Chapter 9

The children were still locked in battle with Dragomon. Gabumon, Patamon and Veemon lay battered in their partner's arms on the sidelines while the others still bravely fought against the master of the Dark Ocean. Tai, Izzy, and Joe had sweat running down their faces, and small scratches covering their bodies. The Legendary Warriors, MetalGreymon, MegaKabuterimon, and Zudomon were panting heavily sporting many burses and cuts. While the chosen were running on empty, Dragomon still stood tall holding his trident defensively only breathing slightly heavier than usual.

"Did the others respond yet?" Tai asked, turning around to look at his fallen team.

"Yes, they cleared out the other area that was being attacked and they are heading over hear now," TK informed them.

"Just hang on a little longer guys the others are on the way." Joe tried to keep their spirits up, cheering for them even if the battle was very one-sided.

Dragomon sneered at them, with help on the way he intended to finish the battle now. He charged at them swiping at them with his trident. All the digimon that could fly lifted off into the sky to avoid his attack. Zudomon met him head on blocking Dragomon's trident with his hammer.

Now that the enemy was preoccupied Tommy leapt toward him attempting to sink his fangs into Dragomon's neck. Expecting a sneak attack like that Dragomon turned slightly catching Tommy in mid jump. He smirked and began to wrap his tentacles firmly around the bear's neck chocking him.

Zudomon was gripping his hammer with both hands, putting all his strength into trying to overpower Dragomon, but he was easily holding him off with one hand and crushing Tommy's windpipe with the other. With both his arms occupied the aerial digimon launched powerful attacks at Dragomon.

Dragomon saw the incoming attacks and let out a deep rumbling chuckle as he stepped backwards. With the opposing force gone, Zudomon's momentum caused him to stumble forward. Now that his opponent was off balanced Dragomon swung his arm that was holding Tommy and released him throwing him into Zudomon. The two crashed into each other creating a very effective wall to protect Dragomon from the coming assault.

The attacks collided with Tommy and Zudomon creating an explosion accompanied with a large cloud of smoke. Screams of pain echoed across the battlefield accompanied by Dragomon's malicious laughter. With a surprised gasp Joe fell to his knees wrapping his arms around his shoulders, slightly trembling from the pain.

"Are you alright Joe?" Matt asked worriedly.

"I'm fine don't worry about me. How are Zudomon and Tommy?" Everyone's eyes turned toward the fight where the smoke was beginning to clear. Both Zudomon and Tommy lay in crumpled heaps on the ground.

They didn't de-digivolve so that was a good sign, but other than that they looked horrible. Zudomon struggled to stand his legs shaking. Tommy was holding his injured arm off the ground afraid to put any pressure on it. His form that was once as solid as compact snow was now beginning to waver. The other digimon landed behind them concerned.

"Sorry guys, you okay?" MetalGreymon stood next to Zudomon looking over his friend's injuries. Zudomon nodded, too tired to form words.

"Just hold on a little longer, the others should be here soon," JP looked worriedly at Tommy, "Maybe you should sit this one out."

"No way!" Tommy stubbornly stomped his injured arm on the ground. He winced slightly when a shooting pain raced up his arm.

"Just be careful then," JP gave in.

Dragomon watched them, amused by their efforts. He raised his trident getting ready to strike again. Getting ready for his attack the others gathered around their injured friends ready to defend them. Before Dragomon could strike he was hit by an attack that slammed into his back making him stumble. Growling angrily he turned around to see the rest of the chosen arrive.

Aquilamon, Garudamon, and Zoe landed and let the rest of the chosen hop off their backs before rushing off into the battle.

"Just in time," Sora smiled.

"This guy's tough, don't let your guard down," Matt warned them. This time Zudomon and Tommy kept their distance as the other digimon bombarded Dragomon with long range attacks.

"So which of you is Tommy's partner?" Kouji asked, noticing the large bear that was slowly walking around the battle looking for a safe opening to strike.

"I am." Joe raised a shaky hand, getting a curt nod from Kouji.

"So all of us found our first partners that a good start," Kouchi said.

"Who's your partner?" Matt asked looking at Kouichi. He figured Zoe was partnered with Sora since Birdramon was able to digivolve.

"Ken is."

"What?! You found your partner before me that's not fair." Davis looked over at his friend who just shrugged and gave him a small smile.

When the others looked back to the battle Davis leaned over to Ken and whispered, "Will you be okay working with him, cuz you know?" He knew of his friend's sensitivity to Kouichi's element.

