Authors Note: Hey all. First chapter by me. As you have all noticed if you read any of my stories, I like long author notes. But after the chapter that Kaeera wrote, I'm sure your all dieing to read this one, so have at it! Sorry it took so long for me to finish this.
( .. ) = this is me trying to get to you
italics = this is someone thinking
Even The Purest Light Casts A Shadow
Chapter 4: By DarkStar01
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Another area checked," Ken said, thinking out loud. "Where in the digiworld is he?" By now, after about 3 hours of searching for Davis, even the 'this-will-all-work-out' Yolei was somber and confused. Had Davis really gone this far as to turn off all his DigiDestined equipment so they couldn't detect him, and run to the digiworld? None of it made sense.
"That's the 8th cliff next to the ocean that we have checked," Cody said, more for his own benefiet than the others. "What do we do?" Kari closed her eyes and got a stern look on her face.
"We keep looking of course," she said.
"But Kari, we aren't turning anything up," TK responded. "It looks like we need our brothers and the others help too."
But then I would have to explain everything to them. I would have to... Why am I afraid of telling them about my decision? It was the decision I wanted to make, wasn't it? It was the right decision...
"Kari?" TK asked. She snapped out of her thoughts. "Did you hear me? We have to tell the others."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"So what exactly do we do first?" Davis asked Gray. They were inside his small house like structure, and Davis was lying on his bed while Gray made some food.
"Well, the first thing that we should do should be to activate the firewall for Japan."
"What do you mean?" Davis asked.
"Your friends will probably be the biggest problem we have. They won't want to join us I suspect." Davis furrowed his brow in thought.
No, they won't. I know Kari won't. She was always saying how her dream was for humans and digimon to live peacefully together.
"Davis? You there?" Gray asked, waving his hand in front of Davis' face.
But that doesn't matter anymore.
"...Yeah....They will be.." Then Davis suddenly thought of something. "Wait a minute, you said that you didn't know where any of these Sternpimart....Stramnhenat...Shtreernhinmat..."
"Sternenheimat?"
"Yeah. You said you didn't know where any were!"
"Not exactly," Gray said with a slight smile. "You had asked me if I knew where they were, as in where all of them were, so I answered truthfully. No. I don't know where all of them are. But I do know where enough are to block off Japan." Gray walked over to the bed with a plate of food in hand. "So are you in?"
"..Yeah...."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Okay," Tai said. "All of us are here now, so what we are all wondering, and you all seem to know, is why did Davis just pick-up and leave?" Yolei, Ken and Cody looked over at TK and Kari, and Tai followed their gaze.
"..Oh...." Tai said. "It was...." Kari nodded her head.
Poor Davis, I know how that can feel. Tai took an unnoticed glance over at Sora and Matt, who were holding hands. Davis and me are even more alike than should be allowed.
"If it's your problem then why did you call us?" Tai said, barely above a whisper.
"We can't find him anywhere," Ken said. "And he told me something about cliffs by a sea." Everyone gasped.
"He wouldn't..." Sora said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"So where exactly are the points that block Japan?" Davis asked.
"I know where they are, but unless we have a digimon to help us, it will take days to get to them."
"Let's go back so I can get Veemon," Davis said. "He is my digimon partner."
"Alright," Gray agreed. "There is a digiport over this way that will get us very close to your house."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Everyone was searching for Davis. I hope he didn't do anything stupid, Tai thought. He saw Pegasusmon heading back towards the group.
"I didn't find anything," TK said as he landed.
"None of us did," Tai said. "The only one left is Kari."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is my fault, she thought to herself. I never should have said those things. They weren't even true.
"We should head back to the group," Nefertimon said as they flew above another forrested area.
"No," Kari said. "Davis is out here somewhere. We have to find him." Nefertimon sighed but continued on flying over the digiworld in search of Davis. They were flying for what seemed like hours when suddenly, Kari noticed something.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"She's taking way too long," Matt said. "We need to go find her."
"I don't think-" Tai started, but was interupted by his digivice. It had started beeping, as had everyones. Yolei looked at hers to see what it was all about.
"Guys!! Davis turned on his digivice!!" She exclaimed. "He's due west!" Everyone took got on their digimon and headed towards the signal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"We are about 2 minutes away from him Nefertimon!" Kari said. "Turn left!" Nefertimon turned towards the signal, going at breakneck speed. They were coming up on where Davis should be. It was just coming into view, and the signal died. As Nefertimon touched down, Kari looked for Davis, but he was nowhere to be found. She didn't notice the digiportal, just closing but a few meters away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Davis moved about his room quickly, gathering a few items that he wanted to take with him. He went over to Veemon.
"Let's go little buddy." Veemon nodded in reply. Gray smiled and opened the digiportal back towards his house.
Once they were in the digiworld again, Davis and Gray explained what was going on to Veemon.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked Davis.
"Yes," Davis responded. "What he was saying is true. The world does not know how to be kind to anything that is not like itself." Davis closed his eyes and recoiled at how true his own words were. He knew from experience.
"Alright then Davish. I am with you all the way."
"Excellent," Gray said. "Now let's hurry and close off those Sternenheimat points. I have a digi-portal that will bring us fairly close to one of them."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The rest of the groups had caught up with Kari, who was looking all over around the area where she had landed looking for Davis.
"Did you see him?" Matt asked.
"No," Kari said. "He disappeared right before I got here. It was as if he vanished into nothing."
Cody walked over to the edge of the trees.
"Why would Davis turn on his D3?" he asked.
