Hey guys. Hope you all are enjoying yourselves. Looks like you guys are pretty in to how much we screw with poor Takky huh? Well, we're getting to that point where things are going to reach their peak. You'll see soon enough.

"The Keeper of Worlds" - Dr. Frankenstein? Hmmm... I can see that. Kinda.

"Jackpot 2" - Well, I don't want to give anything away but I promise, we'll be helping him soon. Takky just needs to manage for just a little longer. As for the Digital World thing. Um... well, let's say it's hard to get a look at what's going on there with one, there's really no way for the kids to know what's going on there and two, that this story's supposed to focus on the kids (Takuya specifically) as they deal with this situation.

"Digidestinedkid6" - Well, we're doing it as of these few chapters, one that focuses on the others and a bit on Takuya followed by a chapter that focuses more on Takuya and some on the kids. Today's more a Kouji and the others chapter but we'll still be giving the fuzzball hell.

"Guest" - Give it time. They'll find him.

"wentvoltage123" - Just gotta love the way the youngest members work to find their role model/hero.

"Digi-fanCapp" - The way we reason it... if Takuya talks, that'll make these guys curious as to why a strange wild creature could speak their language... and then proceed to experiment on him more to find out what he is.

"Akrisakara" - You really hit the nail on the head with your analysis there buddy. Painful experiments and all that evil diabolical shit... poor kid's just being put through way too much. But that doesn't stop us as you will soon see. Enjoy the chapter.

"DD Leader Dark Heart of Water" - Thursday? Well, sometimes we're a little late but we update every Wednesday for you guys. Anywho, the Kanbara boys really make ya feel the feels huh? Glad we can make them do that with ya.

"WaterBendingQueen88" - Don't worry friend, we're not going to kill him. He's our punching bag sure but we'd never kill our favorite goggle head... heh heh...

"DiaSphere" - Really glad we can make you feel for him. If there's anything we can take pride in it's making the boy send out the feels. Also glad you enjoyed the bit with Shinya. Hope you enjoy the rest of it.

"SerenaTheHedgehog" - Um... yeah, I'd say so. It's what the fictional military does best.

"Jericho" - Well, that was one of the reasons why we tuned it up to M. I get that this can be much for people but we kinda want to emphasis the kind of evil people can have and then just bring in that bit of goodness that is the friendship and love that the kids bring into the story. Thanks for the input though and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

"Darkflame" - Thanks for helping out a fellow reviewer. And don't worry about this chapter. It's safe to read my friend. Glad you guys are still giving us the support we need now that it's M. And don't worry you two, we hear your request. Hope you enjoy the chapter and stick around for the rest of the story.

"BlueFlamedWolf" - I know right? I got them too. I feel real bad for the Kanbara kids too. Kouji's still got some issues but I'm sure he'll be able to master his powers eventually. We'll just have to stick around and see.

"hikarinayoshi" - Well, we take pride in being the manipulators of emotions. Kouji's issues are intense for him and yeah, Takuya's situation is really really nerve wracking... And damn... reading nonstop all night? Dude, props to you man. That's awesome. I can't even manage all nighters like that. Hope you stick around for the rest of the story friend.

Okay guys, let's get the show on the road.

Chapter 32: Up In Flames.

Tommy arrived to the household relatively quickly, greeted by the elder boy at the front door. "Hey JP, good morning!"

"Hey there little buddy. Glad you could make it." JP grinned, ushering the boy inside. "Zoe's already here and the twins are on the train right now." He chuckled weakly, noting the messy state the room was in; gadgets and other sorts of materials were cluttered around the household. "Sorry about the mess. I've been meaning to clean up."

"It's alright." The younger boy nodded and stepped into the living room, greeted next by the blond sitting patiently on the couch.

"You got here rather early." Zoe commented as Tommy sat next to her. She later observed how he would rub his arms as if to get warmer. "You seem a little cold."

Tommy shrugged. "Well, I got a call from Shinya saying he wanted to talk."

