Thank you to the Guest who reviewed chapter 2 of this story. It's always wonderful to hear that people enjoy my roundabout way of presenting a story.
"Tai, maybe we should take a break." Agumon didn't sound winded, or even tired; he'd kept pace with Tai for the last three hours, walking alongside him, silent and alert.
"How are you feeling?" Tai halted and gave his companion a once over. He seemed no worse for wear than when they'd set out in the morning, but that might have been because recently, everyone looked like they'd been wrung out.
"Fine. But...there's nothing here. Not even any hostile digimon." Agumon tilted his head up to indicate the trees, with their dark leaves and light bark. Sunlight sparsely penetrated the canopy, enough to light their way, but too little to heat their bodies and ward away the damp chill of the morning. Even with more light, the forest wouldn't have been any less unsettling. All the sounds of wildlife were always a distance away, like a far off echo that receded the closer anyone came to the source. If there was anyplace in the Digital World that could intersect with Dark Shore, it would be here.
"I know. But it's also where Izzy said to look. The reflection point." Actually he'd called it a measure preserving mapping in space, though not necessarily time. Tai understood the general idea, despite the technical language. Draw two parallel lines on a flat surface, and you could always connect one point on the top line to one on the bottom with a perpendicular segment.
Agumon frowned. "I still don't really get that. How do we know if the worlds are still touching?"
"We don't. That's why we have to look." Tai started walking again. But no mention of how that connection would change if the lines were bent and twisted. Even Izzy couldn't find a way to predict that. Yet.
Agumon caught up with Tai a few steps later. The forest was growing darker. Tai checked to make sure it was because the branches were becoming more numerous, and clustering together more densely, and not for otherworldly, malignant reasons. Kari said she'd been transported without even realizing what was happening, that she'd been drawn to a specific spot, just like those years ago in Puppetmon's forest.
"Maybe it was another message, someone trying to speak through her," Tai muttered. Only this seemed to be just the opposite kind of messenger.
"Tai, you still haven't said what happens if we're sucked into this place. How will we get back?" Agumon didn't sound fearful, merely curious.
"We'll cross that bridge if we get to it," Tai replied, with no small amount of levity.
"What bridge? I don't see a bridge." Agumom looked right and left, up and down.
Tai laughed softly. "Never mind. Just another human expression." Maybe after this was over, he could teach Agumon more about how people talked to each other without spelling everything out.
Just like Matt and me.
Well, in Tai's case, no words at all. Matt hadn't said anything about what happened in his mother's apartment, even when they'd eaten in Matt's empty one the next day. Everything worked just like before, which was fine. He'd leaped forward, and hadn't landed on his ass. Couldn't ask for much more than that.
"I don't think we'll have to worry about getting sucked in anyway," Tai rekindled his focus, abruptly. If the Dark Shore was anything like what had happened before, then it needed a trigger, a medium, as Sora had said, and Izzy had accepted, in lieu of a better term.
"I wish I were as sure as you," Agumon said warily. He'd started turning his head to every side more frequently. With the positioning of his eyes, Tai thought he looked like an agitated bird, though he'd never say it aloud.
"Is there something out there?" Tai asked quietly, and slowed.
"I dunno. It's like I can almost smell something, and then it just gets swept away." Agumon shivered. "It's creepy."
"Yeah," Tai conceded. He stopped and stared ahead, and could only make out the first few yards of trees before the trunks dimmed and faded to black.
"It really is getting darker." Tai looked up, and pinpoints of light still shone through some of the leaves. "And it shouldn't be." His grip on his Digi-vice tightened. They'd destroyed the nearby control spire, so Tai wasn't much concerned about running into anything they couldn't handle.
"Kari said she didn't see anything before she vanished..." Agumon left a note of hope in the statement.
"Yeah, but who knows what else is stumbling around out here."
Maybe the Dark Masters decided to come back and join the party.
With that cheery thought in mind, Tai crossed the boundary, from dim canopy to dark wood. His body tensed. It was like plunging into a lake in the dead of winter. But his teeth didn't chatter, and the rest of his body body stiffened without cause. Tai's fingers dug into his triceps, his shoulders arched toward his ears, and his calves were on the verge of cramping. He exhaled loudly, wetly, like he'd just breached the surface of that icy lake, and then.
