Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon so please refrain from suing me for writing fan fiction. Thanks and enjoy!
Within Dreams—Chapter 18
"Go back! Go!"
"What is it, Rea? What's wrong?" Sora inquired.
"No time! JUST GO!"
The seven former Digidestined and Rea began running back the way they had come after Rea slammed the door closed.
"Izzy!" Mimi suddenly cried out in alarm.
"What's going on?" Joe nervously questioned.
"Izzy's disappeared! He was right—" then Mimi was suddenly silenced. She, too had disappeared
"M-mimi?" Joe quivered.
Rea gasped and muttered: "that son of a…keep going!"
"What's going on? Rea, do you know?" TK quivered.
"Go now!"
"Joe!" Sora shouted.
Joe had disappeared as well. The corridor was no longer cramped anymore, with the three people missing.
"We have to get out of here! NOW!" Rea insisted. "Keep running no matter what happens, understand? Don't stop!"
Before anybody could take a step, Sora had disappeared. That certainly was a wake-up call. Half of the people that had entered the tunnel were no longer in the tunnel.
They ran in the
darkness, trusting luck to keep them from hitting a wall. And then there was one less running with
them: "we've lost Kari!" Rea
exclaimed. "Keep going!"
A couple of seconds later, TK wailed:
"Matt!"
"Come on, TK," Rea muttered,
scooping the young boy up in her arms. A thin rectangle of light was filtering into the tunnel from overhead
from the place they had come in. "We're
almost there, TK. TK?!?" TK, too had disappeared.
Rea gazed up at the exit. She could still make it. And if she made it…maybe she would be able
to help her friends. She struggled up
to the top of the leaf pile; reaching for the beam of light—and then she was
rushing through space and time she felt as though she was in some psychotic
cartoon. Quite suddenly, she was back
in Malign's sitting room.
"Oh, honestly, did you think I was
going to let you get away?" Malign inquired. "This is it, Rea. The grand finale. Once you and
these meddling kids are out of the way there'll be no one to stop me from
taking over the world in my spare time!"
~*~
Jim pored over the book he'd gotten from the library. It was the same one he'd read a couple of years ago, only now there was a big difference. Then he had been reading it as a joke. Now he was taking it seriously.
There's got to be something in here about how to wake somebody up, he thought as he scanned through the index. I remember reading about that.
Eventually, he found the category he was looking for: awakening—page 237. Only one page? I thought there was more. Oh well. I guess I'll take what I can get, he decided as he flipped to the correct page number. There it is….
The page was headed in bold letters: awakening. Underneath, it had a few methods of waking people from convergent dreams—but most of them were bizarre beyond belief.
"Extract the juice from a thorcleat weed and pout it over the victim?" he read aloud. "What in the world is a thorcleat weed?" No wonder I didn't take this book seriously. There's so much crazy stuff in here it totally distorts the fact.
He skimmed down to the bottom of the
page. Only one method made any sense: "sometimes a victim must wake on their
own. While death in a convergent dream
is not impossible, it is rare. The
chances are high that a victim will re-awaken themselves when they are ready."
I guess all we can do is wait, Jim thought, setting the book aside. Thorcleat weed. Whoever heard of a thorcleat weed?
~*~
"You
know, it really seems pretty anticlimactic, all of you just dying so abruptly
without any valiant fighting," Malign taunted, walking around the group he had
gathered in his castle slowly.
"Yeah? Well maybe you should give us a fair chance
to fight," Matt answered.
"Oh,
but where's the fun in that? I mean, we
all know you are just going to lose. Even if you had a chance against me, I've got thousands of servants at
my aid. I don't think your chances are
too great."
"Why
are you so dead-set on killing us?" Joe inquired. "I mean we're not a bad group of kids and we never really did
anything to deserve to die and—"
"Shut
up," Malign hissed. "I'm going to
destroy you all now. Say goodnight."
With that, he began gathering a ball of energy in his hands, readying
himself for the attack that would end the lives of the eight people in front of
him. In fact, he was so involved in
what he was doing; he failed to notice Vitriol until she'd given him a firm
smack over the head with a metal baseball bat. He fell to the floor with a dull thump.
Vitriol looked down at her master, then at the bat in her hands and
muttered: "did I hurt him? I hope I
didn't hurt him." Then she dropped the
bat
"What do you think? You hit him with a bat," Tai said as he joined his friends.
"Tai!" Kari happily cried, hugging her brother. She was so relieved that he was OK she had tears in her eyes.
