Litanya: Well, I hope that you enjoyed the prologue of this fic. Please remember that I don't own digimon or any of the characters in this fic except for the 'evil ones.' You know who I mean… 'Master' and Entier. I hope you enjoy this next chapter!
Oh, and don't worry if I describe a few characters differently to in the show. It is a part of the storyline and everything that they look a little different to what they do in the show… I don't think that I've changed them too much, but yeah, just watch out for that.
An Old Box
Chapter 1
~ 2 YEARS LATER~
"Kari is your brother back yet?" the thirteen year old teenager sighed and shook her head. Another day they had spent waiting for him to come back, but as always, he never did. And they couldn't go back into the Digital World to find him because Tai's digivice was still the only one that could access it. The digivices of the other digidestined were able to get them back to the Real World from the Digital World, but not vice-versa. After two years of waiting, her brother was still trapped there and Kari's mother had gotten into a routine of asking each day whether Tai had come back. Kari was sick of it. She wanted her brother back, even if he sometimes was lazy or if he did tease her a lot. He had sacrificed his own freedom so that she and the others could be free, and she wanted him back. They all did.
"No mum, there is still no sign of him," Mari Kamiya sighed and walked away from her daughter and back into the kitchen.
"Well, tomorrow morning I'm going to make my Spinach Omelet Surprise, so he's going to be missing out," she tried to say it cheerfully, but there were tears in her eyes. Kari's eyes filled with tears too. Spinach Omelet Surprise was what they had eaten for breakfast the day that Tai had been taken. She could still remember joking about it with him as they had walked to meet the other destined. Oh, where could he be? What if… what if he wasn't back because he had been attacked by some evil digimon? What if the boy that he had had to go with had attacked him with the Tyrannamon? What if… there where thousands of possibilities, but only one answer and that answer was what Kari desperately wanted to know. She was about to throw herself on the couch to watch TV when the phone rang, rousing her out of her depressing thoughts about her brother. Her mother was busy in the kitchen and her father wasn't home, so she had to answer it.
"Hello, Kamiya residence, Kari speaking."
"Hi Kari, it's Izzy. Gennai just contacted me with some news, both good and bad," Kari's heart began to beat faster, hoping that the bad news wasn't that Tai was dead. Gennai was still in the Digital World, like he always had been, so he would know how Tai was… well, maybe.
"What did he say? Does he know where Tai is?" she didn't want to sound desperate, but she did. Luckily, Izzy understood.
"No, he didn't even know that Tai was still in the Digital World. The good news that he told me was that he was able to make it so that all of our digivices can get to the Digital World."
"Great! Now we can go and find Tai. We should go tomorrow and-
"Kari, he also told me that the Digital World is too dangerous. He found our Digimon and they told him that they had received a message telling them to meet you at the forest when Tai was captured. The evil that is lurking there now is… there's this guy that is only known as 'Master' and he's causing trouble all over the place. Gennai says that it isn't safe for us to go there."
"But we have to! Tai is there and that means that he is caught up in whatever trouble is going on. We have to go there tomorrow and look for him. While we're there we can get to the bottom of this 'Master' creep and try to defeat him. Then the Digital World will be safe and Tai will be home!" Kari didn't care that it was too dangerous; she would sacrifice anything to get her brother back, just as he had to help her.
"I know, I know. Do you want to call the others or should I?" Izzy had given up, knowing that he couldn't win. He wanted Tai back almost as much as Kari and Sora, so he didn't bother arguing anymore. Kari's mind was set in stone anyway, when it concerned her brother.
"I'll call Sora and T.K. You call Mimi and Joe. T.K is with Matt, so I can talk to the two of them at the same time."
"Alright, so we'll meet at the park like usual? I'll see you then," and he hung up, after saying goodbye to his young friend. As soon as she had hung up she dialed T.K's number in quickly, and began to tell him of the good news.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Gennai, it's good to see you again!" Sora called to the elderly gentleman that greeted them as they arrived in the Digital World. They had all met at the park and an impatient Kari had practically dragged them all to the Digital World. Now they were all looking forward to seeing their digimon again, as well as trying to find their missing leader.
