Discaimer: Sorry I took a few days off from writing (to play diner dash and cry wolf XD) but hopefully this chapter will be good, oh once again, I don't own digimon. Also I realize that I've been focusing on TK to much so I'll try following a different character (for the most part).
Chapter 12:
The Crest of Joy
"Hey Mom I'm home," TK yelled when he entered the apartment after school. There was no answer and TK noticed a flashing light on the answering machine. He put down his bag and walked over to the machine. He pressed the button and a computerized voice came on, "You have one new message, Wednesday, September 26, 2:22 pm, 'I guess this means you're not home yet TK, this is your father. I'm guessing by the way you've ignored my last six messages you're still mad at me. Listen I'm sorry, you're right. I shouldn't have sprung this on you, I should have talked this over with you and Matt first and I'm sorry I didn't. Just come over sometime today so we can talk this out. Seeya later sport.'" TK sighed as he pressed the erase button and headed to his room to continue with his story. As he opened the door a wave of shivers went up his back and his eyes went blank. Devimon crawled under the bed to find the dark digivice shining purple. As he pulled it from its hiding spot, a message appeared on the screen along with some coordinates:
"Devimon the time is right, bring the digidestined to this location."
Still under the bed, TK drew his D-Terminal from his pocket and downloaded the coordinates. The light from the device was just enough for hi to see the tiny keyboard and lay his trap, "Digidestined, I believe I have found the location of the next crest. It's of the greatest urgency that you all arrive; I believe someone else may be after the crest. Gennai."
The blond boy smirked as he sent the message and crawled out from under the bed, 'Just one more thing,' Devimon thought as he dug into his shirt. After a few seconds, he felt a string in between his fingertips and lifted the crest over his head. Before returning to TK's position, Devimon went over to his dresser and hid the crest amongst the socks.
As TK snapped out of his trance, the foreboding feeling had been replaced with one that told him to check his D-Terminal. He took it out of his kaki shorts pocket and saw there was a message from Gennai.
Meanwhile
Ryo Akiyama was walking home from school when his D-power started to glow, "Finally time to kick some digi-ass!" Ryo unintentionally said out loud. He looked around to make sure no one heard him and when he saw he was the only one on the street, Ryo let out a deep sigh of relief. He suddenly felt very excited and found himself sprinting home. As soon as he arrived home, the teenager ignored his mother at the kitchen table and immediately ran into his room. Ryo turned on the compute and as he waited for it to load, he put on the armor in his bottom drawer.
By the time he finished, the start screen was up. The seventeen year old boy walked over to the monitor with his D-power in the palm of his extended hand and shouted, "Digi-Port open!"
A moment later he arrived in a digital villager with Cyberdramon by his side. The two of them looked around the village to see that it was in shambles and the ground had dried up. It appeared as though in the not so distant past the city may have thrived, but now not a single digimon could be found on the streets. "Something doesn't feel right about this place, where are all the digimon?"
"I don't know Cyberdramon, we should probably look around and find out. What happened." They were only searching for a few minutes when they were spotted by another digidestined.
"Hey Ryo there you are, the others are waiting in the center of town," Ken said then lead the way for his friend. A minute later on their walk Ryo noticed an unnaturally skinny Palmon leaning against a building.
"What's wrong with that Digimon, it looks like it hasn't eaten for days."
"Try weeks, they're all like this. Apparently there's been a famine for a while now. I don't know too many details, but the village elder is planning on briefing us as soon as we all arrive," Ken told him as the four of them walked past the poor digimon.
They arrived a few minutes later at a large building in the center of town. Inside almost all the digidestined were gathered around an elderly Elephantmon. Ken warned Ryo and Cyberdramon to keep quiet as they sat down around the large digimon. They sat waiting another seven full minutes before everyone had arrived, including the very busy original Digidestined. "That all of us Elephantmon," Ryo heard a boy say but didn't see who it was.
"Good then I believe it is time to explain what has happened," the elderly digimon started, "About a month ago the weather became unbearably hot and the crops that were our main food source began to wither and die. Normally in this particular instance we would simply ration the food we stored over the season and increase trades amongst our neighboring villages but there were other problems this year. The food that we had stored had unexplainably begun to rot and the heat made it impossible for any digimon to go within a mile or two of the village without passing out from the heat. Since then the digimon of this city have had to starve and more and more have been dying each day."
It appeared to be hard for the digimon to speak about from the way he was almost in tears by the end of his speech. It was at that point that a red headed boy Ryo recognized as one of the original digidestined asked a question, "Tell me Elephantmon, when thes digimon died, did you happen to notice any digieggs amongst the data?"
The elephant-like digimon thought hard for a moment before he answered, "Now that you mention it, I don't believe I have."
