Chapter 49:
Deep Blue
Mana opened her eyes slowly to find herself standing in the middle of the deep blue sea.
“Huh? What?” She looked around wildly. After a moment of panic, she realized she was standing on the bridge of a small, transparent submarine.
Jun stepped beside her, looking at his surroundings in awe. “Sweet!”
“Don’t get too excited,” Yuu called out from the front, “It’s taking just about all I’ve got to keep this thing seaworthy!” He was sitting at a small console with a multitude of buttons spread across the surface.
“This is your handiwork?” Mana asked skeptically.
“Absolutely,” Yuu answered. “Welcome to the Blue Marine.”
Mana snickered. “You actually gave it a name?”
“Hey,” Yuu shot back, “Don’t knock tradition.”
“This is amazing,” Jun said, running a hand along one of the vacant consoles.
“I had to slap this thing together in a few hours,” Yuu said, typing furiously on his console. “So don’t be surprised if something doesn’t work right.” He smirked. “Or if there’s a leak!”
“Hoo boy…” Mana murmured, “Here we go…”
“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” Jun said reassuringly, “We got this!”
There was a sudden crackling noise coming from a vacant console. After a blast of static, the noise soon resolved itself.
“Jun!”
“Mana!”
They both looked at each other. “Patamon?” Jun asked.
“Salamon!” Mana exclaimed.
“You guys all right down there?” Patamon called out.
“We’re fine,” Jun answered, “Just getting our bearings.”
“What about you?” Mana asked.
“Wet,” Salamon answered. “And very salty. We were just floating along, minding our own business…”
“Then a whale’s tail shows up to pound us into the sky!” Patamon finished.
The three kids laughed.
“Do you see any Apocalymon copies?” Jun asked.
“Not yet,” Patamon said.
“No, wait… Look!” Salamon interrupted.
“Uh, oh…”
“Here they come!”
“W-wait a sec!” Mana stammered, fumbling with her D-Coder.
“I hope these things work long-range,” Jun murmured, pulling out his.
The light from both D-Coders was almost blinding as they reconfigured into beams and shot out through the deep ocean, quickly reaching their destinations.
As they floated in the middle of the ocean, Patamon and Salamon huddled together, watching the approaching black polyhedrons.
“What’s the holdup?” Salamon murmured, “I thought we’d be evolved by now!”
“Maybe the ocean’s slowing things down?” Patamon asked.
Moments later, two bright beams blasted from the deep, covering them both in light.
“Patamon, warp evolve to… Seraphimon!”
“Salamon, warp evolve to… Ophanimon!”
By the time the light faded, the copies were almost on top of them, letting loose several clawed appendages.
“Seven Heavens!”
“Sefirot Crystal!”
The copies shattered into data fragments and disappeared. Several clicks away, another group of copies could be seen zooming their way.
“Let’s get a little closer,” Seraphimon said, “We need to find out where they’re coming from!”
“Right!”
They flew toward the copies at high speed, facing them head-on while trying to discern their point of origin.
“Take your positions, everyone,” Yuu called out, “We’re going to search for that Dark Seed base.”
Jun and Mana scrambled to the nearest consoles to the left and right and sat down. Yuu pushed a couple of buttons on his console.
“Turning on lights and sonar,” he said. Three bright spotlights turned on, lighting up the immediate area around the sub. On Jun and Mana’s consoles, a circular map showed up, with a rotating green beam.
“The joysticks on your consoles control the spotlights,” Yuu said, “And if you put your D-Coders into the slot next to the joystick, you can control those functions as well.”
Jun and Mana placed their D-Coders into the slots, and they immediately came to life. The screens on their consoles showed schematics of their D-Coders and the transfer of functions to the sub.
“Pressing the button on the joystick will signal the D-Coder to shoot an attack barrier at your target,” Yuu continued. “When we find the Dark Seed base, this is how you’ll contain it.”
