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