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THANKS TO ALL YOU REVIEWERS! ESPECIALLY YOU REGULAR REVIEWERS! It really means so much to me and to think that I am already at 58 reviews is awesome. It's great to hear from so many people and it encourages me to keep coming up with better things to continue the story! THANKS AGAIN REVIEWERS!

I apologize for another late update especially to all the reviewers (esp. the regular reviewers). I will not make any excuses, but I think (not promise) I will be able to post chapters more often. I am now finished with school for the year and will have more time on my hands even though I still have basketball. Oh, and if I forget to say it or if the next time I have it's too late, "HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!"

Chapter 14:

Today was a dreary and rainy day in both the Digital World and the real world. The day only seemed to reflect her mood. Everyone seemed happy except for her. Ever since her nightmare earlier that day she hadn't talked to anybody except Gatomon. She even ignored Tai as much as she could. Honestly she didn't want to feel this way, but it felt like there was nothing she or anyone else could do to brighten her day. She realized the irony of the situation; she had possessed the crest of light yet it seemed as if all of her light had gone away.

As the day went on she started to realize that what Dragomon had told her in her nightmare was true. Everyone seemed to ignore her. She wasn't talking to them, so why would they even bother talking to her? No one cared about her. Even Davis hadn't done any flirting today. The only one that wanted to be around her and was worried about her was Gatomon, and that was only because they were 'partners.'

The thing that bothered her the most, though, was the fact that none of the older digidestineds, the ones who had been her friends since she was eight, acted as if she wasn't there at all. They didn't include her once again when they planned that they would go searching for TK again. Even Tai ignored her. He was too busy trying to woo Sora to pay any attention to her.

Was it true, then, that nobody cared about her? Was she only a part of this group because she was a digidestined? A part of her deep down inside told her that they all were her friends and that she was loved, but that 'light' inside was drowned out by all the darkness she felt.

They were walking through the forest again heading towards the lake where they had left the Digital World on their first adventure. They had told all of their partners to meet them there today so they could plan what they were going to do. All of the digidestineds had decided to come again too, so Kari was expecting another day like yesterday, something she wasn't too excited for.

"Kari watch…."

She heard Gatomon suddenly call out but she was already falling. She tripped over a tree's root, which had poked out from the ground and she started falling face forward. She landed hard not on ground but on water. She instantly heard some laughter from the others while some gasped out in surprise.

"Kari are you ok?"

Tai walked over and helped her sister up. When she was finally standing up he looked at her and laughed,

"Looks like someone will need a bath tonight."

That was the last straw. She didn't know what triggered it, but instantly she became furious. Without another word she stormed off through the forest. She didn't even take the time to look behind her to see if anyone was following her. Luckily for her the forest was very dense with its trees and bushes. As long as she kept taking a few random turns then no one would be able to catch her.

As she was running she couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with her. She never used to be like this. She used to love being around her friends and her brother. Now, though, all she wanted to do was get away. She only saw the negativity and the darkness in her life. It was as if all the light was gone. And she knew the reason for it too, but there was nothing she could do about a nightmare, was there?

When she thought for sure that she had lost anybody that might have chased her she stopped running and caught her breath. She saw a clearing in the trees up ahead and decided to walk towards it. As she did so she noticed that the trees around her were starting to change color. Everything already was darker than usual because of the storm and the rain, but everything was getting even darker. When she finally reached the clearing in the trees there was no longer any color in the Digital World. She pushed a branch out of her way and stepped out of the forest. She now found herself standing on a beach with gray sand looking out onto a dark ocean.

Matt continued walking towards the lake with Joe, Izzy, Yolei, and Cody. Everyone else: Tai, Sora, Mimi, and Davis, had gone after Kari. He couldn't say that he was surprised by Kari's actions. He could tell that something was really bothering her. First off she was not talking at all, and secondly she walked a good five feet behind the group with her head down facing the ground. He was just about to drop back from the group and ask what was wrong when she ran away.

Tai of course was outraged by his little sister's stunt and went chasing after her. Sora obviously followed suit along with Mimi and Davis which also didn't surprise me. He would have went chasing after Kari because he really was worried about her, but he had to get Gabumon and start looking for TK. Besides, Tai wouldn't let anything bad happen to Kari; he cared too much for her and wouldn't be able to live with himself if anything did happen to her. He was sure she would be fine.

Some part of him, though, told him that something was going to happen to Kari. He pushed that feeling out of the way though as they finally reached the lake. He saw Gabumon and the rest of the older digidestined's digimon huddled around in a circle. He called out to his partner as Izzy and Joe did the same thing.

"Hey GABUMON!"

"TENTOMON!"

"GOMAMON!"

The digimon turned towards the voices and started running at them when they realized it was them. Matt ran up to Gabumon and was going to start asking how his night in the Tsunomon village was when Gabumon interrupted him.