Jun nodded. “Ever heard the saying, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’?” he asked. “It’s amazing to think all of this is just programming!”
“Well, I did have some help,” Yuu replied, scratching the back of his head. “If I didn’t get a crash-course from Naoko on how the D-Coders worked, half of this wouldn't be possible!”
Mana, meanwhile, was momentarily distracted by a school of colorful fish swimming alongside them. As Yuu continued piloting the sub, the school of fish floated away, and they were suddenly faced with a large angry-looking fish with big eyes, sharp teeth, and a bright light hanging from its head.
Mana screamed, pushing the button on her joystick repeatedly in panic. Bright circular lights shot at the fish, driving it away.
“Calm down,” Yuu said, annoyed. “It’s only an anglerfish!”
“That was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen…” Mana mumbled, covering her face with her hands.
“Good grief,” Yuu said testily, “What are you going to do if you see a shark?”
Mana immediately sat up. “There’s sharks down here?”
“Sure,” Jun said, “There’s the Great white shark, tiger shark, bull shark…”
“Jun!” Mana shouted, “You’re not helping!”
“Anyway, there’s nothing to worry about,” Jun continued, “As long as we don’t bother the sea life, they won’t bother us.”
Mana shivered. “If you say so.”
Suddenly, a blip showed up on the sonar, making a continuous beeping noise. Jun and Mana moved their spotlights toward the spot, revealing a lone Apocalymon copy, floating before them.
The single blip on the sonar then became multiple blips. Jun and Mana looked at each other in surprise, then moved the spotlights around again, revealing more Apocalymon copies floating in front of them.
“It’s… like a minefield!” Jun whispered, “What are they doing, just sitting here?”
“Maybe it’s a trap,” Mana whispered back.
“Why are we whispering?” Yuu said softly, “It’s not like they’re going to hear us-”
He was interrupted by a sudden movement from the corner of his eye. He looked over fearfully as one of the inert Apocalymon copies suddenly twitched. Then the copy next to it twitched, followed by the next, until all of the nearby copies started shaking and vibrating.
Mana made a strangled noise in her throat.
Then, each of the copies opened up to reveal appendages covered in claws and spikes, and lunged toward the sub at high speed.
“Switching to digital missiles!” Yuu shouted, tapping several buttons on his console. The screens on Jun and Mana’s consoles switched from D-Coder control to weapon control. “Shoot them down!”
Jun aimed his joystick at a fast-approaching Apocalymon copy and pressed the button. A missile shot out, vaporizing it immediately.
Mana wailed, shutting her eyes and shooting at random.
A crackling noise came from Jun and Mana’s consoles.
“Jun… Mana… Can you hear us?”
“Seraphimon!” Jun said.
“I think we’ve found the jackpot,” Seraphimon said, “The Apocalymon copies are all swarming here. The Dark Seed base must be right below us.”
“I think we’ve found it too,” Jun answered, shooting down several copies. “We just can’t see it for all these copies!”
The more copies were shot down, the more they seemed to multiply. Soon, the sub was surrounded by Apocalymon copies, spinning and brandishing their spiky limbs.
“We’re outnumbered!” Mana said hopelessly.
The three of them stared at the massive swarm of copies floating around them, until a large silhouette zoomed by.
“What was that?” Jun asked.
Yuu looked around wildly, then focused behind him. “Whoa!”
“What?” Mana asked shakily.
“Sharks!” Yuu said, “An entire school of tiger sharks!”
Mana moaned into her hands. “This is it…”
“No, wait!” Jun interrupted, “Look!”
Mana peeked between her fingers to see, then her eyes widened as she lowered her hands.
The sharks were swimming to and fro at high speeds, some ramming into the Apocalymon copies while others ripping them to shreds with their teeth.
“They’re helping us?” Mana said in disbelief.
“They know when something’s invaded their territory,” Jun said, a smile spreading on his face. “And the Apocalymon copies are as close to alien invaders as we’ve got. So it’s natural that the sharks want them out!”
