WoS Ch11 - Part 2

Chapter 11 - A New Perspective (Part 2)

-That One Gotsumon-

Meanwhile, the village nutjob was standing in front of a large statue. It was one of three grey monstrosities that vaguely resembled humanoid heads. They were also the last reminiscence of an old temple of Light. At this statue’s base was the symbol of Light surrounded by an encryption that had taken this particular Gotsumon a while to decipher. He grabbed the magnifying glass that he wore on a string around his neck and checked the ancient writing once more.

Once the three eyes are opened, a Spirit of the Legendary Warriors will be reborn.

Gotsumon looked up. Every statue had a hole above their elongated noses. When he started his quest for the hidden Spirit, the three eye sockets had been empty. The puzzle’s hint had been obvious. All he’d had to do was figure out what exactly belonged into the empty sockets. He’d struck true with the village treasure. The octagonal, red jewel had been a perfect fit. Come to think of it, taking the treasure had first caused him the other Gotsumon’s ire, especially after they couldn’t get the jewel out of the statue. Ever since, he lived with their degrading comments and resigned exasperation.

Well, he would show these sheep! He would defeat Grumblemon—or he would die trying, either was fine! The important part was, that he was doing something! The others might be content with withering away, far removed from the world dying around them, but he wasn’t! No more! He knew bad things were happening everywhere, and he could no longer ignore that.

He hated Grumblemon. He hated him! Once he freed the Spirit, he would take his revenge and then leave the village to fight Cherubimon and hopefully bring peace back to their world. It never hurt to aim big!

Of course, Gotsumon couldn’t know for certain that the Spirit was still here. But his father had believed so, and so it had to be true. Otherwise Grumblemon was attacking them for no reason. This had to work. It had to!

Today, he was another step closer to his goal. He’d found another red jewel. It proudly glimmered in the morning sun.

A fresh wind came in from the sea behind him and played with the strings of moss hanging from the statues like a fringe of hair. The old ruins stood atop a cliff with a magnificent view of the ocean, but Gotsumon had no patience for that. Only one more. One more jewel and the legend would come true. A sense of excitement filled him. He enjoyed the feeling for a solid minute before his empty stomach reminded him that he’d last eaten at dawn. Better to head back to the village for nourishment.

On his way over the rocky plain back to the ring of trees surrounding the village, he tried to figure out his next move. He already checked every square meter of the village grounds, and he’d been harassing all wandering merchants in case they were bringing the missing jewels with them. Two of the jewels had been close to their temple. It stood to reason the last one would follow the same pattern but… Gotsumon frowned. If his search wouldn’t bear fruit soon, he’d have to leave the village. He gritted his teeth. That wouldn’t go over well.

To his surprise, the village buzzed with excitement. He could sense it through the earth when he ran across the main street. Something was going on, but it didn’t feel urgent enough for one of Grumblemon’s attacks.

After grabbing a bite to eat from home, Gotsumon decided to make a quick stop at the meeting room to see what was going on. At the entrance gate, he had to wait an unreasonable amount of time before the guards came to roll the boulder away.

“Sorry, didn’t hear you coming,” one of them said, and she almost sounded apologetic. But he knew everyone could hear him coming from the village’s edge. Jerks.

Still, he needed something from them, so he said, “Thanks. What’s going on?”

He certainly didn’t like the smug smile that was spreading on their faces. “Oh, you’ll love that!”

“We’ll finally strike back against Grumblemon!”

“What?” he exclaimed, completely surprised. Everyone even remotely interested in fighting had left for the Metal Continent years ago. No one had helped him two years ago when Grumblemon—

He violently pushed that thought out of his head. As far as the village was concerned, Grumblemon first showed up less than a week ago.

Gotsumon had to see what changed their mind. He nibbled on his rock bread and followed them down the tunnel.

One of the guards said in a grating, self-satisfied voice, “Remember how you’re always claiming you’re going to become a Legendary Warrior?”

He rolled his eyes. They didn’t understand. No one understood and he didn’t expect them to be nice or helpful, but he could do without these stupid questions. He’d had this conversation a thousand times.

“Well, meet the real Legendary Warriors!”

Okay, that was a new spin on things. Wait, what? The real Legendary Warriors were here? Friendly ones?!

It had to be Ranamon! She was the only Spirit Warrior left that was helping the people! B-but he hadn’t claimed his Spirit yet! How could he meet her like he was now?? The anticipation had him sway on the spot and he needed to put a hand on the tunnel wall to make his head stop spinning. Deep breaths. The chuckles of the two other Gotsumon weren’t helping, and he sent them a seething glare. They were already at the open doorway to the meeting hall.

