Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, nor do I own many of the things that will be showing up later in this story.
A/N: On a plane ride home, I was bored out of my mind, tired ot listening to music for hours on end, and not too thrilled at the general moment. Then along came a giant crossover idea, along with inspiration for something at least vaguely humorous. This is the result. As of yet, it is unfinished... which is why it's coming in chapters. So, enjoy the somewhat sane beginning of an interesting adventure.
Note: This story takes place (in canon) during the Digimon episode "It's All In the Cards", after the group has gone through the gate but before they wake up back at the campsite.
The Gateway Home – Albeit a Very Long Detour
When Lost, a Detour One must Find
Having jumped through the closing gate, the seven Digidestined felt the unmistakable sensation of falling a very long distance. The rush of energy was identical to the one that had brought them to the Digiworld in the first place, with what seemed like cascading falls of pure blue power. The children found their bodies twisting in midair as they realized that they were traveling between worlds, being converted from data into atoms, soon to reach the light that was their home...
And then suddenly, everything went mysteriously dark.
The entire group suddenly stopped falling, sending jolts through everyone. Joe's "OOF!" was the only audible result of seeming whiplash the group received, but there was a collective feeling of confusion and shock.
Tai, who was upside down at the moment, blinked and looked around at the other six children. Everyone gave each other brief glances, unsure of what was happening. Did suddenly pausing in midair usually happen during trips between worlds?
"Uh... Izzy?" Tai asked, not knowing of anything else he could do.
Izzy could only look around at the suddenly blank surroundings and shrug. It seemed somewhat funny as Izzy was sitting in the air on his side. "Sorry Tai. I have no idea. Let me think on it."
Tai shuddered slightly at the thought that Izzy had no idea what was going on. "Okay... ideas anyone?" he asked helplessly, glancing wildly at everyone else.
There was a slight pause as everyone tried to think up some explanation as to their predicament.
"Maybe you put down the wrong card?" Matt commented casually. He was currently stuck floating on his back.
Tai narrowed his eyes slightly. "So what, it means I made the wrong choice?" he answered defensively.
"I'm just stating a possible reason for... this!" Matt retorted, swinging his arms in the air expansively as he said so, referring to the empty space the group of seven were in. His body slowly tilted backwards, leaving him partially upside down.
Joe, who happened to be on his stomach, glanced to where Matt was now wildly waving his arms some more, trying to right himself. "Well, that's the only thing I can think of that could have happened..." he murmured, rubbing his stomach. "Oh man, I feel like I'm gonna' hurl..."
"B-but... we can't be!" Mimi whimpered, the only person who was actually right side up. "This means we aren't going home, we're just stuck here, what's going on, I'm so confused now!" She pressed her lips together, the feelings of sadness and disappointment beginning to cascade down on her.
TK blinked as he sat on his side, the gravity of what Mimi had said slowly hitting him. "What?" he said, eyes wide in disbelief. He had been looking forward to returning home.
Matt tried to look over to his brother, failing because he was now floating with his face down and legs up in the air. In desperation, he called out, "It'll be fine! We'll get home!"
TK perked up a little. "That's right! Because we have to find the Eighth Child and stop Myotismon and stuff! So we're definitely going to have to go home!"
Sora shook her head, also on her back in the air. "I wish I shared your enthusiasm," she answered wistfully. Then she glanced about, thinking about what was missing. It took her a moment, but she quickly knew. "Hey, where are the digimon?"
The realization hit everyone else too. Within moments, the entire group whipped their heads around, trying to catch any sight of their digital friends. However, they could see no other inhabitants of the strange space of nothingness.
Everyone panicked.
Joe began rambling as he turned extremely pale and wailed. "Oh no, there are no digimon, we're stuck in some weird place, we aren't going home, Myotismon's gonna take over the world, we're gonna die - "
Losing her patience because of emotional stress, Sora floated over and smacked Joe. The older boy immediately became silent.
The others stared at Sora.
"How did you do that?" TK asked, eyes wide as he also attempted to float around in the place of nothingness.
Sora shrugged, unsure herself of how she had done it.
From their various positions, people began attempting to either right themselves or float, following the examples of Matt and Sora. Amid the wild flapping of arms and people hesitantly bobbing in the air, Izzy took out his laptop and began fiddling on it. He had managed to make himself upright, and was now sitting cross-legged in the air.
"Whatcha' up to?" Tai asked as he floated over and looked over Izzy's shoulder.
