Angewoman carries Kari as they leave the city behind. They had sent out a distress call to the rest of their team. Mimi and Sora, along with their partners Palamon and Biyomon, are on a plane to New York City to visit Mimi's American friends and their phones are in airplane mode. Yolei, however, is on her way with Hawkman. T.K., Matt, Izzy, and Davis have also answered the call. They don't expect to hear from Joe, Ken, or Cody as the former two are currently attending university orientation seminars and Cody's on vacation with his family.
Kari and Angewoman notice another white glow next to them, it's T.K. and Angemon.
"Not letting you girls have all the fun!" hollers T.K. in a flirty voice.
"Funny;" replies Kari sarcastically but also blushing. "Are we heading the right direction?"
"Keep going due west, slight turn left just ahead;" answers T.K. looking at the directions; "The others are right behind us."
They soon hear what sounds like unpleasant hollering next to them. It's Davis and Ex-Veemon. Davis looks green, with one hand on his stomach and the other on his mouth.
"Ex-Veemon, stop jerking so much."
"You said fast Davis, not steady."
"A little steadier please." Davis throws up in the open air, disgusting the girls.
"No wonder Matt and Gabumon didn't want to ride with you guys;" smirks T.K.
Davis recovers. "Funny. Hey guys, let's see who gets there first!"
"It's not a race;" says Angemon.
"A race against time. Let's go Ex-Veemon!"
Ex-Veemon pushes his speed, but the others make a turn, changing directions. "Hey, where are guys going? It's this way!"
"Are you sure Davis?" asks Ex-Veemon.
"I'm sure. I attended camp there last year. Keep going."
Less than a minute later a buzzing sound crosses them. "You're going the wrong way Ex-Veemon;" informs Kabuterimon as he passes with Izzy, Matt, and Gabumon on his back.
"Turn around you guys;" Aquilamon passes with Yolei. Embarrassed, Davis and Ex-Veemon follow them.
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Agumon finds a phone that's free inside an office. Only when he picks up the receiver does he realize that he's never really bothered to memorize any of the Kamiya's numbers. He doesn't even remember Tai's, although he's seen the numbers several times, surely, he'll remember something.
The first attempt definitely wasn't right. "What's this a prank call?"
"Ah, yea, sorry." Agumon quickly hangs up. He tries another number, one he's sure he's used before, but that one turns out to be one of his favorite take-out places near the Kamiya's home. Of course, he'd remember that one. He puts the phone down and tries to think of another number, but his mind comes up blank.
Suddenly a woman screams upon coming into the office and seeing him. He ducks underneath the desk as two soldiers run in, spotting him and pointing their rifles at him.
Agumon tries using his claws to attack on the weapons, unaware that the rifles are electric stunners.
Tai, Rico, and Katherine with Oscar the miniature dachshund still tagging along, have been trying to figure out how to get in, when they hear screams coming from the building. They ask the guards what's happening, but they only point their guns at the kids and threaten to lock them up, even shot if they see them again.
Nina finally finds the kids, and they tell her what happened. Nina's horrified as she puts together the bits and pieces of information she's gathered. The military plans to kill most of the plants, but they also intend to capture at least one plant alive. They've also figured out that the giant dinosaur digimon and the "little orange one" are one and the same and intend to capture him as well, alive if possible. Nina tries her luck at getting past the guards, but they won't let her back inside. This really worries the children as the inform Nina that Agumon has wondered off, alarming her as well. They soon hear an excited voice from nearby guard's radio, and he announces that the digimon has been captured!
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The digi-destined are getting close to the camp. Izzy's been trying to keep up with media reports, although his lap top signal is sketchy at times out here even with his elite advanced programming. Izzy's been searching frankly for information on the plants but has little aside from a couple of news articles. The plants don't show up at all in the digital data files. Even Gennai an email informing Izzy that he's never heard of creatures like these before and they're completely nonexistent in any known digital world data. Izzy and the others must face the outside possibility that these plants may not be connected to the digital world at all. In fact, according to the short news articles and social media rumors, they may be the creations of fugitive sociopath scientists.
"Izzy, that town's being attacked?" informs Kabuterimon. The group sees plants attacking buildings and homes of a nearby town. Part of the team decides to go to help the town, a couple others will go to the military base, and a couple more to the camp. They realized that their objective is to save and protect, and they must try to avoid fights with the military, who will view the digimon as enemies.