"I knew it. In the Christian religion the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse represent Pestilence, Famine, War and Death. Back in Primary Village we saw the first plague, Pestilence and here we find famine," Izzy told the group.
"Well come on let's go find the creep, and stop this," Takuya said referring to the next Horsemon.
"Calm down Takuya, first we need to find out where he is," Zoe told him then turned to the old digimon, "Pardon me Elephantmon but did any strange digimon move to town around the same time as the drought?"
"None that I can think of, except for Scarcemon but he's seems like a good Digimon," the gigantic digimon told her with a cough.
"Still we'd better go check it out," Tai told the others "Where does he live?"
"Well if he hasn't starved yet he lives in the hut at the top of the hill."
"Thanks, come on guys let's go," Tai thanked then led the digidestined and their digimon out of the room.
"Hey Ryo what are they talking about?" Ken asked his friend.
"Long story short, we got attacked by a digimon called Pestilencemon last week who was a member of something called the Four Horsemon of the Apocalypse and now they think there's another one here." Ken nodded in understanding and the two of them along with their digimon followed the group. Right before they left the building, Ryo noticed a strange design on the wall. Something about it seemed to call out to him but before he had a chance to examine it closer, Ken tugged on his shoulder in a way that said "Come on."
It was a full ten minutes before the twenty-seven (I think that's the number) digidestined and their digimon arrived at the small hut. They door seemed to be locked and no one was answering the knocks. Tai and Matt had to kick in the door to find a yellow rookie leveled digimon similar in appearance to Maladimon. "I was wondering when you digidestined would arrive," the yellow Digimon smirked before he began to shine, "Scarcemon warp digivolve to… Faminemon!"
Faminemon: One of the Four Horsemon of the Apocalypse, using his Drought attack, Faminemon can destroy an entire city's food supplies within a day.
The digidestined stared at the large yellow centaur as he burst through the roof for a moment before Tai turned TK and Takato, "Hey guys, you're on!"
The two boys nodded at each other before holding up their Digi-Powers, "Biomerge Activate!"
"Guilimon Warp Digivolve!" Takato and TK stared at one another in confusion when nothing happened.
"Why isn't it working?" the blond boy asked his partner.
"I don't know," Takato said then reached into his shirt and pulled out the Crest of Faith, "My crest's not shining, what about yours TK?"
The child of hope reached down into his green tee-shirt as well to find… nothing, "Ah! My crest is missing!"
A loud laugh emanated from Faminemon's throat as he heard the digidestined's news, 'Good job Devimon, to bad I'm going to have to destroy you as well.'
"Locust Blaster," the digimon yelled and swarms of locusts shot out from his hand like bullets, destroying the remainder of the cottage. As the Digidestined ran for cover, Rika felt a sharp pain in her right shoulder. When she looked, her yellow Tee shirt sleeve had been torn and was quickly turning a dark red.
"Rika are you alright? There's something strange coming out of your shoulder," Renamon asked, not understanding the concept of blood, being a digimon and therefore having none.
Rika winced in pain for awhile before finally answering, "That's blood, I got hit." A few of the other digidestined seemed to notice her from their hiding spots among the ruins of nearby buildings.
A moment later a blue haired college aged student approached the girl and immediately began to examine the shoulder, "The attack seems to have only grazed the bone, with a few stitches you should be fine. If I didn't know better I'd say you got hit by a bullet."
"To bad you won't have any time," They heard a deep laugh and looked up to see Faminemon glaring down at them with his palm pointed at her.
"Hey why don't you pick on someone your own size," Takuya called from behind along with Koji. Both held out their D-Tectors and simultaneously yelled, "Unity, Execute! Unified Spirit Evolution!"
The other legendary warriors D-Tectors began to glow and in the two boys' places stood EmperorGreymon and MagnaGarurumon. In the confusion, Joe Rika and Renamon managed to get to where Ken, Ryo and their digimon were hiding. Out of his bag, Joe grabbed some sutures and thread and began to sew up the red head's shoulder, "I'm sorry this will hurt since I don't have any anesthetics but it might get infected if we don't do this now." Rika nodded and bit into and through her lip in her attempt not to scream and the needle went in and out of her skin.
Ken watched the girl struggling and felt a sudden need to do something. That's when he noticed Davis and Veemon nearby and took out his D-3, "Hey Davis let's help them out." Understanding Davis took out his D-3 as well and shouted with his friend, "Veemon! Wormmon! DNA digivolve to… Paildramon! Paildramon Digivolve to Imperialdramon!"
"Impressive but lets see if you can stand up to my power," Faminemon mocked the three powerful digimon.
"Oh yeah, see how you feel after this, Feral Fire!" Clouds of dust shout up at the now air bourn MagnaGarurumon as he shot at his enemy, "You think it's over?"
