Chapter 48: Digital World: Countdown to Twilight
Sent: minutes ago
To everyone,
Somehow, me, Mimi, has managed to get teleported though I have no idea how, except that it possibly has something to do with that stupid cube, right into the middle of that Fortress, I think. Since I didn't see it from the outside, and found Kari and Tailmon and I'm not really sure how many of those kids that we are supposed to get out of there, except that Zoe tells me all.
I'm doing fine, so is Zoe, and the rest could be lots better...
Help? Like, where should we go? Is someone near?
From mainly Mimi, with Kari and Tailmon, Zoe and Koji and JP is also here
Ps: I'm told to tell Izzy that writing profiles on them was a good idea.
The sensation was not unlike breaking the surface of water, yet at the same time drastically different. The matter around him was thick, feeling tough like a rope against his skin even though it caused him no resistance. In the first place, it was odd that he only noticed the feeling once he was breaking out of it.
A smooth silvery surface surrendered him to a wide world, a dark sky hanging over him, moon and stars bright in the sky. Yutaka had just time to realize that he had seen neither in so long that it seemed alien to him before a wave of nausea hit him, making the world spin and the ground be suddenly against his cheek. Something changed and...ah, he was really Yutaka again, free of metal and something that wasn't him giving him a different form that he could move.
Cool air blew against him, a storm of sensations he had never experienced in the never ending, monotone days of his slavery. His hairs stood on end, gut wrenching fear and terror creeping up in him as he realized what he had done.
That he lived.
That he lived to see the consequences of his actions, that he could still get punished-
Rolling over, acid bubbled up from his stomach and spilled past his lips.
What had he done?
Terror made him tremble, the urge to crawl back and hope for mercy sat in his bones, tears of too many emotions he didn't even notice. But even panting for breath, a grin stole over his lips, because he had triumphed. He had won. He paid them back. And it had felt good.
Sent: minutes ago
To Mimi,
Great job! Who cares about how you did it? You did it!
From Tai
Sent: seconds ago
To everyone,
We got contact with Gennai, and he said it be best to gather back at the castle, too. Since we already decided on that a few days ago, we should be close by there now and is someone within reach of Mimi?
From Tai, Agumon, Matt, Gabumon, Yolei and Hawkmon
Ps: Has someone heard from Joe?
"I trust I don't have to make myself clear?"
"Of course, Your Majesty."
Murmuxmon backed away, bowing all the while. Only once he had left the throne room behind did he allow the sneer he had been suppressing to twist his face around his teeth. How laughable. What authority did His Majesty – no not that, not anymore. What authority did Bagramon still think he had to order Murmuxmon around?
Nothing. Of the Demon Lord digimon's once great power were only fragments left, certainly nothing of the kind that enabled, made him worthy to lead the countless digimon at his beck and call. The all seeing eyes had been destroyed, and no matter how much the dark digimon claimed the wound was only superficial, no matter how much the majority believed it, Murmuxmon wasn't fooled. That eye was done for.
Murmuxmon relished in the thought. As of now, operating behind the faux ruler was more than possible. He would do it too, set things in motion, manipulate a few more dimwitted digimon who still had some fire power...
Sadly, however, Bagramon was still too powerful for Murmuxmon to take on in a straight fight and win. Even if he did, afterwards he would be in a position to hold the throne against fellow usurpers. No, that would have to wait.
So for now, Murmuxmon would follow orders, remain and hunt.
Operation Nobel Revival was strangled in its end phase and would still need time to be completed, even more so given that they were already jumping dimensions.
One of their greatest weapons, the Point System, was not only no longer usable, according to the Datamon, it had been taken over by the little brats.
...maybe, before he put the Elementals back into their cages of then-his fortress, had taken everything from them that he wanted, he would thank them for the humiliation and the damage they put Bagramon through.
TK threw himself against the ground, hands over his head. Debris rained down on him. Quickly, he rolled, not daring to let the fight get out of his sight for more than he needed to. His digivice was strangled by a tight grip in his hands, but so far he hadn't used it.
