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Okay, gang, we're almost done... :)



Games of the Mind *Chapter Seventeen*



"Let's do it, then," she said icily.

"Pipermon?" Jyou asked.

She gave the Digidestined a look of pure determination. "I'm going to 
help you," she said without any hint of a waver in her voice. "If it 
takes my final breath to do so, I will help you destroy her." She fisted 
her hands and continued in a frigid whisper, "Kurarimon has hurt me for 
the last time..." She looked at Izzy, who appeared a little worse-for-
wear. "I will not see any of you children killed because of the 
ambiguity of my actions... I won't watch you be defeated because I 
hesitated."

There was a moment of stunned silence, then Tai clenched his hands.

"All right then," he said, pumping one fist into the air, "let's go take 
back the Digital World!"

Mimi sighed and turned her palms skyward. "It's always about saving the 
world..." She shook her head.

Pipermon whispered a few quick words, and a swirling breeze of green 
glitter spun all around them. Agumon and the other digimon felt a sudden 
sort of rejuvenation, a power within them that they thought they had 
lost. Pipermon winked at Agumon, and he instantly knew that he had been 
healed of his wounds and his digivolving powers had returned. The 
Digidestined were back in business.

Kurarimon slowly got to her feet, still unnerved by the fact that 
Pipermon had been powerful enough to really hurt her. True, Kurarimon 
had found she had sort of an immunity to other digimon attacks...she 
could easily deflect even a Mega level digimon's attacks with a simple 
flick of her wrist. However, for some reason, it wasn't so with 
Pipermon. Perhaps it was the whole "fight fire with fire" idea...one 
genetically engineered digimon to fight another? Perhaps she wasn't 
protected from Pipermon's attacks because they were the same as her own, 
and alike to no others. Nevertheless, Kurarimon was determined to do 
what she had set out to do originally.

She was still stinging from the fact that the red-haired boy had 
survived. The Obsidian Sphere had been intended for Taichi, and, had it 
hit him like it was supposed to, it would have killed him. In poisoning 
the boy's mind and stealing his eyes away from him, Kurarimon had 
learned his limitations. In getting into his head, she had discovered 
just how much the fearless leader of the Digidestined could take before 
his body just gave out. She had engineered the attack just for 
him...enough power to kill him, and no more. Why waste energy? 

Blast that little computer genius, she thought in fury. They're so loyal 
to one another that they would be willing to sacrifice themselves in 
order to save the other...it's so...nauseating... The red-haired one 
must have different limitation standard, she added as an afterthought, 
as my Obsidian Sphere didn't destroy him... No matter, she continued, 
straightening her back, they will all die anyway. Be it now or later, I 
shall destroy them.

"Clown Trick!" she shouted as the Digidestined began to regroup.

"Pepper Breath--poi!!" 

"Blue Blaster!"

Kurarimon's attack blasted through the two counterattacks like they were 
not even there.

"Marching Fishes!"

Gomamon's fish obediently rushed forward and created a wall to block 
Kurarimon's power. The fish bowed against the power of the attack, but 
managed to hold fast, then snapped back into place, sending the attack 
back to Kurarimon.

"Yes!" Jyou shouted. "Now that's what I call 'Return to Sender'!"

Even wounded as she was, Kurarimon was fast, and dodged deftly to the 
right, evading the backfire. "You'll have to do better than that," she 
taunted.

"You asked for it," Pipermon snarled. "Harlequin Bells!"

This time, Pipermon had a trick up her sleeve. She aimed and fired, but 
instead of a single beam of pure energy, she fired several short bursts, 
a rapid-fire approach to her signature attack. Kurarimon crouched low to 
the ground like a spider, and jerked quickly from side to side in an 
attempt to avoid the barrage of golden energy beams. After a few near 
misses, though, she began to lose steam. Her reflexes began to slow from 
the constant dodging, and one of the energy beams hit her in the arm. 
She yelped and pitched to the side, grunting as she was hit by another, 
and another, until she was doubled over on her knees, clutching her 
shoulders. Pipermon gave the children a pointed look--an order for them 
to stay back--and she darted forward.

