Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon: Digital Monsters. Nor do I claim to.
Author's Note: We're nearing the end of this particular story arc, and I was thinking of continuing it in another story, but I would appreciate any input from the readers. Otherwise, enjoy.
Episode XII
Where Angels Fear to Tread
"TK! Come back, come back!" The words echoed forlornly through the mountainous hills, as if someone had been calling out a long way away, and only the vagrancy of the wind had brought the words drifting into the region. Even though the voice was faint, almost dwindling into oblivion as the waves of sound, washed endlessly between tree branches and shrubs, were beaten down by time and distance into a mere shadow of its former self, they still cut like a knife in the heart of one boy, running aimlessly through a dark wood.
"Can't go back, can't go back" he cried to himself, and his feet carried him until he collapsed.
That night the dream came, but more fierce than ever before.
He could feel every particle of the wind as it blew around him, feel the shadows beneath him, the depths of the valley below yawing wide beneath him to receive his battered and broken body on stone teeth, sharpened by the flow of ages of rain. The man in front of him was looking at him with an expression that he could not define, calm and dispassionate, removed from the world in which the he dwelled.
"You left your friends." It was not a question, but a statement.
"I couldn't help them anymore. I was slowing them, I wasn't strong enough to get my Digimon to Digivolve. I couldn't use my crest. I was useless, and then I tried running awful risks to redeem myself, and nothing worked, nothing. It was horrible." The boy was crying now, his tears soaking the ground beneath his feet. The man appeared unmoved by the emotion and unimpressed by the testimony.
"The power is your own, you know." The man told him flatly, without a hint of anything in his voice except the coldness of the machine. "That which may either save or damn your friends and companions is your own. The crest is beyond anything you know, even now."
"I tried to use it. I tried and tried and tried, but nothing happened. Really, I did."
"Then why can't you use the crest? Have you forgotten its meaning?"
"I.I just.maybe I have."
"What is Hope?"
"Hope is.hope isalways thinking that there is a way out of somethingright?"
The man shook his head implacably, like some vast statue that had been animated briefly, for that one moment, and then returned to his immobility, a fluke of nature that something so stationary had actually moved at all. For a moment that seemed like all he would do, shake his head in a simple denial, and abandon that which now lay at his feet. Then he spoke, and when he did, there was nothing but unearthly thunder in his voice, a sound that could have shattered mountains, destroyed worlds.
"What is Courage?"
"Courage isnot being afraid of anythingbeing able to run into a burning building to save children because you're not afraid of fire, like that."
The man shook his head again, and then, in one swift movement, so fast that the boy could not remember having seen him move at all, the man had grabbed him by the collar, yanking him upright and holding him, dangling in a spaghetti-like mess of limp arms and legs over the side of the cliff.
"Are you afraid?" he bellowed.
"YES!" the boy screamed at the top of his lungs, howling in an animal panic that nobody could have matched.
"Then there is time and chance for you yet." The man replied, and hurled him from the cliff.
Takeru Takaishi, TK sometimes, sometimes just Takeru, sometimes nobody at all, jerked awake, pained in a dozen places. His first thought was that this time he might actually have made the horrible fall into the depths of the mountain, but then he remembered that he was much too intact to have experienced that. Complaints from bruised muscles seemed to be a result of having slept in one of the most awkward positions that he had ever experienced, wedged tightly inbetween two trees, collapsed over the roots. His stomach growled, his throat hurt, and every part of him ached.
This time the dream had been real, intense beyond almost all measure, something that had echoed in his heart, in his mind like a stampede of elephants, set loose without any guidance, destined to run rampant through his innards. Gut-wrenching fear and the steady rushing pump of adrenaline from overworked glands still cascaded through his body in differing amounts and quantities, trying desperately to tie his overworked organs into little knots.
Shortly after this sensation registered, there was the rush, like an unpleasant odor, or a tidal wave of the slush of the mind, of unfamiliar memories, unpleasant ones from last night rushing back into his head. Memories of last night rushed into his head, and grabbed at his soul in a sensation that almost literally turned his whole world on its head. Now he knew what had finally broken at last, and where the despair that had burrowed permanently in next to heart had led him. He had left the path that had once seemed so wide, and was now condemned to wander forever, lost and alone.
He stretched automatically, his mind on other things, and suddenly gave a shocked gasp that echoed in the morning stillness. There, standing there like some silent sentinel, some monument to a forgotten past long gone, its once straight sides eroded by the passage of uncaring generations, stood the mountain. It appeared just like it did in the dream, standing alone in the outgrowth of old forest, a single column leading to the sky, somehow separated from the other pinnacles of rock around. There was a single, smooth surface of rock, from which he had dropped so many times in his dreams, falling down into infinity, but now he could see the bottom and the base clearly.
His mind focused. There was the answer. It was there, on the portentous peak, that all of his questions would find answers, or where he would meet destiny at last.
"We've looked almost everywhere." Ken muttered to Gatomon as together they headed back to the base camp they had established earlier that morning. Wormmon trudged alongside, now even more subdued than usual by the sudden shift in events. Gatomon merely nodded.
"Hey guys." Yolei and Hawkmon emerged from a pile of rocks, bearing the dirt and gravel on their clothes that demonstrated physically the meticulous method of their search. They also did not look particularly enthusiastic.
"Uh, guys" Ken turned to the Digimon, blushing a peculiar shade of red. "Could you take a last look around the trees or something? Yolei and I need to have a little talk."
"Oh, okay." The various conversation, gossip and interaction with the Digimon was not present in this dim morning. Above, the gray sky promised even further retribution for their attempts to cheer each other up, a prediction of vague horrors yet to come.
Ken sat down and self-consciously wrapped an arm around Yolei's sagging shoulders. Any other day this would have made both of them red as tomatoes, but today was not a day in which such an emotion was present. Now they were emotional lifelines for each other, something they needed so desperately they did not bother to try and deny it.
"So how bad is it?" Ken asked after a few quiet moments.
"Bad. I think Kari was trying to take TK out of her life, he was her best friend you know, better even than me. I think she was worried that what she might have to face in the future was Darkness, and she didn't want TK dragged along. But she didn't realized how much he meant to her, either as a friend or assomething else, so it's hitting her kinda hard. Patamon is a wreck, clear and simple. I've never seen anybody hit quite that hard, but its something I expect. He's overcome by guilt that he didn't fly after TK when he left, didn't stop this earlier, but there's nothing he can do. Davis is a little better, he's naturally boneheaded, which means that he can shrug off a lot of what he's feeling, but her really feels bad. I would yell at him, but he feels terrible enough, and the truth is that this is all our fault, because we didn't look after one of our own."
"We tried to look after him. It's just that, well, I'm the only one who has ever broken down like this, so bad that I didn't even remember who I was. We never expected TK to do this, I mean, he has been in the background for a lot of stuff, but he always seemed dependable. I know that Cody harbored some doubts about TK, but they had to do with the way that he got angry at the powers of darkness, and we know how justified that was. It just wasn't possible to see something like this."
Yolei rounded on him suddenly. "Of course it was possible, we all could have seen this coming, couldn't we? We were pointing out the warning signs days ago, we just couldn't see them clearly, could we?" Suddenly she started crying again.
"But we just didn't know Yolei. How could we have? Nobody had any clue what was happening to TK."
"Guys?" The new voice belonged to Cody who was pushing through the bushes, his eyes a little wild. "You there?"
"Hey Cody." Ken managed to turn and smile at him a little sadly. "What's up?"
