Tempest in a Tea Cup
888
Jyou groaned quietly as he slowly opened his eyes. There was a crack that splintered his vision. He grimaced as the numb pain of having fallen through a marble floor an unknown number of meters throbbed through his body. He grunted and slowly lifted his hand up into the darkness.
"Are we dead yet?" Jyou said in a groaning tone.
"I don't think so…" he heard Matt reply about five feet away.
"Raise your hand if you kinda wish we were..." Jyou grunted as slowly tried to sit up. He looked around himself but couldn't see anything in the darkness. "I can't see anyone raising their hands but I'm going to just assume everyone is…"
"That's not very nice…" He heard Gomamon's voice next to him.
"None of this is…" Jyou grunted as he reached over and felt for the red Mohawk of the seal and finding it, gently ruffled it. He took a deep breath and stood up; dusting pebbles, rocks and other stuff of his sweater vest. He adjusted his cracked glasses and sighed loudly, "but I guess we're the only ones able to or willing to deal with it so…we may as well get this done with…"
"That's the spirit!" He heard Patamon's voice cheer just over his shoulder.
"How are you still this chipper!?" Jyou asked turning towards the voice.
"Wings…he has wings…" He heard Takeru glower quietly as the younger boy's feet scuffed across the uneven spoil pile.
"Apparently as soon as we were out of Gravimon's vision, his gravity powers stopped working…" Jyou heard Koushiro explain; he could hear Tentomon's wings buzzing nearby, getting closer. "That was lucky; if the marble hadn't failed we'd have been squished like peas; and it's good that it didn't last after he lost sight of us, or the acceleration from the fall would've killed us."
"Let me guess, also squished like peas?" Takeru asked.
"Estimated impact based upon how I felt; we'd not even have been squished peas; we'd have been atomized peas…" Koushiro said.
"Speaking of peas…" Jyou heard Agumon start.
"Ask Mimi if she's got anymore snacks." Jyou heard Tai reply before the little dinosaur's voice could continue the statement.
"Ack! Not everyone at once!" Mimi yelped as Jyou heard a cacophony of flaps, slaps, buzzes and padded footfalls zero onto a location slightly to his left and further down the pile.
"Can we get some light here?" Hikari asked.
Suddenly the entire cavern burst into a flickering red-tinted light as Flamon lifted a finger, producing a small ball of fire.
"Thanks!" Hikari said smiling to Flamon, the humanoid digimon blushed brightly and for a brief second the fire ball seemed to grow two sizes.
Jyou looked around him; he had apparently landed on the peak of the pile. There was something ironic about that but he wasn't sure what that would be. The other kids were standing on the rock fall; most of them were covered in marble dust, some had some pretty deep bruises and one or two has slowly oozing wounds. He found his duffle bag and skidded down to Miyako. Her left elbow was bleeding as there was a nasty scrape on her knee.
"Sit down." Jyou said quietly but sternly.
"Wha-?" Miyako started and then she saw the wounds and sat down. "I didn't even realize…gosh…"
"That's what I'm here for-" Jyou said quietly. "Nothing else feels wrong?"
"Umm, I don't feel anything weird…" Miyako said quietly.
"No broken ribs, or discomfort internally? All your limbs work right?" Jyou asked as he started to gently grab at the girl, pressing softly against her stomach and sides.
"Hey! What are you doing!?" Miyako yelped and yanked herself away from Jyou.
"I'm palpating, to check you for any unnoticed injury!" Jyou growled in annoyance. "We went through some traumatic pressure followed by a 'who knows how far' of a fall onto rocks…you could have internal hemorrhage or…bloat…I don't know…but I should check just in case."
"Well, I'm not bloated, and I don't feel uncomfortable, at least I didn't until you started…'palpating' me!" Miyako returned indignantly.
"Right, fine-" Jyou said and turned to look up and saw Iori was rubbing his elbow. He got to his feet and moved to the young boy.
"You ok?" Jyou asked his younger protégé.
"I think so, just a little stiff…" Iori said as he rubbed his elbow.
"Let me see…" Jyou said gently taking Iori's arm and rolling up the sleeve of his tan shirt. He narrowed his eye as he looked at the slightly swollen elbow. "I think you just sprained it, but be careful ok?" Jyou reached into his duffle and pulled out a bottle of pills. "These are aspirin…" He looked around himself and saw Mimi surrounded by the gang of partner digimon all eating cookies. "Mimi, can you give me a bottle of water please?"
