The heroic group was dumbfounded.
It was their chance to return to their world. It was their duty to protect the eighth child. Tai banged his fists against it in frustration and despair. But the door wouldn't budge. The sounds of the boy's fists only rang throughout the stone room in vain. And the remaining creatures in the room were intent on destroying them.
"Let's get out of here!" shouted Matt.
"Right now!" added Zaira.
Their frantic escape had felt like a blur, they were back outside the castle and its walls back a clearing as they talked to Gennai. The girls had changed back and slumped on the ground, exhausted from the adrenaline fuel. Kylie was the only who sounded like she was dry heaving.
"Are you okay?" Sora asked. "How did you know about those creatures?"
Kylie rubbed her face, looking on the verge of tears. "Because...I remember, Lady Despair sent them to track me and my mother down." She then paused in utter confusion. "I mean, I think I remember...it's like someone pen-sieved the memory into my head."
The young woman frowned. "My mother tried, but her powers didn't work against them," Kylie continued, trembling. "They cornered us in, I think a building, and...And..." She moaned in misery, head downwards. "That's all I can remember. Why? Why?!"
Why did these memories just have to come rushing back her while she's both lovesick for Myotismon AND frustrated with not doing her job right as a guardian?!
"I see you were so close. That's too bad." Gennai said.
Matt argued. "Just saying it's 'too bad' won't cut it! The eighth child will die if we stay here for one more day!"
"That's not all! If those Digimon run loose, they'll create massive chaos throughout our country!" agreed Sora.
Beth addressed Gennai, "Please sir, isn't there a way to open the gate again? We need to get back ASAP!"
"Of course there is."
Everyone's faces brightened.
"I can't simply explain it. You'll also be needing the tools that will help you."
He instructed them to come to his house, telling them to look closely around them. Patamon flew upwards and spotted a searchlight. No doubt Gennai was signaling them from his abode.
The group followed the light to small lake right outside the forest, except the lights were shining from underwater. Just then the water parted revealing stone steps leading to a Japanese mansion sitting at the uncovered bottom of the lake and the white body of a robot next to it.
They found Gennai standing on a small bridge atop a pond with his back to them.
"I see you've made it here safely."
"Is that really him?" Tai questioned.
"Yes." Izzy responded.
"Hey, Gramps! There's something I wanna ask you!" Tai then said abruptly to Gennai. The older girls gave him disapproving looks.
"What is it?"
"Why didn't you come meet us directly after all this time?"
"I like staying at home." Gennai replied, stepping off the bridge and walking towards them.
"Just who are you, anyway?" asked Joe.
"A human? Or are you a Digimon?" T.K. added.
Wizard or squib? Dana asked.
"Neither." Gennai shook his head.
He turned his attention to Kylie, "Hm. You've grown up smaller than I thought...strong... and healthy."
"Y-you know me?" Kylie exclaimed.
"Of course, your mother made contact with me and my brothers a long time ago," Gennai answered. "We were the digital world's 'RESPONSE' if you will, when your mother first came to our world, and I knew her for well over three thousand years before her...tragic end."
Kylie dropped her gaze, the other shifted uncomfortably.
"I am surprised that you remember so little... but then, you were so much younger than the Chosen children when it happened." Gennai had added with a tired sigh.
"Why are we called Chosen children?" Mimi interrupted.
"It means that you are children who were chosen to save both this world and your own."
"But who chose us?" Matt questioned.
"Was it you, Mr. Gennai?" Sora consulted.
However the old man shook his head, he didn't chose them. "That's enough questions, what you must do is save your eighth comrade before something happens to them, now come inside."
Just as the door closed behind them, the two halves of the parted lake came together once more, encasing them underwater.
"Let me show you to the guest room. We have food ready and waiting for you there, so you can rest easy."
"It's like we're on a school trip," Joe said after eating his fill and rubbing his full stomach.
"An old wound in my back was giving me pain," Gennai answered, shrugging his shoulders. "I couldn't leave the barrier, I'm sorry to say."
Zaira, who'd been sitting with the other listening attentively, winced as her eyes briefly flashed a bright purple. This meant she was having a premonition.
In her mind's eyes she saw a young man from the back and a gloved white hand with a red sleeve insert some small black orb into the small of the man's back which caused the man physical pain. Was that Gennai? But who was that?
