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Chapter 13 - Oh Yeah [End of the World [And All That]], Almost Forgot

~~~

"Let's get a hotel," Meicrackmon said, grinning viciously.

The multiple layers with that statement had me nearly fold in on myself.

"Okay, okay Mei, let's not be mean!" Mia said when I didn't respond.

"Whatever do you mean?" Meicrackmon said. "I was only thinking about the best place for you to sleep!"

"Right." I said. Well, it would certainly be better than holding her while we run all night long. If the hotel was a bust, we could stow ourselves away on a passenger boat like a ferry.

Despite my reservations at the crazy cat lady and I being in a hotel together, it really was the best option. It took about 20 minutes. It wasn't quite outside the city, but it wasn't far off either.

"I found a Concourse Hotel," I said. They made to go to the front door before I blocked them. "It's best if we go in through the back of a hotel room, hanging out on the balcony."

Neither I nor Mei specialized in stealth, and we couldn't phase through walls. So we hopped up the side of the building, about five or six stories, tapped on one of the sliding glass doors. The thick blackout curtains the american hotels used meant it was still a risk we would enter a room someone was in.

"Technically," I said, before we actually broke in. "This is our first actual moment of evil. Write that in your journal later, Mia." I held out a claw by the glass door and began to trace in a circular motion.

"But I don't have a journal," she said.

Yet.

Actually, no wait, it would be terrible to catalogue everything she did wrong.

"Good, wouldn't want to have a perfect log of every law we broke on our way to destroy the world."

She laughed.

The circular bit of glass fell away like we were a pair of museum thiefs in a heist. I reached my arm in, flicked the lock, and the door didn't slide. I flicked it again, back to its original position. The door slid open.

Haha.

We all walked into a dark hotel room that looked perfect for some americans. Two proper beds with mattresses, a couch, and a television. Mia immediately hopped onto the bed and started snoozing away. Meicrackmon just swayed around. I went to the hotel room door and flipped the chain link lock on it as well as the deadbolt.

Once we'd Sly Cooper'd ourselves into the hotel room, I took a breath and let myself sag. Mia had already dug her way under the covers, leaving Mei to stand there like an overdesigned cosplay fursuit. Being at least seven feet tall, there and stared at me for a moment, before sliding next to Mia.

The cat lady glowed, then finally returned to… Meicoomon form. Wait what?

"Meicoomon form, huh?" I asked.

"Mia likes Meicoomon form while in the human world," Meicoomon said.

"Not every digimon reverts to child form, it seems." I would have said 'I guess', but that would have kinda ruined what little mystique I still had left. If roleplaying a role in a dream was the requirement, doing that was as good of a choice as any other.

I flicked my arm out and summoned my keyblade. It popped into reality as easily as the animations in kingdom hearts made it seem. I waved it about carefully for a few seconds, avoiding the ceiling and the walls and furniture.

Could I evolve?

The changes in personality from small little demon kitty to slightly larger but smaller demon kitty with a third person verbal affects were strange. Going backwards was also strange.

Flicking the arm away this time.

I didn't think I could evolve. I grabbed the digivice around my neck. Even if I did, what would happen to me? Would my mentality shift like Mei's did? For some reason, those thoughts were more comforting than the anxiety I felt at potentially never knowing exactly what happened in the real world.

The thought of returning home brought a knot and tightness in my chest that only increased. God, I had a husband and a fucking kid and going home only brought dread and feelings of foreboding.

No, I had to figure out how to go home. I had to know. What really happened to me. To my family. I couldn't live with myself if I woke up from this coma and the first thing I ended up thinking was anything other than relief. We'd have tears at the reunion. I'd cry and see my kid was a couple years older and my husband had found himself a girlfriend and they were just about to pull the plug and—

"Mei," Mia whispered, reaching her arms out to the cat. Right, they were still in the room. Glanced over at my arm, the glow inside leaking. Sweet. So doing the right thing would exacerbate my definitely-not-lifted-from princess-mononokey or whatever other anime I had seen as a kid that inspired this particular character detail.

Luckily I hadn't actually met the D-Reaper, yet. No items, no D-Reaper. No Ultimate-omega-max -tier digital gods on my ass trying to send me to super hell for not dying when I should. Yet. Mia held Mei in her arms, which was… pretty dang cute.

With them asleep, I sat by the door with my thoughts. If I had a planner or even a paper and pen I'd have written a little journal page or something.

"So, that was how our first outing in the Real World ended."

Mia would wake up in a few hours, watch would be broken, and she'd cry about something incredibly ominous and then I'd have to force her to use the hotel toothbrush.

The FBI guy would give chase. I'd say some ominous things, and I would get attacked by at least three digimon insanely stronger than me despite all I was doing was existing and trying to get home.

Oh, and also everyone dies in the end because I wake up from the dream.

Haha.

