Litanya: I do not own Digimon.
Someone has asked me why I choose Tai as my main character. There is a simple answer: he is too good to be true. He's the leader, at the end of 02 he has a good job, everyone respects him and he has a great family. Life just does not work that way and so I make him have problems, like any normal human being.
And don't worry; this WILL be a Taiora, but maybe only in a few chapters.
Chapter 8
"T.K look out!" he had been so absorbed in watching Davis and Cody that he had forgotten to check where the digimon was aiming its next attack. And it happened to be right at him…
He felt himself get thrown to the ground, the tall figure that saved him rolling away. They had only just missed being hit by the wave of water. He heard Yolie gasp and a small cry from Ken and guessed that the digimon had swung his attack around at them. He couldn't see, as he was facing the other way.
"You alright T.K?" he nodded in reply to Tai's question before slowly getting to his feet.
"Yeah, thanks Tai. I owe you one," the older teenager just grinned and shrugged before turning back to the fight. It was going to be a tough battle. This digimon seemed to have the ability to shield itself from any attack, and then shoot its own attack back twice as strong. Even though it was a battle that was six on one, the digidestined were losing.
"Guys, sorry I'm late!" Sora ran to Tai, going to him as if it was a natural thing. Behind her were Kari, Izzy, Joe and Matt, dragging Mimi along behind them. Even though they had no powers of their own, they wanted to do what they could to help out in the fight.
"It's a good thing that you got here Sora. Now duck!" Davis called to her and the auburn haired girl immediately obliged, making the water attack blast a tree behind her to oblivion.
"Thanks Davis!" she called back after the attack had missed. She turned to Tai, who was still beside her. He was studying the enemy closely, as if watching for a weakness.
"Izzy, do you have any info on this guy?" Sora jumped as Tai called to the boy genius, who already had his lap top out.
"His name is Pscychonomon. His main attacks seem to be based on brain wave patterns. In other words, some of the attacks he uses are fake. His real goal is to force the minds of his victims to the brink of insanity," this information did not make the digidestined fighting feel any better.
"Okay, make sure that you dodge every attack. We may not know when his attacks are for real or not," Tai warned them, throwing his gaze aside for a moment to his best friend, before having another staring contest with the enemy. Pscychonomon had not moved since he had tried to attack Sora. Tai knew that the next attack would come suddenly, and it would have disastrous results if it hit. It almost seemed as if Pscychonomon was gathering energy, to use it in his next attack… "Oh no!" Sora looked at him strangely at his whispered comment. She had been the only one to hear him; the others were too far away, watching Pscychonomon carefully.
"What is it Tai?"
"He's gathering energy. He's going to attack real soon, and it's not going to be good if he hits. I have a feeling that we had better strike him down soon, otherwise we won't be around for much longer," without waiting for a response from Sora he moved until he was directly in front of Pscychonomon. Sora knew better than to follow him. Ken and Yolie had been picking themselves up from the ground and T.K had been recovering from his unexpected fall. Davis and Cody had been waiting for Tai to move, somehow sensing that he had a plan.
"So, the digidestined of Courage is trying to figure out my plan. How quaint," Pscychonomon mocked. He did not move anything, not even his mouth. He was communicating with Tai's thoughts, only he could hear him.
"Stop hiding behind your psychic attacks and fight like a digimon," Tai tried to provoke the enemy, but he just laughed instead.
"I know what you're trying to do you know. I am a psychic digimon after all. Your mind games won't work on me," again this was communicated only to Tai. Sora and the others had no idea what was going on. To them it looked like Tai was almost talking to himself.
"You may be a psychic digimon, but you cannot predict everything," he was starting to sound a little crazy, like he was talking to Pscychonomon but also to himself.
"Tai, what's going on?" Ken called from the other side of the digimon.
"He is trying to use psychic attacks to make it seem like I am going crazy. He can communicate with people through their minds. He is trying to create dissent between us. We have to form a plan. Flying trees would be good."
"What would be good?" Davis couldn't believe his ears, "Flying trees? Have you gone crazy or something?" but Tai didn't answer. Instead Yolie launched an attack that looked like it was made up of pieces of a tree trunk. At the same time Ken closed his eyes, as though concentrating on something other than what was happening in front of him. Tai threw a wall of fire at Pscychonomon which could have burnt the 100 acre forest.
"Okay, 'Flying Trees," T.K muttered, staring at the chunks of wood that was Yolie's attack. Pscychonomon laughed before putting a shield up to block both Tai and Yolie's attacks.
"Is that the best you can do? A little bit of wood and fire? Even a young Agumon can do better," but as he said this he was knocked of balance by the shaking ground. Evidently the ground underneath was dirt and not sand, as Ken released his attack. Pscychonomon was knocked off balance, his shield disappearing.
"Everybody; NOW!" the group let off a communal attack, each attacking with their best ability. Ken used water, Yolie attacked with a sandstorm, Cody used some strange technique that looked strangely like he was stretching the enemy digimon, Davis attacked with ice shards, Sora conjured up a mini hurricane and Tai's wall of fire made the area light up as though it was full sunlight. Pscychonomon was caught badly off guard. All that could be heard from him was a loud shriek before he was deleted for forever.
"Boy do we have a lot of explaining to do," Yolie commented, rubbing the back of her left hand surreptitiously. It had started to ache after Pscychonomon had been defeated and she knew that it wasn't a good sign. It was almost as if she had played 'Bloody Mary' and had forgotten to heal her hand, except that it felt grainier, almost like it was filled with sand. But she wasn't the only one who felt that way. Even Tai, who hated showing any sign of weakness, was holding his left hand a little gingerly.
