A room was getting closer to him as he walked along the normally bleak stone grey metal corridor at his steady pace, although it was now tinged with a barely flashing red light. No, this was the room. The room in which he may well die shortly if he played this wrong. Enough deference must be shown, but not so much as to be snivelling. Bearers of bad news rarely survived, especially when the bad news could easily be attributed to them.
He paused momentarily when he reached the door, mentally scolding himself for showing the weakness of fear. The plain stone grey door seemed identical to all of the other doors, all of which were barely noticeable from the wall to anyone new here. But almost everyone knew who was in this room, and to visit him was not often a good thing. He had to search his mind hard to think of the last time he had been here bearing good news, too long ago, far too long. He shook his head a fraction to clear away the distracting thoughts and looked at the bleak grey door once more.
Quickly he knocked politely on the door, three short raps on the palely coloured metal, and walked in closing the door behind him with all the calm he could muster once given permission to come in. No turning back now, it was too late to avoid it now. Not that he had anywhere he could run to that he wouldn't be found as soon as someone higher up realised what had happened. Then again no one had ever tried it to his knowledge, so he might just have had a slim chance while everyone was thrown off guard.
Dimensions away, at the same time, the digidestined were on their way to face Myotismon, and endure what would they hoped, with any luck, be their final fight for survival, finally letting them go back home. Night was fast approaching and they had found a small clearing in the forest in which to camp till morning. Joe had drawn the short straw and stayed on guard while they others fell asleep, leaving him alone, as usual, with the scenery, the noises of the night, and his paranoid thoughts. Thoughts of impending doom mixed with something almost akin to ready acceptance of their fate.
Why do I always draw the short straw? Why do I always get stuck on guard when we're in the middle of a forest? Why is it especially one so close to Myotismon. I mean, it isn't like I'll be able to wake them up, I'll be guarding the whole night. Just you see if you aren't Joe. They won't take over their watch shift. Yet again it'll be ol' reliable Joe doing the entire watch. Joe slumped his head forward into his knees, his hand automatically pushing his glasses back to the top of his nose as they threatened to fall off, with a sigh of annoyance. "Just once I'd like not to be everyone's doormat." He said quietly to himself. "Just once."
"That… can be arranged…. Joe…." Came a soft, sweet, almost silent whisper from the dark patch of trees to Joe's left. He spun around to face the voice that sounded just centimetres away and stood up while taking a single step backwards away from it with instincts born of being hunted down for so long.
"Wh-who are you?" He asked, the fear obvious in his voice and on his face, his eyes darting around in front of him as a small bead of sweat trickled down his forehead despite the cold, trying to look for anything other than trees. Nothing, he could only see trees, just the big black blob of trees in front of him. A quick glance backwards and he saw that the campsite was still there. A second step backwards as the fear of an unseen enemy slowly tickled up his spine towards his brain. Another pang of fear and another step backwards when he realised it had said his name.
With a quick yelp of surprise he suddenly realised that this fear, he almost liked it. He couldn't understand, how could he enjoy the fear, he had spent most of his life running from it. Surely, there was no way that he could like it. Doubt began to form in his mind rapidly, maybe that was why he was scared of so much; maybe his subconscious had been trying to create more for him. A twig cracking in front of him brought his mind back from its internal monologue and back to the fear. The fear that he almost wanted to suffuse him. To cover him like a warm blanket. To wrap him up in itself till he was immersed in it.
"A friend who knows all your secrets. All your desires, Joe… I could help you. Help you to not be everyone's doormat…." the melodic voice sang into his ears lulling him almost instantly into what looked like a peaceful slumber at a quick glance, only the slight but rapid movements of his limbs and his rapidly darting eyes behind his partially misplaced glasses giving a hint that something was wrong beyond his total languid face.
"A friend…." He murmured quietly as the dreams began to take a surreal and altogether unfriendly twist.
At a sedate and what he hoped was a professional pace he walked through the open doorway and quietly closed the door behind him, then walked forward a few more paces before stopping a meter or two in front of a large black desk that seemed to swallow up what little light had escaped the same effect from the walls. Everything in this office appeared to be the same pitch black colour. The desk, the walls, the door, the floor, the ceiling, and even the clothes of the man sitting in the pitch black chair behind the desk. He cleared his throat once and then waited the seemingly agonisingly long seconds it took for the other man to talk.
"Ah, Mr Patterson. What is it?" the man seated at the desk asked, moving his head up from whatever he had been looking at before, his gaze quickly taking in the standing, and possibly slightly trembling man in front of him. Mr Patterson gulped at the thought of what his superior would do. He tried to scrutinise his face, but it was virtually invisible in the black gloom of the small office, a mere blob of lighter colour against the blob of a suit and chair. Maybe an invisible reminder that his death, any of their deaths, would be just as invisible, or more accurately ignored. Everyone in here was officially dead as it was; no one misses those who are already dead.