"It's impolite to peer into your host's past, Zaira." Gennai lightly scolds.
Zaira looked surprised.
"It's alright. I know you have little control over it." Gennai said reassuringly.
"Thanks…I think." The guardian of thunder replied.
Gennai walked to the wall facing the group then a large projector screen that displayed a map of Earth came down. "Take a look at this." He then held out a hand with the color and rising sun of Japan and tapped the picture with it. With the tap, the image zoomed in a map of Japan.
"It's Japan." Izzy noted.
Again another tap it zoomed in to the Tokyo Metropolitan area.
"It's Tokyo." Mimi piped up.
With the final tap, a red circle appeared and flashed on the map.
"That looks like the Nerima district." Kylie observed.
Gennai nodded. "This is currently where Myotismon is located."
Tai and Matt's eyes widened with recognition to the point where they leaned forwards. "What is it?" Tai looked to Matt.
Matt replied. "No… it's nothing important… what about you?"
"No, nothing special. It's just that, that place is Hikarigaoka." Tai answered looking back at the map.
"Hikarigaoka?" The group of seven questioned.
The older five girls looked at each other questioningly.
"Now why does that ring a bell?" Dana wondered.
Back in Japan, it was still morning. However strange were already happening as one electric crew was fixing the street light, they noticed something odd. The lights were acting up but as they checked… there appeared to nothing wrong.
The reason for this was because some familiar shadowy figures have made their way to Earth.
In an abandoned building Myotismon and his forces had arrived, the carriage pulled to a stop in a darkened room, lit only by torches with blue flames. Myotismon's coffin floated out, and came to a stop. It opened and Myotismon came out, and when his feet hit the floor, a figure appeared out of the shadows.
It was a woman. She wore a bright pink dress, with slits to reveal her legs up to her knees, and a long, black feather boa wrapped around her person. She held a scepter, which was silver with a hand like mount on the top, holding a black horned crystal skull, with two spiral horns on the top of the skull. The woman was striking, with her angelic, golden hair, but her fingernails were replaced with sharp, curved black talons, and her eyes glowed bright pink, with vertical slit pupils like a cats.
"My precious one." The woman proclaimed.
"Who's that human?" Demidevimon asked clueless.
"Fool! That's Lady Despair, not a human," Gatomon hissed. "She created Myotismon from her mystic blood and is an immensely powerful sorceress of dark power."
The discussion was unheard, as Myotismon kneeling down, grasped at his mother's free hand. And placed a respectful kiss on the back of her hand. "My Lady, it is incredible to bask in the dark presence of your personage again."
"Still a flattering and silver tongue devil, aren't you, my beloved child?" Lady Despair chuckled.
Sierra lifted him to his feet, and wrapped him into a loving embrace. "And now here you are in the human world," she breathed in joy. "With me by your side, you will be the most powerful king, we will conquer the world, all the way to the Forest of Burzee. And you will bleed those immortal fools dry, so you will become immortal and rule this world after I return to my Dark Empire."
In the Digiworld, Gennai had lead the group into a room full of archive drawers. He opened one, pulled something out and placed the objects before them. They were cards, ten with ten different digimon on them: Kuwagamon, Agumon, Gazimon, Andromon, Elecmon, Unimon, Digitamamon, Drimogemon, ShogunGekomon, and Gomamon.
"Do you remember seeing nine holes in the slate in front of the Gate?" Gennai then asked the group.
"Um…" Izzy looked thoughtful before confirming. "Yes, there was!"
"You need to place these cards into those holes."
"But you gave us one card too many."
"There's one card I'm not sure of that is mixed in."
"Which do we use for each?" asked Tai.
"Well… I don't know that either."
His response made the kids, their digimon and the guardians groan.
"Oh well. We'll just put the cards in random order and go with that." Tai shrugged, only to be suddenly grabbed from behind by a frantic Gennai.
"You can't do that! The consequences will be worse! You could get thrown into unknown worlds!"
"Do that many worlds really exist?" questioned Mimi.
The five guardians promptly facepalmed in annoyance.
"We already told you there's more than kingdom in the Etherium!" Beth retorted.
Gennai added. "There's also the danger that you may not be perfectly restored on the other side!"
