Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, big surprise. But I'm going to borrow some of the characters.
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"It's so beautiful," Hikari said to herself. High above the clouds the dragon of heaven soared where it belonged the most. She flew with the utmost majesty and modesty, flapping her ten wings in a pattern so elegantly slow. They're steady flight had lasted days, and it seemed as if they were getting no where, but that was the least of their thoughts. Though the air was thin and the temperature was cold, Hikari gazed upon the world below her with her lover by her side that held her tightly.
"Can we please fly a bit closer to the ground?!" Takeru pleaded, keeping on arm tightly around Hikari and the other holding on even more tightly to the mane around Holy Dramon's neck.
She pecked him on the cheek, such innocence. "A little down, okay?"
"As long as he stops pulling my hair," her angel said. Hikari patted her on the head.
Her holy beast was massive, the size of a house back home. She was perfect for the long flights across the horizon and made for a stable craft. Takeru might have had a heart attack if Angemon had dared to fly him up so high in his arms, dangling over the landscape. Takeru eased up a bit, but still held tightly onto Holy Dramon and kept his eyes closed.
"You were never afraid of heights before," Hikari mused.
"We were never this high up before!' Takeru whined.
She touched his hair with her hand, slowly stroking across his head like a mother. As he relaxed, he managed to sit up and lean against Holy Dramon's head next to Hikari. Patamon crawled up into Takeru's arms where he held him tightly.
"Don't tell me you're scared, too," Hikari said.
"No," Patamon announced. "It's cold up here."
"You guys," Hikari laughed.
"Hikari," said Holy Dramon. "Look ahead, it's a flying island."
She propped herself on Holy Dramon's back and looked forward. She was right, a huge island that looked like an iceberg of stone and rock. Falls of water fell from the sides down through the clouds to the ground that couldn't be seen as the flat top of the floating landmass was covered with trees and buildings right up to the edge. The underside looked as if it had been ripped from the ground, like an upside-down mountain. Many buildings were also on the underside, built into the rock itself. There was a cave to the underside, perhaps a place for flying Digimon to come and go. Something seemed dead about the city, there was no movement or signs of life. Many of the buildings had been destroyed, and lay in rubble on the surface of the burg. Vines and trees had overgrown over the walls of the buildings that managed to survive the ravages of time.
"Do you want to check it out, Takeru?" Hikari asked.
He looked up from where he was sitting, holding both Holy Dramon and Patamon close. "Sure okay, just sit down please you might fall!"
She laughed at him and told Holy Dramon to fly ahead, to land at the top of the floating city. She figured the city must have kept itself floating using levitation crystals, but the reason why they would do so seemed a mystery at that time. It looked as if an entire kingdom sat atop that island in the sky, as Holy Dramon set down on the outer edges of the city.
**
"TK!" A voice from the other room yelled. "Sweetie, I can't take you to school today, could you walk?"
"It's no problem, Mom!" he yelled back. He ran a comb through his hair before straightening the tie around his neck. He sighed and pulled around his black jacket and buttoned it up to the collar around his neck. Takeru loathed his High School uniforms, although Hikari had once told him it was cute. Making sure his book were all in order, he jammed them in his attaché and walked out of his room. He could hear his mother's furious typing on the keyboard as she wrote whatever it was that she wrote.
TK tossed his bag by the door and ran into his mother's study to kiss her on the cheek and say goodbye. She told him that he looked extra nice that day, like she said everyday. As Takeru walked down the stairs of his apartment complex, he wondered what today would bring that was not brought on any other day. He figured today would be no different from days before.
"I had the weirdest dream last night," Hikari said. They met each other on the streets as Takeru made way for school. She had the schools dark blue dress and white shirt with a sailor scarf on. Although Takeru saw here like that all the time, it didn't stop him from thinking she was cute in it. "This little white cat-thing was running towards me. But it didn't look like a cat-cat. It was like one of those Pokemon things."
