Notes: Nothing much to say about this chapter except that I had it ready pretty quickly. I still don't own digimon.
~DAISUKE~
"Everyone! Get up!" I groaned in response. "Now!"
I jumped up as Ixen yelled nearby my area. I sat up and stretched my sore back. "What's going on? The sun is barely up."
"Bad news. Move it, Daisuke!"
Takeru sat up and rubbed his eyes. "What do you mean by that?"
Tai stood up and looked for his sister. "You're in a rush."
Ixen stopped and took out his D-Terminal. He bugged out over the screen. "This is bad. He'll be here in three hours!"
"Who?" Kari asked.
Ixen stared at the young girl. He shook his head. "Is everyone ready to move out?"
Sora came out of the kitchen. "Where is Ix?"
"He ran off last night," Ixen said calmly. "He took my D-Pack and partner too. Don't worry about that. Worry about Apocalymon!" He looked around. "Izzy! Is the download complete?"
The short genius was with Ken and he was hunched over his laptop. "Just a little longer."
Iori finished passing out the small breakfast. "Ixen, what's going on?"
"Apocalymon is coming." Ixen massaged the bridge of his nose. "I'm going to stall him while you all split up and look for Ix."
"What? Are you crazy?" Joe looked at the redhead. "You can't handle him on your own!"
"It's either that or have all of you captured!" Ixen countered. "Besides, he's not interested in most of you anyways." He crossed his arms. "His main target is to kill…" He hesitated. "Okay, you're not going to like this. He wants to kill the Bearers of Hope, Light, and Infinity. Those being the strongest Crests and what sustain the Digital World."
Matt and Tai became the protective older brothers they were meant to be. Matt hurriedly packed up equipment he was going to need. "Then I won't let TK leave my side!"
Ixen was taken aback. "Hold on! You're not going anywhere with TK. He's going to be with Takeru and Hikari."
Takeru looked at the redhead in surprise. "What?"
"You heard me. You, Hikari, TK, and Kari will be in one group. You four together will make you stronger."
Tai grabbed Ixen. "I'm not letting Kari off on her own!"
I helped pull them apart. "Tai, calm down. Ixen probably knows what he's doing."
"I know exactly what I'm doing. Kari won't be alone. She'll have Hikari." Ixen fixed his collar and straightened his ski goggles. "Daisuke, you and Ken will accompany Matt and Tai."
I nodded. "Veemon, are you ready?"
My partner jumped up. "Of course!"
Ken and Wormmon were ready and stood near the door.
Ixen looked out at everyone else. "Sora, Mimi, Miyako! You three will be working together. Izzy, Joe, Iori! I need you guys by the sea! Don't leave yet!"
I stood by the door and Takeru crossed his arms as he watched Ixen rush around the rooms. Matt looked at the blonde. "Take care of TK for me. It's kind of weird asking you to do it, but I have to trust that you can watch over yourself."
Tai nodded. "I trust you too, Hikari. Takeru, I'm counting on you to watch over all three of them."
"I'll do my best."
Ixen came back and checked on Izzy one last time. "Is the program download complete?" Izzy gave him a thumb up. "That program is a map covering the entire dimension. It will be difficult since he disabled the tracking system in my D-Pack, but you all need to find Ix and get him to them." He pointed at Hikari's group. "Once they're together, find each other and come back to this castle. It will be more dangerous, but this spot is the only place that will give us an edge against Apocalymon and his army. Questions?"
Mimi raised her hand. "Who is in his army?"
Ixen tried to remember. "Devimon, Etemon, Myotismon, LadyDevimon, Piedmon, Puppetmon, Machinedramon, MetalSeadramon, and pretty much a lot of other smaller minions. Take some of them out if you can, but don't make that your goal." Ixen took out his D-Terminal. "Get going! He'll be here soon and I want you all to be ahead! Don't worry about me!"
He kicked us out of the castle and we ran towards our given directions. My group was sent towards a desert. I looked at the barren landscape and saw the darkness swallow up the section of the forest Ixen was in. I hope he was okay.
~IXEN~
I slammed into the wall and cringed. "Is that all you got?" I threw a punch and missed. Puppetmon laughed as Piedmon tossed me towards the ground and crossed his swords into the ground around my neck. I gulped and stayed very still.
"As amusing as you were, you wasted a lot of our time. Where is everyone else?" Piedmon stared down at me and I glared at his shoes.
Puppetmon stepped on my arm. For such a small thing, he weighed a lot as he crushed my limb. "Come on! Just tell us! We're not going to hurt them or anything."
I growled. "I won't tell you. Besides, you won't dare do too much damage to me. You heard what happened to Devimon and Myotismon when I dark-digivolved my partner. You wouldn't dare risk that by getting on my bad side."
