Disclaimer: Yes, yes, we all know...Digimon isn't mine...but this
particular story is and they can't have it. =Þ So there. Well, maybe
they can have it if they ask reeeeally nice. ~_^
Games of the Mind *Chapter Four*
Sora sat up from where the children had been deposited onto the floor of
one of the many forests dotting the digital world. She rubbed her
forearms.
"Brr..." she said, "I don't remember it being this chilly the last time
we were here."
The others slowly peeled themselves from where they had hit the ground.
"You're right, Sora," Izzy said, sitting up on his knees. He pulled his
computer out of the backpack he wore and opened it up. He flicked a
switch, then tapped at the mousepad. "It's considerably colder here now
than it was the last time we were in the digital world. It is
exactly...fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit, with a dew point of--"
"That's all very fascinating, Izzy," Yamato interrupted, "but, alas,
irrelevant."
"Yama's right," Mimi said, wrapping her arms around herself, "what's
important right now is finding Palmon and the others before this 'new
enemy' Gennai was talking about finds them."
"I'm more concerned about staying WARM," Jyou grumbled, hugging himself
to conserve heat. "It's gotten so cold here!"
Izzy looked up at the sky.
"It's still early enough to where we'll have some daylight left for a
while," he said. "I say we get moving, and start looking."
"We'll cover more ground if we split up," Yamato suggested.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Yama," Tai said, stepping forward.
"All Gennai told us was that there was a new enemy threatening the
digital world. He didn't say anything about what it was, or how strong
it was...or what it was capable of." He frowned. "I think it's a lot
safer if we all stick together."
"Uh-oh, here it comes," Sora said, turning away in preparation for the
argument. Taichi and Yamato didn't seem able to go more than ten minutes
or so without starting a fight. Whatever one said, the other always had
an argument against...whatever one did, the other thought was wrong.
They were good friends, everyone knew that...they just never saw eye to
eye about anything.
"Safety in numbers," Tai added.
Yamato hesitated, then looked at Tai. Sora covered her eyes.
"Well, I guess you're right," Yamato said quickly, and folded his arms
over his chest.
Silence.
Tai blinked.
"What'd you say?" he asked, one eyebrow lifted.
Yamato scowled.
"I said 'I guess you're right'," he repeated, and turned away.
"What, no fight?" Jyou said, throwing his arms in the air. "No screaming
match or battle of insults? Yama, what'd you put in your coffee this
morning?"
"Nothing!" Yamato snapped. "I just...think he...brings up a good point,
and maybe we SHOULD stick together on this one."
Takeru tugged on his brother's sleeve. Yamato looked down. TK motioned
for him to lean down, and then the younger boy whispered loudly in his
ear, "Yama-chan, unless you want everyone to know how worried you are
about Tai, you'd better stop acting so weird."
Kari giggled as Yamato's face turned beet red and he stood up stiffly.
"Okay, gang," Tai said, pretending he hadn't heard what had just been
said, "let's get going." He took a step forward. "Ara..." he stammered,
and turned back around to face them, his hand behind his head.
"What is it, Tai?" Kari asked.
"Uhh, I think I might have to step down from my position as trail-blazer
for this expedition," he said uncomfortably. Kari frowned. Tai reached
up and pulled the goggles from the crown of his head. "Here, Kari," he
said, holding them out to her, "you hold onto these for now."
"Me?" she asked, pointing to herself.
He nodded.
"B-but...why me?" she asked.
"When I'm out of commission, you're second-in-command, Kari," he said
with a grin, "which means when I can't lead the way, you get the
goggles."
Kari smiled.
"Well, okay," she said, taking them from his grasp. She slipped them
onto her head, but they slid down. They were a little too big. She
twitched her nose, and decided to wear them around her neck instead.
"But just for now," she said firmly.
Tai grinned.
"Okay, so who wants to play the tour guide?" he asked. There was a
moment of silence. He squirmed inwardly as he continued, "Yama, why
don't you take over?"
Yamato blinked.
"Wha--who, me?"
"No, the other Yama," Tai said sarcastically.
