Digimon does not belong to me. Consider yourself disclaimed.
Author's Note: Sorry this took so long...I got sick...and I got midterms, and a whole bunch of other things. I'll try to make the wait for the next one a lot shorter, and I'll try to shorten the overall length of the series while I'm at it.
Episode XVII
Opening Moves
"Hell is what happens between when you start charging and they start shooting at you."
Gennai, Battle of Takesh Innuit
"Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"
Adm. David Farragut
"So, they move against me." Khartan shook what must be considered his hand across the board and the symbols, representing children in two worlds, winked out with a flash. "No matter. My power exceeds theirs still. Only that Takeru brat could face me, and his power is once more unusable."
"Indeed it is Master." The dark figure at his shoulder bowed at his dominant master's declaration. The voice was neither male or female, but rather a dark cavernous well in which all light would be lost.
"You need not treat me with such deference Bane. I know what is in your heart." Khartan turned. "Are you ready to seize the power from them?"
"I think it would be wiser to execute phase two now." Bane met Khartan's inquisitive glare with a strange, harsh expression.
"As you see fit." Khartan shrugged.
"Hey TK." Gennai looked tired, resting awkwardly on the grass on the green hillside, while the fresh sea breeze ruffled his hair. The gray robes were singed now, looking battered. Gennai did not look too capable either at the moment.
"Hey Gennai." TK let the sun restore the energy he had recently drained from himself return, filling him full of warm light.
"Sorry about what happened. We drew upon the Heart too drastically, especially Mike, who controls the Master edition of your crest. That's what caused the disturbance."
"My fault too. I shouldn't have gone looking for it." TK admitted.
"You did the right thing warning Ken and Kari. Both of them have to know." Gennai absently picked a piece of grass growing nearby and held it in his hand until the wind blew it away.
"I hope so. It's really accelerating now, isn't it?"
"Justice's master plan is coming together nicely. Do you know your part in it?"
"No."
"Good. I hope you understand why at least."
"Yes."
"Good." Gennai stood up and gave TK a warrior's salute, two fingers raised in recognition of the other's bravery. "Sleep well my friend."
And then TK fell deeper into sleep.
Izzy, hard at work at his computer terminal, paused a moment when a rainbow flash of light obscured his vision. He was about to sound the alarm to his sleeping comrades when a familiar figure stopped him, placing a finger to his lips to indicate that silence was in order.
"Let your friends sleep. They will need it soon." Gennai whispered to him.
"Gennai! What are you doing here?"
"I came to offer my advice. And a warning."
"Any advice from you is well worth it. What do you wish to know?"
"First the warning. You have begun, more than any of the others here, to tap into the powers of your crest. This allows me to contact you now, but it also renders you a little vulnerable. Watch yourself, and trust your instincts. Second, the advice. You must destroy Daemon in four days."
"What! Four days!" Izzy shot up. "But we'll only get there tomorrow."
"Four days. Less if possible. Then you may return home."
"You know something." Izzy accused, and for a moment Gennai looked old and saddened, tired and heavy with grief and sorrow.
"Yes. I know something. Good luck Izzy. I'm sorry fate forced you all to be what you are."
"Gennai" Izzy began.
"Goodbye." The rainbow light flared again. "And good luck."
A man sits alone in a darkened room. There is one light, glaringly bright against the stark darkness and the Spartan accompaniments in the habitation. The light gleams harshly, like bitter knives, off of a single fixture, a chess board set up in the middle of the room, pieces arranged in their rows and ranks, waiting for instructions and the call to battle.
A hand descends from beyond the scope of the light, descending down like a God from the heavens he calls home, picking up one piece and moving it forward two squares. A single movement for a single pawn, but the opening to a mighty struggle.
"The pieces are on the board." The man says quietly. "It's your move."
But the room is empty, and there is no reply.
Morning steals over the world quietly, coming on silent footsteps, yet opening eyes around the cold and crowded places that it frequents. People stir, rise and move onward, preparing to get on with their lives.
"Let's see if we can't get a little closer." Izzy finishes looking through Tai's goggles and looks over the rough ground. Everywhere he can see there is only barren dirt and a garden of rocks, natural walls creating ramparts and mighty fortifications that sit unmanned among the lifeless land. Down the slope of the hill he is looking at lies a massive pinnacle of rock, which seems to give the structure on top of it its name. The Pinnacle is a black fear-inspiring tower sunk into a mountain, impossible to construct in any world except this one.
"I really hate this." Joe remarked to nobody in particular. But even he was looking confident and grim faced.
"This guy is going down." Tai's voice was edged with blackness and hate. "Nobody does this to my sister."
"C'mon guys." Matt pointed. "Piximon still says it's safe, so let's get going before we get caught here. Okay?"
"Right." Tai returned to normal. "Mimi, Matt, point guards. Izzy, you're with Joe and me. Sora, make sure to cover our rear. We go one at a time between the rocks. Leomon, Ogremon, I want you to come down about five minutes after we do, so you catch anybody who tries to tail us. We ready?"
"Let's do it." Sora's eyes were firm.
"So that's it." Ken pointed at the huge castle, in what looked like classical Japanese castle design. "Quite a place, isn't it."
"He isn't very original. This looks just like Osaka castle." Davis grumbled, apparently not being impressed at the grandeur and opulence of the fortress in front of them.
"It is just like Osaka castle. I remember that from a paper I did once. Except that I think it's about five times normal size." Ken squinted down at the building.
"Sounds about right. MachineDramon isn't exactly small." TK pushed up his hat, which had gotten pushed down when Patamon leaned forward.
"So what do you say we pulverize it?" Yolei asked, glancing down.
"First the question is how. It's a little big." Wormmon pointed out from his vantage point on the ground below.
"Indubitably." Hawkmon agreed.
"Do you have to use big words. You're giving me a headache." Veemon complained, clutching his head in mock pain.
"Oh lay off." Hawkmon replied with some asperity.
"So Davis, what's the plan?" Cody looked serious. But then again, he always looked serious.
"See those buildings down there?" Davis pointed. There were outbuildings all over the place, apparently to support the castle and its environs. Plain whitewashed buildings, some long and low, some block-like, covered the landscape like confetti after a wedding. A group of them was arranged right next to the forest at the base of the hill they were on.
"Yeah?" Cody peered down, not seeing anything special about them.
"Well Ken and I have been watching them ever since we got up here this morning. I think that they're mostly abandoned, or used for storage. So my plan is this, we go down there and hide in them and look for a way in."
