Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Passage Through Shadow - Prelude to a Storm ❯ Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. I do not claim to own Digimon. Toei own Digimon and Sensation Animation (formally known as Saban) make the dub. This is for fun not profit.

Please R&R

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Passage Through Shadow

Prelude to a Storm

Part Three

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"Alright, what have you done with it?" Taichi demanded as soon as they were alone the next morning. He'd been fuming quietly since he'd discovered that his digivice was missing that morning and his mood was not improved by the fact his sister just smiled at him.

"It's safe enough. I told you that I wouldn't let you get hurt if I could help it. You're being stubborn so this was the only way."

"Like I believe that." He snapped. "Give it back!"

"No."

"This isn't really about me at all is it?" He had to resist shaking her angrily. "It's about Agumon. You're going after him and want him vulnerable."

"Oh for heaven's sake. If I want an Agumon I'll go after an unattached one." She rolled her eyes. "Quite apart from being less likely to be noticed as quickly it'd hurt you if I hurt him and I don't want to hurt you. You don't understand at all do you?"

He gave her a sceptical look. "Ken went after Agumon why wouldn't you?"

She sighed. "Ken was labouring under the misapprention that he was playing a computer game. I can't be sure but I'd imagine he thought he'd get extra points if he captured another player's digimon. I'm not under that impression. Why would I waste my effort on a handful of digimon among millions."

He stared at her. "Because they're strong of course." He took a step towards her and tried to look menacing. "Give me my digivice back!"

"You'll get it back when you come to your senses or when everything is resolved." She said mildly. "Now I've got to go." She turned to the computer and vanished through a digiport along with Gatomon.

"Resolved?" Taichi muttered to himself as he watched. "What the hell did she mean by that?" He fumed quietly for a few minutes longer and then emailed the other Digidestined to tell them what had happened.

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"She did what?" Miyako asked in amazement when Daisuke read Taichi's email to them. Only the younger digidestined were in the Digital World that day so the news came totally out of the blue.

"Stole Taichi's digivice." The red head repeated.

"Well, that's clever." Iori noted. The others stared at him. "What? She's made it very clear that she'd rather not fight her brother. That she didn't want him to get hurt. By doing this she's effectively removed him from the field of battle and ensured that won't happen." He gave Ken a hard look. "I doubt he'd have been so solicitous of his family when he was Kaiser."

"Probably true." Ken admitted. "Partly because I didn't believe anyone could actually be hurt." He added and then winced when Iori gave him an especially cold and disbelieving look. "Only partly."

"Which means what exactly?" Takeru asked in the same dull and bitter tone that had pervaded his every mention of Hikari since the previous day.

"That she's not immune to the positive human emotions. I'd guess that's part of how she resisted Dagomon and chose her own path. It's a good thing."

"It is?" Takeru asked. Curiosity finally leeched some of the grief from his tone.

"It means she can't be entirely evil." Daisuke said thoughtfully.

"Exactly." Iori nodded. "She must have closed down in on herself in defence against Dagomon we need to find the lever to get her to open up and let her light out again."

"I doubt that's going to be easy." Takeru said but genuine hope had crept into his tone. The others breathed a sigh of relief to hear it because they'd been afraid they were going to lose him as well. "Who's going to tell Agumon?" He added.

"Good question." Daisuke said. "Your brother would probably be best."

"Your probably right." Takeru nodded. "I'll email him and ask him to handle it."

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"They can't actually believe it's that simple?" Hikari chuckled. She and Gatomon had been using the test version of her control system to listen to her former companions. "They really have no idea what's going on do they?" She narrowed her eyes. "I know that Ken sensed the difference between the dark in me and that in the Dark Ocean but has no idea what it means. Perhaps I should drop him a few more clues." She paused. "Not to mention I want to know just why he is so sensitive to the darkness of the Dark Ocean and how he can open gates there?"

"I thought it was because it corrupted him." Gatomon said.

Hikari shook her head. "I thought that at first but it's putting the cart before the horse. It's the other way round. He was so easy to corrupt once they got that spore Devimon told us about into him because he was already so sensitive to the workings of that world and I want to know why." She sighed and put the mystery aside for the moment. "Speaking of Devimon where is he?"

"Studying the Dark Ring code." Gatomon replied tersely. "He thinks you can combine it with the Black Gear code to make something more efficient than either." The cat digimon shivered slightly. Hikari looked down at her with a wry smile.

