A/N: Anyone still reading? Sorry it's taken so long!
With a gasp, Kari jerked her hand back from the dark fountain's sluggish water. Her knees felt weak, and she sank to the ground, that dark voice still pounding inside her head. Closing her eyes tightly, she clutched at her temples, willing the voice out of her mind. After a long while, its echoes faded away, and Kari slowly opened her eyes.
What…what was that? I felt like it was trying to get inside me somehow! How…how could it…? Panic rose within her, making it hard to breathe, but she forced herself to remain calm. Besides, her legs still felt so weak, she would have been surprised if she could stand…
"Welcome, Child of Light."
Though still sitting on the ground, Kari spun about at these words, pressing her back hard against the frigid stone of the black fountain.
It was a small, shadowy figure that had spoken--a Divermon, it looked to be--and yet it was ganglier and more strange-looking than usual.
She didn't get to look at it long, however, for with a snarling laugh, it lunged forward at her.
More out of reflex than anything, the hand holding her Digivice snapped up and out towards the creature; there was a blinding flash of pink light, and the murky figure was sent sprawling. Kari seemed to draw strength from the brief flare, however, and rose strongly to her feet, facing her opponent squarely.
It lunged again, again she brought up her Digivice, and again the creature was repelled by a burst of pink light.
It tried again, and again, and twice more, then it paused.
"Had enough already?" Kari called, lowering her Digivice slightly.
It started as a mere chuckle, then became a quiet laugh; Kari drew a sharp breath, then stiffened and clutched her Digivice more tightly, holding it more firmly in front of her as the dark creature before her threw its head back and roared with wild, crazed howls of laughter.
Even inside the tunnel, there was no noise except that which they made themselves—the scuff of hoof and shoe on stone (cat paws are silent, after all), the muted reverberation of their voices bouncing back to them from the rough rocky walls, and the hoarse, echoing whisper of their breath; the lack of any other sound--no dripping water, no rustle of wind--was eerie enough to make the hair on the back of T.K.'s neck rise.
He paused suddenly.
…Or…was it perhaps…something else? Come to think of it, he couldn't hear—
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
With a roar that shook dust and small stones loose from the walls around them, Hippogriffonmon suddenly burst into view from around a corner behind them and rushed at them, though his size and the narrowness of the tunnel slowed his charge somewhat.
It did not, however, slow the progression of his attacks.
"Heat Wave!"
"Get down!" T.K. snatched Gatomon out of the way and ducked behind a sheltering outcropping as the sweltering pulse of air rushed by. "Pegasusmon!" he shouted, looking around wildly.
"I'm fine, T.K.," the winged Digimon said from a similar outcropping overhead. "But why is he attacking us?"
"I don't know," the human boy risked a glance around the edge of his stone shield to locate their unexpected enemy.
"Heat Wave!" Hippogriffonmon snarled again, his eyes flashing a murderous red, the same color as—
—The same color as the symbols on the spiral wrapped around his arm—
"Pegasusmon, on his arm! He's got a Dark Spiral!"
"But I thought we destroyed all those!" Gatomon gasped.
"I thought so too, but apparently—"
The hot blast of air rushing by cut off the rest of his statement, and he gritted his teeth; even though the rock had absorbed most of it, it had still hurt a bit this time.
"Pegasusmon! Aim for that Spiral! And hurry!"
"Right! Equus Beam!" he shouted, dodging out from his hiding place just long enough to send the attack lancing into Hippogriffonmon's upper arm before flitting back to safety.
With a howl that shook the very walls of the tunnel, Hippogriffonmon thrashed in pain, and then: "SONIC VOICE!"
A deep, ominous rumble started somewhere in the stones beneath T.K.'s feet.
"RUN!" he shouted, following after Gatomon who was already dashing deeper down into the tunnel.
"T.K., get on!" Pegasusmon swooped low, and T.K., still running full tilt, managed to throw himself across his Digimon's back; Gatomon's striped tail suddenly flicked up into his line of sight, and impulsively T.K. grabbed it, jerking her up onto Pegasusmon's back as well.
Then all was a chaos of shattering, falling rock and spinning, dizzying blackness. At last, unable to bear any more, T.K. closed his eyes tightly; it was only afterwards, when he noticed how raw his throat was, that he realized he'd been screaming—the sound had been lost in the thunder of cracking, sliding stone.
He didn't know how long that nightmare went on, but after what seemed a lot like forever, he suddenly felt himself lying on his stomach on a cool stone floor that--miracle of miracles--was not moving.
With a moan, he pushed himself up into a sitting position, rubbing his head and looking dazedly around for the Digimon. They were both sprawled on the floor a short distance away, and both looked unharmed, though Pegasusmon had de-Digivolved back into Patamon, who was snoring very loudly for a creature of his size.
T.K. chuckled. He must've collapsed, poor little guy. Well, he deserves the rest—that was some pretty fancy flying! Scooping the sleeping Digimon up in his arms, he forced himself to his feet, and though he ached a bit, he was otherwise unharmed.
