Legend of the Digidestined: Book One

by Blitzkrieg

Adventures on File Island" A totally re-imagined version of Digimon's start: new characters, new plots, new ideas, new everything! ...except for the parts that AREN'T new, of course (chapter 12 up!)

10. The Truth Will Set You Free, If It Doesn...

Legend of the Digidestined

Book One

Chapter Ten

It is a round about that I can't leave

I circle for decades

Only to find obscurity

My life is haunted by young devilry

I hear your voice

On my stereo

Lost in to the Night

Brutal kids of the promised future

Cut the highways

With shards of truth

I call out to my young and black hearted

Do you believe in what I have seen?

I heard your voice

On my stereo

Lost in to the night

Do you believe in what I have seen?

"Homage"

by Kevin Allen, Neil Busch, Conrad Keely, and Jason Reece

from the album Source Tags & Codes by And You Will Know Us by The Trail Of Dead

Chapter Ten

The Truth Will Set You Free, If It Doesn't First Drive You Insane

The Digimon who inhabited Systems Canyon were renowned across File Island for being a surly bunch, not given too much in the way of courtesy or subtlety. Given the highly dangerous nature of their livelihood, they had to be quite resilient to survive, but it could make them less than pleasant conversationalists. If you ran into a miner or merchant down in that mile deep trench that had something he wanted to say to you, he didn't water it down or wait until it was appropriate to let you know about it. Fortunately, few Digimon in Systems Canyon truly cared about the dealings of others to actually comment on it often anyway (it was a good thing because, with their tact and refinement, the canyon would overflow with homicides if they did for very long). It took something very out of the ordinary to get these Digimon worked up.

Something like, say, a boatload of travelers from beyond File Island trying to invade Infinity Mountain.

That was the kind of news that spread quickly and didn't go away for a while after it popped up. Not necessarily for the "beyond File Island" part, Systems Canyon often saw travelers from other parts of the Digiworld; but trying to sneak into Infinity Mountain? There wasn't a Digimon to be found in the Canyon who wasn't at least thinking about it. Those closer to the mouth of the canyon could afford to just scoff when it was mentioned, but the farther along the Canyon (and further into Devimon's stronghold) you went, the more seriously the Digimon became. By the time you got to the Happy Bukamon tavern, the farthest establishment down Systems Canyon and a mere fifteen miles from the foot of Infinity Mountain, the denizens were practically frantic.

"I'm tellin' ya, whoever those fools are, they must be stoned out of their minds!" Declared a particularly tipsy Nanimon to his drinking buddies

"Complete idiots, ya know?"

"I don't know about that" commented the Knightmon across the table from him "If what everyone is saying is true, the seem to be a good deal more intelligent that the past crusaders this island's seen."

"What are you talking about?" scoffed a Psychemon at the table next to them

"They're trying to attack DEVIMON, remember?"

"Well, yes" Knightmon conceited "Just bear with me for a moment. Whenever any other band of Digimon with a Digidestined complex has tried to take on Devimon what do they do?"

"Die." Nanimon belched.

"I mean before that part." Knightmon pressed.

"Well, they usually trek right up to the outer perimeter." answered a Mudfrigimon nearby.

"Yeah." agreed Psychemon " `Cause they think they've got destiny on their side or something like that."

"Then they die." Nanimon added.

"Yes they do, that's my point." Knightmon explained "Whoever these new fellows are, they've got a very solid plan of attack going for them so far. I mean, look at us! If we went up to the surface right now, we'd be over thirty miles into the heart of Devimon's stronghold without so much as smelling a Black Gear!"

"So they'll die in the middle of File Island instead of near the middle, huh?" Nanimon grunted "Yep, they're frickin' geniuses all right."

"Yeah, and what'll happen when Devimon get's through with them, huh?" Psychemon asked "He'll wanna find out how they got so far into this stronghold and then he'll come down here to find out!"

"There've been attempts at insurrections before this one and he's never broken his agreement with the miners." Knightmon insisted.

"Yeah, but as you so aptly pointed out," Mudfrigimon replied "they were all on the surface. It won't take long for Devimon to figure out that they came through Systems Canyon; and when he does, he'll think we've turned against him."

"And even if he doesn't, he'll figure that leaving us alone down here is too big a security risk." Psychemon added "He'll probably decide to start sending some Black gears down here too."

"Don't be ridiculous." Knightmon scoffed, trying not to consider such a disturbing possibility "He needs us down here to work the mines in order to make the Gears in the first place!"

"Well, I'm sure he'll keep a few of us without gears living in the mines - PERMINATELY - where we won't be a risk to security." Psychemon sighed.

"He wouldn't!" Knightmon insisted, more to himself than anyone else.

"Wouldn't you?" Psychemon countered.

Knightmon chose not to answer that question; instead lifting his glass up in the dark, dusty air and proposing a very melancholy toast "Well, here's hopping that they're not as crazy as we all think they are."

No one shared Knightmon sentiments, but they all drank anyway.

****************************

Pandoramon had had a dream once that she was in a giant building that she had apparently designed herself. Not just a nice sized house, mind you; this dream building was almost a city unto it's self. She might have considered trying her hand at designing a real-life equivalent when she woke up if that was all there had been to the dream, but it went downhill very quickly. Presumably, the whole structure was supposed to be brand new, but when she went inside, everything looked like it had been left to fall apart for years. What was worse, someone had apparently not followed her blueprints when they mapped out the halls, because nothing led to where she thought it would. As a result, she spent hours (well, the dream made it seem like hours) wandering lost in her own building. Then the whole place turned into her old bedroom and a group of Shellnumemon tried to feed her a sock, at which point she woke up. She didn't have any idea what the dream meant (especially that last part), but her current assignment had made her think about it anyway.

Not that she would admit it, but Pandoramon would have rather dwelt on that dream, or any other dream, or anything else period, than continue to think about the bizarre task Devimon had charged her with.

The plan for capturing the Digidestined had been as simple as it was brilliant and had worked perfectly. Without so much as lifting a finger, Devimon had all the humans, their Digimon partners, and their accomplices Centaurmon and Unimon in his grasp. In barely a minute, he could have crushed their heads in and have done with this whole ordeal, but he didn't.

In fact, he wasn't doing anything.

Oh, he had all his servants quite busy, of course; rebuilding the winding caverns of Infinity Mountain almost beyond even Pandoramon's recognition. It was quite disorienting to walk down the same hallways he had for years before and end up somewhere else entirely, and she was already uneasy enough as it was. This whole plan simply didn't make sense! Rather than doing anything himself, Devimon was having his minions turn Infinity Mountain into a massive, booby trapped holding cage with all but one entrance blocked. Once work was finished, he planed to have the seven humans dropped randomly into the labyrinth and hope they all stumbled to their deaths. As for the Digimon...Well, he just told her to be patient again.

It was just so frustrating to try and make sense of! After all, Devimon was more powerful than all the Digidestined put together, right? Why would he go so far out of his way to avoid a direct confrontation? And even, just for the sake of an argument, if he wasn't strong enough, what good would this so-called plan do him? Even if the humans were at one end of the mountain and the Digimon at the other, the Digivices would still detect the peril of their bearers. There was just some step in this equation that Pandoramon didn't get.

Unless, of course, the problem was that she was getting it more than she wanted to.

There was that little voice again, getting more and more troubling with every minute. What if Devimon really didn't know what to do and was panicking? What if the plan didn't make any sense because there wasn't one that did?

Once again, Pandoramon stopped herself before she had a chance to dwell on that thought. It simply wasn't a possibility, not by a long shot. There was no way Devimon could have been in contact with The Darkness and not have planed for this situation. Right?

"Mistress Pandoramon?" Kokuwamon, Pandoramon's assistant, piped up from behind "Teams Seven and Eighteen are finished in sector twenty four. Should I have them join up with team Nine?"

"Yes, that would be fine." Pandoramon blurted curtly, waving him off so she could think "Go and take care of it."

"Yes, Mistress." Kokuwamon replied, bowing as he turned to go.

"Uh...Kokuwamon, wait!" Pandoramon called before he'd had a chance to go very far.

"Was there something else, Mistress?" he asked.

"Well, um...Sort of. II was just wondering what you though of this operation." she explained. Kokuwamon was one of the few remaining Digimon in a position of any importance who's mind hadn't been dulled by a Black Gear. If she was going to get an intelligent second opinion from anyone, it would be him.

"Um...What is there to think?" Kokuwamon muttered, looking like she'd asked him to grow a small tree from his head and dance around "It's what Devimon had commanded. What else is there to know?

"I know, I know." Pandoramon replied, choosing her words carefully, as not to sound treasonous "All I mean is, our Master has kind of left us in the dark as to his reasoning behind this whole thing, hasn't he?"

"Why would you say that?" Kokuwamon asked, still looking puzzled.

"I mean...Um, that is to say" Pandoramon stuttered "I'm just saying that we really haven't been told why were going through all this trouble."

"To get rid of the intruders, of course." Kokuwamon answered.

"No, that's not what I mean!" Pandoramon sighed, exasperated. Maybe Kokuwamon wasn't the best pick for an intelligent second opinion after all.

"Well, what in the Digiworld do you mean?" Kokuwamon asked, getting a bit exasperated himself.

"Why is Lord Devimon disposing of the humans like this?" Pandoramon nearly shouted "Why can't he simply take care of them himself? Wait...I mean why won't he...Anyway, do you get what I mean now?"

"Not really." Kokuwamon confessed, looking a little concerned "You of all Digimon should know that Lord Devimon doesn't have to explain himself to anyone. Our place is only to obey. Was there anything else?"

"No...You may go." Pandoramon sighed, at a loss. She had been using that very argument on herself since these questions started bothering her, but coming from someone else they just seemed so...so wrong. Pandoramon had come to follow Devimon in the first place because she didn't want to be around that kind of thinking anymore. She'd left her home, not to mention any chance to re-enter the society of File Island, and come to Infinity Mountain because, to her, Devimon represented her independence: independence from her elders, independence from their customs, independence from life in general! She'd left everything to be a part of Devimon's movement because it meant her independence. It meant that she'd be able to decide things completely on her own. It meant that, for once, she'd finally be happy. But Kokuwamon's words, well intended as they might have been, seemed to shatter that whole vision. Those were not words that could have come from someone with the same convictions as Pandoramon, yet she couldn't have come up with a Digimon more dedicated to the cause than Kokuwamon. That was the problem, and that damned little voice wouldn't let her ignore it. Could she have come so far and done so much only to wind up exactly where she'd started? Could her whole life have been spent on something that didn't really exist? It couldn't be; it just couldn't!

Kokuwamon had long left the map room where Pandoramon was working, so there was no one around to see her collapse in a pool of utter despair; feeling more lost than she'd ever thought possible.

****************************

It was quite humorous, really; if complete and total disaster could be called such. Certainly, if this had happened to anyone else, Devimon would have had a laughing fit. But it hadn't, and he wasn't. For almost more years than he could count, Devimon had been The Darkness' hand in the Digital Word; it's high priest, almost. It had showed him how to create the Black Gears, how to control File Island, it had told him everything.

At least, it had felt like everything at the time.

Now, of course, Devimon could look back and honestly wonder how in the Digital World he could have been so stupid. Was there really a notion in his head that he might someday posses all of the knowledge of The Darkness? He wasn't sure if it was actually the idiocy that astounded him of the outright egotism of it. He was still a Digimon after all; the most powerful of all Digimon to be sure but a Digimon nonetheless. As if his primitive mind could ever handle all of the wisdom of The Darkness. But no, he had puttered along like a fool assuming that he didn't have to make any plans of his own because they would all be made for him. And look where it got him.

The Digidestined had fallen right into his lap and he had no idea what to do with them.

Since right after the humans appeared on File Island, The Darkness had become less and less forthcoming; being evasive and changing the subject often. Now it would barely acknowledge his presence at all, and gave virtually no pertinent advice at all when it did. Despite his frustration, however, Devimon knew better than to outright demand answers from The Darkness.

This whole situation really wasn't new to Devimon at all. On many previous occasions, during his sessions with The Darkness, the battle against the Digidestined came up and the topic always changed very quickly. Never mind about that now, it would say, take care of the job that is before you now; and, of course, he would do so without question. Well, there was that one time, when he had only just started serving The Darkness, that he pressed the matter.

It only happened once.

Technically, it didn't shout at Devimon because The Darkness didn't communicate with him using sounds, but thoughts. The words, or images or whatever the case may be, just showed up inside his head. It was like being in the middle of a dream where you suddenly wind up someplace different than where you were a second ago. You notice afterwards that the surroundings are different, but you don't ever notice anything actually changing. That's how it was most of the time, but not then. That time The Darkness seemed to explode inside Devimon's mind like...Well, like nothing he'd ever encountered before or since. Even after all that time, it still hurt Devimon's head to think about it. Of course, it wasn't as if he hadn't deserved it. Who was he to tell The Darkness what to do? It would give Devimon his instructions when the time came.

One would have though that, after all that time, Devimon would have realized at some point that that time was not going to come.

It was so obvious in retrospect: this was a test. It had to be. Only a Digimon with the strength to defeat the Digidestined would be worthy of ruling the Digital World in The Darkness' name; and, of course it wouldn't be a fair test if The Darkness intervened. And besides, what use would The Darkness have of a mindless drone? In retrospect, it all made perfect sense.

If only he'd seen it coming before now.

"Now" Devimon laughed bitterly to himself "Of all the times for the Digidestined to arrive...So many years in which this test could begin and it had to happen NOW"

But there was no point in worrying about that at the moment. Now there wasn't time to make plans, to weigh options, there was only time to act; so he did.

And now here they were.

Lying unconscious before him, the seven pitiful creatures looked like they couldn't be a decent threat to a single Numemon, much less the great Devimon. But he knew better than to judge on appearances alone. It was a good thing to; after what happened when they tried to remove the Digivices. It would take a long time to remove all the burn marks from the chamber walls. It looked like he would have to throw the humans into the maze with the Digivices on them. Obviously, this made the whole idea of the boobytrapped labyrinth relatively pointless, but he was out of ideas. All Devimon could do was put as much distance between those Digivices and the Digimon as he could and hope that they wouldn't be triggered by the "accidental" danger. He knew quite well that it was a long shot, but what else could he do?

