Chapter 9:
Reality Police
Tai took a deep breath as he shot his eyes open,"I..I'm alive!" he called out, rubbing his eyes with his hands,"I never thought I'd be so happy to wake up in my room," he frown as he glanced around,"Even though it isn't my room."
He felt a strange feeling in his stomach as he studied the room around him. He sighed as it was covered with white and pink, white fluffly curtains, a pink dresser next to the wall, even the bed covers were white. He took a deep breath and threw the covers off, sure enough, he was wearing a pair of pink pajamas with flowers on them. "Yup," he said,"I'm a girl again, although...I do look smaller...Hmm."
He jumped out of the bed and walked over to the mirror on the hope chest. He was a, without a doubt, a girl, but a ten-year-old girl, one whose neck length black hair desperately needed to be combed.
He sighed, glancing over to the pink robe hanging on the back of the door. He shrugged, throwing it over his small frame, then opened the door.
It wasn't his apartment, well, he figured it was, but everything look so different, almost like his family suddenly became aristocrats! He glanced down the hall to the kitchen. His stomach growled, and he blushed slightly. "I guess this Tai must not have eaten last night." He shrugged, then walked into the darkened kitchen. "Why are the lights off?" he asked.
Suddenly, the lights blasted on and his parents and Kari jumped out of the the hallway,"Happy Birthday!" they shouted.
"B..birthday?" Tai asked, as a sixteen-year-old Kari grabbed his hands and threw him into one of the chairs around the table.
"Of course!" his mother smiled,"You were born ten years ago today."
"And I finally got a little sister!" Kari grinned.
"R..right," Tai nodded,"I must have been so excited."
"I understand," his father said, smiling from ear to ear,"It's a very exciting time. Ha."
"Tai," Kari said,"I'm going to take you into town to buy you the best birthday dress before we go out to dinner tonight."
"W..what?" Tai asked.
"Sure!" Kari laughed,"Older sister love to go shopping with their younger sisters!"
"I'll keep that in mind," he though, waiting as his mother started making breakfast.
Tai growled in disgusted as he saw the array of clothes that were hanging on the hangers in the closet. He was relieved to see that while this Tai appeared to be very feminine, she had a fair choice of pants, and shorts. Tai noticed that it was summer by the date on the calender in his room, so he choose a pair of jeans shorts and a tank top. He sighed as he looked in the mirror. He started brushing his hair until it was straight, knowing that Kari probably wanted him to look nice.
"Tai, are you ready?"
"Coming!" Tai called, grabbing a purse from off the side of the closet door and walking outside his room. He saw that Kari was wearing a short white skirt and blue t-shirt. He didn't notice it before, but her hair was pink! She could be an exact ringer for Mimi when she was sixteen. "This probably isn't going to be good!" he thought, following his sister out the door.
Tai let out a deep breath as he slunk into his seat in the food court of the mall. "Well, I was right!" he thought. As soon as Kari entered the mall, she literally turned into a Mimi-clone. She dragged Tai from clothing store to clothing store, having her 'little sister' try on dress after dress after dress. Tai finally got her to stop when he agreed on a pink short sleeve dress with the skirt ending at the knees. Afterwards, Kari dragged him to the food court, which was good, because he was starving. They didn't have much time though, and they could only eat something small because they would be leaving for dinner in a few short hours.
As Tai started to munch on his hot dog, he noticed a group of mall security guards staring at he and Kari from the other side of the food court. He silently watched them before he realized who the head guard was, Derwood. He quickly looked around, but couldn't find Sara or Sam anywhere, which got him to thinking: he had seen Sara and Sam together many times, but Derwood was always alone or with a group of boys. Why wouldn't tell appear together, unless they weren't together, but both separate. Did this mean that one group wants to help him, and the other wants to hurt him? If Derwood and Sara were opposing each other, why? And what did it have to do with him?
"Aren't you done yet?" Kari said, looking at her watch,"We've really got to go. Mom and Dad are probably getting ready right now."
"Alright," Tai said, shoving down the last of his hot dog as he got up. It wasn't so much that he wanted to go out for a little girl's birthday party, he just wanted to get away from the stares of Derwood and his group, which were sending shivers up his spine.
Tai's face displayed a disgusted look as his mother adjusted the bow which held his long hair firmly in a ponytail. "Oh stop it!" his mother said,"You look like an adorably little girl."
"That's the problem!" he thought, staring at his reflection. In adition to the dress he had bought earlier, his mother insisted on him wearing a pair of pink stockings, the pink hair bow, and a pink bracelet. As he studied his reflection, he wondered if Mimi looked like this when she was little.
"Alright, let's get going!" Kari shouted, running into the room. She was wearing a low-cut brown dress, that he was sure he had seen on Mimi before.
"Kari!" her mother shouted, "Put a sweater on, or take it off!"
"Alright," she said, running back to her room.
"Come guys," his father shouted as he ran past them and to the door,"Our reservation will expire in a half-an-hour, so we've got to hurry and catch the next train."
