WoS - Aftermath

The story so far: Five children have come to the Digital World under mysterious circumstances. Their quest is to reach the Forest Terminal. Aiding them along are the Spirits of the Ancient Warriors which allow them to turn into digimon. The Ancient Warriors left two kinds of Spirit behind and they've only found their "Human" Spirits. They are still lacking the animalistic Beast Spirits.... until Tommy, the youngest team member, found his Beast Spirit first. But as it turns out, Beast Spirits have their own will and Tommy instantly lost control over his transformation, killing an ally. Now, they have to deal with the fallout...

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Aftermath

-Zoe-

It would be a lie to say that I had a pleasant night.

Just because we hadn’t seen any other living creatures except for Scorpiomon and Gwappamon (ignoring their tragic ends), we couldn’t be sure that nothing else was around. So here was the return of the stopwatch. This time, Kouji volunteered for the first shift.

I was almost happy to have him wake me up in the middle of the night, because my sleep had been full of nightmares. So while Kouji went to sleep, I had a lot of time to brood. I poked at the remains of the fire and used the burnt end of the stick to draw shapes into the ground. We hadn’t told the others that we’d been unable to figure out how to get a fire going and so had needed Kei to transform into Anumon.

The entire room smelled of smoke, but at least it wasn’t cold anymore. I looked over at Tommy who slept next to me and was hugging his huge balloon-like hat tightly, and I felt so sorry for him.

It was true, when he’d attacked me, I’d been scared out of my mind, but while I waited for Kei to bring back the others, I had had a long while to sort out my feelings. It had to have been much, much worse for him. Beast Spirits were really dangerous, and I guiltily wished that someone else would’ve gotten theirs first. Someone who could shrug off the fallout of losing control. Someone like Kouji.

I leaned back against the stone wall and thought about my nightmare. I had been dreaming about Mom and Dad and not about something more vivid from today. But now that I was more awake, I realized where the sentiment came from.

It had been awful when Tommy said that he wanted to go home.

I hugged my knees tightly. He wasn’t the only one who missed home. Here, in this little cavern in the middle of nowhere, I remembered that I hadn’t seen Dad in forever.

Dad worked hard, but in the evening, he was always home. I couldn’t remember a time where I had gone this long without speaking to him. And Mom... Mom had to be back in Japan by now. It stung to imagine what they had to think about me now. I left without telling them anything. They didn’t know where I was... They had to be so worried... I missed them so much. When the first droplet rolled over my cheeks, I snapped out of my memories and furiously wiped at my eyes.

I had a good reason for being away from home. The people living in this world needed our help, and we could do this. I could do it, I needed to.

I gave a little start when Kei slipped off of her rucksack which she was using as her pillow. She didn’t wake up, just frowned in her sleep as if she couldn’t comprehend why her world was much less comfy now. I remembered the strange look she’d had in her eyes when Tommy stated his shift in world views. She’d been all for him going home right from the start. It seemed very real to me that she would wake up and advocate turning around and looking for a way to get him back home. We all had Spirits now, and our last tip about a way home had been related to acquiring them.

With all these very real and very dark thoughts present on my mind, I almost missed my cues to first restart the stopwatch and later to wake Kei from her sleep. If I was hoping for some inspiring late-night conversation, I had been hoping in vain because we just traded some looks that were probably supposed to be reassuring. At last, I could go back to sleep, and slipped straight into a nightmare about being eaten by Blizzarmon. Awesome. Just what I needed.

Considering all the pressure, I shouldn’t have been surprised that this morning was the first time since arriving in the Digital World that I awoke feeling sore.

Breakfast was an overall quiet affair, and nobody looked well-rested. At least no one tried to eat us during our slumber—despite the disturbing dreams.

It wasn’t until we were all packed up that Keisaki addressed the problem we were facing.

“So last night I was thinking. We still don’t know how to get home. There’s nothing about our world in the books.” She shot a glance at me, and I nodded apologetically. “There are no instructions, so I don’t think we have any other choice but to go to the Forest Terminal as planned.” She didn’t sound happy at all, her shoulders slumped, but she tried to catch everyone’s eyes.