"We have a problem sir." Mr Patterson said with a bow of his head that went slightly too far down for his liking after he finished. "The Immaterium Containment Field was shut down for appro…"
"WHAT?!?!" The man behind the desk rose up with a furious shout as one hand hit into the desk with a thud, completely out of character for the usually sedate man, sending his chair crashing to the floor. The sharp clatter of metal and stone rang out against the air in the few seconds of silence as his glare almost tried to pierce Mr Patterson's eyes and through them his very soul. A slight intake of worried breath was covered by the still fading noise as he prepared to explain the situation and face whatever punishment his superior deemed necessary.
"I shut down the ICF for approximately five minutes while carrying out some maintenance work on the coffee machine next to it." He stared down at the floor which was also the same pitch black light consuming colour as the walls, ceiling, desk and everything else in this room. He felt a shiver of fear run up his spine and gently closed his eyes, not wanting to see the fatal blow he was certain would come.
"Do you realise what you have done?" Mr Patterson looked up; his boss was seated again, much calmer now. He might just live through this with some luck, as long as the rage wasn't being focused through a calm exterior, or if he wanted to make an example of what such negligence could and would bring.
His mind flitted to an image of a room virtually never seen by anyone in this complex and feared by all. A room that contained a heavily guarded teleporter array that would send the unlucky victim straight into the heart of the Immaterium. This was the greatest punishment the place had devised thus far, and he had seen three such punishments in his long time here, he had no desire to become the fourth he knew of. Death was far more preferable.
"Yes sir…. Eight Greater Daemons escaped as well as several hundred minor daemons, presumably in service to the Greater Daemons."
"Did we take any damage as they escaped?"
"No sir. They escaped to another dimension."
"That is some measure of good news. Imagine what would have happened if they had destroyed the ICF…" the sentence was left hanging, an attempt at allowing Mr Patterson to grasp the full extent of damage that could have been done, as if he had not already "What dimension have they escaped to?"
"A minor one sir. One known as the Digital Dimension."
"Good. Seal it off. I want none of those daemons to escape. It will take them several days at least to harvest enough energy from the locals to create a rift. Do you understand me Mr Patterson?"
He waited barely two seconds for the start of an affirmative nod or response before carrying on. "As good as your work has been, Mr Patterson, you are not indispensable. We represent the pinnacle of the achievements of countless trillions of worlds. We also represent their, and everyone else's, best hopes against Chaos. You are only alive now because of your previous excellent record. Consider this your first, and final, formal warning."
"Y-yes sir!" he stammered as he hurried out of the office, pausing and blinking his eyes for a few moments as he moved into the relatively bright stone grey surroundings that most of the complex had. Leaning back against the warm wall he breathed a heavy sigh of relief, almost giggling in gladness that he had survived with just a warning, albeit a serious one. A quick moment of concentration cleared his face of all traces of his previous worry and then joy, it would not do for anyone to see one of their superiors either panicking or smiling.
He turned round and headed towards the central hub of activity at his normal relaxed pace, glad that the raging red lights that had snapped on after his mistake was picked up by the automated internal security system had now dimmed to a more amicable amber colour. With luck they would soon return to the familiar bluish yellow colour the usually were.
They would need to work around the clock to modify the ICF to affect yet another dimension so quickly, but to build another ICF for this Digital Dimension would take months. One of the problems with the ICF was that it was only ever designed to contain a single dimension, the Immaterium, but as it expanded and consumed others the machine had needed to be modified to cover more and more as outposts somehow crept through on occasions.
There was a private fear among some that if this over-stretching of the system continued there would come a point when the field was too weak and would collapse in its entirety. But that was a very well guarded fear, known only to those responsible for monitoring the actual field, and ignored completely by the highest ranking members who had absolute confidence in the ICF. Personally he doubted the collapse would happen, the rate at which the field was expanded was too slow, and the new wave would most likely be in power well before the time in which the current ICF was incapable of being jury-rigged into working any more.
The entire thing would be rebuilt and designed with the containment of many dimensions in mind once the new wave of thinkers made it into the highest positions. As the one of those unfortunate people who could ultimately bar the responsibility for any failures of the ICF until then he was very glad about. For now, however, the high-ups still remembered the days when the ICF did only contain one dimension, all those countless ages ago. But even they would die one day, and then, maybe, just maybe, it would no longer be pure defence against the Immaterium. Who knows, maybe one day the Immaterium itself might come under attack.
Joe walked along the dusty road that twisted around and through the desert, they were nearing the castle now. He glanced to the side and out into the endless vista of sand from his position as the rear of the group. Idly noting the melting and already melted clocks draped over even more out of place objects lining the oceanic desert he sighed thinking over how the digiworld was getting stranger by the day.
