Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ A New Emperor ❯ A Cave and A Plan ( Chapter 10 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter Ten: A cave and a plan

"I don't care if it's entered everyday language or not. 'Pwned' is not a word." Tai insisted, looking down at the scrabble board at the series of five tiles TK had just put down. "It's a typo!"

"Yes. It was a typo. But it caught on, and people started using it intentionally, thus making it an actual word. How do you think words get invented?" TK responded, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's not a word." He pushed up off his chair and went over to a bookshelf over to the right of the small table in the corner of Tai's bedroom. "Look, let's look it up. Ask any dictionary, 'pwned' is not a word."

"Okay." TK said casually, rolling off his chair and going over to the computer in the opposite corner of the room.

"Not urban dictionary!" Tai said, watching TK click on the Firefox Browser icon.

"You said any dictionary." TK reminded. "Urban dictionary is a dictionary. It says so right in the name of the site!"

"Any dumbass can go on that site and make up anything, it has no credibility!" Tai replied, his brow furrowed. "We need a real dictionary."

"But you said any dictionary-"

"I know what I said! I'm taking it back!" He pulled out a thick red book. "Any credible dictionary!" He hurled it across the room at TK. It flew across the room, opening up wildly, TK catching it in both hands in front of his face.

Casually, TK flipped it open to a random page somewhere in the S's. Pen ink was written all over the white, blank spots of the page. "Step one, begin thrusting hips at a rate of one per three seconds. Step two, grip both ends of pillow and pull up-" he began reading flatly.

Tai flew across the room, knocking the dictionary out of TK's hands and onto the floor, facedown. "Shut up!" He hissed into his face.

"Who writes crib notes in a dictionary?" TK grinned, looking down at the large book. "Is there something erotic about learning the correct spelling of words?"

"I said shut up!" Tai shoved his hands up against TK's mouth and pushed him back onto the bed, pressing him down onto the mattress. "You know how to do that? Shut up?"

The bedroom door swung open. Tai froze, then threw himself off the bed and onto the dictionary as if it was a live grenade. He looked up to find Kari escorting Ken, Matt and Joe in.

"Hey." He said quietly, rolling over, hugging the book tightly to his chest, trying to conceal it. "Ever hear of knocking?"

"I did, it's not my fault you were making love to TK over there." She pointed over to TK, who was lieing on the bed, his hair slightly dishelved from the short fight.

"Oh jesus." Matt moaned, putting his right hand over his eyes.

"No! No...we were just fighting because he's retarded and doesn't know the difference between a real word and an accidental internet typo that became stupidly popular-"

"Like an old married couple." Ken said casually, strolling into the room.

"I'm gonna need you to shut up." Tai said warningly in Ken's direction.

"I am so sorry about your brother, Matt." Ken began, looking over at Matt as he walked across the room into the scrabble corner. "But you must remember, he's still a human being, and he's still your brother, and he loves you very, very much. Now, he'll probably be teased at school, perhaps persecuted in public, so you need to be there with him more than ever. Coming out of the closet is one of the hardest things for teenage boys to do-"

"Okay. Okay!" TK said, shaking his hands in front of his face. "You've jumped the shark, Ken, it's not funny anymore, it's-"

"You see how sensitive he is right now? Like an overripe melon!" Ken gestured at TK. "You should not try to hide or conceal your sexual orientation, but rather, embrace it! I'd recommend-"

"STOP!" Matt screamed. "Just...stop, okay?" He began rubbing his eyes with his fingertips very hard. "Stop!"

"People who attempt to avoid, look down, or otherwise discriminate against homosexuals are often hiding their own closet homosexuality." Ken said matter-of-factly, watching Matt stumble into the middle of the room.

Matt suddenly took two massive quick steps across the room over to where Ken was standing and drove his fist hard into Ken's gut. Taken completely by surprise, all Ken could do was keel over and grasp at the point of impact. He fell to his knees, bent over at the waist, as Matt stepped back.

"Touche." Ken grunted.

Tai quickly replaced the dictionary in the shelf. "Alright, can we get to business?" He looked over at the hunched Ken. "You alright?"

"Sure." He gasped, slowly pushing himself up. "I'll be fine. But we should wait for everyone."

Matt was looking at TK awkwardly, one eyebrow raised. "You weren't-"

"No!" TK shouted, crossing his arms over his chest and standing up. "No!"

"Pwned is not a word." Joe said from the corner of the room, looking over the scrabble board. "It's internet lingo, it doesn't count."

"See!" Tai exclaimed, pointing at Joe. "See! And he's going to medical school, so he'd know!"

"Whatever man." TK said dismissively. "I thought...y'know, us being friends, you'd be up for a little bit of rule-bending. It's a game."

"I'm not giving you a triple-word score square because you're my friend." Tai said slowly.

"Wait..." Joe picked up one of the 'F' tiles off the board and flipped it over. "Somebody carved and painted an F onto the back of this tile. It's supposed to be an A. Hell of a job, too..."

Tai glanced over at Joe, then shot a dirty look at TK, who smirked and shrugged. Tai began to advance on TK.

A knock interrupted whatever it was that was brewing, however. Kari leaned over from her spot by the door against the wall and turned the knob. Izzy, Sora, and Davis stood on the other side.

"Alright." Ken clapped his hands together. "Waiting on Cody and Yolei. And we need to get Mimi on speaker...hold on." He pulled a red cell phone out of his pocket. "I got one of those disposable phones, so long distance isn't a problem now."

TK suddenly spoke up. "Hey, Sora. I'm trying to remember. How do you spell it? A-v-a-l-i-b-l-e, a-v-a-i-l-i-b-l-e, or what? I can never remember?"

She thought for a minute. "I forget. I think it's-"

"Oh, forget it. Can you check in that dictionary right there on the shelf for me?" He pointed at the fat red book on the shelf right next to her.

"Sure." Sora reached for it just as Tai's eye twitched. He dove for the small shelf, sliding face-first across the floor, and ripped at the right wall panel of the shelf. The rather weak system of bolts holding it together came apart easily, sending the entire structure, and it's contents, to a heap on the floor.

