Y/N: This is actually me this time…I'm not asleep. And I'm thrilled to give you the next chapter so quickly, as opposed to many weeks and or months from now. I am really sorry about that wait. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I thank everyone who read and reviewed it. I really appreciate it.
U/N: Uhm... we're going to be doing little blurbs at the end of most chapters now to show what's going on with all of the minor characters. because... everything will come together at the end. So just... go with it ;) Also I like this, it's very... unusual, probably not what you were expecting or hoping for, but it's just our way of linking the last story with this one... Sooo... enjoy it i suppose? REVIEW ALSO! OR like... else.
Title: Digimon Adventure 04
By: Yukira and Urazamay King
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or its characters.
Part 2: In the Digital World?
Chapter 10: The Digital Ocean?
Taichi:
It wasn't what I expected.
I was expecting a Digital World at peace with itself for once, where our digimon partners were succeeding where no one else ever had, and everything was finally the way it was supposed to. I suppose I was expecting a little bit too much. Perfection never happens, but I thought maybe it would be close, you know? But it wasn't.
Everything was bleak and boring. It wasn't just figurative either; the colours all seemed to be dulled. It wasn't black and white, which was good, because the Digital World was supposed to be stimulating and full of lush flora and fauna—according to Koushiro anyway. Instead it was like walking into an old movie, when the cameras weren't as good as the present day ones, and the colours had faded even more over each watching. You could still tell that the tree was green and brown, but it wasn't a healthy look overall.
I was scared for the Digital World. If that was what complete peace looked like, I didn't want any part of it.
"What happened?" Mimi asked sounding just as depressed as the Digital World looked. Meiyomon was nervously clinging to her legs as if something awful was about to happen.
"I don't know," I murmured. "It looks horrible."
We walked a few minutes through the trees along the forest path. The ground crunched under our feet. I was glad that that was still normal at least.
"Do you know where we are?" Takeru asked. "The trees could be from anywhere, but I know there weren't any near Yokomon's village. And I was sure that was supposed to be at the base of Meramon's mountain, not on the side."
"Maybe they moved it," Daisuke suggested. "Whatever is making this place so…depressing…might've scared 'em. They probably wanted to be closer to a stronger digimon."
"Maybe," Takeru said looking for all the world like he didn't believe it.
"Wasn't the Yokomon village in the middle of a dessert though?" Mimi asked. "Near a big canyon with an abandoned ship, not in the middle of a forest."
"It was," I remembered.
"But the Digital World has been reset since then," Hikari reminded us. "Maybe it was put in a different spot than you remember."
"That's true," Takeru allowed. "But it doesn't seem right."
"It looks kind of odd," Mimi admitted. "And not very safe."
It did look rather precarious, as though it might slip off the mountain at any moment with the angle the houses were placed at. And weren't Yokomon rather round digimon?
The solidity of the ground gave way under our feet, and the crunching went with it.
"What?" I asked, looking down at my feet only to find grey sand.
"Oh no," Hikari said, wrapping her arms tightly around her torso. Seeing her so lost and vulnerable, I moved inconspicuously closer to her, only to find Daisuke was already there, ready to put his arm around her without a second thought. I watched from afar, disappointed that Daisuke was always one step ahead of me. It was as if by going to further my education, I had to give up my place as Hikari's big brother. And by leaving I let Daisuke slip right into my place. I hated it. The useless feeling I got when Hikari needed comfort and found it in someone else—not a boyfriend though, just someone she seems to refer to as a brother. Even though he isn't her brother.
I had to take a deep breath before my growing anger got the best of me.
"What's wrong Hikari?" Willis asked.
"It's all wrong," Hikari said. "It's not supposed to be like this. I wasn't supposed to see this again."
"The sand?" Michael asked. "Everyone can see that."
"It's not just me?" she asked, sounding very much relieved.
"No," Kurayami said. "Why it's here I don't know, but it's here, and it is what you think it is. I've seen it enough to know."
