I am SO sorry this took so long guys. I have been so busy ever since the last update with grad school and my new job that writing was the last thing on my mind! However, I do want this story to be a good read for all and intend to start updating once a week. Thank you for the patience! If you still love it, share it!
I DO NOT OWN DIGIMON; JUST ALL THE VILLIANS.
"So, tell us what happened." Said Kari, her eyes scanning her brother's bruised body. He cringed at the attention, hating that his arm was throbbing and his head pounding from the adrenaline crash. Agumon immediately stuck to his partner's side, keeping one paw on his dirty pants. Tai knew he looked worse than he truly felt, rubbing dirt between his fingers.
"Do I have to right now? Can it wait until we get to Gennai's place?" he asked. She stayed quiet and he thought that maybe he had won this fight. Unfortunately, Kari had some others to back her up.
"Actually, I think Kari is right. You should tell us now that everything is fresh. If you go to sleep and forget even the smallest detail, it could mean disaster." Said Izzy, looking at Tai sympathetically.
"Not to hound you about it, dude. We just were so worried for you, ya know?" grinned Davis, lightly tapping Tai on the shoulder. Sighing, the young man shrugged his shoulders.
"Fine, fine. I'll tell you. But, everyone keep walking. We need to off this island as soon as possible."
"Right he is, new friends!" said Bearmon, thumping his chest.
"So, after I was kidnapped, I woke up in an underground cell. It was basically a cave, so I couldn't tell you exactly where it was. But after a while, some new digimon came into the room and talked to me. I couldn't get a whole lot out of his except that his name was Scythemon."
"I have never heard of him either!" said Tentomon.
"Wouldn't be surprised. Guy looked like a demon. Creepy white face, black cloak. Anyways, he was saying something about…" Tai hesitated. The easy part of the story was over, but this; this could force his friends to avoid him, to fear him like he feared himself.
"What's wrong?" asked Sora, gently. Tai shook his head.
"Nothing, it just is…creepy to repeat. So, like I was saying, this guy said something like, 'Your crest is strong, so I want to make you my successor of death'." Everyone visibly gasped. Izzy stopped in his tracks, causing several of the digidestined to collide with each other in shock.
"Wait… Tai…. Gennai talked about this. He received a message about some crazy new villain that can destroy everything. He said something about 'watch out for the darkest hour'."
"Yeah, he mentioned that. Did Gennai say anything else about him; hey, keep on walking guys." Tai said.
"Yeah. He's a demon. No one knows how he got in, but he's been creating tears in the system and breaking connections."
"Hm… that could explain why things in the digiworld felt a bit odd the days before I was sucked into a blackhole."
"Wait, Tai, finish your part of the story. Gennai can explain all this later." Said Yolei.
"Right. Anyways, so after that I tried to ask questions but he didn't listen. Now Kari, please don't freak out. This next part is… graphic. For like, maybe four days, he kept coming in several different times and injected me with his blood. He called it 'black blood' and that it would give me some sort of powers. And, I also got these brandings-"
"What the hell?! Brandings?"
"Tai, oh my gosh, did it hurt?"
"I need to look at those to make sure you aren't going to get an infection."
"TAI, OMG!"
"Taichi, please let us stop and check on them."
"Oh, I smell trouble. Who knows what this could mean!"
"Everyone, chill!" Tai yelled. "Let me finish. So, I got five of them, all different shapes on my right forearm. And I think he is right. I don't know why but… I keep getting these black outs and apparently, I killed two high- level digimon. Like, just me, no Agumon or weapons or anything—except Bearmon."
"Destroying them with Bearmon isn't exactly killing-" started Izzy.
"No, no. Tai killed them! It was crazy! They poofed into nothing; no data trail afterwards." Replied Bearmon.
Everyone stayed silent for a moment to think that over.
"Wait so… you like, straight up murdered a couple of digimon that would have probably taken our strongest digimon to fight?" Asked Yolei.
"Yeah, sort of." Tai shrugged. He kept his eyes forward but he noticed a feeling a nausea coming over him. Suddenly, the island felt suffocating and he scanned the surrounding area for Scythemon.
"You feel it too, huh?" asked Bearmon. His fur was standing on end.
"Feel what, Tai?" asked Kari, looking around worriedly at the blackened trees. "What do you feel?"
"We need to run. NOW!" Just as Tai screamed the last command, a loud bang rang through the air and the digidestined felt the ground shake beneath them. A screech, agonizingly piercing, sang through the forest. Clutching their ears, the children took off as fast as they could towards the beach.
