It was late in the night. Mimi was sleeping in her bedroom (which was still ready for her, all the time, even if she had been living mostly in the United States those days).
Heartmon was lying in an old dog's basket. This basket has once been bought by Mimi's parents as well, when she told them she would like to own a dog. That had been shortly before she went to the summer camp...
But then she found herself in the Digital World and met Palmon. Afterwards, she could never think of any more loveable companion than her Digimon partner, so she refused to own a dog. But her parents had still kept the basket.
It was a warm summer's night, so Mimi had left her window open. A pleasant breeze blew across the room and made the curtains wave through the air.
Suddenly, Heartmon's ears perked up. He blinked and then sleepily sat up in his little bed. After rubbing his eyes, he climbed out of the basket and hopped up on the window sill.
"Strange..." he murmured. "Something out there... is calling for me."
He already wanted to climb out of the window, but he hesitated and looked back at the sleeping form of Mimi. She had been so nice to him... wouldn't she be worried about him?
But then, he once again heard that calling and couldn't help himself: He jumped out of the window. Upon touching the ground in front of the house, he bounced upwards like a rubber ball and jumped across the street.
Bounding over streets, roofs and backyards, Heartmon followed the calling that echoed in the middle of his heart...
----
Purring in her sleep, Gatomon wiped her ears with her large paws and licked her lips. She was dreaming her favorite dream, about a large platter with tuna.
She just wanted to raise one of the delicious morsels to her mouth, when the tuna fish suddenly started beeping.
The loud ringing of Kari's D-Terminal woke Gatomon abruptly. "Whazza matter?" she mumbled. "Kari, your D-Terminal is cranky..."
Being woken up by Gatomon and the tedious beeping as well, Kari swung her legs out of bed and sleepily shuffled over to her desk, where the terminal was lying.
While she opened it, Tai sat up in his own bed and rubbed his eyes. "What's up, Kari? Who's sending you a message, that late in the night...?"
"Dunno..." Kari mumbled. "Oh, it's just Mimi... she sent me a mail... Heartmon is gone... WHAT?"
Tai yelped and nearly hit his head on the wall. His sister's shrill shriek was more than enough to wake up the dead. "What, what happened?"
"Mimi writes that Heartmon has climbed out of her window while she was sleeping. Now he's somewhere out there, in a city he doesn't know. Tai, she's afraid that something might happen to him... remember those monsters we fought yesterday."
"You have to call the others, quick!" Tai shouted. "Damn, I wish Agumon was here... I can't really help you against those monsters. But wait, I'm coming anyway." He jumped out of bed and just wanted to climb into his pants, but Kari stopped him.
"Don't panic, Tai, Mimi has already informed Davis and T.K.. Davis will inform Ken, and T.K. Yolei and Cody. We'll take care of that, big brother, don't you worry. Go back to bed, you need your beauty sleep."
"Well, okay, if you say so... HEY!"
She giggled as she put on her shoes. "Gotcha, Tai! Don't worry, we can handle this. It's just one little Digimon, and he can't have gone far. See you later... Gatomon, c'mon!"
----
"Kari!" T.K. waved. "Over here!"
"Hey guys!" Kari waved back to her friends. "Already find a clue?"
"Not until now," Veemon shook his head. "Yolei, Ken and Cody are searching in the business district. We should check..."
"Hey!" Patamon's voice suddenly came from above. "I saw him. He's heading for Odaiba!"
"Odaiba?" Davis gasped. "What's he doing out there?"
"We just have to find out," Kari said. "Davis, you know what to do."
"Right," the goggle-wearing boy nodded and pulled out his D-3 Digivice. "Digi-Armor Energize!"
"VEEMON ARMOR DIGIVOLVE TO... RAIDRAMON, STORM OF FRIENDSHIP!"
"Get on board," the sleek, four-legged reptile with the black armor said, and Davis, Kari, T.K. and Gatomon jumped on his back.
Running just like greased lightning, Raidramon carried the three Digidestined towards Odaiba, while Kari informed the others over her D-Terminal.
----
Shortly after Raidramon had arrived in Odaiba, his riders could see Halsemon flying across the night sky, and on his back, Yolei, Cody, Ken and Armadillomon were sitting. Stingmon was flying next to them.
"Already found him?" Yolei shouted.
"Not yet!" T.K. shouted back.
"Hey, take a look up ahead!" Halsemon suddenly shouted.
They could see a shining flash of pink light that was bounding over the buildings like a rubber ball.
"Maybe that's Heartmon," Davis assumed. "Raidramon, go faster!"
"I'm on it!" Raidramon growled and sped up. The other Digimon followed him.
----
Finally, they found Heartmon. He was standing in front of a big building in the middle of Odaiba. The pink heart on his stomach was shining like a bright star.
Kari looked at the building. "That tower..." she suddenly gasped. "I recognize that building. Here, we fought Myotismon for the first time."
"Yes..." Gatomon replied with mixed feelings. "It was here where I digivolved into Angewomon for the first time... and where Wizardmon died."
They had almost reached their new friend. Heartmon was just standing there, looking up at the tower with a strange expression on his face.
"Heartmon!" Cody shouted.
But just before they reached him, they appeared, out of nowhere... rising out of the ground, or appearing in strange clouds of darkness.
Halsemon landed, and the Digidestined jumped off their mounts.
"Those are the same monsters we fought yesterday," Stingmon said.
Ken grimaced and clutched his heart. "Yes... they're the same... they're still calling out for me."
"Strange," Yolei muttered and cleared her ear with an index finger. "I can't hear anything."
"Heartless..." Ken grumbled. "What do you want?"
