Y/N: Yay, Koushiro is back, and so is Hikari and Willis. It's exciting, but not... Please Review.
U/N: Review!
Title: Digimon Adventure 03
By: Yukiraking
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or its characters.
Part 2: Regroup
Chapter 21: A Kind of Transportaion
Koushiro:
I'd gone to bed just as Hikari said to. I'll admit I wasn't all that pleased with their blatant disregard to my findings, but I couldn't hold it against them. If I hadn't been so excited about the discovery, I might have been longing for sleep myself. It had been a long and trying day after all.
As it was, I had difficulty calming my mind enough to allow for sleep, and even when sleep had managed to overtake me it never held me for long. I woke every hour, eager to put my findings to good use. Of course we'd need to gather at the meadow for that to occur, but I already had the beginnings of a plan weaving together so as to fix such a problem.
After my fifth waking, I decided to remain awake. I will admit I was thrilled by the prospect of working with my laptop without disruption for the first time in over thirty hours. If it had been Daisuke or Taichi that had taken it from me, I might have gotten a right bit angrier than I had. But it wasn't either of the troublemakers, it was Mimi. And I just couldn't hold it against her.
I was too afraid of her to do that.
When Mimi was in a mood, it was best to stay clear of her. And as much as I wanted my laptop with me at all times and out of her manicured clutches, I had to be patient. My patience had paid off, and now was the first quality time my laptop and I had had in awhile.
"Good morning old friend," I murmured to it as it warmed itself up. The quiet jingle of the desktop loading put a smile on my face that had been missing for awhile.
"It's been far too long," I said, running my fingers over the worn keys.
And I was peaceful—I admit it. I was happy to ignore the current threats as both Hikari and Willis slept, and with my trusty companion on my lap.
I sat there for hours it seemed. Long after the sun first peeked over the horizon. The two continued to sleep, so I continued to type. I typed all sorts of things: my current plan on how to get us back to the meadow, the 'Cycle of the Crests' that I'd deciphered, as well as my general thoughts and opinions of our current mess.
I even commented on the current fighting our group of close-knit friends had somehow become subjected to. And how it was Iori—the only one of us to actually see the fighting for what it was—that was taken by the data streams first. He had a good head on his shoulders though, so I knew he would be fine.
It was Mimi that I was most worried about. If she had somehow been taken from Joe by a data stream, she could be lying unconscious somewhere. And we couldn't let that happen. Her head injury could have lead to a concussion. When one has a concussion, it's best not to sleep on it. I read that somewhere. You needed constant supervision. To be woken at periodic intervals to ensure that you don't slip into a coma. To be fair though, I have no intention of becoming a doctor, that's Joe's department, so I didn't know for certain.
It didn't stop me from worrying about her.
And while I would have worried over any of my friends' well-being, she had a known crest that played a particularly dominant part of this new takeover scheme of these Crest Digimon.
They were the real problem at the moment. I had to trust that Mimi was fine. She had to be fine, because she was with Joe. And Joe was the most reliable member in the group.
If he's still being himself a nagging voice in the back of my head insisted.
I shook my head.
Joe couldn't help but be Joe.
"Koushiro?" Hikari called softly distracting me from my inner debate. I glanced back at her and saw her rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "Do you have to hit the keyboard so loudly? I was having a nice dream."
"It's about time you got up," I told her. "The sun's been up for hours, and it's about time we get back to the others."
"What do you mean? We don't even know where they are," she said stretching out her arms.
"You weren't there last time," I said more to myself than her. "I've managed once before…"
"Managed what? Koushiro it's too early to be this confusing."
"We got a distress signal from Datamon. We were looking for our crests, but we thought that this warranted our attention. He'd said he had been captured. It turned out that he had the crest of love and wanted to create a copy of Sora so he could control the power of the crest. In any case, I managed to move us to a location much closer to him, allowing for us to take part in the short adventure in the pyramid."
"I just woke up," Willis interrupted groggily. "And already we're talking about teleportation? I don't understand you Japanese digi-destined. We American digi-destined just think of taking the train like a normal person, or maybe even walking. But not Koushiro. He's got a plan first thing in the morning that involves the complex formulas of teleportation."
"Willis, you forget that we are in a world made up entirely of digital data. It is as simple as relocating a file to relocate us back to the meadow. All that would require is pinpointing the coordinates of one other being that is currently there. I know we left the meadow, for a simple bout of exploring, but surely Joe and Mimi would have taken Michael, Terriermon and Lopmon back to the meadow after my rather sudden disappearance. They are at least smart enough to stay where it is safe. And as Hikari was taken by the same data stream as I was, that leaves us to deduce that Takeru and Daisuke were near to them at the time they would have taken them along with them," I said, rambling off my thoughts.
