chapter 11: infiltration 1


„I´ve been wondering about this before, but why are you holding back so much? Why aren´t you deleting them?"
Oops. Well, okay, maybe that did come out a bit less caring than intended, but it was exactly what he wanted to know anyway. The look Takuya got from Tai just confirmed, that it was indeed not the very best way to ask. Off mark by maybe just a mile or something.

But hell, they were on a battlefield. Even Takuya can´t be always perfect.

"What do you mean?" Tai asked with not-so-much underlying suspicion and repulsion. Takuya would have thought he had grown a second head from the look directed at , let's be very careful with this, your mess, he reminded himself.

"Just what I said. Of course, I do understand that you want to kill as few Digimon as possible, but in situations like this it can´t be helped, I think." Add to the second head another four arms and maybe few dangerous limps. Not so good. "I´m not saying that you should just kill them all off the way I made you do last time, but I don´t understand why you aren´t even half serious."

"We are serious. Deadly serious." Tai replied seriously sour.

"Yeah, I know that, but what I mean is why are you risking your lives for them? Digimon that you don´t even know?" He waved at the blooming battle where with rather good timing just another wave of explosions erupted.

Perhaps he saw something flicker across Tai´s face before it disappeared under distrust and other not nice emotions, perhaps not. He hoped whatever it had been was friendly, he doubted it, though.

"It is natural, isn´t it?" Tai stared him in the eyes and it made Takuya feel uncomfortable. The elder boy´s glare just pierced through him. "These Digimon did not want to serve Phelesmon. They don´t want to harm us or die trying. And we can´t just delete them because they are controlled and forced against us. We are Digidestined chosen to protect the Digiworld and its inhabitants, not to kill them. Or was that different in your world?" He became bluntly accusing with disgust in his voice. Not that Takuya blamed him much. Right now he was just misunderstanding Takuya´s point a bit, but it still wasn´t pleasant.

"No, it wasn´t, but if a Digimon disrupted our mission we deleted it." … Did he say something wrong again?

"Are you saying you killed whoever crossed you?" Said like that it most certainly did sound wrong.

"Well, no, but we just didn´t want to risk the fate of the Digiworld on sentimentalism in battle." He explained quickly, but maybe a bit too calm. He blamed the others inside of him for that. Trying not to press any more wrong buttons, Takuya broke eye contact. "That´s what I noticed in your fighting style.

Your partners hesitate delivering the final blow or they miss vitals in the first place. Now missing isn´t bad or anything, but what if, because you failed to finish off one Digimon that same Digimon has no hesitation whatsoever finishing a friend of yours. Controlled or not I´m sure you would regret it. Moreover so, because said Digimon maybe didn´t want to kill your friend but was made to.

Then, because you hesitated, not only will the chances for victory be even slimmer, but also will you have turned that one Digimon into a killer. And maybe loosing just that one Digidestined would be the one point responsible for loosing this war. How guilty do you think would that Digimon feel?

You see my point?

I think, it is better if we kill the enemy than let them kill us. And, isn´t it protecting as well by deleting them and releasing them from control? You wouldn´t protect their body, but their soul."

By now the entire group of Digidestined had listened to what Takuya said. And he sure as hell did not like what he saw in their faces. Whoops. Takuya would have thought they were staring at the devil incarnated, had it not been him who was the center of attention. Bad. Very bad.

"Are you saying that we should turn this into a massacre?" Matt asked instead of his brother who was too busy shaking with anger. But venom dripped of every word anyway.

"Of course not!" Now they were overdoing it with accusations. "I'm asking if it is all right with you to weight the fate of millions of other innocent Digimon and the Digiworld against the lives of those who are serving the enemy unwillingly!" Takuya sure hoped they hadn´t thought about it this way, otherwise a very good argument would be lost.

Apparently they hadn´t.

All faces were still angry; just now some were a little bit startled as well. Not that it was going to help, but it was a beginning.

But, geez, he sure got himself into a fine mess again, seeing chaos and angry faces around him. Where was the annoying idiot when he needed him? Koji was responsible to keep him out of the worst trouble.

