Hey digifans! This chapter’s pretty short, but I promise the next one will be longer. That’s when the digimon begin to achieve their ultimate forms! Enjoy the story.

 

Who Is It?

 

            “Look Up ahead!” cried Jess as she hobbled along on makeshift crutches, “It’s the end of the fire wall! We can finally meet up with the others!”

 

            “Yay!” shrieked Lectromon flying forward with renewed vigor. Suddenly a scream of terror pierced the air. The exubulent Lectromon stopped in her tracks. Shortly afterwards the cry was punctuated by sounds of crying and begging.

 

            “No!” cried the panicked voice, “Let me go! Help somebody!!”

 

            “There’s another human up there!” said Emulnomon in surprise, “All the good digimon are in hiding, or are strong enough to protect themselves against the evil digimon”

 

            “Who ever it is they’re in trouble,” said Jess trying to limp faster, “We have to try to help them!”

 

            “Can you digivolve and carry us there?” asked Tim of Lamatomon.

 

            “I don’t have enough energy,” replied the digimon shaking his head sadly, “I’d have to eat something first”

 

            “Didn’t you save any food?” asked Lizzie, “You were supposed to be carrying it”

 

            “What do I look like, Chef Boyar D?” asked Tim indignantly, “We finished all of our food at breakfast”

 

            “I don’t care if our digimon can’t digivolve,” said Jess stumbling a few more steps, “That person who is calling could even be Dema or one of the boys!”

 

            “Your carriage Mademoiselle,” said Tim bending over in front of Jess so she could climb on to his back.

 

            “Oh! I love piggyback rides!” she cried, “Thank you sooooo much Tim!” Tim blushed a little and began jogging forward.

*   *   *

 

            “What was that?” asked Dema, her sensitive ears detecting something.

 

            “What?” asked Rab staring down at the little girl in annoyance.

 

            “Nothing,” she stammered meekly, “I just thought I heard something”

 

            “Wait Rab,” said Coro straining to hear, “I think she’s right. It sounds like someone’s calling for help!”

 

            “Well good for them,” scoffed Rab keeping up his leisurely walking pace. Looking around slowly, he saw five angry faces looking daggers at him. Growling under his breath, he broke into a run toward the voice. When they rounded the bend they found three surprises: the end of the fire wall, the other members of their group, and a girl trapped in a ring of fire extending from the wall. The feminine figure whom’s shape they could barely make out thought the intense light and heat of the wall was shrieking and crying piteously. Coro covered his mouth to keep from choking on the dense smoke that seemed to emanate only from this section of the wall. He gestured with his free hand for the others to gather behind him.

 

            “There’s someone trapped in there,” he gasped pointing, “We’ve got to save her”

 

            “If she was stupid enough to let the fire burn around her, I don’t think she’s even worth rescuing,” grumbled Rab. Then he noticed Jess’s perch upon Tim’s back and raised an eyebrow, “Didn’t feel like walking Princess?”

 

            “We had a slight run in with a giant octopus okay?” said Tim shifting Jess. She was heavier than she looked.

 

            “Oh. You beat a big mass of jelly without a backbone while we fought and defeated a maniacal crow, and a black belt ninja?” said Penquimon somehow raising his beak into a snarl.

 

            “All of the digimon in this group have evolved again. Can you say the same?” asked Lamatomon puffing out his chest. Penquimon recoiled as though he had been slapped.

 

            “Will you grow up!” shouted Lizzie feeling as thought she was near the end of her rope, “There’s someone over there who needs our help! Penquimon, you can use your ice crusher to help fight the flames, and the rest of us can throw dirt on them or something”

 

            “Let’s move!” shouted Coro rushing forward. Dema looked hesitantly down a Kappymon who merely nodded. Gritting her teeth, the little girl ran to help the others.

 

            Relentlessly the group battled the fierce pyro, but they only succeeded in causing it to back off slightly.

 

            “This isn’t working,” shouted Rab wiping beads of sweat off of his brow, “Any more bright ideas?”

 

            Penquimon sat down, nearly exhausted from using his attack constantly and nipped at Rab’s ankle in irritation. The human and digimon began squabbling until Coro stood up and noticed a tree slightly over hanging the circle of fire.

 

            “I’m going to try to climb up that tree and drop down to the girl!” he shouted above the roar of the fire, “Give me a boost Quantomon!”

 

            Nimbly, Coro scrambled up the tree and dropped into the circle of flames. Crouched in the center was a girl in charred and tattered clothing. She looked up at him, her face covered by a dark gray mixture of soot and tears.

 

            “What are you doing here!” she cried brushing her curly blond tresses out of her face. Coro noticed that she was clutching something blue and fuzzy to her chest.

