Malfunction

Malfunction?

Chapter Three - Captivity

Sora slowly came to. The first thing to hit her was a blinding headache so intense she vomited automatically. Fortunately, her stomach was virtually empty and after some dry retching which made her headache all the more intense, she relapsed back into merciful oblivion.

Some time later, she once more returned to consciousness. The headache was still there, the urge to heave still strong, so she lay perfectly still, focussing on the darkness around her, and willed the headache to lessen. Presently, she could make out walls, a floor and a ceiling in a peculiar sickly grey light that, whilst it gave information, cast no shadows and illuminated nothing. She started to sit up, but sank back blinded by the sudden recurrence of her headache. After a few moments' concentration, she tried again and managed to achieve a sitting posture without throwing up. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she surveyed the scene. She was surely in some kind of prison cell. There were walls, a floor covered in some kind of matting, and, she presumed, a ceiling because the light stopped there. There was no window and apparently no door, a fact that bore further examination. She sighed, and rose to her feet. Her shoe brushed against something hollow that rang: she investigated to find a metal bucket full of water. Sora suddenly became aware of a raging thirst, but did not let need totally overcome discretion. She carefully dipped a finger into the bucket – so far so good. She scooped a handful out and smelled it carefully. Again, it seemed harmless. She shrugged: if she didn't drink soon she would die of thirst. Better to die of poison, if it was poison, quickly than a slow lingering death by dehydration. She sank a good quarter of the water before pausing.

She became alerted to that fact that she was not alone by a gentle sigh followed by some movement on the matting. She stopped drinking and whirled around, wincing at the pain in her head. There was someone else there! Carefully, on all fours, she followed the sound.

"Matt! Oh, Matt!" she wailed, "How in digiworld did you get here?" At the sound of his name, the blonde boy opened his eyes.

"Sora, I found you – oh …" His face twisted as his stomach muscles rebelled. Sora quickly levered him into a sitting position and angled his head into a corner of the cell. Matt violently threw up his stomach contents, and when they were gone carried on retching dryly until he was exhausted. Sora gently lowered his upper body back on to the matting and listened until his regular breathing told her he was asleep. She sat back and kept watch over him, worried that his illness might be worse than hers.

Unaware that she had dozed off, Sora awoke to sounds of distress from Matt. He was still asleep, but beads of sweat were pouring from his face and body, and he was twisting and muttering in his sleep.

"Cold … cold… " He murmured. Sora looked about for something to cover him and, finding nothing, saw no other option but to lie down beside him and keep him from freezing by the warmth of her body. She sighed: it was just as well Taichi would never hear of this as he was always ready to swing at Matt for whatever reason, but there really seemed to be no choice. Matt tossed and turned for a good while longer until finally his fever broke and he sank into an easier sleep. Sora was unaware of this: she had passed into the oblivion of the truly exhausted several hours before.

Yamato woke suddenly, all in one instant, with a pounding headache and a raging thirst. He tried to sit up, but became aware of another body close to his, shielding him with their arms. Sora stirred and turned over on her back, stretching her arms, and opened her wide blue eyes.

"Matt! You're okay! Oh, thank God." Yamato smiled.

"I seem to be in one piece – thanks to you, I guess." She smiled wryly at the unspoken question in his voice, and blushed faintly.

"One moment you were burning up, the next you were icy-cold and shivering. It was the only thing I could think of." She stood up, suddenly restless, and paced around in a circle, "I was ill too, Matt, I still don't feel right. What do you think it is?" Yamato tried to sit up.

"I'll think about that later – right now what I really need is some water." Sora smiled.

"You're in luck – they left us a bucket of the stuff. And it's clean too!" She dragged the heavy metal bucket over to him and scooped up handfuls for him to drink. When he had slaked his immediate thirst, he sank back onto the matting, weak and gasping. Sora soaked her handkerchief and bathed his forehead. Yamato gradually regained his breath.

"My guess is that these Arachnamon not only have a kind of sticky web, they have a poison attack as well. Perhaps we were lucky – it may be deadly if you get enough of it." He said.

"Arachnamon." Sora pondered on the name, "A spider digimon, with a lethal sting. Matt," she looked towards him in the pale light, "Why didn't they kill us? Why did they give us only enough poison to make us sick? Does this mean that they want us alive for some reason?" Yamato nodded slowly.