Oh right, he was caught in that giant box of a flying fortress.

As Takuya looked at the faces of his supposed-to-be-protectors he couldn´t help but to grade this as one of those disasters Koji usually prevented. Granted, maybe Takuya should have picked a better timing to ask this particular question, especially seeing how angry Digidestined made a way too nice picture with explosions, landslides and rock-rain in the background, but how could he have known that he was stepping into a land-mine?

Tai spoke and broke the starring contest, which Takuya was losing by a heavily by the way. Then again, it was hardly even; 1 vs 11. Not fair at all.

"I understand where you are coming from." He said. Calm, not one note of anger or other emotion in his voice, but maybe with a some distaste. "But that does not mean that we agree."

… It was amazing, a part of Takuya´s mind awed off task; Tai dispelled the heavy atmosphere with just with a few words. Some were already turning away to look at their partners. In a mental note Takuya wrote down not to cross him if possible.

"I do understand your reasoning," he said again, "and maybe you are right, we are risking a lot, but at the same time we couldn´t just give up on all these poor Digimon without trying, right?"
His expression saddened and Takuya involuntarily wondered just what could make them so rejecting of death. Tai wiped that expression away and replaced with a grim frown. One he used for battle. Takuya had learned that pretty fast. He had been the focus of that stare just seconds before. Leaving him, Tai stepped to Izzy giving some orders Takuya didn´t hear.

Not that he was really left alone. The protected space, the partner Digimon were covering was only about 20 feet in diameter. They all were mentally in their partner´s battle, though. Only Kari was still somewhere near him with Angewomon.

With Tai gone the atmosphere was really heavy and silent –if one ignored the background fighting, which was actually loud enough to permanently damage his ears- again. Admittedly that was the only thing which stopped him from asking about the thing that had marked them all, though.

Takuya forced battle unrelated thought to the back of his head for later -then again, the bomb he had set of had been related, hadn´t it? - to focus on the present and things he could do to improve the situation. Which was not much, really.

He felt his fire, however, burning strong and hot. More than it had when had arrived her first, more than it had when he had been in pain. It was a sign; a heat that Takuya shouldn´t have endured before. He was getting close to paying the price.

No, he was already starting to pay it. It had begun already, even if unconsciously to him and his Spirits. Swallowing he punched whatever worries and uncertainties he had about that matter back to where they came from.

The price.

Not yet. It wasn´t even sure he had to pay it. Maybe he wouldn´t need to. Or at least not yet.

Wrong.

He would pay it. Takuya himself, Agnimon, Vitramon even Koichi, Lowemon and KaiserLeomon knew it. He was going to pay it. Earlier than needed too, perhaps.

He sighed.

Takuya ripped a piece that was already red with his bold of his jacked and absentminded cleaned a few of his scratches while watching how his friends were getting more and more pushed back. Imperialdramon, WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon kept Digimon from attacking from above, kicking, punching and scrambling them to either side with powerful attacks. The side lines were more or less kept in place by HolyAngemon´s Heaven´s Gate; sucking Darkness types out of the enemy´s lines like a magnet. Apparently they had no problem whatsoever killing that type, Takuya thought dryly.

But looking at the bigger picture of the battle, they were terribly lucky, that this Dimension didn´t have too many mega level Digimon outside of the DigiDestined. Really.

Absorbed in his surroundings and the already shaking ground, Takuya didn´t notice cracks forming beneath his feet.


-meanwhile-

He cowered in the snow at the roots of the trees, hiding from sight. Trees that were so huge they put skyscrapers to shame. The roots themselves were as huge as Koichi and he might not even need to be closer to the snow then it was comfortable to not be seen, but better save then sorry. They didn´t know from where the army –and hopefully the fortress- would arrive, so being extra cautious was a given.

Koichi hoped so dearly for the fortress to come. His worry was slowly nagging his last threads of rationality away. That was not good. Even more so to him than to Takuya. And Takuya was already bad enough.

