Disclaimer: I don't own digimon!

Ok, so this is the second part in the fight at the Emperor's fortress scene or whatever you want to call it. I was thinking of putting Matt's part, this part, and TK's part (Chapter 39) all into one chapter, but it would've been one super super long chapter so instead I'm separating them into three separate chapters. Also, I actually took the time to plan out the rest of this story (and maybe even start a plot for the sequel: let me know if this is a good idea in a review?) and this story is going to have 44 chapter total, meaning there's only six chapter left. I just have to write them out, so who knows how long that will take. Anyways, this is Tai's perspective! Still don't tell you what happened to TK yet, that's next chapter. But, I hope you like this one! It was kind of rushed at the end, so please excuse that. I blame it on my tiredness haha. I'm rambling, though, so I'll let you get to the chapter. Please review? Thanks!

Chapter 38:

"… if you get in any trouble, use the D-Terminal," he told the others as he started leading the way down the hallway. Sora hurried next to him and grabbed his hand. He looked at her and smiled. He looked into her beautiful eyes as she smiled back at him. He really loved this girl. The way she made him feel inside every time he saw her… he knew she was 'the one.'

But he couldn't be thinking of this right now. He was Tai Kamiya, leader of the digidestineds. Everyone depended on him whenever they had to make a tough decision or was in some sort of trouble, which seemed to be most of the time. Davis was trying to become a leader, and he could do a pretty good job at it too, but he was young and inexperienced. He had much to learn, just like he had much to learn when they started out on his first adventure with the eight original digidestineds.

But he was older now. It was his sophomore year in high school already. Soon, he would be graduating from high school and moving on with his life to bigger and better places. He wasn't so keen on it, but his parents expected him to go to a university and continue studying. What he wanted to do with his life, though, he had no idea. He guessed he would just have to figure that much out later.

He knew he wanted Sora with him, no matter where he went. She already had been his best friend for as long as he could remember, but now that they had taken their relationship to the next level he knew he couldn't stand to be away from her. She completed him. He knew it sounded corny and stuff, but it was true. She was the one who laughed at his jokes, who was first to follow his lead. She was always there for him whenever he needed someone to listen to him. She was perfect.

He shook his head again, realizing that his mind was going astray again. He had a mission at hand. He could hear the others' footsteps behind him- he looked back to make sure Kari was there, which she was- but other than that, all was silent. Well, Kari and that blonde boy, Willis, were whispering to each other and Kari started laughing. He made a mental note to tell Willis to back off his little sister; he had already let Davis get her, and he wasn't about to let anyone else try to take Kari away. Izzy was walking next to Sora, and Cody was walking a ways back with his partner, Digmon. Willis' two digimon were there too along with Angewomon. They had quite a big group with them, and that was only half of the group. The Digimon Emperor didn't stand a chance.

But where was the Emperor? Surely, he had some sort of alarms or something that would let him know they were in his fortress, but they hadn't come across anything. The fortress was quiet, too quiet for Tai's comfort. He could tell that something was wrong.

As they continued walking, the hallway suddenly split off in two directions. There wasn't any sort of sign or anything to tell them which way to go.

"Which one do we take?" Sora voiced his thoughts.

He looked down both directions, but he couldn't tell which way to go. "Umm…. I have no idea…"

"Can we do eenie-meenie-miny-moe?" Kari asked excitedly.

"That is a very trivial way to decide upon this. Whichever one you don't start with is the one we will go," Izzy said as if it were obvious. Honestly, though, Tai never knew that.

"How about we take a vote?" Willis spoke up.

"I think that is a logical decision," Cody agreed. Why that kid tried to talk so proper and stuff all the time, he had no idea.

"Well," Tai said, regaining authority, "All in favor of going…" he stopped and pointed to his right, "… that way, raise your hand."

He along with Sora, Cody, Digmon, and Izzy rose their hands.

"And the other way?" he said as Kari, Willis, Angewomon, and Willis' two digimon raised their hands. Of course, it was a tie.

"I told you we should've did it my way," Kari said snidely to Izzy who just shook his head.

Then, Tai had an idea. He pulled out his lucky coin from his pocket that he carried everywhere.

"New plan of action. I flip this coin; heads goes to the right, tails to the left. Agreed?"

"Agreed!" they all yelled back.

He put the coin on his finger before flicking it, sending the coin high into the air. He watched it spin rapidly and it hit the floor with a high-pitched ting. It started rolling until it hit a crease on the floor and then it stopped. Tai picked it up, showing what it had landed on to everybody.

"Tails!"

With that he stuffed the coin back into his pocket and started going down the hallway. He was sort of expecting enemy digimon to come charging out of the walls or something. Maybe even the Emperor himself stop them with Neomnimon, but there was nothing, nothing at all. And the hallway continued on and on for forever.