Yamato smiled and, with a nod, walked toward Tai, clapping him on the
shoulder as he passed to move to the head of the group. Tai may have
been stubborn, and a little overly obstinate when it came to his
position as the leader of the Digidestined, but he was a team player,
and whatever decisions he made, they were for the good of them all, even
if that meant his stepping down. Yamato admired that, even if he
couldn't always stand being in Tai's presence.
"All right, troops," Yamato called, "move out!"
The children walked for about an hour and a half before pausing to take
a break. But as the eight of them sat down beneath a tall tree, they had
no idea they were being watched.
"Foolish children," a sinister female voice hissed as she watched the
group through a misty purplish crystal ball. "You have walked right
through the doorway to meet your doom, Little Ones." She narrowed one
ruby-colored eye and ran her hands across the crystal ball. The image of
the children faded, and she turned to look behind her, the blue and
silver cloak she wore about her slim shoulders swirling at her ankles.
"They're here," she said to her companion in the room.
"Kurarimon, you knew they would come," a second female voice responded
as a figure shifted in the shadows of the old stone castle throne room.
This voice was softer, but equally as sinister. "These children are as
partial to this world as any digimon. You knew they would never allow
its downfall without a fight."
Kurarimon ran her spindly fingers through her golden hair, and smoothed
the locks that fell across the left side of her face and covered one
eye. She was quite the portentous looking digimon, humanoid in figure,
tall and spidery, with blood-red eyes and dark skin. She wore a crisp
white outfit resembling a military uniform, and a silver circlet crowned
her forehead.
"Yes," she said, "yes, I did know." She grinned and cracked her
knuckles. "Time for the fun to begin." She snapped her fingers.
"Hollymon! Ivymon!"
Out of the darkness of the shadowy room emerged two small figures. They
looked rather like children, with large eyes and hands, but the fact
that they had tails dissolved any thoughts that they might have been
human. One was dark skinned with ruby red hair and eyes to match. She
wore bands of holly around her wrist and forearm. The other was fair,
with hair the color of evergreen, and pale emerald eyes. Ivy vines were
twined around his left arm and across his bare chest.
"You two know what to do," Kurarimon said. "The children are in the
Forest of Illusions. Go and...frighten them a bit. Have some fun with
them." She spun and touched the crystal ball again. "But be gentle with
them," she went on as the image of the Digidestined reappeared in the
sphere, "don't damage them. I want them brought to me alive and
unscathed." She pointed, and the image zoomed in. "And be particularly
careful with this one," she said, tapping the glass with her fingernail,
"he is their leader, and he's already been put at a...disadvantage,
shall we say?" She snickered. "I especially do not want him harmed."
Hollymon and Ivymon looked at each other, then at the sphere, at the
children, and the boy with the wild chestnut hair that they were to be
so cautious with, and then they bowed neatly at the waist. They turned
in tandem and crossed their arms before them, vanishing in a flash of
white and leaving behind only a faint puff of pale green and pinkish
smoke.
Kurarimon stared at the sphere and watched as the children stood up to
resume walking. The second figure still stood in the shadows, barely
visible save for the glint of her bright blue eyes. She quietly cleared
her throat to remind Kurarimon of her presence.
"Don't think I've forgotten you," Kurarimon responded. "I believe it's
best if we let your bumbling subordinates get a bit of a head start."
She paused, and twitched her mouth. "Okay, enough of a head start," she
said, spinning away from the sphere. "Go on, you know your duty."
"Yes, Kurarimon," the figure replied, and wrapped her arms about her,
lifting into the air. "I will not fail you," she said, and then she was
gone with a soft, harmonic tinkle of bells.
A smile crept across Kurarimon's thin lips as she stroked the scar
across the left side of her face.
"Soon, Digidestined," she purred, turning back to look at the image of
the children on the sphere before her. "Very soon, now..."
And an evil cackle echoed throughout the stone halls of the old castle
as Kurarimon flopped backward into her throne, crossed her legs at the
knees, and lifted a glass of wine in a toast to herself. "Very soon,
Digidestined," she laughed to herself, "you will be mine." She swirled
the wine in its tall thin wine flute with one finger, and watched as it
spun in its glass like a tiny cyclone, then slowly came to a stop. She
narrowed her eyes and waited patiently for her plan to take action.
