Chapter 3

Recap: While investigating the new threat, Mimi and Palmon are left behind, and the new threat orders Vrksasmon to attack them. But whenever the others showed up again, he is called back and the threat makes a hasty exit. On the way out, she recognises Sora, but what's the connection?

"What was that you were saying about a sora, Your Grace?"
"Um, doesn't matter just now, my friend, doesn't matter."
"I think it does, you've not been yourself recently."
"Who else could I be, Kitamon?" Kitamon's companion smiled as they reached a cliffside at the foot of Infinity Mountain. She activated a hidden panel and part of the rock face melted away, revealing a sort of hidden complex in the mountain. The two entered the hideout and the rock reformed behind them. They went into the planning room, which had various pieces of equipment scattered around the place- a telescreen, with various parts of the Digital World being displayed; a large desk, with a laptop and a DigiWorld map on it which had been marked and drawn on in several places- stood out. The other figure threw off her coat, slumped into a chair, put her feet up on the desk and started to look through a pile of cards. The desk lamp- the only light source in the room- threw a light on the figure.

She was a human, about 13 years old and tall for her age. Her hair was long, messy and brown with some purple streaks. She was dressed in black leather trousers and a red bra top, with walking boots. The coat she had been wearing was long, black leather. Around her neck was a pendant-type necklace resembling a Tag, but in some ways quite different. This also had eight triangle shapes sticking out, each with a Crest symbol of the DigiDestined's, and instead of her own Crest in the centre, there was a black space, radiating dark energy to the triangles. As she shuffled through the cards, Kitamon jumped onto the desk. The winged lion cub Digimon looked at the cards with some curiosity.

"Are they the Digimon stat cards you've been working on?"
 "Yes. I've got a few more now than previously, but I'm sure there are many still out there with abilities worthy of archiving."
"Just remind me what exactly these are for again and how you plan to use them."
"You should listen more closely, seeing as these are for your benefit. Let me explain. The cards are scanned through the D-Tec"- she took her Digivice from her belt- "see the space to slash cards through? The card is programmed to give you more ability, really. It can boost what you already have, like speed, or it can give you the abilities or attacks of another Digimon. Since you can only digivolve to Champion like the DigiDestined's Digimon, these will give us an extra advantage. I'm not saying you're a weak Digimon, but we should get any advantage any way we can, seeing as there are 8 of them."
"But you designed the Asanas to be Ultimate level, and there are 12 of them, never mind all the other Digimon you managed to recruit."
"I did, but like I said earlier, those guys always tend to pull something out of the hat at the last minute. We have to be careful. The records of the Digiworld show that most of the Digimon they battled against before had armies of Digimon at their disposal, and the DigiDestined are still here."
"I see your point, Your Grace."
"Kitamon, we've been friends for a good while now. The Digimon under my control show me respect as their commander, but I consider you my equal. There's no need for you to call me that. I prefer something familiar from you."
"I just thought it was expected of me because you didn't stop the others from doing it."
"Did I ever reprimand you for calling me by my name?"
"No."
"There's your answer. Now if you don't mind, I've thought of a few more cards, and there's a couple of other projects I'd like to work on. I'd like to work in private."
"OK, see you later Kaci." Kitamon left the room, with Kaci now turning to her laptop, inserted a credit card-shaped disk into the CD-ROM drive and opening up a program designer. Kitamon now entered a bedroom and lay down on the rug, deep in thought.

"Kaci has changed since she came here. It's not that drastic, but then again, in some ways it seems she's a completely different person." The Digimon tried thinking back. When exactly did she start to act differently, and what actually caused it?

~~~~~~~~~~Flashback~~~~~~~~~

"Kay-Celes! Could you come into the living room please?"
"Wait here Kitamon." She waited as Kaci left the room and listened in on the conversation.
"Sure thing Dad, what's up?"
"It's about work, sport. We have to go again. "
"Oh no!"
"I know honey, but you know, duty calls."
"Where are we going this time?"
"Argentina. But it'll be good fun there for you, they're mad about soccer, and you can practice your Spanish-
"Dad, please, I don't want to move again. I thought we were staying here, you know, we were finally staying at home. I love it here, I feel like I belong somewhere. I hate this hopping to different countries all the time. Mom, tell him!"
"I know you don't like it. It's unfortunate, but think about it, you get to see things other kids your age dream of seeing."
"That's the thing, I want to be normal. I don't want to live out of a suitcase, waiting for the next posting. We've been here 3 years, I've made friends, I'm doing well at school, and I don't see any point in upping sticks again."
"I'm sorry, we have no choice in the matter, your father has to go where he's posted."
"Oh, for God's sake, forget it. This is pointless; it never counts what I say anyway."
"Kay-Celes, you know that's not true! KAY-CELES!" A slammed door was her reply. The then 11-year-old tossed herself on the bed angrily. Kitamon jumped up too, anxious.
"What's wrong, Kaci?"
"My parents say we have to move again, coz of Dad's work. We have to go to Argentina."
"Where's that?"
"A huge ocean away from here. I don't want to go."
"You made that pretty clear."
"I just hate moving around all the time, changing country, changing schools, and always being the new kid. More often than not I end up having to learn a whole new language."
"Why do you guys do this?"
"My dad works in the Army, training recruits, they go all over the place for training in different scenarios and weather conditions, and where my dad goes, we go too. Mom works for them too, in IT, developing new computer equipment and software."
"That's too bad."
"I thought when we came here it'd just be another temporary fixture. We'd stay for about six months and then take off again. But as we ended up staying longer, I got used to everything here again. We originally came from here, but I'm not sure if I've even lived here 5 years of my life. I've got settled, concentrated on schoolwork, and things are good here. There's tons to do, and I've made friends with Sora and the other girls on the soccer team. It's hard to leave all that behind."

~~~~~~~~~~End Flashback~~~~~~~~~

Kitamon suddenly snapped out as the last statement was made.

"Wait a minute, so that's what a Sora is. She's a person, and she's one of the DigiDestined! This is a twist, how can she face fighting against her friend? No, she took that piece of news fairly much in her stride. Something's happened since then." She then decided that it had to have been after they came to the DigiWorld. But she didn't get far again in her thoughts, when a noise in the other room alerted her. She listened through the wall to hear what was happening. Kaci was talking to someone through her laptop, with a tone of annoyance in her voice.

"I was in the middle of something here, do you mind?"
"How far have you got in taking care of those troublemakers?"
"I'm still investigating effective strategies."
"I cannot give you much time, Kay-Celes. You must make sure they are destroyed, soon."
"What's with the big rush anyway? If you're as big a hotshot as you say, you could take care of them yourself easily and quickly."
"When someone less powerful than me can do the job, I don't see why I should."
"There's a term we use back home for such a case as that. It's called being a lazy scut."
"I'll ignore your insolence for now, but if you don't deliver the DigiDestined to me, I may not be as tolerant."
"I'll take care of it." She ended the tranmission and resumed making the cards, grumbling-
"How can he expect me to do my job when I have no info whatsoever and he's always breathing down my
neck! Some people have no patience."
 Kitamon took her ears away from the wall.
"Kaci's working for someone, and she could be in big trouble, but how can I help her?"

It looks like Kaci's not really the one in the driver's seat after all, but who is doing the driving, will it be crash and burn for Kaci, and how will the DigiDestined, especially Sora, react to this? Keep reading to find out!