The Crest of The Heavens
By ArchangelUK

I do not own Digimon, if I did I would be very rich, would have had Takari and I'd have kept the characters from 01/02... but I don't own Digimon so none of those things occured.

Damnit...

Mimi: Just when things had begun to calm down again Davis went and made a silly mistake that alerted a group of possessed Mamothmon where we were and we ended up fighting again. At first we held back thinking they were just under Nemisomon's control, byt it turned out that he had permanently corrupted their data! Jarret said the only thing to do was to stop their suffering so everyone stepped it up a gear, eventually we won with MagnaAngemon sucking the majority of them into a Gate of Destiny. But this was not before one of the Mamothmon launched it's Tusk Crusher attack at Kari. Jarret saved her using his powers and he blamed Davis for putting Kari in danger, saving her must have taken something out of him though as he began to fade and actually fell through Izzy and Tai! He came back only to disappear completely a little while later - oh why do the cute ones always vanish on me?

Chapter 6: Dark Moves

"On the day there is 13 a choice is made, a path is taken, and that path shall lead 13 to light and 1 to shadow."
- The Prophecy of The Thirteenth DigiDestined

Twenty-four pairs of eyes fixed themselves on the spot where future digidestined and new ally Jarret had been only a fraction of a second ago.

"What happened Izzy?"

"I don't know, Tai. He just vanished." Izzy pulled out his digivice and hooked it up to his old pinapple laptop, "It wasn't like the last time he didn't even expect it, like he was taken or something so he must still be in the digital world. I'll begin a search to look for his digivice, hopefully I'll at least get a partial signature."

The keeper of knowledge tapped away at the keys, all sorts of data coming up and rapidly disappearing from the monitor. Maps, bearings, ratios, formulae came and went Izzy was pulling out every last digital trick he could think of to locate him.

"You don't think something changed the timeline do you?" TK asked worriedly, as Izzy's search finally heralded it's results. The words 'No results found' emblazoned on the screen, Izzy chewed his lip thoughfully.

"No. He didn't fade like the last time, Jarret seemed to know there was something coming then. This time it was like something just, well, took him."

Jarret looked around him, this room, this reality was more or less featureless he looked down almost casually at his D3 and grimiced, there were no other digidestined here - just him.

Although the reality was dark it suddenly seemed to get even darker, as it faded away into a dark sky. Solid walls replaced by menacing black thunderclouds, a light wind picked up and whistled through his hair blowing it into his eyes and causing no end of irritation.

Silent isn't it? A voice spoke inside his mind, Jarret closed his eyes, he knew who the voice belonged to.
Until then at any rate. He answered,
You don't seem to realise when it is neccessary to give up, to lose hope, to...
To give in to you?
Exactly.
To give in to you would be to forfeit my existence and to condemn those I care for to infinite darkness and despair.
I assume that's a no then...
Where are my friends?
Safe, for the moment, but not much longer. Their fate is in our hands now.

As this was said, Nemesomon showed himself, he floated about two meters away from Jarret and eyed him with avid intensity.

What do you mean our hands?
This, Jarret.

A chess board suddenly matterialised between them, it was large, about a metre square, although it a normal board the squares were black and yellow as opposed to black and white. Nemesomon waved a hand and the pieces appeared on the table, each black square now was engraved with the symbol on Nemesomon's belt, every yellow square with the crest of the heavens. The pieces were not normal, being replaced by appropriate people. There were now eight Patamon pawns, two Nefertimon rooks, two Pegasusmon knights, two Gatomon bishops and most disturbing of all a Queen Kari and a King T.K. Shadow versions of digidestined and their digimon were the black pieces.

The sky to Jarret's right changed into a view of the digital world and followed an overhead view of TK and Kari, who appeared to be searching for Jarret. Nemesomon smiled, Shall we play a game?

"I don't know where he could be Kari."

"Well we'll just have to keep looking."

