chapter 16: to live

Lowemon´s muscles were aching and his head spinning, but he forced his legs to keep moving. As long as Phelesmon was still standing, he was going to fight. Raising his arm, Lowemon materialized his shield just in time to block a stab and absorb the thrust. Struggling a following new wave of nausea down, he growled.
Phelesmon kept changing his weapon from a middle-ranged whip to a close-range trident. The nerve of it; assuming that such a cheap trick could hurt him. Him, Darkness. Lowemon pushed its trident backwards, dematerialized his shield and purred Darkness in his spear with both hands and wasted not a second in pursuing Phelesmon as it jumped away from him and changed its trident to a whip. But Lowemon didn´t plan on allowing it to put the changed weapon to use.

Lowemon dashed after it, not noticing how more of his own blood spluttered to the dark floor. He wouldn´t have cared either way.

Tommy knew now what seemed off about Lowemon´s battle.
Lowemon was fighting to kill. While that itself wasn´t wrong the way he did most certainly was. Lowemon usually doesn´t attack head on. Lowemon counters. Lowemon waits for the enemy to make mistakes, uses them to finish quickly. Lowemon does not create openings forcefully. Right now it was Lowemon´s body that was fighting and that was all.

Tommy shuddered. Fascinated and disturbed by the wrongness that was Lowemon at the same time.

If this continued Lowemon was going to fall more sooner than later. Currently he was not like Darkness at all. As Darkness he couldn´t just not be elusive. That was like making Ice liquid; it wouldn´t be ice anymore. The contradiction that Lowemon created of himself was weakening him, taking away the advantage of the dark element, draining his energy with useless movements and slowly overshadowing his sanity.

Even if Tommy couldn´t do anything else, he definitely could help Lowemon. He had planned to do so anyway.

Chakkumon was too small and light, so Tommy dug deeper; to the simpler, rawer ice.

He stepped few feet away from the other boy, who was paying almost no attention to his surroundings and called upon the ice inside of him. He ignored the lingering feeling of dread, fear and regret that crept to the surface.

He gazed Phelesmon´s side with his stab and drew violet blood. Lowemon would have smiled, but he was too busy fighting the blackness that threatened to overtake him and make him loose. Again he tightened his hold on his spear, again not feeling his own red blood draw fine lines on it as it ran from his arms down his hands onto the spear and making it slippery.

Phelesmon backflipped from him, this time more careful to not give Lowemon another opening as it put distance between the two of them. He didn´t mind, because he dropped his weapon and let it disappear before it even touched the ground to gather energy quickly.

With a fluid motion he crossed his arms and released the deadly energy immediately; just as Phelesmon´s heels connected with the ground.

This time his Endlich Meteor was going to hit. There was no way it could doge; Lowemon had aimed perfectly and timed it just right that at the moment of impact Phelesmon´s muscles would be too busy absorbing its weight from landing to evade the incoming blast. He could almost see its bloody body at his feet; dead.
Right served justice and bitter satisfaction made him already forget just what he had to do to reach that goal and left a bittersweet taste.

But the future vision burst when Phelesmon just dropped down to the floor, letting Lowemon´s yellow energy pass harmlessly over its head; a sick twisted expression in its eyes.

Lowemon so badly wanted to curse and destroy the sick creature on the ground. And that thought blocked everything else out.

With newfound energy Lowemon dashed forward, anger and frustration drawing their source in clear focus. He jumped and steered his leg upward, fully intending to smash Phelesmon´s head with a dropkick.
Phelesmon rolled to the side; again evading death by a hair, but Lowemon wasn´t done yet. As his enemy prepared a counterattack while standing up he punched; surprising Phelesmon with the unexpected move. Still, it wasn´t enough when Phelesmon seemingly easy caught Lowemon´s fist with a claw before reaching out with its whip and twirling it around Lowemon´s neck. But the frozen claw had given a sickening crack.

His awareness too dimmed by the growing blackness and anger from yet another failed attack Lowemon didn´ t even notice his free arm moving on its own and getting in between his neck and Phelesmon´s weapon; giving him room to breath. Blinded, he didn´t see how the battle was developing.
Panting heavily and hard Lowemon had no mind to spare to the fact that he had been as good as dead not even a second ago. He clenched his jaw and prepared to fire another wave, oblivious to Phelesmon´s wide, gleeful and triumphant smile.

