Chapter Thirty Five: Welcome to Wonderland
File Island, Five Months ago
"Keramon, this way!" Gabumon broke off of the main path and dove into the thick jungle, dragging his lanky friend with him. The humanoid dog, an oval yellow creature with an alternating light blue/dark blue coat and a sharp yellow horn on his head, fought viciously through the jungle until he could no longer hear the sounds of someone chasing him.
"They're gone." Keramon reassured the rookie as both of them breathed heavily from running through the jungle at breakneck speeds.
"But we lost Matt and Koichi, and Yolei and Mushroomon!" Gabumon objected to his friend's relief.
"If Matt and Koichi were captured, we would know about it. And don't worry, they won't let anything happen to Yolei and Mushroomon. They're all going to be okay, let's just get to that cave that Leopardmon told us about." The virus began to walk forward. "I think it was this way." Keramon began to push his way through the dense brush, and Gabumon reluctantly followed. They kept walking for a few minutes, only stopping when they heard a twig snap a few feet away.
'Did you here that?" Gabumon whispered, his body tensing into a statue pose.
"Yeah, be quiet." Keramon pulled his fist behind his head, then slowly reached for a bush branch near the sound. He wrapped his palm carefully around the thorny appendage, and was startled when a small, pinkish ball rolled out into the miniature clearing they were standing in. Both digimon jumped back in shock, but quickly calmed down when they realized who was lying before them.
"Tokomon?" Gabumon was taken aback by the presence of the in-training, who was supposed to be with Koromon and the others under the care of Elecmon. "What are you doing here?"
"Gabumon!" The young monster leaped into the older creature's arms, who held him close to his chest. "I'm so glad you found me."
"Tokomon why aren't you with Elecmon?" Keramon asked the tiny digimon held by Gabumon.
"He was taking us all to a cave and I got separated." Tokomon had to struggle not to cry.
"I think we're heading there right now, we'll get you there safely." Keramon reassured his small friend.
"Thanks... Where are Matt and Koichi? And Yolei?"
"We got separated, but it doesn't matter. They're safe and they are going to meet us at the cave." Said Gabumon to his passenger.
"Okay. Thanks for helping me Gabumon. You guys are really good friends, you know that?"
"That's a very nice thing to say Tokomon." He then turned his head to his insect ally. "We need to get going."
"Right." Keramon began to crawl into the forest, and Gabumon quietly ran after him.
The Data Stream, Now
"tai... tai..." Taichi Kamiya struggled to open his eyes, the massive headache he had endured during his passage through the gateway keeping him from doing anything strenuous. A high but distance voice fought to wake up the boy, and as Tai regained consciousness, the voice became louder. "tai... Tai... Tai!"
"What!?" Tai sprang his upper body off of what he thought was the ground and rotated his head side to side to observe his surroundings. The headache still dominating his mind, the boy's eyes were still a blur, and could barely make out Agumon's squat, yellow shape before him. "Agumon?"
"Hey Tai."
"What's going on?"
"You have a really bad headache, just like the others."
"Others?" Agumon pointed his index claw to Tai's left. The pre-teen (who's eyesight was beginning to refocus), looked in the direction Agumon was pointing in and trained his eyes on nine blurry images behind him. "Who are..."
"Tai!" A familiar voice called to the boy, who was a few yards away from the rest of the blurry group.
"Izzy?" Tai's eyes began to regain their focus, and he could now see the details of the four boys and six digimon behind him. "Eric, T.K., Matt, Hakase, you all came." Tai then realized that he had know idea where he was. He looked around, examining odd tunnel he was in. He realized that the blurriness was not completely from his own vision problems, as the tube he was in was just a fogged white crystal. He could faintly detect that he seemed to be pulling forward, although only slightly. "Although that begs the question, came where?"
"We're in the data stream." Izzy explained, stumbling over towards the boy due to his own headache.
"What's the data stream?" Tai groaned.
"It's where all data goes when a digimon is destroyed. Their data flows back into the system, i.e. here." Izzy waved his arm across the tube.
