Defender's Keep VIII

The voices screamed around Raven.

We don't need this guy.

Are you crazy?

You'd be better off dead.

 "NOOO!" Raven screamed sitting bolt upright.

"Shh." Kari said gently pushing him back down. "Do you know where you are?"

Raven focused past Kari to take in his surrounding. Crude stone walls, dirt floor. He should know this.

"Come on Raven." Kari said gently in the Once Speech. "Where are you?"

"Cave." He managed. "Poison."

"That's right." She said draping a cold compress on his forehead.

Can I have some water? Raven asked silently. My throat hurts.

Here you are. Kari answered wordlessly.

Thanks. Where are the others?

Izzy, T.K., and the Digimon are out foraging for food, except for Voidmon. Aloud she said. "Hey Voidmon."

"I'm here Raven. I'm not going to leave you." She said drifting down from the ceiling.

"Good to know." Raven said managing a goofy grin.

"You should rest." Izzy said from the mouth of the cave.

"What day..."

"Day seven since we met."

"There's still time." Raven muttered as he sank into oblivion. "Still time."

Kari waved Izzy and Voidmon over to a corner. "He's getting worse." Izzy said. "He started thrashing in the middle of the night and I had difficulty restraining him."

"I know." Kari said brushing a bang out of her eyes. "He's going through compresses faster than I can make them."

"Your both overlooking something." Voidmon said as Gatomon came over to the group. "Not just his body is sick."

"She's right." Gatomon said. "His body may have another seven days, but his mind might not last that long."

~*~

"Good morning Stephan." Nijamon said.

"That's debatable." Stephan said. And call me Steve." He winced as he stretched.

"What's wrong?" Nijamon asked.

"I HURT!" Steve exclaimed. "I've never known pain before."

"Is it serious? Can you walk?"

"Oh I can walk." Steve said pulling himself into a standing position. "But it might be a few days before I'm flight capable again."

"Then we walk." Nijamon said floating along at a sedate pace.

"How are you able to float?"

"How are you able to fly?" Nijamon replied.

"I don't know. I just do."

"As do I." Nijamon said as he floated towards the rising sun.

"Nijamon can you help me?" Steve asked.

"I can try." The little mask said.

"You see, I've got this friend." Steve began. Within minutes he had related the entire encounter with Raven the previous day. When he finished, Nijamon was silent. "Are you listening?"

"Whenever I am not speaking, I am listening." Nijamon said thoughtfully. "You are the first friend I have ever had so I may not be the best person to advise you on this. You are my friend, right?"

Steve pondered that a moment. "Yes Nijamon." he said with a smile.

"Good." Nijamon said. "Now the decision can only be yours, but tell me more about your friend so that I may advise you better."

"Raven? He'd one of the best. I think I may have learned more from him than most of my teachers. And we could talk, I mean really talk. I remember there was the time..."

It took Steve a week to tell all the stories he could remember about Raven. Some happy, some sad, all were unforgettable.

"So," Steve said as the two sat gazing at the stars on night. "What do you think I should do?"

"Get some sleep." Nijamon said casually.

"A lot of help you are." Steve said caustically.

"I mean it." Nijamon said. "You've told me everything you can about your friend, so go to sleep while I think about it."

"What about Defender's Arch?"

"Arch tomorrow. Sleep now."

"Good night Nijamon." Steve said resignedly.

"Good night."

~*~

Faith leaned against a tree and lit a new cigarette.

"How many of those have you had since we got here?" Destiny asked.

"This makes two." Faith said. "Not counting the two drags I lost when we ran from those..."

"The fujimon?" The little walking rockpile supplied. "The buzz saw blades with wings."

"Yeah. Thanks Pebblemon."  Faith said taking a drag and savoring the sweet nicotine hit. "You want one sis?"

"I don't want to smoke all you cigs, Faith."

"Not likely. I've got most of a carton." Faith said.

"Thanks, but I'm cool." Destiny leaned against a tree and thought back. It had been three days since they had been sucked into this 'digital world' as Pebblemon- no, actually he was a Sandimon then, wasn't he? Anyway, he explained that he was her personal bodyguard or something. Shortly after they met, the strange device that had pulled them into this world, which Pebblemon called a digivice, had lit up with a single red dot, meaning that someone like her was nearby. So while trying to find this mystery person, they had been bombed by walking plastic explosives, chased by buzz saw blades with wings, and attacked by a Kwagumon, twice. And Pebblemon said there were worse things.

"Heads up!" Faith called bringing Destiny back to the present as she snuffed out her cigarette. "Bug boy on our six!"

"Not Kwagumon again." Destiny moaned, checking her digivice before clipping it to her belt. 

Faith tackled destiny to the ground, sparing her an extreme haircut as Kwagumon dived at them. "'Fraid so."

"Which way?" Pebblemon asked pulling them to their feet.

"That way." Destiny said pulling Faith into the underbrush to slide down a ravine. "My isn't he crabby?" She mumbled  as Kwagumon roared in frustration.

"That's not going to stop him for long." Pebblemon said as Kwagumon began shearing off the treetops. "We should go."

"Not yet! The signal's getting closer." Destiny said.

"I think I see someone at the top of the ridge." Faith said as a figure skidded down the slope.

"You?" Destiny said when the figure hit the bottom.

"Small digiworld, ain't it?" Foxe Martinez said.

~*~

Tai hissed as his whipped scarred back was forced into the scalding water.

"Silence slave!" The multifaceted Gemmon overseer snapped. "And be thankful we give you the honor of a bath!"