"I think it should work." TK considered.
"Good plan Davis." Kari clapped Davis on the shoulder, causing their fearless leader to blush.
"Actually," Davis reached back with one hand to scratch the back of his neck, like he usually did when he was embarrassed. "most of it is Ken's idea."
There was a moment of silence, and then TK elbowed Davis playfully. "Wow, modest tooyou're getting pretty good at this leader thing."
"Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." Davis replied cheerfully.
"Oh God." Yolei moaned, and put her hand over her eyes. "If he starts quoting Shakespeare, I'm out of here."
"To be or not to be, that is theAwwck!" Davis stumbled in his recitation figuratively and literally as Yolei shoved him down onto the ground.
"Let's get to it then. We'll go down, two at a time. Me and Davis first, you and Cody next, Kari and TK last. This we'll keep them from spotting us, we hope, until we get down to the ground." Ken pointed downward, along the slope. "We'll meet up in that stand of oak trees."
"See ya there." Davis remarked as he began to sneak away into the silent bushes, Ken stalking on his heels like a solid ghost. A few minutes later Yolei and Cody vanished into the underbrush.
"I'd forgotten what this was like." Kari took TK's hand in her own for a moment, and TK gave her a comforting squeeze.
"You mean going after another Digimon, not in self defense, but to hunt him down and destroy him?" TK asked, lost in memories of his own.
"Yeah." Kari responded listlessly.
"We all hoped we wouldn't have to do it again. But life isn't always that kind to us you know. Let's go."
And then they were gone, and only the crumpled grass marked their existence on this spot.
"Back door, back door. Well, these things always have a back door in the movies." Tai muttered, looking around.
"Yeah, but this ain't the movies." Matt reminded him pointedly. "And more importantly, we don't have to depend on a back door. If we need to we can make our own way."
"We're trying to do this quietly." Joe reminded them with a pained look on his face as he glanced out from behind the rock they were hiding against. A pair of guards, massive MarineDevimon stood guarding the main doorway to the towering structure, obscuring the gate itself. They looked too far away to actually hear what was being said, but Joe disliked taking chances, and long years of experience had taught them that underestimating Digimon was a good way to die early.
"Well, we'll have to find some way in." Agumon muttered. "Otherwise this is going to be a long day."
"We'll find one. We'll find one." Tai grunted the words like a prayer. "And then that guy is going to pay."
It was at least comfortable. The room they had chosen to insert themselves in had turned out to store a huge collection of furniture, probably collected from empty and deserted buildings. Couches, beds and chairs were scattered around with barely any order evident in their placement. Six Digimon and their human companions easily disappeared among that chaotic array of furniture that filled the building to the ceiling. The only problem was finding each other and getting around without making too much noise.
After a quick break though all twelve of them congregated on a section of couches and beds in one corner of the room, TK and Kari holding hands, Ken tapping on his computer with Yolei looking over his shoulder, Davis playing tic-tac-toe on a dusty tabletop with Veemon (they had tried chess, but kept on losing the dust bunnies they were using as pieces), and Cody polishing his sword and quietly talking to Armadillomon.
"That idiot!" Ken suddenly exploded. Without thinking Yolei slapped her hand across his mouth to keep him from being heard by anybody walking by outside, immediately blushing and lowering her hand afterward. Ken was blushing a little too, but he ignored it and plowed on.
"What's wrong Ken?" Kari rolled to face him, looking a little concerned at Ken's outburst.
"That idiot has no creative ability whatsoever." Ken grumbled this time, definitely quieter.
"Could you please tell us what you're talking about?" Patamon pleaded.
"Sorry. It's justas far as I can tell, he just rebuilt that castle in the exact shape of Osaka castle back in Japan." Ken smirked.
"Explanation please?" Davis sounded a little irritated, probably because in the excitement Veemon had just wiped out his game board.
"I can still access some of the internet from this Scanner. Don't ask how, but I can. The floor plans for Osaka castle are posted online at a site I looked at, so we can get the stupid things and figure out exactly how his castle is laid out. Then we can break in at will, give me a moment."
There were several quiet minutes in which Davis shrugged and went back to his game, TK and Kari started whispering to each other and their Digimon again, Cody went through a few of his grandfather's exercises, and Yolei and the rest of the Digimon watched with rapt attention. Finally Ken laid out the Scanner flat and pointed at a few highlighted points on a computerized map.
"Here's our entrance." He told them.
"Halt, who goes there?" The Bakemon rushed around the corner, and looked around, but there was nobody there, the corridor, dark and dusty, remaining empty.
"Ah well, false alarm." He muttered, turning around to rejoin his companions. Suddenly his vision was eclipsed by TK and Ken's fists, slamming into his face and knocking him back into a wall.
"At least it doesn't hurt when you hit them." Ken muttered, shaking his fist out. "Did we get them all?"
Veemon and Patamon who were bringing up the rear looked at where Gatomon was pushing the last of the three Bakemon into a limp pile. Then they nodded.
"Right, back down the hole." Ken ran fast but quietly down the hallway, with TK right behind. A moment later they rounded a corner and dashed into a room to find Cody and Kari waiting for them, watching their surrounding nervously.
"Everybody in." Ken pointed, and they poured back through a square hole that Cody had carved in the back of the room with his sword. Carefully, doing their best not to leave a mark, TK and Kari eased the piece of the wall back into position, sealing it closed with a sticky substance they had been using to keep their gear together. Now anyone who did not know what they were looking for would fail to find the marks there, rendering their entry point invisible.
Cody and Veemon were already halfway down the corridor behind the wall, really a narrow service hall that servants had once used to walk through The walls were dark without their proper lighting, but they were lit enough that they could dart through and make it to the second hole, this one carved through to what had once been an old cellar beneath the castle proper. Inside they could see the anxious faces of Yolei and Davis watching them, sighing in relief as the little group dived back into the sheltering darkness and out of sight from the outside.
"All right." Ken told them, still shaking a little. "We have our distraction. We can get away for now, but they'll find that patrol sooner or later. We're still in the outer bailey, but this route will get us up into the inner courtyard, since it appears that we can use this passage here that got built in by the building inspectors this century and blindly copied over into this version."
"We go fast, before they figure out where we are." TK reminded everyone.
"We didn't need that TK." Yolei reminded him.
