Thank You For This Meal

by Schnickledooger

S1. AU canon divergence. It's been four years since the incident at Hikarigaoka and the Nightmare Soldiers have seized the world by storm. Tai wasn't a hero. He was the farthest thing from a hero. He was a failure as well as a coward with four years of proof coming back in one giant circle to haunt him in a single day. Dark, soul crushing fic.

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. Toei Animation does.

A/N: Warning for disturbing imagery. I don't think it's graphic, but it is very disturbing.

Thank You For This Meal

It was his fault that all this had happened.

This will be an infiltration mission only, Oikawa's voice resounded in Tai's head. Datamon keeps an impenetrable firewall locked down that place, so someone has to hack the mainframe manually. You get in, find the main computer, upload the virus, and get out as soon as the shields drop. Don't try and be a hero.

Don't try and be a hero because if you fail no one is coming to rescue you, were the words left unspoken.

Tai wondered if Izzy would have succeeded if he had been sent instead. He was too valuable a resource for Oikawa to risk however. Izzy at ten years old was a Grade A, tech-genius capable of hacking into electrical device from any distance. With his assistance, Oikawa soon had "eyes" watching over practically half of Tokyo keeping track of the Nightmare Soldiers patrols. Izzy was always one step ahead of detection. When he gave the word that their location was compromised and they switched bases quickly. Izzy would have been the best choice. He would have kept a level head and focused on the task at head. Tai often had kidded him about socializing better with machines than people. That kind of in-bred personality would have given him the advantage here.

Don't try and be a hero.

Tai understood there was no way he could help any of these people who had been rounded up by the Nightmare Soldiers. That if half those humans whose minds weren't already numbed and clouded over by the mist they had breathed in before—the humans who had resisted and tried to escape—that the other half had come willingly to join the Lightless One's side.

When you had lived in a world overrun with darkness and evil for so long, sometimes it was simply easier to give in and join the chaos. Especially when you had absolutely no one left to care about except yourself.

Tai thought about Izzy and how angry he would be if he ever found out how alarmingly fast Tai had tripped up the game plan. It was alright though. Tai knew he was expendable: a good soldier to follow orders nothing more. Oikawa would probably be insulted to know he had wasted four years of training on him. Now the man would have to wait even longer before attempting this type of assignment again. He wouldn't send Izzy, not ever. Izzy was his chess-master, his coordinator, his tactician. Oikawa would have to wait, wait a few more years until Davis and T.K. were old enough, strong enough to tackle covert missions like this.

Covert, right. Tai snorted. He put the over in "covert". That's why he was stuck in here.

He hoped Davis and T.K. wouldn't cry too much when he didn't come back. They had clung to him before he left, begging him not to go. He had given them his goggles to hold onto until he had returned and that seemed to have lessened their tears into sniffles at least. They were terrified of losing what little family that remained. And they were a family: him, Izzy, T.K., Davis, and Oikawa. A strange, bedraggled and broken family struggling to keep their lives and sanity every day in a cruel, twisted world where one couldn't tell friend from foe. Oikawa may gripe and groan about how he wasn't a nursemaid so why did "all these snot-nosed brats" keep falling into his lap, but he had taken them all under his wing even when there was no immediate benefit for him, just another empty mouth to feed.

Tai had been with him the longest. Their meeting had been a random twist of fate.

It had only been a day after a portal to the Digital World had been ripped open and the Nightmare Soldiers had poured through like flies. No one had known what had happened back then or what was yet to come. They had called it an "alien invasion" in the early days.

oOo

Hikarigaoka. Tokyo, Japan. 1995.

"They say you're one of the first witnesses on the scene. A big enough scoop and you can have your picture in the front of the newspaper! You can show it off to all your friends and brag about it. Whaddya say? Give me something to work with, come on."

Tai stared down at his bare feet where they dangled inches above the floor. They were still scratched and smudged from the night before. The reporter kept rambling on above his head about being famous and how he owed to mankind to tell his story. The sharp smell of disinfectant tickled his nose, reminding him that he was in a hospitable and his stomach curled.

He threw up all over the reporter's shiny shoes and the man left after that swearing violently.

Tai ran the back of his hand across his mouth shakily and swallowed the bile at the back of throat. He hated hospitals.

"You look like something hell spit back up, kid," a new voice said.

Tai lifted his head. A man stood in front of him with shoulder length black hair that looked oily in texture. He had a narrow face with high cheekbones and pasty colored skin. There were dark circles under his black eyes, eyes that had a slightly haunted look within them. He was dressed in salary-man's outfit that was rumpled as if he had been up all night in it. The business jacket was slung over the man's arm and sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows.

Tai narrowed his eyes. "I'm not talking to any reporters."

"I'm not a reporter, kid."

"You all wear the same types of shoes," Tai declared eyeing the man's black, shiny two-toned shoes in obvious distaste.

The man cracked a rueful smile. "Most companies follow the same dress code, kid. I'm in the computer programming business."

Tai took the card that was offered to him and read the printed name out loud, "Oikawa Yukio." He looked up again. "What do you care about an alien invasion then?"

Oikawa let out a low chuckle. "Turn on the tv and watch some news. They're monsters running rampant in the streets right now. Everyone's affected by them. I'm in here waiting on a college of mine. She's checking on her kids. Apparently they got caught in the Hikarigaoka Incident that kickstarted this whole train wreck."

Maybe Tai breathed in too quickly. Maybe he had clutched at the armrest of his chair a bit too tightly. Maybe something in his expression gave him away.

Oikawa's smile dropped off his face. "Shit, kid, were you in that too?"

Tai said nothing and watched the man's eyes dart to his smudged feet and his pajamas that were torn and dirtied from the nightmare that had occurred last night.

"You shouldn't go outside your room if you don't want news-hungry reporters ready to sink their teeth into you," Oikawa said at last. Then looking repentant he added, "Hey, count yourself as one of the lucky ones. I've seen people come in here with missing limbs."

Tai blanched and must have looked like he was going to throw up again.

"Dammit, kid, I'm sorry," Oikawa swore. An ashamed red flush was creeping up his neck. "I can't even imagine… look, I'll walk you back to your room. What floor is it?"

"The emergency crew brought me in here last night," Tai said not bothering to get up from the waiting room chair he was sitting in. "They told me to stay here. They were busy. There were lots of people coming in and out. You were right. There are others hurt more bad off than me."

"So they just left you here?" Now Oikawa was starting to look angry. Tai didn't know why. He was a complete stranger to him. There was no need for him to get upset. "How are your parents supposed to find you if you're not even officially registered in this hospital?" the man demanded.

Tai didn't know why he couldn't seem to cry. He didn't even feel sad. He just felt… empty.

"Shit." Oikawa swore again realizing.

Tai didn't want to talk about it. He wanted to forget. It had only happened just last night and it was over so quickly. It wasn't like in video games. You didn't get to start over when you made a mistake and go back to a spot you had saved. You didn't get multiple lives.

And sometimes the Boss Battle was thrown at you without warning.

Oikawa was shifting his weight around awkwardly unsure of what to do or say.

"You can go, I'll be ok," Tai said and wondered why he sounded so calm. "Someone will find me eventually. Unsupervised kids don't go unnoticed for too long."

"I'm sorry, kid, really I am," Oikawa said placing a hand lightly on Tai's shoulder. "I don't know what good it will do—I'm no therapist, but if you ever need to talk about it, my number's on the card. You take care of yourself, kid. You're a survivor, you can do it."

The man started to walk away.

Maybe it was because he had been the first person to show Tai an actual bit of kindness after his entire world had fallen apart. Tai had just wanted to repay him.

"Get out of the computer programming business before it's too late," Tai called in warning after him.

Oikawa stopped in his tracks and turned around. A stoic mask had settled upon his face. "What do you mean?"

"They're not aliens," Tai said. He didn't care if the man believed him or not. "They didn't come from outer space."

The room glowed with an eerie red light and his sister stood in front of the computer staring transfixed as a shimmering oval-shape melted from the screen—an egg—and around them electrical devices went haywire as the air crackled with a powerful energy.

"They're monsters," Tai said, echoing what Oikawa had called them before. "They came from the computer. The computer opened the portal in the sky."

Oikawa had walked back quickly and stood front of him again, black eyes wide and shining with a crazed gleam in them. The man was breathing erratically, fists clenched at his sides as if bracing himself for what he knew Tai would say next.

"They're monsters," Tai said remembering. "Digital monsters."

When Oikawa finally vacated the hospital grounds' premises he didn't go alone.

oOo

Odaiba. Tokyo, Japan. 1999.

News stations were the first to be taken over almost immediately after the Nightmare Soldiers' invasion because the vast network of cameras and computers that lay within it. The monsters, the Digimon were attracted to technology especially when it lay piled up in vast amounts in one place. Taking over the tv stations was essential because it pushed the Digimon into the media's spotlight. Once Datamon had tapped into the network, the Nightmare Soldiers had gained control over the whole of Tokyo in less than a day. By morning, half of Japan had fallen. Every tv screen in the country had been broadcasted with Datamon's robotic cackling over how pathetic and dependent humans were on technology. In the midst of this chaos, somehow Datamon had stumbled across the blueprints of the Fuji TV Station that was under construction. The building was completed two years before schedule by the second day of the invasion and became his headquarters. No one quite knew how he had accomplished this. They hadn't stuck around to watch. By the third day, Datamon had also added the finishing touches to the Tokyo International Exhibition Center. The Self Defense Forces had tried to attack the buildings, but no missile could get past Datamon's force shields. The military finally retreated when the Devidramon were set lose and destroyed their tanks. They never made another attempt to recover any locations in Odaiba again.

No help came from other countries. The entire world was fighting their own raging war with the monsters and Japan, the place the invasion all had seemingly originated from, had been red-zoned. The people of Japan were on their own.

Humans didn't tend to stay in the Datamon's stronghold for very were there only briefly. There were only two ways to gain access. One was to be captured and brought in by the Bakemon to be "rehabilitated". Once the mist's hypnotic effects took over their minds, they were released again back into society like a disease to infect others with their thinking: the Nightmare Soldiers are friends not foe. They only wish the best for us, they mean to cleanse humanity of all corruption.

Tai took the second door in: he gave himself up to a gang of human rebels who supported the Nightmare Soldiers by their own volition. He thought he might understand the reasoning behind their choosing sides. Some of them liked the power and prestige they received when they roamed the streets of Japan wearing the metallic Dark Rings on their arms symbolizing they belonged to the Nightmare Soldiers' division. Some of them had it rough before the Digimon appeared. Some had been stuck in jobs they had hated, some of them had lived in poverty, and some of them had felt their existence was useless because there had been nothing in particular they had been good at. The Nightmare Soldiers had arrived and given them a chance to shine and be above the rest of the humans who cowered away in fear.

