This is another chapter that I made from what was once two too-short chapters, which is odd because I actually remember this being one chapter once and then splitting it up. I guess my standards have changed a bit since then. I think it had something to do with, at the time, thinking that number of chapters was more important than telling more cohesive stories. To be fair, when I posted this the first time, I was a lot younger, and somehow even more of an admittedly awesome fool. Anyway, enjoy the chapter. The heroes actually start to make progress in this one.
Chapter Thirteen
The Desert Guardian Reborn
Tyranterramon’s attack was only a few feet away from Arukenimon and Mummymon when something amazing happened.
“We have to stop this!” said Arukenimon.
“We’ll combine our strength!” declared Mummymon.
They took each others’ hands, and there was a flash. Suddenly two of our oldest friends became one being. He was tall, wearing a pharaoh’s headdress, wrapped in bandages, carrying a shield made from the lid of his own sarcophagus. Behind his shield he carried a staff shaped like an ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life, “Arukenimon, Mummymon, DNA Digivolve to…”
The new appearance raised his shield, straining to deflect the oncoming attack. He stood at Garudamon’s height, facing Tyranterramon. He looked himself over and said, in Arukenimon’s voice, “Now I know why I knew so much about the Guardians!” Then he spoke in Mummymon’s voice, “And why I recognized Babamon and Jijimon!”
The new appearance looked up into his opponent’s eyes and spoke with the voices of both of his halves as one, “I am the Desert Guardian reborn. I am Pharaohmon! I’ve returned to fight you again, Tyranterramon.”
“You can fight,” said Tyranterramon, “but you can’t win!” He swung his fist, calling “Tyranterra Fist!”
Pharaohmon punched as well, calling, “Fist of the Nile!”
The two punch attacks met. Pharaohmon braced his arm with his offhand, and yet still strained to match his foe’s strength. Tyranterramon, on the other hand, had another free hand. He swung his left fist like a hammer at the much smaller foe, but it was deflected by a cannon blast from over Pharaohmon’s shoulder, compliments of Machinedramon.
Garudamon flew at Tyranterramon from behind Machinedramon, calling, “Wing Blade!” She called her attack, releasing a fiery bird. Pharaohmon dropped his shield and twirled his ankh-staff. A cloud of dark mist formed around the top end of his staff. He swung his staff, slinging the mist at Tyranterramon, calling, “Necro Mist!”
“You can’t hurt me!” Tyranterramon declared, flapping his wings and blowing the two attacks away. “It’s interesting,” said Tyranterramon. "Five of the six Five Regions’ Guardians have returned to face me yet again. Too bad I left the Ocean Guardian in his sea cave to die. Otherwise it would have been a real party.” He laughed, and something occurred to me, Tyranterramon didn’t kill the Ocean Guardian? I remembered Machinedramon telling me about the powers of the individual cores. He’d said that the Ocean Core possessed the power of life. If MetalSeadramon had absorbed even a little of the core’s energy before it was destroyed, there was a chance that he was still alive!
I flew over to Jeremy, “Take charge here. Let Tyranterramon push you back to the river. I’ll meet you there. I have an idea that might just win this for us.”
“What is it?” Jeremy asked.
“No time,” I said, “just make sure you get to the river as soon as you can, but make it look like Tyranterramon’s in control of the situation, or else he might catch on to what I’m doing. Trust me.”
I turned away from Jeremy before he could ask any more questions and flew right past my Digimon, just as he deflected an attack, and said, “Follow me. I have an idea.”
“What are you thinking?” he asked, even as he turned to following through the air, above the treetops.
“I’ll tell you as we fly,” I told him, focusing at the time on escaping the battle and nothing else. InfernoKnightmon nodded and we sped off, shooting toward the ocean.
Jeremy
I watched as John and his Digimon disappeared over the tops of the trees. He was gone, InfernoKnightmon, our strongest warrior, gone along with him, to God knows where. I hated his attitude. He treated our battles like games, even though he knew as well as I did that conflicts in the Digital World were just as deadly as ones in the real world. He was reckless, charging at greater opponents and trying to overcome them with his will alone. It was childish and irresponsible.
I turned back to the battle. The Digimon were holding their own against the tireless behemoth that was the day’s opponent, but the Digimon were not as resilient as Tyranterramon. They were being worn down. They would last a while, but not forever, and this newest form of Tyranterramon was even more invulnerable than the previous one. How was I supposed to let Tyranterramon push us back to the river without allowing him to realize that we were losing ground on purpose? And what if our ranks were to break as we moved and Tyranterramon were able to push through? Then the battle would be lost. John was irresponsible, leaving us behind without any more instruction.
