We rode on Digmon, perplexed by many things. For one thing, were Matt and Ken alright? For another,who was the enemy? Also, how could we stop them? And lastly, how on earth could Digmon fly?
However he did it, Digmon flew fast. In half an hour, we reached Sora and Kari. They had been investigating a forest area when "all of a sudden, a dark pit opened up beneath us." It turned out that they were telling the truth, as we saw a large gaping dark pit that spawned about fifteen metres.
"This just opened up half an hour ago." Sora said, for all that forgot the message. None had.
"I feel darkness in it." Kari said. According to Cody, Kari was very in-tune with thebalance of light and darkness. Twice she had fallen victim to the Dark World, some sort of dimension full of darkness. Codt had said that Izzy had said that Kari had powers that she ahd used during the battle with somebody called Machinedramon. I would have prefered to hear it from Kari herself, but the good old-fashioned grapevine still worked.
"Somebody should go down there." Tai suggested. "Only one, in case they get in trouble."
"But who?" Davis asked. "I think I should go because-"
But we never got to hear Davis's reasoning because at that moment a deep voice echoed across the forest. "WHY DON'T I SAVE YOU THE TROUBLE OF DECIDING! ALL OF YOU CAN COME DOWN!"
All of a sudden, the edge of the black pit shot out five metres. I, along with the rest of the Digidestined, felt the ground vanish from under us. Then we were falling...falling...voices...light...digivolving..."
"Agumon digivolve to...Greymon!
Greymon digivolve to...Metal Greymon!"
"Biyomon digivolve to...Birdramon!
Birdramon digivolve to...Garudamon!"
"Patamon digivolved to...Angemon!"
"Gatomon armor-digivolved to...Nefertimon, the Angel of Light!"
"Veemon digivolve to...ExVeemon!"
"Hawkmon digivolve to...Aquilamon!"
"Armadillomon armor-digivolved to...Digmon, the Drill of Knowledge!"
I hit leathery flesg covered by thin fur. As I looked around, I saw that Elecmon was beside me, groaning. MetalGreymon and Garudamon had caught most of us, but Nefertimon, Angemon, ExVeemon, Aquilamon and Digmon had caught their respective partners.
"Uh, how were you going to able to digivolve to Ultimate?" Tai asked, blinking.
"I'm not quite sure myself." MetalGreymon admitted. "I just felt like I was able to, and did. Hey, if it's not broken don't fix it."
"Now that we didn't go splat on the windshield, let's just fly out of here." Elecmon said impatiently. To be honest, I sort of agreed with him.
"Wait." TK said, holding out his green D-3. "I'm getting a signal. Two actually."
Everybody else pulled out their Digivice or D-3 and presumably saw what TK was talking about. It now occured to me that I had no Digivice or D-3. Perhaps the object that had shot out of my chest on that fateful day(which was yesterday)? I had seen it flash light when Elecmon had digivolved to Leomon, just like Cody's had done when Armadillomon had digivolved to Ankylomon. I unhooked the device from my belt, and saw now that it had five buttons on it, arranged in a semicircle around the screen.
I hit the button farthest to the left. After several more hits, I realized that it wasn't responding. The inner left button was the same way. I pressed the center button and a message scrolled across the screen. NO TARGET SELECTED.
When I figured that I'd better not select a target because I might blow it up or make it infinately strong, I pressed the innerright button and saw on the screen twelve blinking dots. Ten of them(five white, and one each of green, pink, red, blue, yellow and half-orange half-blue) were close to each other. Nearly at the edge of the screen, there were two other dots-one white one and one black one.
"It's Matt and Ken." Sora said, breaking the silence.
As I would later learn, TK was the Digidestined of Hope. And certainly his next statement was a beacon of hope for all of us. "Digital bodies delete after they die."
Yolei broke out in a smile. "They're not dead!"
A cry of pain came out from beneath us, snapping everyone to attention. "That's Wormon's scream!" Nefertimon exclaimed. With that, we descended slowly to a ground made of something like cement. I jumped off Metal Greymon and felt the cement-like ground under me. There was an unnatural silence floating around, like the calm before the storm. Elecmon was still clinging to MetalGreymon's wing. He sure was paranoid.
We waited almost a full minute before something happened. A blond-haired teenager burst through the darkness and fell to the ground. The boy was wearing a white shirt, dirtied up to the point where it appeared to have never been cleaned: and blue jeans with a number of holes counted in double digits. The boy himself was in even worse condition. Bruises, cuts and wounds in mid-healing covered every inch of his skin I could see. I didn't reconize the injured boy.
Behind him, a small Digimon inched into sight. It was Wormon-a
Wormon atleast, because I had never seen Ken's Wormon's so unclean.