"Guys, we need to digivolve! The beach is too far away to run it completely!" yelled Matt. Tai shook his head.
"No! Don't try to fight that thing. If it is what I think it is, we could all die! Keep running!"
"But, Tai-!"
"Just TRUST ME, OKAY?" he yelled. The others gave each other weary glances, but followed their leader. The digimon huddled around their partners, hoping to be the shields to any attacks.
As the group ran through the forest, the screeching continued. The noisy serenade grew closer and closer as they plundered through the thick trees. After leaving the footpath to hopefully snare the mystery digimon in the trees behind them, Izzy spoke up.
"Guy… I smell the beach. It must be close! But I can also feel the ground shaking too!"
"Me too, Izzy. I think whatever is screeching has finally caught up!" shouted Sora. She turned to look over her shoulder. Sure enough, the digimon was only about twenty feet behind them, knocking down trees along its way.
"Just keep running! I see the ocean now!" said Matt. TK nodded, casting a glance at Kari to make sure she was okay.
"STOP!" someone screamed, 'LOOK OUT!" Tai halted to a stop, hovering right over the edge of a cliff. He grunted when Matt slammed into him from behind, causing his right foot to slip off the slope. Crying out and reaching for air, Tai felt his fatigue overcome him as his body fell. The last thing he saw was Agumon's face twist in aguish as he watched the loss of his partner for a second time.
All went black.
As the soft taps of feet and whispers of a calm breeze floated into consciousness, he slowly opened his eyes. With a groan, he carefully looked around his surroundings. The room was bare, with just wood walls and sliding paper door. He was laying on a comfortable mat and had a thick blanket thrown on his body. To his right, he saw multiple bowls of some sort of liquid. They smelt awful and caused him to look left. There he saw something much better than what looked like liquid rotten broccoli.
A plate, fixed with a mound of rice and two thin fish, was still steaming from being cooked. A glass of water and a candy bar sat next to it. He squeezed his eyes shut as a throb echoed throughout his head. Grabbing his right arm, he swore at the pain.
"Where am I?" he replied to no one. After what seemed like hours, Tai drifted into sleep once more before being woken up by multiple sets of feet attempting to walk quietly.
"Do you think he's awake?" asked a familiar voice.
"No idea. But it has been a day. We should just check." That was his sister.
"Like we've been checking every ten minutes for the past 32 hours?" said someone, probably Davis, sarcastically.
"Oh, shut up. You're the first one to check every hour!" snickered TK.
"Shut up everyone. You'll wake him up if you—" As Izzy rounded the corner, his face lit up with a huge smile. "Speak of the devil, look who is awake."
"Oh my gosh, Tai! I'm so happy you're okay!" Kari pushed past Izzy to fall to her knees beside her brother.
"Me too, Kari. Is everyone okay? No one is hurt?"
"Look silly, it is YOU that those questions should be directed at." Replied Joe.
"Yeah, dude. You're looking pretty worse for wear."
"Matt!" scolded Sora. "We really are all so worried about you, Tai." She said, her voice softening.
"Well, help me sit up and hand me that food, please. I'm worried about it going cold." He grinned. The others smiled, Kari and Agumon helping sat his back against some pillows anchored on the wall.
"Soooo, where are we?" he asked between a mouthful of rice.
"First, eat slowly. Your body is still recuperating from lack of proper nutrition." Said Joe.
"We are in Gennai's palace." Said Izzy.
"How'd we get here? And, what happened after I fell?"
"Well,' started Yolei. "Matt tried to jump and catch you but thankfully Joe and Izzy were there to stop him! So Agumon jumped after you and Sora digivolved Biyomon to catch you and him."
"Did you see whatever was chasing us?" Tai asked.
"Yeah. It was some sort of goblin-ish looking digimon. Izzy didn't have time to find out the details, but it wasn't about to wait patiently for us to analyze it. When it went to attack us, we didn't have anywhere to go. The beach was right below the cliff, so we decided to follow your lead and jump. Basically, everyone who had a flying type digimon digivolved their partners and we all grabbed into whoever we could to fly down. Seems the goblin digimon didn't like heights. Whalemon was waiting for us when we got to the shore so Gomamon digivolved to Ikkakumon and swam us over. You were drifting in and out of sleep for the next three days. Whalemon made sure to swim extra fast so we could get you here as soon as possible."
"Wait, Whalemon?"