"I think we were wrong before, assuming that all darkness was evil. He's very kind, nothing like the evil digimon that we fought against. I still get that chill whenever there is a large amount of darkness around but, that's just something I'm going to need to grow out of," Ken said.

Davis smiled, "And we'll be here for you too, right buddy?" he asked looking at Veemon.

"That's right!"

"Me too," Wormmon said as he buried his face into Ken's shoulder. Ken wrapped his arms more tightly around his partner and thanked his friends giving them a warm smile. Loud roars and clashing off attacks brought their attention back to the fight at hand.

The battle with Dragomon was turning around. With so many attacks coming at him at once he couldn't block them all. Now that his back was exposed Tommy extracted his revenge by slashing Dragomon down his back with his massive claws. Unlike the first attempt, the hit was a success. With a roar Dragomon swung around and attempted to impale Tommy with his trident. Tommy threw himself to the side to avoid getting hit, causing the trident to slam into the ground cracking the pavement barely missing him.

The other used this opportunity to launch all their attacks at the enemy. This time the results were much better. There was no shield for Dragomon to hide behind this time resulting in him getting hit directly from all their attacks. Their combined attacks caused a large explosion that shook the ground.

"We got him that time for sure." Confident, Takuya landed in front of the large cloud of smoke that covered the area their enemy once stood. As the smoke began to dissipate, Dragomon's trident flew out of the center of the cloud. Takuya was caught by surprise and barely had any time to dodge. The trident struck him in his side knocking him to the ground; the wound was bad but not fatal.

Takuya landed on the ground with a painful thud. He struggled to sit up and de-digivolved in the process. When the flames around his body died Takuya was resting on one knee holding is slightly bleeding side. MetalGreymon could feel Agunimon's power slowly fading away. He flew down next to Takuya and de-digivolved.

"Are you hurt Takuya?" Agumon asked.

"It's just a small scratch don't worry," Takuya smiled at him and gave him the thumbs up. They all knew it was more that a scratch but they didn't have time to treat him now.

The smoke finally cleared revealing a severely wounded Dragomon. He was panting heavily and covered in deep scratches and burns. The evil digimon glowered at them, his eyes scanning the chosen taking in the number of opponents he had yet to defeat. He growled in frustration, he may have taken out quite a few of them but they were wearing him down.

The first time since the beginning of the battle Dragomon spoke, "Since you can have reinforcements so can I," he roared loudly raising his arm above his head. The trident that was still lying on the ground next to Agumon vanished and reappeared in his hand. The trident began to glow with an ominous grey energy that slowly spread to engulf his entire body.

He slammed the handle of his trident into the ground causing the grey energy to spread into the ground. It started to form multiple dark circles on the ground surrounding him.

"What's he doing?" MegaKaubterimon asked. He and the others watched from the sky as the number of dark circles began to increase and they slowly began to change to different shades of grey.

Looking into the center of one of the circles Ken recognized the images that were slowly becoming clearer, and he came to an eerie conclusion, "Those are portals to the Dark Ocean," he said quietly. A cold chill swept across the group.

Ken and Kari were affected the most by the portals sudden appearance. They started shivering; it felt like someone dumped a bucket of ice water on them. Kari wrapped her arms around herself biting her bottom lip. Gatomon put a paw on her leg signaling to her partner that she was there and TK wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders.

Ken was clutching Wormmon tightly to his chest making his partner wince slightly. He released his hold slightly and apologized to the worm digimon. He jumped slightly when someone put their hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see Kouichi looking at him worriedly.

Kouichi could feel the dark energy radiating from Dragomon and from the open portals. He could understand where the chosen children were coming from now, if this is what they had to put up with no wonder they didn't like the anything related to darkness. It was different from him and his friends, since their enemy, Lucemon, was actually digimon of light.

Rather than being nervous about Kouichi's presence like before, Ken found comfort in the older boy being there.

"Thank you," Ken said his shaking coming to a stop.

Kouichi looked at him a little confused. "I didn't do anything, but you're welcome."

Now that Ken was alright Kouichi looked over to Kari to see how she was doing. He chuckled slightly seeing his brother awkwardly trying to make her feel better. Kouji ruffled her hair like a father would a son, rather than how most people would react to a frightened girl. Both TK and Gatomon covered their mouths trying not to laugh.

Ken and Kari seemed to be calmer now even with the impending darkness approaching. But they weren't out of danger yet.

One by one hundreds of Divermon began to crawl out of the many portals Dragomon opened. The partner digimon began backing away as the area was filled with Divermon.

"I think we need to make a tactical retreat," Izzy suggested.

