Y/N: Here's your next update. You'll get another in two days I think, getting us back to a Saturday update. I enjoyed writing this one, and it would have been done faster, if I hadn't gotten on a plotting kick, and plotted out several of the side-plot pieces, as well as bits of the next chapters, and certain parts that I want to fit in later on… I was kind of excited about it (more excited about the miraculous need to plot than actually writing this one—but to be fair, I only started yesterday…) I hope you enjoy it, and will review if you did. There's a snazzy new reviewing device, so that's cool!
U/N: Uhm... this chapter-I was Gennai :D I HATE Gennai... but... yeah i like the chapter! just review and tell us what you think
The next chapter is a long one, just like the Joushiro one in chapter nine... but my goal in LIFE right now is to make sure it's up by saturday... sooooo
Title: Digimon Adventure 04
By: Yukira and Urazamay King
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or its characters.
Part 2: In the Digital World?
Chapter 20: Follow the Leader
Miyako:
My heart was still beating fast from our encounter with the creepy not-quite-a-digimon—as I'd taken to calling him—and I could still feel his grip on my arm. I shivered again, stepping a little closer to Koushiro, thankful that he'd been able to save me.
I had to be strong though. I was the leader. I'd never seen Daisuke do this, and I'm sure Taichi didn't either.
Sure, they'd probably been scared at some point, but they'd never let the others see.
Being the leader was too hard.
I didn't want to do it anymore.
It seemed like so much fun in theory. I could tell the others what to do, and they'd have to do it. No matter what the outcome of votes was, I could over-rule it in favour of what I wanted to do. Everyone looked to me for advice and that was great, but they seemed to think whatever I said was set in stone. That they had no choice.
And if things went bad, that meant it was my fault.
They wouldn't come right out and blame me, but I would. I would blame myself, and it was too much to put on someone as prone to panic attacks as I was.
"We're going to keep moving," I said, when there was a long silence. We were trying not to catch another enemy's attention. Everyone was tired, and all of the battles we'd been in those past few hours. We'd been attacked by LadyDevimon, Kuwagamon and now this creepy-not-quite-a-digimon. And we hadn't even found the others yet.
We better find them soon! I thought, fiddling with the goggles on head. I was so not worthy to wear them, no matter what the others seemed to think.
"Are we even going the right way?" Yamato asked. He was walking behind me, with one arm slung over Sora's shoulder. His other hand was clutching his digivice. We were all doing that. They were the only weapon we had, the only thing that gave us the upper-hand in battle.
That was another thing I didn't like about this new Digital World. We were easy targets, and that put me on edge. I liked having even footing with the enemy. If we were a step ahead of them, I wouldn't complain. As it was, we didn't know who we were facing, we had no allies to fight with us, and we had beams of light as our only weapon.
"Yes," Tokomon said, interrupting my internal complaints.
"How can you know where anything is," Ken mumbled, looking around the trees. He seemed to want to catch up with me, to hold my hand as we walked. I though he looked a tad jealous of my close proximity to Koushiro. I was just thankful Koushiro saved my life. He'd always been my sensei, and I thought the world of him, I just didn't see him in the same light that I saw Ken. I felt a sort of thrill seeing him jealous, I'm not proud to admit. It made me tingle to know he liked me enough to get jealous. If he and Koushiro weren't at each other's throats at the time, I would have willingly walked with both of them.
As it was, Ken was a distraction.
I had to think for the good of the group, and couldn't afford to let my mind be clouded with the feelings I always felt when he was there.
I loved him.
And that fact could make or break my stint as leader. Or it could test our relationship. Neither seemed like a particularly good option.
"I've lived in this area for three years," Tokomon supplied. "Hmm…but some of this isn't familiar…"
And there went my hope of surviving the night.
I wished for Mimi's presence.
She was flamboyant, and bubbly, and always able to lift the group's morale. Not to mention she was the most beautiful girl in the world, and my idol. If she were there I would've given up the goggles in a heart-beat. She would've been the best leader ever. Everyone liked her, and there would be no trouble for her to make any decisions. Her instincts were much better than mine.
She wasn't afraid of upsetting people; she spoke her mind and stuck to her gut feelings about right and wrong.
I didn't want anyone mad at me.
She would flourish under the pressure, and I was drowning in it.
"Great," Jou grumbled. "We don't even know where we're going. We might as well search for Momoe then, if we don't know how to get to the Temple."
"I want to find Momoe too," I told him sharply. "She's my sister. I complain about her a lot, but she's family, she's my closest sibling. I don't know what I'll do if something happens to her. But we have to try and find help, because we just can't do it on our own."
He stared at me in shock.
