Finally! Action!

Pat: Shooting time!

Lot of scene changes in this, so it might be a bit harder to read

Sorry for any inconvenience...

...Not

Chapter 10 – First Strike

"Breach! Airfield!" The words that came over the radio echoed through Patrick's mind.

M16 in hand he jumped down the stairs towards the southern part of the base. When he got to the runway, he was greeted by an Abrams main battle tank charging through the airfield. It aimed its 105mm cannon at Patrick.

"Oh shit!"

BOOM!

Patrick closed his eyes.

Nothing

Had it missed? He opened his eyes to see that he wasn't at the base anymore. He was beside a familiar looking lake...

"No…not here…"

Just then, there was a huge eruption in the lake. A large serpent emerged.

"Metalseadramon? But…I…defeated you!"

"Defeated me? You might of beaten me but I was the victor overall!"

Patrick poised himself, ready to attack, when he noticed something…wrong. He looked down on his body and squeeked in horror. He was a ten again!

"What the hell?"

"What was the last thing I said to you before Wargreymon finished me all those years ago?"

Patrick tried to think, but he was shivering in terror, "I…I…can't remember!"

"THAT'S A LIE! YOU REMEMBER IT LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY!" The digimon shouted

"You…said…'I will follow you for the rest of your life…until you defeat yourself'…but what did that mean?"

"That would defeat the purpose of why I'm here. To remind you of your past" The digimon started laughing manically, and then suddenly exploded.

Patrick was flung backwards and landed hard on the ground, and then everything went black for a minute, but wished he would stay that way.

When he slowly regained consciousness, he was at the camp…well, what was left of it anyway.

The trees around the clearing were burning and there were a few craters in the ground. The five tents were lying flat, also burning away.

"Matt…Patrick…" he heard a hoarse voice. When he looked down he saw Blackagumon lying at his feet, badly wounded.

"Agu! What happened?"

"We tried…got…everyone…Sora…" those were his last words before he dissipated into the air.

"No… Blackagumon…" Patrick felt the rage building up inside of him, but for some reason he didn't get the usual energy boost that he usually did – in fact the opposite happened. He felt weaker.

"Oh Matttthewl"

He snapped his neck up at the newest threat. About five meters away were two men. Patrick immediately recognised them both as…Cody?

But that wasn't what was bothering Patrick, it was who these clones were holding. The right had an arm wrapped around Declan's neck with a Desert Eagle pointed at his head. The other was doing the exact same thing to Sora.

"Patrick!" Declan shouted

Patrick couldn't speak. He felt an emotion he hadn't experienced in years.

Fear

"What's wrong? Patrick, come on!" Sora said

"I…can't" He was to tired

"Make a choice, Matthew!" One of the Codys said

"That's…not…my…name"

"YES IT IS. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE FROM THAT" They both said in unison

"Matthew…died. Long ago. I'm Patrick now" Patrick blurted out, clear hatred in his voice

"It doesn't matter if your names Patrick, Matthew or Kari! Make a choice. Declan or Sora. Whoever you choose goes home. The other dies, right here, right now."

"No…leave Sora out of this…she's got nothing to do with it!"

"I'm afraid she is now. YOU BROUGHT HER AND ALL THE OTHERS INTO IT! LOOK AROUND YOU! THEY'RE ALL DEAD!"

"Patrick…save me!" Sora yelped from Cody's tight grip

"This isn't fair…Declan is my brother…I love him…and Sora is completely innocent…"

"Innocent civilians regularly get caught in the crossfire, but you should know all about that shouldn't you?" The left Cody said

"No…"

"Make a choice or we'll make on for you"

"I'll…kill…youse" Patrick felt like unloading a clip into their skulls right now

"Fair enough"

They both fired.

Kari woke up when the heavy door opened noisily. The guard pointed at Kari, "You. Here. Now"

The guard's eyes were cold and lifeless. They sent a chill down Kari's spine.

She quickly got off the bed and walked over to the large man. Declan was lying on his bed. He opened an eye and whispered, "Don't give in. No matter what" as she went by.

The guard closed and locked the door as Kari walked through it. For some reason, she wasn't frightened. She was expecting to be terrified.

"Looks like your causing a lot of trouble around here – Master wants to see you" the guard lead her down a corridor towards a high security door. The man on the other side opened it when he saw the guard coming.

Kari followed the man through the darkened corridors. She started to wonder if she'd ever see Declan again. 'Wherever you are Tai, please come soon' she thought to herself.

Patrick jumped awake. He was in a cold sweat.

