A/N: Happy Digi-versary, everyone! I didn't manage to upload this chapter last week like I'd hoped (obviously), but how fitting is it that we get to conclude Part 1 of this tale on August 1st, the 23rd anniversary of the day it all began! (sigh. I'm getting old…) [Edit 09/20/2024 This note used to have a bit of excited fanboying over Toei's release of 5 minutes of Digimon Adventure Zero Two: The Beginning ahead of its theatrical debut. Now that it's been out almost a year, I'll say this: that movie was an atrocious failure. No offense to anyone that enjoyed it—I honestly envy you—but that was the most disappointing theater experience I've had since Eragon. I could honestly rant for days about the confoundingly awful decisions that were made, but I won't, at least not here. Just wanted to say that that film has no bearing on my story whatsoever, and wouldn't have even if I'd loved it. My plans remain unchanged, and if you notice any similarities between them (lol), they are entirely coincidental.]
Kari was sitting in a lecture hall, studiously taking notes while her professor taught. Gatomon was curled up into a ball by her feet under the wooden table, tail twitching ever so slightly in her sleep. Kari glanced at her partner and smiled as a particularly strong flick brushed against her ankle. Then she returned her attention to the diagram the professor was making on the whiteboard and proceeded to copy it down. While most other students nowadays preferred to type their notes in a document on their laptops, Kari loved the tactile feeling of pen and paper. It was calming somehow, concentrating as she moved across the page in elegant, flowing strokes to create aesthetically beautiful characters (and sometimes doodles in the margins), to the point that people often stopped to comment on her impeccable handwriting.
She enjoyed just sitting down and getting lost in the clean lines that she constructed. It helped her clear her mind from all the things she was anxious about, and after the week she'd had, being in class was a welcome reprieve from more unpleasant realities.
Her contented reverie was abruptly shattered by a voice in her ear. It was Davis.
"Kari, T.K., we need backup! I have a Code Pitchfork! Repeat, Code Pitchfork! We need holy digimon here now!"
The message ended with a loud BOOM and a crackle of static. Kari was already on her feet shoving her notebook away into a messenger bag, the blood draining from her face.
"Come on, Gatomon, we need to go!" she urged quietly, shaking the feline digimon's shoulders. Gatomon's ears popped up and her eyes shot open in irritation, but after one look at her partner any objections she might have voiced died in her throat, and she nodded without a word.
The middle-aged man standing at the front of the class craned his head to the side and folded his arms crossly. "Again, Ms. Kamiya? I had hoped you would exhibit greater respect for me and your fellow classmates than to—"
"I'm so sorry, Hosoda-sensei," Kari interrupted, "but it's an emergency!"
"Of course it is," he replied with biting sarcasm, but she was already out of the room.
Kari sprinted down the hallway toward the stairs, with Gatomon easily keeping pace by her side. She touched the talk button on her earpiece. "Davis, I'm coming! Davis?" But there was no answer. She frowned and touched it again. "T.K., did you get that?"
His reply came shortly after. "Yeah. Patamon and I are on our way. We'll see you there!"
"Copy!" she said tersely.
Kari swung a hard right as she got to the stairwell, gripping the railing to keep her balance, and raced down the two flights of steps to the ground floor.
"What's happening?" Gatomon queried as she bounded down the steps three at a time.
"It's Davis," Kari panted back. "He's in trouble. He invoked a Code Pitchfork."
Gatomon's only reaction was a brief hesitation before she took the next leap. It made sense. That was why he needed her and Patamon. A Code Pitchfork meant that a species of Devimon had been sighted. Not only were they very powerful virus digimon, but they were all but impossible to be destroyed by anything except holy digimon. "I'm ready. That devil will be sorry it messed with this kitty!" she snarled.
Pushing past dozens of people in the lobby with several quick apologies, Kari and Gatomon exited the building through a pair of double-doors made of thick glass. They ran a short distance away until they had enough space, and Kari pulled out her phone. "Gatomon, Digivolve!" she commanded. Kari shielded her eyes as the bright light coming from her partner briefly eclipsed the sun's, and when it faded a magnificent angel stood in her place. Kari secured her bag over her opposite shoulder and approached the seven foot tall celestial being. "Hurry, Angewomon," she implored.
Angewomon gave a silent nod and locked her arms around Kari's waist before taking off into the sky.
The fallen angel caught Noriko just before Deltamon's skeletal head snapped upon the empty air scant inches beneath her feet. The newly evolved LadyDevimon twirled as it rose with Noriko in her left arm. The maneuver positioned the Ultimate level digimon under Davis as her next target, but also had the additional effect of whacking Veemon with her wing into the subway wall.
"Oof!" Davis wheezed as his body collided with LadyDevimon's, and he clung to her for dear life as he dangled over the enraged Deltamon. LadyDevimon leered at him with something akin to savage glee, and there was no trace of Noriko's partner left in those wicked red eyes. She opened her mouth, baring dozens of flesh-tearing fangs, and with a delighted shriek, she lunged at him.
Her bite would have likely taken his head had he not been faster. He let go with his right arm and swung outward, now only gripping onto the chain coiled around LadyDevimon's right wrist.
"Davis!" Noriko called out, trying to reach him.
They rose out of the hole into the daylight. Yolei and Hawkmon stood at the edge of the chasm and watched the dark figure appear. Recognition sparked in Yolei as the sight of the digimon with Davis and Noriko in its clutches triggered the memory of a frantic nighttime chase near Highton View Terrace, which had ended with her having to destroy a digimon for the first time. "Oh no, not again!" she groaned. Ken and Wormmon could be seen on the far side of the hole towards her right, and Cody and Armadillomon stood on the left.
Hovering fifteen feet or so above the hole, LadyDevimon seemed to be annoyed with Davis. Whipping her arm around, she hurled him away from her as a pitcher hurls a baseball. His body flipped several times before crashing into the side of a sedan, the back of his head bashing the driver's side window hard enough to shatter glass. He slumped forward from the now heavily dented car.
Yolei was at his side in a moment. "Davis! Are you all right?" she shouted, holding him upright so he would not collapse to the pavement.
Now free of Davis, LadyDevimon turned her attention on Noriko, and began to use both arms to squeeze the life out of her.
"Salamon—what are you doing?" Noriko gasped, struggling weakly and desperate for her next breath of air. "Salamon...stop...please…" The arms around her felt like bars of iron, and her vision was beginning to fade...
A rock bounced off of LadyDevimon's head. She turned to face her assailant and met Cody's emerald eyes staring harshly at her. "That's enough! Let her go!" he commanded. A light shone from his phone and Armadillomon was in the process of digivolving.
LadyDevimon snarled and tossed Noriko away like she had Davis. Cody sprang forward in alarm, trying to catch her in time.
"Don't worry, I've got you!" he exclaimed, but Noriko bowled over the smaller boy in his attempt to break her fall and the pair of them were sent sprawling.
Davis was unresponsive to Yolei at first, as he had blacked out momentarily. But then he sat up and moaned groggily. "Oww, that really hurt."
"No kidding," Yolei scoffed, reaching down to pick up his earpiece from where it had fallen on the ground. "You got hit so hard your communicator fell out."