"What are you doing here Digidestined? I told you that it was too dangerous!" Gennai exclaimed, rushing to greet them, "You have to follow me immediately or 'Master's' allies may find you." The old man turned around and ushered them into his house, where their digimon were waiting patiently for them. There was general havoc as the digimon and their partners greeted each other for the first time in two years. When the noise finally died down, half an hour had already passed and Gennai was finally able to talk to them.
"As I asked before Digidestined, why are you here when there's all of this trouble about?" The Digidestined were confused.
"But isn't that what we are here for? The Digital World is in trouble and whenever it has been in trouble before, we have saved it. We should be here to defeat this 'master.' Besides, we have to find Tai," Matt added that last part on at a 'look' from Kari.
"Yes, we have to find Tai! That is the important thing," Kari exclaimed, with Gatomon on her shoulder. The cat-like digimon had chosen to sit perched on Kari's shoulders so that she would be able to keep track of the digidestined of Light without looking too obvious about it.
"I suppose that I cannot convince you to leave… at least not until you have found Tai. I think that I may know someone who might be able to help you. You should look for a boy called Rage. He knows everybody in the Digital World, right down to the last digimon. He also seems to know the routes of the patrol parties that 'Master' sends out. If anyone would know where Tai is, Rage is the one to know," Gennai looked down at his hands, as if he didn't want to see them as he said the next part, "Don't be afraid of Rage, no matter what you may think of him. He was captured by 'Master' too, although he has never told me for how long. You say that Tai was captured too, so maybe Rage was there when Tai was too. I-I don't know anything more, I'm sorry. You are just going to have to do this by yourselves."
"Hey, where's Agumon?" T.K asked suddenly, out of the blue, looking around the room slowly. He hadn't noticed the absence of the digimon of the crest of Courage until just now.
"He was deleted about a year ago now. We all stumbled across a patrol and he sacrificed his life for ours," the digidestined were horrified at this news and Kari had tears streaming down her cheeks.
"But he's okay, isn't he? I mean, all digimon are re-born, so Agumon is fine, right?" she cried, hoping that this was true. But Gennai just shook his head.
"The attack was laced with something that 'Master' had invented. It prevents digimon from being reborn. It is only used on digimon that try and fight the patrols. I'm sorry, but we couldn't do anything," the Digidestined were all in shock. Who would do such a thing? Finally it was Joe that pulled them all together again.
"Well guys, we had better go and find this Rage guy so we can find Tai and then kick this 'master's' butt!" but there was still a sad undertone in his voice, even though he tried to say this cheerfully. They all nodded some a little numbly, but they all followed him out of the safe little house.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"I'm going out on my patrol now, so I'll see you guys later," he called back into the room, where two other teenagers around his age were sitting at a table roughly constructed from the trunk of a tree. They looked up for only a second from their card game that involved hitting the hand of the loser with the deck of cards at least seven times and then their eyes went back to the cards that they each held in their hands.
"Okay Rage, but make sure that you're careful this time. Last time they almost caught you again and that would not be very pleasant for the peace in here in the Digital World," Rage was sure that Yolie wasn't even aware of what she was saying as she chose a card from her partner's hand.
"Yes, we don't want to have to come chasing after you. And you probably should come back on time tonight, otherwise Yolie here will have a heart attack," Ken too was concentrating more on the game at hand than on his words and Rage could hardly make some of them out.
"Yeah, whatever guys. Yolie, don't bruise Ken's hand too much more. I can never understand it how he always loses at Bloody Mary and yet manages to win every other game. He must be an unconscious masochist or something," Rage grinned at the indignant noises that Ken made at his back before he climbed out of their little hidey-hole and back into the 'reality' of the forest. His real name wasn't Rage of course. It was more of a nickname that Yolie and Ken had come up with for him when he had refused to give them his real name. They had eventually gotten that out of him too, but the nickname was for everyone else to use. Ken and Yolie had become his best friends over the past year and a half that they had been free from 'Master's' lab. His best friends before that had been Sora Takenouchi and Matt Ishida, but he hadn't seen them in a long, long time. He wasn't actually sure of the exact time that had passed since that day when they had all come to the Digital World… it seemed like it had been forever since then, but he logically knew that it couldn't have been. For one thing he had grown, but he was only about fifteen centimeters taller than he had been when he had been captured. True, he had been really tall then, but the fact that he hadn't grown much told him that it hadn't been as long as he had thought.