“I’m pretty sure the Trailmon can take us home if we ask them,” JP fielded with the typical confidence he had in his theories. “We can fly back and look for one.”

 “We haven’t seen a Trailmon in days,” Kouji said. “And we don’t know for sure that’ll work. You can’t expect us to go back on a hunch.”

“Well, you don’t get to make decisions for the group!” JP shot back, getting angry. “We didn’t sign up for this! We aren’t ready for it!”

I hadn’t really thought about what JP might think about the recent events. All I knew was that he’d been there for Tommy when he’d transformed back. I had almost forgotten that JP hadn’t been on board the world rescue train from the start. Obviously he still harboured resentment over it.

Kouji glanced at Tommy, who had remained silent since waking up and was following the conversation with dull eyes. The long-haired boy smoothed his features and said, “I won’t go back now. I’m going to the Forest Terminal. You can do whatever you want.”

Of all the scenarios I had imagined, they somehow never included the group splitting up.

JP seemed ready to grab Tommy and take his chances at train travel while Kouji very clearly wouldn’t put up with that. I really, really missed home, of which I was painfully reminded last night, but I also knew it had become my responsibility towards Kazemon and this world that I saw this quest till the end.

“Kouji, you can’t be serious!” Kei insisted, which I didn’t think was a good way to handle the crisis. Kouji usually was dead set on his tracks unless external factors conspired against him. He just gave her a pointed look.

I didn’t envy Kei’s position. She’d wanted us to stick together from the start. She took the group falling apart a lot harder than me.

“Let’s not be hasty,” she said, stepping in front of the blankets blocking the exit as if that would stop Kouji from leaving. He didn’t take well to that action, but our time spent together stopped him from shoving her aside to do whatever he pleased. “JP is right; we need to discuss this as a group!”

“What’s there to discuss!?” Junpei said angrily. “That douchebag over there doesn’t give a shit about the rest of us!”

Before Kouji could say something mean that would inevitably make everything worse, I decided to try my hand at defusing the situation. The thought of splitting up didn’t sit right with me either. I also thought I identified the problem.

“I think Kouji is right.” That got me a surprised look from pretty much everyone, including Kouji. Probably thought he would be on his own again. “We’re really, really close to the Land of Forests now. Like, vicinissimo. There’s the Forest of Dreams just down the mountain. If we make it through that, I’m sure we’ll meet a Trailmon soon enough!”

At least, that's what the locals from Gargoylemon’s village had told us. The Forest of Dreams sat right at the border between the Land of Earth and the Land of Forest. Of course, no Trailmon went directly to our destination, but they did go into the Land of the Forests.

It gave Kei the perfect opportunity to bring some other unpleasant facts to light. I was sure by now that Tommy wasn’t interested in digivolving ever again and that would leave JP as the only one able to defend them against threats. We didn’t really have a good track record with the locals considering there hadn’t been a day without fighting so far.

“Look, I want to get Tommy home too, but we’re all being stupid here! We saw first-hand that this world isn’t safe! Kouji, would you have been able to take on Scorpiomon alone? Or with Zoe as backup?” Kei asked and returned his pointed stare with one of her own. I wasn’t even upset that she called me his backup; I had come to terms with the fact that Kazemon was fast, but not strong enough on her own. Kouji’s jaw was set in a firm line, but there really was no arguing here.

Then Kei turned to JP. “Same for you by the way. Can we all agree on that?”

“What’s going to be at Forest Terminal anyway?” JP said, but he’d lost his anger and just sounded annoyed.

Even with Gargoylemon’s book and its maps, we didn’t have any new information. And reminding everyone that the Forest Terminal was probably haunted and dangerous didn’t strike me as all that productive. So I kept my mouth shut. We were all stressed out and stretched thin enough already. Now that I thought about it, the recent argument could be related to our patience wearing thin as well. I found myself wishing to reach our destination so we could finally get some answers about who called us here and why us specifically. (And maybe while they were at it, they could also mention a convenient way back home).

“So, are we all going there, together?” Kei asked and only moved out of the way when all of us agreed. Well, almost all of us.

