Now We Can Begin

888

"No, you don't understand!" Centaurumon heard the voice of his companion say from further ahead in the cave. "She came to me!"

"This is the fifth time we've checked the fire wall, Master Gennai." the cybernetic centaur replied as he turned the corner and stood in the massive inner chamber of the mountain.

Flames roared across the center section of chamber. They flowed from the left to the right from two massive, caverns, and then erupted upwards from the roots of the mountain far below. The young looking man was standing there holding a small device up to the flames. A massive metallic robot was standing next to him. The long bending arms ending in long clawed hands.

"She said it was coming from outside." The man said, turning. His robes flowed as he looked up at Centaurumon with his blue eyes. His short brown hair was slowly growing into spikes. The long rat's tail of hair was swept over his shoulder.

"What is the reading?" Centarumon asked.

"Nominal, just like the other four times." Gennai grumbled, pocketing the device. "The fire wall is working perfectly. The barrier between the worlds is at optimal effectiveness."

"Is it is possible that the message was wrong?" Centarumon asked.

"Wrong?" Gennai looked to Centarumon as if the centaur had vomited on himself. Gennai blinked. "Shakamon!?" WRONG!? She's a pantemporal, omnipresent, nigh omniscient, all but omnipotent being! She's the Right Hand of God! When there's an argument between reality and Shakamon's opinion, reality takes a step to one side and says, 'carry on, m'lady.'."

"It's just, you keep saying there should be a breach, and yet we cannot find one." Centarumon said, narrowing his one eye. "The world has never been as stable as it is right now. There are no mass events of destruction or evil, peace has fallen across the Digital World, even the Human World is seeing a record time of peace in our time. Is it possible that what you saw was not what you thought it was?"

"No there's something we're missing." Gennai growled, turning and leaping up on the metal robot. A hatch hissed open and the man slid in. "The world is cracked and darkness is coming. I know it."

"Then should we not contact the Chosen Ones?" Centarumon asked.

"Not yet, no, there's nothing for them to do but fret, and the last thing we need is for them to fret." Gennai said quickly, waving a hand in the air.

"I think you should listen to your wayward compatriot, sprite." a voice called from behind Centarumon.

The centaur reared back twisting to see a be-robed demon with gryphon-like legs, or rather a left gryphon-like leg, and a right leg that was a metallic peg. Likewise, it's right arm was metallic with a tweezing hook-like appendage. It's left wing was simply a metal fan.

Centarumon lifted his augmented arm the hand twisting and folding into an energy cannon. The demon snorted in derision, lifting his hand slicing it to his left. Centarumon felt his body lift and fly, smashing into the wall of the cavern.

"Oh, yes, you-" Gennai said from inside the MechiNorimon. His head popped up and looked at the demon. "I'd nearly forgot you were a thing." He tilted his head to the left as he looked at the demon. "You've done yourself up a bit. Can't say that I approve of the design-"

"This, was my sacrifice, for surviving the battle!" the demon growled.

"It was an explosive one." Gennai conceded, as he pulled himself out of the MechiNorimon. "So that's where you've been, off licking your wounds, then." Gennai leapt to the ground.

"Who is this, digimon?" Centarumon asked as he struggled to stand.

"Oh, the one that caused all that business with the Great Dragons and Daemon." Gennai said, not breaking eye contact with the demon and folding his hands behind his back. "No one important."

"You will rue those words, sprite!" the demon growled, lifting his organic hand and pointing a clawed finger at Gennai.

"My dear lad, you are a few tiers below the gods I've had to tussle with over the last year or so." Gennai said, flashing a bemused smile at the demon. "So, if you would please, go. Despite what you may believe, I have an incredibly full schedule at the moment."

"Reality is cracked, and the darkness is coming." the demon said.

Gennai's bemused smile disappeared.

"What could you know of that?" Centarumon asked looking to the demon and then to Gennai.

"Everything, do you really think her holiness is the lone power in the universe?" the demon smirked.

"Then you know what's coming, who is coming!" Gennai growled, taking a step forward.

"Why ever do you think I am here, Gennai?" The demon said.

Gennai closed his eyes and shook his head slowly in disappointment. "You can't possibly think that this is a good idea!"

