Neamon=Neemon

XV-mon=ExVeemon

MetallFantomon=Metallphantomon

Scary. So scary. Where was the light?
He was going to crumble.
He was so afraid. The presences were so strong now. He didn´t even dare to breath. He hugged his legs closer and tried to stop his hands from shaking.

Scary.

A tear ran down his face. He hoped it wouldn´t make any noise. What if they noticed him? He just wanted to be away from this place. Far away. And forget all about it. He suppressed a sob.
He was sure death was better than this. But he couldn´t die yet. Why he didn´t know. He just thought that if he´d die something precious would slip from his hands completely. He didn´t know how precious it was, or if it was worth it but maybe it was. And if it was then he wouldn´t want to lose it. But he was still so afraid. Everything was so scary.

Koichi sat in front of him. Hugging his knees and shaking all over. He even saw a tear drop down. In some place of his mind Takuya thanked whoever responsible that Koji was not with him. He´d rip the place apart to look for the one that sent Koichi into this state.

Another piece wanted to rip the place down with his own hands. Koichi had already so many bad experiences with darkness that this most certainly was overkill.

And then there was the side that really wanted Koji to be here. Who could possibly be better for this job then the light twin?
Because Takuya really had no idea what to do now. What was he supposed to do when Koichi was hugging his knees, deadly afraid and producing some kind of black smoke? Sure the smoke dissolved as it rose to the not-there ceiling, but the fact that Koichi produced smoke did not change. Had the situation be any different and with somebody to listen Takuya would surely have cracked a joke about Koichi thinking too much. However the situation was not that carefree. Sadly.

Well….What should he do now?...actually there wasn´t much of a choice now, was there?

"You know, Koichi, if you don´t start breathing I´m gonna tell Koji you attempted suicide."

Close. Too close. So scary.
Couldn´t the presences just disappear? Couldn´t they just leave him alone?He suppressed a shudder. They mustn't know he was here. He didn´t breath. His lungs hurt, but he couldn´t breathe; he´d be found.

"You know, Koichi, if you don´t start breathing I´m gonna tell Koji you attempted suicide."

He would have jumped had he not been so afraid.

He still didn´t breathe.
Maybe that wasn´t directed at him. He didn´t know who Koichi and Koji were, after all.

"He´s never going to let you hear the end of it." He didn´t know why, but he thought the voice sounded amused. A face popped up in his mind. A wide grin with brown hair. But he didn´t know that person. Or did he?

No he did. What was the name? He took a deep breath. He did know that presence in front of him.

"Not that I know where Koji is at the moment, but when I tell him later I can already see him put a tracker on you." The voice snorted.

His curiosity won. And now that he took a second look at presence it wasn´t scary at all.
Koichi glanced up only to be greeted by the shameless grin of his brother´s best friend.

"Don´t you dare tell him about this." Koichi glared at him. Something very uncharacteristic for him. Takuya was going to get a cramp in his cheeks at this rate.
Oh, how he enjoyed teasing the twins about their respective complexes.

"Like I said, I don´t know where he is, so I can hardly tell him about this." Koichi took his outstretched hand and got to his feet. "Yet." He received another uncharacteristic glare.

"If you tell him about this I´ll tell Zoe that you hid her purse so that she couldn´t drag you shopping."

Takuya swallowed. In some way that was even more scary then the Lucemon illusion.
Right… he knew there was a down side to teasing the elder. He felt sweat run down his forehead. Indeed, very scary.

"Why don´t we forget about that. And focus on getting out of here." Takuya wanted to turn to where he came from but remembered that he kind of teleported himself here. "Wherever here is."

"Yeah, I meant to ask that. Where are we?" Koichi looked around and Takuya saw numerous questions flash across his face. No way….. he did not have to explain everything…..right?... he´d be mute by the time he finished…..yeah, let´s just skip the first two weeks.

"Actually, I have no idea. You see, there was this huge whirlpool-"

She wouldn´t disappear.
If she did all that fighting till now would lose its meaning. And more importantly she would lose. To what, she did not know. All that mattered was that she was not going to lose. Nothing could make her surrender. Not this pain. Not anything else.
But she still kept on fading. But she would not lose. Even if she was fading away.