Screaming. He looked around frantically.
Shouting. Someone was...
Tai reared, up and over, until he was shambling across the forest floor, his feet and palms kicking up dirt and leaves and dust.
No. No. He couldn't. He couldn't help, he couldn't save them. Couldn't move. Run. Walk. Jump. Couldn't. He could only listen to the scream.
"Tai!"
"Get. Get away from me." He said that evenly, a miraculous control seizing his voice, while his body trembled and his mind seized.
"Tai!"
No. No he had to...
Tai's next breath caught in his throat and he coughed until his eyes watered. He raised his head, and he hadn't moved; he was on all fours, fingers buried up to the joints in cold dirt. He hadn't moved. The second realization made him want to laugh, but he just coughed again.
"Tai!" Agumon was by his side, voice and body driven by the same urgency of battle.
Tai wiped his mouth.
"I'm fine," he croaked. His next few breaths were hollow and shallow. Agumon did his best to rub Tai's back, a motion he'd never tried to imitate before now. Tai appreciated the gesture, even if his partner's claws felt too close and too sharp against his thin jacket.
Tai righted himself after a few minutes. His head throbbed, and he badly wanted water to drink. It felt like he'd just played his all through a closely matched soccer game, and had still only managed to win through a stroke of luck.
"Tai?" Agumon sounded no less concerned.
"I'm good. I don't know what happened." He coughed again. "Someone screamed, though. I don't know where it came from. You heard it too, right?"
"I did. I don't know if it was a Digimon or something else."
"Human," Tai asserted, voice still weak. "It was human." Tai stood, most of his weight going to his right leg. He stumbled forward and would have fallen, if Agumon hadn't been there to support him.
"Thanks," Tai said. After a few moments, he righted himself. Twilight shrouded his the trees, and the canopy was invisible from the ground, faded into deep obscurity.
"Agumon. What did...what did I do? Was I trying to run away from something?" The words curdled on Tai's tongue, twisted his lips and made his eyes narrow.
Agumon frowned. "No. You just fell down, on the ground, and wouldn't move. I didn't know what to do." He sounded so agitated, so genuinely worried, that Tai immediately wished he'd brought someone else along. Agumon couldn't defend Tai against something that had only a mental presence.
He smiled. "Hey, it's all right, Agumon. Like I said, I'm fine now. I just wish I knew what was going on here to begin with."
"We should leave. There's nothing here, and I don't like being a place where there are enemies I can't see."
Tai didn't say anything. Was this what Kari had gone through? No. She'd been able to see everything just like normal. Except there were digimon there, on the Dark Shore, different, twisted digimon that wanted to use Kari against something even more twisted than themselves. And Angewomon had beaten them back, with a regular attack. Maybe they were talking about two different places, and Tai had just stumbled upon one which...made him what? Afraid? Yes, afraid. But also unwilling, unable to overcome that fear. This place, for a moment, had made him...
"Uh, Tai?"
"Hm?" Tai glanced down, but Agumon's attention was focused behind them. He followed his digimon's line of sight.
The feeling drained from Tai's hands and chest. Light and shadow danced along a knife's edge to form the border of a gash in the air. Past the rift, there was the old forest, dim but bright in comparison, the welcoming beacon to signal the exit from a deep cave.
"What?" Tai breathed. He moved forward slowly, and started to extend his hand.
"Tai, be careful." Agumon quickly, voice tense.
Tai nodded, but didn't stop. "It's the other side of the forest." His eyes narrowed, Tai examined the flickering border of the rip, now bright, then dim, each aspect pushing, blooming then dying, but never vanishing or dominating.
Chaos. Flux. The words rose in Tai's mind, cloaked in Izzy's matter of fact voice. He would want to hear about this, would probably expect a detailed report, and Tai was boggled if he could even start to give one.
Tai's hand passed through the rift. Nothing. He'd expected warmth, maybe a flash of light. But he didn't feel any pain, or slick, rising terror. He might as well have been walking from the hall to the bathroom.
"I think it's safe to go through."