"Oh...clumsy me." Tai said, his voice strained. "You know what, I'll bet that smudged the ink. The spelling is probably all off now! We should...check on the internet!"

"Uh-huh." Sora said, looking at the pile of wood and books, then at Tai.

"Anyway!" Ken said loudly, drawing everyone's attention to him as he placed the open cellphone down on the table. "We have Mimi on the line. Our plan has taken a drastic detour, so I advise you all pay close attention. I'll get more into that when-" a knock came at the door, "-there we go."

Kari again leaned over to turn the knob. Yolei and Cody were admitted.

"Very good." Ken said, reaching into his back pants' pocket. "Okay, quick recap. The good news right now is that we've found the three crests that will almost certainly provide us with three more ultimates, and that Izzy provided me with some vital information last night that has proven to be pivotal already in our war against the Emperor. The bad news, however, is that we have no idea how to achieve the mega level, have yet to actually apply the crests, our main source of firepower and manpower is now a heap of junk fifty feet down, we're down to about ninety-six hours before the entire digital world goes under the control of Faustian, and my rod is running bone dry after yesterday's fight with the AncientGreymon."

On cue, Izzy reached into his pockets and pulled out four crystals. Ken stared at them for a moment, then up at Izzy.

"And you were keeping them a secret...why?" He asked tartly.

"You were so happy last night after I gave you the info...I thought I'd save it." Izzy confessed. "We have so little to be happy about, so I thought we'd spread it out a bit-"

"Just-just give them to me!" Ken spat. Izzy threw them over, Ken quickly catching them as they flew through the air. "So you saw the Apemon before it all blew up?"

"Yes. He's quite the little pickpocket." Izzy replied, reaching inside his jacket and pulling out two more. "Real lifesaver."

"Indeed." Ken watched Izzy throw the two over and caught them as well. "Well, that's one problem taken care of...thank you for having the wisdom to make that pit stop." He digressed to Izzy. "Now. Right now our biggest problem is we don't have a serious source of power to draw on." He set the six crystals down on the computer table next to him. "These should get us by for a few days, but the problem still stands. Now, unless we're hoping to just stumble onto something during our search of Server, there's only one way we're getting our hands on what we need." He pulled his hand from his pocket, holding a crumpled piece of paper.

"Straight from the man himself." Izzy finished.

"Yup." Ken unfurled the paper.

"That's crazy!" Davis interjected. "You said so yourself. His security is gonna be way too tight. No shot."

"It's our only option. It's become obvious that, whatever methods there may be to acquire power in the digital world, the Emperor has found and exploited. We've got four days, so leeching off him is really all we can do." Ken explained. "Now, here's how things are broken down as far as we know according to this information." He placed the piece of paper flat on the table. Drawn on it was a surprisingly accurate map of the digital world "Now, he keeps fifty percent of his power stash with him at all times, inside his base. The other fifty percent is distributed among his ten Faustian Facilities. I've marked all the locations with green dots." He pointed out a series of green dots on the map. "At the base of infinity mountain, where Myotismon used to have his castle...basically spread out all over in population hotspots."

"This is nice." Yolei said, looking over Matt's shoulder. "You draw this last night?"

"Nah, I drew this a long time ago." Ken commented. "Anyway, he's only got three facilities up and running. But he's started construction on all of them, and since he builds the lower level first, he's already got all ten safe rooms finished. So, all ten safe rooms are loaded up with what equates to five percent of his total stash per safe."

"How's the security on the incomplete ones?" TK asked, rubbing his chin, hunched over the map.

"Better than the complete ones really. That's a dead end." Ken responded quickly.

"So you wanna break into his base and even the odds?" Tai asked.

"I'd love to, but it's not happening. We don't even know what his base looks like, much less where it is. And I'd hate to see the security on it." Ken mumbled.

"So you want to break into a complete facility?" Kari deduced.

"That's our best bet. Because it's up and running, the security is somewhat limited. I'm not gonna lie, no matter what we do, pulling this off is gonna take a miracle." Ken rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I wouldn't consider trying this if there was any other way."

"Five percent?" Davis repeated, putting his hands in his jacket pockets. "Seems like alot of trouble for such a small piece of the pie. Maybe we could try to rob multiple facilities?"

"No time." Ken said dismissively. "If we actually manage to pull this off, I'm sure the Emperor is gonna start hurling everything he's got at us. This is going to actually hurt him, and in turn piss him off. We'll be too busy ducking and dodging to try and pull off another heist."

"What if we tried to pull multiple jobs at the same time?" Cody wondered out loud.

"Without the black market, we'll be lucky to pull the manpower for one job. Besides, I want all the attention on this one, because this has to work." Ken pointed out, again going into orator mode.

"Are you really sure five percent is going to...hurt him? If I was him, I'd look at it as a drop in the ocean." Joe shrugged. "I dunno, how much is five percent supposed to be anyway?"

Ken gave a low whistle. "Well, Cory's been a busy Emperor. According to the source, which I wouldn't trust one hundred percent, Cory's sitting on a grand total of about twenty-four thousand crystals."

"Jesus." Sora said under her breath. "So five percent is...twelve hundred."

"It'll get us through six months if we play it smart." Ken nodded his head. "Hopefully between now and then something will come up. We'll just have to play defense."

"Hold it." Izzy suddenly said. "Someone's math is off, because there is just no way he's got twenty-four thousand crystals. It's not possible."

"Hey, you think that's scary, think of it this way. He can take his Faustian army and convert it into crystals any time he pleases. Imagine ninety-nine percent of the digimon in the digital world converted into power crystals. He could get up into seven figures." Ken forewarned.

"You're not telling us something." Tai said in a low voice. "Care to share?"

Ken blinked slowly a few times, then licked his lips. "Cory's...Cory's body acts as an augmenter or something." He glanced down at the floor. "When he converts the power into those crystals, the amount of power increases tenfold."

"No kidding?" Yolei uttered. "When did you figure this out?"

