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Here's what's happened so far: I land in Digi-world. I've got a digivice and a tag. I know all about digi-world, but I pretend not to so they won't all get freaked out and think I got 'em stuck here. I find my Crest during an attack by Flymon, but it was blocking the entrance to the 'Temple of the Spirit Lines'. Me and Matt fall into the hole. Without any Digimon to protect us, we're attacked and put to a test by one of the caretakers of the Spirit Lines. Just when I think I'm done for, Sphinikmon, the Guardian of the Temple shows up and saves me! It seems she's also my Digi-partner! Using the Spirit Lines, Sphinikmon transports us all back to where the battle took place but everyone's gone. Now we've got to catch up with others before anything else happens.
"Are we there yet?"
"Quit asking me that. I told you I don't know."
"Why not? You're the one THE HAIR. Plus you're a vampire right now."
"THE HAIR? What's that all about?"
"Why don't you tell him Aelinee?"
"Yeah. Please do. And tell her to shut up."
I just shook my head at them. They'd been arguing quite a lot the last half hour. I'd been too busy thinking of what was happening to me. I'm walking through a physical embodiment of the 'net with a hyperactive cat-dragon-angel thing and an annoyed temporarily-vampire Matt. I thought I might as well join in.
"Tai's the one with THE HAIR."
"He is not."
"Is too!"
"What is this 'THE HAIR' thing? I hope you know although I don't want to kill you any more I've still got a craving for blood."
"Yeah. Tell him Ae."
"Don't call me 'Ae'. K, then. Well your hair is like, cool and Tai's hair is like, big. Scratch that - Tai's hair is huge. So it's debatable wether it's you or Tai with THE HAIR."
"Ri-ight."
"You don't get it do you?"
"We-ell...no. I don't think I want to."
"And Ae?"
"And what?"
"What about everything else?"
"There is no 'everything else'."
"Is too. About digiworld and your website."
"Website?" I felt the color drain from my face.
"With that banner on it?"
"You've got a website? You should have told Izzy." Sphinikmon put on a 'honey and knives' tone of voice
"And why don't you tell him what your wonderful website is about Ae?"
"......"
"Yeah, tell me. I won't tell anyone."
"..............."
"pleeeeaaaaaase Aelinee?"
".......Alright ALRIGHT!! IT'S A DIGIMON WEBSITE AND IT'S GOT A YAMATO ONLINE CLUB BANNER ON IT!! Happy now?!"
"'Yamato online club banner'?"
"She fancies you, ya know."
"Shutupshutupshutup"
"Well you do."
"Sphinikmon!!"
"Wha-at?!" Matt wasn't saying anything to this. He gone very quiet and was attempting to burn a hole through the ground with will power. You know the look I mean. So was I.
"Givin' me the silent treatment? C'mo-on! Talk to me!!"
"......."
"......."
"Why doncha explain Aelinee? You were gonna slip up sometime. I won't make you tell the others. But...y'know, you have to tell someone." Sphinikmon was talking quieter now. She stopped.
"C'mon. Talk."
"....Alright. But let's keep moving. We'll never catch up with the others if we stop."
"Adda girl."
"Don't treat me like a kid. I'm 16 you know."
"Sorry."
"....Well, I know all about Digi-world and everything 'cause there's an anime series of it where I come from. Um."
"I wondered why you knew Gabumon's name when we didn't really introduce ourselves. What else do you know?"
"Lots of stuff. There's..."
"Aelina, you can't tell them about future evemts or anything. Especially since they might not happen with you and me being here and all."
"That pretty much means I can't tell you anything you won't know Matt...these Spirit lines though...What are they Sphinikmon?"
"Lines of power throughout the Multiverse. You can travel between dimensions if you know what to do. You must have hit a power point by accident and got transported here, Aelinee." Matt looked confused.
"So....what did happen to you Aelina? I mean we...you know how we got here."
"I was knocked over by Mill and then the next thing I know I can see and hear Tai and Agumon, clear as a bell. Well...not that clear at first. The only thing that's stopping me from thinking this is all a really long dream is how much my feet and my arms are killing me." Sphinikmon stopped and peered hard at something in the clearing ahead of us. A figure with it's back turned to us. It looked like...
"Hey, is that Tai over there? Tai!" The figure turned round...It looked at lot like Tai, but...
