Thanks for reading
Chapter Seven
..
..??
..
"But Sire they're in disarray in every reality, I di-" The dark booming voice was cut off.
"Silence. You don't have her, you failed." A dark hooded figure said in a disguised voice.
"Yes Sire." It bowed defeated. "I felt a trace of her for a moment again after she got away but only a fraction of a second, and nothing since. But I'll find her, I have organized search parties to every reality thanks to your benevolence of your powers, Sire, they are leaving now. They'll surely turn up something." The Digimon rose his head finally.
"Bugendaimon." The hooded figure spoke quietly, the Digimon leaned in, "get rid of at least one of them, make sure they cannot unite. Ever. Do not let them interfere. If you fail me again I'll rip that power out of you and leave you to rot." It said angrily. The dark Digimon nodded fearfully.
"Yes Sire." He said simply as the frightening looking Digimon faded out of sight. The hooded figure stood in the center of the room a few minutes, before he turned and stormed away.
..
..??
..
"But that makes no sense I would remember-" Ryo protests in Gennai's underground home.
"No you wouldn't. The human mind is frail. It doesn't like being fractured." Gennai interrupted. "When your Monodramon and Millenniumom DNA digivolved it fractured your stories, all your realities were combined into just one, you. The memories stored away, too much for just one mind. You fought alongside a group of kids here that you called friends. They were devastated at the loss when you left, but when you disappeared their memories eventually faded away too." The man said sternly.
"So this is a Digital World, but not the one I have lived my life in?" Ryo asked trying to remember the man in front of him.
"You lived them all Ryo, but simultaneously, none of them exist anymore, only you, with all the others locked somewhere inside your memories." Gennai explained.
"..." Ryo was quiet for a few moments, Gennai let the information set in. "So if I'm not supposed to be here, why am I here?" He finally asked, changing the subject somewhat.
"Actually, you're not here, I think I'm there." Gennai said, confusing the boy again. He let out an exasperated sigh.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Ryo asked, agitated by the melodrama.
"What I mean is, the realities have split, the holy Digimon have all disappeared, my real world is no longer connected here, yours is. I'm not sure how or why yet. But seeing you tells me at least that much. It explains my failed attempts to reach the Digidestined and Azulongmon."
"Azulongmon..." Ryo said softly to himself, "so what do we do now then?" Speaking up to Gennai.
"...I'm still thinking." Gennai said, "right now I think we should try to unlock your memories at the least. Come on." He turned and led Ryo down another hallway. They stopped at a door and entered, it looked like a lab, a bunch of equipment on the table, a desk with a computer. Beakers, fluids no, burners. Gennai sat at the computer and once the screen lit up he began typing quickly.
"I think there's visual records somewhere in the database of you. Or at least your Monodramon and Millenniumon. I thought maybe if you see them-" Gennai stopped, cautious to not overload Ryo, he chose his next words carefully. "Maybe seeing what they saw will spark something." Gennai knew the video would upset him. But he had no choice.
"It's all we've got right now." They both watched the screen silently as he searched.
..
..Survive-verse
..
Miyuki looked worried for the first time since Daisuke had met her, he began to worry as she tried a third and final time to unsuccessfully open a gate to the Digital World.
"I can't get one open either" she said finally looking back to her brother. "We're locked out."
"Has this ever happened before?" Ruki asked them.
"Not since the Master was still around, but things have progressively gotten worse with the gates since this all started. I can't say I didn't expect some kind of problems." Miyuki told her.
"You expected this?" Daisuke questioned.
"Not exactly, but I knew things were getting worse, something was going to go wrong. We need to focus on helping Ruki right now I think. If Wisemon is correct, she may be the best way to stop all this." Miyuki felt her words add weight to Riki's shoulders, it couldn't be helped though, she thought. "I know that's not helpful, but it's realistic."
"It's alright." Ruki acted unfazed.
Daisuke grabbed her hand, "you got this." He told her. She accepted it quietly, he squeezed, she felt a little better. She squeezed back, closing her eyes and clearing her mind. She thought about the purple door. Renamon. She thought of nothing else but find her partner. Her best friend.
"Countless stars that shine so bright…" She sang perfectly Daisuke thought to himself.
"Sparkling with ancient heat and light…
May this world where friends are found…"
She felt something different this time, her hand pulsed, it was Daisuke. She could feel the power, his aura resonating, she focused on that feeling. Gathering strength.
"With ghostly voices now resound.
Let these bonds be refashioned…"
Purple energy cracked, she didn't jump this time, instead she embraced it, she closed her eyes, the pool cracked and electricity bubbled around it as she felt the energy flow.
"Never to break apart again…
Take my body, together we'll be…
Let your light shine down on me…"
It solidified, everyone in the room stared, Ruki opened her eyes and was speechless. She tugged on Daisuke's hand, who was still holding his eyes closed. He opened one eye, then the other and stood in shock a moment.
"...it worked?" He asked, then looked at Ruki's face, "I mean of course it worked!" He walked forward, seemingly to investigate, but actually to avoid Ruki's judging eyes.
But they all were captivated by the pool of purple energy. It looked smooth as glass. Daisuke spotted movement inside the purple tinted glass. But the moment he moved and let go of Ruki, the door shut and disappeared.
"You did it!" Daisuke turned and smiled. Ruki tried to not show much but let a smile hit the corner of her mouth.
"So why can she open a gate but none of us can?" Miu asked Miyuki.
"I suspect something is progressively getting worse, now preventing us completely from opening a gate to the Digital World. But the power Ruki carries transcends reality, it must be more powerful than what's affecting our world, powerful enough to break through whatever barrier is in place." Miyuki told her. Everyone listened though, including Ruki and Daisuke, just as curious.
"I want to go through the door..." Ruki said, still staring at the space the door formerly occupied.
"I expected you would once you figured it out." Miyuki said. "I will be joining."
"But-" Ruki started.
"I cannot sit back and let you go alone." She said.
"And we won't let Miyuki and Ruki go alone." Kaito and Takuma both held their fists out.
"We're in too!" Saki, Miu, and Aoi all smiled and either waved or put a thumb up.
"This might be a one way trip..." Daisuke said knowing they were already on the same trip.
"So was our first trip to the Digital World we thought." Shuuji said standing at the doorway, having been listening. "It's the fate of all our worlds."
"Give us time to prepare, both ourselves and our world for our absence." Haru asked. Ruki nodded.
"We'll meet back here in an hour, some of us will have to stay to make sure things don't fall apart here, the rest will be here with their partners, ready." Miyuki said, everyone nodded and left to prepare.
She looked to her brother, "you can't-" he stopped her.
"I have to. What if Takuma needs Gabumon?" Haru asked her.
"You're losing strength everyday brother." Miyuki said dismissing his question, Haru sighed.
"But I will still do everything that I can until my very last moment sister..." She stood there for a moment, finally sighing sadly she nodded, knowing she would do the same.
"Fine. I'll prepare Gabumon as well as Renamon..." She told her brother as she walked out of the room, leaving him alone in the huge room.
..
..Rose's Whoniverse
..
The digidestined, their partners, and Renamon stood around David and Rose.
"Ok so right now we know that you guys made your own door and got here. But she came through the random doors we've had continue to show up." David said, more to himself than anyone in particular.
"I know this is important, but earlier you said something I've been meaning to ask about." Ken spoke up, getting David's attention.
"Sure," he told the digidestined, "ask away."
"You said 900 years of memories in a human mind." Ken started.
"Ah yes, you caught that." David laughed sheepishly, "well, as I said I was basically copied from an alien, that alien just happened to be a time lord, that was just over 900 when he was copied. It gets complicated sometimes explaining." He finished.
"Sir, I can't even begin to imagine, I hope one day we can talk about it all, but it makes think you might be the endless mind we're looking for..." Ken said, some of the other digidestinded one by one connecting the same dots.
"Oh! Heroes for hire! The endless mind among the heroes!" Miyako said, catching on.
"Exactly!" Ken agreed.
"I agree, when I first heard that I had the same suspicion, but I've been trying to understand what I could possibly do or why, the Tardis can't just hop between realities, not without suffering a great deal of damage or power loss. Each Tardis is grown with a time vortex, that gains power from the heart of its universe. In another reality it immediately begins draining them."
"What if we were able to open the door? Could it pass through without damaging it?" Ken questioned. "Like how we came here?"
David stood for a moment thinking, "maybe if we could match the polarity of the door, and reverse it the moment it opened, we could use the momentum to pull the Tardis in without using any power." He muttered to himself. "Maybe." He said full volume. "I mean. Possibly. Potentially. Don't get your hopes up. Oh who am I kidding, my hopes are up, let's get started!" He ran off cackling, grabbing this and that on the way to a computer console.
Taichi and Yamato looked at each other and back at the man.
'And I thought we were nuts.' Taichi laughed to himself following the nutty sounding man.
..
..Survive-verse
..
Everyone was gathering in the buffer room, most had gathered some supplies in backpacks, food, camping cooking equipment, and more. 'Damn, they thought of a lot more then we ever did.' Daisuke thought to himself as he looked through a backpack Aoi had given him.