At that moment, Ogermon, Leomon, and Pandoramon entered Devimon's chambers together.

"Man, those guys sure are ugly!" Ogermon belched, poking the littlest one with his club.

"Don't touch them, Ogermon." Leomon admonished quietly "You saw what happened to the others."

"Come on, those things only made with the laserbeams `cause they tried to take `em away!" Ogermon replied.

"Still, it would be a waste of resources if you were destroyed before the operation had a chance to begin." Leomon continued.

"There's no time to play with them anyway." Devimon interrupted "You all have work to do."

"Right!" Ogermon concurred eagerly "When do we get to bash `em?"

"You don't, you scab-covered buffoon." Devimon replied "Place them in the maze and wait for them to wake up."

"HUH?" Ogermon shouted "Come on! What'd we go through all the trouble of getting `em for if we don't get to bash `em?"

"We should be able to destroy them very quickly, my Lord." Leomon concurred

"It would be a simple manner."

"ARE YOU TWO QUESTIONING MY ORDERS?" Devimon snapped angrily.

"GAAAAAAH!!!!!!! NONONONONONONONONO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Ogermon shrieked, cowering like a frightened rookie.

"We are only seeking the manner in which we may best serve you, master." Leomon explained.

"The way you may best serve me is the was I tell you to." Devimon hissed coldly "And I tell you clowns that you are not to touch the humans."

"OK, but why?" Ogermon continued stupidly.

"The Digivices will detect any physical danger to their bearers and trigger the digivolution process." Pandoramon explained, quietly.

"Hey, is sommthin' the matter with you?" Ogermon asked, getting much closer to Pandoramon than she would have ever liked "You look even paler than usual."

"I'm fine." Pandoramon curtly replied without looking at him "Get away from me."

"What's the matter, cutie?" Ogermon snickered, tussling her hair with his large, muck-encrusted fist "You still get nervous when a Digimon as good lookin' as me gets too close?"

"Don't touch me, you disgusting, conceited monstrosity." Pandoramon replied sickly, trying to push Ogermon away. Of course, he refused to budge; instead pulling her even closer to him.

"What's the matter, string bean?" he laughed "You usually got a lot more fight in ya' than this!"

"Let me go, you creep!!!" she screamed, trying to kick him hard enough for it not to simply tickle.

"Oh, come on, you oughta know me better than that by now!" Ogermon snickered. Fortunately for Pandoramon, Devimon had little patience for Ogermon's antics.

"There's no time for your juvenile pranks right now, Ogermon." he declared "You've got to get these humans into the labyrinth."

"Awww man, just when I was getting good, to" Ogermon whined, looking away just long enough for Pandoramon to jab him square in the eye with her staff.

"OWW!!!" he wailed, letting her go to rub the wounded eye "Why I oughta pluck your wings one feather at a time!"

"Not before I tear every one of your scabs off." Pandoramon shot back, her large, white eyes burning with a mix of fear, rage, and disgust.

"Neither of you will have a chance to do anything to anyone if you don't get to work now!" Devimon shouted.

"All right fine!" Ogermon sighed, scooping up several of the Digidestined in his arms "Where do you want `em?"

"Put them far enough apart that they can't find each other." Devimon explained "Preferably close to a good selection of traps."

"It shall be done as you ask, master." Leomon replied, taking the rest out after Ogermon.

"Very well, come with me." Devimon said to Pandoramon, turning to the transmitter room. He figured it couldn't hurt to ask just one more time

If Devimon had noticed that Pandoramon was troubled, he didn't show it. Instead, he simply told her to start up the transmitter like he had a thousand times before. And, even if he did, he never could have known just how troubled she really was. Twice, during the start up procedure, Pandoramon forgot the passcodes: passcodes she'd written herself. But she simply couldn't concentrate on anything right now, it felt like the whole Digiverse was about to collapse around her. Devimon had been more than simply a leader to her, he had been her idol, she would do anything for him; and suddenly she was no longer sure why. Pandoramon wanted more than anything to just forget everything she'd thought for the past week and go back to life as usual, but something inside her simply wouldn't let her stop thinking about it. Devimon was making a mistake. She knew it, but she was expected to obey anyway.

They were the most frightening moments Pandoramon had ever known.

The again, now that she was in the transmitter room, there was still a glimmer of reassurance. No matter how much that little voice might want her to doubt Devimon, there was always The Darkness. Pandoramon knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that something was sending thought waves through the transmitter to Devimon. What was more, the Black Gears were totally beyond all the science Pandoramon had ever encountered, he had to have been given the designs from something far more advanced. Devimon couldn't be wrong if he was following The Darkness' directions, could he? Still, try as she might, Pandoramon simply couldn't bring herself to accept that all these problems would work out in the end. What possible plan could The Darkness make out of this near chaos?

Again, the temptation to ask The Darkness herself reared its head. This time, she didn't brush it aside so easily. If The Darkness was in fact an intelligence beyond that of Digimon, and all evidence showed it was, then the only way to truly figure out what it was up to would be to ask it herself. But true as that might be, there was still the impossibility of actually trying it. After all, what if The Darkness told Devimon what she'd done? If he found out, what he'd do to her would make Ogermon's tormenting actually look like a show of affection. Besides, there was still the fact the machine was designed to interface with Devimon and Devimon alone. There was no way to know what would happen if she tried to force the mechanism to comply with her thought patterns. It was simply too risky.

The beeping of her console brought Pandoramon back to reality: Devimon was finished with his conversation, whatever it was. As usual, he came out silent and bothered.

"Does my lord have any new orders?" she asked, already sure of the answer.

"No." Devimon replied quietly "Everything is proceeding as it must."

"I see." Pandoramon sighed; she was afraid of that.

"Let's go." Devimon muttered, making his way out of the transmitter room "The humans should be deposited by now."

As he slowly paced through the corridors of Infinity Mountain, Devimon couldn't help but dwell on the ironic timing of this whole situation. To think that he would be cut off from The Darkness on the eve of the greatest revelation it could give

Most everyone in Devimon's company knew that he didn't share everything he received from The Darkness with them, but they could never have guessed just how much. Even Pandoramon, who fancied herself an expert on just about everything, was completely unaware of some of The Darkness' greatest wonders. Of course, how could they possibly know about things that had yet to occur?

More than a few of Devimon's followers, and even some of his enemies, assumed that The Darkness simply gave Devimon visions of the future all the time and that was how he had achieved so much. However, this was far from the truth and there really was little need for such divining. The simple minded fools of File Island greatly overestimated themselves if they felt that it required an intimate knowledge of the future to outsmart them. Still, there were rare occasions when The Darkness did in fact perceive images from the future and relay them to its servant. Devimon didn't pretend to have even a remote understanding of exactly how it accomplished this when it did, despite asking once. The Darkness had "answered" by describing a number of waves with holes cut in them and a flashlight pointed at them. Every so often, it said, all the holes and the flashlight line up so that the beam of light shines through them all and can be seen by some one on the other side. Devimon hadn't the faintest clue how this explained anything, in fact The Darkness might have been joking just to get him to shut up, but it didn't really matter. The point was, roughly every eight years or so, The Darkness could grant any individual in contact with it a vision of it's future. It was anything but an exact science from what Devimon had gathered, these seemed to be no was of determining in advance just what (or, more accurately, when) the individual would actually see and the chances of correctly interpreting the images were slim at best. The only thing Devimon had found he could be sure of was that the visions always foretold an extremely important event in the viewer's life. They certainly had in his case, at least.

The first time The Darkness had ever shown Devimon the future was back on Server, before Myotismon had discovered the rift in Digital Space. In those days, Devimon could simply walk right up to the black tear in the sky, as Digital Mages, conjurers, and scientists had in the long past days before the war with The Dark Masters. Since that ancient time, the location of the rift had been lost, and the tales of it reduced to legend. Thankfully, Devimon was one of the rare Digimon who could hear its call and wandered the great deserts of Server to find it and hear The Darkness' wisdom. In that first vision, Devimon had seen massive walls being built around the rugged, barren mountains where the rift was located; walls he had latter seen built with his own eyes when Myotismon discovered the rift himself. Devimon would have been quite unsettled when Myotismon banished him from going near the rift if he had not received a second vision before hand. He was in a large room with some kind of multi-tendriled device coming out of the ceiling. Somehow, this thing that had nearly wrapped it's self around his head, was allowing him to communicate with The Darkness as clearly as if he was right in front of it. And there, in the corner of the room, he saw a thin, frail-looking little Digimon with a pair of limp, dragging wings on her back who seemed to be the one running the whole contraption. Obviously, no one could deny that that particular vision had come about exactly as he had seen.

But dwelling on such things was pointless now. The Darkness had made a decision, and it was useless for Devimon to think about questioning it. What he had to do now was figure out how to deal with the Digidestined.

"Everything is prepared, my Lord" Pandoramon declared, taking a quick look at one of the numerous consoles in the command chamber that displayed information on the makeshift dungeon "All of the humans are in their designated drop off points. They should be waking up at any moment."

"Very good." Devimon sighed "I want everything that happens down there to be monitored as precisely as possible. Those humans cannot make it anywhere near the top of this mountain!"

"Understood, my Lord!" several of the Digimon milling about the room replied in unison.

"Is there anything in particular you would like me to do?" Pandoramon inquired softly.

"Yes...There is" Devimon whispered, leading Pandoramon off to a more secluded corner of the room "But no one is to know about it. Not ANYONE, understand?"

"Of course, master!" Pandoramon replied, confused "What is it?"

"Go back to the transmitter room." Devimon whispered, almost inaudibly "I want you to make preparations to activate the Heracles Mechanism."

"WHAT?" Pandoramon gasped, her already large eyes widening to the point that they threatened to engulf her whole face.

"I don't want to take the chance of being caught unprepared if the Digidestined make it up here." Devimon quietly explained "If the time comes for it to be used, there won't be time for any start up procedures. It has to be ready to activate at a moment's notice."

"But...I" Pandoramon stuttered, horrified at the thought "You know that I'm not sure if it will actually work. I'm not even sure how it's supposed to work! What if something-"

"What if something goes wrong?" Devimon coldly interrupted "Do you think I don't know what I'm doing?"

"NO!" Pandoramon almost shouted, suddenly very worried for her safety "I mean, I didn't-"

"Oh, I see." Devimon coldly interrupted "You think that your little knack for tinkering with things has endowed you with enough wisdom to come up with a better plan than The Darkness. Is that it?"

"O-Of course not, master...I was...It was only" Pandoramon stuttered, trying to back out from under Devimon's shadow only to find herself trapped in the corner.

"Then I strongly suggest that you concentrate on the task before you and stop worrying about things that do not concern you." Devimon commanded, dragging one of his lengthy claws down the side of Pandoramon's pale face "Do otherwise and I might start to think that you were ignoring your duty."

Pandoramon tried to make some kind of reply, but she was too horrified by the likely results of anything she could say to say anything. All she could do was tremble as Devimon's ghastly form lurched over her.

" And I would hate to think that Pandoramon, of all Digimon, would forget her place," he hissed "being as very familiar with the consequences as she is."

"I...I'm sorry" the terrified Digimon whimpered, cowering beneath her master "I just...I don't want anything that might endanger you"

"So you decided to endanger yourself?" Devimon scoffed "You're smarter than that. Just get to work."

"Y-Yes, my Lord." Pandoramon stuttered, hurrying out of the command chamber as quickly as she cold. She got back to the transmitter room quickly, but it was some time before her hands had stopped trembling enough to get to work.

****************************

The first thing Sora noticed was the smell, anything with a nasal cavity would have noticed it quickly. For some reason, the only thing that Sora's brain could drag up to describe it was "old"; most likely as in the oldest of old gym shorts. After gagging for a moment, Sora started to get up to see what was going on. That's when Sora actually realized that there was something wrong. For one thing, Sora didn't remember having so bad a headache the night before but she only go up a few inched before she woozily fell on her back again. It then became extremely clear that she wasn't in bed anymore, unless the mattress turned into a chunk of rock during the night.

Oww...What happened? Sora thought to herself, rubbing the bump on her head Did I fall out of the bed?

Sora opened her eyes to look around, then opened them again, and then opened them a third time without seeing a single thing.

"Wha-What's going on?" Sora stuttered out loud, rubbing her eyes in the hopes that here eyes simply hadn't adjusted to the dark for some reason "It wasn't this dark before, what's going on? Biyomon? Biyomon, what's going on?"

When the little Digimon, or anyone else for that matter, failed to reply, Sora begin stumbling blindly along the floor in search of...something; Sora didn't really care as long as she found something.

"Come on, Biyomon, answer me!!!" Sora cried out "Tai? Matt? Mimi? ANYBODY? Where are you guys?"

After franticly scrambling on her hands and knees for a few feet, Sora slammed face first into a wall. She quickly began to feel along the wall for a light switch or maybe the door out to the hall. It took almost a minute for Sora to finally notice that the hall she was hugging was completely different from those in the mansion. Everything in that house was made out of wood, elaborately carved wood at that. This wall, on the other hand, was nothing but a huge chunk of cold stone: stone that was uncomfortably similar to the boulders in the waterfall they had climbed up to get inside Infinity Mountain the day before.

"Oh no...No no no no NO!!!" Sora whimpered, finally realizing that was going on. The last thing Sora remembered from the night before was finally going back to her room. Biyomon was still fast asleep, but it took Sora a while to nod off. She was pretty groggy at the time, but the last thing she remembered was a girl standing over her, waving her hand across Sora's face.

"I guess you were right again, Matt" Sora moaned, quickly piecing everything together. Devimon must have found them and sent whoever-that-was to put them to sleep and dump them...where? Was this a cell? It was so dark that Sora couldn't see her own hand if she hit herself in the face, so she really had no idea. She was going to have to rely on feeling around to figure out what this place actually was. Of course, the thought of fumbling around blindly someplace that Devimon had put her didn't sit well with Sora at all.

