Chapter 25: Contradicting Decision

Flamon=Flamemon

MetalGarurmon burst outside, flames barely having licked his armor, yet he sunk to the ground as carefully as a wounded animal.

Matt slid off his back, unconscious, as MetalGarurumon tiled his body and he wasted no time devolving to catch his partner, before he contacted with the ground.

In the process he rudely dropped the child he had carried with his fangs, and Koichi, who had also been on his back, was forgotten; Gabumon didn't even notice.

His heart beat fanatically in his chest from the sudden spike of danger and energy and each beat was painfully heavy at the sight of his partner's limp body.

Matt wasn't moving. He hadn't been fast enough.

Unable to see anything but Matt, the blood rushed through his ears, drowning everything out even though the biting air of grime, restless heat and sharp coldness burned in his lungs, even though he knew Matt was going to be fine, that he was just passed out from shock. Unlike the other two he had been dragged outside. But Gabumon just couldn't get himself to think about them, to move his eyes, never mind his body way from Matt.

Time passed and even though it felt longer to Gabumon, only a few moments ticked away until he calmed down, until he no longer felt overwhelmed by worry and scrambled thoughts.

By the time their friends arrived, he was able to tell what had happened inside; finding Koichi and his friend, the ceiling and walls carving in and evolving, somehow getting Matt on his back, before or after his partner blacked out he didn't know, and snapping his jaw around the younger boy and breathing ice and creating enough of a rift in the flames to save Matt.

Only when Gomamon asked, wide eyed and curious, why the boy, who the white Digimon was poking fascinated, was not frozen stiff even though MetalGarurumon had had breathed past him, Gabumon cared to remember how careless he had been.

With the live of another human.

The boy was only not frozen stiff, because of some stroke of luck or coincidence.

He could, maybe, probably, possibly, have died.

Gabumon trembled.

"He represents Ice, I think," Cody said, holding a still banned from fighting Upamon in his arms.

Everyone else would have been seriously hurt, then, Gabumon knew. He couldn't do think straight.

He was a protector. He wasn't supposed to endanger anyone. He was supposed to be careful.

He had to change.

Protecting Matt, came first, his heart told him, but his mind protested that Matt would never forgive him should someone else get hurt because of him.

He had to do better.

Focus more.

Get stronger, get faster.

Be better.

"He does." Izzy, typing with one hand on his laptop and holding it with the other, glanced down at the boy who was getting checked over by Joe, before looking up at his friends, a dark look in his eyes. "But that isn't what we need to worry about."

Gabumon watched him stare at the fire shortly as it was battled with water and shoot an annoyed look at the humans carrying those strange black boxes over their shoulders, pointing them in their direction with different formed sticks in hand.

"We got a new problem with Takuya, again. And what we have to say about it, because there is no way that wasn't caught on tape." The red head's eyebrows knit together in annoyance even as he focused back on his PC. "First of all though, we need to get out of the limelight."

The children's reaction to that was a mix of groans, sighs, nods and glares at the clustering humans creeping closer and closer to them in an attempt to catch the conversation.

Gabumon blocked it all out from there in favor of worrying about Matt; human society was not his forte.

"We need some place to practice. Do you have one in mind, they said," Yolei grumbled angrily, fighting against the cold and tiredness. "Bring some thick clothes, they should have said."

Yes, it was winter, and yes, it had been natural to wear appropriate clothes, but that hardly counted in the face of the slowly growing lump of ice in front of all their eyes.

It was colder inside her school's gym than outside.

How messed up was that?

Very. Listing somewhere in the top five of her list. And that was not even counting all the other stuff, which she didn't want to think about, that was messed up about this situation.

Yolei, Kari, T.K. and Ken had watch duty; Sora and Mimi were taking care of Davis, who was unable to walk much because of his leg, Tai, who was forbidden from getting up for another few days still, and Matt who hadn't woken up yet, while Joe was the doctor on standby, Cody, with Upamon banned from evolving even, was forced in charge of communicating with the other Chosen Children and on lookout for any messages from Gennai or otherwise concerning Takuya's whereabouts. Izzy was managing the official side meanwhile before he was going to meet up them to gather more of his beloved data on their charges.

Who were the main reason she was not sleeping in the middle of the night, instead standing in her school's gym and watching the remaining two dimension hoppers to prevent them from getting kidnapped as well.

