Chapter 6:
The Valley of Relics
Everything was quiet, with no sounds but the whispering of the flowing breeze. Then, a strange, soft whirring noise sounded. A small black gear blazed through the humid air, its sharp, starry points flashing dangerously. It stopped and hovered for a while, then continued on its way…
The seven kids and their Digimon had just begun their exploration of the Digital World. The forest had finally thinned out, giving way to a sprawling wasteland.
At the back of the group, Yuka tried hard to keep up with everyone else. Lopmon was sleeping on her head.
As the small black gear sped by, it startled Yuka, making her turn her head around. Lopmon tumbled off and landed on her own head.
“Ow!” Lopmon got up and shook her head, ears flopping, and yawned. “Yuka? What is it?”
Yuka was just standing there, looking around wildly. Lopmon jumped up and landed on Yuka’s shoulder. “Is something wrong?” she asked again.
Yuka looked at her with a confused expression. “I don’t know,” she replied, “I thought I felt something strange.”
Lopmon eyed her curiously. “I didn’t feel anything.”
“You didn’t?” Yuka looked around again. “I could have sworn I heard something whiz by us, up in the air–” She was interrupted by footsteps behind her and turned around. Kei was running toward her.
“Yuka! What is it?” she hollered.
Yuka blinked and gave a hasty smile. “N-nothing,” she stammered.
Kei stared at her, puzzled, and then started running back to the group. “Well, come on, then, or we’ll be left behind! We don’t want Akira or Seita to yell at us, do we?”
Yuka smiled. “Nope!” Then she ran, trying to catch up. Lopmon settled down on her head again and tried to go back to sleep.
A short time later, the group was still walking.
“Jeez! Just how big is this place anyway?” Seita was getting frustrated. “We’ve been walking for half a day now, and it seems like we’re in the middle of nowhere!”
“Don’t know!” Gazimon replied, “I’ve never seen this place before!”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Tian asked.
“We Digimon don’t travel around,” Renamon answered, “We stay with our own kind and usually keep to ourselves.”
Jun frowned. “So none of you know of any other places except where you live and the forest?”
“Nope!” Patamon exclaimed.
“Great!” Seita said sarcastically, “So much for being guides!”
“Well... that’s okay!” Akira said brightly, “That makes exploring a lot more interesting. And besides, even if we get lost, we’ll all be together!”
“You said it!” Kodamon beamed. Seita looked at them doubtfully.
They continued walking for a few minutes more, until Mana spotted something strange.
“Hey! What’s that?” She pointed to a distant spot in front of them. The air shimmered, but the kids could make out small pole-shaped objects sticking out from the ground. The strange objects grew more distinct when they got closer.
Mana walked over and stared at one of the poles. “They look just like road signs!”
“Road signs?” Jun went over to her and inspected the collection of poles. “You’re right, they are!” He looked all around him. “There’s a stop sign, a speed limit sign, a whole bunch of warning signs… and they look pretty old, too! See, they all have rust all over them!”
“Wow!” A few yards away, Kei was staring at an even stranger sight. “Look at all the candy machines!” There was a clearing with a tremendous pile of old, rusty vending machines scattered around.
“Look at this!” Tian pointed at a pile of smashed up telephone booths. “I wonder what happened to these? And look up there,” She pointed up at a straggled group of power lines and electrical towers. “They’re just scattered all over the place and don’t lead to any buildings. I doubt they even work.”
“You won’t believe this!” Mana walked back to everyone else with a bewildered expression. “I just saw an old abandoned trolley just over that hill!” She pointed toward it.
“What is this place?” Seita demanded, “The Digital World’s junkyard?”
Jun gazed around the bizarre place, looking thoughtful. “I wonder if there isn’t nothing but old junk lying around here,” he murmured, “If we could find a working computer or telephone or something else…”
“We could be able to call home!” Akira finished. “I think that’s a great idea! We could all split up and look through the stuff. If anyone finds anything working, give a shout. That okay with everyone?”
Seita looked at her. “That’s fine with me.”
“Come on, Yuka!” Kei tugged on her hand, “Let’s go look at the candy machines!” They ran off with their Digimon, giggling.
“Hey! Be careful, okay?” Seita called after them. He looked back at Akira. “I guess Gazimon and I will check out the power lines.”
“And we’ll look at those telephone booths!” Jun said, pulling Mana by the hand.
“Renamon and I are going to see what’s in that old trolley,” Tian said.
“Okay.” Akira nodded. “Well, I guess that’s it,” she said to Kodamon. “What else is there to see?”
