Author's Note: Ah yes, yet another installment into the series. Apologies that it took so long, but I'm using a new computer now to post things. Thanks to all of those who have read enough of this to actually review, and I'm sorry that it's taking so long to get new chapters out.
If you think that this story should be improved feel free to email me and give me your opinions. I need all the constructive criticism I can get.
Enjoy!
Episode IX
A Friend in Need
"Leadership is making a plan and pretending it works. Good leadership
is pretending to have a plan and making it work. "
Cortell to Gennai
Tristan Offensive, Day 14, Before the Battle of Orshaven
"Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must
be without one, be without the strategy."
- H. Norman Schwarzkopf
"So now what?" TK asked Davis as they sat one
the cold ground. The grass beneath them was wet, something that was
hard to ignore for the perspective heroes, and something that was beginning
to get on TK's nerves. All around them, exhausted Digimon slumped
down, trying to get some rest as the day moved by around them.
"Well, they look pretty worn out to me." Davis
commented, looking around. "And I don't think we're about to get
attacked, right Ken?"
Ken gazed upwards at the area they had secluded
themselves in. Everywhere he looked they were walled in by high,
steep hills covered in low shrub that made the small valley virtually invisible
from the outside, and hard to see in to even if you did know it was there.
In the middle there was a small babbling brook, water that twinkled in
the sun as it ran over small, now polished, rocks before disappearing into
the thickets at the far end, but there was little else there. "I
think we're safe here Davis. It seems that nobody is going to find
us any time soon."
"Well then, I vote we should stay here!" Davis
volunteered.
"I guess there's no harm in it." Kari looked
up at the sky, carefully counting the white puffy clouds visible there.
"Nobody seems to be threatening us at the moment, and we do need some time
to freshen up."
"And the Digimon look exhausted. We
have been working them pretty hard." Yolei looked around.
"I agree." Cody responded.
"Then it's settled, we stay here for now."
Davis, sounding cheered at this prospect "We stay here."
"So now what do we do?" Ken asked.
"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm
going to sleep." Davis leaned back in his pile of soft branches and closed
his eyes.
"I think I'll follow lazyboy's idea and get
some shut-eye myself." Yolei smiled as Davis snorted in indignation in
his "sleep" but went over to where she had slept the previous night.
Quickly she seemed to fall into a slumber.
"I better work on my Kendo forms. I
don't want to get out of practice." Cody picked up his sword from where
he had placed it, and walked a ways away to begin to warm up. Ken
followed him, looking interested.
Kari and TK drifted in their general direction,
feeling restless and too awake to go back to bed, but too tired to provide
their own entertainment. They were almost there when there was a
sudden thud and TK felt a familiar weight settle on top of his head, sinking
onto his hair.
"I thought you were asleep Patamon." TK noted.
"I'm not as tired as the others are you know.
I feel just fine."
"Me too." Gatomon jumped up onto Kari's shoulder.
"So, what's up guys?" TK asked, reaching up
to scratch Patamon.
"Well, when I was Angemon he relayed some
instructions to me." Patamon told him quite seriously.
TK stopped and glanced up, finding Patamon
tilting down to look into his eyes. "Instructions, huh? Instructions
about what?"
"Well, remember all that stuff about that
Asrana'Dactal?"
"Yeah, you were telling us that it would work
against somebody like Khartan or Reaver if they tried playing around with
our doubts and fears, right?" TK remembered the conversation held in the
tunnels under the ruined city vaguely.
"Well, remember how I said that I couldn't
remember how to do it, and neither could Gatomon? Well, when I was
Angemon he relayed a series of different instructions into my head that
tell me where to start with you guys. He's really quite good at this,
but his instructions make very little sense to me. Do you want to
go through them anyway?"
Kari and TK exchanged a brief look that clearly
illustrated their lack of anything else to do, and then shrugged and nodded
at the same time.
"Good, you'll probably need this. Anyway,
this is how we start…"
By noon, TK felt like he had been run over
by a truck. None of his muscles really hurt, but there was an undeniable
truck mentality to what had just hit him. Every exercise that Angemon
had relayed through Patamon was a mental exercise of sorts, an attempt
to use the mind to its utmost. In the end it left his mind aching
in ways he had not known that it could ache, like a stretching a muscle
that had never been used before. Patamon had explained, at some length,
that the entire purpose of beginning the Asrana'Dactal was to increase
mental abilities, especially the perception and the concentration that
were essential to combat, both on the physical and the mental planes.
Long ears twitching, he had carefully explained the different ways in which
they should increase those factors, and the incredible abilities of one
who was well trained in both of those ancient disciplines. As they
continued in the exercises Ken and Cody drifted over, sitting down next
to them and trying to participate, straining their minds alongside them.
After a while they all felt exhausted.
When Davis and Yolei finally got back up,
all four of them were lying down on the ground, TK and Kari being the worst
off out of them. All of them were groaning or mumbling, and Patamon
and Gatomon were looking around with the air of a teacher whose students
have just done something right. Davis shook his head as he looked
at the group he was supposed to be leading and then walked up to them.
"C'mon guys, you going to sleep all day?"
"That sounds good." Ken mumbled, trying to
keep his voice down. "I have a herd of elephants in my head trying
to tear it apart."
"I have Matt's band and an oil drilling team
in here trying to get my attention. I think they're dynamiting something
in there too." TK rolled over again.
