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Davis threw the comforter off of himself angrily as his alarm clock screeched for the 5th time. He glared at the 3:05am that flashed in the darkened room with a look of depression. He and Cody were meeting Mimi in the digital world at 4:00am. Because of the time difference, Mimi would be getting out of school around that time in America. He sighed before getting out of bed and heading for the shower, all the while having to remind his sleepy brain and body what he was awake for. It was time to get down to business.
Davis finished his shower and headed over to his D-3 to make sure Cody was awake and ready. Though he hadn't shown it a few minutes ago, Davis was excited. Ever since the meeting, he had seen most of the digidestined doing their part to help Kari. He saw the progress Joe, Yolei and Izzy were making with categorizing different dimensions, he watched as Ken tortured himself by recording everything he knew about his experience with the darkness in his own journal, and he even saw how T.K., though not assigned a specific job, was holding himself together for her sake. Davis felt like he was slacking, and that had to be fixed immediately.
The beeping of his D-3 was just the initiative he needed to take action. Once he read that Cody was ready, he opened the digiport on his computer and all but ran through the screen. Once the intense brightness of the portal dimmed, he examined his surroundings.
"Davis! Over here!" Davis turned to see Cody a few yards away with Mimi by his side. From the looks of her school uniform and backpack, she had not stopped home to change.
"Hey guys!" He called as he ran toward them. Cody waved and Mimi smiled. Once Davis made it over to them, he stopped and pulled out his D3. On the screen was a map of the area.
"So, what do we do first?" Mimi asked. Kari was like a sister to her, and when she'd found out what was going on, she desperately wanted to help out. Even with the distance, she promised herself that she would work hard—despite the humidity in the air—to keep Kari and the others safe.
"Ok, there's an area half a mile up that way…" Davis pointed behind Mimi and Cody. "…that I think would be a good place to start. Tai said to check with digimon who would know something about an 'undersea master', or any information about traveling between dimensions."
"That seems like a good place to start." Cody agreed. "I remember that area from when Digmon and I were destroying control spires. In between going from one area around the lake to another, Digmon told me there were hundreds of digimon in that ecosystem alone. I think this place would give us enough information to sort out for the day."
"I think so, too. I think this is where Palmon usually hangs out. Because this is such a big place, I think we should split up. We won't finish in time if we don't." Mimi explained.
"Are you sure that's a good idea, Mimi? Even though there is no immediate danger around us, there's still a chance that something could happen. Besides, if we don't finish today, we can come back tomorrow and do it."
"I actually agree with Mimi." Davis commented. "I think it would be better to go around this place separately. We can cover more ground, and anything we don't finish with we can come back and do later, like next week. Think about it; if we split up, then a lot of the digimon are going to know what we are looking for. So even if they don't have anything for us now, they will keep their eyes and ears open for what we need."
That explanation seemed to win Cody over, and as soon as he nodded, plans were being set in motion. It was decided that Mimi and Palmon—once Mimi got a hold of her—would walk along the shore, talking to any land digimon they found. Davis and Veemon would talk to the digimon who dwelled on or near the surface of the water, and Cody and submarimon would go to the bottom and talk to the digimon who dwelled there.
"Alright, sounds like a plan. I say we take about an hour to do this and call it a day. I don't know about you, Cody, but four hours isn't exactly enough sleep to go by when you've got school and soccer practice." Davis yawned loudly for emphasis.
"That's fine. Palmon and I may stay longer if we need to. I wouldn't want to do all that with no sleep either." Mimi commented with a cringe.
"Ok, see you guys in an hour!" Davis yelled over his shoulder, he and Veemon already running toward their destination with alacrity.
"Let's get diggin', Cody." Armadillomon said as they too began the trek toward the lake. Cody nodded and waved to Mimi before watching the girl walk back to the tv to find her partner.
