Destiny - Part 4A

Destiny - Part 4A
Minato Adventure ~ A Shadow Cast over the Big Top!


Derek shut the door quickly as soon as everyone was inside the computer lab with their Rookie-level Digimon back. He sighed in relief at seeing no threats outside on the hallway, then looking back in to see the new gen Destined all together.

"Okay..." he said. "Now... I'll tell you guys everything, but first we need everyone, including the veterans..."

"Well, alright, but in the meantime, can you tell us why your plushie is talking and walking on its own?" Yolei asked directly. "Or is he a Digimon?"

"Let me make this clear: I am NOT a plush toy!" Shadow barked. "Or a Digimon, for that matter! Derek, remind me again why you chose that plan?"

"It worked in Sonic X!!" he defended. "And besides, you're a G.U.N. agent, the best disguise is to be in plain sight!"

"That's not how that works!" the hedgehog spat.

It was interrupted, however, by the arrival of a second group, the veteran DigiDestined and their partners.

"I-It's..." the guitarist said. "It's them... T-the first team...! I-It's the Adventure team...! I-It's their Digimon...!!"

Taichi "Tai" Kamiya, Yamato "Matt" Ishida, Sora Takenouchi, Kouchiro "Izzy" Izumi, Mimi Tachikawa and Joe Kido walked into the room with their own partners in tow, Agumon, Gabumon, Piyomon, Tentomon and Palmon, happily joining with the other team. Derek couldn't help but notice that Tai had a new set of goggles around his neck.

"I take it that now we have everyone present?" Shadow asked.

"Um, yeah, I guess..." Tai commented. "So, um... who're you guys, and, do you know why the Digital World is up in the sky again?"

Shadow stepped forward, looking at all of them.

"My name is Shadow, Shadow the Hedgehog." he began, the teen giving him back his inhibitor rings. "This is my close ally, Derek Hetfield."

Derek waved awkwardly, still starstruck.

"We come from another universe." the hedgehog continued. "A universe in which, up until this point, a Digital World was non-existent."

"Non-existent?!" Agumon said, disbelieving.

"Wait, Agumon, let's keep hearing!" Tai scolded.

"As I was saying, we didn't have Digimon existing in our universe until now. Recently, it seems the Internet of our home has developed a type of information conduit that is transporting data from this reality's own Digital World into the one forming in our own reality. One of our contacts' informants came here to gather intel on the process, but he hasn't come back in a while. So we were assigned to come here and look for him."

The veterans and their successors muttered among themselves, naturally having a hard time believing the story they were just told. But they had to admit it added up.

"Well, that's alright, but..." Matt talked. "Who is this informant, anyway?"

Derek sighed.

"That ringmaster we ran into on the way here..." he said, much to the shock of the second generation team. "His name is Mr. Kite."

"You're telling us that the robot who attacked us is your informant?!" Armadillomon asked.

"If he's an informant, why is he doing all this?!" Patamon asked, making a good point.

"That's what we're trying to understand..." Shadow admitted. "I'll be honest, this... contact of ours, he's not exactly a stable source. But he does have moral standards he abides to. Assaulting children, or people unrelated to the matter at hand, he makes absolutely sure to reinforce that to his own troops so that they will NOT do it. We... Well, I suspect, this might be a rogue movement."

"You make it sound like this guy's some sort of king's helper..." Mimi observed.

"He is." the guitarist pointed out.

This caused the group to murmur again, but a sharp guitar chord got the attention back.

"Look... This all sounds insane, I know." Derek said. "But, look, we have no reason to lie to you. Because... you're all very famous where we come from. There wasn't a Digital World back home, but we KNOW what Digimon are. We have the card games, we have the video games, and above all, we have the freaking anime, and that anime's first and second season had YOU guys in it! We grew up with you, we watched everything you did! The fights against Devimon, Etemon, Myotismon, the Dark Masters, Apocalymon! And even the stuff with the second team, like the Digimon Emperor, the spires, MaloMyotismon, we never stopped watching! We couldn't!"

