Chapter 34: Crest of Dreams
"Why do you think he told us all that?" TK asked me.
"I don't know. He said he wanted to get revenge. Do you think that's really all?" I said.
"I . . . I don't know, Patamon. It's kind of hard to believe that he'd help us, and yet, there's no question that he just did."
"Daemon's a creep," Mimi said. "If he didn't want Demidevimon around, I wouldn't have blamed him, but he didn't have to do this."
"Well, this is another good reason for us to take care of him, once and for all," Tai said. "And the first thing we need to do is find that earring that Demidevimon told us about. As soon as we destroy it, we'll take down Daemon!"
The little boy, Ricky, suddenly stepped into the middle of the circle that had formed. He looked down at the tiny stain of blood in the dirt and leaves, and said something in English to Michael. "Do you think we could still help him?"
"What on earth do you mean?" Michael asked him, in English.
"I mean, could we still save him. Don't you think that it might be possible?" Ricky responded, looking up.
Most of us were watching the conversation with a confused look.
"Sora, what's happening?" I asked.
"Yeah, mind filling in the peanut gallery?" Sora said.
"Oh, sorry," Michael said in Japanese.
"I'll translate for them," Ken offered to Michael.
"Thank you, er, pardon me, I haven't learned your name," Michael said.
"I'm Ken," he replied.
Ricky then turned to Will. "We can help him, Will. With the crests, we can help him."
"Ricky, what exactly are you thinking of doing?" Will asked, still speaking in English.
"We can bring him back, can't we? The dark crest will attack my crest, and we can bring him back," Ricky said.
"I don't think it's that easy, Ricky," Michael said. "Have you forgotten what Harkin told us? Whatever is revived must have attacked the bearer of the non-dark crest at some point, and we just met Demidevimon. He's certainly never attacked you. Even if he had, the reaction between your crest and Will's will no longer be strong enough to revive even a low-level digimon like him."
"What if they helped?" Ricky said, indicating Kari and TK. "You said their crests react too, so they can help us."
"But Demidevimon still hasn't attacked them. Mimi told me all about him a few months ago, and he's never directly attacked them to her knowledge.
"But . . . is there really nothing we can do?" Ricky said, slouching down out of defeat.
Ken finished translating Michael's last sentence, and Kari immediately spoke up.
"He pulled my hair once, when I was eight," she told Michael. "Would that count?"
"I remember that too," Gatomon said. "I wanted to knock his brains out."
"I suppose it could work," Michael told Kari. "If you're both willing to try, I will not stand in your way."
"I suppose we owe it to him, for warning us about the earring," TK decided.
"I just hated seeing him hurt like that, I've got to help," Kari said. Michael turned to Will.
"It's worth a shot," Will said. He reached into his wet sweater and pulled out the crest and tag. The four of them stepped into the center of the group, making a small, tight circle around the spot where Demidevimon had been minutes before.
Slowly, Will held out the crest into the middle of the circle, allowing it to dangle from the string attached to its tag. Ricky reached out with one hand and very cautiously gripped the crest between his thumb and forefinger. Kari followed suit, extending her arm to the center of the circle and taking hold of a small piece of the crest. TK was the last, and he hesitated a little as he reached for the crest, but he managed to steel himself for the task and finally grasped the strange little trinket that apparently held so much power.
They stood there for almost a minute, and nothing seemed to happen. We were all very quiet, and kept on our guard, just in case something strange happened and a different monster was brought to life. After about ten minutes of the silence, everyone began to think that it was rather pointless.
"I'm sorry, Ricky," Michael said. "I just don't think that the reaction is strong enough any more."
"Guys, I think you should have a look at something," Matt said. He was pointing up into the sky. Floating above the little circle, just above the trees, was a large black egg that seemed to be made of nothing but wisps of smoke tied together to make ropes so thick that they could not be seen through.
"This happened when Myotismon was revived," TK said. "It is working."
The egg slowly grew larger and then it suddenly began to spin very quickly. The spinning became faster and faster until it seemed like the egg was going to create a tornado. Then Ricky, TK, and Kari all suddenly began radiating a brilliant light. It was as if we had all been in a very dark room and someone suddenly turned on three enormous searchlights pointed right in all of our faces. The light then seemed to travel up out of them, forming into three separate arrows of bright light, one green, one white, and one yellow. The three arrows collided with the egg, causing it to spray out a bright black light which seemed to casts some strange kind of shadow of light behind the trees and the leaves of the bushes.
In a massive explosion of dark energy, the egg shattered into millions of tiny fragments which fell to the ground and disintegrated upon being touched by the light that was now returning to normal. High above us, seeming to float in some kind of strange black aura which was slowly dwindling away, was Demidevimon.
As the strange mist faded, he opened his eyes and began to unconsciously flap his fully restored wings. He blinked a few times, unsure of where exactly he was, and then looked down at the crowd gathered below him.
"What, what happened?" he asked as he floated above us.
"Wow, I can't believe it worked," Izzy said. "This could be a major step in understanding the functioning of the crests true power."
"Demidevimon!" TK yelled up to him.
"Huh? What the hell is going on?" he screamed in confusion.
"We used our crests to bring you back to life!" TK told him.
"WHAT? Why would you do something stupid like that?" he protested.
"Because you helped us, so we wanted to help you," TK explained.
Demidevimon hovered in the air, unsure of exactly how to respond to this. He certainly wasn't about to thank us, in any case.