Against a single Dark Drimogemon - an evolution TK had never seen before as a Dark – Patamon and Armadimon didn't, strictly speaking need to evolve. The two of them were strong enough without, though an evolution would certainly cut this fight short. TK was toying with the thought, but he wasn't sure if, even at this point, that it might not be too great a risk.
The key question was if the Dark Drimogemon had found them by coincidence or by design. TK moved further down the tunnel, putting some distance between himself and the fight that was currently wrecking the walls and ceiling.
Cody was nowhere to be seen, but TK trusted him to take care of himself. Most likely, the younger boy was beyond one of the multiple holes the mole like digimon had dug into the labyrinth and watching the fight from a different angle.
Despite that they were underground, the Dark Drimogemon didn't have the advantage. The tunnel system gave much space to maneuver without having to break down a wall for Patamon and Armadimon, yet was too narrow for the large digimon to even turn around without having to do just that.
TK thought. So long as the Drimogemon didn't get backup, it should be fine, though it might take a while since the little digimon had to knock the much bigger one out to end it and they lacked fire power. Maybe -
The wall behind him exploded and TK was thrown forwards, rocks and stones hitting him in the back. He scrapped over the hard stone floor, feeling his skin burn. His head shook and ears were ringing, but TK didn't stop to notice either, scrambling up and out of the way of a rolling, large, fur covered body. The new digimon screeched. It was another Dark Drimogemon. TK pressed himself against a wall to let the digimon, which apparently had either not seen him or didn't think him worthy of notice, pass him.
TK watched, holding his breath as the new digimon joined the fight, only exhaling when it became clear that the danger to his Partner didn't get that much worse. The two Drimogemon seemed to hit each other more in their attempts to hit the smaller digimon. Taking the chance, TK doubled back and climbed through the hole.
"Cody?" He called, pitching his voice low in hopes that it would travel in spite of the destructive and loud fight going on all but literally just around the corner. Cody didn't answer.
It took some time to find his younger friend in the crisscrossing and broken corridors around the fight, stumbling over Koichi on the way. The dark haired teen had not moved an inch from where the two of them had left him, trusting exactly that he wouldn't move while the fight was maneuvered away from him. It still made TK uneasy that he was so incredibly unresponsive, his empty eyes, like a puppet, but there was nothing they could do about it and TK counted their blessings that Koichi was capable of walking by himself and safe, for a relative value of the term.
Eventually, TK found Cody observing the battle in a similar manner to how he himself had done it. He crouched down next to him, taking stock of what had changed in the battle before speaking what was on his mind. "We should run. We've got nothing to win by fighting here. Before more Digimon arrive."
Cody nodded, eyes on the battle where a Dark Drimogemon's drill missed Patamon and hit the other Dark Drimogemon instead. A wail of pain echoed along the walls. They both winched. "But what way are we supposed to go? We don't know where the exit is and if we end up in a dead end..."
"How about we use those?" TK pointed at one of the clearer holes in the walls where they could look at holey beyond and beyond, going straight as far as they could see in the moss lighting the darkness. "The Dark Drimogemon must have come from somewhere."
Cody frowned in reluctance. "But what if we end up with more enemies?"
TK nodded, conceding the point, though..."It's a risk, but on the other hand, it may be our fastest way out of here and I don't think there is something like a nest of Drimogemon there, because otherwise I think there would have been more of them there already."
Cody frowned deeper, thinking hard. "We also can't dodge in the tunnel if they are after us. We'd have to evolve Armadimon and Patamon and then they'd know for sure where we are. It's also dark in there." He paused. "We can take some moss, but it's not much and the digimon would have to fly blind."
But TK was already shaking his head. "If we can distract the DarkDrimogemon for a few moments, it'll give us enough time to run. And in a place like this, with so many possible escape routes, they'll have to find us again first."
Cody considered, then nodded decidedly. "One of us should go ahead with Koichi." Since he didn't seem responsive enough for running and there wasn't a reason to risk it, Cody didn't have to say. They both knew it. "I'll go."
