Disclaimer: I own no Digimon licences/titles/any other copyrighted niceties I may have forgotten. I need a sharper pencil
Episode VIIForgotten Monuments
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;"
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"So who are you?" Kari asked quietly, trying not to break the stillness that had settled around her like a cloak, masking her movements and voice.
"Remember when you got possessed by that light back when you were fighting the Dark Masters?"
"Yes. Was that you?"
"In a peculiar way." For some reason the woman she was talking to refused, at least to her mind, to assume a particular shape. She wafted between tall and imposing and friendly, between blond haired and raven colored locks.
"What do you see to the east Hikari?"
Kari looked out from the top of the mountain, surveying the ground around her. Her vision was scarcely able to pick out nearby rocks in the darkness that surrounded her, let alone distant surroundings. But somehow she knew that she was not supposed to watch with her eyes, but rather with her heart. "Darkness." She whispered carefully and precisely. "Darkness and shadow, massing and gathering, waiting for the hour of battle to arrive."
"And the north?"
Kari shivered. "It's cold. I feel darkness, and ice and winter waiting for the moment to strike."
"The south?"
"It burns. Fire has already ravaged the plains and the grasslands. Now the last living things are vanishing under the rush of flames."
"And the west?"
"The dawn." Kari suddenly wrinkled her brow in thought. "Why the west? Since when does the sun come up in the west?"
"The sun isn't important Kari. You stand on the borders of realms that lie on the verge of human comprehension, on the edge of our imagination. You stand facing the rising of the Dark itself. But from here the glittering tower that is the Heart of the World stands to the west. It is from there that salvation comes. Remember it always."
Kari woke up suddenly in the darkness. Gatomon was still snoozing next to her, but the oppressive darkness that filled the caves they were hiding in filled everything. The fact that it was nighttime outside probably was not helping in the least. She got up quietly and walked over to the night watchman.
"Hey Kari." TK did not even look around.
"Hey TK, how did you know it was me?"
"I always know when you're around."
Kari sat down, cradling her legs to her. Patomon clambered up onto her knees and started to settle down again, as if for a short nap.
"Really?"
"Of course. You doubt me?"
"Of course not TK. I don't doubt you at all. I just wondered how you knew."
TK sat back further, leaning and looking out of the mouth of the cave at the sky, absently tracing odd art patterns in the dark granite at his feet. "I suppose you could say that it's kind of a sixth sense, but not in any psychic way or anything. I just know. It's a lot of things. I could hear your footsteps and the way that you walk tells me that you're not Davis or Yolei, they both step heavier. The way the air changed around me as you approached told me that it wasn't Cody, and the faint scent of your hair told me that it wasn't Ken. He may look good, but he doesn't absentmindedly place flowers in his hair."
Kari elbowed him in the side briefly. "I'm impressed with your deductive reasoning Mr. Holmes. So tell me, why are you so good at this."
"Oh that. Well, that's actually sort of simple. It comes naturally. You know, like those kids who are raised in a primitive jungle can recognize poisonous plants by their smell, and can tell what kind of animal they're chasing by the way the branches are broken. Like we learned about in Geography."
Kari gave her companion a funny look. "But you were raised in Japan like the rest of us, not some sort of foreign jungle."
TK gave an uncomfortable shrug. "Well, that's not exactly true." Before Kari could protest, he plunged on. "You see, I lived in Japan. But I spent almost half a year in the Digital World, dodging monsters and scrounging for firewood and stuff like that. You didn't really spend that much time there, but I still get nightmares about it and stuff. It really changed me, and I never lost my touch in things. That's why I'm a good athlete. Practicing while you're being chased by a pack of pre-teen wannabe basketball stars is one thing, trying to evade a pack of howling Tyrannomon gives you a different feel for life."
Kari was silent for a moment, not knowing what to say.
"It's okay TK. We won, didn't we?" Patamon put his ears up again, a sure sign he would now do his best to engage TK in conversation. "We fought through and we won. And even if it was hard, you got strong. Almost as strong as me, right?"
TK smiled, and with that action, he banished all the weariness from his posture. He reached one hand down and rubbed Patamon's head gently. "Sure old friend. Anything you say."
"You know I'm right." Patamon protested.
"Yes, I do. So what's on your mind Kari?"
"I couldn't sleep. Weird dreams. Not scary, but weird."