It was just that Takuya didn´t have the danger of losing his balance. Being Darkness meant involuntarily that he was walking on a very thin rope; the abyss to both sides was Duskmon. Losing his rationality was equivalent to summoning him. Though, at the moment the danger wasn´t huge; as long as Takuya´s fire was not losing its characteristic.

In a way it was really a good thing that Takuya was the one not captured. Other than him only Koji had the ability to influence the direction neutral Darkness was walking.

Koichi put a hand on the white ground to support his weight. He, Cody and Armadimon had been waiting in the forest on the snow covered ground for a few minutes already and his legs were protesting against kneeling for too long.

He guessed the other group would arrive by the supposed-to-help Digimon soon. The coldness of snow was cooling through his shoes and now with the added heat loss from his fingertips he started freezing.

Koichi couldn´t help but smile mentally; not bothering to let his face mirror his emotions, though. Tommy would think of this place as close to paradise as possible. He loved the cold. In the past years Koichi and the others had a lot of fun watching Tommy shock his family by walking in the snow with nothing but summer clothes.

Not that his mother let him; it was just that Tommy would get rid of the unneeded jackets and scarfs as soon as he left his mother´s line of sight. The problem was just that sometimes he forgot to wear them again when going home. Of course they had been lectured by Mrs. Himi as well, but it had still been fun to watch Tommy´s obvious annoyance. It could not get too cold for him after all. Same way it couldn´t get too hot for Takuya.

They all had been marked by their elements; influencing them just through their presence. The one time with Takuya and candles…This time Koichi let a faint smile to his lips.

Koichi suppressed a shudder. He was freezing more and more by the second. Koichi glanced to his companions and met a pair of eyes.

Koichi had felt the sometimes questioning, confused or rejecting looks the younger boy passed him from time to time. It was like Cody couldn´t decide what to feel about him.

Cody averted his eyes startled; this was the first time Koichi had met one of his glances. Koichi took Cody´s uncomfortable shifting under his eyes in; the snow creaked with his movements, appearing unnaturally loud to Koichi in the otherwise deadly silent forest. All free Digimon had long but fled to cities where they could easier protect each other or be protected by the Digidestined. Koichi inspected the sky. So far it was all clear. Not one Digimon in sight. It was eerie. They were likely the only living beings besides trees and plants in miles.

He checked his watch. If everything was supposed to go to plan the army had to appear soon…

A shadow blocked the high sun. Koichi looked around from ticking the seconds only to find that the entire forest was over shadowed. Loud roars and yells disturbed the silence and made snow fall from the tree tops. Instinctively Koichi jerked closer to the tree´s roots. Panicking, he quickly checked the forest again for movement.

Still nothing. He calmed down a bit and looked at the sky. He already had a good idea knew what he would see, though. Blocking sunlight a giant army filled the sky. Not one sunray reaching down to them.

He swallowed. From his limited view he could still easily see that it were far more Digimon than the last time. So many more had been forced into submission. He locked eyes with Cody who was hiding next to him, Armadimon at his feet. Koichi opened his mouth but forgot what he wanted to say when the ground shock violently.

Koichi didn´t know what it felt like to have a horde of elephants trample the ground, but he was sure that it couldn´t be any different from this feeling. His knees were shaking and he could hardly maintain his balance. More snow from the tree fell on him and sent a chill down his spine. Koichi didn´t feel it.
Fearfully he was staring at the direction they had come from.

Koichi pushed the darkness inside him deeper, hoping not to be noticed by the Darkness or Light types. With the trees blocking his sight he couldn´t see far, but he still couldn´t oversee hundreds, maybe thousands backs of retreating Digimon, who had just appeared out of nothing and were running –some on two, some on four, and some on even more legs- the direction Cody and Koichi had come from. Towards the other group. With dread he realized that the army had literally appeared out of nowhere in full force.

Shortly after they had appeared they were gone from sight again, disappearing between thick tree trunks. To Koichi it felt like it took eternity to snap out of his shock, but he knew hardly a few seconds could have passed. He released his brath that he had been holding unconsciously. The ground was still vibrating with the same intensity it had before.

