Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ South Digimon Diaries ❯ Movie Chapter: Battle on the snow ( Chapter 16 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

South Digimon Diaries Movie: Battle on the Snow.

By Persona (lucasliso22@datafull.com)

Disclaimer: Digimon belongs to TOEI and Akiyoshi Hongo, and used without consent.

The Diaries Universe belongs to Lord Archive, and is used with consent.

And now, to begin this movie chapter.

++++++++++++++++

Julia's house.

David felt his arm, then his shoulder. He moved them around, jumped on both feet, first one then the other. He didn't feel any pain at all, he was fully recovered.

And he was even taller than we he had come back from the Digital World. He had grown twelve centimeters during the few months that he had stayed here. It had been painful, but now he looked the age he actually was.

He was in Julia's room, along with Julia herself and their respective digimon partners, Candmon and Pyocomon.

"You look recoverd," said Julia as she sat on her bed with Pyocomon beside her.

"I feel recovered. My arm its as good as new, and I don't feel pain from any bruise," David replied as he looked down at himself. Since he had grown, his old clothes that he had been wearing for the last three years didn't fit anymore, so Julia's mother had bought some new clothes for him. He didn't want to at first, but Mrs. Martinez insisted that he deserved such a gift, like late birthday presents he couldn't have.

His new clothing consisted on a pair of white tennis shoes with white socks, a pair of blue jeans and a long sleeved white, black and blue Rugby shirt.

"I feel as good as new," he said once again.

David looked down at Candmon, "Okay, it's time for us to go to the Digital World and make Ice Devimon pay for all he has done."

Candmon nodded with determination.

"Okay! Let me get my coat and we can go," Julia said as she stood up and walked towards her closet.

David turned to look at Julia, "Julia, what do you mean?"

"Well, you said that the Digital World must be freezing because of Ice Devimon by now, I better take my coat with me or I'll catch a severe cold," Julia explained.

"That's not what I mean," replied David, "Julia, I can't let you go with me! It's too dangerous!"

Julia turned to look at him, "Well, I don't care, I'm going anyway," she said, looking determined.

"Julia…" David started.

Julia interrupted David before he could continue, "No! I don't want to hear it! I'm going, I won't let you do this alone. I made a promise and I intend to keep it. I won't let you suffer alone, if you go I go… huh?"

Julia was interrupted as David hugged her, which she certainly didn't expect.

"Don't you understand… I don't want you to get hurt Julia," David whispered in her ear.

"D… David…" Julia slowly returned the hug.

They stayed like that for less than a minute, until David whispered "I'm sorry," in Julia's ear.

This surprised Julia, and even more after David broke the hug. David stepped back towards Julia's desktop computer, while holding something in his left hand.

Julia's eyes opened wide when she saw what David was holding in his hand. It was a D-3… HER D-3!

"I'm sorry Julia. I promise I'll return it when this is over," he said. David placed Julia's D-3 in his pocket, before he reached for his own D-3 and placed it next to the monitor of Julia's computer.

"David no!" Julia screamed.

"Digiport open!" David yelled, as he said that a bright light came out of the monitor, engulfing him and Candmon. A second later they were gone.

"David! David don't you dare leave me here!" Julia yelled in anger as she ran next to her computer, yelling into the monitor. Soon after that her eyes started to get glassy with tears. "David… you idiot… why do you have to be so stubborn…" and then her tears came out unabashed.

Pyocomon remained silent, not knowing what to say to Julia that would comfort her.

I have to find a way into the Digital World, though Julia, I just have to… I can't leave David alone… I just can't!

Just then, her head shot back up. She had an idea that might work.

She turned on her modem and sat in front of her computer as it started to dial…

=============================

David and Candmon looked around as they stepped out of the Digiport and to the Digital World.

Everything was covered in a layer of shiny white snow. The plains, the trees, the roads, everything. The sky was gray and cloudy and the sun couldn't be seen. The whole Digital World that he had learned to call home had turned into a barren wasteland of ice, snow and coldness.

"Ice Devimon…" Candmon whispered angrily as his hands became fists.

"Don't worry Candmon… he'll pay for what he has done," said David to his partner, as he too clenched his fists in anger. The state the Digital World was in was worst than he had expected.

Candmon then calmed down and looked up at his human partner "David…"

David looked down at Candmon, "Huh?"

"Are you sure it was a good idea?" asked Candmon.

"What are you talking about?" asked back David.

"About leaving Julia and Pyocomon back in the real world… are you sure it was a good idea? Won't they get angry?"

David sighed and nodded. "Yes… but I rather have that than seeing her getting hurt in battle… I'm a fighter, not a protector."

Candmon saw that it was better to change the subject to something else. "Hum… so what do we do now?" asked the fire digimon.

"Well, for starters we have to find out more about Ice Devimon. We don't even know where he is," replied David, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Okay, how do we do it? Look for one of his soldiers and beat the answers out of him?" suggested Candmon.

David shook his head. "No. It's too risky. That would give out the fact that we're back in the Digital World, and I don't want that to happen yet. It would take away our advantage of the element of surprise," he said.

"Okay… then what do we do?" asked the fire digimon.

David smiled knowingly, "Well, we can go to THAT place."

Candmon's eyes opened wide, "But David… you know what kind of digimon go there… it's dangerous."

David nodded, "I know, but that's precisely why we'll find the information we're looking for. Come on, let's go."

David started walking, and Candmon started to follow him a second later.

===========================

A couple of hours later, somewhere else in the Digital World.

A lonely monitor suddenly produced a bright flash, as six figures materialized. Three were human, three were digimon.

When they received Jose's message, James and Juana used a Digiport to transport themselves to Argentina. More specifically to Julia's house.

After Julia gave them a quick explanation about everything that had happened and why she needed their help to enter the Digital World they were on their way.

Before entering Julia had given James and Juana a set of thick jackets, wool hats and scarves, as well as grabbing one for herself.

If what David had said about the Digital World and Ice Devimon was right, they the Digital World should be frozen over.

And he had been right.

As soon as they arrived at the Digital World, they noticed that it was very cold, and everything was covered by snow.

The once warm southern flatlands of the Digital World region of Argentina had turned into a cold and barren wasteland.

"This… this is awful…" said Juana as she took in the scenery before her. Armadimon nodded in agreement.

James also nodded in agreement, "Yes… we have to stop him. Imagine what would happen if this Ice Devimon guy is able to keep extending his territory up to the jungle."

"All the trees will die… it will be the end of the whole ecosystem!" exclaimed Plotmon in response, as he imagined how his homeland would look like if this didn't stop.

"Yes, but we have to find David first," said Julia to the Belem kids.

James nodded and reached for his D-3. Finding David would be rather easy. All he needed to do was to find two signals that were close together, since David was carrying both his and Julia's D-3.

"Well, well, well… what do we have here."

All six of them turned around when they heard that voice.

It was a small group of digimon, all of them with an ice affinity. There were many Icemon, also a couple of Mammon and some Mojyamon. One of the Mojyamon was standing ahead of the rest, and looked like the leader of the group.

"Some Digi-Destined and their digimon. Lord Ice Devimon will be happy to hear that we killed you," said the head Mojyamon as he smiled evilly.

Knowing that there was a fight just around the corner, James and Juana reached for their D-3s and their D-Terminals.

Before Mojyamon could give the order to attack, one of the Icemon looked at Julia and gasped, then he turned to look at the leader. "Sir… look at the girl over there," he said, pointing at Julia.

Mojyamon looked at Julia for a second, then recognized her.

"I can't believe it! It's the girl General Sorcerymon told us about!"

Julia gasped when she heard that name, "S… Sorcerymon!?"

"What is he talking about?" asked Juana.

"We'll worry later… I think they're going to attack us," replied James.

"Lord Ice Devimon will surely give me a BIG promotion if we capture her. Be careful, we need her alive… GET THEM!" Mojyamon finally gave out the order to attack.

As soon as he said that, a group of three Icemon and three Mojyamon charged towards the kids and their digimon.

"Digimental up!" both James and Juana cried in unison.

"Plotmon armor evolve!"

"Armadimon armor evolve!"

Both digimon started to shine, and started to change. Where Plotmon stood now was a giant panther like creature made out of red fire. "The burning light of courage, Lynxmon!"

Where Armadimon was now stood a giant warthog made out of orange red fire. "Stampeding with courage, Boarmon!"

Julia looked at the two fiery digimon ready to do battle, wanting to join and help. But she didn't have her D-3, and without her D-3 she couldn't evolve Piyomon to Sabirdramon.

"Bullet Attack!"
"Wild Nail Rush!"

Boarmon and Lynxmon leaped towards the charging ice digimon, knocking and deleting some of the Icemon and some of the Mojyamon.

"Damn you!" the head Mojyamon gritted his teeth in anger, "Bone Boomerang!"

The head Mojyamon tossed his big club like if it were a spinning boomerang, the club flew towards Lynxmon and Boarmon, but they jumped away of the impact.

That was enough distraction for the Mammon to get into play, the giant mammoth like digimon rushed towards Lynxmon and Boarmon.

The fiery digimon of courage were able to dodge the charging Mammon, and immediately used their fire attacks on the two digimon.

"Thermal Mane!" Lynxmon cried as a big flame, shaped like a cat, shot out of him and towards the first Mammon.

"Nose Blaster!" Boarmon shot a fire attack from her nose, hitting the second Mammon.

Both Mammon cried as they were hit, rolled a few times on the snow, and then got up again, ready to continue.

"What are you doing! Let me go!"

James and Juana turned around in surprise when they heard Julia's cries.

A group of Icemon were grabbing Julia and dragging her away, they had also captured Piyomon, the bird's Magic Fire wasn't enough to keep the icy digimon at bay. The icy digimon had used the fight as a distraction to circle around the small group, and capture Julia from behind.

"Julia!" exclaimed Juana.

"We have to help her!" said James.

Boarmon and Lynxmon turned around, ready to go and help Julia, but they were rammed from the side by the Mammon.

"Ha ha ha ha! You can't help her! She's now a prisoner of Lord Ice Devimon!" the head Mojyamon laughed in triumph.

The Mojyamon and the rest of his troops began to run away, the Icemon carrying Julia and Piyomon following them. The girl and her digimon partner struggled to get free, but to no avail.

The fiery digimon of courage tried to follow them, to keep them from getting away, but they were stopped by the two Mammon once again. They weren't going anywhere till they defeated these two digimon!

"Bullet Attack!"
"Wild Nail Rush!"

Once again, Boarmon and Lynxmon rushed towards the two Mammon, hitting them fully with their combined attack.

The impact was powerful enough to stun the two Mammon for a second, more than enough time for Lynxmon and Boarmon to use their fire attacks combined.

"Thermal Mane!"
"Nose Blaster!"

Both fire attacks combined in mid air forming a giant ball of pure fire, the fireball impacted the Mammon with full force, engulfing them in flames. The Mammon were able to cry in pain for a few seconds before the heat of the fire was too much for them and they deleted into data.

As the fight was over, Lynxmon and Boarmon changed back to Plotmon and Armadimon respectively.

"They took Julia, do we follow them!?" asked a worried Plotmon to his partner.

James shook his head sadly, "No… they got away, we'll never be able to catch them, not in this awful weather conditions." replied James, gesturing to the constant falling of snow.

"But we have to do something!" exclaimed Armadimon.

Juana nodded, "Yes. We can look for David."

James turned to look at Juana, worry was apparent on his face. "D… David? Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asked.

"He's the only one that knows this territory, we have seen him fight before so we know what he's capable of during battle, and he's surely to be worried about Julia when he finds out what happened," replied Juana, "In the long run, it's our best option."

James sighed and nodded reluctantly, "Yes, you're right. Okay, let's go look for him."

And so, the four of them started to walk once again, this time keeping an eye open in case more of Ice Devimon's soldiers came to fight them.

=======================

"Are you REALLY sure about this David?" asked Candmon. He and David were standing in front of the small wooden door or a small concrete building. "I mean, you know the fame this place has. Most of the digimon that drink at this joint are criminals," the fire digimon insisted.

David nodded, "Yes, I know. But it's also the perfect place to get the information we need. One of the digimon in here has to know where Ice Devimon's fortress is." David was very determined in his decision.

David then pushed the door open, and the two of them walked inside.

The place looked like an old Pulperia from the times of the Gauchos. The place just had a few small wooden tables with chairs, the bar at the back went from one wall to the other and it was made of concrete like the walls. There were no stools at the bar, and in order to go behind it there was an iron door at the left side right next to the wall. The bar was protected from the rest of the joint by thick iron bars, with just the right opening at the bottom for the glasses to pass. The back wall behind the bar was filled with shelves that in turn were filled with bottles with all kind of alcoholic drinks.

A black Agumon wearing a white but dirty apron was behind the bar and he looked at them as they walked into the Pulperia and towards the bar.

"Well, this is the first time that I get a Digi-Destined as a customer," said the black Agumon, clearly not pleased of said event. "We don't want any trouble here."

"We aren't looking for trouble either," replied David, "all we want is information," as he talked with the bartender, Candmon was watching David's back in case one of the other digimon tried something.

The Black Agumon raised an eyebrow at David, "Really, what kind of information?"

"About Ice Devimon," replied David.

At that moment the whole place went silent, which didn't go unnoticed by David and Candmon.

The black Agumon smiled and a mischievous tint could be seen in his eyes, "Actually we have heard about Ice Devimon. He said that he'll make it worth our while if we got rid of noisy humans that come asking questions about him."

Just then an Ogremon and a Bakemon that were sitting at the closest table sat up and walked towards David and Candmon, they stopped just in front of Candmon.

The Ogremon tried to hit David with his club, but David managed to dodge to a side while Candmon jumped to the other side.

David reached for his D-3, "Okay then, we'll do it the hard way… Candmon!"

A dark purple light came from David's D-3, and then the light surrounded Candmon. "Candmon evolve!"

As the light dissipated, a tall man made out of fire stood where Candmon was just a second ago. "Meramon!"

"Dark Claw!" the Bakemon tried to attack Meramon, but Meramon just dodged the attack and kicked the ghost digimon with his right leg, punting the Bakemon towards an unsuspecting Ogremon who didn't have time to do anything but stop the Bakemon with his face.

As both the Ogremon and Bakemon fell to the floor, unconscious, the rest of the digimon at the rest of the tables stood up.

"Oh yes, this just keeps getting better and better," said David.

Meramon answered by smiling and putting his guard up, "Okay, who wants to go first?"

And then an all around bar fight broke lose.

============================

The leader of the Belem Team held his D-3 as he looked around. Soon, two small dots that weren't there appeared on the D-3's screen, just a little more south-west of their position.

"Hey! I think I've found him!" said James.

