Ara, okay, picking up from the previous chapter...when we last left the
digidestined, they were about to get their butts kicked by Hollymon and
Ivymon, when suddenly, a mysterious stranger comes to their rescue. Who
is this newcomer? What are her intentions? }:) You'll just hafta read
and find out, now won't you? ~_^
Games of the Mind *Chapter Five*
"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!"
Kari blinked.
"What's a Pipermon?" she asked, grabbing Tai's wrist again.
"Pipermon is another one of the fourth type of digimon," Agumon told
them. "She was created by Piedmon to be his pawn, to do his bidding. She
has a fife that she uses to do attacks, and she is also capable of using
magic."
"Magic?" Mimi gasped.
"P-P-P-Piedmon??" Jyou cried, leaping back. "This is NOT good!"
Hollymon and Ivymon jumped up in the air, where they hovered like
hummingbirds.
"Pipermon, what are YOU doing here?" Hollymon asked cattily.
Pipermon grinned wickedly and narrowed her bright blue eyes.
TK gasped.
"She looks like us!" he said quickly. "Yama-chan, she looks like a human
girl!"
Jyou, Yamato, and the others stared at this newcomer in shock.
"I have to agree with your little brother, Yamato," Jyou said, "she DOES
look human."
Koushiro made a face.
"Minus that hair..." he muttered.
She wasn't much bigger than the children themselves, maybe a few inches
taller than Jyou. She looked about seventeen--er, well, she WOULD have
looked about seventeen, had she been human. Her longish two-tone hair
was pulled up in two ponytails high on her head, one white, one a pale
lavender. Each ponytail had two bells at the base and one at the end,
like a jester's cap. Come to think of it, she DID sort of resemble a
jester, with her harlequin-like costume. She wore a unitard and skirt,
each of two colors, one side indigo, one side a light seafoam green, the
colors split down the middle of her body. The sleeves came to points at
the back of her hand, and continued down her middle finger. Two tiny
bells were tied around her right wrist and her left ankle, and jingled
softly like Chinese therapy balls whenever she moved.
Pipermon hovered just above the ground, the confident smirk never
leaving her youthful face.
"Why don't you two bunglers pick on somebody your own size?" she asked
menacingly. Her voice had a slight accent no one could quite pinpoint.
Hollymon blinked.
"But...they ARE our size," she protested.
Pipermon balked.
"Oh...well, then," she huffed, holding up one hand. A long thin panpipe
materialized in her upturned palm. "Then why not pick on somebody TWICE
your size? Dance of Swords!"
The little daggers shot out of the end of her fife as she swung her arm
forward and around.
"Binding Tendrils!"
"Prickly Heat!"
Pipermon deftly dodged the enemy attacks and shot upward, higher into
the air. She paused, about seven feet above the ground, then raised her
pipe to her mouth.
"Midnight Lightning!" she shouted, and played a deep, haunting melody
into her flute. Crackling purplish lightning blazed from the end of the
flute, and she pulled the instrument away from her face, thrusting it
forward toward Hollymon and Ivymon. The purple lightning quickly wrapped
itself around a very startled Hollymon and Ivymon, rendering the two
twin menaces immobile.
"Shame on you two," she chided, "tormenting poor defenseless human
children." She sneered. "Well, what have you got to say for yourselves?"
They both stuck out their tongues.
Pipermon was taken aback.
"You're very rude," she scolded. "Perhaps I shall have to teach you some
manners."
She swung her arm out again, then quickly raised the flute up over her
head, lifting the twins from where they hovered in the air.
"Say sayonara," she taunted, and flicked the end of the fife toward the
horizon. The purple bands of lightning tossed the twins like ragdolls up
over the treeline and out of sight into the crimson sunset. "Don't
forget to write!" she shouted after them, waving, as the purple
lightning evaporated, its job complete. Pipermon laughed to herself,
then turned back to face the children.
Mimi gripped Sora's shoulder, and TK clung tightly to his brother's arm.
"What's she gonna do to us, Yama-chan?" Takeru asked fearfully. Yamato
shook his head slowly, his eyes never moving from Pipermon.
