Chapter 4
Sora sat up from where the children had been deposited onto the floor of one of the many forests dotting the digital world. She rubbed her forearms.
"Brr..." she said, "I don't remember it being this chilly the last time we were here."
The others slowly peeled themselves from where they had hit the ground.
"You're right, Sora," Izzy said, sitting up on his knees. He pulled his computer out of the backpack he wore and opened it up. He flicked a switch, then tapped at the mousepad. "It's considerably colder here now than it was the last time we were in the digital world. It is exactly...fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit, with a dew point of--"
"That's all very fascinating, Izzy," Yamato interrupted, "but, alas, irrelevant."
"Yama's right," Mimi said, wrapping her arms around herself, "what's important right now is finding Palmon and the others before this 'new enemy' Gennai was talking about finds them."
"I'm more concerned about staying WARM," Jyou grumbled, hugging himself to conserve heat. "It's gotten so cold here!"
Izzy looked up at the sky.
"It's still early enough to where we'll have some daylight left for a while," he said. "I say we get moving, and start looking."
"We'll cover more ground if we split up," Yamato suggested.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Yama," Tai said, stepping forward. "All Gennai told us was that there was a new enemy threatening the digital world. He didn't say anything about what it was, or how strong it was...or what it was capable of." He frowned. "I think it's a lot safer if we all stick together."
"Uh-oh, here it comes," Sora said, turning away in preparation for the argument. Taichi and Yamato didn't seem able to go more than ten minutes or so without starting a fight. Whatever one said, the other always had an argument against...whatever one did, the other thought was wrong. They were good friends, everyone knew that...they just never saw eye to eye about anything.
"Safety in numbers," Tai added.
Yamato hesitated, then looked at Tai. Sora covered her eyes.
"Well, I guess you're right," Yamato said quickly, and folded his arms over his chest.
Silence.
Tai blinked.
"What'd you say?" he asked, one eyebrow lifted.
Yamato scowled.
"I said 'I guess you're right'," he repeated, and turned away.
"What, no fight?" Jyou said, throwing his arms in the air. "No screaming match or battle of insults? Yama, what'd you put in your coffee this morning?"
"Nothing!" Yamato snapped. "I just...think he...brings up a good point, and maybe we SHOULD stick together on this one."
Takeru tugged on his brother's sleeve. Yamato looked down. TK motioned for him to lean down, and then the younger boy whispered loudly in his ear, "Yama-chan, unless you want everyone to know how worried you are about Tai, you'd better stop acting so weird."
Kari giggled as Yamato's face turned beet red and he stood up stiffly.
"Okay, gang," Tai said, pretending he hadn't heard what had just been said, "let's get going." He took a step forward. "Ara..." he stammered, and turned back around to face them, his hand behind his head.
"What is it, Tai?" Kari asked.
"Uhh, I think I might have to step down from my position as trail-blazer for this expedition," he said uncomfortably. Kari frowned. Tai reached up and pulled the goggles from the crown of his head. "Here, Kari," he said, holding them out to her, "you hold onto these for now."
"Me?" she asked, pointing to herself.
He nodded.
"B-but...why me?" she asked.
"When I'm out of commission, you're second-in-command, Kari," he said with a grin, "which means when I can't lead the way, you get the goggles."
Kari smiled.
"Well, okay," she said, taking them from his grasp. She slipped them onto her head, but they slid down. They were a little too big. She twitched her nose, and decided to wear them around her neck instead. "But just for now," she said firmly.
Tai grinned.
"Okay, so who wants to play the tour guide?" he asked. There was a moment of silence. He squirmed inwardly as he continued, "Yama, why don't you take over?"
Yamato blinked.
"Wha--who, me?"
"No, the other Yama," Tai said sarcastically.
Yamato smiled and, with a nod, walked toward Tai, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed to move to the head of the group. Tai may have been stubborn, and a little overly obstinate when it came to his position as the leader of the Digidestined, but he was a team player, and whatever decisions he made, they were for the good of them all, even if that meant his stepping down. Yamato admired that, even if he couldn't always stand being in Tai's presence.
"All right, troops," Yamato called, "move out!"
The children walked for about an hour and a half before pausing to take a break. But as the eight of them sat down beneath a tall tree, they had no idea they were being watched.
"Foolish children," a sinister female voice hissed as she watched the group through a misty purplish crystal ball. "You have walked right through the doorway to meet your doom, Little Ones." She narrowed one ruby-colored eye and ran her hands across the crystal ball. The image of the children faded, and she turned to look behind her, the blue and silver cloak she wore about her slim shoulders swirling at her ankles.
"They're here," she said to her companion in the room.
"Kurarimon, you knew they would come," a second female voice responded as a figure shifted in the shadows of the old stone castle throne room. This voice was softer, but equally as sinister. "These children are as partial to this world as any digimon. You knew they would never allow its downfall without a fight."
Kurarimon ran her spindly fingers through her golden hair, and smoothed the locks that fell across the left side of her face and covered one eye. She was quite the portentous looking digimon, humanoid in figure, tall and spidery, with blood-red eyes and dark skin. She wore a crisp white outfit resembling a military uniform, and a silver circlet crowned her forehead.
"Yes," she said, "yes, I did know." She grinned and cracked her knuckles. "Time for the fun to begin." She snapped her fingers. "Hollymon! Ivymon!"
Out of the darkness of the shadowy room emerged two small figures. They looked rather like children, with large eyes and hands, but the fact that they had tails dissolved any thoughts that they might have been human. One was dark skinned with ruby red hair and eyes to match. She wore bands of holly around her wrist and forearm. The other was fair, with hair the color of evergreen, and pale emerald eyes. Ivy vines were twined around his left arm and across his bare chest.
"You two know what to do," Kurarimon said. "The children are in the Forest of Illusions. Go and...frighten them a bit. Have some fun with them." She spun and touched the crystal ball again. "But be gentle with them," she went on as the image of the Digidestined reappeared in the sphere, "don't damage them. I want them brought to me alive and unscathed." She pointed, and the image zoomed in. "And be particularly careful with this one," she said, tapping the glass with her fingernail, "he is their leader, and he's already been put at a...disadvantage, shall we say?" She snickered. "I especially do not want him harmed."
Hollymon and Ivymon looked at each other, then at the sphere, at the children, and the boy with the wild chestnut hair that they were to be so cautious with, and then they bowed neatly at the waist. They turned in tandem and crossed their arms before them, vanishing in a flash of white and leaving behind only a faint puff of pale green and pinkish smoke.
Kurarimon stared at the sphere and watched as the children stood up to resume walking. The second figure still stood in the shadows, barely visible save for the glint of her bright blue eyes. She quietly cleared her throat to remind Kurarimon of her presence.
"Don't think I've forgotten you," Kurarimon responded. "I believe it's best if we let your bumbling subordinates get a bit of a head start." She paused, and twitched her mouth. "Okay, enough of a head start," she said, spinning away from the sphere. "Go on, you know your duty."
"Yes, Kurarimon," the figure replied, and wrapped her arms about her, lifting into the air. "I will not fail you," she said, and then she was gone with a soft, harmonic tinkle of bells.
A smile crept across Kurarimon's thin lips as she stroked the scar across the left side of her face.
"Soon, Digidestined," she purred, turning back to look at the image of the children on the sphere before her. "Very soon, now..."
And an evil cackle echoed throughout the stone halls of the old castle as Kurarimon flopped backward into her throne, crossed her legs at the knees, and lifted a glass of wine in a toast to herself. "Very soon, Digidestined," she laughed to herself, "you will be mine." She swirled the wine in its tall thin wine flute with one finger, and watched as it spun in its glass like a tiny cyclone, then slowly came to a stop. She narrowed her eyes and waited patiently for her plan to take action.
"Can't we take another break yet?" Mimi whined. "This isn't exactly Central Park, you know..."
"Mimi, we just TOOK a break," Jyou said. "If we keep stopping to rest every ten minutes, we'll never get anywhere."
As the rest of the group bickered over whether or not to stop where they were, Tai remained silent. Kari kept her fingers wrapped securely around his, to guide him through this strange forest he could not see.
"You okay, Tai?" Kari asked softly. "You're so quiet."
He smiled.
"Sure," he said, "I'm fine."
Kari narrowed her eyes, unconvinced.
"You're thinking about something," she said stubbornly. "What is it?"
He sighed, and stopped in mid-stride.
"I was thinking about the digivices," he said, "and how mine was so much fainter than all the others. I just wonder why...it's totally got me stumped."
"Perhaps, Tai," Izzy piped up, "it's because something happened to you. Maybe the digivices only glow at full power when their owners are at full-power."
Tai rolled this around on his brain for a moment, and the bickering stopped.
"What?" Mimi asked, seeing how Tai was lost in thought. "What did you say?"
"Nevermind," Tai said, shaking his head with a laugh, "you guys were too busy arguing."
The group continued walking in silence for a few minutes, Koushiro still tapping away at his computer as they walked. Sora glanced up at the sky. The sun was beginning to set, sending the sky into a brilliant light show of pinks, scarlets, and purplish blues.
"Where do you suppose we are?" she asked after a moment.
Izzy glanced up, then at his keyboard, then at the monitor, then at Sora. He frowned.
"I have no idea," he replied simply.
Tai snorted in laughter.
"Way to go, Rand McNally..." he muttered, and Kari giggled.
"None of this looks familiar at all," TK said slowly, looking around.
"That's because we've never been here before," Izzy said. "We didn't come across this forest the last time we were here."
"Either that or it didn't exist," Jyou suggested. "Everything here is information, right? Information changes all the time, new things could have easily been added, or deleted, since the last time we were here."
Everyone agreed that he had a good point.
"And remember Spiral Mountain?" Yamato asked. "For all we know, this forest could be one of the enemy's own creations."
There was a moment of silence as all the children pondered these new ides. Suddenly, Kari perked up. Tai glanced down when he felt her tense.
"Kari?"
"Did you hear something?" she asked.
The others hesitated, silently straining their ears for the unheard sound Kari seemed to have picked up.
"I didn't hear anything," Tai said. "Did you?"
Kari let go of his wrist.
"I did," she said.
"What was it, Kari?" Takeru asked.
She shook her head.
"I'm not sure," she said. "It was a...a humming kind of noise...like when the cable goes out and your TV is all fuzzy...a real high-pitched squealy kinda noise..."
Koushiro frowned and tapped at his computer.
"I'm not detecting any sort of machinery in the area," he said.
Just as Kari was about to dismiss it as paranoia, she heard it again.
"There!" she cried. It was louder this time. The others heard it now, too, a high pitched kind of screaming noise.
"What IS that??" Mimi shouted, covering her ears.
There was a sudden blast of wind, and Tai grabbed for Kari's wrist. Finding it, he pulled her close to him and turned his back to the wind to shield her.
"What the hell is going on?" he yelled over the cry of the gale. He wrapped his arms around his sister and dropped to his knees. "Kari!"
Yamato held one arm up to shield his face from the wind, then cried out and turned his face away when a blinding flash of purplish light exploded in front of him. He was thrown backward and slammed into TK as another blast of wind knocked him off his feet.
"What the--?"
He let out a yelp of pain and surprise when something flew out of the light and collided with his chest, smashing him into his brother and pitching them both to the ground.
The light faded.
The wind stopped.
Yamato sat up and looked over his shoulder.
"TK?" he said. "Are you okay?"
TK wriggled out from beneath his brother and rubbed his head.
"I think so," he replied, "but, Yama-chan, what was--Agumon??"
"Ne?" Yama cried, turning to look beside him. He glanced down to see a small orange creature resembling a dinosaur picking itself up from the forest floor. "Agumon?" he said, getting to his hands and knees.
"Agumon?" Tai whispered, and let go of Kari. He leaned forward and placed his hands on the ground. "Agumon..." he repeated softly and winced, turning his head away. He didn't want his old friend to see him in this state. Kari frowned at her brother's expression, but said nothing.
Agumon got to his feet and looked around, not believing what he saw before his eyes.
"Yamato? Takeru?" he said in disbelief, his large green eyes wide. "Kari! And...Tai, you're here, too! You're all here!"
Tai flinched, but Agumon didn't notice. The little reptilian digimon hurried over to his human companion--
--and stopped short about a foot and a half in front of him.
"Tai...?" he said, sensing his friend's distress. "Tai, what happened? What's wrong?" He gasped as Tai looked up at him.
"Oh, nothing, Agumon," Tai said, "it's great to see you...I just...wish I COULD see you..."
"Oh, Tai, your eyes--what...what happened?"
"We're not quite sure, Agumon," Kari answered for her brother. "It just sort of...happened... We don't know why or how."
"Tai, I'm so sorry..." Agumon said, placing one claw on his friend's shoulder.
Tai jerked away and stood up quickly, scowling.
"What happened to YOU, Agumon?" Yamato asked, brushing the dirt from the forest floor off his jeans. "And what was that...that thing you fell through?"
Agumon frowned, his eyes still focused on Tai.
"I wish I knew, Yamato," Agumon replied, "they're all over this forest. They're sort of like mini dimensional vortexes...scattered all over this place. Like random folds in space."
"Like a wormhole?" Koushiro asked.
"A what?"
Agumon blinked in confusion.
"A wormhole," Koushiro explained. "It's all theoretic, of course, wormholes are frequently used in Star Trek and other science fiction stories. They're basically contortions in the time-space continuum. Condensed space."
"Yes, yes, Captain Izumi," Yamato said, raising one golden eyebrow, "that's all very fascinating, but could you perhaps put it into layman’s terms for those of us who DIDN'T major in Space Engineering?"
"It's a fold in space," Izzy deadpanned.
Yamato rolled his eyes, and TK giggled.
"So, where are the others?" Sora asked. "Biyomon and Gatomon...where's everyone else?"
"Back where I was before, I would have to guess," Agumon replied, frowning. "We all somehow wound up in this forest... We fell through a similar vortex a few days ago, and we've been wandering around in this forest ever since, trying to find a way out. We just seem to be walking in circles, we've been here for days...but we still haven't been able to find our way out."
"So where were you before you were here?" TK asked.
"I'm...not entirely sure," Agumon said. "We were just walking through the woods, trying to find a way out of this creepy forest, when suddenly, there was this weird humming noise, and this hole opened up in the ground, right under me! I fell in and, before I knew what had happened, I was here, with all of you."
"We heard the weird humming, too," Jyou said, "right before you body-slammed into Yamato."
"I wonder how far you were transported?" Izzy thought out loud.
Agumon wasn't sure, and said so.
"I'm still in the same forest, I can say that," he continued. "This forest has a definite feel to it, and it isn't a pleasant one."
"Where ARE we, anyway?" Tai asked, getting to his feet. He raised his head toward the sky like it would help him get a better idea of their surroundings. "What forest is this?"
"I'm not sure," Yamato said, "but I think I preferred the Forest of Irrelevant Road Signs..."
"It is called the Forest of Illusions," a new voice piped up.
Nine heads turned in the direction on the new female voice, but no one was anywhere to be seen. Yamato narrowed his eyes and grabbed TK by the shoulders.
"And it is called that for a good reason," an unseen male voice added.
Yamato had had enough playing Marco Polo. He balled his fists.
"Who's there?" he demanded as Tai grabbed Kari's arm and yanked her closer to him.
There was a soft feminine giggle as a figure materialized from the shadows of the forest before them. She was small, wiry, with hands and feet that seemed just a little too big for her. Her short bob of hair was bright red, and a long tapering tail with a tuft on the end curled gracefully by her feet. A second figure appeared beside her, similar in size and build, but with dark green hair and a piercingly sadistic grin on his face. Agumon reeled back.
"Oh no," he shouted, "it's...Hollymon and Ivymon!"
"Who?" all the children asked at once.
"It's not Christmas yet!!" Mimi cried in protest.
"Hollymon and Ivymon are a pair of malicious mercenary digimon," Agumon explained. "They may not be too bright, but combining their attacks can put you in a very un-merry situation, despite their seasonal names."
"But I've never seen a digimon like them before," Sora whispered. "How come we never ran into any like them when we were here previously?"
"They're not a naturally occurring digimon," Agumon replied. "Digimon come as one of three types: Data, virus, or vaccine."
"Yes, Gennai explained that to us," Izzy said.
"Well, these two are a combination of all three types," Agumon said. "They are creations of data, virus, AND vaccine...all combined to create a fourth type."
"Like a mutant?" TK asked.
"Sort of," Agumon responded, "except a mutation is a rare natural occurrence--it's a spontaneous evolution that would normally take hundreds or even thousands of years to happen...but digimon like them would never happen naturally, not on their own. Someone or someTHING must have caused the union of the three separate types to create them."
Hollymon shook her bright red hair and laughed.
"You're pretty smart for an overgrown orange salamander," she taunted.
Tai growled.
"You leave him alone," he shouted, though he couldn't see who or what he was scolding. "Why don't you two just get out of here and let us be?"
Ivymon lashed his tail.
"Is that a threat, Little Boy?" he sneered, and Tai bared his teeth. Ivymon narrowed his pale green eyes and the mischievous grin on his boyish face widened. "Binding Tendrils!" the digimon shouted, and thrust his arm out. The vines that wound around his slender limbs shot out toward Tai.
"Pepper Breath--poi!!"
A fireball the size of a watermelon blasted from Agumon's mouth, and Ivymon recoiled as the vines from his attack sizzled and popped like wet firewood.
"Prickly Heat!" Hollymon called, and a dozen little balls of flame shot from the sprigs of holly she donned on her wrist. Agumon stepped forward.
"Agumon digivolve to--"
Nothing happened.
"What??"
Agumon let out a startled yelp as Hollymon's stinging attack hit him right in the face, and he stumbled backward.
"Agumon, what happened??" Tai shouted. He dropped to one knee when he felt the digimon smack into his leg. He grabbed Agumon by his shoulders. "Why couldn't you digivolve?"
"I dunno!" the digimon cried in frustration. "I don't know, I just couldn't do it!"
Ivymon threw his head back and cackled maniacally.
"Oh...what a pity," he scoffed, and laughed again. "Binding Tendrils!"
The vines shot forward again, wrapping themselves around Tai's wrists and throat. He grunted and tried in vain to pull away.
"Let me go, you poor excuse for a mutant digimon!" he shouted, gasping for breath as Ivymon's vines tightened around his neck.
"Nobody talks to my brother like that!" Hollymon growled, drawing her hands up to her face. "Prickly Heat!!"
"Dance of Swords!"
A flurry of tiny daggers sliced through the air, snapping Ivymon's vine attack and reflecting Hollymon's tiny fireballs back at her. Tai pitched backward, coughing, glad to be able to breathe again now that Ivymon's vines had been cut from his throat. Kari hurried to her fallen brother as Agumon helped him to sit up, then looked to see who had come to save them.
"Wha--?"
The twins cried out as their Hollymon's attack backfired at them, then turned quickly.
"You?!" they cried simultaneously.
"Who's that?" Tai asked as Agumon took his human companion by the arm to push him to his feet. Agumon hesitated until the new figure stepped into the light of the setting sun. The dinosaur-like digimon gasped in utter shock.
"No, it...it CAN'T be!" he choked out.
"Can't be what?" Tai demanded. "Who is it?"
"It's...it's..." Agumon stammered as Tai pulled the last broken strands of ivy from around his wrists. " It's PIPERMON!"
Bwahahaha! Now I will watch everyone write in suspense until I post the next chapter!--which will...probably be later tonight after I
get home from work...so...it's...not going to involve too much writhing. ~_^ Okay, I didn't find any new Japanese in this one, but I
had to run through it real quick cuz I'm late for work, so if I missed any, lemme know, kay? Kay, ja matte ne!!
~~hikari
