Chapter 110: Time is Ticking Part 2

Heya everyone. I hope that you're all well and safe.

Many thanks to Gadget30thAnniversery, Sakura0410 and Lilly The Omega Wolf for your reviews of the previous chapter. As always, I really appreciate the feedback and your honesty.

Thanks for letting me know that you liked the Takari scene at the beginning of the last chapter. I'm glad that you enjoyed it because, as I said in my notes, I really enjoyed writing that scene. Oh, and yes, I do have a good idea of what their daughter is going to be called if you're wondering ;)

Now it's time to follow on from the previous chapter …

"Thank you so much for offering to help us in our battles with Dragomon." Kari bowed before the leader of the Piddomon, and TK, Angewomon and Angemon followed her lead. "We really appreciate your help and support."

"And thank you for the feast that you put on for us too," TK added as they lifted their heads back up. "It was an honour to be your guests."

"The honour is all ours." The Piddomon leader and his guards returned the bow. "We feel truly privileged to host The Chosen of Light and Hope, and it would be an honour to fight alongside you to reclaim your home. We know of the battles that you and the other Digidestined have fought to save our world. We feel honoured that you would ask us to do the same for you."

"We'll let you know the full details once we've confirmed our plans." Kari informed them as she smiled. "I'm sure it will be fairly soon."

Piddomon nodded. "I will make sure that we're ready to aid you."

"Thank you again." Kari gave the Piddomon a wave and, with that, they finished exchanging their goodbyes. Angewomon and Angemon picked up her and TK then flew them down to where the TV was situated on the mountain path, with Gennai following them in his Mekanorimon to discuss a few extra things now that the meal was over. They all landed in front of the portal that would lead Kari and her friends back to Earth before Angewomon and Angemon returned to their normal forms.

"That food was great," Patamon sighed contently as he rubbed his belly. "They really did put on a feast for us."

TK chuckled has he patted his partner's head. "It certainly was."

Kari glanced down at her watch to check the time. They'd been with the Piddomon for a few hours and that meant that her team wouldn't be going out on patrol today. She guessed that Tai, Davis and the others had still gone out to perform ambushes and check on Dragomon's location despite their recent troubles.

Missing out on their daily missions today was worth it though because they'd managed to get more support to help them drive Dragomon's army out of Tokyo. At least, Kari thought that was the case and she was fairly certain that most of the others would consider it her time well spent too. Getting the support of these Piddomon meant that they had more angel Digimon on their side and that meant that they had a better chance of winning because their attacks would be very effective against the Deep Ones and evil Digimon.

"As I mentioned earlier, there's one thing I need to discuss with you before you go home." Gennai caught their attention as he climbed out of his Mekanorimon and stood with them in front of the gateway. "I've done some digging into how Metalseadramon might be tracking you even when you have your digital barriers in place."

Kari's eyebrows rose and she gave her friend a smile. "What have you found out?"

Gennai rubbed his forehead and sighed. "Unfortunately, not as much as I would have liked. It seems there are a few ways that he might be able to sense things through the barrier if it is only blocking out a Digimon's ability to sense the power from your crests and their vision of anything inside it."

"We've come to the same conclusion," Gatomon replied as she nodded. "For example, even though I can't see Kari when she is within the barrier, I can still smell and hear her."

"Right," Gennai nodded. "It's hard to tell which sense Metalseadramon is using without testing it, and I know that's a risk none of you should be taking. From what I've been able to find out, Metalseadramon doesn't have sonar like Whamon has, so that's one thing that I've managed to rule out."

"That's something that I don't think we even considered," TK commented as he glanced at his wife, who gave him a nod. "We thought that Metalseadramon might be using a sense that snakes or sharks on Earth have."

"I've come to a similar conclusion." Another sigh left the man's lips. "We know that Metalseadramon has excellent smell, but that is when he is in water and I'm not sure that it is effective in air. Megaseadramon also have a good sense of smell and they also can sense bioelectricity. It's entirely possible that Metalseadramon can sense bioelectricity too or maybe electricity in general."

Gennai paused for a moment to think further. "It's likely that Metalseadramon has good hearing but, again, that's in water and I'm not sure how effective his hearing would be if he's in air. The same goes if he can sense bioelectricity."