"You can't just assume that," Willis said with a cheeky grin. "You know what they say assuming makes out of you and me."
"Yes, I know what they say," I said indignantly. "But I know Mimi and Joe are smart."
"Mimi?" Hikari asked with a smile. "You included her in that statement?"
"She may be a little bit flighty at times, but she has got common sense you know," I said with a huff.
"I think someone has a little crush," she teased me.
I stared at her in bewilderment.
"Well now you're talking utter nonsense," I said honestly.
"Fine," she said disappointed. "I was hoping I was right."
"May I get on with my work? The clock is ticking and we are getting nowhere. The enemy could be gathering for an attack at any moment. For all we know, they could have devised the data streams and used them to separate us into smaller groups, smaller targets, to make it easier to rid of us," I said seriously.
"Right," she said. "We should be taking things seriously. We have to be on our guard."
Willis merely nodded in agreement.
"Now I'll have to put my digivice into place," I said, slipping my digivive into the slot Gennai had added to my laptop years ago. "And I'll use it to enhance the search. This way I'll be able to search over the grid of the digital world to locate any one of our friends."
There was a grin on my face as I started to work.
"In theory," I muttered, the grin falling off of my face.
"Can I see your digivice Hikari?" I asked, holding my hand out for it without waiting for an answer. She gave me a look and handed me a familiar looking gray device. "What happened to the D-3?"
"It changed back," she said with a pointed look.
"Right."
She'd already told me that. Now what?
"The crest creatures must have had the D-3s reverted so we wouldn't be able to open a gateway to leave the digital world. I wonder if Noriko is following Iori's instructions and keeping the gateway open…" I typed in a few more keys and nodded. My suspicions were correct. "The gateway is closed.
"So we're stuck here?" Willis asked.
"Yes. It is in our favour actually," I said. "We have to release our friends, and defeat the newest enemy of the digital world. We wouldn't have left even if the gateway were open. This way the enemy cannot get into the real world like so many before have."
"I never thought of it like that," Hikari said.
"Me either, until just now," I assured her.
"You're lying," she said with a knowing smile. "But thank you."
"Perhaps…"
Both Hikari and Willis were wise enough to leave me uninterrupted. They'd been around me long enough to know that talking was futile during these moments. I ignored the world, the people in my presence, even my own humanly needs, focussing entirely on my laptop in these situations. Typically, it was worth all the trouble. I was almost always able to solve the problem.
"If I just pull up the grid," I murmured. "And then cross reference it with the maps stored on the hard drive…I could…maybe I would…got it!"
"You did it?" Hikari and Willis asked happily.
"Yes. I now have the coordinates for the meadow. Of course, with this method, we won't know if we're going to be the only ones there, who is there should that not be the case, or if any enemies happen to be lying in wait," I said, listing off the variables I just was not able to determine.
"That's better than nothing," Willis said. "We'll take it."
"Okay. This should work without problem," I said typing in the last few keys of the sequence.
The world around us seemed to disappear; the trees and the temple gave way to simple grass and wild flowers. There were sounds behind me. Sounds that instantly reminded me of the various battles we'd taken part in over the years.
I turned around to see a large blue and white wolf fighting alongside a giant, fire-orange bird facing off against a rather small—for an enemy—mushroom.
"Yamato, Sora!" Hikari called out with both happiness and worry in her voice.
I immediately searched for our two friends. Sure enough, my eyes stopped when their faces came into view. But they were not alone. Ken was standing with them.
"Hikari!" Ken shouted in surprise.
"Koushiro?" Sora called in confusion.
"Willis?" Yamato asked tentatively. I suppose it made sense. He had never met Willis.
"What's going on?" Hikari shouted back, hiding herself behind me as if I were to protect her against the digimon attacker.
"Where did you come from?" Sora countered.
"So, you have called for reinforcements," the mushroom called. "No matter. Without their digimon partners, they will be of no use to you."
Without allowing the crest digimon to distract us any longer, we managed to bring ourselves closer to the others. "What is this thing?"
"It's Shinsetsumon," Ken explained. "He bears my crest."
"So the kindness monster," I said mulling it over in my mind. "Interesting…"
"Where did you find Garurumon and Birdramon?" Hikari asked.
"Is there anyone else here? Terriermon? Lopmon?" Willis asked hopeful.
"Miyako and Iori are in the cave," Yamato said.
"It's safer there, since they don't have a partner to help out," Ken said.
"You don't either," Hikari noted.
"But this is my monster," he said simply, as if it explained everything. And it did. Out of all of the creatures, the one that was constantly on my mind was the creature of knowledge. What did it look like? Did it depict the crest, or go against it? I wanted to know.
