Chapter Thirteen – “Broken Requiem”
In the Digital World ...
BAM! BAM! BAM!
...
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Renamon yawned as she woke up, and immediately rolled over to her side expect to find Mir there, but she was gone.
“Mir?” Renamon called panicking, waking up immediately and getting to her feet. She had a feeling something was wrong. “Mir ... where are you?”
BAM! BAM! BAM!
“MIR!” Renamon screamed panicking. “MIIIRRRR!”
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Renamon snapped out of her panic realizing that the knock on the door may be Mir. Maybe she had gone out to get some more food ...
But when Renamon went to open the door, all she saw were the pale faces of Guilmon, Impmon, and Terriermon looking down on her. Someone had removed the shrubbery that had been covering the entrance to the cove.
“Renamon!” Impmon said aghast. “Some womon with a hood on rushed past us. She dropped one of her gloves ... looked like one of yours, so we traced her footprints and ... God, I wasn’t expecting to see you here-”
“Where did she go?” Renamon said pushing past them to stand firmly on the surface. “Where did the cloaked stranger go?”
“Probably ran,” Terriermon said. “There’s some weird stuff going on up there by that section down the valley where the Mystics live. Everyone’s in a rush to get out of the valley ... we think it has something to do with the Sleber Tsal ... we think that the leader, Ciphermon, took the shape of Lopmon and robbed us blind, taking my money, Guilmon’s notes on relics, and an Upgrade Stabilizer from Beel...er.. Impmon. It looks like some kind of continuous explosion up there. The woman rushed past us before the blast though-”
“WHERE DID SHE GO!?” Renamon screamed at Terriermon so loudly that Terriermon fell right on his sitter. “WHERE DID SHE GO DAMMIT!?”
“Renamon calm down,” Guilmon said. “Look, we have to get out of here. The explosions are starting to get closer to the town-”
“NO!” Renamon screamed punching Guilmon square in the face knocking a ways backward. “WHERE DID SHE GO!”
And with that she ran off in the opposite direction,
towards end of the valley where the explosions were going off, which were
emitting gaseous puffs of smoke into the air which then swirled over the
“Let’s go,” Guilmon said, not caring Renamon had just hurt him. “She’s going to hurt herself if she goes down there...”
“You see my dear ... misfits,” Jordan Burgess was saying. “You’ve come this far, but a bit too late ... and I have my two accomplices to thank for that ... one of them being Mr. Martin, who as you can tell, is nowhere to be found, who fixed it so that your plan would lead you right here into my little trap ... you see, the Chronosphere exists in both worlds, which is my reason for being in the both of them, in human and digital form, however, thanks to a delay on the part of both of cohorts, I now have both pieces of the sphere, as you can see ...”
He held up the sphere, and it burst in a short but painful green light which made everyone groan and fall to the ground. They got up almost immediately ready to fight, except for Takato, who was slumped against the wall, not in the best physical shape to start with.
“The Chronosphere,” Henry dictated from memory. “The legendary relic blessed by the Mystics of the Digital World, and the monks of the Real World. Existing in both worlds, with the power to control time – in both worlds – at the will of whomever is able to join both pieces. It exists in the same place in both worlds ... here, in the place called the Bermuda Triangle.”
“Very good Mr. Wong,” he said. “Very good ... now if you had just figured that out a week ago when I had nabbed Earth’s half from the Triangle, all hell wouldn’t be about to break loose ... however, that is not the case ... and since I’ve no use for these human bodies anymore ...”
He snapped his fingers and the sphere vanished, most likely to the Digital World.
“I suppose its time to terminate our partnership,” he
said. “Agent Martin will be in the middle of
“Bomb?” Agent Potente asked but he had already snapped his fingers and all of the men dropped dead with one great thump leaving the Thunderground and the Tamers to reflect. “Shit ... Kyle must have planted a hundred bombs in this palce on the first floor during the gunfight. The entire foundation will collapse when they go! We’ll all be killed-”
At that moment, the guards, who had seemed to gain some courage came back in, only with machine guns.
POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP!
