Enter The Light

Part Thirty Two: Jyou vs. The Spider

Standard Disclaimer Thingie: Digimon, all related characters, etc, are not mine. The plot of this story, however, is mostly mine. Please don't steal, don't sue, don't forget…to moo.

Moo.

There were injuries already, although minor, along the Northern district of the city by the time that Jyou arrived, the horde of Lopmon invaders having done quite a bit of damage despite their small size. Unsuspecting families found themselves driven from their homes by crowds of the long-eared digimon. Although their partners and they themselves tried to fend them off, the army was succeeding by sheer numbers and many humans and their partners were covered with minor cuts and bruises. Alarm bells were sounding further south, where Jyou knew now that Koushiro and Kabuterimon were fighting, and the soldiers had risen from their barracks to help fight back the horde of encroaching Lopmon, but there were many of them.

"See if you can't help some of them out," Jyou advised his partner as they paused; the doctor panting heavily after their quick run across town; at the edge of the fray. "Get rid of some of these little terrors."

A singular Lopmon had chosen that moment to notice the newcomers and had run toward them. Before long the small creature had attacked Jyou, swinging his heavy ears and scratching with his tiny claws. Jyou attempt to kick the digimon aside, but it only latched on to his leg, causing him to cry out in pain and try to pry the creature off with his hands. "Get – off!" he gasped, blood already trickling down his lower leg. "Gomamon – do something!"

"Gomamon evolve! Ikkakumon!" In a flash of glowing light, the tiny digimon was replaced by a huge hairy creature with long tusks. Finding the entire thing rather amusing, Ikkakumon lowered his massive head to the level of the small Lopmon and growled menacingly.

The sight of him was enough to make the Lopmon hesitate in his attack for a brief moment, and Jyou grabbed the small digimon by the ears and tossed him aside. Ikkakumon laughed, his deep voice reverberating in the hectic, filled streets.

"Ow," Jyou muttered, inspecting his leg, paying no attention to his partner's amusement. The injury was minor, although his next few steps were taken gingerly and he limped slightly. "Stupid thing."

Finding great fun in the battle, Ikkakumon dove into the crowd of Lopmon, bowling some of them over with his great size and knocking those that dared to remain away with the long horn atop his head. His laughter could be heard for quite some distance.

"Head that way," Jyou advised the city's displaced residents, most of whom were staring at the newcomer with some trepidation, as though they were not quite sure if he was there to help or hinder the progress of the Lopmon army. Most had likely never seen anything quite like Ikkakumon before, and so simply stared, stunned and astonished. "Head for the big house, you'll be safe there. Go!"

After a few moments hesitation, most of the families in the streets took his advice and headed south, avoiding the Lopmon crowds that filled the street. Jyou ran through the streets, shouting the same advice to everyone that he met, seeking out anyone who might be badly injured. Thankfully, there was no one, and most of those who heard his words followed his orders without too much further persuasion.

"I can't hold them off forever, Jyou," Ikkakumon said then, his voice reverberating through the streets. "When you've gotten everyone out, I think we ought to retreat."

"They're only Lopmon," Jyou protested at the end of the first street, pausing to catch his breath.

"Yes, but there's a million of them, I think, and they keep coming!" his partner defended.

"Let's go now, then," he decided. The northern end of the city met the port, and Ikkakumon would likely travel quickly in the water. "Head for the water, then, and we'll head south, back toward Koushiro."

After a final swipe of his horn to toss aside the last crowd of Lopmon, Ikkakumon plunged into the shallow but cold water at the northern edge of the city. After a brief hesitation, Jyou took a running leap and thankfully landed safely and securely atop his partner's head. The crowd of Lopmon surged at the edge of the dock, and though some of them fell into the cold water below, none were eager to swim after. Water, Jyou thought thankfully, was most definitely the domain in which Ikkakumon had an advantage.

Safely offshore, Jyou felt another strange chill in his stomach. He shivered, even though the air was not particularly cold and he'd thought to grab a warm cloak before leaving. Pulling it around his shoulders, he wondered if the strange feeling in his stomach was something else entirely.

