Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Digimon Adventure 02
Title: Take Off The Collar: Chapter 1: Up A Tree
Characters: Takeru
Word Count: chapter: 2,049||story: 2,049
Genre: Drama, Adventure||Rated: PG
Challenge: This was written for the Advent Calendar Challenge, day #5; Diversity Writing Challenge, section I, #18, a multichap with chapters over 2000 words; Monthly Restrict #2, one character cannot speak at all.
Notes: This takes place about seven years after the defeat of BelialVamdemon, so Takeru is currently eighteen. You can imagine the 02 epilogue or not, as you please.
Summary: [1/8 chapters, Takeru, 2014 Advent Calendar, Diversity Writing, & Monthly Restrict] Takeru wants a lot of things as he flees through the Digital World. His D-3, his D-Terminal, his Digimon partner, his friends. His voice.

His hands scrambled once again at the black leather collar around his neck. Visually it could be considered attractive, if one were into that kind of thing, sleek and tight-fitting, with a silver clasp that he couldn't get to open no matter how hard he tried.

She said no one human could open it. How? Even after having seen all the strangeness that the Digital World could offer since he was eight years old, Takeru still found himself surprised on multiple occasions by some of the twists and turns.

Well, if humans couldn't open it, then maybe a Digimon could. He knew that none of her court would do it. None of them would take a chance to stand against her. So he would have to find one of his friends and hope that they could help him.

He could hope. He was really good at hoping, no matter the odds.

Which was why he kept on tugging at the clasp, even when he couldn't see it, much less get it to open. The clasp itself was at the very back and he had to fumble for it every time. No matter how hard he tried, it remained stubbornly closed. He wondered if it would've made sense if he could see it. It certainly didn't when he couldn't.

He leaned back against the tree, taking deep gulping breaths. He needed to get himself calmed down and figure out how to get from here to where the others were. Or a way back to where they were.

Yeah, if I knew where I was, that would be a big help too. And if I had my D-3. He thought it might be with them. He wanted it to be with his friends. The idea of it being with her sent a dark twist of anger surging through him, one he had to fight down before it could overwhelm him. Getting angry wasn't going to help him through this. If anything, it would help her find him.

Another shudder wrenched through him at the memory. That was how she'd found him in the first place. Or at least she'd said so, and he didn't have any reason to doubt that, not with how she'd read his every emotion with barely a twitch of one eyebrow.

Takeru closed his eyes and breathed again, harder, longer, deeper, trying to get himself to a point where he could think and not just react. The problem with that was that he needed to react, to do something, and with part of his attention eternally perked to keep watch for any sign that any of her warriors might be heading this way, he just couldn't calm down the way he wanted to.

Seven years after the rebirth of the Digital World, thanks to Oikawa's sacrifice, and they were still charting and mapping the place, and Takeru still believed that it changed sometimes, possibly just to annoy them. Mr. Takenouchi, Koushirou, and Kido Shuu hadn't disproved the theory, though they hadn't proven it, either. What that meant for all practical purposes for him at the moment was that he had only his current experiences to go by when it came to finding out where he was.

It had been a very long time since he'd had to move through the Digital World with one ear cocked and one eye open whenever he tried to sleep. But old habits came back quickly when in need, and Takeru found himself halfway up the tree before he consciously processed that he'd heard voices coming toward him.

He really, really missed Patamon right now. He would've had his choice of evolutions to defend himself with his partner there, and not have to climb a tree at all. Or rather, he would have if he'd had Patamon, his D-3, and D-Terminal, and he suffered a horrible lack of all of those. All of them taken away from them by her.

Again he had to wrench down his anger and stuff it away where no one could see it, least of all her. He couldn't know yet if those voices were hers or those who served her, but he didn't dare take the chance. He'd been able to escape once. If he ended up back with her, then she likely wouldn't give him the chance to do so again.

He made it up to the highest branches that could support his weight and gripped as hard as he could, not wanting to give away by the slightest movement of the tree that he was there at all. Maybe once he knew who these voices belonged to, but not now. Not when he couldn't trust anything or anyone.

"Any sign of him?" A question that almost anyone could've asked, but Takeru recognized that guttaral voice and bit back a silent sigh. Of course. He couldn't have been found by any of his friends, or even other Chosen Children or those partnered with Digimon that he hadn't met yet. No, it had to be him.

Dark Lizarmon. Takeru silently rubbed his left arm; the burn scar there would last a long, long time. The only reason it hadn't been any worse was because she insisted that her second in command cease the beating.

"I'm sure he's learned his lesson," she'd said in that sickeningly sweet voice of hers, lifting his chin with one slender finger, staring into his eyes. "Haven't you, my dear?"

He'd done nothing. He would not admit to 'learning' anything from her or her minions, and he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of 'taming' him.

