Chapter 19: The Signal

". . . and then we called everyone," Izzy finished relaying the story to us. There was a long silence, in which the fear was written clearly across everyone's face. I sat on the bed, holding my sister and trying to calm her down. Everyone was trying to be brave, but it must have been harder for her, since she knew him the best. We were all a little sick at the thought of what Myotismon had most likely done.

"So what's next?" Matt said after the long silence.

"Well, Will did manage to close that portal, which means Myotismon still doesn't have one. Unfortunately, our only option at this point seems to be a direct assault on Myotismon himself, but that's fairly likely to fail. I believe we should meet with Jennai and ask him for help. Perhaps he can contact Azulongmon and get us some extra firepower," Izzy said.

I looked up to him. "Well, direct attack is an absolute last option. Let's try to meet with Jennai," I said.

"Alright, let me try to . . . huh? What's this?" Izzy said, pulling up a different window.

"What is it Izzy?" Tentomon asked.

"The tracker window was blinking and," he paused, making sure he was interpreting it correctly. "I'm getting a signal! It's from Will's digivice!"

Everyone was on their feet instantly, except for me and Kari. She just buried her head in my shoulder and started crying again.

"The digivice would stop working if he was dead. The fact that I'm getting a signal means he's not. Now if I can trace it . . . alright, it's coming from Myotismon's castle. It appears that he only captured Will and Drakamon," Izzy said. Everyone breathed a massive sigh of relief.

"But that doesn't really make sense, Izzy," Matt started. "What reason could Myotismon possibly have for not killing him?"

"I'd guess he plans to set a trap for us," Sora said.

"He has no reason to," Ken began. "He's already got us outmatched and he knows that. He doesn't need to trap us, as soon as he can get to the real world he can destroy us, he has no reason to try and trap us."

"Well, he's not able to get to the real world, so perhaps he wants to try and destroy us sooner. He's probably not sure how soon he can get to the real world, and so he wants us to come to him anyways," Matt said.

"It doesn't make sense that he is paying attention to us at all. Like Ken said, he's got us beat, he's not afraid of us, and he knows that the smartest thing we can do is wait here for him. Plus, leaving Will alive risks Will escaping and causing damage to his operation. There is absolutely no logical reason why he would keep Will alive," Izzy said.

"Maybe Myotismon's taking pity on him because the crest revived him," TK suggested.

"Possible, but unlikely," Izzy said again. "I seriously doubt that Myotismon would take pity on anybody."

"Well, then there's only one thing we can do, try to rescue him!" I declared. Kari looked up at me finally, but was still crying.

"Tai, don't," she said. "Don't bother. There's something wrong." She looked down again. "You just said, there's no reason for Myotismon to keep him alive. It's just a glitch in the program or something."

We were all surprised to hear Kari say something like that. "Kari, you can't really think that. As long as there's a chance that he's alive, we've got to . . ."

"TAI STOP IT!" she screamed in my face, leaping up. "He's dead. He just . . . I . . ." she broke down again, and ran out of the room.

"Kari? Kari wait," Gatomon said, following her. Everyone else just stared after her. There was another really long, strained silence.

"Shouldn't you go after her, Tai?" Mimi asked.

"No, I think she just needs some time alone," I said. I don't know hat had happened that made Kari snap like that. Usually she always looked on the bright side of a situation. I was worried sick, but I knew she needed some time to herself. "Alright, so how are we going to free Will?"

"Well, from here I can only get a general location, but if we can get close enough to the castle, I should be able to pinpoint where he is," Izzy said.

"If you can find him, Imperialdramon can get him out," Ken said. "He's fast enough to dart in, blast through any doors or walls in his way, and dart out. If we're fast enough we won't have to worry about guards."

"Not the subtlest of strategies, but I suppose it will work," Joe said.

"Well, it will only work if we know exactly where Will is. Any time wasted searching for him is more time for guards to surround us," Ken said.

"Leave that to me," Izzy said. "Like I said, in the digital world, I can pinpoint his location."

"Alright, then we'd best go right now," I said. "Ken and Davis will go with Imperialdramon into the castle. Izzy will stay hidden and guide them with his computer. Agumon and I will come too, just so that we can help Tentomon keep watch for Izzy while he works on his computer."