"Need it or not, it can't hurt. From the position of the sun and the orientation of the castle we should be able to weave through the shadows and assemble here, in this corner behind the castle. The problem is then the tower. I still don't know a way in, so it will be up to the rest of us to do it. Alright?"
"Right." They chorused.
"Okay, stations everybody."
"There has to be a way in." Tai muttered again for the thousandth time.
"I think there is." Izzy mused, half to himself, pushing buttons absently on his computer. "See that huge gate there?"
"The big one guarded by a pair of DarkTyrannomon, the one that is so big you could probably drive a fleet of trucks straight through it?" Matt wanted to know. "How do we get through that?"
"Easy answer. Piximon?"
"I think I can do it, but we're going to have to be very careful about what we're doing." The pink Digimon looked around curiously, as if measuring thins up.
"What are you talking about?" Mimi demanded, looking confused, and then her expression brightened considerably. "Oh, a Digital Barrier!"
"Exactly." Piximon's reply was cheerful, but he really did not look like he enjoyed the idea. "But there's a problem. I make you invisible, but the barrier is physical in nature. If you touch one of the guards, or knock anything over, everyone will be able to see us. Or at least where we are. And the last thing we need is to get stuck in a huge open gateway with nowhere to go."
"How about this?" Izzy suggested. "You go in first and scout around, take Tentomon with you just in case, and then if you find a way to go, you come back and tell us."
"Good idea Izzy." Biyomon congratulated him.
"I suppose it might work." Ogremon puzzled himself with the thought for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders. "But I still like charging in there better."
"I think you should listen to the digidestined. They have a lot of experience with this." Leomon responded evenly, defusing his partner's statement.
"Whatever. Go for it Piximon." Tai's eyes were still hot.
"Arrgh!" Daemon threw a large heavy object across the room, carelessly shattering several valuable computer screens. His all-important oracle screen remained intact, perhaps unfortunately, as it was the main source of his troubles. Normally it showed the approximate locations of the digidestined and their brat accomplices, but now it had changed entirely. Instead it simply displayed the grinning image of Gennai, staring out at him impishly. Obviously Citadel's powerhouse had managed to sneak a net of incredibly tight programming, in the form of a sensor blank zone, around the Pinnacle. Daemon knew that the digidestined were around, but this was a surefire message that they were preparing to attack, and he did not even know how.
"What is it Master?" A pair of SkullMeramon skidded to a halt in front of their convulsing Master, worried expressions on their faces as they prepared themselves to confront their Master's wrath.
"Those fools are coming, and I don't even know where?" Daemon howled, carelessly blasting a stone column into rubble. "I'll get them yet, those insects."
"We'll stop them Master." One of his lackeys promised.
"See that you do. My orders are to take them intact, but not too intact if you understand my meaning."
"Of course Master, I'll inform the guards of such."
"Any luck on figuring out where we go from here?" Cody asked Ken, who was musing over the diagrams on the scanner and the hastily scratched out plans on the dirt nearby. All of them save Gatomon were hovering around in a room that was used for maintenance of the water pipes running into the castle proper.
"No, it's a real Japanese castle." Ken muttered. "The floors are laid out nicely, but there's really nothing we can do about it. It's meant to be hard to get up, for invaders and assassins both. The things too tall to climb, but at the same time it's really going to be a pain to go up the middle. The stairs are too few, to central to the building plan, so everyone will be able to find us going up. We'll have to fight all the way up to the top, and I don't know how we're going to it."
"We need to somehow corner MachineDramon somewhere where he won't be protected by all his minions."
"HmmmI was wrong, I think they have made some adjustments. I think he's got some sort of central control center built into things around the middle of the building. I'm not sure what floor it's on, but from the placement of the windows, something is definitely wrong." Ken took another glance at the plans.
"So what do we do with that?" Davis reclined back.
"We get into it. Knowing evil Digimon, it will probably have systems designed to keep it isolated from outside, just in case the locals revolt." Yolei pointed out.
"Right, we get in, we lock his guards out, and then we take him head on." Veemon exclaimed.
"It might not be that simple." Cody reminded them. "After all, look at it, he might not have a good way of locking his guards out, and then what?"
"We have to split up." TK pointed out. "The problem is, we're stuck now. We have to take this guy down, and we have to do it soon, or else we're really going to be stuck. If worse comes to worse, I suppose we could fly out, but then they'll be ready for us next time, and it won't be that easy again."
Kari nodded. "It's now or never."
Suddenly they all jumped, spilling over pipes and other controls in the semi-darkness as a wailing siren sounded in the distant, crying alarm to all the inhabitants. Everyone let their sudden shock freeze them for a few seconds as they stared, horror filled, into each other's eyes, all waiting for the moment when they would be called into action. There was a familiar crawling, squeezing pain of fear in the bottom of their chests as the moment changed into a time for action, a sudden dash of cold water on already frayed nerves. And then they swallowed and began to move.
Gatomon flung herself into the room from above, panting. "They're coming." She gasped at them unnecessarily.
"Everyone fed?" Ken asked around, watching the Digimon nod, faces hardening up.
"Ready to go." Yolei reported quietly.
"Let's do it." Wormmon pulled on Ken's pant leg.
"Showtime." Ken whispered quietly, but everyone heard and nodded as Ken's face went grim and cold as ice.
"Hey guys." Piximon's voice spoke to them out of thin air, nearly causing Mimi to scream, except that Joe had the presence of mind to grab her with his hand over her mouth to prevent just such an occurrence. There was a sudden shimmer and then Piximon and Tentomon appeared in the air right in front of them, slightly apologetic looks on their faces.
"Never do that again!" Joe snapped angrily as he let go of Mimi.
"Please." Izzy brushed the sweat off his forehead.
"Never mind that. It appears that they know we're coming." Piximon hissed at them.
"What? How?" Tai shot up again.
"It seems that Daemon had a device that tells him where people are once they get close enough to his fortress. We overheard two of the guards discussing it." Piximon and Tentomon exchanged glances.
"So he knows where we are?" Palmon wanted to know, her flowers going up.
"Uhhhno." Piximon responded, looking a little happier. "That's what all the fuss in there is about. Apparently when Daemon turned it on this morning all he could see was a picture of Gennai, so it appears that our associate is helping us by jamming all the transmissions that Daemon has. Nevertheless, he still has quite a force in there."
"What kind?" Sora wanted to know.
"I don't know. There are only a few that I found, Ultimates and Champions all, but I can't penetrate to the inner sanctum. I got lost."
"That's still a sizable force, but where are the rest?" Izzy was quickly entering this information on his computer.
