Chapter 21

Izzy was busy typing frantically on his computer, trying out the tracking program from Gennai. Everyone else was on edge. There were small conversations going on here and there, but they were to merely break the suffocating silence that would fall over them as soon as the talking stopped.

Takuya was furiously pacing back and forth in front of the door way. Most of the kids had taken to watching his movements. "Will you stop that?!" Matt yelled. Takuya's constant pacing was driving him crazy.

Takuya stopped and turned to glare at him, "I need to do something. I don't know how you can all just sit there." He felt like his body was on fire. He wanted to get out there and start looking, fight someone, anything but idly sit around.

"Hey, relax guys. Don't fight," Tai stood up to stand between them. Takuya turned his glare from Matt to Tai.

"Relax? How can I relax when our friends are in danger!?"

"Rushing in blindly will only get more of us in danger," JP stepped in. "I know how you feel Takuya; just try to wait a bit longer." Three on one, Takuya was outnumbered.

"Fine!" He slammed the door open and stomped out. Tai and Davis looked on sadly, wanting more than anything to help the others too. Matt sighed and ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

JP stood up and headed out the door. "I'm going to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid." Tai nodded and followed JP. Not wanting to be left out, Davis ran after them.

"Is he always like that?" Cody asked.

"Yeah, he will go through any lengths for his friends," Zoe smiled, "Not to mention, he's a total hot head." Zoe was still sitting next to a fidgeting Kouichi.

Ken sat next to him for moral support, while Zoe rubbed his back slowly. "Zoe there's no need for that I'm fine," Kouichi said, pushing her hand away gently.

Zoe put her hands on her hips defiantly and narrowed her eyes at the warrior of darkness, making him sink into his chair a little. "I know for a fact that you're not fine. Your brother is missing. I'm surprised that you're not out there with Takuya." Kouichi looked down. He definitely felt anxious, but he was trying to be reasonable. Their best bet was to wait, so he would do that.

"Kouji is strong; don't worry too much about him. He can take care of himself, as well as the others," Ken said quietly, trying to comfort the older boy.

Not expecting that from Ken, Kouichi's eyes widened. He smiled and thanked him.

He wasn't the only one extremely worried. He looked at Yolei who was holding a teary eyed Tanemon.

Tanemon felt like a failure. She imagined Mimi tied up and beaten. Tears began to trickle down her face and her sniffles became louder.

Yolei began stroking the plant digimon's head gently. "It's okay Tanemon; we'll get everyone back safe and sound." She spoke in a quiet soothing voice, but it did little to calm the distressed digimon. Tanemon shut her eyes tightly in an attempt to stop the tears and buried her face into Yolei's shirt.

Hawkmon sat next to his partner as she held the crying digimon. He was at a loss, unsure what to do, so he stood next to her silently.

X.x.X.x.X

Davis, Tai, and JP found Takuya in an open area near the soccer field. Veemon and Agumon followed slowly behind them. He was shooting small blasts of fire into the air. He was, quite literally, blowing off steam. His body looked extremely tense, his shoulders squared and his muscles taunt. He threw a punch into the air and a ball of fire erupted from his hand. It travelled quite a few feet into the sky before sizzling out.

Hearing the approaching footsteps, Takuya lowered his fists and turned to look at his friends. "Sorry," he apologized after taking a deep breath to calm his nerves.

"Don't worry about it, everyone's on edge right now," Tai reassured him. "We just came to make sure you're alright."

"I can hold off a few attackers just fine," Takuya stated, puffing his chest out and crossing his arms.

"What he really means to say, is that we came to make sure you didn't do something stupid," JP said bluntly. Davis jabbed him sharply in the ribs when Takuya's ego quickly deflated as he glared at the warrior of thunder.

"I know that we're in a real bind right now," Takuya said, "I'm not about to ruin our chances by doing something reckless." He turned away from them. "No matter how much I want to." JP nodded, satisfied with Takuya's answer.