Gatomon let out a little mewling moan of her own, and pushed herself up from the cold stone as well, though she stood a bit more gingerly than the human boy. "T.K.," she groaned, rubbing her rump with a paw, "I know I should thank you for saving my life, but that hurt. Next time try to grab something besides my tail."
"Right, sorry." He looked around at their surroundings, then started off the way they'd been going before Hippogriffonmon had attacked them. They had little choice in the matter--the way back to the entrance was blocked with rubble from the cave-in. "Come on, we have to find Kari." Still holding Patamon in his arms, T.K. stepped carefully out into the new tunnel, Gatomon at his heels. "You just rest, buddy," the blonde boy said quietly to his apparently unconscious partner. "You need to save your strength—something tells me we're gonna need it."
"What do you think happened to Hippogriffonmon?" Gatomon asked after a long stretch of silence.
"I dunno. He's probably okay, though."
"I was afraid of that," she muttered.
"Well, I guess we know now why he warned us not to trust him," T.K said with a crooked smile.
"Personally, I don't that that was enough of a warning," Gatomon grumbled.
"Do you think I got it? The Dark Spiral, I mean," Patamon mumbled blearily from where he was nestled in T.K.'s arms.
"From the way he reacted, I'd say so, but we can't be sure. The whole place came down around our ears before I could get a good look."
"Yeah…" Patamon subsided into silence in T.K.'s arms and was soon fast asleep once more.
After walking for a good two hours, they all decided that they were too tired to go on without at least a short rest, and a quick meal also. He'd just finished off the last of his sandwich and was washing it down with some water from his water bottle when T.K. heard it again. With a gasp he dropped the bottle, splashing water down one leg of his pants and nearly soaking Patamon, and clutched at his head for a moment before leaping to his feet.
"It's Kari!" he said urgently. "I hear her! She's calling for me—for us!" Snatching up his backpack, he sprinted down the tunnel. "She needs us there right now—c'mon guys, hurry! She needs—"
"Oof!"
"Ow!"
Gatomon covered her nose with a paw and squinted up at the tall blonde. "T.K., warn us next time before you stop like that!"
"…T.K.?" Patamon and Gatomon exchanged quick, worried glances. "T.K., what's wrong?"
"What happened?" Gatomon demanded, planting herself squarely in front of the motionless human boy. "What happened?"
"…It stopped."
"W—what?" Fear filled that simple word.
"It stopped," T.K. said again, looking dazedly down at the Digimon. "I…I can't hear her anymore. Her voice…is...gone."
Kari shivered as the Digimon continued to laugh; it was such a cold, heartless noise…
"Truly you do not know who you are dealing with, child, if you think that a few little flashes of light are going to stop me." Again it chuckled, a low rasping sound that made Kari's skin crawl.
"What do you want with me? Why did you bring me here?" she demanded, clutching her Digivice to her chest.
The creature's quiet laughter subsided. "Your power, of course…yes, your special abilities will be quite useful. Though I doubt even you know just how strong you are…do you even know how to use your power?"
"What does it matter? I won't use it to help you enslave more Digimon!"
"Child, you fail to comprehend just what I plan to do with your power. No…it is your own world that you should fear for."
"My own—?"
"All I need is your power, and then everything will be in place…" The dark creature suddenly paused, then took a step toward her, then another; the knuckles of the hand that clutched her Digivice slowly turned white, but she stood her ground as the murky thing approached and then knelt before her. "I would be honored," it said, holding a shadowy hand out to her, "and indeed we all would be, if you would accept your rightful place as our Queen."
"And help you destroy my world?" Kari whispered, horrified. "And all the others, too?" Anger suddenly flared up in her, and she straightened her shoulders. "No! I won't help you."
"Do not trifle with me, child," the dark thing kneeling before her hissed impatiently. "You will do as I wish—whether or not you desire to do so."
A bright pink flash from her Digivice suddenly sent the gangly Digimon sprawling, knocking it back several feet.
"My power is Light," Kari stated without a hint of fear in her voice, "and those who are belong to the Darkness will never be permitted to use it."
A snarl came from the black figure before her: "Very well, Child of Light. If this is the way it must be…"
Kari readied herself, thinking that the dark thing would hurl itself forward at her once again; she was surprised when instead it pulled back, growling all the while. Her eyes suddenly flew wide as she heard a sudden thump-thump noise, followed by a staggering wave of visible darkness, moving to circle around the shadowy Divermon like the ripples in a lake going in reverse.
Thump-thump.
