Chapter Two

In the digital world:

"Hello? Angewoman? Hey, where are you?" Patamon piped repeatedly as he darted around the pond where he had left the other. He was worried about her -- a lot. These last couple of years since the children had left had been rather grim for her, and if anything had happened while he was away… well, he just wouldn't be able to forgive himself.

"Patamon?" he heard a frail-sounding voice answer from a thicket near the edge of the water. The little flying mammal fluttered quickly over to the side of his counterpart, alighting on a low branch to examine her more closely.

Angewoman was not well. Deep, dark circles surrounded her eyes as she lay on the ground, barely able to move. Many of her wing feathers and some of her fine hair had fallen out, and that which was left remained affixed to her body with very little conviction. But by far the worst aspect of her condition was her ragged breathing, so shallow and forced. Digimon simply weren't supposed to stay like this for so long.

Angewoman turned her face away in shame as she saw her small friend begin to examine her. She had an idea of how she looked, even if she stayed away well from the water to keep from seeing her reflection again. Once had been enough.

She had been Angewoman for virtually every minute of the last two years, not spending any twenty four consecutive hours as Gatomon or Salamon, and what most didn't realize was that there was a reason for not staying in their higher forms of evolution for any extended period of time. It was simply too strenuous, requiring an enormous expenditure of energy. Yet she knew, she instinctively felt that Kari was in danger all of that time, and her body just would not revert to its lesser forms.

Patamon dropped an undersized piece of fruit at her feet. "I'm sorry it's so small. It's really all that I could carry."

The angel's withered face managed a feeble smile as she reached a trembling hand forward to take the fruit from the ground. She had grown so weak that she could no longer gather sustenance for herself, and was forced to rely on her small friend to provide for her. "Did you find out... anything?" she mumbled weakly and without hope. Why should this time be any different than the previous hundred?

Patamon squirmed uncomfortably in response. This time was different... but only because he had gone against the other's explicit instructions and had gone to the best source that he could find. But this source was notoriously… cryptic, and no matter what form she wore, Angewoman didn't like relying on him. "Kind of," he answered, his eyes dodging to the side.

Angewoman's body may have been deteriorating, but her wits were still sharp. She saw his eyes and heard what he'd not said. "From where?"

Patamon sighed, his ears falling limply at his side. "Okay, I know you don't like listening to him," the little creature said defensively, "but he's the only one left to help. It took me all day to find him, and the first thing he asked was why I hadn't come sooner. I won't let you die just because you're too proud to listen to him, even though he might be a little crazy."

Patamon blinked, the words just out of his mouth having made their way to his ears. There. It was finally out. No matter how bad the situation had gotten, both of them had always refrained from mentioning the chance that she might die from this. He licked his lips, then continued, "He said that if you really cared about your friends, especially Kari, that you'd listen to him."

Angewoman turned her face away with a sigh. "All right, Patamon. What did he say?"

*****

The little fellowship had finally managed to drift over to Matt's house as the blond-haired boy continued to study the younger children opposite him. Not once during the entire time they'd been waiting had either of them left the other's side. They just remained there in silence, throwing quick little glances at one another as they continued to hold hands. Matt wasn't sure whether this was done out of affection, necessity (if the story that they had just told him was to be believed), or both, but he didn't make an issue of it.

Finally the group had been assembled, with the exception of one. "Where's Tai?" asked Sora.

"He said he'd be here," responded Izzy, who was setting up his laptop on a nearby table at Matt's suggestion. "There were a couple of things that he had to get done first."

"Mind if I get something to drink, Matt?" Joe asked, padding at his forehead with an already damp handkerchief. Matt shook his head and waved absently towards the kitchen. "Whatever's in there," he responded.

"Get something for me too, Joe," said Sora. The older boy nodded and began to root around in the refrigerator.

Mimi looked with concern at the young couple on the couch. T.K. was obviously in pain of some sort, his hands trembling and his top teeth clenched firmly around his lower lip. He forced a smile to feign normalcy when Kari looked in his direction, but failed miserably. The girl tried to wrench her hand free from his, but T.K.'s grip was firm... almost as though he were holding on to her for dear life. The slightly older girl removed her pink hat and sat down beside Kari on the couch, and looked at T.K.'s brother. "What's this all about, Matt?"

The older boy ran his fingers through his blond hair, resigned to the fact that there was just no delicate way that he could put this. "Actually, I guess it might be a good idea to tell you this before Tai gets here, considering the way it has to start." He cleared his throat and stood up. "Ahem... well, you see... this morning... uhm... when I went to wake T.K. up, I saw... I mean, they said... those two--" He bowed his head in frustration and addressed the floor, jerking his thumb at the pair on the couch. "They've been sleeping together."

"What?" exclaimed Sora and Izzy in unison, she dropping her glass of soda with a shattering sound on the tiled floor and he tipping just a bit too far in his chair and tumbling backwards out of it. Joe showered the room with the drink that he had just taken but had not had time to swallow yet, and four pairs of eyes turned on the two youngest.

