The Remains Of Heaven
By Ryan Bodle
Chapter Eleven: The March Of The Digital Army (part one)

The shadow beasts that had managed to make thier way into the digimon city leered around at the helpless creatures, looking for a target. The biggest, and seemingly obvious leader decided that non-digimon thing shouting at the rest look like a good snack and lumbered a clumsy and heavy fist for him. The target whirled his head to show the fiercest of snarls and flung his arm in an arc to meet it, a sharp sting coming with it.

Ark had brought his sword round to meet the large fist and caused a deep cut in the flesh. The shadow thing faltered and yelped in pain, its group brought itself nearer and more offensive. They looked ready to pounce when Ark gave a booming order.

"Artillery!" He fled his postion along with a band of fighters. In a second several ballistic attacks were buzzing their way into the group, each causing mild to serious wounds and the group of shadows seperated when the firing stopped. Ark appeared again from nowhere. "Cut them down!" He lead a massive offensive.

Various fighter digimon clashed with the giant shadows and dodged the lethal swipes of their much larger foe with ease. Within minutes, they were overwhelmed and destroyed. The courtyard settled. all eyes were on Ark as he cleaned his blade on his garments with a mean look on his face. "Shut this hole up!" He indicated as he walked away and back to the recesses of the tower.

More than two hundred feet away, Joe and Gomamon watched in awe. Even Yolei and Izzy were surprised. "They've gotten a lot better," Izzy noted.

"So soon as well," Yolei added.

"When you've got a force like that, how can you be so scared of those shadow things outside?" Gomamon asked.

"I think there's more to it than that," Joe told him.

"No," Yolei told him. "The digimon have never fought that bravely since the day the shadow lord died."

"I wonder if the recent appearance of our friends has done anything to boost their confidence," Izzy mused. With that he walked away. "I have some more scans to perform."

"Come Joe, you must be tired, why don't you rest? We'll have some supper prepared."

"Thanks," Joe replied as he followed Yolei inside. He still felt very strange being where he was. The three kids he knew had grown into very different people he imagined. Cody was so angry, Yolei, so serene and calm all the time and considering Izzy still spent his entire time in front of a screen, his maturity had its own detail that was different from how he saw his friend as an older person. He just wandered how it had happened. And more importantly, could it be reversed?

They had been travelling for an hour now. Through snow and over rock, the air was freezing. The only thing they had to be thankful for was that there was little to no wind about. They'd surely freeze to death otherwise. Just in the distance a small village could be seen, and that was where they were headed.

"How much longer do you think?" Ken shouted from just behind. Davis was setting out ahead.

"I don't know, maybe a couple of hours?" Davis replied. Ken looked behind him, the air tremoured slightly.

"Its no good!" He said back "Davis, I can feel a front coming in, if we don't find shelter soon, we'll freeze to death when it reaches us! We have to find shelter!"

"I see another cave!" Davis replied, "its barely twenty minutes from here!"

"How can you see that far and know its a cave?" T.K asked leveling with Davis.

"Well, its a steep climb, think you can make it?" Davis pointed some way below him, there was indeed an opening in the ground below them. "And if that wind is coming from behind us, it'll probably blow over right?"

"Good thinking Davis," T.K merited. They ventured around the edge of the cliff they were at, looking for a safe spot to descend. Davis followed in step and drifted in to idle banter whilst T.K seemed content in concentrating.

"Where in the hell are we?" Davis asked.

"I have no idea, I think its clear though, we're not in the digital world."

"This sucks, huh?" He asked again. T.K hadn't answered so perteringly, Davis tried another pursuit of conversation. "Think the others are ok?"

"They can take care of themselves."

"Even Tai and Sora?" Davis asked. "They fell into that cavern."

Up until now, T.K tried not thinking about it. He saw them fall in to the dark recesses of the digital underworld. He wondered if he would see them again. He hoped he would but something told him to brace for the worst.

"I don't want to talk about it," T.K mumbled. He left Davis standing with a confused llok.

'Does he blame himself?' He wondered.

"What's the mater Davis?" Biyomon chirped. Davis shook the cobwebs.

"Its nothing. Come on, we have to find a way down for everyone else."

They eventually came across a slight decline, it was more of a hill than a cliff for ths one part. The three friends stood at the top, looking down. Ken looked across at T.K.

"Think it's safe?"

"Only one way to find out!" Davis said loudly from behind them, they both turned to see Davis digging up something from the snow. It was an old sled that looked less then useable. It was barely a frame with skiis on the bottom.