"Alright, sounds like a plan," Davis said. "You ready Veemon?"

"Absolutely," the blue dragon replied.

"Let's get going then, there's no time to lose!" Ken said. He opened the portal, and the eight of us went through.

We appeared a reasonable distance from the castle, hoping not to be spotted. Izzy immediately opened up his laptop and began to hack into the digital world's mainframe.

"Alright, I've routed the data for the castle into my digivice's locator. This should provide a three dimensional map of the castle with the signal from Will's digivice," Izzy explained. "Prodigius!"

"What is it Izzy?" Tentomon asked.

"I've got a lock on it. Will is in the same room that we found the cards in. We should be able to bust right through the wall and grab him," Izzy said.

"Alright, let's get started," Veemon said.

Veemon digivolve to…..:::::Exveemon!

Wormmon digivolve to…..:::::Stingmon!

Exveemon, Stingmon, digivolve to…..:::::Paildramon!

Paildramon mega digivolve to…..:::::Imperialdramon!

"Alright, we're heading up there," Ken said from on top of Imperialdramon. We could only watch as the massive monster approached the castle wall, they slowly flew in and hovered by the window for a few seconds, peering inside to see if Will was away from the wall. They were there for almost a minute before They sent back a message through the digivices.

"We can't see him. He's not in this room." Davis said through the link.

"What do you mean, I've got a lock on him, he should be in the dead center of it," Izzy replied.

"Well, he's not anywhere in it. We can see every corner of the room, and he's not there," Ken said. They flew back over to us.

"How can he not be there?" Agumon asked.

"I don't know, unless Myotismon is somehow distorting the signal." Izzy said.

"Well, then there's only one option," Davis began, fire in his eyes. "We saw the dungeons when Gatomon led us through there before. Will must be in the dungeons. We'll bust right through the front door, race down there, grab him, and race out before they know what hit 'em!"

"That's way too dangerous. We can't be sure where exactly he is, and if you don't find him right away you won't be able to make it back out before some of Myotismon's megas find you. We can't afford to get in a fight."

"Relax," Ken said. "We'll take one quick pass through the dungeon and if we don't see him, we'll bolt, okay?"

"I'm not sure I like that idea. Plus I won't be able to guide you if there's something that is messing up the signals from the digivices," Izzy said.

"Give it a shot," I said. Izzy gave me a funny look. "I don't know if it's smart, but I believe that Davis and Ken can do it, and that they'll know when it's time to get out of there. We've been running away an awful lot lately, let's play aggressive for once and see how it turns out."

"Alright, thanks Tai!" Davis said. "We won't let you down." And with that, they took off for the castle. Imperialdramon flew straight through the front door, and the only thing left for us to do was wait.

"Tai, look at this," Izzy said, calling me over to the computer.

"What is it?" I asked, looking at the screen.

"I seem to be tracking Davis' and Ken's digivices just fine. That can only mean one thing," Izzy said.

"What's that?" Agumon asked.

"Will might not be in that room, but his digivice is!" Izzy proclaimed.

"That's not good. If he doesn't have it then we've got a serious problem even if we can rescue him." I said.

"Speaking of rescuing, I think Imperialdramon has been gone an awful long time, don't you?" Tentomon said. Almost as if on cue, Imperialdramon smashed through a wall in the side of the castle. They were immediately followed by a shower of fire blasts coming from guards inside the castle. They dove like lightning toward us.

"Get on, quick!" Ken yelled. We climbed on and were off like lightning. I looked around the bubble, but I didn't see Will or Drakamon.

"You couldn't find them?" I asked.

"No, we couldn't," Ken said. "We checked every dungeon, but they just weren't there."

"I think we lost 'em," Davis said, looking back for pursuers.

"Alright, Imperialdramon, we need to head for a portal a good distance away, just to make sure that Myotismon can't follow us to it," Izzy said.

"Kari's not going to be happy when she hears that we didn't find them," I said, slumping down.

"Don't worry Tai, we'll find them eventually," Izzy assured me. I could only hope he was right.