:Return! Flareon, Light the way home!
"Kari! KAAAARRRIII!!!"
After about two hours of searching, both in the digital world and the real world, both sets of Digidestined had turned up nothing. Izzy was co-ordinating things from the school lab.
"I don't understand it" Izzy said to Matt and Yolei, who had just returned. "According to their signal, they came through the digital portal on schedule, but never rematerialized. Even the digidestined in America haven't seen anything unusual."
"America?" Yolei said, suprised.
"I'll explain later. They've got to be out there somewhere"
-Stone Town-
Izzy's statement was, in the strictest sense, true. Kyle and Kari had materialized on the other side of the digital portal, but because of Kyle's digivice, they had returned to his world by accident.
"Son, you're alive!!" Mikhail, Kyle's dad, grabbed Kyle in a bear hug and spun him around. "Dad.." Kyle said, too stunned to say anything more coherent. He was home, and his mind was still catching up.
While father and son were engaged, Nurse Joy walked up to Kari. "Excuse me, could you tell me who you are and how you managed to appear out of that computer?"
Kari started to explain, but was cut off by Kyle. "Growlithe!" Kyle shouted. Fairly leaping out of his dad's hug, he went over to Growlithe, picked him up, and took him over to the nurse.
"Please, Nurse Joy, he's been really badly hurt; he needs help as soon as possible"
As confusing as the situation was, Nurse Joy was too experienced to let an injured pokemon wait overlong for attention. "Oh my, bring him into the ICU! Chansey, come with me." Maintaining an incredible level of calm, Nurse Joy herded Growlithe, Kyle, and Chansey to one of the emergency rooms. Mikhail, Eevee, Kari, and Gatomon followed.
20 minutes later, Nurse Joy entered the waiting room outside the ICU. Kyle, who had paced the entire time, and lived the interval as if each second were a year, looked up, a combination of fear and hope on his face.
Smiling, Nurse Joy held up two fingers in the traditional 'V for Victory' sign. "He was badly hurt, but he'll be fine. He just needs to rest for a while now." The tension drained from Kyle, and he slumped into a chair.
"That's great to hear, Joy." Mikhail said. "Kyle, I know this has been a really rough ordeal for you, but I think we'd all appreciate it if you would tell us what the deuce happened, and who your friend is."
Looking up, Kari said "Maybe I'd better start. My name is Kari Kamiya, this is Gatomon" indicating Gatomon, "and where he was is something of a long story." With that, they both went into the story, Kyle explaining what had happened at the experiment at Bill's laboratory, his first landing in the digital world, and his run in with the Emperor, Digimon, and Digidestined. Kari filled the group in on what they knew about the Emperor, what digimon were, and the significance of the new design on the front of Kyle's pokedex.
After they finished, Mikhail and Nurse Joy looked at each other, still a bit overwhelmed. Information Overload, don't ya know?
"Kyle, could I see you for a second?" Mikhail said. Looking at Kari (she nodded), Kyle got up, and walked over to his father, who had moved away from the others.
"Son, I'm not going to question your story. You've never lied to me about anything in the past, and if you were, you would have made up a MUCH better story than that. It's QX, I believe it.
"What's got me worried is that you're talking like you plan on going back."
Thinking for a second, Kyle replied "I think I am, dad."
Looking at his son, Mikhail quietly reproved his son "say that again, like you mean it."
"Dad, I'm going back. And it's not for revenge."
"Good, glad to hear it. How do your pokemon feel about it?" Looking down, Mikhail and Kyle saw Eevee, who had walked up to them. The expression on his face left no doubt in either of the two humans' minds: Eevee was going back, regardless of the risks. A sudden array of pops came from the storage room. All of Kyle's pokemon charged out, having sensed their trainer's return. As Kari and Nurse Joy walked up, Kyle turned to face them.
"Kari, Gatomon, I think a few introductions are in order."
===
After Kyle had introduced all his pokemon, he had turned to them and explained the situation to the pokemon who had not gone with him. To his surprise and eternal gratitude, not one of them had stepped back when he offered them a chance to stay behind. Kari had hung around with Nurse Joy, and had asked an array of questions about Kyle's home world. Mikhail had answered a few of Kari's questions as well; they seemed to have a really good laugh about something, though Kyle had no idea what it was.
The only pokemon not being considered were Growlithe and Marowak; while Marowak was still conscious, he was hurt, and Kyle could not allow him to go back into action yet. However, since a means of transit had been established between his home and the Digital world, he promised everyone there a turn. He made his selections, called them all into their pokeballs, and got ready to head out.
"Kyle, are you sure about this?" Kari asked. "You don't have to go back."
"Hey, the pokemon want a piece of the Emperor; I can hardly say no to them."