"I heard you were here from Gatomon, and I left Armadillomon with them. I just thought of something." Cody looked deadly serious, and Ken and Yolei instinctively knew that whatever he was going to impart was of the utmost importance.
"What is it Cody?" Yolei asked.
"Well, I was thinking. Remember when Kari and TK met that voice down underground, before we met Babamon the first time?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Well, at the time TK said something that bothered me a bit, but I forgot it until now. He said that Angemon thought they should learn the Asrana'Dactal, right? Well, the Asrana'Dactal was supposed to defend them against mental attacks, the kind that attacks the mind or the soul or something. What if what happened to TK was one of these attacks, the kind that drives you to despair from the inside? It would be perfect for rendering Hope useless, drowning it in despair or something like that until the crest itself had no meaning. I think that's what happened to TK, and that we better warn the others, or else it will happen to them." Cody looked up at them, nearly breathless after gasping that all out.
Ken was sitting upright in shock. "Of course, Of Course! It all fits now! No wonder he started going downhill right away, and so suddenly too. He was one of the best in keeping us alive, and could have been a real leader against the powers of evil as well. And Kari once remarked that Patamon's evolved forms are powerful weapons against the powers of darkness. He was a real threat, but by attacking his mind, they got to him before he could destroy them. I bet the dreams are part of it too."
"We have to go back right now and warn everybody else. I bet that they might be targets as well. If TK was only the first" Yolei let that thought drift off, and then they were rushing back.
"Why were the answers wrong?" TK muttered to himself.
Lost. Lost and Empty. The voices continued to rage in his head.
But all he could see in his mind's eye was the shake in denial. He knew, in his heart of hearts that something important was tied up in the answers to those questions, something very important.
Tired and Lost. So Tired. The voices continued.
But he still could not find the answers, no matter where he looked, outside or in.
Tired and Useless. The voices seemed to grow louder with each passing second until he dimly began to wonder if he had a church choir hammering away in there.
He began to laugh. It was not a sane laugh. His voice came out it starts and fits that could have been coughs, could have been attempts to clear a throat long clouded and blocked. It could have been anything. He was useless, that much was clear. Patamon couldn't Digivolve except in the utmost of desperate circumstances, something that was being made clear to him every moment that he pressed on. As such, he was a liability to the Digidestined team. He kept ending up attempting to take authority from Davis, something that undermined the team itself.
A team, as Tai had proved early on in their adventures, was something that had to hang together, something that had to function perfectly. Tai was the foremost spokesperson for the group, but his stories only covered about half of their adventures in the Digital World. Oh, they were the important half. Devimon. Etemon. Myotismon. The Dark Masters. Tai had been there for the important stuff at least.
But Tai's tales tended to leave out the lesser half of the adventures. After the defeat of Etemon, when Tai had been sucked back into the Real World, the group had wandered for what they later estimated to have been about four months in their time, looking for Tai, and then, as the group broke up, looking for the others. They had adventures and challenges galore, but in their memory everything was tainted by the collapse of the team. Now TK was the weak link, the person who could not be counted on, just like before. Before he had thought that everyone was leaving because he was a crybaby, now he knew that he had to leave because he was a danger.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And now TK was the weak link. Everyone else could digivolve to Ultimate. Patamon could barely digivolve to Champion. Everyone else was fitting in. Davis was the boss, Ken was the guy who was supposed to set him straight. Yolei and Cody tried to stay in the background. Kari was Kari. TK was disruptive, a rebellious element, and put all the others at risk. This way it would be much better. Leave his nightmares and his strange feelings and his odd compulsions out of it.
Before his weakness was excused because he was the youngest of the group. Now he was supposed to be one of its best supporters, but in reality he was nothing more than a fraud, the kind of fraud that should never have gotten through anything. Teams needed to function right, and he was providing something of an obstacle to everything. He was capable of so much more, and he was not providing any of it.
No, it would be better for them, for everyone alive, if TK got lost now, and did not come back.
"So what do we do now?" Kari had calmed down considerably upon hearing Cody's theory. The thought of a direct threat had apparently brought her out of her temporary freeze.
"I don't know." Ken admitted after awhile, with a quick glance at the limp bundle on Kari's lap, resting quivering under one hand.
Patamon looked horrible. His ears drooped, his eyes refused to open, refused to focus on anything except what was right in front of his face, even his tail drooped. He seemed unable to eat, unable to do anything except breath and occasionally cry. It was almost like he was dying, wasting away right in front of everyone. A bonded Digimon seemed to be attached to their companion, and without the presence of that companion, they just seemed to waste away, without a purpose in their life.
Just looking at Patamon reminded Ken of the consequences of what would happen if they lost somebody else.
"We have no defenses against this, so we're just going to have to fight it the old fashioned way." Davis spoke up suddenly, from the slump he had been in.
"What's that?" Veemon wanted to know.
"We have to fight them in our heads. If anyone feels depressed, they got to know that everybody else here is looking out for them and all. But in the end, this is something that everyone has to fight for themselves. We have to face some things by ourselves in the end, and I think that this is one of them."
Everyone nodded at the idea. After all, it made sense.
Suddenly, Yolei had an idea. "I know what, what happens if we ask Angewomon? She might be able to tell us more about what's going on, don't you think?"
"She might." Hawkmon admitted.
Kari and Gatomon exchanged glances. "I'm ready if you are." Gatomon whispered after a moment.
Kari sighed and took out her D3 and held it up, but nothing happened. Nothing at all, except for a dimness, and absence of light.
"Remember Kari." Gatomon whispered. "That this might b the only way that we can gather enough information to save ourselves and TK. It might be his last chance."
Kari's jaw tightened and her chest and her D3 flared into sudden life.
"Gatomondigivolves to.Angewomon."
The angel stood there for a moment, looking at them, smiling down gently. She apparently did not share all of Gatomon's memories and, upon seeing no threat nearby, looked down at the concerned faces below and smiled at them gently, light radiating off of her like a spring shower. Her face traversed theirs, calming them immensely, restoring what they had lost in the midst of panic.
Her gaze fell upon TK's abandoned D3.
For a moment there was no change in Angewomon's expression. Then everything about her changed, her face transforming like an icicle under a heat lamp. Her jaw opened for a moment, hanging slackly, and then everything inside of her seemed to explode. One hand came up, pointing desperately at the device. Kari had lived with Angewomon for years and had heard many things from her companion. She had heard the angel upset and angry and irritated and calm and complacent. Raw panic, however, was a new one.
"Where is he? WHERE IS HE?"
Maybe it would be better if he never existed.
TK wondered about that thought as he trudged silently to the base of that mountain, that single monumental point of rock, the one that so dominated the landscape, both inside of and outside of his head. Despite the mass of the mountain that lent to the feeling of proximity, the journey was obviously going to take him most of the day. And, as he trudged his way to the top, thoughts whispered around in his head, playing catch-me-if-you-can with his conscious mind.
The fact was, that Khartan had indicated that he could draw some sort of mad strength from TK's crest. And something inside of TK, perhaps the last spark of the boy who had fought evil so many years ago, the last light of a dimming candle that, like the trick candle on a birthday cake, refuses to go out, was whispering its own secrets back. There was a power in his crest, something so great that he could never use it, something so great that even his subconscious could not appreciate its true power, could never have used its strength. Power, the kind of power that shapes universes, flowed out of it, gently running through his soul like a powerful river, capable of cooling aching feet or carving mighty canyons from unyielding rock. If the Dark could gain control of that power everything would come to an end. Everything.
His friends needed that power, but they needed that power kept out of the hands of Darkness even more. No matter what that power could not be allowed to be corrupted. If anyone who followed the great darkness could get their hands on that particular crest, could make it obey their wishes, then everything would be lost. And his friends were still the reason he was here. No power on Earth could break through to them, he would not permit it.
