Enter The Light
Part Eleven: The Night of the Full Moon
Standard Disclaimer Thingie: Digimon, not mine, which includes all characters, plots, digimon, merchandise, etc. There are a few original characters in this, which are all mine, mwahah, and also the plot belongs to me. Please don't sue or steal. Thank you, Enjoy!
When the sun rose in the morning it again was unseen by all who dwelt under it. The soft sound of wings flapping that Patamon had heard in the night was loud enough now to be heard by even human ears.
Yamato had continued driving through the night, unwilling to stop, and though he was tired, he had no intent to sleep. The wagon wheels continued turning, occasionally squeaking and squelching as they made their way over soft, thick mud and hard stones. The night had been silent and dark, with no view of the moon, yet he felt no need for the light. This road south was unfamiliar to him, but he followed it, and he followed the directions of Wizarmon, who guided them all towards the source of the darkness.
There was only a dim and hazy light in the morning, and it seemed as though a fog was growing with every passing second. The need for urgency increased, but there was little action. The Monochromon that pulled the wagon were exhausted, and that coupled with their fear to make the going quite slow. Sometime after the invisible dawn had come and gone, the massive digimon set their feet down and refused to lift them again. Yamato sighed and let the reins fall slack. He knew that there was no point in threatening, urging, or shouting. They were tired after pulling the wagon all day and night and far too exhausted to continue.
The others had slept only in brief spurts during the night, kept awake by the ever increasing sound of wings overhead as much as their own fear and anxiousness for the coming events. Only Mimi, Miyako, and Sora now had their eyes shut, enjoying a brief nap.
Taichi did his best to ignore the ever increasing throb in his head as he climbed down from the wagon and stretched his tired limbs. He glanced upward at the sky, expecting to see the haze of clouds as before, but what was truly there was not what he expected. The sky was covered by a massive, dark, moving substance of small black creatures, hovering together so that they were virtually indistinguishable. They had seen them, only briefly, the night before, and then they had disappeared into the blackness of night. Now, however, it was plain to see that there were millions of the creatures, so many as to darken the sun.
With a gasp, Taichi suddenly remembered part of the prophecy he had read: "The sun and the sky covered…."
"By the wings of many bats," Koushiro finished, emerging from the wagon as he spoke. He shook his head slowly. "It is an omen, I should think."
"Has the light erupted, then?" Takeru wondered, also exiting the wagon. He thought about the prophecy, trying to recall the words from his memory. "I thought that the wings of many bats are supposed to appear after the light had erupted?"
"I wish I knew what the light erupting meant," Taichi muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Prophecies are often confusing, and they often leave out parts," he told Takeru. "I'm not sure we ought to trust this prophecy entirely."
"A wise decision indeed, sire," said a voice from overhead. "Trust not prophecy in this time of uncertainty if it comes not from yourself."
"Who are you?" several voices questioned at once. Yamato placed one hand on the hilt of his sword, always at the ready, fastened to his belt.
The source of the voice emerged from within the treetops. It belonged to a solitary figure, indistinguishable in features, clad in a dark cloak that seemed to envelop its entire body and become part of the life itself. "It's not important. I have not come to attack you or to harm you. The Bakemon are my enemies as much as yours."
"Why have you come then?" Taichi questioned, stepping forward. "How is it you have escaped the sleep spell that has silenced everyone else?"
"I am no wizard," answered the other. "I have no answers. I have come to warn you that it will not be safe in this area tonight, not for those who sleep or those who are awake."
"Why do you say that?" Koushiro questioned.
"The full moon is tonight," replied the figure. "The full moon will appear tonight and all magic will be strengthened. Surely a wizard would know this much."
There was a silence for a long moment, while the others took in this information. Although Koushiro had indeed known about the power of a full moon, he had not known that it would be that very night.
"The place you seek as the source of the magic lies south east of here, near the foot of the hills. It is a heavily fortified building, surrounded by the ghosts, and it holds at least three that ought not to be there."