"Geez, ouch my hand is killing me!" Davis exclaimed, rubbing his hand until it turned red. His crest of Miracles was still firmly imbedded into it, much to his dismay. He had been hoping that it had all been a dream.
"It must be a side-effect of the changes that your bodies went through whilst in the co-operative dream. It will pass soon, I'm sure," but the usually confident Izzy did not sound all that confident about this. Something like this had never happened before, and so he had not researched it.
"Yeah, it'll be over soon, like Izzy said. At least your and doesn't feel as if it is on fire," Tai shook his hand around, as though he was trying to cool it down somehow. Sora, on the other hand, was wincing every time the wind blew.
"The wind is being very unkind to me today," she commented, trying to keep a smile on her face. Tai looked at her blankly.
"What wind? Darn this stupid thing… I don't even know when the wind is blowing!" in a way he found it funny, but in another it was a serious problem. If he couldn't feel the wind, how would he know when people were coming if he didn't hear them? But at that moment it didn't matter. He was exhausted. Attacking with a wall of fire took a lot of energy, but he was too proud to allow the others to think that he was tired. If they weren't tired, neither was he.
"At the moment I wish that I couldn't," Sora replied, wincing as her hand throbbed again. T.K's hand didn't exactly hurt, but it was tingling. It was like he had lost all feeling in his hand, although he could still move it. Ken was keeping quiet about his 'injury' as was Cody. Both of them were pretty quiet, although Ken was loud when he wanted to be.
"If you've all stopped complaining, you can go home then," Mrs. Kamiya popped up behind the teenagers without warning. They hadn't even seen her coming.
"Mum, don't do that! You scared me," Kari's heart was pounding in her chest. She had thought that it was Pscychonomon, back for revenge. She was glad that it was only her mother.
"Well, you guys scared me. You've been in comas for nine weeks and the doctors were all confused because of all of the teenagers falling into comas and… you scared me. You and Tai are coming home right now and you're going to have a nice, long talk with your father and I about what really happened," she grabbed Tai's right hand and Kari's left and, with surprising strength, began to pull them away from the group.
"Uh… we'll see you guys later, I guess," Tai called back as he was pulled along. He turned back around and followed his mother along so that he didn't have to be dragged, whilst Kari did the same. After all, being dragged was not fun.
"Uh… see you later Tai, Kari…" but the two teenagers had already disappeared. Their mother had definitely wanted them home.
"Sora, we need to talk now," Sora sighed and appealed to the heavens before she turned to greet her mother. The woman was just giving her daughter a level look and Sora turned back to her friends apologetically.
"I guess I have to go to. I'll see you all later," the other digidestined agreed and then they went their separate ways to find their parents. They knew that they had to explain what had happened, but they also knew that they had to lie. How could they tell their parents that either they themselves or their closest friends now had special powers? The only answer was that they would have to lie. After all, no one was really ready for the idea of a 'gifted' human.
"… and then the powers that we had been granted with disappeared and Pscychonomon was deleted from the world," Tai finished explaining. His parents were looking a shell-shocked from the story that they had just heard. Kari was asleep, her head on the kitchen table. Tai felt like doing the same, but he knew that his parents needed an explanation. After all, their children had been in a coma for nine weeks with no proper medical explanation. Tai's allergy to penicillin would not have caused the coma, and the hit to Kari's head would have only knocked her out for a week at most. They needed an explanation, as dodgy as it would sound.
"So you were all in T.K's dream with an evil digimon that 'experimented' on you. These 'experiments' became reality, until you defeated this digimon guy. But you still have the scar on your hand. Is that it? What about Kari, why doesn't she have something on her hand?" Tai sighed softly to himself, feeling overly exhausted. Their questions seemed to go on and on.
"She was 'experimented' on in the dream. Therefore she didn't get the scar," he hated lying to them, saying that he did not have his 'gift' anymore. His hand was still burning, although it was to a smaller degree. He tried to smother a yawn, but he did not do it properly. His mother saw it.
"I think that I get it now, but you look very tired. You should get to bed now, and so should Kari. It's really late," she tapped Kari on the shoulder and the girl made an incoherent noise. She sat up slowly, her ruby eyes filled with confusion.
"What's happening?" she asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes softly. Her father smiled.
"It's time to go to bed Honey, you're a little tired it seems," Kari smiled a little sheepishly before she got to her feet and shuffled towards her room. Tai wasn't all that far behind her in the journey to his own room.
"Goodnight kids, we'll talk more in the morning," the only reply that they got was a couple of grunts, both Tai and Kari too tired to form the words. But Tai was more exhausted than Kari, as he had used his firepower, literally. He collapsed straight onto his bed as he entered the room, not being bothered changing out of his clothes. He barely managed to close the door before he clutched his hand in pain. The burning sensation was starting to get worse again, causing him to almost writhe in agony.
'I hope this pain stops soon or I'm going to have a major problem,' was his last thought before he let himself drift off into the land of sleep.
All of the digidestined that had been 'experimented' on were in the same shape as Tai. Ken felt that his hand weighed a ton, like it had extra liquid in it. Davis's hand was so cold that it was like it was freezing. Sora's hand hurt every time there was a slight movement in the air around her and Yolie's feeling of sand would not vanish. Cody's hand felt like it was stretching every two seconds and T.K's hand just tingled. Every one of these things was causing an immense amount of pain to the owner of the hand. What do these pains mean? Is it a sign of more bad things to come, or is it as Izzy had said? Let's hope so…
To be continued…
End of Chapter 8
Litanya: Well, there's another chapter. Taiora will be coming soon, very soon in fact. Please review!