Chapter Four

The fallen angel, still covered in his cumbersome black cloak, clutched the brightly glowing pendant in his fist as he stared at the sealed portal before him. "Open," he whispered impatiently, gesturing at it with his free hand. Through that door awaited his kingdom, just waiting to fall into his waiting grasp. At his back was pain, and suffering... and death anew. It was maddening. "Open, damn you!"

Then the creature almost sighed with relief as a faint, glowing crease split the center of the gate from top to bottom, and slowly... slowly but certainly the two halves of the barrier started to separate. The jewel that he held, the one which was being powered by the souls of the two children which he and Roan had captured gave him strength, a strength which he had not known since the two youngest of the eight had defeated him all those months ago. And now, Roan had informed him that those same two were on their way into his house.

The angel felt, surprisingly, a trace of sadness at having lost the services of the dark teen Roan. There had been one human that he could respect… primarily for his utter lack of humanity. Over the last half year he had seen the boy toy with and destroy the lives and emotions of the numerous young women that he'd seduced. Had seen him wield his power of hate with a deviousness that any demon would have been proud of. But the boy had chosen to stay behind as the angel left for the portal, choosing revenge over the chance to rule in the other world.

Against any other humans the angel would have stayed as well. These creatures were such a weak and ineffectual race. But against the group that was coming to rescue the captives now he would not dare. Not against those six. His body was continually suffused by pain, and now gave an unwilling shudder as he could again feel the holy approach of the Unity of Faith. Worse still was the possibility that their leader and his woman might stumble upon the key to their power as well.

Finally, mercifully, the gateway opened enough for him to enter through on his way back to the digital world. The "Kaiser" as he called himself was already firmly in command there, but with his own power being girded by the Unity of Wisdom the angel of Despair was certain that he, soon, would be firmly entrenched as the ruler of that land.

*****

"Remember, he's got to see you to use the crest against you," Rio warned the others. Sora gave a nod as she slowly followed Kari and T.K. into the house. The girl had told Matt and Tai the same thing seconds ago as the boys had led the way into the mansion, and the message was meaningless for the two youngest. Roan's power, or any of the crests of corruption for that matter, had never affected either of them.

Matt had initially wanted Rio to stay outside as the five of them confronted Roan. The girl was terrified of her older brother, and only Matt knew why. The tales that she had told him of their life together, tales of hideous crimes and depraved, incestuous rape, had horrified even the normally stoic boy. Matt had seethed with anger at the thought of the Roan again laying his hands on her, and wanted nothing more than to kill the other boy with his bare hands. The pale girl had insisted, however, on being with them. She knew Roan's insane mind better than any of them, and knew exactly what surprises he could have for them if they were not prepared.

The front door slammed shut behind them, and Sora gave a startled shout. The other five turned their eyes towards her. "Sorry" she murmured.

Now a vague, uneasy feeling was starting to form in the pit of T.K.'s stomach; something that he had not felt for some… time. Uncertain as to its origin, he glanced over at Kari, who nodded a response. It was an uncomfortably familiar feeling, one that made them each-- "Tai!" whispered the younger boy.

"Not now, T.K.!" snapped the other in return, glancing nervously about the enormous main hallway. How on earth are we supposed to search this entire place?

"Yes, Tai, now," his sister insisted. The boy turned his brown eyes on her. "What?" he demanded.

Then Matt turned as well, and saw the faint glimmer of golden light beneath T.K.'s shirt that signified the crest of Hope's opposition to... something. "T.K.?"

"Matt… it's the other angel. I'm sure of it."

Matt frowned, his teeth clamping down on his lower lip. "You absolutely certain, squirt?"

The younger boy hesitated, then nodded. And he wished that Matt would quit calling him that. When it came right down to it, he wasn't much shorter than his older brother was now… but then, I'd probably miss it if he did stop, the boy finished to himself.

Matt stopped Tai with a hand on his shoulder. "Tai, wait. If we're really going to do this, then you need to let the two of them go first," he said with a sideways nod at the pair.

The brown-haired boy's jaw dropped. "You're insane," he replied.

"No, I'm not. And I trust them. If the other angel is here and still has his powers, then you're just throwing our lives away if you don't let them."

