Chapter 17: Recovery

Garmmon=GendoGarurumon

Wolfmon=Lobomon

Murmukusmon = Murmuxmon

Koichi found himself in a familiar place.

Around him he felt his friends´ lives fading as soon as he arrived; his anger and sadness bubbled to the surface of his mind immediately. He was in the stupid pillar room; the one he had escaped form just some time ago; captured in a Darkness that was not wide at all. A stupid feeling of déjà vu got him on edge; Koichi knew that he had been right where he was now once before. It unsettled him. He knew he had left his own body to take Koji´s place in his, because he felt Wolfmon and Garmmon with him instead of Lowemon and KaiserLeomon and a very faint presence at the back of his mind that symbolized Koji´s way of returning as well as Koichi´s safety line. So how come he was familiar with it?

Pushing this thoughts away for later Koichi prioritized. Like Koji had said he found himself unable to move, he tried to, but the material around him didn´t budge; apparently even if he was Darkness it didn´t mean a thing if he was in light´s body. It was quite a bit frustrating, but he took a mental calming breath. Seeing how he couldn´t do a thing he decided to turn his attention inward and fill Light´s Spirits in as to what was happening. Their connection, unlike with his own Spirits was much more based on words.

All the while he couldn´t shake the feeling that he had been here before, tough.

The first thing Izzy did when he woke up after confirming that Mochimon was all right in his special, baby sized bed by his side was to look for his laptop and check his mails. Since they hadn´t taken it away from him, Izzy guessed that he was allowed to use it in this hospital, too. Or at least he hoped. Izzy tried to be as quiet as possible. His mother was sleeping in a chair, even though the sun was high and he shared a room with TK, Ken and Matt, but no one but him was awake. Considering that, he was vaguely surprised that only his mother was present, but then, he reasoned, that their parents might be taking shifts or were talking with doctors and the like.

He didn´t wake his mother, even though he wanted to talk to her so dearly and apologize for worrying her. His near death experience still fresh in his bones, he remembered all the things he regretted back then when he thought he was going to die. His mother was at the very top of that list. He hadn´t thanked her nearly enough for everything. But he let her sleep even if it was only to push his feeling to the back of his mind where he could spare a little part of his brain to sort them out and put them into order.

As a computer genius he wasn´t all that comfortable with dealing with unstructured things; he was ashamed to admit that spontaneous feelings belonged to that category. So while his PC was still starting –its energy was full and he had to remember to thank his mother for it- his brain was already up and working and going into overdrive.

He hoped Gennai had sent him a message to explain things. Otherwise he was going to get all itchy until he found out; meaning till Gennai had the sense to answer Izzy´s million questions from the mail he was sure to send if Gennai hadn´t already prepared and mailed while Izzy had been still asleep.

How long had he been sleeping anyway? What day was it? And of course how did they get here? Who saved them?

Luckily for him or Gennai, depending on who asked, Izzy had indeed received a mail, but just looking at the size he knew it was way too little to answer all his questions. And really, it only contained a shot message, informing him that -based on Izzy´s theory about the weakening dimension barriers - Gennai had forcefully opened gates with the help of their Digivices, and a note that analyzing his Digivice might give some answers about the process that Gennai didn´t answer to yet or doesn't have the answer to either, because he was really busy; getting them out of the Digiworld had given a lot of Digimon the opportunity to leave as well and he and his team were busy now explaining the appearance of Digimon all round the world to the governments and sorting the Digimon into enemy and friend.

Izzy almost didn´t notice it, because his mind was reeling with possibilities, scenarios and theories about what was happening and what was going to happen, but Gennai had written a short PS; All three, Takuya, Tommy and Koichi had evolved, it said.

About Takuya he had already known, but back during the battle he had tried not to remember to what price it came. Thinking about it now it left a bitter after taste in his mouth. If Takuya and Koichi hadn´t forced him to promise not to tell anyone except Gennai about the cost of evolving without their Digivice and repeatedly told him that it didn´t matter, he would never have come up with the plan. Tai would never have agreed either, but both boys had wanted him to think rationally about the possibilities their power provided and the fiasco yesterday – he found out after looking at the date on his laptop- had been the result.

And a fiasco it had been. Their situation hadn´t been that bad until the canyon collapsed. Why did it anyway? It had been relatively stable and even if a stray blast would have hit the walls it shouldn´t have collapsed completely. It was like its foundation had disappeared.

