Legend of the Digidestined

Book One

Chapter Eleven

My baby's got a heart of stone

Can't you people just leave her alone?

She never did nothing to hurt you

So just leave her alone

The motion of her tiny hands

and the quiver of her bones below

are the signs of a girl alone

and tell you everything you need to know

I can't explain it

I feel it often

every time I see her face

But the way you treat her

fills me with rage and I

want to tear apart the place

You try to tell her what to do

but all she does is stare at you

Her stare is louder than your voice

because truth doesn't make a noise

No, Truth doesn't make a noise

No, Truth doesn't make a noise

I can't explain it

I feel it often

every time I see her face

But the way you treat her

it fills me with rage and I

Want to tear apart the place

"Truth Doesn't Make A Noise"

by Jack White

from the album De Stijl by The White Stripes

Chapter Eleven

You've Really Got A Hold On Me

In theory, Leomon could easily slaughter all seven of the humans entirely on his own, but he was well past the point of taking anything for granted by now. After all, Ogermon had taken quite a few things for granted and failed quite a few times in the past several hours, it was highly likely that he wouldn't be alive for several more. And if Leomon managed to fail as well after so many clear examples of what not to do ...Well, he would deserve everything that Devimon would do to him. So, instead of taking even the smallest chance and trying to destroy the humans on his own, he ran down to the main gateway into Infinity Mountain and gathered up the strongest of the guards. Of course, this meant that he would now have to start with the lowest of the children and work his way up when it would have been more expedient to kill the ones closest to the peak first, but it should have taken very little time to work his way through them. It SHOULD have, but it wasn't.

Apparently, not taking anything for granted was the smartest thing Leomon could have done. Somehow, the human that had been thrown several floors down had managed to make it's way back up to where it had fallen from and was making good time along the hall. Quite frankly, such a jump should have been impossible; at least, the data Andromon had gathered said it was. Yet there it was, Leomon's senses were already keen on their own, but the Black Gears had made them virtually foolproof; there was no doubt that the human had made the jump. It looked like this might actually be a little fun after all.

"Sir." one of the Devidramon behind him hissed "The human is about to catch up with the other two humans."

"I know fool." Leomon bellowed "You're getting that sense from me, remember?"

"But I thought that the plan was to catch it before they joined each other!"

"The plan was to surround it." Leomon replied "We will not attack until we have the target surrounded. If the target becomes three targets before that time, so be it."

"Understood." the Devidramon answered, submissively. Of course, what none of the Digimon would ever say, but were all thinking, was that surrounding this human was going to be difficult until they actually caught up with it, and that was becoming impossibly difficult. There was absolutely no doubt that the humans could not even begin to sense the presence of Digimon like Leomon could, and they were surprising their presence in a way that ought to have made them invisible to the Digivices, yet this human had managed to both navigate the maze and completely avoid becoming trapped at any point since he had begun tracking it. If the human had simply made one or two lucky turns, Leomon might have chalked it up to simple luck, but this so- called chase had been going on for nearly half an hour and the human had not messed up once. In fact, once Leomon decided to double back a few yards simply to see how the human would react. Sure enough, it stopped and seemed to look around, like it was trying to figure out what he was doing. Yes, that human had to be sensing him somehow. But how in the Digiverse was it doing it?

"OK, they're back in the big hall again." Pandoramon said, making a grimacing expression that might have been comical in a different situation "What are you doing, Leomon. I know you're messed up now, but I made sure that nobody would be stupid. What are you doing?"

"I'm telling you, he knows you're up here!" Matt insisted, carrying Pandoramon along.

"No he doesn't! He doesn't!" Pandoramon shouted "The shield won't let him! I made it to do that! He doesn't know I'm helping you!"

"Well I'm sure that he knows I can't tell where he is on my own." Matt replied "I know that I'd assume somebody was helping me if I were him."

"No no no, don't say that." Pandoramon whimpered, suddenly looking very unhappy "Don't say you'd be like him."

"What?" Matt asked, more than a little confused.

"Leomon, he...When Devimon took him...I could...I saw" Pandoramon struggled, as if she wasn't really sure what she was saying until it was already coming out "Leomon didn't think, he...he felt. He just did what he felt like was right and...It made him do things he shouldn't have done...No, it made him not do things he should have done. Yes, that's it...I think, I'm not sure. I saw what was inside him when Devimon put the Gear in him, but it's so hard to keep straight"

"Whatever, it's not important." Matt sighed.

"NO! It is important!" Pandoramon insisted, now quite frightened "For you it's VERY important! You're going to be just like that...or you might be. I'm not sure how it works. Was that what would happen or just what might? Oooohhh...What was it?"

"Really, it doesn't matter!" Matt interrupted, having no idea what Pandoramon was talking about and not really caring "Just tell me when Leomon is getting close, ok?"

"Yes...Yes, it was what is going to happen" Pandoramon groaned, becoming increasingly sad "It is...You are going to do that all"

"Huh? Do what?" Matt asked.

"Everything" Pandoramon replied, more to herself than to Matt "Just what you feel like is right, not thinking about if it really is...That's why you won't do anything about it"

"Do what?" Matt asked, actually beginning to get a bit interested in this lunatic's ramblings by this point.

"No...No no no!" Pandoramon whimpered, pulling away from Matt and promptly falling to the floor "It's not fair...IT'S NOT FAIR!!! I...It showed me...I know so much and...It...AUGH!!! I CAN'T EVEN TALK ANYMORE!!!"

"Um...OK" Matt muttered, trying to pull her back up, thoroughly confused "I think"

"It's not supposed to be like this...I didn't used to be...This is all my fault, I built it all...I'm why you'll have to hurt so much" As Pandoramon continued to mutter to her herself, she slowly looked up at Matt and a strange thing happened. For a moment, just a moment, it seemed like a thick curtain behind her eyes was pulled away. For that moment, her white eyes weren't the hazy, alien orbs they had been; instead, it was like...like looking into a pair of diamonds. And it wasn't just her eyes that changed either: her whole body seemed to relax all of a sudden; dozens of odd contortions that Matt almost hadn't noticed just vanished and her frame seemed to become natural for the first time. It was as if a million hands that had been pulling her a million different directions just let go for a second.

The difference, subtle as it might have been, was astounding.

"I wish things could be different...I really do." Pandoramon whispered, gazing at Matt with the most intensely sad look he had ever seen. As she stared so helplessly at him, a pair of downright alien thoughts crept their way into Matt's mind. The first was a sudden, overwhelming desire to protect the poor creature before him; not against anything in particular, just an urge to keep her safe from anything. And the second thought was an almost startling realization of just how pretty Pandoramon actually was. Up until that point, she had been making all kinds of odd faces and bending herself in strange directions and generally behaving in an almost frightening manner.

But now that she had calmed down, he realized that she was absolutely beautiful.

Before Matt had a chance to say anything, or even think of something to say, Pandoramon lurched over violently and started to grimace again.

"Two of them are moving again!" she shouted "They're going...Left, to the left! We need to go over that way!"

"But we were almost to Sora and Mimi!" Matt complained, anything he had been thinking a moment ago being overwhelmed by his unhappiness with having to go in the opposite direction of his companions.

"Don't worry. They'll be stuck." Pandoramon assured him, grinning in a manner that must have been intended to be comforting, but turned out rather disturbing "They've got a wall in the way, and there's a hole in the dead end in front of us, so we can go ahead and catch up with your friends!"

"Um, OK. Let's go" Matt sighed, not about to argue with the only one who had an idea where Leomon was. Pandoramon seemed to be back to her old, uncoordinated self, so Matt slowly helped her up again. She tried to wrap her arm around Matt's neck again but, for just a moment, he was a bit embarrassed about it. If she had done it only a minute ago, he wouldn't have thought anything except maybe a stray thought about how little she weighed for someone her height. However, just enough of that...whatever-it- was that had broken it's way into Matt's thoughts a second ago remained to make him surprisingly flustered. It didn't last long though; Matt had become extraordinarily good at shutting thoughts that flustered him out of his head.