It had all been a dream…all a dream…all a dream and a scarily realistic one at that.

The first part was ok, he regularly had dreams about war, but he had never died…then that lake…and the camp.

The image of the Sora being shot was etched into his mind. How would he be able to cope with life if one of them was killed?

Patrick shook his head. 'No, must concentrate on the mission at hand – getting Declan back'

He looked at his watch. Five thirty in the morning. 'Gotta get more sleep' he thought, and feel back over.

The USS Shiloh sliced through the water of the channel, silently heading for its destination.

The Captain looked out towards the distant port of Complex 14. This was a standard refuel and rearm, as well as a short break for the crew.

"Sir," One of the crew sitting at a console said shouted out, "Transmission received from PCX14 – requesting assistance"

"Tell them that we are on station and ready for further orders" the captain ordered

"Yes sir" The officer turned back to the console and sent the message.

Yolei was lying awake, the glare of her D-Terminal in her eyes. She had woken up a while ago and couldn't get back to sleep, there was just so much on in her mind, so she took out her terminal and started checking some things.

For a start, she tried E-Mailing Izzy, in case this was all just a big joke and they were actually in their digital world. She soon realised it wasn't when an error message appeared.

The girl was about to try texting home when she heard a noise outside. Snapping her head around, she froze when she saw a large shadow loom over the tent.

She could also see another shadow on the other side, and could hear someone in the middle of the camp.

Yolei started to panic. Who were they? What did they want?

A chill shot down her spine when a hand started to open the entrance to the tent.

She did the first thing that came to her mind. She started screaming.

Unknown to her, she had actually done the best thing in that situation, because she had unleashed hell upon the intruders.

She woke up Patrick.

"Captain, we have detected a becon from friendly ground troops" The radio intercept officer turned to the captain.

"Lock the co-ordinates into three LASMs. Prepare to fire on confirmation"

"Yes sir!" The man started punching in commands.

The sound of bullets echoed through the night, but none of them were 9mm rounds from the MP5 submachine guns the commandos had brought.

They were 5.56mm rounds, from a G36K assault rifle.

Patrick had immediately grabbed his rifle when he heard Yolei's screaming. This is what it was there for. Opening the entrance to his tent, he immediately saw a commando squatting beside the charred remains of the fire laying a small black box on the ground.

Patrick slammed the rifle into burst-fire and nailed three rounds into the back of his head. He fell over on top of the box.

He snapped around and saw why Yolei was screaming. There were about five commandos around the camp, one of which was at the entrance of her tent.

"We have confirmation"

The captain picked up a red handset beside him that went directly to weapons control, deep in the bowels of the ship.

"FIRE!" he yelled

A few seconds later three streaks burst out of the vertical launch tubes in the bow of the warship in a cloud of grey smoke, a long trail of fire following them into the sky.

Hawkmon woke up to see Yolei scramble to the rear of the tent, away from the entrance. She had an expression of pure terror.

When the digimon turned to look at the entrance, he saw a dark figure like the ones at the school, reaching over to her. Hawkmon jumped up too attack just as three bangs sounded out, resulting in the figure falling limp on the ground.

The radar officer picked up the three LASMs on his glowing screen

"ETI - Three minutes and counting"

Patrick nailed the guy in the back, and turned to the other commandos, who were all now looking at him.

Jamming the rifle into automatic fire, he raked the line of them, dropping every one, apart from three behind him.

He heard a click of a safety being switch off just as the digimon appeared from their startled partner's tents.

"Pepper Breath!"

"Spiral Twister!"

"Bubble boom!"

Patrick heard three thumps behind him as the attacks hit their mark.

"Thanks guys" said Patrick

"Errrr...Patrick?" Hawkmon was standing in front of Yolei's tent, trembling slightly

The seventeen year old spun around, "What's wrong?"

He nodded towards the tent behind him, "I think Yolei's brain broke…"

"Two minutes to impact"
"One of youse talk to her, she's just a bit traumatised" Patrick said as he came back out of Yolei's tent

Sora sighed, "I'll talk to her"

"Ok, I'll do a damage report" he looked around the camp, and stopped at the commando lying slumped over a small black box.

"One minute to impact"
Patrick kicked the body out of the way to get a look at the box.

It had a small screen and a flashing red dot beside it. The flashing was getting faster and faster.

TK walked over Patrick, "What is it?"

"Not sure…" Then it hit him like a truck, and his eyes went wide. He aimed his G36K at the box and fired a two round burst. The bullets simply ricochet off it, hitting a nearby tree.

