Tai waited in the shadows to the alleyway,
knife in hand. The dragon had told him to kill her . . . kill the
dragon. . . It'd said that she would come here soon, but he'd
been waiting here a long time, and no one had come. Much less a tall
teenage girl. He'd come here because the dragon had said the if he
killed her, it'd leave him alone, but it didn't matter any more.
Tai couldn't even remember if this was the right
place.
Or was the girl the dragon, and he was going to
kill them both?
He heard sharp steps on the concrete sidewalk, coming closer. A tall girl, dressed in black, walked into sight. Her hair was black, and it flowed over her shoulders and hid her face from view.
She looked vaguely familiar to Tai.
The shadow dragon.
Tai lunged from his hiding place, seeing in his
mind how it would be an easy kill, how he would simply sink the blade in
and walk away and it would all be over.
The girl wasn't there.
Tai recovered his balance and glanced around wildly.
She was crouched a few feet away, staring at him with cold anger and calculation.
She was good-looking, in a feral way, like a black hawk guarding a kill.
He hadn't seen her move at all.
"Did Mokushi send you?" she hissed.
Tai didn't bother to answer, just wheeled around
and slashed at her with the knife. The girl, surprised, threw her arms
up to block it. The knife sliced across her hand and sprayed a small stream
of blood across her face. She cursed, and grabbed Tai's arm with
her other hand as he struck out again. She twisted it, jerking him closer
to her. He screamed and dropped the knife. She looked Tai straight
in the eye, and smiled. Her eyes were a cruel green, hard, coldly
pleased with the way the tides of battle were turning.
Tai bit her. The girl snarled and kicked him
hard in the groin.
Tai collapsed, and she kicked him viciously in the
chest, sprawling him across the sidewalk. The knife was inches from
his fingers.
He reached for the knife.
The girl stepped on his wrist, and ground it into
the concrete with the heel of her boot. There was a sickening snap,
and pain shot down Tai's arm. He screamed again.
The girl examined his face, cold blue eyes narrowed, then laughed. "You're one of the Digi-Destined, aren't you? I've been waiting for this."
She bent down and picked up the knife. "I wonder where you got this," she mused, and drove it deep into Tai's stomach. She pulled the knife out and tossed it near his right hand, then walked away, towards the end of the alley.
She said something, and the wall ripped open, the floating shards quickly replaced by a spiraling, bright portal into the Digital World.
"I'll kill you, Karen." Tai hissed. Blood was staining his clothes a dark crimson.
The girl spun around, eyes wide. "How do you know my name?" she spat. The portal closed around her.
Tai wondered about that for a moment, lying helpless
in a spreading pool of his own blood, before the darkness swallowed him.
* * *
Matt closed the door behind himself and sat
down next to Hikari, on the couch in front of the T.V.
"Are you the last one coming?" Daisuke asked, from
across Hikari. He looked disheveled, like he had been crying and
was trying to hide it.
"Yeah." Matt said. "Mimi's in America right now, Joe has an exam and Sora can't come. And . . . you know about everyone else."
"Izzy, Miyako, Iori, Hikari, and me . . ." Daisuke
said, almost to himself. "That's not very many people . . ."
Izzy glanced up from his laptop screen. "This meeting
is about Tai, right?"
"Yeah." Hikari looked up. Her eyes were red
from crying, and her face was wet with tears.
"What happened?"
"I don't know. . . the police said it was attempted
suicide, but they don't know how he got the broken wrist . . . from what
he was saying after he woke up, they thought it was attempted suicide.
. ." Hikari choked and started to cry again, curling up in her chair.
"Why did he do that? Why? He was fine yesterday . . . he was
. . ."
"Kari, it's okay. He's in the hospital, they'll
take care of him, he'll get better." Miyako said, sitting on the
floor.
Iori nodded.
"His condition's improving . . ."
"Where's Takeru?" Izzy said, cutting off Hikari.
His face was white with shock. "I haven't seen him for days, and no one
is talking about him."
Everyone in the room stared at him for a moment,
and then glanced down at the floor. There was pain in their eyes.
"Don't you know?" Iori said, almost inaudibly.
"No." Izzy looked worried. "What happened?"
"The Digimon Kaizer . . ." Matt's voice broke.
". . . pushed him off a cliff. We looked for him, but we couldn't
find him or Patamon. He could still be alive. He has to be
alive." He clenched his fists and glared at the carpet.
"This is too much." Izzy muttered, and closed his
laptop.
"We're going back inside the Digital World."
Daisuke tapped Izzy on the back. "You stay out here and keep up contact
with us and the other Digi-Destined. If something happens, we'll
tell you and you get everyone else to come in, okay?"
"Right." Izzy looked grim.
"Okay." Daisuke sat up straight. "We're
going to find T.K., and we're going right now. Miyako, could you
set up your laptop?"
Miyako nodded, and unzipped her backpack.
Matt stood up. "I," he said, with dark conviction
in his voice, "will find the Kaizer."
* * *
The sun was high in the sky.
A small group of Digimon moved determinedly
across the empty wasteland. Their eyes glowed bright red, and each
wore a black ring. They made no sound. An Airdramon wheeled
above them, circling like a carrion bird over dead meat. The Digimon
Kaizer stood on its back, watching his Digimon trek across the dry land.
Their goal rose in the distance, a black tower,
an obsidian spike against the wide sky.
The Kaizer sat down. He had collected Digimon
for two weeks to fuel this raid, and it was becoming increasingly harder
to find any wild Digimon at all.
They were dying out, being hunted and killed by
each other. He'd found at least one bleeding slowly to death, not
even granted the relief of quick deletion and rebirth, but choking in a
pool of it's own blood.
