Author's Note:
Oh, lovely internet. You have no idea how I've missed you. And all my wonderful readers, too. =D
AngelOfLight04: Thank you. I'm so happy you're enjoying it.
Urahara144: I've been trying to work the answer to that into the dialogue. Hopefully I succeeded this time. Thank you.
Aero Angemon: Just starting to get good? lol. ;)
Chapter Twelve
TK watched, petrified, as Nolan and Taye each grabbed one of Stana's arms to keep her from running to protect the toddler. He could see from his position by the window as Cadetmon handed the two boys a length of rope and they quickly tied the girl's arms behind her back. Spritemon, though she put up a good fight as well, was tied up too.
Cadetmon then began the short march to the kitchen door, followed closely by Kaden, Reid, Cece and their digimon.
"Run," Gotsumon told TK. "I can try to hold them off."
"That won't be necessary," said a voice from the other doorway behind them. Two Vegiemon stood there and made quick work of wrapping the boy and digimon in more rope.
"Nice work, my pets," Cadetmon praised when she walked in the door. Then she knelt down in front of TK. "Such a shame you couldn't be a good little boy and act your age. Now I'm going to have to take you to Spetomon and get him to de-age you properly."
"You'll never get the chance. My friends will be here any second!"
"Oh, I know." She chuckled as she straightened up, which wasn't much of an improvement. She was still shorter than the teens beside her. "I saw your little friends when I was flying in, that's how I knew someone had betrayed me. No one can find this place on their own. But it's not going to make any difference. You're only forcing me to go ahead with the plan early. And when it's all over and your friends are too weak to fight any more, I'll take you all to see Spetomon."
Cadetmon walked swiftly to the cellar door while pulling an old iron key from one of the pockets on her uniform. She unlocked and opened the door quickly, letting it swing open so everyone could see inside, but it was too dark. The light from the kitchen only lit a couple of stairs going down.
She pointed to the two Vegiemon. "You two, go down there. I want the both of them in the temple in ten minutes. Understand?" The lower-level digimon nodded and raced each other down the stairs. "Wait outside," she told everyone else. Cece and Reid took to pushing TK and Gotsumon out the door.
"TK, I'm so sorry," Stana said as the two groups met up on the lawn. "I never meant for any of this to happen."
"It's not your fault."
"Shut it, both of you!" Kaden ordered, in charge again now that Cadetmon wasn't near. Stana glared at him.
"I can't believe you're going along with this," she told him. "We were supposed to be friends. All of us. And now you're suddenly better than everyone? You're pathetic."
"You're not the first to think so," he said quietly. Just then the back door swung open again and the Vegiemon came out, pulling two figures behind them.
The first was a tall, beautiful creature that resembled a butterfly in the way her wings fanned out around her. The Vegiemon had blindfolded her and she was stumbling along behind him. TK guessed this was Ennamon.
The second figure was a girl of about sixteen with short, curly blonde hair down to her shoulders. She looked very pale, as if she hadn't been in the sun for a long time.
"Valeria!" Gotsumon called to the girl happily.
"Oh, Gotsumon. Thank God you're all right," the girl said hoarsely in an Italian accent.
"Val. We ... we thought you left," Reid said. Cece swatted him on the arm. Even Kaden looked a little surprised.
"No. I couldn't do it. I couldn't leave you all."
"But you would have eventually." Cadetmon joined them carrying a small wooden box in her gloved hands. "I had high hopes in the beginning. It seemed like there was no way any of you were going home. It was what brought you together and made you a great team. And then you had to go and assume your family would just welcome you back with open arms." She scowled at Val.
"Even after you decided to stay I knew it would happen again, and I could let it. That's why I had to lock you in the cellar. I would have gladly done it to the others, but I knew they wouldn't try to leave, not if they thought they had nothing to go back to. That's I didn't get so upset whenever someone-" she glared at Stana "-objected to my plan."
"Your plan?" Kaden rounded on her.
"Sorry, slip of the tongue." She patted his shoulder. "Don't worry, kid. You're still the mastermind here. Now, let's get moving. We have to go ahead with the final phase before the digidestined get here."
