Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Pins and Needles ❯ Daisuke ( Chapter 2 )

DISCLAIMER: Yes, it's true! Wah wah wah wah! Don't belong to me or you! Wah wah wah wah! It's the Fangirl Blues! Oh, yeah. Because Digimon Adventure 02 is, of course, the property of Toei Animation, baby. Not to mention TokyoPop/Saban. No copyright infringement intended, and all rights are reserved.

A/N: Brief pit stop with Daisuke & Co., during which most of what was confusing about Part One should be cleared up somewhat. Those of you hoping for kinkay sex, however, will have to be patient a while longer. Ken's not even interested in Yamato at this point. (I'm aware of that, by the way. ^^) And to yamatoforever specifically -- I appreciate your feedback and hope that what I've got in mind will satisfy you. I've got pretty strict standards, myself. ^_~

They were gone. Daisuke heard Hikari suck in a harsh breath behind him, but then she was suddenly in his field of vision, resting her weight on her Jogress partner's shoulder and peering intently at the computer screen. The computer screen where two points of colored light that represented Taichi and Yamato's digivices had just vanished.

"Where did they go?" she asked in a whisper.

The older girl shook her head, blinking and shoving her glasses up a little higher on the bridge of her nose like that would help. "No idea. It's almost like they went back through the gate, but..."

There was a brief silence, the kind that falls when no one knows what to say. In it, Daisuke thought he could hear somebody cooking -- just faint rattling noises and the hum of a microwave. Iori's mom, probably. Making snacks for her little boy and his eight friends. Of course, she wasn't as ditzy as Taichi's mother. She was bound to notice that two of them had disappeared. Daisuke wondered what he would say to her. That they had just gone home, maybe? It wasn't very believable, but at least it sounded better than: "Well, I think the same evil digimon that's been kidnapping kids all over the world took them. But not to worry, Ma'am, we've got everything under control."

Besides, that would've been a lie. They had nothing under control. And Iori -- him and his bizarre need to tell the truth all the time -- wouldn't have liked that much.

What he needed to do was stay calm. That was one of the few really helpful things Taichi had told him about being a leader: No matter how bad the situation, you can always make it worse if you panic. Good advice, that. Good advice. Daisuke swallowed and tried to organize his thoughts. So Taichi and Yamato had vanished off the face of the Digital World. Them and about a billion others. And Ken. So what, right? They'd dealt with worse before.

Except that they hadn't. They really, really hadn't.

It had started a few months ago -- three or four all together, maybe as many as six. Newspapers disagreed on which kidnappings were a part of the pattern and which ones were just normal abductions. (Like there was such a thing.) Someone or something was stealing children. Any nationality, any religion, any skin color. The only thing the cops had to go on was age -- seven to fourteen -- so it was kinda hard to make a pattern. But they weren't like regular kidnappings, because no one ever made any demands. The police still thought they were dealing with child serial molesters and that the international cases were unrelated.

Understandable. They were missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. After all, the names and addresses of the Chosen Cadets weren't exactly public knowledge -- that would've been inviting the weirdoes out of the woodwork. So the cops had no idea that every single one of the missing kids was working the Digital World security detail. Talk about a pattern, Daisuke thought wryly.

The Chosen Cadets had been Hikari's idea for the most part, though they'd all liked it. Gennai's system had seemed so ponderous and old-fashioned. Besides, the Digital World was kind of slow on the draw. It never called new Chosen Children until it was already ass-deep in alligators. So she had thought, why not modernize things a little? Now that every kid in every country had a digimon of his or her very own, they could spread the workload around and keep the Digital World safe without anyone having to get held back a grade.

Which Daisuke had come very close to doing during his own stint as a full-time Chosen Child. If he hadn't made friends with a boy genius, he would never have made it into the sixth year with Hikari and Takeru -- not something he really needed on his academic transcript going into senior high school. "Oh, and that? That was me saving the world." Daisuke winced at the thought. Sure, the Digital World was way more important than school, but if you could do 'em both at once, so much the better, right?