Davis stared blankly at the piece of tech in Yolei's hand, then snapped his head back up to LadyDevimon. He knew now what had to be done. Davis snatched the earpiece from Yolei and yelled into it, "Kari, T.K., we need backup! I have a Code Pitchfork! Repeat, Code Pitchfork! We need holy digimon here now!"
As he spoke, LadyDevimon twirled in a circle and created a swarm of bat-like creatures that she sent their way. "Darkness Wave!"
Davis fumbled his earpiece as he and Yolei rolled out of the way an instant before the attack landed. The earpiece, and the car they had been in front of, were obliterated.
"Spiking Strike!" Stingmon stabbed at LadyDevimon with his stinger, but she caught it under her arm and spun him around in a circle, laughing maniacally before releasing him. Stingmon crashed into the side of a nearby building.
Once everything stopped spinning, Cody was aware of something heavy pressing against his chest and smothering his face. "Mmmph!" he grunted as he struggled to pry his head out from the curve of Noriko's neck. He tried to push her off of him, which was difficult considering one of her arms was pinned under his back. At last he managed to untangle their limbs, and feeling half a dozen new bruises, Cody sat up and noticed Noriko wasn't stirring.
"Noriko?" He began to look her over in trepidation. He had caught her, yes, but he wasn't sure how successful he had been in preventing her being injured. He shook her. "Noriko! Noriko, wake up!" Cody tried to replay the last few moments in his mind: How many times had they rolled over the pavement? Two? Three? They both had sustained various scrapes, but what if she had hit her head?
Suddenly her eyes sprang open, her back arched, and her chest ballooned as she sucked in great quantities of air. Cody could have cried from relief. "Noriko!" he laughed, "you're going to be okay!"
A tiny blue arm emerged from the mouth of the hole near Davis and Yolei and waved. "Could I get a little help here?!" Veemon grunted. They helped the struggling Rookie clamber the rest of the way out. He was a little banged up, but had managed to escape serious injury. The ground rumbled again as Deltamon stomped around and roared angrily. "What's down there?" Yolei asked, who hadn't seen the digital monster within the pit.
"Deltamon," Davis spat, wincing as he wiped a trickle of blood from a cut on the side of his head.
Ken came jogging toward them from around the edge of the hole. "Davis, are you all right? That looked like a pretty nasty fall."
"I'll live," he muttered. "Right now we gotta focus on Deltamon and LadyDevimon."
From the opposite side of the pit, Digmon was drilling into the ground. "Rock Crackin'!" he cried. This caused a landslide to fall onto Deltamon, partially burying the three-headed dinosaur. Nearby, Cody was helping Noriko up while Stingmon and LadyDevimon traded blows overhead.
"It looks like Cody and Digmon are handling Deltamon right now, but Stingmon can't hold his own against LadyDevimon for long," said Ken. He looked at Davis. "Should we use Paildramon?"
"No," Davis replied, shaking his head. "He's too powerful. His Desperado Blaster would destroy everything in a five-block radius if we let him fight. Besides, he won't be effective against LadyDevimon." Turning to Yolei, he asked, "Have T.K. or Kari responded yet?"
"Oh, I forgot!" She pressed the button on her earpiece. "T.K., Kari, do either of you read me?" She paused to listen for a moment. "Affirmative. See you soon."
"So they're coming?" Ken asked.
"Yes. Kari said they're still about five minutes out, but they're on their way."
"Then we just have to keep LadyDevimon busy until they get here. Yolei, can you and Hawkmon help Stingmon out?"
"I think we can do that," Yolei grinned, sharing a look with her partner. "Digi-armour energize!" Hawmon glowed a vibrant green as he transformed into a Shinobi-like plant creature.
"Hawkmon armour-digivolve to...Shurimon, the Samurai of Sincerity!"
"You'd better go too, Veemon," Davis ordered.
"Right!", Veemon replied with a pump of his fist before the light of digivolution overtook him. "Veemon digivolve to...ExVeemon!" The two Armour and Champion level digimon rose into the air to engage with LadyDevimon.
Cody made his way to them, supporting Noriko. His pants were ripped at the knees, and her white shirt was smudged with dirt and torn at the shoulder where she'd suffered a nasty scrape. "Cody! Noriko!" Ken called. "Are you two okay? Where's Salamon?"
Noriko seemed to be in a daze. "Why would she do that…? Salamon...why?"
"Guys, you don't understand. That," said Davis, pointing to the sky at the fallen angel digimon, "is Salamon!"
Ken gasped while Cody nodded grimly as if confirming his suspicion gathered from Noriko's babbles.
Yolei slapped her forehead. "Oy vey. That's all we needed: a partner digimon gone rogue!"
"LadyDevimon," Ken murmured, the gravity of the situation dawning on him. "Of course. A dark digivolution."
Meanwhile, Deltamon had dug his way out of the dirt and rock that Digmon had tried to encase him in. Unfortunately, the attack had also served to create a makeshift ramp out of the hole that Deltamon was using to climb to the surface.
Suddenly Ken became aware of Izzy barking into his earpiece. There was so much noise, and he had been so hyper-focused on the battle raging around them that he hadn't noticed it before, though the exasperation in Izzy's voice told him this wasn't the first repetition he'd missed. "I need a status report! What's going on? Is everyone all right?"
"It's complicated Izzy, and we're a little busy right now!" Ken said in reply as he tried to follow the three-on-one fight taking place in the air above them.
"Vee Laser!"
"Double Star!"
ExVeemon and Shurimon attacked from two fronts, but LadyDevimon nimbly sidestepped them both with unnatural speed. A sadistic smile on her ashen face, she transformed the claw on her elongated arm into a narrow lance and lunged at Shurimon. "Darkness Spear!"
"Spiking Strike!" Stingmon parried LadyDevimon's blade with his own. She blinked in surprise as her blow was thrown off target, giving ExVeemon the chance to come behind her and demonstrate a perfect full-Nelson on LadyDevimon.
"Yeah, that's the way! Just like we practiced!" Davis encouraged, beaming with pride.
But the hold was short-lived. Before he knew what was happening, ExVeemon was thrown over the fallen angel's shoulder, and Shurimon received a vicious sweeping kick to the face. The winged dragon recovered quickly, but the floral samurai met the unyielding pavement.
Deltamon lashed Digmon with one of its two tails, sending the insectoid digimon staggering backward. Deltamon then set all three of his sights on LadyDevimon, a laser from each head combining into the signature triangular shape for which he was named, and from there coalesced into a single mighty beam. "Triplex Force!" he roared.
The blast clipped LadyDevimon in the side while she was grappling with Stingmon. She spun for two revolutions before regaining balance, not seriously hurt, but considerably angry. She looked down at Deltamon in loathing and loosed an inhuman screech. The Digidestined on the ground covered their ears in pain as nearby windows were riven to pieces. Then LadyDevimon twirled again, summoning another swarm of bats.
"Darkness Wave!" she screamed, sending the entire onslaught Deltamon's way.
It was a direct hit.
The bats exploded over Deltamon, pummeling him into the ground. The three-headed dinosaur did not rise again. Yolei rushed over to the fallen digimon with a cold pit of fear in her stomach as she saw his form lose stability, glitching in and out on the verge of disintegration. If Deltamon died now, here in the Real World, there would be no rebirth for him.
"Izzy!" the purple-haired girl called frantically, "I need a digital gate sent to my location ASAP!"
"Copy that," the young genius answered from his office, "the gate is on its way, but what's happening?"
"The situation is in flux. All you need to know right now is there's a dying Deltamon that needs transport to the Digital World immediately!"
"Understood", Izzy replied, the sound of fingers flying over a keyboard coming through their connection. "And good luck out there."
Yolei backed away from the mortally wounded creature as a portal appeared beneath him and Deltamon was slowly submerged in its light. She exhaled heavily with relief. "Transmission complete. Thanks, Izzy. We made it in time."
By now Digmon had joined the fray in the air, since his opponent on the ground was no longer of concern. Shurimon had shrugged off his injuries and rejoined the fight as well, but even the four Champion and Armoured digimon working together proved to find a bitter challenge in the demonic Ultimate. Their attacks were little more than irritating distractions to keep LadyDevimon from wreaking more havoc to the surrounding area, but hers were devastating to them. The power imbalance was acutely apparent as the Chosen Children's partners worked hard to keep out of harm's way. They darted in and out cautiously, aware that they were fighting a losing battle that they couldn't maintain forever.
Shurimon and Stingmon advanced together, striking as a single unit in perfect tandem born out of years of fighting together. LadyDevimon managed to parry them both with her superior speed again and again, but that was to be expected and only served to make her open to attack from behind, an opening which Digmon exploited.
"Gold Rush!" Digmon fired all of his drill bits into LadyDevimon's side. She snarled in pain and rage.
"Vee-La—" ExVeemon began from her other side, but was cut off as she savagely raked her claw across his throat. He fell from there in a glow of blue light and landed on the ground as DemiVeemon.
Davis was there to pick him up soon after. "DemiVeemon! You okay, buddy?"
DemiVeemon coughed. "I don't feel so hot."
Davis looked up and saw LadyDevimon shoot another Darkness Wave at Digmon before Shurimon sent the large throwing star on his back her way. "I sure hope T.K. and Kari get here soon," He remarked worriedly.
Kari watched the sprawling city go by from several hundred feet up, captivated by the birds-eye view. She was tempted to pull her digital camera out of her bag for a picture, but was sure she would only end up dropping it in the process. She shivered as she was buffeted by an updraft. The air was bitterly cold at this altitude, and the wind was strong at the speed they were going. She really would have to pack some warmer clothes for occasions such as this.
Angewomon noticed her discomfort and curled her middle pair of wings inward around Kari to ward off the brunt of the chill. "Are you all right, Kari?" she asked with concern.
"I'm fine, Angewomon. Thank you."
"It won't be much longer."
They crossed over a bend in the Sumida river for the second time, the path of a winding blue ribbon visible for miles. Looking off to her right, Kari noticed a speck moving swiftly toward them. Within seconds, the speck grew into the figures of T.K. and Angemon, who came up alongside them.
There was a hardness in T.K's eyes, and his brow creased in a particularly determined expression that revealed the severity of his focus. It had been a long time since Kari had seen that look, but she knew it well, and she knew also why it was there. Kari hadn't been around then, but she knew the tale of his fight with Devimon and Angemon's sacrifice to secure that victory, how it must have affected him at such a young age in a time before they knew that digimon could be reborn. And she had witnessed first hand how angry he became whenever the powers of darkness were involved. For T.K., combating the darkness wasn't just his duty as a Digidestined. It was personal. He gave it his all when it came to such struggles, whether it was beating some humility into the Digimon Emperor, risking everything to stop BlackWargreymon from annihilating the Destiny Stones, or braving strange worlds to rescue her from an unspeakable fate…
Kari shivered again, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold. His eyes locked with hers and something passed between them. This wasn't just a normal fight. He would hold nothing back, and he needed her to do the same. She nodded once, affirming her trust in him to follow his lead, and that she would not let him down.
She returned her gaze to the front, where she knew her friends were fighting a tough battle. Hold on, Davis, she thought. We're coming.
The land began to break up into smaller chunks as the water spread out around a handful of islands on the edge of Tokyo Bay. They approached Ariake from the north, tilting downward in a swift but controlled descent. As they leveled out, T.K. consulted his digiphone to trace the signal. "Go right, Angemon!"
The two angels banked as they soared over Small Worlds Tokyo, following a four-lane highway pock-marked with perhaps a dozen holes where the pavement was busted up, and one large crater where something big and heavy had evidently impacted with tremendous force. "Well, we're definitely headed in the right direction," Kari observed dryly.
T.K. gave a grim nod in response. "I hope we're not too late."
As they neared the crossroads, they could see a dark figure in the air fighting with a green opponent over a giant hole with a handful of humans scattered around the perimeter. "Down there, Angemon!"
The angels set them down next to Davis and Yolei, who were holding the In-Training forms of their partners and watching the battle intently. "Kari, T.K., you're just in time!" Davis exclaimed.
"Yeah," Yolei added. "The rest of our digimon were wiped out, and now Stingmon is the only one left!"
Kari looked up with a glowering expression as she identified her adversary. "LadyDevimon," she spat disdainfully. "Angewomon, you know what to do."
"With pleasure," she replied, and took off.
"You too, Angemon! Tear her apart!" T.K. roared.
"NO!" Noriko stumbled forward as quickly as she was able with her injured leg and clutched T.K.'s shirt for support. His eyes widened as he noticed her for the first time, taking in her dirty appearance and bloodied shoulder. "Please don't kill her," she begged, tears streaming down her face. "It's Salamon!"
The bearer of Hope blinked in surprise, his blonde eyebrows shooting upward. Beside him, Kari gasped. "Oh no!"
"What?" asked Angemon, pausing alongside Angewomon to look back at their partners uncertainly.
T.K. paled as the truth hit him like a charging Mammothmon. He looked up at LadyDevimon and saw the bestial rage in her eyes, the wild savagery of her attacks. This wasn't like either LadyDevimon they had fought before, who had been conscious of their evil. No remnant of sentient rationality remained in this one. It's just like when Agumon dark-digivolved into SkullGreymon, a mindless, uncontrollable machine of death and destruction.
"What should we do, T.K.?" Kari asked, a pained expression on her face.
Grappling with indecision, he weighed their options with the knowledge that the potential for tragedy lie in whichever path he chose. Then the moment passed, and accepting both what must be done and its possible outcome, T.K. pointed to the angels hovering above him. "Go!," he said authoritatively. "LadyDevimon must be stopped, but do what you can so that she isn't destroyed!"
During their hesitation, LadyDevimon had vaulted over Stingmon, wrapping her chain around his neck, and was now choking him from behind. Stingmon flailed his arms trying to get at the chain, but to no avail.
Angewomon drew back on her bow and aimed at the demon's face. "LadyDevimon!" she growled contemptuously, "Let. Him. Go."
LadyDevimon bared her fangs in a defiant snarl and only pulled tighter, as if she hoped to separate Stingmon's head from his body. Angewomon raised her bow to her cheek and prepared to loose, but felt Angemon tap her shoulder.
"Wait. Let me," he said, and hurled his staff like a javelin. It rammed straight into her forehead, knocking her back and forcing her to release Stingmon, who emitted a violet glow as he fell and landed in Ken's waiting arms as Minomon.
LadyDevimon screeched in fury at the loss of her prey and fled from the angelic digimon, climbing up and away at top speed.
"Don't lose her!" Angemon warned, giving chase.
"I won't," vowed Angewomon. She quickly outpaced him, being a higher level and possessing an extra pair of wings, and soon overtook LadyDevimon. Angewomon snatched her by the hair as she blew past, and they tumbled through the air twice before Angewomon released her fallen counterpart, slamming her into the roof of a thirty-two story building right below them.
LadyDevimon shot back up with a horrible cry and stabbed at Angewomon with her transformed arm-spike. Angewomon narrowly avoided impalement, but their bodies crashed into one another and they reeled as they grappled with each other. LadyDevimon was caught on the cheek by a well-placed elbow, but soon got the upper hand, climbing over Angewomon and delivering a brutal kick to the stomach with her high-heeled boots.
Angewomon cried out in pain.
Angemon's staff cracked over LadyDevimon's back, and she retaliated by flipping up and around to clamp her legs like a vice around his neck, sitting on his shoulders. From there she raked her claws over his faceplate again and again, gouging deep scratches into the metal.
"Haaah!" roared Angewomon as she tackled the black creature, tearing her free from Angemon. They struggled for several moments, trading and blocking blows back and forth, but Angewomon was having trouble. Both of the LadyDevimon she'd battled before fought dirty, but this went beyond that. This LadyDevimon fought with an animalistic ferocity that astounded her, and she clearly had no regard for self-preservation. Suddenly LadyDevimon broke past Angewomon's guard and poised a large red claw over the exposed and vulnerable flesh of her upper chest…
"No!" shouted Angemon, who seized the wrist before it could plunge into his companion. LadyDevimon swiped at him with her other claw, but he caught that one as well, and swiftly pinned her up against the side of a building. "Angewomon, shoot!"
LadyDevimon writhed violently and snake-like against her captor, letting out piercing, incoherent shrieks. Angemon knew he couldn't hold her for long.
Angewomon backed away to a safe distance and held out her bow at half-draw uncertainly. "But I could hit you!" she protested.
LadyDevimon sank her fangs into Angemon's shoulder. "It doesn't matter," he grunted. "Hurry! I'm losing my grip!"
"I'll try to diminish the power!" Angewomon called, raising the bow and taking careful aim. "Celestial Arrow!" Pink electricity crackled through the air, and she loosed the heavenly bolt.
As the light-encased projectile sped to its target, LadyDevimon freed one of her claws and tried to escape. But this also freed one of Angemon's hands, which he closed over the demon's throat and spun her around directly into the arrow's path in the final moment.
Angewomon's attack pierced LadyDevimon in what would have been her kidney had she been human. LadyDevimon howled in pain and surprise, momentarily paralyzed by the hit.
"Hand of Fate!" Angemon attacked point-blank with a punch to LadyDevimon's abdomen, sending her flying. "Hand of Fate! Hand of Fate!" Each successive attack pushed their foe farther and farther back, falling like some dark meteor until she met the earth and carved a trench into the ground over a dozen meters in length. Tiny wisps of smoke curled up from the black figure that had been repeatedly bathed in holy light.
"Salamon!" Noriko rushed forward in an attempt to reach her partner, but Davis held her back.
"Wait," he whispered, eyeing the beaten digimon with caution. The two angels alighted on the ground gracefully to observe if she remained a threat. LadyDevimon raised a trembling claw weakly into the air, a choked, gargling hiss emanating from her. Angemon pointed his staff at her face in preparation to strike if she moved, but her malice-filled eyes at last rolled back, and her arm dropped as she lost consciousness.
"That was a fine line to walk, Angemon, to stop her without destroying her," Angewomon praised, "but you did it. Well done."
"It was a near thing," he agreed. "I think even one more hit from my staff would have been too great, but anything less would not have stopped her."
As they watched, LadyDevimon reverted to Salamon, still unconscious and covered with scratches. Davis released Noriko, and she staggered to her partner's side. "Oh, Salamon…", she sighed between quiet sobs as she gingerly brushed a smear of dirt from the Rookie's face. She scooped up the small puppy and cradled it in her arms before turning back to T.K. and the others as they gathered around her. "Why…?" she asked in a heartbroken voice, "why did this happen?"
That evening, Izzy called another meeting in the lounge below his office. Though this wasn't an AHOD and participation was not mandatory, he encouraged all of their team that was available to attend, with the concession that he promised to send a group email summarizing all of the relevant details of the meeting for those who couldn't make it.
Rounding the corner of the entrance to the Izumi Industries office building, Tai squinted and raised his hand to ward off the light from the setting sun. Amid the glare, he noticed a familiar silhouette coming from the opposite direction, a black figure cut in sharp relief against the blazing sky. "Hey, Matt," Tai greeted with a wave, which the blonde returned before they met in front of the entrance. Tai glanced at the ground by Matt's leg where Gabumon should have been and found only empty space; it was a purely habitual response, an unconscious expectation that he didn't realize he had, but the palpable absence reminding him of reality was no less striking than the hundred or so similar reminders he'd endured that day. Looking back up, he saw that Matt's gaze had likewise drifted to Tai's own partner's customary place by his side, and came quickly up again as if Matt had received a light slap to the face.
"Hey, Tai," Matt replied, a sheepish and melancholy half-smile on his face. They regarded one another, for a moment in perfect understanding of the pain the other was experiencing and empathizing with it. "How are you doing?"
Tai inhaled deeply and let it out in a long sigh. "Just taking things a day at a time," he answered truthfully.
Matt nodded. "Yeah. Me too."
Tai clapped his shoulder and jerked his head toward the building. "Come on. The others are probably all waiting."
"Right."
They entered the lobby, where a female receptionist sitting behind a desk flashed a smile their way. "Mr. Kamiya, Mr. Ishida, good evening. Mr. Izumi is expecting you."
"Thanks, Himeko," said Matt, gesturing with his hand for her not to get up. "We know the way."
Himeko inclined her head. "Of course, sirs."
They went into one of the elevators and Tai pressed the button for the appropriate floor. "How did your project go, by the way?" Tai asked as the doors closed.
"I feel pretty good about it, but I won't really know until the grades get posted on Monday."
"Gotcha."
"Thanks for being there for Sora at the flower exhibit today. I know it meant a lot to her, and I appreciate it."
"Yeah, of course. Anytime, Matt."
Matt leaned against the elevator wall and allowed his gaze to slide to the geometric pattern on the floor, nodding to himself. "I'm...glad that you two are on good terms again."
Tai folded his arms across his chest and allowed himself a small smile. "Me too."
The doors opened and they walked across the hall to the executive lounge, where the others were waiting. They stood in a rough circle around the front half of the room: T.K. and Kari were by the far wall with their digimon; nearby, Yolei sat with her elbows resting on one of the small side tables, Poromon tiredly sucking on a juice packet from the Inoue convenience store; Izzy and Tentomon stood in the center of the room with the sunken living room to their backs; Ken sat on the counter of the cocktail bar with Minomon sleeping beside him, and Sora was closest to the door.
"Hi, Matt," Sora said, giving him a quick kiss as Tai took a spot between Kari and Yolei.
"Hey, love," Matt returned, slipping his arms loosely around her waist. "How did the flower exhibit go?"
Sora's grin couldn't have been wider as she showed him the plaque she'd been holding behind her back. "I'd say it went pretty well."
"Y-you won?" he said, amazed. "That's fantastic! I knew you could do it!" He squeezed her to himself gently.
Izzy cleared his throat to get their attention. "Ahem. Now that you're here, we can get started."
"This is everybody?" asked Tai, looking around. "I get why Mimi's not here, but what about Joe, Davis, and Cody?"
"That will become clear in a moment," Izzy assured him, adding, "honestly, this is a better turnout than I was expecting. I doubt many of our meetings in the future will be this well-attended."
"I suppose that's true," Tai conceded, not for the first time missing the old days when it was easier to get everyone together. Now it took a catastrophe to gather them all in one place.
Izzy began the debriefing without further preamble. "This afternoon there was an incident involving a digimon emergence in Ariake—three digimon to be precise, though I didn't know about the third until later.
"Three digimon at once?" asked Sora. That was a fairly unusual occurrence, though not unheard of.
Tai's eyes narrowed. "Was anyone hurt?" Izzy wouldn't have called a meeting unless something had gone wrong, and the fact that Hawkmon and Wormmon were currently in their In-Training forms was not lost on him. Then a new thought occurred to him: has someone else's bond with their digimon begun to break down already?
"There were no serious injuries, though Davis and Noriko suffered minor wounds. Joe should be tending to them now."
"Noriko? She was involved?"
Beside him, Kari slouched guiltily. "It's my fault. I sort of set her and Davis up at the restaurant she works at, and they were probably together when the alert came. Davis must have invited her along and—"
"Set up?" Sora queried. "You mean like on a date?"
"You can't take the blame for that," Yolei said, turning to Kari. "You couldn't have known a digimon was going to show up. Plus, you said yourself we should take Noriko on digimon missions, and this should have been a fairly easy-going first mission for her—certainly less pressure than mine was, anyway. I admit it got pretty lively, but things didn't really spiral out of control until...well..."
"What happened?" Matt prompted.
Yolei gave Ken a pleading look, like she didn't want to be the one to recount the events. He took a deep breath and said, "When we received the alert, Stingmon and I flew to the scene where we met up with Yolei and Cody. There we found that two digimon had emerged from the same rift—Monochromon and Pteramon. They were likely already engaged in battle when they slipped through, because they were fighting each other, so we decided to split our forces and break them up. Yolei and I took Pteramon on Stingmon and Aquilamon while Cody and Ankylomon went after Monochromon. Not long after that, Davis arrived on Raidramon. Noriko and her digimon were with them, and I told them to give Cody some backup. Yolei and I went after Pteramon, but we were having trouble keeping up with it because of its incredible speed. So we decided that in order to contain what was becoming a growing trail of collateral damage, we should drive it back to where the others were and take them down together. Our plan worked: Stingmon and Flamedramon successfully neutralized Monochromon, and once it was lured into position, Ankylomon managed to stop Pteramon...though the parking garage where the battle took place was pretty much ruined," Ken finished a bit regretfully.
"Wouldn't be the first to fall victim to our digi-battles," Matt shrugged, sending Tai a conspiratorial grin.
"And it won't be the last," Tai chuckled back.
A scowl from Izzy silenced them, and he motioned for Ken to continue. "After the battle, we were all standing around talking when we began to feel tremors in the ground below us, like the precursor to an earthquake. Izzy tried to warn us, but a sinkhole opened up and Davis and Noriko got caught in it."
Izzy took over the debriefing from there. "A Deltamon had materialized in the subway tunnels, but I didn't notice it because the weaker signal was masked by the subway walls and the other digimon in the area. It broke through the surface right under Davis and Noriko. I spoke to Davis on the phone briefly after it was all over with, and according to him, they were about to be eaten by Deltamon when Noriko's digimon Salamon digivolved...into LadyDevimon."
Tai, Matt, and Sora flinched rigidly with exclamations of "No way!", "You're kidding!", and "How is that possible?"
"Salamon Warp-digivolved past the Champion level to Ultimate, which is impressive considering she had never even digivolved from Rookie before, is that correct?" Izzy asked Kari.
"That's what Noriko told me last week, yes," she confirmed.
Izzy stroked his chin in contemplation. "Hmm...interesting."
"What is it?" Tai prodded.
"Davis thinks—and I agree with him—that Noriko's sudden intense fear of death is what triggered the digivolution."
"What happened next?" asked Matt.
Yolei took up the narrative. "I saw LadyDevimon fly out of the hole with Davis and Noriko before they both got thrown to the ground. Noriko got a few scrapes, but at least she had Cody to break her fall—Davis crashed into a car and hit his head pretty hard. If it had been anyone else, I would be really worried, but Davis has a harder head than anyone I know!" She chuckled uneasily, but everyone could see through the jibe to the genuine concern beneath.
"They're in good hands," Izzy reassured her. "I'm sure we would have heard from Joe by now if there was anything to worry about."
Yolei nodded. "Yeah. Anyway, LadyDevimon mortally wounded the Deltamon, but Izzy and I transported it to the Digital World before it expired. It will be reborn at Primary Village."
Tai gave a relieved sigh. "Sounds like it was a pretty close call. Good work, you two."
Yolei continued, "Since we weren't equipped to handle LadyDevimon, Davis called in T.K. and Kari for backup while the rest of us kept her occupied until they arrived."
Kari finished the report by saying, "Working together, Angewomon and Angemon wore down LadyDevimon until she de-digivolved back into Salamon, though they had to come close to destroying her to do it."
"Thank goodness for that," said Sora.
"Yes," replied Izzy. "Everything turned out okay in the end, but it could easily have gone otherwise. We need to understand what happened, and why, so that something disastrous doesn't occur in the future. The most immediate question for me is, why did Salamon become LadyDevimon?"
"It had to be a dark-digivolution!" T.K. declared. "That couldn't really have been Salamon's true form."
Izzy regarded the bearer of Hope in a deeply solemn manner from the corner of his eye. "Can you be certain of this? We don't know Salamon's evolution line. Isn't it possible that LadyDevimon is her natural form?"
T.K. couldn't believe what he was hearing. "But she was going totally berserk! Noriko's partner wasn't in there anymore, just a mindless beast on a rampage. It was identical to the time Tai forced Agumon to digivolve into SkullGreymon."
"That's right!" Yolei agreed. "It was exactly like…" she trailed off when she noticed T.K. was shaking his head and realized she was about to bring up a touchy subject. "Oh...you didn't mean that time, did you? You were talking about your first adventure," she finished quietly.
"But you're right," came Ken's grim voice from the corner of the room. "It was just like the time I forced Agumon to digivolve using a dark ring."
Izzy frowned. "It could very well have been a dark-digivolution. In fact, I don't doubt that it was. However, just because the method was dark doesn't necessarily mean that the form itself was unnatural as well. We can't simply take it for granted that this isn't what Salamon would become under normal circumstances."
Matt curled a contemplative hand around his chin. "A virus-type as a digimon partner? What a disturbing thought."
"Indeed," replied Izzy.
"But I digivolved from a Salamon," Gatomon argued, pointing to herself with a claw. "Shouldn't Noriko's partner do the same, become like me and go further to Angewomon?"
Izzy's serious expression lightened somewhat as he addressed Gatomon directly. "Again, not necessarily. I've learned through the contact of hundreds of Digidestined around the world that some may have the same species of partner at the Rookie stage, but often branch into Champions of multiple variants. That is, digimon of the same type aren't all pigeon-holed into one evolution line. Animal species in the Real World can adapt in several different ways based on certain genetic and environmental factors—I believe Digimon evolution behaves in a similar fashion. For instance, your line to Angewomon—a holy digimon— is likely affected by your connection to the Crest of Light."
A lightbulb seemed to go off in Tentomon's brain, and he flew excitedly around Izzy's shoulder to face him. "Oh, I get it! Gatomon can become Angewomon because of the influence of Kari's Crest! But Noriko's partner doesn't have that influence to help guide her digivolution."
"Precisely," praised the red-haired genius. "But she does have something else that could potentially influence her partner's digivolution line. Something that feeds on negative emotions like fear."
"Wh-what does Noriko have?" asked a concerned Patamon. He was beginning to be creeped out by Izzy's ominous tone.
"The Dark Spore." Ken spat the name like a curse.
Izzy nodded. "I don't know for sure," he prefaced. "It's just a theory I have at the moment. But it's one that bears investigation."
"No, that's wrong!" Everyone looked at Sora, who looked a little surprised at the words coming out of her mouth. After all, it wasn't often that someone contradicted Izzy's theories. "Noriko doesn't have the Dark Spore anymore, remember? Oikawa took it from her so that he could open a gate to the Digital World."
"Yes, because it had sprouted prematurely into a Dark Flower," he countered, "none of the others ever matured that far. It might not physically be in her body anymore, but it affected her more deeply than the other children. In a way, we should almost expect something like this to happen from her more than the others. Plus…" he hesitantly added, wishing he could make his next point more delicately, "correct me if I'm wrong Ken, but you don't just recover from something like that. Not easily. It surely left its mark on her life."
Ken touched the back of his neck almost unconsciously, thinking about his outburst earlier that day. "No, you're right. It never really leaves you. My spore has been inactive for the last eight years, but it's still there, dormant. Waiting to be set loose. I...I can still feel it." Ken's breathing became irregular, and beads of sweat coalesced on his brow despite the air-conditioned room. "I can still feel...him. The Emperor, buried in some dark corner of my mind." He looked up from the floor and saw that everyone was watching him intently with varying degrees of horror and sadness. His eyes met Yolei's for an instant, and he immediately had to turn away. Her eyes in particular had been filled with pity and longing.
He clenched his fists. "But I swear this to you all: I will never let him back out again. Never."
"We know," Izzy gently assured him. "But we don't know all the ways the other Dark Spore children may still be affected."
"So what do we do?" asked Patamon.
"Oh no," Poromon chimed in, "don't tell me we have to go tailing them all over the place watching out for strange behavior again!"
"Send me," mumbled Ken before he'd fully thought through what he was saying. Then more loudly, he repeated, "Send me. Let me contact the other spore children so I can meet with them and train them personally." His eyes unfocused as his idea began to fully take shape. "We'll do it in the Digital World, where no one will get hurt. I can teach them to control the influence of the Dark Spores and get their digimon to learn how to digivolve safely."
Izzy considered the idea. "Hmm, what do you think, Tai?"
Ken slid off the counter and approached the leader of the Digidestined. "Please. I can do this. Let me train them to master proper digivolving and work together as a team."
Tai thought it over. "I like it. We'll make you the Commander of...of a new 'Dark Division'. The Dark Spore children will be yours to lead, if they're willing. How does that sound, Izzy?"
"Sounds good to me," he agreed.
"Then it's settled."
"May I make a request?" Ken asked.
Tai nodded. "Of course."
"I would like to have T.K. or Kari on standby in case something goes wrong. At least for the first few training sessions. We wouldn't have been able to stop LadyDevimon safely without them."
"Granted. You'll have to coordinate with them so that they will be available when you need them."
A faint satisfied smile crawled up the side of Ken's face as he bowed. "I will. Thank you, Master-General." Tai only smirked in response.
"Well, that was the main thing I wanted to go over," said Izzy. "Before we dismiss, is there anything else that we should discuss?" He looked around the room at the gathered Digidestined.
"Actually..." said Tai slowly after a few seconds, "there is something. Have you heard anything else about Menoa after she was taken into custody?"
"Only an email I received from Kyotaro yesterday, informing me that the FBI have handed her over to the U.N."
Tai's eyebrows shot up. "The U.N.? What for?"
"I presume that because her crimes crossed international lines and affected dozens of countries worldwide that the U.N. has decided they should take charge of her incarceration."
Matt shrugged. "It makes sense."
Izzy gave Tai a quizzical look. "Why do you ask?"
"I don't really know. She's just been on my mind lately."
"The U.N. will have her in a top security facility. I don't think we have anything to worry about from her anymore."
Tai shook his head. "It's not that. She's been through so much, and now she's in prison. Menoa's gotta be in a pretty dark place right now. I bet she could really use a friend."
Izzy was dumbstruck—whatever he might have expected Tai to say, it hadn't been that. "A friend? Tai, she tried to kidnap hundreds of people and trap them inside their childhood memories, including your own sister!"
"I know, all right?" Tai snapped. "What she did was horrible. But...I can kind of understand it."
Izzy's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
Tai tried to sort out his thoughts. "Before everything went down I confronted her at her hotel about being a Digidestined. She told me about her life with Morphomon when she was young; she didn't have anyone else, even before her bond with her digimon broke—it's not like there were other Digidestined where she lived back then. No friends that understood what it was like to have a digimon; and later, no one to help her through that loss. I can't imagine what that must have been like. I would lose my mind without all of you to lean on right now. But she was alone for years. As twisted as what she tried to do was, in a way it was really kind of compassionate. She didn't want anyone else to go through what she did. She was just misguided on what she did to stop it."
"Very misguided," Izzy added, remembering the way she looked before Eosmon snatched him from his office. "That girl was mad."
"You would be too if you'd gone through what she has! But you haven't! You don't know!" Tai glanced from Izzy to the ladybug digimon hovering beside him and back again. "Not yet." Izzy's eyes widened, but he lowered his gaze and said nothing.
Sora stepped in front of Tai and took his hands in hers. "Take it easy, Tai. There's no need to fight. We're all on the same team here."
Tai bobbed his head up and down, calming. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"What exactly do you intend to do?" Izzy asked guardedly.
"I haven't figured that out yet. But I feel like we should do something. Despite everything she's done, the fact is she's one of us. And we've failed her up till now."
"We didn't even know she existed until a week ago!" protested Izzy.
"That's just it! Maybe if we'd known her before, we could have helped her before she did all this. I don't want anyone else to cause a digital crisis because they were made to feel like they had to go through life alone!" Tai looked around at his assembled teammates with an intense stare. "No more Oikawas."
Ken's feet connected solidly with the floor. "No!" he growled, smacking a fist into his palm for emphasis. "Never again."
Tai nodded. Ken at least was with him. Turning back to Izzy, he asked, "I want to pay her a visit. Do you know of a way that would be possible?"
The noise Izzy made was somewhere between a choke and a laugh, as if someone surprised him with the punchline of a joke right as he unknowingly took a sip of one of Mrs. Kamiya's potato shakes. "Not likely," he scoffed. "I don't even want to imagine the amount of red tape you'd have to go through just to get to someone with enough authority to even consider your request. Even if they said yes, the approval process could take months." At Tai's continued silence, Izzy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "But if you're serious, I have a few contacts in the Japanese government that may be able to point me in the right direction. I still don't think it's wise, but...I'll see what can be done. I can't promise anything, though."
"Thanks, Iz. You're the best."
"I don't know, Tai," Sora said uncertainly. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
But Matt stuck up for him. "Let him be," he declared, addressing the entire room. "If he feels that strongly about it, we should have his back. Or do you not trust your leader?"
Kari looked conflicted. "I don't know. I trust you, but...please be careful."
"I will. What do you say, T.K.?"
T.K. looked thoughtful. "I think...that everybody deserves a second chance. I remember how skeptical everybody was when Davis wanted to reach out to Ken after the Digimon Emperor's defeat, and he wasn't wrong then. If there's even a chance that she can be redeemed, we should make every effort to do so."
"I think you all know where I stand," Ken answered.
That just left Yolei. "Well," she began hesitantly, "I guess if she's locked up, what harm could she do?"
"Very well, then," Izzy conceded. "I'll do what I can to arrange a meeting for you."
"Ouch, that stings!" complained Davis as Joe applied a cloth soaked in alcohol to the gash on his temple.
"Stop whining and keep still, you big baby," the medical student responded curtly, clearing away the dried blood in order to get a better look at the wound.
"You know, for someone who's training to be a doctor, you have a terrible bedside manner," Davis retorted.
Joe gave a wry smile. "Thanks for the tip. I'll try to remember that."
After the battle, Davis had insisted on taking Noriko home, who was still pretty shaken up. Their ride on Raidramon's back was much more gentle this time around on account of their injuries, and because this trip was not nearly so urgent. Another difference was that Noriko sat in front so she could hold Salamon, who lay unconscious in her lap. She never took her eyes off her partner the whole way home. Now they were sitting on Noriko's couch waiting for Joe to finish patching them up, who had arrived with Gomamon a few minutes earlier. Davis had insisted that Joe treat Noriko first, but Joe took one look at them and refused, saying that his head injury took priority.
Joe pried some hair away from the site of the laceration, sucking the side 0f his cheek in concentration. "Well, it's not especially deep, but I need to get everything thoroughly cleaned out so you don't get an infection—wait, what this?" Holding his other hand out to the side, he ordered, "Gomamon, tweezers."
"Right-o, Joe!" Gomamon called out, fishing the requested instrument out of a black medical bag with a claw-like appendage and placing it in Joe's open palm.
Joe clamped it around a pea-sized hunk of debris and carefully removed it from Davis's skin. It was a piece of glass, and once it was out, Davis promptly started bleeding again. "Oh goodness!" Joe muttered, swiftly covering the area with gauze in order to staunch the flow. "What happened to you anyway, Davis?" he asked.
Davis stammered briefly before replying, "I uhm...sort of got into a car accident." Beside him, Noriko stifled a giggle.
"What?! Why didn't you say so before?" Joe cried in alarm. "Who was with you? Was anyone else hurt? Izzy told me you were in a digimon battle!" Joe paused, confusion wrinkling his brow. "And...whose car were you in?"
"It was a digimon battle," Davis explained. "I got thrown by a digimon and hit a car. But not on the road, it was stationary."
"How hard?" asked Joe cautiously.
"Pretty hard," Davis admitted.
Joe sighed. "Well, that explains the glass. You really should get stitches to be safe, but I think you'll be all right; it's right on the edge though. You better leave it alone while it heals. You understand?" Joe pointed an accusatory finger in Davis's face
"All right, already! I got it!"
Joe finished putting a large bandage over the cut. "There. You hit the back of your head, right? How does it feel?"
"Like a Zudomon stepped on it," Davis quipped.
"Puh-lease," Gomamon interjected cheerily, "If I stepped on your head as Zudomon, trust me—you wouldn't have a head!"
Joe frowned. "Any nausea? Drowziness? Memory loss?"
"No, no, and I don't think so?"
Davis flinched as Joe touched the back of his head gingerly. "Yow! Dude, it's really tender back there!"
"Yeah, it will be for a while. You've got some mild swelling. You should put some ice on it, no more than fifteen minutes at a time." Joe shined a light in Davis's eyes and made him stand up to check his balance.
"Is all this really necessary? I'm fine," protested Davis.
"I'm just making sure you don't have a concussion, Davis!" Joe barked. "You don't appear to have one, but it's only thanks to your thick skull! You're very lucky it's not any worse than it is."
"Hey, could you tone it down?" Davis moaned. "Your making the throbbing worse."
Joe huffed in exasperation. "Sorry. It's just stressful trying to keep you all alive and well when you keep throwing yourselves into danger all the time."
Davis shot him a puzzled look. "We're Digidestined, dude. It's what we do."
Joe took a deep calming breath. "I know. But...try to be more careful. You won't be this lucky forever."
"I'll do my best."
Joe handed Davis a couple of aspirin. "And here. That should help with the pain."
Davis knocked the pills back in one gulp. "Thanks."
Having finished with Davis, Joe then moved to Noriko. "Hi, Noriko. I don't know if you remember me, but I was there towards the end of that whole business with Oikawa and MaloMyotismon."
Noriko gave him a weak smile. "I remember. It's nice to see you again."
"Let's take a look at your shoulder. Is it very painful?"
She shook her head. "It's not so bad now, except for when I move it."
Joe nodded. It looked similar to a few cases of road rash he'd treated on motorcyclists who had wiped out on the highway. Fortunately, Noriko's case appeared milder and contained to a smaller area than those others. "I'm afraid I'll need to cut your shirt sleeve to get a good look at it. Is that all right?" he asked, grabbing a pair of scissors from his medical bag.
Noriko waved her other hand dismissively. "It's fine. This shirt is ruined anyway."
Joe proceeded to cut the remaining fabric of her sleeve and along the seam up to her neck, stopping around the hem of her neckline. Then he peeled the cloth away from the wound and examined it critically. "Mmm, yes, that's not too bad. Rather, I've seen much worse than this. You'll be fine in a few days." Taking a fresh cloth, he dipped a corner in the rubbing alcohol. "I've got to clean the area. It'll sting a little, but it won't take long.
Noriko steeled herself. "I'm ready."
Joe began lightly dabbing at her shoulder. Noriko winced a little, but remained largely silent and still as he worked. When it was done, Joe placed a large bandage over her shoulder. "I put an antibiotic in the dressing. You'll want to have it changed once a day until the skin grows back."
"Okay. Thank you."
"Do you have any other injuries?"
Noriko touched her left leg. "Just my knee. I twisted it earlier."
Joe knelt down and inspected the joint. "Ah, yes. I can see it. Looks like you overextended your MCL. I'd suggest putting an ice pack on that as well, maybe get a compression sleeve if you don't already have one. As long as you go easy on it the next few days, it'll be back to normal in no time." His gaze lifted a little to Salamon curled up in Noriko's lap. "Looks like she's had it pretty rough."
Noriko nodded, worry plain on her face. "Is there anything you can do for her?"
He smiled kindly. "The best thing for her right now is to sleep. A little rest, and a lot of food when she wakes will do wonders. You'd be surprised at how hardy digimon can be." Standing, Joe gathered his medical supplies in his bag in preparation to leave. "I'm finished now, so I won't bother you any further. I've still got to see Cody at his dojo. He insisted that he was fine, but I want to take a look anyway."
"Thank you," Noriko said.
"Yeah, thanks Joe!" Davis added, waving goodbye.
"Oh, don't thank me yet," Joe replied as he opened the door. "Wait till you see the bill."
"Yeah! Joe hates making house calls, so he charges double for them!"
"Gomamon!" Joe hissed through his teeth. "Goodbye, you two." Then the door closed and Davis and Noriko were left alone.
"Haha, he's kidding, right?" Davis asked nervously. "Right…?"
He looked to his right where Noriko sat beside him and saw that she was staring at her partner again. "Hey. She's gonna be all right. You heard Joe."
"What happened to her?" she whispered. "Everything was fine until Deltamon broke through. All of a sudden we were falling. We were going to be eaten, and then…" She stifled back a sob. "And when she came out...those eyes...they were so evil! I've never seen anything like it. And I knew that wasn't my partner anymore. How could something like that come out of my Salamon?"
"It was a dark-digivolution," answered Davis gravely. "It occurs when a Digidestined forces their partner to digivolve for the wrong reasons. It's happened before."
"You—you mean it was my fault…?" Noriko sat still and silent as she processed the information. The only sound in the room came from DemiVeemon's light snores from where he lay curled up in the corner. At length, she continued, "I remember the other kids telling me how you and Veemon stood alone against MaloMyotismon when all the rest of your teammates were too afraid to fight. And I was there to see how you brought us out of the despair we had fallen into and encouraged us to go after our dreams, no matter how silly they might have seemed to anyone else. You inspired us, and I...I've sort of admired you ever since. I wanted to have courage like you to make my dreams a reality."
Noriko looked at him then, eyes shining with unshed tears. "But today I was so scared. I was sure that we were going to die, and I realized I don't know how to have a courage like that."
She leaned into him, burying her head in his chest, and Davis put his arm around her, being careful not to touch her injured shoulder. He could feel her trembling against him.
"Hey, hey," he spoke softly next to her ear. "Easy."
Davis took a moment to think on what he could say that would help her, and he recalled a similar conversation he'd been part of long ago. "It's okay to be scared. Let me tell you something Tai told me once: having courage doesn't mean not being afraid. Courage without fear isn't really courage at all—that's just being stupid. Courage means doing what you know you need to, even though you're afraid. There will always be something you're afraid of, but you can't let that stop you! Don't try to hide your fear. Acknowledge it, then you can master it. Fear is the real enemy, and you've always got to fight it within yourself."
"You make it sound so simple," Noriko sniffed.
"It is simple," Davis replied, "but that doesn't mean it's easy. Fear will try to get you to give up, but you can never give up, no matter what. Look at it this way: giving up is the only way you can lose, so if you never give up, then you can't lose! And I won't give up on you, so don't give up on yourself, or your partner. You've got to keep fighting—for your dreams, for Salamon, for everyone. We're Digidestined! That means we have a destiny to fulfill, and I know it's not done with us yet. Besides, didn't you say earlier that everything happens for a reason?"
A sudden bark of laughter escaped from her. "You're starting to sound a lot like T.K."
Davis was startled by the comment at first, but then chuckled. "Yeah, well...don't tell anyone."
They stayed like that for a long time, holding each other. Exactly how long Davis couldn't guess. Ordinarily, he would have considered this the opportunity of a lifetime and would have tried to make a move. However, there was nothing inherently romantic in the contact and all thought of cheesy pickup lines or ridiculous attempts to impress her never entered his mind; there existed only a desire to offer comfort and solace to a friend in need of it. And yet, he found himself wishing for this moment to last forever, to always be able to feel her light touch, and the realization that there was nothing he wouldn't do to protect her.
Eventually, Salamon began to stir. They both sprang apart and watched as the little puppy yawned and stretched her body. Finally, she looked up at her partner and opened her eyes, and they were the same clear, bright green that Noriko knew so well. "H-Hey…" she said groggily, "What happened? How did I get here?"
"Salamon, you're all right!" Noriko cried in relief. "Don't worry, everything's okay now."
"You…" Salamon said, turning to Davis. "You saved her, didn't you?"
"Well, I mean I uh—" Davis stammered.
"Yes, he did," Noriko confirmed.
Salamon dipped her head in gratitude. "Thank you for taking care of my partner."
"Ah, sure. Don't mention it."
Salamon took in her surroundings, looking confused. "I don't remember what happened after the ground opened up…" Then she noticed Noriko's shoulder and Davis's bandaged temple, and her eyes grew wide. "Your injuries. Did...did I do that?"
Noriko was shaking her head. "Oh no, honey. That wasn't you."
"Davish…" DemiVeemon called, waddling on tiny feet over to them while rubbing one eye sleepily. "You got anymore ramen from earlier? I'm starving!"
Salamon's ears flopped outward as she swiveled her head to Veemon and back to Noriko before standing on her hind legs and placing her front paws on Noriko's chest, wriggling her stump of a tail in excitement. "You have ramen? I'm hungry too!"
Davis and Noriko looked at each other, and they suddenly burst into laughter.
A/N: For those surprised by the LadyDevimon reveal, I had the idea back while I was writing chapter three, when I reintroduced Noriko. I was still plotting out everybody's end paths back then—who their life-partners are, how they arrived at the careers they do, and so on. I happened to be rewatching A Million Points of Light, and I was struck by how similar Kari and Noriko were; they have the same job aspirations, both apparently prone to sickness judging by the mask Noriko frequently wore, and Noriko's partner could conceivably follow the Gatomon line. So I began to think of her as a sort of mirror to Kari (this is largely why I made part of the fight closely parallel the one in Enter Flamedramon). Maybe Davis wasn't so far off-base when he was crushing on Kari; maybe she was nearly, but not quite, the right one for him, and maybe Noriko could be. But I wanted to go in a slightly different direction. I was also struck by the lazy way AMPOL tried to wrap up the dark spore issue, with Ken saying there's no need to remove them because they will be powerless as long as the kids believe in their dreams. I felt this was an insufficient explanation; it also meant that they remained inside the kids from then on, leaving me the opportunity to explore it a bit more. And for anybody wondering, LadyDevimon is Salamon's natural digivolution due to the effect of Noriko's dark spore, it just also happened to be a dark digivolution triggered by her giving into fear. [Edit 09/20/2024: I went back and fixed a few typos and added a bit to Davis's speech to Noriko about courage; I was never very happy with it when I wrote it and wanted to try again. It's still largely the same, though I've expanded it a bit so that I hope it flows better and makes more sense?]
Digimon episodes referenced: s1 ep. 16, "The Arrival of SkullGreymon", s1 ep. 50, "Joe's Battle", s2 ep. 10, "The Captive Digimon", s2 ep. 44, "Dark Sun, Dark Spore"
Next time on Digimon Adventure: Continuing Evolution - Interlude I.