Disclaimer: "Seriously, baby, it's not mine!!" Ara...gomen... -__-; I
was watching Austin Powers again. Hi again, everyone. :) I hope you are
all enjoying reading this story as much as I am enjoying writing it. In
response to a few reviews I have gotten regarding the fact that not
everyone speaks Japanese, I decided to set up a little translation table
at the end of each section...so not only do you get to read a story, you
learn a little Japanese in the process. ^_^ Any Japanese word or phrase
you come across in the fic will be translated at the bottom, and if
anybody spots anything I missed, please let me know and I'll translate
that for you, too. Kay? Okay, enjoy, minna-san (everybody), and keep the
reviews coming, I am so totally amazed at how well everyone is taking
this fic, I never expected that so many people would read it over a time
span of three days!! ^_^
Games of the Mind *Chapter Three*
About an hour passed before the phone rang again. Kari, Jyou, Tai, and
Izzy had all been sitting in the bedroom, all feeling rather helpless
and a little afraid. Kari silently got to her feet and walked out into
the other room, picked up the phone and answered softly.
"Hi, Kari, it's your mom again," the voice on the other end of the phone
said.
Kari brightened.
"Hi, Mom," she chirped, "what's going on?"
She heard her mother sigh.
"Honey, I'm afraid I've got some bad news," Mrs. Kamiya said after a
moment of hesitation.
Kari frowned and glanced over her shoulder, locking eyes with Izzy, who
had followed her out into the living room.
"What's wrong?" Kari asked anxiously, not looking forward to having
another problem added to her plate. "Are you and Dad okay?"
Mrs. Kamiya laughed.
"No, no, no," she replied, "it's nothing like that, Kari. Your father
and I are both fine, we just might not be home for a while." Kari
blinked.
"Whaddya mean?" she asked.
Mrs. Kamiya sighed again. "We're stuck at the bus station right now,"
she explained, "and we may be here for quite some time. The buses have
stopped running because of the storm. The streets are flooded, there's
about five inches of water standing in the road."
"The buses stopped?" Kari echoed. She glanced up at Izzy again.
"Yes," her mother said, "and I dunno how long it will be before they can
start up again. We might end up having to spend the night here at the
transportation center if this rain doesn't let up."
"What about the trains?" Kari suggested.
Mrs. Kamiya shook her head. "No," she said, "they've stopped, too, the
city officials are afraid the subway tunnels will flood like the
streets, so they've pretty much stopped all transportation throughout
the city. Even the taxicabs are nowhere to be found."
"And that means it's VERY serious!" Kari heard her father shout from the
background.
She smiled, then twitched her nose. "This is awful," she said with a
stern look on her face, "how long will you guys be stuck there?"
"I really don't know yet, Kari," her mother replied, "with any luck the
rain won't keep up too much longer, and the streets will drain, and then
everything will be back to normal." She hesitated. "Are you and Tai
okay?" she asked, a pang of guilt creeping into her voice.
"We're fine, Mom," Kari said cheerfully, trying to mask the worry in her
voice. "Izzy and Jyou are here, too."
"They are?" she asked. "What a loyal circle of friends you and Tai have
got, Kari, that they would brave this storm to visit you." She smiled.
"It sounds like you've got three very capable bodyguards, Kari, honey,"
her mother laughed.
Kari couldn't help but smile. "We'll be okay, Mom," she said
reassuringly. "It's not like we've never stayed home alone during a
storm before."
"I know, I know," her mother responded, "but I'm your mother, and I
worry. That's what mothers do. It's in our job description." She smiled.
"I just thought you should know where we were so you wouldn't wonder
when we weren't home till late."
"Thanks," Kari replied. She paused. "Call back when the buses start
running again. Call before you leave," she requested, "that way Tai and
I will know when to worry if you're not home."
"Okay, I'll do that," Mrs. Kamiya promised.
"Bye, Mom."
Click.
"Prodigious, Kari," Izzy said, "good thinking! Since all the ground
transportation has stopped, we know your parents won't be home for a
quite a while. And when they are able to come home, they’ll call and let
you know they're leaving, and that will give us an idea of how long we
have before they get here."
"But that won't make Tai any better any sooner..." Kari pouted.
