Chapter 24: Choice
"That was…," Kari hurried to the only window in her brother's room, quickly scanning the darkness for what she feared was the aftermath of the earthquake like shaking of the ground, but she saw nothing and she let the air escape her in relieve even though she knew it meant nothing that there was nothing outside of only Tai's window.
"…explosions." Looking to the side, she saw Tommy standing beside her, still starring outside, but it wasn't him who had spoken; stepping away from the window she hurried past her brother who was stuck in bed, forbidden but not unable-
"Don't move," she said, bowing down to him till they were face to face, only a few inches separating them, and she nailed him with a pleading look. If it was about him, there was no joking. "You stay here. Let Koromon take care of you and we are going to deal with this."
Straightening up she moved for the door where the other three were still waiting for her. Almost outside she looked back once more, "don't move, alright? Promise?"
Her brother nodded, the bandages around his head stopping his hair from bobbing along as it usually did and she smiled, stratified when Koromon jumped up to him, hugging her brother in the face –probably cutting his air off- and squeaking excitedly, "leave it to me! Leave it to me!"
By the time the door automatically fell closed she was already walking down the corridor with the three other boys.
"Hey, do you have any idea if this is the right direction?"
"No, but the reception will know, probably."
"Probably", Takuya agreed, hands clasped behind his back and for all the world to see no apparent worry on his face; it was amazing and she spent a split of a second wondering how he did it before dismissing the thought in favor of spinning bad-to-worst case scenarios up in her head and what to do in said cases.
They were in a hospital; one of the worst places for Digimon to appear, never mind evolving or fighting, with all the electronic equipment for live support.
First off was then to change location.
Alas this hospital stood in the middle of a highly populated town with skyscrapers in each direction as far as the eye could see and with even more people.
Hopefully there was a park nearby.
If the number of enemies was one that could be moved.
And sadly she and her friends weren't at their best; WarGreymon was out and Davis had better not move either, which meant no Imperialdramon either. That only left Metalgarurumon of the mega-level.
But, she considered, depending on the enemy Metalgarurumon could be enough.
It really all depended on who the enemy was and how many; if the odds were as bad as they seemed to be lately, though, it would be catastrophic, so she preferred not to think too much about it as she hurried down the staircase. A tiny corner of her mind whispered there was still the chance that the explosions were just an accident, a malfunction of something or another, but Kari squashed the traitorous little voice mercilessly, because for the hospital and the people in it that could be even worse than a digital cause.
Hastening her steps, jumping a few stairs, she came to the conclusion that the situation needed to be handled delicately either way.
"Hey, Kari, what do you think we should do?"
She gave the small boy jumping stairs behind her a quizzical look over her shoulder.
"Nothing, of course."
Takuya snapped around to her so fast it had to hurt as he pushed a glass door open. "What? You can't be serious! No way!" He was staring at her with hard eyes, expression incredulous and exasperated. "Name me one good reason why we should."
Surprisingly Kari felt irritation flare. What was it with him, dragging out parts of her personality that she didn't know existed? "Just because." Because she honestly was not going to name the mountain of reasons, including, but not limited to, to the fact that she was supposed to protect them, official explanations due to the high possibility of this landing in the late night news, while they were racing through a hospital just because he was behaving like a child.
On contrary to what Takuya might believe, he did not know everything he needed to about this world.
"Stay inside! Help the staff!" She yelled at them over her when they reached the lobby and she headed outside, following directions given by a nurse.
She was glared at by their leader, giving her no response, and she stopped to wait and faked patience she did not have stubbornly till he turned away, heading back deeper into the hospital before she hurried out the front doors.
A lot of the others were already outside, gathered to the Eastside and to Kari's relieve a white blur was present as well, jumping into her arms at sight.
"It's the Mamemon Brothers, Kari," Gatomon was cut off by a deafening bang, the ground shook and he was hit with a wall of heated, hard and violent air, forcing her to take a step back to balance her weight and she quickly looked up, searching for the source as Gatomon jumped back down, growling.
The eastern half of the hospital's parking area was in chaos; there were multiple fresh truck sized craters in the asphalt, numerous cars were either turned over, sprawled across still even ground, damaged heavily in a way that suggested they had been used as something akin to trampolines or aflame, providing them ironically with light other than street lamps.
The destruction was absolutely senseless, random even; just for fun.