"I wish I could just breathe fire to relieve stress," Davis joked trying to lighten the mood. "That's so cool."

Takuya laughed a little, throwing a small fireball up into the air. "It does make me feel a lot better. It helps to get rid of all the pent up energy."

"It sure does," Agumon smiled, and fell backwards into the grass. He watched Takuya fire multiple balls of fire into the air with a peaceful expression on his face.

"Maybe if we ask nicely they can teach us how to breathe fire," Veemon said to his partner, making Davis laugh.

Tai and Davis plopped down in the grass as they watched Takuya continue to toss up small fireballs into the air. Bored, JP shot little bolts of electricity at the fireballs, causing them to explode. Soon they had their own miniature fireworks display. But their little moment of peace didn't last long.

"Hey guys!"

Looking back toward the school, they saw Cody and Armadillomon sprinting toward them.

"What's up Cody?" Davis asked. He and Tai stood up brushing the grass and dirt from their pants. Takuya and JP stopped playing with their elements and listened to the youngest boy's message.

Cody paused for a second to catch his breath, "Biyomon and Gomamon are waking up."

The boys raced back toward the school, eager to hear what the two digimon had to say. By the time they got back, everyone else had already gathered around the two semi-conscious digimon. Biyomon and Gomamon were resting on an overstuffed pillow. Gomamon was fussily rubbing his eyes and Biyomon was struggling to sit up.

"What happened?" Tai asked. Biyomon turned to face him and swayed slightly. Kari immediately grasped her shoulders to steady her. She closed her eyes again and slumped against Kari.

Gomamon was amazingly silent. He laid there, eyes focused on some random spec on the ground. He seemed so lost, they wanted to know what happened but no one wanted to force the poor digimon to talk.

"A bunch of digimon attacked us," Biyomon began. She began to shiver slightly recalling the memory. "We were vastly outnumbered and tried to escape. Then we got cornered and had no choice but to fight. But the fight was all a distraction. While we were distracted, DemiDevimon threw his darts at them."

At this point Biyomon started to cry. Gomamon finally perked up and finished recalling the event for them. "Whatever was in that thing knocked them out instantly. One second I was fighting the Fugamon and Minatarumon, the next they were all retreating carrying Joe and the others with them. We tried to chase after them, but we couldn't break through."

"You tried your best," Davis rubbed Gomamon's back, "That's all we can ask for."

"Do you have any idea where they were taken?" JP asked.

Gomamon and Biyomon shook their heads sadly. They were hopping that they had more information than that; unfortunately, they were back to where we started.

Three loud beeps came from Izzy's computer. "Finally!" Izzy shouted. He stood up quickly, knocking over his chair in the process. Poor Tentomon had to scamper out of the way before he got smashed by the falling furniture.

"What are you doing Izzy?" Tai asked.

"The tracking program Gennai sent is working." Izzy pointed to the computer screen. The monitor was showing a map of the city with red blinking dots covering it. "The red dots represent something that is giving off large amounts of digital signals. There are five areas where there's a bunch of them clustered together, my guess is that's where the others were taken."

Izzy pointed to each individual bunch of dots. "So we just need to pick a place and check it out?" Davis asked.

"That seems like a waste of time," TK argued, "What if we attack someplace and they aren't there?" He had a point. "If we pick the wrong place they can move more of their units to where they are really being kept, making it more difficult for us to rescue them."

"If we could only contact them, maybe they could give us a clue to where they are," Ken said wishfully.

They were interrupted when a loud explosion shook the building. "What the hell?" Matt shouted as he grabbed the edge of the table to keep it from falling over.

Cody and Kouichi ran over to the window to check out what was going on outside. "Oh man," Cody groaned.

Everyone else quickly made their way over to see what the two boys witnessed; an enormous amount of digimon had gathered outside. Many of them were survivors of past battles, like the Pumpkinmon, Minatarumon, and Fugamon. Accompanying them were Tuskmon, Bakemon, and a few Phantomon.