Iori consulted his map for a few moments and then looked up. "You speak of the prison at the edge of the village?" he questioned, and the other nodded.
"Three that ought not be there?" Taichi echoed. "Who are they and how do you know this?"
The visitor's response was only a shrug. "This I cannot tell you," he answered. "I hope you are prepared." With that, he was gone, disappearing into the shadowy treetops as silently as he had appeared.
Though he had eaten little and slept even less in the tiny cell than he had in all the time awake in the outside world, Shijo was not tired, and he did not sleep all night. He sat below the dim, flickering torch, thinking about the things he had seen and learned the evening before.
He had met the young woman he now shared the cell with before, although he hadn't known that she was the Princess. He had known nothing of the Chosen, nor of what battles they had fought to defend the kingdom. Hikari had told him all of that, and then she had succumbed to sleep before he could tell his own complicated story. It was just as well, he thought, because he didn't know quite where to begin or how to explain most of it.
One thing seemed certain, and that was that the item he'd allowed to be so easily taken from his hands belonged to the princess. Who else could it belong to? Shijo concluded, for he had seen no other prisoners within these thick walls and it could not belong to the only two humans he had seen, nor to the Bakemon.
Was that stranger within the black cloak – who had cast some sort of spell upon him, making it so impossible for him to move – even a human? Perhaps he was not. In any event, it seemed unlikely that the mysterious golden ring could belong to him, for in his presence, even the boy, who had no magic and no experience with evil, could sense the cold dark power that the mysterious figure seemed to embody.
'Maybe it was a stupid idea, anyway,' Shijo thought, thinking of the heavy stone walls and the iron door that stood between him and the object now. Untold numbers of Bakemon no doubt tirelessly floated through the narrow, dark corridors at all hours, an even greater barrier to freedom than the walls themselves.
Miyako sensed something strange in the air aside from the overwhelming sense of darkness. She awoke in the dim light, feeling stiff and tired from only a few hours rest on the hard, cold wood of the wagon floor. Exhausted and groggy as she was, it took her a few moments to jar her memory and make sense of the things she felt, and then she became aware of a magic she had not felt so close by for some time.
Forgetting her aches and pains, she pulled herself to her feet and left the wagon. Mimi and Sora were still asleep, and she let them and Hawkmon lie, for they would likely need their energy. The others were mulling around, setting up a makeshift camp, preparing a meal, discussing plans. Koushiro and Wizarmon were examining the prophecy yet again, talking about the rolled parchment in hushed, whispered tones.
The wagon had stopped, the Monochromon too exhausted to continue, in a small clearing at the edge of the main road. Although it wasn't likely that any other travelers would soon pass them, Yamato had led the weary creatures to the side of the path and released them from the wagon.
Miyako stood, unnoticed, for a few moments near the wagon, looking around. She turned her head slowly in each direction and then walked toward the trees that were at the opposite edge of the road. Squinting through the darkness, she appeared to be trying to make sense of a space between the branches when Koushiro and Wizarmon both noticed that she had awakened and followed her.
"Miyako?" Koushiro questioned, his voice lined with a curious concern.
She held up a hand for a moment, squinting harder through the cloud of magic, as though searching for something hidden within the fog. After a moment, she shook her head and shut her eyes, seeking the magic with her other senses. "Someone was here…."
As though he had just seen the dead return to life, the wizard's mouth slowly dropped open for a split second before he composed himself. "Yes," he answered simply. "Who?"
Miyako turned sharply and looked at him with a searching gaze, as though wondering if he were trustworthy. Koushiro seemed even more astonished with this act than her previous statement. After a moment of silence and thoughts, she shook her head and turned away. "I'm not yet certain," she answered vaguely.
"Someone you know?" Wizarmon questioned boldly.
"Maybe."
There was still a long journey to travel if they were to get to the place the stranger had described before the night came on. Night was already upon them, but it was an artificial sort of night, and the moon was not visible through the covering of bats.
