Digimon Adventure ND Book One: Manipulamon Reigns - Chapter Ten

So I mentioned that Scorpiomon was one of the weaker generals. Well this guy is the weakest. In a frozen place, even one that he creates himself, he has power on par with Manipulamon (though Manipulamon could still rip him apart), and he and his forces will go from place to place, set up an ice den, and then lure enemies to them and wipe huge forces out with only a couple dozen guys and himself. Despite the fact that he is an Adult level, he's dangerous and has his uses. However, against anyone, or any group, capable of countering his ice powers, he is pretty close to a non-threat.

Chapter Ten

The Icy Warrior IceDevimon!

“So, do we have any idea where to go from here?” Jen asked. We had returned to the clear area where we had battled Manipulamon's avatar, figuring that it was as good a place to start as any

“No clue,” I answered, taking the Digicomp handheld out of my pocket.

“Then what are we supposed to do,” Sarah asked in an annoyed tone of voice, “wait here forever?”

“No,” I said, putting the handheld away and walking toward the forest at the opposite side of the clearing, “we go this way.”


“Are we there yet?” whined Amanda, riding on Chickomon’s back.

“Manda, sweetie,” I answered as calmly as I could, “I’m only gonna tell you one more time. We don’t even know where there is yet!”

She looked down at her hands, “Sorry.”

“Good.”

We'd been walking for hours already, searching for any sign of Jeremy or his Digimon. I looked down at the handheld in my hand, checking for any unusual signals. Ever since discovering the scanner function, I'd kinda been going nuts with it, learning the ins and outs of its capabilities. It was a powerful device, and I was determined to make good use of it.

“Are we there yet?” Amanda asked. “Chicko and me are tired.”

I almost snapped at her, but I caught myself. It was starting to get dark. I looked around. We were all worn out. We'd been walking and fighting for so long that we were never not tired anymore.

“Fine,” I relented, “we stop here tonight. Everyone spread out and gather supplies.”

I shuffled off and picked through the brush of the humid jungle for dry wood for the fire. I did so in silence. I just didn't have anything to say to anyone. I knew what needed to be done, and everything else was just a distraction, including necessary things, like food and rest.

Once I felt that I had enough wood, I returned to camp. I only now noticed that Serpentmon and BlackColtmon had been tailing me. Of course they had been, it was their job to keep me safe. They had been quite, though, and that was unusual. Even the playful Serpentmon and the boastful and competitive BlackColtmon could read just how serious the situation was. Once I approached the camp, I saw that the others had already returned with some mushrooms from the trees nearby (apples seemed scarcer in this more tropical environment) and were already sitting and relaxing and laughing, and generally having a good time. It was what we'd commonly done since arriving here, but I found it annoying today, rather than feeling an urge to join in.

I piled the firewood in the center of our camp, and dropped down onto my leaf mat. I removed my new Gekomon-made pack, which now carried the Digicomp rather than the tattered old bag that we'd found with it, which I'd since thrown out. I opened the Digicomp and started going through some of the files on it.

“Aren't you going to eat, John?” Jen asked from the opposite side of the camp fire. She handed me a stick with a few already-cooked mushrooms on it, smiling across at me. I nodded and took it, biting one of the mushrooms off and chewing as I continued to read.

“Hey John,” Amanda said happily, standing up, “look what I can do!” She held up a few mushrooms and tried to juggle them, but I didn't even look up.

“Come on, John,” said Jen, “you could at least pretend to care.”

I looked over at her, “That's the thing: I don't care. There's only one thing that I care about right now and it isn't goofing off, or hanging out, or playing stupid little games. I care about saving our friend, and right now I'm devoting all of my attention to that, to figuring out how to help him the best. So I'm sorry if I don't have time to act like an idiot.”

I turned back to the Digicomp, and barely even reacted when Amanda started crying. She jumped up and ran away, Chickomon close behind her.

“Amanda,” Jen called, “come back!”

She jumped up as well, and ran after Amanda, with Coltmon at her side. As she did, she looked back at me, “I hope you're happy.”

I wasn't happy. As soon as I'd spoken, I'd regretted what I'd said, but I was too proud to show it.

“Was that really necessary?” Sarah asked.

I ignored her question and said, “They'll be back in a minute. And I'm still busy.”

That's when there was a loud scream from the jungle. I recognized it immediately as Amanda's voice. In an instant Sarah and I and our Digimon were on our feet and off running into the deepening dark.

