Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Digimon: Data Storm ❯ Meeting the Snake Lord ( Chapter 2 )

*Johnny walks in with a notepad*

Lessee... Disclaimer?

*Jean-Seb waves a large sign reading "We do not own Digimon. Too bad!"*

*Johnny adds a checkmark*

Thankies?

*He reads over*

Who wrote it as "Thankies??"

*Wonderboy springs behind the glass-wearing teen, startling him.*

That would be me. Thankies go to Shirubie, Oreo man, radagast and the folks at the Diaries universe message board.

*Johnny sighs and shakes his head*

I guess that's a check...

NAMIQUÏLO IN COATLAHTOANI - Meeting the Snake Lord

As they walked down the street toward the pyramid, Andrea could do nothing but look in astonishment as these creatures walked, entered stores, haggled, discussed and argued just like humans. There were plants, birds, insects, frogs, lizards, snakes and even an armadillo. And then there was the vegetation, familiarly tropical, yet unlike anything she had ever seen. Palm trees no higher then a couple feet sprung from the buildings' roofs. Clusters of lilies mottled with red and white proposed a penetrating scent to unpractised nostrils. Large black beans spotted with white were kept into a cage. She looked at her guide quizzically. "Jumping beans," he explained, tapping on the cage lightly. The beans immediately reacted in an explosion of small cracking sound as they hurled themselves at the bars. "Eh, we grow them pretty hardy here." Then some apple-sized peppers kept under a transparent dish-cover caught her eye. "Tepanahuihqueh, 'overachievers'. So spicy you need to wrestle the smell before you can even taste them." She shook her head. That might have beaten wasabi. She wasn't to test food that seemed to be able to burn through quite a few materials, though.

As they made their way toward the pyramid, which seemed to steadily grow more levels as they approached, Sepikmon came to an abrupt halt. "Oh no..." he whispered. Andrea looked for what had put the creature in such a state. A group of heterogeneous beings had gathered tightly around a house. From what she could see, even more where crammed inside, if that was possible. Those standing outside talked softly, often glancing through the windows. Sepikmon advanced and tapped a large humanoid lion on the shoulder. It turned around and looked at him with a mournful expression.

"Eztepoztli!" he exclaimed.

"So, Tiyahcatzin, it is it?" he asked in concern. The large being averted Sepikmon's eyes in a surprising display of sorrow.

"It seems so. Her wound has infected. Sharmamon reckons she's at her worst, so we came to give her our last homage." Sepikmon's head hung down now. Andrea couldn't help herself and rubbed his shoulder.

"Did you know her?" she asked softly.

"If I knew her? Everybody knew Toxochiton!" he exclaimed. His legs gave away and he sat down. "Such a sweet Piyomon. And now she's leaving us." As he spoke, the sniffs and cries that had already been present in the background became more powerful. A flurry of small butterfly flew through the window. Their twinkling wings caught Andrea's eyes and she remarked they hadn't any true feature. They seemed made of pure light.

"There she goes." Tiyahcatzin said, just as the butterfly that had landed on his extended finger dissolved away. Sepikmon gave a small sniff and got up as another one disappeared in his hair.

"We have to go now," he half-cried. As they walked away, Andrea kept looking behind her at the group of dispersing creatures. She finally gathered the courage to speak up.

"What was that about?" Sepikmon looked at her. She could only guess what he looked like under the mask, but she assumed he would have been glassy-eyed.

"When a Digimon dies, their data transforms into these butterflies you saw and returns to the Data Streams. However, parts of it can be absorbed by the Digimon standing nearby," he explained. She gurgled a disgusted noise.

"Ew, that's morbid," Andrea herself was surprised at what she'd said.

"Not at all. It is just the way it works in this world. It is an honour to accompany a friend in their last moments. And I am certain Piyomon was happy to see all those she knew there." Sepikmon countered, "It's not like you humans who burry your dead. Now that's unhygienic. A dying Digimon knows that those he loves will always keep him in their hearts. Some will acquire a little of Piyomon's natural grace, or her amazing cooking skills."

"I see." Andrea tried to understand, but it still felt like opportunism to her. He did have a point about hygiene, though, a part of her mind pointed out. Another question surfaced before she could dwell on it. "Digimon? What is that?" Sepikmon seemed a bit lost in his thoughts as he caught a plant-like Digimon who had tripped and helped her back up.

