Lar-Lar:I'm getting tired of this
Gomababe:Just a quick note to et any readers know, this fic has been mostly completed but Lar-Lar and i thought you'd like the first 10 chapters to mull over before we give you he rest.
Lar-Lar:we hope you at least appreciate the effort we've gone through!
Gomababe:now ot the Digis with the discalaimer
Aquamon:dully Gomaabe and Lar-Lar don't own Digimon, toei animation do...or whoever owns the dubbed version anyway.
Gomababe:onto the fic!!!
Chapter four-Tension Under Wraps
Lucy squeezed her eyes shut as Birdramon took off, Sora laid a hand on the
older girls shoulder,
"You'll be fine Lucy." Sora said gently, trying not to scare her new friend too much. Lucy just nodded,
"I know Sora, but I don't like heights all that much." She forced one
of he eyes open a notch, "How's Koushiro doing Lepidoptermon?" she asked her large butterfly like partner Digimon. Lepidoptermon glanced down at the young red-head in her bottom set of arms, he wasn't any better than when she, Lucy, Alana and Aquamon had first arrived, in fact he looked worse.
"Well lets just say he isn't getting any better." she said gravely,
adjusting her grip slightly to make Izzy a little more comfortable.
Lucy and Sora just sighed. Sora looked to Birdramon's other foot, "How are you holding up Joe?" she called over the rush of wind that
Birdramon's wings were making.
"I'm fine thanks Sora, I just hope we find someplace soon" he called back, looking slightly green, but much better than Lucy did.
"Me too Joe, me too." Sora muttered, not taking her eyes off Izzy, who lay very still in Lepidoptermon's arms. Suddenly Gomamon called out,
"Hey guys, I think I see something up ahead! It looks like a city of
some sort." he pointed a flipper straight ahead of his field of vision. Sora
covered her eyes from the glare of the sun to see where Gomamon was
pointing. She could see the silhouette of large buildings in the distance,
her heart leapt into her throat,
"He's right guys! There's a city right ahead of us." she shouted
joyfully. Joe, Gomamon, Lucy, Lepidoptermon and Birdramon cheered at this
information.
"There's bound to be a hospital or something we can take Izzy to." Joe
said, sounding relieved, "And if not, there's got to be some where with
aspirin surely."
"Wow Joe, I'm surprised you haven't been pessimistic about this all
day." Gomamon said, sounding genuinely surprised. Lucy just laughed,
"Well, I just hope you haven't jinxed that." she giggled, before
accidentally looking down at the ground and squeezing her eyes shut again
with a low moan. Within a few minutes Birdramon had landed and let everyone she was carrying off before reverting back to Biyomon. Lepidoptermon stayed in her champion form, still carrying Izzy for the others. Lucy looked around, "Hello! Is anyone there? We need help!" she called to the empty streets. The others looked around with confused looks.
"Where is everyone?" Joe asked nervously, "A city this big shouldn't be deserted like this." he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
Sora looked at a building just to her right and gasped,
"Biyomon, does that building look familiar to you?" she asked her
partner. Biyomon turned to look where Sora was pointing and gave a similar gasp,
"It's the same building that we were in when Kari got sick." she
stated. Joe gave a low groan,
"Great, we've wound up in Machinedramon's City. No wonder its
deserted." Gomamon gave his partner a warning glance,
"Joe! Tai, Sora and the others defeated Machinedramon over two years ago." he said in a calm voice, "But I do think it very weird that no one's
around." he added, looking spooked.
"Well, we can't just stay out in the open like this." Sora sighed, "That
house is the nearest place to us. Lets just take Izzy inside ok?" She
waited for everyone else to murmur their agreements before opening the door and going to the main bedroom. Lepidoptermon laid Izzy down on the massive double bed, covering him up with the duvet before reverting back to
Chrystamon. Lucy came to the side of the bed with a basin full of water and
a cloth she had found in the kitchen area. Sora sighed as she wrung the
cloth off it's excess water and placed it on Izzy's feverish forehead.
"I'll go see if there's any aspirin around to bring that fever down."
Joe offered as Lucy sat beside Sora to comfort the girl. Lucy took a closer
look at Izzy, he was chalk white and his unruly red hair was sticking to his
forehead as if someone had glued it there. His breathing was still
wheezy and his expression was one of pain. Sora started to cry, shaking with
muffled sobs. Lucy patted her on the back,
"Sora, don't cry." she soothed, "Izzy will be fine, I know he will."
Sora hiccoughed as she faced Lucy,
"I know Lucy, but there's no guarantee of it. During our first
adventure to the Digital World we faced many evil Digimon. One of them was
Myotismon. Before we found out about an eighth child he was constantly looking for new ways to destroy us. One time Izzy got really sick because Demi-devimon, one of Myotismon's flunkies, poisoned him." Sora took a calming breath before continuing, "He almost died, in fact we really thought he had, so it was a shock to see him recovering. Some time later Gennai told us that Izzy's crest was the one thing that had saved his life, but because of the poison it was left too weak to help him should the same thing happen again. He never told Izzy, and begged us to do the same. So in the end, we don't know if he will make it this time." Sora turned back to Izzy at that, leaving Lucy to process the information. Chrystamon patted Lucy on the back, while Biyomon did the same for Sora. No one noticed Tentomon standing by the door, hearing every word.
Tai stomped on ahead with Agumon struggling to keep up. He was still annoyed about the team having to split up and his worrying about Izzy was not helping his mood much.