Jen

I'm Jen, but you already know that. For really the first time since coming to the Digital World, on this night, we were, as a group, separated. That's why John can't tell this part of the story. To be fair, I didn't want him around at that moment, even though we might not have been captured if he had been. After all, at the time, John had been acting like a royal jerk.

And yeah, I said that we were captured. Me, Amanda, and our Digimon. We were walking along, me trying to get Amanda to calm down and go back to camp with me, and suddenly two Gotsumons made of ice jumped out of the brush and knocked us out. We didn't come to until later (I'm not sure how much later), in an ice cage in an icy cave. The Digimon were already awake when I awoke, and Amanda was just beginning to stir.

I looked around. The cave was huge, at least as big as the description that John and Sarah had given of the underground cavern where they'd met Scorpiomon. It didn't look like it was made of ice, but just lined with ice. The cavern seemed to open directly to the outside several yards away. The cage where we were imprisoned was far to the right of the opening. In the back of the cavern, shrouded in shadows, the icy Gotsumon knelt before a throne of snow and ice. I could make out a figure on the throne, but I couldn't really see him.

“You did well, my minions,” the figure was saying to the icy Gotsumon. “I only expected you to be able to separate one from the group, and yet you managed to bring two, and you remembered to separate them from their Digivices and Crests. Soon the others will come for them, and we will meet them in this place which I have made to suit us and our powers, where I am invincible. We will kill the Digidestined in the name of Lord Manipulamon!”

The figure laughed. Careful not to draw too much attention by moving too abruptly, I checked my neck and pocket. Sure enough my Crest, Digivice and Digiplayer were gone.

“They took Amanda's too,” said Chickomon in a whisper, “I saw it. They took them and put them over there.”

He gestured, and I looked to where he had indicated. On a shelf of ice alongside the throne, I saw the golden glint of our Crest tags.

“Amanda is waking up,” I told Chickomon. “You need to keep her calm so that whoever this is doesn't hurt her.”

Chickomon nodded, and I turned to my partner, who was looking around intently.

“Have you tried to get out?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” Coltmon answered, “the bars are too hard, and too close together for us to fit through, even if I reverted to Baby II form. The only way out would be to Digivolve.”

For good measure I shook the bars experimentally. They didn't budge at all. So I sat back and cleared my mind. At my side Chickomon was doing a good job keeping Amanda from becoming upset. That was good. What wasn't good was that, no matter how I looked at things, I didn't see a way out of this. We'd just have to sit, and hope that John would tear himself away from his Digicomp long enough to come save us.

John

We ran first in the direction of the scream, but after several minutes, we saw nothing that suggested that our missing friends had been there, including Jen and Amanda themselves. We found some of Coltmon's hoof prints, but that was all.

“Jen,” I called, “Amanda! Can you hear me? Where are you?”

No answer.

“They're gone, John,” said Sarah, her hand on Ponymon's back, seeking comfort from the situation. Serpentmon and BlackColtmon moved to my side, offering me their support likewise.

“Th-This is my fault,” I realized. My eyes were wide, and my voice was shaking. “This is my fault. If I hadn't been such a jerk, they wouldn't have run off!”

I punched one of the trees nearest to me once, and then again, and then my knees buckled and I fell forward, catching myself on the trunk. My hands, barely healed at all from my ill-advised outburst of the day before, were bleeding again.

“First Jeremy, and now Jen and Amanda,” I said. “I can't keep losing people. I can't keep failing them! I'm just a fourteen-year-old kid, I'm not up for this!”

That's when something happened that genuinely surprised me. Sarah grabbed me by me collar and turned me to face her, and she slapped me, like they do in the movies to people who are acting crazy. It was utterly ridiculous, but it worked. I blinked, and I actually started to calm down.

“This isn't your fault, John,” she said. “I mean, yeah, this is, but not really, not completely. Yeah, you're a fourteen-year-old kid, and you're trying to save an entire world. You're allowed to make some mistakes. And what happened to Jeremy definitely wasn't your fault. He got here before us, and whatever happened to get him tagged happened before we even found him.”

She let go of me, and I stepped back. Gesturing dramatically, Sarah continued.

“And do you wanna hear something? That computer of yours was right, you have good leadership skills. Don't you see that? It's why we trust you to tell us what to do. You're good in a pinch, and you make good choices. Even your reckless stunts usually work out. It's why Jen, who is way smarter than you, is okay doing what you tell her. Even Amanda is calmer when you're leading us. You're good at this, and that's why we believe that you'll save Jeremy, and lead us all against Manipulamon, for real next time, and beat him.”