Kari just moaned and Cody closed his eyes.
"What happened you guys?" Davis asked.
"We'll be all right in a few minutes Davis."
Ken mumbled through the grass. "Just, don't ask."
"All right." Davis and Veemon exchanged glances,
and then they shrugged and went off wandering through the valley, exploring
it. From time to time they would call out to each other as they found
something exciting, but their voices were fairly distant. Yolei looked
at them with a puzzled expression on her face, and then shrugged and went
off to make something that resembled a meal on the remains of the fire.
It took a while for Yolei and Davis to get
back into a group sort of mood, and by that time, the other four were sitting
up. There was still a lot of groaning going on, but it was not as
bad as previously, and they were all feeling much better for it.
They took a quick meal in relative silence, before the conversation started
flowing again.
"Veemon and I found a weird cave back there
you know." Davis mumbled through a full mouth.
Ken and Yolei exchanged a glance, as did TK
and Kari. "Not another cave…"
"I guess we should check it out." Cody suggested
as they began to bury the remains of the fire, and clear up all remains
so that nobody would ever know they had been there. These methods
had been largely successful so far at keeping their trail obscure.
"Do you hear something?" Patamon asked quietly,
ears straining. His sudden change in demeanor frightened everyone
into silence.
"No. Do you?" TK responded.
"I think so…be very quiet."
After a moment they all heard it, steady crunches
as someone unaccustomed to moving silently walked through the bushes above
them. They all strained to hear who it was, but the footsteps provided
no real clues. Then, a loud voice spoke out. "Lord Reaver,
I haven't found them yet, but I believe that they're around here somewhere.
If you would design to grace us with your presence, we should be able to
root those brats out in short order."
There was a pause of a few minutes, and then
Ken turned to Davis with exaggerated casualness. "So where exactly
was the entrance to the tunnels?"
"Think we're safe?" Veemon asked, staring back the
way we came.
"Why is it underground this time? We
keep getting driven against underground." TK muttered under his breath.
"Running up mountains wasn't much fun either, but at least it wasn't as
predictable."
"It's better than staying out in the open."
Davis muttered. There was a sudden splash in the darkness, and then
an agonized shout. "Aw man, I got my goggles all wet."
"Just let them dry." Cody suggested, sitting
down to avoid running into anything, but standing up again just as quickly
when he realized he was sitting on Armadillomon.
"Not on my head, they make feel like I've
been swimming. Wait, I'll stick them in this box here. It's
got to be useful for something." There were sounds in the darkness
as Davis fumbled for his box, opened it and shut it again.
"Uh, guys, I don't mean to complain or anything…"
Kari trailed off for a moment. "…but why don't we use our flashlights
or something?"
There was a moment of absolute silence, and
then the sound of five hands and six other assorted limbs smacking into
foreheads, followed by a collective groan. After that there was more
fumbling around in the darkness, accompanied by much invisible embarrassment,
and then TK and Yolei both located their flashlights and turned them on,
bathing the group in sudden flashes of white light.
"Sorry, I guess we weren't thinking." TK apologized,
embarrassed, as he began to shine the flashlight around the darkened enclosure.
It really was not a serious help, all they could see was stone, and all
they could feel was air rushing past them. "Ken, you see anything
on the scanner?"
Ken had gotten a lot better at using the scanner
recently, and he quickly activated the machine and did a quick preliminary
scan around the area, looking for anything. After a long moment he
shook his head as he took in the dancing lights on the screen in front
of him. "I'm sorry guys, but I don't see anything of real importance.
There are some other tunnels nearby, but I can't get enough resolution
out of this thing to actually tell you where they are."
"Any pattern in them?" Yolei asked, coming
over.
"Well, I suppose that there is a sort of pattern,
take a look."
Yolei peered over Ken's shoulder, trying to
ignore the fact that it was Ken after all, and looked down at the diagram.
Each tunnel seemed a little more straight than should have been natural,
and they all seemed to be headed straight ahead. There was some little
thing about this that was still bugging her, but she could not figure out
what it was. Suddenly, the words popped back into her head.
"Radial projections."
"What?" Ken looked up at her, and then back
down. "Of course, radial projections. Each tunnel is projected
from some central location outward at regular intervals. They're
moving too straight for that. So, if I take the two nearest tunnels
and use their angular bearings to extrapolate their final destination…"
he was typing faster now, moving a cursor over the screen rapidly.
"There we go. All these tunnels should intersect in about three kilometers
further down the shaft. It would have to be an artificial structure.
Maybe they serve as ventilation shafts."
"Yes, but ventilation shafts to what?" TK
wondered.
"I guess we go find out." Davis suggested.
"If these are ventilation shafts they'll be straight in and straight out,
won't they."
"Yes." Ken nodded.
"Well then, we either retreat back to the
beginning, or we keep going." Davis pointed. "And since we know that
we're in trouble if we go back out, we might as well see if we get in trouble
when we keep going."
"I guess so." Cody sounded reluctant.
"Don't worry about it Cody. We can handle
anything down here no problem." Armadillomon tried to reassure his worried
human partner.
TK and Kari glanced at each other and shrugged.
"Well that's settled." Davis exclaimed.
"Let's go."
They set off in the darkness toward their
waiting goal.
"Okay, so why are we just sitting here?" Veemon
asked plaintively into the darkness.