"The worlds are damaged; he is the only one capable of bringing together what has been torn asunder!" the demon said.

"He brings nothing but madness and death, and you can't possibly stand on his side!" Gennai snarled. Centarumon stood up slowly, he saw with his eye, that Gennai catch the movement in the corner of his eyes. The man's nearest hand extended two fingers.

"My kind of world." the demon smiled. One of Gennai's fingers folded back.

"A world of madness, chaos, sickness, disease. A world of death gone mad." Gennai growled. "Is that really the world that you want to usher in, Murmuxmon? Could you really support that kind of monster?"

"And I will stand at it's right hand!" the demon said, lifting its arms up.

"Now, Centarumon!" Gennai shouted clenching his nearest hand into a fist.

"SOLAR RAY!" Centarumon lifted his arm. The energy cannon twisted into place and a blaze of light fired forward.

Murmuxmon leaned back as the blast flew past, erupting into the torrents of flames crossing in the middle of the chamber. The demon pivoted on its peg leg and lunged forward. Centarumon felt the burn of the fires and then soon after that nothing at all.

888

'Twiddle, Twiddle, Twiddle…' the electronic noise chimed quietly but insistently. Taichi grunted slowly opening one dark brown eye, staring at the blinking light of the D3 on his night table.

He reached out and clumsily grasped the device and looked at it. He could hear the rest of the house. His mother semi-quietly clattering in the kitchen. The sound of his father in the bathroom shaving. He could hear Hikari on her phone talking to one of her friends. He could smell breakfast as it wafted into his room. He sat up. He turned and looked out the window. The New Hikari Ga Oka shimmered in the sun. A little more than a year had passed. There were still some scars in the skyline, scaffolds, and a few empty lots and gaps. He took a deep breath.

His bare feet touched the smooth wooden floor. He stood up and quickly wriggled out of the T-shirt and shorts he wore, and slipped into his school uniform. He looked at himself via a small vanity mirror he had. It had a flower clipped to the edge. His eyes narrowed.

There was a knock on the door.

"Taichi-" his mother's voice called. "Breakfast is ready."

"Thanks, mom." Taichi said, as he finished slipping into a shirt. He quickly scrambled into a pair of sports shorts.

He grabbed a duffle bag and a book bag, hooking the D3 onto the band of the duffle bag. He opened the door and entered into the apartment that his family now lived in. They'd finished it only a couple of months ago. It was ever so slightly bigger than the one that had been destroyed in the war a year ago.

"Eggs, dear?" Taichi's mother asked.

"Just toast, I have to get going, early practice." Taichi said almost apologetically.

"But I sautéed mushrooms to go with the-" his mother started.

"Just toast, please." Taichi said with a patient smile.

"Hey slugger!" Taichi heard his father call out seconds before the arm of his father crooked around his neck gently and he felt the older man's knuckles gently rustle his hair. "Big game today!"

"Yeah, that's what they say." Taichi said frowning and wincing as his father released him and looked admiringly to the small plate of scrambled eggs and mushrooms that were being placed on a plate. "I guess there's even some American scouts coming from some colleges in the states."

"Ah, well, don't get psyched out." Taichi's father said as he sat down at the dinner table and started to tuck in. "You should eat some eggs. Fuel up!"

"Nah, I've got early practice, you know how coach is." Taichi said as he turned and reached out with his tawny arm and snatched a pair of toast slices from a plate, sticking one into his mouth as he half saluted with the other one. Taichi turned and started towards the door of the apartment.

"We'll be rooting for you." Taichi's mother said. "I'm sorry…you realize that right?"

"Yeah, no, Hikari's got that whole photo-gallery-thing." Taichi said, stopping and looking to his mother. "It wouldn't be right to make her miss it. I mean after all that-" He winced slightly. "I mean Ms. Tachikawa, pulled all those strings."

"We must send a thank you to Fumiko-san, don't let me forget that." Taichi's mother said. "She's really taken Kari under her wing."

"Yeah…" Taichi said turning to head out.

