A Little Side Adventure
Episode Four: Separated
By Shelli-Jo Pelletier
(ussfantasy@hotmail.com)
***************
"Keep running!" Matt shouted unnecessarily, trying desperately not to think about what his feet were doing, because if he did he knew he was going to trip and fall flat on his face. Keeping pace with his struggling brother, who was having a much harder time of it at the back of the group, he cast a glance at Sarith. She also ran beside the youngest dragon, and had refused to leave his side since they saw the seething mass of familiar clouds on the horizon barreling toward them. Gabumon, still carrying Tokomon, panted on the golden dragon's right.
Sick with dread for her brother, Sarith had thought about taking off herself more than once. Take flight, find out what had happened to Tok, why he hadn't returned to them. But something kept her by the side of the two brothers at the tail of the group. Tai and Koromon had taken over the lead, and the real dragon didn't mind a bit. She was much too confused and worried to be thinking like a leader now.
The small green dragon gasped as he ran, trying hard to go as fast as the others. T.K. didn't want to be holding everyone back, but it was hard to run when you were a dragon!
Without warning, Joe and Gomamon screeched to a halt in front of them, and they barely stopped in time to keep from crashing into the pair. Harsh breathing filled the air as the group caught their breath, and under that could be heard the wind caused by the swiftly moving grayness at their backs. Sarith spread her wings and flapped to the front of the group. No time for weariness now.
"Tai, what's wro—oh."
The desert . . . ended. That in itself wouldn't have been so bad, except it ended in a cliff. A very big cliff. Hundreds of feet below, a landscape of bright green fields dotted with darker green forests covered several miles. Another cliff sprang up across from them. It was a hidden valley, nestled in the chasm between two sheer mountain walls!
"Not again," groaned the blue dragon, peering over the edge as he had back when Kuwagamon had cornered him and his friends. "I hate cliffs. And there's no way down or around this one, either. We're stuck." Koromon sighed from his place on his back.
"We don't have time for stuck!" retorted Sarith, shooting over their heads as the others carefully approached the ledge in hopes of spying some way to continue. She hovered in the air, facing them. "Spread your wings! You can glide down! Just hold steady, you can do it!"
The Digi-Destined stared at one another uncertainly, not saying a word. One by one, their eyes went to Gabumon, Palmon and Gomamon. Too large to carry, and no wings.
The blue and white canine was the first to realize. "Go on without us," urged Gabumon, placing Tokomon on Matt's back. "We will be fine." Palmon and Gomamon were nodding.
"Forget it!" exploded Matt, startling his passenger. "We can't just leave you!"
"But that cloud-thing isn't after Digimon," Gomamon pointed out, pushing the gray dragon toward the edge. "Just go, before it gets here!"
"What are you saying!?" Joe yelped.
"I'm afraid of heights anyway," objected the pink dragon, remaining close beside her Digimon.
"But Mimi—"
"Uh . . . guys?" Sora began. She was looking behind them, her yellow eyes large, as she watched the cloud. It was very close.
But no one was listening. Matt, Joe and Mimi were still arguing with their Digimon. Tai was listening to Sarith's hurried explanations of gliding. T.K. had crept to the very edge of the steep rock, gazing down with bright white eyes. Maybe there was a trail or something, so the Digimon wouldn't have to stay behind! The little dragon leaned over, trying to see as far down as he could. But T.K. wasn't human anymore. His proportions were different, and he wasn't used to it yet. Before he realized what was happening, his wings flipped over his head, throwing him off balance and sending him plunging over the side of the precipice!
Izzy, who had also been gazing down into the valley but not really paying much attention to what was going on around him, made a hasty grab for the green tail as T.K.'s shocked cry sounded in the open air. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite fast enough.
"T.K.!" shouted both Matt and Tokomon, leaping for the spot where he had just disappeared. The yellow dragon would have leapt after his little brother, but Sarith was already on top of the situation. Wings tight against her side, she plummeted after the tumbling green body with all the speed and accuracy of an arrow.
Using her expert skills, the mint green dragon was shooting down the mountainside right beside T.K. in moments. White eyes squeezed tight against the wind widened as he saw her. "Sarith!" he yelled as loud as he could, and even he could tell she could barely hear him, only two feet away. "Catch me!" His young voice cracked with terror.
"Can't!" she shouted back, keeping one eye on the fast-approaching ground. "Open your wings!" It was his only hope. If he couldn't manage on his own, there was nothing she could do. . . .
The green dragon's eyes closed again, this time in concentration. He was still falling uncontrollably, tumbling end over end. Sarith knew he had to pull himself out of it, and soon. He had to figure out how!