A snarl on her face and an angry glare in her eyes, Pipermon approached 
her fallen master. Breathing shallowly, her chest heaving, the wounded 
Kurarimon looked up with a startled gasp as Pipermon snatched her by the 
collar and yanked her to her feet. Shaking her head slowly, Pipermon 
narrowed her eyes.

"You poor, piteous, wretched creature," she said coldly. "You would 
reject your own heart to destroy these children...wouldn't you?"

A crazed grin crossed Kurarimon's face, and she snapped her arms out, 
breaking Pipermon's grip. She staggered to her full height and gave 
Pipermon a wild-eyed look. "Poor and piteous?" she echoed, wiping her 
bloody lip on the back of her sleeve, leaving a streaky red stain on the 
snow-white fabric. "A wretched creature, am I?" She threw her head back 
and cackled. "Oh, what pleasure I will take in seeing you, after your 
precious Digidestined are destroyed, on your knees, begging to return to 
my service."

Pipermon's eyes flashed. "You're a fool if you think I would even 
CONSIDER coming back to you now," she spat.

"Come now, Little Piper," Kurarimon went on, the insane grin never 
leaving her face. She placed one hand on Pipermon's shoulder. "Why not 
come to your senses, Little One, and come back over to the winning 
side?"

Quick as lightning, the hand on Pipermon's shoulder moved toward her 
throat.

"Yaii!"

Kurarimon jerked her hand back with a cry. A bloody scratch was raked 
across the back of her hand, and she recoiled in horror and rage. 
Pipermon spun her flute between her fingers, and squinted her eyes as 
she watched a trickle of blood run down the end of her fife.

"I AM on the winning side, Kurarimon," she said. "I'm one of them now."

Her teeth bared, and the cut across her hand stinging sharply, Kurarimon 
lifted into the air. "Not for long," she hissed. "Soon, the only thing 
you will be is a MEMORY!" She spread her arms. "Clown Trick!"

Pipermon ducked down low and rolled to the side to avoid the attack, but 
wasn't quite fast enough. The distortion wave skimmed the top of her 
head, cutting the bands that held up her hair. Her bicolor locks tumbled 
down around her face, the bells still suspended in her hair, as she 
leapt upward into the air.

"Deuces Wild!"

Tai watched as the two titans fought, a little fearful for Pipermon. 
Kurarimon was a stronger digimon, even if she WAS injured. If given even 
the smallest opportunity, she would take the upper hand by force without 
hesitation. He turned to Agumon.

"Okay, Pal," he said with a grin, "you know what to do."

"You, too, Gabumon," Yamato added, and cast a look toward the battle 
raging on up above them. "Let's give Pipermon a hand."

"Right!" the two digimon responded, and Tai and Yamato's digivices began 
to glow again.

"Agumon..."

"Gabumon..."

"...warp-digivolve to..." they said in tandem, and they began to change. 
But it was a different transformation now... Rather than just moving up 
one level at a time, the two powerful digimon phased through all of 
their previous digivolutions to reach a new level...

Wrapped in a golden orange light, Agumon became Greymon, then 
Metalgreymon, then the light became stronger. He grew tall, and stood 
erect like a human, his two powerful legs wrapped in armor, a shield 
adorning his back. A helmet protected his head, and long, dark red hair 
spilled out from beneath it. Swinging the huge claws on his arms, the 
Mega Level digimon let out a powerful war cry, and tossed his head, 
ready for battle.

"Wargreymon!!"

Gabumon, meanwhile, was going through a similar process, zipping through 
his evolutions, and returning to a quadruped form after achieving 
Weregarurumon. The new digimon's body was composed entirely of metal, 
and four sheets of metal protruded from his back like wings. Baring his 
teeth, the digimon threw his head back and howled to the heavens.

"Metalgarurumon!!"