"Do we even know where we are going," Kari whined from behind him.

"Well, I'm not the Digimon Emperor so sorry I don't know my way around his fortress. If you think you know better, than why don't you take the lead."

He wished he would've bit his tongue because Kari stormed ahead of him and did just what he had said. He sighed and he heard Sora chuckle. At least she was able to find humor in this, and because she did it made him smile.

Although, he didn't like not being in the lead, he didn't mind stepping back and relaxing. It wasn't even like it was that big of a deal, but he always was in front, always. To take a break and not worry about where you were leading everybody was nice.

They continued walking around the winding hallway until it split up again. This time it wasn't just two choices they could go, there were seven different hallways all in a big circle.

"Since I'm in charge, I say we do eeny-meenie-miny-moe this time."

No one objected at which she smiled happily and pointed at one of the hallways. She sang the familiar tune moving her finger from one hallway to the next.

"…if he hollers let him go. Eeny-meenie-miny…. MOE!"

Without further ado, Kari charged off in the direction her finger had stopped on. Angewomon hurried after her and Willis laughed as he tried to catch up. Again Tai sighed, and followed after her, still holding Sora's hand.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Izzy said ominously, and he knew why. The Digimon Emperor should've been there. There was definitely something wrong.

They walked down this hallway for about ten minutes before they could see a light up ahead. Excited, Kari quickened her pace up. Everyone followed suit. There had to be something up ahead. Something that wasn't a boring, dull hallway.

Once they got there, though, they were disappointed. It was the same hole they came through that MetalGreymon had made for them. Somehow they had gone in a complete circle in the maze of hallways they had gone through. Something caught his eye, however, while he was looking outside.

"Hey guys, what's that?"

They followed his pointed hand and saw what he was staring at. A plump cloud of black smoke rising from a bit away.

"It appears that it is smoke," Izzy said.

"Well, duh, but what's it there for?" Sora asked.

"Why don't we go check it out?" Kari said, "We're not getting much accomplished here."

"Right, let's go!" Tai agreed.

Angewomon grabbed a hold of him and Kari as the digimon took flight. Willis's white bunny digimon with green armor grabbed a hold of Willis and Izzy. Willis's other digimon, a tall, brown bunny grabbed Sora and Digmon wrapped his arms around Cody. They all flew through the hole in the fortress and fell to the grass below.

They landed softly on the ground, and he looked for MetalGreymon. It wasn't hard to miss his partner, not trying to call his digimon fat or anything, MetalGreymon just was huge. But something was wrong. He had his arms out in a weird position and he was doing some sort of silly dance or something of the sort. Garudamon was next to him along with MegaKabuterimon and Zudomon. They all were doing similar things, all acting as if they didn't have control over their bodies.

"Garudamon?" Sora called out, confused.

"MegaKabuterimon! What are you doing?" Izzy said, just as confused.

He watched the digimon look at them only to have their heads jerked back in a different way. Then, he heard laughter, a laugh that seemed strangely familiar. He looked around for the source, but no one was there besides them. He looked back at their partners, and then he saw it. Up on the fortress, what looked like a little wooden boy was flailing his arms around and laughing hysterically. He rubbed his eyes, hoping he was just seeing things, but he wasn't. Puppetmon was back.

Sora confirmed his suspicions, "Is… is that Puppetmon?"

"It is!" Izzy said with anger.

"Who's Puppetmon?" Willis and Cody asked in unison.

"He's one of the Dark Masters," Kari replied dismissively as if that explained everything. The confusion on their faces deepened, but Tai didn't pay them any attention.

"Puppetmon, stop that now!"

"What, who's there?" the digimon asked stopping what he was doing. He noticed that their partners stopped when Puppetmon stopped. He must have had them on those strings of his, being controlled by Puppetmon. That was just splendid.

"Ahh, look who we have here! You guys have come to play with me again!" he stated, more than asked.

"No, we're not here to play you little creep," Sora shouted harshly, "Now let Garudamon go!"

"But I'm not done with her or the other just yet. They have become my favorite toys. Actually, I don't think I'm ever going to get rid of them."

"Well, that's too bad because we're here to take them back!" Tai said confidently.

"Oh, really? We'll see about that. Attack!" Puppetmon ordered as he pointed his finger towards the four digimon. At first the digimon didn't move, but then he heard them scream out in agony. Their bodies slowly turned to face them, and Tai watched in horror as his partner's and the other digimon's eyes turned from their normal color to pitch red. MetalGreymon growled threatingly before charging right at him and the others.

"MetalGreymon, what are you…" he started.

"Tai watch out!" Kari shouted as she tackled him to the ground. He heard something zoom right past them and he heard an explosion.

"Angewomon!"

