Traitors Among Us
By: Danielle
EMAIL DANIELLE


        The sky was a deep, deep blue, the grass was a vividly bright
green, and the birds were trilling their merry tunes.  Sounasha Kakan
Utagu, called Sasha, didn’t notice.  She was too busy speaking with
Sarah and Rachael.
 "I can’t believe we have so much homework!" she coplained, brushing a
strand of golden-brown hair out of her friendly blue-grey eyes.
 Rachael shrugged.  "Me neither!" she agreed.  The auburn haired girl
always seemed unaware of her striking looks, perferring to ignore any
and all guys and take to reading instead.  She frowned, her green eyes
pondering.  "Probably they just want us busy over summer vacation."
 Sarah raised a strawberry-blonde eyebrow.  "Wonder if we should wait to
do it or not.  I don’t want to have to go home and start immediately on
homework."  The tall teen looked at her assignment book with light-blue
eyes that were clouded in distaste.  "I hate homework."
 "Why don’t we just drop our stuff off at home and  go for a walk in the
woods?" Sasha suggested.
 "Sounds good," Rachael agreed.
 "Great!  Let’s go, then!" Sasha said with a grin.

 One hour later…

 "Sasha, the wilderness freak," Sarah grumbled.  Sounasha had snagged a
few white pine needles and was nibbling on the outer ends.  She looked
up quizzically at Sarah’s words.
 "Hm?  What’s wrong with wanting to get some moisture?" she asked.  "My
mouth is parched!"
 "Sarah and Rachael exchanged exasperated looks.  "You didn’t bring your
pocketknife, did you?" Rachael inquired.
 Sasha nodded.  "Yeah…"  She suddenly trailed off, blue-grey eyes
scanning the sky.
 "What’s the ma…"  Sarah stopped abruptly as Sasha put a hand in the air
for silence.
 Suddenly, a loud noise filled the air.  Three glows appeared in the
sky, and three strange devices were beamed down to dangle in front of
the trio in three beams of light.
 Sasha took an involuntary step backwards.  "What the…"
 Rachael walked in a circle around the glowing devicce before her.
"Odd…"  She grabbed "hers" out of the beam, and it immediately went
dim.  "That’s weird," Rachael murmured.
 Seeing that their auburn-haired friend wasn’t being blown up, fried,
disentegrated, or anything similar, the other two girls grabbed their
devices.  "What do we do with them?"  Sarah inquired.
 "I haven’t the slightest idea," Sasha answered slowly, turning her
device over in her hands.
 Rachael hooked hers onto her belt loop.  "We’ll look at them at home,"
she suggested.  The other two girls followed suit- until they felt the
devices thrumming at their sides.
 "Huh?!" Sarah gasped as a vortex appeared in the sky and began pulling
them toward it.
 "Oh s***!" Sasha swore, grabbing a tree limb.  Rachael was sucked in,
then Sarah.  Sasha held on a few more minutes- agonizingly long
minutes!- but the vortex’s pull was too strong.  Her hands slipped, and
the last she saw of her world was a swiftly-diminishing sea of leafy
green.

 Colors whizzed by the trio too fast for them to make out any shapes.
Wind pulled at their hair and clothes as they whirred through space.
Then suddenly, the ground was rushing up toward them…
 "YAAAAHHHH!!!"  Sasha yelled in panic, but she suddenly halted in
mid-air, a foot above the ground.  Then she fell, and hit the ground in
an undignified heap.
 "Owch…"
 "That you, Sash?"
 Rachael’s voice.  Sasha scowled.  "Sasha.  And yes, I’m fine."
 "Sasha Sasha Sasha!"
 Her breath left her in a whoosh as what looked like a rock landed on
her stomach.  No- not a rock.  The creature seemed to be a brown, furry
head with a bushy squirrel tail.  Gold-brown eyes regarded Sounasha
happily.
 "You’re here!" the squirrel-head-thing shouted.
 "What," Sasha finally managed to gasp out, too confused to panic, "are
you?"
 "I’m Keteirumon!  I’m you’re digipartner!"  The thing bounced some
more.
 Sasha grasped Keteirumon’s tail and pulled her off.  "Stop… bouncing…"
 Rachael walked over too Sasha and looked down at the brunette.  "Want
to get up?" the girl asked wryly.
 "Yeah…"  Sasha grasped her friend’s hand and rose.  "Thanks…  Ahhh!
You have a thing too?"
 A pink, long-eared head was beside Rachael.  "I am NOT a thing!" she
protested.  "I’m Koromon!"
 "Rache’s digipartner, right?" Sasha said dryly.  "Rache, meet
Keteirumon."
 "Yargh!" a yell sounded.  "Go away!"
 "That’s Sarah!" Rachael said, running into the direction of the yell.