Tai's eyes snapped open before he fumbled with silencing the alarm on his cell phone. He'd set the alarm for 6 am so he could go to school early for soccer practice. It was Thursday, meaning he only had two more days to practice with his teammates before the big game on Saturday.
He sat up and stretched his arms above his head before stumbling ungracefully down the bunk ladder. He glanced at the bottom bunk briefly while walking, but immediately stopped as his heart nearly jumped from his chest.
Kari was shaking as she tossed and turned due to the obvious stress she was feeling. The most frightening to Tai, however, was not the distress, but that she was becoming almost…transparent, phasing in and out of view.
Tai had no time to think, and instead jumped into action. He dove to the bed, grabbed onto Kari's wrist and began shaking her to snap her out of it, but she remained unresponsive.
His panic went into overdrive.
He tried whispering her name, but knew that would do no good. If he spoke any louder with that much despair in his voice, he would wake his parents, and that's the last thing he needed at the moment.
Thinking quickly, he went to her desk and grabbed both of their digivices. He didn't know what good they would do—or if they would do anything, but he had to try. Racing back to her, he held both of their digivices in a vice-grip and once again took her by the wrist.
"Kari, fight them!" He whispered. "Use all of your strength…all of your light…all of our courage! Don't let them win!"
Both of their crests glowed a dim shade, but otherwise did nothing. Tai looked at the devices angrily and threw them down, frustrated that the only method he could think of was the least bit of help. Concentrating again on his increasingly pale sister, he continued trying to wake her for several more minutes before she started showing signs of life.
"That's it, Kari." He said, taking her one of her hands in both of his. "Come back." He repeated this until her phasing body became solid again and her natural color returned to her. She stopped shivering, and there was a long moment where she made no movement. Her body was completely still, and her breathing was so silent that—had Tai not been watching her intensely—it was hard to tell whether she was breathing at all. A few more minutes passed in this fashion, and just as Tai was formulating ideas as to what he could do, she opened her eyes.
Kari's breathing was heavy and uneven as her body tried to still itself from the aftershock of her trauma. Tai's hands still held onto hers until she was calm enough to sit up. What he did next was scoop her up and held her close to him. She was limp in his arms, but eventually responded by weakly wrapping her arms around his back. At this small movement, Tai officially breathed again.
He pulled back a few moments later and looked her up and down studying her body language for anything out of the ordinary that may have alerted him to other problems. Upon seeing nothing, his body relaxed slightly. When his eyes finally ascended back to her face though, he had the urge to hug her again. The look on her face now was one he had only seen a handful of times, most of which were when they were fighting very powerful enemies. It was the look that made him fight one hundred times harder at ridding the world of the evil they were facing. And, as he watched the blank look on her face change to a normal expression, he knew this time he would never know the extent of what was happening with her, because the determination in her eyes at that moment meant she had no intention of telling him.
He understood, in more ways than she would ever know. He couldn't even count the number of times he closed himself up after a particularly terrifying battle. It was a defense mechanism that enabled him to calm himself, and now Kari was utilizing it as well. She pulled away from his arms completely and ran a hand through her hair. She was exhausted and slightly nauseous, but kept her complaints quiet. The look on her brother's face was one of complete un-adultured concern, love and dedication. She knew that if she so much as looked like she wanted him to stay, he would drop everything in a second.
"Go to soccer practice, Tai." She raised her head and her eyes displayed the strength she never wanted to acknowledge existed. "I'll be alright."
His eyes bore into hers for a few seconds before he nodded. He knew she wasn't alright, and part of him knew she didn't want to be left alone right then. But the look she gave him, the look of determination was one that he could not say no to. That look spoke volumes to him. She was saying that she wanted to try to be alright by herself. It was something that he could not fight her about no matter how much he wanted to. He pressed his lips to her forehead and stood from the bed. As he left the room to get ready, he felt those determined eyes seemingly burning into his back as he walked.
"Hey everyone!" Davis's booming voice resounded throughout the homeroom, earning him bewildered looks from the majority of his peers who were still in the process of waking up.
