29
Faith
Myotismon is now unleashing every last drop of his power, "This cannot be happening! I am the Ultimate Darkness! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Myotismon becomes engulfed by the strong light and disintegrates into nothingness.
No, I am not finished yet... the dark will begins to gather what darkness is still left in the digital world. This world, those digidestined. If I do not have the power to conquer, then I will destroy! NightmareMyotismon reforms himself, above the sky, above the clouds, above the planet, in space.
"I'll destroy this world, their world, all worlds!" Myotismon gathers his dark power in front of him, looking down at the planet he will be vaporizing. "Farewell once and for all, Digidestined!"
"The digital world!" Izzy starts, there's terror in his voice. "It's collapsing!"
"Collapsing?" Matt asks.
"I'm trying to find the reason for it but-" Izzy started. "There's no time! The whole Digital world is about to be wiped out in minutes!"
What's happening with their Digital World? Alice questions while still inside Tai.
"It's NightmareMyotismon," an old voice speaks to her. In the energy space inside Tai, a WarGreymon appears.
"WarGreymon! No, the Crest of Courage!"
"Even though you defeated NightmareMyotismon, he has been able to live on from his strong will and desire to destroy."
"NightmareMyotismon is going to destroy the Digital World?"
"And all other worlds if he succeeds."
"There has to be a way to stop him!"
"There is no way."
"What?"
"All the digimon have exhausted their energies, and the digidestined as well as the Tamers no longer have the power to fight. Tai himself was pushed far beyond his physical limits and can no longer battle. There is no stopping NightmareMyotismon now."
Tai! Tai! Can you get up!? TAI!
"It's no use, even if he could hear you he doesn't have the strength to fight anymore."
"This can't be happening... after finally saving his friends and battling NightmareMyotismon, too much has happened for it to end here."
"I'm sorry, there is nothing that can be done."
There has to be a way, we sacrificed so much to get this far. Tai...
"Tell me something, Crest of Courage." Alice puts on a determined look. She knows that what she's about to ask may be impossible.
"..."
"Is it possible to transfer Tai's powers to me?" Alice puts a hand on her chest.
"What can you do?"
"I'm going to stop NightmareMyotismon!"
"I have told you before that this power is too much for one person to handle, living or dead. You won't last long. Can you really defeat NightmareMyotismon in time?"
"I have faith!"
"You cannot win with Tai's powers, however, I shall lend it to you so that you may find your own."
Kari, TK and Sora notice Tai's crest glowing amongst the chaos of the world. The Crest of Courage lifts up slowly from his chest and floats in front of Sora. As if drawn in by it, Sora reaches for the Crest.
A bright flash blinds her, and she finds herself in a great white nowhere. She stands up and looks around. She sees a blond girl, dressed in black, and hovering in front of that girl is the Crest of Courage, glowing with a strange sky blue light.
The girl suddenly turns her head and sees Sora, "How did you get here?"
"I don't know," Sora replied instinctively, and decided to walk closer to her. "What are you doing with the Crest of Courage?"
The girl turns her head back to the Crest, "I'm going to borrow its power, no 'his' power. But..." The girl raises a hand to it and grabs it. "It said that I can't save the world with Tai's power, I have to find my own."
"Your own power?"
"Yes, but there's no time for it. I will have to take what I can and save this world of yours. A world that he loves."
"You... have feelings for Tai, don't you?" Sora asked softly.
The girl turns away, embarrassed.
"Don't worry about it, it's a girl thing."
"Is it really okay?"
"It's okay, you're doing this for his sake right? I would probably do the same if I could."
"Your feelings for him are stronger."
"No, he only accepted them. I was truly happy when he did. Your feelings for him are just as strong as mine, perhaps even stronger because of what you're about to do."
"What I'm about to do, is only what he would've done instead if he could."
"That's true," Sora giggles. "Please, take this too." Sora concentrates and places her hand on her chest. It glows slightly and Sora seemed to have taken something out. She shows it to the girl, the Crest of Love.
"Your Crest?"
"The Crest of Courage won't be enough right? So take my power too. With your own love for Tai, combined with your own courage, I have faith that you will have enough power to save this world."
"Thank you." The girl uses her free hand to take the Crest of Love that Sora was handing out. She holds it out in front of her alongside the Crest of Courage.
Sora smiles at the sight, "It's Love that breeds Courage, and it takes Courage to confess your Love. But as long as you have faith, nothing can stop you."
"Faith." The two Crests begin to glow brightly as the girls watch. The Crests fly above their heads, spinning around each other in a sky blue aura. Love and Courage vanish into the sky blue dust as it surrounds the girl. A bright flash engulfs her.
When Sora is able to see again, the girl's dress is now white and she has white feathered wings. On one wing bears the Crest of Courage. On the other wing was the Crest of Love. On the girl's chest was a sky blue light, like a Crest, in the shape of angel wings.
"This is..." the girl looks at herself, and her new wings.
