Digimon VIRAL
Episode Eight
The Final Break In

   It was a grateful change, the path that they were taking now. For one thing, it was an actual path; packed dirt and everything. It was a little reminiscent of the Saline Desert as they were also following railroad tracks, but there was wispy green grass on all sides. Sometimes they'd find flowers, or bushes, or trees, and even other, weaker Digimon – which didn't attack. All in all, there was a pleasant atmosphere, complete with blue skies and sunshine.

   They had all stocked up on fruit, keeping it in a sack made from one of the curtains in the Obsidian Temple. Getting out of that area was much less of a problem than they had expected it to be, as there was a narrow ridge extending past the sloping path that led to the Emerald Temple.

   With Fuurinmon's winds there to help their balance, they made it to an area away from the tar pits, a rocky high-rise which soon led them to the field. For a while they even caught a ride along the rails, the same way they had beforehand, until the feline's energy was out and she reverted to her Rookie form.

   Nathan was having quite a good time with his goggles in his hands, reflecting the sunlight over the lenses to make a spot of light dance over the ground. This teased his partner's natural instinct to chase things, and he would chuckle to himself whenever the canine Digimon twitched to make a move, before snapping himself out of it and grumbling.

   "Is it a long walk to the next one?" Gin inquired. "I'm not complaining, this is actually a pleasant trip for once."

   Muzenmon laughed a little. "See that hill up ahead?" She pointed a purple claw at the large lump not far in the distance. "It's behind there, no worries."

   "Hey," Audrey spoke, not really looking at anyone but watching Nathan's bounced light darting over the grass, "what happens once we finish this temple? What do we do then?"

   The group was silent for a few moments. "That's a really good question, actually..." Zuru noted. A few more moments passed.

   "Well?" The boy looked up, directing his gaze at the bat and the bee. "You're the ones that started us on this, you must have an answer."

   Muzenmon inwardly winced. They were hoping they could just scrap the group after this, get rid of them for good, no questions asked. Or at least, not that one. She had just begun to weave another plot in her head when her partner interjected.

   "We honestly don't know. You probably won't need to do anything, opening the walls should be enough." Of course playing dumb wouldn't have come to mind for Muzenmon, Zotzmon thought, she always refused to look like a fool in front of others.

   She caught on, though, and continued where he left off. "Maybe something that we can see will happen, maybe not. It'll probably cleanse the world of the evil forces that taint it right now, though..."

   "You know about those?" Nathan paused; he had been readjusting the goggles onto his head.

   The bee looked at him with an almost compassionate expression in her eyes. "Of course we do. It's not difficult to sense it in the air itself."

   They continued walking in silence, as clouds rolled by on the horizon. Until suddenly Kotamon, who was half-leading the team, stopped very suddenly, causing the rest of them to slowly crash into her, this snapped them all out of their slightly bored stupor.

   "Hey, hey! What was that all about?" Ospreymon snapped.

   "Um. I figured it might be a bit of a bad idea to keep walking." Kotamon gestured to the path in front of them. Or rather, the lack thereof.

   The ground sloped down at first, tricking them into thinking it was the downwards slope of a hill, but instead everything suddenly cut off, leading into a gaping pile of sky. The railroad tracks dangerously jutted out from where they stood, making a path through the air and looking completely calm about it. There was a wind but the tracks didn't even budge.

   And sure enough, when they peeked their heads over the edge, they could see miles and miles of red. The tracks actually led right to the wall, which instead of stretching to high heaven, curled in on itself over and over again, creating what looked like a sparkling red maze. Whatever train would have ever used those tracks had an interesting travel line – after flying through the air the tracks attached themselves to the side of the wall and wrapped around the structure before disappearing around some unseen corner and vanishing.

   They could actually see the entire structure from here; it was seated on a large hill that was only large enough for the maze itself. All that seemed to surround it was cracked earth, and jagged mountains in the distance.

   "Well that's...comforting." Nathan blankly noted.

   "I've been hit with the sudden horrifying realization that the only way down there leaves us hanging in the air for a very long time..." Gin was eyeing the rail line with a very worried expression on her face.

   "Or for not very long at all..." Zuru mused.

   Nathan looked at her, wide-eyed. "Oh no, were not jumping!"

   She laughed. "No, definitely not. Turn around!" She gestured behind the goggle head.

