Author's Notes: So it wasn't ready before April came around. The fact that it is now May and I am only just finishing this is appalling and frankly, embarrassing. While many authors are thrilled to receive follows and reviews in their stories, whenever I get an email for this particular one I cringe because it's a cruel reminder of how much I've neglected it. To the dear guest who asked about this on Excuses For Why We Failed At Love: I am deeply sorry and please know that your words shamed me enough to actually get this chapter done. So thank you! I guess.

Also, I am apologising in advance for the quality of this particular chapter. If you ask me, it's shit, but there's literally no other way I could've written this. I guess we'll find out through your reviews, eh?

I may not be the author the people of Gotham (or rather, FanFiction) deserve, but I am the author they have.


The air was rank with the smell of fear, waste and neglect. The dark, damp tunnels were mostly quiet save for the sound of slime and water droplets falling out of tandem in corners where leaks could not be found. Around them, the walls were filthy and the sludge they trampled on had the sweet, pungent reek of something rotten left out in the sun for too long, then tossed into a damp closet and forgotten.

As they stumbled by, too blind to really see, Mimi slipped and had to place her hands on the walls to steady herself. Placing her other hand on her mouth, she muffled down a whimper, too aware of the trouble she'd be in if she actually screamed.

They had spent the last three days hiding.

Shortly after their arrival at Toy Town, which was every bit as fascinating as Trailmon had said, they sensed that something was not quite right with the place. Despite its carefree, bright and colourful appearance, the Digimon inside the town didn't act like they were happy to be there. Everywhere they went there were furtive looks, shifty movements; no-one made eye contact with them. Some had even gone as far as to shut doors right into their noses and it was around that time that they had begun to reconsider their decision to visit that town.

It didn't take them long to be found but by then, they had no idea that their arrival was expected. Lucky (or unlucky, as Mimi kept complaining) for them, they were found by the Numemon first. No-one could say that being rescued by Numemon was a pleasant experience (they were filthy, unhygienic creatures with horrible manners), but the alternative didn't sound very attractive and thus, they had pleaded and cajoled with Mimi to put up with the rather disturbing arrangements for the time being. She was, after all, the main reason why the Numemon even cared to help them in the first place.

Since their first and through all previous encounters, Tachikawa Mimi had what she considered to be a curse but what Koushiro liked to call a rocky relationship with the slug-like digimon. Disgusting little critters that they were, they seemed to think that Mimi was the perfect target for their romantic advances and, upon her refusal, for their slime and shit attacks. Mimi hated the mutts enough that she actually considered turning herself in just to avoid the imposition of their company upon their hideous hideout. It had taken a massive combined effort to keep her sane the past three days.

The facts were as follows:

They had arrived at Toy Town at the exact same moment as a major military coup was taking place. Upon word that QueenChessmon had fallen, the other generals in this mysterious authoritarian faction had been moving out to occupy new territory, at a faster rate than ever. Of this they had no news, for no-body in the whole town seemed to know or care to discuss these particular events.

They were cut off from all forms of communication to either the real world, or Gennai. Koushiro kept creeping into the surface at odd hours to try and reconnect the network he had been working on during their train ride, to no avail. These rendezvous were dangerous, unpleasant experiences and each was worse and more dispiriting than the last.

Whoever had taken over Toy Town had put out a very, very juicy reward for their heads. Figuratively, they hoped; Jyou wasn't very sure Digimon understood much of semantics.

The small group of Numemon who had fished them out of trouble and shown them to their beloved sewers were on the brink of escaping town before they were forced back on the claim that Digimon power was needed to maintain the town afloat. Being the lazy freeloaders that they were, they decided to join a small resistance. Also being completely enamoured of Mimi, they decided to save her and her friends. Mimi was vocally against this.

And, though Yamato had done a very fine job of investigating their mysterious foe, they had yet to truly understand who they were supposedly fighting against. At the end of the day, they were no more enlightened than they had been when they had first chanced upon these evil creatures.

Upon reaching the expected dent in the wall, they lowered their heads and climbed through, reaching an open cavern surrounded by pipes and faucets. The air inside this room was considerably cleaner and Mimi had to stop herself from taking in huge gulps of air. There was a long corridor that emptied out into the side of a cliff and several air ducts around the place that had made it a comfortable, in the broadest sense of the word, shelter. Mimi hurried to wash her hands, biting down on her tongue to avoid dissolving into a fresh pool of tears.

"Did you find anything?" Taichi asked, raising his head towards Koushiro, who had collapsed on a spot of the dry, cold floor.

"You mean besides a huge pile of sh—,"

"I was talking to Koushiro, Mi," Taichi interrupted, rolling his eyes. "Please."