"To use it I suppose," Izzy answered. "Wait! I see what your saying. The only two things he would have done with his D3 are open a portal and digivolve Veemon."
"We would have seen him digivolve," Tai said. "That would have been unmistakeable."
"Which leaves that he opened a portal," Cody said. "But why would he have gone back to the real world?" Everyone was silent for a moment.
"Wait a minute, did he have Veemon with him?" Izzy asked.
"I don't know," TK said. "Maybe... what's your point?"
"That's the only thing I can think of. The only reason he would go back, unless he meant to stay in the real world."
"That's not likely. It would contradict his previous acitons."
"Exactly. And him going back to get Veemon means that he plans to be here to do something, possibly for an extended period of time."
Whatever, Kari thought. I'm just glad he didn't jump to the bottom of one of those cliffs...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Are we almost there?" Davis asked impatiently. "It feels like we have been walking forever!"
"Yes," Gray said calmly, not looking back at Davis. "We are close." He looked at his wrist device, then looked up, strait ahead.
"I didn't know that this crystal was in the middle of the digital dessert," Davis complained.
"You never asked," Gray said distant, his expression unchanging, as if he wasn't focused at all on what Davis was saying. He took a few more steps forward, then stopped.
"C'mon man, keep going. I want to get out of here as soon as we can."
"This is it," Gray said with a smile on his face. "It's right here." Davis took a long glance at where Gray was standing. Nothing but the featureless dessert that was as far as the eye could see.
"Ummmm... has the heat gotten to you Gray? There's nothing there." Gray turned around and smiled.
"That's because it hasn't reacted to the crystal yet." Gray pressed a button on his wrist device and a blue crystal materialized. He grabbed it and held it out in front of him. "Watch this."
At first nothing really happened. The crystal glowed a little bit, but nothing much. Gray kept moving around slightly, as if he was finely adjusting a setting. Then, after a short while, it seemed that he had hit the spot he was looking for. The crystal suddenly became blindingly bright.
The sky went black, and blue glowing lines appeared in the sand. They seemed to be part of a big pattern that you would see from the air, and it seemed that they were in the middle of it. The pattern looked like it must have been a half a mile in diameter, and as if it had ancient markings all over it.
Davis stood in awe, as did Veemon, at what they were seeing. From the center of the pattern, a blue light beam pointing up from the ground began to form below the crystal. It looked like it shot all the way into the black sky. The Sun had long since disappeared from vision, and the crystal and pattern were the only real source of light, which cast an erie blue hue on everything, and made Veemon look flourescent.
Gray slowly let go of the crystal, and it levitated in its place, looking as if it was supported by the beam of light. The crystal began to slowly rotate, and a ring of digiports appeared around the circular center of the pattern, encircling the beam of blue light.
A small ball of what looked like pure energy formed around the crystal, then without warning, shot out in all directions like a shockwave. The digiports glowed blue for a moment, then went back to normal, disappearing.
"That went well," Gray said. "Now all the digiports in this area are secured, and a Firepoint has been set up."
"A... Firepoint??" Davis said, still slightly shocked at the show that had just been displayed. The Sun light was beginning to beat down on them again. "What's a Firepoint?"
"Well, you remember how I said that I knew how to block off Japan? Think of the Firewall as sort of what it sounds like. It's a wall in between the digital and real world, only this wall will let certain people through, while denying others. Just like a wall or a fence, it needs supports. Fence posts. Firepoints. It's sort of like a connect the dots to make the wall that blocks the world out. Points in the digital world corespond to points in the real world."
"So that's how it works," Veemon said.
"You make things like this so much easier to understand than Izzy does," Davis said jokingly. They both laughed, as did Veemon.
"So where's the next one?" Veemon asked. Davis, taking after Gray, looked at the device that Gray had given him. Now how do I operate this thing? Davis wondered.
"Put it to passive scan mode," Gray said, pressing a few buttons on Davis' device. A map showed up on the small screen with their location and the locations of the other Sternenheimat points. The closest one was to the east, or Davis' left.
"Pretty nifty little devices. What do you call them?"
"Well," Gray sort of shuffled uncomfortably. "I know that you call yours D3's, right? I called 'em D4's." Davis laughed.
"They sure are a whole lot different and in some ways better than the ones that we... the one I have." Gray shuffled again at Davis' slip up on words.
"Are you really ready to leave them?" Gray asked. "Don't answer now. Think about it."
Davis stopped himself. Was he? He wasn't quite sure, but he didn't want to think about it either. Instead, he held out his D3 in front of him.
"Let's get to that next point! Digi-armor energize!"
"Veemon armor digivolve to...... Raidramon!"
Gray and Davis got on Raidramons back and he sped off, directed by Davis and Gray, towards the next point in their sequence to shut down Japan. To lock out the Odaiba digidestined.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tai and the others had been trekking for hours now, searching for Davis. They were about ready to give up when they suddenly got a signal on Davis' D3.
"He's in the digital desert," TK said. "Crap, the signal went dead. He only keeps it on as long as he has to."
"At least we know he came back," Izzy said. "That means that he must have gotten Veemon then come back."
"Let's see if we can get over to that digital desert," Kari said. "We might be able to catch him!"
"Only if we ride there," Mimi reminded them. They all nodded, as the digimon that could fly digivolved to their flying forms. Everyone else grabbed on for the ride as they sped off in the direction of the digital desert, with hopes of getting a friend and some answers.
"So what exactly happened?" Tai asked Kari. They were riding together on Nefertimon. "I know that Davis wouldn't have done this unless something that your not telling me happened." Kari closed her eyes and looked away.