"We are Digimon. It means Digital monsters. We inhabit the Digital World, made of the Nodes connected through the Data Streams. This is Axolotl, where we speak ätlahtolli, the language of water..." he recited in a daze. But new questions overrun her and she interrupted the Digimon.

"And why do you call her Piyomon? You said everyone knew 'Toxochiton'," came the query.

"Her nickname. 'Our little flower'. You normally call a Digimon by his name. But when you know someone more intimately, you can call them by their nickname. You do not usually refer to them using it, though. It's actually pretty complex. You can call me Eztepoztli if you want. Means Bloody Sword," Sepikmon answered, still in his dazed state. Andrea shuddered and, glancing at the large sword hanging on the Digimon's back, wondered for a moment whether that was a good sign. She mastered herself.

"Why do they call you that?" she asked Sepikmon, who was now leading her a couple of steps.

"Excuse me? Are you talking to me?" The figure turned to look at her. His mask was decorated differently. Andrea immediately noticed it wasn't the same Sepikmon and stood dumbfounded for a second. Oh, that's what he meant.

Knowing that, unfortunately, didn't tell her were Eztepoztli was. She looked frantically around and finally spotted her guide mechanically walking away. Sepikmon had turned in an alley without her noticing him. She shoved her way through the crowd until she reached him and grabbed his arm to stop him.

"Uh, what?" he mumbled as his spirit was brought back down to earth. She had forgotten her question in her panic.

"We were going to meet someone who could help me go back to the real world."

Sepikmon looked uncertain for a second, then regained his composure.

"Right. This way please," he bowed like a cartoony steward.

They had now reached the pyramid by its eastbound side. No door was visible but a stairway to the top of the pyramid, which seemed to have gained yet another couple levels. Her eyes widened.

"You mean we have to climb all that? No funicular?" He got up on the first step, which was, unfortunately, on the same scale as the bed, so she'd actually have to climb on it.

"We might have all day, but I do think you'd prefer to be up there as soon as possible," he commented.

"And I thought the stairs to Saint Joseph's Oratory were bad," she sighed. Her hands raised to rub her temples, but she noticed and stopped in mid-movement. I think I'm developing a new mannerism. Probably not a sign of mental stability. Finally giving in, she climbed onto the first step. "Well, then, let's get this stair rolling," she added, going for the second.

Then the stair actually started moving with her caught in mid air. Her arms flailed around for a few horrible seconds until one came to rest on the large stylized statue of a lion. She chose to ignore the fact there were no lions in Meso-America to be made into statues and just stood there stunned as the steps moved up the side of the temple in the grinding of stones. She turned and shot a nasty look at her partner.

"You could have warned me!" Her ears were whistling with anger now.

"I expected you could take care by yourself now," he retorted. She huffed and turned away.

The wind grew stronger as the stairway rose, flapping her clothes against her and occasionally shoving her braid around. As they elevated, she could see farther, notably how straight the roads where in the whole city. Low buildings like white mushrooms in a badly kept lawn sprouted here and there in the middle of surprisingly colourful gardens. A few flying creatures hovered above the streets. Some of them, she noticed, should not have been able to fly. But then, she should not have been transported to Meso-America by pressing her graphic tablet to her computer screen. As she dwelled on these thoughts, the mechanism came to a halt and to the top platform.

"Welcome to the Palace." Andrea jumped and almost fell off the building for the second time that day, only to have her wrist snatched by Sepikmon. "Please leave any weapon in the antechamber. Do not forget the offering to the Gods," the voice continued, undeterred.

"Thanks Shiisamon," the warrior-like digimon said, as if such things were a daily occurrence in his life. Andrea tried to walk looking at the white and golden statue and ended up tripping on her own foot.

"You mean, he was a..." she uttered.

"Of course he was a Digimon too. He's just paid to stay there without moving most of the day," Sepikmon stated.

They entered the room. The walls were made of massive stones piled without mortar. Andrea wondered for a moment if there was enough room between them to slip a strand of hair. In the wall opposite them niches had been carved in various sizes and shapes. Sepikmon reached behind his back and brought the sword to his front. He got on his knees and reverently saluted the statue of a winged human with a deer's head in the corner of the room. He then delicately placed his sword in an oblong niche off the middle of the wall. Reaching to his pouch, he extracted a small fragment of veined green stone Andrea recognized as malachite and placed it alongside the sword in the niche. He then turned around and motioned for her to do the same. She stared at him, but he tensed and she relented. When in Rome do as the Romans do. She knelt before the statue, joined her hands in front of herself and bowed. She then slowly got up without looking back at it. She glanced at Sepikmon who nodded his approval. And motioned for the wall.

