The Crystal Gate

Part Ten: An Incomprehensible Action

Standard Disclaimer Thingie: Digimon, all characters and money, are not mine, I'm only borrowing them. I'm not giving them back. The plot is 99.9 percent mine. Don't steal, don't sue, don't forget to moo.

Moo.

Above, the sounds of battle were near, and sand and bricks were falling continuously from the already badly damaged ceiling. Shijo, having stayed behind in the damaged basement, looked up through the hole that Miyako's magic had created, wishing he could be above.

"Yah-ha!" came another shout above, and the sound of a thousand small explosions could be heard connecting with the ancient stone of the ruins. A few more grains of sand fell to the ground, and Shijo wiped the granules from his eyes. A loud thud could be heard, and then a few larger chunks of stone fell to the ground.

"Look out!" he heard Koromon shout in warning from his arms, but Shijo was too busy rubbing the sand from his eyes to clearly see that a large chunk of rock was falling not far from where he stood. He could feel his partner's weight leave his arms, and then he heard another thud above. More rocks began to fall. By the time he'd pulled his hand away from his eyes, he could see nothing but a blurry light. "Koromon evolve!" he heard his partner shout over the sound of the falling rocks. "Agumon! Baby Flame!"

A small, hot burst of flames came from the mouth of the yellow digimon, and a few of the smaller rocks disintegrated in mid-air. Shijo, too stunned to do much of anything, simply watched as his newly-evolved partner swatted the larger rocks away from them both.

"It's not safe here," he said, glancing back toward Shijo. "We should get above before the ceiling collapses."

Another thud and some more sand falling was enough to bring the boy to his senses. Immediately, Shijo nodded. "Right," he agreed. "But, how?"

"Only way out is up," his partner answered, pointing one yellow claw toward the sky. "Can you jump?"

"Not that high!" he answered immediately, looking upward with a frown. "Don't suppose you can, either?"

Agumon shook his head. "No, and if I could I wouldn't leave you down here anyway," he replied. "Maybe there's something we could climb on?"

The room was filled with crates – some full, some empty – and books. Immediately, Shijo began to gather the crates and pile them up, forming a small, wobbly staircase. Soon he had a few steps leading to the ground above. With some difficulty but no great strain he managed to reach the outside.

By now the sun showed that the time was past noon, and the heat was brutal. Shijo was immediately glad that he had his cloak with him, for the sun began to burn his skin almost right way. Thankfully, the battles had moved off some way from where he was. Distantly, the sounds of explosions could be heard, and he wondered if the two Chosen were consciously moving the battle away from him or if it was simply the way things had gone.

"He said get to safety, remember?" Agumon reminded him, noticing that the boy had a bit of a far-off, dreamy gaze as he looked in the direction of the explosions.

"I know, I know," he conceded grumpily. He hadn't been happy about making that promise when he'd made it, but he had made it and so it seemed he'd have to keep it. "That's why we came out of that room before it collapsed on us. Now where?"

Whatever the building had once been it was not now, and there was no roof, no shelter, no small nooks or crannies to hide in, no place offering shade from the intense sun. Around him were mostly-destroyed walls, the tallest one being only a bit taller than himself. Keeping close to the walls, Shijo headed in the direction of the explosions, reasoning to himself that it would be easier to keep clear of the battle if he knew where it was and what was happening. He could tell that his partner wasn't pleased with this reasoning, but Agumon kept his thoughts to himself, at least for the moment.

They moved through a gap in the walls that he guessed had once been a doorway, and then over a small pile of stones that had once been another wall. Keeping hidden behind a barrier of stones that was only half his height, Shijo ducked down so he would not be seen and watched the battle, which was taking place not too far way.

