A/N: Apologies for the delay on this chapter. I had gotten about halfway before things became complicated by a combination of illness, slight computer trouble (which was more time consuming to resolve than being an actual problem) and helping to rescue a possible TNR kitten that showed up rather abruptly on my doorstep. With that said, hope you enjoy the chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Digimon Trinity

Chapter: 130/ Episode 19: Impmon's Last Stand

Takato cracked his eyes open as a faint ray of sunlight filtered in from the large window across from his bed. A quick glance down at the clock below gave him a time of 8:00. Smiling to himself, he drew his blanket up around him and snuggled into his pillow, the sounds of the downstairs bakery softly filtering up into his ears. They were good sounds. Comfortable sounds, and his parents sounded happy. The day was off to a good start.

Guilmon needs something to eat, his sleep-addled mind whispered to him and at that he pushed back his blankets with a sigh. Sitting up, he checked the time again. 8:03. Mussing his already bed-messy hair, he shook himself, dislodging the sleeping dust bunnies clouding his mind and took stock of his situation.

Downstairs, there was the sound of an oven opening with a loud creek.

Okay… That should be Dad, so that means Mom's in the front minding the cash register. Maybe sneaking out today will be easy.

He closed his eyes and heaved another sigh before climbing out of bed and down the ladder. Not for the first time did he think about telling his parents about Guilmon, but just as before he dismissed it. There was just no way that his parents – his mother especially – would react well to the knowledge that their only son was a Tamer. No way at all.

Anyway, Mom still thinks I'm not responsible enough to take care of a pet, he thought, his bare feet touching down on the floor. Padding over to the window, he took a look out at the balcony, checking to see if Renamon had decided to wake him as she had before. Not seeing her, he drew open the door and stepped out onto the balcony, looking down into the alley. Both nothing and no one greeted him, and Takato drew in a breath of warm, September air.

Maybe today we'll finally get a day off from taming, he thought. The battles with the Devas were starting to take their toll on them, and the emotional exhaustion was showing. Particularly now that Ken and his friends were now actively being prevented from lending aid.

Are we really all that's standing between total destruction?

Turning toward his desk, Takato frowned at his red-trimmed digivice thoughtfully, half-expecting it to go off. For the moment, it remained silent, but he didn't expect it to stay that way if the Devas had their way. Scratching at his head, he wandered over to his closet and began to pull out his clothes for the day.

###

Moving with the utmost care and stealth that he could muster, Takato crept down the stairs. Upon reaching the bottom, he peered about the corners, ears straining for even the slightest sound of his parents, gauging his chances to slip into the back where the day-old and day-old-day-old bread was located. The sound of pans clattering in the kitchen alerted him to his father's location. Relaxing a little, he snuck to the wall just across from the entrance to the main bakery section and craned his head just past the curtain to see if he could slip by unnoticed. The angle provided him a semi-clear view of his mother.

Here comes the tricky part, he thought, spotting his mother at the register, counting out some yen. But it looks like she's busy with…Rika?

Takato blinked. She was here after all! And once more buying food from them! Takato immediately began to sweat. If she spotted him, it would be almost impossible for him to sneak by and grab a bag of old bread for his partner. Unless…

Quickly scampering to the other side of the door, he crouched low and began to wave at Rika, doing his best to not be noticed by his mother. The angle wasn't at all what he would call ideal, but this was the best he could hope for, given the circumstances.

"Let's see…" Mie said, continuing to count out the change. "That will come out to 50 yen…"

Oh no… Takato thought. She was almost finished with the order! Rika had to catch sight of him now! Still doing his best to not be seen, he flagged down his fellow Tamer even harder, and sure enough, her violet eyes turned towards him, having caught sight of his movement, and quickly turned into a frown.

Okay… She sees me. Pointing at himself first indicatively, he then turned his finger towards the door just off to his left that led to where the old bread was stored before pointing back at himself. Rika's frown deepened in response.