Mimi was nervous and frightened of the masses above them. She looked upward for long stretches, watching them, afraid that they would certainly come soaring downward and attack before long. The rest of the time, she kept her eyes planted on the ground at her feet, too afraid to look upwards and see the impending doom.
It made the others nervous as well, and they traveled in a tight formation, each one too fearful to travel far from the protection of safety. Patamon rode in a perch of safety upon Takeru's head where he could see the road ahead and still feel safe. Hawkmon and Piyomon both remained on or very close to the ground and near their partners, while Tentomon hovered a short distance from Koushiro.
There had been some debate about whether or not they ought to follow the advice of the stranger who had appeared to them so mysteriously earlier. Yamato was reluctant to take orders from someone who seemed quite untrustworthy. Miyako was reminded of the dark, mysterious stranger Daisuke had described as giving him the book, and wondered if the two were the same, a possibility which occurred to the others as well.
"What harm can come of it, though?" Sora had pointed out. "We certainly have no other place to go, and Koushiro and Wizarmon are already leading us in the same direction."
In the end, they decided there was little other choice but to travel as the stranger had advised, and they moved out, walking slowly, each with eyes upon the shady, dense forest, watching constantly for signs of danger.
No danger came, no wild digimon attacked. The Bakemon were no where to be found, at least no where that could be seen. From time to time, it was possible to hear a light swishing sound in the distance and a low, eerie moaning that was certainly the sound of a ghostly digimon floating through the trees. They didn't venture out of hiding, however, and they made no attack upon the travelers.
"It's creepy," Mimi said, wrapping a thin shawl tightly around her shoulders and taking shelter in the inside of the group. "I know they're out there and watching us, I can almost feel them in my bones, but I can't see them!"
"I don't think it's us they're after," Sora answered. "If they wanted us, they would have already come and attacked."
"We're not interested in them. They're only the pawns. It's whatever's controlling them, that's caused the sleep spell and sent all those…bats," Yamato reminded them. He paused in his steps long enough glance upward at the moving sky. He shivered briefly, and resumed walking.
Wizarmon had a strong suspicion that Miyako was not telling the others all that she might know. She had mentioned nothing to the others about what she had seen in the wind, and he had dismissed it as completely unrelated, yet the magical digimon was certain that it was not. After that morning's incident, he was sure that whoever this stranger was, he was the same person that Miyako had sensed with the wind spell, and she knew him.
Unwilling was he to meddle in the affairs of the Chosen or in their own personal lives, however, and so he remained quiet. He did however notice that Koushiro also kept a watch upon the young mage, glancing in her direction occasionally, his face usually wearing a subtle expression of concern and question. For whatever his own reasons might be, however, the young wizard also kept silent and did not question Miyako about the incident or any of his own suspicions.
Miyako seemed to pay the others very little attention while she walked. She had given in to the wearing of the spectacles so that she might not suffer from such strong headaches as she had before, but she seemed to see even less of the world around her. Wizarmon suspected that she, too, was lost within her own thoughts about the stranger and the current predicament.
The sun had sank deeply into the western skies by the time the group arrived within sight of the tall, fortress-like prison, causing the darkness to grow thicker. In day time it would surely have been a formidable sight, and in the evening, with only the vaguest hint of dusk visible from beyond the cover of bats, it was a picture of pure evil.
Mimi shivered and wrapped her shawl even more tightly around her shoulders, trying to make herself smaller. Jyou shivered as a cool breeze suddenly swept past them.
They were standing upon the edge of the northern forest, on a slight hill that overlooked the tiny village. Below, tiny huts stretched out in the valley, bordered on the south by a peaceful little lake and on the east by a meandering, lazy river that connected to the lake. The huts were dark and silent, and there was neither lights nor carriages nor the slightest movement in the village.
"Why is it that this village looks familiar to me?" Yamato wondered, scratching the back of his head. "I feel as though I have been here before."
