Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DIGIMON!

Ok, so this is Chapter 36. And I need to add this, since I see that you can get in trouble if you copy from the original Digimon series/movies. I purposefully made TK's memory exactly like the scene from Episode 52 "Piedmon's Last Jest." Since the original episode is TK's real memory in this story, it only made sense for me to make it exactly like the original season so PLEASE don't try to get me in trouble for copying Digimon Adventure because like I said in the disclaimer I DO NOT OWN DIGIMON! It is 100% not mine and I am not trying to take credit for their work at all!

Sorry, but I really had to stress that and I don't want to get in trouble or anything. Anyways, this is Chapter 36 like I said. Lead-up to a somewhat big chapter and a little foreshadowing going on. I kind of am realizing how hard it is to have so many villains; Dragomon, the Dark Masters, Daemon, AND good ol' Ken Ichi is really starting to get hard to write. I really want to know what you guys think about it and if you think it works or not. And I'd also like to know how you like the character portrayal and the potential couplings. Anyways, I got a whopping two reviews for last chapter so shout out to those two reviewers: The Keeper of Worlds and sharkpedofromverpets. You two are awesome, and thank you for your constant reviews! They mean a lot, really! I hope I can get so more reviews, though I'm not complaining, I'm just saying, nicely, to PLEASE REVIEW! Thanks you guys! Anyways, this was a much longer author's note than intended, sorry about that. Now, here's Chapter 36!

Chapter 36:

TK never realized how much fun people watching, and even "mon" watching could be until he found himself doing it in Izzy's apartment. He had to memorize everyone's names somehow and doing it this way was a lot more enjoyable. They all were supposed to be discussing a "very important, super secret mission" that was going to be their playbook for destroying the Digimon Emperor who they all had learned was really Ken Ichijouji in the real world. They all seemed to be pretty surprised by that bit, especially the purple-haired, huge-glasses girl… right, her name was Yolei… but it was more fun to call her that other name. Yolei seemed devastated by the news, as if this Ken guy was her idol or something. He may have just been imagining it, but he could've sworn he heard her mutter "Now we won't be able to get married anymore."

He wasn't exactly happy about this, though, because now Yolei was trying to get really close to him. Apparently Yolei was going through "a phase," or at least that's the way Kari put it, where she tried to hook up with every cute boy she ever met. TK felt honored about someone thinking he was cute, but he had to bite his tongue to keep him from yelling at Yolei something he would regret in the future.

Anyways, they were talking about that plan, but no matter how hard he tried to pay attention he couldn't. He tried the best he could to get his mind off of the nightmare he had, but he couldn't.

He opened his eyes and he had to squint due to the darkness in this place. He had no idea where he was, but wherever it was it was completely silent and very cold. He stood there, not knowing how he had gotten there, when all of a sudden he heard footsteps. The footsteps were echoing and he could tell that whoever it was, they were heading right for him, and they weren't alone either.

He was finally able to see and was shocked as a kid version of himself came running right at him followed by another kid looking the same age and Patamon brought up the rear. He recognized the girl; it was Kari as an eight year old, and TK was carrying what looked like a keychain that looked strikingly familiar to his brother, Matt.

"You guys need to slow…." He tried but the two kids didn't even seem to notice him standing there. They ran right through him and kept on going, oblivious to the fact that they had just ran through him, yes, through him.

He decided that he'd follow the little kids and he had to sprint to catch up with them. They pushed a big black door open and he followed them outside to what looked like a balcony. TK and Kari looked scared out of their minds.

"We just ran out of room," Kari said, holding back tears.

TK looked horrified saying, "This isn't the escape plan I had in mind."

Patamon flew to the ledge of the balcony and TK and Kari followed.

"Can we jump?" TK asked leaning over the ledge.

"It's too far…"

He turned when he heard laughter coming from the other side of the black doors, a creepy, terrifying laugh. He knew he didn't want to see what was behind those doors, and he was afraid that he was going to find out soon enough.

