Chapter 43:
Change of Heart
Touma looked around him, then turned back to the elevator. After a moment of silence, he spoke up.
“I know you’re there. Quit playing around and come out.”
Defeated, Akira and Kodamon walked out into the open.
“And it’s you. Why am I not surprised?” Touma asked.
“What are you doing here?” Akira asked warily, “I thought you were on a business trip and your flight got delayed!”
“Ah, well, this just happens to be part of my business. What about you? You have your entire posse running around the building stealing things.” He chuckled. “The security guards ought to be fired.”
Akira laughed a little. “’Part of your business’? When you hacked the security doors just like we did?”
Touma gave a lopsided smile. “Touche’.”
Akira was silent for a moment. “I think,” she began, “that’s there’s been some kind of misunderstanding between us, all these years.”
Touma said nothing.
“I think we’re on the same side.”
Touma continued to say nothing. He turned around and pressed the “Down” button on the elevator. When the doors slid open, he gestured Akira and Kodamon to follow.
Akira hesitated for a moment, then she and Kodamon followed him inside.
“I know about the Dark Seed infection,” Akira said quickly, “and how it can change your personality for the worse. I know it happened to you, and you haven’t been yourself since.” She faltered, and Kodamon squeezed her hand in support. “I’m just sorry I didn’t help you when you needed it.” She held her breath, afraid of what Touma would say.
Touma stayed silent as he pushed a button on the elevator keypad. The doors slid closed and the elevator slowly moved downward.
Akira watched anxiously as the elevator moved from 4 to 3 to 2, then past 1 to B1. When the elevator reached B3, a loud “Ding!” caused Akira to jump.
Touma didn’t speak again until they left the elevator and entered a dark corridor.
“My father was a Chosen Child.”
Akira stopped in her tracks. “What?”
Touma nodded blankly. “A lone wolf who found friendship and love, and eventually reached for the stars.” He looked up at Akira’s shocked face and smirked. “Weren’t expecting that, were you?”
Akira hesitated, then answered. “You said he was a Chosen Child.”
“He’s gone,” Touma replied, “Died when I was a kid. He was on a rocket headed to Mars, and a terrorist bombed it before it could lift off. He didn’t stand a chance.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I came to terms with it long ago. What I couldn’t accept was who my mother chose when she remarried. He was a nasty piece of work.”
“Did he hit you?” Akira asked.
“Me and my mom. And he would belittle us and call us trash, and that we were useless without him.”
Akira looked back at him, shocked.
“I vowed that when I grew up and had kids of my own, I would treat them with love,” Touma continued. “And that’s what I did, with Kei. But then you showed up.”
Akira swallowed, and listened with trepidation.
“Whenever I’d look at you, the only thought I’d have was that you weren’t mine. You were a stranger, an interloper, coming into my house and bonding with my wife and child, taking them away from me. And I had to do something about it.”
Akira couldn’t speak. Kodamon’s paw gripping her hand was the only warmth driving away the chill of Touma’s words.
“These were my thoughts, that I acted upon. The Dark Seed just made it easier.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Akira asked shakily.
“It’s the honest truth,” Touma answered, “and I don’t apologize for any of it.” He looked at her straight. “Hate me all you want, but don’t say I wasn’t honest with you.”
“I don’t hate you,” Akira spoke up, surprising herself. Not anymore.
They continued walking in silence, until they reached an extremely large room, like an amphitheater or coliseum. A large, black and gold polyhedron floated in the air at the center of the room.
Akira shivered. She could feel the darkness radiating from the polyhedron in waves. She put a hand on Kodamon’s shoulder and could feel her fur standing on end.
“What is this?” Akira asked.
“The most special of all the Special Projects,” Touma answered. “Secret enough that it’s being housed underground. The only question is whose idea this was in the first place.”
“What do you mean?”
“Was it Minoru Araneta’s idea, or the Digimon he’s in thrall to?”
It felt eerily quiet as Ryou, Rion, Guilmon, Tian and Renamon entered the darkened office. Papers and books were strewn everywhere.
“This is strange,” Ryou said, “Dad usually keeps this place immaculate. It looks like a hurricane hit here!” He stopped at his father’s desk, seeing an open laptop with a blinking, distorted screen. He looked across the room at a large window overlooking the ITI campus, and gasped, his heart in his throat.
Minoru Araneta stood at the window, his back to them.
“Dad?” Ryou called out, slightly panicked. “What happened? I thought you were in Singapore!”
Tian felt a little uneasy as they approached the man. She could almost hear him whispering to himself.