Potente was the first to go, as he dropped on the ground bleeding from every possible spot. Some of the girls screamed. Henry, wasting no time, pressed a button on a little remote control from his pocket. Seconds later there was a big silvery disc floating in mid-air, apparently a means of escape.
POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP!
Agents Cruz and Lee hit the ground.
“GET ON!” Henry said, as he picked up Takato’s limp body and put him on the disc. Jeri clambered aboard, and they realized immediately that there wasn’t any room for the Thunderground.
There was a loud explosion from downstairs. The bombs were starting to go off.
“N-no!” Takato said reaching out. “Keyana! Get on!”
“Takato there isn’t any room!” Henry cried as he starting to grab his remote. “We have to go-”
“NO!” Takato screamed even though he was barely conscience and slurring his speech like a drunk man. “Put me down, throw me off the damned glider! Let Keyana take my place-”
POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP- POP-!
Cosico, Kelly, Alon, Buttler.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
They all hit the ground, Keyana just a few inches from the shattered window where, just outside, Takato, Henry, and Jeri were.
“KEYANA!” Takato screamed reaching out for her. “NO!”
He reached out as far as he could from his position on the glider, and Keyana reached out too. The very tips of their fingers were able to touch before the glider began to pull away. More explosions could be heard downstairs.
“KEYANA!” Takato screamed. “KEYANA!!!!”
And even though it was a whisper among the gunshots in the room, and the explosions downstairs, Takato heard it.
“I love you Takato ...”
Inside the
“Renamon come on lets-” Guilmon started to say, but then all eyes were on the identical Digimon in the center of the room chanting. “What in God’s name...”
But then Mir dropped the book, apparently finished, took a frightened look at Renamon and disappeared. By the shocked look on her face, a third-party had transported her. For a long time everyone was quiet, until Renamon, stepping over the dead Mystics, picked up the book. It was in old Digicode, but Renamon, although rusty, spoke it fairly well. She spoke it in normal tongue.
“And so it is said that they will rise, among a new universe, the ones of sea, forest, machine, mirth, and absolute oblivion ... The ... Dark Masters ...”
Another long silence.
“Come on,” Guilmon said quietly a few moments later. “I think its time we got back to Digitopolis. My greatest fear has come true ... the war has begun.””
* * *
Henry sighed and hung up the phone.
“Yep,” he said wearily. “DAD reports that the barrier
between the two worlds has had a big whole blown into it. That Chronosphere
thing did some damage when it was reunited ... we’ve gotten the go-ahead to
cross the barrier ASAP. They want you, Rika, Kenta, Kazu, Ai, Mako and I to go,
and they’re pulling Suzie off of special assignment. We need to be back at the
lab in
Jeri nodded, and didn’t dare look back at Takato, who had been sitting around his apartment, the temporary base of operations for the Tamers, in his boxers with the stubble on his face growing ever more prominent.
“Er ... Takato,” Henry said turning towards him. “The DAD says they want you to come to ... but you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. If you just want to sit around and chill, I can just tell the DAD that you were afraid you didn’t have the field training, or some bull like that.”
Tick-Tock. ...
Tick-Tock. ....
Tick-Tock. ...
Tick-Tock. ...
Tick-Tock. ...
It was so quiet that you could hear the sound of Takato’s five dollar clock ticking the time away. It was a good thirty seconds before he responded.
“You know I have to go,” he said wearily. “They want the foremost experts on Digimon over there, and we’re the only capable holders of that knowledge still alive.”
Henry just nodded, not wanting to risk any unnecessary drama by saying something more. He said something barely audible about getting everything packed for the plane, because they’d be leaving in a few hours, but Takato barely heard him. He was off in his own world of self-pity, as he had been ever since they had gotten back from Technowerx on a night that seemed like an eternity ago, though it had only been a few days.
Tick-Tock ....
Tick-Tock ....
Tick-Tock ....
Tick-Tock....
Tick-Tock....
Jeri, who was sitting on the other side of the couch watching the television which Takato had had on for all this time on mute, felt very uneasy about the silence that filled the room. If anyone felt nearly as bad as Takato, it had been Jeri. Somehow she blamed herself for Keyana’s death, seeing as how she hadn’t exactly wished her a long healthy life after she heard Takato and her having sex in the very room behind them.