"I think that's probably fair comment, Sora," he replied, "And I guess we're about to find out who it is that wants us alive right now!" A scrabbling from somewhere outside their cell was getting louder and finally stopped. There was a swishing sound and something entered their prison through what appeared to be a wall of spider silk. Sora shrank back against Yamato in fear, and he started to get to his feet, but neither of them had any opportunity to protest or struggle as each was seized and bound tightly in sticky spider strands. After trying to burst his bonds, and achieving nothing except to make the subsiding ache in his head rise back into agony, Yamato accepted the inevitable and lay passive while he was carried, reasonably gently, wherever his unseen enemy wanted to take him.

"I've never seen anything like this!" whispered Izzy, absolutely goggle-eyed, "I never imagined they'd be so well organised – or so numerous!" Taichi punched the wall in frustration.

"How're we supposed to deal with something the size of this with five puny little digivices – it just isn't possible!" He sat down heavily on the rocky floor and put his head in his hands.

"Sora! Matt!" he cried, close to tears, "I want to help you – but I can't see how! There's nothing I can do against such an enemy except go in heroically and get creamed. I can't do that to the others, I just can't!" Izzy took another long look at the scene through the window.

It was the sheer size of the place that had freaked them out as much as anything. Izzy and Taichi had been expecting to find a largish cave, perhaps with a small series of passages leading deeper into the volcano itself. What they found was that the whole of the mountain was hollow – and was swarming with Arachnamon. There they were, thousands of them, each going about its own business in an eerie, unnatural silence, bathed in a sickly green light that cast no shadows, and illuminated nothing. Gatomon slid noiselessly away and returned to her digi-companion as invisibly as she had left. Izzy bit his lip thoughtfully, then tore his eyes away from the scene and started to tap at his computer keyboard. Almost oblivious of Taichi's for once silent presence, Izzy accessed a little-used programme, which Gennai had downloaded onto his laptop.

"Bingo!" he said softly with a grim smile. Then he looked round for Taichi.

"Hey, get up!" he said, putting his hand on Taichi's shoulder. The dark-haired boy raised his face, not bothering to hide the tears coursing down his cheeks.

"It's all my fault." He moaned, "I didn't realise what Matt was trying to do in the battle, I didn't think to make sure Sora had a companion on watch – I knew Biyomon was beat from yesterday's journey. Why didn't I take precautions?" Izzy patted Taichi's shoulder uncomfortably.

"Tai, the blame isn't all yours, you know. I was on watch before Sora. If I'd only thought to find someone to share her shift when I went back to camp, perhaps she'd still be here, and Matt too, but it's by no means certain either way." And I would have done so if I hadn't been so jolted by my behaviour on the hilltop – what in digiworld possessed me to kiss Sora? She's one of my best friends, for heaven's sake, and she's also Taichi's girlfriend. She didn't exactly struggle though ... Izzy signed deeply and shook his head, dismissing that train of thought. Then, returning to the present, he shook Taichi's shoulder.

"Look, Tai, we've got to get back to the others. I suggest we don't tell them about this – or at least not too much, is that clear, Tentomon? – and I also suggest that this cave would provide adequate shelter for the hours of darkness, just so long as none of us gets inquisitive about the window at the back. Tentomon, could you contrive to cover it with a blanket? And when you're through, I think it's time you retrieved the supplies of food from the bottom of the hill, don't you?" Tai's not functioning properly, thought Izzy, The least I can do to make up for my part in this is to try to bring him back to his leadership skills. With Tentomon safely occupied, Izzy bullied Taichi into some semblance of normality and together, with Palmon's help, they gathered the exhausted digidestined and their digimon in the newly discovered cave. The group was tired and subdued with only enough energy to eat some of the food Tentomon had retrieved and roll into their blankets before sinking into oblivion. TK had fallen asleep over his apple, and no one noticed until Mimi turned in and mistakenly used him for a pillow.

Only Taichi and Izzy remained awake, Izzy to perfect his use of the new programme, Taichi because he had taken first watch and also because he was still knee-deep in his own guilt trip. Finally, Izzy turned his attention away from the little screen with a satisfied smile on his face.

"Prodigious!" he whispered to himself, "I've found them!"

