Twenty

The next two weeks passed without major incidents. Digimon attacks occurred all over Japan, sweeping ever closer to the southern tip of the country, which Daisuke and the JSDF responded to with their usual efficiency, and Hikari got used to her new life on the army base. Her first few days there were the hardest, doubly so given her breakup with Takeru and the absolute breaking of his spirit, but eventually she found herself longing for the day when she could leave.

It wasn't that the base was lacking when it came to things to do because it wasn't, possessing all the amenities she might want to find in any town or city across the country. More, it was the lack of social interaction that was getting to her, Hikari's only constant companion being Gatomon which was all well and good, but she wanted to spend time with others on occasion, even friends that weren't DigiDestined and had no idea about her double life.

Sadly, that wasn't to be. As far as anyone outside her family and the DigiDestined knew, she was in a private hospital taking part in a medical trial after catching some mysterious illness with visitation restricted to just immediate family. That meant while she could call and text them, she couldn't see any of her schoolfriends until the issue with the Dark Ocean was concluded favourably.

Hikari blew out a long, resigned sigh as she thought that for the umpteenth time, flicking through the various channels her television had access in the hopes of finding something worthwhile to watch. This had been her life for the past two weeks, channel hopping between visits to the hotel's gym and swimming pool or the cinema further into town, and Hikari was sure she had consumed more mass media in that time than ever before in her life.

She had even forced herself to watch the Star Wars films to try and see for herself what was so great about the series that the designers looked to it for inspiration with the Mark I suit, seeing nothing that really leapt out at her as being particularly great beyond the visuals in the second and third films, or were they the fifth and sixth ones?

Whichever, Hikari didn't see what the big fuss was about and shifted her attention to something else, and then something else after that, and so on and so forth until the days themselves started to lose all meaning. They all blurred into one and if her phone didn't display the date, there was no way Hikari could have said for absolute certain if it was the weekend or the middle of the week.

'Anything good on?' Gatomon asked from beside her partner, curled up into a ball like she were just another cat sleeping.

'No,' Hikari said. 'Just the same stuff we've watched a dozen times before, and the news.'

'Might as well leave that on, then,' Gatomon said. 'It's what we keep coming back to.'

Hikari did just that, cycling through to her preferred news channel to watch the day's stories and maybe, just maybe, pick up some kind of abstract clue that could help them in their fight against the Dark Ocean. She hadn't these past two weeks, but today could well be the day that changed so Hikari did as she had done and sat, idly scratching the back of Gatomon's head, as the anchors went through the top stories concerning Japan, and the wider world.

At first it seemed like business as usual, the two hosts discussing the attacks by infected Digimon as per usual, but then she realised they were saying the most recent attack had occurred several days ago, with no new battles since then. For the first time in almost two years, there hadn't been an attack by the infected Digimon anywhere on the planet.

'They've stopped attacking,' Hikari said aloud, waking Gatomon. 'The Dark Ocean has stopped infecting the Digimon here.'

'It has?' Gatomon said as she raised her head. 'That's good, right?'

'Maybe,' Hikari said. 'Probably not. They've still got all those Digimon they stole away, plus those shadowy creatures.'

'That means there's no other Digimon left in the world,' Gatomon said. 'Just me and the others.'

'I bet there's some stragglers still out there,' Hikari said. 'The Dark Ocean couldn't have gotten them all.'

'I hope so,' Gatomon said. 'It's kind of depressing to think you're one of the last Digimon to have a partner.'

'More will come,' Hikari said, pulling Gatomon in for a comforting hug as she continued to watch the news, enraptured by this new turn of events and the chilling implications.

With no other Digimon left in the world, that meant there was almost nobody left who could stand against the Dark Ocean should the armies of the world fail in their mission outside of the eleven of them. If things came to that they'd be forced to digivolve their partners to the Mega level, the only hope of fighting off an invading force of Ultimate Digimon three-thousand strong which was, most likely, the Dark Ocean's ultimate goal.

An all-out attack from them had to be coming soon, or even an attempt to kidnap her to help build up their forces, or something else of a sinister nature now that Daisuke and the JSDF had destroyed every last Digimon on the planet.

Her phone rang not long after and Hikari answered it without checking the screen, holding it to her ear and saying, 'Yes?'

'We need to speak with you,' came the voice on the other end, Captain Ishida, who sounded as composed as usual.

'Yeah, I've just seen the news,' Hikari said.

'Good,' Ishida said. 'A car will be there to pick you up in ten minutes. Bring Gatomon.'

'Of course,' Hikari said, and the line went dead.