"I...I was crunching the numbers, and it didn't make sense any other way. When Apemon gave me that first set of crystals, I felt them." He looked down at the palms of his hands. "I know what I felt. I've become familiar with such things ever since I've started using the rod. Each of those crystals carries the power equivalent to an ultimate level digimon. We know he created one with ten rookies. It's the only way it adds up."

"You should have said something. We need to be informed." Izzy mumbled, looking very serious.

"I didn't wanna depress everyone. The odds are high enough as it is." Ken shrugged. "Anyway, that's why I want to steal power from him. It's ten times the power we'd get otherwise."

Tai picked at his upper lip. "I guess it doesn't change much. I just always assumed each crystal was as strong as a champion. So it's just a perspective thing."

"How did you know I was hiding something anyway?" Ken asked, looking Tai over.

"I didn't." Tai went slightly red. "I just say that to everyone I know every now and then. As long as you pull the look off, nobody ever hides anything from you." He shrugged.

Ken couldn't help but snicker. "Very nice, Tai. Very nice. Anyway, I hate to leave you all on a sad note, so..." he cleared his throat. "Two days from today, the facility located right smack dab in the middle of the Machine City on Server has it's grand opening." He walked over to the map on the table and tapped his right index finger on the dot indicating the city. "The most densely populated area in all the digital world. The lines will extend for hundreds of meters, waiting for six P.M. on the dot. Of all the facilities opening in the digital world, this one is expected to draw the most business, in both the short-term and long-term."

"Interesting." Izzy stared down at the map, rubbing his chin.

"Now, in the interest of further augmenting the popularity of opening night, the Emperor has booked a series of fights. Fifteen minutes after the opening of the facility, the festivities begin. The undercard is made up of rookies, champions, and ultimates duking it out in a specially made ring, giving the fighting digimon complete fighting freedom while allowing spectators to get within mere meters of the action and be completely safe. Then, at ten, the real battle kicks off." Ken glanced around at everyone.

"Megas?" Mimi asked through the connection.

"Correct. The rumor is he's booked a Seraphimon and Armageddemon. Digimon from all over Server, who would normally wait for a facility close to them to open up, are flocking to this one in anticipation of fight night." Ken's voice was rising a few octaves, and he was starting to grin.

"How does this affect us?" Kari asked.

"Well, let me explain to you what these facilities are made up of." Ken put his hands out in front of him, palms about a foot apart and facing each other. "There are three sections. First, you've got the...bar, I guess. Here, you can come in and order a nice dosage of Faustian. You can inject it, drink it, snort it, eat it, inhale it...whatever. So long as you can pay the piper."

"He take American Express?" Tai asked sarcastically.

"He mainly deals in loyalty. I mean, he's willing to barter with just about anything. You can use money, property, information...anything that might be of worth to him. You can even give him power if it represents a gain to him, Faustian is very cheap to make. Unfortunately, he's the only one who knows how to make it." Ken winced. "In any case, after you get addicted, you'll give up everything you got to get your fix. Eventually, that means swearing eternal loyalty to the Emperor. That's how he ropes in his forces."

"I'd hate to hear what goes on in the other two areas." Matt said under his breath.

"Second area is sort of a chop shop. You can go in, request some sort of modification, and come out with...laser eyeballs or a cannon for an arm. Think of it this way. Faustian gives you a temporary buzz of increased power, the chop shop is permanent." Ken nodded omniously. "Of course, to get such a modification, you have to offer the Emperor alot in return."

"He's a genius." Izzy admittedly, pulling back from over the map and pacing about. "Evil genius. I couldn't make this stuff up."

"The last area is particularly interesting. Imagine you're a digimon, addicted to Faustian to the point where you think you'd sooner give up oxygen than Faustian. You're jumping through hoops and throwing everything you own at the Emperor just to get enough to get by, and eventually, it starts driving you crazy. You hunger for more, but there's only one way you can get it short of stealing. Enter the third area of the facilities. The casinos."

"Oh my." TK said softly. "I see."

"That's right. Using just about anything you have of worth as collateral, you may enter the casino and gamble away, the hope of perhaps hitting the jackpot forever taunting you. Should you hit the fabled jackpot, you'll get enough Faustian to last you your entire life, no strings attached. The odds may be astronomical, but when you're desperate, you'll do anything." Ken took a deep breath. "Now, what's the first rule of casinos?"

"Never bet on a straight draw?" Cody asked.

"Good rule, but no." Ken nodded at Cody.

"Leave your emotions at the door?" Tai tried. Ken shook his head.

"The house always wins." Matt finally said.

"Matt has it." Ken gestured at Matt. "In the long run, these casinos will spell profit for the Emperor. A few digimon might make it out of there with a...profit, so to speak. Some might even strike it rich. But overall, the casinos bring the Emperor that much closer to complete digital world domination. This bermuda triangle of irresponsibility is basically impossible to escape for anyone who dares get trapped inside."

"I see. Now, how does this relate to us?" Kari asked.

"Well, normally the Emperor keeps five percent of his stash in each facility. This is enough to cover for however many digimon come in to buy Faustian, request modifications, or happen to strike it big in the casino. Now, in the...ridiculously rare instance that several digimon hit jackpots at the same time, there has to be enough power on hand to distribute winnings. This is why he keeps so much of it within the facilities. The casinos are legit, and they do pay out just as any casino in the real world would. So normally, he has X number of chips on the floor and X number of maximum possible winnings at the slots. Five percent covers that. But on fight night, you're going to see alot more digimon shooting up, going under the knife, and rolling the die. He's expecting at least double what he usually sees. Plus, owing to the atmosphere, we can expect to see alot more activity from those present." Ken nodded, a devilish grin on his face. "So, for that night only, he's going to be holding...wait for it...twenty percent of his stash in the vault below."

"Twenty percent? That's almost five thousand!" Yolei exclaimed.

"So, we pull the job on that night. If we manage it, we'll be looking mighty fine for a year at the minimum. I'll have everything I need for a very long time." Ken stepped back from the table and spun around on his heel. "Now, the security won't change a lick, since Cory already believes he's done everything he can in terms of protecting his safe. We have as good a chance of doing this as we do with any other facility on any other day."