Kari stumbled over a root, but kept her composure. Kari noticed TK had shot out his arm in readiness to catch her, despite the fact is wasn't neccessary she nodded her thanks at him. TK blushed slightly but Kari didn't notice, they had been searching for at least two hours and had not seen any sign of the mysterious Jarret anywhere. Cody had just e-mailed them saying that he and Yolei hadn't had any luck either, whilst Ken and Davis where still searching some rock formations with Stingmon and Exveemon giving "air support" as Davis called it. TK noticed how Davis had actually managed to spell 'air' as 'eire'. He chuckled to himself as he showed Kari,

"Davis is really trying, he's got the whole of Ireland searching for him!" Kari tried to look disapprovingly at him but couldn't keep a straight face, she giggled despite the poor attempt at humour, breaking the gloomy mood she had been in.

"TK..."

"I'm sorry, bad joke, well it made you laugh anyway so it was worth it."

"Angemon and Angewomon should be back soon, we'd best wait for them and decide what to do next."

You are white, you get to go first.
Why are you doing this Nemisomon?
Because this way is much more fun, and dear Jarret, don't you remember the last game we played.

Jarret thought back to that game,

"OK Terrimon, Knight to K4."
"Hmmm." Terrimon murmered, and reached up with his left ear to scratch his head. "Good move, I'm in trouble Jarry."
"You play well Terrimon, someday I might even beat you."
"Jarry, I doubt that very much."

That game ended in stalemate if you remember.
I could have won.
But you didn't...Jarry.
Don't call me Jarry! My name is Jarret.
Well, whatever you prefer to be called, I call a rematch.

Nemisomon looked across at the image of TK and Kari walking through the forest, Angemon and Angewomon had returned and dedigivolved into Gatomon and Patamon. Nemisomon smiled,
So it begins.

TK hurled himself to his right grabbing Kari and spinning her to the ground, the projectile hit the rock behind them causing it to explode into hundreds of fragments. "What was that?" TK yelled

"I don't know," Gatomon replied as a fleet of red eyes appeared, "But this isn't good." The shapes grew and became clearer as they stepped out of the forest, TK helped Kari to her feet.

"Are you ok?" He whispered to her,

"Yeah, thanks TK." Kari brushed herself down and gave TK a half smile, she then noticed Gatomon and Patamon looking away from both of them eyes and wide as possible and mouths open in surprise.

"Gatomon what..." She trailed off when she saw what they had seen,

"What's wrong?" said TK.

"Er, TK?" Patamon said, "You might want to see this." TK looked over his shoulder to see four figures standing there. They were undoubtably himself, Kari and their digimon. They were definately not identical...

"Well, well, well." The girl stepped forward, she looked like Kari save for jet black hair and a grey top, her voice had an icy tinge to it. The real Kari took a step back in surprise, TK just stared at his duplicate, the hat was replaced by a black band and his eyes were a steely grey.

"Who are you?" Gatomon demanded.

"Us?" Her Doppelganger purred, "We're you, only slightly more...hmm, how shall I put this?" She turned to the Dark Patamon who gave a hollow laugh,

"We're you, only better."

"Wanna bet?" Patamon growled, taking a pace towards the grey batpig.

"Oh, we do." TK#2 said, "Infact we bet your lives on it!"

Nemisomon moved one of his pawns forward to mirror the move Jarret made, next Jarret used the gap to allow his bishop onto the board, he delicately placed the carved Gatomon figurine on it's square. The 'image' next to them showed the scene being played out in what appeared to be super-slow motion. Both Patamons were eye to eye, while Gatomon had begun to spring forward, with a flourish Nemisomon brought out a Pegasusmon knight.

The grey Patamon sneered at his orange counterpart, and the evil TK simply commanded. "Digiarmour energise!" The grey Patamon disappeared in a flash of light, being replaced by a large winged horse with eyes blazing with hatred, the dimly coloured Pegasusmon kicked Patamon back to TK. TK cried out and went to his friends aid, and back on the chessboard, Nemisomon took the first pawn.

