War Diaries Entry 14 - Piercing the Vale By Lord Archive Digimon and most characters in this series belong to Toei Animation Inc., Saban Entertainment, and others. They are used without consent. This story is rated PG-13 for language, adult situations and violence. If you, or your parents, find swearing, children taking about sex or descriptions of fighting objectionable, do not read this. ---------------------- On top of the observation dome of Fuji Television Station were eight children. "We have to hurry. The wedding is currently going on," Sakura said coldly. "The mass teleportation of so many Chosen to the wedding reception below us has weakened the barrier to the Digital World. As long as we stay focused, we should succeed this time. We can finally achieve our own Digimon partners and increase our powers!" "I know, I know," Noriko snapped. "Let's just do it." The eight children formed a circle and held each other's hands. Noriko grimaced as she began to glow, shortly followed by Sakura's aura flaring as well. One by one the other children became surrounded in shining light. Then, like a bolt of lightning, a flash of blinding light shot to the heavens. The eight children were somehow not effected by the light as they stared at the hole in the sky. And from that hole came eight pillars of different colors. A blood red pillar landed in front of Noriko and faded to reveal a red baby digimon named Punimon. A dark gray light crashed before Sakura leaving behind a white baby digimon of Yukimi Botamon. Sky blue light fell and illuminated Yuri, giving her a Yukimi Botamon as well. A dark blue pillar was for Hiroshi, with his digimon partner being the ghost-looking Poyomon. Golden light highlighted Takashi's appearance as he received a black seed-like baby digimon, Nyocomon. Hitochi didn't like that his pillar was yellow, but was pleased with having his own pet monster, Botamon. Purple was Mamuro's color as he received Babumon. Plump Keiko blinked as her green pillar revealed a Yukimi Botamon. All the baby digimon did little more than quiver in front of their partners. None of them said a word. Yuri frowned looking at the other digimon. She asked, "How come Sakura and Keiko have the same digimon I do?" "Don't worry about it, Yuri. There aren't many different types of baby digimon, but there are hundreds of different adult digimon," Sakura assured her. She then looked over her clothes and soon found what she was looking for, a gray and white D-3. She held it up and said, "With these, we should be able to go to the Digital World from any computer. There we can reset the portal and go anywhere else on Earth." Mamuro grinned devilishly. "Oh, I want to play with my new toy." "Do you mean your D-3 or your digimon?" Hiroshi shot coldly. "Both," Mamuro replied. Sakura scowled. "Digimon aren't toys." "Whatever," Mamuro clipped. "Let's go." He got up and began to walk to the ladder that would allow him back inside the observation dome. Noriko stood up. "Be sure to keep out of sight of the Chosen. You're in no position to fight any of them until we learn how to evolve our digimon." "Need to learn how to swing the bat before you can play the game, huh?" little Takashi commented. Hiroshi nodded. "Exactly. If you run into a Chosen on your way out, just tell him you don't like crowds and needed to get outside for some air. Assuming they understand Japanese." "Or just don't say anything, if you can," Noriko ordered. Yuri pouted. "But then I can't meet any of those boys. There's got to be at least one guy worth getting to know." "Not to mention wedding cake," Keiko whined. "Like they would invite us to the reception," Noriko laughed harshly. "Let's just go home and get to know our digimon," Sakura suggested rather strongly. Since Noriko and Hiroshi were agreeing with her, the others consented as well. They climbed down one at a time and carefully made sure that no one saw them. Sakura and Noriko stayed behind as the other children left for home. "We both should be leaving," Sakura commented, watching as Aquilamon, Jyou, and Miyako came flying toward the front entrance of the television station. Noriko shook her head. "I think I'll do a little spying on them first." Sakura blinked as Noriko seemed to be swallowed up by shadows. She strained her senses, before turning a little to her left. "Neat trick. If I wasn't trying to find you, I wouldn't know where you were. How did you learn to do that?" Noriko gave a hollow laugh. "That is my little secret. But I hear you have one as well." Sakura scowled slightly. "Do you know what it is?" The was a pause before the shadow Noriko hid herself in replied, "No." Sakura smirked. "Good." ---------------------- Noriko stood a fair distance from the door leading into the reception. She didn't dare go inside. If Sakura could find her, there was a good chance that someone else could as well. Holding a shaking baby digimon didn't help matters. While Punimon didn't have a full vocabulary, she did know how to speak. A