TK's eyes flickered ever so briefly downward, but in the night Kari missed the sudden movement, and in a moment it was gone. He nodded to encourage her.
"I just…ah…wondered if you wanted some company."
"Of course." TK smiled, glad that he did not have to endanger his emotional sanity here.
"So what're you thinking about?"
"Whether we're ready for this."
"What do you mean?" asked Kari, almost unnecessarily. She had a suspicion that she knew very well what he was talking about.
"Well, you remember the first adventure this team had together. We had a horrible problem with hurting real Digimon. It was as if we were too innocent. The fact that we could redeem Ken, that the Dark Ring Digimon were able to be freed just by destroying those rings gave us a false sense of confidence. It seemed that hurting anybody was a horrible thing. And then when it came down to the wire, they were almost unable to destroy different Digimon, those possessed by evil. And because of this lives were almost lost. I was wondering if they were ready for this now."
"We have to be TK." Kari's voice sounded weak and reedy even to her as she stared into the stars. "We have to be. Because we're all that we have."
The silence stretched on as the two sat solemnly staring at the stars outside, glimmering like jewels in the opaque blackness of the heavens at night.
"I've been thinking." Ken remarked to TK as they sat there, at the edge of the stream, filling what instruments they could with water. "Why are the Digimon we've fought here so far so eager to destroy us? They aren't being controlled, are they?"
Yolei, who had just come back from hiding all signs that their campsite had been present, sat down next to them, staring mutely at TK.
"I mean why would they do this? Why would they be evil like that?"
TK smiled out of one corner of his mouth. Ken had just given him the opening he needed to make his point, and he wanted to make it. "They were corrupted by something more powerful than even your Dark Spirals even dreamed of Ken."
"What?"
"Something more powerful than the Dark Spirals?" Yolei sat up and fidgeted with her glasses nervously.
"Greed." TK turned his attention back to the plate he was soaking.
"Greed? But how could greed do that?" Ken wondered.
"I asked Izzy about it, when it became apparent that we were fighting evil Digimon back in the last battles against MaloMyostismon. He couldn't think of a reason, but between us, some of the older kids thought up a good theory."
"Oh?" Yolei instinctively drew a little closer to Ken, who was drawing a little closer to Yolei. TK was very careful to keep his grin from becoming a full out smirk to preserve some of their dignity.
"We think that Digimon are like people."
"Like people?"
"Yeah, like people." TK looked up at the sky. "You see, some people are really good, like Kari is sometimes, you know all about her purity of light thing, right? Well, other people are really evil. Not evil like you were Ken, but angry at the world, trying to make it suffer. People like Hitler and Stalin and all those other dictators and tyrants. The thing is, is that most people are in-between, they really aren't either. They would prefer to be good, but the occasionally slip towards evil. Make sense, right?"
Both members of his audience nodded.
"Well, here it gets different. Because of their different abilities, Digimon are more extreme. This means that good Digimon are really good, selfless, helpful, sacrificing, all the traits we expect of our Digimon partners. But that means that when you have bad Digimon, they are really bad. And because of the balance between Darkness and Light, you have a lot of bad Digimon. Those kind have to be stopped before they hurt others…right?"
"Oh." Ken considered that for a moment. "I guess that makes sense."
"Good. Don't worry about it for now. But the moment it stops bothering you to do the kinds of things we have to in order to stop them, then you worry."
"I guess." Yolei suddenly noticed how close she was to Ken at the same moment Ken looked over at her. There was a sudden jerk, and then the two of them were much farther apart than they had started. TK carefully refrained from smiling at their sudden discomfort, or at the sudden flush of red that was now dotting their cheeks.
"Uh, well…I better get back." Yolei excused herself and headed back to the campsite.
"Ken, you have it bad." TK gave Ken a little shove.
"Watch it Takeru." Ken snapped in mock anger. "Or someone might point out to our little Angel of Light how you look at her when you think she's not watching."
"Hey, I…Ken, stop laughing! Do you hear me!?"
"I could really use a place to stop." Veemon muttered under his breath as he walked onward.
"You should talk. Your legs are at least twice as long as mine are." Wormmon was struggling to keep up with his long-legged partner. He was also short on breath. The green worm always seemed to have a few problems keeping up with the fast paced and usually absent-minded Ken.