"Patamon!"

"TK..."

"Come on Patamon, lets go...Digiarmour energise!" TK held the digivice in the air but nothing happened.

"It's not working." Kari wailed.

"Try and digivolve Patamon."

"I tried Digivolving to Angemon, but I couldn't. I tried using my boom bubble attack too, but it just wouldn't form, something's holding me back."

"Er, guys?" The two males looked around at Gatomon, who was frozen in mid-lunge. "I can't move." The Dark quartet laughed, the shadow Kari looked down at her evil partner. "Go and destroy them Gatomon!" The evil cat went to move but she too found she was unable.

"What the? The master - what is he doing, why won't he let me destroy them." She hissed. Instead the Pegasusmon dedigivolved to Patamon and disappeared, reappearing opposite the real Kari. Who ran forward and grabbed him, despite it's protestations it soon found itself airborne hitting Kari's duplicate squarely on the nose. TK blinked in surprise as Kari looked around in confusion,

"Did I just do that?" She asked, mortified at her actions.

And Jarret took one of Nemisomon's pawns with his queen.

The match continued with much digivolving, periods of standing like statues and sudden teleportations. Back in the sub-dimension Jarret rubbed his temples, he had removed a fair share of Nemisomon's pieces. These included both knights, one of the bishops, one rook and about half the Patamon pawns. Nemisomon however had removed about the same number, except both of Jarret's rooks had been taken, and he still had one knight.

"Check." Nemisomon grinned, Jarret instantly took the offending piece with his remaining bishop. The real Gatomon dealt a lightning paw to the grey Patamon and he was deleted, though he reappeared immediately by the counterpart TK.

Good move Jarret, but a warning.
A warning?
Be wary of your moves, for I have already taken the digivolutions of your...cat. One more wrong move and she's out of the game. Forever.

Jarret's eyes widened and he realised what he'd let himself in for, he was playing a game of chess with the lives of hope and light.

Oh no...
Yes, I'm surprised you didn't realise earlier. Of course, it wouldn't have been much fun if I told you at the beginning.

Jarret looked down at the pieces and realise he was in a vulnerable position, he had to go on the offensive and remove Nemisomon's queen, it above all was doing the most damage. Jarret began to shake with fear, causing a smile to creep over Nemisomon's face. The match was as good as won.

Jarret got up from the board and rubbed his eyes, I can't do it... His mind cried to him, the subconcious voice shot through with panic. I can't win and keep them all from destruction. I can't protect them....

Protect them....

A memory sparked in the back of Jarret's mind, long before the previous one, when his dad was first trying to teach him.

Protect them....

"But Dad, it's impossible - how am I supposed to protect them from here?"
"You're so impatient Jarret, that's not the purpose of the game."
"But if you lose your pieces then you are at a disadvantage."
"Not if you plan ahead, the aim is to win - not to win without loss. Don't think too little and don't think too much, trust your instincts."
"Ok, what do I do."
"Sacrifice your Queen."

Sacrifice my Queen... Jarret tentaively picked up the Kari shaped chessman and placed it on the square, knowing full well the move Nemisomon would make.

And Nemisomon took Jarret's queen.

This is SOS call to all UK Digimon Fans, you might have noticed that the backstabbing entity called 'CITV' has once again decided to can Digimon 02. This time replacing it (with only 7 episodes to go) with Digimon Tamers, it was bad enough when they dropped it for Cardcaptors. Myself and Digicowboy have quite frankly had ENOUGH of CITV doing this, it also did it with Reboot (and Spellbinder for those who remember that one), we are starting a campaign to return 02 to the airwaves and get a decent regular repeat showing of 01.

Go to Http://www.geocities.com/happy_hylian/fury_page for details on how to join D.A.T.I.C (Digifanatics Againsts The Injustice of CITV) or contact us at archangeluk@hotmail.com or Digicowboy : happy_hylian@hotmail.com

AAUK 0:-)