Mikhail had hurried back to the two digidestined. "Kyle, before you go, I got you a few things. I reloaded your backpack with a few extra Super Potions and Revives, plus a field kit; it should last you a week. Also, I got this." Holding out his hand, Mikhail revealed a reddish crystal, shaped roughly in the form of a tongue of flame.
"A Fire stone" he breathed quietly.
"I was going to give it to you as a present on your next birthday, but I think you need it more now. Eevee, if you want to evolve, now's the chance."
Eevee tilted his head for a second, then nodded, and approached Mikhail. Before he got more than a few paces, Kyle's pokedex glowed, and absorbed the fire stone!
"Whahh???" everyone said. When rational though returned a few seconds later, Kari was the only one who could provide a rational explanation.
"Well, the digiegg that Gatomon uses to digivolve is stored in my D-Term" Kari pulled out the microcomputer, and displayed the screen. On it, an image of a small egg appeared. "You try it, Kyle, open up your pokedex and say 'Digiarmour Energize'."
Looking around to the assembled beings, Kyle swallowed his pride, opened up his pokedex, and said "Digiarmour Energize!"
Nothing happened.
"Well, it was a thought" Kari said. "Eh, we'll figure it out." Gatomon added. "Come on, the other digidestined are probably tearing up the digital world looking for us."
"You'd better get going then, Kyle. Take care." Mikhail said.
"Not so fast!" a voice called out. Looking up, the people in the main lobby saw a trio of shadows. "We saw such a delightful array of pokemon earlier, we just couldn't help but be interested" said a male voice.
"Yes, so we hope you won't mind if we help ourselves, will you?" a female voice said.
"Why ask, when we can just grab 'em and split!" a third voice, male but oddly accented, said. The trio jumped down, revealing two humans and a cat like creature standing on its back legs
"Prepare for trouble!"
"And Make it double!"
"To protect the world from devastation"
"To unite all people within our nation"
"To denounce the evils of truth and love"
"To extend our reach to the stars above"
"Jessie"
"James"
"Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!"
"Surrender now or prepare to fight"
The two humans paused, as though waiting for something. Looking down, they saw that their feline compatriot had completely lost track of the mission at hand.
"Meowth, what are you doing! You can't have forgotten your lines after all this time!" Jessie shrieked at the cat.
Meowth gave no sign of having heard her. All his attention seemed to be directed right at Gatomon.
"What are you looking at?" Gatomon asked; bad move, as Meowth ran over to her, teleported almost, and grabbed one of her paws with both of his.
"Hey good looking, how about we curl up to a bowl of catnip for a while!?"
Not being that type of Digimon, Gatomon responded in the only way that was proper to respond to such a situation.
"JERK! LIGHTNING PAW!!" With a loud SMACK, Meowth was hurled back, and ploughed right into James' face, knocking the two over. "Can I at least get yer phone number?" Meowth's dazed voice floated over the lobby.
"How dare you toy with the hearts and faces of our teammates! Arbok, Lickitung, GO!" Jessie released her two pokemon, who charged at the group.
"Kari!" Gatomon said. No further words were needed; Kari knew what Gatomon wanted to do.
At first, Kyle thought Gatomon was going to digivolve to Nefertimon, but wondered why Kari hadn't opened up her D-Terminal. Instead she held up her digivice, and Gatomon digivolved.
"Gatomon, digivolve to...ANGEWOMON!" Arbok and Lickitung, being possessed of slightly more gray matter than their trainers, stopped at the sight of a very large angel, with two feathery extrusions on her left glove that looked a lot like it was becoming a bow and arrow...
"Celestial Arrow!" The attack shot towards the ground right in front of the attacking party, and the explosion, predictably, shot them through the roof and into what could only be described as Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
"That barely rated a cameo!" Jessie wailed.
"I didn't get any good lines this time!" James cried.
"I think I'm in love!" Meowth said, still dazed
"We're blasting off again!" They all said together.
Back in the pokemon center, Angewomon glowed, shrank, and became Gatomon again. "That felt satisfying. Pointless, but satisfying."
==
Once again, the two digidestined and their partner monsters were getting ready. The repair crews were called, and the large hole in the roof would be repaired soon.
"Kyle, good luck. Be sure to call if you can!"
"I will dad, thanks for everything."
"And hey, you two have a good time now!" Mikhail added slyly.
"DAD!! It's not like that!" A sudden pressure on Kyle's arm startled him. Looking, he saw Kari's face, looking as if she was about to start crying.
"You mean...all those times...*sniff*...we spent together...meant nothing to you?" Kari said, lower lip quivering.
"K-K-K-Kari? What are you...?" Before Kyle could stutter any further, Kari held up her camera, and snapped a picture of Kyle's completely mindblown expression.
Smiling uncontrollably now, Kari and Mikhail chorused "Gotcha!" Then they both broke, collapsing on the floor laughing. Slumping to his knees, Kyle could only say "I can't win, can I?"