That memory stood in the middle of his heart like a rock, a crystal, both unbroken and unbreakable, something that was strong enough to withstand attacks from everywhere. Memories of laughter and friendship and companionship fell away from him, but they congealed and cemented themselves in place in the center of his heart, where his crest had once gleamed. No power on Earth or beyond was going to allow him to start hurting his friends. That shield of will and Light, of remembered love and friendship was stronger than anything else that could have been brought to bear against it. TK could feel the power swell in him, lock itself away where nobody could ever use it, and felt himself armor up inside. Now he could no longer be a threat to his friends, at least, for a time. Given time, something of significant power could hack their way through that armor, take what was in him, could it not? But for now, another voice reminded him, he was safe.
For a moment the voices that floated uneasily, in a sea of hatred, mistrust and loneliness, were stymied. Their voices rendered hoarse and mute, they swirled uncertainly, as if looking for a new direction through which to proceed, as if the crystal in TK's heart was halting them somehow. Then they resumed their progress, slowly preparing a mounting attack on another point. Perhaps it was true, they reasoned in their own way, voices squeaky with cunning and guile, that he was temporarily invulnerable to the darkness, but was he truly invulnerable? The powers that were at play here were of such magnitude that nobody could truly be sure that he was invulnerable to everything. Perhaps it was necessary to remove the crest from the picture completely.
TK, his mind fuzzy from lack of sleep and exhaustion, stomach growling hungrily, felt the idea come to a strange sense of conclusion inside of him. It made sense after all to have something like this. A way to keep the power from getting to anyone else.
He would unlock his own power, the power of the crest, or he would destroy it forever, and possibly himself along with it.
"WHERE IS HE?" Angewomon was screaming full out now, her blonde hair streaming out behind her like a nest of snakes.
"He went off, that's why we wanted you" Yolei began slowly, have not anticipated the level of distress that the Ultimate was showing.
But Angewomon never let her finish her sentence. The moment Yolei mouthed the fatal words "went off" Angewomon hurled back her head and howled out loud to the sky.
"GENNAI, He's Ascending!"
For a moment there was stunned silence as the voice resounded around the empty forest and off the shores of the nearest hills, echoing back a thousandfold increased, over and over again until it felt like they were standing in the middle of a cathedral bell. Then, almost as if a switch were thrown, all the noise ceased in one sudden gasp, disappearing like they had been unexpectedly muffled.
"What?" Gennai, young Gennai, appeared in his trademark rainbow colored beam of light right next to them all of a sudden, his face radiating concern, but his pose was distracted, as if he was trying to do two things at the same time. Everyone around him jumped back wildly.
A half-dozen other pillars of light sprung up, but of different colors this time. Each one contained a different figure, wearing different armor, all talking to people they could not see.
"anyway that's what we pay them for"
"Can anyone make visual with three squadron? No wait, I see them"
"Tell him to draw back. We can't do anything more for that"
"do you lose ten thousand boots? Check the supply dumps between"
"All right people, we may have a situation. Mike, I need a readout on Takeru's crest and its current properties."
One of the people, a rather short one wearing golden armor that appeared to be talking to two different people at once, responded. S/he did not respond at the visual stimulus, merely speaking out a string of numbers and letters that nobody could recognize and that rattled around like shot in a can.
"That bad?" Gennai looked momentarily offbeat, and then smiled, albeit a bit grimly. "I wonder how henever mind. I think that he's already past the point where we can safely shut him down angelus. I wonder if we couldno, that's out of the question too. I'm sorry."
"He's started to ascend then?"
The one Gennai had called Mike actually looked at them this time. "With high probability, but his mental stage is more uncertain than I would like. I have some suspicions about that, but they are no longer verifiable at this point. I'm sorry, there doesn't appear to be anything I can do about this right now."
"But something must be done, you do realize this" Another figure spoke up, momentarily giving the group his attention. Then he turned away again, distracted once more.
"The appearance of an unstable crest is a great shock to all of us." This time the character speaking sounded distinctly female. "I do not believe us capable of underestimating the portents should it go rogue for your immediate vicinity."
"Although this Takeru seems to be a dependable sort of person. It is quite possible that he will be able to overcome this by himself."
"Perhaps not, after all there are precedents"
"I see no reason to be overly alarmistmy God" the last was spoken, not in cool, analytical tones, but in tones of deepest shock.
"There are forty thousand people in that thing!" Gennai was no longer disinterested, but he was staring at something outside of the rainbow column of light.
"I have it." A figure wearing silver jerked upright, both hands raised in the image, staring at something too intently to notice the Digidestined staring at him.
"Don't be foolish." Another figure spoke up quickly. Kari was having a hard time telling them apart now, because the colors of the light they were in were now swirling in patterns normally found only in association with the word psychedelic. "Even you can't catch fifty thousand tons bare-handed."
"He's not listening to you." Another figure had the colors spinning around them so fast that they began to throw up interesting specks of light in the air like drunken fireflies. "Just make sure you don't overload the support structures, they weren't intended to be handled like this."
The silver figure was no longer paying attention, his image suddenly shivered, and Kari knew instinctively that he had just taken on the impact of a tremendous load. The outline of the image became blurred and indistinct, as something inside of him strained against the load he was carrying. He gave the impression of falling back into the ground again, pounded from above by the power that he was struggling against, and then, as if he was splitting open from the inside under the strain, he began to scream.
Everyone else was no longer paying attention, because everyone else was yelling something to someone else.
"He's going to go for it"
"Get those people out of there"
"so run for it gang. There's not much time"
"Hit the deck!"
And then light flared, and as Gennai gave them a single parting wave, the images broke up into static.
But there was one moment when the figure in silver armor seemed to swell, fire as bright as that which falls from the sun at the moment of dawning to the moment of falling began to emerge from his body, howling and screaming in a rage that Kari could neither understand, nor hope to equal in a thousand years. The Light was a living thing, sent twisting and writhing forth from behind those impenetrable metal arms, hurling outward to meet the force that had attempted to crush its host. For a moment, before the image faded, while everyone else was looking elsewhere or at each other in sudden confusion, there was one crystal clear image, like what happens when the wind fails for a single moment and you can look through a lake and see the detail on every rock and branch lying on the bottom in glaring detail. Then everything shattered as the light took on a new shape, for a moment replicating something so foreign and yet so familiar that Kari could not help but understand it.
Then the images were gone, and Kari knew what the crests were for.
One way or another, TK thought as he trudged along. The going was harder now, tearing at his feet beneath him, seeming to poke and prod him every time he moved. There was a path up the mountain, and it climbed precipitously, making the passage difficult for him, harder than he had ever anticipated before, something that was beginning to make him tired. But whatever it was that burned in his heart, like the fire in the furnaces that drove old steam ships around the cape in winter, decks coated with ice, and insides boiling with steam, it drove him on toward destiny.
One way or another, this will be over soon.
"We need a plan." Ken suggested while everyone was looking around. "Gennai and his companions can't seem to help us now. Angewomon" he looked over, but Angewomon was concentrating on something else now. "well, we have to do something."
"I agree." Davis whispered.
Kari, oblivious to the world in her sudden, newfound revelation, clutched TK's D3 to herself, and realized that the horror in her stomach was merely a reflection of what it would be had she been here to watch what was happening out there. She did not hear the branches behind her rustle, and the disquiet in her heart masked that from anywhere else, covering everything in shadows.
