The Crest of The Heavens
By ArchangelUK

I do not own Digimon, however I do own half a pound of tuppany rice and half a pound of treacle which I intend to use to develop explosive compounds...

Grrr! Come 'ere weasel!

Jarret: Nemisomon had taken me to some sort of sub-reality and then made me play a sick chess game, the catch being it was with the lives of TK, Kari, Patamon and Gatomon. Even the pieces bore resemabalance to them and all our actions impacted upon their movements. Eventually to win I had to sacrifice my queen - Kari - and though she was killed by the dark Patamon I managed to bring her back by getting one of my pawns all the way to the other side of the board! The game might well be over, but I doubt Nemisomon is going to give up anytime soon...

Chapter 8: Better Days

"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

"Checkmate." Jarret said, his voice joining that of TK and Kari

Nemisomon roared with anger as the image changed to show the pink light spreading outwards towards the shadow DigiDestined, most specifically the Dark TK. As the light touched them they seemed to scream in pain, and when the light disappeared only the two digimon and humans remained in the clearing.

"Kari!" TK cried and ran towards her, Kari held her hand to her forehead and moved very unsteadily a few paces forward. She began to faint as TK reached her and collapsed into his waiting arms, Gatomon leapt over TK's head and into her lap.

"Kari! Are you okay?" Her partner asked worriedly, Kari a little worse for wear managed to smile.

"I'm fine. She whispered, TK held her tighter as Gatomon hugged her too.

"I-I-I thought..I'd...lo-lost you!" She bawled, crying into Kari's T-shirt. TK wiped a couple of his own tears away and kissed Kari gently on the forehead.

"Don't ever scare me like that again."

"I promise."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Yes Nemisomon, ohhhh yes!" Jarret taunted, "I win. You lose."

"NO! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS BOY!"

"I bet I will... but not today!" Jarret jumped upwards and away from Nemisomon, he began to accelerate disappearing into the clouds behind him as his hair whipped into his eyes. Faster and faster he flew backwards away from the board and the digimon then as the clouds seemed to be at their thickest - sunshine. Blue sky too, Jarret could see birds and trees and... the ground. He fell from his position, hovering horizontally at 5 ft in the air and fell right on top of TK and Kari.

There was a trio of "Ow!"s.

"Well, that was a novel experience." Jarret eventually said, examining himself to see if all his body parts were in the place they used to be.

"The days seem to get better." Joe said, rubbing his shin as a purple bruise began to appear eliciting a wince from the blue haired boy.

"Yeah better days..." Matt brushed a stray lock of hair back into position. It had been a full seven days since the events involving Kari, Jarret, TK, Gatomon and Patamon. Seven days since Jarret rematerialised and landed on top of the two DigiDestined, Jarret still walked with a slight limp from the fall.

Things were going well, as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Jarret had at least defeated Nemisomon - for the time being anyway, and the DigiDestined were all now learning to gel with this new addition. There was but one problem, Gatomon was not feeling all that good, the digimon was still coming to terms with 'destroying Kari'. Of course this particular Kari had been a shadow version, who wasn't real anyway.

"She was real enough!" Not that Gatomon believed this.

"She wasn't though, look." Jarret held Gatomon's paw in front of her face and slowly rotated her arm so she could see all the way around the glove and claws.

"No blood Gatomon, not one single stain. Not one single cell. Nothing."

"But I..."

"What you did, you had no control over anyway. Technically it was my fault." Jarret shrugged, a look of anger and confusion swept over Gatomon's face. "Hey, the blood is gone. That's because it wasn't real, that Kari was not real, she was a fake. A fraud, your Kari is sitting over there." He pointed to Kari who was in deep conversation with Matt about something or the other. Patamon landed on Jarret's shoulder, Gatomon though her trauma thought this to be quite odd. Patamon rarely strayed from TK's head or hands, in fact the only other person she had seen with Patamon 'on them' was Kari. Odd.

Jarret took a couple of paces away from her and sighed, "How's she doing?" Patamon asked Jarret quietly,

"Not so good, can you stay with her for a while?"

"Always for her." Patamon said, then blushed at his own statement. Jarret looked sad for a moment then smiled forlornly, Patamon leapt off and landed beside her.

Jarret closed his eyes, Better Days...

Brighter Days, you know the sort,
When sunbeams dance and then cavort,
In the opposite of solitude,
The opposite of rough or crude,
Better Days are all in doubt.

Another day passed.

Gatomon still sat looking at her paw, though not as intently as she had before and she had lost her haunted look and frightened eyes. Patamon and Veemon to their credit were taking turns to get her to come out of he shell. Veemon was being funny, then Patamon his charming, caring self, then Veemon was silly, then Patamon all serious to the point of yelling at Gatomon to -

"Snap the hell out of it!"