"What are you doing?"

"Something the matter?" she asked before noticing the direction Rika was looking in. Following her gaze, she quickly spied Takato as he began to make larger, more absurd motions with his arms in a futile attempt to communicate his desire for the girl to cause a distraction. Both Mie and Rika sighed.

"Takato, why are you acting like that? That is not the sort of behavior I taught you to show in front of proper young ladies. Now stop being silly and come say hi! Rika came all this way to see you after all."

Takato's arms froze on the spot and quickly slumped. His hoped-for plan had failed. It seemed he was going to need another way of sneaking food out to Guilmon today.

"I didn't really come to see him," Rika said, blushing as she carefully kept her gaze away from the boy. Mie gave a light laugh at this.

"Oh, you don't need to be like that with me," Mie replied with a wink. "But I understand if you don't want to say it out loud. At your age, I never would have admitted to anything." Frowning, she looked back at her chaotic son. "Takato, why are you still just standing there? She's not going to bite!"

"Uh… Hi," Takato waved, stepping into the bakery. "How's it…going?"

"Swell," Rika said sarcastically, folding her arms together. "Got a text message from Henry. He says he needs to meet us in the park. Apparently, he found something."

Takato perked up at that. "Really? Did he say what it was?"

Rika's eyes flashed meaningfully over at the boy's mother as she folded her arms together. Takato blinked, comprehension dawning in his eyes. Seeing this, Mie found herself shaking her head at the boy's obliviousness, smirking all the while.

"Well, I can see that she's not going to tell you while I'm here to eavesdrop," she chuckled. "I'd better let the two of you go then, but Takato." She fixed her son with a hard stare. "Make sure that you're home tonight before supper! No side trips. No losing track of time. If you do any of those things, your friend…" She pointed at Rika meaningfully. "…is going to end up being very upset with you because you'll be grounded for a week!"

I think she's going to be upset with me no matter what I do, Takato thought sarcastically, scratching the back of his head. "Uh… Sure, Mom," he said instead, not wanting to cause any more problems than whatever one he was already in. "Before dinner. Got it."

Mie looked over at Rika, smiling sweetly. "He's all yours now."

"Yeah… Great," Rika replied flatly, heat burning her face as she was handed her purchase. Taking it, she gave a quick bow and whirled about towards the door. Takato quickly hurried after her and fell into step beside her as the doors swished open.

"I'm really sorry about my mom," he apologized. "I don't know why she thinks we're… I mean, I keep telling her that we're not…" He coughed, blushing madly. "A-Anyway," he continued, rubbing the back of his head. "I'll try to clear things up with her again."

"Whatever," Rika hmphed, starting down the street, not even bothering to look at the boy in an attempt to hide her furiously crimson face.

"H-Hey, if that doesn't work, maybe you should…um… 'dump' me in front of her or something?"

Rika's hand clenched tightly about the bag in her hand as she dared imagine how well that would go

"Or you could just forget it," she said bluntly. "Your mom is obviously off in her own imaginary world, so there's not much sense trying to snap her out of it. At least now I can see where you get it from."

Takato bristled a little at her derisive tone about his mother, but he decided to let it slide. The misunderstanding ensured she was going to be in a bad mood and he didn't want things to get any worse if he could help it.

"Anyway," Rika continued. "What was that thing you were doing with your arms before she saw you? You looked like you were trying to imitate the rooster Deva or something."

"Oh!" Takato laughed in embarrassment. "I was sending you a code!"

"A code," she said flatly. "You expected me to translate Gogglehead?"

"Sorry. I just needed to get some food for Guilmon and I thought if I could signal for a distraction, you'd…" Takato's eyes shot open wide with horror and he spun about on one heel, bolting back towards the bakery. "Oh man! Guilmon's breakfast! I forgot it!"