~~~

It was Gaomon that broke the silence. "So, now that we 'split' up, does anyone have any idea on how to actually find Mia now?"

Tentomon was the one that answered. "Nullrenamon took Skyler's backpack and remote, so she could be anywhere."

Tsumemon jumped in. "She's not that hard to find! When you destroyed all the things Skyler did to hack each area of the world, the number of places they could go dropped each time! There's only one place she could have gone!"

"So where did she go? I want to settle the score with Brad before I'm in a wheelchair" David said, impatient as ever.

"The Time Zone," Skyler said.

"You hacked that place?" Alex asked, skeptical.

"Hahaha it was the easiest place for him to hack too!" Tsumemon shouted, before retreating under Gaomon and Tentomon's combined ire. Leomon hung back, silent and contemplative.

Alex still wasn't very happy. "The entire digital world should have fallen to a time paradox! That's what Baalmon said would happen if it was destroyed."

"Hacking isn't destroying it," Skyler clarified. "We just hooked into one of the dark data lines and used that to power the portal system."

"Okay, so they probably passed into the cloud world," David said. "We need to get there, but no one actually knows the way there, do they?"

"Baalmon does," Brad said. "He was the one who opened the portal to the Time Zone, so if we find him, we can get there."

"Too slow!" David declared. "Who knows what that monster is doing? We can't just wander around until we find it, we need to actually GET THERE," he practically shouted.

"We know! We know! Calm your tits, David" Brad said, hands in pocket.

Brad's response only served to make David even more frustrated. That said, by now he'd managed to roll with the barbs just enough to avoid being provoked.

How were they to get there? They could take a sky elevator up and then try to direct it back down. The digital world that was actually traversable this way wasn't actually that large, however. The digital world wasn't structured the same as theirs.

"Well," Skyler broke the frustrated silence. Tsumemon floated nervously around Skyler, growing nervous as the team focused on his chosen kid.

"No, now way, no how. Not again!" David interjected before Skyler could finish his point.

"We don't have enough Time to walk to the nearest elevator and commandeer it," Alex said.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"And even if we did, we'd all be exhausted," Brad said.

"We could, I dunno, call in a favor from one of the Digimon who we helped?" David said.

"How? And they still have to come to us!"

David shrunk back a bit. "Man, we just spent all that energy dismantling the whole thing and now we're gonna have him do it again?"

Skyler pointed at the black ring still around one of Tsumemon's tentacles.

"We don't need a permanent hack. I can just do it so we get the coordinates and connect the portal. We make the hop and then when the portal closes we automatically disconnect. If we can find another dark leyline, I can forward the power to get a new portal up and running, and since they're hooked into the same network, I can open a portal to the Time Zone."

Alex and Brad both shuffled a bit, a few glances at each other betraying their own nervousness. They spent weeks in the digital world chasing down various digimon and freeing them from these mutually-exclusive data locks.

"So long as the lock actually expires," Alex says.

Destroying the hacks Skyler or the ghosts had installed had taken a long time. Even David, as aggressive and impatient as he naturally was, stalled out. Madelyn already knew the way to the Time Zone.

She had always been great at directions.

"Digital time is already cursed, the Time Zone didn't need me… It was practically already hacked by the time I got there. The one digimon we met just muttered nonsense about their pocket watch being stolen."

"Yeah!" Tsumemon shouted, giggling again, "He was a big walking clock! And why would he need a pocket watch! It's not like you can steal time anyway…" it trailed off, as if realizing something.

"What?" Tentomon asked, realizing something was off.

"I uh. I think Mia stole his pocket watch," Alex said.