But still I trusted him. I trusted that he would not leave unless he really thought it was the right course of action. Even if he did think this was some kind of game, he was a great strategist, and even at games he did everything he could not to fail. He had never let us down before, and I didn’t think he would now.
So all I could do was trust him and do as he said. I thought up a semi-plausible reason why we would pull back when we had held in one place for so long, flew down beside Machinedramon and said, “We need to fall back to the forest. We’ll have more cover there.”
“You sure?” Machinedramon asked. For a second I considered ignoring John’s orders and staying put, but then I repeated John’s last words to me: “Trust me.”
“Good enough for me,” said Machinedramon, and he called, “All forces, fall back to the forest’s edge and take cover!”
As we turned and charged toward the forest, I looked in the direction of John’s flight and thought, John, whatever you’ve got planned, it had better work.
John
On this relatively small continent, the edge, and therefore the ocean, was fairly close to anywhere. With my new-found powers of armor and, more importantly, flight, the journey to the Ocean Region of the Digital World File Two would be relatively quick. There my Digimon and I would search for MetalSeadramon’s cave, and MetalSeadramon himself. We would free him, and travel with him along Digital River. We would meet up with the others, reuniting the “Greatest Power”. Their powers would be restored, and Tyranterramon would be defeated.
I felt a bit guilty leaving Jeremy in charge with so little to go on, but I trusted that he would be able to make it to the river before Tyranterramon could figure out what I was up to. I knew Jeremy thought I took things too lightly, as if I were playing a game, and I knew that my leaving so abruptly would only reinforce those conclusions, but I had no choice. My lighthearted attitude was only a means for me to get into a more strategic mindset. It was the only way I knew to trigger the part of my mind that made me good at leading and planning. I knew I could be stubborn, and I knew I could be reckless, but that’s just part of who I am. If I were to give up any of those qualities, I might lose what it was that made me the leader chosen by the Sovereign to wield the Neo Crests of Courage and Friendship. That was something that I couldn’t let happen.
So I forced myself to remain satisfied with my plan, and I pressed forward, explaining my plan to InfernoKnightmon as we flew. He merely nodded as I concluded my explanation. We increased our speed, rushing toward the first and most devastated region, and our last hope for survival.
It was less than an hour before InfernoKnightmon and I reached the edge of the Ocean Region. We stopped above the tattered beach, now nothing but shattered rock, and stared dumbstruck at the ocean ahead. Hundreds of distant twisters rose from the turbulent surface of the water as far as the eye could see, filling the air with mist and feeding a constant supply of water to the dark clouds overhead, creating a constant torrential downpour as well as a great amount of lightning. The other damaged regions had begun to calm down since their cores had been destroyed, as if waiting, hushed, for the Final Core to fall as well, but the Ocean Region seemed to be getting worse by the second. Because the waters of the ocean continued to fuel the storms, the storms were allowed to expand and grow in their fury. We had to fight winds of nearing one hundred MPH just to stay in one place. This region was actively tearing itself apart.
“Quick, Partner,” I said to my Digimon, yelling over the howl of the wind, “let’s get going. We’ll head up the coast, watching for any grouping of rocks that might conceal a cavern. And remember, we’re running out of time.”
InfernoKnightmon gave a sharp nod, and we were off.
Jeremy
“TechAngewomon, strike now!” I called. The robotic angel took aim with her arm-mounted crossbow and fired, knocking a distracted Tyranterramon’s swinging fist off course. Frustrated, Tyranterramon released a sound akin to a growl and swung his fist in the direction of TechAngewomon, aiming to knock her out of the air.
“Interference team!” I called, and SkullMeramon ran his shoulder into Tyranterramon’s midsection, causing the massive foe to stumble back to regain his balance. Then MagnaBrauntomon and Garudamon rose up from within the trees and grabbed Tyranterramon’s fist, pulling it up over his head, toppling him onto his back. His right wing was caught under his full weight, and I couldn’t help but smile a bit when Tyranterramon was forced to grit his teeth against the resulting pain.
“Attack teams,” I commanded, “strike now!” The remaining flightless Digimon emerged from the forest edge, releasing their attacks, followed close by the attacks from the many flying Digimon. Most of the attacks hit Tyranterramon on his indestructible arms, but the rest made it through to his torso, dealing him damage, as minor as it was. Tyranterramon sat up and crouched, prepared to rise. Before he could, though, Machinedramon, Pharaohmon, and Garudamon released their attacks side by side, tearing at Tyranterramon’s right arm, torso and face. Tyranterramon managed to keep from falling over again, but it was clear that he was shaken. He gritted his teeth again and, with great effort, raised both of his wings. He fired his Feather Shards at the three Guardians. Garudamon summoned up a ball of flames, Pharaohmon spun his staff, and Machinedramon expelled a wave of energy from his cannons, dispelling their foe’s attack with no apparently great effort.