That demanded research. And what about Phelesmon? Had it finally died or did it survive even that. It shouldn´t, but Izzy decided not to rely on it. That Phelesmon had been doing stuff that it shouldn´t be able to ever since they first met it.

He scrolled through his Digianalyzer. What about Takuya? He still hadn´t finished Agnimon´s profile. How was he anyway?

And Tai- Oh god, Tai. He remembered faintly having seen him when they arrived, but Izzy didn´t know his condition. He only had a small feeling telling him that what he had seen had been bad. What about Davis? Kari? Gatomon, V-mon, Worrmon, Koromon? Cody, Armadimon and Koichi? What had happened on their side? How did they save Tomoki? What about-

The sound of the door being opened quietly interrupted his thoughts. Mrs. Ichijouji entered, careful not to disturb her son. Only after she had confirmed that Ken was indeed still sleeping, she quietly closed the door behind her and let her eyes drift around the room. She caught sight of him, met his eyes, and her face lit up, but before she could say anything Izzy lifted a finger to his lips gesturing towards his still sleeping mother.

Mrs. Ichijouji nodded, walked over to Ken, gently brushed a hair out of his face before making her way over to him.

Izzy had one of the two beds near the window side of the room, while Matt and Ken were the closed ones to the door. He was just wondering if the arrangements of beds were an indicator of the seriousness of the patient´s condition, when Mrs. Ichijouji took the last free chair near him and sat down.

"Izzy, dear, how are you?" She always used endearing words with them.

"Quite good actually," he whispered back, "the bandages are bothersome, though. I can´t move as I want."

She smiled a little and Izzy noticed she had dark rings under her eyes. How long had she been awake? And what about his mother?

"But never mind that." He said, his voice rising a little in alarm. "How are the others? I remember that Tai and Davis looked pretty bad. And what about Ken?" The last question he added almost as an afterthought. He had come to the conclusion, that the ones in this room weren´t hurt too badly, deep scratches at most. There was no medical equipment to say otherwise, but it was simply polite to ask.

"Ken is fine, thank you; he just needs sleep, dear." This time he really noticed how tired she sounded and her face lost the smile with every other word she said. "Kari has a light fever and most of the others are only little worse off than you.
Tai and Davis are the ones hurt worst. Both have heavy concussions, Davis has a broken arm and several bruised rips, while Tai has some of them broken. Davis suffered from blood loss, but he got a transfusion and should wake up, but he has a fractured leg. Tai on the other hand has sustained some damage to his spine. For a while they didn´t know if he was ever going to be able to walk again." She looked at him and quickly forced a reassuring expression. "They said he isn´t going to have any lasting damage." Izzy released a breath he had started holding somewhere along the line and remembered something he had missed by Ken´s bed.

"Where is Wormmon?"

"I was told a few Gennais took him, Koromon and Armadimon with them. One of them is still here, but he won´t answer our questions and only says that they will return them as soon as possible." She sighed and Izzy had the faint impression that she was close to tears. He felt vaguely uncomfortable. "I wanted to thank him for always and especially now protecting Ken; I can´t bear to think that Ken could have been hurt as much as Davis." Izzy decided that it would be best not to point out that Wormmon had not been buried with them.

They fell to silence and his eyes drifted over to Mochimon. AtlurKabuterimon had saved them. Without him who knows how many more would be in conditions similar to Tai. Or how many would be dead.

Izzy never noticed when he fell asleep.

Davis´ head hurt. A lot. Even without opening his eyes he just wanted to drift back to sleep. He tried, but the longer he did the more he was annoyed by quiet sniffles and he reasoned that they were what woke him up in the first place.

He cracked an eye open and immediately regretted it when white light pierced his brain. He groaned. The sniffling stopped.

"Davish?"

He groaned again. The voice was way too high, but at the same time he had to move and show the voice that he was there. Because now he recognized the sniffles as Chibimon´s. Why was he sad? Davis had to stop it.

He fully opened both eyes and let his gaze drift around. Everything was a blur, but he saw a blue mass at the corner of his vision.

"Chibi-…mon?" His voice cracked and he hated how tired speaking made him.

"Davish!" Davis already felt a headache coming; Chibimon´s voice wasn´t exactly soothing.

"Chibimon, don´t. He is hurt." Davis knew that voice as well, but it took him a second to connect the more pleasant voice with a brown dot, which translated to his sister. Anyway, her presence meant that he could relax the muscles he had strained in preparation for a well meant hug attack from Chibimon.