After all, there was no reason to get all up tight because of some totally random thought that was only in his head for a moment, right?

"I'm telling you! We ought to turn around and get him!" Mimi insisted yet again.

"For the last time, Mimi, Matt told us to go ahead and find Joe and Tai, so that's what we're going to do!" Sora replied, not even bothering to look up from her Digivice this time.

"But...COME ON!" Mimi whined "Something's wrong with him, I know it!"

"Yeah, so do I. I was there too, remember?" Sora reminded her "Besides, not only is he moving, but he managed to get himself all the way up to our floor! If anything, he's doing better than we are!"

"Then why hasn't he caught up with us, huh?" Mimi countered, gazing unhappily at Matt's dot on her screen "He's been going every single direction but ours!"

"I...I...I don't know!" Sora stuttered, trying not to show that she had been wondering the same thing "I guess...Maybe he-"

"Exactly! Something HAS to be wrong with him!" Mimi interrupted "So we'd better go see what it is!"

"NO." Sora replied firmly "We've got to catch up with Joe and Tai first. After that, then we'll go get Matt. Who knows? Maybe he'll catch up with us by then?"

"Yeah, if he doesn't wander all the way back to Japan first" Mimi muttered grumpily. For about a minute or so after that, neither of the girls said anything to each other. Then:

"Really, Sora! I think we'd better go pick up-"

"Mimi, stop it!"

"NO! I WON'T STOP IT!" Mimi shouted, ironically coming to a halt as she said it "Something's wrong with Matt and I'm gonna find out what it is!"

"Mimi, don't be like this!" Sora pleaded, definitely not in the mood for an argument at the moment.

"Oh yeah? Well how should I be?" Mimi asked, sarcastically "I mean, Matt's only running around with who knows how many broken bones and stuff. I mean, I bet if Joe were here, he'd know all sorts of ways a person could be knocked senseless and start wandering around lost like...OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Now he's closer to Tai and Joe than we are!"

"There, see? He is doing better than we are!" Sora replied, trying desperately to keep her cool.

"That's not the point and you know it isn't!" Mimi shouted "He could very well be stumbling around half dead out there-"

"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT?" Sora interrupted, much louder than she had intended "And if he is, what do you wanna do about it, huh? Do you even know? Of course you don't and neither do I, but Joe does! So if we did go back and Matt was half dead, we'd still have to run off to find Joe and bring him back; so we'll be saving everyone a lot of time if we just go straight to Joe first!"

"Oh. OK" Mimi muttered, very much taken aback.

"Now come on." Sora insisted, making her way back down the dark passage.

"He really is closer to Joe and Tai than we are." Mimi pointed out after a short silence.

"He must have found a hole in a wall somewhere." Sora suggested.

"Oh, and now he's going away from them!" Mimi sighed "In fact he's heading straight...for...SORA! HE'S COMING TOWARDS US!!!"

"WHAT?" Sora shouted, fumbling to get her Digivice screen off of Tai and Joe's dots and back on Matt's "Oh please, oh please, oh please...YES! YESYESYESYESYES!!! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? COME ON!!!"

"Hey, wait up!" Mimi shouted as Sora took off down the dark hallway "What happened to going to get Joe first?"

"Well, now that Matt is on the way to Joe, I don't see any harm in picking him up!" Sora laughed as she ran.

"Nope, nothing wrong with that!" Mimi concurred "Just slow down a bit, will you? I'm tired enough as it is!"

"Hey, the exercise will do you good!" Sora insisted, not intending to slow down for a moment.

"Oh yeah, exercise. What do you call every single thing that's happened to me since I woke up on this dumb island?" Mimi replied, trying her best to catch up.

"MATT! MATT, IS THAT YOU?" Sora shouted into the darkness.

"Hey Sora!" answered a voice front eh distance "Remember me?"

"Oh, thank God!" Sora laughed with relief "Do you have any idea how worried we were about you?"

"Gee, I can't imagine why." Matt joked, slowing becoming visible in the dark.

"Well, don't you worry, Joe's just a little ways up ahead. We'll figure out some way to get him down here and get you all fixed up and" Suddenly, Sora was able to make out Matt's silhouette clearly in the darkness ahead, but his wasn't the only silhouette she could see. Right next to him, in fact, hanging off of him, was a second silhouette; a familiar, winged silhouette.

"WHOA!!! What's she doing here?" Sora shouted, coming to a screeching halt, and almost falling over herself in the process.

"What's who doing where?" Mimi asked, finally catching up "AHHHH! It's the creepy girl I saw in the mansion!"

"Don't worry! Don't worry! She's cool!" Matt insisted as Pandoramon quickly cowered behind him "She just wants to help us!"

"Huh? what are you talking about?" Sora stuttered.

"Her name's Pandoramon; she's the reason I was able to catch up with you two." Mat continued, trying to get Pandoramon to come out from behind his back.

"Hey, your arm doesn't look broken to me!" Mimi interrupted.

"Nope, she took care of that to!" Matt explained.

"But...Why?" Sora asked "I mean, who is she? Why would she want to help you?"

"That's a good question. Care to answer it, Pandoramon?" Matt replied, prodding his companion. However, the timid Digimon refused to say a word or even look up at the other two humans.

"What's going on?" Mimi asked "It looks like she's scared of us."

"Of course she's scared." Sora answered "She knows we've figured out that she had something to do with our `mysterious' leap from the mansion to this...wherever we are last night."

"I'm sorry" Pandoramon whispered suddenly.

"Hey, she said something!" Mimi interrupted.

"That wasn't...I didn't...I shouldn't have done that." Pandoramon stammered "I'm sorry."

"There, you see?" Matt insisted "She's OK."

"No I'm not." Pandoramon objected, quietly.

"Wait a minute, what?" Sora asked, getting more and more confused every second.

"I'm not OK." Pandoramon insisted, starting to weep "It's my fault all of you are in here. All of this is my fault"

"Oh no, not this again." Matt groaned "Look, the idea here is to shift the attention away from that stuff."

"I'm sorry; didn't mean for all this." Pandoramon continued, oblivious to Matt's words "I didn't know what you were going to do afterwards. I didn't realize what was going on outside...I made a mistake"

"Um...OK, what is she talking about?" Mimi asked.

"Beats me. She's been going on like that for hours." Matt sighed "The motor's running, but I don't think there's anyone at the wheel."

"That's why I'm down here. You're the only ones who can fix everything that I've done wrong. I done so much...So much" Pandoramon tried to continue, but could only fall to her knees and sob.

"Um...Did I mention that she's kind of upset-able?" Matt asked, getting a little uncomfortable.

"Hey...Hey there" Sora whispered, uncertainly inching her way over to Pandoramon.

"Uh...What are doing, Sora?" Mimi asked.

"Whoa, that's not a very good idea." Matt advised, quietly, as Pandoramon pulled away from Sora in fear "She's not to big on having people near her."

"Don't be afraid, we're not going to hurt you." Sora insisted softly, ignoring Matt. She tried to put her hand on Pandoramon's shoulder, but she lurched away and clung to Matt's leg like a small child would her parent's.

"Well, she sure seems big on being near you, Matt." Mimi observed.

"It's all right. We believe you." Sora assured the trembling Digimon.

"We do?" Mimi asked, not too sure herself.

"At this point, I really don't think we can afford not to." Sora replied "We need all the help we can get."

"Besides, she really couldn't hurt us if she tried." Matt pointed out "Just look at her."

"Hey, yeah." Mimi muttered "She seemed a lot less...wussy when I saw her in the mansion. What happened?"

"The...The Darkness...There was so much of it" Pandoramon explained, or tried to, anyway "It made a mess of everything when it...There's just so much to remember now, it's difficult to...I can't...staying focused is hard now. I don't...I've never known what hasn't happened yet before. It's weird."

"Uh...OK, Whatever. She's nuts." Mimi sighed "Well, we found Matt! Now let's go get Joe and Tai!"

