The Remains Of Heaven
By Ryan Bodle
Chapter Twelve: The March Of The Digital Army (part two)

The search for a computer so far had been fruitless. All the huts seemed to be locked up tight and no much as a screen was yet to be seen. For lack of better judgement, the group tried to remain hidden from the villagers. They didn't know what to expect.

"There must be a computer around here somewhere," T.K complained as he saw defeat through another window.

"Well this place, is pretty far out of the way," Ken added. "Perhaps there's no internet connection here."

T.K looked above him, pylons ran timidly over their heads. "They have phone lines. And where there's a phone line, somebody must be able to connect, no matter how slow, right?"

Ken shrugged. "In theory," he dismissed.

"Why don't we check the big hut?" Davis suggested point to the centre of the village. "Maybe there's a computer in there."

"Must be the village hall or something. I guess if anybody has a computer, it'd be there," Ken answered. "Come on," he lead off, looking over both shoulders every few steps. Then just to completely undo every ounce of stealth they had used to get this far, their D3's went off, signalling they had received an email. One thing that happened to make Davis jump a mile in the air, and then scream bloody murder from surprise.

T.K cringed. "Why not wake up the whole town?" He asked dryly. Davis cowered, muttering an apology.

"It's from Kari!" Ken exclaimed, "She's in the digital world with Matt, Joe, Izzy, Yolei and Cody!"

"Alright! They're ok!"

T.K mused that for a second, "what about Sora and Tai?" Biyomon and Agumon looked on tentatively. Ken shrugged. He had by now come to notice many lights in the wooden huts turning on after Davis' outbreak.

"Duck!" They all hit the floor as faces peered out, looking for the disturbance. "We really need to find a computer soon," he whispered. "Unless we want to let ourselves be seen."

"What would happen if we caught?" Davis pondered. T.K replied rather blandly.

"Well, they'll probably want to know how we got out here, which we can't explain, and then they are going to want to know how it is we have digimon with us and what digimon are exactly, a lot of trouble we could do without."

Lights had gone out by now and they got back up to their feet. Davis looked over the top of a window ledge they were under. He tried jumping up. "Hey! I think there's a computer in there, give me a boost."

Ken and T.K took for foot each ad hoisted Davis into the air for a better look. He kicked in excitement.

"It is! And it has a modem, I can see the wire!"

"Cable," ken grunted still holding him up. "Get down Davis, let's find a way in!"

He and T.K both removed themselves from underneath Davis at the same time. Davis, with all the grace and agility he possessed, fell gingerly, using different parts of his body to break the fall. First his chin on the windowsill, then his knee on the nearby fire wood stack before his rear end finally broke the fall. He screamed in agony.

"You guysth!" He said at them strangely. "Ow, I think I bit my tsongue!"

Ken and T.K couldn't help but smirk at Davis tending to his bruised knee and bleeding mouth. "Oh my fearless leader," T.K said mockingly and on the verge of cracking.

"Cut it out!" Davis complained as the two decided to split their sides in laughter.

Izzy and Yolei chanced alook of concern at each other after listening very intently. Matt, Joe and Kari were standing in front of them, having relayed their ideas to them and were all looking on enthusiastically for approval. After a good amount of silence, they didn't see any coming.

"Please don't take this wrong way," Izzy started. "But, don't you think we've tried this before?"

Yolei said nothing but nodded slightly.

"Yeah, but with us here," Matt returned. "I mean our digimon could digivolve higher, we could really take the fight to them."

"It seems that way," Yolei replied. "But we've seen their strength grow, whilst ours dwindles."

The three younger digi-destined were silent for a moment. Then Kari spoke softly. "We can't allow this to go on Yolei." All heads turned to look at her. She was looking at the ground intently to avoid their gazes.