"Well, looks like a dead end! Come be a key chain like you're friend," the creepy voice said, still laughing.

"We can't just sit here!" Kari said, growing even more anxious.

"We've got no choice. We have to climb down."

He hurried over to the kids, though he knew he wouldn't be able to help them. He looked over the edge of the balcony and agreed with Kari when she said,

"It's too high TK! If we slip we're gone-ers."

"Kari, we're going to have to try."

"Look TK! Where'd that basket come from?" Patamon asked as he turned and saw that a woven basket had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the balcony. It definitely wasn't there just one minute ago.

"Who put that there?" TK asked running over to the basket. He opened it up, "A rope. We can use it to climb down the side of the mountain."

Then all of a sudden the rope started unwinding out of the basket and rose up. The way it moved reminded him of a snake that people put into baskets like the one the rope was in. The rope went straight up to the sky. How the rope did that, exactly, he had no idea.

"I didn't know you were a snake charmer TK."

"Do you think we should climb it?"

"I don't know… mom always said not to take candy or rope from strangers."

He wondered if his mother had actually said that, or if it was just something the kid version of himself said to try to be funny. He never would have the chance to ask her though, because she was dead, as well as his grandparents.

'What am I thinking? We have to climb it! Sora told me to be brave no matter how scared I get!' he heard the thought go through his mind.

"Looks dangerous, you go first," TK said to Kari. He facepalmed and shook his head at himself as a kid. Kari didn't seem to mind though as she grabbed a hold of the rope and started climbing. TK followed her up.

"That's it Kari! Pretend you're in gym class!"

He instantly turned when the doors burst into millions of tiny pieces. When the smoke cleared he saw a clown digimon with a black and white mask laughing. The clown had yellow jester boots, green pants, and a red suit with a blue scarf. On his belt was a bunch of miniature key chains that looked very strangely like the other digidestineds and their partners. Though he knew the digimon couldn't do anything to him because this was a dream or something of the sort, he couldn't help but feel scared. That digimon gave him the creeps.

Kari screamed as the digimon walked towards them slowly. Patamon flew down with a determined look on his face.

"You guys keep climbing, I'll distract him!"

Patamon started glowing and changed forms into Angemon. The clown digimon and Angemon then started dueling. The jester took two swords from his back and started swinging them frantically at the angel. Angemon used his yellow rod to block the attacks, but he was having a hard time doing so. The clown jumped back and threw a sword at Angemon who dodged and whipped his rod at the clown hitting him right in the stomach. He smiled, but it was anywhere far from the end.

"Hand of Fate!"

An orange beam of light flew from Angemon's fist towards the jester who was lying on the ground. He hoped it would be enough to end the digimon, but then,

"Clown Trick!"

The attack suddenly reversed course and flew right back at an unsuspecting Angemon. The digimon was hit right on by his own attack and flew back. Angemon landed on the balcony, but the jester was already standing right in front of him.

"Clown Trick!"

A ball of yellow energy hit Angemon dead on who flew back yelling in agony.

"Angemon NO!" Kari yelled.

"Trump Sword!"

The clown threw five of his swords at the falling angel and he winced at the sound of the swords cutting through Angemon's skin.

"Don't give up!"

But Angemon was falling down from the balcony. He had seen how far of a fall it was, and even though he couldn't help he ran to the edge of the balcony and watched in horror as his partner fell to the ground. Angemon landed with a loud thud, and didn't move. He looked up and watched the kid version of himself crying as he held back tears of his own.

"Angemon no!"

"I'm scared," Kari said.

"It's ok," TK replied unconvincingly.

'Great, now Kari's afraid,' the thought blared through his mind, 'I can't let her see that I am too. I've got to be brave.'

"Angemon will be fine, "he said with a smile up to Kari, "but you've got to keep on climbing. Don't let that joker, Piedmon, scare you."

Piedmon, so that was the freak for a digimon's name.

