Chapter 6

Angewoman carries Kari as they leave the city behind. They had sent out a distress call to the rest of their team. Mimi and Sora, along with their partners Palamon and Biyomon, are on a plane to New York City to visit Mimi's American friends, but Yolei is on her way with Hawkman. T.K., Matt, Izzy, and Davis also answered the call. They don't expect to hear from Joe, Ken, or Cody as the former two are currently attending university seminars and Cody's on vacation with his family.

The girls notice another white glow next to them, it's T.K. and Angemon.

"Not letting you girls have all the fun!" shouts T.K. a little bit flirty.

"Funny;" replies Kari sarcastically; "Are we heading the right direction?"

"Keep going due west, slight turn left just ahead;" answers T.K. looking at the directions; "The others are right behind us."

They hear what sounds like hollering next to them. It's Davis and Ex-Veemon. Davis looks green, with one hand on his stomach and the other on his mouth.

"Ex-Veemon, stop jerking."

"You said fast Davis, not steady."

"A little more steady please." Then Davis throws up disgusting the girls.

"No wonder Matt and Gabumon didn't want to ride with you guys;" smirks T.K.

Davis recovers; "Funny. Hey guys, let's see who gets there first!"

"It's not a race;" says Angemon.

"A race against time. Let's go Ex-Veemon!"

Ex-Veemon pushes his speed, but the others make a turn, changing directions; "Hey, where are guys going? It's this way!"

"Are you sure Davis?" ask Ex-Veemon.

"I'm sure. I attended camp there last year. Keep going."

They only get a little ways when a buzzing sound crosses them. "You're going the wrong way Ex-Veemon;" Kabuterimon passes with Izzy, Matt, and Gabumon on his back.

"Turn around you guys;" Aquilamon passes with Yolei. Embarrassed, Davis and Ex-Veemon follow them.

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Agumon finds a phone that's free inside an office. Only when he picks up the receiver does he realize that he's never really bothered to memorize any of the Kamiya's numbers. He doesn't even remember Tai's, although he's seem the numbers several times, surely he'll remember something.

The first attempt definitely wasn't right; "What's this a prank call?"

"Ah, yea, sorry." Agumon quickly hangs up. He tries another number, one he's sure he's used before, but that turns out to be his favorite take-out place near the Kamiya's home. Of course he'd remember that one. He puts the phone down and tries to think of another number, but his mind comes up blank.

Suddenly a woman screams upon coming into the office and seeing him. He ducks underneath the desk as two soldiers run in, spotting him and pointing their rifles at him. Agumon uses his claws to attack, unaware that the rifles are electric stunners.

Tai and the others have been trying to figure out how to get in, when they hear screams coming from the building. They ask the guard what's happening, but they only point their guns at the kids and threatens to lock them up, even shot if they see them again.

Nina finally finds the kids and they tell her what happened. Nina's horrified as she puts together the bits and pieces of information she's gathered, suggesting that the military plans to kill most of the plants and the giant digimon, but to also capture at least one plant alive, as well as the "little orange one". Nina tries her luck at getting past the guards but they won't let her. Then she hears an excited voice on a guard's radio.

"We've got him!"

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The digi-destined are getting close to the camp. Izzy's been trying to keep up with media reports, although his lap top signal is sketchy at times even with his advanced programming.

"Is that the town?" ask Kabuterimon. Izzy learned from the media that plants have been stocking the town, and now they can see the plants attacking buildings and homes. Part of the team to goes to help the town, a couple others to go to the base, and a couple more to the camp. Izzy warns everybody about tangling with the military as well.

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Tai and the others gather out of sight from the guards. Katherine and Rico keep watch, looking for anything that might be big enough to contain Agumon being brought outside. So far, they've seen nothing of that sort, so they assume that he's still inside.

Tai's beside himself. He just can't believe his partner's been captured.

"Why did Agumon go in there?" Tai wonders outload; "How could I let myself get so busy? If I hadn't ignored him, he wouldn't have come. Well, maybe he would have, I don't know."

"Tai, calm down;" says Nina; "Trust me, I know what you mean. I often wonder if I'm ignoring Katherine."

Suddenly, a boom is heard and lights around the camp go out. The sun hasn't completely set, but its dark enough for the outside lights to have come on. They hear guns going off not too far away. They run out into the open, and can see the heads of not one, but two enormous plants.

These are the biggest ones they've seen yet!

