Disclaimer: I do not own digimon.
Ok, so this is a much shorter chapter and I definitely think it's written better than that last one... but I'll let you guys be the judge. Finally getting to the exciting part in these next couple of chapters! Please keep reviewing and stuff!
Chapter 10:
There he was. Not the boy of kindness, not the one who possessed the dark spores he so desperately wanted. No, it was the boy of hope. He and the other pathetic digidestineds were walking towards one of the televisions acting as portals between this world and their world. 'Fools,' he thought to himself, 'did you really think I would let you escape that easily?' He continued watching the digidestineds, growing bored while doing so, until someone interrupted.
"Sir, the digimon you sent for is here," SkullSatamon informed him. The fear in his voice was not disguised well. Surely his commander heard of what he had done to LadyDevimon and was worried for his own life. As if it really mattered if he lived or not; SkullSatamon was merely a pawn in the grand scheme. Well, maybe a little more value of a pawn, but it didn't matter. He, Lord Daemon, was the king and he was not about to let anyone take him down. He had the advantage. He was holding all the cards. He had the digidestineds at a check, and it was only a matter of time before that check became a checkmate.
Turning his attention to SkullSatamon, he looked and saw a Tapirmon floating off to the side. This digimon was pathetic, but he was exactly the type of digimon he needed to mess with the child of hope. The dark world already had such a strong hold on the digidestined, and its grip was tightening as time progressed. All that was needed was a little… uh, push in the right direction and hope would be lost, trapped in the depths of the dark ocean where he had spent so many years of torture and imprisonment. Yes, his revenge was in part towards the Soverign and that was satisfied, but his revenge ran deeper. Hope's digimon partner digivolved into Seraphimon, the being whom he once was. For him to be satisfied, hope and his partner, the only digimon that posed him any threat, needed to be removed from the picture. With him gone it gave him easy access to the dark spores, and then he would have the power to destroy the digidestineds and banish hope to his former place of torture for eternity.
"Sir?" SkullSatamon asked nervously, seeing that he had lost his focus.
"Tapirmon, you are just the mon I've been looking for."
Tapirmon winced at this and he couldn't help but let out an evil laugh.
"What… why do you want me?"
"I need you to cause a little nightmare, and then you're free to go."
Tapirmon relaxed a little, "Nightmares are my specialty."
"I need you to cause the child of hope to leave the others. Make him separate himself. I don't care how: threaten the others, torture him to insanity, it doesn't matter, just make sure no one catches you."
"I can do that."
"Good, now go before I change my mind and destroy you."
Tapirmon quickly exited Imperium Adustrum, his temple, his house of reign, and disappeared.
"SkullSatamon."
"Yes sir?"
"Prepare to leave with Ornismon and pick up the child of hope. Do not fail me or your fate will end like your friend LadyDevimon."
SkullSatamon didn't spend one more second in the temple than he needed. He flew off with the impeccable speed of his and was gone in an instant. Now that his plan was set in action, all he had to do was wait. He stood up from the throne, walked past the fallen Seraphimon statue, and exited the temple, standing on the cloud Imperium Adustrum sat upon. The cloud though had turned pitch black. All light in the sky was lost. As he looked in the distance, he saw the darkness slowly spreading throughout the entire Digital World. Everything was falling into place. In a mere number of days he would have absolute control over the Digital World with hope forever gone, and then he would extend his reign over all the worlds. He was Daemon, Lord of… well, everything.
Gatomon was finally snuggled up in her partner's bead after a long day of being captured and battling various digimon. Her muscles ached but she was finally able to relax. Her partner was safe, lying next to her and she couldn't help but smile…
This was supposed to be what happened, but it was not reality. She and the rest of the digimon and digidestineds were stuck in the Digital World. They had found a portal relatively quickly and everyone was excited to finally go back to the real world and relax, but they quickly found out that they weren't able to go back to the real world.
"Digi-port open!" her partner's brother had called out.
Nothing. Cricket-mon seemed to be chirping all around.
