My, this is rather popular…*low whistle* any more so and I might have to go to the hospital for heart failure. 117 reviews last time I checked, and it's probably so much more by now! Thank you, everyone, and I'm gonna try to make it real interesting!

Someone asked if there was supposed to be a touch of 'Stargate' in here. Um…No. My mom watches it, but I don't like it too much, except for the time they were going over that same day over and over and over, and the only ones who remembered were the alien and the general, and the general resigned one day so he could kiss that female major…hard.

Disclaimer: If I ever own Digimon, you'll know. Trust me.

Mysterious Child

Chapter 6: The DigiDestined's Nightmare

A sudden rush of color and light! A blinding range of colors, all swirling around them, spinning almost out of control with all ranges of the spectrum. It was like being stuck in a giant washing machine with all the watercolors, crayons, colored pencils, markers, pastels and paints in the world. And in some way, all those brilliant colors didn't mix together at all, were all just as separate and bright as ever. All and all, it was extremely over-whelming, and gradually it got harder and harder to breathe until…

It all stopped.

~ * ~ * ~

The six DigiDestined and their seven partners stood looking out at the barren wasteland. Finally, Davis said it: "Where the heck are we?"

It was gray. Like they'd stepped into an old movie with no sound or color at all. The ground was pale, white-gray, smooth but occasionally pitted with rocks. There were several sparse bushes here and there, a darker gray. But some places in between were scorched from attack blasts, burned such a dark shade it was almost black. And there, towering in the distance, was a huge castle, stark black against the monotone gray of the sky.

Yolei brushed back her violet hair. "It must be the Digital World." she concluded. "This must be what happened after Daemon took over…"

Gatomon jumped forward and examined on of the darkened parts. She sniffed it carefully. "This was a Digimon's attack." she said slowly. "Insect-type, most likely. Kawagamon."

"We're on a battle field." Hawkmon said, glancing around. "There's a stench of death around here."

Patamon's ears were lifted high up above his head, listening in each direction. "It's too quite." he said softly, letting them drop. "Not a breath, not a gust of wind. Just… us."

Everyone's breath caught in their throat and they just stood there, watching, thinking. Mist seamed to cloud their minds, and all they could wonder was if…they had…

T.K. shook his head, breaking the spell. "Come on." he said, taking a step forward. "We should head towards that castle over there. If we're looking for Carie, I bet that's where they'd take her."

Ken nodded. "Sounds good to me." he said. "Let's go."

The group left and walked down the path.

~ * ~ * ~

"What was that?" Daemon asked, toying with an idea. "The DigiDestined from the past have found the portals and made it here?"

DemiDevimon nodded fearfully. "They're determined to get her back, my Lord." he said, gesturing towards the door that eventually lead to the dungeons. "I suggest that we should…"

"Quiet, bat!" the master snapped again, glaring viciously. DemiDevimon shut his mouth immediately. "Now. We must make use of this glorious opportunity…"

"Opportunity?!" DemiDevimon squeaked. "Opportunity for what?! To get us killed?!"

Devimon had a derisive grin on his face. "No." he said smoothly. "An opportunity to be rid of all our problems once and for all….You see, DemiDevimon, if I have beaten these Digital Fools once when they were full-grown adults, what chance do they really have if they're still children?"

"But my Lord…" DemiDevimon gasped. "Destroying them now would mean… they would be destroyed in their time as well! That would change the timeline and…"

"We would not only have six less fools to eliminate…" Daemon grinned wickedly. "But we also wouldn't have to worry about that little brat of theirs, either."

Carie curled tightly into a tiny ball. She didn't know what the bad thing was planning, but she could hear his voice through the top of her cell. She knew her parents were coming, and she knew they were in just as big trouble as she was.

She sniffed and wiped a last tear away. "Mommy…Daddy…Please find me soon…"

~ * ~ * ~

The DigiDestined stood at a crossroads. After walking only half an hour, here it was: Three different roads leading off in three different directions towards three different, almost identical, black castles.