"I can remember when I first came to this place with you, do you?" She looked up at Yolei who had now drifted to the window in the earthen room they were in. The room was half submerged in the ground and the opening gave a view of the ground level. Digimon legs and feet scattered the view as she tried to find the mountains. She remembered all too well her first visit to the digital world. Dangerous as it was, it was definitely the most special for her. The day she met Hawkmon. She swallowed hard.

"The digital world is a place that shouldn't be tainted like this. The Dark Ocean, or whatever it is, has no right to take this place from us, to take homes and lives of digimon. We can't just sit back and let them take it bit by bit. This world is a living dream for us, we can't let that die, it would be like letting a part of ourselves die too."

Matt spoke up, "you said it yourself, the digimon are fighting harder now that we've turned up, I say its time to rally the troops. One last fight, we can take 'em!"

There was a hum from Kari's D3, she quickly picked it up and her face beamed with joy. "And with Davis, T.K and Ken on the way, there's no stopping us anymore."

Yolei's eyes watered. "Ken?" she said softly and turned to face them. "I hoped so much that he had escaped this place."

Izzy had remained fairly quiet through all this, contemplating the argument. "It seems that after everything you've said, going against the Dark Ocean is still the most illogical thing we could do," he raised his head with a certain glint in his eye. "I say we go for it."

"So much for the infamous logic of Izzy," Matt retorted with a smirk. Izzy shrugged.

"I've spent years trying to use logic to get us out of here, and look where it's got us."

"Well, Yolei?" Joe asked.

Yolei gripped her fist tight over her chest and bit her lip. Then fixed them all with a determined look and nodded.

"Ok, now for the hard part," Izzy concluded. "Convincing Cody."

Fifteen minutes after Davis' unfortunate tongue accident, the three digi-destined and their digimon were now inside the building. They ended up with a Patomon and Veemon coloured head to toe in soot, a limping T.K and very bemused Ken, but they were able to open the door and sneak in. Davis felt the swelling stop in his mouth as he stepped in and felt somewhat proud that it was healing. The door slammed behind him like a thunderclap. He jumped at the sound; hit his head on the ceiling.

"Ow! My tongue again!" He was answered by hissing silences. He pointed at his mouth, clearly not impressed, but nobody seemed to care. He slumped his shoulders and dragged his feet after the group.

In the dark wooden cabin, a white screen lighted up their faces as Ken sat in front of the computer, waiting for it to come online. A few key commands and a click of his D3 and a map of the digital world popped up.

"What the hell?" he asked himself aloud.

"It looked just when you..." T.K stopped himself. Ken just gave a weak smile as if to thank him for not mentioning his days as a tyrant in the digital world. "What happened?"

"I don't know, something took over completely," he answered. "And fast. Hang on, I have a lock on three digivices."

"Who's?" Davis asked.

"Don't know, but I'm guessing Kari at least. But she said she was with Yolei, Matt, Joe, Cody and Izzy. There's three missing."

"What about Tai and Sora?" Ken shrugged again. There was a noise outside and a whisper. The three stood stone stiff and looked outside. Nothing. "I think we've been found."

"Quick, get us to that place," Davis instructed with a lisp. "Hey! That's primary village right?" Ken's fingers clicked away at keys.

"I can get us this close." A marker appeared on the map.

"That's too far away!" T.K complained.

"We've got no choice, if I try and get us closer, those people will find us, Digiport open!" The screen's light intensified, absorbing them all in its aura. Within seconds a huge flash was created and they were gone.

The large man known as Ark, held his broadsword by a finger on top of the hilt. The tip of the sword was pushed firmly into the ground, spinning in its place as he looked at it dully. Formerly Cody to his friends, he adopted the name Ark from the digimon that had a fascination with nicknaming their heroes and champions. His meant bringer of salvation to them. He had been there when the shadow first came, and one of the first to stand up to it with his digimon. He fought them off just enough to save a lot of lives and the rounded the surviving digimon into the mountains.

