Litanya: Okay, I'm updating, I'm updating! Thank you to EVERYONE who has read this fic, even if you haven't reviewed. I appreciate it Anyway, I do not own digimon.

This chapter is dedicated to Steph and everyone who has reviewed this fic. I love all of you guys!

An Old Box

Chapter 11

Sora coughed quietly as she raced through the living room. The room was slowly filling with smoke and she could barely see ten paces in front of her. She coughed again, the smoke seeming to settle deep inside her lungs. She paused for a moment before she lifted her left hand and blew the smoke away. What she saw frightened her. Flames were dancing over the wooden furniture only half a meter away from where she was standing. Further on ahead, flames had already burnt the door to Tai's room down to its hinges. She let out a small, frightened cry, but her thoughts were only on Tai. Kari had said that he had not come out of his room. His room now seemed to be all in ashes, but she could not see it completely as there was still a blanket of smoke hiding parts of the room from her view.

"Tai are you okay?" her voice cracked and she realised that she had inhaled too much smoke. There was no answer, though she thought that she heard a soft coughing come from the back of his room, "Tai please answer me!" She could hear the desperation in her voice. Still there was no reply, but there was a banging sound as though someone had crashed into a wall. She took a step forward but the flames seemed to jump out at her. She cried out as the tongue of the flames burnt the back of her right hand. From the distant room she heard another bang, and this time she saw a tanned hand move on the ground.

"Tai is that you?" again there was no reply, but she thought she saw a figure rise up out of the smoke that was still covering the room. Either she saw the figure or she was hallucinating. She couldn't move forward because of the flames and she had no idea how Tai could get out. Flames barred the only exit from the room and unless he could walk through flames, it did not look as though he was going to escape. She could faintly hear the sounds of a fire engine in the background, but she knew that it would get there too late. Then a thought occurred to her.

'Wait… why don't I just use my 'gift' to put out the fire?' she could not believe that this idea had not occurred to her before. She lifted her left hand and waited. No water came out. She waited expectantly, but still nothing happened.

'Maybe T.K can help me!' she whirled around to leave the apartment and get the boy when she was confronted by another wall of flames. Whilst she had been standing around the flames had moved so that they now surrounded her. She knew that there must be a lot of smoke, but she hadn't noticed it in her concern for her best friend. Even as she noticed the flames, she still could not smell the smoke, and her lungs did not ache. Either her lungs had gone numb with the inhalation of too much smoke or her 'gift' with air was still working and keeping her safe. But even her 'gift' of wind could not help her now. She collapsed to her knees as she realised that there was no escape…

T.K felt guilty. As soon as Sora had heard that Tai was still in the burning apartment, she had rushed in to help. He had heard the news too, but he had been paralyzed. He had not been able to chase after the girl and when he had finally gotten a hold of himself, flames had already begun to dance in the doorway to the apartment. Instead he turned to comforting the distraught girl that was his best friend. Kari could not control her tears. It was her brother that was in there and T.K knew that nothing he could say would comfort her until her brother came out of there alive. So instead he wrapped her in a large hug and listened as she poured out her feelings.

"He was studying for his exams. I'd gone in to see him before, but he was so busy… and I didn't think to even say I loved him. I just begged him to play Monopoly because I thought that he was staying in his room too much. I just gave up because he said that the exams were important and the last words I said to him were 'I'll see you later then.' I'll see you later then! Why couldn't I have said something more useful, or told him that even though he was an annoying brother, I loved him? Why couldn't I have persisted in my demands for him to come out of his room? If I had done that, then he wouldn't be in there right now, either dead or fighting for his life!" Kari was sobbing so hard that T.K could barely hear what she was saying. He could grasp the main idea of it though.

"Kari, this is not your fault! Tai was studying; these exams are important for him. How could you know that there was going to be a fire? Unless you are psychic you would have had no way of telling. You cannot blame yourself for what is happening! Tai will probably be fine. He's strong; you of all people know that. He can get through this and he will. Both he and Sora will be fine and everything will be okay again," it was partly to comfort Kari that he said this, and but also to comfort himself. He wanted everything to turn out all right, just as much as Kari did. After all, both Tai and Sora were his friends.

"But what if it isn't T.K? We have to be prepared for the worst as well as the best. Tai taught me that. Even if we wish as hard as we can for them to live, we have to accept that they might die too. And that's what scares me… the accepting part. I do not want to even think about that. But I'm going to have to," her sobs subsided a little as she said this, making her speech clearer.

