The kids, each holding their own hopes close, drifted off to sleep inside the car.
With his eyes closed, Matt said, "Gabumon, go sleep next to T.K."
"Why?"
"Because if you're beside me, I'll feel too warm."
"You want me to keep T.K. warm?"
"I didn't say that." Matt shot back, turning away in a hurry—clearly flustered.
T.K. suddenly felt snug. He opened his eyes and found Gabumon hugging him. He glanced at his brother. Matt, face red, quickly turned his head.
The lights in the car went out.
Music rose in the distance and broke Tai's train of thought.
He lifted his head and followed the sound to the lakeshore. There stood Matt, a soft melody pouring from the harmonica in his hands.
Gabumon was still asleep back in the car—same as Agumon.
Watching Matt play, Tai wasn't sure what to say to this rival-turned-friend from the original story.
The ground suddenly heaved, almost throwing Tai and Matt off their feet. A whirlpool opened on the lake.
No way… Tai's heart sank.
A serpent-like Digimon thrust its head and half its body up through the water. Rows of sharp teeth filled its mouth; red markings striped its green length. Tai knew it at a glance—this had to be the Seadramon that appeared in the original after the kids provoked it.
"That's Seadramon, a Champion. It's got a nasty temper!" Tentomon, jolted awake, called out.
The crashing water roused the others in the car. They rushed down to the shore and stared, shaken, as Seadramon rampaged across the lake.
Then Seadramon pressed its head to the islet and began to tow it away. Matt's face blanched. "T.K. is still on there!" He dove into the lake before Tai could get a word out.
"Wait—uh… my fur will get soaked… oh, forget it!" Gabumon jumped in after him.
Watching them, Tai turned with a sliver of hope to Agumon. "Agumon, can you evolve right now?"
Agumon strained for a moment, then sighed. "Tai, not yet. I can feel I'm close to turning into Greymon on my own, but… not now."
By then everyone had piled out of the car, and their partner Digimon opened fire on Seadramon. It did nothing.
Seadramon only grew angrier under attack. It rammed the lakebed beneath the kids' islet over and over. Mimi, still not fully understanding, screamed. "T.K.!" Matt shouted; the jolt had knocked T.K. into the water. Matt, who had just reached the islet, dove straight in after him; Gabumon followed tight behind.
Matt waved an arm. "Over here!" He was trying to draw Seadramon's attention so the others could help T.K.—but the enraged Seadramon snared him with its tail and squeezed.
"—Aaah!" Matt's cry tore out as Seadramon's tail bound him tight. Even with Agumon and the others trying to distract it, a Champion-level Seadramon wouldn't be hurt by a flurry of Rookie attacks. It only raged harder, tightening around Matt. His situation turned desperate.
Seeing his own attacks fail, Agumon looked back at Tai, lost. "What do we do, Tai?"
Tai didn't answer. He clenched his fists, watching Matt's pained face. His strength was still too small. He needed power.
Hearing his brother's voice, T.K. tried to jump back into the lake. The others grabbed him fast. One would already stretch them to the brink—add another and they'd crack.
In the water, Gabumon kept firing, desperate to save Matt; Seadramon barely seemed to notice.
I might never hear Matt's harmonica again… that melody… Gabumon thought, and then Matt's Digivice flared. Light answered it from Gabumon's body, blooming bright.
"Gabumon digivolve to… Garurumon!"
Gabumon finally leapt from Rookie to Champion. With a deep, rolling roar, Garurumon streaked across the water like lightning, sprang high, and smashed a claw down on Seadramon's tail. In the instant Seadramon loosened from the pain, Matt dropped free, thrashing toward the shore with all his strength.
"You okay, big bro?" T.K. hauled Matt up and blurted the question.
"I'm fine. But Gabumon—" Matt turned, eyes locked on the fight raging in the lake.
Seadramon was far larger, but slower too. Under Garurumon's relentless bites and rakes, it began to flag.
"Garurumon's pelt is said to be as tough as mythic metal," Tentomon narrated anxiously from the bank.
Seadramon bellowed and blasted a jet of frigid air straight at Garurumon. Garurumon couldn't dodge. The attack hit square, freezing him in the water.
"That's Seadramon's move—Ice Blast!" Tentomon explained, near frantic.
"Howling Blaster!" Garurumon burst free of the ice, then hurled a torrent of blue flame from his jaws into Seadramon's face.
Garurumon's blast overpowered Seadramon's attack and punched straight down its gullet. Smoke billowed from Seadramon's mouth; it dove and vanished into the depths, silent.
With the battle over, Garurumon quickly devolved back to Gabumon. Matt hurried to meet him at the water's edge.
"Gabumon!"
"Looks like we're safe," someone breathed.
While those two caught their breath, dawn crept in. After a sleepless, harrowing night, the tired kids shuffled out to make breakfast. "But why did only Gabumon evolve this time?" Izzy's curiosity was, as always, relentless. The others began to speculate; Sora suggested that digivolution seemed tied to when a child was in real danger.
The fight had ended without tragedy, but exhaustion finally won. No one dared go back to sleep in the car—it sat on a little island, and if something like that happened again, there would be nowhere to run. They nodded off right on the shore.
Only Matt kept playing his harmonica, a quiet tune to help Gabumon, T.K., and the drowsing Patamon leaning on T.K.'s shoulder slip into deeper rest.
By morning, once they'd caught up on sleep and eaten, the group packed up again.
Signs hung everywhere from the trees. Broken bikes, car shells, and panes of glass lay in uneven mounds. From within that strange jungle came whispering scuffs, as if many small things were moving. It was a long, long hike. Once, something streaked overhead, scraping the air with a shrill metallic screech.
A peculiar sound rose above their heads.
Sora stopped first and scanned the sky—but saw nothing.
"Listen," she said, and everyone halted.
"Sounds like gears turning," said Matt, whose ear for music carried over to everyday sounds.
He pinned it first.
"Maybe it's a flying saucer," Sora guessed.
"Or a gear-shaped meteor!" T.K. said.
"Whatever it is, it doesn't sound good," Joe weighed in.
"Either way, it's got nothing to do with us. Let's keep moving," Matt said, taking T.K.'s hand and leading the way.
Only Tai knew those were Devimon's Black Gears—his tools for controlling File Island and its Digimon.
Leaving aside Biyomon clinging to Sora for comfort, the group trudged on and finally cleared the forest, arriving at a stony plain.
A spotless sky piled high with white clouds. The barren flats waved with the occasional tuft of grass. Only the constant ranks of power poles stabbed into the ground reminded them how wrong this landscape was.
Out of the trees and into that austere expanse: a forest of black power poles as far as they could see. The lines overhead were tangled or snapped into stubs—useless. The Digital World's shifting environments were beyond human imagining.
They debated the oddity of a desert studded with poles. Only Joe clung to the belief that humans lived here.
"La, la-la-la… so where are we?" Mimi beamed, holding up a compass. Everyone crowded close.
Whrrrrr—!
"How is it doing that!?"
"What's going on?"
The compass spun wildly and wouldn't stop.
Izzy coolly studied the ground, spotted something, and scooped a handful of grit. "Looks like sand, but up close it's iron filings—magnetic."
"We really have wandered into a bizarre, extraordinary place," Sora summed up.