"Matt--"

"Tai!" Sora interrupted. "We haven't got time for this. Mimi and Izzy are in trouble." She looked at the two youngest, who watched the argument with interest. "Do it," she instructed, gesturing at the pair.

T.K. nodded once and took his shimmering crest from under his shirt. Kari moved her own, normally bound tightly to her wrist, into the palm of her left hand. Then the pair clasped hands and tightly pressed the holy relics together, and once again the pink nimbus of the Unity of Faith swirled into existence.

Rio felt an affirming warmth course through her body as the aura enveloped the rest of the group. She had known that she loved Matt before, but a new surge of emotion that was lovely and completely unexpected threatened to overwhelm her as she was caught in that light. Try as she might, she could no longer feel frightened at the thought of confronting her older brother. All that mattered in that moment was the extreme love that she felt for her new friends… and particularly for the lanky, blond-haired boy at her side.

The rest of the group also paused for a moment to drink in the heavenly glow. They had all experienced it before, but outside of the youngest pair had never done so while standing next to one to whom they had freely committed their love. "Okay, go ahead," Tai indicated to the two, grinning like an idiot as he offered his hand to Sora.

T.K. and Kari led the group down the hallway, holding the beacon of the light in front of them like a shield against the darkness.

"God knows, he's waiting for us behind one of these doors with a gun or something," Matt murmured.

Rio shook her head. "Not Roan. Not with a gun. He's scared to death of them."

"Ooh, now what have we here?" a mocking voice sounded from the top of a nearby stairwell. There was a momentary pause as Roan looked down on the group and pretended to count, then brought his hands to his cheeks in mock dismay. "Six? Six of you against one of me? Oh dear, what's a poor fellow like myself supposed to do?" Tai and Matt both glared at the speaker and moved to the front of the group, each having their own separate reasons for despising Roan.

The other raised his hands as if in surrender, but even at that distance the group could see the crimson light from the crest of Hate dangling from his fingers. It was not focused on them in its entirety, not yet, but Roan was clearly ready to spring the trap at any moment.

Tai was seething, but managed to keep him anger mostly in check. "Give up, Roan," he demanded. "What have you done with Izzy and Mimi?"

The other opened his mouth to retort, but a soft voice from behind Tai's back stopped his words, confounding him. "Yes, brother. What have you done with them?" And the dark-haired speaker stepped forward from behind Tai and stood at Matt's side, taking his hand in her own.

Roan's mouth fell open, and for the very first time, five of the six had a glimpse of the older teen when he was not convinced that he was firmly in control of the situation. "R… Rio?" he stuttered, a look of astonishment in his dark eyes.

"What do you want with those two, brother?" Roan was slack-jawed, and appeared as though he did not even hear the question. Instead he only continued to stare at his younger sister, whom he had thought lost over half a year ago. "Come now, brother," she insisted. "There have never been any secrets between us, have there?" Her eyes were cold as she watched the other, and the tone of her words was quite contrary to what she'd said.

Roan finally seemed to gather his wits, and stared hatefully at the bond between his sister and Matt. His lips curled into an ugly sneer at the pair. "Tell me, sister. Is he as good as I was? Do you ever give that delightful, musical scream for him like you once did for me?"

"Bastard!" screamed Matt, and Tai and T.K. were forced to each grab one of the boy's arms to keep him from rushing at the white-haired teen, the younger boy breaking his connection with Kari to do so.

"Did she tell you that as well?" the other returned casually and with a disdainful shake of his head. "Dear me, Rio, what secrets of ours you're betraying." Then a dangerous glint appeared in his eyes as he watched the boy struggle against his confinement. Before he had been primarily interested in revenge against their leader, Tai. But now, seeing his sister with a romantic attachment to another of that group, his priorities changed. "Through that doorway on your left," he said to Tai, indicating a very large door atop another staircase at the opposite end of the hall, "my partner is just now making his getaway with the… well, with the essence of life that he has stolen from each of your two friends. If you hurry, you just might catch him."

"You're lying!" shouted Sora.

Rio peered closely at her brother. "No, he's not," she murmured.