"Matt, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."

"Bad news? That can't be good."

"Well, you see Matt. Seeing that he told you it was going to be bad news that obviously cancels out any possibility of the news he has to share with you as being good news."

It took all of his willpower not to slap Izzy right across the face.

"What is it Gabumon?" he asked not knowing what to expect.

"Ok, so last night Agumon, Gomamon, and myself stayed the night at the Tsunomon village like we told you we would yesterday. I took the first shift of watch. I was just about to fall asleep when something in the distance caught my eye. I moved closer and it was a control spire. I ran back to the village and woke up everybody. We were just about to leave the village in fear that the Digimon Emperor would soon arrive when we were stopped by a Unimon and a Snimon."

"You guys seemed to have made it out ok, though. Are the Tsunomon ok?"

"They're fine, but let me finish. I noticed there was someone on the Unimon and I figured it was the Digimon Emperor, but it wasn't. It was…."

"It was who, Gabumon?"

"TK."

Matt must not have heard his partner right. Did he say TK?

"Uh… tell me that one more time."

"TK was on the Unimon, and he had a dark ring on him but it looked more like a spiral. He didn't even recognize us. I think he's working for the Digimon Emperor."

"Gomamon, is this true?" Joe asked his partner.

"Unfortunately yes."

No one broke the silence. They all took in the information and thought on what it exactly meant. Matt couldn't believe it. TK was under the control of the Digimon Emperor? That scum bag had slapped a dark ring on his brother? Matt didn't want to believe it, but he trusted his partner.

They turned as they heard voices coming from the forest. Mimi, Tai, Sora, and Davis walked out of the forest all wearing troubled expressions. Kari wasn't with them and neither was Gatomon.

Tai, Sora, and Mimi's partners all ran up to them and exchanged greetings. Matt and the rest of them followed the digimon and they all joined up. Matt couldn't talk, but he listened as they talked.

"Any luck finding Kari?" Yolei asked.

"No, we couldn't find her anywhere. Then Gatomon was too fast and we lost track of her too," Sora responded.

"That's so weird. I don't know what's gotten into her lately. Do you know anything Tai?"

"No, I mean I know from Gatomon she's been having these nightmares and she has furthered herself from the rest of the group because of them. I should have known that there was something wrong with her. I should have been more concerned for her."

"Tai, there is no way you could've known that she was going to run away like this."

"Maybe you're right, but I'm still going to go looking for her, and I am going to find her."

"We also need to find TK," Sora added.

"No," I replied, talking for the first time, "We already found him."

Gabumon, Gomamon, and Agumon explained to the group how they had saw TK the previous night and that he was now under the control of the Digimon Emperor. Everyone was shocked by the news, and they all stayed silent. They all knew what they were waiting for. Whenever a difficult situation like this came up they always looked for Tai to tell them what to do. Some things never change.

Tai knew that everybody was waiting for him to talk, but he couldn't think of what to do. TK being controlled by the Emperor was terrible news, but at least they now knew where TK was. Kari, though, was missing. He didn't want to say this, though. Matt might get mad at him for only worrying about his sister and not caring about TK. That wasn't true at all. He did care about TK, it's just he cared about Kari more. Luckily, Izzy spoke up and saved him.

"I think it would be best if we split up. Half of us could go looking for Kari while the other half looked for TK."

"That's a great idea Izzy!"

"Yeah."

Tai looked at Matt who was looking at Izzy and nodded.

"Ok," Izzy continued, "Now to split up."

Tai instantly spoke up, "I'm going to find my sister."

"I'm going to find TK," responded just as fast.

They both looked at each other and nodded. Sure they were best friends, but now they had to separate to go find their siblings and they both understood that.

"I'm going to find Kari!" This time Davis spoke up.

Everybody looked at Davis annoyed. They all knew how big of a crush he had on her, and that was the main reason he wanted to go find Kari. It also could have been that none of the new digidestineds knew who TK was.

"I'm going after Kari too!" Yolei spoke up, "I mean, we're sort of like best friends."

It took a couple of minutes with many quarrellings from Yolei and Davis, they couldn't go ten seconds without getting into a fight, but they finally had two as equal as they could be groups. Tai, Davis, Yolei, Izzy, and Sora were going after Kari; Matt, Cody, Mimi, and Joe were going to look for TK.

"So, no matter what we will meet back here at sunset. Right?"

"Right!"

"Ok, well let's get going then!"

"Yeah, let's go find Kari!"

"Good luck you guys!" Sora called out, looking at Matt.