"Come on, Sora." she told herself, timidly "If Devimon really wanted to kill you, he would have done it last night while you were asleep." That lovely thought gave Sora a truly terrifying idea. What if she wasn't in Infinity Mountain at all? Maybe Devimon HAD killed her in her sleep!

"No, no way!" Sora assured herself "If I were in Hell, it'd be a lot warmer than this; and if this is heaven, then heaven sucks!" With that little crises temporarily out of the way, Sora began feeling around again, very carefully. Even on her tiptoes, Sora couldn't feel a ceiling, so this was very tall whatever-it-was. And after going several feet to either side, she hadn't run into any corners, the wall just went on. After a little while, Sora decided she wasn't getting anywhere with that wall and decided she ought to see what was directly in front of her. Unfortunately, the rest of her body didn't take kindly to the idea of leaving the wall behind and wandering out into the dark.

After a few minutes of doing absolutely nothing, Sora decided that wandering around totally terrified was slightly better than sitting around totally terrified, so she bravely ventured out into the pitch black. Well, as brave and one can be while inching along the floor in one's hands and knees.

"This is so stupid" Sora quietly cursed, just so she could hear a human voice "This place could be the size of a few football fields for all I know! It'll take forever to get to the other side at this pace, and what good'll that do anyway? Of course, it's so dark in here I could just be going in circles. Yeah, that'd be great: lost in a giant empty room"

Fittingly, Sora had barely got those words out of her mouth when she collided with the wall at the other side. Apparently, Sora's surroundings weren't much wider across than her living room, yet this wall seemed to go on as far as the one on the other side.

"I wonder if this is some kind of a hallway." Sora muttered "Am I supposed to go someplace? How am I supposed to find my way that if I can't see anything?" At that, Sora had the morbid thought that she was being used like a mouse in a maze. After all, Devimon had already had Andromon chase them around that big factory just to see how they would react; was that same kind of thing happening again?

"Oh, where are you Biyomon?" Sora whimpered, desperately longing for her companion's protection "If there is some other creep in here, how am I supposed to get away from it if I can't even see?" For another few minutes, Sora simply sat on the floor again, but eventually she got to anxious for that.

"Well, if Tai or Matt was here, they'd say that it'd be harder for Devimon's thugs to find us if we kept moving." Sora decided, with a twisted grin "Then Tai would want to go left and Matt would want to go right and they'd probably try to have a fistfight even though they couldn't see a thing." Since she was already facing to the right, Sora slowly began to tiptoe down the pitch-black hallway. She only got a few steps before she almost fell into a hole right in the middle of the floor.

"There, see?" Sora shouted to no one in particular "I knew that there would be a hole or something! I KNEW IT!!!...Oh no, I'm turning into Joe." Slowly, Sora made her way around the edges of the hole, which almost took up the whole floor. By some miracle, she managed to inch her way along the narrow edge, nearly giving herself a few heart attacks in the process. Quite a few bits or stone broke off under her feet and plummeted into the hole beneath her, taking a while to hit the bottom. At least Sora knew that the pit wasn't bottomless (she had seem far stranger things lately), but it sounded deep enough to bust her up considerably, if not kill her.

"This is ridiculous; I can't even get across my own room in the dark. How am I supposed to get around giant holes popping up right in front of me?" Sora panted as she collapsed on the floor at the other side of the hole "I need some light in here. A flashlight, a light-up watch, heck I'd take a firefly! I just need to see where I'm going!!!" Needing a few more seconds to collect herself, Sora rolled over on her back. At least she got to her site when she practically impaled herself on the digivice in her pocket.

"OWWWW!!!! For such a little thing, that hurts!!!" Sora groaned, getting more and more frustrated "So now I'm lost, I'm blind, AND I'm about break my digivice...Hey"

OF COURSE!!! THE DIGIVICE!!! How could she have been so stupid? The digivice's screen was backlit! It wouldn't be a flashlight, but at least she would be able to see something. Sora dove into her pocket and franticly pulled out the little glowing device and, sure enough, the screen was pouring out light (at least, that's how it seemed to Sora at the moment). In fact, the whole thing actually seemed to be glowing, giving off twice the amount of light that Sora had expected. For a while, she just stared at the digivice, gleefully taking in the newfound illumination. That go old after a while, however, so Sora decided to check out her surroundings.

As bright as the digivice seemed to be, it didn't do much to light up the hallway. It almost seemed like the air was eating up the light before it had a chance to get very far. Still, Sora was able to investigate her immediate surroundings. Fittingly enough, the floor and walls were black (what else?) and astoundingly plain. There were a number of dips and bumps in the surfaces, which Sora had figured out already when she tried to walk through them in total darkness, but nothing that seemed to suggest any intelligence behind it's construction, or any construction period. The pit that Sora had nearly fallen into, on the other hand, looked anything but natural. It was still too dark to the bottom, or even the other side, but the rough, sharp edges on her side looked as if they had been cut quite recently.

"Well that's nice." Sora snickered to herself "They went through all the trouble of digging a brand new pit just for me! I hope there's not too many more of these things up ahead"

Having seen all there was to see around the pit, Sora decided to get moving again. Sora covered considerably more ground than before now that she could at least see her feet. It was a good thing too, because there were, in fact, more pits to deal with. After making her way around two more that were sinfully close to each other, Sora suddenly found herself at an intersection with another hallway. For some reason, several large stones blocked the hall to her left, but the door to the right was wide open.

"Um...Oh great, which way do I go now?" Sora sighed "OK, I'm pretty sure that both of these don't go the right way, whatever that is." Sora poked her head in the door to the right to take a look around, but couldn't make out any walls. Apparently, the new passage was much wider than the hall she was in. Sora stuck the digivice into the passage as far as her arm would reach in hopes that she might find something useful when she noticed something very unsettling going on with the digivice screen.

During his little lectures on the nature of the digivice, Izzy had told the rest of the group that they were some kind of "danger sensor" that told the Digimon when they needed to digivolve. He had also pointed out the little rainbow-colored gauge on the Digivice screen. After a little experimentation during the group's first encounter with Unimon, Izzy had guessed that the gauge was intended to display any danger the bearer was in. Of course, no one in the group was interested in being deliberately placed in danger to test

Izzy's hypothosis, so he couldn't be sure. Well, that little gauge, which usually took up only a little sliver at the bottom of the screen, had jumped up almost to the top when Sora stuck her arm through the door.

"Uh oh, this is bad; VERY bad!" Sora stuttered, deciding that the hall she had been in was definitely a better idea. Sora really didn't need any extra incentive to get the heck out of that room, but she got it anyway when a VERY loud rumbling erupted from the darkness above her. Sora had barely managed to get her arm out of the doorway when what must have been the room of that room came crashing down to the floor, throwing her off her feet in the process.

"Oh, wow...That was WAY too close" Sora gulped before kissing her digivice "If I ever said anything bad about you, you little hunk of plastic, I take it all back! Oh, and Izzy? You are a saint!"

As Izzy wandered along the dark, maze like passages, there were plenty of things he could have been worrying about. He wasn't sure were he was, he didn't know where he was supposed to be going, he hadn't eaten in a very long time, and there were deadly booby traps all around him. However, Izzy's mind was focusing on only one thing: WHERE IN HEVEN'S NAME WAS HIS COMPUTER? When he woke up in this dank labyrinth, someone had absconded with his backpack and everything in it, including his laptop. Didn't this unscrupulous thief have any idea of the value of the information stored in that laptop? Ever since he arived in the Digital World, Izzy had kept an exhaustive record of everything he had seen and experienced. Even in as incomplete a state as it currently was, Izzy's record of the Digital World was the sort of thing most scientific minds would kill to put together. When he returned to Earth, Izzy had hoped to show his notes to some professors he knew and get their thoughts on digivolution and other such things. They probably wouldn't believe him, but he had already been away from Earth for roughly two weeks, so they wouldn't be able to deny that he'd been someplace. But how was he going to be able to prove where he had been if all his data was lost? Well, at least he'd had the sense to keep his digivice in his pocket. He was sure that quite a few engineers would have a field day with that. Besides, it was a safe bet that Izzy would be long dead if he didn't have his digivice with him.

Izzy had remembered the lighting and danger sensing possibilities of the digivice very quickly, but figured that there had to be more to the device than just displaying a "danger gauge". After all, there were three large buttons on the front. Before, Izzy had been too afraid to mess with them, lest he make Tentomon blow up or something. Now, however, he didn't have anything better to do, so Izzy started fiddling around. The big button still didn't seem to do anything most of the time, but the two on the left of the screen seemed to select totally different functions for the digivice. He had no idea what most of them were, however, as they were covered up by a large, blinking red icon that seemed to be saying "NO". Izzy figured that these setting must have had something to do with Tentomon, so they probably wouldn't work if Tentomon wasn't around. There was also one setting that just brought up a big empty window. That setting didn't have any red icon, so it must have been working right, though what exactly it did was beyond Izzy. There was one setting, however, that proved to be working VERY well: a map.

Well, not so much a map as a sonar. At the center of the screen was a dot that Izzy assumed represented him. Out of that dot pulsed waves of light that highlighted the walls of the passages around him. It was a bit confusing to read a first, but Izzy eventually figured out that the big button could be pushed around like the touch pad of a laptop to scroll around the map, giving him a heads up on any pits or blocked passages in his way. As useful as this function of the map was, Izzy was far more exited about a highly useful extra feature: six additional dots that were wandering around the halls as well. Apparently, each digivice had a built in homing mechanism that the other six could detect. Now he had at least some idea how to find his companions!

Of course, just because Izzy knew where the others were, that didn't mean that he could get to them anytime soon. Most of the dots were some distance from his own, and the few that were nearby were in halls that were blocked off. Apparently, someone had hastily rebuilt these hallways to ensure that none of the unfortunate seven children would be able to come into contact with each other.

Just as Izzy reflected on this, the nearest dot made an abrupt turn into the corridor to its left. That meant whoever it was was in the hall right next to him! In a rare moment of irrational behavior, Izzy ran to the wall separating the two and began pounding on it.

"Hello! HELLO!" Izzy shouted "It's me, Izzy! Can you hear me?" Of course, whoever it was couldn't; the rock walls were far too thick. Izzy would need to find a better was to contact the other party. Of course! he thought, the dot was headed back in the direction Izzy had just come from, and he had just passed a blocked doorway between the two halls there! Izzy quickly ran to the blocked door to search for some kind of an opening. As he had feared, the slabs of stone were laying too close for anyone to squeeze though the cracks. However, there was still a chance that he could be heard though the small openings.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" Izzy shouted through the largest crack (which wasn't much wider than a mail slot)

"Izzy? Is that you?" a very young voice called back.

"T.K.?" Izzy shouted back "Are you alright?"

"Um, Yeah, I guess. I fell down a few times, so I'm kind of bruised, but that's all." T.K. answered "Is Matt with you?"

"I'm afraid not." Izzy replied "You're the first person I've come into contact with, if you can consider this contact."

"Yeah, why are so many of the doors all blocked like this?" T.K. asked.

"Presumably to keep us from being able to find each other." Izzy figured "And they do an admirable job at it, I should say."

"Yeah." T.K. agreed "So, um, how'd you find me?"

"Our digivices seem to be able to track each other." Izzy explained "Click the top right button five times to see it."

"Cool! It's a map!" T.K. shouted, obviously having found what Izzy was talking about.

"Now if only we could find a way around all these blocked passages...I wonder" Izzy mussed. After glancing up into the darkness above, which he still had not been able to see clearly, Izzy tossed his digivice straight up above him with all his might. As he had hoped, the digivice made it all the way to the doorway before falling down. Unfortunately, Izzy over estimated both the illuminating nature of the digivice and his own eyesight. The upper half of the doorway was lit so briefly that he still had no idea if there was actually any way though up there or not. Well, at least now he was sure that the pile of rocks was over one story tall.

"Izzy? Are you still over there?" T.K. called from the other side before Izzy had a chance to try again.

"Yes, I was just testing a hypothesis." Izzy answered "I'm afraid it didn't work very well."

"Oh, that was you?"

"What was me?"

"A second ago I saw a flash from the top of the door."

"You saw that?" Izzy exclaimed "Then there is a way through up there! Now how am I supposed to get up there?"

"Hold on!" T.K. shouted back. A moment latter, a digivice came flying through an opening at the top of the doorway and landed next to Izzy "Yeah, I fit through that!"

"Whoa, wait a minute T.K.!" Izzy shouted "You're not going to try to climb up this thing are you?"

"Sure!" T.K. replied "I used to do stuff like this all the time back home!"

"T.K., I sincerely doubt that this is the same thing as one of those rock climbing walls." Izzy called back, nervously.

"I'm not talking about those things." T.K. explained "Me and my friends would just climb up the apartment buildings."

"WHAT?"

"It's a lot of fun as long as the neighbors don't call the cops on you."

"You're mother doesn't spend much time at home, does she?"

"Not really, why?"

"Never mind."

"Uh, Izzy?" T.K. asked.

"Yes?"

"Can I have my digivice back? I can't climb if I can't see."

"Oh, OK. Hold on, here it comes." Izzy replied. Unfortunately, it took him three or four tries before he actually got T.K.'s digivice back through the hole.

"Man, Izzy." T.K. laughed "We gotta work on your pitching arm."

"Well, it's not as if I've ever been much of a sportsman." Izzy replied, shaking his head.

As T.K. was beginning his climb up one of the blocked doors, Tai was busy worming his way under another one.

"There, see? THAT'S why I'm so skinny!" Tai laughed to no one in particular "Let's see a sumo wrestler try this!" In one final show of agility, Tai managed to pop himself out of the little space he was crawling through like a cork out of a bottle. It might have been an impressive display if he hadn't gotten his hair caught in one of the cracks in the process.

"OOOOOOWWWW!!!!! DAMN IT!!!" Tai shouted as he carefully pulled his hair out of the crack. Once free, Tai looked around to make sure no one had seen by reflex (of course, even if someone had been there, they wouldn't have been able to see).

"Well, let's see what's going on over here" Tai muttered as he began to stroll along the hall "Is anybody over here? Hello? HEY SOMEBODY? Anybody? Yoohoo. Hellooooooooooooo

Is there anybody out there?