He straightened his back and pushed his chest out and strutted into the room.

Most of the village had assembled here, and the stands on the walls were full of watchful Gotsumon looking down at the podium in the middle.

On a first sweep, he couldn’t spot any Legendary Warriors, and a wave of disappointment crashed into him. His fellow Gotsumon might be irritating and the very definition of doormats, but they hadn’t lied to him yet. He looked back to the two guards, but they nodded at him reassuringly before heading into the stands themselves. The council was in the middle of addressing everyone, including a few human children standing awkwardly in front of the raised pedestal.

Gotsumon slid into the front row, wondering what this was all about. Since he’d missed the first part of the speech, he didn’t really get much other than they were devising a strategy to deal with Grumblemon once he showed up again.

A key part of that strategy were the otherworldly kids. The village elder’s last words centred around them. “I’m confident that we can crush Grumblemon once and for all now that we have Legendary Warriors on our side!”

Over the resonating applause, one Gotsumon’s hopes crashed and burned. They couldn’t be serious! Those weren’t Legendary Warriors! Those were just a bunch of humans that had—at most—acquired the Spirits of the Legendary Warriors! He doubted that they could even control them. Bad things happened to those that just found Spirits lying around, after all.

It seemed almost marginal compared to that disappointment, but he also didn’t know the plan! The others were filing out of the room, looking all invigorated and determined, but he just sat there, angry and confused. Where had all this energy been, a week ago?

It turned out that they pretty much planned for him to sit tight. Apparently, snooty Spirit-owning kids would be interested in the Spirit hidden in the temple.

Two of them were approaching him, and the first one wore a winning smile that instantly made him like her less—a feat he wouldn’t have thought possible. The other three humans were still with the council and had a huge book spread between them.

Not bothered by his clearly hostile attitude, the girl said, “Hello. Are you the Gotsumon that knows something about Spirits?” She had a square-jaw and unruly ponytails.

Clearly, the other Gotsumon had told them about him, but he wasn’t feeling generous. “So what if I am?”

That took her aback, which mollified him a little.

“You could try to be a little bit more social. They’re going to get rid of Grumblemon for us.”

And mollification undone. His aunt was literally the one Gotsumon he’d liked to see less than any of the others still left. She approached in carefully measured steps, three-fingered hand closed around the pendant of her necklace.

“Oh yeah? Guess I should be glad that someone’s taking action?” he said waspishly. He glanced at the humans again and Truth and Law, did they look young. He glared at his aunt. “Better some kids than you, huh?”

His aunt let go of the necklace, and he smiled in satisfaction at the hurt in her eyes. “Let’s not argue,” she said as if it meant anything. “I was just telling the humans that the Spirit is just a myth.” She smiled brightly at the two kids. “It’s no use asking my nephew, he will tell you the same thing!”

Then, she attempted to sling her arm over his shoulders, and he was forced to ward her off with, hopefully, the most impassive face he could muster.

The humans traded a look. The boy had a much greater intuition in how to carry the impassive stare. He came off utterly bored and made no motion to introduce himself or say anything. So it was up to the girl to continue the conversation. “Well, I’m not sure why but Kouji here is convinced that his Beast Spirit is hidden around here somewhere.”

While it was nice that his family continued to be right, Gotsumon was much more unnerved by the fact that somebody else already had a claim to his Spirit. He gave the boy named Kouji a onceover. A scrawny human with a triangle face and a condescending look in his eyes. That was the supposed Warrior of Light? No thanks. As if he would let a child get in the way of his vendetta.

Then, two monumental things happened, almost simultaneously. The lookout’s agitation alerted him, and he checked the ground. His heart snapped into gear, poison filling his veins. Through the earth resonated the hateful footsteps of Grumblemon. That vile digimon had just entered the village premise with a confident swagger. As if he owned the place. Grumblemon.

The village swarmed into action. Usually, that would entail going deep underground and hoping that the enemy grew bored of wanton destruction and left. Grumblemon had a pattern. He was looking for something, something just out of reach.

Gotsumon had to find the final jewel before Grumblemon figured it out. That was all that mattered. He couldn’t have Grumblemon take this too.

That was when the other monumental thing happened. One of the residents of the outermost mountain ran into the podium in her haste to get to the tunnel and dislodged the red and yellow rucksack lying there. It had to belong to the humans as it wasn’t an external storage. Like any normal rucksack, it spewed its content everywhere upon landing on the podium stairs. There was a book, some mushed food and foldable umbrellas, but what really, really drew his attention was the shiny red jewel rolling out of sight. His eyes grew large, and his heart might have stopped beating in his stone chest for a second.

He moved.