Agumon didn't offer an opinion, so Tai put one foot through, then the other, and within seconds, he found himself standing at the edge of the forest, the mid afternoon sun bearing down on him with all its force.
"Agumon?" Tai asked quietly. His hands hung loosely at his sides, and his fingers curled towards his palms, stalks bending lightly in the breeze. He looked directly at a thicket where the trees started to rise toward the sky.
Tai received only a noise of affirmation, and then Agumon leaped forward and up, claws shinning brilliantly in the light.
"No! Please, stop!"
Agumon halted in mid attack; he descended with his claws lowered, landed with a quick grace that belied his usual, ambling nature.
From the brush, a digimon slowly crawled forward, on four broad, squat paws. Its fur was a dull grey even in the light, its face round and open, as though on the verge of asking a long held question. The markings around its eyes and nose were red. Its ears twitched and curved toward its skull as though picking up a distant sound.
For a long, silent stretch, the digimon simply stared up at the sky, unblinking. Its mouth opened at some point, and remained so until Tai said,
"Who are you?"
No response. Just a shift of pupils, a fluttering of a transparent membrane, a claw scratching away at rock and soil.
Tai let out a long breath. A trick? An accidentally shattered control ring? Or something from the other side?
"Agumon. Do you recognize him?"
"No. I've never seen this kind of digimon before." Agumon hadn't taken his gaze off the interloper, and still kept himself in a fighting stance, ready to strike out at range or in melee.
"Agumon," the digimon said without inflection. His voiced sounded almost stuffed, the sound offset by a higher, juvenile tone.
Almost like Gomamon.
Finally their mystery mon blinked. His attention scattered, then refocused on Agumon. His ears went rigid.
"Agumon." Incredulity melded with delight, and he jumped, again and again.
"Agumon! Agumom! A normal digimon! Ah, I'm back! I'm..." His voice lost strength with each word, his limbs moved as though leaded with great weight, but he kept on, until he was sprawled on the ground, panting.
"I'm back," he whispered.
Tai ran forward and knelt next to the digiom.
"Hey, calm down. You're in pretty bad shape, you should..." Tai stopped as the digimon laughed, weakly.
"It doesn't matter. I'm not going to be around much longer anyway." There was a simple, terrible certainty in those words that froze the words on Tai's tongue. He'd heard it before. When Chuumon had taken Piedmon's attack against Mimi. After Whamon's head had been pierced clean through by River of Power. This wasn't the time to talk. He could only listen.
"So long. I was gone. For so long." The digimon looked to the sky again, just to make sure it was still there, still real. "I tried to find others, but they were all. They were dark. Evil. Wanted to hurt and tear." He stilled and shivered. Tai's hand hovered above the digimon's back; he didn't know what would happen, but he slowly moved his fingers through the matted fur, felt muscles stiffen, then relax.
"You're safe now," Tai said.
"Mmmm." It was a sound of contentment, probably the first he'd made in...
"What's your name?"
Silence. Tai continued the motions of his fingers, a light rubbing motion, back and forth, side to side. There was warmth beneath the fur, but even Tai could feel its intensity decreasing.
"It's all right," Tai said, though he didn't know what he meant by that. He kept on with the contact.
"So long. I don't even know how long. I lost. I lost track of it all. That forest. It never ended. Just went on and on. And nothing tasted right. The water or the food. Even the air. It felt cold sometimes for no reason, then normal." His voice trailed off, and the digimon's breathing increased.
After Tai felt the pulse beneath his fingers steady, he asked,
"Do you know how it happened?" Tai heard Agumon shift next to him. If it was too much, the digimon wouldn't have to answer, but they needed...Yes, they needed the information.
"It happened. One day. I don't know. I just crossed over. It was always dark here. But after. After He came, it got worse."
Tai's hand stiffened. "The Digimon Emperor."
His companion didn't seem phased.
"If that's what you call him. He built the towers. Enslaved others. But even before that, he would always come here. I don't know why. Maybe he was looking for something. Maybe he just liked the dark. But." The digimon stilled. His breathing sped, then slowed. Tai's legs were growing stiff and numb, but he continued to kneel. He wasn't sure how much time passed. The digimon would narrow his eyes to slits, then open them a margin wider. He would shift around in the grass, take deep breaths through his nose, savoring immediately familiar scents. All the while, his heart rate slowed.