"You know me too well for your own good," Kari said. "It was my fault. No one except for Davis and me know what happened, and it was all my fault." She began to cry, and Tai wiped the tears off her face.
"What happened that the others don't know about?" Tai asked.
"I was trying to catch up to Davis, and he told me that he didn't want anything to do with me because he was tired of being played around with basically. I took it hard and lashed back. I said so many things that aren't true." She sniffed. "I told him that he wasn't even worth the time of day. That he was a selfish..." She trailed off, unable to complete her sentence, due to her emotional state. Tai tried to comfort her.
"It's okay Kari. I know you didn't mean those things, and I am pretty sure that Davis does too. He will forgive you. I'm sure of it."
"But I-" Kari was cut off. Something weird was going on. They were now on the outskirts over the digital desert, and the sky had turned black. The sun had disappered. The only light was an erie blue glow that was coming from up ahead and from all the vegitation below, though it was sparse. It cast evil looking shadows on the digidestined.
"What's going on?" Izzy asked out loud. A rhetorical question, none of them knew. A beam of blue light rose into the sky as high as they could see, far off in the distance. They were like statues, struck by the awe of the situation, and stopped flying towards the desert.
"Davis must have something to do with that," Tai said. "He was out here. Out there."
After a few seconds, they saw a blue shockwave headed their way, but it disapated before it reached them, as the sky returned to its normal color, and the Sun reappeared in the sky.
"What just happened there?" Yolei asked.
"I'm... not sure," Izzy said.
Their digivices went off again.
"He turned on his digivice," Kari said, matter-of-factly. It was true, they could see in the distance the tell tale signs of someone digivolving. "It looks like Raidramon. He is traveling somewhere."
"That's it!" Tai yelled. "This is insane! What in the hell is all this about! Davis has us running in circles, and blind at that!" He lowered his head a little. "Maybe we would be better off to just let him go. Give him some time." The group was landing as he said the last sentence.
"Maybe your right," Matt said.
"Perhaps we should just let him be," Izzy agreed.
"I can't believe you guys!" Ken said. "We need to help him here! That's what a friend would do, although I am not really surprised that you guys want to just quit on him. I am the only one that has even seemed to consider Davis a person!" Ken looked across the group. "If it was any of you that was out there, I know that no one, especially not Davis, would be quitting now. You all know it too."
"He's right," Cody said, looking at the ground. His facial expression was one of the strongest emotions that any of them had ever seen Cody display. He looked angry and mournful at the same time. "We haven't been much of friends to him. The least we can do is find out exactly what is going on."
"Jeez," Matt said. "We never said we didn't care about him, we just said that we should give him some space, that's all."
"Your right," Ken said. "You never said it, but it doesn't matter. Actions speak louder than words, and in some case, inactions as well. I don't care if you guys go home to your nice cozy beds, I am going to find out why he isn't going back to his!"
Ken walked over to Stingmon and was about to take off.
"Wait!" someone called to him. He stopped and turned around. There was Cody. "I completely agree, and we need to find him." Cody pointed behind him. "Even if the others don't."
"Well, I may not have been as good as I should have been to him," Tai said, "but your right. We have an obligation as his friends to find out what is wrong, and how he is fixing it." Tai walked over and joined Cody and Ken.
"I don't know," TK said. "I think we should let him be. That's what we did with Matt. It all worked out then. If he doesn't want to be around other people, fine, he doesn't have to be." He wrapped his arm around Kari. "Right Kari?"
Right? That's what I have been asking myself. Was Davis right? I know I wasn't, but was he? Kari looked up into her boyfriends eyes. How can TK say something like that? Ken was right. If it had been anyone else, everyone would still be looking for him, not arguing whether or not to look for him in the first place.
"No," Kari said. Everyone turned and looked at her with a very surprised look, but none more so than Ken. "Not right. Not this time. The only way to be right is to agree with Ken. Friends don't leave friends out to dry." TK looked hurt and taken aback at what she said.
"But... why?" TK asked.
"He is our friend! I thought you would realize that! He needs the same sort of support that everyone else does! A friend is a friend is a friend, and that's the way it is!" Everyone caught a slight hint of anger in her tone, and was very surprised at the way she was acting.
Maybe things won't be the same for you and me after all, Tai thought to himself.
"We have to find him, at least to find out what's going on." The others nodded their heads in agreement. If they hadn't been swayed before, they were now.
"So what are we waiting around here for then?" Tai said. "Let's go!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Wow! Raidramon sure goes fast!" Gray said in amazement. "This will be a cinch now!"
"The others are looking for me," Davis said.
"I know," Gray responded. "Have you thought about what I said?"
"Yeah," Davis answered. "But I don't have an answer yet."
"That's alright. Like I was saying, you should take your time to answer that one."
They coninued on, mostly in silence, until they got close to the next Sternenheimat point. They looked at their wrist devices and walked in the direction of the point, with Veemon following, de-digivolved from Raidramon.
It took about another five minutes before they got to the point. Again, Gray pressed a button on his device and a crystal appeared. This time, pink. The process seemed to be the same, as everything that happened with the last point happened again, only wherever there had been something blue, it was now pink. The aura, the pattern, the glowing crystal; all of it was pink.
After closing off the point, Davis re-digivolved Veemon to Raidramon, but noticed that his gear was going off. Looks like I got an E-mail...