"Sorry old friend." Ken smiled down at his companion as they walked along, slowing his pace just a little as the rest of the group adjusted.
The terrain around them had become green and fertile, bushes had changed into tall pine trees, looming overhead like silent sentinels, protecting them from wandering gazes from up on high. The thick green canopy of needles rustled gently whenever the wind came through with a roar not unlike that of rushing water. Everywhere was blanketed by the scent of pine, overwhelming the nasal senses like some great heavy comforter, laid gently over the forest. The path they were following was fairly wide, although filled with granite rocks and such, forcing them to clamber over difficult terrain. To their right they could look downward to the edge of the treeline, perhaps fifty meters away, and the steep sloping grasslands below, illuminated with the sunlight of late day, glancing off the deep blue waters of a lake far below.
"I think that we should start looking for a place to spend the evening." TK suggested, quickly assessing the state of their varied Digimon. With the exception of Patamon, who had been riding on TK's hat all day, and who had mastered the art of falling asleep on TK's head, all the other Digimon and humans looked pretty tired out.
"Well, with scenery like this, I wouldn't mind sleeping out under the stars." Kari suggested.
"Well, I do not believe that will be necessary." Hawkmon hovered overhead briefly. "I seem to have discovered an interesting structure up ahead, a large mansion of sorts. I think it interesting enough to lead to further examination."
"A what?" Davis asked.
"Let's go look." TK suggested.
As they crested the hill, Yolei narrowed her eyes in disbelief. This was a mansion? If anything it was the proverbial haunted house, sides falling down, rickety stairs and boarded up windows. What was left of the glass would let through bugs the size of her bicycle. Everywhere there were pieces whose structural integrity seemed due to wood rot and the persistence of matter more than any kind of architectural strength. All in all, the place looked disgusting.
"Wow!" Davis breathed.
"It's beautiful!" Kari agreed.
"Breathtaking!" Hawkmon agreed.
"It looks nice to me." Wormmon noted, having climbed up on a rock to have a look.
"Uh guys?" Yolei turned around to face them. "Are you guys all right?"
"Yeah, why?" Ken asked.
"Because that place looks hideous. I mean, doesn't it?" Yolei squinted at the others, who were looking at her confused. She stared at the structure again before turning around.
"Are you okay Yolei?" Ken asked carefully. "I mean you have been walking a lot and…"
As Yolei tried frantically to figure out what had happened, she twisted her head to the side, and stopped suddenly. In the corner of her vision, there was the mark where her glasses ended, the edge of the frame. The image of the house coming through her glasses was dark and seamy and falling apart, but the hazy blur she could see out of the corner of her eye was pristine and white. Carefully she reached up and took the glasses that Courage had given her off and peered at the house.
Sure enough, instead of a gray, falling down dump, the house-shaped blur lurking in front of her was ivory white and gleamed in the evening sunlight. Little beams of light shot out at odd angles, indicating the existence of a variety of different reflective objects. Very carefully, ignoring the stares of those around her, she placed her glasses back on her nose. As soon as the lenses of the special glasses covered her face the image disappeared into the falling down shack. She grimaced and took off her glasses, handing them to Kari.
"Here Kari, put them on."
Kari shrugged and placed the glasses on her face. The moment she looked at the house, her eyes widened in surprise and her jaw dropped. She stared at the building for a few moments, and then blinked a few times. One hand came up shakily to take off the glasses and hand them over to TK, who was still looking confused. TK put them on, and immediately raised a single eyebrow. After a moment he shook his head to clear it and passed them onto Ken. It only took a minute for the glasses to round the entire circle, before everyone tried to figure out what was going on.
"Incredible." Ken whispered after a moment. "It looks like those glasses do more than not break. They gave you some pretty incredible stuff Yolei."
"I wonder if my box does anything.?" Davis asked quietly.
"Well, it seems pretty simple to me. I would bet anything that what we see now is an illusion to try and attract us. Scorpiomon and Devimon did the same thing to us quite a while ago. I should have been expecting this." TK put his chin on his hand. "Well, I guess we should avoid it."
"I should have known that the trap would have to be better disguised." A voice whispered out of the trees around them.
Everybody froze immediately. Eyes wide, they glanced around, but nobody seemed particularly interested in seeing what was immediately around them. The Digimon sprang into action, standing there, fangs and claws bared, ready for battle in whatever form it approached them.