Mimi, as usual, still had her mouth two seconds ahead of her brain. She hugged Kari. "Oh! Does this mean that you two are official? I'm so happy for you, Kari! He's such a great guy, and… wait a minute. Aren't you two a little young for that sort of thing?" she asked, pulling back and releasing the girl.

T.K. was puzzled at the response and his cheeks reddened beneath the bewildered stares of his friends. The boy honestly didn't understand the wrath of his brother or the uproar which had just occurred. (Ironically, and though the boy didn't know it, it was to have been that very week that his father was to have given him "the talk".) Sure, he knew that he probably shouldn't be sneaking girls into his bed in the middle of the night, but the exact reason why was still a couple of connections away in his head.

But little Kari was somewhat, if not much, more knowledgeable about the reason for the stunned reaction, and blushed an even deeper shade of red.

"No, no," stammered Matt, as Izzy righted his chair and Sora set to cleaning up broken glass. "If I'm to believe them, they didn't do… anything…ah, like that." He was, after all, only fourteen himself, and didn't feel at all comfortable with starting off along those lines. He cleared his throat. "Izzy? You up yet?"

The boy nodded, and sat waiting to type Matt's message to their contact in the digital world. He had reasoned that it had to be something there, since the nightmare was always configured around that one day.

Matt then began going over what he had been told, misunderstandings or gaps in the story being filled in by either Kari or T.K. Izzy pounded furiously away on his keyboard, attempting to transmit the entire text of the conversation to Gennai. Matt's version was a summary, and so even after the interruptions it took him about half an hour to finish. "Sent?" he asked Izzy. The red-haired boy nodded, and turned his chair around to join the impending conversation.

"And it only gets better when you're around T.K.?" Mimi asked, clapping her hands together twice. "How romantic."

"Oh grow up, Mimi," snapped Sora. "This is serious." She knelt down and looked at Kari. "Is it the same thing that you tried to tell me about the other day?"

Kari nodded, and Sora was filled with a sense of guilt. At the time, she had simply brushed it off as…

"Okay, I'm here," said Tai, opening the door and racing into the house. He bent over with his hands on his knees, moaning and gasping for air. "What's the emergency?"

Matt looked nervously at his friend, who had been considered their leader for so long. If the others has reacted that badly... "Maybe we should talk alone for a little bit," he said, gesturing to the balcony outside the sliding window.

"Me too," said Joe, and each of them grabbed one of Tai's arms and walked him out of the room.

Izzy turned back to his screen, awaiting a reply. Mimi, meanwhile, stared at the developing scene on the balcony, interested as to what Tai's reaction would be.

"Kari?" whispered T.K. "Why's everyone so upset? I knew they wouldn't be happy about it, but we're just trying to get you better, right?" His voice sounded so tired and weak, but still he had only a smile for the girl.

"I... I think they're just worried," she said, not fully disclosing the truth to him. Although he has a right to know, she thought. She promised herself that she would ask Matt to explain things to her young friend before she left.

Meanwhile, Sora continued to fight off the feeling of intense guilt. Kari had tried to explain this to her two weeks ago, yet she had convinced herself that the little girl had been talking about something else entirely. How she needed to be near T.K. How she felt like she was slowly dying without him. Maybe a bit overdramatized for someone that young, but it could have been questions about love. The fact that T.K. had come to her with that line of questioning earlier in the day hadn't helped.

"Hey, Sora?"

"Yeah, T.K.?"

"How... how do you know if you're in love with someone? I've heard you and the others talk about it sometimes, and I think I need to know."

"Why now?"

"Well…" he had said, pausing. She smiled even at the memory. He simply looked so adorable there, watching at his own feet as they scuffed along the ground. "There's this girl…"

"And?"

"And… I like her. A lot. But I don't know how to tell if I love her. Or how to tell her if I do."

"So why are you asking me about it?"

He looked up, surprised and obviously not having expected that question. "Because you're so smart. I mean, Izzy's smart, and Joe's smart, but not really like that. I don't think they'd know how to answer me."

"I don't think you should be talking about it with me at all."

"You don't? Who should I talk to about it?"

She smiled and took off his hat, running her fingers through his beautiful golden hair and kissing him on the cheek. "When you figure that out, and when it's the hardest thing you've ever done to talk to her about it, then you'll have both answers." She put his hat back on as he moved away from her, blushing and surprised at the display of affection.

"And T.K.?"

"Hmm?"

"If Kari isn't careful, I'll steal you right out from under her nose."

The boy had run off, laughing, at that point. That last statement had not been entirely in jest. If it had not been for the differences in their ages, and the fact that Matt and Kari would both skin her alive if she even thought about it, she might have considered him boyfriend material. Now that he was coming closer to maturity, he was easily as handsome as Matt had been at that age, but with an innocence and genuine kindness that was impossible to resist. Yet since her mind had been on that train of thought she had given similar answers to Kari when she came asking questions, yet it now appeared that the subject matter had been altogether different.