He checked his gear as they were travelling, and deleted it as soon as he saw it was from Kari. Don't want to talk to you right now. Don't want to talk to you at all. He felt his eyes getting foggy. Don't I...?
He quickly disposed of his forming tears, unnoticeably to Gray.
For the better part of the next four hours, Gray, Davis and Veemon continued to activate the points, with the digidestined not that far behind. Though it always seemed that they got there just as Davis left. Now, as Davis and Gray only had two points left until the Japan Firewall was activated, the digidestined for the first time noticed something odd...
"Huh. That's strange..." Ken said, looking at his D3. "Hey everyone! Stop for a second!" As the group halted, Ken got off Stingmon and walked off in an odd direction through the jungle there were passing. The group waited for Ken to come back, but it seemed he wasn't going to. Then, just as Tai was getting ready to send a search party out, Ken yelled out from a distance: "Everyone! Over here, quick!!"
After about five minutes, everyone had arrived at the small clearing in the jungle where Ken was at.
"What is this all about?" Matt asked. "Why did we stop?" Ken pointed to the groups left.
"Look at that digiport," Ken said. "Does anything about it strike you as odd?"
Everyone glanced at the small TV like digiport, and instantly everone realized what Ken was saying.
"Hey! That digiport is glowing yellow!" Tai exclaimed. "What's going on?"
"Look at your digivices," Ken told them. They all gasped as they noticed that the digiport, though close enough to be visible to the naked eye, was not showing up on their D3's.
"What in the world?!"
"I already tried opening a digiport," Ken said. "It doesn't work. It's as if the port isn't compatable with our digivices." Ken took a step towards the digiport. "Notice anything else?" he asked.
"No," Cody said. "What else?"
"Wait," Izzy said. "Isn't yellow the color of the last wave we encountered that Davis seems to be performing?"
"Yes," Ken said. "It is. I think we have found out what Davis is doing."
"Deactivating digiports?" Yolei asked. "But why would he do that?"
"More importantly, how would he do that?" Izzy said. "I have never come across a way to deactivate a digiport."
"Do you think that he might be getting help from someone?" Tai asked. "This doesn't seem like a Davis sort of move."
"But what would be the motivation for something like that?" Cody asked. "It just doesn't make sense."
"Not to us," Izzy said. "But it makes complete sense to someone, and this is for someones benefit. The question is whose?"
"It could be an evil digimon," TK suggested.
"No. It doesn't matter how deranged Davis may be," Kari said. "He would only do something to the digital world if he thought it was something good. The one thing I want to know is why does Davis think that shutting down all the digiports is a good thing?"
"It seems that we have a lot more questions," Tai said. "The only way to answer them is to confront Davis."
"But how are we gonna do that? He is always one step ahead, and he never has his digivice on for very long."
"Maybe there is a pattern to these places that Davis has been going to," Matt suggested. "If we found the pattern, we would know where he is going to be."
"I'll get right on it," Izzy said. "I just hope that we get this all figured out soon. I don't want to miss dinner."
"I can agree to that," Matt said.
"Just think of all the digiports that Davis has blocked," Kari said. "It's terrible..."
"Blocked... that's an interesting idea..." Izzy said. He pulled out his lap top and was typing on it for about half an hour before he stood up and turned to the waiting group.
"I have some good news and some bad news," Izzy said. "The good news is, I do know where Davis is now, and i do know where he will be in about half an hour. There was a pattern." Izzy paused. "The bad news is that Davis seems to be setting up a Firewall between the digital and real worlds."
"What's a Firewall?" Cody asked.
"Think of it as exactly what it sounds like. A wall of digital fire. If you have the right access codes, you don't get burned, but if you don't have the access codes... you can't get into the digital world from the real world or visa versa."
"WHAT?!" everyone shouted.
"I'm afraid that Davis has already blocked off most of Japan, and only needs to activate two or three more strategic places before no one will be able to access the digital world from Japan without his access codes, and no one will be able to go to Japan from the digital world without them either. He seems to almost be finished. I'd say that within an hour, we would have to travel from Russia to get home."
Everyone was dumbstruck at what Izzy had just told them. This was most certainly not good. In fact, this was bad. Really bad.
"What... what do we do?" Yolei asked.
"I think we need to revote on whether or not to chase Davis on this one. It seems that he is very adement about keeping us away," Matt said.
"Vote?" Ken said. "Fine. I vote that we continue."
"So do I," Cody said.
"Me too," Tai chimed in.
"I vote we stop," Matt said.
"Yeah," Sora agreed.
"We really need to stop going on this wild goose chase," TK said.
"Well I think that we still need to go on this wild Davis chase," Yolei said.
"We should head home," Izzy noted. "It's what logic says."
Mimi and Joe were not available to come to the digital world, so that left it tied at 4 to 4 with only one vote left: Kari's.
"Well?" Tai asked. "What's your vote Kari? It seems that we're split."
"How can we continue looking for Davis when he trys so hard to stop us?" Kari asked. Matt, Sora and TK nodded their heads in agreement. "Simple," she continued. "We keep on trying." Everyone paused and did a double take as they realized what Kari said.
"I... guess that we know where to go then..." Izzy said. "The place we will be able to meet up with him is right over this way," he said, pointing to his right.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Authors Note: Someone call the police, I just wrote the worst cliffhanger ever. Muwahahahaha... Don't worry, I am sure that the next chapter will be out before Christmas... hopefully... Hope you guys liked my chapter, as well as the others, in this ever growing fic with an ever growing group of Daikari loving writers. If you enjoy this fic, I suggest you check on my and the others profiles for our independant stories that we have written or are currently writing. Have fun waiting for the next chapter, because it ought to be a doozy.
