Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon so please refrain from suing me for writing fan fiction. Thanks and enjoy!
Fate--Chapter 10
Footsteps echoed off the walls of the Droglidite base. Mimi heard them clearly in the cell she shared with Yamato and Koushiro. Currently, she was the only one awake out of the three aforementioned people. None of them had any idea what time it was, as they were in a part of the compound with no windows. The only light came from a few bare light bulbs in the ceiling, giving the entire place a drab, gray look.
Mimi watched in interest as two guards leading a girl that looked to be about two years older than herself came into view. These was the first living people she had seen other than Koushiro and Yamato in a long time and she wondered what they were doing. She noticed that the girl's eyes burned with hatred and she was staring intently at the wall or the ceiling, never looking at the guards that had hold of her hands.
The guards lead the girl to the cell adjacent to the one she was in, opened the door and pushed the girl in unceremoniously. She stumbled and almost fell, then turned and glared at the guards as they locked the door.
"If you need anything you can always call room service," one of the guards snickered.
The girl smiled pleasantly, flicked her black her behind her shoulder and replied in a syrupy tone: "and you can just crawl into a niche in the woods and die."
Both of the guards laughed big, hearty laughs at this remark and walked down the hall. Mimi almost laughed as the girl flipped the guards off.
The girl turned toward Mimi and gasped in surprise. "I didn't know I had an audience," she stated. "So what are you in here for? Being different or attempting to use the right of free speech?"
"I'm not exactly sure," Mimi answered. "I don't know how long I've been here, to tell you the truth."
"Yeah, well, time starts to run together when you're in here for a while. Days and weeks, they're pretty much the same thing after a while. So what's your name? Mine's Nea."
"I'm Mimi Tachikawa."
Mimi was incredibly surprised at the response she got at the mention of her name: "you're kidding me! The Mimi Tachikawa? The Digidestined?"
Koushiro groaned and opened his eyes at the sudden noise. He barely had time to catch a glimpse of Nea before the girl shrieked: "and are you Koushiro? Koushiro…Izumi?"
"That is correct. And who are--"
"And that one, the one that's still sleeping…. That's…Yamato Ishida, right?"
"Yes," Mimi confirmed. "Koushiro, this is Nea."
Koushiro nodded in recognition before asking: "you seem to have heard of us. Can you explain to us why we're here? We've been informed of the basics, but all of us would like to know more."
"Well of course they wouldn't want you to know! They probably made up some half-truth about them being stronger with you on their side, didn't they?"
"Yeah, that's exactly what they told us!" Mimi cried.
"Well…it's sort of true. But there's a lot more to it than that. See, they excluded the fact that you're stronger than them."
Shocked silence followed the remark. After nearly a minute of quietness, Mimi stammered: "I think m-maybe we should wake Yamato up to hear th-this, too…." She walked to the corner he was sleeping in and shook him awake.
"What?" he whispered, not happy to be woken up. His throat was still sore and he was tired.
"Thought you might want to hear this," Mimi muttered to him. "OK, Nea, go ahead," she added, loud enough for the girl in the other cell to hear.
"Like I said, you, all of you are stronger than the Droglidites or the Ghoulinthians. All humans are."
Hundreds of questions were running through Yamato's mind, but he was only able to voice one at a time, and his voice was so quiet it was nearly inaudible. Somehow, he managed to whisper: "so you mean we could do whatever we wanted to around them?"
"Well…it's not as simple as that. I'm pretty sure they told you that Droglidites and Ghoulinthians are. This gives us both an advantage and a disadvantage against flesh and blood humans."
"Excuse me, did you say 'us?'" Koushiro queried. "And what do you mean flesh and blood humans? Do you mean that you're all computer data?"
"No, no, not at all! We are not conceived of computer data as Digimon are. And we do not have true flesh, blood and bone like you do. We are made of gamma rays, or photons. And to answer your first question, I am a Droglidite, but I'm against them and the Ghoulinthians. I'm on the same side as you."
"That's not possible," Koushiro murmured. "How can a complex living organism be conceived of photons?"
"I'm not entirely sure how it happens, but I'll try and explain as best I can. You have millions of cells in your body, which contain billions of atoms and nuclei. We do not have cells. I suppose the best word I could use for our existence is…an agreement."
"Agreement?" Yamato repeated, whispering.
"That's right. An "agreement" between every photon in our bodies to live and function as one being." She took a deep breath and continued: "since we have no cells to speak of, you are incapable of harming us. But, at the same time, we cannot directly harm you, either. At least, that's the case with most of us. Humans can harm some, a very small percentage. This also gives them the ability to harm people like you."
"Rothena," Mimi breathed. "Rothena's like that, isn't she?"
Nea nodded. "In
theory, Yamato, your idea was correct: you can do anything you want around
us…as long as we aren't armed. We can't harm you, but weapons can."
Mimi sighed and leaned
against the wall behind her. It was
cool against her back. All this
information was mind-boggling to her. Bits of what Nea had said didn't make sense, although she had caught
enough to comprehend the meaning of it all: in most cases, they were perfectly
safe from bodily harm.
~*~
Ken reached through the
moderate-sized hole he had made in the faulty ceiling of his cell and pulled
himself through, to the floor above. He'd had to rip an opening in a layer of carpet that was over the hole,
but that task hadn't been difficult.
Now he was in a large, dark
office, inches away from a ventilation shaft that led to another dark
office. He looked through the hole in
the wall and watched as Sora crawled through the floor, then turned away to
watch as Jyou pulled himself through a second hole and into the office with
him.
In silent agreement, the two
of them opened the door and stepped out to the quiet hall. From the office Ken had looked into emerged
Sora and Iori and from the office on the other side came Takeru.
"Lets get out of
here," Iori whispered, eying a second ventilation shaft near the
ceiling. "I bet we could crawl
through there and out of here."
Jyou nodded and quickly pulled
the screen off of the hole. It wasn't a
difficult task for him, as he was the tallest of the group. He and Takeru helped everyone else into the
shaft before being pulled in themselves.
"We should
probably be quick about this," Takeru whispered, voice ringing against the
metal walls that surrounded them. "Sooner or later they're going to notice we're gone. The farther away we are, the better."
"Which way do I
go?" Sora inquired from her position in the front. "There's a junction here."
"Take the main
shaft until we get to the final junction," Ken replied from behind
her. "Once we reach that point, we
should be very close to an exit."
Sora nodded and began
crawling down the ventilation shaft….
~*~
"Everybody, wake
up. Now!" Taichi hissed,
shaking first his sister, then Daisuke and Miyako.
"Huh?"
Daisuke muttered, rubbing his sleep heavy eyes with the palms of his
hands. "What's wrong?"
"The
Ghoulinthians are still after us," Taichi whispered back. "If you listen you can hear them. They're coming after us. We've got to get out of here."
This news was enough to snap
the three previously sleeping children awake. "Where can we go?" Hikari anxiously inquired.
"I don't
know," Taichi replied in that same beaten voice he'd been using all
night. "Keep going the way we were
going, I guess."
The four of them began
walking quickly away from the area they had previously occupied, down the
darkened forest path, none knowing where it would lead them.
From far away, they could hear
the sound of hundreds of feet marching after them in the night…