Tick-Tock ...
Tick-Tock....
Tick-Tock....
Tick-Tock....
Tick-Tock....
She opened her mouth to say something, but the words just wouldn’t come to her, and she had a feeling that there was a good chance whatever she said would make things worse.
Tick-Tock ...
Tick-Tock....
Tick-Tock....
Tick-Tock....
Tick-Tock....
There he was, Takato Matsuki, the childhood crush whom she had spent so many nights thinking about after he moved. She remembered when he had personally rescued her from the clutches of the D-Reaper, and when they had first kissed each other. Even more, she remembered a few months later when her reasons for still liking him all got set in motion.
* * *
Jeri giggled as she and Takato stumbled into Takato’s parents’ bedroom. They were both laughing and giggling foolishly since they had let Kazu and Kenta talk them into trying out this new drink they had found. They claimed it was just soda, but when the police came by, they grabbed the cooler filled with the cans and ran. They were quite lightheaded, but still well-aware of things. Jeri was in her usual green dress, sock puppet and all, while Takato was dressed in a Digimon t-shirt and some khaki shorts. He had lost his goggles on a school field trip a while ago, and hadn’t bothered to go looking for them.
They didn’t know what it was about that drink Kazu and Kenta had given them, but it had a way of making all of your troubles go away and making you feel completely at peace with yourself. Takato wasn’t sure if he had tripped or what, but the next thing he knew, he and Jeri had fallen onto their parents’ bed still laughing at nothing. These were the days of childhood, with an innocence and purity that they would never experience again in their lifetime, but of course, to qualify as innocent, they couldn’t be allowed to know that. It was a well-kept secret after all. The troubles of the world were nothing for year old kids to burden themselves with ...
But just as the first humans, Adam and Eve, children have a way of growing up too fast nowadays. Today you’re changing their diapers, and the next their driving a car or smoking cigarettes. There exists, in this world a line, a wall, a barrier of sorts. This contour separating childhood from adulthood, this mighty wall that towers over both generations is called innocence. The crossing between childhood and adulthood does not come with an age, or a drivers license, but with the lost of innocence. Once that wall comes crashing down the horrors that lie on the other side will come for you, and there is no way to turn back.
It is hypothetically possible for one to be a child forever, until the day when they pass from this earth into the other realm, and it is also hypothetically possible for one to be an adult as ages such as six and nine. It does not come with age, as previously stated, and although there are many ways to cross over that wall between innocence and reality, the most prominent is knowledge. Knowledge is the dynamite which will tear down that wall, the snake that offers the apple. Moreover, that beast of beasts waits for you always, even after the crossing so that it can sit over your shoulder and laugh at you. Before your crossing it follows you around anxiously begging you to let it fill your brain and push you over the edge.
The only question is: how will you go?
Takato, who only had a few precious months experience as a boyfriend was unfamiliar with how to handle a woman with care, but his head was so light and filled with happy feelings, thoughts, and memories that he didn’t think there was anything he could do anything wrong. Oh how he wished he had some more of Kazu and Kenta’s magic drink. It sure tasted bad, but a few minutes after the sweet nectar touched your lips, you could feel like there wasn’t a trouble in the world. It felt you with such an uplifting feeling that it was hard to believe that he hadn’t found out about this stuff before ... greatest stuff in the world it was.
Takato started giggling foolishly, and Jeri, smiling back at him in the darkness that enveloped the room talked through her sock puppet in a slurred voice.
“What’s the matter Takatomon,” said the puppet. “What’s so funny? Juri and I want to laugh too ...”
“Oh nothing,” Takato said wiping the tears of his mirth from the tears of his eyes. “I was so ... what did Kenta call it? I was so w-wasted that I didn’t even realize I was on top of you like this ...”
They both giggled. The puppet spoke again.
“Someone might think you wanted to fuck Juri,” it said with its usual bluntness and Jeri smacked the organge sock. “You mustn’t say such things, they might think I’m some kind of naughty slut ...”