Another wave of darkness brushed by.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It was hard to breathe, hard to keep the dark ripples away from her. Every wave made her gasp, every beat caused a sharp pain to lance through her head. Closing her eyes tightly, she focused on her Digivice, and soon a glowing pink bubble enveloped her; the darkness broke and slithered around it like breakers against sea-cliffs, and for the moment, at least, she was safe.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The pulse was steady now, throbbing and insistent, and it was rising; the Divermon was wreathed in the gathered murk. And as Kari watched in horror, it slowly began to grow, stretching and twisting, the shifting, smoky rings circling it seeming to melt into its body even as more and more kept coming. Before long it had doubled its original size, and it quickly tripled that; moments later, it had grown to a colossal extent. Kari could only stare and gape in horror as it grew until she came (just barely) to the middle of its shin.
T.K.! T.K., Gatomon, TAI, I need you! I was a fool to think I could do this on my own! She swallowed hard, then clenched her fists in determination. But I have to try…I have to!
THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP.
The pulse was a thunder now, and Kari knew that the time had come: she had to attack now, before the monstrous thing before her grew any larger.
Her brown eyes narrowed in determination, she thrust her Digivice forward at the giant Digimon; a large section of the pink bubble still surrounding her swirled, then shot outward like a spear, breaking free of the shimmering globe and lancing upwards and striking the huge creature squarely in the chest. The energy beam broke and shattered against the creature's chest, and it gave a strangled, gargling growl as it took two steps backwards to steady itself; obviously her attack had had some sort of effect, however slight, so she focused once more—
Just as she was about to release a second bolt of energy, the beast before her spoke, its voice deep and resonant enough to shake the very ground she stood on:
"Brave and foolish child, you would do well to learn your place…for against the might of the Sinful Priest of the Ocean Floor, there is no possibility whatsoever of you achieving victory..."
Kari forced herself to stop shaking, somehow finding her voice amid her fear and shouting back defiantly, "If that's true, and you're so powerful, then why do you need me?"
The Digimon did not reply in words; instead, it hurled a huge three-pronged halberd that had somehow seemingly appeared from nowhere, directly at her—"Forbidden Trident!"
If one thing could be said for Kari's rather doubtful combat skills, it would be that she had excellent reflexes; that came from years of playing soccer with Tai. Thus, almost before she knew it, she found that she had thrown herself sideways, rolling across her shoulders and upper back into an alert crouch, which quickly shifted into a lunging sprint. The halberd crashed into the dull grey cobblestones where she had been standing just moments before, sending up a sizeable cloud of dust and flinging chunks of rubble through the air—a miss, but just barely. Kari kept moving, dodging and weaving, though her enemy had not even bothered to pull its weapon free of the ground.
"Why are you running? Why even bother to fight when you know that you cannot win?" The girl nearly stumbled and nearly fell to her knees as the colossal creature took a step forwards, towards her, slowly drawing the trident free as it came at her; the very earth trembled with its every stride, making it difficult for Kari to keep her feet under her, thus making it even more difficult to dodge the Digimon's attacks, which at this point were merely half-clumsy swipes at her with its various tentacle-like limbs.
If it had wanted her dead, the fight would have been over in a matter of minutes. It was so enormous now that it could have simply stepped on her and smashed her flat; but it wanted her alive, so that complicated things…and gave her something that was at least faintly resembled a chance.
Not much of one, however.
She had dodged around the fountain at the center of the square, trying to put it between the enormous Digimon and herself--a desparate bid for some sort of cover; however, with just a few short (for a creature of that size in any case) strides, she found herself pinned between the fountain and her opponent once again.
Not liking the feeling of being trapped in such a manner, Kari darted away from the fountain, successfully dodged the trident and two swipes from the huge thing's tentacles, and set herself firmly to make another attempt at shooting another beam of pink light at the monstrosity before her. Within seconds the pink bubble surrounded her once again, and after a few more seconds, she'd sent two bolts of energy at the gigantic beast, which roared in something that sounded suspiciously like pain as the bolts lanced through its shoulder and midriff respectively. She wanted to keep up her attack, but it seemed that it took a while for the energy bubble to refocus itself…
"That was a mistake, Child of Light…you leave me with no choice!"
Kari caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye; she turned her head towards it just in time to see a blue-grey tentacle a heartbeat away from slapping her halfway across the plaza—not nearly enough time to dodge.
Not that she didn't still attempt to evade it, however.
The attempt was simply unsuccessful...very unsuccessful.
The next instant, stars exploded before her eyes, and she was snapped away like a helpless leaf caught up in a tornado, sailing backwards through the air, destined, she thought, for a very hard landing. She grasped vainly at the air around her, desperately searching for something to cling to, her mouth opening in a silent cry—
And then she landed flat on her back in the center of the fountain's dark water.
She'd hit the surface with such force, the air had been knocked from her lungs; she drew a ragged gasping breath—then gagged and tried to scream—oh, but she couldn't, the stuff was in her mouth, was everywhere—
T.K.! Her mind was screaming, T.K., HELP ME!
She tried fight, tried to turn over and swim for the side, but she was held in place by some strange force, and it was gradually pulling her deeper into the torpid, oily liquid—
Then her eyes went wide as something cold and clammy wrapped itself around her ankles and jerked her down.