So Tai had surrendered to the group of renegade humans, proclaiming his loyalty to the Nightmare Soldiers, and been taken to Fuji TV Station with others who had defected from the rest of humanity. He had been handcuffed of course. He wouldn't be trusted straight away. He would have to be brought in to headquarters to be given a Dark Ring of his own to wear and have a trial run under the watchful eye of one of the human rebel groups.

Tai hoped he would be able to slip away and find the computer mainframe to upload the virus before they put a Dark Ring on him. He wasn't sure if he would be able to do anything that meant ill-will towards the Nightmare Soldiers with one on. Then again, the gang of humans who had brought him through the force field surrounding the tv station—their Dark Rings lighting up with shining red hieroglyphics allowing them to pass, (Tai made a note of that)—seemed to be fully in charge of their own mind and actions. It could be the Dark Rings functioned as a tracking device for them as well as identification.

So he waited on the ground level of the building alongside the rest of the humans brought in handcuffs, trying to stifle his impatience, trying to appear harmless, trying to ignore the other group of humans across the room that were surrounded by Bakemon. The adults had garnered a hopeless expression upon their faces as if they already had resigned themselves to their fate. There were a few children in that group too, around Davis and T.K.'s ages. They looked terribly frightened and bordering on the edges of panic. One of the Bakemon pressed its gaping toothed mouth close against a little girl's face and she shrieked and hid behind her mother's skirt. The Bakemon laughed ghoulishly.

Don't try and be a hero.

He wasn't going to do anything. He couldn't have anyway. He hardened his mind and was focusing on how he was going to find out where the central computer room was—probably on the upper levels—when…

"Tai!"

And he had looked up into the broadly-smiling face of Sora Takenouchi.

She didn't look the same as when he had last seen her six months ago. Back then she was always wearing some combination of jeans and sneakers, and t shirts. Now she was sporting a light blue yukata kimono with a pink and yellow ohashori around her waist. Her coppery-red hair had grown longer and she had knotted it up into a short ponytail. Her reddish-brown eyes were filled with warmth—she was obviously quite pleased to see him.

Tai, however, wasn't exactly sure how he felt right then as he stared at the Dark Ring collared around her neck.

"Oh, Tai, I'm so glad you decided to join us!" Sora said grasping a hold of his wrists and clucking lightly as she saw the handcuffs on him. "Kotarou," she called out chidingly and the leader of the renegades who had brought him came to her side. "Take these off," she issued towards the handcuffs.

"Takenouchi-san…" Kotarou looked very hesitant to comply with her wishes. "He hasn't been given a Dark Ring yet. I am not sure it is wise—"

"Perhaps I will let Datamon know you do not trust my decisions," Sora interrupted him coolly.

The handcuffs came off a split second later. Kotarou inclined his head stiffly towards her then returned back to where his gang stood guard around the rest of the defectors they had brought in.

"Phantomon is away at the moment," Sora explained to Tai as if commenting on the weather. "That's why everything is moving so slowly. But I am glad to be able to talk to you again. I missed you."

"Sora," Tai paused a moment before asking. "What are you doing here?"

Tai had known Sora before the Nightmare Soldier invasion. They even had lived in the same apartment building. But after the Hikarigaoka Incident he had gone almost four years without seeing her until six months ago when Oikawa had set base camp up in Kyoto after Izzy had noticed it was a hotspot of activity of Digimon phasing into the real world. Sora had been living with her father, Haruhiko, who used to be an anthropology professor before the Digimon had basically rendered human education pointless. Together Haruhiko and Oikawa had pooled their knowledge of studying the Digimon and discovered there were three different types: Virus, Vaccine and Data. Most of the Nightmare Soldiers were composed of Viruses, however there did seem to be a few random Data types scattered within their ranks. What both men had noted interesting however, is whenever a rogue Vaccine type merged into the real world, it was almost immediately hunted down and destroyed by the Nightmare Soldiers. Haruhiko had theorized the Virus types must have a weakness towards the Vaccines. Haruhiko Takenouchi was a man with a lot of theories on Digimon, one being that they were similar to tsukumogami, human creations that somehow had become alive and self-aware.

"So you're saying we brought this plague on ourselves from centuries of making up fairy tales and myths?" Tai remembered Oikawa saying dryly.

Oikawa had left Kyoto after the virus he and Izzy had been working on for three years neared completion. He wanted to be closer to Fuji TV station and wait for the right window of opportunity to present itself before they made their move.

Sora had been angry and brooding in Kyoto, a girl resentful towards her father for not being there for her and her mother when Hikarigaoka Incident occurred.

"I wanted to be with my mother," Sora answered him smiling, with no traces of anger left in her face whatsoever.

A girl enraged at the world and the creatures that had invaded and taken her mother away from her.

"Your mother…" Tai repeated getting a sinking feeling in his stomach as if he had swallowed a rock.

"Oh, Tai, let's go see her! She'll be so happy to see you again! She's worried because I don't have any friends here," Sora said taking him by the hand and pulling him along.

Sora had never been one to touch people more than necessary. She had been uncomfortable even standing too close to someone. Even when they both were little, the only time Sora had initiated touching was when she whacked him in the head with her plastic shovel for destroying her sandcastle. This wasn't the Sora he remembered.

But Tai let his hand curl around hers and allowed her to lead him because he could see the happiness radiating off her face and thought she looked more pretty smiling now than she had back in Kyoto with sunken angry eyes and a perpetual frown.

Because if he stayed with her finding the computer mainframe would be much easier, Tai corrected himself.

For the headquarters of the Nightmare Soldiers, aside from the ground level, Fuji TV Station seemed rather deserted. They had taken the elevator up to the twelfth floor and now were walking down a hallway with windows on one side that gave a spectacular view of Tokyo Bay. The only sound Tai could hear was the click clack of the wooden geta sandals on Sora's feet echoing on the tiles.

"You uh, never seemed to like wearing… this type of clothing before," Tai commented curiously.

Once before, back in Kyoto, he had given her hat—an actual hat that he had bought with yen. He hadn't even looted a store, though sometimes that was a necessity for food when times were bad. No, he had bought it from one of the street vendors with what little money he had saved up and given it to her because it had been winter and he thought she might want to protect her head from the cold. It had been yellow and white in color, knitted out of yarn and soft to the touch. Sora had always liked hats, he remembered. She used to wear a blue bicycle helmet when they were younger. He thought that hat might make her smile at least once.

She had flung the hat back in his face and screamed something about him making fun of her short hair and how messy it was. And how maybe she liked the way she dressed and people shouldn't try and change that.

"Mama made this for me," Sora said issuing to her light blue yukata with her free hand. "I don't mind wearing them now." For a brief moment her smile faltered. "I must have made her so sad when I didn't wear the clothes she made just for me…"

"Sora," Tai said tentatively.

"It's alright though," Sora brightened up quickly, the smile back in place. "Mama's forgiven me. We're together now, that's all that matters."

"Sora, where's your dad?" Tai finally asked.

Sora continued forward as if she had not heard him although her grip on his hand had tightened considerably. At last stopping at one of the many doors that lined that the hallway, she pushed it open and stepped inside.

Someone had taken the time to transform the space into a one-bedroom. Tatami mats covered the floor and there was a kotatsu tucked away in the corner even though it was the middle of summer. A small portable burner was on top of the coffee table heating up water in a tea kettle. A rice paper screen had been set up along the left wall and an oil painting of Mt. Fuji on a scroll had been hung on it. The room was decorated with dozens and dozens of flower arrangements—it was like walking into a florist shop. Mrs. Takenouchi had owned a florist shop, Tai remembered. He had avoided going there when he was little because the fragrance of the flowers were so overpowering they made him sneeze until his eyes watered and nose dripped.

These flowers in here didn't smell like anything—they had no scent at all. Tai looked closer at an arrangement to his right and realized they were plastic.

"I'm home, Mama," Sora called out, kicking off her sandals.

A tall, slim woman with a mane of dark hair pinned back in bun walked around from the back of the rice paper screen. The material of the purple kimono she wore caught the reflection of the lights overhead and shone. It was real silk then, not a cotton yukata. "Welcome home, Sora," Mrs. Takenouchi said.

"Mama, look, Taichi has come to see us!" Sora gushed excitedly pushing him forward. "You remember Tai, don't you?"

Brown eyes, a darker shade than Sora's met Tai's startled gaze. "Yes, of course, Taichi," Mrs. Takenouchi greeted with a nod of her head. "How very pleased to see you again. Will you be staying long?"

"He'll stay here with us," Sora said making the decision for him. "He's going to live with us now."

Mrs. Takenouchi didn't reprimand her daughter for undermining her authority which Tai found quite strange. Her dark brown eyes pored over him assessing. "He does not have a Dark Ring," she pointed out, her eyebrows furrowing slightly.

"Oh, he'll get one," Sora waved that fact aside. "Phantomon is not here yet and Kotarou was being a brute downstairs." She pulled Tai along to a small storage cabinet. "We keep the futons in here."

"Sora," Mrs. Takenouchi said and now there was the faintest bit of disapproval in her voice. "I do not think it is appropriate for a boy and a girl of the same age to share the same room together."

The smile had slipped off Sora's face. Tai saw the barest signs of a scowl starting to form around her lips.

"You said you were worried before that I didn't have any friends," Sora said turning to her mother, her expression stony. "Well, now I have one and you want to send him away."

"He does not have to be sent away," Mrs. Takenouchi tried to placate her. "You can still see him. But another room would be—"

"I never can do anything right, do I?" Sora burst out. "You don't approve of my clothes, you don't approve of my flower arrangements, you don't approve of my friends! I can't please you no matter how much I change." Turning her face aside, she mumbled sullenly, "Papa said I was fine the way I was. He said I should never try and hide my true self."

"Papa wasn't there when we needed him," Mrs. Takenouchi's sharp tone sliced through the air like a knife. "He had to be punished."

Tiny tremors broke out from the top of Sora's head to her tabi sock-covered feet at the words. Her entire face crumpled inwards as red splotches broke out across her cheeks. She looked as if she was restraining himself from crying.

The sinking feeling in Tai's stomach was growing stronger. He shouldn't be here, he dimly thought. This had nothing to do with his mission. The mission was priority before anything else, even friends like Sora.