"We also considered that but he found Imperialdramon when he wasn't making a sound," Kari replied as she also thought over the problem. "Although, it's possible that he might be able to hear something that we can't."

"It's unlikely." Gennai pointed at Gatomon and Patamon. "If it's something that these two can't hear, it's unlikely that Metalseadramon can hear it. After all, Gatomon and Patamon have excellent hearing compared to most Digimon."

"We weren't there," Patamon sighed before his face lit up and he glanced at Gatomon. "We could check to see if we hear anything the next time we're about to go on patrol. I've not heard anything before except for Imperialdramon flapping his wings as he takes off, but I wasn't exactly focusing on him. He could make a noise that I've not paid attention to."

Gatomon gave him a nod. "I've not heard anything either but we can check to make sure."

"Get Garurumon to check too," Gennai suggested as he glanced between them. "Actually, Metalgarurumon would be better than Garurumon because he has extra and special senses that most Digimon don't have. He'll likely confirm if it's smell, noise or something else that is giving away your location. However, I'm not sure if he'll be able to sense bioelectricity."

"We'll give it a go." Kari nodded as she made a quick note so that she wouldn't forget. "Thanks for the suggestions."

"Anytime." Gennai gave her a smile. "Oh yeah, before you go, in two days' time, will you be free to meet some Unimon with me? They would also like to confirm that you're having a baby before they decide whether or not to help you."

Kari shared a glance with TK before they both nodded and her husband replied for them. "Sure, we'll met up with them."

Gennai gave them a thumbs up. "Great. I'll send you the time and place via email later on."

Tai gazed out over the Tokyo skyline as Imperialdramon flew over to where they were planning to take their next reading on Dragomon's location and perform their first ambush of the day. The metropolis didn't seem right now that it was abandoned and there wasn't the usual hustle and bustle in the streets. It made Tai hope that they'd defeat Dragomon and Metalseadramon soon so that everyone could return home.

"We should have plenty of time to ambush some of Dragomon's forces in this area," Ken spoke up as he glanced over the sides of his partner. "The group of Digimon that are giving off that powerful source of darkness are a long way to the south today, so we should be ok this far north from it."

Tai pursed his lips for a moment as he thought about whether this group contained Metalseadramon or not. They had decided to patrol Tokyo today whilst Kari was busy in the Digital World, so it meant that they might be in the area where Metalseadramon's decoys were. After all, the sadistic serpent had been patrolling the Chiba peninsular and hunting them down over the past few days. It would make sense that he was in the group out there again today because that's where he was expecting Tai to be.

"Great." Davis pumped his fist. "Imperialdramon, hold up for a moment. Let's get our reading on Dragomon then pick a group that we can take out."

"Right." Ken gave his friend a nod as Imperialdramon came to a stop. The violet-haired teen pulled his compass out of his pocket before he closed his eyes and shifted so that he was facing Dragomon's direction. He reopened his eyes before adjusting the compass to get his reading. "Dragomon is at one hundred and sixty eight degrees from here."

"Alright." Cody gave his friend a thumbs up before he noted it down. "It seems like he's in his usual place out in the ocean again."

Ken nodded as he put his compass away. "Yeah, it seems like he's still keeping his distance from us."

"I'm sure that we'll get to him soon enough," Noriko mused aloud as she gazed over the rooftops in the direction that Ken had taken the reading from. "He's bound to come out of hiding when we try to reclaim Tokyo from him and Metalseadramon."

"Yeah," Keiko nodded as she glanced at her friend. "Even if he doesn't come out when we get Tokyo back, he'll probably come out some time soon afterwards because he won't have anywhere for his army to come onto land."

"We'll have to make sure that we're ready to fight him when the time comes." Tai's voice was laced with seriousness as he glanced between his friends. "Fighting Dragomon isn't going to be easy, especially if we're having to battle Metalseadramon at the same time."

"Keeping our ambushes going will help with that because it means we have less of his minions to deal with," Davis replied confidently before he focused on Ken. "And thinking of ambushes, pick out a group for us to start with, Ken."

The raven-haired teen stroked his chin for a moment before pointing to their right. "There's a group that's got a moderate amount of dark energy coming from them. I think they're in the park over there."