Kurarimon had barely noticed that there were two other Mega digimon in 
the area now, she rather had her hands full with Pipermon. As the other 
children's digimon quickly digivolved again into their Ultimate forms, 
Pipermon swept her hair out of her eyes to cast a desperate look at her 
master and enemy.

"Can't we stop this??" she cried as they continued to rise into the air, 
now caught in a fray about twenty feet above the ground. "I don't want 
to have to destroy you, Kurarimon!"

"You surely think too much of yourself, Pipermon," Kurarimon jeered. "I 
won't be destroyed by the likes of you, trust me."

"Why can't you see that you've taken the wrong path?"

"Because I haven't!" the evil digimon snarled. "I KNOW my path, I never 
strayed from it! You, Pipermon, are the one who moved from your trail 
and became lost in the wood. No one will help you find your way back 
now, Little One..."

"I have no desire to find my way back to that path," Pipermon replied 
icily, "for it led only to a dead end. It is the path I follow now that 
will save me...and it could save you, too, if you would only let it!"

"Never!" Kurarimon cried. "You have grown weak, and these children are 
the cause of it!" She curled her lips back in an expression of disgust. 
"I have learned this much: You have to choose your road, and stay true 
to it always, no matter what! You must not be distracted by such trivial 
things as emotions!"

"Then you haven't learned ANYTHING!" Pipermon wailed, and ducked away as 
Kurarimon tried another Clown Trick attack.

"Terra Force!" Wargreymon shouted, and Lillymon darted up, shoving 
Pipermon out of the way as the attack hit home. Kurarimon had been too 
distracted to deflect the powerful Mega attack, and it hit her full-
force, slamming her up against the wall.

"Metal Wolf Claw!" Metalgarurumon yelled, sending a wide beam of ice 
hurtling toward Kurarimon. But she wasn't about to be made a fool of 
twice. Raising her hands, she caught the energy from the ice attack in 
her hands and sent it flying back toward a very startled Metalgarurumon, 
who managed to dodge just in time.

"Deuces Wild!"

"Flower Cannon!"

The combined attack caught Kurarimon off-guard, and distracted her just 
long enough for Wargreymon to land another Terra Force. Leaving Lillymon 
behind, Pipermon zipped forward, and flung her arms out to her sides.

"Winds that Bind!" she called, and Kurarimon let out a startled squawk 
when a pale blue-green bubble popped up around her. She placed her palms 
against the sides of the magic sphere and pressed. The magic bubbled 
bowed outward, but she could not break it.

"Pipermon..." she growled, "what do you think you are doing?"

Ignoring the question, Pipermon looked back over her shoulder. "Do it 
now, Hikari-san," she called.

Kari frowned. "But I dunno what to do!" the child protested.

"Trust yourself," Pipermon said with a smile. "The light within will 
guide you."

Kurarimon scowled and pouted inside the bubble. "Pipermon," she 
beckoned, and Pipermon looked at her. "Don't do this, Pipermon," she 
said, her voice stony. "I know what you're up to, and it won't work. 
These children don't have the power to destroy me, even YOU should know 
that."

"Shut up, Kurarimon," Pipermon snapped. "You dug yourself this 
grave...now you'll lie in it."

Back on the ground, Kari furrowed her brow in concern. She didn't know 
what to do. The light inside? Oh, sure, that sounded very poetic...but 
what did it MEAN? If she DID have some sort of a light to guide her, now 
would have been a good time for it to show itself, she thought.

"Kari--!" Angewoman swooped down and landed beside her human, pointing 
at Kari's hip. "Kari, your digivice is glowing again!"

"Huh?"

Kari glanced down at the digivice clipped to the waist of her pants. It 
was, indeed, glowing again. But...why? She gasped as she realized that 
it wasn't just the digivice that was glowing--ALL of her was! She was 
enveloped in a soft salmon-colored light, as though a glow were 
emanating from somewhere inside of her.

Was this the light within that Pipermon was talking about?

She glanced around and, as she watched, the digivices of her friends 
began to glow as well; Sora's red light of Love, and her brother's 
orange light of Courage, TK's golden radiance of Hope, and Mimi's 
verdant glow of Sincerity. Yamato's blue brilliance of Friendship and 
Izzy's violet glimmer of Knowledge lit up like candles, and finally, 
Jyou�s silver-white light of Reliability completed the color spectrum 
and cast a circle of prismatic colors on the faces of all the 
Digidestined children.

Light alone cannot destroy her...but you must be the catalyst.

Pipermon's words rang in Kari's consciousness like a clear bell.

The first domino.

That's what she had meant. Kari's light would start a chain reaction. 
Though Kari hadn't really done anything consciously, Pipermon had been 
right. Somehow, the light inside of Hikari Kamiya had known what to do.

"Hikari-san!" Pipermon called jerking Kari's thoughts back to the task 
at hand. Kari looked up. 

"You can't hold me here forever, you know," Kurarimon growled. "You'll 
lose your power before these little children can destroy me. You can't 
keep me here."

"Oh, I'll keep you in there long enough to see you dead, Kurarimon," she 
seethed icily. She looked back over her shoulder at the children. "Do it 
now, Hikari-san," she said again, "finish it."

Kari nodded, and looked at the others. She closed her eyes and 
positioned her hands near her collarbone. 

Guys, I need your power, she thought. I need your strength. Help 
me...help me, so we can defeat her!

Kari gasped as a strange tingling sensation crept through her body, 
seemingly from the inside out. She felt a surge of power run through 
her, and a feeling of confidence swept over her--a feeling she, as well 
as the others, had rather been lacking lately. She smiled as the warm 
tingly feeling rippled through her body, as though it was running 
through the very veins beneath her skin. They were going to win, she 
could feel it. Kurarimon's reign of terror ended here, and it ended now. 
Cupping her hands gingerly, as though holding a glass globe between her 
fingers, Kari opened her eyes for a moment and cast a glance at her 
brother. Tai winked at her, and flashed a thumbs-up. Kari beamed, then 
slowly closed her eyes again, concentrating. On what, she wasn't quite 
sure, but, whatever it was, it seemed to be working. A small pink sphere 
formed between her palms, much like the dark one Kurarimon had summoned 
earlier. The pink ball spun and swirled between Kari�s hands for a 
moment, and then it was joined by a streak of red as Sora's digivice 
shimmered brighter with a glittering crimson light. Then came a streak 
of orange, then gold, and every other color in turn until the swirling, 
writing rainbow of colors between her palms was about the size of a 
large melon, and nearly blinding in its multicolored brilliance. The 
colors began to spin, faster and faster until they all bled into one 
bright white glow that forced Kari to squint and turn her face away. The 
light erupted all around them, a blinding silver radiance that made all 
the children wince and flinch, shrinking their faces away from the 
light.

When the light had faded, Kari was left standing in the center of the 
circle of Digidestined children with the sphere glowing a pale pink 
color between her hands, the symbol of the crest of light blazing from 
somewhere within the shifting salmon-colored mists of the orb. Kurarimon 
reeled back at the sight of the pink-white orb, suddenly looking rather 
pale and sallow.

"You will never defeat me," she snarled to Pipermon, though she really 
didn't sound so confident of that anymore. She pressed her hands against 
the shell around her, trying desperately to break free. With a grunt, 
Pipermon set her jaw, gritting her teeth as she fought against 
Kurarimon's attempts to escape. She glanced back over her shoulder 
again.

"Hikari-san, quit playing around!" she scolded, fighting Kurarimon back, 
keeping her trapped in the sphere. "Do it now!!"

Kari nodded again, and turned her right wrist so her palm was beneath 
the sphere.

Okay, she thought, let's do this.

Setting her teeth, she gazed at her comrades. Her eyes again fell on her 
brother, and she felt her soul fill with a euphoric feeling of assurance 
as he winked at her. Grinning, Hikari drew back her arm and locked her 
red-brown eyes on Kurarimon, who was still trying desperately to flee 
from her translucent blue prison.