Suddenly there was a snap, and a pair of bright yellow wings opened sharply. T.K. continued to drop, albeit at a slower rate, until a gust of wind shot up and seized the dragon. Trapped under his wings, the air pushed him upward several feet, then held him as steady as a hammock in the breeze.
Sarith laughed out loud, the relief bubbling up inside her. It wasn't until the greenery below filled her vision that she realized she had been so preoccupied with watching T.K. that she had forgotten to open her own wings. She caught the tail end of the same wind that had saved him, skimming over the tops of the trees below (that had been too close for comfort!) and spiraling up toward him once again.
Once they were back at the same height, the female dragon took a moment to study the other. T.K. was succeeding, but just barely. The strain of holding his wings open and balanced was evident on his face, contorted with effort. Tipping slightly to one side, then the other, he was slowly losing altitude as well. Several times she caught her breath as he seemed about to crash into the cliff wall, but each time he managed to steer away at the last minute. Finally, T.K. noticed Sarith floating beside him. "Sarith, my wings hurt," he said plaintively.
"I can imagine," she returned, accepting the fact that there was no way he was going to be able to fly back up to the others. He was barely gliding as it was. "How much longer can you keep that up?"
He swallowed hard. "Not much longer."
"Right. Okay, try to hold still." Ignoring that little voice in her mind that told her this was a dangerous idea—she never paid much attention to that voice anyway—Sarith dipped down for a breath and then straight up, flipping half over and raising her front claws quickly. Before either of them could react, she plucked the smaller dragon right out of the air. He gasped as she twisted her wings to avoid getting tangled in his, both of them falling for a frightening moment before they straightened things out.
At last, they seemed all right. Only one of them knew what a risky maneuver that had been. If they hadn't been able to steady themselves that quickly . . . well, the ground was still very close below them. Sarith grinned shakily, holding a shivering T.K. with wings now folded to her chest. "You okay?"
"T-that was scary," he stuttered.
"Yeah. For you and me both. Now let's see if we can get back up to . . . oh no."
Worried about the way her voice tightened at the end, T.K. looked up and accidentally banged his head against Sarith's jaw. When he turned his head and looked around hers, what he saw made the darker green dragon's stomach sink to his feet.
The gray mist had reached the edge of the cliff, and was creeping down the mountain face toward them. Of their friends, there was no sign.
* * *
"What is she doing?" fumed Matt, restraining himself from pacing as he watched Sarith falling beside his brother. Heart in throat, he cursed himself for not being there to warn T.K., for not seeing him fall, for not being able to do anything now. "Catch him," he breathed, scarcely realizing he was speaking out loud.
"She can't." Matt cast a glance at the orange dragon beside him. "At that velocity such an impact would probably break every bone in both their bodies," Izzy explained softly.
Tokomon whimpered, peering over Matt's shoulder at the two green dots far below. "T.K. . . ."
"Uh, guys?" Sora repeated. There was a rumble, something akin to thunder, from the haze at their backs. It sounded . . . hungry.
Gabumon led the way as the Digimon ran toward the cloud, putting themselves between it and their human partners. Tokomon hopped down from between Matt's wings, but Tai held Koromon back before he could follow. "You're not strong enough, Koromon," the blue dragon told him, his yellow-orange eyes filled with guilt. "I can't let you get hurt." Before the In-Training Digimon could object, the battle had already begun.
"Blue Blaster!"
"Spiral Twister!"
"Super Shocker!"
"Poison Ivy!"
"Marching Fishes!"
"Bubble Blow!"
Bursts of blue, green and red streaked into the haze, where they parted the wispy grayness for a moment but had no lasting effect. The holes were all-too-quickly filled in by more seeping mist, until the cloud was whole again. Palmon's purple and green fingers tried to wrap around the nearest patch of fog, but slipped right through. A colorful school of fish appeared from nowhere, but when they dived into the cloud they vanished and did not reappear. Little pink bubbles splattered on the edge, doing no visible damage. Still the cloud crept forward.
"Again!" called out Gabumon, taking a deep breath. He would not give up. If they could just buy some time for their friends. . . .
With the sound of a thick branch snapping, a tentacle of the cloud shot out and wrapped around the dog-like Digimon. Five more followed, striking faster than the eye could see. In less time than it took to blink, the six Digimon were immobilized. Howling, squawking, crying out for their human partners, they were drawn inside the gray cloud and faded from view. Their cries silenced.
"Palmon!" screamed Mimi, horrified. The others shouted their Digimons' names wildly, praying they would be heard and responded to. Tai and Koromon stared in complete shock.