"So it is the Dark Ocean's sand?" Takeru asked, torn between fear and anger at Willis and Daisuke for being so close to Hikari. I didn't know how I was supposed to feel about that. My little sister having at least two—since I was sure Daisuke was satisfied with replacing me rather than trying for her affections—guys fighting over her. I was glad that the lucky guy wouldn't be Daisuke, despite what I'd thought in the past. I didn't want to be his brother-in-law anymore. He was dumb enough to think he was the leader and Hikari's brother…did he think he was? Me?
"Yes," Kurayami said. "It shouldn't be here though. It should be in the Dark Ocean."
The Dark Ocean? What was it doing in the Digital World? Weren't they supposed to be like two separate worlds or whatever?
"Something is definitely not right," Daisuke said.
"Right," Mimi said. "So we should stick pretty close together, right? So that we don't get attacked or hit by some sort of digimon or something." Okay, so it was a little vague, but it was totally accurate.
"Let's just keep going," Kurayami said somewhat bluntly, taking off at a fast pace, causing the rest of us to start running to keep up. "We aren't in any immediate danger in any case. I've yet to even hear a digimon in these woods."
"They're not all gone again are they?" Hikari asked a little panicked.
"I doubt it," I said—though I had no reason to back up my claim—to ease her mind. "I don't really remember meeting all that many digimon the first time around while travelling. Usually they had some sort of permanent residence. They aren't visitors here. We are."
And to top it all off, my speech made sense. Enough sense that Takeru and Mimi were giving me impressed looks—though that was a little off-putting. It wasn't as if I was stupid or something. I was going through school courses that Yamato picked out for me. We were mad at each other at the time we picked them. Apparently having his best-friend dating the girl he'd secretly been in love with made Yamato choose a lot of boring sounding political sciences and law. In short they all sounded boring as all hell, but he ended up with whatever science courses I could cram into his schedule, with a major in astronomy, so I couldn't be too picky. Though to be fair, learning science sounded a lot more interesting than my choices. But we had to pick based on each other's strengths—well, enough that we could get accepted into the programs that we'd been assigned of course.
In short, I'm not stupid, so their looks that made me seem that way upset me, but I was still thrilled by the fact that my first speech outside of the surprisingly interesting debate thing Yamato set me up with was successful.
"Thanks Taichi," Hikari said sounding relieved. That made the speech even more successful. The look in her eye when she said it, made me feel like she still depended on me instead of Daisuke for something.
"It's not an actually secured point," Meiyomon said. "But your original statement was untrue anyway. You have seen a digimon. Me."
"Sorry Meiyomon," Hikari said. "I didn't mean for you to feel insulted."
"I was just trying to make you feel better," he said softly. "I don't like it when girls get panicky. Mrs Hida did that a lot when Iori went out without giving her all sorts of information—who he was going with? What he was doing? When he'd be back? Where he was going? Did he need her to pick him up later?—lots of stuff. It was weird, because she never did the same to me. I guess being able to explode anything that might threaten me dissuaded any fear she might have. She thought Iori was safe with me anyway. I don't know why. I could'a blown him up any time I felt like it."
"It's okay buddy," I said. "Most guys feel that way about girls and tears and fears."
"Oh good," he said happily. "My transition into a human boy was correct then. Too bad it is now useless as we're back in my home world…"
"Yeah," Michael said. "I just remembered you can do those stupid wind tunnels…um…Data Streams…couldn't you do that so we could get a better view?"
"I doubt it," Meiyomon said. "I'm just a rookie now and all."
"Damn," Michael said. "I was hoping to survey this place quickly."
All the while, we continued walking, watching as the ground changed from sand to the forest floor again and again. It wasn't until we reached a point where the trees gave way to a beach that we stopped again. It wasn't a lake—well, it looked like one. It was surrounded on all sides by the grey sand, and the water itself varied from dark shades of grey to the darkest of blacks in the centre.
"Damn," I muttered. I had hoped the sand would be the only thing—other than the dull colour scheme the Digital World seemed to have adopted—that would remind Hikari of the Dark Ocean. But part of the 'Dark Lake'? Could there be anything more obvious?