"But that doesn't mean that we have to believe the worst. We have to acknowledge that it may happen, but we cannot lose hope! Hope has never let us down before. When we were in the Digital World fighting Piedmon we refused to give up hope and we won. If we give up hope now, then both Tai and Sora are lost. But if we believe in them, they will be fine. All we have to do is believe," she looked up and locked her eyes with his. He could see that she was confused, uncertain of what to do. She was blaming herself and he did not like that. Still, he kept silent, knowing that he would not be able to make her believe that it was not her fault.

"I guess," but she sounded doubtful. He just wrapped his arms tighter around her and held back his own doubts.

"They'll be fine…"

Davis was walking down the street between his apartment and the building the others lived in when he ran into three people running the other way. And when he ran into them, he bowled them over.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't…" he trailed off as he saw who they were, "Ken, Yolie, and Cody. What's up?" They had agitated expressions on their faces, as though they were worried about something that was right in front of them.

"Davis, we were looking for you!" Yolie sounded relieved, as though something that had been bothering her had been solved. Ken's face did not change, and Cody's face seemed to grow even more apprehensive.

"What's going on? You all look like someone died or something," Davis tried to joke, but the others did not seem amused.

"Has your 'gift' been working when you haven't wanted it?" Ken asked, unconsciously tracing the crest of Kindness on his hand. Davis's grin slipped a little.

"Sometimes… it usually happens when I'm alone in my room. My pen freezes to my hand or the table, or my food becomes frozen as I am about to eat it. But it is usually small things. It doesn't matter all that much. Why? Are you guys experiencing the same problem?" There was a series of nods. As if to demonstrate the problem Cody's hand, which was wrapped around a book, caused the book to stretch out so that it was almost twice as big as it had been, before snapping back to the size it had started at.

"That's been happening a lot lately. Every day my 'gift' has been working oftener than it should and I'm finding that I cannot use my 'gift' for anything other than stretching things most of the time," Cody explained, quickly placing the book in his other hand, "It is as if our 'gifts' are not meant for this world; as though someone carefully planned this out so that we would stay in the Digital World forever or something. It scares me."

"Yeah, this is scaring me too. But the person I am most worried about is Tai. His 'gift' is fire. What if he burns someone, or he makes something explode?" Yolie had been worried about both Davis and Tai, but now she had seen the younger leader, she realised that his 'gift' was not really a big problem as of yet. But for some reason she had a sinking feeling in her stomach that Tai's 'gift' was going out of hand. After all, he had had his for longer and therefore it would have had a longer time to grow and develop.

"Kari mentioned that Tai was spending more time in his room. Maybe this is the reason why," Davis mused. He himself had been spending more time in his room lately, so maybe Tai had been doing the same thing.

"Really? Kari never mentioned that to me. Then again, I haven't really been around much anyway," Yolie admitted, feeling a little bad. She was, after all, Kari's female best friend, and she hadn't been around for her lately.

"She didn't mention it to me either, but I overheard her talking to T.M. Out of all of us that were 'experimented on' I'd say that T.K has it the easiest. His 'gift' is of healing and so he wouldn't have to be worried about hurting anyone accidentally. In fact, he would be healing them instead. It's not fair how T.J. always gets the breaks," Davis grumbled.

"Guys, I have a feeling that we shouldn't be talking about this in the middle of the street. Why don't we head over to Tai's place and talk about it there? Tai may have a better idea of what is going on as he was 'Master's' first 'experiment' so he may have been given extra information," Ken suggested, shifting uncomfortably. He had an urge to be moving, but he had no idea what was driving him forward.

"Yeah, that's a good idea Ken. We need to have a brainstorming session. If we get lucky again we might find T.K on the way," Cody agreed and the group started to make their way towards the Kamiya's apartment.

Halfway around the world, in the city of Melbourne in Australia, Entier was holding a meeting with the small group of Victorian Digidestined. It was a small group of three girls and two guys. Every one of them had been 'experimented on' and their 'gifts' ranged from the very simple to the very complex.

"So Entier, what's this about? Is it about the 'gifts' malfunctioning?" Steph, the digidestined of Strength asked calmly, settling herself down next to her boyfriend, Josh, who was also a digidestined.

"Yeah, I guess that you could say that. Have you all been experiencing periods where your 'gift' will not stop working?"

"Yeah, I have. My brothers think that they're going crazy because things just disappear in front of them," Emma, digidestined of Nonsense explained, swinging herself on the swing slowly. Melissa, digidestined of Compassion, agreed with a nod of her head. She was busy brushing the flour off her clothes. She worked at a bakery and she always seemed to be covered in flour after working.

"I have too, but at least our 'gifts' aren't very dangerous. I mean I can only communicate with animals. I don't really think that that is going to hurt anything other than my sanity," Josh joked, although there was an undertone in his voice that suggested he was being partly serious.

"Yeah, and I only change the appearance of things. And Steph can move faster than light and Entier can zap people with electricity… hey wait! Entier, wasn't your 'gift' in the 'collective dream' something to do with ice?" there was a short silence after Melissa had spoken.

"Yes, it was. But before we left the 'collective dream' I bumped into Davis. Something happened… we were near a blue pole, and… well we somehow managed to swap 'gifts.' I inherited his 'gift' with electricity and he got mine for ice," the explanation was not what they wanted, but it was good enough.

"Emma!" Steph and Josh cried out as the bench underneath them disappeared into thin air. The girl on the swings just shrugged, her deep purple eyes switching between the two victims.

"Sorry. As I said before, I keep on making these things disappear. It's not my fault that I have the crest of Nonsense. I don't even know how I earned it anyway…" there was a silence as Emma drifted off into a place where she was 'normal'. It was easy to see why she had earned the crest she had.

"O…Kay. I guess that is an example of what is happening. Our 'gifts' may not be so dangerous, but I know for a fact that the Japanese destined have 'gifts' that are really quite dangerous. Their leader's 'gift' is fire and I have seen him battle with it, when he had to. He is capable of setting the whole continent of Australia on fire at the same time if he felt the need. Davis has his ice and Ken has water. Those three combined could destroy their country in a minute if they got out of control."

"But how can we do anything? We're halfway around the world and we have no way of getting through to them," Steph argued logically, pointing out the impossibility of them getting to Japan.

"We could go through the Digital World," Melissa suggested quietly, though her green eyes shined in excitement. Melissa really loved her digimon and Emma also thought that she had her eyes set on one of the Japanese Destined.

"We could, but the gate is closed and we haven't been able to open it for ages," Josh argued, agreeing with his girlfriend. They both knew that it was physically impossible to get to Japan in such a short time.

"We wouldn't have to use the Digital World," Emma rejoined the conversation, back from her little world.

"And how could we do that?" Entier wanted to know. He secretly agreed with Steph and Josh, knowing that there was no way to get them there.

"Have you forgotten what my 'gift' is? I could take us all the way to Japan with my eyes closed if I wanted. It isn't all that hard. We might just have to take a couple of stopovers and then we could be right on the doorsteps of the Destined over in Japan," the others just exchanged glances.

"Emma, I think that you can go back to your dream world now. That is never going to a) work and b) happen. It's not that I don't trust you, but… it would be too hard for you to carry all five of us to Japan with a 'gift' that you have only been using on objects," Entier pointed out, terrified of the thought of being teleported to a place that the girl had never seen. They could end up in the North Pole with Emma's wandering thoughts. If it had been Steph or Melissa then he may have considered it, but true to her crest, Emma was too nonsensical.

"Eh, okay it was only a suggestion. If we can't think of anything else, we can always try it," she then disappeared off to her own world, still swinging back and forth slightly with the wind.

"Entier, we are not going to be able to find a way over there. Face it; it's impossible. It's late now and we're all tired. Maybe if we go home and get some sleep, we may be able to think better in the morning. Don't you think so?" Entier had to agree with Josh. They would not be able to think anything else up that night.

"Yeah, Josh is right. We should all get some sleep and then meet back here in the morning."

"I can't; I have classes and so does Steph. We don't do VCE like you guys, so we didn't have exams this week. That means that we don't get the day off," as soon as she mentioned school, Emma seemed to be more serious.

"Fine, we'll meet tomorrow afternoon then, after school. I'd forgotten that IB classes were still on. Does everyone agree to that?" there was a chorus of 'yes' and then they all went their separate ways. Emma disappeared into thin air, obviously using her 'gift' to transport herself home, whilst Josh and Steph left together. Melissa wandered off in the other direction and Entier was left alone in the park.

'Tai, Yolie, Ken and the others… I hope that you are all okay, wherever you are.'

He was sure that he was dying. He knew that there was a fire, but he was not being burnt. He could feel the flames against his skin, but they were doing nothing but touching him. His 'gift' with fire was making fire ineffective on him. The scary thing was that he was still dying. It felt like a force he could not see or feel on the outside was smothering him on the inside, stealing the oxygen from his lungs. And he could barely breathe. At the same time, he felt fine. From what he had learnt at school he knew that it was the smoke that was suffocating him. And smoke was something to do with air, a thing that Tai could not feel after being 'experimented on.'