   The rest of the group looked too, and a little ways behind them, sliding down the tracks was a cart. It was being wheeled along by a grey crowd of about half a dozen Pagumon, each one giggling and staring at them with their narrow red eyes.

   Lutramon warily peeked out from behind Gin's legs. "How long've they been followin' us?"

   "They caught up about...fifteen minutes or so ago." Canismon answered without hesitating.

   Nathan stared at the dog. "And why didn't you tell us?"

   "Low-level Digimon... They didn't smell threatening and they kept their distance."

   "Not threatening, huh?" Ospreymon muttered. "They seem mighty thrilled about the idea of you guys shooting through the sky on a tiny cart."

   "What, you're staying up here?" Kotamon blinked.

   Ospreymon blinked right back, exasperated. Instead of replying he simply looked at her in a degrading manner and waved a feathered wing.

   "...shut up." She muttered.

   The group slowly and apprehensively climbed into the cart, except those who could fly, which were really only Ospreymon, Zotzmon, and Muzenmon. It was a bit crowded but that made them feel a bit safer, as they were so squished together it would be more difficult for any of them to fall out.

   "Are you sure this is such a good idea?" Gin stared ahead nervously.

   "Yeah I don' know abou' this either..." Lutramon muttered. "Isn' there another way-AY!?" With a jolt the cart was pushed forwards by the Pagumon, and it slowly rolled along the tracks. For a moment it teetered over the edge of the cliff before lurching forwards and shooting down the tracks.

   "OH GOD THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE, EVER. I KIND OF WANT TO DIE RIGHT NOW."

   "I think we share the same feelings!" Kotamon screamed a response to her partner's outburst. The rest of them were, if not yelling, either cowering into the others or staring ahead, panicked.

   The cart sped down the tracks, often bumping over the steel beams. It wove over and around, left, right, climbing upwards, speeding downwards. The path seemed much less straight now that they were traveling down it. The sparkling red walls were coming towards them like a giant wave.

   Rather suddenly the tracks bent and began to follow the perimeter, throwing the group to one side of the cart. It was dangerously close to the ruby bricks, but what seemed far more unsafe was the sudden sight of an end to their ride. They'd reached a long, straight section of the wall, at the end of which the tracks bent upwards and simply stopped.

   "Oh no, this is bad! We've gotta stop!" Gin called out.

   "How do you expect us to stop this thing!?" Kotamon whimpered.

   Canismon flexed his claws. "Leave it to me. Nathan!"

   "Right!" The purple-haired boy pulled out his Digivice, which was already glowing red.

   "Canismon evolve..." The dog leaped up to balance himself over the team, while his illuminated form grew over them. "Arainumon!"

   With a grunt he grounded his cloved hooves into the steel sides of the cart, and reached his claws forwards. A horrible screech of metal rang around them as he grasped the tracks as best as he could, occasionally snapping a wooden cross tie in the process.

   The group was thrown forwards when he made contact, but they were grateful that they were slowing down, albeit very rapidly.

   Arainumon was wincing with each contact of claw to cross tie, the splinters would burst around his paws, but flew away from his face. Within moments the cart had come to a ragged stop, mere meters from the twisted end of the tracks. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

   "Oh man..." Nathan slumped against the Digimon's fluffy red tails. "Thank you so much, Arainumon. We'd be dead by now, otherwise."

   "Don't move too much else you still might be." The dog growled, nodding his head to the side to signal for them to look over the cart's edge.

   Beneath the tracks the wall moved straight downwards before hitting the hill's ground. But the earth was covered in spiked briars that covered the entire surface, and then some.

   Gin gulped nervously. "Well that definitely was close. At least we know what we have to do, now."

   "Demon Fissure!" Arainumon was already in the process. His two pairs of twin claws were driven into the glimmering red mass, creating a sharp horizontal crack in its face. Shadowed claws reached out from the crack, startling the others with their closeness at first. They bent back and grabbed at the edges of the crevice, clawing and breaking it to make it large enough, and then vanished in puffs of smoke.

   "Excellent!" Nathan cheered, heaving himself up over the edge of the cart and crawling over to the hole in the wall. "Oh, oh no."

   "What?" Audrey peeked out from behind him, trying to see past the fluffy head of purple hair. "What's wrong?"

   "Um." The other boy turned around. "You know how it looked like a maze from way up there...? I think it is one."

   Gin cocked her head. "I figured that would have been obvious."