"Because I don't like it." Cody insisted,
staring ahead.
"And neither do I." Ken muttered.
Ahead of them was a huge cavern, what looked
like another mining facility, looming large in their vision. To each
side there were different tunnels leading off. In the middle, machinery
sat abandoned and unheeded. The entire area was illuminated with
the glowing orange of different spheres of light hanging from the walls
around them.
"It's too good to be true. An abandoned
mining facility." Ken sighed and stared down at the ground again.
All twelve of them were sitting on the ground behind a cluster of rocks
where they could see the area ahead of them, but not visible from it.
"The problem is that it may be a perfect place to hide an ambush.
And the fact that the scanner is being jammed suggests just that."
"Well, we could just go in and take care of
whatever's in there." Davis suggested.
"No. They've had too much time to prepare.
If they discovered how we escaped up on the surface, we'll be easy targets
down here, especially since they know how we're coming."
"I guess." Davis muttered.
"Well, we could handle it." Veemon sounded
miffed.
"Well, we aren't going to." TK snapped back.
"I've got an idea. We Digivolve here, and then make tracks straight
for one of those tunnels, right. If this really is a mining operation,
they won't have blocked them all, in fact they'll be depending on us to
be trapped by our surprise and our inability to fight back. If we
go fast, we might be able to speed through them before they recover from
their surprise. As they say, the surprise assault is like the heavens
and earth, and as strong as the rivers and seas."
"Huh? Who says that?" Kari and Yolei
asked as one.
"Actually," Ken replied, without looking at
TK, "the exact quote is 'Thus the expert at delivering the surprise assault
is as boundless as the heavens and earth, and as inexhaustible as the rivers
and seas.'"
"Really?" TK asked.
This time Ken turned and smirked widely.
"You aren't the only one to read Sun-Tzu."
"So what does he say about all of this?
Beside the obvious I mean." TK looked back.
"Well, he does say that it is necessary to
push on in dangerous ground." Ken considered for a moment before pointing.
"Okay, not counting Angemon, we have four Champion Digimon, right?
Out of those four, three can fly. That gives us quite an option.
We split in three groups. I'll carry you TK, Yolei can carry Kari,
and Davis can carry Cody. That means that we can fly right through
that zone and head for the tunnels. We should probably split up too.
Their big advantage is in the ambush, and if we can buy ourselves some
breathing room, we can hook up again and teach them a lesson. But
we can't do that unless they're distracted. We'll need that distraction."
"You'll get it." Wormmon promised. "Are
we ready?"
"No sense in waiting." Yolei responded.
"Shall we?" Veemon asked.
"Let's." Hawkmon replied.
D3s flared into sudden brightness.
The first sign the dozen ambushers had that
something was going wrong with their ambush was when it stopped being an
ambush. Thanks to Reaver's explicit communication they knew exactly
where the others were going to be emerging, and had taken great pains to
seal that particular tunnel off. There were lines of fire covering
that from all directions, and the ambushers included three of the giant
Mammothmon, prepared to offer fire that would crush any opponent beneath
them. However, the first action of the ambush was taken by the ambushees.
Instead of coming out slowly and cautiously, there was a sudden flare of
light from that direction and then, before anyone could figure out what
had just happened, three streaks blasted out of that entrance down into
the central clear area, skimming the ground. It was just too fast,
and the three fliers were taking every advantage of the sudden confusion
of their enemies, twisting and shifting around in an intricate web of patterns.
Aquilamon, carrying a nervous Kari, a panicking
Yolei and a tight lipped Gatomon, spun in a half-barrel roll, twisting
up perpendicular to the ground, ripping along at a tremendous velocity.
There was a sudden pause, and then the eagle Digimon yanked his tail up,
altering trajectory with a sudden jolt that shook his passengers down to
their cores. As the first shots began to land around them, he shot
crosswise to their previous pattern, bisecting ExVeemon's trajectory and
then disappearing rapidly down one of the tunnels. ExVeemon responded
by rolling to the other side, Cody, Davis and Armadillomon clutched in
his muscular arms, flipping upside-down and then zooming down yet another
tunnel. Stingmon only wove up and down, making it hard for anyone
to actually figure out what height he was going to be at, and then he too
escaped, diving down yet another tunnel.
"After them!" somebody shouted, but by then
they were already gone.
ExVeemon was being forced to choose too rapidly
for his liking. He had never liked making split second decisions,
but at the velocity he had obtained during his brief run across exposed
ground, it seemed that split second was all that he was allowed to make.
Immediately upon entering the tunnel, he realized that it split into two
different directions, one heading up and one heading down. Choosing
up, he managed to get another two soccer fields or so, before being presented
with a three way choice, which he quickly took, going down the middle.
Another straight looking corridor dived downward and into an intersection,
making him choose another direction. He had barely gone right before
realizing his mistake, that the tunnel ahead of him curved at a ninety
degree angle right ahead, and that he was going to have to make a sharp
turn, and that he was going way to fast, and that the wall ahead was dirt
and stone and looked very hard.
Oh, this was going to hurt…
Veemon managed to open his eyes again after
awhile. Davis, Armadillomon and Cody slowly swum into focus, standing
over him and looking concerned. His head felt like a herd of elephants
was in there somewhere, holding a trampling and trumpeting contest that
was deafening all his other senses. Echoes of this contest were apparently
appearing on his face, because the others began looking worried at his
expression, bending closer.