Under the protest of the human boy calling after him, he grabbed his prize and bailed.

There was no time to waste.

-JP-

So much for lightning quick reflexes. JP grabbed only air when he tried to rescue their rucksack from its plunge. It happily scattered the Italian book and everything else all over the stairs. He groaned in frustration, carelessly stuffing everything back inside.

Zoe rushed around the podium and brought their DigiCode book along. She and the village council had used it to pour over information on Gigasmon.

He took it from her and put it into the rucksack while asking, “What’s got into them?”

“Grumblemon is here! Hand this over to someone; we gotta get out there. Now!” she shouted and looked like she wanted to rip the backpack right out of his hands to give it to the next best fleeing Gotsumon. Well, he had her covered and quickly found someone who took the rucksack into the tunnels.

Grumblemon’s appearance was bad. They hadn’t really figured out all the abilities of the volunteering Gotsumon and how to best incorporate them into their strategy. Gotsumon could turn to stone, literally, and also somehow see things through the earth and that was a vital part of their plan—no matter how unfinished it was.

JP took a moment to centre himself. He was also a vital part of the plan. He was the strongest team member and the others relied on him to get some good hits in. He’d almost single-handedly defeated Scorpiomon—overlooking the fact it was Blizzarmon that ultimately destroyed it. Speaking of which...

Tommy stood next to the podium. He had his left hand curled around the handlebar of the podium stairs and if it weren’t for that he might have fallen over. The kid looked frightened beyond belief. His face was ashen, and his eyes were wide, staring into space.

Okay, this was not good. Tommy looked seconds away from breaking down in tears—which would be even worse, as a long hour in snow and ice attested. While there had barely been time for this back then, there was even less time now. Nevertheless, JP knew that Tommy needed help right now and he moved forward to put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, kid. It’s gonna be fine, alright? You okay?” He had to admit, he wasn’t very well-versed in ‘Everything will be alright’-speeches, since he’d never heard them from anyone. But he prided himself in some real nice things he learned from TV shows and comics.

Tommy looked up to him, his eyes still glazed over. Junpei wasn’t sure if the kid was fully here, and he grew more worried. There weren’t even any plans of Kumamon fighting Grumblemon. Tommy was supposed to go into village defence. Aka protecting the people not involved in the fighting. Aka something that was pretty much unnecessary since Grumblemon had no interest in the people. That guy was only out for fractal codes and Spirits neither of which the Gotsumon provided.

But Keisaki argued that four Spirits could take on Grumblemon, and that Tommy didn’t need to fight if he didn’t want to. He certainly wasn’t ready for it right now.

“Kei!” JP shouted over the pandemonium.

Zoe was right; they needed to hurry outside before Grumblemon started wrecking the place. At least Kei was quick to appear and give Tommy some final reassurance and marching orders.

In the meantime, JP followed Zoe and their little squad of support Gotsumon through the only entrance tunnel. It would lead them directly to where Grumblemon approached the village. It took a moment for Kouji and Kei to fall in step with them, the former looking grouchier than usual. Who knew what ticked off that stick-in-the-mud again.

“Alright, remember the plan—” Keisaki began, the light at the end of the tunnel fast approaching. Her attempt fell short when a shockwave nearly threw her off her feet.

Grumblemon had grown tired of waiting for anyone to show up and taken a healthy helping of mountain data. With the vanishing fractal code, part of the mountain collapsed violently—but thankfully, not close enough to have the tunnel collapse around them.

They left the enclosing tunnel behind. JP caught a quick glance of Grumblemon in all his irritating, pointed cap and spiky armour-wearing glory. Then, he swung his D-Tector over the circle of fractal code around his hand and summoned his data cocoon. 

Execute Spirit Digivolve to...

...Anumon!

...Lobomon!

...Kazemon!

...Beetlemon!

 Beetlemon was itching to see if all their preparations for this battle and hunting Lobomon through a forest would lead them to victory. The ultimate test, so to speak.

Grumblemon noticed the digivolution light and turned from the destroyed wall he’d been munching on to give them a haughty stare out of sunken blue eyes.

“Stop right there!” Anumon shouted from the air in a voice clearly designed to sound imposing but falling dreadfully short. Beetlemon decided not to let their (still disputed!) leader’s unimpressive entrance bother him.

Grumblemon looked delighted to see them all. “Ah, it’s you! How fortunate! Now I don’t need to look for you anymore!” He reached into the ground for his hammer. “That is, unless you want to run again, hehe.”

“No running this time, creep. Pyro Shot!” At least her burning arrow sent a much clearer message than her intimidation attempt. Beetlemon could get on board with that.

