Nothing to say but here's chapter 4.
First thing Takato felt was lots of what's normally categorized as pain. His head had an unpleasant throbbing sensation, his arms and legs ached, and to top it all off, there was a nasty odor in the air.
He flinched and felt a layer of a weird crust on his face crack as he blinked and flinched. Opening his eyes was one of the difficult tasks he had ever done. They literally felt about three tons.
As he opened his tired eyes, a flood of blinding light struck his pupils. He tried crying out in shock, but ended up having a fit of violent coughs as his throat was as dry as the Atacama Desert. He lifted one of aching arms to shield his poor eyes from the light until they adjusted.
As his vision slowly came into focus, he noticed a couple details about where he was. He was on what looked like hospital bed in a large, stone, windowless room with one door. The bright light was just the light above his bed Next to his bed was a small table with piece of paper. He reached for the paper, and as he did he noticed his blue hoodie and black jeans still looked in pretty good condition.
He took a look at the paper and read:
Takato, you've been in a comma for almost 3 days. You are in the HQ of the Resistance fighting force. You will briefed all about us once you have fully recovered. Your friends and Guilmon are safe, but they are extremely worried and will be delighted to know you are awake. I'll be seeing you soon.
Takato looked all over the paper but it was completely devoid of a signature. After giving up on the search for a signature, Takato began to process what he had read. He breathed a silent sigh of relief. Guilmon and the others were safe!
But as his momentary wave of relief subsided, he began to wonder on what all of the other meant. What is this Resistance? And why weren't the others allowed to see him? And he had been knocked out for 3 days?
He swung his legs over the edge of bed just as the room's only door opened. His tired, bloody, and dust-covered face was filled by an ear-to-ear grin as Guilmon entered the room, followed by the rest of the gang.
"TAKATO!" Guilmon screamed as he charged at Takato and tackled him into a bone-crushing hug. He coughed as the red dinosaur crunched every ounce of air out of him. "Oh Takato," he said, head still buried in his shoulder. Takato couldn't help but think in the back of his mind, Well that paper was remarkably pointless.
"Gui-lmon!" He stuttered as his face started to turn bluebell blue.
"Oh, sorry." Guilmon replied as he saw the color of Takato's face. He loosened his death grip and looked into Takato's face with that 'Guilmon grin.' "We've been really worried Takato!" He then looked over his shoulder and whispered in his ear, "Rika even cried a little bit. She punched Ryo in face when he made fun of her for it." Takato laughed. Yep, he thought. That's Rika. Punching Ryo in the face for a change.
And speaking of a certain red-haired girl…
Rika slowly walked up to Takato. She was still the beautiful girl he knew, but she looked like she hadn't slept for weeks and had cried a lot more then Guilmon mentioned. He held out his arms in a gesture suggesting a hug. Instead, she first punched him in the arm causing Takato to yelp in pain, before she squeezed him a hug so tight that it made Guilmon's hug look light and quick.
She could feel Takato choking, but for some reason she didn't really care. He deserves it, she thought, still squeezing him like a boa constrictor, that stupid gogglehead just poofed on us! That idiot made cry for god's sake! You don't do that shit without a bit of punishment!
But after close to a minute, she could he feel his lack of oxygen starting to affect him badly, and reluctantly, she loosened her chokehold around his torso. "You, stupid, idiotic, GOGGLEHEAD!" She yelled. "I've been so worried! We've all been! Don't you ever do that to me and the others again! I haven't been able to sleep since you went unconscious!" She screamed as Takato's theory was proven.
He could feel her silent tears staining his hoodie as she continued to hug him. He just held her close, every once and a while giving her a pat on the back. He lightly kissed the top of her crimson head, causing her face to turn that same color as she slowly backed away.
And on the way out, she added a hard punch in the stomach making him double up and stumble.
After he regained his balance, Takato turned his attention to Henry, with Terriermon sitting on his head. Henry put a hand on his shoulder and said, "It's sure great to see you awake dude. Even Terriermon missed you."
The little rabbit digimon frowned. "Hey," he began in a defensive tone. "I did not!" Henry raised an eyebrow. Terriermon sighed and dropped his head in embarrassment. "Ok fine. I missed you too. But at least I didn't cry about it." He smirked over at Rika, who returned his look with her classic death glare.
Terriermon was the only one of them who could stare into Rika's death glare without cowering in fear. He could stare into her amethyst eyes while she wore that expression without an ounce of fear in his eyes.
Henry reached up and sharply poked Terriermon and said, "That was very rude Terriermon. You know me and my manner rules." Terriermon groaned.
