Chapter 20:
The Other Side of Darkness
“Any luck yet?”
Mana looked up from her Digivice and shook her head. “Nope.”
Jun frowned. “No traces of anyone?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t understand,” he replied, “We’ve been walking for hours. The others had to have gone somewhere.” He looked around, noticing that everything around them was misty. “There’s a lot of fog around here,” he continued, “Maybe that’s interfering with our Digivices.”
“Or maybe…” Mana blinked. “They couldn’t all be dead, could they? The explosion–”
“No,” Jun said forcefully, “If we made it out of that alive, so did they.”
“If only we had some clue,” Patamon said wistfully.
“We could at least try to find Tian and Renamon,” Salamon suggested, “Renamon’s senses could help us find everyone, and Tian never panics at times like these.”
“Tian…” Mana froze.
“What’s wrong?” Salamon asked.
“I thought…” Mana murmured. Her mind flashed to the time when she and Angewomon were being chased through the now-wiped out woods. She remembered seeing something from the corner of her eye – a flash of yellow and blue, reduced to a blur from traveling at lightning-fast speed. Since she had been too busy trying to control her panic, she hadn’t paid attention to it at the time. Now, she began to wish she had.
“Mana–”
Mana shook her head and tried to smile. “Nothing…”
Renamon stared at Tian’s unconscious form for a few more moments, too stunned to do anything. Then, she focused on Alchemon, and rage filled her. She stepped closer, raising an energy-charged hand toward his back.
“Stop right there,” she said calmly. “One false move, and my Fox Leaf Arrowheads will be the last thing you see.”
Alchemon stiffened. “Eh?” he croaked out. He turned around slowly, and when he saw Renamon inches away from him, he let out a shout.
Tian lashed out in panic, trying to push away whoever or whatever had tried to attack her. Her hand smacked something hard, and a muffled shout pierced the air, followed by a thud. The noise caused Tian to come to her senses, and she blinked. She looked around her, amazed.
The hallway was bright from the lights fixed overhead. Warm air from outside blew in softly from an open window. Everything looked normal, untouched. She listened closely, and could hear her aunt and uncle talking in the kitchen, along with the clang of a pot and pan. The aroma of cooked rice wafted from the room.
What? Tian thought incredulously. The thick, dark icy fog had disappeared, almost in a blink of an eye, and no one seemed to notice at all.
A groan coming from the floor broke her thoughts, and she looked down to see who she had hit. Her eyes widened.
“Yuu!”
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Tian?!” he said angrily, rubbing the side of his neck and wincing, “Why’d you have to hit me so hard?!”
“Don’t scare me like that, Yuu,” Tian shot back. “Ever!”
“Hey… I just wanted to surprise you, that’s all,” Yuu protested, “Just a joke! I never thought you’d go berserk like that!”
“I was already scared enough to begin with! You didn’t need to make it worse!”
“Sure, whatever.” Then Yuu glanced at her suspiciously. “Scared about what?”
Tian didn’t answer.
Yuu rolled his eyes. “Never mind,” he said finally. “You sure are weird.” He turned around, disappeared into his room, and shut the door, leaving Tian alone in the hallway.
“What have you done with Tian?” Renamon shouted, “Why do you have her wired up like this?”
Alchemon was too shocked and terrified to answer. He inched over to the console, shakily, but stumbled in fright when Renamon took another step toward him. In the process, his hand slipped and pushed down on a large red button on the console.
The metal box and the headset came to life, lights flashing, and a notice appeared on the large screen:
Memory Save: 0% Complete
A red bar began to extend out across the screen below the text, showing progress. The percentage increased slowly, from 0.3% to 0.5%, then faster, to 1.1%… 5.7%… 10.9%…
Renamon looked at the screen, then at the still-unconscious Tian. She could hear Alchemon’s relieved cackling. Renamon wanted to wipe that smile off his face, but she hesitated, afraid of damaging the equipment and harming Tian. She could only watch as the percentage on the screen got larger and larger…
Just then, as quickly as it left, the fog returned. The hallway lights winked out, and the temperature dropped again. A mechanical alarm blasted out through Yuu’s bedroom door.
The cold fear Tian had came rushing back. “Yuu?” she called out, hearing no answer. “Yuu!” she shouted, padding over to his door and pounding on it.
“What is it? What?!” Yuu shouted back, exasperated. He opened the door with a bang. “What is with you?” he said reproachfully, “First you karate-chop me, and then you bother me at the same time my computer stops working!” He glared icily at her. “It’s as if bad things happen to me whenever you’re around!”
Tian ignored him, instead staring at the computer on his desk. Like her laptop, the monitor was grayed out and flashing.
Yuu caught her wide-eyed, fearful look, and scowled even more. “So? What do you want?” Then he gasped in surprise, noticing the thick, dark blackness coming through his door in wisps. “W-what’s happening?” he stammered, looking around wildly. Then, he stared at Tian, eyes widening. “T-Tian…” he blurted out, pointing a trembling finger at her. “Your hands…”
Tian looked down at her hands. They were almost completely transparent, the outlines of her fingers flashing dully. She breathed in sharply, unable to believe what she was seeing.
“Your legs too…” Yuu murmured in fright, “You’re disappearing!”
Tian looked at her fading legs, and at that moment, a wave of nausea, weakness, and disorientation hit her, full force. She sank down to the ground, gasping and breathing heavily. Yuu gave a frightened squeak as he saw other parts of her fading out.
“Why are you doing that?” he asked frantically. “Stop it!”
“I can’t…” Tian said weakly. She tried to push herself up and grabbed hold of a corner of the desk, but her hand passed through it and she fell to the floor with a thud. She tried to speak again, but another wave of weakness came over her. Everything around her started to blur as she winked in and out from solid to transparent. Whenever she winked out, her mind seemed to conjure up images of places she’d seen before at one time or another.
Memories of walking down neighborhood streets with Akira, of looking out at the buildings and homes across the water in Tokyo, of countless school field trips. A memory of sightseeing around Nanjing from just the day before.