"They did what?" Tai quite literally screeched from outside, and those inside heard it easily through the glass. Matt and Joe both restrained the stronger boy, and began talking very quickly until he calmed down and they were able to make him understand.

Izzy's computer gave a beep. "Hey guys, it's ready!" he called, and everyone with the exception of T.K. and Kari moved to gather around him. The youngest boy was just suddenly too exhausted to rise, and even too tired to stop Kari as she removed her hand from his to let him keep more of whatever it was that she was leeching from him.

You aren't thinking, children (Especially you, Izzy):

What was taken from Kari on that day?

What can T.K. give to her in abundance that the rest of you cannot?

Who stole it from her?

Why has she not gotten back her own?

What can a human not live one moment without?

"And why can't you ever just come out and give a straight answer?" Tai yelled at the screen, to Izzy's dismay picking up the laptop and shaking it furiously.

"Settle down, Tai," said Sora, placing a calming hand on his shoulder. The boy looked at her and flashed what he hoped was a dazzling smile, and Izzy took the opportunity to snatch the computer back and set it down. Sora froze Tai with a scowl and redirected his attention to the screen. "Anybody have any ideas?"

They all sat looking for a moment, Kari joining them. T.K. had fallen into a fitful sleep on the couch, and his brother kept a distracted focus on him while attempting to decipher the message on the screen. The little boy had danced around the issue of exactly what happened to him when Kari came to him for help, but what he had said had been enough to make Matt somewhat nervous at seeing him in such pain.

"Three 'whats' a 'who' and a 'why'," restated Joe in a clinical voice.

"The dream?" said Sora. "The people in her dream. The 'who' has to be T.K., Angemon, or Piedmon."

Izzy frowned. "Well that's obvious. It has to have been Piedmon. T.K. or Angemon wouldn't hurt her."

"I think the answer to the second one should be love," pouted Mimi. "It just sounds so beautiful."

"But I love her too!" shouted Tai in protest. He blushed and turned to look at the others. "Well I do. She's my sister, after all."

"Kari? Did you lose anything that day? I don't remember anything about that. Of course, I was a doll at the time," Joe muttered.

Kari thought back. "No. Not that I can remember. But it was kind of hectic."

"Well, if the answer to 'who' is Piedmon, then it kind of implies that whatever it was, he took it away from her," pointed out Matt. "Did he ever take anything from you, Kari?"

Again she thought back. "No, he never got close enough to touch me. The only one he ever grabbed was T.K."

"What can a human not live one moment without? Joe?" asked Sora.

"Medically? Nothing that you can lose that quickly. Blood, I guess. But there's something about that last question… something I know I've read somewhere…"

They sat around for some time, trying to come up with a set of answers that all of them could agree on. T.K. awoke several hours later, complaining to Matt (when Kari was out of the room) about the constant pain that he was in. Matt gave him some aspirin, but it still didn't seem to help.

Finally, after a day of very few ideas and much frustration, the sky outside started to darken. "I'm going to have to leave pretty soon. I've got a ton of stuff that I've got to study for," said Joe.

"More summer school?" queried Izzy, rolling his eyes.

"Me too," said Mimi. "I told my mom that I'd only be a little while."

"Okay," nodded Tai. "We split up for now, but we meet back here early tomorrow. Kari, I want you to stay here, in case something else happens. I'll tell mom and dad that you're with Mimi. Matt, can you keep her out of sight?"

"I can, but I might not have too. Dad said that he'd probably be gone for a couple of days, and gave me his cell phone number. I'll know in a couple of hours, that's when he's supposed to call."

"Kari?" asked Tai in an anxious voice while looking at his sister. "Just…be safe. Call me if you need anything. Anything." Then he glanced at T.K. "Well, anything that I can give you, that is." He sat down beside the youngest boy. "And T.K.? I'm sorry, so sorry, that I was so upset with you earlier. Whatever you're doing for her, just, please keep doing it, okay?"

T.K. smiled weakly in response. "I will, Tai. I made a promise."

And one by one they left while Matt shuffled the youngest pair off to T.K.'s room, then returned to his own to await the call from his father.

*****

Later that night, when all the others were asleep, the lone child who was still awake knelt in his own room and caressed the object in his hands. An object of power. An object of evil. And the bright, shimmering sword of Piedmon was now his own. Left on the battlefield after the fight, he had retrieved it and had gone to show the others. But then a jealous feeling had overcome him, and without knowing why he had wrapped it in one of the dark clown's magical cloths and watched it shrink until it was little more than a toy. When he had carried it back to the real world it had slowly returned to its original size, until he was ready to use it to take revenge on those who had cast him into the magical gate. No, cast Piedmon into the gate! Cast… ME… into… the…