Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Sent ❯ Iron Friendship ( Chapter 4 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: I don’t own digimon and I’m not making any money off of this. I’m just having fun.

“Yagami Taichi! Slow down and actually taste your food. We aren’t leaving until everyone finishes anyways,” Hikari chided me. I grinned.

“You sound just like Okaasan.” I was still shoveling the food in my mouth. My imotosan groaned. She would have tried to deny it if it weren’t completely true. Instead of saying anything else she turned back to her food, our fish banana combination from the night before. Three more quick bites and mine was finished.”

“Come on Augumon, let’s go take a run.” The orange digimon looked down at the rest of his food sadly, then shoveled in a few more bites before he stood up.

“Let’s go,” he said with a grin.

“Matt? Gabumon? You want to come with us?” Gabumon and Matt both looked up.
“Sure,” Matt said, standing and brushing off his pants. They had had the last shift and were up earlier than the rest of us. They had already eaten and packed their gear, so they had the time to go with us and it was good for Matt and I to keep in the practice of running every morning like we did in Odaiba. Normally we ran two or three miles a day, but Gabumon and Augumon normally stay home and slept also. They knew that it wasn’t safe for us to be alone and we knew that they were out of shape, unless you counted round as being one.
Our sorry group of four joggers headed out. I thought I was the only one lucky enough to be wearing jogging shorts, but Matt shed his jeans to a pair of his own. He probably kept them on all day so he didn’t forget to take them in to gym or take them home after school. It also explained why he tended to wash them twice as frequently as I did, even though I played soccer on top of everything.
The good news about the shorts were, since his exceptionally tight pants weren’t killing circulation to his extremities, he could with ease. The bad news was that it only took us about ten seconds to leave our digimon huffing and puffing behind us. Lucky for us we had decided to run along the water so that we could find our way back or we’d have to rely on our digivices, which were still a little foreign after upgrading yesterday.
We turned a corner and I my feet went to auto-pilot. Running with my best friend was always exciting for me. I could be at ease and let my thoughts wash over me, not to mention that being in his experience was exhilarating.
We were taking it exceptionally slow today, not wanting to get too far ahead of our digital friends. They had tried running in the past and just weren’t cut out for it. There was absolutely no reason for them to stay in shape, unlike me, the bronze skinned soccer player that had the whole school watching his every move, or Matt, the creamy skinned rock god who had all those fan-girls, and boys, begging to touch him. I was different than all of those little fan-kids; I could touch him, albeit not the way I wanted to. Maybe one day I could touch him however I damn well pleased, but chances were that it was going to be a while, if ever. I may be the bearer of courage, but that doesn’t mean I can tap into that reserve, especially in matters that concern Ishida Yamato. Once upon a time I was brave enough to do anything in the world, but then I formed a crush on Odaiba’s favorite rocker. Since then my courage has been limited to any matter not involving the aforementioned boy. Of course, that covers a lot of ground with normal people, but with the chosen? The instances of us not being in the same place were almost non-existent. We went to various sporting events, concerts and then all of us just hung out whenever we could. There’s almost never a time when I’m without one of my closest friends, between living with Kari, Gatomon and Augumon, playing soccer with Dai and Ken, classes with Matt, Sora and Mimi and spending almost every other free waking minute with the rest of them, whenever possible. We were closer than anybody in the school, and no one really challenged that. The only other people that really came into our select group of friends were the members of The Teenaged Wolves and a few teammates, and even they didn’t hang around much. They felt like outsiders among us chosen, with the exception of the Teenaged Wolves, but that may be due to the fact that we also happen to be their techies, especially Takeru. There was word going around that he was the manager-to-be. He wasn’t quite old enough yet, but he was doing his damnedest to prove that he would be a good one. From what I could gather from my imotosan he was already doing most of the managing work, getting paid under the table to bypass laws and to keep Natsuko, Matt and Takeru’s mom, out of the loop.
The older boy’s relationship with their mother had been pretty rough when they were young, but had gotten better in recent years and he wanted to keep it that way. Her finding out that his fourteen-year-old brother, barely a freshman, was working as his bands manager would cause a huge fight that their already fragile relationship didn’t need. At sixteen the answer might change, bit for now the idea would be vetoed flat out.
“Taichi, hey, Earth to Taichi,” Matt said, snapping me back to the real world. I hadn’t realized I had been thinking that hard.
“Uh, yeah?” It was the most intelligent thing I could come up with.