'It's funny that I should think about Sora and Kari and the others today… I wonder what I'm going to tell them if I ever run into them again. "Hi guys, it's me, Taichi Kamiya, it's great to see you again?" No, I can't say that. I'll probably introduce myself as Rage and leave it at that. Why am I even thinking about this? It's Yolie and Ken again… making me think of my friends. They are right, I do have to stop thinking and start paying more attention,' this last thought came as he stumbled over a hole in the ground that must have been made by a small digimon. There were a lot of holes over the ground where digimon had used to live, that is until they had either been caught by the patrols of 'Master's' servants or they had been advised to move by Ken, Yolie and Rage themselves.
The hidey-hole that the three friends lived in was relatively safe, at least for the moment. It was invisible to the enemy and it was defended pretty well most of the time. Every few weeks or so they moved the hideout so that they could be sure they had not been found, but they were fairly certain that they were safe. He kept his mind on where he was going; trying to make sure that he didn't break his ankle. The forest around him was quiet. There wasn't any sign of life other than Rage himself making his way through. That was to be expected as no one lived there, but it also meant that there was no noise to cover any that Rage made. Luckily months of practice had made it so that he made absolutely no noise as he crept his way to the main patrol route of the Tyrannamon that served 'Master.' He had a feeling that this time on duty he would see something much more exciting than he usually did…
* * * * * * * * * * * *
He was crouched safely under a bush with huge leaves. He did not know what had drawn him. But something had told him to be here, waiting under this bush. He was about to find out why. Ahead of him a small group of people, about six came into his sight. They were running as though they were being chased by something, but also as if they were impeded by something. As the group got closer, he was finally able to see what the situation was. The group was running from two huge Tyrannamon, they were running for their lives. They were carrying digimon, each human was carrying one. The digimon looked to be unconscious and that was obviously why the humans were running. On the back of one of the Tyrannamon was a guy about his own age, wearing a lab coat that was plain white, except for one long red stain that ran down the right hand side.
'My friends… I must help them!' he thought to himself and he slowly stood up and stepped out of his cover, so he was able to see the Tyrannamon clearly. Slowly he concentrated on the pair and he raised his left hand up until it was level with his shoulder. Concentrating on both of the evil he digimon he commanded them to stop. His hand started to glow a soft orange colour and around the Tyrannamon the same faint glow could be seen, but only by those with the 'gift' as they called it. He then commanded the digimon to leave and they did so without a second glance at the prey that they had been chasing. He quickly ran over to them as they collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion.
"W-who are you?" the youngest of them, a young girl that looked familiar, asked him. It was Kari, the digidestined of Light. She looked up at the newcomer a little warily. He was pretty tall, taller than Matt but not quite as tall as Joe, and his short hair was a colour between red and brown. That wasn't what was strange about him though. His eyes were the strangest colour she had ever seen. They were a light orange. He was dressed in light orange, but it was ripped in a few places and dirt was splattered over the front of his t-shirt.
"Questions can wait until later. Now we have to get out of here, before another patrol comes by. Come with me, I know a safe place," he moved as if to leave, but they didn't even get up, "What's wrong? We have to get away from here!"
"For all we know you could just be like the people that took Sora or Tai away. We can't go with you until you tell us who you are," Joe told him seriously, watching the newcomer closely.
"Yes, I thought that there was someone missing… Fine, if you must know my name is Rage. Gennai knows me and I know that you know Gennai. You are the digidestined and I know each of you, so no need for introductions. Now come with me before the next patrol comes!" at the mention of the name Rage they all jumped to their feet and followed him in silence until they reached a small tree that was standing by itself in the middle of nowhere. Rage raised his hand again and commanded the invisible door to open. To the astonishment of the digidestined, a trapdoor opened in the middle of nowhere and a ladder dropped down into darkness.
"What is this place?" Mimi asked before Rage basically forced them down the ladder and into the dark room. He climbed down last and closed the trapdoor behind him, with obvious practice. He was a little uncomfortable about meeting with his old friends again and he hoped that they didn't notice.