Here we go...she thought. One defeated evil arch-nemesis...

"Coming right up!!"

She took a deep breath and flung the ball of light forward, sending it 
hurtling toward the trapped Kurarimon. Pipermon darted straight up as 
the sphere of bright pale pink light approached, and Kurarimon let out a 
horrified wail as the shell around her vanished, leaving her alone to 
face the full mercy of the light of the Digidestined.

"No!" she cried as the orb exploded just before impact, engulfing her in 
a flushed pink light that was so bright it hurt to look at it. She was 
coated in the brightness, shrieking in pain and fury, and then the world 
went completely white, as though it had been swallowed by the sun 
itself.

With a cry, Kari turned her face away as the light exploded all around 
them, and Tai jumped forward, wrapping his arms about his little sister 
as they were consumed in the whiteness. The children's digimon suddenly 
found themselves no longer able to retain their Ultimate forms...even 
Gatomon had reverted to her Rookie form of Salamon, a small beige-
colored digimon with floppy ears and large blue eyes. She flattened her 
body to the ground as the light enshrouded everything, and turned her 
eyes away. Pipermon was flung backward by the force of the blast of 
light, and she tumbled head over heels two or three times before she was 
able to regain her composure. Still hovering a good fifteen feet above 
the ground, Pipermon shaded her eyes as the light began to abate. She 
saw Kurarimon, doubled over as though the light were tearing her apart 
from the inside out. She was still floating, clutching her abdomen, 
clearly in terrible pain. The Digidestined looked up to see the pitiful 
sight...Kurarimon's form was slowly and steadily becoming semi-
transparent. 

Kari cringed. She knew Kurarimon was evil, and would have exterminated 
all the children had she not been stopped first...but Kari almost 
regretted having to destroy her like that. She watched as Kurarimon's 
body began to crumble and flake away, turning to digital dust, as all 
digimon did when their time in that form had come to an end. No more 
than compiled bits and pieces of data themselves, the digimon returned 
to the very microbes of information they were formed from. Kari looked 
away, and buried her head in her brother's arms.

"Kari?" he asked. "Kar, are you okay?"

"I just wanna go home," she whispered. She lifted her head and looked at 
him, pulling the goggles from her forehead. "I don't want anybody else 
to get hurt, I don't wanna fight anymore." She handed him the goggles. 
"I just wanna go home."

Tai loosened the strap on the goggles and then snapped them back on the 
crown of his head. He hugged Kari quickly, tightly, before rising to his 
feet and shading his eyes to watch as the enemy faded away into 
nothingness.

"You think you've won?" Kurarimon rasped to Pipermon, still clutching 
here stomach.

"We gave you every opportunity, Kurarimon," Pipermon said, though her 
voice held no emotion anymore. Her eyes were narrowed in angry yet 
almost remorseful determination.

Kurarimon laughed bitterly and tossed her hair. "Do you really believe 
this is over?" she asked. "You could not be more wrong! You can kill me, 
but this war won't end there. You cannot win. I may be killed, but I 
won't die ALONE!" She laughed again and snapped her arms out. "Moloch's 
Grasp!"

A black, sickle-shaped shadow flew from Kurarimon's fingertips and 
plummeted downward--right toward Tai and Kari.

"No!!"

With a horrified cry, Pipermon dove down toward the Digidestined, so 
fast Kurarimon could barely see her move. Tai let out a cry of alarm, 
and Kari glanced up with a shriek as she saw the sickle hurtling toward 
them, raising her arms to shield herself. There was a blast of 
blistering hot wind as the sickle neared its target--

--but nothing happened.

Kari snapped her head up in time to see Pipermon thrown backward by the 
force of the deadly attack and slammed into the far wall with a pained 
squeak, as though she didn't have the energy to truly cry out.

