The Crystal Gate

Part Twenty-One: Imminent Demise

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Standard Disclaimer Thingie: Digimon, all related characters and such are not mine. Original characters (the few that there are) and the plot are MINE. Don't steal, don't sue, don't forget to moo.

Moo.

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After nearly a half-hour of shooting, Mummymon had disappeared amidst clouds of dust and smoke, obviously having caught on to the fact that Takeru and the crystal had gone south. Ankylomon had thought to chase after him, but the mummy was gone before he could take a single step.

Iori and Koushiro could see that the afternoon had not been a particularly peaceful one. Many of the buildings were missing entire walls or had large chunks smashed out of the side. From his perch above the city, Iori spotted the culprits – some Ogremon swinging their clubs, smashing a public fountain to bits. Turning his head to the left, he saw a mob of Gotsumon making similar work of a building.

"We should stop them," he muttered, and took step forward.

"Wait," the wizard interrupted, peering out across town as though seeing something or hearing something unnoticed without magic. "They're only the small things, Iori. We need to worry about the bigger things."

"What bigger things?" Iori questioned. "You don't mean Mummymon– ?"

Koushiro shook his head. "No, he's not the one planning all this. I feel a greater power in this town. We should go after that."

A few moments later, they were in the air, the wizard guiding his partner to head in the direction from which he had sensed the power. Ankylomon was plodding along behind them, easily brushing aside the Gotsumon who got in his way. Iori, holding on tightly, watched the ground below with longing, wondering if it would not have been wiser to travel on his partner's back. Amidst the rocks and rubble, he spotted a single human making his way through the town, the small blob of his digimon partner following after.

"Koushiro!" Iori called, shouting to be heard over the sound of the wind rushing in his ears and the buzzing of the wings. "Look down there!"

"Interesting," Koushiro noted. "He's the only person who seems to still be in this village. I don't know if it would do us any good, but let's go after him."

A short while later, Kabuterimon landed in the midst of the rubble and de-evolved, hovering at his partner's shoulder in the form of Tentomon once more. "Which way do we go now?" he wondered.

At that moment, the boy in question appeared from behind a building. "Here," he called. His hair was a disheveled mass, and his skin was covered with a few layers of dirt and dust from falling buildings. A few scratches marked his bare arms and there was a long cut on the top of his forehead, but otherwise he appeared to have no serious injuries. "You're Chosen, aren't you?"

Iori nodded, unsurprised, for Ankylomon, standing nearby, made this fact obvious. "Who are you?"

"I'm Shijo," the boy said, wiping some of the dust off his arm, an action that had little effect. "I was traveling with some of the others and we were separated."

"Shijo?" the Chosen echoed, wondering why this was familiar.

"The boy from the Motomiya?" Ankylomon asked, lowering his neck to get a better view of the boy. "Funny how you get mixed up in all this stuff all the time, isn't it? You were there when we fought Vamdemon."

"Motomiya?" Iori questioned, memory returned. "You were with Daisuke?"

He nodded again. "Yes, and we were separated when the Gotsumon fell out of the sky and attacked. I promised I would get out of the way in case of danger, so I did, but then it got dark…." He shrugged. "I've been trying to stay away from the Gotsumon."

"You seem to be the only person left in this city, except for the Chosen," Koushiro observed darkly. He turned his head in the same direction he had before. "And whoever it is that's the cause of all this."

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At one point a fountain had stood in the center of town, but now it was reduced to rubble, and large chunks of rocks and stones littered the area between mostly-demolished buildings. A small fire had been built in the space, both for warmth and light.

Miyako had seated herself on a large block of stone and was examining a cut on her elbow, twisting her arm to see the damage from the correct angle. Takeru was sitting beside her, eyes watching his partner's battle in the skies while his older brother argued about fighting.

"You're not seriously thinking of giving up?" Yamato was saying, arms folded at his chest, eyes narrowed.

"No," Taichi answered, shaking his head. "Only on fighting these Gotsumon and Ogremon." He gestured above him to where Angemon and Lady Devimon were battling ferociously, their cries echoing in the empty stillness of the abandoned town. "There's something of greater power here. We should go after that."

"I agree," said a new voice, and all present turned to see Hikari enter the empty square, followed by Daisuke, Mimi, Jyou, and a tall green figure.

"You were in battle?" Sora questioned, noting the presence of Togemon.

"It was nothing," Togemon answered with a cactus-shrug. "A few guys that turned out to be not real."

Mimi shivered. "They were men…and yet they deleted like digimon."

Sora nodded. "Ken says they're made from dark magic, same as the digimon that deleted strangely. We saw one here…it disintegrated into nothing, and yet it was bleeding before that."

"You sure you're not hurt?" Taichi was asking Hikari, having paid little attention to the rest of the conversation. He noted the weapon she had strapped on to her back. "Why did you bring that?"