"Perhaps not," Koushiro said, "but by the time they get home, it might
be nightfall, and you can just tell them Tai went to bed early." He
grinned. "With any luck, he'll be fine again in the morning, and nobody
will ever know!"
Kari wasn't convinced, but didn't say so. She followed Izzy back to the
bedroom.
"Who called?" Tai asked when he heard the door open.
"It was Mom," Kari answered, sitting down at the foot of the bed. "She
and Dad are stuck at the transportation center for a while until the
rain stops."
Jyou glanced out the window. "Doesn't look as though that will be
happening in the near future," he muttered. "The streets are rivers," he
added, pushing aside the curtains and squinting at the cityscape
outside.
Izzy glanced at the clock on the wall. "It's four-o'-clock," he said
slowly. Kari frowned.
"Yeah, so?" Tai asked.
Izzy walked up to the window beside Jyou.
"It was only about noon or so when I got here and the rain started,"
Izzy went on. He turned back to Kari. "That's at least three hours."
"Storms don't usually last that long," Jyou said, frowning.
"Especially not in the springtime," Izzy stated.
Jyou twitched his nose again.
"It's weird," he said, returning his gaze to the sky, "there's so much
thunder, but I haven't seen a single flash of lightning. It seems so
close, but with no lightning to count the time delay between the flash
and the sound of the thunder, there's no way to tell." He paused. "It's
so windy out, too, " he added, "the center of the storm should have
blown over us hours ago."
Before any of them could say anything else, there was an almost
deafening roar of thunder. It shook the walls, and rattled the china in
the cabinets in the kitchen. Kari shrieked and grabbed Tai's hand as all
the lights went out.
"Whoa..." Jyou said, pressing a small button on the side of his watch.
An eerie blue-green light glowed from the face of the watch, lighting up
his face. "Everybody okay?"
There was a small chorus of soft, frightened voices as the others
affirmed they were all right.
"What happened?" Tai asked.
"The power died," Kari said, forgetting for a moment that he couldn't
have known that. "It's pitch black in here."
"Now you know how I feel," Tai muttered good-naturedly. Kari poked him
in the ribs and he snickered.
"My computer has a backup battery," Izzy said, fumbling about in the
darkness. "If I can just...find the computer...I can--itai!"--he yelped
as he stubbed his toe on the leg of the dresser. He grit his teeth and
hopped on the other foot for a moment. "If I can find it," he went on, a
slight hint of pain in his voice, "I can find out how wide-spread the
outage is."
Jyou, still at the window, looked outside, placing his long fingers up
against the glass. "It looks like it's out all across the city," he
said, looking over his shoulder back into the blackness of the room.
Finally managing to find the computer, Koushiro groped for the on
switch. "Hey, Jyou," he said, "come here, I need the light from your
watch to find the dumb switch, I can't see a thing!" He squinted in the
darkness and made a wordless sound of triumph upon locating the elusive
button as a pinkish light glowed over his shoulder. He flicked the
computer on, then turned to thank Jyou--
--and froze. Jyou hadn't moved, he was still by the window. White light
from the computer screen lit up the room and the faces of the children.
Jyou and Kari both had their eyes fixed on the pink glow mysteriously
emanating from somewhere on the bureau. Kari let go of her brother's
hand and slowly slid off the bed.
"Kari?" Tai asked, frowning. She didn't reply. She walked over to the
dresser and reached out toward the strange light. She brushed aside some
of the clutter on the dresser, and gasped at what she saw.
"My digivice!" she cried, snatching it up. She held it out in front of
her, squinting at the pale pink light coming from the small squarish
contraption. "Izzy, Jyou, it's my digivice!"
"What's wrong with it?" Tai asked, puzzled.
"It's...it's GLOWING!" she said, eyeing it as though afraid it might
explode. Izzy frowned, then reached into one of the pockets of his
backpack. Drawing his hand out, his fist clenched, Kari could see a
purple light coming from between his fingers. "Izzy--yours, too!" she
said, startled. She turned to Jyou, who dug the small device out of his
pocket, and the silver-white glow reflected off the lenses of his
glasses.
"And mine," he said, lifting one eyebrow.
Kari turned to her brother.