Anybody there?

Does anybody wonder?

Anybody care?

Oh, I just gotta know

If you're really there

and you really care

`Cause baby I'm not f-f-f-foolin'"

Tai managed to get through roughly half the Def Leppard before hearing any signs of life from the dimly lit halls:

"ALL RIGHT, I HEAR YOU!!! WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP THAT AWFUL EXCUSE FOR NOISE?"

"Oh, shut up you...hey wait a minute, who is that?" Tai shouted back.

"Not your vocal coach, lucky for you!" the voice replied from afar.

"Is that you Joe?" Tai asked, trying to figure out which direction to look.

"Yeah, it's me Tai." Joe shouted "Where are you?"

"How should I know?" Tai shot back "It all looks the same to me."

"Well how am I supposed to find you if I don't know where you are?" Joe whined.

"You've got ears, right?" Tai asked.

"Just barely, thanks to you." Joe replied.

"Well, we'll see about that." Tai snickered, taking a deep breath

"Hey, Joe

where are you going with that gun in your hand?

Said, hey Joe,

where you going with that gun in your hand?

I'm going down to shoot my woman

You know I caught her messin' round with some other man."

"No, I'm gonna shoot you so you'll stop singing." Joe interrupted, sounding much closer this time. Sure enough, Tai strained to look in front of him and saw the faint light of a digivice rapidly nearing.

"Am I dreaming, or is there actually another human being in this smelly dump?" Tai laughed.

"Something like that." Joe replied, finally emerging from the darkness.

"Nope, I'm definitely not dreaming." Tai quipped "If I was, I would have run into Mimi instead of you."

"You know what?" Joe sighed "I was almost glad to see you for a second. Why'd you have to go and ruin it by actually being YOU?"

"Well, you ruined my little fantasy by being you instead of Mimi, so why can't I return the favor?" Tai shot back.

"Oh please, You'd have ruined your own fantasy, smart guy." Joe pointed out "We both know that if Mimi had been here you'd have blushed to your toes and started babbling like an idiot."

"HEY, I ONLY DID THAT ONCE!!!. and that time at soccer camp." Tai shouted.

"That's not the way Sora tells it!" Joe snickered.

"W-W-WHAT? SHE PROMISED NOT TO TELL ANYBODY ABOUT THAT!!!"

"Well, she didn't, but you just did!" Joe laughed.

"AUGH!!!!! I SWEAR, JOE, IF DEVIMON DOESN'T KILL US ALL I'LL DO YOU IN MYSELF!!!" Tai screamed, exasperated "What's gotten into you all of a sudden anyway? That was witty, clever, and totally unlike you."

"Oh, nothing." Joe explained "Matt, T.K., Mimi, and Gomamon just set up a pot to see who could get you to say something like that first."

"Really? What's the winner get?"

"Two of T.K.'s old Rice Crispy Treats and a Mr. GoodBar that Mimi was saving for a special occasion."

"Man, I'd rat on myself for that! I haven't had anything sweet in over a week." Tai though aloud before returning to the immediate situation "Hey, let's see what's down that hall over there."

"Wait a second!" Joe shouted, running up to the doorway and waving his digivice around inside.

"What the heck are you doing?" Tai asked "Trying to exorcize a spirit or something?"

"I'm checking to see if this place is safe." Joe explained "The digivices can detect danger, remember? Didn't you pay attention when Izzy explained it?"

"Well, sort of" Tai lied, sheepishly.

"Well how did you avoid the traps?" Joe asked, exasperated "I've nearly fallen into eight pits in the middle of the floor, had two ceilings almost fall on me, nearly been impaled by three spear thingies, and there were about a dozen more rooms that I didn't even go into to find out what was setting the digivice off!"

"Well, I've got eyes, Joe." Tai replied "I can see holes in the floor."

"And I suppose your hair holds up the ceilings?"

"No, I just stayed away from the rooms that stink."

"WHAT?"

"You know, the smelly ones!" Tai repeated, thinking that it was a perfectly clear concept.

"Tai, I don't know if you've noticed," Joe pointed out "but everything in here here stinks to high heaven."

"Well, yeah, but this is different." Tai explained "Every time I've been up close to a Digimon with a Black Gear in him, it had this really funky smell to it. So, I figure that any rooms that smell like that can't be good. Right?"

"Tai, that's so mindlessly stupid it's actually brilliant." Joe replied.

"Thanks, I think." Tai muttered, turning his attention to the digivice "So, um, what do we do? Do we hit these buttons or something?"

"NO WAIT!!!" Joe yelled "Even Izzy doesn't know what those are supposed to do!"

"Hey, cool!" Tai exclaimed "Check this out! It's a map!"

"Huh?" Joe started, looking at Tai's screen "How'd you do that?"

"I dunno," Tai confessed "I just hit this top button a few times."

"Look at those dots." Joe pointed out "Are those supposed to be us?"

"Let's find out. Go down that hall some, Joe." Tai instructed "Yep, it looks like these are supposed to be us. That's pretty cool."

"I was afraid of that, look at this." Joe replied, having set his digivice on the map as well "Most of the dots are moving around, but that one over there is just sitting still."

"Uh oh." Tai chimed in "That doesn't look good. You think somebody fell down a hole?"

"That could be it." Joe concurred.

"No, wait a minute." Tai interrupted "Look, there was a big pit right by this place over here where I came in. See that big splotchy thing? It's right where the pit would be."

"Hey, yeah. And up ahead of us over there is another pit right where that other spot is on the map. But I don't see anything like that around the still dot."

"That's what I was talking about." Tai explained "That dot could move around if it wanted to. I wonder why it's not."

"Oh, I don't know." Joe replied "There's only about five million deadly traps all over this place. For all we know-"

"Ok, stop right there." Tai interrupted "The last thing I need to hear right now is Joe's daily doom and gloom report."

"Alright, fine...Oh! I know!" Joe shouted "It's Mimi!"

"Huh? How do you know?"

"Well, after we got out of that big factory, Mimi was telling T.K. about being lost down in that big maze down there and he reminded her what the counselors back at camp told us to do when we got lost on the trails."

"Oh yeah" Tai recalled "It was something like `find a place were you can be seen and stay put until someone comes to get you' right?"

"Yeah, that's it. She's probably waiting for somebody to find her."

"Well, she's in luck, `cause I see another dot just a little ways from her." Tai pointed out "I wonder who it is?"

Matt had seen a lot of sloppy, slipshod things in his life, but a five-foot tall hole in a stone wall that was covered in black tape had to be up around the top five. The irony alone was something Matt doubted he would forget any time soon: he had just spent at least an hour trying to get through a doorway that was blocked up, giving himself several cuts in the process, and here was an opening that even a four-year-old could get through! Either Devimon has in a real hurry to get this little labyrinth finished or he had some major idiots working for him. Well, it didn't really matter; right now he had to find some way out, and that was going to be a real trick. Matt figured that he was currently wandering around somewhere inside Infinity Mountain (it was hard to imagine anyplace else that smelled so bad) which meant that Devimon was sitting somewhere above him. Now, if Matt were Devimon, he would never let a group of people who had come to destroy him go wandering around inside his lair unless there was absolutely no way for them to get out. Of course, if Matt were Devimon, he would have just killed everyone at the first chance he got, but fortunately, that wasn't the case. Apparently, Devimon was hoping that everyone would have an unfortunate accident or starve to death instead. Not exactly a more pleasant prospect, but it meant Matt was alive for the moment. Now there was at least a chance to get out alive.

Matt didn't usually make a habit of looking on the bright side of things, but that was only because there usually wasn't one. However, over the past twenty-four hours or so, Matt had seen enough absolutely boneheaded moves on the part of Devimon to think that there really was at least a small chance of winning against him. The fact that they had managed to get inside Infinity Mountain at all was the first sign that Devimon wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, and now that they had been found and caught and were still alive, Matt was quite sure that the so-called tyrant was a complete idiot. Plus, judging from the "excellent" home repair work that Matt had just witnessed, most of the people who worked for Devimon seemed to be buffoons as well. Of course, Devimon could be a complete and total retard, but it wouldn't matter much if Matt never found a way to the top of Infinity Mountain and figured out what happened to the others.

Fittingly, Matt nearly tripped over something lying on the floor as he thought that: something that turned out to be Mimi. For a second, Matt thought that the curled up girl was still asleep. After all, it had taken him a while to fully wake up from whatever that girl done to him back at the mansion. However, as soon as Mimi realized that someone else was there, she shrieked and bolted back a few feet.

"WHO IS THAT?" Mimi demanded, clearly terrified.

"Oh, nice to see you too, Mimi." Matt groaned, rubbing his ears; being near Mimi when she felt like screaming was bad for one's health.

"Wha- Matt? Is that you?" Mimi stuttered, coming to her senses.

"No, it's the boogey man." Matt sighed.

"It IS you, Matt!" Mimi laughed, hugging him "I was afraid I'd never see another normal face again! Heck, I didn't think I'd see any face again!"

"Well, now you have." Matt grunted, wiggling out of Mimi's grip "Though I was hoping that you had some of the others with you."

"Sorry, I haven't seen anybody since we went to bed in the mansion." Mimi replied "Just what's going on?"

"Oh, yeah. Like Devimon decided to give me a heads up on everything he's doing with us." Matt scoffed.

"Come on!" Mimi pleaded, "You've got to have some idea what's happening. How'd we get...wherever we are?"

"Well, I think it's obvious that we're still inside Infinity Mountain." Matt explained "Last night I ran into this weird girl in the mansion. Well, I guess she was actually a Digimon. Anyway, she put me to sleep and I woke up in here. I guess that she did it to everybody else too."

"But I don't remember seeing anybody." Mimi interrupted "I just fell asleep and woke up right here. And where's Palmon?"

"I don't know!" Matt groaned, why did she think he knew this stuff? "I guess they're wherever the rest of our stuff is."

"Hey, yeah." Mimi interrupted, again, "Why do I still have my stupid Digivice but they took my suitcase?"

"How should I know?" Matt curtly replied "That's just what happened! You don't need that stupid suitcase anyway!"

"EXCUSE ME?" Mimi shouted, incredulously "I don't know if you noticed, but I am in my pajamas! Do you really expect me to walk around dressed like this?"

"Mimi, this might come as a shock to you, but YES." Matt insisted "Since when do you have pajamas anyway? You usually just sleep in your clothes."

"I usually sleep next to five guys too." Mimi pointed out "It's hard enough to get the privacy to change once a day."

"Well, it's so dark in here you could probably walk around naked and no one would notice," Matt joked "so don't worry about it."

"HONESTLY!" Mimi shouted, disgusted "You're worse than Tai!"

"Hey, there's no need to be ugly about it." Matt said, walking on "Come on, let's go."

"Go where?" Mimi asked.

"I don't know, I left my map of the universe in the mansion."

"I'm not going to go wandering around without any idea where I'm going!"

"So you'd rather sit around alone for a while longer?"

"Oh. that's no fair! Hold on!" Mimi pleaded, running to catch up with Matt.

Pandoramon had been far too caught up in her troubled thoughts to bother shutting the door of the transmitter room. t really wasn't necessary, as there was nothing in the room that anyone else could comprehend, much less tamper with. Thus, she could hear quite clearly when Kokuwamon and Thundermon walked by and started talking about what was happening below them.

"Hey, did you hear about the humans?" Thundermon began "They've only been down there for a few hours and they've already managed to start getting past the barriers!"

"I know." Kokuwamon replied "I told Ogermon that he needed to put them farther apart!"

"Ogermon's not the one you should have told." Thundermon pointed out "you should have told Devimon-"

"What, that I had a better idea than the guy he'd put in charge?" Kokuwamon interrupted "I'm not an idiot, it was Ogermon's screw up!"

"Well, yeah, I know." Thundermon consented "OH, speaking of screw ups, what's Devimon doing with team Twelve?"

"I don't know, but he's still doing it!" Kokuwamon laughed "And those dopes deserve it! Covering the holes with tape? I don't care how much of a hurry they were in, that's just stupid!"

"And, of course, now the humans actually have some openings to get up to the top levels of Infinity Mountain" Thundermon mussed "Hey, Kokuwamon?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think it's true?"

"Huh? What's true?"

"You know what I mean."

"What, that these clowns actually are the Digidestined?"

"Um, yeah."

"Oh, come on Thundermon!" Kokuwamon laughed "You've been out of the Primary Village a long time! You shouldn't be taking that stuff seriously!"

"Yeah, but Devimon is sure taking these guys seriously." Thundermon replied "And they sure don't look like any Digimon I've ever seen."

"So they're a new type of Digimon, that's not THAT out there." Kokuwamon insisted "Look, the Digidestined are just a dumb bedtime story like `The Lucky Mahoumon and Clockmon's Tower'; it's not real at all. Devimon's only taking these clowns more seriously than the other so-called "Digidestined" because he wants to find out what type of Digimon they actually are."

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Thundermon agreed, before turning the conversation over to the cold showers in the locker room.

Back in the transmitter room, with her hands buried in a mess of wires and gears under a floor panel, Pandoramon was wrestling with the very questions Thundermon was, plus fifty more. Just as she had feared, Devimon's plan was falling apart at the seams; and the more she tried to make sense of it, the more questions she had to deal with. On the one hand, Pandoramon wasn't stupid or blind: she could see exactly what was going on with the Digidestined, and it was obviously not a good thing. This whole scheme of Devimon's was doomed from the start and any Digimon with a brain should have known it. Yet, here it was in motion, if you could call it such. And what about the Heracles Mechanism, which she was trying to prepare at that very moment. If that thing was half as dangerous as Pandoramon feared

On the other hand, there was always The Darkness. For years, Devimon had given Pandoramon plans, schematics and all other sorts of other things that were simply beyond anything any Digimon should have been able to come up with. For all Pandoramon knew, Devimon could simply be so far ahead of her that it seemed like he was going of the deep end. After all, Devimon couldn't be driving himself off a cliff if The Darkness was giving him directions, could he?

