Authors Note: I'm sorry Tai fans, I'll try not to use him as a universal punching bag anymore...
Chapter IV
"Look, a castle!" Tai exclaimed, pointing ahead. "That must be where they are!"
"You don't have to be a genius to figure that one out," Sora whispered to Mimi and Jyou. Mimi giggled and Jyou smiled.
"What's so funny?" Tai asked.
"Nevermind Tai..." Jyou told him.
Tai wrinkled his forehead. "Lets go inside," he proposed. They were near the castle, hidden in the trees.
"Hey! Are you friends of the Guardians of Hope and Knowledge?" a voice called to them.
"Wha...Aww...it's so CUTE!!!" Mimi exclaimed. The small digimon that had addressed them shrank back in fear from Mimi. It looked like a ferret with the tail of a squirrel.
"Hey! Is that a rat?" Tai asked.
"I don't know, but I'm sure I'm allergic to it..." Jyou replied.
"Hey, I'm not a rat, Cactus Head!" the little digimon yelled.
Tai jumped in surprise. "S..S-sorry...Man, that little guy sure is loud when he wants to be..."
"So, who are you, little friend?" Sora asked it.
"I'm Sukamon. So do you know them?" he asked.
"Yes, they're our friends. Do you know where they are?"
"In there...but if I were you, I wouldn't go in there. Katyamon lives there."
"Katyamon? Sounds like a karate move or something...How do you know they're in there?" Tai asked it.
"I saw them go in with the Marlamon." Sukamon replied.
"What are Maramon?" Sora asked.
"Mar-LA-mon, are bird-like digimon, who lure unsuspecting digimon into Katyamon's grasp for her to decide if she wants to kill them, or make them her slaves. I have a feeling your friends are dead."
"How come you haven't been captured?" Tai asked suspiciously.
"Well....I..." Sukamon trailed off.
"What?" Tai asked, taking a menacing step towards him.
Sukamon said nothing.
"Well...?"
The Sukamon darted away. Tai started after it, but Jyou grabbed his arm. "Let it go. You already scared it half to death."
"Fine, let's get to the castle."
"Leave him alone!" Takeru shouted. Katyamon had been pounding on Patamon for quite a while now.
Katyamon turned to Take, "Why do you care? He's of no use to you anyway." Katyamon walked over to Izzy. "Koushiro? Time to wake up Koushiro..." Katyamon lifted his chin up. Izzy was awake, he didn't respond to her voice or her touch. "Heh...heh...heh...Perfect," she purred.
"Leave him alone too!"
"Why should I? Soon you won't care what I do to them." She said as she walked over to him.
Takeru felt a sharp pain in his mind. He hung his head and tried to block it out.
"I'll do as you wish...for now." Katyamon told him, lifting his head up. "But... everything comes with a price." Katyamon walked over to the table and flicked his crest onto the floor. Takeru watched in horror as she brought her foot down and broke it in half...tag and all. Takeru stared at the broken crest....not believing what he saw.
Just then, the door swung back, and there stood a Marlamon. "Majesty, a group of kids have broken into the castle, they..."
"Let them come...Lead them here...to us." Katyamon ordered. The Marlamon nodded and raced off.
"Come on! This way!" Tai yelled, and raced in the direction of the blinking lights on his digivice. The Marlamon hadn't given much of a fight. In fact, they hadn't fought at all. They just persuaded the guards to let them in. They came to a sturdy-looking wooden door. Tai opened it and went in with Sora, Jyou, and Mimi in tow. He stopped dead in his tracks at what he saw. There was someone in a cloak standing next to a table. He spotted Takeru chained against the wall with his head down. He also spotted Izzy, restrained as well, except to the floor.
"Welcome, Digidestined...As you can see, I have two of you as guests already... but I am willing to bargain with you. If you want Hope...you must give me Courage. If you want Knowledge...I get Reliability. That's the game, now choose. If you don't choose....None of you leaves this room." Tai, Sora, Mimi, and Jyou looked at each other. One of them had to go. They had to abandon either Tai or Jyou.
"I'll go..." Tai said, defeated. Tai's crest started to glow brightly. "But first...Who are you?"
"I am Katyamon, ruler of the Marlamon, and now your master." As she said this, she pulled her cloak back, revealing her face. Her dark, purple eyes were almost hypnotic. Tai blinked, and shook his head. 'She's human! Well, sort of. She's got furry arms...' Tai thought, surprised.
"Quit hesitating Courage...Step forward."
"Release him first."
"You don't trust me...you have good instincts. Come half way to me, then I will release him."