Slowly, every member of the team came forward to "welcome back" Takato. Kazu and Kenta gave him lots of "friendly" punches to welcome him back. As Ryo came forward, Takato noticed the rather large black eye he had.
"Yeah," Ryo said, knowing what Takato was staring at. "That red-headed devil over there really roughed me up!"
Rika smirked. "There's plenty more where that came from Mr. Perfect." She whispered under her breath. Takato was the only one who heard and smiled.
Jeri and Calumon looked like they would blow up from too much happiness as they came forward. Calumon grabbed onto Takato's face and hugged it as tight as he could with his tiny arms, laughing the whole time. "Seeing you up again is worth at least a billion cream puffs Takato!" He cried in his adorable little voice.
Jeri looked like she would squeeze Takato in yet another crushing hug before Takato held out a hand stopping her. "Please," he said in amused tone of voice. "Go easy on me. Rika probably cracked my ribs. I don't think they could handle you too."
Jeri laughed. "Well, good to see you're still the same Takato." She said before quickly giving him a light hug and backing away.
"Takato, it's been awhile." Kazu and Kenta backed away from Takato's bedside allowing a familiar face to step forward.
Takato gasped as his jaw hit the floor. "Yamaki!"
Yamaki chuckled, still flicking his lighter. "Hey kid. It's been awhile." He stepped closer, and put a hand on his shoulder. "You're a lot taller too."
Takato didn't answer as his jaw stayed on the floor. How is this possible! He thought as he tried put his jaw back to its normal place. Yamaki and Hypnos were arrested! So how is he here!
"Yamaki! How, how are you, well here!" He asked, stuttering.
Yamaki laughed. "Kid, I'll tell you the short version. Hypnos was going to be raided, the others and I packed up, and came here."
Takato shook his head. "What is here? Resistance HQ? What do you do here?" He was starting to ramble, and Yamaki held up a hand.
"Takato, just follow me. I'll show you what I can, and my colleagues can tell you the rest. We need you up to date before our plan can be put into action." Takato opened his mouth to ask what this plan was, but Yamaki cut in, "My colleagues-will-explain-everything!"
Takato nodded and made to follow Yamaki out the door. Rika and Henry grabbed his arms and helped him out of the room. Takato gasped.
The room outside was enourmous. In fact it was really a room, but more a hangar. In the hangar, jets, helicopters, tanks, even some ships and attack boats in dry docks, all surrounded him on multiple floors. The noise in the place was immense as soldiers fired guns at ranges all around, and the sound of vehicles being repaired rang through the air
Yamaki grinned at Takato's stunned expression. He then handed out pairs of headphones it everyone. As soon as he snapped then onto his head, all the bustle and bangs of the room where shut out.
Yamaki's voice suddenly came through the headphones, causing Takato to jump and fall on top of Ryo, just barely avoiding Rika. He had seen his destination, and wildly swung his arms around to avoid her.
Kazu and Kenta rushed in to help Ryo, leaving Takato to pick himself off the metal floor. He stole a quick glance at Rika who was rolling her eyes with annoyed look on her face.
Yamaki's voice rang through his headphones again. "Anyway, Takato, welcome to the Colosseum. We call it that for the fact that it is so large. Here, we store vehicles, weapons, and ranges. The actual launching areas and test chambers are located in other areas."
When Takato opened his mouth, Yamaki cut in again, "I'm showing you around, not answering questions. That's these guys' job." He then turned around and continued walking.
Takato turned to his frinds and gave a confused expression. Rika rolled her eyes again said in an agitated voice, "Well, follow him stupid! Like he said, these guys will fill you in later. The guy's on a really tight schedule."
Takato slowly nodded. He understood that Yamaki didn't have much time, but he just woke up from a three day coma in some sort of military base, and he wanted his questions answered.
Yamaki lead the tamers to line of people, all of them facing Yamaki. All of them were in very different looking military suits. There was about eight of them. Yamaki put a hand on a tall, brown haired guy. In fact all of them looked to be in there mid twenties.
The brown-headed guy stepped forward. He was a digital camo combat suit with a large revolver in the holster. "Hi guys," He said in a cheery voice. "I'm Alex, and I'll be your combat vehicle instructor to make sure you don't blow up our limited amount of expensive and advanced technology." He paused for a second and then added, "Damn, that was a mouthful."
A guy a little shorter, but a lot broader, and with shoulder length blonde hair came forward. He had chains of bullets wrapped over his combat suit like Rambo. "Hi. I'm Chris and I'll be teachin' you to handle heavy weapons." Kazu and Kenta ooh'd and ah'd before looking at each other with a crazy grin on their faces.