"Pipermon, no!" she yelped, suddenly having horrific flashbacks of 
Wizardmon, a dear friend of the Digidestined, who had once taken the 
brunt of an attack in an effort to save Kari and Gatomon, and had paid 
for it with his life. Kari had never really forgiven herself for that, 
and was not about to let it happen again.

Kurarimon let out a wicked cackle as the Digidestined watched in horror, 
and then she was gone in a cloud of digital dust. She was gone, the 
threat to the Digital World neutralized...but this was no time for 
celebrations.

"Pipermon!" 

With a shout, Tai leapt up and started forward, gasping in surprise as 
the landscape around them suddenly vanished, leaving them in the middle 
of an open field. Kuroniji Mountain and the Forest of Illusions had 
vanished just as quickly as their creator had, leaving the Digital World 
no different than it had been before Kurarimon had corrupted it. Shaking 
his head quickly, Tai darted forward as Pipermon tried to regain her 
poise and fly, but failed miserably. She plummeted to the ground, 
landing hard on her left side, where she lay, curled, clutching her 
ribs.

"Pipermon!" Tai cried again, rushing over as the rest of the 
Digidestined followed quickly. He reached her first and dropped hard to 
his knees, turning her over and gripping her shoulders as he lifted her 
from the ground. He found she was surprisingly light, for being the 
tallest member of the group. "Pipermon, talk to me!" The others gathered 
around as Tai yanked off his goggles and folded the wide blue headband 
twice and pressed it against the gash in the digimon's side. "Pipermon--
!"

She yelped and flinched as pressure was placed on the wound, but 
extended her arm and waved Jyou off as he dove into his duffel to find 
something with which to dress her wounds.

"Save your treatment, Jyou-san," she said slowly. "Don't waste your 
time."

"But--" he began to protest.

"We have to do SOMETHING!" Tai interrupted him, voicing everyone's 
thoughts.

She shook her head. "There's nothing you CAN do, kids," she said. 
"That's a sure-kill spell, even on me." She inhaled sharply, painfully, 
and Tai immediately loosened his grip on her shoulders, as though he had 
been the one who hurt her. 

"Pipermon, what do we do now?" Yamato asked. "There�s got to be some way 
we can--"

"Weren't you listening?" Pipermon asked, a little more harshly than she 
really meant to. "It's a sure-kill spell, remember? Even my magic 
wouldn't be able to reverse it's effects."

"But--"

She grimaced. "Kurarimon wouldn't have used such a powerful spell if 
she'd had any other choice. It kills both, it uses up all of the energy 
of the person who casts the spell. If she hadn't already been dying, she 
never would have resorted to using it." She gave Tai a sever look. "She 
meant, Kamiya-san, to take you and your sister with her."

"Pipermon, you idiot!" Yamato shouted. "You threw your life away just as 
you had reclaimed it!"

"Iie, Yamato-san," she replied with a small smile, "I did what I needed 
to do. I atoned for my tarnished past, I made up for the lives I hurt... 
I helped you return this world to how it should be, and that is enough 
for me."

"But what if it's not enough for us?!" Kari wailed. "Pipermon, you CAN'T 
leave us now!"

"I am afraid, Hikari-san," Pipermon laughed, "that I don't really have 
much say in the matter anymore." She glanced at Tai again. "Oh, don't 
look so upset, Mophead," she chided, "if it hadn't been for you kids, I 
would have stuck with Kurarimon right up to the end and died in shame. 
Now, thanks to all of you, I can leave here with a clear conscience."

"But we don't want you to leave!" TK cried, his eyes glazed with tears.

Pipermon shook her head. "My time is done here, Takeru-san," she told 
him softly, and closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath. "You kids 
saved me as much as I saved you, don't ever forget that." She hissed in 
pain and clutched her side tighter, and she made a wordless sound of 
disdain as she felt her blood ooze between her fingers. She squinted, 
then opened one eye and gave Tai a somber state. "Look, Mophead, this is 
a little beyond negotiation," she said, and winced again. "Don't worry 
about me, Kamiya-san," she assured him trying to smile. She wasn't very 
successful. "Don't worry about me," she said again, "digimon don't 
really die here, remember?"

