Almost at the same instant, a few miles away . . .
Takaisha Takeru, or T.K., was just taking a rare afternoon nap. Just after Myotismon was defeated for the last time, T.K.'s parents who had been divorced got back together again, and now his whole family lived in a large, high-rise condominium. T.K., his face contorted in an mixed expression of sorrow, anger, and fright, was watching in his unconscious mind a nightmare that he had had before.
In this particular nightmare, Peidmon, the last of the Dark Masters, was battling with Angemon, the evolved form of Patamon, who was T.K.'s Digimon. Angemon digivolved into his ultimate form, MagnaAngemon, and quickly defeated Piedmon, but then a kind of chilling, dry laugh echoed as a black fog gathered around MagnaAngemon, and then T.K. always woke up before he could find out what happened. His eyes flew open, and he felt his heart almost thudding out of his chest. He lay quietly in the cool darkness of his room, running through the scary nightmare again.
Suddenly, the telephone in the living room rang, piercing the silence. He heard his brother, Yumato Ishida, or Matt come out of his bedroom and answer the phone. His voice could barely be heard, until it jumped up a few decibels.
"What?" Matt practically yelled. "The Digiworld . . . who cares what Gennai said . . . . fine, we'll see what the others say . . . . yeah . . . in five minutes at your house." Matt slammed the phone down and slowly came into T.K.'s room and flipped on the lights. He sat down on the bed next to T.K., but didn't say anything for a few minutes. Finally he said, "That was Tai. He said that Izzy said that Gennai said that there's a lot of trouble of the Digiworld, and we're needed there again."
T.K. looked up at his older brother and said, "I don't want to go." He then proceeded to tell Matt about his nightmare. "I don't want to meet that evil Digimon and see Angemon hurt."
Matt was silent a minute, secretly agreed with him, but not for the same reason. When they were in the Digital World last, Matt constantly was worried about T.K.'s safety, even when T.K. proved that he could take care of himself. If they went to the Digiworld again, Matt would be constantly worried about T.K., even though he knew he could take care of himself. It was because Matt was his older brother, and he felt he had to take care of him.
"Well T.K., I don't want to go either, but we have an obligation. We were given the Digivices because we're the Digidestined, and we need to use them, even if we are in danger." Matt winced, and knew T.K. probably wouldn't buy that, even if he was a little kid.
"So what are we going to do?" T.K. asked, seeming for the moment, to accept what Matt had said.
"Tai called a meeting at his house and we're going to decide if we're going or not." T.K. reached under his pillow and pulled out his Digivice. He held it, and the two brothers stared at the small device which was a harbinger of great power, and possibly great evil.
Five minutes later, same high-rise, different apartment . . .
Yagami Taichi, or Tai, was nervously pacing the legnth of his small living room. Izzy was sitting on his couch, his laptop open on his lap, his fingers rapidly typing. He was trying to open up a program that recorded the Digimon that he had seen, but no luck so far. His Digivice, which he had found stuffed in the depths of his desk drawer, was fitted into a specially designed slot in the top right of the keyboard.
Kari, Tai's little sister, who was also one of the eight Digidestined, was playing with Meeko, the family's pet cat. Tai was just as surprised at Gennai's news as Izzy was, but he had mixed feeling about it. On one hand, it would be kind of cool to go back to the Digiworld and see all the Digimon again, but on the other hand, the last time they had been in the Digiworld, it wasn't exactly a picnic. They kept splitting up and Matt went kind of psycho on them for a while, not to mention they had to deal with the Dark Masters, who were the toughest Digimon they had ever seen. Matt had been a pain too, and more than once someone would have to separate Tai and Matt to prevent a fight. However, he would be able to spend more time with Sora. They were friends, and Tai felt that he wanted to be more than a friend to her.
The doorbell rang suddenly, bringing Tai back from the midst of such thoughts. He moved to answer it, but Kari got there first. She opened the door, and in came Matt, T.K., Mimi, and Joe. Tai liked Mimi all right, for a friend, but Mimi didn't have that kind of . . . feeling that Sora had. Joe was this tall awkward kid with messed up hair and glasses. Of all the Digidestined, he was the oldest and destined to whine and complain. He also was allergic to about half the things on the planet. They all came through a short foyer, passed the kitchen, and sat down in the living room. Izzy looked up from his work, and greeting everyone.
Everyone took a seat, Mimi on the Davenport, Matt and T.K. on the love seat, and Joe kind of sat hunched up against the wall. Tai moved to start pacing again, but then saw that everyone's eyes were on him, so he sat next to Izzy instead. There were several minutes of awkward silence, when the doorbell toned suddenly, causing Tai to almost fall off the edge of his seat. Kari beat him to the door again, from where she was sitting in the entranceway to the hall. She opened the door and there was Sora.