He took a step backwards and Mrs. Takenouchi turned her attention to him. Tai wanted to leave, but his body seemed to be frozen in place. A dawning recognition slowly appeared in the woman's face the longer she stared at him. Dark brown eyes bored into his, accusing, condemning… the same as before.

A wave of dizziness hit him briefly. He shook his head and blinked and when he reopened his eyes he noticed the glaring oversight he had missed upon first seeing Sora's mother.

Mrs. Takenouchi was not wearing a Dark Ring.

Tai reacted on reflex. Leaping forward, he snatched one of the chopstick hair pins that held Mrs. Takenouchi's bun in place and yanked it out causing her long black hair to spill forth half-undone over her shoulders.

Then he stabbed it deep into her arm before he lost his nerve.

Sora screamed.

Toshiko Takenouchi didn't even flinch. Nor did she try to pull it free. Like a needle in a pincushion, the hair clip stayed embedded in her skin—her skin that was not releasing a single drop of blood from the wound.

"Sora, hey, Sora, she's not your mom, you know that right? She's not human," Tai babbled.

He had known the minute he had laid eyes on her that she couldn't be real, that she couldn't be standing there in front of him, that it just wasn't possible. But he had dared to hope for a short time that he had been wrong.

"Naughty, naughty," Toshiko chided in a droning voice. "Bad children like you should be punished."

"No, Mama!" Sora cried. All the redness had fled from her face. Now it was pale white in fear, making every one of her freckles stand out. "Tai doesn't understand! Let me explain to him—!"

"I understand—she's not real!" Tai exclaimed backing towards the door. He should just run now. Leave this madness behind him, but that would mean abandoning Sora to this thing, whatever it was.

Surely if Toshiko Takenouchi was a Bakemon in disguise she would have reverted to her true form the moment he stabbed her. So what was she?

"Such a rude boy," Toshiko said frowning with hooded eyes. "No one loves Sora more than me. I only want what's best for her. I am real. I am her mother."

"No, you're not! You're a fake! A cheap imitation! Just like everything else in this room!" Tai shouted flinging his arms out towards the plastic flowers and Sora in her cotton yukata. "If you were really her mother then you'd love her the way she is and not want her to change to please you! If you were really her mother then you'd…"

Dark, brown eyes stared up at him glassy and unseeing. He thought they might haunt his dreams forever.

"You're not real," Tai swallowed thickly. "If you're really Sora's mom then tell me the last thing you said on the night the Hikarigaoka Incident."

He seemed to have struck a nerve. Toshiko's head jerked stiffly, her entire body seizing up. "Hi… ka… ri… ga… o… ka," she murmured and her eyes flickered.

They really did: flickered red from the irises all the way the corners of the whites like she was scanning a barcode.

Then Sora was beside him gripping his arm, her fingernails digging sharply into his skin, as she shrieked in his ear, "Stop it, stop it, Tai! You'll ruin everything!"

Toshiko's front half slumped forward limply as her head tilted sideways. "Error. Error," a monotonous voice drifted out of her mouth. "File inaccessible. Rescanning now."

"NO!" Sora panicked, releasing Tai's arm and rushing to thing that had taken her mother's form. "Overide 46-VT! Shut down all systems!"

"Hi-ka-ri… ga-o-ka. HI-KARI…GA-OK-A," Toshiko repeated over and over in varying degrees of volume like a broken, mechanical doll. "Error. Error."

"Mama, please, shut down all systems!" Sora cried clinging to her frantically.

"Systems corrupt. Do not understand command prompt," Toshiko replied with a robotic air of calmness, her body phasing in and out of focus sporadically like a computer glitch.

"Don't go, Mama, you promised you wouldn't leave me again," Sora pleaded her voice thick with tears as she pressed her face into the front of Toshiko's kimono and wrapped her arms around her.

Toshiko Takenouchi slowly started to vanish from the bottom up as if someone were rubbing an invisible eraser all over her body. The woman's eyes never once stopped flickering red, nor did the blank expression on her face ever. But she still managed to lift one glitching hand to rest upon the girl's head. "… so-RA," came the whispered name that fell from her lips, sounding almost human.

A second later she disappeared completely.

Sora collapsed to her knees on the floor and doubled over with an anguished scream. "Why, WHY?" she cried pulling at her hair. "Why did you kill her?"

The betrayal in her voice stung. "I didn't kill her, Sora," Tai said softly. "She was already dead."

Don't try and be a hero.

Heroics were not always understood and appreciated.

He needed to go. He needed to find the computer mainframe. It hadn't even been a full hour since he had been inside the Fuji TV Station, but it felt like it had been years.

He needed to leave now before—

"Oh my, my, what is all the fuss about?"

Datamon floated past him on the air, extended the cables he had built in for arms and entwined them about Sora in a gentle mockery of a hug.

"Mama… d-died," Sora sobbed shaking all over.

"There, there, my dear girl," Datamon crooned lifting a robotic finger and wiping away the clear liquid that trailed down Sora's cheeks. "No need to fret. It's alright. We'll just build another one."

Sora's sobbing had decreased. "A-another?" she sniffled, staring up at the Digimon with hopeful, red-rimmed eyes.

"Of course. I have her file stored in back up. I always make several copies in case accidents happen." Datamon's eye, the one peering out from behind the wrecked metal surrounding it, swerved to zoom in on Tai.

There was no point in making a break for it now. Tai saw the Gazimon blocking the doorway behind him in his peripheral vision. It was too late. His presence had been noticed. There would be no second chance for him. Izzy would be angry. Oikawa would be furious.

"I really must thank, my boy," Datamon said, his small body quivering with a faint, electrical humming which was probably as close to excitement as an android could express. "That was a spectacular show. It's always satisfying to see one of your creations reach their limits. It's only then you can restart the experiment again only this time with less flaws. That's the problem with you humans—so many flaws. Still, it was quite a feat that this one's mother's copy lasted so long," the android said patting the top of Sora's head fondly as if she were a pet, a human pet.

"Datamon saved Mama, Tai," Sora explained standing to her feet. Gone was the wretched, grief-struck expression a few minutes before off her face. That familiar deluded smile was back once more. "You told me back in Kyoto that she had died but you were wrong. She was still alive when Datamon found her. He saved her."

"I merely downloaded her programming so to speak. Her physical body was damaged beyond repair. Ah, she was the first human copy I ever made!" Datamon seemed quite proud—like a scientist over his experiment. "Obedient and loyal to our cause. Never questioned her creator's orders before. So you can see how I was more than intrigued when she 'remembered' her daughter on sight on day. Human memories transferring digitally! I never considered the possibility before. It's never happened with any of my other copies. Isn't that fascinating when you think about it?"

"Is that what you do?" Tai asked. Chills began trickling down his spine. He had to clutch his arms to try and subside the shaking.

Because it wasn't the mist then that was causing all those humans who had been captured to act oddly and be in perfect agreement that: "the Nightmare Soldiers are friends not foe, they only wish the best for us. They mean to cleanse humanity of all corruption."

The humans who were released back into society weren't even humans. He didn't dare think about what happened to the originals.

The world was being slowly invaded and it wasn't just by these digital monsters.

We're being replaced, Tai thought numbly. We're being erased.

"I correct the imperfectness all you humans possess," Datamon said. "You build such delectable technology, you have such brilliant scientific knowledge, and yet your advancement is forever thwarted by prejudices and emotions. You get distracted so easily from your goal over such petty things. Your minds are capable of so much more, but your thoughts—they're a whirling vortex of chaos. How do you live each day ruled by such disorder?" the android sounded off several piteous beeps. "I am giving the human race the chance they deserve. I will fix every flaw in their design. I will cure their imperfectness and the world will reap the benefits of human minds working in collective unison."

"You want us to build more technology so you can harness more power, you mean," Tai said.

Datamon's good eye, glowing yellow in color, blinked red for a second. "I see several flaws in your design that need reprogramming, human. Consider yourself fortunate the Lightless One has already set claim to you."

"The who?" Tai asked confused, but the Gazimon had already grabbed him by the arms.

"Oh, one moment," Datamon called, stretching out one his cable arms and ripping open the lining of Tai's jacket to pull out a CD in its protective case that had been sewn inside. "You won't be needing this anymore," the android clucked snapping the CD—case and all, with the virus set to demolish the fire wall—in little pieces. "Really, how lax is security getting around here when they don't even search people properly. Oh by the way," he proclaimed as mockingly as an android could mimic a human tone, "you weren't even close to finding the mainframe."

The Gazimon had dragged him away with the bitter taste of defeat on his tongue and humiliation for getting caught so easily, for letting childhood nostalgia hinder his judgment.

They had thrown him in an empty room that had no door. Only a sizzling electrical current that shocked him if he touched it. This must be one of Datamon's special touches he had added to the Fuji TV Station when he built it.

Footsteps approached. They sounded soft and light. Someone small. In a far corner of Tai's heart he hoped it was Sora but he wasn't sure what he would say if it was her.

He wouldn't apologize. He wasn't sorry for what he had done. He was only sorry he had screwed up the mission in doing so.

The person came into view at last and stopped in front of him.

It was a girl.

It wasn't Sora.

"Hello, brother."

oOo

Hikarigaoka. Tokyo, Japan. 1995.

He was only seven but he knew that an egg melting out of your computer was not normal. He had played enough video games to know that any creature who kept growing bigger and bigger at an alarmingly fast pace was bound to cause trouble. He should have grabbed his sister and ran, ran far away. But he had thought it was sort of cool, that he might be kind of special because it had come to him: this giant pink-talking head. And it had been sort of cute bouncing up and down on its floppy ears chanting "Tai-Tai" and "Kari-Kari". Miko didn't talk at all. The cat was an absolute bully who loved to scratch him.

It had been fun for a little bit, playing with this strange creature who called itself Koromon and who could shoot pink bubbles out of his mouth. Sure, there was a weird electrical surge throughout the apartment every now and then—Tai had enjoyed watching the miniature lightning storm inside the microwave—but he didn't think anything of it really.

Nothing went really wrong until Koromon grew again—this time into a giant orange lizard and broke the bunk bed he and his sister shared.

"Oh no, what am I going to do?" Tai howled as he clutched the sides of his head and stared at the mess. "I can't explain this! Mom's going to blame me, she always does! 'You're the oldest, Taichi!', 'Be a good example for your sister, Taichi!' It's not fair! It's not my fault my sister decided a giant marshmallow would make a good pet!"

The door handle to their room rattled. It was a good thing Tai had locked it earlier.