She pocketed her phone and stood, pocketing a few other items, then grabbed Gatomon and headed downstairs into the lobby where a soldier in fatigues was already waiting for her, as was another plain sedan that took off the moment she was seated and drove her to some official looking building on a part of the base she hadn't been to before.

Another soldier helped her out of the car and led Hikari to a spacious conference room that contained a table big enough to seat twenty, an empty mug and a bottle of water placed next to each seat, with Captain Ishida seated at the head of the table. He glanced up when the door opened and nodded in greeting at Hikari, directing her to take any seat she wanted whilst her escort left.

'Are the others coming as well?' she asked, noting the abundance of places for people to sit.

'With any luck,' Ishida said. 'My people have extended invitations to them all, but whether they accept or not is up to them.'

'You didn't make it seem like I had any choice,' Hikari said.

'Because I knew you'd agree, regardless,' Ishida said.

'Is Daisuke going to be joining us?' Hikari asked.

'No,' Ishida said, shaking his head. 'He's getting some much-needed rest ahead of the next phase in our operations. Pending the outcome of what's discussed here, you might see him again.'

'Good,' Hikari said. She paused and looked down at Gatomon, who looked back at her, then turned to Ishida again and said, 'Did you speak to him at all about that night?'

'Which one?' Ishida said.

'You know,' Hikari said, tapping the spot on her head where the fracture was. 'That night.'

'Ah,' Ishida said, realisation dawning on him. He glanced at Gatomon as well, as though debating whether or not to continue. Hikari hadn't told her partner, or anyone for that matter, just what Daisuke had tried to do to her back on base, or what Ishida had said to her afterwards about his motivations behind it, because she couldn't figure out a way to properly explain it to them.

'Yes,' he said after a moment's thought. 'Though Daisuke claims to have no recollection of the event, likely due to both inebriation and his head trauma. I left it at that.'

'Okay,' Hikari said.

'What are you two talking about?' Gatomon said, glancing between the two humans. 'Did something happen between you and Daisuke the night you tripped and fell?'

'Kind of,' Hikari said, forcing what she hoped was a natural looking smile onto her face. 'We had a bit of a disagreement and both of us tripped and fell during it. He was a little bit drunk and certain… things were said, and we might have gotten a little physical.'

'He didn't hurt you, did he?' Gatomon said, flashing her claws. 'Because if he did…'

She let that threat linger in the air even as Hikari tried to wave her off, saying, 'No, no, nothing serious. If anything, I probably hurt him more.'

It felt wrong to mislead Gatomon like this, but Hikari couldn't bring herself to lie outright to her partner so the next best thing was bending the truth a little. Everything she had said was true, from a certain point of view to use that space wizard's words from the Star Wars films. She and Daisuke had disagreed on him having his way with her, they had both definitely spoken several words, and they had both tripped after a physical altercation between them.

And, Hikari was sure she had caused him more pain, just not of a physical nature. She recalled her texts to him and his answers, and everything that implied.

'So long as you let me at him if he does anything to you in the future,' Gatomon said, putting her claws away.

'I will,' Hikari said, smiling.

'Though if you could wait until after we're done with the Dark Ocean, I'd appreciate it,' Ishida said. 'It wouldn't do us any good if Daisuke can't operate the suit because he's been shredded to pieces. Assuming, of course, he actually does anything.'

He met Hikari's eyes over the top of Gatomon's head and she offered a weak smile that came off as nervous, and then all three of them looked up as the door into the conference room opened up to reveal the first of the other arrivals, Koushiro and Mimi, plus their Digimon, and the rest of the DigiDestined filed in over the next fifteen minutes or so, splitting into three distinct groups.

On one side of the table was Hikari, Miyako, Ken and Iori, clustered together, followed by a lonesome twosome of Joe and Sora, and then the rest who had sided with Taichi. Takeru was sat with her brother but he didn't even so much as glance at her when he walked in, slouching low in his seat with both arms folded across his chest.

Hikari was sure she heard him mutter something about Daisuke not being present, or her 'new boyfriend' to use his words, but she duly ignored him as Ishida stood before the head of the table, looking at everyone in turn.

'There's been some developments,' he began. 'For those of who you might not have been paying attention to the news, it has now been a full two days since the last attack by an infected Digimon anywhere in the world. Whilst this might be of some comfort to the public, our reaction is much different.

'It means that outside of the ones in this room and some scattered survivors, there are no more Digimon partnered to humans here in the real world, which is something we believe has been one of the Dark Ocean's main goals for some time.'

'And you think this means the Dark Ocean is going to move onto the next part of their plans,' Koushiro said. 'Right?'