And a very cloudy recollection – one of a gray, foggy day, with her running along the sand, trying to escape from the people chasing her, with her father trying to pull her to safety. Long-remembered words echoed in her head.
“All journeys have a beginning and an end…”
“The end is close at hand, but the journey has only just begun…”
“The times of trouble will soon come… and then only spirit will save us all…”
Winking back in one more time, Tian’s gaze finally fell onto the flashing computer screen, and immediately a clear thought came to her through the flood of old memories.
“The computer…”
“Huh?” Yuu didn’t move.
“The computer!” Tian yelled weakly, “Turn it off!”
Yuu stumbled over to the computer. “It won’t turn off!” he shouted. Tian didn’t answer. She was too far gone. “Don’t disappear!” Yuu stared at her worriedly, then, a thought came to him, so simple. He dove under the desk and unplugged the computer cord.
At once, most of the fog and darkness faded away, and Tian’s form, still winking in and out, became more solid. She breathed in and out deeply.
Yuu slowly walked over to her. “Are you okay?” he asked shakily.
Tian’s eyes fluttered open. “Yeah,” she said, soft enough so that Yuu had to strain to hear, “I’m fine.”
Yuu let out a breath. “Don’t scare me like that,” he said sharply.
Tian managed a weak smile, feeling irrationally smug that she had managed to scare him back, however inexplicable and insane the situation seemed to be.
An error message exploded across the screen on Alchemon’s jury-rigged computer:
Memory Save: 90% Complete
Aborted – Unknown Cause
“Gah!” Alchemon shouted, “More interference!” He took a step toward the machine and the headset on Tian’s head. A blast of energy hit the wall just above his head.
“Don’t touch her!” Renamon growled, pointing her attack paw at him. When he stopped, Renamon lowered her arm just a little. “Good. Now, tell me what you just tried to do to her. Tell me everything. The more you talk, the longer you stay alive.”
Alchemon gulped.
A bright light and an alarm erupted from Jun and Mana’s Digivices. Jun brightened. “I think we’ve found something! There’s a dot, not far from us. It’s yellow…”
“Tian!” Salamon exclaimed.
“But wait,” Patamon interrupted, pointing to the screen. “There’s another one, right here.” He pointed to another dot nearby. “It isn’t Tian’s or any of ours. It’s black.”
“Black?” Mana asked. “But none of us have black Digivices! Who could it be?” She looked at the Digivice map again. “It’s coming this way!”
Jun grabbed her hand. “Let’s go!” They ran, trying to find a place to hide in the thick fog. Mana stumbled, and Jun stopped to help her up. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she replied, “My leg’s still a bit sore.”
Jun let her lean on him, and they moved away slowly. Then, Jun spotted the stump of a shattered tree, large enough to hide them all, and they hobbled behind it, just before two figures emerged from the fog. Rion and Guilmon.
Both were silent as they walked. Rion’s expression was sullen, and Guilmon only looked worried. Their footfalls caused wisps of fog to move away, revealing a well-worn path leading to an old, crumbling factory building. The four in hiding waited until they had disappeared from sight to creep down the path. They stopped a few paces from the factory walls.
Jun looked down at his Digivice, and noticed a yellow dot shining within the complex, dead center. “Tian’s in here,” he said.
“She is?” Mana asked, agitated.
“Wait–” Jun interrupted, examining the map again. The yellow dot shined brightly for a moment, then flickered violently and quickly faded from the map. A few moments later, the dot reappeared, flickered, and faded. “That’s odd,” he added, “The dot’s not staying put. It disappears, and then it comes back!”
“Huh?” Mana blurted out, “That doesn’t make sense! Either she’s here, or she’s not!”
Jun looked up for a moment. He scanned the walls for an opening, and when his gaze rested on one edge of the building, he saw a faint movement. He frowned and slowly walked toward that corner.
When he got closer, he saw a girl standing near the wall, her back toward him and her profile partly hidden by strands of long black hair. She stared intently at the wall for a few moments, a thoughtful expression on her face. Then, she slowly raised a hand and placed it near the wall, her palm hovering just a few inches from the surface. A faint light appeared from her hand. An energy field was visible for a moment, then slowly faded away.
She was working so quietly that Jun thought twice about opening his mouth to speak or moving closer to her, in case he would startle her. Then, as if she already knew he was there, she turned toward him.
When Jun saw her face, he gasped. “Akira?”
The girl moved her head slightly, giving an almost imperceptible shake.
Jun blinked, doing a double take. The black hair and violet eyes were the same as Akira’s, but this girl was shorter and younger – almost the same age as him and Mana. The yellow goggles and the clothes she wore also looked different. Then, Jun thought back to the database on his laptop. It seemed so long ago when he’d looked through it and seen this girl’s picture.
“Naoko.” He said the name softly, almost as if he were afraid. “Naoko Magami. You’re the one who controls everything here, aren’t you? You’re the command program.”
She said nothing.
“You were the person Akira kept noticing,” Jun continued, “And you were the one who saved Mana and Salamon from being blown up…” When she still didn’t say anything, Jun continued. “We were all planning to look for you, until we were split up. There’s so much we need to know–”
Naoko shook her head, interrupting him.
“I’ll explain everything… eventually,” she said, “But now’s not the time.” Her eyes wandered over to a nearby corner, then focused on Jun again. “Stay clear.” With that, she turned around and jogged away. Her image flickered a few times as she disappeared around the corner.
Jun stared after her for a few moments, incredulous. Then, an explosion ripped through the building, bricks and cinder blocks shooting out. He heard Mana scream and immediately got over his shock. He turned around and raced over to where he’d left the others.
“Jun!” Patamon called out, “What happened? Where have you been?”
“Not now!” Jun answered, grabbing Mana’s hand, “Let’s get away from here first!” He was too rattled by what had happened to try and explain.
“What? Wait a minute–” Mana struggled to keep up with him. “What’s going on? What did you do? Did something blow up?”
Silence.
“Jun!”
“Later, Mana!!”