( .. ) = this is me trying to get to you
italics = this is someone thinking
Even The Purest Light Casts A Shadow
Chapter 4: By DarkStar01
"Another area checked," Ken said, thinking out loud. "Where in the digiworld is he?" By now, after about 3 hours of searching for Davis, even the 'this-will-all-work-out' Yolei was somber and confused. Had Davis really gone this far as to turn off all his DigiDestined equipment so they couldn't detect him, and run to the digiworld? None of it made sense.
"That's the 8th cliff next to the ocean that we have checked," Cody said, more for his own benefiet than the others. "What do we do?" Kari closed her eyes and got a stern look on her face.
"We keep looking of course," she said.
"But Kari, we aren't turning anything up," TK responded. "It looks like we need our brothers and the others help too."
But then I would have to explain everything to them. I would have to... Why am I afraid of telling them about my decision? It was the decision I wanted to make, wasn't it? It was the right decision...
"Kari?" TK asked. She snapped out of her thoughts. "Did you hear me? We have to tell the others."
"So what exactly do we do first?" Davis asked Gray. They were inside his small house like structure, and Davis was lying on his bed while Gray made some food.
"Well, the first thing that we should do should be to activate the firewall for Japan."
"What do you mean?" Davis asked.
"Your friends will probably be the biggest problem we have. They won't want to join us I suspect." Davis furrowed his brow in thought.
No, they won't. I know Kari won't. She was always saying how her dream was for humans and digimon to live peacefully together.
"Davis? You there?" Gray asked, waving his hand in front of Davis' face.
But that doesn't matter anymore.
"...Yeah....They will be.." Then Davis suddenly thought of something. "Wait a minute, you said that you didn't know where any of these Sternpimart....Stramnhenat...Shtreernhinmat..."
"Sternenheimat?"
"Yeah. You said you didn't know where any were!"
"Not exactly," Gray said with a slight smile. "You had asked me if I knew where they were, as in where all of them were, so I answered truthfully. No. I don't know where all of them are. But I do know where enough are to block off Japan." Gray walked over to the bed with a plate of food in hand. "So are you in?"
"..Yeah...."
"Okay," Tai said. "All of us are here now, so what we are all wondering, and you all seem to know, is why did Davis just pick-up and leave?" Yolei, Ken and Cody looked over at TK and Kari, and Tai followed their gaze.
"..Oh...." Tai said. "It was...." Kari nodded her head.
Poor Davis, I know how that can feel. Tai took an unnoticed glance over at Sora and Matt, who were holding hands. Davis and me are even more alike than should be allowed.
"If it's your problem then why did you call us?" Tai said, barely above a whisper.
"We can't find him anywhere," Ken said. "And he told me something about cliffs by a sea." Everyone gasped.
"He wouldn't..." Sora said.
"So where exactly are the points that block Japan?" Davis asked.
"I know where they are, but unless we have a digimon to help us, it will take days to get to them."
"Let's go back so I can get Veemon," Davis said. "He is my digimon partner."
"Alright," Gray agreed. "There is a digiport over this way that will get us very close to your house."
Everyone was searching for Davis. I hope he didn't do anything stupid, Tai thought. He saw Pegasusmon heading back towards the group.
"I didn't find anything," TK said as he landed.
"None of us did," Tai said. "The only one left is Kari."
This is my fault, she thought to herself. I never should have said those things. They weren't even true.
"We should head back to the group," Nefertimon said as they flew above another forrested area.
"No," Kari said. "Davis is out here somewhere. We have to find him." Nefertimon sighed but continued on flying over the digiworld in search of Davis. They were flying for what seemed like hours when suddenly, Kari noticed something.
"She's taking way too long," Matt said. "We need to go find her."
"I don't think-" Tai started, but was interupted by his digivice. It had started beeping, as had everyones. Yolei looked at hers to see what it was all about.
"Guys!! Davis turned on his digivice!!" She exclaimed. "He's due west!" Everyone took got on their digimon and headed towards the signal.
"We are about 2 minutes away from him Nefertimon!" Kari said. "Turn left!" Nefertimon turned towards the signal, going at breakneck speed. They were coming up on where Davis should be. It was just coming into view, and the signal died. As Nefertimon touched down, Kari looked for Davis, but he was nowhere to be found. She didn't notice the digiportal, just closing but a few meters away.
Davis moved about his room quickly, gathering a few items that he wanted to take with him. He went over to Veemon.
"Let's go little buddy." Veemon nodded in reply. Gray smiled and opened the digiportal back towards his house.
Once they were in the digiworld again, Davis and Gray explained what was going on to Veemon.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked Davis.
"Yes," Davis responded. "What he was saying is true. The world does not know how to be kind to anything that is not like itself." Davis closed his eyes and recoiled at how true his own words were. He knew from experience.
"Alright then Davish. I am with you all the way."
"Excellent," Gray said. "Now let's hurry and close off those Sternenheimat points. I have a digi-portal that will bring us fairly close to one of them."
The rest of the groups had caught up with Kari, who was looking all over around the area where she had landed looking for Davis.
"Did you see him?" Matt asked.
"No," Kari said. "He disappeared right before I got here. It was as if he vanished into nothing."
Cody walked over to the edge of the trees.
"Why would Davis turn on his D3?" he asked.
"To use it I suppose," Izzy answered. "Wait! I see what your saying. The only two things he would have done with his D3 are open a portal and digivolve Veemon."
