Reality Redux
By ArchangelUK & Digicowboy

In the name of the father, the son, and that weird guy who throws cats at people who lives in that old haunted house with the purple roof we do not own Digimon. M'kay?

Chapter 19 - ...Than The Devil You Don't

"Okay. Wherever I am this is not good."

Indeed it was not, ArchangelUK had been split from his body. Now his spirit was floating aimlessly around in what could only be described as a purple fog.

FOUR.....

His head hurt again, odd in that technically he didn't have a head at this moment. Memories seemed to be coming back to him, as if he were - in this incorporeal form - able to access things that his corporeal one was not. Even that notion hurt his head.

FOUR.....FOUR.....FOUR!

"No." He suddenly realised, "Three...not four, but three what." A whispering voice that seemed to be his own answered his question.

"Harbingers."

It all made sense now, he remembered that when Gennai had told him of the Harbingers he had assumed the four evil Digimon were they. As it happened there were only three, he knew this now, but that meant... "One of them is a fake."

Angelus' attention was suddenly attracted by a shimmering image infront of him, he yelped in alarm as someone or something started to materialise.

"Ken Ichijouji, so good see you again."

"I wish I could say the same...huh, no I don't."

"You couldn't defeat me before with all of you trying, so what do you think you can do with only a handful of digimon."

"Why don't you try me out Daemon." Stingmon buzzed, hovering above Ken.

"Yeah, we might just surprise you." ExVeemon smirked, readying himself to attack. Daemon grinned, amused by their contempt towards him.

"You may try foolish Digimon, but I am a Mega level so how do you propose to fight me?"

"Let's DNA Digiv-" Davis was distracted by a shake of Ken's head, his face fell. "-volve?"

"Davis for the umpteenth time we can't anymore."

"Shoot, I keep forgetting that."

"Don't worry Davis, me and Stingmon will take him down."

"Don't forget about us!" Yolei and Jun chorused, Deamon was growing weary of the delay.

"Yes another destined with another champion." He sneered at Aquilamon, and another human who doesn't have a Digimon partner at all.

"But...I'm pretty!" Jun said, giving a lopsided smile.

"VERY debatable." Daemon muttered, "Is that it? Is there no other challenge?"

"Just one." Tai's voice cut through the air, Daemon gave him a quizzical glance.

"And you are?"

"To be honest it's more 'who are you with'?"

"Who are you with then boy?" Tai didn't answer, but then again he didn't need to. His partner answered for him.

"Agumon WARP DIGIVOLVE TO......WARGREYMON!" Daemon looked as though he was choking. Finally he managed to splutter two words -

"Oh nuts."

"Hi there Angelus!" The apparition greeted him warmly, floating about two metres away. Angelus's jaw touched his toes, the ghost was him.

"You-you're me!"

"If you can see me, then you've somehow become detached from your body and your spirit is floating around like some lost helium filled balloon in the Netherplane."

"Netherplane?"

"Honestly Angelus you can get damn sloppy sometimes." GhostAngelus groaned, and Angelus stammered in annoyance.

"Sloppy???"

It was one thing to become, as GhostAngelus said a free-floating spirit, it was quite another to be lambasted by yourself.

"Who are you?"

"I am you, only slightly younger." That did surprise AAUK, he had expected this 'ghost' to be older. "If all has gone to plan you should be well on your way to understanding your true purpose and who you really are. Namely me." GhostAngelus grinned and Angelus suddenly realised he didn't like himself that much.

"Can you be more precise?"

"I'm a sort of interactive recording made by you about, oh, 2 millennia ago." He didn't seem to have any wings which was weird to Angelus seeming as whatever dimension or world he was on his wings always were with him. "I'm here to give me, or rather you a warning. I did send you and the guy you will or have learnt to be the Traveller a message by email."

"I-"

"And before you say 'I wonder how he did that?' it was a timelocked data transmission from the Digital World." That made sense, though Angelus couldn't quite remember if he had received such a message. "I am the backup message if you can call me that, huh, I know what Hotmail can be like sometimes. You might have gotten it beforehand, you might not. If you are as advanced as I hope you are by now you will understand it, if not you will in time. Remember it's my body you're messing around with too, and I don't particularly want to die."

Angelus realised the recording was obviously made before he did 'die', which would probably explain the lack of angel wings as well.

"Strawberry custard barbecue mix." GhostAngelus smiled, Angelus blinked in confusion apparently the interactive recording was a bit corrupted...or simply crap.


"The message - It is in the old Traveller language."

"Oh brilliant(!)" Angelus sighed bringing a translucent hand to his forehead and rubbing his eyes. The recording took no notice and after a deep breath continued, GhostAngelus's voice suddenly turned very high pitched and its unrecorded counterpart realised the noise to be the sounds of a modem. The sounds formed words however, and Angelus recognised those too for it was the very message he and Digicowboy - or as he now knew him Ben - were discussing before they were uploaded to the DigiWorld.

