Ryan couldn’t even react. He simply stood, frozen, as the creature’s attack headed towards him. For a brief moment he thought that this was it, until a heavy force impacted his side. The impact knocked him off his feet and he toppled over, landing hard on his side. The electrified thread sailed harmlessly above him as he lay on the ground, Moonmon sitting on top of him. She’d tackled him to the ground to get him out of the way of the attack.

“Snap out of it!” she exclaimed. “We need to move!”

Ryan nodded and hastily picked himself up off the ground. “Can you guys fight these things?”

“No,” was Moonmon’s blunt reply.

[i]Wonderful.[/i] “So then let’s get the hell out of here.” He picked up Moonmon and took off running through the trees. “Come on!” he shouted to James.

“Poison Ivy!”

Ryan stopped and jumped back as several large vine struck a tree that he had been about to run by. They left huge gashes in the bark. He quickly made a 90-degree turn and bolted away from the creature that had attacked him.

“What are these things?” Ryan asked Moonmon as they ran.

“Palmon and Kunemon,” she answered. “They’re Rookie-level Digimon.”

“So stronger than you guys?”

“Yes,” she replied. “But they aren’t normally this hostile. I don’t know what’s gotten into them.”

“Are we in their territory or something?”

Moonmon shook her head. “This many Palmon and Kunemon wouldn’t share the same territory, and if that were what this was, we probably would’ve run into them sooner. Besides, this attack isn’t spur of the moment. It’s too organized; too coordinated.”

[i]We don’t have time to worry about this,[/i] Ryan thought. Just then, he spotted another Kunemon. He managed to duck behind a tree just as an Electro Thread passed by him. He turned and started running away from the Kunemon, making sure to keep as many trees as possible between them. 

He didn’t even know if James had followed him. He hadn’t so much as glanced behind him to check, he was too focused on where he was running. Just then, he dove around a tree … and came out into a clearing.

[i]Oh crap,[/i] he thought. He looked back to the tree line and saw that the Kunemon and Palmon had already caught up and were already blocking him from turning back. [i]Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.[/i] He was stuck in this clearing. Which meant that there was nothing to hide behind.