"Roger that," Imperialdramon nodded before he flew over to where his partner had selected. "Where's our meeting point?"

"The nearby train bridge that's crossing the river to the left of the park," Tai instructed before he unclipped his digivice. "Ready, Agumon?"

"Sure thing, Tai." The orange dinosaur nodded before getting to his feet. "Agumon warp digivolve to Wargreymon!"

Yolei pointed her digivice in the direction of Hawkmon. "You're up too, Hawkmon."

The bird-Digimon took to the air as light from his partner's digivice surrounded his body. "Hawkmon digivolve to Aquilamon! Aquilamon digivolve to Silphymon!"

The two Chosen Digimon flew out from the barrier around Imperialdramon and down towards their foes. Tai watched as his partner formed a fireball between his palms before he threw it in the direction of the Scorpiomon at the centre of the bad guys. "Terra Force!"

"Static Force!" Silphymon launched several spheres of energy at the Gesomon and Octomon amongst the Deep Ones, scoring direct hits as Wargreymon's attack exploded in the middle of their targets. Explosions rang out over the battlefield as the evil Digimon were vaporised.

Tai focused on his friends as they started raining attacks down on the park, taking out huge amounts of bad guys as they did so. The evil creatures had no idea what had hit them as blasts continuously echoed through the streets and threw dust up into the air. Tai felt sorry for the people who once used the park before Dragomon had taken over Tokyo, but he was sure that they would understand if they knew that this had to be done to reclaim their homes from the grip of the dark demon.

The explosions continued as Imperialdramon waited at the rendezvous point for his friends. Wargreymon threw fireball after fireball down at the Deep Ones to stop them from escaping while Silphymon mopped up some of the remaining bad guys. The attacks continued, blowing craters in the ground as the demonic monsters were finished off.

A dust cloud rose up into the air as the explosions finally ended. Wargreymon and Silphymon hovered over the battlefield, making sure that they'd taken out all of their enemies. After all, they didn't want to leave any behind because they needed to keep thinning out their numbers to make their plan to retake Tokyo go more smoothly.

The air cleared to reveal that none of the evil monsters had survived the ambush, not that Tai had expected any to. He watched as the two Chosen Digimon turned and flew towards them as Imperialdramon waited above the bridge. They flew inside the barrier around the giant dragon before hovering over his back. Light surrounded their bodies as they returned to their rookie forms before landing.

"Where to next?" Imperialdramon asked as he flew up into the sky. "Are we staying around here or moving to another area. A lot of the Deep Ones around here are coming right for us now."

"We need to get more readings on Dragomon's location, so we should probably move to a different part of the city," Tai instructed before his focus shifted to Ken. "Is there a particular direction that you think we should head in?"

"Yeah." The violet-haired boy nodded before pointing to their northwest. "Imperialdramon bank around to your left by about forty degrees and head that way towards the darkness coming from there."

"Those are the ideas that Gennai has put forward," Kari finished as she leaned back in her chair in the Digidestineds' office. "What do you think?"

She, TK and their Digimon had just returned to the base after speaking with Gennai and the Piddomon, and she wanted to put forward their friend's ideas to Izzy right away. Her eyes remained fixed on the red-haired genius as he stroked his chin. It was clear that he was thinking over what she and TK had told him, so she was willing to give him a few minutes.

Kari's gaze moved to the rest of the room while her friend continued to think over the suggestions. Mimi, Palmon and Tentomon were with them too, but the others in her team were elsewhere in the base at that moment. Apparently, Matt, Sora, Hiroshi and their Digimon had stepped out for some food not long before they came back. She guessed that they had been waiting for her and TK to return before deciding on their lunch but things had taken longer than planned.

"Gennai does make some good points," Izzy mused aloud, making Kari focus back on him again. "If it was sound or smell that Metalseadramon was using, Gatomon would be able to prove that theory rather easily because of her good hearing and sensitive nose. I guess Garurumon or one of his digivolutions would be able to help with those too."

"I'm willing to do some testing to see if that could be how Metalseadramon is finding us." Gatomon perched on the edge of Kari's desk as she continued. "I know that I can smell Kari when she's inside the barrier and, obviously, I can hear her."