"Where do you keep your digivice, Tai?" she asked him.
Tai thought a moment.
"I think it's in the sock drawer," he replied.
Kari pawed through the drawer by the light of her digivice, groping
amongst the rolled socks until she felt a small hard plastic object.
Closing her fingers around it, she pulled her hand quickly from the
drawer. And a cry escaped her throat.
"What's wrong?" Tai cried, anxious. He leaned forward. "Kari??"
Kari held up her hand, Tai's digivice in her palm. It, too, glowed, but
the golden orange light was much fainter than that of the other three.
"Its...it's your digivice, Tai," she breathed, looking worriedly at Jyou
and Izzy, "it's so faint. It's...barely glowing at all..."
Sora Takenouchi popped open a soda as she sat down on the floor in her
bedroom. Sitting on her knees, she struck a match and lit a wide
cylindrical candle on a low table in the center of the room. She handed
a second soda to her friend Mimi Tachikawa, who was seated cross-legged
near the table. Sora ran her fingers through her short reddish hair and
watched the candlelight play eerie shadows across the room. She glanced
at her friend, who looked rather nervous.
"I hate thunderstorms," Mimi groused, smoothing the front of her tee-
shirt. "They're so loud and angry-sounding."
Sora smiled and blinked her large green eyes.
"I think they're neat," she replied, taking a sip of her soda. "I like
to listen to them at night, it's kinda relaxing." Mimi scowled.
"You can HAVE them," she pouted, "I don't like them."
Sora shook her head. Mimi had moved to New York shortly after the
children's adventures in the digital world two years ago. Once or twice
a year, however, Mimi would return to the Tokyo area to visit her
friends and fellow digidestined. Having arrived only the day before,
Mimi was still a little jet-lagged, but refused to let that dampen her
week-long visit with Sora.
She yawned and popped open her soda, watching the candle flame flicker
and cast eerie shadows across Sora's face.
"I hope your mom made it to the store okay," Mimi said softly, glancing
out the window, "it's pretty brutal out there."
Sora frowned.
"I'm sure she's fine," Sora said. "She might be stuck at the
transportation center, though, I dunno that the buses run in such
terrible weather." They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the
rain. Sora ran her fingers overtop the candle flame, then let out a
gusty sigh. The flame blew out. Mimi let out a squeak of surprise and
blinked rapidly, trying to readjust her eyes to the sudden darkness.
Sora laughed sheepishly. "Sorry," she said, and moved to get to her
feet, "I'll relight it." She stood up and floundered around in the
darkness for a moment, looking for a flashlight. Suddenly, a greenish
light filtered through the air behind her, striking the ceiling and
casting an ethereal aqua glow across the whole room. "Mimi," she said,
finally finding a wall and groping along toward the door, "why didn't
you tell me you brought a flashlight?"
"But I DIDN'T bring one!" Mimi protested. "My purse is glowing!"
"What--?"
Sora spun back in time to see Mimi upend her purse, dumping the contents
onto the floor. Among the compacts of concealing powder make-up,
glittery nail polish, and shiny pink lip glosses, was a small squarish
device resembling a pager. It was glowing a pale celery color, like a
glow-in-the-dark sticker.
"Your...your digivice?" Sora said softly, dropping to her knees beside
Mimi. She leaned over to stare at the glowing mechanism. "Why is it
glowing like that?" she asked.
"I dunno," Mimi replied simply, plucking it from the carpet and holding
it in her palm.
Sora frowned and reached into the pinkish waistpurse she wore and pulled
out a similar device. Hers, however, glowed a brilliant scarlet.
"How weird," she said, staring at it. She locked her green eyes on
Mimi's chestnut ones, and stood up. "Something must be wrong," she went
on.
"Wrong?" Mimi cried anxiously, tugging at the locks of light brown hair
that fell around her face. "What? What could be wrong?"
"I don't know what it might be, Mimi," Sora said, "but they never glowed
before unless our digimon were digivolving." She paused. "Or unless
something was wrong."
Mimi squeezed her eyes shut. "Don't SAY such scary things, Sora," she
whined, looking away at the window. "Maybe they’re reacting to the
thundersto--hey! Where are you going?" She jumped to her feet as Sora
opened up the bedroom door to leave.