A shorter guy, about as tall as Jeri stepped up. "I'm Sean, and I will be you paratroop instructor and medical officer."
An even shorter girl stepped forward with a crazy grin on her face. "Wow! I'm going be teaching the tamers! I'm Emiko, and I'll be teaching you guys how to handle basic weaponry and combat skills."
Another guy stepped up with a small grin on his face. "Well guys, I'm Shawn but I go by Kennedy, and I'm your infiltration instructor." He had a calm demeanor that reminded everyone of a certain tamer: Henry.
Finally a taller and much older man, maybe in his early forties, walked up. He wore a long, camouflage cloak with the deep hood over his head. In his hands, he held a large sniper rifle. He spoke in a quiet voice, but you could still make out his Irish accent. "Hello. I'm Harold, but I go by Halt. I'll be teaching all of you youngsters how to hit a target a range, or just sneak by the little bastard."
After all the instructor's had said their part, Yamaki came forward. "Well kids, those are your teachers for the combat skills you are required to learn. You start your classes at 8:00 am, and finish at 3:30. After that you may do as you please on the base grounds. You'll start classes tomorrow."
And with that, Yamaki and the instructors all walked away.
Takato sighed and turned around to face his fellow tamers. "Can I talk to you guys now? Is there anywhere here that's a little quitter?"
Henry said into his mouthpiece, "Yeah, there is. Yamaki gave us this enormous complex thing. Sorta like a dorm with a few more rooms."
Takato nodded. "Alright, let's head there." Henry pointed towards a lift indicating to go that way. As Takato walked towards the lift, and while on the lift going up, he realized just how enormous the Colosseum was. It was hallow, but taller than a skyscraper, so how was it never found?
He came back to reality as the lift lurched to a stop. Henry the led him around hallways, corridors, down ad up staircases, and up ladders for about twenty minutes before stopping at large door. Henry pulled out his digivice, and held it up to what looked like a small stretch of blank black wall. He held it there for over thirty seconds straight.
"Uh Henry," Takato said nervously. He could always tell when Henry was trying to focus. "I think you might be-oh Jesus!" He jumped as the bit of wall shot out eight lasers, each connecting to one of the digivices.
An electronic voice rang through the hallway saying, "Scan complete. Subjects: Wong, Henry, Matsuki, Takato, Nonaka, Rika, Akiyama, Ryo, Katou, Jeri, Wong, Suzie, Shioda, Kazu, Kitagawa, Kenta. Access granted."
The huge metal doors released a loud hissing noise, and a cloud of steam spilled out, engulfing the already shocked Takato.
As the mist cleared, Takato's jaw dropped as he saw the complex before him. It looked like the living room of Bill Gates in the year 3000. It had leather couches, reclining chairs, a full kitchen, and shelves made of what had to be obsidian or something. It had crazy high tech TV's and computers built into the furniture everywhere.
The room was circular, with rooms sprouting off in every direction. Henry pointed to the room straight ahead and told Takato, "That's Rika, Jeri, and Suzie's," he pointed to the room to the right of it, "that's ours," he pointed the one to left of Rika and Jeri's, "that's Kazu, Kenta, and Ryo's, and all the digimon sleep in their partners respective rooms."
Takato nodded, and started to walk towards his and Henry's room, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Rika a small package. "Yamaki said to give you these," she said handing it to him. "You're not our gogglehead without goggles are you now?"
Takato slowly unwrapped the package only to find a very familiar article of his usual attire: his goggles, now bullet hole gone, and completely fixed. Takato's signature, childish grin exploded upon his face. He pulled them onto his head in no time.
"Ah, that's so better." He said, causing Kazu to snicker.
Rika couldn't help but smile, and laugh internally. Seeing Gogglehead look like a kid getting the biggest gift on the planet for Christmas was just priceless. "Yeah, they're now goggles on drugs. They got upgraded to have bullet proof lenses."
She actually laughed out loud seeing Takato facial expression to that comment. He yelled out with a crazed voice, "Holy cow, that's so cool! That's like action movie awesomeness!"
Henry laughed, grabbed him by the shoulder, and dragged him into their room. "Alright dude, once you get settled in, I've got a little surprise from Yamaki that he saved from the camper." Henry was actually afraid that if Takato got any more cool news, his head might explode, but he was going to give him the stuff anyway.
Takato threw all of his clothes into some drawers and all his toiletries into their bathroom in about 30 seconds. Henry, Terriermon and Guilmon (both of whom had just walked in) all fell on the floor laughing at Takato's expression. He looked exactly like a dog waiting for his master to throw him a toy.