She bit her tongue again, hitching her chin up at him. With her mood down on the pits, Mimi had taken to pick fights for whatever reason she could find and it was quickly eroding on everyone's patience. She knew her friends were quickly getting sick of her but she couldn't help it – the spats were on the tip of her tongue before she could school herself not to spit them out. In her current mood, Takeru and Hikari were the only ones who could stand in her presence without somehow becoming objects of her ire – an immunity Yamato claimed they got from being just as childish as she was.

It would not go without reason to say that he was on the top of her undesirables list.

Koushiro cracked the joints in his neck, sighing.

"They've got sentries all over the city looking out for us," he informed Taichi, "—but Mimi was able to stay on the lookout while I found a stable connection and I think I've found a way to get a signal down here," he paused, "I should be able to trace a map of the town's layout by tomorrow morning."

Taichi frowned, then sighed. "Well, that's something. Call if you need any help, we'll keep trying to clean up and sneak a peek upstairs."

Heaving his own sigh, Yamato approached Koushiro with Mimi's tablet in his hands. Koushiro raised an eyebrow.

"I'll help you root those files," Yamato murmured, not waiting for an answer as he settled by his side. "You've hardly been sleeping. I figured you could use a hand."

His ears now a bright pink, Koushiro simply nodded. He really was appreciative of the offer, but something about Yamato's presence unnerved him. Lately, the blond had been sulking more than usual, keeping to himself more and more. If he hadn't been so busy with his own worries, he would have been tempted to bring the topic up, but there was always something else that demanded his immediate and unwavering attention. In this case, the rooting and running of a program that would allow him to wire down the underground sewers to connect to the town's blueprint and thus, its infrastructure.

"Here, let me sync this so we're working simultaneously," he offered, plugging the device into his loyal laptop and setting his fingers to quick work while Yamato did the same by his side. The uneasiness in his stomach grew, but he swallowed his protests and tried not to focus on the blond's profound, azure gaze.

"This is supposed to help with the connection, right?"

"Right. I can't get a decent signal down here and upstairs …. Well, you've seen how it is up there."

"This better work," Yamato murmured, eyes scanning the program Koushiro had spent days working on.

"It will," he said with a little more bite than he would have liked. He wasn't sure he appreciated Yamato's distrust in his abilities, despite how often he found himself distrusting them too.

"It's not you," the blond said dismissively, blowing off his concerns with the crude indifference that he was known for. "It's Takeru. You know how it gets when we pick up a stupid signal. Hikari hasn't left his side in two days; I don't think she's had any sleep at all."

What surprised him more than his words was the fact that Yamato barely talked about his problems and concerns, least of all like this, unprompted and unasked. It wasn't that they weren't good friends, but he always just sort of assumed that this was what he'd talk about to Sora, if it truly concerned him. Then again, he hadn't been paying much attention to his friends' interactions for the past few days.

"It will work," he assured him. "We'll get out of here soon."

Yamato tried to smile, but it ended up as more of a grimace and Koushiro was sorry he even tried.

-x-

With trembling hands, Hikari touched Takeru's warm forehead. He had been feverish for the past two days, trembling and twitching nervously. She presumed he was a couple of days short from starting to mutter to himself, too. The tall, lanky blond was lying down on what had once been a nice and comfortable forest green sleeping bag and now resembled something that people used to cover abandoned cots. His eyes were closed and she could see the dark bags beneath his eyes, how hollow his cheeks were looking these days. Hikari didn't dare presume she looked much better, but simply refused to fuss over her own reflection. Mimi did enough of it for the both of them, she liked to joke.

"Are you okay?" she asked timidly. Takeru opened one startlingly blue eye to look at her, then nodded.

"I think I'm going crazy," he muttered in a hoarse voice.

"You're not," Hikari assured him, readjusting herself next to him and tapping his shoulder gently. "Don't worry, we'll get out of here soon and then we can help you find your Digitama."

"No, Hikari, I am," he moaned, "—you're sitting here with me but all I want is to shove you away and get the hell out of this dump."

"Koushiro's been working on it," she insisted, "—even Yamato is helping him now."

He muttered something she didn't quite catch, rolling onto his side and pulling his hoodie up. From a corner, Patamon watched his human partner and grimaced, drawing closer to him and wrapping his wings around himself as he snuggled close to Takeru.

"I'll be back," she told him. "Try to sleep, okay?"

Hikari rose, running thin fingers through her mousey brown hair in an attempt to calm her nerves. She found Taichi running over some information with Jyou, thick eyebrows furrowed in concentrations.