"He is controlling a rather large territory, so most of the big ones are elsewhere. He also has squadrons of rookies patrolling everywhere, but they aren't much of a threat. The real defense of course is Daemon. I think that he's stronger than all of us. We'll need a neat trick to get rid of him."
"We'll think of something." Tai responded, looking up angrily. "Right now what we need is a way in."
"Well we found one. It appears that there are several storerooms off the main branch, mostly containing bits and pieces of things that Daemon finds interesting. By flying we can get inside some of the hard to reach areas where it will be too hard to find us." Tentomon looked proud of his accomplishment.
"We can't fly." Gabumon pointed out, looking at his own body.
"We can inside my Digital Barrier." Piximon responded.
"All right, let's do it." Tai pointed. "Charge!"
"Here's the way!" Ken pointed, and they dashed through the grounds, keeping out of the way of the guards who were busy pounding out toward the outbuildings and the gates. Fortunately careless shippers and freight handlers had left crates of supplies and boxes of junk lying around the carefully manicured green courtyard, allowing the twelve of them to sneak through the maze of abandoned junk without being spotted.
It seemed as though Ken's gambit was working. He and Kari had argued long and hard about the benefits of a silent entrance, which would warn no one of their coming, and the advantage of a misleading decoy event which would force the guards to look somewhere else. They had launched an attack on the Bakemon in the furthest outpost of the castle, one near a fortuitously open window. Hopefully the guards would be called out to search the outside once they found nobody within the castle, and would not stumble onto the back passages that the group had used to commit the deed.
"Now if only we had a back door." Patamon pondered, staring up.
"We have something better then that." Ken pointed quickly. "Doors are guarded, but windows usually aren't. Fly up there and see what's inside."
Patamon quickly flapped his way up to a nearby window and peeped in before returning to ground level. "It's empty, but you can't get up there. It's too high to climb."
Obviously the builders had done their work. The slightly slanted walls would not allow anyone to clamber up their surface, but with the guards busy, Ken had planned something else. Pulling on his bag he came up with the ten meters of rope that TK had packed just in case so many days ago, and handed one end to Gatomon. To the other end he tied his jacket and Davis' jacket, so that they had a line that was long enough to reach the high window. Moving swiftly, he had the knots done in seconds, and then turned to Hawkmon and Patamon.
"Okay you guys, I want you to carry Gatomon up there. She's the only one who knows how to tie knots well, so she gets to tie it to something solid. Then we go up, you guys carrying the other Digimon if you're strong enough. Go now, before the guards start checking this area."
Hawkmon picked up Gatomon in his claws and quickly flew her over the windowsill, with Patamon following, heaving mightily as he hauled Wormmon up with him. A few moments later the rope they had brought started to jerk, as if someone was working with the other ends, followed by Gatomon sticking her head out the window and nodding.
Ken scrambled up the rope first, making sure it was safe and jumping through the window into the room beyond, Hawkmon trailing him, bringing Armadillomon up in his claws. TK followed, briefly pausing to make sure that he could negotiate the final turn up into the room, and then hitting the ground heavily, a moment before Kari scrambled up the same way. Cody and Veemon came up together, pulling themselves hand over hand, but they could hear shouts coming closer.
"Check everywhere!" Someone was screaming, and there was the sound of tramping feet as guards began to move around everywhere, checking behind and in front of the various obstructions on the castle grounds. Some of the footsteps were getting noticeably closer.
Then Yolei fell down, and the rope shook loose of its knot, and tumbled to the ground after her, stranding her on the ground. There was a moment when everyone froze in complete panic.
"Sticky Net!" Wormmon emitted his familiar blast of webbing, encasing Yolei and causing her to struggle against the sudden confines, but everyone else had already figured out the new plan, and were engaged in hauling her up to the window. Yolei squeezed through the window and toppled to the ground, safely out of sight, rope still in hand, when two Meramon turned a corner below, bringing them within eye contact of the area. With a quick sweep they checked the area, turned and left.
Kari breathed a sigh of relief, and exchanged a glance with TK, sharing a silent moment after their second rope climb from death and destruction, before she looked around the room. Empty and serene this particular room seemed to be an empty office storage room, filled with filing cabinets and computer parts that had collected several months worth of dust. The only entrance was a single door, that appeared to have been long unopened.
"Okay, we're in, now what?" Kari asked.
Slowly, Joe thought to himself, near panic as the group inched between the guards, so slowly that you have no chance of making a mistake.
But Piximon was going at the pace of a normal walk, forcing the bunched up little group to walk extremely carefully. One careless exclamation could lose everything for them. Still they treaded onward, as two different sets of bored looking Gardromon watched the outside world listlessly. Fortunately the corridor was wide enough that the whole group could sneak through without really being caught, but it was still a close thing.
"We're in." Izzy muttered once they were sufficiently down the corridor to avoid the guards. "Now what?"
"We go straight for him." Tai told them, anger still seething in his voice.
"Are you sure?" Sora asked cautiously. "I mean we haven't scouted around at all or anything"
"We go for him and make him pay." Tai was adamant and everyone just sighed.
"This way." Piximon pointed with his spear and, framed by Leomon and Ogremon, the group made its way deeper into the castle.
"Are you sure?" Tai asked after a few moments.
"Of course." Piximon snapped, sounding a little impatient. "This is the center of everything. He's got to be here."
And then they rounded the corner and found themselves face to face with a huge set of doors, completely unguarded. Everyone looked at them for a moment.
"Well, he must be in there." Tai muttered, walking up and forcing everyone else to follow him." He had almost reached the doors when there was a sudden noise from inside, and he stopped dead.
"What is that?" Gabumon sounded alarmed.
"I don't know." Piximon muttered uneasily.
"Maybe he has a trap waiting for us." Mimi suggested, but Izzy was frowning and bending closer to listen to the doors themselves.
"It's an elevator." He announced after a few moments.
"Daemon must be upstairs then." Tai muttered, checking to make sure they were all invisible still.
Suddenly the noises stopped, and the doors opened, revealing a huge empty elevator compartment. Moments later a pair of Veggiemon towing a huge cart filled with cardboard boxes emerged from another corridor and occupied the elevator.
Tai shrugged and then they squeezed in beside the two flunkies, making sure that they were still undetected.
Slowly the doors closed and the elevator began to rise upward toward confrontation.