JP looked at the boy quizzically. "Takky's brother? What'd he want?"

"He's worried about Takuya... He wants him to come home..." Tommy informed them sadly.

Zoe and JP exchanged anxious looks. "What did you tell him?" JP asked quietly.

"I told him the truth, about Flamon being good despite looking scary and that we don't know where he is right now."

The blonde shook her head sadly, "That poor boy..."

The three sighed. "Dracmon really tore that family apart..." JP murmured, remembering how upset and strangely quiet Takuya was in the days following being thrown out of his home.

"I wish we could find him..." Zoe whispered, "You don't think he would've run away... do you?"

JP made a face, "As much as I want to say no, we know he did it once before-"

"Takuya wouldn't run away like that again!" Tommy interjected, "Sure he's scared, but he would never run away again!"

JP looked away, scratching the back of his neck guiltily. Just seeing the look on Tommy's face made JP feel guilty for even considering questioning Takuya like this.

"We're Takuya's friends… we've been there for him since all of this started." Tommy continued, trying to fight back any tears that welled up in his eyes. "He wouldn't just leave us like that… he wouldn't just leave!"

Zoe placed her hands on the young boy's shoulders, allowing him to calm down. "We know, Tommy."

Tommy nodded slowly. "We're going to find him… we've gotta!"

"Well, let's see if we can find a lead or something. Just something that can get us started." JP brought up, hoping to put an end to the tension in the air. "Just the faintest clue can help us here."

"When're the twins getting here?" Zoe decided to ask.

The older boy just shrugged. "They're going to take a little while before they really get here. Kouichi said to get started while they're on their way."

"Right... so a lead... There wasn't anything to go on beside Takuya's D-Tector in the city," the blonde began.

JP nodded, "I remember you telling us that much when it happened...And if I recall correctly, Kouji can't smell his way out of a paper bag yet." He made a discouraged face after the remark.

"He's getting there..." Zoe offered lightly, knowing that Kouji's biggest problems were maintaining his Digimon form at all, let alone learning how to track scents with it.

Tommy looked at the floor sullenly, shoulders sagging. "I wish Takuya was here... I hope he's okay..."

Zoe grimaced and pulled the younger boy into a gentle hug, "We all do Tommy, but that's why we're giving it our all to find him."

"I'm just scared something terrible might have happened to him…" Tommy answered softly.

There was always the chance that Takuya could be hurt. Takuya went through a lot of pain and suffering, what if he was hurting now? He could be in pain and there might not be anyone to help him.

"Takuya's got to be okay…" Zoe insisted, her voice wavering slightly. "He has to be okay…"

"We can find him somehow you guys…" JP wanted to appear confident but he was also plagued by those terrible thoughts. "Come on, let's uh… maybe get the map function to work again? Maybe I can find a way to track him down with it."

"You really think it could work?" Tommy asked.

JP nodded. "Of course. I'm the handy man. I'll get this workin' in no time."

The doorbell rang, drawing everyone's attention.

"Ah, that must be the twins. I'll go get it real quick." JP stated and walked over to the front door to greet with the twins. He put on a small smile for them. "Hey there you two. Just in time. I was about to get to work on the D-Tector."

"Doing what?" Kouji asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

Kouichi rolled his eyes, "Something important obviously."

JP led the twins to the bedroom. Zoe and Tommy moved to the side of the bed to make room for the two boys to sit as well.

"Your room is... very compact," Kouichi observed, noting the wide array of electrical equipment scattered about the elder boy's desk.

"You get used to it," JP stated as he turned back to fiddle with Takuya's D-Tector which lay open on his desk, the pieces arranged in a neat line.

Kouji sat up straight, trying to see, "So what are you trying to do exactly?"

"Make the map work," JP replied simply.

Zoe turned to Kouichi, "How're things going with Strabimon?"

"Not so great..." the elder twin admitted. Kouji nodded begrudgingly in agreement. "He can't hold the form for more that a few minutes- even less time when he's active."

