Digimon: Digital Monsters
Mirror, Mirror—Part IX
By 7 of 11
Kana…wake up, child. Get up, Kana! Kana! Kana!
"Kana? Kana, are you all right?" Kana Takaishi awoke to her mother and father standing over her, concerned looks on their faces.
"I'm fine…" The eleven-year-old girl pushed herself to a sitting position. She looked around the area where she, her parents, and the rest of their group were. It looked almost like downtown Odaiba, where she had lived all of her life. But there was something different about it. It was totally deserted, not even a lonesome pigeon flying around. And then she looked up at the sky, and shrieked.
The sky was a reddish-brown, mudlike color. A heavy cloud cover enveloped most of the city, which she saw was filled with half-destroyed buildings. Ominous swirls in the clouds overhead looked like vortices about to suck them in, and lightning bolts cracked the sky every few seconds. "What is this place?" she managed to say.
Alt-Yamato turned to her. "This is my world." He said, his lips pressed together tightly in a grim parody of a smile.
Next to Kana, Masayoshi was incredulous. "You LIVE here? How is that possible? I mean…well, just look at it!"
"Yes, I live here. There are not many living things left…but the Digidestined from this world, including myself, live in relative comfort compared to what the small numbers of survivors must cope with." Alt-Yamato was quite frank with the young boy, his words lacking the soft touch that many of his counterparts in the 'Real' universe possessed.
Sora Ishida suddenly raised her hand and pointed. "What is THAT?" The red-haired woman was referring to a gigantic tower that stabbed into the clouds like a knife. The citadel would have easily been one of the tallest buildings in the other universe had it been constructed there. An ominous black fog surrounded it, looking to be almost solid.
"That is our goal. Taichi's palace." Alt-Yamato ran his finger over the blade of his sword, creating a small cut, but he ignored it.
Koushiro Izumi turned to his Digimon partner. "We can get there without a problem! MegaKabuterimon?"
"Right!" The gigantic beetle hissed. "Everyone get on!"
Alt-Yamato shook his head. "No, that won't work. In that fog, Taichi has certain…enchantments…that prevent any flying thing from crossing the barrier. We need to get there the old fashioned way…on foot."
Mata Izumi started to think. "Really? I wonder how he would do that…preventing only flying things from crossing fog while allowing others to pass through unharmed…"
"It doesn't have to be logical or rational, Mata. It's sorcery." Jyou Kido rebuked. "There isn't anything that you can do to understand it."
Taichi started to walk off in the direction of the tower. "Standing here talking is just a waste of time…let's go!"
"Taichi, maybe you should let Alt-Yamato go first…after all, I would guess he knows this city a lot better than you do." Hikari pointed out.
"Oh. Right, Alt-Yamato, you lead the way!"
Takeru stepped into stride besides his older brother's mirror self. "So maybe you can tell us exactly how this world became to be this way? And also, I noticed that I didn't seem to have a counterpart among the Alt-Destined. Why is that?" At this, Alt-Yamato visibly shuddered. "I mean, if you don't want to tell us, that's perfectly fine…"
Alt-Yamato held up a hand. "No, it's okay…" He sighed. "Where shall I begin? Well, first of all, it appears that our timelines were exactly the same for a while."
"Really? Why are they so different then?" Jun inquired, curious as always.
The Alternate took several deep breaths. "Apparently, they diverged around the period of time where VenomMyotismon appeared. Taichi chose to ignore the prophecy unearthed by Gennai, labeling those sorts of things as 'fake'. But he realized, as you all did, that Myotismon's new form was past anything that they had encountered before. So, in order to defeat him, a new stage of Digivolution had to be discovered."
"We did that too," Mimi said slowly. "We had Agumon and Gabumon warp to WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon, so how does this end up as different?"
Alt-Yamato looked annoyed. "Wait, I'm not finished! Taichi figured that the only way to get a new Digivolution was to do what he did when Greymon digivolved to SkullGreymon. He realized that the new form would be corrupt, but he surmised that 'dark' Digimon were more powerful than 'light' ones. To follow through with this, he didn't tell any of us of his plan at the time, but told us to go out and fight VenomMyotismon. We did as he told us to, but all of our Digimon were trounced. While VenomMyotismon was destroying us at leisure, Taichi was stuffing Agumon full of food." WarGreymon flinched as he remembered that experience. "Then, he deliberately ran into Myotismon's path. Seeing that his partner was in danger, Agumon warped, but not to WarGreymon, as he did here. He became TerrorGreymon."
Despite the gravity of the situation, Masayoshi couldn't suppress a slight chuckle. "So it was a warped warp!" At the glares from all the adults, he quieted back down again. "Sorry."
