Not too much to say about this chapter. We meet a couple of silly Drimogemon, one with a New York accent, and another who isn't too bright, and they drop a clue about Jeremy's location, compelling the heroes to help them save their village. It's a simple plot that doesn't seem too interesting until you realize that the heroes have gotten in over their heads, again.
Chapter Eleven
The Village in the Cliff Side
We'd already walked more than another half a day, aimless, hoping to
find some sign of Jeremy, and the sun of the Digital World, which we
had finally begun to find familiar, was on its way down. I could tell
that the others were tired, and our complete lack of progress, and
the fact that we had seen no one else, friend or foe, all day, had me
about to suggest that we actually take some time and turn in early.
But because apparently we aren't allowed to have a day without
conflict anymore, that's when something exciting finally happened.
“Do you feel that?” Jen asked. Immediately it was clear that we
all did, as the ground began to shake violently. Out of nowhere, a
huge mole-like creature burst out of the ground below us, throwing us
up into the air. All nine of us landed hard several feet from where
we'd started, and the mole-like Digimon hung over us menacingly.
I whipped out the Digimon Analyzer and scanned the Digimon.
“It's Drimogemon,” I said, “a mole Digimon who is usually in
good spirits, though he can be easily angered and can be really
dangerous when he's mad.”
As I spoke, Drimogemon lunged at our Digimon, a drill sticking out
from his nose spinning, stirring up a breeze that ruffled his blue
and white fur. The Digimon avoided him with relative ease. Jen,
Sarah, Amanda and I raised our Digivices, ready to Digivolve our
Digimon and combat this threat, when suddenly another rumble shook
the ground beneath our feet, and another Drimogemon appeared. We were
wedged in, trapped between two enemies, knocked off of our feet,
incapable of moving in time to avoid their next strike.
The two enemy Digimon bore down on us, and then suddenly something
happened. The new arrival looked confused all of the sudden, and then
realization struck him. He halted his strike.
“Wait,” he said, “there's, like, four of these humans here.
They can't be the one human from before!”
The
other Digimon stopped his charge as well, scratching his head
thoughtfully with drill claws, “Huh, I guess not. But they all look
just like that other human. But then again all
humans look alike to me.”
“Yeah,” the first Drimogemon replied, “but their Digimon
partners don't, ya idiot, and there's still too many of 'em.”
He crossed his front legs across his chest and looked away from his
companion, “This is what I get for lettin' an idiot like you pick
attack targets!”
The second Drimogemon seemed to blush, “Sorry. You don't see humans
around here every day, after all.”
The first Drimogemon sighed, and dropped down to all fours, looking
us in the eye, “Sorry about that. We're running from our village to
escape Manipulamon's forces, and we thought that you guys were a
human that they had with 'em!”
“Your village is under attack from Manipulamon's forces?” Jen
asked, recovering from the oddity of the situation before I did.
“Not exactly,” the first Drimogemon said. He seemed to consider
things for a second, and then said, “Maybe we should all sit down,
and I can explain. It's kinda a long story.”
He reached out with his right front paw and shook each of our hands
one at a time, “I'm Dre, and my numbskull friend over there is
Moji.”
He gestured at the other Drimogemon, who nodded sheepishly in our
direction.
“Come on,” Dre said, “I know a spot not too far off that's good
for conversatin'. We'll tell you everything once we get there.”
The two Drimogemon started sauntering along on their proportionately
rather small legs, above ground this time. I looked questioningly at
my friends, and they shrugged, so I shrugged back, and the nine of us
followed after our newest acquaintances.
“Manipulamon has wanted us in his army for a while now,” said
Dre, as the eleven of us sat in a circle in a jungle clearing near
where we'd met. “He could never get us though, because his taggers
don't do well underground, where we live in tunnels, and if he ever
sent guys to attack us, we'd just burrow into the ground, move
somewhere else, and set up shop. But now he wants us even worse. He
thinks we can use our underground movement powers to sneak up and
ambush some new enemies of his.”
“Uh,” I said, interjecting, “that would be us. We're the
Digidestined. We're here to defeat Manipulamon.”
“Well,”
Dre replied, “that would explain it! Anyway, this time he wasn't
messin' around. He diverted his ghost forces, led by MetalPhantomon,
from the front lines, to intimidate us into doin' what he says. They
can phase through the rock and keep up with us, at least most of the
time. For the first time ever, we can't escape the way we used to.
MetalPhantomon was gonna set an example tonight, and prove to our
wimpy-but-wise leader, NiseDrimogemon, that we can't fight against
him, so Moji and me ran. We wanted to find the Fighters who resist
Manipulamon and get their help, or join 'em if we was too late. But
we don't really know where they could be. The world is really
freakin' big, and we Drimogemons never go out and explore it. This is
as far as Moji and me have ever come, and we're considered rebels in
our society.”
“That's right,” said Moji, speaking up for the first time in a
while, “rebels!”
“But wait,” I said, “there was something else that you said
back there where you, eh, almost killed us. You said that
MetalPhantomon had a single human with him. Is that human there now?”
“Dunno,” said Dre, “we hadn't seen him in a while when we left,
but we didn't see him or his Digimon partner leave either.”
Jeremy,
I though. Jeremy could be at their village right now. This
is our best chance of finding him!
“Don't worry,” I told Dre and Moji, standing up and clenching my
fist, “you don't need to find the Fighters. We'll come with you
back to your village and get rid of MetalPhantomon for you. After
all, we've already destroyed Scorpiomon and IceDevimon.”
I waited, expecting the Drimogemon to be impressed, but after a
moment of the two of them staring at us with confused looks on their
faces, Dre finally asked, “Who?”
I
smiled and laughed, amused, “You guys really don't
get out much do you?”