"Taichi," she called out, tugging timidly at his sleeve. Taichi looked up immediately whilst Jyou rolled up some papers and pressed his lips in one grim, tight line.

"Yeah," Taichi prompted, rubbing the back of his sore neck. "What's up?"

"It's Takeru," Hikari said. "He's getting a lot worse, Taichi. I don't remember anyone else getting like this."

"He needs to wait, Kari. Jyou and the rest did."

"But we can't keep waiting! It's only been two days and he's already physically ill, Taichi. Koushiro and Yamato found theirs in a matter of hours, at most and Jyou—," she looked at the older boy doubtfully for one second, "—Jyou actually left us." She looked apologetic for a moment, bowing her head down. "I'm sorry, senpai."

The older boy looked sheepish for a moment, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with a handful of his shirt. "Don't apologise, Hikari," he told her. "I did leave. But I had other reasons, you must understand that."

"And I do," she assured him, though she was still blushing. "But I don't think Takeru needs any other reasons."

Taichi was rubbing his temples furiously, already feeling the onset of another migraine. He'd had enough of those to last a life-time. "What will you have me do, hm? I can't actually hurry Koushiro up, he's doing the best he can already, I imagine."

"Yamato has been working with him all afternoon, Hikari," Jyou interjected. "All we can do is try to distract Takeru and be there for him," his face darkened with an expression so serious her own softened, "—we're trying to stay safe here. Can you understand that?"

"You need to sleep, Kari," Taichi said, wiping his face and looking far more tired than she could imagine being. "Ask Sora or Mimi to watch over TK, if you want. But go get some shut-eye, you look like shit."

She was too tired to argue, too tired to fight. Grumbling something that was probably rude she left them again, wondering only briefly what they had been discussing before she arrived. She found her sleeping bag and collapsed on it, opening her eyes once she felt Tailmon's familiar weight.

"How's Takeru?"

"Asleep," Tailmon answered, curling next to the girl. "He's not alone, you know? He's got others looking out for him as well."

"Yeah," Hikari yawned, "I guess you're right, hm…"

She fell into a deep, quiet sleep.

When she woke, it was to the sounds of rushing footsteps and terrified, hushed voices.

"Have you seen him?"

"No! I have no idea how he managed to slip out without anyone noticing—,"

"Mimi! This is not the time to be impressed by his stealth — he could be anywhere!"

"Don't raise your voice to me, this is not my fault."

"It doesn't matter if it isn't, we're all responsible for Take—,"

Hikari turned, the fear rising to her throat as she saw Takeru's empty sleeping bag. Her friends were still arguing in hushed tones but she was no longer listening because it didn't matter, what they said, it didn't change the fact that Takeru had done exactly what she had feared he'd do – leave.

"Tailmon?"

"One step ahead of you, Kari," the Digimon answered, standing on her paws and the girl was shuffling out of bed, awkwardly picking up all she needed and fetching her jacket before facing the two older girls, arms crossed over her chest in a rather good imitation of her brother.

"Where's TK?" she asked, and Mimi sucked in her bottom lip, looking away while Sora took a deep, calming breath.

"Hikari, why aren't you in bed?"

"Don't change the topic, Sora," the young Yagami girl snapped.

"Your brother told you—,"

"He's my brother, not my dad," Hikari said, voice rising in exasperation. "And you're not my mum, Sora!"

"I'm not trying to be!"

"Hikari, Sora's just trying to help," Piyomon chirped in.

"Oh my God, shut up the both of you!" Mimi said, standing up and sending very stern looks to both girls. "Takeru is missing, Hikari. He's gone, okay? We left him in bed and when we came back to check on you two, he was already gone."

Sora's mouth was set on a grimace and Hikari's was slightly parted, eyes wide open.

"Then what are we doing here? We should be out there, looking for him!"

"It's too dangerous," Sora said, shaking her head. "We can't just up and leave—,"

But Hikari shoved past her, running out of the dim room and into the long corridor that served as a disposal pipe for all the stagnant water in the pit.

"Hikari!"

"Tell my brother I'm done waiting," she yelled over her shoulder, and the last they heard was the splash of her shoes against water and the echo of Tailmon running next to her.

"Taichi is going to kill us," Sora muttered, swaying.

"Taichi?" Mimi moaned, "Yamato will destroy us. Well, me. I doubt he'll do anything to you—God, this is so unfair—,"

"Mimi-chan, stop," Palmon asked, patting her back kindly. "We need to find Take-chan and Kari-chan now!"

"Get ready, Mimi," Sora said. "We're going to get those kids before the rest come back."

"Yeah, I was afraid you'd say that." Mimi looked up at the redhead, her smile swift but tenuous. Both of them knew how low the chances of that happening were.