"So?" Davis asked, shielding his eyes from the light to look down each path. "Which way do we go?"

Cody looked down each path. "Well…" he sighed. "I think the best plan is to split into teams of 2. Each one takes a road. We travel down it for a day, then try to meet back here when it gets dark. If one group isn't here, we'll know something's wrong and go after them."

The rest of the group nodded. It sounded like a good idea to them, too. "Okay then…" Yolei began. "Maybe if we stuck to DNA teams…"

She stopped. Kari had her eyes locked with hers. It was pretty obvious that she wanted to stay with T.K.

Yolei cleared her throat. "Uh…Alright." she said. "Let's do it this way…"

Eventually, T.K. and Kari took the road to the left, Yolei and Ken took the road to the right, while Davis and Cody went straight down the middle road. Before they left, Ken made a note on his watch.

"It's eleven forty, AM." he told everyone. "We'll need to get back here before dark. Everyone try to head back around four o'clock, okay?"

After everyone agreed that was alright, the party set off once again on their separate ways, calling good bye as the paths veered away from each other, leaving it just to the two.

When they walked alone, Kari glanced up at T.K. "Do you think we can find her?" she asked worriedly.

T.K. grinned not-too-convincingly. "Sure we can…" he said, distracted. "I'm just worried about what happens when we do…"

~ * ~ * ~

For Yolei and Ken, the walk was not as long as they had estimated. They'd barely been walking twenty minutes when the fortress loomed up in front of them.

"What is this place?" Yolei asked, looking up at the black castle. "It looks like a prison."

Ken gazed around the area. He spotted some motion at the left. "Look there!" he called, pointing. "Those rocks…"

They glanced at each other and nodded, then headed for the range of black rocks that stood out in the distance.

~ * ~ * ~

"Well." Davis said, shielding his eyes as he looked up at the mass of black stone. "Here we are."

"Look." Cody muttered, scanning the area. "The door's not guarded. There's no one around."

"Let's just go in then." Armodillomon suggested.

"Yeah!" said Davis, running for the door. "Let's go, Cody!"

But something didn't feel right to Cody. He had a sudden flash of a dark feeling as Davis and Veemon reached for the doorknob, he felt a sudden blast of cold air on the back of his neck. "No, wait!" he started, but it was too late.

Davis flung the door open, and as he did the whole castle disappeared. Davis and Veemon dropped out of sight. "Davis! Veemon!" the remaining two called, running to the side.

Davis had grabbed onto a piece of rock the jutted out from the side of the fifty-foot pit. Veemon had grabbed his feet, and now both were hanging high above the bottom of the pit, which was colored strangely for this weird place.

Cody and Armodillomon covered their noses from the stench. "Phew!" shouted Armodillomon. "What is that?"

"I dunno!" Davis called. "Just pull us up, would ya?"

After quite a bit of huffing and puffing, Davis and his partner were safely up on the side. They sputtered out their thanks, then bent over the edge when their friends.

On the ground were several large rocks, but they were strange. The coloring around them was the usual monotone gray. But the rocks were a sort of tannish, pale color, at least some of them. Others were darker, others were chocolate brown, some were a toasty dark. Squinting closely, they could see tuffs of different colors. Reds, browns, yellows, blacks…

Davis and Cody drew back in horror as they realized what they were. "Bodies…" Cody whispered. "Human…Bodies…"

~ * ~ * ~

It took another hour, but Yolei and Ken made it to the dark stones. Several figures, dressed in gray, stumbled around the area, all skinny and bony like they hadn't eaten well enough for at least a year. Some were smoothing the rocks into bricks, some were knocking big rocks down to the right size, and the rest were dragging the bricks from place to place.

"What're they doing?" Yolei asked Ken in a hushed whisper.

"It looks like they're building something." Ken muttered. "A building of some sort."

"They don't look too happy about it." Wormmon said.

"Indeed." Hawkmon nodded.

One human figure, a female, stumbled forward and dropped her brick was a crash, falling to her knees with a gasp. Yolei hurried to her side. "Let me help…" she said kindly.