Swallowing she gathered her senses and joined her friends while Gatomon jumped back into the fray between the three ultimate digimon and the battle-able Rookies, apparently following a strategy already.
Tommy liked Kari.
She was kind, honest and caring.
She was a refreshing breath of normality to him, who was stranded in a semi foreign world and who had a situation he had stopped really caring about the first five minutes after he learned the fact, which, by all means, should be creepy beyond measure, because Tommy was not the kind of person to be accepting about a matter that concerned his live with his family.
Strangely enough, though, it didn't bother him that he wasn't troubled either.
The thought that he wasn't inevitably prompted the question of how much of him was still himself, but he didn't follow that train of thought, dismissing it easily for no reason other than it having no relevance to him, which again was something Tommy had still not been able to do.
He was who he was and whether his thoughts were only his own or not was irrelevant, because even if not there was nothing that could be done about it.
All that, however, changed nothing about the fact that he liked Kari.
He couldn't exactly put words to his reasons other than what he already did and perhaps it was strange to think he liked her as much as he did after only half a day of acquaintanceship, but still, he liked her.
And because he did he was a bit sad that they were going to make her angry and disappointed.
Because he, Takuya and Koichi were not, as Kari had told them, helping with the evacuation of the east wing.
Sure, they had tried, halfheartily asking if the nurses needed help, but the one they had asked was hurrying, almost running, past them and Takuya had only called an offer to help after her.
The woman hadn't responded, disappearing into a room and Takuya had promptly turned around and led them to a window at the end of a side corridor that was facing the situation outside on the parking area.
Looking on now it really sank in that this human world really was different from his own.
For one, though he had already heard that, Digimon were known to the world; publicly and clearly.
For another Digimon really did exist; not just physically but completely with all their abilities, quirks and potential violence.
It was a world sparkling with beauty, friendship, coexistence and happy lives. Potentially.
Looking on Tommy smiled for a completely different reason than what was happening before his eyes; explosions, anxiousness, chaos, fear, anger and not yet blood.
It could be a really nice world.
Not his, not theirs, but still….
And because he thought so he was going to make Kari angry anyway, even if he didn't want. Now and probably a lot in the future.
Because she was one who protected.
He wasn't, but they were, so he was going to do what he could.
Besides, they were Warriors.
"What do you think?"
A lot, Tommy thought.
A part of him was detached in disbelieve at the sight of news teams and cameras and TV cars that were arriving with neck breaking speed and were pushing dangerously close to the Chosen Children outside, who were apparently trying in vain to focus on the battle, while at the same time attempting to keep the foolish adults, tempting to get an interview, away from danger.
The major other part of him that was not close to being thunderstruck, watched the ongoing confrontation with a critical eye sharpened by experience he shouldn't have.
"Not bad," he said, observing how the battle was growing more and more organized; the outnumbering, but much weaker rookie digimon, were fighting with a strategic rhythm of attack and retreat to twist the situation in their favor.
Provoking the three Bean Brothers and making them follow when the rookies were pulling back; drawing them almost teasingly away from the hospital.
Piyomon spit fire; Gatomon used the created blind spot and landed an ineffective hit, then ran away in a shower of bombs that were held off by more fire form Piyomon or a Feather Boomerang from Hawkmon.
The cat slid under a car, a bomb landing on the metal roof and exploding, but Gatomon burst out of the resulting cloud on all fours unharmed, angering the Bean Brothers further and continuing their little game of cat-and-mouse.
"Not bad", Tommy repeated, satisfied.
"Quite good," Koichi agreed, eyes narrowing carefully as yet another wave vibrated through the ground before sighing deeply. "However there is a 'but'. Can you guess what it is?"
"The 'but' is a problem," Takuya added, sliding to the ground and leaning against the wall as if hiding from sight now that the danger was leaving, arms falling on his knees and burring his head in them.
Had Tommy not know Takuya the way he did, he would have interpreted the elder boy's position as admittance of defeat.
But because this was Takuya, who was Fire, it was impossible.
"I don't see a 'but'. They can't evolve near the hospital, so they are changing location really quickly despite being much weaker."
"Yes," Koichi agreed again, smiling gently, "the 'but' isn't really visible right now."
"Oh. What is it then?"
"They are too nice." Koichi said it with a soft voice, tainted by sadness that was so often a result of his kindness.
"Yeah." Takuya's voice was muffled by his arms, but Tommy still heard halfhearted irritation. "It is so bad, it makes me wonder if they have ever seen 'war'. The desperation, that goes along with it. Or loss for that matter."