The swords were removed and I got up. Myotismon flew before me and picked me up by the throat. "You are so full of yourself. We can't hurt you without your partner, but once we capture him you'll pay!"
Apocalymon laughed from the dark void. That hole swallowed the entire back half of the castle. I glared at the empty space and was tossed towards it. I winced and held my right arm close to me. Puppetmon must have broken it.
"You'll be kept in our dungeon until we have another captured child. Enjoy your time here, Infinity. If you won't join us, we'll just have to recruit Hope."
I let out a sharp breath as Devimon grabbed my arm. He laughed at my discomfort. He dragged me behind him and I swallowed my urge to scream. "You're a strong boy." He squeezed the broken bones. "I wonder how long you'll last in here." He pushed me in and locked me up after he twisted my arm.
I yelled in excruciating pain and grabbed my arm. The door locked and I tried to contain the sting. I carefully set it and made sure not to move it much. I made an improvised cast and stared out the small window. The darkness masked most of the view, but I was able to see the trees. I hope everyone was better off than me.
~IX~
For some reason, my right arm was hurting. I opened and closed my fist and found the pain to be ghostly. I also thought I heard a scream inside my head. Charimon didn't hear a thing. Infinimon felt one though.
"My liege!" He turned towards the castle, but paused as the darkness swallowed it. "It's no good. He's stuck."
I stared at my arm. "Should we rescue him?"
"That will put him into more danger. He'll take care of himself. But the three of us must move quickly to avoid capture."
I stared at the mass with guilt. "I shouldn't have started this training."
Charimon pulled on my backpack. "No time for that, Ix. We'll rescue him later on!"
Infinimon picked us up and rushed through the forest. "For now, we train your abilities with the Crest of Courage."
~TAI~
I glanced at my digivice. The signals were pretty strong but none of them stood out. I often looked at it to see if Kari was safe. She was and I couldn't let her down by failing my part of the job.
Matt kept a hand on his belt. His hand was readily set to pull of his digivice in case something wrong happened with TK. Daisuke looked at the map and sighed. Ken borrowed my pocket telescope to survey our area.
"There's nothing here. He said that Etemon would come after us. All I see is a lot of sand." He jumped down from the rock we were using for shade.
Daisuke took a small sip of water. "We'll just have to keep looking for Ix."
My Crest began to glow. I looked at it oddly since I wasn't using it. My digivice also picked up a faint signal. "Could this be something?"
Agumon sat up and looked around. "Someone is trying to activate the Crest of Courage! It's back in the forest! Let's go!"
Matt stood up and dusted the sand off his pants. "We'd better hurry."
~MATT~
"We've been at this for hours! The signal is gone, Tai!" I took deep breaths to calm down my heart rate.
Agumon stopped and sat down, exhausted. "I'm sorry, Tai. That feeling of Courage is gone."
Daisuke wiped the sweat from his forehead. "That had to be Ix. But, he disappeared."
Ken gave Wormmon a little bit of food and water. "There's no way to retrieve that signal." He looked at my Crest as it glowed.
Gabumon struggled to get to his feet. "He's using your Crest of Friendship, Matt."
I looked at the new dot on the map. "It looks like he's a mile or two from where we are! What does he think he's doing?" We started off again. I glanced at the group of four that held TK. They were still safe and that would be enough to get me going.
~IZZY~
The ocean was calm, but we were careful to keep a low profile. MetalSeadramon could come around at any time. So far, we had no luck on finding Ixen, but we were doing great on avoiding detection.
Iori and Submarimon surfaced and came to shore. "There's nothing here. We'll have to move in shore, guys."
Joe looked at the evening sun. "We'll have to stop soon."
I glanced at my digivice. "It seems that Tai's group is completely lost. They left the desert area and are now back there. I wonder what they were doing. They were headed back towards the forest."
Tentomon flew up a tree to pick up some fruit. "We should eat a little."
I accepted a banana and looked at our surroundings. Iori ate pensively. "What if they managed to track Ix?"
I shrugged. "What do you know about Ixen that could help us?"
Iori thought about it. "He can use any Crest, digivice, and partner. I don't think Ix has the capabilities though."
All of a sudden my Crest of Knowledge glowed. My digivice beeped and pointed us towards the desert. Joe finished cleaning his glasses. "I guess that's where we'll find Ix."
All six of us moved further inland to get to where Ix was.
~SORA~
It was night and we had barely managed to escape Machinedramon. It was great that we were able to find a desolate city that Machinedramon found too ruined to search.
I stood guard with Biyomon as Mimi and Miyako rested with their digimon. I kept my eyes open just in case Machinedramon decided to randomly attack. It was a good thing he couldn't track us.
"Sora? Do you think everyone else is okay?" Biyomon looked at me worriedly.