"I'm coming," Tai said, forcing a smile as he pulled on a white pair of platform shoes near the door. "Happy birthday to me," he muttered silently as he exited the apartment. He was not aware that Derwood and the others were watching him from down the hall.
As the group was walking towards the subway station, Tai kept pushing down his skirt, as he was very uncomfortable with the thought that his underwear was available for a free viewing to any pervert that might be walking by.
He tried to forget this as he kept walking. He knew that an 'evil' Tai that had murdered Matt had stolen his life and sent him on this trip through time and space, and he still had no idea of how to get home. He didn't want to really think it, but the thought that he might spend forever jumping between worlds was at the back of his mind. But Sara knew what was going on, why wouldn't she tell him?
Tai suddenly became aware that his family was no longer with him. "Mom?" he asked, turning around on the abandoned street,"Dad? Kari?" But there was no answer.
"That's odd, I wonder where they went?" he said, stretching his head under his brown hair.
"They're looking for you, but luckily you wandered off while you were in thought."
Tai jumped slightly as Derwood walked towards him with a redheaded boy following,"D..Derwood, right?" Tai asked.
"Yes, Taichi Kamiya, you are under arrest..."
"What?" he asked.
Derwood cleared his throat,"I am the Captain of the Time and Space Monitors, and we have come to take you into custody."
"What? What did I do?" Tai asked, slowly backing up into an alley.
"Your continued traveling across time has affected all possible time streams. Reality will crumble if you are not taken care of."
Tai felt his heart start to race. He didn't know why, but something told him to run, still, he knew he would never get away, Derwood and his cohorts were huge, and he was trapped in a little girl's body...wait, that's it!
Tai spied two older men a little way down the sidewalk. Tai took a deep breath and screamed,"Help! Help!"
His plan worked. The two older men started running towards them, probably thinking a rape was about to occur. This gave Tai the chance to run in the other direction. Derwood flew after him, while two of his henchmen stayed behind to hold off the two men.
Tai ran as fast as he could, his skirt whipping against his thighs; he nearly tripped twice on the shoes he was wearing, but he kept running until he just couldn't run anymore.
He stooped and leaned over slightly, breathing heavily. He was going to have to rest for a second, so he decided to hide behind a dumpster in a nearby alley. He twirled his head around to make sure Derwood didn't see him dive into the alley. Unfortunately, this left his view of the alley itself non-existence so he didn't see one of Derwood's group jump out and slam his head with a wooden club. Tai fell to the ground, unconscious.
When Tai awoke he found himself in an area of darkness. He knew right away he was trapped inside of a small cage of some kind, in what looked like an abandoned warehouse. His face and arms was smudged with dirt, he had a tear in his dress near his stomach and on his stockings. "What happened to me?" he asked, rubbing the back of his head.
"You were resisting arrest, so we needed to use extreme force."
Tai saw that Derwood was standing in front of his cage, his arms cross and grinning. "I must say, you've lead us on quite a chase across worlds."
Tai adjusted so that he was sitting crossed legged on the floor. "Who are you?"
"As I told you, I am the Captain of the Time and Space Police. We monitor and apprehend criminals who violate reality."
"But I don't have any choice!" Tai protested,"Another Tai stole my life."
"Whether that is true or not is not the case," Derwood said,"That Tai remains stationary in whichever world you come from, but you are the one that is traveling from world to world, ripping the holes in reality ever wider. Had you died in the previous world, all this could have been avoided, but seeing as how your didn't, you must now be taken care of. Once you are removed, the holes were repair themselves."
"No..you can't!" Tai shouted,"What about the Tai of this world. What's going to happen to her?"
"Once we kill you, she'll return to her own body, which will beat with life again as it's 'true' host is back, but that point is really moot as you're going to have a few more days, in which case you'll keep changing forms...securly trapped in that cage, that is.""
"But, Sara gave me that pill in the last world..."
"Sara?" Derwood asked, raising his eyebrow,"Who's Sara?"
"You don't know?!" Tai asked, completely shocked. What was going on here?
"No, I don't, and I don't really care," he said, walking over to the cage,"You're going to pay for punching me in the gut in that one world. I had to change myself to become a young teenager, so that really hurt."
Derwood quickly slammed his fist into Tai's face, sending him falling over backwards. "Now we're even!" he laughed walking out of the doors in the room.
Tai sat back up, sobbing. He wasn't even in control, the body was reacting on instinct. He figured that the Tai of this world was not use to getting slammed in the cheek, then again, being a little girl, she probably never was.
Tai laid down on the cold floor, the frost nipping against his skin and ripping right through his stockings. He knew that the guard outside of his cell had a clear view of his underwear, but it didn't really care. He slowly drifted to sleep.
When he awoke he found that he was still inside of the cage, but he was once again male. Judging by the suit he was now wearing, he figured that he must in the adult age range, at least thirty.
"You're awake, huh?" Derwood asked, entering the room,"I thought you would be asleep for a while longer."
Tai glared at him. "Why?"