"I thought it might be necessary," she answered with a shrug.

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Rubble covered the streets, making it very difficult to navigate, greatly slowing their progress. It made no difference to Ankylomon, who simply stepped over it all, or Tentomon, who flew over it all, but the humans had a tough time and were sometimes obliged to climb over taller chunks of rock. Agumon, who was by far the worst climber of them all, sometimes had to be carried and lifted over pieces, and Shijo mumbled that he might have been pleased if his partner had waited to evolve, because as Koromon he had not been so heavy.

They paused to rest atop a large chunk of stone, breathing heavily while Ankylomon waited patiently for them to catch up. The town was eerily quiet, with the exception of the sounds of distant battles and crumbling rocks. No one spoke, for a while as they rested.

After a few moments, Koushiro lifted his head and squinted into the dark evening. He curled his fingers into a fist, extinguishing the small flame that he had been carrying in his hand, and gestured to the others to remain quiet. Iori hesitated a moment and then followed him to the half-destroyed wall of a building. Crouching low, they peered over it and saw three dark shapes standing nearby.

At first glance they appeared human, but Iori and Koushiro had seen Mummymon, a powerful digimon that at first glance seemed a harmless, gangly man with a sadistic sense of humor. It was hard to make out any features in the darkness, and so they waited and listened.

"It's not possible," a woman's voice was saying in a hushed tone. She sounded frustrated and angry. "The idiots shouldn't have that much power. It shouldn't have been this difficult to get the damned things."

"Maybe it's not so much their brilliance as your incompetence," a man's voice returned. He made no attempt to lower his voice, but spoke clearly, in a smooth, refined tone, showing no hint of anger or frustration.

"If I'm so incompetent, do it yourself!" the woman snapped, and a burst of giggles came from the third, previously silent participant. "As though you've had any more success, fool!"

"My dear, I'm no less incompetent than you are," the third voice said, and it took Iori a moment to recognize the mummy as he was speaking rather than cackling insanely.

His words did not seem placated the woman, and the sounds of scuffling persisted for a few moments before the man interrupted the bickering. "Obviously you've underestimated the powers of the Chosen," he said, and at his words both the sorceress and the mummy fell silent. "We must summon more assistance."

"To do that, we'll need at least one more crystal," the sorceress reminded him in a cold, clipped tone of voice. "Have you some brilliant plan for wrenching the last three of them from their fingers?"

"Obviously, the best way would be to kill the ones who possess the crystals," the man replied dryly, "but you seem to have been incapable of doing that as well."

"As I said, do it yourself if you think I'm so useless," the woman retorted.

"Perhaps I will," the man answered. Iori listened intensely, afraid to move.

The ground grew suddenly cold beneath his feet, so cold that he could feel it through the soles of his boots and the bones of his feet. It traveled upward through his legs and his stomach and his chest and down through his arms once more. Before long, he found that the intense cold was unbearable; he couldn't move. He thought he could hear distant screaming, and he struggled to lift his arms and block the sound from his ears. When he managed to do so, however, the sound did not fade in the slightest, and he realized that it was coming from his mind.

Some further evidence of a connection between us? he wondered, thinking of Takeru and the crystal he held. Was the voice he heard in his mind Takeru? Then the voice halted and he could hear laughter from outside rather than inside his head.

"You see?" the wizard was saying, a gloating tone to his voice. "It is not so hard as you would have believed, you fools. You simply haven't the power that I have."

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"Necessary?" Taichi echoed, staring at his sister with wide eyes. "Necessary for what? You intend to use it?"

Though he was not far from the fire, Takeru felt a shiver run through his body. He looked down at his hands, for they were suddenly very cold. His head felt light; the world blurred around him. Though he could hear Hikari's voice, he couldn't make out any words.

"Takeru?" Miyako asked, sitting nearest to him. The ground was shaking, or maybe it was only his body. He thought he saw a flash of light, and he shut his eyes. His stomach churned. The cold was intense, immobilizing. A sharp pain appeared in the palm of his hand – the space the crystal had cut through his skin. Distantly, he thought he heard someone screaming, and it was only when he felt his throat turn sore that he realized it was his own voice.

Then, it was gone, his hands empty and with no fresh blood, the pain and the cold having passed. He opened his eyes and saw a few faces blurrily swim before him. Yamato was holding him by the shoulders, shaking him, a panicked expression on his face. "Takeru!"

"I'm…all right," Takeru managed to say, and then his stomach told him it might be best not to say anything more if he didn't want to lose the last thing he had eaten. His head was pounding behind his eyes, and he shut them again.

"You don't look all right. You look like you're half dead," Yamato returned.

He felt it too, but it still didn't seem safe to talk, so he didn't say anything. Breathe, he thought, and concentrated on that for a few moments, listening to the quiet sound of his breath go in and out. Overhead, he was aware that Angemon was still fighting, and he breathed a brief sigh of relief that he had not been forced to de-evolve.