Author's Note: Although it does not contain a map of the outbuildings (the map to which Ken refers and I have never seen), limited floor plans of Osaka Castle can be found at:
http://www.tourism.city.osaka.jp/en/castle/jozetu/index.htm
Author's Note: Sorry this took so long...I got sick...and I got midterms, and a whole bunch of other things. I'll try to make the wait for the next one a lot shorter, and I'll try to shorten the overall length of the series while I'm at it.
Opening Moves
"Hell is what happens between when you start charging and they start shooting at you."
Gennai, Battle of Takesh Innuit
"Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"
Adm. David Farragut
"Indeed it is Master." The dark figure at his shoulder bowed at his dominant master's declaration. The voice was neither male or female, but rather a dark cavernous well in which all light would be lost.
"You need not treat me with such deference Bane. I know what is in your heart." Khartan turned. "Are you ready to seize the power from them?"
"I think it would be wiser to execute phase two now." Bane met Khartan's inquisitive glare with a strange, harsh expression.
"As you see fit." Khartan shrugged.
"Hey TK." Gennai looked tired, resting awkwardly on the grass on the green hillside, while the fresh sea breeze ruffled his hair. The gray robes were singed now, looking battered. Gennai did not look too capable either at the moment.
"Hey Gennai." TK let the sun restore the energy he had recently drained from himself return, filling him full of warm light.
"Sorry about what happened. We drew upon the Heart too drastically, especially Mike, who controls the Master edition of your crest. That's what caused the disturbance."
"My fault too. I shouldn't have gone looking for it." TK admitted.
"You did the right thing warning Ken and Kari. Both of them have to know." Gennai absently picked a piece of grass growing nearby and held it in his hand until the wind blew it away.
"I hope so. It's really accelerating now, isn't it?"
"Justice's master plan is coming together nicely. Do you know your part in it?"
"No."
"Good. I hope you understand why at least."
"Yes."
"Good." Gennai stood up and gave TK a warrior's salute, two fingers raised in recognition of the other's bravery. "Sleep well my friend."
And then TK fell deeper into sleep.
Izzy, hard at work at his computer terminal, paused a moment when a rainbow flash of light obscured his vision. He was about to sound the alarm to his sleeping comrades when a familiar figure stopped him, placing a finger to his lips to indicate that silence was in order.
"Let your friends sleep. They will need it soon." Gennai whispered to him.
"Gennai! What are you doing here?"
"I came to offer my advice. And a warning."
"Any advice from you is well worth it. What do you wish to know?"
"First the warning. You have begun, more than any of the others here, to tap into the powers of your crest. This allows me to contact you now, but it also renders you a little vulnerable. Watch yourself, and trust your instincts. Second, the advice. You must destroy Daemon in four days."
"What! Four days!" Izzy shot up. "But we'll only get there tomorrow."
"Four days. Less if possible. Then you may return home."
"You know something." Izzy accused, and for a moment Gennai looked old and saddened, tired and heavy with grief and sorrow.
"Yes. I know something. Good luck Izzy. I'm sorry fate forced you all to be what you are."
"Gennai" Izzy began.
"Goodbye." The rainbow light flared again. "And good luck."
A man sits alone in a darkened room. There is one light, glaringly bright against the stark darkness and the Spartan accompaniments in the habitation. The light gleams harshly, like bitter knives, off of a single fixture, a chess board set up in the middle of the room, pieces arranged in their rows and ranks, waiting for instructions and the call to battle.
A hand descends from beyond the scope of the light, descending down like a God from the heavens he calls home, picking up one piece and moving it forward two squares. A single movement for a single pawn, but the opening to a mighty struggle.
"The pieces are on the board." The man says quietly. "It's your move."
But the room is empty, and there is no reply.
Morning steals over the world quietly, coming on silent footsteps, yet opening eyes around the cold and crowded places that it frequents. People stir, rise and move onward, preparing to get on with their lives.
"Let's see if we can't get a little closer." Izzy finishes looking through Tai's goggles and looks over the rough ground. Everywhere he can see there is only barren dirt and a garden of rocks, natural walls creating ramparts and mighty fortifications that sit unmanned among the lifeless land. Down the slope of the hill he is looking at lies a massive pinnacle of rock, which seems to give the structure on top of it its name. The Pinnacle is a black fear-inspiring tower sunk into a mountain, impossible to construct in any world except this one.
"I really hate this." Joe remarked to nobody in particular. But even he was looking confident and grim faced.
"This guy is going down." Tai's voice was edged with blackness and hate. "Nobody does this to my sister."
"C'mon guys." Matt pointed. "Piximon still says it's safe, so let's get going before we get caught here. Okay?"
"Right." Tai returned to normal. "Mimi, Matt, point guards. Izzy, you're with Joe and me. Sora, make sure to cover our rear. We go one at a time between the rocks. Leomon, Ogremon, I want you to come down about five minutes after we do, so you catch anybody who tries to tail us. We ready?"
"Let's do it." Sora's eyes were firm.
"So that's it." Ken pointed at the huge castle, in what looked like classical Japanese castle design. "Quite a place, isn't it."
"He isn't very original. This looks just like Osaka castle." Davis grumbled, apparently not being impressed at the grandeur and opulence of the fortress in front of them.
"It is just like Osaka castle. I remember that from a paper I did once. Except that I think it's about five times normal size." Ken squinted down at the building.
"Sounds about right. MachineDramon isn't exactly small." TK pushed up his hat, which had gotten pushed down when Patamon leaned forward.
"So what do you say we pulverize it?" Yolei asked, glancing down.
"First the question is how. It's a little big." Wormmon pointed out from his vantage point on the ground below.
"Indubitably." Hawkmon agreed.
"Do you have to use big words. You're giving me a headache." Veemon complained, clutching his head in mock pain.
"Oh lay off." Hawkmon replied with some asperity.
"So Davis, what's the plan?" Cody looked serious. But then again, he always looked serious.
"See those buildings down there?" Davis pointed. There were outbuildings all over the place, apparently to support the castle and its environs. Plain whitewashed buildings, some long and low, some block-like, covered the landscape like confetti after a wedding. A group of them was arranged right next to the forest at the base of the hill they were on.
"Yeah?" Cody peered down, not seeing anything special about them.
"Well Ken and I have been watching them ever since we got up here this morning. I think that they're mostly abandoned, or used for storage. So my plan is this, we go down there and hide in them and look for a way in."
"I think it should work." TK considered.
"Good plan Davis." Kari clapped Davis on the shoulder, causing their fearless leader to blush.