"Digi-port open?!" Tai tried again, but to no avail. The television screen remained blank.
"Uh, Izzy?" Tai turned to the red head, who was already examining the television screen.
After a fifteen second inspection, Izzy concluded, "It appears to be that our world is currently inaccessible from our current position."
"Meaning…?" Davis asked, Izzy's big words obviously confusing the goggle-head.
"The digi-port is closed. We can't go back to the real world," Izzy responded, annoyed Davis didn't understand the first explanation.
A few of the others gasped as Yolei exclaimed, "What?!"
"What are we going to do?"
"Are we seriously stuck here?"
"I have kendo, my grandpa is going to be so disappointed in me."
"I can't stay here. There's too many bugs and digimon and life-threatening situations and… oh, it's just like our first adventure."
Everyone started uttering their complaints and worries. Partner digimon tried comforting their partners. Everyone was so loud; she couldn't take it anymore.
"SHUT UP!" she yelled at the top of her voice. They all obeyed and looked at her in shock. She had to admit that she was shocked herself, but they all were being such blockheads, loud blockheads at that.
"You guys need to stop complaining and come up with a plan. It doesn't look the gate will open up anytime soon so it looks like we're going to be here for a while, and with Daemon bound to be on the lookout for us we need to find a safe place to stay because, I can't speak for the rest, but I for one can't digivolve again anytime soon."
"I'm pretty tired too, TK" Patamon piped in.
The other digimon agreed and Agumon looked at Tai saying, "Gatomon has a point, Tai. We need to find somewhere safe to stay before we get found out."
"But we don't have anywhere to go, Agumon," Tai told his partner.
"Yeah, it's not like the Digital World has hotels or anything," Sora added.
"And I'm not about to sleep on this dirty, icky ground either," Mimi told everyone. She had to resist herself from going off again; these digidestineds could be as annoying as fur balls sometimes.
"Well lucky for you I'm renting out rooms at my place."
The voice was new, yet it wasn't. For the younger digidestineds they recognized the voice right away, while the younger digidestineds jumped in fear, ready to attack. They turned to see none other than Gennai. But instead of Gennai being twenty years old or so, he was back to being an old man like he had on their first adventure.
"Gennai!" everyone except for the second round of digidestineds called out.
"Greetings," the old man replied with a smile.
Yolei looked awestruck and also a bit disappointed as well. "Gennai? No, you can't be Gennai!"
"You're an old man, you can't be Gennai,"Ken added.
"Unless…" Davis started. She could see the wheels in his head turning, which wasn't a good thing, "Unless you ate Gennai!"
Everyone literally face-palmed.
After that little fiasco, they had been able to agree that the old man really was Gennai and talked with him as they walked to his place. Once they had arrived, they sat on the ground in a circle as Gennai informed them of everything that was going on.
"Gennai, can you tell us what's been going on? We are all a little lost about what's happening here in the Digital World," Matt inquired.
"It is the second evil I warned you about many years ago."
"Thanks Sherlock, but we already knew that," Davis stated.
A few of the digidestineds sent Davis a glare. She didn't. She was watching Gennai intently, listening to every word the old man said because he was their only source of information, and if she wanted to keep Kari safe and have her partner never get hurt then she needed to know what Gennai was going to tell them.
"You have a lot to learn, humility."
"Wait a second, what did you call me?" Davis asked.
"Humility. It is your crest that you received."
Davis pulled out the tag from under his shirt and examined the crest inside. Davis muttered something but she didn't pay him any attention.
"What's my crest Gennai?" Yolei asked, seeing that Gennai obviously knew about the crests.
"Guys, we have more serious things at hand," Izzy interrupted, sounding quite annoyed.
Yolei pouted but remained quiet.
Gennai nodded. "Thank you Izzy. Now, as I'm sure you are aware, there is a new evil digimon threatening the Digital World. His name is Daemon, and he must not be taken lightly."
"Is Daemon the one stopping us from going to the Digital World?" Kari asked.