high pitch squeak of 'scared' or 'hungry' would draw unwanted attention. Fortunately Noriko had found some health food for Punimon to munch on. Noriko was getting more than a little bored and was about to go home when Hikari burst from the door, looking to be on the verge of tears. That had startled Noriko, but she followed the newlywed girl back to the observation deck. Hikari just sat there, staring over the island of Odaiba. Noriko thought about what she could do to get a reaction from Mrs. Takaishi. "Oh, God... or Qinglongmon... will Takeru and I always be in love?" Hikari questioned, finally breaking the silence. She slouched getting no immediate answer. Noriko couldn't stop herself from replying, "Love is fleeting. Power is absolute." Hikari spun around and saw Noriko holding Punimon. Noriko smiled darkly. "Dagomon isn't done with you yet... especially since you're pregnant." "What?!" Hikari stood up, but could only stare as Noriko stepped backwards and somehow disappeared. Hikari looked around desperately as she tried to find Noriko, but saw no trace of her. She rushed off quickly. A moment later, Noriko got up from under the bench Hikari had been sitting on before, her hand letting go of Punimon's mouth. She gave a triumphant smirk. "Guess I should be leaving now. Don't want them to come after me until I'm ready to deal with them." "Scared," Punimon chirped nervously. ---------------------- Noriko wasn't the only one spying on the Chosen during the wedding reception. Tanaka Natsumi was one of Fuji Television Station's new reporters. She was eager to prove herself to her superiors. Yet, she found that some of what she wanted to do was blocked, namely learn about the children with digimon. That would be a great story, but why were the station heads against that? Natsumi also wondered why she had almost gotten in trouble for covering a digimon battle. The station had put out news denying the existence of digimon in the past, writing it off as mass delusions, natural gas explosions, or anything else but digimon. They only recently caved in and acknowledged them because the other news stations had confirmed that digimon did exist. Today Natsumi had been given the day off, on what should've been a normal work day. Most of the other people that she knew to be hired in the past two years either worked the morning shift or also had the day off. There was no reason for that. However, she went to work anyway. Various reasons had gone through Natsumi's head, and she believed she might have found her chance to learn just what it was. The main studio had been reserved for use by the head of the maintenance department, Mr. Ishida. None of the equipment was in need of repairs or maintenance. And he had no reason to use the studio to film anything as he made sure all of the equipment worked, not use it for himself. So why did he reserve the room? The answer was beyond her imagination. Dozens of children with digimon casually walked right through the front door of the television station and were directed to go straight to the main studio room. When she snuck a peek inside the main studio, all she could see was children of various nationalities talking and mingling with each other, and only a handful of adults. Strangely, the adults didn't seem to be needed as chaperons. Even children no older than eight years of age acted more mature than most adults she could name. Deciding to go for a closer inspection, she snuck into the room. Her eyes widened at the sight of hundreds of digimon everywhere in the room. Startled and unsure how the digimon would react to her presence, she left quickly. However, she did notice that Ishida was indeed in the room. Ishida was into this deep, but how deep? This deserved more investigation. ---------------------- The wedding day came to a close, though for some it was the longest one of their lives. The following day, Hikari sent an email to Koushiro and Taichi concerning Noriko holding a digimon and the warning about Dagomon. However, she requested that they didn't tell Takeru about it. She wanted to do it personally. However, she was at a lost for how to tell her new husband. Friday came too quickly for Hikari, knowing that the longer it took to tell Takeru, the more upset he'd get about it. However, it gave her a chance to talk to Sora while he was working at the laser tag arena. After a quick phone call to make sure Sora was home, Hikari left to talk to her in person. Just as Hikari made her way to Takenouchi's apartment, she passed a foreign boy with goggles and a girl with red hair. Mrs. Takaishi did a double take. While the foreign boy only bared passing resemblance to Taichi or Daisuke, the red head looked almost exactly like Sora during their first adventure. The red head gave an odd look back at her before running off, only to be quickly followed by the boy with her. Hikari dumbly knocked at the door, still looking in the direction the two had gone. "Hello, Hikari," Sora greeted. "Uh, hi," Hikari