“My turn,” I said. I clicked the “Fire” button and called, “Twin Beams!” as my armored body released its attack, hitting Tyranterramon in the head. He shook it off and rose to his full height.
“Again,” I said. “Twin Beams!” I fired again.
“Me too,” said Decimatormon, taking aim with his arm-mounted guns, “Cutting Beams!”
Our two attacks converged, augmenting each others’ strength, but it still wasn’t enough. Tyranterramon raised his fist, catching the combo attack with the back of his hand. The point of impact was blackened and smoking, but I couldn’t see any sign of lasting damage. Tyranterramon raised that same seared, smoking hand and punched, releasing an attack that my Digimon and I barely managed to dodge. The attack sailed past, into the forest, impacting the ground with enough force to throw debris one hundred yards into the air and leave behind a crater fifty yards deep and almost three times as wide.
“We’re not getting anywhere like this,” said CyberGarurumon lazily from his perch in a nearby tree.
“I agree,” Machinedramon called back to me.
I scowled, “So do I.” Then I called out, “Fall back deeper into the forest. Fall back as far as the river; we’ll make our stand there!”
I watched the rather extensive forces move to follow my orders. This is it, I thought. We’d reach the river before long with Tyranterramon at our heels. The outcome of this entire battle is about to come down to the success of John’s plan. I just hope a person can plan a miracle.
John
Even struggling against the fierce winds, mine and InfernoKnightmon’s search for MetalSeadramon’s cavern didn’t take long. About twenty-five minutes into our search we spotted a crumpled pile of rocks that seemed to sink into the ground, right along the water’s edge. I scanned it with the Digicomp handheld. Sure enough it was a cavern, though most of it was collapsed. I detected one large Digimon signal inside the cavern, and even though the storms prevented me from identifying the signal as that of the fallen Ocean Guardian, I was still confident that it was him. No Digimon except a Guardian would be able to survive these conditions for so long.
“He’s in there,” I told InfernoKnightmon. “Now we just have to get him out.”
“Leave that to me,” my Digimon declared. He dropped from the sky, plunging straight through the rocks and rubble, emerging moments later. In his arms he carried a one hundred-foot-long robotic sea serpent, his body made of golden components as hard as the Chrome Digizoid metal components used to construct Machine Citadel. The sea serpent, MetalSeadramon, was unconscious and badly injured. Multitudes of cables and panels were hanging loose from his head to his tail, and bits of data were leaking from his various wounds. Now that he was free of the cavern I was able to get a better reading of his condition. I swore under my breath and then said, “He’s taken damage all the way down to his fractal code. It’s a miracle that he managed to hold on this long.”
“Will your plan still work?” InfernoKnightmon asked.
“I think so,” I said, “but we have to act fast.”
It was twenty minutes later when MetalSeadramon woke up, He, Snakemon, BlackMainemon, and I were on a relatively stable section of the rocky beach, protected by the worst of the winds by an outcropping.
“What happened?” MetalSeadramon asked in a deep raspy voice He was laying on his side with the three of us sitting around his head.
"Tyranterramon beat on you bad and left you to die,” I said. “You’re lucky we found you when you did. Your fractal code was about to come apart, but I was able to get the AI program contained within this device,” I held up the Digicomp, “to write a program to stitch it back up. Then I fed it to your matrix using my Digivice.”
MetalSeadramon growled, lifting his head, “Tyranterramon. I honestly never expected him to return. He caught me by surprise. If I had seen him coming I would have put up a better fight.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll get a chance to get Tyranterramon back for what he did to you. Follow me along Digital River. We’ll meet up with my team and the other Guardians near Digital Bridge.”
MetalSeadramon looked into my eyes, a look of surprise in his. “By Guardians,” he asked, “do you mean…?”
A smile was my only response.
“Who are you?” MetalSeadramon asked, his eyes wide.
“I’m John,” I replied, “the leader of the Digidestined.”
Jeremy
It wasn’t long before we reached the river. “All teams,” I commanded, “hold him here!”
I looked again in the direction of John’s earlier retreat, Hurry up, John. Whatever you’ve got cooking, it had better work. We’re running out of time.
John
“Snakemon, Direct Digivolve to! WingedDragonterramon!”
“Come on BlackMainemon,” I said, hopping onto WingedDragonterramon’s back. BlackMainemon jumped up behind me, settling himself in the crook of the dragon’s tail and holding onto one of WingedDragonterramon’s spikes with his teeth. I drew my sword, for good measure, and we were off. We followed the beach until we came to the Digital River Delta. Then we followed the river, keeping close to the water bound MetalSeadramon. I smiled. My plan was coming together. As we flew I cried out, “Tyranterramon, we’re coming for you!”
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