"A few footprints, but not enough to be certain of where he's going," came an answer. It wasn't a voice Takeru recognized and he couldn't get a good enough look to see who it was. He was good with that, though. He didn't care to know all of the people who lived in her court. The ones he did know were more than enough.

"What about you?" Dark Lizarmon asked, and this answer sent more chills down Takeru's back than anything else did, because he did recognize that voice, and the words were even worse.

"His scent is weak, but here. He's not far away," BlackAgumon, whose nose was every bit as sharp as that of Taichi's Agumon. Takeru bit his lip, then stopped, not wanting to take the chance that BlackAgumon might catch even the faintest hint of blood.

Damn it. What could he do to get out of this? Nothing; he'd trapped himself by going up this tree. If they figured out where he was, then it would be way too easy to get him down. If the third member of their search party wasn't someone who could just climb up and knock him down, then Dark Lizarmon could burn the tree down, or BlackAgumon could simply shake him out of it.

They hadn't found him yet, so he still clung to the hope that they wouldn't, as much as he clung to the tree branch. A small trickle of thankfulness swept through him for the collar, one that he tried to fight back as much as he did his loathing of their mistress. So long as it remained on him, he couldn't make any kind of verbal sound that would give away his location. It was a small blessing, but he took them where he could find them.

"There are some good hiding places around here," Dark Lizarmon mused. "I saw a cave over in those mountains, and the trees are pretty thick here as well."

Takeru closed his eyes tightly and tensed all over. Go look at the mountains, go look at the mountains. Anywhere but here, anywhere that would distract them long enough for him to climb down and find a better place to hide, one that had a way for him to get out if they found that too.

"I'll find his trail," BlackAgumon declared, and Takeru wished he'd thought harder about hiding it. If he'd known that her best tracker would come after him, then he would have.

He should've guessed that, really. But he'd been so focused on just getting out of there that he hadn't thought about who she would send in pursuit of him. After nearly a month of her 'hospitality', the only thing he could think of was escape.

A careful peek through the leaves showed him the group as they searched around beneath him. He recognized Dark Lizarmon and BlackAgumon easily enough; the third was one that he'd seen lurking around the edges of the court, but hadn't ever seen doing anything constructive. If he'd had Patamon around, he would've dismissed a simple Gazimon as being nothing at all to worry about. In this situation, he didn't want to find out what Paralyze Breath could do to him personally. The name of the attack alone told him why the Digimon was along.

BlackAgumon sniffed around, casting this way and that in search of Takeru's scent. Takeru kept himself even tighter wrapped around the tree branch and hoped that just this once, something would happen to distract them. Maybe the other Chosen would attack her people and she would recall these three to deal with it. Maybe they'd just lose the trail altogether and wander off in search of it. Anything. He wasn't particular.

"It's stronger this way." And they were coming right toward his tree. Takeru pressed his head against the branch and huffed quietly. Of course. Of course they would find him. After the month he'd had, he really shouldn't have expected anything less.

He still didn't see any reason to give up, though. They hadn't found him yet, and until the moment that they did, and likely not even then, he believed he could find a way out of the situation.

Was the branch sturdy enough to hold him if he stood up? Takeru took a careful look at it. He hadn't wanted to get up to the absolute height, to where any passing flying Digimon could spy him, so the branches around here weren't too thin. So, maybe... he could take the chance.

Exercising every bit of caution he could manage while running from an evil Digimon queen, her equally as evil servants, and attempting to walk on a tree branch while being far too up in the tree – Daisuke would've been so proud of him for this, too – Takeru stood up and balanced himself, taking in quick breaths of air to stay steady.

One step. And another. And another. He couldn't hear anything from below, and that bolstered his confidence. Maybe they'd wandered off somewhere. Despite what he'd heard - and seen with BlackAgumon tracking other escaped prisoners – he couldn't be that good, could he? There had to be a time when his nose failed him.

He moved again. The branch he aimed for stretched to a taller tree, with thicker branches up higher. He would've tried for that one when first climbing if he'd been able to, but it didn't have enough sturdy boughs close enough to the ground for him to get up there.

Takeru moved one foot at a time, mostly to avoid any creaking noises or falling leaves that might give him away. Even if they'd been talking down below, he didn't know if he would've heard them. All of his focus remained on moving over to that other tree. That one looked to have branches that spread out to still more trees, which meant that if he had even a little bit of luck, he might be able to get out of here, without leaving any kind of a scent trail for BlackAgumon to follow him by.

All of the branches looked sturdy enough to support his weight. He kept his sighs of relief to himself for the moment, taking each step with the full knowledge that if anything snapped underneath him, his options from that moment rated from an embarrassing fall that would likely have him singing soprano for days to crash landing right in the middle of the searchers or breaking his neck.

On a scale of bad to worse, he decided that landing in front of Gazimon, BlackAgumon, and Dark Lizamon probably outranked breaking his neck.

And then his foot slipped.

To Be Continued