The plants are attacking the military guard at the camp's main entrance. Several curious people reached the entrance despite efforts to contain them. Electric and telephone poles are either damaged or knocked over entirely, causing power outage. The camp entrance sign is destroyed as well as some vehicles and fencing. Machine guns and tanks are having virtually no effect on the plants.

"TAI LOOK OUT!" Rico just barely pushes Tai out of the way of a falling flag pole, getting trapped himself. Tai and the Hinos try lifting it off him, barely able to lift as it's pure steel. They hear a huge crash and a burning tank lands just a few feet away, one of the plants has broken through the military line and is heading towards them.

"Howling Blaster."

A blue flame-like light distracts the plant. Garurumon appears and attacks the plant again. Then the pole moves off of Rico and gets thrown to the side, thanks to Angewoman.

"Tai!" Tai's surprised and relived to see Kari running towards them, while the digimon fight off the plant. Garurmon blocks the acid with his attack, while Angewoman strikes; "Celestial Arrow." The light arrow goes right through the plant, light rays beaming all throughout and killing it in a semi explosion.

The Kamiya siblings embrace; "Sis, I can't believe you're here. How did you know we needed you?"

"News and internet;" she answers. Matt soon joins them; "Looks like you got yourselves into quite a pickle, Tai."

"I wish it was just that. What about the other plant?"

"We took care of it already;" answers Garurmon as he shrinks back into Gabumon. Confusion follows as the new arrivals notice the three strangers, Tai needing to clarify that they know the digimon already, much to Kari's group's shock.

Katherine admires the two digimon, slowly reaching out her hand, and speaks softly; "You must be Gatomon and Gabumon." The digimon drops their mouths, look at each other, then Gatomon slowly shakes the girl's hand, Gabumon just shyly blushes.

"How did you find out about us?" ask Gabumon.

"You can thank your friend Agumon for that;" replies Rico; "I sure hope you two don't eat as much as he does."

The digimon look at each other awkwardly and shake their heads. "Believe me, nobody does;" replies Gatomon.

Matt recognizes Rico; "Hey, you're the guy who stuffed silly putty into my harmonica!"

Rico remembers; "Oh yea, you're that mediocre rock star wanna-a-be. It was an improvement I'm sure."

Gabumon jumps in front of Rico and looks sternly at him; "So it was you. Nobody insults Matt's playing."

"Stand down;" says Gatomon; "By the way, where is Agumon?"

Tai hesitates as he tells them. The digimon both shake their heads, somewhat embarrassed. While not at all surprised of their follow digimon's antics, they are shocked that Agumon managed to get himself captured, by humans' non-the-less. And how?

Gatomon's ears begin to twitch and she thinks she hears a strange sound.

"Did you guys hear that?"

"Hear what?" ask Kari.

"That strange screeching whistle."

Everyone gets silent and listens. The humans hear nothing, but Gabumon does; "Sounds like one of those blow instruments. What's that sliver one called again Matt?"

"You mean the flute?"

"That's the one."

"It sounds horrible;" adds Gatomon, flinching.

They hear it again. The humans strive harder but still can't hear it. Katherine thinks she felt something brush against her leg. She looks, but nothing's there. She takes a closer look between the bushes, but still spots nothing. She looks back at the others as Gatomon informs them that the sound as suddenly stopped.

"AUNT NINA!" Katherine's suddenly being dragged away. Nina gives chase, the others right behind her, and one of those plants emerges from the bushes, with Katherine raped tightly in it's vines, including her mouth, leaving her unable to scream. Surprisingly, this plant is a runt compared to the previous ones, about Kari's size. The digimon try to attack the plant, when two more suddenly emerge and whips them both out of the way, then each plant spits out of their months what looks like black billiard balls in front of the group. The balls explode, creating a thick gas cloud around everybody, causing bad coughs and stinging their throats and eyes. Gatomon, being the furthest away from the gas, gets up, and sees the plants taking Katherine into some trees, then disappears. Gatomon's hearing that awful flute again, realizing that the plants were headed towards the music's direction, then silence once again.

Nina is nearly inconsolable. As the group discusses what to do next, they realized that despite knowing barely nothing about this plants, these three didn't just savagely attack them and gobble up the girl right away, they took her away, as well as attacked with gas bombs to distract them. Plus, these plants were just the size of Kari, and Gatomon points out that it seemed to be responding to those awful flute sounds.

Tai and Rico then recall what Agumon had said about the crazy flute playing plant lady, could that have been hear. If so, what could she possibly want with Katherine?

