Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Digimon Trinity

Chapter: 164/ Episode 24: The Journey Begins

Darkness held sway over Ken and Yolei's apartment as they lay tangled together in their sheets in roughly the same place they were after falling into bed together. Yolei's arm lay draped around his waist, hugging him close to her and the faint breath coming from her lips played along his skin warmly. He gave her a light squeeze and shifted so he was more fully facing her. Sensing his motion, her brown eyes fluttered open and she gazed at him for a moment before giving him a squeeze of her own.

"Morning," he whispered, kissing the top of her head.

"Good to see you again," she murmured, giving his chest a kiss. "Good to see you're still here."

Ken noted the tremor in her voice. He couldn't blame her. Yesterday had been insane, to say the least. He could still feel the tension following after him in his muscles and invading his mind whenever he closed his eyes. Going to sleep had taken a while and had needed a bit of help along the way. But even then, his sleep, like hers, hadn't been restful.

Not to mention short, he thought, glancing past her and seeing the time. six in the morning. He racked his brain for when he had fallen asleep and came up with a dismal three-ish. He groaned mentally.

"Won't be for too much longer, I'm afraid" he said. He felt her arm tense against him, as if contemplating holding him in place, but she soon moved to disentangle herself from him.

"I hate wars," she grumbled irritably, rising up for only a moment before plopping herself back down on the bed. Grabbing a pillow, she drew it over her head. Ken gave her a sympathetic look.

"Sorry."

Lifting the pillow up slightly, she peeked out at him from beneath it. In her gaze, he saw all the love she had for him, tempered by the knowledge that they had work to do to safeguard the world. It didn't make things easier. Leaning down, he gave her shoulder a kiss. His lips lingered there before continuing, tracing their way along her smooth back. She shuddered beneath him.

"Ken…" she whispered shakily. He kissed her again and held his lips on a shoulder blade. Her voice was almost pleading, though whether that meant for him to continue or a reminder of his duties, he wasn't sure.

Yolei, shifted beneath him. A moment later, the world exploded in a flurry of flying pillows and blankets as she gave answer to his unspoken question.

###

At seven, Takato rolled over in his bed as the sun finally peeked into his window, casting a comfortable ray in the room that warmed the floor before his bed. He watched it idly for a moment, his thoughts alert despite the morning hour. His ears strained for the slightest noise about him. The hum of the heater pumping warmed air into his room to drive away the morning chill. The clatter of pans and trays down in the bakery. Indiscernible words passing between his parents as they set about their chores.

Compared to yesterday, it all seemed so quiet now.

Wonder how long that'll last, he thought, drawing back the covers to his bed. Making his way down the ladder, he planted his bare feet at the edge of the sunlight. Flexing his toes against the rug, he padded into the sunlight, letting out a sigh of relief at the warmth that bathed them. Downstairs, he heard the creak of the oven as its door was opened.

It's so wild how everything's gone back to normal so quickly. Heading over to his closet, he pulled out some clothes for the day and tossed them unceremoniously to the floor. He pondered that. The day was certainly starting off with the appearance of normal.

A thup-thup-thup from outside caught Takato's attention as he slid off his shirt. Pausing, he glanced out his window and spotted a helicopter flying overhead, heading off in the direction of the Shinjuku government building.

Well, maybe not so normal, he added mentally. School remained open, as did the bakery. So far as he knew, the only places that were seeing any serious closures were areas that had seen the most fighting, mostly along Meiji Avenue and some places to the north of it. Phonelines and cellular signals were gradually being restored and repair crews were out in force assessing the damage. Normal was just skin deep now. It occurred to him that everyone was trying to put up a facade of normal to keep from panicking.

Maybe not so normal, he continued, picking up his hoodie from off the floor. His grip was tight. Tense. But not bad considering the city was this close to being wiped off the planet. That last Deva was the most powerful yet! And he brought an army with him! If we have to go through another fight like that and they're able to digivolve, we'll be toast! We have to find a way to the digital world and rescue Calumon!

Finishing changing, he grabbed his school bag and glanced around his room. It seemed to look back at him worriedly, as if asking if he would be coming back.

