Disclaimer: Still don't own Digimon. Will not sell this work for money.
Author's Note: This episode is also a little weak. It serves the purpose of introducing some things for later on, but mostly serves to bridge two different sections. I hope it works out, but if it doesn't, please review and blame me. Just as a side note to respond to a review I'm moving out of the section where people spend their time getting their crests to glow. Tai and Matt will recieve their epiphanies along with everyone else, but I have to build up to it first. I am in for the long haul, so everything is nice and spaced out. Thanks, and don't forget to review.
Episode XVI
Placing the Pieces
"Ground. I like the ground." TK mumbled almost inaudibly.
"What was that?" Ken asked brightly from where he was standing, behind where TK was lying face-down on the ground.
TK forced himself up on shaking elbows. His face was quivering and his arms were not exactly supporting him. "I was just saying how I like the ground. I must. Every time I get up I go back down."
"Oh c'mon. It isn't that bad. Is it?" Ken asked innocently.
"Out of shape my eye. If this is out of shape, I never want to even glimpse in shape." TK managed to straighten himself up again, and put his hands up in some position that might have blocked something. "Okay. Give it to me again, and this time I'll try to see it coming."
"I'll go slower." Ken promised, smiling.
It had all started with Ken's observation, backed up by Yolei, that Digimon seemed to grow stronger the more experience and practice they had at fighting. Davis had thought that he was already partnered with a lean, fighting machine, but was quickly disabused of the notion by Ken and Gatomon. So at first Ken had suggested that they hold a training session for their Digimon. Then TK and Kari had noted that Digimon and their partners seemed to improve at the same time. Then Ken had thought about strengthening the Digidestined as well as their Digimon. Then Davis had suggested a joint training session with humans and Digimon, "just like soccer camp". Then it had started.
Then TK had hit the ground for the seventh time.
"This time watch my feet more. I'm not bigger than you or anything, so the only reason that I can throw you around is that I'm using my body weight better than you are. That means that to really get some power out I have to rotate my lower body around." Ken moved a bit to demonstrate the difference between hitting somebody with an arm and hitting them with an entire body.
"I think I'm getting better." TK responded shakily, still trying to make the world stop spinning a little.
"Good. Let's go."
Ken and TK had managed to occupy the area in the center of a green meadow surrounded by concealing trees. The ground was at least soft, which was keeping TK from getting too injured. Off in the distance they could hear Davis and Cody going at it, Cody's level head keeping Davis' exuberance from making too many mistakes. Every once in a while there was a crack as someone got a little too enthusiastic and legs and arms smashed together. Yolei and Kari had no teacher who was experienced, so they were just warming up, stretching out, and practicing little moves on each other which made them both giggle. Mostly they were standing there looking up, something TK was purposefully avoiding.
The struggles that the humans were doing was easily overshadowed by what was happening overhead. Patamon was a little awkward as a fighter, his rounded body and large wings proving not much of an advantage. But Angemon was bigger, much more agile, and a lot more powerful. Angewomon was stronger, but had a slightly different technique. Their equal stature meant that they could learn techniques from each other better than they could from the others, so they ended up as natural sparring partners. Now they were fighting above the digidestined's heads, a soaring mass of wings and legs and arms, flickering out in deadly blows, never quite connecting. A staccato beat of blows, sounding like machine gun fire, rattled through the upper branches as they struck each other. Most of the time the human dimensions and shape of the angel Digimon fooled the others, seeming to make them almost human themselves. It was only now that they were disabused. The two angels were moving much faster than any other human could have moved, shooting back and forth like hummingbirds on the wing, barely flickering through a physical location before occupying some other space. No human eye could possibly have matched the speeds that they were moving now.
Ken came forward again, and then everything in TK's field of vision narrowed into a blur of hands and feet. He managed to keep Ken away for a few moments before he slipped up and let an arm end up in the wrong place, something which the black-clad teenager took advantage of by flipping TK onto his back with a satisfying thunk.
"They haven't gone this fast before, have they?" Ken asked after a moment, letting TK get his breath back.
"No, I think it has something to do with the practice they've had recently. They get stronger the stronger and more confident we get, and also with more experience. Angewomon never got this fast against any of us before, and Angemon really hasn't had any fight where he needed to do this. They're just getting stronger."
"Just like you." Ken noted.
"Hah. Not that much." TK managed to stagger semi-upright.
"That's not true. You're picking it up fast. It must have been the Asrana'Dactal and all that other stuff. I don't even have to hold back on you any more. It will take a year or two before you can really catch up, but that's just experience, and given how things go around here, it might take less than that." Ken looked thoughtful. "Soon you'll be the strongest of us all."
"Maybe then I can keep Matt from playing jokes on me." TK shook his head to clear it again and started to stand up.
"Take a break TK. I'll go see how the girls are doing. And whether or not Davis is still alive."
From higher above TK's head a thunderous crack reverberate. Peering up the blonde haired boy could make out the forms of ExVeemon and Stingmon staggering aside from where they had just collided. ExVeemon had faster close-in attacks and a long range attack, but Stingmon seemed to be faster, and that was keeping their duel even for the moment. Aquilamon was racing circles carrying huge rocks in his claws, and Ankylomon was busy trying to build a cave in a nearby rock pile with his huge tail. Everyone was working on getting themselves stronger.
Now if only it would be enough.
A familiar scent enveloped TK, and a moment later a familiar pair of arms draped themselves around his neck as a friendly presence sat down next to him.
"I see Ken left you intact." Kari smiled at him, an expression that he had no choice but to return, no matter how battered he felt.
"I think I'm still breathing." TK returned, squeezing her hand gently and appreciatively.
"Good. I'd hate to lose you." Kari squeezed back.
"Ahem." Ken coughed from behind them. "Before you two get started again, I'd like to take Kari and Yolei through a few exercises. TK, take a nap. You'll need it later."
"What did I do to earn this?" TK muttered as Kari disengaged herself and walked over to where Ken was standing. Inside though he already knew the answer. Ken and Davis were too close and too unpredictable. Ken would be stuck teaching either TK or Davis, since Cody really did not need the help, Yolei made him nervous and Kari had a completely different disposition. Ken and Davis had enough problems being best friends and complete opposites at the same time that they did not need the added problem of fighting each other physically. That left him with Ken, which meant that TK was the one spending a lot of time on the ground.
He knew it was uncharitable but he hoped that Kari got a good workout too. That way he would be able to avoid feeling completely helpless around her due to exhaustion. From where he sat it certainly looked as if Ken intended to give the two girls a good run through. If he spent more time trying to avoid Yolei's gaze than working with her, well, that was perfectly understandable.
There was a thud beside him as Angemon crashed heavily to the ground, still upright, but not by much. From the droop of his wings and the slant of his heaving chest, he was obviously close to exhaustion. For a moment he stood there, trying to gain his breath, and then there was a shimmer of golden light as he de-digivolved back into Patamon again.
"Hey Pata, what's up?" TK asked tiredly, one sufferer to another.