"Okay, so she and Mei stole his pocket watch while we were there. What are we supposed to do about it?" David demanded. One thing to point out a problem. Another to point out a problem they can't do anything about.

"Well, I'm sorry, I just realized it and said it aloud!" Alex was getting defensive. For his part, Tentomon jumped in between David and raised his arms to divert attention.

It seemed to work well enough.

"Well it would probably be best to mention things we can actually do something about, dontcha think?" David liked Alex but sometimes his friend just had a hard time reading the room.

"We should ask Clockmon about the watch's powers," Leomon said. "There's no time to waste, we must get to the Time Zone."

~~~

Madelyn turned to face the mirror again.

It had taken some coaxing to get Patamon to trust her to give her some alone time. Now, she was cleaned up.

Cleaned up.

Cleaned.

Things were good.

She turned to face the mirror again.

Had the mirror affected her with that glimpse?

No, of course not, that wasn't how it worked.

She turned to face the mirror again.

Madelyn's stomach rumbled.

Things weren't great.

But she was clean.

The gnawing hunger distracted Madelyn from the draw of the mirror. When the rest of the team and their digimon all left, they'd left with the food.

The rush out the door hadn't hurt.

She was okay.

Fine, even.

Everyone needed breaks, even Chosen Kids.

And she was taking one.

Well-deserved!

Her sister would be jealous.

Patamon was out finding food. They needed to find food, but since Skyler had been "fine" in that he hadn't starved, food was probably nearby/around. So, she broke the stare at the mirror and the massive drapes that went from the ceiling to the floor.

A mirror couldn't actually do anything to you, right? Sure, this was the digital world and magic was real, but everything still operated under rules.

So, once she'd discovered the bathroom and shower and made good use of them. She had nearly cried when she noticed the amenities. But no one else was around, so she didn't. Instead, she spent the time alone thinking about the mirror.

What mysteries could it hold?

The water in the pipes of the castle worked for some reason. It was the digital world, things didn't have to make sense. But that didn't mean there wasn't some constraining rule that held things back, right?

Patamon hadn't been able to say exactly what was wrong. The vibes were off. Was all she'd managed to get out of him. Something was wrong. Objectively, she hadn't been able to see what the problem was. She wasn't like Skyler. You could reason yourself out of bad decisions, see.

Madelyn knew what was right and what was wrong. Darkness flees from the light. Treat others how you want to be treated. Don't lie. Help others meet your standards. You're the older sister. The example.

Madelyn turned to check out the closet.

The room had Actual amenities! Shower! A Closet! A sink! Running water!

She laughed.

Some clothing!

A hairbrush!

New Clothing!

It was nice.

She'd taken her time and cleaned up.

It took a bit of coaxing Patamon to get him to leave her alone with her thoughts. He understood her, and trusted her enough to give a bit of space.

What she had wanted was a solution. A hint. An explanation for the madness that gripped the Digimon. An end to the entire mess.

Doesn't matter how.

Didn't.

Her relationship with Patamon was different from the relationship she'd had with the other "chosen" kids. So she had promised not to look at the mirror, at least not without him there as Angemon.

She was in front of the closet again.

Eying the shelf of the closet, there had been a single article. A black bit of cloth with a hood and large zipper. It wasn't actually clothing, really. More of a single giant black cloak with an oversized zipper. The fact that it blended right in with the stone of the castle walls was eye-roll worthy, however.

Shady, if not evil vibes. It was easy to tell Evil from Good. The cloth felt great, but there wasn't a universe where she'd wear anything that screamed "I Am Evil!" as loud as the cloak.

She'd paced about the room, like she couldn't decide. Time was moving too fast and too slow all at once.

It ate at her. Why hadn't the region reverted when they undid the corruption. Why had the ghosts done what they did? It made sense on paper but the more she thought about everything the less sense things had made. Why had Mia run away?

She was eight. The baby of the family. The one who could skip school whenever she wanted. The one who always cried for mom, the one that mom didn't care if she got a B instead of all A's. The one that had all the damn toys.

She closed her eyes.

Madelyn was back in front of the mirror. She stood back, in front of the mirror. There wasn't a draft, the curtain didn't move.

She'd seen it ripple.