"So, where we destroyed?" Tai became concerned.
"No, we jumped in here through a portal. We aren't dead, we're just guests."
"Aeneas on the river Styx." Eric rubbed his temple, trying to counteract his headache by opposing the outward force of the blood in his head.
"Not now dude." Izzy said to the boy, who was sitting on the curve of the data tube.
"So why would Koichi come- Kari!" Tai's headache had at first distracted him from his task, but now remembered why he had jumped into the portal. "He took Kari!" Tai jumped up too fast, and stumbled back onto his knees.
"Tai, be careful, you're headache is too dominating right now. You need to recover."
"My sister..." Tai groaned.
"Don't worry Tai, he can't get too far ahead of us. He's flowing through the stream at the same rate we are, and it's not very easy to walk in this place." Eric tried to reassure the boy. Izzy demonstrated Eric's words by lifting his foot off of the almost ground. His foot pulled slowly out of the mist, even though it seemed as if he was trying to move quickly.
"What do you mean flowing?" Matt asked as he struggled to keep himself steady.
"The data stream is flowing up into the air towards some sort of central hub that connects all of the data streams of the digital world."
"How do you know this?" T.K. asked, sitting down due to the difficulty of balancing himself.
"Check out the window." Eric nodded at the wall behind his cross legged position. T.K. and Matt then turned around and struggled to walk over to the side of the data stream. They looked past the fog and were shocked enough to stumble back, albeit slowly.
"How did we-?" Matt seemed stunned.
"What's going on?" Tai was trying to contain his anxiety towards his kidnapped sister.
"If you look out the bottom of the tube, you can see from there too." Izzy said to the leader. Tai then bent down and pressed his head into the fog. What he saw surprised him. Izzy and Eric were right; they were in a stream of some sort, but it was flowing a few thousand feet above the ground.
"You can see some kind of merging point from over here." Eric pointed to the wall behind him.
"So what does this mean? Why would Koichi run away to here and take Kari with him?" Asked Matt. Tai tensed at these words but restrained himself.
"Don't worry Tai, we'll find her." Agumon reassured his partner.
"He could be trying to return to the human world." Izzy speculated.
"How would he do that?" T.K. was taken aback by Izzy's apathetic explanation.
"Why would Koichi take my sister and try to run back home?" Tai growled. "And how could he even do that in the first place?"
"The data stream is how we got here Tai." Eric spoke. "Remember what Babamon said?"
"About what?"
"About how the data stream is the portal between the human world and the digital world"
"I don't remember." Tai replied in an irritated voice.
"You were right there with us when she said it. You, me, Kari, and T.K."
"I don't remember her saying anything like that." T.K. objected.
"What!? Were me and Kari the only ones who payed any attention to what Babamon was saying?"
"Apparently." Matt muttered under his breath.
"Should it matter? You guys aren't going back anyway right?" Terriermon asked from his partner's shoulder. "At least, not until you free the other tamers of their dark needles."
"We're not going anywhere until your world is safe Terriermon, I promise. But the bigger question is why did Koichi attack VenomMyotismon, and then kidnap Kari and escape into the data stream?" Said Izzy.
"Yeah, if he knew about it already, why wouldn't he just try to leave instead of pissing off VenomMyotismon first? There was always a risk that we would lose." Eric speculated.
"We never knew." Said Matt.
"Huh?"
"Devimon (and Myotismon) never told us about the data stream. I just learned about it from you guys." He replied.
"Then how would Koichi know about it? And why would he take Kari here?" Tentomon asked as he hovered above the difficult-to-navigate floor.
"Val must have told my friends after you guys captured me. He must have told them just in case something happened while he was in outrage mode." Matt pondered.
"That still doesn't explain what the hell he's doing, and why he took my sister." Tai sighed with worry. "And why do you digimon have all this energy?" His question addressed the fact that the six digimon who had just endured a massive battle with Val were all refreshed and recharged, and the fact that Agumon was now at rookie again.