"Actually," Davis reached back with one hand to scratch the back of his neck, like he usually did when he was embarrassed. "most of it is Ken's idea."
There was a moment of silence, and then TK elbowed Davis playfully. "Wow, modest tooyou're getting pretty good at this leader thing."
"Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." Davis replied cheerfully.
"Oh God." Yolei moaned, and put her hand over her eyes. "If he starts quoting Shakespeare, I'm out of here."
"To be or not to be, that is theAwwck!" Davis stumbled in his recitation figuratively and literally as Yolei shoved him down onto the ground.
"Let's get to it then. We'll go down, two at a time. Me and Davis first, you and Cody next, Kari and TK last. This we'll keep them from spotting us, we hope, until we get down to the ground." Ken pointed downward, along the slope. "We'll meet up in that stand of oak trees."
"See ya there." Davis remarked as he began to sneak away into the silent bushes, Ken stalking on his heels like a solid ghost. A few minutes later Yolei and Cody vanished into the underbrush.
"I'd forgotten what this was like." Kari took TK's hand in her own for a moment, and TK gave her a comforting squeeze.
"You mean going after another Digimon, not in self defense, but to hunt him down and destroy him?" TK asked, lost in memories of his own.
"Yeah." Kari responded listlessly.
"We all hoped we wouldn't have to do it again. But life isn't always that kind to us you know. Let's go."
And then they were gone, and only the crumpled grass marked their existence on this spot.
"Back door, back door. Well, these things always have a back door in the movies." Tai muttered, looking around.
"Yeah, but this ain't the movies." Matt reminded him pointedly. "And more importantly, we don't have to depend on a back door. If we need to we can make our own way."
"We're trying to do this quietly." Joe reminded them with a pained look on his face as he glanced out from behind the rock they were hiding against. A pair of guards, massive MarineDevimon stood guarding the main doorway to the towering structure, obscuring the gate itself. They looked too far away to actually hear what was being said, but Joe disliked taking chances, and long years of experience had taught them that underestimating Digimon was a good way to die early.
"Well, we'll have to find some way in." Agumon muttered. "Otherwise this is going to be a long day."
"We'll find one. We'll find one." Tai grunted the words like a prayer. "And then that guy is going to pay."
It was at least comfortable. The room they had chosen to insert themselves in had turned out to store a huge collection of furniture, probably collected from empty and deserted buildings. Couches, beds and chairs were scattered around with barely any order evident in their placement. Six Digimon and their human companions easily disappeared among that chaotic array of furniture that filled the building to the ceiling. The only problem was finding each other and getting around without making too much noise.
After a quick break though all twelve of them congregated on a section of couches and beds in one corner of the room, TK and Kari holding hands, Ken tapping on his computer with Yolei looking over his shoulder, Davis playing tic-tac-toe on a dusty tabletop with Veemon (they had tried chess, but kept on losing the dust bunnies they were using as pieces), and Cody polishing his sword and quietly talking to Armadillomon.
"That idiot!" Ken suddenly exploded. Without thinking Yolei slapped her hand across his mouth to keep him from being heard by anybody walking by outside, immediately blushing and lowering her hand afterward. Ken was blushing a little too, but he ignored it and plowed on.
"What's wrong Ken?" Kari rolled to face him, looking a little concerned at Ken's outburst.
"That idiot has no creative ability whatsoever." Ken grumbled this time, definitely quieter.
"Could you please tell us what you're talking about?" Patamon pleaded.
"Sorry. It's justas far as I can tell, he just rebuilt that castle in the exact shape of Osaka castle back in Japan." Ken smirked.
"Explanation please?" Davis sounded a little irritated, probably because in the excitement Veemon had just wiped out his game board.
"I can still access some of the internet from this Scanner. Don't ask how, but I can. The floor plans for Osaka castle are posted online at a site I looked at, so we can get the stupid things and figure out exactly how his castle is laid out. Then we can break in at will, give me a moment."
There were several quiet minutes in which Davis shrugged and went back to his game, TK and Kari started whispering to each other and their Digimon again, Cody went through a few of his grandfather's exercises, and Yolei and the rest of the Digimon watched with rapt attention. Finally Ken laid out the Scanner flat and pointed at a few highlighted points on a computerized map.
"Here's our entrance." He told them.
"Halt, who goes there?" The Bakemon rushed around the corner, and looked around, but there was nobody there, the corridor, dark and dusty, remaining empty.
"Ah well, false alarm." He muttered, turning around to rejoin his companions. Suddenly his vision was eclipsed by TK and Ken's fists, slamming into his face and knocking him back into a wall.
"At least it doesn't hurt when you hit them." Ken muttered, shaking his fist out. "Did we get them all?"
Veemon and Patamon who were bringing up the rear looked at where Gatomon was pushing the last of the three Bakemon into a limp pile. Then they nodded.
"Right, back down the hole." Ken ran fast but quietly down the hallway, with TK right behind. A moment later they rounded a corner and dashed into a room to find Cody and Kari waiting for them, watching their surrounding nervously.
"Everybody in." Ken pointed, and they poured back through a square hole that Cody had carved in the back of the room with his sword. Carefully, doing their best not to leave a mark, TK and Kari eased the piece of the wall back into position, sealing it closed with a sticky substance they had been using to keep their gear together. Now anyone who did not know what they were looking for would fail to find the marks there, rendering their entry point invisible.
Cody and Veemon were already halfway down the corridor behind the wall, really a narrow service hall that servants had once used to walk through The walls were dark without their proper lighting, but they were lit enough that they could dart through and make it to the second hole, this one carved through to what had once been an old cellar beneath the castle proper. Inside they could see the anxious faces of Yolei and Davis watching them, sighing in relief as the little group dived back into the sheltering darkness and out of sight from the outside.
"All right." Ken told them, still shaking a little. "We have our distraction. We can get away for now, but they'll find that patrol sooner or later. We're still in the outer bailey, but this route will get us up into the inner courtyard, since it appears that we can use this passage here that got built in by the building inspectors this century and blindly copied over into this version."
"We go fast, before they figure out where we are." TK reminded everyone.
"We didn't need that TK." Yolei reminded him.
"Need it or not, it can't hurt. From the position of the sun and the orientation of the castle we should be able to weave through the shadows and assemble here, in this corner behind the castle. The problem is then the tower. I still don't know a way in, so it will be up to the rest of us to do it. Alright?"
"Right." They chorused.