A thought occurred to him then, and, with the wind whistling through his ears, he called to his partner, "Do you suppose there is a crystal in this city?"

"They certainly seem to think so," Ikkakumon answered. "Whatever it was that sent that army of Lopmon, anyway. They thought there was one in Takenouchi-Inoue and Ishida and Tachikawa, too, and they haven't found any yet, have they?"

"No," Jyou answered, pulling the hood of his cloak up to protect his ears. "Is it a big crystal or a little one? And where would it be hidden, do you think?"

"Maybe in plain sight," his partner suggested. "Perhaps it's hidden by magic and you don't see it until you touch it, or something…?"

Jyou shivered again and sneezed, feeling colder and colder. "I hope I'm not getting sick," he muttered. "I feel so cold."

The first two Tyrannomon had been deleted, almost too easily. Now, however, the remaining Ogremon had been joined by two dozen reinforcements. Swinging their clubs, they shattered houses and attacked people trying to evacuate. Worse, they were so small and quick moving that they easily dodged the electrical attacks that Kabuterimon used to try to prevent them.

Koushiro, perched atop his partner, hovering above the city, watched as the soldiers' swords connected with the clubs of the Ogremon, giving a retreating family precious seconds in which to hurry to safety, or at least out of danger. Unfortunately, this was a most dangerous form of battle as the Ogremon ultimately won in most cases and the soldier himself was thrown violently aside. Sympathetically, the wizard winced as yet another guard collided loudly with a stone building and slumped over, unconscious.

"There has to be some way to stop them," Kabuterimon grumbled, frustrated that his attacks were doing little to stop the agile and fast-moving Ogremon.

"I've got to find that crystal," Koushiro stated with certainty. From his pocket he removed a crumpled scrap of paper on which he'd scribbled his homemade spell that had lead him here in search of the item. He read the words on the paper, moving his fingers in a certain manner that manipulated the magic in what he hoped was the correct direction. After a few moments he gave up and stuffed the paper into his pocket again.

"Any luck?" Kabuterimon questioned.

"It's a strange sort of magic. It seems hidden and protected like nothing I've ever sensed before, almost unclassifiable." The wizard sighed deeply. "I suggest we head for the sea."

"Do you see that thing?" Jyou asked. He was still perched atop his partner, floating a short distance off-shore, the docks of the city and their current battles far enough away so that he could notice a bit of – something – floating in the water. "What is it?"

"Wreckage of something," Ikkakumon guessed. "Should we go closer? See what it is?"

"I want to say no," he admitted. "I want to say that we should head for shore and try to help out. Yet, I also want to go and see what that is." He shivered again. "I feel strange, and for some reason I think that that is the reason for it."

"Strange?" his partner echoed. "It's not like you, Jyou, to sense magic, you know."

"Magic?" he repeated, disbelieving. "I don't sense magic! It just feels strange and I think we should go and look at it!"

"All right, all right," Ikkakumon conceded. "You don't have to get defensive." He changed course, heading for the floating bits of wood Jyou had spotted ahead.

"I'm not getting defensive," he grumbled. "Magic. I don't sense magic. I don't feel magic. Koushiro's the wizard, not I. I'm a doctor." He was still muttering to himself when Ikkakumon interrupted.

"It's a small box. A chest, I'd guess," he reported. "Do you want to open it?"

By this time they were close enough to the item that Jyou could reach out and collect it without risking falling into the water. He reached forward, the strange feeling in his stomach suddenly taking that moment to reappear, and took the small chest in his hands. Instantly, the feeling faded, and Jyou opened the water-damaged wooden box to find that a thin, long string was resting inside and at the end was a small glass crystal, barely as long as his longest finger.

"This thing?" he mused to himself. "This little thing is what they've been after all this time?" Suddenly, he found everything hilarious, and before long he was doubled over with laughter and couldn't stop.

"Jyou? Are you all right?" Ikkakumon asked, a tinge of worry in his deep voice.

He took a deep breath to calm himself and sat down on the soft, warm fur of his partner's head. "I think so," he said. "I think, Ikkakumon, that I've found the crystal." He reached into the box and took out the object.

