DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the OCs introduced in this story and later stories (except where stated).


CHAPTER 6

His Pattern


REAL WORLD

Streets of Tokyo

11:32 JST

3rd July 2010

DarkRenamon gracefully landed on top of a building, legs bending to soak up the force with which she hit it. The sky was still blue, the clouds were white, but the city was not normal. The air was different; an air of fear hung in the air, possibly misguided, but it was created by fears nonetheless. The streets, while still full as normal, were full of agitated workers, those heading out on early lunch breaks so as to work later.

DarkRenamon strode to the edge of the roof, looking down on those below. Without her low-level perception filter in place, this would look very odd to those below, a black bipedal Kitsune standing on the edge of a roof, some possibly coming to the assumption that she was preparing to jump to her death.

DarkRenamon frowned, that was the last thing she wanted to do now. Ever since Yggdrasil had been destroyed, she had felt like her life lacked any meaning any more, like she was stuck in stasis between things. The only highlights of her day were her regular talks with Mari, outside of which she would wander the streets looking for some form of event. Had there been more bioemergences, she would be an effective dispeller, or at least aid in protecting the general populace from a rampaging Digimon.

And yet, there was nothing. Nothing of interest had happened, she had failed to reach both the bioemergence that morning and the bioemergence two weeks prior, and she was aching for a battle. But at the same time, she didn't want to fight. She had seen a world beyond fighting, beyond servitude, but it was one she had no idea of how to reach. And so she continued searching, looking for something to give her life meaning like the other Digimon in this world had. She was unable to Digivolve, leaving the others to handle anything above a champion, which seemed to be pretty much every bioemergence these days.

She looked to the road below, cars flying by, and noted in particular the number of news vans. Something major was going on, but how could she possibly help?

A deep resounding rumble shook the ground and the air, and DarkRenamon leapt to the other side of the road, in pursuit of its source. She passed along rooftops, along roads, even cars when she had to cross particularly wide roads, surprising their drivers as their roof was dented somewhat. She landed gracefully on the ground, and looked up to the destruction. A cloud of fog had descended, but her senses told her this was not a Digital Field, nor was it natural fog. It was a cloud of brown dust, sweeping out of the remains of a tower block, screams resounding from the remains as DarkRenamon looked on in horror. Ambulances began to arrive, followed by police and fire engines.

A shadow quickly passed, and DarkRenamon quickly panned her head, but saw nothing when she reached the point where it should have reached by then. She frowned, either she had been imagining things, or whoever they were dealing with was not only highly destructive, but also fast, and presumably calculating as well by the timing of the collapses.

She looked back to the rubble, her senses itching her to help, but she knew that she couldn't, that her involvement would only bring more trouble and potentially more death by the distraction of the emergency workers.

The cloud of dust had by now descended, covering the ground and buildings nearby in a thin layer of dust, making several humans nearby choke in response.

DarkRenamon closed her eyes and turned, walking away from the scene. She knew it would not be the last that day, nor the last scene of its type she would see in her life. This dormant period in events was not going to last, and she had to help out in the events that followed however she could.

But how could she help? She didn't even have a partner to help her. Sure, Mari was nice, but it was clear they were not partners. After all, all the others had had Digivices appear upon meeting their partners, or at least a short while afterwards, but it had been weeks and DarkRenamon had been to see Mari once a day at least, hoping that at one point the air would glow and spit out a D-Vice. She knew that Mari wished for the same, but nothing ever happened, the air always stayed stale and unchanging. It pained her to see Mari like this, she had told the Kitsune of an urging for battle she had, an urging to help Ryder and the others in their fights, but was completely unable to.

'I may be unable to be her partner, but I shall protect her whenever I can…' DarkRenamon decided.


Hypnos, Floor 29, Tokyo Metropolitan Building

11:37 JST

3rd July 2010

"Another building has collapsed…"

The sound of Riley talking had pulled everyone in the room from their thinking, as they looked up to the workstation.

"Where?" Yamaki asked.

"Near the others…" she replied.

"Can you plot it on the line?" Ryder asked. Riley nodded, and the click of more buttons prompted the addition of a new dot to the map displayed on the panoramic screen.

"Which number building is that?" Janyuu asked.

"It's the 16th building in the line…" Tally replied.

"1, 4, 8, 9, 16…it's like there's a pattern there, but at the same time, there just isn't…" Ryder commented.