Tommy frowned. "They have. They couldn't fight like this otherwise." Flawless teamwork, strategies that meant death at a bad mistake, using the surroundings to their full potential and, most importantly, trust.
"Yes, exactly. They have, must have, but they are still so soft, that it just makes me wonder." Takuya ran a hand through his hair, sighing exasperated. "That they can still be as kind as they are is… I don't even know it is admirable or naïve and stupid."
"Different worlds, different situations. Who knows what kind of trials they have fought, Takuya," Koichi reminded him, as always the voice of reason.
"I guess, but that kind of attitude won't survive in the trouble we have now. It is pretty much kill or be killed. I wonder if they got that."
Tommy shrugged almost indifferently. "Maybe, maybe not, but it won't really change us, right?"
"Of course not," came the blunt reply without missing a beat.
Nodding, Tommy let his eyes leave the outside for good, leaving the past be past in the same beat as easily as closing a book, and focusing on the future instead and making him almost giddy with anticipation. "I thought so. But, say, after we have saved our friends, what are we going to do? I mean we don't have anywhere to return to," he was speaking like he was talking about particularly nice weather and the only unease he felt about it had the size of a sand grain.
"This world is really nice. I'd like to protect it."
"Protect it?" Takuya glanced at him quizzically even as comprehension sunk in and Koichi looked solemn in a way that really made one understand why he was Darkness; face wiped of all expression and an air of seriousness surrounding him gave him a -for others surprising- aura of something.
Takuya burst out laughing. "Oh perfect," he wheezed in between, his voice rich with amused irony, "can you imagine their faces when we break it to them. 'Sorry, but we reversed our roles. From now on we protect you.'" He broke into laughter again and even Tommy snorted at the mental image despite knowing only two of his 'guards' yet.
"But before we can do any helping, protecting or saving we need to clear our own issues first, Takuya," Koichi reminded the hot head with a note of resignation.
Just like that Takuya's laughter evaporated in favour of mild annoyance and exasperation, prompting Tommy to ask. "Issues?"
Takuya grunted. "You got lucky. Koichi and I are thinking double. It makes for a massive headache along with some other things." He extended his hand in front of him, twirling it around a bit playfully before slowly covering it with a coat of candle-sized flames and starring at it in thought.
Tommy didn't even blink.
Through it all though, Tommy was not at all surprised to have Koichi and Takuya agree with him without a word to committing their intentions, lives and peace to save a world that they hardly knew.
After all, why shouldn't they? It wasn't like they had somewhere to return to, something better to do or some 'moral aversion' to fighting.
Too absorbed in their conversation they didn't notice the three Bean Brothers outside loose interest in their little game, turn around and charge with pinpoint accuracy at the wall and window the three of them were standing behind. Even though all of them were technically out of sight.
The explosion was not different than the hundreds of waves that had been shaking the ground in the last quarter of an hour, yet Matt felt it was a thousand times worse.
He watched the bomb bloom into flames and dust in slow motion, could see how cracks, climbing along the white wall, rose above the smoke screen covering a good portion of the hospital's east wall, and damaged the building five stories up.
There were screams all around, but he blocked them unconsciously out, focusing only on the damage, destruction, panic he, they, had failed to prevent, but he still heard, with unnatural sharpness even, across almost the entire parking area a high screech, akin to metal scratching across metal.
An other explosion followed, blowing away the cloud of dust and revealing a destroyed wall and a full blown fire leaking out of the building through the broken wall, flames licking along the edges.
Matt's insides froze at the sight, but he attempted to ignore his feelings of guilt, anger and shame as the flames parted in a gust of wind by moving shadows.
Three figures came to a stop in the air, floating at least thirty feet above the ground, gleaming in orange light of flames in the darkness, and Matt stopped running with a leadweight dropping in his stomach as he recognized the figures. A flash of DejaVu appeared sickening before his eyes.
"Takuya!"Kari screamed, terrified and fearfully, eyes wide beside him.
Their charge could show no sign of if he had noticed them, with a thick red fisted hand wrapped around his neck unmovable and pinning his head skyward despite his struggles and trashing against it. He was carried away higher and higher, away from the hospital and from them.
Piyomon, Patamon, Tentomon and Hawkmon held their distance, unable to do anything in fear of hurting Takuya.