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Katherine's eyes are finally uncovered and she's released. She struggles to regain her breath and composer after nearly being suffocated. She then realizes that she's in large cell-like cage. The walls in the rectangle room seem to be made of metal. Where is she? Why's she in here?

She hears what's become a familiar hunger growl.

"AGUMON!" There's Agumon lying next to her. He's feet, hands, and mouth are all bound and gagged with duct tape. He's got some gauze taped to a spot on both his tail and arm, as if blood's been drawn, and a couple of Band-Aids on his other arm. She checks him over and realizes that he's sedated real heavily.

"Oh Agumon, what have they done to you? Please, wake up."

He responds with only a slight moan, then the metal door suddenly opens with slam, enters a young lady in a camp counselor's shirt, holding a flute. Behind her are two human size plants, possibly the same ones that brought her. The lady plays an awful tune, and the two walking plants sit.

That must be the tone deaf plant lady.

"Good job 37 and 39;" the lady says while patting the toothy heads of the plants; "Here is your reward?" She opens a large cooler and pulls out two dead goats. Katherine looks away as they devour them, feeling sick.

What a minute, weren't there 3 plants?

The lady approaches the cage. "Well now, seems we've got a child. Perfect hostage."

Hostage? "Who are you? What did you do to Agumon?"

The lady seem amused; "Oh, so little Rapture 1 has a name does he. You actually know him? This is even more perfect then I planned;" an evil smirk appears on her face; "And I didn't do anything to him. In fact, I should be thanking him."

Katherine's mouth drops open; "What do you mean?"

"The distraction he caused allowed me the opportunity to escape the militaries clutches with my babies;" she pats their heads. Katherine can't believe this and gives a very angry glare.

"You couldn't have been controlling those big ones, were you?"

Miss Yoshida is amused; "Clever one aren't you? Unfortunately no, they went rouge and grew much bigger then intended and escaped. A few missed calculations, science is all about many failures before success. We've made lots of improvements and our newer ones are under control. Isn't that right 37 and 39?"

37 and 39? What happened to 38?

She plays; 37 and 39 stand at attention and give her high-fives with their vines. They nuzzle her affectionately and she kisses them both on the lips, disgusting Katherine, causing her to chock on her vomit.

A soldier comes in and speaks with the lady, called Miss Yoshida, in French*, not assuming that the bilingual girl understands them. To Katherine's shock, it seems as if he's in cahoots with this lady, and they mention about making negotiations about her father and the secrets of their Audrey plants. Katherine figures that these plants are based on and named after Audrey II from "Little Shops of Horrors".

Why would anybody ever think creating plants like this is a good idea?

She notices that 37 and 39 are looking at the adults with their mouths drooling.

"You can't possibly believe you've got them under control!"

"Shut your trap little girl." The solider exits and Miss Yoshida blows into the clarinet again, Katherine covers her ears.

Where did she learn to play that thing? Or rather, not play it?

"37 and 39, stand guard. Looks like 41 is playing hooky again."

41? Not 38 or 40?

Before leaving, Miss Yoshida looks back at her hostages and gives an evil grin; "When all this is over, you two will make nice snacks for my girls."

The door slams shut and the eye-less plants 'look' at the prisoners through the bars, sniffing and licking their lips. They obviously want to eat them, but don't try to open the cage. They butt heads and hiss at each other. Katherine again tries to wake up Agumon, to no avail. His eyes remain shut and he hums, as if he's happy. She tries hard to undue the tough duct tape around his mouth, again to almost no avail.

I wonder. "Tai's in trouble!"

Agumon immediately opens his eyes and springs up, also causing fire sparks to come out of the very end sides of his mouth, as well as his nose. He again collapses, but the is flame hot enough to loosen the duct tape around his mouth. His eyes remain half open, as in lost in daze and confusion.

"Tai;" he says weakly; "Tai safe. Where Tai? Got Yakisoba?" His speech is slurred, and his eyes are heavily dilated. He looks at Katherine; "Tai look funny."

She shakes the drugged digimon's head; "No Agumon, it's me, Kat."

Agumon giggles; "Tai voice squeaks. Tai got hamburger? Hungry belly."

"Come on Agumon snap out of it. Tai's not here. Katherine is."

Agumon's eyes move around out of focus; "Ketchup? Oh yea, Ket. Tai looks just like Ket. Funny."

The cage rattles. The plants seem to be fighting over food and bumped into the cage. A cooler is knocked over and disgusting, bloody animal parts are on floor. The door opens and Miss Yoshida looks in, playing her clarinet. The plants snap at attention.