"The data stream gives energy to digital entities who use data as their main source of power. Us digimon, who have lived this way all of our lives, were boosted by diving into a stream of pure energy." Hakase explained. "But you humans, who had to adjust to this type of power in the first place, only got a bad headache."
"You should have seen what this place did to Izzy's computer." Patamon laughed. "Only Agumon and Hakase can touch it now." He nodded his head to the floor next to Matt and T.K., where a laptop in a leather sack sat within the mist. It's most notable aspect was that it was almost completely red, and seemed to release a light steam. "And it's not even on."
"That sucks Izzy. Does it still work?" Tai inquired.
"I'm too afraid to check. I don't want to do anything that will risk frying my hard drive." He said depressingly.
"Same thing almost happened to my phone, but I was able to take the battery out before it burned a hole in my pants." Eric retorted.
"So what do we do now? Just wait to catch up to Koichi in that hub ahead of us?" Salamon, who was standing a few feet ahead of everybody, asked.
"That's all we can do. Trying to catch up to him on foot would just waste too much of our energy." Eric replied.
"If the data stream replenishes the digimon's power, then why can't we waste the energy anyway. Won't it not matter?" Asked Matt.
"It wouldn't replenish you human's energy," Said Hakase, "And you wouldn't be able to help your partners evolve."
"We'd be helpless against Koichi and Keramon, and we'd never get Kari back." Eric stated solemnly.
"Wait." Tai, who was sitting on the ground now with his head between his hands, lifted his cranium and spoke. "If the data stream leads to the human world, then once Koichi gets to that central hub, then won't he be able to escape?"
"No, not until the hub overflows." Izzy stated as if he assumed Tai knew what he was talking about.
"What?"
"The hub is just a gathering place for energy until enough data gathers into it, and then it ruptures to let out the data back into the digital world. During this time a portal opens up between the digital world, the data stream, and the human world."
"According to who?" Tai was confused by Izzy's extensive knowledge of the complicated digital plane.
"Me." Hakase raised his claws. "I've studied this world extensively, I know almost all of it's unique mechanics."
"So once the gathering point absorbs too much energy, the data will break a hole in the digital world to pour the energy back, and going into the portal through the opposite way will lead us back home." Eric explained.
"If we go to the human world, then how will we get back?" T.K. questioned, concerned. "We only came to the digital world by accident anyway."
"That's why we have to stop Koichi before the hub overflows with energy, or at least get Kari back from him before said event happens." Izzy stated.
"Are you sure we can make it in time?" Asked Agumon.
"Don't worry. From what Hakase's explained to me the hub has to be a lot bigger than it is before the portal will rupture."
"And you're sure about this?" Tai asked.
"Yes. Don't worry Tai, we're going to get her back."
"We're a lot less helpless than when we used to get kidnapped back on File Island." Eric tried to lighten the mood.
"And we have Matt with us this time!" T.K. cheered, much to his older brother's embarrassment.
"But Rika isn't here." Tai sighed. "Why did she stay behind?"
"Someone had to watch the evil digidestined and make sure they didn't try anything while we are gone." Said Izzy.
"Izzy, why would the data stream open up a portal to the digital world if it's right below us? Wouldn't it be better to just open up and let the data spill out?" Matt looked confused.
"Technically, we're not in the digital world anymore." The genius explained. "We're in some sort of intermediate between the digital world and the next plane."
"Plane?" Tai, Matt, T.K., and Eric were all confused at Izzy's response.
"Hakase explained it to me, it's very complicated." Izzy directed the attention to the reptilian scientist, who looked nervous under all the attention. Thankfully, Salamon now had something to say.
"We're getting close." The digimon said with hope as she sniffed the air in front of her.
"How do you know?" Tai sparked cheerfully.
"I can smell Kari. We're getting really close to her as we speak."
"You sure?" Matt inquired the cat-dog.
"She's right." Gabumon answered his partner. "I can smell Keramon ahead of us. I'd recognize his scent anywhere."
"Then let's get ready, because Koichi probably won't be too happy to see us once we get there." Tai stood up with a determined look on his face. His partner then stood up next to him with an equally purposeful look.
