Twisting Paths of Twilight

by RockBane

As Greymon and Parrotmon disappear, a young Takato and Gigimon appear. The Kamiya family gains another goggle head. Can Takato escape the plans GranDracmon has for him and Guilmon? Or will evil gain a new face? Complete!

13. Halloween Mischief

Twisting Paths of Twilight

I don't own Digimon

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"Talking"

'Thoughts'

"Partner and Tamer talking within the sphere"

)-( Scene change

(--) Different point of view

(-:-) Flash back

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Chapter 13

He turns around slowly, studying the last room with a critical eye. He finally nods in satisfaction at a job well done by Kari, Yolei, Mimi, and, surprisingly enough, Ken. They were using this old apartment building for their haunted house, Ken and Yolei supplied the auto electronics and robotics. Kari and Mimi were in charge of the look and decorations of chosen theme that they had picked out of a hat.

The theme is medieval castles, which he believes they did a great job of pulling off. He sighs as he glances sideways at Tai, wondering why his adopted brother wanted to explore the haunted house just two days before Halloween. He shakes his head as the thought that Tai doesn't have a clue at what to dress up as for Halloween. He sighs and is glad that Tai has his drivers, for his older brother so owes him for not ratting on him about this little adventure.

He smirks slightly as thoughts of having Tai drive him around for a whole day were appealing, considering this might be the only time he'll have an older sibling to blackmail… He sighs as he realises that this will be the last Halloween he'll spend with the Kamiya's. He frowns as he tries to remember what month it had been before the whole kidnapping attempt.

"You ok?" Tai whispers. He blinks and nods before he admits, "Just remembering that this is probably the last Halloween I'll spend with you guys." He notices the defeated look that graced Tai's face. "I think Guilmon will like this place." He says, changing the subject. Tai nods, his adopted elder brother glad at the change in subject. "Agumon would too, if I can talk him into coming." Tai says. He chuckles as he remembers what Guilmon's going to do for Halloween; Guilmon's idea of a costume is having white make up all over his hide and saying he's his own ghost.

'Well at least he's willing to dress up for the holiday, that's more then what the other Digimon are willing to do.' He muses to himself as they begin to descend down to the ground floor. He glances backwards at the building, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that they've been working on the haunted house since summer time. "They really did a great job, didn't they?" He says as he opens up the car door. Tai hums his agreement, the older teen's mind on something other then what he said. He sighs and wonders just what Tai's thinking about as the car heads back to the apartment, he wonders just what kind of costume Tai will come up with at the last minute. 'Most likely a vampire or mummy.' He thinks to himself.

(-Tai-)

He frowns as he notices a few pictures of the latest manga about ninjas that Takato's basing his costume off of. He wonders why those nine tails were framing the preteen in the center of the picture. He studies the cat like eyes with three dark lines on each cheek and longish canines protruding from the kid's snarling face.

"Like it?" Takato asks, startling him. He snaps his head at his adopted little brother. "It's… emotional." He says, trying to think a word to describe it the drawing. Takato nods thoughtfully and then asks, "What do you want to borrow?" He sighs and he runs a hand through his semi tamed hair. He had it trimmed down about five months after the MaloMyotismon, he had hoped that he could by pass the press by simply altering his usual hair cut, it worked for about four hours, before one of his fans put two and two together and his cover was blown.

He finally answers after a few minutes, "I'm kind of hoping to borrow one of your drawings." He wasn't going to tell Takato that he had asked for Gennai's help with having those cloths that often appears when you cross into the dimensional divide between the real world and the Digital one. He had noticed one of Takato's original characters and thought the guy looked amazing.

Takato blinks in surprise, apparently not expecting him to be asking for a picture. "Sure, which one did you want?" Takato asks, heading towards his stack of scrap books. "The one with that scar over his left eye and skin around it. He also had a broad sword lying on the ground next to him." He describes the picture and Takato's eyes light up, "Cro? It had feathers kind of drifting around him, right?" He nods, now that he thought about it, it did have feathers on the page. Takato rummages around in the scrap books until Takato takes out one and flips through the pages. Once the yellow goggle wearing teen finds the picture, Takato hands the scrap book over and he grins in relief that Takato hadn't given it away.

