I seriously need to sit down and make a more thorough outline of what's coming next after this chapter. All the storylines are finally coming back together and I want to make sure I don't miss anything.

Thank you for reviewing the last chapter: Vigatus, Guest, Berry Doyle, Sweet Cari, dnofsunshine, and Staria's Light! And thank you so much, hirowriter, for reviewing every chapter up so far! (Officially bringing our review count over that 200-review marker, which I'm kind of in awe of.) There's been a lot of new readers lately, and I love getting to see them catch up on the journey, but I don't usually get to see it each step of the way, so thank you for taking the time!

Chapter Thirty-Two: Jailbreak

Shortly after Takato's glorious revelation about his place in this world and as part of this team, the room shook again. He swore the impact jolted his feet clean off the floor for a second, and when he came back down, he staggered forward, arms thrown out to catch himself if the next quake—or whatever it was—sent him sprawling to the floor.

Growlmon's patience ran out then, and he charged forward to get between his partner and the danger at hand. Which he clearly had better instincts to pinpoint, because Takato wasn't even sure where he should be facing until a horrifying, skeletal claw crashed through the glass separating this room from the next one.

Takato swayed on his feet again, and this time it had nothing to do with the physical impact. A wave of wooziness washed over him. So this was what a real battle felt like. He almost wanted to pass out and wake up when this was all over.

"Agumon!" A hoarse, agonized cry behind him brought Takato back to himself. He whirled around to see the boy on the bed had jolted to life, eyes as wild as his hair. His head snapped back the other way as a burst of flame shot towards the hole in the glass. The clawed hand pulled back with an awful screeching sound. Takato was about to instruct his partner to wait or slow down or something that simultaneously felt right and went against all his survival instincts… but the boy beat him to it. "No! Stop!"

This battle was going to give him whiplash. He spun back around as the boy launched himself off the table, ripping the wires off and out of him as he did. But he was weak, and he stumbled almost the second his legs had to support the weight of his body. Takato lunged forward to catch him. He'd never exactly been muscular or athletic, but he managed to keep them both upright.

"H-hey! Take it easy." It was something he'd heard other people say. He suspected it was supposed to sound reassuring. It certainly didn't have that feel when it was coming out of his own mouth.

But the boy was laser focused. "You wouldn't be saying that if it was your partner."

He tried to stagger forward, and Takato did his best to stand his ground, both holding him up and holding him back. His concentration was a bit frazzled and, before he could really process the meaning behind the boy's words, he shot back, "That is my partner!"

He stumbled then and they both went crashing to the cold ground. He heard the boy grunt in pain, and Takato felt bad about that… but he was a little relieved when it stunned him too. From this spot on the floor, he had a moment of clarity. "Oh. Wait. Were you talking about the other one?"

There was another horrifying screech from the creature inside the observation room, and Growlmon snarled in return, standing guard by the hole in the glass. But the sudden surge of panic petered out around the two boys. Even in his battered state, the older one laughed a little at Takato's realization. "Yeah. That's what I mean. The Digimon Emperor's been experimenting on Agumon… trying to force Digivolution. That twisted version of it down there right now is SkullGreymon. It's powerful… but impossible to control. And the longer he stays in this state, the more his data eats away at itself. We have to turn him back before Agumon is destroyed completely!"

Takato nodded, rising to his feet. The other boy's movements were a little slower but just as determined. "Okay. We'll stop him. Growlmon and I will figure something out. Oh. And I'm Takato, by the way."

He chuckled again. "Tai. Let's get through this in one piece, and then you can explain everything, okay, Takato?"

"Right." He hurried forward to stand by his partner's side, looking down at the chaos below. And for just a moment, he was frozen again. The rest of SkullGreymon was just as skeletal and nightmarish and big as the clawed hand that had smashed through the glass wall. But once he got over the initial shock, he could see what Tai meant.

The Digimon was raging around its observational prison with no apparent target. It seemed intent to destroy anything and everything it came into contact with, but he wouldn't have placed bets on the chance it even remembered it had been aiming for them just seconds before. Its screeches now sounded just as pained as they were threatening.