"You mean run away?!" Davis shouted. He was not one to just give up and leave, and judging by the faces of some of the others they felt the same way.

"Yes, if we try to fight against those numbers it would be suicide," Izzy shook his head, "and I don't know how much longer Joe and I can keep fighting." Izzy was beginning to struggle in keeping up with the energy needs of his partner and JP, and with Zudomon and Tommy taking so many hits Joe was already feeling the strain.

"Izzy's right we need to get out of here while we can." Takuya joined the group, his arm slug around Kouichi's shoulders for support and Agumon walking beside them.

"But we can't just leave; the army will spread from here and take over our world. We're the only ones that can stop them." Davis was determined as always, he was showing why he was chosen to wield the digi-egg of courage. Takuya smiled at him, Davis reminded him of exactly how he used to be.

"We can't help anyone if we're dead," Kouji cut in.

"I know how you feel Davis, but we will have a better chance of succeeding in the long run if we run away now," Ken placed his hand Davis's shoulder, "our partners can't fight anymore we would just be putting them more at risk."

Davis looked down at Veemon. His partner was tired but he met his gaze with fierce determination. "If you want to stay and fight I won't give up."

"No, they're right. We can retake this area later," Davis sighed.

While they were arguing the Divermon were marching toward them. Now that they were in range of the group they began lobbing their harpoons at them. The rain of harpoons was stopped when MegaKabuterimon landed in front of them. The harpoons bounced harmlessly off his hard protective shell.

"If we're going to leave we should do it now," JP instructed landing beside them.

"Can you guys whip us up a smokescreen?" Sora asked looking up at her partner. The remaining fighters nodded and began charging up their attacks. The rest of them were getting ready to make a break for it, those with injured partners picked them up and cradled them in their arms.

They released their attacks at the front lines of the mob of Divermon. The collision of their attacks caused another explosion accompanied with a decent sized cloud of smoke. It proved to provide a good distraction as they got away, and hopefully it took out a few of the Divermon as well.

Dragomon swung his trident through the air causing the smoke to dissipate. There were no signs of the children, but rather than being upset that his foes escaped he began to laugh. They would come back eventually, and their retreat would give them a chance to set up a base here in the human world. The ragged battlefield was filled with Dragomon's malicious laughter.


After they got a safe distance away they stopped to catch their breath. The Garudamon, Aquilamon, Zudomon and MegaKabuterimon de-digivolved into their rookie forms and plopped down next to their partners. Zoe and JP's shadow forms slowly dissipated as they landed near the group, stumbling a little once they hit the ground. No one spoke, the reality of their loss slowly sinking in.

Most of them suffered minor injuries. There were a few unfortunate ones that had slightly more harmful wounds. The bandage on Tommy's arms was now soaked in blood, and poor Wormmon had horrible bruises that were starting to form along his side that caused him to wince if he moved a certain way.

But it wasn't their injuries that were at the forefront of their minds. Their recent loss was dragging down the mood. They had failed, thoroughly beaten by the enemy. No one spoke causing a dampening silence to cover the group. It was obvious they were depressed with their eyes downcast sitting in complete silence.

Looking sadly at her friends Sora broke the silence, "My house is close to here, we can rest there and treat everyone's injuries," she suggested.

"Yolei and I can stop by the store and pick up a few bandages and first aid kits." Mimi stood up and held out her hand to help Yolei stand. Palmon and Hawkmon agreed to stay with the others in order to avoid any unnecessary questions as to why they were carrying large strange looking dolls.

When the two girls began to leave the others headed out in the direction of Sora's house. On the way there Takuya noticed that Davis was starting to lag behind the rest of the group. He slowed his strides until he was walking next to the younger boy.

"C'mon Davis you're going to be left behind," Takuya said trying to cheer up his obviously depressed friend.

"I know it was for the best but I feel like we just gave up," Davis shook his head; he was still upset that they ran away from Dragomon.

"Even if it sucks, sometimes running away is the best option." Takuya began remembering their trip to the Digital World. "On our adventure we came across this really strong digimon that we couldn't defeat," he stayed away from Duskmon's name just in case. The chosen children were already wary about Kouichi he didn't want to give them another reason. "I wanted to stay and fight but Kouji made us run away. I thought he was just being a coward but I was cocky; I was so sure that together we could beat him. I convinced the others that Kouji was wrong and we fought him again with this stupid plan that I came up with," he paused, the battle with Duskmon replaying in his head.

"How did it go?" Davis asked egger to hear more about the Legendary Warriors journey to the Digital World.

"We lost. I would have been killed if Kouji hadn't taken the blow for me. That battle taught me humility and that charging forward isn't always the right answer."