"No, I will," TK interrupted. "Armadimon is an earth type. For the worst case, you shouldn't separate from him."
Worst case. They always had to think of the worst case. In this, the worst case was that their plan failed, they'd be separated and have to fight on their own. With Armadimon, who could become Digmon, Cody would be far more mobile than if TK was with Patamon. Sure, Pegasusmon and Angemon could also break down walls, if that was all it took, but they couldn't dig through solid earth. If TK and Koichi were in tunnel that the Drimogemon had created, out of this labyrinth with solid, built walls, with the path collapsed behind them, Digmon could ensue that they meet again. Situation reversed, Angemon or Pegasusmon could do nothing of the sort.
In the worst case, using Evolution was no question.
TK waited to make sure both DarkDrimogemon had their attention elsewhere before dashing through one hole, out of sight, picking up Kiochi by taking him by the arm, taking some of the glowing moss, and then making his way over to the way through the walls that one of the Drimogemon had created on its way to get them. He made sure Cody knew exactly which way he took then held up his hand, all fingers outstretched as a sign for the time.
As TK lead Koichi through the path, he noticed for the first time that it was entirely straight. No, that wasn't right. What he noticed was what it meant that the way was entirely straight.
It's like they knew exactly where to find us.
Maybe they did, and if they did, then leaving now was the best decision they could make. Before more digimon found them the same way. The digivice he had to put in his pocket felt heavy and disturbing. As soon as they could TK would turn his off, so that it hopefully would no longer be tracked.
On the other hand, that meant there had been no reason not to use evolution in the fight since there was no cover left to be blown. Good to know.
TK counted the seconds. 150...151...152...The path of holes through walls led skipped a floor higher, the Dark Drimogemon having drilled its way down from the floor above, but luckily there was enough debris piled up to reach the ceiling with his hands and pull himself up with some trouble. Getting Koichi up after him was the real challenge, one that he didn't manage before his vague mental count hit the three hundred.
Five minutes. TK waited for a sound indicating a distraction. He got it in a form of what sounded like thunder echoing to him, but was probably only a ceiling or wall falling. That's how TK would have made his get away. He hesitated, glancing in the direction his chosen path continued, then considered the height he had climbed and resolved to wait here for Cody instead of going ahead further.
Cody was smaller than him and with help, he'd get up here faster and when running, that was important.
It didn't take long for Cody to arrive and TK first took Armadimon from him, then helped pull the younger boy up. Patamon placed himself on TK's head, breathing hard.
The two humans took off in as fast a pace as they could set, being exhausted and having little energy to spend after days and days of walking and little to no food, dragging the dark haired teen, who was still utterly unresponsive, along with them.
TK didn't time anymore, but it felt like hours until they reached the end of the labyrinth, where the last hole didn't reveal a different corridor but a dark path, dug straight into the earth. Cody picked up some moss from the walls here, TK replaced his batch with something free and they headed into the darkness. Behind them, they made sure to collapse the entrance in hopes of further lowering the chance of getting followed. So far, it had been difficult to tell if the Drimgogemon were following, the noise they made echoing and making it difficult to judge the distance.
TK also told Cody about turning off the Digivices.
"Hopefully it is them they follow and not..." TK looked at Koichi.
The dark haired teen was almost invisible in the sparsely lit darkness. His eyes were black, his hair was black, his clothes were dark, his skin seemed a dull gray more than the pale sickly color it had looked like in the green lit labyrinth.
According to the messages, Sora had had problems with being followed, even though she didn't use her digivice and she was with Takuya. If the Drimogemon were honing in on him, they would find them again. But then, it wouldn't matter if they evolved or not anyway and if they could, they'd get away.
Cody put his digivice away and sighed. "How long do you think this way is?"
The dark tunnel stretched in front of them farther than they could see, not the faintest bit of daylight or the like in the distance.