"What final phase? We haven't discussed anything."
Cadetmon only chuckled and motioned for everyone to follow her. TK knew immediately where they were going when she led them into the gardens. Nobody said a word as they went through the iron gate and stopped at the temple.
"All right, you seven, get in there," Cadetmon told the shadow digidestined. Val and Stana were the only two who didn't start marching up the steps. The Vegiemon pushed them along.
TK and the shadow digimon followed of their own will. Ennamon, still unable to see, stayed where she was.
Cadetmon directed each of the seven teens onto one of the raised stones, or pedestals as she called them. Cece was yelled at for choosing to stand on just any pedestal. As Cadetmon explained, the symbols on each had to match the personality of the person.
"I've never seen these before," Kaden's partner, Mistmon said as he knelt down to examine the pedestal Kaden was placed on. "They look ancient. What do they mean?"
"You'll find out soon enough." Cadetmon grinned at him. When she saw to it that all of the teens were on the proper symbols, she unlocked and opened the small wooden box she still carried. She pulled out one of the tiny vials TK had seen the night before. It had an unfamiliar dark blue liquid inside. This vial was handed to Cece.
"When I tell you to, you're all going to drink from these vials."
"Like hell I am," Stana muttered. Cadetmon heard, but it didn't seem to ruin her good mood.
"There's nothing to worry about. It won't hurt you. It will merely make the bond between you and your digimon partner even stronger, giving you all the power to fight off the intruders."
"I won't fight," Val yelled at the digimon. "They're good people. I won't hurt them."
"Yes, good people. Good people who would rather throw you out of the digital world than wait and listen to your stories, as I have done. You think they're going to care about you? Reid, Cecilia, do you think these spoiled digidestined are going to give a damn that you've grown up in an orphanage? That you have no other home to go to?" She turned to Stana.
"Your mother and step-daddy care more about their precious children than they do about you. Why would you want to go back to that? Valeria, your parents want you start working at the family bookstore. They don't understand your longing to travel the world - stick with me and you can.
"Nolan, you have so much pent up anger for your father that you can't function properly in your world. You don't have to worry about that here. Taye, I understand your frustration at having to get a job since your mother lost hers. You don't have to work here." Cadetmon smiled when one by one the teenagers started agreeing with her. Stana and Val still didn't look convinced, but the digimon wasn't paying any attention to them. Kaden was looking down at the vial of golden liquid he'd been handed, studying it suspiciously.
"Kaden," he flinched when she said his name. "Kaden, you belong here. Face it. Nobody's waiting for you in the real world. Your family made it clear that they never want to see you again, so why are you going to waste your time thinking about them. This is your family now, Kaden. We care about you. And family's take care of each other." She looked each of the teens in the eyes. "The only way any of you can stay is if the digidestined are out of the way. Every last one of them. We need to fight. Together."
A tear rolled Stana's cheek, but she didn't make a sound. Beside her, Valeria was staring far off in the distance at the sky, as if waiting for Kari and the others to appear there suddenly.
Cadetmon silently finished handing out the vials, giving Stana's and Val's to the Vegiemon with orders to force the contents down the girls' throats on her command. TK watched helplessly as she gave the signal and the seven shadow digidestined drank, coughing and gasping after swallowing the foul liquid. Meanwhile Cadetmon started chanting low and fast, reading from a small book that had been in the box as well.
The wind started to pick up, blowing the leaves on the ground all over the place. But unlike with Spetomon's chanting, light did not blind anyone. It did seem to have an effect on the shadow digidestined, however. Each of them fell to their knees only seconds after Cadetmon began.
"It burns," Val gasped. "The drink is burning me."
Cadetmon finished her chanting and grinned at the girl. "Yes. I'm afraid it's one of the side-effects. A few minutes of pain, but you'll be more powerful later."
"One of the side-effects?" Kaden glared at her. "What are the others, then?"
"Oh, let's just say you're not going to feel like yourselves when it's all over." She chuckled as she watched them all kneel in pain.
Loud bird-like screeching was suddenly heard, and TK looked up to the sky to see Kari riding on the back of Nefertimon with five Aquilamon surrounding them. He could just make out his father on the shoulder of an Angemon. Cadetmon seemed unphased as she watched with him.