“We can walk a little further out and see what’s ahead.” Kodamon replied. “Come on!” They walked away from everyone else, and soon came to a large clearing. Their eyes widened in surprise.
There were piles of old junk strewn everywhere, as far as their eyes could see. There were wrecks of cars and school buses, TVs, radios, kitchen appliances, and even some old computers. But there was nothing that worked.
“I know what this place is,” Kodamon murmured, “It’s the Valley of Relics.”
“The Valley of Relics?” Akira looked at her questioningly.
“Yes,” Kodamon replied, “I was told, long ago, that there was a place in the Digital World which keeps things from another, faraway world. Things from deep in the past.”
“Well, judging from all this stuff, they all came from our world!” Akira picked her way through the scores of rubbish. “I guess this is where all our junk goes after it gets dumped.”
Kodamon looked at her and nodded. “Well, anyway,” she spoke up, “we have to look for someone named Kiwimon. From what I heard, she’s one of the most kind and ancient Digimon around and the mistress of the Valley of Relics. She could probably help us find something that works.”
Akira looked ahead, across the sea of rubbish. “Maybe she’s there,” she replied, pointing at a small shack at the other end of the junk pile.
They walked over to the house and Akira tried to open the door. The knob turned easily, and they tiptoed inside. There was nothing in the house, except for some ancient furniture.
“Hello?” Kodamon called out, “Anybody home?”
“Kodamon! Come here, look at this!” Akira was at the nearest corner of the house. A computer sat in front of her, its system and monitor humming. “It works perfectly!” she exclaimed. “Maybe we can use it to–”
She was interrupted by a loud squawk from the far side of the house. A large, wingless bird with a smooth bone head emerged from the shadows.
“What are you doing in my house?!” the creature screeched, her eyes burning red.
“Uh, oh…”
Meanwhile, the others were almost done searching the rest of the scrap. Most of them hadn’t found anything that worked, and they all gathered together to wait for everyone to come back. Kei and Yuka, however, were still searching through the piles of vending machines.
“Hmm, this is really weird,” Kei said, “If all of these candy machines don’t work, what do you Digimon eat?”
“If we find a machine that works, I hope there’s still candy inside! We’ll have enough to eat for weeks!” Yuka giggled.
“Eww, I doubt it. These machines are all old and crumbly, and even if there was still candy in them, it’d be all moldy and icky!” Kei stuck out her tongue at a rusty machine.
“Well, that one doesn’t look old!” Lopmon motioned to a machine in the far corner of the pile. It still looked shiny and new. The group walked over to it and tried to shake it open.
“Whew,” Kei stopped a moment to rest. “It would be much easier if we had some money.”
“There’s no need for that!” Terriermon backed up, motioning the others to do the same. Then, he ran up to the machine and jumped.
“Blazing Fire!” The machine shook violently from the attack and fell over, all of its contents spilling out.
“Wow! Look at all the candy and stuff!” Yuka’s eyes widened. “Let’s gather up a lot. Wait ‘till everyone else sees this!”
“Thanks, Terriermon!” Kei said. Terriermon blushed.
Just then, they heard a loud scream from the other side of the valley. The two girls jumped up, startled.
“That sounded just like Akira and Kodamon…” Kei whispered. Then they heard another, louder scream from another place.
“Everyone else…” Yuka shivered.
“Come on, let’s go!” Kei ran off, pulling Yuka’s hand. “They need help!”
Akira and Kodamon had been chased out of the house by the bizarre creature, who was actually Kiwimon.
“That’s Kiwimon?” Akira was shocked. “But I thought you said she was good!”
“She is! But I think something bad is controlling her or something!” Kodamon wailed. “Look! There’s everyone else, but they’re running away!”
“What?!” Akira looked up and saw the others running in the opposite direction. “Great… I guess they’re too busy to notice that we need as much help as them! Kodamon! Try to hit Kiwimon with your energy punches! We have to knock some sense back into her!”
Kodamon stopped running and Bear Fisted toward Kiwimon. The energy hit Kiwimon square in the face, but she was unfazed. She slowly opened her mouth and…
“Pummel Peck!”
“Yahhhh!” The two of them dove for cover as millions of small bird-shaped missiles spewed out of Kiwimon’s mouth.
“This is crazy!” Akira screamed, hands over her head, “We can’t even get close to her like this!”
Kodamon dodged the attacks skillfully, but froze suddenly. A large cluster of bird missiles was heading straight for Akira’s head! She didn’t have enough time to get away, and Kodamon was too far away to get her out!
