April 21, 2010
AN: I didn't forget about this story! I've just been so busy. Hopefully I'll be able to start updating regularly in the summer. This quarter is my busiest yet. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and finally getting some answers.
The Ultimate Sacrifice
Chapter 4
I thought the blinding white light was just a part of the battle ending. That's how it always ends – a flash of light so bright that we would close our eyes and shield them with our hands. And then, just as suddenly, it would end. We would be able to see, with some spots clouding our vision, and it would all be over.
This time, however, when I opened my eyes, the white light was completely surrounding me. I glanced down and my stomach lurched – there was nothing below me. I tried to walk but my legs took me nowhere. I was floating in a vast entity of nothingness.
"Guys?"
Where was Veemon? And Tai, Izzy, T.K., Kari?
"Davis!"
I glanced around and saw Joe floating some feet away.
"Hey!" I waved frantically and tried to thrust my body forward. I made little progress. "Where is everyone?"
Joe pointed. "Everywhere."
I glanced up and noticed the smattering of bodies floating all around me. Their voices grew louder as I spotted them.
"Hey guys!" I shouted. "What's going on?"
"I don't know, Davis," snapped Matt. "We're just as clueless as you."
I scowled. "Alright! Sheesh!"
With a lot of slow maneuvering, all twelve of us were able to reach one general area so that we could converse normally. "What now?" asked Kari. "What happened? Did the world end or something?"
"I don't know," said Tai. "Where's Agumon?"
"And Patamon?"
"And Palmon?"
"Your digimon have returned to the Digital World," a deep, booming voice that came from nowhere answered. The voice was so deafening that I felt my bones vibrate.
"Who is that?" cried Tai. "What did you do to our digimon?"
"I told you, they are back in the Digital World," it said again.
"Where is that coming from?" cried Sora.
"There!" Kari shouted, pointing. We all followed her pointed finger to somewhere above us, where a small, black orbit floated. It looked as if the orbit was a tiny portal to a different world.
"Who are you?" demanded Matt.
"I am nothing," it explained. "I am not a living organism."
"This is bullshit," Tai snapped. "Just tell us what you want!"
"Your destiny has come to a crossroads," it said. "What happens next is in the hands of you twelve chosen children. What you choose will determine how you live the rest of your lives."
"Why?" asked Cody
"What choices?" Ken inquired.
"You are being offered an ultimatum," it said. "If you adhere to our desire, the war between good and evil in the Digital and Human Worlds will forever end. Never again will you have to worry about fighting evil and risking your lives. If you don't give us what we want, the war will never end. You will spend the rest of your lives engaged in a battle against evil that you will never win."
"Sounds perfect to me," said Sora.
"What's the catch?" I asked.
"You must sacrifice Cody Hida."
There was a long silence, one of those silences so still that you start to hear it. My ears vibrated with the sound of nothing as everyone stared either at the orbit, Cody, or nothing.
"What?" Sora said finally.
"You have ninety minutes to decide," the orbit said. It grew smaller and smaller before vanishing.
No one said anything for a while. I didn't want to look at Cody, because I knew if I was him I wouldn't want everyone staring at me, but I chanced a tiny glance at him. He was frozen, his face blank and pale. He wasn't looking at anyone.
"Well, looks like we have ninety minutes to kill," I said, breaking the silence, "because no way are we giving up Cody."
"Why would they want him?" Yolei asked. "Why Cody?"
"What does them taking Cody have to do with eternal peace between good and evil?" Kari continued.
"Who cares?" I retorted. "We're not sacrificing him."
Everyone lapsed into another silence for a while. I couldn't tell what they were thinking about – they couldn't possibly be considering sacrificing Cody, could they? We've been fighting evil for a long time now; it's not like anything more evil than we've seen before could come at us. Evil always claimed that they were the most "evil being ever" but we always beat them every time. There's no way they were scared of it, were they? Maybe they were just trying to find the connection. Either way, I didn't understand it. I figured we should be coming up a plan of action for when we got out of this place and what kind of evil to expect.
"Do you guys believe what he said?" asked Izzy. "About how we should be fighting for the rest of our lives with an evil we'll never beat?"