Rika watched him go for a moment with a bewildered expression on her face before sighing in exasperation. Making her way over to a nearby wall, she planted her back to it and took out her earbuds and cellphone, deciding, if nothing else, she should at least wait for him. As she did so, memories of Mie floated up from the back of her mind and she groaned inwardly, wondering if maybe pretending to breakup with Takato would end the whole mess after all. She certainly didn't seem to be listening to either of them when they initially explained the nature of their relationship to her.

That kid is too much of a handful to be boyfriend material for anyone, she thought with an annoyed sigh, her grip around her bag tightening as she envisioned how the 'breakup' would go. Even if he's kind of cute.

She paused on that thought and then scowled at herself, her cheeks darkening once more.

Stupid… she thought before promptly turning up the volume to drown out her thoughts before they could travel any further down their chosen path. Closing her eyes, she lost herself in the rhythm of the beats. So lost in fact, that she didn't notice the small, brown-haired girl with a sock puppet sitting on her hand until she was standing right in front of her.

"Rika…" Renamon's voice filtered down to her from the psychic bond between them. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring at Jeri Katou, puppet miming barking noises as the girl beamed up at her. Groaning inwardly as she recognized Takato's friend, she took out her earbuds.

"Can I…help you with something?" she asked. Giggling, Jeri ruffed, planting the puppet in front of her face to hide her moving lips while she mimed its speaking.

"Jeri wants to know if you're waiting for Ta. Ka. To."

Oh, for goodness sake… Rika groaned internally again. Today, it seemed, was just not her day.

###

"The Four Sovereigns so far have always been Azulongmon, Ebonwumon, Baihumon and Zhuqiaomon," Ken said, his gaze flickering about the table along Davis, Izzy, Mimi, Wormmon, Palmon, Hawkmon and DemiVeemon. "The partners of the four original Digidestined who came before our groups."

"Ancient history, dude," Davis said. "I mean, even I know them."

Ken nodded and this time Izzy spoke up. "Yes, and up until recently they've always been on our side. Well, to be more accurate, they protect the balance between the two worlds, but they've never made any aggressive moves against humanity and showed no interest in conquering our world."

"They view the merging of the material and digital worlds as being a bad thing," Ken added. "Either way, from what Renamon has told me, something's changed. And Vajramon…" Ken frowned. "…was awfully cagey about saying anything more about them. He didn't state which one he served, but he referred to it as the Sovereign."

"Could one of them have become corrupted and taken over the digital world from the others?" asked Palmon. "Sealed them away like the Dark Masters did?"

"I can't believe that any of them could have been corrupted," Mimi said, puffing her cheeks up. "We fought with them against the Darkness, and those old meanies didn't even try anything weird like Black Gears or Dark Rings."

"You're right about that, Mimi," Izzy nodded. "The powers of Darkness always tried to keep them out of the fighting. Tried to seal them away. I think that suggests some measure of resistance to viral infection that other digimon don't have."

"But digimon do digivolve," Ken said. "And the same goes for the Darkness too." He sighed. "At this point, we still have too little information to go on."

"Hey, do you think it's related to what Kari and the kids found while camping?" Davis asked. "Maybe that's what changed things."

"What we need is a way to get to the digital world, or a way to contact Tai," Izzy frowned. "We can speculate all we want, but until we have more accurate information, speculation is all it will be."

Ken opened his mouth to add his agreement, but was interrupted by the buzzing of his cellphone. Taking it out, he tapped the screen and saw a message from Henry waiting for him. He stiffened immediately upon reading its contents and rose to his feet.

"Of all the times to have lost my license…" he hissed under his breath, earning him a raised eyebrow from his companions. Seeing this, he nodded to them. "We have visitors it seems."

###

"Cool off time!"

Takato watched distractedly as Guilmon splashed his thick tail into the water of the shallow pool, sending a shower of sparkling water crashing into his friend Kenta while Kazu and Jeri – who only received a comparatively minute amount of water splash – looked on with laughter. In spite of the soaking, they cried out with joy and proceeded to counterattack, splashing the dinosaur right back. Takato found himself smiling, grateful to see that at least some of his friends could wear smiles.

