Chapter 24:

World of Destruction:

Part 2

Tai and Kari closely followed Takato as he lead them through the alleys of the city. No one had said anything since they escaped from Ryo's base. Tai and Kari were trying to decide if Takato was on their side, but after he mentioned Sara and Sam, they decided to take a chance.

"So, where are you taking us?" Tai asked.

"Somewhere safe," Takato answered, "Trust me."

"We have so far," Kari said.

They followed him to a demolished hotel. "Inside," he said. Tai and Kari nodded and walked behind him until they reached a brick wall. Takato seemed to be counting bricks down and to the right. He stopped at one somewhere near the middle and pressed it. The brick wall slid open to reveal a dark tunnel. Takato mentioned to it. "Come on." The two siblings nodded and ran after him. The wall slid back after they were safely through.

The three of them continued through the hall until they reached a large circular room. A group of other teenagers were there. A boy with brown hair, 16, an orange haired girl with a nasty scowl, 16, a brown haired girl in a pink dress, 14, and another boy with a visor, 16. The orange haired girl spoke first. "Well, Takato, did you get them?"

"You two are okay!"

Tai and Kari turned and saw Sara and Sam running towards them, in the forms of 14 year olds. Derwood came quickly behind and smiled at them. Sara hugged Tai, while Sam embraced Kari. "We were so worried!" Sara gasped.

"When we got separated, we so afraid that you were captured by Hypnos," Sam sighed.

"Hypnos?" Tai asked.

Takato nodded. "Yeah, that's name of the organization that we're fighting against. They are the rulers of this world."

Sara pulled away from Tai and mentioned to the others. "Well, let me introduce everyone." She pointed to the boy with brown hair, "This is Henry, and his sister Suzie."

Kari pointed at her. "You're the girl from before!"

She bowed. "Yeah. I'm sorry, no one contacted me about you two. I didn't even know that Sara and Sam were back until I came here."

Sara continued. "This is Rika, and the other one is Kazu."

Kazu bowed. "What's up?"

Rika sighed. "Just ignore him. He left his brain back in first grade."

"Hey!"

Derwood glanced around the room. "So why are you guys hiding out here, anyway?"

"That's a pretty long story," Takato said, "But if you want the short version, Sara should introduce the other person."

Sara grinned and mentioned to the a person standing in the shadows, which Tai and Kari hadn't notice before. "This is the person that I was talking to on my cell phone before we jumped into the portal." When the figure stepped out, they both gasped.

"Ryo?"

The figure nodded. "Yeah. I'm the same Ryo that you know, but not the same as the one you saw in the Hypnos building."

"What does that mean?" Tai shouted.

"Yeah," Kari said, "It doesn't make any sense!"

"To explain that," Ryo said, "I'll have to start at the beginning. After you and I parted ways, I came to this world. I have been to alot of different realities, but this was the only one that I've been to that had Digimon Tamers. Somehow I got a D-Arc and joined them as they fought against the Sovereigns. "

Henry interrupted. "We were in the Digital World, well, our world's Digital World, searching for a digimon who could cause other Digimon to digivolve, name Calumon. We found him, but also found a deletion program that the creators put there. It's mission was to destroy any artificial intelligence program that exceeded its parameters. The Digimon were at the top of its list, but once it found out about us, it wanted to delete humans to."

Rika sighed. "One of our friends, name Jeri, lost her Digimon partner. She was so depressed, that the D-Reaper absorbed her and sent a clone of her to come home with us. Once that clone was on Earth, the D-Reaper followed. We had no idea."

Kazu spoke next. "We fought against it, and were able to beat it. We were pretty happy, until we found out that the D-Reaper had somehow weakened the barrier around our world. "

Ryo took a deep breath and continued. "After we beat the D-Reaper, I started to act weird, like their was something else inside of me, controlling me. After almost killing my friends in a rage, my body split apart! That Ryo you saw earlier, was my dark half. This Dark Ryo was able to convince Alice and Yamaki to join with him. In return, he gave them the powers that you saw them use. Alice has sorcery, while Yamaki is the strongest being in almost every reality."

Suzie picked up where Ryo left off. "Takato lead us against them, but when we lost, he became the rebellion leader. A very good one too."

Takato smiled slightly. "You're making me blush. Anyway, one day we saw a bright flash in the sky. We had no idea what it was, but when we went to check it out, we found two 14-year-old girls lying in a crater, one with blond hair, the other with black. We figured out that they had crossed realities, but they didn't know where they were from, or their real names. So Jeri named them Sara and Sam."

Tai and Kari turned to them. "You mean, you don't know who you really are?"