returned. "Did you just see a red-haired girl that looked like you?" Sora smirked. "Yeah, she's sort of me. A clone from a different dimension. It's a long story that I don't have yet, but Ken does." "Um, okay...." Hikari replied uncertainly. "So what's with the loose T-shirt?" Sora asked. Hikari frowned. "I'm starting to show." "Really?" Sora questioned with an excited tone. "Yeah." Hikari replied. She was embarrassed as Sora felt her stomach. "You sure?" Sora questioned. "Of course I am. None of my pants without elastic fit now." Hikari huffed. "Well those pants fit," Sora commented. "They're a present from Mimi's mother," Hikari replied. Sora blinked. "Oh." "So how are you and Taichi?" Hikari questioned. "We're doing fine," Sora replied. "So how's married life?" "Okay, I guess." Hikari fidgeted. "Still haven't told Takeru about Noriko and Dagomon, have you?" Sora questioned. Hikari shook her head. "I don't know how to tell him." "There's one trick I have for your brother," Sora commented. Hikari looked hopeful. "What is it?" "I tell him after making love to him. That was how I told him about you being pregnant," Sora informed her. Hikari frowned. "You know I don't like it when you talk about that." Sora gave a short laugh. "I don't see what your problem is with that, mother-Takaishi." Hikari crossed her arms. "Because it's my brother you're talking about. It's almost as bad as if you'd talk about my parents having sex." Sora smiled wryly. "Sorry. But I'd be ecstatic to find out my parents were making love. I'd be happy if Dad would just come home." Hikari bowed her head. "Aren't you worried that Taichi will do that to you?" "What? Leave me?" Sora asked and was answered with a nod. "A little. But Taichi and I have already been through more than my parents have, and we're still together. I doubt there is anything that could break us up but ourselves, and I'll be damned if I let your brother's love slip away from me." Hikari gave a weak smiled. "I hope the same can be said for Takeru and me." Sora nodded. "I'm sure it will." ---------------------- There can be nothing worse than shopping with your mother when you don't want anything to do with what you're shopping for. In this case, Sayuri's mother had come across a new recipe for some Italian food. It wasn't the trouble about trying to make Italian food in Japan that upset Sayuri, it was the excessive use of cheese in most of their food that left her problems after she ate it. Not that her mother seemed to mind her stinking up the bathroom a few hours after diner. Sayuri dragged her feet as she followed her mother. She'd rather face a digimon right now than trying to find some weird noodles. Sayuri blinked as she saw Hikari walking toward them. She turned to her mother, "Can I talk to my friend while you're in the store?" "As long as you stay in front of the store until I get back," Mrs. Wataru replied. Sayuri nodded and then waved and called out, "Hi, Hikari!" Hikari walked over to her. "Hello, Sayuri. How are you?" "Fine. How about you?" Sayuri returned. "Good," Hikari replied, not wanting to mention that she was showing unless Sayuri noticed. "So what brings you out here?" "Shopping," Sayuri replied. "You?" "Needed to ask Sora something," Hikari replied. Sakura glared at the two girls from a nearby alley. She gripped her gray digivice and glanced at her recently evolved Nyaramon. There was no way she could get the digimon to do what she wanted. The yellow ball with cat ears and tail began to shake. "Nyaramon evolve!" The engulfed the baby digimon as she turned into a puppy. "Plotmon!" Sakura blinked, wondering how that had happened. The digimon had only evolved to Nyaramon this morning and should've taken longer for her to evolve again. She then grinned. Now her digimon might be able to do something. Sakura pointed. "Kill Hikari." Plotmon nodded and rushed out of the alleyway. "Puppy Howling!" she barked insanely loud. Everyone around her clamped their hands over their ears, and even windows shattered from the force of the sonic attack. Hikari backed away from the Plotmon, knowing that this digimon certainly wasn't her own partner. Sayuri, however, rushed forward and kicked the puppy before she could attack again. Plotmon reared onto her hunches and launched herself, striking Sayuri in the face causing the girl to stagger back from the blow. Hikari noticed something flash from the alleyway before a pillar of light surrounded Plotmon. "Plotmon evolve!" the puppy called out, only to be replaced with a cat with gun-smoke gray fur with jet black stripes. "Black Tailmon!" "Sayuri, keep away from her!" Hikari warned. "She's not the one who needs to be afraid," Black Tailmon hissed. "You're the one who should be afraid. Cat's Punch!" The black cat moved like a black bolt of lightning streaking toward her target, however she came up short as her left paw embedded itself into a weird looking scarecrow. "You two get out of here. Nohemon will hold her off," Bobby, a blond-haired