Through fits of laughter, Terrieromon said, "Fetch Takatomon!" Takato looked confused for a second, and then realized what he had been doing. Then he too joined in the laughter.
As Henry pulled himself together, he grabbed a long, thin(ish) package. It was oddly shaped, but to Takato's eye it was a little familiar…..
"No way!" Takato stated. "No way! There is no way Yamaki saved this."
"Well he did," Henry said with a slight grin. "He also saved my keyboard, Kazu's guitar, and Kenta's drum set. My keyboard was pretty busted, but his engineers fixed it in about five minutes."
Takato tore off the paper in on swipe to find his pride and joy from school: his electric guitar. It was blood red, with a white Hazard symbol on in.
During school, Takato, Henry, Kazu, Kenta, and occasionally Ryo would play at parties and stuff. That was part of the reason they now knew what it was like to be Ryo.
It brought back a sense of nostalgia for Takato. Playing his guitar while singing until his voice snapped or his throat too sore.
Right then, Ryo poked his head through the door. "Takato, Henry, you guys get out here! That Alex guy is here." Ryo stated with a crazy look on his handsome face.
Takato looked over at Henry, who looked just as confused as he did. Henry shrugged and got up, and followed Ryo out the door. Takato sighed, and followed suit.
In the living room, all the others were sitting on couches all facing the newcomer: Alex. He was standing in his combat suit, his revolver, and a "Takato-like" grin.
When he saw Takato and Henry approaching he said, sounding sorta like he trying not to laugh, "Well, well Takato! You're up and about." Takato got the feeling he was beating around the bush.
"Sir, what do want?" He asked, sounding a little harsher than intended.
Alex however took it in his stride and continued, "Well, I was sent by Yamaki to come answer any questions and or concerns you may have. Though I will say before we start that I cannot give you all the answers you probably will want per say."
Takato sat down in a chair and thought about some of the stuff he wanted to ask. There seemed to be endless amounts of basic crap he needed to know, but didn't, leaving him confused on where to begin.
"How about what is this 'Resistance' exactly and how do you hide this place?"
Alex chuckled at this. "Well, this place was actually a privately funded and owned place. He believed in our cause, and gave us this place. For security reasons, I couldn't tell you his name even if I knew it." He paused looking for a reaction from Takato, but all he got was a blank stare.
"And as to how we hide this place well, I'm not sure I even if I did, I'm sure I couldn't tell you. As to what the Resistance is, well, it was formed on the idea that you guys, the Tamers, and their digimon partners could be reasoned with. That you could aid us in this war against this evil. After all, I'm sure you probably know more about digimon then 90% of the people here."
Takato shook his head. "Well, how did you get all of that stuff you had out in the Colosseum! You had tanks and jets and helicopters and endless amounts of guns! And I swear I saw a few attack bots in mini dry docks out there! Did you make that stuff! Buy it somehow!"
Alex laughed. He admired the kid's positive spin on things. But he was being very naïve. The real truth was a bit more "un-honorable." "Hate to break it to yuh kid, but most off that was slowly stolen. It went unnoticed as we mostly EMP-ed an area, and jumped the crew of the vehicles. Their disappearances are mostly put down to digimon attacks."
Takato nodded. He had to admit, it sorta made sense.
Sorta
"But, why did you have to steal it? Why couldn't you just, I don't know, build another one or somethin'? It sure looks like you have plenty of resources."
Alex laughed. "If we went around building brand spankin' new F-22's or M1 Abrahams tanks, then kid we'd be broke ass poor in a couple weeks. The government has no good use for them. So we take 'em."
Takato still sat, confused. "But, you guys kill other human beings! They aren't the enemy that digimon armada is!"
Alex cut in before Takato could continue, only this time with a voice full of venom and anger. "Kid, I know who the real enemy is! I've been here for almost a year now doing what my superiors say, and thanks to our efforts, we've actually stopped your city from getting completely wiped off face of the earth more than one time. And sometimes, to save lives, you gotta kill some too, and leave the rest. The real world isn't just good and bad people. And in this fight, the government thinks you need to die to protect the people, but we believe you should live because you people are the best weapon available at this moment. So we're tryin' to stop them from killing you. So you gonna complain about that!"
Takato just sat, stunned at Alex's outburst. Alex took a few deep breaths, and continued, but his voice had returned to its usual tone, just a little softer.
"Sorry about that." He said in an apologetic tone. "Its just, I won't lie in sayin' findin' you was a tough and bloody business. A lot of people died trying to keep the government off your backs until we could extract you. And now, it's time for you to do your part."