"Well, don't think that this means I'll do you any favors! You're all nuts for reviving me! I'll let you off easy now, but next time I see you, you'll be sorry you ever found me in the first place!" he screamed, and with that he flew off as fast as his tiny wings would carry him.
"Well, at least he's back to normal," Joe said sarcastically.
"Somehow, Joe, I don't think he'll ever be normal," Matt said.
"Well, we can forget about him for now," Sora said. "The next step is going to be finding that earring. Plus, Daemon might try to attack another city to look for it, and we've got to be prepared.
"Yeah, next time we'll get him for sure!" Davis exclaimed.
"How about as step one, we all get a good night's sleep," Joe suggested. "We've been running around in the rain all day fighting monsters and it's about time we hit the hay."
"C'mon, Joe. A few little monsters didn't really tire you out, did it?" Gomamon laughed.
"I think Joe's right. It's been a very long day, and we'll need our strength in case Daemon shows up again," Matt said.
"It's settled then. We'll meet tomorrow at the computer lab, early in the morning. It's open on Saturdays, right?" Tai said.
"We'll find a way in," Yolei assured him.
"In that case, everyone follow Izzy back to the human world!" Tai announced happily.
"Sora, do you think we'll be able to beat Daemon?" I asked. We were finally back home now, and Sora was just climbing into bed.
"Of course, Biyo. Will and his friends already beat him once, and now we've got Wargreymon and Metalgarurumon to help. He doesn't stand a chance."
"I wish I could digivolve to mega. Then I'd be able to help, too," I said with a sigh.
"Don't worry, Biyo, you can do a lot as Garudamon. Besides, I'm sure that someday you'll be able to digivolve to mega, it'll just take a little while," Sora said reassuringly.
I looked out the window at the sky. Thinking back on Sora's words, I knew I would have a chance, someday, to reach the ultimate level. Until then, I had to support my friends. If there's one thing we learned from our adventures in the digital world, it's that our friendships are stronger than any enemy we might ever face. In the end, our friends are all we have.
The walk to the junior high school wasn't a very long one, but I flew on ahead of Sora anyways, by her instruction. While knowledge about digimon was quickly spreading in the world, I would still draw stares if I just walked down the street.
I arrived at the school a little bit ahead of Sora. Joe and Gomamon had already made it there, as had Izzy and Tentomon, Yolei and Hawkmon, TK and Patamon, and Will and Drakamon. Shark and Michael were there as well along with their digimon, because they had been staying with Will and Izzy.
"How'd you guys get in already?" I asked as I flew in through the window.
"Don't ask," Joe said with a sigh. I saw in the background Shark and Michael arguing about something in English.
"What happened?" I asked, growing concerned.
"We were going to just find a janitor and tell him we were going to do a school project," Yolei began, "but then Shark just walked up to the door with his knife and a comb and picked the lock, and now Michael's mad at him for it."
"Oh no," I said.
"Don't worry, Biyomon, they've done this for as long as they've known each other," Will said. "If they weren't arguing about something, then I'd be worried." This evoked a small chuckle from the group, who thought it hilarious to hear the two babbling away at each other in what was basically complete gibberish as far as they were concerned.
"What are they saying?" Patamon asked.
"Basically, Michael is telling Shark that he needs to stop doing things that boarder on being illegal, and Shark is calling Michael a preppy snob, the same stuff they always said before," Will sighed. "Three years later, they still haven't changed a bit."
"Well while we're waiting for everyone, can you give us an outline of the plan, Izzy?"
"I suppose it's simple enough. We email all of the digidestined that we have on the network and ask them to search local pawn shops and jewelry stores for any suspicious earrings. Specifically, one that doesn't have a match," Izzy said.
"But I thought Davis botched the network," TK said.
"After Davis proved rather inefficient, I just took over myself, and now we've got a widespread community of international digidestined. I'll bet that as soon as we put out the notice, we'll get hundreds of possible earrings."
"Hundreds?" Yolei asked, frightened at the possibility.
"Don't worry; we'll split up the task of going through them and deciding which ones are worth further investigation. Also, some of us will have to check all the shops in Tokyo for . . ."
"I'd be glad to, thanks Izzy!" Yolei interrupted him with glee. Everyone laughed.
Sora finally wandered in, followed shortly by Matt and Gabumon, and then Mimi, Jesse, Laura, and their digimon. Michael and Shark had stopped arguing and were now joined the group, Shark standing close to Will so that the younger boy could translate for him. Jesse and Laura both stood by Mimi. Cody and Ken walked in next, trailed by their digimon, Armadillomon and Wormmon, and also by Ricky and his digimon, Candlemon.
"Alright, just a few more people and we'll have the whole squad," Izzy said. We heard footsteps coming down the hallway. "That's probably Tai and Kari right now."
It wasn't Tai and Kari, however. Instead, Davis and Veemon walked in the door.
"What, Davis isn't the last one here?" Yolei asked in a very sarcastic tone.
"Ha ha, very funny," Davis replied.
"That's strange. Tai is almost never late. Well, for team meetings anyways,' Izzy said.
"Kari probably slept in. I'll bet she's still tired from her stay in the hospital, and Tai didn't want to wake her," Cody suggested. Just then, we heard footsteps running down the hallway.
"There's that's probably them now," Matt said. Sure enough, Tai, Kari, and Agumon all ran in the door. They all looked winded and worried, like they had run the entire way here.
Veemon was the first to notice the hitch. "Where's Gatomon? He asked.
"That's the problem," Tai said. "We can't find her anywhere!"