"Jyou!" shouted a voice from what sounded like a great distance away. "Jyou!"

Something huge was flying toward him at a very fast rate of speed; Jyou put up one hand over his eyes and squinted in its direction. It seemed to be Koushiro, flying on Kabuterimon, zooming through the air quickly. "Hello!" he called, waving. Taking hold of his partner's massive horn with one hand, he pulled himself to his feet. "Koushiro! Over here."

"How very nice," said a woman's voice that he didn't recognize and had never heard before. Jyou whirled sharply around to discover that a tall, thin woman in a red dress and wide-brimmed hat with silvery hair was standing a few feet away from him. She was standing on a mound of grey that hadn't been there before and after a moment he decided it must be the back of a Whamon, though he couldn't figure out how she had managed to get a Whamon to allow her to stand on its back. "Give that to me, please."

It was plain that Ikkakumon did not trust this newcomer, for every muscle on his body had tensed and he was emitting a low growling noise. Jyou stared blankly at her for a few moments before some part in the back of his mind remembered the woman sorceress that Sora had seen outside of Takenouchi-Inoue and concluded that this must be the same lady. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I don't have time for pleasantries," she told him. "I need the crystal, if you don't mind."

"I do mind, actually," he answered, his knees wobbling slightly though he tried not to show it. Trying to convey casualness, he leaned against his partner's horn with one arm and twisted the string of the crystal around his fingers. "I'd like to know who I'm giving the crystal to, firstly, and then I'd like to know what you want with it and why you were so eager to burn down an entire city to look for it."

She sighed wearily. "Must I go through this with each of you? I want the crystal to free the vanquished from the shadow world. I'm willing to sacrifice a few in order to get what I want. As for who I am…." These last words were spoken with a tinge of impatience in her voice. She was tugging on a few silvery locks of hair as she spoke. "I am the spider woman, a sorceress with far more magic than your friend there."

A few hairs came free of her head. Jyou winced reflexively, but the action did not seem to have caused her any pain. Instead she twisted the hairs in her finger and he saw that they grew longer and stronger as she did so. Then, with a quick wave of her arm, she tossed the needle-like darts across the open water. A half dozen of them sped through the air, heading directly for Koushiro and Kabuterimon, still some distance away.

"Koushiro, look out!" Jyou called, but it was too late. The wizard had seen the approaching missiles, but had not been quick enough to stop them. Kabuterimon effectively dodged a few of them, but two others pierced through his wings. A bright glow surrounded them both and Jyou heard the splash as both plunged into the water, Kabuterimon de-evolving as they did so.

"Will you give me that crystal, or will we do this the hard way?" the sorceress questioned, her voice still sounding bored. Jyou stared at the spot where Koushiro had dropped into the freezing and shallow water until he thought he saw a blob that could be the wizard's head appearing above the water. Only then did he glance back toward the woman, one fist clenched tightly around the small crystal, the other gripping his partner's tall horn.

"You're not getting this," the doctor told her, his voice sounding uncharacteristically certain, purposeful and angered. "I'm not going to give you anything."

"Very well then," she said, still bored and weary. "The hard way."

The wind increased until it was so powerful that the long white hairs on his partner's head were standing straight up and Jyou had to grip both arms tightly around the horn in order to avoid being blown into the water. The sea itself churned violently, sending tall waves crashing on to the shore and soaking Jyou as he tried to stay upright. The water was freezing, and he sneezed a few times.

Then, from the middle of the waves came another half-dozen small silvery darts. Panicking, Jyou threw himself flat against his partner's head, burying himself in the thick white hairs. "Give it to me!" he heard the woman shout over the sound of the roaring sea.

"Never!" he managed to shout back before the water splashed over him, drowning his voice. When he could breathe again, Jyou gasped out, "Never!" once more, and then he thought he could hear a familiar sort of noise through the crashing waves. It sounded like a high-pitched, repetitive noise, but he could not determine its source.