Izzy was the first to accept what had happened. "I propose we run, unless we want to end up in a similar situation as the Digimon!"
"Izzy's right: run!" Tai ordered. "Split up! Go around the cloud-thing! We'll meet again later! GO!"
Matt's blue eyes widened as he realized he had been watching the Digimon and not Sarith and T.K. Whipping around, he searched the valley below frantically. But the blue dragon gave him a hard shove to the right to get him moving. No time for that now! Matt stumbled, picked himself up, began to run. If he had been thinking he would have refused to move, no matter how close the mist came. But he wasn't thinking, just running. His brain rebelled at the possible loss of his brother and the Digimon, and now thought nothing at all. He barely noticed Izzy right behind him, and Sora following the orange dragon.
Tai, Koromon, Mimi and Joe went left. Two small packs of colorful dragons headed along the edge of the cliff in either direction. It was the only way to go. Forward would take them over the side, and backward was walking into the open maw of the grayness stalking them. There was no time to think about the loss of their friends, there was only survival.
The great cloud rolled onward, drifting to the edge of the cliff as the Digi-Destined scattered before it. Here it paused, as if considering.
Snap! Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap! Six tendrils exploded from the sides of the haze. With the same lightning speed, they snatched up the fleeing dragons as if they were nothing more than toys strewn across the floor by a playing child. The dragons felt them tightening around their bodies. The branches of cloud were cold, and strong. Like bands of iron. But they didn't strangle. They wrapped around them firmly, carefully. Koromon was pinned to Tai's back. Unhurt but unable to struggle, the Digi-Destined were pulled into the heart of the cloud. Darkness closed around them, then unconsciousness.
The cloud plowed on again, relentless.
* * *
"Sarith?" quaked T.K., shivering against her chest. "What are we going to do?" He couldn't take his eyes off the grayness as it inched its way toward them.
She muttered something noncommittal, concentrating on keeping them aloft. The little dragon didn't weigh much, but her wings were beginning to feel the strain of holding them both against the pull of gravity. Finally she began a gliding descent in a tight circle, one eye on the ground and the other on their pursuer.
"Sarith?" the green dragon repeated anxiously.
She spared him a glance. "Don't worry, T.K. We'll think of something." What "something" might be, she had no idea, but they would rescue the others, if it they had really been captured. Maybe they had escaped. Maybe Tok had too! . . . .But then what had happened to him? He would have returned, if he could have. He wouldn't have left them. No, he must have been caught by that cloud. And that meant the cloud was hunting dragons. And it probably meant that it had captured the others. Well, all the more reason to think up a rescue plan, and quickly. But first they had to lose their stalker.
The treetops of the valley reached up and welcomed them, and Sarith wasted no time finding a sturdy branch to land on. She deposited T.K. on the bow next to her and squinted up into the sky, judging time.
"I say we have about five to ten minutes before that thing gets here, T.K.," she told the other dragon unhappily, transferring her gaze to the small dragon.
His white eyes were large as they stared back at her. "What are we going to do?"
Wishing Tok were here, she closed her own eyes. Her brother was the one who always thought about things, she just liked having fun! Still, one look at T.K. and she knew she had to be the one in charge now. Because Tok wasn't here, and that was that.
A cranky voice interrupted Sarith before she could begin to speak. "Well, whatever you're going to do, do it somewhere other than in my tree!" Both dragons yelped and whirled around, searching for the speaker.
A pair of big red eyes with tiny pupils was glaring down from the branch above them. T.K., the first to notice, tugged on Sarith's wing to alert her as he asked the eyes, "Who are you?"
"I'm the owner of this tree, and that means you're trespassing! Get out, shoo!" The leaves parted further and a round gray head with fluffy ears scowled at them.
T.K. instantly recognized it, and his eyes narrowed. "Pagumon," he growled, displaying sharp fangs without even realizing it. "You kidnapped Tokomon!"
The Pagumon froze. "H-how did you know that?" it sputtered, jumping to the next highest branch and peeking down uncertainly at them. "I-it wasn't my fault!"
Sarith blinked, confused. She didn't quite know what was going on. Wait, hadn't Tai said something about finding a Koromon village that had been taken over by Pagumon when they had first landed on Server? Well, whatever the case, she wanted to grab hold of the situation before it slipped out of her control. They didn't have much time left; the cloud was getting closer by the moment. An idea struck. "We," the mint-colored dragon announced, trying to sound powerful and important, "are the Digi-Destined!"