"Well, we could make an airborne search pattern and see if we can hunt him down, it should be possible now that we're thinking clearly to outspeed him. He's not going that fast at the moment." Yolei suggested.
Then the attack came. Explosions rippled over the edge of the treeline, and everyone froze for a moment before reaching for their D3s. But that moment was a moment too long, for in that moment dozens of Digimon, Vilemon, Woodmon, and RedVeggiemon sprang out from the trees and then stopped suddenly, as if waiting for the Digidestined to make their first move.
Angewomon stood up, and then the others, making a quick defensive position, but the surprise they had been in excluded prompt retaliatory action, and everyone seemed to be partially frozen with fear. Davis, as usual, broke the inaction first.
"All right everybody, let's digivolve and get out of here."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you." Everybody froze as Reaver walked out of the trees. He was the same as earlier, armor that seemed to absorb the light and the interlocking spikes that protruded out to catch the unwary foe, all seemed the same. A black cape billowed out behind him like a living thing, twisting in the midst of a gale, as if trying to wrap around him. But nobody watched that, they were all staring at his left arm. The end now protruded a giant black spike, a piece of metal that looked long and cruelly pointed enough to give everyone nightmares. Ugly and sharp, the point rested very gently and very precisely in one place. It was held so firmly that it was pushing up just a little of the skin at the top of Kari's neck, right below her head. "You see, I get terribly nervous when you digivolve, and when I get nervous, wellI might slip. And you wouldn't want anything dreadful to happen because I slip here, do you? Now why don't you be good little boys and girls and drop those D3s on the ground so that we can pick them up, and nothing bad will happen. Okay?"
Everyone stared, and there was a tense moment while the Digimon tried to play a losing game of chicken against an opponent who held all the cards, and the children tried to convince themselves that this was not real.
Eventually, Davis, being first to decide, reached down, unbuckled his D3, and let it fall to the ground, clumsily, bouncing off rocks like it was trying to get back into its owners hand. But it still fell to the ground, where it was joined rather slowly by everyone else's device.
"Excellent." Reaver breathed out. "Chain them up, and then let's lead them out."
TK reached the top. There it was, the platform-like expanse of smooth rock overlooking the floor of the forest so many meters below. From here one could feel like the king of the world, surveying their domains from a lofty throne that towered above the surrounding vegetation and almost into the stratosphere. Below one could make out the faint traces of the rocky trail as it led upwards, spinning round and around, back and forth on the way up the pinnacle.
Any other day TK would have felt exultation at achieving such a monumental feat, but now he was simply tired and waiting for something to happen. This was the place he knew so well from his dreams, the be all and end all for the circle he was in. If circles could be said to have a beginning and an end, this was probably it. Here it was that everything would be decided, here where all things would either begin or end.
He sat there, and waited for all the misery and uselessness to drain out of him, but there was nothing. Nothing special happened, nothing incredible and nothing magical. From here he watched the sun set, and then let exhaustion drag him down into sleep.
"Where are we going?" Davis asked after they had been marched to the base of a steep mountain. It was dark now, and everyone was feeling miserable, probably a result of being captured, and everybody was also dragging around in the dirt and darkness out of exhaustion.
"Here for now. It's sort of boring up there. You have my permission to sleep for a few hours, but we will be up there by dawn." Reaver ordered. Most of the guards were gone, but there were still some left, hovering around them. Not like they could do anything in chains anyway.
Ken looked around. Everyone did look beat, and tired, and Kari had not said a single word since this whole nightmare had gotten worse. Depression and exhaustion settled in his heart, and then all was darkness, but this was the darkness that reached out to attack him.
For the first time in a long time Takeru dreamed a different dream. There was no mountain here, only a long, gentle grassy hill, rolling down toward the lakeshore below, a place of near perfect harmony, where the scent of spring grass tickled the nose and the breeze carried the hint of dandelions and other, more exotic, flowers in the nearby woods. Here there was peace and quiet, silence and calm, tranquility, here was where you waited for life to come to you.
"Where is this?" TK wondered aloud.
"This? This is where all paths come at the end." Another voice intruded on TK's silent thoughts. A boy, about ten years old it looked, with short black hair, stood next to him. Everything about him except for his smile would have been hard to describe, and he smiled gently. "I'm Mike. I run this place, sort of. You would be Takeru."
"Yes, I would. Pleased to meet you. What do you mean by run this place?"
"Well, all paths come here in the end, but people on the different paths see different things. I run this corner of this particular reality. I wondered when you would be showing up."
Something inside of TK, something that had not emerged too often before, made him ask. "Is this the Heart of the World?"
Mike appeared to be unsurprised by the comment, and just pointed to a horizon that was hard to define, beyond another stretch of deep green hills, beyond the sparkling blue lake. "No, we're sort of on the boundaries. The Heart of the World is just over those hills."
"How far?" TK felt himself ask, and then shut his mouth for a reason he could not understand.
"Now that's a silly question. However far you need to travel to get there."
"Am I supposed to go there?"
"Not yet. I would wait a few hours if I were you."
Something caused TK to nod, and then ask. "So what is Hope anyway?"
"Funny you should ask that." Mike paused and rubbed his chin. "It's hard to explain. One of those things you either know what it is, or don't. But the way I see it is like remembering starlight."
"Remembering starlight?"
"Everyone sees it differently. But it comes out the same in the end."
"Do I have any?"
"You must if you wish to win. The choice still awaits you know. And it won't be easy, I'll give you that. I don't really expect you to survive, and that's the truth. But you were right about one thing, that power must stay out of the hands of Darkness forever."
TK took a deep breath. "I think I'm ready to go back now."
Mike nodded and smiled at him. "Good luck, and I guess I'll see you soon won't I?"
TK woke up from the strange dream cramped from sleeping all night on a platform of time-smoothed granite on a tower soaring above the floor of the world. As he got up, he watched the sun rise, an explosion of red and yellow light entering the world.
Some things enter the world, some things leave it.
He remembered images from the past. Devimon and Myotismon. Piedmon laughing and MaloMyotismon on the rampage. BlackWarGreymon transforming and Oikawa gloating before the end. Darkness wanted him, and he remembered to that the power that was inside of him, that which he could never unlock, could never be allowed to fall into the hands of evil.
A man who is not afraid of fire, who can run into a burning building to save children from dying, is not a hero. The thought, from the last horrible dream echoed suddenly in his mind. The voices in his mind were now a trumpeting roar, marking his uselessness, his death that was sure to come, the last act of salvation.
And suddenly, as the rays of the morning sun threatened to burn out his corneas and leave him blind in truth as well, something in the back of his mind opened up like a door, and all the misery and loneliness came flooding out. Before that tide, uncertainty vanished, and he was filled with a rock-hard resolve. In his heart the fire began to burn.
"Well isn't that touching. Your teammate, don't bother shouting by the way, he can neither hear nor see anything you do, so depressed by your rejection of him is going to end it all in a tragic manner." Reaver watched as the other Digidestined surged forward before being caught in their chains, sending them sprawling backwards.
"No!" Ken shouted. Cody and Yolei and the Digimon began to scream. Kari howled TK's name over and over again, and Davis tried to apologize, but TK saw none of them. He was standing on top of his column, a scene that would stick in their minds for the rest of their lives.
He was looking out to the sun with a face full of awe and sadness, of regret mixed with pain. One tear was trickling down his cheek, and one hand shook suspiciously. But every other part of his body was engraved as if in stone, outlined in its solemnity and determination by the crimson and gold flames of the dawning sun, flames that shone all around him, as if he had found a throne at last. As if a gateway was opening to take him home.