"Okay…" he murmured, his eyes scanning the scene as if it would reveal something new. "A way to stop him…"

"Try this." Takato's head snapped over to see Tai ripping something out of the glowing machine. Of course. The crest. The older boy tossed it to him, and Takato fumbled with it for a second before enclosing the tiny object in a tight fist. But the glow only strengthened and shot out from the gaps between his fingers.

"Takato!" When his partner called his name, Takato could hear an unspoken instruction there. Without giving himself time to think about it, Takato closed the space between them and climbed up to latch onto Growlmon's back. The dinosaur was moving as soon as the boy was secure there, crashing through what was left of the observation window. But the crest's glow had spread to his partner as well, and the light from the Digivolution shielded him from the falling shards of glass.

Takato felt almost suspended in the air when the Digimon started to grow, raising him higher even as they fell to the ground below. By the time the Digimon landed on the floor with another crash that shook every wall in sight, everything about him was even bigger than they'd been before. The core physical characteristics of the red dinosaur were still visible, but Takato was no longer latched onto his back. Instead, he found himself perched on some sort of metal armor encasing his entire upper torso. There was armor around his jaw and arms as well, huge blades jutting out of the sides.

The hum of the crest's power was still in the air all around them. Perhaps it was the momentum and impact of their fall, perhaps it was the buzz of the connection, but Takato bent his head to the back of his partner's, and a name flittered through his consciousness. WarGrowlmon. A glance down at his Digivice could confirm this one way or the other, but he didn't need to look. He knew.

Their arrival jarred SkullGreymon out of his frenzy, narrowing his attention back down to them. But though the other monster still towered over them, it couldn't move quite fast enough. WarGrowlmon shot forward, using his newly-weaponized arms to pin their foe to the wall behind him.

SkullGreymon roared in fury and thrashed about wildly, but WarGrowlmon wasn't budging. Takato could see those scythe-like blades embedded into the wall, effectively pinning them both to a stop. He wasn't sure what else his partner was capable of in this form, but he wasn't interested in waiting around to find out just now either. With a burst of adrenaline, Takato hoisted himself up and slid down the slick metal plating of his partner's chest piece towards the creature, the hand still holding the crest of Courage outstretched.

SkullGreymon was composed of a lot of sharp edges, but Takato didn't falter. He pressed the crest up against one giant rib bone, and the glow intensified until Takato had to look away. Their target let out one final enraged roar before his thrashing began to calm down. Even through his squint, Takato could tell SkullGreymon was now frozen in place by more than just WarGrowlmon's hold. And then, with a shudder, the corrupted Digimon began to shrink.

WarGrowlmon lurched forward as his foe literally shrunk out of his grasp, having to support himself fully using the wall now. Takato almost tumbled right off his perch but managed to turn it into a somewhat graceful slide down, catching himself around one of WarGrowlmon's arms before dropping the rest of the way to the ground. His fist enclosed entirely around the crest again in the process, but that glow had already started to fade. Tai's partner was now small enough that Takato could crouch over him, and he was still losing energy. But Takato wasn't worried. Darkness was also continuing to leech out of him, wafting up between them like black smoke.

When the process was finally through, a little pink blob sat slumped before him, left unconscious from the ordeal. WarGrowlmon yanked his blades out from the wall, lumbering back a few steps to give them some space.

Takato turned to wave Tai over, but the other boy was already moving. He slipped through the hole they'd made and went to drop down onto a piece of overturned equipment pressed up against the wall. Takato hadn't noticed it before and had no idea what it was—it was big and blocky and vaguely resembled a refrigerator. He was sure Tai's plan had been to break the fall with this shorter step and then drop nimbly to the floor, but the older boy was still weakened. His legs gave out underneath him, and he fell the rest of the way. Takato winced, but he rolled out of it and back onto his feet pretty smoothly, so he let it go.

Besides, he thought, glancing back at his own partner, no amount of sensible cautioning was going to stop Tai right now. Sure enough, Tai was running over to them as quickly as his battered body would let him as soon as he was upright again. Only when he reached hid destination did he allow himself to fall to his knees, scooping the little Digimon into his arms.

