Sitting down to write the next chapter for this story was probably the most relaxing thing I've done all week. I just finished writing one of those essays where you're so unenthusiastic about the assigned topic that every sentence sucks out another piece of your soul and by the time you've reached the minimum page requirement, you're so ready for it to be over that you've stopped caring about the quality. All I can say is… I'm so glad it looks like the worst essay of the semester is already out of the way.
Anyway… Thank you so much for reviewing chapter six: ReaperOfShadow125, Sweet Cari, and Berry Doyle! I know things have been kind of slow, but I'm glad you're enjoying it so far! And things are about to get interesting…
Chapter Seven: Monsters
She waited until they were seated on a café terrace, cold drinks set out before them, before she tried to explain what had happened on the bridge. Her friends waited with quiet curiosity while Kari took a deep breath.
"Guys… I think we may be going about this the wrong way."
Cody leaned forward intently. "What do you mean?"
"I mean… I don't think this is a mystery we'll be able to puzzle out with logic. I've been… seeing things."
If she had any idea where the beginning was anymore, she would start there. But she didn't, so Kari let it all come pouring out in no particular order. The hazy, senseless dreams, her potential hallucinations in the equally hazy fog world, and finally the flashback on the bridge. She was grateful the terrace was empty. It made it easier to tell this story without restraint. And once the story was told, there was absolute silence.
She could see the conflict plainly written on Yolei's face. Clearly, her friend wanted to support her but couldn't quite bring herself to believe something so crazy. Cody's brows had furrowed, his lips pressed together in a tight line, as he absorbed this. Davis's expression was slightly more reassuring. His blank confusion was not that different from, say, when someone tried to explain a difficult math problem to him. There was no reason to suspect, from his expression, that he'd just been told giant monsters were real and capable of destroying their city on a whim.
It was on this familiar look that Kari chose to focus. But it was Cody who ultimately broke the silence with the expression of someone dreading having to give bad news to someone. "Kari, that's… That's not possible."
"Don't be so quick to—" Davis began.
But Cody cut him off almost immediately. "Oh, come on, Davis! I want to help Kari as much as anyone but this… Now we're talking about monsters and magic and… This sort of thing just doesn't happen in real life!"
This was the reaction Kari had been both dreading and expecting. But perhaps it was not solely logic-driven. Cody looked almost panicked to be sitting at this table with people who were honestly considering the impossible.
"Look, Kari… I know anniversaries are hard. Grief and trauma can manifest in weird ways—"
"Hold on, Cody," Yolei interrupted now. "There's no reason to go there…"
"Well, what else can it be?" He turned on her. "She said it herself—she's been seeing things. Being in school one second and… and somewhere else the next. All of this is just too…"
"Too what?" Davis challenged.
"Crazy!" he exclaimed, looking from one determined face to another. "It just… This can't happen."
"I don't totally get it," Yolei admitted slowly. "But… I want to believe that crazy, impossible things can happen. Even the bad things, if it's all or nothing. And I believe in Kari."
"Yeah, so do I!" Davis chimed in, right on cue. "I may not understand it all, but I don't think anything is really impossible. So what do you say, Cody? Are you in or out?"
Davis placed his hand palm-down on the table, like they were in an old-fashioned, feel-good adventure cartoon. Yolei appeared almost frightened, but she placed her hand over his. And then there was only Cody.
Finally, Kari felt the need to intervene. "I didn't mean for this to become a conflict. You don't have to choose sides."
But he sighed, the decision already made. "I think in this case, not choosing is a choice." And he placed his hand atop the other two.
…
TK's sigh was abnormally loud here in the in-between world of the Dark Ocean. He wasn't sure what it echoed off of, because the only wall in sight was right in front of him. But then, TK had stopped worrying a while ago about there being holes in the logic of these worlds.
"What's wrong, TK?" Patamon fluttered down to rest atop his head. "It looks like the bridge is almost complete."
He hummed in response, absentmindedly bringing a hand up to Patamon's side. It was a habit he'd fallen into since their reunion—as if he needed the reassurance that his friend was still there, still with him, still alive. They stood below a holographic looking bridge. In some places it appeared solid and very real. In others it flickered and disappeared completely, occasionally blinking back into existence. TK had begun to think of it like a bad Wi-Fi signal.
"And you said Kari's been trying to get her memory back. She's made it this far a few times already. It shouldn't be long before she's able to make the entire journey herself," Patamon pressed.
"Yeah…" TK replied. "But we may be getting more than we bargained for. The crests are starting to show signs of life again, but the others aren't getting better. Honestly, I'm not sure what we're up against anymore."
"Do we ever?"
The two looked at each other and smiled, laughing a little. "I guess we'll just figure it out as we go along."
"Now that's the TK I know." Patamon's smile faltered, his wings drooping. "The Digital World is in such bad shape, though. The other crests…"
TK's smile did not falter but grew melancholy. "Hope is what remains when all else is lost. That's us. And we've got a job to do."
Patamon nodded, and they continued their journey back to the other side.
…
The four friends left when the café started to fill up. It was time for the dinner rush already. Hard to believe this little adventure had taken up their entire day, but it hadn't been for nothing after all. Kari wasn't totally sure what the next step was, and Davis was about to depart for a week-long soccer camp, but she had no doubt they would all come back together in time. Their pact had been made official today. Whatever came next, they were a team.
They were all quietly contemplative on their walk back to the station. Cody appeared to be puzzling through this latest development with renewed effort. ("So, if there is such a thing as magic, where does it come from? Where have the monsters been since that night where they could go unnoticed? Were they possibly deposited here from another world entirely, via a black hole or some such? If so, how many other worlds are out there? I wish we had more to go on…") Kari couldn't tell if Yolei was listening politely or lost in her own thoughts. Davis just seemed happy to be amongst friends, no matter what they were up to. And Kari herself was pondering the newest mystery: In all this newfound camaraderie, where did TK fit in?
It hadn't been her intention to exclude him from anything momentous. Whatever his secrets were, she couldn't help feeling that he should be a part of this. Perhaps it had been wrong of her to retaliate by keeping secrets of her own.
They were all broken out of their thoughts by a newscast in a nearby store window. The salesperson smiled at them apologetically—it seemed he'd shot the volume up by accident—but it had their attention now. Especially given the way Yolei perked up. "Hey, that's—!"
Onscreen a reporter stood beside a boy who couldn't have been any older than they were. Behind them, the room was set up for a competition of some sort. There were rows and rows of tables and official-looking people clearing away whatever they had been hosting.
"And here you have it, ladies and gentlemen!" the reporter announced enthusiastically. Her eyes sparkled as she gestured to the boy beside her. "The winner of this district's annual chess tournament—Ken Ichijouji! This win will allow him to compete in the national championships later this year, for the third year in a row, I might add! So Ken, what do you have to say about today's tournament?"
Ken smiled charmingly as he turned to address his invisible audience, not a hair out of place, clearly used to being in front of a camera. "I am honored to have played against so many worthy competitors. The national championships are sure to be quite the challenge."
"Oh, how modest!" the reporter gushed. She went on to praise him for some of his other many accomplishments. Ken accepted every compliment with humble deference to everyone else involved. After a while, Kari found her attention drifting away from the boy and instead focusing on the reporter who was practically flirting with him. It was a little disturbing, really. Though if any of her friends felt the same way, they didn't comment on it. And Yolei seemed to be right there with the reporter, hands clasped to her chest, cheeks aglow.
Eventually, the salesman cleared his throat, their signal to move along if they didn't plan to make any purchases. Yolei sighed dreamily as they walked away. "He's so amazing. I suppose he probably has a girlfriend already, though…"
Cody laughed almost inaudibly, a smirk playing on his lips as he took in the change that had come over Yolei. But Davis just scoffed.
"That reporter was something else," he said loftily. "Talking about chess like it was something exciting. I bet he's not actually all that great."
"I don't know," Kari commented. "I heard he brought his team to the national soccer championships this year, too."
"Yeah!" Yolei jumped in. "Remind me how far your team got, Davis?"
He just 'humped' in response, bringing his arms up to rest behind his head and turning up his nose. Kari smiled at their now-familiar antics but, now that the interview wasn't staring them in the face, she found her thoughts finding their way back to Ken Ichijouji. This certainly wasn't the first time she'd heard the boy genius's name. He was something of a minor celebrity around these parts. He always seemed to be in the news for winning or inventing something. She'd seen his parents go on air a couple of times, too, so they could answer the usual questions about how proud they were… It was always strange to see; her mind couldn't seem to help but juxtapose these interviews with the ones her own parents had done, begging for any information regarding Tai's disappearance.
She couldn't even begin to imagine being on the other side of that coin. She stifled a sigh. Some people had it all…
Review please!
I don't own Digimon.
This chapter was a little shorter but a lot of fun to write. We've reached that point where the mysteries feel like they're reaching their peak… yet the characters haven't managed to stumble onto any explanations yet. I'm just getting to that part in the written chapters. And I'm starting to get really excited!