"Your power," Sora finished for her. "Faith, the strongest belief." Sora takes the girl's hands and puts them together. "Now go, save this world, for our sake. For his sake. Remember, you have your own power now, along with his and mine. We are fighting with you."
The girl's eyes begins to tear up, "Thank you, Sora." She starts to flap her wings and floats up, taking one last look at Sora, she turns around and flies into the white nothingness.
Sora snapped out of it and found herself looking at a new Crest above Tai's body.
"What is that?" Kari asks.
"It looks like-whooa!" TK was startled by a sudden movement by the crest as it dances around them before heading into the sky.
I will, save this world! This world that Tai loves! Alice flies herself up through the clouds.
"This is it!" Myotismon cackles as he has gathered enough energy. "Now, BEGONE!"
Myotismon lets out a powerful wave of dark energy at the planet below him. It's stopped by a small light and prevented from reaching the world.
"What?"
The light flashes, and the great dark energy is scattered through the atmosphere.
Matt looks at the sky as waves of dark energy rain down. None of them land near the group but the big ones are still able to create strong enough shockwaves that they can feel.
"What is going on?" Matt turns to Izzy?
"I have no idea-ah!" Izzy's laptop short circuits.
Everyone just looks at the sky above them, hoping for the best.
Sora prays for that girl to be alright, and for her victory and safe return. She senses something and turns back to Tai. He had raised his hand as high as he could, yet looking at his face, the boy was still unconscious.
"Oh, Tai..." Sora takes Tai's hand and wishes that she and him can help that girl.
Alice stops as soon as she reaches the vampire's altitude and stares at him coldly.
"Whoever you may be," Myotismon started. "Know that you are nothing in comparison to my power!"
"You may be right," Alice starts. "But I'm not using just my own power. I have the powers of Courage and Love."
"Hmph," Myotismon taunted. "Courage and Love. Foolish! Darkness shall destroy everything!" The vampire begins to gather whatever remaining powers he has left.
Alice closes her eyes for a moment, thinking back to all the adventures that she had with him, his passion, his bravery, his heart. She opens her eyes and tells NightmareMyotismon in a low, confident, almost prophetic voice, "No matter how dark the night is, the sun will always rise and bring light into the world. It is, the Destiny of the Dawn." It almost sounded like Tai had said those lines in sync with her.
Alice spreads her wings and a sky blue light glows from her. With both her arms, she creates a Crest of Courage before her and gathers her powers into it. Courage, Love and Faith. Alice can almost feel the spirits of Tai and Sora placing their hands around hers. Our powers are strong, our bonds are even stronger. Together, we cannot let him win.
"Never Ending Nightmare!"
"Destiny of the Dawn!"
From the Crest of Courage in front of Alice came a strong energy beam that rival's Myotismon's own attack. However, her wings glow even brighter and many beams of light shoot out from them. The small beams fly and surround Myotismon as he struggles with his attack.
"What is this?"
"This is our light," Alice begins. "The light of Faith. Your darkness can never defeat this brilliance."
"No, NOOOOO!"
The lights close in on the vampire, forming a white sphere. The Crests of Courage, Love and Faith fly from Alice and surround the orb, unleashing their energies at it.
"Celestial...!" Alice spreads her wings out wide as several small beams of light fly out of her in all directions. There was enough to brighten the darkness of space, and they can be seen by the Digidestined and Tamers below. "JUDGEMENT!"
The seemingly unlimited lights fly into the white orb all at once, making a giant cross of white energy.
NightmareMyotismon is trapped in the center of the cross, he gags as he cannot even speak against this tremendous force.
"This light," Alice starts. "Will not only destroy you. But it will also purify the data that you have infected. The darkness in this world will be no more." Alice turns around and fluffs her wings. The cross explodes, blowing her feathers and her hair, leaving nothing of NightmareMyotismon behind.
Alice smiles as she stares down, the world was safe, yet her vision begins to vanish.
"Aaaaaahhhhh..." Alice feels faint, her chest is burning up. "This... this is what he meant, the Crest of Courage." Alice is able to regain herself and look down on the beautiful planet, her vision blurs even more. "The power of one Crest is too much for any single person to handle, I used the power of 3 Crests. Aaaaahhh..." Alice is beginning to weaken even more. "I'm so sorry Tai, I can't come back to you anymore. I'll be gone, forever." With the last of her sight, she looks down on the digital world that she saved, that they saved. "There is still, something I can do. The only way I can help from here on out." Alice forces herself to straighten up. She clasps her hands together and begins to pray as her legs starts to disintegrate into white dust.
"A... lice..." the unconscious Tai muttered. Water was forming on his closed eyes.
"Did Tai just say something?" TK asks.
"No," Sora answered. "I'm sure we were just hearing things."
"It's amazing," Izzy looks around. "I think the digital world is somehow restoring itself."
"There's only one way to find out," Matt takes out his digivice. "Yamaki, this is Matt, can you hear me?"