"No it's never that easy," Takuya replied as the dust cleared and, as predicted, the digimon was standing strong, EmperorGreymon Shoved his sword into the ground and launched and attack, "Pyro Dragons."
Nine Fire dragons flew towards the Horsemon but he easily managed to jump away at the last moment, "Is that the best you've got?" Faminemon smirked as he waited for the next attack.
"Guys we have to work together!" Davis yelled to the two of them. Takuya and Koji nodded in agreement before releasing their attacks.
"Feral Fire!"
"Pyro Dragons!"
"Mega Crusher!"
Unable to dodge, the yellow centaur-like digimon took the full force of the attacks. The Digidestined all cheered when they saw that the data making up Faminemon's left arm had been destroyed. Amongst all the cheering, none of them seemed to notice the smug look on the evil digimon's face, "Hmm, I'll admit that you're a bit stronger then I anticipated but no matter, time to show you my true power," suddenly thousands of bits of data came flooding towards the missing part of his body. Within seconds his arm was returned to its former state right before the digidestined's eyes, "Famine Spiral!"
A yellow spiraling cloud appeared above his head and quickly expanded until it was fifty feet in diameter, hitting all three digimon. A sudden hunger came over the legendary warriors and Imperialdramon, "What the hell did you do?" Takuya yelled as he hunched over grabbing his stomach.
"That attack will soon drain you of all your energy forcing you back into your weaker forms." Already the effects could be seen as Imperialdramon reverted back to Paildramon.
"Takuya we have to destroy him now while we have the chance," Koji readied himself for one last blow when he was surrounded by data and returned to human form, still starving.
"Ko…ji!" Takuya weakly exclaimed before becoming human himself.
With the last of his energy, Paildramon Scooped the weakened boys into his arms and flew for cover, reverting back to Veemon and Wormmon before hitting the ground near Ken, Joe, Rika, Ryo, Renamon and Cyberdramon, "Damn I was hoping that would work, we're sitting ducks now, we need more power."
There was something about Ken's words that triggered something in Ryo's head, "Hey Ken I think I've got an idea, come on," Ryo said as he ducked closed the ground and made a dash for the nearest covering, Cyberdramon close behind him. He turned back to see Ken hadn't moved an inch. Ryo motioned for him to come and after a few tries, Ken ran over with Wormmon in his arms. They skipped from on ruin to another until they managed to reach the in tacked part of the village, hearing a human scream behind them but forced themselves to ignore it.
"Ryo what are we doing?" Ken asked as they headed into the large building in the center of town.
"Before when we were here there was something on the wall, Ken when you found your crest what did it look like?" Ryo stopped and asked his friend.
"Well when I first saw it, I thought it was a stone tablet, why do you ask?"
"Because of this," Ryo slowly approached the stone carving on the wall and touched it with the tips of his fingers. It suddenly began to shine purple and when the light faded a crest was hanging around the boy's neck and the digivices in the boys' hands had changed. .Ryo looked down at his new digivice and recognized it as being the same TK and Takato had, "I think I figured out how to stop Faminemon."
A Few Minutes Earlier at the Battlefield
"Stupid little digidestined, I know where you are," Faminemon taunted as he approached a ruined wall. As he walked closer he could see the blond head of a teenaged boy, 'Just who I was looking for.'
TK looked up to see the large yellow digimon reaching towards him with a smirk on his face. The Child of Hope tried to run away but before he could get up Faminemon's slightly larger hand was wrapped around his forearm and before he knew it, TK was forcibly being held to Faminemon's chest, "Let go of TK," Patamon yelled as he flew into the air, "Boom Bubble Pop!"
Barely even acknowledging the attack, Faminemon flicked Patamon away with his free hand, "What do you want from me?" TK yelled angrily ask hit partner hit a wall.
"I've got my orders to bring you back alive; with your sacrifice we'll finally have enough data to ignite the black flame," He told the digidestined. The digimon's lock on TK suddenly tightened to the point of pain, "But that doesn't mean I can't have some fun with you first."
A snapping sound came from Takeru's rib cage and an earsplitting scream was released from his throat. From the corner of his eye TK could see Ken and Ryo escaping back into the city without even glancing back, 'My own team abandons me, so this is what it comes down to.'
"Gabumon warp digivolve to MetalGarurumon!"
"Let go of my little brother!" Matt yelled, having revealed himself.
"After what I've done to your friends you still oppose me?"
"Yeah, MetalGarurrumon, Metal Bite!" Yamato Yelled and his digimon charged forward towards. MetalGarurumon was about to clamp down into Faminemon's arm when he turned and used the digidestined in his arm as a shield, stopping MetalGarurumon in his tracks.
