Well hello again everyone! I'm getting slightly faster at getting these chapters out, so that's a good thing. I've got a lot of free time coming up this summer, so I'm really hoping that I'll be able to get a lot of writing done, and that I don't get really distracted by something else…like what's happened in the past.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed last chapter, I didn't get a lot of responses from people letting me know what they thought, so I'm going to hope that was just because everyone was super busy.

So, hopefully this chapter will be enjoyable, because it brings us back to some characters we haven't seen for about half the story, so enjoy.

Last Time: Henry, Davis, Yolei, and T.K. ended up spending the night in an abandoned building in Tokyo, and almost made it through the night without being discovered. Unfortunately Mimi and Ken had gotten into a bit of a bind, and they had to rescue them. After that a long chase ensued through the city, ending with Imperialdramon getting devastated by a group of powered up Kimeramon.

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.


Chapter 10 Captivity

Tai

Tai grunted as the weight on his shoulder shifted, placing more weight on his left shoulder now. A few seconds later, and the weight shifted again, this time to his right one, which caused him to grunt again.

"You know, you don't have to make so much noise when I move around." Rika said from above Tai, as she stood on his shoulders in an attempt to reach the window of the cell they were in.

"Well maybe if you didn't put all of your weight on one side I wouldn't feel the need to grunt!" Tai replied, looking up for a second before looking back down. This was one of the times he was very glad Rika never wore skirts or dresses, since he was sure she'd beat him into a bloody pulp in this situation if she was in one, no matter what he did.

"Oh quit complaining." Rika replied, reaching up for the window one more time before letting out an exasperated sigh. "Damn it, I still can't even get close to it."

Tai looked up again as Rika shrugged and motioned for him to lower her, which he quickly did. The two of them quickly settled down on the floor of their cell, since the window was the only way in or out of the room other than the barred metal door that was the main entrance to the cell.

"Well, you got any other bright ideas?" Rika asked after the two of them had settled down on the far wall from the door.

"Just give me a little while to think," Tai replied, closing his eyes as he did. "I'll think of something."

Rika snorted at that, as they'd been in the cell for several hours already, and hadn't even come close to finding a way out of the room.

Tai opened one eye and shot Rika a glare, which they both knew was more joking than serious,, which the red head caught, and the two of them shook their heads in a small amount of humor. Even in the situation they were currently in, they were trying their hardest not to give in to despair.

Tai closed his eye again after the glare, attempting to relax and clear his mind. Even if they'd already tried what felt like everything, Tai knew from experience that there was something else they could try out.

Unfortunately for Tai he just couldn't seem to concentrate very well, his mind straying to his friends who were scattered across this dimension.

Hopefully they all managed to find a way out of the city, or ran into some of the other Tamers… Tai thought wistfully to himself for what was probably the hundredth time. Even with his attempts to distance himself from his friends to prevent thoughts like that from distracting him, he just couldn't seem to.

I guess I really can't just cut them out like that… Tai thought to himself, and smiled slightly. Eh, I guess that's not really a bad thing. I'll just have to work harder to protect all of them, and make sure nothing happens to them.

Tai suppressed a sigh as he finally admitted to himself that his attempt to cut himself off from his friends wasn't very likely to succeed. Before he really had the chance to think about what that would really entail he felt a sharp pain in his arm, causing him to open his eyes and look over. Rika had just hit him, and was glaring at him.

"What the hell was that for?" Tai asked, rubbing the spot she had hit.

"Oh don't complain, I barely hit you." Rika replied, shaking her head. "Anyways, I was trying to talk to you and you were ignoring me."

"That's still not grounds for hitting me." Tai replied, smirking a bit as he earned another head shake from Rika. The two of them had interacted this way the entire time Tai had spent with the Tamers, reminding Tai of how he and Sora had acted when they were younger, though Rika was certainly much more violent that Sora had been. "So what was it that you wanted?"

"Well, I was just asking about what happened after you got back to your dimension." Rika replied, and Tai nodded once himself. He was pretty sure she'd wanted to know exactly what had happened to him since he'd returned, since his behavior was very different from when he'd last seen the Tamers. "You seem more…like yourself now."