"Tai, Kari, what's going in there?" Yuuko Kamiya's voice floated through the door.

Kari giggled as she crawled up on Koromon's back. He was standing in front of the open sliding door and looking out at the sprawling lights of the city at night. "Piggyback?" Kari urged in that sweet, little voice she used for wrapping anyone, but especially their dad, around her pinky finger.

"Oh no, you don't!" Tai snarled rushing forward. Leaping on Koromon's back behind her was easy. Attempting to pry her off was harder than he thought. "I am not getting grounded for this! Not alone! You're going to take responsibility for once!"

That was when Koromon decided to jump over the terrace.

Bits of plaster and siding exploded from the wall as the giant lizard was too big to fit through the balcony door. Wind whipped through Tai's clothes and hair as he hung on for dear life as the three of them fell through open space and a terrified scream ripped from his throat as he saw how swiftly the ground was approaching.

Kari was laughing like it was one big game. Koromon had spread his limbs wide in the free fall—he looked like some mad parody of a skydiver. But they had no parachute to land, just the giant lizard's body and Tai hoped he was strong enough to survive. The sharp impact of when Koromon hit the ground—or more specifically a parked car, crushing it under his heavy weight—sent a harsh jolt through every part of his body. Even his teeth were rattling at the shock.

Ok, let's never do that again, Tai thought his mind still spinning.

"Let's play horsey," Kari said happily as if falling out of seven-story high windows was an everyday occurrence for her.

Koromon took off down the sidewalk in a steady jog at her words and Tai shook himself alert. "No. No, horsey! Bad lizard!" he scolded, swatting the orange dinosaur on the head.

Koromon halted in place. One wide green eye rolled back to view the passengers he was carrying as if just noticing their presence.

Tai gulped at ferocity he could see shining within it. "I mean, it's just… breaking things is bad," he said nervously. "And so is jumping from high places!" he added a little bolder.

Koromon rumbled low in his throat. Tai wasn't sure if he was agreeing or disagreeing. Maybe he hadn't understood at all because in the next few seconds, the giant lizard had stuck his claw through a vending machine and pulled free an avalanche of soda cans.

"What did I just say about breaking things?" Tai cried in frustration as Koromon tossed the now wrecked vending machine aside.

Kari had hopped off Koromon's back was grabbing up as many soda cans she could fit into her chubby arms. She kept dropping them every time she tried to pick up three. "One for each of us," she hummed in a sing-song voice.

"Kari, wait, you can't drink that! We didn't pay for it," Tai said trying to scramble off the orange dinosaur's back. He slipped like he always did when climbing down the ladder of his bunk bed and fell hard on his butt. "Owww," he moaned.

Kari offered him a melon soda in solace.

"Fine, whatever," Tai grumbled sourly snatching up the can. "See what you did? You made us crooks!" he glared at Koromon who was staring down at the tiny humans in front of him with his head cocked to one side like an overgrown, hairless orange dog.

Tai wondered what his mom thought of the gaping hole in the wall of her children's bedroom. Maybe she thought they had gotten abducted by aliens. Well, that was sort of true.

"A… A… Ahhhh," a deep growl emitted from Koromon's jaws.

Tai stopped fighting with the can trying to get the tab to open to look at him in surprise.

"Ahhhh… Ahhhgggghhuuu," Koromon tried again.

"You trying to say something, big guy? Come on, you can do it!" Tai encouraged.

"Ahhhhggghhuuu… moooonnn," Koromon finally got out.

"Agumon?" Tai echoed. "Is that who you are now? Ok, then. Agumon!"

"A-gu-mon," the orange lizard sounded out his new name. The skin around his eyes crinkled up slightly. He seemed to be quite pleased with himself.

"Hello, Agumon," Tai said. "You probably already know this, but just in case you forgot I'm Tai-Tai and that's Kari-Kari," he pointed to himself and then his sister who was sitting on the sidewalk sipping her grape soda.

Of course she had gotten her soda can open before him. Stupid tab, Tai thought as he tore back the tab viciously.

A geyser of fizzy melon soda spewed high into the air and sprayed directly into Agumon's eyes and nostrils.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!" Agumon threw his head back and roared in pain at the burning sensation.

"Imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryohimsorryyyyy!" Tai wailed throwing himself over his sister as a shield and pressing them both flat to the ground.

The back of the giant lizard's throat seemed to be glowing with an orange light. A ball of red-hot flames exploded from his jaws and shot forth slamming into a phone booth, narrowly missing a van that was driving on the road. The phone booth ignited in a raging blaze of smoke and fire.

Beneath him Kari whimpered. Tai lifted his head to dare a peek. Agumon was shaking his head back and forth in an aggravated manner growling piteously. Tiny beads of moisture had leaked out of the corners of the dinosaur's green eyes. Nostrils flared wide as he snorted trying to get rid of the tickling liquid that had gotten trapped inside.

"Hey, hey, big guy…" Tai said quietly reaching out a hand to touch one of the giant lizard's clawed feet. He froze when Agumon's feral gaze landed on him. "I can help… let me help. It won't hurt anymore, I promise."

Please understand, please don't eat me, he thought, his heart raced wildly every second the giant lizard stared down him as if contemplating whether he would make a tasty snack or not.

A large reptilian snout bent down and Tai shut his eyes quickly when he saw the flash of teeth near his head level. Something snuffled his hair. "Tai-Tai," Agumon rumbled and Tai breathed a sigh of relief.

Two minutes later he was holding the button down to a water-fountain which Agumon had bent his head over at Tai's instance. The orange dinosaur let out a growl of pleasure as the cool water washed over his face, sweeping away the burn from his eyes and nostrils.

"Let's go home now, ok?" Tai said feeling exhausted. He wanted to go to sleep. Oh that's right, his bed was broken. Maybe Mom would let them sleep on the couch for tonight. He wondered how he was going to explain Agumon to her. Hey, Mom, look what followed us home! Can we keep him?

"Cake!" Kari chirped patting Agumon's side and pointing at a closed store where several sweet confectionary displays could be seen in the window.

"Mmmmm," the giant lizard perked up his head interestedly.

"No! No cake!" Tai cried rushing around the water-fountain and tugging on the dinosaur's short tail with both hands. "You eat any more and you'll grow as big as Godzilla! We're going home!"

Agumon went stiff in place, the blacks of his pupils narrowing to slits as he raised his head and looked up towards something in the sky. The blinking red navigation lights on tail of the airplane as it descended lower stood out visibly in the night sky. A dangerous snarling began spilling out of the dinosaur's jaws.

"Stop, it's just a plane!" Tai cried catching sight of the familiar orange glow at the back of Agumon's throat. "Breaking things is bad, remember?"

All around them the electrical devices started going out of control. The dial on the parking meter swung back and forth in a blur, symbols and letters that didn't make sense began flashing on the sidewalk crossing sign, and the channel showing the on the tv screen above the cake shop turned into static.

The airplane lights faded in the distance as it flew further away, but Agumon was not looking at it. He had never been looking at it Tai realized.

The night sky above lit up with shimmering red numbers: line after line of zeros and ones like the ones on the computer screen when the egg that had hatched Koromon had melted through. A massive oval shape began to merge from them. Tai's breath caught in his throat. Another monster egg—and whatever was in this one was going to be way larger than Agumon.

The colossal egg split in half and the form of a giant bird dropped from it. It hung poised in the sky for a second. Just one second. Then a streak of red lightning struck down from somewhere further beyond. The bird was disintegrated in its wake and the two halves of the egg shattered into thousands of pearl and teal pieces.

The sky was ripped in half like someone had peeled the paper wrapper off a crayon. Mountains, forests and a river could be seen—there seemed to be another world upside down peering through the gap. Shrill, inhuman screeches and a multitude of whirring wing-beats split the air as a swarm of bats burst through the gateway that had been torn between worlds.

They were everywhere—the air was full of them so thick that Tai thought he might accidentally swallow one if he opened his mouth too wide. He threw his arms over his face to avoid this and tried to ward off dozens of the tiny black bodies that filled his line of vision. His ears were ringing with their high-pitched squeaks and his head felt heavy like some invisible weight was pushing down on it.

He heard Agumon round off several blasts of those fireballs of his and the bats tactfully retreated from the vicinity around them. When Tai dared to lower his arms and peek, he was greeted with the fleeting sight of the giant lizard's short stump of a tail as he disappeared around a corner chasing after the winged creatures—with his sister riding on his back.

"Why me? Why?" Tai moaned racing after them. "Come back!"

He was one of the fastest runners on his soccer team, but he was no match for a dinosaur's speed. His sister and Agumon stayed yards ahead of him. Agumon had pursued the bat-swarm to the overpass that ran alongside the Hikarigaoka apartment complex. The giant lizard was infuriated he couldn't reach his quarry. Snapping open his jaws, he belted loose three more blasts of fire at them. The bat-swarm thinned out, letting the fireballs pass them harmlessly.

The blasts of fire smashed into the side of the apartment complex instead.

Tai skidded to a halt, his chest constricting tightly as he stared in horror. Smoke was pouring out of the blast-holes. Every now and then sparks of the flames burning within would shoot up like fireworks. The edges of the blast-holes from where the molten fire had ripped through glowed red and painful like an open wound.

His mom was in that building, his dad too. There were people in there. "No," Tai whispered numbly.

Agumon was shooting fireballs up into the sky again. The bat-swarm was gathering near the peeled patch of sky that showed the upside down world. A new form was emerging, human-like in figure. A blue outfit and a sweeping red cape became visible when the person had descended low enough.

Superman? Tai thought with a faint hope. He had learned today that monsters truly existed, why not superheroes too?

Red smeared vividly across his vision as the humanoid figure unfurled a whip of pulsing energy and sent it cracking down in a streak of crimson lightning.

It sliced violently into the overpass where Agumon was standing directly underneath. Concrete and metal heaved a loud protesting groan as if alive and then the overpass crumbled in on itself in a cloud of stone and smoke. The shock wave from its collapse sent sharp tremors throughout the ground like a miniature earthquake.

Tai was running now, running without thinking straight into the cloud of debris that filled the air, screaming Kari's name with a wild desperation. Soot soon covered his skin and he may have torn his pajamas tripping over wreckage but he didn't care. The air was thick with the fine particles of debris that soon clogged his throat. His lungs were aching and his eyes were watering whether out fear or the suffocating debris he didn't know. He kept going forward blindly, his heart pounding frantically in his chest every second that went by with no one answering to his calls.

Then he heard it: the faint blow of a whistle.