"Mmmm." The digimon gathered it's limbs close to his body. Tai moved his hand, then saw wide eyes glistening in the light. His voice was so soft, Tai had to lean in to hear.
"I'd forgotten, what the sun and the sky were like. Thank you."
And he was gone.
Izzy still didn't know what to make of it all.
Tai leaned back and tried to make himself more comfortable against the side of the bed. He shouldn't have expected a miracle. Only his expectation of a reprimand had come to fruition.
"And Tai. Next time you decide to go on a field trip like this, take one of the others with you. Preferably me."
"Right. Next time I decide to have a run in with an alternate, evil dimension, you'll be at the top of my list of friends to call along."
Izzy let the sarcasm pass. "We don't know if it's evil. At least from a relative sense of 'us' vs 'them.' That's why..."
"Yeah, yeah. I'll invite you next time." Tai sighed. "What did you find out about the digimon I met up with?"
"Not much, unfortunately. I deduced that he was a sea animal type, with vaguely reptilian attributes. But beyond that, we don't have a name, attribute, or level. Not even an area of origin."
"Doesn't seem like a sea animal would be hanging around a forest," Tai muttered.
"No. But remember, it's possible that he was drawn to the Dark Shore, and wound up trapped in the 'in-between', so to speak."
"Well, that's nice to say, but it doesn't bring us any closer to an answer."
"It's a lot to process, Tai. Between you, Kari, and that digimon, we've got three different, maybe even contradictory accounts of what happens in the 'dark realm.'"
"I wasn't in the real dark realm, or whatever you wanna call it. Not like Kari was." Tai paused. "It's her crest." There wasn't a point in phrasing a question. He'd seen enough. Felt enough.
Izzy nodded. He looked so stoic, Tai was tempted to ask right there how his face hadn't frozen into one expression.
"Light and Dark. Kari's crest is the antithesis of what the Dark Shore represents. She has a strong connection, even if she can't control it."
"Yet." Always an eventuality. Always a way out.
"We'll see." Izzy typed something into his computer, and Tai, not for the first time, suspected he was updating some enormous spread sheet that detailed all the important occurrences of his life. He tried to smile at the thought, and that usually worked, but today all he could manage was a kind of tired recognition of a fond memory.
"I did find something else from the data on your Digivice, though. Come take a look."
Tai slowly pushed himself off the floor. His lower body tingled with pinpricks, and he really didn't feel like sitting again.
"All right," Tai grunted and lowered himself next to Izzy. "What am I looking at here?" He gestured at the screen, which was alight with black and white flecks, flickering into and out of existence. Taken as a whole, they formed into the shapes of trees, silhouettes on a moon-lit night.
"It's a representation of the data bits in the Digital World. The darker areas represent higher concentrations, and the white areas lower."
"And the white background is...air?"
"There's a very low concentration of particles, comparatively speaking. We'd have to increase magnification by a few orders of magnitude to make them out. If you want..."
"Izzy," Tai said, exasperated, but amused. "Maybe next time we can look at air."
"Oh. Right. Sorry. OK, what you're seeing is the regular Digital World. Sort of like looking out of your window on a clear, normal day.
Tai nodded. "I figured."
"Now. Watch what happens when you pass through the barrier." A few keystrokes, and the scene on the screen shifted. The flickering dots changed color; some black remained, but large chunks were torn out of the trees, and a dilute mist of blue dots settled all across the screen.
Tai raised his eye brows. "And what is that?"
"That. Is whatever composes the Dark Realm. Notice how it's trying to fill in the empty space of the trees. If you'd fully gone over, I expect the Dark material would completely assimilate the trees, maybe even turn them into something different."
Tai almost responded, but his breath caught and he pointed at the screen.
"That. What...what are those things?" Tai stared, as one, then another, four limbed creatures coalesced from the particles and moved amongst the trees. They were barely a foot high, and seemed to have claws in place of fingers. The shape of their heads were too blurred to make out clearly.
"I never saw anything while I was on the other side." But it was dark. Too dark. Maybe his eyes had played tricks. He needed to calm down. Rethink.