Izzy had a look of intense concentration on his face. "I'm trying to contact Gennai and see if this is supposed to happen," he answered as he waited for his laptop to boot up. "If I can get some info from him, we can possibly figure out where we are, what might have happened, and where the digimon are."
Tai nodded. "Good thinking. Let us know if you get anything."
With that, Tai joined everyone else in the floating.
A few minutes later, when Mimi was trying to keep her hat on her head and both Matt and TK were pretending to dive-bomb each other, Izzy shrieked.
Everyone turned to stare at Izzy. Izzy never shrieked. This meant that something had to be very, very bad.
In a herd, the six children floated over to where Izzy was sitting, all peeking over his shoulder with curiosity. Izzy himself was shaking as he stared at his computer screen in shock, a bead of sweat dripping down his forehead. "Ridiculous," he breathed, eyes wide in shock. "Preposterous, impossible, absurd..."
"Izzy, care telling us what is ridiculous, preposterous, impossible, and absurd?" Mimi interrupted, feeling somewhat worried herself.
Slowly, Izzy turned up the volume on his laptop speakers, and replayed the message.
It was a recorded transmission from Gennai. The face of the old man shifted in and out of view, as static drew across the screen. "Hello Digidestined, I can only hope that when you receive this message, you have already returned to your home world. However, as I have recently discovered, this may not be the case, in which you must listen closely to this message.
"Myotismon cut off the Digiworld from his destination, your home world, at the very moment his data had converted into the atoms of your world, making it so that only original computer data could be transferred back. This means that if you have not returned to your home, assuming that you placed the cards correctly, you are now in some sort of place of emptiness, a void between worlds. Most likely, if the digimon are not with you, they have successfully found a way to your home world. Obviously, you need to join them. This gives you only a few options.
"The first of these options is to stay where you are until a world portal opens, in which you can go through it. Considering world portals do not open often, and there are many other worlds, this is not the best option. Another would be to wait for a world traveler to come through the void and help you. Again, this does not occur often enough for it to be of any help.
"The only thing I can do to assist you is to send you more cards. They should work similarly to the cards you used in Myotismon's castle. The only problem is that they are all unmarked. Each different combination will send you to a different world. I have attached them to this message, along with a special card table for you to place the cards onto.
"I hope you get to your world and find the Eight Child – and good luck!"
With that, the transmission ended.
All seven children gaped, jaws slack and eyes blinking. For a long moment, they sat in complete silence, staring in horror at the glowing screen in front of them, the weight of what had just been said dawning on them.
"We have to guess and check our way through worlds to get home?" Matt finally spoke in a wavering, shaking voice.
Sora nodded as she continued to stare ahead of her. "I... guess... so?"
At this moment, both Joe and Mimi let out a screech of frustration and floated away, wailing and moaning about how horrible fate was to them. Matt grabbed TK gently and held onto him, with TK blankly gripping his brother's wrist. Sora just put her head into her hands.
Tai took it upon himself to try staying calm.
"Izzy," Tai whispered hoarsely, "Download the attachments."
Izzy slowly did so, waiting for a few moments as his computer received the data. Then he opened up the executable file, watching as the program ran. In a few moments, the entire screen began to glow a blinding white, and Izzy received another large shock. "GAH!"
A small wrapped rectangular packet shot out of the computer, hitting Izzy across the nose. While Izzy reeled back and immediately brought his hand up to rub his nose, the screen glowed stronger, and this time a tiny wooden table with stubby legs, somewhat larger than a math book, also shot out, decking Izzy straight in the face.
Izzy automatically passed out.
Tai yelped and caught his friend, steadying the laptop at the same time. Sora in turn picked up both the packet and the table, and Matt let go of his brother, turning to where Joe and Mimi were still shrieking at the top of their lungs. "Get over here!"
Joe and Mimi turned to glare at Matt, but after one glance at Izzy, they both hurried back.
Tai, unsure of what else to do, closed the laptop and focused his attention on his unconscious friend. Mimi was kneeling down beside Izzy and fanning him with his hat; the others had no real idea of what to do except wait for Izzy to awaken.
Sora took the moment to examine what she was holding. The table itself had the three by three diagram carved into the top, just like the one back in Myotismon's castle. One row had three stars carved in each box, the next row two, and the last row one. Besides that, it had no other markings.
"Matt, can you open this?" she turned to her blond friend, and gave him what was probably the packet of cards.