"What happened?" Mimi questioned in a voice close to a whisper. Somewhere behind her, a wall collapsed with a violent shudder, and the sound of the crash echoed in Takeru's head for a few moments.

"They took the crystal," Ken noted quietly, a very faint hint of sympathy in his voice. "It looks like it was painful to be separated from it."

Painful, Takeru thought, was an understatement. The world swam around him, his stomach churned, and he shut it once more, still not feeling as though it was safe to speak.

"It's because he was connected to it more than was intended," Hikari said then. "The magic bound it to him more securely than the others. He would have been able to harness its power."

"That's why they took it from him?" Miyako asked. "To eliminate a threat while gaining a weapon?"

"That was probably their intention," she answered, "but…."

"He's not dead," Yamato muttered. Takeru opened one eye, startled by the sound of anger in his brother's voice. "They didn't eliminate him."

"No," Hikari agreed, sounding pleased, "and Angemon didn't de-evolve."

"That seems astonishing," Jyou muttered, having placed on hand on Takeru's forehead. "He's got a fever. I'd think that would be enough."

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"Iori?" Koushiro was saying, and Iori opened eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed and saw the face of the wizard swim into view.

"I'm fine," he managed to say, and he realized it was true. He got to his feet, shakily, and looked around it to see that the three he had been watching had disappeared. "They're gone?"

"They disappeared after the ground stopped shaking," the wizard replied. "They managed to obtain another crystal. Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine," he said with more conviction than before. "Takeru…."

Koushiro stared at him, and Tentomon came closer. "Do you mean to say that it was his crystal that was stolen?" the insect digimon questioned.

"And that you felt this?" the wizard added.

Iori rubbed his eyes. "I think so. I think we'd better get to the others."

Before he could take any steps, however, the ground shook once again. Feeling his footing grow unsteady, Iori dropped to the ground. Not too far away, he could see that Ankylomon was shielding Shijo and Agumon from any falling rocks. Then, a dark figure obscured his view.

Iori looked up to see that the dark wizard was standing before him, looking down at him with an expression of controlled anger. He was tall, towering over Iori, and dressed in a long black cloak that danced in the wind at his feet. "Interesting," he said, a vague smile passing over his pale-skinned face. His eyes, dark as coals, were pure anger, however.

Ankylomon bounded forward, the ground quaking beneath his feet, and was a step behind the wizard in an instant. "Iori!" he called.

"I'm fine," Iori said, getting to his feet. "Who are you? What do you want?"

The vague smile grew slightly. He looked up, eyes traveling beyond Iori to rest on Koushiro, who stood a few paces back, and his partner. "Do you know?" he questioned. "Or are your senses too weak to determine this?"

"I know you have dark magic," Koushiro answered calmly, his voice the sound of serenity, his eyes narrowed. "Are you a pawn of Demon as well?"

The smile disappeared; the eyes grew darker. "I am no pawn of that fool. I have far greater power. You are now in the presence of the last great dark wizard of his own power."

"The last?" Tentomon echoed. "Well, that's a relief."

The dark wizard's eyes grew narrow, and he waved an arm. A great gust of wind blasted across the space, scattering small stones. The insect digimon wisely took shelter behind his partner, who threw up an arm to shield his face, and then a magical shield when the wind became stronger. Iori, having no such protection, crawled forward past the dark wizard. Past him, the wind was gone, and Iori scurried toward his partner.

The dark wizard broke off his attack and raised one arm over his head. After a moment, Iori saw that a ball of light was gathering in his hand and that small sparks were extending from the ball. "I think we might want to get clear of this," he told his partner. "If that's possible."

Koushiro did not seem to be formulating a counter attack of any sort, but was simply watching his opponent with an expression of mild interest. Briefly, his gaze darted toward Iori, and then back to the dark wizard.

The dark wizard threw back his arm and then heaved the ball of light and sparks. Iori turned away from the battle, not wanting to see what happened when the ball of sparks hit the ground, or worse, hit Koushiro.

"Let's go," he called to his partner, climbing aboard. Without hesitation, Ankylomon took off at a run. They reached Shijo and Agumon at the same instant that a huge explosion sounded behind them, and Iori hurriedly pulled the boy and his partner aboard. He glanced back only briefly and saw a cloud of smoke rising from the ground.

"Look!" Shijo said then, and they saw that Tentomon had evolved again. The smoke was clearing slightly, but even larger clouds were forming in its place, and flashes of lightning and sparks could be seen. "Shouldn't you help him?"

"I don't think that I would be much help to him," Iori confessed, glancing back through the smoke. He could see little, however, except for rolling clouds of smoke.

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It's finished, but this last part is far too long to be one chapter. Last part will be up tomorrow. Sorry for the insanely long delay, thanks for reading.