WoS Ch7 - The Village Overseeing the Cliff

Th story so far: 5 kids were called into the Digital World and each found a Spirit of the Legendary Warriors, allowing them to turn into digimon. Though on their way to Forest Terminal, the Warrior of Earth Grumble/Gigasmon ambushed them, and the group fled in defeat.

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Chapter 7 - The Village Overseeing the Cliff

-Zoe-

Following our crushing defeat at Gigasmon’s hands, Keisaki took a novel approach to improve morale. The sun was just starting to rise, and we were in the forest that surrounded our temporary base of operations. As Anumon, she was pacing in front of us. We were about to run through what she was calling ‘team-building exercises’. We suspected We had her time-out during yesterday’s fight to blame for this impromptu training—at such a horrid time! She was annoyingly motivated and brandished a notepad crammed with her writing.

“So here is what I figured out,” she began confidently, and We remembered she was the captain of her basketball team. This might be what she was used to doing.

She looked at Us, her blue eyes hard and We involuntarily stood straighter.

“Kazemon, you’re fast. You’re the fastest out of all of us, but you barely use your speed for anything useful!” Anumon said and We felt indignant. Not even once had Gigasmon hit Us! How dare she question Us! Not that Anumon cared for Our anger. “You need to think more about what you’re doing!” She said more demeaning things, like how Our attacks actually weren’t that strong, and We felt like destroying some trees just to prove her wrong. Our hands balled into fists.

Anumon moved onto Beetlemon, who crossed his arms in an obvious ‘come at me’ gesture. “You’re right, you’re our strongest fighter. But you’re slow. Did you see that all your hits disoriented Grumblemon? If you could keep that up, we might have a chance next time! We need to figure out a strategy that puts you in the best position to dish out some hurt. Other than that you need to become more circumspect!” That wasn’t even half as bad as what she told Us! She could’ve at least said something about his annoying personality!

“And you.” She turned to Lobomon who watched her through narrowed eyes. He was extremely reliable, and We couldn’t see a flaw in his fighting style. “You’re an absolute mess.” What? “I mean you can probably handle most fights on your own, but if we want to defeat Grumblemon you need to adapt to the others in your team as much as Kazemon needs to!”

We glared at her for singling Us out again.

“Give me a break!” he said and suddenly, We felt a kindred spirit in him. Anger connected! “You can’t blame me for the others getting in my way!”

“I know this team thing is new for you and all, but you can’t blame everyone but yourself,” Anumon said coldly. “You also had no chance against Gigasmon! We need to figure out how to work together and that means adapting to each other…” An unholy smile appeared on her face. “Which is why we’re interrupting our journey for a healthy dose of team drills!”

We supposed it could be worse. We were surprised that Lobomon hadn’t insisted harder on continuing our quest.

“Lobomon is going to pretend he’s Gigasmon,” Anumon said, grinning. That earned her another annoyed look, but she explained quickly, “He’s currently our most well-rounded fighter, a little faster than the real deal, and he can take a hit. His objective is to disable all of us. Since that’s hardly fair, we’re going to pretend to be fatally hit anytime he manages to get one of us. That means we’re out and it’s up to the rest to cover for us. Beetlemon, you get three hits since you’re more resilient.”

“Wait a second!” Beetlemon interrupted. “If I’m stronger, why exactly does Lobomon get to fight solo?” Then, the blue-horned warrior realized just what he suggested. He gulped and looked from Our suddenly very eager expression to Anumon’s amused smirk and the Warrior of Light quietly readying his swords. “You know what, never mind. Totally cool with hunting Lobomon through the forest.”

“Right,” Anumon said, glancing on her notepad. “Now that that’s out of the way, there’s just a few formalities to discuss.” She droned on about a number of hypothetical scenarios, and We drifted off half-way through, losing interest.

From his glazed eyes, We could tell Kumamon had similar feelings and We almost giggled. Good thing Our eyes were hidden!

To his credit, Kumamon reacted immediately once Anumon was done boring us all into submission. “Yeah, so how do we win?”

Huh, that seemed oddly eager. Hadn’t he fully realized that we were going to fight Lobomon? We looked over to the lone wolf. He flexed his fingers with a calculating expression and didn’t seem remotely intimidated by this impending four-on-one.

Anumon was equal parts cheerful and serious when she announced, “We’ll win when Kouji yields! Okay, everyone take position.”

What followed was actually fun. Lobomon disappeared between the trees, and we stayed back to hash out a strategy.

“Alright, so we know he’s fast,” Anumon began. “And he thinks we can’t coordinate with each other. So our main objective is to keep track of each other and avoid friendly fire.” Why did it feel like she was talking directly to Us? “We have one major advantage though. Lobomon is alone and we aren’t, we can stagger our attacks and I’ve spent most of last night thinking about it. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

The first step of our plan was to locate the enemy. The forest was small, but the tree trunks were thick and even Our heightened senses had trouble spotting Lobomon. Well We did spot him eventually, namely when We took a sword handle to the face. He just whipped around a tree and lightly tapped us against the cheek. How dare him! We angrily readied Our wind gloves, but Lobomon held up a hand. “You’re out.”