And then, he began to move, unhearing of their desperate screams.
Takeru Takaishi looked into the sun and understood the riddle, the question, and he almost laughed in the midst of pain as understanding took him. And he knew what he had to do, and one step after another, the edge of the cliff loomed ever closer.
Author's Note: We're nearing the end of this particular story arc, and I was thinking of continuing it in another story, but I would appreciate any input from the readers. Otherwise, enjoy.
Where Angels Fear to Tread
"Can't go back, can't go back" he cried to himself, and his feet carried him until he collapsed.
That night the dream came, but more fierce than ever before.
He could feel every particle of the wind as it blew around him, feel the shadows beneath him, the depths of the valley below yawing wide beneath him to receive his battered and broken body on stone teeth, sharpened by the flow of ages of rain. The man in front of him was looking at him with an expression that he could not define, calm and dispassionate, removed from the world in which the he dwelled.
"You left your friends." It was not a question, but a statement.
"I couldn't help them anymore. I was slowing them, I wasn't strong enough to get my Digimon to Digivolve. I couldn't use my crest. I was useless, and then I tried running awful risks to redeem myself, and nothing worked, nothing. It was horrible." The boy was crying now, his tears soaking the ground beneath his feet. The man appeared unmoved by the emotion and unimpressed by the testimony.
"The power is your own, you know." The man told him flatly, without a hint of anything in his voice except the coldness of the machine. "That which may either save or damn your friends and companions is your own. The crest is beyond anything you know, even now."
"I tried to use it. I tried and tried and tried, but nothing happened. Really, I did."
"Then why can't you use the crest? Have you forgotten its meaning?"
"I.I just.maybe I have."
"What is Hope?"
"Hope is.hope isalways thinking that there is a way out of somethingright?"
The man shook his head implacably, like some vast statue that had been animated briefly, for that one moment, and then returned to his immobility, a fluke of nature that something so stationary had actually moved at all. For a moment that seemed like all he would do, shake his head in a simple denial, and abandon that which now lay at his feet. Then he spoke, and when he did, there was nothing but unearthly thunder in his voice, a sound that could have shattered mountains, destroyed worlds.
"What is Courage?"
"Courage isnot being afraid of anythingbeing able to run into a burning building to save children because you're not afraid of fire, like that."
The man shook his head again, and then, in one swift movement, so fast that the boy could not remember having seen him move at all, the man had grabbed him by the collar, yanking him upright and holding him, dangling in a spaghetti-like mess of limp arms and legs over the side of the cliff.
"Are you afraid?" he bellowed.
"YES!" the boy screamed at the top of his lungs, howling in an animal panic that nobody could have matched.
"Then there is time and chance for you yet." The man replied, and hurled him from the cliff.
Takeru Takaishi, TK sometimes, sometimes just Takeru, sometimes nobody at all, jerked awake, pained in a dozen places. His first thought was that this time he might actually have made the horrible fall into the depths of the mountain, but then he remembered that he was much too intact to have experienced that. Complaints from bruised muscles seemed to be a result of having slept in one of the most awkward positions that he had ever experienced, wedged tightly inbetween two trees, collapsed over the roots. His stomach growled, his throat hurt, and every part of him ached.
This time the dream had been real, intense beyond almost all measure, something that had echoed in his heart, in his mind like a stampede of elephants, set loose without any guidance, destined to run rampant through his innards. Gut-wrenching fear and the steady rushing pump of adrenaline from overworked glands still cascaded through his body in differing amounts and quantities, trying desperately to tie his overworked organs into little knots.
Shortly after this sensation registered, there was the rush, like an unpleasant odor, or a tidal wave of the slush of the mind, of unfamiliar memories, unpleasant ones from last night rushing back into his head. Memories of last night rushed into his head, and grabbed at his soul in a sensation that almost literally turned his whole world on its head. Now he knew what had finally broken at last, and where the despair that had burrowed permanently in next to heart had led him. He had left the path that had once seemed so wide, and was now condemned to wander forever, lost and alone.
He stretched automatically, his mind on other things, and suddenly gave a shocked gasp that echoed in the morning stillness. There, standing there like some silent sentinel, some monument to a forgotten past long gone, its once straight sides eroded by the passage of uncaring generations, stood the mountain. It appeared just like it did in the dream, standing alone in the outgrowth of old forest, a single column leading to the sky, somehow separated from the other pinnacles of rock around. There was a single, smooth surface of rock, from which he had dropped so many times in his dreams, falling down into infinity, but now he could see the bottom and the base clearly.
His mind focused. There was the answer. It was there, on the portentous peak, that all of his questions would find answers, or where he would meet destiny at last.
"We've looked almost everywhere." Ken muttered to Gatomon as together they headed back to the base camp they had established earlier that morning. Wormmon trudged alongside, now even more subdued than usual by the sudden shift in events. Gatomon merely nodded.
"Hey guys." Yolei and Hawkmon emerged from a pile of rocks, bearing the dirt and gravel on their clothes that demonstrated physically the meticulous method of their search. They also did not look particularly enthusiastic.
"Uh, guys" Ken turned to the Digimon, blushing a peculiar shade of red. "Could you take a last look around the trees or something? Yolei and I need to have a little talk."
"Oh, okay." The various conversation, gossip and interaction with the Digimon was not present in this dim morning. Above, the gray sky promised even further retribution for their attempts to cheer each other up, a prediction of vague horrors yet to come.
Ken sat down and self-consciously wrapped an arm around Yolei's sagging shoulders. Any other day this would have made both of them red as tomatoes, but today was not a day in which such an emotion was present. Now they were emotional lifelines for each other, something they needed so desperately they did not bother to try and deny it.
"So how bad is it?" Ken asked after a few quiet moments.
"Bad. I think Kari was trying to take TK out of her life, he was her best friend you know, better even than me. I think she was worried that what she might have to face in the future was Darkness, and she didn't want TK dragged along. But she didn't realized how much he meant to her, either as a friend or assomething else, so it's hitting her kinda hard. Patamon is a wreck, clear and simple. I've never seen anybody hit quite that hard, but its something I expect. He's overcome by guilt that he didn't fly after TK when he left, didn't stop this earlier, but there's nothing he can do. Davis is a little better, he's naturally boneheaded, which means that he can shrug off a lot of what he's feeling, but her really feels bad. I would yell at him, but he feels terrible enough, and the truth is that this is all our fault, because we didn't look after one of our own."
"We tried to look after him. It's just that, well, I'm the only one who has ever broken down like this, so bad that I didn't even remember who I was. We never expected TK to do this, I mean, he has been in the background for a lot of stuff, but he always seemed dependable. I know that Cody harbored some doubts about TK, but they had to do with the way that he got angry at the powers of darkness, and we know how justified that was. It just wasn't possible to see something like this."
Yolei rounded on him suddenly. "Of course it was possible, we all could have seen this coming, couldn't we? We were pointing out the warning signs days ago, we just couldn't see them clearly, could we?" Suddenly she started crying again.
"But we just didn't know Yolei. How could we have? Nobody had any clue what was happening to TK."
"Guys?" The new voice belonged to Cody who was pushing through the bushes, his eyes a little wild. "You there?"
"Hey Cody." Ken managed to turn and smile at him a little sadly. "What's up?"
"I heard you were here from Gatomon, and I left Armadillomon with them. I just thought of something." Cody looked deadly serious, and Ken and Yolei instinctively knew that whatever he was going to impart was of the utmost importance.
"What is it Cody?" Yolei asked.
