Seth feels sleepy. Out of it. Something floral and almost... beautiful keeps brushing his nose and he's tempted to wave it away, allow himself to breathe ordinary, clean oxygen, but the inclination to move goes nowhere so he resumes laying there, too tired to move too quickly.
"Shit," a voice overhead, thick with a southern accent, hisses overhead. AJ, Seth's mind supplies. "What the hell happened?! I feel like I been run over by a mac truck..." Then hands are on him, shaking him, roughly. "Seth! C'mon, wake up!"
He groans, but that's all he can offer, feeling too heavy all the way down to his bones to bother. AJ huffs overhead and the audible depths of his frustration almost makes Seth want to smile.
"Why is everyone unconscious?!" he demands, louder. He moves away from Seth and tries to wake the others, but they're as responsive as Seth himself is. "And why ain't I..."
It's a solid question. Seth's fingers twitch, curl inwards. He wants to remain here, but the others are in need by the sounds of it, and he can't just lay here and let the world pass him by. It's a struggle to open his eyes, to blink, to move, but damn, he does his best, and the next thing he knows, AJ is back by his side, pushing him into a sitting position and staring down at him with furrowed brows. "Well, it's about damned time," he says, brushing a branch of flowers off of his face.
That explains the smell, Seth realizes, staring blankly up at him. "What's happened?"
"I dunno! I was out of it for a little bit but woke up first, y'all were sprawled out all over the place around me. Freakin' weird, man." Seth's gaze follows AJ and he sits up a little straighter when he sees Kevin and Asuka laying, unmoving, nearby. "C'mon, help me."
Seth takes over in trying to wake up Asuka, while AJ resumes shaking Kevin. "C'mon, Asuka, wake up," he says, trying to remember the proper sentence structure in Japanese to get her to hear him deep in her subconscious. He tries to speak soothingly, still gently shaking her by the shoulders in a vain attempt at reviving her. "Okite... kudasai?" She doesn't stir and he slumps, exhaling. "Dammit, I tried. Come on, Asuka, we need you to wake up, huh?"
AJ is having about as much luck with Owens, and Seth exhales slowly, still feeling worn out and weakened by all of this. "What even happened?" Seth mumbles again, not really expecting an answer, just needing to hear himself speak. AJ ignores him either way, and he gingerly hoists Asuka up off of the floor and moves her to lay next to Owens, to make it easier to watch them.
"We were headin' for a village, remember?" AJ asks suddenly and Seth frowns at him, trying to regroup his scattered memories. "Were on the outskirts, discussing what to do when we got there, and everything just went... dark." He shrugs.
Seth exhales. "I think I remember a little of that, yeah." His head aches, everything just feels strange, but why they were just left laying out here and not injured or kidnapped, he doesn't know. "I mean, our memories seem off anyway, no one was taken, right? This is all of us here?" He and AJ fall quiet for a few moments, thinking about the Raw team, who else could've maybe been here. "I mean, Zack's not on the road this week..."
"And neither were Rusev or Lana," AJ says. "Ariya isn't."
"Ok, then, that's everyone," Seth sighs. "That's one relief, at least." But it doesn't answer why they all were left this way. He leans in and continues trying to get Asuka to stir. "C'mon. We're up, why aren't you two?"
Owens does stir first, slapping away AJ's forceful grip. He groans and sits up, cradling his head in his hands. "Ow, why do I feel like I have the world's worst hangover?" He looks like he's about to be ill and Seth isn't surprised when he gets to his feet and stumbles off, finding somewhere to do it in relative privacy.
They ignore the sounds and focus their attention on Asuka, who is pale and still, her lips barely parted as she breathes in and out shallowly. "This isn't good," AJ mutters.
"I agree," Seth sighs. He leans in and scoops up Asuka, getting to his feet. "Come on, let's go check in with Luke, maybe he'll have some answers." He watches as AJ scoops up Calumon, who is also unconscious, and they head out, Kevin rejoining them a minute later.
Luke frowns and takes Asuka and Calumon from them, taking them deep within the caves he lives in for examination and to run some tests.
"Should we stay?" Seth mumbles.
AJ shrugs. "I'm not goin' anywhere, are you?"
"Nah," he sighs. The three of them settle in with their partners curling up at their feet, everyone feeling lethargic and slow unlike when they'd first set out for that village.
When Luke comes out, he walks slowly, a pensive frown on his face. Seth nor AJ like his expression, and stand up quickly to greet him. "By what I've gathered up to now," he says slowly, "Asuka's energy has been drained, as has Calumon. A significant portion of it." His hands twist behind his back and he exhales. "It appears she will not wake up for a long while." He hesitates. "If ever."
Seth, Owens and AJ all look stricken and horrified. "What about us?" Seth asks after a few tense moments. "We were all unconscious too, does that mean...?"
"I'd like to run tests on you all, if you'd allow me." Luke waits until they all nod before waving them inside. The tests thankfully are simple scans of some device that gets readings of their levels without doing anything invasive, and Seth breathes a sigh of relief. Until Luke starts frowning over their readings.
"What is it?" he asks, AJ and Owens looking closely as well.
"You all have been drained of some energy," he admits. "Not as much as Asuka or Calumon, but there is no denying."
Seth stares at the other digidestined and bites his lower lip. "What in the hell is happening?" he mutters, rubbing his arms as the reason for his memory issues and nagging exhaustion comes to him. "Now what do we do?"
No one knows and the silence envelopes them all as they sit and think about what Luke's just said, what it all could possibly mean.