That was when Vitriol noticed Rea. "Rea, it's me," she said.
Rea smiled and replied: "welcome back, Nema."
"How touching," spat Malign. "It makes me sick! This isn't over yet. Not by a long shot."
"Nope. It's over," Nema replied.
"You can't defeat me," Malign stated.
"You're right. I can't. But with me and Rea and these kids…I'd say we've got a pretty good chance, wouldn't you?"
"Not at all."
With those words, Malign picked up Nema by her ankles and flipped her over his shoulder so quickly it made her head spin. "Looks like you're all tied up," he laughed as he snapped his fingers. Ropes appeared around Nema.
He snapped his fingers again and the ropes appeared around Rea.
"Hey!" Rea shouted, struggling against the bonds.
"Don't bother," Malign muttered. Those bonds are impossible to break apart by magic or by force. Now then," he continued, turning to face the group of former Digidestined. "We will negotiate a plan."
"Negotiate this," Matt muttered, swinging at Malign with the bat. Malign ducked, caught the bat in midair and yanked it out of Matt's hands.
"As I was saying," Malign
continued. "We will negotiate. Here's the deal: a single fight between all
of you and me. If you win, I surrender
all my powers. But if I win,
I get to kill all of you. Slowly. Oh, and if you don't agree,
I'll just kill you now."
"Uh…sounds
fine to me," Tai quickly agreed.
"Yep,
me too," Joe added.
One by one, they all agreed they'd rather fight than die. Malign snapped his fingers and a large ring
appeared on the ground.
"All
you have to do is push me out of the ring somehow. That's all. But if I get
all of you out of the right, I win. Ready?"
The rules seemed simple enough. The eight Digidestined nodded and Malign shouted: "OK. Go!"
No sooner had the word left his mouth than he shot two beams of energy at Matt and Joe. The beams pushed them out of the ring and a wall rose up in front of them, preventing either from re-entering.
"Mimi, look out!" Izzy shouted. But he was too late and she, too was pushed out of the ring. He was also pushed out when he was distracted.
Tai made it about three steps before he was hit with the beam that sent him flying out of the ring as well.
Sora was only inches away from Malign when she was blasted out of the ring.
"This is pathetic," Malign said, looking at TK and Kari and practically laughing aloud.
"TK, Kari, split up!" Izzy shouted to them. "Go now!"
Kari ran to the right and TK to the left. Malign turned and shot TK out of the ring, but wasn't fast enough to get Kari before she barreled into him with every bit of force she could muster. He stumbled, back to the line—but didn't fall out.
"Looks like you lose," he smiled as he aimed to fire the beam at Kari. At the last second, she dropped to the ground, falling against Malign. He was so surprised he fell out of the ring.
"We…won?" Joe incredulously wondered aloud.
"We won!" Tai confirmed.
Malign frowned and muttered: "I was too cocky." He snapped his fingers and Rea and Nema were untied.
"You powers?" Nema prompted.
"Yeah, I was getting to that," Malign grouched. He sighed, and then raised his hands above his head. With a blinding flash, a continuous stream of white light shot from his fingers and into the ceiling. And then, quite suddenly, it stopped.
"Now what'll we do?" Sora wondered.
"There's nothing left but for you all to wake up," Rea answered.
~*~
Jim was sitting next to his brother's bed when Joe opened his eyes and sat up. Joe yawned widely and rubbed his eyes before looking around the room.
"Oh, good. You're up," Jim said.
"You wouldn't believe the story I've got to tell you," Joe replied.
~*~
Meanwhile, Mrs. Kamiya cried out in joy when Kari opened her eyes. She hugged her daughter tightly and whispered over and over again: "thank God you're all right. I was so worried."
Her happiness was stoked even more when a nurse suddenly ran into the room four minutes later and excitedly announced that Tai had opened his eyes, sat up in bed and complained that he was hungry.
~*~
And so finally the convergent dreams ends. The Digidestined can once again close their eyes without fear and just sleep.
THE END
(A/N: OK…I don't think that was very good for and ending, but it was better than when I first started out. Well, I'm thinking about putting out another story—a humor. Can we say TK + way too many mysteries= TK Holmes? Last thing, then I'll shut up and let you all get on with your lives. I've started working on a real story. One that I seriously hope to get published when I finish it. That means I might not be able to put things out quite as consistent as I am now, but I AM NOT LEAVING! 'Kay, I'm done rambling.)