"Morning, Davis." T.K. walked over and sat in front of his friend. "You're certainly cheerful. Any good news?"
T.K., who hadn't been assigned a job, was starved for news. It killed him to see everyone working so hard while he was forced to be home by 3:30pm and was not given a task other than to not worry. And because of his punishment, he wasn't even allowed to do the only thing required of him.
Davis smiled and put his arms above his head. "We're making progress. Mimi, Cody and I were in the digiworld this morning doing some recon, you could say. Me and Veemon ran into some otamamon, and they were really helpful. They gave us some info, but it isn't enough for me to say just yet. We're going back after practice today."
T.K. shook his head, confused and disheartened with the vague answer.
"Hey, I know I didn't find out much, but I also haven't talked to Mimi or Cody yet. We searched three different places in the one area, so we all probably have different info. You'll be the first to know once everything is figured out."
"I know. It's just frustrating."
"How long are you grounded for?"
"I'm not so sure now. My mom came home last night and said we were going to discuss it over dinner tonight."
"That's good news, dude. You can plead your case." Davis was the only one who was optimistic. As the teacher walked in, their voices lowered as they sat in their seats.
T.K. sighed. "I wouldn't be sure about it being a good thing."
"Just have faith, dude."
"Alright! I want 5 more laps and then hit the showers!"
The whistle rang and Tai, along with the rest of his team jumped at the command, all but sprinting the designated distance in the hopes of leaving faster. Because they only had about two more practice days, the coach got special permission to allow the team to practice through homeroom. And because of Tai's absence and overall distraction, the coach tripled the amount of work.
As Tai ran around the track, he thought about all that needed to be done over the next couple of days. Sora called him last night to inform him that she, Ken and Matt would meet briefly with their journals to sort through any underlying patterns the dark forces used to lure prey or control digimon. Along with that was the work he knew was being done on Davis, Cody and Mimi's end. He was aware that they made a trip that morning and that they planned another one that night or the next morning, so those two trips were enough to get word out about what was going on to other digimon.
When he finished his laps and showered, he would talk to Izzy to see what kind of progress he, Yolei and Joe were making. Knowing how those three operate, he had no doubt they had quite a lot of information so far.
Tai made it back to the starting point of the track, signifying the end of his five laps. His coach, who had been monitoring him specifically, came up behind him, slapping him on the back.
"Nice job, Kamiya!" He praised in his normal, booming voice. "Keep up that stamina and the win is as good as ours!"
He blew the whistle to move along any remaining players on the track and signaled everyone to gather around.
"I want everyone here tomorrow at 5:30am sharp! We'll do some scrimmaging and a few drills, and then no more official practice! I want everyone to be in top form! Good job today. Now get to class!"
Tai sighed in exhausted relief before running with the rest of the team to the locker room.
Classes went by impossibly slow for every digidestined as the anxiousness of the situation dominated their thoughts. Tai sent everyone an email telling them the next meeting would be tomorrow, which was Friday. This would be an important meeting, combining all of the information collected and applying them to the different theories circulated. Due to the importance of the mission, they could not get out of school fast enough.
When the final bell rang, everyone sprang into action.
Yolei and Izzy met at the school gate as quickly as possible. They were heading over to Joe's to collaborate the different dimensions referenced and map them out so the others could understand. Matt, Sora and Ken were meeting and then Mimi, Cody and Davis were as well. By the official meeting, Tai knew they would have enough to finally get started with a plan of attack. The sooner everything was over with, the sooner they could better protect the digital world and keep Kari out of harm's way.
A/N: I can't even begin to express how sorry I am that this hasn't been updated in YEARS. I have a lot of things going on right now and it just seems like this (as well as a few of my other stories) have just been put on the backburner. I am still working on this and still hope to finish it in this century. Thank you to all who are still reading it and have left me such kind reviews.