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Tai and the others gather out of sight from the guards. Katherine and Rico keep watch, looking for anything that might be big enough to contain Agumon being brought outside. Tai's beside himself. He just can't believe his partner's been captured.
"Why did Agumon go in there?" Tai wonders out load; "How could I let myself get so busy? If I hadn't ignored him, he wouldn't have come. Well, maybe he would have, I don't know."
"Tai, calm down;" says Nina; "Trust me, I know what you mean. I often wonder if I'm neglecting Katherine."
Suddenly, a boom is heard and lights around the camp go out. The sun hasn't completely set, but its dark enough for the outside lights to have come on. They hear guns going off not too far away. They run out into the open, and can see the heads of not one, but two enormous plants. These are the biggest ones they've seen yet, and they're attacking the military guards at the camp's main entrance. Electric and telephone poles are either damaged or knocked over entirely, causing power outage. The camp entrance sign is destroyed as well as some vehicles and fencing.
"TAI LOOK OUT!" Rico just barely pushes Tai out of the way of a falling flagpole, getting trapped himself. A huge crash is heard and a burning military tank lands just a few feet away. One of the plants has broken through the military line and is heading straight towards them.
"Howling Blaster."
A blue flame distracts the plant. Garurumon appears and attacks the plant again. Then the pole moves off of Rico and gets thrown to the side, thanks to Angewoman.
"Tai!" Tai's surprised and relived to see Kari running towards them, while the digimon fight off the plant. Garurmon blocks the acid with his attack, while Angewoman strikes with her Celestial Arrow. The light arrow goes right through the plant and kills it in a semi explosion.
"Sis, I can't believe you're here," says Tai hugging his sister; "How did you know we needed you?"
"News and internet;" she answers.
Matt soon joins them. "Looks like you got yourselves into quite a pickle, Tai."
"I wish it was just that. What about the other plant?"
"We took care of it already;" answers Garurmon as he shrinks back into Gabumon, and Angewoman to Gatomon. Confusion follows as the new arrivals notice the three strangers, Tai needing to clarify that they know about digimon already, much to their shock.
Katherine admires the two digimon. "You must be Gatomon and Gabumon." The digimon drops their mouths and look at each other, but Gatomon slowly shakes the curious girl's hand while Gabumon just shyly blushes.
"How did you find out about us?" asks the canine like digimon.
"You can thank your friend Agumon for that;" replies Rico; "I sure hope you two don't eat as much as he does."
The digimon look at each other awkwardly and shake their heads. "Believe me, nobody does;" replies Gatomon.
"Hey, you're the guy who stuffed silly putty into my harmonica last month!" says Matt recognizing Rico.
Rico remembers. "Oh yea, you're that mediocre rock star wanna-a-be. It was an improvement I'm sure."
Gabumon jumps in front of Rico and looks sternly at him. "So it was you. Nobody insults Matt's playing."
"Stand down;" says Gatomon; "By the way, where is Agumon?"
Tai hesitates as he tells them. While not at all surprised of their follow digimon's antics, they are shocked to learn that Agumon managed to get himself captured by humans.
Gatomon's ears begin to twitch, and she thinks she hears a strange sound. "Did you guys hear that?"
"Hear what?" asks Kari.
"That strange screeching whistle."
Everyone gets silent and listens. The humans hear nothing, but Gabumon does. "Sounds like one of those blowing instruments. It's horrible."
Gatomon agrees, cringing at the awful noise. The humans strive harder but still can't hear it. Gatomon then informs that the sound has stopped.
"AUNT NINA!" Katherine's suddenly being dragged away. Nina gives chase, the others right behind her. One of those plants emerges from the bushes, with Katherine wrapped tightly in its vines, including her mouth, leaving her unable to scream. Surprisingly, this plant is a runt compared to the previous ones, about Kari's size. The digimon try to attack the plant, when two more suddenly emerge and whips them both out of the way. Then each plant spits out of their months what looks like black billiard balls in front of the group. They explode, creating a thick gas cloud around everybody. Gatomon, being the furthest away from the gas, gets up, and sees the plants taking Katherine into some trees, then disappearing. Gatomon's hearing that awful flute again, realizing that the plants were headed towards the music's direction, then silence once again.