He blinked once and brought the room into focus, tried sitting up with vigor he usually only displayed when getting away from teachers and immediately wanted to get out, thank you very much. He hated hospitals. They were too clean, he had to be quite and usually his presence in one was thanks to one injury or another and was more often than not painful, but sadly his energy was not enough to even lift his head.

"Jun?"

"Yes?" Davis heard worry in her voice and it lightly creeped him out. As a rule Jun was not worried about him. She nagged, bothered, complained and was angry with him, but she never showed her own fears. It made him wonder just what had happened to him. The last thing he remembered was…. He was at school… and Takuya and Koichi had landed in their class… and Takuya had evolved- that was so cool!- …and-

He bolted upright and looked around panicked.

"Davis?" She was holding Chibimon on her lap while she sat on a chair next to him in front of a window. He saw his own reflection in it; with bandages around his head, his arm in a sling and several more offending white bandages were glaring around his neck and out from under his hospital robes.

It really was a hospital.

His eyes immediately locked on to Chibimon. Chibimon had few band-aids plaster all over his body but otherwise seemed fine. He had been so afraid after Imperialdramon devolved and Chibimon got buried under some stones. Davis had dug him out though, right? Urgh… Not so much. If his memory was anything to go by they were getting buried deep under rocks of all sizes. So how had he got here? But way more importantly-

"Where are the others?"

"In their own rooms." That means-

"They are all save?"

"They are almost all better than you."

"Almost?" Fear gripped his heart, thinking back to the collapsing canyon.

"Tai still hasn´t woken up last time I heard." Davis stopped breathing, but he forced himself to speak anyway.

"But he will?"

"Yeah, they expected both you and him to wake up sometime today. "

"That´s good." He let go of the air he still had left in his lungs. He held his one left arm out to Chibimon, seeing how his right was by no means in condition to be moved. Jun let go of him rather reluctantly, eying Davis´ arm and other bandages. He ignored her and let Chibimon crawl onto his bed with loud exclamations of how happy he was and how scary a not moving Davis had been and how he didn´t like hospitals ´cause they smelled funny. Davis smiled, scratched his partner's chin to shut him up and returned his attention to Jun.

"So how am I?"

"You tell me."

"I feel great." Hopefully that wasn´t thanks to painkillers. "Just maybe a little tired." She nodded.

"Then don´t try moving. I heard your rips and leg are broken or something." She smirked. "I don´t think you are going to be able to outrun your fanclubs like that, though. Did you know that in the three days you guys have been here the hospital had to open a special room just for all the get well flowers and presents."

He groaned. "Do I have to work through all of them?" Something similar had happened once before when he had landed himself in the hospital as a result of soccer training. It took him forever to sort out presents from the people he knew and from those he didn´t. He didn´t even want to think about all the thank-you cards he had to write back then.

"Be grateful. Mom and I and other parents didn´t have anything better do while waiting, so that is taken care of. In your case I wouldn´t go anywhere near the lobby or exit, though. Every time I come here from school you´d think the press and fans laid siege to the hospital or something. And don´t get me started on school. Even I can hardly walk to the next class."

"Sucks to be you." She threw him a skeptical look.

"I´d rather deal with all that now than later. Just imagine what is going to happen when you go back to school."

He shuddered. "I´d rather not."

"Thought so."

They sat for a while in silence, before Davis remembered two different things.

"Jun?"

"Hmm?"

"Where is Hopmon?" The violet, yellow drop like Digimon was his sister's partner and usually inseparable from her.

"At home. They didn´t want any more Digimon here."

"Oh…And Jun?

"What?"

"I´m hungry."

Yolei was unable to focus as she sat in Tai´s room together with the other Chosen Children sans Takuya´s ever growing group. They hadn´t woken up yet, even though their wounds were in pretty good condition, Harry had told them. He said there wasn´t anything they could do other than waiting and told them not to worry saying that evolving always took a lot of energy.

She still found that part absolutely amazing, though, but she was also glad that she herself didn´t have to evolve. It had looked painful.

It was the fourth day since their partly successful mission. She wouldn´t call it that though. 100% of them had landed in the hospital and there had been close calls for humans and Digimon alike.