"What do you mean?" Mimi asked.
Gennai let go of Tai and explained. "Well for example, there's a good chance you could end up switching skin with your respective Digimon."
The mental image sent Mimi into a fit of wails. "I don't want that to happen! No no no no no no no…"
Zaira shrugged. "I don't know, I wouldn't mind have a cool exoskeleton like Tentomon."
Beth grunted, "Are you done yet, Mimada?!"
"That's why, unlike Myotismon who did this by speaking an incantation, you will need to solve this with your own abilities." Gennai said to them.
"But there are so many things that are unknown to us." Joe said.
"Anyway, here are the cards." Gennai gave them to Tai. "Relax and enjoy yourselves tonight. The enemy won't attack you here."
That night everyone but Izzy and Kylie were asleep. The ten year old boy was tired, but like Kylie there were so many things that he wanted to ask Gennai.
"The Digital World appears similar to ours, but it's strange in places. Its laws of physics are a mess. Why is that?"
They were in Gennai's studio, with various machine parts and prototype models scattered across the wooden floor. The walls were made of long panels of resin.
Gennai had his hands folded behind him. "Do you know what this world is made up of? It's something that is equivalent to the atoms and molecules of your world."
"Data, right?" Izzy asked.
"Yes. Everything in this world is made up of the data that runs through the computer networks in your world. That's why if you encounter anything strange here, that's because there is something faulty or missing within the data."
Kylie looked around. "But if that's true how could all that data become so many diverse and sentient life forms? And my being born here…Even with logical reasoning I feel it does not make sense."
Gennai turned to Kylie and tapped his own head once. "Up here perhaps it does not. Logic and science is so logical. However, it fails to answer the why and reasoning behind the creation. In the beginning everything in the Digiworld was basic and primitive before your mother's arrival."
"So, you really did know her," Kylie said softly. "Tell me, what was she like?"
Gennai sighed nostalgically. "Sirene was not only a singularly gifted nymph, but an uncommonly kind woman that dearly loved nature and children. She had a way of seeing the beauty in both mon and beasts. When you were born, she'd longed to raise you in the Digiworld before introducing you to her fellow nymphs…"
Kylie drops her gaze. Izzy looked self-conscious, the conversation was hitting a little too close to home. Yet he and Kylie needed to know.
"How do you know the Dark Spectre Queen?"
Gennai looked solemn. "When your mother was...killed, and my fellow siblings were slain as well," Gennai lowered his head. "I was despondent, and lost in a way...and that's her realm. The Dark Spectre Queen knows ALL things lost, and when I was weeping, lost and alone from the losses I suffered, she contacted me. She told me what the future held through her magic mirror, and helped to ensure you ended up with the right family after your grandfather's death."
So they helped her get adopted by the Pantheon family. Izzy thought
"We have been in contact ever since, five thousand years in the Digital World, and we both never stopped keeping an eye over you as you grew up." Gennai continued.
Kylie closed her eyes and bowed respectfully. "And I thank you both. Regardless of what anyone says or thinks, you both indirectly helped me find true friends."
"Gennai, are you...also Data?" Izzy asked. "You said you were...born, in response to Sirene coming to this world."
"Yes, but I am different from the digimon. Since I have no attribute." Gennai answered.
"An attribute?" Izzy questioned.
Kylie listened carefully, she didn't want to miss anything from this conversation.
Gennai continued. "Although this world is created by data, Digimon are further classified by the attributes Data, Virus, and Vaccine. By the way, is the Digimon Analyzer useful to you?"
"Yes." Izzy nodded brightly. "But there is something that's been bothering me."
"What is that?"
Izzy then held out his open laptop. "This only contains the data of Digimon that I've met. I can't view the information of Digimon that the others have seen."
"I see."
"Could you do something about it?"
"Yes. Now, it's late so you two should get some rest. But before you do, I want to borrow your laptop to add some convenient functions to it."
Izzy agreed. "Yes sir."
Kylie nodded. "Thank you."
And so, the morning came. Before breakfast, everyone folded up the blankets that made up their beds. No one had instructed them to. After seeing Matt start it, everyone else followed suit.
