Chapter 17: The last key
Ryo woke up from his sleep and stretched his arms. He opened his eyes and stood up from his bed. He put his clothes. He looked at his clothes and lightly smiled.
"I never notice I never change myself since the start," Ryo said. He didn't really mind it, there was nothing else to wear and he felt lucky his clothes weren't damage.
He walked outside, in the village. He saw Yamato was already up and in deep thought. In his hand, he had a harmonica. He wasn't playing it, simply looking at it.
Ryo joined him: "Hi Yamato."
"Hello Ryo. How are you doing?" Yamato asked.
"I'm alright. I slept well," Ryo said with a smile.
"I can see it. Are you nervous?" Yamato asked curiously.
"If you mean about fighting Millenniumon. I am afraid," Ryo admitted, scratching his neck.
"He is incredibly powerful and fearsome indeed," Yamato replied.
Ryo nodded quietly. He said nothing for a while before replying: "It wasn't easy to hide my fear from him."
"You are not alone against him and the keys will help us. That's for sure," Yamato said.
"True. There are so many questions in my mind. I wonder what the keys will do?" Ryo asked.
"Not sure. Anyway, we should prepare to eat something. We have a long day, one that won't end up in a fight I hope," Yamato said.
Ryo nodded and they walked elsewhere.
Millenniumon wasn't watching the chosen children compare to what he usually do. He wasn't interest in their actions. He knew they were going to search last key and there was nothing more boring than watching nothing happening. Most of his powerful warriors are already dead once again. He was the last obstacle for the light to be truly restored to the digital world, but he decided to wait for them to come like the first time he fought them. Millenniumon was mentally preparing the climax. He knew it was soon there and he had to take a few things into account this time.
First, the other chosen children were with Ryo. Millenniumon knew that if he wanted his plan to succeed, he needed to confront Ryo alone or with Agumon maximum. He thought about it and had an idea on how he should do it.
"Separating the chosen children shouldn't be too hard. It already happened a few times before anyway," Millenniumon said. He put one claw on his chin and grunted loudly, thinking about his actual plan: "Maybe I should go with something simpler than what I first have in mind. I have created a situation I could easily exploit after all."
He heard someone grunting and looked at how was the guilty one. It was the Devidramon in a tuxedo.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your thought my lord," he said bowing.
"What is it?" Millenniumon grunted.
The Devidramon gasped before continuing: "Some of your followers are a little agitated with the recent events. The strongest digimons have been defeated. If this agitation isn't control soon, the situation could worsen a little," Devidramon warned.
"I am not worry about it. I knew the chosen children were powerful. They defeated all of them one by one. If they were all together, that would have been another story. If they fought me, they wouldn't have time to do anything to defeat me. Time is under my control."
"That will reassure you're followers, but not completely. In the past, Apocalymon was defeated by the chosen children. He was the most powerful dark digimon before you came my lord," Devidramon replied. He lowered himself more.
Millenniumon didn't say anything. He remembered Apocalymon too well. More precisely, he remembered Apocalymon from Mugendramon perspective. It was a vague memory, he didn't remember why he joined him, but didn't care.
"Apocalymon was a fool who underestimate the chosen children!" Millenniumon shouted: "I heard about his great power, but he wasn't able to perfectly use it. I on the other hand have perfect control of my power, I don't whine about my existence. I live for my only purpose, to rule the digital world and covered it with eternal darkness. Remind them that their God isn't going to be defeated by mere humans and their digimon partners. If any of them doubt me, they are free to enter in my stomach. Their data will surely taste good," Millenniumon concluded, licking his lips.
Devidramon nodded and walked outside the throne room.
"Better be careful when talking alone," Millenniumon whispered. He didn't want any digimon to hear something that should remain hidden from the ears of the followers.
Millenniumon had nothing else worthy of him to do and watched the chosen children. They were at the destination and started looking. Millenniumon checked in the memory data coming from the Millenniumon of this world and didn't find anything about the location of the real key. They only thing he found was that they were at the right island.
The chosen children were on the Island where the last key could be found. In the sky, the clouds were present and covered the light. It was a small island divided into two parts; the plain one where it was covered by trees and also part with only grass on it. The other part was a gray mountain. The chosen children were searching at the plain part, near the gray mountain.
The chosen children dispersed as they searched for the key. It was a large area and the spread carefully as Yamato suggestion. It wasn't going to be an easy task or an entertaining one, but they had to go that way. The only one who wasn't searching was Koushiro, but he was contributing with his computer. He tried to hack and pinpoint a location for the key. It wasn't a success, but one thing it did was to ease the search. They had a smaller radius to search for the last key. The island was big and it would have taken longer if he didn't reduce location where they should search.
"It's a little like a treasure hunting," Takeru commented as they searched.
