How long has it been? I have been having a temporary block in creativity. I am going to finish what I have started! You can take that to the bank!

In the Present

Tai's eyes burned. His body felt as if he were being crushed. Everything hurt and yet he could not scream aloud. He felt as if the end were coming or perhaps he was in the pit of hell. Perchance he was in so deep he couldn't move, couldn't fight, couldn't see and couldn't hope. Hope was beyond him now. Only pain remained, to guide him to his next destination.

--

--

--

Kari looked at herself in the mirror. Not much had changed her, not much had stopped her from reaching her goal. No one could stop her from achieving that. She had been so close last night, so very close. She had almost reached him. There had been a plunge and she felt herself fall. And then she awoke, standing over her were her friends, well friends of a sort.

Takeru had been kind enough to offer her hand, whilist Davis complained of Takeru making a move on his girl. Kari wanted to laugh, it was halrious, this life. Turning at the sound of a knock on the door, Kari waited for the visiter to enter.

Her father.

"Hey, Dad," Kari called to him lightly as she turned to face herself in the mirror in order to play with her hair. She could she in the mirror, her Dad's concerned face. He looked as if he were trying to figure something out and he was only just managing to make the pieces fit.

"Do you like it here?" Quietly startled, Kari stood still, something was starting to feel amiss.

"Kari?" Her father's voice hadn't raised. He still sounded peaceful and recognizable, but Kari was starting to wonder if she was speaking to a stranger. "Why wouldn't I like my home?" Kari asked, keeping her voice placid.

"You created it," Kari stiffened, her father's face in the mirror betrayed no amusement. No hint of a joke was impressed upon his countanance. "There is a law that surrounds time isn't there?" Kari inquired calmly. "It's not as if I can change anything, right?" Kari tried to make her voice sound surprised and innocent. But from the continuously repressed expression on her father's face, she could tell he wasn't buying it.

"You can, and you have." He waited a moment before beginning again, "I think you should fix it, whatever it is you have done, fix it." Kari watched her father stand to leave and bit her bottom lip.

"What if I don't want to?" It was an honest question, her life was better in this dimension. Everyone's life was better.

"Because," Keiko answered, "He will change it back once he realizes what you've done. I wouldn't want to answer to Him would you?" Kari licked her lips nervously. She didn't like the idea of getting in trouble. It had been such a long time since she'd seen him.

Kari raised her eyes from her reflection to meet her Dad's. He was now standing next to the door, pulling it open. "I don't know how I did it, could you help me?"

Keiko's face became distorted, was it happening now? "I don't think," he began, "you will be needing it." With that last retort he exited and Kari became bombarded with an overwelming feeling of dread. The air around her seemed to tighten and her body was pressed on all sides. The atmosphere around her was like that of an elavator, moving up and down quickly without regard for her safety or well-being.

The stop came suddenly, Kari half expected a pair of steel doors to open revealing a new level to a department store. Closing her eyes, Kari knew the scenery of her flowery pink bedroom was gone into oblivion. That life had ended.

Opening them once more, Kari listened intently, "Sweetheart, why are you standing in front of the door like that? Move over, so, I can open it."

Kari blinked furiously, and her blurry vision dissolved to meet a door much like the front entrance to her family's apartment. "Come on, Tai's waiting, probably starved half to death by now." Kari raised her eyes to meet her mother's, there was a slight smirk on her face. She was tall, lean and healthy compared to the mother Kari had previously known. Kari spared a moment, before stepping over the threshold and into her home.

She was in the right dimension. Had anything changed? Would Tai be there? And most importantly what did stepping into this old and yet familiar world mean for her memory? Glancing around the empty hallway which connected her apartment to the rest, Kari sighed and slowly entered. The door shut behind her.

--

--

--

"So, its been four years to the day, eh?" A young boy with spikey brown hair inquired.

"Maybe-"

"Of course," another voice broke through the other's comment.

"Wow, that was like the best story, it hard to believed that it really happened," a girl with long violet hair spoke loudly in amazement.

"Yeah, good thing I wasn't there! Those Dark Digimon would have been wetting their pants!" The spikey haired young man grinned as he watched his teammate fall onto her back and lay amongst the grass.

"Davis!" came the exasperated response from the whole group of twelve sitting in a circle around a large tree.

"So this wizardmon, he was a good guy right?" the question came from a tiny brown haired boy.

"He sure was," replied a boy with blond hair and blue eyes sitting next to a girl with brown hair with a camera hanging around her neck.