Later, I realized that this entire argument had been between us older kids. No one had thought to ask Tommy. Considering his attitude yesterday and sullenness this morning, it seemed clear that he didn’t want to be here anymore, but we never even thought to ask him about it. Not even Kei and that struck me as odd. She’d been the one who said this was a group decision. Had she already dropped Tommy from the team roster? ...Or had he never really been on the team in her eyes?

I got to mull over this oddity while we were flying toward the Forest of Dreams. One look at the steep drop that awaited us on the other side of the mountain and Kei had transformed into Anumon. She had the right idea. Below us passed a maze of canyons and ravines that would have taken hours to navigate on foot.

The weather was pleasant and friendly after the horrible storm yesterday, and the grassy plain in the distance was still a muddy swamp that sparkled in the sunlight. With every beat of Our wings, the air around us grew warmer and We were so glad we were finally leaving the terrible mountain and the endless Meadows behind. Now there was the endless forest in front of us. Alright, We were exaggerating a bit, but from up high it looked like there were huge green trees as far as the eye could see. Somewhere in the distance was something that might or might not be train tracks going high over the canopy, but there was no Trailmon in sight.

“Kazemon!” Anumon called Us.

We shifted Tommy’s weight around while We turned to her. “Hm?”

“Which direction to the Forest Terminal?” she asked, gesturing at the rolling hills, overgrown with trees.

We wanted to shrug since We’d already crossed the borders into the Land of Forests and now, it really was anyone’s guess… But We remembered in time that it was probably better for everyone if We projected an air of strength and knowledge. At least for the moment.

 “We just have to head north from now on!” We said vaguely. We hoped it wouldn’t take longer than three days and We hoped even more that Anumon would leave it at that.

She didn’t and We nearly groaned in frustration when she asked: “Okay for how long? What’s with this forest?” She pointed at the encroaching shrubbery. “That’s the Forest of Dreams, yeah?”

“Yes!” An out! Now if We could only remember what the Italian book had said about this place. “It’s called that because of the, uhm… The…”

Beetlemon, carrying a sullen Kouji, perked up. “The Bakumon! That’s what the guys over in Gargoylemon’s village said!” Of course, he would remember a random conversation from what felt like forever ago. “Didn’t they say that they make dreams come true?” he added thoughtfully. “Or something about a good night’s sleep?”

Suddenly, We were drawing all eyes. Even Kouji was looking in Our direction. We hugged Tommy tightly, but like before, the kid had nothing to say. Didn’t react at all.

“Sounds good,” Anumon said with a tight smile.

Below us, the mountain melted into the forest. We landed at the fringes of the woods and transformed back. It wouldn’t do to exhaust ourselves during travel. After all, we hadn’t fulfilled our quota of fighting today and I didn’t want to be too tired to be of any help.

So it came as a bit of a surprise that the next few days passed mostly peacefully.

No, really. Other than a nest of spiders who needed our help tracking down a missing person, and fighting and purifying the culprit, nothing with even a relative threat to our lives happened. The only disturbing thing was seeing Tommy freeze up and stare at his D-Tector in horror when we transformed to fight the spider kidnapper. There was nothing I could do to snap him out of it or calm him down. The rest of the day was spent making awkward conversations around him.

Tommy didn’t seem to make much progress after this; in fact he even seemed worse than before, and I hovered over him worriedly, feeling helpless.

I sighed and tried to distract myself from the worry. Day in day out, the sun was blasting heat from above with no clouds in the sky, but between the large trees it was pleasantly cool. It was the perfect atmosphere for walking through the woods. The main problem was the group’s stamina, since this was the first time we were hiking through a foreign land without a convenient train carrying us along.

In theory, it didn’t sound difficult to navigate a few roots and hills here and there, especially since we came from a slippery, forbidding mountain, but it had taken less than two hours of evading low hanging branches and stumbling over earth mounds before patience was running out and JP’s complaints got louder. He had amazing stamina for this. It was honestly impressive that he wasn’t running out of things to complain about.

Between his whining, Kei and Kouji’s typical arguments, their arguments about JP’s whining and my unsuccessful attempts at bringing some cheerfulness back into the group, the days slowly crawled past us. Tommy didn’t say much and barely reacted to my prompts. Whenever I got a curt, monosyllabic response out of him, everyone was quiet for a few moments.

