Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. Or Heroes of Olympus. If I did, I'd like to think that I'd be rich!

Author's Note: Written for the Novel with Prompts Challenge found on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges forum. The prompt for this chapter is "smoke".

Not much to say this time around! As always, I hope you...

Enjoy!

Chapter Fifteen

Davis hadn't exactly seized the chance to tell everybody about Huang, his psychotic imaginary friend. So what? There had just been so many people there; he didn't want to distract everybody with useless information. And they were on a deadline. Three days until the solstice. They had to get going. He could tell the rest of them when he came back.

If I come back, part of him thought.

Nah, he'd come back. He was a digidestined, and the good guys always won. Plus, Huang had obviously been told something pretty bad if he was scared of a little two-year-old ruining his plans, so Davis figured he wasn't on this mission just to fall over and die early. Well, he hoped not anyway.

His bad side started to think, Yeah, but what—?

"Shut up, me," Davis said aloud.

"What?" Kari asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Long night. I think I'm hearing things. No worries."

Both Cody and Kari turned to stare at him as if they were suddenly not very pleased with the idea of possibly riding into battle with a sleepless, hallucinating digidestined.

"Just kidding." Davis decided it might be a good idea to change the subject. "So, Takato, what's the plan? You said something about Bellymon or Bayoumon or something?"

As they flew over cascading sand dunes, Takato laid out the game plan: First, find some Holy Beast digimon named Baihumon and grill him for information—

"What does Baihumon even mean?" Davis had to ask.

Yolei shot him a look. "Davis, do you ever pay attention in class? Baihu is the White Tiger of the West."

He stared at her blankly.

"Also known as Byakko in Japanese?" Yolei tried. Silence. "Oh, you're impossible!"

Veemon looked back at Davis. "I guess it means a whole lot of nothing."

Davis nodded while Yolei threw her hands up in the air in frustration.

Second, Takato continued, they had to find that armored digimon Thunderbirmon that attacked him back at Primary Village—

"Who decided that his name should be Thunderbirmon?" Davis asked. "Couldn't they have shortened it to something a little easier to say?"

"We could always call him Thunder for short!" Armadillomon suggested.

And third, Takato finished, they had to find out who Thunderbirmon worked for, so they could find Gennai and free him.

"So, let me get this straight: We're looking for Thunderbirmon, the crazy bird that attacked you at Primary Village and sucked Elecmon up into the clouds, by asking some Holy Beast digimon for directions?" Davis said.

"That's about it," Takato said. "Well… there might be some DigiGnomes and a ghost involved, too. But I'm pretty sure they're on our side."

Takato told them about his dream – being in the middle of some park and then having a vision within a dream thanks to weird flying fairies and a might-be-human-but-not-sure guy.

"And he said you would know this place?" Cody asked.

"Yeah."

"But you don't know where it is?" Davis added.

"Nope," Takato admitted.

"Don't forget about the darkness," Yolei piped up. "The prophecy said darkness's revenge."

"I don't like the sound of that," Wormmon said.

"Revenge…" Ken muttered. "Sounds personal. Whoever it is, they must feel like we've wronged them, and they haven't forgotten."

"Not necessarily," Cody said. "The revenge could be for something that we had no part of. Or no part of yet. It says we're going to birth the revenge… And you're assuming it's only one enemy. Darkness is ambiguous. It could mean more."

"You don't really think we're going to get more than one person mad at us, do you, Cody?" Armadillomon asked.

"We might not have to," Halsemon said. "It may have already happened."

"I can think of a few names who wouldn't mind seeing us destroyed," Nerfertimon added. "None of which were ever our friends."

"Great," Davis groaned. "With our luck, of course it'd be an army of bad guys! So, do we got any real theories on who exactly this darkness is referring to?"

"I have one." Ken looked around at them all with a deadly serious look. "Daemon."

Silence overcame the group. Davis watched his best friend's pale face; he could see the fear shining in his eyes. He couldn't exactly blame him. He still remembered that battle like it was yesterday.

"Who's Daemon?" Guilmon asked.

"Impossible!" Yolei blurted out, ignoring Guilmon's question. "We sealed him up!"

"What's sealed can be unsealed, Yolei," Halsemon pointed out.

"And kidnapping is his style…" Wormmon reminded them, sending a nervous look toward Ken as if afraid he was going to disappear before his very eyes.

"Well, if there was one digimon that was the epitome of darkness, he would certainly be it," Nefertimon agreed.

"That would be just our luck!" Veemon complained.

"But we couldn't even defeat him last time," Kari said quietly. "We could only seal him away. If he's back, and he has friends… No wonder Izzy didn't want us to know the second prophecy."

Davis whistled. "So… Daemon might be back. Darkness wants its revenge. There's a ghost-dude named Shibumi who might be on our side, but we're not one hundred percent sure. And an armored digimon is getting illegal digivolutions from who knows where. Got it. Maybe this isn't the best time to bring up my psychotic imaginary friend."