"We are somewhere safe and that is all that matters," he noticed that Ken and Yolie had gone somewhere as normally there would be a light on here, so that he would be able to see when he got back from patrol. He walked ahead of the others, who had clustered around the entrance, and found a note from his two house-mates sitting on the table.
Rage,
We had to go somewhere, but we'll be back in about an hour or so from when you are supposed to get back from patrol. We'll see you then,
Ken
P.S NEVER tell Yolie to go easy on my hand ever again… I think she might have broken it.
"The others will be back soon, so we can talk for a little while and then eat when they are here. Now we should see to your digimon. Bring them with you and follow me," he didn't give them a chance to speak or ask questions. He knew that the digimon needed some warmth straight away, as well as some healing herbs. They followed him into a small but inviting room that branched off from the main one. There were three beds that looked like the owners had practically thrown themselves out of bed that morning. The digidestined quickly laid their digimon around the fireplace that was in the wall of the far side of the room from the door. Rage had crossed the room to it and was stacking up wood to make a fire. By the time he had finished the digimon were all arranged around it and their partners had stepped back. They were now watching Rage closely, as though they still suspected him of something even though they had Gennai's advice that this guy was on their side.
'Burn' Rage commanded, putting his left hand next to the wood after taking off the fingerless glove he always wore on his left hand. He could command things to move or stop with the glove on, but it would burn his glove to ashes if he tried to burn something with it still on. The digidestined behind him gasped as the wood easily caught fire, without Rage even seeming to put effort into it. They couldn't see the orange aura that had radiated from his hand, as they didn't have the 'gift.'
"Fire is my specialty," Rage shrugged at their astounded looks.
"We can see that," Izzy was the first to recover from the shock of seeing Rage's power being used for what they thought was the first time.
"A-Are you some kind of digimon or something?" Kari asked quietly, although a little hesitantly as if she thought that it might be rude to ask such a question. Rage froze for a second before he continued putting his glove back on.
"No, I'm human. You obviously haven't heard of the 'experiments' that 'Master' conducts," his voice was still friendly and warm, but it now had a cautious edge to it. Kari looked a little embarrassed.
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so rude, but I've never seen a human set fire to something with just their bare hands before," Rage just shrugged and stood up, moving over to a small pot that was hanging beside one of the beds.
"You said that this 'master' guy conducts experiments. What does that mean?" it had finally seemed to sink through to Joe's brain that Rage had been to the same place that Tai had been and these 'experiments' didn't sound too good.
"You don't want to know. Trust me Joe, you, of all people, don't want to know," was Rage's reply as he pulled various herbs out of the pot. The herbs were weird looking; some were bright orange and some a dark black. He seemed to be digging through them to find the ones that he needed, but he took the time to look each digidestined in the eye before going back to his hunting.
"How do you know my name? Do you know us or something?"
"Yeah, I know you, even though it may just be through what Tai told me. Where is Sora? There is supposed to be seven of you and I noticed that she was missing when we got back here," they didn't make a sound and they seemed to freeze, as if remembering for the first time that she wasn't with them.
"She was caught by that boy on with the Tyrannamon," T.K replied quietly, seeing that no one else was going to speak, "We didn't get any sleep last night because we kept on hearing noises that sounded like attacks. Then this morning we stumbled on these two Tyrannamon and that guy… our digimon fought as hard as they could and Sora's digimon was deleted… then Sora didn't want to run because she had lost Biyomon and before we knew it that guy had taken Sora and had given her to another digimon that came out of nowhere to take back to that 'master' guy. That was about half an hour before you found us. We managed to run that far, but if you hadn't come along then… the Tyrannamon might have gotten us too." Rage listened to the story, but it was obvious that the others were deeply in their own thoughts, so they weren't listening. Rage could also hear the note of despair that was in T.K's voice and he realised that they had almost given up.
"Don't give up your hope guys; especially you T.K. Tai would be disappointed in all of you. We managed to escape easily from 'Master's' lab and so I'm sure that Sora will be just fine," Kari's faced perked up once again at the mention of her brother's name, and the others did a little too.
"You knew Tai? Do you know where he is now? Can you take us to him?" Rage shifted a little uncomfortably. After all, how could he tell them that he himself was the Tai that they were looking for?