Sara shook her head. "No. All we could pretty much remember was that we were twins."

"You're twins?" Kari asked, "I didn't even know you were sisters!"

The two girls were shocked. "Really?" Sam asked, "I could have sworn that there were a lot of times that we said so."

"Yeah, " Tai said, "But I thought that you were just pretending to fit the world we were in."

Sara shrugged. "Oh, well, sorry. But, yes, we're twins. And in case you're wondering, this are what we really look like and our real ages."

Kari smiled. "You really don't look that different. "

Tai looked at Derwood. "How come you always talked to them like Sara and Sam weren't their real names?"

He shrugged. "I read a file about them, but their names were Jennifer and Jessica."

"We've used a lot of alias," Sara explained, "But Ryo told us to trust you, so we used our real names."

"Anyway," Takato continued, "We trained them and made them part of our rebellion. By that time we learned that Yamaki had created a corrupt group of police officers called the Reality Police."

Derwood frowned. "Yeah, well he tricked me. I thought that he really wanted to protect the multiverseve, but all he really wanted was to follow Dark Ryo's orders."

Takato nodded. "We were fighting against Hypnos and winning, until we found out that Dark Ryo was looking for a way to free some imprisoned god that could wipe out every reality, but he needed something from another reality. Dark Ryo is powerful, and if there is something more powerful then him..? We couldn't take the chance of him getting what he wanted, so we used a shield device that Ryo brought with him from your world to trapped this world, until we could defeat Dark Ryo."

Ryo nodded. "I was training Sara and Sam about jumping realities and controlling a small part of reality to change their shapes when they put the shield in place. We didn't know what to do until we found out that Alice had contacted the Digimon Emperor Tai and 'nudged' him in the right direction to changing realities. We were going to stop him, but he had already found a way to keep your body even after he fell asleep. So I sent Sara and Sam to keep an eye on you until you were ready to find out about your double. That's basically were you came into this whole thing."

Henry sighed. "Since Emperor Tai was able to use the crest energy to break the shield around our world, we can only assume that Dark Ryo wants to use the same power to free his imprisoned god. Before you came here, Hypnos has been loading a moving a lot of its equipment somewhere. The information that Suzie got, was how to disable Hypnos's security system. If we get inside, we should be able to find out where they're going.We've got to stop them, before they are able to free him."

Tai nodded. "We're with you."

"Me too," Derwood said.

Takato smiled. "Good, we'll leave in a few hours. Maybe you should get some sleep before then."

"Wait a minute," Kari said, "When we fall asleep, won't we change worlds?"

Ryo shook his head. "No, since you entered this world through a reality rip in physical bodies, you'll keep those bodies, probably forever. That's why it's almost impossible to get your original body back Tai, but Emperor Tai has been jumping through reality rips this whole time. That body is his now."

"Oh," Tai said, looking to the ground.

"Don't worry," Ryo smiled, "We can create a body just like your original, but I don't know how we'll get you from this body to that one. But we'll think of something.".

"Thanks."

"I've got another question," Kari said, "You said you're Digimon Tamers, but where are your Digimon?"

"They've become part of us," Rika said, "When one of our Digimon digivolves to mega, we merged with them. After a long time, we just were able to merged permanently." She reached down and lifted her shirt to show them her stomach. It was covered with yellow fur. "My Digimon was a fox, and I'm starting to take one some of her features."

"Me too," Takato said. He pulled off one of his gloves to show that he had long claws. "This came from my partner."

Kari turned to Sara and Sam. "What about you?" They both nodded.

"That's what Rika and Takato taught us," Sam said, "We found our own partners and merged with them. Mine was a Salamon."

Sara nodded. "I had a Garurumon, but because both Rika and I had dog digimon, I was able to use an imitation of her staff. And..." She looked to the ground, "and we used a lot of techniques from Jeri, before she was killed."

"Killed?" Kari gasped, "How?"

Takato growled. "Alice killed her."

"Alice?" Tai gasped.

Takato nodded. He walked out of the room.

Rika scowled. "Takato and Jeri were in love with each other, but Alice killed her because Jeri wouldn't unleash the D-Reaper again. She killed her to try and free that, but it didn't work."

Tai sighed. "Wow, I'm sorry."

"Just get some sleep," she said, "Henry can show you to your rooms. Good night."

Dark Ryo faced the others of his evil group."We move out first thing tomorrow," he ordered, "The Tamers must have regroup and realized our plan by now. We have to get to the location before they do. We can't let anything stop us now!"

Alice and Yamaki bowed, but Emperor Tai stared at him. "What about what you promised me?"

Dark Ryo raised an eyebrow. "Meaning what?"