I started walking, “Come on, while you lead us back to your
village, we'll tell you all about it.”
It
was dark by the time we came to the Drimogemon village, or at least
what they said was
their village. To me, it just looked like some cliffs with some
indentations in them.
Of course,
I thought, we waste another night that could have been
spent resting, and this time we don't even find an enemy to fight, we
just end up following two crazies around!
I was peeved, and I was about to turn to Dre and Moji and give them a
piece of my mind when Dre stepped forward and said, “be careful,
the openings are hard to see. You'll have to follow me exactly to get
inside.”
He stepped up to the cliff face, and slid right into one of the
indentations!
“Whoa,” I exclaimed, “cool!”
Jen stepped forward and looked through the indentation, “it's a
trick of shadows and perspective. It hides the openings from the
naked eye, unless you know what to look for!”
“That's right,” Dre said, poking his head back out and almost
bumping faces with my cousin, “after all no one who isn't from our
village should ever know that these tunnels to the surface exist. We
only use them to gather what few supplied we can't find underground.
Now hurry up, I don't know how much time we have!”
So
the rest of us followed Dre, filing into the tunnel one by one. The
Drimogemon weren't quite big enough that the tunnels were tall enough
for any of us but Amanda to walk, so we ended up crawling on our
hands and knees for several minutes on end. It had just started to
get uncomfortable enough that I was starting to complain (it makes me
feel better) when the tunnel suddenly opened and led into a huge
underground complex. I gasped as I looked around, taking in the sheer
size and complexity of it.
“Whoa,” I said, as my eyes fell upon a huge underground lake, lit
by some kind of glowing moss or algae, with hundreds of tunnels
sprouting off of it in every direction, going further under ground.
Beside the lake was a Meat Farm, like one that we'd seen in the
Amphibian Village, and a stock house filled to the brim with leafy
plants. I saw tunnels high above the lake, with ramps up to them, and
little ledges, like balconies, on the outsides. They made me think of
houses. Scared-looking Drimogemon families were standing on each one,
looking out over the lake at the cybernetic grim reaper,
MetalPhantomon, who was floating above it, facing a slightly larger,
pink-furred Drimogemon who stood on a much wider ledge in front of a
much wider tunnel opening, with two other Drimogemon at his side.
“That's NiseDrimogemon,” said Dre, gesturing to the pink
Drimogemon, “the leader that we told ya about. It looks like we got
back just in time to see what MetalPhantomon is gonna do.”
“So have you come to a decision, NiseDrimogemon?” MetalPhantomon
asked. I watched carefully, and I saw that NiseDrimogemon was
shaking, staring at the scythe in his enemy's hand. But with a deep
breath and a determined expression, NiseDrimogemon steeled himself up
and spoke up.
“We will never serve Manipulamon willingly,” NiseDrimogemon said,
his voice shaking, but defiant. “Y-You'll have to go ahead and do,
well, whatever it is that you're going to do to me.”
“In that case,” MetalPhantomon said with a menacing chuckle,
“I'll just make an example of...your people!”
He turned away from the chief, and he swung his scythe at a family of
Drimogemon. They cowered, but there was nothing that they could do to
avoid the energy wave that the scythe sent flying toward them. They
were destroyed.
“No!” I cried, and I jumped out of the tunnel, out over the lake
below. Serpentmon and BlackColtmon jumped with me. My Digivice
glowed, and my Digimon grew. Dragonterramon caught me in his arms,
and the two black Digimon landed with a splash, and Dragonterramon
roared.
“What is this?” MetalPhantomon asked, turning toward us as
Dragonterramon jumped at high as he could.
“Terra Flame!” the dragon called, spewing fire in the enemy's
direction. MetalPhantomon slid backwards through the air and swung
his scythe, dispersing the flames, as Dragonterramon caught the ledge
up to NiseDrimogemon in his talons and ran up to stand beside the
chief. He set me down at NiseDrimogemon's side, and then leaped out
over the lake and spun, slamming MetalPhantomon with his tail before
falling back down again into the water below.
“Foolish Digimon!” MetalPhantomon declared. “No one Adult Level
can defeat me alone!”
“I'm
not alone,” Dragonterramon growled with a toothy grin. He pointed
to something behind MetalPhantomon, and the metal reaper turned just
in time to see BlackStaliamon leap hooves-first from another ledge
and slam right into his chest.
“Don't forget us,” said Fillimon. She, BattleStaliamon, and
BrauntoPhoenixmon were hovering in the air nearby. The huge
BrauntoPhoenixmon was simply hanging there, near the roof of the
cavern, while the two pegasi swirled around each other and dove at
the ghost Digimon, their bodies ringed in light. They slammed their
auras into MetalPhantomon, but the Perfect Level was able to deflect
them with his weapon. Both sides moved to regroup.
I ran over to the chief and said, “It's okay, we're Manipulamon's
enemies, the Digidestined, and we're here to help you.
“Oh, thank you,” said NiseDrimogemon, still shaking nervously,
“but you should know, MetalPhantomon isn't alone!”
“What?” I asked. I hadn't seen any other Digimon with him. “Do
you mean he has a human with him, like me but a little taller?”
“N-No,” the chief said, “there was a taller human here with him
before, but he's gone now. No, MetalPhantomon has-.”
“Enough
of this!” MetalPhantomon cried. “Return from the
stone, my minions!”
I turned in time to see them. Out of
the stone all around us phased dozens, maybe hundreds, of sheet-ghost-like creatures with wicked sharp claws which hovered around
erratically between my allies and MetalPhantomon himself.
“Now,” MetalPhantomon said, with
another wicked chuckle, “let's finish this. After all, ever since
I've heard of you, I've wanted to kill a Digidestined.”
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