Sitting comfortably, they all waited for Gennai to begin speaking. The Digivice apparently had a function that logged information of the Digimon they had met so far. By attaching a Digivice to Izzy's laptop, the information inside of it would display in the Digimon Analyzer program that had been installed into the laptop.
"It maybe be tough for you, Chosen Children, Guardians, but have faith in your abilities."
"The abilities of the Chosen Children?" Joe slammed his face into the table.
"Nice to have a support of the younger generation." Zaira said sarcastically upon seeing Joe's pessimistic attitude.
"Have some faith!" Sora scolded Joe.
"I'm sorry I can't be of any further use. Now go! I wish you luck."
"Okay!"
The group answered and prepared to leave. However as they were about to step out Gennai gave them parting advice about Vanessa. "Water is her domain, even if she can't come into the digital world," Gennai explains. "She can talk to you through water, and exert some influence. Once in the human world, you can most definitely call her for aid and she'll come."
"Right, thank you for your help." Beth smiled and nodded.
Sneaking back into the castle had been no easy task, there were still left over Devidramon from the last time. MegaKabuterimon fights off the last of the guards and the group begins working on figuring out the order of the cards.
As they stood there at a loss, Izzy's eyes landed on the cards scattered on the floor. He looked at the stone slate next, at the pictures of the lion, archer, and monkey, and the three sets of stars. Each of the nine cards had a different design.
Drawing a box on the ground, Tai tried out his idea first. Looking at how he laid out each card in the nine boxes, Joe asked, "What's that?"
"Good guys, bad guys, dirty guys."
"That can't be it."
This time Joe knelt down to try it out. "Small ones, medium size, big ones."
Next was Matt. He divided them up based on strength. Sora separated them by habitat, and Mimi by the number of letters in their names. Neither Sora's nor Mimi's choices even fit three by three. They kept going by turns, until Joe, after watching this for a moment, stood up. "It's no use."
"No, don't say that," Mimi protested, looking ready to cry.
But Joe said calmly, "We have no basis that any of these are correct."
At that moment there a rumbling from outside the chamber.
"Wh-What's that sound?" asked T.K.
"I don't know." Matt answered.
"That's not an earthquake is it?" Theo inquired fearfully.
"I'll go take a look!" Patamon flew out of T.K.'s arms to investigate.
"Hang on, I'm going with you!" Dana called. She spread her wings to follow him.
They returned looking greatly worried.
"We have trouble!" Patamon cried. "The castle is crumbling!"
"It might be my fault!" Motimon winced. "I broke the ceiling earlier!"
"And worse, the Garthim are headed this way!" Dana added.
Patamon nodded. "All of the passages are blocked!"
"So we have to get the cards right if we want to get out of here." Zaira said darkly.
Joe spoke. "Tai."
"Mm?" Tai looked at Joe, who said with an animated look on his face, "I'll leave it to you, Tai."
"W–What's this now?"
"I'm not trying to avoid the responsibility. I trust your judgment."
Matt stood up. "Me too. I'll follow what our leader decides," he said in a bright voice.
"Hey, since when did I become leader?"
"The moment you disappeared on us, we all fell apart. It was you, Tai, who brought us back together again." Matt's words did not have the slightest hint of sarcasm in them. They were coming straight from his heart.
"He's got a point." Theo smiled, lightly elbowing Tai.
"You're okay with that, right?" Joe asked all around.
The guardians, the other children, and of course all of the Digimon nodded in agreement.
"After all we went through and seeing you pulled through, you proved yourself a leader as much as me." Beth smiled. "And I couldn't be prouder."
Regardless of whether or not he thought of himself the right person to be leader, he wanted to answer to everyone's unanimous feelings. How he had learned the gratefulness of friends for the first time when he had been depressed over his mistakes with SkullGreymon also played a part in it. Believing in one another was what made friends, friends.
"Okay." Tai took the cards and faced the slate.
He did not intend to run from the heavy responsibility of carrying everyone's lives in his hands. But no matter how hard he glared at the slate, he could not come up with a good solution. Tai tried to think of it as a soccer match.
This was the chance for a free kick that would turn the score around. The cards were the ball, and this stone slate was the goal. Everyone's eyes were on him as he prepared for the , where should he kick? If he knew the goalkeeper's habits, he would use them to his advantage. But here, he did not know. He could leave it to chance, but if there was someone out there who knew that goalkeeper's quirks, he could ask him… "Izzy."