Arrgh! That was so unfair, that hadn’t even hurt!

“Zoe, Pyro Shot!” Anumon’s arrow separated him from Us and We looked up, confused. “Don’t forget, that’s Grumblemon! You’re defeated and he’s going to take your Spirit!”

At that, Lobomon engaged in a deadpan Grumblemon impression. “That’s right. Rawr. Hand over your Spirit.”

“We’ll never let you, Thunder Fist!” Beetlemon dropped down on him, but Lobomon just rolled away and lashed out with his laser sword. That was hit number one. This was already not going as planned. With Us out of the picture, We soared high up to watch the fight. We ended up cringing every time one of Our teammates did something especially stupid to let Lobomon get a free shot in.

In no time at all, he had us all defeated and at his feet.

“That was way too easy,” Lobomon said with a haughty smirk.

We looked back to Anumon as if she’d have any answers. Lobomon might not be able to walk through the earth, but he was much better than us at using the terrain to his advantage. We were four people against one, how could we still lose?

“Again?” Beetlemon asked.

“Whatever.” Lobomon shrugged, his way of agreeing to the proposal.

“No wait, first we need to analyse what we did wrong,” Anumon said, frowning below her mask. “Kazemon, you were the first out, what did you see?”

Oh. We hadn’t expected that. “Uhm...”

“Anumon has precise, but slow attacks. You have a problem with finding a correct timing and keep wasting your attack window trying to stop me from attacking,” Lobomon answered instead. It was nice to hear someone criticize her. “You also went in for Kumamon when I got him, but you’re way too slow to make something like that work. Kazemon is the only one mobile enough for a stunt like that.” The familiar anger burned in her blue eyes, but she nodded curtly.

We frowned. So he thought Anumon wasn’t good enough to rescue others from being scanned. But We were fast enough to do just that! Note to self: Try not to be that easily trounced when the others rely on you.

“I think Beetlemon needs more support,” Anumon murmured more to herself than to us. “Alright, I have a new plan. Ready for round two?”

This time, We were ready.

Lobomon also didn’t go after Us first, but since We were hyper-focused, We managed to blast him before he could out Kumamon. Lobomon crashed against a tree and for a moment We thought about how awesome it would’ve been if Our reaction hadn’t been pure reflex. Then, We could have angled him towards Beetlemon who now had to run over to strike him.

Anumon timed an arrow to hit at the same time as the Warrior of Thunder brought his fist down. Somehow, Lobomon managed to twist out of the way of the electricity and cut through the arrow. We groaned in annoyance.

It took three more rounds of “That was pathetic”, “How are you supposed to beat Gigasmon if you can’t even beat me?” and “Are you sure you’re even trying?” before We finally achieved some sort of clairvoyance where We could keep track of every single occupant on the battlefield. We saw Kumamon freezing a patch of ground towards which Beetlemon was pushing Lobomon. We saw Anumon in the sky, an arrow on her bowstring glowing with energy and We knew our time would come soon. In a flash, We were on the correct side of Lobomon. It was painful, but true that while Our wind was powerful it was not quite powerful enough to pose a threat to a tough opponent. But as We’d learned, it was quite enough to blast them off their feet. Especially, when the icy ground already unbalanced them.

We caught Anumon’s eyes and then: “ Hurricane Wave! ” A maelstrom of pink wind crashed into Lobomon’s side and pushed him forward. At the same time Anumon released her arrow. “ Critical Shot!”

We couldn’t believe how perfect that went. Lobomon had his back to her and while he was fast enough to turn, he couldn’t stop the arrow from going straight through his shoulder. There was the flurry of data and Kouji fell back on his behind.

We think We might have squealed—but in a dignified way. With each defeat, We’d grown to hate the arrogant wolf more and more, and to finally best him felt so good. We immediately flew to Anumon and threw Our arms around her. On the ground, Beetlemon was patting Kumamon on the head and Kouji crossed his arms with an unreadable expression.

“That was teamwork!” Anumon said happily.

We weren’t done though. Since Kouji had been fighting with no break, he just watched the next part of our exercise: two-on-two fights. This was more up Our alley. None of the other three were nearly as fast as Lobomon and We could dance circles around them. We worked well with Anumon, but it took a while to align better with the other two. We especially had trouble with Kumamon since neither of us were particularly heavy hitters. It worked in our favour that Anumon already used her Critical Shot. She also wasn’t as tough as Beetlemon and went down after little pressure. We grinned. Our aim was improving rapidly! (N-Not that it hadn’t been stellar before...)

After a while Lobomon joined us again and Anumon said she would watch to take some more notes.

Working with the Warrior of Light was something completely different. While he had no problem keeping track of Us, he seemed unable to include Us in his strategy. Even when We got in position to blast Kumamon straight to him, he rather engaged Beetlemon in direct combat. We still won, but it felt kinda hollow since We didn’t really help.

That’s why We were looking forward to being on a team opposing Lobomon. To Our surprise, he asked for Kumamon on his team. Well, no matter. We had worked with Beetlemon now and we were both determined to win this.