"Well, don't get too set on moving quickly." Matt interrupted, helping Pandoramon stand up again "She's not really very good at walking, and don't get me started on her directions."

"You mean you've been carrying her this whole time?" Sora asked.

"Something like that." Matt answered "Actually, I've been more like a crutch."

"Wow." Sora mused "No wonder you were going all over the place."

"Actually, that was a case of some really weird directions." Matt replied "I'll explain later."

"Well, here. Why don't you let me take her for a little bit." Sora offered.

"No!" Pandoramon whimpered "I need to stay with Matt!"

"Don't worry, he's not going anyplace!" Sora insisted, taking Pandoramon's arm. The second she touched her, however, Pandoramon unleashed an ear piercing scream and threw her arms around Matt's neck.

"Eer...OK." Sora muttered, hoping the ringing in her ears would only be temporary "Maybe you should stay with Matt."

"Um, Pandoramon?" Matt grunted, trying to pry his companion off of him "I would really like to be able to breathe right now"

"Are you sure they're down there?" T.K. asked, squinting hard to try and see the bottom of the dark hole before him.

"Well, not directly below." Izzy explained "However, it would appear that this hole opens into the same general passage as two of our companions."

"I just wish we knew which two." T.K. sighed "Do you think Matt is one of them?"

"There will be no way to determine that until we get down there." Izzy replied "Now all we need to do is figure out some manner of doing that."

"Well, I'm not jumping down there, that's for sure." T.K. stated firmly "Not after what happened last time."

"Duly noted, though you emerged relatively unscathed from that experience." Izzy pointed out "I'm the one who was injured."

"Exactly!" T.K. laughed "I'm not gonna start limping around like that!"

"Well, there does not to be any other holes that lead to this hallway, so there would be little point in limping anyplace at this point."

"So what do we do, Izzy?"

"I don't see anything we can do other than sit here and wait for them to come to us."

"But...They're going AWAY from us." T.K. replied, confused.

"Yes, but look at where they're headed." Izzy explained, pointing to the dots on the Digivice screen "These dots and the ones below them are moving to the same point, and they did the same thing roughly two hours ago. It seems very unlikely that they could manage to find their way through an environment such as this without some kind of guide; therefore, I believe that they have figured out how to use the map function of the Digivice just as we have."

"So once they do whatever they're doing over there, they'll come get us?" T.K. interrupted.

"That would be my guess." Izzy answered.

"Alright!" T.K. laughed, settling in for a good wait "I just hope they don't take to long to get here...How long has it been since we ate anything, anyway?"

"Too long." Izzy replied, rubbing his empty stomach.

"I'll say." T.K. concurred "Right now, I could eat...three whole boxes of Lucky Charms, two - no, FOUR - whole pizzas, and enough pocky to choke an Elephant!"

"The shear lack of any nutritional value in such a meal is absolutely astounding." Izzy commented, suddenly felling a little bit sick.

"Well duh, that's what makes it good!" T.K. laughed.

"Of course." Izzy sighed.

"Whoa, wait a minute!" Tai shouted to his companion on the level below "What do you mean Leomon's in here?"

"What do you think I mean?" Matt shouted back "He's on the level right below us, and we're not sure how many friends he's got with him!"

"Well, that's just lovely." Joe groaned "We're dead. We are SO dead!"

"Joe? Stop it." Sora stated firmly "This exact same thing happened to us just a few days ago back in the factory and we got out just fine."

"Yeah, but Andromon was specifically trying NOT to kill us then." Matt pointed out "I doubt Leomon is worried about that right now."

"You're not helping, Matt." Sora grunted through gritted teeth.

"Besides, we had seven Digimon tagging along to help us out then!" Joe added "What the heck are we supposed to do on our own?"

"We have ONE Digimon with us!" Mimi shouted, pointing at Pandoramon even though Joe and Tai couldn't see her through the dark.

"Oh, yeah. Sure. Let's place all of our hopes in the hands of the one who got us in this whole mess in the first place." Joe scoffed.

"Besides, what exactly does your mysterious friend down there say she can do?" Tai asked.

"Hey, that's a pretty good question." Mimi muttered "She never really did explain just how she was going to help us. I mean, no offence, but you don't exactly look like much of a fighting machine, Pandoramon. How are you supposed to do anything to Leomon?"

"She doesn't have to." Matt answered "As long as she can do whatever it is she does to sense him and his buddies and keep us away from them, it doesn't matter if she can't actually stop them."

"But I can! I can!" Pandoramon objected "I can keep them from coming anywhere near me! I can!"

"Uh huh, sure." Matt replied, dismissively "You can't even stand up on your own. Is Leomon supposed to trip over you?"

"I don't have to stand up...Well, OK, maybe I do; but the important part is this!" Pandoramon insisted, waving her staff in Matt's face "As long as I have this, Leomon can come close to you, and neither can anyone else that I don't want!"

"Oh, so you CAN fight?" Sora asked.

"I don't have to, see this? See this part?" Pandoramon asked, pointing staff at Sora and wrapping her other arm around Matt's neck (nearly cutting off his air again) to point at the odd looking ring that seemed to be floating at the tip of the staff.

"Yeah, what about it?" Sora asked, not sure what she was supposed to be looking for.

"I made it. All by myself, I made it. I've had it for years. Even Devimon doesn't know I did it. It's my little secret!" Pandoramon explained, with a mischievous grin that almost looked painful.

"Well, good for you. Why do we care?" Matt asked, pulling Pandoramon's arm off of his neck.

"Because I made the Black Gears too, remember?" Pandoramon replied.

"Whoa, wait!" Joe shouted "I don't remember that!"

"When I made them, I also made this to stop them!" Pandoramon continued "I can use this micro-generator to project a barrier: a repelling field that will immobilize any Black Gears that come into contact with the field perimeter!"

"Well, since Izzy's not here to figure out just what the heck that was, come again?" Tai asked.

"Ooooh, let me try again. Um" Pandoramon muttered, trying to piece together some less technical words "It's a...Um...A wall, no, a net, that catches Black Gears. Any...Eer, if a Digimon has a Black Gear spinning inside it, it gets stuck and has to go back!"

"Well, now!" Mimi laughed "That's a handy little thing to have!"

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute." Joe interrupted "You mean you built the Black Gears?"

"That was a long time ago, Joe. Get over it!" Matt yelled, not wanting him to drive Pandoramon into yet another pity party.

"Well, if she did. Then why the heck would she want to invent something that would make them useless?" Tai asked.

"I dunno. I figured out how to do it, so I did." Pandoramon answered, matter-of-factly "Why else would I?"

"Um...Whatever. Never mind." Tai replied "Now, what are we going to about getting you all up here?"

"I can do it! I can do it!" Pandoramon yelled "Just like I helped Matt! He can tell you!"

"Um, Well, lessee" Matt began "She's got this little rope trick thing she does where"

"Velvet Strand!" Pandoramon shouted suddenly, pointing her arm up at the hole above and firing a thin, shimmering beam at the ceiling of Joe and Tai's hall.

"GAH! What's that?" Joe shouted.

"That's how I got out of that pile of rubble." Matt explained.

"Go ahead. Climb up! It's OK!" Pandoramon said to Sora and Mimi.

"What, climb on this?" Sora asked, eyeing the beam uncertainly "But it just looks like a beam of light! How can we...HEY! It's like a rope!"

"Uh huh!" Pandoramon laughed, nodding her head vigorously "As long as you don't let go, you can climb just fine!"

"Well, OK." Sora replied, making her way up the beam.

"Oh no...GO FASTER! GO FASTER!!!" Pandoramon shouted.

"What? What's the matter?" Matt demanded.

"Leomon! Leomon's on this floor!" she shouted.

"WHAT?" Mimi shrieked "How close is he?"

"Not close, he's still far away." Pandoramon answered, wincing somewhat as she sensed him "But you still need to move fast."

"No argument there!" Sora agreed, making her way up the beam. In a matter of minutes, both Sora and Mimi had managed to climb their way up to the next level without incident.