Both T.K. and the Pagumon stared at her. "The Digi-Destined are human children," the little In-Training Digimon informed her, as if it should have been obvious.
"I know that," Sarith hastily returned. "We are—I mean, were. He was the little one with the green hat, and I was the girl. Not the pink one, the other one. And since you last met us, we have become very, very powerful. So powerful we can alter our shapes! So be careful how you speak to us, pipsqueak." She leveled the Pagumon with her blue-green gaze.
It hesitated, suspicious. Sarith sneered and shot a ball of mint green flame toward the branch the Pagumon sat on. It hit a large leaf just to the left of the Digimon, and in an instant there was nothing but ash floating in the breeze. She smiled sweetly as the Pagumon's eyes seemed to pop right out of its head. It hurriedly decided to believe her, and said so.
"Good," she snorted. "Now, what are you doing here?"
"T-this is my hiding tree," the Pagumon explained quickly. "After we failed in capturing the Digi-Destined for Lord Etemon, he was very angry and chased all us Pagumon away. We parted ways, afraid he would track us down again when he was bored, and have been hiding ever since."
Sarith's ears leaped up straight. "Hiding tree? What's that?" she demanded.
The Digimon quivered. "I-it's, uh, a tree. That you . . . h-hide in."
"Great! We can—" The female dragon was cut off as the tree suddenly shook. Vines of gray mist forced themselves through the tree branches, waving about like questing fingers. T.K. gasped and hugged the branch with all four feet. Sarith unfolded her wings to balance herself, and the Pagumon wailed in fright.
"Please don't hurt me!" it shrieked, waving its fluffy ears around. Then, to both dragons' amazement, it jumped right into the trunk of the tree! There was a brief green glow, and the Pagumon was gone.
"Follow it!" Sarith ordered, shouldering T.K. into the same spot the Digimon had just been. A tendril of cloud barely missed the little green dragon as he vanished as well. She leaped over the tentacle and followed.
The inside of the hiding tree was smooth and hollow, as if mechanically made. Thankfully the branch they had been sitting on hadn't been too far from the ground. As it was, T.K. landed in a sprawled heap with nothing injured save his dignity. Sarith glided to a place beside him, watching the Pagumon cower in the corner with its ears covering its eyes.
"We aren't going to hurt you," she told it impatiently. "We need a place to hide from that cloud. It's after us." She realized T.K. hadn't said anything since identifying the Pagumon and turned to give him a look. He was glaring at the Digimon, and she figured he simply wasn't very happy with having to spend time with someone who had mistreated his friend. Which was perfectly understandable.
The tree shook again. The unlikely trio flinched in unison.
"Can it come in?" worried T.K.
The Pagumon peaked through its ears. "This is a special hiding tree. Nothing's supposed to be able to enter if it has bad intent."
He squinted at the Digimon in mistrust. "Then why are you in here? And aren't you supposed to rhyme when you talk?"
It looked offended. "I'm not being bad! I'm just trying to survive without making Etemon angry. And I'm too scared to rhyme right now. Do you feel like singing?"
The tree shook harder, and a sound like rumbling thunder floated to them from close by. "Uh . . . no." T.K. blinked.
Sarith swallowed a smile. "It seems," she began as pleasantly as she could, now that she saw her young friend and the Pagumon were going to live and let live. Well, at least they weren't going to leap at each other's throats. "It seems like we're going to be here a while, since we're safe for the time being."
"Hey!" objected the Pagumon, scowling again. "This is my tree! If you leave, that gray thing will follow you and leave me alone. What's keeping me from kicking you out?"
"Simple." Sarith grinned, showing all her sharp teeth. "There's two of us, and only one of you."
The Pagumon gulped and said nothing.
* * *
"Tai? Tai, can you hear me?" The voice seemed to be coming from a long way off. And it was vaguely familiar. Where had he heard it before? It wasn't Agumon, or Koromon even. Wasn't one of the Digi-Destined, or one of the other Digimon. . . .
"TAI!" A jolting impact under him sent him surging to his feet and into full consciousness. His head whipped back and forth as he stared around wildly, but only blackness met his sight. Then the past two days memories returned to him, and he was able to identify the speaker.
"Tok? I-I can't see!" His voice came out higher than he had expected it to.
"The same thing happened to me, when I was captured. Don't worry. It fades, given time." Tok's voice alternately rose and fell, and under that there was a steady creaking noise. Still a bit disoriented, Tai couldn't figure out what was going on.
"Talk to me, Tok. What's happening?"
"We're in cages. Little ones. You'll feel the walls if you stretch out your arms or wings."