 Sasha, Rachael, and the little head-things found Sarah backing away
from an excited greenish-tan creature that looked like a discolored
onion.  Sasha brushed leaves off of her clothes.
 "And that is…" Rachael asked.
 "I’m Tanemon!  Sarah’s digipartner!" the creature said brightly.
 "ANOTHER thingy," Sasha growled.  "How many ARE there?!"
 "We aren’t things!" the creatures chorused in exasperation.
 "Fine, fine, fine.  What are you, then?" Sarah asked irritably.
 "We’re digimon!  Digital Monsters!"
 "Ah," Rachael muttered.  "And where is this?"
 "The Digiworld!" Keteirumon said.
 "Okay… so what do we… what’s that noise?" Sasha asked suddenly, as a
crashing sounded nearby.
 "Uh-oh," Tanemon said nervously.
 "Loud…" Koromon muttered. "Big."
 A red snout poked through the forest foilage.
 "YEEEEEE!  Tyranomon!!" Keteirumon yelped.  "Run-run-run-run-run!"
 They took off as the big dinosaur digimon caught sight of them.  The
three teenaged girls ran close behind.
 "Is that a digimon too?"  Sarah yelled.
 "Yes!"  Tanemon affirmed, bouncing.
 "Dangerous!" the quiet Koromon added.
 But Tyrannomon caught up to them.  His long strides were enough to
reach the little creatures below.
 "No more running," Koromon said nervously.  "No good, running…"
 "Time to fight!" Tanemon shouted.
 "Wha… you guys can’t stand against HIM!" Sasha gasped.
 Sarah nodded, grabbing Tanemon.  "Stay!  Good digimon!"  Tanemon
growled and slipped free.  Rachael made a grab for Koromon’s long ears,
and Sasha tried to catch Keteirumon’s bushy tail, but too late.  The
three digimon shot lots of pink bubbles at Tyrannomon.
 He didn’t even flinch.
 Instead, the red dino-digimon shot hot magma at the trio of humans…
 "NO!!!" Keteirumon yelled.  The three digimon started glowing, a
white-gold glow simultaneous with the bright light coming from the
girls’ digivices!
 When the light faded, the three digimon had grown in size and changed
in shape.  Koromon was a yellow dinosaur, Tanemon was a sort of
plant-like biped, and Keteirumon was a squirrel.  The three
now-bigger-than-before digimon knocked their digipartners out of the way
of the magma, then rose to their feet.
 "Pepper breath!  Fah!"  "Koromon" shouted, hitting the bigger dinosaur
with a small ball of fire.
 "Poison ivy!"  "Tanemon" called, shooting vines from her fingers at
Tyrannomon.
 "Acorn stone!" "Keteirumon" yelled.  Acorns shoot from her mouth and
bombarded Tyrannomon.
 "They’re still too small!"  Rachael shouted.
 Suddenly, purple lightening crackled from the sky and struck
Tyrannomon.  The digimon fell, then dematerialized.  The three humans
and their digimon stared in shock.
 "What just happened?!" Sarah gasped.
 "Well, that was interesting."  The group whirled to see a very
human-like digimon.
 She was dressed in a jet-black cloak that parted to reveal black,
skin-tight clothes stretched over a wiry, well-made frame.  Her feet
were garbed in black, feather-covered shoes.  A black mask covered the
top half of her white face, revealing only dark-irised eyes, bright red
lips, and high, smooth cheek bones.  Graceful batwings arched above her
head, and black, tapered, bat-like ears protruded from long, raven-black
hair.
 "I am Ashimon," the woman/digimon said in a clear voice, full of
malice- which was mistaken for mischief by the girls and digimon.
 "H-hi…"  Rachael finally stammered nervously.  "I’m Rachael, and this
WAS Koromon…"
 "I’m now Agumon!  I digivolved!"  Agumon said cheerily.
 "Yeah, whatever…" Rachael muttered.
 "I’m Sounasha," Sasha told Ashimon.  "My digipartner…"
 "Risumon!" the squirrel-like digimon supplied.
 "I’m Palmon!" the plant introduced herself.  "My digipartner is Sarah!"