"Heh, you could say that…" Tai replied, leaning his head back and staring up at the ceiling for a minute. "Well I managed to exercise a few of my…I guess you could say, personal demons while I was back." Rika nodded as Tai paused for a second. "It started with just helping out all of my friends. My plan for avoiding all of them fell through the first time they got attacked."

Rika snorted at that, before smirking at Tai. " I figured your little 'avoid my friends' plan wasn't going to work, even in the state you were in back then."

"Yea, I guess it was sorta dumb looking back…" Tai replied, and Rika shrugged at that.

"I don't think it was dumb, you just didn't want anyone to get close to you again after them." Rika said, the way she said them leaving no doubt as to who she was referring to. "We all figured that's what you were trying to do. Henry said something about it being a defense mechanism or something like that."

"I guess." Tai shrugged once again, a little uncomfortable. He'd never been one who really liked to talk about his feelings. "Actually, it turned out they survived what happened to them."

"What?" Rika asked, looking over at Tai, who simply nodded.

"The three of them showed up and tried to gang up on the Digidestined while I was trapped in Mask's Square." Tai answered, and Rika shuddered. She knew exactly what Mask's Square did, and how it would affect someone like Tai. "But my friends were able to beat all of them."

"So are they gone for good now?" Rika asked, and Tai shrugged once more.

"I have no idea." Tai replied. "But my gut tells me I haven't seen the last of them. It seems like they're fated to haunt me until all of this is over."

"Ha, right, fate." Rika snorted once again, earning a glare from Tai. "You've been letting your action hero-ness get to your head again if you think someone is fated to chase after you." Rika degenerated into laughing as Tai glared at her for a second before his face broke out into a smile as well.

Seconds later the door across from the two humans was thrown open, revealing several Rookie-Level digimon staring in at the two of them.

"On your feet!" One of them shouted as several walked into the room with what looked like cattle prods in their hands. "NOW!"

Tai and Rika did as they were told as the digimon looked like they meant business with the cattle prods. Six of the digimon placed themselves opposite of Tai and Rika, three covering each of the humans. Almost as soon as they were finished setting up another figure entered through the door.

He had to duck to fit through the human sized opening, as he was several feet taller than even the tallest human. Tai's eyes narrowed as the digimon that had captured them stood before them.

"Well, I see the two of you have found out there's no escape." Bagramon said with a smirk, looking between Tai and Rika. "This cell was designed to prevent any humans from escaping, and that was before I added any of my own, personal touches to it, just in case you started to get close to leaving." The Mega-Level digimon smirked once again, and Tai felt his anger building.

The first chance I get, I'm going to turn this guy into tiny bits of data…Tai thought to himself as Bagramon fell silent and looked between him and Rika. After a few seconds he pointed towards Rika, and the digimon surrounding the two humans moved forward. The three who had been surrounding Tai pressed forward, and hit him with the prod, instantly sending a wave of electricity through his body.

Tai had built up a rather large tolerance to pain however, and the prod only elicited a grunt from him, at which point the other two prodded him as well, this time forcing him to his knees. Next to him Rika was in a very similar situation, with one addition. A seventh Rookie-Level entered the room with chains just like the ones they'd been forced to wear when they'd first been brought here.

"Rika!" Tai exclaimed as he saw the digimon with the chains heading right for her. That earned him another couple of prods, which forced him down once more. Before he could get close to recovering Rika was once more imprisoned by the chains, and the four digimon around her dragged her out of the cell.

The three digimon that had been surrounding Tai fell back at this point as well, leaving with Bagramon, who only smirked at Tai one last time before the cell door closed. Tai could only stare at the closed door, before he slammed a fist into the ground.

"Damn it!" Tai added as he hit the ground again. It may have been irrational to think that he could have done something, but that didn't stop him from feeling that, if only to have them take him instead of her. "Damn it, damn it, damn it…"

It took Tai a few more seconds of venting on the floor before he took a long breath and worked to calm himself down.