Emperor Tai glared at him. "Alice told me that this reality could give me what I've always wanted, it could give me my greatest wish!"

"She wasn't lying," Dark Ryo glared at her, " What is it that you desire?"

Emperor Tai hesitated. "I...I want the Matt and Kari from my world brought back to life!"

"The ones that you killed?" Alice gasped.

"Yes."

She chuckled. "Really? What a noble wish. I had no idea that's what you really wanted."

Yamaki just crossed his arms. "Seems like a waste to me!"

Dark Ryo held up his hand to command Yamaki to be silent. He turned to Emperor Tai. "Unfortunately, resurrections are beyond my power. If you help me free the imprisoned god, he can bring them back to life."

Emperor Tai stared at him. "If I find out that you're lying, you will not get the power that I've stolen from the other Digidestineds." He turned and walked out of the room.

"Are you sure that's wise, sir?" Yamaki asked.

Dark Ryo shrugged. "Those two will be brought back to life, but they will only live as long as it takes for us to command all reality! Then everyone will die! Ha! Make sure that the preparations are ready."

Yamaki bowed. "Yes sir."

Dark Ryo turned to the witch. "Come Alice, it's time for bed."

She grinned at Yamaki, then followed Dark Ryo out of the room.

Yamaki turned and walked out a different door. He entered into a large docking area, where hundreds of soldiers were busy loading ships. He walked over to the purple-haired woman. "Riley!"

She saluted him. "Yes sir!"

"Double the preparations, we're leaving first thing in the morning."

"Yes sir!"

"Commander Yamaki!"

He turned to see a blond haired girl running towards him. She looked to be around ten or eleven. "What is it Tally?"

"Sir, reconnaissance has found the location of the Tamers base!"

Yamaki grinned. "Really?"

"Yes sir, they followed an energy trail that was totally different than anything they've seen before. They think it might be from the two off-worlders that went with the Tamers."

He nodded. "Excellent. Come with me to the lab, we've got to see Wong."

Tally nodded and ran after him like a child. Riley shook her head and spoke to another soldier. "If you ask me, experimenting with the laws of the universe like that are always going to have consequences. If Tally didn't ask Wong to make her younger, she wouldn't be stuck that way. All she wanted was to be twenty years old again, but look what happened."

The soldier nodded. "Or Wong and his scientists. I can't imagine being that way forever."

Riley nodded. "I agree."

Yamaki and Tally walked to the basement of the Hypnos building to a large metal door. Tally pressed a buzzer.

"What is it?" a voice asked.

"It's Lt. Commander Tally and Commander Yamaki."

"Hold on."

They waited a few minutes, then the door opened. The two stepped into a massive lab with weird machines and devices inside. Even weirder were the creatures walking around. Yamaki and Tally walked over to a group of these creatures that were standing at attention.

One resembled a blond haired woman, but she hovered around like a ghost, and was even transparent. There was a man there, but hunched over and covered with fur, another woman that had green skin, and hair like Medusa. The last man there had three eyes and four arms. "Dr. Wong," Yamaki said.

The three eyed man growled. "What is it? You're disturbing our work!"

The Commander looked over their shoulders and saw a little boy strapped to the table. He was unconscious, thankfully, but from his chest down, his human body had been replaced with a young horses. "New ideas?" he asked.

"Yes!" Wong grinned, "We've grafted the horse onto his body. Hopefully, as he grows older, he'll be able to run twice as fast as even the fastest runner in the world! And with his arms free, he can still hold weapons! Think of it, an assassin that can kill a person, but be blocks away before anything can be done about it!"

Yamaki just nodded. "We need one of your..'assissins' tonight. We've located the Tamers base, and if we strike now, we won't ever have to worry about them again!"

Wong nodded. "I have just what you need." He snapped his fingers, "Shibumi!"

Yamaki and Tally leapt aside as a dog/human creature ran along on the ground. Wong looked down at him. "Open pods four and five."

The creature nodded and ran over to a set of chambers on the wall. He pressed a lever near the fourth one and the door opened. A figure stepped out, which appeared to be both male and female! The left side of the figure had short brown hair and was wearing a long sleeved shirt and a pair of overalls. The right side had long brown hair pulled into a ponytail and was wearing a purple jumper and a t-shirt. Both looked like they were around ten or eleven.

"These were fraternal twins that were capture and delivered to us," Wong said, "We fused them together into one being. Ai and Mako were their names, but for simplicity, you can call them Aiko. They were partnered to an Impmon, whose power we gave to them.""

The figure bowed. "Yes sir," it said.

Shibumi opened the fifth pod, and a small, fairy creature hovered out. "And this is Kenta. We tried to fuse him with his partner, a Marine Devimon, but the physical results were less then satisfactory."