 A malicious gleam came into Ashimon’s dark eyes.  "Digidestined… Well,
hello!"
 "Thanks for destroying the Tyrannomon," Risumon said, climbing nimbly
into a forest tree to be eye-level with the human-like digimon.
 "You’re welcome," Ashimon said.  "Now, if it’s not too much to ask…
where are you headed?"
 Rachael shrugged.  "Haven’t the slightest idea.  We just got here."
 "Here?" the woman/digimon echoed.
 "From Earth… Tokyo," Sarah clarified.
 "I see…  well, I suppose I could show you some places to go," Ashimon
suggested.
 "Great!  Food?"  Palmon asked.
 "And beds?"  Sasha added.
 Ashimon smiled slightly.  "I think I could find something."
 "Yeehee!" Rachael whooped.  "Let’s go!"

 On the way to the place Ashimon spoke of, the group passed a field full
of… medieval objects??  The girls blinked in surprise.
 "I didn’t know that crowns grew on trees," Sarah commented.
 "Or that daggers grew on vines," Rachael added.
 They wandered through the field in amazement.  "Why don’t we grab a
weapon?" Sasha asked.
 "Why not?" Sarah asked with a shrug.  She plucked a long dagger- a
dirk, really- off a vine.  "Cool!"  Rachael found a rapier, and Sasha
finally found a golden-pommeled short sword.
 "Will we be going now?" Ashi asked impatiently.
 "Just a sec!" Rachael called, grabbing a green leaf- it turned out to
be a leaf-green sheath.  She slid her rapier into it.  Sasha and Sarah
followed suit.  The group then followed Ashimon down the dust-brown,
almost overgrown trail.

 ~~Later, at dusk…~~

 "Here we are!" Ashi called.  The group halted at the sight of a large,
dark house.
 "It looks… scary…" Sarah commented nervously.  Although in good
condition, the mansion was all black, and gloomy.  White-rimmed doors
gave the appearance of narrowed, angry eyes.
 "Fits Ashi’s color scheme," Palmon said cheerfully, though a hint of
uncertainty was in her voice.

 The interior was little better.  Skulls hung on the black stairposts.
Everything was black and white- mostly black.  A few spots of red came
from a gory picture- but that was the only color.
 "Is… is this YOUR house?"  Rachael asked Ashimon uncertaintly.
 "Of course not," Ashi replied, looking at the place with appearant
distaste.  "Much too dark."
 "Couldn’t have guessed she’d think this is dark by her clothes," Sasha
whispered to Risumon.
 "Well, eat up!"  Ashimon cried as they reached a long room with an
obsidian table in the center.  Food- the only color in the room besides
black or white was laid out on the table.
 "Whoohoo!" Sarah whooped.  The group set to eating.
 "Try this stuff!" Rachael said, holding up a bowl of black pudding.
 Risumon sniffed it and drew back in disgust and horror.  "Yuck!  It
smells like death!"
 Rachael and Agumon shrugged.  "More for us!" Agumon stated, gobbling it
up.