"Uh..." she trailed off. "I'm afraid I don't have anything that could qualify as an offering to the gods: I left my purse at work." Sepikmon looked a bit distressed at this.

"We can't leave the room as is. It'd be sacrilegious!"

"Mind you, not being of your religion, or even from this world, I think this could hardly be considered sacrilegious," Andrea pointed out, a bit miffed. Sepikmon raised a hand under his mask and she assumed he would be nudging his chin.

"I guess you've got a point. We'll decide of this later." He motioned for her to follow him as he went into a darkened corridor.

Horizontal slits occasionally pierced the walls, allowing light rays to light up the area. The corridor ended in an archway. A soft, uniform light hid any vision from beyond it. As they approached, what she had thought to be statues appeared to be two nightmarish creatures. Demonic thin bodies covered in metallic bends were attached to pairs of angelic wings on their back and heads. The one on the right was black; the other was white. They had no visible eyes. Nearly 2 meters-tall (compared to her guide's almost normal size), they towered menacingly over any visitor.

"Everything is more than you know," the dark one greeted them.

"And everything is less then you think," the second completed.

"Aztapiltictecuacuilli, Tlilpahtictecuacuilli, shall you let us pass, for this guest seeks to speak with Santiramon," he said. It sounded quite official.

"What do you seek from the Snake Lord?" the dark one responded. Andrea realized he was talking to her. She tried her best not to stutter.

"I..." she almost choked under their gaze, despite the absence of any visible eye. "I seek help in returning to my world." They looked at her as though they were seeing right through her soul and stepped aside.

"You may enter," a deeper, hissing voice came from the inside of the room. Andrea shuddered. The voice had a strangely appealing quality. Closer to the rustling of a book's turned pages or the rubbing of silk than the actual hissing of air through a hole too thigh in one's eardrums. She crossed the barrier of light.

"There she goes, there she goes," the white creature commented flatly.

"Well, I'm gone too," Sepikmon stated. He went through before the surprised creatures could keep him.

Andrea entered an immense room. She didn't lose any precious mental resources wondering how such a large room could fit in the small construction atop the pyramid. The ceiling started (or ended, depending on one's point of view) at least a dozen meters above her head and provided a welcome shortcoming to walls covered with engraved glyphs. Coiled against the wall on what she could only describe as a ceremonial platform, a massive snake loomed over the few persons present. It acknowledged and beckoned her with a movement of its head. A few short orange lizards she guessed to be servants wore simple red loincloths and stood motionless against the wall. Completing the vision was a large machine her sight described to her brains as a walking clock from which a humanoid shape holding a hammer sprouted. Her brains dismissed the description and proceeded to shut down. But before they could complete the process, a figure appeared that brought a much sought for touch of reality. A man. Not quite the hero in shining armour, more like a middle-aged man who could have used more exercise, but her brain nonetheless latched onto the fugacious figure.

"Great. We lost her again," Sepikmon deadpanned as she collapsed in the human's arms.

"She fainted," he stated the obvious, granting himeye rolls from all the digimons. The three short lizards rushed to help set her down. One of them ran out of the room and came back accompanied by two walking plants holding cushions and a bottle of salts. Soon after, Andrea was again more or less conscious, her eyelids fluttering like jell-o in the middle of an earthquake.

"She had a difficult day. Getting sent to another dimension looking like nothing she knows, discovering strange creatures, and I haven't yet told her about the prophecies," Sepikmon explained. Andrea's eyes popped out and she jumped up so furiously she knocked down one of the servant.

"What prophecies?" she exclaimed.

"Oh my, we are not getting anywhere like this," the great snake pointed out.

With a wave of his tail, the servants were shooed away. Andrea got up. The creature locked his eyes in hers for a second. She frowned defiantly and asked again, calmer.

"What prophecies?"

"If I might. You are?" He asked politely. Something in the back of Andrea's mind warned her it wasn't quite a question. She bowed respectfully.

"Andrea Tamikane." He bowed in turn.

"May your skin never dry. I am Coamehtlahtoani Santiramon." The snake lord sighed and uncoiled, pointing at undecipherable engraving and the figure of an Asian dragon on the wall.

