Pagumon reported at once that the kids and their Digimon had reached the Koromon village, passing the news to Etemon's underling—Gazimon—stationed nearby.
Not far from the village, in a dune field, a gag of a motorhome—towed by a Monochromon—looked even more out of place than the surrounding desert. Gasping for breath, the Gazimon that had tracked the kids' movements skidded up to the RV and shouted Etemon's name. "Lord Etemon!"
The door snapped open. Smoke billowed out. Chaotic music blared, stomach-turning and loud.
"I'm the strongest in this world—Etemon—!" The off-key singing made even Gazimon wince; it had to force itself not to clap both big ears shut and pretended to swoon instead.
"Lord Etemon! King of Digimon!" Gazimon began with a flurry of flattery.
"Shut it! Too loud for this early!" Etemon cut him off with a punch. "By my calculations, the DigiDestined will make landfall right… here." He pointed at a green dot on a display, clutching a mic, face blissful. "We ambush here, then crush them in one blow! Oooh, what a perfect plan!"
"They won't come," Gazimon said, interrupting Etemon's self-indulgence as meekly as he could. "The DigiDestined already landed yesterday—somewhere else. They're in the Pagumon village now."
"W-what! How could that be?" Etemon gaped.
"This isn't… the latest intel anymore," Gazimon muttered under his breath, too soft for even himself to hear.
Stung by his underling's contempt, Etemon slammed the console; the green dot jumped to the kids' current village.
"Argh! My plan—ruined! I'll never forgive them—remember that!" He jabbed another button. Black rails jutted from both ends of the RV and snaked forward like living things.
"Move out!" With Etemon's screech, the RV roared to life and shot down the black track.
"Shouldn't we bring some backup?" Gazimon asked, hopping into the half-shut door.
"To deal with a bunch of kids? I'm more than enough!" Etemon's swagger oozed confidence in his own strength.
That night, a sneaking cluster of shadows slipped into the kids' room; red-eyed silhouettes shoved the door wide and rushed in.
The lights snapped on.
"So you aren't good Digimon after all. Tai was right," Mimi said hotly.
As soon as the Pagumon had left earlier, Tai had gathered everyone: "This place is off. Agumon smelled Koromon, but this village's all Pagumon—and Whamon said this is a Koromon village. Pagumon also have a bad rep. My guess: they seized Koromon's village. Keep watch tonight."
Seeing the jig was up, the Pagumon bolted outside, shouting, "Lord Etemon!"
A freakish blast of rock 'n' roll tore skyward. Digimon and kids alike glanced around in confusion. A shrill voice fused with the noise and stabbed their eardrums.
"Yo, yo? Hey, hey? DigiDestined, can you hear me?"
Everyone winced, clamping hands to ears as a huge, plush-toy alien gorilla flickered into the sky—Etemon's flashy entrance.
"Dark Spirit!"
A vast black mesh—Dark Network—spread across the sky, power pooling and pooling along the net until it condensed into a rain of orbs. Koromon's village was wrecked in an instant.
"Digivolve. Now. The rest of you—evacuate the Koromon first!" Tai barked.
Twin pillars of light flared. Agumon and Gabumon became Greymon and Garurumon and charged Etemon.
"I won't let you—Love Beam!" Etemon howled, voice and song atrocious.
"Not happening." Tai flicked a data sphere that burst midair; the torrent of fragments shredded the black mesh, and the screeching cut out. The others seized the moment and digivolved too.
Greymon, Garurumon, Togemon, Kabuterimon, Ikkakumon, Birdramon, and Angemon surrounded Etemon's gag-van—the one painted with the words "Laughing Tianmen."
"That's it? You think you can challenge the great King of Digimon—me?"
"Mega Flame!" "Number One Punch!" Greymon's fireball was literally punched apart by Etemon's boast-of-a-move.
Etemon vaulted from the van, lunged at the nearest Ikkakumon, and, before it could dodge, seized its horn one-handed, spun the whole body like a flail, and smashed it into a Birdramon that also couldn't react in time.
He followed with a hook that sent Garurumon flying, then leapt and swatted Kabuterimon out of the air.