"Uh, who was that?" Yolei asked, trying to see around.
"I have no idea." Cody whispered.
"It's just me." There was a faint glimmer and a Digimon that looked like a better dressed version of Bakemon drifted out from the fog.
"Phantomon!" Kari and Gatomon yelled, shifting into offensive stance.
"Yes, 'tis me. Oh, and some friends I forgot to mention." At once the woods around them shimmered and the forms of dozens of Bakemon poured out of the trees, forming a semicircle around them. There was only one safe path out, straight into the house ahead.
"Uh guys, we have a plan, right?" Kari asked nervously, edging backwards.
"Sure." Davis muttered.
"Great." Ken was carefully edging away from the claw bearing ghosts. He certainly did not look pleased. "Mind telling us what it is?"
"Yeah. Run like crazy!"
Quickly the Digidestined and their Digimon broke formation and hurled themselves forward towards the house. Their quick strides ate up the ground between them and the illusion rapidly.
As the Bakemon lurched ahead in pursuit, floating over the ground and growling half-audibly in the sudden influx of horror, Phantomon shook his head slowly. "What need is there to bait the trap, when it is so much easier just to drive the prey into it?"
Yolei dashed through the first set of corroded arches guarding the illusionary building as the others pounded along at her side. There was no voice, only the steady, determined panting of people trying to put as much ground as possible between themselves and whatever was chasing them. Behind them there was the occasional sound of cracking branches and rustling leaves as their pursuers gradually approached them. Unfortunately, through the pounding of her heart and the roaring in her ears, Yolei understood that it was impossible to determine how close the others were.
"Everybody inside!" TK yelled. He had reached it first and now, almost losing his hat, he dashed inside, curling around to the left almost immediately.
Davis and Ken rushed in next, following TK around the corner. Kari followed them, glancing back to make sure that everyone was all right. Yolei and Cody arrived almost together, Yolei giving Cody a hand up as he made his way over what now appeared as a fallen timber. Yolei had a moment to glance up and realize that the images outside the lenses of her glasses had changed color again, the illusion apparently having vanished, before Cody lurched forward and dived over the threshold, with her in hot pursuit.
"Shadow Scythe!"
The knife-like blast of dark energy sliced through wooden supports and half-rotted beams with the ease of a hot knife going through butter. There was a sudden creak as the structure gave the usual premonitions of an imminent lack of verticality, and then the roof began to fall down. Unlike what you might have expected the roof collapsed slowly, one beam at a time dropping down, letting fall a variety of wooden rubble, before being stopped temporarily by the next support. This meant that Yolei had a moment after the passage that the others had disappeared down collapsed behind them to escape. She paused, grabbed Hawkmon by the feathers, and dived back into the deeper rubble, toward a large crack in the floor, dived through it, and was free.
"We all right?" TK asked, leaning against a still-intact board and panting. The corridor that they were currently inhabiting was fairly stable still, but looked more like a mine shaft than an actual corridor. Everything in both directions looked dark and shady, cold and unwelcoming. The only light came from a handful of holes in the side, letting in illuminating sunlight from outside, but it was barely enough to let them determined who was who, let alone where they were.
"I suppose so, if you forget that there are only four of us now." Davis snapped, looking back.
Ken shot bolt upright. "Are they…"
"I've got them on the D3." Kari was checking her device carefully. "Yolei and Cody both show up as okay, and they're moving, so I think they got away."
"Well, this hallway is straight, so we can't go back. We can only go forward."
"Forward is good. I like forward." Veemon told them.
"Why?" Davis asked, looking down at him.
There was an evil laugh behind them that sounded very much like Phantomon following them in the distance. A quick shudder ran through the group, and then Davis turned forward again. "Forward, right. Forward is good."
Yolei looked around, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. Everywhere she looked, there was darkness, concentrated in some areas, and more spread out in others. All in all the place she was in appeared to be a large wooden room, with numerous cracks in the walls, each leading to further darkness. Here and there she could faintly hear the drip of water, almost as if she was in a cave, and the place exuded a strange kind of musty calm. Although it was impossible to tell what the room must once have been, it was easy to see that there was nothing left there. If she had been here under other, more peaceful circumstances, she might have enjoyed the place.