Ok. Stay Calm. Getting angry isn't going to help. Tai thought to himself as he tried to calm himself enough to think straight. This wasn't one of the fights that he could just charge in and try to win by the skin of his teeth. He had to think to win this one, or he and Rika were in for a fate worse than death.


~Several Hours Later~


Tai was once more sitting on the ground of his cell, having spent the last several hours attempting to find some way out of the cell that he and Rika had missed earlier, with absolutely no luck.

There's no such thing as an escape proof prison. Tai thought to himself. There has to be a way out of here!

There was a sudden click as Tai thought that, which caused Tai to look over towards the door to the cell. The door slowly swung open, revealing an empty hallway outside of the cell.

"…the hell?" Tai asked himself before pushing himself up and onto his feet. He approached the door slowly, a strange feeling in his gut that something wasn't right, and after all of his experience's he'd come to trust his gut immensely.

Tai cautiously leaned his head out the door, looking in both directions of the empty hallway. One side seemed to lead to a dead end, namely the end of the prison, while the other way seemed to lead out of the prison.

Ok, no guards, and the door's unlocked. Tai thought to himself before nodding. Yep, definitely some sort of trap, or some sick game.

Tai turned back to look in the cell for a second before opening the door completely and stepping into the hallway. It didn't matter if this was a trap or some game Bagramon wanted to play with him, he had a better chance out of the cell than in it.

Tai moved quickly, but quietly, down the hallway and up the stairwell at the end of it. At the top of the stairwell was a large room that Tai assumed was the guard room for the prison below.

When the hell did they get the time to build some sort of medieval fortress prison? Tai thought to himself before spotting a familiar black shape hanging on a coat rack (why the hell do digimon have a coat rack?) across the room. Tai quickly moved across the room and pulled his jacket off of the coat hanger and put it on, surprised to feel several things out of place. Tai quickly pulled them out and was surprised to find both his digivice and the deck of modify cards he'd had on him when he'd been captured.

"Well, that's convenient." Tai said out loud as he clipped the deck onto his belt and put his digivice onto his wrist. Tai pulled up the digimon locator function of his digivice, which should allow him to find Agumon fairly quickly, since he was keyed into the digivice. Sure enough the signatures of several digimon showed up right away on the holographic screen that hovered above Tai's digivice, including the blue icon that represented Agumon.

The Digimon locator was one of the more useful functions that had been added to Tai's digivice, especially when it was really needed. It had been added when Tai had commented on the fact that it was easy to locate other digivice users, but when someone got separated from their partner, it was very difficult to locate them. Henry had immediately seized upon the idea, and with this dimension's Monster Makers, had developed a locator function that not only showed the location of Tai's partner, but also other digimon within a fifty meter radius.

Tai took a few moments to get his bearings on where Agumon was and then snorted to himself.

Yep, this is definitely some sort of set up. Tai thought to himself as he headed off towards the very close by Agumon. Someone, most likely Bagramon, wanted to mess with his mind seriously.

Despite the fact that Bagramon was obviously messing with him Tai still felt that being out and about, with all of his equipment and his partner was a much better situation than being stuck in the cell. Bagramon probably didn't have a clue as to the power he and Agumon would have when they biomerged, and Tai couldn't wait to demonstrate the error of his ways to him.

Plus this would give him his best chance of finding Rika and getting both of them out of here.

Tai glanced down at his digivice, noticing that he'd arrived in close proximity to where Agumon was being held.

"Agumon?" Tai called out in a normal tone, which was loud enough to carry though out the area he was in, a long corridor that curved out of sight in front of him.

"Tai?" Agumon's voiced replied, coming from one of the doors on the left side of the hallway. Tai moved to it, and lifted the simple bar that was the only thing locking it out of the way. "Tai!" Agumon exclaimed, jumping up at Tai as he stood in the door way.

"Hey buddy." Tai replied with a smirk.

"How'd you manage to escape? And where's Rika?" He asked, looking around the corridor.

"They decided to let me wander around at will" Tai replied, and Agumon gave him a knowing look. Both of them knew exactly what that meant. "As for Rika…" Tai paused and looked around for a minute. "They took her a while ago. I don't know where to."

