Chapter Seven - First Contact
Seto yawned at the sound of yet again another Davis/Kari argument. If it weren't for the fact that Kari really did hate the purple haired boy's guts, he'd have ventured a guess as to it being suppressed hormones. At the same time they were fighting, Veemon and Gatomon playing the roll of 'middlemen', T.K. and Tai were having a hell of a time setting up what they hoped would patch them through the void of the Digi World and into the Real World.
Sadly, it wasn't going too well.
The young genius sighed. This was all so troublesome. What did he ever do to deserve such 'torment'? Yet as much as he 'hated' these four kids, they had grown on him like spores of mold.
Davis was the best, reminding in a way of Mokuba and having being really adapted to Duel Monsters, making the CEO of Kaiba Corp. very proud of his new apprentice. Kari had to be the annoying little sister he didn't have, T.K. was the annoying cousin you never want to spend the holidays with and Tai… well Tai didn't really have a place yet.
But at this time, the same group had gotten closer to the Digi Ocean, having come across a veritable wasteland of broken computers and other dead technology.
"…maybe if we do it this way…" T.K. was saying, showing Tai, Agumon and Patamon something on his Digivice.
"…nah, has to be this way…" Agumon was replying, holding up some sort of tool in his orange claws.
"You know their never going to figure out Seto"
The brown haired teen looked down at Ari, who had his little red arms crossed, and rolled his eyes.
"So?"
"Then you should help them!"
He looked back at Tai and T.K. as their contraption of scarp metal and wires collapsed. He let back a snort of laughter.
"But it too much fun watching them be fools"
"SETO!"
"Fine, fine. Be a grouch…"
He got up and dusted himself off.
"…damn, I wish Izzy was here…"
Seto sighed. Without bothering to say a word, he pushed the two boys out of way along with their two Digimon and took a look at the problem. Tai was protesting about something, apparently going on that he'd wreck whatever they were trying to do.
Bending down, Seto retrieved one of the fallen steel rods, and began to feed a wire up its hallow length. Taking the base of an old lamp stand, he screwed the rod to it. Dealing with the wires now, he collected a few connection cables. Hooking his Digivice up to one of the cables to cause a power surge and bring his three minute-creation to life.
Lights flared dimly. They were in business!
"How's that?" he smiled thinly, appreciating the looks of shock on the faces of the four gapping kids and six Digimon.
"How did you do that?" Kari shouted, rushing forward to get a look at it. When he didn't bother to answer, the girl decided to hook her own Digivice to a cable. She let a yelp when the lights grew a little bit brighter. That was enough to give Davis the hint and he did the same, the lights getting brighter. Seconds later Tai and T.K. followed.
Nothing happened.
Tai looked at Seto. "Now what?"
"You'll see…"
Suddenly the five Digivices rose out of their hands and began whipping about on their connections, sipping like an out of control Farris Wheel. Kari screamed, ducking out of the way so not to get hit, the others following.
"What the hell did you do?" Davis gasped breathlessly.
"Just watch…"
"But -"
The six Digimon laughed. "You'll just have trust the grouch," Patamon giggled. "He knows what he's doing"
Finally, the spinning of the powered up Digivices seemed to cause a strange light to form above it. As strange ringing started to squeal from within, noting that Seto had used parts from a telephone.
Then voices began to be admitted from the creation. Two familiar voices…
"Matt?"
"Ken?"
They had made contact.
Matt Ishida blinked, completely disoriented. He had felt the sensation of his body being sucked through a very small tube the minute he picked up his Digivice after hearing his missing little brother's voice. At the time, the fourteen year old had been busy with his school homework, trying unsuccessfully not to think about T.K.
It had been a little over two months since his younger brother as well as three other their friends had vanished without a trace. Normally he would have thought they had gone to the Digi World, but even that didn't make any sense since time slowed down for their duration and then started back up when they returned.
But even then, the weirdest thing was that whenever he tried to contact with the Digimon, the connections only came up with static. In the end, there was no way of finding out for sure.
Now things were different. Blinking rapidly to make sure that he wasn't seeing things, Matt was shocked. Here he was standing directly in front of said missing little brother.
"T.K.!"