The puppet spoke again.
“Would they be wrong?” it said, and Jeri sighed. “Why don’t you go on and be a slut, and I’ll just watch.”
The puppet nodded, and Takato, who was too far drunk to grasp this concept just giggled as Jeri, who had paid the most attention in sexual education class pushed the busy-haired preteen on his back. The puppet kissed in square on the lips while Jeri reached down and unzipped Takato’s khaki pants so that the puppet could reach inside.
“I thought you didn’t want to be a slut?” the puppet said in its pompous voice and Jeri answered. “Maybe I change my mind ...”
Soon Jeri was sucking on the head of Takato’s member, while the puppet was “sucking” his testicles with great vigor. Had the alcohol not numbed his senses so dramatically, he would have given Jeri’s face a surprise right there and then, but it was good that he held it in, because that gave him more time to enjoy this. The warmth and vibrations that consumed him put him higher than the heaven that he had already been resting at. Even though that same warmth and saturation didn’t come from the puppet, playing with his genitals like that still was sending chills up his spine.
Then it all stopped and Takato gave a disappointed animalistic groan. Jeri however, was busy taking off her socks and panties to notice, and Takato’s incessant whining immediately stopped when he saw what was happening. She tossed the sock puppet aside, straddled his legs, and let herself fall ...
* * *
Twenty-one years. That had been twenty-one years ago, but Jeri remembered it like it was still yesterday. That jumper, and that sock puppet were long gone, and the reason why was because those were things that only an innocent was allowed to have.
“She did a brave thing Takato,” Jeri said standing up. “I didn’t think she was God’s gift to the Earth like you did ... but she did a great brave thing. She made you happy ...”
And Takato, who seemed completely indifferent to Jeri’s speech, and was looking unblinking at the muted television screen, which had turned to static since the station had gone off the air, didn’t say anything. Jeri sighed, and felt the tears rushing to her eyes, so she left the room as soon as possible.
Then, suddenly, the slam of the door somehow reminded Takato that there was something he had forgotten to do. He got up from his couch, and made his way into the empty bedroom, where beside the dresser which was beside the still broken window laid a box. He didn’t know what to expect as he began to unwrap it slowly, but this was the last thing Keyana had given him, so whatever it was he planned to treasure it forever.
In the box, there were a number of items, and the second he saw them he started to bawl uncontrollably like the little kid, who twenty-one years ago, saved the world. It wasn’t the promise ring that got to him, or the goggles, and the old faithful deck of cards that Takato had carried when he was young, and Keyana somehow got from Japan, and it wasn’t even the two tickets to a beach resort in Hawaii. It was the stack of papers on the very bottom of the box with Keyana’s signature on every page.
My Resignation
Effective 9/08
Keyana Violet Buttler III
They had broken into Technowerx on the tenth.
* * *
“You know,” Ai said to Rika as Mako drove the car towards
the airport. They had to take a few separate cars since they had nothing to
carry all of the Tamers to
“About what?” Rika said as she put on her new sunglasses.
“About the Thunderground,” Ai said sighing. “About how we and the Thunderground were exactly alike. We all came together as kids and saved the world and a lot of us stuck around the whole superhero business long after that ... we were exactly the same ...”
“What’s your point?” Mako said. “Exactly what are you trying to say.”
Ai frowned.
“Do you think that could happen to us?” she asked. “I mean, there’s less of us than there were the Thunderground, and we don’t have any special powers, plus we’re going into much more dangerous territory than Technowerx ... I mean, if they’re whole team could get knocked out like that, who’s to say, we can’t all die to?”
Everyone was quiet for a while.
“Then we’ll go together,” Rika said. “The same way we came in this world: swinging. You two are in the wrestling business, you should know about that.”
“Rika,” Mako said in a concerned tone. “Wrestling is fa-”
“Besides,” Rika said cutting in. “If they lay a hand on me, I’ll come back to life, just so I can kick their asses. We’re the tamers after all ... we have a few years yet ...”
And before anyone could protest, Rika turned up the radio
so loud, that their ears started to ring. Halfway to the airport, they had
forgotten about the whole thing, and were talking about the old days back in
For the first time in her life, Rika Nonaka was afraid.