Reality, unfortunately, swiftly intruded and brought the boy back towards the matter at hand. Namely the two digimon that Henry had brought to the park with his friend from the Akihabara battle.

"They look pretty beat up,"he said, kneeling down to get another look at them. They were certainly something of an odd pair as far as digimon were concerned. The white one – a Bokomon according to his digivice – was small for a Rookie while the other – A Neemon possessing what had to be the ugliest pair of pants he had ever seen – had few discernable features beyond being long, straight, and yellow with short limbs and long ears. "Do you think a Deva did this to them?"

"It's possible," Henry said, massaging his chin thoughtfully. From her seat by a tree, Rika hmphed.

"Possible? Try 'definitely.' Vajramon sure didn't have a problem going after Calumon when we fought him."

"Well, she's got a point," Takato nodded, scratching at his head. "We've kind of got a limited number of suspects and the Devas are the only real ones we've got."

"Sure, as long as we leave out the weird bird monster that attacked the campsite," said Terriermon, dropping out from the tree branch above Henry, supporting himself by his ears. "There's a whole digital world out there after all."

"These two have the tendency to draw trouble anyway," Koji added. "When we first met, they were being chased by a Cerberumon. I wouldn't be surprised if there was something similar going on here." His expression softened as he took in their unconscious forms. "I'm glad that they're okay though. I wish…"

He sighed and looked away, his dark eyes tense. Takato pressed his lips together tightly, wondering if the train digimon – Angler – would be reborn. He doubted it, as digimon that died in the real world tended to be stuck there, lacking the physical energy to return to the digital world to be reborn. He wanted to hope that such wouldn't be the case.

If I lost Guilmon like that, I don't know what I'd do, he thought, glancing back in the direction of his partner as he continued to splash his three friends.

"Well… Devas or not, it's our duty as Digimon Tamers to defeat them, isn't it?" he asked, turning back towards Henry, Koji and Rika. Rika frowned slightly at that, thinking back on their meeting with all the Digidestined. She had said then they would fight, and that their battles would have meaning. Yet now, with so many of the Digidestined seemingly out of the picture and their having to fight more and more on their own, she couldn't help but feel a little bit annoyed.

"Is that what a Tamer must do?" she asked. "It's not our responsibility to fight them. Let someone else do it. Like those Digidestined. This is their thing, right? Why are we getting their responsibilities dumped onto us?"

"But…we were chosen…" Takato began, only for Rika to harrumph again, cutting him off. She didn't like hearing about 'destiny' or anything that sounded like she didn't have a choice in the matter.

"If the Devas want to fight us, we can't just walk away, Rika," Renamon said, phasing into view just off to the side. Closing her eyes, Rika moaned in annoyance. It seemed like no matter what, they weren't going to have a choice.

Either we do what destiny tells us to, or it'll make us, is that how it's going to be?

She hated feeling as though she were being backed into a corner. It felt like destiny knew she wouldn't turn her back on others.

"We really caught their attention, that's for sure," Terriermon said. "Don't they have anything better to do with their time than fight us?"

"From what you guys have told me about your fights with them, you keep knocking them down," Koji said, climbing to his feet. "That's not exactly something they're going to just let go."

"He's got a point there," Takato said. "Maybe that's why that one digimon Renamon ran into is spying on us. You know, to figure out our weak points."

"Right," Rika grumped. "Because what other reason could they have for spying? To figure out your famous bread recipe?"

"We're not exactly famous…"

"Still… The Devas are clearly targeting us," Henry said. "If we could find that spy digimon, maybe we could get them to help us talk to their Sovereign."

"Doesn't sound like a bad plan and it's a lot better than what we've been doing so far," Terriermon said. "But how are we going to find him? Not even Guilmon can catch his scent and Renamon hasn't spotted them since her run in with them either."