"I don't think I can move." Patamon responded, remaining limp on the ground.
Gatomon managed to de-digivolve in the air and jump back to the ground, but even the normally acrobatic feline was having problems, and her landing sent her sprawling over the soft ground and plowing into TK.
"Why don't you two take a rest for now." TK suggested, gathering them both in his arms."
"Sure." Gatomon muttered sleepily. "Don't mind if I do."
TK watched the two of them fall asleep slowly before Ken's entirely too cheerful voice broke his reverie.
"TK!" Ken was calling. "C'mon, you're back on."
"Wonderful." TK muttered. "Why do I get to be so lucky?"
"Daemon is strong, incredibly strong." Piximon began, sitting cheerfully on Mimi's shoulder, absently swinging his spear back and forth. "I don't know how strong."
"How did he get so strong?" Matt wanted to know.
"Well, all Megas are about equal. Even though some of them are better fighters, others have other skills. All in all everything seems to balance out. Some Digimon get stronger through improvement methods, training, learning, studying, practice, you know how it goes. Some gain power by aligning themselves with powers beyond their own. I think that Daemon is one of those."
"So he has an agreement with the dark powers?" Izzy suggested.
"I think that's the case. If this is true we don't know how powerful he could truly be now. That seems worrisome to me." Piximon fluttered up and commenced the airborne equivalent of pacing.
"Hmmm.that would explain how he got out of the Dark Ocean. We thought it would hold him for a long time, but if he made a deal with the ones in control they might have let him out to do their bidding." Izzy did not look particularly pleased by this discovery, regardless of its actual significance.
"Of course he might not have gotten too much power." Sora continued, trying to brighten everything up. "He might have been so desperate that he agreed to anything they wanted if they would only let him out."
"We can hope." Joe muttered, but he failed to sound confident.
"Oh stop being so depressing Joe." Mimi smacked him on the shoulder.
"I'm not depressed, I'm just being"
"practical." Everyone else finished.
"Well I am." Joe huffed defensively.
"Well, we're not winning anything sitting around here waiting. I vote we get down to business." Tai said, trying to get everyone back on track.
"Right. We have to go after Daemon, no matter how powerful he is. So what we need is a plan." Agumon perked up at Tai's new enthusiasm.
"We need a plan." Ken started the conversation off while everyone was trying to recover.
"Rightplan." TK agreed absently, trying to make the ringing in his head stop. Ken had caught him a good hit in the end right on the jaw. The advantage to this was that Kari was busy holding on to him, which gave him something else to think about beside when the room was actually going to stop spinning.
"You're up Davis." Cody muttered after a moment.
"Huh?" Davis responded, rubbing his shin. Apparently "training" had not really agreed with him either.
"You're the leader." Cody reminded him.
"Oh, right, so what can we do? I mean, what choices do we have? We go after Khartan, right? He's in charge of this place."
"We should be strong enough to handle him." Veemon put on a muscle show for all of them.
"I'm not so sure about that." Cody cautioned them. "Remember Reaver was working for him, not the other way around. I'm just afraid that he might be even stronger than Reaver was, and it took all we had and more to beat him."
"Well, what other options do we have?" Davis demanded.
"We could wait for the others. They should be coming through soon, and they could probably help us a lot." Gatomon suggested, prying her head off of Kari's lap.
"Oh, sit around and wait. That'll do a lot of good." Davis grumbled.
"Well, we don't have much of an option otherwise. Khartan would probably slice and dice us like a salad." Kari returned.
"Which he's going to do anyway if we just sit down. I want a shot at him." Davis stood up heatedly. TK groaned at a sudden guess where this was going.
"Maybe it would be better to delay until we're stronger." Cody suggested, but quieted under Davis' furious glare.
"All right, that's enough." Ken normally had a difficult time raising his voice, but the merest increase in volume was enough to shut the rest of them up. "We're not getting anywhere but backwards with everybody fighting each other. We need a solid plan."
"All right." TK took advantage of the sudden silence that Ken's outburst created. "We know that sooner or later we're going to have to go after Khartan, and we may have to prepare for the worst. I know the other guys will do their best, but there's no guarantee that they'll actually be able to break through to us. In fact, we might have to go rescue them. So we need to know, what are our options?"
"Well, we could keep training here and hiding and making ourselves stronger." Ken counted that option off on his fingers.
"Not possible." Yolei shook her head, lavender hair flying everywhere. "We can't hide forever, and TK may be right. We may need to help the other kids help us. We need that gate."
"Second, we could storm Khartan's fortress." Ken counted that finger too.
"No way." Kari and Gatomon shook their heads at the same time, temporarily dislodging TK. "He may be way to powerful to just hit head on, we need to find another way."
"If there is one." Veemon muttered darkly. Wormmon just stared at him meaningfully.
"Third." Ken held up one last finger. "We can see what we can do to undermine him without actually attacking him planless."
"So how do we do that?" Davis asked, sounding more curious than upset now.
"It's rather simple. All of our information, including that we got from neighboring friendly Digimon, seems to indicate that Khartan does not wield direct power over everything." Ken tapped a point on his scanner screen, and a familiar figure appeared in the corner. "It seems that MachineDramon runs this place in Khartan's stead, meaning that he might be temporarily in control. If this is true we could strike a blow against our adversary by hitting his lieutenant, not by attacking him ourselves."
"That actually sounds like a good plan." Yolei admitted cautiously. "After all, three Ultimates almost took out BlackWarGreymon. Now we have four more experienced ones even if Patamon can't digivolve twice. Even more, Angemon can count as one as well, and we're all a lot more experienced than we used to be."
"I like it." Davis admitted. "It shows that Khartan guy that we're not too afraid to fight back, but it doesn't trap us into anything solid yet."
"That's good. We can go kick MachineDramon around like a tin can, and then hold a party afterwards." Veemon jumped up on Davis' shoulders and did another TV wrestling pose, which almost made Patamon fall off of TK's hat.
"Is everyone agreed?" Ken asked. A wave of nods confirmed their opinion.
"All right." Davis stood up, shaking some dirt off his jacket and upsetting Veemon. "Let's get down to the dirty business of planning this."
"So we agree, we have to go after Daemon?" Joe asked, sounding a bit nervous.
There were worried and nervous looks all over to match, but all twelve of them, plus Piximon, Leomon and Ogremon nodded solemnly and quietly, confirming the group's dedication.
"We really don't have a choice." Sora admitted. "He's got to go down if we want a single opportunity to get to that gate."
"I agree." Tai sounded like he had all those years ago, ready to run into the teeth of danger. "We've got to take that guy down. Our friends are in danger, and the longer we wait here to save them, the less chance we have."
"Put like that, we don't have much of a choice, do we?" Joe sighed.
"Well, the least we can do is come up with a plan." Izzy pointed out after a few moments.
"We don't know that much about Daemon. We have no spies in his kingdom or anything like that." Leomon admitted a little uncomfortably. "There are enough evil Digimon that he has an ample army and castle staff, and it's hard to impersonate one of them."