"All villages look the same to me," Mimi admitted. "Tiny huts, tiny streets, tons of little people." She shrugged.
Takeru shook his head. "No, it feels familiar to me, too, and now I know why. Look." He pointed to the west, where another hill rose out of the ground, a tall building perched on the top. "I've been there, and so have you, Yamato. It's where Daisuke lives."
"That's an awfully odd coincidence," Jyou muttered under his breath. "Why this village? Why that prison? There must be others, right?"
Several eyes turned to Iori, who sighed before he answered: "Three others, actually. One at least three days' journey south of here, another at the edge of the western sea, nearly a week from here, and the last near the northern border, in the midst of the mountains."
"At any rate, it's good that the bad guy chose something nearby, right?" Mimi pointed out, trying to be positive. This comment was largely ignored.
"This one was shut down," Taichi said then, frowning. "It was taken because it has been empty – at least of prisoners – for the last two months."
The doctor nodded, acknowledging the point. "Still, it seems to be an odd coincidence," he pointed out.
"Do you think this has something to do with Daisuke?" Sora questioned.
Jyou frowned and scratched his chin for a moment. "It's hard to say that, exactly," he answered. "If it does, I can't imagine what the connection is."
"Unless, of course, Daisuke's evil or something now," Mimi pointed out.
There was a brief silence as the others considered this, and then there was a clamor of disagreement.
"That's insane!" Takeru told her. "He would never !"
"That's what we thought about Ken, too!" she retorted, shrugging lightly. "I'm not saying he is," she put up her hands in a defensive gesture,"I'm just saying that is a possible conclusion."
"It's highly unlikely," Yamato told her. "I don't think we ought to come to conclusions like that just yet."
"We knew that Demon would come after Ken," Iori put in, speaking in a quiet, calm voice. "He told us so, right from the start. It seemed that Ken was his only target, not Daisuke."
"Still, what if that was to throw us off the track?" Jyou wondered. "He didn't have to announce to us any of his intentions."
Takeru let out a snort of disgust, and Yamato threw up his arms in frustration. "This won't get us anywhere," he told them. "Let's move away from it. If it turns out, for some weird reason, that Daisuke is behind this, then we'll deal with it when we know for certain. For now, let's just try to get to that building over there. You know, the ominous one with the 'Dark Lord?' inside of it?"
Unsurprisingly, the door creaked open and the Bakemon entered, a crowd of them filling the tiny doorway. Hikari made no move to either greet or oppose them, but remained unmoving, seated on the floor. She didn't react with surprise or disappointment when they parted and the strange, silent slave boy returned.
"I suppose you have come for me, then?" she asked, and he nodded without speaking. She got to her feet slowly, and with effort, for she was tired and weak. Silent, neither laughing nor grinning, the Bakemon parted and she followed him from the cell.
Miyako pushed the spectacles onto her nose with the first finger of her right hand and breathed a soft sigh of relief when the world returned to its normal, calm state. "There is no barrier that I can see," she reported. "The entire building is a dark blur of magic, but there is no barrier to protect it and no shield."
"What do we do when we're inside?" Mimi wanted to know. She shivered again, wrapping her shawl around her once more.
There was quiet. "The prophecy says that after the light has erupted, six days of darkness," Koushiro recalled. "It would seem the darkness began before the eruption, however." He looked upward toward the sky.
No one spoke.
"Should we wait for something?" Jyou wondered.
All eyes turned toward Taichi, who was looking at the distant fortress of a prison with an intense gaze, almost as though he were trying to look through the building and inside, to see what was happening. For some time, he didn't speak, only stared.
"Taichi?" Sora finally ventured to speak, and put a hand on his shoulder.
With a sigh, he shook his head. "I don't like the idea of waiting," he admitted, finally pulling his gaze away.