"We would have seen him digivolve," Tai said. "That would have been unmistakeable."
"Which leaves that he opened a portal," Cody said. "But why would he have gone back to the real world?" Everyone was silent for a moment.
"Wait a minute, did he have Veemon with him?" Izzy asked.
"I don't know," TK said. "Maybe... what's your point?"
"That's the only thing I can think of. The only reason he would go back, unless he meant to stay in the real world."
"That's not likely. It would contradict his previous acitons."
"Exactly. And him going back to get Veemon means that he plans to be here to do something, possibly for an extended period of time."
Whatever, Kari thought. I'm just glad he didn't jump to the bottom of one of those cliffs...
"Are we almost there?" Davis asked impatiently. "It feels like we have been walking forever!"
"Yes," Gray said calmly, not looking back at Davis. "We are close." He looked at his wrist device, then looked up, strait ahead.
"I didn't know that this crystal was in the middle of the digital dessert," Davis complained.
"You never asked," Gray said distant, his expression unchanging, as if he wasn't focused at all on what Davis was saying. He took a few more steps forward, then stopped.
"C'mon man, keep going. I want to get out of here as soon as we can."
"This is it," Gray said with a smile on his face. "It's right here." Davis took a long glance at where Gray was standing. Nothing but the featureless dessert that was as far as the eye could see.
"Ummmm... has the heat gotten to you Gray? There's nothing there." Gray turned around and smiled.
"That's because it hasn't reacted to the crystal yet." Gray pressed a button on his wrist device and a blue crystal materialized. He grabbed it and held it out in front of him. "Watch this."
At first nothing really happened. The crystal glowed a little bit, but nothing much. Gray kept moving around slightly, as if he was finely adjusting a setting. Then, after a short while, it seemed that he had hit the spot he was looking for. The crystal suddenly became blindingly bright.
The sky went black, and blue glowing lines appeared in the sand. They seemed to be part of a big pattern that you would see from the air, and it seemed that they were in the middle of it. The pattern looked like it must have been a half a mile in diameter, and as if it had ancient markings all over it.
Davis stood in awe, as did Veemon, at what they were seeing. From the center of the pattern, a blue light beam pointing up from the ground began to form below the crystal. It looked like it shot all the way into the black sky. The Sun had long since disappeared from vision, and the crystal and pattern were the only real source of light, which cast an erie blue hue on everything, and made Veemon look flourescent.
Gray slowly let go of the crystal, and it levitated in its place, looking as if it was supported by the beam of light. The crystal began to slowly rotate, and a ring of digiports appeared around the circular center of the pattern, encircling the beam of blue light.
A small ball of what looked like pure energy formed around the crystal, then without warning, shot out in all directions like a shockwave. The digiports glowed blue for a moment, then went back to normal, disappearing.
"That went well," Gray said. "Now all the digiports in this area are secured, and a Firepoint has been set up."
"A... Firepoint??" Davis said, still slightly shocked at the show that had just been displayed. The Sun light was beginning to beat down on them again. "What's a Firepoint?"
"Well, you remember how I said that I knew how to block off Japan? Think of the Firewall as sort of what it sounds like. It's a wall in between the digital and real world, only this wall will let certain people through, while denying others. Just like a wall or a fence, it needs supports. Fence posts. Firepoints. It's sort of like a connect the dots to make the wall that blocks the world out. Points in the digital world corespond to points in the real world."
"So that's how it works," Veemon said.
"You make things like this so much easier to understand than Izzy does," Davis said jokingly. They both laughed, as did Veemon.
"So where's the next one?" Veemon asked. Davis, taking after Gray, looked at the device that Gray had given him. Now how do I operate this thing? Davis wondered.
"Put it to passive scan mode," Gray said, pressing a few buttons on Davis' device. A map showed up on the small screen with their location and the locations of the other Sternenheimat points. The closest one was to the east, or Davis' left.
"Pretty nifty little devices. What do you call them?"
"Well," Gray sort of shuffled uncomfortably. "I know that you call yours D3's, right? I called 'em D4's." Davis laughed.
"They sure are a whole lot different and in some ways better than the ones that we... the one I have." Gray shuffled again at Davis' slip up on words.
"Are you really ready to leave them?" Gray asked. "Don't answer now. Think about it."
Davis stopped himself. Was he? He wasn't quite sure, but he didn't want to think about it either. Instead, he held out his D3 in front of him.
"Let's get to that next point! Digi-armor energize!"
"Veemon armor digivolve to...... Raidramon!"
Gray and Davis got on Raidramons back and he sped off, directed by Davis and Gray, towards the next point in their sequence to shut down Japan. To lock out the Odaiba digidestined.
Tai and the others had been trekking for hours now, searching for Davis. They were about ready to give up when they suddenly got a signal on Davis' D3.
"He's in the digital desert," TK said. "Crap, the signal went dead. He only keeps it on as long as he has to."
"At least we know he came back," Izzy said. "That means that he must have gotten Veemon then come back."
"Let's see if we can get over to that digital desert," Kari said. "We might be able to catch him!"
"Only if we ride there," Mimi reminded them. They all nodded, as the digimon that could fly digivolved to their flying forms. Everyone else grabbed on for the ride as they sped off in the direction of the digital desert, with hopes of getting a friend and some answers.
"So what exactly happened?" Tai asked Kari. They were riding together on Nefertimon. "I know that Davis wouldn't have done this unless something that your not telling me happened." Kari closed her eyes and looked away.
