Hopelight: Oi! It's been SUCH a long time since I've uploaded anything from this story…gominasen! Man, this has been one hell of a few months. Busy like a little Canadian beaver, I can tell you that right now. But I'm going to attempt to try and finish "Predestined" so I can get my other fics finished.
PerniciousTrixie: Enough talk! More fic!
Hopelight: Ahem…you'll have to excuse her. She need caffeine and all things sugar.
PredestinedChapter Fourteen: It's All in the Genes
With less than a week to go before the final battle on Starlight Plains, everyone was pent up and on edge. Lady Kazuma hadn't attacked for days now, and the Fiannamon were worried that she was up to something.
"Don't be so ridiculous," Rachael would snort every time one of them attempted to express his or her concerns. "I think she's just scared of us. After all, we totally kicked her ass in the last battle. Remember?"
They certainly had. Kim and Cleo had gotten close enough to the woman to hurt her a little bit with the flats of their swords and knock her out cold. Both had been too squeamish to actually stab her.
Meanwhile, Kinaka had taken charge of the little ones. Lucas, Tania and Julian were practically glued to her side. She taught them the basics of the D-X, and the meaning of a relationship with a Digimon partner. Tania and Julian were too enthralled by their fuzzy companions to pay attention, but Lucas nodded silently and held on to his beautiful partner. He came from this world; he knew what they were like and understood the importance of their friendship.
And of course, they trained. They trained every minute of every day, and when they weren't training, they were sleeping. And when they weren't training or sleeping, they were eating ravenously. All that hard work was making them hungrier than a pack of Wolfmon.
But despite all this training, none of the newbies could reach the Mega level. Julian's Chicamon, however, had completely skipped the In-Training stage and went straight to his Rookie form, Perritomon, a large silver-blue puppy with melting ice-blue eyes. Nobody could figure out why he was a Rookie so soon, but Kinaka and Tania just smiled at each other, because they knew of Julian's destiny already.
One night, when two of the moons waxed full and the third was almost three-quarters full, Chris and Hikaru got up and walked around the perimeter of the standing stones. In the moonlight, they appeared as giant, shadowy fingers poking the sky and blotting out the stars. Each of the standing stones was carved with a different Crest symbol, and the names of the people who bore them in Digital code.
"Courage, Love, Friendship, Sincerity, Knowledge, Reliability, Hope, Light, Kindness, Independence, Faith, Magic, Miracles, Innocence, Destiny, Emotion, Purity, Trust, Darkness, Dignity, Starlight, Mind's Eye, Loneliness," Hikaru said as they passed each one. How she guessed some of them, Chris had no idea. "There's more, but I couldn't even guess what they are. They look old, though."
"Look at ours." Chris motioned to the pillars where Starlight and Mind's Eye were. They were side by side, and joined at the top by a slab of stone lying crosswise atop them. "They look new, newer than the others. Now look at your uncle Matt's."
Hikaru looked. The pillar bearing Friendship had hairline cracks running along it, and the other pillar that held up the large slab on top bore no Crest. Both were beginning to show moss creeping up the sides.
"But look at Dr. Kido's," she said sadly, gesturing. The pillar bearing the Crest of Reliability was crumbling and stood solitary.
Chris whistled. "That's just sad," he said, shaking his head. "Dr. Kido's my dad's best friend. And he's not doing so well right now…"
Hikaru squeezed his hand tighter in sympathy.
Silently, they strolled around the outside of the standing stones, amazed to see the pillars they came across grow older and more timeworn. A few were completely demolished and were nothing more than a broken stump with the remains of a Crest cracked right in half on the worn stones.
Finally, they came to three of the oldest and biggest there—three giant slabs of marble, joined across the top, all three bearing not only a Crest, but an image of the Digidestined it belonged to. They weren't in bad shape, but they looked like they'd been through a lot of damage. It was as if the people depicted were still alive somehow, but that their present state of health was none too good.