"That depends on how steep they dug," TK voiced, tired. "And on how deep below ground we are." The way seemed to be long in any case. They'd be walking for a while. And could only hope that where they surfaced, if they did at all, they'd find no enemies and something to drink and preferably some water.
Zoe kicked Koji in the back.
The teen grunted and shot her an annoyed glare over his shoulder. "What?"
"Would it kill you to be a bit more friendly?" She demanded, keeping her voice low as to not be overheard. Making a camp was nice and all, and very useful and necessary and JP was nice and social as usual and had walked off with the two girls to gather firewood and edibles from...somewhere on this grassland plain, but Tailmon was still around and one never knew how far voices carried. There was no need whatsoever for attention of the friendly or unfriendly kind. "They did kind of risk their lives and kind of saved ours."
Zoe's task was to gather stones for the fire pit, and she'd get around to it, but not before she spoke a few words with the resident moody boy whose making more of an jerk of himself than Zoe ever remembered him being, even in the very beginning.
"Kind of." Koji repeated rolling his eyes, stressing wordlessly that Zoe's argument was a contradiction in itself.
The blond kicked him again. Staring at him in a way that hopefully communicated wordlessly that, yes, it might only be 'kind of', but it was also not 'not' and also, that they were stuck with them and were going to work together with them for the foreseeable future, she crossed her arms.
Koji rolled his eyes at her again, but didn't offer anything more, which was just wrong. With capital letters. Mentally, Zoe reconsidered his current mood from 'obstinate to strangers' to 'obstinate to not be pulled out of his own head'. Which had implied distraction of a kind that could not be resolved by working hard in the here and now, like for example pressing for more speed. Getting annoyed at any hold up and, come to think of it, he had been unusually tolerant of Mimi's complaining and nonstop chatter.
Chances were...
"Okay, what is it?" She demanded, crouching down next to him where he dug a little pool in the ground to set the fire in. "I can't read your mind by the twitch of an eyebrow, since I'm not Takuya and don't have twin telepathy...going on? Ah." There was a very telling twitching of muscles into tension before getting forcefully relaxed. Zoe would have missed it if she hadn't been watching for a telltale of what her friend was thinking.
The question now was: Takuya or Koichi?
Given what she knew, and had been updated to..."Koichi?"
Koji for all that he was stand offish, rude and seemed like nothing could shake him, that wasn't actually so. He was only very practiced at keeping people at distance and keeping a wall up around him so that he couldn't get hurt, a result of his father having long hours at work and never having friends for more than a few months due to his family moving around, Zoe knew. Koji was just practiced and defensive. He was not naturally good at lying or hiding what he felt, having a temper as well. No, it was Koichi who could lie to anyone's face without giving the slightest bit away. Though he would feel incredibly guilty for it, he who was difficult to be read if not difficult to understand.
Definitely a bullseye. This time Koji was more prepared for a mention, but the hardening of his eyes was very speaking. So. Something concerning Koichi distracted Koji.
Zoe had heard that Koji was with a pair of friends of Mimi and Kari's, but that something seemed off about him. Having read the messages herself, she had also read Takuya's advice. Test: Duskmon or no Duskmon.
Zoe didn't have any details at all or even just a vague picture of his situation or what was wrong with him, but chances were: Duskmon. It was always Duskmon, the annoying thing.
And the twins being the twins, the past being the past and Duskmon being Duskmon...okay, so Zoe could see why Koji was distracted.
Can't even propose going to look for them since we don't know where they are...
"Koji, do you trust your brother?"
He stared at her, like he couldn't believe she asked that.
Zoe nodded as if Koji had given a long monologue of an answer, since in a way he did. "But you don't trust him to take care of himself. Not that I don't understand where you are coming from," She quickly said over Koji's protest. "But he is also your twin. If he needs saving from what we both suspect, then You. Are. Going. To. Do. That." Zoe leaned closer in his face with every word. "There is no if. There is only the eventual result that you are going to have your twin to be overprotective with, that he will humor you in that like he always does. Nothing will change that. Nothing. And you don't need me to tell you that." She leaned back, inspecting the impact her words had. There was something different in his eyes, she thought.