"This is good." Davis muttered, nodding slowly. "This is very, very good."

"Yeah, if you ignore the fact that we're trying to plan a sting operation that usually takes months to organize in two days." Izzy responded. "We need people on the inside who have been scoping things out for months, we need blueprints, we need computer simulations, we need-"

"Izzy." Ken said loudly, looking up at the ceiling. "We only need one thing. And I've got it right here." He reached down towards his waist, opened up a leather pouch, and removed a small bronze flask. He tossed it over to Izzy, who caught it. "Go on, have a bit."

Izzy quickly unscrewed the cap and brought the neck up to his nose. He took a quick sniff, then quickly pulled it down. "Is this vodka?" He asked incredulously.

"Only the best." Ken smiled and nodded. He glanced around at everyone, and was met with a series of disbelieving looks. "Hey, you think I'd be able to talk about this sober? The fate of both worlds depends on a group of a dozen teenagers pulling off the greatest heist in human history with a little over two days of planning. If I was sober I'd probably still be in bed in the fetal position, praying to every god I could think of."

"You don't look drunk." Kari said, looking hard at Ken's face.

"I only drank a little. I just wanted a little buzz." Ken shrugged.

"There are better ways to deal with stress." Yolei commented, looking at the flask.

"Hey, I'm the man with the magic stick. There's alot of pressure on me. I think I've earned the right to do a little underage drinking." Ken caught the flask as Izzy hurled it back over to him.

"Whatever." Sora shrugged. "So what's the plan?"
"We'll continue with the search of Server as planned. However, we need help from other digimon if we want to pull this job off. The digimon we recruited. We need to find ones who haven't already fallen under the spell of Faustian and are willing to risk their lives for our cause. So, before we begin our flyover, my group will make stops at every location we made recruiting visits to. I'm thinking we'll need at least two dozen digimon, some with specific abilities. Unfortunately, we won't be able to get anywhere near this operation, and neither will our partners." Ken looked over at the computer in the corner. "So the other two groups should proceed as we planned."

"Got it." Tai nodded as he pulled out his digivice. Everyone else followed suit.

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Megakabuterimon soared high over their region of Server, seven faces peering over the edges of his back, looking hard down at the ground. Their region was made up mostly of rainforest-esque territory, and it was exceedingly difficult to see much of anything through the canopy of trees. As such, Izzy was rigging his webcam to his laptop, attempting to utilize thermal imaging to at least get a sense of what might below.

"Maybe we should just forget the flyby. We could ride Raidramon through the rainforest." Davis suggested.

"Hold on." Izzy replied, positioning the small camera over the edge of Megakabuterimon so the lens was looking down to the forest.

"We don't even know if what we're looking for will show up on thermals." Joe reminded. "I mean, who says it has to involve living things?"

"There." Izzy said, flipping his computer screen around. "This is why I don't want to go below." On a blue, constantly moving image of the forest below, a series of yellow, green and red spots were scattered about. "I've rigged up this program so Faustian traces show up green. As you can see, every digimon down there is on the stuff. I'd rather not have to deal with that. From up here we have alot less to deal with."

"Very nice." Cody commented, watching the screen. "You write this program?"

"Yup. It picks up any irregular heat signatures, movement, or sound." He nodded. "Good thing I did too."

"So we're looking for something particularly big?" Davis deduced.

"If I had to guess, I'd say we're looking for a temple." Veemon said. "Some old building. I don't know alot about the digivolving process, but that's my guess."

"Well, temples generally don't give off heat, move, or make noise, so I really don't think this is the best way to-" Joe began.

"Can you just shut up?" Izzy exasperated. "It's our best bet."

"We're flying pretty low. I'm sure some of these digimon can fly too." Cody commented. "I'd expect an aerial attack."

"Absolutely." Izzy pushed himself into a standing position and began to walk to the other side of Megakabuterimon's back. He bent down over a segment of it and yanked on a tiny, almost invisible cord, and a hatch swung open.

"Huh. Never knew about that." Davis said. Izzy pulled out four skinny, elongated suitcases, a light brown in color.

"Come on down and pick one up." Izzy instructed, carrying one of the cases over. When he got back to the group, he slid his fingers under the two latches and popped it open. Sitting in a bed of foam was a black, sleek sniper rifle.

"Hellooo." Davis said in a low voice.

"What do we have here?" Joe asked, looking the weapon over.

"It's an automatic sniper rifle. Can fire 20 rounds a second, yet retains the accuracy that you'd find in any bolt-action sniper." He pulled the rifle out, revealing a set of five clips in the bottom of the case. He picked one of them out and rammed it into the slot along the bottom of the barrel. "Thing of beauty."

Immediately, everyone popped up and began the trek across Megakabuterimon's back towards the other cases. Izzy was staring at the computer screen, waiting for anything unusual to pop up.

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"Mere days ago, many of you swore you'd do whatever you could to assist in the fight against the Emperor. Now, it's time to walk the walk." Ken spoke eloquently to the sea of digimon before him in the Koromon village. "If this endeavor fails, this world is doomed. The digimon in this village have yet to fall under the intoxicating spell of Faustian to this point, but within days you will find it impossible to resist. The same goes for every digimon in the digital world." He nodded slowly. "So, all who are willing to put their life on the line for the sake of this world, I ask you come up to me now. The volunteers will be informed to the nature of this plan." He bowed and backed away, watching the Koromon nervously glance at each other.

"Not bad." Matt commented. "If that doesn't get them, I dunno what will."

"You're asking them to get through security that can be gotten through, crack a safe that can't be cracked, and then just walk out of a packed facility with five thousand power crystals." Kari said sourly. "I dunno, I wouldn't get my hopes up."

"They're good digimon. Give them a chance.” Ken whispered. “I’m sure they understand that they’ll die anyway if this doesn’t work.”

Slowly, a pair of Koromon began hopping towards the group. Mimi nodded. “There we go.”