Mimi rustled around in her bag and pulled out a bottle and ran to Jyou. "Is everything ok?"
"Yeah just need some water so he can take an aspirin." Jyou said as he opened the bottle and fished out a pill. Iori popped the pill into his mouth and downed some water. Jyou smiled and rustled the boy's hair. "Hopefully the inflammation goes down, but if it doesn't or it gets worse, tell me; ok? Don't try and carry too much, let it rest, we'll see if we can't find some ice or something later if we can, or at least some water to soak it."
Iori nodded quietly. Jyou turned and looked at Mimi. "You look pretty ok; just some bruises?"
"Yeah…" Mimi said as Jyou walked past her and skidded down the rock pile to Sora who had a red swelling on her forehead.
"Right…give me a second." Jyou said as he opened his bag and looked through it grabbing a pen-light. "Look into the light please…" He sighed a brief sigh of relief as he watched Sora's eyes dilate. "Good, was worried there for a second…Headache bad?" Sora furrowed her eyebrows and gave him a look that suggested he was an idiot. "Other than the obvious I mean…do you feel sleepy, or confused? Can you stand up please?"
Sora slowly stood up but winced as she put weight on her left ankle. Jyou knelt down and gently touched it. It felt slightly warm and puffy. Sora winced again.
"That hurts…" Sora reported as she gently dropped back down to a sitting position.
"Yeah it's a little sprained…" Jyou said as he took out some aspirin. "I'm hoping to keep the inflammation down with this until we can get somewhere where we can do proper treatment. If you can keep this ankle elevated for a bit while we appraise the situation that might help."
One by one he checked all the children. Most of them had only minor bumps or scrapes; some had sprained joints, but luckily no one had any broken bones or worse. Jyou was finishing with Ken when he felt someone standing behind him. He looked up to see Mimi smiling at him.
"What?" Jyou asked quietly.
"You're really good at this stuff." Mimi said quietly.
"I should be." Jyou replied as he was packing things back into his bag. "It's not like I haven't sort of been trained for this since I was in middle school or anything…"
"But I mean you always act like you're not ready, or act like your falling behind everyone else." Mimi said quietly as she sat down next to Jyou. "But look at what you're doing without prompting, just on instinct."
"I bandaged some boo-boos and gave out aspirin like they were M it's not like I'm triaging a MASH unit." Jyou said as he shook his head.
"But you shouldn't sell yourself short." Mimi smiled and reached out and patted Jyou on the shoulder. "You impress me, you know."
Jyou felt the blood flood his cheeks and he felt an uncomfortable smile crawl across his face. "Uh, th-thanks…."
"It's what I'm here for." Mimi said smiling and she stood up and walked towards the others.
888
"So – what? We're in the continent's basement?" Matt asked as they all huddled around Izzy's computer. The computer screen's glow was now augmented with several small torches that Flamon had lit with help from Mimi and Jyou.
"More or less." Izzy said. "Some kind of cavern under this temple above."
"It's remarkable that your laptop survived the fall!" Tentomon buzzed quietly.
"Should be more surprised at the Wi-fi signal I'm getting down here-" Izzy said as he looked at the screen; there were five pixels in the top left corner of the screen that had bugged out but otherwise the Pineapple laptop was fully functional. "Luckily I was able to get this map file that Gennai sent us…"
"Shame he couldn't have given us a file on those guys we met!" Takeru grumbled.
"Yeah, those guys were rough-" Iori said quietly. "What are we going to do about them?"
"I vote avoid them." Jyou said lifting a hand. "I mean we were pushed through the floor of a continent…I try and only do that twice in my life and I'm surprisingly close to my limit now…"
"If they are whatever it is we're fighting's flunkies we're going to have to face them eventually." Flamon said quietly as he looked at the screen, tilting his head slightly as he looked at his face reflected in the screen.
"Jyou might be right-" Taichi said quietly. "Those guys aren't our objective. Our objective is to get to that codex-thingy that Gennai was talking about."
"The problem is if the Nothing sent those guys after us, then it has to know about the codex." Sora said as she looked over to Taichi.