Tai considered it for a moment, then walked towards her. "Okay, now let him go," Tai demanded. Katyamon waved her hand, and Take was unchained from the wall, and started floating towards him, just from Katyamon's gesture.
"Tai..." he whispered as he floated past Tai, "...No...."
Sora, Mimi, and Jyou were all lifted into the air by the same invisible force. Katyamon swung her hand in a circle, and then closed it. All of them disappeared.
"What did you do with them?" Tai asked forcefully.
"See for yourself." Katyamon gestured towards his digivice.
Tai pulled it off his belt, and saw a very weak signal on the farthest edge of it. 'She's more powerful than I thought...' Taichi bit his lip.
Katyamon snapped him out of his thoughts. "You are quite stupid, Taichi Kamiya...For the Digidestined can't go anywhere without a leader... Just like soccer, right?"
Taichi gasped. 'She knows! No, she couldn't know. She's been in the digiworld.' He reassured himself.
"You are good at soccer. You won your first game after you got back from the digiworld, with a header..." Katyamon smiled. "And then, after the game, when you were all alone..."
An image entered Tai's mind. He unwillingly replayed that devastating moment in his head. The headlights, the sound of the tires screeching, and then...the car slamming into him, flipping him onto the hood, and then his head made contact with the asphalt.
Katyamon picked up a silver chain and snapped it in the air just right so it was securely wrapped aroud Tai's wrist. That pulled him from his thoughts. He cried out as she yanked the chain towards her, dragging him forward. He struggled to get free. She dragged him until he was at her feet, then she pulled him up into a standing position. She was at least a head taller than him. She ripped his digivice out of his hand.
"No!" Tai yelled and tried to snatch the digivice from her hand. Katyamon simply held it above her head. She then jerked on the chain, knocking him over. She placed the digivice on the table next to Takeru's digivice and broken crest. She grabbed Tai by his collar and lifted him off the ground.
"Are you afraid?" she asked menacingly.
"No," Tai said, shaking slightly.
"Then why are you shivering?" With her other hand, she pulled his crest out from under his shirt. In one swift motion, she snapped it off his neck and dropped him. She fixed the string it was on. Then, she put the crest around her neck, where Izzy's crest was. When she was holding Tai in the air, he saw two digivices, and a broken crest. He couldn't tell whose it was though.
"Time for you to re-experience the nightmare of your past." Katyamon told him. She whipped him around, slamming him into a wall. With her free hand, she grabbed his arm and twisted it sharply behind his back. Tai cried out as pain shot up his arm. He felt it splitting, and then breaking. She'd just snapped his arm like a twig. He felt her claws sink into his arm. His warm blood ran down his arm, into his hand, and then slowly dripped onto the floor. Tai hit face first. He tasted blood in his mouth, and spit it out.
"Meddling brats!" Katyamon yelled at a tall blonde boy, and a brown-haired girl.
"Tai!" Taichi heard the sweet voice of his little sister, Kari.
"What have you done to him?" another voice demanded. Tai's eyes focused and he saw that it was Yamato. Matt, his rival, his friend...of all people, Mr. Cool was here to save him. Tai also knew that Yamato was a caring friend. That's why he had the Crest of Friendship. Even though he could be a pain, and had odd ways of showing his friendship sometimes.
Katyamon lashed out with her telepathy attack. Matt and Kari heard a deafening high pitched sound in their heads. Kari was driven to her knees by it. Matt winced and ran towards Katyamon. He tried to tackle her, but she just knocked him back. When he got up, he felt something wrapping around his neck. He grabbed it and realized it was a chain. It tightened on his neck, and he desperately clawed at it, to keep it from strangling him. It lifted him off the ground. The chain got tighter and tighter around his throat. An idea popped into his head. He pulled one hand out of the chain and reached for his digivice. He choked and pulled his digivice off his belt and turned it on. A baby blue light shot out of it, and the chain disappeared. Yamato fell and rolled as he landed so he wouldn't break anything. That's when he heard Kari scream. He looked up sharply and saw Tai struggling to help Kari. Katyamon was just about to hurt her. Yamato pushed himself to his feet, despite his protesting muscles. He hurdled himself into Katyamon, and succeeded in knocking her over this time.
"Kari, get Tai out of here!....Aaaaahhhhhh!!!" Yamato cried out as Katyamon threw him across the room. She then turned on Tai.
"Oh no, TAI!!!" Kari yelled. Her crest glowed and there was another bright white flash. Kari found herself and Tai in the digiworld forest. Tai shuddered and collapsed.
Matt once again pushed himself into a standing position. He leaned against the wall for support. When he looked up, he saw Tai and Kari were gone. Katyamon was growling out of frustration because they had escaped. She marched up to him and brought her hand up to smack him. She was so quick about it that Yamato stood there shocked after she did it. Her claws had raked across his cheek. He started to move, but she was faster.
"Cat's Eye!" She yelled the name of her attack and hit him with it at point-blank range. A beam of white energy burned into Matt's chest. He cried out in pain. She stopped, not wanting to kill him...yet. His eyes, half closed, looked at her as he slowly slumped to the ground... into the inviting, and deceiving darkness.
Katyamon reached down and took his crest. "Friendship....hmm... Suits you well blondie." She placed the crest on her neck, with Courage and Knowledge.
Gabumon and the six other digimon treked towards the castle. They had been walking for hours.
"Gabumon? Are you sure we're going the right way?" Gomamon asked.
"I'm sure it was here. I don't understand, we should have gotten there in no time."
"Maybe Gabumon's losing it..." Gomamon commented quietly.
"Hey! What's that sound?" Agumon asked. All the digimon stopped and listened.
"If I'm hearing right, that's Jyou." Gomamon said.
"Let's find out." Agumon suggested.
Sora, Mimi, and Jyou wandered through the forest they were in. They called for Takeru. The three of them had found each other rather quickly.
"Jyou!" a familiar voice called. Seven digimon entered the clearing.
"Palmon!" Mimi cried into Palmon's shoulder.
"Biyomon! I'm so glad you're here!" Sora exclaimed.
"Glad to see you again, Gomamon," Jyou told him and patted his head.
"That's it? Don't I get some mushy show of attention?" Gomamon asked playfully.
Jyou hugged him and then looked around. "Hey, where's Patamon?" he asked.
"With Take at the Marlamon's castle." Biyomon informed him.
"We're going there now. Gabumon's trying to lead us there." Agumon supplied.
"Oh great, she's got Patamon too?" Jyou muttered.
"What do you mean...*got* Patamon too?"
"Well, when we got there, Izzy and Take were chained to the wall of a dungeon. They were in pretty bad shape, too..." Jyou went on, unaware of the pair of eyes watching them.
(Note: This is from the 'pair of eyes' mentioned above, point of veiw.) A boy about his age was unconscious on the ground next to him. The blue-haired boy was describing the blonde on the ground next to him perfectly. He rustled the bushes, and nudged the blonde with his foot. The blonde moaned and stirred.
The group of digimon and digidestined turned towards the bushes, expecting an evil digimon to come out. Then they heard a moan, a *human* moan. They all went over to investigate.
"Takeru!" Jyou said surprised. He knelt down and looked him over. There were a few small cuts on his wrists, a gash on his face, and wounds on his side.
"Jyou...." Take said weakly.
"It's alright Takeru," Jyou assured him.
"No....Patamon....She hurt....Patamon...." Take closed his eyes and fought to stay conscious. "She....did..something....Izzy...NO IZZY!!!" Takeru suddenly shouted.
Mimi jumped at his sudden yell and turned away. She stepped right into someone. Her eyes got big, and he covered her mouth so she couldn't scream. She struggled.
"Jyou, Sora, help!" Mimi said through his hand. Sora and Jyou turned. There was a boy trying to restrain Mimi. He had metallic baby blue hair, and eyes to match. He was about a foot shorter than Mimi. Sora and Jyou walked towards them, intent on rescuing Mimi. The boy saw he was outnumbered when he saw the digimon also advancing on him. He pushed her forward so she fell onto Sora, then he turned and ran. Jyou and Gomamon chased him. The boy ran and jumped over a creek, followed closely by Jyou. A rift suddenly opened up in front of him, and he couldn't stop. Someone stepped out of it, and he ran smack into them.
"Katyamon..." he gasped. She picked him up by his shirt collar.
"Akira, you ungrateful brat. This is where you ran off to." Katyamon saw Jyou enter the clearing, and stop to stare at them. "You've been helping them?" She hissed at him.
Jyou rushed into the clearing after the boy, and then stopped suddenly. Katyamon was there, holding him in the air and shaking him. "Gomamon..." Jyou started.
"Say no more, Jyou. Gomamon digivolve to........Ikkakumon!!!" Katyamon paid them no mind. "Harpoon Torpedo!!!" Ikakumon shouted starting his attack. Katyamon shielded herself and the boy easily.
"She's too strong..." Jyou started. Katyamon suddenly flung the boy aside like a rag doll.
"Cat's Eye!!!" She cried. The white beam of energy hit Ikkakumon head on. He de-digivolved into Gomamon and fell into Jyou, knocking him over.
"Gomamon!" Jyou cradled his digimon companion.