"Ow." Veemon managed. "What happened?"
"You hit the wall man." Davis bent down even
closer. "Head first too. You saved us from the impact, but
you were out like a light. I'm just glad that you're okay.
We were worried about moving you and stuff, but we had to get out of the
way of other patrols. So we darted down that one corridor, and found
a whole bunch of doors. Turns out they all lead to storage rooms,
so here we are."
Veemon turned his head a little to the side
and immediately wished he had avoided this action, as it sent another herd
of elephants trumpeting and thumping their way across his skull.
He groaned again, which was probably also a mistake, but he did not wince,
and he was able to observe the surroundings of the room he was in.
It was sparsely accommodated, mostly sacks and crates of things that looked
dusty, a sure sign that nobody had used them recently. Dim lighting
was provided by another one of the light giving spheres hanging from the
ceiling, providing faint illumination to the scene. He was reclining
on a sack of something that must have been like peas, because it shifted
under his weight as if it was made of several different parts. Everyone
else had boxes to sit on.
"You just rest up pal, and you'll feel as
good as new in a few hours or so." Davis looked back at the others and
shrugged.
"So now what?" Cody asked.
"Well, we aren't going out with Veemon looking
like that. We've got to get him some rest before he's ready to fight,
so we might as well hold tight here."
"I'm sure the others will find us soon." Armadillomon
looked around and scratched the ground with his claw. "After all,
they're good at what they do as well."
"I was going to suggest going out to look
for them, but I guess we just can't do that now."
"Are we safe here though?" Cody asked.
"I don't know Cody."
"Well, we better figure that out first, shouldn't
we. It's no good being caught here, and if we're not safe, we'll
just have to move again."
"We can't move Veemon again. It's just
not possible." Davis protested.
"We'll have to." Cody insisted.
"Aaugh!" Davis clutched at his head.
"Will you stop being so difficult Cody? We'll be perfectly safe here.
I'm sure of it."
"How do you know?" Cody increased the volume
of his request significantly. "Did you check or something?"
"No, I didn't check, I just know. I'm
sure of it."
"Oh yeah, how?"
"Will you stop doubting me Cody?"
"Yeah, when you come up with a real response
Davis."
"Stop being such a coward Cody?" Davis shouted.
"Coward? Why don't you try really leading
us for a moment Davis? You're supposed to be the leader, but you…"
"Guys?" Veemon muttered slowly, the act of
speaking still painful. "could you keep it down out there?"
Davis and Cody subsided for a moment and sat
there, glaring at each other. Armadillomon sighed in frustration,
and rolled his eyes at Veemon, who gave a small, tired grin.
"Now it strikes me as odd," Armadillomon began,
"that you two are so at odds with each other. I mean, figuring that
you Davis are responsible for the safety of everyone in the group and that
you Cody are supposed to be making sure that everyone
is taking care to keep themselves safe, I think this is all just a bit
ridiculous."
Cody and Davis still refused to respond.
"I mean," he continued, "that you all are
being a bit silly. Now look, you're both here together, and though
you may not get along with each other the best, you might as well think
once in a while. And now is a good time to think."
Cody and Davis stared at Armadillomon for
awhile and then slowly, grudgingly stared at each other for a while before
nodding.
"So, anything from Sun-Tzu about this one?"
TK asked, crouching behind the shelter of some containers of ore and peeking
around to look onward.
"Not noticeably, no." Ken replied. He
was also hiding and clutching at Wormmon with one hand, trying not look
overly worried at their situation. The four of them were hiding in
what appeared to be the waste disposal area of a major mining center.
They had snuck in through a back side shaft, but were no unable to figure
out another way to go. Fortunately the entire area was filled with
boxes and crates, allowing them to conceal themselves and their movements,
and give them some measure of freedom. On the other hand, the area
surrounding that was the home of a variety of other Digimon, mostly Nanimon
and Gardromon, who were hauling large quantities of rock around and dropping
them off in different locations.
"So, do you have a plan?" Patamon asked.
"No, not really. How about you?" TK
ducked back into their hiding place.
"Well, there is an empty corridor around the
side that we might be able to sneak around to, if we can be quiet enough."
"I think we can come up with a little creative
stealth maneuvers." Ken glanced at TK with one eyebrow raised.
"Ready when you are, your former Emperorness."
TK shot back a look.
"After you." Ken grinned.
"Humans." Patamon muttered.
There was a barely perceptible movement in
the shadows as the four figures detached themselves stealthily from their
background, creeping slowly and carefully toward the exit. Each time
they rounded a corner they got Wormmon, who had the best eyes for it, peek
around first, and then they crept, on hands and knees, through the forest
of crates and piles of useless rock. Fortunately the other Digimon
working in the mine appeared to have a cultured distaste for garbage, and
avoided it just as much as they could, giving TK and Ken almost complete
freedom to move along the boxes.
As they reached the wall, TK and Ken gave
each other a soundless high five, and then all four people disappeared
into the cavern behind.
"So now what?" Cody seemed to have come to
some sort of grudging acceptance of what was going to happen.
"I don't know." Davis clutched at his head
with his hands. "I know, first I'll get my goggles out."
"What?" Cody exclaimed.
"Look, I just don't have any ideas, and it's
the only productive thing I can do right now." He was already fumbling
through his clothes for his goggles. With a few seconds of work he
came out with the black box that Courage had given him, and opened the
lid. There was nothing there.