"We'll just have to figure it out…" Takato began, only to be interrupted by a call from Kazu.

"Hey c'mon! Are you guys going to get in the water or what? We're going to make Guilmon get all pruney!"

At that, Takato whirled about, a wide smile blooming on his face.

"Are you kidding? I'd pay to see that!" Takato called, waving at the trio. Turning, he looked at his friends expectantly. "It's going to be a while before Ken shows up. Are any of you coming?"

"No," Henry sighed, checking his phone. "I can't. I've got martial arts practice later on." He winced. "I hope he gets here soon…"

"Don't worry about it," Koji said. "I can keep an eye on Bokomon and Neemon."

"Are you sure?" Henry asked. Koji nodded.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Go on ahead. Say high to Chou Sensei for me."

Seeing that matter settled, Takato turned towards Rika, only for the girl to get up with a derisive humph before walking off without further word. "O…kay…" he said, a disappointed look crossing his face before quickly waving at Henry and Koji. "Well, see ya!"

With that, the boy was off like a bolt of lightning, leaving Henry and Koji alone with themselves and Terriermon.

"He's something else," Koji said after a moment, uncertain as to what to make of the Tamer taking off and leaving the two unconscious digimon behind, even though they would be under supervision.

"Yeah, but he means well," Terriermon giggled.

Compared to the girl, he seems that way, Koji thought, glancing over in the direction of the Digimon Queen as she disappeared around a tree. Her own question about responsibility and whether or not they should fight the Devas had caught him by surprise. But then, the team dynamics about Henry and his two friends were a bit odd. The three of them seemed to fit each other, but roughly.

But then, it took me and my friends a while to work things out, he thought, remembering how difficult it had been for him to join their team.

"All right," Henry sighed, checking the time again. "I've got to get going. Let me know if anything happens, okay?"

"I promise," Koji nodded.

###

Rika stormed her way through the park, fuming at the world around her. Destiny… She scoffed at that. Why anyone want some mysterious, vague, otherworldly force to force them to do something was beyond her.

I don't know how the Digidestined were able to go along with it for so long, she thought. Especially Matt.

She frowned at the thought of the Digidestined of Friendship and her conversation with him about the crest she shared with him. He said it wasn't some destiny I was enslaved to. But…how can I be sure of that? How can I be sure when we fulfilled that stupid prophecy back in Okinawa?

She paused in thought. Had they fulfilled the prophecy? Or had they only taken the first step? Now that she thought about it, Tai hadn't told them everything there was about what made their 'Trinity Burst' so important or how far down the road it was going to go. And didn't he say that she should 'keep an eye on him'? Hadn't there been an amused look in his eye when he said that? A look she had seen reflected in the eyes of Takato's mother ever since she accidently made her aware of her existence?

And all because of a stupid news report that happened to be on in the bakery kitchen when she was visiting.

Rika felt her fists tighten as she stepped out into an open space and set herself against a tree, huffing in annoyance.

It's like the universe is in on some big, practical joke about me or something, she thought. Still, the question of destiny wouldn't leave her. If they were still headed for some fulfillment of the Trinity Prophecy, then what was it? Had Mephistomon only been practice for the true danger ahead?

I remember feeling that click, she thought, arms folding about each other tightly. Like we had finally come together. What…was that?

She was brought out of her thoughts by the buzzing of her phone. Taking it out, she tapped the screen and brought up Sora's message.

I'm here. Where are you?

Her violet eyes flashed and she looked about her, quickly locating the Digidestined of Love on the other side of the open field with Biyomon, one hand shading her eyes. Pushing off from the tree, she fired off a quick reply and started towards her, feeling at once anxious and eager. Spotting her, Sora smiled and quickly approached.

"Hey there," she waved, pocketing her phone. "Ready for some training?"

Rika smirked. "Is that a rhetorical question?" she asked.

7