The picture had this teen sitting down, his upper body leaning on his right leg with his hands on top of the knee. The kid did have black feathers surrounding him as well as a broad sword on the ground to the left. He notices on the left bottom corner title of the picture, 'Cro.' To the right bottom corner was Takato's name. "No 'w' at the end?" He asks. "You can do that, I found this odd site about some American cartoon show called Cro, it was about this cave kid that's friends with some talking Mammoths. I liked the character and wanted to use the name." The Tamer tells him. He shakes his head a little and heads out of the room, oddly enough, Kari and Takato still share a room after all this time.

"Thanks." He says and then heads straight to his room to use his computer. He notices that Agumon, Gatomon, and Guilmon were playing a racing game on the game system that their parents bought for his sixteenth birthday. He closes the door; he checks the time and brings up the gate program on his laptop computer. Once it's up, he puts in the coordinates and soon enters into the Digital World, close to the lake where Gennai's house is located.

The water parts, revealing the stair case that leads to Gennai's house. He arrives with the scrap book dry and unharmed. "I take it you wish to give it a try?" A young Gennai asks in amusement. "Yea, I even got a picture of what I want my costume to be based off of." He tells Gennai as he hands over Takato's sketch book. "Takato drew this? He's good, really good." Gennai says, pride of his adopted brother's talent kicks up once the … Digi human, or whatever Gennai is, praises Takato's artistic abilities.

They head inside and he follows the young man that use to be a really old man into a lab of sorts. He notices stone tablets leaning against the walls, the scrolls on the shelves, leather bounded books lying all over the place, and the high tech equipment that's in a corner of the room. He watches as Gennai walks up to one of the computer panels and pushes a sequence of buttons. A panel opens up and Gennai rests the picture titled Cro on it, soon the computer scans it and Gennai closes the book. The scanning panel closes and Gennai tips on the computer panel, he wonders what Gennai's looking at, but doesn't move from where he's standing.

He doesn't want to disrupt whatever it is that Gennai's doing, so he just studies the book shelves and desk tops that house the scrolls and books. He wonders if anything in those items were about history of the Digital World or something else entirely as he notices that few of the volumes have dust on them. His attention returns to the corner where the high technology is, he notices something that reminds him of teleportation pads used in Star Trek.

"You just need to step onto the pad and in a few minutes you'll be dressed up your chosen costume." Gennai says confidently. He glances between the pad and at the young man, then back at the pad. He sighs and walks towards the pad and steps onto it. He stiffens as the pad begins to hum to life, then rings of light begin to move up and down around his body, he doesn't feel a thing, just a bit of dizziness. After about ten minutes, the rings vanish and the pad shuts down.

His vision swims for about a minute before he steps off the pad. He then examines his new cloths. He notices the fingerless black gloves that now cover his hands. He's shirt is white with a brown leather jacket that's not zipped up covering his upper body. Black leather pants were being held up with a brown belts and he now has a pair of brown cowboy boots as well. He glances around, wondering where that sword was until he notices it's leaning against the back of the pad, in its sheath.

He picks it up and blinks as he notices how it didn't seem to weight that much. Gennai holds up a mirror and he stares at his face, he notices that scar tissue around his left eye and that the hair above it is bleached white. He traces the pink tissue with an index finger, he also is surprised to notice that his eyes were sapphire blue and most of his hair is black, with the exception of the white patch over his left eye.

His facial features had also undergone a change, not by much but enough for him to notice. He hands it back to Gennai and he then unsheathes his new sword, holding aloof with one hand. Once more he's surprise by its weight, or lack of. He swings it a few times, vertical and horizontally. He puts it back into the sheath and then opens up the strap so that he can carry the sword on his back. He turns around to let Gennai examine him. Gennai nods thoughtful and before Gennai nods as he says, "Might as well head off, it's wired into your Digivice to dissipate at midnight." He's surprise about that, but then nods and heads out of the room, leaving Gennai to his work.