The shock waves from the explosion rattled the underground lab, startling Renamon and Alchemon. Shouts echoed against the ceiling and walls, along with the sound of data fragmenting.
“Hurry up!” Renamon yelled at him, “Start talking!”
“It-it was part of our plan!” Alchemon stammered, shaking with fear. “W-we needed to stabilize the Edge of this world, enough so we could pass through to the other side!”
“The other side?” Renamon’s eyes widened. “You mean the Real World?”
“Yes, yes!” Alchemon yapped, “But in order to get to the other side, we needed to know the places to go. Visualizations. Who else would know those places but one of the Children? If we caught one of them, the machines I built could create a Projection – an image – of the child in the Real World to occupy the consciousness while the machines would take in visuals of its immediate surroundings, and extract visuals of other places from memories. An ingenious idea, yes?”
Renamon disagreed, disgusted at how sick an operation it was that she had uncovered.
Then, the two of them heard the sound of metal tearing, and a group of Digimon tumbled into the room, running as if they were being chased by something.
“What’s going on up there?” Alchemon bellowed.
“We’re under attack!” one of the Digimon shouted, “There’s a crazy girl out there, blowing everything to bits!”
Another Digimon noticed Renamon. “Hey! The prisoner escaped!” He lunged at her.
Renamon blew him away with a stream of arrowheads. Then, another, smaller Digimon sprang at her. She jumped away, realizing too late that it was heading straight for the computer.
Unable to switch direction in time, the small Digimon careened right into one of the computer consoles. Sparks flew, and the Digimon suddenly disappeared. Warning sounds shot out of the equipment.
The computer screen then began to flash wildly. Amidst the bleeps and bloops, another error message appeared:
System Unstable.
“Oh, noooo!” Alchemon wailed, rushing toward the ruined equipment.
Renamon whipped over to Tian. She was still unconscious, and still hooked up to the memory machine. A couple of wires leading from the box had begun to spark, and when Renamon tried to get the headset off, she got a shock.
“Don’t do that!” Alchemon shouted, “You’ll lose her that way! Her mind is still on the other side!” Immediately after saying it, one of the consoles exploded directly beside him. Caught in the blast, Alchemon disintegrated in a shower of fragmented data.
Renamon stared at the console in shock, and hardly noticed that the room had suddenly gone quiet. Then, her ears perked up, and she turned around, seeing that all the conscious Digimon that were in the room before had vanished. She looked around, confused. Then, she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She took a fighting stance, waiting for whoever it was to show up. When she saw who it was, she knew why the other Digimon ran off.
It was Rion who emerged from the doorway, followed by Guilmon.
Renamon tensed up as Rion slowly looked around the ruined laboratory. He focused on the ruined equipment and paid no attention to her.
“Funny,” he murmured, “I leave for less than an hour and already things start falling apart.” He kicked at a couple of unconscious Digimon on the floor, and walked over to Tian’s still-unconscious form, still hooked up to the memory machine. He glanced at her for a moment with no expression, then turned his gaze to the fried consoles.
“Your friend’s probably as good as gone because of that mess,” he said blankly, looking over at the ruined computer systems. “So,” He turned back to Renamon and smiled evilly. “I guess the only one left for us to get rid of is you.”
Suddenly, a piercing siren blasted from outside. Tian jumped, and Yuu looked around, confused. The siren continued for several more moments, then stopped, then started again.
“What’s that?” Yuu asked in a quivering whisper.
“I have no idea,” Tian whispered back weakly, exhausted and disoriented from winking in and out. She took a few deep breaths, and lay still until she felt she was completely solid. Then she got up.
“This is really getting freaky,” Yuu said shakily, “All of a sudden, my computer starts acting up, all this freezing fog comes out of nowhere, you start disappearing right in front of my eyes, and now a siren’s blasting out, like we’re going to have an air raid or something!” He hugged his legs and plopped his head down on his knees. “Am I dreaming? Am I having some kind of sick and twisted nightmare?”
Tian rolled her eyes. “Are you always this melodramatic when something unusual happens? I don’t understand this any more than you do.” She looked around again and shivered. “But for all our sakes, I hope you’re just dreaming all this up.”
Then, the door swiftly opened, and Tian’s aunt raced in, carrying a knapsack. She didn’t seem to notice the fog very much.
“Hurry up, you two!” she said breathlessly, turning on the lights. “We have to go!”
“Go?” Yuu repeated in disbelief. “Go where?”
“Anywhere!” his mother answered, “As long as it’s away from here!” She rushed around, collecting blankets and bedcoverings. “We’ve just been ordered to evacuate! Don’t know why, don’t know how! But–” she stopped suddenly and pointed to the darkness outside, “That siren has never been heard for almost a decade – not since the last revolution! So whatever’s happening now must be bad!” She looked at the two of them and noticed them staring. “What are you waiting for? Get going!”
Tian ran over to her room, opening the door with a crash. She started gathering things up when the ground suddenly shook, as if something large had crashed nearby. The shock knocked her off her feet, and the back of her head cracked on the floor. Dizzy and hurting, she could hear her aunt scream and her uncle curse. The twins were hysterical. Yuu ran into the room, a backpack slung over his shoulder.
“You okay?” he asked, and not waiting for her to respond, he grabbed her hand and pulled her over to the other side of the house, where her uncle was propped beside the back door and her aunt was trying to shush the twins.
Then, they felt the ground rumble again. It was more violent this time, and seemed to be coming from just a few paces away – directly outside the house.
“What was that?” Yuu asked in a strangled whisper. The twins started to cry with fear.
Tian swallowed. “I’m not sure…” She opened the door a crack, but in the dim light of the moon, it was hard for her to see what was making the noise. Whatever it was, it was huge.
Tian blinked, thinking of the implications, and a sudden fear gripped her.
“Get out of here.”
“What?” Her uncle blurted out.
“Get out of here!” Tian repeated more frantically, “Get out of the house! Quickly!” She started pushing them all out the back door. “They’re going to rip this place apart!”
“Who is?” her aunt cried out.