Her eyes drifted to Upamon, who was unable to move because of all the special bandages Gennai had put on him. Upamon had been the closest. Then Koromon and finally Minomon. They all looked more like white ballons than Digimon and she would have found it funny had the situation not been so serious.

Tai was also the only one who was still forbidden from moving which was why they were holding the first meeting in his room. It was much smaller than the one she shared with Kari, Sora and Mimi and his bed was the only one in it, not counting Koromon´s. There was hardly enough space to fit all eleven chairs.

It was early morning and no parents were visiting yet so they only had to bring eight chairs. There was no way their parents would let them hold a meeting. Everyone knew that.
She had picked one near the window because she had been one of the first to arrive. It was winter and still dark outside at this time, but she didn´t mind; Yolei liked watching the few stars that were visible from a city.

During the days previous to this meeting they all had been filled in up to date including how they got from their grave to a hospital still breathing and what had happened to the infiltration team.

Yolei really wouldn´t call it a success.

Right now they were discussing how the canyon had collapsed in the first place since it really bothered Izzy. She didn´t see why. Birds fly and canyons collapse.

So once again her eyes were pulled to Ken. They hadn´t been able to talk alone yet and she really didn´t mind. She had to think about her feelings and Ken had his mind full with Minomon; they might be dating, but that didn´t mean that they weren´t their own person. Just the thought of her dating him, however, sent butterflies in her stomach on a marathon. She wanted to spend way more time with him.

Suddenly he raised his eyes and met her stare. He smiled at her, but his heart wasn´t in it. That was no good.

With new found determination she tried paying attention. The sooner they got this over with the sooner she could make him smile again.

"We have to wait for information from Gennai, but I really think the collapse was caused by outside influence. I´ll bring this point back up then." It appeared Izzy was just summarizing their discussion. Lucky; she missed the pointless stuff.

"Looking at Cody´s report, it is quite obvious that we made a mistake with the upper part of the enemy´s command. Seeing how at least one Phelesmon was in danger of deletion means, that one, maybe both of them are expendable. Not to mention that we didn´t even know there were two in in the first place." Izzy explained it all in a dead voice, one that suggested he didn´t want to think about possible implications and Yolei could only agree. Just how many commanders had the stupid thing and who was more than a henchman?

"Are you sure?" Yolei looked at Tai, who in turn was watching Izzy. A frown on his face.

"Sure about what, Tai?"

"About the Phelesmon. Who said there was more than one? I thought it was strange, you see. Our Phelesmon should have been deleted when Angewomon hit it and when it burned in Agnimon´s flames, but since it didn´t, I thought that maybe it wasn´t a Phelesmon we were dealing with."

Izzy gaped at him. The sight was really funny.

"And just what was it supposed to be if not a Phelesmon?" Matt asked. "I don´t know about you, but I only know one devil costume wearing Digimon."

Tai rolled his eyes. "Same here, but in case you forgot, there was supposed to be a Murmukusmon in the enemy lines."

"Your point?"

"Gosh, Tai, you´re right!" Izzy exclaimed, braking out of his stare. "That would explain so much. Why it wasn´t killed by Angewomon, even how it managed to catch up to Matt and MetalGarurumon. It had been there from the very beginning. And it got our guard down, pretending to be an Ultimate instead of a Mega." He hacked at his computer; ignoring everyone's confusion.

"That would explain everything," he mumbled under his breath. Yolei heard him despite sitting at the other and of the room.

"Look here," he turned his laptop around so that the all could see a card of the Digital World he had put on screen, "this was where Matt found Takuya and escaped from one Phelesmon. Here is the TV and here," he pointed at two different places, "was the most recent attack of the fortress before Matt contacted me. As you can see the distance from fortress to TV is shorter, so it should have been no problem to beat Matt to it, especially if they really got something like a short distance teleportation system."

"Teleportation system?" Yolei didn´t even want to think about what trouble that meant. She had to have heard wrong. She only needed confirmation.

Izzy nodded grimly. No, please no. "That, or something similar it the only explanation to make it possible for the army to appear so suddenly without a trace, and Cody´s report describes something similar to teleporting. And we also mustn´t forget that this enemy comes from a different dimension. Who knows what kind of technology they have?" This was too much. Just what else could possibly make their odds worse? If only they could get rid of the leader or if they could get just get Takuya´s group away from them. Yolei saw her own desperation mirrored in her friends faces.

The silence was heavy and depressing.

