Chapter 29: Digital World: Scattered

Armadimon= Armadillomon

Kari exhaled, but the tension wouldn't leave her body. It wasn't necessary a bad thing, only right now, she needed to be calm. Thinking worked best when she was calm and not distracted by tense muscles that jumped from every small sound, from every echo.

The empty corridors carried echoes far, frighteningly far and made it very difficult to not only remain undiscovered but also to estimate from which direction someone was coming or even how far away the digimon still were.

Gatomon's ears twitched back and forth and her tail waved up and down in a habit of anxiety.

They had all reason to be nervous, truthfully, and Kari was trying very hard to think of a way out without spending much thought on the situation they had been dropped in, because she honestly could not think of a worse situation.

She was alone in the enemy headquarters without any kind of plan or hope for help or vague idea how to get out.

Kari was not one for cursing, but her situation just plain sucked.

So far she had been trying to find a place to hide. Be it a closet or a bedroom or a just a curtain. A place to hide and think, but there was nothing to serve as any kind of cover. It was illogical, but not surprising since it was the digiworld.

The corridors they had been through in the last quarter of an hour were absolutely empty, not counting the occasional strangely agitated patrol that she had escaped only by a hair's breadth and with much luck involved. The walls were flat and smooth and the torches lining them only gave Kari reason to jump at her own shadow.

All depended on them not being found. Perhaps on only her not being found, as Gatomon could easily pretend to be one of the controlled digimon. Anyway, they were playing against time. It was no good, she knew.

There was no way she could remain undiscovered forever, and about as much chance there was of her escaping without at least a good thousand digimon on her heels –and that was only if she could find something resembling a window.

They had arrived at yet another crossway and Kari looked around, searching for a hint that she hasn't been here already. Everything looked the same. The walls, the corridors, the torches, and she honestly wouldn't be surprised if the fortress was specifically designed to be confusing to intruders as a defense mechanism.

She tensed, the echo of steps –how many? Three? A dozen? She couldn't tell- resounding around her and glancing at Gatomon they decided to make a break to the left. There was a chance they had picked wrong, but Kari hoped not, because if she did, then they were going to run –as silently as possible- right into them.

Her heartbeat quickened again. When her luck finally ran out, then she would be captured, Gatomon will be harmed, maybe killed and she'll no longer be able to help. She won't even be able to stumble blindly through the fortress hoping to find an exit or help or to help –somehow- the people she had to protect and who are depending on them to be rescued.

And the digiworld.

She had to protect it. She had to bring peace back.

She had picked the wrong direction.

The Master had not been pleased. Not pleased at all, but he knew this would placate him. Oh, the power the little girl would gift them with. Oh, the devastation on her face when she was going to find out what she alone will be responsible for. Blood, victims, pain, destruction and mindless tools. Everything was going to get better, stronger, truthfully evil just because of her.

The pathetically lone Sovereign was going to fall because of her and bow to the Master. Quinglongmon himself, the last and final defense that prevented them from obtaining the absolute power over their servants as it had been promised, that disgusting, powerless ruler himself shall further their purposes beyond the greatest imagination and even the holy light, the only thing the Light Warrior didn't have for them, shall belong to the Master.

Phelesmon licked his lips in eager anticipation as his minions picked the child up from a pool of her own blood. The cat hissed, but remained in submission.

If Koji had control of his body, then he would be glaring at anyone and everything in sight and snap the heads of anyone breathing the wrong way.

As it was, Koji had no control over his body, so first his impatience, then his annoyance and now his irritation had no outlet.

He couldn't even sigh.

So he was left brooding.

The plan he had so beautifully thought up –with enough holes for improvising- had blown to shambles for whatever reason and other than sensing his six comrades there was nothing.

Even, he noticed with a twinge of hasty worry, the grayness lingering at the back of his mind was gone.

On second thought, though, that wasn't necessarily bad. While it meant Koji had no idea how or where Koichi was, it implied on the flipside that he was very far –possibly dimensions- away form where Koji was currently stuck. In other words save.

