The time came for the "Obstakill Course" to be run. As had become the custom, all three teams and Cody gathered at noon. This time, the venue of choice was a disused rock quarry in the Digital World. Tai, knowing that he wouldn't have to participate, had gone all out with the obstacles he'd designed. Yolei had been unoriginal, but had chosen effective obstacles. Sora had put together obstacles that she thought people would have difficulty with, while Izzy booby-trapped a good portion of the course.
"This is all non-lethal, right?" Cody asked Izzy pointedly. Izzy's response of "in theory" hadn't been good enough for him, so the computer geek begrudgingly disarmed several tripwires. "That's better... I think." While Cody had checked the course over the day before during set-up, he was not sure which of Izzy's many, many traps had the potential to seriously injure or kill. "All right, first team to cross the finish line wins."
"Shouldn't we go over the course first?" Joe asked nervously, not wanting to blindly rush in.
"Of course we can," Tai answered, raising his eyebrows just in case anyone thought his pun was unintentional. "It o-puns with a 200 meter sprint, then you've gotta-"
Yolei interrupted, "-cross a balance beam over a mud pit, crawl through a tunnel, make it across the water hazard, dodge some ball launchers, go through some tires, and climb a 40 foot rope or the cliff to get to the finish line! Any more questions?"
"Joe and I can't swim," TK pointed out, "and a lot of our partners can't either. Is there another way through the water?"
"Ha... funny you should mention that..." Tai said as if he hadn't been the one to come up with the water hazard. "Unless you've got wings, no."
"Wait, you can't swim?" Yolei asked TK, realizing that this could end badly.
Oddly enough, Davis was the first to respond. "Duh! Don'tcha remember when we got trapped in that oil rig or whatever it was?"
"How could I forget?" Cody muttered. "You guys forced me into the escape pod against my will."
"Yeah, well, you were the only one who would fit," Kari reminded him for the sixtieth time. "We definitely went over who could and couldn't swim while you were gone."
Yolei facepalmed. "We did, didn't we. I totally forgot! Sorry!"
TK shrugged. He forgot things all the time, so he wasn't gonna hold it against her. "Let's just get this over with."
"Wait, we can use our wings?" Biyomon wondered. She, Hawkmon, and Patamon had been wondering how they'd manage to get through this course without just sitting on their partners, though Patamon planned on doing that anyways. No one would even notice because he was almost always on TK's head.
"Sure," Cody decided. "There's no rules against helping each other, either. Okay, now that we've cleared all that up, let's start. On your mark... get set... GO!"
For the most part, humans outpaced Digimon during the opening sprint. The exceptions were Kari, who had tripped over a loose stone, and Gatomon, who was squarely in the middle of the pack. Yolei, unsurprisingly, made it to the balance beam first, closely followed by Joe. The balance beam failed to trip anyone up for the most part, though Joe, Ken, and Gomamon all ended up in the mud at least once.
What Cody had forgotten to mention was that there were also roughly 200 meters separating each obstacle. Yolei could sprint for long periods of time, but she couldn't convince herself to squeeze through the small tunnel right away. Her lead was lost to Gatomon, who had no problem whatsoever. Neither did any of the other Digimon, but most of the kids hesitated at least a little upon reaching the tunnel. It dropped Joe to last place.
The next run was where things really started to go downhill. Izzy had set multiple pitfall traps, most of which were obvious, and had dug several small holes as well. The order of arrival at the water hazard, a 15 meter stretch with a depth of six feet, was more staggered than that of the previous two obstacles. Gatomon managed to avoid all of Izzy's traps and got there first, followed by Davis, Sora (who knew where Izzy had put everything), Veemon (who'd lucked out by not hitting any pitfalls), Yolei, and then a large gap. Next came everyone who was trying harder to avoid pitfalls than to run particularly fast. Ken led that group, carrying Wormmon in his arms as he'd begun doing for all of the running portions. Next came Agumon, Gabumon, Matt, Tentomon, and Biyomon. Finally, after the first group had already made it to the other side of the water (with much complaining from Gatomon), the stragglers showed up.
Kari had fallen victim to a small hole and was limping slightly. TK (with Patamon on his head) was staying back by her partly to make sure she was okay and partly because he really didn't want to get in the water. Hawkmon had chosen to fly rather than attempting to run. Joe got stuck in a pitfall but was able to climb out without hurting himself too much. As for Gomamon, well, he was just very slow on land. Once he finally did manage to get to the water, though, he easily passed most of the second group.