"Be careful," Armadillomon shouted. "Here they come!"
Three voices shouted as one: "Digi-Armor Energize!"
"ARMADILLOMONMON ARMOR DIGIVOLVE TO... DIGMON, DRILL OF KNOWLEDGE!"
"PATAMON ARMOR DIGIVOLVE TO... PEGASUSMON, FLYING HOPE!"
"GATOMON ARMOR DIGIVOLVE TO... NEFERTIMON, ANGEL OF LIGHT!"
The Heartless didn't seem very impressed by the changed appearance of the Digimon. They attacked from all sides at once. Several of them wore a strange armor, but they didn't look much more intimidating than their shadowy brethren.
Using their attacks, the Digimon started to fight their enemies.
"Star Shower!"
"Rosetta Stone!"
"Thunder Blast!"
"Gold Rush!"
"Tempest Wing!"
"Spiking Strike!"
One after another, the Heartless fell under the strength of their opponents.
"We're gonna win!" Davis cheered.
Meanwhile, Kari was looking over to where Heartmon was standing. He was still staring up at the tower, not even noticing the battle nearby. Luckily, the Heartless seemed to ignore him, as they all seemed to focus solely on Ken.
"Heartmon?"
"Keyhole of the world," Heartmon murmured. "Are you there?"
And suddenly, a blinding light streamed out of the building's walls. On its side, a giant keyhole that looked like it was made of light suddenly appeared, and Heartmon was fixated on it.
"The Keyhole..." Heartmon muttered. "This is where the Master of the Keyblade will come to, right? Here I can meet him... Then, I can back home... to Daddy!"
'What's wrong with him?' Kari thought and clutched the key chain that she had been carrying in her pocket. 'Does that have to do anything with this?'
"Hey, what's that strange keyhole up there?" Yolei wondered.
"We can worry about that later," Davis shouted. "After we win!"
And then, the final Heartless fell under an attack of Raidramon: "Blue Thunder!"
But then, Kari gasped. "Look!" She gestured up to the top of the tower.
It was a dark silhouette, with wings as dark as the night.
For a horrible moment, Kari believed it was Myotismon who had yet again risen from the dead. But it was something else... A giant made of darkness, with tiny wings on his broad shoulders, gorilla-like arms and a heart-shaped hole in the middle of his body.
Heartmon apparently saw the giant shadow as well, as he yelped in surprise and jumped back. He clutched the heart symbol on his own belly. "Go away, Darkside!" he yelled. "This is my heart! Go get your own!"
"Quick, we have to help him," T.K. shouted, and everyone rushed to Heartmon's side, just as the giant Heartless called Darkside came jumping down from the tower. Only Ken yelped, as he once again felt a sharp pain in his own heart.
"Ken, what's wrong?" Stingmon asked in worry.
"The darkness..." Ken whispered. "The darkness that surrounds him... it is so strong! He IS darkness..."
Darkside looked down at the tiny children and the strange animals that were standing at their sides. His gaze was fixated on Heartmon... unlike his lower henchmen, he was powerful enough to concentrate on his real mission.
But then, he felt a powerful heart behind him. The heart of this world...
Like all Heartless, his first impulse was to turn around and to consume that heart. But he also knew his orders. For a while, instinct and common sense waged war inside of his head.
The instinct won.
Darkside twirled around like a tornado of shadows, and leapt up the building.
"NO!" Heartmon shouted. "Leave the heart of this world alone!"
While the Digidestined didn't understand what their little friend meant, they realized that it must be very bad if that monster would reach the shiny keyhole up there.
"GO! STOP HIM!" they told their Digimon partners.
The Digimon shot out their attacks, and one or two even hit Darkside, as he was clinging to the tower like King Kong to the Empire State Building... but that wouldn't stop him.
"Kari! The Key of Light!" Heartmon suddenly said.
Kari pulled the key chain out of her pocket. "Wh-what do we need that for now?"
"Open a pathway of light! That will banish him!"
"But how?"
"Trust me! You can do it!"
Kari believed the words of the small Digimon. She grasped the pendant and pointed the tiny key at Darkside.
Inside her heart, she felt that the powers of the light were resting inside of her... she just had to unlock them... using that key.
In a commanding voice, she shouted: "Pathway of Light! Open up!"
A thin beam of light got projected from the tiny key and created a shimmering oval of light in the air, right above the assembled children and Digimon.
Darkside got distracted from the keyhole and shielded his face as suddenly, the shining portal began sending out beams of light. He felt a strong suction that pulled him away from the tower. He tried grasping it with his broad hands, but they missed, and his dark body vanished inside the light.
Now that their enemy was defeated, Kari tried to close the pathway again, but found it impossible to do.
"What's happening?" she shouted. "Why doesn't it close?"
"Similar to a Corridor of Darkness, a Pathway of Light is created to travel between worlds," Heartmon said. "And once activated, you have to use that gate to travel, that's all I know."
"Kari, what did you do?" Yolei yelled. "Well, whatever it was, you can stop now, the monster is gone."
"Hold on everybody!" Digmon shouted as he crouched down and tried shielding Cody from the suction.
But it was too late. Heartmon was right... the pathway has been activated, and unlike a Corridor of Darkness, it would only close after it has been used by the person who has opened it.
Only seconds later, the suction became too strong for even the powerful Digimon to hold on to the ground, and everyone got sucked into the pathway, Heartmon as well.
In a final flash of light, the pathway collapsed and vanished, leaving no visible trace of the Digidestined or their Digimon...
At the side of the big building, the keyhole shimmered one last time, then it vanished as well.
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(Posted Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:24)
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