At that, the ground rumbled once more, followed by a series of sickening cracks. Tian continued urging everyone out. They all made it out the door just in time to miss being hit by a part of the roof caving in. Once they were outside, Tian could clearly see what she had fearfully and hopelessly expected.
“Digimon!”
Towering over the trees and houses, a single giant Digimon roamed the streets. Parts of it looked familiar, possibly a Tyrannomon or Greymon, or something similar, but jet black against the indigo night sky. Everything else about it was unknown, blurred and indistinct, shrouded in darkness. Its form flickered in and out, like a faulty projection, and it was heading straight for them.
“Run!”
The Digimon continued to follow them as they ran, Tian staying near the back. Suddenly, in her haste, Tian tripped over something hard and tumbled to the ground, bumping her head again. She could hear everyone calling her name.
She was about to get up again when a dark shadow fell over her, blocking the light from the moon. She froze, and looked up to see two large yellow eyes staring back at her. She braced herself, expecting to be ripped apart, but strangely, nothing happened. She looked up again in shock, seeing that the Digimon wasn’t moving at all and was just staring at her with an uncertain, possibly even confused, expression.
Tian then realized what she had to do. She sprang to her feet and ran in another direction.
“Split up!” she called out to the others, “You all go one way, and I’ll go another. I’ll draw it away from you!” She moved further away, without waiting for them to answer.
“I’m coming too!” Yuu shouted back, catching up with her.
“Yuu, no!” Tian shouted. But Yuu didn’t listen.
As the two of them ran, the giant Digimon started pursuing them. Then, they heard a whirring sound, and the sky suddenly brightened as a spotlight flashed through the night. They looked up.
“A helicopter?” Yuu burst out.
Tian stared at the helicopter in alarm. Looking closely, she could barely make out the Chinese military crest painted on the side.
Explosions rocked the air as the helicopter fired at the giant Digimon’s head. The Digimon stopped abruptly and rocked back and forth, but it didn’t seem to be affected. A high-energy beam shot out of the Digimon’s mouth and sliced through the helicopter’s tail with a shower of sparks. The ruined helicopter plunged down, ripping through trees and buildings.
Tian grabbed Yuu’s hand and ran, dodging the burned fragments of wood and stone raining from the sky. Then, unable to run anymore, Tian yanked Yuu away and threw herself over him, shielding him from the debris.
It seemed almost an eternity until the sky was clear. The giant Digimon had moved on, and the whirring of more helicopters echoed in the distance. Tian got up slowly and looked around. They were trapped in what was once an open street intersection. The wreckage of the helicopter had created walls of heavy tree trunks, cracked cinder blocks, and crushed cars that blocked the openings to the street. Smoke and flames could be seen overhead.
“Are you all right?” Yuu finally asked.
Tian sighed. “Yeah,” she replied. Then, she turned around to face him. “What were you thinking?!” she almost screamed. “Following me around… You almost got killed in that!”
“I was only trying to help!” Yuu shot back.
“They’re only after me!” Tian shouted in reply, “I don’t want you involved and getting hurt because of it!”
“You’re involved with that?” Yuu motioned over to the Digimon roving around in the distance.
Tian turned to him, her face blank. “I’m not just involved. I’m in it up to my neck.”
“But, how–why–” Yuu stammered. Then his eyes narrowed. “Are you responsible for that thing attacking?”
“No!” Tian shouted, startling Yuu. “No. It’s… part of what I have to stop. I never dreamed one of them would show up here. It never should have come here in the first place. I think…” She shut her eyes tightly. “I think it came here because I came back.”
“I don’t understand–”
“Do you know about Digital Adventure?”
“What, that game you were playing all day and night for the past two days? Sure,” Yuu said, “But what does that have to do with–” He stopped suddenly, and his eyes widened. “No way.”
“Yes,” Tian said sternly, “It’s hard to explain – I can just tell you that something happened. The Digimon are real. And I have to make sure things are under control – me and six other kids.”
Yuu didn’t know what to say.
“I guess you were right, Yuu,” Tian said, with a twinge of sadness and irony. “Bad things do happen whenever I’m around.”
They were silent until running footsteps echoed from the other side of one of the ruin walls.
“Yuu! Tian!! Are you all right?”
“Dad!” Yuu answered hopefully.
“We’re fine,” Tian added.
“Thank God!” her aunt exclaimed. “But how are we going to get both of you out of there?”
Tian looked up at the wall, then glanced over at Yuu. “If you climb up onto my shoulders, I’ll be able to push you over.” When she finally got Yuu over the wall, she looked around, finding nothing tall enough to climb on to get herself out.
“You can go on ahead,” she called out, the fallen debris muffling her voice, “Get to one of the shelters.”
“What about you?” her aunt said, panicked, “We can’t just leave you here!” The twins started to cry.
The ground rumbled again as the Digimon roared and trudged along the streets.
Tian closed her eyes, silently cursing the giant Digimon for ever showing up. “Don’t worry about it,” she replied, “Just go! I’ll follow you somehow.”
“What if something happens to you out here?” her aunt interrupted, “What am I going to tell your mother?”
Tian remembered her nightmare of the school and her mother trying to find her. She tried not to think about what would happen if dark Digimon invaded her neighborhood, and her mother was all alone in their house. “Don’t tell her anything yet,” she said calmly, “I’ll talk to her myself when I get out of here.”
“You’d better,” Yuu answered severely, “Who else will I have to joke around with?”
“Yuu–” Tian began, frustrated.
“Promise us you’ll get out of there,” Yuu interrupted.
Tian realized he was being serious. “I will,” she answered shakily, “Now go. It’s getting even more dangerous out here the longer you stay.”
She heard something like a sniffle or a sob, then footsteps padding away. She could hear Yuu’s voice, growing fainter as they ran away.
“You promised! Don’t disappear!”
Tian swallowed, and turned away from the wall of debris. She wondered just how stupid she was, standing there when the Digimon could find her in plain sight. And, almost right on cue, the ground rumbled again, and Tian heard a roar echo in the night.
She took a few more steps, then stopped. A creepy feeling came over her, and she slowly looked up.