He didn´t shoot.

His and Phelesmon´s head whipped around to the side to the formerly seemingly innocent observers.

No.

No!

But it was already too late. Ice was covering Tommy´s small stature, creating a sharp contrast to the black room. And now Lowemon felt that the temperature had dropped; his breath came in white clouds and his blood, spluttered all over the ground, had frozen hard. NO!

The sphere of ice with Tommy inside of it seemed to pulse, but Lowemon knew that instead of pulsing it was growing, with each heartbeat another thick layer of white ice was added and told Lowemon that more space was needed still, before Tommy´s new body was allowed to emerge from his evolution. Blizzarmon.

NO!

Tommy shouldn´t have to. He didn´t need to. Why would he do that?

Because he didn´t know. Tommy didn´t know about the price. Or the strain.

And because he, Lowemon, hadn´t been there. Because he had lost himself in lust for blood and vengeance.

Too soon a loud crack echoed through the dark dome and ripped Phelesmon back to the battle at hand.

Kari dried some sweat with her sleeve and with the light provided by her D-Terminal she made out her slowly changing surroundings again.

Some time ago the canyon had collapsed and buried the Chosen Children and their partners in it.
She had been right next to Takuya –or Agnimon- when it happened which was why she found herself in a hollow space big enough to contain perhaps 3 people if squashed together. When it happened she was alone with Takuya and Gatomon who had devolved to not be crushed by all the rocks from above and who had yet managed to protect her from all the bigger stones as well and secure them a space not as dangerous as everywhere else.

As soon as the noise of falling rocks had stopped Kari had dug out her D-Terminal, sent a message and inspected her situation. She had yet to receive a reply, but she told herself that it was because there was no reception, and not because none of the others survived.

Kari had almost no recollection of the collapse, but she was almost sure she had seen AtlurKabuterimon cover some of her friends. So they couldn´t be dead. Surely they were all alive and relatively save. And with Izzy and Joe with them they had it better than her, who was alone with her partner and a boy.

All in all her situation hadn´t been all that bad in the beginning, but now it was different.

Somehow water was leaking through the ripples in the stones beneath her and had already filled half of the entire hole up to her waist. She had lifted an unconscious Takuya up on a higher rock with some effort, but alone his presence had heated the water to an uncomfortable temperature, however more than that he was burning up. Not literally this time, though.
His skin was hot, overly so, his breath was shallow and he was sweating. Had it only been for the temperature she would have guessed it had something to do with his element and not worried, but together with the other symptoms Kari had no choice but to think that he was ill with a fever.

Moreover the air was running out. She could only guess with her inexperience with such a situation, but she guessed they had another fifteen minutes.

Kari saved the air of a sigh and instead spent her time thinking about how to get out as long as her brain was still working.

As far as she could see they had two options. One was to slowly dig her was up and hope that on the way she would either meet her friends or that her digging didn´t endanger them.
The other option was digging downwards, hoping to find the underground river Izzy had been talking about and where the water was likely to come from. The downside of that direction was that it was an underground river with no guarantee for an exit within 3 minutes time. Plus she would have to take Takuya and Gatomon with her, seeing how both were unable to swim.

Waiting for rescue was not possible simply because there was none to do the rescuing. Cody and Koichi had been far away in the fortress in dire need of help themselves and everyone else was buried together with her below who knows how much rubble.

Kari searched for Gatomon´s eyes before she remembered that now, when she had her D-Terminal deactivated to save battery, she couldn´t see. It was depressing and she felt panic trying to overtake her. She quickly squashed it with desperation.

Speaking was no good because it needed more air so Kari and Gatomon had agreed to not do so if possible.

But Kari had decided what to do now and Gatomon needed to know.

"I´m going to try to dig upwards. Can you help me?"

Since she didn´t get a reply Kari guessed that yes, Gatomon was going to help and no, Gatomon had no objections. Kari was thankful for that because she desperately needed something to do. She didn´t want to think of the odds of her brother´s and all the others´ survival or even her own for that matter. And more than anything she didn´t want to die doing nothing.