A tall, thin woman with a red dress and a red hat with silvery hair beneath it was standing in the midst of the desert, a triumphant sort of grin on her face. As Shijo watched, she plucked a few silvery strands from her hair and twisted them together in her hand. They slowly grew longer and sharper until she was holding not three strands of twisted-together silver hair, but one long, metallic, sharp spike, easily as long as her arm. She was speaking, but Shijo could not make out the words, and then she pulled back her hand and threw the spike. He watched it sail through the air with some difficulty, as it was fast-moving, and lost sight of it over the sands. A few seconds after, a large cloud of smoke and sand arose from the desert some distance away, and the sound of a loud explosion shook the ground.

From the center of the cloud, a blue streak flew, nearly as fast as the metal spike had been thrown, and XV-mon, whose evolution Shijo had recently witnessed, attacked the woman in the red dress with full force. Immediately, the woman conjured some sort of barrier from thin air, twisting another strand of silvery hair with the other hand. XV-mon pounded on the barrier with his claws for a moment, and then backed up. Hovering in midair a short distance away, he spread his arms wide and shouted.

"X Laser!" he called, loud enough and with enough power that Shijo could hear him across the desert, and then a blast of white light came from the mark on his chest and crashed into the barrier the sorceress had conjured. The light reflected off the barrier and the sand for a moment, causing Shijo to throw up one hand to shield his eyes from the sight of it, and then another cloud of smoke and sand rose from that spot.

"What happened to Daisuke?" Agumon wondered, and Shijo turned his head away from XV-mon for a moment, looking toward the spot where the metallic spike had crashed into the sand.

That cloud of dust and sand was slowly settling, and Shijo thought he could make out a human figure stumbling out of the middle of it. After a moment, it became clear. "There," he said to his partner, pointing. "I hope he's all right."

"He doesn't look quite all right," Agumon said, sounding worried.

"He looks mad," Shijo returned defensively. "I'm sure XV-mon can beat her…whoever she is. She's only a sorceress, right?"

"A really powerful sorceress, though," his partner answered, turning back to the battle. The light from XV-mon's attack did not seem to have been enough to break the barrier the sorceress had conjured, and now she was forming another metallic spike from the strands of her hair again.

"Doesn't matter," Shijo answered simply. "XV-mon can beat her, I'm sure."

Lopmon seemed to have provided him with a nearly endless supply of arrows and Takeru continued firing, with limited success, at the Tyrannomon below. Two of the large dinosaurs seemed to have no interest in battle, and had wandered off to lay down and rest some distance away. Their would-be tamers, whose desire for battle had not been quenched, were trying to persuade the digimon to return to battle, both with words and whips, but to no avail. Three other Tyrannomon, rider-less, were attacking anything and everything that came within range. Takeru suspected it was because they were fed up with being whipped. Only one was still in its tamer's control, but only barely.

"Kind of reminds you of something, doesn't it?" Patamon mumbled darkly, watching the chaos below. Takeru, with an arrow notched, ready to fire, glanced up at his partner with a questioning expression. He turned back to the battle and sighed.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Sort of reminds me of Chimeramon."

"It's the same thing, isn't it?" Patamon questioned. "Trying to control something beyond your ability?"

He pulled back the string and fired the arrow, then lowered the bow, not bothering to watch to see if it hit anything. "I think so," he agreed, "but how do we stop them? Tyrannomon are at least not quite as destructive as Chimeramon was, but…."

"Still hard enough to stop six of them, right?" his partner agreed. "All the same…."

"All the same, it's got to be done," Takeru finished. "Maybe this is why I came here."

"Maybe," Patamon agreed. "Should we try?"

"It's better than firing arrows at them," Takeru answered, frowning.

"You have a better idea?" Li Tan questioned, breaking for the moment from his own battles. He looked back toward his passenger, who was grinning ear to ear.

"I think I do," he answered. "Suppose you could set me down near Iori?"

"Not going to be easy," the tamer answered, pulling on the reins so that he might avoid another attacking Airdramon. "I'll manage, though."

"Thanks," Takeru told him. "I'm sure you won't regret it." He looked toward his partner. "You ready?"

