Is that the best you can do? Fireball!" Naruto barely had time to put up a defense as a glop of flames blasted him and the digimon away.

Biting back a cry, Naruto shakily stood back up to continue, only to watch in awe as Biyomon glowed brightly.

"Biyomon digivolve to… Birdramon!"

When the light died down, in Biyomon's place was a massive phoenix like bird with bright orange feathers that looked like they were made of flames and a short white beak covered in razor sharp teeth. Birdramon cawed loudly as she charged at Meramon, knocking him back several steps.

"You think that's enough to take me down! Fireball!" Birdramon flew up into the sky, carefully avoiding the fireballs being launched at her before turning around. Hovering above him, she gave an extra strong flap of her now glowing wings while yelling, "Meteor Wing!"

Several streaks of concentrated fire shot from the mighty bird's wings and directly into Meramon, causing him to rapidly grow larger until an object suddenly burst from his back. "Hey! It's that black gear from before!" Matt yelled as they watched it fly into the air and disintegrate. Meanwhile, Meramon shrunk back to normal size while holding his head and Birdramon dedigivolved back into Biyomon.

A few minutes later and Meramon was bowing before the small pink digimon as he apologized. "I am very sorry for all the trouble I caused. When that gear embedded itself into me, I just couldn't control myself at all, it drove me mad."

"It's okay Meramon, just don't go destroying our village again and we'll be fine." One of the Yokomon said as the rest nodded.

With his part said, the fiery digimon departed back towards his mountain home while the children were treated to a meal for helping save the village. "Uhhh… what exactly is this?" Sora asked as she looked over the bowl of mystery seed in her hands.

"I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to it," Joe said as they passed their bowls off to the others.

When they finished, the group gathered up at the edge of the village and said their goodbyes. "It was nice to meet you all, we promise to stop by if we're ever in the area again!" Biyomon yelled as they walked away.

"Good luck, don't be a stranger." The head Yokomon called as several other gave their own cheers of support or goodbyes.

-End Chapter-

AN: Just a heads up, I injured my wrist recently so updates will be a bit slower than usual. To those wondering about Mimi's burn, one of the few issues I always had with Digimon is how the kids always seemed to just shrug off serious accidents without injuries, that will not happen in my story, the characters will get hurt, they will have to deal with actual injuries. Finally, Naruto still heals fast due to being part digimon now, just not as quickly as they seem to do. Thank you for reading and please review.