   And sure enough, the darkened corridors of the structure stretched out in both directions, a few possible exits scattered about, and a dead end to their left. Upon closer inspection of the walls, they could see that they were thinly covered in small vines which had plump red strawberries growing from them. Even though these halls were just about completely lightless, the fruit seemed to thrive. However, the living conditions of plants didn't exactly help their current situation.

   "We do need to get through it, anyway." Muzenmon pointed out. "We don't have an alternate route."

   "But who knows how long it would take to get through it..." Zotzmon considered their timeframe, and how long Nagamon had been waiting.

   Arainumon grunted. With a swift motion he leaped from the cart to the edge of the fissure, relieving a large amount of weight which made the cart teeter nervously for a moment. "Nothing's telling us we have to follow the rules of mazes."

   "I don' really know what ‘e means by that..." Lutramon said, watching Arainumon's twin tails vanish behind the ruby as he leaped through the hole. The others cautiously made to follow, climbing over and, thankful that the drop to the temple ground was a short one, landing just behind the large dog.

   The canine was sniffing different areas of the wall, presumably searching for something. Within a few moments he paused and without warning, hit the crimson wall with another Demon Fissure.

   Before the others had a chance to stop coughing, Arainumon had already crawled through the crack, and was assaulting the wall behind it.

   "Oh, I see." Zuru shook rubies out of her hair as she followed the ever proceeding red tails. "Why bother wasting time with the maze when we can just go through the whole thing."

   "But doesn't this seem... I dunno, overly destructive?" Kotamon frowned.

   Ospreymon shrugged at the feline. "Personally I'm kind of sick of these temples and their weirdness, this is the last one isn't it? I'd be glad to do whatever it takes to go home."

   "Unfortunately your idea of home is kind of different from ours..." Audrey muttered.

   The bird gave his partner a sideways glance, without pausing. "I meant it as a general term; we Digimon don't usually have homes."

   "...Oh."

   "Oy, Arainumon!" Nathan called out to his partner. "Where are we going? What were you sniffing out?"

   The white dog paused his siege only to respond. "What I assumed was the center. Straight through there, and onwards, and we should be hitting solid ground."

   "Well that's good to hear." The boy nodded as Arainumon resumed his Demon Fissures.

   It felt like quite a while before the shadowy claws opened the way to a cavernous main room, they vanished in puffs of smoke as Arainumon's accumulated fatigue caused him to revert to his Rookie stage.

   Nathan caught the canine before he hit the floor hard, and hoisted him up onto his back as the others went on ahead.

   The room was, as expected, similar to all the others – high ceilings and an architecturally intricate centerpiece. But the floor of the area was made of packed soil, with twisting paths of ruby brick snaking over it. The earthy scent was welcoming after the stuffiness and dust of the maze corridors. What looked like thick roots spiraled up from the center of the room, they were grooved to imitate a staircase. Their tips narrowed and twisted at the top, forming a small platform with an ornate, glittering basin.

   "Oh good, we hit the main room." Gin sighed with relief. "But what are we going to do about the other half? Canismon looks exhausted and none of us can even think to go at these walls..."

   "I don't think we need to worry about that!" Zuru called from the other side of the root spire. The others blinked in confusion before heading towards their team mate.

   And there, where it had moments before been hidden by the roots, were the front doors; standing tall and strong with their shimmering, mirrored surface and the thick lock in place between the two sides.

   "At least it's no trouble to open it..." Canismon muttered from the spot on the floor where he was laying.

   Audrey gave him a look of concern. "I thought Nathan was keeping you up?"

   "Sorry!" The other boy called, slightly out of breath. He was running down the staircase with murky red beads in his hand. "I didn't want to feel like I wasn't one of the cool kids." He grinned, and promptly hoisted his partner back onto his back.

   "Alright. Let's get out of this dirty old place." Ospreymon said while giving the packed earth floor an unimpressed expression. Canismon grunted his offence.

   The troupe walked towards the giant glassy doors, and Nathan lifted his partner's paw to the padlock. A satisfying click resounded in the chamber, and the lock fell open. He pulled it apart and let it fall to the floor, and together they pushed the heavy doors open.

   The sunlight caught them off guard after being indoors for so long, and as their vision slowly recovered, they gazed outwards on a vast field of dark sand.

   "This seems really anti-climactic somehow." Said Audrey, his eyes following the spires of the mountains they had previously seen, which were considerably closer now that the temple was behind them.