Hearing Tai call his name in the moment that would decide their destinies gave Izzy a little start. "W–What is it?"
"Can I ask what order you would put these cards?"
"O–Oh no… are you asking me to decide?" Izzy asked sounding.
But Tai said, "Ever since we got here, we've relied on your intelligence to get through a tough spot. I can't ignore that in what could possibly be our last moment."
All eyes turned to Izzy. But instead of feeling anguished by their gaze, Izzy instead felt encouragement. In each of their eyes, he could see that they all acknowledged him as the rightful tactician.
Before now, before he had come to the Digital World, Izzy had considered himself an insignificant and worthless human being. He knew computers, but what use was that? Even he was aware that he stuck out like a sore thumb in class, and he had thought that even if he wasn't around, the world would still go on.
It wasn't completely unrelated to the moment when Izzy found out the secret of his birth. When he was very young, he had heard his parents talking quietly to themselves in the drawing room when he was heading to the bathroom one night. From those few words he'd heard, Izzy knew that he was not his parents' child.
He didn't know who he belonged to. His very existence itself was uncertain as Kylie's had been months ago. He didn't know how to approach his parents and naturally grew timid about interacting with other people. But right now, right here, Izzy was someone that everyone needed. "Okay. I'll do it."
Izzy changed his feelings of anxiety into confidence, a tentative willingness to believe in his own abilities. Now then…
If there was a rule that these nine cards must follow, then he must first learn what these nine cards meant. In other words, he needed the information of the Digimon on these cards. Digimon information… Digimon information… That's right, he'll use the Digimon Analyzer that Gennai had given to him. Izzy knelt to the floor and booted up his laptop computer.
Wondering what he was up to, the others watched Izzy's every move.
Gomamon – Marine Mammal Digimon, Child Level, Vaccine
Kuwagamon — Insect Digimon, Adult Level, Virus
Andromon — Cyborg Digimon, Perfect Level, Vaccine
Unimon — Mythical Beast Digimon, Adult Level, Vaccine
Elecmon — Mammal Digimon, Child Level, Data
Drimogemon – Beast Digimon, Adult Level, Data
Gazimon — Mammal Digimon, Child Level, Virus
That was as far as he knew. But the data for Digitamamon and ShogunGekomon was not in Izzy's Digivice. That was because he hadn't met them.
"Has someone here met Digitamamon and ShogunGekomon?"
"Ah, me," Joe said, and handed Izzy his Digivice.
When he connected it to his laptop, the information popped out.
Digitamamon — Perfect Digimon, Perfect Level, Data
ShogunGekomon — Amphibian Digimon, Perfect Level, Virus
As he compared everything, Izzy noticed a certain rule. They were all cleanly divided between data, virus, and vaccine, and Child, Adult, and Perfect levels. He imagined the lion, archer, and monkey in his head. And then… he used the Digimon Analyzer once more. And he received the information he was looking for.
Leomon – Beast Man Digimon, Adult Level, Vaccine
Centaurmon — Beast Man Digimon, Adult Level, Data
Etemon — Puppet Digimon, Perfect Level, Virus
"I've got it!" Izzy cried. "The lion, archer, and monkey each represent Leomon, Centaurmon, and Etemon. Each of them have their own attribute. In other words, vaccine, data, and virus. Next, I believe the number of stars indicate from top to bottom Child level, Adult level, and Perfect level. So if you put the cards according to both categories…"
It was a perfect fit! Everyone clapped and cheered.
Izzy looked embarrassed. "But I'm not sure if it's right or not…" he said, suddenly hesitant.
But no one paid that any attention. It was what Izzy had decided. It was what Tai, who had depended on Izzy to find the answer, had if it was the wrong answer, they were all together. That was better than being alone.
"Okay then, let's go!"
"Yeah!"
Their energetic voices echoed throughout the eerie stone room. Abruptly their cheer was cut short because some dirt fell from the ceiling. When they looked up some giant spider digimon were diving towards them.
"What's that?!" Matt yelled
Izzy checked his laptop. "Dokugmon! Adult-Level Virus Insect Digimon whose entire body is made from a computer virus! His special attack, Stinger Pollination, is released from his sharp fangs!"