"You know me too well for your own good," Kari said. "It was my fault. No one except for Davis and me know what happened, and it was all my fault." She began to cry, and Tai wiped the tears off her face.
"What happened that the others don't know about?" Tai asked.
"I was trying to catch up to Davis, and he told me that he didn't want anything to do with me because he was tired of being played around with basically. I took it hard and lashed back. I said so many things that aren't true." She sniffed. "I told him that he wasn't even worth the time of day. That he was a selfish..." She trailed off, unable to complete her sentence, due to her emotional state. Tai tried to comfort her.
"It's okay Kari. I know you didn't mean those things, and I am pretty sure that Davis does too. He will forgive you. I'm sure of it."
"But I-" Kari was cut off. Something weird was going on. They were now on the outskirts over the digital desert, and the sky had turned black. The sun had disappered. The only light was an erie blue glow that was coming from up ahead and from all the vegitation below, though it was sparse. It cast evil looking shadows on the digidestined.
"What's going on?" Izzy asked out loud. A rhetorical question, none of them knew. A beam of blue light rose into the sky as high as they could see, far off in the distance. They were like statues, struck by the awe of the situation, and stopped flying towards the desert.
"Davis must have something to do with that," Tai said. "He was out here. Out there."
After a few seconds, they saw a blue shockwave headed their way, but it disapated before it reached them, as the sky returned to its normal color, and the Sun reappeared in the sky.
"What just happened there?" Yolei asked.
"I'm... not sure," Izzy said.
Their digivices went off again.
"He turned on his digivice," Kari said, matter-of-factly. It was true, they could see in the distance the tell tale signs of someone digivolving. "It looks like Raidramon. He is traveling somewhere."
"That's it!" Tai yelled. "This is insane! What in the hell is all this about! Davis has us running in circles, and blind at that!" He lowered his head a little. "Maybe we would be better off to just let him go. Give him some time." The group was landing as he said the last sentence.
"Maybe your right," Matt said.
"Perhaps we should just let him be," Izzy agreed.
"I can't believe you guys!" Ken said. "We need to help him here! That's what a friend would do, although I am not really surprised that you guys want to just quit on him. I am the only one that has even seemed to consider Davis a person!" Ken looked across the group. "If it was any of you that was out there, I know that no one, especially not Davis, would be quitting now. You all know it too."
"He's right," Cody said, looking at the ground. His facial expression was one of the strongest emotions that any of them had ever seen Cody display. He looked angry and mournful at the same time. "We haven't been much of friends to him. The least we can do is find out exactly what is going on."
"Jeez," Matt said. "We never said we didn't care about him, we just said that we should give him some space, that's all."
"Your right," Ken said. "You never said it, but it doesn't matter. Actions speak louder than words, and in some case, inactions as well. I don't care if you guys go home to your nice cozy beds, I am going to find out why he isn't going back to his!"
Ken walked over to Stingmon and was about to take off.
"Wait!" someone called to him. He stopped and turned around. There was Cody. "I completely agree, and we need to find him." Cody pointed behind him. "Even if the others don't."
"Well, I may not have been as good as I should have been to him," Tai said, "but your right. We have an obligation as his friends to find out what is wrong, and how he is fixing it." Tai walked over and joined Cody and Ken.
"I don't know," TK said. "I think we should let him be. That's what we did with Matt. It all worked out then. If he doesn't want to be around other people, fine, he doesn't have to be." He wrapped his arm around Kari. "Right Kari?"
Right? That's what I have been asking myself. Was Davis right? I know I wasn't, but was he? Kari looked up into her boyfriends eyes. How can TK say something like that? Ken was right. If it had been anyone else, everyone would still be looking for him, not arguing whether or not to look for him in the first place.
"No," Kari said. Everyone turned and looked at her with a very surprised look, but none more so than Ken. "Not right. Not this time. The only way to be right is to agree with Ken. Friends don't leave friends out to dry." TK looked hurt and taken aback at what she said.
"But... why?" TK asked.
"He is our friend! I thought you would realize that! He needs the same sort of support that everyone else does! A friend is a friend is a friend, and that's the way it is!" Everyone caught a slight hint of anger in her tone, and was very surprised at the way she was acting.
Maybe things won't be the same for you and me after all, Tai thought to himself.
"We have to find him, at least to find out what's going on." The others nodded their heads in agreement. If they hadn't been swayed before, they were now.
"So what are we waiting around here for then?" Tai said. "Let's go!"
"Wow! Raidramon sure goes fast!" Gray said in amazement. "This will be a cinch now!"
"The others are looking for me," Davis said.
"I know," Gray responded. "Have you thought about what I said?"
"Yeah," Davis answered. "But I don't have an answer yet."
"That's alright. Like I was saying, you should take your time to answer that one."
They coninued on, mostly in silence, until they got close to the next Sternenheimat point. They looked at their wrist devices and walked in the direction of the point, with Veemon following, de-digivolved from Raidramon.
It took about another five minutes before they got to the point. Again, Gray pressed a button on his device and a crystal appeared. This time, pink. The process seemed to be the same, as everything that happened with the last point happened again, only wherever there had been something blue, it was now pink. The aura, the pattern, the glowing crystal; all of it was pink.
After closing off the point, Davis re-digivolved Veemon to Raidramon, but noticed that his gear was going off. Looks like I got an E-mail...
He checked his gear as they were travelling, and deleted it as soon as he saw it was from Kari. Don't want to talk to you right now. Don't want to talk to you at all. He felt his eyes getting foggy. Don't I...?