"I'm not sure, TK," he replied, moving his younger sibling behind him,
"I'm not sure."
Pipermon blinked her large azure eyes and stared at the group of
children. She frowned and gripped her flute with both hands, pulling it
up to her chest.
"You all look so frightened and hostile," she said. "Why such unpleasant
faces?"
No one said anything, by Yamato took it upon himself to step in front of
the rest of the group, standing between Pipermon and the rest of the
children. Pipermon lifted one eyebrow.
"What gives?" she asked, placing the end of her flute in one hand and
balancing it there for a second. She placed her other hand over the
mouthpiece and slowly pressed her hands together until the flute
vanished between them. "Did I not just save you from those two
hoodlums?"
"Why?" Yamato snarled, narrowing one eye. "So you could get rid of us
yourself?"
"What??"
Pipermon stopped levitating and dropped softly back to the ground.
"What are you talking about?"
Koushiro stepped up beside Yamato.
"You ARE one of Piedmon's lackeys,” he said with a frown, "are you not?"
Pipermon rolled her large blue eyes and sighed hopelessly.
"Ohhh, is THAT what this is all about?" she muttered. "Good grief, you
guys, you of all people should know that I've retired from that
position...were you not the very children who defeated Piedmon?"
"Wha--how did you know that?" Tai demanded, squaring his shoulders. Kari
frowned, hoping this wouldn't get too messy. Tai wasn't in any condition
to be picking fights.
Pipermon folded her slender arms across her chest.
"You'll find that most digimon can't keep a secret," she said softly.
The children blinked. She laughed. "I just figured that since you were
the only humans I had ever seen in this world, and one of you has a
digimon with him, you must be the famous digidestined children from the
real world."
Tai frowned.
"So what do you want?" he asked suspiciously.
Pipermon threw her hands in the air.
"Good grief," she cried, "what IS the digital world coming to? You can't
even help somebody out anymore without their expecting to have to
reciprocate. Yeesh, it just doesn't pay to be nice anymore..."
Yamato wasn't fooled.
"This is all a very nice charade, Pipermon," he said, "but even if
Piedmon HAS been defeated, how do we know your intentions are
honorable?"
Pipermon placed one finger on her chin.
"Well, I suppose you don't," she replied with blunt honesty, "but I
might be able to prove it to you."
"How so?" Mimi asked, narrowing one eye.
Pipermon lifted off the ground again and crossed her ankles, looking as
though she were sitting on an invisible chair in the middle of the air.
"They don't call this the Forest of Illusions for nothing," she told the
children. "If you don't know what you're doing--which you obviously
don't, walking about with nothing but an Agumon for protection--you
could all end up meandering aimlessly through this forest for the rest
of your lives."
Koushiro stumbled backward.
"Th-the rest of our LIVES??" he cried incredulously. "Inconceivable!
What are you talking about?"
Pipermon set her chin in her hands and rested her elbows on her knees.
"This forest is in a constant state of flux," she answered. "It's always
moving, always changing. Even as we speak, the forest is shifting around
us."
"But why?" Yamato questioned.
Pipermon straightened up and spread her arms out to her sides.
"The entire forest was created by a new enemy to this world," she said,
"they created it as a trap for anyone who might oppose them. Should any
digimon show any sign of opposition toward them, they would banish them
here, with the hopes that they would be stuck here...forever."
Agumon gasped and whispered to Tai, "That must be why me and the other
digimon were sent here. The new enemies must have known that we were the
digimon of the digidestined, and figured you would be less a threat to
them without your digimon."
Tai grinned.
"But we found you anyway," he said, "so we've foiled them." He winked.
Sora frowned.
"How did they do it?" she asked. "How does this new enemy have the power
to keep an entire forest in such an unstable state?"
"If I knew that, Little Girl," Pipermon laughed, "I would have fixed it by now."
"So what makes you such an expert on this Forest of Illusions?" Jyou
asked cynically, toying with his glasses.
"I live here," Pipermon replied concisely.
"Mimi lives in New York," Tai muttered, "but that certainly doesn't make
her a stock-broker..."
Kari elbowed him.
Pipermon's eyes narrowed at the children's suspicions.
"Fine," she replied, eyeing Tai with a sneer, "if you kids don't want my
help"--she dropped to the ground and started to walk away--"that's fine
with me. I'll leave you to your own devices." She cracked her knuckles
and glanced back over her shoulder. "Oh," she added, "you might want to
keep an eye on your visually impaired comrade there." She smiled
snidely. "This forest can be very dangerous if you can't see where
you're going."
Tai cringed visibly, and Pipermon almost regretted saying such harsh
words. She saw Kari's eyes blaze with fury.
"Don't give me such angry eyes, Little One," Pipermon snapped, turning
one palm skyward, "I'm merely thinking of his well-being." She turned
back to face them. "In this forest, the very directions of North, South,
East, and West have no meaning. They can change as quickly as the wind."
She watched as Koushiro dug into his pocket and pulled out a compass.
"Useless, my friend," she said. "A compass will do you no good here.
Walking around in this forest is like walking on the inside of a hollow
rubber ball floating in a pool of water. No matter which direction you
go, or how far you walk, you're never very far from where you started."
Yamato's eyes widened as he watched the needle of Izzy's compass spin
uselessly behind the glass crystal. He looked up at Pipermon.
"Well, what would you suggest?" he growled, still wary.
Pipermon tilted her chin and smiled prettily.
"Let me help you," she said, extending one arm. "I know I must have done
some awful things while I was under Piedmon's control. For so long
after, I wished for nothing more than to atone for those things. There
was nothing I wanted more than to make up for the sins of my past and
put this wretched reputation behind me,"--she sighed--"but no one would
let me. They were all too afraid of me." She pouted. "Guilty by
association?" she asked softly, then folded her arms over her chest.
"Well, that's not very fair, is it?" She knit her brow.
The children were silent.
Tai lifted his head, still stinging from Pipermon's earlier remark.
"What sort of guarantee do we have that you won't be leading us into
some trap?" he asked slowly.
Pipermon frowned, then twitched her nose.
"Well, if I really had it in for you kids," she said with a wink, "don't
you think I would have already destroyed you?"
Her words were a little shocking, and the children were all a little
taken aback by them, but they rang true. Pipermon was a fully digivolved
digimon, in her Ultimate form, and the children, with only Agumon, who
was unable to digivolve for some reason, to protect them, would have
been easy pickings. She could have defeated them twice over by now
without even breaking a sweat.
"Yamato," Tai said softly.
Yama looked up, and walked to where Tai stood.
"Yeah?"
"Whaddya think?" he asked.
Yamato blinked, and looked around. He pointed at himself.
"You're asking ME?"
Tai sighed and ran his hands down his face.
"Well, jeez, don't whack out on me," he whispered fiercely, "if you
don't have an opinion--"
"I ALWAYS have an opinion!" Yamato snapped back.
"So voice it," Tai hissed. "For once, I WANT to know what you think! I
don't want to make a rash decision that affects everyone when I'm not in
the condition to reap the consequences. I don't want to voice my
opinions as everyone's when I'm not at a hundred percent, don't you get
it?" Yamato was startled by his words. Tai's expression softened. "So
I'm asking your advice, Yama," he went on reluctantly, "do you think we
should trust her or not?"
Yamato balked. Tai NEVER wanted to know what he thought about a
situation. Yamato was suddenly a little humbled when he realized that
Tai truly was a leader, even with his sudden handicap. He never stopped
thinking of the team and what was best for them. If that meant asking
for help from someone he normally wouldn't ask, then so be it.
"I..." Yama stammered. He hesitated. "I don't see that we have much of a
choice, Tai" he admitted. "If what she says is true, and this forest is
constantly moving, we may end up walking around here till the digital
cows come home."
Tai nodded once, and turned back in Pipermon's direction, his hands
clenched.
"Pipermon," he said, "we're gonna give you a chance to prove yourself.
We'll trust you, for now, to get us out of here."
Pipermon gave a playful salute.
"You won't live to regret it," she replied.
"I don't like the sound of THAT..." Jyou muttered, frowning and looking
a little nauseous.
Pipermon rubbed her chin and stared at the group for which she had
suddenly been appointed tour guide.
"Well, are you going to tell me who all of you are, or shall I have to
guess?" she asked.
The children paused, and Tai squared his shoulders again.
"I'm Taichi Kamiya," he said, "but I usually go by just Tai. This is my
sister Hikari,"--he patted Kari's shoulder--"but she usually goes by
just Kari." He gestured to the rest of the group. "Yamato Ishida is the
tall blond one, and the short blond one is Takeru Takaishi, his little
brother. We just call him TK." Pipermon grinned. "Koushiro Izumi--Izzy--
is our resident computer wizard," Tai went on as Izzy nodded crisply,
"and Jyou Kido is the one with the glasses. And the girls are Sora
Takenouchi--she's the redhead--and Mimi Tachikawa."
"Much better," Pipermon said, "I wasn't looking forward to having to
shout, 'Hey you!', whenever I wanted to get anyone's attention." She
looked at Tai, frowning at his eyes. This wasn't gonna be easy, she
thought. She'd never known anyone who was blind before, and she wasn't
quite certain how to go about leading a blind person anywhere. She
glanced at Kari.
"Hikari-san," she said, turning around and taking a step forward, "keep
a hold of your brother's wrist. Yamato-san, Takeru-san, keep to his
left, and the rest of you, to his right. That way he's covered from all
sides." She paused and glanced over her shoulder. "You'll have to be his
eyes. Don't let anyone fall too far behind, this forest gives a whole
new meaning to the word 'lost'."
Tai felt his face flush. He wasn't used to being looked after, and he
didn't like it. The blindness was frustrating...he could still move, it
wasn't like he was bedridden, HE wanted to lead the group to safety,
that had always been HIS job. Somehow, being bedridden would have made
the blindness easier to deal with. At least then it wouldn't have been
so aggravating to have to be watched out for. But when your eyes don't
work and everything else does... He sighed. It was hard, because he
didn't feel sick, he didn't feel tired...he just couldn't...see. He felt
useless, a burden, and scowled down at the ground, letting his thoughts
fume silently inside his head.
Pipermon saw his troubled expression, but decided it wasn't her place to
get involved.
"Okay everyone," she said, "let's get a move on. We can still cover a
mile or two before nightfall."
And so they walked. For over an hour they walked, with Pipermon leading
them through the forest, snaking out such a precarious route with so
many twists and turns that Izzy was certain they must have been walking
in circles.
Mimi let out a gusty sigh.
"Can we take a break?" she asked. "I'm starving..."
"I'm hungry, too," TK piped up.
There was a chorus of voices as the rest of the group admitted that
they, too, wouldn't have minded stopping for a quick bite to eat.
Pipermon looked back over her shoulder.
"Okay, I guess we can stop here for a little while," she said. "But not
for too long, it'll be getting dark soon, and there's still about half a
mile to the lake."
"Lake?" Tai asked.
Pipermon nodded.
"There's a lake not too far from here where we can set up camp for the
night," she explained, "but I want to make sure we reach it before
nightfall."
With a sigh, Mimi plunked down on a log near the side of the path and
placed her purse in her lap. She rifled through it and pulled out a
large Ziploc bag of steamed rice, still warm. She dug a little deeper
into the bag and retrieved several pairs of chopsticks, some matches,
and a handful of packets of soy sauce. Pipermon laughed.
"Good grief, Mimi-san, you brought EVERYTHING!" she said, bemused. "I
didn't know so much could fit into one little purse, you must have
packed everything but the kitchen sink!"
Mimi grinned.
"Well a girl is only as prepared as her purse allows her to be," she
said winking.
Pipermon's eyes widened.
"You must be the most prepared girl around..." she said, shaking her
head.
Yamato rubbed his hands together and took the bag of rice from Mimi.
"Okay, gang," he said with a grin, "who's up for some of my famous
Ishida Riceballs?"
Everyone laughed and took a seat as Yamato started on some riceballs.
Pipermon watched in amusement as Yamato rolled the rice into small,
palm-sized balls, and handed one to his brother. He tossed one to Sora,
then passed one down to Agumon.
"Who wants some soy sauce?" Mimi called, holding up half a dozen of the
little plastic packets.
What strange creatures these human children are, Pipermon thought,
shaking her head. She jumped up into the air and hovered there for a
moment before finding a perch on the branch of a nearby tree where she
could watch the children from above.
Sitting beside her brother on a log across the path from the one where
Mimi sat, Kari munched slowly on her riceball. Mimi glanced up from her
food and looked at Tai intently.
"You know, Tai," she began, but was cut off when Yamato held up a
riceball.
"Here, Tai," Yama called, and tossed the food. He nearly choked when he
suddenly remembered Tai wouldn't be able to see it to catch it.
"Huh--ACK!"
Tai lifted his head at Yamato's call, and was smacked dead in the
forehead with the incoming riceball. He froze, as did everyone else, as
the riceball slid down his face and into his open upturned palm.
Mimi slowly blinked her large brown eyes.
"You know, Tai," she said again after a moment, "if this doesn't fix
itself, and you wind up being unable to see for the rest of your
life...how will you ever know if your socks match your clothes or not?"
Tai plucked a grain of rice from the tip of his nose in a very slow and
deliberate manner.
"I mean," Mimi went on obliviously, "that would be, like, totally bad,
don't you think?"
"Oh PLEASE, Mimi," Tai growled, throwing the riceball down on the
ground.
Mimi jumped.
"What??" she cried, her eyes widening. "All I did was ask you a simple
question, is there something wrong with that?"
"YES there is something wrong," Tai shouted, jumping to his feet, "I'm
getting food thrown at me and all you care about is whether or not my
SOCKS match!!"
"Whoa, whoa, hey," Pipermon said, floating down from the tree. She put
her arms out at her sides and stood between Tai and Mimi. "Don't make me
separate you two."
Mimi's eyes filled with tears.
"All I said was--"
"We heard what you said, Mimi-san," Pipermon said, forbidding herself to
grin at the silliness of it all, "but I think Kamiya-san has more
important things to worry about than color-coordination."
Mimi pouted and folded her arms across her chest.
"What could POSSIBLY be more important than that?" she grumbled.
Pipermon frowned and shook her head.
"Friends shouldn't fight," she chided, a hint of guilt creeping into her
voice. There was a moment of awkward silence, and then she took a step
forward. "Come on, I think we should get moving. The lake isn't too far,
we should reach it in another twenty minutes or so."
Yamato placed the three leftover riceballs back in the Ziploc bag to
save for later. No one had really had much time to eat anything before
the argument broke out...they would eat later, maybe once camp was set
up.
Mimi frowned as Kari grabbed Tai by the arm and they started off after
Pipermon. Quickly shoving the chopsticks, matches, and the rest of the
soy sauce packets into her purse, she jumped up and ran after them,
weaving through the rest of the children until she was walking right
behind Taichi.
"Tai," she said timidly, grabbing his free arm just below the elbow. He
didn't acknowledge. "Tai, I...I'm sorry, I never should have--"
"No, it's okay, Mimi," he replied softly, closing his eyes. "I shouldn't
have made such a big deal out of it. I guess I was being al little
hypersensitive about it..." He paused. "It's just
that...well...sometimes, Mimi, your blunt honesty is a little...TOO
blunt." He grinned at her, his famous lopsided grin, and Mimi instantly
felt better.
Pipermon glanced behind her out of the corner of her eye and shook her
head with a quiet laugh.
Definitely very strange creatures, she thought. Very, very strange
indeed.
Another half an hour went by, without much said, before the sky became
completely dark.
"We're almost to the lake, you guys," Pipermon said, glancing back at
the tired children, "just hang in there a little bit longer."
"Pipermon, are you sure this lake even EXISTS?" Jyou asked. "I mean, if
this forest is always changing, then how do you--"
He broke off in mid-sentence when Pipermon stopped dead in her tracks
and snapped one arm up at the elbow.
"Did you hear that?" she asked.
Thick tension ran through the brief silence that followed, and then
Pipermon turned to face the children. She twitched her mouth.
"I thought...I thought I heard a..."
Her voice trailed off, her blue eyes scanning the trees.
"A what?" Tai asked, taking a tentative step forward. His hand slipped
from Kari's loose grasp. Pipermon shook her head, her eyes narrowed
suspiciously.
"I'm...I'm not sure--"
Her sentence was interrupted by a loud, high-pitched squeal and a blast
of wind. She jumped back, hovering above the ground for a second. A dark
purplish shadow appeared on the forest floor, at the feet of--
"Yamato-san!!"
She dove forward and shoved Yamato aside, nearly landing on top of him.
The purple shadow exploded in white light in the exact spot where Yamato
had stood a split second earlier. Her hands still gripping his
shoulders, Pipermon looked at Yamato, her eyes wide in fear.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Yamato nodded, too startled to speak. The white light faded quickly to a
pale purple, and a loud howling noise like that of a tornado started
coming from the center of the light.
"Get away," Agumon cried, his green eyes full of dread, "it's another
vortex!"
"What?" Tai shouted over the howl of the wind. He reeled back when the
wind grew stronger. "Agumon!!"
He stepped forward and let out a startled cry as the wind coming form
the illuminated vortex started to swirl around him, tugging at his
clothes. He dug his heels into the soft dirt of the forest floor, trying
to keep from moving. The winds pulled harder, slowly dragging him
forward to the vortex that stood like an open mouth in the center of the
path.
"Tai!" Kari shouted, lunging forward to grab the sleeve of her brother’s
shirt as the swirling winds grew stronger, the vortex intensifying,
threatening to swallow him up.
Pipermon's eyes still hadn't moved from Yamato's.
Why did I do that? she asked herself. If he had fallen into the rift, it
would have meant one less digidestined brat for Kurarimon to have to
destroy. She blinked, confused and a little startled by her own
unexpectedly tutelary actions. Her thoughts snapped back to the present
when she heard a frightened shout from behind her. Glancing over her
shoulder, she sucked in a sharp breath when she saw Taichi fighting the
swirling whirlwind that was trying so hard to drag him to the center of
the spinning vortex in the forest floor.
"Kari!" Tai yelled. "Kari, let go of me! You'll get pulled in, too!"
"No way, Ani-san!" she shouted back, digging her heels into the dirt.
"I'm not letting go!"
Pipermon squeezed her eyes shut.
What IS this? she thought, enraged. What are these children, that they
should make me question my orders to Kurarimon?? My orders...my orders
to destroy them??
She tried to block out the sound of the sheer terror in Hikari's voice
as she clung desperately to her brother's arm, trying with all her might
to keep him from being sucked into the hellish purple hole in the path.
Pipermon winced and grit her teeth as the terrified voices filled her
ears and reverberated inside her head.
With a cry, she lunged sideways, and Yamato fell backward onto the
forest floor. Landing on her knees, softly like a cat, Pipermon leapt to
her feet and sprinted to where Kari clutched Taichi’s wrist as though
she could will him to stay in place.
If he gets pulled into that thing, Pipermon thought, I may never be able
to find him. Kurarimon will kill me if I lose this kid!
Accepting that as the sole reason for the actions that followed,
Pipermon leapt into the air.
As Kari's grip failed, Tai was ripped from her grasp like a leaf torn
away from its branch by winter's icy breath.
"No!" Kari wailed, diving forward. She wasn't fast enough, and missed
him, landing hard on her stomach on the cold ground. "Tai!!"
He tried to fight the wind as it pulled him down, but it was too strong.
He felt himself sinking. It had all happened so fast, but it felt like
an eternity had passed in those two endless minutes.
Is this it? he wondered as the ground gave way beneath him. Will I die
like this?
Reaching for the sky in a last action of self-preservation, Taichi
clawed at the air like he could will it to solidify and allow him to
pull himself free of the powerful vacuum in the ground. The wind grew
hot, and a dizzying vertigo swept over him as he was enveloped in a
purple sea of condensed space and time--
--and he felt two strong hands grip his outstretched arm.
"Wha--?"
"Hang on, Kamiya-san!" Pipermon grunted, hovering over the vortex. She
yanked back hard, and planted her feet on the ground. Both hands were
clasped around Tai's arm, and she clung to him as though holding on to
her own last lifeline. "Hang on, I've got you!"
Yamato lifted his head and rolled onto his side, staring, awestruck.
TK's eyes were wider than sand dollars. Kari pushed up to her hands and
knees and felt faint as the scene unfolded before her.
"She saved him!" Jyou cried incredulously, voicing everyone’s disbelief.
TK helped his brother to his feet.
"She saved him, Yama-chan!" the younger boy exulted. "She really saved
him!" Yamato had no reply.
Pipermon didn't even realize that the others were watching her. The only
thing that mattered to her at that moment was pulling Taichi out of that
vortex.
Yeah, right.
She pulled with all her strength, but the wailing winds were just too
strong. She felt his hand slipping through her fingers.
"Kamiya-san--!" she cried. "No--!"
A cry escaped her throat as he was torn from her grasp. She flew
backward, landing on the forest floor in a heap. The children gasped,
too stunned and afraid to move, as Taichi was dragged into the gaping
hole in the path.
"Tai!" Kari shrieked, and started to get up to run after him.
"Hikari-san, NO!" Pipermon shouted and, without a second of hesitation,
she dove forward, shoving Kari hard to the side. "Kamiya-san!" she
yelled, and a startled cry arose from the rest of the group as the
digimon they had believed to be a treacherous enemy threw herself into
the vortex after their fallen leader. With an explosive whooshing noise,
the vortex flashed white again, and the seven other children found
themselves slammed to the ground by the force of the shockwave of energy
the vacuum expelled as it closed, sealing away who and whatever happened
to stumble into it.
Agumon stood beside Mimi, who was still reeling from the traumatic scene
that had just been played out in front of her horrified eyes. The
dinosaur-like digimon frowned, worry and fear for his friend creasing
his brow.
"I wonder..." he said softly. "I wonder...where it took them...?"
No one had an answer.
Her shoulders heaving, her hands trembling, Kari shakily got to her
feet, and hurried over to the spot where the vortex had swallowed her
brother. With the toe of her sneaker, she poked at the dirt, which now
had swirl marks in it from the spinning winds. She kicked the ground
dejectedly and clenched her fists, dropping to her knees.
"Tai..." she whispered, and silently cursed whoever had taken him away
from her. Tears stung her eyes. "Tai..." she said again, her voice
cracking. The others watched in torn silence as Kari pounded her fists
onto her thighs and threw her head back, letting an almost inhuman wail
rip from her throat. "Tai!" she screamed as the tears she had tried so
hard to hold back poured freely down her cheeks. "TAI...COME BACK!!!"
Bwahaha, wow, minna-san, how's *that* for a cliffhanger, ne? ~_^ What
will happen next?? You'll hafta wait and find out!! }:D Yaaay! I finally
own something! I own my villains, and Pipermon...so if you take them or
their pictures (email me if you wanna see 'em, hikari_san@hotmail.com)
or anything even closely related to them without my permission I will
hunt you down like a rabid Gatomon, you hear me? ~__^ So....que piensan
udstedes? That would be Spanish for "whaddya think, everybody?" Please
R&R!! I didn't come across any Japanese in this chapter...I assume
everyone already knows that "sayonara" means goodbye... So...until the
next installment...oyasumi nasai, minna-san!!! (Good night everybody!)
:)
~~hikari
(
geocities.com/tokyo/shrine/3281) (
geocities.com/tokyo/shrine) (
geocities.com/tokyo)