"It doesn't matter." Tai put his fist down both dramatically and finally. "We go after the bastard with everything we've got."
"I have to agree." Matt repeated.
"The question is how?" Gomamon put forward.
"We'll have to see when we get there." Tai finished the conversation firmly.
"So how do we get there?" Ken was paying little attention to TK, but he at least heard that question clearly. The two of them were sitting down, letting the rays of the setting sun, tilting toward the mountains below warm them, smoothing out kinked muscles.
"I don't know." Ken responded simply. "I barely know where it is."
"So that's why you sent Hawkmon and Patamon off to look around?" TK stared at the sky and wondered how his absent partner was doing. "I hope they haven't run into any trouble."
"I'm sure they haven't. They're hard to spot, much harder than we are to see. They'll be fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Something's bothering you Ken." Kari lifted her head off of the ground where she had been resting it. "I don't know what, or why, but something's bothering you, isn't it? Can you tell us?"
"Hmmmit appears that Koushiro is correct in his little theory. I'll have to congratulate him someday." Ken smiled to himself as he thought about his red haired friend.
"Which theory is that?" TK asked.
"Oh Izzy has many theories, but the one I was speaking of was about Kari there."
Kari shot bolt upright. "Izzy has theories about me?"
"Oh, loads of them. You seem to be one of his favorite subjects." Ken grinned evilly at the sudden discomfort of both TK and Kari. "Actually, I'm lying. He has a whole bunch of theories about the digidestined as a whole, and only a few of them involve you in particular."
"So, could you be a little more specific?" Kari asked with some asperity.
"Well, yes" Ken trailed off for a moment, and then smiled at them. "It has to do with Izzy's prejudice."
"Prejudice?"
"Well, yesbut not in the way that you're thinking. Izzy believes that conscious thought is the basis of what we call good, and that what we call good is defined in terms of that. His theory was that Light may be the ultimate expression of that, so that the one who bore the crest of Light might have some abilities to tune into thought. That if you took apart the heart of the Light you would find positive thoughts in there. He attributed your occasional bouts of extraordinary perception to that particular trait."
"I see, but that doesn't solve the original question, does it?" Kari, completely oblivious to the fact that TK was no longer paying attention to them, or to anything for that matter.
"Well, I was just thinking about the way our Digimon have improved." Ken looked up at the sky again. "I mean, Izzy was right about a few things, and one of them is that Digimon, as a whole, tend to be a little stupid. Not that they're not smart in most respects, but when confronted with battle they just tend to throw force against force. No guile, no strategy, no anything."
"I guess you're right." Kari heard the thunderous crashes of the Dark Masters attacking in her mind, the crackle of Myotismon in the background. "But what does this have to do with anything?"
"A few weeks after we defeated MaloMyotismon, I found Izzy beating himself up mentally in the computer lab. It seems he was reflecting on how stupid we had been. After all our Digimon were supposed to protect the Digital World, so why didn't we actually train them to do so? In a very real way we let them run into battle without getting any practice at all. He wanted to know why we didn't train them. Sitting here, I'm forced to agree with him. Our Digimon improve so fast with training it's almost unbelievable. Either they hit a wall soon, and progress slows to a crawl, or we're going to, each and every one of us, be Omnimon level powerful."
"That makes sense I guess. They have tremendous abilities when it comes to fighting, but they never do it in their free time." Kari suddenly noticed TK's strained expression. "What is it TK?"
TK sat there woodenly, his eyes looking somewhere else, fixed beyond the distant horizon, waiting for something out there to change and make sense.
"TK?" Ken waved a hand in front of TK's eyes but his pupils didn't even more. Both of the watchers grew a little alarmed, and shook TK slightly.
"I think..." He began slowly, "I think that something's wrong."
TK blinked. A moment ago he had been standing with his friends, but now he was on a barren rock shelf. Two powerful digimon stood around a tall, bent figure. TK reached out to the figure, whose back was to him, and felt his hand pass right through.
"A memory." TK whispered, remembering a similar journey so many years ago. "I'm in a memory. Why?"
For a moment he peered over the man's shoulder to see what he was looking at and then he stumbled away, retching. There, lying in the grass, were the remains of a young woman, her guts scattered around the ground, her entire face melted away. TK clutched at his stomach, rapidly turning another shade, another color entirely.
To take his mind off this he looked around, taking a brief glance at the two digimon, one a huge Phoenix, towering over him, wreathed in red flames. The other was a huge two-headed tortoise, a giant forest growing from its back. Both of them were looking straight ahead, ignoring TK and somehow giving every sign of ignoring the body at TK's feet.
The man looked up, standing taller and TK gasped in sudden recognition. It was Gennai, younger, bloodstained, with a look in his eye that TK had never seen before, had only seen before in the eyes of his nightmares, so very long ago. It was a simple look that promised death to any that crossed it. Even Myostismon and Piedmon would have fled that glare, that all penetrating assault. Gennai was beyond words, beyond reason. TK could feel his anger, boiling through the ground. And then sudden realization hit him, he could feel Gennai's anger through the ground because the ground itself was actually trembling!
Then another memory caught up with him, where he had seen those digimon before. Brief images of his time spent in the Heart of the World caught up with him. These were two of the Guardian digimon of the Digital World itself. That explained their magnificent aura, their raw power that flowed over them. In truth they were stronger than any Mega that Takeru had ever seen, except possibly Omnimon and Seraphimon and ImperialDramon Paladin Mode. Magnificence was written in every line of their faces, in every feather on the Phoenix, in every leaf on the trees of the other.
Then Gennai spoke. It was not the speech of a creature still possessed of reason, of a creature with the strength of the mind still intact in him. It was the speech of a madman, of a creature of vengeance. TK held his head and screamed.
"Takeru, Takeru, you've got to get rid of it. You have to have control." The boy was screaming at him, screaming loud, but TK could not hear, could not hear anything except the voices.
"TK!" That voice broke through, resonating in his head like the impact of an avalanche. "The Heart is unstable right now. You have to shut it out. Have to shut out its power. You have to focus. Your friends need you."
"So beautiful"
"Focus TK! Focus!"
The little trickle of Light that had been flooding his body, a mere whisper of the whole suddenly erupted into a knowable form inside of him.
He couldn't control it! That was TK's first panicked thought as the unknowable became knowable within him. He screamed a few times for good measure before he was able to reassert control over himself enough to think rationally. He was falling, falling through the images of the Heart of the World, their faintest lights touching him, briefly illuminating worlds that passed him by, vanishing even as he looked at them, transforming to dust in front of his eyes.
It hurt. His eyes threatened to blast out of his head with the pain, but slowly, carefully, he was able to focus through it. The power whispered secrets to him, quietly, beneath the breath of its torrential winds the power whispered to him, telling him its secrets, telling him of its greatest trials and travails. TK tried to shut it out, but the power was so much greater than he was that he was simply having no effect.
