Chapter 17: Time to Strike Back!

"Mom!" Tina shouted. Yolei braced herself as Tina went flying into her and knocked her over. "Ow! …Guess that whole run-dive-and-hug thing worked better when you were grown-up, huh Mom?"

"Tina, I'm so glad to see you back!"

"Hey, save some gushing for Dad!"

Both girls giggled. "Where is your father, anyway?" Yolei asked.

"Dad's downstairs. In the storm sewers. Probably talking with Cody."

"Storm sewers?" Yolei asked.

Tina took her mother by the hand and led her into the boxcar. "See how all this wheat kind of sinks in the middle?"

"Yeah…"

"That's because someone pulled the plug."

"What exactly do you mean by that?"

"I mean that---well, let me start at the beginning," she explained, pulling her mother closer in towards the manhole and beginning to climb down. "When you all got separated, Cody and T.K. got a whole bunch of refugees together and brought them here. They'd been hiding in this sewer for a while before we found them, and we found them by accident. We did the trade mission like we were supposed to, and so we had this boxcar full of grain. When we found the power plant leveled, we looked for another place to hide the food, and we ended up hiding the grain boxcar in this alleyway, right over the manhole that they used as an entrance. Of course, they couldn't get out, so they tried to weld through the manhole to get out."

"And that pulled the plug on the wheat, and it dumped on them…whoa…was anyone hurt?"

"Nope. Miracle, isn't it?"

"I'll say."

"Anyhow, I found the grain boxcar half-full like this, and so I went down here to see what was up, and then I told everyone on the surface about it, and---oh, that reminds me, where's Ingrid?"

"That girl you adopted? …She's still at the mausoleum."

"Mausoleum?!?!"

"We were using it as cover! A mega digimon couldn't blast through its walls, and there are drawers to hide in if all else fails."

"Just the thought of her in there with all those dead bodies grosses me out!"

"The dead bodies are in the drawers we don't use. Anyways, I would've brought her along, but I thought it was too dangerous."

"Then I'd like to see her at the mausoleum."

"You'd have to talk June into coming along," Yolei pointed out, with a hint of singing in her voice.

"I might be able to pull that off," Tina thought to herself. "Then again…" Tina sighed. "And I'd have to talk Rika into coming along, too."

"Your old roommate? Why?"

"She's…I promised not to tell anyone, but she's going through a lot right now---more than most people---and I told her I'd be there for her if she needed anybody. And if I had to move away to the orphanage permanently, then…"

"I see what you mean…but, then again, we could always use another fighter there."

"I guess…and Rika's digimon can warp-digivolve, now."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Cleaver must've made a warp-digivolving card, because she found one in the rubble of the nuke plant."

"Hmm…say, how far down is it on this ladder?" Yolei asked, realizing that they had been climbing for a long time.

"Not much farther."

After a little while longer of climbing, Tina declared, "We're here! Cody! My mom's home!"

"Yolei, where've you been?"

"Minding the orphanage with Kari. What've you been up to?"

"Keeping the people down here alive! How've you been faring with food where you are?"

"Let's just say that we could use what Imperialdramon brought back. You?"

"We were starving, up until we found Imperialdramon's food."

"Ouch!"

"Well, you beat us to the food reserves when the attack started!" Cody shot back.

"At least we're back together," Yolei sighed. "Where's Ken?"

"Down the bend."

Yolei tiptoed up behind her husband as he was speaking to someone else. She tapped him on the shoulder.

"…Honey??!"

Yolei answered with the biggest kiss she could force her pre-teen mouth to plant on Ken's face.

"Yolei! I…I don't believe it!"

Yolei didn't stop embracing her husband. "Thanks for bringing our daughter back in one piece," she sobbed.

"It was…no problem. You know she's a smart girl."

"That's why it's so tough to keep her alive!"

They had a lot to talk about…too much to recount here. But they were together again, and that was the important thing.

"What do we do now?" she sighed at the end of their long conversation.

"That's a good question," Ken sighed.

"Isn't it obvious?" Tina asked, butting in to her parent's discussion.

"No, it's not," Yolei shot back. "What do we do?"

"We have to counterattack and wipe them out! That way, this won't happen again!"

"But how will we ever do that?" Yolei asked. "We don't know if their base in Japan is their only one, we don't know what their defenses are, we don't---"

"Oh, quit griping about little details!" Tina spat. "If we don't have enough information to attack, we'll gather information. We'll comb the woods for any hideouts of theirs. We'll run an underground, we'll storm their castle, we'll do whatever it takes to get them off our world!"

"But…but…"

"The alternative is letting them take over," Ken pointed out.

"…Then let's tell the rest of our fighters and get an attack plan started."

******

"The D-Gauntlet works, but I'll need even more power soon."

"Do not worry. One of our scientists has a theory that could increase the capacity of your gauntlet by 70% if his theory holds."

"Good. How long will it take to install?"

"Another few days. But, while he is working on that, we have another project for you. I seems that we have encountered a way to speed up one of our other projects. By tomorrow, you will be supervising an important project to secure our base's archipelago and rid us of the threat of those pesky resistance fighters!"

"Sounds great to me. I'll rest up until then. Will I need my beauty sleep?"

"Do sleep. I understand humans need to be well-rested in order to operate heavy machinery."