"Great! Where is he?" asked Juana.

James pointed out the way, and the two members of the Belem Team started walking that way.

============================

About fifteen minutes later, they found a small building at the side of the snow covered road.

The building wasn't very strange looking. Just a concrete building of cubic shape, with no triangular roof on top of it. It had a wooden door and two windows at each side, plus two more at the front, at the side of the door. All windows where protected by iron bars.

"The signal is coming from inside there," said James as he pointed at the building.

"Okay, let's go in and look for him. Shouldn't be too hard to spot," commented Juana.

Suddenly, a Wizarmon broke out the door, splitting it in two. The magician digimon flew off a few feet away and landed on his back on the cold snow. He struggled a little to get on his feet, but didn't succeed as his eyes rolled back and he fell unconscious to the snow covered ground.

Seeing this, the two Belem kids and their respective digimon ran towards the building, and looked inside through the broken door.

Inside they saw complete and utter chaos. Wooden tables and chairs were broken and covered the floor, about a dozen digimon, some in child form others in adult form, covered the floor, all of them were knocked out.

In the middle of the room stood a Meramon with his guard up, and a human boy, also with his guard up, wearing a long sleeved rugby shirt and dark blue jeans, with white tennis shoes. James and Juana recognized David immediately, even if he seemed a little different from the last time they saw him… as if he had grown up a little.

Both digimon and Digi-Destined were standing back to back. A Nanimon was standing in front of David, while a Gokimon was standing in front of Meramon.

Like if on cue, the two digimon struck, Nanimon jumped towards David and Gokimon ran towards Meramon with a fist ready to strike.

"Shouldn't we help them?" asked Juana out loud.

Meramon dodged Gokimon's attack, then answered with a punch of his own to the stomach that caused Gokimon to bend over in pain. That gave Meramon the opportunity to kick Gokimon on the face, sending him flying a few feet away and against the only table left. It seemed like the Gokimon was going to get up, but he fell unconscious after a second.

"Who, the digimon or David?" asked James.

David just hit the leaping Nanimon with his right fist. The punch connected right in the middle of Nanimon's eyes, and it sent the small digimon flying towards the iron bars that protected the bar. A loud clang was heard as the Nanimon fell down face first on the ground, also unconscious.

James winced a little when he saw David punch the Nanimon, as he remembered what happened in Buenos Aires during the Christmas Invasion last year, and suddenly felt the urge not to be in the same room as the Argentinean boy.

David and Meramon looked around, to make sure that all the digimon had been beaten up. After that, Meramon shrank back to his Candmon form, and David put his fists down, dropping his guard.

"Well, what do we do now? Do we wake them up one by one and start questioning them?" asked Candmon to his partner.

"No, let's just go," replied David.

Digimon and Digi-Destined turned towards the door to leave, but stopped when they saw James and Juana standing under the doorframe.

"Huh? What are YOU doing here!?" asked David, but it sounded more like a demand than a question.

James tried to push aside how scared he was of David, especially after the little display he had just made. "We… we received a message from Jose, the Gennai clone for South America. He had received an e-mail from Julia, requesting help to come into the Digital World," he said.

David's eyes opened wide as saucers. He rushed over to James and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, rising him a few centimeters off the ground. "You actually HELPED Julia come here!? Where is she!? Answer me!" he yelled at James.

James grabbed David's arms trying to keep the Argentinean boy from choking him. It was incredible but he didn't seem only taller now, he was actually stronger than before! He couldn't even speak.

"Puppy Howling!" Plotmon didn't like the treatment James was receiving.

David gritted his teeth from the piercing noise that came out of Plotmon's mouth, he actually managed to tolerate Plotmon's Puppy Howling attack for a few moments, until it became too much and he had to let go of James to cover his ears.

James landed on his butt on the hardwood floor, rubbing his neck and gasping for air.

"You stay out of this, you flea bag!" Candmon tossed a small fireball towards Plotmon. James' digimon didn't see it in time, and was unable to dodge it.

The fireball hit Plotmon on his side, causing him to roll over a few times. But he stood up right away, and leaped over to Candmon. And punched him square in the face with both his front paws, which Candmon answered with a right hook to Plotmon's head. Soon a fist fight between the two digimon broke out.

At the same time, David had recovered from Plotmon's attack, and looked down at James, "That's why I hate you Americans so much! They show up to help when you never asked for it, and they always screw things up!" David was about to reach down to grab James by his shirt once more.

Juana and Armadimon were the ones that put a stop to all this madness.

While Candmon and Plotmon were still duking it out, Armadimon used her rolling attack and split them apart, like if she were a bowling ball and they were pins.

"Hey! We were outnumbered, and Julia couldn't evolve Piyomon without her D-3! We did everything we could to help her!" Juana yelled to David.

Hearing what Juana said made David stop all of his movements. Slowly, he turned around to face the native girl. "What… what did you say?" he asked in a neutral tone.

"I said that we did everything we could to help her," Juana replied, relieved to see that David had calmed down.

"No… I mean before that."

"Huh? That Julia couldn't evolve Piyomon without her D-3?"

David reached into a side pocket of his jeans, and pulled out Julia's D-3. The D-3 that HE had taken from her.

His fault… it was all HIS fault! He had stolen Julia's D-3 to keep her from going into the Digital World, to keep her out of this mess. He should have guessed that Julia would have found a way to get into the Digital Wolrd anyway… and without her D-3 she was completely defenseless!

David gripped Julia's D-3 tightly. "I've got to rescue her! I can't let anything happen to her!" he turned to look at his digimon partner, who had just recovered from Armadimon's rolling impact and was standing up, "Candmon, let's go! We have to rescue Julia and Piyomon!"

Hearing the words rescue and Piyomon in the same sentence were enough to make Candmon forget about any reason he might have to continue his fight with Plotmon. He turned to look at David and ran towards him.

Armadimon helped Plotmon stand back up. "Are you okay?" asked Armadimon.

"Yeah… he just hurt my pride… Ouch, he's worst than Renamon," replied Plotmon. The two digimon walked back to their partners.

David looked at James and Juana, as the native girl was helping the American boy stand up, "I'm going to go rescue Julia, and I'm going to do it alone. Understand? Alone! I suggest you go back to Brazil and let me handle things." David looked down at Candmon, "Let's go," he said.

Candmon nodded and the two walked out of the small building.

Juana moved to follow him, but noticed that James hadn't moved at all.

"James, come on," Juana urged her Jogress partner

"No," James simply said, his back turned.

Juana and the digimon boggled, "What?!" they cried in unison.

"You heard him. He's going in alone, meaning we don't interfere. I'm doing what he says."

"You can't be serious!" Juana forcibly turned James so that he faced her, "You know he needs our help. You know he can't possibly do this alone, so what's your problem?"

"Let's see… he dark evolves his digimon as though it were normal, he's rude and abrasive, he acts as though he's the king of his area, which if the rumors we've heard relate to him, he probably considers himself that, and, oh, let's not forget the fact that he TRIED TO KILL OUR DIGIMON and NEARLY BROKE MY JAW WHEN I TRIED TO STOP HIM! And not to mention what just happened here just a second ago!"

Plotmon looked up to his human, "James, none of that matters here."

James shook his head, then said, "It does matter. It matters because when we were TOLD to help him, when JosÃ© told us that we were needed to help him out of a scrape, he wouldn't let us, and attacked us when we tried. I'm not going to help him this time, I'm not going to offer my help to some stupid, stubborn bastard while others who actually need my help and would appreciate it could die because I'm not there to help them!" With that he turned and started to walk away.

Juana beamed with comprehension. "This is about Carlos, isn't it?" she asked.

James stopped dead in his tracks.

Juana called back to him, "It is! You aren't going to help him because you blame him for Carlos's death!"

"I don't blame him for Carlos's death."

"You do!" exclaimed Juana, then she thought a second about James's wording, "Or you blame yourself. You think that if we went to Peru instead of Argentina, or if we went to Peru WITH Carlos, he wouldn't have died."

James slumped, before kneeling on the ground and weeping openly, "I could have DONE something… I could have protected him, called out to him. I could have killed that Kentarumon that ended Carlos's life… I could have… I could have…" he trailed off into sobs.

Plotmon scurried to James's side and, in a very doglike way, nudged his head under James's hand, and James instinctively began petting him. Juana in turn hugged James.

"James, you couldn't have done anything. It was a freak accident. Nothing could have saved him. Who knows what would have happened if the past was rewritten. Carlos could have still died, or maybe Pedro or I could have died. Or maybe you would have died, for the rest of us to grieve over. Or maybe Julia or David would have died because we weren't there to help THEM."

Juana continued, "James, I know you don't like David, but are you willing to possibly let him die? Or Julia? Would you condemn them to the same fate as Carlos? We couldn't help Carlos because we had a job to do, and we did it. And in turn we may have saved some lives. Now we have another chance to save lives, no one is telling us to go the other way. If they were to die, how could you possibly live with that?"

James hugged Juana back, broke the hug, stood up, and wiped his eyes, "There won't be another Carlos. Not if I can help it. I'm going. But, first, let me wash up. I don't want that big lug to know I've been crying when I'm saving his stubborn ass," he said, grinning his usual sarcastic grin. Juana let out a cry of joy, hugged James fiercely, and gave him a peck on the cheek before running off with Armadimon. James looked shocked, touched his cheek, then grinned widely as he sauntered off after his friend.

As they left, the place was quiet once again.

After a couple of minutes, a small blackish T-Rex head peeked out from behind the bar.
"Are they gone?" asked the black Agumon out loud.

==================

"Hum, David, they're following us," commented Candmon to his human partner, referring to James and Juana, and their digimon, walking a few meters behind them.

"I know," replied David.

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Candmon.

David sighed, "Nothing. I'm still going to do this alone. If they want to follow me, that's their problem."

Candmon decided that he should better change the subject, "So, what do we do now?"

"We do what you first suggested. We find one of Ice Devimon's soldiers, and we beat him up until he talks," replied David.

Candmon was surprised, "But what about what you said about giving out that we're here and all that?" he asked to his partner.

"I don't care. Rescuing Julia is my first priority. Besides, Ice Devimon must already know that we're here, or he wouldn't have kidnapped Julia in the first place," replied David.

Suddenly a strong wind started, as the snow was being blown away. The wind was so strong that David and Candmon had to cover their faced with their arms to protect their eyes.

When the wind died down, they opened their eyes again, and were surprised when they saw Sorcerymon standing in front of them. It was the same Sorcerymon that had attacked them at SIC's rugby field all those months ago.

"You!" exclaimed David, "You have some guts, showing up here by yourself!"

Just then James and Juana had reached them, they started to hurry their pace when they saw Sorcerymon standing in front of David and Candmon.

"Hello, Dig-Destroyer, we meet again," said Sorcerymon, with a mocking smile under his hood.

"I wish I could say that I'm happy to see you, but I hate to lie," replied David, as he reached for his D-3, ready to fight if he needed to. He figured that if Sorcerymon showed up all alone, was because he was either an idiot or his intentions weren't to fight him, but to talk to him. And Sorcerymon didn't look like a stupid digimon.

"You know this guy?" asked James.

"I wish I didn't," was David's reply, "What are you doing here?" he asked the magic digimon.

"I'm here to deliver a message from Lord Ice Devimon," replied Sorcerymon.

"Well, let's hear it!" demanded an impatient David.

"Well, as I'm sure you have figured out by now, Lord Ice Devimon has decided to take the human girl Julia, and the Piyomon that is her partner as prisoners. If you want to rescue her, then you'll have to reach Lord Ice Devimon's fortress and beat Lord Ice Devimon. Ice Devimon's fortress is just south of this area, right next to the Southern Forest. You will recognize it immediately, it's the only giant frozen structure of the area." explained Sorcerymon.

"But, in order for you to do this, you will have to defeat Lord Ice Devimon's best warriors: The Four Generals. One of them you defeated already, it was General Panjamon. The other three are General Mega Seadramon, General Blue Meramon and myself. Once you have defeated us all, reached the fortress, and defeated Lord Ice Devimon, then you will be able to rescue Julia," Sorcerymon finished.

David looked skeptically at Sorcerymon, "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Let's just say that its a little challenge from Lord Ice Devimon. A duel between him and you. Winner takes all. If you win, then the Digital World will return to normal and you would have rescued the girl. But if Lord Ice Devimon wins, the Digital World will turn into a frozen wasteland… forever! HA HA HA HA!" as Sorcerymon laughed, the strong wind started to blow once again, and when the wind stopped, Sorcerymon was nowhere to be seen.

Sorcerymon's laugh was still in the air in the form of an echo that got smaller with each passing second.

"I accept your challenge, Ice Devimon. I will rescue Julia and I will make you pay for everything you have done!" said David with a very determined voice, as he gripped his D-3 as tightly as he could without breaking it.

Juana, who had remained silent next to James, turned to look at David. "Hum… are you okay David?" she asked.

David turned to look at Juana, then at James, then up front. "I'm fine," he said, then he turned to look at Candmon. "Candmon! Let's go!" said David to his partner as he started to walk away. Candmon followed soon after.

"Are you coming or what!?" yelled David over his shoulder to James and Juana.

"Hmf… would it kill him to say 'please' once in a while?" complained James.

Juana smiled, "Brighten up James, at least he's actually asking us to follow him this time."

The two Belem kids and their digimon partners started to follow David and Candmon before they could get too far.

=========================

A few hours later…

The three Digi-Destined and their digimon were walking across a huge field of plain ice.

"Careful, it's slippery," warned David to James and Juana.

"Yeah, I can see," replied Juana.

"Why are we going this way?" asked James, being extra careful as to not fall down.

"Because is the most direct way to Ice Devimon's fortress," replied David.

"Isn't that kind of dangerous?" asked Juana.

"It would be, but Ice Devimon is actually EXPECTING us. So it really doesn't matter which way we go," replied David.

"Whatever. Why is it so slippery here, why all the ice?" asked back James.

As if in answer to James question, the ice all around them started to crack, forming an irregular square like shape. Soon all the ice started to crack, until many middle sized and small cubes were floating here and there around them, while they were standing on a not so big chunk of ice that worked like a raft.

It wasn't ice, it was a frozen lake. And they seemed to be floating on an ice raft right in the middle, because there was water and floating chunks of ice as far as the eye could see.

"W-w-water!" stuttered James, as he very carefully stepped to the middle of the ice raft, so as to be as far away from the water as possible.

David eyed the scared James, "What's with him?" he asked Juana.

"He's a hydrophobic… he's afraid of the water, he can't swim!" replied a worried Juana.

"Oh, I see… well, I wouldn't worry about drowning in this water. It's so cold that anyone would be paralyzed and die of hypothermia just by taking a dip in it," answered David.