Probably just my imagination, he told himself, ducking out of his room and making his way downstairs. But the room's unspoken question sat heavily in his gut, making him feel nauseous. Passing into the bakery section of his home, he snatched up some day-old bread, bid his goodbyes to his parents and headed out. They both had tension etched into their faces despite the smiles they gave him. He wondered how they would be if – when – he left for the digital world.

I can't go without telling my parents. The door to the bakery shut behind him with a finality to it, and he stood in the alley, the memory of their faces filling his mind. He closed his eyes and bit his lower lip.

I'd tell them about Guilmon and fighting lethal digimon, but Mom freaks out when I get a bloody nose. This'll send her off the deep end!

He didn't want to tell them. He'd been avoiding it for so long now and he knew now that he was doing it on purpose. Like everyone else who stayed open despite the disaster from yesterday, he had avoided telling them to maintain whatever vestiges of normalcy he had remaining in his life. Holding onto that innocence tightly, not wanting to say goodbye to it. Once he told his parents, it would be true commitment to being a Tamer.

It scared him.

"I told Rika and Henry that we're going to the digital world rescue Calumon, and I'm afraid to tell my parents about being a Tamer." He drew in a shaky breath and let out a harsh chuckle that sounded false to him. "Rika's right. I am a gogglehead."

Adjusting the straps on his bag, he set off with an uncertain heart.

###

"Guilmon!" he called, racing up the steps to his partner's home. He found his partner waiting for him at the main entrance. Ken and Wormmon stood on the outside, the former leaning against the iron bars with the latter hanging out on his shoulder, looking tired.

"Ah!" Takato's eyes widened as he drew up short. "Mr. Ichijouji!"

"Hey, Takato," Ken greeted, pushing away from the cage. "How are you this morning? Rika told me about what happened with you. About your feedback."

Takato lifted an eyebrow and glanced down at his arms, realizing he had completely forgotten about that. The skin was flaking a little bit in places, but it no longer looked crisped or angry.

"I'm fine," he decided, dropping his arms. Approaching the gate, he opened it with a creak of iron and Guilmon rushed over to him.

"I'm glad you're fine," Guilmon said happily, snuffling his partner just to make sure. "Yesterday was a pretty mean fight, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Takato agreed solemnly. "Yeah, it was. But we're going to do our best to make sure it doesn't get that mean again, right, boy?"

"Yeah!" Guilmon exclaimed. "We're not going to let anyone take over the world…or our bread."

Takato laughed at his partner's one-track mind. "Speaking of which," he began, offering his partner the bag. "Um… You might want to ease up on the bread eating. I had to do a lot of explaining about why there were so many our bags here and, well… Let's just say I don't think they believed me."

"A digimon can't fight on an empty stomach though," Ken pointed out as Guilmon took out the first loaf. Pausing on it, the reptile offered it to Ken.

"Does Wormmon need something to eat?"

"Oh, don't worry about me," the insect replied. "I can bake some brownies when we get home."

His stomach's loud growling clearly told another story.

"We'll consider this an appetizer for the main course," Ken smiled, accepting the gracious gift and breaking off a piece for his partner. The larva digimon took it into his claws and began to nibble on it, doing his best to not wolf it down in one go.

"That's an…awful lot of restraint there when it comes to food," Takato noted. He realized just then that Rika hadn't stopped by to get anything for Renamon. He wondered if that meant she was in trouble.

"Um… I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone since I got home. Our phone's still out."

"That's why I'm here," Ken replied. "Matt's still laid up in the hospital, but he's recovering. Davis…" He hesitated. "He's stable, but it's going to be a while before he's out of the woods, I'm afraid. Just about all the digimon except for Palmon were hurt pretty bad but they all seem to be on the road to recovery. I'm about to go check up on Kari since she's not answering her phone."

"I saw her last night as I was heading home with my parents. She seemed okay."

"That's good." Ken breathed a sigh of relief at Takato. "Well, I still need to check on her anyway. Phones aren't very reliable right now and she needs to know that Izzy's organizing a meeting."

Takato's eyes hardened.

"Are you planning to go to the digital world to rescue Calumon?"

"If we can." Ken broke off another piece of bread and passed it to his partner, who showed a little less restraint this time around. "According to Izzy, there are portals popping up all over the place in the city, but a lot of them are too small and all of them are so far temporary."