"Well, I was thinking. Remember when Kari and TK met that voice down underground, before we met Babamon the first time?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Well, at the time TK said something that bothered me a bit, but I forgot it until now. He said that Angemon thought they should learn the Asrana'Dactal, right? Well, the Asrana'Dactal was supposed to defend them against mental attacks, the kind that attacks the mind or the soul or something. What if what happened to TK was one of these attacks, the kind that drives you to despair from the inside? It would be perfect for rendering Hope useless, drowning it in despair or something like that until the crest itself had no meaning. I think that's what happened to TK, and that we better warn the others, or else it will happen to them." Cody looked up at them, nearly breathless after gasping that all out.
Ken was sitting upright in shock. "Of course, Of Course! It all fits now! No wonder he started going downhill right away, and so suddenly too. He was one of the best in keeping us alive, and could have been a real leader against the powers of evil as well. And Kari once remarked that Patamon's evolved forms are powerful weapons against the powers of darkness. He was a real threat, but by attacking his mind, they got to him before he could destroy them. I bet the dreams are part of it too."
"We have to go back right now and warn everybody else. I bet that they might be targets as well. If TK was only the first" Yolei let that thought drift off, and then they were rushing back.
"Why were the answers wrong?" TK muttered to himself.
Lost. Lost and Empty. The voices continued to rage in his head.
But all he could see in his mind's eye was the shake in denial. He knew, in his heart of hearts that something important was tied up in the answers to those questions, something very important.
Tired and Lost. So Tired. The voices continued.
But he still could not find the answers, no matter where he looked, outside or in.
Tired and Useless. The voices seemed to grow louder with each passing second until he dimly began to wonder if he had a church choir hammering away in there.
He began to laugh. It was not a sane laugh. His voice came out it starts and fits that could have been coughs, could have been attempts to clear a throat long clouded and blocked. It could have been anything. He was useless, that much was clear. Patamon couldn't Digivolve except in the utmost of desperate circumstances, something that was being made clear to him every moment that he pressed on. As such, he was a liability to the Digidestined team. He kept ending up attempting to take authority from Davis, something that undermined the team itself.
A team, as Tai had proved early on in their adventures, was something that had to hang together, something that had to function perfectly. Tai was the foremost spokesperson for the group, but his stories only covered about half of their adventures in the Digital World. Oh, they were the important half. Devimon. Etemon. Myotismon. The Dark Masters. Tai had been there for the important stuff at least.
But Tai's tales tended to leave out the lesser half of the adventures. After the defeat of Etemon, when Tai had been sucked back into the Real World, the group had wandered for what they later estimated to have been about four months in their time, looking for Tai, and then, as the group broke up, looking for the others. They had adventures and challenges galore, but in their memory everything was tainted by the collapse of the team. Now TK was the weak link, the person who could not be counted on, just like before. Before he had thought that everyone was leaving because he was a crybaby, now he knew that he had to leave because he was a danger.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And now TK was the weak link. Everyone else could digivolve to Ultimate. Patamon could barely digivolve to Champion. Everyone else was fitting in. Davis was the boss, Ken was the guy who was supposed to set him straight. Yolei and Cody tried to stay in the background. Kari was Kari. TK was disruptive, a rebellious element, and put all the others at risk. This way it would be much better. Leave his nightmares and his strange feelings and his odd compulsions out of it.
Before his weakness was excused because he was the youngest of the group. Now he was supposed to be one of its best supporters, but in reality he was nothing more than a fraud, the kind of fraud that should never have gotten through anything. Teams needed to function right, and he was providing something of an obstacle to everything. He was capable of so much more, and he was not providing any of it.
No, it would be better for them, for everyone alive, if TK got lost now, and did not come back.
"So what do we do now?" Kari had calmed down considerably upon hearing Cody's theory. The thought of a direct threat had apparently brought her out of her temporary freeze.
"I don't know." Ken admitted after awhile, with a quick glance at the limp bundle on Kari's lap, resting quivering under one hand.
Patamon looked horrible. His ears drooped, his eyes refused to open, refused to focus on anything except what was right in front of his face, even his tail drooped. He seemed unable to eat, unable to do anything except breath and occasionally cry. It was almost like he was dying, wasting away right in front of everyone. A bonded Digimon seemed to be attached to their companion, and without the presence of that companion, they just seemed to waste away, without a purpose in their life.
Just looking at Patamon reminded Ken of the consequences of what would happen if they lost somebody else.
"We have no defenses against this, so we're just going to have to fight it the old fashioned way." Davis spoke up suddenly, from the slump he had been in.
"What's that?" Veemon wanted to know.
"We have to fight them in our heads. If anyone feels depressed, they got to know that everybody else here is looking out for them and all. But in the end, this is something that everyone has to fight for themselves. We have to face some things by ourselves in the end, and I think that this is one of them."
Everyone nodded at the idea. After all, it made sense.
Suddenly, Yolei had an idea. "I know what, what happens if we ask Angewomon? She might be able to tell us more about what's going on, don't you think?"
"She might." Hawkmon admitted.
Kari and Gatomon exchanged glances. "I'm ready if you are." Gatomon whispered after a moment.
Kari sighed and took out her D3 and held it up, but nothing happened. Nothing at all, except for a dimness, and absence of light.
"Remember Kari." Gatomon whispered. "That this might b the only way that we can gather enough information to save ourselves and TK. It might be his last chance."
Kari's jaw tightened and her chest and her D3 flared into sudden life.
"Gatomondigivolves to.Angewomon."
The angel stood there for a moment, looking at them, smiling down gently. She apparently did not share all of Gatomon's memories and, upon seeing no threat nearby, looked down at the concerned faces below and smiled at them gently, light radiating off of her like a spring shower. Her face traversed theirs, calming them immensely, restoring what they had lost in the midst of panic.
Her gaze fell upon TK's abandoned D3.
For a moment there was no change in Angewomon's expression. Then everything about her changed, her face transforming like an icicle under a heat lamp. Her jaw opened for a moment, hanging slackly, and then everything inside of her seemed to explode. One hand came up, pointing desperately at the device. Kari had lived with Angewomon for years and had heard many things from her companion. She had heard the angel upset and angry and irritated and calm and complacent. Raw panic, however, was a new one.
"Where is he? WHERE IS HE?"
Maybe it would be better if he never existed.
TK wondered about that thought as he trudged silently to the base of that mountain, that single monumental point of rock, the one that so dominated the landscape, both inside of and outside of his head. Despite the mass of the mountain that lent to the feeling of proximity, the journey was obviously going to take him most of the day. And, as he trudged his way to the top, thoughts whispered around in his head, playing catch-me-if-you-can with his conscious mind.
The fact was, that Khartan had indicated that he could draw some sort of mad strength from TK's crest. And something inside of TK, perhaps the last spark of the boy who had fought evil so many years ago, the last light of a dimming candle that, like the trick candle on a birthday cake, refuses to go out, was whispering its own secrets back. There was a power in his crest, something so great that he could never use it, something so great that even his subconscious could not appreciate its true power, could never have used its strength. Power, the kind of power that shapes universes, flowed out of it, gently running through his soul like a powerful river, capable of cooling aching feet or carving mighty canyons from unyielding rock. If the Dark could gain control of that power everything would come to an end. Everything.
His friends needed that power, but they needed that power kept out of the hands of Darkness even more. No matter what that power could not be allowed to be corrupted. If anyone who followed the great darkness could get their hands on that particular crest, could make it obey their wishes, then everything would be lost. And his friends were still the reason he was here. No power on Earth could break through to them, he would not permit it.