"I'm always ready," Patamon replied.

"Do it, then."

"Patamon evolve! Angemon!"

Holsmon, despite his many talents, was obviously no match for Mummymon, despite Miyako's hopes otherwise. She could sense a crystal nearby, though not with enough clarity to determine its exact location. If Mummymon knew, he was trying his damnedest to keep her from it. If he didn't know, then he was making damned sure she didn't find it either.

Whatever it was he was firing from the weapon beneath his arm he seemed to have in endless supply, and the weapon was incapable of jamming or otherwise malfunctioning in any way whatsoever, for he fired an endless stream of small explosions across the desert. Though Holsmon was a fast flier, Mummymon was tireless, and if any of those missiles managed to make contact, there'd be trouble, because she knew from experience she couldn't hold a shield against them for very long.

And so, her battle consisted of simply trying her hardest to stay away from the endless stream of missiles that Mummymon was firing. Holsmon was tiring, that much was certain, and he couldn't keep in the air forever.

"Fly toward the ruins," Miyako instructed, noting a particularly complex section of stones some distance off. "Maybe we can hide."

"Hide?" her partner echoed, his voice astonished. "You want to run away?"

"Yes," she answered simply. "We can't keep fighting against him – we're not fighting. We're running now, and we can't keep that up forever." She sighed heavily. "We should have waited for Ken. Maybe with Paildramon…."

"Assuming Paildramon could appear again," Holsmon pointed out, and Miyako recalled her rather disappointing conversation with Daisuke immediately following the first appearance of Paildramon. He hadn't been optimistic or thrilled about a renewed alliance with Ken, and it seemed less and less likely that their digimon would merge again. Miyako sighed again, mentally cursing both stubbornness and circumstance.

They reached the ruins before long and Holsmon dived down into the center of it. He de-evolved in mid air as Miyako jumped, landing in the soft sand below, and then both quickly hurried through the maze of half-destroyed walls, hurrying to disappear before Mummymon could reappear. Miyako wished in vain that she had taken time to study illusion spells, for if she could have projected an illusion that she was not there, it would have been much easier to hide from Mummymon. Assuming, of course, that he was not the sort of digimon who could easily see through all but the most complex of illusions.

She'd only run about four steps, Hawkmon following behind her, when the young mage felt a strange sort of sensation in her chest and stopped, thinking she was out of breath. She breathed heavily for a moment, and found that this was not the cause of the strange sensation. "No," she said, aloud. "It's the crystal. I can feel it so strongly. Why?"

Hawkmon looked at her with some confusion and concern, for he was obviously of the mind that they ought to keep running and not stop and think about things like crystals and magic but be thinking about things like saving themselves and staying alive. "Miyako….," he said, and then there was a loud, rather large explosion that threw them both forward into the sand.

"Excellent," said a voice that she didn't recognize right away, because he was not laughing, but speaking. Mummymon stood on the top of a half-demolished wall, his weapon at his side, smoke still pouring from the end of it. "Excellent."

Miyako spit sand from her mouth and turned back toward the digimon, ignoring the sand that scratched at her scalp and burned in her eyes. "You can't have it," she told him. "You can't - ."

Whatever else she might have said then was cut off when Mummymon fired a barrage into the sand directly before her, sending more sand flying and causing her to crawl a few steps backward.

"I don't think you're in a position to stop me from doing anything," he answered, a self-satisfied sort of smirk spreading across his face. "Tell me…where it is."

The answer appeared in her mind almost before he'd finished speaking, for she could feel it even closer than before. For a brief moment, she hesitated, and again he fired a bombardment of small missiles into the sand. This time, if she hadn't moved, they would have hit her, and now she found that her back was up against one of those mostly destroyed walls.

Once before, a question had appeared in Miyako's mind – when she had shared a secret that she had realized was very dangerous to keep, and she'd wondered if she, like Daisuke had, could keep that secret no matter what.