Recovering, Togemon fired her finisher.
"Needle Spray!"
"I'm a Superstar!" Whether that was a move name, who knew—Etemon caught the needles in both hands, then flicked them back like throwing knives.
Togemon took the hits and toppled with a thud.
"Heaven's Knuckle!" The only one reading the fight perfectly, Angemon, struck true. Etemon screamed—holy power hurt dark Digimon extra—and the hit scorched a black patch across his body.
"Ruined my beautiful face? Unforgivable!" Etemon roared—
—and forgot Greymon behind him. "Mega Flame!" The blast sent Etemon tumbling.
"You rotten—" He didn't finish. The earlier scattered Champions were back on their feet.
"Mega Blaster!" "Fox Fire!" "Meteor Wing!" "Harpoon Torpedo!" "Mega Flame!" "Heaven's Knuckle!" "Needle Spray!"
The barrage plowed the battlefield where Etemon stood. When the dust cleared, new scorch marks mottled his hide.
"You little—" Another wave hammered his position. When he reappeared, he was charred nearly head to toe.
"I won't forgive you—Dark spi—"
Boom—boom! Yet another shelling cut him off mid-cast. The group beatdown turned downright tragic.
Etemon sprang aside. "Come out." Short and to the point this time. Behind him, several DarkTyrannomon emerged.
By then, Tai and the others had already rushed to the waterfall and freed the captive Koromon.
Tai sprinted out of the cave. "Everyone, this way!"
The Champions broke off, devolved to Rookies, and ducked into the cave. An instant later, an attack smashed the cliff; rock crashed down and sealed the entrance.
They ran deeper along the passage. Tai felt something glowing on his chest—the Tag!
He remembered: in the anime, the Crest of Courage had been behind this waterfall. They pressed on—and hit a dead end.
"What—there's no exit?" The tunnel ended not in daylight but in a stone wall carved with a design—a round, sunlike emblem radiating light.
"This is the way we escape when disaster hits the village. But this slab—" Koromon stared, baffled by the new barrier in their escape route.
Soft light swelled from the stone, a warm orange like sunset. The slab shrank and shrank until it was the size of a Tag insert—and clicked itself into Tai's Tag.
"That's… Tai's Crest?" Agumon looked at the Tag at Tai's chest. The once-empty slot now held an orange Crest—the Crest of Courage.
The engraved wall vanished, revealing a mountain range beyond. The Koromon buzzed with excitement. "That's it! Far from the village, in those mountains!"
"Come on—it was only fifty meters… how are these places even connected?" Izzy glanced back. The way they'd come was buried under a rockfall. The hop-skip travel made everyone shake their heads.
They settled the Koromon in the lush, food-rich forest there and moved on. Over the ridge stretched an endless desert. Another jarring scene change…
The desert was desert—nothing like the wasteland before: bone-dry, blistering, blindingly bright. When they finally found an oasis, nobody wanted to budge.
"Nice… with Crests, we can keep digivolving…" Mimi propped her chin in her hands under the shade. "I wonder where mine is. If we could gather everyone's Crests now, we wouldn't have to keep hiding and running. I really want to see what Palmon looks like after digivolving again…"
Everyone sighed.
"We can."
"Huh?" Tai's words made them blink.
Tai hunched over his keyboard. "Just now, the Crest and Tag resonated. I analyzed my Crest—it emits a special signal only the Digivices and Tags can receive. Give me your Digivices and Tags; I'll see where everyone's Crests are."
They handed them over. Tai tapped a few keys. "Got it."
"Based on the readouts," he said, "Matt's Friendship and Izzy's Knowledge are near the forest where Piximon lives. Mimi's Sincerity is on the largest cactus in the desert. Not far west of us, inside a big colosseum, is Joe's Reliability. On a cliff face in the wilds is T.K.'s Hope. As for Sora's Love—it's faint, but it appears to be inside a pyramid."
Tai closed the laptop and stood. "All right—first we head to the Colosseum and get Joe's Crest of Reliability."
"Okay!" The kids got up and set out toward the colosseum.
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