"What?!" Davis exclaimed, shaking the box.
"Where did they go?"
"Wait a moment Davis." Armadillomon was looking
intently at the bottom of the box, on which was carved a sign that looked
very much like the infinity symbol. "I think that's a mobius box."
"A what?"
"Try this, close it again. Then say
the name of what you want and open it. That might help you."
Davis shook his head, feeling stupid, and
closed the box. He muttered "My goggles" under his breath, and opened
the box. There, sitting there, like they had always been there, were
his goggles.
"That's right. I thought those were
only a legend. They say that whatever you put in them stays in them
till you want them to come out. They can hold almost anything." Armadillomon
sat back on his haunches.
"All right. Now I got 'em. And
now we can think of a good way to be out of here. It goes like this
Cody. We have a good place to hide, and we can hide here until the
others find us, or until Veemon's up to walking around."
"That's not much of a plan Davis, but I guess
it will do."
Veemon smiled at them.
"Shush now, I think I hear something coming."
Armadillomon looked down. "Not in the hallway either, but coming
right between these boards in the wall here."
There was indeed a sound, a creaking, almost
like two pieces of hard, aged wood rubbing together, the sound of thudding
footsteps that echoed faintly through the back wall, shaking the room in
which they were sitting. Something about the sound and the peculiar
grinding noise that accompanied it reminded Davis of something, but whatever
it was, he simply could not seem to piece it together. From the sound
of it there was quite a large passage behind him, a cavernous area of echoes
that seemed to project the sound of whatever or whoever was out there through
the boards and narrow stone walls of the storeroom. Whatever was
out there was big, and the sense of unease that something was about to
go wrong increased. Davis jerked his head over to give Veemon a quick
glance, but it appeared that the blue Digimon was still down for the temporary
count.
"Just hope he doesn't hear us." Cody whispered.
"Do we have them?" Rumbled a voice that was
obviously unused to speaking. It sounded loud and terrible, as if
it had been created from bones and scaly lungs, and suddenly Davis realized
where he had heard those noises before. The inability of the voice
to articulate itself provided the final clue he needed as to the identity
of the mysterious personage who was making all the noise.
"Uh Cody, isn't that, I mean doesn't it sound
like…"
"No my lord." A subordinate voice from outside
spoke up. "We know where one group is, but the other two have repeatedly
evaded us."
"What Davis?"
"I mean, isn't that SkullGreymon?"
The creaky voice returned. "Can we capture
at least them?"
"Yes my Lord."
"Then we will follow them wherever they choose
to go. I think that if we can trap them, or put them in severe danger,
the others will come to them. Perhaps we can use them as bait."
The creaky voice continued.
"I didn't know he could talk!" Cody exclaimed,
managing to keep his voice down only at the last moment.
"I didn't either, but I guess he can." Davis
clutched his head. "Now what?"
"An ingenious plan, my Lord." The voices outside
continued.
"Of course it is. Have them captured
and brought to the cells down below the refinery. Make sure that
the word is spread around to all the guards."
"Of course, my Lord."
The footsteps vanished into the distance,
but Davis was still as disconcerted as he could be. "What do we do now?"
"We need a plan." Cody also looked distraught.
"Who do you think they're going after."
"More to the point, where are they going to
trap us?"
"And what are we going to do about it?"
Davis looked around for a few more moments,
jerking increasingly frantically in his attempts to find an answer to his
problems, before hitting the wall again. Cody stayed calmer.
"Okay, we need a plan." Cody stated, turning
to Davis.
"Yeah, that's a laugh, a plan…I wish I had
a plan. Why don't I have a plan!? I'm supposed to be the leader,
and what do I have? Not the foggiest idea!"
"C'mon Davis, it can't be that bad.
We'll think of something."
"How do we do that?" Davis screamed.
"Well, by thinking calmly first." Cody suggested.
Davis inhaled several times, taking great
deep breaths to calm himself, to remove the fear of failure and lack of
success. As he calmed down and tried to relax his natural resilience
kicked in. After all wasn't he the leader? And hadn't he won
all those other times? As he calmed down he practically feel his
mind kick into gear. Plans began to flash through his head, some
wildly crazy, but most of them beginning to make more and more sense.
He was the leader. He could do this!
Cody stared in worry at Davis' unnatural silence
before whispering to him "Are you giving up Davis?"
"Yea…I mean NO! I'm going to sit here
now until I think up something, and maybe we'll be able to save them.
It doesn't matter how long it takes, I'm just not giving up."
"Maybe that's enough Davis. After all,
it counts for something if you're not giving up. If you never give
up, they can't beat you, ever. That's what it means to be a leader,
you can't give up on your friends, ever…right Davis?"
"It's just that…my stomach feels strange."
"Davis, this isn't the time for…"
"No, really strange, like…" Davis' description
was interrupted by a sudden flare of red light as his crest exploded into
life under his clothes, glowing into a new flower. For a moment,
his whole face was a brilliant rose color, and then the light faded slightly,
relaxing to its normal intensity, the light of a crest unleashed.
Everyone paused for a moment, stopping to stare at the new event with consternation,
and then time started moving again.
"That's neat Davis."
"Well, what do you know? I have my very
own crest now. How cool is that? It must have been me deciding
not to quit on my friends that brought it to life. Hey, Cody, look
at your D3!"