He checks the time and finds that it's about five, he grins as he has time to watch Takato help Guilmon get 'into' his costume. He chuckles as he wonders just how much of Guilmon's 'costume' is going to end up on his little brother.

(-Kari-)

She laughs as Takato tries to grab Guilmon to keep the now make up covered Digimon remain still so that her adopted brother can use some light blue make up to do Guilmon's black markings. She heads a door open and close, she tries to calm down so that she can see who it is that entered into the room. She blinks as she stares at some stranger; she narrows her eyes as she studies the young man's features.

"Tai?" She asks, totally forgetting what had happened just seconds ago. Her elder brother nods, she just couldn't help but stare at her brother who almost doesn't look like himself. She notices the blue eyes flash in amusement as Tai notices Takato holding Guilmon down on the floor. "Tai?" Takato asks, Guilmon gets up now that his partner's distracted and Takato lands on his butt, still looking their mutual sibling.

"How? I mean, you look just like Cro from that picture I lent you!" Her supposed 'twin' says. She blinks and glances between Takato and Tai before shrugging and return to reading her book. She notices as Guilmon sniffs Tai's sword that rests on his back. She blinks as she notices a spark occur when Guilmon touched the sword with his nose. She chuckles slightly at the surprised look on the virus's face, as well as at how funny Guilmon looks with his eyes crisscrossed as the Digimon stares at his nose.

'Too bad Gatomon's not here, she would have loved to see that look on Guilmon's face.' She thinks to herself. She has her costume hanging up in the closet; she had to remember to thank Mimi for showing her that show. She wonders if what TK's going as, they had promised to go as cartoon characters, from North American shows at that.

(-Takato-)

He watches Guilmon, he doesn't know what's going on with his partner but he is certain that something's off. He frowns as he watches how for a few seconds, Guilmon seemed taller then he should be. He sighs and decides to talk with the usual red Digimon later, after they open up the haunted house.

He glances to where Matt and Tai were standing; he couldn't get over how much like his picture of Cro Tai looks like. Matt dressed up as Cloud from Final Fantasy, he has a large fake sword strapped to his back and his hair spiked in Cloud's usual style. He glances over to Sora, she's dressed up as Card Captor Sakura in the out fit that the show had her in when she's facing against Yue.

He cracks a grin as he watches Joe walk towards them with Cody in toe. The doctor to be is currently posing as Ranma from Ranma 1/2 while Cody seems to be Toboe from Wolf's Rain. He wonders if Joe's wearing contacts since he doesn't see the older teen's glasses around. He also notices how self conscious Joe's being; he believes that it might have to do with so many girls eyeing him as if he's prime beef.

"Hey, you two! Where's your glasses Joe?" Tai asks, grinning slightly as Joe shifts his weight around and Joe answers, "I'm wearing contacts for the night." Matt slaps Joe on the shoulder and asks, "So, you just bought them for tonight?" He turns away as they chat; he continues to scan around for the others, hoping to spot them before they could get the drop on them.

Kari joins in as he glances at his adopted sister out of the corner of his eye. Kari and TK had agreed to dress up as North American cartoon characters, Kari choice to dress up as Elisa Maza from Disney's Gargoyles. It seems that Elisa is a cop in the show; the character is emotionally involved with the leader of the clan of Gargoyles, Goliath.

He had seen TK when he was getting his blue contacts, TK was looking at some green colours which means that who ever TK's going as, they have green eyes. He snaps out of his thoughts as he notices Ken walking towards them with Davis. He notices the red cloak and blond hair; he's guessing Edwards from Fullmetal Alchemist. He didn't know who Ken's dress as though, he kind of surprised that Ken had even shown up with so much of his skin revealed. He had to wonder who talked the ex-Digimon Emperor into wearing so little in the way of cloths.