Everybody turned to stare at him.

"Is this a joke?" Nefertimon asked.

Davis told them about Huang, who was really a digimon, and how he had come into his life. He didn't tell them about his encounter with Myotismon. That was still a confusing subject, and he really didn't know how Myotismon tied into all of this, especially with him destroyed. Unless he wasn't completely destroyed, and he was still somewhere out there… No. Davis knew in his gut that Myotismon's role in his life was over. But at some point he had been part of this… whatever this was. It was pretty difficult to spill all of this even as he stared down at the clouds below them, avoiding looking at his friends and their piercing gazes, but he could still feel the weight of their stares as he spoke.

He finished his story by telling them about seeing Huang yesterday at around the same time as Takato saw Gennai and Kari saw Homeostasis, as if the dragon had been piggybacking on the same digital frequency.

Davis estimated that they had flown the entire length of Japan before any of his friends spoke.

"That's… disturbing," Cody said.

"'Bout sums it up," Davis agreed.

"Shibumi said don't poke a sleeping dragon." Guilmon turned to look over his shoulder at Takato. "Do you think that's what he meant?"

"Huh…" Takato said thoughtfully. "I didn't even think of that."

"And yet that sounds like exactly what we're doing," Nefertimon pointed out. "If the darkness referred to in the prophecy is Huang instead of Daemon, then it's his revenge that we're birthing by going on this rescue mission… I would say that qualifies as a poke."

"I'm not so sure of that," Ken said. "This journey is about more than just a rescue mission or getting on the bad side of some evil digimon. This is the start of something bigger. The second prophecy that Izzy won't tell us."

That didn't make Davis feel any better, but he couldn't argue Ken's point. It did feel like this was the start of something huge. He just wished Izzy would have ignored the prophecy giver's warning and just let them know what they were about to face so that they could be a little more clued in. Davis was all for surprises, but he usually liked to have a head's up when it came to terrifying life-threatening adventures.

"Besides," Takato piped up, "helping Gennai is the only way I can get back my memory. And that dark spire in my dream seemed to be feeding on Gennai's data or energy or something… If that digi-egg hatches by destroying Gennai—"

"It won't end well," Kari agreed. "Gennai is a friend and on our side. We have to help him, no matter what comes with it."

Cody nodded. "Centarumon talked about the barriers between worlds being particularly weak on the solstice, and it being a good time to raise evil – something terrible will probably awaken if Gennai is sacrificed on that day. And the master who is behind Thunderbirmon, who wants to kill all digidestined—"

"Might be Huang," Davis finished. "Dragon Face fully awake? Not something I want to see."

"But who is he?" Wormmon asked. "And what does he have to do with TK and Gennai and Thunderbirmon?"

Good questions, but none of them had answers. They flew in silence while Davis wondered if he'd done the right thing, sharing so much. He'd never told anyone about Huang, and saying all of that aloud had left him feeling oddly exposed, like he'd just said, "Hey, guys! Look at my soul! Feel free to judge!" And if he turned out to be wrong, he was going to seem completely nuts. His body was shaking and not from the cold. He hoped Kari, sitting in front of him, couldn't tell.

Nefertimon kept flying. The sun started to set as the wind got colder, and below them, sand dunes turned into smoke-filled valleys. Davis didn't know exactly where Baihumon's lair was, but he sure hoped Nefertimon had a good idea and they didn't keep flying until they scaled the entire length of the Digital World. He was just starting to think that they were probably very lost when Halsemon finally spoke up.

"We're here," he said.

Davis rubbed his eyes. Below them, a city sat on a cliff overlooking a river. The plains around it seemed to sit in a perpetual fog, but the city itself gleamed in the sunset. Everything was made of steel, and buildings were crowded together so tightly that it looked like a factory town had erupted out of nowhere. In the center was a steel fortress that appeared to be the center of the town; it seemed like a modern take on a castle.

"Tell me we're still on Server and didn't somehow end up on Mars," Davis said.

"We're still on Server," Takato confirmed. "And Baihumon is nearby."

He had his digivice in his hand and pointed toward the city. Hovering over the screen was a holographic compass with a red arrow that was swiveling around, pointing directly north of them at the large steel building. Davis's eyes widened.

"How did you do that?!" Yolei spluttered.

Takato looked confused. "What do you mean? The compass thing? Is that… is that not normal…?"

"It must be a new feature," Kari said slowly. "I mean, we knew that your digivice was different, so it makes sense…"

"Izzy is going to be sad he missed this," Cody said.

"Well, that's handy!" Armadillomon said. "Do you think it gets basic cable too?"

"Heads up," Nefertimon interrupted. "We've got company!"

Davis looked below and saw what Nefertimon meant. Rising from the largest steel building were two figures – what looked like a monkey riding a chicken.