-x-

The sun had already set and the streets around the periphery were already deserted. Koushiro and Tentomon hid in what appeared to be an abandoned cellar, the smell of moss, old dust and mold filling their nostrils. They'd found the reasonably safe bunker in their last trip to the surface and had resolved to make it his starting point. Truthfully, he would have prepared to install the whole system himself but since Yamato offered to help and took a glance at his plans, he had included the rest of the team in what Taichi referred to as "the mission".

It was simple, in theory. They were to hack into electronics strategically chosen by Koushiro using a simple device and code he had written himself in order to interconnect all devices wirelessly, in a crudely drawn domestic network. Then, Koushiro could map a digital blueprint of the town and, hopefully, tap into something larger he had been eyeing for a few weeks now. He typed away furiously, wiping the sweat off his brow with the backs of his hand.

"Are you okay, Koushiro?" Tentomon asked, not moving an inch as he powered and old generator with a carefully controlled Electro Shocker.

"I'm fine," he muttered. "Almost done uploading the program. If everyone else has done their job, we'll start running the main interface in—," he checked his watch, "—twelve minutes."

"Hmm."

"What?" Koushiro asked, looking over his shoulder.

"Twelve minutes is a long time."

"It's enough for them to run the code and slip away unnoticed."

"Ne, Koushiro?"

"Yes?"

"Are you … purposefully stalling?"

The redhead actually turned, utterly surprised. "What makes you say that?"

"I've seen you crack codes before. And create programmes within hours. This time though … it's taken you a long time."

"If you're trying to say something, Tentomon, just go ahead and say it." His voice had gone very quiet and very still, and for a few seconds all they could hear was the sound of his fingers tapping along the keyboard, the low hum of electricity and his soft, even breathing.

"I think you're working on something else," Tentomon said simply. "And I don't understand why you couldn't tell Jyou, or Taichi. Or me." There was some hesitance on the last word and Koushiro almost felt bad for picking up on it.

"I don't have to explain everything I do to you," he said. "It's impractical. We'd waste too much time debating and we don't have that kind of time."

"You don't give your friends enough credit," Tentomon said but fell quiet again upon sensing Koushiro's increasing irritation.

"One minute to go," Koushiro muttered. "You can stop that. Battery's charged and I'm about to run the program."

The screen turned black and hundreds, thousands of numbers in bright blue colour started filling up the screen as Koushiro directed. One window opened, showing a series of locks and grinds being bypassed. Another window showed a tiny pinpoint of light spreading swiftly across the space, forming different shapes and, finally, tracing the fine outline of a map. A second line, red in colour, started spreading outwardly and Koushiro smiled swiftly.

"I knew it."

"Is it working?" Tentomon asked. Koushiro had almost forgotten he wasn't quite alone.

"Yes," he said quickly. "I'm uploading all data to the Cloud, then I'm going to save the blueprints on my laptop and we'll figure out how to leave this place."

Tentomon did not have a mouth that Koushiro could see, but he could have sworn he saw him smile. He tried not to make anything of it and instead saved all the data he had to, then shut his laptop down and away into his bag, which he then slung over his shoulders.

They left the cellar the same way they had entered – through the musty old trapdoor and into the main floor of what seemed like an abandoned, or at least, poorly-kept storage building, and out into the town streets. It was dark, and the cobblestone paths were illuminated by low yellow lampposts — he could hear the low rumbling of a path well-worn by the sentries posted in different intersections, guarding something he had yet to see.

Now, Koushiro had been a small boy during his early childhood, but he had taken quite well to a recent growth spurt that made him taller (and a bit lankier). Despite how this worked wonders on his overall appearance (Mimi kept glancing at him and sending him thumbs up whenever they walked past girls and they eyed him shyly), this was a rather unfortunate development for his stealth skills. He was unaccustomed to his height and he felt it made him a little clumsy when it came to hiding, and trying to tiptoe around a fully armed guard wasn't quite his favourite activity thus far. Walking in the dark definitely did not help.

Koushiro bucked, hissing and bringing a hand to his to his forehead the moment it impacted with a low branch on a tree.

"Did you hear that?"

"Who's there?"

"As a citizen of Toy Town, you are very aware of the curfew. Show yourself, citizen!"

"Koushiro," Tentomon whispered in the dark, "I think it's time to run."

He picked up a stone and hauled it. The redhead barely had time to collect himself as he was pulled by his digital friend in the opposite direction, trying to muffle his footsteps but knowing that the only thing standing between being caught and making it was the fact that the noise had confused the sentries. Not for the first time, Koushiro was glad some Digimon weren't as smart as Tentomon.