Nina is nearly inconsolable. As the group discusses what to do next, they realized that despite knowing next to nothing about these plants, these three didn't just savagely attack them and gobble up the girl. They took her away, as well as attacked with gas bombs to distract them. Plus, these plants were just about Kari's size, and Gatomon points out that they seemed to be responding to those awful flute noises.
Tai and Rico then recall what Agumon had said about the crazy flute playing plant lady, could that have been her. If so, what could she possibly want with Katherine?
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Katherine's eyes are finally uncovered and she's released. She struggles to regain her breath and composer after nearly being suffocated. She then realizes that she's in a large cell-like cage. The walls in the rectangular room look like she's inside a large semitruck.
She hears what's become a familiar hunger growl. There's Agumon lying next to her. He's feet, hands, and mouth are all bound and gagged with duct tape. He's got some gauze taped to a spot on both his tail and arm, as if blood's been drawn, and a couple of Band-Aids on his other arm. She checks him over and realizes that he's sedated real heavily.
"Oh Agumon, what have they done to you?"
He responds with only a slight moan, then the metal door suddenly opens with a slam, entering is a young lady in a camp counselor's shirt, holding a flute. Behind her are two human size plants, possibly the same ones that captured Kat. The lady plays an awful tune, and the two walking plants sit.
"Good job 47 and 49;" the lady says while patting the toothy heads of the plants; "Here is your reward?" She opens a large cooler and pulls out two dead goats. Katherine looks away as they devour them, disgusted.
What a minute, weren't there 3 plants?
The lady approaches the cage. "Well now, seems we've got a child. Perfect hostage."
Hostage? "Who are you?" asks Katherine; "What did you do to Agumon?"
The lady seems amused. "Oh, so Digimon Rapture 1 has a name does it. You actually know him? This is even more perfect than I planned." An evil smirk appears on her face. "And I didn't do anything to him. In fact, I should be thanking him."
Katherine's mouth drops open. "What do you mean?"
"The distraction he caused allowed me the opportunity to escape the military's clutches with my babies." She pats them on their heads as if they were dogs. Katherine can't believe this and gives a very angry glare.
"You couldn't have been controlling those big ones, were you?"
Miss Yoshida is amused. "Clever one, aren't you? They went rouge and grew much bigger then intended, so we released them before they succeeded in eating us. They no longer even respond to my music. A few missed calculations. Science is all about many failures before success. We've made lots of improvements and our newer ones are under control. Isn't that right 47 and 49?"
47 and 49? What happened to 48?
She plays her flute again. 47 and 49 stand at attention and give her high-fives with their vines. They nuzzle her affectionately and she kisses them both on the lips. A soldier then comes in and speaks with the lady, called Miss Yoshida, in French*, not assuming that the bilingual girl understands them. To Katherine's shock, it seems as if he's in cahoots with this lady, and they mention about making negotiations about her father and the secrets of their Audrey plants. Katherine guesses that these plants are based on and named after Audrey II from "Little Shops of Horrors".
Why would anybody ever want to create plants like this in real life? She wonders.
She notices that 47 and 49 are looking at the adults with their mouths drooling. They seem very eager to eat them and frustrated that the flute keeps them at bay.
"You can't possibly believe you've got them under control!"
"Shut your trap little girl." The solider exits and Miss Yoshida blows into the flute again, Katherine covering her ears.
UGH! Where did she learn to play that thing? Or rather, not play it?
"47 and 49, stand guard. Looks like 53 is playing hooky."
Before leaving, Miss Yoshida looks back at her hostages and gives an evil grin. "When all this is over, you two will make nice snacks for my girls."
The door slams shut and the eyeless plants 'look' at the prisoners through the bars, sniffing and licking their lips. They obviously want to eat them, but don't try to open the cage. Katherine again tries to wake up Agumon, to no avail. His eyes remain shut and he hums, as if he's happy. She tries hard to undue the tough duct tape around his mouth, again to almost no avail.
She then decides to try something. "Agumon, Tai's in trouble!"
Agumon immediately opens his eyes and springs up, also causing fire sparks to come out of the very end sides of his mouth, as well as his nose. He again collapses after that sudden adrenaline rush, but the flame's hot enough to loosen the duct tape around his mouth. His eyes remain half open, as in he's lost in daze and confusion.
"Tai? Tai safe? Where Tai?" The dino's speech is slurred and weak, and his eyes are heavily dilated. He looks at Katherine. "Tai look funny."
