Chapter Three
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.. Adventures-verse
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As we join our heroes again, Wargreymon, Angewomon, and Metalgarurumon sent attacks blasting towards Bugendaimon who simply batted each of them away as if mere raindrops.
His face brought pure fear to the forefront of Hikari's mind. He wore a huge evil grin, sharp long teeth filling it out. His eyes glowed orange, malice filled, staring straight to her soul she felt like. Purple spikes lined his body both short and long, looking very sharp but flowing oddly in the wind.
"You puny things are no match for us!" His voice boomed like it was in surround sound.
Without hesitation he aim at the three humans, "Dream destroyer!" His palm lit up red as a ball of energy charged up and fired at Taichi, Yamato, and Hikari. Their three companions moving like lightning in place of them. They took their lashing, all three reverting.
"Agumon!" Taichi and the other ran to catch their falling friends.
"You are no longer of any importance digidestined. Your prophecy fulfilled, you have no use. No potential to stop us."
Taichi and Hikari glared. "Whatever you're doing we will stop you!"
"Oh, there's nothing you can do to stop it, we've already done it, the dimensions are cracked, it's only a matter of time now. Once we have her, it will be over." A purple malice began to ooze from him, turning into a mist.
Taichi looked to Yamato. "What do you mean the dimensions have cracked?" As he looked back a bright flash forced them to all look away.
Bugendaimon's voice boomed once again, "the walls are coming down." He disappeared in a pool of malice.
"Damn!" Yamato hit the ground he was kneeling on with a weakened Gabumon, "he got away."
"Yea but he gave us a lot." Taichi said firmly, offering a hand to Yamato. "We know Daisuke and Ruki are ok, they disappeared but he said they needed her, so someone got them out."
"And what about the walls coming down, dimensions cracking?"
"We need to get back to Koushiro, and we need everyone."
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We see a dark room, light just beginning to creep in, just enough to spot orange hair under a dark tattered blanket, it rolled once, a few minutes later again, then a last time before throwing the blanket off, "Daisuke no!" She yelled as she sat straight up, panting, sweating, "what happened?"
She started to calm down and scanned the dimly lit room, then the door in the corner slid open, a blue familiar face looked back at her, "are you ok?" He asked her.
Shocked for a moment, "yea V I'm ok I think, what about Daisuke, did he-" he heard her worry and cut her off.
"He's fine, he was up when I got up, after I got up, he insisted I watch you while he searched close-by." He grumbled as he walked in, but noticed her watching him "I'm sorry, it's nothing against you it's just-"
"No I get it, he's your partner, you want to protect him not me, I understand you don't have to apologize."
"No I want to protect you both..." he sighed.
"V, do you remember what happened?" I just remember you and Daisuke running towards me."
"I don't remember much besides that, I was trying to digivolve, but we were swallowed up by that light. I have been looking around inside for more supplies or food, I was getting worried about Daisuke really."
"Let's go find him, I can't be the reason-," she paused, "let's just go." They both moved towards the door, but when they opened it they heard footsteps down the hall, both ducked to the sides.
Ruki looked at Demi-V-mon, "Are you good to fight V?" Ruki whispered, he simply nodded and prepared himself.
But in a flash V disarmed, "Daiksuke!" He happily quipped, "I'm glad you're ok."
"Me too, thanks V, and I see you're up. Are you o-"
"You! Did you not hear me say no, why in the world do you drag poor Vmon with you and just jump after me?" Ruki tore into him, but Daisuke and Vmon were in shock after.
Daisuke took a moment to but retorted, "I...look it was instinctively what I did, we're ok, I wanted you to be ok-"
"I can handle myself just fine I don't need you dying to help me." She didn't know how to tell him she was worried about him.
"Look I'm here now, are you hungry? How about you V?" He said defecting her lashing, he could tell what she was doing, he knew what to do. It reminded him how Jun used to get really mad when she had to be nice to Daisuke because he'd done something nice for her.