"Kari!" he cried trying to locate where the sound was coming from.

The whistle kept blowing in a tired, relentless manner—not very loud and for not very long. There were long pauses between every brief whistle as if someone were struggling for breath.

Eventually though, he managed to find the source.

Agumon was buried halfway under several broken slabs of concrete. The giant lizard's eyes were shut and he was abnormally still. His head lay turned sideways and tucked to his chest, his front fore-claws curled in a protective position around something.

The round ear-tips of his sister's fuzzy pink koala pajamas peeked out slightly from between Agumon's still claws.

Tai crawled over the rubble ignoring the scrapes and burns he received on his hands and feet. "K-Kari," he choked out pulling his sister free from beneath the giant lizard's prone form.

Kari didn't appear to be hurt. She seemed more concerned about Agumon than herself by the manner in which she squirmed trying to escape his grasp. She kept holding her tiny arms out towards Agumon and feebly blowing on the whistle dangling from her mouth as if urging him to wake up.

"Kari, let's go," Tai gasped trying to drag her away. "Come on, hurry."

The debris cloud was starting to settle. The night sky had become partly-visible again and the upside down world was still there. Flashes of red passed by overhead followed by what sounded like explosion after explosion. If he focused hard enough, Tai thought he could make out faint panicked screams in the distance, but the bat screeches that rang out in a jubilant, eerie choir soon drowned those out.

Tears burned in his eyes. He wanted to go home. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up and for all this to be just a nightmare. He wanted his dad to scold him for being out so late and he wanted to eat his mom's burned liver sticks. He wanted grown-ups to show up in their black suits and special gadgets like they did on tv shows and movies and deal with these monsters. And they would take care of the problem and make it go away because that's what grown-ups did.

Kari started to cough, the whistle slipping out of her mouth. "Koro… mon, Ko… romon," she sobbed.

New sounds had joined the bat screeches: hisses, roars, and even a noise that sounded like an elephant's trumpet. There were other figures dropping out of the sky now—other monsters too numerous to count. The streets would soon be overrun with them.

Tai held his sister to his chest tightly as he started to shake uncontrollably with fear. They were going to die here, he knew it.

Kari kept stubbornly blowing on her whistle, choking on her own spit as she struggled to find strength in her lungs.

That stupid whistle she always blew every morning to wake him up so he never could sleep late not even on Saturdays.

Agumon had protected them from those bats before. He had protected Kari from the overpass's collapse. He would protect them again if he could… wouldn't he?

Tai didn't want to die.

Tai snatched the whistle from his sister and put it to his own mouth. He took the deepest breath he could and he blew hard. He blew until his lungs were empty and he was dizzy with the lack of oxygen.

He finally stopped, panting heavily as he gulped in breaths of the grimy air and watching Agumon for a sign, any sign that the whistle had worked.

That was when the white light exploded all around him obscuring all his senses.

It was blindingly bright.

He couldn't see. The breath in his lungs was trapped. His body felt paralyzed as if it were rooted to the ground. Every hair on his head stood on end as the air hummed thickly with a powerful energy… and something… something felt like it was being sucked from inside him and transferred someplace else.

Gradually the brightness dimmed enough for him to see where it was coming from. It was Kari. His sister was glowing like the top of the star on their family Christmas tree. What?

There was an earsplitting roar as an enormous T-Rex with orange skin and blue stripes rose up from where Agumon had lain to tower over the two humans in a protective stance.

Tai could only stare at this monstrous creature that had once been a talking pink head who answered to Koromon and gape half in awe and half in terror at the saliva dripping from sharp glistening teeth and falling to the ground in sizzling pools that melted granite.

The dinosaur swung his head—adorned with a horned helmet—towards the pair of humans who had taken care of him since they moment he had hatched out of his egg. Then he turned feral, red eyes shining crazily with a thirsty blood-lust skyward towards the humanoid figure which the bats swarmed about. Those fearsome jaws snapped open and belted out a stream of blistering flames so hot they were white-blue in color.

The flames disintegrated any bats that got caught in its path and enveloped the figure in a raging inferno. For one brief moment Tai thought they might just walk out of this alright.

Crimson lightning whipped out from the depths of the brilliant white flames and the T-Rex was flung backwards down the length of the highway that ran alongside the apartment complex.

Mocking laughter pealed out madly over the wrecked and rubble-strewn streets. A mane of golden hair framed around snow-white skin could be seen as the humanoid figure floated down to where the two small children squatted in to the ruins of the overpass.

His magnificent red cape had been burned clean away. That seemed to be the only ill effect that Agumon's new form had wrought on him.

"Such a surge of untapped power! You caught me off guard, I confess. Wherever did it originate from, I wonder?"

Blue eyes glittered with amused malice down upon them.

Kari was still glowing, oh god, she was still glowing.

Tai's breath caught in his throat as those blue eyes, cold as ice, gleamed greedily as they drank in the sight of his sister and narrowed in disdain as they zoomed in on him.

"Human worm, you are… insufficient!"

Gloved fingers snapped, sending out the unspoken order.

The bats swooped in and swarmed over the two children. Tai felt the beating of their wings against his skin, felt the stinging pricks of their bites all over his body—it hurt, he wanted them to leave him alone and he was so frightened. He curled up into a ball and covered his head with his arms to make less of a target of himself. It was a decision he regretted making for years.

Just as swiftly as they had descended upon him, the bats were gone. And so was Kari.

The shrill of a whistle split the air. Tai peeked from between the spaces of his arms and saw his sister being carried away by them. He uncurled himself and stood shakily to his feet, staring helplessly after her. But what could he do? Right then he felt every inch of the powerless, useless seven-year old he was.

The enraged roar of a dinosaur reverberated off the sides of the buildings. Agumon, in his giant T-Rex form, was charging down the highway straight towards the figure that controlled the bats. His jaws were open wide, blue flames protruding forth from the back of his throat as he readied to fire another blast at the enemy.

Ruby-red lips twisted upwards in a cruel smile revealing glistening, pointed fangs.

"Nightmare claw," the figure, the vampire spoke calmly holding one hand out palm upward.

Something black shot out. Something too fast to see. It hit Agumon—passed right through him like a black fog—and the T-Rex froze in place as if paralyzed. A creeping darkness started spreading across his body—until the orange skin and blue stripes had all transformed into a shade as black as night.

Crimson lightning sliced downward. Agumon shattered into a thousand pieces, into tiny black specs that resembled ash swirling up from a fire.

It was as if someone had pressed the mute button; the shrill of bat screeches and the distant screams of people in apartment complex were abruptly cut off. Tai could see it in his mind, deep within his center: the hideous gaping space left behind where three cords had once been entwined. Only two remained, frayed and taunt, and he watched as thin hairline fractures cracked down the sides of both perilously.

The sudden onslaught of pain slammed into him with furious, accusing conviction—blinding, agonizing pain that flared from within his chest and like a spark of fire devouring dry earth, the flames consumed him.

Someone was screaming, screaming like they were being ripped in half and Tai vaguely was aware that he was the one responsible for the sound spilling from his mouth, but he couldn't stop.

He may have blacked out. One second he was doubled over in excruciating pain, the next he found himself coming to as he lay on the ground. He sat up slowly feeling disoriented. The sight of the scorched Hikarigaoka apartment complex was the first thing to greet him. Its walls were crumbled inwards and the skeletal frame was still smoldering thickly with fire and smoke. What was even scarier though was the silence.

No bat screeches, no monster roars, no people screaming. Nothing.

Tai forced himself to crawl on his hands and knees towards the sidewalk even though his limbs felt heavy and numb. He tried not to think too much and focus on one thing.

119. He needed to call 119. There had been an accident. This was an emergency. His teacher and parents had always drilled into his head to call 119 if he found himself in trouble. He needed to get to a phone booth.

Agumon had destroyed a phone booth.

That single stray thought was enough to sap what little energy remained in him. Violent tremors wracked through his body as he collapsed halfway over the sidewalk, involuntary sobs squeezing their way out of his throat.

His left hand landed in something wet.

Blearily, he lifted his head, wondering if the fire hydrant on the corner had been busted. The night was dark but the glow from the fires behind him cast enough light to see: a puddle of red liquid pooled around the palm of his hand just as the thick coppery scent of it invaded his nose.

A person lay trapped under twisted metal and concrete, their grocery bags scattered around them.

Familiar dark, brown eyes reflecting agony in their depths met his. "Taichi," Mrs. Takenouchi whispered and even though she must have been in great pain, she still forced a smile on her lips.

Tai scrambled upright, a wounded cry escaping his mouth. He reached the woman's side, his hands clawing frantically at the stone slabs that pinned her in place as he tried to dislodge them.

Mrs. Takenouchi's hand closed around his wrist. "Don't," she murmured, her lungs rattling with every strained breath she took.

Tai sat back on his heels and dropped his head against his knees. "I'm sorry, 'm sorry, 'm sorry, 'm sorry," he chanted. A wave of nausea washed over him and fought down the urge to throw up.

Fingers petted the back of his wrist gently. "It wasn't your fault," Mrs. Takenouchi tried to comfort him. Like a mother to her child. Like he was more hurt than she was.

But it was.

It was his fault all this had happened.

"Go," Mrs. Takenouchi whispered. "They might come back. There might be more of them."

Tai shook his head. He couldn't just leave her here all alone. He couldn't abandon her so easily like he had with Kari.

"Go," Mrs. Takenouchi urged. "Go phone for help. I'll wait here."

She was trying to not make him worry about her. He was young but he wasn't stupid. He knew what death was. His family had attended his grandfather's funeral a month ago. He didn't have many memories of the man except a kind, smiling face wreathed in wrinkles and the goggles that he had given to him. He knew death meant going away and never coming back. Like Agumon…

A broken sob slipped free from his throat.

"Taichi," the grip on his wrist suddenly tightened. "Tell Sora… I know she didn't mean it… tell her… I am very proud… to have her for my daughter," Mrs. Takenouchi gasped, coughing slightly. The woman's eyes flew open wide at something in the sky.

Tai followed her gaze. The portal was still there, still open, and new forms were dropping through. And he wanted to run, oh, he wanted to run away so badly.

"Go," Mrs. Takenouchi breathed out once more and her fingers uncurled from around his wrist limply.

Dark, brown eyes stared up at him glassy and unseeing. He thought they might haunt his dreams forever.

oOo

Odaiba. Tokyo, Japan. 1999

It had been four years since he had last seen his sister, but he liked to think that he would have still recognized her even if she hadn't addressed him so familiarly.