Wrong. For four whole years, the Cadets had done a bang-up job just looking after the Digital World -- non-coincidentally, the very same amount of time that it'd been mostly quiet. This new enemy was their first real threat, and they had all been either captured or killed. It was staggering to think about. Almost a million Cadets the world over. The five that they'd managed to get in contact with today had happily turned in their badges and run away crying.

They were just little kids. Daisuke tried to remind himself of that, so that he didn't end up getting angry or disappointed. After all, it wasn't like he had been taking the responsibility very seriously. The whole reason they had started recruiting Cadets was so that -- brutal honesty time -- they could all grow up and have lives of their own. Jyou was just starting college, and some of the others were starting to think about it. Daisuke himself was supposed to be studying for his senior high school entrance exams.

Ken was supposed to be helping him with them.

Much too late, Daisuke realized he had punched his fist into a very Japanese wall. A few years ago, Iori had lived in an apartment just like his just across the street from Daisuke's own condominium. That had been before he and his mother had moved in with his grandfather -- some crap about country air being good for a growing boy. His granddad had a really expensive old-fashioned house with ornamental sliding doors and walls made of braced paper. Which meant that Daisuke's fist was currently sticking through said wall and dangling in the open air awkwardly on the other side.

He should've apologized. He was sorry for the property damage and the trouble Iori might get into over it. But Daisuke was lost in his own thoughts and didn't even pull his hand back right away.

When he'd gotten Iori's phone call out of the blue, the younger boy was trying to set up a meeting with all of the old Chosen Children. He hadn't explained the pattern yet, probably didn't want to have to say the same thing eleven times when he could've just told them all at once -- but in a by-the-way kind of voice, he had mentioned that he was having trouble reaching Ken and could Daisuke please stop by his apartment on the way to tell him about the meeting and make sure he was all right. Like the moron he was, Daisuke had reassured Iori. He had been so sure that, being Ken's Jogress partner, he would've known if there were anything wrong with the other boy.

Except that then he went to see Ken and found only his terrified parents, in the middle of telling some nice police officers that their baby boy hadn't come home last night. Instead of picking up his best friend for a meeting, he had ended up giving the police a full list of all the places Ken might be. Maybe he should've mentioned the Digital World, but he hadn't known yet...hadn't even suspected...

Had he just lost Taichi and Yamato, too?

They'd been having trouble reaching Gennai. Going in and looking around had seemed like the only option. Of course, hindsight told Daisuke that there had been plenty of other options -- options like simply waiting around for Gennai to contact them -- but at the time, sending Taichi and Yamato to check things out had been the best idea any of them could come up with. With Ken...unavailable, Omegamon was the most powerful single digimon they had, and one or two people with a digimon attracted a heck of a lot less attention than eleven people with eight digimon.

And if Ken had been there, he would have been the one to point out that two people with one digimon were also a heck of a lot more likely to get captured. At least now they knew for sure that they were dealing with an evil digimon -- before, they hadn't been quite so sure. Miyako in particular had thought their new enemy was another human being, but you couldn't get into the Digital World unless you were either Child or a digimon...period. Digivices didn't respond to strangers.

Daisuke couldn't help thinking that this tiny bit of information had come at way too steep a price.

"That's it," Koushirou was announcing behind him. "We've all checked our email accounts. No new messages except for the usual spam -- but if they were going to contact us, they would have done so by now."

"We haven't all checked," Miyako's voice objected. It sounded pointed, and Daisuke turned to look at her. She and the others were all staring at him intently. Hers was one of the more forgiving. "Daisuke still needs to make sure Taichi-san and Yamato-san haven't sent him an S.O.S."