"Davis," T.K warned.

"Oh come on! Its usueable, we're going, what, thirty feet?" He reasoned. "Unless you'd rather walk down."

T.K looked again, despite being a slope of snow at this point, he reckoned there'd be ice underneath, deadly to slip on and he didn't fancy that. Still this was the safest way down they had found yet, and the winds were beginning to ever so slightly pick themselves up. The sled looked like it would hold on long enough for the small distance.

"Alright, everybody in," T.K surrendered.

They set themselves up with the larger boys on the edges and the small digimon in the middle as a means of protection. Davis was at th back ready to push off at T.K's command, Ken was just behind him. He was skeptical that this would work.

"OK Davis, gently now."

With one huge effort, Davis pushed them off the edge as fast as he could manage.

"Davis!" More than one shouted as the sled hurtled down the slope. There was a rising scream in everyone that got louder as they appraoched another slope in front of them. It cut them off from what was behind, but instead of crashing in to it, the sled carried on up it and over the top. Whilst in mid air, everything seemed to slow. T.K looked at what was ahead of them.

The good news was that it was more snow. The bad news was that it had been crushed and formed in to a gulley and they were due to land right in the middle, and ride all the way to its end. "Davis!" T.K screamed at the top of his voice.

"What?"

"I'm going to kill you! AHHH!" The sled joined the gorund again and they took off at shattering speeds.

From now on, they went where the gulley took them, surrounded by walls of ice on either side, the continued forward. Sometimes the gulley turned, they were an olympic bobsled reaching speeds nobody could imagine, covering a great distance in no time. Their speed got faster and faster. Everybody screamed for their lives in a complete panic as they hurtled faster, out of control.

That is all except Davis at the back, having the time of his life and laughing all the way down. After a few minutes, T.K decided he could spare enough time to stop panicking, turn round at Davis and shout for him to shut up.

The walls around them started to lower and the ground on which they rode became more open and softer, slowing them down just a little, much to their relief. They had no idea how far they had travelled. Ken looked up and saw something familiar.

"Hey look! The village!"

"Score!" Davis shouted. The village they wer headed for could have taken two hours to reach in a spiralling path through the mountans. But via their latest path, it had taken them a matter of minutes. T.K cursed and blessed Davis at the same time. The sled came to a steady stop just outside the entrance. All slowly exited and looked at the wooden made houses, built in no discernable order but all the doors faced away from the mountain.

"Well, should we look for somewhere we can stay?" Ken asked.

"No way!" Davis piped up, "lets find a computer with the internet!" He raced off ahead, leaving all to follow in a chain, each protesting as he hurried off.

There was an ominious silence in the dark as he watched. His bosses were all over his back, he figured every guy who knew anything remotely about computers right now was under as much heat as him, but for now he wasn't the slightest bit interested in other people. Of all the system crashes that were affecting everyone, it seemed, one computer was still working. Even if it wasn't responding, it was working and what it had to say was remarkable.

It was a small machine compared tot he super computers holding mass storage amounts of data that kept the insurance company he worked for at the fore front of competition. But they were dead and obsolete right now. Just this small Unix machine was alive and it displayed a fascinating sight. Life in digital form. It was the only way he could explain it. AT this current time, he had his laptop prepped and was working to connect it with the only working machine.

He sat on a stool with the laptop on his lap and he typed furiously into it, writing up on the spot, the most defensive firewall he could summon to protect his baby. He was almost ready to plug it in. He wwas going to find out what was happening no matter the cost.

A large rap rattled the door behind him, almost scaring him off the stool. His boss was demanding answers again. He reluctantly got off the stool and creeped his way to the door to open it. Natural stremaing through, he cursed it.

He was a dreadful young man to look at. Skin completely drained of colour, his clothes had the colour, of what littel they had, beaten out of them. HIs glasses took up a majority of his weasel like face.

"Mr. Amiya, I would like some answers as to when ths mess will be cleared up," a large domineering man demanded. Izumi looked at him with discontent.

"I can't say, the entire network has crashed and the internet is currently down so this problem appears to have affected a large area of the city if not all of it. The work stations seem to have been infected by soemthing but I can't clear them up until I get a response out of the domains, now if you excuse me, I have the firewall machine running and I'm just finding the cause of this failure, when I know that I can get round to restoring everything."

"Where's this PC!?" The man demanded shoving Izumi aside and making his way in the office, there was a crowd gathered around the room, looking for answers, or just some gossip to spread. "What is this?"

"It's the firewall for the fourth floor, sir, every floor has one."