"But they always say that," I said. "It hasn't come true yet!"
"Davis, you haven't been doing this for that long," Sora said, and her voice sounded tired. "We've been doing this for lot longer than you and it's starting to take its toll."
I blinked at her. "Excuse me?" I said. "The first time you guys did this, it lasted a couple months. Then you went on a two and a half year break and we've done most of the fighting this time around!"
"Don't talk about things you don't understand," Matt spat at me. "We have done so much more than you could ever imagine, Davis."
"Matt," said Tai warningly, before turning to me. "They're both right, Davis. You're not really in a position to talk."
"Oh, so you guys will make all the decisions around here?" I shot back. "Yolei, Ken, Cody, and I have no say?" I shook my head furiously. "Wait, what the hell am I even talking about? There's no decision to be made – we're obviously not sacrificing Cody!"
There was another stretch of silence and I grew worried that no one was agreeing with me. If these people were going to consider giving up one of our own – I don't know how I'll deal with that. If they do that, then I don't know them at all.
And then it came.
"Maybe we don't have a choice."
T.K.'s voice reverberated through all of us, even though he said it very quietly. I turned to gape at him, not quite believing my ears. How can we not have a choice? I opened my mouth to say so, but was stalled by Matt saying, "That's what I was thinking."
Strengthened by the approval of his older brother, T.K. explained in a louder voice, "If we sacrifice Cody, then we will be able to get out of this weird limbo place and find a way to get him back. We don't know what has changed in our worlds so we can't have any way of knowing what evil we would be up against if we didn't give him up."
"If we give up Cody and then rescue him," I replied quickly, hoping to get someone on my side, "then we'll end up having to fight the evil that took him anyway. Why not just skip the process of trying to figure out a way to rescue him and just go right to fighting evil? Besides, what if we can't rescue Cody?"
"We've always been able to save each other before," Izzy said. "The chance that we will be able to rescue Cody is very high."
"You're going to base your decision on our past experiences?" I exclaimed.
"Davis, you have to understand how long 'the rest of your life' really is," Joe said patiently, turning to me. "Being told that we will be fighting until we die is not something that any of us should be excited about."
"But neither is letting some unknown ball of blackness take Cody!"
"Even though there's the chance that we could save Cody," Tai said.
"And a chance that this black ball is full of it and that we'll be able to defeat the evil that supposedly will keep us fighting until we die!" I glared around. "What's the matter with you all?"
"It would be nice…" said Yolei quietly, not looking at anyone but instead focusing on her feet, "to not have to worry about saving the world or innocent people dying."
"At what expense?" I snarled at her, reaching the end of my limit.
I looked around and saw Kari and Ken staring at me. Their silent looks told me that they too agreed with everyone else. I felt lost. I didn't know what to do. How can I change the minds of ten other people? How do I convince them that they're wrong?
"We're all talking about Cody as if he isn't standing right here," said Mimi softly. Instantly, everyone looked down at the boy. Cody, the youngest of us all, the most sensitive. He hadn't moved the entire time; his arms were at his side and his head was down.
"Cody?" I said. No one else had the guts to say his name.
He didn't respond for a few moments and we waited with bated breath. If he didn't want to be sacrificed, they couldn't force him – could they?
"Okay."
His already quiet voice was even lower as he spoke to his feet. At first, I wasn't even sure if he had spoken at all. "What?"
"I said… okay." Cody looked up. His face was almost as white as the background around us, his eyes were empty, and his voice and hands shook, but he spoke affirmatively. "I'll do it. I'll give myself up."
"Cody, only if you're sure," said Tai, but I could hear the hint of hope in his voice and it disgusted me.
"No, Cody, I can't let you –" I began. "We don't know –"
Cody shook his head. "Davis. I'm going to do it."
"We'll save you, Cody," Sora spoke earnestly. "I promise you – we'll come get you."
The little boy nodded. Cody suddenly looked five years old.
"Done already?" The now-familiar voice boomed into the nothingness and reappeared above us. "That was faster than I thought."
I felt sick that an evil creature like this was surprised at how fast we came to allow our friend to be given up.