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him (which was faster than people often gave him credit for) and Tentomon buzzed vaguely in front of him, guiding him through hearing rather than sight, though he still had to skip a few stones and bushes that his insectoid friend simply glided over. They had been the closest to the sewer opening that led to their impromptu campsite and he slid to a halt, lifted the heavy lid and slipped down after Tentomon, closing the door with a loud thunk.

Still trying to keep a low profile in case anyone was overhearing above, Koushiro walked very close to the wall, his footsteps as light as they could be in a large, concrete tube with far too good acoustics. He found the familiar dent in the wall and slipped past around the corner, his pace picking up until he finally ran into the quarters where they'd hid for the past three – now almost four, days.

It took him exactly twenty-three seconds to figure out there was something wrong.

It was the silence, he swore. In all the years he had known his friends, there rarely seemed to be a moment of silence when they were all gathered together, regardless of what activity they were engaged in. But he could not hear Taichi, or Jyou, or Yamato. He couldn't hear Mimi or Sora, or Takeru's whimpering or Hikari's comforting words.

"Mimi-san?" Koushiro asked, placing one doubtful foot in front of the door. "Taichi-san?"

"Gomamon?" Tentomon asked. "Piyomon?"

They looked at each other and Koushiro frowned deeply.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

-x-

"Are you sure this will work?" Gabumon asked as he and Yamato hid behind a dumpster at a local store.

"Yes," Yamato paused. "It should work, anyway. Koushiro's program looked solid."

"That's reassuring," Gabumon sighed. "You were working an awful lot on it."

"Not that much," Yamato breathed, "Izumi did most of the work. I was really just speeding up the process."

"You don't sound happy about it."

"I'm not," he shrunk further into the shadows as another sentry passed by on his far right. "I took a peek into his files and he's been working on a lot of things, that Koushiro."

"He's always working on stuff," Gabumon shrugged. "Isn't he?"

"This was different," Yamato practically hissed. "But if he's doing what I think he's doing … then this mission is a lot more suicidal than I thought."

Gabumon's ears twitched and he was almost surprised to see the low, feral glow in his human friend's eye. "Since when don't you trust Koushiro?"

Yamato peeked at him with heavy-lidded eyes. "Since he started keeping things from us," he answered even as he began walking along the wall and stepped back to allow Gabumon to melt open the lock of the building's back door. "Let's try to do this quickly."

Inside, he quickly located the old PC Izumi had told him should be there. He started it while Gabumon looked around, careful not to turn on any other lights or make any noise. He didn't want to worry Gabumon but he had caught glimpses of what Koushiro had been working on and it gave him a strange sensation. A network, yes, but it looked more like a net and a trap than the innocent blueprint that he had led them to believe he was building, something that Yamato only barely caught because he wasn't as unfamiliar to programming as Taichi may have been.

Still – he felt like a prick for doubting the redhead and already regretted sharing this information with Gabumon, despite knowing his friend was more prudent than he was giving him credit for. It had been strange, realising that Koushiro had so much more to say about their situation than he was letting on, or that he had so many theories and so many back-up plans; Yamato felt terrible, because he knew he hadn't let anyone else known and it must weigh heavily on him alone. After all, he knew what it felt like, not knowing if you can trust people with certain knowledge.

But he was also hurt, and angry, because he did not entirely understand the purpose of what they were doing and it upset him to think that they may be risking their safety for mere theories and hypothesis that Koushiro had not deemed stable enough or relevant enough to share with Taichi. Especially because every minute they spent holed up in those sewers was another minute Takeru was paying dearly for.

The program ran smoothly and he shut the device off as soon as confirmation reached him that his point had been cleared.

"Come on," he said in a low voice. "Let's meet up with the others."

They never actually made it to the sewers though. Upon stepping foot outside the building, Yamato barely had time to take in the figures closing in on him, for he only felt a painful thud to the back of his head and fell face-first into the floor, hearing Gabumon's startled cry and a strange, high-pitched laughter that he had never heard before. Then his eyes closed, and he knew no more.

He woke up hours later, disoriented and nauseated. He groaned, lifting his hand to the back of his head and hissing at the prodding pain he felt and the dry, hard texture that told him his hair was likely caked in dried blood. He slowly opened his eyes, looking around the unfamiliar place and shifting around in the dark, dim cell.

"Yamato?" a voice asked and he turned too fast, groaning again as he struggled into a sitting position. "Are you awake?"

"Mimi?" he croaked. "What are we doing here? Where are we?"

"Yamato?" another voice piped in. "Oh my God, Yama, are you okay?"

"Sora?" he looked around, finally locating Mimi on the corner of what looked and felt like a dingy old cell. "Where the hell is she?"