"Great, looks like they found us first," Tai said through clenched teeth. This wasn't good. Sure, they were in the process of planning an attack to save their friends, but a battle here was something that they couldn't win. "We need to get out of here."

"Seriously?! We can take them," Takuya argued. They were outnumbered yes, but weren't they always.

"No, we should save our strength for when we rescue the others," Tai said calmly. Takuya eventually gave in and agreed to run away. "Can you cause a distraction so we can sneak out the back unnoticed?"

"Sure. Kouichi can make a cover for us." Takuya and Kouichi both nodded.

While the others grabbed as many things as they could carry, Takuya headed the other way to confront the enemy. Seeing only one person exit the build the digimon began to laugh. Destroying the kids would be so easy.

They charged, causing the ground to rumble. But Takuya stood there, smiling. With a wave of his hand a wall of fire sprung up from the ground. The first few unsuspecting digimon got caught in the flames. They let out screams of pain and stumbled back from the fire. One or two of them were destroyed, but most of them escaped with major burns. The remaining digimon roared angrily, but stayed where they were, not wanting to approach the wall of fire.

"Later losers!" Takuya laughed. He quickly ran around the building to catch up to the others.

He found everyone else waiting for him around the back of the building. "My dad's house is big enough for us to stay in for a little while, so we're heading there," Kouichi said. Mostly everyone else lived in small apartments that were way too cramped for so many people and digimon. The twin's dad's house seemed like the best choice.

Unknowingly, two of the Phantomon found their way around the fire and followed Takuya. Seeing the children mostly defenseless they emerged from the surrounding foliage sickles raised to strike. Gabumon and Agumon first noticed the fast approaching threat and fired attacks of their own.

Their attacks did no damage to the ultimate digimon, but it hindered their sight slightly and alerted the others to the danger. Quickly shaking off the attack, the Phantomon dove in attempting to behead Takuya since he was closest to them.

A black fog surrounded them obscuring their vision. The two digimon continued with their attack, swinging their scythes where they last saw the boy. Their weapons cut through the air and the fog but nothing was there.

They looked around in confusion, normally fog and shadows didn't bother them. But this was different. They could barely see each other even if they were mere feet away. They hissed in frustration and headed back toward the other digimon who were still stuck behind the fire.

The poor souls that were captured by the enemy were now bored out of their minds. After they finished eating, they began brainstorming ideas on how to escape. So far they hadn't come up with anything.

They intended to interrogate the next guard that came by to pick up their empty food bowls. It's been an hour, and no one had come to check on them yet.

"So what are we supposed to do after we talk to the guard?" Sora asked, "It's not like there's any way we can get the information to the others."

"That's if we can even get anything out of them," Mimi said sadly as she slumped against the wall.

"Hey Kouji, I've been thinking," Tommy said quietly. Kouji was sitting against the back wall with his eyes closed but he wasn't sleeping. He opened his eyes to acknowledge Tommy when the younger boy came to sit next to him. "The spirits visited us first in our dreams right? Maybe they can do it again."

"But that was to talk to us, who knows if they can contact anyone else," Kouji said, shooting down Tommy's idea.

"There's no harm in trying. If it works then we actually have a chance to get out of here. And if it doesn't at least we tried something. "

"What are you two whispering about over there?" Joe asked. Sora and Mimi turned to look at the two boys.

"When all this first started our spirits visited us in our dreams to let us know what was going on," Tommy began to explain, "So, I was thinking that maybe our spirits can somehow talk to the others."

"You guys can do that?" Mimi asked in amazement.

"We're not sure, but we can give it a shot," Kouji said. He was still skeptical about the whole idea, but they hadn't come up with anything so far, so why not?

'It's a good theory, but we haven't exactly tried to contact other people,' Lobomon said. 'We'll try tonight and hope for the best.'