We took to a rousing start, literally, since our team could fly and theirs couldn’t. Lobomon wouldn’t be Lobomon if that would stop him. Soon, he was up in the trees and jumping towards Beetlemon. We got down to business and sent out a streak of wind—that a volley of snowballs neutralized, coming from the ground. Kumamon!

That left Beetlemon completely open, and he raised one armoured hand to block the incoming swords. He brought the other one around for an electrical strike that Lobomon countered perfectly and then kicked the beetle warrior to the ground.

We needed to switch tactics! We signalled Our ally and received an appreciative nod in return.

So, We rushed towards Lobomon. He reeled in surprise. Ha! Didn’t expect the dainty fairy queen trying direct combat, did you? We thought viciously. Yet he still managed to block each and every one of Our kicks. Oh well, We were out of his reach by the time he tried counterattacking. We laughed at him simply because We could. We were faster!

He was following Us and We pretended to have a little trouble staying ahead of him. Subtly, subtly… Yes! We flew around a tree and here was Beetlemon bringing down a devastating punch, “ Thunder Fist!”, that went straight through Lobomon’s block.

Victory at hand, We failed to recognize the suspicious sparkling in the tree branch above Us and were too late when We heard, “ Frozen Tundra!” and a Kumamon icicle dropped onto Us.

The force of the blow sent Us back into Our human form.

“Ouch, Kumamon!” I said, rubbing my shoulder where he’d crashed into Kazemon. He started to apologize, but I waved him off good-naturedly. I looked back and saw that Lobomon had managed to stay transformed but had a bit more trouble than just this morning against the Warrior of Thunder. It was amazing how far we’d come in just a few hours. Though with Kumamon joining the fight, Beetlemon didn’t stand a chance. Soon I was looking at an exhausted JP instead. I gave him an apologetic smile that rallied him. Still it hurt that we’d made the mistake of forgetting that our enemy would also use strategy.

JP collapsed on the floor. “I need a break now! Let’s finally get something to eat!”

Tommy transformed back and joined him emphatically. After a moment’s hesitation, Kouji also let go of the Spirit and looked up to Anumon.

“You’re right!” she said and landed next to him, surrounding herself with fractal code. “Time for lunch!”

On our way back to the village, it became clear just how demanding our morning exercise had been and I felt sore all over. This didn’t stop me from animatedly talking with Tommy about what awesome moves we’d managed to pull off.

“Man, that thing, with hiding on the branch! That was so cool!” I snorted at the unintentional pun.

“Right!” he said, cheeks glowing with pride.

“I didn’t even see you there!” I continued, “I didn’t know you can turn completely into ice!”

“Well, yeah...” Tommy trailed off and shot a nervous look at Kouji leading our procession. “I, uh- Kouji said that was the point. Y’know, surprising the enemy and stuff...”

“Oh, so Kouji came up with that?” With how obsessed Kei had been over strategy and positioning this morning, I almost forgot that Kouji was no slouch in that department either.

I dismissed Tommy’s clouded look when he confirmed my suspicion.

We had spent the night in the village’s inn, paying with the ShellNumemon money. Our reward was enough to last us another few days, but I felt bad about staying in one place for too long and... We hadn’t been able to save the ShellNumemon and that made using their money a guilty reminder.

It was around our lunch table after we’d ordered our food (They had a surprising number of dishes I knew from our world) that we really talked about what had happened yesterday.

“So aside from the obvious teamwork fail, we weren’t doing too horribly against Grumblemon,” Kei was saying, nursing her water glass.

“Until he transformed into Gigasmon, true,” Kouji agreed. “But how’s that even possible?”

Now all eyes were on me.

“I’m looking,” I said helplessly, flipping through pages without finding anything useful. “Grumblemon said something about us just having Human Spirits, but I’m not sure if this is supposed to be related to the Humanoid and Beast digimon I told you about at Breezy Village.” It was odd, comparing our powerful Spirits with the friendly flower digimon. “The book only really mentions the war between the factions.” I pointed to the respective page.

“And Grumblemon used a ‘Beast’ Spirit to become Gigasmon!” Tommy remembered. “Does that mean anything?”

“Well, there isn’t anything about Beast Spirits here,” I said. “The book only talks about ‘the Spirits of the Legendary Warriors’, nothing beastly or humanly there.” I trailed off, obviously disappointed. The book was great at telling me how evil and horrible Beast digimon were, though. There was a reminder of their wicked nature on almost every page.

“Don’t be so harsh on yourself!” JP jumped to my defence unprompted, giving me a huge smile. “You’re doing most of the work already! It’s the Candlemon that gave us the wrong book.”

The waiter was a bear-like digimon walking on two legs. When he brought our food, I felt the need to carefully inspect my Spaghetti Napoli for stray hair.

Kei stopped him before he could wander off to the next table. “Say, do you know where we can find more books or information about the Digital World?”

The bear flipped the black tray around and held it close to his chest. “Sure, I know. Our most famous librarian Gar—” He stopped himself, then shook his head and continued with a haunted expression, “I’m sorry. I’m afraid the library isn’t open for the public anymore...” He spun around and escaped into the kitchen.

We traded a look.

