Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon so please refrain from suing me for writing fan fiction. Thanks and enjoy!
(A/N: Remember in this series Takeru is about nineteen. Not eight. Not eleven. NINETEEN! I was going to say the same for Daisuke in the first one, but I forgot to put that in. I will now shut up and start writing the actual story.)
The Test--Chapter 2
What happened? Was I unconscious just a second ago? Ugh, my head hurts pretty bad. Where am I? Where'd everyone else go?
Takeru sat up, then groaned and lay back down when his headache intensified. He was in what appeared to be a small hotel room. Only a bit of moonlight filtered through the closed blinds allowing him to see vague shapes and shadows. The bed he was lying in was a bit on the hard side and the sheets were stiff and starchy. The only other visible thing in the room was a hard chair. There didn't appear to be anything or anybody else in the room with him.
After a moment, he realized something was on his forehead. It was cold, very cold. He quickly removed it and examined it in the scarce light. It was a rag. Somebody must've taken care of me. But who else is here?
As he was pondering this puzzling point, there was a bright flash of lightning accompanied by a clap of thunder. He could hear rain pinging off of the roof that was above him loudly and wind was howling outside. The room suddenly swayed violently and Takeru was tipped out of the bed he was laying in and onto a hard plank floor.
He stood slowly to avoid receiving another stab of pain through his skull and stumbled over to the door of the room. The room pitched again and Takeru grabbed hold of the door to keep from falling over. Once the room had settled somewhat, he quickly opened the door.
He was unprepared for the blast of wind and icy cold rain that hit him in the face when he opened that door. He was even more unprepared for the fact that he was not in a hotel at all. He was on a ship in the middle of a storm.
There was another crack of lightning, illuminating the decks of the ship briefly and Takeru's stomach plummeted when he noticed there was nobody on the decks. In fact, the decks were beginning to decay and pieces of the railing at the edge of the ship were gone altogether.
Nobody else is here! He realized. A huge wave came crashing over the edge of the deck, drenching him with salty water. This ship isn't safe. I've got to get off somehow, his mind was screaming.
Takeru stepped out of the room and began heading for the stern of the ship. It was difficult to work his way against the wind, as it was blowing toward the bow of the ship and the watery deck was slippery. Rain was pelting him and it was mixed with hail, which bounced off of his face, arms and chest painfully. Twice he slipped on the wet, rotting wood and got blown back several feet. It was taking all his effort to move up the halls.
Finally, he reached the end of the sleeping quarters and got to the front of the ship. The door of the captain's room was flapping madly back and forth in the wind and the steering wheel was jerking back and forth with every gust of wind. His first two attempts to enter the captain's room ended in his hand getting smashed in the flapping door.
Takeru held his bleeding right hand in his left for a minute, wincing as a spray of salty seawater found its way to the open wounds. Another gust of wind attacked him, blowing him off his feet and onto his back.
The ship rocked heavily and Takeru helplessly rolled toward the rail-less edge of the deck. As he was rolling, he passed a hole in the decaying wood. In desperation, he darted out his hands and caught hold of the splintered wood. He was now hanging half-on and half-off the ship. The ocean was churning below him and another flash of lightning glinted off of the troubled surface. Takeru felt as though if he let go the ocean would swallow him up and he wouldn't have a chance.
The wood was cutting into both his already injured right hand and his left hand, but he only held on tighter. The rain was getting into his eyes and the hail was pounding at him relentlessly as he tried to pull himself all the way back onto the ship.
Takeru pulled against the wind and rain ignoring the wood as it dug into his hands and was finally back onto the deck. He was afraid to stand up again lest the wind catch him off guard again, so he crawled back to the swinging door.
The door was still flapping crazily. Takeru caught hold of it as it opened and forced it to stay open long enough for him to crawl into the captain's room.
Once he was inside, Takeru collapsed, his strength failing him. His hands were throbbing with pain from splinters that had buried themselves deep in his fingers and palms. They were bleeding badly and three of the fingers on his right hand wouldn't move from when they were slammed in the door.
They'd better not be broken, Takeru angrily thought. The steering wheel jerked to the left, sending the boat pitching in that direction on a wave. And I'm going to stop that stupid wheel from doing that, he decided.
After considering for a few minutes, Takeru removed his shoes and took out the laces. It was slow work for him, as his right hand was almost useless and the splinters were painful, but eventually he managed to finish and held two long shoelaces.
He then took the shoelaces over to the steering wheel and tied them tightly onto it, then onto what it was mounted on. This too was very difficult and the steering wheel kept jerking around after he tied it down with the first shoelace. Finally, he had finished his deed and smiled in satisfaction at the now unmoving wheel.
I'd feel safer in a little lifeboat than here, he thought as he felt the ship lurch against another wave. I wonder if there are any lifeboats?
Takeru got to his feet and walked back out of the captain's room. It was much easier to get out than go in, as the door didn't swing in. The wind was blowing against him again and he began to force his way up and around the captain's room.