"You too!" He smiled back at her before turning to his group. He wished Tai was a part of the group, but that wasn't going to happen. Besides, he at least had Gabumon, Joe and Mimi he could count on, along with Gomamon and Palmon. He didn't know Cody very well, but Armadilomon was a good fighter and he was the only one who could digivolve in a control-spire area. As he looked at the group he realized that they were all looking at him as if waiting for him to say something. He didn't want to, but he realized that he was going to have to be the leader. He sighed as he looked around the lake. Memories of his first adventure in the Digital World popped back into his head, but he had to push them out. Now, he had to focus. TK, they had to find TK.

"Right, well, shall we?"

He picked the direction opposite from the other group and started walking with the others following him.

He watched his screen of the Digital World. He had waited for them to show up in the Digital World. Earlier that day he had Patamon digivolve into what Wormon had told him was NeoDevimon. With two dark spirals on NeoDevimon, it was enough to have complete control over the digimon. The digimon had tried to fight the control at first, but two dark spirals was too much to overcome. What he did notice, though, was that the NeoDevimon form took a lot of energy to withstand. Patamon hadn't been able to withstand the new form for more than fifteen, maybe thirty minutes. That was in the morning, though, and he had given Patamon the whole day to rest up as he waited for the digidestineds to appear.

He counted the dots on the screen. At first there were ten dots on the screen and he left to go tell the blonde digidestined to start preparing for the future battle. When he returned to the screen, though, there were only nine dots and they were separated into two different groups. He searched with his eyes over the entire screen, but the tenth dot was nowhere to be found. It had just… disappeared. He indeed found that strange, but that was the least of his problems. Now was his chance to finally get rid of the digidestineds once and for all.

"SNIMON! UNIMON! MONOCHROMON! Get ready!"

He got to his feet and walked out of his throne room. Wormon was saying something to him, probably trying to change his mind about killing the digidestineds, but he ignored the pathetic digimon. Why couldn't he have a partner like NeoDevimon? One who was strong, one who listened to his every command, one that couldn't be defeated? He shook his head; he would have to worry about that later.

While he walked to exit his fortress, TK, the blonde digidestined, walked up to him and followed him out followed by the Patamon. He explained the details of the mission to him. He took out his D-Terminal and pointed out the two groups of digidestineds. He pointed to the further of the two groups and told TK that he was going to take out that group. Meanwhile, he was going to take out the closer of the two groups. TK nodded and the Emperor yelled,

"Patamon, DIGIVOLVE!"

The digimon started glowing and a black light emanated from the digimon and from his own digivice. He smiled as Patamon changed forms and turned into NeoDevimon. The being increased the darkness in the air and his smile widened even more.

"Now, go destroy the digidestineds!"

TK nodded and climbed onto NeoDevimon's claw as the digimon picked the digidestined up. He watched them fly off a little ways before he turned around and called out for the threee digimon. The ground shook from Monochromon's weight as he neared him. Snimon and Unimon flew up to him and landed. He quickly mounted Unimon and they headed off for the other digidestineds.

'Yes,' he thought to himself, 'Today is the day I finally win!'

Such a hard choice. Which one was he going to kill first? He could easily defeat the Digimon Emperor and his digimon slaves, but he was also curious to find out how strong this new form was.

He had watched in awe as the Digimon Emperor used his dark digivice to make Patamon digivolve into a form he shouldn't have been able to digivolve into. Patamon was a digimon of light, one who fought darkness. The digimon he had become, though, was one of darkness. A being of light should not be able to become one of darkness. How strong was this dark digivice exactly?

Curiosity got the better of him so he waited for the Emperor to leave before following the child of hope and his new digimon partner. He barely saw the new digimon; he was flying extremely fast. Devimon had to work extra hard to catch up with them. He finally caught up with them, though, and followed from a safe distance.

He was excited for what was about to happen. The child of hope was going after a group of digidestineds and was going to destroy them. He was going to able to kill two birds with one stone. The child of hope and his partner would either get destroyed by the digidestineds or the digidestineds would get destroyed by them. Either way, the ones that survived would be tired, and Devimon would then take his opportunity to destroy whoever was left.

There was no way his plan could fail. He just wished that the digidestineds weren't so far away. They had been flying for nearly an hour or more by now, and they were not slowing down either. The sun kept going down and everything was starting to become a light orange color because of the falling sun. It would only be a little over an hour before it was completely dark out, and he couldn't let that happen. Neither the digidestineds nor the Digimon Emperor stayed in the Digital World when it was dark; they all had to return to the real world. Which made him wonder why he saw the child of hope wandering around at night the previous night. Why didn't he have to go back to the real world?

He had to stop his thinking, though, when NeoDevimon, or at least that was what the Emperor had said the digimon's name was, dove towards the ground. He heard people talking, and then there were screams as he heard an attack explode when it hit the ground. Hopefully it had hit a digidestined or two and destroyed them. He moved himself closer to the battle so he could see it clearly, but far away enough that he wouldn't be spotted. NeoDevimon was really strong and defeated whoever opposed him with no problems. He laughed; soon he would have his revenge.