She had made one for Ruki and Daisuke, as well as Miyuki, The Professor, Takuma, Kaito, Saki and Miu. Ryo and Shuuji would take care of things there, Aoi was in charge. Minoru was still in America helping there. He was trying to get free but still hadn't made it so far on such short notice. Takuma was disappointed.
Everyone looked around, "I think most of us are ready. Anyone need more time?" The older Haru asked, waiting a moment no one protested.
"Whenever you're ready Ruki, I think we're ready..." He told her looking at her. Everyone leaving began to gather close.
Ruki sighed.
'Of course I have to sing with all these people around.' She thought. As she grew more irritated she took a deep breath.
"Countless stars that shine so bright…" She began.
"Sparkling with ancient heat and light…" She didn't feel the power this time.
"May this world where friends are found…" The door still hadn't opened. She grabbed Daisuke's hand, closed her eyes and focused.
"With ghostly voices now resound.
Let these bonds be refashioned…" She began to feel it flow inside her, her heart fluttered. His aura, the miracle boy, it gave her strength, it made her feel at ease. The atmosphere changed as the door cracked open, the purple pool of energy coming to life.
"Never to break apart again…
Take my body, together we'll be…" She felt it, she felt what Miyuki meant, 'there, that feeling.' She felt shocked, but embraced the feeling in her heart, as she did the purple energy solidified and calmed perfectly as the song came to an end.
"Let your light shine down on me…" She trailed off at the ending, staring into the liquid mirror, lost.
Daisuke squeezed her hand, when her eyes met his, he smiled, "now or never. Let's do this." She squealed slightly as he darted to the door with a giant grin, holding her hand the whole time. The others following in the same spirit more or less.
..
..??
..
As they traversed the door, it felt nauseating, nothing like a trip to the Digital World. It lasted too long. As Ruki Daisuke and Vmon came crashing through the door they landed roughly but the three knew to be expecting a rough landing and immediately jumped up on defense. The others landed one by one, their partners in tow as well.
"Looks like we're close to Tokyo." Ruki said pointing to a few advertisements over them.
"This looks familiar." Daisuke said quietly.
"I think those are the domes at Yumenoshima Park." Takuma said.
Daisuke immediately recognized them. "They are, this is Odaiba..." ding, ding, ding. Inside his bag his phone that he forgot began to vibrate like crazy and kept dinging over and over.
"What the hell is that?" Ruki asked as Daisuke hurriedly grabbed his phone.
"It's...my...damn" he rifled through the bag, "phone!" He found it, and silenced it. "My messages are working, Hikari, my mom, my sister, Taichi, Ken. I think we're in my reality." He dialed Ken, it rang, and rang, and rang. The voicemail. He called Taichi. Same result. "Screw it." He looked around getting his bearings. "Come on everyone, follow me, a friends place is close. We can at least go there and get a game plan worst case." Daisuke picked up Demi-vmon and began jogging on the sidewalk. Getting only a few strange looks on the way.
He dismissed them all until they passed a tv with a video of Digimon blowing up a building. Daisuke stopped, the building wasn't familiar, all the signs in the video were in English. Finally it changed views, the caption read. Monster loose in Los Angeles! National Guard retreating!
"Oh shit, it wasn't like this when we left. This might not be-" Daisuke was interrupted by a woman screaming.
"They've got one of those monsters!" He realized they were all staring at their partners. The woman that screamed was pointing at Daisuke and Vmon.
"I think we need to go." Ruki said pushing Daisuke to pick the pace back up.
"I agree, let's get the fuck out of here." Kaito said crassly as he grabbed Dracmon, the rest grabbed their friends up and joined them in a jog to the backstreets.
"Let's hurry, we're not far his place is just up ahead, not far, this way." Daisuke waved the others to follow him.
..
..Adventure-verse
..
Nefertimon and Pegasusmon zoomed across the sky, finally close to home, the sun had set but they could see Koushiro's building in the distance.
"I see Koushiro's" Takeru said to Joe.
"Finally! I'm so ready to be back on solid ground!" Joe said.
"Me too!" Gomamon chimed in behind him as they swooped onto the rooftop of the building.
Takeru, Hikari, Joe, and Gomamon hopped off as the other two reverted. Hikari opened a door to a stairwell, "come on, hopefully Koushiro has some answers." The others followed her, Takeru seemed a little fretted about Hikari. Still worried about the incident. Patamon could easily spot his worry.
"She's doing fine right now." He told him as they trailed the rear.
"What?" Takeru tried to ask like he didn't know what Patamon was getting at, Patamon stared at him silently. "...fine, I'm worried about her, you can read me so well..." Takeru sighed.
"If you worry too much you can't see the whole picture sometimes." His friend insisted.