"Ok," Kari said with renewed determination as she continued to keep on climbing up the mysterious rope. She reached her hand up, but then a sword came out of nowere slicing the rope. Kari let out a high pitched scream.

"You've reached the end of your rope," Piedmon said, making his way to start climbing up the rope. Hahahahahaha!"

Within no time Piedmon had grabbed TK's leg and TK let out a cry.

"Sorry if I gave you a wedgie."

"Let go of him!" Kari said angrily grabbing onto TK.

"Let go Kari or he'll get you too."

"No, I won't let you go TK."

"Sounds like you two are falling for each other," Piedmon said slicing the rope again. He watched as TK and Kari started free-falling towards the ground.

Angemon had gotten back up within that time, but he looked bad. He was using that yellow rod to support him, and he had a terrified look on his face. "TK, Kari!"

Piedmon had a big smile on his face, laughing all the while. Then the digimon turned and looked right into his eyes and his smile grew even more if that was possible.

"I'm back you know? And this time I will kill you, child of hope, and you're little girlfriend."

"TK? TK!?"

He shook his head. He blushed as he saw everyone's eyes on him. Tokomon was on his lap looking up at him with worry in his eyes.

"Huh?" he asked. He got the memory, or dream, or whatever it was out of his head, but he could still here Piedmon's evil laughter and his promise, 'I'm back you know? And this time I will kill you, child of hope, and you're little girlfriend.' He debated on telling the others about his dream, but he didn't want to add on to their worries. They already were too worked up about Ichijouji.

"We're going to the Digital World… you coming?" Kari asked.

"What? Oh, of course. Yeah, sorry about that," he said putting a smile on. They all laughed and their worry was gone save for Tokomon, Matt, and Kari. They knew something was wrong; how they could possibly know him so well, though, he had no idea. From what they had told him, he was… different… from the TK they remembered.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He wanted to be the person they remembered. He wanted to go back to being a kid and not go through the serving the Emperor and losing his memory part of his life. But there was no way he could possibly change that. No way he could go back in time and change what had happened. Make a new life for himself, start all over. Nope, there was no possible way to do that.

He grabbed his partner and pulled out his digivice as the rest of them pointed their digivices to Izzy's laptop. Yolei, of all people, was standing right next to him and she smiled at him. He forced a smile back causing Tokomon to laugh. She smiled even wider though and he winced as she screamed out, "DIGI-PORT OPEN!"

They had been walking for quite a while. Supposingly the first step in bringing down Ken Ichijouji was to find his fortress. Wormon was leading the way along with Veemon and a couple of the other digimon. Tai and Sora were walking together, holding hands and talking quietly to each other with smiles on their faces and laughing occasionally. He didn't know the two of them very well, but he thought they looked like a pretty cute couple.

He didn't know if he should think that way, though. Matt was walking next to him with Gabumon and he kept on sending glares at Tai and looking longingly at Sora. He wondered what he had missed, but he figured it wasn't that important at the moment. Maybe he'd ask Matt about it when they defeated Ken; he didn't look like he wanted to talk about it anyway.

And TK couldn't help but feel the same way Matt did as he kept sneaking glances at Kari who was walking hand-in-hand with Davis just a little bit ahead of them. She didn't look as happy as Sora did, though, and he felt guilty but he was happy about that fact. Kari kept on sending worried glances his way and he would look away when she did. A couple times their eyes met, despite his efforts for that not to occur, and they would awkwardly smile at each other.

Willis, Michael, Mimi, Joe, and Izzy all were walking in a line. Michael was standing next to Mimi and he thought the two of them must have been dating the way they both laughed at what each other said and… they just seemed perfect. But, then there was Joe who looked mad whenever Mimi laughed at something Michael said. Izzy seemed to be oblivious to everything as he talked with his partner, Tentomon, but TK saw the way he blushed when Mimi would talk to him, which wasn't very often.