"Koromon…" He held the pink blob tight to his chest, relieved that his partner only seemed slightly worse off than he was. It was nothing unfixable. They would both heal.

Seeing this reunion, Takato felt his own adrenaline-fueled focus drifting away. It felt like gently coming down from a fantastic high. He slumped to a seat beside them, suppressing a giggle at the insanity of what had just happened. What he had just done. It was crazy… Yet somehow felt so right.

He continued to watch Tai and Koromon and could feel something creeping up on the back of his mind. A curious sense of familiarity…

"Tai…" he repeated slowly to himself.

The boy looked up. "Yeah?"

And then Takato's eyes widened as it finally clicked into place… "Oh… Oh!"

…

Cody was falling.

Down…

Down…

The power Ryo had gifted to him in his final moments could have fled a few seconds ago, or he could have been falling for an eternity already. He couldn't really tell. Time had lost its meaning. He just felt drained.

He had felt everything this world had to offer. He had known everything this world had to offer. And it had slipped away from him now… But not entirely. He couldn't be sure how irreversibly this experience would change him… Just that his outlook would be a little different, going forward.

Assuming there was a forward to go to.

He wondered, was there another in-between space in this realm? Because he was certain the Dark Ocean had been obliterated. That much he was sure he would still be able to sense. And this couldn't be either of the worlds he'd known so far.

Yet there was something else out here with him. Calling to him? Perhaps not this time. But they would find each other nonetheless. If only because they were on a collision course. Someone else could decide how to define meant to be.

…

"I think that's the last of them," Yolei announced.

Joe continued to move up and down the rows of now-empty cells, but she was hardly bothered by his thoroughness. It was just in his nature. And with the rush of their initial attack wearing off, she'd never want anyone to be overlooked due to her own exhaustion.

The jail was a different brand of quiet now. Not so depressing without its prisoners. Just eerie with the memories of what had occurred here left behind.

Mimi strode back through the door at the same time Joe returned to her side. "All right, the Gekomon are leading the prisoners to safety. I convinced ShogunGekomon to step up as their leader so the guarding force has a little more power."

Joe exhaled deeply, and it sounded an awful lot like a sigh of relief. "Good. He's too hotheaded. I don't know if I could keep track of him around here on top of everything else."

"You could always try not worrying so much," Gomamon put out there, but they all let this pass by without comment.

"We're just lucky none of them were seriously injured," added Mimi.

Joe's lips set in a grim line, and it made Yolei's heart sink a little. She loved Mimi's optimism, but she had no trouble following Joe's line of cynicism. Maybe these prisoners hadn't been subject to the serious experiments.

"We should look a little deeper in," she proposed. "It's kind of weird security or whoever hasn't caught us yet. We heard something earlier. Maybe there's bigger trouble inside."

Joe nodded. "My thoughts exactly."

Mimi giggled as they started moving forward. "They grow up so fast…"

Yolei blushed and hoped they didn't see. As usual, Mimi had hit the nail on the head. She felt very young when she was with these two. It was funny. She had a sister their age, and she was constantly pushing back against any authority Momoe tried to enforce upon her. Yolei didn't feel that same defensiveness with these two. She was all too happy for a guiding presence. And yet, she felt she'd grown too. Shurimon was still by her side, but she led the way to the one solid door that could only lead deeper into the lair.

The quiet became more pronounced as they crossed that line into the base itself. Because if the Emperor had guards—and what respectable evil overlord didn't?—then they'd all abandoned their posts. To flee from them, she could hope. But more likely because they'd gone to deal with a bigger problem they hadn't run into yet.

They'd reached a hallway that looked to be made of unsettlingly normal offices. They'd heard further commotion along the way, but this was the first time they were close enough to feel the walls shake. Yolei threw her arms out to balance herself, but Mimi careened into her anyway. Palmon planted her roots in the floor and wrapped vines around their waists to keep them upright. Unfortunately, Gomamon lacked this natural advantage, and poor Joe still went crashing to the floor.