Mimi pointed towards the cell on the side, where Sora was clinging mercilessly to the cold iron bars, her face tear-streaked and filthy. "I'm so happy you woke up. You had us all worried for so long."

Still trying to steady himself, Yamato brought a hand to his temple, holding himself upright and trying to steady his vision. "What happened?" he repeated. "And who else is here?"

Mimi shifted her legs and rested her head against the cold, dirty stone walls. Next to Sora an half shrouded in shadows, Taichi raised a slow hand.

"Where's Jyou? Why are you here?"

"We were ambushed," Taichi said quietly. "Right outside our positions. One swift blow to the head and then we were brought here, same as you," he hissed. "Sora and Mimi were already here by then."

He realised what was missing, why his head was pounding and he could hear his heart in his ears. "Where's Takeru?" he looked at Sora, whose whimper he could almost see.

"Yamato, I—,"

"Sora. Where is my brother?"

"He's missing," Mimi said in a flat, dead voice. "Him and – and Hikari." There was a nervous twitch in her eye and he realised too late that he had reached her in seconds, towering above her with such menace he was momentarily stunned by his own reaction. He made a fist around one of the cold iron bars and Sora's voice called out to him, temporarily steadying his dizziness.

"He slipped away without us noticing," she said, in a voice so miserable he was almost sorry for her, too. "Then Hikari left and we tried to follow them, Mimi and I but," she paused. "—they got us before we could get to them."

"They weren't caught?" he asked, now looking at Mimi, who only shook her head slowly.

"We don't think so," she said in a small voice. "They'd be here by now, we reckon."

"But they're still alone, and without our Digimon…," Taichi trailed off, burying his face in his hands. "I'm not sure there's anything we can do but wait."

They were silent, each burdened by their own troubles and the weight of their helpless situation. Yamato's head was spinning and he buckled, slid down to the floor whilst Mimi watched him warily, as if unsure if she should approach him or not. She settled with placing a comforting hand on his shoulder and he swallowed thickly, not daring to move or accept her kind gesture.

"They haven't caught Kou, either," Mimi muttered absently, hugging her knees to her chest. "Not yet, at least."

Yamato peeked out one tired blue eye at her. "Mimi, where's Jyou?"

The brunette lifted her eyes for a moment before burying her face in her arms, shaking her head. In the next cell, Sora sighed and hid her face behind her hands whilst Taichi aimed a kick at the irons.

"Playtime," he said in a flat, acid voice.

"What – what does that even mean?"

He watched Taichi shrug, turn his face into the shadows. "It means Jyou's in trouble and we can't do shit about it."

He made a fist, pressing hard until his knuckles turned white. He was trying really hard not to get angry (angrier, really) at the whole situation, but somehow the fact that Koushiro had escaped being caught rubbed him the wrong way. He took a small, deep breath and closed his eyes, accommodating himself against the cold stone wall.

Despite how angry he'd been when he learned Takeru and Hikari were missing, he was now feeling much better about the situation. If they had somehow avoided being captured by being the ungrateful little pricks he presumed them to be, then at least they had more of a chance of being helped than they'd had if they had stayed put, as he and Taichi had repeatedly told them to. If he was really honest, he was more worried about Gabumon and the rest of their Digimon friends and, on a much worse level, about Jyou. Playtime, in this context, sounded like the least fun thing a person could be caught in.

They were quiet for hours, he reckoned. Mimi occasionally paced around their cell, shot worried looks at Taichi and Sora, who had both gone very quiet. Taichi would sometimes get up, rattle the door, kick it and fall back down with a groan and a sore toe. Sora would sometimes chide him not to, but mostly, she seemed to have little energy to boss them around much. Yamato kept mostly to himself, going over the information he had glimpsed at and wondering if Koushiro was coming, and what he would say to him when he finally saw him.

There were no windows in their cells, but he could tell it was now morning because the temperature had risen a little. When, hour later, they brought Jyou and bits of what could only be considered leftover Numemon food, Yamato's patience had all but left him.

Jyou was bruised all over, his lower lip bust. He stumbled into his and Mimi's cell and would have fallen, if the girl hadn't risen and eased him down, taking care to be as gentle as she could.

"Oh, Jyou," she whimpered, "—look at you, I—,"

"It's okay, Mimi-chan," he sighed. "It looks worse than it is. Trust me." He nodded towards Yamato, who watched him with wide blue eyes. "I'm glad you're okay."

"What did they do to you?" Yamato asked, whilst Taichi rose and looked over at the cell, blinking slowly as he took in the sight of Jyou's battered appearance.

