D3.2: VISITORS AND VISITATIONS

Ishida Apartment

"Thanks for letting me crash at your place tonight," T.K. said to Matt as they climbed the steps that led up to the Ishidas' apartment, "Mom's away at some conference again and staying with you was the only way to make her stop fussing about me."

"Not a problem, bro," he shrugged, "I had fun tonight."

"Me too," he agreed, a mischievious grin on his own face, "Even though you really can't skate, Matt."

"Hey, it's not my fault I'm not a jock like you," he punched him playfully on the upper arm. It was longstanding joke between the two brothers that Matt had inherited the artistic talent, while T.K. had received the sporting ability. Or, as Tai had put it one day, Matt couldn't dunk anything except donuts, while T.K. couldn't carry in a tune in a togbag!

"I can tell," T.K. commented drily, "You have a right-cross like Mimi."

"Don't you mean Togemon?" Matt adopted a boxing stance, fists up in front of his face, and punched at the air.

"Naah," he waved his hand airily, "You look like Togemon and punch like Mimi."

"Cute, Teke, very cute," he paused before the door of their apartment and fumbled in his pocket for his keys. As his hands closed around them, however, he heard a soft thud within the apartment, like a lamp falling onto the carpet. He felt everything within him freeze. Their father was away at the same journalistic conference as their mother, and no-one else had access to their apartment. That was, no-one had access without breaking and entering. Swallowing convulsively, he tried the door. The knob twisted easily in his hand and the door swung open a fraction. That was not a good sign. It had been locked when he had left to go skating with Tai, Kari and his brother.

"T.K., wait here," his voice was low and urgent, "I thought I heard someone in there. I'm going to check it out."

"You don't need to protect me anymore, Matt," his little brother sounded annoyed, moving to stand in front of the door, "I'm not eight. I'm coming with you."

"No, you aren't."

Pushing T.K. out of the way, he stepped into the apartment, slammed the door behind him and quickly locked it. He could hear the other boy begin to pound on it, but he ignored him. T.K. might have been thirteen now, but he was still his younger brother and Matt still had a responsibility to protect him. That hadn't changed since the first time they went to the Digital World. That would never change, even when they were old and grey.

After the brightness of the corridor, the apartment was very dark. The only illumination was provided by the stripes of moonlight coming through the blinds and slanting across the floor. Otherwise, the rest of the room was a haunted house of vague, looming shapes and sliding shadows. Matt felt the back of his neck begin to prickle, and fear thrill up and down his spine.

::You have to be brave. T.K. needs you to protect him.::

Eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom, he scanned the hallway for something he could use to a weapon. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a tennis racket that Sora had left behind the last time she had come over to study with him. He had put it by the door in order to remind him to take it to school, and had proceeded to forget it for a week straight now. He whispered a thanks to her beneath his breath. As weapons went, it was not much, but it was better than confronting the intruder bare-handed.

"Whoever you are, come out before I call the police."

::Great threat, Ishida.::

He heard footsteps sounding in the kitchen and he tightened his grip on Sora's tennis racket. Instead of the thief he had expected, a familiar, small creature poked his head through the kitchen door. He was wearing a cloak striped in alternating bands of dark and light fur that covered almost its entire body. All that it left visible was his yellow chin and his belly with its colourful, circular design. A spiral horn protruded in the centre of his forehead through a hole in the fur. His liquid, brown eyes brightened with delight when he saw Matt.

"Matt! It's you!" he cried, holding out his arms to him.

Incredulously, "GABUMON?"

Kamiya Apartment

"Kari!" Yolei sounded as if she were on the point of hyperventilating with excitement, "You won't believe what happened tonight! Ken told me that he liked me!"

"Really? That's --" was all that she was able to manage before the other girl launched into another recitation of how cute, sweet and completely brilliant her new boyfriend was.

Kari was curled up on the overstuffed couch in their living-room, feet neatly tucked beneath her and telephone firmly pressed to her ear. Her brother, Tai, was sprawled next to her, his entire attention focussed on his Playstation 2. He had borrowed Warriors of the Light from Izzy a week ago and had spent every free hour since in front of the television. From what Kari could tell, the entire point of the game consisted of hitting the enemy with an oversized weapon until he or she fell down, but Tai seemed to find it endlessly entertaining. At the moment, his face was scrunched up in concentration and he was grunting along with the character on the screen every time he landed or took a blow. He even moved to dodge the blows. Watching him was a great deal more interesting than listening to Yolei worship Ken, she thought with a giggle.