When he got to the front of the captain's room, there was absolutely no protection against the brutal wind and he was blown up against the window of the room. Hail and rain was hitting him much harder than it had before and he covered his face with his arms to prevent getting hit in the eyes before edging across to the other side of the ship.
Now the wind was behind him and it was hard to continue walking as the wind blew him forward. Even in the darkness, he could easily tell there were no lifeboats on this side of the ship either. There was, however a stairway that led down to the storage.
Well, at least I can get out of the wind and rain, he miserably thought as he climbed down the stairs.
Though out of the wind, he was not totally free of being wet in the empty storage hull. There was about three inches of water on the ground and it was steadily rising as water leaked in through the holes in the planks that formed the deck.
That was when the startling realization hit him: this ship is going to sink. There was no denying it. If the water building up down in the hull didn't make the ship too heavy, it was only a matter of time before it fell apart.
The water sloshed around his ankles and he shivered, realizing just how cold he felt. His hands were throbbing again and it felt as though they were on fire. Blood was still dripping from his hands and into the water.
The ship was thrown forward on a wave and Takeru fell into the water. The instant his hands touched the briny water it felt as though hot knives were stabbing through them and he jerked them back out of the water.
He heard a loud creaking and realized the ship was already beginning to fall apart. Panic surged through him and he ran back up onto the deck. The wind greeted him by pushing him back, but he fought desperately to reach the front of the ship.
After several minutes of hard work, Takeru was back in front of the captain's room. Another loud creaking sounded and Takeru saw part of the walkway he was just on fall into the churning waters.
Then he realized that the crow's nest was still intact. It was insane, really. Such a tall pole should have fallen by now, surely, he thought.
Another creaking and the walkway he had walked up to the captain's room on was completely gone.
Still battling against the wind, Takeru forced his way toward the pole that held the crow's nest. Oddly enough, the rope ladder was also still intact, although it was swinging treacherously back and forth.
Takeru instinctively began to climb up, as far away from the water as possible. The ropes, unlike the ship, were fairly new and did not hold the threat of breaking. Though as they were jerking around as Takeru was climbing them, they did pose the threat of throwing him off.
Once the ladder tipped upside-down, leaving Takeru clinging to it helplessly until it righted itself again. As he climbed, his hands were burning even more than they had been before and his right hand was of no use to him at all anymore.
After what seemed like an eternity of breathless climbing, he made it up into the crow's nest. There he sat shaking from the cold and trying to remove some of the splinters that were buried in his hands.
As he worked, a voice coolly stated: "so you finally have arrived."
"Huh?" Takeru muttered, looking up. A man that looked to be in his late twenties was on the horizontal pole that supported the crow's nest and peering down at him. Takeru noticed with a little apprehension that the man seemed to be muscular.
"What do you want?" Takeru demanded.
The man did not answer, but instead threw a long, thin pole at him and motioned for Takeru to leave the crow's nest and stand on the pole.
Once Takeru was balanced against the wind on the pole the man shouted above the roaring wind: "we must do this quickly, as this pole we are standing on will soon break."
"What do you want?"
"We must fight using these poles. The object is to knock you opponent off the pole. The winner gets to live. The loser dies."
"Wait a second! Why?" Takeru inquired.
"The Dark demands that it be so," the man replied. "Now I advise we begin before we both die."
Takeru noticed the man was charging at him, keeping his balance perfectly on the somewhat narrow pole, holding his own pole in front of him, ready to attack.
Instinctively, Takeru ducked. Unfortunately, it caused him to lose his balance. He quickly grabbed hold of the pole with his left hand, right hand unable to help him. His own pole fell out of his hand and he heard it clatter far below on the deck of the ship.
"You've lost," the man calmly said, kneeling down. "I'll do it slowly," he sneered. With that, he pried at Takeru's pinky finger, making him let go. Now he was holding on with only three fingers and they still had the splinters in them, making them hurt badly.
No, don't let him do this! WAKE UP, STUPID! YOU'RE GOING TO FALL! His mind shrieked.
With a sudden burst of adrenaline, Takeru kicked his legs and swang back up to the pole. Not only did he manage to get back on top of the pole that supported the crow's nest, he managed to kick that hand that the other man was holding his pole with. The pole fell from his hand and clattered to the deck.
"So I underestimated you?" the man muttered. With that, he easily scooped Takeru off his feet, ready to simply throw him off the pole.
Takeru struggled, making the man lose his balance. The man dropped Takeru onto the pole and fell with a scream of anger.
After the man hit the deck, there was a bright flash of white light and something floated up from the decayed deck and into Takeru's hand. It was a pure crystal, much like the one that Daisuke had obtained.
There was a cracking noise and Takeru noticed that the pole he was on was finally breaking. He turned and jumped for the crow's nest only to find that in the place of the crows nest was a door that was radiating a bright light. Before he could think about it, Takeru was through the door and the pole fell away…