He took out his D-3 and pondered it. He felt as though he should feel elation at having his regular digivice back, but instead he felt empty. As though its return had been a defeat.

"It's not like it was in the old days when we could just use these to go back and forth," he said.

"Hey! You got your old digivice back!"

"Yeah." Ken smiled ruefully. For all the good Imperialdramon can do us now. "Anyway," he continued, "we'd like you, Rika and Henry to be there. Can you make it?"

Takato's mind trailed back to his parents and how they would feel to know that he was a Tamer, but he nodded. "We'll be there."

"All right," Ken replied, pocketing his digivice. "I'll see you there. Good luck today."

Luck… Takato's expression sobered as Ken headed off, an obvious limp to his walk. There were so many things that could have gone wrong for him yesterday. We were really lucky in that fight.

A slight nudge from Guilmon's snout on his elbow brought him back to attention.

"Takato? You'd better get going. You don't want your teacher to make you wait again because you're late, right?"

"R-Right." Takato smiled wanly at his partner, who returned it with a curious cock of his head.

"Are you all right, Takato?"

Takato took a moment to carefully consider his answer.

"Yeah," he said. "Just a little nervous." Placing a hand atop his partner's head, he rubbed it down. "I'll see you later, boy."

"Bye, Takato!"

###

Ken exited the park and checked his cellphone again. Just as before, he had no signal.

Even text messaging and Internet access is sporadic and unreliable, he mused. He considered briefly trying to use the park's phone but decided against it. Kari wasn't likely to answer in the current situation, which meant that a physical visit was absolutely necessary.

Those Devas and Juggernaut left us in a bad position, he thought. We're stuck having to move on foot to communicate with one another while they can talk pretty much whenever they want or need to.

It felt alien having to resort to such slow methods and a part of him seethed with impatience. Yet there was little he could do about it except adapt as best he could.

I hope the others are adapting better than I am, he thought, continuing to limp along as he wondered how Kari was doing.

###

Kari resisted the urge to pinch herself. Despite feeling refreshed from her much needed rest, she felt she had to be dreaming. Had to be! Yet, everything around her felt as real and as solid as anything in the waking world. It didn't make her feel any less disoriented.

The Dark Ocean took me and then dropped me in the digital world right in time to meet my brother. And he's traveling not only with an old enemy who's somehow one of his friends, but a digital copy of Sora made by another enemy.

Somehow, it sounded like something only Takato could have dreamed up. Or TK, back when he had been making his first forays into the world of writing back before the War.

Kari's fingers tightened, her eyes falling on Etemon. The King of Rock was idly standing behind Tai and Sora – Rei, she reminded herself – concentrating on the large screen in front of them, his expression visibly serious even with the absurdly large sunglasses obscuring the top half of his face.

"It's quite the tangled ball of yarn, isn't it?" Gatomon asked from by the woman's ankle. Kari looked down at her, confused. Gatomon gestured to the trio. "Them," she clarified. "Back when I was working for Myotismon, Etemon was a newcomer onto the scene. Datamon was one of Apocalymon's creations, working to take over the Continent of Server. Etemon saw the potential of his Dark Network and took it over. Myotismon was sure that there would be a fight between them sooner or later, but then Tai and the others showed up and that changed things. Now look at him."

Her whiskers twitched as she watched Etemon drop a massive monkey's paw on Tai's head and give it a good ruffle. The conflicts of her partner's childhood were far, far away. Yet she kept expecting the virus digimon to take that large hand and snap Tai's neck like a dry twig. A joke from Milleniummon or not, it wouldn't surprise her to imagine it as a part of some long-term plan to get the Digidestined to lower their guard. It had happened before after all.

"Well, he seems nice enough," Kari said in a low voice, though she didn't sound at all like she believed it. "I'm more concerned about this Rei."

She thought about the introduction with the clone of Sora. Tai had been awkward at first about it. Indeed, awkward was the only way it could go, all things considered, though he tried his best to make it as smooth as possible.

"Kari, this is Rei. She…um… Okay, this is going to sound weird, but she was created originally as a copy of Sora to kill me and Etemon."

"Tai!" Rei exclaimed, punching him in the arm.

"Ow! Hey! Relax! I'm just trying to rip the Band-Aid off as… Ow! Stop it!"