"You're thinking that it's fortunate Ken had destroyed the code for the spirals aren't you?"

"Yes." Her partner admitted without a qualm. Hikari chuckled.

"You don't think I can extrapolate the necessary data from the ring code?"

"Of course you can but it is slowing you down."

"Gatomon-chan, you're incorrigible." She laughed as she climbed to her feet and headed towards where Devimon was studying the code. "They are compatible?"

"Yes." The fallen angel digimon replied. "Do you know what he did here? He actually came close to doing something that I thought was impossible… and using his mistakes for reference I think that *you* can do it. You should be able to do a full test tomorrow."

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"Gennai-san! Gennai-san!" The small digimon jumped up and down on the communication point until it activated and lit up a hologram of Gennai appeared.

"Tapirmon?" He asked in surprise. "What's wrong?"

"Athenamon is back! She came to my village but she didn't recognise me among all the other Tapirmon and doesn't know that we know enough not to listen her. Unfortunately she's swayed quite a few digimon from each of the neighbouring villages."

Gennai indulged in a rare bout of cursing. "Can anything else go wrong?" He asked plaintively when he'd finished swearing. Then sighed. "I should have expected this."

"She's preaching death for humans as well as virii now."

"Not surprising. I'll have to warn the Chosen Children about her." Gennai paused. " Oh and do you know where your partner hid the original of the Prophecy of Shadow and Light? I know that she gave me a copy but I can't seem to find it and the Chosen Children need the first part."

"The first part is hidden in The Crystal Cavern of Dreams."

"Oh, Lord." Gennai said quietly. "Why did it have to be there."

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"I've done it!" Denbe yelled as he ran into the command room. "I can open at least two more digiports."

"Cool, where?"

"Anywhere I want but I think I'll go for Kyoto and Canada." He mused. "Enmity and Vengeance are the strongest of the others and those traits will serve us best if we take up our mysterious benefactor on his offer."

"Great!" Chiharu grinned then sobered. "What do you think of that, Denbe?"

"The offer?" He considered. "I'm not at all comfortable with his claims but they do make sense on some level."

"It does explain what is happening here better than our plain old ideas did." Ali agreed. "But I don't think that we should go for it. It may explain what we are somewhat but it is not what we were made for… and are you sure bringing Himura here is a good idea? He sets my teeth on edge and he's virtually impossible to work with."

"You'll manage to keep things running smoothly for us, Ali, you always do and Logan and Kage are the strongest of the others, with the exception of Mira and no-one knows where she is, and we need strength here."

"If you say so. I will concede that Okuwamon is strong enough to almost make up for Himura's impossible temperament." Ali said dubiously then grinned. "At least I'll get to see Logan again. He was thinking he'd have to wait until his school trip to Japan this summer to get in. And I still don't think that we should take this guy up on his offer. It feels all wrong."

"It may not be what we were intended for but that doesn't mean it's not our Destiny. I think we should accept provisionally. Leave ourselves room to back out later."

"That's what I thought." Chiharu agreed. "It's not exactly a comfortable thought but I believe him on this." She sighed and looked down. "I am become death. The destroyer of worlds." She quoted drawing surprised looked from the other two. "I'm sure that Ali's right that this wasn't in the job description when we signed up for this but it is who we are." She added with a sad smile. "Open those ports, Denbe, it seems that we've got a destiny to fulfil."

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"Do you know where she's hidden your digivice?" Yamato asked. Taichi shook his head.

"I searched her room while she was gone. It wasn't there. Logic suggests that she's taken it to the Digital World. There it could be anywhere but the Digital World is a big place."

"Well she hasn't had time to set up her own base yet so she's probably working out of File Island." Koushiro said thoughtfully.

"That makes sense." Taichi conceded.

"Then getting it back would mean climbing Infinity Mountain." Sora shuddered.

"And then facing Devimon." Takeru shuddered as well. "And we don't even know if we'd be able to digivolve."

"Which is why I don't think that you should risk yourselves for me." Taichi said firmly. "Just look after Agumon for me, please. She says that she's not going to go after him but in these circumstances I don't trust her."

"Of course we will." Daisuke assured him.

"Did you give you any explanation as to why she is doing this?" Takeru asked simultaneously.

