"You mean this town looks familiar to you?" Patamon asked.
T.K. nodded. "Yeah, can't put my finger on it, but somehow I know I have seen some of those streets and buildings before... I believe I've been standing on a high point as well, kinda like now. And I think my grandfather was with me that day..."
Patamon tapped his forehoof against his head. "Strange, now that you mention it, it looks familiar to me as well. But, the only big cities I've seen in your world were Tokyo and..."
The realization hit T.K. like a sledgehammer. "Paris..." he whispered. "After we saved Catherine from the Mamemon... she invited us to a tour of..." He gasped and turned around, looking up the monumental, artistically ornated twin towers of the cathedral they were standing in.
"Notre Dame..."
"I think you're right," Patamon said in awe. "But, if this is the same church we have been visiting during our stay in Paris, why does the rest of the city look like we're in the middle ages?"
"This gate of light..." T.K. muttered. "Perhaps it didn't only take us to a different place, but maybe even into a different TIME?"
Patamon sighed and let his body sink down on one of the stony Gargoyle figures that were decorating the balustrade. "If that is true, I really hope that we have a chance to find the others and get back ho... huh?" He yelped in surprise, when suddenly, the Gargoyle underneath his furry behind... sprang to life!
"HEY!" the stone figure yelled. "What's the big idea, just sitting down on my head like that? It's bad enough that those pigeons do it all day long, and now some winged pig thinks he can push me around? No sire, not me!"
"It... it can move... and talk?" T.K. gasped in surprise and stumbled backwards.
"Of course we can," a gentle, female voice exclaimed from behind him. "If only the humans would listen more closely..."
Jumping in surprise, T.K. turned around and saw how another one of the stone figures turning around her body (which seemed to end just below her navel) and smiling at him. In spite of her small wings and the tiny horns protruding from her forehead, she had the looks of a small, elderly lady.
"It is true! What a tragedy, we, the loyal guardians of fair Notre Dame, always doing our jobs, but always being ignored by the crowds..."
A third Gargoyle had come to life, a little further to T.K.'s right. He was slightly taller than the other two and had also the biggest wings.
"I'm terribly sorry..." Patamon said bashfully while fluttering down to the ground. "We didn't know you were alive... are you Digimon?"
"Gigi-what?" the first one asked in his brash voice. It was the same one on whose head Patamon had landed previously. He was much more obese than his two 'colleagues' and had a pig's snout in addition to his two stubby horns. "What's that supposed to be?"
"Um, never mind that," T.K. quickly said. His first shock gone, he got used to the fact that those three Gargoyles were talking with him. He had seen stranger things back in the Digital World. Although, he wondered if back in his time, the Gargoyles of Notre Dame would be alive as well.
The fat Gargoyle hopped closer to Patamon and threw him an icy glare. "Where are you two pipsqueaks coming from, anyway?" he asked. "I've never seen someone like you before, buddy!" And his stone finger poked Patamon hardly in the ribs.
"Look, we're just looking for our friends," T.K. tried to explain. "Humans that are about my age, with similar creatures like him... have you seen them?"
"You are the first one, dearie," the female Gargoyle said. "And I must say, I am really curious about how you got here in the first place... the Archdeacon usually locks all doors leading to the bell tower tightly."
"Listen, um... say, what's your name? You have names, do you?"
"We sure have," the tall one smiled and made an elegant gesture. "You can call myself Victor, and that chubby little fella over there is Hugo."
'Victor, Hugo...' T.K. thought. 'Figures...'
"Call me Laverne, dear," the elderly female said. "And what are you called?"
"I'm T.K. and this is Patamon. And I must say I don't really know how we got here. All I know is that Kari raised that key of hers and..."
"Is that your girlfriend?" Hugo chuckled.
"Hugo, let him finish!" Laverne scolded her friend.
"Well, Kari raised this strange key, and all of a sudden, this bright light appeared and engulfed us all... And the next thing we know, we're here!"
"Oh no!" Victor gasped. "Black Magic!"
"Uh... I don't really think that it was magic," T.K. said. "But even if it was, I seriously doubt it would be 'Black' magic. And what's so bad about magic anyway?"
"Nothing, if we would have to say anything about it," Laverne sighed. "But you better make sure that the Judge Claude Frollo doesn't learn about how you get here, my boy."
"Why not?" Somehow, T.K. got a bad feeling about this.
"Because," Laverne said in a serious tone of voice. "He'd want to see you burnt at the stake!"
T.K. gulped and exchanged a very worried look with his winged friend.
Suddenly the door of the gloomy room the twosome had appeared in squeaked, and a bulky shadow became visible in the light that was streaming into the chamber.
T.K. let out a startled gasp as he saw the deformed face of the hunchbacked man that approached him. Could that be... the infamous...