He was not able to control the power. All he could do was watch as it controlled him. He closed his eyes again.
And then he was in another place. Four glowing forms were there, and he knew them instantly, Power, Justice, Light, Hope. They stood facing an evil so monstrous that it defied description. A nation, a world so soaked in evil that it made the dark ocean seem positively pale in comparison. An otherworldly dimension of such power that it threatened to overwhelm all that stood in its way. But now these four had come, fire and light swirling at their feet in waves of silver and gold, to end its reign of terror.
TK knew what was going to happen even as he saw the tears on the faces of the four facing evil, saw the sorrow of the champions of the Light, and saw their unalterable resolve. He knew what was going to happen the moment they raised their hands in concert. He knew intellectually, but no thought, no memory, no lesson in school could ever have prepared him for this one moment.
Eight hands met in a circle of power, a blaze of solar fire. Higher and higher they soared suddenly, shooting upwards, the sky parting before them until the last veil of darkness had lifted and they were consorting with the light of the eternal stars. The circle of power grew brighter and brighter, until the darkened world beneath began to shudder, began to tremble in fear. TK could feel minor earthquakes begin, could feel people stop manning the engines of war, and look skyward in terror.
Light glimmered first. Her eyes became stars and the white light, pure like mountain air, burned down her hands into the circle, illuminating it in light. It was the light of the pure stars that glimmered around them. Power was next, and his fire was greater somehow, burning crimson and sapphire in waves, illuminating the world beneath. He smiled as he did so, but his smile was tinged with sadness.
Then Hope began to shine and TK felt all that power drain out of him with a suddenness that left him shuddering in the cold. It had been incredible to posses that power, but now, compared to the golden fire that Hope was adding to the circle, it was nothing, nothing at all. He suddenly realized how much power he could have been dealing with, how close he had come to complete destruction. But his mind was still focused on the power of the circle as it glowed ever brighter and brighter.
Many titles bears Justice. The voice whispered in his mind. He is the Judge of Kings, He is the Vengeance of the Oppressed, the Shield of the Innocent...
Light gathers on an outstretched hand. Below the light has begun to shine through the eternal darkness that shrouds a world in deepest mourning.
Bane of Empires.
There is a moment when Takeru Takaishi can feel the concentrated power of all the beings who bear the mark of Hope gathering, all the power of the vast circle of the Light concentrated down on that one star, resting on Justice's hand.
Shatterer of Worlds.
Light flares. There is an explosion, the universe trembles. Vast powers beyond anything TK has ever seen before flare to life, brought to life through the crests to deny what they represent. Below a world shudders and screams in torment as the waves of unalterable force tear through it. And then, with an explosion like a supernova, the world of darkness is gone.
And then he is falling, falling forever into Light.
"I can't do it. I can't control it." TK was sobbing. "Can't do it."
"Don't worry Takeru. You don't have to. Not now. That's why we took it from you." The voice is familiar and quiet, but TK does not recognize it for a moment, until he sits up to look into the eyes of the one who has come to see him.
Gennai has grown older and wiser it seems, in the time since TK has last seen him. Maybe it is just his eyes, glowing with a sorrow as ancient as he must be, but at the same time new and fresh in his mind.
"What happened?" TK can hear Kari asking questions in the corner of his mind, but Gennai's eyes still occupy most of his vision.
"You collapsed on us TK." Ken reported, also out of the corner of his mind, but Gennai's eyes are all the answer that TK needs.
"You have seen the ultimate expression of the power of Justice. You have seen the final use for the power of your crest, for all the greater seals. It is the right of Justice to judge, to judge people, to judge families, to judge armies and to judge nations. And it is the sole right of his crest to let him judge worlds. And now you know why. The power he must summon to do it is beyond anything that we have known before. But it can be done."
"I can't control it again." TK replied very quietly, staring at the ground.
"We do not ask you to." Gennai smiled again, but his smile was tinged with sadness. "The power comes at great need, and it does not fade easily, but should you call it when you are not at peace, when you are not ready to use it, then you will pay the penalty and you will fall before the almighty rush that threatens to consume all of us. Only when you are ready will the true power of the Heart of the World respond to your call."
"How did he do it?" TK asked after a moment.
"Gravitational singularity." Gennai's voice changes from calm and comforting to clinical, scientific. "A single change in the nature of local spacetime creates massive gravitational waves, enough power to rip a world apart from the inside out. The explosion you saw was the energy of the interior of the world dissipating through the shattered outer layers. It takes tremendous energy to create a gravitational disturbance of that level, but it can be done at great need."
"And why was I involved?"
"Because the power draw involved everybody who bears the mark of that crest. All who are tied to the greater seals felt that rush of power. It is how we gather the strength to defeat an enemy such as that, how we develop our weapons to the ultimate extreme. You were dragged along with it, and you were forced to utilize the greatest amount of power that you could draw upon and remain sane. It was an unpleasant necessity, and I wish it had been easier for you to see."
"I can see why you don't use this much." TK muttered, sitting up slowly, wincing as lights seemed to explode behind his head.
"Then perhaps you also begin to understand." Suddenly, in a flash of rainbow light Gennai disappeared.
"I hate it when he does that." TK muttered to himself.
"Well so do we." Ken muttered. "Shall we go see what the others are doing?"
"No, I'll be all right."
"So what was he talking about?" Kari wanted to know.
TK sighed briefly, playing with his hat for a moment before answering. "This stays between us, you understand?"
"Sure. I don't know why..." Ken began.
"Because the others don't need to know, and I don't want to send them looking in the wrong direction." TK replied, still fooling around with his hat. "Anyway, here's the long and short of it. There's this place called the Heart of the World, and it's the most beautiful thing that exists. I know. I've been there. There's a doorway to it in all of us, I know because I traveled through mine while I was falling off that cliff. The place is the source of the power that flows through our crests, and, while you're there, you absorb energy like mad, and it gives you the strength to do extraordinary things.
"The crests work because you align yourself with certain strands of energy, energy that responds to courage, or to honor, or kindness. Once you can receive the power you act like sort of an antenna, drawing the power from that otherworldly place to you. That's why if you get off your game, you can't use the crest anymore."
"It makes sense." Ken's eyes widened. "It's like a carrier frequency. If you get off the right frequency you can't receive messages anymore. But as long as you're on the right one, you can always receive that power. It makes sense."
"But why can't you use it again?" Kari asked. "You talked about not being able to control it, but I don't understand..."
"The first time you use it it's like you have...oh...beginner's luck or something. You're able to survive anything they throw at you. You're able to wield the power because your mind, your conscious mind is completely out of your control. You just do what you think is best. The problem is that when you try to consciously control that much power, your poor little brain gets overloaded. It's just too much to handle, and I'm not ready for it yet. None of us are. That's why I can't use it again for a long time. If I do, I'll rage out of control. I'll do the impossible, and I won't be able to fix it. And then the forces of darkness will come for me."
"The impossible?" Ken asked.