"Which means we need to protect it, or remove it, or somehow keep the bad guys from it." Flamon said pounding his fist into his free hand.
"Yeah!" Veemon said nodding. "We gotshta shtop 'em!"
"We're not even sure we can fight them." Mimi said as she looked down at Palmon worriedly. "I mean we've only been able to get you guys to your Champion level, and that was a surprise…who knows if we can do the rest of it."
"And some of us; just aren't in that kind of position to go Mega…" Hikari said quietly. She looked to Ken apologetically.
"Wait, we can evolve to a Mega level?" Salamon asked looking up in shock.
"Well, you used to be able to, with Hawkmon's help…" Miyako said off-handedly.
"Hawkmon!?" Salamon gulped with almost disgust.
"Oi, you'd be lucky to get my help to go to the Mega level, I'm a very rare resource indeed!" Hawkmon retorted haughtily. He looked up to Miyako. "Isn't that right, Miyako?"
"You are to me!" Miyako smiled trying to be reassuring as she patted his feathered head.
"See!" Hawkmon said confidently.
"I don't think that was the vote of confidence you think it was…" Salamon said with a giggle.
"First things first." Ken said quietly and yet with such authority as to drown out all the background noise. "We need to find the codex. Gennai said it was in the Rosa de Venus. So where is that?"
"Who wants to know?" A feminine voice asked from beyond the ring of fire.
The children and their digimon jumped up to their feet the digimon leapt forward, with Flamon and Veemon standing slightly before the other digimon. There was a huff of wind that swarmed through the cavern knocking out all of the flames. The entire cavern was now only lit by the constant muted glow of Izzy's computer.
"Who wants to know, err, about 'who wants to know?'?" Taichi asked not as confidently as Izzy assumed he'd tried to sound.
"A Guardian of Cloud." There was swooshing gust of wind that kicked dust into the air. "Who wants to know about the codex? About the Rosa de Venus?"
"We are the digi-destined!" Hikari said meekly as she walked forward. "We have been sent here by Gennai to find the codex to help us in a struggle against an evil force that looks to destroy the Digital World."
"Leave!" The voice shouted as a gale started to explode from the shadows.
"We're the good guys!" Jyou shouted as the wind roared across his face and he struggled to keep his glasses on his face. "We really don't have time for this!"
"Good, Evil, it matters not!" The voice howled over the wind, or through the wind. "The codex is not for use by the down below!"
"If we don't get to it first, the Nothing will!" Iori shouted as he put his arm up to cover his eyes. "And if the Nothing gets to it; this world will be destroyed!"
"Then the world will be destroyed. You will return to the lands below!" The voice said sharp as the wind. There was an additional blast of wind. "NOW!"
"This is stupid!" Flamon growled and opened his hands creating fire balls in his palms.
The cave flashed with flickering light. The voice now had form. Izzy blushed; it wasn't an unappealing form at least. A female humanoid digimon with butterfly like wings was holding its hands out and tendrils of wind swooshed from its palms. The digimon frowned and launched herself at Flamon.
"V-headbutt!" Veemon yelped and launched forward.
The female digimon placed her hand on the little blue dragon's forehead pushing the little dragon into the ground. She pivoted over him all the while executing a tornado of spinning kicks that caught Flamon in the solar-plexus and sent him flying backwards into the rest of the digimon who toppled backwards like a crowd of ten-pins. The butterfly woman then land and pointed to the children as a tiny ball of a maelstrom formed at the tip of her finger.
"Leave, or be deleted-" The woman said sharply.
"Wait, wait, wait! Time the hell out!" Matt yelped as he ran forward with his hands in a T-shape. "I have a sneaking suspicion we may have gotten off on the wrong foot…."
"Admittedly a lot of it was her just coming out of nowhere and attacking us…" Takeru grumbled.
"Not now, TK!" Matt snapped back to his younger brother. He turned his attention back to the digimon that was glaring at them through a metal visor. He smiled congenially, "I'm Yamato Ishida, the holder of the Crest of Friendship, you may have heard of it from prior world saving adventures…" The female digimon didn't seem to respond. Yamato glowered slightly whispering to himself audibly "Ultimate repository of the Digital World information my butt…." He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes again. He sighed loudly and started again with a smile. "We're the digi-destined, chosen ones? Really nothing?" Look I realize the world went through a reformat; but this place was supposed to be like some kind of giant save point repository for the world; right?"