“It’s those kids again. Meddlesome whelps. Get rid of them so we can commence the next part of our plan!”
“No! They’re my sons! I can’t let you hurt them!”
“They’re in the way. Once you remove them, you can have this world squirming in the palm of your hand!”
“That’s not what I wanted!”
“Dad?” Rion asked, his voice wavering.
“Be careful,” Renamon said, “Something’s not right here…”
Minoru turned toward them, breathing heavily, and his eyes flickered from brown to black.
“Ryou… Rion…” he groaned out
Then, his eyes suddenly changed back to brown, and he yelled out, “Run! Take your friends and get out of here! He’s going to kill you!”
He then let out a scream and collapsed to the floor as another form suddenly appeared from within him.
Flowing, black robes. Glowing red eyes concealed behind a large hood. A long, silver staff.
Rion took a few steps back. “Mataymon!” His gaze moved to his father’s crumpled form. “Dad!”
“What did you do to him?” Ryou demanded.
Mataymon laughed. “Such a weak man. I thought that surely the head of the most powerful company in the world would be strong enough to be my vessel. Now, I have regained enough power to be rid of him once and for all!”
His gaze locked onto the kids and the Digimon, and he sneered. “And my next task is the systematic destruction of all of you!”
Tian and Renamon gave each other a quick glance, then nodded.
“Renamon, warp evolve to… Sakuyamon!”
Rion gulped, and his gaze darted toward Guilmon. Guilmon nodded.
“Guilmon, warp evolve to… Dukemon!”
“Royal Slash!”
Mataymon parried the lance with his bare hands. “Humph!” he grunted. “I see you’ve finally found your place,” he said, as he thrust Dukemon’s lance to the side.
“No thanks to you!” Dukemon replied, swinging his lance toward Mataymon again.
Mataymon dodged it, only to be hit with Sakuyamon’s staff. He shoved it away and let loose several bolts of lightning.
Sakuyamon concentrated, and attacked back with a swing of her staff.
“Izuna!”
Flames shot out as the attacks collided, triggering the fire alarm.
A shrill alarm echoed through the Special Projects floor as the lights flickered red.
“Uh, oh…” Yuka intoned.
“Ah, damn it,” Takashi muttered. “Everyone gather around here. Let’s make sure we’re all together first before we get out of here!”
“Where’s Akira?” Kei asked.
“Tian’s missing, too,” Mana said.
“And Rion and Ryou,” Takashi finished. “This is crazy. They could be anywhere!”
“Let’s see…” Jun pulled out his D-Coder and navigated to the map. He pushed a button, and the map reconfigured itself to a map of the ITI building. A yellow dot and a gray dot blinked on the fifth floor.
“Tian and Rion are on the fifth floor,” Jun answered. “Isn’t that the CEO’s office?”
“Then Ryou must be with them,” Mana added.
“What about Akira?” Kei asked.
Jun looked back at the map. A purple dot blinked past the first floor and in a large space below.
“She’s… underground?”
“What?” Takashi blurted out, “How?” Then he shook his head. “No matter. Let’s all get out of here and we can figure out what to do with them later!”
When they made it down to the third floor, security guards appeared to usher them out. “Everyone out!”
“W-what-” Takashi stammered, confused. “What’s the problem?” He almost said, “besides us?”
“Emergency alarm,” one security guard said, “Fire on the fifth floor.”
Outside the building, there was chaos. Police cars, fire trucks and ambulances were parked all over the block, and visitors were being escorted off the premises. There was enough going on that no one seemed to notice the Digimon.
“We’re missing a few people,” Takashi told the security guard who escorted them. “One of us needs to go back inside and look for them-”
He was interrupted by a large explosion that ripped out part of the fifth floor. Mataymon flew out, followed by Dukemon and Sakuyamon. As the Digimon traded shots, Ryou, Rion and Tian appeared from among the debris.
Jun looked at Patamon and nodded.
“Patamon, warp evolve to… Seraphimon!”
Seraphimon launched himself toward the remains of the building’s top floor.
“Be careful,” Ryou said as he and Rion moved their father’s unconscious body into Seraphimon’s arms. Seraphimon carefully flew him down to the ground, then returned to bring Ryou, Rion and Tian down to stable ground. Afterward, he flew back up to join the fray.
“We need help here!” Ryou called out, as he and Rion waved over a group of paramedics. They came over and quickly went about stabilizing their father. As they loaded him into an ambulance, Ryou followed, climbing in after him.
Rion tugged on his hand. “Will he be all right?”