* * *
“And so while there has been no sighting of them,” Emperor
Guilmon said before the crowd of hundreds that had come to hear what happened
at
“Before me, I see numerous Digimon who are of the viral, data, and vaccine attributes, the same but different in a way. I know that many of you before me, even some that I sat down and broke bread with in the past are recording every word I say in your memories so that you can join the ranks of the Sleber Tsal. There are some among you, who will claim neutrality and objectivity in the dark days ahead of us, and will refuse to be bothered by either side. Then of course, those loyal to the empire, will fight alongside myself, and the rest of the famed D-Reaper champions ... but no matter what side you stand on in the weeks, months, and even years to come, there is something you must take into account.
“As brothers working toward a common goal in peace and prosperity, we are a strong righteous people, the likes of which no evil such as the Sleber Tsal can destroy. But as long as you share the evil in your heart that fuels the Sleber Tsal to continue their degenerative acts, we will never be at peace. Ciphermon and those of you planning to betray me, your Emperor of twenty-one years, believe that by causing discord, you can bring about peace. A peace that places you on top, and the rest of us below you, but when you stop to think on it, it makes no sense. We have peace now, we have prosperity now, and we have love and friendship now and today!
“I remember my days at Earth, in the corporal world, talking with my friend Takato, whom this very tower is named after. He told me about how on Earth, there were always wars, and always death, always darkness where there should be light, and how everyone on that planet believed that war was the only way to bring about peace. How blind could they have been, and how blind can you be now to think with that kind of absurd logic. You are fighting for something that we already have, and have had for the past twenty-one years.
“I’m getting old ladies and gentlemon. My data gets older and more degraded as the sun raises and sets, and although Digimon live many lives, this is one that I can make a difference in. This is one that I can change the world in! This is one that I will be able to stop unnecessary deletion in. If I am to drop dead tomorrow, reformatting on the horizon or not, I wish that I would be able to say: ‘At least I made a difference,’ or say ‘At least my world is at peace, and my people with it.’ I haven’t seen a Digital Civil War, and I – nor nobody around you – want to see one here today ... I know you have your doubts about me ... the traitor to the Viral Digimon ... about each other, about the empire ... but I know, even if you do not, or chose not to, that you are the finest people in existence ... and I would trust you with my very life. Now I’m asking you for a leap of faith ... and to trust me ...”
* * *
Renamon made a promise to herself, that she wouldn’t run away again, like she had all those years ago. She was probably more overcome with grief than she had been back then but still refused to take the cowardly way out again. She would stand with Guilmon, Impmon, and Terriermon to fight ... no matter what the cost. No matter whom she had to delete ...
... she still wasn’t sure about that last one.
If the text she had found in the temple was true, and both worlds were being affected by the use of this Chronosphere thing, than she reckoned some more old friends would pay a visit. At least she would get to see Rika again...
Sighing, she played around with the book they had taken from the temple. She kept wanting to wake up and have all of this be some kind of dream, and her lover whom she had searched twenty-one years for would not be a traitor to the peaceful Empire, and wouldn’t be aligned with the Sleber Tsal and responsible for performing the ritual which summoned the Dark Masters when she woke up. As she absent-mindedly flipped through the pages of the Digiscript book, words started floating up towards her conscience after being long buried.
“I sense that you are in great danger Renamon,” the Oracle had warned her and now it came to her a in a crisp I-told-you-so tone. “And sometime, not too long from now, a great chaos in both worlds will require you to make a choice that could either save the two dimensions ... or damn them both to cybernetic and subatomic oblivion.”
But what was the choice? How was she responsible for the possible annihilation of mankind and the Digital World? What exactly was it that the Oracle was trying to persuade her to do? She couldn’t see how she could have...
Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. It was an epiphany
that she had been subconsciously trying to blot out of her mind. It was the
same exact choice that she had come across twenty-one years ago in a stuffy lab
room in
But she hadn’t deleted MirrorRenamon, she had let her go run to the Digital World, safely away from those who would try to dismantle here, molecule by molecule. Why? Because she loved her, that was the reason she had given to justify keeping Mir, who existed outside of nature, alive.