"Stupid Tai! I hope you don't introduce me to your mother that way! I want to make a good first impression!"

Kari's expression pinched slightly in recollection, wondering what Rei had meant by that.

Tai… What have you been doing since you came here?

She sighed, berating herself for worrying about who her brother was in a relationship with. Or at least appeared to. She cast another look at Rei, her expression tight and considering. She still looked like Sora, and even her mannerisms made the impression all but complete. The only difference was Rei's computer abilities, something Sora didn't have in such detail.

Maybe something she inherited from her creator? She shook her head mentally. Rei, it seemed, was quite the story.

One for later, she thought to herself. Right now, there are more important things to be concerned about.

She glanced up at the map that the group was focused on. Their 'mission' before they detected her arrival. An entire sector of this portion of the digital world's Eastern Quadrant had been destroyed and they were investigating it. They had, it seemed, reason to believe that the quakes being experienced in Shinjuku were tied to whatever was going on here.

As she watched the group, she saw Tai cast a look in her direction. She nodded to him stiffly, still feeling conflicted about how to feel now that they were together again.

Fifteen years is a long time, she thought. And he stayed in contact with Meiko throughout it all! He…He never once tried to call me.

That knowledge made her want to hit him again.

Disengaging himself from the map, Tai went over to her.

"So…" he began awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. "Sorry about that. I know we…I kind of owe you an explanation…"

"Tai?" began Gatomon, fingering her claws. "You sound like I did when I popped your soccer ball. Just spit it out like a bad hairball. The sooner, the better."

Tai furrowed his brow slightly. "Right."

"She has a point you know," Kari said, folding her arms together. "Besides, there's no 'kind of' involved here. You owe me an explanation. There's no 'kind of' about it."

Tai gave a dry chuckle. "Also right. I just wish that I had the time to really go into it. I mean, we were in the middle of…" He paused, seeing Kari narrow her eyes at him dangerously. "Right. Cough up the hairball."

He cleared his throat. "W-Where would you like me to begin?"

"Maybe start with why you haven't tried talking to me since you left. Or why you left at all. We were a team, Tai. You always said there was no 'I' in that."

"At the time, I was pretty much the only one left who was willing to fight," Tai said, and a shadow fell over his face. "And I didn't want to wait for them to come after you again. And they would. They did."

Kari tightened her grip about her arms at that, remembering how the specters of the Dark Ocean had begun to haunt her again ever since the Devas first made their incursions into the digital world.

"You didn't have to go though," she reiterated. "We could have all gone together, no matter what the government said."

"You really think so?" Tai asked. Folding his arms together, he leaned against a panel. "Matt was part of the military. And almost all of us were grownups. I don't know."

"Why do you say that?" Kari lifted an eyebrow. "We wanted to find you. It's just… Izzy never found a way. Between Gennai and the firewall, we couldn't get to the digital world." She tilted her head in thought. "Tai…"

"You all had lives to get back to," Tai said. "And I thought it was important for you to do that. I know, it was stupid and selfish of me, but that's just how I felt back then. And I didn't want Gennai yanking the carpet out from under us again with our partners. That way, you'd be safe. You'd still have Gatomon by your side even if I wasn't."

"But…why didn't you ever talk to us? Talk to me?" Kari's eyes fixed hard on Tai. "Why did you keep in touch with Meiko instead?"

Tai closed his eyes. "I said I was selfish," he replied in a low voice. "I…couldn't say goodbye to her. And…And I was afraid that the Dark Ocean might try to get to you through me. I figured, if you didn't know I was still alive…" He trailed off and scratched the side of his head. "There were a lot of things that sounded better in my head at the time. And then I met Rei, and that just…made things weird. I tried to stay away from her after dumping her off at Gennai's place, but he had other ideas involving her and Etemon, so…yeah."

He shrugged, not sure what else to say. Kari looked away.

"I'm really mad at you right now, Tai," she said.

"Yeah. I kind of got that from when you hit me."

Kari wrinkled her nose at him.