I was stunned, but I let my sister's words sink in. She didn't talk a lot about what she was thinking, so I often forgot that she was a lot wiser than she seemed. I took a deep, calming breath and flexed the pain from my hands, and said, “Yeah, okay. But that doesn't change the fact that I caused this, and I have to make it right.”

“Then get out that silly computer of yours,” Sarah said, “and scan for them already! They can't be too far.”

I kicked myself for not thinking of the Digicomp handheld sooner. Luckily I'd had it in my pocket when we'd abandoned camp. I took it out and called up the scanner program. Sure enough I detected two Digivices not too far away, but feint, like they were inside somewhere, or maybe underground.

“Come on,” I told Sarah and the Digimon, “they're closer than I would have guessed, and they aren't moving. Either they've been taken somewhere and are being held against their will-.”

“Or,” Sarah finished my thought, “they ran further than we thought, and then they got hurt bad enough that they didn't go any further.”

We started running immediately, with me in the lead once again.

It was only ten minutes before we came to the cave. The area around its entrance was frosted over, and waves of cold rolled from inside. Even with the light of an almost-full moon overhead, we could only see a few feet in.

“Their signals are in there?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah,” I said, putting the Digicomp away, “and the cold, or the rock, or a combination of the two, is keeping me from detecting anyone else who might be inside.”

“Trap?”

“Trap.”

She nodded, and the two of us, our Digimon at our sides, stepped forward into the icy cavern where we knew any kind of enemy could wait. The moment we crossed the threshold, someone spoke.

“Hello, Digidestined,” the still-unseen figure said. Squinting I could make out a tall shape in the shadows near the back of the cave, with two much smaller shapes at its sides. “Welcome,” the central figure continued, “to my realm. Here, in this artificial cold, I have supreme power akin to my lord Manipulamon himself. I will kill you and earn his favor.”

“Where are our friends?” I demanded, ignoring the unknown Digimon's posturing.

“We're over here, John,” came Jen's voice from off to our right. I looked over, and I could barely see a cage with four figures inside it in the corner of the large cavern, out of the way.

“We're gonna get you out,” I told them, and then to Sarah I said, “let's shed some light on this situation.”

We raised our Digivices and said as one, “Initiate Digivolution!”

“Serpentmon...”

“BlackColtmon...”

“Ponymon...”

“...Digivolve to!”

“Dragonterramon!”

“BlackStaliamon!”

“Fillimon!”

Our Digimon grew to their Adult stages, and Fillimon's wings and hooves began to glow with silvery light which shone throughout the cavern, casting some illumination on our foe. Sarah and I gasped, and our Digimon stepped between us and the enemy.

“Amusing,” said IceDevimon, the second Digimon General, rising from his ice throne, “but it will do you no good against me, especially with two of your allies out of the fight.”

The icy white demonic Digimon spread his tattered wings and gestured to two Gotsumon with ice bodies instead of rock bodies which stood at his sides, “My Icemon and I will destroy you before you can even attack us back.”

“Two extra Digimon won't make a difference,” I told IceDevimon, grasping for any advantage that I could find.

The icy demon chuckled, “Well then, it's a good thing I brought more than two.”

The icy floor beneath us began to crack, and dozens more Icemon rose from beneath it and stood ready to attack us. With a wicked smile, IceDevimon spoke, “My minions, attack!”

All of the Icemon charged us at once, but Dragonterramon moved to intercept them on his own. He caught several of them in his arms and threw them back, spun, and knocked several more back with his tail, and blew flames at the rest, causing them to recoil.

“Go,” he said, looking back, “get the general. I'll hold these guys off.”

“Alright,” I said, “Sarah and Fillimon, focus on IceDevimon. He's a devil Digimon, so your holy power should hurt him. BlackStaliamon, get the others out of that cage!”

The two horses moved in different directions, but soon they were boxed in by a wall of ice that rose up in front of them. IceDevimon shot into the air, and lowered back down directly in front of the Digimon, atop that wall, and said, “Sorry, but 'holy power' or not, you wouldn't survive if you fought me alone, and I wouldn't have any fun!”