In a smooth move, he and Kazemon were on either side of Grumblemon while Lobomon was charging in with both his light swords.

“Storm Fingers!”

The stubby little runt ignored the pink wind washing over him. Mainly because he had a magical connection to the earth that rooted him in place. He met the swords with his hammer, flashing a knowing smirk.

Lobomon disengaged before he could be flattened by a second hammer that Grumblemon tore out of thin air. Their timing was slightly off, because the Earth Warrior had all the time in the world to turn around and block a Thunder Fist. Beetlemon blamed their lack of practice after the Frozen Mountain disaster for that slip up.

Anumon’s arrows were slightly more effective as a distraction than Kazemon’s wind, so Beetlemon could fly out of the hammer’s reach. He trusted his armour to take a hit or two, but he didn’t fancy it.

Kazemon looked visibly annoyed at her continued ineffectiveness, and he couldn’t blame her. She was fast, but there wasn’t much she could do when the enemy resisted her attacks. Now she signalled him that she wanted to go in for a melee attack. Well, all the power to her. Grumblemon couldn’t possibly avoid all three of them at once.

Beetlemon summoned electricity in his hands, intending to drop down from above, “Thor’s Hammer!”, while Lobomon grudgingly came around, circling his blades. “Zwillingslaser!”

Kazemon did a handstand and turned into a tornado of outstretched legs. “Tempest Twist!”

There was a flurry of data.

Grumblemon Slide Digivolve to... Gigasmon!

No one could say that Grumblemon wouldn’t adapt to the situation. Gigasmon mirrored Kazemon by spreading his arms wide and rotating quickly. “Quagmire Twister!”

Okay, not good.

Beetlemon saw himself faced with a vortex of light brown colours that promised pain while Anumon in the background shouted unhelpfully, “Back off! Back, back, back! Triple Shot! Damn it!” She sent out three arrows at once that the twister sucked up, streaking it with red. Beetlemon was too committed to his attack and saw his sparking fists vanish in the eye of the storm before a whirlwind of fists swooped him up and painfully put him through the wringer.

“Ahhh!” A Beast type could hit hard, and it took everything he had not to de-digivolve on the spot. He had trouble getting back on his feet after that assault.

Kazemon wasn’t quite so lucky and went down with a shriek, her form blackening and exposing her Spirit on the ring of fractal code forming around her.

Oh, oh!

Gigasmon eyed his prize hungrily and jumped forwards. “I’ll take that one!”

“Zoe, no! Pyro Shot!” Anumon screamed, releasing another arrow that got stuck in Gigasmon’s muscular upper arm which he raised casually to protect his face.

Beetlemon shot to his feet when it came to him that Zoe was about to be scanned! He was too far away to—

Two laser swords were shoved right into Gigasmon’s face and Lobomon appeared between his ally and the enemy. Yep, Lobomon was the only one that had successfully backed off and avoided the fists of iron. Gigasmon clearly hadn’t expected him and reared back, but not as if he’d been cut by two frickin laser swords and more like a wasp had stung him and he was mildly annoyed. The power level difference was real! It was like Scorpiomon all over again, only that this enemy was intelligent.

The respite had given Zoe enough time to transform back into a human, and Anumon picked her up.

“Okay, regroup! Long-range attacks as long as he’s Gigasmon!” Anumon shouted the original strategy. While she put Zoe down on a suspicious rock, she told her, “Get back into gear as soon as you can. You saw I’m not fast enough to pick anyone up if they get hit!”

The rock came alive and swallowed the girl whole. Well, that was what it had to look like to Gigasmon. In reality, a bunch of Gotsumon had camouflaged themselves here, and would hide Zoe until she could digivolve again.

Long-range was easier said than done because Gigasmon was not only freakishly strong but also almost as fast as Lobomon. Anumon gave her best to restyle him as a novelty hedgehog while Lobomon spent most of his time staying barely out of reach. From Kouji’s usual behaviour, Beetlemon could take cold comfort in the fact that the other boy had to hate that he couldn’t deal any damage to Gigasmon. He had to play decoy for his two allies.

But none of the arrows seemed to bother Gigasmon and Beetlemon hadn’t really practised his long-range aim. Usually, his fists dealt all the damage. His streaks of electricity just seriously menaced the occasional boulder that Gigasmon passed on his chase. Even if they managed to connect, without the physical power of Beetlemon behind it, they only slightly impaired the Beast of Earth.

“Will you stop running! I thought you said no more running!” Gigasmon shouted in frustration. At least that was a plus; he seemed to quickly run out of patience, especially when Kazemon rejoined the fight.