That memory stood in the middle of his heart like a rock, a crystal, both unbroken and unbreakable, something that was strong enough to withstand attacks from everywhere. Memories of laughter and friendship and companionship fell away from him, but they congealed and cemented themselves in place in the center of his heart, where his crest had once gleamed. No power on Earth or beyond was going to allow him to start hurting his friends. That shield of will and Light, of remembered love and friendship was stronger than anything else that could have been brought to bear against it. TK could feel the power swell in him, lock itself away where nobody could ever use it, and felt himself armor up inside. Now he could no longer be a threat to his friends, at least, for a time. Given time, something of significant power could hack their way through that armor, take what was in him, could it not? But for now, another voice reminded him, he was safe.
For a moment the voices that floated uneasily, in a sea of hatred, mistrust and loneliness, were stymied. Their voices rendered hoarse and mute, they swirled uncertainly, as if looking for a new direction through which to proceed, as if the crystal in TK's heart was halting them somehow. Then they resumed their progress, slowly preparing a mounting attack on another point. Perhaps it was true, they reasoned in their own way, voices squeaky with cunning and guile, that he was temporarily invulnerable to the darkness, but was he truly invulnerable? The powers that were at play here were of such magnitude that nobody could truly be sure that he was invulnerable to everything. Perhaps it was necessary to remove the crest from the picture completely.
TK, his mind fuzzy from lack of sleep and exhaustion, stomach growling hungrily, felt the idea come to a strange sense of conclusion inside of him. It made sense after all to have something like this. A way to keep the power from getting to anyone else.
He would unlock his own power, the power of the crest, or he would destroy it forever, and possibly himself along with it.
"WHERE IS HE?" Angewomon was screaming full out now, her blonde hair streaming out behind her like a nest of snakes.
"He went off, that's why we wanted you" Yolei began slowly, have not anticipated the level of distress that the Ultimate was showing.
But Angewomon never let her finish her sentence. The moment Yolei mouthed the fatal words "went off" Angewomon hurled back her head and howled out loud to the sky.
"GENNAI, He's Ascending!"
For a moment there was stunned silence as the voice resounded around the empty forest and off the shores of the nearest hills, echoing back a thousandfold increased, over and over again until it felt like they were standing in the middle of a cathedral bell. Then, almost as if a switch were thrown, all the noise ceased in one sudden gasp, disappearing like they had been unexpectedly muffled.
"What?" Gennai, young Gennai, appeared in his trademark rainbow colored beam of light right next to them all of a sudden, his face radiating concern, but his pose was distracted, as if he was trying to do two things at the same time. Everyone around him jumped back wildly.
A half-dozen other pillars of light sprung up, but of different colors this time. Each one contained a different figure, wearing different armor, all talking to people they could not see.
"anyway that's what we pay them for"
"Can anyone make visual with three squadron? No wait, I see them"
"Tell him to draw back. We can't do anything more for that"
"do you lose ten thousand boots? Check the supply dumps between"
"All right people, we may have a situation. Mike, I need a readout on Takeru's crest and its current properties."
One of the people, a rather short one wearing golden armor that appeared to be talking to two different people at once, responded. S/he did not respond at the visual stimulus, merely speaking out a string of numbers and letters that nobody could recognize and that rattled around like shot in a can.
"That bad?" Gennai looked momentarily offbeat, and then smiled, albeit a bit grimly. "I wonder how henever mind. I think that he's already past the point where we can safely shut him down angelus. I wonder if we couldno, that's out of the question too. I'm sorry."
"He's started to ascend then?"
The one Gennai had called Mike actually looked at them this time. "With high probability, but his mental stage is more uncertain than I would like. I have some suspicions about that, but they are no longer verifiable at this point. I'm sorry, there doesn't appear to be anything I can do about this right now."
"But something must be done, you do realize this" Another figure spoke up, momentarily giving the group his attention. Then he turned away again, distracted once more.
"The appearance of an unstable crest is a great shock to all of us." This time the character speaking sounded distinctly female. "I do not believe us capable of underestimating the portents should it go rogue for your immediate vicinity."
"Although this Takeru seems to be a dependable sort of person. It is quite possible that he will be able to overcome this by himself."
"Perhaps not, after all there are precedents"
"I see no reason to be overly alarmistmy God" the last was spoken, not in cool, analytical tones, but in tones of deepest shock.
"There are forty thousand people in that thing!" Gennai was no longer disinterested, but he was staring at something outside of the rainbow column of light.
"I have it." A figure wearing silver jerked upright, both hands raised in the image, staring at something too intently to notice the Digidestined staring at him.
"Don't be foolish." Another figure spoke up quickly. Kari was having a hard time telling them apart now, because the colors of the light they were in were now swirling in patterns normally found only in association with the word psychedelic. "Even you can't catch fifty thousand tons bare-handed."
"He's not listening to you." Another figure had the colors spinning around them so fast that they began to throw up interesting specks of light in the air like drunken fireflies. "Just make sure you don't overload the support structures, they weren't intended to be handled like this."
The silver figure was no longer paying attention, his image suddenly shivered, and Kari knew instinctively that he had just taken on the impact of a tremendous load. The outline of the image became blurred and indistinct, as something inside of him strained against the load he was carrying. He gave the impression of falling back into the ground again, pounded from above by the power that he was struggling against, and then, as if he was splitting open from the inside under the strain, he began to scream.
Everyone else was no longer paying attention, because everyone else was yelling something to someone else.
"He's going to go for it"
"Get those people out of there"
"so run for it gang. There's not much time"
"Hit the deck!"
And then light flared, and as Gennai gave them a single parting wave, the images broke up into static.
But there was one moment when the figure in silver armor seemed to swell, fire as bright as that which falls from the sun at the moment of dawning to the moment of falling began to emerge from his body, howling and screaming in a rage that Kari could neither understand, nor hope to equal in a thousand years. The Light was a living thing, sent twisting and writhing forth from behind those impenetrable metal arms, hurling outward to meet the force that had attempted to crush its host. For a moment, before the image faded, while everyone else was looking elsewhere or at each other in sudden confusion, there was one crystal clear image, like what happens when the wind fails for a single moment and you can look through a lake and see the detail on every rock and branch lying on the bottom in glaring detail. Then everything shattered as the light took on a new shape, for a moment replicating something so foreign and yet so familiar that Kari could not help but understand it.
Then the images were gone, and Kari knew what the crests were for.
One way or another, TK thought as he trudged along. The going was harder now, tearing at his feet beneath him, seeming to poke and prod him every time he moved. There was a path up the mountain, and it climbed precipitously, making the passage difficult for him, harder than he had ever anticipated before, something that was beginning to make him tired. But whatever it was that burned in his heart, like the fire in the furnaces that drove old steam ships around the cape in winter, decks coated with ice, and insides boiling with steam, it drove him on toward destiny.
One way or another, this will be over soon.
"We need a plan." Ken suggested while everyone was looking around. "Gennai and his companions can't seem to help us now. Angewomon" he looked over, but Angewomon was concentrating on something else now. "well, we have to do something."
"I agree." Davis whispered.
Kari, oblivious to the world in her sudden, newfound revelation, clutched TK's D3 to herself, and realized that the horror in her stomach was merely a reflection of what it would be had she been here to watch what was happening out there. She did not hear the branches behind her rustle, and the disquiet in her heart masked that from anywhere else, covering everything in shadows.
"Well, we could make an airborne search pattern and see if we can hunt him down, it should be possible now that we're thinking clearly to outspeed him. He's not going that fast at the moment." Yolei suggested.
