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The Wages of Fans is Fiction: Chapter 25

Tai Kamiya looked at the assembled Digi-destined, or rather the ones from the first two seasons. The others were currently filing through the portal, heading into the wild blue yonder to face… who knows what? The boy, Dean, said that they were fighting something called an author. It sounded vaguely familiar to him, and he knew that he should remember what that meant to him, but the full meaning of those strange memories, the ones that he knew deep within his heart were true, were just outside of his reach. Outside of all their reach. What he did remember though was enough for him to trust the boy in whatever he intended, and he intended to follow him into whatever hell he was headed if it meant not only finding the rest of himself, but also delivering a hefty dose of payback to go along with it. He wished that there were some other way, that he could find some other reason than revenge, but he just felt so violated. Earlier he had been forced to fight and nearly kill his best friend. There was no reason given, no questions asked, just a simple overriding of all conscious thought and he was turned into a tool, nothing more, nothing less.

Tai had an idea of what rape must be like.

Yeah, he wanted to go in there and get what he felt was justice to him, but he had to remind himself of the difference between justice and revenge. One wrong move could make him become worse than the enemy that they were fighting. One of the memories that he had gotten back involved a story about one of the other kids, the 'Tamer' with those yellow goggles on his head, about how he turned his best friend into a monster when he lost it in his need for revenge. It was eerily similar to when he had forced Agumon to digivolve and he wound up as Skullgreymon. If what that 'Takato' kid went through was even worse, he could only imagine what could happen if the same thing happened to Agumon. This was something that he wanted to drill into the others before they got under way. If they even did want to come at all that is.

Fixing them with a determined look he spoke, calmly and carefully.

"I know what you guys are going through," he told them. "You feel as though your lives were just torn from you, that everything that you've ever believed in was stolen from underneath your noses and held up for mockery." His eyes rested first on Kari, wondering what she must be going through; on Davis with a look on his face as though he had lost all sense of hope and direction; on Matt, who's face though looked calm held a deep seated anger that was buried just beneath the surface like a sleeping dragon. One by one he looked them over, gauging their reactions before finally halting on Sora, who looked almost like a mirror image of Matt. Tai felt a pain in his heart at what he had now lost. He remembered what that strange creature had said earlier, just before his fight with Matt.

"It's not about what he did to me, Tai, but what he did to you."

No, he thought. This isn't about what Matt did to me. Sora made her choice, as did me and Matt. We both swore that we'd never let anything come between us again, and I have every intention of keeping that promise no matter what! No demented super-powered being is going to make me break it just because he was unhappy with the way things turned out.

That's what friendship is all about.

"I'm telling you this, because those others are going out there to find whoever's responsible for what was done to us, and hopefully take him down. And I'm going with them." That did it. That got them all to sit up and take notice. "I don't know what I'm going to be getting into, but I want to face this, and I believe that we all should face this, together, just like in the old days. It may be hard for some of you though, and I'll understand if you don't want to come along…"

"I'm coming."

Tai looked at Sora. So did the others, their eyes wide in surprise at her outburst. Tai nodded, as though he had expected nothing less. In truth, he was a bit surprised. He had expected Matt or Davis to be clambering to jump onto the ship, but he didn't show any reaction to her unexpected desire to come along. If this got the ball rolling than nothing will.

Matt stood up as well, so did Ken and Yolie (though she was a little bit more hesitant). Cody did to with some measure of hesitation, alongside Joe. Kari looked over at Davis with sorrowful eyes before adding her support. The only ones who were left sitting down were Izzy, Mimi, and Davis. Tai looked at them with hopeful eyes, and after a minute Izzy stood with Mimi looking at him worriedly, though she soon joined him too. The only one left was Davis.

Davis felt so lost, and miserable. Everything… it was all a lie? How could it be? He remembered so many things, so many good things. Most of all, he remembered Kari. That was a lie too? Ever since he had met the Digi-destined of Light he had felt drawn to her, and after everything, after all this time believing that they were destined to be together it turns out that she was never truly his to begin with? That it was all just a dream? What am I going to do?

Kari looked at the goggle wearing boy with sorrowful eyes. She truly pitied Davis, and not just because of how he must be feeling, but also because of how she's feeling. She remembered all the times that they spent together, both lives, and in each one she had seen sides of him that she had never expected from the boy. In the other set of memories she had learned to love him and, truth be told, she still did. But it no longer felt the same. This was going to leave scars that they'd all remember for years to come.