Yolei, however, did not want to think about the currently practicing boy Cody's age –Tom…something or another. She did not want to think about the fact that the boy was inside an ever growing ice sphere. She also did not want to think about what it logically meant. Neither did she want to think about the boy –or his friends- personally.

If she thought too much, if she rationalized too much, if she analyzed too much, then she'd maybe understand them a tiny bit more and then she'd loose her anger.

She, they, couldn't do that.

Not only because she didn't want to, but also if she did the death of Labramon would be forgotten.

And that mustn't happen.

Because no matter how troubled, how painful or hard, nothing gives anyone right to treat lives like tools.

Some might die, it might be inevitable, but making sure they live is still most important.

If she forgot that, then whatever were they fighting for?

Yolei could still see the blast, orange flames flashing.

"Tommy is almost done," was announced and Yolei ignored the speaker on principle, determinedly fixing her eyes on the by now huge piece of ice of at least two stories; the size made it quite clear why Koichi had claimed practicing inside an apartment was a bad idea.

Suddenly the sphere cracked, ice trickling away into nothing as they fell from the form of a giant white…Yeti. With double bladed Axes probably as long as Yolei was tall.

She stared her mind unable to connect the monstrous digimon with the small lively boy.

"You took just over seven minutes, Blizzarmon," Koichi informed his friend, noting the others' shock, but politely not looking at them as they tried to gather their minds, assuming they were this surprised because so far they had ever only seen Human Spirits.

Blizzarmon grunted, a deep rumbling sound, puffing white clouds of breath and Koichi took the lack of non-verbal reply as a sign of the pain from the evolution that was without a doubt much worse than with Human Spirits.

Tommy had passed out from it the first time after all; taking that into consideration, seven minutes was an improvement.

But either way, Tommy had no choice; having picked Blizzarmon, his body was digitalizing with his Beast Spirit's data. He wasn't able to become Chakmon until all of his flesh and blood had been changed.

The same went for Koichi, too; KaiserLeomon was out of reach still.

That was the reason they both were practicing.

Thinking of the pain Tommy had to endure, though, evolving was a frightening thought. Koichi didn't think he'd have the courage to do as Tommy, who, youngest or not, probably had the most courage out of their group.

Takuya and Zoe were really more of a reckless-abandon type than courage, Koichi thought with fondness as he watched Blizzarmon cut his axes through the air a few times at terribly slow pace.

But Tommy had chosen to face the obstacle now rather than pushing it ahead of himself until he could no longer avoid it.

It made Koichi really glad Tommy was here with him; in Takuya's and Koji's absence he was the only able to inspire him to take action. Zoe would have had to drag him along and JP would have had to reason him into it, but they couldn't really make him act out of his own accord.

Fire was free, Light was his twin, and Ice was pure.

Wind on the other hand was unpredictable and Lightning was unsuspected. Both weren't compatible with his elusive Darkness.

After managing to hold Blizzarmon for a few moments the big beast turned into lifeless snow, crumbing and falling apart and leaving just coldness and Tommy behind, who grimaced –as Koichi knew- in pain, hugging his arms around his torso as if to prevent himself from disappearing just as Ice did.

However, Tommy didn't cry, didn't complain and always tried to be brave. Even now; not allowing any of the four human and four non-human bystanders suspect anything they didn't want or need to know.

Tommy really was amazing, Koichi witnessed again.

Their eight new friends, broken out of their stupor at Blizzarmon's disappearance and were falling into exited chatter directed at Tommy, moving closer to the younger boy.

Koichi interfered. "That isn't good enough." As predicted at once all attention was focused on him; any kind of attention was the wrong kind for Koichi, but in this case it had to be done. Koichi knew just from the pained half smile from Tommy out of the fours' sight that he wouldn't appreciate a slap on the shoulder or physical contact at all or being interviewed by overzealous little creatures. Tommy's bones were probably still soft, every muscle in his body aching and contradicting painfully.

So he did as he had to by giving his voice just a little hardness; he was Darkness, deceiving, elusive, but strong. If he'd have to earn more ire or disdain or anger to keep his friends happy and their business secret, then he'd do it.

And if there was a thing that disturbed their guards turned charges, it was their seemingly uncaring attitude.

Yolei, who was still angry from the incident with Koichi's little brother, was the first to glare, her eyes turning hard and intense with passion, her lips drawing back in snarl, her feet standing shoulder wide, her knees straight.