Angewomon took flight and started attacking MetalGreymon. It took all the willpower for him not to punch Kari in the face as he got back up to his feet.

"You're digimon is attacking mine!" he shouted furiously at her.

"Yeah, and you're digimon also just about blew you up Tai! They're under Puppetmon's control right now! What do you want to do, just let them destroy you?" she shouted just as ferociously back.

"Guys, stop fighting!" Sora said sharply. She turned her eyes to his and looked straight into them, "We have to fight them right now. I know it's hard, but we can't do nothing," she said and Tai could tell how much it pained for her to say that.

At that time the other digimon: Willis' two digimon and Digmon joined Angewomon as they fought MetalGreymon, Garudamon, MegaKabuterimon, and Zudomon. As they did so, Izzy ran up to them followed by Cody and Willis.

"We need to do something before they destroy each other," Izzy said looking at Tai as if waiting for him to sound off a perfect plan. Well, Izzy was out of luck. He had no idea how they could stop Puppetmon's control of their digimon unless they destroyed Puppetmon himself. And at the time, there was no way they could take down the puppet digimon. Especially now that… no, it couldn't be. Not another one.

"Guys… ummm… we have more company," Tai said pointing towards the fortress. MetalSeadramon was flying through the air as if it were the ocean right at the fortress. He stopped and raised himself high. Then, he leaned back and shouted out,

"River of Power!" as an energy beam shot from his nose right at the fortress. The floating rock shook very quickly and MetalSeadramon sent another blast at the fortress. Two dark masters? And right now their digimon were fighting each other? Suddenly facing the Digimon Emperor didn't seem so bad.

"Look, it's Mimi!" Willis called out. Tai looked up and saw that he was right. Lillymon was carrying Mimi down from the fortress flying right at them. The fairy digimon landed and Mimi came running up to them.

"Guys you wouldn't believe what we… ummm, what exactly is going…." Then she stopped seeing what was going on. Fear grew in her eyes as the scene finally clicked in her brain. "Oh. My. Gosh. What is going on here?"

No one took the time to answer her as they gasped, watching the fortress free-fall to the ground. It landed with a loud thud that echoed throughout the meadow they were in. Puppetmon had fallen off, and even MetalSeadramon seemed taken aback as he stopped attacking the place. Their digimon, though, continued fighting, and MetalSeadramon continued to attack the fortress.

"Guys, we got to go help them!" Mimi shouted as she ran off towards the fortress. He didn't see who she had meant by "them," but he quickly saw. Michael, Davis, and Yolei ran out of the fortress with their partners followed by Joe who was then followed by a long line of digimon of all kinds. How they had found the digimon, he had no idea, but now wasn't the time to be worrying about that.

"Tai," Joe called out as he ran right at him. Tai ran for Joe meeting him halfway. Joe stopped and was panting.

"Captured digimon… need…. To go some… where safe."

He was confused, but he guessed what Joe meant as he looked at the digimon. They all had worried faces on and didn't like they were going to be fighting anytime soon. They needed to be taken to safety, away from the fight.

He looked to Sora quick saying, "Make sure they don't kill MetalGreymon."

He waited for her nod before yelling out, "Ok, all you digimon, follow me!"

He turned and ran off at a dead sprint. As he did so he looked around for somewhere safe. He saw a building in the distance and figured there was a town of some sort nearby. Whatever place that was, it was going to have to be good enough to keep a lot of helpless digimon safe.

It didn't take long at his pace before that building far off was right in front of him. As he got closer to it he saw that the town was bigger than he originally thought. And the place was familiar. This was ToyTown, one of the first places they had gone to while on their first adventure.

"Right," he said regaining his breath. The digimon had followed him very closely, but there were so many. He waited for all of them to catch up before saying,

"Now, you all stay here for now, ok?"

He heard a bunch of random noises and he could pick out some "Thank you's" "Where are we's?" and "I'm hungry's" as he ran back to the battle that was going on. He had to go a little slower on the way back because his legs were getting really sore at his pushing them. He was an athletic person, but with all this digimon stuff going on the past few weeks he hadn't been able to exercise as much as he had wanted. He made it back to the fortress, though, panting heavily. He rubbed the sweat out of his eyes as he saw a huge digimon he didn't recognize fighting MetalSeadramon. Lillymon was put under Puppetmon's control somehow and was fighting Willis' two digimon, Angewomon, Digmon, Yolei and Davis' new digimon, and Michael's digimon with Zudomon, MetalGreymon, Garudamon, and MegaKabuterimon along side with her. Matt was standing by the fortress with a look of horror on his face as he stood next to WereGarurumon. The other digidestineds were standing in a circle around something. As he watched them he saw someone was on the ground in the middle. The person had blonde hair and wasn't moving.