"Weird," he said. He stretched his neck out and it made a loud cracking sound that relieved him.
"That's gross, TK," Hikari complained. "Don't do that in front of girls."
He gave a stupid smile and asked why.
"It's not something we like."
"Or maybe something that you don't like," Takeru said. "It might only bother some."
"Go find a girl that isn't grossed out by that and I'll give you a dollar," she said.
"I want more than a dollar," Takeru teased. As they got closer to the school, Takeru saw a small group of girls. They were the cheerleaders for Takeru's basketball team, and when they saw him they all managed to surround him, leaving Hikari outside the circle. They told him how nice he looked that day, and how well he scored last game, and whether he had plans the following weekend.
Takeru stuttered as he tried to answer each girl once, but gave up and said, "Um, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go."
"What? Why?!" the group complained in unison.
Takeru looked around helplessly for Hikari. She was standing against a wall a few feet away from the mob. "Hikari needs my help on some math, uh, stuff. Yeah, that's it." He squirmed out of the circle and ran to Hikari's side. He waved at the girls before walking along with her. Hikari couldn't help but giggle.
"You're so popular with the ladies," she said.
Takeru could hear the group whispering as Takeru and Hikari walked away together. Most people did that whenever he and Hikari were together. Lot's of talk, but TK could only wish what they were saying was true. TK blushed and said, "They're just friends."
"Right," she trailed.
Takeru stepped in front of her and walked backwards with Hikari. He threw his bag over his shoulder and watched Hikari. "You look nice today," he squeaked.
She blushed a little from the compliment. "Thanks. You too."
And that was what each morning was like. In the distance, Takeru could see something flying. It looked like a bat and it flew over the cars that filled the streets. But it faded away, and Takeru thought that he must have been imagining things.
"My brother told me a little dinosaur was chasing him in his dreams," Hikari said. "A little orange one."
"You're whole family must just be weird," he teased.
Hikari pushed him on the chest playfully, but she let her hand linger there on his shirt as she felt his body. She wondered what the rest of his body felt like, and what it would be like for it to touch her. She blinked a few times, and pulled her hand back, before smiling and forcing Takeru to turn around.
"You're going to walk into something like that," she preached.
Later on, it was dark and Takeru was cold and alone. He could feel cold and hot sweat trickle down his body but his body wouldn't move. A dark figure before him laughed and reached down for him, beckoning him into his massive hand. Takeru wanted to run and hide, but his limbs were weak and wouldn't move. He was alone with his fears. He didn't think of where he was or how he was there, only that there was no place to go and no way to get there.
Taichi chased them from behind, running upwards asking them to slow down. "Hey, guys." He was wearing the blue headband around his head like he did when they were younger. It made him seem all the more innocent and childish. "So where are you two off to?"
"School," Hikari said. "Where do you think?"
"Knowing you two, skipping and going off alone somewhere," he snickered. He pointed a finger at Takeru. "You watch out. She's crazy."
Hikari pushed him into the wall of bushes that they walked by, yelling for him to shut up and leave them alone.
"You know I'm just playing around." He averted his eyes quickly, as if hearing something from behind. Nothing was there, but when he turned back around to face forward he stopped and froze with a frightened gaze.
Hikari saw true fear and confusion in his eyes. He wasn't joking around this time. "What is it," she began to shake his shoulders. "Tai what's wrong?"
"Don't-don't you see it?" he squeaked.
"See what?" Takeru said.
"It's the little dinosaur," he pointed forward to nothing that Hikari or Takeru could see. "He's talking, but I can't hear him. Don't you see him?!"
Hikari was terrified at Taichi's words. Was he going mad? Were the figures that haunted the nights of his dreams released into his world of day? She shook him but he didn't say another word.
"Taichi!" It was a voice from behind. Neither Taichi nor Hikari moved an inch as he stared into nothingness and Hikari stood staring at him. Takeru turned, a girl Taichi's age was waving as she ran up to the small group.