   Muzenmon smiled. "Don't worry, we're almost out of here, we just need to cross this small desert."

   "'Small' and ‘desert' don't usually go together very well..." Gin grumbled to herself.

   The bee ignored this. "Once we get to those mountains, we'll be able to plan out how to get you kids home." She smiled to herself, glancing sideways at her partner, whose eyes were rapidly looking around – a sign that he was nervous.

   Zuru breathed a sigh of relief. "I can't wait..."

   And so they headed down the rough ruby-plated steps, their feet sinking slightly as they hit the darkened sand of the desert ahead. Occasionally they made small talk, but mostly they were silent, the teens basking in their own thoughts of being done and accomplished, and the Digimon pretty sure of themselves that there was supposed to be more to this.

   They didn't even notice when Zotzmon and Muzenmon lagged behind, and they continued in a straight line, heading for the tallest of the mountains.

   "Did you guys hear that?" Nathan questioned.

   "Yeah. S'my tummy. I'm real hungry." Lutramon answered, rubbing her furry black stomach with one of her short front paws.

   "No no...it came from somewhere around us..."

   Audrey suddenly stopped in his tracks. "Oh no."

   Then without further warning, the ground beneath them sunk, the sand spiraled down into a reverse cone. They scrambled to grasp what they were once standing on, but to no avail, the grains of sand slipped through their fingers and their limbs were rendered useless as their weight and the motion of the ground pulled them downwards.

   "Audrey!!" Ospreymon called to his partner, he was flying close above them, trying to grab anyone's hand in hopes they would link together and could be pulled out.

   "Nectar Lance!" A thin streak of yellow particles hit the raptor in the back of the head, knocking him out and sending him down with the rest of the team.

   The bat and the bee watched as the eight bodies were pulled into the center of the swirling hole, victims of a giant ant lion's trap.

   Zotzmon looked his partner over. "You didn't have to knock him out. Just sticking his wings together would have been sufficient."

   Muzenmon shrugged. "It was my last chance. That one really pissed me off, anyway."

   "Everything pisses you off..."

   "You don't..." The bee gave the other the softest expression she could muster.

   Zotzmon rolled his eyes and looked away. "I never fall for that, Muzenmon."

   The bee immediately reverted to her usual smirking expression. "Let's head back to Nagamon. It won't be long before the Miermon take care of them."

   Together they flew over the dark sand, neither one sparing a glance at the spot the team had vanished into, where the sand had just about leveled out once more.

------------------

   Audrey struggled to ease his eyes open, but stopped immediately when he could feel grains of sand loosening from his eyelashes. Slowly he sat up, shaking his hair out with his hands. He rubbed at his eyes, letting automatic tears wash out the sand, and wiping the rest out on his sleeve. The surroundings were cave-like, tunnels stretched in all directions, and tiny lights covered the walls in straight lines. Suddenly he straightened up, remembering his partner, and whipped around a few times before finding him crumpled behind him.

   "Oh no...Ospreymon..." His hands hesitated over the green feathery form before lifting him up, his head hanging limp. Upon retracting his hand from behind his neck, he noticed the sticky yellow powder that covered his fingers. "She didn't..."

   A small sound came from the bird's throat, and his eyes eased open, the violet irises looking directly at the concerned boy's face. "Aud..."

   His head jerked to look at the Digimon's face once more. "Oh thank god you're not dead. What happened?" But Ospreymon had fazed back into unconsciousness. Audrey smiled a little, and moved the large bird onto his back. He stood and glanced around him, five tunnels branching out from where he was. There wasn't much else for him to do but to walk on and at least try to find the others. So he chose the tunnel that looked the least claustrophobic and began walking.

------------------

   "What are these things!?" Zuru whipped around, staring down each of the Digimon that surrounded her, Gin, and their two partners.

   "This can't be a good situation..."

   Lutramon hulked in front of her partner's feet, trying to look as threatening as she could.

   "They're Miermon..." Kotamon muttered. "They build huge colonies, but you barely ever see them above ground. Those who do don't usually come back."

   The four were surrounded by about two dozen of these Digimon. They looked like giant, glimmering black ants. Their mouth pincers were twice the size of their heads, and their antennae looked like spears. Spines covered their bodies and their abdomens were transparent, full of slightly glowing orange syrup. Eyes like amber stared at them, and their skulls were topped with antlers.

   One of them shook its head threateningly, and they began advancing.

