Happy holidays, friends! (I survived my black Friday shift. That in itself is something to celebrate.)

Thank you for reviewing the last chapter: Fruitloop Trooper, Sweet Cari, KyubiSora, and dnofsunshine!

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Darkness

If it had been just the three kids and their partners, it probably would have unsettled Yolei a bit more to realize how close the Emperor's lair was to their castle. But with the entire 'army' Mimi had been gathering making the journey with them… Well, the extra time it took made up for the short distance.

It was just one of the consequences of having a bigger party. At one time, this would have been worth the comfort it brought her. Strength in numbers and all that. But she had changed too. Not everyone had come along with them—many of the Gekomon and Otamamon had been hiding out under Mimi's rule for protection; they weren't gearing up to be part of a resistance.

And Yolei was glad. She'd spent the last few days looking after each of them, making sure the castle was running the way it should. In a way, she'd almost come to view them like younger children she'd been assigned to police. She didn't want to send them into danger. Not even to save herself.

But what they were left with felt like a ragtag group of loose cannons. ShogunGekomon had the worst poker face of anyone she'd ever known. He was still hungering for revenge on the Digimon Emperor. He'd ditch them at the first opportune moment. The Numemon could barely be organized long enough to form a line at mealtimes. She wasn't optimistic about battle formations.

She could tell Joe felt the same way. She'd known him for an even shorter time than Mimi, but she knew he understood her protective feelings. He struck her as a sentry of sorts. He was always on the edge of their gatherings—not because he couldn't socialize with them, but so he could keep a better watch out for danger. Mimi, on the other hand, was her usual stubborn self. She was determined to make this work, and insistent that the Digimon who'd suffered under the Emperor's reign should play a part in his downfall.

And Yolei got that side of it too. She sighed, stowing away all her speculations for the time being. Hawkmon, anchored to her side as always, glanced up at the sound but understood that it had not been brought about by anything pressing. They were currently taking a break. Their last one before their assault on the base would begin. (Mimi assured them their destination was just over the next big hill.) Yolei sat a little apart from a trio of Gekomon, arms wrapped around her knees. She still felt a little… distant from all this, spurred on by the far-off promise of home and the knowledge that her friends were out there somewhere.

This whole adventure was still a little surreal. Sometimes Yolei felt like she was just waiting to wake up from a crazy dream. Magically transported to a world with monsters and told to take over for a princess? Sounded about right. But Joe and Mimi had seen the others with their own eyes—and recently. Maybe if she hadn't spent her days tucked away in a hidden castle, it wouldn't be so hard for her to visualize what came next.

"All right, everyone, on your feel!" Mimi punctuated these words with a few sharp claps of her hands. (Yolei had a sudden image of Mimi as a cheer instructor pop into her mind.) "We have to get moving if we want to get there by nightfall!"

That was the current strategy. Yolei wasn't sure how stealthy their charge could be, even in the dark. (She quickly averted her gaze when ShogunGekomon caught her looking.) But Joe had insisted. There wasn't much they could plan for, not knowing much of what they were walking into, but an element of surprise couldn't hurt.

No one hesitated to follow her orders. Mimi hadn't lost her royal tone, but Yolei suspected they were all primed to go anyway, motivated by the same mix of uneasiness and anticipation that she was.

There was a brief moment, before they set off, when the three Digidestined stood together in a loose trio. They weren't organizing the others or strategizing. They weren't even talking. They'd simply gravitated towards each other, drawn by a common goal and understanding. There were different things at stake for the three of them. Yolei ached to think how long it had been since Joe and Mimi had seen their friends and families.

This was what they were fighting to get back to. They were coming up on the last battle now. Yolei locked eyes with each of the other two for a second and then took the first step forward.

…

TK and Patamon remained staring at Devimon's motionless form for a long time… Until their eyes were forcibly torn away.

The entire room shook violently, without warning. Like the underground lair was contained in a vase someone had just knocked off the table. He felt like this should have been accompanied by the sound of an explosion, but there was nothing. Just the ringing in his own ears as he was knocked to the ground. Patamon lost his grip on his partner's shoulder and landed a few feet away. They locked eyes for a second before scrambling back to their feet.

"What's happening?!" TK exclaimed.