She pulled on Taichi's arm to turn him around, breaking him from his vision. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. "Hey, what's up?"
Taichi blinked a few times before regaining himself. He smiled and pecked her on the cheek. "What's up with you?"
This girl was obviously Taichi's girlfriend, as she stared into his eyes with that look of childish love. Takeru and Hikari exchanged glances, but Hikari's was worried and confused. She cleared her voice loudly and kicked her elder brother in the leg.
"Oh," he said. "Yumi, this is my little sister Hikari and her boyfriend Takeru."
"He's not my boyfriend, Tai!" she complained. That one comment had made her forget what had just happened.
Takeru just stood there with a blushing face and a stupid grin as he waved childishly at her. Hikari drilled Taichi of who this girl was and why no one had even mentioned anything to her and how her own brother wouldn't tell her that he had a girlfriend and that she seemed to be a very nice person. This went on for several minutes before Takeru decided to save his friend Tai by pulling on Hikari's arm.
"We should get going," he said. "We have classes."
Hikari sighed, then glared at her brother once more before they said goodbye and left. The school was not more than a few blocks away. "I've never seen that girl before," she said. "I wonder who she is."
Takeru shrugged. "Ionno."
"He makes me so angry sometimes," she clenched her fist and imagined her brother ahead of him. She shook it off and asked, "Did we have math homework?"
"Math homework?"
She thought about her request. It must have been automatic, something she often asked. But as she thought about it, she couldn't remember the last time she had math homework, or math class at all.
Takeru must have been thinking the same thing, as he said, "I don't remember anything about math. I don't even remember what classes we have today."
Yumi appeared ahead of them, popping out of a corner without any notice. She waved them upwards and said, "Hey you guys! We have PE together."
"Really?" Takeru said. "Aren't you in high school?"
"Nope," she announced. "8th grader."
Hikari was annoyed that her older brother was dating a girl in middle school. "Why do you have 7th grade PE then?"
She shrugged. "Dunno. But I do! Isn't it cool? We can get to know each other now. Let's go!" She pulled on both their arms and ran them the rest of the way to school.
Outside the doors to the school, Hikari asked, "Yumi, how did you meet my brother?"
Her eyes shifted from side to side as if to hide something. She struggled with her words that were inaudible until the bell rang in time to save her from an explanation. She dragged them into the school with nothing spoken and they broke up to go to the different locker rooms.
Takeru slowly made his way out after changing. Something wasn't right with anything. Nothing around him was familiar, not as it should have been. The people he didn't know were no longer around. The familiar faces that he was not necessarily aquatinted to seemed to have disappeared from the school. Everyone around was faceless to him. Nothing was right.
He felt Hikari's hand on his arm. He turned and they stared into each other eyes for a long moment alone in the huge hallway. They seemed to speak to one another with their eyes, before Hikari broke the silence. "Something isn't right, TK."
He nodded. "No one here seems real. Only you, Yumi, and your brother. Everyone else I've seen today seemed dead to me."
She nodded and let her arm brush against his chest. "It's like we're in the Dark Digital World." She blinked a few times after she said that.
"The what?" those words seemed familiar to him. "What are you talking about."
"I, I'm not sure," she whispered. Those words just seemed to come from deep in her mind as she now had no idea what she meant. Those words, Digital World, had little meaning to her. What was the Digital World? And why was it Dark?
Takeru drilled into her soul with his eyes, but neither had an answer to the questions that weren't asked. Yumi found them together and she dragged them along to class.
**
A figure of white light appeared before him and destroyed the darkness. Everything was white now, and the figure turned and smiled at Takeru. It was an angel, smiling down upon Takeru's battered little body. He was speaking to him, but Takeru couldn't hear a word. He couldn't hear anything, not even his own screams. Only the pounding of his heart in his ears and the feeling of total helplessness. The angel flashed in bright light and exploded into feathers, and the darkness that surrounded them was gone. Only Takeru remained alone in a valley of white light.