To be honest, I was surprised myself. I'd been so scared of hurting anyone's feelings, I was walking on glass around everyone, that I'd snapped at him.
What was Sora thinking, giving me these goggles?
"You're right," he said grudgingly. "I know you're right. It's just hard. To know she's out there wondering what the hell is going on. She was sure digimon was just a game. The way she inserts 'digi' and 'mon' into her speech when I'm sad about Gomamon, you just know she had no idea it was really real, you know? And now she's here, and she's eight months pregnant, and she was taken from me by one of the digimon I hate the most. I just don't know what to do."
"It hurts a lot, that you weren't able to save her," Iori said, not asked.
"Yeah," Jou admitted.
"And you know that she's…wherever she is, and waiting for you to come and get her, with such unwaivering dedication, and you just don't think you can handle to pressure or live up to who she thinks you are," Iori continued. "And you're trying to understand what's happening in this world that is not the Digital World but you can't figure it out, all the while being attacked left, right and centre by enemies you didn't realize you still had."
"Yeah," Jou said again. "You too?"
"Natsuni and Noriko," Iori admitted. "It seems harder to me, because you know that Momoe is going to love you regardless—and your baby too—when we get them out. She knows you're coming. I don't really care what Noriko thinks of me, but Natsuni hasn't even heard of digimon before. And I know she's not going to give me a chance to explain. She'll be horrified by her experience, and never want to see any of us again. Momoe has you and Miyako and Ken and…I don't know…but she has some idea of what's going on."
"But Natsuni let herself be caught," Jou reminded him. This was news to me. That girl had a lot of fight in her. "She would've been caught anyway, when LadyDevimon set her eyes on her, but she didn't try to get away."
"She's protecting Momoe," Iori said with a quiet chuckle.
"She probably thinks it's an adventure," Jou commented. "An action/adventure movie that she is the damsel in distress for."
"No," Iori said, laughing louder now. "She'll think she's the hero, saving the pregnant woman at the sake of herself."
"And the obsessed stalker," Yamato added.
"And Noriko," Iori agreed.
"So there's no need to worry. We'll get to them soon," I concluded. "Natsuni will keep them safe until then. And I'm sure it won't be long before we get them, after we get to the Temple."
"And the Temple isn't too far from here," Tokomon announced. "I know where we are now. Last time I was here I wasn't quite so small. That's why I was lost before."
"Good," I said. "See, things are looking up!"
And just like that, I managed to screw up being a leader.
I jinxed our luck.
It was then that we heard the sound of a snapping twig. We all froze, raising our digivices out in front of us, turning our backs towards each other, creating a circle of defence for our two—rather weak—digimon friends.
Our talking had covered up the sounds of this enemy's approach.
I gulped, and mentally pushed away my panic. I couldn't afford an attack now. I had to prepare for a battle.
"Be quiet! Do you want to get found?"
It was a deceiving voice. It sounded small and weak, not unlike Tokomon or Otamamon. It was trying to get us to lower our guard. We couldn't allow ourselves to do that.
"I'm trying," another voice cried. "I don't have feet like you do!"
"Ah!" Ken cried out happily.
We all turned to him and shushed him. But he didn't listen. In fact, he didn't have time to listen. A small shout came from deep in the trees, and suddenly, Ken had to duck, or else be hit by yet another digimon.
"Bubble-blow!" Tokomon shouted, allowing his attack to explode the one sent by our new foe.
"Tokomon?" both of the small voices asked in surprise.
"Who's there?" Tokomon demanded.
"It's Minnomon," Ken explained. "Minnomon and DemiVeemon."
Now that he'd said it, I couldn't believe I'd missed it. I slapped my palm against my forehead. I'd been so focused on finding enemies that I'd forgotten our digimon partners were waiting for us somewhere in this forsaken place.
"Ken?" The small voice wavered as he said this, as if every happiness was bestowed upon him all at once.
"I'm here," Ken said loudly.
"Oh, Ken! Ken!" Minnomon said springing from the darkness right into Ken's arms. "I've missed you so much."
"Not as much as I've missed you," Ken said, his voice cracking with the emotion behind that statement. Minnomon reached over and touched the digivice that was in Ken's hand. He was surrounded by a bright, magenta light. When the light vanished, Wormmon was in his place. Though he couldn't show it, I could tell he was trying to smile.
"Daisuke, is he here?" DemiVeemon asked shyly.
"Not with us, no," Sora said gently.
"I believe the others are at the Temple," Tokomon said.
"Though I've no idea what you've based that hypothesis off of, I find myself reluctantly agreeing with that," Koushiro said, looking into the distance, trying to find the Temple, I thought. He shifted his laptop on his shoulder. He could only use one of the straps due to his injury. If I hadn't known that to be the only reason, I'd have thought he was attempting to be cool, using just the one strap. It was very unlike him.