The three originals, etched by some crude tools, perhaps, stared out at them from the crumbling rock. Two were young women, both lusciously beautiful and with ferocity and pride shining from their cold marble eyes. The other was a strong young man, just as ferocious-looking with an extra dimension of masculine power radiating from him.
"How old d'you think they were?" Hikaru asked.
"If I had to guess, I'd say their late teens," Chris shrugged. "They don't look very old, but there's something about them…something adult, something wild. I really can't put my finger on it…"
"And you have the Mind's Eye Crest," she teased. "C'mon, let's keep investigating, shall we?"
She tugged on his hand, and he obliged by following her straight into the middle of the standing stones. The space in the middle was amazing: it was nearly the length of twenty football fields, and all cement. The cement bore a large pentagram, along with some runes that may have been names.
Hikaru suddenly shivered and grabbed his arm tightly. "We should get out of here," she whispered urgently.
As though something had heard her, they both hurtled out of the vast space like a giant hand had picked them up and thrown them. They landed, painfully, in front of a small pair of white and pink Barbie sneakers. The little girl in the sneakers was looking down at them reproachfully.
"You shouldn't have gone in there," said Tania, a frown creasing her pretty face. Kanejamon was in her arms, and his violet eyes shone with nearly the same rebuking expression Tania wore.
"Tania?" Hikaru sputtered. "But what—"
"Don't go back in there, Hikaru," the little girl implored, stooping down and taking her big sister's hand. "It's dangerous. The Beast stirred when you went in there. I felt him twitch."
Chris stared at her. "What?!"
"Just don't go back there. If he comes out at the wrong time, we might never go home!" With that she walked away over the hill, leaving her sister and Chris staring after her.
But she didn't go back to the camp, although Chris and Hikaru did. They didn't notice she was missing.
"I saw that," the older girl said severely, the light breeze lifting a lock of her long dark hair from her face. "Felt it, too. It felt like a splice of lightning, or something as equally painful in my brain. Couldn't you have thought of any simpler way to get them out of there? Maybe yelling, or—never mind, you couldn't have gone in there anyway."
The two girls were standing on a grassy hill just outside the Plains themselves, about a kilometer away from the campsite. They could see the tiny pinprick of the campfire from where they stood, surrounded by sleeping bodies.
Tania shrugged. "I did what I had to."
Kinaka paced up and down the hill, her eyes flashing hazel as they occasionally did when she was upset. "Still, using your powers…damn, Tania, I really wish you hadn't done that. Now they probably guess what's going on, and we can't have that happen. They wouldn't understand magic if it hit them in the face like a Nanimon's punch."
"I don't care!" the little girl cried. With her small fists clenched and her defiant eyes cast up toward Kinaka, she looked remarkably like her cousin. "I'm really scared for them, Kina, I really am. I don't know what to do! All these things I see and all the things that happen when I'm trying not to make them happen…I just want it to stop! I'd rather not know that they're most likely going to die in a few days, than to see what will happen if they slip up somehow!"
Kinaka bent and placed a hand on Tania's shoulder. "Shhh…little cousin, you have to understand something. We are what we are for a reason, even if we don't know what that reason is," she soothed her. "I started seeing things like this when I was really little. It was very scary at first, I admit it, but things got better. You know why?"
Numbly, Tania shook her head.
"They got better because I let myself see them. Cousin, you try so hard to deny that part of you that makes you this way, and let me tell you, it's going to get worse before it gets better if you do that. Trust me, I went through that too. I see what's ahead as well…perhaps I see it a little better than you, because I've had a little more practice. But you have to let these things happen. And you have to learn how to control it. That's why I'm here; that's why I'm trying to teach you. Because it's scary to do this all alone."
Tania sniffled, and suddenly she reached out and hugged Kinaka around the waist. "Kina, just don't let me get hurt. Don't let anything hurt me," she snuffled into Kinaka's shirt.