Her friend broke off her litany and asked reproachfully, "Are you listening to me, Kari?"

"You were saying that he is going to take you to Matt's concert in a fortnight's time," she supplied, grateful that she had gathered that much from Yolei's eulogising of Ken.

"It'll be perfect-o," Yolei sighed happily, then paused. Kari could almost see the speculative look on her friend's face as she did so. Her eyes would be very wide and innocent and she would be twirling a strand of her hair around her index finger. Her mouth would be opening and shutting a few times, as if she were not sure if she should speak, then she would shake her head and begin. With an inward groan, she resigned herself to what she knew was coming next - the Question . . . .

"So, I guess you're going with T.K., right?"

:: I called it. What a surprise.::

It seemed she could not have a conversation with Yolei these days without her mentioning her relationship with T.K. She did not know how the other girl had learnt of her feelings for him. When she had told her friend about being lost in the Dark Ocean, she had left out what she had said to him after he had rescued her. She had definitely omitted what he had said to her about caring too much for her to let the darkness take her. It was too . . . precious and sacred to spoil by allowing Yolei to spread it around the school, to gush over how perfect-o it was. It was a secret she wanted to keep to herself, for fear it would lose some of its butterfly-beauty in being told. Besides, she thought sourly, he probably did just care for her like a sister or a best friend.

"I hate to disappoint you, Yolei," Kari tried to sound casual, "but I'm helping Matt backstage."

"With T.K."

"He is Matt's brother," she protested, "Matt asked both of us to help him."

Much to her relief, before Yolei could counter her argument, their apartment's doorbell chimed. It was probably her mother returning from the shops with ingredients for supper. She always said that fresh vegetables were the healthiest, that they lost vitamins in the fridge, so she insisted on buying them a few minutes before she began cooking. If so, Kari would have to go and assist her in the kitchen. For the first time in her life, Kari looked forward to helping prepare her mother's infamous broccoli casserole.

"Get it, Kari," Tai told her, his eyes not leaving the screen for a second. His character had launched into a series of complex kicks and punches that were driving his opponent into a corner. She had no idea her brother was so good at the game. Despite his hours of play, he had never seemed to advance beyond the second plateau on the Shining Mountain. The guardian had always defeated him in a few seconds. She took another disbelieving look at the screen, then grinned. She had been wrong the first time. Tai was the one on the receiving end of the combo.

"But I'm on the 'phone with Yolei," she pretended to grumble. She did not want to seem too eager to end the conversation, and not only to spare her friend's feelings. There was a good reason Tai had not received the Crest of Knowledge, but even he would be suspicious if she did not complain a little bit. And, if he found out about her new feelings for T.K., she would never get a moment's peace from him. He already found Davis' crush on her hilarious. You're his little ray of light . . . Oh, sorry, you're his angel . . . No, no, you're his girl. Worse still, he would share it with Matt, who would . . . She felt her stomach clench at the unvoiced thought. Tai definitely could not be allowed to find out.

"And I'm in the middle of a pitched battle," he shot back, "So, scoot it, sis."

"Cute," Kari rolled her eyes, "Yolei, I'm sorry. I'll call you back later. The couch potato has grown roots and needs me to get the door for him. Bye."

"Hey, I heard that," Tai objected.

"I don't know how. Potatoes only have eyes and not ears."

Replacing the telephone on the receiver, she jumped lightly off the sofa and walked to the door. When she opened it, she smiled in delighted surprise as she saw the Digimon standing in front of her. It would have looked like nothing so much as a miniature tyrannosaurus rex, if it had not been orange and had a huge, happy grin on its face. Even despite the goofy grin, however, it might have scared some children. Still, Kari knew of old that there was nothing to fear from any Agumon. It was the first kind of Digimon she had ever met, when she had barely been out of diapers. It had risked its life to protect her and her brother from Parrotmon. Between it and the Agumon whom Tai had received later, she had decided that it was probably the most gentle and most compassionate Digimon species of them all.

