Authors Note: Konnichi wa! I know all of you have been patiently....well some of you have been waiting patiently for this chapter. I thank all of you for reading this fic, and I would really appreciate reviews...I dedicate this to fans who review, and to my best friends: Angel aka Dragangelis, Akia, Nexis, and Chrys, Isabel, Angegil (gomen about spelling it wrong!) Shrapnel, Kou, and of course, my muse Akira. ^_^ On with the fic!

Legal Stuff: I don't own Digimon! If you believe this, don't blame me when you end up in a circular padded room, searching frantically for corners.


Never Lose Hope
Chapter 7


Kari shivered. She had been put in a cold, damp cell. She was all alone, and even worse, her crest and digivice had been stripped from her. Spiralmon had brought them here, and placed her in this cell. Then he had taken Akira somewhere. She was surprised to see other digimon down here. She jumped when something she thought was a shadow moved. It was a small, ferrit digimon, with a squirrel's tail. He was about the size of Meeko.

"Why are you digimon locked up in here?" she asked it.

"We opposed Katyamon..." it answered.

"Well...all the other digimon down here are Marlamon. Why are you down here?" Kari asked.

"All of us digimon lived here peacefully before she came along...She caught me recently. I'm one of the few digimon still living in this area...and not being ordered around by Katyamon. All the others who refuse to obey her are down here as well...By the way, I'm Sumamon."

"I'm Hikari Kamiya. Kari for short. Digidestened of Light."
"I know. I've heard of all of you digidestened." Sumamon told her.

"How? How do you know su much about us...it's not like we're famous..."

"In the digiworld you are, all ten of you."

"Ten? But there are only eight of us..."

"......Oh yea... The digidestened were in two groups. Your group, and another group. But.....there was an accident. Faith and Rememberance didn't make it.......Katyamon killed both of them and their digimon!"

"Oh...That's so awful!"

"Faith and Rememberance are now together somewhere...they will form one crest someday. I'm going to find the person who's going to have it and make sure what happened to Faith and Rememberance won't happen to them!"

"So how'd Katyamon catch you Sumamon?" Kari asked curiously.

Sumamon made a face. "I was trying to recover the lost digivices and crests for you all." Kari smiled, she liked this honest little digimon.

The door creaked open and Spiralmon unlocked the cell she was in and pushed Akira in. Akira stumbled and fell to his knees.

"Akira! You okay?" Kari went up to the boy, whom she had just met recently. Akira sat up. He wasn't defeated yet. He looked at Kari.

"Yea......what about you?" Akira asked.

"I'm okay....All they did was put me in here. How does Katyamon know you?" Kari asked cautiously.

"Uhh......She had a..........bad first impression with me." Akira looked away. Kari took the hint. She could tell just by the way he said that, that he hated Katyamon......With all of his heart.

"Sumamon? Are you skinny enough to squeeze through these bars?" Kari asked, gesturing towards two of the bars which were slightly farther apart from each other then any of the others. The small ferrit digimon trotted over there and examined the space.

"Maybe, I'll try." Sumamon made himself as flat as he could, and Kari helped him squeeze through the small gap. Sumamon rubbed his side after getting through and gasped.

"You okay?" Akira asked him anxiously. Sumamon looked at Akira. There was something odd about him. Sumamon had been friends with Akira for a long time...and he could tell when something was wrong. Sumamon nodded, and darted away, searching for keys. He returned shortly, running on all fours, and pulling the key ring along with his tail. He climbed up and unlocked the door with slight difficulty.

"Thanks Sumamon." Kari patted him, then went over and helped Akira get up.

"I can manage." Akira said with a smile. Kari wasn't so sure. There were tears in his clothing, and cuts all over him. One side of his face was slightly swollen, barely noticable, which was slightly pink colored and Kari could tell it would be black and blue by morning. Akira was a good liar, but Kari could see through it. They peeked out of the room into the hallway. It was deserted. Akira, Sumamon, and Kari headed down the hallway. Akira made no noise that Kari could catch with her ears, and Sumamon made slight noise with his claws. She felt loud compared to the duo. Soon, they came to an intersection...of three seperate hallways.