"You don't have to do this," Kari said as she and TK finally made it to the water. Patamon agreed with her. Four years ago, TK was much smaller and he had still been too heavy for Patamon to keep him above the water.
"I'll be fine," TK laughed nervously. "It's only fifteen meters. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Well, there's always the possibility of drowning," Hawkmon helpfully chimed in, having caught up with them. By this time Gatomon, Davis, Sora, and Yolei had already made it through the tires.
TK backed away from the water. Was getting Tai and Davis to stop making puns really worth dying? Well, no... but maybe if he just-
"TK!" Kari and Patamon screamed as he fell into the water. He flailed his arms and legs as well as he could, but it wasn't enough to keep his head above water.
Joe jumped in the water without hesitation; he hadn't been paying attention to where he was going and had accidentally knocked TK in. Therefore he had to be the one to get him out, no matter what Kari was yelling at him. In gym class, Joe had learned enough about swimming that he could manage a weak dog paddle, but not for very long. If he didn't pull TK up quickly enough, they'd both be goners.
Somehow Joe managed, but by doing so used up all of his energy. However, he was close enough to the edge that Kari could pull him out. Once Joe and TK had recovered they all said screw it and moved on.
They met up with Gomamon and Matt once they hit the ball launchers. "This... was an awful idea," Matt said, struggling to keep his cool. "Why didn't you call for help?"
"We kinda panicked," Patamon admitted. "Why didn't you call for help?"
"Because... I dunno, I didn't think I'd get this beat up from some dumb soccer balls and falling in a hole!" Gomamon complained. "Or at least I thought Matt wouldn't land on me!"
"Wasn't trying! Those ball launchers are tough! But still, we got cuts and bruises and you almost died!" Matt yelled. "What were you guys thinking?"
"It's not like we were planning on it," TK muttered, as if that made a difference. "Everyone else is probably done already, though..."
That was the wrong thing to say. "HOW DO YOU STILL CARE ABOUT THE COMPETITION? YOU ALMOST FUCKING DIED!"
TK didn't really have a good response for that, so he just started running towards the ball launchers. Everyone else followed, Matt continuing to lecture. They made it through without further incident, though on the way over to the tires they ended up getting stuck in a glue trap. Someone else seemed to have tripped practically everything that could possibly be in the tires. That just left the rope climb.
After Kari fell into every single pitfall between the tires and the rope, they finally made it to the end. "Not sure... we're gonna make it... up there..." Joe panted.
"C'mon, Kari! It's just like in gym class!" TK called from ten feet up the rope, Kari slightly ahead of him. Both of them started laughing for reasons Matt, Joe, and Gomamon could only guess. Matt sighed and began to climb as well, while Joe grabbed Gomamon in one arm and climbed up the cliff face in one of the most dangerous ways he could've chosen.
All of them made it up without incident and then proceeded to collapse. "Gonna kill you... Izzy," Kari murmured, bleeding from several minor cuts.
"I'm gonna kill whoever designed that water hazard!" Matt declared, glancing between Sora, Tai, and Yolei.
"Who won?" Gomamon asked.
Cody took a deep breath. "Well..."
"KARI!" Tai bellowed, running to his sister. "What have I done? This all started because of me!"
"Well, yeah, but-"
"But nothing, Kari! What if I- or you- or- I can't do this anymore! Kari, if you come home... I'll make less puns! I promise! Davis can go back home, we'll clean the room up, anything!" Tai cried.
To his surprise, everyone else breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes! It's over!" Sora exclaimed.
"Eh, it was fun while it lasted," Davis said. "You can be home by tomorrow!"
"Hey, I always thought this was stupid," Cody said bluntly. "Let's go home, everyone."
Author's Note: *insert obligatory college-related you've-heard-nothing-from-me-in-like-a-year apology here* Well, it's tradition to update/one-shot on New Year's so... here y'all go! Closure! This fic was intended to be a LOT longer, but we obviously ran out of steam. Since it had a story rather than being a collection of one-shots, no matter how stupid the premise, we figured it'd be best to just end this. Hopefully I'll have some updates for the 02 fic out before I go back to college, but I can't guarantee. I'm writing a new first chapter, changing the summary, finishing chapter eight, and writing a ninth chapter as well. Anyways, back to this fic. Thanks for reading and reviewing! Sorry it had to end like this!