"Yes."
"But what about our lives in the real world? Our parents are going to be so worried," Sora said.
The others nodded and muttered their agreements.
"Your lives in the real world should be the least of your worries," Gennai stated, suddenly very serious, but then he shook his head, "Sorry, I just have been working overtime and it is beginning to wear on me. Yes, you will not be able to go back until Daemon is destroyed, but don't worry. The time difference from your first adventure has been put back into place as well."
"Time difference?" Cody asked.
She always forgot that not everyone in the room had been a part of the first adventure, and even she sometimes felt left out from the first adventure since she and Kari didn't join until they faced the Dark Masters.
"Yeah, on our first adventure time went a lot faster here in the Digital World than in our world," Joe explained.
"I calculated the exact relation between our time and Digital World time to be one day and one second."
"So although we spent many, many days in the Digital World, we only missed a few minutes at most in our world," Mimi explained.
"This means you will not have to worry about the real world… for now."
"What do you mean 'for now,'" Tai demanded. He wasn't taking a threat to his homeland lightly.
"If Daemon is not destroyed, the real world will be in grave danger."
"So we just destroy Daemon like every other digimon we faced, piece of cake!" Davis said simply.
"It won't be that easy Davis," TK said quietly, though she, being a creature of light, could hear the darkness and despair in the blonde's voice. They all looked curiously at TK as he had been quiet since the battle. Kari had also told her that TK seemed to be avoiding everyone and that something was bothering him that he didn't want to talk about.
"Yeah it will TK because we are digidestineds. Nothing can defeat us!"
"That's right!" Veemon cheered alongside his partner.
She shook her head as Gennai continued, "TK is right. Daemon is a foe stronger than any digimon you have faced before, so much so that you do not stand a chance as you are now."
"Then what are we going to do Gennai?" Kari asked, trying to stir up some hope in what seemed to be a hopeless atmosphere as everyone's face was downcast upon hearing Gennai's words, even Davis.
"The crests," he replied simply.
Matt argued, "But we already got our crests back from the digicore TK had four years ago when we found him."
"The crests do not even correlate with the correct digidestined. None of this makes any logical sense," Izzy ranted.
"I am aware of that, so let me try to make sense out of it. Let me start from the beginning. Daemon was not always… uh, Daemon. Long ago he used to be a Seraphimon who…"
"Wait a second. You're trying to say that this evil digimon used to be an angel?!" Mimi exclaimed.
Everyone glared at her for interrupting Gennai's story. She blushed and muttered an "Oh… sorry."
Gennai cleared his throat before continuing, "Seraphimon ruled the Digital World alongside the the four digimon Soverign: Zhuqiaomon, Azulongmon, Baihumon, and Ebonwumon. These five digimon ruled the Digital World in peace, all with their own respective power over the Digital World. Well, Seraphimon got a bit obsessive with power and was not satisfied with what he had. He wanted the Digital World to himself, so he tried to destroy the Soverign but he was not strong enough. The Soverign then banished him to the deepest depths of the Dark Ocean."
At this her whiskers twitched. She knew way too much about the Dark World and had been there too many times for her liking- then again her liking was to never go there. It was a place where black cats as dark as midnight lured; a place of very bad luck and despair. She had almost lost Kari in that creepy place twice now, and even the thought of that place made her ears stand straight up.
Ken and Kari tensed at the mention of the Dark Ocean and the others exchanged nervous glances. Gennai, noticing the unease in the air paused before continuing his story.
"Yes, they banished him to the darkest, coldest depths of that world and that changed Seraphimon. Well, it could change anybody, but this place was not one that people just visited real quick and then left. People sent to this place don't come back. But Daemon did."
Shivers ran down her spine making her look around the room to see if there was any evil present, but they were alone. Gennai's ominous voice kept telling the rest of the story.