Sora looked back over her shoulder at Mimi. "I'm going to call Tai," she
said. "He might have an idea what's going on."
"I wonder if his and Kari's digivices are glowing, too?" Mimi thought
aloud, moving up behind Sora.
"Let's go find out," Sora said, holding her digivice out in front of her
like a flashlight. Mimi gripped Sora's shoulder and followed her closely
down the hallway. "I think the cordless phone is on the kitchen
counter," Sora said as the two friends made their way down the hall.
"Your house is so quiet," Mimi said timidly, "no sound at all!"
Sora giggled. "I would suppose that just about anything seems quiet when
you compare it to New York City," she laughed, picking up the phone. She
dialed Tai's phone number and started back down the hallway, Mimi still
clinging to her shoulder.
RING! RING!
"The phone again?" Tai asked, running his hands down his face. "We're
awful popular today."
"I'll get it," Jyou volunteered, jumping to his feet. "Wait right here,
I'll be back in a second." He sprinted out into the hallway, then slid
to a stop on the hardwood floor, nearly gliding past the phone as his
socks skimmed across the slick, smooth, polished wood. He grabbed the
table and picked up the receiver. "Hai, moshi moshi?"
There was a pause. "Jyou?" the voice on the other end asked. "I must
have dialed the wrong number, I meant to call Tai's house."
Jyou smiled.
"Sora, is that you?" he asked. "This IS Tai's house, but I was closest
to the phone," he fudged. "What's up? I hope you're on a cordless phone,
Sora. In this kind of weather it's dangerous to be on a hard line."
Sora smiled. "I'm on the portable, Jyou," she assured him. Then she
paused. "Is Tai there?" she asked. "I really need to talk to him."
Jyou hesitated. "Uhhh..." he stammered, "Tai's...busy right
now...ummm..." He glanced back over his shoulder as Kari walked into the
hallway. "Um, here, Sora, talk to Kari." He quickly thrust the phone at
the younger child.
Kari blinked rapidly and took the phone from Jyou's outstretched hand.
"Sora?" she said into the receiver.
"Hi, Kari," Sora said, "I haven't talked to you in a long time! How are
you?"
"I'm okay," she said, "what's going on?"
Sora paused.
"Well, I need to speak to your brother," she said, "is he there?"
Kari sucked in a sharp breath.
"Uhh," she said, "he...can't really come to the phone right now," she
said quickly.
"Huh?" Sora said. She blinked. "Why not?"
Kari made a face.
"He's...busy, " she hedged. "He said not to disturb him."
Sora narrowed one eye.
"Well, tell him it's important," she protested, "I really need to talk
to him."
"Sora, he's really not--"
"Kari, please," Sora said urgently, "this is really important. I...I
need to talk to him."
Kari paused, and her expression hardened.
"Yours is glowing, too," she said, "isn't it?"
Sora gasped.
"Yes," she replied, "yeah, the...the digivices...they're...they're
glowing. Mimi's is, too...I was hoping Tai might know what was going
on..." Kari blinked.
"Mimi is there?"
Sora nodded, as though Kari could see her through the phone. "Yes, she's
here for Spring Break," Sora affirmed.
Kari turned and looked at Jyou. He nodded, and Kari nodded back. "Sora,
can you come over?" Kari asked. "You and Mimi?"
"I...I guess so," she replied, looking at Mimi and then looking out the
window. "Why?"
Kari sighed. "I'll explain everything when you get here."
"That's the strangest thing I ever heard in my whole life," Mimi
blurted. "Whoever heard of someone going blind overnight?" Sora elbowed
Mimi in the ribs. "Well it IS," Mimi hissed.
Sora approached the bed where Tai was seated, timidly, as though afraid
he might bite should she get too close. She looked at the candle
lighting the room, then looked back at Tai, her brow furrowed. "What's
it...what's it like, Tai?" she asked, taking his hand. She was genuinely
curious. "Does it hurt?"
He pulled away from her, both touched and embarrassed by her concern.
"No, it doesn't hurt," he mumbled, "it's just...it's weird. It's
like...having my eyes closed, even though they're wide open...or being
in a totally dark room with no windows." He frowned. "It's...kinda
scary."