 

            “I’m here to rescue you because me and my friends can’t seem to put out this fire,” his said a little bit lamely.

 

            “Put out the fire?” she said almost laughing, “That’s not regular fire! It’s Flamemon, a fire digimon!”

 

            “Uh oh,” gulped Coro as the fire around them condensed into a single ball, and the sound of crackling flames formed into words.

 

            “I knew that the girl would draw you here digidestined,” it grated, “Pyro ball!!”

 

            “Goodness Gracious! Great balls of fire!” screamed Tim (sorry, I couldn’t resist) as burning missals came launching from Flamemon’s mouth in the direction of Rab.

 

            “Well you’re nothing but a…” Penquimon was shouting at Rab. Before Rab could react Penquimon saw what was happening, shouted

 

            “Penquimon digivolve to…Polarfreezmon!” The white penguin was instantly replaced by a great silver polar bear with the same four horns and face markings, as it’s previous stage.

 

            “Ice claw!” it roared immediately sizzling he fireballs away with huge flying icicles. Rab’s eyes widened as he realized how close to death he had come. Coro’s eyes widened as the girl he had “rescued” clung to him in fear.

 

            “Ice Claw!” the Polarfreezmon shouted again sending the icicles at the fire digimon. The great frozen spikes imbedded themselves in the monster dissolving him into hissing and crackling digital bits of information.

 

            “You saved me?” said Rab looking with shock at he huge polar bear digimon.

 

            “Of course I did idiot,” growled Polarfreezmon dedigivolving back to Penquimon, “If you die I cease to exist”

 

            “Oh. For a minute I thought that you might have actually not wanted me to die,” Rab said, apparently recovering from the shock rather quickly.

 

            “Whatever,” sighed Penquimon feeling too tired to argue. A little ways away a very different conversation was taking place.

 

            “You saved me!!” cried the girl gratefully hugging Coro.

 

            “Not really,” stammered Coro blushing deep crimson.

 

            “You tried to at least,” said the girl very sincerely, “That was very brave”

 

            “I just did what I thought was right,” said Coro shrugging out of the girl’s embrace. The girl smiled brilliantly and tilted her head to the side as though she was listening to something.

 

            “Psychicmon says thanks too,” she said after a pause. The thing in her arms moved slightly, and Coro realized that it was a digimon. The small blue fuzzy creature looked up with two large, black, and unblinking eyes. Coro shuddered slightly. Psychicmon was a bizzar mix of cute and creepy.

 

            “Um you’re welcome Psychicmon,” he said addressing the digimon. It continued to stare at him silently.

 

            “Psychicmon can’t talk. She doesn’t have a mouth,” explained the girl, “She can speak to me through my mind, and I talk for her”

 

            “Are you guys okay?” asked Lizzie reaching the Coro and being trailed by the others and their digimon.

 

            “Yeah,” said Coro shaking himself free of Psychicmon’s unrelenting gaze, and clumsily trying to make introductions, “This is um… um”

 

            “Shinobi Kansei,” the girl said smiling at all of them, “And this is my friend Psychicmon”

 

             All on the other digidestined introduced themselves to Shinobi who shook their hands with the exception of Rab who just glared at her.

 

            “So Shinobi, do you by any chance have one of these?” asked Lizzie showing Shinobi her digivice.

 

            “Yeah actually” said Shinobi, “Psychicmon says it’s called a digivice, and someday it will allow her digivolve. Right now she is still too weak though. I think it was just yesterday that I fell into this strange digiworld place”

 

            “You’re one of us then” said Coro happily, “We’re the digidestined, and we’re trying to save the digiworld from a computer virus”

 

            “You all have been so kind to me,” said Shinobi rummaging through a purse that she carried, “Would you like to have these pretty carvings that I found?”

 

            As soon as she opened her hand the two objects began to glow and floated over to go inside Coro and Jess’s tags.

           

            “It’s the crest of leadership!” said Quantomon excitedly.

           

            “And the crest of caring” cried Lectromon.

 

            “If you want to go with us you’ll have to carry all of the luggage of course,” said Tim looking around, “Oh wait, we have no luggage”

 

            Shinobi laughed and got that distant look in her eye again. “Psychicmon says that there is a stream up aways,” she said pointing into the forest that lay beyond the mountains, “We can go there and get cleaned up and stuff” Everyone agreed that was a good idea, and started to walk in that direction. Rab came last, staring at the back of her curly haired head and scowling to himself. Why was he suspicious of that girl? Was it that she seemed too nice to be true? Was it Psychicmon’s eerie eyes? Was he just paranoid? Only time would tell!