Davis's silence was scaring her, and she wanted desperately to reach out and hold him, reassure him, but something held her back. Not that it mattered. With a sigh, Davis pulled himself to his feet, probably with that same stubbornness that made him go head to head with MaloMyotismon with no one to back him up. Basically, he was pulling himself up by his shoelaces, which was all the material that he ever really needed.

In a voice that shook a little bit with unsaid pain, but would still hold firm against all the onslaughts that the world could muster, Davis spoke. If it came from anyone else, it wouldn't have been the same. In his words, which were nothing special, nothing dramatic, he was summing up everything about how they all felt, and that was what got the wheel to turn.

That was why Tai had chosen him to bear his goggles in the first place.

"Let's do this," he said in a tone of a far off thunderstorm. "Let's go down there, and get some answers, and get our lives back."

There were a number of nods and affirmations at this, not least of all from Tai, but he still had to get his two cents in and hope that they could understand where he was coming from.

"Alright. We're all doing this, but you have to remember that this isn't going to be about revenge. If any of you are going in just for that than you should sit this one out. We don't need that kind of attitude clouding up the battlefield. That doesn't mean that you should hold back if we do have to fight. By all accounts, what we're heading into is going to be bad, and we have to be ready for it." He looked over at Cody, knowing how he felt about that sort of thing. Silently he wished that TK were here too. He wondered why he wasn't able to make it.

"If everyone's set, than get to it. Next stop, Armageddon."

"No refunds for tickets," joked Armadillomon under his breath, though it didn't sound as though he put much effort into it.

No one laughed.

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Dean watched as the characters marched through the portal, each of them going in teams according to their season. He was disturbed by the lack of TK's presence, but had believed Ryan when he told him that he couldn't find him. As he had said, not much gets past the dead.

Oh well, as soon as everyone made landfall he'd put together a scouting party and see what kind of opposition that they were up against, and then formulate a battle plan. Considering how things had gone so far, he had every reason to believe that the way would not be easy.

The Savers group made their way through first, than frontier followed by the Tamers. Most of the Digi-destined had already gone through, with the exception of Tai. He hung back for some reason. The OC's and the Avatar that had been at the center of this adventure approached the portal. Dean raised an eyebrow.

"You guys coming too?"

William, Chris, Caramon, Reno, Dagmon, John, Tapirmon, Richoemon, and Gaomon nodded. The look in their eyes told him that they intended to follow even if they had to walk all the way.

"We've come this far," said the blonde haired boy named Chris. "We're going the rest of the way."

"And you can't stop us," said John as he folded his arms across his chest.

Next to Dean, Tai nodded. "Well," he said. "The more, the merrier. I just hope you guys know what you're getting yourselves into."

He and Dean stepped aside and allowed the kids to go through. As the last of them entered the portal Dean looked at Tai.

"You ready?"

Before Tai could answer, a mist began to form in front of the portal. It rose up and collapsed into the shape of a person, and with an effort formed the ghostly body of a boy that they both recognized. Tai winced. The kid looked really out of it. He had heard about what had happened, and felt bad for him, but there was nothing that could be done. So far as he knew that is.

The boy's form almost seemed to lose cohesion for a second, as if he were having a hard time keeping it together, but finally it held firm.

"Told… ya… that… I'd be back," he rasped.

Jeez, he sounds like he's just come out of Hell, thought Tai.

And who knows? Maybe he had.

Dean raised an eyebrow again. "You sure that you want to come along, Ryan? You don't look to be in particularly good shape right now."

The ghost shrugged and smiled faintly. "I was there with the others when this whole thing started. I wanna see how it's going to end," he said. "Might be worth it. Maybe I can do something else to while I'm here. The world's full of surprises after all…"

Dean nodded. "Can't argue with that. Let's go."

As the three of them headed for the portal, Tai looked at the boy and grinned apologetically.

"By the way, how's your hand feel?"

"You know, I hardly feel it…"

(Start playing 'Here We Go…!')

Narrator: "What dangers wait for our heroes as they step into the abyss? Find out next time on the next Digimon: Digital Fiction (yeah, yeah. Corny name, I know)!"

A/N: I didn't have a whole lot to do today, so I was able to update pretty quickly, which makes me feel a little bit happy. It makes me believe that I might actually be able to finish this story (grins). We'll see what happens. Until next time then, read, review, peace!

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