'I'll bet it was Yolei.' He thinks to himself as he grins at Ken and Davis as they walk up. "I'm going with Ed from Fullmetal and I don't have the slightest clue who you're dressed up as Ken." Davis says as they're close enough. Davis just grins at the last part; Ken just sighs and says, "I'm supposed to be Koga from Inu-Yasha." He blinks; he hadn't expected anyone to dress up as one of those characters from that show.

The pair soon joins in the conversation that's going on around him; he couldn't bring himself to join in as he scans the crowd that's beginning to gather before the haunted house. He notices a figure with white hair that's wearing a black jumpsuit with white boots, belt, and gloves with some odd logo on the front. As the person draws closer, he notices the neon green eye that seem to go with the white hair and shakes his head as TK puts a finger to his lips, asking him to remain quiet as TK circles the group as best as he can with a building behind them.

While TK does this, he finally notices Izzy walking towards them with Yolei and Mimi. He studies the three and decides that Yolei's Lust from Fullmetal Alchemist, Mimi should be Urd from Oh My Goddess!, and from the pole that Izzy is carrying, he guess that Izzy's Son Goku from Saiyuki.

"Hey you guys! Great to see you showed up for the opening! So? What do you think?" Mimi asks and then spins to show off her costume; he notices that nobodies noticed that TK's joined them as they tell Mimi she looks great. "So? Who gets the honours of cutting the ribbon?" TK asks, scaring most of the group. "TK! Where'd you come from?" Davis asks. "I'm Danny Phantom! You figure it out." TK says with humour oozing out of his tone. He chuckles, admitting that it was worth keeping quiet just to see their expressions.

TK and him clasp hands once TK stands by him. Once more he notices that Guilmon seems taller then he should… then Mimi makes a throaty noise and his thoughts vanish as he turns to look at the teen dressed up as a goddess. "Thank you everyone for coming here to night for the opening of our haunted house. I like to thank Kari, Ken, and Yolei for helping me with this. I couldn't possible done this without your help and I want you three to cut the ribbon, opening our project for its special night." Mimi says and motions for the three to come before her once she has the door open.

The three look at each other and then they use their right hands to pull the ribbon. Once the ribbon snaps, the haunted house comes alive as the lights turn on. Ken and Yolei head into the house, leaving Mimi and Kari to stem the tide of visitors. He watch as people between the ages of 8 and 17 enter the house, he didn't feel the need to explore it, he had already been in it with Tai a few nights before.

He nudges TK and jerks his chin to where Kari is. TK blushes slightly and he nudges his friend again. "Go for it. You don't have to spend the night with me, you know. Not when I know you really want to be with her." He says softly, mostly just to the conversation private TK sighs wistfully, despite the fact that most of the group accepted that the two of them should be a couple, TK and Kari seem reluctant to date, still maintaining that they're just good friends even though they both enjoyed their kiss and liked each other.

'While it's nice to know that they're not going at each other like bunnies, they really should stop dancing around each other and just explore their relationship, I think the next time I see Rika, I'll ask her out. I wonder what Rika's reaction will be when I ask her out?' He ponders to himself as he pictures how Rika would react. He sighs and looks up into the sky, his heart aching as he remembers the one time he ever saw Rika in a dress. He sighs; he doesn't dare draw that, not if he wants to keep his skin. 'Do believe if she knew I'm even thinking about drawing her in that dress, she'd beat me within an inch of my life, let me heal just so she could do it again. Besides, dresses just don't suit her.' He tells himself.

"Don't you want to head in?" TK asks after a few minutes. He blinks and looks over at his friend. "I still don't get why you don't just ask my sister that question. Dude, the two of you really need to explore your relationship. I'm not always going to be here for you to use me as an excuse you know. Besides, people might start questioning our preferences. I have Rika and I'm not going to be dragging my feet again with her. I just hope she doesn't cutting straps out of my hide when I begin to show her that I'm interested." He says that last part more for himself then for TK's benefit. He can tell that TK winces at that bit.