A squawk from up above drew his attention to the sky, where a flock of seagulls were flying backwards through the large ocean up there that stretched as far as his eyes could see. Vicariously he watched as a school of fish swam past the birds and started to eat them in a frenzied battle of scales and feathers. A feather floated down past his face, a spec of blood dropped and splashed on the dust road in front of him before he walked past, the digiworld was definitely getting stranger. His gaze shifted up from the blood rapidly spreading across the path, quickly taking in the six humans and seven digimon in front of him, all digivolved to their highest states.
A faint whistling sounded somewhere behind him but he ignored it, kept trudging onwards, onwards towards the ever growing, ever looming castle. Monotonously he kept placing first one foot ahead of him in the dusty path, then the other foot ahead of him in the bloody and dusty path. Tedious step, after tedious step, after tedious step. Over and over for hours while the single drop of blood had spread out over the lands, tinting everything with red. Over and over for hours while the others pointedly ignored him, not even Gommamon had spoken to him.
"Crimson Lightning!"
Seven laser red whips of blinding and searing energy slashed out over his head. One strip of energy streaked towards each digimon. That bright red laser lance pierced their skin and penetrated the hearts. Seconds later in the silence, seven digimon dropped to the ground, dying, blood slipping, squelching, and spurting out of the wounds, adding their blood to the already blooded ground.
The humans apart from Joe fell to the side of their partnered digimon, tears dripping down all but Tai's and Matt's faces, as all of them tried in vain to coax them back to life before realising it was hopeless. Six kneeling figures slowly raised their faces; all six now streaked with at least one tear each. Six stares locked onto the immobile and still standing Joe. Six stares that would have burrowed through his body and pierced his soul, rapidly skewering his flesh and ripping out his heart, veins and arteries so that his blood spilt to the ground like the crimson lightning had done to their partners if they could.
Slowly, almost slow enough to be in slow motion, Tai stood up, staggering to his feet as his single tear fell off of his chin and splashed onto the bloodless corpse of Agumon below. In slow succession the others, one by one, pushed themselves off of the ground and onto their feet, finally ending as TK stumbled up, tears freely flowing out of his eyes and onto both the ground in front of him and Patamon.
Tai stepped forward, eyes still searing into Joe as he took a step backwards, towards Myotismon, his foot making a disgusting squishing noise on the ground as it pushed blood aside. Matt followed Tai's single step, then Sora, Izzy, Mimi, and TK, each as silent as the last in their focused grief fuelled fury. Joe glanced backwards, where the grinning Myotismon stood, mocking him silently with his arms crossed across his chest, the mighty digimon lord, the bringer of death.
He was trapped, Myotismon, the object of their hunt for the last few weeks, to his back, those who had been his friends, comrades, and brothers and sisters in arms for the last few months in front. All of those seven, behind and ahead, seemingly equally willing to kill him. He noticed another step forward by his previous friends, now much closer now than they should have been. Looking around wildly he saw they had almost formed a loose circle about him if he counted Myostismon in it to. Soon the circle would be complete and there would be no way out of it at all, not that he could outrun Tai or Matt, let alone Myotismon.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of light reflected off of his glasses, he turned his head to it and his jaw dropped in surprise. An armoured knight rode towards them all on an equally armoured horse. Wide eyed he tried to digest the information his eyes were feeding him. Intricately designed armour plates covered the horse, interlocking and sliding perfectly with the horse as it galloped across the terrain. Each one, that he could see, was a slightly different shade of dark purple, giving the impression that the whole thing changed colour as his eyes went down the horse. Over the top of that was a far lighter purple cape, bearing some sort of crest he could only half see as the rider sat atop of that.
The rider himself was also armoured in dark purple armour plates that looked similar to the horses, only smaller and made for a man instead. On top of his head rested an ornate helmet, gentle purple wings sprouting out of its ears, as though ready to give flight to both knight and horse. Further down, in one gauntleted fist, he bore a dark purple, almost black, lance. The point of which was now levelled straight at Myotismon who it was now clear was the target.
Quickly Myotismon turned to face this new and possibly threatening target. Eyes narrowing as he quickly took in the armoured knight and armoured horse as Joe had done mere milliseconds before him. Something was odd about the horse, but he could not place what it was, and there was not enough time to keep looking while he tried to work out what it was. Not with the speed at which this armour laden beast somehow travelled.
"Grisly Wing!"
A stream of bats erupted forth from Myotismon's cloak, screeching as they hurtled towards the purple knight who hurtled right back at them, spurring his horse into moving even faster. So fast did they hit that they hit as a single thing. Each bat disintegrated at the same instant as the were smashed against some kind of invisible barrier around the pair. The remains making the horse look like it was smoking, burning the very ground up with its speed.