So I could relate to Ken.
"Koushiro," Sora shouted. "Tentomon is in the cave. Get him and help us!"
Tentomon?
I could have jumped for joy. I would have too, if I wasn't in the middle of a battle, and there weren't any witnesses.
Without waiting a second longer, I took off at a run, folding my laptop as I did so. The minute I got in the cave, I slipped it in its case as best I could without stopping. There was the warm glow of a fire near the back. It was almost comforting, and seemed to fit the moment perfectly.
"Tentomon!" I called, grinning like a fool.
"Koushiro?" came his ever familiar voice.
"We need your help, do you think you can handle it?" I said watching him come into view. He wasn't cute, but he was perfect nonetheless. His hard red shell and black markings reminded me of a ladybug. But there were also qualities of his person that made me think of electronics. My own personal robot digimon.
"Of course I can!" he answered excitedly.
I ran back out of the cave, this time with Tentomon flying close behind me.
"Ready?"
"Ready," he answered. "Tentomon digi-volve to…Kabuterimon!"
If I thought it was possible, I'd say my grin widened even further at the sight of him in his champion form.
"Yes!" came the collective shout of Sora, Yamato and Ken. Miyako and Iori shouted out enthusiastically as well from behind me, accompanied by the call of two other rookie digimon, Agumon and Gomamon.
"We can do this for sure now," Yamato said. "Three against one? No problem."
"Electro Shocker!"
"Howling Blaster!"
"Meteor Wing!"
The three attacks flew at the mushroom. He just narrowly escaped impact.
"Ah, so you have further recruits yet," he said, contemplating the current turn in our favour. "Perhaps you have won this round, but be warned, I will not be defeated upon our next meeting."
It was too simple. This couldn't be right.
"If you leave now," Ken called loudly. "We'll just have more firepower to defeat you with."
"We shall see," he said simply with a sly smirk before slinking off into the shadow of the trees.
"We can't let him get away!" Yamato cried.
"After him, Birdramon," Sora shouted.
"Wait!" I yelled before anything could be done. "We need to access our chances. He wasn't defeated. He just wants us to think he was. With the power of the crest of kindness, there is no telling what power he may possess. He's trying to lead us into a trap. And if we follow him, we won't have the advantage anymore."
"What do you mean?" Sora asked.
"We're too big," I said simply. "Kabuterimon and Birdramon won't be able to see him under the trees to attack him, and Garurumon is simply too large to access the agility he possesses out here, while in the small confines of the forest."
"But we can't do nothing," Hikari pointed out.
"We won't. We'll plan our own attack. We'll come up with a strategy for when he comes back," I said. "We won't give in to him."
"Was it just you three?" Sora asked, after a minute of silence.
"Yeah," Hikari said. "This is Willis by the way. The guy you guys didn't want to go and find."
"Nice to meet you," Yamato said sheepishly, while Sora just blushed, embarrassed at being ratted out.
"And there's no one else. Just you?" I forced myself to ask.
"We met up with Miyako and Ken in the woods," Sora said. "Iori came not long before you did. There's no one else."
"Damn," Willis muttered.
"So who's all missing?" Miyako asked from the entrance of the cave with Iori, Betamon, Agumon and Gommamon surrounding her.
"We should make a list," Iori said.
"Taichi," Yamato and Sora chorused.
"Michael," Betamon added.
"And Joe," Gomamon supplied.
"Terriermon and Lopmon," Willis said.
"Takeru and Daisuke," Hikari said softly.
"Mimi," I said.
"Not to mention the rest of the digimon," Iori said.
"I'm starting to think we are falling into the ploy of the enemy," I said with a sigh. "We're scattered all over the place."
We sat in silence after that and contemplated possible strategies. We needed to wrap our minds around this. Unfortunately, that meant everyone was depending on me to figure it out. We were at this for only a short time before we heard some twigs snapping loudly in the bushes. Our heads snapped to look at the intruder, and Yamato, Sora and I grabbed our digi-vices, holding them at the ready. The varied digimon jumped in front of us, ready to defend against the foe.
"Stop," I said. You couldn't mistake the girl walking out of the forest for an enemy. She had twigs sticking out of her hair, and her clothes were scuffed and blotted with mud. A small plant was walking along side her, dragging her long arms along the forest floor.
"Mimi!" It was a collective gasp. Everyone was shocked. She was in such an anti-Mimi state we didn't know how else to react.
"What happened?" Hikari asked hesitantly.
"Well," she said wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead with the back of a grubby hand. "It all started…"
Next time on Digimon Adventure 03: Mimi is ready to tell her tale. It's the first we'll have heard about Takeru too…find out what's so important next time!