James chose that moment to show his ability to impersonate a screaming girl.

"But… who cracked all the ice?" asked Candmon.

Again, the answer presented itself. All the water around them started to bubble and move, as a second later they were surrounded by a dozen Seadramon and Ikkakumon, and all of them seemed definitely unfriendly.

"Oh yes, this keeps getting better and better," said David sarcastically, as he reached for his D-3.

He was about to make Candmon evolve when he heard a thunderous voice, "Well, if it isn't David… or should I call you the Digi-Destroyer."

David looked around, clenching his fist in anger. "I know who you are. You're one of Ice Devimon's generals, Mega Seadramon… show yourself you coward!"

A second later, a giant red sea serpent wearing a helmet emerged from the freezing water, towering well over the three humans and their digimon.

"Well, Digi-Destroyer, we finally meet. Too bad you have to die so soon," Mega Seadramon said evilly. "Destroy them!" he ordered to his troops.

With a battle cry, all the Ikkakumon and Seadramon started to swim as fast as they could towards the ice raft.

"Candmon!" cried David and grabbed his D-3, the small electronic device started to shine with a dark purple light.

"Candmon evolve!"

Candmon was surrounded with the same purple light that came from David's D-3. When it was over, in his place stood a tall humanoid looking digimon made out of fire. "Meramon!"

"Armadimon, ready?" asked Juana to her partner.

Armadimon nodded with determination.

"Digimental up!" Juana cried up.

"Armadimon armor evolve!"

Armadimon started to shine, and started to change.

Where Armadimon was now stood a giant winged creature that looked very much like a prehistoric pterodactyl. "Jets of bursting love, Pteranomon!"

Pteranomon quickly took to the air, and flew towards the approaching Seadramon and Ikkaumon.

"James! What are you doing! Come on!" Plotmon urged his human partner.

"Water… too many water… can't move… can't think…" James was too scared to even try to evolve Plotmon.

Luckily, it seemed that the Seadramon and Ikkaumon were not good at shooting. Pteranomon easily dodged all the Ice Arrow and Harpoon Vulcan attacks, and answered them with her Side Winder attack, taking them down one by one.
Juana was kneeling next to her Jogress partner, trying to calm him down, while Plotmon looked worriedly at Pteranomon, wanting to help her, but knowing that he couldn't evolve without James.

"Let's take care of the main guy Meramon," ordered David to his partner.

"Alright!" yelled Meramon with a confident smile. The fire digimon jumped on the head of an approaching Ikkakumon, and used it to propel himself towards Mega Seadramon.

"You insolent fool! Mega Ice Blast!" cried out Mega Seadramon.

Meramon dodged the attack in mid air as best as he could, he spun around and landed on a nearby floating ice block. He looked at his right arm, it was frozen over. He wasn't able to dodge the attack completely.

"Ha! You see! You're nothing compared to me! HA HA HA HA!" laughed Mega Seadramon.

"Are you happy with just this?" asked Meramon, showing his frozen arm to Mega Seadramon.

"You idiot! Why don't you surrender!?" growled Mega Seadramon.

"For freezing my arm… I will kill you painfully!" Meramon's flames seemed to increase in intensity, and the ice covering his arm soon shattered into pieces as he made a fist with his hand.

"Meramon! Do it now!" ordered David.

"Mega Ice Blast!" an enraged Mega Seadramon attacked again.

Meramon easily dodged the attack this time by jumping over it, and while in mid air he used his fire punch against Mega Seadramon, hitting the giant serpent in his right eye, which was the only vulnerable spot on his head that his helmet didn't cover.

Mega Seadramon screamed in pain, Meramon landed on another floating ice block, and from there jumped again towards Mega Seadramon's head. He landed right INTO Mega Seadramon's open maw.

"What… what is he doing?" asked Plotmon, who had watched the whole thing.

David crossed his arms over his chest and smiled, "Just watch."

Mega Seadramon opened his eyes wide, his features twisted in pain. His abdominal section started to swell up more and more. "Argggh NOOOO!!!" he yelled in unbearable pain, just before he exploded into data, as Meramon made him explode from the inside of his stomach.

Meramon twisted in mid air, and landed with a stand on the floating ice block where David and the others were. "I'm so awesome." he said to himself.

Seeing their leader was dead, many of the Ikkakumon and Seadramon started to swim away.

Before escaping, an Ikkakumon that was just behind Meramon, seeing a great opportunity to delete him, fired a Harpoon Vulcan attack to the fire digimon.

"Meramon! Behind you!"

Hearing David's warning, Meramon was able to avoid the attack, and answered it with a quick Fire Punch attack, deleting the Ikkakumon that had attacked him, and then devolving back to Candmon.

Meanwhile the rest of the Seadramon and Ikkakumon were already out of sight.

The explosive projectile missed Meramon, but was going to fall next to James, who was still paralyzed by his fear of water.

"James watch out!" Juana pushed James out of the way, but that placed her right on impact course with the Harpoon Vulcan. It landed right next to Juana and it exploded, the explosion of the Harpoon Vulcan sent Juana flying out of the ice raft, and she fell in the freezing water.

"Juana!" yelled James as he saw the native girl falling into the deep blue, freezing water of the lake. She sank as soon as she fell in.

Pteranomon flew downwards and landed on the floating ice, she devolved back to Armadimon as soon as she landed. She could feel Juana's powers becoming weaker.

"We have to do something!" said a worried Armadimon.

"The water is too cold, her whole body must have gone numb by now," answered David. Armadimon, Plotmon and James turned around to look at David, and saw that he was taking off his tennis shoes. The Digi-Destined boy handed his tennis shoes to his partner, Candmon.

Before anyone could say anything, David jumped into the freezing water.

Juana wanted to get out of the water, it felt like if a million needles were piercing her body at the same time, but her body was numb from the coldness. She wasn't used to withstand the freezing temperature!

The water was so cold that she soon started to drift into unconsciousness. She managed to see a white and blue blur approach her before her eyes closed.

David saw Juana sinking; disregarding the coldness of the water he swam deeper and soon reached the native girl. He noticed that Juana had fallen asleep from the cold, he had to hurry before that happened with him too. Holding Juana with one arm, David started to swim upwards as fast as he could.

James, Plotmon, Armadimon and Candmon were looking at the water in worry. It had been less than a minute since David had jumped in to save Juana, but it felt like an eternity to all of them.

Pretty soon David's head emerged from the water, and swam towards the ice raft, pulling Juana's limp body with him.

James and Armadimon grabbed Juana from David, and pulled her up on the ice raft, her skin was ice cold.

Seeing that Juana was safe, David started pulling himself out of the water with a little help from Candmon and Plotmon. When he was on the raft, David couldn't stay awake anymore and also fell unconscious.

"They need a heat source, and they need it now!" yelled Candmon to the others as he felt that David's skin was also ice cold, "But I can't evolve without David," he added.

"Don't worry, I'll do it," said James, his worry to save Juana and David overcoming his fear of water. "Digimental up!" cried out James.

"Plotmon armor evolve!"

The puppy digimon started to shine, and started to change. Where Plotmon stood now was a giant cat like creature made out of red fire. "The burning light of courage, Lynxmon!"

=============================

In a big dark room made entirely up by ice, there were four blue candles. Three of them were lit up, their blue flame casting an eerie light over the room.

Suddenly, the second candle's flame was extinguished as well.

At the end of the room, Ice Devimon stood up from his icy throne, and walked over to the candles. When he confirmed that indeed only two candles remained lit, he clenched his fist in anger and punched the wall. "I can't believe that the Digi-Destroyer was able to defeat General Mega Seadramon! He is stronger than I thought."

Ice Devimon turned around, speaking to the darkness, "General Sorcerymon!"

Sorcerymon stepped out of the darkness, as if by magic, and bowed before Ice Devimon. "You called for me, my liege?" asked the digimon.

Ice Devimon nodded, "Yes, it seems that the Digi-Destroyer is more resourceful than I expected. I want you to go out and take care of him by any means necessary."

Sorcerymon smiled evilly under his hat. "It'll be an honor," he said.

Finally, Sorcerymon though, I will finally be able to get revenge from the humiliation I suffered at the Digi-Destroyer's hands in the Human's World. "By your leave," as he said this, Sorcerymon left the same way he came, his clever mind already thinking up a plot to defeat David.

Meanwhile, at another part of the big throne room, Piyomon was poking her head trough the cold bars of the ice cage she was being held in.

"Did you hear that Julia?" said Piyomon as she turned around to look at her partner. She became worried as soon as she saw Julia.

The cage wasn't very big, and there wasn't much space for the Digi-Destined girl to move around. Julia was sitting in the middle of the cage, her knees up to her face, her arms hugging her legs. She was shivering from the cold. "Y… Yes… I heard…" she stuttered, a small smile appearing on her lips, red from the coldness, "David will… will come for… for us… I'm sure of… of it," she said bravely.

Piyomon was very worried for Julia, the digimon had a natural coat of pink feathers, and she still felt some of the cold.

Julia had no such luck. The girl was wearing thick clothes, but it wasn't enough in a place as cold as Ice Devimon's fortress.

"I'm so cold…" whimpered Julia.

Piyomon walked over to her partner, held Julia's hands in her wings, and started to rub them, bringing much needed warmth to Julia's numb fingers. "Is this better?" asked Piyomon.

"Y… Yes… thank you Piyomon," answered Julia. She then saw Piyomon's worried expression as the digimon rubbed her hands.

"Don't wo… worry Piyomon… everything will… turn on right…" Julia said with a brave smile.

Piyomon looked at Julia and nodded with a smile of her own.

I have to be strong, thought Julia, this is nothing compared to some of the things David went trough as a Digi-Destined. I have to hold on anyway I can… I just have to.

=============================

David groaned, sat up, and wished he hadn't from the headache he got upon doing so.

"Oh good, you're awake," David looked over and saw James sitting in front of him. He then registered that he was lying next to a giant fire cat, Lynxmon, one of James's partner's Armor forms. Lynxmon himself was dozing gently, Candmon and Armadimon as well.

David began to move into a better sitting position, "How's Juana."

"She's fine," James responded, "She was up a bit earlier and went back to sleep."

"Where are we?"

"The shore of the lake. Which is good because I was afraid Lynxmon's flames might melt the ice raft if we stayed on too long," James paused before speaking again, "Listen… thanks…"

David looked at the blonde boy, "For what?"

"For rescuing Juana," James said, staring at Juana's unconscious form, "You see… I care about her. I care about her as much as you do for Julia. And if something happened to her… I don't know what I'd do… So, thanks."

David merely grunted, "If she meant so much to you, you'd have dived in there after her yourself."

"I would have, really I would have, but when it comes to water, I just freeze up…"

"Typical American, what you say and how you act are two very different things."

There was a long pause before James said, "You know, I'm not proud of the fact that I was born in America. I'd have much rather been born in Brazil."

David looked incredulously at James, and James met him with his own stare.

"I'm serious. America was boring at best. I spent most of my time there reading about other places and wishing I could go there. You don't know how happy I was when I learned I was moving to Brazil."

"So you moved here, and you and Plotmon joined the Brazil team?" David asked.

"Not at all. Plotmon lived in the Brazil section of the Digital World, and I wasn't activated until I got here… It makes sense though, Brazil is more my home than America ever was…"

David seemed to consider this, but still remained skeptical, "Really? You're not just saying this?"

James let out a laugh, "Well, in about three years or so, once I'm eligible, I'm gonna apply for Brazilian citizenship. Does that count?"

David looked shocked. He had thought James was just some American who moved to Brazil and muscled his way into his current team and appointed himself leader. Now it was different, James was willing to give up his old country and live in Brazil for the rest of his life. It took a lot of courage and David's respect for the bespectacled boy grew.

Of course, he'd never say that out loud.

James knew he was probably trying his luck, but he decided to bite the bullet and ask, "So, what about you?"

David looked at him, confused.

"Why are you so obsessed about doing things yourself? You won't accept help from anyone, even Julia and it's obvious you LIKE her. I just want to know why. Why can't you accept that you need help sometimes?"

David didn't speak for a long time, and James wondered what would happen, would he turn violent? Or would he just ignore the question? Finally, David spoke, and he surprised James by speaking honestly, "Because I don't want anyone else to go through this. I don't want anyone to have to be a victim to this world. I can handle my job. Why should anyone else have to go through the torture of having to be a Digi-destined when I can do this?"

James was stunned. He had thought that David was at best a stubborn bully and at worst no better than the warlords he had fought. Now it was different.

David was just like him; he didn't want anyone else to get hurt by being a Digi-Destined. By being willing to sacrifice himself so that others wouldn't have to take up his burden… James's respect for the larger boy grew.

Of course, he'd never say that out loud.

At that, David countered it with another question, "So why did you two decide to follow me anyway?"

James seemed to think about that, "I don't know if you're aware, but Juana and I are the only remaining members of the Belem team. There used to be four of us. One of our team, Carlos, died last Christmas, while he and his brother Pedro were aiding the Lima team," David was shocked, and James continued, "Pedro couldn't stand to remain in Brazil, so he went to the Digital World and began wandering. I don't know if he's looking for answers, or to find himself, or if he's trying to find a way to bring Carlos back. I don't know. Last I heard, he was in Asia, and was heading west. He should be in Europe any day now… Anyway, we came because… well, to say we got off on the wrong foot would be an understatement, but nevertheless, we couldn't leave you or Julia behind. We don't want you to suffer the same fate Carlos did."

David couldn't respond to that, but soon asked James one more question, "Why couldn't you have helped him?"

James looked down, "Because if I remember correctly, he died right about when you socked me across the jaw…"

David looked at James, "I… I hit you in the jaw? I'm sorry… I know how strong I am… I hope I didn't hurt you too much…"

James looked up again, "You act like you didn't know that happened."

Now it was David the one that looked down, "I didn't know… I… I never remember anything that happens when… when… when I'm like that."

"Huh? What do you mean 'like that'?"

"When… when I get angry… really angry… I lose control of myself… I do things… terrible things," David didn't know why he was opening so much with a guy he barely knew, "I just hope that friend of yours doesn't end up becoming like… me." David spoke that last word like if he was disgusted by it.

Both boys looked away from each other, and no other words were spoken for the rest of the night.

============================

The following morning…

James was sleeping peacefully, until a worried looking Juana awakened him.

"Huh? Juana? What's wrong?" asked James lazily, as he rubbed the sleep off his eyes.

"We have been robbed!" exclaimed Juana.

James sat up immediately, "What? What do you mean?"

"During the night, someone came and took all the D-3s and both your D-Terminals."