She wouldn't become violent, Koichi concluded, even as her friends were watching her carefully, their focus not on what he had said, but on what Yolei might do.

"You weren't any better," she snapped. "You are pathetic!"

"I know," Koichi admitted immediately, defusing the on sided tension and replacing it with something more interesting now that he had the eyes on him. "It's the same with me. We are too slow at the moment. You would have probably ended any fight here by the time Tommy or I would be done with our evolution." He smiled, watching pleased how she visibly deflated now that he'd taken the wind out of her sails. "But that is the reason we need to practice."

Yolei continued to glare, while the others sighed, relieved that her temper didn't explode.

"That's natural, right? To practice something you aren't good at," Tommy added, seemingly completely fine again, though Koichi knew better from tense shoulders and stiff steps as he came up next to him taking the stopwatch.

"That's right," Kari agreed with a sight frown, "but I have been wondering, why do you need so much time? My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure Takuya didn't take as long."

Koichi blinked. "He didn't?"

"No. I'd say it felt like half a minute or so, but it was right in battle, so I can't be sure." Shrugging helplessly she looked at the others, but received only lost expressions in return.

Koichi came to two conclusions. "I can't say something definite for sure, but it is either because all of our first evolutions are that fast or it is just Takuya. Between him and his Spirits had never been much of a difference in the first place."

"I'd say it was only Takuya. You were hurt when you evolved to Lowemon, but I wasn't and I did take longer even counting only till I blacked out." Tommy said, thinking, before he broke into a grin. "Besides, do you remember Flamon?"

Koichi smiled too. "Yeah, Koji didn't get over it for months. He couldn't stand it that Takuya did something he couldn't so easily."

"I thought the entire situation was really funny; Takuya suddenly was half his size, on eyelevel with Chakmon and smaller than me." Tommy chucked, delighted at the very memory of a time when he wasn't the smallest.

Koichi allowed himself another precious few moments to dwell in happy, free memories, before pushing them aside with some hesitation. He wanted those days to come again. Where they were all together, where they could all fight with ease, where they didn't have to sharply control their focus as not to get lost.

"Anyway, it's my turn again, now. Ready, Tommy?" Koichi asked, letting an incomplete ring of dark rimmed data appear around his hand, confirming that he still needed a few tries. Letting the stripes fade he looked up at Tommy, who was looking at the other eight beings thoughtfully, not replying.

"You know," began Tommy, "I think you should go home. Digimon can't fight if they are hungry and humans can't think when tired. You are both." He looked smiling at the digimon partner who were napping away in their partners' arms or shoulders.

It took Koichi two beats to guess Tommy's reasoning. "I agree. The last attack was a few hours ago. It'd be unreasonable to try anything now. Protecting us right now is wasted effort, I think. And besides, either Tommy or I are going to be ready to fight anyway. Izzy wanted to stop by soon as well. So we won't be alone." With them gone he and Tommy could talk without editing and coding every sentence, plus the resident Chosen Children could get some rest. They really needed it.

It was turning out, however that they weren't going to get a few moments alone; Yolei looked at them like they were crazy even though Poromon was nodding away in her arms, Kari just blinked at them, face surprised while Gatomon on her shoulder glanced around, evaluating Koichi's words, T.K. sighed, shaking his head slowly as not to disturb Patamon on his hat and Ken frowned, holding a sleeping Minomon gently.

"Don't be stupid!" Yolei shot back, taking a deep breath to start a rant. "As if -"

"Actually it is not a bad idea," Ken interrupted her softly, looking at everyone in turn, his eyes settling on the temperamental red head. "Everyone is tired, and you and Poromon have to recover from Double City along with everything else."

"But that doesn't mean we can just leave them here," Yolei argued hotly, gesturing at Koichi and Tommy as if they weren't present, not letting either Kari or T.K object before her.

"That is true." Ken smiled. "T.K. and I will stay here and you and Kari go get some rest. We can change shifts later. We can't fight on the brink of exhaustion."

"Allright," Kari conceded after glancing at T.K. once, "but we'll be back in a few hours."

"Yes, please. And bring some food along that isn't hospital made," T.K. said good naturally, waving them off as Kari pulled on Yolei's arm, stopping the elder girl from protesting wordlessly as she walked towards the double doors of the gym, disappearing in the night accompanied by Yolei's lively voice speaking away about how she didn't like leaving.