“Akira, watch out!” Kodamon shut her eyes in fear. Then, a brilliant light washed over her, and Akira’s Digivice started beeping like crazy.
“Kodamon, evolve to…”
“Huh?” Akira watched, confused.
“Kodiamon!” The light slowly dissipated, revealing a tall, slender bearlike Digimon with blue pants, a purple tank top, and the same dark purple cap, shoulder belt and knuckle straps Kodamon had. A small laser was attached to her right arm, and her lower left arm was metallic with large silver claws.
Akira stared back at her, surprised. “Kodamon… changed…”
Kodiamon jumped in front of Akira, shielding her.
“Chrome Claw!” Kodiamon knocked all of Kiwimon’s bird missiles away with her silver claws. “Stay back,” she told Akira, “Let me take care of this!”
Akira just stood there in awe. “Kodiamon… thanks!”
“Don’t mention it!” Kodiamon said with a wink.
The battle didn’t take long. She shot at Kiwimon with her laser arm and swiped at her with her Chrome Claw. It took one last scratch to make a small, spinning object fly out of Kiwimon’s body. Akira stared at it suspiciously. It was the same black object she saw in the Snimon’s data debris! The only difference was, Kiwimon still lived, and it was the black thing that got deleted.
Kodiamon glowed brightly, and her form shrank to that of Kodamon’s. Akira ran over to her and hugged her tightly.
“You did a great job back there, Kodamon,” she whispered happily.
A loud ruckus erupted from behind them. All of the other kids and Digimon were jumping up and down and cheering.
“That battle was incredible!” Seita said excitedly.
“Kodiamon was so cool!” Kei added.
Akira laughed, then said, “Yeah, but next time, could you all try helping?” The group flashed embarrassed smiles.
“Evolve…” Jun murmured thoughfully, staring back at Kodamon. “So it is possible…”
“What’s that, Jun?” Mana asked.
“Evolve,” Jun answered, “Digimon get bigger and stronger by evolving!”
Mana stared back at him, confused. “Huh?”
“It was one of the things I noticed about Digital Adventure,” he replied, “Right after we defeated that impossible mission, I looked into some of the source code, and I saw an option for filling up something called the ‘Evo Meter.’”
“Evo Meter…” Akira repeated.
“I thought that it might have had something to do with powering up our Digimon,” Jun continued, “since it involved level-changing values and stuff like that. But the option was disabled.”
Akira nodded thoughtfully. “That would explain why none of our Digimon changed for the entire time we were playing.”
“So Digimon get stronger by evolving…” Tian murmured.
Kodamon looked around, seeing all the blank, confused looks on the kids’ faces. “What, you mean you didn’t know that?” she asked, surprised.
Gazimon gave her a funny look. “I don’t think the rest of us had much of a clue either, Kodamon.”
Kodamon shot an annoyed glance at him.
“I’ve heard legends of Digimon becoming stronger by evolving,” Renamon spoke up, “But I’ve never actually seen it happen.”
“Neither did we,” Patamon added. Salamon, Terriermon, and Lopmon nodded.
“That’s interesting,” Jun answered.
“Um, excuse me,” a soft voice interrupted, “but who are you, and why are you here?”
Everyone turned to see Kiwimon, who was a little flustered. They had forgotten she was even there.
“Oh, sorry!” Kodamon said, “We just got lost, and we just happened to come across the Valley of Relics. We were looking for something we could use to call home…”
“Oh, yes, yes!” Kiwimon chirped, “There are many things here used for communication, but unfortunately, nothing that works! You are welcome to use anything else in this valley, though!”
“Yeah, we kinda already noticed that nothing works…” Seita grumbled.
“But what about the computer in your house, Kiwimon?” Akira asked, shooting an annoyed look at Seita.
“Ah! Yes! That works fine, but there are no outside connections–” Moans and groans sounded through the group. “I’m sorry…” Kiwimon said sadly.
“Well, that’s okay,” Akira replied, “Anyway, is there any place nearby where we can stay and get some rest?”
Kiwimon brightened. “Yes! There’s a small village not too far from here, with good-mannered Digimon! They will help you out! I’m sorry that I couldn’t help you call home!”
Kodamon smiled. “Oh, that’s all right, you’ve helped us so much already!”
The kids stayed with Kiwimon for a little while, then set off for the village.
“Bye, Kiwimon!” Akira shouted, waving. “Thanks so much for your help!”
“No problem!” Kiwimon answered, “Come back anytime!”
“Heh... I wonder when,” Mana winced.
“Don’t worry,” Akira said, “We’ll ask when we find the village!”
The group walked on toward their next adventure.