Ken cleared his throat. “Anyone involved in this operation will be given access to a large amount of power augmentations. In fact, I can assure anyone who volunteers will see the Agumon stage for this job.” He said loudly. This seemed to perk up further interest. “And there will be payment. Anyone who assists the digidestined will be well compensated.”

Four more Koromon began the trek towards the four digidestined, joining the first two.

“We could use some variety. Six might be good.” Matt said quietly into Ken’s ear.

“It’s cool.” He pointed at his rod. “With this baby I can pretty much give any digimon whatever abilities we’ll happen to need for this.”

“Have you thought about the details of the heist yet?” Kari said, watching another Koromon emerge from the ocean of small pink heads and jump up to the other six.

“I’ve got a few ideas. Haven’t made up my mind quite yet, but I’ll have it ready when the time comes.” Ken responded, his eyes darting over the Koromon. “I wish we could get some experienced thieves in on this. If only the black market was still standing.”

No more Koromon came forth. Ken looked around at the rest of them for a moment, then nodded.

“Very good. To the rest of you, this place is no longer safe. Soon, the armies of the Emperor will ravage these lands. I strongly advise you all travel to the eastern docks. When you get there, a massive submarine will be there. Board it, and when it’s fully loaded, it will go down into the depths and enter a cavern some several hundred feet down. This is the main base of the digidestined, and has been well fortified against potential attack. At this point, the Emperor doesn’t even know it exists. You will be safe there.” Ken again bowed and turned to leave.

“Base? You never said anything about a base.” Mimi commented, falling into step next to Ken as he walked away.

“That’s because I haven’t made it yet.” He pulled out his rod and began to stare into the orb. It glowed a prominent blue as he groaned and grunted, squeezing the rod tightly. After a few seconds, the orb became clear again, and Ken took a few wheezing breaths. “Okay, it’s made.”

Matt, Kari and Mimi stared at Ken for a second. “You’re serious?” Kari questioned.

“Yup.” Ken nodded. “Let’s just say I’ve got a real nice long distance plan.” He smirked. “Alright, next stop...Toy Town should be unaffected.”

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“Give me a break. It’s a desert!” Tai exclaimed, looking down over Aquilamon’s wing. “If there was anything interesting to see, we’d have already seen it by now! The entire area is made up of sand! I think we’d be able to spot a big temple, we don’t need to fly over every square inch!”

“We have to stick to the plan.” TK said simply. Though he couldn’t help but agree with Tai. There wasn’t a single tree or piece of foilage for miles, meaning everything that could be seen in the desert could be easily seen. No matter what direction he looked, all that could be seen was sand, rocks, and the occasional cacti. If they were indeed looking for some form of a temple, this area certainly wasn’t the place to be.

“Just keep flying.” Yolei yelled up to Aquilamon. “C’mon guys, we might be looking for something that’s small. We don’t know. Just because this area looks really boring doesn’t mean we can skip it.”

“What if it’s an underground temple? We’d be looking for a trap door or something, probably buried under the sand.” Sora mused.

“Way to depress me.” TK grunted. “If it’s underground we might as well go home right now and start building a bomb shelter.”

“Uh-huh.” Tai reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small golden flask. He twisted the cap off and put his lips on the neck, leaning it upwards for a split-second to drain some of the liquid inside into his mouth.

“You’re...kidding, right?” TK said, staring intently at the flask. “Is that-”

“Believe it.” Tai said quickly. “Matt hooked me up.” He saw TK’s unbelieving stare. “Look, I might be able to pretend to be alright with all this saving the world stuff, like it’s just another day in the life, but the truth is, I am stressed beyond belief! Sometimes you just need a little kick to be...crazy enough to do this stuff!”

TK pursed his lips and looked off into the distance.

“Please don’t tell anyone.” Tai pleaded.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” TK shrugged. “So what, you don’t care if Sora sees you drinking?”

“You kidding me?” Tai smirked and shook his head. “She’s been smoking for the past week. She’s got some...unfortunate crap going on at home right now, needs the nicotine.”

“Huh. Well, the Emperor might not be able to get us addicted to Faustian, but he’s doing a hell of a job getting us addicted to other destructive substances.” TK chuckled. “The irony.”

"I'm not addicted! I can quit any time!" Tai insisted, even as he took another sip right after. "I just have a little bit every now and then so I can function as well as I possibly can."

"Uh-huh. Right." TK glanced back down at the ground for a moment, then came back up. "Lemme try some."

"No." Tai said strongly, shaking his head. "Underage substance abuse is reserved for the older digidestined only. I refuse to condone a thirteen year old drinking vodka in my presense."

TK rubbed his eyes. "You saw Ken kicking some back no less than half an hour ago!"

"He's...different." Tai said quickly. "He's more mature. Plus he's the man with the magic stick so he takes precedence." He put his hand over his chest pocket, which contained the flask.

TK sighed. "So it's okay to drink and smoke when your underage so long as you're within five years of the legal age now?"

Tai shrugged. "I guess."

TK looked across Aquilamon's back at Sora. "Hey, Sora! When we get back, we should look up the spelling of 'hypocrite' in Tai's dictionary! I can't remember how it goes-"

Tai grabbed TK from behind and pulled him back, hand over his mouth. "You're a real bastard, you know that?" He hissed. "Fine." He pulled the flask out of his jacket. "But you didn't get this from me."

------------------------------------------------------------- ----

In a single second, the sound of eighty bullets blowing out of a sniper rifle barrel cracked through the air, as all four digidestined were firing off their brand new weapons at a host of aerial digi-junkies. The small led balls flew through the air and tore through the digimon. Among their numbers included Roachmons, Kuwagamons, Snimons, and Flymons. On occasion, another grouping of winged digimon would emerge from the forest below and join in, but the power, accuracy, and firing interval of the weapons kept everyone at bay for the most part.

"Someone needs to be watching the damn screen!" Davis yelled, peering through the scope and blowing holes in a Roachmon.

"I told Gomamon to!" Joe said, bringing the rifle up to bear with a Flymon that was making a charge.