"OK, Matt! Your turn!" Mimi shouted.

"NO no no no, Matt comes with me!" Pandoramon insisted.

"Hey, wait a minute. How exactly are you going to get up here anyway?" Sora asked "That beam is coming right out of our hand. How are you going to climb?"

"Oh, I don't have to climb!" Pandoramon laughed.

"Uh, guys? You might want to take a step or two away from the beam," Matt warned "unless you want to catch us, that is."

"Er, whatever. What do you-" Joe began. Whatever he was planning to say, he forgot it when Pandoramon and Matt suddenly shot up the beam and landed right next to him "Oh...I see"

"Well, that's a nice thing to have in a place like this." Sora muttered.

"So, this is the mysterious Pandoramon." Tai mussed, getting much closer to the shy Digimon than she would have preferred. "HEY, WOW! You're pretty cute! You didn't say that-" before he could finish, Pandoramon brought her staff crashing down onto Tai's scull.

"Hey, you really are useful to have around!" Matt commented, suddenly enjoying himself greatly.

"Ouch" Tai moaned, rubbing considerable welt on his head "For such a scrawny thing, you pack one heck of a punch."

"So, um, where are we going now?" Mimi asked "If Leomon's really don't there, I don't think it's a good idea to be hanging around here."

"It's not, let's get moving." Matt agreed "If we're all here, that means T.K. and Izzy are above us in that direction. Let's go get them."

"Sound like a plan to me." Sora replied "Do you think that-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" Pandoramon screamed suddenly "OH NO OH NO OH NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!"

"What? What's wrong?" Matt demanded.

"Leomon! He's here!" Pandoramon answered, franticly "He's up here!"

"What? But you said he was-" Tai began to object.

"I know I did, but he's not far away any more, he's here! I don't know how!" Pandoramon shouted "We have to go, NOW!"

"Where? Where is he?" Tai asked, franticly looking around in the dark.

"We have to...We need to go that way!" Pandoramon insisted, pointing behind them.

"But...T.K.'s the other way! We can't-" Matt objected.

"We HAVE to go that way!" Pandoramon pleaded, tugging at Matt's arm "We have to! We have to!"

"All right, all right!" Matt shouted, reluctantly "But you'd better figure out a way to get us to T.K. VERY quickly!"

"Come on, already! Let's go!" Tai shouted already making his way down the hall.

"Don't get your hair in a wad, we're coming!" Matt replied, asking off with the rest of the group. No sooner had they started running than they found themselves coming up to a fork in the hall."

"Um, Pandoramon? A little help?" Joe asked, tapping his Digivice "both of these look equally bad on the map."

"Uh...Go to the left. NO! The right! We need to go right!" Pandoramon shouted.

"That didn't inspire a lot of confidence in me." Joe muttered, going right anyway.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no. He's getting closer. Much too close. We need to go faster!" Pandoramon whimpered.

"I don't get it, when did he get so fast?" Matt asked "He was sure taking his time before!"

"I don't understand!" Pandoramon moaned, her fractured mind racing "He wasn't...He was being careful before. He wouldn't...If he's making a move now, that means...DAMN! How did I not remember this?"

"What? See what?" Matt demanded.

"The service corridor!" Pandoramon explained, aghast that she'd overlooked it "There's a passage way inside the wall next to us! They blocked it up before they put you down here, but Leomon must have opened it up! Oh no...He's going to surround us!

"What happened to your big fancy Black Gear net?" Joe asked.

"Yeah, I though you said that he couldn't get near us!" Tai added.

"I can't...Is isn't...I have to concentrate very hard to make it work!" Pandoramon explained "I can't do it while we're moving like this! We'd have to...They've got us." Just as the words left her mouth, the walls in front of and behind the group erupted in a spray of fire and debris, knocking the six of them to the floor. Looking up, they could see a myriad of strange and frightening outlines emerging from the clouds of dust.

"I don't know how you managed to evade me for this long," a low, booming voice declared from one of the outlines "but this chase ends here."

"Uh oh, is that who I think it is?" Sora asked, timidly.

"Leomon." Pandoramon whispered, coldly.

"Defiance of Devimon such as yours must bring punishment." Leomon continued, emerging from the smoke and dust. Even then, it was difficult to see him. He seemed to be covered in some kind of dark film that nearly blended in with the walls around him. The only part of his body that stood out in the dark were two glowing red eyes. "I have been instructed to insure that it does."

"Matt" Pandoramon said, quietly "You need to get in the service corridor; it's empty now."

"But how?" Matt asked "In case you haven't noticed, we're surrounded."

"Exactly." Pandoramon answered, much more steadily than usual as she started to prop herself up with her staff "So we don't have to worry about running anymore."

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Mimi shouted.

"The barrier, you fool!" Pandoramon shouted with a firm intensity that none of them has seen in her before "Just get ready to move!"

"Pandoramon?" Leomon shouted, aghast "What sort of betrayal is this?"

"Oh, if you only knew what I now know about betrayal." Pandoramon replied with an angry grin, somehow standing almost straight at this point "You'd beg me to kill you right here."

"I don't know what madness has possessed you, Pandoramon," Leomon declared, lunging at Pandoramon "but I will present what's left of you to Lord Devimon along with the humans' heads!"

"Not while I'm around you won't!" Pandoramon shouted, thrusting her staff out in front of her. Suddenly, a blinding blue light erupted from the ring at the tip, bringing Leomon and his companions to a halt.

"WHOA! What is this?" Matt shouted, his eyes, having spent nearly two days in the dark, struggling to cope with the incredible light. Next to him, almost engulfed in the glow, Pandoramon's staff was erupting with wave after wave of light. But wasn't the light that was holding Matt's attention, it was the Digimon holding the staff. Even without the light, it was almost impossible to recognize her as the same Pandoramon who only seconds before could barely stand on her own. Now she stood as steadily as if she had never had a problem doing so in her life. Stranger still, her dark dress was drifting around and wrapping along with the beams of light, almost as if she was standing underwater. Not just her clothes, but her hair and even her wings were being lifted up against gravity, yet Matt was still firmly planted on the ground. And then there was her face...Pandoramon was gazing directly into the eyes of Leomon with an intensity that he hadn't imagined she was capable of.

"You aren't going to come one step closer unless I say you can," she whispered with a cold fury "and that is NOT going to happen."

Roughly twenty feet around the cluster of humans on all sides, some kind of bubble had erected itself between them and Lemon's forces. It looked just like the surface of a pool of water, except on it's side and without the water. Leomon rabidly fought to penetrate the barrier, but to no avail. His limbs were passing through as if it wasn't there, but something was holding his chest back like a brick wall.

"Whoa...You rock, Pandoramon!" Tai muttered, looking around him in a bit of a daze.

"I'll say" Mimi concurred, rubbing her sore eyes.

"You don't have a lot of time." Pandoramon quietly instructed "Get in the corridor before they have time to figure out that's what your doing."

"Um, yes Ma'am!" Joe replied, quickly moving to one of the holes the Digimon has blown in the wall.

"Well, are you coming?" Sora shouted to Matt, who was still sitting next to Pandoramon.

"Of course I am!" Matt shouted back "Come on, Pandoramon, let's get out of here!"

"Hold on!" Pandoramon replied, slowly stepping back towards the corridor "Do you want me to lose my concentration and drop this whole thing?"

"Well, can't you concentrate just a little bit faster?" Mimi asked, gazing uncomfortably at the Digimon just on the other side of the barrier "This is REALLY giving me the creeps!"

"Don't worry, the barrier moves as I do." Pandoramon assured her "Those fellows are going to be well out of striking range in just a moment."

"So, um, if you don't mind my asking, when did you learn to walk?" Matt asked, very confused.

"Hey, I haven't always been a rambling invalid." Pandoramon replied with a grin "Maybe I just like having you carry me around?"

"Oh, come on!" Matt scoffed "There's no was you were faking all that, so what happened?"

"Look, I just needed a little kick in the pants to remember how, and this was it." Pandoramon explained "Now hurry up and get in that corridor!"