"I'll try and get off early, slugger." Taichi's father said. "It's such a shame this whole account business had to happen right now, but I'll do my best. I just wish I could-"

"It's fine, dad, really, it's good. No worries." Taichi said, turning, opening the door and walking out into the hallway.

He closed the door behind him. He trotted down the hallway and down the stairs and to the little promenade that had the mail boxes and out the glass doors onto the street. He blinked as sunlight blared between the buildings as it crested the buildings to the east. The wind swept a chill through the autumnal morning and the steam coming from Taichi's toast shifted slightly as he turned and walked towards a rack of bicycles. He found his, put his duffle bag down and fidgeted in his pocket snagging a key and freed the bike from the rack. He quickly ate the rest of his toast, and then adjusted the duffle across his back, and mounted the bicycle, pushing off and riding towards school.

Practice came and went and Taichi continued to his classes after a shower and change of clothes. He fumbled tying his tie as he pushed out of the locker room, his duffle bag slung across his shoulder and bumped almost immediately into a young man. The young man could only have been seven years older than him, if that.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Taichi yelped bowing deeply as he tried to back away from the young man.

"Ah, no, it's quite ok." The young man said, he had brown hair and was wearing a informal suit and wore a tie. He was carrying scrolls and a few paint boxes. "I'm afraid I'm a bit lost, actually, first year here." The man then quite clumsily tried to free a hand and extend it to Taichi. "Nishijima…I'm teaching calligraphy."

"Oh," Taichi said reaching forward and shaking the man's hand. "Taichi Yaga-"

"Yes, Mr. Yagami! Of course, makes sense…" Nishijima said smirking slightly. "I recognize you from that broadcast at Christmas. Very well done, by the by, yes, extremely well done. I believe you're in my class this year. I remember seeing the name, I think."

"Yeah…umm, thank you." Taichi said, almost reflexively pulling away. He swallowed hard as he tried to push aside the rush of memories from the previous six months.

"So you play soccer then?" Nishijima asked as he looked down to the dufflebag that was half open revealing the ball.

"Yes, sir." Taichi nodded.

"I seem to remember there being a game this afternoon after school." Nishijima said.

"Yes, there is, sir." Taichi nodded.

"Then I'll have to attend I suspect. " Nishijima said nodding. "Well, I best get going, lots to do, lots to do indeed."

Taichi nodded fervently as the young man sidled around him and then continued down the hall. Taichi scratch the back of his head and then turned and continued to his locker. As he approached his homeroom, he saw Yamato and Sora. He waved to them.

"How was practice?" Sora asked, as she waved back to Taichi.

"Oh, ok, got some new guys in this year who still need some work." Taichi said. "But I think we're ok for the game this afternoon. You guys are going to be there right?"

"Tai, I told you that I wasn't going to be able to go, me and the band have this gig up at the TV station." Yamato said shaking his head. "Debuting the new name, for the band…remember…"

"Yeah, Life of Pie wasn't it?" Taichi asked, furrowing his brow.

"No, Knife of Day!" Yamato admonished loudly, as Sora giggled quietly, her hand covering her mouth.

"I never understood why you changed it anyways…" Taichi grumbled as he reached for the door. "I always liked the Teenage Wolves-"

"We're not going to be teenagers forever, Tai!" Yamato growled.

"You aren't an old man yet." Taichi retorted. He looked up at Sora. "So, then are you-"

Sora stopped giggling and looked down. "Sorry, Tai, but I - I promised that I'd go to the studio with Yamato…I forgot that the game was today."

"Oh, well, that's fine." Taichi said as he opened the door to the home room.

"Isn't Hikari and your family coming?" Yamato asked as they entered the classroom.

"No, she's got this tour over at Fumiko Tachikawa's photo-gallery…so mom has to take her and dad's got work-" Taichi said as he went over to a cubby and stored his bag. "Koushiro has some kind of meeting with those UN people, Jyou is Jyou…and well…"

"Yeah, I heard." Sora said. "I'm sorry, Tai."

"About what? It's maybe for the best." Taichi said as he found his place and sat down. "Since she's come back…I can't deny things have been different and she's still Mimi, at the end of the day. It's not like I hate her or anything and I completely understand. Since the whole dragon thing and Daemon….and everything else, I just am somewhere else at the moment and so is she and we just need….time, apart."