He quickly disposed of his forming tears, unnoticeably to Gray.
For the better part of the next four hours, Gray, Davis and Veemon continued to activate the points, with the digidestined not that far behind. Though it always seemed that they got there just as Davis left. Now, as Davis and Gray only had two points left until the Japan Firewall was activated, the digidestined for the first time noticed something odd...
"Huh. That's strange..." Ken said, looking at his D3. "Hey everyone! Stop for a second!" As the group halted, Ken got off Stingmon and walked off in an odd direction through the jungle there were passing. The group waited for Ken to come back, but it seemed he wasn't going to. Then, just as Tai was getting ready to send a search party out, Ken yelled out from a distance: "Everyone! Over here, quick!!"
After about five minutes, everyone had arrived at the small clearing in the jungle where Ken was at.
"What is this all about?" Matt asked. "Why did we stop?" Ken pointed to the groups left.
"Look at that digiport," Ken said. "Does anything about it strike you as odd?"
Everyone glanced at the small TV like digiport, and instantly everone realized what Ken was saying.
"Hey! That digiport is glowing yellow!" Tai exclaimed. "What's going on?"
"Look at your digivices," Ken told them. They all gasped as they noticed that the digiport, though close enough to be visible to the naked eye, was not showing up on their D3's.
"What in the world?!"
"I already tried opening a digiport," Ken said. "It doesn't work. It's as if the port isn't compatable with our digivices." Ken took a step towards the digiport. "Notice anything else?" he asked.
"No," Cody said. "What else?"
"Wait," Izzy said. "Isn't yellow the color of the last wave we encountered that Davis seems to be performing?"
"Yes," Ken said. "It is. I think we have found out what Davis is doing."
"Deactivating digiports?" Yolei asked. "But why would he do that?"
"More importantly, how would he do that?" Izzy said. "I have never come across a way to deactivate a digiport."
"Do you think that he might be getting help from someone?" Tai asked. "This doesn't seem like a Davis sort of move."
"But what would be the motivation for something like that?" Cody asked. "It just doesn't make sense."
"Not to us," Izzy said. "But it makes complete sense to someone, and this is for someones benefit. The question is whose?"
"It could be an evil digimon," TK suggested.
"No. It doesn't matter how deranged Davis may be," Kari said. "He would only do something to the digital world if he thought it was something good. The one thing I want to know is why does Davis think that shutting down all the digiports is a good thing?"
"It seems that we have a lot more questions," Tai said. "The only way to answer them is to confront Davis."
"But how are we gonna do that? He is always one step ahead, and he never has his digivice on for very long."
"Maybe there is a pattern to these places that Davis has been going to," Matt suggested. "If we found the pattern, we would know where he is going to be."
"I'll get right on it," Izzy said. "I just hope that we get this all figured out soon. I don't want to miss dinner."
"I can agree to that," Matt said.
"Just think of all the digiports that Davis has blocked," Kari said. "It's terrible..."
"Blocked... that's an interesting idea..." Izzy said. He pulled out his lap top and was typing on it for about half an hour before he stood up and turned to the waiting group.
"I have some good news and some bad news," Izzy said. "The good news is, I do know where Davis is now, and i do know where he will be in about half an hour. There was a pattern." Izzy paused. "The bad news is that Davis seems to be setting up a Firewall between the digital and real worlds."
"What's a Firewall?" Cody asked.
"Think of it as exactly what it sounds like. A wall of digital fire. If you have the right access codes, you don't get burned, but if you don't have the access codes... you can't get into the digital world from the real world or visa versa."
"WHAT?!" everyone shouted.
"I'm afraid that Davis has already blocked off most of Japan, and only needs to activate two or three more strategic places before no one will be able to access the digital world from Japan without his access codes, and no one will be able to go to Japan from the digital world without them either. He seems to almost be finished. I'd say that within an hour, we would have to travel from Russia to get home."
Everyone was dumbstruck at what Izzy had just told them. This was most certainly not good. In fact, this was bad. Really bad.
"What... what do we do?" Yolei asked.
"I think we need to revote on whether or not to chase Davis on this one. It seems that he is very adement about keeping us away," Matt said.
"Vote?" Ken said. "Fine. I vote that we continue."
"So do I," Cody said.
"Me too," Tai chimed in.
"I vote we stop," Matt said.
"Yeah," Sora agreed.
"We really need to stop going on this wild goose chase," TK said.
"Well I think that we still need to go on this wild Davis chase," Yolei said.
"We should head home," Izzy noted. "It's what logic says."
Mimi and Joe were not available to come to the digital world, so that left it tied at 4 to 4 with only one vote left: Kari's.
"Well?" Tai asked. "What's your vote Kari? It seems that we're split."
"How can we continue looking for Davis when he trys so hard to stop us?" Kari asked. Matt, Sora and TK nodded their heads in agreement. "Simple," she continued. "We keep on trying." Everyone paused and did a double take as they realized what Kari said.
"I... guess that we know where to go then..." Izzy said. "The place we will be able to meet up with him is right over this way," he said, pointing to his right.
Authors Note: Someone call the police, I just wrote the worst cliffhanger ever. Muwahahahaha... Don't worry, I am sure that the next chapter will be out before Christmas... hopefully... Hope you guys liked my chapter, as well as the others, in this ever growing fic with an ever growing group of Daikari loving writers. If you enjoy this fic, I suggest you check on my and the others profiles for our independant stories that we have written or are currently writing. Have fun waiting for the next chapter, because it ought to be a doozy.