Sora frowned and stared at her hands, at the oddly glowing digivice she
held in her palm. Then her eyes moved to the window, to the storm still
raging outside. She frowned, and her green eyes narrowed suspiciously in
the candlelight. "I wonder..." she whispered.
"Huh?" Tai turned his head toward Sora's voice. "Sora?" he asked. She
didn't acknowledge, rather moved toward the window and pushed aside the
curtain.
"What is it, Sora?" Kari asked, walking up beside her. "You wonder
what?"
Sora looked at Kari. "I wonder if this all isn't connected somehow," she
said. "Everything seemed to happen all at once; the storm, the glowing
of the digivices,"--she glanced at Tai--"Tai's unexplained blindness..."
She frowned. "I just wonder if they're not somehow connected."
"Has anyone gotten in touch with Yamato or Takeru yet?" Jyou asked after
a moment of tense silence.
Tai groaned. "Great," he moaned, "why not just announce to the whole
world that I've gone blind?"
"Oh, stop overreacting, Tai," Sora chided good-naturedly, "this is
important." She glanced down at her digivice, then at everyone else's.
She frowned at how faint Tai's glowed. "All of the digivices are
glowing, we have to assume," she went on. "If our six are glowing, I'm
sure Yama and TK are in the same situation."
"Something must be going on somewhere in the digital world," Koushiro
piped up, "and something big." He tapped at his computer again. "That’s
the only explanation I can come up with as to why the digivices are
glowing. Someone or someTHING is trying to get our attention. There's
nothing else they could be reacting to."
Sora clenched her fist. "Then we have to go back," she said quietly.
Four heads snapped in her direction.
"What??" they all asked incredulously in tandem. Sora jumped.
"How do you propose we go back if we can't tell whether or not the gate
to the digital world is open or not?" Koushiro queried.
"And we can't go anywhere without first getting in contact with Yama and
TK," Kari added.
"Are you sure that’s a good idea, Sora?" Jyou asked. "I dunno that my
mom would appreciate much appreciate my vanishing into a parallel
universe without her knowledge. I didn't even bring my passport."
"I came here to visit Sora for Spring Break!" Mimi wailed. "I didn't
want to go on anymore crazy adventures!!"
"Quiet! All of you!" Tai shouted, much to everyone's surprise. He
scooted to the edge of the bed and got to his feet. "Look, you guys," he
continued softly, "if something IS wrong in the digital world, and it's
causing all of our digivices to react so strangely, then we need to find
out what it is. We can't just abandon our digimon if they need our
help."
The room fell silent. "Tai's right," Sora said firmly. "Our digimon
risked their lives for us. We can't just turn our backs when it's
possible their world is in danger."
"Besides," Kari added, "we know from experience that problems in the
digiworld become problems here in the real world."
Jyou and Mimi exchanged sheepish glances, suddenly feeling selfishly
foolish. "You're right..." Mimi said, "Sora, Tai, Kari, you're right,
all of you." She paused. "We have to go back." Jyou nodded, but made no
statement.
"Okay, it's settled, then" Tai said, sitting back down on the mattress.
"Izzy, you try to find a way to get the digiport open. Kari, you call
Yamato and TK and tell them to get over here ASAP. Sora, if you go in my
mom's bedroom, you'll see a large backpack with a first aid kit in it,
and there should be a compass and some other stuff of that nature in
there. Mimi, Jyou, you two go into the kitchen and grab some stuff to
eat, we don't know how long we might be stuck there in the digital
world."
"Right!" they all shouted, and set to their assigned tasks.
"I KNEW I should have come to visit over Winter Break instead," Tai
heard Mimi mutter as she headed for the kitchen, and he laughed to
himself.
Feeling rather useless as he was, Tai rested his elbows on his knees and
set his chin in his hands. Something still bothered him. If all eight
digivices were reacting to something in the digital world...what was it?
And why was his own digivice glowing so much fainter than those of all
the others? He sighed. So many unanswered questions ran through his
head. He wondered if...when they finally found the answers to these
questions...if they would like them or not...?
"Hello, Ishida Residence."
"Yamato?" Kari said into the phone receiver. "Yamato, it's Kari, Kari
Kamiya."
Yamato Ishida cradled the phone between his jaw and his shoulder and
struck a match to light the candle he had placed on the kitchen counter.
"Hey, Kari," he said, blowing out the match, "what's going on, are you
okay?"
"I'm fine, Yama-kun," she replied, "but I have a question to ask you."
"Go for it," he said, sitting down on a tall bar stool. Yamato was tall
and lean, with sandy blond hair and large, kind blue eyes. He had a
flair for music, and hoped to be a famous rock star one day, but for now
he was content with keeping an eye on his younger brother Takeru.
Kari opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated.
"Kari?" Yamato said. "You still there?" She made a wordless sound to
confirm her presence, then bit her lip. "So what's the question?" Yamato
asked her, a little confused.
"Yama...is your...is your digivice glowing?" she finally managed to spit
out.
Yamato blinked his azure eyes.
"Glowing?" he echoed.
"Uh huh," she affirmed, and proceeded to explain to him how everyone
else's digivices appeared to be reacting to something.
"That’s strange," he said, "hang on a second, let me go and get mine."
He set the phone down. "Hey, TK," Kari heard Yamato call, "where's your
digivice?"
"My digivice?" Takeru questioned. So TK is there with Yamato, Kari
thought. She didn't think it was mere coincidence that everyone had been
so easy to rally...Mimi's being on vacation in Japan, TK's being at his
brother's house... Kari frowned. She wondered what it was like, having
separated parents. She knew it must have been hard on Yamato and Takeru,
being split up like they were. They didn't even live in the same house
anymore, and didn't get to see as much of each other as they would have
liked. Yamato lived with their father in an apartment, and Takeru lived
with their mother in a house across the water from the city.
"Kari," Yamato said, picking up the phone again, "ours are glowing, too.
Do you know what it means?"
"Maybe," Kari replied. "Is your dad home?"
"No," he replied, "he went out to do some shopping, but that was hours
ago."
"My parents went out, too," she said, "everyone got stuck at the
transportation center. The buses stopped running because of the storm."
"That explains it," he said, relieved to know that his father wasn't the
only one who hadn't returned home.
"Can you and TK come over?" Kari continued.
"Sure thing," he responded, "we'll be there in fifteen minutes."
"Good," Kari said, "everyone else is already here. We may have a problem
on our hands, I'll tell you everything once you get here."
"All right," Yamato said, a little worried now, "we'll get there as soon
as we can." He hung up the phone, and turned to his little brother.
"Come on, TK," Yama said, "we're headed over to Tai's house."
Takeru looked up at Yamato. TK was small for his age, and a little
naive, but he had a big heart, and was always looking on the bright side
of things. It was near impossible to bring the little one down. He
looked curiously at his brother.
"Yama," he said, frowning, "what's going on?"
Yamato pursed his mouth.
"I'm not sure, TK," he said honestly, "but, whatever it is, it's not
good. Kari sounded really worried."
TK didn't like the sound of that at all. Kari had always been the type
of person to put everyone else's needs before her own, but rarely did
she allow the concern she felt for others betray into her voice. Hardly
ever did she appear overly worried or afraid. Something really bad must
have happened.
"Come on, then, Yama-chan," TK said, tugging his brother toward the
door, "let's get going." He sat down near the door and started to put on
his sneakers.
Yamato glanced out the window, concerned by the severity of this
seemingly never-ending storm that had hovered like an unwelcome guest
over the city. He shook his head quickly to clear away the troubling
thoughts. "Right!" he said, and stepped into his shoes. "Let's go."
Yamato grabbed an umbrella and the two brothers headed out the door.
"He's WHAT??"
Yamato closed the door behind him and grabbed Kari by the shoulders, his
eyes wide.
"Shh!" she hissed, placing her finger over his mouth. "Something
happened last night, Yama...and it made him go blind. Don't YOU freak
out about it...he’s freaked out enough for all of us."
Yamato nodded.
"How did it happen?" he asked.
"I have no idea," Kari replied, "he just...woke up this morning and he
couldn't see."
"Freaky," TK said meekly.
"Tell me about it," Kari said softly. She sighed, Yamato's hands still
on her shoulders. She looked at the floor, then up into his blue eyes,
pulling away from his hold. "Come on," she said, "the others are back in
our room."