The fire burned brightly but none the less the illumination it did provide in this, the darkest of all dark caves was lessening by the second. Strong gusting winds that lashed through the stalagmites and stalactites reached out with cold fingers to snuff out the flame but so far the waves of air had failed.

So too it seemed had Nemisomon, it had been three and a half days since Tai and Mimi had combined efforts to thwart a group of Dark Monochromon that happened to the in the area. Since then they had all been recuperating, Agumon especially as he had been subject to the most physical punishment. The dripping noise of water did not do justice to the fact that the caves were decidedly cold and the group shuddered collectively as another icy blast of wind shot through their temporary shelter.

"We'll have to get a move on soon." Tai said hugging his sister from behind, rubbing her shoulders to keep Kari warm. The girl in pink smiled and leant backwards into her brother, casting her rich ruby eyes upwards to meet her siblings brown ones.

"We know, it's just that - some of us needed a little time to get over what happened." She gestured with her head towards her partner who was still very much glassy eyed, although she had now dropped the paw. Propped up on a rock between Patamon and Veemon she stared out into space, oblivious to the conversation around her. Jarret had returned from a brief scouting mission with TK and Yolei.

"Any news?" Sora asked, looking towards the trio. Their faces were disturbingly grim and they glanced around at each other before turning back to face the others.

"Yes." Yolei finally answered, "And none of it good."

"We found a monochromon, probably from the same bunch that Tai and Mimi dealt with the other day. It had managed to escape before Nemisomon did... whatever it was he did to the others that turned them dark." TK sat down by Tai and squeezed Kari's hand, she smiled and he smiled back. Jarret took up the story.

"The digimon was weak from travel and hadn't eaten much, nevertheless it gave us some information. We now know where Nemisomon is, and more to the point that he is in the middle of constructing a large building."

"A building?" Izzy asked looking up from his computer.

"A dome to be precise, a large black dome." Yolei perched herself between Ken and Cody, ruffling the younger chosen child's hair in the process. He fastidiously pushed it back down again.

"A black dome? What's it for?" He asked.

"We don't know yet, but it's probably to do with enslaving more digimon." Ken shuddered at the statement, Yolei looked at him concerned.

"I'm okay. Bad memories." He whispered, Yolei nodded in understanding so did Jarret although how he had heard the whisper from his position on the other side of the cave neither Yolei or Ken could understand.

The fire went out and everything went dark, Izzy jumped up in surprise hitting his head on the rocks above him.

"Ow. Is everyone okay?"

"Yeah," Davis answered, "I'm gonna try and relight that fire, unless Agumon's recovered enough to try a pepper breath?"

"If you give me a couple of minutes." The little digimon wheezed, unseen in the darkness the black haired keeper of knowledge and friendship nodded. Two eyes shone out in the darkness, Jarret peered over towards them.

"You okay Gatomon?"

"Yeah, I am now."

"Your not, you know - panicing?"

"Why would I? I'm a cat, I'm used to the dark and I'm perfectly at home in it."

"Oh, it's just that, well, I thought you were... um... afraid of the dark."

"What?"

"Oh... nevermind." There was something about that niggled Jarret's mind, Gatomon wasn't afraid of the dark? Then how come his Gatomon was? There was something important about that, but he couldn't remember what.

"Pepper breath!"

The cave became illuminated once again, Jarret sat down by Mimi and Izzy his brow knotted in thought. He touched the pendant around his neck for a second as if to reassure himself, and muttered the words to "Better Days" again.

"Thoughtful little verse." Sora said, "Who wrote it?"

"Would you believe me if I told you your daughter?" Jarret smiled, Sora's eyes went wide.

"My daughter?" Jarret nodded,

"There's a lot more of that, but I can only remember the first verse."

Suddenly the cave rocked violently with the noise of an explosion. Mimi clung onto Jarret to stop falling over, Matt did fall over and had to roll to stop from falling into the fire. Gabumon and Agumon lost their balance and fell into TK, who began to scrabble towards Tai, Davis and Kari who had been thrown sidewards by the blast. Small rocks fell from the cave roof and everyone covered their heads to shield themselves.

"What the hell's going on?" Mimi cried, before she and Jarret where thrown backwards over the rock they'd been sitting on by another explosion that caused more dust and small rocks to fall from the cavern ceiling.

"Let's get out of here!" Davis yelled over the noise and everyone rushed for the exit, tripping, stumbling and coughing as they went. They flooded out into the daylight, squinting against the brightness as their eyes adjusted to the natural glare.

It wasn't until their eyes adjusted that they could make out the towering figure of Nemisomon surrounded by at least a dozen Minotaurmon. They all bore the insignia of the evil ultimate and looked as though they were very eager to fight.

"Uh oh..."

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ArchangelUK 0:-)

Kari's Angels: http://www.geocities.com/happy_hylian