All the characters belong to Akiyoshi Hongo and Toei, and I'm not making any profit. This is slightly different to my usual style of writing, but I've been rewatching the show and have been more than a little influenced by that.

And, yes, Japanese V-Mon is this hyper. "Daisuke! Daisuke! Daisuke!" ^.^;

D3.10:  The Quest for the Crests – Part 1

"I'm sorry Tentomon and I are so late," Koushirou apologised, as Takeru opened the door to let him into the Ishidas' apartment, "Mom made me wait to get sandwiches for all of you."

Feeling slightly embarrassed, he held out the cloth-wrapped bundle to the younger boy. His mother had really made the sandwiches for Yamato. She was convinced that he couldn't be eating properly if he was just living with his father, and had made it her mission to feed him. She kept packing extra food into Koushirou's lunches with cryptic instructions to share it with his friend. He chose to interpret that as Taichi. Taichi wasn't fussy about accepting food, whereas Yamato would have been offended.

"Nii-san is making spaghetti for us, but these won't go to waste with twelve Digimon here," Takeru took it from him with a smile, "You know how they can eat."

"My mom keeps planning to charge 'Tento' rent, if he carries on eating everything in her fridge," Koushirou replied wryly. His mother still refused to accept that his partner was anything but a strange-looking friend that he had.

"Koushirou!" Tentomon protested from his shoulder, "I don't eat that much!"

Laughing, "Hey, I still don't think I was wrong about Patamon evolving into a pig. He didn't even need me to do it."

Joining his laughter to Takeru's, Koushirou followed him through to the lounge. All the others had already arrived, and were spread out on every imaginable surface. Taichi and Daisuke were lying on their stomachs in front of the television, Playstation controllers in their hands, playing a game that seemed to involve giant robots hitting each other. V-Mon and Agumon were alternatively cheering them on and begging them for a turn. Ken, Iori and Miyako were sitting on the sofa with their partners, having a quiet conversation among themselves. Koushirou noticed that Ken's arm was around Miyako's shoulders, and she was curled up against his chest. He felt a slight twinge of jealousy at that, but quickly surpressed it again. A red-faced Jyou was trying to dissuade Gomamon from bouncing up and down on one of the other couches. Mimi, Sora, Piyomon and Palmon were laughing together in a corner and shooting occasional looks at the others. In the kitchenette, Hikari was stirring spaghetti sauce, while Gabumon, Patamon and Tailmon added ingredients to it all under Yamato's watchful eye. The blond boy was ensconced in a pink, frilly apron that would have looked ridiculous on Mimi.

Koushirou smiled to himself. Despite the circumstances, he was glad to have the friends he did. He had not known what he had been missing in the ten lonely years before he had met them at the summer camp that had become a desperate fight for the survival of the Digital World. It had changed all their lives, and he was no exception.

"Sorry I'm late," he dipped his head politely in greeting, "Mom made sandwiches."

"Yes! I'm starved!" Daisuke punched the air with his fist, then winced as Taichi took the opportunity to deliver a knock-out combo to his robot, "Taichi! That's unfair!"

"You snooze, you lose," he replied complacently.

Gomamon jumped off the couch and paddled over to where Koushirou and Takeru were standing. V-Mon and Agumon weren't far behind him. There was a hungry gleam in the eyes of all three Digimon, "So, where are these sandwiches already?"

The younger boy knelt on the floor and undid the knot that held the bundle together, before opening the cloth to reveal a mountain of sandwiches. Koushirou felt his cheeks grow warm. His mother certainly couldn't be accused of underfeeding anyone.

"Cool! Cool! Cool!" V-Mon started bouncing up and down, clapping his hands together, 'Thank you, Koushirou! Thank you! Thank you!"

Agumon and Gomamon didn't waste any time on words, grabbing a sandwich off the top of the pile and stuffing the whole thing into their mouths.

"Delicious!" Agumon murmured blissfully through a mouthful of crumbs, "Mmmmm."