Yamato, TK, and Kari headed down the hall toward the bedroom. Opening
the door, Kari stepped inside, and stood aside so Yamato and Takeru
could follow. Then she shut the door, as though worried someone else
might hear what was about to be said in that room. Yama sat down on the
floor beside Sora, the children in a sort of horseshoe shape on the
floor, facing the bed. Takeru plunked down beside his brother.
"Hey, Tai," TK said, "how do you feel?"
"With my hands," Tai responded with a grin. TK frowned. He knew Tai was
only making jokes so the rest of them wouldn't worry. The younger boy
opened his mouth to say something, but Tai was faster. "Okay, gang," he
said, scooting closer to the edge of the bed, "here's the deal: We have
to go back. Something's up in the digital world, and I believe it's our
duty as the digidestined to find out what it is, and fix it."
"But how are we gonna get there?" Yamato asked. "The gate doesn't just
open on command."
"Izzy's been working on that," Tai said, sounding a little less than
encouraged. "Any luck, little buddy?"
Koushiro glanced up at the rest of the group. "I think I may have found
something," he said, tapping at the keyboard. "I was going through some
old files that I had received from Gennai, thinking that perhaps one of
them might hold some clue as to how the digiport is opened, and I
stumbled across something new."
Gennai. The children hadn't thought of him in a while. The creature who
had helped lead them through the digital world who called himself
Gennai...was he human? Was he a digimon? The children still were not
totally certain. All they knew was, he was a friend, and friends were
things they could never have enough of in the digital world.
"Stumbled across what?" Tai asked, fidgeting.
"It's a message," Koushiro said, "a recent one, sort of like an email,
but it's not in the same format as an email, it's a much smaller and
more simplistic file. The signal is weaker, too, the message wasn't
strong enough on its own to get here, so it had to piggyback on a
stronger signal. It's very peculiar."
"So...so what is it?" Yamato asked.
"Is it a virus?" TK asked.
"No," Izzy replied, "I don't think it's a virus, it isn't set up like
one...but we won't know for certain until I can get the file open."
"You can't open it?" Kari questioned, puzzled. She found it hard to
believe that Koushiro was unable to do something.
Izzy scowled. "The file isn't complete," he explained, "it was ended
prematurely. The data is slightly corrupted."
"Meaning what?" asked Tai.
"It's garbled," Izzy said. "It's incomplete. It would be like trying to
read a book where the center of the page had been removed."
Tai twitched his nose.
"So, whack it!" he said, slicing his hand through the air.
Izzy grinned.
"Somehow, Tai, I don't think that will help the situation."
"So what has to be done before it can be opened?" Jyou asked.
"I have to fill in the portions of the binary coding that were lost,"
Koushiro said, pecking rapidly at the keys.
"Like fill-in-the-blank?" TK asked.
"Sort of," Koushiro replied. "Whatever parts of the program are missing,
I have to manually replace before the file will open."
"How long will that take?" Mimi asked.
"Gimme a nano," Izzy said, a little more sharply than he had intended
to, "it won't take long." He typed for about thirty seconds, then looked
up. "There," he said with a wink, "done." He tapped his finger twice on
the small touchpad at the bottom of the keyboard, and a square window
like that of an internet browser popped up in the center of the screen.
The window flashed, flickered, and made a loud crackling sort of noise,
and Izzy's fingers skimmed across the keyboard at an incredible speed as
he tried to compensate for the interference. When the picture finally
cleared, he let out a startled cry at what he saw.
"Izzy, what is it?" Tai asked.
"It's...it's..." the younger boy stuttered.
"Spit it out, man," Yamato growled, frustrated.
Koushiro swallowed hard.
"It's..."
Yamato, TK, Kari, Sora, Mimi, and Jyou all leaned over Izzy's shoulder
to try and see what he was so tongue-tied about.
"Gennai?!" they all shouted in unison.
"I was GONNA say that," Izzy said, folding his arms across his chest.
"Digidestined," Gennai's crackly image said, "if you receive this
transmission then it means our efforts here in this world have failed.
We need your help, kids, this world is in terrible danger. A new threat
has darkened the horizons of our land, and all our efforts here have yet
to put a dent in the enemy's advances."
