Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Remembering To Burn ❯ Chapter Six ( Chapter 6 )

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. Toei does. Certain ideas in this fic inspired by the Empress of the Eclipse's "Entrapped"

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Remembering to Burn

Part Six

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"I don't like the look of this." Jyou said. They'd been walking through a large cavern with very few exits when twenty digimon had appeared and quickly cut off the possible escape route. Once again Necromon led the opposing forces.

"Me neither." Koushiro agreed he looked at the digimon. "There are less overall than last time but more Champions and the Ultimate is along again."

"And this time we've got nowhere to run." Yamato muttered. Even as he spoke their own digimon were digivolving. Hikari had reacted with surprising speed and Nefertimon was already tossing Rosetta Stones around and cutting a swathe through the rookies.

Miyako still had his digivice so Ken could only watch, hug Wormmon and feel helpless as Daisuke prepared to get Veemon to armour digivolve. Before he could, however, he fell while dodging one of Necromon's spears. The little blue digimon cried out and digivolved into Exveemon as Ken ran over to his friend.

"Are you all right?" He asked as he tried to check the other boy over.

"I think my bruises have bruises." Daisuke groaned but then he smiled proudly at Exveemon. "Isn't he great?"

Ken nodded then jumped slightly as Miyako pushed his digivice into his hand.

"If you're on our side then help us!" she hissed before they both jumped to dodge another attack. Ken looked at the digivice and then down at his digimon.

"Wormmon, can you digivolve?" He asked quietly.

"You want me to?" He asked. Ken nodded. "It's been a while…" There was a pause then, "Wormmon digivolve to Stingmon."

Ken stared at his digimon's champion form in amazement. "That's…" he began but was interrupted by Daisuke yelling for him to duck. He hit the floor flat just as some shards of rock flew through the point where his head had been moments earlier. He looked up in time to see Stingmon attack and delete the digimon with the rock attack. {And I thought he was useless. For a genius I've been a damned idiot.} He looked round at the rest of the fight. All the rookies and four of the champions were gone but their digimon were still spending most of the fight defending their human partners from attack. He saw Angemon take one of the spears to prevent it hitting Takeru and immediately de-digivolved to Patamon. He looked around and saw only one hopeful thing. He rolled over to Iori.

"Can I see your notes?" He glanced at the pad that was thrust at him. "Our exit's clear."

Iori looked at his notes and nodded. "Everyone head for that exit!"

They ran like crazy and moments later Digmon was collapsing the tunnel to stop their opponents following them.

"That was close." Miyako said. "Hey, Ken, your arm's bleeding."

He looked and it was. There was a long but shallow cut on his upper arm "It's just a scratch." He reassured her.

"Let me look at it." Jyou said firmly.

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Iori's notes had led them to the exit to the cave system with relative ease once their various bumps and scratches were dealt with and now most of the Chosen Children were sitting comfortably around the ruins of the control spire they had been trying to destroy the previous afternoon. Jyou had already taken Hikari back to the real world to get her arm dealt with properly but the others were resting because Ken had asked them to help him decommission his base.

"That shouldn't take long." He assured them. "I'm afraid that it's going to be cleaning up the Control Spires that will take the time. I can turn them off from the base but not destroy them." He sighed again. "The only problem is that I'm not sure what will happen when I let the imprisoned digimon out of the holding bay." Ken paused as his neck prickled and that cold insidious voice began whispering to him again. On instinct he reached for that strange pale purple energy he had briefly sensed within himself when he had made friends with Daisuke and again when Wormmon had digivolved. As he grasped it the pain flared and he couldn't bite back the scream he gave before he clenched his teeth and hissed. "I am not going to be cruel ever again." He sensed shock from his tormentor and heard him howl in rage. Then the pain died completely.

"What just happened?" Yamato asked. "Who were you talking to? I know it wasn't us. And that was one hell of a scream you gave first." Ken looked up at the original child of friendship.

"I don't know." Ken frowned. "Someone was trying to get into my head and turn me back into the Kaiser."

"It was the Dark. One of it's forms anyway. He finally told it where to get off." Wormmon said proudly.

"Whoever it was they weren't happy about this." Ken said. "I sensed that before I blocked them out. They'll try something else now."