Mummymon leaped from the wall with ease, the smirk spreading wider, his eyes narrowed behind the bandages that were wrapped around his face. His long, lanky legs took a few steps forward, quiet, almost soundless in the sand. With one arm he held his weapon, his thin, rotted fingers loosely cradling it. His eyes were hard and cold in his face, his smile light and cheerful. He'd get what he wanted, he was certain of it.

She could raise a shield, she thought. She'd not used too much magic today, and she could raise a shield. It would probably not hold very long against the bombardment of missiles, though, and then what? Was this crystal worth…worth dying over? The thought of death appeared in her mind for a brief moment, to be replaced by the thought of her own death, which was incomprehensible.

"I won't ask again," Mummymon said, taking another step forward. The smirk disappeared – now his mouth was as hard-set as his eyes. He raised his weapon so that it was less than an arm's length from her eyes. She could see the smoke rising from the end of the barrel, could see his fingers tightening, no doubt about to fire.

"No," she answered, surprised to find that her voice was hoarse and the word came out as barely a whisper.

The word surprised the digimon so much that he lowered his weapon and stared blankly at her. "What?" he asked after a moment of endless silence. "What!" he repeated, louder.

Miyako cleared her throat and swallowed. "No," she said. "I said no. You can't have it."

"Then you'll die!" he shouted, almost screaming. "Are you crazy? Do you want to die over some stupid crystal?"

"No," she said honestly, her voice much calmer than she felt. "But I don't want you to have it, either."

"Bloody hell," he said, loudly, and swung up the arm that held his weapon. "Die over it, then."

As Takeru expected, his partner's evolution halted the battle momentarily, for none of the warring tribes' fighters had ever seen such a thing. Li Tan's Airdramon hesitated in midair, then recovered a split second before any of the others had pulled their eyes away from the bright light, and began to speed toward the ground.

"Amazing," Li Tan was saying in a low voice. "You're real then?"

"Of course I'm real," Takeru answered simply. "Did you think you were imagining me?"

"No, no," the tamer answered. "I knew you were real…I meant the Chosen. Real?" He shook his head, grinning.

"Yeah," his passenger agreed. "Amazing, isn't it?"

A short while later, they were near enough to the ground that Takeru felt safe enough to dismount, taking with him the bow he'd been carrying, the quiver of arrows still strapped to his back. He landed in the grass a short distance from Iori, who had been helping to tend to the wounded while his partner battled the Tyrannomon.

Angemon had quickly entered the battle, fists flying as he attacked the fiery dinosaurs with both his hands and his staff. He was causing quite a bit of damage, weakening one of the Tyrannomon, but the humans who were attempting to control it were not so easy to relinquish control. Ankylomon had been battling for some time, his heavy tail continuously hammering into the legs of his enemies. The would-be tamers, however, were attempting to confuse the situation by firing arrows toward Ankylomon. Even though some of them made contact, they were of course doing no damage against his heavy armor, but were managing to be a bit of a nuisance. It was with some difficulty that he restrained himself from swinging his tail through the lot of them and dispensing with the arrows. Kabuterimon, too, had suffered from the arrows.

Iori looked up from his task when Takeru approached. He had been watching the battle with one eye while he tended to the wounded, and was finishing tying a bandage on a fighter whose arm had been damaged by his opponent's spears. He had a severe frown on his face, a dark look in his eyes, and Takeru wondered if he, too, had been thinking about Chimeramon.

"They're idiots if they think they can tame Tyrannomon," Iori said, his voice low but not without emotion. "Idiots."

Takeru nodded. "Doesn't seem as though they've been doing too well. They'll be lucky if they don't all get killed. Maybe roasted," he added, for one of the dinosaurs had chosen that moment to unleash his fiery breath, warming the air on the plains a few degrees.

"Idiots," Iori muttered again, shaking his head. "They're in way over their heads."