"Shit! Digizoid!" He turned to TK, "Abandon the camp…NOW! GO!"

"What's going on?" Tai ran over to the two.

"NO TIME TO EXPLAIN, JUST GRAB WHAT YOU CAN AND RUN!" Patrick shouted as he dashed over to his tent.

Blackagumon was still sleeping on the floor.

"Light sleeper my ass!" Patrick kicked the digimon as he grabbed his pack and PDA.

Blackagumon jumped up, "Whowhatwhere…"

"We're getting out of here!"

"But I haven't eaten…"

"GO!"

"Thirty seconds to impact"
Patrick started running into the bushes when Sora called him over, "What about Yolei?"

He span around, "Oh, fuckberries!"

He dumped his pack in front of Sora, who took the hint and grabbed it before running after the others.

Patrick jumped into the tent, where Yolei was still curled up whimpering softly.

"Come on!"

"No! I've had enough, I'm staying here!" She said stubbornly

"Tell that to your parents when I tell them you were KIA" he grabbed her arm

"GET OFF ME" Forcing Patrick to let go

Patrick bowed his head, "This is gonna hurt me a lot more than you…" he muttered. Before Yolei had time to react, Patrick's digivice glowed, before violently giving off a shockwave that hit Yolei head on.

She fell limp on the ground, out cold.

Patrick lifted her up onto his shoulder, "…I'm so sorry"

He could almost hear the missiles now. Any second now they would turn this camp into a smoking crater...

"Twenty seconds!"
Patrick emerged from the tent and immediately started running. He had forgotten which way the others had gone, but as long as it was far away he didn't care.

He just started running, fast.

"Running time!" he yelled

"Ten seconds!"
The three Land Attack Standard Missiles (LASMs) streaked through the twilight sky. A a certain point, they slowly started their descent into the forest below.

Their advanced sensors were locked onto the little black box set by one of the commandos, but they could not pick up the seventeen-year-old boy carrying a thirteen-year-old girl away from their target…

"IMPACT!"
The three missiles slammed into the ground, causing a massive fireball, twenty meters in diameter, easily engulfing the camp. Declan heard a booming explosion in the distance. He jumped up from his bed and hurried over to the barred window.

He could see a stream of smoke billow from the forest. Declan just sighed and went back to bed.

"Another one bites the dust…" he said before closing his eyes, cradling his arm.

"Son of a bitch…" Patrick slowly rose; wiping the layer of dust and dirt the shockwave had flung onto him.

He and Yolei were just outside the blast when it went off, far enough away to avoid burns but close enough to feel the full force to the shockwave. They were flung into the dirt, but Patrick had landed hard ontop of Yolei. Patrick was sure she's have some sort of injury from that!

Patrick rolled Yolei onto her back. She was still breathing.

'She's gonna be out for a while' he thought. Turning to what used to be their camp, he saw nothing but fire and smoke. He hoped the others had gotten farther enough away to avoid the blast.

Patrick suddenly froze. The camp was now errily similar to the on in his dream. Had he seen the future or something? He hoped not, because then Sora was gonna get shot...

"Damn! Their goes our element of surprise!" He said to thin air.

In the distance he could hear shouting, "PATRICK…YOLEI…WHERE ARE YOU!"

Patrick called them over. A few seconds later Tai and the others emerged from the bushes.

"Oh thank God, you're ok" Sora dropped a rucksack beside Patrick as she ran over to the girl lying beside him.

"Is she alright?" Tai asked

"Sorta, I think she hurt her foot when we landed"

"Landed?"

"We were blown away by the blast. Still can't get the ringing out of my ear" he started scratching his left ear.

"What was that anyway?"

"One of those commando things armed a radar becon. When I nailed him he fell on the trigger. That must have been the backup plan if we woke up – blow us to pieces"

TK walked over, "So what now?"

"Firstly, we can't go back – the TV set doesn't exist any more. Secondly, they know we're here now – so we'll have to attack fast, while they think we're regrouping"

"We should attack while it's still dark," Tai added

"Just what I was thinking," Patrick smiled, "Your getting good at this"

"Thanks"

"Well we better get moving then," said TK

Patrick looked at his watch. It was slightly cracked, but he could still make out the '6:17 am' on the digital display.

Damn, he had only gotten 45 minutes more sleep.

"Ok guys," he bent down and picked up Yolei's limp body, "lets move out!"

They started walking in the general direction of the castle, the digimon scouting ahead.

So there's more to Patrick than meets the eye…hmmmm…interesting