"Either Tai's been in a serious fight and had some major weird plastic surgery, or that is NOTTai..." The creature in front of us had a human body and it was wearing clothes just like Tai's, it even had goggles. But it had a large grey mark under it's right eye. It wasn't wearing any gloves though, so we could see it had grey claws and orange stripes on it's skin...it had the same orange stripes on it's face, again on the right side. It had green eyes. It raised a hand towards us...
"PEPPER BREATH!" A fireball blasted from it's hand!
"Dive!" The fireball torched the trees directly behind us...
"What the heck is that thing?!"
MEET MY LITTLE CREATION - A TAI-AGUMON CLONE. A CHAOS CLONE AND IT'S PURPOSE IS TO DISPOSE OF THAT GIRL.
This time it was a female voice...Spinikmon yelled at the top at the top of her voice
"Why?! It's you isn't it, you're that rouge Spirit Caretaker!! Well you're not harming the Digi-destined!"
I HAVE NO INTEREST IN THE DIGIDESTINED. I WANT THAT GIRL AND ALL THE OTHER PROPHETS OUT OF MY WAY.
"Aelina is a prophet as well?!"
YES AND YOU, YOU ANNOYING FURBALL. DON'T PRETEND YOU DIDN'T KNOW!
"Well I didn't. What do you want me to do, lie?"
MAYBE IT WOULD MAKE YOU LESS ANNOYING
"Would not" She thought about this for a moment.
"Who you callin' annoyin' you old hag!"
OLD HAG?!! CLONE - DESTROY THEM! AND THAT VAMPIRE AS WELL. I DISLIKE VAMPIRES.
Sphinikmon yelled at Matt
"Do something! You're a vampire for Goddess' sake!" Matt ran into the Tai clone and hit it...it flew into a tree, broke it and smashed into a rock that cracked badly. The clone was left unconscious with blood trickling down it's chin. Matt had froze.
"I can't do that! That's...that's...Is it...is it dead?" We ran over to the clone. It looked just like Tai now that it wasn't snarling at us. I felt sorry for it.
"We can't just leave it here...Sphinikmon...we've got to do something."
"Like what?"
"I just hit it through a tree...."
"You said those lines can transport people through dimensions? Can't we find a doctor or something? Like..like Dr. Alma from Grandia or something? If she exists..."
"That's not a bad idea! Lesee now...this one..grab the thing..Oh and Matt"
"Wha? Fine." The trees melted and flowed around us and became a village. There were what looked like elves walking around and none of them seemed surprised to see us. A short distance away was what I vaugely recognised as...Dr. Alma's surgery. Sphinikmon looked at Matt.
"Quickly..while you're still a vampire pick up Tai and we'll get him to the surgery. Aelina, you can explain to Dr. Alma."
"Me? What am I gonna tell her?"
"Just the truth. I'm sure she'll understand."
"O.K." We walked into the surgery and Dr. Alma was there straight away.
"Put him on the bed. He needs treatment as soon as possible. What happened to him."
"I punched him through a tree and into a rock.....AARRGGHH!" Matt dropped to his knees. His hair had turned blonde again.
"Matt! Looks like that polymorph spell has worn off...Matt are you o.k?!"
"I see. He should be alright if I can give him the right herbs." Dr. Alma went pale. "It's not human..." She shook herself. "But, that doesn't matter. Tell me where you came from and what exactly happened."
As Dr. Alma went about wiping all the blood of the clones face and started making some sort of potion with herbs, honey and milk, I told her about how I'd got to digiworld and the events leading to this one...Matt didn't say anything..he was staring at the clone lying on the bed. Sphinikmon had fallen asleep on the sheepskin near the stove. Dr. Alma told us to give it the potion when it woke up, then she left to see to another patient.
"Matt?"
"Huh? What is it?"
"This doesn't bother you at all?"
"Not really."
"Coming to Digi-world didn't bother you much either, did it?"
"Not really."
"Why?"
"......"
"......"
I looked hard at the clone.
"Hey! That mark...it's..gone.."
"It has?"
"No wait..it's not gone..it's just changed color..it's pure white, it was grey before..Hey..It's waking up!"
"Get back from the bed then!"
Matt dragged me back from the bed and went rigid, fixed on the clone. It opened it's eyes and sat up.
"What happened? Where am I?"
It sounded just like Tai. Minus the ego.
"Er..I was told to give you this. Drink it."
The clone sniffed at it suspiciously.
"How do I know I can trust you?"
"We brought you here."
"Good point. If you were going to kill me you'd have done it by now."