"Hey Tai." Matt called to the leader, ending the dramatic moment and causing a partial comical one as he waded his way over to the goggle head.
"What is it Matt?"
"Listen, I know Koichi and Keramon a lot better than you guys. I know how they think and how they fight."
"What's your point?"
"I think you should let me and Gabumon distract Keramon and Koichi while you guys save Kari."
"That's noble of you Matt."
"But it wouldn't be very wise for only one digimon to fight him while there are five able bodied monsters here." Izzy examined Matt's plan. "We should split into two groups to try and save Kari."
"What do you mean 'try'?"
"He's right." Eric put out the angry spark before it could catch ablaze. "Izzy, T.K., Patamon, and Terriermon can help Matt distract Koichi while Tai, Salamon, Hakase, Agumon, Tentomon, and myself get Kari away from him."
"Okay, but we all need to be really careful." Said Matt. "In terms of physical strength Koichi and Keramon were the strongest team we had."
"We're here!" Salamon announced, looking ahead in the tunnel. The other bodies in the tunnel then looked down the crystal white path, where their eyes met an equally bright opening where the group of 12 was about to be spilled into the large data stream hub. A trio of dark silhouettes in the distance indicated that Koichi, Keramon, and Kari were still within the hub. The digidestined were soon poured into the hub where they were swept off to the side of the cylindrical merging point. All of them then quickly scrambled to their feet so they could confront the evil tamer.
"Tai!" Kari cheered to her brother before Keramon noticed the tamers and wrapped his tentacles around the girl's mouth and appendages.
"Kari!" Tai leaped forward in a threatening pose, but Matt and Eric held him back.
"We're going to get her back Tai, just calm down and remember the plan." Eric calmed the leader down.
"Hello there Tai." Koichi flashed a demonic smile at the goggle headed boy.
"Give us back his sister Koichi!" Matt ordered his former friend, leaping in front of Tai to take the evil tamer's attention away from his current foe.
"Now why would I follow the advice of a traitor?"
"I'm not a traitor, I'm just not being controlled anymore."
"Are you sure about that? Because it seems like you're just doing whatever these guys ask you to do."
"I'm atoning for what I did." While Matt and Koichi exchanged angry remarks at each other, Tai, Eric, their partners, and Salamon had broken away from the rest of the group and were slowly circling Koichi and Keramon, who failed to spot the five slow moving figures.
"How is this going to work?" Agumon whispered. "Keramon has Kari, so we can't just attack him."
"We're going to have to get Koichi's digivice." Eric responded in the same quiet tone. "That way Keramon will be helpless to defend himself against all of you. It shouldn't be too hard to sneak up on him and attack from behind so he releases Kari."
"I'm not putting my sister in any more danger than she's already in Eric." Tai hissed.
"We won't. If Tentomon and Agumon distract Keramon then once we've taken Koichi's digivice, Gabumon or Patamon could attack from behind. It wouldn't harm Kari and there wouldn't be any room for things to go south. He* can't digivolve if we take Koichi's digivice and he can't defend himself if he is hit by a sneak attack."
"It still sounds really risky." Tentomon said concerned.
"But if there aren't that many options, then I guess we don't have a choice." Tai expressed. "Just be really careful nothing happens to her." He said to the American.
"Don't worry. Now we need someone to go and grab his digivice."
"I can do it." Salamon whispered.
"Can you do it without him knowing until the last second?"
"I can do it better than anyone else could, and that's all that should matter."
"Okay then, get to it." With that, Salamon then sunk to the ground and began to prowl over to Koichi, making sure that most of her white-tan body was covered by the mist from the floor of the data stream hub.
"Do you really think you're on the right side?" Matt yelled to his former comrade a dozen feet away. "You just kidnapped a little girl!"
"Believe me Matt, this place is a lot safer for her than the digital world." Koichi scoffed.
"So what, you're going to return her home?" Matt was confused about what Koichi was saying.