"No Agumon, it's me, Kat."
Agumon giggles; "Tai voice squeaks. Tai got hamburger? Hungry belly."
"Come on Agumon snap out of it. Tai's not here. Katherine is."
Agumon's eyes move around out of focus. "Ketchup? Oh yea, Ket. Tai looks just like Ket. Funny."
The cage rattles. The plants seem to be fighting over food and bumped into the cage. A cooler is knocked over and disgusting, bloody animal parts are on floor. The door opens and Miss Yoshida looks in, playing her flute. The plants snap at attention.
"What is going on here? What have I told you girls about fighting and eating without permission?" She walks up to the plants and slaps them both. They growl at her and she plays again.
"Awful sound;" says Agumon; "Plant lady no play. Plants bad."
The plants follow their mistress. "Come on you two. 53, take over. And don't eat until I give you the command." 53 arrives, salutes Miss Yoshida, and comes over to the cage.
At first, 53 doesn't seem interested in the captives, until the noise from Agumon's stomach gets her attention.
"Hungry hungry tummy;" Agumon looks up at 53. "Big teeth. Plant not eat Tai and Kat. Pepper Breath." Agumon shots his flame, but his aim is way to the side, hitting the wall. 53 looks angry and sticks her vines into the cage. Agumon shots again, setting one of 53's vines on fire.
"Agumon stop! You don't know what you're doing. Use your pepper breath on the tape, right here." Holding Agumon's bound wrist right in front of his mouth; he obeys his friend. Unfortunately, his fire seems to be getting weaker and doesn't melt the tape enough. 53 attacks the cage, pulling it forward, and sticks another vine at Agumon, who bits off the vine and actually tries to eat, only to spit it out.
"Fertilizer dung not food." 53 attacks again, wrapping them both up this time and banging them against the cage. Agumon's attacks are way off and are getting weaker with every attempt. Not knowing what else to do, Katherine screams, hoping that Miss Yoshida will hear. While she doesn't, a solider does, entering and shooting at 53. The plant drops the captives and now turns her attention towards the solider. Another solider comes in and shots. With the plant distracted, Katherine checks the cage door, it's been jammed. She pushes on it hard but it's stuck. "Agumon, I need your help!" She has to push the dino from behind to the door and lift him onto his still bond feet. Having to steady the wobbly digimon, she urges him to help her bang open the door. He does, banging the door with his head literally. This wasn't quite what she had in mind, but she goes along with it and after a few bangs, the door opens. Agumon falls to the floor, laughing.
"That was fun, can we do that again?"
Sometime during all this, Miss Yoshida returned and got 53 under control, as well as scold the soldiers for shooting at her baby. Katherine realizes that there's another door towards the back, and she drags a still giggling Agumon towards it. Then there's a sudden jerk and she's knocked off her feet, slamming into the back wall. Miss Yoshida finally hears the giggling and notices them.
"HEY, I didn't give you permission to leave!"
"Young lady;" screams one of the soldiers; "You can't take that digimon. He's government property."
Miss Yoshida starts blowing into her flute, but the solider demands that he'll handle it. They argue, but the other solider heads towards them. Katherine desperately tries to work the door. The solider shots, just barely missing the child with a real live bullet! He's about to shot again, but a still bond Agumon manages to roll himself over to the solider and bits his leg. He points his rifle at the digimon, but Agumon moves again and the solider trips over him. Katherine grabs the rifle and bangs it on the door lock hoping to jam it.
"GIRL, DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR! We're moving!" He then tries to change his tone. "It's alright child. Just give me the gun and settle down. Everything will be alright. You'll be exchanged soon, I promise."
Katherine turns around and hits the man on the head with his own rifle. The other two adults stop arguing long enough to notice and the other solider starts to fire, but Miss Yoshida hits his arm.
"You can't kill the hostage yet. We have a deal remember. And stop using real guns!"
The insane adults argue again, this time getting 53's attention as they stepped on some of the meat that she's helped herself too. 47 and 49 also stick their heads in and notice the free food. Miss Yoshida panics as she tries to play her flute again, but this time the angry 53 isn't interested in cooperating and snaps at the adults, while 47 and 49 help themselves to the rest of the meat.