"Oh." Agumon replied before shaking his head. "They separated me and Renamon right from the start, so I don't know if they took her too."

Tai simply nodded at this, bringing up his arm to pull up the digivice locator on his digivice.

"This should help us find her, if something similar is happening to her." Tai said, and Agumon nodded. Before he could pull up the function however the ground started to shake, causing both Tai and Agumon to look down the corridor they were standing in.

Racing towards the two of them are several dozen digimon that look like giant eggs with feet.

"Digitamamon?" Agumon asked, slightly confused before Tai yanks his arm.

"Don't just stand there! Run!" Tai shouted, already heading in the opposite direction of the Digitamamon. Agumon didn't need to be told twice, and took off after his partner, racing along the corridor.

The two raced ahead of the Digitamamon, following the corridor they were in, but it seemed like the corridor was endless. Neither of them realized what was going on until they ran past the open door that had been Agumon's prison cell.

"Damn it, the corridor's a giant circle!" Tai cursed as the Digitamamon started to gain on the pair of them. Tai reached into the deck of modify cards he had, pulling out whatever was on top.

A Picture of Omnimon greeted him as he looked at the picture.

Damn, too high powered for Agumon… Tai thought to himself as he reached for another card, repeating the process until he finally pulled out a card that he could use with Agumon.

"Agumon, get ready to blast the wall ahead of us!" Tai called out to his partner, who may have nodded, but Tai couldn't tell from the running. "Digi-modify! RizeGreymon's Trident Revolver activate!"

A large gun appeared on Agumon's left arm, along with some red chest armor. Agumon immediately jumped forward, and aimed at the wall a good ways ahead of him and Tai.

"Trident Revolver!" Agumon exclaimed, firing a triple barrage of blasts at the wall, which was immediately destroyed. The pair managed to get through the explosion and out through the hole they'd created. Unfortunately for them they didn't emerge into some sort of side room, but rather a large open area of some sort, and the hole they'd flown through was a good dozen feet in the air.

"AAhhh!' Tai and Agumon shouted out as the crashed into the ground. Luckily none of the Digitamamon followed them through the hole into the large, arena like room.

"That wasn't fun at all…" Tai remarked, slowly getting to his feet, and feeling for any major or minor injuries.

"You can say that again." Agumon replied as the Trident Revolver disappeared. "Where are we anyways?"

"I don't know, but it almost looks like some sort of arena." Tai answered, looking around at the rough terrain around them. It seemed like it could have been designed as a combat arena of some sort.

"That would be a good guess Mr. Kamiya!" A loud voice boomed out, seemingly from every corner of the room. A large image of Bagramon suddenly appeared across the arena from Tai and Agumon.

"Bagramon." Tai said as he and Agumon glared at the digimon's image. "What's the meaning of bringing us here?"

"Whatever do you mean?" Bagramon asked, smirking at Tai and Agumon. "You and your partner escaped and come here on your own."

"Cut the crap." Tai said harshly. "Everyone here knows the only reason we're here is you let me out of my cell, and called off all of the guards."

"Oh my, you knew all of this, and yet you still came here?" Bagramon asked, and then his smirk disappeared. "You are either lying or far stupider than the reports if you allowed me to do this to you."

"Or maybe I'm just confident we can take you." Tai replied, which elicited a harsh laugh from Bagramon.

"Oh no doubt your biomerged form could beat me fairly easily." Bagramon said, and Tai's eyes widened, which Bagramon didn't miss. "Yes, I know all about the fact that you can biomerge now, and just how powerful you are, which is why I've brought you here. I want to see this power in action."

"Alright." Tai replied. "Come on down here and I'll demonstrate it for you."

"Oh, I don't think I'll come and fight you myself." Bagramon answered, smirking against. "First I need to see how you fight so I can make my strategy perfect."

"Huh?" Agumon asked, just as several doors around the arena opened, and Diaboromon and digimon that Tai recognized as DexDorugoramon started to crawl out of them.

"Agumon, I think it's time to put an end to this little charade." Tai said, holding out the arm with his digivice on it. Agumon nodded, and Tai took a deep breath. "Biomerge Activate!"