"But--"

"No more buts," she interjected firmly. "Besides, now you've gone and 
stained your headband." Tai let out a tiny sound of protest, but she 
interrupted him. "This wasn't your fault...if I was destined to die in 
an untimely fashion, I'm glad I had the chance to meet all of you 
first." She gasped when a strange prickling sensation ran through her 
body, and her feet suddenly went numb. She realized she was beginning to 
fade away, and she cast her eyes on the Digidestined one more time. "Why 
so sad, children?" she asked. "You've won! Your world, and this one, are 
safe again, thanks to you! What happens to me now is inconsequential." 
She smiled. "You can all go home, put these past four days behind you. 
You can pretend as if they never even happened at all. Like you've 
simply awakened from some awful nightmare...just like in a fairy tale."

"But fairy tales are supposed to always have HAPPY endings!" Tai cried 
as Pipermon's body began to dissolve in his arms.

"Don't you get it, Tai?" she asked quietly, and he was a little startled 
that she had called him by his first name. "Don't you understand? 
Physical forms may come and go, but friendship is forever. It survives 
death, even if our bodies do not, into an eternity that needs no 
tangible indication." She winked at him. "Don't you see? There ARE no 
happy endings."

"What??"

A shocked cry arose at this, and she chuckled softly at their reaction 
as the numbing sensation crept up her spine.

"There are no happy endings," she whispered again, "because nothing ever 
really ends..."

"Pipermon--!" Tai yelped as she turned to dust in his arms.

"Remember that..." a voice echoed in his mind as the digidust shattered 
into the air and vanished, and he was left cradling the empty air. He 
shuddered as he looked down at his hands and watched the last traces of 
her blood dissolve from his hands and float into the air like dandelion 
seeds. The folded headband dropped to the ground, and the blood lifted 
away from that, too, leaving it good as new, as though no blood had ever 
touched it at all.

"No!" he cried, grabbing at the air desperately, as though he might be 
able to will her back if he could collect enough of the elusive dust in 
his hands. "Pipermon...no..." He grit his teeth, then clenched his fists 
and pounded one into the ground. "Dammit!" he shouted. "She sacrificed 
herself to save us, and there wasn't a damn thing we could do to help 
her!!" He beat the knuckles of his right fist into the dirt beneath him. 
"Dammit..." he whispered, and hung his head.

No one moved for a moment, almost afraid of what Tai might do next, and 
then Agumon took a tentative step forward, resting one clawed hand 
softly on his master's shoulder. "Tai," he whispered, and he looked at 
him, his eyes full of agony. "Tai, you have to keep in mind...it's like 
she said...digimon never really die here..."

"But she was different," Tai protested miserably, "she wasn't born in 
Primary Village the way the rest were...she was created."

"It doesn't matter," Mimi said.

"Don't you remember?" Sora added.

"That's what she had been trying to get across all along, Tai," Yamato 
continued for them, "that origins didn't really matter."

"A digimon is a digimon is a digimon," TK concluded softly with a tiny 
hopeful smile.

"She was still information," Jyou said, "even if she wasn't a naturally 
occurring digimon. Information, no matter what its form, will be 
reconfigured."

"She'll be back," Kari said, a sad hint of a smile on her face, "in one 
form or another."

Tai was about to argue back when Izzy let out a strangled yelp. They all 
turned to see him holding his laptop out, as though he expected it to 
bite him at any second.

"Izzy, what's wrong?" Mimi asked, wide-eyed, and the red-haired boy 
gasped when the laptop flashed white and began to glow.

He quickly placed the laptop on the ground and stumbled backward. A 
rainbow of colored light shot straight up from the computer, which now 
lay open like a book. The children gasped as a figure emerged in the 
pillar of kaleidoscopic colors and sharpened into--

"Gennai!" Sora gasped.