But now she began to move her way out carefully. Hawkmon was curiously silent, following his human companion carefully, trying not to make any unnecessary noise, even to the keeping still of his feathers. Yolei tested the ground carefully, and finally settled on crawling her way through the rubble, carefully avoiding anything that looked like it might move under her, betraying her position to anyone who was listening. After a few careful steps she crawled into a dark space to the side of the room.
"Excellent." Hawkmon whispered. "Now what?"
"I don't know. Where do you think we are?"
"I haven't a clue, but sooner or later somebody will be by to check up on this area. We should probably try to move farther in."
"Right." Yolei continued crawling into the dark. They proceeded in that fashion for quite a while, trying to remain inside the narrow corridor, and always attempting to avoid making the slightest noise. Hawkmon soon found that the whole procedure had begun to wear on his nerves, and Yolei was not looking too chipper anymore.
"Why don't we rest a bit and get our bearings. I'm getting so exhausted I may molt." Hawkmon watched Yolei carefully, gauging her response. She collapsed rather quietly against one side of the wall, a sign of how tired inside she really was. But there was something else, something in her odd silence that had begun to disturb Hawkmon severely.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I'm just tired. Maybe we should stay here awhile. It seems safe."
"It's not very safe. This isn't like you, we should go look for the others at least."
"I guess so." She kept her head down and let the silence strech on to an uncomfortable length.
"What's wrong?" another pause followed, this one only faintly upset by far off noise.
"Maybe we should stay here. It's safe here. And I don't want to fight anyone again." Yolei looked off to the side. "It's a whole bunch of things. I guess I never was too comfortable with the idea of destroying these guys in the first place. It's all so POINTLESS!" she emphasized her last statement by slamming her fist into the ground. The ground was hard-packed earth and did not seem to truly notice her assault, but Hawkmon staggered back in shock at his companion's rash behavior.
"It's not as if we had any choice. And you know that they'll go on destroying other innocents if we let them go…"
"Well, it's more than that now. In the last fight, Ken almost got killed. And in the first fight TK had to basically be carried back to camp he was so injured. I may not want to see anyone hurt anymore. Especially not one of us. If someone else gets hurt trying to save lives I'll never forgive myself." Yolei choked briefly on a sob before continuing. "Do you understand that Hawkmon, I hate it, I really do. I don't think that I can handle it anymore."
"Yolei, it's not as if we're asking you to do anything more than save your friends. It is imperative that we act together to stop this evil before it can hurt anything else."
"I don't think I can do it. I like Digimon and people too much. It makes me too weak. You're going to have to win without my help."
"Yolei, is that you?" another voice crept around the corner.
"Cody?"
"I tol' you it was her. Now you just settle down, and we'll have both of you out of here in no time." Armadillomon was clearly speaking to his young companion. A few seconds later one side of the corridor exploded in a shower of wood sparks, and then the Digimon and his short human companion were standing alongside them. They looked rather worse for the wear, covered in dirt and sawdust, but otherwise they were fine.
"What's up Yolei?"
When the girl failed to reply, Hawkmon looked over at Cody. "She's having a bit of a problem right now. She seems to think that she's not ready for this."
"Oh. I understand. It's probably this house. It seems a very sad place to me. C'mon Yolei, we can get out of this tunnel and escape the darkness for a moment. All right?"
"You can do it without me Cody. I should probably just sit here. That way I won't have to hurt anybody, and nobody will get hurt because of me."
"Now you know I can't do that. C'mon. Armadillomon, could you drill us through this wall. If the echoes are right, there's quite a large room on the other side." Cody spoke in his most reasonable voice, but he was exchanging glances that were quite alarmed with Armadillomon and Hawkmon, who were only able to shrug in response.
As Armadillomon began to tunnel his way through the wall and to the next room over, Cody tried to get Yolei to move. At first she resisted him, but then she seemed to give it up and slowly began to crawl through the new hole. Armadillomon watched them carefully and then stepped through and stopped dead.
"Whoa." For a moment he stood paralyzed. Then he seemed to remember that he was blocking the way for the rest of them, and he stood aside carefully, still staring at what was ahead. Somewhat alarmed at his companion's response, Cody rushed through, with Yolei and Hawkmon dragging along behind.