Their conversation was interrupted with the door opening. Instead of the Pumpkinmon a Bakemon floated into the room. "Hope you guys are nice and cozy," he taunted.

"Well, we could do with some blankets and maybe some pillows," Mimi began to ramble on about wanting different things to comfort her. Sora and Joe chuckled quietly while the Bakemon started confusedly at her, not expecting that kind of response.

"Um, well," it starched the back of his head, "I can try to see what I can do." The children gaped at him, was he taking her seriously. The Bakemon collected the empty containers and floated out the door.

"Is he really going to get those things for her," Kouji asked.

"Even evil digimon can't resist me," Mimi joked, flipping her hair over her shoulder for emphasis. A round of laughter echoed through the cell.

"Maybe you can ask him for the key too," Tommy suggested.

"Even he can't be that stupid," Joe chuckled. While they were still laughing and joking, the same Bakemon entered the room, his arms full of pillows and a few blankets.

"Here you go." The Bakemon began to pass the items through the bars, squishing the pillows to make them fit. "I took them from a different unit's room; I don't think they'll notice.

"Thank you so much," Mimi blew a kiss toward their captive.

"Don't you think she's laying it on a little thick," Tommy whispered to Joe, who merely shrugged. The Bakemon started blushing and brought his hands up to try to cover up his embarrassment. Well, whatever works.

"I hope you enjoy your stay," the Bakemon smiled.

"Does he think this is a hotel?" Sora said under her breath, making the others snigger.

"Our friends should be here to save us soon, so we won't be here long." Tommy smiled back at the ghost digimon.

Bakemon started to laugh, "I doubt it. The master has set up multiple bases so your friends won't be able to find you." This was way too easy.

"I don't recognize this place; is it new?" Joe asked, sincerely.

"Yes, we just finished it. It's right under the park, so there's no way your little friends are gonna find us." The Bakemon crossed his arms across his chest and lifted his head proudly. Myotismon should invest in some smarter minions.

"Your right they will never think to look there," Sora said. She turned around pretending to be depressed, while she was really trying to hide her smile.

"You guys better get used to being prisoners. I'll bring you some food in the morning, can't have you hostages starve to death." The Bakemon waved farewell and left the room, closing the door behind him.

"How did we get captured by guys that are so dumb?" Tommy asked sadly, shaking his head in disbelief.

"We should be lucky, we wouldn't have been able to get half as much information if our captives were smart," Joe said, "And DemiDevimon was playing dirty when he caught us."

"So, now all we have to do is wait and see if the spirits can get the message across," Kouji said. He wasn't too sure if this would work, but they needed it too. They had nothing else to try.

The trip to the twin's father's house was rather uneventful. They came across a few scouts along the way but they were quickly dispatched.

The house was pretty big, enough for everyone to have their own space without being overcrowded.

"I wish I had a house this big," Davis said as he walked through the halls with Veemon right on his heels.

"Your house is nice too," Veemon said. He liked Davis's homey little apartment.

"But if we lived in someplace like this then I could stay in the opposite side of the house from June," Davis laughed, "Then I won't be able to hear her squealing every time there's a hot guy on TV."

It's been a long, eventful, and exhausting day. It was barely an hour after sundown and already the partner digimon were sleeping. Most of them had found nice comfortable spots on the couches, while others chose to stay glued to their partners.

Like usual, Izzy was still typing away on his laptop, while everyone else was getting ready for bed. Hearing footsteps Izzy paused and looked up from his computer. He saw Kouichi walking through the living room checking up on everyone. Seeing that Izzy was still awake, Kouichi walked over and sat next to him, avoiding stepping on any sleeping digimon on the floor.

"You should rest it's been a long day," Izzy whispered. Ever since they got here, Kouichi has been doing an excellent job as host. He made sure that everyone was taken care of. All of them told him that he was doing unnecessary things, and that they were already grateful that he volunteered to let them use his house. But he continued to help out, bringing everyone drinks and just being a good host. He insisted that he was just being polite.