"Can't we take another break yet?" Mimi whined. "This isn't exactly
Central Park, you know..."
"Mimi, we just TOOK a break," Jyou said. "If we keep stopping to rest
every ten minutes, we'll never get anywhere."
As the rest of the group bickered over whether or not to stop where they
were, Tai remained silent. Kari kept her fingers wrapped securely around
his, to guide him through this strange forest he could not see.
"You okay, Tai?" Kari asked softly. "You're so quiet."
He smiled.
"Sure," he said, "I'm fine."
Kari narrowed her eyes, unconvinced.
"You're thinking about something," she said stubbornly. "What is it?"
He sighed, and stopped in mid-stride.
"I was thinking about the digivices," he said, "and how mine was so much
fainter than all the others. I just wonder why...it's totally got me
stumped."
"Perhaps, Tai," Izzy piped up, "it's because something happened to you.
Maybe the digivices only glow at full power when their owners are at
full-power."
Tai rolled this around on his brain for a moment, and the bickering
stopped.
"What?" Mimi asked, seeing how Tai was lost in thought. "What did you
say?"
"Nevermind," Tai said, shaking his head with a laugh, "you guys were too
busy arguing."
The group continued walking in silence for a few minutes, Koushiro still
tapping away at his computer as they walked. Sora glanced up at the sky.
The sun was beginning to set, sending the sky into a brilliant light
show of pinks, scarlets, and purplish blues.
"Where do you suppose we are?" she asked after a moment.
Izzy glanced up, then at his keyboard, then at the monitor, then at
Sora. He frowned.
"I have no idea," he replied simply.
Tai snorted in laughter.
"Way to go, Rand McNally..." he muttered, and Kari giggled.
"None of this looks familiar at all," TK said slowly, looking around.
"That's because we've never been here before," Izzy said. "We didn't
come across this forest the last time we were here."
"Either that or it didn't exist," Jyou suggested. "Everything here is
information, right? Information changes all the time, new things could
have easily been added, or deleted, since the last time we were here."
Everyone agreed that he had a good point.
"And remember Spiral Mountain?" Yamato asked. "For all we know, this
forest could be one of the enemy's own creations."
There was a moment of silence as all the children pondered these new
ideas. Suddenly, Kari perked up. Tai glanced down when he felt her
tense.
"Kari?"
"Did you hear something?" she asked.
The others hesitated, silently straining their ears for the unheard
sound Kari seemed to have picked up.
"I didn't hear anything," Tai said. "Did you?"
Kari let go of his wrist.
"I did," she said.
"What was it, Kari?" Takeru asked.
She shook her head.
"I'm not sure," she said. "It was a...a humming kind of noise...like
when the cable goes out and your TV is all fuzzy...a real high-pitched
squealy kinda noise..."
Koushiro frowned and tapped at his computer.
"I'm not detecting any sort of machinery in the area," he said.
Just as Kari was about to dismiss it as paranoia, she heard it again.
"There!" she cried. It was louder this time. The others heard it now,
too, a high pitched kind of screaming noise.
"What IS that??" Mimi shouted, covering her ears.
There was a sudden blast of wind, and Tai grabbed for Kari's wrist.
Finding it, he pulled her close to him and turned his back to the wind
to shield her.
"What the hell is going on?" he yelled over the cry of the gale. He
wrapped his arms around his sister and dropped to his knees. "Kari!"
Yamato held one arm up to shield his face from the wind, then cried out
and turned his face away when a blinding flash of purplish light
exploded in front of him. He was thrown backward and slammed into TK as
another blast of wind knocked him off his feet.
"What the--?"
He let out a yelp of pain and surprise when something flew out of the
light and collided with his chest, smashing him into his brother and
pitching them both to the ground.
The light faded.
The wind stopped.
Yamato sat up and looked over his shoulder.
"TK?" he said. "Are you okay?"
TK wriggled out from beneath his brother and rubbed his head.
"I think so," he replied, "but, Yama-chan, what was--Agumon??"
"Ne?" Yama cried, turning to look beside him. He glanced down to see a
small orange creature resembling a dinosaur picking itself up from the
forest floor. "Agumon?" he said, getting to his hands and knees.