"Davish?" She heard Chibimon whisper. The little bound of energy had been stuck to Davis ever since he awoke. "What is 'telepotashion'?" Some other Digimon perked up as well.

"It´s if you can disappear from one point in one second and appear far away at the same time." Davis explained monotone.

"And the bad guys can do that?"

"Mmm."

"That´s bad, right?"

"Right."

"Oh." Davis´ voice didn´t have any life in it at all.

Izzy coughed once and then continued with a forced steady voice. "Now, the next point is that we need to get rid of all the Digimon that escaped during the time the gate lockdown was canceled. Some of the Digimon have partners and we are requested to deliver them to their partner´s home or sent them back to the DigiWorld by the local governments.

The enemy Digimon that slipped through have been mobbed by Chosen Children and are more or less under control. There is a lot of damage, though. And we still need to send them back. We can do that as soon as Chibimon and Minomon feel up to it."

Izzy looked up from his laptop with a serious look in his eyes. Yolei smelled more trouble. It was his I've-got-bad-news look. But seriously, what else could be happening?

"The real problem is, however, -besides the ones in the Digiworld- that the wall between the Digital and Real world has gotten thinner and locking down all gates no longer is enough to prevent drifts. So from now on Digimon are going to start popping up all around the world and –"

"-our working hours increase?"

Izzy nailed Davis with a look. "It isn´t that simple. We can´t predict who or when a Digimon is going to show up. Or how many for that matter or how. In the worst case the army will invade and the real world is going to become a battle field." He sighed. "I know I´ve already said it often enough, but we really don´t have time. The longer we wait, the higher is the possibility and damage to the Digital world. And to win we need to get Takuya´s group out of that accursed fortress."

"Speaking of Takuya, what was that Digimon he turned into? I mean other than a name?" Yolei´s interest was perked and she mentally congratulated Davis for turning a mildly interesting and very much depressing meeting into something juicy. She more felt than saw how the others opened their ears.

Izzy grimaced, but turned his eyes to his laptop´s screen anyway. "I don't have much." And that bothered him a lot, Yolei noted. "Agnimon. Level Champion, that doesn´t mean anything, though. Typus unknown. Human Warrior Digimon. His attacks are Burning Salamander and Salamander Break, possibly more. He uses fire and appears to be a close combat Digimon. He can emit flames from special openings in his armor. Agnimon is a fusion of the human Spirit of Fire and its human host- that´s what he said- and is the leader of all Spirits, I think. On a side note, Spirit Warriors exist outside of our ranking system. " Yolei thought that was plenty of information already, but knowing Izzy he´d like to count Agnimon´s hairs.

"I got even less about Lowemon. Same Level. Unknown type. Also a Human Warrior Digimon. Don´t know his attacks or looks other that he is dressed in black." Izzy got grumpier with each word on Lowemon. It was absolutely laughable how he was obsessed with knowledge and she didn´t quite hide her smile. "And I got absolutely nothing about Tomoki´s evolution and Digimon other than him being Ice."

"Relax, Izzy," Tai laughed, "they got to wake up one day. You can drill them with questions then."

Izzy grumbled something incomprehensible in return.

Tomoki was the boy Cody and Koichi had rescued from the fortress. Apparently Izzy knew his name because Takuya and Koichi had helped him create profiles on their team. She guessed that was also the reason Izzy didn´t know more about their evolution; not enough time to do both.

The meeting was over. Izzy was hacking furiously on his keyboard, frustrated about his lack of information and apparently there wasn´t anything left to discuss, because he showed no sign of stopping. The others thought so too, since the atmosphere in the room got lighter.

"So, does anyone else think that evolving is absolutely cool?" Davis, as always had no qualms to draw attention to him. While his loud personality often annoyed her she also drew great comfort from it. Now was such a moment. "It was really amazing how he shut that Phelesmon –or Murmukusmon or whatever- up." While he got exclamations of agreement from most of the boys, Yolei noticed that the Digimon were rather confused.

"He did that?" Koromon´s voice was muffled from all the bandages covering him, but she could still hear his excitement. Looking down at Poromon in her lap she found him listening to Davis´ retelling intensely.

Then the door flew open.

This is the chapter for May.

I hope i explained well enough how they managed to get out of the Digiworld, if not, do not hesitate to ask. Cheking my previous chapters, i noticed that i didn´t give enough attention to the virtue children. I hope this chapter is a good start to change that.

Thank you for last chapter´s reviews. :) And please comment again.