He was still enduring. He was still here.

But it hurt. So much. Everyone else around him had almost disappeared. But –

A new hot wave of pain stopped his thoughts.

He didn´t know if there was a reason. So why was he still here?
It was so much pain. Did it even matter?
It was hot and cold. Burning and freezing at the same time. Maybe fading wasn´t so bad…

There wasn´t a reason to be here and endure.
Or was there?

"-and then I found you here." Takuya finished his retelling. "So got any ideas on how to get out of here?" Not that Takuya hadn´t thought of some himself, he just thought it might be better to leave the head-using part to somebody smart.
Hence he just stood around, hands behind his head watching Koichi as he was thinking. If he wasn´t good at it, why bother in the first place?

"Say, how about we just imagine us out of here?" Takuya asked after he was fed up with waiting. But Koichi shook his head.

"How do you define 'here' in that question? We might end up a few feet left or right from here. We´d need to find out where we are first."

"And how do we do that?" Takuya looked around. "I think I could even make this into my room if I wanted." To prove his point a bed, walls with various posters, a closet and a desk just popped out of the ground. "See, what I mean? We can kind of be everywhere." Hey, that wasn´t too bad. Maybe he could watch a soccer game he missed during his two week absence. Takuya imagined the stadium and the two teams. Both popped out, but they didn´t play.

"….Takuya , you're a genius!" Koichi suddenly exclaimed. Looking around and altering Takuya´s stadium to his room.

"Yeah, I knew that." …..Seriously? Was he kidding?
No, he wasn´t. That enlightened expression was not kidding.

"Mind explaining what makes me so brilliant?"

"Well, as you have demonstrated we can make everything appear, but what appears is not the real thing.
You just said that you meet with Lucemon. That alone is possible, though. But, you said it even had the same voice, right? That is impossible. Lucemon is dead. We saw Lucemon´s birth and you guys his death.

So how could the very same Lucemon appear here in a different dimension if he is dead?
It only could have been a replica from your memories. Meaning everything we see or let appear is made from our thoughts. Your try with the stadium just proved that you can´t let things appear you don´t know about."

"And?" Takuya did not understand what Koichi wanted to say. No surprise there, though.

Koichi rolled his eyes. For a second Takuya could have sworn it was Koji standing in front of him.

"Meaning, we are in a place that reproduces our thoughts to reality. What we want to happen will happen."

"And?" What had that to do with them getting out of here? Maybe if he´d let a door pop out of the ground?

"I´m saying this place is like a dream. No…it is a dream.
You said Agnimon and Vitramon had been with you, right? As well as those others. But suddenly you were all alone in this darkness, right?
My guess is that you fell asleep or something- don´t look like that; you know it´s possible- and then ended up in this dream. You also said the whirlpool was full of evil energy. It wouldn´t be far fetched to think that we´d both get trapped in our dreams then."

"Then how come you are in my dream?"

"Don´t know. Maybe it´s a Warrior thing or our Spirits had a hand in this or you are not really here and just a product of my imagination." Yeah, as if.

"I feel perfectly real." Takuya countered.

"So do I." Koichi smiled. "But that doesn´t matter, if this really is a dream we just have to wake up and then we will see who is real."

"How do we do that?"

"Don´t know. Maybe if you really believe this is a dream and then remember your alarm or something…

I think this is at least worth a try. If it doesn´t work we, you or I, whoever is real can think of something else." He had a point there. A much better one than Takuya´s ridiculous ideas. Hopefully he wouldn´t need to voice them.

"Welcome back." "Took ya long enough." "Missed me?"

Takuya opened his eyes, not sure what to expect. Agnimon had taken over during his absence and Takuya was sure he hadn´t stayed in place. It was kind of impossible considering Takuya took a free fall of WarGreymon´s shouldes into a dark abyss the last time he checked.

What Takuya saw was a rather normal situation; the Yagami siblings happily –on second thought not happily- chatting away, their Digimon adding a comment once in a while.
If Takuya could just forget the little fact that they were in a huge whirlpool accompanied by –Agnimon said so- several Demon Lords he´d think they were having a picnic.
Something moved next to him. He grinned.