"Ikkakumon evolve!" he heard his partner shout over the roar of the waves. He could feel the vibrations of his voice through the thick fur, and then he could no longer feel the fur. Everything felt strange and he could see nothing but light even when he closed his eyes. It seemed as though he were a bit higher above the waves now, but perhaps he was imagining it.

"Zudomon!" said the voice beneath him, a powerfully deep voice, and then the light faded and the waves receded and Jyou saw that he was not where he had been before, although he had not moved, either.

Miyako had entered Koushiro's domain with some amount of hesitation. It was very strange to be in the wizard's tiny laboratory without him there – with only books and candles and strange instruments to fill the tiny space.

Hawkmon, following behind her, was barely visible in the dim candlelight, and was feeling understandably nervous about the entire venture. "Are you sure we should be here?" he questioned, voice wavering slightly.

"I have questions I want answered," Miyako answered sensibly, holding the candle before her as the heavy door creaked open into the small room. "Koushiro has the books that might provide the answers."

"Yes…," her partner agreed, still not sounding as though he completely agreed with her assessment of the situation, but was unable to come up with an effective counter argument.

With the candle, she lit the fire in the fireplace and the light filled the room, revealing it to be much the way Koushiro had left it. Tall bookcases lined the walls, stuffed with heavy volumes, and at least two dozen piles of books scattered the floor and the small tables within. Another shelving unit was covered with beakers containing strange-colored liquids, and a heavy iron cauldron collected dust in the corner. "Where to begin…?" she mused, climbing into the tall stool she had previously used when studying here. A small pile of books rested on the table beside her, and she took the top volume from the pile and creaked it open.

Hawkmon, seeing that no great harm had come from entering a wizard's room without said wizard being present, settled himself as he usually did on a shelf near the fireplace and fell soon into a comfortable nap.

It was nearly midnight, the fire having gone down and the candles shrunk to only stubs of wax, before Miyako was interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the doorway. Feeling a bit as though she was awakening from a nap, she blinked in the dim lighting, hearing a familiar voice speak.

"This is a sight," Takeru noted, eyebrows raised, eyes wide. "It's almost as if you had taken over for Koushiro. I can't tell you how many times I've wandered down this hall at night and seen him in exactly the same position, lights gone down to nearly nothing." He shook his head in amusement.

Miyako yawned, her mind slowly coming awake. "Has it been that long already?" she wondered, looking at the once tall candle before her. "Magical reading has a way of doing that to you, I suppose." She climbed down from the stool she'd been sitting on and began to search through the shelves above the fireplace for a fresh batch of candles that she knew were stocked in that place. She found them easily and began to light them, brightening the room considerably. "What brings you here this time of night?" she asked when Takeru came in, setting himself on a stool across the table from her. He took the topmost book from a nearby pile and squinted at the cover for a few moments.

"I was thinking – and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind – about how strange it was that we could find no mention of Mummymon in any of these books," he answered, opening the book and flipping through a few of the pages as he spoke. "I started to think that maybe I could find some information on him now that we at least know his name. Maybe," he added, the new thought occurring to him at that moment, "if we find out something about Mummymon, we could find out something about that sorceress that's always with him."

"Maybe," Miyako admitted. Candles relit, she sat down in her previous seat once more. "Something's been bothering me, though. We've been thinking that they want these crystals because they want to open a portal to the shadow world, right?"

"That's the theory," Takeru agreed, flipping a few pages in the book. "What else could they want them for?"

"I know, but, see, Demon has enough power to cross to our world from the shadow world. We've seen him at least twice, and who's to say that he's never been here at any other time? Why, then, would they need crystals?"

"To bring something else here?" he suggested, shutting the book and setting it aside. "I can't imagine what, though."

Miyako leaned back in her seat, frowning. "I have been trying to find information about the shadow world," she said. "To see what resides there and try to figure out what that sorceress wants to free. She said something about those who were 'unjustly imprisoned.' Who imprisoned them?" She sighed heavily and jabbed one finger at the book directly in front of her. "These stupid things say nothing about the shadow world except that it's a place no man dares tread."

"What you need," said a voice from the doorway, "is a book of dark magic. Or a dark wizard." Daisuke stood, leaning against the frame of the door, a now familiar expression of confusion on his face, frowning as though he were trying to recall something.