"An earthquake?!" Patamon shouted at the same time.

But he dismissed that immediately. He could tell that whatever was going on wasn't a natural occurrence. He swung back around to check on Devimon before jumping back and nearly losing his balance again.

The dark Digimon was motionless no more. Eyes locked firmly on TK, he was hunched over—trying to be at eye level? It was like he was wading through sludge. One hand was inching slowly towards the barrier. For a second, TK could only watch, frozen. But when the hand breached that barrier, the glass disappearing like it had never been there at all, he jumped into action.

"Patamon!" His Digivice was in hand, his partner already flying over his shoulder. If he'd had more time, he would have marveled at how in-sync they'd become with their teamwork. The glow began almost before Patamon had passed over him, and Angemon stood in his place a second later.

He swung his staff a single time… and swiped an empty space right through him. Before either could react, it was like Devimon dissolved into darkness and was sucked down into the void below them.

There was a second of silence before TK glanced at his partner. "That seemed… easy."

Angemon shook his head. "I don't think that was me."

The room shook again, and this time, TK caught himself on what remained of Devimon's prison—just this short structure rising up from the floor to about his waist. It resembled a well, almost. Had it always been hollow like this? He supposed he'd been distracted by the monster rising up from it.

The stability only lasted until this shaking settled down. Once it settled down and TK tried to pull away, he found it hard to move. It was like something was pulling him in towards whatever lay at the bottom of that well. And if he'd had any doubts about what was below them, he recognized the chill that crept up on him a second later.

"TK!" Well. At least the sucking sensation wasn't all in his head. He heard Angemon's grunt as he struggled for a second to pull him away. They were both breathing a bit more heavily from the exertion when Angemon deemed them far enough away to be safe.

But there was no time to relax. A shadowy figure appeared at the base of the stairs a second later. The Digimon Emperor had arrived.

And he looked furious. His face twisted with rage as he caught sight of TK. "You! I should have known…"

TK didn't have a chance to respond with any of the many things he would have liked to say to the young tyrant before him. Angemon beat him to it.

"You fool." His voice was nearly a hiss, and TK was almost surprised at the anger seeping out of him. But then… they were in this together. His partner had seen all the pain this boy had caused right alongside him. "You actually think you can control the powers of the Dark Ocean?"

But the boy just scoffed. TK noticed the remote control in his hand a second too late. With a flick of his hand, the darkness erupted again, making the 'well' resemble more of a volcano. Blobs of pure darkness shot out in every direction, but it seemed the Emperor did have some control over it.

Before TK had quite grasped what was happening, Angemon had been thrown backwards, fastened to the wall by a few of those dark blobs of energy. His cry was distorted a little as the energy was sucked from him and he was forcibly de-Digivolved. TK watched in horror as Patamon flopped down lifelessly, still fastened to the wall. Some logical part of his mind knew the damage wasn't life-threatening—Patamon wasn't fragmenting into bits of data—but the anger overwhelmed his senses before he could process this.

TK had thrown the first punch almost before he was aware of his own movement. But at least he'd finally managed to knock that smug look off the Emperor's face. They fell to the ground, that stupid cape tangling around both their legs. They rolled a few times before TK managed to wrest the remote out of his grasp. It went skittering across the floor, out of reach of them both, but it released its grip. The darkness dissolved from Patamon, and his partner fell to the ground.

But the eruption hadn't stopped. TK felt his muscles weakening, and the other boy had thrown him off a second later. They both stumbled back up to their feet just as a dark wind almost knocked them back off their feet. It was like something invisible had exploded in the center of the room. It made his teeth chatter.

"W-what did you do?" he grit out.

Indeed, the Digimon Emperor never regained his composure. He was glancing around wildly, looking for something. That little remote, TK would guess, but he'd lost track of it too. In any case, neither of them could have gotten to it in time.

The rush of total darkness that came next was too fast, enveloping them both.

…

Mimi hadn't been lying. As long as the first part of this journey had taken, it felt like they reached the final hill in no time at all. It was a formidable sight, looking down into the valley with the huge, dark pyramid rising up from its center. But Joe, at least, didn't seem too intimidated.

"You know, strategically, it's actually better to have the high ground. It's easier to pick off enemies climbing up a mountain to get to you than streaming downhill like this."

Yolei might have felt a little more reassured if their own army had been a little more impressive. But she didn't voice this, saying instead, "That sounds like a pretty basic mistake. Ken—I mean, the Digimon Emperor—is supposed to be a genius. Maybe there's another reason he decided to put his base here."

"Maybe," Mimi agreed, "but there's only one way to find out!"

The enthusiasm behind their charge wasn't as uniform as it could have been. (Personally, Yolei's primary concern was not losing her footing and tumbling the rest of the way down to the bottom.) As they made the last leg of their journey, Mimi spoke up, "It's probably best if we start calling him Ken, actually. Names have power, you know? No reason to make him seem any more intimidating than necessary."

Yolei nodded, but Joe's mind was elsewhere. They were nearly at the bottom, the base rising up over their heads to block out what was left of the sunset. "Something's wrong here. We've gotten this close and haven't encountered a single guard?"

But Mimi was there to balance out his pessimism. "Maybe we're not the only ones staging a counterattack. We could've arrived at just the right time!"

"Princess Mimi!" one of the Gekomon called before Joe or Yolei could weigh in. "We found an entrance!"

This was it. They had arrived. What was left of their control quickly fell apart. The Numemon began streaming inside, the others close on their slime trails, battle cries giving away their positions immediately. The three Digidestined pairs had no choice but to the join the surge.

But the excitement was soon extinguished once they were inside. It took a second for Yolei's eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they did, her heart sank. All down both walls were Digimon chained up in cramped, dirty cells. It was such a desolate sight that it took Yolei a moment to register the commotion taking place somewhere deeper into the base. Mimi must've been right—the place seemed to be experiencing another crisis of some sort. It had allowed their invasion to go unnoticed. Mostly.

A gray, rabbit-like Digimon came rushing into the prison block, clearly on his way to somewhere else, but he stopped short at the sight of them. "What?! Intruders?!"

He didn't get a chance to react further before the Numemon swarmed him, pinning the guard to the ground.

They had all frozen for a second, processing that the threat was already neutralized. Mimi woke them back up with, "Okay. First things first."

Yolei nodded, pulling out her Digivice. They needed to free these captives before they did anything else. It was only the second time she'd seen Hawkmon's transformation into Shurimon, and it awed her again. Though not quite as much as then watching her partner zip up and down the hall, slashing through the cage bars.

But even with their physical barriers removed, the Digimon inside seemed hesitant to attempt escape. It took Mimi making the rounds, assuring them that they weren't expected to stay and fight, pointing them to the door. And while Yolei may have hoped otherwise, she wasn't too surprised when so few did stick around to help. She could only imagine how long they'd been trapped here and what they'd experienced.

"Do any of you know what's going on right now?" Joe asked the ones who'd remained.

Yolei was feeling her isolation again. She couldn't put a name to any of the Digimon who'd joined their party. One who looked like a collection of gears answered, "They don't tell us anything, but we've heard the same noises all day. And we haven't seen much of the guards today."

Indeed, in the next moment of silence, the distant shouting reached their ears again. A flowery Digimon added, with more vehemence than Yolei would have expected, "Maybe the Emperor's darkness is finally getting away from him. You can feel it, can't you? Serves him right!"

If they'd missed the chill in the air before, they all felt it now. But they'd come this far. The three humans all opened their mouths at once—either to further strategize or just to provide encouragement—when the whole base shook ominously.

It startled them all, and the Gazemon guard took this opportunity to throw off the Numemon pinning him down. Shurimon tensed, ready to stop him… but the Emperor's lackey took off not to raise the alarm, but for the exit. "You're all crazy! I'm not going down with this place!"

"That's… promising," Joe said bleakly. "Makes it sound like the whole base is about to fall apart."

The shaking started up again, and a few people braced themselves against the walls. Yolei murmured, "Maybe it is."

"No matter!" Mimi declared. "If the Gazemon are still working, the Emperor must still be here. We can't leave without him!"

Too fair. Knowing what they did now about the 'story,' there were two sides to this mission. They were either here to take down an enemy… or rescue a team mate… Mimi was right. They couldn't turn back now. No matter what might lay ahead of them.

Review please!

I don't own Digimon.

Ugh. I don't have any extra comments… I'm burned out for the day.