James turned his head to look at David who had answered his question, the Argentinean Digi-Destined and Candmon were kneeling down a few meters away, looking at the snow covered ground. "It looks like there was four of them… three child level and one adult by the size of the footprints on the snow." continued David.

"Well, did we find our luggage a little lighter this morning?"

All three kids and their digimon turned to look at the source of the familiar voice. Sorcerymon was standing a few meters from them, a mocking smile could be seen under his cape.

Candmon didn't wait for an order, he knew what David was thinking. "Bonfire!"

"No! Wait!" James and Plotmon simultaneously cried out, but it was too late.

The attack passed right trough Sorcerymon, leaving him unaffected. The evil smirk never leaving his face.

"He's not really here… It's an illusion!" said David in anger.

"Yeah, I was going to tell you that," said James.

"How did you know?" asked David.

"The smell," replied Plotmon.

"Huh?"

James smiled and pointed at his nose, "Sorcerymon had a smell the last time we saw him. Neither me nor Plotmon smelled anything, so we figured that he wasn't really here."

David was still curious, but knew he had more important matters at hand. "Okay Sorcerymon, what is it that you want?" asked David, turning back to look at the illusion of Sorcerymon.

"Why it's very simple. All you have to do is defeat me, and you'll get all your things back," replied the image.

"That's kind of hard to do, considering you're too afraid to show your face," replied David.

"Finding me will be quite simple, Digi-Destroyer, all you have to do is follow the footprints on the snow. I just hope you don't run into any rampaging digimon on your way… it'll be kind of hard fighting them if you can't evolve your digimon. HA HA HA HA HA…" Sorcerymon's image began to fade, but his laughter remained a few seconds after it was gone.

"You know, someone ought to tighten the stitches on his mouth, so he couldn't laugh anymore," commented James.

"So… what now?" asked Juana.

"What now? We follow the trail till we find him! We can't keep going without our D-3s," answered David.

==============================

The three kids and their digimon partners had been following the fresh footprints on the snow for about half an hour. They hadn't found any digimon on the way, the cold weather preventing that form happening.

Finally, after a long walk, they reached their destination.

David gasped when he saw where the footprints lead to, "Oh no… Anything but this…"

The footprints went all the way to a giant blue dome with a small door at the front as the only visible entrance. The footprints leaded all the way to the door, stating clearly that the thieves had gone inside.

James was surprised at David's reaction. In the short time that he had known him, the Argentinean boy had never shown any sort of fear. But David seemed visibly upset about this giant dome.

"What's wrong David? What is this place?" asked James.

"The Big Maze…" said David in a low voice, almost a whisper.

"The Big Maze?" repeated James in wonder.

David nodded, "Yes, The Big Maze. In relation to the real world, we are standing in the place where Parque Chaz is."

"What's Parque Chaz?" asked Juana.

David turned to look at the Belem kids, "Sorry, I forgot you weren't from Argentina. It doesn't really matter now. Let's just say that this thing here is the most difficult maze ever to exists. It's a labyrinth filled with traps and dead-ends. I've never gone inside it, but I've heard stories about it, about how digimon go in, but they never come out. They just walk around the maze for days, until they go crazy or die from hunger."

"Wow… creepy," commented James, looking in awe at the giant dome containing the maze.

"I can't believe Sorcerymon went inside," Added Juana.

"Well, maybe he knows his way inside, or uses magic so he cannot get lost… you never know. Anyway, we have to go inside to get our gear back," David turned to look at James and Juana again, "This is way too dangerous… I can't ask you to come with me."

"You don't have to ask. We are going with you," said Juana.

"Yes, Sorcerymon stole our things too. Besides, it sounds kind of fun," added James.

David was about to comment that they didn't need to do this, that he could do it himself, but he didn't. Instead, he just nodded and said, "Thank you."

The three kids and their digimon stepped over to the door and opened it. They stepped inside, and once they did so, the door slammed shut behind them. Everyone turned only to see how the door disappeared, leaving only a plain wall.

"Looks like we won't be able to go out the same way we came in," said David.

"Well, we'll just have to find our way out," replied James.

"Oh, and I suppose you have a plan?" asked David.

"As a matter of fact, I do," replied James, then he looked down at his digimon, "Plotmon."

Plotmon nodded and started sniffing around the floor. After a while, he rose his head and started walking. "They went this way, follow me," he said.

"Good work Plotmon, okay, let's go," James started to walk following his digimon. Juana and Armadimon followed them a second later.

"We have to be very careful, I heard there are traps everywhere around this place," commented David as he followed James and Plotmon.

"What kind of traps?" asked Juana as she walked, she didn't notice a little switch on the ground until she stepped on it.

A hole opened on one side of the hall, and a spear shot out of it towards Juana. David saw it just in time and tackled Juana to the ground.

"That kind of traps," said David as he helped Juana up.

James turned around when he heard the noise of a spear being impaled on the wall. "Are you two okay?" asked James.

"Yes, we're fine. Be careful where you step on," replied Juana as she stood up.

James looked around, "Wow… I wonder if this is how Indiana Jones felt when he was in the Temple of Doom."

David looked at Juana and was about to ask a question.

The native girl knew what David's question was going to be, "He's an Indiana Jones fan."

"Oh," was David's simple response. They started walking once again, following a sniffing Plotmon.

"You know, I should thank you for saving me," said Juana casually.

David turned his head to look at her, "Huh?"

"I mean, that spear back there was the second thing you saved me from in the last day and a half, and I haven't thanked you yet for it. So thank you," explained Juana.

"You're right. I should stop doing that or else he might get jealous," replied David as he pointed at James.

It was a good thing that James was walking in front of them with his back turned, or else they would have seen his face get so red that you could have melted an ice cube on it.

Juana didn't really hear what David said, "Huh? What?"

David gave a small laugh and waved his hand in a dismissive manner, "Nothing, don't worry about it."

After some more walking, the maze section ended in a door, and a booming voice filled the air.

"I am the guardian of this maze. Answer my riddle correctly, and you may pass through. Say nothing, and you may walk away with your lives. Answer incorrectly, and you shall die."

"As long as there's no pressure..." James muttered sarcastically. If the room's voice heard, it made no attempt to show it.

David completely ignored James' comment. Stepping up forwards, he looked at the big door and then around the room, as if trying to look at the source of the voice. "Okay, I accept. What is the riddle?" he finally said, it's not like he had much of a choice. They had to go trough this maze, and fast.

"Once long ago, a clever Child digimon stole a valuable trinket from the local ruler. The ruler caught the Child and sentenced him to death for his crimes. As the ruler was lenient, he allowed the Child to choose his own method of deletion. The Child chose, and while the sentence was carried out, the Child was allowed to walk away unharmed. How was this possible?" The room's voice called.

David was at a loss, he really didn't know exactly what the answer may be. He turned to the Brazilian team. Juana and Armadimon were simply looking at James and Plotmon expectantly. James looked pensive, but in about a minute, he brightened.

"You know the answer?" David asked.

James nodded, "I think I have it. Do you mind if I say my answer?"

"Go ahead," he said flatly; but then he added, "Just remember, get it wrong and we die."

"I know the risks, don't worry," was James' answer to David's comment, then he turned to look at the door and spoke loudly, "The Child chose to die of final evolution!" was James' reply. Final evolution was basically the end of a digimon's life cycle. It was more or less the equivalent of a human dying of old age.

In response, the door opened.

James grinned and ran through. He and Plotmon sniffed the air in tandem, before setting off in the direction Sorcerymon went. Juana and Armadimon closely followed him. David and Candmon were following at a good pace.

"You know, David, it's a good thing they did follow us," Candmon said.

As much as David hated to admit it, Candmon was right. Without Plotmon's nose (and James' as well, it seemed), they would have been lost forever in this maze. And even if by luck they managed to get through the maze correctly, the riddles would have surely stumped them. Well, that wasn't entirely true. David wasn't stupid, and neither was Candmon, and given enough time, they would have gotten the riddles. But time was a luxury he couldn't afford, as every second he delayed was a second that Julia could be dying.

James called back to David, "Come on, we have to keep moving if we want to…"

Before James could finish that sentence, Davig grabbed James, pulling him back just a second before an arrow came out from a wall opening and impacted on the wall just where James had been.

Candmon did the same thing with Plotmon, grabbing him by his collar.

"Traps, do I have to remind you that there are TRAPS here," said David, letting go of James, pointing at the small button-like device on the floor where James had stepped on.

"How about we move slowly and see how that works?" said James, shaken from what had happened, and then began to walk again more slowly.

The remaining maze passed rather uneventfully, until they came to one rather large area...

There was a gorge, a steep, deep, and a long way off to the other side, in the middle of the maze. Juana peered down, and frowned at the distance.

"I've seen some heights, but this is ridiculous..." she got up and walked over to the others, "Any ideas, James?"

"Well, obviously, it's too far to jump. We have no equipment to help us, and since our D-Terminals are missing, neither Juana or I can access Mihiramon, which is the only form we have large enough to fly on..." James trailed off.

"This maze is too well planned," David interjected, "They would have prepared for flying digimon."

James scratched his head at that, "Most fliers suffer claustrophobia in spaces like this... still, though..." He looked around, and spotted a pile of rocks, "Let me check something..."

James walked over, picked up a rock, and threw it in the air. It reached about ten feet off the ground before an icicle arrow materialized from the left wall and flew through the rock, shattering it to pieces, and imbedded itself in the opposite wall.

"I think Mihiramon wouldn't work in here even if we could evolve..." Plotmon looked sick.

"Maybe we could climb down, walk along the bottom, and climb back up?" Armadimon supplied.

"It'd take too long, and besides, without rope or anything to hold on to, we'd be almost guaranteed to slip and fall," Juana said.

James took a good hard look at the icicle arrow imbedded in the wall, "I have an idea. I'm going to need a boost though..." He motioned for Juana to follow him, and walked over to the arrow. With some help from Juana, he grabbed hold of the arrow. He began to swing himself on the arrow, making as much motion as possible, and still the arrow would not budge. James grinned, released his grip, and landed on the floor. He turned to David, "I have an idea. Do you think you can throw a rock from this side of the gorge to the other?"

He looked at James oddly, but decided to trust him. He went over to the rock pile, took a rather large rock and hurled it with all his might across the gorge. As the rock passed, arrows fired from the left wall and embedded themselves in the right wall about half a meter apart from each other. The rock landed on the opposite edge of the gorge, shattering as it did.

James applauded, "Excellent. Now, with that done, we begin phase two of my plan..." with that, he grabbed Plotmon, secured the puppy in a rather large pocket in his vest, leaped to the closest icicle, grabbed a hold of it, then swung and grabbed hold of the next arrow. He continued swinging from icicle to icicle, like a monkey swinging from branch to branch. He turned and motioned for them to follow him.

David looked at James, "I don't get it. The guy screams like a little girl at the sight of water, but he can swing himself over a bottomless pit like nothing."

"For us it IS no big deal," Juana said, using a quiver in her Digital World costume as a strap to secure Armadimon on her back, "We've been swinging from vines from trees the size of skyscrapers since we first entered this world," and with that, she took to the icicles and followed James.

David didn't really care about that, he motioned for Candmon to climb on his back, then took to the icicles as well.

It was about three quarters of the way through the gorge when it happened. Juana, with the strain of carrying the huge armadillo on her back, stopped on her icicle to catch her breath. David, unable to move when Juana wasn't moving, stopped as well. Unfortunately, the heat from Candmon's flames was as hot as ever.

"This icicle is starting to feel more slippery for some reason..." David said to himself, then realized what was happening. But before he could react, the icicle broke in half with a sickening crack and David found himself plummeting towards the bottom of the pit.

Running on instinct, David grabbed for the first solid thing he could find. In this case, it was Juana's leg since she was the closest to him. He immediatley regretted it, knowing that the brazilian girl wouldn't be able to hold on with him hanging from her leg.

Juana shrieked as the weight she was forced to carry suddenly increased.

"Juana! David!" James yelled, hurriedly swinging to the area where they were.

"My grip is slipping!" Juana wailed.

David knew that, and was considering letting go, when he heard James' voice.

"David, grab my leg with one hand!" James called.

David did as James said, and Juana felt the weight lift off, this time to a degree that she could still hold onto the icicle.

James breathed before saying his next bit, "Okay, David, I don't think either of us can hold onto you alone without losing our grip... We're going to go across in tandem. If you hold on to each of our legs, we'll be able to swing across to the other side."

"We'll never make it," said David. He wouldn't be responsible for causing burden to others. David looked down at the chasm, as if ready to let go...

"NO David!" Juana yelled, "I know what you're thinking!"

David looked back up, "I'll be okay! I've fallen down bigger holes than this one."

"NO! Don't you dare! Don't you DARE let go! Even if we COULD defeat Ice Devimon and save Julia without you, which I doubt, we are NOT going to have to explain this to her if you let go!" replied Juana.

David was surprised by Juana's outburst and gripped their legs harder.

"You are BEAUTIFUL when you're angry," James cracked as he and Juana began to move across the gorge.

"Do you have to make jokes ALL THE TIME?!" Candmon asked.

"Yes. If he didn't, I think his brain would melt," Armadimon supplied.

David maintained a strong grip on the Belem team's legs. At first, he was worried that they wouldn't be able to move at a synchronized pace and would slip and fall, but surprisingly, they were amazingly adept at both holding on and moving in unison. He surmised that if they didn't work so well together, they'd never be able to make their digimon merge.

Seeing the two Belem kids working so well together made David start to consider that working together with someone as a team might actually have some benefits… but he shrugged it off. Maybe it was, but had been working alone for too long to change now.

Finally, the three humans and the three digimon reached the other side, carefully touching down on solid earth once again and running far away from the edge once they all were safe and accounted for.

"Okay, if we live to go on another mission, we go by ground!" Plotmon said. James, Juana and Armadimon nodded in assent.

David ignored that, he just looked forwards at the next section of the maze. "Alright. Come on, let's get going," he said as he started walking again, followed by Candmon.

Juana looked at David walking away with Candmon, she couldn't believe this boy's attitude, "So much for gratitude, would it kill him to say 'thank you' once in a while?"

James smiled at that, "Just be patient Juana, he isn't really used to getting help from anyone. I'm sure he'll come around eventually," then he and Plotmon started to follow David and Candmon.

Juana looked at James in question. Did James know something about David that she didn't?

Juana shrugged and followed the rest of them, followed by Armadimon.

The next part of the gigantic maze was rather uneventfull, just a few traps here and there that David managed to spot before anyone stepped on them. Finally, the three kids and their digimon reached another large double door.

"I am the guardian of this maze. Answer my riddle correctly…"

David interrupted the voice, "Yes, yes, yes, If we answer correctly we pass, if we answer incorrectly we die. We know the drill. Just say the damn question."