Her stomach growled as she forgot what was so maddening and reached out for the food he offered them. They all three grabbed some different fruits, moss and leaves.
"So what did you find?" Ruki asked as she took another bite of an apple sized strawberry looking fruit, "oh my god, that's weird...but good."
Daisuke smiled at her reaction, "they are, I've never seen them before, but Koushiro put an app on our D3's in case we got stranded that helps tell if something is edible or not. But it should have everything in the human world, and most everything in the digital world in its database. But nothing I came across today is in a database. All this stuff was taste tested." Ruki and V both stopped and looked at each other. "By me not you too, jeez. They're all fine."
They both sighed, "I don't know you look pretty pale to me," Ruki grinned. "But in all seriousness, the digimon that sent us here, wherever it is, is called Bugendaimon. He said he was the King of Nightmares, bringer of infinite darkness."
"Sounds intimidating. Nothing we can't beat, right v?"
"Yea!" A newly evolved Vmon said.
"Just... Daisuke, he was in my dreams. It felt real, it smelled real, it was real to me, but it tricked me. It won't be easy to beat and we'll have to be careful but I can't forgive something like that, how callous.."
"Someone's coming," V-mon interrupted, his face changing, preparing, "they're fast too."
Daisuke looked to Ruki, "let's get outside where we won't be cornered." She nodded and all three darted out of the room and down the stairs.
"V." Daisuke said as they slowed to the last corner.
"It's strong, or there's more than one... maybe a few. It's really hard to tell." V-mon told Daisuke as he slid the front dilapidated door open slowly. He saw no one, he motion for V-mon and they both moved slowly out into the courtyard, trees surrounded the old building, it was eerily quiet.
"There!" V-mom pointed, "they're coming this way I can hear them." Daisuke looked over and started hearing rustling and footsteps running their way.
"Be ready V!" They all three stood at the ready, watching.
The running footsteps got louder and louder, before finally bursting through the tree line, it was... Garurumon?
"I see them! They're at the old school," one said. And there was Agumon on his back too, but there was also 3 humans on the back of Garurumon, but Daisuke had never seen them, he looked over to V-mon.
"Keep your guard up."
Garurumon slowed as they waved, "hey there, we've been looking for you!" One strange voice said, jumping from atop Garurumon. Daisuke was struck, 'Taichi? No.' He sported a set of goggles that brought flashbacks of Taichi in soccer. Then he felt the same for the second teen to jump from Garurumon, it was Yamato's doppelgänger too. ''Where the hell are we...'
"Who are you, and where is Taichi and Yamato?"
The pair looked at each other then back to their third, an old man whose curious face was crinkled at the question.
"I'm not sure who those people are, but I'm Takuma Momozuka, this is Kaito Shinonome and Professor Akiharu Minase and we were able to detect your entry to the digital world but we couldn't mount a search until today. But the digital world is extremely unstable right now even with full disclosure, so we need to get you all out of here back to the real world immediately."
"We can explain a lot more of what we do know and maybe help find your friends if you come with us."
"But you have their partners, how do you not know where they are?" Daisuke barked, not trusting a word.
Takuma and Kaito looked back at the professor, who sighed sadly, "these are not your friends' partners I'm afraid."
Agumon spoke up, "Takuma has been and always will be my partner!"
"Hmph, he's talkative sometimes, but I'll always protect Haru, since he was a boy." Garurumon said to them.
'Wait, Garurumon is the old man's partner? Then, who is the Yamato clone's partner?'
"I'm not sure what's going on but we will help you find out, we are friends, but we've got to go, now!" Kaito finally spoke.
Daisuke and Ruki looked at each other, "we've been burned by "jump and go" already, it's how we ended up here. How do we know we can trust you guys?" Ruki asked begrudgingly.
Another figure shrouded by trees began to form into a shape flying their way, two shots fired past the figure, who turned and fired in response, "Night Raid!" He turned back, "if you found them it is time to go, stop messing around!" The figure came into sight.
"Myotismon?!" Daisuke's brain was starting to hurt now.
"Look you can't be sure I have no proof but you have to trust us I promise we will keep you safe!" Takuma pleaded one final time.
Daisuke gritted his teeth, "screw it, let's go. It better than staying here but we'll ride with V."
"I don't care who rides who, let's f*kin go," three more shots flew in random directions towards them, "they're getting closer, we're gonna have to put distance between us to get out."
"Are there two partners? We need to go, we're out of time," the professor asked Ruki.
She sadly replied, "she's not here. We can go."
"I'm so very sorry."
"Let's just go." She dismissed his words.
XVmon grabbed up Ruki and Daisuke and followed Myotismon and Garurumon while Agumon faced back and gave cover fire, "Baby Flame!" Pow, pow, pow, he shot.
"Where are we going?" Daisuke asked after a few minutes.
The professor replied, "just far enough so she can open the door, we can't be followed, we don't need that trouble too."
"What door?" Ruki asked, and as soon as the words left her mouth a blue ball appeared and grew to the size of a couple Greymons.
"That one," Myotismon yelled as he went through first, followed by Garurumon, then finally XVmon.
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After an odd exit from the digital world, different from ever before, they appeared in a heavily fortified facility, with barriers, reinforced walls, and heavy artillery it looked like. What was this place, it was raggedy, war torn, crumbling.
Daisuke looked over, Myotismon and Garurumon both reverted, he really knew things were weird when Dracomon made a joke with Kaito, 'jeez he really is partnered with Myotismon. Now I have seen everything.' He jokingly thought.
The professor made his way over to Ruki. "I'm still very sorry you're separated from your partner," he looked over to Gabumon, "me and my best friend were separated for a very very long time, it hurts a lot. If I can do anything to help."
"No but thank you, when I woke up I was in another world without her. I just have to get back to my world."
"Another world?" He asked curiously.
Daisuke finally nodded to XVmon having not let his guard down so far, but felt at ease enough for now to. V reverted as Daisuke walked over to the professor and Ruki. "Maybe, we think, she literally appeared in front of me out of thin air, then called me a tv character." The professor looked inquisitive, "we need to go talk to my sister. Come on, there's much to discuss I think," they followed the others out of the battered giant room to a more reasonable looking office leading to a hallway, they went down the hallway for a good ways before getting to a set of stairs going up, Takuma was in front, they ascended the stairs to a locked keyless door, Takuma waved his wrist beside the doorknob and a loud click was heard as it unlocked. They all walked in to a large room full of multiple monitors and computers, numerous bits of information on some, cameras on others. "You're all back safe, I'm so glad," a soft voice said, walking around a corner the owner was a beautiful young woman, dark hair, and deep blue wise eyes, wise beyond her years it felt. Daisuke looked away, afraid they would swallow him up. He never felt intimidated like that.
"I am Haru's sister, Miyuki Minase. I'm sorry we grabbed you up in such a hurry but this has been happening more and more and the digital world has grown extremely unstable. Opening doors all over the world and sucking people into the digital world." She said.
"Miyuki, I don't think it's the same. I don't believe they were pulled in by one of the uncontrolled doors, I think they're from somewhere else." Her brother said
Miyuki looked at him then back at the pair for clarification.
Ruki gave her a look, shrugged and told them, "look all I know is I went to sleep two nights ago in my bed, I wake up in a park, he says I appeared out of thin air, on top of that, the him in question was on an Anime I watched as a kid, that was not real. But here he is. Then we go to his digital world and meet this awful looking beast who sent us here somehow in a flash of light." Ruki said feeling tired telling it as the problems had just compounded.
Miyuki thought for a minute and finally spoke, "who was this beast who sent you here?"
"He said he was the Bugendaimon-"
"The King of Nightmares..." Miyuki sadly finished.
"You know that thing?" Daisuke said.
"No, but I know of him. We fought a great evil that called himself The Master, but I was under his control for a very long time, I may look young but I was kept prisoner for a few thousand years." The pair of teens looked shocked, 'that explains her eyes.'