"Definitely delicious," Gomamon echoed.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn't long before the other humans and Digimon were clustered around the sandwiches and were helping themselves to them. The pile diminished rapidly.

"Hey!" Yamato called from the kitchen, stabbing a spoon in their direction, "Don't spoil your appetite! Spaghetti's almost ready, and I'll be pissed if everyone's too full to eat it!"

"Because supervising is just so much work," Tailmon murmured just loud enough for him to hear. Patamon sweatdropped.

"No chance of that!" Daisuke grinned, "We're talking Digimon here!"

"Yep, Agumon could demolish these sandwiches and your pot of spaghetti and have room for desert," Taichi said fondly.

Agumon patted his round stomach, "Bring it on!"

Everyone burst out laughing.

********

When the spaghetti had been dished up and everyone was sitting on the floor with plates in their laps, Taichi looked around at the others, "I hate to spoil a good meal by talking business, but that is why we're here. . . ."

"Can't it wait until we're at Gennai's?" Mimi complained, twirling noodles around her fork and letting them slip back onto her plate, "We can't do anything until we see what he says, right?"

"Not really," Takeru smiled apologetically at her, "We've been so busy handling this threat that we haven't thought about what's happening. I think we should get it straight before we go to Gennai."

"I agree with Takeru," Hikari said from next to him, "We can't just go to Gennai expecting him to have all the answers. At very least, we should know what questions to ask him."

"There's a surprise," Mimi muttered, rolling her eyes. Taichi guessed that she hadn't forgiven Hikari for slapping her the other day. He still couldn't believe that his sweet, gentle sister had done that, although he could understand why. From what she had told him, Mimi had become hysterical when she had seen Palmon dark-evolving, and slapping her had been the only way to snap her out of it. However, that didn't explain the cutting things that Hikari had said to her, or the angry glare that she was giving her now.

"So, what is going on?" Jyou asked, "I mean, obviously, a gate was opened between our two worlds and Vandemon came through it."

Gabumon nodded, "Agumon and I saw him."

"And he's somehow gotten his claws on the Shadow Crests," Agumon added with a scowl.

"But what are the Shadow Crests?" Iori had a puzzled frown on his face, "I know all of you had your crests, like Jyou had faith or Koushirou had knowledge, but weren't they made especially for you?"

For a long time, the only sound was the clinking of forks on plates, as everyone thought about Iori's questions. It was a good one too, Taichi thought. When the entity that had possessed Hikari had shown them the facility where their Digimon had been created, it had said that their crests had been formed from the qualities that were strongest in them on the night when he had met a Koromon for the first time. Why would they have created Shadow Crests too?

"Balance," Takeru said suddenly, "There always has to be balance in the Digital World, right?"

"Right," Koushirou sounded excited, "If they were to make crests that only had positive qualities, that balance would be disturbed. So, they had to make the Shadow Crests as well in order to preserve it."

"Makes sense to me," Tentomon said.

"But those Shadow Crests probably weren't meant to be found," Sora added, swallowing her mouthful of spaghetti, "You know how well ours were hidden. The Shadow Crests were probably hidden even better."

"But Vandemon found them anyway," Ken's voice was quiet, "We know he's already found three."

"The Crest of Cowardice," Taichi said fiercely, while Agumon growled his agreement.

"The Crest of Enmity," Yamato looked down at Gabumon and a momentary sadness came into his crystal-blue eyes as if he could see what might have been. Gabumon snuggled a little closer to him, laying his head on his leg.

"And the Crest of Deception," Mimi clenched her hands at her sides, "The creep! I'll kill him when I find him!"

"Yeah!" Palmon echoed with no less fury, "He'll learn not to mess with us!"

"And that leaves six to go," Jyou continued, "We don't know when he'll find the next one. In the meantime, he could just reuse the three he has."

"If he does . . . ." Hikari dropped her eyes to the floor, "If he does . . . . We might not win. As we are, we can barely take one of the dark Digimon."