'What is this? A maze?' Kari thought. Kari heard shouts comming from behind them. She grabbed Akira's arm and pulled him to the far left, and into the first room they came to. She closed the door quietly behind her and leaned against it, sighing for relief. They had escaped immediate danger...for now... Then she looked around the room. The carpet was thickly woven, and crimsen colored. It had two lions rearing up to each other at each of the corners, and there were four dragons so life-like she felt if she stepped on one of them it would bite her. The only furniture in the room was a few chairs near the huge bay windows, and a glass case resting on an oak mantle, which was in the very center of the room. Curious, Kari walked up to it and glanced in. There, glistening brightly in the sunlight was Tai's digivice and crest! Koushiro's crest and digivice were also there, as well as hers', Yamatos', and Takes' crests! Take's crest was broken clean down the middle.

"Hey Akira..." She turned to find him fiddling with something in a fuse box. He had disconnected some wires, and now ripped a few out, making them useless.

"What?" he asked as he came toward her. "We're gonna have to break this open... I disabled the alarm, but it's still paddalocked."

"I can take care of that! Freezing Rain!" Sumamon froze the lock and broke it open with his sharp teeth. It broke easily. Akira went up and pulled on the lid, it held fast, not budging. Akira sighed and looked to Sumamon again. "Freezing Rain!" Sumamon hit the glass, but this time Akira stepped forward. He slammed his elbow down on the glass, shattering it. Kari took her crest, Tai's digivice and crest, and Take's broken crest. Kari put on her crest, and put the rest in her pockets. Akira took the two remaining crests, and digivice, and stuffed them into his pocket.

"We've got to get out of here now." Akira could hear the Marlamon and Gazimon racing up and down the halls, looking for them. "It sounds as if they've discovered us missing...." Kari looked around for someplace to hide. There was none. They only things in the room were the chairs, the case, and the...

"The windows! We'll go out the windows!" Akira told her. They went over and opened the windows. Akira looked down, they were two stories up. Akira kicked one of the windows, breaking in in his second kick. Akira ripped off part of one of the curtains and gave Kari one end. he wrapped his end around his waste and got a good grip on it. He braced himself. "Climb down, quick."

"But..." Kari started to argue.

"Climb down, after you're down, I'll jump." Seeing her look at the word *jump* Akira reassured her, "I'll be okay, the trick is not jumping or falling....it's landing. Go ahead." Kari cautiously got onto the ledge and started climbing down. Akira jumped when he heard the door slam open.

"Hurry!" he called down to Kari.

"I'll hold them off." Sumamon told him. "Freezing Rain!" Sumamon's attack pelted the Marlamon and Gazimon with rain. As soon as it made contact with their feathers and fur, it froze. The Marlamon and Gazimon squaked and growled in surprise, and scrambled to get out of the path of Sumamon's attack. Just then, a human-like digimon entered the room.

"Kari! Jump!" Akira yelled. Kari released the curtain and landed on her feet.

Sumamon attacked the human-like digimon, but was thrown back by the flick of his wrist. Akira caught him in the chest and tumbled backwards out the window. He curled into a ball around Sumamon. They landed and Akira uncurled, released Sumamon, and stumbled to his feet. They ran into the woods...

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Soon, Matt, Tai, Takeru, Sora, Mimi, and Jyou made it to Gennai's house No one answered the door, so they just went inside. They heard voices through one of the walls (Gennai's house is like Japanese houses...) but didn't intrude. They waited only a few minutes before Gennai and Koushiro emerged. Izzy looked very tired. He pulled his sleeve acrossed his forehead, wiping away sweat.

"Hey guys..." Koushiro greeted.

"Kou, you......remember us?" Yama asked, shocked.

"Yea...Gennai countered what was doing it. It was caused by a digimon named Katyamon. She was able to capture the essence of some digimons' attacks and combined them with her own attack...and her blood. She created.....well in this case, amneisa. If she's created this, who knows what else she could create...and I have no doubts that she will."