"I want to say that I'm glad to see you again. That you're telling me all this, but…I can't. Not right now. I…I don't even know if…" She closed her eyes and a cold chill ran through her. "…if I'll ever be able to forgive you. There were so many days and nights where I imagined you coming home and I thought I would, but…b-but…"

Hot tears burst forth from Kari's eyes just then, causing Rei and Etemon to look worriedly in their direction. Looking uncertain, Tai went over to his sister and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"That's fine," he said softly. She looked up at him and sniffed. "Look, I'm not going to defend what I did, but it hurt you. If you want to be mad at me for it, that's fine. Go right ahead. I deserve it."

Kari sniffed again and wiped at her face. She looked away. In her heart, a white-hot fury blazed within her, but accompanying it were memories from her childhood. All the times Tai had been there for her from bad dreams to messy puddles and fighting to find her medicine in the digital world. The long years of his absence that left a void in her made her want to hate those memories, but try as she might, she found that she couldn't. Angry as she was, she loved her brother too much to do so. She cherished him too much for that.

"You should have called," she said quietly. It seemed to be about all she could muster at the moment. Too much had happened too fast and not even her 'good night' sleep had been able to help with that.

Tai nodded. "Sorry."

A pall of silence fell between them now, leaving them unsure as to what else to do or even to say. A part of Kari wanted to ask him more about Rei and his relationship with her, but another part wasn't quite ready to go down that hill just yet. She needed more time to digest all this.

She doubted that she would have that kind of luxury.

"Whoaaa there!" came Etemon's voice, abruptly breaking the silence. "What's that? Hey!"

Looking up, Tai and Kari saw Etemon grab a microphone. "WarGreymon! Hold up! What's that you're passing over?"

There was a scratchy sound of static from the other end and Kari saw Tai tense up. Could Agumon be engaged in a battle? Or worse?

"…like the edge of the world, here," came WarGreymon's voice, breaking through the interference. "Rei. Can you see this?"

"One second." Rei tapped a number of buttons on her control panel and within short order, an image appeared on the screen, transmitted to them from WarGreymon's eyes. Kari rose to her feet, her arms falling away from one another. On the screen was a fractured and cracked landscape. Completely desolate of all signs of life.

All signs of life, that is, save for a number of red bubbles rising from the cracks in the ground.

"What…is that?!" Kari gasped, taking a step closer to the screen.

Tai didn't answer right away. He was reminded of the brief wall of red that had consumed Gennai's house. Were they the same thing? Approaching Rei, he leaned a hand on the back of her seat and pressed a finger on the screen where one of the bubbles floated. "Rei. Can you get me a larger view of this…whatever it is that's under my fingerprint?"

"You're cleaning that up later," Rei quipped as she hurriedly typed in the commands. The image ballooned and detail became clearer. It remained a red bubble, but something about it was different. It stood out in a way that reminded him of the crude CGI that had been prominent in the media of his youth. The digital world was tremendously good at mimicking the real world. So good in fact that a casual viewing rendered the two almost indistinguishable from one another. But the similarities ended only at the surface. Peel any of it back and the differences became apparent right away.

So why's this thing so different? Why's it look…primitive?

"What do our sensors have to say about this?" Tai asked.

"Hmmm…" Rei called up a separate screen and frowned as it fed her information. "Pretty low memory storage. Low pixel count. This one bubble doesn't have a whole lot going for it, but I'm getting a weird reading from it. Some kind of…I don't know. Destructive interference, I think? I'm not sure. The only thing I am getting that I can be sure of is some kind of transmission between it and the other bubbles."

Tai cocked his head to one side at that. "A transmission?"

"Yeah. There's a data stream. I think I can hack into it. Whatever's protecting it, it's really out of date. I… There we go!"

She tapped a button and brought up another screen. Tai blinked in confusion as he looked at it. It appeared, at first glance, to be dozens of views of WarGreymon as he floated above the bubbles. As he watched, the dozens suddenly multiplied, and a new screen popped up to compensate.

Within seconds, more screens were appearing to do the same.

"Information overload!" Rei cried out, hurriedly trying to exit from her hacked transmission. "Oh… Oh nuts! The system's jammed! There's a lot of these little things!"

As if to put an exclamation point on that, the ground rumbled, causing the plated floor beneath Tai's feet to shiver.

"WarGreymon!" Tai called. "What's going on out there?"

There was static for a moment before WarGreymon answered.

"I think I'm going to need a bigger Terra Force…"

8