"There are several square numbers in there…" MiniDonmon noted. "1, 4, 9 and 16"

"Yes, good point but, what about 8?" Shibumi asked.

"Hmm…" Ryder pondered. "Maybe there is another pattern that contains those numbers…Yamaki; does the government have any way of checking patterns?"

Yamaki shook his head. "No, why would we?" he asked.

Ryder frowned. "But…there must be some way…"

"I'll check the internet…" Riley replied, the sound of clicking keys once again echoing in the chamber.

"The question still remains though, why are the buildings all following a number pattern at all?" Janyuu asked.

"This isn't random destruction at all…" Shibumi noted. "It's controlled for some reason"

"To provoke fear…" Yamaki noted.

"Huh?" Ryder asked.

"The concept that someone could destroy buildings to a pattern provokes fear in those who figure out the pattern. The person making this intended for us to figure out the pattern, in order to make us try to stop them."

"But we'd try to stop them anyway?" MiniDonmon asked.

"Yes, but this system creates an illusion of power, or possibly actually is a display of power."

"Makes sense looking at this…" Riley said from her terminal. Yamaki and the others looked up to her.

"Why?" Yamaki asked.

"It is a sequence. 1, 4, 8, 9, 16, they're all the product of a square and a cube. One times one, one times four, one times eight, one times nine, one times sixteen."

"One is a cube and a square, and the other numbers are all cubes and squares…" Tally noted.

"It increases as well, 1, 4, 8, 9, 16, 25, 27, 32, 36, 49, 64, 72, 81, 100, 108, 121, 125, 128, 144, 169, 196, 200, 216, 225, 243, 256, 288, 289, 324, 343, 361, 392, 400, 432, 441, 484, 500, 512, 529, 576, 625, 648, 675, 676, 729, 784, 800, 841, 864, 900, 961, 968, 972, 1000…" she read, her audience listening with intent to the figures.

"But, by the sounds of that, as soon as we get into higher numbers, the rate at which it moves through buildings and over distances is going to increase exponentially" Janyuu noted.

"I found it on this internet database" Riley replied. "The On-line Encyclopaedia of Integer Sequences…"

"Anything else to note?" Ryder asked.

"They're known as Powerful Numbers."

Ryder's eyes widened. "So someone is playing a game with us based on power? On intimidation?"

Yamaki nodded. "That's how it seems…" he replied.

"Then we can figure out what buildings are going to collapse next, and prevent it, right?" MiniDonmon asked.

Ryder nodded. "Riley, plot all the buildings in the trajectory that fit the pattern, can you?" he asked. Riley nodded.

"Doing so…" she replied. "But it'll take a while; the system needs to calculate which buildings belong to the pattern, and which are outside the line."


11:37 JST

"So what are you doing again?" Henry asked, looking to his partner, the pair currently sat in front of a computer terminal. Henry had put the disc in for his partner, and since then, pausing only to tell his Tamer to be quiet, Terriermon had been working away silently.

"I said wait until I finish Henry!" Terriermon snapped.

"When did you learn to program?"

"Number one, I'm a Digimon, data is in my nature. Number two, I get bored when you leave me home from school, and your programming books plague my interest."

"I thought you just played video games…"

"I did, using my programming skills to give myself an unfair advantage. But then I saw the potential of my skills, and I began working on programs. This is my master work, built recently on the inkling that without Yggdrasil, something would go wrong with the Digital World."

"But what does it do?"

"Wait till I'm finished!"

"Henry?" Jeri asked, seeing the pair after exiting the lift.

"Hey Jeri…" Henry greeted, smiling and looking up.

"What are you doing?" she asked, Henry noticing Elecmon on her shoulder.

"Shut the hell up both of you!" Terriermon yelled, surprising Jeri and Elecmon, as well as Henry to some extent. "I'm trying to think!"

Jeri sat on a chair near Henry, and spoke to him quietly.

"What's going on?" she whispered.

"He's working on a program to solve the problem with the Digital World…" Henry replied.

"What is the problem?" Elecmon asked.

"Yggdrasil's destruction means that no new Digimon are being made, the number of Digimon is dropping…" Henry replied.

"Yeah, and we've got to do something quick so GO AWAY!" Terriermon told her.

"Terriermon!" Henry complained.

Jeri smiled, nodding. "I'll go to see what they're doing in the control room…" she replied. "Keep working, it sounds like it's an important task…"

Terriermon nodded. "It is…"

Jeri quickly kissed Henry, before hurrying away to the control room. Entering it, she found that everyone was almost in complete silence, either standing up or sitting on seats.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Allow me to explain…" Janyuu began.


