An Insider's Guide to the Digital World

💾 Chapter Twelve 💾

It was official, if Etemon didn't kill you, then the heat definitely would. The desert sun was absolutely brutal and you could practically feel your shirt melding with your skin as you continued to sweat.

After leaving the colosseum the eight of you decided to continue searching for the crests until nightfall. However, because the digimon weren't given a chance to eat earlier in the day, everyone had to walk.

It went without saying that everybody was beyond exhausted, but the worst of all was Koromon. The poor digimon had begun to look increasingly pale as time passed.

Tai was worried sick that Koromon had become ill after his recent digivolution. It didn't help to settle his nerves much either when Izzy hypothesized the possibility of his partner having a heat stroke.

"If only I hadn't acted like such a putz, then you wouldn't have digivolved in the first place..."

Mimi was quick to put a comforting hand on her friends shoulder.

"Don't be so hard on yourself... although come to think of it, you really have made a super icky mess of things."

Tai's shoulders slumped as he sighed and looked over at the girl in pink.

"Gee... thanks a lot Mimi."

"Oh, don't mention it! I'm always glad to help out with a pep talk!"

Tai gave her a weary smile and lightly shook his head in agreement.

You walked beside the goggle headed boy and bumped him with your shoulder in order to get his attention.

"Relax Tai, things might be rough now, but we'll all get through this together. Besides, once we find a place to rest and get a good meal, we won't have to worry about walking tomorrow!"

Just as Tai was about to reply, he was cut off by T.K. alerting everyone to look up towards the sky.

Your mouth fell open as you looked up to see an enormous cactus standing a few yards ahead.

"That's gotta be the biggest plant I've ever seen!"

Joe adjusted his glasses as he leaned his head back to get a better view of the abnormally large plant.

"Well, at least we can rest in the shade for a little while."

With hopes high, you and the other digidestined scrounged up the last bit of your energy and set off straight towards the gargantuan desert plant.

However the closer you got, the more disappointed you became. Coming to a halt near the base of the supposed plant, you could see the entire thing was just a hologram.

Matt bent down to catch his breath a let out a heavy sigh.

"Oh great... This place has its own manufactured mirages..."

While everyone sat on the hot sand to regain their composure, you noticed that the hologram began to shift, changing the projected image.

"Well, well, it's about time you kids got here..."

The disembodied voice caught your attention immediately. Looking up, you could see that the cactus was now replaced with a familiar old man.

"Gennia!"

"It's a good thing too, I was just about to give up on you youngsters."

Tai leaned forward in desperation, eager to question the old man.

"Gennia! We found the tags and a few of the crests like you wanted, but our digimon still aren't able to digivolve to the next level! They ended up worse than they started."