"So I can't digivolve?" DemiVeemon asked crankily. I shook my head at him, and he sent a glare my way. "Carry me."
It wasn't a question.
Since I knew he was being demanding to cover up how sad he was that Daisuke wasn't here, and how jealous he was that Wormmon was now stronger tan him, I opened my arms for him to jump up.
"This isn't your sector," Tokomon said feigning nonchalance…that's how I knew it was important.
"No," DemiVeemon said. "We we chased out of our sectors."
"They appeared to be gathering for something," Wormmon added.
"We have to hurry then," Tokomon announced. "We have to move faster than they do."
"Why?" Yamato asked.
"What's going on?" Iori demanded.
"They're readying to attack the Temple," Tokomon explained.
"And we're headed for the centre of the battle because?" I couldn't help but ask.
"Because they're going to need us to help them," DemiVeemon said. "We're small, and relatively powerless, and useless in the actual battle, but if we can tell them what we know about the numbers, and use that knowledge to make up battle strategies, we could save the lives of loads of digimon."
"I have to live through this battle," Jou said. "So I can save Momoe. If Iori's right, and she's just waiting for me, then she'll hunt me down and kill me if I die now, and I'm allergic to dying."
"I thought you'd taken your medicine?" Yamato asked with a snicker.
"It wore off during that last battle," Jou said sheepishly.
"I don't want to be fish fry," Otamamon complained. "I don't want to go into battle again."
"You don't have much of a choice," Koushiro told him. "And you're one of our strongest digimon—though you're not as strong as our digivices—you'll be…important." He shuddered as he said that last word, as if it were actually painful for him to admit it.
Otamamon basked in what he thought was praise, and didn't complain again, so I figured that was a plus.
"It's quicker to get to the Temple if we skirt around the mountain," Wormmon said.
"But it's too dangerous. They mostly come out at night," DemiVeemon continued.
"And you thought we'd be able to set up camp because…?" I asked Tokomon, raising my right eyebrow at him.
"I thought we had to," he said. "You function much better with sleep."
"We function much better when we're alive too," Jou said dryly.
"If we go that way," DemiVeemon said, pointing ahead of us and to the left. "We'll come out close to the mountain. We might be able to get passed the enemies if they're preparing for battle. They might not notice us."
"I thought you said going around the mountain was too dangerous," Iori commented.
"Yes, well, it's much safer than scaling a nearly vertical mountain in the darkness of night," Wormmon said. "We won't be able to see anything."
"Okay," I interrupted, before Koushiro or Ken or Jou could argue with Worrmon's logic—I personally thought falling to death was much better than being roasted alive, or skewered, or…you get the picture…by the enemies—channelling my inner leader. "We're going right now. Every second that we argue, there's another second that one of our friends could be hunted down because we weren't there to help them with the upcoming battle."
When it was put like that, everyone kept their lips sealed.
"Good. Lead the way Tokomon."
It was a very quiet trip. No one dared to contradict me. No one wanted to become the hunted…yet again. It wasn't long though, before the silence was interrupted.
"What?" Tokomon said his voice laced with confusion.
"What's wrong?" Yamato asked, raising his digivice, and pointing it in all sorts of directions, as if it were a gun.
"This lake…" Tokomon said, tilting his head.
"It's dark?" Ken suggested.
"No, no," Tokomon said. "It wasn't…there before…"
"It's been here for awhile," DemiVeemon said matter-of-factly. "A month at least. You just haven't been needed over this way."
"Alright. I suppose we'll go around it," Tokomon said.
"That's probably the best choice."
I screamed bloody murder, and must have jumped at least three feet in the air. Sora and Jou had similar reactions. Koushiro and Ken looked like they wanted to pass out in surprise. Iori and Yamato though, whipped their digivices toward the speaker in under a second. Their reflexes were pretty great. And the four digimon—with Otamamon standing part way hidden behind Tokomon—were ready as well. Ken and Koushiro didn't take long to understand what was happening. Sora followed, and then Jou.
I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't even manage to get my weapon up before we realized it wasn't a threat.
"Whoa there," Betamon said. "I don't think I'd appreciate being vaporized."
"Betamon!" DemiVeemon and Wormmon shouted happily.
"We thought you were one of them," Tokomon said conspiratorially.
"No, no," he said. "Just watching from my new post."
"The dark ocean water?" Koushiro asked, having crouched down to analyze the water. "Is that safe?"
"I'm a water digimon," Betamon said simply, as if talking to a five year old. Koushiro's eye was twitching at his condescending tone. I had to look away to keep from laughing. "I don't really have a choice."