He looked around the room at their faces of amazement.

"You guys are heroes..." he added. "OUR heroes... And this time, we REALLY need you."

There were a few seconds of silence among them, until finally Ken spoke up.

"So... you know all that we've done..." he said shyly. "So you also know what I--"

"Don't bother guilt-tripping." Derek cut him, moving over. "What you did was bad, but it's over. We forgave you a long time ago. Heck, if you wanna know, you got a lot of fangirls."

The latter part caused him to blush a bit.

"What did I tell you?" Wormmon poked, smiling. "People do love you for who you are."

He smiled, the others all looking at them.

"Alright, then we're going to help." Tai spoke.

"Right!" everyone said afterwards.

"But still..." Izzy said, getting everyone's attention. "If this robot is meant to be your informant, yet he's turning against you... What could be the reason for it? Is he maybe going insane? Rogue?"

Derek and Shadow thought for a bit, until Derek decided to break the ice.

"Well..." he muttered. "There might be something... Hey, um, Davis. Remember what Kite said about 'not being late'?"

"Uuuuh... a lil'..." he said, thinking hard. "He said... 'The show begins at ten-to-six, when Mr. K performs his tricks. Don't be late.' I guess that's i--"

"Izzy, can I borrow your laptop?" the teen asked.

"Um, sure..." he replied, opening it up.

Derek walked up to it and plugged his phone onto it through its connection cord. Immediately, the music player program opened.

"What are you doing?" Shadow asked.

"Here's the thing, DigiFolks..." he explained. "The guy that made Kite, Dr. Weever, he's a very, very BRITISH person. Kite's name comes from a song by the Beatles, 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite'."

"Oh yeah, I remember!" Matt said. "I had to learn a few of their songs for music class, that one was mentioned a couple times. But what about it?"

"Well, this is how the song goes..."

He played it up to a portion of the song where it sang:

"The celebrated Mr. K
Performs his feat at Saturday
At Bishopsgate
The Hendersons will dance and sing
As Mr. Kite flies through the ring
Don't be late"

"Did you hear?" he said suddenly, stopping right after that part. "That's when he says 'don't be late' in the song, nowhere else."

"Okay, but what then?" Palmon asked, peeking closed.

"Now listen to this part."

"The band begins at ten to six
When Mr. K performs his tricks
Without a sound."

"I knew it!" Derek said loudly, startling everyone. "Did you all hear?! It goes 'the BAND begins at ten to six', and then the last line of the verse is 'without a sound'!"

"But why's that important??" Kari asked.

"Kite's built AROUND that darn song... but when he quipped it to us before, he got it wrong! He said the SHOW begins at ten to six, not 'band'! And he got the final line wrong, because it's from an earlier part in the song! Flavio told me he loves to quip this song over and over, and he's MADE ENTIRELY out of that frigging song! So why would he get the lyrics wrong??"

"He was built with human-level artificial intelligence." the hedgehog pointed out. "It's not impossible for a machine to make mistakes."

"We'll have to see when we get there, then!" Davis announced, fist clenched in determination. "He said to get to the TV Station, we'll do it!"

"Err, guys?" Joe said. "There's a problem with that..."

He pointed outside to a whole ARMY of Bobos and Coldstreams, all waiting outside for any movement from the heroes so they could begin their onslaught.

"We're surrounded by them!!" Mimi panicked. "How are we gonna get through this?!"

"Are you kidding?!" Agumon said, looking at it from a table. "These guys are tin cans! We'll plow right through them!"

"Mind giving me a ride? I'm not exactly super like Shadow, here..." Derek asked.

"A ride? Sure!" Tai said, with a wide grin. "But ya better hang on...!"