"It's something to think about...." Tai rubbed his chin and looked around at all of them. "First, I think we all need some sleep." Tai ignored the look he got from Takeru. "...and we can think up a plan *tomorrow*" Tai stressed the word and glanced at Takeru, expecting an argument. Gennai nodded in agreement, and to his surprise Takeru didn't argue.

"I've prepared some rooms for you. I knew you'd find your way here eventually." Gennai smiled and showed each of them to their rooms. "Oh, could I see your digivices and crests?" Gennai asked. The kids didn't question why he wanted them, but he was very trustworthy. They each handed over their crests and digivices...those who had theirs. Gennai didn't look at all surprised when some of them were missing their crests, and some missing both crests and digivices.

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"Are you sure we're going the right way? Akira?" Kari called up to him.

"Yea...and if I went off-course, Sumamon would tell me..."

"That's right!" Sumamon chimed in. He jumped down onto Akira's back and climbed up to his shoulder. Kari was amazed.

"Akira....Is Sumamon your digimon?" she asked.

Akira turned and looked at her. "What do you mean? Sumamon is my friend..."

"That's kind of what I mean.... but not exactly...I mean, is he your digi-partner?"

"........Well, I guess so...Sumamon stays with me...because he's my friend." Akira told her.

"Yep!" Sumamon agreed. "We're almost there!" Sumamon announced.

"Good, because it's getting dark." Akira replied. Just as he said that, they spotted lights up ahead. "Come on, there it is."

Kari sighed with relief as they emerged from the woods into a medium sized clearing. There was a large lake on the left side of the house, and she spotted some digimon swimming in it. The light from the nearly-full moon sparkled off the water. She followed Akira up to the house, and was surprised when he didn't knock, he just walked right in.

"Akira..." Kari started. Akira glanced her way, then walked into the first room on the left. Kari shut the door and followed him unsurely into the room.

"Gennai!" Akira greeted and walked up to a man about twenty years old with brown hair and blue eyes. Kari's mouth dropped open. Akira called this man Gennai, but the Gennai she knew was a lot older and shorter than she was.

Gennai looked up from what he was doing and smiled, "Akira," Gennai made eye contact with Kari. "Kari. How did you two get out?"

"The lack of guards and..." Akira started.

"The bars were too far apart!" Sumamon grinned and jumped onto Gennai. Gennai didn't jump like Kari expected him to. He looked used to it. "We also found these..." Akira produced the digivices, and crests he was carrying. Kari did the same. Gennai looked them over. All of the missing ones were there, but there was an extra digivice and tag, but not an extra crest. Gennai frowned slightly, muttered silently to himself, and set them apart from the rest of the digivices and crests.

"Why don't you two get some sleep? You can tell me all this stuff later." Gennai took them to their rooms. "Could I see your digivice and crest Kari?"

"Sure." Kari handed them over, curious, but sleepyness overpowered her curiosity.

"Thank you." When he came back, he went over to a cabinet and pulled out a small jar. He picked up the digivices and crests and brought them over to the table. He got some candles and lit them so he could see well. He pulled the extra digivice and tag and placed them seperately on the table, the digivice above the tag. Then he dumped out the contents of the jar. Bits and pieces of two shattered crests spilled onto the table, around the digivice and crest. Then Gennai placed all of the digivices around that. Next, he paired up each crest with it's matching digivice. Courage, Friendship, Knowledge, Love, Reliability, Sincerity, and Light.

He took Hope and held the two pieces above the tag of the unknown crest. The digivices and crests sent beams of light: orange from Courage, blue from Friendship, red from Knowledge, gray from Reliability, Green from sincerity, light pink from Light, and dark pink from Love. Gennai had to blink and look away from the flashes of brilliant white light filling the room. Suddenly the two pieces of Takeru's crest were drawn to each other like magnets. When he opened his eys, there was a receding golden light. His eyes adjusted, and he saw yellow light radiating from Takeru's crest. There wasn't a trace to indicate that it had been broken. Gennai glanced at the clock. It had taken all night to repair Takeru's crest, but it was well worth it.


Authors Note: YAY!!!!!! Chapter 7 done! Well, I hope you all enjoyed it! PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!!! I haven't gotten many, but the ones I do get are good. Ja mata ne! ~Akira~