Gatomon replied "Not in this lifetime buster." Eevee just stayed out of it. Humans is such crazy peoples, he thought to himself.
After they recovered (Kyle his self esteem, the rest their composure), They got ready to leave for real. They said their good-byes, and the two digidestined held up their digivices to the screen in the storage room. Kyle led the call with "Digiportal 2, Open!" The screen flared to life, and the two digidestined and their partner monsters were pulled in.
-The school, 2 hours and 3 minutes after the search started-
Tai was busy not trying to tear the computer room apart, while Cody took turns making sure Tai didn't do anything rash and seeing how Izzy was doing.
"Guys! I'm getting a signal. There's a portal opening!" Backing away from the screen, they saw the familiar graphic of the digital portal expand on the screen, and the expected glow...
And four figures appear. "KARI!" Tai yelled, "What happened, where were you?"
"Relax Tai, it's OK. We just took a side trip to Kyle's home."
"Kyle's home...Kyle, you mean you can get home now?"
"Looks like it. Izzy, you were right about the portal2 function."
"And?" Izzy asked.
"It's stable. Book a weekend, I'll give a tour or three."
A sudden bleeping from the computer drew everyone's attention. Izzy sat down, and checked. "It's an email from TK and Matt, they're being attacked!"
"That's us then" Kari said, holding her digivice out to the computer screen.
"One sec" Kyle said. "Kari, that little stunt you pulled will be haunting me for the rest of my life. I don't know how, I don't know where, but I swear by all that is holy I will get revenge."
"Silly" Kari said "it'd take a miracle." With that, she opened the portal and vanished.
"Got you too, huh?" Tai said.
"'Me too'?"
"Yeah. Kari may look like an innocent child, but she can be an evil prankster sometimes. Good thing she only does that to people she likes."
"People she likes?"
"Hey, I think she's managed to get all the digidestined over the years." Looking at the location of the attack, Tai went on. "The attack is happening in an area with a control spire, so Izzy and I are locked out. You and Cody had better get going."
"Right. Come on Kyle, we'd better get going."
Izzy looked up "How is Growlithe?"
"He and Marowak are resting in a pokemon center in my home town. But don't worry, I brought the Calvary. Ready Eevee?"
"Vee!" Eevee said, leaping up on Kyle's shoulder. "Cody, you have the honours." Kyle said.
"Digiportal Open!"
==
Kari had already arrived at the scene of the battle. With the Control spire close by, Gabumon, Matt's digimon, was unable to digivolve, and Pegasusmon, still weakened from the battle with Arcanine, was having a hard time of keeping up with a mind controlled Unimon. Pegasusmon was forced to land and return to his rookie form of Patamon, which meant that Kari had to face Unimon alone.
No problem.
Nefertimon was able to evade Unimon's Aerial Attack, and land a few hits of her own. The two fought for a few minutes, before the armour digimon was able to get behind and above him, and blast the ring controlling the digimon. Freed, Unimon quickly fled the area.
"Well, that was enough horsing around" Gatomon cracked as she changed back to her champion form.
"Hey, I resent that" Patamon said weakly. There was a trace of a nasty bruise on Patamon's left side. "Kari, you're a sight for sore eyes" TK said "Where's Kyle?"
"Oh, he'll be along" Kari said, her expression speaking volumes.
"Kari, you didn't" Matt said, palming his face. Kari's grin only widened.
"Laugh while you can" A familiar voce said. A short distance away, a ghostly image of the Digimon Emperor taunted the digidestined. "Seeing as you are all split up, I'll take this opportunity to eliminate you three at once! Kuwagamon, attack!" Two giant red beetle-like creatures exploded from the sand, and charged to the attack.
"Gold Rush!" Digmon's attack streaked towards one of the attacking digimon, knocking it back. Unconcerned, the other Kuwagamon continued.
"Razor Leaf, NOW!"
TK and Matt were a bit confused as a hail of razor sharp leaves hit the second attacker, driving it back. The voice was Kyle's, but none of them had ever heard of an attack like that before...Turning, Matt and TK saw that it was indeed Kyle, and Eevee, but there was a new creature with him, this one about 3 feet long, squat, four legged, green, with a large red...flower bulb?...on its back.
"Ivysaur, use your vine whip!" Kyle called. The seed pokemon responded, launching four dark green vines at the Kuwagamon he had hit before, three of them whipping the insect digimon, the fourth wrapping around one of its legs, pulling, and tripping the digimon over.
"Nice timing" Matt said, as Kyle and Eevee jogged over. Cody and Digmon went to attack the first Kuwagamon, while Ivysaur stayed to make sure the second one didn't go anywhere.
"Sorry we're late-"
"Hey, we heard. Been there, done that" Matt said, grinning.