A pair of brilliant yellow eyes stared back at her.
Renamon slammed against the hard stone, weakened from a devastating attack by MegaloGrowmon. Their fight had carried on into the larger upper room of the factory, and many of the machines were burning, sparking, or dead.
Renamon landed near the top of the laboratory stairs, at such an angle that she could still see the corner where Tian was lying near the computers. Her vision was blurry, and it was hard to focus, but for a moment, she saw something odd.
She could see the shape of another person, standing next to the table Tian was lying on. After squinting a little, she could see that the person had long, black hair, and looked strangely familiar. She saw the person pick something up and put it into Tian’s hand, and saw a very faint yellow glow coming from it…
Her attention was broken by Rion’s evil laughter.
“What’s the matter?” Rion mocked, “Can’t fight anymore? Oh, yeah, I forgot – you can’t evolve, can you? Not with your partner all wired up and nowhere to go!”
At that, Renamon’s nerve broke. She forgot all about the mysterious girl and focused all her remaining strength toward MegaloGrowmon…
Frozen with fear, Tian continued to stand where she was and stare at the Digimon. Then, the Digimon lunged at her, too fast for her even to scream. However, just when she was expecting to die, a bright, blinding yellow light flashed in front of her, directly into her hand. The light pulsed, shining right into the Digimon’s eyes. The Digimon roared and took a few steps back.
Tian shielded her eyes, and when the brightness lessened, she looked down at the source of the light. Her eyes widened.
“My Digivice!”
She stared at it in disbelief, wondering for a moment how it could have reappeared. It was still shining brightly, and somehow, it seemed full of an energy and warmth she had never felt before. Then, she noticed a pale red glint from inside the Digivice, and saw the familiar outline of the Crest of Love.
The Digivice pulsed one more time, and Tian looked up to see the giant Digimon recovering from the shock. At once, she knew exactly what to do. Lifting the Digivice up, she pushed it toward the Digimon, and a large beam of yellow light shot from it.
Immediately after that, though, she began to feel cold and queasy. The mysterious fog reappeared, surrounding her, and her Digivice gave an alarm. Faint and light-headed, the last thing she saw was the beam of light blasting through the giant Digimon and causing data to fragment. Then, she blacked out…
…and opened her eyes again to find herself somewhere completely different.
“What?” Tian yelped in surprise, looking around wildly. It was early morning, and she was standing in the middle of a street. Her surroundings seemed to flicker and crackle, as if she was in an old movie or computer game. Everything looked strangely familiar. She ran down a couple of blocks, passing by several houses. When she passed by one particular house gate, she stopped dead, reading the words etched on it.
“Mitsuishi Family…” She took a step back, shocked. Then, after a moment, she ran over to the house next door. “Kazama Family.” She shook her head, trying to clear her mind.
“I don’t get it,” she said to herself, “Why am I here all of a sudden?” She walked a few steps, then stopped. A suspicious look crossed her face. She looked around slowly, and noticed that not a car or truck was on the road, and the area seemed to be completely devoid of people. Everywhere seemed to be silent. A terrible thought occurred to her.
“Mom…”
She ran in the direction of her house. Then, an explosion ripped through a nearby garden wall, knocking her down. She slowly got up, her ears ringing. The sound of the explosion lingered on with strange metallic echoes. She could see the blurred outlines of people running, and when her vision cleared, she looked on, confused.
“Seita…?”
Sure enough, it was Seita running through the debris with Yuka, trying to lead a man and a woman along. GrapLeomon and Lopmon followed. Tian ran toward them and tried to get their attention, but they didn’t notice her. She tried to grab Seita’s shoulder, but her hand passed right through. She stopped and looked at her hand, then understood that somehow, she was invisible to them.
“Hurry!” Seita shouted, pushing at the man and woman, “We have to get away from here, quick!” His voice echoed and grew staticy, as if he was talking in a metal tube.
“What’s going on?” the man asked, “What was that… thing?”
“We can’t explain now!” Seita answered tersely, “We just need to get you someplace safer!”
Yuka tugged at the woman’s skirt. “Come on, Mom. They’re coming! I can feel it!”
GrapLeomon stopped for a moment, then turned around. “Watch out!” he shouted, pushing Seita and his father out of the way. A black beam shot out of nowhere and hit him in the chest.
A group of ghost-like Digimon carrying scythes appeared, cackling. Two of them headed toward Yuka and her mother.
The two of them screamed, but Turuiemon appeared just in time, with a flash of pink light. She jumped in front of them, blocking the attack with her arm.
“Swift Secret Punch!”
The Digimon fell away, and Turuiemon helped the two up. “Let’s go,” she said calmly.
Tian watched as they moved further away. She took one step forward, and suddenly, everything began to fade. Her lightheadedness came back, and the next time she opened her eyes, she was somewhere else.
This time, she was standing on the edge of an interstate highway. The sun was setting in the distance. The road was empty, except for a single car, driving at a breakneck speed, and a multitude of dark Digimon following it. As the car passed by, she could see Jun and Mana inside, with a man driving. Somehow, in her mind’s eye, she could also see everything else that was going on.
“Dad, you’re going too fast!” Mana blurted out, “What if we get caught?”
“I don’t think anyone will care about speeding tickets at a time like this,” the man replied, his jaw set. “When we get out of this,” he continued, “you two’d better give me an explanation.” Jun and Mana just looked at each other nervously.
“They’re getting closer!” Salamon said nervously, staring at the back window.
“We’re not going to make it!” Mana said hopelessly.
Jun looked blank for a moment, staring at his Digivice. “I wonder… What if we…” He mimed the action of his Crest slotting inside it.
Mana looked at him incredulously. “Are you insane? There’s no way! Remember what everyone said? Without another Crest, there won’t be enough of an energy boost to keep them as they are!”
“Think about how powerful they’ll be, though! They’ll both be strong enough to wipe anything out!”
“But in less than two minutes!?”
“We have to try.” Jun looked over at Patamon and Salamon. They nodded.