“You with us?” the blonde asked me. It made me wonder how long he’d been trying to get my attention. We may have been running a lot longer than I thought.
“Uh, yeah. Sorry. I was thinking.”
“About soccer?” the older boy teased.
“No, I was actually thinking about something else, thank you. I do think about other things.”
“Let me guess, food?”
I glared at him, but it was more playful than menacing. “I have other things on my mind than just soccer and food, smart ass.”
“Oh yeah, like what?” he shot back at me.
“None of your business,” I replied indignantly.
“Hmmm… Well, there’s only one other thing men think about. I think you have a crush Yagami Taichi.”
“Wha… what? I do not.”
“Tai, you’re blushing.” Although I didn’t want to admit it, he was right. I could feel the tops of my ears burning.
“That doesn’t mean I have a crush. Maybe I’m thinking about something highly embarrassing and I’m hoping you don’t find out what it is.” Technically this was true, but so was what he was saying. I did have a crush, not that I could tell him that. He’d want to know who it was and that was definitely not an option. I was no where near ready to admit I was gay to my best friend, let alone that I was in love with him. It could have disastrous results not only for our friendship, but for the chosen as a whole. We were the two closest people in the group, with the exception of my sister and me. We also knew what was going on in the other’s life without having to ask, but that’s a whole different story.
After hearing what I said Matt shrugged his shoulders and we continued running in silence. I went back to thinking, but more cautiously this time. I didn’t want to be caught off guard again.
“So who’s the lucky lady to be on the receiving end of your good graces,” Matt asked a few minutes later, Obviously he was going to push his luck with me today.
“There is no ‘lucky lady’ Matt. None at all.” This was probably the easiest thing I had said all conversation. There was no girl and there never would be.
“So who’s the lucky guy then?” he asked, smiling coyly.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
“Lucky guy?” I repeated, shocked, “Where did you get that idea?”
“Originally I was only joking, but now I’m not so sure about that,” he replied, looking at me funny. Internally I cringed. It hurt to have him look at me like that. Luckily externally I kept my cool and managed to talk my way out of it in supreme Taichi fashion.
“Well, you should be. I, Yagami Taichi, am not gay. I am as straight as a line. I am not into guys.” I was never very good at lying. Kari would have seen right through it, but Yamato shrugged and turned around, heading back to our digimon and camp. I turned and took off after him.
---
“Tai, when are we going to be getting to the lake?” I was about to lose my mind. I had no idea who asked this time, but I still didn’t know the answer. As far as Kou and I could tell we should have been there an hour ago.
“Ok, five minute break,” I said, stopping, “Kou, I need to see you.”
Kou walked over, laptop already open and looking at the screen, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Where are we? What’s taking so long?” I asked anxiously. Koushiro looked confused.
"The map says we're here. It says we're dead on top of the lake. I don't understand what's going on. We should be here." I grimaced. This wasn't good. If we couldn't count on Kou's computer then we were screwed. His computer was one of the few things we could rely on even in our past Digital World experiences.
"If the computer says it's here it must be here. We need to send out you and Sora out to search the air. We'll send out Weregarurumon to check on the  ground. The rest of us will check on the younger's and see if we can find any other food. What do you think?"
Kou mulled it over for a moment, obviously making sure it was the most solid plan we could come up with. Eventually he gave a small nod and said, "It's not a great plan, but I can't come up with anything better. We should inform the others."
I agreed with him and with a quick nod turned around to get everyone else's input. I wasn't trying to keep them out of what was going on so much as trying to figure out what the hell was going on to tell them. I am their leader, the one they look up to and the one who knows what to do in a time of crisis. I had pulled us through a lot, although not without a lot of help from everyone on the team. We couldn't have done it without everyone of them helping me. I was just the guy with the pretty face who possessed leadership qualities, not the team in full and all of us knew it. We were all equal on this team, each doing what we did best, this just happened to be my strength.
"Ok, everyone," I said. Heads whipped around to find out what was going on. They were all tired and hungry, even the ones who were normally very active.
We hadn't gotten much sleep last night and it wasn't like we had gotten  much sleep in the days before we had left either, but chosen are built to run on no sleep. It was whatever made adrenaline that did it. Our little adrenaline producer worked over time, stumped as I was over what to call the damn thing. "The map says we're close to the lake, but we may have veered off of the path, so I think we need to do some searching. I'd like for Kou and Kabuterimon and Sora and Birdramon to go do some air cover and I'd like. Garurumon and Matt to go and look on the ground just in case something gets missed. How does this sound to everyone?"