The girl look up, startled. She had half-frame glasses, brown hair and brown eyes. Both Yolei and the girl gasped when they saw each other. "Na…Naomi?" Yolei gasped, recognizing her sister instantly.

Naomi didn't speak, she just gasped unsteadily and stared wide-eyed. Yolei tried smiling gently. "Naomi…It's me…Yolei…"

Naomi seamed to have forgotten how to talk, but her energy was back full blast. In a panic, she grabbed the brick she had been carrying and ran in the opposite direction of her sister. "Naomi!" Yolei called after her, but she was gone.

Ken put his arm over Yolei's shoulder. Yolei looked up at her boyfriend with a sigh. "Why?" she muttered, half to him and half to herself. "Why?"

~ * ~ * ~

T.K. and Kari weren't enjoying their trip, either. They'd walked the waste land for an hour and found nothing, finally reached the castle as their feet were giving out, found the door heavily guarded, managed to sneak in through a sewer duct in the moat, and were now scouring the halls in the basement.

"Take a look at these, T.K." Patamon said, holding up a ring of gems. His partner helped Kari out of the man-hole like pipe that lead to the sewer, shut the iron-bar lid, and turned to examine the gems.

They were flat diamonds, clear, and looking like they were made of glass, hanging from a hole in the top corner on a small black ring. "What do you suppose they are?"

Kari suddenly reached back and grabbed T.K.'s hand. "I hear her." she whispered.

"What?" T.K. asked, confused.

"I hear her!" Kari was growing more excited. "She's down here, come on!"

She began sprinting down the hall, Gatomon at her heels. T.K. started after her with Gatamon in his arms. "Wait a sec!" Patamon pushed the ring into his hands. "I think we'll need these."

Kari ran down a long hallway. There were lots of things she quite rightly assumed were unoccupied, rather high-tech, prison cells. Where there would have been bars in those old western movies, there was nothing but a two-inch thick panel of some sort of tinted force field. Each one was a different color: Red, yellow, purple, orange, blue…

Kari slide to a stop in front of a green field. A small figure was curled next to the wall inside. "There she is!" she gasped, pressing her hands to the field, trying to fall in to reach her future daughter. "Carie! Carie, honey, here we are!"

The girl looked up, and her face spread into a smile. "Mommy!" she cried, scrambling to her feet and running to the field, tears filling her eyes.

"Don't worry, Carie." Kari soothed through the field. "We'll get you out."

T.K., Gatamon and Patamon hurried up from behind. Carie looked up at them. "Daddy! Gatamon!"

"Hi Carie." T.K. whispered, out of breath. Gatamon dropped to the floor and ran to the field between herself and her partner.

Patamon was flying about half-way up the side of the wall. "T.K., look at this." he said, pointing to a small diamond in the side. "I think those diamonds on the ring would fit right in here."

T.K. pulled the ring out of his pocket. Patamon was right. It did look like just the right size of one of the diamond to fit it. In fact, there was one the exact shade of green as the force field…

He slid the green diamond into the insert on the wall and pressed. The green field retracted into the wall slowly, sliding out like you might a pane of glass. When it was gone, Kari dropped to her knees and pulled Carie into a hug.

Carie was crying, but it was a happy cry. "Oh, Mommy, I knew you'd save me!" she sobbed. "I (hiccup) I was so scared!"

Kari stoked her hair. "It's okay now." she soothed. "We're here."

She finally let go. Gatamon leapt up into Carie's arms. "Gatamon!" the little girl laughed, giving her friend a hug.

T.K. bent down and lifted Carie up off the floor in a hug. As he did, a red light began flashing in every hall they could see, and with it came a huge BOEEP-BOEEP-BOEEP like the alarm system in an army movie.

T.K. and Kari locked eyes. "We've got to get out of here." Kari whispered in shock.

"Come on." T.K. gave her Carie and Gatamon. "We'll get out through the sewer duct we got in through."

Hearing the noise of dozens of footsteps behind them, they turned on their heels and ran.