I was worried too, but I couldn't let that get in our way. "They're fine, Biyomon. We have to stay strong for them."
I took out my digivice and found that the last group moving had finally stopped. They were making great headway a few hours ago, but then they ended up wandering around. Did they manage to find Ix? I guess not if they were finally giving up for the night.
Things were peaceful tonight. The stars made me homesick though. I wanted to be home with my family. I thought about the others and knew that I couldn't think like that.
I jumped in surprise as my Crest of Love glowed. Biyomon was shocked too. "Sora?"
The light woke up Miyako and she put her glasses on. She gently shook Mimi and came over with Hawkmon. "Are you using the Crest?"
I shook my head and saw that an extra dot appeared. "Ix? We'll have to go after him despite the conditions. He probably won't be available once the night is over."
Mimi reluctantly agreed to give up on sleep. "I hope we find him. I don't want to have to face Machinedramon without the others."
~JOE~
"Hey, Joe? It's morning." Gomamon shook me gently.
I put on my glasses. "That sure was a waste of time."
Izzy sat up and stretched. "I can't believe we lost the signal when we were actually getting close."
Iori stood up and looked around. "We'll have to head back towards the beach to search for him. There's no way we'll pick up his signal again."
I checked our supplies and frowned. "We'll need more fresh water soon."
Tentomon flew around and landed. "Let's get started."
I paused as my Crest began to glow. "Hold on! Ix is probably trying to use my Crest now!" I stared at my digivice and it pointed in the opposite direction of the one we were travelling yesterday. "How does he manage to move so quickly?"
Armadillomon and Iori moved. The yellow digimon looked up at me. "He has a Mega that can help him with travel. Hopefully we catch up to him this time."
~MIMI~
We all took a break to catch up on the sleepless night we had. The boy was driving me crazy since we couldn't catch up with him. Palmon fell asleep and all of us decided to try to rest up.
We couldn't spend a lot of time napping though. We had to keep moving to find the boy. Sora finished bottling the boiled water. "This should be enough until we find more fresh water."
Miyako rubbed her eyes and stretched. "I hope he doesn't do that again. We were up for a long time."
Hawkmon ate some berries he found and gave us a few pieces. "We've got to move faster if we want to make it to him."
Biyomon flew back towards us and carried a bag. "I found a grocery! It was pretty torn down, but there were supplies."
"Great job, Biyomon!" Sora took out the food and got it ready on our fire.
We enjoyed the small meal and hurriedly got ready to travel again. It was a good thing we started too. Machinedramon was looking for us. "Where could they be?"
Palmon peered around the corner and swept back. "He's a few feet away!"
I pointed back down the trail and we ran. Machinedramon already found us though. "Giga Cannon!"
I turned around and had Palmon digivolve. "Get him!"
"Needle Spray!"
We caught up to everyone else. Sora clenched her fists. "We can't outrun him. If we hide, he'll just blow up the area."
Miyako looked at her D-3. "We have to get away though!"
Togemon went back out to distract the mechanical digimon. Machinedramon smiled and aimed his arm at Togemon. "Togemon, look out!" I ran towards my partner.
"Booster Claw!" His arm fired, but light came from Crest. He cringed back and was stunned.
My digivice began to vibrate and another dot appeared on the map. "Ix! We've got to go now!"
Miyako and Sora followed me as Togemon reverted back to Rookie and caught up with us. Palmon sighed in relief. "That sure was close, Mimi."
~IX~
I sat down. I was exhausted. Charimon collapsed to the ground and was breathing hard. I looked at my Crest of Infinity. Six down, two more to go.
"What are the last two?" I leaned back into the tree and took a deep breath.
Infinimon slammed both his swords into the ground. "Hope and Light. The two belong together. You have to trigger both at once if you want to finish the training. One without the other will create imbalance and may destroy you."
I looked at the Mega in surprise. "Are you serious? Why is it such a high risk?"
Charimon sat up. "They're powerful, Ix. You've got to try though."
Infinimon pulled his silver sword from the ground. "Be careful on how much power you use though. Too much and we'll be found for sure. So far, we managed to avoid detection from Apocalymon, but he's completely on the lookout for the powers of Hope, Light, and Infinity."
I nodded and got back to my feet. "Tell me. Is Ixen okay?" I stared at my right arm and turned it. The pain had receded but it was still there.
"As long as you keep training, he will be."
I nodded and focused on what was Hope and Light. They were a bit foreign since I never really was optimistic in the first place. Charimon flew up and gave me a determined stare. I had to do this for him.
~KARI~
"Is everyone okay? We can rest if you need it." Takeru looked TK and me. We both shook our heads.