Kari slid her hand over the bricks and rocks over her head, carefully removed a small stone and dropped it in the water to her feet.

The crack had been unnatural and too early. Tommy´s sphere hadn´t reached Blizzarmon´s size by far.

But even before that Lowemon had expected it. Blizzarmon was the Beast Sprit and Tommy had no idea of what he had gotten himself into when he had started his evolution. So Lowemon had prepared fanatically; to do it right this time, to not forget again. To restrain his feeling of worthlessness.
In the few seconds he had between realizing and hearing the sign Lowemon had gathered his energy; faking to still care only about drawing his opponents blood.

So now, when he had Phelesmon´s attention again he shot. Not caring that Phelesmon expected and dodged it.
Lowemon used the chance to slip out of the whip´s hold, using the space his hand had bought him on its own, and ran towards the sidelines where those he had been supposed to protect were.

Lowemon saw Cody holding Armadimon protectively in his arms and his eyes jumping between the place where Tommy had been, him and Phelesmon behind his back, who, judging by the outraged cry, just noticed that its opponent was fleeing. While he ran Lowemon gathered energy again. Energy, which this time was absolutely in tune with its element.

Lowemon hardly focused on that, though. He had his eyes on the icy sphere and the crack that split it in half. He watched almost captured by the beauty of the collapsing shell, how it fell apart and revealed an unconscious Tommy.

Lowemon ignored the nagging and squashing feeling of guilt and instead picked both up and continued running ahead, gathering energy and hoping that he was strong enough, that the fortress had potential to be elusive enough, to let them escape.

They couldn´t die, especially he wasn´t allowed to. Never ever if he had a say in it.

With his emotions all strained worrying about Armadimon Cody hardly had anything left to fear when the Digimon that had once been Koichi picked him and the other boy up and ran directly towards the next wall. The Digimon made no attempt to slow down, stop or change directions. Instead he ran straight for it.

Cody had no time to react or even feel when the Digimon shot an attack from his chest at the wall. He had no idea what he was supposed to feel anyway. Relieve, because hopefully the situation was changing for the better or fear, because everything was just so confusing.
The attack had no effect, on contrary the wall seemed to absorb it, and Cody half way expected the Digimon to stop running then, turn back to fight and reopen the bloody battle. But even then Cody couldn´t have despaired more.
Armadimon was dying and nothing could make the situation worse.

Instead of stopping, however the Digimon pressed both him and the other boy protectively closer to his chest before jumping right at the wall.

Cody only noticed that his eyes had closed when the impact he expected didn´t come and he opened them to find out what had happened. Cody didn´t see a thing. He was positive he had opened his eyes but he still didn´t see anything. Everything was black around him, he still felt the Digimon carry him and he knew he was moving because of cold air brushing over his skin. Tightening his arms around Armadimon more to reassure himself that he was still with him and that he hadn´t passed out he waited.

Only having the air - that had become rather cold- move against him convinced Cody that they were still moving. He had no idea how long they had been in that absolute darkness, it could have been seconds or hours with no means to mess time, but it had been long enough for him to notice that the air wasn´t air at all. It felt almost liquid, yet it wasn´t water either because he could still breath.

A minor part of his brain registered that his surroundings had become so cold that he was freezing and that the darkness was lifted enough to allow him to see Koichi had he looked away from Armadimon just once.

Only when he was dropped in overwhelming brightness and cold Cody finally managed to rip his eyes of his partners still form.

And his first thought was that he´d rather be back inside the black dome with Phelesmon than where he was now.

Cody saw white, white snow as far as he could look. Cold air was cutting in his skin now and he pressed Armadimon closer to his chest to make absolutely sure that he wouldn´t lose him while he fell hundreds of feet from the fortress to the ground. He knew that it wouldn´t matter, though at this height.
From the corner of his eye he saw both Koichi and the other boy falling as well, both unconscious.

The whiteness on the ground was disturbed by countless moving dots, some closer and some farther away and with shock he realized that those Digimon were all were the only Digimon of the army that were currently present, but he had no sense to think if that was good or bad. He had however irrational hope; since the dots on the ground weren´t rocks the snow could be high enough to make them survive.