"I agree it's the case," Yamato chuckled with a small smile.
"It won't be easy to find it. The keys aren't that big and we still have a large radius to search," Ryo replied.
"We encounter a small resistance, but they were easy to deal with," Jou said relief about it.
"I think I-Nope. A rock looking like a key," Sora said.
"Hope it's the only one," Gabumon said.
"Let's hope it is," Patamon agreed.
They continued searching without any big success. The weather wasn't helping them when it started to rain on the children and their partner.
"Can't blame Millenniumon for that," Ryo grunted.
"He's the dark god who can control time. He cannot control the weather or that would be too funny to see," Agumon replied.
"His most devastating attack would be a really raining day," Palmon said.
The group chuckled at the thought.
Koushiro closed his computer and sighted.
"Can't help you that way," he said as he stand up and started searching for the key with Tentomon.
They continued searching despite the rain falling on them. The search became harder and really boring for the group, but they didn't stop searching. They knew it will take longer if they stop now.
"I think I found it and- Nope. Another rock looking like a key," Ryo sighted throwing it on the ground.
"I think-" Koushiro stopped. He grunted: "Same thing than you Ryo: A rock with the shape of a key."
"That's the third one," Tentomon said.
"No wonder it's called Key Island now. There are so many things looking like keys," Yamato said out loud.
"That's not going to help us at all," Ryo commented.
"Agreed," the other replied.
Millenniumon watched them searching for keys and growing more frustrated. He saw them taking out more rock looking like keys. He wasn't sure if he should laugh and mock them or get bored by what he was seeing. He chose to be frustrated and bored by the situation. He wondered how long the chosen children and their digimon partner will remain patient.
He yawed of boredom when he heard someone coming in the throne room: "What is it Devidramon?"
"There is nothing. I've brought you something to eat. You haven't asked, but you usually eat at this moment my lord," Devidramon replied with a plate of meat.
"Good. You can bring it to me. I'm hungry," Millenniumon replied licking his lips.
Devidramon gave the plate and Millenniumon ate the meat. Millenniumon saw the Devidramon looked at what he was watching a little curiously. Millenniumon saw no suspicions in his four eyes, but he was clearly trying to understand his intentions.
"You can dismiss," Millenniumon ordered. Devidramon nodded and turned around. "If you are wondering what I'm doing, I'm watching them, to keep one step ahead of them."
"I know my lord," Devidramon simply replied. He bowed and leaved the throne room.
Millenniumon watched the door and commented: "You better not have any...idea."
Millenniumon continued eating and watching the progress of the chosen children. During the entire day, it was mostly failure and frustration. The only thing Millenniumon enjoyed was seeing the face of his enemies growing more and more frustrated at their failure to find a key. The bonus was to see them wet and worsen how they felt.
The chosen children noticed that it was getting darker. Every one of them found a rock looking like a key and was really angered by their result.
Yamato got another false one and threw it on the ground while shouting: "Enough of this! This is getting nowhere!"
"Right!" Ryo replied also frustrated.
Everyone reached the end of their patience. Hikari was the only one still calm as she searched for the key. She noticed something and picked up. She looked at the key and wondered if it was the real one. She saw it was another rock and threw it away. She sighted and found another one near it. She picked the key and smiled.
"I found it," she told the others.
Their frustration dissipated as their effort was finally rewarded. They dashed near her and looked at the final key.
"It's the right one," Koushiro said.
The younger chosen children shouted joyfully while the older smiled lightly. They were all glad to found the last key. Hikari gave the key to Ryo.
"Thanks. With this, we will save your brother," Ryo told her.
"I know," Hikari replied.
"We should go now. I think we are wet enough," Mimi said.
"True. We really might get a cold after this," Yamato agreed.
The others nodded and returned to their place.
Millenniumon saw that the chosen children now have all the keys they needed. He smiled, knowing that meant that the end was coming even closer now. Ryo will found what they keys contained. He smiled even more at the thought that his destined partner will be his.
He thought back about his servant, the Devidramon in a tuxedo. He noticed that his servant had something in his mind.
"He is much smarter than most Devidramon," Millenniumon murmured.
He scratched his chin as he thought about him. He wasn't sure if the Devidramon had something in his mind or not. "He is loyal to me, but as history said, loyalty could shift for anyone," he couldn't help, but thought about Ryo. Remembering why Ryo never joined him and fought against him. He knew it wasn't a shifting loyalty. The Ryo of his reality never betray him. He knew his actions put his destined partner against him. It was also because he was manipulated by ENIAC and the other digimons. He ended his thought and stopped watching his destined partner actions.
He stood up and walked to his chamber: "Watching almost nothing happening was just boring. It was too tiresome to watch searching for a key."
AC: This is the end of chapter 17.
Chapter 18: Almost time.