“What was that all about?” Kei asked, eyes narrowed in confusion. She caught herself and said, “Well, it can’t hurt to check the building.”

“We also need supplies,” Kouji reminded her. He wanted to leave as soon as we recovered from our morning exercise, not ready to tolerate more delay.

“Zoe and I can look at the library,” JP offered graciously, sending me a hopeful look.

I scrunched up my nose. The past few days had been rather busy, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still trying to hit on me. Since we had been a good team earlier, I decided to give him a chance and nodded.

“Okay, then the rest of us will buy some supplies,” Kei said with a shrug and a side-glance at her companions.

-Kouji-

They parted ways with Izumi and Junpei outside the inn.

Keisaki’s offer to train in the morning had come as a surprise, and Kouji had been reluctant to agree. But for once, she knew what she was doing. Considering the team’s improvement, even he could see the logic in her idea. As painful as it was, Lobomon on his own could not beat Gigasmon in a straight fight. Whipping the others into shape, so that they weren’t such a hindrance next time, was a great way to level the playing field. Also, since it didn’t take all five of them to buy supplies, looking for more information on what they were up against was a fine way to use their available resources.

Taking all of that into account, Kouji’s mood was still at a constant low. He couldn’t shake the restlessness that pressured him into moving onwards as fast as possible. Like there was something he should hurry up and do. It felt as if there was something important, something personal, waiting for him at the Forest Terminal. Kouji couldn’t remember when he’d last been this motivated to do something...

He thought back to what the voice of the D-Tector had said to him. There were answers to the questions his heart asked at the Forest Terminal. He gritted his teeth at the feeling of powerlessness welling up in him. That line of thought was too unpleasant, so he decided to concentrate on the present. Here he could actually do something about the things that annoyed him.

Tommy seemed to have remembered that he was, in fact, a little kid. So he’d pushed their recent defeat out of his head and refused to budge from a stall selling an assortment of sweets.

“Oh come on!” he whined, his voice climbing a few octaves above tolerable. “We got all this money! Why can’t we buy cotton candy for all of us?!”

Kouji tapped his foot but was inclined to let Keisaki handle the situation. She wouldn’t put up with this either. She...

...completely faltered when faced with the kid’s whining. “Tommy, just- uh, just because we have a bit of money doesn’t mean that we can just buy what we want,” she tried ineffectively.

Why were they even having this discussion? Sweets didn’t even remotely count as supplies.

“Please... We never get anything nice!” Tomoki insisted in a tone that made Kouji quickly lose patience.

Keisaki continued to struggle. “We need to concentrate on really important stuff that’ll last a little longer than... than that,” she trailed off when she saw him pout.

“Ugh, this is just like Shinya. Where’s Takuya when I need him?” she muttered, then turned to Kouji. “Come on, he listens to you, do something!”

Kouji sent her a sharp glare that she countered with a fiery look of her own. Huh, it seemed like she didn’t lose her spirit. He didn’t have time for her issues, and he also didn’t exactly care, so he faced Tomoki and ground out, “We gotta move on. Quit being childish.”

“I am a child!” Tomoki said indignantly.

“So what?” Kouji shot back. “We don’t know how far away the Forest Terminal is. We can’t just go around and waste money on a whim.” He stood his ground even if he could already see that arguing was a fruitless endeavour.

When Tomoki remained silent, Keisaki decided to add, “Kouji’s right. You know what? Just go back and wait at the inn while we finish this.” And that was somehow even worse.

Tomoki’s eyes flashed and he shouted, “Stop pushing me around! You don’t get to tell me anything!” Then, he turned around and ran in a direction that wasn’t the inn’s.

“Gah!” Kei said, grabbing her ponytails in frustration, and quietly counted to ten. Then, she looked at Kouji. “Why didn’t you go after him?”

He shrugged. “Why should I? It’s a small village and he can’t go anywhere else.”

“Aren’t you worried that he’ll run into trouble?” she asked, starting to move vaguely in the direction Tommy had run.

“If you’re so worried, why didn’t you go after him?” he countered but followed her because he could see a shop selling beef jerky that way. He pointed at the meat and motioned for her to do something useful with all their money.

She grumbled something about why she was the only one thoughtful enough to bring a bag which Kouji chose to ignore. He took the rucksack from her and made room for their new acquisitions while Keisaki haggled with the pink-feathered shopkeeper. He moved her large clipboard to the side and was dismayed about how little actual space the rucksack offered.

Once money moved hands, Keisaki tried to help with packing up the food, but her mind wasn’t on the task.

Kouji struggled to keep his face impassive when it took her five solid seconds before she realized that she tried to fit an already emptied box into the front pocket. He brushed her off to do the packing himself and steadfastly refused to ask her what the heck her problem was. But Keisaki couldn’t care less about his unwillingness to address the issue.

Once they left the shop to search the town for something to go with their newly acquired beef jerky, Keisaki took a deep breath and admitted, “I’ve never been good with children.”

Kouji inwardly groaned. “Okay?” Evidently, Tomoki’s reaction continued to bother her.