"She has major issues, huh?" TK asks. "I think they center around her mother, for the most part anyway. I think she has trust issues, about what, I'm not sure, but I'm willing to find out what they are." He admits to his best male friend of this world. He studies TK thoughtfully, then something seems to click and he felt like the world's biggest idiot. 'TK's like Rika, they both don't want to end up relationships like their parent! How couldn't I see the similarities? I guess TK hides it better then Rika…' He thinks to himself, he felt like banging his head against a wall.

He sighs and then just on impulse, he glances around for Guilmon. He pales and his mouth moves but nothing comes out. "Takato?" TK asks in concern. He points above the crowd and he hears TK choke and then cough. He couldn't blame the Digidestine of Hope, he's still trying to think of a way what he's seeing is even possible. "You didn't… did you?" TK asks, he just shakes his head. "I haven't slashed a card through my D-Ark and I might have 'created' him, but even I don't know what's up with that." He tells TK.

Above the crowds Guilmon's floating around, clearly trying to come to terms with his situation as the white coloured Guilmon hovers in the air, seemingly not affected by gravity. "You think people will panic?" TK asks, he shrugs, he doesn't see why they would, especially since few people know what Digimon are capable of. "Takatomon! I'm flying! Weeeee…" Guilmon says as his partner gently moves through the air, this cause people to pause to stare up at his partner, then they shrug it off as a Halloween prank and return to watching the entrance of the haunted house.

'It couldn't get away worst, right?' He thinks, only for something to be sent plummeting out of a window. He gasps as he realise that it's Tai that's falling… only to watch as black wings grow out of Tai's back and for Tai to pull up at the last minute. He watches as Tai circles the building, his eyes roll and he black outs, overwhelmed by a floating partner and a flying older brother.

(-Tai-)

He blinks as he circles the building; he had been hit hard by a Digimon that had appeared on the top floor. He had been sent out of the window and had been plummeting towards the ground when he allowed his panic to get the best of him; he finds his back hurting and out comes a pair of black feathered wings.

He then notices that Guilmon also seems to be defying gravity, only from what he can tell, Guilmon seems to have some kind of soft glow around his form. He then glances around for Takato, he then notices TK kneeling down before a 'blond' in an orange jumper. 'That would be Takato.' He thinks to himself and he glances at his left wing and then at his right one. He doesn't understand what happened, only that his sword isn't on him. He notices it on a ledge. He bites his lower lip, he then alters his flight path so he can grab it as well as land by Takato and TK.

"Tai! I'm flying too!" Guilmon says, most likely just noticing him. He doesn't have time to answer the rookie, he just entered into a dive and he's kind of surprised to find that he can keep his eyes open with all the rushing wind that's moving pass his face as he speeds downwards. As he comes close to the sword, he reaches out with is right and as he passes by he snags the strap. He then pulls the sword and arm close to his body; he opens his wings a little and stretches them out in order to direct his flight path.

As he lands just behind TK, he wonders how it was that he knows how to do the things he does. He just sighs and wills his wings to vanish, which they did and his shirt and jacket return to normal. Screams come out of the building, from the very floor he had been tossed out of. He sighs and notices that Guilmon's already entering into the haunted house through the window he crashed through. He glances down to where Takato is and then back at the haunted house.

"Well, I guess it's just too much for him." He muses as he hears the sounds of battle coming from that floor of the haunted house. "Could you blame him? First Guilmon is floating around like a ghost and then you're thrown out of that window and grow wings as you plummet to the earth. You pull up and then circle around the building on your black wings." TK pauses and then asks, "Where did you get your costume anyways?" He chuckles nervously as he runs a hand through his black hair. "Should we be trying to get Takato up so he can help Guilmon?" He asks, changing the subject.

"Right…" TK trails off, apparently not liking that he was changing the subject. At this moment he wishes that their partners hadn't been so against joining them this evening, they wouldn't have to worry about what to do if someone's knocked out. It took about three minutes for Takato to stir and to finally wake up. "What happened? I thought I saw you flying around on black wings… That happened didn't it?" Takato asks. He nods and Takato just sighs and gets up off the ground. "But how? I mean, you couldn't have known I meant for Cro to have wings…" Takato wonders, studying him. He blinks in surprise. "You mean you drew Cro but didn't add wings to him?" He asks. "There were feathers around him; I was kind of depressed when I drew him, that's why he looked so depressed and lonely. I was just drawing with my feelings and an idea of what I wanted to draw." His adopted sibling answers.