The bell tolled and a young teacher rushed into the classroom. He fumbled around and dropped a pile of materials on the desk in front of him.

"Good morning, I'm your homeroom teacher Daigo Nishijima, amazingly lucky I found this room." The man said in a exasperated tone. "Such a large school." The man locked eyes with Taichi and laughed almost to himself. "Ah, Mr. Yagami, completely forgot to ask you for directions when I bumped into you this morning. How very absent-minded of me!" The entire class turned to Taichi and Tai felt his face burst into a burning crimson. The young teacher snapped his fingers quickly. "Right, right, then I suppose we get on with our business, roll call, yes, I guess I can check off Mr. Yagami, so let's go on, Asagi Atakawa?"

888

"Did you really think that would work?" Murmuxmon asked, as he glared at the digital sprite.

"Oh, it was a success on many levels, just not any that you were bothering to keep track of." the sprite said, as he patted down his robes. "You're more agile than I had expected, considering your condition. Your tendency towards violence is as high as I expected."

"So you made a sacrifice to gain tactical intelligence?" Murmuxmon snorted slightly, he then narrowed his eyes. "But then, that's what you do, isn't it?"

"Tactical sacrifices are necessary from time to time." the sprite said nodding. "You know that."

"But what good will it do you?" Murmuxmon asked. "You are in an even more precarious position now than you were before."

"I rather doubt that." the sprite replied. "If you had wanted me dead, I'd be dead. So that means you want me alive."

"Not me specifically." Murmuxmon said. "I was sent to fetch you."

"Ah, yes, it won't do you any good." the sprite replied, folding his hands behind his back. "I won't give up anything."

"I think you'll find me quite persuasive." Murmuxmon said as he took a step forward. "My master is very knowledgeable of you, and your kind."

"So were the dragons." the sprite said quietly. "I resisted them as well."

"Yes, but the dragons never knew your truth." Murmuxmon's lips curled into a nefarious smile. "Oh the stories my master does tell of you. Gennai, last of the great Order of Shakamon." The sprite didn't move as Murmuxmon walked around him. The flames of the firewall surged in the background. "I was most surprised to hear the truth when it was told to me. I mean I thought I had known some unpleasant people but then to hear what you had done."

"I have been a stalwart protector of this world." Gennai said clutching the lapels of his robes, not looking Murmuxmon in the eyes. "I have nothing to be ashamed of."

"Is that so? You're the last of your kind." Murmuxmon said, turning his back to Gennai. "All of them slaughtered, by Piedmon, yes? Only you survived to save the digivices, crests and tags, as well as those famed digi-eggs. Valiant sprite, engaging in one great last ditch effort to save the Digital World." Murmuxmon slowly looked back at Gennai. "At least, that's part of the story."

"It's the relevant part of the story." Gennai said sharply.

"Oh, I rather doubt it is, Gennai." Murmuxmon said. "The Order of Shakamon sequestered, hidden, biding their time after the Dark Masters had started overrunning the Digital World. Your order was looking for some way of stopping them. Each alternative becoming bleaker than the last."

"The Dark Masters would have destroyed the Digital World, the darkness of Apocalymon would have threatened all planes of existence." Gennai said sharply.

"And the Order came to a solution." Murmuxmon said. "Well, two solutions. One, was to re-establish connection with the Human World, attempt to restart destiny even though the Harmonious Ones had been sealed, but that required time, energy, motivation. The other, however-"

"Was not a solution." Gennai growled, dropping his hands to his sides.

"Wasn't it?" Murmuxmon asked. "From what I've heard it was the idea that the rest of the Order preferred. Simple, easy, fool-proof."

"It was reckless, gutless, and horrific." Gennai clenched his fists. "It should never have been even considered!"

"That was your opinion." Murmuxmon said quietly. "Your elders, your fellow Order members, disagreed, were planning on executing the final commands, but you, you couldn't allow it."

"Of course not!" Gennai growled. "It would've been mass murder!"

"Ironic-" Murmuxmon smirked. "Because you-"

"I did what I had to do, to protect this world and the Human World." Gennai said.