Cody's D3 was flashing rapidly, causing it
to look like a Christmas decoration. It only took a moment for Cody
to start looking around for the cause of this peculiar emission, to be
greeted by a flashing light of the same color in a far corner of the room,
under a large wooden box. Quickly and wordlessly the two humans and
the one upright Digimon pushed the box aside, revealing a strange symbol
imprinted in the stone under the box. It featured a pair of what
looked like staves, crossed in an X, with a glowing circle in the middle.
The patch of stone glowed yellow, and then faded a little, reducing in
size to a normal crest, moving into Cody's chest, and disappearing.
"Well, now we both have crests. So,
what we need is a plan."
"Right, which is where we were earlier." Cody
noted, but sounding happier about it.
"Except we're a whole bunch of steps ahead
of it." Armadillomon joined in.
"Right, and I think I have an idea.
They get one group, right, and then they trap the other group, right?"
"Okay..."
"But at that point, we can trap them, right?
I mean, we don't need a fancy plan or anything. They get us, we get
them. And we can also free the first group. Then we can digivolve
and grind them down. Or just bust out is probably a better idea."
"Well, if Veemon is up to it, I guess we're
up to it, right Armadillomon?"
"Right."
"My head feels better already. Let's
go trap the trappers Davis!"
"Right!"
"That was humiliating." Yolei pointed out after
a moment of testing the bars. She looked fairly angry, but Kari was
too busy testing the walls to pay her any mind. "I could see huge
battles with monster Digimon. I could envision hordes of angry demons
cornering us and beating us into submission, but a net? That only
happens in cheap movies."
"Well, it happens." Kari checked the wall
again, but found nothing that would help them. This was making her
short tempered. "Any luck you guys?"
In the cell across the hall Gatomon and Hawkmon
sadly shook their heads. From their cell they could see the D3s sitting
down the hall, but there was no way to access them. After a moment
of looking at the wall, Kari went to the wall and peered out up and down
the hallway as far as she could see. She sat down in the middle of
the bare cell for a few moments, and then said a few words that probably
would have shocked Tai into a coma if he had known she knew them.
"What is it Kari?" Yolei asked, amazed at
her sudden outburst of emotion.
"This is too convenient, too obvious…too easy.
The cells are too exposed, our D3s are right next door, it's just way to
simple."
"Might I inquire just what you are speaking
of?" Hawkmon asked from the opposite cell.
"This is a trap. And we're the bait."
She spoke quite loudly for some reason.
Ken and TK exchanged a look where they huddled
behind a rock. The shadows masked their passage quite well.
"Well, do you agree with her?" Ken asked after
a moment.
"Probably, yes. This is a little too
easy."
"Does she know we're here?"
"Yes. And don't ask me how. I
don't know." TK sighed and looked up at the ceiling, a view obscured by
an alert Patamon settled on his hat. He chewed his lip in silence
for a moment.
"So we need a plan." Wormmon remarked to nobody
in particular.
"I don't think we get one. How does
speed sound?" TK looked down the hall. "In order to bait the trap
you have to use the real bait. Maybe we can get in and out before
the jaws of the trap close.
"Ah, the 'Fortune favors the Bold' plan?"
Ken squinted down the hallway. "Might work. I'll go first,
you back me up and see if you can figure out a way to open those cages."
"Right. Patamon, don't digivolve until
you absolutely have to."
"Okay TK."
"Here we go."
"Wormmon…digivolve to….Stingmon!"
"Let's get 'em."
Stingmon shot up, carrying Ken, and zoomed
straight down the hallway. With one hand he raked the bars with the
glowing pink sword of energy protruding from one arm, but the connection
did little except raise sparks. Apparently, whoever had planned the
trap had done it well in that regard. Stingmon refused to stop, zooming
down the hall to a more open area that appeared to have been once used
for storage.
Immediately a dozen or so Thundermon and Ninjamon
poured out of the darkness, surrounding Stingmon in every way except one.
One lone exit remained, heading upwards to the next level.
"You're completely trapped, give it up." The
Ninjamon in charge of the delegation snapped loudly, but he gazed worriedly
at the open passageway out.
Stingmon gazed around defiantly, knowing that
his only chance was to speed his way through the open passage to the upper
levels, but not wanting to either abandon his friends, or travel into a
new trap.
"You know, I have some questions about that…"
from some rocks near the open passageway, two large figures emerged in
the darkness. ExVeemon grinned savagely and cracked his knuckles
a few times. Ankylomon just looked on wisely. "Exactly what
do you mean by surrounded?"
There was a moment of total and complete chaos,
and in that moment TK struck. He had been creeping along silently
all this time, and in that single moment of distraction, he shot forward,
using his staff to pole-vault himself over a confused Thundermon and right
to the niche where the D3s were being kept. Grabbing them both, he
shot back into the middle of the hall, as various groups moved to attack
each other, and hurled them at the bars of the cells with the humans.
He could not get them through the bars of the cages, but they hit and clattered
to a stop at the base. Yolei understood immediately, leapt through
the air, and then slammed her hand down on her own device. At that
exact moment, her D3 shone with internal fire, and an answering glare awoke
from the other side of the hall.
"Hawkmon…digivolves to….Aquilamon!"
"Aquilamon…digivolves to…Silphymon!"