Katyamon turned to the boy and repeated her attack on him. It only hit him partially because he doged, but still got hit none the less. He was flung back by the force, into a tree. "That will teach you..." She turned to Jyou. "Reliability....humph....It suits you...I guess. Not as well as Cowardly would though...But if you want to live up to your crest, I'll give you a chance...Leave and take the Guardians of Love and Sincerity with you. This is not your battle....not yet..."
"I won't abandon my friends!" Jyou said defiantly.
"Some friends they are...They treat you like dirt. Anyway, if you don't leave, and they die, don't say I didn't warn you..." Katyamon opened the rift again and stepped into it, just as Sora, Mimi and the digimon entered the clearing.
"What was that?" Sora asked.
Jyou thought for a moment. "Nothing...Absolutely nothing..."
"How did Gomamon get hurt by 'nothing' Jyou?" Sora asked. Jyou remained silent.
"Hey, it's that guy who tried to kidnap me!" Mimi yelled and pointed at the light blue-haired boy, lying unconscious on the ground across the clearing.
"Tai, please wake up." Kari held her brother's head in her lap. She saw the damage done by Katyamon. Tai had some puncture wounds on his arm and that same arm was broken. There were bruises all over him, but the worst was on the side of his face. It looked like someone had hit him with a baseball bat. Suddenly her digivice went off. On the edge there were three dots. "The others...They can help..." She dragged Tai, as gently as she could, across the clearing, so the others were sure to see her light on their digivices.
Yamato Ishida awoke to find himself chained to a wall. He smelled no fresh air as he pulled in breath after breath.The air was musty, and it smelled like Tai's soccer socks after he played a long, hard game. He pulled his head up and looked around. There wasn't much to look at. The only things he could see was Izzy, who was lying unconscious on the floor, and Patamon, who was in a small cage. Something that smelled totally different entered his senses. He opened his eyes and saw a thick, crimson liquid on his chest. His mouth opened in shock. It was blood...*his* blood. It didn't hurt that much, but maybe that was because he couldn't feel anything. His body had gone numb. The dungeon was freezing cold.
He lifted his head at the sound of the door opening. A marlamon entered the room, carrying a bowl and a washcloth. Another digimon entered the room behind the marlamon quietly. 'It looks like a rat...' Matt thought. The Marlamon walked over to him and wet the washcloth. It applied this to Matt's chest. His shirt was not in tatters yet, but being in the digiworld, it might as well be. The other digimon quickly scampered over to Izzy. The marlamon turned at the sound of light clicking on the floor. It saw nothing, so it turned back to him, finished its job, and left. The cloth had left Matt wet, and he felt the cold even more. After the marlamon left, Katyamon entered the room.
"So blondie, how's your dad?" (Insert sarcasm here.) Katyamon asked. Matt frowned. 'How could she know about my life?' he thought. "What, don't you remember?" Katyamon asked.
"I remember...and it's none of your damned business!!!"
"Now now, I'm sure he doesn't, excuse me, *wouldn't* want you to use that tone to your elder." Katyamon told him. "If I'm not mistaken, which I never am, *you* caused his death." Katyamon studied Yamato's face. "Anger...Resentment...Guilt..." She laughed, "...all of them appear on your face as proof."
"I am *not* responsible for his death!!!" Matt shouted, his temper flaring up.
"Oh really? Wasn't it *you* who disobeyed him and went to a concert against his will? Wasn't it *you* who he was looking for that night? Weren't..."
"NO!!! He was drinking, that's why he got killed. It wasn't my fault! I waited up for him, and he never come back!" Yamato shouted at her.
"And what would have happened if he came back?" Images, memories flooded into Yamato's head, of his father beating him when he was drunk. He didn't mean to do it, and he had been getting help to stop himself, but every once in a while, he smacked Yamato around a little. Yamato pushed back tears that started to form in his eyes, that threatened to overflow.
Katyamon leaned in next to his face and whispered, "Everyone blamed you...Everyone knows you did it... Everyone still blames you...and... they'll kill you for it." She grabbed his head and bashed it against the wall. Yamato slipped into unconsciousness gratefully.
"Marlamon! Deposit these three out of my... our castle. They are nothing but trouble."
"Yes, Queen Katyamon," four marlamon said. They unchained Yamato and Izzy, and got Patamon out of the cage.
"Oh nevermind, I'll do it myself." Katyamon told them. They bowed their heads out of respect, and left quickly. Katyamon waved her hand, and Matt, Izzy, and Patamon disappeared.
Author's Note: So did ya all like it? PLEASE review! I need inspiration! Thanx for reading, look forward to the next part!
~Cres~