That was good enough for now.

What was not anywhere close to good, was something else. It turned his irritation to downright frustrating anger, which he forcefully pushed aside for now.

The situation had just gotten infinitely worse and it'd be better to save his anger until he could subject the right people to it.

Still, how stupid were they, he wondered feeling numerous new presences around him. Only two of those presences he wouldn't particularly –not more than normal, at least- mind, were the situation less catastrophic.

Circumstances were circumstances, Koji knew, but her, out of all people- was just plain the worst.

Maybe his initial assessment of their skill had been off? It definitely looked like it.

But no, he reminded himself. It didn't matter. Not right now. Because right now something had to change first. And fast.

But, obviously, there still was nothing Koji could do. Not without Koichi. Or if there was, he hadn't found it yet.

At the thirty minute mark, not that he'd know it was, it felt like a punch to the stomach and a free fall of skyscraper hight, and Koji knew it was too late to prevent one of the worst case scenarios his mind had come up with in only the last few seconds.

He had to get out. Or she had to get away.

Tai ran a hand through his hair, grimacing. Already he felt a bump forming from his less than perfect landing, and he was lucky to have escaped a concussion. But that wasn't a reason worth grimacing for exactly fourteen minutes and twenty five seconds. No, the leader of the digidestined was still grimacing, because there had been no change on his Digivice in the exact same amount of time.

Just to make sure, he checked again. Fifteen minutes and no one. He was alone.

Well, as much as one could be alone in a village of small, pink, overexcited furballs that was overrun with refugees of babies and more than enough hatchlings.

Tai had found himself in Koromon Village. Had appeared practically right on the doorstep of Elecmon, one of three in-training digimon, who were for some reason the only ones taking care of maybe –if Tai placed his estimation more in the lower direction- two hundred babies.

Naturally Tai and Agumon had been roped into helping. And truthfully, Tai hadn't found a suitable argument yet to leave. One that got past Elecmon. Yes, the digiworld needed saving, but the young digimon were also a future and shouldn't he care for them, too? Also, Elecmon had declared, searching was best done by not moving at all, when there were others doing the same. Less of a chance to miss anyone.

It wasn't like Tai didn't understand the reasoning, but he and Agumon still had to leave and do… chosen children stuff. It wasn't like they were chosen to feed three different colored balls of fur, skin and scales at the same time. Which was what Tai was attempting to do right now.

They were chosen to…well…to fight.

That gave him a pause.

They were chosen to fight, weren't they?

They had been chosen to be saviors from destruction. Salvation never came without victims. Victims never appeared without violence. Violence was ruled by the strongest. The strongest appeared through evolution. Evolution was handed to them in the form of devices.

In their purpose they were the same as their visitors.

And only the difference in the System didn't explain the difference in psyche. If Tai looked at Takuya and thought about what could turn him into a hardened shell like the other goggle head, if he thought about the first fearful days in a strange world and erased Agumon from it, then, Tai thought, he could see what had made them so different.

Tai had had always at least Agumon to rely on, to pay him company and to offer a second opinion. An opinion that carried great weight, as Agumon belonged to the digiworld, knew its rules, dangers and their purpose.

Without Agumon it would have been much more terrifying, more defining.

Takuya, opposed to Tai, had had no one to rely on; he himself had to fight to death, he had had no one to share his burden with.

That, Tai thought, was shaping. And all reason that was needed.

Tai sighed, remembering that Izzy and he had already discussed this back in the hospital and that they had come to no solution.

Then he remembered that he should really be focusing on something else.

He had to think of a way to steal away into the woods without Elecmon noticing, which was difficult when he could feel the red digimon's eyes on him.

Five minutes later Tai was fighting off static and trying to look less like he had been stuck by a thunder, while stirring a man-sized jar of new baby food.

Ten minutes after that, a full half an hour after he had arrived, he was suddenly glad he hadn't managed to leave, even as shock, horror and hardness of combat pooled in his stomach.