Once their surroundings had settled, the girls each grabbed ahold of one arm and hoisted him back up. He straightened his glasses. "Well… I'd say we're on the right track."

And there could be no doubt when they turned the next corner and saw the scorch marks on the walls. There wasn't much investigative work to be done. The light shooting out from the room at the end of the hall was a literal beacon.

But this time, they'd missed the excitement. The light was already dying down when they charged forward as one and stepped into the destroyed observation deck. Yolei took a second to gape at the strange equipment, but Mimi dashed straight for the jagged opening in the protective glass. And her wordless exclamation brought the other two running.

Mimi leapt down from one platform to another with the grace Tai had not managed. And—to Yolei's slight amusement—the sight awaiting them below caused even Joe to throw caution to the wind, right on her heels. She didn't recognize either of the two boys her new friends swarmed a second later, crossing the distance separating them in record time.

The one to looked to be about her age—who must have been one of the other replacements Joe had mentioned—appeared overwhelmed and bewildered at the sudden activity. Joe and Mimi had covered the older one in a double-locked hug, and the younger boy got to his feet as Yolei dropped the last stretch to the ground. He let them have their moment, backing away a few steps as Yolei walked forward. They met sort of awkwardly in the middle, blinking at each other for a second before the boy extended a hand.

"Uh, hi. I'm Takato. I think I've met everyone else, so you must be Yolei?"

"That's right," she confirmed. "Nice to meet you. And thanks for helping my friends. Joe explained what went on back in our world after I left, but he could only give a second-hand account. I feel so out of the loop…"

Takato rubbed a hand through the back of his hair self-consciously, ruffling it even more than the battle had. "I might not be the best person to explain either. I wasn't much help until recently. But WarGrowlmon and I just found Tai."

"Oh, wow…" Yolei took an automatic step back as she caught sight of his hulking partner for the first time. But she almost backed right into Shurimon, who could look a bit intimidating himself, and reminded herself that they were all friends here. "Wait a minute, did you say Tai?"

The other boy looked up at the sound of his name, and Yolei winced. He was looking a little rough, even from a distance. Joe and Mimi had separated to let him up for air, though the older boy was now attempting to dress some of the nastier burns covering their leader's arms. "That would be me."

"Right, I know! I mean, I've heard a lot about you!" she rushed to explain, suddenly flustered. When Tai just blinked—looking even more out of it than Takato—she took a bold step closer. "My name's Yolei. Kari's my best friend. She's been the one spearheading this whole investigation. So she could find you."

The haze in Tai's eyes cleared a bit at the mention of his sister's name. A whole lifetime of emotions flashed through them a second later that Yolei was surprised to find she followed quite easily. There was pride and nostalgia and loss and bittersweet happiness. All things that preceded the reunion she was suddenly more determined than ever to see. All he ended up saying was a soft, "She has, huh?" more to himself than in response to her… but she didn't mind.

"One thing at a time," Joe started to say, but he was cut off by a dark chill that ran through the room. They all shuddered in unison, and while the Digimon all reflexively took up defensive stances to fend off a new enemy, five pairs of human eyes made contact with an understanding that didn't need words.

"There's some even bigger project that Emperor kid had hidden in the basement," Tai said when they'd had a second to compose themselves. Wormmon drooped a little, nodding.

"Of course it is," Takato muttered with a sigh. "Why would it be anywhere but the basement?"

But Mimi was undeterred as three of the other four knew she would be. An actual giggle found its way into the tense air as she strode past Takato. "We made it this far, didn't we? This is the most intact my team has been in years. We can handle it!"

Tai cracked a grin that was almost playful, bringing a startling amount of life back to his features. "Your team?"

But no one tried to stop her from leading the way.

Review please!

I don't own Digimon.

We finally have Tai back in action. I mean… Koromon's not exactly going to be jumping back into battle anytime soon, but a leader is more than just the strongest fighter. (In fact, something I've noticed as I got older and watched other anime, is that those things often don't go hand in hand. I feel like I've been seeing a bunch of shows lately where the leader is the one who gives all the orders and is still totally worthy of respect even if they never go into battle themselves. It's just something I've been reflecting on lately.)