Then there was Cody, the little kid who looked about the same age TK did in that dream/memory thing. He was walking next to his partner, a yellow armadillo. The little kid seemed to be a quiet type, not really saying much in front of the whole group, but he had been very polite talking to TK. Cody had taken it upon himself to make sure he introduced himself to TK the moment he arrived at Izzy's. They shook hands, but that was his first time seeing the kid so it would be hard to judge just what kind of person he was based on that.

That was the group. These were the people who were going to fight the Digimon Emperor. He laughed at the diversity this group had, but he could say he wouldn't want to change anybody in this group, save for maybe Davis. They all liked each other, and despite their differences they all clicked together. He couldn't help but feel that he was the odd ball in this group… the eleventh wheel per say. He just couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't belong.

As they were walking through the Digital World, he suddenly heard that joker Piedmon's laughter echo loudly. He tensed up and looked around him. He was certain he heard Piedmon close by, but he couldn't find any sign of the clown.

"TK, what's wrong," Tokomon asked worriedly.

Suddenly the image of Angemon flying through the air, hitting the ground hard, and not getting back up came to his mind. He and Kari were falling to the ground at a high-speed.

"TK!" Tokomon said louder.

He was taken out of his thoughts and shook his head. For some reason he was panting and he shivered as a chill went through his body.

"I… I'm fine…"

"TK! I may not know you as well as I want to, but I am not dumb. Just tell us what's wrong."

He took a deep breath and he was about to tell them about the Piedmon memory, but then Yolei called out to everybody, "The Emperor's base! Let's go destroy it and beat up on Ken Ichijouji!"

She went off at a dead sprint followed by Wormon who was frantically trying to keep up with her. Veemon, Hawkmon, Gomamon, Palmon, Betamon, Terriermon, Lopmon, Agumon, and Biyomon all ran as fast as they could towards the fortress. The rest of them simply picked up their pace as they neared the fortress.

He felt a pang of remembrance as he thought about how he had been held prisoner in there. When Ken figured out he had broken free of the dark spiral's powers, he had whipped him. He still held a grudge on Ken for that, but he didn't know if he could go in the fortress and put Tokomon at risk again. He felt terrible for all the times that he clearly remembered making Tokomon fight and getting severely hurt and almost dying, and then there were all the times he didn't remember like the fight with Piedmon and Devimon. There must have been countless of other times from his previous adventure where he had put Tokomon in trouble, and he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he continued to do so. It was only a matter of time before someone wasn't able to save them and Tokomon actually… he couldn't say it.

They finally caught up with all of the digimo and Yolei who were standing underneath the floating rock that was the Emperor's fortress.

"It's about time you all made it. Now, let's go kick some Digimon Emperor as…"

"Right. I guess it's time," Tai said.

Sora nodded, "Let's do this."

TK suddenly remembered something, which was new for him, "Hold on a second." They all watched him pull out his digivice and he pointed it at Cody, Davis, and Yolei. Three beams of light, gray, blue, and green flew at them. Yolei held back a shriek and Davis looked scared out of his mind while Cody simply looked shocked. Their digivices started glowing and shaking, and then they stopped.

"What was…?" Cody started, but TK cut him off.

"Those were digi-eggs Gennai gave me to give to you guys. Supposingly your partners can digivolve into a new form, and the rest of you can digivolve to ultimate now, except for maybe you two," he said looking at Willis and Michael.

He went to put his digivice back in his pocket when three more beams of light shot out from his digivice, gold, cream-colored, and black. The gold and cream-colored lights hit Willis and the black one shot at Michael.

"I stand corrected," he said as their digivice stopped glowing. The two of them had an excited look on their faces and they high-fived each other.

Izzy looked confused and he opened his mouth like he was about to ask a question, but Matt spoke up first.

"Let's get this over with! I want to go home already."

"I agree," Joe said, "I have to study for my exam tomorrow. I can't fail this exam or I'll have to retake the course."

"Joe!" Mimi said annoyed, but she hit him in the arm playfully and gave him a smile. He smiled back.