To fight and to protect, they were chosen.

His hands were shaking, trembling from barely controlled fear. Swallowing past the physical lump of terror in his throat he wiped his hands on hos filthy lump of cloth. His hands were sticky with cold sweat and a cold drop ran down his spine, making him shudder.

Eyes focused in his direction, and his stomach clenched in an all too familiar emotion.

It was alright, he told himself. It was alright. He had…

Just thinking about it made him fight new waves of blood freezing terror.

But it was going to be alright.

Now.

Surely.

His thin fingers moved shakily from panel to panel, eyes reading information as he continued knowingly deluding himself with hope.

The sky was laden with thick clouds, the air was still and the tree sized grass was tinted in a colorless grey. What was strangest, though, was that the air was filled with ash like black particles that, when he tried touching them, had no substance at all.

Then there was the fact that the air tasted of darkness.

It made Koichi unsuspected comfortable.

And that, as nice as it felt, was not something that happened. Ever.

That it still was, told Koichi a whole lot; first and foremost, that it wasn't natural and secondly that, if this was the digiworld the digimon living here were all dark types. The air was suffocating to anyone else and it'd rot their minds away to silent swamps of darkness and evil.

Every little flake of darkness had an after taste of evil, impurity and aggression that was too often present in his element. At the moment Koichi was able to ignore it quite simply, easily even, like a pesky fly, but over time it was a different thing. He worried.

Duskmon got stronger with each breath Koichi took, festering in his mind little by little, and one drop after another.

It was annoying, inconvenient and long-term troublesome.

Koichi put it from his mind with little effort; it wasn't like Duskmon would be a problem any time soon. Or at all, for that matter, because Koichi wouldn't let himself decay even if it came at the price of action.

For now he had to focus on gathering information of all kind. Where he was, how he got there, how to get away, where the others were and what to do. All the while Darkness was closing in from all sides, leisurely but surely and Koichi was watching it passively.

Koichi passed the thirty minute mark without noticing anything other than distant annoyance at too-high grass.

Tommy sat, twirling his orange hat -cap, really; a poor imitation of his original one- in his hand, thinking. He had been thinking for a while now, but he still couldn't decide what to do. And how to do it.

Stuck on the small plateau as he was, there were, as far as Tommy had found, three choices he could make.

One was to climb up from here, to the mountain's top and take a good look around the island, and then determine anew where to go and what to do.

The second choice was similar; to climb down and look around and maybe ask some digimon -if there were any- for information. Maybe there even was someone else down there, though he didn't expect to be so lucky as his D-tector didn't pick up any signals.

With these two, however, there was the problem that he had no idea how to do them. Climbing an almost vertical mountain side with no gear whatsoever with wind blowing and random stones falling even without him adding his weight to them was not smart. Could he turn into Chakkumon the whole thing would be easily done and over with by skiing up or down, while making his own icy slope. But Chakkumon was still out of reach for another two evolutions or so and while that wouldn't be much of a problem on flat surface, on his little base, it was. Tommy wasn't sure it could handle Blizzarmon's weight, and if it couldn't then he'd probably fall all the way down to the ground half transformed and wouldn't survive.

The last choice wasn't really a choice at all. Namely doing nothing and just remain sitting until some better option appeared or until someone found him. Needless to say, Tommy wasn't much a fan of the last option, even though he had been doing just that for the last twenty five minutes.

Putting his hat back on, Tommy glared at the stupid mountain and at the stupid space he had landed and, for good measure, up at the sky for his bad luck. Then he sighed and set to climbing upwards.

If he made sure to freeze every hold before putting any strain on it, it might hold.

It wasn't that far to the top and if he was going to fall, then it hardly mattered from where.

Tommy passed the thirty minute mark without noticing anything other than the sweat he had to wipe away from his eyes.

Sora pushed a leaf aside and held it a moment for Piyomon to follow after her without being slapped.