"And these computers can be used right?"

"I don't know sir, I haven't checked, just this one."

"Ok, suppose they did work, are they useable for office purposes."

This was unbelievable Izumi thought to himself. Even in this time of technology crisis, he wanted to carry on working. Izumi sighed.

"No sir, its a Unix machine."

"What's that?" Izumi sighed again, this time a long breath. The idea of explaining for the millionth time there was more than Microsoft out there wasn't none too appealing, but if it got rid of him for a couple of hours, then it might be worth it. He would then have to move on to the expected down time and didn't cherish that either. All in all he couldn't help but think. 'It really is going to be one of those days.'
They were all back in the small room with one bed, each looking at the floor trying to gather thoughts, a forward motion, but none of them had such finesse for plans of action. It was well suited to leave it to somebody far more brash and then critisise it to no end. Of course that person wasn't here right now. They had no idea where he was.

Matt was now sitting up, his hands were clasped together in his lap as he studied the sandy floor beneath him, trying to rack his thoughts in to one single train so he could make sense of himself. His experience after being wounded by one of those shadow creatures was a surreal one and he wanted to make sense of it amongst everything else. He decided to try and forget and focus on something else. With that he raised his head.

"What's everyone else thinking?" He asked plainly.

Kari was curked up against the wall opposite him. She was sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up, her face hiding behind it as her arms held her legs in place. "I hope the others are ok," she said meekly.

"I'm sure they are," Gatomon purred. "Hell, I bet Tai would survive anything just to spite us." Kari's lips twitched but never rose above the dire expression she hid.

"I'm thinking," Gabumon said. "How can we help Izzy, Yolei and Cody."

"What do you mean?" Gomamon asked.

"Well how can we turn them back?" There was a pause of silence.

"Can they be turned back?" Gomamon asked. Nobody desired to answer.

So far, Joe had kept quiet in the corner. His hands held behind his back, he was pre-occupied to indulge in coversation until he was addressed. Matt chimed quite loudly to get his attention and Joe looked at the audience he'd ammased.

"What's on your mind?" Matt asked.

"Oh? Its Ark, I mean Cody," he answered. "I don't think he's too fond of us."

"What makes you say that?" Kari asked.

"Well he threatend to run me through earlier," Joe asnwered nochantly. All their moths dropped open.

"But he wouldn't!" Gomamon said back. "I mean, he's our friend! Why would he help us back here?"

Joe shrugged in response. "Yolei tried talking to him, but its sounded like he blamed us for not coming back all the while they were stuck here and can't just let it go." It was just a theory of course, if it wasn't the only one that seemed to make sense. In all honesty, he never thought Cody the type to bear a grudge. Then again, both Yolei and Izzy had seemed to grow up quite different from what he expected. He couldn't begin to imagine what this place would do to him if he stayed long enough.

"Know what I'm thinking now?" He asked everyone else. They didn't answer but looked on expectantly. "I'm thinking the sooner we go after this Shadow Lord or whatever, the sooner we can make the others normal again and o home."

He said it with uncanny enthusiasm and determination. Matt grinned at him. "You sound like someone else I know."

"Well its a dirty job but somebody has to do it, and if Tai isn't going to come around anytime soon, I guess you're just going to have to all count on me," Joe said with a cocky smirk and his chest pushed proudly out.

Kari giggled. "Ok, what do we do?"

"Well I say we get Izzy's and Yolei's support and we get all the digimon we can to go with us."

"And just walk straight up to the Shadow Lord?" Matt asked unbelievingly.

"Well for lack of better term, but I think we can do better than to just knock on his front door," Joe aswered. His exterior shell burst with confidence and he saw that impress on the others. It was too bad that deep inside he felt worse than he ever felt before.

'I wonder if Tai ever had his guts twist about like this?' He thought as he carried on the charade.

At this point, his digivice sparked to life. Something it hadn't done since they'd arrived in the digital world. He looked at his waistband. "Hey! My digivice!" He chirped.

The other two instantly went for their own. "Mine works too!" Matt added.

"And my D3! I can email!" She squealed.

"Quick!" Matt responded, "email everyone and find out where they are!" She didn't need to be told, she was already half way through by the time he suggested it.

"OK, its out."

"So we could have the others here anytime soon?" Gomamon asked.

"I think I should talk to Yolei and Izzy, they might want to hear what we have in mind," Joe said and left the room.
A/N- Sounds like more of a filler chapter I guess. But I didn't want to leave everyone reading a 10k word chapter. Please tell me what you think! Please?