"Thanks." Taichi said then looked at Takeru. "Not really. She just said it was necessary."

"What the hell does she mean by that?"

"That's what I wondered." Taichi nodded. "But she wasn't forthcoming."

"So we keep an eye on Agumon and hope for the best." Daisuke said. "And we still don't know what's going on in her head." Everyone nodded his or her agreement. "So is there anything else?"

"Yes." Said Koushiro. They all looked at him in surprise. "I had an email from Gennai."

"Please tell me that he sent us the prophecy."

"Unfortunately not, Motomiya-kun. Though it is mentioned… but most of the email is about something else. It's a little hard to explain so I think you all should read it." They did and then sat in silence for a while.

"An evil vaccine? What the hell!" Taichi frowned. "That I would never have expected. Have any of you heard of this Athenamon?"

"I have." Patamon said. "While the gate was closed Gatomon and I went on a sort of pilgrimage to find that inscribed stone Gennai mentioned once. The one with tale of the original Chosen Children engraved on it. We eventually found it and read it. Well part of it… it was badly damaged and whole chunks were illegible, as you'd expect after all this time. Most of the events it described were battles against the dark as you'd expect. Apparently they had a run in with Devimon too but that's beside the point. There was one tale though that was different. It told of a powerful vaccine that became so obsessed with destroying all virii that she was as dangerous as the forces of darkness. The first five chosen children banished her somehow but she has retained a fairly large cult of personality even so… and even after centuries she still does. Gatomon and I were attacked by them that night for consorting with humans."

"And now she's back and apparently worse than ever." Daisuke noted.

"You never told me you'd been attacked!" Takeru gasped in horror.

"We got away and it never came up."

"This must be why Gennai warned us not to get too focussed on Hikari. What are we going to do." Iori said.

"Fight her of course!" Daisuke said. "It's what we do…fight against threats to the Digital World! Does he know where this cave where the prophecy we need is?"

"Yes… but he says it will be dangerous. If we really want to go he'll send us directions"

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"Are you sure that this will work, Denbe-kun?" Chiharu asked for the twentieth times. "I'd hate to see you blow yourself up trying to please me."

"Of course it will." He reassured her and placed his digivice into the slot in the machine he'd built. Immediately there was a glow and a digiport opened between their HQ and Vancouver. "We just have to hope that Vengeance read his emails."

Apparently he did because moments later the raven-haired and ice eyed Canadian appeared in the room. "Of course I read my…" He broke off as Ali suddenly leapt from her chair and tackle hugged him.

"Logan!" the Japanese American girl yelled in English. "It's wonderful to see you again." For a moment he seemed stunned and uncertain by her exuberant greeting but then he shrugged her off.

"Ali, lay off!" He snapped in English before turning back to Chiharu and returning to Japanese. "As I was saying before I was interrupted of course I read my emails and I must say I was intrigued. What's the big mystery about this new potential benefactor?."

"You would be. I'll explain in a bit." Denbe snorted. "That's why we picked you to be one of the two we can recall."

"You still have an awful Canadian accent you know." Chiharu added.

Logan just glared at Chiharu before nodding at Denbe. "Who else?" He asked.

"Enmity." The child of Fear replied.

"Him?" Logan sounded disgusted. "What use will he be?"

"You'll see." Denbe replied as he recalibrated the gate for Kyoto. "Believe me he's right for the job."

"He's useless." Logan didn't even pretend to hide his disdain as the other teenager appeared through the port. The kid did not take the bait however.

"Chiharu-san." The newcomer said with bow. "I am glad to be of service again." He didn't sound like he meant a word of it.

"Himura-kun." Chiharu ignored his unfriendliness it was his nature as the bearer of the Crest of Enmity to behave that way. In some ways he was untrustworthy but when it came to fighting the light he had always been reliable so she could forgive him his idiosyncrasies. "I'm glad you came."

"You'd better behave yourself, Kage!" Logan snapped.

"Oh wow I've barely been back here a second and already the baka is making threats he can't follow through on." The Child of Enmity said then dodged gracefully as Logan lunged for him.

"Logan-kun!" Chiharu snapped. "I know you bear Himura-kun a grudge but now is not the time. Try and focus."

"Do you have a plan?" He asked.

"Of course… well it's Denbe's actually."

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R&R