"We had a book of dark magic," she answered darkly, a more severe frown growing on her face. "I couldn't touch it. You lost it."

He shrugged slightly, but said nothing, entering the room with some amount of caution, eyes wandering over the books.

"What if the sorceress and Mummymon don't work for Demon?" Takeru wondered aloud. "What if they can't open a portal to the shadow world because they don't have enough power?"

Miyako looked up from the heavy volume she'd been studying, a thoughtful expression on her face. "That's a scary thought," she answered, thinking for a moment, and then nodded toward Daisuke, who was looking up at one of the tall bookshelves with great interest. "He's the one who said Mummymon works for Demon."

Takeru fell silent, opening the next volume in the pile beside him.

"It's possible that I could be wrong," Daisuke said after a moment passed. "I'm not sure you ought to trust any information that comes from me at this point." He grinned sheepishly and turned momentarily away from his study of the bookcase. "I don't even know how I know that."

There was a sudden, sharp noise that caused Miyako to jump as Takeru slammed shut the book he'd been looking through. "Let's try this, then," he suggested, turning around in his seat to face Daisuke. "What do you remember?"

"Takeru!" Miyako said sharply, but he waved her away with a casual flick of his hand.

"No, let him ask," Daisuke said absently, before the young mage could react anymore violently than she already had. "I know he's been dying to."

Takeru grinned smugly. "Well then?" he asked after a moment of silence. "What do you remember?"

A book on the shelf before him had caught Daisuke's interest, and he took it from its spot and carried it across the room to the table where the other two were seated. "I remember cold and darkness," he answered, setting the book down on the table. "That's most of it."

"That's all?" Takeru asked, obviously disappointed.

"Memory's kind of a funny thing," Miyako mused, watching as Daisuke began to flip through the pages. "How do you know what you don't remember? You don't remember it."

Takeru stared at her for a moment but had nothing to say to this.

Daisuke had taken one of the remaining seats and was looking through the book with a casual sort of attitude, as though he was only glancing through it with a passing interest. "It was cold and it was dark," he said again in answer to Takeru's continuing silence. He paused briefly and looked toward the others with an odd expression. "I don't remember much more than that because I don't want to."

"What if somewhere in your memories is the key to breaking the spell?" Takeru proposed.

He shook his head, turning back toward the book. "It's not," he answered simply. "You seem to think that somewhere in my head is the answer to everything. I think you're wrong."

"How do you know if you don't remember?" Takeru argued.

Daisuke didn't seem inclined to answer this. He flipped a few pages in his book, obviously intent on finding something in particular. Miyako glanced curiously across the table, wondering what he was looking for, wondering what book it was that he had taken. After a moment, he stopped on a particular page, and she gasped in surprise.

"That's him," Takeru realized, having looked over to see what it was she had seen. "That's him! How did you find him?"

"He's not exactly a digimon," Daisuke said, looking quickly over the page in question. "This isn't a digimon index book. It's something else. The reason you couldn't find Mummymon or his partner in any book of digimon is that he's not a naturally occurring digimon."

"And you know this because - ?"

"What do you mean 'not naturally occurring'?" Miyako asked, pulling the volume closer to her so she could read what was written. "He was created?"

"Created by whom?" Takeru asked.

"It says here that Mummymon was created by a merge of the essence of a human soul with the digital material of a digimon, whatever that means," she answered, eyes quickly scanning over the page. "Who would - ?"

"How did you - ?" Takeru started to ask again, turning toward Daisuke.

"I told you," he answered before the question was finished, his voice sounding not a little irritated. "I remember cold and darkness. That's all."

"But this - ?"

"Means nothing," he answered shortly. Then, he turned toward Miyako. "You need to talk to someone who has been to the shadow world and who can tell you something about those who do and do not work for Demon. I think you know where to find such a person."

Miyako shook her head. "He wouldn't - ," she protested.

"For you, he might," Daisuke disagreed, shrugging.

One more chapter to go, folks, one more chapter to go. :sings cheerfully: