Chapter Three

"Taichi, do you know what's going on?" asked Mrs. Yagami.

"I haven't got the slightest clue, but I think Hikari does," Taichi replied. "Isn't that right, Hikari?"

Hikari wasn't paying any attention. Instead, she was scanning the surroundings. "Hmm, everywhere I look I see white. Where are we? Where did Eugene send us, and more importantly, how did he do it?" she murmured to herself.

"Hey! Hikari! Taichi's talking to you!" said Tailmon.

Hikari didn't notice Tailmon, for she was too busy trying to figure out what was going on. She focused her eyes in the distance. She thought she saw something, but she couldn't tell exactly what it was. "I'll be right back. Nobody follow me."

"Where are you going?" Taichi asked.

There was no response. Hikari, trying to conserve what energy she had left, decided to walk. It took her a while to get there, but when she arrived, her hunch was confirmed. There stood thirteen digivices; one for Courage, one for Knowledge, one for Friendship, one for Reliability, one for Sincerity, one for Love, one for Kindness, one for Respect, one for Miracles, one for Destiny, one for Peace, one for Hope, and hers, the one for Light. "I guess Eugene has the one for Logic, but the second digivice for Kindness is missing. I wonder where it is," Hikari said to herself. She grabbed her digivice and the Digivice of Courage and headed back.

On her way back, Hikari noticed a large crystal structure that she hadn't noticed before. She wondered what it could be, and continued on. As she got close, she called for Taichi. When they met up, she handed him the Digivice of Courage.

"Who's is this?" he asked.

"It's yours."

"But I already have a digivice."

"The one you originally had was a prototype. These digivices are over a thousand times more powerful."

"But still, it doesn't mean that it's mine!"

"You see the big button?"

"This one?"

"Press it." Taichi pressed the button. The digivice glowed and displayed a hologram giving information on Taichi. "There's your proof. It displays information only on its owner."

"So what. It knows who I am. Not very impressive if you ask me."

"Point the digivice straight up and press the dark orange button." Taichi did as instructed, and a stream of fire shot out of the digivice.

"Whoa! These can do that?"

"Only when its owner wields it."

"What does yours do?"

"It heals people." As Hikari spoke, she shot a beam of light at herself. The damage taken from the Demi-beam was gone.

"How come you know so much?"

"All will be explained in time, Taichi."

"That's what that other guy said..." A portal opened. Out stepped Koushiro, Iori, their families and digimon, along with Eugene and Beth. "Koushiro! Iori! Do you know what's going on?" Koushiro shook his head. Hikari walked back to the digivices.

"Everything will be explained when the rest of the digipure are brought here. I'm sure they'd like an explanation, too," Eugene said.

"Umm...digipure?" asked Taichi.

"The digidestined pure of heart and void of evil. There are fifteen that I know of, and each has their own special digivice to go with them. I see you have yours, Tai."

"It's Taichi."

Hikari was coming back with the digivices of Knowledge and Destiny when she stopped. "Eugene, why is your hair red? You never seemed like the type to dye it," she asked.

"That's a side effect of learning Psynergy."

Blank stares were everywhere. Beth laughed.

"Why? Why must I always use the M-word when talking about this? Don't you people play video games? Why do I always have to use the M-word to get people to understand?" complained Eugene.

"M-word?" wondered Koushiro.

"Magic."

"WHAT!" yelled the others.

"You mean, 'magic tricks,' right?" asked Taichi.

"No, I am well aware of the difference between 'magic tricks' and 'magic.' I mean magic," answered Eugene.

"But that's impossible! It's a proven fact that magic spells aren't real!" shouted Koushiro.

"Two things. First, it's not actually magic, it's Psynergy, so stop calling it magic. Second, it is possible to learn Psynergy as long as you first travel to the Golden Sun dimension."

"Traveling to other dimensions isn't possible!"

"Where do you think you are? You think this is our own dimension? Let me tell you a few things; this isn't Earth, this isn't the digital world, this isn't the world of data, and this isn't the realm of wishes! I programmed everything about it into my digivice and using one of its functions, created a portal that leads here!"

"How can the digivices allow that?"

"Are you familiar with the curtain of fire?"

"Yes, but I don't see what that had to do with my question."

"The curtain of fire has grown to such immense proportions that it has taken the place of the digital world. Out of the flames came the digicursed, their version of the digivice, called the digicurse, and their digimon, all of which are pure evil. The only things that remain of the digital world are the sixteen stars of virtue, which, according to some ruins that Hikari and I found, are spread out across several dimensions. Since we had nothing to locate and extract the stars, I created two persocoms for that specific purpose." On cue, Bethany and Inju climbed out of the duffel bag.

