Warnings: Gods, devotion, blue and orange morality, violence, blood, and fire. And if you have not read "the nights that never die", go read it I beg of you, it brings you context!

Chapter Two - The Weight of the Sun

"This isn't good."

Mirei made a face of mild displeasure. Complete displeasure and anger would only give the person causing these problems the satisfaction and her more stress and she was far too young for such things.

… Okay she was actually pretty old, but for her species, she was still young enough. And for her position she was a speck. So whatever. It counted.

Mirei looked upon the might of the human world being crushed and did not despair. She only closed her eyes and reached out to it, feeling more internally than externally. Her body thrummed as she took in the scene before her.

Namely, the sun-worthy fireball that was preparing to sink down on a bus really. And a truck or two, and a heck of a lot of trees. She breathed out once, facing forward. And she reached with a power beyond her fingers and into the sky and called out,

"Yagami, do you want to live or not?"

It was a simple sentence with a simple purpose and to be honest, she had no idea if it would work. But considering who she was calling either it was going to work or she was going to have to replace an entire team of kids in like: ten human world minutes and that was a tragedy. Or was it a statistic? She really wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

"Do you two want to live or not?" she repeated to the air, knowing they could hear because they were old enough at this point and their father was acting like keeping destiny on course was more important now than later (the kid was too stupid to play the long game, he just was, there were older and better players than a jumped up little boy who missed his mother.) "You've got to do something, if you do, Taichi, Hikari."

Her friends were just. So. Silly. Why wouldn't they use their power to live? To keep their cover? How ridiculous.

Hikari was used to heat. Her brother's body glowed with it constantly. It bubbled under his fingertips, sometimes accidentally singing his clothes or his soccer ball or once in a while other people. But this was on an entirely other level that didn't respond to fire extinguishers and being buried in sand.

And she still could not stop sneezing. It was getting terribly inconvenient especially considering everyone around them was likely going to die. And she just couldn't let that happen.

She could hear her parents now. She could hear them telling her, you can't save everyone, you're sick, you can barely save yourself, you're too young. But she'd just made a friend and he didn't deserve to turn into human chips without dip. No one really deserved that.

So, as casually as she could, she moved from her seat. She coughed a couple of times, of course, but no one had moved yet, either absorbed by the state of the bus or having just seen the very large light in the sky and not known what it was yet. (Or she had accidentally slipped out of time, she knew someone had done that at least once.) No one except Taichi. She was surprised to realize he hadn't taken the window seat as he usually did. But now he was getting up and moving towards her with bigger steps.

"We could run," he said, a grin beginning to form on his face, all bright and bloody and cold. "Or we could fight. What are you in for?"

FIght the sun. Fight the sun. Only her brother. Only her big brother.

"Do you want to live or not?" registered so clearly in her ears it hurt a bit. Hikari smiled a little. Trust another to be willing to help.

Hikari took a deep breath and was so happy it came out correctly without snot and spit. "Let's fight a sun."

He grinned and strapped his goggles on.

To be precise, they weren't going to be really fighting. Just delaying, holding back while the bus crash landed.

In another world, but who needed specifics?

Neither of them were remotely capable of yanking things out of time and space but their uncle was. They just needed to cause enough of a fuss to get his attention.

The world trembled and time caught up to them. People were starting to scream. She saw Taichi's left eye twitch and tried very hard not to smile. Her brother was kind but he was also very impatient. She could hear him thinking humans. He was so like dad.

"Stop the bus," he shouted and raced towards the front with her in his arms anyway. She really hoped he didn't just bust through the windshield with her in tow, them surviving that would be difficult to explain. Then again so was what they were about to do but they could always lie about that. Human brains quickly made up excuses a lot of the time

After all, she had had a feeling that she'd absolutely needed to be on this bus today. Now she knew why.

Some old god was dropping a sun on some children. Not cool.

Thankfully the bus screeched to a halt instead, leaving the door to rush open in the middle of the highway. Everyone else was stopping which made it all too easy for Taichi to run out with her and then, without hesitation or subtlety, climb to the top of the bus.

Meanwhile, Hikari was coughing, hard. She spat on the ground and groaned. "Colds are gross." She really hated her immune system right now. Why did she even get sick?

He set her down, patting her shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll probably pass out super hard when this is over so you'll get to sleep it off. Get on it quick or else."

Hikari shot her brother a scowl. He was so buying her ice cream later. Then she looked away from his wry grin and focused on his eyes. His eyes were narrowed in concentration, a vivid clear blue in place of his normal soft brown. She sneezed and picked herself up fully. Her eyes were furiously closed, the heat still a mild tickle on her face.

Then, inexplicably, the air let out a thud.

Or perhaps the wind was knocked out of itself. No matter. The air met the force of the meteor (which now that Hikari could kind of see, it wasn't the sun, just a meteor which wasn't much better but it was much less terrifying) as it dove down and down.

Her brother started to sweat. "She makes this seem so easy."

"She's also actually a god, Nii-chan."

"Don't get smart with me."

Ooh she was going to get him for that one.

Someone was shouting behind them. Loudly. What was it? Something about coming back inside? No, outside, something outside, something else was-

Something else was falling. And it was faster.

"Nii-chan?"

"They're smaller," he said, which asn't that helpful considering her eyes were shut. "I mean, they're like the size of chicken eggs."

"Oh."

That was about as far as either of them got before both of them were smacked in the gut with one each. Tai crumpled to the roof of the bus as the meteors punctured holes into the poor stuck vehicle. People screamed of course.