"It's harder than it looks…" Kouji muttered. It annoyed him how the Digimon situation had gotten the better of him. It was a continual blow to his pride with each passing failure. He just wasn't getting the hang of it. "…I have no idea how Takuya's able to do this."

"I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon." Zoe told him, hoping to bring the boy up from his sour mood.

Kouichi nodded. "You just need more practice is all."

"How about your other abilities, like when you're human?" Tommy asked.

"They haven't been working well either…" Kouji answered reluctantly. Just another blow to his pride. "This is just…. A little difficult is all…"

"Has it really been that bad?" Zoe asked, despite already knowing his answer.

The younger twin sighed in aggravation and looked over to JP. "So, how's it going JP? Any luck with that?"

"Eh… it's being a little stubborn." The older boy answered with a huff. "This has got to be the most complex piece of technology that I've ever worked on."

"What else did you expect?" Kouji said lightly, "It has the power of Warrior of Flame stored within it."

JP shrugged, and turned his chair back to face his friends. "Okay, new idea. Let's pitch possible scenarios that happened after Takuya left the Minamoto's to go fight ShadowSeraphimon. Like, I think that ShadowSeraphimon took him back to the Digital World during their fight."

The others nodded and got the idea. Maybe they could come up with a lead this way. "Well, I think Takuya beat ShadowSeraphimon like last time," Tommy began, "But I don't know what happened after that..."

Kouichi grimaced to himself, "The military was around... Maybe they took him?"

"Why on earth would they take Takuya?" JP asked incredulously.

"Remember? He can't change back right now..."

Zoe bit her lip, "And what about Cerberumon? What if he took Takuya?"

Everyone went silent after letting the scenario play in their minds. They knew well enough what Cerberumon would do if he got his paws on Takuya.

"We have to hope that's not an option…" Kouichi answered softly. "We have to think of a different possibility."

"I'm pretty sure the D-Tector wouldn't be working if Takuya was… well…" JP couldn't find himself able to continue that sentence. He scratched to the top of his head, deep in thought. "I mean they're linked, right? If this thing works then he's got to still be alive…"

Kouji folded his arms across his chest. "That's a pretty long stretch…"

"It's something…" Kouichi stated and sighed. "What about the military? Do you think they would take him in if they found him?"

"Well… he is a Digimon… they might want to try and figure out what he is…" Kouji answered. "It might… not be pretty."

Zoe frowned at the idea. "Isn't there some other option? Something we haven't thought of?"

JP huffed, "Well I suggested Takuya running away... but everyone seems adamantly against that idea..."

"It's been weeks now... We should have heard something by now!" Tommy broke in, his eyes threatening to spill more tears down his face.

"I have to agree..." Zoe said slowly, "Takuya would've contacted us by now if he could..."

Kouji growled softly, "Which means he can't, and he's in trouble."

"Everyone settle down," Kouichi said firmly, taking charge, "We need to be rational, getting upset won't help..."

They all nodded, taking a moment to calm down as per Kouichi's instructions. The tension in the air was so thick, a moment's breather was needed unless they would all snap under the pressure.

"Okay, is everyone calm now?" Kouichi asked, receiving nods from everyone in the room. "Alright, that's good. Now then, let's go over it again. We have Takuya's D-Tector so that gives us a few things."

"One, that Takuya was hurt and somehow got separated from the D-Tector." Kouji started to list.

Zoe continued the list. "Well, that he's still alive by what JP was suggesting with the D-Tector. He said it wouldn't work if he were… gone, right? Like when I lost my spirit, my D-Tector stopped working."

"He must have won the battle with ShadowSeraphimon considering the Digivice has his spirits in it." Tommy added.

"Okay, and anything we can use to help find him?" Kouichi asked.

"We have the map function. Maybe we can track him down with it." JP stated, getting up from the desk and stretching.

Kouji snorted, "If you can get it to work."

JP sighed, "If I can make it work... Cut me some slack Kouji, I'm trying."