 ~~The Next Day…~~

 "Wake up wake up wake UP!!"
 Sasha rubbed sleep from her blue-grey eyes tiredly.  "What’s wrong,
Risu?" she mumbled, burrowing deeper under the black covers.
 "Rachael and Agumon’re GONE!"
 That woke her up very quickly.  Sasha rolled out of bed- still dressed
in her regular black pants and forest-green turtleneck- and pulled on
her tennis shoes.  She strapped on her sword and ran out the door.
 "Rachael?  Agumon??  Where are you?!"  Sasha yelled.
 Similar cries echoed around her- Sarah, Palmon, and Ashimon.  After an
hour of fruitless searching, they regrouped.  Ashimon was absent.
 "Where’s Ashimon?"  Sarah asked nervously.
 "Oh, she’s still looking for Rachael and Agumon," Risumon said.
 "Great," Sasha muttered.  "Okay, next plan?"
 "Next plan?" a voice echoed, laden with gleeful malice.  "Does ‘die’
sound good to you?"
 Sasha and Sarah whirled to see an auburn-haired girl in
black-and-purple robes.  A jet-black digivice hung by her side.  Agumon
stood beside her, his normally-brown eyes now black and menacing.
 "Rachael!" Sarah gasped.  "Why are you in that outfit??"
 "I’m… ‘evil’, as you put it," Rache smirked.  "As is Agumon.  GET
THEM!" she cried suddenly.  The digimon sprang forward.
 "Pepper breath!"
 "Ouch!" Risumon yelped as she was thrown back.  A second Pepper Breath
caught Palmon on fire.  Sarah beat out the flames.
 "Poison Ivy!" the singed Palmon called, wrapping her vines around
Agumon.
 "Acorn Stone!"  Hard acorns battered the dino-digimon’s yellow hide.
 "You cannot defeat us that easily!" Rachael growled, drawing her
dagger- but it was now a sword, black and deadly.  Her digivice pulsed
with evil power, and Agumon turned black through and through.  The black
digimon-shape stretched and grew into a huge dinosaur with a metal
helmet…
 "I am Greymon!" the digimon boomed.
 "He got even BIGGER!" Sasha gulped, taking a step backwards.  "Erm… can
you do that, Risumon?"
 The squirrel digimon surveyed Greymon uncertaintly.  "I don’t know…"
 "NOVA BLAST!  Fah!"  A gigantic orb of fire zoomed toward the quartet
below.
 "SASHA!" Risumon yelled in panic, running to push her digipartner out
of the way.
 "Sarah!!"  Palmon did the same, using her vines to push her friend to
safety…
 Sasha’s digivice glowed.  The girl looked on in surprise as Risumon
grew and stretched as a glowing white light.  The digimon solidified
finally, a winged deer the size of Greymon.
 "I am Shikamon!" the deer roared, batting the Nova Blast aside with a
metal-armored hoof.  "Leaf Slicer!"  Leaves flew from the ground,
turning metal and razor-sharp, then sliced into Greymon’s flesh.  The
digimon roared and swiped a huge claw at Shikamon…
 "Sounasha!"
 Sasha whirled in time to see a black blue whizzing down toward her
head.  She yelled in surprise and fear and scrambled to the side,
falling and rolling in the process.  She hastened to her feet and tugged
her own sword free in time to block Rachael’s onix blade.
 "Clumsy, aren’t you?" Rachael sneered.  The auburn-haired girl seemed
to have learned how to use a sword overnight.  She sent the onyx-bladed
sword whizzing toward Sasha’s side.  The brunette twisted to block her
opponent’s sword, and it slid down her own blade and bit into her
thigh.  Sasha screamed in pain- she’d never felt anything as
excrutiating as the blinding, burning, white-hot agony in her leg.
 "Is the little girl hurt?" Rachael mocked, feinting at the kneeling
girl.  Sounasha clumsily blocked with her shorter weapon.  Her blue-grey
eyes, clouded with pain, drifted about for a way out.  I don’t want to
die!  The frantic thought raced through her head as her hand, held to
her injured leg, grew slick with blood.
 Her searching eyes fell on the digivice, fallen on the ground as
Rachael cut the hook to show off her prowess with a blade.  With speed
she didn’t know she had left, Sasha grabbed the digivice.  A burst of
light streamed out of it, hitting Rachael full in the face and blinding
her.  Sasha struggled to her feet, weight resting on her uninjured leg.
 "Rachael!" she shouted above the drone of the shining device.
 "Die, you…"  Rachael added a couple of swears as she thrust forward
with her blade.  Sasha instinctively blocked it with her short sword,
but she was thrusting forward as well.  The two hilts caught against
each other, and the two girls pushed their swords forward- Sasha to keep
from being killed, and Rachael to kill.
 Suddenly, in the bright light- still shining on Rachael’s face- Sasha
saw Rachael’s irises lighten to a confused green.  Recognition bloomed
in her face.  "Sasha?!" the girl gasped, dropping her sword in shock.
 Sasha was still leaning heavily on her blade.  The sudden loss of
resistance caused her to fall forward.  Her blade sank into Rachael’s
chest, full to the hilt.  "RACHAEL!!" Sasha screamed in horror.  She
leaned accidently upon her injured thigh, and pain shot up it, until
blackness overcame her vision.