He remembered the first few years were the most difficult. He taught and trained digimon into an army. He set up defences and fought the shadow every way he could, forever looking for a weakness. Yet since he had captured the fortress he sat in, his hope had failed. Even after the death of the shadow creatures, nothing changed. He couldn't go home with the other two. They were still stuck here, still aging. That was three years ago. Although it seemed the outside world had barely moved along. In a nano-second he was fifteen years older than his friends. It seemed perverse and unfair. This was what he had been brooding since he first came across Kari, Matt and Joe. He was trying to find a conclusion to which he should take from here, but after so long, it seemed hard to relate to the digi-destined anymore. He didn't know if he could walk with them anymore.

He was interrupted by the hulking door to his room shifting open. He barely glanced up before resuming to watching his sword spin idly. He had noticed however, that all of the other digi-destined looking at him with mischievous smiles, which worried him slightly.

"I take it you have decided something whilst I was not present."

"Yeah. We're going to war." Matt stated with pride, as his grin got wider. Cody snorted a chuckle.

"Really?"

"What? You were just going to sit back here for the rest of your days until you turned grey and died?" Joe quipped.

Cody didn't answer, given his current train of thought it had crossed his mind. He looked at each one of them. Even Izzy stood rigidly as the rest of them. They certainly look like they meant what they said. "Have you asked the digimon?" He received a few puzzled glances.

"They are fighting of their own accord and will, you know?"

"Well they kind of follow you as it is, so we planned on recruiting you first," Joe answered sceptically. The older man actually seemed to roll his eyes in a gesture of being light hearted.

"I fight for the digimon left as much as they digital world or myself," Cody explained. "But no doubt, they'd follow you to the ends of the world given their belief and faith in us, so I guess that means I've no choice."

"What do you mean no choice?" Kari snapped. "You've always had a choice."

"Hikari," he responded. "As if I'd leave my friends to face dangers unknown without my help," he smiled.

"So we're back to be being friends now?" Joe asked in a hopeful hint. Cody let a heavy sigh out.

"I had some regrets I couldn't let go of easily, but they weren't your fault and I should have known better," he stood up. "Come on, we should plan this fully." Digivices suddenly vibrated.

"It looks like the others made it to the digital world but their aeons away from us," Kari said into her D3.

"We can't leave them out there for the shadows, they'll be ripped to pieces."

"So much for planning," Cody said. "Come on, we have to pick them up before the shadow does."

The space of a few hours seemed like no time at all as suddenly, all the digi-destined emerged from the fortress and mobilised every able digimon there. Soon the grand population of the digimon army were ready to go. Spirits soared under the flag of new coming protectors. Izzy had predicted it would take them three days to reach Davis, Ken and T.K but a scout party could possibly make it in just over a day. It was decided that Cody would lead a party of scouts to retrieve them with Matt. They left ahead of everyone else with Cody's lieutenants Leomon and Meramon at their sides. Gabumon accompanied Matt.

From the battlements, the others watched them pace into the sunset. They would leave in the morning. One by one they left until it was just Yolei and Kari. Kari seized a chance to ask a question she was dying to ask for a long time.

"Yolei? Where are Hawkmon and the others?" Yolei seemed reluctant to answer and carried on looking out over the horizon.

A sickening crunch told him the thing wouldn't get back up again; Davis removed his gloved fist from the disgusting texture of its soft skin. He was taking slow, retreating steps and pulling his guard up.

"What the hell are these things?"

"I don't know!" T.K shouted back, barely two feet from him as he doubled his fists up and caught another on the side of the face, it slumped to the ground easily. "But they're not that tough!"

Ken was now pinned on the floor by another some way off, his hand held up at what looked like its chin. It gnashed at him ferociously but he held his grip as his other hand was placed on its shoulder pushing back with all his might. He kicked his leg up underneath it and flipped it off him, scurrying back onto his own two feet as it regained its own composure and leapt at him, seeking to tear his flesh apart.