Shinjuku Park

11:47 JST

Rika had once again moved from her position, now in the hideout, sitting against the wall in the relative darkness. Renamon stood nearby, staring with saddened eyes at her emotional Tamer. The day, almost mockingly, continued to be perfect, the background by no means reflecting Rika's internal feelings and turmoil.

Rika looked at the phone number again, mooting a plan. Rey had said that if she called the number, she would be pulled back to Rika's time. This would give Rika a perfect chance to get her answer from Rey, to finally find out who she was once and for all.

Something stopped her. A feeling that it wasn't right, a feeling that she should wait. She looked to Renamon.

"Are you going to?" the vixen asked her. Rika frowned, looking down at the floor again.

She shook her head. "I don't know…"

"If she has a reason not to tell you, then it is unlikely that irritating her by disrupting her movements in time would change that reason."

Rika nodded. "Yeah, and it would probably just make me lose her too. I keep losing everyone Renamon…I really don't want to lose Takato, regardless of what everyone says…"

Renamon nodded. "I understand…what do you expect him to do once he finds out?"

"That's the thing; this is Takato we're talking about here. He could do anything at all; he seems completely random, probably by the nature of Chaos. He can be irrational as well. He could faint. He could deny. He could run for the hills and never come back. That's what I'd probably end up doing if I were him…" Rika said, frowning as she glanced down at the concrete floor.

"Is that Takato though?" Renamon asked. Rika looked up to her partner, cocking her head. "Is it really like Takato to run away?"

"Definitely, he's one of the most cowardly people I've ever met…but…at the same time; he can also be brave, mature beyond his years…which Takato will response to the news though?"

Renamon frowned. "That is something you will find out in time Rika…"

"But do I have to? We could blow a hole in the floor of this place, find the portal and run away to the Digital World, never coming back. Takato would live his life, find someone new, never know the mistake he made because of me. Or we could run to somewhere else on Earth, anywhere at all. What is stopping me?" she questioned, standing up.

Renamon frowned. "Exactly, what is stopping you?"

Rika frowned, looking back to the ground again. "I love him…"

Renamon smiled bravely, having brought Rika to a realisation.

"I don't ever want to leave him, or lose him, or anything…"

"And he thinks the same way about you…" Renamon replied. "So what are you going to do?"

"I want to tell him…I've just…I've just got to come to terms with it myself…" Rika replied.

"Hey, Rika!" called an all-too-familiar male voice, as Rika turned to look out of the hideout to the path nearby down the steps, to see the familiar faces of Tai Kamiya and Sora Takenouchi, standing below, holding hands. Agumon stood next to his partner, and Biyomon flew next to hers.

Tai was wearing his clothes from university, a white shirt, grey trousers and black and white tie stuffed into his black blazer pocket. He would almost look professional; mature even, if not for the fact that his hairstyle was still untamed and a blue headband ran around his head, substituting for a pair of goggles which would look completely out of place in university.

Equally, next to him Sora wore a white shirt, short blue skirt, and her brown-orange hair cut short at shoulder length, turning up at the ends in its usual fashion. They had been at University for almost a year now, studying international politics and fashion respectively. It had surprised Rika to learn that Tai was studying International Politics, both because it was so unlike him, and because it fitted the epilogue to the television series, which had been contradicted by so many other things, not least the fact that they had arrived in the Tamers' world, or rather vice versa, or rather the worlds had combined overall. Oddly, no-one seemed to notice the fact that there was a TV series in this world and characters from it running around everywhere, but Rika put it down to the perception filter created by herself (or at least that was her interpretation) following the cataclysm.

Back on the subject of international politics, in Tai's own words:

"I want to figure out why the hell the UN was so interested in the Digimon, and to be able to stop them making any rash decisions that'll hurt the Digital World and the Digimon."

"Hey…" Rika replied, still lacking enthusiasm. Even with the words of Takato, Kristy, Rey, Jeri and Renamon in her mind, she still couldn't cheer up enough to talk without exerting a sense of depression on the person or Digimon she was talking to, a depression easily noticed by Sora and Tai.

"What's wrong?" Sora asked, as they walked up to the redhead and her yellow fox-like partner, who still stood in the hideout, stepping outside only once Sora and Tai were two metres from them.

"Nothing at all…" Rika replied, braving a smile as her voice falsely turned positive.