"Grrrrrrrr...Very well." Leomon muttered, giving up on breaking through the barrier "THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME! GET TO EVERY EXIT OF THAT CORRIDOR AND WAIT FOR THEM! Rest assured, Pandoramon, Lord Devimon will hear of your treachery!"

"Well, then, you tell Lord Devimon that I will not sit by and allow him to feed the Digital World to destruction." Pandoramon instructed "Nor will I allow him to harm these humans."

"You would do well to not overestimate the strength of your little barrier." Leomon warned as he turned to leave "It may protect you from me at the moment, but it will not hold Lord Devimon. I promise you that you will not leave this mountain alive."

"Perhaps not." Pandoramon quietly said as she stepped into the corridor "But I won't be the only one." As soon as Pandoramon was inside the corridor, she lowered her staff and let the barrier fall. As it did, she raised her had up towards the ceiling and projected another "Velvet Strand". This time, however, it started to bunch up all over the ceiling in front of her. Before anyone had a chance to ask what she was doing, the strand began to glow brightly and then exploded, bringing the ceiling down in front of the opening to the corridor. As soon as this was done, Pandoramon's body went limp collapsed onto the floor.

"Whoa! Are you alright?" Matt shouted, brushing a few stray pieces of ceiling off of Pandoramon and helping her up.

"You...There isn't much time." Pandoramon said faintly "The east passage...there is a way out of this corridor before the...Leomon doesn't know about it yet, but Devimon will tell him. You have to get there first."

"Well? What are we waiting for?" Tai demanded "Let's go!"

"Alright, alright! Let's go!" Matt shouted, throwing Pandoramon's arms around his neck and carrying her on his back as he caught up with his companions. The whole time, Matt's mind raced furiously to figure out just what exactly had happened to Pandoramon back there, without much success, but it would be some time before he realized that she had the prettiest smile he'd ever seen.

"and then she collapsed the ceiling, blocking off the corridor. I've stationed guards at all of the exits, so we will know it when they attempt to emerge." Leomon stated, wrapping up his report to Devimon. He had expected Devimon to chide him for allowing the humans to get the better of him, but he did not. In fact, Devimon said nothing whatsoever, he didn't even look at Leomon. Instead, he simply stood there, starring out into empty space.

"There may yet be some way to trace Pandoramon, or at least penetrate this... barrier she's concocted. What is it you wish for me to do, Master?" Leomon asked, receiving nothing but more silence.

"Lord Devimon," Kokuwamon announced nervously from behind Leomon "we have just finished our investigation of the transmitter room. It appears that someone has torn something out of the operations console. There are pieces of it thrown all over the place, though I'm not exactly sure which parts they are. I never actually did maintenance on any of the controls so...Um, never mind. Anyway, there also seems to be some kind of shaft opened in the floor of the room, I have a team checking it right now to see where it leads. Do you have any further instructions?"

Once again, Devimon responded by not responding at all.

"Um...I guess I should go and help them check out that shaft?" Kokuwamon inquired. When he didn't get an answer, he figured that he probably ought to and left.

"I don't believe Ogermon has made a report on his search for Centarumon and Unimon, Master, would you like me to check on his progress?" Leomon asked, receiving no answer. He started to leave and check on Ogermon, but stopped long enough to say "Master I...I'm sorry Pandoramon has betrayed you. I know how long she has served you. But I promise that she will be made to pay for her crimes!"

For just a moment, it looked like Devimon might actually say something in response to that; but, instead, he simply sighed and continued to stare silently into the dark.

"I'm telling you, she has to be faking it!" Tai insisted "Just make her walk!"

"Hey, no way!" Sora replied firmly "I saw the way she fell the last time we tried that. That was not a fake fall!"

"Well, she sure could walk well back there with Leomon!" Tai pointed out.

"That wasn't...It was different then." Pandoramon insisted from her perch on Matt's back "It was easier to concentrate."

"What, on walking?" Joe asked.

"On everything!" Pandoramon corrected "Now I...Everything gets...It's too hard to concentrate now. I...My mind keeps wandering all the time, I don't...I can't stay focused."

"So, why was it easier to concentrate back there?" Matt asked.

"Well, because I had to take care of you, of course!" Pandoramon replied with a smile and a sharp laugh. Looking at her then, Matt couldn't help but be startled by how totally different Pandoramon looked now. The "smile" on her face now could only be called a smile because that was apparently what Pandoramon had had in mind. The result, however, looked more like someone had grabbed onto her cheeks and given them a tug. He couldn't help but be taken aback at how drastic the change was.

"Hey, why did...Why are you" Pandoramon stuttered, noticing the odd look on Matt's face "You're scared of me"

"What?" Matt replied, startled "No I'm not! What are you talking about?"

"Yes you are! I could see it." Pandoramon insisted "You ARE scared of me!"

"No I'm not!" Matt said firmly "It's just...I didn't realize how different you look now from how you did before. You know? It just kind of threw me for a second, that's all."

"Oh" Pandoramon whispered sadly, gazing down at the ground "I understand"

"OK, good." Matt muttered, glancing over at Mimi's Digivice to see where they were.

"You know" Pandoramon continued, softly "I used to be like that all the time"

"Uh huh, that's nice." Matt replied, not really paying attention.

"Did you like me better that way?" Pandoramon asked.

"Uh, I dunno, maybe. I wasn't paying attention." Matt muttered off- handedly.

"Oh...OK." Pandoramon whimpered, falling silent.

"Oh, Matt." Mimi sighed, with more than a hint of disgust "You are hopeless, you know that? Totally, utterly hopeless!"

"What?" Matt objected "What did I do?"

"Nothing, that's the point!" Mimi insisted.

"What?" Matt objected, totally unsure what was going on.

"Forget it." Mimi replied, waving him off "Just forget it!"

"Oh no! STOP!" Pandoramon shouted suddenly.

"What? What's going on?" Sora inquired, involuntarily looking around her.

"There's a guard...No, two guard in the next hall." Pandoramon replied "About...Thirty feet away from the intersection you need to go through."

"Oh great. Is there any way around them?" Matt asked, wishing he could pull his Digivice out of his pocket without allowing Pandoramon to drop to the floor.

"No. No way around." Pandoramon answered, unhappily.

"And we sure can't go back." Sora added "Leomon will be finding that doorway we used to get out of the corridor any minute now."

"Wait a minute" Tai whispered, creeping up to the intersection between halls "Which direction are these guys?"

"To the left." Pandoramon whispered back.

"Ok...Let's see" Tai muttered to himself, taking a quick peek down the hall in question "Alright! They're having a snack or something! Neither one of `em are looking this way!"

"Huh?" Joe asked "How can you tell, in all this dark?"

"They've got a little campfire or something going." Tai explained "Guess they don't like the dark any more than we do."

"Are you sure they're not looking this way?" Matt asked "Absolutely positive?"

"Yeah, man!" Tai insisted "They're totally zoned out!"

"Hmmm...In that case" Matt whispered, looking for himself "Where do we need to go after this intersection?"

"There's another intersection just after this one." Pandoramon explained "None of these halls were blocked up since you weren't supposed to know how to get in here. See they, wait, that's not what you asked...When you get to the next intersection, go right."

"Alright." Matt decided "We're going across while those guys aren't looking. I think it goes without saying to be quiet."

"Nobody sneeze." Joe added, taking a deep breath so that he wouldn't have to go through the noisy trouble of breathing.