The voice, which seemed to come out of nowhere, ignored David's attitude, but recognized that the challenge and terms had been accounted for and accepted, and so it gave them the riddle.

"Two sons and two fathers went outside to eat. They ordered three meals and three drinks, yet each one of them managed to eat a full meal and a full drink. How can this be?"

David turned to look at James, "Okay so, any ideas?" After how the Belem kid resolved the last riddle, David figured that it would be better to leave this kind of thing to the boy with glasses.

James took a minute to think then looked up at the others, "I think I got it."

James stepped forwards, looking at the door. "They were three persons. The first one was father to the second one, and the third one was the son of the second one and the grandson of the first one," said James.

Again, to door opened slowly, signaling that James had gotten the answer right once again.

"The exit is just beyond this point," said the voice of the room, just after the door opened.

The three kids and their digimon knew what that meant. Sorcerymon was waiting for them at the other side of the door.

The three kids and their digimon stepped trough the open door, which started to close again as they stepped trough.
At the other side there was a huge room, with the particularity that all the walls, as well as the ceiling and the floor, were covered by ice and snow.

"This is it…" commented David in a low voice, Candmon nodded.

The three looked forwards into the piercing darkness as they heard someone clapping ahead of them.

Soon, Sorecerymon emerged from the darkness, walking slowly towards them.

"Bravo, bravo…" said Sorcerymon as he clapped his hands, a smile on his face, "I never thought you'll make it this far. I am impressed."

"Sorcerymon… so, you finally stopped hiding," said David, as he said this Candmon stood on guard. Plotmon and Armadimon followed suit.

Sorcerymon waved his right index finger, "Tsk, tsk… my dear Digi-Destroyer. I wasn't hiding, I was just testing you. And now, you will have the honor of being killed by me." Sorcerymon grabbed his staff from behind himself, and held it firmly with both hands, "Now, prepare yourself for the great beyond!"

Sorcerymon waved his staff to the three digimon standing on guard a few meters in front of him, and as he did several ice spikes flew out of his staff.

Candmon, Plotmon and Armadimon jumped out of the way. Candmon managed to land on a roll, and got up immediately, counterattacking.

"Bonfire!" the fire attack flew surely towards Sorcerymon.

But Sorcerymon just moved his staff again and rose up an ice shield made of magic, the attack dissolved as it hit the shield, leaving Sorcerymon unharmed. "That was pathetic!" said Sorcerymon, "You really believe that three Child level digimon can beat an Adult level digimon who had his powers enhanced?"

"It doesn't matter what the odds are against you. All that matters is that you fight giving it you best, so there won't be any regrets afterwards!" replied David with feeling. "Don't let him get to you Candmon! Keep attacking him!"

Getting new energy from David's superior fighting spirit, Candmon rushed towards Sorcerymon. Sorcerymon tried to stop him with more ice spikes, but Candmon managed to dodge all of them, and reached Sorcerymon.

"Take this!" Candmon threw a punch at Sorcerymon, but the magic digimon managed to rise his shield just in time to stop the punch from hitting. But Candmon didn't give up, he kept punching and punching, and all the time Sorcerymon kept stopping him with his magic shield, but just barely.

While Candmon kept him busy, Plotmon started to sneak in from behind, and when he was close enough, he attacked.

"Puppy Howling!"

"ARGH!" Sorcerymon covered his ears with both hands, as the piercing noise seemed to drill his skull.

Seeing his chance, Candmon landed some very good punches all over Sorcerymon's face and mid-section, and then a little latter Armadimon gave him the final blow with her rolling attack.

Sorcerymon went flying away from the combined attacks, and landed hard on the snow-covered floor a few meters away from them.

"Yeah! We did it!" cheered Juana.

But David wasn't as happy, "No, he's not going to fall so easily."

Just as David finished saying this, Sorcerymon stood up, and a new expression covered his face. An expression of pure rage. His eyes seemed to throw daggers at them, and were shining with an eerie glow. He gripped his staff tightly with both hands as he gritted his teeth. "How dare you humiliate me like this… I will kill you for that! Yeargh!"

Sorcerymon started shooting round after round of magical ice spikes at the digimon, who barely dodged them. They were so fast that they weren't able to even counterattack, just dodge them.

"He's too fast, the digimon can't land a good attack on him." said David, he watched how Candmon dodged to a side to avoid an attack, and then to the other side to dodge a second attack.

"It wouldn't do any good. Even if they did, he's too strong. A child level digimon's attack could never hurt him… We need to attack him at the same time," said James as he watched the fight, seeing how Plotomon jumped over an ice attack, and rolled on the floor to dodge another one.

"Didn't they just do that?" asked David.

"I mean at the exact same time, the three of them concentrating their attacks in a single spot. But he has to be standing still if we want it to work," replied James.

David looked at James, then at Sorcerymon attacking their digimon. "Okay, I think I can do that… when I tell you, make the digimon attack him at the same time just like you said," with that said, David started to run around the fight and towards Sorcerymon.

"Wait! What are you going to do?" asked a confused James.

David didn't answer him, he approached Sorcerymon from behind without being seen. Sorcerymon was so focused on attacking the three digimon in front of him that he didn't notice David till it was too late.

David grabbed Sorcerymon from behind, using his superior strength to hold him still. "What are you doing you fool! Let me go right now!" yelled Sorcerymon, struggling to get free from David's strong grip.

"Now! Do it now!" yelled David to the others.

"But…" James wasn't sure about that, Sorcerymon was now an easy target, but so was David. The Argentinean Digi-Destined would get caught in the line of fire for sure.

Sorcerymon managed to reach backwards with his hand, touching David on his head. He started to use a freezing spell on David. Ice started to form all over David's body, and it was covering him more and more with each passing second.

"DO IT NOW! DAMNIT!" yelled David, the yell sounded almost painful.

All doubts left James. "Okay everyone! Attack him at the exact same time at the count of three! One… two… THREE!"

The digimon heard James order and obeyed.

"Bonfire!"

"Puppy Howling!"

"Rolling Stone!"

Armadimon, curled up into a ball, rammed into Sorcerymon's chest with all her might, at the same time as a fireball impacted the same place and a sonic wave reached the ice digimon. The attack had been perfectly timed.

"ARGH!" Sorcerymon, who hadn't been able to set up his defensive shield because he was being held tightly by David, received the attack full force, as David was reached by the backlash of it. Both were tossed a few meters back.

Sorcerymon looked down at himself as he laid on the cold floor, he could see how his body started to disappear into data. "How could it be… that I have been defeated by this three weaklings…" as he finished, his whole body had already disappeared. All that was left were the kids D-3s and D-Terminals that he had been keeping hidden in his robe. As he disappeared, the exit door of the maze seemed to open up on its own, and clear daylight entered trough it, lighting up the room.

But recovering the stolen things wasn't important right now, the two kids and the three digimon all ran towards David limp form. He had some burn marks on him and some places on his body were frozen and covered with thin ice.

"Is… is he?" Juana couldn't bring herself to say it.

Candmon placed his head on David's chest, he heard a heartbeat, he placed his hand over his nose, he felt air coming out. "He's okay, just unconscious," said the fire digimon to the others.

James let out a breath of relief that he didn't know he was holding. "I can't believe he did what he did… does he do this sort of things often?"

"Actually, they are usually worse," replied Candmon, "But neither of us would have it any other way. I know it was very risky, but he saw it as the only way to win."

"He shouldn't risk his life like that… we've been travelling together for about two days and he has risked his life twice already," commented James.

"Huu…"

Everyone looked down at David as they heard him slowly wake up.
David slowly opened his eyes, waited for them to focus better and then sat up and looked at the people around him. "Did we win?" he asked.

James felt like punching David right there! Did we win? That's what he was worried about when waking up!?

"Yes," Candmon spoke up before James could say anything.

David smiled and stood up, "That's great. Okay, let's get our things back." David cleaned the ice off his body with his hands, looked around and walked towards the D-3s and D-Terminals when he spotted them.

James was about to say something to David, about his little stunt, but he was stopped by Juana's hand on his shoulder.

James looked back at Juana. "He's an Argentinean, don't try to understand him," she said to James.

James looked at Juana, then back at David, then at Juana again, and finally forgot about the whole matter.

In the time that he had been going to school in Brazil, he had overheard many conversations of the boys at school during break. 99% of said conversations resulted in a football talk, be it of the National team, or the local clubs, be it the local league or the national league. In some of those conversations, he had heard them talk about different matches against the Argentinean national team.

It was a well known fact that Brazil was considered, by far, the best Football playing country of the world. But when the kids at school talked about Argentina, it was in a mocking-respectful way. They made fun of them of course, but only after they beat them. Argentina and Brazil seemed to play against each other at least once a year. Basically they considered them the only country that could be considered their equal in that aspect, at least that was what Juana had said of the matter.

It seemed that Argentineans won just because they had the biggest heart, they were obsessed with winning.

He suspected that that concept could very well apply with David.

The Digi-Destined kids picked up their respecting D-3s and D-Terminals, except for David that grabbed Julia's D-3 as well, and walked out of the giant labyrinth.

=========================

At Ice Devimon's fortress.

Ice Devimon watched as another flame on the blue candles became extinguished. Now just one of the four candles were illuminating the room with it's eerie blue flame.

"And so, there was one," Ice Devimon said to himself.

The big Ice digimon turned around and walked away from the four candles.

He had to get ready for David's arrival… which he was sure was going to happen pretty soon.

=========================

David, Candmon and the Belem kids and their digimon had been walking for several hours untill they finally saw what they were looking for at the distance: Ice Devimon's castle.

The three kids and their digimon laid down on a snow covered hill that overlooked the terrain surrounding the castle and the castle itself.

The castle looked just like David expected. The terrain surrounding it was covered with thick snow, and the clouds over it released a constant snowfall.

There were several guards patrolling the area, there were many Icemon as well as Mojyamon. There were also a few Hyougumon, all of them riding on a Mammon. And there were even fewer Yuki Duramon.

David's guess was that this was just a "distraction units" the main forces of Ice Devimon were most likely inside the castle, and this guys here were just patrolling the area to see if anyone came to attack them… namely David, since they were expecting him.

Ice Devimon's castle itself looked more like a Keep than an actual castle. A thick ice wall surrounded a large structure formed by three gigantic sharp stalagmites, the only way to cross it seemed to be a big set of ice double doors at the front of the wall. David could see several small windows here and there along the stalagmites, probably to let air and light into the structure. Behind the gigantic structure was a very deep looking cliff, and the wall surrounding it ended there.

"Looks like they are waiting for us," commented James, as he saw how some of the guards were looking around like sentinels.

"They are," replied David, "They probably found out that Sorcerymon has died already and that we were coming this way," he continued, making sure that he didn't raise his voice too much.

James looked to his left where James and Juana were laying face down, overlooking the scene just like he was. "Listen, I have a plan, but I'm going to need your help. It's a dangerous plan, but I'm pretty sure that it'll work. Are you willing to go trough with it?" said David to the Belem kids.

"Why David? Are you actually ASKING us to help you?" said James with an almost mocking smile.

David frowned, "Don't push it four eyes."

"Okay, okay, sorry… so what's the plan?" asked James.

"It's pretty simple. You two confront the troops out here, creating a distraction while I go into the castle with Candmon," explained David, "Are you up to it?" he asked the Belem kids.

James looked at the situation, the plan seemed like it could work. He was actually more concerned about David; from his point of view, sneaking in alone in the castle was far more dangerous than fighting some ice digimon. But then again, if David had showed him something since this all started was that he and Candmon were capable of fighting almost anything without much help.

James turned to look at Juana to see what she had to say about it.

"It's your call James," was the native's girl response.

James turned to look back at David, "Okay, we'll do it."

David nodded in acknowledgement, the three kids and their digimon looked downwards at the patrolling ice troops once more.

A group of Icemon and Mojyamon were walking around at the clearing in front of the wall that surrounded Ice Devimon's castle.

"I don't get it. Why were we told to patrol here? Who's going to be stupid enough to attack the Ice Fortress directly?" said one of the Icemon.

"Yeah," one of the Mojyamon agreed with him.

"What, didn't you guys hear?" said another Mojyamon.

The rest of the Icemon and Mojyamon shook their heads, "No. What? What did you hear?" asked the first Icemon.

"Okay, this is just a rumor, but I overheard some of the upper ranked soldiers comment that the Digi-Destroyer might be heading this way," replied the Mojyamon.

The eyes of the Icemon opened wide in surprise, "The Digi-Destroyer? You mean THE Digi-Destroyer?"

The Mojyamon nodded his head in the affirmative.

All the other Icemon and Mojyamon looked at each other in surprise, wonder and fear.

"Are you sure that you heard right?" asked other of the Mojyamon.

"Yes, I'm sure," replied the first Mojyamon, "I also heard that he has actually beaten General Mega Seadramon and General Sorcerymon on his way here."

"Yes, I also heard that he was the one that killed General Panjamon," added one of the Icemon.

"Yes, I heard that too," said another Icemon. The other Icemon and Mojyamon also agreed on that.

"If the Digi-Destroyer is really coming here, then I'd rather be someplace else," said one of the Icemon, fear clear in his voice.

"Hush! Lord Ice Devimon would delete you if he hears you," replied another Icemon.

"I don't care. If the Digi-Destroyer comes here, we're dead anyway," replied the scared Icemon.

"Wool Grenade!"

"What was that… argh!" the Mojyamon started to delete as a huge bomb hit him in the back and exploded. Behind him, the other guarding digimon saw a giant sheep like digimon with two rocket launchers on its back.

"Hello there," said Sheepmon as she got ready to launch another attack.

"We're being attacked!" yelled one of the Icemon. He yelled it loud enough so all the other digimon patrolling the area heard him.

"Get her!" yelled another Icemon.

The ice digimon that had been talking with each other were ready to attack Sheepmon…

"Thermal Mane!"

… but they were never able to.

Sheepmon jumped backwards and away from the ice digimon as Lynxmon's attack landed on the area, melting the snow on the ground and deleting the Ice digimon there.

"That takes care of them," said Lynxmon as he reached Sheepmon.

"Don't put your guard down yet, there are more of them coming," said Sheepmon as she pointed to the many ice digimon that were coming their way after they heard the yell from that Icemon.

It was just what they wanted to happen. While they made the distractions out here, David and Meramon could get into the fortress of Ice Devimon.

"Wild Nail Rush!"

"Wool Grenade!"

Knowing this, Sheepmon and Lynxmon leaped towards the charging digimon to continue the battle.