"Ow," Hikari managed to say, sitting up. Her brother didn't say anything at all and she looked to see the device pulsing with a steady, orange light around him. She uncurled her hands around from where she had wrapped around her own and it glowed a steady, warm pink. She clapped her hands around the thing and it didn't stop glowing. Great.

Maybe she could use it. She pulled one hand away, which was harder than she thought it would be, and made to shake her brother away. Taichi didn't stir.

Despite the heat getting steadily warmer and closer, Hikari pouted.

"I gotta do all the hard work myself," she told him. This of course didn't get him to wake up any faster.

So she turned to look death in the face and dug. Dug into her heart, dug into the place beneath the human body's pains and ills to what everyone said connected people to the world.

"I named you for the lights of the world," her mother had said one day, pretending to be a mystical sort, or at least more mystical she was when she wasn't cooking outside of the recipe. "Your brother for the first, you for the many lights. And I was right to do it."

Trite, probably, not useful, if her friends were anything to go by. But now she had to believe it with all of her heart. She was named for the light, and now she had to become it.

Something shrieked in the sky, possibly with laughter. Daring her to try, waiting for her to fail.

Hikari looked at the sun and did not blink. If she was going to blind herself to save these people then so be it she would.

"Help me," she uttered. She cast her hand out to the sky, the strange meteor pulsing in it. "You called to me, you asked me, now help me help them."

And the air thrummed in answer. There was a trilling sound and it echoed in her bones. She couldn't see, but she didn't need to. Hikari took a step away from her brother, and another, and another, until she was no longer stepping on anything at all. Or perhaps there was the air, or the trees, or the cars and trucks and buses using this lonely road that led to ports and camp sites. She could be flying for all she knew. Hikari couldn't be bothered to care.

"Help me," she uttered again. "I don't want to die! Do you?"

And seven lights answered, wrapping around, wrapping and pulsing about as the world responded that no, it did not.

And then the heat, concentrated before her face, kilometers from her nose, exploded.

Hikari fell and as she fell she thought she heard her father say, what am I going to do with you two?

But he wasn't here, so that couldn't be right.

As blissful unconsciousness dragged her down, she could have sworn she heard someone giggle.

Takenouchi Sora woke up to the world on fire.

Or a world on fire. Japan, last time she paid attention in science class, didn't have burning palm trees. Or rough hard earth, or blue leaves on anything.

Maybe it was manufactured, maybe that didn't matter because there was still fire everywhere. There were people crying, the sound of grunts in moving bodies, so much to do so much was wrong and-

She coughed smoke and groped around. Her fingers closed around something small and cool, cold even through the leather. Her heartbeat slowed, calmed. The screaming didn't mute, but it softened, went down easier.

"Sora!"

The voice cut through her calm and she opened her eyes. There was a boy stumbling with a smaller one on his back, a blond boy desperately tugging on something moving alongside his bag. And ahead of them all was Taichi, but Taichi hadn't been wearing a yellow cape when he'd run outside of the bus. Still, he gestured for her.

"Come on," he said. "We've gotta hurry so we can put the fire out and get everyone else."

That made no sense. But maybe this was a dream, where things didn't have to makes sense. She went, stepping over bodies and people. She saw a piece of fabric, pink and dangling. Someone was crying.

Realistically, though, who wasn't crying?

Everything smelled like fire.

Wasn't she supposed to be at camp? Weren't they supposed to be having fun and setting up tents? She'd wanted to get away from her mother but not-not like this?

Not forever!

Or maybe she had.

She didn't want to think about that.

She stumbled out, nearly knocking into the girl with the cowboy hat and the smaller boy clutching his laptop tight to his chest as if it would run away. His irises were barely visible, the whites so large they were like moons with veins. He breathed hard and fast and without thinking she touched his shoulder.

"It's okay, Koushiro-kun," she tried to tell him, tried to croak out some believeable lie. "We're out, we're okay."

"We are not," he said, shaking his head painfully hard. "We are not."

She couldn't reply to that.

Then water crashed into the bus, stoking out the flame as Taichi bolted back inside.

"Zero!" he called after him. "Hurry up, need your ham hands!"

"My hands aren't food, Taichi," rumbled something as a giant blue dragon dog… thing went after him and went into the bus with a mild squish of the stairs. And then they were carrying out people.

The girl beside Koushiro screamed. Sora was right there with her. But soon they came out with kids, and their teacher and it was that that called Sora into action.

They were injured, bleeding. Maybe they were dead, but there was no way to know, no way to tell, they had to-

"Sora!"

Another voice, much lower, by her waist. It was a giant pink bird, staring up at her with such innocent, earnest hope that it hurt.

"I found you, Sora!" The bird said with joy. It turned its whole body around. I found them, everyone! I found them!"

And as more monsters rushed to them, squeaking and shouting and enraptured, this time, Sora had to scream.

Forgotten on top of the bus, Hikari stirred.

A/N: Today's chapter was brought to you by my lack of patience and the sheer amount of time this chapter took from me because I rewrote the initial plan. Also the entire Digimon All Star server screaming at me about the dadgomon!AU. Ya'll are welcome. Please review me, I feed on the screams of my readers and keeping my lights on. Or commission me. Best way of contact is through tumblr or discord. Please see my site for details.

dnofsunshine: I replied to you privately but my pms are closed so here is another! I apologize for the lack of Takeru in this chapter but next couple of chapters... Pity this boy. because I sure won't. *insert cackles here*

lostdestination: Yes! Yes he will! A lot! He kind of has to, he's terribly relevant to this at least first couple of arcs. Bless him. And yes a V-Tamer Taichi is around. I pray for my soul. And for the rest of you.