"However before he was the master he was Haruchika. Haruchika researched the ancient great battles on our lore. There was one he obsessed over as the Master, and that was the dimension destroyer, Bugendaimon. The stories he read fanned the flames of destruction and despair. He spoke of how Bugendaimon almost ended the entire universe before being trapped by the United partners in a reality within a restricted digital world and how if he could just find him and restore his powers, absorb them and use them to travel to different dimensions of infinite possibilities."
"So they came from another dimension?" Takuma asked.
"I believe so," Miyuki nodded.
"So Bugendaimon did all of this, he took me from my reality and put me in his," pointing her thumb back at Daisuke, "then sent us here? Ugh!" Ruki fumed.
"That seems to be..." the Professor stated, "but obviously this is all myth older than even our generations knew."
"I also don't know why he would have sent you to another world to begin with, without just taking you from where you slept." Kaito chimed in, watching with arms crossed in the back.
"Miyuki," a voice spoke from the shadows in the rafters,it dropped out, "she has a power inside her, like yours I can feel it."
Ruki gasped as the figured dropped into sight, she was in shock, then let herself get happy before she finally remembered it couldn't be her best friend, the voice was not hers, "Renamon..." she stared into his eyes sadly.
He was silent a moment but he knew quickly, "you're partnered with a Renamon." He stated knowing her answer.
Ruki could only nod, "she's not here but yes Renamon is my best friend."
"I'm sorry. Being separated is painful. For both of you I'm quite sure." He said, Ruki looked away.
"But if he's right, you have a power that has been in our family for generations in this reality..." Miyuki said taking back her attention.
"...I have no idea what he's talking about though." She quipped, "I've never had a power, no one in my family ever claimed to."
"Then perhaps you're world never adapted it. Our world almost lost the ritual completely in the modern times." Miyuki said.
"Ritual?"
"In our world, before our Kemonogami were known to the world as Digimon, our ancestors would hold rituals, sac-"
"Wait, you called them Kemonogami?" Daisuke interrupted, Ruki rolled her eyes. "What? That's a legitimate question, I don't want to be lost."
"Before they were digital and before technology, they still existed, just on a separate plane, an alternate but still connected dimension, if you will. One that was separate and individual to our world, one that was absorbed and became digitized over the years and through the influences of our battles they did become digimon."
"Is that how all digimon began?" Daisuke looked at Ruki like she could answer but Miyuki knew it was to her.
"We don't know, we are still learning history every day. We do have a detailed ancient history we've been decrypting for years. One day we will have all your answers, but it has been corrupted over time," Miyuki told her.
"What I do know is our ancestor tribes would all participate in a sacrificial ceremony. All children would be gathered each family given a choice, made to be ready for each generation, ready for sacrifice. And as chaos would begin to bleed from this alternate world into ours, distorting time and with regular violent outbursts stemmed from the alternate dimension, evil forces gaining too much power, only then would all the tribes would meet together. They would bring the chosen one from each family, they would perform a ritual, a ritual that would open a door between worlds, and they would send them helplessly into the alternate world to pacify the demons."
Ruki looked troubled by her words, "I can't- are you serious?" She couldn't believe they would just give up their children.
Miyuki nodded, "we don't know how the ritual started, or who did, but if they sent adults the violent outbursts would only get worse, they finally but reluctantly sacrificed their children and would ultimately see peace. Little did they know they were sending children to partners. They would strengthen and defeat the evil forces."
She continued, "But none ever returned, though looking back now they never sent them a way home, they never taught them how to open the doors assuming the worst fearing they would bring the demons back trying to escape. Such an awful reality, but most lived their lives there with their best friends, one became the master, full of anger, hate and thoughts of revenge. others became something different..."
"But, does that mean you can open one to our worlds?" Daisuke asked hopeful.
"We've never thought about other worlds besides the digital one much less tried to go, I don't know the answer to that unfortunately." She spoke sadly. "However, Ruki, I believe you have this power, the power to open doors, it's rare, but I could try to help you unlock it..."