"Agumon biomerge to! EmperorGreymon!" Tai and Agumon were both consumed by a bright orange light that soon swelled in size, before fading away to reveal EmperorGreymon, his sword resting on his right shoulder.

Let's get these guys, and then find Rika. Tai said within EmperorGreymon before jumping at the first group of Diaboromon.

The weakened Mega-Level copies didn't stand a chance as EmperorGreymon landed among them, quickly cutting all of them to pieces with his sword.

"Web Wrecker!" Several of the other groups of Diaboromon had lined up shots on EmperorGreymon, and fired blasts of energy towards him, which EmperorGreymon avoided by jumping straight up into the air.

"Dragonfire." EmperorGreymon lowered his sword, which had started to glow with orange energy, down to a position that made it look more like a giant crossbow than a sword. However before he could finish his attack the pair of DexDorugoramon jumped up to where he was, and quickly knocked him down to the ground.

"Argh!" EmperorGreymon cried out as he hit the ground, barely holding on to his sword.

Damn, those guys are fast… Tai said inside EmperorGreymon.

Try Pyro Dragons, it's a faster attack! Agumon replied, and Tai nodded before reversing his grip on EmperorGreymon's sword, point the blade straight towards the ground, before he plunged it into the ground.

"Pyro Dragons!" EmperorGreymon called out as the ground below him swelled with fire before releasing nine flaming dragons, which flew up towards the DexDorugoramon. The two digimon managed to avoid the dragons however, as they had a long distance to travel, and were moving fairly slow.

Ok, that didn't work… Agumon said as the two DexDorugoramon charged blasts in their hands.

"Metal Impulse!" They shouted in unison, just as several Diaboromon attacked with their Web Wrecker attacks. All of the attacks hit EmperorGreymon, who was thrown across the arena, and into the far wall.

"Ugh…" EmperorGreymon said as both Tai and Agumon felt that.

We can't take a whole lot of hits like that. Tai said to Agumon. Do we have any other attacks, anything that's faster?

Hold on… Agumon replied, just as all of the Demon Lord digimon started attacking again. Tai took control, dodging the majority of the attacks, and deflecting the rest with his sword.

Tai, try using Pyro Dragons, without plunging the Ryuugonken into the ground! Agumon exclaimed after several more seconds of Tai dodging attacks.

What? How is that going to work?

JUST DO IT!

"Pyro Dragons!" EmperorGreymon exclaimed, Tai following the movements that Agumon showed him inside EmperorGreymon. He extended the Ryuugonken forward with both hands gripping it as he attacked, and to Tai's surprise nine dragons exploded out of EmperorGreymon's arms and the sword.

The nine dragons blasted right at the DexDorugoramon, who couldn't avoid the dragons this time, as they were both closer, and moving at a faster speed.

Alright! It worked! Tai exclaimed excitedly.

Of course it did! Agumon replied, and Tai could hear the smugness in his voice.

Before the two of them could celebrate however, the smoke from the explosion cleared, revealing the two DexDorugoramon, who looked like they'd only been slightly harmed.

I guess the tradeoff for the increased speed is less power. Tai said as several Diaboromon jumped into the air to attack EmperorGreymon, who was able to simply cut them to pieces with his sword.

Try this one Tai. It's more concentrated than Pyro Dragons, but still a fast attack. Agumon said, displaying another attack for Tai to observe. Tai grinned as he looked at the move, having the feeling he was going to like this attack.

EmperorGreymon charge towards the two DexDorugoramon, who dodged the slashes he made with his sword, before charging up their own attack.

"Metal Impulse!" They shouted in unison again, launching the two metal blasts at EmperorGreymon. EmperorGreymon simply stood his ground, deflecting the attacks with the Ryuugonken. EmperorGreymon then brought the Ryuugonken back over his right shoulder.

"Dragonfire" EmperorGreymon called out, the blade of the Ryuugonken glowing with orange energy again. "Blast!" EmperorGreymon swung the sword over his shoulder, and the glowing blade released a blast of orange energy that flew right at the DexDorugoramon, who were too stunned to dodge the attack, which hit them straight on, destroying both of them.