"Matt! Come on!" Tai insisted, pulling frantically against Matt's arm. The blond boy ignored his friend, a vein sticking out on his forehead as he strained against the grip of the boys who were holding him back.

Roan responded with an evil chuckle deep within his throat. "It's your choice, really. Me, or your friends?"

"Tai, now!" Sora said insistently.

"Oh, damn!" shouted the brown-haired boy, at once releasing his hold on Matt and dashing, Sora close on his heels, to the doorway that their enemy had indicated.

T.K. was left holding onto Matt's arm alone, but the younger boy was not enough to restrain the insane fury of his older brother, and tumbled to the ground as Matt pulled away and darted to the stairs which led to Roan. "Matt!" the younger boy and Rio shouted at once.

"Tai, stop!" insisted Kari, dashing after her own older brother.

T.K. was torn, looking one moment after his brother and the second after his best friend. After a moment's hesitation in which his soul felt ripped in half, he dashed after Kari. Matt, hopefully, could be counted on to take care of himself. But he would be needed with Kari if they were again to face the angel of Despair. "Kari, wait!" he shouted at her back as she disappeared through the doorway in pursuit of Tai and Sora.

But the hesitation had cost him greatly.

T.K. reached the entrance to the library and threw it open, huffing after having followed Kari up the flight of stairs, only to see the girl vanish into a rapidly closing portal; a portal not unlike the one that they had used years before in pursuit of Myotismon. The young boy flung himself desperately after the brown-haired girl but, like Tai years earlier, only succeeded in colliding with the solid metal doors as the gateway was sealed. "No!" the boy shouted, falling to his knees and pounding furiously on the cold, uncaring metal.

"Kari…" he whispered sadly.

*****

"Izzy? What is this place?" murmured one half of the glowing sphere of light that resided both within the crystal at the mansion and within the talisman held by Despair.

"I'm afraid that there's too little information for me to make an accurate assessment at this point," the other replied.

Mimi felt suffused with warmth as the boy spoke, the boy who only moments earlier had confessed his love for her. She, oddly enough, had not been surprised to hear the words. Though all the time that they had known each other they had often enough come close to driving one another insane, she felt exceptionally intimate with the intellectual boy. And now… it was though they were bound together in some way. She could not possibly have felt any closer to him. She now existed inside him, as he existed inside her.

Izzy was similarly ecstatic, new emotions that he had held in check for so long running unhindered through his incorporeal existence. Yes, he did love her. Loved her flightiness, her eccentricity, everything about her that he could never be. Someone had once said that opposites truly did attract, and though Izzy had always recognized that truth in the laws of nature, never once had it entered his thoughts as it pertained to the laws of the human heart.

Then, unexpectedly, a new emotion flooded Izzy's senses, intruding on his private thought of affection for the girl who shared his existence now. Danger. Somehow, some way, in this place where they now were there was danger. An almost overwhelming need to protect Mimi arose out of his soul, and in that place where the two now existed, that need revealed itself as an almost blinding golden aura. And with a brief flash of that golden nimbus, the danger passed.

"Izzy? What… what was that?" the girl murmured nervously.

The boy would have frowned had he still had lips as he spoke the words that he was always so reluctant to say. "I don't know, Mimi." He allowed his half of the unity to envelop hers protectively. "I really don't know."

*****

The angel of Despair stood over the body of the Digimon that had dared oppose him, then watched as it dissipated into minute bits of data and flowed away. He had overdone it, turning the full power of the Unity of Wisdom against the little creature that had claimed servitude to the "Digital Emperor" when just a bit less would have overwhelmed it and turned it to serving him. The angel shrugged. Some experimentation would be necessary before he could learn to use the power of his weapon to destroy or convert as he saw fit.

He smiled at the ease with which he had won the encounter. The simple indication of danger that he had thrown at the souls confined within the jewel had caused them to unleash a devastating amount of power at his opponent. This would be better than he had hoped. Forget being a ruler. With power such as this, eventually, he would be a god here.

Now he only wished that he had constructed the gate to move him closer to the civilized parts of the Digital world, instead of to the barren wasteland. But, better to be safe than sorry, he mused.

After all, the children could not know how to free their friends, and he had a significant amount of time before their mortal bodies failed from physical limitations.

