On there way to the Gekomon Village, John and the others run across Scorpiomon, one of the generals in charge of Manipulamon's labor force of Digimon too numerous to devote extra data to tagging them. They probably could have avoided the fight, but John just can't help acting all heroic. And, well, they had to fight Scorpiomon eventually, right?
Also in this chapter, we see some minor contention build between John and his old friend Jeremy. Both seem to have different ideas about how the group should be led, but The Digicomp's message referred to John's leadership skills as a defining characteristic, so the rest continue to look to his first of all. How will this butting of heads eventually affect this recently-renewed relationship?
Chapter Six
Encounter With the Enemy;
The Mines of Scorpiomon!
From Digital Bridge, Jeremy led us
deeper into the trees of the oasis. He told us that the trees would
eventually change as we crossed biomes again into a more tropical
area. He explained that it would be humid, but that there wouldn't be
any mosquitoes or anything like there would be in a real tropical
jungle, at least not little buzzy ones, anyway. He laughed a little
at that, when the girls freaked out, and I joined in, prompting Sarah
to insist that the idea of giant mosquitoes didn't scare her. That
got a laugh out of everyone who wasn't her.
We walked through the entire rest of
the day, our fatigue chased away by the presence of a new friend, or
two if you count the completely nonspeaking Mechmon, which I didn't.
Just having Jeremy around again brought about a sort of second wind,
at least until the sun set, and all of us remembered that sleep is a
thing.
“There's a clearing up ahead,
overlooking a hill, it looks like,” said Jen, squinting to see what
was awaiting us. “It looks defensible, and we'll be able to see
pretty far from the top. We should set up camp there.”
“I agree,” said Jeremy, before I
could. It was subtle, but he actually seemed like he'd purposefully
preempted me. No one had said that I was supposed to be leader for
sure, but the reason that the Digicomp had given me for my presence
here was my leadership skills, so I'd taken up the role. Did Jeremy
think he could do better, and if so, why hadn't he said so? He should
have known that he could talk to me.
“Me too,” I said, just to make it
clear that I wanted a say. Jeremy gave me a sideways look that I
didn't know what to think about, but then he smiled in a friendly
manner and jogged ahead.
“I see some Meat Apples,” he said.
“I'll grab a few while you guys scout a spot for the fire.”
“We've been awake the whole day this
time,” said Serpentmon, referring to himself and BlackColtmon, “all
of us Digimon have. We'll need to do that thing you guys said
yesterday.”
“Keep watch,” BlackColtmon
clarified.
“Yeah, good point,” I said, “I'll
take first with my Digimon, then Sarah and Ponymon, and then
Jeremy-.”
“That won't be necessary,” Jeremy
interrupted, rejoining us with a dozen apples in his arms, “Mechmon
can go into a passive recharge mode and keep a lookout all on his own
while the rest of us sleep.”
I frowned. It made sense. Mechmon was a
machine, after all. Either way, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go along
with Jeremy's plan. Maybe it was because I was still irked from
before, but I really didn't feel comfortable with it.
“I think I'll feel safer,” I said,
“if we have at least two guards keeping watch at all times,” I
told him.
“Good point,” said Jen
thoughtfully, “after all, our group is larger now. We can be seen
from further away than you and Mechmon alone could have been.”
“Okay,” Jeremy said, almost too
automatically, like he was disappointed but didn't want to show it,
“then Mechmon will be one guard, and the rest of us can trade
shifts. Sound good?”
“Yeah,” I said, relieved that this
discussion hadn't degenerated into an argument, “works for me.”
So as darkness finally settled in
around us, we set up camp, started a fire, and roasted our apples at
the top of what turned out to be a long cliff about fifteen feet
high, which curved considerably about twenty yards down. Dinner was
relatively silent compared to the rest of the day, but none of us
really knew why.
Finally, after only half an hour, the
others settled in as best they could and drifted off. Mechmon hopped
up into a nearby tree, facing out over the clearing, and his glowing
eyes dimmed. I sat back against the same tree and scanned the
horizon, but every so often I'd find my eyes drifting up to the
branches above me, to where Mechmon “slept”. He made me a little
uncomfortable with his non-stop, relentless silence.
Finally I sighed, Get a grip, John,
he's a friend. Just because he's a machine, it doesn't mean he isn't
an ally. He's just different from the Digimon that you're used to.