"No. I don't really care about her well being, I was just stating a fact. But she's already served my purpose, I don't really need her anymore." Koichi then snapped his fingers, and Keramon rose into the air and threw the eight year old through the air towards Matt, Izzy, and T.K.
"Kari!" Both Tai and Salamon blew their covers and started leaping through the difficult-to-walk-on floor towards Kari. They both leaped into the air towards Kari once they had reached where she was going to land and almost crashed into each other to catch the girl. Salamon knocked her into Tai's arms, who then landed on the ground with a thud.
"Tai!" Kari wrapped her arms around her brother in a tight hug. She pulled Salamon into the hug as well once the cat-dog arrived.
"Why would you..." Matt was stunned at Koichi's merciful action.
"Why would I what? Let her go? Because I didn't need her anymore. She served the purpose of bringing you all here." Koichi smiled triumphantly.
"You led us here on purpose?"
"That's right..." Koichi let out a small laugh.
"Why would you lead us here?" Eric asked from behind the evil digidestined. "There's no benefit for you."
"Yeah, all that will happen is we'll return to the digital world." Tentomon agreed.
"You're forgetting something." Koichi chuckled.
"What? The human world? Why would you take us there?" Izzy growled.
"Not the human world..." Koichi mumbled.
"If he takes us out of the digital world, then there won't be anyone to help Rika and Renamon stop the evil tamers if they were to escape." Tentomon came to a realization.
"Huh! Very good." Koichi patronized.
"It wouldn't matter anyway!" Said Izzy. "We made a promise to help the digital world, and to free you and the rest of the evil tamers. I'm sure Leopardmon would find a way to bring us back!"
"You really don't know how the digital world works, do you?" Koichi smiled.
"What do you mean?" Tai, now involved in the conversation after helping his sister safely behind the rest of the digidestined, growled. Koichi then preceded to mock one of the tamers.
"Oh, what am I going to do? My brother was only gone for ten minutes and now he's evil." He mocked in a high pitched voice. Everyone but Matt looked to T.K., who had said these words in a less pathetic way back on File Island. "Didn't you ever wonder why you've been here for a year Matt, and yet your brother hadn't aged a day when you first saw him?"
"I didn't..." Matt's thoughts began to race as a look of sheer pleasure came across Koichi's face.
"Time moves a lot faster in the digital world you idiots. Ten minutes on Earth is an entire year in the digital world," He then looked to his watch, "And in about ten seconds my friends are going to have all the time they need to find the power to dominate the digital world."
"How would you know?" Eric asked/growled in an insulted voice.
"What are you talking about?" Izzy yelled, but was soon answered, when the data bubble began to rumble.
"The hub is about to rupture!" Hakase cried.
"It doesn't matter! We'll get back to the digital world regardless of what Koichi says!" Eric yelled back as he and Tentomon struggled to rejoin the rest of the digidestined.
"No you won't." Koichi commented in a soft voice. A second later large lightning bolts began to crash into the edges of the hub from the center, where a small portal similar to the one that formed near the evil tamer's base had opened. Then the portal suddenly expanded to the edges of the hub, engulfing all of the digidestined and Hakase before anyone could do anything about it. The portal dragged all 15 of them into a light so bright that they had to shield their eyes to see where they were. As the hero digidestined looked around their new location, they could see that the mist that had once covered the bright white walls and floors were now gone, although none of them could tell if there was even a floor to stand on anymore. In the distance, the digidestined could also make out thin, black lines flying through the air, though no one could make out their true shape or purpose. Koichi (who's eyes adjusted to their new surroundings first) then stood up with his partner, and laughed. "Welcome to Wonderland."
"Where are we?" Tai growled back. He was the second person (along with Agumon) to regain their bearings. Matt and Gabumon soon followed, standing up and joining their ally, while the rest of the digidestined struggled to adjust to their surroundings.
"We're in a magical place where the bad guy always wins Tai." Koichi laughed.
"You're going to tell us how to get back to the digital world!" Matt yelled at the black haired boy.
"And why would I do that?"
"Because if you don't we're going to make you!" Tai and Matt were thinking along the same wavelength.