"No, you wouldn't have. These...shadow creatures, are native to the Dark Shore, or have been so twisted by it that they're no longer distinguishable as their original selves."
So they were there. Others. That he couldn't see. And had they come for him, been drawn to him.
"The digimon I talked to. He said that when he was in the other world, he was attacked, but he didn't know how or from where."
But at least his last memory was happy. Thank you. Tai had never heard so much gratitude in those two words. He didn't know if he could take them from someone he knew, someone he loved. It would be different, when and if he heard them from friend or family, he decided.
Izzy was still talking, and Tai had to actively refocus himself.
"And I think it's safe to say that whatever these things are, they can't fully interact with us, anymore than we can with them. It sounds like this digimon's wounds were more psychological than physical."
Tai didn't say anything to that. Yes or No. Then Tai felt cold.
"Wait." He cleared his throat. "Wait, could these things have also come through?"
Izzy's hands paused over his keyboard. His lips thinned, as though he'd been caught in an omission of fact. He exhaled lowly.
"I don't know. If we consider that the missing digimon could only pass through the portal when it was opened externally, and that these creatures could on tangentially interact with him, then they had a very small window. Statistically..."
"It's possible," Tai finished, not in the mood to be placated by technicalities.
"Yes," Izzy conceded after some hesitation.
"Wonderful. And what've you got in regards to the Digimon Emperor's connection?" Tai resigned himself to another unpleasant answer.
Izzy shut his laptop. "Now that. That's something I can only offer speculation on. Maybe he is just incredibly evil, and so he's drawn to the absence of 'light', as it were. Maybe he's someone manipulating the alternate world with his control spires. Or, worst case scenario, he has no idea what's happening, and he's going on ahead and tampering with these forces regardless."
This time Tai did manage to laugh. It grated even on him.
"I'll take my bets on that last choice."
"Unfortunately I have to agree with you." Izzy frowned in concentration. Or hesitation. Just a modicum of difference, the height of his brow vs the quirk of his lips. Tai rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
"He's Digi-Destined, too. I mean how else could he get into the Digital World?"
"Anything is possible, Tai. You should realize that by now."
Tai scratched his cheek. "I think it makes more sense my way. Corrupted Digi-Destined. Maybe his crest is special, like Kari's. You know. Extreme. In terms of his personality right now."
"Tai, that's a big stretch. You're assuming he has a crest, one that's managed to remain partially active all this time, just enough to draw out the Dark Shore when he's nearby."
Tai sighed. He stood. His legs and ass were sore. "It's an idea. I dunno what's really going on. But I think it's safe to assume that if we want to put a stop to it, we've go to take this guy out."
Izzy's face relaxed. Tai winced.
"So who did you talk to?"
"Sora," he said firmly. "She told me a few days ago, said you were planning on having some big meeting. And just let me say, keeping that from me and the others is way more disappointing than the Dark Dimension omission."
"Hey, it wasn't an omission, I just didn't think things would get that crazy."
"Not the issue right now, anyway." Izzy stood as well. He was still almost a foot shorter than Tai, but his stature did nothing to diminish his easy confidence.
"I agree with you, Tai. It's not a pleasant thing to think about, but if we can't reason with him, and we can't contain him, we have to get rid of him permanently."
Tai regarded Izzy. "Just like that?"
"If it comes down to the last option, we'll make a plan. We've never been short on those."
Tai laughed quietly.
"I think it was more like, something happened, and we had to scramble together just to haul our asses out of the fire."
Izzy nodded. "True, but we worked well like that. And now, we have the benefit of experience, time and access to our own territory. We should take advantage of all of that."
"We have been. Although...you're going to be seeing Davis and the others on Monday, right?"
"Yeah. I usually talk to Yolei during computer club."
"Good. We should arrange weekly meetings. Share info. It's hard for me to have any kind of conversation with Davis during practice that doesn't revolve around the game, and Kari's been spending a lot of time with the new group anyway."
"Sound idea. I'll try to work something out. In the meantime, we should also share this with Matt, Sora and the others."
"The Dark Shore, or the last resort?" Tai didn't know why we was speaking in code now. Brevity. That was good enough. Tai scoffed.