By day six or seven, I was so sick of the woods and everyone else. I nearly snapped and told them that I had no idea if we were even still on the right track! Why was it always me that had to keep the peace, anyway?

Kei sensed my dropping mood. She gave me a worried look and hastily ended her argument with Kouji. It had been about strategy, the only topic where their arguing felt moderately productive.

Things quietened down again until JP stumbled against a tree—and complained. Ugh. Not for the first time, I tried to remember what Aunt Carla did whenever my cousins were unruly and annoying during a trip but came up blank.

When we were passing through a section of the forest brimming with small mushrooms and little flower bushes in stunning colours, Kei had a marvellous idea. She started a game of ‘I spy’, pointedly avoiding Kouji’s stare. JP and I joined in (the former with much more complaining than necessary) and while I was describing a dainty little blue flower hanging from a branch a little bit off of our current trail, Tommy suddenly offered a suggestion.

“Is it that one?” His voice was small and soft, and he wouldn’t look me in the eyes.

I paused, stunned and thinking hard. He was way off, but considering this was literally the first thing he’d said all day, I gladly gave him the point. “Sure! Ben fatto!”

Everyone stared at us, the silence almost tangible. I decided to have none of that. Tommy had spoken an entire, albeit short, sentence of his own accord! They should be celebrating! They were as useless as in the cave on the mountain! That not only confirmed that JP was only good in emergencies, but also that I was in charge of the situation again.

I hoped dearly that I was successfully channelling Aunt Carla and said, “So... why don’t you describe your own flower?”

Haltingly and quietly, Tommy started to talk. I nearly sagged back in relief. Talking did wonders to drive him out of the shell he’d built around himself. I allowed myself a smile.

About ten minutes later, I suddenly heard “Izumi?” from behind me.

I turned and tilted my head at Kouji. He was the only one who still called me by my actual name.

 “Our food isn’t going to last forever,” he said. “Can you check in the book if some of the mushrooms here are edible?”

Oh, right. That was a good idea. Since he was carrying our rucksack at the moment, he could hand me the book without interrupting the game.

Even with the two books (the pictures in the Italian one were rather crude so I needed the DigiCode one for reference), the spoils weren’t that great. Most of the things we met on the way needed to be cooked over fire to become edible. Hopefully, we’d make it out of the forest soon…

-Kouji-

They ate lunch on a small clearing nestled into the side of a hill. A stream was seeping out below a rock formation and looked clear enough to drink.

Kouji used the break to take stock of their supplies once again. It didn’t look good. What they had would barely last for another meal. While reshuffling everything to make room for the mushrooms and fruits Izumi had identified as definitely edible (the ‘probably edible’ he’d decided not to take along), something caught his eye. It was red and hard, occupying a corner of the rucksack. He frowned and pulled it out.

Oh. It was the jewel the weird merchant had given him in the village on the cliff. With everything that happened afterwards, Kouji hadn’t had the time to properly investigate it, had almost forgotten it existed. It was surprising that Keisaki hadn’t thrown it away, but maybe she thought they could sell it.

Kouji leaned forwards from the tree root he was sitting on and held the jewel into the sunlight. Its material was rather dense, he noted, and let only a little light through. He inspected the octagonal stone from all sides but couldn’t figure out why it was so important. It obviously didn’t help him digivolve or make him stronger, and he couldn’t remember everything the eerie digimon had said when it handed it to him. Still, it had been a cryptic message, the jewel didn’t take a lot of space—especially since the rucksack was rather empty now—and it had been free, so he saw no reason to throw it away.

What irritated Kouji more was the fact that they needed to stop and rest again during the afternoon because Junpei had no stamina whatsoever (no matter what his strong Spirit suggested). Only the presence of some more friendly spider digimon who told them that the end of the forest was near made the stay slightly tolerable. They also led them to a tree full of edible apples. Well, edible once they were roasted over the fire.