"They destroyed a world Ken. An entire planet." TK looked up, his eyes filled with steadily mounting horror. "What can I do against beings who can do that?"
Author's Note: This episode is also a little weak. It serves the purpose of introducing some things for later on, but mostly serves to bridge two different sections. I hope it works out, but if it doesn't, please review and blame me. Just as a side note to respond to a review I'm moving out of the section where people spend their time getting their crests to glow. Tai and Matt will recieve their epiphanies along with everyone else, but I have to build up to it first. I am in for the long haul, so everything is nice and spaced out. Thanks, and don't forget to review.
Placing the Pieces
"What was that?" Ken asked brightly from where he was standing, behind where TK was lying face-down on the ground.
TK forced himself up on shaking elbows. His face was quivering and his arms were not exactly supporting him. "I was just saying how I like the ground. I must. Every time I get up I go back down."
"Oh c'mon. It isn't that bad. Is it?" Ken asked innocently.
"Out of shape my eye. If this is out of shape, I never want to even glimpse in shape." TK managed to straighten himself up again, and put his hands up in some position that might have blocked something. "Okay. Give it to me again, and this time I'll try to see it coming."
"I'll go slower." Ken promised, smiling.
It had all started with Ken's observation, backed up by Yolei, that Digimon seemed to grow stronger the more experience and practice they had at fighting. Davis had thought that he was already partnered with a lean, fighting machine, but was quickly disabused of the notion by Ken and Gatomon. So at first Ken had suggested that they hold a training session for their Digimon. Then TK and Kari had noted that Digimon and their partners seemed to improve at the same time. Then Ken had thought about strengthening the Digidestined as well as their Digimon. Then Davis had suggested a joint training session with humans and Digimon, "just like soccer camp". Then it had started.
Then TK had hit the ground for the seventh time.
"This time watch my feet more. I'm not bigger than you or anything, so the only reason that I can throw you around is that I'm using my body weight better than you are. That means that to really get some power out I have to rotate my lower body around." Ken moved a bit to demonstrate the difference between hitting somebody with an arm and hitting them with an entire body.
"I think I'm getting better." TK responded shakily, still trying to make the world stop spinning a little.
"Good. Let's go."
Ken and TK had managed to occupy the area in the center of a green meadow surrounded by concealing trees. The ground was at least soft, which was keeping TK from getting too injured. Off in the distance they could hear Davis and Cody going at it, Cody's level head keeping Davis' exuberance from making too many mistakes. Every once in a while there was a crack as someone got a little too enthusiastic and legs and arms smashed together. Yolei and Kari had no teacher who was experienced, so they were just warming up, stretching out, and practicing little moves on each other which made them both giggle. Mostly they were standing there looking up, something TK was purposefully avoiding.
The struggles that the humans were doing was easily overshadowed by what was happening overhead. Patamon was a little awkward as a fighter, his rounded body and large wings proving not much of an advantage. But Angemon was bigger, much more agile, and a lot more powerful. Angewomon was stronger, but had a slightly different technique. Their equal stature meant that they could learn techniques from each other better than they could from the others, so they ended up as natural sparring partners. Now they were fighting above the digidestined's heads, a soaring mass of wings and legs and arms, flickering out in deadly blows, never quite connecting. A staccato beat of blows, sounding like machine gun fire, rattled through the upper branches as they struck each other. Most of the time the human dimensions and shape of the angel Digimon fooled the others, seeming to make them almost human themselves. It was only now that they were disabused. The two angels were moving much faster than any other human could have moved, shooting back and forth like hummingbirds on the wing, barely flickering through a physical location before occupying some other space. No human eye could possibly have matched the speeds that they were moving now.
Ken came forward again, and then everything in TK's field of vision narrowed into a blur of hands and feet. He managed to keep Ken away for a few moments before he slipped up and let an arm end up in the wrong place, something which the black-clad teenager took advantage of by flipping TK onto his back with a satisfying thunk.
"They haven't gone this fast before, have they?" Ken asked after a moment, letting TK get his breath back.
"No, I think it has something to do with the practice they've had recently. They get stronger the stronger and more confident we get, and also with more experience. Angewomon never got this fast against any of us before, and Angemon really hasn't had any fight where he needed to do this. They're just getting stronger."
"Just like you." Ken noted.
"Hah. Not that much." TK managed to stagger semi-upright.
"That's not true. You're picking it up fast. It must have been the Asrana'Dactal and all that other stuff. I don't even have to hold back on you any more. It will take a year or two before you can really catch up, but that's just experience, and given how things go around here, it might take less than that." Ken looked thoughtful. "Soon you'll be the strongest of us all."
"Maybe then I can keep Matt from playing jokes on me." TK shook his head to clear it again and started to stand up.
"Take a break TK. I'll go see how the girls are doing. And whether or not Davis is still alive."
From higher above TK's head a thunderous crack reverberate. Peering up the blonde haired boy could make out the forms of ExVeemon and Stingmon staggering aside from where they had just collided. ExVeemon had faster close-in attacks and a long range attack, but Stingmon seemed to be faster, and that was keeping their duel even for the moment. Aquilamon was racing circles carrying huge rocks in his claws, and Ankylomon was busy trying to build a cave in a nearby rock pile with his huge tail. Everyone was working on getting themselves stronger.
Now if only it would be enough.
A familiar scent enveloped TK, and a moment later a familiar pair of arms draped themselves around his neck as a friendly presence sat down next to him.
"I see Ken left you intact." Kari smiled at him, an expression that he had no choice but to return, no matter how battered he felt.
"I think I'm still breathing." TK returned, squeezing her hand gently and appreciatively.
"Good. I'd hate to lose you." Kari squeezed back.
"Ahem." Ken coughed from behind them. "Before you two get started again, I'd like to take Kari and Yolei through a few exercises. TK, take a nap. You'll need it later."
"What did I do to earn this?" TK muttered as Kari disengaged herself and walked over to where Ken was standing. Inside though he already knew the answer. Ken and Davis were too close and too unpredictable. Ken would be stuck teaching either TK or Davis, since Cody really did not need the help, Yolei made him nervous and Kari had a completely different disposition. Ken and Davis had enough problems being best friends and complete opposites at the same time that they did not need the added problem of fighting each other physically. That left him with Ken, which meant that TK was the one spending a lot of time on the ground.
He knew it was uncharitable but he hoped that Kari got a good workout too. That way he would be able to avoid feeling completely helpless around her due to exhaustion. From where he sat it certainly looked as if Ken intended to give the two girls a good run through. If he spent more time trying to avoid Yolei's gaze than working with her, well, that was perfectly understandable.
There was a thud beside him as Angemon crashed heavily to the ground, still upright, but not by much. From the droop of his wings and the slant of his heaving chest, he was obviously close to exhaustion. For a moment he stood there, trying to gain his breath, and then there was a shimmer of golden light as he de-digivolved back into Patamon again.
"Hey Pata, what's up?" TK asked tiredly, one sufferer to another.
"I don't think I can move." Patamon responded, remaining limp on the ground.