He stared back at them, grinned weakly, and went over to log in. Someone had already pulled up his email company's homepage, so that all he had to do was enter his username and password. His fingers still felt stiff, but then, he wasn't really expecting anything. And he wasn't disappointed -- zero new messages, just like everybody else. On the other side of the room, Daisuke thought he heard a scuffing noise like someone moving the bookshelf in Iori's room so that it covered the hole he'd made. He didn't bother turning to look.

"So they've been taken," Takeru murmured, in a funny voice like he'd been holding his breath for way too long.

The Bearer of Faith shrugged, watching the computer screen idly out of the corner of one eye. "Perhaps, but then again perhaps not. Even if they had been abducted, their digivices would still be transmitting their location. Could this enemy digimon have destroyed them somehow?"

"Anything is possible," Koushirou told him gravely. "We have come up against digimon who had the foresight to destroy our Crests. On the other hand, Jyou and I were discussing a theory just yesterday that a digivice ceases to function after the death of its human wielder."

No one said anything for a beat. Daisuke stared at Koushirou. With a muffled sob, Miyako turned and pressed her face into Hikari's shoulder. Takeru and Iori were pale. Slowly, Koushirou seemed to realize what he'd said, and added in what was probably supposed to be a helpful sort of way:

"Of course, it's only a theory. There's...never been an opportunity to test it."

A thought occurred to Daisuke, and he frowned. "So there's no other reason they could've blanked out on us? They're not magic or anything. They probably have limits and stuff -- like how you can't get cell phone reception in a tunnel sometimes, or the way radar can't penetrate lead!"

"That's radiation, Daisuke-san, not radar." Iori quirked an eyebrow at him. "But the rest of what you're saying makes sense..."

"No more sense than Izumi-senpai's suggestion," Miyako pointed out, quiet and subdued. She sounded like she might have been crying still, but with her face hidden behind Hikari's neck, Daisuke couldn't be sure. "What if they really are all dead?"

Her Jogress partner was the one to answer. "They aren't, Miyako-san. I'm less sure about Yamato-san, but I would know if my brother had been killed. Why would this person -- this thing -- have left only one of them alive? No. They might not live to see tomorrow, but they're still breathing right now."

Anyone else, and Daisuke would've said derisively that he had thought the same thing about Ken. He might have even said it to Hikari if there hadn't been that look in her eyes that she only ever got when the Light within her was burning extra bright. Times like this made him glad that Hikari hadn't wanted to go out with him. She was really pretty, even more so this year because she'd let her soft brown hair grow out past her shoulders. It made her look older, like one of those girls he saw on Jun's magazine covers with the makeup and the earrings -- totally in spite of the fact that Hikari never bothered with any of that crap. Yeah, she was pretty. Beautiful, even. But there was a helluva lot more to Yagami Hikari than just a pretty face, and even though most of it was cool...some of it was really freaking creepy.

She closed her eyes, opened them, and patted Miyako on the back awkwardly as though she'd only just noticed the other girl clinging to her. Miyako let go with a thankful smile, and after a moment Takeru stepped in to put his arms around Hikari. Daisuke saw the hesitation, and figured the blond had been weirded out by the near-glow, too, but Takeru always recovered quickly enough. Bonus points for him.

That was when he realized that Miyako was looking at him expectantly. Apparently, she had pulled away before getting her full dose of comfort from Hikari -- or maybe the way Takeru was nuzzling his girlfriend just made her feel lonely. Daisuke rubbed the back of his neck, somehow managing to feel awkward in the midst of a crisis situation. His best friend was missing, his idols were in danger, and he still had trouble dealing with an ex-girlfriend.

They had lasted three dates, right up until the socially-mandated goodnight kiss. Then Miyako had gone for his forehead, he'd gone for her lips, and someone had ended up with a nose in the eye. Being 'just friends' had been a 2-0 decision. But he still would've rather not hugged her.

"You heard Hikari-chan," he pointed out, with the idea that maybe words would be enough. "If she says they're fine, they're fine."

Which might have done the trick, if Hikari hadn't pushed Takeru gently away to protest that she had never said Taichi and Yamato were fine. "All I know is that they aren't dead, Daisuke-kun. Being alive isn't the same thing as being fine."