 Shikamon, still fighting Greymon, sent metal razor-sharp leaves at
Greymon yet again, getting singed by his Nova Blast.  Some of the leaves
sliced into Greymon’s throat.  The digimon danced away agily as the big
dinosaur fell forward, glaring at the winged deer as life left him in a
rattling, blood-choked breath.  Then his eyes rolled up in his skull…
 Shikamon returned to Risumon in a dull flash of light.  The digimon
barely glanced at the white-faced Sarah and Palmon as she limped to
Sasha, blood streaming from her ribcage.  The squirrel layed down on
Sasha’s leg in a weak attempt to supress her partner’s blood flow as she
blacked out.

 Sasha awoke to see purple fire streaming into her wound, and
Risumon’s.  Ashimon was standing over her, black-irised eyes narrowed in
concentration.  Her hands were the source of the fire.  Sounasha watched
in fascination as the gaping gashes sealed themselves.
 Then the rememberance of the earlier battle hit her full on.  She
glanced toward where Rachael’s body had been… but it was gone.  Only the
short sword was in its place.  Ashimon followed Sasha’s blue-grey gaze
to her sword.  The digimon walked over to the short sword and picked it
up.  She fingered the golden pommelstone.
 "This killed Rachael?" she asked mildly.  A burst of light lanced out
of the pommelstone, hitting Ashimon.  She cried out and threw the sword
savagely, then wiped her hands on her cloak, composing herself.  "Well."

 Sasha had watched in fascination mingled with disgust and sorrow.
"Could you… wreck the sword for me?" she asked tentatively.  "It’s…"
 Ashimon nodded, malice gleaming in her dark eyes.  A streak of purple
fire and electricity hit the sword.  There was a flash of light, and the
beam was lanced back at the digimon.  Ashi frantically directed the beam
into the ground, then wiped it out with a wave of her pale hand.  "Leave
it," she said shakily.  "You probably shouldn’t have taken anything from
that field.  I’d forgotten…"  She shook her head.  "Oh look, the sun’s
setting!  Time to turn in!"
 Sasha started toward the mansion, Risumon beside her.  Neither noticed
the look of anticipating malice on Ashimon’s face, nor the apprehensive,
hateful glare she shot toward the softly glowing sword.

 Sasha dreamed.  She dreamed that purple fire was ravaging her heart;
her soul.  Fire was growing, filling her veins and body, making her cry
out in pain.  Then she remembered nothing, only Ashimon’s face in her
mind.  She began to hate Sarah with a vengeance.  Anger and hatred
filled her being… as well as loyalty toward Ashimon.  Ashimon was always
right…  Never disobey the Great Queen Ashimon…
 The same thing was happening to Risumon, though her hatred was toward
Palmon.  By the itime the sun showed its face over the digiworld
horizon, Sounasha and Risumon were evil, with one purpose- destroy Sarah
and Palmon.