"I understand better now but-" Davis looked a bit skeptical, "no offense or anything but Kouji doesn't seem the kind of guy to do something like that."

"He may seem gruff on the outside but trust me when it comes to his friends he's just a cute snuggly puppy on the inside," Takuya laughed.

"Maybe I should have let you get sliced in half," came Kouji's voice from near the front of the group.

"It's rude to eavesdrop," Takuya yelled back.

"It's also not nice to talk about other people behind their back." With all the commotion going on in the past few days it was comforting to hear the two of them bicker like how they used to. This certainly raised the mood and roused laughs from the rest of the kids.


Sora's House

Sora's house was empty when they get there. Her mother was out doing errands and her father was still on away on one of his trips. As the children began filling into the house Sora went to get a few extra chairs and turned on the TV for some background noise.

All the children were gathered in Sora's living room. Yolei and Mimi were helping Joe treat the injured. They cleaned the smaller cuts and left the major injuries to the doctor in-training. Everyone was worried about Tommy's arm even if he kept insisting he was fine. When Joe unraveled the bloody bandages on his arm the bleeding had already stopped and the wound was much shallower than it originally was.

"Your healing abilities are amazing," Joe gasped, "it healed this much in a little over an hour when it should have taken it a few days to reach this stage."

Looking over at his friends healing arm Takuya has a mischievous glimmer in his eyes and a wide smile breaking across his face, wild ideas already forming in his mind.

"Don't even think about it." JP cut off Takuya's wild imagination, making him pout.

"I guess it's one of the perks of being part digimon," Zoe said.

Joe went around the rest of the group checking their wounds and making sure that Yolei and Mimi had bandaged the others properly. After confirming that everyone was going to be fine he slumped down on one of the couches, mentally exhausted. As soon as he sat down Gomamon jumped onto his lap, closing his eyes ready for a nice long nap.

"So what do we do now?" Cody asked, sitting with his back to the wall stroking Amadillomon's shell.

"We regroup then try to take that area back. We can't wait too long before they send for reinforcements," Matt said. He was sitting backwards on one of the kitchen chairs resting his head on his arms which were on the back of the chair.

Gabumon who was sitting at the foot of the chair looked up at his partner, "After a good rest we should be ready to fight again."

Kouji shook his head at them from his position leaning against the wall, "It's going to be harder than that we're going to need some kind of plan; we can't just go rushing in blindly."

"What's the plan then?" Davis asked. His question went unanswered.

A loud beep from the TV startled the children making them jump and awakening the ones that were starting to doze. The TV had changed from its regular program to an emergency broadcast. Bright red letters flashed across the screen: 'MONSTER INVATION'. Someone had recorded their battle with Dragomon and it was now airing on TV.

"What's going on?"

"This is bad."

The noise from the video clips were turned off and replaced with the reporter's voice. "Strange monsters have appeared and have been terrorizing the city. We are asking everyone to evacuate immediately." When the message was played in a loop, once it ended the video restarted and played over again.

After watching the video about three times the message finally started sinking into the stunned kids that were all gathered around the TV.

"Evacuate?"

"We can't leave now! They'll take the city for sure!"

"What are we supposed to do?"

The room erupted in questions and concerns, their voices downing out the TV. Tai and Izzy tried to bring order back to the room, but it still took a while for them to all calm down.

"It's obvious we all need to stay. We can't just up and leave that will give them the opening they need to take the city," Tai said.

"What about our families? They shouldn't stay here and they won't understand if we tell them we need to stay." Zoe was concerned about her parents. She didn't want to just abandon them but it would be dangerous for them to stay back with them. A few of the other nodded their heads in agreement, sharing her concern. There were a few moments of silence while they contemplated what to do.

"We don't really have a choice we need to tell our parents everything," Izzy said.

"Easy for you to say your parents already know about the digimon." Takuya took of his hat and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "You're not part digimon, you don't need to explain to your family why you're not all human anymore."

The chosen felt sympathetic toward the warriors. Sora wrapped her arms around Zoe whose eyes began to water imaging the worst scenario.

"It's just something that we have to go through. They deserve to know and we can't just abandon you guys," Kouichi said. It would be hard, but together just maybe they can get their parents to understand.

Cell phones started ringing; worried families must have seen the message too and were worried about their kids. Before any of them could answer Tai spoke up, "Everyone, go to your families grab your things and meet back at the park. It will be easier if we can tell them all at once. We're all going to need the moral support."

The others nodded and began answering their calls. Even if they had to leave behind their families behind they would be okay; they still had each other.