With that, the band of intrepid humans set out across the hall as slowly and carefully as they could, only to discover just how noisy being "quiet" can actually be. Having spent so much time talking (or, as the case usually was, arguing), none of them had ever really taken the time to notice just how many sounds resulted from clothing rubbing against each other or a shoe, or even a bare foot, landing on a stone floor. Frankly, if felt like they couldn't have been making more of a racket if they had been dragging a garbage can full of angry cats behind them. Even the sound of their own hearts beating seemed too loud, and the knowledge that the slightest detectable sound could signal the end of their lives had a way of making their heats beat very heavily. It also didn't help much that the faint campfire the Digimon has set up was just bright enough to throw a few long, disproportionate shadows on the floor before them before being engulfed by the murky dark. In their tense to the point of irrational state, the highly tense humans couldn't bring themselves to step in the Digimon's shadows, as if they might somehow alert them to their presence by walking on them. To top it all off, the hall seemed to be far wider than it had seemed before setting out across it, like the other end was inching itself away from the humans to torment them. Finally, after an excruciatingly long time that was actually less than a minute, the nervous pack of humans made it into the hall waiting on the other side. Now wanting to spend another second near those guards, they ran headfirst into the next intersectionand right on top of a sleeping Devidramon.

"Whoa! Where'd he come from?" Mimi shrieked, as the now half-awake Digimon squirmed his way out from underneath the startled humans standing on him.

"I don't know, and I don't care!" Tai shouted, grabbing Mimi and dashing in the opposite direction on the groggy Devidramon "Let's just get out of here before that guy realizes that he didn't dream us!"

"But...But Pandoramon said that we need to go the other way!" Mimi protested, even though she was running just as fast as Tai.

"Well, she didn't say anything about any big, sleeping Digimon being in the way, so what does she know?" Tai pointed out.

"Hey, yeah. Why didn't you warn us about that guy, Pandoramon?...Pandoramon?" with a start, Mimi suddenly realized that she and Tai were the only people in hall "Wha...Where is everybody...AHHHH!!! DID THAT THING GET THEM?"

"Hold on, hold on...Let me see" Tai shouted, franticly checking his Digivice "AWWW, come on!!! There was a fork in the hall! Everyone else is in the other one!"

"But...Where are we?" Mimi asked, checking her own Digivice.

"How should I know?" Tai replied "We're here, and they're over there!"

"But...Pandoramon's the only one who knows where we're going!" Mimi protested "How...How are we gonna get back to the others?"

"I don't know, I don't see any connections other than the one we were just in," Tai answered "and there's no way I'm going back there again!"

"Then...You mean...We're lost?" Mimi whimpered.

"If you ask me, we've been lost this whole time." Tai replied "Now we're just not listening to some wacko chick steering us in circles."

"Exactly! We're all alone now!!!" Mimi whined "What'll we do if we run into another...another one of those things?"

"We'll do what we're doing right now!" Tai answered "We'll RUN!"

"Ohhh" Mimi moaned, sick and tired of running "Where are you Palmon?"

If there was one virtue of combat that few would-be warriors failed to grasp the importance of, it was patience. A true warrior must always wait for the right moment, and ONLY the right moment, to strike. Rushing into a battle as soon as it is immediately convenient to do so never fails to result in mistakes and complications. True, a powerful warrior ought to have the adaptability and strength to get himself out of an unexpected predicament, but the truly seasoned warrior will wait until the timing is exactly right, regardless of how long it takes. Very few of Unimon and Centarumon's students had ever grasped the importance of such patience, not when they had to put it into practice, anyway. Leomon certainly didn't, and look at where it got him. No, Unimon and Centarumon were going to make sure that the time was just right before they made their move.

Still, it was somewhat frustrating to be perched right across the hall for the seven Digidestined Digimon and not be able to do anything about it.

"Well? What do you think?" Unimon whispered, eyeing the row of guards inform of the Digimon's holding cell, not even thinking about the ones inside the cell yet.

"These fellows out here aren't the problem." Centaromon replied "It's the ones inside the cell that will be a problem. The second they get a hint that something is wrong out here, they'll barricade themselves inside, and it's anyone's guess what they'll do to those poor Digimon if they start to panic."

"And, of course, waiting for a shift change won't do us any good." Unimon added "Then there will just be twice as many guards."

"Well...You could always go down there and say that you're delivering a pizza." Centarumon suggested.

"Surely you jest!" Unimon replied with a laugh "Still, I just might if it'll get me out of this little borough of yours. Couldn't you have cut our just a few more inches?"

"I was going to, but then those Mekanorimon showed up." Centarumon explained "I doubt that they would have been considerate enough to allow me to make it any wider before he hid in here."

"Maybe so," Unimon sighed "but I intend to complain about it until the second we get out of here."

"Come on! Haven't Unimon and Centarumon showed up yet?" Ogermon inquired, emerging from one of the hallways to the side.

"Negative, sir." the leader of the guard replied.

"Aww, this is ridiculous!" Ogermon whined "They've gotta be someplace in this mountain! They're idiots, but not wusses; they're not gonna leave until they make one huge mess of things in here...Alright you guys; come with me?"

"Which ones, sir?" the leader replied.

"ALL OF YOU!!!" Ogermon bellowed "I need every warm body I can spare looking for those two, and there's already ten guards inside the cell! You tell them to come out and fill in for you!"

"But...We were instructed to have a full compliment of guards maintaining eye contact with the prisoners!"

"THEY'RE SO DOPED UP THEY CAN"T MOVE!!!" Ogermon laughed "What are they gonna do? Now come on before I drag you all in front of Lord Devimon and let him teach you to respect your superiors!"

Sufficiently frightened of the consequences of not obeying, the row of guards followed Ogermon as the second group of guards filed out of the cell and took up their places outside the door.

"Thank the heavens for pure stupidity." Unimon muttered with a grin as Ogermon's group disappeared from view. Once they were sure no one was around to hear, Centarumon blew out the wall separating them from the cell's guards. They were dead and the door was blown open before most of the debris had a chance to hid the floor. In the cell, sprawled unceremoniously on the floor, were the seven Digimon.

"Well now, don't you all look heroic?" Centarumon snickered, scooping several of the half-conscious Digimon up and placing them on Unimon's back.

"Hey...I know you two" Tentomon babbled, with a highly slurred voice "Just...Give me a second to come up with your names"

"You just take it easy there, little one." Unimon laughed "We'd better find someplace else to lay low and wait for the drugs to get out of their system."

"I have a feeling a bite to eat wouldn't hurt either." Centarumon added, checking to make sure no one was in the hall outside.

"Eat...I know how to do that" Gabumon muttered sleepily.

"Hey, you be quiet up there!" Unimon scolded "We've got to be quiet or Devimon will find us!"

"Devi...mon?" Biyomon asked from Centarumon's arms "Isn't he a friend of ours?"

"Just calm down, you all." Centarumon replied, making his way down the hall

"You'll remember everything once your heads have had a chance to clear up."

"Hey...I know someone with a really funny looking head." Patamon gurgled "He had this green thing growing out of the top...I wonder what ever happened to him?"

"But...I don't understand" T.K. groaned, getting more than a little tired of propping Izzy up as he walked "Why did they split up?"

"Presumably for the same reason they didn't make it to our position." Izzy postulated "Something must have intercepted them, and now they're fleeing it."

"Yeah, I know that's what you said earlier," T.K. replied "but I was thinking. If some kind of bad guy or something is chasing them, why isn't there one chasing us right now?"

"I was wondering that myself." Izzy confessed "After all, the fact that someone was around to knock the floor out from beneath us before strongly suggests that something has been keeping track of our position; yet I have yet to see a single change in the Digivice hazard indicator for hours."

"So what do you think is going on?" T.K. asked.

"I suppose it could be that Devimon is more interested in preventing the others from remaining in a group." Izzy suggested "He might with to deal with us in smaller groups."

"But you and me are already a really small group." T.K. pointed out "If it were me, I'd go after us first."

"Yes, as would I, unfortunately." Izzy agreed, uneasily "Therefore, it would stand to reason that the others have somehow done something that has made them more of a threat to Devimon than we currently are."

"I wonder what it was they did?" T.K. wondered.

"That's a good question, seeing that none of us are exactly much of a threat to Devimon without a herd of Digimon with us." Izzy commented "I suppose that the only thing they could possibly do would be to steal something that Devimon greatly desires to have back, although I have no idea whatsoever what they could possibly come across in here that Devimon could want so badly."