"Long story short- there are other Whalemon." Said Izzy. "What is most important is figuring out why you were kidnapped and what all this crazy stuff with your arm and blood means."
"Is this how all humans act to their friends who were just kidnapped?" asked a familiar voice rounding the corner. Tai smiled at the comment and waved at Bearmon as he stepped into the room. Gennai was following close behind, a soft smile on his face as he looked at the Digidestined leader. He immediately walked over to Joe, eyeing Tai's physical appearance with worry.
"How is he?"
"Better then when we first saw him. The bruises and scrapes are healing nicely. His vitals are normal and from what I can tell, no fever or infections. He just needs a ton of proper rest and probably a scan on his arm. Blood work will be done in a bit, I just want him to eat for now."
"Ah, speaking of that." Gennai nodded a thanks to Joe and walked over the sit near Tai's bed. "We have much to discuss children. Please, everyone get comfortable."
The group took refuge on whatever surface they could squeeze themselves onto. Agumon and Kari chose to sit on Tai's bed with him, Agumon getting bites of food every now and then.
"Tai, stop feeding him your meal! You need all that." Huffed Joe.
"Oh, it'll be fine. Agumon is eating out of happiness. He hasn't been stuffing his face the past few days like normal, he must be starving!" said Mimi.
"Hmmff…" Agumon agreed with a mouthful of food.
"So, Gennai. We told you everything Tai told us. Do you have any idea how to stop this 'Scythemon'?" asked Matt.
"Well, I can assure you it will not be easy. But, no. As of right now, his origins are still a mystery. I can only say that he clearly caused a tear in between your world and the Digital World. How he achieved something without a digiport or some sort of computer is beyond me."
"But Gennai, we basically walked off that island. And when a digimon did try to follow us, it lost its nerves at the last second. This Thanatos Island wasn't as deadly as we thought. Maybe, Scythemon is not as strong as we thought." Suggested Yolei.
"Oh no, do not be mistaken. Children, I received another message from the same unidentified source. At first, I was worried for your safety. Just because the monsters do not show themselves right away, does not mean they are not there. The island is vast and from what I heard, you were only on a three mile stretch of it. However, I was also surprised how quickly you made it back. So, a thought occurred to me."
"If it is the same as mine, I think we might be in big trouble." Said Izzy, mostly to himself.
"Indeed, child. This creature is not stupid, nor weak. I believe that he purposefully let Taichi go."
"Wait, you mean that he let Tai walk out of there and leave the island after all he did to him? Just like that?" asked Matt, incredulous to such an idea.
"Think about it guys. Tai's… transformation, or whatever he did to him, was complete when we found him. From the looks of it, I would say that this is a trial run. He is probably watching us right now, or at least knows where we are and will come to attack soon. He might even take Tai back to that island." Explained Izzy.
"So, what now? Do we wait for the crazy demon- digimon to come to us?" asked TK.
"Hell no! I say we charge in and attack him first!" Davis exclaimed.
"Yeah, yeah!" shouted Veemon. Thankfully, Yolei gave the pair a swift correction via a punch to the back of the head.
"Guys, our main priority is making sure Tai is safe." Scolded Sora.
"But… from what?" Kari asked softly. Tai put down his fork and put aside his dish.
"I don't need you all worrying about me. Scythemon can follow us all he wants, but we have a ton of strong digimon to attack."
"Yeah, but, what is he, Tai?"
"I don't know. Evil, I'm guessing. He didn't look human or like a normal digimon. I can't imagine him being anything from either world we know. What I do know is that we need to figure out what 'the darkest hour' means. He mentioned it to both you and me, so clearly it must be important." He directed this statement at Gennai whose wrinkled face was lost in thought.
"Hmm… I have combed through some ancient texts and have read nothing about 'the darkest hour'… maybe it could be some sort of play-on-words or metaphor."
"Maybe, it could just mean an eclipse?" offered Yolei.
"Or, it could mean the hour of the night when the sun is completely on the other side of the Earth, which would be total darkness, save for the moon's light." Shrugged Sora.
"What if it means nothing? What if It's just a day where he chooses when he is most pissed off?" said Matt. The others looked at him, Sora rolling her eyes.
"I hate to admit it, but any of those could be the correct answer… even Matt's… cryptic deciphering." Said Gennai. "For now, you must all rest here and wait for a bit. When Taichi is better, I implore that you go back to your world and remain there until you hear from me. Your digimon will stay with you. Those upgrades must be used wisely… and I have a terrible feeling they will be utilized very, very soon."