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*

A massive explosion rang out from the side of the school building, already toppling down a massive amount of Coldstreams. WarGreymon flew out of the flash of light still on the area, Derek and Tai holding onto his back, Shadow speeding after them below as MetalGarurumon followed him, Matt on his back as they ran. The rest of the DigiDestined all followed on their own Digimon, plowing through the robots with very little issue.

"Hey Derek! Ya play on a band?" Tai asked as they flew to the Fuji TV station.

"Yeah, the Freedom Fighters. I'm lead guitar." Derek said.

"Matt was needing a few hints, maybe you could give some?" the DigiLeader joked.

"Well, I dunno, he was actually one of the main reasons why I took up music. I was really young when your season popped up on TV."

"Then how come you look like a year older than me? I'm 14!"

"I'm 15. And I dunno! I just got the 'space' part of universe hopping, we still don't know how the 'time' part works. Heck, I don't even know how we got your story so accurate!"

"We've got a problem!" WarGreymon's deep growling voice interrupted. "Look down at the TV Station!"

All of the group stopped to look at the awful sight: the sphere-like part of the building was completely obscured by a deep fog, hiding it from the rest of the construction, and the entire area was occupied by Coldstreams and up to 13 Weever Wasps, all charged up and ready to fight.

"What's that fog?!" Derek asked, shocked.

"We can't get inside without destroying the entire building!" Garudamon, Piyomon' Ultimate form, said as she flew down with Sora on her back.

"Tai, we'll have to split up!" Matt shouted from the ground. "We'll have Derek, Shadow and a few of us get in while the others deal with the robots outside!"

Cue ExVeemon and Stingmon dashing ahead of the group, towards the fog. With no real reason to stop there, Tai and Matt followed, Shadow jumping onto MetalGarurumon as they all dove deep into the mist, which seemed to go on for a while, until they finally hit ground...

Inside a large, ample circus big top.

"LADIIIESS AN' GENTS!"

A voice rang with a thick Cockney accent. In a cloud of smoke, Mr. Kite appeared in the center of the stage, Bluer Meanies right behind him.

"For the benefet, O' Mr. Kite! There'll be a SHO--"

"OH SHUT UP!"

Derek slammed down his hand onto his guitar, descending powerful Chaos Spears onto the Bluer Meanies, tearing them apart. Kite growled, gritting his metallic teeth.

"That's TWICE ya cut me off, lad!" he grunted. 

"Quit your whining! I know you're not Mr. Kite!"

"What the bloomin' 'eck do you mean! I'm the one an' ONLY Mr. Kite!"

Shadow raised an eyebrow.

"Wow... Even I can tell how forced that was..." he commented.

Kite wasted no time after that line, jumping incredibly high and spinning wildly, his whip revolving around him as he sped towards the heroes, who dodged his attack at the last second.

"GREAT TORNADO!"

WarGreymon shouted, spinning towards him in a fiery blast. Kite, however, easily jumped off and took off his tophat, firing data-packed bombs from it towards him.

"Ye can't hurt me now, brats!" he shouted, dodging Stingmon's Moon Shooter attack. "I'm in me OWN territory now!! In this Digital Worl', ther's NO holdin' back from me! FASTEN YER SEATBELTS, CUS IT'S SHOWTIME!"

He kept firing missiles from his tophat, alternating between that and whiplashes. One of which hit Stingmon and forced it to attack ExVeemon, who had to dodge the strikes constantly before it got to him.

"He's going too fast for us!!" Matt said as MetalGarurumon fired his Grace Cross Freezer, with all of the freezing missiles missing.

"How do we slow this guy down!!!" Davis shouted.

A loud guitar riff suddenly startled them all, Kite even stopping his constant movement and creepy-face-making to look at the source.

"Wh-wha..." he said, yellow energy surrounding his body. "Wh-wha's that noise?!"

"It's no noise, Kite."

Derek was playing his guitar to the tune of a song. Shadow looked at his friend's face, to see a glare of vivid determination not unlike his own.