"Cody? Are you ready?"
The boy looked up and nodded. He spread out his arms started to float above us. The black hole grew bigger until it was large enough for him to fit through.
"We'll come get you, Cody!" Yolei cried.
"Don't worry, little guy," Tai said. "We'll save you. It won't be long."
This isn't right. We're doing the wrong thing, I know it. I clenched my fists – can I still stop it?
Right before Cody reached the black hole, he turned back to look at us and made direct eye contact with me. His eyes were filled with tears and through them I could see what he was feeling – terror, sadness, and betrayal.
And that's when I knew that we had just made the biggest mistakes of our lives.
I violently tried to run to where Cody was, but I was still floating and thus could not move effectively. "NOOOOOOOO!" I screamed desperately, trying to reach Cody, but before I knew it he was swallowed up by the unforgiving, dark hole and I couldn't see anything. We were all being swallowed by white light – we were going back home.
Without Cody.
----
Davis woke up early for school on Friday morning. He hated that dream. He hated reliving that moment. He hated how helpless he was against the opinions of ten other people. He hated having to see these people that he thought he knew so well betray him like they did. He hated that look that he saw on Cody's face before they took him – that look has haunted him for four years.
He got out of bed and changed out of his clothes from the day before into a fresh pair. He brushed his teeth and grabbed his backpack and Digivice before leaving his house. No one else was even awake yet.
As he walked with his dream fresh in his mind, he started thinking about that day. He remembered how he woke up on the Odaiba Bridge over the bay with everyone else and how he briefly wondered what had happened. He jumped up as soon as he remembered and glanced around at everyone to confirm that it had actually happened and was not a dream. Cody's absence was immediately noticeable to him.
He had yelled at everyone for how stupid they had been and it had taken the combined efforts of Matt, Joe, Izzy, and T.K. to keep him from attacking Tai. The girls were screaming and everyone yelling at him, but he didn't care. He continued to fight and spit obscenities at Tai. Even though it was everyone's fault, Tai was the leader and Davis decided to focus all of his anger onto one person.
Finally, when he had shouted for so long that his voice was hoarse, he stopped and Tai took the chance to try to calm him down. He had explained that they were going to start finding a way to save Cody. "Calm down, Davis, we'll get him back," he had explained. "We can get back through the portal, it's not that hard. We'll find him. We'll stay in the Digital World until we do."
His words had calmed Davis a bit; at least they were going to try to get him back. After what they had done, he was surprised that they weren't going to just let him rot.
As they walked off the debris and rubble-filled bridge, they came to a crowd of people that had been watching the battle. Civilians, TV reporters, and their families were all crowded around, looking for the group that had disappeared. A cameraman spotted them and the kids had all started running towards their parents.
Davis was fiercely embraced by his parents, as was everyone else by theirs. He couldn't help but feel guilty, though. He was home and Cody was not. He didn't even know where Cody was. Somewhere in the Digital World, he assumed, but where…? What was happening to him?
"We have to go back, though, Mom," he said over his mother's shoulder. "We have to find Cody."
His mom had pulled back and gave him a strange look. "Back? Why? Who's Cody?"
He furrowed his brow. "Cody, Mom. Cody's one of us. They took him and we have to go back."
His parents exchanged worried glances. "Honey, there is no Cody. At least from what you've told us before."
Jun scoffed at him. "He's losing his mind."
Davis gaped at them. "What are you – of course there's a Cody! He has brown hair and he's short and a year younger than me –"
"Davis, you've just been through a traumatic experience," his mom had said gently. "I think once you've slept –"
He had wanted to scream but he didn't have it in him anymore. His energy was completely gone from him; he had been fighting other people and yelling at them for so long already that he didn't have it in him to start fighting with his mom.
Davis reached the beach, his every morning destination. He sat down on the dewy grass, crossing his legs and staring out over the ocean. He turned the Digivice over in his hand and studied it. Why wouldn't it work anymore? Why couldn't he get it to activate?
He sighed as he reached forward, pointing it toward the ocean.