"Guys? This reunion was a good idea and everything, but I kind of need to get to my tutoring session. You know, my mother enrolled me in secondary school." The brown haired boy with a green uniform was grining from ear to ear. An almost stuck expression of happiness on his face.

A chorus of 'yeah' and 'see you later, Tai' surrounded him as he walked away from the group. An odd looking animal of an orange-yellow hue followed him.

"Tai," the creature asked, "why did you leave, secondary school doesn't start until four?"

Tai glanced down at his partner, "What do you mean?"

"If I'm correct, and if Izzy taught me right, that clock over there says that its two-thirty."

"So, I'm getting a head start. Nothing wrong with that?" Tai allowed his grin to slip since he'd turned a corner away from the park and the eyes of his curious friends.

"Those dreams again, huh Tai?" Sighing, Tai looked down at the cement sidewalk. Not a speck of trash littered the ground, such were the manners of the Odiaba citizens. Tai shurgged his shoulders instead of answering. He still wasn't sure if it was okay if he spoke to Agumon about them. What if he didn't understand? What if he told the others and they thought he was crazy? No one else seemed to have the issue of dreaming about weird events. No one except himself that is.

"Listen, I don't want you telling the other's about this. I need to figure this all out without their help. Okay?" Tai asked quietly.

Tai felt Agumon's paw gain hold of his limb hand, after two tugs, he looked down, "We can find her together."

Tai nodded to Agumon's request, "Sure."

"I say, did Sora ever make us those special cookies?" Agumon inquired. Tai couldn't help but smile at the thought, Matt and Sora, an item? Rolling his eyes, Tai gave Agumon a squeeze before heading farther down the street toward downtown Odiaba.

--

--

--

"What was that all about?" Mimi asked, blinking rapidly. She stared around at her fellow Digidestined, they were all there not to enter nostalgia, but to discuss the party that they were hosting in the Digiworld. The party was for any digidestined that wanted to come, to celebrate the fall of evil and rise of the Digidestined.

Mimi glanced around her gang of friends, none of them offered an answer to her question. Tai hadn't been acting out of normal lately but then again perhaps leaving abruptly was a bit out of the norm for him. Especially, because of his intense interest in meeting all the digidestined from around the world, as he had during the World Tour.

After what seemed to be a long pause, Mimi decided it was best to change the subject. She was visiting for her summer holidays and didn't feel like it was necessary to start an investigation that she wasn't sure she could finish. Then again, she could always corner Tai when he was alone. These days it seemed as if Tai was never alone, seeing as how Agumon never left his side.

Shuddering at an odd feeling dewelling in the depths of her stomach, Mimi laughed off a lame joke offered by Davis to ease the silence. Mimi went with it and pushed away the feeling as if she had lived this moment before.

--

--

--

Val brushed her bangs from in front of her eyes and stared intently into her husband's. "Do you really think he's ready? I mean, I haven't heard a word from any of the Guardian's or Dragon. Perhaps, you sensed wrong. It can't be time yet."

Keiko looked as if he was trying to ignore the frown forming on Val's face and concentrated harder on the meal in front of him. It took him a minute before he responded, "Kari knew what she was doing. I saw her, of course I made her think and undo the time phase she'd caused before she woke Him up." Keiko tried to smile and lessen the tension surrounding them both.

"This isn't the time for inquiry, its the time for certainty. I need to know that this is the right choice. Once we tell them we're ready, that he's ready, they'll begin testing him again, is that what you really want, Keiko?" Val gazed fiercely into her husband's eyes. There was no fear only reasurrance.

"We'll call tomorrow," Keiko murmured not meeting Val's eyes any longer.

"He's not ready, he balked when Kari shifted the realm. He doesn't even know how to shift through other peoples thoughts the correct way!" Val leaned forward, in order to avoid any stares from the other patrons, "He hasn't done a thing without another person's guidance how can he do any task they put him up to when he doesn't even know the basics?"

Keiko fell back into his chair, "He knows enough not to be detected. Sweetheart, some part of him remembers his training, but we never expected it to be everything that he will ever need. "Keiko moved forward as if to grasp her, but the table lay between them,"Tai has to learn on his own now, Reiko, we can't help him."

Val turned away, lightly shaking off tears, "Fine, we'll call tomorrow. He should have at least one good night's rest."

--

--

--

Sorry this is an median between knowing what the hell is going on and where the in the hell I am headed.

Bare with me as you've always done!