That's where Pandoramon had a very unpleasant epiphany: she really had no idea what The Darkness was telling Devimon. If The Darkness really had chosen him to rule the Digital World, then it really didn't matter what Devimon was told. But how did Pandoramon know if that was really the case? That damned little voice that had given her so much grief was really out doing itself by this point: after questioning herself and then Devimon, now Pandoramon wasn't sure if The Darkness was telling Devimon the truth. She'd never had a conversation with it herself. In fact, no one other than Devimon had ever spoken with it. She only had his word that The Darkness was acting in his best interests, and if it was lying then that word wouldn't be worth much. What if Devimon was being lied to?

What if The Darkness was intentionally leading Devimon down a path to destruction?

With a sharp pain, Pandoramon realized that she had caught her finger in one of the gears again. Pandoramon cursed silently as she pulled her hand out and set that last gear right. It was the third time she'd got her hand in the wrong place while setting up a machine she used to be able to perform maintenance on in her sleep. This whole thing was driving her insane. If Devimon was really being misled, there was no way that Pandoramon could just sit by and let him be destroyed. But what could she do if she didn't know what The Darkness was up to?

Quietly, Pandoramon finished her work on the Heracles Mechanism and walked out to the guard standing by the door to the transmitter room.

"Are you finished?" the Mekanorimon's dull monotone voice asked.

"Almost." Pandoramon lied "I need to seal off the chamber for a few minutes first."

"What's going on?" Kokuwamon piped up from behind.

"Huh?" Pandoramon replied, startled but hiding it admirably "Nothing's going on, why?"

"Well, it's just that I don't see Devimon around anywhere." Kokuwamon answered, looking puzzled.

"Of course" Pandoramon said cautiously "He's still off taking care of team Twelve."

"Yeah, so why are you sealing off the transmitter?" Kokuwamon asked.

"Oh, um, I'm just running a test on something." Pandoramon explained, thinking as quickly as she could "I'll need to run a lot of power through the transmitter's systems for it to work, so it'll need to be sealed off."

"What?" Kokuwamon laughed "You don't need to power up the transmitter to run a diagnostic!"

"First off," Pandoramon began, trying like mad to come up with a convincing cover story "you didn't build the transmitter, I did; so don't tell me how to run it. Second, I don't remember saying that I was running a diagnostic on the transmitter."

"Well, what else would you be doing?" Kokuwamon asked.

"Didn't Lord Devimon tell you?" Pandoramon asked back.

"No." Kokuwamon answered, confused.

"Oh! Well then, it must not be any of your business!" Pandoramon replied, figuring that she ought to put all that blind loyalty to use "All you have to worry about is what Lord Devimon has told you to worry about. Or do you have a better idea?"

"N-No, of course not!" Kokuwamon stammered, a bit flustered at himself "I'm sorry, forget I asked."

"No problem." Pandoramon replied "Now you get back to work."

"Yes, mistress Pandoramon!" Kokuwamon shouted, already making his way back down the hall, before adding "I guess you got over that little question of faith thing, huh?"

"I'm about to." Pandoramon whispered as the large doors slid shut behind her before quickly making her way over to the operations console and powering it up. It was very likely that the whole test snow job would take, but Pandoramon was still astoundingly nervous. After all, if just one person suggested to Devimon what she was planning

No, she was having enough trouble concentrating as it was. The last thing Pandoramon needed was to be thinking about that. Kokuwamon was an idiot, he'd buy the story without question. And since that Mekanorimon was fitted with a Black Gear, Devimon just heard the story too. She had told him that the Heracles Mechanism would draw power straight from the transmitter, and just that morning she'd told him how afraid she was of doing something that might endanger him, so it seemed likely that Devimon wouldn't care if she activated it without him. Still, she would have to work quickly just in case. While bringing the necessary systems online, Pandoramon reached under the console and opened the maintenance port. With everything in place, she began to disconnect the web of security systems within the transmitter interface.

No matter what the dangers, Pandoramon had to know what Devimon was hearing from The Darkness. There was no way she'd ever get a moment's peace otherwise.

If Tai and Joe ever lacked an understanding of what true frustration was, they received it many times over while trying to catch up with some of the other dots on the screen. Every time they thought that they were getting close to connecting with some of the dots, they would veer off suddenly or there would be a wall in the way or something like that. To make matters worse, Tai and Joe were having a considerable disagreement over how to read the digivice map. Over and over again, the two boys found themselves staring that dead ends and flat walls where they had been sure doorways were supposed to be, and running head first into the occasional booby trap didn't help things much. Eventually, by some miracle, they managed to wind up right behind a pair of dots in the same hall as they were. After a very enthusiastic dash (that almost sent them plummeting down a pit) they wound up right on top of the two dots.

Except that there was still no one in the hall with them.

"AUGH!!!!!" Tai howled "I thought you said that you'd figured this thing out!"

"Well I thought I did!" Joe whined "Whoever those digivices belong to ought to be right here!"

"Well, unless they decided to become invisible, they ain't here!" Tai mouthed off.

"You're not helping things any!" Joe shouted "Just give me a second to see if I can work out how the heck this stupid thing works!"

"What's to work out? It's BUSTED!" Tai insisted.

"It CAN'T be busted!" Joe cried "It's all we've got!"

"So? I only had one Gamecube last year, and that didn't stop it from dieing on me!" Tai shoute.

"PLEASE DON'T SAY `DIEING' RIGHT NOW!" Joe shouted back "I DO NOT NEED TO BE THINKING ABOUT THAT!!!"

"OK then," Tai continued "why don't you think about this: there is no one here. Even though the digivices say that we are right on top of them, there is NO ONE HERE!!!"

"OF COURSE!" Joe shouted, slapping himself on the forehead "I am so stupid!"

"Uh...Well, I didn't want to be the one to say it, but"

"WE'RE ON TOP OF THEM!!!"

"Huh?"

"Think about it, we're in a mountain, right?" Joe explained "How many flat mountains do you know of?"

"What?" Tai scoffed, quite lost now.

"There aren't any!" Joe continued "Mountains go UP!"

"Yeah, so?"

"So if this maze is in a mountain, shouldn't it go up too?"

"Hey, yeah!" Tai exclaimed, finally catching on "And that would mean that the maze had levels on top of each other!"

"Exactly!" Joe sighed "So whoever we're seeing on the map is probably in a hallway that's under us!"

"And check it out!" Tai added "They're heading back towards that pit we almost fell into! I bet that if they go under it, we'll be able to talk to `em!"

"YEAH!" Joe concurred "Let's go wait for them!" In only a few seconds, the two had dashed back by the pit. Of course, the two dots were making their way over at a very leisurely pace, so they needn't have rushed.

"Come on, come on!" Tai shouted, hitting his digivice (as if that would make the dots move faster).

"Oh no." Joe gasped "I just thought of something."

"Do I want to know what that is?" Tai asked apprehensively.

"What if they're actually ABOVE us?"

"Wait a minute, WHAT?"

"How are we supposed to know if there's a pit above us? It's too dark to see up there!"

"Oh, uh uh. No way!" Tai moaned "Don't even THINK about that!"

"Well, we ought to find out in a minute or so." Joe sighed, peering as far down the hole as he could without being afraid that he might fall in (which, for Joe, was standing two feet away from the edge). Thankfully, just as the two wandering dots met up with theirs, the faint light of two digivices began to glimmer from the bottom of the hole.

"HEY!!!" Tai shouted exuberantly "WHO'S DOWN THERE?"

"Tai? Is that you?" a startled Matt replied from below.

"Hey Matt!" Tai shouted back "It's me and Joe!"

"Where the heck are you?" Matt asked, looking around him for some sign of the two.

"Look up, ya dummy!" Tai laughed, waving his digivice around to make sure that Matt saw it.

"Hey, who's that with you?" Joe called down.

"It's me!" Mimi replied "Hi guys!"

"How on earth did you two get up there?" Matt asked.

"I dunno, this is just where we woke up." Tai answered.

"You woke up on the ceiling?" Mimi asked, confused.

"No, it's just the next level after yours." Joe explained "We're talking to you through a hole in the floor."

"Oh, so THAT'S what those things are!" Mimi muttered.

"I thought that there would probably be more than one floor in this place." Matt thought aloud "But how'd you know we were down here?"

"Well, the map was a bit of a tip off." Tai answered.

"MAP? WHAT MAP?" Matt and Mimi shouted in unison.

"On the digivice!" Joe instructed "Hit the top right button five times."

"Well that's a good thing to know." Matt mussed, pulling up the map "When did you guys turn into digivice experts?"

"We didn't." Joe laughed "This was pretty much a case of `what would Izzy do', you know?"

"Hey, speak for yourself." Tai interrupted "I was just putting my brilliant, problem solving mind to work!"

"You know, I thought I smelled something burning" Mimi snickered.

"Hey, there's hope for you yet, Mimi!" Matt said with a grin.

"Oh, yeah. Way to show your gratitude to the guy who just showed you how to use the digivice right!" Tai shouted back.

"You're right, we should show more gratitude." Matt agreed "Thanks Joe!"

"No problem!" Joe replied sheepishly "But we still aren't really sure how to use this thing. It looks like the map has a top-down view or something. We're having a lot of trouble working out just what is our floor and what's above or below us."

"Well, that's pretty stupid" Mimi muttered, fiddling with the large button on the left "WOAH! What'd I do?"

"Huh? What's going on?" Joe shouted.

"Mimi, I think you just fixed the map!" Matt laughed, looking at her display. As Mimi pressed the edges of the large button the whole map seemed to tilt. After holding the top end of the button down for a few seconds, the once 2-D view from the top had turned into a completely 3-D model of the maze seen from the side, so that none of the floors overlapped.

"I'm sorry! It was an accident! I didn't...Wait a minute, what am I saying? That's a good thing!" Mimi stuttered "GO ME!"

"Hey, can you tell what floors the other dots are on?" Joe asked.

"We can worry about that latter!" Tai interrupted "How far are we from the top of the mountain?"

"It looks like the mountain goes up higher than the screen can show, Tai." Matt answered after studying the map for a moment "Oh, this is just great."

"I hope that wasn't as sarcastic as it sounded like it was." Joe gulped, nervously.

"Sorry to disappoint you guys," Matt replied "but I don't see any way to get from one floor to the next."

"WHAT?" Tai moaned.

"Well, I guess it mikes sense, in a really sick kind of way" Joe said weakly "I mean, they did block up all the doors, and it we probably were stuck down here so we could slowly wither away and die horrible, pitiful deaths!"

"B-But...THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!" Mimi shrieked, starting to cry "I DON'T WANNA DIE! I'VE ALREADY ALMOST DIED MORE TIMES OVER THE PAST TWO WEEKS THAN MORE PEOPLE OUGHT TO IN THEIR WHOLE LIFE!!!"

"Hey, hey, HEY!!!" Matt shouted "Everybody STOP IT!!! It's depressing enough around here as it is!"

"That's right, it IS depressing!" Mimi shouted back, turning on the waterworks "And when people get depressed, they cry, so that's what I'm gonna do, and there's nothing you can do about it!"

"Come on, Mimi, cut it out." Matt sighed, getting very irritated at the bawling girl "Seriously, cut it out. Mimi? MIMI STOP IT!!!"

"That's not gonna work, Matt!" Tai insisted "Just wait for her to get it all out of her system."

"Are you kidding?" Matt shouted back, rubbing his sore ears "I'll be deaf by then! Besides, this whole floor will be flooded!"

"Don't worry Mimi!" Joe assured her "We've been in much tougher spots than this, and gotten out alive. Right?"

"Well, I guess." Mimi answered, easing up on the tears but only slightly.

"I mean, if we could get away from Andromon AND Centarumon alive, then figuring out a way to climb a few feet up should be no sweat, right?" Joe continued.

"Um, yeah. I guess you're right." Mimi replied weakly.

"Besides, we all know how to at least talk to each other, since we can see each other on the digivices." Joe added "It's not like we'll get lost or anything!"

"Yeah, you're right!" Mimi chimed, wiping the last tear from her eye "Sorry I started crying and stuff."

"No problem," Joe sighed "we're all pretty stressed right now."

"Um...Uh, OK." Matt stammered, somewhat dumbfounded "Anyway, um, according to the map, there's one person in the level below ours and it looks like there are two others two levels above you guys. We'd probably better go see if we can hook up with some of these people."

"That sounds like a plan to me!" Joe replied "I guess if we've got a problem, we'll get on top of you again and look for another hole in the floor."

"That sounds like all we can do." Matt muttered, setting of to catch up with the dot below "I hope that's not T.K. all by himself down there"

"That was a pretty cool little speech there, Joe." Tai commented as he and Joe set off to look for a way up to the next level "You sure got noble pretty quick."

"Well I had to tell her something or she'd have kept crying for a week." Joe said.

"Figures it'd be you Mimi decided to get all sweet on." Tai snickered, mischievously.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Joe asked.

"Oh, you know just what I'm talking about, Romeo!" Tai insisted with a wink.

"WHOA! WAIT A MINUTE!!!" Joe stammered, blushing profusely "It's not like that at all!"

"So, come on, tell me." Tai continued "What really went on with you two down under the factory?"

"NOTHING! I SWEAR!!!" Joe shouted "STOP IT!!!"

"Honestly, and you said that I got embarrassed!" Tai laughed, enjoying his revenge thoroughly.

Sora had never really thought about it much before, but she absolutely hated being alone. There was no one to talk to, no one to listen to, and no one to help if something went wrong, and seeing that there was about a million things that could go terribly wrong at the moment, Sora was definitely tired of being alone. In fact, now that he had a chance to think about it, Sora had never really been alone like this before. For one thing, it would be a real trick to find someplace in Tokyo where no one else was anyway, and Sora had never had any reason to try. Sometimes, though, she would come home from school to find that "something came up" and her mom was off taking care of something. There would usually be a note telling Sora that she wouldn't be back until tomorrow, so she'd need to wait. Of course, Sora never waited, who would? She usually wound up spending the night with a friend, and there was always a friend somewhere.

Once, Tai had told Sora that she could be dropped in the middle of the Gobi desert and make twenty new best friends in twenty minutes. Obviously, he was exaggerating, but Sora had to admit that she did make friends pretty easily. There weren't any magic words she said or Jedi mind trick she used to get to know people, she just went up and said hi. Sora never really understood people who were too shy to talk to anybody, she did it so often that she really couldn't imagine being any other way.