Listen to you now. You're making excuses for you own idea.
"Both." Izzy's brow pinched at Tai's expression.
Tai cracked his neck. "Fine." He started toward Izzy's bedroom door. "I'm gonna get going. Probably start with Matt, go from there."
"I figured."
Tai frowned but didn't comment.
Not as subtle as you think you are. Get over it.
"Hey Izzy. Don't say anything to Davis and his gang about that digimon."
Izzy assumed his stoic expression again. Then nodded. "All right."
One more goodbye and Tai was out the door. He took the stairs. They were fairly steep, and he couldn't move as fast as he wanted. When Tai hit the pavement, he stopped, stared at the sky for a few breaths, and broke into a run. He'd worn shorts and a soccer polo. Excellent choice. The air was wonderfully cool, and each breath sent a shiver of pleasure through his body. After a few blocks, Tai pulled his shirt off at an intersection.
Tai grinned as he felt the air gust against his chest and back; his skin pricked, and would have spread his arms out, only for a moment, if the side walk wasn't crowded. No one gave him a second glance. It was as though he were moving parallel to them all, easily and fluidly. How could anyone be sedentary? Let their bodies slow and slacken willingly?
Tai jumped cleanly over the corner of short brick wall, instead of rounding it.
Davis and Sora were the only others who'd go running with him, and Davis liked to talk. Always wanting attention. He didn't get enough at home. Must be that. Couldn't confide in a sibling like Matt.
So. So he went to Tai, his teammates. But him most of all. He needed guidance, a bit of reassurance, and he'd be fine.
Sora.
Tai upped his breathing, inhaled for three steps, exhaled fully for two.
It had been moths since she and Tai had ran together. Not enough time. Enough motivation. No. Motivation as too fleeting. Focus. Discipline. That's what you needed. What Tai had, what he knew Sora had in droves. But she still hadn't gone with him. Was it...him? Someone else? Matt?
Tai's feet hit the pavement harder.
Couldn't have been. He hadn't lost track of either of them for long. They were together, the three of them. But that didn't mean anything. Could have been a third wheel without realizing it. But the kiss. Matt would have said something, wasn't the kind of guy to lead on like that. He could always ask, would ask, if it came down to it.
If. They were all reaching low now, scraping the bottom. They needed some relief. It was easy. A smile. A day spent together at the beach. A kind word or phrase.
Thank you.
Sweat moved down Tai's brow and chest, the droplets ripening and rolling. He'd need a shower all over again after this. His shirt would need a wash.
Thank you.
He imagined Matt, his smile, reserved for a few people, while his lips moved.
Thank you.
Nothing grounded the words. No situation, pleasant or awful, spectacular or boring. Just the phrase, their sound, the way they molded Matt's mouth. Kindness. That was all.
Tai stopped, beneath the arch of a bridge. He could see his apartment complex, just a block away. The shadow cast by stone and metal slanted out onto the concrete before him. Tai's heart hammered, his body hummed with the thrill and passion of exertion and use.
God, was this. Was this what it would be like with Matt, after? Would they exchanged a smile and those words?
Tai shivered, and not from the wind. He suddenly became aware of the growing ache and warmth in his abdomen, and the confluent rush of adrenaline, heat and satisfaction made him dizzy, and he leaned against the cold concrete of the bridge.
Tai's fingers brushed the front of his pants, briefly, and in a breath his face was burning just at the thought. In a public park. He wasn't one of those trench coat wearing perverts on the train. But his thoughts...they weren't. No. It was just Matt's voice, his face, his mouth those words. They had so much power. Power to.
And Tai's eyes snapped open, and he felt cold all over again.
Was that what had awoken the darkness in the Digital World? Created a rift, flanked by two nodes so extreme in character they could never meet, unless in catastrophe?
Hell, you've seen it yourself. Stranger things. But this. The Digimon Emperor couldn't be. Couldn't have that crest.
Kindness.
But if he did, then he had the same strength, the same power to overwhelm and awe. And there was no limit to what he'd do with that strength.
Tai's hands curled into fists. He straightened, took a breath, and held his head so he could see the apartment complex clearly, then ran forward. He was sure he could go on forever.