She fretted with her hair, her eyes darting around without focusing on anything. “You know, I have a little brother who’s just as old as Tommy, and we aren’t close either. And I don’t know how to change that,” she continued, voice laced with frustration. “My other brother Takuya somehow handles him perfectly; he’s his hero and I’m just... I’m...” she trailed off, unable to describe what she felt.

To Kouji, Keisaki simply sounded jealous. While she blinked and looked for the next stall that might sell something useful, she asked, “How about you? Do you have any siblings?”

“No,” Kouji said, hoping that she’d drop the conversation.

No such luck.

“Good for you. They’re a lot more trouble than they’re worth,” she said, trying for a lighter tone, but still sounding subdued.

For some reason, this annoyed him.

She noticed his look and quickly backpedalled, “Not that I’ve been the perfect older sibling, either! But Shinya is sometimes so irritating. He really is a lot like Tommy.” She paused, fishing for words. “Well, at least when I look at Tommy, I see Shinya... And I can’t seem to do anything right with either of them!”

Kouji couldn’t relate to her issues at all, and he also didn’t know why she suddenly felt like telling him all that, but he saw an immediate flaw in how she handled Tommy. “You can’t treat him like a child.”

“Why not? We’re older than him! We’ve got a responsibility!” she said, finally with some of her familiar anger.

“We can’t shield him from everything. You said so yourself: this world is dangerous, and if he can’t pull his weight at a critical moment, we all might pay!” he said, also getting agitated. She seemed to selectively ignore what Tomoki contributed to the group.

“But he shouldn’t need to do that!” Keisaki said, all but confirming Kouji’s suspicion, and balled her hands into fists. “He shouldn’t need to since we’re here. We’re supposed to keep him safe...” In her eyes was a far-away look. “A while back, we went to an amusement park, and Takuya and I were supposed to watch over Shinya. But Shinya kept needing help with everything, and I got so annoyed. I yelled at him to tie his stupid shoelaces by himself, and he ran away. Takuya got really angry at me and spent the rest of the day looking for him while I just enjoyed myself.” She gulped.

Kouji stared at her with a somewhat disbelieving look. Seriously, why was she telling him that? He wanted to ask how any of this related to the current situation, but he didn’t like being interrupted and tried to give others the same courtesy. She was still talking, so he sighed and quietly handled the next transaction.

Keisaki didn’t even notice the shop in front of them, lost in her memories. “When I showed up at the gate without my brothers, my parents got so angry at me. Until then, I hadn’t even realized that what I did was wrong. What if Takuya hadn’t found Shinya? What if we lost him? And now I’m trying to be more considerate and responsible, but that also doesn’t work!” She stewed in her frustration for a moment before finally taking notice of her surroundings. She glared at the frog digimon that was selling canned goods as if she dared it to say anything. It silently handed over the food, accepting their money.

Despite himself, Kouji put some thought into Keisaki’s situation. It didn’t seem like she learned anything, considering how hard she failed in understanding Tomoki. She still had no idea about the core issue as she said unhappily, “I don’t want to worry, but I still do, and now I’m wondering if we should’ve gone after him after all...” Then, she narrowed her eyes and gave Kouji a strict look.

“What?” he asked. He was still gathering his thoughts. Just rushing out with a half-baked opinion would be counter-productive.

“You’re not going to run off again, are you?”

That managed to surprise him. Where did that come from? Kouji hadn’t thought about leaving the group for a while, especially since he now knew that Grumblemon existed. So annoyance seeped into his voice when he answered, “No.”

“It’s just, the last time I shared some deep, traumatic stuff from my past, you made a beeline for the exit,” she said accusingly.

If that was traumatic, he would happily trade memories with her. But since it seemed to be such a problem for her, he said, pointing at her rucksack, “We have everything. Let’s look for Tomoki.” If he took one thing away from her speech, it was the fact that she had trouble seeing Tomoki as a useful fighter. And that was a liability since she was supposed to come up with their strategy. Now that he was aware of her critical flaw, he could think back, and there wasn’t a single instance where she had anything meaningful to say about Tomoki. Every time she mentioned Kumamon, it had sounded tacked on and this morning, he was the only one she hadn’t evaluated.

“I think—” Kouji began, ready to save future plans by informing her of her flawed thought process when he felt a tug at his sleeve. He almost expected it to be Tomoki, but the shopkeeper from the stall they had just passed stared up to him. The creature sold various weirdly shaped stone figures, old-looking rocks and jewellery. It wore a form-concealing ensemble of tattered scarves. Its stare was strangely everlasting when it stretched its crystalline hand out towards him. In it was a long, red jewel. Kouji frowned as it pushed the polished rock straight into his hands.

“Your soul shines so bright, I shall give you this light!” the digimon said in glassy, flute-like voice. “It will help you in your travel, before things unravel.”

“Wha-at?” Keisaki summarized the encounter adequately.

The masked digimon went back to sitting mysteriously behind the counter.

Kouji shrugged, giving the jewel a cursory glance. It was made from a smooth material and shaped like an octagon. It was also oddly balanced in his hand. Other than that, it didn’t seem to do anything. “No idea. Do we still have space for this thing?”

Keisaki nodded in clear confusion. She placed Kouji’s acquisition next to their bundle of dried meat.