The devil Digimon spun and swung his claws, slinging cold waves from them at the horses. The horses lunged to either side, and Fillimon fired her beams at him in retaliation. IceDevimon, however, was prepared, summoning up a ball of ice in the path of the beam to adsorb the blow. BlackStaliamon tried to use the span of Fillimon's attack as an opportunity to run up the icy wall as high as he could, and jump at IceDevimon, but the devil Digimon knocked him back to the ground with a burst of super-cold air that covered the black horse in ice crystals in mere seconds of exposure. My second Digimon stood up uneasily, and shook the ice off, though I could tell that he was hurt more than he wanted to let on.

Meanwhile, Dragonterramon was knocked back by a barrage of ice chunks launched from the heads of the Icemon who still faced him, a vast majority of their numbers still in tact. He was still up, but he was breathing heavily, and moving more slowly than I would have expected.

“Something needs to change here,” I said under my breath.

Above us, IceDevimon spread his arms reverently, “You see, here I am all-powerful. Even flame attacks are no good against me. In here, the temperature is so low already that if a Digimon were to send flames my way, I would be able to easily snuff them out! You have no hope of defeating me.”

“John,” said Jen, and I looked over at her. She was pointing at something across the cavern. I followed her gesture, and I saw her and Amanda's Digivices where they had been placed beside IceDevimon's throne.

“We have one chance,” I said, and I ran straight at the ice shelf, between IceDevimon's legs.

“What?” IceDevimon demanded, he turned to face me, and swung his claws, singing cold at me, but I ducked beneath his attack and kept running. I reached the ice shelf, grabbed the devices, and threw them as hard as I could at the cage, and ducked under the ice shelf to avoid a direct attack from the ice devil. He shattered the shelf, but he missed me, and as he did, Jen reached through the bars, and caught the devices out of mid air. She handed Amanda her Digivice, and with a flash, Chickomon grew, and the cage shattered.

“No!” IceDevimon called. He slung cold at the newly Digivolved BrauntoPhoenixmon, but the massive Digimon closed its wings and deflected the blast. Then he spread his wings, and summoned a swirling fire that spread around the inner walls of the cavern, and melted the ice away.

IceDevimon looked around, horrified, at the now very temperate cave, “Noooo!”

Coltmon charged forward. As he did, he grew into BattleStaliamon, and he and his female counterpart ran side by side to stand between Dragonterramon and his foes.

“We've got this now,” they said, and they ran to either side of the mob and called, “Celestial Ring!” Energy connected them, and formed a ring around the mob, closing around it, vaporizing all of the Icemon at once. Soon IceDevimon found himself facing all of our Digimon alone.

“You lose,” I told the devil Digimon. “You're outnumbered, and your realm has been destroyed. Give up.”

“No,” IceDevimon replied, enraged, “I will never surrender to my master's enemies. I will fight to the end!” He charged at the Digimon, his claws outstretched.

Our Digimon shored up their stances, and Dragonterramon, BrauntoPhoenixmon, Fillimon, and BattleStaliamon called their attacks. Fire and energy swirled together and overtook the devil. He cried out in pain and frustration, and then he was gone, and we had one less general to worry about.

We left IceDevimon's cavern and returned to our camp in silence. Luckily everything was still there. We returned to our seats around the fire. I couldn't meet either Jen or Amanda's eye.

Finally, after several minutes of silence, Sarah punched me in the shoulder, and I relented, “Okay, I'm sorry. I've been a jerk, and I'll try not to be one anymore. But I'm still going to worry about freeing Jeremy first and foremost. Amanda, I know you don't know him as well as the rest of us do. You were so young when he left that you know of him more than you know him, but he's my friend, and he was your friend too back then. I have to save him, and I'm not going to be very fun to be around until I do. But that doesn't mean I'm mad, or that I don't care about the rest of you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Amanda said, hugging Chickomon.

“Yeah,” said Jen, “okay. Boss.”

She smiled, and I smiled back. “Okay,” I said, “now let's get to bed. We can't go a whole night without sleep again. I'll take first watch.”

They did as they were told. I watched them as they fell into unconsciousness. It was official now: I was their leader, and I wasn't going to get out of it. They'd already decided that I was their leader, officially, even though I never had.

Alright then, I thought as I sat back against a tree and positioned myself to get the best view of the area around us, then that's that. I'll be the best leader for them that I can be. I'll lead them to victory in this world, and I'll keep them all alive, and I'll get them all home, no matter what. And Jeremy, that means you too.

Next Chapter >>