Watching, Koichi sighed, feeling indescribable tired and old.

"Are you two sure you are fine?" Tommy questioned, his voice hinting at what he thought.

"No problems," T.K. replied, patting a sleeping Patamon on his head, "unless, of course, you'd want us to be gone?" His eyes narrowed calculating, and gazing in Koichi's direction with a bit of suspicion.

Tommy, unperturbed, cracked a Takuya like grin. "Privacy would be nice, but there is no need to out of our way to get it. Everything will work out just fine."

The two other boys raised an eyebrow sceptically, while a small smile lifted Koichi's lips as he moved to put some distance between him and the others. Giving a nod at Tommy to start timing, he turned his focus inwards, reaching out to the power deep and strongly inside him. It came to his call almost frighteningly easily, spreading through his limps, while staying just under the surface like a second layer of skin. When he felt the darkness flowing freely, cleanly and evenly through him, he removed a final blocking thought, letting it seep out of him, covering his skin in a layer of dark violet energy.

Not a second later his muscles began to constrict, stretching painfully into another form, his bones started burning, reforming and changing.

It was by far not as painful as it had been the first time, though, or even the second time just a few minutes ago. To his shock, Koichi even found a small part of his mind free to wander, think about something else, other than the pain clouding his senses.

And he remembered again, against his will, a time when the six of the were wandering through the digital world, laughing, joking, fighinting together, relying on each other; a time of happiness, free of the hollowness nagging inside him.

But... But he had to move forward, not look back.

It didn't serve him any purpose to remember when he could do things more productive. He had to move forward.

Yet he couldn't, even though he should.

It was hard.

He needed Koji or Takuya.

Otherwise…

No, he told himself, not yet. However there, he saw now, was a problem. As long as he still had determination he was not ready.

Lowemon, KaiserLeomon didn't have it.

Darkness didn't have it.

It was the reason Darkness was so often corrupted by evil. By itself Darkness was absolutely passive, didn't act, only react and didn't have a goal or ambition. It just was.

To make the holder of Darkness do anything either Evil, Light or Fire was needed.

The latter two weren't here and Koichi didn't want to become the first again, so he was unable to fuse more with Lowemon even when his body became fully digitalized. As long as a part of Koichi continued to remain at odds with a part of Lowemon, of Darkness itself, he would remain as he was now.

Unable to move forward, to changed, despite the will to do so. But once he no longer desired to, he'd change.

It was quite ironic, but he couldn't do anything about it, not just yet. Because even if Tommy was still with him, Ice had only the influence to make him do little and he knew it wouldn't be as much as they needed.

So as long as Koji was still captured and Takuya lost again, he couldn't become more like Darkness. If it meant he couldn't fight much, then fine.

Wasn't that already too passive a thought?

"I just can't understand it," Yolei sighed, frustrated by more than just her increasingly heavy limps, "how can they not care? Not just hardly about each other but about everyone else?" Yolei ranted as she and Kari were walking back towards Kari's home, which was dubbing as a base tonight, not seeing the troubled look on her companion's face.

"We don't need to understand it, I think." Kari mused aloud when Yolei had to take a break to catch her breath. "We are different from each other, but now we are in a situation where we have to work together despite our differences. It's hard, but if we can then we won't lose. And they are nice people, our friends."

"Not mine." Yolei shot back immediately, exasperated, but not surprised at Kari's openness. "I don't want to be friends with people who'd throw innocents, us or each other away without a second thought."

Kari looked at her, disapproving. "You know that's not true. Takuya jumped from Nefertimon's back-"

"-forcing us to save him!"

"-to find out if his friends are alive. And they trust us to save their friends."

"Because they have no other choice!"

"And," Kari said, her voice stern in a way that made Yolei feel like a misbehaving child despite being the elder of the two, "all three of them gave up their humanity to help."

Yolei swallowed, feeling vaguely sick at the reminder; sick, remembering it was her failure that forced the people she was supposed to protect to make the sacrifice, and sick at how easily it was accepted within both their groups.

"It doesn't give them the right to act as they want. This is our world. We protect it. We always have!"

She felt tears prickling in her eyes, unconsciously pressing her arms closer around Poromon. Kari didn't say anything in reply, but she and Gatomon both looked carried with them same expression of sadness.

The deep night lit up; orange light threw dark shadows in front of them.