Silphymon glanced briefly at the bars,
and then hit them as hard as she could, exploding them open in a shower
of metal sparks and fragments. Even before the bars hit the ground,
Silphymon and Gatomon were out and into the fray. Davis glanced down
at them, grinned, and raised his fist from where he was standing behind
ExVeemon. On his chest, his crest exploded into another gout of flame,
and he let it race out through his D3 and into his partner.
"ExVeemon…Stingmon….DNA Digivolve to….Paildramon!"
"Payback time Paildramon!" Davis shouted while
the others watched on in an amazed stupor.
"Let's show them who they messed with this time."
"Right behind you." Silphymon howled, feet
and arms flailing in a concentrated windmill of violence and destruction.
In her wake, Digimon collapsed like puppets whose strings had been cut.
Together the two Ultimates joined up in the middle of the room, pounding
their Champion level assailants with fists, energy spikes and buffets of
sheer force. Ninjamon and Thundermon were hurled backwards faster
and faster, most of them rising to rejoin the fray, but some of them lying
motionless on the ground. With the help of Ankylomon's hard shell
and heavy tail, and Gatomon's slashing claws, the Champion level enemies
found themselves beset by a whirlwind of strikes, coming in blurred moments
and striking across them like a hammer, before turning elsewhere.
The digimon of the Digidestined fought like a team, and it showed, as organization
turned against the power of numbers. Slowly, the battle began to
draw to a close.
"All right. We're almost out.
Time to get going." Davis shot off toward one opening, with the rest of
the group, heading down one corridor. Quickly their pursuers realized
that they did not actually wish to catch the escaping prisoners, and the
gap between the Digidestined and the others following them was now quite
large. It was only when they had outdistanced their most determined
pursuer when they burst into another large cavern, this one, unfortunately,
inhabited.
"Tell me I'm dreaming." Kari muttered, tucking
her face into Yolei's back as they zoomed along with Paildramon.
"No, 'fraid not. It looks like this
is SkullGreymon in the flesh." Davis looked up at the giant walking dinosaur
skeleton as it lurched its way across the grounds, grinning evilly.
Of course, there was no way that monstrosity of moving bones could look
anything but evil, considering that is had permanently bared teeth.
"We'll have to find another way!" TK shouted.
"No, we'll go right through him. He's
the boss, without him, the others just fall apart. Paildramon, Silphymon,
drop us and attack!"
"Right." There was a thunk as six Digidestined
hit the ground at a fairly high speed, and then the two Ultimates charged
up to battle. Right at the start, everyone was aware that SkullGreymon
was tough, perhaps tough enough to defeat two Ultimates, and it showed.
His massive skeletal arm batted Silphymon aside, and Paildramon's Desperado
Blasters attack merely scattered off hard bone and went flying across the
room. The monster roared at the two of them, and then stomped, the
earthshaking blow sending them stumbling.
"He's strong. Too strong." TK muttered.
"No he's not, not if we do this right.
He's a skeleton, right. Remember that skeleton we had in Biology
class?" Davis howled at the top of his lungs exuberantly, punching at the
air with his fist. "And what do skeletons
do? They shatter! Hey guys, see if you can hit it with something
that will shatter it!"
"You got it Davis!" Paildramon soared upward,
firing rapidly at the ceiling of the cavern. As soon as the first
handful of shots hit a cascade of heavy boulders began to pound at SkullGreymon
from above. Raining down like a hailstorm, the continuing bombardment
sent the giant skeleton reeling. Silphymon bounded off the ground,
and a bolt of Static Force exploded outward, not a penetrating beam but
a blunt explosion that blew pieces of the giant walking skeleton in different
directions. Even as SkullGreymon tried to recover from that, Paildramon
shot below, one massive arm reaching up, and a series of grapnels shot
out from his arm, tangling SkullGreymon's feet and sending him sprawling.
"Now, all at once!"
"Desperado Blasters!"
"Static Force!"
"Tail Hammer!"
The combined power of the different Digimon
hammered down at the comatose skeleton, and then, a second later, he was
lying unconscious on the ground, unmoving. A moment later, his skeleton
exploded into digital data.
"Who's the man now?" Davis shouted.
"You the man Davis." TK grinned and hit Davis
lightly on the shoulder. "You da' man!"
As night descended again, TK woke up from his dream, eyes frantically searching the sky. The mountain, the man, the fall into a dark eternity. What did it mean? WHAT DID IT MEAN?
Interlude-Blueaxe
"Point Defense Three is out." The Defense Officer
slammed one hand down on his control panel, trying to adjust for the loss
in defensive firepower.
"Get DCC on and tell them to work on it."
Justice's voice was ice, as he watched the holographic display. Dozens
of killer dark Digimon were hurtling through space outside the armored
hull of the Leonidas, but there were already hundreds of Digimon
tearing off of the Fleet's decks as the Dreadnoughts leapt for their opponents'
throats. What got through could be adequately handled by point defense.
What was more worrying was the enemy mobile units, moving into assault
positions.
"I have two enemy cruisers moving into gun
range sir. And sensors indicate that at least one enemy Dreadnaught
has locked targeting systems on us." The head tactical officer jerked his
head around.
"Fight your ship Captain." Justice surrendered
immediate control of the ship to the proper Captain, who began barking
out orders, turning instead to the display again and measuring distances
by eye. On the display beams of fire lanced out, and one of the enemy
cruisers lurched sideways as the Leonidas bashed at it with contemptuous
fury. But the cruisers were not completely impotent, and beneath
his feet, Justice felt the ship rock slightly.