I looked around the
camp, and then traced the cliff edge with my eyes, and I saw
something that I hadn't noticed before.
“Guys,” I said,
sharply and urgently, but not too loudly, “get up, something's
going on here.”
The others were
awake in less than a minute, sitting up and looking at me
expectantly.
“There,” I
pointed, guiding their eyes to a point just before where the cliff curved,
where we could just see the foot of the cliff from our camp site. “I
didn't see it before, because of the angle, but there is definitely a
cave down there, and there's a light coming from inside.”
“Do you think
it's an enemy?” Jen asked.
“I don't know,”
I said, “but friend or foe, whatever or whoever is in there, I'm
not sleeping above them I until I know who they are.”
“I'm with you,”
said Amanda, shivering.
“Then we need to
scout it out,” said Sarah. The rest of us agreed, or at least most
of us did.
“Come on, guys,”
said Jeremy, “I'm tired, you're all tired. It's been a while now,
and nothing's happened. If someone is in there, whoever's on watch
will see them if they come out.”
“No,” I said,
“I'm sorry Jeremy, but I'm pulling rank. We set up camp here
because we didn't think anyone was around. We have to know. But
there's no reason for all of us to go. Fewer people will mean fewer
chances to be spotted if something is inside.
“I'll go with my
Digimon,” I said, and I looked around at the others. I'd have liked
to take Chickomon for his strength, but Amanda wouldn't do well in
the cave, so I went for a compromise, “and I'll take Sarah and
Ponymon and Amanda and Chickomon to hang back at the entrance and
cover me. The rest of you wait here. If you see us in trouble, you
can get down to us pretty quick, and if you see us in too much
trouble, you should be able to get away if you're still up here.”
It was a solid
plan, and I could tell that Jen hated it. She wanted to be in the
action, helping, but I needed her here to take charge if I couldn't.
I think she realized that, because she kept quite. It was Jeremy who
spoke.
“Suit yourself,”
he said, “but you aren't gonna find anything. I've been here longer
than you guys. I know what I'm talking about.”
“Either way,” I
said, “we're going.” Before anyone else could say a word, I was
up, and Amanda, Sarah, and our Digimon, were right at my heels as I
made my way to a less-steep part of the cliff and slid down. From
there it was a short hike to the illuminated cave. The light didn't
seem to be fire light. It was less flickery and more red, but just as
warm, and there was heat coming from inside.
I instructed Sarah
to lead Amanda and their Digimon in if they thought I might be in
trouble, but to otherwise hang back, and then Serpentmon,
BlackColtmon and I stepped inside. I felt confident that with the two
of them with me, I would be safe from whatever might be waiting.
However, rather than any kind of Digimon, or even a source of the
light, I only found more cave waiting inside. The tunnel was way
longer than I would have realized, sloping down. Small reflective
crystals in the rock face reflected the warm red light from much
deeper down.
“If we have to go
much deeper,” I told me Digimon, “the others are gonna come in
after us anyway. I wish there was a way I could contact Sarah and
tell her just to come in,”
Then I thought of
the Digivices. They had once been our crappy cell phones. Could they
still be used like them? I took my Digivice from my pocket, and let
my instincts guide me again. I pressed some buttons, the screen lit
up, and after only a minute or so Sarah's and Amanda's faces appeared
on it.
“Hey John,”
said Sarah, “what's going on? I can barely see you. You alright?”
“We're fine,” I
told her, marveling at yet another neat tool available to aid in our
mission, “but this thing is a lot deeper than we thought. You guys
should go ahead and come in.”
“Roger,” Sarah
told me, and she pulled a reluctant Amanda behind her as I switched
the Digivice back off.
My Digimon and I
waited a few minutes for the others to catch up, and then we
continued along carefully, but quickly. I don't know how long we kept
walking at a downward angle. I don't think it was quite an hour.
Finally we came to a curve in the tunnel leading to an opening.
Through the opening I heard sounds, like voices, and the clanging of
metal.
“Get down,” I
told the others. We crouched and crept forward, and suddenly we were
looking into a wide open cavern with a wide gap down the middle with
lava flowing through it. That was the source of the glow, and the
heat. In fact if we got much closer, we probably wouldn't make it.
All around the lava, on both sides, small orange reptiles, like tiny
t-rexes, and child-sized little golems made of rock were being driven
like slaves to assemble a series of pipes that hung over the lava and
collected the heat. Above them, hovering in the air, humanoid insects
with green armor plating and stingers on their arms supervised,
wielding whips. I took out the pocket Digicomp and analyzed them all.