Like the boy, he was injured incredibly. His markings were made indistinguishable
by the smudges of dirt that had accumulated on his body. A small
scar ran across where an eyebrow would be on a human.
For a moment, everybody just stared. Then, Sora cried out "Matt!"
and rushed over to help the boy up. now that I looked closely, it
was Yamato Ishida, but I had never seen him so roughed up before.
His jacket was gone, and he looked like he hadn't bathed in months and
had been falling down on sharp rocks for a week.
"Ken and ga-gabu-Gabumon are back there." Matt stampered, painfully jerking a thumb backwards. All of us(except for Sora, who was buisy helping Matt) rushed foward. I spotted two shilouetes laying on the ground which I immediately associated with Ken and Gabumon.
TK raced foward, lifting Gabumon up. "Are you okay?" hey asked.
Gabumon's eyes snapped open suddenly. The Rookie Digimon grabbed TK's D-3 and said "I am now."
TK let out a sharp cry of "They're fake!" just before Sora's scream. We all ran back to find Sora being held by a bizaare creature. It looked like one of those excedingly lame ghost costumes, a. k. a. a while sheet that's thrown over your head; except with real eyes(instead of two black dots drawn on with marker) and a mouth with teeth sharper than those of any ghost costume.
"That's Bakemon." Elecmon said fearfully." "A shapeshifting ghost Digimon who's attack is the Darkness Claw!"
I risked a glance behind me and saw that "Ken", "Wormon" and "Gabumon" had all turned into Bakemon. We had been tricked and now we were trapped.
I noticed that each Bakemon had a Digivice at it's side. Two had
original Digivices and two had D-3s-one green and one black. I assumed
that they had been stolen from Sora, Matt, TK and Ken respectively.
The Bakemon holding Sora grinned. "Just a little jolt of power boss!"
he yelled upwards. A moment later, the stolen Digivices began to
glow.
"Bakemon digivolve to...Phantomon!" three voices said in unison behind me. I whiled around to see that the three Bakemon had been replaced with what could've been green reapers if they had been wearing black cloaks instead of red and white ones and if I could see skulls under their hoods instead of just yellow eyes.
"Those are Phantomon." Palmon informed. "This digivolved form of Bakemon is a master of the deadly Shadow Scythe attack!"
I noticed that the Bakemon holding Sora hadn't digivolved yet. The light on the original Digivice it fashioned just kept getting brighter and brighter. Then...
"Bakemon warp digivolve to...Piedmon!" It was hard to describe the creature now holding Sora. It looked somewhat like an evil clown.
TK's lip began to tremble. "You'll have to forgive TK." Angemon said. "The last Piedmon we encoutered traumatized us all, expecially TK. His Trump Sword and Clown Trick attacks made the Dark Masters seem weak!"
I didn't know who the Dark Masters were, but I knew beter than to ask. "Wing-" Garudamon started, the beggining of an attack forming between her wings. Piedmon held out a finger and shook it.
"Don't attack me, I have a shield." Piedmon said, indicating Sora. He was right. We couldn't attack with out killing Sora. It would be murder. From far off, I could hear two Phantomon dueling with Angemon and Metal Greymon. A third Phantomon proceded to attack Garudamon, initiating a battle that took place high above Piedmon and Sora.
I decided that it was now my time to take charge. The other Digidestined just stood there, trembling. We were wide open for attack. "Retreat!" I ordered.
"But...what about Sora?" Garudamon asked, right before Phantomon slashed her in the wing.
"We might lose Sora." I said coldly. "But if we continue fighting we're almost certain to lose her and probably all of us too."
Everybody nodded solemnly, but they I could tell they still had doubts about whether this was the right thing. I could tell that they had never thought about their own lives in battling, it had only been the Digimon involved in the fight before. Now, all of them were at risk and they couldn't decide whether or not it was right to leave someone behind. However, the three Phantomon eached floated down in front of Piedmon at that moment, holding Agumon, Biyomon and Patamon.
"They were too strong." Agumon murmured faintly.
Kari, Davis, Yolei and Cody were running towards their modes of transport, but a few daggers from Piedmon hit their Digimon and they all reverted to their Rookie forms(except for Gatomon, who was a Champion.) "Oh, don't worry." the phantom Digimon said cruelly. "I have a nice place for you to retreat to. You see, it's a cell that's big enough to accompany the ten of you, but small enough so you won't be comfortable. The walls are made up of the same material that Control Spires are, activated of course. And your D-Terminals will be taken offhand so you don't have to worry about silly things like armor-digivolving."
We were trapped.
[AN:Another cliffhanger. Chapter Five will be a biggie, and Chapter
Six will be the climax battle. After that they'll be an epilogue
and then the next "book" in the saga. Sigh...so much to write.]