Certainly, at that moment, Sora would have given ANYTHING to have somebody to talk to.

"HEY!" a voice suddenly shouted from somewhere above "Can you hear me down there?"

"W-W-WHAT?" Sora stammered "WHO'S THERE? WHERE ARE YOU?"

"Up here, about you!" Matt answered "It's Matt and Mimi!"

"Is that you Sora?" Mimi added.

"MIMI? MATT? YOU TWO ARE GODSENDS!" Sora shouted back, looking up to see the light of two Digivices above her "I'm talking sainthood here, big cathedrals in Rome named after you two!"

"You can talk to the pope about that latter." Matt joked "Right now we need to figure out some way to get you out of there."

"Yeah, there's, like, a bunch of floors and stuff on top of each other and we can't find any stairs connecting them." Mimi explained.

"Wait a minute." Sora interrupted "'Floors'? You mean that this maze or whatever it is had more than one floor? Just how many are there?"

"Good question." Matt replied "If Infinity Mountain is anywhere near as tall as the Digimon said, this thing might go up for miles."

"WHOA, WAIT A MINUTE! This is new to me!" Mimi complained "Who said we had do go for miles?"

"Well, anyway, how are you talking to me?" Sora asked, figuring it best not to dwell on that unpleasant thought "Is there a hole in the floor or something?"

"Yep; and we've got to figure out some way to get you up through it." Matt answered "You wouldn't happen to have a ladder down there, would you?"

"Sorry, you need Joe." Sora replied "I bet he's got a whole fire engine somewhere in that bag of his."

"Well, maybe we can pull you up." Mimi offered "Can you reach us?"

"I can't even see you, Mimi." Sora called back "I don't think I can reach you up there."

"Well, try jumping." Mimi suggested.

"I'm not a basketball player, Mimi!" Sora insisted "I can't jump that high!"

"Besides, would you be able to reach her?" Matt asked Mimi.

"Huh? Why would I need to reach her?" Mimi scoffed, incredulously "You're the one who's going to pull her up!"

"Oh, yeah, that's right." Matt sighed "After all, it's not like you ever do anything to help."

"Come on, you know I'm not build for heavy lifting!" Mimi answered "That's you boys' department!"

"What do you mean `heavy lifting'?" Sora shot back.

"OH! Sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded!" Mimi apologized.

"Well, what was all this `we' stuff you were talking about then?" Matt asked.

"Hey, we're a team, right?" Mimi asked, thinking everything she was saying made perfect sense.

"Fine, fine, never mind." Matt sighed, giving up "Let's just get Sora up here."

"I'm open to any ideas you've got." Sora said.

"Hang on a sec." Matt said, taking off his jacket "See if you can grab onto my jacket sleeve."

"I still can't see anything." Sora replied "You need to have longer arms."

"OK, I'll try to make it longer." Matt said, quickly untying his boots and slipping them off.

"Um, Matt?" Mimi asked "Do you really think that tying your shoelaces to the jacket will help much?"

"Who said I was going to use the shoelaces?" Matt replied, pulling off his pants.

"WHOA! WHOA! WAIT A MINUTE!!!" Mimi shouted, blushing so bright red that you probably could have seen it without the aid of a digivice "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE HELPING SORA NOT-"

"Sorry to disappoint you, Mimi, but I don't like you like that." Matt interrupted,

tying one of the pant legs and jacket sleeves together.

"That's not the point and you know it isn't!" Mimi shouted.

"Look, I don't see anything else to make a rope out of." Matt insisted "If you're going to get all uptight about it, just turn around!"

"Fine, I will!" Mimi huffed, facing the other way as Matt lowered the makeshift rope down the hole "Boys can be so difficult sometimes"

"Yeish, it's not like I don'thave underwear on or anything..." Matt muttered, dangling the rope as far down as he could "Can you reach it now?"

"Well, I can see it." Sora replied "But it'll need to be about twice as long as that if I'm gonna get my hands on it."

"OK, fine." Matt sighed, pulling the rope back up "Mimi?"

"What do you want?" Mimi replied, curtly.

"We need to make the rope twice as long." Matt answered.

"I heard." Mimi told him "I'm not deaf, you know."

"Come on, I need something else to tie on!" Matt pressed.

"Well then, you'd better find something, hadn't you!" shot back.

"Look, quit being difficult and help me." Matt pleaded.

"I don't know what else we can use, honest!" Mimi insisted.

"MIMI, JUST GIVE ME YOUR CLOTHES!" Matt shouted.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT, YOU PERV!!!" Mimi screamed.

"We don't have time for this!" Matt insisted "Now come on!"

"No way!" Mimi shouted "Never, not in a million years, NO!!!"

"It's alright, Matt." Sora called from below "I'm sure we can come up with something else!"

"There is nothing else!" Matt answered "Mimi just needs to stop acting like a two year old!"

"NO!!!" Mimi shouted, doing a very accurate impression of a two year old

"NONONONONONONONONONO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"LISTEN MIMI!" Matt shouted "IT'S EITHER THIS OR WE LEAVE SORA BEHIND DOWN THERE, ONE OR THE OTHER. NOW WHAT'S IT GONNA BE?"

"Oooooooooh" Mimi groaned, taking a step backwards.

"Come on, Mimi!" Matt grunted, well past annoyed at this point.

"Uh...Just hold on!" Mimi replied, taking several more steps back.

"Mimi, what are you doing?" Matt yelled.

"Just hold on a sec!" Mimi yelled back, backing farther and farther into the darkness.

"We don't have time for this, Mimi!" Matt shouted at the girl, who by this point was completely hidden by the dark except for the faint glimmer of her digivice. Matt was about to go drag her back and use her hair for the rope when a ball of wadded up pajamas rolled up to his feet.

"When you're done with them, I want Sora to bring them back, not you!" Mimi shouted "AND YOU'D BETTER NOT RIP THEM!!!"

"Alright, alright, fine." Matt sighed, tying the clothes together "Don't worry about it."

"I'll try not to rip anything." Sora assured Mimi "Of course, you know that I can't promise anything, what with all the `heavy lifting' and stuff."

"OK, heads up!" Matt called to Sora, lowering the clothes-rope down "This had better be long enough, of this little rescue operation'll get R-rated."

"Don't worry, I got it!" Sora called back, giving the rope a tug "Nice pajamas, Mimi!"

"Got a good grip down there?" Matt asked, getting ready to pull.

"Yep." Sora answered "Let's get this show on the road!"

"Alright, here we go!" Matt grunted, starting to pull Sora up "OW! Um, Sora? No offence, but I don't think Mimi was too far off with the `heavy lifting' thing."

"Hey, don't you make me come up there!" Sora laughed.

"Go right ahead," Matt joked "it'll make things go faster."

Sora didn't really need to help, since it didn't take that long to pull her up anyway (well, Matt thought it took a while). Sora was shocked at thickness of the stone that made up the floor: it seemed about as tall as she was.

"WHEW!" Matt panted as Sora popped through the hole "I hope we don't have to do this to get up every floor!"

"Well, it could be worse." Sora pointed out "At least Devimon was decent enough to drop us down here with something to make ropes out of."

"Speaking of which," Matt said, untying Mimi's pajamas and handing them to Sora "I think somebody's pitching a fit for these."

"Yeah, I'll get `em to her." Sora laughed, taking the wad of clothes over to Mimi "Hey, Mimi! Waiting for something?"

"SORA!!!!" Mimi exclaimed, giving her friend a warm embrace before clawing the pajamas out of her hands "Thank you thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU!!!"

"So, how's it going?" Sora asked "You alright?"

"Oh, that's a good one!" Mimi laughed grimly "I will need to be a VERY long way from this mountain, heck this whole island, before I'm `alright' again. Myrtilemon had better be dieing from guilt pains for dumping us in this place!"

"HALLELUJAH! So long, File Island! Been nice knowin' ya...NOT!!!" Myrtilemon laughed, dancing around in the crow's nest of his barge, gazing anxiously back towards File Island. It was right about this point in the trip that the peak of Infinity Mountain vanished behind the ocean. That had always been something to celebrate before, but now it was ten times as momentous an occasion: the very last time he would ever see File Island. When Infinity Mountain finally vanished this time, that was it. The deal was set, his contract was finished, now he never had to make the trip back to that smelly hell hole again.

And Myrtilemon was loving ever minute of it.

"Come on, just about one inch to go. That's it" he whispered excitedly, watching the tinny mountain peak as the waves threatened to engulf it completely. "Good, good. Almost there. Let's go-"

And that was it: one giant wave came rolling along and hid the last trace of

Infinity Mountain. It was all behind him.

"YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Myrtilemon howled, dancing around like never before in his life. It would still be a week on the open sea before he was back on Server, but as far as Myrtilemon was concerned, this was the happiest day of his life.

Alone in the transmitter room, working as quickly as she could, Pandoramon unhooked the last of the fallback security systems from the transmitter interface. Now there was absolutely nothing standing in the way of her using the transmitter to contact The Darkness herself.

What the hell was she thinking?

A pretty good part of Pandoramon still couldn't believe that she was even considering the things she was in the middle of at the moment. This wasn't simply stupid; if there was even a chance that Devimon might find out, it was suicide! Devimon had made it extremely clear that no one, under any circumstances, was ever to contact The Darkness other than him. Even by simply thinking about it, Pandoramon was deliberately and willfully disobeying her master, and anyone who disobeyed Devimon took a very long time to die. Besides, even if Devimon didn't stop her, what would contact with The Darkness do to Pandoramon's mind? She still didn't really know what it was about Devimon that allowed him to communicate with is so readily; she really was clueless as to the effects it would have on another Digimon's mind. Of course, she had been told that it would drive any other Digimon insane, but Pandoramon had increasingly little reason to believe anything she had been told by anyone.

That, of course, was the whole reason that she had to do it.

Pandoramon's little scheme may have been the dumbest thing she'd ever concocted, but it was really the only thing she could possibly do at this point. If her suspicions were right and The Darkness wasn't to be trusted, then she needed proof so she could warn Devimon and get out before the Digidestined destroyed everything. If she was wrong, then she still need proof so she'd be able to concentrate on her work again. And if it drove her mad...Well, she was going to wind up going mad if she didn't, so she might as well get some answers in the process.

Just a few feet from the operations console, Pandoramon had rigged up a little escape hatch just incase she needed to get out of the transmitter room without being seen. Hopefully, she wasn't going to need it, but with the risks she was taking there was no point in being any more foolish than she already was.

So, this was it. All of the tinkering was done, all she had to do now was actually turn on the machine. Pandoramon had already set up a command delay so she'd have time to get out from behind the console before it came online and an auto shutdown after twenty seconds so that she wouldn't be stuck in there without anyone to shut the machine off. She'd also stacked up every crate, toolbox, and any other stackable object under the interface so she'd actually be able to reach it (after all, it was designed for Devimon, who was almost twice her height). All the work she could possibly do was finished, there was no putting it off any longer, Pandoramon had to do it. Her frail fingers hovered over the controls, trembling. In all of her life, Pandoramon had never felt as frightened as she did now. Nothing was as unsettling to her as the unknown, and you couldn't get much more unknown than what she was about to throw herself into. Was she insane? Pandoramon had devoted her whole life to knowing facts so she wouldn't have to be controlled by irrational whims and traditions, and here she was on the verge of most likely ending that life all to satisfy a hunch! It was absurd...But she was going to do it anyway.

Pandoramon closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and hit the start button.

"Well, that's it." Pandoramon gulped "No turning back now" With that, she scrambled over to the center of the room, climbed to the top of the pile of boxes, and waited. After a few seconds that seemed like an eternity (during which her mind screamed at her to turn the machine off and get the hell out of there) the round hatch on the ceiling opened and a web of frightful looking tendrils descended towards the petrified Digimon. Pandoramon was trembling so hard that it was all she could do to keep from falling off the stack of boxes and her heart was beating so heard that she seriously feared that it might burst. Slowly, the snake like tendrils found their way down to Pandoramon and gently pressed their tips to her head. This was it; she was interfaced with the transmitter.

The first thing Pandoramon felt was a sensation of movement, like she was being thrown through the air at an incredible speed. In a second, all sense of feeling in her body vanished, as did sight and hearing and pretty much everything. All she knew was that something very strange was going on inside her head. The more Pandoramon lost feeling in her body, the more strange, alien thought began to appear in her mind. At first, she couldn't really make out any of them, they were more like brief sensations than actual thoughts. However, these thought quickly became clearer and clearer as they began to overpower her own thoughts. Suddenly it hit her: she was actually in contact with The Darkness.

It was most likely the last clear thought Pandoramon had in her life.