Takeru put a comforting hand on her shoulder, "Which is why we need to find our crests. Things'll look much better when we have HolyAngemon and Angewomon."

"I hope so," Hikari did not sound convinced.

"Of course they will!" Daisuke said with his usual confidence, "Besides, now that Wormmon's fine again, we have Imperialdramon! Imperialdramon can take anyone any day."

"Yeah!" V-Mon dropped into a boxing stance and punching the air, "Imperialdramon! Fighter Mode! Take that!"

As everyone laughed, Taichi said, "Well, once everyone's finished eating, we can head out to Gennai's . . . ."

******

"So, you're sure your father is working late tonight and won't pull the plug on us?" Miyako asked Yamato anxiously, as she followed him towards his bedroom.

"Yeah," Yamato replied, "The world would come to an end if dad came back from work early."

Walking through the door, Miyako's eyes widened. She had thought her brothers' room was bad, but they were neat freaks in comparison to Yamato. There were two beds in the room, one of which was unmade and the other of which seemed to serve as his wardrobe. She guessed he cleared off all the clothes when Takeru slept the night. There was a table next to one of them, cluttered with photos of him with his family and friends, an alarm-clock and a half empty glass of water. His prized guitar leaned against one of the walls, next to a stack of sheet music and a box of CDs. By the looks of their hand-written fronts, Yamato didn't believe in paying for music. The floor was almost completely covered in books, more clothes and papers, with only a narrow path leading between the bed, the desk and the door.

In the middle of all the chaos, Koushirou was sitting at the computer and tapping away at the keyboard. He smiled in satisfaction as the familiar gate popped up on the screen.

"Got it."

"Good," Taichi said, pretending to look around himself for something, "Now to make sure that none of the Digimon have gotten lost somewhere in Yamato's junk . . . ."

Yamato punched his friend lightly on his arm, "Hey, your room isn't much better."

"Tell me about it," Hikari teased, "I have to share with him."

Taichi glared at his little sister and she made a face at him, before they both burst out laughing.

Smiling to herself, Miyako picked her way across the floor to Koushirou. Hikari was so lucky to have a cool brother like Taichi. Her own brothers only spoke to her when they wanted her to pass them more food at mealtimes, or when they tried to hit her up for money.

She laid her hand on the back on Koushirou's chair and saw him jump.

"Sorry," she apologised quickly, "I didn't mean to startle you."

"No problem," he looked embarrassed, although she did not understand what he had to be embarrassed about, "Do you want to do the honours?"

"I always do," she grinned at him, pulling her Digivice out from a pocket in her dress and holding it up to the computer screen, "DIGITAL GATE OPEN!"

"You don't need to shout it," Daisuke grumbled, uncovering his ears, "Now my ears hurt."

Outraged, Miyako opened her mouth to tell him that her eyes hurt from having to look at him all day, but Koushirou cut off whatever she might have said, "No time to waste. Gennai's waiting for us . . . ."

*******

As he stepped through the gateway into the Digital World, Takeru looked around himself in horror. In his absence, the landscape had been washed of all colour. The grass beneath his feet looked almost transparent, while the trees were slim, grey phantoms against a white sky. Even the sun was pale and faint, as if it were slowly dying. He felt Patamon give a little shiver in his arms.

"Yeah, it isn't a good sign," he said to his partner, "What do you think is causing it?"

"I don't know. It's been like this for a while, just getting worse and worse," Patamon sounded worried, "It feels bad, Takeru."

"Like the Dark Ocean," Hikari said quietly, "It feels like that, doesn't it?"

Feeling a familiar flicker of dread in his chest, Takeru turned towards her. No matter how much he tried to convince himself that that danger had passed and Hikari was safe, he couldn't quite manage it. He knew how close he had come to losing her, and it haunted him. However, there was no fear on her face, only a mixture of anger and determination. He took that as a good sign. (1)

"The Digital World is so severely out of balance that you can see it in the landscape," Tailmon told them, "We don't know what is causing it, though."

