Awake and Alive

Chapter Thirteen: And The Curtain Rises For Etemon

The following five days dragged on too slowly, in Rikka's opinion.

To make time pass as quickly as possible, she took to sleeping as much as she could. The motion of the waves wasn't as pronounced as it had been on the raft and seasickness was easily avoided. Izzy worked continuously on his laptop, drawing out a map on a sheet of paper to keep track of their coordinates. When she wasn't sleeping, she would tell a few adventures of the Legendary Warriors to anybody who was listening and by the night of the fourth day, she was retelling the fight against Sakkakumon.

Morning came on the fifth day and Tai woke everyone up with a cheer of their arrival to Server.

Matt shot up, "I'm up!" He ran a hand through his tousled blonde hair, "I was only resting my eyes."

"Yeah, well your eyes were snoring pretty loud," Joe quipped.

"We're really there?" Sora rubbed the sleep away from her eyes.

"Well, I'm ready for land again," Izzy almost sighed at the thought of his feet on solid ground; too many accidents happened where he almost lost his computer overboard.

"I'd sure like a bed that didn't move."

"Me too," Rikka stretched her arms overhead, waiting for the telltale crack of her joints. She patted her friend's head, "No offense, Whamon."

"None taken." he breezily waved off the comment.

"Wow, that island's huge!" Agumon exclaimed as the continent came into a much clearer view.

"I've never seen one so big!" commented Biyomon as well.

"You guys never left File Island, right?" Rikka questioned her partner.

Lunamon nodded, "We never had a reason too. Besides, we were all too busy waiting for you and the others to arrive."

Palmon was trying to wake the last sleeping member of the group, "Mimi, you've just got to wake up and look at this!" She shook the girl's shoulder a couple times, "We're going to land on a big continent!"

"Mmm... No..." she whined in her sleep, "I'm getting a pedicure..." The girl rolled over and turned her back to the plant Digimon.

"Aw, Mimi..." Palmon frowned.

The other children had a laugh at that. Rikka was almost jumping in excitement as she identified mountains and rocky shores in the distance instead of endless ocean. Twenty minutes later, Whamon got them as close as possible to the shore so that they could slide off his back. Tai and Agumon jumped first, and Rikka followed close behind with a cry of delight. She was caught before she hit the ground, but she didn't mind and instead turned to watch the others slide down with various degrees of enjoyment. Some, like TK, enjoyed the slide a lot, but others, like Mimi, couldn't slide without screaming in fear. Mimi actually needed help to get off, and that help came when Whamon moved to dislodge her. Izzy caught her before she hit the ground, and it was with blushing red faces that the two separated and pretended that nothing had happened.

After Whamon left them on the shore, departing with a giant splash with his tail as he dove under the water, the children looked at each other. Even though it had taken five days to make the journey, they hadn't actually discussed what they would do, or how they would get the crests. They didn't even know where the crests were hidden and where to start.

"So what are we going to do now?" Mimi broke the silence first.

"While you were asleep, Whamon told us where we could go," Palmon answered. Rikka looked at the plant Digimon curiously; she must have been asleep at that time as well. Palmon continued, "A few miles from here is a Koromon village."