"Okay…" Sora replied, unsure about whether she was being told the truth.

"Aren't you going to Hypnos?" Tai asked.

"Huh?"

"Another building collapsed…" Agumon noted.

"Yeah, and the first two were divided by 30 minutes, and the second two by 25 minutes…" Biyomon added.

"At 10:15, 10:45, 11:10 and 11:35…" Tai relayed, getting looks from Sora for his accuracy. "Hey, my memory isn't that bad after all…"

"Thank Brain Training…" Sora noted, chuckling. Tai nodded.

"Dr Kawashima…I'm apparently younger than you in brain age…" he replied.

"Yeah, well I don't believe it…" Sora replied, patting him on the back playfully.

"So that makes the next one due at 11:55?" Renamon asked, returning the subject of conversation back to its original question.

"That's in four minutes…" Rika noted, the events becoming clearer to her. Sora nodded.

"We've got to try and stop them before a lot more people get killed and hurt…" she added.

"Are you coming then?" Tai asked.

Rika looked to them, they eagerly awaiting her predictable response. Rika Nonaka was not one to miss a battle, not one to avoid getting a chance to help her side. She was a God (as far as they knew), and also had a temper that was raged by battle. Whatever was causing this would be likely to be a skilled foe if they were able to pull off such a well timed and coordinated series of attacks, and both her and her warrior-like partner would be eager to fight, despite the fact that it was an incredibly dangerous pursuit. Rika and Renamon didn't want to fight, but would if necessary, which made Rika's response far more surprising.

"No…" Rika replied monotonously.

"Huh?" Sora replied, the reply surprising her.

"I'm not coming…" Rika replied.

"Oh, so you're going to go to where the buildings collapsed to get ahead of us then?" Tai asked, thinking he was beginning to understand Rika's motivation for her unusual response.

"No…" Rika replied, Tai and Sora cocking their heads in response.

"Oh…okay…" Tai replied. "Come on Sora, we've got to get there quickly…"

"Bye…" Rika told the pair.

"See you later…" Sora replied. "When you're feeling better…"

Rika smiled, nodding and laughing slightly at the amusing response, a joke that failed to occur to the couple in front of her, who just shrugged it off and walked away.

It would be a long time until she truly felt better.

She glanced to her cell phone, pulling it out of her pocket along with a small business card.

It was time to call her.


Hypnos, Floor 29, Tokyo Metropolitan Building

11:52 JST

"The task is complete; all the buildings are now marked out…" Riley said, interrupting the thoughts of Ryder, sitting on a chair that he had put in the room, the wait making his legs ache.

"About time…" MiniDonmon replied bluntly.

"Display it on the screen…" Yamaki ordered, and the map was displayed on the screen. Sure enough, Hypnos was a target on the line, highlighted in blue, as were all buildings that were targets.

"We have a target list, what do we do?" Tally asked.

"Tell me the location of the next building, and the time till the attack…"

"The Mitsukoshi Department store in Ginza, in exactly 44 seconds" she replied, a counter being displayed.

Ryder's mouth went agape as he put two and two together. "No…no…no…" he said, getting more angry and fearful as he pulled out his cellphone and desperately began dialling.

"What are you doing?" MiniDonmon asked, echoing the thoughts of all in the room.

"Shut up…" Ryder replied, quickly and angrily, putting the phone to his ear. "It's dialling…" he said.

The silence passed, everyone looking eagerly at Ryder.

"Come on, pick up…" he pleaded.

MiniDonmon gaped in surprise, suddenly realising what Ryder was doing.

Ryder breathed a sigh of relief when the other end picked up. "Mari, where are you?" he asked, interrupting Mari's greeting before she could talk.

"I'm at the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Ginza, why?"

"Get out of there now!" Ryder panicked, almost shouting.

"Why?"

The line went dead after a periodic sound of crumbling, and Ryder pulled the phone away in shock, as MiniDonmon stared on at him, it paining the bat to see what was happening, MiniDonmon able to tell by his Tamer's expression what had just happened.

Mari was dead.

TO BE CONTINUED…


And so the drama continues, as we begin Ryder's subplot. Not much else to say without ruining what is going to happen, so please review.

Next time…

What is Terriermon's program? Will Rika ever tell anyone? Will she ever help the others? How will DarkRenamon react to Mari's death? And how will Ryder react?

Find out in 'His Despair', Chapter Seven of Dimensions Book Five: Demons.