Er…does everyone hate me for breaking Jenna & Leon up? Don't worry, it's necessary at the moment. If you want them back together, R&R and tell me so, k?

Anyway…about the new DD. Yes, the little ones are gonna be more and more involved as time goes on. Tania and Julian especially. I'm not gonna reveal much more than that. So…hope y'all enjoy the new chapter!

Predestined

Chapter Nine: Of Friends and Foes

Jenna was completely numb as she let Tania lead her by the hand to the cave. The little girl had seemingly popped out of nowhere, and for the life of her, she couldn't figure out why she was there.

Get a grip, Ichijouji. There's probably an explanation for this. There's got to be…

Kiko's eyes popped out of his head as his younger sister came in, dripping wet and leading Jenna by the hand. "Tania, what—"

"I want to help look for Hikaru!" the little girl said adamantly. She let go of Jenna and went over to her older brother. "Please, Kiko, let me stay with you! Mommy and Daddy don't understand that you need me to help you. Please let me stay?"

He sighed. "All right, but if I get in trouble because of you…" He took one of the blankets out of his rucksack and passed it to her. "Here, take off your wet clothes and get warm. Mom will kill me if you catch a cold!"

Holly served up their supper, and they all ate in silence. Everyone was too busy wondering about Tania to notice that Leon and Jenna were avoiding all possible contact. Finally, once the last noodle had been scraped out of their bowls, they all started asking Tania questions.

"How did you get here?" Kiko asked immediately. "Did you use your D-X?"

The little girl smiled serenely. "No. I used Mommy's way."

"And what exactly would that be?" Mike asked her. But all Tania would do was smile.

"Do you have your Digimon yet?" Tina asked.

Tania's brow furrowed. "No. What's that?"

Rubymon jumped up. "What's that, she says? She doesn't know what we are? Tell 'em, people."

"These guys," Holly said simply. Syramon chucked a spoon at her, so she elaborated. "Digital Monsters."

Tania shrieked, "Monsters?! I don't like monsters! They're big and scary!"

"Oh, come on," Pikkimon groaned. "Do I look big and scary to you?"

She gulped. "No."

"Yes, but that's only because we're travel-size for your convenience," Fangmon said impishly. "If I were any of my digivolved forms, you would probably pass out with fright, little one!"

Tania giggled. "You're funny."

He grinned at her with his big teeth. "You should see my Austin Powers impression."

Kiko checked on Tania's clothes drying by the fire. "They're dry," he told her shortly. "Get dressed, kiddo."

While she was doing that, the laptop started beeping. Tina opened it to see their parents, looking tense and anxious.

"KIKO, WHERE'S YOUR SISTER?" Kari bellowed. She may have been a small woman, but she had a pair of brass and leather lungs in her. "IF SHE'S THERE—"

"Hi, Mommy," Tania piped up from the back. She tied her white bandana around her neck again and smiled.

"Tania, thank God!" TK sighed. "Honey, you know we don't want you out there! Listen, we'll just re-open the Port, and…"

"I'm not coming home," the little girl replied adamantly. "I'm staying here to look for my sister!"

Both her parents looked shocked. "Tania—"

"I'll be fine, Mommy." Tania latched onto Kiko's arm and looked at her parents. "Kiko will take care of me. Won'tcha, Kiko?"

He grimaced. "Uh…yeah."

Matt looked anxiously into the group of children assembled in front of the laptop. "Kinaka, is your little brother there?" he asked.

"Uh, no," she said. "Why? Should he be?"

Angel wailed, "We don't know! He's not here either!"

Kinaka's heart nearly dropped into her stomach. "How long has he been gone?" she asked fearfully.

"He wasn't in his room this morning," her mother cried. "We thought he might have been playing around with the Ports or something, since your dad's computer was on this morning when we were looking, but…Oh my God! What if he's out there, all alone?"

A crash of thunder resounded through the cave. Angel clutched Matt's arm and wept into his shoulder. "And there's a storm there, too! If he's stuck in that…"

"We'll find him, Mom. Don't worry," Kinaka reassured her mother. In her heart, she wasn't so sure she'd find her little brother in the Digital World. And she knew that her parents wouldn't find Julian on Earth, either.

In a dimension of swirling colors and orbs of light, a small speck of life wanders around. His white-blonde hair is wafting around his head, though there is no breeze. His small feet make no sound, for there is no solid ground. His huge blue eyes, fringed with eyelashes as white as his hair, are peering owlishly around him. He is alone…as far as he knows. He isn't sure what this place is. It reminds him of the Playland at the MacDonald's that his mom sometimes takes him to after she picks him up from the daycare. Except that he's floating around.

His rosebud lips open to form a question. "Mommy, where are you?" he asks in his sweet baby voice.