'Yes,' Ishida said with a nod. 'What that is, exactly, is still being hotly debated by the brass.'

'I thought you knew that already,' Taichi said. 'You told us they were going to invade us.'

'I said that was a likely scenario,' Ishida said. 'We still don't know for certain that's what they have planned. It could just as easily be total eradication of humanity as a species from the Earth. Three-thousand Digimon is more than enough to cause that, attacking volcanic hotspots and fault lines, even nuclear power stations for that atomic wasteland vibe.

'We're only saying it's likely invasion because at least that means there'd be people alive to fight back against them.'

'So you brought us here to tell us that,' Taichi said. 'That you know nothing.'

'No, I brought you here to appraise you of developments,' Ishida said. 'And that's what I am doing. I've told you about the first one, and now I'm going to tell you about the next.

'For the past few weeks, a joint force has been establishing a base of operations in the Digital World ready for launching an offensive against the Dark Ocean, amassing everything we need. My unit, including Daisuke, is set to ship out there tomorrow and I wondered if you wanted to tag along.'

'Why?' Takeru asked dourly. 'It's not like you want us fighting alongside you.'

'No, I don't,' Ishida said. 'But as I mentioned before, your Digimon are the only ones left that have human partners. I can only assume the Dark Ocean did that for a reason, and I'd like to keep an eye on them somewhere away from population centres. If they do turn, and there's nothing to say they won't, there'd be more than enough soldiers to contain them.'

'You mean kill them,' Takeru said, holding Patamon close.

'Should it come to that, yes,' Ishida said before he turned to the whole group. 'I'm not forcing you to go. I'm simply making this offer as a courtesy, and you'd be under no obligation to stay there should you accompany us.'

'What if we wanted to fight?' Taichi asked.

'Then you'd be free to do so,' Ishida said. 'Just bear in mind that the same warning I gave you during our first meeting still stands. Your Digimon will be fired upon if they become infected.'

'You mean you still haven't come up with some sort of program to prevent that?' Koushiro said.

'No,' Ishida said, shaking his head. 'Whoever or whatever did a very good job of creating this infection. It's defied our every attempt at containing it, so unless you've come up with something…?'

'No,' Koushiro said. 'I'm still nowhere close to a breakthrough, either.'

'Then we have nothing to prevent your partners from becoming infected,' Ishida said. 'So if you do feel the need to join the fray, I ask that your keep them at or below Ultimate level.'

'But what if the situation calls for them to be Mega?' Taichi asked. 'What if your forces are being overrun?'

'Then we retreat,' Hikari said, glancing at her brother. 'The Dark Ocean would kill to get control of Omnimon, or any of the others. You should know that.'

'What, we let them win?' Taichi said.

'We let them win that battle,' Ishida said, shrugging. 'In all likelihood, it would by a pyrrhic victory for them if they did. The amount of troops currently stationed in the Digital World would require the Dark Ocean to send a sizeable percentage of their forces to eliminate them all, and they'd probably lose more than half in the process.

'Meanwhile, our survivors would retreat back to friendly lines to reinforce and resupply, and use what we learned to increase our lethality in the next engagement. Loss today doesn't make for loss tomorrow, and the same is true of the inverse. History is replete with examples of a superior force winning a battle, but at such a great cost it led to their defeat afterwards. I can get you a list of them, if you want some reading materials…'

Taichi grunted in response and shrugged Ishida off, turning away, which the officer didn't seem bothered by at all. He looked to the rest of the group in case they had anything else to add or ask, getting nothing but silence, so he nodded and said, 'Okay, then. We'll be embarking for the Digital World tomorrow at noon from the hangar we first met in. If you wish to join us, be there. If not, don't be.'

With that they all stood, shuffling to their feet and grabbing their partners to start the long journey back to Odaiba, except for Hikari who remained sat in her seat until everyone was gone and it was just her, Gatomon and Captain Ishida in the room.

'Would you want me to go to the staging area as well?' she asked. 'I know I'm supposed to be kept away from the Dark Ocean's forces and everything, but you said if we wanted to go, we could.'

'Honestly, I'm debating that,' Ishida said, dumping himself into his seat. 'On the one hand, you'd be away from a location we know will have access to the Dark Ocean. On the other, Daisuke would be with us and he's our best option for keeping you safe. Either way I'm risking you being abducted by the Dark Ocean. I'm just not sure which is the bigger risk.'

'Well, I want to go,' Hikari said. 'That way I can find something to help out with, can't I?'

'I want to go, too,' Gatomon said, raising her paw into the air.

Ishida nodded once. 'Okay, then. A car will be by at eight tomorrow morning to pick you up.'