It had been five days since they had left Raven and the others at the cave, Tai recalled as he was scrubbed with a wire brush. They had been walking though the forest when they fell into an abysmally deep pit. Tai lost consciousness when he hit the bottom and when he came to, he, Sora, and Mimi were in shackles being transported to Cherrymon's  mines. Questions reeled through Tai's mind. Were T.K. and Kari all right? Where did Joe disappear to? Where were the digimon? What had happened to Matt? No one had seen him sense they regained consciousness. Had he escaped, or been captured, or...

"Out of the water, vermin!" Tai jumped to feet and pulled on the ratty cloth tatters that passed for clothes among the slaves of the mines.

"Tai!" Sora said as he was thrown into the cell he shared with the two remaining digidestined. Sora hugged him, as acutely aware of his scarred back as she was of her own.

"How's Mimi?" Tai asked. 

"Not good." Sora said, looking at the pale figure crouched in a shadowy corner. "They gave her a salt water bath."

"Again?" Tai whispered incredulous.

Sora nodded. "They're trying to break her, Tai."

"Mmm hmm." Tai acknowledged.

"Hey," Sora grinned weakly. "she hit a guard with her pickaxe today. On purpose."

Tai managed a weak smile of his own. "Our Mimi? The creampuff?"

"She's not a creampuff, Tai. Not any more." Sora said. "What are you thinking about?"

"Everything. Matt, Joe, Raven, the kids, the digimon." Tai paused a moment. "You."

Even in the murky light of their cell Sora could see Tai blush. She leaned in close and gave him a soft kiss. "Finally, some decent lighting." She joked as Tai blushed brighter.

Tai grinned sheepishly as he brushed a stubborn bang out of Sora's eyes. Even here, battered, bloody, with a vicious scar marring her right cheek, she was still beautiful. "Sora I-"

"In your bunks slaves!" A guard called. "A hundred lashed for noncompliance!"

Tai laced his fingers and boosted Sora up to the topmost bunk, then jumped up as Sora grabbed his hands and pulled him up. "C'mon Mimi." Tai whispered. "Get in your bunk."

For the first time since he arrived, Mimi looked right at Tai her eyes blazing, and spoke a single syllable.

"No."

Moments later a guard burst in, slammed Mimi up against the wall and began wielding his whip. Sora choked back sobs as Tai buried his face in his arms and cried.

When he finished, the guard threw Mimi into the bottom bunk with sufficient force to crack the slate wall. As the guard slammed the cell door, Mimi pulled herself into a standing position, spat blood at the closed door, and resumed her position in the corner as though nothing had happened.

For the first time in a long time, Tai cried himself to sleep.

~*~

Matt sat bolt upright and instantly regretted it as his head exploded in a burst of pain. He closed his eyes and thankfully the pain subsided. He opened his eyes and looked around the dimly lit room when his eyes fell on his digivice and crest inside a cupboard. He swung his legs to the floor and let out a howl of pain. Looking down he found that his leg was wrapped in a crude cast halfway to the knee.

"Geez. I sounded like Gabumon." Matt mused aloud, carefully putting his weight on his good leg. Remembering his digifriend, Matt yelled. "Gabumon!" When there was no answer he tottered to the cabinet. "Hey Gabby!" He shouted using Gabumon's hated nickname which always got a reaction out of him, but now nothing. Peering into the cabinet, Matt saw that his digivice and crest resting on top of one of Mimi's gloves. "Mimi? Is she here too?" He asked trying the cabinet. Finding it locked, Matt drew back and punched the glass panel as hard as he could.

The resulting explosion of energy  blasted Matt back to the bed.

"Oh my goodness!" A female voice cried as someone came dashing down the stairs. "Matt! I didn't expect you to be awake so soon!"

"Mimi? Is that you?" Matt asked shaking his head as the slim brunette helped him back into bed.

"No." The girl said. "I'm Jenna. I found you in the woods two days ago with a broken ankle and a fractured skull."

"How do you know my name?" Matt asked raising one hand to his bandaged head.

"I know all about you 'destined." She said turning up the kerosene lamp by the side of the bed. "You see, Gennai is my brother."

"You can't be Gennai's sister. He's ancient."

"True, but there's something to be said about being a baby sister. Kari would do well to remember that."

"How are they?"

"T.K.'s fine, Kari's a little sleep deprived, and Izzy's doing an all right job of keeping it all together."

"And Raven?"

Jenna averted her eyes and changed the subject. "What were you doing out there?"

"Looking for Mimi's crest." Matt replied thinking back. "We were walking and and a pit opened up right beneath us. Tai and Sora were right in the middle, but Mimi and I were closer to the periphery. I managed to grab the edge and catch Mimi with my other hand, but her hand slipped out of her glove. The way she looked at me when she fell..." Matt pounded the bed in frustration. "Anyway I pulled myself out and went looking for help. It got dark, I tripped over a root, and I guess I cracked my head pretty good on a rock."

"It's a good thing I came along when I did," Jenna said. "or your brains would have leaked out for days. I have good news and bad news. The good news is my brother tells me that the others are still alive. The bad news is their crests are changing."

"Does that mean they're dying?"

"No. It means the part of their personality that the crest represents- Tai's courage, Mimi's sincerity, and Sora's love- are changing."

"Wow. I know we all could use some improvement but..."

"They wouldn't be the ones you have come to call family." Jenna said. "You're probably gonna be laid up for a couple days longer." She said pushing Matt onto his back with one hand and sprinkling a silver dust in his face with the other.

"What-" Matt began weakly.

"Dream dust." Jenna whispered turning down the lamp beside the bed. "We'll talk more tomorrow."

Matt didn't hear her. He was already asleep.