Matt watched as Takuya gripped the iron arm strangling him and burst completely into flames in the blink of an eye, his entire body disappearing in the blinding inferno as the fire quickly grew, latching onto BigMamemon and seemingly swallowing it; without a doubt burning the Digimon alive as soon as its metal armor cracked.
Matt swallowed, half way stuck in between worrying about Takuya and, despite the situation, being appalled by the easy ruthlessness with which Takuya was killing.
And he noticed, with a corner of his mind, the blank faces and lack of reaction from BigMamemon's brothers .
But before he could think about what that could possibly mean there was a bright light, momentarily binding him and when Matt could see again the three bean Digimon had vanished without a trace. Taking Takuya with them.
Matt cursed and suddenly like a spell broken his tunneled vision disappeared.
"Spread out," he yelled over howling sirens and screams of panicked people streaming out of the building, "there is still a chance that the Mamemon Brothers are sill around! Look for them!" Matt didn't really think so, but he couldn't just put off the chance that the light had not been the very same that always appeared when someone got sucked into a PC. Dear God, did he hope it wasn't, but deep down he already knew the truth and it made him sick with worry, disappointment and anger at himself. The emotions clawed away at him, however Matt was good at controlling his them and if he didn't want them to they hardly showed on his face.
Right now he didn't want them, so he stuffed them down, reminding himself that he had to keep everyone organized and useful while Tai was stuck in bed. Matt cut his thoughts right there, not wanting to think about the fact that his best friend was inside the hospital that he had failed to protect and that was burning right now.
Where was the fire brigarde?
Chosen Child or not, against a burning building there was nothing they could do other than bombarding it with freezbombs of MetalGarurumon.
He watched his friends go, making sure they really did do as told, before spinning on his heels and running into the hospital himself, weaving through all the fleeing people with a persistent thought of where Takuya is Koichi is never far.
The lobby was overflowing, with both patients and visitors panicking, and Matt pressed himself to the wall to be able to head in the opposite direction than everyone else.
He left the entrance area by turning a sharp left into a wide, absolutely empty corridor with rooms on either side and all doors closed. Already evacuated, he figured.
His hand was caught by something furry. "Matt, what are you doing?" Gabumon looked up at him, not quite glaring, but definitely worried.
"There might be somebody left inside," he said, not having time to explain his reasoning and already moving again. "Do you smell someone?"
Gabumon shook his head. "But the fire is this way." They had reached a crossroad and Matt's partner pointed needlessly straight ahead."It's close."
The way ahead was again riddled with closed doors on either side, but this time there also was a side corridor near the end. Matt frowned, not moving; he could see the dancing glow of flames on the opposite wall, lighting up the corridor with living light, and smoke curling along the ceiling, stifling away the air, but something was wrong.
"It's too cold."
The air even held an almost refreshing cool tone to it, tickling along his skin and chilling along trails of cold sweat.
Still, after a short internal debate Matt decided to take a closer look anyway, because now that the fire was no longer a normal fire there was a chance it was even more dangerous. If it was, they had to know.
Quickly, but still very carefully and with a suspicious eye on his surroundings Matt moved closer.
His neck prickled, an unpleasant shudder ran down his spine and a bad sense of foreboding set his pulse rushing as he got closer to the corridor where he could already see shadows of flames dancing on the floor and wall, hear crackling of flames, stones bursting and crashing to the ground with smoke so thick it was filling the corridors and forcing Matt to crouch. Yet it didn't get any warmer, on the contrary, it got colder.
By now Matt was almost freezing and he was absurdly relieved his breath didn't fog, or at least that he was unable to see if it did.
It was bizarre, even by his standards.
"This is wrong, Matt," Gabumon whispered, speaking quietly for some reason, but there was a strain in his partner's voice that made Matt turn his focus completely.
There was something in it. Something that wasn't irritation at Matt's reckless behavior, that was neither anxiousness in face of danger, nor was it worry for his wellbeing.
It was...fear.
But Gabumon didn't fear. Not like this. He always worried instead or was angry.
Gabumon only feared when Matt or Tai or Agumon or TK or the others were in real danger and in hopelessness; then he feared not being able to protect as he was born and sworn to.
But he never feared like this.
So despite the situation he paused his advance and pushed the burning building to the back of his mind and asked what his partner meant.
Shuddering once as if from a cold breeze, which was impossible with his fur coat, he whispered in a low voice, "I don't really know. But it is in the air. Not a smell. Just a felling, but it almost feels like it is screaming at me. Something is really wrong here."