Before they could continue, the Kuwagamon Ivysaur was fighting got up, leaped over Ivysaur, who was too stunned to attack, and charged right at the group. Eevee leaped off Kyle's shoulder and charged right at Kuwagamon!"
"Eevee!" Kyle called. Then, a glow from his pocket caught his attention. Pulling out his pokedex, The digidestined saw that the digivice insignia was glowing a bright silver and red now. Acting on instinct, Kyle held it up, the way he had seen Kari do in Stone Town.
"EEVEE, DIGIVOLVE!!"
[animation note: insert 'Digivolve into Champion' sequence here]
Eevee glowed, and digivolved! His form shifted, and turned into Flareon, the flame pokemon!
"Flare! Flareon!" The fire type pokemon faced off against Kuwagamon, while Kyle quickly reviewed what he knew about Flareon's abilities. "Try an Ember attack!" Kyle called. Flareon complied, and shot a stream of fire at Kuwagamon, singeing it. Kuwagamon roared, and tried to attack again. Pointing his pokedex at Kuwagamon, he tried to scan that under the digimon section. "Kuwagamon: Virus type Digimon, Champion level. Known attacks include Scissor Claw, and it's ability to fly and hard exoskeleton makes it a dangerous opponent"
"Flareon, that thing's dangerous at close range. Stay clear of it!" Flareon agilely avoided its attacks, while he and Ivysaur peppered it with their long range attacks. After a rather nasty hit from Ivysaur's Razor Leaf attack, Kyle saw the opening he was waiting for. "Flareon, wrap it up with a Fire Spin!" Flareon inhaled, then fired a small ball of flame at the ground in front of him. Then the fireball grew to incredible size, forming a twister shaped gout of fire that sped towards Kuwagamon. Still reeling, Kuwagamon was caught in the tornado of flame, and screamed out, unable to move. Through the flames, Gabumon could make out the dark ring that controlled Kuwagamon. "Matt! The ring's breaking!"
"How much longer will that tornado last?" TK asked Kyle. "Only another few seconds" was the reply. "Right. Patamon and Gabumon should get ready then." Nodding, the two digimon got ready to fire the moment the attack dissipated.
As the flames subsided, Kuwagamon staggered out, still confused from the attack. Sighting on the dark ring, the two digimon attacked!
"Blue Blaster!"
"Boom Bubble!" The two attacks hit the ring, and shattered the already damaged ring. The Kuwagamon, now free but still reeling from one of the worst lickings it took in its life flew off. The other Kuwagamon did likewise, as Digmon and Nefertimon had managed to shatter its ring only moments before. Cody and Kari came back, excited. "I saw everything! That was incredible!" Flareon glowed for a second, then reverted to Eevee. He yipped happily, and leaped into Kyle's arms.
"So, your Eevee can digivolve now. I guess that means you're officially a digidestined then." TK said. Matt walked over to Ivysaur, and inspected the pokemon. "So, who's short, green, and leafy?"
"Oh," Kari said, "Matt, this is Ivysaur. I met him while I was in Kyle's home town. He's also got some other pokemon with him to help out, but we can get introduced back home. Come on, we should destroy that spire while we're here."
"Sounds good. Let's go!"
===
In the Digimon Emperor's main base, Ken Ichijouji was taking this latest turn of events in what some people would call a rather unpleasant way.
Most other people would call it 'screaming bloody blue murder'.
"NO! HOW CAN THAT LITTLE RODENT DIGIVOLVE!!! AND HE HAS MORE OF THOSE PESTS WITH HIM!!!"
Wormmon, for his part, waited until Ken had calmed down some. As devoted as he was to Ken, he knew better to approach him when he was like this.
Ken, Wormmon thought sadly to himself, what has happened to you?
==
Back in the computer lab, the digidestined there welcomed back Kari and Kyle, and were discussing events. Izzy was particularly interested by Kari's account of Eevee's digivolving.
"Yeah, and the thing was, there was a control spire still there." Cody said. "Could it be that Eevee's just too different from other digimon to be affected by the spires?"
"Huh?" Davis said.
"It's like trying to run a CD on a record player, it just won't work."
"Interesting hypothesis, Cody. From what Kyle and Kari have told me, it could be that the fire stone your pokedex absorbed is acting like the digieggs, or maybe even boosting the signal. Or even possibly..." Izzy quickly stepped into what Mimi had once called 'babbling computer geek mode'. He wasn't going anywhere for the next few minutes. The other digidestined slipped out of the room.
"So, what now?" Kyle asked.
"Well, now we'd better get out of here before we get caught. Technically, kids aren't supposed to be at school on a Saturday." Tai said.
The door to the computer room opened, and Izzy stepped out. "You know, some people would just say that I'm starting to ramble."
And so it went...
-The End, for now.-