Just as she began to wrap her brain around what was going on, things began to get jumbled and the massive, alien intelligence of The Darkness literally flooded into Pandoramon's mind, steamrolling over anything that got in its way. She tried to make sense of the things swimming around the inside of her head, but it was like everything was trying to register at once and she couldn't sort it all out. This thing was BIG, bigger than anything she could have possibly imagined and the rest of the Digital World knew it; that was why everything was happening. Wait a minute, what was that? Pandoramon tried to understand, but it was all coming to her out of order or, no, it was just that everything was getting jumbled up as it tried to fit into her head and besides it was all so strange and unrecognizable that she would have had trouble making sense of it anyway and and WHOA WHAT WAS THAT? All of a sudden everything seemed to blow up, somebody was very surprised and angry and it must have been The Darkness, yeah, that was it, it must have gotten so used to talking to Devimon that it was totally caught off guard by Pandoramon's mind and it didn't know how to keep it under control but what did mean "control" and what the hell was wrong with Pandoramon's head? Everything was going so fast and getting so jumbled that it was all like one big smear and Pandoramon could only make out parts of it and she didn't know how to put it all together and oh my God what is that? Was it laughing at her? No but something was off in the back of The Darkness but all over it that wanted to laugh like crazy and scream because the plan was going so well but what was the plan and why was she seeing Devimon all of a sudden and why didn't he feel this too oh no he must have but just didn't care on that's really not it he didn't want to see he must have convinced himself that it was all good yeah that had to be it everything inside the freaked up Darkness was wrong so very very wrong but Devimon was going along with it anyway it was worse than she though he wasn't being fooled he knew just what was going on but what actually was going on it was like something was starving and hungry and eating everything it could get it's hands on and oh my God that can't really be it are you insane you can't kill the whole Digital World what do you mean there can't be more than the Digital World but it was saying that there were three or four or the hundred or it didn't know and it didn't care it just wanted to get rid of it all but why the hell would you want to do that oh come on she'd been around she knew that everything basically sucked and there wasn't anything anybody could do about it except wait for it to end because everything ends and wouldn't it just be better to go ahead and end it all right away rather than wait for it and Pandoramon couldn't believe what was happening she was even having trouble telling what was coming from her and what was coming from The Darkness and hadn't she been listening to Devimon all these years `cause that's just what he'd been telling her but she didn't want to hear because she never wanted to hear anything and look where it got her now she was going insane bravo well done there wasn't anything she could do about anything now she was screwed this was it but how did he know oh didn't Devimon tell you? I can see the future, baby, and you're gonna die slow and oh my God you can't do this well too bad girlie I've always been bigger and better than everything else that exists that's why I was put away in the first place but not it's time for me to make my comeback and guess what everybody gonna die and so long, gal, looks like your time's up-

With what felt like a bomb going off inside her head, Pandoramon was disconnected from the transmitter and collapsed to the floor. In a matter of seconds, the tendrils had pulled themselves back into the ceiling again and vanished. You almost couldn't tell that anything had happened at all except for the scattered boxes in the center of the room and the convulsing Digimon lying next to them. For the longest time, Pandoramon wasn't aware of anything, how could she be? Her consciousness had literally been torn to shreds by The Darkness, it was all she could do to remember her name.

Finally, Pandoramon began to remember what was going on around her, and did the only thing she could think of:

She screamed like she had never screamed before.

Everything was so totally screwed up, it was insane. How had Pandoramon let herself get so caught up in this mess? She had to get out of there. No matter what, she absolutely had to get out of there! The only thing left to do now was to find the Digidestined, everything was lost if they died down there. Slowly, unsteadily, Pandoramon crawled to the escape hatch, her fractured mind racing.

Somehow, she had to help them!

"Look, I really am sorry about your foot." T.K. apologized for the hundredth time.

"I know, it's alright, really!" Izzy assured him, limping along "I should have had better footing when I caught you."

"Yeah, but if I hadn't slipped, you wouldn't have had to catch me at all." T.K. pointed out.

"Honestly, it's fine!" Izzy laughed "I'd rather have a sore ankle than you with a broken neck!"

"Well, yeah, I guess that I'd rather have that to." T.K. replied.

"I certainly hope you would." Izzy commented, returning his gaze to the digivice "Now let's get back to finding the others." It hadn't taken Izzy long to figure out how to adjust the digivice map as Mimi had, so he knew that the others were quite a few levels below them.

"I wish Patamon was here." T.K. sighed "I bet he'd have an idea how to get down there."

"I'm sure Tentomon would have quite a few suggestions as well." Izzy added "So we'll just have to ask them that when we find them."

"They'd better not be eating wherever they are" T.K. declared "'cause I'm starving!"

"You'll get no argument from me there." Izzy agreed before noticing a sudden buzz from the digivice "Wait a minute"

"Huh?" T.K. asked "What's going on?"

"I don't know, let's see." Izzy muttered, switching back to the danger gauge. To his very unpleasant surprise, Izzy found that the gauge had suddenly jumped up to the top of the screen.

"W-W-WHAT?" T.K. stuttered, gazing at Izzy's digivice in horror "But we were fine just a second ago!"

"Well, we're definitely in danger now!" Izzy shouted "Let's backtrack and find another way around this place." Before they had a chance to do anything, however, the floor beneath them began to shake violently and loudly.

"WHOA!" T.K. shouted, trying to keep his balance "We definitely gotta get someplace else!"

"I believe that will be accomplished whether we want it to or not!" Izzy shouted back over the increasingly loud rumble "It feels like the floor is collapsing! Sure enough, the large chunk of rock that the two were standing on broke free from the rest and plummeted to the floor below, taking the two children with it.

"OW!!!!" T.K. whined, rubbing his head after hitting the floor (that had hit the floor) "That hurt A LOT!!"

"I'm afraid that it didn't do my ankle any good either." Izzy moaned, trying to get up "I think I'm going to need some help walking."

"Um, OK." T.K. said cautiously "But I don't think I can carry you."

"Well, hopefully, that won't be necessary." Izzy assured him "But I could definitely use something to lean on. I doubt that I'll be able to walk on this for a while."

"OK, here you go." T.K. sighed, taking Izzy's arm over his shoulder "Boy, it's a good thing you're not very tall or we wouldn't be able to do this."

"Thank you for putting a positive spin on my lack of height." Izzy replied "And, speaking of positive spins, I see that now we're only one level away from the others."

"Um, Izzy?" T.K. whispered, freezing "The floor just shook again. Can we be positive about that?"

"I wouldn't." Izzy said, nervously "I doubt that this floor benefited much from having a huge block of stone and two children dropped on it. It's quite possible that this floor could be preparing to fall out as well."

"WHAT? NO FAIR!" T.K. shouted "What do we do?"

"We get as far away from this place as we can!" Izzy declared, already trying to get moving "Let's go!" As it turned out, one injured boy with a human crutch can't move very quickly or gracefully, but T.K. and Izzy still managed to put a respectable distance between themselves and the mound of ruble before that floor fell out as well.

"I wonder why our digivices didn't say anything until it was too late." T.K. wondered, poking his to see if it was broken.

"I don't know. I suppose that it was still safe when we approached and something shook it lose before the digivice could warn us." Izzy guessed "It would seem that Devimon is getting tired of waiting for us to fall into a hole on our own."

"Oh no" T.K. moaned "Patamon, where are you?"

"OH, YEAH!" Ogermon laughed, watching the humans limp away from the ruble on his monitor "That was a good one! Check out how I messed up that limping one, he can barely walk!"

"But they still walked away." Leomon pointed out coldly "I believe the result Lord Devimon was hoping for was death."

"Um, well, yeah" Ogermon replied sheepishly "Um, I was just warming up..."

"And how long will it take you become fully...`warmed up'?" Leomon asked.

"Look, just give me a minute, alright?" Ogermon insisted "I'm just having a little fun here! They'll get it eventually!"

"They should get it NOW!" Leomon bellowed.

"But where's the fun in that?" Ogermon objected "Wouldn't it be cooler to make `em suffer a while and then finish `em?"

"I can see the attraction in that." Devimon cut in, venturing over from the other end of the command chamber "Let him have at least a little fun, Leomon."

"Of course, Lord Devimon." Leomon replied, bowing slightly "I was merely suggesting that Ogermon arrange for more serious injuries be inflicted."

"That's true." Devimon commented "I don't want them alive down there too much longer, so don't have that much fun."

"OK, if you say so" Ogermon sighed "I'll make the next one fall two floors instead of one, OK?"

"Fine, just do it." Devimon muttered, heading back to his main view screen

"Where is she?"

"Excuse me?" Thundermon asked, afraid that he'd missed an order.

"I wasn't speaking to you, although" Devimon mussed, absentmindedly "Have you heard from Pandoramon?"

"Uh, no, my Lord." Thundermon answered "The last I heard she was in the transmitter room testing something."

"Yes, that seems to be the last anyone heard." Devimon mumbled. Where had she gotten off to? This was no time for her to be off on one of her little mystery errands, although it was just the kind of situation where she'd been prone to do it in the past. Pandoramon had always had a habit of obsessing over silly little things, especially where new technology was concerned. It would hardly be out of character for her to run off to find some little trinket that she felt would improve the Heracles Mechanism, especially after the fuss she had made about it's danger earlier. Wait a minute

"No, she wouldn't" Devimon said to himself, hurriedly checking to see if Pandoramon had, in fact, dismantled the Mechanism and fled. Thankfully, when he pulled open the panel to its controls, everything was working as it should.

"Well, as long as I'm here" Devimon though, opening a tiny hatch in the center of the controls. After a second of feeling around the small compartment, his long claws pulled out a tiny object that looked like an overly ordinate nail. He then placed the strange object in his palm, where it quickly burrowed its way into his dark, decayed skin.

"Um, Lord Devimon?" Thundermon asked, warily "What the heck is that?"

"That is none of your business." Devimon replied curtly.

"Oh, um, of course!" Thundermon stuttered "I'm sorry!"

"Just get back to work." Devimon instructed, beginning to pace around. That cursed Pandoramon was going to receive a very intense talking to when she finally turned up.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" Mimi complained "It sure is taking a long time!"

"That's because we're going a long way!" Matt shouted back "The two tend to go together!"

"Well can't we find a shorter way to go?" Mimi whined "I'm tired of walking!"

"No, we can't find a shorter way because there isn't one!" Matt insisted "Now stop whining!"

"Hey, hey!" Sora interrupted "You two cut it out! We won't get there any faster if you yell at each other!"

"Well, he started it" Mimi muttered, sulking.

"Uh huh, sure. Whatever." Matt mumbled, examining the map again. Although he didn't say so, he was getting even more anxious than Mimi to reach their destination. Roughly twenty minutes or so ago, the two dots that had been the farthest above them took a very sudden drop down a floor, a drop that had to have been painful. Matt most likely wouldn't have gotten too worked up about it (seeing that the two dots were still moving, after all) were it not for the fact that, by process of elimination, one of those dots had to be T.K. And if anything had happened to him

"So, um, what exactly are we going to do when we catch up with the others?" Sora asked.

"Beats me, I'm out of ideas." Matt confessed "I think that's the whole reason we're looking for them."

"Oh, um...OK." Sora sighed, Matt wasn't exactly the easiest person to have a conversation with.

"All I can say is that, if we make another rope, Tai and Joe get to donate to it this time." Mimi declared "I've already done my part."

"I don't remember anyone ever telling you that you only had to be inconvenienced once, Mimi." Matt pointed out "We're officially in survivor mode right now. You'll do whatever it takes to get out of here."

"WELL WHO MADE YOU KING OF THE WORLD?" Mimi shouted "I DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING YOU SAY AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"

"OK, fine. Then stop following me." Matt calmly replied.

"I...Uh...I'm not following you!" Mimi stammered, not keen on the idea of being by herself "I'm just...uh...going the same direction as you, that's all!"

"Whatever you say, Mimi." Matt sighed "Just stop whining, alright?"

"Only because I'm too tired to keep doing it." Mimi replied, shutting up.

"I think you really need to work on your people skills, Matt." Sora offered.

"What people skills?" Matt asked, engrossed in the map.

"That's what I'm talking about." Sora explained "Like it or not, we've all been stuck together as a team. You'll need to start acting like it."

"Look, Sora, I never agreed to bei yanked off of Earth, dropped in this madhouse, or be called a Digidestined by a bunch of maniacs and I'm not going to pretent that I did." Matt stated coldly "Plus, as far as I'm concerned, Centarumon and Unimon are lunatics, so just because they say that we're a gang of messiahs, that doesn't mean that it's true."

"Well then, why do you think were here?" Sora asked.

"I don't know," Matt curtly replied "but I know that I'm taking the very first chance I get to go back home whether I'm done being a `Digidestined' or not."

"Oh, come on Matt." Sora sighed "I'm really not sure if I believe those two either, but if we really were brought here to get rid of Devimon, then we'll get to go home after we do, right? That sounds like a good enough reason to play along for a while to me."

"Whoa, wait a minute." Matt shouted, freezing "Something just moved beneath us."

"HUH?" Mimi shrieked "Is something crawling around the floor?"

"No, it was the floor that moved!" Sora shouted.

"GET BACK!!!" Matt yelled, running back where they had come from "I've got a nasty hunch that this floor is about to turn into a one way elevator down!" Sure enough, the stone floor made a sudden, deafening crack and began to slip downwards. Sora and Mimi managed to make it back to firm ground just before the floor gave way, but Matt, who had been farthest behind, was still on the stone slap when it fell. Rather than making some insane attempt to grab onto the edge, Matt simply braced himself to make sure that he didn't crack his head open when the rock hit the floor below. He actually made it through the fall with little more that headache and probably would have walked away no problem. Unfortunately, he hadn't anticipated the possibility that the floor on the level below might be lose as well and, just as he began to get up again, that floor fell out too. This time, Matt landed like a sack of brick in the center of a pile of very painful rubble.

"MATT!!!" Sora screamed from two levels above "MATT, CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

"HEY MATT!" Mimi shouted as well "COME ON! ANSWER!"

"Oh God, please let him be alright." Sora prayed, horrified.

"THIS IS NO TIME TO BE ALL STRONG AND SILENT, MATT!!!" Mimi shouted "SAY SOMETHING!"

"OOOOOWWWWW!!!!!!" Matt screamed from somewhere inside the pile of rubble.

"Well, um, that's good." Mimi stuttered "THANKS! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?"

"Oh, yeah; I just screamed `ooooowwww' for the fun of it." Matt grunted, trying to worm his way out of the debris "I get buried in landslides all the time!"

"What's the matter?" Sora shouted anxiously "Can you move?"

"Sort of," Matt replied "pretty much everything hurts, though."

"W-What do you mean?" Sora asked "Is anything broken?"

"I don't know. My arm's pretty- WOW!!! OH MAN!" Matt shouted "Yep, it's busted alright!"

"Oh no." Sora mumbled, franticly "Oh no...What do we do now"

"I'll tell you what you do." Matt instructed "You find a way around the hole and find a way to hook up with the others!"

"But...We can't leave you down there!" Sora protested.

"But you can't get me out of here either, can you?" Matt pointed out "It'll take a lot more clothes than either of you have on you to get a rope down here."

"Well, how'll you get out?" Mimi asked.

"I don't' know; I'm still working on that!" Matt shouted "I might be able to climb up all this ruble and junk."

"With a broken arm?" Sora asked, incredulously.