Matt looked to Izzy for some encouragement. Izzy blinked for a second and then snapped to attention. "Right, yeah, Cloud, big ol' repository of data…so the digimon can be reborn, if Gennai is being honest…" Izzy seemed unsure for a second, "which admittedly, I've increasingly come to the opinion that he's…"
"You can look us up later…" Matt cut Izzy off. He looked to the female digimon. "You must know about the bad stuff that's going on downstairs. There's these big bad guys that showed up, and plan on wrecking up the place to help this other bad guy destroy all of reality or something…" Matt explained, "Because that's the thing bad guys do and we don't want to do that so we're not the bad guys…"
"You know of the enemies that attacked the gates?" The woman growled. The maelstrom seemed to only intensify.
"You've met the Doom Patrol!? Great!" Matt said perking up slightly. The woman seemed to glower at this. Matt blanched and gave an apologetic expression. "I mean, must've been horrible…"
"They killed two of my fellow guardians!" the woman sneered. "I will not allow further interlopers!"
"Funny thing though-" Matt continued as he threaded his fingers together into a steeple. "You and us, we're on the same side…we don't like them either…that's why we're here…actually…"
"And factually!" Mimi said as she pointed upwards. "They literally pushed us through the floor and that's how we got down here…"
"Not. Helping. Mimi!" Matt growled backwards as he gave a side-long look back to the girl. He looked to the woman. He started to walk forward, his hands rolling in front of him as he spoke. "So, I'm thinking, you don't like those guys, we're not super enamored with them either…maybe you and us… we, you know, could collaborate and if while collaborating we get to the codex, great and if not..."
"You won't." The woman said glaring down at Matt. "You will leave, now."
"And we're back to the beginning…" Matt sighed dropping his head and shaking it.
"What's your name?" Sora asked quietly as she walked forward. "Sorry, realized we didn't ask…"
"I am Kazemon, Guardian of the Winds of Cloud." The woman stated as she looked to the auburn haired girl.
"My name is Sora Takenouchi." The girl approached slowly. "I know this must all seem weird and…frightening."
"I fear nothing!" The female digimon retorted.
"Minotauromon droppings!" Flamon grunted as he glared up at the woman as he lay atop the pile of spilled over digimon. "Everyone fears something…it's just a question of facing it. So why are you down here, threatening the only people fighting the thing trying to destroy the world, when the real bad guys are upstairs probably getting their hands on the thing they need to destroy the world!?"
Flamon leapt to his feet. The woman seemed to shunt her attention to the little digimon. "I am here to remove infection from Cloud! Where I start matters not!"
"Liar!" Flamon snorted; puffs of smoke billowing from his nostrils.
"Probably not wise to annoy the angry wind lady-" hissed Gomamon from the bottom of the pile.
"You said they already killed two of your friends, which means you already encountered them!" Flamon snorted, glaring at Kazemon. "You're scared of them; that's why you're hiding down here threatening a bunch of dumb humans-"
"Oi!" Matt yelled.
"and Rookie Digimon." Flamon continued completely ignoring the blonde teenager. "Well, I'm not going to be stopped from trying to save my friends by a coward…so get out of my way…or else!"
"Or else what!?" the other kids yelped in fear.
"Or else I'll move her out of the way!" Flamon snorted as his hands erupted into flames. The other digimon were jumping to their feet and lining up behind Flamon.
"I would like to see you try!" The butterfly woman said as she brought her arms up and the cave was filled with a tidal wave of wind that seemed to suck the very air out of the children's lungs.
Flamon growled angrily and leapt forward and leveled a punch to the wind digimon's cheek. Kazemon staggered backward as Flamon dropped to the ground. He brought his arms back as he cupped his hands. Fire swirled around his arms and pooled into his palms.
"Baby Salamander!" Flamon shouted as he thrust his palms forward releasing a burst of fire towards the female digimon.