They were in a tropical forest, Sora was pretty sure. The air was heavy, hot and the trees were high and thick. Sora could hardly see ten feet ahead before a trunk, wider than a car, obscured her view again.

Were it not for her D-terminal they would have already been walking in circles. The terminal had very useful functions besides messaging, which wasn't working for whatever reason. She had a map and a compass and was indefinitely grateful for being able to pick roughly a direction that would lead her to the next river.

"How much further?"

Piyomon sounded tired and Sora gave her partner a comforting smile. Piyomon was a bird type digimon, not made to walk, but the leaves, braches and lianas took all the space for flying. It was one of the reasons why Birdramon wasn't carrying her to the next TV. Another reason was that Sora didn't think the TV was going to work, what with her D-terminal losing all communication and their scattering in the digital world. It stands to reason, Sora figured, that no one would be able to come or go. Not when the enemy specifically went through the trouble to kidnap them. Or at least Sora thought they had been kidnapped, even though capturing and imprisoning or killing them would have done the job of removing them from the fight.

Sora could only assume, but everything she came up with gave her enough reason to stay hidden.

She didn't tell Piyomon that it were at least still another ten miles to the river on her map. And that was only a rough estimate.

They weren't going to make it today, maybe not even tomorrow at the current pace.

They had nothing to eat, nothing to drink and only the clothes on her body.

Sora and Piyomon passed the thirty minute mark without noticing anything other than the lack of other digimon in their path.

At the thirty minute mark, Takuya was sleeping.

It was too hot for Wormmon, but other than offering him shadow by tugging him in his jacket, there was nothing Ken could do, and it bothered him.

His winter clothes had been dropped the moment he had arrived, but it wasn't doing him much good. The desert was too hot to simply walk through without any water, food, shadow or means of transportation.

Ken was so absorbed in his worries, that he didn't notice walking into a shadow until he almost ran against a wall.

Ken passed the thirty minute mark standing literally in the shadow of the Digimon Kaiser's greatest work, realizing he couldn't afford to leave.

Matt supposed he was lucky having landed the mile or so lower than the surface around here usually was. If he hadn't he would have fallen all the way down to the bottom of the valley. It was kind of hard remembering that, though, when he now had to find a way back up again.

He supposed it was also lucky that he hadn't landed wherever he was alone. Yolei could be annoying at times, but she was also reliable when the situation got serious. It was serious as sightseeing on the bottom of a canyon had not been in the plan Tai, Izzy, Gennai, Koichi and him had built over the last few days. And Yolei knew that now. After she had demanded the explanation from him.

"I say we risk flying."

Matt had to agree, reluctantly. "I'd do us no good if we exhaust ourselves climbing up here, when we don't even know where we are." Their D-terminals weren't working. Not at all. Not even the compass function. Matt hoped it was because they were simply out of reach; similar to real-world mobile phones.

Hawkmon evolved, carried them up and as Matt took in the rough, steep walls from a bird's point of view his shoulders relaxed from tension Matt hadn't known was there. The reason was easy to conclude, though. It wasn't the canyon they had been buried alive in…. how long ago was it?

Hawkmon rose higher and gave them a beautiful view of the land beneath his wings.

The valley cut like a knife through a plain of green grass, blooming flowers and spread out gigantic oak trees. Tree houses sat in occasional branches.

From the looks of it, the village was abandoned and Gabumon confirmed it when they touched down to the ground and didn't pick up any smell.

Matt, Gabumon, Yolei and Hawkmon passed the thirty minute mark investigating a ghost town and packing necessary supplies.

Cody and TK had spent the first five minutes since their arrival staring at their surroundings while their partners behaved somewhat strangely.

The cave was circular and at least the size of their entire school plus gym. An equally circular lake with dark waters left only a rim to walk round it. Stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and out of the lake; sometimes connected to thick columns, other times not yet touching. There was no visible source of light, yet everything glowed as if a full moon shone from the sky.

It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Patamon giggled, rolling in shallow water, sending small yet seemingly great waves over the still surface.