Its forearms held out to reach him, Ken reached out and grabbed it by the limbs, using its own momentum to throw it further way the other side of him, straight into Stingmon's blade, severing it in half easily.

"They maybe easy, but there's too many of them, we have to hide somewhere!"

The creatures had a slim lined body and elongated limbs, it seemed as though a whole tribe, herd or whatever you could call them had found them. There was nothing but a fast moving carpet of deep black bodies looking to get at the digidestined. Stingmon, Angemon and ExVeemon stood as a barrier in front of them, the three children, picking off stragglers as they got through.

Veemon's claws raked through countless bodies, he'd given up a long time a go counting how many there were. Angemon wrought holy judgement with his rod and powerful light based attacks. If anything right now, they seemed to install fear into the creatures, though not nearly enough. Stingmon had his single blade out, it cackled with energy as it cleaved its way through the enemy ranks.

The three boys were left alone just long enough for their D3's to activate again, a signal of another email. T.K read quickly. "This is nuts! They can't get to us for another day at least!"

"Told you we were too far away!" Davis quipped.

"I couldn't have got us any closer!" Ken defended.

"Alright! I know!" The brown haired boy turned round. "Ok, we'll have to go meet them half way! We'll ride our digimon alright?" The two nodded back at him. "Veemon! Ready?"

"You bet Davis!"

"Alright, let get out of here!"

In the next few moments, several tings happened. The shadows increased their attack. The three digimon suddenly let rip with their attacks, punching huge holes in the swarm. The in unison, the three digi-destined ran for the digimon. Each braced their partners weight and rose to the air.

T.K was sure he mad a good deal of distance was put between him and the ground. He looked back. The swarm were still scuttling over the ground. Suddenly they burst apart and ExVeemon was still on the ground, in his shadow, Davis fighting the fight alone. "Davis!"

The goggle-headed leader looked up at him. "I'll be right behind you! Go!"

"Bullshit! Angemon, lets get back down there!" His digimon turned and prepared to dive.

Just then, the earth shook.

He swung an arm relentlessly at his oncoming attacker and pulverised its mid section. The soft body collapsed under his ferocity. The earth below him violently shook and sent a feeling to his gut. He looked up at T.K and Ken coming back down for him. "Go!"

His voice was lost as the ground shattered beneath his feet and deep chasms swallowed him and his digimon. He saw a large creature, reminiscent of a huge worm with huge pincers for teeth emerge screaming murder. He carried on falling, a minute sound of Ken's voice calling after him. Then nothing. He lost consciousness.

The sun rose. A moment she had been waiting for all night. She felt invigorated by the determination she had in her, determination she never had before. Maybe she saw a personal nemesis in the shadow that had plagued the digital world and it was her job to do something about it.

Yolei was sitting by her still thinking with a grave look. It was a sad story she told Kari last night, but one with hope in it still. Hawkmon was gone, she knew, but with every chance they could bring him back as well as Armadillomon and Tentomon. Kari had one last question and although every fibre in her being demanded she get an answer, and find out what happened to her brother, an ounce of sorrow saw Yolei's face and thought she had already burdened enough without being pressured like that as well.

"You're brooding," Yolei pointed out, still looking away from her.

"Am not."

"Yes you are," Yolei said lightly and looked at her. "You have that distant look on you when you brood, like you're another planet, then you bite your lip."

"I do not," Kari pouted.

"You do," Gatomon added. She was curled up by Kari, seemingly asleep.

"You're supposed to be on my side." Gatomon's tail flickered and swung lowly, it almost looked like it was shrugging for the cat digimon.

"You want to know about your brother don't you?" Yolei asked for her. Kari nodded as she bit her bottom lip, and then shook her head, angry that she caught herself biting it. "We looked all over for them, for you all in fact. On the surface, underground, in the oceans, each time a shred of hope that you had been trapped here with us. And then disappointment that we were still alone, and yet relieved you hadn't suffered our fate.

For a long time we thought everyone but us had escaped, including Tai and Sora. Until one day......