"It is here," I heard my sister whisper. Willis took her hand and rubbed circles on the back of it. I, strangely enough was not annoyed by that. I chalked it up to Willis clearly not wanting to take over my role, and let it go. The Dark Lake was a more pressing matter at the moment.
"Seems like it," Kurayami agreed. "Why though?"
There was a rustling in the bushes behind us. The dulled light the sun seemed to be giving off cast shadows with the help of the trees, and I was unable to see anything at all to indicate whether it was friend or foe.
There was a rush of actions, causing us to move about in a panic. I caught Hikari's arm, and tucked her behind me. I was glad for Willis at that moment, because he stayed behind her, clearly understanding her aversion to the lake and her desire to be away from it. Takeru was closer to her side, just behind my right shoulder. I was actually a little relieved that my little sister was the most protected out of all of us, despite the fact that I was not happy with the situation in the first place.
Mimi was to my left, and seemed to be clutching tightly to Michael's back, hiding as best she could whilst impersonating a backpack.
"Mimi," he gasped as she cut off his air flow. He took in as deep of breaths as he could manage before gagging. "Let go, you smell terrible."
"You sure know how to charm a girl," she said sarcastically muttering something about things not working with Tatum for a reason under her breath. She glared at him, but let go. She stayed behind him though. He raised his bat for protection.
Daisuke, I was surprised—pleasantly actually—to find was aiming to protect Kurayami, rather than my sister. If it wasn't such a dire situation, with a possible attacker and all, I might have chuckled when Kurayami, instead of letting him cover her, pushed him behind her, determined to protect him.
Meiyomon was prepared to explode that bush, I could see it in his eyes.
And it's a good thing that the intruder came out of the bushes when he did, or he would have been blown to smithereens.
"Gennai?" Mimi and I gasped at the same time. The others seemed too shocked to speak.
"Yes," he said, though he lacked the jovial tone he used to use with us. He seemed kind of disappointed…no…angered that he found us. "I simply had to follow the scent of sewage."
"You try going down in the sewers to escape your impending death, I'm sure you'd smell like daisies too," Mimi bit at him sarcastically. She was not pleased by her new perfume, and I saw the potential for many jokes in the future…you know, when Gennai wasn't furious with us for some unknown reason.
"Why are you here?" he asked us, no. Demanded of us.
"Because we were sent for," I said, when it was clear no one else wanted to talk.
"You were not," he said firmly, exuding power.
"We were," I argued. "The Digital World sent us the means to get here. We were called here."
"Not intentionally," he said dismissing the matter.
"It's a good thing we were," Daisuke said finally finding his voice. "This world looks like crap. You said it was supposed to stay perfect when we left. It's about as far from it as you can get."
"It was meant to," Gennai said simply. "But an unforeseen event has caused there a rift to occur."
"The one we found on Earth?" Hikari asked.
"No," he said, looking for all the world like he still didn't want to believe there was a reason we were here. "This is a catastrophe that we are trying to eliminate with little success. I'm not entirely positive what rift you speak of child, but whatever the case I'm sure you should have ignored it. Breaking into the digital world is not usually taken lightly."
"We didn't break in," Takeru shouted at him. "We didn't stop until we got in, but we didn't break in, we were provided with everything we needed. It was just like being given Digivices."
"Those are safely locked away at the temple," Gennai commented. "But I have little time for this now. The Dark Ocean and the Digital World have been slowly fusing into one world. As far as we can tell, three years ago, the doors connecting the two worlds were left open, allowing those imprisoned in the Dark Ocean to escape, and taint the Digital World, turning it into what you see today."
"Who's the idiot that left the door open?" Kurayami demanded angrily.
It sounded oddly familiar to me. Something about a door left open, a black door and a white one. Being chased…trying to protect my sister from the Dark Ocean.
"Hikari..." The low voice of Dragomon said from just outside the cave. "Don't go—"
"Taichi the door." She said quickly.
"No time." I said, "Come on." I grabbed her arm and pulled.
"It has to be closed!" She yelled.
"Hikari just come!" I continued pulling her toward the light at the end of the tunnel. Suddenly explosions occurred all throughout the cave, the walls were opening up and a strange black goop was pouring out into the cave.