"A'eees coloir dei fol, de suete malarge q'uil wraz Zu'Clarrn fier naqt voulandre sor-lou."

"What does it mean?" Angelus asked, again the 'interactive recording' took no notice. "What does it mean?" He repeated, much slower this time.

"My favourite is Pepperoni." The recording said smiling. "I hope that clears things up for you Angelus." Angelus could have throttled himself, had he not been translucent his face would have been beetroot red with anger.

"WHAT DOES IT MEAN? I don't know the Traveller language! What does it mean you useless moving Polaroid!?!?"

"Your name is Angelus, you are the Gatekeeper." The recording answered, after a moment's pause. "Good luck buddy, and take care."
GhostAngelus vanished as abruptly as he had appeared, Angelus was seething.

"I never was any good at smegging programming(!)" He muttered savagely, propelling his spirit form away from the Netherplane towards something he hoped to be the dark world.

"I can't wake him!" A bruised Sora cried, shaking Angelus's body. Piedmon groaned.

"Nobody listens to me do they?" He asked no-one in particular, holding up his hands to the sky as if in hope it would answer his question. "And why have they stopped fighting? That was fun!"

"Oh get out of my way!" An equally bruised Wolfie pushed Sora away, "I'll wake him up." Wolfie then proceeded to punch Angelus in a place that most men would consider to be a 'tender spot'. Such an action would have normally woken up most of the male gender even those in a twenty year coma. At present however it had little effect except to provide AAUK with a surprise when and if he got back. Sora looked mortified, Biyomon still looked confused, Piedmon was in danger of choking on his popcorn.

"Funny." Wolfie said, scratching her head. "It normally works." She hit him again and so Sora roughly pushed her away.

"STOP DOING THAT!" She roared, Wolfie glared at her.

"Well excuuuuuuse me for trying!" She said folding her arms.

"Tick-tock! Tick-tock!" Piedmon chanted, waving around his gold pocket watch.

"What is it with you and hitting him?" Sora demanded, rising to her feet.

"Bah, you've gotta have a hobby..."

"Biyomon try and digivolve again." The bird did, but with no joy. Sora bent down and yelled in Angelus's ear. "Damnit Angelus get your ass back here!"

"Okay, so that wasn't the Dark World."

Angelus had so far been to his world, the DigiWorld, The DigiDestined World - twice and a couple of places he hoped he never had to see again for as long as he lived or even after he died again for that matter.

There had been a couple of things on his mind, the main one being who the fake Harbinger was. He was rattling off in his mind episodes of Digimon and what happened to the evil digimon in question.

"Devimon: Well Devimon of course was deleted by Angemon in 01...but he had reconfigured by the time 02 had come around. Now he was in that pool wasn't he...the dark pool. Dark Pool? Dark Ocean? Maybe a connection there I think.

Daemon: Well he was sent to the Dark Ocean, kept rabbiting on about 'the powers of darkness'. Extremely powerful Mega...can't see him being the fake.

Dragomon: Slightly disturbing ultimate level Digimon who is
referred to by practically everyone as a mega level because that makes more sense. That's due to the fact that he RULES the Dark Ocean and is imbued with it's power, and that power is pretty big.

Piedmon: Piedmon....was....thrown in a Gate of Destiny and hasn't been seen since that day. Wait a second... "

"Come in numbers one, two and three - your time is up!" Piedmon said, marching towards Cara, Sora and Biyomon with his sword drawn. Just at that moment Angelus rose his feet, not rose exactly, but sort of pivoted on his heels to rise straight upwards.

"Yo! Wasssup?"

"What? That's not possible." Piedmon stammered.

"I know, but what are you gonna do?" Angelus shrugged, then punched the clown full in the face, he fell backwards into the sand. Sora and Wolfie gasped, Biyomon put a wing over her eyes, you didn't punch a mega level digimon...it's just one of those things smart people avoid. "You know I was thinking while I was in my spirit form, hell if your mind is separated from your body then you would do wouldn't you. That attack of yours - Time Shock." Angelus socked the Digimon again knocking him to the ground a second time. "Since when do you have that huh?"

"Time Shock!" Piedmon yelled, and a ripple floated through the space between him and AAUK. It did nothing however, dissipating as soon as it made contact with the Gatekeeper. Piedmon growled and drew his sword, Angelus laughed and went to draw his own only to find it was missing. His hand gripped the fresh air where the hilt of his sword normally resided.

"Where's my sword?"

"Um..." Wolfie hid the two broken pieces behind her back - badly.

"You broke my sword?"

"Not broke exactly."

"Oh no(!) How will you defend yourself?" Piedmon mocked but Archangel didn't flinch, in fact he smiled.