"You digimon are so weak, but I suppose that's what happens when you spend all your time with humans," Faminemon mocked the wolf-like digimon then held out his free hand, "Locust Blaster!"
A barrage of locusts hit Metal Garurumon forcing him to dedigivoled back to Tsunomon. Matt Rushed to the scene and scooped his digimon back into his arms and looked Faminemon straight in the eyes, "Listen Faminemon, my brother TK's already been through enough, take me and let him go!"
TK could see the tears in his older brother's eyes and began to cry himself, only partially from his injury, "Matt don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Just get out of here before you get hurt!"
"It's too late for that kid, Locust Blaster!" Matt closed his eyes, preparing for his imminent doom. When nothing seemed to happen after a few seconds, the Child of Friendship opened his eyes to find an insect-like Digimon standing in his way.
GrandStingmon- A powerful Mega leveled digimon who can travel at speeds high enough to make him near invisible.
"Are you alright?" GrandStingmon asked the confused blond college student.
"Um yeah, who are you?" Matt asked, noticing the symbol of kindness on the digimon's right shoulder pad and an unfamiliar symbol on the left shoulder pad.
"It's me Ken, Ryo found a crest in town. Here he comes now," GrandStingmon smirked then pointed back to a digimon who looked like a mixture of Cyberdramon and Justimon, who like GrandStingmon, bore symbols on both his shoulders and was flying with Ryo on his back.
"Ken, get TK out of the way!" Ryo yelled as they came closer to the Horsemon.
Using his lightning speed, Grandstingmon managed to break Faminemon's hold on the blond and pick up both him and his brother before any of the spectators knew what happened. Ken laid them down near where Joe was busily taking care of Rika, Koji and Takuya. Then took off to battle.
Joe immediately noticed TK wincing from where he was sitting next to Rika and lifted up his shirt, making TK feel very uncomfortable, "You appear to have some severe bruising near your rib cage. Tell me if this hurts," Joe began to poke at TK's ribs, listening as the boy yelled from time to time, "It's just as I thought, you have at least two broken ribs on your left side. They should heal on their own in three to six weeks but you should rest and take it easy for the next week but if you start to cough up blood or develop a fever you should call a doctor. Other then that, you should be fine."
As Joe was making his diagnosis, GrandStingmon and Lorddramon were busy fighting Faminemon, "I'll admit that was unexpected but no matter, after I destroy you, I'll simply take the child again and destroy the rest of you digidestined."
"Oh yeah take this, Mantic Slice," Two green Sycles e,merged from Grand Stingmon's forearms and, using them, he managed to slice through Faminemon's recently regenerated arm, deleting it once again.
'Damn where did this guy come from? I don't have enough extra data to restore my arm, I'm going to have to take him out with my Famine Spiral or I'm through,' Faminemon thought then with a snarl released his attack, "Famine Spiral!"
GrandStingmon Managed to fly out of the attack's range in seconds but realized he had left Ryo and Lorddramon to take the attack. He was preparing to go back when Ryo yelled, "Lorddramon, Diamond Armor!" The digimon was suddenly covered in a clear armor and pushed Ryo to the ground and huddled over him, protecting him from the attack. When the cloud disappeared Lorddramon released his partner and smirked triumphantly at his enemy, "Alright now for the final blow. Lorddramon, Dragon Furry!"
Purple flames burst from the digimon's mouth and hit it's target head on. As Faminemon was being reduced to data he yelled his final words, "Devimon, you told us you'd take care of the Digidestined's power!"
A terrified expression appeared on TK's face right before his eyes went blank. TK smirked as he kicked out at Joe, knocking him to the ground, "I guess my secret's out." He said as he took off towards the city, hoping to get to the small TV set tat lead back to TK's room. Devimon only managed to make it a few feet before the pain from his ribs shot through his body, temporarily paralyzing him. He struggled to keep going but didn't go far before Matt and the now recovered Takuya and Koji managed to grab him.
"I guess now we know what happened to TK's crest," Takuya said, not fully understanding the situation.
While the three of them struggled to control TK, Rika managed to make it over to wher Ryo was standing with the now human Ken, "Wow Hero boy you found a crest, what's it called?"
"I'm not sure but for some reason I'm thinking Joy, the Crest of Joy," Ryo smiled at her then noticed something on the ground out of the corner of his eye. He bent down and picked up a small black digivice, "I wonder what this is."
Cool, this chapter turned out so much differently then I planned and the line function is back and I'm so happy about that. Anyway I really hope everyone enjoyed this chapter and reviews. But if you don't that's ok, I'm just so happy that I only have to write one more chapter of this to get to the chapter I've been wanting to write for months. Seeya in a few weeks.