Katherine finally succeeds in breaking the lock and opens the door. To her horror, she realizes they are indeed on a truck and are on the road at high speed. Desperate times call for desperate measures. She grabs Agumon and drags him to the door. She then feels somebody tugging on her leg, the other solider is now awake and pulling on her. "Don't jump girl! Want to kill yourself?" He's got hold of Agumon too, who tries to bite the man's arm, but his accuracy's way off target and Pepper Breath is little more than a candle flame. The man grasps each tightly, with a mad intent in his face.
I'm not giving up. Wish I could do more. Wish I could make Agumon digivolve. Wait.
Suddenly remembering something, Katherine aims her hand. Suddenly seemly out of nowhere, a light shines from her. Blinded by it, the man loses his grip, Katherine grabs Agumon before falling out the door.
Katherine slowly opens her eyes. She's completely wet. She's laying in a puddle on soggy, wet grass right next to the road. Rubbing her head as she gets up, she realizes that apart from some minor scrapes and being all wet, she's not hurt. Her trick worked after all!
"AGUMON!" The digimon is laying a few feet away, throwing up and also all wet, but otherwise appearing no worse for wear then her. She turns Agumon over, takes out the small, beat-up flashlight, and checks him over. "Agumon, answer me." The digimon slowly opens his eyes, they are red and look much less dilated.
"Kat;" he replies in a weak voice; "Is that really you?" Katherine hugs him joyfully. The duct tape bounding the digimon's hands and feet have lost stickiness due to getting wet, allowing her to remove them.
"Where's Tai?"
The girl gently rubs the digimon's cheek. "Tai's not here, just me."
Agumon's stomach then roars furiously. "Hungry! So, so hungry. Weak."
"I'm sorry Agumon;" Kat says softly after removing the tape. "I wish I could be of more help."
Agumon briefly looks around, it's dark, a little light provided by the dimming flashlight, stars and half-moon. "Where are we? What happened? Did you come to rescue me?"
Katherine shakes her head. "No, they wanted to use me as a hostage."
"A hostage? Why?"
"No idea, but how did you get captured Agumon?"
Agumon's memory is fuzzy. "I really don't know. The last thing I remember is trying to use the phone and a lady screaming. Some soldiers coming in and attacked me, I think, then all went blank. I had the weirdest dream; you were in it, the plants, crazy plant lady playing this horrible music…."
"That wasn't a dream Agumon;" Katherine explains; "They had us on a truck and were taking us somewhere. You were so drugged and out of it. We escaped, but I have no idea where we are.
Agumon lays his head down, feeling very weak and dizzy. Knowing they need to get somewhere safer, Katherine looks around first at the road, then the surrounding woods. There's no lights or street signs, then her fading flashlight gives out.
"We shouldn't stay here Agumon. They may come looking for us. It's risky staying on the open road, but we can't go far into the woods either. We'll stay near the road but out of sight." She stands up; "I believe we were going this direction, so the camp must be that way."
Agumon tries to get up, but he's very dizzy and wobbly and forced to lean against a tree, breathing heavily. "Kat, please carry me."
Katherine tries but can barely even lift the digimon off the ground; plus, she's exhausted herself and her muscles are throbbing. At the digimon's urging, she agrees to hide behind some trees and rest before they journey onward. As they lay on the ground looking up at the mostly clear night sky with a few visible clouds, she asked Agumon what he sees when he looks at the stars.
"Sprinkles on ice cream, marshmallows and whipped cream, cinnamon and sugar cereal..." Agumon's stomach growls louder as he speaks, causing him moan in pain.
"Try not to think of food;" says Katherine, realizing that she's hungry herself, not having eaten since breakfast this morning. Looking back up at the stars, Katherine remembers the light she saw earlier. She's not sure what it was, and it wasn't supposed to be part of her trick. Just then, a similar light appears. Laying right next to her is a strange looking, glowing device. She picks it up, and Agumon realizes that it looks like a cross between Tai's original digi-vice and Kari's D-3, but still different.
"Kat, that looks like a digi-vice."
"What do you mean?"
"That means that, you're a digi-destined, like Tai!"
Katherine's shock and mostly at a lost for words; "Imm...Impossible."
"Nothing's impossible, but where's your digimon?"
The digi-vice glows even brighter, then a beam of light comes directly from Katherine's heart. They watch in awe as the two beams converge in front of them. The light fades away, appearing in its place is an egg.