He awoke in a cold sweat, breathing hard as he recalled the visions of his dream.
He told Hikari of his dream the next day. She looked at him cautiously before saying, "Last night I dreamt of an angel saving me from a vampire."
"A vampire?"
"Yeah," she said. "It's weird. Then when the vampire was gone, the cat thing came back and it smiled at me."
Takeru thought of the coincidences and patterns of both their dreams. "I think my angel saved me from a devil or something."
"What are you guys talking about?" Daisuke asked accusingly.
"Nothing," Takeru said. He and Daisuke shared a glare before Miyako started complaining about the school's food. They ate lunch together without any other meaningful conversation.
Several days later, Takeru rested his head against his pillow and wondered what the visions meant. Three days in a row, TK had dreamt of the angel shining over a mountain like the sun rising over it. He saved Takeru from the same dark figure each time, then disappeared into nothingness. Each day he would tell Hikari. She had similar dreams, as did Taichi about an orange dinosaur. And with each passing day, the walks to school seemed quieter, the surroundings dimmer. The people around were no longer people. They seemed like mindless zombies walking back and forth through a life that wasn't real.
What does it all mean?
He drifted into sleep, to be greeted by the angel again. He spoke, but Takeru couldn't hear his words. A flash of light, and Hikari stood before him. Takeru wasn't conscious of his dreams and he didn't know what was going on. Hikari was young. They were young again.
She begged him to help her, to save her.
Takeru couldn't save her. His body was frozen and rigid and there was no way to save the one he secretly loved. An angel appeared before them. This one was different, more majestic and elegant. It rescued the two of them, and cracked the mask of a clown in its hands.
Takeru's eyes flew open as he sat up in bed. Before his eyes was a small animal, the size of a dog. Its ears were like a bats' wings and it used them to keep itself in the air above Takeru's bed. The orange creature was transparent, and Takeru could see his bookshelf behind the creature through its body. "TK can you hear me!?" it pleaded, before the creature vanished. Takeru didn't sleep again that night.
"The angel became a dragon," she said early the next day. She continued to recall her latest dream. "It saved me from a black dinosaur."
"My angel became a bigger angel, and cracked a mask in his hands," Takeru said. "This is really getting weird, because when I woke up, a flying rabbit thing was in front of me. It asked me if I could hear him, then disappeared."
"Hikari!" a voice echoed. Both she and Takeru could hear it. They looked around the crowded hallways of their school for the voice, a voice that seemed to come from close to the ground. The bell rang, and students piled out for to class. The faceless crowds of people with no souls filtered down until the hall was empty. With the hall empty, Takeru and Hikari stood. The little white cat stood before the two of them, crying.
Hikari bent down and tried to touch it, but her hands passed through. The sound of the cat's crying faded away, as it tried to speak to Hikari. No words came from its small mouth even though it clearly moved. Her body became transparent, before she disappeared.
"Takeru!" another voice said. Hikari stood up and turned to see TK looking at an orange animal with wings flying in front of him. Helplessly, it tried to touch Takeru but its little hands passed through Takeru's body. The creature cried like the cat, before it disappeared.
They stood there for several minutes not speaking. Their friend Yumi found the two standing alone together in the empty hallways. "Why aren't you guys in class?" she asked.
They didn't say anything. Vacant looks covered their faces.
"You wonder why people talk about you two," she said. "Come on, let's get to class."
She playfully grabbed their arms and dragged them along to their class. She pushed them into the room and stopped to look down both directions of the hall. Yumi saw the rabbit and the cat. She glared at the two of them before walking into the classroom.
**
"This is all just so strange," Takeru said. He looked around the park to see no one around. Nothing but the birds and the trees and Hikari. It was long after school and Takeru didn't feel the need to go to basketball practice. None of his teammates seemed to care about the game. All of their plays were lazy and easy for Takeru to beat these past few days. It was as if they were different people.
"I can hear her voice in my mind," Hikari said. "She's scared. She's waiting for me. But I don't know who she is." Hikari was close to tears.