The rational part of Cody´s mind was long since gone.

After some tries he managed to turn his body around so that his back was the first limb to make contact with the ground and Armadimon, pressed to his chest, the last.

Cody never felt an impact.

Tai chose not to move.

For one he was pretty sure he didn´t have enough space to do so and he wasn´t convinced that his bones were in any condition to move, lastly he didn´t move because he was protecting Koromon; Koromon who had devolved trying to protect him.

He had done his job by assuring that Tai wasn´t crushed by debris and now it was Tai´s job to care about Koromon.

Every once in a while Tai heard him whimper and it hurt him more than his own wounds that he wasn´t able to soother Koromon´s pain, but Tai simply didn´t dare move. If he did he was pretty sure that the rocks were going to collapse and bury them more alive than they already were. So all he did was whisper reassurances, no matter how empty they were.

But it still hurt; not knowing the extent of his partner´s injuries, not knowing if Koromon was going to survive, fearing for his friends.

He hated this.

What was he supposed to do?

Chibimon sniffled and poked the human who was together with him in this dark place again. He still didn´t say anything. Davis would normally have snapped at him thirty pokes ago. So why wasn´t he waking up?

Chibimon couldn´t see, but he had smelled Davis the second he came to. And Minomon too. But Davis hadn´t moved at all. Chibimon heard his breathing and knew he was alive, but Davis still didn´t wake up.

Davis had never been able to ignore his nudging for so long. Davis always woke up after at least ten times, nag at Chibimon for waking him up and then try to sleep some more. But now he didn´t. And Davis wouldn´t sleep now in the first place. Because now Chibimon was almost crying and Minomon was here and Ken wasn´t, and Kari wasn´t either.

Why didn´t Davis wake up? Chibimon needed him. Everyone needed him. And Chibimon´s tears dropped, but Davis still didn´t respond.

For all his brilliance Izzy couldn´t help thinking that sometimes being too smart was unhealthy for the mind. He was thinking and visualizing the best possible ways to escape their predicaments, but he still had brain cells left to calculate the survival of Tai, Agumon, Kari, Gatomon, Davis, V-mon, Wormmon and Takuya and compare his results with statistics he had seen, even though it wasn´t time for that at all.

AtlurKabutrerimon was holding up debris –one part of Izzy´s mind wanted to find out just how much- and created a relatively huge cave for Izzy, Sora, Yolei, TK and their partners.
After some digging in the right direction, with AtlurKabuterimon still providing them with a lot of space to act and the tracing program for Digivices on his laptop he and few others had been able to dig Matt and Tsunomon, Ken, Joe and Pukamon, Mimi and Tanemon out. They were all hurt, wounded, and some had broken bones or weren´t even conscious.
Joe was out for one and so they had no means to treat anything. Ken wasn´t up to talking or thinking for that matter, because even with what little light they had Izzy could see Ken was green with worry.

More over the air was getting thin and he could feel his brain shout down every unneeded train of thoughts and calculations. That was the most pressing problem.
When either he himself lost consciousness or AtlurKabuterimon ran out of energy they were dead. Devolving equaled collapse of their cave equaled death. Hence he had to hurry with his planning.

Izzy had received no message from the still-missing, but he tried not to let it bother him. Since his tracker couldn´t trace the other devices it was highly unlikely to think that any other form of communication got through all the rocks. He had sent a message to them and Gennai, though.

Izzy looked around and saw the others sitting and leaning for support. Seeing his friends like that he again felt the lack of air robbing him of energy to think, but at the same time he redoubled his efforts.

Because there was no way they were going to die like this. He wouldn´t let them die just because he couldn´t think of a way out. It was impossible. And how was he supposed to face Tai –because the goggle headed leader was definitely alive- if he gave up? And the others were relying on him. And they were not going to die.

"Let´s start digging upwards."

Chapter for March. :)

I almost feel bad for making such a cliffhanger, but well...hopefully that will motivate me to write. There was almost no dialogue in this chapter and that felt somewhat weird, but it won´t happen again in the next chapter.

For possible future references, does anyone know a name of the Digidestined´s classmates? If not i just might end up making them up if needed. xd

As always please review and thanks for last chapter´s.