He wasn't so sure though. In his memories, Kari was always laughing, always smiling, her brown eyes lighting up excitedly when something sparked her interest. The girl that stood in front of him now bore no resemblance whatsoever.

She was dressed in a white yukata robe which was many sizes too large for her. The sleeves had been rolled back several times and the bottom pinned so that it wouldn't drag on the floor. The belt had been tied around her waist twice. She looked tiny and fragile in it and the pale of her complexion made her appear wraith-like. Brown hair fell to her shoulders in long knotted tangles. It shone under the ceiling's lights—it had been washed recently but not brushed. Dark shadows ringed her dull, brown eyes that peered out from between strands of her bangs. A solemn expression rested on her face as she stared at the boy before her, the boy she had just called brother.

If this was a long lost family reunion she didn't particularly look pleased to see him.

"Kari," Tai breathed out, his voice breaking slightly. "Kari…"

Kari said nothing, the stoic mask on her face never wavering. She merely crossed her arms inside the sleeves of her robe and stood in place as if waiting for something to happen.

The electrical current of the force field in front of the door shut off a second later.

"Come," Kari said to him and began walking away. Only one word was spoken and it sounded dry and raspy as if her vocal cords hadn't been used in a long time.

Tai scrambled to his feet not knowing what else to do but follow her. The hallways they went down were deserted. The silence was so loud he could hear the blood marching in his ears.

Four years. Four years of not knowing where she was or if she was even alive and his sister wouldn't even spare him a second glance. Tai stared down at the small of her back and wondered if she was real at all. He couldn't see any black shadows under the white material of the robe. No Dark Ring then. Unless…

A pink scarf was tied around her neck. The tail ends of it poked out from the robe's collar, betraying its hiding place. The scarf might have been a more colorful pink once, but up close it looked frayed and faded, as if all the brightness had been sucked out of it—like his sister.

Tai reached out one hand and pulled the scarf free.

And immediately wished he hadn't.

Bite marks decorated the pale flesh of her throat like an obscene necklace. There was bruising ringed around them in a variety of hues: the sickly yellow-purple ones signifying they had been made earlier than the rest down to the angry swollen red of the fresher ones.

Kari turned around, the oversized robe falling off one of her slim bony shoulders and exposing silvery traces of scars trailing down the skin of her collarbone and arm, like something had dug its claws into her.

Tai collapsed to his knees and shut his eyes tightly not wanting to see anymore. An appalled, nauseating feeling swept over him and he dry-heaved, but there was nothing in his stomach to empty. A cool sweat had broken out across his body. He found himself unable to do anything except hunch over on the floor and shiver. Those hideous images he had just seen branded themselves into his mind with brutal accusing force.

He felt the scarf slipping out of his hand and he opened his eyes to find Kari re-tying it about her neck calmly, her robe having been fixed back in place.

"Kari," Tai said his voice barely above a whisper. There was a lump at the back of his throat and moisture prickling at the corners of his eyes. "Kari, please… tell me you hate me, tell me I disgust you, tell me that you never want to see me again, just please talk to me!"

Deadened brown eyes turned their gaze on him. "I forgive you for being too scared to come after me right away, brother," Kari said, her expression as blank and unreadable as a porcelain doll. "I cannot forgive you for never trying to find me and leaving me with him."

Her words bore down upon him in a crushing weight of guilt. There was absolutely nothing he could say to that, no explanation he could offer. He did not deserve her forgiveness.

There was a rush of air and flapping of wings overhead.

"Hey, hey, what's the hold up here?" barked out a high-pitched, nasally voice. A bat the size of a bowling ball had appeared over Kari's shoulder. "Twilight's fading fast. You better be there when night falls. His Unholy Lightless-ness don't like to be kept waiting!"

"We were just going," Kari said tonelessly.

"Yeah, well, it's the skin off your back not mine!" the bat cried before his beady golden eyes landed on Tai. "Hey, off the floor, kid! We just had it waxed. You can grovel plenty later when you're before His Supreme Evilness! Move it, move it!" Huge red talons flexed in warning.

Tai got up wordlessly and fell in step behind his sister as she lead them through a set of twin doors and up a winding staircase. He felt the burning stare of the bat on the back of his neck as the creature kept guard in case he might make a run for it. He needn't have bothered. All thoughts of escape had fled from Tai's mind. He would take any punishment the fate or gods had in store for him. That he had been allowed freedom these four years while his sister had suffered…

They reached the top of the staircase where their final destination was revealed: the observation deck of Fuji TV Station. They were inside the giant silver sphere that sat in its position on top of the building. Floor to ceiling length windows ran along the sphere's rounded walls showing the dark blue of the nighttime sky outside and letting moonlight stream through the glass.

But not even the moonlight could pierce the pitch blackness that enveloped the very center of the room. The shadows lay thick and suffocating and somehow Tai got the impression they were alive and watching, just waiting for the opportunity to drag him into their murky depths.

There was a low breathy exhale, like the last breath of someone dying, and the darkness withdrew to reveal an ebony coffin framed in gold lying in its wake. The lid creaked ominously as it opened and slid back to allow the monster from Tai's nightmares to emerge.

The vampire sat upright in his coffin, locks of golden hair falling in front of his face as he leaned forward, his shoulders hunching with tension. Lifting one hand he rested his forehead against his knuckles in an agitated, weary manner.

"I thought I told you not to bother me with boorish reports before mealtimes or did I damage your hearing last time you invoked my wrath, DemiDevimon, you witless subordinate!" the vampire snapped out, his voice taut and penetrating.

"But, boss!" the bat, DemiDevimon, exclaimed doing several nervous loop-de-loops in the air. "We got us a gen-u-ine infiltrator here!" Claws prodded at Tai's back pushing him forward. "Got all the way to twelfth floor and destroyed one of Datamon's copies, his prototype to be exact! He was all set to upload one of those human-made viruses and crash the firewall too! Come on, that kind of news isn't exactly boring!"

"Oh?"

Tai tried not to shiver as the vampire's heavy gaze fell upon him.

White fangs flashed in the darkness as the vampire grinned predatorily. There was a rustle of fabric as his red and black cape unwrapped from around him as the vampire rose in the air and floated over in a languid manner to where Tai stood trying to quell the frantic beating of his heart and knowing it was useless.

"Are there actually humans still out there with enough backbone to challenge us?" the vampire laughed throatily. "Yet they send children to do their duty work for them knowing they do not stand a chance." Cold blue eyes narrowed from behind the red half-mask he wore over his face. "You are nothing more than one insect that crawled out of the overturned ant farm they dumped our doorstep," the vampire said. "Easily squashed, easily replaced, just a minor nuisance your elders hoped would distract us."

Tai said nothing in protest because it was something he had often wondered himself: had Oikawa actually believed it was possible to successfully take down Fuji TV Station from the inside on the first attempt? Was he just a test subject set up to fail so the next attempt could be improved? Had he been groomed to be Oikawa's prototype all these years like Mrs. Takenouchi had been Datamon's?

"So what're you plannin' to do with him, boss, huh?" DemiDevimon crowed gleefully. "Hey, you know what be good? We could line him up against the wall and I could use him for target practice with my Demi Darts! I mean sure he'd die if one of them touches him, but you're gonna kill him anyway, right? And I'm a lousy at hitting my mark so we'd have some entertainment for awhile at least. C'mon, please, it'll be fun!"

"Enough," the vampire spoke sharply as his feet touched the floor. His pasty complexion looked even paler if that was possible. "Your incessant jabbering gives me a headache. I need to feed." He stretched out one arm towards Kari and beckoned her with a black-gloved finger.

Kari walked up to the monster obediently, her hands untying her scarf and sweeping her hair out of the way as she tilted her neck to the side for have better access like it was a commonplace ritual she partook of everyday.

A ball of anger ignited in Tai's chest.

"NO!" he shouted launching himself at the vampire's turned back. Clenching a fistful of the creature's cape, he balled his hand into a fist and struck.

Or tried to. Before he could land a blow, he found himself flying backwards by an unseen force. His hold on the cape was ripped away and he fell hard to the floor. His body had barely made contact when he was lifted up into the air and jerked forward like a puppet on strings. A clawed hand curled around his neck in a bruising grip. Tai felt the sharp pin-pricks of fingernails against his skin.

"Such impudence," the vampire said, the corners of his lips turning upwards into a sneer and revealing the tips of his fangs. "You wish to die that badly? Your death will not be a merciful one."

"Yeah, you show him, boss!" DemiDevimon cried flapping over his master's shoulder. "How dare you try and strike Lord Myotismon, brat! You puny humans have no respect for eternal evil! Any last words?"

"Leave… her… alone," Tai croaked out, his vision starting to darken from lack of air.

"Hmmm…" the hand at his throat loosened its crushing grasp. The vampire brought his face closer to his and Tai found himself drowning in a calculating, chilly blue eyed gaze. "You… I remember you."

The clawed hand released him and he was dumped unceremoniously on the floor gasping for breath.

"All you humans have the same face, but the eyes… I never forget the eyes. Yours screams out of someone who wishes he was braver than he is. Four years ago… you were there when the gateway first opened. One of the little human spawns with the pet Greymon," Myotismon's eyes darted back and forth between Tai and Kari before throwing his head back and laughing darkly. "I have the complete set now!"

Then just as quickly as the laughter had started, it stopped.

"Boss?" DemiDevimon asked.

The amusement had drifted off Myotismon's face. His red lips were pressed thinly together and a frown line had appeared on his brow. He seemed to be deep in thought. "Half a pair," he murmured.

For the first time since he had laid eyes on her, Kari's blank mask splintered as she visibly flinched. The hand clutching her scarf turned white as it started to shake and she tucked it behind her back swiftly.

Myotismon flung his arms out wide and the two humans were pulled towards him as if by an invisible magnet. Black-gloved hands seized one shoulder each on both of them. "Take a deep breath," he warned them.

The floor beneath them turned into a giant ring of shadows. Tai stifled a cry of alarm as their feet started to sink through the swirling dark mass.

"Boss, whadya doin'? Where're ya going?" DemiDevimon squawked out.

"I'm going to run some tests and see if my new playthings are in perfect working order," Myotismon chuckled malevolently.

They continued to sink into what looked like black oblivion until the shadows swallowed them whole. Tai could see nothing, hear nothing. It was like being trapped inside an empty void. Then before he even had time to panic or cry out, the darkness released him.

Tai blinked at his surroundings: grey stone walls and iron bars. It looked as if they were standing in a dungeon in front of a holding cell. They had just been standing in the observatory deck of Fuji TV Station a few seconds ago. Were they still there? Was this at the bottom of the building? If Datamon could add his little touches here and there then why not Myotismon too?