The cave was dark and inhospitable. It wasn't moist or clammy and covered with secretion that made the walls glisten with ooze. It was dry and barren, the earth all about them cracked and light brown in colour, mixed with sand. A strong breeze flowed through. Sometimes it seemed enough to blow people off their feet if they weren't prepared.

Light filled the immediate area as a presence rounded the corner. A stout teenager with short dark hair and fiery eyes scanned the way ahead of him. A small figure was in toe of him. They were both silent as the wind itself. A torch that was carried by the boy flickered desperate to stay alive in the winds.

'There's an opening,' the small figure pointed out ahead.

The way was clear as far until the tunnel opened up and the boy forgot caution as he stepped out from the tunnel. Despite the barren world he had been travelling, this place seemed to thrive.

The ceiling ran as far as the surface, light breaking through cracks in the rock. Plant life grew against all odds. It was a place so serene. The light seemed to find its way onto a particular spot where no life dared to touch for it seemed sacred. The boy made his way over to this patch, confused more by the place, but the life of its own it seemed to have.

Two items glimmered under the radiant light. He stepped near them and finally recognised them, he drew a deep and sorrowful sigh.

'What is it Cody?" the smaller now visible Armodillomon asked.

Taking his time to answer, he picked the two crests up. 'Their Tai's and Sora's,' he said eventually. Staring at them in his palm. One red Courage crest and one pink for Love.

His thoughts were disturbed by someone else coming to the cavern.

'Its beautiful!' Yolei exclaimed. 'How did this place survive?'

Cody turned and smiled weakly, 'I don't know.'

'What's wrong?'

'I just found-.'

He was interrupted by the exploding sound of rock smashing as shadow creatures came in from the other end, bearing down on them.

'Yolei! Run!' Cody drew a basic short sword and held it in accordance to his practiced Kendo as Yolei fled. One body leapt at him and he cut at it, splitting it in half instantly.

'Cody! Tuck and roll!' Armadillomon shouted as he made himself into a tight sphere. Cody picked him up and hurled him at the nearest enemy. The force crushed the thing's head.

'Armadillomon! Lets go!' Cody was retreating, all the time, dealing lethal cuts as attackers came at him. Eventually he got to the tunnel and forced them into singular attacks. With this advantage, their numbers were too small to overwhelm him and they retreated. He sighed relief and looked over his shoulder, Yolei smiled back at him very relieved. He regretfully opened his closed fist to reveal the two crests. Her mouth dropped open slightly and quivered.

Kari took it in, so he was gone. Her eyes began to sting as she felt tears starting to come. Her brother was dead.

"Kari, I'm so sorry." Kari left a breath escape that was similar to a laugh, the kind of despaired laugh when someone who had lost everything saw some sick irony in it all. She looked straight back at Yolei. Though she wanted to say she would be ok eventually, her eyes betrayed her.

"Did you do it?" Yolei couldn't answer. "Then there's no need to e sorry."

Yolei nodded in return.

"Just one favour," Kari added.

"Anything."

"I want to see it."

"The cavern," Kari nodded. "No problem."

"Thank you Yolei," she walked away from the battlements for the fortress and Yolei watched her every step, each one heavier than the last. She spoke to Gatomon.

"Aren't you going to follow her?"

"Its not just the time yet," Gatomon replied. "Besides, I need to be alone too right now. As much as I hate to admit, I loved that goof of a brother too."

There was a stony silence before Gatomon added. "Besides, I think I'm more worried about you."

"Just seeing them all again, reminds me of how long I feel I've been here. And what I've been through, how night after night I prayed for things to be different." She looked at the napping cat. "I hate to do this, but we will be leaving in two hours. Could you make sure you and Kari are ready?"

"Yeah." Yolei raised herself from the sitting position she was in and walked from the scene. Gatomon saw Tai in her head. "You idiot Yagami," she whispered as she shed a tear herself.