He had awoken again from his panic when he had heard Sora's voice calling his name. Somehow he had managed to climb to his feet and walk a few steps, but he had then crashed into the wall. Now he was back on the floor, listening intently for Sora to speak again. He knew that she had called to him twice, but he had not heard anything again. It had only been a minute since she had spoken, but in a fire, a minute is all that it takes for a life to disappear.

He had tried to call out to her the second time that she had called out, but he had been unable to as his voice had refused to work. The smoke must have entered his throat and done something to his vocal chords. He pushed himself up so that he was on his hands and knees and then he finally managed to stand up again. He had to put his hand against the wall so he wouldn't fall over, but at least he was in a position to move. He raised his head so that he was looking out of his bedroom door. The flickering flames danced around in a circle, as though they were doing a victory dance. In between the crests of the flames, Tai found Sora. She was staring at the flames as though hypnotized. He tried to call out her name, but again his voice failed.

'Stupid smoke, now I can't even tell her that I'm alright. At least Kari and mum got out okay. Now all I have to do is make sure that I can get Sora out… and myself of course,' he took a step forward and almost sunk back to the ground. The smoke was suffocating him, taking all of his energy. He managed to make his knees stay straight, but it took an effort. If he was going to get out of there, he was going to have to make it fast. He took another step and his foot landed on something that crunched loudly. Sora's head whipped up.

"Tai are you alright?" she could not see past the flames around her, so she did not see him in his room, slowly coming towards her. And he could not reply, due to the smoke. Tai continued to walk towards the flames slowly, taking what seemed like hours to reach his bedroom door. Or what was left of it anyway. He didn't have a wall to support him once he left his room, so he looked for anything that would be able to keep him upright without the walls help. On the ground, a little out of his reach, was a long metal pole that had once supported his bookshelf.

'That'll do… I just need something to help me walk, that's all. Now if I can reach it…' he put his tongue between his teeth and leant out from the wall, trying desperately to reach the pole. He eventually grasped the top of it, but the problem was that he was overbalanced and he crashed back down to the floor, landing painfully on his left side. His left arm was very weak; he had already broken it three times in his life. When he landed he heard a soft crack and his arm began to ache dully. Not only was he suffocating, but now he had also broken his arm. Great.

"Tai are you okay?" she hadn't given up the hope that it was him that was crashing around. Tai could not stand the note of desperation that was in her voice and he quickly gathered up his courage before he raised himself to his hands and knees once again. His broken arm shook badly, not being able to hold up the weight, but he transferred most of his weight to the other arm. Then, as quickly as he could, he stood up, grasping the metal pole for balance. Once he was up again he forgot about his broken arm. He would deal with that later. Now his only goal was to help Sora out of the blazing inferno. He took small steps, using the pole as a walking stick. He found that it was easier that using the wall because he could actually hold onto the stick, instead of just pushing against a wall.

He made his way to the flames that were blocking his way from his best friend. Taking a deep breath, and then letting it go, he stepped into the flames. If his 'gift' was keeping the flames from hurting him, he was going to find out…

The four teenagers looked with amazement as smoke poured out from the third floor of the apartment building Kari and Tai lived in.

"Isn't that the floor which Kari lives on?" Ken asked Davis, who had been to the Kamiyas apartment a lot to talk to Tai. Davis's face was grim as he surveyed the scene.

"Yeah and if I have guessed correctly, I'd say that that is their apartment. Tai's 'gift' must have gone out of control!" they didn't say another word as they rushed up the stairs to the level the apartment was on.

"Kari, T.K!" Yolie cried as she came to a stop in front of them, "What happened?" She wasn't all that surprised to see Kari crying in T.K's arms, but she was surprised that they were so close.

"A fire started up in Tai's room. Kari and their mother managed to escape, but Tai's still in there. When Sora heard that, she raced in there to see if she could help. Neither Tai nor Sora have come out," T.K explained. Ken bit his lip.

"I'll go in to help them. I know that I can. The rest of you should stay here," without another word he plunged into the burning apartment, knowing that he could put the fires out with his 'gift' of water. The others just had to stand around and wait, hoping that the three friends would come out of there alive…

To be continued…

End of Chapter 11

Litanya: There we are folks, another chapter. Please don't kill me for the cliff-hanger, I had to do it! And Steph, you are now one of my characters… I hope you don't mind too much.