"When the Digital World created itself as the outlet of excessive data from your world, there was but a single, all powerful digimon: Qinglongmon. When the world divided into nodes, he clearly saw that his mere presence upset the balance of power and threatened this world with destruction. Thus he cast himself away into the 'Great Delete', the oblivion beyond our universe. Behind him he left, circling Infinity Mountain of File Island, the 12 Digi-Cores, the digital destiny. They contain prophecies announcing the times of threat to this world. Twice before saviours from the human world were announced by the cores, and twice before they saved the Digital Word. Now your presence, a mere week after the arrival of Derek, announces a new era of trouble to this world."

Andrea had actually drifted out before the white snake had completed it's second sentence, her mind moving back to the strangely enrapturing engraving. Her wanderings were enhanced by the strangely hypnotic quality of the creature's voice. A shred of self-conscience knocked on her mind room at the mention of the other human's name and her reverie crashed down with the usual dazed look. Santiramon didn't appeared to be very pleased at the woman's reaction.

"So your name's Derek, right?" She examined the man. And extended her hand. "Andrea Tamikane." They shook hands.

"Derek Mason"

"Időmenekül Clockmon," the humanoid figure atop the machine bowed too.

"Eztepoztli Sepikmon."

"I'm here," Derek continued, "because a month ago, (Andrea was puzzled at this remark) the sixth core opened when I came to File Island and I've been attempting to decrypt it ever since. Yesterday, I finally managed to do so, but the prophecy is written in an old form of ätlahtolli, so I came to Teocaltintlan to have it translated."

He took a handheld computer hanging from his shirt pocket and pressed a few controls. A hologram shot up with elaborate scripting, not dissimilar to the one Santiramon had pointed earlier. Santiramon turned toward Sepikmon.

"I think this falls within your competence, doesn't it?"

Sepikmon approached the connection and started speaking.

"The knot of water will be stormed. Digimon will disappear in the land of the night bird. The Flower Creator will stream in to connect the Wall Builder and the Masked Fighter. She will stream out once the Butterfly has been saved."

Andrea tried to contain a curse.

"What kind of nonsense is that?"

"Well, Qinglongmon's prophecies aren't exactly recognized for clarity, but I do believe the 'Masked Warrior' designates me," Sepikmon said. Andrea rolled her eyes.

"Really?" she asked sarcastically.

"The 'Knot of water' must be Axolotl node, " Santiramon added. "Parts of Teocaltintlan were reconfigured in a data storm generated by your arrival."

"Derek, isn't a 'mason' a journeyman doing brickwork?" Clockmon though aloud.

"Actually, I though it made reference to the Firewall," the heads gravitated slowly toward Andrea, in obvious expectative.

"What?" She couldn't bear it anymore. These people were completely crazy. "Do you really expect me to take part into that guessing game of 'what if's?" she scowled with great annoyance. "I am just some graphic designer, for God's sake! All I want is to get back to my good ol' cubicle, print my last project and..." The sentence died a painful death on her lips.

"Are you OK?" Sepikmon enquired. Andrea looked like she was just told she had a deadly disease.

"It's a project for CTV's latest series. It's called 'Flower Power'." Derek cracked a smile. She pouted in response.

"As for the 'Land of the night bird', I am stuck," Santiramon said. Andrea raised her eyebrows.

"A night bird? An owl?" she pointed out.

"Owlmon would be too arrogant to allow such information from getting out of his prefecture," Santiramon sighed. "He came just short of arresting someone for putting an end to a band of pirate's streak in Moyotlan."

"Actually," Sepikmon countered, "Toxochiton Piyomon came to Teocaltintlan to report raising numbers of mysterious disappearances. She was attacked on her way here."

"Oh."

"Wait a minute," Andrea panicked, "does that mean I can't get back to Toronto until I've saved that 'Butterfly' mentioned in that blight of a prophecy?"

"Err... Most likely," Sepikmon sheepishly answered.

"Oh bugger." She palmed her forehead.

What is going on with Owlmon? Will Andrea survive the grinder? And who's that rabbit? Get (or not) answers to all these questions by readin chapter three: Ïnäl tomöztlayö ötëchhuïcac tepëtitech!

Johnny's linguistic trivia
You might notice Clockmon's nickname looks very different from those mentionned so far. That's because it's not Nahuatl, but Hungarian. It's from az idő menekül "time flees", an adaptation in Hungarian of "tempus fugit".

As for the two scarily long names of the Gargoylemon gards, they simply mean "very white statue" and "very dark statue", but they're more titles than actual nichnames.