"Tai, we need to slow down, the others can't keep up." Agumon said, panting slightly himself. Tai just scowled.
"We can't slow down, we need to keep going and catch up to the others as fast as we can." He replied, without even making eye contact. Agumon sighed. He knew why tai was acting the way her was, he had acted the same way when Kai had been ill and he, Agumon, Izzy and Tentomon had ended up away from the rest of them underground Machinedramon's city. He just hoped he would not start punching people this time.
"I can't go on anymore!" Mimi's voice came from nearer the back of the group as she sank to her knees in the sand. "I'm thirsty and my feet hurt!" Palmon looked from her partner and then to all the faces around then, everyone seemed tiered.
"Hey Tai?" Matt called out. "We need to take a break or we aren't going to make it out of this place let alone meet up with the others." Tai stopped moving and scowled a moment before turning round and shrugging. Matt nodded, thankful that there was not going to be another argument, it was too hot to think let alone scream and shout at each other.
"We've got some water." Aquamon said, nudging for Alana to hand the bottle out. The girl nodded dully, the heat was really starting to get to her but maybe after a little rest and some cold drink she would feel somewhat human again.
"Thanks 'Lana." TK said, taking the bottle she handed him and turning to his partner. "Do you want some first?" He asked, unscrewing the lid so that Patamon could drink. Alana smiled at the young boy before handing a bottle to Kari who did much the same, offering her drink to Gatomon before taking a sip herself. When all the bottles had been handed out, Alana sat down with Matt and Mimi, just opposite the two younger children.
"Those two are so adorable." She said, smiling at the two as she drank from her own bottle. Matt nodded, handing his drink over to Gabumon.
"Yeah, they sure seem to handle things a lot better than the rest of us." He replied. "Tai didn't want to bring them back here, nor did I to be honest, but they seem to have more of a handle on this place than either of us ever did." Alana nodded.
"The innocence of childhood." He said. Mimi sighed happily.
"It feels good to rest for a while, this place is actually quite nice when we aren't hiking through it, don't you think?" Palmon and Aquamon both looked at each other, but said nothing. An aquatic digimon and a plant type digimon obviously were not at their best in such surroundings. Tai sat a little way from everyone else, Agumon by his side but neither of them said a word.
"Matt? Why's Tai being all moody?" Kari asked, pointing to where her big brother was sitting. Matt shrugged, not quite sure what to say to the girl. He never had been very good with children or with saying the right thing.
"He's worrying about Izzy, you know?" He said eventually. "Tai's the leader and the leader needs to think about these things so try not to worry about it too much, okay? Just keep out of his way and as soon as we catch up with the others and see Izzy's doing better, I'm sure he'll be fine." The blonde smiled at the little girl, and it seemed that he had gotten it right this time as she smiled back before skipping back over to join TK, Patamon and Gatomon. Matt sighed as soon as she was out of ear shot.
"You think that's right?" Alana asked him, quietly. "About Izzy feeling better, I mean?" Again, the boy sighed.
"I really couldn't say. Joe's the one who knows about all this sort of thing and he didn't look too hopeful. Still, Izzy's no quitter. This happened once before, you know, he pulled through then even though we all thought we had lost him but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad one." He thought for a moment, trying to work out if it had been good or not before continuing. "His crest helped him out last time and Gennai told us it may not be able to do the same again." He left it at that, not knowing what more there was to say. Alana frowned, looking to Aquamon for some sort of help but she, along with Palmon and Mimi, was fast asleep.
"Well there wasn't much else we could do. She said in the end, pulling Matt back from is memories. At least he's someone where safe now and he has Joe and Sora and Lucy and the digimon with him." Matt nodded numbly, but offered no words to go along with the gesture. "I just wish we had some idea what my roll was in all this. The prophecy mentioned the children of calm and determination bringing peace, that means there must be something Lucy and I are supposed to be doing right now." She sighed, looking down at the sand. "I hope she's having better luck working it out than I am." Matt smiled slightly. He was not known for his agreement when it came to Tai but this time, he felt sorry for him sitting all alone with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He could only imagine what was going through his mind so close to them yet a million miles away.
"All any of us can do is our best." He said finally, turning back from Tai and towards Alana. "We can do all we can to get through this, like we did before, and with a little luck, things will turn out the way we want them too." Alana nodded. 'The way we want them too' she thought. 'Not the way they should or for the best but the way we want them too.' Then it hit her, because maybe the way they were meant to turn out, the way that had been foretold, would not be what they wanted at all.
"Come on everyone, we need to get moving again, there'll be plenty of time to rest when we catch up to the others." Mimi groaned as she pulled herself up from the sand.
"But I was having a wonderful dream, I was on the beach with a ice cold coke in my hand and a picnic basket full of goodies beside me and the sea just a few feet away..." The five children and six digimon all stared at the girl for a moment.
"I think the sunshine got to Mimi." TK said, grinning as he picked up Patamon. Kari agreed.
"Yeah, Mimi? You should have bought your hat with you this time too." She told the older girl, nodding and sounded like the older of the two. Tai let out a laugh, and soon, the rest of the children had joined in, laughing hysterically at the a joke that was not even all that funny. Aquamon turned to Palmon and whispered.
"What's with the humans?" Palmon shrugged as they all began to move again towards the horizon.
"Sometimes it feels like there's nothing else to do." She said, smiling herself. "if you don't laugh, you'll only cry instead." Aquamon nodded, pleased when Alana bent down to carry her again. She thought she knew what Palmon meant but one thing she did know, she preferred laughter to tears any day of the week.