*****

Tai, Sora, and finally Kari tumbled to the sandy ground moments after having leapt through the dimensional portal. The boy glanced about once, then turned to count heads. He shook his own sadly at seeing the companions that they were missing. He had known that Matt's fury would compel him after Roan, but had hoped that T.K. at least would have been with them. Without both the younger boy, their chances against the dark angel of Despair were admittedly slim.

Kari, too, stood looking at the doorway. "Oh T.K. …" she whispered sadly, hoping that he would have been able to catch up with her in time.

Tai moved to her side and placed an arm around his sister. "Don't worry about him, Kari," the older boy said. "Matt and T.K. can take care of themselves. It'd be better at this point to start worrying about us." He paused for a moment, looking around. The area in which they had landed was hot and barren, bereft of any redeeming qualities. Oppressive to both the eyes and the soul. "I suppose we're back in the digital world."

Sora exhaled loudly. "But which part? None of this looks at all familiar to me. And which way do we go from here? And when we catch up with the angel, how-"

"Sora," Tai interrupted. He was nervous as well, but had accepted a long time ago that, as their leader, he was the one who was supposed to calm the others by taking everything on himself. "I don't know where we are. But if Roan was right, and the angel does have Mimi and Izzy, then we've got to go after him." His eyes fell on a trail of footprints in the sand, stretching off into the distance. "And that is which way we go from here."

*****

"Come out, Roan!" Matt roared with just a trace of insanity in his voice. The older teen had taken to his heels as Matt had charged up the stairs at him, and now the blond-haired boy seethed as he looked at a long hallway filled with innumerable doors. "Come back and fight!"

Rio looked sadly at the boy. Once again Roan was causing her soul pain, now vicariously through Matt. She knew that her brother was a terribly sadist, whose greatest delight had always been in bringing pain to anyone and everything that he could. And as calculating as his evil mind was, she was certain that he knew just how much pain he was causing the both of them now.

She had made a mistake by telling Matt some of the things that her brother had done to her in the times that they were still together. But at the time she had been desperate to win the trust and forgiveness of the boy, frantic to explain how Roan's threats alone had coerced her into her own monstrous acts. She had no idea that she would fall this deeply in love with the rebellious boy, nor that he could be so kind or become so enraged at the one who had hurt her that deeply.

Matt was still frantic in his search, throwing open doors randomly and calling for the older teen, when finally he came to a door which would not open. Again Matt turned the handle, throwing his lean body against the door again and again. "Roan!" he screamed.

"Matt, stop!" Rio insisted. "You'll hurt yourself." The boy ignored her, continuing to ram the door with his shoulder, apparently with the mindset that either it or he would end up broken before he stopped. The girl reached out a trembling hand to stop him, when suddenly she felt a familiar iciness creep up her spine. She tried to move away, but a fraction of a second later she was pulled backwards by her hair and felt the cold steel of Roan's dagger against her throat.

"Hello again, Rio," a familiar, hateful voice whispered into her ear.

"Matt," the girl whispered, her lips trembling uncontrollably.

The boy must have heard the fear in her voice, for at once he stopped the battering and turned in her direction. He took a step forward, seeing Roan at her back, but stopped as the older teen angled his long knife at her throat. "That's right, Matt," the deranged teen with the bleached-white hair whispered at him. "Once again, she's mine. Mine to play with, to do with as I will. Did she tell you how she enjoyed me? How many times we kept each other warm on those cold, cold nights in the mountains?" He paused, and turned his eyes to his sister. "Did you tell him? How you said that no one could ever be better than me?"

Matt's teeth clamped down on his lip. He could feel his muscles tightening and his body fill with rage as he watched the pair, powerless to help. He could taste blood in his mouth as his teeth punctured his lip, helplessly watching the girl who he had once hated but had grown to love as she bowed her head in surrender. "Roan," he hissed, his blue eyes narrowing dangerously. "If you hurt her, I swear to God…"

"Me? Hurt her? Oh no, no, no, Matt. I think that you misunderstand the crux of this situation. I'm not going to hurt her at all." The teen pulled his other hand from behind the girl's back, and Matt could again see the crimson crest of Hatred shimmering in his clenched fist. He smiled evilly. "You are..."