"…Anyway, TerrorGreymon was able to defeat VenomMyotismon single-handedly. Thereby being the only Mega in the group, and the strongest, Taichi started to become obsessed with accumulating more power. None of us noticed it as we went back to the Digiworld, but when we returned to our world again after easily defeating the Dark Masters, it had corrupted us as well." Alt-Yamato closed his eyes, gathering strength as the group walked on, and then resumed his tale. "No longer believing that prophecies and the like were rubbish, Taichi spent hours at a time researching ancient myths, looking for the ultimate power. Before he could find it, however, Gennai contacted him once again, telling him about a new evil that had invaded the real world, known as Loenamon. Even TerrorGreymon lost to this new foe, but in the message, Gennai explained how to get the rest of us to all go Mega as well. So we warped, and became MetalGarurumon, BlackRosemon, Deviwomon, Scarabmon, IronZudomon, and Vulturemon."
"But what about me?" Angemon asked of Alt-Yamato. "How come there was not a twisted version of me?"
Alt-Yamato raised a trembling hand to his face, and Hikari could have sworn she saw tears in his eyes for a second. "I'll get to that in a moment. After we defeated Loenamon in a fierce battle, Taichi felt we had enough power to conquer a large section of Japan-—which we accomplished easily. Powerful armies tried to drive us away, but we in effect became a small dictatorship. And then Taichi found what he had been looking for, an ancient witchcraft which would give the one who casted it incredible powers. Unfortunately, one of the primary ingredients was human blood. The more blood in the concoction, the more powers would be transferred. Obsessed with his quest, Taichi ordered that we execute 10,000 people in Odaiba, and collect their blood. We were so far gone, that we agreed to it. All except my brother. You see, Takeru was the only one who hadn't been corrupted by Taichi. And he refused to take part in the executions, actually leaving our group organizing a small resistance movement against us. Impressive, sure, but he was no match for us. We utterly smashed his band of rebels and captured Takeru. Then…then…I was the one to behead him and thrust it upon a spike…I MURDERED him!" Alt-Yamato broke down into tears.
Although sickened by this, Kana felt sorry for Alt-Yamato, as did everyone else. But it was she that went over to the sobbing man and put a small arm around his shoulders. "It's okay. I'm sure he forgives you know that you saw the evil and are trying to fight against it…"
Whether it was because of her words or his own will, Kana didn't know, but Alt-Yamato gathered strength and continued, occasionally breaking into a small sob, but recovering quickly. "After Takeru's death, there was no one to stop us. We carried out Taichi's orders, and he gained almost infinite powers. But he still wanted more, and we killed even more to sate his bloodlust. Then, using his sorcery, we conquered the planet. But that was not enough for him. He needed more power, to rule over everything. It was then that Koushiro discovered the existence of another plane of reality—namely, yours. Faced with the prospect of another dimension to conquer, Taichi jumped at the chance. So we invaded."
Alt-Yamato's real world self looked around. "But if not everyone was killed for the spell, how come there is no one around here?"
Bitterness ran rampant in Alt-Yamato's voice. "Another of the ingredients for the ultimate power spell—but this one needs a steady supply—was souls. The removal of something's soul does not kill it, but it renders them a zombie, with no self, no free will. Ever so often, Taichi would have a group of people rounded up, and then he would…eat their souls…"
The group stopped as they reached the barrier. "So what do we do?" Sora asked.
"Just walk right through…" Alt-Yamato did as he spoke, and looked back at the party from the other side. "It might help if you get a running start, but it really doesn't matter."
Hikari stepped into the fog, and her blood turned to ice. It was only a few seconds that she was in the darkness, but it seemed like an eternity. When she at last reached the other side, she was shivering. "That is NOT a pleasant experience."
"I never said it was."
Once everyone was inside the wall of shadows, Alt-Yamato pointed upwards. "Now we can fly up…we have to go to the very top."
After MegaKabuterimon had all the humans on his back, the bug leapt straight up into the air and zoomed ever higher. Carrying Vinmon and Zudomon, Garudamon and WarGreymon followed, Angemon, Angewomon, MetalGarurumon, ArchAphroditemon, Oraclemon, and Lillymon right behind.
The palace started to grow thinner, gradually tapering down. When they had been flying for what seemed like an hour, they reached the top…an immense square platform with a small dome in the middle. Taichi jumped down off of MegaKabuterimon, and slowly approached it. "What is this?"
Alt-Yamato cried out a warning, "No! Stay away!" but it was too late. The dome exploded, shockwaves buffeting the group.
Then, through the fire, a shadowy figure could be seen walking towards them. Clearing the fire seemingly unharmed by the vicious flames lapping at his body, Alt-Taichi laughed coldly. "You pathetic little FOOLS! Now you will all die!"
To Be Continued…
It's finally getting to the good part, ain't it! Only two or three more to go!! Always Review please!