digi-destined from Oklahoma wearing torn blue jeans and a brand new plain red T-shirt, said in English. Hikari could only blink at him, not quite understanding what he said. "He said we should leave this to Nohemon... I think," Sayuri said. Hikari nodded and moved away while Sayuri tried to protect Mrs. Takaishi by keeping herself between Black Tailmon and the cat's target. Black Tailmon hissed angrily as she ripped a hole through the scarecrow with a series of vicious claw attacks. Hikari stared in horror as Nohemon broke apart into data. Bobby just smirked. "That was too easy," Black Tailmon sneered as she advanced. Nohemon reformed behind her and punched her in the back. "How?!" Black Tailmon leapt up into the air and swiped her claw through his neck, beheading him. The scarecrow began to delete. Black Tailmon's fur bristled as she turned once again back toward Hikari. Sayuri tried to keep herself from laughing. Nohemon reformed and kicked Black Tailmon's ass, hard. Black Tailmon glared. "Cat's Eye!" Nohemon punched her forehead. "What the?!" both Black Tailmon and Hikari cried out. Black Tailmon was about to kill the digimon again when she noticed Sakura waving at her. She frowned and called out, "Cat's Punch!" She aimed her attack to behead the scarecrow. Nohemon dodged and turned to face the cat, but she continued to run down the street. Hikari shook her head watching Black Tailmon de-evolve into Plotmon and ran off with a lanky girl she vaguely remembered was one of the children that Oikawa had kidnapped. "Should I go after her?" someone questioned in English from above them. Hikari stared as a strange looking crow that looked like a stuffed toy flew down from the top of a nearby store. "Should he?" Bobby asked the girls. Hikari looked at Sayuri blankly. "I think they're asking us if they should follow her," Sayuri commented. "No. We should be the ones to deal with her," Hikari replied. "You can tell him thanks, though." Sayuri nodded and turned toward Bobby and said in broken English, "We dearu witfu heru. Tanku foru yuru herupu." Bobby blinked several times. "Ah... you're welcome... I think." Sayuri nodded. Bobby shrugged. "That was a fun workout, bud. Let's get back and see what trouble Hank's got himself into." The crow shrugged and then both the crow and scarecrow shimmered and turned into Piyomon and a streak of green light arced from the digimon to Bobby. "Bye!" the pair called out waving good-bye. "Do you know who they were? And what kind of digimon is Nohemon?" Hikari questioned. "They're Bobby and his digimon partner, Piyomon, if I remember correctly. I believe he's from Oklahoma's group. Nohemon is an armor digimon using the Digimental of Sincerity. It's a rather weak warrior puppet digimon in terms of power, but has only one real weakness in his defense. The crow is his real body. As long as the crow is fine, the body can reform from any fatal injury. Kill the bird, and the scarecrow dies as well," Sayuri informed her. Hikari nodded. "I should really read up on various digimon." She then leaned against the wall, one hand instinctively moving protectively over her stomach. Sayuri noticed. "Are you all right? Is the baby all right?" "I'm fine, and I'm sure the baby is too," Hikari replied, though she was a little worried about Plotmon's sonic attack. Fortunately, her ultrasound was scheduled for next week so if there was a problem, they'd find out then. "Baby?!" Mrs. Wataru called out in shock. "Sayuri who is she and what is going on here?!" She pointed at all the shattered windows. Sayuri bowed her head. "Um, mother, remember the wedding I was invited too?" Mrs. Wataru blinked. "That was HER wedding?! But she's only a kid!" Sayuri nodded shallowly. "Well, she's old enough to have her own child." Mrs. Wataru grabbed Sayuri roughly by the arm. "You are going to tell me everything and you are going to stay away from that... girl!" Sayuri looked at Hikari for help as she was being dragged away. "Tell her EVERYthing," Hikari offered. She lingered a moment before continuing home. She had things to do. ---------------------- "What do you think about digimon?" Natsumi questioned. Sakura was caught off guard by the reported. She glanced nervously at Plotmon standing next to her. "I... ah...." Natsumi noticed the dog. She stood stiffly. "Where did you find that dog?" Sakura bowed her head, but glared with her eyes. "Mom, I was just walking around the park, and she started following me." "She looks rather mangy. Does she have an owner?" Natsumi questioned. Sakura noticed Plotmon was about to speak and lifted her foot as if to kick her. She then answered, "I don't think so. She doesn't have any identification tags." Natsumi folded her arms. "If the dog gets into any trouble, she's gone. Understand?" Sakura smiled strangely. "Oh, she'll be no trouble at all." Natsumi nodded. "Good. Now, about my first question, what do you think about digimon?" "Why, they're a threat to humanity," Sakura said seriously. "What about those