With much unnecessary complaining, they started their journey again, and it took all Kouji had not to let his annoyance show. In an obvious effort to keep the peace, Izumi prompted a discussion about the places everyone had already been to in their home world. Kouji guessed it was just an excuse for her to talk some more about Italy. He didn’t participate in the ensuing conversation even though his father had taken him to the Philippines shortly after... Three years ago.

Anyway, he wasn’t surprised that no one else had travelled as far away from Japan as Izumi did, and he felt like at least one of them needed to keep an eye on their surroundings in case they were attacked. They weren’t.

When golden evening light filtered through the treetops and even Izumi started to mention her protesting legs, Keisaki finally voiced the possibility of stopping to sleep.

“It’s still light out,” Kouji argued. “We could go a little further.” Actually, he doubted Junpei would want to go further after the possibility of resting had come up. Kouji still needed to mention that it wasn’t him that was slowing everything down.

“We can hardly sleep here,” Keisaki argued right back. “Let’s find a better sheltered place, possibly next to a river like yesterday.”

The river yesterday had been more or less the result of a coincidence than planning, and they hadn’t thought of following it. Finding another source of water took quite a while. But a forest as lively as this one was bound to have more than one measly stream running through it, and they found a much bigger river with some daylight to spare.

Keisaki and Kouji set out to make a fire. He’d been appalled to learn that he was the only one with wilderness skills. It would’ve been nice to have a pot or kettle to heat up water from the river, but there had been no space in the rucksack for something that big and bulky. Instead, Izumi took Tommy and Junpei out to hunt for some sticks to roast their ‘meat’ apples with.

“We need Tomoki to get control over Blizzarmon,” Kouji began without preamble once the other three were out of earshot. He might be largely indifferent to the group, but even he knew better than to discuss the issue with Tomoki present. Kouji had long days to think about the dilemma, and especially the recent conversation about strategy prompted him to speak up.

Keisaki almost dropped their rucksack which she’d taken to search for something that could complement their apples.

She sighed heavily. “You’re right but look at him. He’s a mess.”

That might be an exaggeration since Tomoki had become much more talkative today. Then again, she had a little brother his age and Kouji didn’t have any siblings, so who really knew more about kids?

Keisaki gave up the search for food and added, “I don’t want him fighting anyway. We’ll manage things until we reach the Forest Terminal.”

“What if we run into Grumblemon again?” Kouji countered. He was their main threat.

She shrugged. “We can fly and he can’t. I wouldn’t worry about him so much.”

That was a first. She’d been so adamant about their training session mainly because Grumblemon was such a dangerous foe. Now she was dismissing him entirely? Something told Kouji that she was a lot more upset about the situation than she was letting on, but it wasn’t his business to ask her about it.

He identified a key weakness in her reasoning and asked, “What about the other four Spirits?” Since Keisaki just gave him a blank stare, he elaborated, “It’s pretty obvious that Cherubimon has the other four elements under his control too. Now look at it this way: you’re fire and Junpei is thunder. Yet both of you have wings. I won’t be surprised if one of the enemy Spirits can fly as well.”

“You’re such a pessimist,” she said with an unhappy stare.

He stared back evenly.

Keisaki gave a heavy sigh and added, “I don’t even know what to say to Tommy. Seriously! He’s way too young to be here. I can’t imagine Shinya doing this either. But... you know.... Tommy really wanted to do this. Save the world and all. And now...”

Now Tomoki was ready to turn his back on everything. Kouji wondered if it was because Tomoki suddenly realized that he wasn’t cut out for it, or if it was because he couldn’t go on anymore.

They had to stop talking as the subject of their conversation was returning with more apples and a heap of sharpened sticks.

Since all the important topics had to take a backseat lest they depress Tomoki further, the conversation was light during dinner. Izumi even got Junpei to show off magic tricks he’d learned (arguing that he hadn’t given his all in Mission “Find Sticks” and therefore had to earn his keep some other way). Well, they seemed to have fun, and higher spirits hopefully translated into higher energy tomorrow.

Kouji opted to take first watch mainly because he didn’t trust that the others would stay awake after they had been so visibly tired all evening.

-Kei-

Kei was a bit jealous of Kouji. For once, she’d like to have a shift that didn’t require her to wake up in the middle of the night with the prospect of staring into the dark for two hours.