"Barely," Yamaki's voice was heard through a lot of static. "We're just getting the communications going and now we're fixing the bugs. All of the Myotismon here seemed to have vanished. There were no casualties but there was a lot of damage. Considering the alternative, we did good."
"That's a relief," Matt replies. "Are you able to monitor our world's status?"
"We just did," Yamaki answers. "Your digital world is stabilizing dramatically, it looks like it's even upgrading itself. It'll be back to Izzy's specs before NightmareMyotismon appeared in hours, much better than ever I might add."
"Wow, that's great." Matt tells him. "Listen, are there any good flyers that still have some energy left? All our digimon are exhausted and we can't get back like this."
"I'm on it."
"One more thing, get some medics ready."
"Sure."
Matt puts down his digivice and looks at the world. A shining bright light fills the area around them as the younger ones celebrate, truly celebrate, their victory.
Strangely, it starts to rain feathers around them. They fall from the sky like snow and dissolve into the ground.
"Feathers?" Matt is able to catch one and look at it closely before it dissolves into the air. "Where did these come from?"
"I don't know," Mimi daces up to him. "But it's really beautiful, don't you think?"
Matt smiles, "Yeah, it is."
Sora looks at the sight of the falling feathers, she knows it could only mean one thing. She holds back her tears as she looks on. Glancing down at Tai, she sees one lone feather on his chest. This one didn't dissolve like all the rest, it stayed there, like it wanted to be there...
Over a week as passed since the final battle, everyone is celebrating in the Digidestined's Digital World, including some digimon from the Tamer's Digital World. It's an open field party and everyone is having a blast. However, one lone boy finds an isolated field, away from everyone else and stares up into the starry night sky.
"I thought I'd find you here Tai," came a familiar voice, it was Sora. "You're thinking about her again, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Tai looks depressed. "I'm sorry I haven't been able to-" Sora puts a finger on his lips.
"Shh..." Sora looks at him gently and pulls her hand back. "I can understand what you're going through. We've been together for a long time, haven't we? I know you just as much as you know me."
"She was..." Tai takes out a feather from his pocket. "A close friend."
"Even if it were someone else, you would still be sulking like this."
"I didn't want to lose anyone at all."
"If you were able to," Sora started, sounding worried. "Would you have done what she did?"
"Of course!" Tai startled her with his quick response.
"Even if it means that I'd lose you again?" Sora reacted far too quickly for Tai to continue. Sora wrapped herself around Tai, tears flowing down. "I don't ever want to lose you again. That girl, she knew. She knew what was going to happen, but she went anyway, for your sake."
"Sora..." Tai pulls her away slightly and raises her chin. He looks straight into her eyes as her lips open gently.
"Well it's about time," Matt watches from behind a tree at the romantic scene.
"Tell me about it," Mimi surprises him.
"When did you get here?"
"I was here before you," she pointed out. "You just didn't see me."
Matt smiles as he hears a change in music, "Oh, it looks like they're starting the slow dances." He stretches out his hand. "Shall we go, milady?"
Mimi chuckles, "Of course, my knight." Mimi takes Matt's hand and they both walk to the party.
"Go TK," Matt spoke under his breath as he sees his younger sibling dance with Tai's. Quite skilfully too.
"He's not the only one," Mimi takes a good look around. "Look at all the couples, Ken and Yolei, Takato and Jeri, Rika and Ryo, even Yamaki and Riley!"
Tai and Sora separate their faces, their lips moist and throbbing. They let go of each other and blush uncontrollably. A soft wind blows, as if to tease them.
"We probably should get back," Tai suggested.
"Y-yeah," Sora agrees.
They hold hands and make their way back to the celebration. Tai puts the feather back into his pocket.
Thank you, Alice. I won't forget you.
Author: Haha! With this, it all ends. the darkness is gone forever and Tai and Sora have resolved their internal strife. The worlds are safe once again.
Well, it's been some ride to get here but it's finally done, finished. Please, review so that I may know your thoughts, whether they are praise or criticism, I'll take them all.
Now then, random notes.
Remember the mention of a 10th Crest way back in the filler? Obviously I had planned for Alice to get it right from the get go. Though how she got it differs from the original plan. It was originally all of the other Crests (in the form of their respective Megas) that 'accepted' her to hold the power of Faith, while chanting the 'Legend of the Crests' from a few chapters back. Since this was the best chance for a Sora and Alice interaction, I took it instead. This final version has Sora saying the missing line in the 'Legend'.
I originally wanted the fight to end with Tai's Destiny of the Dawn attack, being used by Alice. But then I realized that it'll just be another beam struggle like what Tai had in the previous chapter. So I gave Alice her own attack (believe me, it wasn't easy thinking of a cool light/holy based attack. Hell the name couldn't be anymore cliche) to finish the fight once and for all.
The party was supposed to be longer with everyone having a line, but that proved too difficult so I just focused on Tai and Sora, Matt and Mimi.
And yeah, they kissed.