His first impression was that he could stand up again. Some light came through from above, filtering through cracks in the old, rotted boards that formed the ceiling, but now, instead of the yellow-gold glow of a setting sun, they were the silver light of stars, shining down in peaceful streamers of gentle twilight. Above him the roof was actually quite tall, and it seemed as though it was erected quite firmly, despite the starlight coming through. Here and there were arches of some hardwood, dark now with age, that seemed stable enough to hold a house on top of them. Dust motes and puffs of rotted wood floated quietly in the beams of starlight. The ground itself was dotted with regularly spaced pieces of carved stone. There was a moment of puzzlement as Cody tried to figure out what had provoked such a response from his partner before he too understood.
"Oh. Oh …"
The stone at his feet was marked with a simple inscription, and covered a large piece of ground. Here lies Floramon, who dwelled in this house for some thirteen years before being killed by the enemy in the forest while she gathered food. Some steady handed mason had chiseled out the words in perfect form, but they still gave the feeling of being intensely personal, a mark to a dear friend. And, as Cody tried to recoil in horror over the sudden stasis in his body, his gaze lifted involuntarily as he started, and swept over the other stones, realizing in belated shock that each of them carried their own names.
If anything, the effect of the graveyard was more profound for Yolei than for the others. As the meaning began to sink in on her, she stood slowly, unfolding like some trick origami figure until she towered over Cody, but her line of sight did not rise above his. She crossed over slowly, every step seeming an involuntary action, and knelt down, folding in on herself once more, and placed one hand on the cold marble of the stone beneath her. One tear dropped from her face onto the icy stone surface, decorating the bare rock for a moment with a drop of incandescent crystal. Then she turned to her friends, and in her eyes lurked a shape and color, a slight quavering, that spoke of her horror.
"I can't handle this guys. I just can't."
"Yes you can, you're quite strong you know." Hawkmon tried.
"No I can't, I couldn't bear doing this to somebody. To anybody. I can't take this suffering anymore. Look at these graves, it's like something out of a nightmare."
"It is horrible, but it's what we have to stop." Cody walked over to her, knowing somehow that her friendship, the oldest friendship she had in the group, might be the key to her new dilemma.
"We can't stop it! Look at how many others tried. And failed!"
"So, we'll try too."
"No, I can't do it. I can't make more graveyards like this Cody. Look at it, seriously. I'm too compassionate to create another place like this, even if the only bodies in it are the bodies of our enemies. And given the way we've been going, this is probably somewhat like the place where we'll end up. I don't want to be part of anything that has to do with this."
"It's going to happen Yolei. It's going to happen anyway. This is what evil is. You were strong enough to fight against MaloMyotismon, weren't you? And this is the kind of thing we were fighting against. Overwhelming evil. And this is what evil does, if someone doesn't fight it. My father taught me that, it just took me awhile to learn it. We've all got ot fight for what we believe in."
"I don't want to fight anymore. I want this to all stop!"
Cody laid a hand on her arm, but she brushed it off as she began to walk through the narrow aisles marking the boundaries of individual graves. "I know. I know, but how else can we do it?" he whispered.
Yolei, trying carefully to control the tears in her eyes walked down the aisles aimlessly, her mind turning over what Cody had said, both within her mind and in her guts. She knew that he was right, her academically tuned mind allowed her no other solution, but in her mind, she simply could not accept that reality. As she deliberately put one foot in front of the other she thought at all the horror she had felt when another Digimon died, even one as twisted as LadyDevimon, and wondered if she could face it again. Compassion was her weak point, the source of the team's weakness, and the source of her inability to struggle forward another step. She hated this war, this war and everything it stood for.
As she made her way toward the opposite end of the room, she noticed a few peculiar things. At first the presence of the stones themselves confused her. After all, what bodies would there be to bury under them? But then she realized that the fine dust of disintegrated data could indeed be buried here. A corner of her mind noted the engineering and architectural irregularities in the structure, but as she walked forward, she realized that it was artistically done, to allow each stone to bask in the light of the stars. And then, she saw that the writing was changing. As she approached the front of the room it became gradually scratchier, cruder, as if the person carving it had less time and less talent now to work with. Here the writing was longer, listing names of battles and dates that held no meaning for Yolei, but seemed to be somewhat important to the one who had written it. And somehow, here, as she approached the very front, drawn to a single piece of stone at the front, she began to understand the feeling of despair that now cloaked her every movement.