Armadimon splashed water at the light digimon and soon they were involved in a vicious water fight with gales of laughter echoing once, twice, thrice.

TK knew Patamon like playing even in the direst of situations and Armadimon was the balance to Cody's seriousness, but still…

Patamon didn't like bathing all that much.

Neither did Armadimon when he wasn't Submarimon.

TK and Cody traded worried glances.

Their partners said they were feeling fine.

"The water feels great! Want to play with us, TK?" Patamon asked before deliberately dropping his pouting wet self on TK's head, when he was refused. Patamon started to behave after that, unlike Aramdimon, who looked much like he was trying to imitate a playful dog with how he sped back and forth ahead and around their feet as they explored the cave.

TK, Cody, Patamon and Armadimon passed the thirty minute mark following a crumbling passage and discovering glowing moss.

Izzy hadn't been here before and he'd love to run a more in-depth analysis and make some experiments. It wasn't the time for that at all, though he couldn't help the straying of his eyes in search of an access point to plug his laptop in.

The internet was colorful and disorganized while at the same time it held bigger and smaller paths where rivers of colored data disappeared inside, beneath, behind and above each other.

For a geek like him, this place was a heaven and Izzy cursed his fate for not being able to explore it.

He held on to Tentomon as the red beetle dived into a reddish stream of data about tomatoes as indicated by taste, smell and the vegetable itself that was drifting around with him.

It was, as far as Izzy knew at this point without any source other than his own observations, impossible to navigate in the internet without outside access. Which he didn't have. If he weren't already hopelessly lost, he'd worry now.

Izzy and Tentomon passed the thirty minute mark hacking away on the keyboard, working, working, thinking and reading on the first point of access they had stumbled across.

Mimi certainly didn't regret what she had done to her parents. It was only that alone with Palmon and Mrs Izumi's lunchbox she was forcefully reminded of the dangers the digiworld posed and that her parents had every reason to worry. Luckily, though, it wasn't like they knew that. And Mimi had no intention of telling them opposed to having every intention of getting spoiled rotten once she got back home.

"What do we do, Palmon?" Mimi wasn't sure if she even said those words, but Palmon seemed to have understood her regardless and in the dark hole that Palmon had disguised for them with her poison ivy, the little plant digimon scurried a bit closer to her. To seek comfort as well as to give it, Mimi knew, when the cold wet ground at her back shook again under the weight of steps.

They had been hiding like this for a small amount of time already, though Mimi had lost track of how long. It could have been an hour, it could have been not twenty minutes with only stomps of giant digimon to measure time.

Mimi didn't dare taking out her digivice or D-terminal in fear of it giving of too much light for the curtain ivy to cover or on the chance that its signal would be noticed. Not by the digimon themselves, of course, but by the fortress of high technology that was doubtlessly somewhere near. It had to be near, because the only free digimon left in the world were partners or in-training and below, the rare ice types and the darkness types, but the last were with the army free will or not.

So that there was what sounded like a herd of Mammon somewhere around was as telling as Vegas' neon lights. They hadn't stayed above ground long enough to confirm her thoughts, though.

Mimi and Palmon passed the thirty minute mark trembling in fear and stopping each other from screaming as the tree above them was trampled to pieces first by flesh covered hooves and then by white bones.

This is the chapter for May, hope you like it. :)

I realized halfway through last chapter's reviews that I probably should have said in my last note 'who do you want except Takuya'... apparently you really want to know what he is doing/what is happening to him, but he was actually the one character that was not supposed to make an appearance. (Alas, maybe you can deduce some stuff from that.) My fault, really, but because so many have requested him, I added an entire sentence about him. xd

More seriously, I'll see if I can pull Takuya's part a bit forward.

Also, I'm sorry to say that next month, in June (and possibly July), there will not be a chapter. I'm entering exam phase soon and don't want to divide my attention. On the off chance that I actually do have time to write however, there still will not be a chapter. Instead (like I said if I have time to write) the next chapter will be longer.

Please leave a review. :)