She’d just zipped up the main pocket again when the sky lit up in an explosion of data. They both froze in place. Then, they simultaneously started to run towards it. Tomoki could be in trouble!

-Zoe-

The digimon we asked directions to the library from were distant and reserved as if they couldn’t believe anyone would want to go there. JP filled the walk from passerby to passerby with meaningless chatter—mostly compliments directed towards me that I wasn’t sure I could fully appreciate and therefore ignored.

I enjoyed the fresh wind from the lake close by sweeping through the village. My Spirit might have fine-tuned me towards the shifts in atmospheric pressure. I felt rain coming. That or it might have been the huge storm clouds gathered above the lake down the cliff, the water grey and agitated. A pretty flimsy-looking water dam stopped the flood from falling upon the hapless land below.

As we approached the library, the bad weather seemed to catch up in leaps and bounds. Our surroundings grew darker and darker. Alarmed, I checked the sky and saw... that the storm clouds were content with menacing the far-off lake and had not made the trip to the village just yet. So why...?

Then, I noticed the lonely building amid a loose collection of gnarled, black-barked trees. It looked almost like one of those Disney castles the evil queens lived in with sharp angles and black walls. Evil-looking stone gargoyles were on both sides of the staircase leading to the huge entrance. A foreboding cloud spiral was directly above the miniature castle that drenched the entire lot into creepy shadows. A sign next to the entrance gate was in Japanese and told us this was the library.

“I’m starting to think ‘not open for the public’ is some sort of code for ‘inhabited by evil, keep out, you don’t want to know’,” I said uncertainly. If I squinted, I could see flashes of a red sky through the spiralling clouds while here outside, where we still stood, the sky had the steel grey colour that usually preceded rain.

JP nervously walked back and forth in front of the open entrance gate and said carefully, “I can understand if you’d rather go back to the others. I mean, this doesn’t look like a place for a pretty girl like you!”

Even though I could see through the ploy that he was just as put out by the scary sight, I couldn’t believe he was saying that to me! “ Cosa?! Give me a break!” Then, I deliberately marched past him and walked over the stone path to the staircase. He hurried to follow me.

I didn’t know if I should knock or not and the castle/library earned another creepy point for taking the decision from me: It opened on its own accord. A cold shiver went down my spine and I needed to remind myself that I could digivolve at any time.

“Hello?” I said into the dark hall stretching out in front of us. The walls were made of black wood, and I caught a glimpse of a staircase branching up the balcony of a second floor. Therefore, the room had to be big, but my chest constricted for a moment as a claustrophobic feeling settled in. The entire space was filled with books. I could see them everywhere, in every nook and cranny. They were on the shelves, piled on the floor and even stacked on some of the steps of the staircase. So many books! How were we supposed to find anything here? Didn’t they have a librarian? My call remained unanswered.

“Maybe we should go back...” JP said again, this time dropping all pretence that this was for my own good.

“Not a chance, we need to find out something about those Beast Spirit things and here are a ton of books.” I was surprised at how confident I sounded. “Let’s see if there are any we can read.”

I stepped fully inside the hall and looked around. My eyes had already adjusted to the darkness, and I could see clearly in the faint red light that came through the high windows. When JP also came inside, I almost expected to hear the door fall shut and to get the sinking feeling that we were now trapped inside. That didn’t happen though, and red light was streaming in through the doorway too, throwing our shadows into the huge room. Breaks in the walls were leading to even more rooms where I could see even more books, and above the second floor was a third floor where, presumably, even more rooms with even more books were waiting. The magnitude of our search got to me, and I swayed on the spot. This looked like work for the entire party!

Though I disregarded the first shelf I inspected just by the DigiCode letters on their bindings. By the third shelf full of the useless squiggle language, I was dearly hoping for some sort of register or index of books just to see if there was anything useful in here at all.

That was when JP called out from the other side of the aisle (we weren’t stupid enough to separate), “Zoe, here’s one in Japanese!”

That would be a first!

I quickly joined him while he reached for the book.

“ Do not touch my books!” a voice shouted, coming from everywhere at once and I shrieked. JP froze with his hand still raised towards the shelf.

He recovered quicker than I and shouted, “Who said that? Show yourself!”

There was no answer.

I gathered my courage and added, “We’re just looking for information. We won’t mess up—”

“ You do not deserve information!”

Well, that did it. I refused to deal with ridiculousness of that magnitude. Disembodied voice or not, no one should mess with me and my temper. “That’s unfair! We just want to take a peek! I thought this is a library!”

The ensuing silence just riled me up more. “You can’t just say that and then stay quiet!”

“Yeah, right!” JP agreed emphatically. He grabbed the book and pulled it out of the shelf.

Uh, oh. That might have been a tad too drastic.

“ No!”

I shied back, reaching into my pocket for the D-Tector when the sound of leathery wings came from above. A shadow dropped from the third floor straight towards us. It looked like one of the statues outside had come alive and it stretched out a clawed hand.

I didn’t want that to touch me! I pulled the D-Tector free and summoned the data circle around my left hand. “JP, quick!”