Mana sighed. “All right, whatever!” She pulled out her Digivice and Crest.
“Ready?” Jun asked. The two Digimon nodded. “Remember,” Jun added sternly, “you’ve only got a minute and thirty seconds!” They nodded again, without saying a word. Jun looked back one more time, made sure the windows were open, then shouted, “Go!”
The two Digimon sprang out of the open windows, and Jun and Mana immediately slotted their Crests into their Digivices.
Two bright blasts of light filled the sky as the two Digimon shot toward the horde that was swiftly following the car. Their forms were changing rapidly, but to what, no one could tell.
Tian watched everything, not having a clue what was going on.
“What’s going to happen after a minute and thirty seconds?” Mana’s dad asked nervously, turning from behind the wheel.
Jun didn’t answer.
Then, Mana looked up, and screamed, pointing directly ahead of them. “Dad, look out!”
Tian never did see what it was that Mana saw, because at that moment, her surroundings faded again, and she ended up somewhere else.
She was standing on a small, near-empty street, at the edge of a neighborhood she didn’t recognize. She looked up at a nearby street sign and squinted her eyes, trying to read it, but she couldn’t. It was very late at night. The only lights came from the small light poles on each block. She looked around, and saw a smoking, wrecked car to the side of the street, in front of one of the light poles. She could hear faint sirens in the distance.
Then, she heard a commotion from not far away. She looked in that direction, and saw a woman kneeling down on a curb, with a girl cradled in her arms. The woman was shouting something Tian couldn’t understand, and kept on shaking the girl, but the girl didn’t move. A small Digimon with large, green-striped ears stood nearby.
Tian gasped. “Terriermon!” She stepped closer and got a better look at the little girl. “Kei!”
Then, two dark Digimon jumped out, right in front of them. The woman screamed, and Terriermon stepped up.
“Blazing Fire!” But the two Digimon only brushed it away. They came closer, and Terriermon stepped back, trying to guard.
“Solar Swipe!”
Flashes of fire shot out, engulfing the Digimon entirely. Smoke filled the air, and from it, Helamon emerged, with Akira following close behind.
The two of them waited until the Digimon fragmented, then hurried over to the woman and Kei, who was still unconscious in her arms.
Akira went down to look at Kei. “It’s all right,” she said to the distraught woman, “She’ll wake up soon.” She and Helamon looked at each other for a moment, then nodded.
“Mom…” Akira said calmly, “Watch over Kei, okay? I have to go.” She then turned around and started jogging away.
“Wait!” her mother blurted out, “Where are you going?”
Akira stopped and turned around. “I have to make sure that there’s no more Digimon running around here.” She smiled a little. “Go back to the house and stay there. You’ll be safe, and Terriermon will be with you.” She looked at Terriermon, who nodded.
“But-”
“Don’t worry, I’ll explain later.” At that, she and Helamon ran off.
Tian watched the whole thing, wide-eyed and amazed. She still wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, and wondered again if she was dreaming all of this up. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Then, a strange feeling came over her, as if she was being watched. She turned around, and saw a boy standing a couple of feet away from her. He was tall and tanned, with black hair and dark brown eyes, and wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans. He looked about her age. He was staring intently at her with a confused but awed expression, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was seeing her.
Tian took a few steps backward, just as surprised as he was. But before she could say a word to him, she heard a shout in the distance. The boy turned his head in that direction. As Tian was about to follow, everything started to fade out again…
When everything completely disappeared, she was left in blackness. Small wisps and remnants of fog lingered around. There was no sound, and an eerie calm pervaded everything.
“Hello?” she called out, “Is anyone there?” But her calls seemed to get swallowed up in the dark, endless void.
She walked around aimlessly for a while, then pulled out her Digivice to get her bearings. Nothing showed up. Then, the Digivice flashed once.
“Hello?” Tian called again.
“This way!” a voice rang out, “Come this way!”
Tian looked around wildly. “Where?” She wasn’t sure why she was listening to this strange voice, but it sounded calm and kind.
“Here,” the voice answered, “Follow this.” The Digivice flashed again, and a yellow beam shot out, cutting through the darkness like a beacon.
Tian ran, following the beam. The fog began to intensify, and everything slowly became lighter.
“You’re almost out!” the voice spoke again, “Keep going a little further!” After a few more steps, the beam faded.
“What now?” Tian asked.
“You’re close enough,” the voice answered, seriously, “Now all you have to do is reach out!”
“Reach out?” Tian replied, confused. Then, a cold wind blew out from nowhere, hitting her like shards of ice, threatening to blow her away completely.
“Hurry!” the voice called frantically, “Before I lose track of you! Just reach out your hand!”
Tian swallowed, and blindly jumped forward, her arms outstretched. Warm hands seemed to grip them and pull her out of the darkness. Everything got brighter and brighter, and the warmth was making her feel drowsy. The last thing she saw was the faint outline of a girl staring back at her and smiling…
Tian’s eyes fluttered open, and she got up slowly, the machine headset slipping off and falling to the floor with a clatter. She blinked a couple of times, and as her vision cleared, she looked around at her strange surroundings. She looked down to see a few bloodstained rags where her head had rested. Her hand suddenly went to her head, and she felt that it was only a little sore. She felt a warmth in her other hand, and looked to see her Digivice and Crest shining brightly. She smiled and sighed in relief.
Then, she heard shouts and blasts coming from the room above. She slowly got up and walked toward the noise, her hand tightening around her Digivice.
Battered, bruised, and severely weakened, Renamon collapsed to the ground. She glanced upward at MegaloGrowmon in desperation.
“Okay, MegaloGrowmon,” Rion called out, “Finish her off!”
Renamon saw the look on MegaloGrowmon’s face, and she knew he couldn’t do it.
“Come on!” Rion shouted, “What are you waiting for?”
Suddenly, a large wave of energy burst through the ruined doorway leading to the underground lab, hitting Rion in the chest and sending him flying.
Renamon felt a warm, familiar energy pulse through her, and she began to glow. A surprised smile came to her face, and she closed her eyes.