"Umm… yeah, Tai and I were in 'Master's' lab together. I know where he is, but it wouldn't be safe to go at the moment, especially without your digimon. He is perfectly safe; it's just that the route between here and there is pretty dangerous. So umm… why are you guys in the Digital World? Just to find Tai or do you want to do something else?" he had finally found the right herb. It seemed that the pot had some sort of hidden bottom or something because Izzy was sure that the small looking pot could not possibly hold that many herbs. Rage was about to do something with the herbs he had found when a voice was heard from the other room.
"Come on Ken, your hand can't hurt that much!" it was the voice of a girl that sounded a little younger than Rage and Matt, but the voice had an undertone to it that suggested that the girl was a little worried, despite her carefree comment.
"You almost broke it Yolie! But let's just drop the subject, okay? Is Rage back?" this voice sounded like the owner of it was in pain and Rage just rolled his eyes as though he had heard this a million times before.
"I'm in here guys! We have visitors too and some digimon that are badly hurt," there was a scraping back of chairs that came from the other room and then two teenagers appeared at the door to the room. The first was a girl with long violet hair and pale skin. Her eyes were a light yellow in colour and they looked a little eerie in the firelight. She was just taller than Mimi by about two centimeters and she had a grin on her face that told them that she was pretty happy about something. The boy with her was about five centimeters taller than her but he was still shorter than Rage. He had straight dark indigo hair that reached to just below his chin, but his eyes were a strange light pink colour. He was holding his left hand gingerly and Rage noticed that immediately.
"Ken, Yolie, why didn't you make it so that it was your right hand that was punished? Yolie, you'd better heal Ken's hand so that he can help with the digimon," Kari and the other digidestined watched the two newcomers with suspicion.
"Sorry, we didn't realise that we were going to have to heal. We did it this way so that it would actually be a punishment. It's no fun playing Bloody Mary when you can heal your hand in two seconds. It defeats the purpose," as she spoke she took the boy's left hand and covered it with her own left hand. In a few seconds the boy was holding his hand normally again and the pair rushed to the digimon that were still lying unconscious near the fire. The digidestined tensed up as one and Rage looked up, noticing their suspicion.
"The boy over there is Ken and the girl is Yolie. Don't worry about those two, they are not the enemy. They may be a little, well a lot, childish at times, but that's because they are younger than us… except for Kari and T.K. Apart from being a little immature sometimes, they are definitely not evil. Maybe a little masochistic, but not evil," the pair glared at Rage as they started to work. Yolie was working with Patamon, lifting his ears and letting her healing magic begin to work. Ken was healing Gabumon, being careful when lifting limbs so as not to hurt the unconscious digimon. Rage settled down next to Gatomon and began to heal her, although his skills as a healer were not as good as Yolie's or Ken's were. As he had told them before, fire was his specialty. He could still heal, but just not very well. The digidestined watched in silence, unable to understand fully what was going on.
"There!" Yolie exclaimed, as she finished healing Tentomon, who was last, "They'll sleep for a while, but when they wake up they should be completely better." The three healers were still sitting on the ground, next to their last patient, whoever that may have been. Ken was next to Palmon and Rage was next to Gomamon. The three of them seemed too tired to move.
"Hey guys, are you here?" there was another male voice coming from the main room and then a figure came to the door of the bedroom, holding an unconscious figure in his arms. He was wearing a white lab coat which had a red stain running all the way down the right hand side. The figure that he was carrying in his arms was an unconscious Sora…
TO BE CONTINUED…
Litanya: I feel mean cutting it off here, but this is the first fic of mine that I have been editing carefully and re-writing it until I'm happy with it. Umm… this fic will be a Taiora probably… well… definitely but I can change that I suppose, if I get enough reviews against Taiora… but I would only put Tai with Sora or Mimi and no one else. I don't write yoai, although I sometimes read it. Just tell me what couples you want in your review and I'll see if I can change it… but Taiora is my favourite couple so I'd have to receive a lot of reviews telling me to put Tai with someone other than Sora. And it is a Kenyako fic too… and that I can't change. Anyway, please R+R and I'll update A.S.A.P, but I go back to school on Thursday and a camp over the weekend for school… so it may be a while. Please R+R and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