Before he could continue, however, there was a distant rumbling noise not dissimilar to the sound of thunder. The sky grew darker than ever before, so that it became impossible to see anything at all. Another rumble sounded, this time even louder and closer. Over the noise the sound of Mimi screaming could be heard.
"What is that?" she demanded.
There was a flash of light, like lightning, but it was tinted red. For a moment, the world was illuminated and everything that could be seen was visible, bright as day, but with a distinct red tint, as though it was being seen through colored glass. Then it faded immediately, plunging the world again into darkness. Again, they could hear the rumbling.
"What's that?" Sora's voice shouted, and she pointed. When the light flashed again the others followed her gaze and saw that a strange carriage seemed to be flying through the air, surrounded by an even larger pack of the winged bats.
"Is it ?" Mimi wondered, her voice soft, but bordering on hysteria. It became dark before anyone could get a closer look. After a few moments, the thunder stopped, and so did the flashing lights.
Hikari could almost sense a certain amount of fear in the room, and it wasn't all her own, she was certain. She had been led to an upper chamber of the prison, usually used as an office for the warden of the prison. Now, though, it had been removed of all furniture, and the large, ceiling-high windows had been opened, causing a cold, steady breeze to flow into the room. A few torches on the walls were the only light in the dim room.
Through the absent windows of the office, Hikari could see the outside world as it had become while she had been in the prison. The sky was a dark, cloudy blur, covered with hundreds of thousands of tiny winged creatures. The world beyond the office window was completely dark.
There was a flash of red light that illuminated the room and the world beyond, and the sound of thunder made the building shake.
"W-what is that?" Hikari asked, struggling to stay on her feet, suddenly feeling very weak and dizzy. A sudden and almost unbearable headache began, just above her eyes, and she fought to ignore it as best she could.
The Bakemon shivered quietly and floated out of the room. Hikari watched them go, wondering what it was that could make a Bakemon afraid.
For some time, there was darkness. The only sound was of the constant fluttering of bats and Mimi's nervous breathing. "Light…please," she begged, her voice just above a soft whisper. "Please."
There was a flicker of light as Wizarmon removed a lit candle from within his pointed hat. A dim circle of illumination appeared, and Mimi breathed a sigh of relief. Palmon did her best to comfort her partner, and Sora put an arm around the other girl, gently patting and rubbing her back. "It's all right Mimi. You're safe."
"For now anyway," Yamato noted with a barely visible dour expression.
A brighter light appeared in the form of a single ball of fire, hovering a few feet above the ground. Instantly, the area was illuminated further, and Mimi relaxed.
Koushiro sighed deeply, and the flame slowly sank down into the ground, resting now only inches above the ground. "It won't last for long," he stated bluntly, shaking his head, and she shivered.
"I think we may be done waiting," Taichi pointed out. "I think now is the time to move as close as we can to the prison." He frowned, glancing toward the ominous building. "It won't be much longer before something happens, I'm sure."
The room had emptied entirely, and Hikari had the vague feeling that she ought to be somewhere completely different, but she wasn't certain where to go or how to get there, and she wasn't willing to run away in fear. There was a flash of red light, the room went dark, and then the torches flickered to life once more and she was no longer alone.
"It seems that you have accepted the inevitable, human princess," said a voice that came from a very tall figure behind a dark cape. "I applaud your wisdom. I was always told that humans were stupid and emotional, and yet you have proved yourself to be superior."
Uncertain of how to reply to such a backhanded compliment, Hikari said instead: "Who are you and what is it you want with me?"
In response, the other laughed, a high-pitched smooth-voiced laugh, and turned its face toward her. It was a face paler than the palest humans had ever been, with eyes colder than any human's could ever be, visible through the protection of a red mask. Blond hair framed the face, and when the creature smiled, two sharp fangs could be seen, emerging from its upper lip.
"I am Vamdemon," he answered. "From you, human, I desire…your power."