"Looks like both of us were real." The other four jumped at his voice, but Koichi just held his head a painful expression on his face. He managed to smile, though.

"Looks like it." His eyes emptied for a second before he added,"But my thesis was pretty far off."

"You got the dream part right, and that is what counts." Takuya replied after Agnimon had filled him in on the situation as well.
"Sorry, by the way if Agnimon was rude or something. It´s nothing personal." He added towards 8 starring eyes. Okay, maybe it was a bit personal, but really not much….

"Takuya?" Kari asked finally. Only after her eyes got tired of staring, though.

"The one and only. This is Koichi, by the way. "He gestured towards said twin, and Koichi politely nodded in reply. Takuya was about to continue the introductions when he was interrupted by an angry snarl.

Nefertimon had retreated a few steps and took an aggressive position. Her gaze directed at Koichi.
Takuya didn´t quite get what her problem was and neither did Tai and WarGreymon; they exchanged confused looks. Koichi alone seemed to understand. He focused at his shoes, sadness in his eyes. He still hadn´t told Koichi about the whole target fiasco, so why...? He looked at the pissed monster cat. Takuya noticed that Kari´s face was pale, drained from ... fear?

"What is that boy?"Nefertimon hissed. "He is overflowing with Darkness." Oh….that was her problem. Takuya took the liberty to answer to her accusations. Koichi didn´t seem to be able yet anyway.

"There is nothing with him." Light types could be such a pain. So full of prejudice. Seeing the world only in good and evil. Koji was such a pleasant exception from that. Not that he´d ever tell him that, though. "He is just darkness. I thought I told you that already. It would be much more worrying if he didn´t have this aura about him.
And it´s not as if he´s evil." Takuya pointed out.

"Sorry to interrupt your little argument, but WarGreymon and I can´t follow your conversation." Tai glanced confused from Kari and Nefertimon to him and finally to Koichi.

"It´s nothing. The –two? - of them are just a little afraid of Koichi." Takuya explained quickly. He was not surprised at Tai´s ignorance to the subject. Only Light could feel Koichi´s Darkness. Takuya just knew about it from the beginning, he didn´t see it. And it didn´t bother him. In the worst case he could have Duskmon flashbacks.

Nefertimon hissed again. "You can´t be telling me that I have to protect that brat. I ought to destroy him and that accursed power."

"I am not telling you that, but –" Koichi stopped him by putting a hand on Takuya´s shoulder and shaking his head. He then faced Nefertimon and Kari; his eyes still sad, but Takuya spotted something like resolution in them as well.
"It´s not that I don´t understand your concern, but you seem to misunderstand. Darkness is not evil. It is –"A loud beep from both Kari´s and Tai´s D-terminals cut him off.

"You will have to put your differences aside for now-"
"-it`s not just differences!"Nefertimon protested, but Tai ignored her.
"-The others apparently have been under attack for quite some time already. WarGreymon, we will take Koichi with us and Nefertimon will take Takuya. You shouldn´t have a problem with that." Tai ordered in a voice that didn´t allow objections.
"I´m Tai, by the way." He added directed at Koichi.

-While WarGreymon and Nefertimon decedent into the whirlpool-

"Do you think they are going to be all right?"

"Sure they will, Ken. WarGreymon and Nefertimon are with them."

Eyes closed Ken shook his head. "Down there it doesn´t matter how strong a Digimon is. The Darkness completely swallows whoever gets too close."

"Who cares? They´ll be ok." Davis sat on XV-mon´s shoulder and watched as two figures were swallowed by the shadows. "And Kari is with them, too."
His heart beating a bit stronger as he remembered the brunette wave goodbye to him.

"Let´s hope you are right…."Ken didn´t sound convinced while he, too, stared down.

"Really, don´t worry about it. Let´s think more about what to do while they are down there.

When do you think we can go back to school?" Pale violet eyes blinked at him in utter disbelieve. Xv-mon lost a few feet of altitude.