But how sick was that? Wasn’t that twisted somehow, that she had literally fallen in love with herself? As a matter of fact, that was the vain, self-centered thing she had ever heard. It was ridiculous! Absurd! Preposterous!
...But then, why did she feel so bad knowing that MirrorRenamon was on the other side of the fence now? Why had she spent twenty-one years of her life seeking out herself? If MirrorRenamon truly wasn’t supposed to exist, than she couldn’t possibly be a real person, and that meant ... that meant that she couldn’t possibly love her, because she was nonexistent. A ghost, a shadow, a reflection, an echo calling her name.
“Renamon ... Renamon ... Renamon ...”
But the point remained that she didn’t feel bad, she did love her, and that meant that she must be a person. If she wasn’t than she wouldn’t still be holding onto this silly book, most of which she couldn’t read.
“Renamon ... Renamon ... Renamon ...”
The Oracle of Forever, however, had given her a chance.
She had given Renamon a chance to keep all of this from happening. The Oracle
was trying his best to tell Renamon to kill her without blurting it out ...
there was probably some rule about that. Though she had been given two chances,
she still blew both of them, and now the world was about to implode in a flurry
of violence ... all because of her. All because she loved someone too much ...
she wondered, however, if Mir really did love her back, or if it was all just a
ploy to get a quickie from the only person she could trust to be dumb enough
not to see the writing on the walls. Her anti-Guilmon position, her roughness,
the way she had to sneak outside in a cloak, and the fact she was reluctant to
leave
Renamon also wondered if she too could have become evil and traitorous as MirrorRenaon did. After all, when MirrorRenamon had been created, they started out both with the EXACT same past, and for a brief period of time the EXACT same way of thinking. If, for some reason, Renamon had left with Mir, or had gone to the Digital World in Mir’s place ... would she be the one holding this book now, or on the run from Emperor Guilmon?
Then her mind drifted back over to her previous wonderings about Mir’s love, or lack thereof, and as if the spirits were listening to her, she barely had grazed over the thought before a crumpled up piece of paper fell out of the book onto Renamon’s lap. It said “To: Renamon, From: Mir, This will explain everything.”
Inside was the last thing Renamon expected, and it brought tears to her eyes the first time she read it, but by the tenth time she read over it she began to understand more and more. It was ironic that after Renamon had read Mir a piece of human poetry, Mir, who shared her memories, after all, had sent one back. Scribbled on the other piece of paper was a very short verse. It read:
In that book which is my memory.
In the first chapter, on the first page,
That is the day, when I first met you,
Appear the words:
Here Begins a New Life
To be Continued...
Notorious: Sigh ... I spent the past five hours finishing this thingamajig – hey, did you know that thingamajig, thingamabob, gizmo, and doodad, all register as correctly spelled in spell-check, but trenchcoat doesn’t ... argh ... there it is again, those damned red lines! Stop it! Red! All I see is Red!!!!1111
Producer: ...
Notorious: THERE YOU SONS OF BITCHES AT MICROSOFT ... HOW DO YOU LIKE IT! RED! RED! RED! RED! HERE’S SOME GREEN FOR YOUR STUPID GRAMMAR CHECK TO! DIE MOTHERFUCKERS! DIEEEEE!!!!111 You shall be smited by thy lord God Notorious! Hahahahaha! ... what do you mean smited isn’t a word? ARGH MORE RED!
Producer: Er ... excuse me ‘God’ but don’t you have something to say about the one hundred an eight page lemon you-
Notorious: Actually its one hundred and nine pages.
Producer: No it isn’t its one hundred an eight!
Notorious: Hmmm ... wait a second.
SPAM!™
Notorious: You were saying?
Producer: Sigh ... never mind. We’d better let the readers reflect on this themselves. Oh and by the way
*SMACK!*
Notorious: *rubbing chin* ... right then ... that’s a wrap folks ... stay tuned for the Gate of Epsilon series, coming to a place near-
*SMACK!*
Notorious: OW! Why didn’t I fire you ...
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