"Why are you only sending Kou and Sora into the air? We can cover more ground faster if all of us who can fly go," Ken asked, confused as to my deduction. We could look more if we sent all of us up.
"It's because we need to make sure that nothing is missed. I don't want the chance of anyone thinking that somewhere was searched by someone else when it wasn't. It's important we don't mess this up. It could mean life or death." I could tell Ken was still getting used to our way of running the group. It wasn't surprising that he was, seeing as generally we all thought the same. Normally the only people who questioned decisions were Matt and Kou. Matt because he had always been my little pain in the ass and Kou because he was a genius.  Even when someone else came up with a plan there normally wasn't much questioning on it except for by the three of us. It was just the way us olders worked. We were just more tuned into one another. No one could ever beat the bond of Kari and I though. We knew when something was going on in the others life, who it was involved and many other thing. We only asked to get the actual specific details. After listening to my explanation Ken nodded. It all made sense to him now.
I turned to our smaller counterparts, "Is this ok with you? If you guys are too tired from the walk we can stop and rest a while or wait until tomorrow."
"Seriously Tai?" Gabumon asked, "You know I'm always up for anything and I'm pretty sure that the other two would love to go too."
"Affirmative."
"Always."
I nodded. I had figured on this response, but I liked to ask anyways. It wasn't fair to just assume that they were going to do whatever we wanted them to whenever we wanted them to.
"Any other objections?" I asked, casting my gaze around, looking for anyone who wanted to say something. When no one obliged I nodded. "Let's get moving then."
At that the digimon digivolved, turning into the champion forms. Their respective partners hopped on their back and got ready to leave. I grinned. Garurumon stopped when he saw this and grinned back, hunkering down slightly on his hind legs. If that wasn't an invitation I didn't know what was. I let out a hoot and took off. I put my placed my hands on his rump like I was playing leapfrog and launched myself on to his back, wrapping my arms around my best friends waist. Before anyone could object Garurumon took off at full speed.
Matt turned around to look at me with a smile that could melt the north pole, "You always have to make things difficult, don't you, Yagami?"
I squeezed him a little harder, leaned in close to his ear and said, "Of course."
---
" So, did you find anything?" Mimi asked as soon as we returned to camp. The looks on their faces told me that they had had just as much luck as I'd had. I sadly shook my head and heard a collective groan.
Jyou looked over at me, "So, now what do we do Tai? We could be miles off course if the map is wrong."
I nodded, unsure of what exactly I should tell them. Sometimes it sucked being leader, but it was what I do best, other than playing soccer. Finally I said, "There's nothing we can really do about it today, let's make a fire and relax, we haven't slept much and this will rejuvenate us for tomorrow. Trouble always manages to find us, so maybe just sitting around is the answer for now." I could see the relief wash over everyone's faces. We were all tired and needed to rest.
"If nothing happens we'll work something out in the morning." What I failed to mention when I said that was it would probably be something along the lines of wandering aimlessly until something did happen and it never failed that eventually something would. We just had a knack for getting in trouble. We were the Chosen, what's left out of that statement is for trouble.
---
"What the hell is that noise?" Jyou asked as I put fish on to cook.
"What noise?" Mimi replied, oblivious to the cackle that had just emanated from the sky. I pulled my fleece pullover closer as a sudden chill ran down my spine. I was suddenly grateful that Gennai had thought to pack me khaki cargo pants and the orange and black pullover, although I doubted the cold feeling I was suddenly experiencing was coming from an actual temperature change. Strange noises coming from the sky were very rarely good.
Regardless of how I felt, it was my duty to take charge. I looked over at Augumon and out of the corner of my saw Matt do the same with Gabumon. All four of us nodded at the same time and Augumon and Gabumon set off in a warp digivolution just as another cackle ripped through the air. Without even thinking about it all of the others joined in, automatically digivolving to the Ultimate level. The cackle continued, getting louder until it was almost deafening. I cringed and pulled my pullover up to my ears, trying to block it out. Everyone around me did the same.
"What the hell is that?" someone asked.
"It's Illusiomon," Tentomon told us, "He an ultimate level digimon that's the master of illusions. He's difficult to beat due to his ability to change the appearance of everything around him.