But his mommy can't hear him. She is a whole dimension away, close enough for him to touch, to see…if he had but the power to draw aside the veil like his sister, and see through the temporal fabric of the universe. But to his childish mind, he's stuck in a world where there is no mommy or daddy or big sister to answer his call if he cries out. The thought brings tears to his eyes, and he wipes them away with a small, dimpled hand as they begin to roll down his chubby cheeks.

I'm scared, he thinks fleetingly. But it's so pretty here…

A high, pleasing note rings out. Curious, the little boy looks around his for the source of the sound. He hears it again, over his head. When he looks, he sees one of those lovely orbs of luminescence, glowing as it spins and whirls in a never-ending celestial dance. It is making the sound that the little boy heard.

As he looks around him, he notices that each of these little orbs are giving off their own sound, to form a symphony unlike anything he has ever heard before. He reaches for the orb above him…takes it in his hands…

…cradles it against his chest. It has become an egg, with a light blue shell covered in red swirls. And it is his.

"Julian," a sleepy voice inside it calls to him, in a voice too sweet and irresistibly calming for words.

Kinaka sat up, breathing hard and sweating. She pressed her hand to her fast-beating heart and waited for it to stop pounding. When she was calm enough, she got up and went outside the cave for some fresh air.

Leaning against a granite slab, she mulled over her dream. Her baby brother had been in it…but where was he? And why did she dream about him? Her vision of him in the colourful dimension came back to her, and she sat up straighter.

Had it really been a dream?

She went back inside the cave, nearly tripping over Jenna. Leon was on the opposite end of the cave, snoring softly. Kinaka couldn't understand why they had fought earlier on, but she knew somehow that they would turn out all right. Most bickering couples did. The thought cheered her somewhat, and she made her way back to her sleeping bag.

"Just where the hell do you think you're taking me?" Lee cried as a burly guard pulled her down the long, twisting staircase.

"Dungeon," the big hulk said gruffly, yanking her arm harder. "The Lady's orders." They reached the cell Lee would be occupying, and he threw her in.

Lee landed in the corner, on a pile of mouldy hay. Lying there, her lamp-like eyes dim, was Starymon.

"Lee," the orb-like Digimon called to her partner. "Lee, when did you get here? That creepy chick with the whip never told us you were coming…"

"Hey, does it really matter? I'm here now!" Lee said, gathering her partner into her arms.

Outside, they could hear Hikaru raising a little hell. "Let go of me, you asshole!" she screamed, and they both heard a guard shriek with pain.

"You little bitch!" he screamed. Through the bars of her cell, Lee could see one of the guards holding his face. Hikaru had scratched him in the eyes.

Two other guards grabbed her by the arms and proceeded to yank them out of their sockets as they dragged her to a cell. "Chris!" she was screaming, flailing her legs. "Chris!"

"Hikaru!" Chris yelled, trying to wrestle his way away from the guard holding onto him. His reward was a punch across the back of the head that nearly knocked him unconscious. A second punch landed on his left eye, bruising the skin under it and breaking his glasses.

Once they had all been separated, one by one they noticed that their Digimon were in the cells with them. Everyone except Lauren, who was still knocked unconscious. Usaiamon poked her gently with her paw. "Lauren?" she asked tentatively.

"I think she's gonna be out for a while," Kim remarked through the bars of her cell. One hand rested on Donamon's electric purple fur. "Maybe she has a concussion. I don't know."

"I wish we had heat in here," Lee groaned. She was curled in the corner with Starymon, trying to keep warm. "I mean, I'm still half-dressed here, and there's the fact that this damn rag I have to wear is getting seriously shredded from all this abuse we've been taking from that bitch in the leather suit."

Chris looked sadly across the way toward Hikaru. Her face had been bruised in her attempt to fight the guards. "We need a doctor here," he sighed. He took off his broken glasses, examined them briefly, and perched them back on his face.

"Not to mention food, water, showers…" Kim went on.

Hikaru, attempting to make the situation a little lighter, burst out with, "A bathroom and some magazines! Don't forget the air fresheners, the feather pillows…"

"Shaddup," Kim groaned. "Don't get me started on all the luxuries I'd like to have right now." She reached up to scratch her neck, then brought her hand away in shock. "My goggles are gone!"

"What goggles?" Chris asked.

Lee groaned. "You must really be blind, Chris. You would have noticed her wearing those goggles around her neck day in, day out when we were first here. They used to be my dad's, and then my dad gave them to her dad, and her dad gave them to her when she was born."

"And now I've lost them!" Kim lamented. "Crap, Dad is gonna kill me!"

A scuffling of little feet padded across the floor of the keep. Five tiny mouse-like Digimon appeared, carrying with them…

"FOOD!" Hikaru cried. But the little mice dudes shushed her.

"You must eat," they told them, shoving the food through a sort of cat-flap in the cell doors. "And then, we must talk. We're going to help you get out."