"Fine."

Kouichi rolled his eyes, "Anything else?" No one spoke up. "Then we need to work with what we have and try to go from here."

"But we don't have anything..." Tommy pointed out, his voice wavering, "Takuya could be hurt or need us and we can't help him!"

Zoe tried to console the younger boy, but felt the same way. They had nothing solid to go on, just a device that seemed determined to remain silent. Kouji growled to himself in frustration.

"We can't lose hope yet..." JP started, "We can... um..."

Kouji heaved a silent sigh at how quickly JP had grown silent. "Look, I just need to get a hang of my powers… I can find him once I get full control over it."

"Kouji, you haven't made any progress since you first started…" Kouichi pointed out, his brother growling in response. "You can still make it work out. We just got to try harder." He added, not wanting to further sour his brother's mood.

"How did Takuya make this work…?" Kouji asked himself under his breath.

Tommy shrugged. "Well… he just thought about making it happen, right?"

"I'm trying that." Kouji responded and snorted. "As my brother so blatantly pointed out earlier, I only managed for, like, five minutes."

Zoe twiddled a lock of her hair between her fingers. "Well… maybe there's still something you're missing."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure…" She answered honestly.

"Thanks, That's so very helpful." Kouji said flatly, lying back on the bed.

JP took a look at Kouji's D-Tector. "Well, you have your Spirits, have you tried communicating with them?"

"Already tried that. Either I can't reach him or he just refuses to talk to me." Kouji muttered, his voice clearly conveying his annoyance with the whole situation. "So yeah, I don't think they're going to help."

"Easy bro." the elder twin sat by the edge of the bed and sighed. "Well, let's just take a break. Maybe you're just trying to hard with this."

Kouji shook his head in response and sat back up. "I can't. I have to figure this out as fast as I can."

"I understand but getting frustrated with it isn't going to help. You need to keep calm and keep a leveled head with this." Kouichi insisted despite the dark glare his brother was giving him. "You are clearly frustrated with the lack of success. You should try and take a day off, get a fresh start at it."

Kouji didn't know how to respond to that. After all the trouble he had with it, maybe a break would do him some good. God knows he hasn't had any success in a few days. "I'm not sure…"

"We'll still do everything else we've been doing. I'm just asking you to take a break from the Digimon thing." His brother continued.

"But-"

"Kouichi's right," Zoe cut him off, "You need to take a step back and try again tomorrow."

The younger twin started to object but heaved a heavy sigh. He relented "Fine. I'll take a break... but only because I've had it today." He crossed his arms and huffed.

The others breathed a unified sigh of relief as Kouji closed his eyes. "Just relax now Kouji," Tommy said quietly.

The boy grunted and rolled onto his side. "I hate this."

"We all do Kouji, but we'll make it through brother," Kouichi soothed. The group fell silent, letting Kouji fall asleep and take a nap.

"What do we do now though?" JP asked

Zoe sighed softly, "I think we all need to take a step back as much as I hate to say it..."

Tommy bit his lip. They really didn't have much of a choice. Maybe a break really would do them some good. "I guess…"

"I sure hope Takky's okay wherever he is." JP muttered to himself and put the D-Tector away on the desk.

"We all do JP." Kouichi remarked and heaved a heavy sigh. "Why don't we all take a break or something? God knows we need it." And with that he led the group back downstairs as to give Kouji some peace and quiet to rest.

Though, despite trying as best as they could, none of them could truly find any peace to relax. Takuya's whereabouts constantly plagued their minds. Their concern for his well being had made it practically impossible to do anything but mope and worry.

Things were never going to change until they find Takuya and bring him home.

-unknown location-

Time had no value to the boy as he endured more painful tests. He felt trapped in a never-ending nightmare. He had to escape this scientific hellhole, somehow.

Takuya made many feeble attempts to slip by the scientists, and each attempt was met with failure and a horrible shock from his thick collar. He just didn't have the strength or the energy between the lack of food given to him and the drugs that keep him sedated. Just one more try, he kept telling himself, they have to slip up sometime...