"Did you just ask me when we will have to go sit in 'boring-good-for-nothing' lessons again?" Except the wind´s cries everything was silent.

"Davis, are you feeling all right? The black hole didn´t do anything strange to you, did it?" EV-mon asked unsure.

"Do you want me to check your blood pressure? " Joe offered from MetalGarurumon´s back. Davis felt his head turning red.

"What´s wrong with you guys? Can´t I ask a simple question?" His face must have reached a tomato´s color by now. Really, was it such a funny thing for him to ask? He crossed his arms and wanted to turn his back to them. It was just kind of impossible seeing how he was surrounded by the others from all sides.
"It is not…..We were just …..Surprised…."Ken started and was quickly joined by other reassurances. Davis didn´t believe them one word.

"Just for your information, I just wanted to know how much soccer training I´ll have missed!" He finally said after he had grown tired of all the excuses. "Just so that you know, I do have-"

Matt didn´t pay much attention to Davis sulking. He was busy thinking about their current situation and future dilemmas. So far they had found one and possibly a second in two weeks.
Matt reserved judgment on the thought of a Darkness child. The image of the Digimon Kaiser did cross his mind, though.
All in all the chances of finding a third one was close to zero, Matt concluded. And that did not sit well with him.
He guessed the other children were either dead or captured. Matt didn´t like to think along these lines, but he partly thought it was better if the first was the case. Dead they couldn´t be captured and used after all. Then again he had no confirmation that these Spirits died along with their 'host'. Wait...If he remembered correctly 4 didn´t have a partner in the first place. So they wouldn´t die. He sighed.
Matt hated not being able to do anything and yet he found himself only hoping that the other children were alive and free.

Matt eyes drifted down towards the beneath them not existing water surface. Beneath them was a huge black hole, but even if had hole had not been there, it was a few hundred feet down. He gazed over the blue water surface. It was deep blue and Matt saw few shadows darken the color at times. Digimon, he guessed. They sure had it easy, just letting Digidestined to take care of their problems. Not that he complained, though. He wouldn´t be half the person he was today had it not been for being Digidestind. But that didn´t stop him from wondering how even gigantic Digimon like that could just ignore or at least pay not much mind to the current crisis.
Gigantic Digimon? Matt had never seen a Digimon as huge as the shadow that was appearing beneath the surface….

Damm! "Guys! We have got company!" Instantly the tension rose and the air electrified. How could he not have noticed? No Digimon right in its mind would swim anywhere near the whirlpool.
As a huge black hourglass and hundreds of other Digimon broke through the surface Matt heard several Digimon behind him evolve.

"Matt, Joe go over to Imerialdramon, that way I can fight better." MetalGarurumon had flown close to the much bigger Mega, who had already Ken and Davis on its back.

"Yeah, be careful MatalGarurumon."

"I will." Matt watched worried as he charged towards the more and more approaching army.

"Has somebody sent a mail to Izzy and Tai?" He asked when Imperialdramon had finally collected all Digidestied. He was holding on tight as he preformed a sudden stop. Imperialdramon might be carrying all of them, but that didn´t mean he wouldn´t participate in battle. It would have been a waste.

"I did just now." Cody answered. "But it´s strange. I can´t reach Tai." Cody was typing the mail once again.

"Keep trying! We have to get out of here." He bit his lip. They might be able to hold out for some time, but defeat was eventually only a matter of time when faced with an uncountable number of Digimon. Add to that that the enemy did no longer include only dark and evil Digimon. Matt spotted several Kuwagamon, Cyberdramon and even Pidmon. Damm… that meant no less than two of the children - Wind and Light- had fallen to the enemy.

"Imperialdramon!" Davis screamed as Imperialdramon took a heavy hit by a Cyberdramon.

"I… I …" Imerialdramon´s voice made the ground –namely Imperialdramon´s back- vibrate. "I can´t….move…well."

"What do you mean you can´t move well?" Davis shouted, not because he was angry, but because his voice wouldn´t reach otherwise. "Do your best! We have to hold out until Tai and Kari return!"