"What is going on here? What have I told you girls about fighting?" She walks up to the plants and slaps them both. They growl at her and she plays again.

"Awful sound;" says Agumon; "Plant lady no play. Plants bad."

The plants following their mistress; "Come on you two. 41, take over. And don't eat until I give you the command." 41 arrives, salutes Miss Yoshida, and comes over to the cage. At first, 41 doesn't seem interested in the captives, Agumon's stomach gets her attention.

"Hungry hungry tummy;" says Agumon looking up at 41; "Big teeth. Plant not eat Tai and Kat. Pepper Breath." Agumon shots his flame, his aim is way to the side, hitting the wall. 41 looks angry and sticks her vines into the cage. Katherine slaps some and Agumon shots again, setting one of 41's vines on fire.

"Agumon stop! You don't know what you're doing. Use your pepper breath on the tape, right here." Holding Agumon's bound wrist right in front of his mouth; he obeys. Unfortunately, his fire seems to be getting weaker and doesn't melt the tape enough. 41 attacks the the cage, pulling it forward, and sticks another vine at Agumon, who bits off the vine and actually tries to eat, only to spit it out.

"Fertilizer dung not food." 41 attacks again, wrapping them both up this time and banging them against the cage. Agumon's attacks are way off, and are getting weaker with ever attempt. Not knowing what else to do, Katherine screams, hoping that Miss Yoshida will hear. While she doesn't, a solider does, enters and shoots at 41. The plant drops the captives and now turns her attention towards the solider. Another solider comes in and shoots. With the plant distracted, Katherine checks the cage door, it's been jammed. She pushes on it hard but it's stuck. "Agumon, I need your help!" She has to push the dino from behind to the door, and left him onto his still bond feet. Having to steady the wobbly digimon, she urges him to help her bang open the door. He does, banging the door with his head literally. This wasn't quite what Katherine had in mind, but she goes along with it and after several bangs, the door opens. Agumon falls to the floor, laughing.

"That was fun, can we do that again?"

Sometime during all this, Miss Yoshida returned and got 41 under control, as well as scold the soldiers for shooting at her baby. Katherine realizes that there's another door towards the back, and she drags a still giggling Agumon towards it. He's a lot heavier then he looks. Then there's a sudden jerk and she's knocked off her feet, slamming into the back wall. Miss Yoshida finally hears the giggling and notices them.

"HEY, I didn't give you permission to leave!"

"Young lady;" screams one of the soldiers; "You can't take that digimon. He's government property."

Miss Yoshida starts blowing into her flute, but the solider demands that he'll handle it. They argue, but the other solider heads towards them. Katherine desperately tries to work the door. The solider shoots at her, but just barely misses her. He's about to shoot again, but a still bond Agumon manages to roll himself over to the solider and bits him. He aims for the digimon, but Agumon moves again and the solider trips over him. Katherine grabs the rifle and bangs it on the door lock hoping to jam it.

"GIRL, DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR! We're moving!" he tries to change his tone; "It's alright child. Just stop and settle down. Everything will be alright. You'll be exchanged soon, I promise."

Katherine turns around and hits the man on the head with his own rifle. The other two adult stop arguing long enough to notice and the other solider starts to fire, but Miss Yoshida hits his arm.

"You can't kill the hostage yet. We have a deal remember. And stop using real guns!"

The insane adults argue again, this time getting 41's attention as they stepped on some of her meat. 37 and 39 also stick their heads in and notice the free food. Miss Yoshida panics as she tries to play her clarinet again, this time however, the angry 31 isn't interested in cooperating and snaps at the adults, while the other two help themselves to the rest of the meat. Katherine finally succeeds in breaking the lock and opens the door. To her horror, she realizes they are on a truck and are on the road. Desperate times call for desperate measures, she grabs Agumon and drags him to the door.

She then feels somebody tugging on her leg, the other solider is now awake and pulling on her. "Don't jump girl! Want to kill yourself?" He's got hold of Agumon too, who tries to bit the man's arm, but his accuracy's away off target and Pepper Breath is little more then a candle flame. The man grasp each tightly, with a mad intent in his face.

I'm not giving up. Wish I could do more. Wish I was stronger. Wish I could make Agumon digivolve. Wait.

Suddenly remembering something, Katherine aims her hand, nothing happens. Then suddenly out of nowhere, a light shines from her. Blinded by it, the man loses his grip, Katherine grabbing Agumon before falling out the door.

*French is sub language in many anime English dubs for what are English lines in the original Japanese.