"That's what Li Tan says," Takeru informed him, glancing upwards. Distantly he caught sight of the tamer heading into battle again, swinging his spear with ease. "Most of the tamers know that Tyrannomon are too unpredictable, too strong, but this other tribe wants them to give the edge in battle."

"I know almost nothing about taming and I know it's foolish," Iori answered. "Airdramon are hard enough, but at least they don't breathe fire." He sighed. "If they're the cause of that attack on the village…." He shook his head again, eyes narrowing.

Takeru said nothing, reflecting to himself that he'd never before seen Iori quite so angry. He couldn't blame him; having seen how badly Hida had been damaged and having recently defended Takaishi from invaders as well. For a long moment, he was quiet, watching the Airdramon and their riders battle in the sky and watching Kabuterimon, Ankylomon, and Angemon battle the Tyrannomon. He wondered which way this battle would go, and what it would take to stop the rival tribe.

Despite his previous confidence, even Shijo had to admit that the battle was not going well. XV-mon didn't seem able to break through the shields the woman in red had formed, and she didn't seem to be tiring. Indeed, she was continuing to form metal spikes from her hair and send them exploding into the sand.

"This isn't good," Agumon muttered, shaking his head.

Shijo let out a moan of frustration. "I wish there was something we could do…," he grumbled, half getting to his feet.

"Don't!" his partner said, reaching out to grab the back of his shirt before he could rise. "He said to stay out of danger, remember?"

"Yeah, but…," Shijo protested, looking back toward the battle. Quite a few clouds of smoke were now rising across the desert floor, making it almost impossible to see anything. He couldn't tell where Daisuke was, and he could only see a few dark shadows amidst the smoke that he guessed to be the XV-mon and his opponent.

"What do you think you or I could do that XV-mon can't?" Agumon questioned, and this, at least, was enough to cause the boy to abandon his desire to run into the midst of the battle.

After a few moments, the smoke cleared, and he saw that the woman was gone, XV-mon had de-evolved, and Daisuke was looking around him with a rather confused expression.

A loud shout, made of anger and rage, reached Miyako's ears a split second before she saw it, a streak of green that touched on the edge of her vision before it slammed into Mummymon, taking the digimon by surprise. He fell backwards some distance, loosing his grip on his weapon, which fell to the ground, clattering against the stones. The green blur paused long enough to regroup, and she could see now that it was Stingmon.

"Bloody hell," Mummymon said again, getting to his feet. "Snake Bandage!"

Long strips of bandages burst from his arms, wrapping around his opponent, who struggled for a few moments, long enough for the mummy to dart across the space and grab his weapon again.

"Break free of it!" Miyako heard a voice yell from behind her, and she turned to see Ken standing on the edge of a nearby wall, one fist clenched at his side, eyes focused on the battle. A moment later, Stingmon did exactly that, the white bandages scattering to the ground uselessly.

"Yah-ha!" Mummymon laughed triumphantly, firing his weapon, but Stingmon appeared to be either impervious to the missiles or didn't much care, for a moment later he was speeding head on toward the mummy once again.

"Miyako," Hawkmon said, and she pulled herself to her feet, not taking her eyes from the battle. Her legs felt weak, her knees shaking beneath her. She held onto the wall beside her, not daring to turn her head again and look toward Ken.

"The crystal," she recalled, and then turned away. "I've got to get to it."

"Are you sure you shouldn't rest for a bit?" her partner questioned, noting, no doubt, that she was rather unsteady on her feet.

"Maybe," she said, climbing over the low wall she had previously been leaning against, "but I've got to get it, and I don't want to waste time."

Finally, some action, and, as promised, Ken's return. Yay. We'll spend a little more time with these battles – I plan not more than another chapter – and then we'll be moving on, finally. I'm sure everyone's wondering what the others have been up to. There are others? Oh, yeah.

I'm having fun writing this, so I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.