"Who else is here?" he asked as he did what Tok suggested. Strong metal bars met his claws. They didn't give an inch.
Tok's voice had steadied, the creaking noises stopped. "Matt's on your left. Then Mimi, Joe and Sora. Our cages are hung in a row." A pause. "I haven't see Sarith. Or T.K. or Izzy."
"What about the Digimon?"
"Them either."
Tai squinted. The darkness was beginning to recede. Fuzzy shapes and dim colors slowly became clearer. Like a photograph developing, the image of an indigo-colored dragon sitting in what looked like a round metal birdcage came into focus. There was something like a collar around his neck, and Tai wondered what it was and how it got there. But he decided he wanted some other answers first, and by Tok's expression, so did he. Tai blinked rapidly. "Oh. Hi, Tok."
The real dragon chuckled weakly. "Hi," he returned, quickly steering the conversation back to more important matters. "I was knocked out when I was first captured, and I just woke up a moment ago. What happened to you guys?"
Tai turned to the left. Four other identical cages were suspended from the ceiling, holding his four friends. They were still out, and they also had collars. He felt his own neck and found a similar one on him. Watching Matt and the others for any sign of life, Tai related the flight from the cloud, the cliff, T.K. and Sarith's fall, and the attack that had claimed them and their Digimon. "I wonder where Koromon is," the blue dragon murmured.
"That cloud was sent by someone seeking dragons. They weren't interested in Digimon. Here, swing."
"What?" Tai turned back to gaze at the other.
"Swing. It makes the cage sway. If you build up enough speed, you can just reach Matt's cage. That's how I woke you up." Tok rocked back and forth to demonstrate, and his cage began to move.
Tai nodded. "Okay. I'll give it a shot." He splayed his our legs and threw his weight to one side, then the other, quickly building up speed. In moments a ringing clang filled the otherwise empty room, causing Tai to wince and Tok to anxiously check the only door in or out of the room. However, it remained closed, and they got their desired effect, because the noise started Matt and the rest of the Digi-Destined into wakefulness.
It took much longer to calm them down, explain everything, and wait for their sight to return than it took to wake them. When silence finally fell, Mimi voiced what Tai had been wondering since he could see again.
"But why are we wearing, like, dog collars? It totally clashes with the rest of me." She stretched her neck, trying to see the offending adornment.
"Come here, Tai," Tok said, leaning toward the other cage to get a better look.
The blue dragon rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'll just walk right over there." There wasn't enough room in the cage to move over, but he did lean toward Tok and took the opportunity to look at the real dragon's collar just as he was studying his. It looked like a single band of brown leather, set with one metal stud under the chin. After a moment of intense gaze Tok sat back and sighed.
"That explains a lot, although I figured it was something like that once I found I couldn't. . . ." He trailed off, thinking.
"Well?" Tai demanded, as the others looked on curiously.
"It's called an Inhibitor. Remember when Mimi referred to our abilities as magical?" There were nods. "Well, following that analogy, these things block out magic. It keeps me from doing those things."
"You mean you can't just disappear and reappear outside the cage?" Sora asked, her tone saying that she sincerely hoped he could do just that.
"I'm afraid not. And I can't change shape to something small enough to slip between the bars either. I can't even breathe fire anymore, until I get this thing off." He sighed again, and was joined in this time by the others.
"Well, then let's get them off," growled Tai, grabbing his Inhibitor and giving a few sharp tugs. When he only succeeded in choking himself, he tried cutting through it with his sharp claws. Unfortunately, that didn't work either.
Tok watched him with a thoughtful look on his face. "Ah, that won't work," he told Tai after the boy leader had quite figured that out for himself. "It can't be removed by the wearer. But this does lead some pretty interesting observations."
Matt, who had been trying to figure out how whoever had caught them had gotten them into the cages—there were no doors or locks on any of them—glanced over. "Like what?"
"Like, whoever sent that cloud, whoever is interested in us, must know what dragons are capable of, since they guarded against it. And since you are all wearing them, it means our captor thinks you are real dragons as well. That's either a good thing, or a bad. I'm not sure. The only thing I am sure about is that we are now in the hands of someone very powerful, and very evil."
Silence fell as his words sunk in.
"At least T.K. and Sarith got away. They . . . they must be okay," the crimson dragon murmured. She cast a glance at Matt.
As a dragon, his expression was unreadable. "Yeah," he finally muttered.
Joe spoke up, his dark blue eyes worried and his voice bleak. "Okay, if they didn't get caught by the big gray thing, and if the Digimon aren't here because it was only after dragons, then where's Izzy?"
More silence.