"A new enemy?" Tai said, startled. "But...who?"
"Hurry, Digidestined," Gennai went on, "for I do not know how much
longer we can hold out here. These enemies are relentless, and we have
yet to find a weak point in their defense. As it is, there is barely
enough light left in this world to power a complete message. That's why
I had to send this message piggybacking on a stronger signal. I only
pray you find it in time... Help us, Digidestined. At the conclusion of
this message, the digiport will open for you, and will remain open for
half an hour. Hurry, kids, time is running--"
Before the old man could even finish his sentence, the image fizzled out
like a snuffed candle, leaving only a snowy screen, as though the cable
had gone out. All eight children sat in silence, shocked and frightened
by their old friend's words.
After a moment, Tai stood up. "So what are we waiting for?" he demanded,
clenching his fists. "Our friends are in trouble. We have to go back!"
"But, Tai," Sora said, getting to her feet, "what about your eye--"
He cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. "Never mind that, Sora,"
he snapped. "Just because I can't see doesn't mean I can't go with you
guys. I still have four other senses I can use, that will have to do for
now." He paused and turned to Izzy. "Hey, Izzy, that port open?"
"I'm on it, Tai," he replied, tapping at the keyboard.
"Everyone got their supplies?" Tai asked. There was a chorus of voices
as the children patted the bags they carried, now bulging with
provisions, food, and medical supplies.
"The gate is open, Tai," Izzy stated.
Tai fisted his hands.
"Prodigious!" he shouted. There was a pause, and Tai suddenly felt that
all eyes were on him. "Sorry," he said, blushing, "I...I always wanted
to say that..."
They all laughed.
"Okay, everyone got your digivices?" Izzy said as they stood up. All
eight children fisted their digivices in their hands, then thrust their
arms out, the eight devices nearly touching in the center of the circle
the children now stood in. The digivices began to glow brighter.
"Okay, everyone," Tai shouted as the room seemed to dissolve around
them, "we're going back!"
"You sure you're up for this, Tai?" Kari asked, taking his wrist with
her free hand.
He smiled down at her, even though blackness was all that met his eyes.
"Don't you worry, Kari," he said, winking. "It's gonna take more than a
little darkness to get the better of me."
Kari smiled, and squeezed his hand as the world flashed white, and the
dimensional rift that stood between the real world and the digital world
split open, sucking them into it. The children felt themselves flying
through the air, spinning and twisting into the vortex connecting the
two worlds. Then everything went black.
Okay, translations:
"Itai!" means "ouch". Stop laughing, I'm serious, it really does. ^_^
"Gomen" means "sorry".
"Hai, moshi moshi?" is a standard greeting when one answers the phone,
basically, it's "hello?"
"Yama-kun"...the "kun" suffix is a suffix used maily for male names,
among friends. It's kinda like saying "buddy". ^_^
Okay, now stuff from past chapters; from chapter one, "Ani-san" is a
respectful term for one's older brother.
"Bon appetit" is not Japanese, it's french, for "eat up", literally
translated, it's "good appetite", but I guess most of you probably knew
that one already. ~_^
"Oyasumi nasai" from my little note at the end is "good night".
From chapter two, in the author note at the end, "arigatou gozaimasu" is
"thank you very much", and "yakusoku shimasen" is "I promise".
In the summary, "Tai-chan, do shimashita ka?" means "Tai, what
happened?", and "yomimate to rompyo shimatte o, kudasai!" means "please
read and review!"
From chapter three, Kari calls Shin "sempai". This is a term of respect
used for someone older than oneself, such as an upperclassman or, as in
this case, a friend who happens to have more years than you.
"Ototo-chan", as Shin calls Jyou, means "little brother", and "ja ne",
or "ja matte ne" from various notes by me, means "bye", or "see ya
later".
Okay, hope that clears up any confusion I may have caused...sorry about
that guys...but I really like putting the Japanese in there, I think it
gives it a more authentic flavor. And yes, yes, I know, Sora's eyes are
not green, they're red, but I decided to take a little artistic license
here and make them green, cuz red eyes are kinda...satanic IMHO.
Besides, green eyes go good with her red hair. Ciao for now!
~~hikari
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