"Why are you still a rookie, Betamon?" DemiVeemon asked, bouncing up and down at my feet.
"I don't know," he said. I got the feeling that if he had shoulders, he'd be shrugging them. "Must be the water."
"But if Dragomon and Fanglongmon are using the powers of the Dark Ocean to collect the energy emitted from the crests through you digimon, wouldn't the water from the Dark Ocean work in the exact opposite way?" Koushiro asked, raising his eyebrow.
"Maybe," Betamon said cryptically.
"And considering you weren't even a Mega when they started draining said energy, only and Ultimate, you've only decreased two levels, while the others have all been reduced by four," Koushiro added.
"I don't know what answer you want from me," Betamon said. "You sound smart, if that's what you're going for. But I don't have the answers to those questions. I've been doing my best to spy on the enemies by moving from lake to lake, but they never say what it is they're doing. Their leader must feed the information to them last minute."
Koushiro glared at him, but remained silent.
"You know," Otamamon said and I wanted to tell him to shut up—Koushiro looked ready to kill something—but I didn't want to be rude. "We're probably a lot safer than the others. Our group now has five digimon, three rookies too. And we don't even know that they're at this safe Temple place. They could be lost, or dying even. We're lucky."
"They're not lost or dying," Koushiro told him through gritted teeth.
"What facts do you have to back that hypothesis?" Betamon questioned—just to grate his nerves even more. It would have been hilarious, you know, if it wasn't our friends' lives he was talking about.
"They have to be alright," he said letting out a great big sigh. "They can take care of themselves. They're all strong. They'll be fine."
But he seemed to be trying to convince himself of that.
"Meiyomon is with them," Iori said. "Nothing will keep him from trying to explode stuff. Whatever it is we're up against, they'll be getting more than they can handle out of them."
"And Takeru's strong too," Sora said, looking at Yamato, who looked worse than either Koushiro or Iori. "And he's got Mimi and Michael and Taichi to protect him."
"And Daisuke and Willis too," I added. "They might all have to protect Hikari, with how sick she was…and I'm not sure about Kurayami, but they'll be fine."
"They have to be," Koushiro stressed again. Jou nodded—though I had a feeling he was referring to my sister, and not the others.
"So, Iori," Betamon said trying to break the tension—and failing miserably by unknowingly referring to the same topic. "You ask that girl out?"
"Er…no," Iori said. "She ended up becoming a stalker though, and then she got taken by evil digimon."
"Oh well," Betamon said. "Like Michael says, you win some, you lose some. Speaking of Michael, where is he?"
"We're not sure, but he might be at the Temple," Sora supplied.
"Oh. Let's go this way then," Betamon said. "It'll get us there faster."
Without giving us a moment to think, he started off along the shore of his lake in the direction we'd come from. He paused only to beckon us onwards.
Not wanting to be left behind, I started off after him.
And the others followed their leader.
Gennai:
I couldn't find them anywhere! I hadn't been searching long but after my intense training in the temple I had learned a few new tricks. Among them was sensing the surroundings. Sure I likely looked like a fool with my ear planted on the ground, but I was sure no one had seen me. It was dark around me, and I wasn't sure how safe it would be for me to be wandering about—but it would be even more dangerous for that of the digidestined.
Daisuke... Daisuke I understood—he was in question for his leadership skills and with both Taichi and I in the group his skills were suppressed and pushed away. He felt suffocated. Also he wasn't the brightest of the digidestined, and so it made perfect sense for him to be out and about...
But Kurayami... she was a smart one. I had talked to her many times before... I'd even helped her come to the conclusion of what her crest was really for. But I didn't understand why she would willingly head off into the forest alone when she knew we were heading to a safe place... it just didn't add up. The only solution I could come up with was that they wanted their digimon so desperately that they had forced themselves to separate from the group to find them! Or... maybe to find Kurayami's mother? Or perhaps... no that's couldn't be possible.
I continued my search, creeping through the forest, searching aimlessly. For some reason the demons weren't following me. I knew I could defend myself if they did... but I hadn't yet had to draw my sword. Perhaps there was something more interesting to them in the forest? Or perhaps they were preparing for battle? But there was too many of them to all even attempt to fight in one battle—and so there must have been something out in the forest.
And it must have been Daisuke and Kurayami... they were defenceless! I needed to find them!
But I also needed to get back to the Temple to help the others...
I decided I would keep looking just a little while longer.
Next on Digimon Adventure 04: Mimi and Sora take up the narration in the next duel chapter. Will they ever meet up? Will Dragomon and Fanglongmon and their minions keep them from that goal? Find out next time!