"I am so sorry I didn't notice him sooner. I am SO sorry!" Pandoramon whimpered, as she had for nearly half an hour since their encounter with the Devidramon "I was just so worried about the other two guards that I didn't sense him! I'm sorry"

"Look, we get it, all right?" Matt sighed "We know that you're sorry!"

"Don't worry about it, Pandoramon." Sora assured her "Even our Digivices were too caught up in being worried about those other guys to notice him. You don't need to beat yourself up for it."

"Yes I do" Pandoramon insisted "I needed...I should have known he was there."

"Um, don't you think we've gotten far enough away from anything to take a rest?" Joe asked "I REALLY need a rest right about now."

"Well, here's your chance to redeem yourself." Matt said to Pandoramon "Are there any unfriendly Digimon hanging around here?"

"No...No one's nearby." Pandoramon responded after a moment.

"Well then, let's kick back for a minute." Matt replied, carefully letting Pandoramon down before taking a seat himself.

"I wonder how Tai and Mimi are doing." Sora mused, rubbing her tired legs.

"I'm sure they're fine." Joe answered, checking his map "According to this, they'll get to Izzy and T.K. a while before we do."

"Oh, that's just swell." Matt grunted, for some reason very annoyed at the thought of Tai finding T.K. before he did.

"Say, just how long do you think that we've been in here, anyway?" Joe wondered "I'd like to know if I can officially be considered to be starving yet.

"You have been inside this labyrinth for roughly seventeen and one half hours, plus five hour in a holding cell while preparations were being made." Pandoramon answered, absentmindedly.

"Well, no wonder I'm starving!" Joe moaned "Not to mention dieing of thirst."

"OH! You...You're hungry?" Pandoramon shouted, jerking forward violently "Are you all hungry?"

"Yeah, why?" Matt asked.

"I'm sorry, here you go." Pandoramon said, reaching her arm up her sleeve and pulling out a kind of a flask "I wish you had said so earlier. This will make you feel better!"

"What is it?" Matt asked, taking the flask and giving it a shake "Is it water?"

"Oh, much better than water! I fixed it myself!" Pandoramon answered "Don't worry, it's good for you!"

"Whoa, wait a minute, Matt!" Joe interrupted "That stuff may be good for a Digimon, but that doesn't mean it'll be the least bit safe for us to touch, especially if she's been screwing around with it!"

"But my Healing Touch worked just fine on Matt!" Pandoramon objected, clearly angry, but in a non-threatening, almost childish way "Humans aren't that different from Digimon! Well, I don't think...Um, maybe...Eer, I don't know"

"Well, seeing that we all may very well die in here anyway" Matt muttered with a shrug, opening the flask and taking a generous swallow of the contents. The watery concoction didn't have much of a flavor to it, but once he swallowed he felt like he had just downed half of a sandwich in a single, tremendous bite.

"Whoa!" Matt laughed, whipping a few stray trickles from his mouth "That's some powerful stuff!"

"Really? Is it OK?" Joe asked.

"Well, I don't feel dead." Matt replied, tossing the flask to Joe "Here, knock yourself out. Just make sure that you leave enough for when we catch up with T.K."

"Not to mention Izzy, Mimi, and Tai." Sora added.

"Well, you know what I mean." Matt said with a sigh.

"So...You feel better now?" Pandoramon inquired, looking over Matt curiously.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Matt muttered, stretching "Oh, that's right. Don't you want some...whatever that stuff is called?"

"No...I'm not very hungry" Pandoramon answered before falling silent. No one else said much of anything either for several minutes until Pandoramon piped up again "Matt?"

"Yeah? What is it?" Matt asked, having been thinking about nothing in particular and not too happy about his concentration being broken.

"How...What do you think of me?" she asked meekly.

"Uh...What?" Matt stuttered, confused "I...Uh, I don't know."

"Oh" Pandoramon sighed, going silent for a minute or so before asking "Do you like me, Matt?"

"W-Wha...Do I...Um" Matt stammered, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable "I...Uh...Well, um, I...Uh...I mean...Well, I guess, um...Now that...Uh, I...Y-yeah, I-I guess so. Sure."

"Hehe, well I like you too." Pandoramon replied with a grin. For a moment, just a brief one, a trace of the Pandoramon Matt had already glimpsed twice before appeared again. Unlike the many contorted, painful looking expressions Pandoramon had been making, the faint trace of a smile that has slipped onto Pandoramon's lips seemed totally soft and natural. As soon as matt noticed it, however, Pandoramon's face had again become the strange, vaguely unsettling visage it was before.

"Man...And they say that I'm bad with girls. He's a real lady's man, huh?" Joe whisper to Sora, who seemed to be gazing at Matt and Pandoramon very intently "Um, Sora? Hey, are you there?"

"Huh?" Sora started, jumping slightly.

"Whoa, sorry about that. Are you OK?" Joe asked.

"Yeah! Yeah, sure, I'm fine." Sora said, with a laugh "I guess I just kind of zoned out there for a sec'."

"Yeah, guess so." Joe agreed, deciding to give up on any conversation for the time being and try to get just a little bit of sleep while they were stopped. Sora decided to do the same, though not before casting another, involuntary glance over at Matt and Pandoramon.

"No, I'm not going to stop, Tai, now stop asking!" Mimi shouted for the tenth time in the past five minutes.

"Mimi, I can't even believe you're saying that!" Tai groaned "You the one who said you were tired and hungry and thirsty!"

"Yeah, but I'm gonna be tired and hungry and thirsty whether we stop or not." Mimi replied "And there's no WAY I'm gonna just sit around and wait for some giant, bloodthirsty Digimon to sneak up behind me and suck my brains out! I'm gong to go find T.K. and Izzy and that's final!"

"Aww, I don't believe this." Tai whined "You're starting to sound just like Matt."

"Well, you know what? Thank you!" Mimi shot back "At least matt usually has some idea of what to do, unlike you slacker!"

"Oh yeah, like you should be telling ME about being a slacker." Tai laughed "When have you ever done any grand service to humanity?"

"Hey, I actually have a job, thank you!" Mimi protested.

"Yeah, what?" Tai asked, mockingly "Standing around in some cloths store squirting perfume into people's faces?"

"Now, don't you make fun of those poor girls." Mimi warned "I've seen how angry some guys get when they do that. That job takes a lot of guts!"

"Good thing the brain isn't a gut." Tai muttered to himself, just loud enough for Mimi to hear.

"You know what?" Mimi said, through gritted teeth "I'm really starting to see why Matt doesn't like you."

"What are you talking about?" Tai asked, absentmindedly "Matt doesn't like anybody!"

"Well...OK, I guess you have a point there." Mimi conceded "But he doesn't like you more than he doesn't like everyone else."

"Yeah, right. I just make him show it more." Tai corrected "You guys are all just too scared to stand up to him."

"Why would anybody want to? I wouldn't" Mimi laughed.

"Why, just `cause he's Mr. Dreamboat?" Tai replied "Whatever you say."

"Well, it's not like you'd know about that kind of thing." Mimi snickered "A stoner like you is about as far away from `dreamboat' as you can get."

"And I'm supposed to mind?" Tai shot back "Heck, I'm glad about it if being a `dreamboat' also means being a self-absorbed, smart-alecky, suicidal, and probably homicidal American immigrant."

"Whoa, hey, wait a minute!" Mimi interrupted "My parents are American immigrants, thank you."

"Yeah, whatever." Tai shrugged "You know what I mean."

"And, besides, you're in no position to talk about being a 'self-absorbed smart-aleck' anyway." Mimi added.

"Awww, that's just your opinion." Tai muttered "At least I'm not taking directions from some twitchy, winged lunatic."

"Ooh, don't pick on Pandoramon." Mimi objected.

"Hey, come on." Tai groaned "Don't tell me you actually think she's not a total nutjob."

"Well, sure she is." Mimi answered "That's why only a jerk would start picking on her."

"What, you mean like tripping a blind guy?" Tai asked, not really caring.