Then the attack came. Explosions rippled over the edge of the treeline, and everyone froze for a moment before reaching for their D3s. But that moment was a moment too long, for in that moment dozens of Digimon, Vilemon, Woodmon, and RedVeggiemon sprang out from the trees and then stopped suddenly, as if waiting for the Digidestined to make their first move.
Angewomon stood up, and then the others, making a quick defensive position, but the surprise they had been in excluded prompt retaliatory action, and everyone seemed to be partially frozen with fear. Davis, as usual, broke the inaction first.
"All right everybody, let's digivolve and get out of here."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you." Everybody froze as Reaver walked out of the trees. He was the same as earlier, armor that seemed to absorb the light and the interlocking spikes that protruded out to catch the unwary foe, all seemed the same. A black cape billowed out behind him like a living thing, twisting in the midst of a gale, as if trying to wrap around him. But nobody watched that, they were all staring at his left arm. The end now protruded a giant black spike, a piece of metal that looked long and cruelly pointed enough to give everyone nightmares. Ugly and sharp, the point rested very gently and very precisely in one place. It was held so firmly that it was pushing up just a little of the skin at the top of Kari's neck, right below her head. "You see, I get terribly nervous when you digivolve, and when I get nervous, wellI might slip. And you wouldn't want anything dreadful to happen because I slip here, do you? Now why don't you be good little boys and girls and drop those D3s on the ground so that we can pick them up, and nothing bad will happen. Okay?"
Everyone stared, and there was a tense moment while the Digimon tried to play a losing game of chicken against an opponent who held all the cards, and the children tried to convince themselves that this was not real.
Eventually, Davis, being first to decide, reached down, unbuckled his D3, and let it fall to the ground, clumsily, bouncing off rocks like it was trying to get back into its owners hand. But it still fell to the ground, where it was joined rather slowly by everyone else's device.
"Excellent." Reaver breathed out. "Chain them up, and then let's lead them out."
TK reached the top. There it was, the platform-like expanse of smooth rock overlooking the floor of the forest so many meters below. From here one could feel like the king of the world, surveying their domains from a lofty throne that towered above the surrounding vegetation and almost into the stratosphere. Below one could make out the faint traces of the rocky trail as it led upwards, spinning round and around, back and forth on the way up the pinnacle.
Any other day TK would have felt exultation at achieving such a monumental feat, but now he was simply tired and waiting for something to happen. This was the place he knew so well from his dreams, the be all and end all for the circle he was in. If circles could be said to have a beginning and an end, this was probably it. Here it was that everything would be decided, here where all things would either begin or end.
He sat there, and waited for all the misery and uselessness to drain out of him, but there was nothing. Nothing special happened, nothing incredible and nothing magical. From here he watched the sun set, and then let exhaustion drag him down into sleep.
"Where are we going?" Davis asked after they had been marched to the base of a steep mountain. It was dark now, and everyone was feeling miserable, probably a result of being captured, and everybody was also dragging around in the dirt and darkness out of exhaustion.
"Here for now. It's sort of boring up there. You have my permission to sleep for a few hours, but we will be up there by dawn." Reaver ordered. Most of the guards were gone, but there were still some left, hovering around them. Not like they could do anything in chains anyway.
Ken looked around. Everyone did look beat, and tired, and Kari had not said a single word since this whole nightmare had gotten worse. Depression and exhaustion settled in his heart, and then all was darkness, but this was the darkness that reached out to attack him.
For the first time in a long time Takeru dreamed a different dream. There was no mountain here, only a long, gentle grassy hill, rolling down toward the lakeshore below, a place of near perfect harmony, where the scent of spring grass tickled the nose and the breeze carried the hint of dandelions and other, more exotic, flowers in the nearby woods. Here there was peace and quiet, silence and calm, tranquility, here was where you waited for life to come to you.
"Where is this?" TK wondered aloud.
"This? This is where all paths come at the end." Another voice intruded on TK's silent thoughts. A boy, about ten years old it looked, with short black hair, stood next to him. Everything about him except for his smile would have been hard to describe, and he smiled gently. "I'm Mike. I run this place, sort of. You would be Takeru."
"Yes, I would. Pleased to meet you. What do you mean by run this place?"
"Well, all paths come here in the end, but people on the different paths see different things. I run this corner of this particular reality. I wondered when you would be showing up."
Something inside of TK, something that had not emerged too often before, made him ask. "Is this the Heart of the World?"
Mike appeared to be unsurprised by the comment, and just pointed to a horizon that was hard to define, beyond another stretch of deep green hills, beyond the sparkling blue lake. "No, we're sort of on the boundaries. The Heart of the World is just over those hills."
"How far?" TK felt himself ask, and then shut his mouth for a reason he could not understand.
"Now that's a silly question. However far you need to travel to get there."
"Am I supposed to go there?"
"Not yet. I would wait a few hours if I were you."
Something caused TK to nod, and then ask. "So what is Hope anyway?"
"Funny you should ask that." Mike paused and rubbed his chin. "It's hard to explain. One of those things you either know what it is, or don't. But the way I see it is like remembering starlight."
"Remembering starlight?"
"Everyone sees it differently. But it comes out the same in the end."
"Do I have any?"
"You must if you wish to win. The choice still awaits you know. And it won't be easy, I'll give you that. I don't really expect you to survive, and that's the truth. But you were right about one thing, that power must stay out of the hands of Darkness forever."
TK took a deep breath. "I think I'm ready to go back now."
Mike nodded and smiled at him. "Good luck, and I guess I'll see you soon won't I?"
TK woke up from the strange dream cramped from sleeping all night on a platform of time-smoothed granite on a tower soaring above the floor of the world. As he got up, he watched the sun rise, an explosion of red and yellow light entering the world.
Some things enter the world, some things leave it.
He remembered images from the past. Devimon and Myotismon. Piedmon laughing and MaloMyotismon on the rampage. BlackWarGreymon transforming and Oikawa gloating before the end. Darkness wanted him, and he remembered to that the power that was inside of him, that which he could never unlock, could never be allowed to fall into the hands of evil.
A man who is not afraid of fire, who can run into a burning building to save children from dying, is not a hero. The thought, from the last horrible dream echoed suddenly in his mind. The voices in his mind were now a trumpeting roar, marking his uselessness, his death that was sure to come, the last act of salvation.
And suddenly, as the rays of the morning sun threatened to burn out his corneas and leave him blind in truth as well, something in the back of his mind opened up like a door, and all the misery and loneliness came flooding out. Before that tide, uncertainty vanished, and he was filled with a rock-hard resolve. In his heart the fire began to burn.
"Well isn't that touching. Your teammate, don't bother shouting by the way, he can neither hear nor see anything you do, so depressed by your rejection of him is going to end it all in a tragic manner." Reaver watched as the other Digidestined surged forward before being caught in their chains, sending them sprawling backwards.
"No!" Ken shouted. Cody and Yolei and the Digimon began to scream. Kari howled TK's name over and over again, and Davis tried to apologize, but TK saw none of them. He was standing on top of his column, a scene that would stick in their minds for the rest of their lives.
He was looking out to the sun with a face full of awe and sadness, of regret mixed with pain. One tear was trickling down his cheek, and one hand shook suspiciously. But every other part of his body was engraved as if in stone, outlined in its solemnity and determination by the crimson and gold flames of the dawning sun, flames that shone all around him, as if he had found a throne at last. As if a gateway was opening to take him home.
And then, he began to move, unhearing of their desperate screams.
Takeru Takaishi looked into the sun and understood the riddle, the question, and he almost laughed in the midst of pain as understanding took him. And he knew what he had to do, and one step after another, the edge of the cliff loomed ever closer.