"Whoever they are I'm sure that we'll find out soon enough." Daisuke said. "What are you going to tell your parents."

"Apart from 'stop expecting me to be my brother'?" Ken frowned. "No. I can't exactly tell them about all this, can I?" He looked thoughtful. "If you're right they'll be so pleased to see I'm okay that they won't expect a straight answer."

"You could always say you were abducted by aliens who wanted to use your brain to power their starship." Daisuke said with a smile. Everyone laughed at that.

"I'll tell them I needed some time to find myself and refuse to give details." Ken decided.

"Sounds as good as anything."

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"Damn, what a mess!" Chiharu muttered. "I'm sorry, Denbe-kun, if I had listened to you from the start we'd be on our way to victory not picking up the pieces."

"There's no arguing with that." He agreed. "But it could be worse and to be fair they were very lucky."

"And that was predictable as well. When it comes to getting out of sticky situations Motomiya's always been lucky."

"Well they do say that fortune favours the brave and in his case it seems to be literally true. He is the new child of courage after all. Where's Ali?"

"After she'd checked Necromon was okay she was seen stalking towards the dungeon. I pity whatever digimon attracts her attention tonight. I've never seen her so angry -- and you know how she is when she's angry."

Denbe shuddered. "Are you okay?"

"I'm scared. You of all people should know that."

"I do know. I don't understand why. Chiharu-chan, talk to me. What's caused this?"

"Kamiya." She told him but didn't elaborate.

"The Child of Light? I could understand angry or upset but scared. She can't harm you can she?"

"It's not that. I sensed something strange about her. I don't know what it was but it scared me. I only just hid it."

"It was probably her powers. We know she has them."

"Probably." Chiharu didn't sound convinced. "Oh well at least I'll have a year to come up with a better plan."

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"This place is horrible." Miyako said as Ken led them to his control room.

"It's not exactly pleasant is it." He agreed. "I apparently lost my sense of the aesthetic along with my mind." They turned into the control room and he immediately went to the keyboard. He was about to issue the commands that would turn everything off all when Koushiro touched his shoulder.

"Open the cages and order all the ringed and spiralled digimon to go away as fast as possible first."

"Huh?"

"It'll solve your problem. If you get them all clear before releasing them they won't be able to attack you or whatever."

Ken considered the suggestion. It did make sense. "Okay." He tapped the instructions on his keyboard and watched as the dots representing the enslaved digimon left the base. "How far away should I let them get?"

"Far enough away that we'll be able to do whatever needs doing here and get to the nearest digiport." Miyako suggested. Ken watched the dots and quickly calculated. "We'd better wait at least Half an hour then." He frowned as something appeared on another screen. "Shit!" He clicked a couple of keys and spoke into a microphone. "Cease and desist in all aggressive actions immediately! Apologise on my behalf and give her something to eat."

"What's wrong?" Miyako asked.

"A Starmon I ringed a while back was attacking your friend Sora's Biyomon. I stopped him."

"That's good." Miyako said. "That you stopped him I mean."

"I guessed that." He said and looked around. "I hate this place. I don't know why I designed it this way. No wonder I was in a bad mood all the time. This place is enough to foul anyone's mood."

Nothing else of any particular note happened while they were waiting for the ringed digimon to be far enough away. Ken began closing off programs and projects that wouldn't effect the behaviour of the ringed digimon while he waited. The digidestined talked among themselves.

Once he was confident that all the digimon were far enough away he decommissioned all the rings and spirals. Then he turned off the spires and powered down the base.

"I guess that's it then." Koushiro noted.

"There is one more thing. There's something I want to collect. Then I'll set this place to self-destruct." He was aware that they followed him to the engine room. They probably didn't entirely trust him yet. He certainly wouldn't blame them. He reached up to the slot and removed his crest.

"Hikari was right!" Koushiro whispered. "He does have a crest."

"I never doubted my sister's word." Tai smiled.

"Let's get back and set the auto-destruct." Ken interrupted.

Twenty minutes later, just as the base exploded, the digidestined passed through the digiport into the real world and as usual landed in a heap. Before they had time to groan let alone disentangle themselves a voice spoke from behind them.

"What the Hell is going on?" Jun Motomiya asked from where she stood in the doorway.

"Hum."

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R&R, please