Tai had to restrain himself from getting up, because if he did, he would probably trip over his own feet. She looked the same as ever, but her big brown eyes were so warm and inviting . . . and her figure wasn't bad either. She greeted everyone as she came into the livingroom, and by the powers that be, she sat down on the couch next to Tai. Of course, that was the only seat left save from the floor, but Tai didn't realize that.
Izzy typed for a few more seconds and then began talking, probably because he knew Tai needed a few minutes to go into his leadership mode. He gave them a brief summary of what Gennai had said, and when the others appeared skeptical, he turned his laptop around, put it on Tai's coffee table so all could see, and then pressed a few keys. Gennai's entire message played before their eyes, and when it was over none of them were skeptical anymore. Tai got up and slowly moved to the center of the room. "So what we have to do now, " he pulled his Digivice off his belt and held it out for all to see. "Is decide if we go." He put his Digivice down on the coffee table nest to the on-screen frozen image of Gennai, almost dramatically.
Izzy detached his Digivice from his computer and placed it next to Tai's without a word. Sora looked at Tai, and he looked back at her, and their eyes met. Sora smiled, almost reflexively, and pulled her Digivice from her belt and placed it next to Tai's.
Matt said nothing, but put his Digivice in the middle of the living room rug. "My decision is not to go." T.K. and Joe, almost simultaneously, placed their devices next to his. Mimi and Kari looked at each other, and Mimi placed her Digivice nest to Matt's and Kari placed hers next to Sora's.
"Well, this is great." Joe said, "A tie. Someone has to break it, one way or the other." The entire room fell totally silent, everyone watching everyone else to see who would break the tie. Even Izzy had closed his laptop and was watching the others.
Mimi finally broke the silence and moved her device next to Izzy's, so now the majority was for going. "That's for Chuumon." She said, as she sat back down. Chuumon was a pink mouse Digimon who had given up his life to save Mimi, and she never forgot about that.
"But we don't even know what we're going against!" Joe said. "We had a rough enough time getting out of the Digiworld alive last time, why would we want to go back?" Matt demanded.
"We got through it once, we can do it again. " Tai replied.
"Listen Tai, just because—" Matt didn't care that his voice rose. He would not be dragged back into the Digiworld willingly.
"How can you forget Whamon? And Chuumon, Pixiemon, and Wizardmon? They gave up their lives for you!" Mimi said. Her voice rose as well.
"Theoretically speaking, Genni would not have asked us to come back if we did not have a chance to defeat these new bad Digimon." Izzy said.
"We can't let those bad Digimon hurt innocent people." Kari said determinably. Even though she was only eight years old, she had certain principles, and she stuck adamantly by them.
Matt looked like he was about to day something, but Kari and Mimi glared at him, so he stayed quiet. Matt looked down at T.K. and appeared to suddenly make up his mind.
As if they had rehearsed it before hand, Matt, Joe and T.K. moved their devices from the floor to join the others on the coffee table. "This time, we're going to be prepared," Joe said, as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"Well, I've got my first aid kit," Sora offered.
"And I have my cooking gear." Mimi said,
"OK, and we can use duffel bags to carry whatever else we need." Tai said.
"Well, logically speaking, we probably won't need to bring that much food, at least not in the beginning. Gennai will supply us with whatever we'll need." Izzy said.
"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to bring a few changes of clothes." Mimi said, as she put her hat back on. Matt, Joe, T.K. and Mimi got up and went back to their apartments. Izzy folded up his computer and slipped it into a kind of backpack. Tai slipped his pocket telescope into his pocket, and after a moment's thought, he added a compass. Kari had her trusty whistle, and that was about it. Sora had her blue bike helmet set back on her red hair, but she made no move to bring anything else. Sora noticed Tai looking at her, and smiled, slightly, so that no one else would notice.
The others came back a few minutes later, ready, if you can be ready for the kind of trip they were about to embark upon. "We should be OK, timewise speaking," Izzy said. "Time passes on the Digiworld a lot faster than on Earth."
"Let's do it, then." Tai held out his Digivice, and the others formed a kind of a circle, their devices in the middle. Once all eight were in a circle, the screen in the center of the circle exploded in a flash of light. The light grew, brighter and brighter, and then with a flash ten times brighter than lightning, they were gone.
Tai, as well as the others, felt a kind of weightlessness, almost as if they were falling out of a plane. They could not see anything outside of the each other, falling in close proximity, but they could notice that there was a kind of greenish tint on the horizon, but nothing more. There was a sudden jerk, like when a parachutist opens his parachute, and they suddenly found themselves sitting in Gennai's house, atop traditional Japanese cushioned pillows.