"You two?" Koichi laughed. "That'll be the day."
"This isn't the same situation as before Koichi." Eric, who had recovered the blinding light, stated as he helped his partially blinded partner to his feet. "We aren't the ones outnumbered and outmatched this time."
"You can't stop all of us!" T.K. yelled bravely, as he helped Patamon, Kari, and Salamon to their feet.
"That's right Koichi." Tai smiled as Izzy and Terriermon pulled themselves off of the ground. "We'll defeat you as a team."
"Give it your best shot." Was his overconfident response.
"Agumon, warp digivolve to... MetalGreymon!"
"Gabumon, warp digivolve to... WereGarurumon!"
"Tentomon, warp digivolve to... MegaKabuterimon!"
"Terriermon, warp digivolve to... Rapidmon!"
"Salamon, warp digivolve to... Angewomon!"
"Patamon, warp digivolve to... MagnaAngemon."
"Those six against Keramon?" Koichi chuckled. "You have to at least present me with a challenge. Go now!" His instructions were meant for his partner, who immediately leaped into the air.
"Keramon, warp digivolve to... Infermon!"
"Giga Blaster!"
"Horn Buster!"
"Rapid Fire!"
"Celestial Arrow!" The four ultimates who could quickly launch a special attack fired at Infermon immediately as he digivolved, creating a huge cloud of smoke over the hopefully defeated monster. Their hopes were broken, however, when Infermon spun out of the cloud and landed on the ground without a scratch.
"You think you can defeat me that easily? This is my element!" Infermon laughed, then raced towards the six, who were ready to defend.
"His element? What is he talking about?" Tai asked the three smartest teammates behind him.
"I don't even know where we are." Izzy sighed. "We were supposed to return to either the digital world or the human world when we passed through that portal, but this doesn't look like either one of them."
"So maybe this place is some sort of intermediate." Eric speculated, then had to leap back as one of the thin black lines suddenly sped past him, almost severing the boy in half. "Holy crap."
"What is that?" T.K. quivered.
"I guess someone isn't too happy that we're here." Said Matt.
"We need to catch one and figure out what they are." Hakase suggested.
"Yeah, good luck with that." Eric retorted. Hakase sighed, realizing that these black strings were too dangerous to be caught by the humans, and then began observing the endless white void they were in. He spotted one of the black lines speeding to their left, and quickly leaped towards it, pouncing on the unknown object fiercely. He kept the struggling object pinned down with his knees and then called Eric and Izzy over to his location.
"There." He stated triumphantly as the two boy's arrived. "Now let's figure out what it is."
"It's computer code." Said Eric.
"Huh?"
"Zeros and ones, see." Eric pointed to the string, which upon closer examination appeared to be a clustered group of the first two numbers in a first grader's academic knowledge.
"Well that's interesting." Izzy gripped the neck of the struggling line (which was indicated by the fact that one end of the cluster was desperately trying to pull away from Hakase) and pulled it out from under the rookie, who was relieved to not have to pin it down anymore. "Primitive..." Izzy began to examine the computer wording closely.
"You can read that?" Eric gasped.
"Yeah." Izzy replied apathetically.
"Why are you surprised?" Tai commented from a few feet away.
"Oh god!'" Izzy suddenly released the string and let it continue into the white void.
"Izzy, why did you let it go?" Hakase yelled at the boy, who seemed very disturbed about what he had just read.
"Celestial Arrow!" Angewomon fired a highly charged beam at Infermon, who leaped away but still caught a slipstream blow to one of his limbs. He seemed unscathed when he landed on the ground, however, even though the six monster's could clearly see the wound on his leg.
"Doesn't he feel that?" MagnaAngemon asked in a calm voice.
"Did you figure out what it is?" Eric asked calmly but still urgently. Izzy did not respond, instead standing there with a look of absolute shock. "Izzy, are you going to answer? Izzy!" He shoved the boy's shoulder, signaling the shocked genius to mutter one sentence that disturbed the rest of the group as much as he.
"It was an e-mail."