Gatomon managed to de-digivolve in the air and jump back to the ground, but even the normally acrobatic feline was having problems, and her landing sent her sprawling over the soft ground and plowing into TK.
"Why don't you two take a rest for now." TK suggested, gathering them both in his arms."
"Sure." Gatomon muttered sleepily. "Don't mind if I do."
TK watched the two of them fall asleep slowly before Ken's entirely too cheerful voice broke his reverie.
"TK!" Ken was calling. "C'mon, you're back on."
"Wonderful." TK muttered. "Why do I get to be so lucky?"
"Daemon is strong, incredibly strong." Piximon began, sitting cheerfully on Mimi's shoulder, absently swinging his spear back and forth. "I don't know how strong."
"How did he get so strong?" Matt wanted to know.
"Well, all Megas are about equal. Even though some of them are better fighters, others have other skills. All in all everything seems to balance out. Some Digimon get stronger through improvement methods, training, learning, studying, practice, you know how it goes. Some gain power by aligning themselves with powers beyond their own. I think that Daemon is one of those."
"So he has an agreement with the dark powers?" Izzy suggested.
"I think that's the case. If this is true we don't know how powerful he could truly be now. That seems worrisome to me." Piximon fluttered up and commenced the airborne equivalent of pacing.
"Hmmm.that would explain how he got out of the Dark Ocean. We thought it would hold him for a long time, but if he made a deal with the ones in control they might have let him out to do their bidding." Izzy did not look particularly pleased by this discovery, regardless of its actual significance.
"Of course he might not have gotten too much power." Sora continued, trying to brighten everything up. "He might have been so desperate that he agreed to anything they wanted if they would only let him out."
"We can hope." Joe muttered, but he failed to sound confident.
"Oh stop being so depressing Joe." Mimi smacked him on the shoulder.
"I'm not depressed, I'm just being"
"practical." Everyone else finished.
"Well I am." Joe huffed defensively.
"Well, we're not winning anything sitting around here waiting. I vote we get down to business." Tai said, trying to get everyone back on track.
"Right. We have to go after Daemon, no matter how powerful he is. So what we need is a plan." Agumon perked up at Tai's new enthusiasm.
"We need a plan." Ken started the conversation off while everyone was trying to recover.
"Rightplan." TK agreed absently, trying to make the ringing in his head stop. Ken had caught him a good hit in the end right on the jaw. The advantage to this was that Kari was busy holding on to him, which gave him something else to think about beside when the room was actually going to stop spinning.
"You're up Davis." Cody muttered after a moment.
"Huh?" Davis responded, rubbing his shin. Apparently "training" had not really agreed with him either.
"You're the leader." Cody reminded him.
"Oh, right, so what can we do? I mean, what choices do we have? We go after Khartan, right? He's in charge of this place."
"We should be strong enough to handle him." Veemon put on a muscle show for all of them.
"I'm not so sure about that." Cody cautioned them. "Remember Reaver was working for him, not the other way around. I'm just afraid that he might be even stronger than Reaver was, and it took all we had and more to beat him."
"Well, what other options do we have?" Davis demanded.
"We could wait for the others. They should be coming through soon, and they could probably help us a lot." Gatomon suggested, prying her head off of Kari's lap.
"Oh, sit around and wait. That'll do a lot of good." Davis grumbled.
"Well, we don't have much of an option otherwise. Khartan would probably slice and dice us like a salad." Kari returned.
"Which he's going to do anyway if we just sit down. I want a shot at him." Davis stood up heatedly. TK groaned at a sudden guess where this was going.
"Maybe it would be better to delay until we're stronger." Cody suggested, but quieted under Davis' furious glare.
"All right, that's enough." Ken normally had a difficult time raising his voice, but the merest increase in volume was enough to shut the rest of them up. "We're not getting anywhere but backwards with everybody fighting each other. We need a solid plan."
"All right." TK took advantage of the sudden silence that Ken's outburst created. "We know that sooner or later we're going to have to go after Khartan, and we may have to prepare for the worst. I know the other guys will do their best, but there's no guarantee that they'll actually be able to break through to us. In fact, we might have to go rescue them. So we need to know, what are our options?"
"Well, we could keep training here and hiding and making ourselves stronger." Ken counted that option off on his fingers.
"Not possible." Yolei shook her head, lavender hair flying everywhere. "We can't hide forever, and TK may be right. We may need to help the other kids help us. We need that gate."
"Second, we could storm Khartan's fortress." Ken counted that finger too.
"No way." Kari and Gatomon shook their heads at the same time, temporarily dislodging TK. "He may be way to powerful to just hit head on, we need to find another way."
"If there is one." Veemon muttered darkly. Wormmon just stared at him meaningfully.
"Third." Ken held up one last finger. "We can see what we can do to undermine him without actually attacking him planless."
"So how do we do that?" Davis asked, sounding more curious than upset now.
"It's rather simple. All of our information, including that we got from neighboring friendly Digimon, seems to indicate that Khartan does not wield direct power over everything." Ken tapped a point on his scanner screen, and a familiar figure appeared in the corner. "It seems that MachineDramon runs this place in Khartan's stead, meaning that he might be temporarily in control. If this is true we could strike a blow against our adversary by hitting his lieutenant, not by attacking him ourselves."
"That actually sounds like a good plan." Yolei admitted cautiously. "After all, three Ultimates almost took out BlackWarGreymon. Now we have four more experienced ones even if Patamon can't digivolve twice. Even more, Angemon can count as one as well, and we're all a lot more experienced than we used to be."
"I like it." Davis admitted. "It shows that Khartan guy that we're not too afraid to fight back, but it doesn't trap us into anything solid yet."
"That's good. We can go kick MachineDramon around like a tin can, and then hold a party afterwards." Veemon jumped up on Davis' shoulders and did another TV wrestling pose, which almost made Patamon fall off of TK's hat.
"Is everyone agreed?" Ken asked. A wave of nods confirmed their opinion.
"All right." Davis stood up, shaking some dirt off his jacket and upsetting Veemon. "Let's get down to the dirty business of planning this."
"So we agree, we have to go after Daemon?" Joe asked, sounding a bit nervous.
There were worried and nervous looks all over to match, but all twelve of them, plus Piximon, Leomon and Ogremon nodded solemnly and quietly, confirming the group's dedication.
"We really don't have a choice." Sora admitted. "He's got to go down if we want a single opportunity to get to that gate."
"I agree." Tai sounded like he had all those years ago, ready to run into the teeth of danger. "We've got to take that guy down. Our friends are in danger, and the longer we wait here to save them, the less chance we have."
"Put like that, we don't have much of a choice, do we?" Joe sighed.
"Well, the least we can do is come up with a plan." Izzy pointed out after a few moments.
"We don't know that much about Daemon. We have no spies in his kingdom or anything like that." Leomon admitted a little uncomfortably. "There are enough evil Digimon that he has an ample army and castle staff, and it's hard to impersonate one of them."