"After being in that prison for a countless number of years, Daemon finally gained enough power to escape, hungry, no, yearning for revenge, and he was willing to do whatever it took to fulfill it. His plan started with ending you all, but when Dragomon failed to carry out the mission alongside the returned Dark Masters, Daemon decided to set his focus on his main goal, reclaiming his throne in Imperium Adustum, the sanctuary of power and light."
"You mean that place is actually real?" she asked to no one in particular. Being an angel digimon, she had definitely heard of the place, but only thought it was a myth. It was said to be on top a cloud somewhere in the Digital World where there was only light and the power from it radiated all around. It was a place suitable for a ruling angel, not a revenge-seeking demon.
"It is very much so real. Now, unfortunately, Daemon has already gathered many digimon to his aid, one of them being MarineDevimon whom you defeated only mere hours ago. But I'm afraid MarineDevimon is the easiest battle you have coming your way from Daemon."
"Easiest?" Ken asked.
"Yeah, that battle almost killed us," Yolei added.
"Which is why you must get stronger and…"
"But how do we do that?" Davis asked. As soon as he had interrupted he realized he had made a mistake and quieted back down.
Gennai appeared very annoyed, tired, and exhausted, but yet he continued, "Just be patient and I will explain. Yes, Daemon has many digimon by his side stronger than MarineDevimon, and you cannot beat them yet. But that is why Azulongmon sent you these new crests. You see, Daemon marched on to Imperium Adustrum where the four Soverign were waiting with their loyal servants, the Deva. Well, just as you all were feuding with MarineDevimon, Daemon was attempting to fulfill his revenge on the Soverign."
"He didn't defeat them though, did he?" Matt asked hopefully, but his dark tone showed his feigned optimism.
"I'm afraid Daemon did indeed destroy the Soverign, but right before Azulongmon died he sent out all of the digicores the Soverign possessed, which became the crests you have with you. Those crests contain power from all four Digimon Soverign, and they were the only ones who defeated Daemon. With these crests, you will be able to gain much strength and reach to new levels, but you must learn to tap into that strength possessed by the crest. It will take much more than knowledge of the crest to activate the crests. You need to use your hearts to reach into and use that power. Only then will you be able to defeat Daemon, and even then, it will be close."
"Thanks for the optimism Gennai," Davis muttered.
Tai glared before saying, "What can we do Gennai?"
"Learn your crests, and do it quickly because I fear Daemon will regain his strength quickly and be hunting you all down."
"Can you tell us what character trait each crest represents?" Izzy asked, "It appears that the crests got mixed up and dispersed to the wrong digidestined."
"It was no mistake you all received the crests that you did. You have to master a completely new crest as well as remaining ownership over your old crests."
"But us second generation digidestineds don't have any crests!" Yolei exclaimed, bringing up a good point.
"Then consider yourselves lucky; you all will only have one crest to unlock the power to. But you will find your crests to be much harder to access than the others. Now, may I explain your crests to you?" Gennai asked. They all nodded, so the old man continued.
"Tai, you wield courage but now you must learn the power of reliability. Matt, your friendship must now accompany the power of love. Sora…"
The old man continued his speech as he addressed every digidestined. Sora now gained light, while Mimi gained knowledge. Joe now had reliability and hope as his weapons, and Izzy had knowledge and friendship. Kari gained sincerity which she figured wouldn't be hard for her partner because Kari tended to be more sincere than even Mimi, and her partner's best friend, TK, was given courage. Then Gennai addressed the younger digidestineds and informed them of their new crest's identity. Davis got humility, to which everyone held back a snort, and Yolei had peace. Ken had kindness, Cody had patience, and Michael had joy. Willis still possessed the two crests of destiny and miracles. These were all of the crests.
"Now, you all are free to stay here as long as you want, I have plenty of food…," at which Gennai clapped his hands and tons of plates of food appeared out of thin air. There were hamburgers, biscuits, many other foods, and, the one that she had eyed down making her drool, tuna.