Gennai suddenly came into the room, just as the Digidestined realized where they were. "Hello kids!" Gennai said, catching them off guard. They greeted him in the same way, and he sat down at the head of the table.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" he laughed quietly to himself, as he saw the way that they were looking at him expectantly. "I know you are all eager to see your Digimon again, but you must be patient. First I must tell you what has happened and why you have been called here." He snapped his fingers, and a large white screen unfurled, hanging against the fat wall. He snapped again, and a large picture of Eldritchmon appeared. He was holding his short wooden staff, and his eyes were dark and slanted. "This is Eldritchmon. He is the leader of the Dark Alliance, and is much stronger than Piedmon. He is a master of Dark Magic, and will stop at nothing to take over the Digiworld."
"Then how are we supposed to beat him? We barely beat Piedmon." Matt pointed out.
"This time all of your Digimon will be able to evolve into their Mega forms. You must figure out how to do this for yourselves."
""What about the other members of the Dark Alliance?" Joe asked.
"I don't know who they are, so when you find out, I will know as well." Gennai fell silent, and saw the way everyone was sitting on the edges of their seats. He laughed again quietly to himself. Youngsters these days have no patience whatsoever.
"Well I suppose I won't be able to tell you the rest. You're more jumpy than a room full of Gazimon. Here are your Digimon." Gennai snapped his fingers, a doorway appeared in the wall, revealing a small dark tunnel. Agumon, a yellow dinosaur Digimon was the first to emerge, almost confused.
"Agumon!" Tai yelled, as he ran over to his friend. Next came Biyomon, a pink bird type Digimon. "Oh Biyo!" Sora cried, as she ran over to her friend and hugged her. "Mimi!" a kind of green plant Digimon standing on two legs came out next. "Palmon!" Mimi ran over to greet her friend.
Next came Patamon, a small yellow Digimon with wings for ears, Tentomon, and a red bug type Digimon that could fly. There was also Gomamon, a kind of small walrus/seal Digimon, Gabumon, a small yellow bear Digimon wearing a blue and white stripped coat of fur, and lastly Gatomon, a small white cat Digimon that stood on her hind legs. T.K., Izzy, Joe, Matt and Kari ran to their friends in turn, and everyone started talking at once. Gennai let them, knowing that if he tried to stop them they would go on talking anyway. They had not seen each other for several months, so they had a lot to talk about.
Twenty minutes later, when the talk had started to subside, Gennai stood up and watched them all, but said nothing. He was like a teacher, waiting patiently for his students to be quiet so he could get on with the lesson. The Digidestined took the hint, and made their way back to their seats, carrying or following their Digimon.
"Now, if we're all settled," Gennai sat back down. When no one said anything and everyone appeared to be calmed down again, he began talking. "After you left the Digiworld, it reconfigured itself, as I said it would, and things were as they were before Devimon came. The Dark Alliance has been here, growing in secret during all these years. They then surfaced, very recently, but I didn't know about them until a few hours ago. They came upon Devimon, Etemon, and Myotismon, and even when Etemon and Myotismon became MetalEtemon and VenomMyotismon, the Dark Alliance still defeated them."
"Wait a minute. We defeated all those guys!" Tai interrupted.
"More than once!" Joe added.
"Didn't you hear what I just said? Years have passed between now and when you defeated them. They have grown from Digi-eggs, although not as strong as before."
"What about our crests?" Izzy asked. "Weren't they destroyed?"
"When the Digital World was re-created, your crests were as well. I have them here." Gennai snapped his fingers, and eight tags, which were pendants with crests of energy in them appeared before each of the Digidestined.
Tai's was the Crest of Courage, Sora's was the Crest of Love, Mimi's was the Crest of Sincerity, Izzy's the Crest of Knowledge, T.K's the Crest of Hope, Joe's the Crest of Reliability, Matt's the Crest of Friendship, and Kari's was the Crest of Light. These crests were essential in allowing the Digimon to Digivolce into their Ultimate, and Mega levels. Each of the Digidestined slipped his or her crest over their head before Agumon asked, "Where will we find them, Gennai?"
"I don't know that, either, I'm afraid. You'll have to look for them yourselves, but they'll come looking for you as well."
"Great." Joe gulped, as the others nervously laughed. "C'mon buddy, they can't be that bad." Gomamon encouraged him.
"What about the other Digimon, like Leomon and Frigimon?" Matt asked.
"They will be in hiding. The Dark Alliance has all the good Digimon scared stiff, even more so than the Dark Masters had."
"If the Digiworld was reconfigured, does that mean that Pixiemon, Whamon, Wizardmon and Chuumon are alive?" Mimi asked, almost rising to her feet in her excitement.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean you'll meet up with them again."
"What about food for the trip?" T.K. asked. "I don't like going hungry."
"That reminds me." Gennai snapped again, a big white duffel bag appeared out of nowhere and dropped at Joe's feet. "That bad has enough food in it for several days, and you will be able to find berries and other things in the woods. Water may be gotten at any stream because the Dark Alliance has not had enough time to take control of everything. Now unless you have further questions, you had better be going."