Since she wasn't Takuya or Koichi she couldn't tell more, but there was something. Zoe rather thought she did well to hit Koji out of his narrowed, fixated, hard and brooding mindset that he tended to fall in when something was going on with Koichi that he didn't approve off.
Right now, she didn't feel right to tease him about it.
She squeezed the hand of the resident twin, then set off to gather stones, her own thoughts wandering. Koichi had such bad luck with his element, it was unbelievable. It was a perfect match, of course, since otherwise he wouldn't be stuck with it, but still...In the digital world some dark digimon on the other side of the globe gained a bit more evil than it should and would you look at that, Koichi had Duskmon looming in his shadow like a bad joke. There were evil hearts around him: Duskmon. Someone wanted to get a good hit in against the Legendary Warriors via unbalancing the easily unbalanced Warrior of Darkness: Duskmon.
Duskmon, Duskmon, Duskmon.
It was a bit like a cockroach, Zoe thought, except for the part where Duskmon was still Koichi and was still their Darkness and thus her comrade, for an extended value of the term. Zoe wasn't friends with cockroaches. Maybe a parasite, then.
The thing was, the twins were dependant on each other, though Koji far less obviously so than Koichi. Like yin and yang. One half was no good without the other. There were consequences when something upset that dependency, though that wasn't easy with Light being Koji. For Koichi, those consequences were also always, unsurprisingly Duskmon.
Duskmon, Duskmon, Duskmon.
Koji, for his part needed the stabilizing presence of his brother to be himself. In a way, exactly like Koichi, the exact inverse in that the silent boy had the loud consequences and the temperamental boy the subtle ones.
In short, Duskmon was bad. A bad sign, but nothing that could not be taken care of and more annoying in the fact that it needed to get taken care of again and again and again. Usually, though, things only ever got to the stage where they noticed that Duskmon only started to build, not that Koichi would actually take the form during evolution.
If it was different this time with everything that had happened...
Seriously, what was Takuya thinking saying 'oh, hey, if Koichi evolves to a skull human with lots of eyeballs it's bad'?
...then again, there was not anything anyone of them could do, not being with Koichi or not being able to put Koji with Koichi.
"I've only found these few stones," Zoe presented to the gathered company. "Some of them are lumps of earth, I think. Does that matter?"
The brown haired girl, Kari, hesitated, then shook her head. "I don't know, but why should it so long as it isn't flammable?"
Zoe darted a glance over at the boys. JP shrugged cluelessly and Koji didn't even bother giving her that much. Yeah, Zoe didn't think so.
Funny that. And here Zoe had thought she was an expert on how to survive in the wilderness far from civilization and tools. Quite possibly, she had been spoiled. Well, no time like the present to learn.
Zoe sat down and watched the other two girls at work. "You use the stones so that the fire doesn't escape?"
Kari nodded. She was wearing a borrowed jacket from JP, since her pullover did no longer even have the form of clothing. "Haven't you done this before?"
Helping build the wood into the right form, Zoe shrugged, grinning slightly, because it really was kind of funny. "Well yeah sure, but if you travel with someone who can light a spark with a finger and pat flames out with his bare hands without getting so much as red skin, you don't tend to worry about the fire not doing what you want after the first night." She held a finger in the dust, causing dust to dance around it in invisible streams. "We could light a fire pretty fast. I think we kind of missed out on the basics thanks to that, though."
"Urgh, that's so unfair," Mimi whined. Zoe was completely baffled that this was the same person who had very directly saved her. She whined a lot. "I had to learn how to make fire with stones because Palmon can't spit any."
"Sorry Mimi," the little plant apologized, sounding a strange mix between sorry and not very sorry at all. "But I can tell you what you can eat instead. Don't you think that's important too?"
"Of course it is, Palmon! I'd be completely lost without you. Starved myself to death and how would I ever sleep in a nice bed again if I did that, but still! Not every stone can make fire and why is wood always so stubborn about burning." She dug around in her bag, resurfacing triumphant. "Thank god I packed a lighter for us."