“Enough yapping,” Yuu said, “Let’s take the rest of those copies out!” He swung his joystick around and shot at a group of nearby copies. Jun and Mana followed suit.
Suddenly, a sonar blip about ten times the size of the others appeared on the screens.
“Is that what I think it is?” Mana asked.
“It’s got to be the Dark Seed base!” Jun exclaimed. An Apocalymon copy zoomed in front of him and he quickly shot it down. “Out of the way!” he shouted.
“Take that!” Mana screeched. Her missile grazed one copy, making it careen right into another one, the resulting explosion taking both of them out.
“Keep shooting!” Yuu said, “Just be careful not to hit the Dark Seed base!”
The kids continued to shoot down as many copies as they could, while the sharks continued their own crusade. After what seemed like hours, the last Apocalymon copies dissolved into data.
“Did we get them all?” Mana asked.
Jun looked at the sonar map, which showed nothing except the large green dot that was the Dark Seed base. “Looks like it,” he said.
“Uh… guys…” Yuu said warily, “Don’t look now, but it looks like the sharks found something else to munch on!”
The sub rocked a little as the sharks quickly swam toward them.
A scream died in Mana’s throat as she saw the incoming sharks. Jun and Yuu looked at them fearfully.
There was a tense silence as the kids and the sharks stared at each other. Then, after a few moments, the sharks slowly turned around and swam away.
Mana let out a relieved sigh, nearly falling out of her chair. “That was so close!”
“Good thing they didn’t see us as a threat!” Jun added, wiping the sweat off his brow.
The console crackled to life again.
“Jun! Mana!”
“We’re here,” Jun answered.
“Did you find the Dark Seed base yet? We’ve taken down all of the Apocalymon copies up here.”
“We found it,” Mana said, “All we need to do now is contain it!”
“We’ll be waiting!”
The sound died down and faded away in a wash of static.
Yuu turned back to his console and pressed a few buttons. “Switching back to D-Coder control,” he said.
Jun grabbed hold of his joystick and looked over to Mana. She nodded.
Jun aimed carefully at the Dark Seed base, and fired. A hollow, circular beam of light shot out from the sub and surrounded the black polyhedron. As the barrier sealed itself, the light grew even brighter, as it made its way to the surface.
Seraphimon and Ophanimon hovered over the crashing waves, waiting for a sign that their partners had found and contained the Dark Seed base below.
Suddenly, a bright light pierced the deep, its rays like a giant circle floating on the waves.
Seraphimon and Ophanimon looked at each other, smiling.
“Looks like that’s our cue,” Seraphimon said, powering up his attack.
“Let’s give this all we’ve got!” Ophanimon added, her hands shining with energy.
“Seven Heavens!”
“Eden’s Javelin!”
The attacks slammed into the water, right through the middle of the circle, traveling at high speed.
There was a brilliant light as Seraphimon and Ophanimon’s attacks blasted down into the deep, and an even brighter flash of light as the barrier absorbed and amplified them. The Dark Seed base cracked open and the Dark Seeds quickly filled the inside of the barrier like a vial filled with ink. The amplified attacks pierced through the dark concoction and caused a vortex of light, which soon faded away along with the barrier.
“We did it!” Mana shouted.
Laughing, Jun and Yuu gave each other a high five.
After a few moments of glee, the kids’ bodies started fading in and out, along with the sub.
“I guess this means the mission’s over,” Jun said.
“Finally!” Mana said, “I’ve had quite enough of playing ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’, thank you very much!”
“Too bad we have to leave this thing so soon,” Yuu said wistfully, patting a hand on his console.
“Don’t worry,” Jun said, thumping him on the shoulder, “You can build a better one next time!”
The three of them felt drowsy as the Projection machine returned them to their home base. The sub faded away, along with their projected forms, leaving behind only the deep blue sea.