Yamaki stared at the hovering creature. It looked like a human boy, but with wings that looked like flippers, and instead of legs, there was a weird tale thing. Kenta hovered over and landed at Aiko's shoulder.

"These two will serve your purposes," Wong grinned.

Yamaki nodded. "Excellent."

Tai, Takato, Rika and Sara silently walked along the outside of the two towered building. Takato looked at a small map that was in his hands. He checked the building, then checked the map again. "There should be an air vent around here. We'll be able to sneak into an office where a main computers is. With these codes, we'll be able to find out where they're going."

Rika nodded. She pointed above them. "Is this what we're looking for?"

Takato looked to where she was pointing. There was a large metal grate above them. "That's it, let's go."

After they were inside the vent, they followed it through the inside of the building. Tai spoke. "So, you've done this sort of thing hundreds of times before, right?"

"Yeah," Rika whispered, "We sneak into enemy bases all the time. That's why this world is still the way it is!"

"Don't mind her," Sara said, "She's just grouchy."

"She's always grouchy," Takato said.

"Hey! Shut up garbage breath!"

"You're 16, right?" Tai asked.

"Yeah, so?"

"You act like you're five!"

Sara and Takato started laughing. "Shut up all of you!"

"We're here," Takato said. He was staring though another vent and into a large office room. "We've got lucky for once, no one's there."

He pressed it out, but caught it before it fell. He pulled it inside and attacked a rope to the inside of the vent. He dropped the other end to the ground, and the other three climbed down with him. Takato ran over to the computer that was on the desk and started typing.

Rika ran over to the door and told Tai and Sara to watch the other doors. "Make sure no one's coming."

"Hey Takato," Sara asked, "How long are you going to be?"

"I have no idea, I guess as long as it takes for the security codes to work."

"I hope it doesn't take too long," Rika grumbled, "We're sitting ducks in here!"

Takato suddenly gave a shout for joy. "Password excepted! All right. Now, let's see where they're going."

Inside of his office, Yamaki looked up when Tally ran into see him. "Commander, someone's trying to hack into our mainframe!"

"What?" he asked.

Tally nodded. "Yeah, We registered an older code being used. It still works, but hasn't been used since last year. When we checked it out, it was in Wong's office..."

Yamaki nodded. "And there's no way he would have used an out of date code. Assemble a team, and meet me on the twentieth floor."

"Yes sir."

"Got it!" Takato grinned, "They're going to the Sahara Desert? Why?"

"Who care?" Tai asked, "Let's just get out of here."

"We've got to complete the second part of the mission," he said, "I've located the computer mainframe, it's three floors down. Rika, got the explosives?"

She nodded and mentioned to her backpack," Yup."

"You're going to blow the computer system?" Tai asked, "Wow, that's a smart idea."

"Glad you like it," Takato said, running to the door, "Let's go."

They ran through the halls and down the stairwell until they were three floors down. When they ran through the doors, Tai took note of the large twenty that was on the door, but didn't say anything as they ran into the building floor. He stopped short when he saw that Takato, Rika and Sara did the same thing. They were staring down a large force of Yamaki's soldiers.

"End of the line!" he grinned.

Sara glanced to the side and saw a thin hallway between the rooms. "In there!" she shouted. The group followed her and emerged on the other side of the hall. Yamaki's soldiers weren't in sight, but they knew they didn't have much time.

"There's the door!" Tai shouted. He pointed at a set of large double doors. "That's got to be it!"

The others ran over and swung the door open. "I'll set the charges!" Takato yelled. He grabbed Tai and they ran inside the dark room. When they were in the center of the room, the lights came on. The two teenagers gasped at what they saw. The room was covered in wires that connected to a large thing in the center. It looked like a teenage girl, suspended in the air with the wires piercing every part of her body.

"What is that thing?" Tai gasped.

"It's Jeri!" Takato shouted. He was so shocked that he didn't know that Yamaki had entered the room until Tai grabbed him and spun him around.

"I see you found your friend."

"How can that be Jeri?" Takato asked, "Alice killed her!"

Yamaki smirked. "That's right. Alice did kill her, but it wasn't Jeri we wanted, it was the D-Reaper that was in her system! We needed that complicated program as a web master for our system. So now that you AHH!" He screamed in pain before he fell to the ground. Rika was behind him with a large power cord in her hands.

"We've got to get out of here!" she shouted, "This place is going to be crawling with soldiers soon."

Takato stared up at the figure. "But Jeri..."

Tai grabbed him. "We've got to leave, now!"

"Jeri!"

to be continued....