"You look like shit," Taichi finally commented. Jyou gave a slow nod, then chuckled.

"I feel like shit."

"Watch your language, will you?" Sora quipped, and it was startling, how upset she was because they were being foulmouthed and Yamato had to chuckle, deep and low in his throat.

"We're in a cell, with shit food and a Jyou that's been half-beaten to pulp—,"

"Oi."

"—he said half, Jyou.

"—and you're worried about our language?"

"Someone has to worry about the little things," Taichi said, nudging Sora's foot with his own. "At least she's got us covered in that department."

"You're all such dorks," she sighed, rolling her eyes.

Mimi actually giggled and he blinked a couple of times, having been caught by surprise. Sora was smiling into her fist, glancing at him through the sad, gray bars that separated them and Yamato sighed softly, running his hand through matted, dirty hair and leaning his head back.

"Taichi," Yamato called out, opening his eyes and glancing at Mimi for the briefest of seconds. "There's something you need to know about Izumi."

Her smile fell instantly and Yamato was careful not to look in her direction until he was done speaking. But her eyes never left him.

-x-

Unaware of what had happened to her brother and other friends, Hikari and Tailmon continued searching for any signs of Takeru. It proved to be a rather disturbing chore, since the streets were roaming with more guards than they remembered seeing the past few days and there were so many close calls that she almost didn't dare breathe her relief when they outsmarted or outran one of them.

She almost felt bad about Mimi and Sora, knowing they'd take the heat for letting her and Takeru go, but part of her couldn't care enough. It was their fault, after all, they had let him go and hadn't even had the decency of waking her right away.

It was already morning when they found them. They had arrived at an abandoned plaza, a couple of minutes away from the town's busy center. Takeru was leaning against the back of a huge oak, clutching his right arm with a vice. Patamon had a worried look on his face, anxiously hovering above the blond. When Hikari and Tailmon reached them, he was the first to fly at her, almost knocking her back into the floor with the force of his embrace.

"Kari-chan!" he exclaimed, "I'm so happy you found us, I'm sorry we left, so sorry!"

"Patamon!" Tailmon said, "What happened to Takeru?"

Up close, he looked worse than she remembered. His face was hollow and his expression gaunt, despite the smile that he tried to offer her. As ceremoniously as she could, she let go of Patamon, falling to her knees in front of Takeru and shoving him hard.

"You idiot," she practically hissed, "You don't go around and act like a big jerk and leave us like that!" she shoved him again. "You don't leave me."

"Ow, oi — ouch! Oi, I am damaged here," he complained, pulling her into an awkward, stiff hug and holding her prisoner in his arms. "Stop — hey, stop hitting me!"

"You, are an idiot!"

"We've established that," he pouted. "But I'm in the middle of dying here and you're just making it quicker, really."

"What?" she asked, then looked at his raw, red hands. "Oh! You found it!"

His hands and arms were raw, burnt and scratched. He winced slightly and then Hikari jumped out of the embrace, just realising how painful it must be for her friend.

"How did it go?" she asked him.

Takeru hesitated. "It was … strange. It's like I knew exactly where to go and how to get it. But once I did I—," he swallowed thickly. "—weird things happened. It burns, a hell of a lot. I wish Aniki had said something, or Jyou, or Koushiro. They made it seem like it was nothing."

"Jyou-senpai has medicine you can use," Hikari said, looking warily at the wounds in his arms. "So you don't have to worry about scarring—,"

"Oh," a foreign voice said, "I think he does."

Hikari froze inside, turning over her shoulder to glance at the small army that had them surrounded. On her side, Tailmon hissed and Patamon hovered protectively above them. She felt Takeru shift ever so slightly, turning her to one side so he could have a better view of who they were being cornered by.

"Because even if that won't leave a scar, I've got just something that will."

There were at least ten Digimon, big, black stuffed bears with some of their stuffing hanging out, red eyes and cross-stitches. WereMonzaemon, as they were. And before them all, standing out because of her colour, her shape, her cheerful disposition and the manic grin on her face, stood what looked like a girl in a pink pig costume, holding a massive hammer on her hands and swinging it menacingly at them.

"Who is that?" Hikari breathed, but Takeru only shook his head. They had no idea who they were facing or what they wanted and suddenly Hikari realised how stupid they had been to leave on their own.

"When that idiot LordKnightmon told me you had escaped the Queen's castle, I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to walk into my territory," she began, giggling loudly. "But whaddaya know? You were."

"Who are you?" Takeru asked, leaping to his feet. "What do you want?"

"Nothing but a humble servant," the pig-girl squealed in delight. "And I just want to play with you!"

"Play?" Takeru blinked. He'd been asked to play by Digimon before, and it never, ever went well.