Execute Spirit Digivolve to...
...Kazemon!
...Beetlemon!

We knew that digimon. It was one of the earlier digimon mentioned in the book. Its name was Gargoylemon, a Human digimon, and it usually was rather peaceful and reclusive. Maybe we could reason with it.

“Halt! My friend has acted rashly! We can talk about it!”

“No!” Gargoylemon said, enraged. He had an impossibly thin, white body with equally thin arms and legs wrapped with metal rings. His feather wings were comparatively small, and on his feet and hands were huge blue claws with which he now slashed at Beetlemon. For his size, he was surprisingly quick. Even though Beetlemon took a step back, Gargoylemon still got a hit in. “No one but me is allowed access to my books!”

There was an unreasonable anger in his voice that struck a familiar chord.

...!

Could it be? Could he be just as influenced by dark thoughts as some of our previous enemies?

We jumped back when he swung his claws madly at Us. We were still faster. We needed to handle this situation more carefully so We wouldn’t repeat Our error from Breezy Village.

For being so concerned about the books, Gargoylemon sure didn’t care when one of his attacks went haywire and slashed through an entire shelf, sending pages flying everywhere. Seeing that, We didn’t hesitate to unleash a mighty storm. “ Hurricane Wave!”

He raised his claws and the attack washed over him harmlessly. We clicked Our tongue. What was it with enemies being so invulnerable to Our wind? Then, We grudgingly thought that maybe Anumon had been right. This wasn’t Our main strength. Because We had managed to hit Gargoylemon. Beetlemon brought a sparking fist down, but struck only air, since the enemy was faster than him.

Gargoylemon turned to the Warrior of Thunder. He had his back to Us, thinking us harmless and that it could ready his own special attack in peace. His blue claws started to glow. We took a step back, feeling indignant. We would show him! We kicked off the ground and launched Ourselves at the exposed enemy, making him stagger forwards and losing control of the glow. It was this moment of confusion that We knew Beetlemon would use. He didn’t disappoint Us when he brought both hands down on Gargoylemon’s head. “ Thor’s Hammer! ”

The enemy was failing now, and We went into a body check. “ Love Tap!” Getting physical seemed to do the trick more than any blast of air, and a ring of data appeared around the white digimon.

Careful now. We needed to concentrate and only take what was evil. Not all of Gargoylemon was bad; he was simply infused with something bad. We could cleanse him of that and leave the rest of him be. “Corrupted soul, fear not! My storm will clear your troubled mind!” Careful, careful. “Scan!”

We could feel the data entering Our D-Tector, the vile presence of something evil, something that did not belong. A few seconds passed and We felt purer data coming in. We paused, unsure. This had to be what We needed to leave intact! We cut the connection between the D-Tector and Gargoylemon’s data.

In front of Us, We were pleased to see no DigiEgg. The spindly digimon stood before Us and looked mightily confused. “What... what is going on?”

We released the human in Us, feeling Beetlemon do the same.

“We don’t know, but it seems like you have been under some sort of evil influence,” We... I mean, I said. It was still a little disorienting to come back from Kazemon. Before I could say more, I saw that my D-Tector was blinking. Confused, I pressed a button, and a stream of purified fractal code greeted me that assembled all around us.

In a spreading wave, the dark atmosphere vanished. The black colour of the stones and wood cleared into a friendly yellow. Outside the dark clouds dissipated to show the steel grey sky, and the trees changed shape into something that looked much more welcoming. The entire lot got an overhaul, and I felt more like being in the castle of a fairy-tale princess.

Gargoylemon watched the change happen with bewilderment in his blue eyes, but he caught himself and bowed to us. “Then, I must thank you for freeing me! Why did you come here?”

“It was no problem at all,” JP said, absentmindedly rubbing his chest where Gargoylemon had slashed him earlier. “We’re looking for information.”

I cringed; this had been the berserk button earlier.

Gargoylemon just smiled. “Oh! That’s wonderful! I have information on all sorts of things in my libr-” He gave a shocked gasp. “Oh no, what happened?!” He took in the state of his library after our short fight. He fell to his knees next to some shredded pages, wings and shoulders shaking.

JP traded a look with me and whispered, “Is he crying?”

“I don’t know! Can’t you go check?” I whispered back, not the least bit sure what to do.

“Okay, he started sobbing, pretty sure I get the picture.” JP sighed, reached into his pocket, and produced another one of his chocolate bars.

Haha! Chocolate to the rescue!

“Uh well, here you go. Hope that makes it better...” JP said, handing his prize away.

Gargoylemon looked at him with large, blue eyes, swimming with tears. “Oh, I wouldn’t—”

“Just take it, really,” JP insisted, clearly hoping to drop the topic as soon as possible.

I didn’t want to feel useless, so I put a careful hand on the digimon’s shoulder. “I’m sorry... for your loss...” Okay, well, I tried everything. “Why don’t you go sit down somewhere?”

It took a moment to locate a place not stacked with books. A small reading corner with a lonely seat did the trick.

JP and I awkwardly crowded around the table. Not only because there was just one seat, but also because our comforting strategy began and ended with the chocolate.