"Agumon?" Tai whispered, and let go of Kari. He leaned forward and
placed his hands on the ground. "Agumon..." he repeated softly and
winced, turning his head away. He didn't want his old friend to see him
in this state. Kari frowned at her brother's expression, but said
nothing.
Agumon got to his feet and looked around, not believing what he saw
before his eyes.
"Yamato? Takeru?" he said in disbelief, his large green eyes wide.
"Kari! And...Tai, you're here, too! You're all here!"
Tai flinched, but Agumon didn't notice. The little reptilian digimon
hurried over to his human companion--
--and stopped short about a foot and a half in front of him.
"Tai...?" he said, sensing his friend's distress. "Tai, what happened?
What's wrong?" He gasped as Tai looked up at him.
"Oh, nothing, Agumon," Tai said, "it's great to see you...I just...wish
I COULD see you..."
"Oh, Tai, your eyes--what...what happened?"
"We're not quite sure, Agumon," Kari answered for her brother. "It just
sort of...happened... We don't know why or how."
"Tai, I'm so sorry..." Agumon said, placing one claw on his friend's
shoulder.
Tai jerked away and stood up quickly, scowling.
"What happened to YOU, Agumon?" Yamato asked, brushing the dirt from the
forest floor off his jeans. "And what was that...that thing you fell
through?"
Agumon frowned, his eyes still focused on Tai.
"I wish I knew, Yamato," Agumon replied, "they're all over this forest.
They're sort of like mini dimensional vortexes...scattered all over this
place. Like random folds in space."
"Like a wormhole?" Koushiro asked.
"A what?"
Agumon blinked in confusion.
"A wormhole," Koushiro explained. "It's all theoretic, of course,
wormholes are frequently used in Star Trek and other science fiction
stories. They're basically contortions in the time-space continuum.
Condensed space."
"Yes, yes, Captain Izumi," Yamato said, raising one golden eyebrow,
"that's all very fascinating, but could you perhaps put it into layman’s
terms for those of us who DIDN'T major in Space Engineering?"
"It's a fold in space," Izzy deadpanned.
Yamato rolled his eyes, and TK giggled.
"So, where are the others?" Sora asked. "Biyomon and Gatomon...where's
everyone else?"
"Back where I was before, I would have to guess," Agumon replied,
frowning. "We all somehow wound up in this forest... We fell through a
similar vortex a few days ago, and we've been wandering around in this
forest ever since, trying to find a way out. We just seem to be walking
in circles, we've been here for days...but we still haven't been able to
find our way out."
"So where were you before you were here?" TK asked.
"I'm...not entirely sure," Agumon said. "We were just walking through
the woods, trying to find a way out of this creepy forest, when
suddenly, there was this weird humming noise, and this hole opened up in
the ground, right under me! I fell in and, before I knew what had
happened, I was here, with all of you."
"We heard the weird humming, too," Jyou said, "right before you body-
slammed into Yamato."
"I wonder how far you were transported?" Izzy thought out loud.
Agumon wasn't sure, and said so.
"I'm still in the same forest, I can say that," he continued. "This
forest has a definite feel to it, and it isn't a pleasant one."
"Where ARE we, anyway?" Tai asked, getting to his feet. He raised his
head toward the sky like it would help him get a better idea of their
surroundings. "What forest is this?"
"I'm not sure," Yamato said, "but I think I preferred the Forest of
Irrelevant Road Signs..."
"It is called the Forest of Illusions," a new voice piped up.
Nine heads turned in the direction on the new female voice, but no one
was anywhere to be seen. Yamato narrowed his eyes and grabbed TK by the
shoulders.
"And it is called that for a good reason," an unseen male voice added.
Yamato had had enough playing Marco Polo. He balled his fists.
"Who's there?" he demanded as Tai grabbed Kari's arm and yanked her
closer to him.
There was a soft feminine giggle as a figure materialized from the
shadows of the forest before them. She was small, wiry, with hands and
feet that seemed just a little too big for her. Her short bob of hair
was bright red, and a long tapering tail with a tuft on the end curled
gracefully by her feet. A second figure appeared beside her, similar in
size and build, but with dark green hair and a piercingly sadistic grin
on his face. Agumon reeled back.