Whie Lynxmon and Sheepmon were fighting outside, David and Candmon had sneaked in to a side of the huge ice wall surrounding Ice Devimon's castle. Then, David used his D-3 to evolve Candmon to Meramon. Using the fire digimon's intense flames, David melted a hole trough the wall and was able to get inside the castle silently and without being seen.

"Come on everyone, move!"

David and Meramon heard a group of digimon approaching, and judging by the speed of the sound of their footsteps, they were running.

The two of them hid behind a corner.

The digimon were a group of several Icemon and Mojyamon, being led by a single Yuki Duramon. The were heading towards the front of the castle, probably being called to backup the soldiers that were fighting James and Juana.

"Meramon, grab the last one," whispered David to his digimon partner.

Meramon nodded, he waited for the group of digimon to pass by almost completely, and grabbed the last digimon of the group, an Icemon, without the others noticing.

The Icemon found himself pinned against the wall, with Meramon's left hand on his mouth to keep him from screaming, and his right hand on his neck, holding him against the wall in a threatening manner.

"Okay, now listen up," said David to the Icemon, "Meramon is going to release your mouth. Scream and he'll kill you on the spot. Do you understand?"

The scared Icemon nodded.

David nodded to Meramon, who released Icemon's mouth. Icemon kept quiet.

"Okay, now tell me, where are Julia and Piyomon?" asked David.

"Ju… Julia? You mean the human girl we captured and the Piyomon that was with her? They… they are inside Lord Ice Devimon's throne room," answered a frightened Icemon.

"And where is this throne room," asked David.

"D… down this hallway… turn to the left on the second turn… it's the room with the giant double doors… you can't miss it," replied Icemon.

"You better not be lying to me," threatened David.

"I'm not! I'm not!" replied a scared Icemon.

"Okay then. Meramon, knock him out," said David to his partner.

Meramon nodded and bonked Icemon on the head, knocking out the ice digimon.

David and Meramon went in the direction that Icemon had pointed them as quickly as they could. Finally they reached a long hallway with a set of double doors at the end of it. Ice Devimon's throne room, though David.

"Okay Meramon, get ready, this is it," said David to his partner. David stepped forwards and kicked the huge doors open.

The doors opened and the two of them stepped inside.

Ice Devimon's throne room was very huge and very dark, the only light in the room seemed to come from the opened double doors behind David and Meramon.

"What's going on?" said David out loud, "Nobody's here," he added as he looked around. Meramon was just as confused as his partner.

Suddenly, a strong gust of wind filled the room, closing the door behind them. As soon as the door closed, a single light, like a teather's light, shone on David and Meramon. A light sound of hands clapping filled the room.

"Very good, I am more than impressed. You have managed to beat three of my four generals and penetrate my fortress. You are just as I imagined you to be, Digi-Destroyer," said a voice from somewhere in the room.

"Who are you! Show yourself!" David demanded in an angry yell.

Just then, another light appeared at the far side of the room across from David and Meramon. They both saw Ice Devimon sitting on a throne made entirely out of ice, he had a smile on his face and an evil glint was clear in his eyes.

"Ice Devimon!" yelled David angrily. "What did you do with Julia and Piyomon!?" he asked.

Ice Devimon's evil smile seemed to widen. "You mean these two?" said Ice Devimon as he gestured to his right. As soon as he did this, another light turned on showing two stalagmites emerging from the floor, tied to the stalagmites with ropes and chains were Julia and Piyomon! Both had their mouths covered with tape.

Julia looked very cold, and she was shivering even if the chains and ropes were holding her. She looked at David with teary eyes, but she seemed happy that he was finally here. Piyomon looked the same way, except that she didn't looked cold, surely because of her natural coat of feathers.

"Julia!" yelled David in a mixture of happiness at seeing her, and anger at Ice Devimon.

"Piyomon!" yelled Meramon the same way as David, "What have you done to them!?" he asked.

Ice Devimon stood up from his throne. "Nothing yet," he said as he walked towards Julia and Piyomon, stopping next to the latter. "However, I have some… personal plans for this one." Ice Devimon caressed Piyomon's cheek with his hand, which Piyomon responed by turning her face away from him.

"Get your hands off her!" seeing what Ice Devimon was doing, and what he was implying, made Meramon become even more angry. He ran towards Ice Devimon, not caring about anything.

But before he could reach the ice digimon, four stalagmites emerged from the floor around Meramon, with three ice lines joining them in a boxing ring like manner. Also, the floor encased by the four stalagmite corners rose up a little from the floor, and lots of lights turned on over and around it, making it look even more like a boxing ring.

Also, the platform where Ice Devimon's throne was, along with Julia and Piyomon, started to rise up and up until it was way out of reach for either Meramon or David.

"What is going on here!?" asked a confused David.

"Have you forgotten?" said Ice Devimon, "You still haven't defeated my fourth general."

As he said this, a door seemed to open at the front of the tall platform where Ice Devimon was standing, out of the door stepped a digimon that looked just like Meramon, but blue.

"Blue Meramon is my best soldier. He has never lost a battle," said Ice Devimon.

Blue Meramon stepped on the icy boxing ring. As he did so, the side walls started to open, revealing huge seats where a crowd of Ice Devimon's servants were seating, there were Icemon, Mojyamon and even some Yuki Duramon. All of them were either cheering for Blue Meramon or booing at David and Meramon.

Obviously, Ice Devimon was making David and Meramon feel as much pressure as possible from this fight.

"Well, Digi-Destroyer," said Ice Devimon as he sat back on his ice throne, "are you up to the challenge?"

"It's not like I have a choice," replied David, then looked up at Meramon on the ring, "Come on Meramon, let's beat this loser so we can save Julia and Piyomon."

Meramon looked back at David, and nodded with a knowing smile.

David was about to get on the ice ring, but was stopped by Ice Devimon.

"Stop right there, Digi-Destroyer!" said Ice Devimon from his throne, "The fight is only between Meramon and Blue Meramon. If you help him, then I'll kill Julia and Piyomon!"

David gritted his teeth and got off the ring.

"Don't worry David," said Meramon, "I can take him."

David nodded, "I'm counting on you Meramon."

"Blue Meramon, kill them." Ice Devimon gave the simple, but horrible, order.

Blue Meramon looked back at his leader, and nodded. "Yes, Lord Ice Devimon, I'll have no mercy," he said.

Both digimon stared at each other, and as if given an invisible signal that only they could see, both began to fight.

While this was going on inside Ice Devimon's fortress, outside James and Juana were still busy.

"Thermal Mane!" Lynxmon used his fire attack on a group of charging Mojyamon.

"Silence of the Lambs!" A stampede of miniature sheep ran over another group of Mojyamon from the other side.

It didn't matter how many of Ice Devimon's troops they defeated, more kept coming. Lynxmon and Sheepmon were getting tired, and James and Juana knew this.

"James…" said Juana to her partner.

James nodded, "I know Juana, if we don't do something Ice Devimon's soldiers will win by sheer number alone."

Both of the Belem kids looked at their digimon. They were ready.

"Lynxmon!"

"Sheepmon!"

"Jogress evolve!" the two digimon called out in unison and merged into a giant tiger creature with wings. "Mihiramon!"

Mihiramon, filled with new energy, leaped towards an incoming group of Mammon and Icemon, ready to attack them.

"Treasure Rod!"

Meanwhile, back inside the castle.

Meramon threw a punch, but Blue Meramon dodged it easily, then counter attacked with a punch of his own, then another and another and another.

Meramon was able to take ten consecutive punched until he finally fell down on the ice floor of the ring. As his rival fell down, Blue Meramon looked at the cheering crowds rooting for him, and lifted his fists in victory.

"Don't start celebrating yet…"

Blue Meramon turned around when he heard Meramon's voice behind him. The fire digimon had gotten up and except for a few bruises here and there, he looked ready for more.

Blue Meramon wasn't really surprised that Meramon had gotten up. After all, he WAS the partner of the legendary Digi-Destroyer. It wouldn't be a challenge if he were able to beat him so easily.

So, Blue Meramon charged again. This time Meramon was able to exchange a few punches with Blue Meramon, but Blue Meramon had a slight advantage: He hadn't had to fight his way to here over the last few days.

Soon Blue Meramon was able to get in a few good hits, and Meramon collapsed once again.

This time Blue Meramon didn't turn to the crowds. He knew that Meramon might get up again, so he waited for him.

Meramon was face down on the ice floor, but he got up.

When he was about to get up, Blue Meramon gave him an uppercut that impacted right on his face, forcing him to stand up all the way.

The hit had gotten Meramon by surprise, so he wasn't able to dodge the following round of punches by Blue Meramon, and the fire digimon ended up on the floor one more time.

David was worried, Ice Devimon wasn't bluffing when he said that Blue Meramon was his best fighter. He had made Meramon fall down three times now.

Meramon, his arms trembling, struggled to get up. "It's… not… over… yet…" he said to Blue Meramon.

Blue Meramon, knowing that Meramon wasn't beaten yet, waited for the fire digimon to get up all the way before attacking him.

Blue Meramon approached Meramon, the fire digimon was dizzy from all the punches and wasn't able to block or even dodge the quick punches that Blue Meramon threw at him. Again and again Blue Meramon's fists impacted with Meramon's face and stomach, and the fire digimon wasn't able to stop any of the attacks.

Finally, Meramon fell down once more time and Blue Meramon again turned with his fists up to receive the cheers of the crowd.

Meramon fell down near the edge of the icy ring, right next where David was standing.

"Meramon, are you okay?" asked a worried David.

Meramon shook his head a few times, "My… my head is spinning… I… I see three of them…" replied Meramon.

"Hum… try to hit the one in the middle," was the only advice David could think for him.

"Yeah… good idea." Meramon smiled and started to get up once again.

Blue Meramon smiled evilly, he knew that Meramon was going to get up. After all, he was just playing around with him, giving a good show for the spectators and Lord Ice Devimon.

But playtime was over. It was time to delete Meramon!

Blue Meramon approached Meramon, and again the fire digimon was bombarded by an avalanche of punches, faster and harder than before.

Finally, Blue Meramon ended his flurry of attacks by landing a hard and cracking punch right on the center of Meramon's face.

Meramon fell on the icy ring for the fifth time…

…and got up again.

Blue Meramon couldn't believe it! How could Meramon get up after that!? He was a lot tougher than he expected him to be!

Still, he kept his surprise hidden by smiling in superiority, "Well, you just don't know when to quit, do you? No matter, I'll just beat you up some more."

Again the two fighters met, again Meramon wasn't able to throw a single punch before Blue Meramon started to hit him with everything he had. Jabs, hooks, uppercuts, Blue Meramon used combination after combination of punches, hitting Meramon harder than ever before.

Ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five punches, and finally Blue Meramon stopped and allowed Meramon to fall down, face down, on the icy floor of the ring.

But this time was different, Blue Meramon looked agitated. His chest was heaving, breathing heavily, punching Meramon like that was tiring.

Blue Meramon, confident that Meramon was down for good after that, turned around with a single fist up in victory, and walked to a side of the ring to get off.

"Hey you! Where are you going? Meramon isn't down yet!" yelled David from a side.

Blue Meramon's eyes opened wide with surprise as he turned around to look at Meramon once again. Meramon was getting up again! After all that beating that would have deleted any other digimon, he was getting up!

By now even the crowd was silent in amazement. The ice digimon knew how good a fighter General Blue Meramon was, and they couldn't believe that there was someone out there that could stand after that beating.

Meramon got up once again, bruised all over, and smiled at Blue Meramon in superiority.

Blue Meramon was enraged after seeing Meramon's attitude. "Damn it! Why can't you stay down!" Blue Meramon charged at Meramon, this time he was going to make sure that Meramon was deleted for sure!

Again Blue Meramon attacked Meramon, punching him on the face and stomach as fast and as hard as he could, again and again. But this time Blue Meramon didn't even allowed him to fall down again, he kept punching him when Meramon had his back against the ring corner, and Blue Meramon kept hitting him.

Meramon's face turned to one side, then to the other, then back again, as Blue Meramon threw him a right hook, then a left hook, then a right hook again. Meramon's arms were hanging motionless at his sides, and it seemed that the only thing that was keeping him standing was Blue Meramon's constant rain of punches.

Finally, Blue Meramon wasn't able to keep punching him, and Meramon fell down on the floor on a sitting position, his back against the ring corner and his head down.

By now it was apparent that Blue Meramon was tired, he was making big intakes of air, breathing trough his mouth. His chest was heaving with every exhalation and he looked really agitated.

The crowd was cheering again, there was no question about it, General Blue Meramon had won!

Blue Meramon took a few steps back to have a better look of the beaten form of Meramon.

Then, the unthinkable happened!

Blue Meramon saw how Meramon's right hand started to twitch, then the whole arm was moving. Meramon rose his head up, and looked at Blue Meramon. Slowly, he started to get up again.

The crowd was silent again.

Blue Meramon wasn't angry now… he was scared! He was completely terrified! It was impossible! It was just impossible! Nobody could get up after a beating like that! Nobody! What kind of digimon was he fighting against!?

As Meramon stood up, Blue Meramon stated to take a step back, his fear was clear on his face.

"What's the matter? Are you scared?" Meramon walked towards Blue Meramon, "How about if I give back some of the punches you gave me?"

And with that, Meramon charged at Blue Meramon.

Meramon's attacks were faster and harder than Blue Meramon's had been during the whole fight. Again and again, Meramon's punches landed on Blue Meramon, so fast that his arms looked like a blur, a red and orange blur. It was just impossible to count just how many times Meramon was punching Blue Meramon.

Finally, with a tremendous final punch from Meramon to the face, Blue Meramon was sent flying off the ring, and his body impacted against one of the walls of the room, leaving a few cracks, then Blue Meramon collapsed down on the floor, totally motionless.

"He… he beat General Blue Meramon…" said one of the Icemon that were watching the fight.

"Let's get out of here before he deletes all of us!" yelled another Icemon.

All the ice digimon that had been watching the fight started to run away scared as fast as they could.

The platform where Julia, Piyomon and Ice Devimon were started to lower itself, and the ropes and chains bonding Julia and Piyomon to the big stalagmites suddenly become loose, and the girl and her digimon are free. Also, the icy ring where Meramon and Blue Meramon were fighting just a moment ago begins to level itself back down to floor level. Soon the room was just like it was when David and Meramon entered it.

Finally free, Julia and Piyomon ran over to David and Meramon, who had turned back to Candmon.

Julia runs over to David, but instead of hugging him like Piyomon did with Candmon, she stomped on David's foot. "That was for taking away my D-3!"

"Ouch!" David fell down to the floor, grabbed the foot Julia had stomped on and rubbed it.

Julia then smiled, knelt next to David, and kissed him on the mouth. "And that was for rescuing us," she said.