"Okay, stations everybody."
"There has to be a way in." Tai muttered again for the thousandth time.
"I think there is." Izzy mused, half to himself, pushing buttons absently on his computer. "See that huge gate there?"
"The big one guarded by a pair of DarkTyrannomon, the one that is so big you could probably drive a fleet of trucks straight through it?" Matt wanted to know. "How do we get through that?"
"Easy answer. Piximon?"
"I think I can do it, but we're going to have to be very careful about what we're doing." The pink Digimon looked around curiously, as if measuring thins up.
"What are you talking about?" Mimi demanded, looking confused, and then her expression brightened considerably. "Oh, a Digital Barrier!"
"Exactly." Piximon's reply was cheerful, but he really did not look like he enjoyed the idea. "But there's a problem. I make you invisible, but the barrier is physical in nature. If you touch one of the guards, or knock anything over, everyone will be able to see us. Or at least where we are. And the last thing we need is to get stuck in a huge open gateway with nowhere to go."
"How about this?" Izzy suggested. "You go in first and scout around, take Tentomon with you just in case, and then if you find a way to go, you come back and tell us."
"Good idea Izzy." Biyomon congratulated him.
"I suppose it might work." Ogremon puzzled himself with the thought for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders. "But I still like charging in there better."
"I think you should listen to the digidestined. They have a lot of experience with this." Leomon responded evenly, defusing his partner's statement.
"Whatever. Go for it Piximon." Tai's eyes were still hot.
"Arrgh!" Daemon threw a large heavy object across the room, carelessly shattering several valuable computer screens. His all-important oracle screen remained intact, perhaps unfortunately, as it was the main source of his troubles. Normally it showed the approximate locations of the digidestined and their brat accomplices, but now it had changed entirely. Instead it simply displayed the grinning image of Gennai, staring out at him impishly. Obviously Citadel's powerhouse had managed to sneak a net of incredibly tight programming, in the form of a sensor blank zone, around the Pinnacle. Daemon knew that the digidestined were around, but this was a surefire message that they were preparing to attack, and he did not even know how.
"What is it Master?" A pair of SkullMeramon skidded to a halt in front of their convulsing Master, worried expressions on their faces as they prepared themselves to confront their Master's wrath.
"Those fools are coming, and I don't even know where?" Daemon howled, carelessly blasting a stone column into rubble. "I'll get them yet, those insects."
"We'll stop them Master." One of his lackeys promised.
"See that you do. My orders are to take them intact, but not too intact if you understand my meaning."
"Of course Master, I'll inform the guards of such."
"Any luck on figuring out where we go from here?" Cody asked Ken, who was musing over the diagrams on the scanner and the hastily scratched out plans on the dirt nearby. All of them save Gatomon were hovering around in a room that was used for maintenance of the water pipes running into the castle proper.
"No, it's a real Japanese castle." Ken muttered. "The floors are laid out nicely, but there's really nothing we can do about it. It's meant to be hard to get up, for invaders and assassins both. The things too tall to climb, but at the same time it's really going to be a pain to go up the middle. The stairs are too few, to central to the building plan, so everyone will be able to find us going up. We'll have to fight all the way up to the top, and I don't know how we're going to it."
"We need to somehow corner MachineDramon somewhere where he won't be protected by all his minions."
"HmmmI was wrong, I think they have made some adjustments. I think he's got some sort of central control center built into things around the middle of the building. I'm not sure what floor it's on, but from the placement of the windows, something is definitely wrong." Ken took another glance at the plans.
"So what do we do with that?" Davis reclined back.
"We get into it. Knowing evil Digimon, it will probably have systems designed to keep it isolated from outside, just in case the locals revolt." Yolei pointed out.
"Right, we get in, we lock his guards out, and then we take him head on." Veemon exclaimed.
"It might not be that simple." Cody reminded them. "After all, look at it, he might not have a good way of locking his guards out, and then what?"
"We have to split up." TK pointed out. "The problem is, we're stuck now. We have to take this guy down, and we have to do it soon, or else we're really going to be stuck. If worse comes to worse, I suppose we could fly out, but then they'll be ready for us next time, and it won't be that easy again."
Kari nodded. "It's now or never."
Suddenly they all jumped, spilling over pipes and other controls in the semi-darkness as a wailing siren sounded in the distant, crying alarm to all the inhabitants. Everyone let their sudden shock freeze them for a few seconds as they stared, horror filled, into each other's eyes, all waiting for the moment when they would be called into action. There was a familiar crawling, squeezing pain of fear in the bottom of their chests as the moment changed into a time for action, a sudden dash of cold water on already frayed nerves. And then they swallowed and began to move.
Gatomon flung herself into the room from above, panting. "They're coming." She gasped at them unnecessarily.
"Everyone fed?" Ken asked around, watching the Digimon nod, faces hardening up.
"Ready to go." Yolei reported quietly.
"Let's do it." Wormmon pulled on Ken's pant leg.
"Showtime." Ken whispered quietly, but everyone heard and nodded as Ken's face went grim and cold as ice.
"Hey guys." Piximon's voice spoke to them out of thin air, nearly causing Mimi to scream, except that Joe had the presence of mind to grab her with his hand over her mouth to prevent just such an occurrence. There was a sudden shimmer and then Piximon and Tentomon appeared in the air right in front of them, slightly apologetic looks on their faces.
"Never do that again!" Joe snapped angrily as he let go of Mimi.
"Please." Izzy brushed the sweat off his forehead.
"Never mind that. It appears that they know we're coming." Piximon hissed at them.
"What? How?" Tai shot up again.
"It seems that Daemon had a device that tells him where people are once they get close enough to his fortress. We overheard two of the guards discussing it." Piximon and Tentomon exchanged glances.
"So he knows where we are?" Palmon wanted to know, her flowers going up.
"Uhhhno." Piximon responded, looking a little happier. "That's what all the fuss in there is about. Apparently when Daemon turned it on this morning all he could see was a picture of Gennai, so it appears that our associate is helping us by jamming all the transmissions that Daemon has. Nevertheless, he still has quite a force in there."
"What kind?" Sora wanted to know.
"I don't know. There are only a few that I found, Ultimates and Champions all, but I can't penetrate to the inner sanctum. I got lost."
"That's still a sizable force, but where are the rest?" Izzy was quickly entering this information on his computer.