Thankfully, Gargoylemon didn’t need more than that to calm down. He threw the wrapper in the trashcan next to the desk and said, “You own the Spirits of the Legendary Warriors, am I right?”

I was sufficiently surprised. “Uh, yes, we do.”

“It’s an honour to meet you. I have read so much about you!” he said in a somehow unfittingly grave voice. “If you have any questions, I will be glad to help you in your quest to save the Digital World!”

“Well... We met another Legendary Warrior just like us, but he works for Cherubimon,” I began, remembering why we came to the library in the first place.

He nodded gravely. “As one of the rightful rulers of our world, Cherubimon did receive five Spirits of the Legendary Warriors.”

“Five?! That means there are four more just like Grumblemon?” I exclaimed.

“I’m afraid that is highly likely,” he said apologetically.

Since the digimon was such a well of knowledge, JP jumped at our chance. “Do you know what a Beast Spirit is?”

He pulled out a notebook from his breast pocket, and I remembered that he stored other things besides his endless supply of chocolate there.

“Ah... So you met a Warrior who had not only a Human Spirit, but also a Beast Spirit?” Gargoylemon clarified.

“Exactly!” I exclaimed. Finally, some information!

He clasped his hands and tapped his clawed index fingers against his lips. “Then, the legends are true. It is said that the souls of the Warrior Ten that ended Lucemon were humanoid as well as animalistic. Their Spirits would reflect that with a Human Spirit that seeks clarity and reason, and a Beast Spirit that is chaos and raw energy! Most fascinating.”

JP was asking some more questions about Beast Spirits, but what he said about souls reminded me of something. I cursed inwardly because Kei had the book.

Well, I could try anyway. “Gargoylemon, we have all our information from a book called, Guida al mondo della anime .” I decided to translate the title in full. “It says it’s an encyclopaedia of the Digital World, but also a guide to the World of Souls...”

“Oh, I know that book.” And again, I was totally surprised. “It’s a fine copy if a little rudimentary. Very biased against Beast digimon since a group of humanoids has written it.”

“But it’s in Italian!” I said, reeling back in disbelief.

“Guarda che so l’italiano!” he said with a grin—and a bit of a defect in pronunciation.

I didn’t care one bit. It felt like forever since I listened to my mother’s language! I leaned forwards. “Non sapevo che i Digimon parlassero altre lingue!”

“Uhm okay?” JP said, frustration in his voice as his eyes flickered from me to Gargoylemon and back. 

“Oops! Sorry, I’m just surprised to hear a digimon speak Italian,” I told him, feeling bad for excluding him—for about as long as it took for JP’s face to light up way more than it should. I still didn’t know how to deal with his... affection.

Gargoylemon missed the disgruntled look I sent Junpei and said proudly, “I made it my business to read every book on which I can get my claws! I know many languages!”

“So what is the World of Souls?” I pressed, glad to focus on something important.

“That’s easy; this Digital World is the World of Souls!” he answered, his eyes alight with passion. He geared up a speech that could have come directly out of the encyclopaedia. “Human-type digimon and beast-type digimon. Two different concepts of utterly opposite nature, yet the tension between them sparks energy and life. In every digimon, there is either a humanoid soul or a beast soul.”

Huh, since I was following what he tried to say, I inwardly corrected myself: this was way easier than reading the book. Maybe I could convince him to come along and just explain everything to us?

He wasn’t done dispensing wisdom. “Additionally, all digimon of this world carry one of the ten elements that the Legendary Warriors represented. Even you, who have come here from the world of humans have souls that carry strong elements.” He fixed me with a stare. “Yes... A free-spirited soul so full of passion and drive, the soul of a creature of the air that refuses to submit to the will of the world. No wonder AncientIrismon’s legacy was drawn towards you.”

I froze, not expecting such an assessment. I... My soul had an element?

JP was nodding along with those words, his pencil dancing across the pages of his notebook. He looked up to send Gargoylemon a hopeful stare. “And what about me?”

Gargoylemon was happy to comply. “Creativity and a desire to figure out the world! The true marks of a soul infused with electricity that can put names on and quantify the abstract and unimaginable!”

I furrowed my brows. That wasn’t how I would describe JP. Maybe Gargoylemon was just making things up.

Well, JP grinned, so he liked what he heard.

I decided to put my plan of ‘let Gargoylemon join our quest’ into motion and asked, “Say, have you ever left the village?”

Sadly, I didn’t get to hear his answer, since I picked up noises coming from the entrance hall.

Before I could feel the stab of disappointment at the inconvenient timing, I recognized the voices. “That’s Kei and the others!” I called out to them, “We’re over here!”

“Great timing!” JP said, unaware of the irony. “They should hear this too!”

I was inclined to agree with him until Kei and Kouji came into the room. I narrowed my eyes.

“Where’s Tommy?” I demanded.

Keisaki shot Kouji a look. “We kind of— Uhm, Tommy ran away. We thought he came here!”

Not good enough! This sounded awfully familiar. “You lost Tommy?”

Kouji looked taken aback by my reaction, and Kei sputtered out an unconvincing “Well, uh...”

“Kei! You can’t make a habit out of losing people!”

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