I took a deep breath. Of course, we get the digimon that can confuse the hell out of us. Wonderful.
"How do we beat him?" I asked, "What's his weakness?"
"You're just going to have to hope he slips up or we get lucky and get him. He has to disguise himself as something in the area, but we won't know what unless we hit him or he tries to do too much at once and forgets to cover himself."
I gritted my teeth. This was probably going to be the worst battle yet. All of our battles sucked, but this was going to be almost impossible.
The cackling stopped and we all slowly removed our hands from our ears, unsure if he could possibly just be taking a breath. Once we realized that it wasn't we let out a sigh of relief. Everyone then looked at me for a plan. Sometimes it really sucked to be leader.
"Does anyone have any ideas on how to handle this?" Everyone pretty much just looked at the ground and shrugged. They were about as helpful as I was in this situation. None of us had a clue.
I looked to my left just in time to see an attack coming our way. I grabbed Matt and dove out of the way just in time to avoid getting hit. I didn't even have time to tell before the Weedmon  were on top of us. All of us chosen ran out of the way and our digimon began to attack, all of them except for one. Zudomon was no where to be seen until the barrage of attacks hit the Weedmon. The digimon disappeared and Zudomon was left in his place. Illusiomon laughed again as our digimon friend was launched into a tree. He almost de-digivolved, but he managed to hang on.
"You dare challenge me, an Illusiomon? You should surrender now where you can die a painless death instead of later where you'll be forced to endure my illusions," the voice said, coming from everywhere and no where all at once.
"We don't surrender!" I yelled back, trying not to look at Zudomon. I didn't want my courage to fail me.
"We've made it past stronger enemies than you!" Matt chimed in behind me.
"Have it your way." And then all my friends disappeared, with the exception of Wargreymon. For about thirty seconds no one was in the clearing, and then it was filled with Weedmon and I suddenly had my hands bound behind my back and I was gagged. The same happened with Wargreymon.
"I'm going to play a game with you, bearer of Friendship. You will have a fair chance to win. There will be no tricks, just my illusions. The weedmon you see in front of you are either me, your friend Wargreymon and his chosen or an illusion. When you attack them you will find out what they are. If it is me than I will show myself and wage a fair fight against you. If its a friend they will be shown. If it is an illusion then it will just disappear. Does this sound fair?"
"It sounds evil and sadistic!" Matt yelled, "How are we supposed to trust you anyways? You can make it look however you want." I began looking around for the Weedmon. I couldn't see a one of them. Then it dawned on me, I couldn't see them because I was one of them.
"What would be the fun in that? I'd win, but I'd be a cheater. I really can't stand cheating. It takes all the fun out of it. Its boring when you can always win.”
Matt growled. There was no way that he could make this decision. He could end up injuring one of us or worse, and one of us was his baby brother.
Metalgarurumon was looking around at us, unsure of how to proceed. Both he and Matt were turning in circles. Matt looked like he was going to have a break down. It broke my heart to see him like that, but there was nothing I could do, bound and I gagged as I was. Eventually the blonde boy collapsed on the ground in a fit of tears. He opened his mouth and let out a heart breaking scream, “I WON‘T HURT MY FRIENDS!” With that his wrist and his digimon started to glow.
“Metalgarurumon digivolve to Curseweregarurumon!” Metalgarurumon stood up and returned to something similar to his ultimate form with a few minor differences. His stripes had turned a more purple hue and his arm now showed a distinct bite shaped scar. His chest had a new design on it, a skull and crossbones that had originally been on his pants, marking him as cursed.
The new digimon sniffed the air. “I can smell them, Matt, and I can smell you Illusiomon. You don’t smell like my friends. Curseweregarurumon attacked what looked like thin air. As he did so a small, black, cloaked digimon appeared and our bonds were released. Our digimon let out a war cry and let loose on the Illusiomon. It was a matter of seconds before the digimon was destroyed, sending him back to Primary Village.
As Illusiomon was deleted the forest around us disappeared and we saw the lake that we had been searching for since earlier that morning. As we all watched the lake appear Ishida Yamato, my friend and crush, ran up and planted one dead on my lips.
A/N: Yes, a cliff hanger! You lot might just kill me over it too, seeing as I haven’t updated in months, but I have a good reason for that. My computer got stolen in April and I just got it back. Because this took so long I decided to get three chapters up for you today two of which I wrote today. They may not be quite so long as the this one, but still a good length. Oh, and reviews are always welcome.