 "Sarah."  Sounasha walked out of the dark house, eyes filled with
purple fire.  She picked up the onyx sword at the door, then advanced
confidently on Sarah.  A black cloak had been in the wardrobe; Sounasha
had pulled it on.
 Sarah looked up from where she was relaxing on the grass.  "Oh, hi…"
She noticed Sounasha’s eyes and cloak.  "SASHA?!!  You too?!?"  The girl
scrambled to her feet.  "What are you do…"  Her blue eyes showed fear as
Sounasha raised the onyx sword…
 "NO!  SARAH…!"  It was Palmon.  "Poison Ivy!"  Her vines reached out
and grabbed Sounasha’s short sword.  The vines threw the weapon to
Sarah; it landed point first before her.  The blonde grabbed the hilt
and blocked the shorter girl’s sword
 "None of that!  Acorn Stone!"  Risumon yelled.  Acorns pummeled Palmon
mercilessly.  She recovered, though, and whi8pped Risumon with the
vines.  With a growl, Risumon digivolved into Shikamon.  Palmon did the
same a second later, digivolving into Togemon, a large cactus with
boxing gloves.  They clashed.

 Sounasha’s first action was to cleave Sarah’s digivice in half,
rendering it useless.  She smiled grimly.  "Ready to die, blondie?"
 Sarah pleaded with her former friend.  ‘Sasha… how can you do this??
We… we were friends!"
 Sounasha’s blue-grey eyes were cold.  "I have only seen you in my mind…
the great Queen Ashimon showed you to me."
 "Ashimon!!  She’s behind this, then!"  Sarah gaped, clumsily trying to
fend off Sounasha’s furious attacks.
 "Ashimon said you must die," the black-robed girl growled, ignoring
Sarah’s comment.  "And so you must!"  She caught the short sword under
the hilt with her long onyx blade, sending it into the air.  It fell in
front of Sounasha, hanging in midair and glowing as she thrust her blade
forward with a malicious smile…
 The pommelstone of the short sword engulfed Sounasha’s vision as it
glowed gold.  She saw fragments, faces- her life- pass in the orb.  Her
cloak dropped from her shoulders as memories came rushing back, and the
onyx longsword fell from her nerveless fingers.
 Then the glow fell away; the short sword came to rest in Sasha’s hand.
She stared at it, uncomprehending, then at Sarah- fallen on the ground
and devoid of life, the onyx blade in her chest…  A sharp cry left
Sasha’s mouth.
 "SARAH!!"

 As Sasha’s memories returned to her, so did Shikamon’s.  But it was too
late- Togemon lay crushed beneath the deer-like digimon’s armored
hooves.  Horror and shock filled Shikamon’s face.
 "Sasha!" Shikamon shouted, galloping lightly to her digipartner.
"Ashimon…"  The digimon noticed Sarah’s body, and her teeth clenched.
 "Ashimon did this," Sasha growled, eyes dry in her anger and vengeful
hatred.  "We trusted her…"
 Shikamon nodded grimly.  "Climb on."  The girl returned her short sword
to its leaf-green sheath, then mounted Shika’s narrow back.  Strong
brown wings beat the air, and they were off.

 Sasha didn’t pay attention to the phenomenon of flight- her cold
blue-grey eyes were busy scanning the ground for signs of Ashimon.
Suddenly, her digivice started beeping loudly, and her sword glowed.
 "She’s below us!" Sasha called to Shikamon.  The deer nodded, flying
downwards toward the forested ground.  The girl and digimon watched the
surrounding terrain warily, ready to fight, adrenilene pumping.
 "Ashimon?" Sasha called, drawing her sword slowly.  "Where are you,
murderer?!"
 Silence.  Complete, suspicious silence- even the birds and squirrels
were quiet.  Then the pair was thrown backwards by an orb of black and
purple fire.  "Right here, weak ones!"  Ashimon stepped out of the
trees, smiling mockingly.  "What would you like?"
 "Your death would be nice," Shikamon growled.
 "Oh, we can’t have that.  I’m afraid yours would be more convenient,"
the woman/digimon said, sending black fire at their bruised forms.
 Light erupted from Sounasha’s short sword, sheilding the pair.  A beam
of light lanced at Ashi, hitting her full-on.  She screamed piercingly,
a sound that nearly deafened the girl and digimon.
 "Leaf Slicer!" Shikamon shouted, sending razor-sharp leaves at Ashimon.