"They're too late," she told the boy. "In a few seconds it won't matter how many digimon they have with them." She turned back to the circle of humans and watched gleefully as their digivices started to glow.
TK, being closest to Stana, watched as the glow faded and her crest changed before his eyes to the same symbol she was kneeling on.
"My eyes!" Cece yelled, covered them with her hands. The others all did the same except for Val and Stana, who were still tied. "It feels like someone's gouging them out!"
"Nothing to worry about. It'll all be over when the burning stops," Cadetmon told them.
Spritemon screamed when Stana opened her eyes and they were completely red. Beside her, Val's eyes had become an ugly neon green. After they blinked a couple of times, they had gone back to their natural colors. Cadetmon wandered over to them and bowed.
"Welcome back, mistresses."
The girls looked down at the digimon together. But while Valeria seemed obviously pleased about this, grinning, Stana looked angry.
"Cadetmon, is that you? Where are we?" She didn't sound normal, almost like she was having trouble speaking.
"The temple, milady," she answered and looked around at Cece and the boys who were all opening their unnaturally-colored eyes. "I have done as you asked, the digidestined are to be destroyed. And the prophecy, it has come true."
At that, Stana glanced curiously at Val and the others. "Brothers? Sisters?" she whispered unbelievably.
One by one they began to nod, each seeming confused by the situation, but none more than TK.
"Stana, what's going on?" he whispered to the girl. She looked down at him with a questioning glance, then back at Cadetmon.
"Who's he? A new servant?"
"Not quite, ma'am. He's one of the digidestined, de-aged by Spetomon."
From across the temple, Taye growled.
"Spetomon's involved in this now?"
"It was the only way, my lord. It would have taken another thousand digimon to wear-out the digidestined. With Spetomon I was able to de-age eleven of the Japanese and one Russian."
"There can't be many more left, then. Correct?" Stana - or whatever was possessing her - looked expectantly at the still-kneeling digimon.
Cadetmon gulped and smiled nervously at the girl. "Actually, in the past several years, each country has developed it's own team of digidestined. There are now well over a thousand. I have, of course, managed to collect names and information about all of them, except-"
"Except?"
"The twenty-four new digidestined, ma'am. They're why I put the plan into action. I figured if I could get the old ones out of the way before they could train the new ones, they'd have no chance of standing up to us." When the Stana-possessing creature and the other six said nothing, Cadetmon took this as a good sign and continued. She pointed to where Kari and the others were flying. "The Japanese are on their way now. I've already sent word to Spetomon to come here and de-age them when they're weak from fighting."
"Why bother de-aging them? Why not just kill them?" asked Nolan.
"I thought you would be please, my lord. With the digidestined reduced to babies-"
"We could raise them as an army. An unstoppable army." Kaden grinned at the idea. "Well done," he praised.
"Thank you. The other countries will surely try to save the Japanese. And that's when we can capture them as well."
"Tell us, Cadetmon, why is it that Spetomon is helping us now. I recall him being determined to destroy us the last time we were here," Valeria said.
"He does not yet know that you are involved, mistress. He thinks that I am in charge of this operation. He still does not approve, however. I had to take his wife for him to help." Cadetmon motioned to Ennamon who stood silently and motionlessly outside of the temple.
"Ennamon," Reid whispered, smiling when he saw her. The Stana-creature swatted the back of his head.
"Do not be fooled. If Spetomon still rejects us, she does as well," she warned him. He frowned and looked away.
"What do we do now, then?" he asked softly.
"We fight. Correct?" Nolan turned to Stana for confirmation. It was strange for TK to see, after witnessing everyone's loyalty to Kaden for the past day and a half.
"Yes. We fight."
Author's Note:
Thank you all for waiting patiently while I finished this chapter. It wasn't easy - unpacking is taking up the majority of my time now. But it's worth it. My apartment is beautiful. =D
Not much more of the story left. Now's the time to put in any last-minute theories, suggestions or requests. I'm mapping out the remaining chapters tonight.
-Lizzy