kids with digimon?" Natsumi pressed. "I think they're the biggest danger of all," Sakura replied almost sarcastically. "You don't trust them?" Natsumi asked. "Why should I trust children in control of lethal monsters?" Sakura retorted. Natsumi raised an eyebrow at her daughter's question. She then paused in thought. "Power does corrupt," she said to herself. "Thanks, dear. Now go to your schoolwork. Want to keep getting top marks at school." ---------------------- Hikari walked out of her bedroom in a huff. "Something wrong?" Takeru's mother, Natsuko, asked. "He fell asleep," Hikari muttered as she plopped down on the couch. "Not while you two were...?" Natsuko trailed off. "No. Just before," Hikari grumbled. "And I have something I'm supposed to tell him AFTERwards." Natsuko folded her arms. "What did you do?" Hikari blinked. "What do you mean?" "When I planned to talk after sex, it was because I had done something that would upset Hiroaki," Natsuko informed. "Hiroaki?" Hikari questioned. "You know. My ex-husband, Ishida," Natsuko replied. "Oh." Hikari shrugged. "I don't think I've ever heard his personal name before." Natsuko nodded. "Now what did you do that you're trying not to upset my son when you tell him?" Hikari fidgeted. "Something happened at the reception that I should've told him about." Natsuko raised an eyebrow. "What happened?" she questioned coldly. Hikari looked down. "One of those kids Oikawa kidnapped was there with a digimon and said Dagomon was coming after me." Natsuko blinked. "Okay." She then smacked her head. "I need to get my head out of the gutter. Thought it was something else." "What do you mean?" Hikari asked, confused. "Never mind." Natsuko forced a smile. "Now maybe I can help you tell Takeru." "I could use the help," Hikari said gratefully. ---------------------- Author's Notes: Next: Entry 15 - Eyes on Tomorrow A seemingly random event in the Digital World heralds events of the future as an old enemy returns and Sayuri and Yume learn about what happened to Oikawa and Black War Greymon. Thanks to my pre-readers, especially Jeremy Mullin and Andree Garrison. What's with the goggle-head and the pseudo-Zero-One Sora? Well, the story for that hasn't been written just yet, but will be soon. All I will say about it, is that it involves Ken joining Eric from the Edmonton group in their own little adventure. The author will be Shaun Garin, who is currently writing about the Edmonton group in Digital Diaries: Adventure 2003. According to one of the Japanese Digi-battle cards, Nohemon's true body is indeed the crow. Which I find the American Digi-battle Nohemon card to be rather bad since they cut off the crow from the picture. Ishida, the head of maintenance at Fuji Television? I base this off that it was Ishida who led the attempts to bring the television back on air when Vamdemon took over Odaiba. He displayed too much technical knowledge to be just a production technician, but a maintenance technician who's job it would be to repair the equipment and make it work. If he wasn't head of maintenance them, he is now and he would be in charge of anyone repairing cameras, general building repairs, fix broken equipment, and so on.... The island of Odaiba? Strictly speaking Odaiba is a collection of small islands just south of Tokyo. Most of the residential sections of Odaiba are on the largest of the islands, which natives often refer to it as Aqua Village. Fuji Television Station, Odaiba Community Center, and Odaiba park are on another one of the islands, which was where the Venom Vamdemon battle took place. In movie 4, Diablomon Strikes Back, Armagemon (Armageddemon) fought on another island in Odaiba's chain, which is a small park. That park was shown in episode one of 'Your Under Arrest,' and the B-52 Bomber at that park was either destroyed by Armagemon landing on it or when Imperial Dramon nearly nuked the island away. To the Northeast of Odaiba, using the bridge seen in the background of movie 4, you'd go straight into Shinnonome Ward as seen in Tenchi in Tokyo and El-Hazard. Sayuri's 'English' Sayuri has tried to learn how to speak English on her own. As such, she has a THICK Japanese accent to her speech as she tries to break up English words into more syllables than they usually have. Also she fails to distinguish her 'l' from her 'r' as Japanese holds no such distinction. Ishida Hiroaki is Ishida's correct name. It was listed in Digimon Adventure Memorial Book, along with names for most of the parents. Before anyone asks, the personal names that were listed are: Mr. Yagami - Susumu Mrs. Yagami - Yuuko Mr. Ishida - Hiroaki Ms. Takaishi - Natsuko Mr. Takenouchi - Haruhiko Mrs. Takenouchi - Kiyoko for Diaries (could be many things: Kiyoko, Sumiko, Yoshiko, Toshiko, Hideko, or Itsuko) Mr. Izumi - Masami Mrs. Izumi - Yoshie Mr. Tachikawa - Keisuke Mrs. Tachikawa - Satoe Miyako's sisters - Momoe & Chizuru Miyako's brother - Mantarou Grandpa Hida - Chikara Mr. Hida - Hiroki Jyou's brothers - Shin & Shuu