"We were starting to wonder what had happened to you..." Yamato added 
after a moment.

"Well, kids, it looks as though you've done it again," he said proudly. 
"I dunno quite how you managed, but you�ve restored the light to the 
digital world..."--he paused--"hey, why the long faces?"

"We...suffered a heavy casualty," Tai admitted after a moment of thick 
silence. The old man in the pillar of light frowned, and softly began to 
count to himself.

"One, two, three, four..." He twitched one eyebrow. "I still see all of 
you as present and accounted for," he said, confused.

Mimi shook her head. "Not one of us, Gennai," she said.

"It was another digimon," Gomamon said vaguely.

"And a good friend," Salamon concluded ruefully as a knot of remorse 
tied itself tightly in the pit of her stomach. It was like losing her 
dear friend Wizardmon all over again, and she almost couldn't bear it. 
Pipermon had relinquished her own life so that Tai and Kari might 
survive, and she had been so cruel to her...she hadn't even apologized 
for the mistrustful way she had treated Pipermon. She looked at the 
ground, hoping that, wherever Pipermon was, she knew how sorry she was 
for treating her that way, even though she would never get the chance to 
actually tell her so.

Gennai nodded slowly. "I'm sorry, kids," he said honestly. "I know you 
are all too familiar with losing people close to you...and I am truly 
sorry..." He paused a moment, then cleared his throat. "But there are a 
few things I feel I should explain before you all head back to your 
world."

The children all looked at him, eager for explanations for all the 
horrible things they had seen over the past few days.

"When this enemy, which I have now learned was a creation of Piedmon's," 
Gennai told them, "learned of your connections with me, she quickly set 
to work looking for any sort of contact I may have sent to you. She had 
already used her powers to seal away most of the light within this 
world, to prevent any sort of information being sent to you, but I 
managed, by piggybacking it on a stronger signal. She booby-trapped it 
so that time on your side of the digiport would freeze as soon as you 
went through it." 

"Freeze?" Tai echoed. "I don't understand...why would she do that?"

"That way," Gennai explained, "even if you tried to escape, you would be 
trapped in time until you managed to defeat her. Now that she's gone, 
time will resume normally on your side. You will return home only 
moments after you left. It will be as if these past four days never even 
happened."

"Oh, that's just great," Jyou muttered, "another four days we've existed 
that the rest of the real world hasn't. If we keep up this time-warp 
business, we'll all be old and gray before we graduate high school!"

Tai ignored him, and cast a somber glance at Gennai. The old man 
hesitated a moment, frowned. "Listen, Digidestined...I know it hurts to 
lose friends, but you can't let it bring you down... War takes no 
prisoners...especially not in this world. Whoever it was that helped you 
must have known that."

"It's still no excuse," Tai whipsered icily, clenching his fists again. 
"It shouldn't have ended the way it did..."

Agumon started to say something to Tai, then stopped, realizing there 
really wasn't anything that could be said.

Gennai furrowed his brow and extended one hand to the Digidestined. "Are 
you ready to go home, kids?"

Tai clenched his fists again. Yes, he did...he just wanted to go home, 
to get away from that cursed ground, to forget about these past four 
days, just like Pipermon had said...to forget it all... But, at the same 
time, he almost felt like if he were to leave, he would be abandoning 
everything she had taught him...like maybe, just maybe, if he sat there 
long enough, and wished hard enough, she might come back. Then he 
realized that was never going to happen, and slowly rose to his feet, 
taking Kari by the shoulder.

"Yeah," he said, almost inaudibly, wringing his left hand like he could 
shake off the memories. "Yeah...let's go home..."




Ii yo, minna, don't worry, I wouldn't leave you hanging here...really, I 
wouldn't...that's why it took so long to get the ending to you, I was 
waiting till the Epilogue was complete. ::makes a face:: Er...I hope I 
haven't like...emotionally scarred anybody... >_< Nnnngh....

~~hikari