But it was the stone at the front of the room that drew her attention. It stood alone, tilted in the ground at a crazy angle, the writing on it scratchy and ill carved, and decorated only by one single piece, a small flower carved into the stone. This stone was not marble or anything pretty, but rather a piece of jagged granite, as if, in death it's carver had wished for some last monument with which to defy his foe. And on it, carved in rough script, was a single name, etched into the stone as if by a sword: Leomon. And, as she touched it, she knew the truth, the history behind it. That the stone had been struck there earlier, in preparation for the final moment, and that Leomon, having buried and lost all his companions and friends to the Darkness without, had emerged to fight one last time. And that, as the forces of evil battered down his gates and invaded the halls of his last sanctuary, a house once full of laughter that had atrophied and died as the Dark had drained it of its lives, he had fought. And, mortally wounded, he had crept down here through uncollapsed tunnels, and still bleeding, carved his name on this stone with his notched sword, a monument to the future that here, for a time, someone had stood against the Darkness and failed. And then, his gravestone already dug, he fought the minions of the Darkness in this room, and here had died, his data decomposing over that of his resting friends.
And in that moment, that one moment when she could reach across time and see the life of one who had died here for a futile cause, she understood something. The determination, the kindness inside, that had let a peaceful being stand here, in a torn down house in the middle of the forces of the Dark, and throw his power at the darkness that threatened to overwhelm him, all for a cause that he knew he had already failed. And Yolei knew, as well as he had known then, that she could do no less, that someone must always stand up and say the words "Not on my watch!", even knowing that it would cost them their lives. And she understood that evil must always be resisted, no matter the cost.
"No more." The voice that came out of her throat was barely recognizable as hers. It carried overtones of a deeper, stronger voice, one emitting from a silver robed figure of majestic power that hovered now on the edge of her vision. The words rolled out of her mouth like a tidal wave, unstoppable as a mighty river and scouring the banks of her consciousness like they were aflame. "Not on my watch! And never again! I love life and light too much to let this happen again!"
As she spoke the flower decoration on the stone exploded into red flame, pounding outward like a flare from some firework display back in the real world, or the wrath of a sun that has been locked away and now is exploding forth into battle. Slowly the picture rose from the stone and moved to the center of her chest, still glowing like a tiny, angry star. Red lances of light began to explode from her, and one of them seemed to lance right to her brain, stabbing it through like a nail from a hammer blow. And she knew that the Digimon that had killed that Leomon was here, in the house, waiting for her. And the fire inside her, the fire born of her own love for the sanctity of life, exploded into a wrath that was not a killing fever, but rather a righteous fury that would not be denied.
"Yolei?" Cody asked, confused at the sight. The others were just staring in awe.
Above them there was a sudden scream, somewhere off to the side. Yolei felt the powers of the crest she now wore react in return, focusing her on that point. And, with a quick gesture, she thrust her D3 out at Hawkmon, her jaw tightening like a vice, and the new power exploding down into it.
Kari had screamed of course, finding it a thoroughly therapeutic way to release stress. The sudden encounter with the dozen Bakemon waiting for them at the end of the hallway had contributed highly to that stress, but now she was ready to get down to business.
TK had reacted first while Davis and Ken were still sorting things out. His staff whipped out of his walking position and slammed forward like a battering ram. The Bakemon, all dripping claws and ghostly noises, had been expecting the Digimon to attack, and the humans to run for it, not to have things switched around. Thus the sudden explosion of rather more than a handful of TK into their midst, staff swinging around in wide arcs, bought the other three a few precious moments to pull things together.
"Veemon digivolves too….ExVeemon!"
"Wormmon digivolves too….Stingmon!"
"You ready Ken?"
"Right behind you Davis! Let's go guys!"
"ExVeemon….Stingmon….DNA Digivolve to….Paildramon!"
"Your turn Patamon." TK fell back for a second as the massive Ultimate stepped between them and danger.
"Patamon digivolves too….Angemon!"
"Go get them guys!" Davis yelled. "We're not running this time."
"Bakemon are pretty weak. We stand a good chance on wiping them out before they can get help." TK stared the first row down, one hand absently twirling his staff.
"Lightning Claw!" A Bakemon was thrown roughly against one side of the building, shattering the dusty wooden wall into firewood.
"Hand of Fate!" a whole section of the ghost Digimon simply evaporated under that golden bolt of power, disappearing into black clouds of data.