"Anyone who damages Lord Myotismon's castle will pay with their lives!" The spider declared. Smaller versions of the spider were rapidly descending as the castle rumbled. The awful clicking sound from the Garthim got louder, now the fiendish crab-beetles could be seen going down the stairs!
"Gomamon digivolve to… IKKAKUMON!"
"Palmon digivolve to… TOGEMON!"
"Gabumon digivolve to… GARURUMON!"
The three Adult-Level Digimon leapt into action with the transformed guardians. The Digimon were fighting the giant spiders while the girls kept trying to herd the Garthim away from the children.
"Do it, Tai! Hurry!" Koromon urged.
The boy gathered the cards and began putting them in the appropriate order according to Izzy's analysis.
"Got to hit the Garthim weak spot!" Dana cried.
"But where?"
"We can't get that close, they'll tear us to pieces!" Kylie hollered back.
Theo brightened, "I got an idea! Yo Togemon, do your thing: we need to hit the Garthim too!"
The cactus acknowledged her words. "Got it! Needle spray!"
Not only did her needles hit many of the Dokugmon attackers but they hit the Garthim right on the chest causing them to fall apart.
"Hey, they're not actual monsters!" T.K. cried in surprise. "They really are just a bunch of hard shell and stuff!"
As the fight grow more intense, Tai now only had two cards left. "Which one is it? Agumon or Gomamon?"
Garurumon became Weregarurumon to even the odds.
"Tai, better pick a card, faster!" Zaira shouted.
"All right, I've got it! Gomamon, open!" Tai placed the card in the open spot.
The gate creaked open.
"Well, let's go, guys!" Tai yelled.
"Time to go!" Beth called out just as Weregarurumon finished off Dokugmon.
All of them ran or flew to the gate. Once again the group found themselves going down the proverbial rabbit hole. To the children and the five older girls, the sparkling rainbow light on the other side appeared to be promising them hope for the future.
The ground was cold and wet by the time they awoke. There was snow everywhere. They didn't remember right away that there had been a snowstorm just before they had entered the Digital World, and thought for an instant that time had passed and winter had come.
Kylie shivered as she sat up. "Did we make it?"
"W-where are we?" Matt groaned.
"Are we in Japan?" Tai questioned.
They looked around, recognizing the ground and a very familiar structure covered in snow.
Joe stood up on shaky legs. "This cabin…We're on the campgrounds! We made it back!"
Mimi merely began to cry with relief.
"Now I remember. This is where we left for the Digimon world…" Sora said looking at the sky.
Theo turned to the cabin. "Except I'm pretty sure most of the snow's partially melted since the last time we were here."
Beth sat up and began to pat herself down. "Pockets…supplies… Yep, everything's here."
"Hey, wait? Where are our Digimon?" Sora suddenly noticed.
"It couldn't have been a dream, right?" Izzy asked.
Sora's face fell. "Maybe… Maybe it was the wrong card."
"Sora!" Piyomon's voice chirped.
"Or not!"
All seven digimon were standing by the steps of the cabin, they served as solid proof that their adventures in the Digital World had not been a dream.
"Looks like you're all awake." Palmon remarked.
"Where were you guys?" Tai asked.
They all pulled out bushes that had berries on them.
"Looking for food." Gomamon answered.
Joe actually laughed. "Remember you're in our world, you don't need to eat that stuff anymore!"
"You'll be able to eat much tastier things!" Mimi chimed in.
"We're home!" both the kids and the guardians cheered.
"Hey Tai, why didn't you choose my card?" Koromon asked as Tai picked him up.
"Your card? Oh, uh, I wanted to keep it as a souvenir."
"Really?"
Tai quickly changed the subject. "A-Anyway! We should start looking for the eighth chosen child!"
"Yeah. Myotismon already got a head-start." Matt pointed out.
"Hikarigaoka! I'm sure that's where the eighth child is." Tai said determinedly.
Beth took a confident step forward. "Then that's where we're going first, we'll find the eighth child and rescue them!"
"Yeah!" They all shouted.
"But first things first, we've got three guardians of our team that we need to fill in on the quest." Kylie spoke up.
"Hey, you guys!" A familiar voice shouted.
Theo turned and smiled widely, "And that's them now!"
To be continued…