Despite the cold Koichi had to swipe sweat from his face, but he didn´t let the Darkness fill out his being again. There was no way he could risk a possibility of discovery. Even the other group had no choice but to run in in face of those numbers. Koichi and Cody would get killed or captured within a heartbeat.

He turned to Cody, who was staring at the direction the Digimon had disappeared to with a mix of fear and hate. Armadimon was the same. But they weren´t still shocked. Behind those eyes he saw how Cody formed a resolve stronger than ever to win.

It was Cody who broke the silence with a whisper. "We better get going."

Koichi nodded and watched Armadimon Armor evolve to Digmon; no one felling the need to point out that with every second they wasted the others would come closer to inevitable defeat with giants steps.

Digmon wasn´t one of the biggest Digimon and because of his size he had trouble to carry both Cody and Koichi without being unable to use his drills; they were needed to hopefully drill a hole into the black fortress. But he managed to hold both with one arm, so that he had the other left for attacks.

Digmon carefully left the ground, staying as close to trees as possible for cover and distraction. The clouds of Digimon had moved ahead, Koichi observed. Moving in the same direction as the ones on the ground. The sky would be blue again if it wasn´t for a gigantic black object floating above them. Koichi could hardly believe they were so lucky. Not only was the fortress here, but it was also completely unguarded following the avalanche of an army. It was, Koichi realized, arrogance. The believe that they we undefeatable, invulnerable, too overwhelming for anyone to try and challenge them.

Digmon had reached the top of the tree and touched down on a thick branch. Now they were hardly covered at all and it was thanks to the army and the fortress passing them that they were not discovered yet.

The sun was blinding when it finally shone down again, making Koichi lift his arm to block it and continue to observe their surroundings. They were in the back of the army and the fortress, which appeared awfully close to Koichi, but he knew it was just trick of his mind. The black vertical hourglass just seemed close because of it unbelievable size. Koichi seriously doubted that it was possible to cover any useful ground inside of it within half an hour, which- seeing explosions and raining Digimon a few miles away- has started already.

Higher than the trees now, Digmon hurried to close in on the fortresses underside, to quickly leave open space.

Attacks and Digimon were falling like a waterfall on the frontline. But Koichi steered his thoughts and eyes in a different direction. It was his duty to save as it was Takuya´s and the other´s to survive.

The cold wind cut his skin, but Koichi tried not to feel it. If this bit could hurt him he would never be able to stand the process of paying the price. And really, Koichi forgot his pain more and more as Digmon got closer to the black flying mass. The closer they got, the more Koichi had to focus on really seeing black and not energies of his friends; making the fortress shine like a rainbow, which was just plain wrong.

Koichi pressed his own Darkness deeper inside himself as it was pulled towards energies so similar to his own. Not out of Lowemon´s own will, it was like a magnet, pulling all Spirits inside. Despite the uncomfortable feeling of not being complete without KaiserLeomon, Koichi found that he was relieved to have left him with Takuya. Koichi didn´t know what would happen to him it the magnetic power was doubled.

Next to him Cody was shaking from the cold as he looked towards the battlefield. Usually Cody didn´t show many of his emotions, in a way he was similar to Koichi in that part, but now his lips were pressed in a tight line and his eyes had a dark expression. He would have liked to say something to ease the younger one´s worries seeing how Digmon was too busy flying fast and save to notice his partner´s worries, but he could hardly keep his own mind of possible disasters so Koichi just looked back at the hateful mass above him and estimated how long it would take to arrive.

The trees were deep below them now, normally Koichi would have been twitchy, but now he had no mind left to feel like that. It had taken about 30sekonds to cover about halve the distance. It took too long. They were risking discovery with each passing one. Surely with one more Digimon or a different Digimon in the first place they could be much faster, but Digmon and Cody had been chosen for a reason, Koichi remembered. Digmon was the only Digimon that could actually dig and apparently both had experience with infiltration.