"Oh no," he shouted, "it's...Hollymon and Ivymon!"
"Who?" all the children asked at once.
"It's not Christmas yet!!" Mimi cried in protest.
"Hollymon and Ivymon are a pair of malicious mercenary digimon," Agumon
explained. "They may not be too bright, but combining their attacks can
put you in a very un-merry situation, despite their seasonal names."
"But I've never seen a digimon like them before," Sora whispered. "How
come we never ran into any like them when we were here previously?"
"They're not a naturally occurring digimon," Agumon replied. "Digimon
come as one of three types: Data, virus, or vaccine."
"Yes, Gennai explained that to us," Izzy said.
"Well, these two are a combination of all three types," Agumon said.
"They are creations of data, virus, AND vaccine...all combined to create
a fourth type."
"Like a mutant?" TK asked.
"Sort of," Agumon responded, "except a mutation is a rare natural
occurrence--it's a spontaneous evolution that would normally take
hundreds or even thousands of years to happen...but digimon like them
would never happen naturally, not on their own. Someone or someTHING
must have caused the union of the three separate types to create them."
Hollymon shook her bright red hair and laughed.
"You're pretty smart for an overgrown orange salamander," she taunted.
Tai growled.
"You leave him alone," he shouted, though he couldn't see who or what he
was scolding. "Why don't you two just get out of here and let us be?"
Ivymon lashed his tail.
"Is that a threat, Little Boy?" he sneered, and Tai bared his teeth.
Ivymon narrowed his pale green eyes and the mischievous grin on his
boyish face widened. "Binding Tendrils!" the digimon shouted, and thrust
his arm out. The vines that wound around his slender limbs shot out
toward Tai.
"Pepper Breath--poi!!"
A fireball the size of a watermelon blasted from Agumon's mouth, and
Ivymon recoiled as the vines from his attack sizzled and popped like wet
firewood.
"Prickly Heat!" Hollymon called, and a dozen little balls of flame shot
from the sprigs of holly she donned on her wrist. Agumon stepped
forward.
"Agumon digivolve to--"
Nothing happened.
"What??"
Agumon let out a startled yelp as Hollymon's stinging attack hit him
right in the face, and he stumbled backward.
"Agumon, what happened??" Tai shouted. He dropped to one knee when he
felt the digimon smack into his leg. He grabbed Agumon by his shoulders.
"Why couldn't you digivolve?"
"I dunno!" the digimon cried in frustration. "I don't know, I just
couldn't do it!"
Ivymon threw his head back and cackled maniacally.
"Oh...what a pity," he scoffed, and laughed again. "Binding Tendrils!"
The vines shot forward again, wrapping themselves around Tai's wrists
and throat. He grunted and tried in vain to pull away.
"Let me go, you poor excuse for a mutant digimon!" he shouted, gasping
for breath as Ivymon's vines tightened around his neck.
"Nobody talks to my brother like that!" Hollymon growled, drawing her
hands up to her face. "Prickly Heat!!"
"Dance of Swords!"
A flurry of tiny daggers sliced through the air, snapping Ivymon's vine
attack and reflecting Hollymon's tiny fireballs back at her. Tai pitched
backward, coughing, glad to be able to breathe again now that Ivymon's
vines had been cut from his throat. Kari hurried to her fallen brother
as Agumon helped him to sit up, then looked to see who had come to save
them.
"Wha--?"
The twins cried out as their Hollymon's attack backfired at them, then
turned quickly.
"You?!" they cried simultaneously.
"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!"
Bwahahaha! Now I will watch everyone write in suspense until I post the
next chapter!--which will...probably be later tonight after I get home
from work...so...it's...not going to involve too much writhing. ~_^
Okay, I didn't find any new Japanese in this one, but I had to run
through it real quick cuz I'm late for work, so if I missed any, lemme
know, kay? Kay, ja matte ne!!
~~hikari
(
geocities.com/tokyo/shrine/3281) (
geocities.com/tokyo/shrine) (
geocities.com/tokyo)