"In order to repair reality, we're moving you through all of your 'other' forms in as many different reality as we can. Once we've determined that the holes in reality have healed sufficiently, then we'll carry out the sentence. Get comfortable, you're going to be here for a while."
Tai was going to call after him, but he sound found himself asleep again.
When Tai awoke this time, he noticed that everything seemed very out of proportion, he was much smaller then he should have been, and his body felt very different, so different in fact, that he had feathers! He had wings, which he was surprised that he could form into arms and hands.
Derwood had set up a mirror in case Tai wanted to view each form he changed into, so he was surprised to find that he now looked like a chocolate version of Biyomon.
"Must have been Sora's partner," he thought, falling asleep again.
Tai had no idea how long he had been trapped inside of that cage, every few seconds he fell asleep again, so he had no way of knowing how many days it had been. And every time he awoke, his body changed. So far his ages had ranged from toddler to old age, and his genders switched a couple of times. While trapped in that cage he had been a seven-year-old girl, a fourteen-year-old, a baby girl, and now he was wearing a hospital gown with a bloated stomach, that he figured must mean he was pregnant.
He laid back down, waiting to fall asleep, but instead Derwood entered. "A pregnant woman, I see," he laughed,"Maybe I should pull a few strings to have you remain this way until you give birth."
"What do you want?" Tai shouted.
"I've come to let you know that the gap in reality is almost healed. Just one more should do it. Enjoy this next sleep, it's the last one you'll ever have."
Tai growled as Derwood left, then laid down on the floor, happy he'll never have to face giving birth.
When Tai awoke for the finally time, he noticed the everything was extremely large, even if he was a Digimon. He went to sit up, but found that, surprisingly, his hands and feet pushed him upward. His body felt out of proportion too, and there was a strange weight behind him. He turned and glanced in the mirror and almost fainted. He was a little cat!
Tai found this very weird, as he had never been an animal yet. He was moving towards the cage door to get a better look at the mirror, when he noticed something. He was small enough to slide through the bars! He didn't wait a second longer, and pushed himself through.
The man that was guarding his cell saw him escape and tried to chase after him, but Tai was already out the window and down the fire escape. Luckily, someone had left the latter down, so he carefully climbed down and charged away from the abandoned warehouse.
As he ran down the sidewalk, he heard Derwood and his group chasing after him. Tai ran even faster then he thought cats could, across crosswalks and down sidewalk, even over fences. He decided he should try to get to the Kamiya apartment in this world, hopefully, Derwood wouldn't try anything with his family around.
As he made his way down one of the sidewalk, he past a bench across from his apartment building. He was wondering how he was going to get inside, when he noticed the person sitting on the bench. It was Kari.
Tai sat down patiently at Kari's feet, but she was reading a book, so she didn't notice him.
"Come on, Kari," he thought,"Look down and pick me up. Derwood's coming, Kari!"
He didn't realize it, but he had meowed, which caused Kari to look down. "Oh!" she grinned,"A little kitty cat."
She reached down and started feeling around Tai's neck. "No collar, I guess that means you're coming home with me." She reached down and lifted him up.
She quickly ran across the street and entered the apartment building. Tai purred to express his joy as the doors closed just as Derwood had reached the bench where Kari had been sitting a few minutes ago.
"Mom, Dad! I'm home!" Kari called, walking into the apartment,"and I've got a visitor."
Her parents walked out of their bedroom to the hall and gasped. "Kari," her father said,"You can't bring stray pets into this house."
"I'm sorry," Kari said,"But he looks so much like Miko did. Come on, there's no collar, can I keep him?"
"We'll call and see if anyone is missing a cat," Mrs. Kamiya said,"if not....we'll see."
"Good enough!" Kari laughed, running into her room, and nearly knocking someone else over.
"Jeeze Kari!" the other person said,"What are you so excited about?"
Tai felt his small cat heart beat faster and faster. The person standing in front of he and Kari was....him, another Tai.
When this Tai looked at the cat Tai, he gasped. "What's wrong Tai?" Kari asked.
That Tai shook his head and pointed at the cat Tai,"N-nothing, sorry. So, what's his name?"
"I'm going to call him, Miko Jr." Kari nodded,"But, I might not be able to keep him."
"Well, here," Tai said, walking over to his desk and pulling out a small black strip,"We can use this as a collar, we've just got to write the identification on it."
"Great idea!" Kari grinned as Tai attached the strap around cat Tai's neck,"I'll get a pen." She put cat Tai onto the bed and ran out of the room.
Once she was gone, Tai turned to cat Tai,"Listen! I know who you are, Tai. You're the true Tai from this world, aren't you?"
Cat Tai was shocked, he couldn't even meow. He was finally home, but, this was the impostor that stole his life!
"Well, listen up!" Tai shouted,"This is my world now, understand? You can't do anything about it!"
This time, Cat Tai hissed.
"Get angry all you want," Tai laughed,"that collar around your neck is a small prototype of my Dark Rings. It can't control you, unfortunately, but it can do something else, it will prevent you from changing." He grinned,"That's right, no matter how many time you fall asleep, you'll be trapped as that cat, forever!"