She shook her head rather than give in to the instinct to shiver or to run in the opposite direction. "You have the wrong person," she answered, somehow managing to keep her voice steady despite the fact that she could feel every bone in her body shake and tremble with fear. "I have no power, certainly none that you could have use for."
Again, the other laughed, this time throwing back its head back until it met the high back of its cloak, then he turned himself entirely to face her. He was a digimon and there was no doubt, for no human had ever been built so tall and so thin. The inside of his cape, the same red as the mask upon its face, reminded Hikari eerily of the color of blood, and his boots, monstrously sized black objects, each had the face of a skull – a human skull – painted upon them. "You are either lying or you have been lied to," he told her simply, and from somewhere within the folds of his cape, he removed a tiny object dangling from a string.
He held the string loosely between two fingers of his long, gloved fingers, and the object dangled softly for a moment. A gust of wind blew through the opened windows, and the string danced on the power of the breeze, then began, softly, to glow, a gentle white light that felt so warm and peaceful that Hikari could feel the effects even from where she stood.
"This is the crest of Hikari, of light," Vamdemon told her. "It reacts only to the one who has been chosen as the Child of Light, which would be you. It is you and you alone who possesses such the amount of power that I require, and it is from you that I will take it."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Hikari repeated, shaking her head. At the same time, though, she knew that he must right. It had been virtually certain, almost from the moment she had received her digivice, that she would be the one to hold the crest of Light, and yet she understood little of what was being said.
"Don't you?" he questioned, his voice casual and light. He laughed, a brief explosion of giggles. "It is in your family alone that the power of the light magic is held, and it is you alone that possess enough power to be of use to me. I need this power, you see, because without it, I cannot carry out my mission, for as strong as I am, the King of the Undead does require ever more power. Especially when there are Chosen to oppose him." He stepped forward, a grin upon his face, and Hikari forced herself to look away turning her head to the side.
"I won't help you. What makes you think that I would?" she asked.
"I'm afraid you won't have much of a choice," he answered. As he spoke, the door behind Hikari opened. She turned, and the dark figure she had seen upon first arrival entered the room, clutching a tiny sac in both hands. "I see you have found our solution," Vamdemon said.
The other bowed low and held the sac in front of him. "It has been located, master. Surely now your plan will succeed?"
"It has no possibility of failure, so long as those who serve me correctly perform their duties." The tall digimon crossed the wide room in only two steps, passing so closely past Hikari that she could feel the smooth material of his cape upon her cheek before she could move to avoid it. "Give it to me."
"Of course, master," he answered, and held out the sac. Vamdemon took it within his gloved hand and smiled, the pointed, fang like teeth again becoming visible above his bright red lips.
"Excellent," he said, pleased. He held the sac up so that he might view it at eye level, and smiled even wider. "It would seem my plans will finally come to fruition."
"As you have said, master," answered the figure, still bowed low. Vamdemon frowned then, and lowered his arm.
"Human," he said, sharply, and the cloaked figure bowed even lower than Hikari had believed possible. "You have of course followed my orders to the letter?"
"Yes, master, of course."
"You have disposed of all those useless creatures and humans who have interfered with my plans?"
"Yes, master."
"You are quite certain?"
"Yes master. I have destroyed the interlopers and disposed of them as ordered, master."
"I see." For a long moment there was silence, and Hikari shivered, feeling fear on behalf of the figure, even though she had no reason to give him her sympathy or pity. She wondered if the man were any longer capable of being frightened for his life or if he was, like the slave boy she had seen, deprived of free will and emotions. In any case, he certainly displayed no fear. "I should hope so," Vamdemon finally said, easing the tension that Hikari certainly felt, even if the other did not.
"Leave us now. I have preparations to complete for tonight."
The servant straightened long enough to nod, then bowed low again and left the room as silently as he had entered, the door shutting softly behind him.
Moving along, slowly but surely. Action coming up, I promise. Thanks to everyone who's reading and reviewing.
And hey! I introduced the bad guy! Go me! Any guesses yet? Huh? huh?