"TK, be careful with her!" Patamon warned him. "She's not a nice Digimon."

"Oh, you would know that, wouldn't you, little pig?" she asked derisively. "Oh wait. You do know who I am, don't you? Say it then," she laughed. "Or what? Kitty got your tongue?"

In one swift movement she was next to Tailmon, swinging her leg around and kicking her a few meters away. Hikari screamed and Patamon hurried at her, releasing a jetstream of bubbles into her face.

"Tailmon!"

"Cho-Hakkaimon," he practically spat, but the Digimon did not even budge. She grinned wildly, gyrating her hammer on her hand. "You're not supposed to be here."

"But I am! And at your service, young piglet," she said. "WereMonzaemon, capture the humans. We've got a playdate, this one and I."

"Hikari!" Tailmon dashed, slashing and thrashing whichever piece of Digimon she could reach. "Let – go – of – my –friend!"

Cho-Hakkaimon laughed as the WereMonzaemon reached for Hikari and Takeru, who struggled and kicked in an attempt to break free from their hold, to no avail. She instead entertained herself by avoiding all of Tailmon's attacks while Patamon tried without success to free their children.

Hikari watched in horror as she kicked, punched and smashed her Digimon friend to bits and she was about to deliver what looked like a particularly nasty blow when she was suddenly overwhelmed by a mass of Numemon, who waved angry fists and tongues and yelled obscenities at her and her WereMonzaemon.

"Ew, ew, ew! You disgusting critters!" Cho-Hakkaimon exclaimed angrily, shaking them off, "—you're supposed to be working the mines, you ugly things!"

"We're done working!" they complained. "You took Mimi-chan from us!"

"Mimi-chan?" she asked, genuinely confused and Hikari gasped, Mimi! "Oh, you mean that human girl?" her eyes widened suddenly, "—you were keeping them from me? Oh, no. No, no, no." Her face contorted, no longer light and grinning. Her pupils were like red slits and she practically growled at them. "I have been looking for these sitting ducks for all of three freaking days!" she exclaimed, "And all this time you've been keeping them from me?"

There was a dark aura growing around her and she swung her hammer mercilessly, hitting each and every Numemon without so much as blinking. She smashed them, slashed at them, kicked and punched and tore through them as if they were made out of paper. Some of the Numemon ran, others threw sludge at her, bit at her limbs and tried to neutralize her somehow, make the fight fair.

"Eeny-meeny-miny-moe," she chanted eerily, "who will be the last Numemon to go?"

"Stop it!" she begged, "Stop hurting them!"

Takeru was forced to watch as she took armfuls of them and set herself on fire, cackling like a mad person, taking them in her hands and ripping them apart bit by bit until the whole plaza reeked of smoke and sewage and thick, warm blood. They screamed and yelled themselves hoarse, cursed her once and twice, and a third time, still.

"You don't belong here!" they called out.

"We will be back and we'll drown you in waste!"

"We're not scared of your Queen!"

"Oh, you're not scared, are you?" she squealed in delight, shaking her bottom and doing a little dance that would have been funny if it hadn't been so absolutely ridiculous. "Well, let's change that, shall we?"

She ignored the taunts or laughed even more forcefully, her voice rising and evolving into a high-pitched cackle that brought shivers to them. Hikari had buried her face in her hands and Patamon and Tailmon struggled with a couple of WereMonzaemon, still refusing to give up.

"You will not come back," Cho-Hokkaimon said quietly. "I am killing you and you will never, ever come back to bother."

And they watched as she absorbed their data, all of their collective data, panting slightly at the exertion she had just engaged in.

"You're a monster," Tailmon said, slashing through one of their enemies to get closer to her. "And a murderer."

"Oh, don't make me laugh," Cho-Hokkaimon said, "Or rather, do make me."

Tailmon lurched at her and Hikari buckled under the shock of what had just happened. The blow she dealt was enough to make a sound that made them sick, and she actually ended up vomiting as Tailmon's body was half-crushed and thrown like a useless, dirty rag.

She then walked up to Patamon and slapped him across the face, sending him flying into the feet of a guard who kicked him, for good measure.

"I told LordKnightmon there was no need to go looking for all of you," she said brightly. "All I needed was to lure one of you out and the rest would surely follow." She looked at Takeru and there was a distinctive gleam in her eye, but he did not lower his gaze. "I sure hope you know I don't give a shit about your Digitama. You can keep it, for all I care. As far as I'm concerned, bait's all it was good for."

"Bring them all in," she spat at the waiting WereMonzaemon, her grin gleaming in the half-moon light as she wiped her bloody brow. "Momma's got new toys."