His brother winced, Patamon giggled nervously having deciphered the exact emotion in his voice. He was about to say more when someone next to him coughed.
"Before you get all brotherly on us, can you please explain what's going on?"
Ken glared, his arms crossed and a rather impertinent look on his face.
"Well you see…" Tai laughed, stepping forward. "There was kinda some trouble and we were the only that could brought here…"
"But not calling? It's been over two months Tai"
"TWO MONTHS?"
The two newcomers whirled about to meet the backside of a brunette young man, who was at the moment, throttling a pair of twin Digimon.
"You didn't tell me it's been that long!" he ranted. "I can't believe I willing followed you on this foolish expedition when Mokuba has been for all this time"
"Seto! Compose yourself!" the red demi-dragon chocked.
"Compose myself? COMPOSE MYSELF? If Social Services find out about this, they'll take my otouto away for sure!"
The blue demi-dragon broke out into tears. "Please Seto!"
Disgusted, he tossed them aside and proceeded to storm off in a huff. Matt caught sight of Ken; the boy genius stared at the young man's retreating back in shock.
"Good lord," Ken whispered in awe. "That's Seto Kaiba!"
"No… that's Seto Dyama" Davis corrected.
The dark haired boy snorted.
"Call him what you like, but that is Seto Kaiba. He, like me, is a fellow child genius, as well as the CEO of Kaiba Corporation and one of the Duel Monsters champions"
Tai, Davis, Kari and T.K. gapped. Was their stoic, yet overly emotional companion really all that? The weight of it all finally sunk into Davis's thick head, causing the boy to jump up and down.
"Sweet Kami! I've actually been taught to play Duel Monsters by a champion? This is soo cool!"
Matt looked puzzled. "But what's he doing here?"
The blue and red demi-dragon Digimon sighed.
"He's the missing Digidestined" the blue one replied. "He would have come here the first time with you and friends had there not been an inter-dimensional disturbance. Seto is, how can put it…"
The red one smirked. "Explosive?"
Agumon, Patamon, Veemon and Gatomon nodded, only to have Naku glare daggers at them.
"I don't like the word Ari, but I'll settle for it. Yes, Seto is extremely emotional"
Ken smirked softly.
"I'm surprised you've all survived. He's rather infamous for his cruelty"
"What do you mean cruelty?" Davis suddenly snapped, stomping forward to glare at Ken. "Seto's my friend. He might be moody, but he's not intentionally mean. Hell everyone has problems - he's even woken up at night crying in his sleep!"
Ari wince. "I wouldn't let him know that you know if I were you. He'll that Naku and I tattled on him"
Kari frowned.
"Now what?"
"Now we find someone to reverse this mess"
They all turned, watching as Seto returned, absentmindedly twirling little balls of pure light on his fingertips (how he was able to do that, they had no idea). T.K. was the first to snap out of the daze. "And how do we go about doing that?"
Seto smiled thinly. "By doing something I promised myself I'd forget the moment my okaa-san was murdered," he growled. "There is nothing here in the Digital World that can help us. Have you seen the rate of decay here?"
The taller boy waved his hand out over the wasteland they were in.
"You talk about danger and trouble that only we can stop. This world is dying, and its cause is dimensional bleed. Ari and Naku have spoken so fervently these last two months about what they call the Digi Ocean. I can only assume that it's not actually apart of the Digital World at all"
"Then what is it?"
"Something that I told about as a small child - something that was suppose to made of nightmares"
Kari shivered, ducking behind Tai and T.K. as if she wanted protection from him.
"So what is it?"
"The Shadow Realm"
Okay, Okay - I know I haven't updated since November last year, but at least I'm continuing the story instead of forgetting about it like I've done to a few of my fanfics. I'm still not sure when I'm going to be able to reach a climax, thus being able to bring this story to a suitable closer (it'll be a year old in three months time!)
But yeah. I'll do my best not to slack when it comes to updates, but who know what'll happened with my near wrap-up of Shattered Realities, the frequent as possible post of Kijutsu no Myou and the slow go with Two Made One. It'll all come together someday I hope. Well enough of my babbling. Hope you all liked the chapter. Later!