"Look, this is the best I can do." Matt yelled "You just go find the other guys and figure out what to do then!"

"But...But" Mimi stammered.

"Come on, Mimi." Sora said, unhappily "Let's get moving."

"But what about Matt?" Mimi whimpered "We can't leave him down there!"

"I don't want to either, but he's right." Sora confessed "There's really nothing we can do for him right now. We'll have a better chance of helping Matt if we've got everyone else with us."

"Oh...OK, but I don't like it" Mimi sighed.

"Me neither" Sora agreed "When we find Centarumon and Unimon, remind me to punch them both."

Only a few levels beneath Devimon, the seven Digidestined Digimon were laying unconscious in a spacious laboratory. Since it had proven impossible for anyone to examine the digivices and live to tell about it, Devimon had decided to run a few tests on the Digimon themselves and see what he could find out about their Digivolving. Of course, with the seven humans running around beneath them, Devimon hadn't even had time to decide what kind of tests he would run yet. In the meantime, the seven Digimon were snoozing comfortably in the lab, receiving numerous doses of sedatives to keep them so. Centarumon and Unimon, on the other hand, had received far less elaborate accommodations: a bonk on the head, a big dose of some kind of sleeping attack, and a rude toss into a very plain cell with a rather fat Tekkamon watching them from outside. Apparently, Devimon figured that since the two of them weren't the Digidestined's partners it would take very little to keep them subdued.

Obviously, Devimon was not the brightest crayon in the box.

While the Tekkamon no doubt assumed that they were sleeping just as soundly as when they had been brought in, Centarumon and Unimon had actually been awake for some time. At the moment, the two were putting the finishing touches on there breakout plan.

"OK, is that the same Mekanoimon from twenty minutes ago?" Unimon whispered, watching the guard walk behind Tekkamon.

"Looks like it to me." Centarumon replied "That makes four patrolling guards five minutes apart."

"Great." Unimon sighed "Close enough to, but far enough away from each other for at least one of them to slip away before we catch them."

"At least someone had the decency to stick us with the bottom of the barrel as guards." Centarumon pointed out "These fellows are some of the porkiest guards I've ever seen anyplace."

"Of course!" Unimon replied "They're not going to go wasting the best and the brightest of the grand Devimon army on guarding a pair of old farts like us, are they?"

"I know I wouldn't." Centarumon laughed (as quietly as he could) "Damn it's good to have you back in action, Unimon."

"Well thanks for taking the time to pull that gear out of me!" Unimon answered "That thing itched like you wouldn't believe."

"Hey, I was fitted with one two, remember?" Centarumon joked before turning his attention back to the matter at hand "So what'll it be? Wait for the next patrol and hit him and the guard at the same time?"

"Sounds good to me." Unimon agreed "Of course, the trick will be finding out where they're holding the Digidestined."

"That really shouldn't be that hard." Centarumon said with a grin (well, if anyone could have seen past his helmet, there would have been a grin) "We'll just look for all the guards that we couldn't possibly get around and there they'll be!"

"Simple as that eh?" Unimon snickered "Wait, here comes the next patrol."

"I hear him." Centarumon replied, getting ready to spring "Let's go."

In all likelihood, neither the Tekkamon nor the Mekanorimon had time to notice any movement before they died. In the interest of keeping a low profile for as long as possible, Centarumon and Unimon dispensed of the two with their bare hands (well, Unimon didn't have any "hands" per se, but the idea was the same). Just as they has expected, two more guards came rushing towards them to find out what was going on. A fast punch from Centarumon and a kick from Unimon quickly embedded the two in the stone walls of the hall. Apparently, the forth patrol ran off to find some back up, but they'd figured that one would get away. Now they needed to figure out where to go next.

"OK, I see two halls." Centarumon said, glancing down each one "They're both dank, dark and uninviting, but that's nothing new. Any preferences?"

"It doesn't make much difference to me." Unimon laughed "With our luck, they're probably both the wrong one."

"Well, in that case, let's take the left." Centarumon figured "If I'm going down the wrong hall anyway, I'm not going all the way over there to do it."

"Makes sense to me, Let's go!" Unimon replied, following Centarumon down the hall.

"HUH?" Ogermon cried "WHADDA YA MEAN THEY ESCAPED?"

"I mean, they're gone!" explained the Mekanorimon who escaped.

"YOU IDIOT!!!" Ogermon bellowed "HOW COULD YOU LET THAT HAPPEN?"

"I assure you that it wasn't intentional!" the Mekanorimon replied stupidly.

"Do you have any idea how bad you've bade me look?" Ogermon ranted, ignoring the other Digimon "I'm the one who put you guys in charge of guarding those two! Now Devimon'll think that it's my fault that you screwed up!"

"But we were only following your orders!" the Mekanorimon insisted.

"WHY YOU LITTLE-" Ogermon howled, sending the upper half of the Mekanorimon's body flying into the wall behind it with a swing of his club "NOBODY TELLS OGERMON THAT ANYTHING IS HIS FAULT!!!"

"Don't waste resources, Ogermon." Leomon admonished from behind.

"Well it was his own fault for making me look stupid!" Ogermon insisted "He deserved it; in fact, he was probably defective or somethin'!"

"I believe that you have far more important things to worry about now." Leomon pointed out.

"I should say he does." Devimon hissed, walking over again.

"Uh, uh, yeah." Ogermon panted "Like, um, finding out where they went?"

"Yes, that's right." Devimon quietly, unsettlingly answered "Because those two Digimon just happen to be two of the most powerful Digimon on all of File Island, and now they're running around somewhere inside my mountain."

"Uh, yeah, that's not good is it?" Ogermon gulped.

"IT MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT!!!" Devimon bellowed "NOW GET OUT THERE AND FIND UNIMON AND CENTARUMON BEFORE THEY HAVE A CHANCE TO FIND THE DIGIDESTINED AND TEAR THIS MOUNTAIN APART BECAUSE IF THEY DO I'LL FEED YOU TO THEM MYSELF!!!"

"GAH!!! Y-Y-YES MY LORD!!!" Ogermon screamed, running like mad out of the control room.

"I would never dream of questioning your orders, my Lord," Leomon commented "but I do not believe that Ogermon is competent enough to lead the search for Centarumon and Unimon."

"OK, teams Four and Thirteen, um...actually, make that Fifteen" Ogermon mumbled over the com system "Anyway, you guys get into the holding sectors; we've got work to do!"

"That walking scab isn't competent enough to lead a heard of Betamon to the ocean." Devimon agreed.

"Would you prefer me to lead the search?" Leomon offered.

"No, I have something far more important for you to do." Devimon replied.

"What do you wish of me, master?" Leomon inquired.

"Take whoever you need and get down into the labyrinth." Devimon instructed

"I want those humans dead; immediately. If Centarumon and Unimon succeed in eluding Ogermon, the first thing they'll do is find the seven Digimon and then reunite them with their human partners. That is not an acceptable possibility."

"Of course not." Leomon agreed.

"I want them dead NOW." Devimon made clear "No theatrics, no dragging it out, no making them suffer, just KILL THEM!"

"Absolutely, my Lord." Leomon replied with a bow before turning and leaving.

"Um, teams Four and Fifteen?" Ogermon stated over the com again "Actually, you guys should go to the conference room first so I can tell you what you need to do. That's all." Devimon simply sighed. Delegating responsability to his subordinates had to be the dumbest thing he'd ever done. As soon as this was over we would take away all authority from those clowns and run the army on his own again, stress be damned.

For the forth time in a row, Matt lost his grip on the large stone in front of him and fell to the floor. Of course, this made his busted excuse for an arm hurt like hell, but that couldn't really be helped (just walking made it hurt). Matt cursed for a bit and punched the stubborn slab of rock, which, of course, left his hand sore. After a bit more cursing, Matt gave up and collapsed in the middle of the rubble. Who was he kidding? He probably wouldn't be able to climb up that thing with two good arms in broad daylight, much less here. There was no way he was getting out of there without some help, but how was anybody supposed to pull that off? The whole idea was to go up Infinity Mountain, not down. Besides, there was no way they could pull of a rope that could reach all the way down to him and he probably wouldn't be able to hold on to it if they did. There was always the possibility that they might decide to take on Devimon without him and come back later, but that was obviously a bad thing because then they would all get killed and no one would be around to get him out.

"Oh, man" Matt sighed "Now what do I do?"

"Don't worry." a voice piped up from beside him "You're supposed to know in a little bit."

"WHAT? Who's there?" Matt shouted, looking around. To his surprise, there was a ghostly pale, gray haired girl with a pair of dragging white wings squatting next to him. It didn't take Matt longer than a moment to remember where he'd seen her before: it was the Digimon that had put him to sleep in the mansion the day before "What do you want?" Matt shouted, backing away

"What are you doing here?"

"AUGH!" The Digimon screamed, tumbling backwards as if she was more frightened than he was "I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY!!!!! That wasn't before, I mean it wasn't now! I didn't...I'm sorry; I shouldn't have done that!"

"Well?" Matt demanded "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't know all of this then." she mumbled, her head bobbing around in a very unusual manner "If I had...I mean, a river wouldn't flow into the ocean if it knew that the ocean would eat it up, would it?"

"For the last time, what are you doing here?" Matt shouted.

"AHHH! I'M SORRY!" she screamed, curling up as if she expected to be hit "I just want to help!"

"What?" Matt stammered.

"They're coming to kill you!" she explained urgently "All the plans are getting messed up. They don't have time to wait for traps any more. They're going to come and kill you all!"

"What do you mean?" Matt asked, a little afraid to know "Who are they?"

"But I know where they are, I can see them!" Pandoramon continued "I never trusted any of them, so I made a shield to keep all the gears way."

"What- Gears?" Matt asked, trying to figure out just what the heck this weirdo was talking about "You mean Black Gears?"

"YES! Yes yes yes yes yes!" she happily shouted, nodding her head vigorously "I know when they're coming and I can keep them away. I wish I had know about Ogermon, though, it won't work with him. I thought that I was the only one then"

"Hey, HEY!" Matt interrupted "There are six other kids somewhere in here. Do you know where they are?"

"YEAH! Your friends! Yeah, I can find them, I know where they are!" she replied

"I can find your friends. You know about that anyway. Well, you will, I think. It's hard to keep straight."

"Hey, listen- OW!!!" Matt shouted, starting to get up and hurting his arm in the process.

"Wha...Does it hurt?" she asked, timidly.

"Of course it hurts!" Matt answered, cradeling his arm "It's broken!"

"Oh no, I'm sorry!" she said, franticly "It's all my fault. Everything's my fault! I'm sorry, I never should have let this happen, it's all my fault! Here, let me see"

"WHOA! Wait a minute!" Matt shouted, pulling away as the girl started to reach towards his arm "What do you think your doing?"

"AAAHHHH!!! No, don't!" she screamed, balling up again "I can fix it, I think. No, I can. I can!"

"What? You mean you can fix my arm?" Matt asked.

"Yes yes yes!" she replied "I can fix it! I can fix everything for you. I'm good at that!"

"Uh...How exactly would you do it?" Matt asked, apprehensive about the strange Digimon but very eager to have his arm repaired.

"Like this." she replied, laying her hand on his arm "Regeneration Touch."

"HEY! I didn't say...Hey wait a minute" Matt muttered. Suddenly, all the pain in his arm had vanished. In fact, all the pain in his whole body vanished "What was that?"

"See? I told you!" Pandoramon said with an uncertain smile "Can I help you know?"

"Uh...Well, I guess so" Matt replied. After all, he was pretty much screwed anyway, there wasn't much to lose by accepting her help "So, what do I call you?"

"I bet that I can help everybody like that." she said, apparently not hearing Matt "I'd never actually tried in on a...Um, what was it...Human?"

"Hey, you listening?" Matt asked again "What's your name?"

"My name? Uh...which one is my name right now" Pandoramon muttered to herself, scratching her head "Pandoramon! That's it, Pandoramon!"

"OK Pandoramon, I'm Matt."

"Oh, I know!" Pandoramon replied "You're the one closest to here as I am! That's why I came to see you instead of the others. They didn't see me anyway."

"Wait a minute, you saw the others?"

"Uh huh, I had to go past to get down here. But I didn't want to talk to them, they wouldn't understand. You understand though, don't you?"

"Quite frankly, I haven't understood a single word you've said." Matt confessed.

"Ooooh, I knew it!" Pandoramon cried, burying her face in her hands "I knew it! I just...I can't...I'm trying to make it make since, but I...It's all such a mess!"

"Look, look, don't worry about it." Matt interrupted "It's not important. Just show me where the others are."

"O-OK" Pandoramon sighed, picking up an odd looking staff on the floor beside her and standing up. At least, she tried, she wabbled around like a toddler for a minute before finally getting all the way up. Even then, she could only manage a few steps before collapsing into Matt's arms.

"Uh...Are you alright?" Matt asked, wondering if he really was going to get any help out of this weird Digimon at all.

"I'm sorry, it's hard to remember how" Pandoramon apologized, wrapping her arms around Matt's neck "There's just too much going on the remember it all."

"Uh, yeah" Matt sighed, it looked like he was going to have to carry her "So how do we get to wherever the others are?"

"Over there." Pandoramon replied, pointing to a spot a few feet away "I need to be over there."

"OK, sure." Matt muttered, walking over to the spot Pandoramon had pointed out.

"Hold on tight." Pandoramon whispered, raising a trembling hand up towards the vast hole above them "Velvet Strand." As soon as those words left her lips, a purple, shimmering beam shot out from her fingertips and flew up to the ceiling several floors above. Before Matt had a chance to ask Pandoramon what was happening, the two suddenly shot up along the beam and wound up standing two floor above where they had been a second before.

"Whoa" Matt gasped "THAT is a useful thing to have."

"There isn't a lot of time left." Pandoramon said, looking around nervously

"They're getting close to the two up at the top. They...OH NO!!!"

"What?" Matt shouted what it is?"

"It's Leomon!" Pandoramon shouted "Leomon's coming! We have to go, NOW!!!"

/I

"OK, OK! I'm going!" Matt shouted, running as fast as he could with Pandoramon draped over him.

To Be Continued...