   "Quick! Gin, Zuru, get us glowin'!" Lutramon called out.

   The two girls nodded, their Digivices already in their hands. Blue and green light illuminated the cavern, and their partner Digimon gained the same glow.

   "Lutramon evolve... Neptumon!"

   "Kotamon evolve... Fuurinmon!"

   Neptumon's head scraped the roof of the cave, and she bent low over the feline, whose winds were stirring sand up all around them.

   The Miermon hesitated for a moment, looking at each other and communicating without words, and then they all advanced.

------------------

   Canismon was on his feet, poking at the purple-haired boy with his nose and claws, not unlike a real dog. "Nathan... come on..."

   "Mrrg..." The boy grumbled. "I stole the cookies from the cookie jar, I'm sorry..." He waved his hand a bit and rolled over.

   The dog stared at him, expressionless. He positioned his mouth in front of a sleeved arm, opened it, and slowly bit down.

   It took a few seconds for the boy to yelp and shoot into a seated position, the dog had let go of his arm and was giving him a condescending expression.

   "What? Where are we, Canismon?"

   They were, like the others, in a cavernous tunnel. Rather, the end of one. They were in a cavernous chamber, and a tunnel led out on one wall. They were completely surrounded by what looked like the inside of a beehive, except with circles rather than the usually hexagonal shape of a honeycomb, and it was all made of packed dirt. Every single hollowed out cell was filled with a shining black larva.

   "I'd assume some sort of...breeding chamber. We don't know what we're dealing with...so it's likely best not to...touch anything."

   "They're kind of cute actually, if you look at them the right way." Nathan was handling one of the black grubs, which was staring at him with shiny black eyes, tiny white pincers surrounded its mouth, and it had white knobs on its forehead, making it difficult to tell what was its up and what was its down.

   "Nathan! What did I just say!?"

   The boy looked over, a little shocked. He had clearly not been listening to the dog and was very caught off guard by his panicked tone. "Oh don't worry, I'm not hurting it. I'll put it back!" He looked down at the larva, which was nuzzling into his arm and making a light purring sound. "Aw... but I think it likes me."

   The white dog was trying to quickly figure out how to separate the larva from his partner without hurting it in the process. He didn't even want to think about what would happen if they were caught.

   Nathan was making baby faces at the black larva, which was giggling in a squishy way. Its skin was shiny and slightly reflected their surroundings, and the boy froze when he saw movement behind him, which wasn't his partner.

   The pair turned around, faced with half a dozen Miermon. Nathan slowly bent down and returned the larva to its cell, the straightened up and inched closer to his partner. There was no way Canismon could evolve now; he was still much too tired from smashing down the temple.

   Without warning, the Miermon came towards the two; they both shut their eyes and expected the worst when giant pincers closed around them. It took a moment for them to realize they weren't being horribly crushed. Instead, they were being carried swiftly through the tunnels. The tiny lights on the walls whizzed by. They saw dozens, likely hundreds of Miermon in the tunnels, none of which even gave them a glance.

   They shot each other nervous glances, but when they looked at their captors they saw very little expression in their amber eyes. Moments later, they were brought to what looked like a dirt staircase. It went on for a long time, and other Miermon were climbing up and down them, some of them carrying indiscernible things in their pincers.

   Soon enough they were faced with a grand underground chamber. The lights attached to the walls were considerably larger, and different colored mounts of dirt lined the walls. Nathan and Canismon were dropped to the ground, and once they stood, they were pushed forwards by the Miermon's antlered heads.

   The pair walked forward, their way was clear; it was almost as if there was a path etched into the ground. They could very well see what they were approaching, but neither wanted to think of what awaited them.

   Finally they stopped, and it was almost instinctive for them to fall to their knees. Before them was a simple earthen throne, and seated on it was a Digimon that was clearly the leader of this colony - the Queen. Or rather, Reinamiermon. Her antlers stretched out and above her, and her body was covered with layers and layers of robes. Her pincers were not as large compared to her head, which was angled and smooth. Her first set of legs looked like hands, and they were wrapped in shawls. Long, pearlescent wings stretched from her thorax, and lay over the ground behind her. Her swollen abdomen was supported by mounds of dirt, and all but the end of it was covered in a glimmering blanket of what looked like amber scales.

   Canismon was looking at her with little expression on his face, while Nathan was trembling. The Queen simply stared down at them with her large amber eyes.



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