"It's like a part of myself that I left behind," Takeru sighed. "Something from another life. I think that all those visions are memories from another lifetime. Something mystical."
She sighed and leaned against Takeru's sighed. "Have you noticed nothing seems real anymore? I hugged my mom before I went to school today, and she didn't seem real. Only when I talk to my brother or you or Yumi do I feel like I'm actually talking to another human."
"Hey guys," a voice said from behind them. Yumi seemed to appear from nowhere, as she greeted her two friends. She came around the park bench and sat down. "What are you two up to?"
"Nothing much," Hikari said. "Just thinking."
"About those visions?" Yumi asked. Taichi must have told her about them as well.
"Yeah," said Takeru.
"It's probably nothing," Yumi assured. "You guys are find just forget about all that stuff. Let's go see a movie or something."
Hikari was bothered by how Yumi didn't seem to care that both she and Takeru were greatly disturbed by these visions. She could hear footsteps nearby. Careful steps from soccer shoes. Her brother Taichi stepped over and took Yumi by the hands and kissed her on the cheek.
She glowed with the love that she felt for Tai. She kissed him back and said hello. "Let's go see a movie," she said to him.
"You want to?" he replied.
"Sure."
He looked down at Hikari and Takeru and asked if they wanted to go. Far across the park they heard a crash as something hit the ground, uprooting several trees, and creating a crater in the earth. Hikari and Takeru both stood to go see what was happening, and as they started to run with Tai, Yumi yelled, "No! Let's go this might be dangerous! We have to go!" She pulled on Tai's arm.
He broke free and assured her that they would be fine.
Nothing was in the crater. Not a beast, not a comet, not anything. Nothing had made the indentation in the land, and as the three wondered what was happening, another crater appeared to their left. It was as if some invisible mass was repeatedly being thrown against the ground.
In a flash of light, a creature appeared in the hole. It was a black dragon of some sort, with a metalic face and cybernetic implants on its arms. The creature was translucent, and Takeru wondered if it was there or not.
A translucent angel appeared and struck the creature with his long staff, it the angel from Takeru's visions. Another angel appeared a moment later, this one was a woman. She shot an arrow of light towards the beast. The park was totally silent as this occurred, making everything all the more eerie and frightening.
The three figures disappeared, fading away into the sky without a sound. The four children stood in the silence of the park, before they began to hear shouts and other sounds coming form all around. There were crashes and yelling. A male's voice shouted something that none could understand with a very heroic tone. The woman shouted after him. Then a groaning roar from what could have been the dragon.
The landscape suddenly turned black and white, flashing between color and monochrome. Yumi begged them to come back with her to safety. In a flash of light, the park was no longer alive with trees or birds. The trees were dead, most were burnt. No life was anywhere to be seen.
Everything was still black and white when Takeru looked up above at the city that was no longer a city. The once tall buildings were now gone, replaced with the ruins of alien walls and materials of architecture Takeru had never seen. The angels were now clearly visible, fighting the black dragon.
There was another flash, and the park returned to color and the trees were filled with leaves. "What is going on?!" Takeru screamed.
"Takeru!"
"Hikari!"
Two echoing voices from above pleaded for them.
"Can you hear us?" they yelled.
"Yes!" Hikari cried. "Who are you?"
"Try to remember, Hikari," the woman's voice said. "I am your Angewomon."
"Takeru," the man's voice bellowed, "I am your Angemon. Try to remember us!"
"Angemon?" Takeru whispered to himself.
"No!" Yumi cried. "Don't listen to them. They want to hurt you! Please, let's all go home!"
"Don't listen to her," the woman's voice said. "She's trying to control you. Try to remember us!"
Sounds of fighting continued until there was another crash and another crater appeared on the ground. Takeru and Hikari strained to remember everything they could about the two voices. They had two Digimon. One was a small white cat that was once evil. But, with the light of Hikari's heart, returned to the side of good. The other was an orange rabbit that could fly, he was born from the hope that Takeru carried in his soul. They were angels sent from higher powers to protect them from evil.