"Let me introduce you to Brave Heart..." the teen said, playing still. "The song that will break your spell on this place"

As he played the song, all four Digimon suddenly began shining brilliantly, reforming into rays of light that merged into only a single pair.

"GAAAAAAAAAH!" Kite screamed, the light too much for him.

One of the lights formed into a powerful-looking Digimon with knightly armor and gauntlets shaped like the headgear of WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon, with the other light forming a second knightly Digimon with large draconic wings and a long sword with DigiCode symbols written along the blade.

"NO!!! NOOO!! THAT AIN'T FAIR!!" the ringmaster said, freaking out, firing as many missiles as he could at once. "YOU STILL HAVEN'T WON!"

But neither of them did anything to the two formed Royal Knights, Omnimon and Imperialdramon Paladin Mode.

"For the record!" Ken said, Kite looking at him. 

The kid snatched Kite's whip from his hands in a quick movement and lashed it out, sending the ringmaster flying up high.

"I still know how to use a whip!"

The two Digimon wasted no time and aimed their projectile weapons at him.

"POSITRON LASER!"

"GARURU CANNON!"

The shots hit Kite, the robot screaming in agony as he was pierced by the raw energy. However, his outer hull seemed intact as he crash-landed back to the ground, the circus landscape twisting around the heroes as there was still something up in the air where Kite was: some sort of navy-blue sphere with yellow electrical bolts swirling around it.

Derek stopped playing as they all looked at it.

"What's... that...?" Tai asked.

Shadow quickly deduced what it was and sprung to action, tossing Derek his inhibitor rings and speeding off, using Omnimon's height as impulse to reach the glowing object and blast it with a Chaos Spear. As he landed, the sphere shattered and its data was pulverized, the room returning to normal as Fuji TV's observation deck.

The other DigiDestined quickly walked in, their Digimon back to their base forms as Omnimon and Imperialdramon reformed into their respective pairs.

"Tai!!" Kari shouted, hugging Tai as TK hugged Matt, Yolei tackling Ken and Davis left alone, much to his irritation.

"I guess we did it...!" Ken said, smiling.

"The fog outside vanished, and all the robots just burst into data!" TK reported. "And the sky is back to normal!"

"What about the Kite guy??" Sora asked.

They all looked to the side of the room, Kite lying on the floor like a doll, shut down from the exertion.

"Derek's hunch was right." Shadow said, moving over to the robot's body. "Kite was apparently infected by some sort of digital element. For the sake of simplicity, I'll call it a virus."

"So he'll be back to normal?" Joe asked.

"It's an educated guess, but it won't make him better either way." the hedgehog stated, Derek helping him carry Mr. Kite.

Then the others saw the inter-dimensional portal open to the side.

"Guess that's your way home." Agumon said. "Is this goodbye?"

"Actually... It'd be best if you came along." Shadow said suddenly. "We aren't sure what this new Digital World may bring. So it'd be best if we had someone who understands it come along to help."

"All of us?" Mimi asked. "Won't that be any problem for here?"

"Send a message to your parents or call them, we can wait." Derek said. "I'm sure we can leave the portal open in case you need to return for something."

They all rushed to the phones, Shadow patting Derek's back with a calm smirk on his face, congratulating him for the job.


===Back in Britannia, Earth-Prime=======================================

Both Sonic and Timothy jumped as Derek and Shadow crossed the portal, carrying Kite's body with them.

"Good heavens!" the butler said, touching onto his com device. "Repair bay, I request medical attention onto the Spire immediately!"

After a while, the other children began emerging into the room as well, with their partners by their side. Sonic was amazed at the scene, just as amazed as the kids were at seeing another talking hedgehog and another near-human-like robot.

"Whoa, so these are Digimon??" Sonic said, walking up to them. "Neat!"

"Another talking hedgehog!" Cody exclaimed. 

"Well, yeah!" the blue guy said. "Name's Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog!"

Kite was quickly picked up by the repair bots as Timothy kindly offered them all some tea and biscuits.