Glaring at her, Daisuke gave up and held his arms out to his ex. She moved towards him haltingly, then sidestepped at the last possible second and hugged Koushirou from behind instead. The older boy yelped, but let her cling to him without comment. Daisuke was not-so-secretly relieved, and for the second time that day tried to put his thoughts into some sort of order. Now that everyone was agreed on the not-dead concept -- please let Hikari-chan be right -- it was time to make a plan of action. And with Taichi out of the picture, that job fell to him.

"Okay. Here's what we know so far, and stop me if you've got anything to add." Daisuke glanced round the room, waiting until he could be sure he had everyone's full attention. "A few months ago, the kids that're supposed to be watching the Digital World started disappearing. The few we've managed to warn quit because they're scared of being eaten. We tried to get a hold of Gennai-san so that we'd know what was going on out there, but he's not available. Which probably means that this guy or whatever he is got to Gennai-san before we could."

"You can't say that for sure," Takeru broke in -- but without much real feeling. He'd probably come to the same conclusion himself, but the Keeper of Hope wasn't allowed to despair.

Weakly, Daisuke grinned at him. He would've liked to believe the other boy. "Right," he said. "You're absolutely right. He's probably just busy with stuff. But for now, we can't count on him getting back to us anytime soon. We're more or less on our own."

"And someone has gone to an awful lot of trouble to make sure it stays that way." From his place on the floor, Iori looked up at Daisuke with deeply troubled green eyes. "I keep going over it in my mind, and I do not like any of what I am coming up with. We know that this digimon is powerful enough to take out an entire squadron of Cadets, and he has done at least one a day for the last few months without seeming to suffer any exhaustion. That's seven reasonably powerful digimon in less than twenty-four hours, times thirty days a month. Why would an enemy this powerful not simply destroy our gateways, announce himself the ruler of the Digital World, and challenge the other digimon to battle? If all he wants is to conquer his world, he has chosen a very time-consuming and roundabout method."

Miyako let go of Koushirou, and put her hands on her hips. "Maybe so," she began, "but it's been pretty effective so far, don't you think? All the other digimon have tried attacking us head-on, so maybe this guy knows it won't work. Doesn't that make sense?"

"Not what he means, Miyako-san," Takeru said. "And I happen to agree with him. Capturing the Cadets, my brother, Ken-kun, Taichi-san...we've encountered some clever digimon, but this is more than clever. For what you're suggesting to be true, this digimon would have to know how we operate." He shrugged his shoulders. "I think it's simpler than that. I think that every single Cadet got attacked because they were going into the Digital World and invading this digimon's perceived territory. That would certainly explain the pattern."

The Bearer of Purity snorted softly. "Or maybe we're not dealing with a digimon at all," she reiterated in the tone of someone who's made the same argument over and over without anybody really hearing it.

Her Jogress partner averted her eyes and murmured, "No. I can't believe that."

"Why not?!" Miyako demanded. "It's happened before!"

And indeed it had. But if Daisuke was right, it wasn't the idea of an evil human being that bothered Hikari. No. The idea that made Takeru's version so much easier to swallow was the idea that this whole setup had been intentional. Omegamon had been taken out so easily that the rest of them, with their far-less powerful digimon, couldn't risk even a short journey to the Digital World right now -- and they couldn't all go together, because if they charged in unprepared and this enemy defeated them, then it was game over. No one would be left behind to save the Digital World.

But if their enemy, human or not, had really spent months snatching Chosen Cadets and Children systematically, then somehow found Gennai and taken him out...if he was so insanely powerful that they couldn't even catch a glimpse of him without being captured...then he had more or less rendered them completely blind. They had no idea what he was doing in the Digital World, and if they were dealing with a digimon both that powerful and that clever, then this was also a part of his plan. And they had no choice but to play right into his claws.

Goddamn it.

End of Part Two.