So it was with some resentment that she rolled up on a bed of leaves, turning her back to the group. A weird feeling washed over her, but she figured if her Beast Spirit was close by, then it could wait until she had a few precious hours of sleep. Besides, she wasn’t all that convinced that they really needed the Beast Spirits. Sure, they were strong, and they would probably make their journey a lot easier, but that was their only appeal. Their drawbacks outweighed their usefulness.

What if they couldn’t be controlled? She’d been afraid that Tommy would lose control again and transform into Blizzarmon against his will. That’s why she’d been watching him closely these past few days. But aside from having all the joy drained from him, he seemed at least stable. He also hadn’t complained or even asked for a break, which was suspicious. Keisaki judged his stamina to be on JP’s level.

Her thoughts turned into chaos with sleep drawing nearer and nearer, and she couldn’t help but think about what Kouji had said. Four more bad guys on Grumblemon’s level. That didn’t sound good... Poor Tommy. Just as old as Shinya and already soldiering through this madness. Blizzarmon. So scary. Needed to control it. Was there a way to control it...? Maybe it was better to get rid of it before it could endanger them again.

Keisaki had almost slipped into blissful sleep when a sound jerked her awake. She recognized it at once: Blizzarmon howling! How?!

Her eyes snapped open and fell onto the half-burned down fire. It looked like she’d slept after all. But then, her gaze wandered further, and her heart almost stopped. On the other side of the fire stood Blizzarmon.

How did that happen? Wasn’t Kouji supposed to watch for danger? Danger like that?! She jumped to her feet and looked around frantically. Kouji was on his feet as well, eyes alight with alarm. That wasn’t good enough!

Blizzarmon howled again. It stood where Tommy had been sleeping, and the boy was nowhere in sight. Damn! It had been just a tiny inkling in her mind, but she would have never guessed a Spirit could really take control over someone even if it was safely inside the D-Tector! It had been days! Why now?!

“Tommy, you need to get rid of Blizzarmon!” Keisaki had wanted to say something different, but she had trouble articulating herself. She was still half-asleep, and why wasn’t Kouji doing anything?

Well, what were they supposed to do? What had worked against Blizzarmon last time...? Right! Appealing to the human inside. Maybe it would work again.

She braced herself, careful to get her voice working, and shouted, “Tommy! Can you hear me?”

Blizzarmon leaned in, but in its brown eyes was no recognition.

Keisaki shied back, slipping on the leaves she’d been using as a mattress. “Kouji! We need to do something!”

At least Kouji had stepped away from the beast and was walking towards her, frowning. He was saying something that didn’t make any sense. “What are you doing? You’re waking everyone else up!”

She just stared from him to the towering Blizzarmon readying its axes and back to him. There really was only one thing to say. “Have you lost your flipping mind?!”

Then she needed to tackle him, because he made no motion to evade the flying axe heading towards him. Her valiant manoeuvre saved him from a fate similar to Gwappamon’s.

Kouji wasn’t happy in the least and it wasn’t like she’d expected a “Thank you”, but he just kicked her off irritably. “Get away from me! What the hell is wrong with you?”

Gah! She knew he couldn’t work in a team, and he wasn’t overly fond of her, but this was madness!

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she snapped. She couldn’t believe this!

Blizzarmon had reclaimed its axe and didn’t look like it would conveniently go away on its own, yet here they were arguing about proper rescue techniques! “We have bigger problems! I’m not sure how, but Tommy has been consumed by the Beast Spirit again! We need to do something about it.”

The longer she thought about it, the more sense it made. They were humans. They were simply incompatible with beasts, and every attempt at transforming into a Beast Spirit was doomed to fail.

Keisaki didn’t know exactly when, but somewhere in the last few seconds, Zoe had appeared next to her, looking mightily concerned. She might also have said something, but Keisaki was thinking really hard now, and everything was falling into place. Tommy was trapped inside the Beast Spirit. They needed to free him. Blizzarmon certainly wasn’t something with which she could reason.

None of the others seemed ready to make that decision, all they seemed to do is look concerned.

She would have to do what the others weren’t ready to do.

She needed to save Tommy if there was anything left of him to save.