"Hull breach in Gamma One Seven." The Ops
officer narrowed his eyes. "We've lost Section Gamma One's power
junction and radar five just went out of the loop again. I've got
DCC on it. We've got med teams on the way too."
"We've cleared the close in fighters sir."
The Defense Officer spoke quietly, her fingers still moving over her board.
"But the enemy has launched their reserve strike wings, they'll be here
in about seventy seconds."
"That gives us plenty of time for luxury.
Ladies and Gentlemen, let's see what we've got. Hypervelocity range
now. Let's give them salvo one on my mark. Mark!"
Beneath his feet the ship really did shudder,
and with good reason. Ten Dreadnaughts fired their first broadside
as one, and they shook as their wrath was expelled. Two hundred of
Citadel's new Hypervelocity capital missiles broke free of their tubes,
hurling themselves outward at five percent of the speed of light as their
launchers shuddered behind them. Enemy point defense crews struggled
to engage them, but the introduction of the HVs was just a little too new
for them. They had only had fragmented reports of how they had been
used in battle, and the extended range and increased velocity played havoc
with defense schemes. The missiles carried no warhead,
they were moving fast enough that the energy released by their sudden impact
rendered any warhead overly redundant. Shields collapsed and metal
heaved under that sudden pounding as the missiles arrived, sending people
and Digimon flying in all directions. And all two hundred missiles
were concentrated on only two of the enemy's Dreadnaughts.
"We have reports of multiple internal explosions
on Target One sir. Subject is definitely trailing twisted metal.
Too much dust to see Target Two sir…wait a minute…Target Two is GONE!
Oh, that's a kill. Two is gone!" The voice of the Tactical Officer
rose half and octave and several decibels.
"That's enough Tactical. We still have
seventeen more of the bastards. Give me a second salvo on Three and
Four. Let whoever comes through next handle One."
"Yessir. I have affirmative contact
on the enemy carriers. They're moving to make a run for it, and I
think they're trying to outspeed us. If they get another five kilometers
or so on us, they'll be able to launch about three more strikes down our
throats before we can respond.
"Salvo two away! Salvo two away!"
They weren't so lucky this time, the next two Dreadnaughts on the list
suffered catastrophic damage, but they continued coming in, and now their
own missiles were coming into range. Point Defense tried their best,
but the oncoming missiles were moving too erratically for the computers
to handle completely, and shields buckled as the a rainbow of firepower
began to smash the Citadel vessels.
"Sir, standing by to engage on Alpha two."
The tactical officer nodded once at Justice.
"Very good. All forces, this is the
flag. Code is Alpha Two. Repeat, code is Alpha Two. Engage
at maximum range minus ten percent. I want debilitating hits on those
targets."
On the display there was an explosion as Dreadnaught
Five reduced itself to shrapnel. A damage control siren began sounding
as the entire forward crew bunks, not to mention battle stations for the
maintenance crews in forward Damage Control Two ignited into a roaring
inferno. A sensor array twisted sideways as a horribly burned Garudamon,
one wing afire, slammed into it. Justice did not alter his facial
expression. And on the screen, the range numbers reduced as
the distance between them and the enemy slowly shrunk.
"Alpha Two." He whispered as the lights went
red, and the universe exploded for a new reason.
The X-Ray Laser was Cortell and Jan's creation
more than anything. A high grade laser needed a high grade power
source. This suggested an obvious solution to those willing to engage
in laser research, but it was hard to do. The melding of advanced
programming skills, nanotechnology and a transfusion of the powers of the
Light had given Cortell the necessary control to create the weapon of his
dreams. In each of the ten Dreadnaughts a powerful monster awoke,
wrapped inside a constraining cocoon of twisted lines of energy shielding,
blanketed and imprisoned by dozens of electromagnetic fields. And
that monster raised itself in anger and horror against its captors, but,
unable to break the chains and bars that imprisoned it, its fury was spent
in the way its creators intended. Under the stare of thousands of
hours worth of work, a system of complex field generators and essence crystals
reached out and did the impossible, and leashed a massive, thermonuclear
detonation. Even as the nuclear fireball threatened to escape, specialized
electromagnetic lenses focused the devastating energy down into cohesive
beams, reflecting them through the length and breadth of the ship to the
twelve projectors the system was connected to. And then, the Leonidas
reached out and wracked the nearest enemy Dreadnaught with thermonuclear
fury.
The effect was as immediate as it was horrifying.
The enemy ship froze, her shields, already battered, breaking into small
fragments as those ravishing stilettos stabbed outward. Beneath those
new holes metal vaporized into small chunks and clouds of noxious gas.
Air caught fire, flames licked hungrily at metal and flesh alike.
Walls and bulkheads crumpled under that awesome power, and the ship trembled
as its death rattle was heard throughout the land. And then, with
an explosion that could barely be put into words, the essence crystal containing
the dark energies that powered it exploded into fragments and the hulk
erupted into a flower of dark and terrible energies.
"That's positive kills on seven targets.
The Agincourts are through, and we have contact with Roland
and Baeldur. We're standing by for further orders."
"Let the Agincourts and the carriers
take the battle-line. We go after the carriers."
"Yes sir."