"Quasimodo..." he whispered, although it was quiet enough that no one heard it.
"Who are you?" the bell ringer of Notre Dame asked while looking at the young boy intently. "How did you get in here?"
----
"Cody! Cody, where are you?"
"Up here, Armadillomon! Quick, help me!"
Armadillomon looked up at the trap in which Cody was entangled. It was a simple rope that was being bound to the branch of the massive tree he was standing next to. It was a little high above the ground, so Armadillomon really didn't know how to save his little friend.
Then he got an idea. He rolled his body up into a ball and hurled himself upwards, to where the branch was sticking out of the tree, similarly to when he used his 'Diamond Shell' attack.
"Don't worry, Cody, I'll get you down in no time at all." He uncurled, raised his forelegs, extended his claws...
And before he cut through the rope, his left paw grabbed the rope tightly, so his friend wouldn't fall down afterwards. A small cut later, Cody was dangling from his friend's paw.
Several moments after that, Cody was standing safely on the ground.
"Whew, what a relief," the youngest Digidestined sighed. "Thanks for getting me out of there, Armadillomon..."
Now, that his partner was standing back on the ground, Armadillomon realized that something was not quite right with the small boy. "Cody... did you have those big ears for a long time now?"
"Huh? Big ears? What are you talking..." Cody frowned, then felt the side of his head with his hands.
And he realized that Armadillomon was right: His ears were more than twice their original size, and that was not all: His head... felt furry.
And when he pulled down his hands to look at them, he saw that they were not really hands... they were paws.
"What the... Armadillomon, what happened to me?"
"Don't ask me, I'm as clueless as you are!"
Something that was pointy and twitching came into Cody's field of view. He quickly realized that this was his muzzle, tipped with whiskers.
And the long thing waving behind him, with a furry tuft of hair at the end, could be nothing else than his new tail.
"Cody, I hate to say it, but you look like a mouse."
"A kangaroo mouse, I'd say," Cody nodded. "Australian rodent... But wait a minute, if I'm a mouse, then why do I still wear my clothes? And normally, a kangaroo mouse would be much smaller than this..."
Armadillomon looked around. He looked at the strange, giant 'leaves' that were growing from the ground and realized they were actually blades of grass. He inspected the rope more closely and saw that it was only a piece of string. Finally, he glanced up at the enormous tree that was much, much bigger than the biggest redwood tree he heard about. And the branch Cody had been dangling from was not a branch... it was a twisted root.
"I'd say we are the correct size, Cody..." the yellow Rookie chuckled nervously.
"Hey, you! Little boy! Did you destroy that trap?" a voice with a strong Australian accent suddenly yelled.
Cody looked around, but saw no one. "Um, yes, but actually, my friend did it... after he rescued me."
"Okay, good to hear, but you should get out of there right away. Because old McLeach never sets small traps like this without connecting them to a bigger trap..."
"Huh?" Armadillomon asked. "What do you mean?"
"Come here, behind the tuft of grass, and I'll show you," the voice shouted.
Well, if that guy said there was an additional trap here, Cody figured it would be best to listen to him... whoever he was.
They walked around the high blades of grass... and stared when they saw the owner of the voice.
It was another kangaroo mouse, wearing a jacket and a hat.
"Good to see you're in one piece, little boy," the adult mouse said. He looked back to where Cody had been trapped earlier and shouted: "OKAY, SPARKY! LET IT FLY!"
Cody looked over to where he had been trapped previously and saw some fly or something like that buzzing around the rest of the thread that was still tied around the root.
Sparky (which was likely the name of that insect) seemed to concentrate, then he pulled at the remaining string with all the might a little fly could bring up.
With a loud 'WHOOSH' (which was almost deafening for Cody, because of his tiny state and his new, sensitive ears), a net that had been hidden on the leaf-covered ground shot up into the air, where it dangled down from a real tree branch (more or less several thousand kilometers above their heads, so it seemed to Cody).
"Now THAT'S a trap, eh, kiddo?" the stranger grinned smugly. "You were lucky that your friend cut the string instead of pulling on it. You know, that's old McLeach's trick: Capturing small animals like us to lure in the big ones. And those are the animals he can make really BIG money with."
Still a little shaken, Cody decided to concentrate on different matters for now. His honor somehow demaded that he had to thank the adult kangaroo mouse for what he did. Cody somehow felt that he might owe him his life.
So he turned around to face the stranger and gave him a short bow. "My name is Cody Hida and this is my friend and partner Armadillomon. I thank you for your help."
"Aw, it's no big deal, kiddo! I'm always ready to help. Especially if it's a young boy like you. The name's Jake, and I'll be darned if I would've left you two down under that tree." He smirked.
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See other episodes by Shritistrang
(Posted Sun, 14 Jan 2007 20:47)
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