They never did. They watched him constantly, keeping up their guard, and wising up to his attempts at escape. Every time he acted up, every time he gave them trouble, the collar delivered his painful punishment. Several times Takuya had blacked out after being electrocuted by the shackle.

Takuya didn't know which hurt most; the painful experiments, the electrocutions, or each failed attempt to escape.

The rubber bullets battered and bruised his body to a beaten mess. The collar had torn away at Takuya's throat making it painful to even make the smallest of sounds. And with each failed attempt to escape Takuya began to realize how hopeless his situation had become.

There was no escape. Any attempt to prove otherwise ended in miserable failure and torture. And there was only so much one person could take before they break.

His stomach growled loudly. While Takuya had little sense of time, he guessed it had been a day at the very least since he had anything to eat. Takuya curled up tightly, trying to fighting the gnawing pain in his abdomen. They starved him for reasons unknown as he lay dying slowly on the floor from hunger.

A soft sigh escaped him as he closed his eyes. He could feel desperation clawing at his mind, trying to creep in and take over. At this point, he could not go on much longer hanging on to what thin threads of sanity he had left. Takuya's stomach growled again, twisting in knots and forcing him to double over in pain.

He felt his ribs protruding above his stomach, showing his sickly figure. He grimaced weakly. Maybe death wouldn't be such a bad thing...

The far door opened. Takuya paid no mind to it, knowing they wouldn't open the main door to provide him with food. Rather, he would likely be carted off to somewhere unknown and put through more terrible experiments.

He heard someone enter the room; easily making out their footsteps but his ears perked when he heard the sound of metal being placed down on the floor. Takuya turned to look after hearing something like a latch open.

Two men had entered the room, one of which had just placed a small cage on the floor and opened the latch. They were quick to leave the boy alone with the cage and whatever was confined in it.

Takuya was confused and became tense; unsure of what cruelty they would subject him to this time. Taking a closer look at the small cage he saw what had been in the cage. It was a rabbit.

The animal stayed in the confines of the cage, unwilling to step out. It had turned its head to look at the Digimon boy, most likely assessing the possible danger.

Takuya approached the caged rabbit, trying to figure out what they wanted from him. Why leave a rabbit in the room with him? What did they expect him to do with it?

He took a step closer, careful not to scare the small creature. He sat down beside the cage and reached inside. He gently stroked the rabbit's soft fur, finding it comforting. He carefully pulled the rabbit into his arms, and cradled it in his lap.

The rabbit's presence comforted the boy but he couldn't help but wonder why they would do something so strange. He knew there must be an ulterior, more sinister motive, but he couldn't be sure what it was just yet.

His stomach growled again as Takuya curled up on his mat with the rabbit still tucked in his arms. It settled down in his embrace, not sensing any hostility from the flame Digimon. He smiled a bit, hugging the rabbit close. He flinched as his stomach twisted again, making the rabbit bolt from his grasp.

Takuya went to give chase to it, creeping after the bunny on all fours. He soon cornered it. His stomach protested again as he stood over the smaller creature. Then sickening revelation dawned on him.

This wasn't an act of kindness- this was food.

Takuya backed away in disbelief and stumbled into a sitting position, watching the rabbit as it scurried to another corner of the room after finding the opportunity to run away. He felt sick. He couldn't do this. He couldn't kill the critter, even if he was starving.

He moaned weakly, his arms wrapped around his stomach as it grumbled again in hunger. Takuya glanced back at the rabbit and bit his lip anxiously. It was wrong. They couldn't possibly expect him to really do this.

Takuya may have defeated Digimon but it was nothing compared to actually ending a life like this. The closest he had gone was going fishing but it still wasn't at the same level.

The hunger pains persisted but Takuya fought the urge and curled up in a corner, trying to get his mind off his situation. He wouldn't stoop down to this level. He was stronger than this.