Matt complied, fumbling with the wrapping. He carefully unfolded it, unsticking parts and tearing neatly here and there, before taking the small stack of nine cards out of the paper. He stared blankly at the cards.
TK glanced up to examine the cards as well. "They're blank!" he exclaimed unhappily. "They're just all these black cards!"
"WHAT?" everyone else (minus Izzy) shouted, and they each turned towards Matt to look at the cards themselves.
After a few moments, Matt sighed and placed the entire deck on the table Sora was still holding. "Gennai meant it when he said they were unmarked."
Sighing, everyone leaned back, in a resigned manner.
"I guess we just put them down randomly then," Sora said sadly, "We'll just have to try different combinations."
Joe leaned forward and poked the topmost card. "Only one problem. They all look the same!"
"I can fix that..."
Izzy sat up, opening his eyes and giving everyone a bleary look. Tai gave him an ecstatic look.
"Yes! Izzy, you're our thinker, what do we do?" Tai asked excitedly. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "By the way, you all right now?"
Izzy rubbed his nose and forehead. "I hope so," he mumbled, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a marker. "Here, draw different pictures on the back of each card."
Mimi took the marker and uncapped it, before taking one of the cards and drawing something on the back. However, no one could see anything. She groaned. "Izzy, this is a black pen!"
At that, with no change of expression, Izzy turned and opened up his laptop. The backlight from the screen flashed on, and he focused the light towards Mimi and the card she held. Sure enough, the image of a smiley face reflected off the back of the card. He gave everyone a smug smile.
At once, Mimi smiled gleefully and began drawing different pictures on the back of each card.
"So," Joe began, eying Mimi who was serenely drawing what looked like a flower, "we'll just put them down at random and try to guess our way through different worlds?"
Izzy shrugged. "It seems that way. I have a theory though - "
"Yes! Izzy has a theory!" Tai cheered almost mockingly. Then he grinned. "Come on, it's always a good thing when you have a theory. Do tell."
Izzy rolled his eyes slightly. "As I was about to say before Tai interrupted me, I think that because different card formations lead to different worlds, if two worlds are similar, then the card formation must also be similar. So, we just guess depending on those, and hopefully we will reach the correct world eventually."
"That does seem like a good way of going about doing things," Sora murmured, putting a hand to her chin in thought.
For a few moments, the group sat and waited as Mimi drew random pictures on the backs of each card. Illuminated by the light of the laptop, they soon saw such things as the smiley face and the flower, as well as a teardrop, a sun, a heart, a cross with other parts...
"Waaaait a second," Joe stated, pointing to the cross card. "That looks like my crest."
Mimi shrugged as she continued to draw. "Well, I'm not that creative! I had to like, inspire myself somehow!"
The others bent over her shoulder to examine the cards themselves. Indeed, the remaining cards vaguely resembled each of their crests. As Mimi finished the last card (TK's crest), Izzy took it upon himself to comment, "You really just needed inspiration?"
She shrugged as she shuffled the cards into a small deck. "It's better than a picture of, like, I don't know, a bug."
"Were Tentomon here, he might take offense to that..."
At that, the Digidestined gave a large simultaneous sigh of worry, wondering if their partners had indeed made it back to the Real World, or if they too had been thrown into a long detour. They could do nothing about it though, except for trying to use the cards as a way of returning home.
Tai picked up the cards, making sure that the laptop backlight made the pictures reflect back. Quietly, he turned to where Sora was resolutely holding the table in front of her. "All right team, this is it," he announced solemnly.
"The moment of truth," Matt muttered behind him, with set expression of seriousness on his face.
"Where we either end up home or possibly running from some new danger in another world," Joe contemplated humorlessly, resting his chin on a fist rather resignedly.
TK took the moment to poke Joe in the stomach. While Joe immediately brought his hands to his belly and blinked in confusion at the younger boy, TK put his hands on his hips and glared slightly. "Come on Joe, we'll get home! Even if it takes a while!"
"Yeah, optimism is a good thing, Joe. TK has plenty of it, maybe you could borrow some," Sora added, smiling.
The entire group burst out in one final bout of laughter, knowing full well what was to come.
With that, Tai placed a card on each space on the table.
And the void around them flashed brilliantly, surrounding their vision with piercing brightness. The wind swept about them, howling in their ears, pulling them from the void into what they knew was another world.
They only hoped it was the right one.