"Hello, Kari."

"Hey, Agumon. What are you doing here?" she bent to hug him, then yelled over her shoulder, "Tai, the visitor's for you."

The Park

"This had better be as important as Tai said it was," Izzy grumbled to himself as he hurried along the pathway that led into the park, "I hate leaving my computer in the middle of a format."

The rest of the Digidestined, with the obvious exception of Mimi, were already waiting for him by the time he reached the tree under which they had arranged to meet. Even Ken, the former Digimon emperor, was standing there with a beaming Yolei by his side. He noticed that both Tai and Matt had their Digimon with them. Of course, he had expected Agumon to be there from the little Tai had told him but he was surprised to see Gabumon. He had not known that both of them had come from the Digital World. The blue Digimon looked concerned, pacing backwards and forwards in front of Matt. That was enough to tell him that it was serious. Gabumon was the most serene Digimon he had met. Nothing seemed to ruffle his fur.

"What's up?" he asked worriedly, looking down at the two Digimon.

"I'm not sure," Agumon answered slowly, "All I know is that another Digimon has come through to your world and that it probably shouldn't be here."

"How do you know that?" Cody sounded puzzled. It was the sort of question Izzy might have asked when he was younger, when he had not been so familiar with the extraordinary and had not taken wonders for granted. His experience in the Digital World had changed him more than he had thought. Still, he approved of the question. There was no point proceeding on a false assumption.

It was Gabumon's turn to reply, "As I told Matt and T.K. earlier, we saw the sky split open above Infinity Mountain. It looked as if something had taken their claws and simply ripped through it. If that wasn't bad enough, we could see your world, shining among our stars, through the tear. . . ."

"Yeah, I saw it. Or my mom did," Joe interjected, when Matt's Digimon trailed off with a fearful expression on his face, "I tried to explain to her that it was just the aurora borealis, but I don't think she believed me."

Nodding at Joe's words, Agumon picked up the story: "Then we saw a dark shape rise into the sky and pass through the hole. It looked like . . . like a . . . what do you call the furry, black creatures who have the same wings as Patamon?"

"A bat," Yolei supplied, her eyes wide behind her large glasses. She had moved a little closer to Ken, Izzy noticed, and his arm was around her shoulder as if to protect her, "Do you think it could be . . . ?"

"Myotismon," Kari finished her Jogress partner's thought in a hard, determined voice. Her appearance more than matched her tone. Her fists were clenched at her side, her mouth was set in a straight line. She looked prepared to take on the evil Digimon barehanded, and Izzy would have gladly placed money on her defeating him. She had always had a particular hatred for Myotismon, because of how he had abused and enslaved her Gatomon.

"That is what we feared," Gabumon said quietly, "It is why we two followed the other Digimon through the hole in the sky. It is why the others stayed behind in the Digital World to protect it. If Myotismon is active again, both our worlds are in terrible danger."

"I thought we defeated him!" Davis replied, stamping his foot on the ground in exasperation, "I thought Okinawa's final sacrifice was enough to keep away the darkness for good!"

"The darkness can never be completely defeated, Davis," Ken sounded strangely tired and sad, "Where the light shines most brightly, the shadows are also blackest."

"What does that mean?" Davis' voice mixed puzzlement and irritation, "It's no good going all zen on us, Ken, and expecting us to understand."

Even though Davis was confused, Izzy thought he understood what the bearer of the crest of kindness meant. It went back to what Gennai had tried to explain to them years ago. Light and darkness, good and evil, held each other in balance in the Digital World. Where one existed, the other also did. As Ken had put it, light always cast a shadow. It was an immutable law of nature. Of course, none of that explained why Myotismon was threatening their two worlds again. That meant that the balance between the two was out of kilter, that there was more darkness than there was light, and that they would have to restore it.

Before he could open his mouth to explain, Tai summed it up better than he himself could have when he said, "It means that we're in for the fight of our lives."

OBNOXIOUS ANNOUNCER: Has Myotismon come through the hole in the sky? If so, what is he planning and will Agumon and Gabumon be enough to stop him?Find out next time on Digimon: Digital Monsters! I