----
I burst into Izzy's room later in the day, feeling utterly hopeless. "What happened?" I croaked. Everyone else was already there, sitting around somberly. "Cody – he doesn't even exist! My parents said there is no Cody… his mom wasn't there…"
Tai shook his head, his face white. "He doesn't," he said quietly. "Kari and I went to the Hida house to talk to his mom and grandfather. I thought that maybe they just didn't really know what was going on… but when they opened the door, his mother had no idea who we were. We told her we had to talk to her about Cody and she asked who he was."
Kari frowned. "We said he was her son and she told us we must have the wrong house, because she doesn't have a son."
"What happened?" I asked again, weakly. I felt so drained from all the events of the day and, as if losing Cody wasn't enough, we had to deal with the fact that he had seemingly been erased from our world. "How…"
"Obviously the black orb must have done something," Izzy said. "It must have messed with our world and wiped away all trace of Cody from our world."
"But why would It do that?" Sora asked.
"Probably to keep anyone from looking for him," Joe said.
"But we remember," I said. "And we're the only ones that would be able to save him anyway."
Tai shrugged. "It doesn't make any sense to me, either."
"Well, let's go then," I said, approaching the computer and clutching my Digivice. "Let's go back to the Digiworld and get him."
No one said anything for a few seconds; they all looked at each other uncomfortably.
"What?" I asked, growing fearful that they weren't going to try to save him anymore.
"We can't open the portal," Matt said finally.
I gaped, staring at them all. "What do you mean, you can't open it? We can always open it!"
"Well, we can't now," he snapped at me.
My anger boiled up again. "Hey, don't get mad at me!" I snarled. "I just want to get back to save Cody! Remember how you all decided to give him to a mysterious black orb? Remember how you promised him we would save him? Well, I do!"
"Look, Davis, we're going to get him back," Tai said. "This is just a setback. We're going to find another way."
I relaxed. "Okay. Good."
----
However, it turned out to not just be a setback. It turned out to be the factor that prevented them from getting back to the Digital World. It was clear that when the black orb took Cody, It conveniently left out the fact that the portal between the real world and the Digital World would be permanently sealed.
He had to hand it to that damn orb. It knew how to get what It wanted.
He clenched his jaw and gripped his Digivice tighter. It became clear after they realized that there was no portal that they had all given up hope. He knew that the reason they stopped trying was because they were so guilty that they wanted to try to pretend it never happened. It wasn't too hard, he supposed, since the world didn't even know that Cody existed. Still, he didn't know how they could do it. Davis felt guilty as hell, even though he was the only one that opposed it, but he didn't wallow in self-pity as a way of coping. Instead, he devoted his life to saving him. When he's eighty years old, he'll know that he spent every ounce of his energy finding Cody and bringing him back. When everyone else is eighty, they'll know that they spent their lives crying for themselves and sitting on their asses while God knows what happened to Cody.
About a week after the end of the Final Battle, they all went to Izzy's one last time. Everyone had been very quiet and didn't seem to be listening to him as he rattled off ideas. Finally, Matt had said quietly, "There's nothing more we can do."
Davis hadn't said anything for a few seconds and then he exploded. "What do you mean, there's nothing more we can do? We've just sat in Izzy's room for a week talking, but we haven't actually done anything! Are you really going to give up so quickly?"
"This is hard on all of us, Davis," said Sora.
At that point, he decided to fuck them all. He didn't want to deal with these awful people anymore. He didn't have any more energy in him to fight with them. If they didn't want to help, they didn't have to. He could do it himself.
He stood up and everyone stared at him. "If you care about Cody and want to help me find him," he said in an icy tone, "then call me." He turned on his heel and stormed out of Izzy's apartment, slamming the door so hard that his ears rang behind him.
None of them ever called him. He never heard a word from any of them. It was hard for him to accept that his friendships with all of them had been a joke. He never really knew any of them, because he never thought that they were capable of doing what they did.
But their betrayal strengthened him. It drove him even more. He would get Cody back and they would all feel like assholes. He was determined. He would get him back.
He just didn't know how.
Sighing again, he stood up. He had been sitting, facing the ocean, for thirty minutes now and he had to get to school. He brushed off his pants and turned around. Glancing up, he stopped in his tracks.
"Kari."