"But I have to be going. Me and the other protectors of the Digital World, like me, have to work overtime because of the Soverign being destroyed. We have to keep the Digital World in balance and from spiraling into the other worlds. I don't know how much longer we can keep the worlds apart, but we will have to until Daemon is destroyed and we are able to restore the Digital World. But in the meantime, you all should relax and at least stay the night. You will be safe here, but please don't stay here forever. The Digital World and all of the other worlds are counting on you."
When Gennai had finished, he snapped his fingers and vanished into thin air.
Since then, they had spent most of the night talking about what they had learned and what their plan of action should be, not after filling themselves to their pleasure of course. But now everyone was asleep. She was lying next to Kari, snuggled up close to her partner under her arms. She would have been asleep by now, and her body was telling her to, but Davis was lying next to Kari and he snored louder than Kari's ninety-year old grandfather. She was half tempted to get up and punch the teen in the face, but she didn't want to wake Kari. But then there was another sound besides the obnoxious snoring causing her ears to perk up; someone was whispering.
"TK, what are you doing?" a voice asked that was unmistakably Patamon; no other voice she knew was as high-pitched or squeaky as Patamon's.
"I have to do this Patamon… for Matt… for Kari… for everyone," TK responded, sorrow clear in his voice.
"Can't we talk this out in the morning?"
"No, if I don't go then he… he will…"
"Who TK? Who will…?"
Someone turned to their side and another yawned loudly.
"I'm sorry Patamon. Please, stay here," TK said nervously. The blonde almost sounded like he was on the verge of tears.
"TK, you will let me go with you or I will wake everyone up and stop you from going."
There was a long pause before TK reluctantly muttered, "Fine, but be quiet."
As the footsteps became softer and softer and the distinct noise of them leaving Gennai's house came to her ear, she gently lifted Kari's arm from over her and removed herself from her partner's embrace. She then used her cat-like finesse to maneuver between the sleeping digidestineds and digimon without bumping into anything. TK and Patamon had left the door slightly open so she squeezed through and ran as they were climbing up the stairs that led out of the lake Gennai's house sat in. As she climbed the stairs silently from behind the two partners for what seemed like forever, they finally reached the top. She was panting and about to call out their names when she heard a loud flapping noise from the distance. Her ears perked up and her tail twitched as she looked overtop the trees in the distance. A large bird digimon with a pink beak and outer feathers, an aquamarine neck, and a purple-feathered body appeared. Next to it was a demon digimon with a red body, black wings protruding from its back, and holding some sort of stick. She recognized the two digimon and they were not nice, Ornismon and SkullSatamon.
She ran back towards the stairs and dove for cover. Risking being seen, she peaked over the top and watched the scene.
'Why aren't they running,' she thought to herself.
"Are you here to take us to Daemon?" TK asked to no one in particular.
Ornismon nodded and SkullSatamon replied, "Yes, now hurry before Lord Daemon gets mad."
"At you or at me?" TK fired back. The apathy in the teen's voice scared her. TK was supposed to be hopeful, optimistic, but it seemed as if all of that goodness, all of that light, had been sucked out of him.
"Quiet you fool before I take you out before Daemon does!" SkullSatamon saucily replied.
"Don't even think about touching TK," Patamon said, attempting to muster all of the courage he could.
"Shut up you pathetic digimon," SkullSatamon said as he, in the twinkling of an eye, swatted Patamon with his stick. Patamon hit the ground with such force that he dragged across the ground for a good ten feet. He didn't get up.
"Patamon!" TK shouted as he ran for his partner. He barely picked his partner up before SkullSatamon ordered, "Get on, now!"
TK shot a death glare at SkullSatamon and looked like he was about ready to fight. No one noticed it, but the crest underneath TK's shirt started glowing very slightly, but then it dimmed as TK got to his feet and walked over to the two evil digimon. Ornismon dropped its wing and TK boarded the bird digimon, holding Patamon close with one arm and hanging for dear life with the other as they instantly were flying in the air at a remarkable speed. Just like that SkullSatamon, Ornismon, TK, and Patamon were gone. All she could do was sit there with her mouth open in shock and fear.