"Can't sleep," Kouichi responded. He certainly looked and felt tired, but his mind just wasn't shutting down. He had tried to distract himself with taking care of the others, but now that mostly everyone was asleep he was beginning to worry again.

He tried not to show it but he was afraid. He was so worried for his brother and his friends. Ever since the Digital World, he and Kouji have gotten extremely close. Thinking about the past before he had finally met his brother seemed awfully lonely. He didn't want to go back to that.

Izzy knew that the other boy was troubled; it didn't take a genius to know what was bothering him. "Tomorrow after everyone's awake we'll decide where we should start searching for the others. Those five areas should be a good place to start." Kouichi leaned over to see what Izzy was looking at on his computer.

It was the map he had shown them earlier that day. Five distinct areas stood out, those must be where most of the enemy's units were, the best place to hold captives.

"Then we better get a good night's rest," Kouichi said, "It's not going to be easy, fighting our way through that." As Izzy began to shut down his computer, Kouichi stood up and headed toward his room.

"I know you're going to do it anyway but, try not to worry. We'll do our best to rescue them." Izzy said.

Kouichi turned around before heading around the corner toward the bedrooms and smiled at Izzy. "Thanks. Good night."

Kari was having the most pleasant dream. She was currently at a park with all of her friends. The Chosen Children were sitting on the top of a huge hill beneath the branches of a sakura tree. They all wore smiles on their faces, as they conversed and ate their bentos.

She smiled as she silently listened to her friend's laughter. Looking down to her food, she saw a few of the sakura petals and landed in her food. She was working on picking them out when Gatomon snuggled next to her and peered over her arm looking longingly at her lunch.

Kari giggled and picked up a small piece of battered fished with her chopsticks and placed it into her partners waiting mouth. While Gatomon was happily munching on the food, something caught Kari's attention.

At the bottom of the hill there was a row of bushes that separated the park from the denser parts of the forest. Something was glowing through the leaves of the bushes. Leaving behind her partner and her friends she trekked down the hill. A few feet from the bottom, she stumbled and ended up tumbling down the hill. She burst through the bushes on the bottom, dizzy and disoriented.

"Oww," she groaned. She sat up slowly dusting the dirt and leaves from her clothes. Once she dubbed her clothes decent she stood up and began to search for where the light was coming from.

It didn't take her long to find the source. She gasped when she came across a white wolf. Its eyes glowed blue and the bright light was radiating from its body. It was sitting in the middle of a clearing, its tail swishing slowly back and forth. As she continued to stare at the magnificent creature, it cocked its head to the side, watching her.

Wait, she recognized this aura, she'd felt it before. It was the same as when she first met Kouji! This was crazy, what is going on?

"Kouji? Lobomon?" Kari asked uncertainly. At the mention of the two names, the wolf's ears shot up suddenly alert. It stood up and started running farther into the forest. "Wait!" Kari took off running trying to keep the animal in her sights.

At first she thought it was trying to run away from her, it was going so fast. But every time she would lose sight of it the wolf would pause looking over its shoulder. It was leading her somewhere.

"Where are we going?" She didn't really expect a response from the animal, but what could she do? She came to another large clearing; the wolf was sitting patiently in the center of the clearing. There was a large cluster of rocks jutting up from the ground next to the wolf.

Suddenly, it turned around and stepped into the stone, disappearing. Shocked, Kari ran up and inspected the rock. It didn't look like anything special; it appeared to be normal rock. She jumped in surprise when a deep 'uff' sound came from the space next to her.

The wolf had stuck its head back out wondering what was taking her so long. Now that it had her attention, it disappeared back into the rock. Kari tentatively raised her hand to touch the rock. She gasped when her hand fell through, as if there was nothing there.

Gathering her courage she stepped forward disappearing into the stone.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, my beta and I have been super busy. The last two chapters have been a bit slow, but the next chapter holds a lot of promise :)