"Yumi, what's going on?" Hikari snapped. "You know what's going on, don't you."
"Don't talk to her like that," Tai snapped. "Can't you see she's scared."
"She's not scared," Takeru said. "She knows what's happening here. Tell us!"
Yumi started to cry, and held onto her Taichi tightly. She buried her face in his chest as Tai yelled at both his sister and Takeru. The vision of the park faded away and the dead kingdom returned. The two angels set down behind Takeru and Hikari.
"I didn't mean for this to happen," Yumi sobbed. "All I wanted was my prince. Nothing more."
"Yumi, what are you talking about?" Taichi said.
"I'm sorry my prince."
"Taichi!" a third voice. He turned to see an dragon that looked like the black one, except this one was orange and had legs. "Taichi!"
"You're made of metal," he whispered softly.
"Taichi, you can see me," he said.
"Metal…"
"Taichi, let go of the vision," he said.
"I'm so sorry, Tai. I didn't have the power. I will always love you," Yumi said. She faded away and Taichi was standing alone with torn clothes and a look of utter confusion. Hikari pulled him away and she took him away from the dead kingdom of forgotten dreams. It was over.
**
"It's starting to come back to me," Taichi said, as he held tightly onto his Agumon. "I was a prince of that floating kingdom, and Yumi was my princess. But I left one day to search for my sister and my friends, and when I returned, the kingdom was destroyed, my people were dead, my princess was gone.
"I think that she created a world from my memories because the time that I spent there was with dwelling on the past. Dwelling on what I left behind and those I use to be close to. She wanted me for herself because we loved each other so deeply. Her spirit wanted me to never leave her side, so she created a world what I would never want to leave. Her undead soul couldn't let go of the life that she could have had with me.
"She couldn't control Agumon's mind, though. Not like me. Digimon are not as susceptible to those kinds of mind control, I guess. Everyday I walked through that dead city followed by my Digimon who I couldn't see. It probably went on for months and months, and he continued to follow me. So loyal…" he trailed off.
"And then we came," Takeru said, as he stroked Patamon's back.
"She had a kind heart," Taichi said. His voice cracked now, as stray tears fell from his eyes onto Agumon, the orange little dinosaur. "She knew I cared about you two, so instead of killing you or banishing you from our home, she integrated you into our fantasy world without any of us knowing." He looked across the skies distantly at what he left behind. "May you finally rest in peace, Yumi."
Hikari placed her hand on her brother's shoulder. They shared a look only siblings could see, and Taichi smiled. "I'm glad you found us. If it weren't for you, I would have been alone on that graveyard for the rest of my life. Her powers of mind control must not have been strong enough to hide the images of the Digimon from all three of us. That's why you two had visions every night whereas I only had one vision the whole time. She spent most of her energy keeping my past buried deep within me."
"If that Mega Dramon hadn't attacked," Patamon said, "I don't think any of you would have ever realized we were there."
"Her spirit," Taichi said, "was tied into the dead rock. When the evil Digimon broke the feiled of energy in that city she lost her powers of the afterworld. She lost grip on the dream. By the time you destroyed Mega Dramon, the hand she kept around the fantasy was so loose that the three of us already remember too much, and she faded away. It's why we remembered. Please do not hate her for what she did. All she wanted was happiness," he pleaded. "She deserved that much."
Agumon looked up at Taichi. "It's okay, Tai."
"I'm sorry I left you alone all those months."
"It's no problem." He nudged his snout against Taichi's chin. "It's good to be together again."
Tai smiled. "Anyway, when did Gatomon turn into a flying dog?" he asked as he patted the soft pink hair that they sat on top of.
Authors Notes: Anyone who read the original chapter 11 might notice some changes, but the main idea is the same. I hope that this rewrite is clearer, I know that the last one was choppy.