"He is controlling a rather large territory, so most of the big ones are elsewhere. He also has squadrons of rookies patrolling everywhere, but they aren't much of a threat. The real defense of course is Daemon. I think that he's stronger than all of us. We'll need a neat trick to get rid of him."
"We'll think of something." Tai responded, looking up angrily. "Right now what we need is a way in."
"Well we found one. It appears that there are several storerooms off the main branch, mostly containing bits and pieces of things that Daemon finds interesting. By flying we can get inside some of the hard to reach areas where it will be too hard to find us." Tentomon looked proud of his accomplishment.
"We can't fly." Gabumon pointed out, looking at his own body.
"We can inside my Digital Barrier." Piximon responded.
"All right, let's do it." Tai pointed. "Charge!"
"Here's the way!" Ken pointed, and they dashed through the grounds, keeping out of the way of the guards who were busy pounding out toward the outbuildings and the gates. Fortunately careless shippers and freight handlers had left crates of supplies and boxes of junk lying around the carefully manicured green courtyard, allowing the twelve of them to sneak through the maze of abandoned junk without being spotted.
It seemed as though Ken's gambit was working. He and Kari had argued long and hard about the benefits of a silent entrance, which would warn no one of their coming, and the advantage of a misleading decoy event which would force the guards to look somewhere else. They had launched an attack on the Bakemon in the furthest outpost of the castle, one near a fortuitously open window. Hopefully the guards would be called out to search the outside once they found nobody within the castle, and would not stumble onto the back passages that the group had used to commit the deed.
"Now if only we had a back door." Patamon pondered, staring up.
"We have something better then that." Ken pointed quickly. "Doors are guarded, but windows usually aren't. Fly up there and see what's inside."
Patamon quickly flapped his way up to a nearby window and peeped in before returning to ground level. "It's empty, but you can't get up there. It's too high to climb."
Obviously the builders had done their work. The slightly slanted walls would not allow anyone to clamber up their surface, but with the guards busy, Ken had planned something else. Pulling on his bag he came up with the ten meters of rope that TK had packed just in case so many days ago, and handed one end to Gatomon. To the other end he tied his jacket and Davis' jacket, so that they had a line that was long enough to reach the high window. Moving swiftly, he had the knots done in seconds, and then turned to Hawkmon and Patamon.
"Okay you guys, I want you to carry Gatomon up there. She's the only one who knows how to tie knots well, so she gets to tie it to something solid. Then we go up, you guys carrying the other Digimon if you're strong enough. Go now, before the guards start checking this area."
Hawkmon picked up Gatomon in his claws and quickly flew her over the windowsill, with Patamon following, heaving mightily as he hauled Wormmon up with him. A few moments later the rope they had brought started to jerk, as if someone was working with the other ends, followed by Gatomon sticking her head out the window and nodding.
Ken scrambled up the rope first, making sure it was safe and jumping through the window into the room beyond, Hawkmon trailing him, bringing Armadillomon up in his claws. TK followed, briefly pausing to make sure that he could negotiate the final turn up into the room, and then hitting the ground heavily, a moment before Kari scrambled up the same way. Cody and Veemon came up together, pulling themselves hand over hand, but they could hear shouts coming closer.
"Check everywhere!" Someone was screaming, and there was the sound of tramping feet as guards began to move around everywhere, checking behind and in front of the various obstructions on the castle grounds. Some of the footsteps were getting noticeably closer.
Then Yolei fell down, and the rope shook loose of its knot, and tumbled to the ground after her, stranding her on the ground. There was a moment when everyone froze in complete panic.
"Sticky Net!" Wormmon emitted his familiar blast of webbing, encasing Yolei and causing her to struggle against the sudden confines, but everyone else had already figured out the new plan, and were engaged in hauling her up to the window. Yolei squeezed through the window and toppled to the ground, safely out of sight, rope still in hand, when two Meramon turned a corner below, bringing them within eye contact of the area. With a quick sweep they checked the area, turned and left.
Kari breathed a sigh of relief, and exchanged a glance with TK, sharing a silent moment after their second rope climb from death and destruction, before she looked around the room. Empty and serene this particular room seemed to be an empty office storage room, filled with filing cabinets and computer parts that had collected several months worth of dust. The only entrance was a single door, that appeared to have been long unopened.
"Okay, we're in, now what?" Kari asked.
Slowly, Joe thought to himself, near panic as the group inched between the guards, so slowly that you have no chance of making a mistake.
But Piximon was going at the pace of a normal walk, forcing the bunched up little group to walk extremely carefully. One careless exclamation could lose everything for them. Still they treaded onward, as two different sets of bored looking Gardromon watched the outside world listlessly. Fortunately the corridor was wide enough that the whole group could sneak through without really being caught, but it was still a close thing.
"We're in." Izzy muttered once they were sufficiently down the corridor to avoid the guards. "Now what?"
"We go straight for him." Tai told them, anger still seething in his voice.
"Are you sure?" Sora asked cautiously. "I mean we haven't scouted around at all or anything"
"We go for him and make him pay." Tai was adamant and everyone just sighed.
"This way." Piximon pointed with his spear and, framed by Leomon and Ogremon, the group made its way deeper into the castle.
"Are you sure?" Tai asked after a few moments.
"Of course." Piximon snapped, sounding a little impatient. "This is the center of everything. He's got to be here."
And then they rounded the corner and found themselves face to face with a huge set of doors, completely unguarded. Everyone looked at them for a moment.
"Well, he must be in there." Tai muttered, walking up and forcing everyone else to follow him." He had almost reached the doors when there was a sudden noise from inside, and he stopped dead.
"What is that?" Gabumon sounded alarmed.
"I don't know." Piximon muttered uneasily.
"Maybe he has a trap waiting for us." Mimi suggested, but Izzy was frowning and bending closer to listen to the doors themselves.
"It's an elevator." He announced after a few moments.
"Daemon must be upstairs then." Tai muttered, checking to make sure they were all invisible still.
Suddenly the noises stopped, and the doors opened, revealing a huge empty elevator compartment. Moments later a pair of Veggiemon towing a huge cart filled with cardboard boxes emerged from another corridor and occupied the elevator.
Tai shrugged and then they squeezed in beside the two flunkies, making sure that they were still undetected.
Slowly the doors closed and the elevator began to rise upward toward confrontation.
Author's Note: Although it does not contain a map of the outbuildings (the map to which Ken refers and I have never seen), limited floor plans of Osaka Castle can be found at:
http://www.tourism.city.osaka.jp/en/castle/jozetu/index.htm