"Does he know what to look for?" Izzy questioned, ripping the clip off the bottom of the gun and slamming a fresh one home.

"As well as any of us!" Joe answered, firing away.

"Guys!" Cody screamed from the other side of MegaKabuterimon. "What's that Megadramon carrying?!" He pointed off into the distance at the winged snake.

Izzy stared hard at the claws of the beast for a moment before going pale. "It's a modified dark shot! Get down!" He yelled, motioning down with his hand. "Megakabuterimon, get down!"

"Chill out. I'll shoot it." Davis said calmly, turning around and taking aim.

"No, it's armored! You can't! It can only be detonated by remote!" He saw the back of the missile flare up and leave the Megadramon's claws. "We need cover!"

In a flash, Megakabuterimon began a quick descent, going down into the canopy of trees. Everyone held on tight as branches and leaves threatened to knock them off. After a few seconds of gliding, they set down by the bottom of a small waterfall.

"This ledge gonna cut it?!" Joe yelled, faintly hearing the sound of the missile streaking through the air.

"Maybe." Izzy said, feeling the wall of dirt, stone and grass with his hands. "We don't have a choice."

Everyone kneeled over and braced themselves over their partner digimon. MegaKabuterimon quickly reverted back to his Tentomon form and got under Izzy as the missile embedded itself into the ground above and exploded. The entire area shook violently and assorted debris cascaded down onto the digidestined and their partners.

However, the wall stood steady. The quakes and explosions passed with no serious damage done to the crew. Slowly, they stood up and looked around.

"We're sitting ducks down here." Davis exclaimed. "I don't know if we can make it if all the addicts in this area gang up on us."

"We can't go back up." Izzy said, looking up into the canopy. "Who knows how many more missiles they have." He coughed. "He's getting smart. Armored missiles now."

"Well, then what do we do?" Cody asked. "I'm sure they planned this, we're gonna get overrun any minute here!"

"Hold it." Izzy said slowly. The group turned towards the waterfall. In the chaos, they had failed to realize a massive rock had fallen out of the wall behind the waterfall and was now partially blocking the river. The rock had been covering a cave entrance, now fully exposed to the world, hidden only behind a wall of running water. "Jackpot?"

"As good a chance as any!" Davis exclaimed, running up to the waterfall. "C'mon!" He dove through headfirst.

"It's a good hiding spot in any case." Izzy said before running through the wall of water. Cody and Joe followed suit.

------------------------------------------------------------ ---

"Alright, lemme see." Ken glanced around at the small collection of digimon at his feet. "That's seven from the Koromon village, four from Toy Town, five from the Yokomon village, and now...six from Cherrymon's forest. Twenty-Two."

"You want two more then?" Kari asked.

Ken said nothing for a moment, looking at Wormmon, who was perched on his shoulder. "I think we can get away with putting two of our own on the job. I've got a plan in the works, and it involves some of the digimon in disguises anyway."

"Okay, now what?" Matt looked around. "It's already two, if we want to make that sweep we have to get started now."

Ken reached into his blue jacket pocket and pulled out a PDA. "No word from group one since they called in about that cave behind the waterfall." He reported as he began rapidly touching the screen. "That was an hour and a half ago. I had a feeling about that cave, we should probably send a check in."

"Everyone else, go to the eastern docks!" Kari cried out to the population of Cherrymon Forest. She heard general groans from everyone. "I know it's a long walk, but this place isn't safe! Go board the submarine, you'll be taken to a hidden fortress, and you can be safe!"

Still grumbling, the digimon began to saunter off towards the east in a flock.

"Group three is still extremely bored. They've seen nothing but sand since they started." Ken said quickly, replacing the PDA in his pocket. "Alright. We should start our flyover of area four until group one gets back."

With that, Ken grabbed onto Dinobeemon's leg, Kari latched onto Angewomon, Mimi picked up Lilymon, and Matt hitched a ride on Dinobeemon's other leg. They took to the skies and began a fast flight towards area four.

------------------------------------------------------------ ---

"Well, Davis just reported the cave they found isn't your ordinary cave." Tai reported, reading the paragraph on his D-Terminal.

"How so?" TK inquired.

"He thinks they hit the jackpot." Tai responded. "I know it's Davis, but he's reporting all sorts of inscriptions engraved on the walls and alot of glowing, glittery crap, so it could be something."

"Figures." Sora crossed her arms over her chest. "We've been flying up here for five hours, and all we've seen is sand. Figures we were wasting our time."

"No promises yet." Tai reminded. "And...let's see. Ken reports they've been doing the flyover of area four, and have had to deal with a crapload of hepped up digimon. They seem to have things under control though."

"Wish we had a magic stick." Yolei grumbled. "Although...I haven't seen a single digimon yet."

"Nobody wants to live in the desert I guess." TK mused. "I doubt the Emperor would bother building a facility around here, not enough digimon."

"Yup." Yolei replied. "Alright TK, keep it going."

TK cleared his throat and began pacing back and forth again as everyone watched. "Hey, you know what the difference between a dentist and a sadist is? Newer magazines!" Awkward silence followed. "Umm...you know, I think the best way to find a really good dentist is to get in bed with them. It makes sense to me that when you engage in intercourse with a good dentist, you shouldn't feel a thing. So if you find the sex extremely boring and you don't feel anything, that's probably a good dentist." More silence. "Err...something occured to me recently. If Miles Davis was born in Europe, would his name have been Kilometers Davis?"

"Oh wow, look at the time!" Sora suddenly said. "It's already four! Tai's turn!"

TK bit his tongue and looked off into the distance. "Whatever."

------------------------------------------------------ -----------

"Okay. I think I get it now." Izzy said slowly, feeling his hand over the wall of inscriptions.

"That's a relief, because I sure as hell don't." Cody said. "What's the deal?"

"Well...I think each of these symbols represents a digimon currently alive within the digital world." Izzy explained. "You see how various pieces of each symbol are...glittering...and others aren't?"
"You're saying each piece represents a digivolution stage?" Davis asked. "Sweet!"