David smiled back at Julia, he really couldn't blame her. She was right, he shouldn't have taken her D-3.

"I'm sorry Julia… here, this is yours." David reached into his pocket where he was keeping Julia's D-3, and handed it back to its owner.

Julia took back her D-3, "Thank you David."

"Ah, how touching," said a mocking voice from behind them.

The two kids and their digimon turned back to see Ice Devimon, who was approaching them slowly, with a smile on his face.

Outside, Mihiramon was still battling with Ice Devimon's troops as James and Juana watched.

"How many digimon does this guy have working for him?" asked James, amazed at the number of soldiers that Mihiramon had defeated, and they kept coming.

"Treasure Rod!" Mihiramon's attack landed hard on an incoming Mammon. Then the giant winged tiger like digimon spun around in mid air thanks to his wings, then using the momentum of his attack to hit two Mojyamon that were going to attack him from behind.

Mihiramon landed on the ground, the tiger like digimon was panting heavily from the long fight. Mihiramon looked up and forwards at the castle's entrance, and he saw a platoon of several Yuki Duramon and Mammon, some of the Yuki Duramon were riding the Mammon, others were on foot.

Judging by the looks of it, this digimon seemed like an elite force, an Imperial Armada of sorts you could say. It was good because that meant that this were surely the last group of soldiers, but it was bad because Mihiramon was reaching his limit, and he was surely not going to be able to fight against this new threat.

"The enemy is weak! Charge!" yelled the Yuki Duramon leading the armada, and all of the digimon there charged towards the tired Mihiramon.

"I… I can't loose… not now, not after coming this far!" Mihiramon, with great effort started to run towards the charging army of icy digimon.

Mihiramon is too tired, he won't be able to fight all those digimon… though James his face filled with worry. Juana had the same look on her face.

"ARGH!" Mihiramon leaped forwards, ready to keep on fighting to the very end.

"MIHIRAMON!" James and Juana cried in unison.

"Mihiramon jogress switch!"

Suddenly, Mihiramon started to shine brightly, so much that everyone there, human and digimon alike, had to shield their eyes from the blinding light.

Mihiramon started to change shape as his body became pure liquid light, when it was over Mihiramon wasn't there anymore. In the place where the tiger like digimon once stood, now was a giant centaur like sheep digimon.

"Pajiramon!"

Pajiramon didn't know what happened, but he had somehow switched to another jogress form. Now the sheep digimon was filled with energy, ready to continue the battle.

"What… what did just happen?" a surprised Juana asked out loud.

"I don't know," said an equally surprised James, then his surprise changed to a happy enthusiasm, "Who knows what happened! Whatever happened it occurred just in time!"

Ice Devimon's digimon soldiers were just as confused. Finally the Yuki Duramon leading them shook off his surprise, "What are we waiting for! Who cares who we're fighting! Charge!"

"Treasure Bow!" Pajiramon used a crossbow to shoot an arrow at the charging digimon, the fight continued on.

Back inside Ice Devimon's castle.

David stood in front of Julia protectively as Ice Devimon stepped towards them.

The Ice digimon stopped about two meters in front of the Argentinean kids, smiling in a superior manner.

"Congratulations on your victory. That was a superb display of power and fighting skills," said the icy digimon as he came to a stop a few meters away from the kids and their digimon and crossed his arms over his chest, "Unfortunately, that was your last victory," he added.

David and Julia looked at Ice Devimon as both their digimon stepped in front of them, ready for anything.

"I have beaten the last of the four most powerful digimon in your army," said David to Ice Devimon, "And two of the Brazil kids are outside fighting the rest of your soldiers. You have nothing left Ice Devimon, it's over."

Ice Devimon just smiled and shook his head, "Over? Ha! Far from it. You have been kinds enough to bring the most powerful Digi-Destined of the region. After I kill you two and the other two fighting my soldiers outside, nothing will stand in my way of conquering this area, and after that the whole Digital World! As for my troops being beaten, it doesn't matter, I'll be able to get new recruits after I kill you."

David clenched his fists in anger. What a bastard! After how his soldiers have fought for him, Ice Devimon just saw them as disposable tools!

"You really think you can kill me?" asked David, his anger was clear in his voice.

"Ha ha ha… Killing you would be very easy for me. However I have no interest on killing you, I want to kill the REAL Digi-Destroyer," said Ice Devimon with an evil smirk.

Now David was confused, "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that I know you, I know more about you than you think. I know how the stories about you and your cruelty started. And best of all, I know exactly what to do so I can fight against the person that started those beautiful stories of horrible death and destruction," explained Ice Devimon.

By now David was actually worried about what Ice Devimon was saying… did he mean what he though he meant?

"You can do whatever you want to me! I'll never do what you want!" said David bravely.

"We'll see about that…" replied Ice Devimon with an evil smirk, then, before David could answer him, Ice Devimon jumped into action.

Moving at an amazing speed, Ice Devimon jumped towards the two Digi-Destined and their digimon. Using his right hand, Ice Devimon swatted David and Candmon away from Julia and Piyomon.

"David!" cried out Julia as she looked at where David had landed on the icy floor a few meters away from them.

"I won't let you hurt Julia! Magic Fire!" cried out Piyomon and released her attack at Ice Devimon.

Ice Devimon laughed at the attack of the child level digimon, and just used the back of his hand to swat the pink bird away.

"Piyomon!" cried Julia as she saw her partner being tossed away like a piece of paper.

"I would be more worried about you!" said Ice Devimon to Julia. He then grabbed Julia with his right hand, wrapping his long and sharp claw around Julia's body, pinning her arms against her body.

"Julia!" David, who had just gotten up a second ago, saw how Ice Devimon grabbed Julia. He reached for his D-3, which started to shine in a dark purple light when he did.

Candmon started to shine with the same tone of light from David's D-3. "Candmon evolve!"

As the light dissipated, a tall man made out of fire stood where Candmon was just a second ago. "Meramon!"

Meramon just stood with his guard up in front of Ice Devimon. Not daring to make a move.

"What's wrong? Why don't you attack me?" asked Ice Devimon as he smiled evilly, holding Julia tightly in his sharp claw like hand.

David gritted his teeth, Ice Devimon knew exacyly why he didn't attack him. He could hurt Julia since Ice Devimon was using her as a shield.

"O… okay, you win… just let go of Julia…" said David resignedly, his eyes downcast.

"David…" whispered Julia. Tears coming out of her eyes. She was sad at her failure, once again she had tried to help David and ended up as a burden for him. Why couldn't she do anything right!?

"You willingly surrender yourself just to save this human female, how touching." said Ice Devimon in a mocking manner, then he smiled that evil smile again. "But I never gave you a choice to surrender. I will fight with the real Digi-Destroyer, and when I win, everyone will fear the sole mention of my name!" Ice devimon yelled this, and then started to squeeze Julia with his powerful hand-claw.

"AAAAAAHHHH!" Julia threw her head backwards, and her mouth opened wide as she screamed in unbearable pain.

"Julia!" cried Piyomon as she saw her partner screaming in Ice Devimon's clutches.

"Julia! No!" David screamed in terrorized anger.

"Yes! Scream! Scream in agony! HA HA HA HA HA HA!" Ice Devimon laughed seemed to pierce the air of the whole room, only surpassed by Julia screaming in agony.

Finally, the pain was just too much for Julia who fainted from the pain.

"JULIAAAAA!" David could feel it again… the anger, the unchained fury of his very soul. It was too much to control… it was impossible to control. The scene of Julia screaming and passing out repeated in his head over and over.

A strange looking dark purple light started to emanate from David's being, and so did his D-3.

Meramon suddenly bent over in pain as he clutched his stomach and then fell on her knees on the floor. "David… David no!" he yelled to his partner, but it was too late. Meramon's body was being surrounded by a bright dark purple light, not very different from the light coming from David's D-3.

David's eyes were filled with anger. Ice Devimon… How dare he… how DARE HE! He would pay for what he did… he would PAY!

Finally David rose his face and looked at Ice Devimon, his eyes were mad with fury. "You… will… DIE!" yelled David at Ice Devimon, the light surrounding him and his D-3 reaching maximum intensity.

David was no more, only the Digi-Destroyer remained.

"AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!" Meramon screamed as the power of the Digi-Destroyer overwhelmed him.

"Meramon evolve!" Meramon grew taller and more muscular. His body turned blue and covered in chains, and his face got covered with a mask. "Death Meramon!"

"Yes! Finally Digi-Destroyer, we'll see who's stronger," said Ice Devimon as he tossed Julia's body away. Julia's limp body landed and rolled on the floor a few times, then stopped when she was lying face up, her eyes closed.

"Treasure Bow!"

"Argh!"

Outside the forterss, Pajiramon was just finishing with the last soldier of Ice Devimon's army.

The Yuki Duramon screamed as the arrow went right trough his body, and deleted him.

"It's over…" said Pajiramon tiredly. The sheep like digimon started to shine again, and then it separated into Nyaromon and Upamon once again. Both digimon laid tiredly on the cold ground.

James and Juana ran towards their respective digimon and they picked them up in their arms.

"Well, we did our part," commented Juana, as she looked at James.

James nodded, "Yeah, let's just hope that David was able to find Julia and take care of whatever was inside that fortress," he replied.

Suddenly, a big explosion of fire, light and ice opened a big hole on a side of the center of the gigantic ice fortress. James and Juana took cover as several ice shards and rubble fell on the ground all around the area.

"What was that?" asked Juana out loud.

"I'm not sure…" replied James, "but I have a bad feeling about it."

With that said, James ran towards the entrance of the castle, still holding Plotomon. "Come on Juana, hurry!"

Juana lookded at James run into the castle, and followed him a second later. She too had a bad feeling about that explosion.

"Heavy Metal Fire!" Death Meramon tossed the fire attack at Ice Devimon, who countered it easily using an ice attack of his own, but since this was his castle, his powers had an advantage.

Instead of both attacks neutralizing each other, Ice Devimon's attack pierced trough Death Meramon's Heavy Metal Fire, dissipating it, and continued on forwards towards Death Meramon.

Death Meramon managed to stop the icy bullet by punching it away with his arm.

"What are you waiting for Death Meramon! Get him!" David… no, the Digi-Destroyer was watching the fight, screaming bloody murder, his eyes filled with complete rage. All that filled his mind was to destroy Ice Devimon, and not just kill him; he wanted him to suffer terrible and unbearable pain, to beg for the mercy of death.

And this was reflected on Death Meramon's way of fighting Ice Devimon.

However, Ice Devimon proved to be a very good opponent. Death Meramon wasn't able to land a good blow, and this was causing both him and David to become frustrated and angrier.

"Heat Chain!" Death Meramon used his chain as a makeshift whip, and aimed directly at Ice Devimon's neck.

The chain caught the ice digimon by surprised and it wrapped around Ice Devimon's neck tightly. "Come over here!" Death Meramon pulled on the chain, pulling Ice Devimon towards him, and received the ice digimon with an uppercut.

Ice Devimon fell down hard on the floor thanks to the punch delivered by Death Meramon. Death Meramon tried to stomp on the fallen Ice Devimon, but the ice digimon just rolled on the floor, and grabbed Death Meramon by the same leg that the fire digimon had tried to stomp him with.

"You really think you can beat me that easily?" said Ice Devimon out loud, the ice digimon quickly stood up, pulling Death Meramon's leg causing the fire digimon to fall down on his back in the process.

Ice Devimon grabbed Death Meramon's other leg before he could recover from the surprise of the unexpected attack. Ice Devimon then started to spin Death Meramon around, and after reaching a good speed, he tossed Death Meramon.

Death Meramon went flying and impacted on one of the walls, cracking it. Then he fell on the floor, but quickly stood up, only to received a hard kick on the face by Ice Devimon, making him fall down on the floor again.

Just then, James and Juana entered to big room, carrying their respective digimon in their arms.

They saw how Ice Devimon pinned Death Meramon down on the floor with his right foot, and using his ice powers, started to channel freezing energy at the fire digimon trough his foot. And how Death Meramon just grabbed Ice Devimon by his foot, tossed him away, and stood up like if nothing had happened.

Then they saw how David was yelling at Death Meramon, ordering him to kill Ice Devimon over and over, like a possessed madman.

Finally, they saw Julia lying limp on the floor, with Pyocomon standing next to her with tears in her eyes, the pink bird was shaking her partner, trying to wake her up.

James suddenly realized what was going on, and he was actually scared about it.

"Oh no! David's gone berserk again!" yelled James.

"What!? You mean like what happened last year's Christmas!?" was Juana's reply.

James nodded. By the look of things, it was because Julia had been hurt somehow.

Death Meramon yelled angrily as he punched at Ice Devimon, the ice digimon just dodged it and countered it with a punch of his own.

Death Meramon stopped Ice Devimon's punch with his arm, but Ice Devimon grabbed him by that same arm, and used it as leverage to toss the fire digimon over his shoulder.

Death Meramon landed hard on the floor, but recovered fast and when he saw that Ice Devimon was close enough, he kicked his legs out of balance, making Ice Devimon fall down as he stood up with a jump.

"Heat Chain!" Death Meramon tried to use his chain attack on Ice Devimon again, but Ice Devimon rolled over and dodged it, then stood back up and kicked Death Meramon on the side.

"We have to stop him!" said Juana, "Who knows what will happen if this fight continues!" she added.

"I'm all in favor of that…" replied James, "But how are we going to do that? Neither Nyaromon nor Upamon are in a condition to fight now, after fighting all those digimon outside. And I am NOT going to get close to David when he's like this." James rubbed his chin a little, "Not after what happened the last time."

"I know, but I wasn't talking about doing any of that," replied Juana, "After all, we tried to stop him by fighting him and we know that that doesn't work, he's just too strong." Juana then turned her head to look at Julia, "However, we know who can stop him when he's like this."

Seeing what Juana meant, James ran over to Julia, following Juana.

Piyomon, who was crying really hard by now, saw the two Belem kids approaching. The pink bird turned to look at them.

"Piyomon, what happened?" asked James, as he and Juana knelt besides Julia.

"D… David and Meramon had just rescued us, but then Ice Devimon attacked us. He grabbed Julia and used her as a human shield against David and Meramon… David and Meramon surrendered when they saw that, but Ice Devimon didn't care, he started to squeeze Julia… and then… and then…" the pink digimon couldn't continue as new tears started to form in her eyes.

She didn't have to, James and Juana uderstood what had happened all too well. Placing Nyaromon on the floor for a second, James reached down to feel Julia's neck; she had a pulse.

James then noticed that Julia wasn't breathing. If they didn't do something quickly, she would die.

James looked at Juana, "Juana, Julia's not breathing! We have to give her CPR, fast!"