They glance up and they watch as Guilmon floats out of the wall and then charges back in, just phasing through the solid object. "Ok, that's just plain weird, it's like he's really his own ghost…" Takato muses to himself. "So Guilmon has some how became his own costume? I wonder how that happened?" TK asks, looking pointy at him. At that moment did he realise how much TK and Matt were alike. He laughs nervously, kind of glad that none of the other Digidestine were around to add their two cents into this conversation.

Through that window that he was thrown out of, comes Guilmon and some skeleton creature. He blinks and begins to wonder where that demonic looking Digimon went. "Ok, that wasn't what had thrown me out of the window…" He says as Guilmon lets go of the being and it smashes into the ground. "Maybe the weirdness with vanish when your costume vanishes." Takato suggests and he blinks as he stares at his little brother. 'This was just a test for Gennai… The first time he's used it so of course there were bugs! Ok, how do I end this right now?' He thinks to himself as he tries to think of everything that happened earlier, before he came here.

He slaps himself mentally and takes out his Digivice. He adjusts the time; he waits until Guilmon's back inside of the haunted house before setting the time. A minute later, all of the damages were reversed as well as he returns to looking to what he did when he arrived at Gennai's. He notices that both of the teens were eyeing him, he scratches the back of his head, not really comfortable with their stern looks. He sighs and wonders if he could get them to keep quiet about this until he has time to think about this a bit more deeply…

(-TK-)

He glances around the group, it's been two days since Halloween and he still wonders why Gennai would create that machine that allows for those cloths that you normally call forth when you enter the Digital World and allows them to remain with you when you go back to the real world. He also wonders if the effects weren't what caused some of those robots to become 'alive', at least until Tai's Digivice said it was midnight…

He glances to where the Digimon were, Guilmon's at the center telling the others about his time as his own ghost and about his fight with some of those 'alive' monster robots. He did admit that Guilmon handled the situation pretty well, especially since Takato had fainted for a few minutes. He notices Kari out of the corner of his eye, he bites his lower lip as he notice her staring at him.

He likes Kari, he really does but he's kind of afraid of altering the relationship that they have. He also didn't want to end up like his parents, divorced. He glances over at Matt, wondering if Matt shares his fears about those kinds of relationships as well.

He glances to where Ken, Yolei, and Davis were, he calls them his friends but he's much closer to Kari and Takato, but then, he's known them far longer then the other members around his age. He knows that Yolei and Kari were close, most likely because they're both girls, which was fine, since he tended to have Takato to hang out with. He blinks as he realises just how much he relied on Takato for company, he knows that Takato accepted him for who he is and as well as trusts him not to hurt Kari.

'I guess I'll just have to get use to spending time with Ken and Davis. Like Takato said, he's not going to be around forever…' He thinks to himself, kind of depressed at the very thought that in a few months, Takato will be leaving them. He glances to where his friend is sitting, Takato's chatting with Izzy about computer graphics and how to work Photo Shop.

"Ok, quiet it down people, quiet it down." Mimi says and they all turn towards the teen. "Anyway, since there was so much excitement on Halloween, I forgot to tell you that Yolei and I have decided that we're going to make a movie. We'll be using the haunted house for scenes, since it's going to be centered around a medieval castle. We had also recruited Gennai for customs as well as permission to use parts of the Digital world. Ken's already agreed to be our director, so all we need is a script and actors." Mimi tells them, he blinks in surprise, wondering what to make of this.

To Readers:

I would like to thank a friend of mine for helping me decide on most of the Digidestine costumes, the only two I picked out were Tai's and Matt's. So thanks for your help Kata, or DeathEmperorDaeron. Also would like to say thanks to everyone who's reading this and a special thanks goes out to those of you that have taken time to review as well.

To be continued …