 "Your puny leaves can’t defeat me!" the evil digimon laughed, burning
the leaves with more black fire.  Sasha stood firm, dismounted beside
Shikamon, the sword blocking Ashimon’s attacks with bursts of light.
The evil digimon was fighting a losing battle.
 She stopped, breathing hard and glaring at the two.  A gleam suddenly
appeared in Ashi’s eye, and she shouted a few harsh syllables.  Fire
boiled in Sasha and Shikamon’s veins, causing them to writhe in pain.
Sasha pressed her lips together, attempting not to cry out.  If I die,
it’s no less than what I deserve, she thought, feeling as if she was
being burnt up inside- and she probably was.
 The sword glowed, and light drove out the fire in the pair’s veins.
They slumped in relief, exhausted.
 "You weaklings," Ashimon said scornfully.  "One hit and you’re devoid
of fight.  You’re no better than your dead friends."
 Sasha’s head jerked up.  Her eyes burned with cold anger.  "No," the
girl hissed.  "No- they’re better people than I could ever be.  The
least… the least I can do is avenge their deaths!"  She rose painfully,
slowly.  Shikamon nodded to her digipartner, who climbed aboard.  Sword
in hand, Sasha faced Ashimon from atop Shikamon.
 The winged deer began galloping toward Ashimon, Sasha holding her blade
ready, while clinging to Shikamon’s metal half-helmet.  The digimon
reared, encased in an armor of light connected to the girl’s
pommelstone.  Ashi’s eyes showed brief fear as she threw fire at the
pair- to no avail.  She shrieked as sharp, metal-encased hooves pounded
at her, sending her to the ground, her body broken and bleeding black
fire.
 Sasha dismounted her digimon, walking over to the fallen Ashi.
"Ashimon- what makes you fear this blade?" she asked, holding it aloft
above the digimon’s chest.
 "The field…" the evil monarch gasped.  "Digimon… sacrificed themselves…
the exact spot… your blade grew…"   She took a ragged breath.  "Then the
good… in Sarah and Rachael… filled the… sword.  Powerful…"
 "That’s all I wanted to know," Sasha said viciously.  "This is for
Sarah and Rachael and Agumon and Palmon!"  She plunged the sword into
Ashi’s chest.
 A blast of black lightening and fire hit Sasha, sending her flying
along with Shikamon.  They hit a tree and lost consciousness as Ashimon
dwindled away in a fading black flame.

 Sasha awoke with Risumon sitting in a tree above her.  "You might check
and see what She left behind," the squirrel said quietly, tiredly.
 Curious, Sasha walked stealthily, cautiously toward the center of the
burned-out patch of ground.  On a cord, a tag-like object glintsened in
a ray of sunlight.  The girl frowned, picking it up.  It didn’t feel
evil… and the sword wasn’t glowing, either.  With a shrug, Sasha slipped
the tag-necklace over her head.
 Immediately, her sword glowed.  Sasha froze- was the tag dangerous
after all?  But it wasn’t the pommelstone glowing- it was an intricate
symbol on the hilt: a spiral inside an enclosed circle.  The symbol
detatched itself from the hilt in a rectangel, then slipped into the
tag.
 Words impressed themselves on Sasha’s mind.  –The Crest of
Determination is yours…  Use it well.-  She gasped at the words, and
fingered the crest.
 Risumon frowned in confusion.  "What was all that about?"
 Sasha shrugged.  "Haven’t the slightest idea."  The girl rubbed her
gaunt stomach.  "Well, enough thought.  Let’s go get something to eat."

 Neither digimon nor human noticed the black shadow on the ground, nor
the faint glow of the sword.  No one heard the faint whisper in
Ashimon’s voice:
 ~I’ll return to destroy you, Sounasha Kakan Utagu…~
****

~Danielle