Juana nodded and placed her hands palm down over Julia's chest, right in the middle.

"I hope David doesn't find out I did this, he might kill me," James said jokingly, then he moved so he could give Julia mouth to mouth breathing.

James blew a few times in Julia's mouth, stopped and allowed Juana to apply pressure on Julia's chest, then repeated the operation over and over.

Piyomon knelt besides Julia all the time, praying for her to wake up.

*Cough! Cough! Cough!*

Finally, after almost a minute, which seemed like hours to everyone else, Julia coughed and started to breath.

"It worked! She's breathing!" exclaimed James. Juana let out a breath she didn't even know she was holding.

"Cough! Huu… what… what happened?" Julia slowly sat up on the floor.

"Julia! Oh, thank Baihumon you're okay!" Piyomon was now crying in joy as she jumped and hugged Julia as much as her wings allowed her to.

Julia then remembered what had happened, "Piyomon? I'm sorry I worried you." replied Julia, smiling down at her digimon.

The Argentinean girl turned to look at James and Juana, kneeling on the floor at her side. "James? Juana? You're here!"

Then her eyes opened wide as she remembered something, "Where… where's David!"

"Over there," replied James.

Julia turned to look, and her face was filled with worry. "Oh no…"

She saw how Death Meramon was fighting savagely against Ice Devimon, and then saw David at one side, he was completely enraged and was yelling at Death Meramon to kill Ice Devimon.

Before James or Juana could say anything else about David's condition, Julia quickly stood up and ran over to where David was as fast as she could, even if she ached all over after what Ice Devimon did to her. She knew what she had to do.

Julia reached for her D-3, "Piyomon let's go!" immediately, her D-3 started to shine brightly.

"Piyomon evolve!" Piyomon was surrounded by a bright light, just like the one emanating from Julia's D-3.

Where Piyomon once stood, now there was a giant black bird. "Sabridramon!"

Sabirdramon quickly took to the air, and flew straight to the fighting forms of Death Meramon and Ice Devimon. "Mach Shadow!"

Sabirdramon flew at stop speed just over Death Meramon and Ice Devimon, causing a sonic boom that resounded all over the place, causing the walls to get cracks all over and making the two digimon fighting each other stop to cover their ears.

David was also surprised by the interruption, suddenly something deep inside him told him that that Sabirdramon looked familiar.

"David! What do you think you're doing!?"

David turned around when he heard that familiar voice. Julia was standing just in front of him, and he seemed to calm down. "Ju… Julia?" he said in surprise.

"David! Stop this at once! You know you're not like this! You HATE being like this! Now stop this before I get angry!" said Julia to David.

Death Meramon suddenly started to shine once again, he could feel his head starting to clear.

"Julia…" tears of joy started to form in David's eyes, "Julia… you're okay!" David rushed over to hug Julia, calming down completely.

As David calmed down, Death Meramon turned back into Meramon.

"Julia… what did I do? Did I hurt someone?" asked David in worry.

Julia shook her head. "No, you didn't," she replied, then she looked over at Ice Devimon, "But the fight isn't over."

Ice Devimon had recovered from Sabirdramon's Mach Shadow attack, and noticed that Death Meramon had turned back to his adult form of Meramon.

Ice Devimon turned to look at David, "You calmed down I see. Too bad, I was hoping to kill you while you were the Digi-Destroyer. Oh well, I guess I'll just kill you now and get it over with," he said to him.

"You won't kill me if I beat you first!" replied David.

Ice Devimon laughed at this, "HA HA HA HA! You think you can beat me!? HA HA HA! If while you were the Digi-Destroyer our power was evenly matched, then how can you even dream about beating me now? HA HA HA HA!"

David smiled, "At first, I thought that fighting… destroying evil digimon was my purpose in life, what I was born to do. And to do that, I killed my emotions, I became the perfect warrior, a warrior that feels no mercy nor pity for his opponents. That's how the Digi-Destroyer was born, a soldier with no emotion, who's only goal is to kill whoever opposes him. When I'm the Digi-Destroyer I become strong, incredibly so. But then I met Julia, and she changed that. She showed me that sometimes, fighting is not the answer, that sometimes, there are other ways. I will fight you not because I have to, but because I want to. I will fight you to protect those who I love and care about. I will use a strength that is not in the outside, but in the inside… I'm not the Digi-Destroyer anymore, I'm David Albronoz, the Digi-Destined!"

Julia listened to David's words, and smiled. She turned back to look at Ice Devimon, and grabbed her D-3 tightly in one hand. "Okay David, let's beat him…" said Julia as she grabbed David's hand with her own, "… together."

David looked at Julia, smiled and nodded. "Okay! Let's do it!"

Ice Devimon was angry at what David had said. "Damn you! I will show you who's stronger! HAAAAA!" Ice Devimon turned at Meramon, and tried to punch him.

Meramon managed to dodge to a side, and kicked Ice Devimon's passing form, leaving the ice digimon completely open for an attack!

"Mach Shadow!"

"Fire Punch!"

Both Sabirdramon and Meramon attacked Ice Devimon at the same time. "NOOO! AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!"

The sonic boom shook Ice Devimon to the very core as the fireball impacted at the center, engulfing him in flames.

Ice Devimon continued to scream in pain as he deleted into data.

Suddenly, when Ice Devimon was completely gone, the entire ice castle started to tremble.

"What's happening!?" asked Julia.

"Ice Devimon must have been using his powers to hold this place together. Now that he's gone, the whole fortress is collapsing! We have to get out of here!" replied David. "Meramon! Make a hole in the wall!" he ordered to his digimon.

"Okay! Fire Punch!" Meramon's fireball attack impacted on the nearest wall, breaking a hole big enough for Sabirdramon to fly trough. Then he turned back into Candmon.

Sabirdramon landed on the floor as the ceiling was collapsing all over the place.

"Okay! Everyone get on Sabirdramon!" yelled Julia to James and Juana.

All four kids and their digimon got on the giant black bird. Once everyone was secure on top of her, Sabirdramon flew upwards and out trough the giant hole in the wall that Meramon had opened just seconds ago.

They flew outside just in time, as Sabirdramon flew away, the kids could see how the whole ice fortress collapsed forming a pile of ice chunks on the ground. At the same time that the fortress was collapsing, the sky started to clear up, and the weather started to get warmer.

David sighed, "We did it. It's over."

Julia seemed kind of sad about something, but after hearing David's words, she smiled lightly and nodded in the affirmative. He was right, it was over. It was finally over.

******************************

FIN

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Epilogue:

The real world, Julia's house.

After the whole ordeal, Julia had invited everyone back to her house. So James and Juana could rest a while before going back to Belem.

The four digimon were outside, talking with each other, and inside the house Julia, her mother, Juana and James were talking.

Since there were three girls and just one boy, James quickly found himself as the odd man out, so he decided to go look for David.

James walked into the back yard of the house, and saw David there, sitting on the grass and looking at the sky.

"Mind if I sit here with you?" asked the blond boy.

David didn't turn back to look at James, but answered him nonetheless, "Sure, if you want to."

James sat down about a meter away from David.

Not a minute had gone by before David broke the silence again. "Hum, James, about that other kid in your team who started wondering around the Digital World… want me to go look for him?" he asked.

James was surprised by David's offer to go look for Pedro. "Hum, not really. I mean, it's very nice of you to offer to do that. I'm sure Pedro will come back when he feels that he's ready for it," he replied, "Why'd you ask?"

"Hum… well, now that the whole deal with Ice Devimon is over, I'm going to have lots of free time… and besides, you helped me and Julia… I feel like I owe you," replied David.

James smiled, "Heh, well, you did as much fighting as me and Juana. Plus you saved us a few times. How about we call it even?"

David actually smiled at this, "Okay."

James then noticed something about David's question. "Hey, you just called me by my actual name!"

David smiled. "Yes, I guess I did," then he looked serious again, "And don't push it."

James smiled, "Heh heh heh, just checking."

Again they remained in silence for a while until James broke the silence again, "So, I can see that you're not a very social person. Do you have any friends."

"Well, I used to before I became a Digi-Destined. But now, besides Candmon and Julia, I don't have friends," replied David.

"Well, David Albornoz, like it or not, you just made one," said James, and with that, James stood up and walked back inside.

A surprised David watched him leave, then smiled. He considered James a friend too.

Inside the house, Julia's mother had gone back in the kitchen to get more heated water, leaving Julia and Juana alone.

Now that they were alone, Julia took the opportunity to talk to Juana about something. "Hum, Juana? Can I ask you something very important? About being a Digi-Destined I mean."

Juana noticed Julia's worried tone of voice, "What is it Julia?"

"Well… hum, today when Sabirdramon and Meramon killed Ice Devimon. I… I was… I mean, I wanted to…"

Juana noticed the way Julia had said the word kill, and knew what this was about. "Ice Devimon was your first kill wasn't it?"

Julia looked down, and nodded lightly.

"And while you aren't sorry he's dead, you're sorry that you wanted him dead," Juana said simply.

Julia blinked, "How did you…"

"James, Carlos, Pedro and I all felt the same way after we first killed

digimon…" Juana looked down, "James was the first of us all and it really shook him. More than it shook any of us, I think. I didn't even see what the big deal was until I killed myself…"

"What was your…" Julia trailed off, not wanting to continue the question.

"A Rhinomon. It wasn't an easy battle, and he nearly gored Carlos before Sheepmon…" Juana caught herself, "It's not important." While she wasn't too squeamish about the events, she didn't think the Argentinean girl would want to know the details of that battle.

"How many have you killed?" Julia asked.

"I lost count," Juana replied, omitting the phrase "past thirty".

"And…" Julia stumbled over the wording, "Does it get any easier?"

Juana looked a little depressed at that, "It does. And I don't know if that's a curse or a blessing. When you take a creature's life and don't care… it feels kind of hollow."

There was silence, after she heard Juana's comment, Julia wondered if that would be her case too. She decided that she didn't want to know, and made a silent bow to never kill any other digimon unless she completely, positively and absolutely had no other choice.

Finally, Juana looked up and smiled, "The hollowness doesn't stay, though… Not if you have something to fill it with. I have Armadimon…" she paused, and her smile widened, "and James. They've helped me more than they'll ever know. I guess David will be much the same for you."

Julia blushed, "Well…"

Juana chuckled, "He's a good guy… he just needs some order in his life. He seems to attract trouble, and he'll need someone sane to keep him out of it."

Julia smiled, "You may be right."

Juana said, "Well, if you need advice, or just want to talk, you know how to contact us. Even if it's the middle of the night, I'll be available."

"Thank you," Julia said, "The same goes for you."

Later, the two Belem kids and their digimon returned to Brazil via a Digiport.

Julia told David that he could stay in her house till he finished building back his house in the Digital World. An offer that David happily accepted.

Julia was happy too. David would get to stay in her house for at least another month, and she was going to make the most out of it.

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Second Epilogue:

Far away from there, in the Digital World, at Primary Village:

A Digitama that had formed a just few hours ago was starting to hatch, and out of the hatched Digitama came a Mokumon.

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Author's notes:

Well, this certainly was a long chapter. Even for a movie chapter.

There were a few things only understandable if someone is from Argentina, so I'll explain them:

A Pulperia is simply a sort of a bar that were all over the country during the colonial times and after Argentina's independence from Spain. They were very much like it was described in the story.

The iron bars protecting the bar from the rest of the place were there for that exact purpose. The people that attended those places usually started fights and such. But unlike the Wild West, nobody in Argentina used guns… sometimes not even the army. Then again this was during the early 1800's so it's only very logical for them to not have guns.

Parque Chas is a neighborhood of Buenos Aires that actually exists. It's one of the most legendary places in Buenos Aires. This is because it is considered an urban maze. The entire neighborhood was built using very strange plans drawn by a very radical architect. In result you have a neighborhood so weird that there's a streets that crosses itself, two houses one next to the other, but with the same number because supposedly they are on different streets, there's even one spot where there are so many streets crossing each other that you have seven corners.

The place, like I said, is legendary for that. There's actually a guide for tourists (almost nobody besides the people that live there dare to enter Parque Chas. It's almost impossible to find your way out once you enter). Taxis refuse to take anyone to Parque Chas because they can never find their way out again, going around in circles for hours and hours. There have been even Sci-Fi books written about people that enter Parque Chas, and when they finally find their way out they are in another dimension.

In fact, I was originally going to use Parque Chas as the main neighborhood for South Digimon Diaries, but then decided to go with San Isidro which is a district just north of Buenos Aires city.

I'm sure that nobody actually noticed, but the Meramon-Blue Meramon fight was based on the Firpo-Dempsey boxing match of 1924. Firpo was the champion of Argentina, and the international boxing committee considered the fight as the best match of the century. It's still remembered in Argentina as a fight that Firpo should have won, but since the referee counted too slowly, he ended up loosing it.

In the epiloge I comment that Julia's mother goes to get more heated water. I'm sure I commented on this in a previous chapter, but the heated water is to drink mate, a typical Argentinean drink. The water doesn't have to be boiling, just hot. The perfect temperature for the water to make mate is considered to be 72 degrees Celsius.

Well, there isn't much else to explain. After all, most of the story took place in the Digital World with some references to the real world here and there.

A special thank you goes to Ryan Griffin, author of Jungle Diaries, for letting me use the Belem Team in this movie chapter.

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I know I said before that I wasn't going to do this section anymore, but…

Persona's fun facts about Argentina:

In chapters 2 and 3 of South Digimon Diaries I mentioned how Argentina has been so unlucky in the Olympic Games because they hadn't won a gold medal since 1952.

Well, now that the Athens 2004 Olympic Games are over I can say that the bad luck is finally over!

With a gold medal in men's Football (or Soccer if you live in the US) and a gold medal in men's Basketball as well, Argentina has finally won gold medals in an Olympic Game after over 50 years.

And both are very special Gold Medals too.

By winning the Gold Medal in Football, Argentina is now one of the two countries in the world that has won every single title possible in Football by a nation: The World Cup, the respective continental cup (In Europe is called the Eurocup, in South America is called the America Cup, etc), the Confederations Cup (played by the champions of all the continental cups at that time, it was known as the Kirin Cup when Argentina won it) and the Olympic Gold Medal.

The other country that had won all of that at least once is France, in case you were wondering.

And by winning a Gold Medal in Basketball, Argentina has become the first country to ever beat the USA national team for a Gold Medal since they allowed NBA players in the Olympic Games back in 1992.

Plus that only four countries have won a Gold Medal in an Olympic Game, and two of them don't exist anymore: USA, Argentina, Yugoslavia (Now divided into the countries that had formed it) and the Soviet Union (Also divided into the countries that had formed it.)