"You crazy kid. I can't afford to let anything happen to you. Me and you are the only witches in the family, you know, and if things had turned out a different way, maybe your mommy and daddy and siblings could have been as strong as us. But your mother and father's powers are very limited to begin with, which is why they're losing them as they grow older. Kiko and Hikaru…don't get me started on them. They're kinda too normal, if you know what I mean. But then again, there's bound to be a few people in a family that skip certain genes, and I guess Kiko and Hikaru skipped them like a couple of big hopscotch squares."
Tania giggled. "What about Julian?" she queried.
Kinaka sighed. "I don't know. He has a huge part to play in this battle, and even though you and I don't know what it is, it must be a big one. He must have some sort of magical powers. I mean, I have no clue how he got to that gateway all by himself. He's just little…"
"Hey, I'm just little too! At least I had the sense not to get stuck in the stupid barrier like he did. I went all the way through," said Tania indignantly.
"That you did, kiddo," Kinaka grinned. "Hey, tell you what, let's stop talking now. Show me what you've been working on for the final battle. What we're going to do will probably make or break our team, and we can't afford to lose."
Tania nodded and closed her eyes. Her small hands were out in front of her, and they soon began to spill over with an almost liquid blue light, just like in Kinaka's vision…
"What's that in the horizon?" Lady Kazuma asked, her eyes narrowed. Her strange eyes glittered in the blackness of the night.
One of her officers peered into the depths of the darkness, until he could make out a tiny flicker of blue light, raising itself into a pillar up to the sky. "I'm—I'm not sure, my lady," he stammered. "But it is coming from the direction of the enemies."
She swore and spit into the fire. "I want to know what it is."
"But my lady, it may be something dangerous."
"Danger is my middle name. Now go and look, you damned fool!"
Obediently, he spread his wings and took to the sky. As he flew, he noticed the sparks of light suddenly go out. Still he kept flying, relying on his sharp senses to steer him in the direction of the source of light. Finally, he thought he saw two forms and hovered overhead, unseen to those below him…until he hit a blockage in the air that felt akin to an electric fence.
He fell backwards and began to spiral down out of the air, unsure of what had happened. His last thoughts were of his pain as he slammed into the ground and was instantly deleted.
Frightened and in awe, Tania approached the quickly disintegrating body of the DarkFiannamon. "Is he…?" she asked, unsure of how to form the question.
"He's gone," Kinaka affirmed. Her cool blue eyes rested on her little cousin. "That was really quite impressive. From what I could tell, you set up something a little like ant poison, or those citronella candles that attract flies. Or a Venus flytrap. I'm not sure which is a better analogy."
Tania shivered. "I didn't like doing that, but I guess I know it works now."
"Good job. Now help me clean this place up a bit, in case someone comes looking for him. I have a nasty feeling that they will."
Once they had created the illusion necessary to mask the site of the DarkFiannamon's death, they moved unseen through the Plains and settled down to sleep for the night. Before they did, however, they masked their campsite as well. Better to be safe than sorry.
Hopelight: Yes, I realize that giving Kinaka and Tania supernatural powers was kinda farfetched. But let me explain my rationale for this:
Firstly, they're cousins, right? And Tania is Kari's daughter. But wait a minute, you doubtful Thomases may be saying. What about Kinaka? Well, she's Matt's daughter. And who is Matt's brother? Takeru. Therefore, the magic gene must run through the Takaishi-Ishida line somehow. (How Hikari acquired powers like she did is really beyond me. Perhaps she was just innately magical. I dunno.) At any rate, Kinaka got magic in a big way. And with two powerful parents, Tania's pretty damn strong too.
My other reason was that in her original profile of Kinaka, her creator asked that she possess some sort of mystical property to her. So, I thought, why not take it a step further? After all, she is a relation of Takeru. So there we go. My reasoning behind making the two of them witches. If y'all wants me to make Hikaru, Kiko and Julian uber-powerful (Julian's gonna be strong like them either way), you'll have to agree or disagree in reviews. 'Kay?
PerniciousTrixie: Is it just me, or do your author's notes get longer and longer?
Hopelight: Quiet, you fiend!