"It doesn't matter." Tai put his fist down both dramatically and finally. "We go after the bastard with everything we've got."
"I have to agree." Matt repeated.
"The question is how?" Gomamon put forward.
"We'll have to see when we get there." Tai finished the conversation firmly.
"So how do we get there?" Ken was paying little attention to TK, but he at least heard that question clearly. The two of them were sitting down, letting the rays of the setting sun, tilting toward the mountains below warm them, smoothing out kinked muscles.
"I don't know." Ken responded simply. "I barely know where it is."
"So that's why you sent Hawkmon and Patamon off to look around?" TK stared at the sky and wondered how his absent partner was doing. "I hope they haven't run into any trouble."
"I'm sure they haven't. They're hard to spot, much harder than we are to see. They'll be fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Something's bothering you Ken." Kari lifted her head off of the ground where she had been resting it. "I don't know what, or why, but something's bothering you, isn't it? Can you tell us?"
"Hmmmit appears that Koushiro is correct in his little theory. I'll have to congratulate him someday." Ken smiled to himself as he thought about his red haired friend.
"Which theory is that?" TK asked.
"Oh Izzy has many theories, but the one I was speaking of was about Kari there."
Kari shot bolt upright. "Izzy has theories about me?"
"Oh, loads of them. You seem to be one of his favorite subjects." Ken grinned evilly at the sudden discomfort of both TK and Kari. "Actually, I'm lying. He has a whole bunch of theories about the digidestined as a whole, and only a few of them involve you in particular."
"So, could you be a little more specific?" Kari asked with some asperity.
"Well, yes" Ken trailed off for a moment, and then smiled at them. "It has to do with Izzy's prejudice."
"Prejudice?"
"Well, yesbut not in the way that you're thinking. Izzy believes that conscious thought is the basis of what we call good, and that what we call good is defined in terms of that. His theory was that Light may be the ultimate expression of that, so that the one who bore the crest of Light might have some abilities to tune into thought. That if you took apart the heart of the Light you would find positive thoughts in there. He attributed your occasional bouts of extraordinary perception to that particular trait."
"I see, but that doesn't solve the original question, does it?" Kari, completely oblivious to the fact that TK was no longer paying attention to them, or to anything for that matter.
"Well, I was just thinking about the way our Digimon have improved." Ken looked up at the sky again. "I mean, Izzy was right about a few things, and one of them is that Digimon, as a whole, tend to be a little stupid. Not that they're not smart in most respects, but when confronted with battle they just tend to throw force against force. No guile, no strategy, no anything."
"I guess you're right." Kari heard the thunderous crashes of the Dark Masters attacking in her mind, the crackle of Myotismon in the background. "But what does this have to do with anything?"
"A few weeks after we defeated MaloMyotismon, I found Izzy beating himself up mentally in the computer lab. It seems he was reflecting on how stupid we had been. After all our Digimon were supposed to protect the Digital World, so why didn't we actually train them to do so? In a very real way we let them run into battle without getting any practice at all. He wanted to know why we didn't train them. Sitting here, I'm forced to agree with him. Our Digimon improve so fast with training it's almost unbelievable. Either they hit a wall soon, and progress slows to a crawl, or we're going to, each and every one of us, be Omnimon level powerful."
"That makes sense I guess. They have tremendous abilities when it comes to fighting, but they never do it in their free time." Kari suddenly noticed TK's strained expression. "What is it TK?"
TK sat there woodenly, his eyes looking somewhere else, fixed beyond the distant horizon, waiting for something out there to change and make sense.
"TK?" Ken waved a hand in front of TK's eyes but his pupils didn't even more. Both of the watchers grew a little alarmed, and shook TK slightly.
"I think..." He began slowly, "I think that something's wrong."
TK blinked. A moment ago he had been standing with his friends, but now he was on a barren rock shelf. Two powerful digimon stood around a tall, bent figure. TK reached out to the figure, whose back was to him, and felt his hand pass right through.
"A memory." TK whispered, remembering a similar journey so many years ago. "I'm in a memory. Why?"
For a moment he peered over the man's shoulder to see what he was looking at and then he stumbled away, retching. There, lying in the grass, were the remains of a young woman, her guts scattered around the ground, her entire face melted away. TK clutched at his stomach, rapidly turning another shade, another color entirely.
To take his mind off this he looked around, taking a brief glance at the two digimon, one a huge Phoenix, towering over him, wreathed in red flames. The other was a huge two-headed tortoise, a giant forest growing from its back. Both of them were looking straight ahead, ignoring TK and somehow giving every sign of ignoring the body at TK's feet.
The man looked up, standing taller and TK gasped in sudden recognition. It was Gennai, younger, bloodstained, with a look in his eye that TK had never seen before, had only seen before in the eyes of his nightmares, so very long ago. It was a simple look that promised death to any that crossed it. Even Myostismon and Piedmon would have fled that glare, that all penetrating assault. Gennai was beyond words, beyond reason. TK could feel his anger, boiling through the ground. And then sudden realization hit him, he could feel Gennai's anger through the ground because the ground itself was actually trembling!
Then another memory caught up with him, where he had seen those digimon before. Brief images of his time spent in the Heart of the World caught up with him. These were two of the Guardian digimon of the Digital World itself. That explained their magnificent aura, their raw power that flowed over them. In truth they were stronger than any Mega that Takeru had ever seen, except possibly Omnimon and Seraphimon and ImperialDramon Paladin Mode. Magnificence was written in every line of their faces, in every feather on the Phoenix, in every leaf on the trees of the other.
Then Gennai spoke. It was not the speech of a creature still possessed of reason, of a creature with the strength of the mind still intact in him. It was the speech of a madman, of a creature of vengeance. TK held his head and screamed.
"Takeru, Takeru, you've got to get rid of it. You have to have control." The boy was screaming at him, screaming loud, but TK could not hear, could not hear anything except the voices.
"TK!" That voice broke through, resonating in his head like the impact of an avalanche. "The Heart is unstable right now. You have to shut it out. Have to shut out its power. You have to focus. Your friends need you."
"So beautiful"
"Focus TK! Focus!"
The little trickle of Light that had been flooding his body, a mere whisper of the whole suddenly erupted into a knowable form inside of him.
He couldn't control it! That was TK's first panicked thought as the unknowable became knowable within him. He screamed a few times for good measure before he was able to reassert control over himself enough to think rationally. He was falling, falling through the images of the Heart of the World, their faintest lights touching him, briefly illuminating worlds that passed him by, vanishing even as he looked at them, transforming to dust in front of his eyes.
It hurt. His eyes threatened to blast out of his head with the pain, but slowly, carefully, he was able to focus through it. The power whispered secrets to him, quietly, beneath the breath of its torrential winds the power whispered to him, telling him its secrets, telling him of its greatest trials and travails. TK tried to shut it out, but the power was so much greater than he was that he was simply having no effect.
He was not able to control the power. All he could do was watch as it controlled him. He closed his eyes again.