"Persocoms? Dude, you watch too much anime," said Taichi.

"Ah, so you're familiar with the Chobits dimension. Oh, and Tai—"

"It's Taichi."

"No, you have to earn that name."

"What do you mean, 'earn it'?"

"Your terrible leadership skills almost cost you your lives several times in the old digital world. And that incident with Mimi! Couldn't you have listened to Sora!"

"What incident with...oh...that one... Hey, how do you know about that!"

"Jo told me. Oh, and by the way, there's no such thing as 'too much anime'. Good story lines are hard to come by in America."

"About your, err, persocoms," started Koushiro, "do they have A.I. or something?"

"No, I merely programmed personalities into them. The closest thing they have to A.I. is a learning program. The one with the long hair and the long, dark dress, that's Bethany. Her programming based off of another persocom, one from the Chobits dimension. Her hair changes color depending on her mood. The other one, in the sky blue floral kimono and the oversized ribbon..."

"HEY! There's nothing wrong with my ribbon being big!" yelled Inju.

"...is named Inju. Her ribbon changes color to match her mood. She's extremely sensitive about her ribbon, and what ever you do, DON'T remove it! If you do, she'll try to kill you. If I didn't have Bethany, she'd probably succeed, too. Her programming is unique."

"Why couldn't you stop her?" asked Hikari.

"I built them to be faster and stronger than us, just in case we get into some serious trouble. You could say they are 'combat persocoms'"

"Hey, slow down!" said Iori. "Did anyone else catch what he said earlier?"

"About what?" asked Taichi.

"He said something happened to the digital world!"

"What happened?"

"It's been destroyed," said Beth.

The room fell silent.

It was a while before anybody said anything. "Koushiro, you look hurt," said Hikari.

"Some girl hit me with a bolt of lightning, although I'm not quite sure how," Koushiro responded.

"Here, let me heal you," said Hikari, getting out her digivice.

"You can do that?"

"My digivice can." Hikari pointed her digivice at Koushiro and pressed a button. A beam of light shot out, and Koushiro's wound healed. "There. All better. Here, take this." Hikari gave Koushiro the Digivice of Knowledge. "This is your true digivice. The other one you have is a prototype." She walked over to Iori and handed the Digivice of Destiny to him. "This is yours."

Bethany looked around, pondered for a moment, then asked, "Why's everyone so quiet?" Inju glared at her and bopped her on the head. The others couldn't help but laugh.

"Hey, umm, guy who calls me Tai..." started Taichi.

"My name's Eugene."

"Yeah, uh, right. Which persocom is Bethany based off of? The way she acts seems kind of familiar."

"Please don't make him say it," complained Beth.

"But I want to know."

"Her personality is based off of..." began Eugene.

"PLEASE DON'T!" cried Beth.

"...Sumomo."

"WHAT! Sumomo! Where!" yelled Bethany. She went to the duffel bag. "Is she in here?" she said, lifting the bag and dumping the contents on top of her. She popped out of the pile of stuff. "Not here."

"Don't tell me I didn't warn you," Beth told Eugene.

"Is she here?" This time she was looking in Eugene's pockets. "Nope."

Eugene chuckled. "But she's so cute when she does that," he responded.

"Is she here? Not here." She jumped out of Taichi's hair.

"How long has she been like this?" Taichi asked.

"Is she here? No, not here, either." She ran back from where the digivices were being held.

"Ever since I told her who her personality was based on."

"Here?" She picked up Tentomon. "No, not here." She threw him back.

"Could it be possible that she sees Sumomo as her Mother—hey!" said Koushiro.

"Here?" Bethany had jumped into the bag Koushiro kept his laptop in. "Aw, not here, either." She jumped out.

"It's possible," answered Eugene. Bethany stopped in the middle of the area.

"Scanning for Sumomo!" she cried. Again, she thrust her index finger into the air. A miniscule device protruded out of it and started to spin rapidly.

"Scanning for WHAT!" cried Beth.

"BETHANY!" screamed Eugene. Bethany stopped. "Did you program yourself again!" Bethany nodded. "How many times have I told you NOT to program yourself without my permission!"

"Twenty-three times!" exclaimed Bethany with a large grin.

"And you're proud of that why? Delete what you programmed and next time ask me before programming yourself!"

"We should get going. The rest of the digipure are counting on us," said Beth.

"Let me go with you," said Hikari.

"You should stay here and heal anyone else who might show up injured," responded Eugene.

"Alright. I understand." Eugene called Bethany and Inju, created a portal back to Earth, and together, with Beth, they entered.