“The little
orange ones,” I said, “are called Agumon. The other little ones
are called Gotsumon. They are fire and rock Digimon respectively,
both fire resistant, and both strong for their size without having
stronger than average attacks. The ones in the air are called
Stingmon. They are smarter than most swarm insects, but I think it's
probably safe to say that they're working for Manipulamon.”
“I'd say,” said
Sarah. She pointed to another ledge high above the pit. Standing on
that ledge was a huge armored scorpion.
I gasped, “That's
Scorpiomon, the first general!”
I looked him up as
well, “He's a Perfect level Digimon! His armor plates are
super hard, and any of his limbs, and the end of his tail, are like
razor-sharp swords.”
I was shuddering,
“Guys, we can't fight him. He could beat all of our Digimon easily,
even with Jeremy on our team now. We have to go.”
We turned to leave
as quickly as we could, but as we turned I heard a voice above us:
Scorpiomon's voice.
“Hey,” he said
angrily, “you there, I'm not roasting to death in here for you to
slack off and waste my time. Stingmon, punish him!”
I turned in time to
see a Gotsumon, collapsed due to fatigue, being helped up by two
Agumon as a Stingmon bore down on them.
“This is what you
get if you refuse to work!” Scorpiomon announced. One of the Agumon
moved to shield his friends, but it didn't matter. With one swipe of
his stinger, the Stingmon cut all three of them into pieces and they broke
apart into clouds of data.
“NO!” I
shouted. I couldn't help myself. “Leave them alone,” I demanded,
“they didn't do anything to you except work themselves half to
death. This isn't fair!”
Then I realized
what I'd just done, “Aww, crap!”
My Digimon sprung
into the cavern with me, and Sarah and Amanda stepped out behind me,
more reluctant. For a few moments all eyes were on us, and no one did
or said anything.
“The
Digidestined?” Scorpiomon asked. “I didn't think you guys were
gonna show! You were fools to come here. I'll destroy you and earn a
better assignment from my master than slaver duty in this wretched
place. I don't care if he does want hot water in his new palace, I've
had enough of this heat!”
He looked to his
hovering minions, and commanded, “Stingmon, kill them, and then
head outside and mop up any others!”
The
powerful-looking Adult Digimon bore down on us. I only needed a
second to turn, grab my sister and my cousin by the arms, and yell,
“Run!”
We charged for the
tunnel to the surface, but a Stingmon was on us. It was all I could
do to push the girls through, knocking Ponymon and BlackColtmon into
the tunnel with them, leaving only me, Serpentmon and Chickomon behind.
“Chickomon!"
Amanda screamed as BlackColtmon scooped her up onto his back, and
Ponymon scooped up Sarah, and they started running, the single Stingmon
close behind. Her Digivice began to glow, and Chickomon ran forward
toward the lava pit, and grew.
“Chickomon,
Digivolve to!” Soon he filled our entire side of the cavern, his
wings spread wide to protect me and Serpentmon from the remaining
Stingmon guards, “BrauntoPhoenixmon!”
The Stingmon
charged him, but he beat his wings, knocking them all back.
“Do I have to do
everything myself?” Scorpiomon asked, exasperated, as
BrauntoPhoenixmon flapped once and rose over the pit. The Stingmon
swooped out of the way as the giant scorpion dropped onto
BrauntoPhoenixmon's back. The two tumbled to the other side of the
pit, out of my reach, and began to fight, leaving Serpentmon and I
staring down half a dozen bug warriors who were all to fast for us to
even hope to escape.
“I don't see a
choice, Bud,” I told him.
“Yeah,” he
said, “it looks like we have to fight.”
The Stingmon lunged
at us, but as they bore down, Serpentmon glowed, and he grew.
“Serpentmon,
Digivolve to, Dragonterramon!”
With a roar he
swung his head and tail wide, knocking the Stingmon away, and
breathed fire on one, reducing it to ashes.
Still, he was
outnumbered five to one by powerful flying Digimon, his only backup
was out of reach, fighting a Digimon that he couldn't hope to win,
and we had no way of knowing if Sarah and Amanda had made it outside
to get the others. Things didn't look good.
Screw it,
I thought defiantly, and I climbed up and stood on Dragonterramon's
back, gripping his spikes in both hands.
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