I didn't want to burden the group with my exhaustion. We have to keep looking for Ix. But I could barely stand. TK gave me a worried glance and I felt even guiltier for not giving him a chance to rest.
"We should rest, Takeru. The two can barely stay awake," Hikari stated.
I was about to protest, but she looked down at me and I understood that we all needed rest. We couldn't keep going or else we'd be in danger.
"Takeru, there's a lake nearby. We can stay there." Seraphimon looked at our sleeping digimon.
"Seraphimon, can you carry them?" Takeru picked me up and handed me to the digimon. "Don't argue, Kari. I have enough energy to keep going. You two need rest."
TK looked up at the blue Mega. "Thank you, Takeru." He smiled at me and I smiled back before sleeping.
I couldn't tell if I was dreaming or not. I thought I heard Hikari and Takeru speaking with each other. "You should really sleep, Hikari. I can watch things tonight."
"You didn't sleep last night. Are you sure, Takeru?"
There was a loud yawn. Seraphimon stood up and checked on his partner. "Takeru, you should rest too. Ophanimon and I can watch over you all."
"He's right, Hikari. You two need to save your strengths."
The two came inside and settled near the entrance of the cave. Takeru took a deep breath. "Look at those two. Were we really that close?"
"I guess we were. TK looks so adorable like that. He doesn't seem to mind Kari and Patamon sleeping on him. You were so short!"
"Do you think things will stay that way with us? Not the height thing, but how we respond to each other's company."
The two didn't respond. Hikari hesitated just a bit. "I don't know. I don't want to lose my best friend."
"Yeah…" Takeru was getting sleepier. "But watching them together makes me feel slightly off, like something is missing…"
~TK~
"TK? Time to wake up." The rising sun's light was covered by a shadow.
I carefully sat up and realized that Kari was nowhere around me. I opened my eyes and saw that the girl was gently poking my stomach to get me to wake up. "Where is everyone?"
"Takeru is patrolling the area around us. Hikari is looking for more fruit. Patamon and Gatomon are watching the entrance while the two angel digimon are nearby watching everything."
I stood up. "We've got to help out too!"
"TK?" I turned towards Kari. "Never mind. What should we do?"
I left the cave with her and looked around. "Maybe we should try to track where Ix might be!" We took out our digivices and stared at the map. "They were all trying to go towards certain directions, but they ended up stopping."
Gatomon came over and looked at us. "You two shouldn't be outside."
Patamon agreed. "It's only daybreak and anything can happen."
My Crest began to glow. Kari's did too. I looked at it. "What's going on?"
"Hikari!" Takeru rushed back as his Crest shone from inside his shirt.
"Ix is activating the Crests!" Hikari took out her D-Pack as she came back. "We've got to hurry!"
I stood up and checked that we were well enough to travel. "Let's go find Ix!"
~IX~
It took all night, but I managed it just as the sun was rising. "I did it! Charimon! Look! I activated all of the Crests!" I stopped celebrating when the atmosphere chilled.
Charimon braced himself for danger and Infinimon tightly gripped his swords. "Get back, you two. Your inexperience may cost you your lives."
I would have argued but Infinimon had a lot at risk. I couldn't argue without putting myself in danger. "What do we do?"
Laughter surrounded us. Infinimon dashed towards our left and sliced through a bush. "Double Striker!" He chuckled lightly. "Found you, Devimon!"
Devimon lashed out but missed. He snarled at us. "I don't have time to waste. Hand over that digivice and Crest!"
Infinimon swung his swords. "Ix! Get out of here! You need to be with TK and Kari to be safe."
I looked at the silver Mega. "Are you crazy? Charimon can handle him!"
Charimon pulled on my shirt. "We'd better hurry out of here! We're tired from the training and Infinimon won't have enough strength without his true partner."
I saw that my partner was right. Infinimon was slow and lagging behind. As sturdy as he was, he needed Ixen to be by his side to fight. I tightened my hand around the two digivices I held. "I'll be back for you and Ixen!" I turned around and ran deeper into the woods.
Charimon flew behind me. "Don't think too much about it, Ix. We've got to keep going!"
I finally stopped when we reached the thick cover of the trees. I slumped down and glared at my digivice. Ixen was right that I was weak before, but now I have to rescue him to prove him wrong.
"We've got to go back and raid the castle, Charimon," I said, determined. "We've got to try to save him."
Charimon shook his head. "Are you crazy? He told us to find TK and Kari. Let's go, Ixen!"
"I can't abandon him! We owe him for making us stronger."
Charimon flared up. "Getting into danger won't help him!"
I glared at my partner. "I can go alone then." I tossed my digivice at him. He caught it quickly. "I won't need that if I can save Infinimon!" I stormed towards the darkened castle. I stared at the D-Pack in my left hand and squeezed it. It was time for me to see how strong I was.