Sickened, he had left it to die there, alone.
The Digi-Destined had not come into the Digital
World for at least a week, making his life easier for at least the time
being. When they did last come in, he had made the mistake of not
avoiding them and had been viciously attacked by Yamato.
Sadly enough, Wormmon had saved him. But his
arm was still bleeding slightly, and he'd had to bandage it twice already.
The Kaizer looked up at the sky. There were
no clouds, just blank blue sky up and up. The weather had been like
this ever since he had pushed Takeru over a cliff, and heard him scream
and the sickening crack when he hit the ground. For all he knew,
Takeru might still be lying there. He didn't have the courage to
go check.
It was a lot easier to concentrate on this raid,
and defeating the girl who called herself the Digimon Empress.
The spire loomed huge above him. The Kaizer
blinked. He hadn't quite realized that it was so big, even after
he had worked to hard to locate it. He watched the tip of the tower
recede into the sky as Airdramon flew closer.
It seemed empty, and silent. No sign of inhabitants;
no sign of life at all but the clumps of grass that waved in the breeze
far down at the base.
There was a small balcony near the peak of the tower;
the Kaizer directed Airdramon to land there. Airdramon growled, twisted
upwards on a draft of air and banked, landing with a jolt on the slick
stone.
The Kaizer steadied himself with a hand on the dragon's
head, then dismounted carefully. Wormmon followed him.
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Ken-chan?"
Wormmon squeaked. He sounded nervous.
"Don't ask me that again." The Kaizer turned
his back on Wormmon and the tower, and watched his small force draw closer.
"Why do they have to take so long?" he muttered, and then walked into the
tower itself.
It was dark. The skittering sound or Wormmon
trailing behind him echoed and filled the corridor eerily.
The hallway ended abruptly in a steep spiral staircase.
The Kaizer started down it, moving cautiously, one hand on the stone pillar
that the stairs wound around, until his eyes adjusted to the lack of light
and he could see each step and the new corridor that stretched at the bottom
of the stairs.
He walked down the corridor.
"Ken-chan, where are we going?" Wormmon asked.
"Shut up." The Kaizer said. There was a window
ahead, and he paused to look out of it. The bright light blinded
him for a moment, but when he squinted he could make out his Digimon moving
slowly towards the outer gate of the tower.
He felt a hand on his arm, the wounded arm.
"Beautiful day, isn't it?" the Digimon Empress said,
from behind him.
The Kaizer froze, and then reached for his whip.
The Digimon Empress twisted his arm behind his back,
forcing him to the ground. It hurt- he choked and gritted his teeth
to keep from screaming.
"Did you really think that I wouldn't know you were
here, Ken?" The Digimon Empress said. There was ice in her voice.
"H-how do you know my name?" the Kaizer hissed,
kneeling on the floor. Pain lanced through his arm, and he was sure
that the wound had re-opened.
"It doesn't matter." The Digimon Empress released
him. "I don't care what your name is."
Ken stood up shakily, holding his arm. He
could feel blood leaking into the bandage. The Digimon Empress stood
in front of him, half in light, half in shadow. She was smiling,
cruelly, and the sunlight from the window reflected off of the small metal
spikes in her shoulder-plates. Her eyes were a cold green.
Ken noticed she had a bloodied bandage around her
left hand.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Why do you care?" the Digimon Empress said.
"You know mine."
"Karen." The Digimon Empress turned and began
to walk down the corridor, her black cape swishing behind her.
Ken watched her go, confused.
Karen stopped. "Come!" she snapped, without
even looking back at him.
Ken followed, if only because he was afraid of getting
hurt. After a while, he realized he hadn't seen Wormmon.
"Where's Wormmon?"
"Maybe he got lost." Karen replied, and laughed.
Ken shivered.
Karen stopped in front of a huge, locked door and keyed in a
code, too quickly for Ken to catch. The wall rumbled and creaked,
and the door growled open. Light pored through the open doorway,
flooding the dark keep.
Karen walked out into the inner courtyard of the
tower.
A lone Digimon, very tall, leaned against the wall,
clad in grey armor and a huge, black cloak. It bowed to Karen, almost
mockingly. "Good morning, milady."it grated.
It took Ken a moment to realize that the Digimon
had three arms, one of which terminated in a gun. The other two ended
in clawed gauntlets.
The Digimon glanced over at Ken. "Who is that?"
"Nothing important, DeviCybermon." Karen said,
dismissivly. "There are some Digimon destroying the main gate.
Go dispose of them."
"Very well, milady." DeviCybermon drew two swords
and walked gracefully to the inner gate, despite the heavy armor he wore.
"Coward." he added conversationally as he passed Ken.
There was a thud, and the walls of the tower trembled.
Roaring from outside of the tower echoed in the courtyard.
Karen looked annoyed. "Could you possibly
go any slower?!"
"Actually, yes." DeviCybermon said, mocking
her.
The gate slid open, and DeviCybermon turned his
back on Karen. She glared at him.
Ken, seeing his only chance to escape, sprinted
for the gate, as fast as he could run. He had gotten two steps when
Karen tripped him and kicked him viciously in the ribs.
"Don't ever try to run again." she snarled, the
last thing he saw before he blacked out.
* * *
A young man with long blond hair walked out
onto the tower balcony. He watched DeviCybermon, laughing and mocking,
killing Ken's Digimon as if he were dancing with them.
The man turned, and found Airdramon staring at him,
frightened, hissing with anger and fear.
The man laughed. "How would you like to be
free of the Kaizer?"
Airdramon watched the man closely, as if searching
for the truth in what he promised, and then nodded, once.