"It´s no use, Davis." Matt heard Ken´s admit. "They are interfering with his movements. We have no choice but to-"

"Lilimon!" Mimi stood at the edge of Imperialdramon´s back. Swallowing Matt followed her line of sight. Lilimon was dropping. Smoke rising from her wings. She barely managed to stop her fall before she hit the water.
Now Matt wasn´t watching her anymore. He was focused on MetalGarurumon. He was partly a light type. And indeed his movements were slower than they were supposed to be. Matt gasped as a Devimon landed a hit.

"We have to retreat." Ken finished his sentence.

"We can´t. Or are you saying we should abandon Tai?" Matt didn´t hear Davis protest against Ken´s suggestion. He watched with growing fear how MetalGarurumon tried to fend off several Devimon, Megadramon and a MetallFantomon.

"Matt!" He didn´t turn around. He didn´t dare to take his eyes off MetalGarurumon.

"You are glowing!" He finally turned around; MetalGarurumon was doing better. All eyes were directed at him, but he didn´t get as far as too take a look at himself.

"Davis!"
Said junior was shining in sparkling orange and blue. "Huh?" Dumbstruck Davis followed now everyone's eyes. "I´m glowing! Check this out! This is so cool!" By now Matt had time to notice that he was radiating the same blue as Davis. He pulled out his crest. Matt didn´t need to be a genius to figure that it was the source.

"Mimi! You too!"Sora exclaimed and this time everyone stared at Mimi. She was green.

"And TK, too." TK was yellow. "Joe, is grey." TK continued. "And Ken violet." At the same time Impreialdramonn suddenly increased his speed. "I can move again." He reported.

"Maybe…"Sora mused"…the crests are protecting us from the elemental influence? That would explain why only Yolei´s and my crest isn´t glowing. Garudamon and Aquilamon are fire types."

Matt returned to watch the battlefield; it immediately proved Sora right. The battle was still far from in their favor, but at least their Digimon weren´t getting beaten by far weaker Digimon anymore.

"I just got through to Tai." Cody announced after a while. "He says they have completed the mission and are returning now."

"Good." Matt replied and faced the others. "Cody, forward Tai´s message to Izzy. He´ll prepare a gate for us."

"Yeah! We have hold out a little longer. Don´t let them get us now!" Davis added and everyone road in agreement.
Matt smiled and loked onto MetallGarurumon.

He had just dodged a Grave Scream from MetallFantomon and launched himself at his opponent, sinking his teeth into MetalFantomon´s bones. MetalGarurumon retreated as an Icedevimon shot an attack at his rear. He couldn´t go all out. Not as long he didn´t know who sided with them voluntary and who not. Matt bit his lip and clenched his hands to fists. It was frustrating.

Matt lost sight of MetallGarurumon when Imperialdramon evaded an attack with a barrel roll and shot his own in counter. He only scratched the enemies, though.

The battle continued like that for some time. Not killing the enemy and trying not to get killed in the process. While all Digimon were still in battle they had tiered a good deal and lost a huge amount of ground. The Digidestined had been pushed back from above the whirlpool to the water surface. The current combat zone was at the whirlpools edge. Zudomon had been fighting there the whole time, keeping their escape route free. Now he retreated even further; no longer able to fight the water current and an opponent at the same time.

"WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE, YOU BASTARDS?" The angry yell drew Matt´s –and most likely many enemy´s- attention towards the whirlpool. WarGreymon and Nefertimon had exited it and were attempting to leave the battle field. Matt recognized the voice as Takuya´s. He saw him sitting on Nefertimon´s back and struggle against Kari who seemed to hold him in place. Matt didn´t know what had agitated him that much and even less what Takuya planned on doing if he got free of Kari´s hold; there was only water below them. But Matt saw even from distance that he was furious. Takuya wasn´t on fire like he was before, however his body language told as much as an angry fire would.

Matt looked over to Tai only to see him restrain a boy with black hair. He couldn´t see much more from distance, he felt the Darkness radiating from him, though.

In case you didn´t notice, I have no idea if digimon really do have elements (besides the obvious ones) and if there is a side listing them. If there is either of the two please let me know. Otherwise i´m just going to make the attributes up. xd

Please review again.:)