Matt suddenly had to suppress a shudder himself. "But we still need to find out what is going on with this fire."
Almost as if to emphasize his point a loud crack washed over all other noises and, swallowing hard, Matt threw first a cautious look at the ceiling then to the wall when his sight upwards was obscured by black smoke.
He released a nervous breath catching sight of dark rips on the wall signaling that the fire was at least normal enough to bring the building down on top of them.
Throwing caution in the wind Matt carelessly looked around the corner. What he saw strangled his breath out of him.
There was a boy kneeling on the floor on all fours and even with a wall of flames behind him, making his form flicker, Matt clearly saw his labored breathing; the child was fighting for air with each breath. But that wasn't even what caught his eye; no, what had Matt staring, gaping even was the sparkling, light reflecting wall covering the entire corridor; from the ground over the walls to the ceiling everything was layered with glass.
He blinked and this time his brain jumped to work again.
There was a child.
He had to get him out.
The smoke was so thickly clouding the air that Matt had to crawl forward, but when he did his head shut down again in shock at the icy contact beneath his fingers.
Ice.
Everything was covered in ice, not glass.
Just next to a blaze of fire.
"What the hell?"
This time his own voice had the desired effect and Matt remembered he had a kid to save and a building to escape.
He crawled over to the boy and slightly confused about what was wrong with him he opted to first carefully signal that the boy was no longer alone. A faint touch to the shoulder. Matt took it as a very bad sign when even through the shirt the boy was wearing and an inferno flaring not even ten feet away the child was by far the coldest thing around.
Glazed brown eyes blinked up at him from a sweat covered face smeared with dirt, while heaving for air like he suffocating.
Matt let his hand remain on the boy's shoulder and gave it a hopefully reassuring squeeze and plastered a smile on his face. Remain calm. Prevent panic. Gain trust.
"It is all right. Lets get out of here."
Sluggishly focus returned to the absent brown eyes. "Huh?"
"It's dangerous here. Don't you want to go see your parents?" Make them cooperate. "I'm sure they are waiting outside for you."
Incomprehension, then the boy blinked again. "I can't," he croaked out, voice rough and way too deep, "if I go, then the fire will spread. This is a hospital. And it'll be too hot too fast upstairs. Taichi promised to stay in bed. What if he still is there?"
The fact that this boy, who he had never seen before, apparently knew Tai and the little detail of the ice evaporating into steam with every word the boy spoke hardly registered in Matt's already overloaded mind, what he noticed instead was that the child didn't want to leave. "Tai's room is far away from here. He is save."
"Others."
"There is no one here anymore."
Something, hopefully only the ice, cracked again and again as the boy inclined his head to the side. "Koichi."
Matt followed with his eyes, almost afraid what he'd see, and indeed, Koichi was lying awkwardly on the floor, a trail of blood leaking out from under his hair and freezing on the icy ground. Matt's heart dropped, the cold traveling from his fingertips deeply into his guts with the horrifying realization that he had not seen Koichi; he would have left the teen behind.
Gabumon hurried over over to Koichi, checking him for wounds as well as he could before giving a nod to Matt and pulling the black haired teen over his shoulders, troubled by the difference in size, but managing non the less.
Another crack. Much louder this time than before and the boy's breathing got heavier still.
"Koichi is fine, too. We have him. Now we need to get out of here."
The boy shook his head. "You are still here. It's hot."
"Yes, it's hot, but it will only get hotter if we stay. So let's go."
Just as the boy, the one they had managed to rescue only a few days ago, opened his mouth to reply four things happened at once.
Following loud crashing the celling broke apart, collapsing entirely.
The boy's eyes rolled back into his head; he dropped unconscious.
All ice instantly hissed away and heat blasted over them like a storm.
Matt's Digivice turned a glowing blue.
I'm happy to present you the chapter for November; which means I still managed to keep my schedule despite being relatively busy with University. :) On that note I can also already tell you, that the next chapter will be uploaded on Christmas Eve.
I also realized with quite a shock that it has been over a year already since I started writing this; I can hardly believe it.
In this chapter I wrote 'New Tommy' for the first time and I hope his thoughts made you at least begin to understand what kind of influence the Beast Spirit has on a personality. It was fun and really easy to write.
Please leave a vote on my poll about Gatomon on my profile.
As always please review to let me know what you think and what I could do better and, also as always, thanks for last chapter's comments.