Kazemon’s aim had improved dramatically, and her wind was much more precise than Beetlemon’s electricity. But only when she visibly strained to summon more power did she manage to give Lobomon the time to turn around and shoot one of his Lichtkugeln at point blank range. Then he had to continue running before he could be introduced to a hearty swing of enraged Beast Spirit fist.

Beetlemon gritted his teeth behind his mouth protection. He watched in frustration how Kazemon again could only slightly disorient their enemy while his own, more powerful attack only struck the ground.... That gave him an idea. He flew over to her and positioned himself for her next strike.

Just in time! Gigasmon switched tactics and jumped straight into the air for a body slam that would no doubt do devastating things to the village infrastructure.

Not on their watch!

“Hurricane Wave!” Kazemon shouted, her voice raw from screaming, but no less intent on stopping Gigasmon.

“Lightning Bomb!” Beetlemon stretched out his hand and an irate streak of electricity joined the rosy storm on its way to Gigasmon. The resulting torrent of pink and yellow slammed into the Beast Warrior on the high point of his arch and sent him crashing to the ground. It took the Beast of Earth a long moment to get back on his feet which Anumon used to decorate his nose with two arrows. He shouted out a stream of obscenities, but Beetlemon did an internal victory dance.

Haha! Combining attacks made them stronger! Obviously! Why hadn’t he thought of that before? He should head strategy from now on!

Then, Kazemon high-fived his still outstretched hand (Was it still a high-five when he wasn’t holding his hand high...? Who cared, Kazemon had just slapped his hand!), and he was in heaven. This was the most wonderful day of all his days, and he would print it out and frame it up and never forget it ever again.

“Why you!” Gigasmon growled, furiously pulling out the offending arrows and shaking his fists at them. A calculating look appeared in his orange eyes.

Then, he did something unexpected.

Gigasmon Slide Digivolve to... Grumblemon!

What? Why?

In the next moment, Grumblemon sank in to the earth. Oh right, that was why. This stupid thing again! He would try to sneak up on them from an unpredictable angle and yes, he’d nearly undone them with this strategy last time.

But this time, they had help.

“He’s going over there!” All around them, Gotsumon appeared out of their camouflage (Oops, one of them looked rather singed from meandering electricity...) and they could see through the earth just like Grumblemon. “Anumon, careful!”

Thanks to the warning, the Warrior of Fire shot high into the air. Grumblemon, jumping out of the ground with his hammer raised, could only stare, gobsmacked, at the failed ambush.

“What?”

In answer, Lobomon shot at him again. “Lichtkugel!”

Now that they had a powerful combined attack, two fast and precise attackers and a form of underground surveillance that could hide itself from the enemy, this fight looked highly winnable.

So, of course a rampaging, uncontrollable Beast Spirit had to rush in and ruin it.

From far away came a raging howl. It rapidly became louder and louder and then, with a blinding flash of light, absolute mayhem broke out.

An enraged quadrupedal beast in white armour jumped out of the tree line and landed in their midst, rays of light shooting from it into every direction.

Calling it completely white was an understandable mistake. It was radiating brightness like it was going out of style. That almost drowned out the golden spikes and metal blades attached to its back or the curious violet stripes permeating the armour that seemed oddly familiar.

But it wouldn’t give Beetlemon more time to examine it properly. It howled in madness. Its eyes were liquid light, emitting an unholy glow, and its head snapped around widely before it settled on Grumblemon. It roared, showcasing a row of deadly sharp teeth, “Grrrrrumblemon!” and stormed forwards.

Grumblemon had to be just as surprised as they were and did the first thing that came to his mind. Which was of course to tunnel into the ground. The newcomer could only crash into the newly created earth heap and howled in impotent rage.

Then it threw itself against the mountain wall, but it was hard to tell if it was an act of anger or if it just had trouble making all the bits and pieces of his elaborate body move. It didn’t help when Beetlemon finally remembered why it seemed so familiar. He did a double-take and said, “That’s Kouji’s Beast Spirit! From the book!”

“Then that’s the Gotsumon with the magnifying glass who’s controlling it!” Lobomon realized, though Beetlemon wasn’t sure how. Or why.

The Light Beast threw itself against the mountain wall again and Lobomon clarified, “Or not controlling it.”

Oh, that was just peachy.

Now they were faced with an uncontrollable, mindless beast fixated on destroying Grumblemon and that—after it had successfully detached itself from the wall—now gave them the hungry eyes. They didn’t even have any emotional connection to it, so any hope of talking it down went straight out of the window. How could the situation possibly get any worse?

Beetlemon made a heartfelt note to never tempt fate again when one of the Gotsumon said frantically, “Grumblemon is heading for the village! He’s attacking the others!”