Ah ha! I told you I'd have strange twists! That comes from way too many Dr. Peppers way too late at night when I really should be doing my math homework!

Disclaimer: If I ever own Digimon, pigs will fly, hell will freeze over, and there will be peace in the Middle East.

Lost

Chapter 8: We're Lost, But We're Making Good Time

"Kari…What the heck is going on here?" Tai asked, looking down at the child Kari had brought back from the Digital World.

"I have no idea." Kari muttered. "You called Matt already, right?"

Tai nodded. The boy was definitely T.K., you could tell that, but an eight-year-old version. He was short, with short legs and arms, and his hair was messier than ever. He was fast asleep on Kari's bed, bundled up with his original shirt long enough to hide his knees and the pants hanging loose on their belt. Patamon was sitting on the shelf with Gatomon, keeping a careful watch.

"I don't know how we're gonna explain this." Tai groaned, putting a hand on his forehead and closing his eyes.

The child stirred, then yawned a wide yawn. Tai and Kari froze as he sat up sleepily, rubbed his eyes, then looked up at them. "Where am I?" he asked, and his voice was just as childish as he was.

"Uh…" Kari glanced at Tai, then attempted to make it all make sense. "You're… at our house…"

T.K. looked around. "Okay then…" he seamed weary, but still with that childish innocence they always had. "But…who are you two?"

"Oh great." Tai rolled his eyes. "Please tell me we don't have to re-teach him everything again."

T.K. suddenly spotted something he recognized. "Hey, Patamon!" he called, scrambling over to the shelf. "There you are!"

"T.K., are you okay?" Patamon asked, hovering slightly above his head.

"Of course I'm okay!" T.K. laughed, jumping up just a bit to grab his Digimon in a hug.

Kari and Tai blinked. "Okay, scratch that." Kari muttered under her breath.

The doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" Tai called, then hurried out to the hall to answer it.

Matt stood in the corridor, breathing hard because he'd run all the way over. "What's…going…on?" he panted.

"Come on, get in!" Tai pulled his friend into the apartment and pushed him down the hall to his sister's room.

Kari looked up as they entered. "Good, you're here!" she sighed with relief. "We have a serious problem…"

The little boy looked up, then his face spread into a smile. "Hiya, Matt!" he laughed, then looked confused. "You changed your hair."

Matt blinked, then automatically lifted a hand to his hair to make sure it didn't seam any different than the day before. It wasn't. Then he stared down at the suddenly much-younger boy. "Is this…?"

"Yup." Tai sighed.

"This is weird…" Kari muttered, looking between Matt and her brother. "He recognizes you, but not either of us."

T.K. just grinned, really not knowing what was happening, then went back to talking to Gatomon and Patamon. Matt just stood there a moment, then looked up at Kari. "What the heck happened?!"

~ * ~ * ~

"I see…" Izzy contemplated a moment. "So this is all MagnaDevimon's fault…"

"And his memory?" Kari asked over the phone, leaning on her desk. It was about ten o'clock that night, and Matt had already taken the little T.K. home. Their mother's reaction was…to be expected (T.K. gave her one smile and she fainted on the couch). "He remembered Matt, Patamon, and his mother, but not me or Tai. What's up with that?"

"Well…" Izzy took a bite of the cheese platter on his table, looking out the window at the darkened sky. "I believe that MagnaDevimon must have taken him back in time, so that his body and mind all are at eight years of age. In that case, his memories would be exactly the same way they were when he was eight years old."

"So…why wouldn't he know me and Tai?"

"Think about it, Kari." Izzy muttered. "At eight years old, he would only know you and Tai for about six months, max. And he would expect you, in particular, to be his size."

"Yeah, but Tai towered over him even then…" Kari glanced at the picture beside her. It was the one they'd taken just before leaving the Digital World, and the one beside it was T.K. and herself in New York. "So how could he not…?"

"If he suddenly loses his goggles and stretches about half a foot up, that looks pretty different to an eight year old." Izzy sighed.

"And Matt?"

"They're brothers." Izzy shrugged again. "He'd know him by the face, even if his hair did change."

"So…He probably won't recognize the rest of us." Kari muttered, twisting a piece of hair around her finger. "But he does remember us, right?"

"Of course he does." Izzy sighed. "But I don't think we should tell him anything just yet…It'd be too big of a shock for the poor kid, finding out that his best friends are all suddenly twice as old as he is."

Kari nodded. "I guess you're right…" she whispered. "Goodnight, Izzy."

"Goodnight."

Kari hung up the phone. With a sigh, she leaned over her desk and fingered the picture from New York. "Oh T.K.…" she thought quietly. "I was so sick of missing you…I wanted the old T.K. back, but not like this…"

In thought, two fingers raised to touch her lips. Ruminations of just before they met MagnaDevimon sparked in her mind. She crossed to her bed, fell onto it face-first, and sobbed helplessly into her pillow.

"…We were…so close…" she whispered through the tears. "So close…"

~ * ~ * ~

MagnaDevimon sighed to himself, swinging down another bottle of his special Nectar. It was a dark red-purple and looked kind of like wine, except that it bubbled and fizzed in a special way. However, he didn't just drink it for fun, he needed it.

"Master?" a HoneyBeemon asked quietly from his side. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes!" he muttered. "I'm fine, as long as I keep supplied with the Nectar!"

The HoneyBeemon took the hint and scrambled away to get more of the sweet liquid to fill his master's huge glass. It bubbled and frothed for a moment, then simmered down so MagnaDevimon gulped it down, too.

HoneyBeemon approached carefully again. "Master…May I ask…Why did you not simply destroy that boy, instead of wasting most of your energy on transforming him into a child?"

The Master sighed quietly. "Because, HoneyBeemon…" he growled. "I wish to destroy what I hate so…But that boy had forgotten who he was. With or without his Digimon…There's no pleasure in destroying a boy I don't know."

"Oh, I see." HoneyBeemon agreed, filling his glass again. "So you turned him into the boy you knew, and now you're letting your energy rest until it's powered up enough?"

"True." MagnaDevimon laughed. "But also not.…I always love to have a little fun with my victims before their end…"