"Must be Vandemon," Hikari's fists clenched at her sides, "But he won't get away with it."

"No, he won't," Takeru said vehemently, "We'll stop him for good this time."

Patamon looked up at him, concern in his eyes. Takeru ignored it. He knew his partner worried about him, worried about how much he hated the darkness. He did not understand why. The bleak landscape around him was proof enough of why he needed to stand up against the darkness; of why someone needed to fight to preserve the goodness and the light in the world. However, there were times when he was afraid that his reaction was still that of the eight year-old boy weeping over fallen feathers in the dust.

"If you don't, both worlds could be in serious danger," a familiar voice said.

A tall, robed figure walked out from between the trees, a sword in its scabbard bumping against his leg. He threw back his hood to reveal a handsome, if slightly weather-beaten, face. He had sandy-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, and the piercing eyes of a hunting hawk, which seemed to see through everything.

"Gennai," Hikari said in relief, "You came."

******

"It is good to see all of you again, although I wish the circumstances were better," Gennai began once everyone was seated on the ground looking at him, "As you know, Vandemon has found the Shadow Crests, which we had hoped were buried and forgotten for good."

"Trust me, we know," Taichi said grimly, "We've had to fight our own partners because of that creep."

A troubled expression coming to his face, Gennai nodded, "When we created them, we feared that they would be used against us, but we had no choice in the matter."

"Why?" Daisuke exclaimed, "I know Takeru said it was about balance or whatever, but what's so bad about having more light in the world?"

"The brighter the light shines, the deeper the shadow it casts," Ken turned to Gennai for confirmation, "Am I right?"

"Right," Gennai grimaced, "It seemed logical to contain that darkness in the Shadow Crests, then bury them where no-one would find them."

"Or so you hoped," Yamato's eyes were as hard and cold as blue crystal, "Now, Vandemon's got them and he's going to use them destroy us, unless we get back our own crests. We don't have a chance in hell against him without them."

"Why do we even need our crests?" Mimi scrunched up her pretty nose in confusion, "We didn't when we fought Apocalymon."

"And I evolved when I touched one of those Destiny Stones," Patamon chirruped from Takeru's head, "All the way to HolyAngemon!"

Takeru smiled at his partner's enthusiasm, "The only problem is I can't carry around a Destiny Stone together with my Digivice, can I?"

"And we were in that strange dimension when our Digimon evolved to fight Apocalymon," Koushirou continued, "Maybe the physics were different there?"

"Maybe," Jyou sat up straighter and adjusted his glasses, "Maybe our crests are like a catalyst?"

"Cat-a-lyst?" Gomamon asked from next to him, "We're not talking about bunch of Tailmon here, are we?"

"No," Miyako giggled, "A catalyst is something that helps a chemical reaction to take place. In this case, the crests probably help you have enough energy to evolve."

"Gotcha."

"You're absolutely correct," Gennai smiled at them, "Although you still possess the qualities that allow your Digimon to evolve, they also need a certain amount of energy to do so, and that is channeled through the crests."

"In other words, we're screwed unless you guys can get your crests back," Miyako said glumly, "So, can they?"

"Yes, they can," Gennai said, although he did not look happy about it, "When Koushirou contacted me, I went straight to my library and did some research on the matter. In the course of my reading, I came across a reference to a . . . a method that might return your crests to you. It is dangerous and there are no guarantees that it will actually work, but it is the only possible way that I can see. But . . . ."

"No buts," Taichi cut him off, getting to his feet, his fists clenching at his sides, "No matter what it takes, we'll make it work. Right, guys?"

"RIGHT!"

************

Next time on D3: The quest for the Crests begins as the Chosen Children face their greatest and most dangerous challenge yet. Meanwhile, Vandemon is causing trouble back in Tokyo . . . . Open the gate to adventure!

************

Notes:

1) Okay, I'm not letting this story get bogged down in the Dark Ocean plotline. If you want to read how I think it could and should have played out in the end, read "A Storm Over Blossoms".