“Renamon, evolve to… Kyuubimon!”
Kyuubimon's golden, multi-tailed form appeared, and then glowed with further brilliance.
“Kyuubimon, super evolve to... Taomon!”
“Talisman of Light!”
The attack hit MegaloGrowmon head-on, and he immediately de-evolved. Rion staggered to his feet and stared at Taomon in disbelief.
“Impossible!” he said, weakly, “How did you-?” But he was interrupted by what he saw next.
From the ruined lab doorway, amidst the billows of smoke, Tian emerged, her Crest shining around her neck and her Digivice held out. For a moment, her gaze seemed blank, as if she was in a trance. But when she focused on Taomon, she blinked, and a look of recognition came to her face.
“Taomon!” she called out, smiling. She ran over to her and took her paw. A yellow light surrounded Taomon and she immediately reverted.
Rion stared at Tian in surprise. “So you made it out after all,” he muttered.
Renamon glared. “Disappointed, Rion?”
Rion… Tian looked carefully at the boy she had just met. She saw his cold, dark eyes, and realized where she had seen them before.
“You…” she spoke up, “It was you who attacked us in the forest, wasn’t it? You were the one who hit me on the head!”
Rion gave Tian a long look, with an unreadable expression that made her feel uneasy. Then, he turned away.
“Let’s go, Guilmon.” They started walking away.
“Hey!” Tian called out. Rion turned around and looked at her reproachfully. “Why are you so against us?” Tian asked, “What are you trying to do?”
Rion smirked at her, his eyes glinting. “None of your business. You’re lucky I’m letting you two go.”
Renamon’s face held no expression. “Not in the mood to kill us today?”
“The situation has changed,” he replied, “Getting rid of both of you right now just wouldn’t do. And besides, there’s only two of the Chosen that I really want gone, and none of them are you.”
“You won’t get any gratitude from us.”
“I wasn’t expecting any.” His expression grew harsh. “But if I see you two again, another time, another place, I’ll make sure you’re gone.” He and Guilmon then turned around and disappeared in a fading of black.
Tian stared at that spot for a moment, then turned toward Renamon.
“What happened?” she asked.
“It’s a long story…” Renamon answered. “Are you all right?”
“…Yeah.”
“Do you remember anything that happened to you?”
Tian frowned. “I remember being hit on the head and passing out…” She reached up to the back of her head and was surprised to find that nothing hurt. “And then when I woke up, I was in my aunt’s house, on the very day I went to the Digital World. It was as if nothing happened. But weird things started happening – fog would shoot out of nowhere sometimes, and I’d start disappearing whenever a computer was on. And in the end, a gigantic Digimon attacked the city. And then…” Her voice faded.
Renamon nodded. “I see. So that’s what Alchemon meant.”
“Alchemon?”
“The crazy Digimon who was working on you after you got knocked out. He had an entire operation running in here, experimenting on you. Whatever you thought happened to you, wherever you thought you were… It could have been a dream, or it could have been something he created, to make you think you were there.” She stopped to sort out her thoughts. “Your body was here, but your mind was somewhere else. It makes as little sense to me as to you. I just know that he was trying to use you to get to the Real World through your mind.”
Tian was silent, trying to understand it all. Thinking of everything as just a dream made her feel a little bit better, though the images were still fresh in her mind.
“How did you wake up again?” Renamon asked, startling her out of her thoughts.
Tian frowned. “It was weird. I remember almost being attacked by that Digimon, and then all of a sudden, my Digivice and Crest appeared in front of me. And after that, everything around me seemed to fade away. I saw a lot of things after that, but they went by so fast that I couldn’t understand them. Then it got dark, and I heard a girl’s voice, telling me where to go. Then, I reached out and… she pulled me out.” She smiled faintly. “I can barely remember her face…”
Renamon thought of the girl she saw, standing near Tian and putting something into her stiff, limp hand. Whoever that person was, Renamon hoped she would see her again and give her a proper ‘thank you.’
Tian, meanwhile, was looking at the remains of a large control console and caught a glimpse of something shiny sticking out from a slot. She went over to it and pulled out a small disc, no bigger than the palm of her hand. Parts of the surface were scratched from the computer damage.
“Strange…”
“What’s that you have over there?” Renamon called.
“Something from the computer.” Tian flipped the disc over to the label side, and her eyes widened when she saw what was printed on it. “My name’s on this! And it’s dated on the same day I left…” Her voice faded when she looked down and saw another disc on the ground. She picked it up, read the label, and was even more confused.
“‘Akira Mitsuishi’… And the date’s from almost a year ago.” She looked up at Renamon. “You don’t think…”
Renamon shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Akira would know,” Tian replied, “Or maybe Jun could figure it out.” Her gaze shifted to the ruined walls around them. The echoes of falling masonry and crackling flames could still be heard.
“Come on,” Renamon said, taking Tian’s hand, “let’s get out of here.”
As he stood away from the burning remains of the factory, Rion pulled two small discs from his pocket and quietly fingered them, staring blankly at the names printed on the front – the same names written on the discs Tian had found in the ruined laboratory. Rion’s face held no expression, and he seemed to be lost in his thoughts. Guilmon looked at him questioningly.
“Are you sure you want to use those?”
Rion was silent for a moment before he replied. “If it’s necessary. The map data for breaking through the Edge has to come from somewhere. Akira’s old memories should be enough.” He closed his eyes. “The memories from that other girl… Tian… we probably won’t be able to use them – they’re incomplete.” He opened his eyes again. “I’m still not sure why we let them go.”
“Maybe because you’re having second thoughts about this whole thing?”
Rion scowled. “Of course not!” he shouted. Guilmon flinched. Rion took a couple of deep breaths to calm down. In his mind, he could see Tian, unconscious and hooked up to that memory machine, and that memory led to another – Akira surrounded by military men in a hospital, and Touma forcing a headset onto her.
He angrily beat those memories away. “Come on, Guilmon, let’s go.” Guilmon just looked at him sadly.
They were about to leave when a rustle of wind and a soft cackle caught their attention.