"How will we be able to get our Digimon to digivolve to Mega?" Izzy asked, looking down at Tentomon.
"It can be done, but you must find out how to do it for yourselves. Remember: the key lies within each of you. I wish you luck, kids, and I will look in on you from time to time, but this is your journey, not mine, as the Digidestined."
As they got up and prepared to leave, Gennai added, "I will transport you to the factory that Andromon lives in. He will help you from there." They stood before him, like soldiers do before their general, and the old general inspected his young troops with a smile. Their Digimon stood next to each one, ready and willing to fight and defeat the Dark Alliance. Gennai smiled again, when he saw this, but in his heart he knew that it was going to be no easy task to accomplish, much harder than the Dark Masters. Still, he bowed low before them in a symbol of great respect.
The room around the Digidestined faded away from them, as if they were traveling backwards at incredible speeds away from the room. The room, with Gennai in it faded into the eerie green background. Another room appeared to slide in around them, as if the room was now traveling forwards at the same speed they were. There was another slight jerk, and the room with the Digidestined in it stopped.
The Digidestined were in the main entrance way of an old, abandoned factory. There was a long, dark corridor ahead of them, and darkness seemed to leak out of the hallway like a fog. Not far behind them, in the open entrance to the hallway, the sun was blazingly bright, even through the thick boughs of the trees, but the darkness seemed to mop up a lot of the light, like a sponge will to water.
"Where's the light switch?" Kari asked. Her voice echoed and magnified down the long metal corridor, and it seemed to the Digidestined that it went on forever, growing duller and fainter as it moved down the seemingly endless hallway.
"We're actually going in there again?" Mimi asked, almost disbelieving.
'We have to." Tai said quietly, almost to himself.
"Don't worry, Tai, you have us Digimon with you." Agumon reassured him, but even the little dinosaur, who had so much incredible power within him, sounded a little uncertain.
"Yeah." Tai gulped, trying to force down the lump in his throat. He was not scared, only wary of the unknown which lay before them, enshrouded in the inky darkness and metallic shell. The last time they had been here was almost disastrous, but it had turned out all right in the end. Hopefully this time would have the same ending. He suddenly felt a warm hand on his shoulder, and he turned, coming almost nose to nose with Sora. She smiled warmly, and Tai felt his heart skip a beat, but he also felt his courage returning, and in that end, his own crest shimmered slightly. "We've got a job to do. Let's do it." He said, regaining his confidence.
Matt was about to make a comment about how this wasn't some old Western were they could go in with guns blazing, but a look from Sora stopped him.
"I have a rough outline of a map of this place somewhere in my computer." Izzy pulled his computer out from his backpack and held in with one hand while typing with the other. "Yes . . . . here it is . . . . go straight down this hallway . . . . and then take the right hand fork." The Digidestined moved in, two by two, their Digimon at the ready. Gennai had fed them well, so they had enough energy for several evolutions before they would have to eat again.
They passed, slow and careful, through the long, rapidly darkening hallway. They took a right in the fork, as Izzy had said, and the hallway lead straight into the middle of a large open space. Computer consuls, conveyor belts, and other pieces of machinery sat, cobwebbed and dust ridden here and there, but for the most part a large space was clear in the center of the large room. Just as they reached that center, something whistled overhead like a dropped bomb and had the same effect. A large piece of machinery that looked like a colossal printing press exploded into tiny pieces of shrapnel. Joe and Mimi, who were in the front gave a yell, and sensing their distress, both their Digimon responded. Energy poured from both of their Digivices and engulfed both Gomamon and Palmon, so they began Digivolving.
"Gomamon Digivolved to . . . . Ikkakumon!"
Palmon Digivolved to . . . . Togemon!"
A tall green cactus, perhaps fifteen feet tall wearing red punching gloves and had a small fringe of straw hair at the top of her prickly head stood where Palmon had moments before. Gomamon now stood as the twenty foot tall Ikkakumon, a large white walrus with a long horn at the top of his head. Long tusks protruded downwards from his mouth. The two Champion Digimon stood at the ready, to protect the Digidestined from whatever threatened them.
"Digidestined? I am sorry. My visual sensors did not recognize you ntil after I had launched that missile." Andromon, a eight foot tall robot stepped out of the shadows before them.
"Andromon?" Izzy asked.
"Yes. What brings you Digidestined back to the Digiworld?"
"Gennai summoned us to battle the Dark Alliance."
Andromon remained silent for a minute before he spoke again. "Who is the Dark Alliance? I have received no information about any alliance."
"They are trying to take over the Digiworld." T.K. said.
"Ah. The Digidestined. And Andromon. Astonishingly perceptive, as all ways." A cold chill voice split the air maybe a dozen feet ahead of them. It was dark and evil, even more so than any of the Virus Digimon that they had seen.