Takato was shocked at this news
"Ok, now, what do you want us to do?" At this, Alex grinned and shook a joking finger at Takato.
"Now, ain't that the question. The short version is we need the firepower of you and your digimon. Yamaki has told us about the kind of power you guys posses when you bio-merge. So, we looked around for you. We could tell you guys were hiding pretty damn well from the government because we couldn't find you for months. But when that battle went down a few days ago, damn. Our radars and tracking satellites lit you guys up like a Christmas tree."
He paused for a second and then continued, "And now we have you, all of you are gonna have to go through some training with me and the others. You'll have Emiko in the morning, then me, then Chris, then Kennedy, then Halt, and then Sean. After your classes, you are to come back to my room so we can begin our 'secret' class."
Takato raised his eyebrow. He looked around, and saw he wasn't the only one.
"What do these classes entail?" He asked tentatively. Alex laughed at Takato's tentative voice.
"Kid, all of you are pretty much masters at this already. The 'class' is basically you will digivolve your partners and bio-merge, and we will scan you guys while you fight some dummy targets. We want to learn more about the digivolution process."
Rika snorted at the mention of "target dummies." Alex turned around to face her smirking face, raising his eyebrow as he took in her confident expression.
"Oh, believe me Miss Cocky, these 'dummies' are actually the digital make-up of destroyed digimon. Basically, we collect the data that the digimon dissolve into when the government kills them off. And remember, these digimon came to this world with the intention of killing you all."
He paused, letting his info sink in.
He then stood up, brushed off his pants, and stated, "Well, I'll see you all tomorrow. Lot's to see and do."
And with that, he walked out, leaving Takato possibly more confused then when he woke up earlier.
Away in a darkened room, the faces off 3 men were illuminated by the light of the image on their table. The sat in silence, until one of them spoke in a soft, and deep voice.
"So, how much time do we have?"
One of the other men around the table was the sniper extraordinaire at the base: Halt.
"Not much. They must train quickly. The other instructors and I will try our hardest but you must understand sir, these are merely teenagers. And we have about a week and half to teach them stuff it normally takes nine months to teach."
The final man around the table, who had barely uttered a word during the whole conversation, spoke at last. "We understand the difficulties Halt, but you must remember who they are. They are not just teenagers. They are the Tamers. I've seen them charge into the fray against a foe that this country's entire fighting force couldn't even tickle with hundreds of two thousand pound JDAM bombs. And not only that, but they actually killed that damn blob. And they were twelve at the time!"
Halt quickly retorted, "Yes Yamaki, we know you've been workin' with 'em for a while and that you've seen what they can do. But the D-Reaper incident was in on area: Shinjuku. This is a worldwide problem we're dealing with. An' most of what we discovered as far as what thing could be causing this is mostly just scarps of evidence and quesstimating."
"Yes Halt, that is correct. But in the spectrum of things, that handful of 'teenagers' are probably more effective against this enemy then all the armies of the world combined. We may have developed weapons to effect and kill digimon easier, but no anti-digimon weapon we can make will ever come close to the power those kids possess when they bio-merge." Yamki stopped his rant and took a deep breath. After a second, he turned his attention to the first man.
"Sir, I believe we should prepping those kids for action immediately. Halt is right and that we are on a tight schedule. If we want the plan with the Tyrael to go as planned, then we will need them trained up in everything. They are already good at digimon fighting, but for obvious reasons, taking a digimon into a military compound where they sometimes have digimon scanners would be risky. So we need them to be good with guns and some of our combat vehicles in the case of emergency."
The man's head was still largely in darkness, but as he moved his chair forward, it revealed that his face had a large slash mark across his face.
"Very well. I shall work on Project Excalibur and Project X while you two get to work. Dismissed."
Yamaki and Halt stood up, bowed respectfully, and walked briskly out of the room.
The man swung his chair around and he re-booted up his computer. He pressed a few buttons on his keyboard and two pictures popped upon the monitor.
The first looked like a blue card, only it was all gold. Behind the small icon in the center of the card were two crossed swords.
The second was a ball of red energy, crackling with electricity. The electricity however, always made the same formation as it sparked: an X.
The man looked upon his work. In the dark, empty room, he muttered to himself, "God help those kids. And god, let this work."
So yeah. Chapter 4 done! And I'm sorry about the wait this time, and since my school year just ended, I'll defiantly crank out chapters faster! And to all you who have reviewed, followed, or favorited this story so far, thank you. It's really cool to watch your first fic gain in views and stuff like this! So R&R, and until next time, I'm OmnimonAllDelete, signing off for now!