Rion turned around and his eyes widened in surprise. “Mataymon!”
“Long time no see…” Mataymon answered, the wind blowing through his dark robes.
“Mataymon,” Rion said agitatedly, his hands clutching the discs. “The data you wanted…”
Mataymon laughed. “Well done.”
“Huh?” Rion answered, confused. “But… it’s incomplete… We failed…”
“No need to worry,” Mataymon answered smoothly, “We have all the data we need. That girl… the child with the crest of Love… She remembered it all. The one memory that counts.” He laughed. “The journey with a beginning… and an end.”
When Tian and Renamon finally made it outside, the gray fog still clung to everything in sight, despite the heat of the burning factory.
“I’m really getting sick of seeing fog,” Tian muttered, looking around and seeing nothing but shapes. “How are we going to figure out where we are?”
“Tian! Renamon!”
Tian turned around, startled. Squinting into the fog sheets, she saw a couple of shadowy figures moving toward her. After a moment, they cleared up, and a feeling of relief washed over her. “Jun! Mana!”
The two of them were slowly walking toward her, Mana leaning on Jun and limping slightly.
“Tian!” Mana called out, “You’re okay!”
“We found your Digivice signal earlier,” Jun added, “over there.” He pointed to the burning factory. “When the whole thing blew up, we didn’t know if you made it out.”
Tian smiled. “We did. But it wasn’t easy…” Then, she looked at Mana’s swollen leg. “Mana, what happened to you?”
Both Mana and Jun looked at her leg, then looked at each other. “Long story,” Mana said sheepishly. Tian wasn’t sure if she wanted to know. Then, Mana eyed Tian carefully. “What happened to you? You look really pale!”
“Uh…” Tian hesitated. “Well… we had a run-in with a crazy old scientist, a giant red cyborged dinosaur, and an evil little boy.”
“Rion?” Jun asked suspiciously.
“Uh, yeah…” Tian replied, shocked. “He and his Digimon didn’t attack you too, did they?”
“Not exactly,” Mana answered, “but we think they’re the ones behind what’s happened to us already.”
“We overheard the kid talking to a lot of other Digimon,” Jun added, “and he said that they needed to catch and use one of us for some kind of weird procedure. Something called the Edge.”
Tian blinked, recent memories coming to mind.
Mana noticed her serious expression, and gasped. “Wait… don’t tell me he got you for that experiment, did he?”
Tian looked up at her. “I’m sure that was it.”
“What happened?” Jun asked softly.
Tian hastily explained everything.
“You got back to the Real World?” Mana blurted out.
Tian shook her head. “I think it was just in my mind. Renamon said that I was knocked out for a long time, and a mad scientist Digimon was using me to find a way to the Real World.” She shivered. “But nothing seemed to come out of it, though. And…” She hesitated. “Somehow… there was a girl who came and helped wake me up again, and… we were somehow able to get away…”
Jun opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but closed it back and shook his head slightly. Mana gave him a funny look, while Tian didn’t notice at all.
“We also managed to take these with us,” Tian continued, pulling the two discs from her pocket and handing them over to Jun. “I think they might have something to do with that experiment, since one of them has my name on it. But the other one has Akira’s.”
Jun examined the discs. “Weird. I’ll see what I can do with them, once we’re all together,” he said, tucking them into his backpack. “In any case, we still have to find everyone and tell them what we know,” he continued, “If what you said about that mad scientist is correct, Rion and whoever else is leading the Midnight Army is going to try and invade the Real World.”
“But why?” Mana asked, “What do we have in the Real World that they’d want?”
Jun shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“No matter what reason they have, we can’t let them do it,” Tian spoke up, startling the others. After a moment of silence, she continued. “I’ve seen what happened–” she stopped and caught herself, “what could happen if even one of them made it through. No one would be safe. Not even our own families.”
An uneasy silence followed, then Patamon spoke up. “Have you and Renamon found any of the others?”
Tian shook her head. “We’ve only seen the four of you.”
Mana’s face fell. “Oh. That’s not good,” she said worriedly. “We were wondering if they were still around even after that blast we caused that blew everything else to kingdom come!”
Tian looked blank for a moment. Then, her eyes widened. “Wait a minute… you all caused that?”
The other two kids paled, and Jun took Mana’s hand and started walking away, fast. “We’ll talk about that later,” he told Tian hastily, managing a feeble smile.
Strangely enough, Tian felt like laughing. Those two were crazy, all right.
As they walked on, her thoughts drifted back to her–dream? Hallucination? Mental lapse? Whatever that ordeal really was, she wasn’t sure. It was nice to see her family again, even though it wasn’t real. But then she remembered what almost happened to them afterward, and that thought, more than anything, had changed her. No matter how bitter and homesick she felt, she had to stay and keep on fighting, or else when she finally figured out how to get home, there would be no home–or family–to go back to.
She then thought of the strange visions she had had, just before she woke up. Everyone back in the Real World, fighting dark Digimon wherever they went and trying to protect their families the best they could. Just like she had done. But were they real? Would these events actually happen, or were they just a projection of her own fears? She couldn’t think of any rational explanation, and silently decided to say nothing about the visions unless she truly needed to.
Then, out of the blue, she found herself thinking about the tanned, dark-haired boy she saw, standing on the street and looking at her as if she were really there. Maybe they would really meet someday.
She sighed and pushed that thought away. She put her hand in her pocket and stopped suddenly, feeling something else there besides her Digivice that she couldn’t place. She pulled it out, revealing a small, folded sheet of white paper. She unfolded it, and her eyes widened at what she saw.
It was a rough crayon drawing of three people holding hands – two little children on both sides, and another person in the middle. All three had smiles on their faces. And the person in the middle was unmistakably her.
“Tian!”
She looked up, quickly wiping her eyes, which had become a little misty. “Yeah?”
“You coming?”
“Yeah. I’m coming,” she called out. She folded the paper back up and put it back in her pocket without giving it another thought. She already had enough questions to stew her head over.
As she ran to catch up with them, a faint smile crossed her face.