"Desperado Blaster!" Paildramon was an odd Digimon in one respect. Izzy reported that he had one of the weakest attacks for an Ultimate. However, he had the fastest firing rate. Within seconds the air was peppered with blue bolts of fiery destruction relentlessly seeking out their targets.
"We're breaking through!" Davis exulted, throwing one fist in the air.
"C'mon Paildramon." Ken leaned back, letting the wind created by the battle send his hair whipping across his face. "Let's finish this off."
"Not so fast. Seize them!" Phantomon drifted in through a skylight that one of Paildramon's errant shots had created in the roof. Behind him were a whole host of other Bakemon, possibly as many as a hundred of them, filling the air with their ghostly cries.
"Now we're in trouble." TK muttered. "Davis, Ken, Bakemon may be weak but if they box us in, we're trapped here, and they'll just swarm us under."
"Right, Paildramon, let's withdraw and come back…"
"Uh guys…" Kari sounded frightened and breathless. "They already got behind us."
"What!" Davis turned and groaned inwardly. Rapidly progressing up the hallway they had come through was another host of Bakemon, trapping them here. Now they were surrounded and had nowhere to go.
"Angemon, seal off the rear, keep them off of us." TK used his staff to force a few overly-brave Bakemon to withdraw. "That way they'll have to come into our fire."
"I can't keep this up forever." Paildramon informed them, his two cannons firing rapidly and non-stop at the oncoming ghosts. He was already looking tired.
"I know." Ken lashed out at one Bakemon with a piece of broken board, forcing it just a little backward. "But I refuse to go down without a fight."
"Me too…it's not over yet." Davis was still defiant.
"Grand Horn!"
"Tail Hammer!"
The wall behind Phantomon exploded inward and two angry looking Champion Digimon were standing there, bouncing through the hole and throwing themselves out in an all out attack. Ankylomon sent his tail crashing through the Bakemon, and Aquilamon's blast rings zapped another set of opponents.
"Phantomon! You've killed enough!" Yolei was standing in the wreckage of the wall, glowing a brilliant fiery red like the sun in all its wrathful glory. One hand was clutched at her glowing chest, the other held out her D3, which also emitted the fateful light. "This time you don't get away with killing the innocent. This time we stop you!"
"Aquilamon…digivolves too….Silphymon!"
The D3 flared, and in concert Aquilamon flared as well. Red fire flared down his body, transforming his wings into arms, his body into a clearly humanoid torso. A silverish gleam deposited armored chestplates and visor on his body, and a final flare light enabled the belt buckle device that amplified his power. Red lightning flashed along his body, perfecting any minor touches before being deposited in his visor, which flashed bright electronic blue.
"Phatnomon, for the crimes that you've commited I fear that you must face a higher judge."
"Maybe I should cut you down to size you overgrown two-legged chicken. Shadow Scythe!"
The black blade sliced out, but Silphymon was not there, diving over its trajectory and kicking Phantomon solidly in the chest. As the Digimon folded back up, he was forced backwards, scattering his horde of Bakemon in all directions. He thrust out again, another blade of pure darkness rising toward his opponent, but Silphymon was already dropping below Phatomon's line of fire, a red and white blur, hammering at his opponent like full out battering ram. There was a moment of buffeting at the hands of Silphymon, and then a giant kick freed the two of them from battle. This time Silphymon was not just standing there.
"Static Force!" His two arms swirled, gathering the energy needed to launch the attack into a giant red and white ball of fire, swirling in preparation for an attack that would have made even a meteor jealous. For a moment he held cupped fury in his hands, and then he unleashed it like a burning thunderbolt directly into Phantomon's heart. As the phantom Digimon disintegrated, his Bakemon cohorts, seeing how outmanned they were, turned and fled, at last freeing the house of evil.
The six Digidestined and their Digimon companions stood in the makeshift graveyard silently, respecting the wishes of those who had been laid to rest there for all time. Each person there harbored their own thoughts, their own feelings and their own emotions. It was Yolei who was busy. Using the incredibly hard tip of Cody's sword she was carving very carefully, a message in the stone to whoever might come after.
Here Light triumphed over Darkness.
And behind the trail of the sword blade, there was only the sound of history waiting to see what the outcome of the war that had already unfolded would be.