And then he was in another place. Four glowing forms were there, and he knew them instantly, Power, Justice, Light, Hope. They stood facing an evil so monstrous that it defied description. A nation, a world so soaked in evil that it made the dark ocean seem positively pale in comparison. An otherworldly dimension of such power that it threatened to overwhelm all that stood in its way. But now these four had come, fire and light swirling at their feet in waves of silver and gold, to end its reign of terror.
TK knew what was going to happen even as he saw the tears on the faces of the four facing evil, saw the sorrow of the champions of the Light, and saw their unalterable resolve. He knew what was going to happen the moment they raised their hands in concert. He knew intellectually, but no thought, no memory, no lesson in school could ever have prepared him for this one moment.
Eight hands met in a circle of power, a blaze of solar fire. Higher and higher they soared suddenly, shooting upwards, the sky parting before them until the last veil of darkness had lifted and they were consorting with the light of the eternal stars. The circle of power grew brighter and brighter, until the darkened world beneath began to shudder, began to tremble in fear. TK could feel minor earthquakes begin, could feel people stop manning the engines of war, and look skyward in terror.
Light glimmered first. Her eyes became stars and the white light, pure like mountain air, burned down her hands into the circle, illuminating it in light. It was the light of the pure stars that glimmered around them. Power was next, and his fire was greater somehow, burning crimson and sapphire in waves, illuminating the world beneath. He smiled as he did so, but his smile was tinged with sadness.
Then Hope began to shine and TK felt all that power drain out of him with a suddenness that left him shuddering in the cold. It had been incredible to posses that power, but now, compared to the golden fire that Hope was adding to the circle, it was nothing, nothing at all. He suddenly realized how much power he could have been dealing with, how close he had come to complete destruction. But his mind was still focused on the power of the circle as it glowed ever brighter and brighter.
Many titles bears Justice. The voice whispered in his mind. He is the Judge of Kings, He is the Vengeance of the Oppressed, the Shield of the Innocent...
Light gathers on an outstretched hand. Below the light has begun to shine through the eternal darkness that shrouds a world in deepest mourning.
Bane of Empires.
There is a moment when Takeru Takaishi can feel the concentrated power of all the beings who bear the mark of Hope gathering, all the power of the vast circle of the Light concentrated down on that one star, resting on Justice's hand.
Shatterer of Worlds.
Light flares. There is an explosion, the universe trembles. Vast powers beyond anything TK has ever seen before flare to life, brought to life through the crests to deny what they represent. Below a world shudders and screams in torment as the waves of unalterable force tear through it. And then, with an explosion like a supernova, the world of darkness is gone.
And then he is falling, falling forever into Light.
"I can't do it. I can't control it." TK was sobbing. "Can't do it."
"Don't worry Takeru. You don't have to. Not now. That's why we took it from you." The voice is familiar and quiet, but TK does not recognize it for a moment, until he sits up to look into the eyes of the one who has come to see him.
Gennai has grown older and wiser it seems, in the time since TK has last seen him. Maybe it is just his eyes, glowing with a sorrow as ancient as he must be, but at the same time new and fresh in his mind.
"What happened?" TK can hear Kari asking questions in the corner of his mind, but Gennai's eyes still occupy most of his vision.
"You collapsed on us TK." Ken reported, also out of the corner of his mind, but Gennai's eyes are all the answer that TK needs.
"You have seen the ultimate expression of the power of Justice. You have seen the final use for the power of your crest, for all the greater seals. It is the right of Justice to judge, to judge people, to judge families, to judge armies and to judge nations. And it is the sole right of his crest to let him judge worlds. And now you know why. The power he must summon to do it is beyond anything that we have known before. But it can be done."
"I can't control it again." TK replied very quietly, staring at the ground.
"We do not ask you to." Gennai smiled again, but his smile was tinged with sadness. "The power comes at great need, and it does not fade easily, but should you call it when you are not at peace, when you are not ready to use it, then you will pay the penalty and you will fall before the almighty rush that threatens to consume all of us. Only when you are ready will the true power of the Heart of the World respond to your call."
"How did he do it?" TK asked after a moment.
"Gravitational singularity." Gennai's voice changes from calm and comforting to clinical, scientific. "A single change in the nature of local spacetime creates massive gravitational waves, enough power to rip a world apart from the inside out. The explosion you saw was the energy of the interior of the world dissipating through the shattered outer layers. It takes tremendous energy to create a gravitational disturbance of that level, but it can be done at great need."
"And why was I involved?"
"Because the power draw involved everybody who bears the mark of that crest. All who are tied to the greater seals felt that rush of power. It is how we gather the strength to defeat an enemy such as that, how we develop our weapons to the ultimate extreme. You were dragged along with it, and you were forced to utilize the greatest amount of power that you could draw upon and remain sane. It was an unpleasant necessity, and I wish it had been easier for you to see."
"I can see why you don't use this much." TK muttered, sitting up slowly, wincing as lights seemed to explode behind his head.
"Then perhaps you also begin to understand." Suddenly, in a flash of rainbow light Gennai disappeared.
"I hate it when he does that." TK muttered to himself.
"Well so do we." Ken muttered. "Shall we go see what the others are doing?"
"No, I'll be all right."
"So what was he talking about?" Kari wanted to know.
TK sighed briefly, playing with his hat for a moment before answering. "This stays between us, you understand?"
"Sure. I don't know why..." Ken began.
"Because the others don't need to know, and I don't want to send them looking in the wrong direction." TK replied, still fooling around with his hat. "Anyway, here's the long and short of it. There's this place called the Heart of the World, and it's the most beautiful thing that exists. I know. I've been there. There's a doorway to it in all of us, I know because I traveled through mine while I was falling off that cliff. The place is the source of the power that flows through our crests, and, while you're there, you absorb energy like mad, and it gives you the strength to do extraordinary things.
"The crests work because you align yourself with certain strands of energy, energy that responds to courage, or to honor, or kindness. Once you can receive the power you act like sort of an antenna, drawing the power from that otherworldly place to you. That's why if you get off your game, you can't use the crest anymore."
"It makes sense." Ken's eyes widened. "It's like a carrier frequency. If you get off the right frequency you can't receive messages anymore. But as long as you're on the right one, you can always receive that power. It makes sense."
"But why can't you use it again?" Kari asked. "You talked about not being able to control it, but I don't understand..."
"The first time you use it it's like you have...oh...beginner's luck or something. You're able to survive anything they throw at you. You're able to wield the power because your mind, your conscious mind is completely out of your control. You just do what you think is best. The problem is that when you try to consciously control that much power, your poor little brain gets overloaded. It's just too much to handle, and I'm not ready for it yet. None of us are. That's why I can't use it again for a long time. If I do, I'll rage out of control. I'll do the impossible, and I won't be able to fix it. And then the forces of darkness will come for me."
"The impossible?" Ken asked.
"They destroyed a world Ken. An entire planet." TK looked up, his eyes filled with steadily mounting horror. "What can I do against beings who can do that?"