"Well, I can't prove it yet. We don't have any idea which symbols represent which digimon." Izzy commented. "We could be here a long time trying to figure it out."

"I found one." Joe said casually.

"Don't be ridiculous. There's no way you could know that." Izzy replied dismissively, continuing to run his fingers over the inscriptions on the wall.

"No, I'm serious." Joe said. "Check it out." Cody, Izzy and Davis walked over to where Joe was standing. "There's a very small inscription of a digivice in the middle of this one. I'm guessing that means it's one of the partners."

"Oh!" Izzy exclaimed, leaning in close to it. "You're right. But who's is it?"

"Let me see..." Davis said. "Every part of the symbol except this little leg off to the right is glowing. So that little leg must represent mega."

"Probably." Izzy agreed. "And this segment of the symbol is glowing red instead of white...maybe that represents the stage that the digimon is currently in?"

"Maybe." Joe said. "It's already four thirty. I think we better call in late, this place is huge. It'll take forever to find all our partners."

"Don't be so sure." Izzy said, pulling out his webcam. "Everyone, get down flat against the floor." He set the cam down on the ground as everyone complied. He jacked the cam into his laptop and began hitting keys rapidly. Then, suddenly, the camera did a slow 360 degree rotation at ground level. Then it looked up at a 30 degree angle and slowly spun around again. It continued this process of spinning and adjusting for another minute before stopping.

"Oh, don't tell me-" Davis said, crawling over to look at the computer screen.

Izzy got up and grabbed the cam. He walked right up to the symbol with the digivice in the center and held the lens right up to it for a moment. "Now, as long as the resolution is good enough..." he strolled back over to the laptop. "...I should be able to search for all digivice inscriptions in the room."

"Too cool!" Davis exclaimed. "Computers!"

"I like to help the humans sometimes." Izzy said sarcastically. He bent down over the computer and hit a few more keys. "Aaaannnddd...." the screen began to blink in several different locations as a map of the entire room appeared on screen. He began pointing at all the places on the walls that were blinking on screen. "Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom." He said rapidly, as everyone ran to wherever Izzy pointed to find a digivice inscription.

"Do you have all twelve?" Davis asked quickly, feeling the engraving of one of the digivices under his fingers.

"Yup. Now, we just have to figure out how to...activate these things." Izzy said, walking up to one, cracking his neck.

----------------------------------------------------

The air was filled with the sounds of gunfire, as led balls flew from the barrels of a collection of powerful weapons. Precariously mounted on their medium sized flying digimon, Ken, Matt, Kari and Mimi were firing away with their sniper/machine gun hybrids at flying digimon who had been driven to insanity by their addiction.

Ken blew off the wings of a Snimon, sending it crashing back down into the canyon below, madly flailing it's arms and legs. Then, Ken nearly fell right off Dinobeemon's foot, but managed to steady himself by grabbing onto Dinobeemon's lower leg.

"Hold steady!" Ken yelled, looking over at Dinobeemon's other leg to see Matt firing away. "The wind's picking up!"

"Can't we go down?!" Kari screamed back, even as she ejected projectiles into a Devimon's back. Angewomon followed up with a celestial arrow.

"It's even worse down there!" Ken yelled. "I don't want to have to deal with the infantry too!"

"Missiles!" Mimi yelled. She pointed off to the left. Sure enough, a trio of armored dark shots was heading right for them.

Grunting, Ken whipped the rod out from his belt and snapped it towards the rockets. Immediately, the flare trailing from the tails of them died, the missiles froze over into ice blocks, and they began a fast fall to the ground.

"We've got to do something!" Matt insisted, ripping the pin out of a grenade and hurling it through the air and onto a Devidramon's back. "We can't stay up here forever, and you know they'll never stop coming!"

"I know!" Ken responded as the grenade exploded and ripped a hole in the back of the Devidramon. "We might have to run!"

"Ken?" Dinobeemon said suddenly.

"What?" Ken responded, bringing the rifle up to bear on a host of Flymon.

"Something's happened." He spoke slowly, his voice etched with nervousness.

"What, you mean like south of the Mason-Dixon line?" Matt asked sarcastically.

"They must have found it." Dinobeemon said simply. "They found it."

"You mean-" Ken began.

"Yup." Dinobeemon nodded. "Shall I?"

"Anytime, buddy. Anytime." Ken winked, then turned back to the host of airborne digimon.

-----------------------------------------------------

"The strands in your eyes that color them wonderfuull stop meee and steeaaalll my brreaatthh..." TK sung flatly, laying back on Aquilamon's back, incredibly bored.

"Oh no." Tai moaned. "No. Singing!" He spat over in TK's direction. He too was lying down, as bored as he could ever remember being.

"And emeralds from mountains thrrusstt towards the sky neeevveerrr revealing their deeeppptthh..." he continued.

"WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST SAY?" Tai yelled, jumping up and diving on TK. "Sing another syllable and I'll chew your neck off."

"Well, this is only the second time today we've been in a compromising position." TK said nonchalantly. "Are you trying to seduce me, Mister Kamiya?"

"Guys!" Yolei suddenly exclaimed. "Can you stop screwing around? Something's up." She pointed down at the desert below.

Everyone peered down at where she was pointing. A large hill of sand was stirring restlessly.

"Sand hills aren't supposed to stir." Sora said. "This isn't good at all."
"Everyone prepare yourselves." TK warned.

And then, the dune exploded in a violent rage as three massive, slender heads emerged from the depths.Three elongated, snakelike bodies followed. After the sand and dust was cleared of the scene, the three digimon revealed themselves to be GigaSeadramons.

"Aw, hell na." Patamon said after a few moments of stunned silence.

Yolei quickly reached inside her shirt pocket for the blank crest. "Freaking thing!" And then, she realized it was no longer blank. "Huh. Whaddya know?"

Tai looked over her shoulder at the new inscription. "What is it?"

"No clue. Maybe it'll work now." Yolei said hopefully.