"Whoa, boss, why didn't you tell me about this place before?" It seemed as if DemiDevimon had latched his talons onto the high collar of the vampire's cape and hitched a ride. "So what is this? Some kind of private torture chamber? I can understand why you would need one. Humans make such a mess when you poke them too hard. And Gazimon are lazy schmucks at cleaning up!"

Run some tests, Myotismon had said. Tai felt sick.

"Silence," Myotismon ordered and the bat snapped his mouth shut right away. Ushering the children closer to the bars, the vampire called out quite charmingly, "Look, aren't I a gracious host? I've brought you some company. Would you like to say hello?"

The shadows within the cell retreated at an unspoken command revealing their captive. It was a lion, humanoid in figure with brown fur and a golden mane. He sat cross legged against the wall with his muscular arms folded across his chest and his eyes closed. A myriad of battle scars stood out all over his body. Even with his wrists and ankles bound in heavy chains, he gave off the air of a seasoned warrior. He was a magnificent sight and Tai couldn't help the gasp of awe that fell from his mouth.

The lion opened his eyes at the sound. Blue eyes narrowed as he took in the sight of the two small humans at the vampire's side. "There is no need to threaten innocent children to get to me, Myotismon," the lion said. "I told you all that I know. I am of no further use to you. You can dispose of me anytime."

"If you think for one moment I believe any of the lies you have spouted to protect those human factions you've leant assistance to, you are mistaken," Myotismon said.

Tai started at that. Digimon aiding humans? That was unheard of. But then… the lion didn't look at all like any Virus Type he had ever seen. Dimly, he recalled the conversation between Oikawa and Sora's father about the three different types of monsters. Could this lion possibly be a Vaccine Type that had avoided destruction? He did look strong enough to ward off any attackers. But still, helping humans… was that another reason the Virus Types tried to delete any Vaccine Types that merged into the real world?

"You are in luck, Leomon," Myotismon said, grinning cruelly. "I have found another use for you. Tell me, do you still believe in legend of the Digidestined or have you tossed that age-old myth aside now that I have paved a new future for all digital monsters?"

"The legend still holds true," Leomon declared without a shadow of a doubt. "All you have done is change the time and setting. Now instead of being saviors of our world, they will defend and protect their own first as is their right. I was sent here to find them, but if I fail others will come searching for them as well to offer their allegiance. The children are real and they will be your undoing."

"Mmm, no, I don't think so," Myotismon purred, his left hand stroking the top of Kari's head in an almost loving manner. "Not when I've cared for this one all these years. Fed her, clothed her, kept her safe from all these raids and fights the real world is overrun with."

That you caused, Tai couldn't suppress the barbed thought that shot to the front of his mind.

"Why I think I even united siblings tonight," Myotismon said. "No, they won't turn against me now. We're all family here, aren't we?" His clawed hand squeezed Tai's shoulder hard and the fingernails pierced through the material of his shirt, causing Tai to hiss in pain.

Leomon was standing on his feet now, eyes wide in disbelief. "Myotsimon, those two… are they…"

"Well, I'm not sure myself. Call it a hunch," Myotismon hummed. "Why don't we find out for certain." With a snap of his fingers, the shackles broke from Leomon's limbs and fell to the ground with a rattling of chains. A sword materialized strapped in a sheath across the lion's back.

"Leomon, try to take them from me—if you can!"Myotismon shouted, making a slashing motion with his hand. The cell bars in front of them vanished and then there was nothing separating them from the lion and his righteous fury.

Leomon rushed forward drawing cold steel as he unleashed a battle roar and leaped at his foe swinging his sword in a broad arc that should have taken the vampire's head off. DemiDevimon gave a screech and flew off into the darkness in a frantic flapping of wings.

A clawed hand closed around the back of Tai's neck, hauled him off the floor and never letting go—thrust him directly in sword's path.

Leomon sidestepped sharply, cutting his attack short. The metal of the sword grated on the stone floor as he brought the tip down. Tai didn't even have time to be terrified. Shock had overwhelmed his senses and he hung limply from Myotismon's grasp quivering all over at how close his brush with death had been.

"You fight unfairly! Where is your honor?" Leomon demanded.

"Honor is for the weak," Myotismon shot back. "That is why the Nightmare Soldiers are in control and you are in here for blindly following some ancient prophecy. You do not wait for your destiny to come to you. You go out and seize it for yourself! You twist fate to suit your own purposes! You do not become its pawn! I'll offer you another choice, Leomon. You can choose to walk away right now. I'll give you your freedom. Do you still believe these children to be some of those Digidestined you seek?"

Leomon straightened his back and sheathed his sword. A grim, determined expression settled upon his face. Taking an offensive stance, he looked every bit the proud and noble warrior he was. "Whether they are or not, I cannot leave two innocents in your hands." Drawing his right hand back into a fist, a glowing orange light enveloped it.

Tai's breath caught fast in his throat. Did the lion still mean to attack Myotismon? Even when the vampire was using two humans as a shield? And all this talk about Digidestined and prophecies was making his head spin. How had a mission to crash Datamon's firewall boiled down to this?

Don't try and be a hero.

He wasn't a hero. He was the farthest thing from a hero. He was a failure as well as a coward with four years of proof coming back in one giant circle to haunt him in a single day.

The radiant orange light encircling Leomon's fist had transformed into the head of a lion. Leomon struck out his arm. "Fist of the Beast King!" The mighty roar reverberated all over the stone walls. Tai's line of vision was filled with the fierce shining visage of a lion's head as it raced towards them.

So Leomon had decided he'd rather see the humans dead than enthralled by Myotismon.

There was a bitter taste on Tai's tongue. His fear had vanished. Now there was nothing but a dull sort of anger inside him. Despite everything, he didn't want to die, not yet, not even if he felt that he deserved to, not until he had fixed every one of his wrongdoings and shortcomings since that night four years ago.

A soft moan escaped Kari's lips. "N-no… nooooooo!" she began to cry squirming under the vampire's grip, helpless tears flowing from her closed eyes.

Myotismon smiled in triumphant malice as she was shrouded by a lustrous white light. Leomon's attack was dissolved by it.

A loud humming burst in Tai's eardrums, like the buzzing of bees or cicadas in summer. A heavy pressure pushed down on his head and chest. Every inch of his skin prickled like an electrical current was passing over it. He knew this feeling. He had felt it before at Hikarigaoka. A dangerous, raw, powerful energy pulsed thickly all over the dungeon cell.

It was coming from him. Or Kari. Or maybe both of them.

The pressure lifted suddenly—and he had no sense of gravity for a moment—then something pulled…

Some invisible tether had been yanked violently and pain ripped through him. There was a sense of horrible wrongness, Myotismon was laughing,and Kari was screaming, screaming, screaming…

And Leomon—Leomon had been engulfed by that brilliant white light as well and was changing shape.

"None of that now," Tai heard Myotismon cluck above his head. "This feast is all mine." Claws were digging into his shoulders with brutal force and the blood in his veins was burning like molten fire.

The glowing form that was Leomon flickered stubbornly several times like the flame of a candle struggling against the wind before winking out of existence. Tiny black particles that remained behind hung briefly in the air before shooting forward in a stream into Myotismon's open, waiting mouth.

Eating… Myotismon was eating…

Tai's legs buckled under him as a terrible exhaustion grabbed him firmly by the ankles. He felt the vampire let go of him uncaring, too busy devouring Leomon's stolen energy and life force. He collapsed on the floor, his mind numb and his body trembling with fatigue. Kari had gone silent and the bright light had vanished. He tried to lift his head to look for her but he had no more strength to move. The darkness was creeping off the stone walls crawling towards him, offering him the merciful gesture of forgetfulness. He fell into it gratefully.

oOo

Tai awoke to the sensation of fingers running through his hair soothingly. Sleep clung to him like a heavy blanket. He stayed still lulled by the soft touch and the faint memory of his mother doing that.

"Once upon a time there was a wicked being. Indeed he was the most cunning and evil out of all the others of his kind."

Tai froze at the sound of the voice. That deep, smooth voice dripping with amusement and malice. He shot open to eyes to find his head resting in the lap of the vampire that was stroking a clawed hand over his head so tenderly. Kari was directly across from him, her head lying against the other side of the vampire's lap, the blank mask covering her face once more.

"He liked to cause chaos and took merriment in the terror and torture of others. One day he heard about a prophecy of saviors from another world that would come to his realm and free all undeserving and inferior creatures from not only his rule but to also destroy him and any other wicked being who wished to exalt himself higher than those who called themselves almighty Sovereigns. And this cunning and evil being did not like this prophecy. Not one bit."

Tai tried to move away from the awful touch that made his skin crawl, but the clawed hand gripped his hair roughly and held him in place as he continued his story.

"So he searched and searched for a way to cross over into the other world but the gateways were all sealed. Not a crack, not a rift, not a single portal did he find. So he watched and he waited, waited for the Sovereigns to make a mistake. And they did for they were greedy and desired knowledge of the beings that dwelled in the other world. And they opened a gateway and let an egg slip through."

Tai drew in a shaky breath. "S-stop," he pleaded.

"And the Sovereigns looked upon the earth and were pleased with what they saw. And their avarice knew no bounds for they opened a second gateway to allow another egg to pass through to balance out the effects of the first. And the wicked being seized his chance and called upon the allies he had made during his long wait, allies as ruthless and sinful as him who were marked for destruction by the so-called prophecy as well. The Sovereigns were distracted for only but a brief space of time but that is all it took for the world they were supposed to watch over to fall into ruin. And the wicked being discarded his old world and sought to build a dark kingdom in this new one that lay before him."

The hand tangled in Tai's hair jerked his head back in one swift motion so that he was forced to look up into the vampire's face. Tai gulped as blue eyes drifted their gaze down the column of his neck, black pupils dilating as they did so.

"For there were many sins to be had and many temptations to taste."

He was pulled effortlessly up and crushed to the vampire's chest, one hand snagging around his waist and the other never relinquishing its grip in his hair. He was trapped fast in strong arms with no hope of escape. He glanced down at Kari. She hadn't moved her head from the vampire's lap. Her eyes were glazed over, a doll's glass eyes. They met his gaze with bored indifference. Perhaps she had been the monster's victim too many times to bother resisting or caring anymore. Still, if Myotismon had to feed off someone, better him than her.