"Ok, then, what are we waiting around here for? Veemon?" Davis spoke up.

"Right."

The rest of them called out their partners' names and there was a bright white light as all of the digimon, except for Tokomon, digivolved first to their champion forms (or new armor forms for Davis, Cody, and Yolei) and then to their ultimate forms for everybody else. They were surrounded by ten new, tough looking digimon ready to take on the Digimon Emperor and defeat him once and for all.

"TK, why didn't you let me digivolve? I can't do much as Tokomon you know?"

He couldn't look into his partner's eyes as he said, "Tokomon, we're not fighting this time. We're sitting this one out."

"But…"

"No but's! You have almost died because of me and my stupidity three times now! Three times in the past two days! I can't lose you… again…" he said, tears coming to his eyes.

"TK…"

"No, you're not going to convince me. I can't have you fighting… not now at least."

Tokomon was reluctant, but he seemed to understand. He jumped down from his arms, though, and avoided his eyes.

"TK, what are you doing?" he heard his brother ask.

He was flying up on Angewomon with Kari, but they had turned back. The others were all flying up to the Emperor's fortress. The big metal dragon had already sent a missile at the fortress creating a huge opening for them to enter.

"I'm not going. Tokomon and I will keep watch from outside."

"No, I'm not leaving you alone again! You know what happened last time…"

"I can't fight, Matt. I'm of no use to you guys. I'm not letting Tokomon get into trouble again."

He was about to protest. Kari locked eyes with him though, and she nodded, showing her understanding.

"Angewomon, let's go."

Angewomon started flying up to the fortress with Matt trying to break free of the angel digimon's grasp yelling at Kari all the while. They continued their flight upward, though, and they disappeared inside the fortress along with the others, save for a big red bird, the metal dragon, and a big sea monster with a green shell holding a huge iron hammer. Those digimon were waiting outside, not able to fit inside the small fortress. They seemed annoyed that they couldn't help, but they waited patiently, watching the fortress for any signs of danger.

"Can I at least wait like the…"

"No," he said a little more harshly than he intened. Tokomon turned away and stood facing opposite him. He smiled as Tokomon reminded of a little child being denied a toy he saw in the store that he wanted and then pouting about not getting it. TK chuckled a little bit as he sat down on the soft grass. He looked around the field, and off in the distance a building caught his eye.

"Hey, Tokomon, what's that over there?"

Tokomon turned around slowly, still with a pout on his face, but then his face lit up as he saw what TK was talking about.

"That's Toy Town! You've been there before, you know?" the little digimon said excitedly.

"Of course I have."

Tokomon smiled a little bit, and then a thought came to TK.

"You wanna go on an adventure?"

The little digimon nodded at first, but then looked back at the fortress. "What about the others?"

"They'll be fine. Look, they got a big metal dragon…"

"MetalGreymon,"

"…a huge red bird with a strange mask…"

"Garudamon,"

"…and that weird sea creature-thing with the green shell and the hammer,"

"Zudomon," Tokomon said laughing at TK's lack of memory.

TK feigned anger and the little digimon stopped laughing and looked terrified.

"I'm sorry TK…"

Then he started laughing as a big smile came on his face. Tokomon started laughing as well before suddenly glowing white and changing forms into Patamon. TK smiled at his partner who smiled back before flying over to the three ultimate digimon, MetalGreymon, Garudamon, and Zudomon.

"Hey, me and TK are going to go see ToyTown. Can you guys handle this?"

"Of course we can!"

"Go have fun!"

"And stay out of trouble!" the three digimon responded.

"Ok, be back in a few!" Patamon said cheerily as he flew back towards TK, landing softly on his head.

"Let's go Patamon!" And as they headed for ToyTown all the sadness, fear, and anger he had inside of him the past couple days faded away as it turned into happiness. The best part of this adventure was that he would be able to keep Patamon out of trouble while defeating the Digmon Emperor at the same time. Or so he thought.