Zoe felt her eyebrows rise. "I thought you didn't know you were going to get stranded in the Digital World. How did you know to pack one?"
Mimi waved her hand her attention already moving on from her vital tool. "I packed survival stuff into every one of my bags since I didn't want to get lost without stuff like that again. Next time, I'm going to put some seasoning along, since just green stuff doesn't taste very nice. What did you guys eat? Do you have a shortcut for that as well?"
"Not really. We have a digimon friend who carried a dictionary around with him and he knew basically everything. To make it taste better we had JP's chocolate in the beginning but it ran out fast."
The teen in question was already raising his hands in defense as several sets of eyes turned on him. "I don't have any. That was years ago." He pulled something out of a pocket. "The most I have is some money."
"I've got some too," Zoe remembered. "Koji too? Since we didn't get to the amusement park before we got dragged here...or was Koichi going to pay for you?" She couldn't resist needling. Big brother, little brother roulette. It was very funny to observe. Especially since the siblings in question didn't see what the rest of them found so funny.
Koji glowered at her. "Money isn't going to do us any good, unless you want to throw it in the flames."
Zoe opened her mouth to shoot something back, only to tilt her head in consideration. "Actually...if it helps." She looked at the other two girls. "Does it? It's not like we are going to need it anymore."
"We are not that desperate," Kari smiled, though it was weak. Tailmon had still not woken up and it showed in her enough that even Zoe, who was still a stranger to this world's chosen system noticed. "You should keep it anyway. Buy yourself happy things when you get home. Something to look forward to."
Very carefully, Zoe did not react at all even as internally, she switched from sincerity to fake. Home, buy herself. It was instinct to not let any change be noticed. Her expression stayed the same, her tone stayed the same, and that was now what she was focusing on instead of the conversation. Like a tag out. Like identical twins switching places. She put the Mask Of Zoe on her face and continued.
Home. Buy herself stuff she wanted. Home.
From the corner of her eyes she saw JP's expression gaining an edge of underlying hardness to it that was usually absent in her kind friend when he wasn't fighting for his life. Resolve, maybe. Acceptance of things that couldn't be changed. He was grounded like that. Zoe envied him for it. It was like his feet never left the ground.
Koji's reaction was far more obvious. His face became wooden, dark as thunder clouds. Out of all of them, he had struggled with his feelings for his family the most - accepting his stepmother, finding out his birth mother was alive, that he had a brother, his feelings for a father who had lied to him, was never there and was the cause he had never had any close friends before them...He finally had resolved it all, only for it to be cut off like this... She would pity him, except such an emotion was worthless and insulting.
Luckily for them, and her, and peace of mind for all, Zoe was keeping the two girls sufficiently engaged that they didn't notice any odd reaction.
Never mind talking, Zoe didn't even want to think about it. What was home for her? Zoe wasn't sure, didn't know, only that it wasn't here. Was the home she thought of as home still her home when she could never return to it?
Zoe compartmentalized and prioritized. Best not think about it. She didn't need to think about it, not in any way to conquer the crisis she found herself in. She could always deal with it later.
To think that even when she left this world behind, when – not if- they won, she would never be able to hug her mother again, never see her again, not even the not-so-close friends from school, that she wouldn't ever be faced with those things that she had condemned when she had lived them, that she could not even tell those that enjoyed it her true opinion, that she would never see her parents again, that-
There lay no things in that direction that she wanted to dwell on. Or talk about. Not talking about them made it easier. Not thinking about it made it simple. Dismissing it was relieving. Best it was to forget it and never mention it.
This is the Beta-ed version of the chapter for May. Thank you very much, smfan!
Cody, TK, Armadimon, Patamon and Koichi's peaceful traveling has reached its end. Zoe throws herself head first into the issues at hand and does some complex avoiding dance at the same time.
Do you have suggestions? Critique? Likes? Dislikes? Complains? Or things you just plain noticed?
TBC...