"Exactly, though I wouldn't be surprised if you did that too." Mimi sighed.

"Hey, even I know that there's difference between assaulting a blind guy and pointing out a Digimon who can't blink without looking like she's passing a stone."

"Augh! Tai, you are disgusting!" Mimi groaned.

"Come on!" Tai protested "You're no fun at all, you know that?"

"Awww, that's just your opinion." Mimi joked.

"Seriously, when did you turn into Miss Serious?" Tai asked "You're usually all about having a good time."

"Well, you just wait until we're not trapped in a pitch black maze with bloodthirsty killing machines looking for us," Mimi answered, checking her Digivice "then I'll show you a good time."

"Well, I-Wha...Did...Hey, wait a minute!" Tai stammered, suddenly becoming very uncomfortable as his face turned a deep shade of red "What did you just say?"

"Huh? I just...Uh...ACK!!!" Mimi shrieked, her own face turning very red as she realized just what she'd said "NO, Wait, I didn't...TAI, YOU PERV! STOP STARING AT ME LIKE THAT!!!!"

"What are you yelling at ME for?" Tai shouted "You're the one who said it!"

"Yeah, well you're the one who thought what you're thinking right now!" Mimi insisted, backing a few steps away from Tai.

"HUH?" Tai shouted "Just what am I supposed to be thinking?"

"You know what?" Mimi shouted back "I'm afraid to ask, you creep!"

"Why am I the creep?" Tai asked "I'm not the one who offered-"

"That's it!" Mimi declared "Next fork in the hall we come too, you're going off on your own!"

"Oh, just give it up, will you?" Tai sighed.

"No, I will not give it up!" Mimi insisted "Not if you can't at least pretend to act like a gentleman once in your life, not that you'd know what one was if one walked up and kicked you in the head!"

"Oh, for crying out loud" Tai moaned, exasperated "We had better catch up with somebody soon"

"What are we waiting for?" Agumon demanded, weekly attempting to stand up "We can take Devimon and his palls on right...in...just a few more minutes"

"I admire your determination, but that alone won't bring you your strength back." Centarumon cautioned "And you won't be of much use to your companions if you fall over and break your head open."

"But we've got to get down there and help our friends!" Palmon protested, trying to rub the last traces of grogginess out of her eyes, without much success.

"Agreed, but you'll wait until you can stand on our own two feet first." Unimon replied.

"But how long will that take?" Gomamon asked, in the middle of an involuntary yawn "It's been over an hour already!"

"You shouldn't need to rest for much longer," Unimon answered "but until the point that you're ready you will REST!"

"But I don't wanna!" Patamon whined "I wanna go find T.K!"

"Yeah! And I want to find Sora!" Biyomon agreed.

"Quiet all of you!" Centarumon insisted "I hear another guard coming!"

"Well, if we weren't spending our time hiding in here, we would have to worry about any guard." Tentomon whispered.

"Listen," Centarumon responded, curtly "I'm sure your companions are busy resting themselves, so you should too!"

"Alright, I think that's enough rest." Matt grunted, stretching "In fact we've probably spent too much time laying around here" Looking around him, Matt realized that he was the only one of the group who hadn't fallen asleep. Joe was sprawled quite comically across the stone floor with his gangly limbs in all manner of directions and a sizeable puddle of drool forming next to his mouth. Sora, in contrast, was lying quite gracefully beside him, appearing far calmer than she ought to have been in their current situation. But then, Sora always had a kind of calm and graceful air about her. Then there was Pandoramon, whom he knew was asleep, since she had decided to use him as her pillow. Except for the that incident with Leomon, which Matt was still trying to figure out, there was usually very little about Pandoramon that could be considered either calm or graceful. She usually spent most of the time twitching or bobbing around in odd directions. Even now, asleep on Matt's lap, she still seemed to be unnaturally tense and jumped slightly on occasion. It was really quite annoying, especially since she insisted on clinging onto him as he walked. Of more occasions than Matt could count, he had nearly fallen flat on his face thanks to one of Pandoramon's sudden jerks or twitches. Her highly illuminating manner of speech wasn't much better, either. Matt figured that for every one thought that Pandoramon finished, there had to be at least four that she started and then forgot about. In fact, a part of Matt wanted to believe that she was deliberately trying to get on Matt's nerves, she certainly was succeeding at it.

But, at the same time, there was something else about Pandoramon that...Well, Matt really wasn't entirely sure what it was, but there was something about her. For one thing, as much as Matt avoided dwelling on it, there was no denying that Pandoramon was spectacularly pretty, regardless of what odd directions she might pull her face. And there was also no denying that Pandoramon may well have been the kindest person...No, wait, the kindest Digimon he had ever met. It seemed like half of the words that came out of her mouth were apologies for when she felt like she'd done something to bother Matt...And there it was again, that sudden urge that he was supposed to be protecting her somehow. It was definitely not the sort of urge Matt got very often, chivalry didn't exactly run very deep in his veins. Besides, if anyone was protecting anyone, Pandoramon was protecting him.

Why was she so bent on hanging around him, anyway? That was the thing that bugged Matt the most, he simply couldn't figure out what reason Pandoramon had for clinging to him so obsessively. It wasn't as if he had done anything for her or anything. The only time he had seen her before was when she put him to sleep in the mansion, and he didn't seem to recall do anything that would have made a very good impression on her, not that good anyway. Pandoramon had mentioned something that seemed to be intended along the lines of an explanation once or twice, but like just about everything else she said, Matt could make heads or tails of what she was getting at. Well, he could wonder about that later, right now he needed to get to T.K.

"Hey, wake up." Matt said, nudging Pandoramon "It's time to get moving again."

"Huh...Hello, Matt." Pandoramon yawned, groggily.

"Come on, T.K.'s probably starving by now." Matt muttered, trying to get Pandoramon to sit up "We need to get him some of that miracle drink of yours."

"I had a dream about you, Matt." Pandoramon said, not quite awake yet "You and me were in a really dark place. It was...It kind of looked like this place, but there were no walls. Everything was open, and I...I was the way I used to be."

"Huh?" Matt asked, not quite sure why he was interested "What do you mean?"

"Then...Before...When I wasn't so...Well, you saw. I was almost back to normal when I made the barrier."

"Wait...You mean you really aren't usually so...weird?" Matt asked.

"Not before, but...I don't know if I can...if I'll ever be like that again" Pandoramon answered, sadly "But I was just like that in my dream. And you...You were sad. Very sad."

"You don't say" Matt muttered, not exactly sure he liked the direction Pandoramon's little dream was going "Any idea why?"

"Yes...So many thing...I'm sorry" Pandoramon whispered, her hazy white eyes beginning to fill with tears "I'm so sorry"

"What, what's wrong?"

"Terrible things are about to happen. To you...To everyone...I'm sorry that you're going to have to hurt so much, I really am." Pandoramon told him. It may have been the dead serious expression on her face as she spoke, or maybe it was just the fact that he was already too high strung, but for whatever reason, Matt found himself getting genuinely frightened by what Pandoramon was saying.

"Huh? Wha...How long have I been asleep?" Sora yawned, apparently roused by the conversation.

"Huh?" Matt started, suddenly snapped back to reality "Uh...It's been a while. We, um, really need to get going."

"Oh...OK" Sora replied, slowly rising to her feet "Are you alright?"

"What?" Matt asked, pushing that crazy moment of fear out of his head "Yeah, I'm fine, why?"

"Nothing, I guess" Sora said, giving Joe a gentle kick "Hey, time to get up!"

"Just a few more minutes" Joe muttered.

"Oh no you don't." Matt corrected, giving Joe a far less gentle kick of his own "We're moving now; get up or get left behind."

"Alright, alright, I'm up! I'm up!" Joe stuttered, fumbling around in an attempt to stand.

"Come on!" Matt insisted "We've been hanging around here way too long already!"

"I heard you, I'm coming!" Joe said, finally getting to his feet.

"Good, now let's go." Matt declared, setting of into the dark to track down T.K....

To Be Continued...