After that the remaining Diaboromon charged in mass, but were quickly cut down, their numbers doing nothing to address the power imbalance. As soon as the last Diaboromon was destroyed EmperorGreymon landed on the ground of the arena, breathing heavily from the battle.

"Hahaha!" A loud laugh cut through the arena at that point and Bagramon's face reappeared opposite of EmperorGreymon. "That was most impressive! Better than I expected!"

Tai and Agumon both had to restrain their anger at Bagramon's laughing.

"That's enough Bagramon." EmperorGreymon said, pointing the Ryuugonken at Bagramon's image. "Come down here and fight us!"

"You seriously think you've gotten to the point where I'll fight you?" Bagramon asked with another laugh. "No, you haven't. But I do have another, extra special opponent for you."

As soon as he said that another door opened, this time directly in front of EmperorGreymon. A digimon walked forward, and both Tai and Agumon could see that it was smaller than they were, but seemed to be carrying some sort of staff.

Wait, that looks just like… Tai said inside EmperorGreymon as the digimon stepped out into the light.

"Sakuyamon!"


~Chapter End~


Oh snap! Sakuyamon? Is that Rika and Renamon, or some other Sakuyamon? Guess you'll have to wait a little while to find out…

Anyways, a couple of notes on this chapter. For those of you who don't know, the Ryuugonken is the name of EmperorGreymon's sword. It means Dragon Soul Sword.

Now about his attacks. I always felt that EmperorGreymon's attacks took too long to execute, or were too slow, so I rectified that somewhat.

The first one is basically just a faster, weaker Pyro Dragon attack. I'd always felt that EmperorGreymon didn't really need to stab the ground to release the dragons, since they're supposed to be lodge within his armor, so this makes sense to me. Basically, stabbing the sword into the ground allows the dragons to gain more power, like from the earth's geothermal energy if you want to get slightly scientific, but also slows them down. Releasing them without stabbing the ground weakens them, but also allows them to move faster.

Now, Dragonfire Blast is slightly more something I completely added. It's basically like EmperorGreymon charging up his Dragonfire Crossbow, only swinging his sword to release it instead for firing a crossbow. Again, its like a scaled down Dragonfire Crossbow, only he swings his sword to release it, and it retains most of Dragonfire Crossbow's power, but sacrifices precision accuracy.

If you have any other questions, or don't like what I did, feel free to let me know, and I'll answer your questions and try to change your mind as best I can.

Review Replies: Again, to everyone who reviewed, thanks!

nightwatcher55: Thanks! As I said there will still be some romance though. And yep, they're in a bit of a tough situation.

Japboix1: Thanks! Haha, I know how that goes, and sorry for taking so long to update. As I mentioned above I have a lot of free time this summer, which I'm planning to use to get my writing going full swing, so that'll hopefully happen. And thanks! I'm trying to give each Demon Lord a theme in their minions, one that resonates with them decently well, and the Kimeramon are perfect for the one running the show in Tamer town.

PrincessOfDestiny14: Thanks! And yep! always in trouble. And yea. I always wish I hadn't planned out this whole story before watching Frontier, but oh well. Oh, and it's 02/03/05…so don't count out Data Squad just yet…and yep! I thought it was good, but I'm a bit biased .

Dark Anbu Knight: Thanks! And haha, nope, sorry. That'd be getting ahead too much, but I hope you enjoyed what I picked.

Hornofdesolation: Yea, that was the thing that was most unrealistic about this chapter. The thing that I'm saying right now is he was too tired to hit that level of speed. He only used the light speed thing during the world tour, never any other time, which leads me to believe it isn't something he does unless he really has to. There could be a number of reasons, but I'm going to say that it's an energy thing (after all moving that fast can't be something easy to do) so with his Wormmon half having fought most of the night, Imperialdramon just didn't have the energy to use light speed.

pokemon-35055: Glad you're enjoying it! And the couples are Taiora and Takari right now. I'm still debating on the other couples, but there will be others.