Cold with dread Yolei whirled around, facing the direction they had just come from and she watched horrified as column of fire faded quickly and soundlessly.

"I knew it!" She cursed, poking Poromon awake, making him evolve to Aquilamon and jumping on his back while Kari chose Nefertimon. Not even ten seconds had passed and the ground was already disappearing under them, but a new column of blue tinted fire flashed up again, but to Yolei's immense relieve there was no sound of buildings breaking or explosions.

The problem with mindless minions was, Takuya concluded as he starred down at the smoldering remains of what had once been the Mamemon Brothers, that they had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.

Normally one lets go when arms are melting.

Glowing streams of data materialized around the three of them, prompting Takuya to raise an eyebrow in mild surprise before he gently touched all three circles and gathered them into his palm in the form of a pale glowing orb, leaving floating eggs behind.

He shouldn't have been so dismissive of his D-Tector. Now he had to carry the data around until…

Until he either found his way to the next best TV – again the D-Tector would have been helpful- on his own, was found again or knelt over and died.

Well then, what to do now, Takuya thought with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, as he identified his surroundings to be once again a forest, though not the same as when he first arrived. Only this time he had a proper recollection of how he got to be lost – first kidnapped and then cooking mindless tools, who were too stupid to realize that they were burning alive- and knew what not to do –being captured and used.

To that end Takuya had now two options. One, running from here really fast and really far, or two, stay right here and let those who doubtlessly will come to exactly this spot-even if he had no idea how other than that it probably was the same method Phelesmon used to find him the first time and how the Mamemon Brothers discovered them- will think he had run while he was in reality just sitting up in a tree and watching.

Two immediate choices.

But, Takuya flexed his fist, he could also let himself get captured playing weak and then bust his friends and himself out. He could test his new limits then.

But no, he shook his head disagreeing, even if there was a certain amount of thrill and fun in action and fighting, this was not a game. Not a game at all; he had lives to consider that'd be lost depending on his choices.

The resent Chosen Children may think differently and Takuya may not have done any effort in correcting them, but he did care about how many lives were lost. A lot.

He just didn't cry about things that couldn't be changed or sacrifices that were necessary to do what must be done; to save everyone else.

He also had to take into consideration that he –gosh, was it only minutes ago?- decided to protect this couple of worlds; meaning preventing the Digidestined from running head first into danger and dieing–never mind that it had been Takuya himself who had run them into danger lately- and not getting himself into situations from which he'd need to be rescued –also never mind that he wouldn't want to be rescued.

This much thinking was giving him a headache and devil knows he had enough of them even without voluntarily adding to it.

Still, what to do?

Running.

If that failed he could still change strategies later.

Takuya didn't think about which direction to pick as branches and leaves overhead stole away all light, leaving him to almost purely feel his way forward as he hurried past trees as fast as he could blindly, because even lighting the littlest of fires was something akin to a flare signal.

The complete darkness however screwed with his sense of time and soon Takuya couldn't even guess anymore how long he had been wandering around. Not to mention that a tortuously boring scene was getting clearer by the second before his mind's eye.

His foot caught on something and Takuya bit his tongue to keep from swearing as he landed on all fours, his neck still hurting from being almost broken by a red metal fist and his face planted into leaves of some plant, the touch stinging on his cheek.

Great. Just freaking great.

He lifted a now muddy hand to his face fully expecting it to find the silk wetness of fresh blood, but he was pleasantly surprised when his hand found nothing but now-dirty skin.

Lucky.

Takuya got up and moving again, this time taking his steps more carefully and closing his eyes, relying on his other senses as sight was pretty much useless anyway to move forward, concentrating on any sign of trackers.

None came, and the heavy tension on his shoulders that he had expertly ignored began to fade. That was until he threw up once and was swaying dangerously on his feet, cold sweat running down his spine, his heartbeat becoming heavy and painful, with things appearing before his eyes that he had no business remembering clearly in this situation. Takuya thought that maybe he hadn't been so lucky after all.

The last thing he saw with his closed eyes before his mind and body shut down was shadows dancing at on a wall of stone and earth and a single fire burning for seemingly all of eternity.

Merry Christmas. :)

This is the chapter for December. I don't have much to say about this chapter, other than that I'll try to jump fewer from one p.o.v to another from now on. Though, I have no idea if it'll fit with the story, so I will have to see about that.

Thank you as always for last chapter's reviews and please comment on this one as well.

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