We kept running until we reached the door and I tried to open it. "It won't work!" I cried, "it's locked!"
She shoved me out of the way and grabbed the large golden door handle and pulled. The door swung open easily. So it was only her who could open this door? Which means that last door really was opened by Kurayami... in which case she was stuck in this cave.
I pulled Hikari through the door and started to close it.
"Don't!" She yelled, "Leave it open!"
"But you wanted the last door closed so badly..." I said.
"Leave it." She said.
Oh God.
"It was us," I whispered. I looked to Hikari, and found her with tears welling in her eyes. She felt so guilty. She was taking the responsibility of all of this onto her shoulders.
"Oh no," she whimpered.
"You idiots!" Kurayami shouted. "You absolute imbeciles. You have destroyed the very foundation of both the Dark Ocean and the Digital World!"
"It's not just our fault," I said, though I had no reason to believe it wasn't. I was just being stubborn.
"It is our fault, Taichi," Hikari said softly. "But it's Kurayami's fault too. She left her door open. I was the only one that could open the second door, but she was in control of the first one. We couldn't have closed it if we tried."
"You're blaming me?" Kurayami asked rather affronted.
"I'm saying we—you and I—share the blame in this. I only left mine open so you could escape too," Hikari admitted.
"I had other means of escape," Kurayami said dismissing her kindness.
"I didn't know that though," Hikari insisted.
"It doesn't matter how kind or accidental it was," Gennai said. "The fact remains that the Digital World is in turmoil, with war raging through it. My people aren't going to hold them off much longer, if we don't get the doors closed. And I'm no help being here trying to convince you to leave."
"We can help," I insisted. The others nodded. Meiyomon looked especially thrilled to be able to help with a war.
"No. You're very presence will most undoubtedly cause the Earth to fuse into this corrupted Digital World as well. The worlds must be kept separate, parallel. Surely you know this."
We might have heard it once or twice, but we weren't about to tell him that.
"We're not leaving yet," I announced, and the glare he gave me only made me smile at him. "The Digital World wants us here, and who are you to keep the Digital World from what it wants?"
Yuuko:
I watched Susumu scoop the remaining bags of groceries into his arms and then we headed toward the door to our apartment. I was worried about Hikari as I often was. She was sick, and I was her mother, could anyone really blame me for wondering if my daughter was okay?
I looked into the bag of groceries in my arm and began planning what kind of vegetables I'd be putting into a cake for dessert.
"Honey," Susumu warned with a simple word, I looked up and instantly saw what he was worried about. The door to the apartment was open. I shook it off by simply assuming that Taichi had left the door open once again, as he often did during the summer. But when I stepped in through the open doorway I noticed that the refrigerator door was open, and the house was a mess. I set the groceries on the counter and moved quickly toward Hikari's bedroom. I knocked briefly before opening the door.
"Hikari?" I asked, looking toward the messy bed. "Hikari?" I asked again as I stepped toward the bed, my heart beating quickly. I gently grabbed the blankets and pulled them away, she was gone. I turned toward her computer which was turned off, but her chair was out of place. I cautiously stepped out of the room and pulled the door closed before stepping toward the boys room. "Taichi?" I called before pushing the partially opened door open even further. The first thing I saw was a large scratch mark across the wall, but I soon felt a breeze, and turned sharply toward the window which was shattered and shards of grass were scattered across the floor, the curtains were blowing into the room.
"Yuuko!" Susumu called, "Come here quick!" My heart beating quickly I hurried toward my husband who was looking at a piece of paper that looked like it had been crumpled up. "Dear Mom, Dad, and/or Willis," Susumu read clearly, "I have gone to Koushiro's house. I will be back. I would tell my brother(s) where I was going if only they weren't trying to rip each other's heads off. Okay I love you all! Be back soon!" he paused for a moment and then said "I think!"
I looked at him, worried, and then we both nodded at each other. We had to go to Koushiro's house. Just to be sure they were all okay.
Next on Digimon Adventure 04: Hikari is next, we'll get to learn more about this strange new Digital World and the group of brave digidestined bound to explore it!