The female digimon sliced her hand through the flames releasing a blade of wind that smashed into Flamon and sent the little ogre flying backwards. That's when the other digimon leapt forward, the little Rookies releasing their attacks on the female digimon, who dismissed them all with little more than a backhand of a breeze. The Rookies charged her and were just about to jump her en masse when…
"STOP IT! ALL OF YOU!" Hikari shouted loudly. She was clenching her fists to her side; tears were running down her cheeks. "Stop it….stop it…please…just stop!"
The Rookies all looked back at their human partners who were all looking to Hikari.
"Kari-" Takeru started.
"Why are you fighting us? We all want the same thing…" Hikari cried as she walked forward. "We all just want to protect the Digital World. I realize you have all these rules about who is and isn't allowed on Cloud and you're trying your best with what's going on…but we really need your help. We have been fighting this thing for a while now; we already lost someone to it…" Hikari sniffed loudly. "And we just, we just need to get to this codex, and we need to find a way of stopping those bad guys from getting to the codex and maybe if you are willing we could use the codex to find the friend we lost…we don't mean anyone any harm; we're trying to help. Please…just listen to us…" Hikari looked to the female digimon and walked up to her. "We don't want to fight you, we really don't…and I don't think you really want to fight us."
Kazemon looked down at Hikari her hand lifted a pool of air swirling right in front of the little beige-haired girl. Hikari didn't flinch, she didn't cower; she just looked sorrowfully up at the digimon. Kazemon pursed her lips and clenched her hand into a fist, dispelling the wind.
"There is an opening to these caverns that way." Kazemon said, pointing. "That opening is at the edge of a mountain range, across the valley is the Rosa de Venus and inside the Rosa de Venus resides the codex of the Digital World…"
"Thank you…" Hikari said, bowing to the digimon.
"I can see it in your eyes. You have lost someone important to these monsters…" Kazemon said quietly. She looked away from the children. "I am the last Guardian of Cloud, I cannot defeat this infestation alone…I will need help."
"We will do what we can," Hikari said quietly, "but we must go fast…"
"Then we must go now." Kazemon replied. "The automated defenses of the castle will not hold out for long against the likes of them."
Kazemon took to the wing and glided over the children. Hikari turned and walked over to Flamon and reached out to him. He grasped her hand with his and she helped him to his feet.
"I'm sorry-" Flamon said with a tinge of embarrassment.
"Don't be." Kari said quietly, shaking her head. She looked in Flamon's amber eyes and smiled warmly. He seemed unable to smile back. Hikari tilted her head slightly. "You remind me of him, he'd have done something boneheaded and stupid, too…and it'd have been for the right reasons just like what you did…" She reached up with her hand and patted the mane of hair on Flamon's head, the digimon blushed brightly, "and usually he could save it in the end." Her smile faded slightly and she seemed sad again. "Just…not all the time…"
"All the more reason to get him back then, huh?" Flamon said rubbing the back of his head as he blushed brightly. "I would sure hate to see someone like that disappear when he makes you smile like that!"
Hikari nodded and turned, picking up Salamon. Veemon hopped up to Flamon and the fire-goblin smiled and patted Veemon on the head and watched as the children started to follow Kazemon deeper into the cavern. His eyes turned to Hikari again and for a mere second he thought he could feel his heart skip a beat, and he wasn't even sure he had a heart. Flamon followed after the children with Veemon at his side, but he was not the last to leave the chamber. A red light glimmered in the darkness as a metallic spidery leg stepped out from the darkness. A camera focused in on the retreating group of digi-destined and their allies….
And somewhere far away from Cloud, there frowned a very angelic face.
888
AN: I know not a lot happens in these chapters, but the interactions are fun….and this actually came out kinda fast (well if I'm honest stupid fast…as well…I'm still stopped up on this story so…yeah…this was a bonus kindness so if the next chapter doesn't show up until next Christmas…don't be surprised…). Even though we didn't seem to progress terribly far… we actually progressed further than I thought we would…at least on some fronts….
I like to think of Matt as the schmoozer of the group. The front man; Taichi may be the leader and capable of putting together some rousing speeches; but when it comes to the sort of guy that can connive his way into the bar it's Matt….especially after 02. Like it's not his real personality; but it's a coat he can wear whenever he needs to…but he's also not the ace of it yet, so in situations like this he over-estimates his schmoozability (It also doesn't help that he kinda just…wants to get the job done and go home)….I mean he's not his father….am'iright?