"We could do some experiments but, now that I think about it, the results would be dependent on how sensitive your sense of smell and hearing are." Izzy glanced in her direction. "We know that the barrier doesn't stop either of those senses and we don't want it to stop soundwaves for the reasons that we've discussed before."

"I guess the problem is that we don't know how good Metalseadramon's smell or hearing is." Tentomon picked up on his partner's point. "It could be better than Gatomon's or Garurumon's, or worse. We wouldn't be able to find out without getting close to him and, by that point, it would be too late. He'd know that we were there."

"I know one thing," Mimi sighed. "He doesn't smell good. I doubt that he can smell us because I bet all that he can smell is his own bad stench."

The group laughed before Izzy decided to add more. "We can still do some testing on hearing and smell though. We can see if Gatomon, Patamon or any of our Digimon can hear anything coming from Imperialdramon when he's inside the barrier and being quiet. That would at least help us to understand what happened to Davis and the others a few days ago."

"Ruling things out sounds like a good idea," TK nodded. "That at least helps us know what Metalseadramon isn't using to find us."

The teen genius nodded. "Exactly, eliminating possibilities will help narrow down the options. It's like in any scientific study, we have to consider everything that might affect our results. It's why I think getting Metalgarurumon to see what he can sense through the barriers is a great suggestion by Gennai too."

"How do we find out if Metalseadramon is using bioelectricity to find us?" Kari asked, knowing that she wasn't sure if there was a way for them to test it. "Gennai also mentioned that Megaseadramon can sense it and that worries me. I get the feeling that was how those Megaseadramon were able to land so many hits on Imperialdramon yesterday when Tai, Davis and the others got into that battle on the coastline."

"Megaseadramon can sense bioelectricity?" Izzy's eyebrows furrowed as he gulped. "You're right that it would certainly explain why Tai and the others had so much trouble in that fight."

"Yeah," TK confirmed with a nod. "Gennai says that Megaseadramon can sense it and he thinks that Metalseadramon might be able to as well."

A sigh left the lips of their resident genius. "That is really concerning because I'm not sure that there would be a way for us to test it. We also wouldn't know how strong that sense is in air because I assume it would be very strong in water. It might be why he was able to sense Imperialdramon and set up a trap for him like that."

Mimi glanced over at her boyfriend. "Can we use the barriers to block it out?"

Izzy ran his hand through his hair. "Possibly. I would need to collect some data on it first to see how we can configure the barrier to do that. We would then need to test to see if there are some side effects that we weren't expecting. All of this also assumes that he is using bioelectricity to find us when he might not be."

"I say that we run our tests and find out whether it's one of those other senses first before worrying too much about it," Kari suggested as she glanced at the others. "We know that Metalseadramon can't find us if we're beyond a certain distance away from him, so all we need to do is keep our distance like we have been doing."

"Yeah, that seems like the best way to handle this right now." Izzy smiled and nodded. "We can discuss how to do these experiments in the debriefing with the others when they get back. They might have some suggestions about how to approach this too."

It's kind of nice to have Gennai being normal Gennai in this story and not the creepy Gennai that we got in Digimon Tri. I much prefer Gennai being normal instead of what Tri gave us. We never even got an explanation for why Gennai ended up that way in Tri either.

On a different note, I'm sorry about this chapter being short. The past few months have been really busy and somewhat difficult for me, which has limited how much time I can spend writing and editing this story. I know some of you will probably tell me off for apologising about chapter lengths again whilst others will be disappointed about how short this is.

Unfortunately, it's looking like next month's chapter is likely to be a short one as well. I've still got a lot going on and there is a chance that I might have to take a break next month. However, I'm hoping that I'll have something ready because the next scene progresses the story and a couple of plot points. That means, even if it's this scene on its own, it will still progress things. As I said, I'm hoping I won't have to skip a month and that I can still publish a worthwhile chapter.

On a lighter Digimon Adventure 2020 note, has anyone else noticed that Joe seems to spend most of his time at the onsen? Most of the episodes that we've seen him in, he's there chilling in a hot spring. It's kind of the opposite of Joe from the original Adventure because he was afraid of getting into the baths at that onsen early on in the series.

As normal, please can you leave your thoughts on these things and this chapter as a whole by posting a review? :D

Stay well and stay safe :D