"Crimson Lightning!"
The red whip flew out of Myotismon's hand, his eyes widening in fright as that bounced completely harmlessly off of the horse's armoured side. Quickly he took two steps back, before the lance was thrust forwards by the knight. Time appeared to slow as the very tip of the lance tapped Myotismon's chest, a trickle of black light flickered out of the contact, before turning into a dark beam that headed towards the rider before quickly turning into a sickly purple. Time sped back up to normal and the lance went straight through him, as though Myotismon wasn't there to block its path. Quickly the purple light expanded, swallowing him up in what looked like a cheap B-movie special effect, leaving only the knight of purple behind.
Joe looked at the gap, formed by the death of the last digimon at the scene and by the knight having ridden past, although it looked like he may now be turning around, for another attack or to talk to them who could say, the lance was now aimed high in the air though. He looked back at his friends, advancing on him once more now that the shock of seeing a knight in shining armour ride through and kill their dreaded enemy had worn off. Their steps looked to be coming down on the blood that seemed to be the ground rapidly now. Joe took one more look at the gap and sprinted for it. Arms pumping as fast as they could. Lungs breathing as deep as they could. Heart beating as fast as it could. Adrenaline pushing him beyond his normal limits when he had only just started.
Then the world exploded.
Tai crept up to the now peacefully sleeping form of Joe on the warming up forest ground, reaching him silently and slowly lowering his head to Joe's. As quietly as possible he sucked up a lungful of air. "WAKE UP!!!" he shouted into Joe's ear as loud as he could manage. "Some guard you are Joe."
Joe bolted up, instantly awake and with all memories of what had happened during his guard duty forgotten. He looked at the blur of colour in front of him before searching with his hands for his glasses that were now lying next to his legs and putting them on carefully. The blob of colour quickly reshaped itself into Tai "You know someone else should have taken over, Tai."
He pushed Tai gently out of his way as he headed over to the rest of the group to get some food. "Morning guys. Where's the food?" Joe asked, cheering up a little at the prospect of some food in his stomach.
Sora pointed towards the now small pile of berries and fruit that they were eating without saying anything as she carried on eating her portion, slower than the guys were. Joe sat down and started scoffing down the food with the other four; only Tai was not eating, having managed to somehow eat his share already. A few seconds, and yet another new record for worlds' fastest eaters, broken only a minute or so before by Tai, they finished their meal.
Soon after Izzy had his computer out, methodically checking that they were still heading in the right direction, not that they could really travel in the wrong direction. Mountains were hard to miss normally. Then again, this place wasn't exactly normal as they had all found out on more than one occasion before. Fourteen faces leaned in to try and see the small screen. Izzy felt the other bodies pressing up against him and whirled his face round, coming face to face with just over a thirteen others. A quick glare from him at each of them and all thirteen of them backed away a step or two, giving him room to work on his beloved laptop without risking any harm to it.
"How much further?" Matt's question was simple and to the point, something they had all now got used to doing. Anything more complicated than this could and most probably would earn them all a long winded refresher course in the techno babble that Izzy was so fond of.
"About fourteen point seven kilometres. Straight over that mountain." Izzy read off the numbers quickly as he pointed one hand lazily towards the mountain a short distance away at the edge of the forest, the other hand never leaving the keyboard for an instant. "However there is a message from Gennai that I want to read before we undertake the journey."
Izzy moved his hand over the touchpad, moving the cursor to the animated icon of Gennai and tapped his finger over a button twice while turning the volume up with his other hand to let everyone hear the message.
A two dimensional and slightly cartoonish picture of Gennai expanded and filled up the screen, waving once at the crowded round group before beginning its message. "I bring bad news. A threat far greater than Myotismon has appeared. Several hundred creatures entered digiworld sometime yesterday. As you know, they portals to the digiworld are not supposed to open."
"Who are they?" Mimi asked slowly drawing closer to the screen with the rest of them without any of them realising they were doing it. Something that was almost certain to earn more glares from Izzy if they continued and he noticed.
"I was getting to that. Always interrupting me as though I don't matter."
"We're sorry Gennai. We do listen to you." Tai quickly said while staring daggers at Mimi for having to apologise for her again.
"There you go again. Anyway, these creatures are neither digimon nor human. And as far as I can tell aren't made of matter or data."
"But that's preposterous." Izzy blurted.
"You have a lot to learn, Izzy. Be careful, I can only trail them by the destruction they have wrought for now. I suggest you try to confront Myotismon as he is so near, and then investigate this new threat. If I find out more I'll let you know. Meter's running low, so I'll have to go now." The image dissolved into background static then finally disappeared altogether. They thought over what Gennai said, leaving the scene in complete silence save for the whistling of the wind, and the hum of the computer. And the high pitched screams of a nearby dying digimon.