And one Digimon more would have been too suspicious. Sadly neither Lowemon nor KaiserLeomon could fly, either. His argument with Takuya pointed that out rather clearly. Takuya had wanted to go. Not only because of Vitramon´s wings, which were likely not even qualified to be an argument considering the process of paying the price, but also because he, as the leader, felt responsible for the others and guilty– or at least that´s what Koichi suspects - because he had been out for two weeks and allowed the others to be captured. Of course that was nonsense. But it was Takuya, he doesn´t accept reason.

In the end it had been decided that Koichi should go infiltrate; because his element was less likely to be targeted, because his connection to Koji might come in handy and because of Darkness´s characteristics.

Takuya had not been happy.


Coming.

Something was coming.

Again.

She had to wait. She mustn´t give up as long as she still knew that. No matter how much she was on fire, no matter how much she felt dried out, no matter how much she didn´t know what she was.


It was the same.

The same presence he knew. ..

The one he had wanted to see again.

Now, he knew, he wouldn't vanish into nothingness. There was something that kept him here. So why couldn´t he move and go to it? He was sure there was the light. He had to move.


There was it again.

Different this time and yet the same.

He wondered what it was. How it was so strong compared to him and everything else. How it could be strong despite so much pain.


What was this?

Something inside of him, that made him want to move.

He knew it, but he didn´t know it. It had been there before…

A word formed and he knew what it was.

Restlessness.

He wanted to move and be as strong as the presence he felt.


"Gold Rush!"

Digmon´s one- armed attack ripped a hole into the black material without any problem. The underside wall had been about 3 inched thick. Hardly a challenge and as Digmon flew through the hole Koichi couldn´t help but think that the floor wouldn´t be able to support a Digimon any heavier than Digmon.

Koichi couldn´t believe how easy it was to get close and to enter. Whoever pulled the strings was far too arrogant or stupid to lead an army of this size. Koichi pulled out his D-terminal and it imideatly started transmitting every bit of information it could pick up.

"That was easy." Cody whispered as Digmon set them down to a black tiled floor few feet away from the small entrance they had created. "What way now?"

"Not sure." Koichi answered. They were in a long corridor. The walls and the celling were tiled the same smooth stones that covered the floor. Every once in a while a torch on a wall lit the corridor up, making the tiles gleam with dancing dim light. There were no windows and it was square. It looked, noticed Koichi, similar to Dungeons in video games.

He looked around. Luckily there was no patrol or guard that could alert or attack them. But Koichi noticed otherwise also nothing; no special pull or sign hinting in which direction they should go; the corridor was pulsing with the Spirit´s energy as it was, too overwhelming to find out where it came from.

The stone was warm under his touch and with a bit pressure the tiles were turning soft. The presence of his friend´s Spirits was so strong he almost pulled back from the contact. It was as if the fortress had absorbed them. Koichi suppressed a wave of anger and focused on his contact with the wall. The contact was really repulsive. Like he was invading personal space.

"I don´t know." He finally said, looking at Cody. "This place is full of my friend´s energies. They could be anywhere." Cody didn´t say anything more and for that Koichi was grateful. If anything, he was dead weight like this.

"So what now?" Digmon asked with his strange accent.

"We have to move." Glancing around Cody decided to take the rout that was most likely to lead deeper into the fortress. "We are luck they haven´t heard all the rucks we made by coming here."

"Sorry." Digmon said to his partner.

"Not your fault, Digmon." As fast as possible without making any serious noises Cody lead the way down the corridor; walls creating a strange echo of their steps that seemed to resound much longer than it should. Koichi blamed it on his nerves which were making every second turn into a minute.


It sure was nice writing Takuya again. A healthy amount of sarcasm can´t hurt. :)

Seeing this stories name, i surely could have chosen a better one, but that wasn´t on my mind back then. Same for the chapter titles. Even though i really want to change the name i decided against it. It would be too confusing. Maybe you noticed, but a least i changed each chapters title, so don´t be surprised.

Again please review.