Patamon had left to find food; she had told him she'd call for him if she needed help. He didn't like the castle, but she'd insisted on taking some time to clean up. She was hungry, that wasn't a lie.

Why was she sad when she thought about Patamon?

She couldn't be sad. They'd worked together! He needed to understand that if they didn't drill down to the root cause of this whole mess, they would have to dive into things that had bad vibes. It was part of the job description.

What good was being a chosen kid if you couldn't stomach some bad vibes? Yes, she had a clear mind. There was knowledge in the mirror.

Because what did mirrors do? They reflected light.

She felt it. Patamon had wanted to destroy the mirror.

"You can't do that," she'd said.

Destroying it would have been bad. So, with the door closed and her partner out digging for food, she opened the mirror, sliding a piece of the purple cloth back.

The mirror was dark. Of course! The black of the stone tiles were gobbling up the reflection. The bedsheets, also black, didn't help. The cloth slid back down obscuring the mirror again. The reflection of her eyes drew her in.

Her hand was gripping her digivice. As if it knew better.

She inched closer, toward the mirror. She put her free hand over the drape and pulled the cloth further back to the side. It was heavy, almost like it didn't want to move. She pulled it back.

Holding it, looking into the window. The frame of the mirror was large and ornate, with intricate details.

"Air Shot!" Patamon shouted, blasting the curtain out of her hand.

She whipped her head back behind her letting go of the cloth. Her heart pounded, it was patamon, a bag at his feet that he'd dropped.

Her heart was pounding.

"That mirror is bad, Madelyn!" he said, tears starting to come out of his eyes. "Don't look into it!"

"But… we have to," She said.

"Air shot!" Patamon shouted, busting Madelyn in the head, knocking her onto the ground. "Stop it!" he cried, but before he could headbutt her, she grabbed him and pulled him into a hug.

"We have to see what's in the mirror," Madelyn told him.

Tears were in his eyes.

"I wish we didn't—" technically not a lie "— but there's something about it that we need if we're going to put an end to it."

"But there's… never an end!" Patamon said, stopping her in her tracks. What? What was he saying?

"You know it's a cycle, Maddie! The old kids disappeared, now you and the others are the new ones. And there will be more after that!"

"Then … why are we fighting?" she said, not truly asking. She knew why she was fighting. She was fighting to protect both the digital world and the human world. The real world.

Her brain was still spinning up, re-entering the world around her again. Like her thought processes had been put into a reboot cycle, they were still catching up to the train of thought.

No. If it was cyclical, no one had actually told her. They'd said it was cyclical but they never said it. They'd lied while saying it. They'd lied to her.

"Come on Maddie, I have food. I found some in the kitchen. It's not much but I brought some!" Patamon told her. "You always said you feel slower and cranky without sugar."

"That's okay, let's eat after we look into the mirror," she said. She was holding the little bread loaf with wings for ears in her arms with a soft, yet firm grip. "You don't have to look into the mirror, but I need to," she said.

"Maddie, we really shouldn't," he said, but his resolve was starting to collapse.

"With me, or without me?" she said. He squirmed a bit, but she didn't let go.

"That's not fair!" he whined.

"Look, we both know right and wrong. You're smart—" She smiled at him, trying to reassure, but from the look on his face it didn't work. "If you want, you can evolve if you're worried there's some evil digimon on the other side."

She'd made a lot of concessions for her partner digimon. That was fine. Good, even. What was a friendship without give and take?

Tears in his eyes, he said, "You know I'll never let you face your demons alone, Maddie."

"Okay, let's evolve," she had said.

Then nothing happened, and neither of them knew why. He wasn't evolving. Maybe she was hungry. Maybe she should eat, but no, she couldn't eat until she got a proper look into the mirror, so she didn't. Well, not being able to evolve wasn't great, but there were plenty of reasons to explain why.

He'd asked her if they could wait until they ate or he could evolve again, but knew she wasn't going to leave the room without them getting into a squabble if she couldn't get a closer look.

Thus, against his wishes, the duo found themselves staring at a black, black mirror.

"See?" Madelyn said. "The mirror doesn't have anything. All that worry for nothing."

She'd notice if something was wrong anyway.

Then, a voice spoke, each syllable echoing into her bones.

"You're not my chosen one."

~~~