Sora was in extreme discomfort. The Arachnamon had bound her, very securely from head to foot, catching one arm in a very awkward position, and now as the sticky stuff hardened, it was almost impossible to move at all in any direction. Also, her headache had returned with a vengeance, although mercifully not the sickness or she would have been in danger of suffocating. She wondered how Yamato was faring – he seemed to have taken a bigger dose of the poison than she had and she was worried he would relapse back into sickness. She could hear very little, see nothing at all, and feel only the chafing of the spider silk. Silk? She found herself thinking, why's it called silk? It's as rough as sackcloth against my skin. It's really hurting the bruises and scrapes I got from falling down the hill. Once again, she feared for Yamato whose physical hurts she had not even had time to register before they were hustled unceremoniously away. The journey seemed to go on for a long time. Eventually, she became aware of their captors slowing down their pace, then she was tossed into a corner and the spider silk roughly ripped away. Sora shrieked at the pain and fell face down on the rough floor. She lay there winded while another body, presumably Yamato, was thrown down and unwrapped in the same careless manner. He grunted once in discomfort, but otherwise remained silent. Then came a voice that caused the hairs on the backs of their necks to rise, and their stomachs to clutch in dismay. It was a voice utterly devoid of any compassion or pity, a voice completely at odds with everything they stood for, and at home in the hidden depths of evil and darkness, a voice totally malevolent, and, worse still, a voice the two digidestined children recognised at once - and that they had hoped and presumed never to hear again.

"It is an unexpected pleasure to receive you into my temporary headquarters, so soon after you destroyed my castle. Unexpected, but not unwelcome. I hope you will find your stay here brief but uncomfortable."

"Devimon?" muttered Yamato, in disbelief. He turned over with an effort, raised himself onto all fours and lifted his eyes towards the source of the voice.

"Devimon?" he queried, uncertainly through his pain. "I thought Angemon whipped your butt the last time we met." The words froze on his lips as he took in the full extent of the situation. It was indeed Devimon – the bat-like shape, the evil intelligence in the eyes, the oily malevolence in the voice – and yet it wasn't. This Devimon was not black; he was silver. He was covered from head to foot in an indestructible metal casing, even his face, his formerly torn and tattered wings were some sort of bright, flexible light alloy, and he bristled with confidence and new weapons. The evil digimon smiled, although his eyes glittered dangerously at the mention of his bitterest enemy.

"That's what you all thought, you poor fools. However, no ultimate digimon with any intelligence goes into a contest of strength without backup, and I made sure that I had every angle covered. Angemon destroyed himself fighting me, but I lived to fight another day, even stronger than I was then." He drew himself up so that his immense form looked even taller and more terrifying. "I digivolved. No one thought it could be done, but I found a way. I am now indestructible, I am invincible, I am Metaldevimon!" Yamato sank back down to the floor in weakness.

"Backup? Do you mean you actually stored a copy of yourself somewhere against the possibility that you might lose to Angemon?" This question was asked by Sora who was by now sitting up. Metaldevimon laughed.

"That's exactly what I did. Of course, none of your ridiculous excuses for digimon would even consider taking such an elementary precaution. Your precious Angemon failed to do it. It took me a while to become activated again, but that was all to the good. It appears you have become careless and lax while you believed you had defeated me. Good. That will make the others all the easier to capture, and when I have you all…" he smiled evilly, "Then I shall exact my revenge."

"Do you really think Tai and the others are just going to walk in here and let you capture them?" this was Yamato speaking, "They may not know about you, but they certainly aren't going to underestimate the Arachnamon. There's no way they're going to let you get all of us." Metaldevimon gave a particularly nasty smile.

"Oh but they will, my foolish digidestined." He pronounced with satisfaction, "Oh yes they will, because you are the bait. You two alone will provide the lure for the rest of the cursed children to enter my lair here – already they are on the mountain, and the one who bears the Crest of Knowledge has found your location. They know they cannot save this world or their own without you both, soon they will come in search of you. They will enter the labyrinth in the hope of rescuing you, and once they are far enough into my stronghold that they cannot easily retreat, my minions will seize and capture them as easily as they did you. That is the only reason you are still alive now – had you not wondered why you were only taken prisoner and not killed immediately? I want my revenge on all of you, do you hear? And particularly on the smallest child – the one who foiled me the first time. He will die slowly."

"No!" screamed Yamato, leaping to his feet, a greater agony in his heart than the one in his body, "No, Metaldevimon, you leave TK alone, do you hear? Don't you dare go near my brother, if you know what's good for you!" Metaldevimon frowned mightily.

"How dare you threaten me!" he thundered, "You, who are weak and helpless here without your digimon; you, who have no weapons even to fight the weakest of my servants; you, who are still alive merely because it is necessary for your vital signs to draw the others to you. Do you tempt my anger? Your imprisonment here will be brief – do you wish me to make it even more uncomfortable?" And with that, Metaldevimon drew his hand back and released a flash of dark lightening, which forked into two and exploded against Yamato and Sora, slamming them back against the floor. Not quite unconscious, they both groaned in anguish. Metaldevimon turned on his heel and left the cell, his servants sealing up the webbing that served as a door behind him.