"Alright buddy, you're right, we have to be on top of our game." Takeru said with a new zest. Gatomon, Hikari, Joe, and Gomamon walked out of the stairwell and spotted the entrance to Koushiro's.
They waited a minute for Takeru and Patamon to catch up. As the two walked out of the stairwell door the elevator bell dinged behind them. As they turned, Hikari and a strange voice squealed at the same time.
"Meiko!"
"Hikari!"
The two girls met in the hall and hugged.
"I'm so happy to see you! I wish it was for better reasons." Meiko said.
Takeru asked, "did Koushiro say anything?"
"Not really. We had some problems with our gates, he said to try and come here he'd explain more." She told them as they walked to his door.
Without knocking, Hikari continued with Meiko and opened the door right up, walking in. She stopped, staring at an unfamiliar face. The girl stared back at Hikari with the same look, then she spotted someone behind her familiar, "Takeru!" A French voice said excitedly.
He was shocked, Hikari looked back to him as the girl ran past and hugged her boyfriend giving him a kiss on the cheek. She instantly didn't like her.
"Catherine! I wasn't expecting to see you!" He laughed sheepishly holding his head. Avoiding Hikari's narrowed eyes.
"Koushiro said he had important news and I was with Floramon helping in China when the gates went down, so Koushiro chartered us a private little plane." She told them.
"Us?" Joe asked, catching her wording.
"Hey again!" An American boy said.
"Michael?" Hikari half asked, half joked. He smiled.
"His dad has a private jet and loves to help in the interest of saving the world!" Catherine said cheerily.
"Now that you guys are here he might finally talk some." Michael joked.
"He's never normally this cryptic, he must've figured out something really good." Takeru laughed as they began making their way to his office. Hikari opened the door. It wasn't open much before a noise grabbed all their attention.
*Cough* "Ughn'aak" a gross fluidly noise filled the teens ears, confused Hikari swung the door open.
Her eyes shot wide, "No!" She screamed, the others gasped.
"Damn I thought he'd bleed out before you guys showed up." Bugendaimon laughed venomously, he snatched his arm back from Koushiro's chest, dripping with blood. His face fell into the pool of blood on the desk.
"Koushiro!" Joe yelled, tears filling his eyes. Everyone reacted in what felt like slow motion, they all attempted to jump, to digivolve, to run... Bugendaimon prepared an attack.
*Cough-cough* "...run..." Koushiro looked up, choking on his own blood he coughed again and spit out blood as he slammed his balled up fist on the keyboard. The program booted and the door opened forcefully, sending another shockwave out throwing Koushiro and Bugendaimon back. Michael, Joe and Takeru grabbed their partners, Takeru grabbing Hikari as well. "Come on!"
"But no, what about-" Hikari protested, but Bugendaimon had jumped up and leapt towards Hikari.
"Mega Flame!"
"Knuckle Fire!"
"Night Raid!"
They all made contact, not doing much damage but forcing Bugendaimon to recoil back. Everyone stopped shocked, but when Hikari saw Fladramon she gasped, "Daisuke?!" She looked around and spotted Daisuke with Ruki and a bunch of strangers. She was confused, expecting to see her brother.
"Don't stop! Go! Go!" Daisuke yelled. Joe, Catherine, Michael, and Meiko ran through the door, Takeru and Tailmon dragged a protesting Hikari.
Daisuke, Takuma, and Kaito stood at the door, their partners relentlessly firing at the dark digimon, who grew angry. His prey within his grasp suddenly.
"No, she will be mine! Dream Destroyer" He fired shot after shot.
"Come on damnit!!" Daisuke yelled as Miyuki, Saki, and Miu were also shoved through the door by the old man who followed.
"Bloody stream!"
"Fire Rocket!"
"Mega Flame!"
The three shots blasted through the dream destroyer shot and hit Bugendaimon square on.
"That's everyone, come on it's closing!" Daisuke yelled as he, Takuma, and Kaito jumped through the door as it began to close
Myotismon, Fladramon flew through after Greymon made it through. The door snapped shut as Bugendaimon flew toward it.
"Rahhhh, damnit!" He cursed as he flew through empty air. He scowled at the air, before grunting and looking at the bloodied body on the ground. "We'll just tell him about you." He sneered and started to fade away, "not her."
..
..??
..
Daisuke's head throbbed, 'it literally gets worse every single time, shit.' His thoughts growled.
Then he heard a harrowing click, he'd only heard on tv before. His eyes shot open, his friends and new teammates all around, but they were surrounded. He turned his head, his face inches away from the barrel of a machine gun, men dressed in black surrounding them. All with guns drawn, aimed at both the digidestined and their partners as well.
Daisuke put his hands in the air like the others were doing already, hung his head and sighed, "fu-"
..To be continued...
Till next time