"Four ultimates don't have a shot against three megas." Sora responded. "So it doesn't really matter. Let's get out of here."

"Hold it!" Agumon interjected. "Tai...I think it's go time."

"You mean..." Tai stared at Agumon intently.

Agumon nodded.

"Guys. We're staying." Tai began, slowly turning to face the other three. "Tell your digimon to look...deep within themselves. They might find something very nice."

TK grinned, then turned to Patamon, who took flight.

"Let's do this." Sora said, standing up and watching Biyomon take to the skies.

"So...when you said go time, you didn't mean you needed to go to the bathroom, right?" Yolei said slowly, looking at Agumon. She was met with a stony silence. "Alright then." She bent down and patted Aquilamon's back. "Set us down and let's kick some ass!"

------------------------------------------------------------ ------

"These are some nice shots, Kari." Ken commented. "You really capture the...chaos and domination of the fight." He was flipping through the digitally stored pictures on Kari's camera. "Hey Izzy, check these out." He walked across the room to Izzy and showed him the screen. On it was an over-the-shoulder snapshot of GranKuwagamon using his massive pincers to slice an Okuwamon in half. He ran his thumb over the arrow key right, scrolling to a sideshot of GranKuwagamon using his energy beams to shoot a flying Gigadramon clear out of the sky.

"These are nice." Izzy agreed. "I like how you can see the sinew on the Gigadramon."

"There's more." Ken said, scrolling through again. "Here's Magnadramon." A spiraling flame was shooting from the large dragon's mouth, carving through an Etemon as if it was tissue paper. Another shot showcased a mist emitting from the dragon's mouth, touching and melting a Diaboromon as if it was molten lava. "We should have some shots of MetalGarurumon...hang on." He hit the arrow right key a few times until a shot of a massive blast of ice breath was pictured slamming into a Digitamamon. The next shot showed four energy beams shooting into the heart of an unfortunate LadyDevimon. "And...of course, we have Rosemon." A red, black and green human-esque digimon was shown stabbing an extremely long stick into the chest of an Andromon. The next featured a thorny whip from the hand of the Rosemon beating a SkullSatamon to a pulp.

"What awesome photos!" Matt said, standing behind Izzy and watching the small screen. "Great job Kari!"

"It was nothing." She replied. "Just thought I'd catch a few memories of the action."

"Ahem." TK said mockfully. "Sister, I'm afraid I have you beat." He held up a small digital camera. "You might have gotten some nice still photos, but I got the whole thing from our end on film." He rotated the small sidescreen on the camera outwards and pressed a tiny button along the right side.

"Should we be standing so close?" Yolei's voice emitted from the small speakers on the side. The camera was focused on three massive GigaSeadramon, their long bodies partially out of the sand, their heads looking about and firing energy blasts at seemingly the sky.

"They don't even know we're here with them distracting him." Tai's voice came.

The camera zoomed out slightly, and it could now be seen that the GigaSeadramons were firing at four digimon flying above it's heads, WarGreymon, Seraphimon, and a pair of Phoenixmon. A massive orange orb of energy crashed into the necks of one of the beasts, knocking it back down and crashing into the sand. Seven orbs of energy collided with the head of another one, nearly forcing it to retract back into the hole in the sand from whence it came.

"I am so putting this on youtube when I get home." TK's voice rang through the speakers.

"What was that?" Came Sora's voice.

"...nothing!" TK said quickly.

A series of flames beat down on the trio of snakes. They attempted to fight back with energy torpedos, one of which hit WarGreymon, but any damage done appeared to be minor. WarGreymon dived down at great speed, slashing through the fleshy necks of the three beasts, finishing the fight.

"ChaChing!" They heard Tai say. Then, the film ending.

"Nice work Spielburg." Ken said. He put his hand out for TK to shake. Unconcerned, TK put his out as well, but when they met, Ken pulled him up close to his face. "If I see this video on youtube, or otherwise distributed over the internet, or distributed in any way, I will cut off your balls and feed them to you!" He hissed quietly. "Are we clear?"

"I was kidding!" TK yelped. He felt Ken squeeze his crotch area. "Jesus Christ dude! Stop that!" He whispered.

"Glad we understand each other." He pushed TK back. "Now, thanks to the exploits of group one, the mega digimon stage is no longer blocked off to us. Every last one of our digimon are now capable of reaching the stage."

"It's possible that the Emperor could reverse what we did." Davis said grimly. "All we did was rub a lit match over de-activated portions of a dozen symbols. I'm sure that's fairly easy to reverse."

"We'll worry about that another time. For now, we have a dozen megas at our disposal. A significant upgrade, but again, it's moot if we can't pull off this heist in two days. I've instructed all untainted digimon to go hide out at an underwater base I constructed. They'll be safe there for awhile, and now they're all in one place for us to call on. Tomorrow we'll go check it out for ourselves and see if we can't escort any more digimon to it. If we can secure a bunch of allies that'd be very significant."

"Of course." Kari said. "And tomorrow we'll go over the precise plan, right?"

"Yes." Ken replied, nodding.

"I still think this is a brick wall. One day of planning and preparation won't do a damn thing." Izzy lamented.

"We don't have a choice." Ken reinterated. "If we don't pull this off, the fight is over. He's won. We've lost." He walked up to Izzy and stopped just a few inches in front of him. "Do I have to spell it out for you?"

"I'm just saying...maybe we could talk to Azulongmon and take out a loan or something." Izzy trailed off pathetically.

"Azulongmon hasn't got a thing on the Emperor, and you know it. He might talk a big game, and he's got quite a bit of power, but at the end of the day, he's just an overpowered mega. The Emperor has enough gas to create at least two thousand digimon as strong as Azulongmon." Ken spat. "No one can help us now."

"Alright, alright." Izzy said. "But I think you're underestimating Azulongmon. He's not a normal digimon. And he can call on greater powers to enhance his abilities. You might be surprised."

"Whatever." Ken said. "Alright, I want everyone to meet at Davis's house tomorrow at nine. We've got alot of planning to do." He bowed and gestured at the door. "Dismissed."