"I was always curious as to how the Dark Masters found the Order's secret hideout. It was exceptionally well warded and hidden." Murmuxmon said, his cobalt eyes eying Gennai. "I must say, I have to applaud you. Who would have thought such a sanctimonious, old monk such as yourself had the stomach for such a deep layer of treachery?"

"My loyalty is to this existence, this world, and the digimon that live on it." Gennai said, narrowing his eyes. "It extends no further, no deeper than that." He straightened up. "It's ancient history anyways, no one cares-"

"Oh, you don't think they-" Murmuxmon pointed up, "care. Those poor little children that look up to you ever so much? Oh, if only they knew that their little magic digital buddy was the traitor that got his own kind slaughtered…every last one."

"Had they accomplished their goals, this world, you, everything would have been eliminated." Gennai said. "The Human World would've been sent caterwauling into the Stone Age. I did the only sane thing to do! I was the only one that day that was listening to reason!"

"And for that you paid a price." Murmuxmon said. He lunged forward, and though Gennai tried he could not escape Murmuxmon's grasp. Murmuxmon yanked the back of Gennai's robe, exposing a scar on the nape of his neck. "Oh, you were clever though, rerouting the viral programming into your physical matrix, you burned out seventy percent of your run time neutralizing the program as it turned you into a comically curmudgeonly old man." Murmuxmon's claw ran over the scar. "A tiny seed, a little cocklebur of evil, even Azulongmon couldn't excise it from you. It's still in there-"

"Deactivated, impotent, irrelevant!" Gennai grunted as he tried to free himself from Murmuxmon's grasp.

"Now, you see, the things I have heard, the whispers in the night-" Murmuxmon whispered into Gennai's ear, "they sing a different tune. That's why I have been sent to retrieve you. It's time for your true self to shine!"

Gennai struggled, trying to pull from Murmuxmon's grip. He felt the incise of the hook into his shoulder, between his clavicle and the blade of his scapula. He bit his lip as he felt the hook shift as he struggled.

"You can't do it-" Gennai grunted as Murmuxmon pulled him close.

"I know the words, I have been given the power to revive the seed." Murmuxmon said.

"If you do this, don't think you'll survive." Gennai growled. His blue eyes sliced over to Murmuxmon.

"I will stand at his right hand." Murmuxmon smirked. "You were the key to the destiny, you are the crack in reality. The beach head that will allow my new master to rise!"

"It will destroy everything, it has no compassion, no loyalty, no sense of honor!" Gennai growled, trying to get through to Murmuxmon.

"Then how fitting it is, that you are to be its vessel, Gennai." Murmuxmon said, a wicked smile smeared across his face.

Gennai felt the claws of Murmuxmon's flesh hand press against the base of his neck. He heard the ancient words, the cryptic lines of arcane code that fashioned not just the Digital World but the whole of everything. The ancient breath of the primordial chaos, the infinite nothing that everything was birthed from. He screamed and shrugged and writhed, attempting in the worst case to tear his own clavicle free of his shoulder if it would free him from the hook that gripped his very skeleton.

"SHAKAMON STOP HIM!" shrieked Gennai as he heard the last of it, the final command protocols, the call to execute the program.

It burned from the base of his neck. It branched outwards. Rivers of it coursing through his body. Gennai tried to alter himself, like before, force it into the unmeasured lifetime he had been afforded, but found himself frozen, locked in place. His vision blurred as dark fingers enclosed around him. His body twisted outside of his own command. He felt it choking him grasping his throat as it took control of his voice. His mind was clouded, surrounded on all sides by darkness.

"Now, we can begin-" Gennai heard his voice say.

888

AN: This is the official beginning, of the after of Waking the Dragons. It may seem slightly familiar to some of you, and may seem even more familiar as we proceed but for different reasons. I'm hoping this isn't like Waking the Dragons in that it takes nearly a decade to see completion but I make no promises. Timing on this will be erratic until I get a better hold on things, but I wanted to get this published so as to give some of you who have been patiently waiting to have something. Also those of you new, this is a sequel of sorts to Digimon 02: Waking the Dragons, which can be found via perusing my profile or by searching for it using the search function.