It started drinking the potion. It must have beem really thirsty.
"Who are you? Why did you attack us?"
"Who am I? I....don't know. I wasn't given a name. I know I'm a Digimon. That's about it. I attacked you because my mistress told me to."
"Did you want to?"
"Not really. But my mistress is my mistress."
"If she told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?"
".....no. I tell her to do it instead."
"Well then. Stick with us. We won't make you do anything you don't want to."
"Why?"
"Because I'm nice like that?"
"O.K then."
"You don't have to believe me you know."
"I don't?"
"I think you'd better stick with us or you'll get fried. What do you think Matt?"
No answer.
"Matt?"
Matt was asleep half on the nearest bed. He looked all pale.
"DR. ALMA! Matt doesn't look so good..he's passed out!"
Dr. Alma came back in.
"After effects of that spell. He'll be alright but you'll be here for a few days at least."
"A few DAYS?!"
"That's right. I'll explain to the innkeeper and I'm sure she'll let you have a room for a few days. She owes me a favour."
"You'd do that for us? You don't even know us!"
"You seem to know me...besides...I'm a doctor..I'm here to help people."
"Thank you ever so much!"
"You're friend can stay here. He'll be alright. Come back in the morning."
Me and the clone made our way to the Inn. Our rooms were next to one another. Something was bugging the Tai clone.
"Do you know my name? What's your name anyway? I never asked."
"My name is Aelina. Your name? I don't know."
"I've got to have a name."
"That's right. Else we'll be going 'oi! You! With THE HAIR!"
"Huh?"
"It's a long running joke about Tai's hair."
"Tai?"
"Um..who you were sorta cloned from.."
"Is that my name then?"
"Yeah..I mean no..er..well you're a digimon so it'll end in 'mon'."
"Taimon?"
"Nah that's not good enough..how about Taichimon? That's Tai's full japanese name. And 'mon'."
"O.k. then."
"You don't have to have it."
"Well...Mistress Aelina, if you think it's good, it's good enough for me."
"Woah! No more 'mistress Aelina'ing o.k?"
"But..well...you are...but if you say so Miss Aelina."
"Not..aw forget it.."
"G'night Taichi."
"Um...'G'night' Miss Aelina."
That was it. He seemed perfectly happy. But I guess he is just a kid. But in the morning...
"Good morning Miss Aelina! I thought you'd never wake up!"
"Wha? Wha..What are you doing in my room?!"
"I've been here all night."
".....You little...why?"
"I didn't want to be on my own. Is something wrong?"
".....what do you mean is something wrong?! Do I have to spell it out for you?!"
"Looks like it."
I glared at him. Surely he was kidding. But that look in his eyes..
"What did I do? Don't Digimon stay near their..er..people?"
"That's right....you're a digimon...I'm sorry. I thought..."
"Hmm?"
"Never mind. I'll go check on Matt. You go get some breakfast."
"Shouldn't I come too?"
"It's really up to you. But..you were knocked out for over two hours yesterday after being smashed through a tree and into a rock. You haven't eaten anything since then."
"O.K. then."
"Right. I won't be long. You go now."
"Shouldn't I wait for you?"
"I'm getting dressed!"
"So?"
".......Please go and get some breakfast. I'm not in the mood to explain right now, with it being 7:30 in the morning and all."
To my relief he wasn't annoyed. He smiled at me and left.
'Someone's gotta talk to that kid....'
Matt was sat up when I came in. Dr. Alma wasn't there. I ran up and hugged Matt
"You're O.K! I was worried. I didn't know that people could collapse from polymorph spells...I guess it's because you're not used to magic."
Something was bugging me.
"Hey! Where's Sphinikmon? I haven't seen her since last night."
"I'm here."
"You've been sat with Matt? That was nice of you. I should've stayed up too.."
"I was not stayin' up."
Dr. Alma came in with some more potions. She gave two to Matt.
"Drink the blue one now and that pinkish one tomorrow. The day after that you can be on your way again. Oh. Here"
Dr. Alma handed me two small, blue ovals.
"Mana Eggs??"
"That's right. Go and buy yourself some spells. You'll need them if your story was true. A patient gave them to me, but magic is no use to me. My potions and medicines are all I need."
"Thank you very much!"
So Matt is back to normal and we've got another traveller with us. Looks like that evil plan failed. But how many more Chaos Clones are there out there? And are they all so clueless?
Here be Dragons