"I don't have to. You see you haven't exactly been yourself, no attacking save for that parlour trick. Where's your Clown Trick? Where's your Trump Sword?"

"Um..."

"You. Aren't. Piedmon." Angelus grabbed Piedmon's facial cheeks and wiggled them making Piedmon's face do a variety of amusing emotions. The clown did nothing, like he was unable to respond to Angelus's actions.

"What?" Wolfie asked, a bamboozled look shared by Sora.

"Pathetic Gatekeeper so you saw through my disguise, I am PseudoPiedmon !"

"An illusionary digimon... your Time Shock attack will blah blah blah blah blah!" Angelus thumped the clown again, who sent it's sword curling round in an arc. The blade went through the teen but it had no effect at all. "Now you see you can't hurt me because I know you aren't real."

"Let me go." PseudoPiedmon begged/demanded as Angelus hauled it into the air by it's ridiculous Lycra costume.

"You aren't Piedmon. You're the NeuroScorpy of the Digital World!"

"The what?"

"Now, if I was John Crichton I'd have thrown you in a dumpster by now. But as I'm not American and we have no dumpster I'll just settle for this."

Angelus reached behind PseudoPiedmon's back pulled out his other sword and sliced the illusionary clown straight down the middle. The two halves stayed together for a moment before falling down in different directions and dissolving into data.

There was still a third of TK's brain that wasn't thinking rationally, in fact it was running on pure instinct and adrenaline. Although if you want to be technical a small fragment of that was wondering why Matt and Gabumon had just done a Tango behind this 'Yamashita' man. Anyway back to the point, this third was a constant in that it was concerned with Kari. The rational part despite being twice as large began to give way to the 'Kari' part. Kari must not be hurt.

"T.K., please, you're the only one who can protect Kari. You have to be brave. Now, get going!"

"Okay, Sora. I promise I'll do whatever I can to protect Kari."

Kari must live.

TK willed whatever part of him housed his energy to give it all to Kari, immediately he began to glow a bright yellow which startled Yamashita to say the least. He was even more startled when Kari began to move....and Gatomon...and Patamon....AND Matt and Gabumon, although they had been moving already.

"This is intolerable!" Yamashita cried looking at his hands. "Look what I have to work with here!" He groaned, although in Yamashita's mind that was the voice talking and not him. He began to back away as Patamon growled and charged at him.

"Slamming Attack!" The little orange mammal hit Yamashita full in the gut, sending him sprawling.

"What is it?"

"She broke my sword god damn it!" Angelus grumbled, he had just finish a twenty minute tirade of yelling at a certain sword-breaking Kiwi. So blue was the air, even the seemingly unflappable Wolfie was shocked by it and had wisely (along with Biyomon) made a hasty retreat so Sora could try and calm the agitated Gatekeeper. So far she had managed to get him to speak, but the pent up fury was still very obvious.

"Aww!"

"Aww nothing. That sword was forged by the gods themselves and has lasted for millennia She gets hold of it and within three seconds she's broken it!"

Sora got tired of Angelus's griping and so found an original way to shut him up. Wolfie and Biyomon walked around the corner at that exact moment, Biyomon looked perplexed as usual.

"Wooo! Go Sora! Yeah you throttle him good! I...oh...." Wolfie realised Sora wasn't strangling Angelus at all.

"Wolfie? Why is Sora trying to suffocate Angelus with her face?"

"Um...well...er..." The kiwi managed before ushering Biyomon back around the corner. As she did so Angelus became overwhelmed with pain again and fell to the floor holding his head, Sora (hoping it wasn't something she'd done) gasped in alarm and tried to hold Angelus up.

More images...MORE Sounds...More...knowledge?

Things were making more sense now, like they had done when he realised that Piedmon was infact the PseudoPiedmon. "The ancient Traveller language." He gasped, the air seemed to be burning his lungs. Sora's ears pricked up, the ancient language of the Travellers? She was a Traveller (supposedly), this had something to do with her maybe?

"What is it?"

"I...know it..."

"How... I thought you said you didn't."

"I...remember." Angelus was breathing very rapidly, like he was about to hyperventilate, whatever it was that was happening to him it was obviously very painful. "A'eees coloir dei fol, de suete malarge q'uil wraz Zu'Clarrn fier naqt voulandre sor-lou."

Sora blinked, "I don't-"

"It... It means 'Trust not he who does not believe.' "

"Is that all?" Angelus shook his head.

" 'You will be betrayed'. "

To Be Continued....

Sora: Will I pass my new audition to be on the next "Alien" sequel? Will AAUK be able to get us home with a broken sword? Will WarGreymon kick some serious red and black-robed ass? Where did all the Scubamon go to? Will Biyomon ever stop being confused???? Find out on the next chapter - number TWENTY - of Digimon : Reality Redux!!!!!!!!

Kari's Angels - http://www.geocities.com/happy_hylian/