Ruki looked to Daisuke, who just gave her a slanted smile knowing there wasn't much to say, "its the closest thing to a way home right now, I don't know what else to do."
"Let's find you both some food and rest, we'll talk more tomorrow."
"Food!" Daisuke and V-mon said in unison happily following Takuma and Kaito out with their partners. Miyuki and Ruki trailed behind with the professor. Renamon disappeared. Ruki wanted to see Renamon so bad it hurt. The professor and Miyuki could see it in her face but left it alone...
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..Adventure-verse
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Taichi leaned against his car, the fuel nozzle full speed when he heard a ding, he pulled out his phone to see Koushiro had messaged him.
'Everyone's here, Yamato is on the way with Takeru, hurry up.'
'I'm hurrying, I've driven all over running around getting ready, forgot gas, filling up be there in 5.'
He hit send moments before it clicked off, he hung the nozzle up, hopped in his car, started it, and took off.
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Taichi pulled into Koushiro's office garage, when he got close he spotted all the other's cars, Yamato had beat him too it looks like. He quickly parked and made his way to the elevators and up to his office.
He walked in, "finally." Hikari scolded him.
He deflected her, "it's good to see you Mimi, I wish it was for better reasons." They hugged, "I missed you."
"I missed you too," she replied as Ken stood up.
"Ok everyone is here, everyone is caught up, we've been working all night, I'm grumpy," Ken started, "so what we do know. Ruki showed up from nowhere, out of thin air, they're contacted digitally by text from a nonexistent sender, Ruki is kidnapped, Daisuke finds her as she's being attacked, then they both vanish in front of Taichi, Yamato, and Hikari."
"Right," Taichi said, "Bugendaimon also said the dimensions were cracking, whatever that means."
"Yes, and moments before you reported back tons of messages from Gennai flooded in, it appears that digimon, Bugendaimon, is able to affect electronic communications too." Koushiro added.
"Gennai has since tried his hardest to track down anything on this Bugendaimon but has so far come up with nothing. However he was able to get something odd in ancient texts about dimensional breaks but hasn't deciphered all of it yet." Miyako said.
"We have also confirmed Daisuke's D3 and cell phone signals are nowhere to be found in the digital world and the real world."
"So this is really happening?" Hikari asked, "they're just in another dimension?"
"Is it any harder to believe than the digital world was?" Taichi stated. "We're just not little kids willing to accept anything like we used to be I guess..."
"Well, has Gennai got any ideas?" Yamato asked.
"Right now we're analyzing the data at the time Ruki appeared that fried some equipment, and when they both disappeared I had an upgraded module installed and was able to catch all the data. We're trying really hard, we think that we identified something, we're working on repurposing and reprogramming a D3's digital gate opening code. If we can get it to recognize the original data, working backwards, we think tonight we can be ready to test it... But there's no guarantee we will make it to the right place, nor do I know if we can get back. That's why everyone is here. This is not a decision to be taken lightly..." Ken said sternly.
"We've also been working on a device to help us contact D3's, it will probably only work when a door is open but if we can try to identify Daisuke's D3 signal through a gate we can maybe be more sure we're going to the right place at least."
"But what if we finally do get there and somehow do find them and there's no way back here ever?" Joe said. The room got quiet. "I'm sorry I didn't mean-"
"No, it's ok, this is why I wanted everyone to have time to think about this. We're not ready, go discuss it together or think about it alone, whatever, but that's your decision to make." Ken said.
"I'm going to search for my friend. If we're stuck, we're stuck together, but either way you guys go talk, we're getting back to work." Ken sat back down and picked the keyboard up. The others took the hint and moved to a different room in the office. Hikari stared out the window.
'I hope he's ok...' Takeru walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, "we'll find them, he'll be fine. Nothing could hurt those hard heads." She could only smile back, unconvincingly.
'What if we end up in the wrong dimension completely...'
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Find out next time...