“Let’s hope so,” Ryou answered. Rion took a step back as the ambulance doors closed and it drove away.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Digimon had warp evolved and joined the battle against Mataymon. Despite being massively outnumbered, Mataymon greatly held his own against seven Ultimates. He dodged shot after shot, laughing as they missed their mark and caused more collateral damage.
“Giant Missile!”
“Lightning Spear!”
Both attacks managed to hit him solidly and caused him to stagger.
“We did it!” Kei shouted.
“It worked!” Yuka joined in.
Mataymon laughed. “You haven’t seen the last of me. In fact, this is only the beginning!”
With a whip of his cloak, Mataymon disappeared.
The Digimon reverted back to their Child forms, as the kids breathed sighs of relief.
Seita looked back at the now-destroyed ITI building. “We need to go back inside,” he insisted, “Akira and Kodamon are still in there!”
The alarm echoed through the large, open room. Akira and Kodamon looked around frantically, expecting enemy Digimon to jump out.
“I guess that’s my cue,” Touma said. He glanced around, and spying an empty computer terminal, ran over to it and started typing.
“What are you doing?” Akira demanded.
“My goal here is to destroy that thing,” he said, nodding toward the massive black polyhedron. “As long as that’s gone, Araneta – or Mataymon – or whoever the hell he is – won’t be able to finish his plan!”
As she watched Touma work on the computer terminal, Akira felt a prickling at the back of her neck, as if she was being watched. She tried to push the feeling away.
Kodamon was on high alert, looking around at all sides of the polyhedron. Suddenly, she saw a side of the polyhedron shudder and glow red.
“Watch out!”
Kodamon shoved Akira out of the way as a bolt of energy struck the floor.
“Kodamon, warp evolve to… Auramon!”
“Aura Burst!”
Auramon shot the polyhedron, the attack bouncing clean off, then leaped out of the way when it shot out another energy bolt.
The polyhedron shuddered more violently, and the sides opened to reveal helix-like clawed appendages, an emaciated torso and arms, and a head with piercing gold eyes.
Auramon gasped.
“Apocalymon?”
She looked on in horror as Apocalymon smirked and waved his arms back, quickly creating copies of himself. The room filled with black polyhedrons.
Quickly, Auramon moved her arms in a spherical motion and a spherical energy barrier appeared and grew, attempting to keep up with the multiplying polyhedrons. Electrical storms grew inside the barrier and increased to massive proportions.
“Aura Destroyer!”
Auramon released the storms inside the barrier and they battered the still-multiplying polyhedrons with immense power. As the barrier disappeared into the air, it left the polyhedrons behind… without a single scratch.
“Impossible!” Auramon said as she stared back at the polyhedrons with growing dread.
There was a tense silence as the polyhedrons finished multiplying, then missiles of fire began raining down.
Auramon hovered in the air, trying desperately to dodge each missile, but a barrage of them hit her hard, causing her to fall and revert to Kodamon as she hit the ground.
“Kodamon!” Akira shouted. She ran over to her but was caught in the explosion of one of the computer terminals. She tumbled to the ground, hitting her head and blacking out.
When she came to, she found herself lying on the floor of the elevator. She looked over and saw Kodamon lying nearby, unconscious. Outside, several fires enveloped the large room, and explosions rocked the ground as the Apocalymon copies continued their rampage.
Suddenly, she heard a groan, and saw Touma stumbling out of the elevator.
“Touma…?”
He was in terrible shape. There was a gash on his forehead, and his white coveralls were streaked with blood. A part of his left arm seemed to be missing and losing blood at an alarming rate. He stared down at her, breathing heavily and grimacing in pain.
“I’ve installed a... self-destruct virus into the main Digimon’s code,” he muttered, forcing the words out. “It should... spread to the other copies… but I need to stay and see it through.”
“But… you’re hurt! Get out of here and leave everything to us!”
Touma smirked painfully. “You... and what power?” he asked, indicating Kodamon’s knocked-out form. He pushed a button, and the elevator doors began to close. Just before they did, he spoke up again.
“Take care of Kyoko and Kei for me.”
Akira’s eyes widened. “What?”
Touma’s voice echoed through the doors. “Don’t make me regret saving you!”
“Touma, wait!” Akira banged on the elevator door and pushed the buttons frantically. “Let me out!” The elevator began to climb up the floors. When it reached B1, a loud “boom” shook the elevator.
“Touma!” Akira yelled. The elevator rocked again, violently, causing her to lose her footing and fall, hitting her head again.
As her vision swam, Akira could almost hear voices calling out for her and Kodamon. Then the pain in her head overtook her and everything went black.