Cool lips brushed against the expanse of his bared throat. The vampire drew in a large breath from his nostrils and hummed approvingly as if some intoxicating scent was seeping off his skin. Tremors raked through Tai's body. He couldn't stop them if he wanted to.

Myotismon murmured the final two verses in his horrific tale:

"The life blood on earth is smelling so sweet,
And devils descend there the children to greet."

Sharp fangs bit down.

It wasn't like in the movies or light novels. There was no pleasure that came from this creature's bite. Only pain. Tai could feel the jugular vein in his throat racing wildly as the blood was drawn from the wound. He thudded his hands futilely against the vampire's chest trying to break away and knowing his blows were nothing more than the frantic beating of a bird's wings against the bars of its cage. He couldn't breathe. He choked trying to draw in air and something sticky stuck in his throat.

The fangs pulled back out and a tongue flicked over the puncture marks until the blood had clotted and formed scabs over the lesion.

It hurt to breathe. His throat was fire and he could feel the bruises beginning to swell to the surface of the skin. The only thing that was keeping him on his feet was that clawed hand in his hair. There were probably bruises on his scalp too.

"Thank you for this meal," Myotismon smiled with blood-stained fangs.

Tai closed his eyes and wished the vampire had sucked him dry.

It was his fault all this had happened anyway.

Epilogue

The rain slapped loudly against the glass windows. It had been raining for most of the night. Now even with soft grey of the early morning lightening up the sky, the rain still did not ease up.

Tai sat on the floor wearing the dark blue yukata Sora had given him and prayed to any gods left listening to send a tsunami and plunge the building into the depths of Tokyo Bay.

Sora sat beside him idly tracing the twin puncture marks on his neck with her fingers.

"The Lightless One doesn't drink from me," she said almost enviously.

Laughing at Tai's involuntary flinch at that statement, Sora put her thumb to her mouth and bit down hard. A tiny drop of blood bubbled its way to the surface of her skin and she held it out for Tai to see.

"Datamon promised me I would be his first complete product: his finished masterpiece. He has to conduct experiments on other test subjects first. Until then I have to wait." Leaning in closer Sora whispered into his ear, "The Lightless One says my blood is poisoned." She giggled madly.

Myotismon probably didn't trust Datamon to not have contaminated Sora's blood with nanoscopic booby traps. The two had a shaky alliance. The only reason Datamon put up with the vampire was because Myotismon had no interest in human technology whatsoever and allowed him free reign to do as he wished. Myotismon foresaw a darker future with himself as ruler over all and the humans as his cattle to do with as he pleased.

The fingers on Tai's neck pressed down harder. "What does it feel like?" Sora demanded. "Does it feel good? I asked Kari once, but she never speaks to me. She never speaks to anyone."

As if summoned, his sister's small, wraith-like figure stepped up from behind and sat down next to her causing Sora to let out a flustered gasp of surprise.

Folding her hands neatly in her lap, Kari stared forward and said, "I would like a haircut… please," she added as an afterthought.

Sora's eyes lit up. "Ooh! Oh, y-yes! I can do that! H-hold on, I'll go get some things!" Jumping up in a most un-ladylike manner, the girl raced out forgetting to put on her sandals in her excitement.

The ding of the elevator opening as she got inside and the doors closing were the last noises heard on the floor. Tai and Kari sat in a tense, muffled silence neither meeting the other's eye.

"I had hoped he would kill you before he found out," Kari spoke up at last.

Tai winced but he supposed he deserved that.

"Not because I wanted you dead," Kari explained. "But because I didn't want him using you, using us, to gain more power. But he knows now."

"Is this about the legend of the Digidestined?" Tai braved a question.

"I hear the Nightmare Soldiers whispering about it behind his back sometimes. Phantomon keeps trying to convince him to wipe out all the humans, but Datamon argues that without us their existence would end," Kari shrugged. "Something about the two worlds being connected."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence again.

I'm glad you're alive. I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner. Tai wanted to say but the words wouldn't come out. I love you. I'll protect you. I won't let anything bad happen to you ever again. But he couldn't promise her something he had no control over.

"Why don't we have Dark Rings?" he voiced out loud just to make conversation. That and he was curious as to why they were the only two humans in the building without them.

"The Dark Rings are mostly used for tracking renegade groups like Kotarou and his gang when they move outside. It shows they belong to the Lightless One. Besides, there is no need for us to wear them. We are always being watched," Kari said pointing to a bat hanging upside from the ceiling in the corner.

It wasn't DemiDevimon, just a smaller bat, one that could be mistaken for normal except for the glowing red eyes that peered at them unblinking.

Keeps his pets on a short leash, doesn't he? Tai thought spitefully.

The elevator dinged again and Sora rushed back over, her arms laden with supplies which she dumped in a pile in front of them. "Okay, scissors, water bottle, comb," she said breathlessly putting the items aside and spreading out several magazines across the floor. "Now all you have to do is choose your haircut!"

Kari flipped through the pages slowly and meticulously for several minutes during which Sora proceeded to spray the younger girl's hair until it was damp and begin to gently work the tangles out of it with her comb.

"This one," Kari finally decided putting the magazine down and pointing at the picture with her finger.

"Ooh, a pixie cut! Good choice, you'll look so cute!" Sora gushed. "I'm so glad I programmed Mama how to do this so she could teach me!"

Tai picked up a magazine and browsed through it listlessly to avoid accidentally saying anything unwanted about that comment. He stopped and frowned at the English lettering that filled it. Turning it over to view the cover he stared at the orange monkey wearing sunglasses and holding a microphone as he made the sign of the horns with one hand to the audience that was gathered around him.

"E-te-mon?" he sounded out the hiragana written above the English letters.

Sora glanced over and giggled. "That's Datamon's sworn enemy or so he claims. He says Etemon kept him captive in a pyramid for years, but he freed himself when Etemon came here."

"Etemon is here?" Tai thought he would have heard about a singing ape from Oikawa if that were true.

"No, he's in America," Sora laughed. "He's really famous. He was planning a hostile take-over there, but he gained a lot of admirers with his songs. So now he's neither friend nor foe, he just panders to his fans. Datamon almost blew a fuse when he found out. He says Americans have no taste in music and that Etemon is a fame-seeking narcissist who he vows he will get revenge on one day."

Kari spoke up surprising them. "I saw him on a broadcast once. He sounds like a bad Elvis impersonator—uh-huh-huh," she said doing an impression of the digimon. Her glass doll face never changed expressions. Her voice sounded flat and toneless. Even Datamon sounded more human than she did.

But Tai forced himself to laugh anyway.

Her small hand reached for his and Tai curled his fingers around hers.

He thought he might be beginning to understand Sora's attitude about her mother: "We're together now, that's all that matters."

Cast away the truth.

Build your own reality.

Live the lie.

The world was crumbling down all around them, but his happiness was beside him.

The End

A/N: So, who understands that title now, huh? I have no excuse for this story except that I love AUs and there are so many "what if" scenarios to be had in the digi-verse. This actually is an old plot bunny of mine that I meant to incorporate into another fic but sadly I don't think I will be updating that one for a long time or if I ever will work on it again. So I wrote this fic instead.

If you're wondering what this AU is an AU of, I pulled the idea out of my fic, "The Alternative Factor". Now when anybody reads that fic, Tai's fragmented flashbacks will make sense. I didn't tell you this beforehand because I didn't want anyone rushing off to read that first before this. This is not a sequel to that multichapter. It's sort of a oneshot reboot. And I changed a lot of factors around.

Stand by for super long author's note in which I try and explain as much as possible.

Oikawa doesn't work for the government. He is in his own private resistant group. He comes in contact with a few people like Sora's dad and he learns more information this way. And he's not against sending the kids he's taken care of to do his work for him. Yes, he's grown fond of them over time. Grudgingly, but he does care for them, but he's thinking about the greater good of the world as a whole. He wants to put an end to this monopoly Datamon and the Nightmare Soldiers have. This isn't the world he envisioned for humans and digimon to co-exist in. He wants to change that.

Yes, Sora knew her mom was dead. Tai told her back in Kyoto. She was just distraught because she said hateful things towards her mom last time she saw her and this is her "second chance" to make things right. I feel sort of bad for making her slightly crazy, but come on, she lives under the same roof as Datamon, Myotismon and Phantomon. It's enough to make any sane person crack.

About Kari. I always thought she was the clincher for Greymon digivolving in that short movie. There was no digivice yet. If it was some sort of test by the Digital Sovereigns to see how the humans would interact with digimon, then they must have been surprised to see humans possessing the kind of energy and inner strength Kari does. When she goes to the digital world, mostly she's used for powering up other children's digimon. I saw a comment on youtube once that joking said, "Kari should be the freaking catalyst" (Digimon Tamers reference to Calumon). And then I thought maybe she was in the Adventure universe.

As for the Dark Rings, I don't think they have the power to control humans right now. They're wearing an early model, haha. They're just for tracking and IDs. I'm not sure if it's because the humans are biological and the digimon are digital that they work this way.

Also, I freaked myself out writing Myotismon, hahaha. Just so you know, I toned down that bite-scene majorly. That vamp is a sadist. Anyway, those two creepy lines he recites at the end are a twisted version of this hymn:

"The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet,
And angels descend there the children to greet."

It's from The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. It's my headcanon that Myotismon secretly likes to brush up on human mythology and fairy tales^^

And the whole drinking blood thing Myotismon does, I don't know about actual canon-verse, but in this universe, he only started drinking blood when he arrived in the real world. In this universe, Digimon don't bleed thus portraying the differences between human and digimon make-up. Back in the digital world, if Myotismon wanted to "feed" he would simply eat a digimon's data like he did with Leomon's. It's the whole "digimon are based off human myths" theory coming into play that changes his feeding habits when he enters this new world.

I'd like to imagine the Koromon in Adventure somehow slipping into the real world and finding Tai. For all the Digidestined to receive their digimon, for there to be hope. It might happen in this universe. But not in this oneshot.

P.S. Please don't mind that quip about Etemon and Americans and music. I'm an American myself and Etemon's music could pass as Death Metal and there are a lot of fans of that genre of music all over the world, haha!

There are probably so many more plot-holes I didn't catch. Ugh, but you know. I had to write this. It was driving me insane rolling about in my head. The only thing that got me through finishing this was thought of crushing people's, hearts, minds, and souls. So please, if you have been emotionally tortured by this fic, please review and let me know. It would mean so much to me. Any shrieks of rage, tears of despair, feeling like reading this was a horribly bad decision despite the warnings and now you are ruined for life *whispers* tell me and let it go…