Eyes wide open, Taichi was on his back struggling to at least calm his breathing. It was just a dream! Only a dream! It didn't happen! But it wasn't just a dream. With how long he'd been in this world, with no way to contact Hikari, or their parents, they had to believe he was dead. That could very well be what he was coming back home to. With me, Sora, and TK here, Hikari's alone now. I have to get back to her.

But that meant dealing with these Wardens as soon as possible. And that means I need sleep and it feels like I haven't gotten any. How long was he out? It was still dark so it couldn't have been long. He slowly sat up and looked out the window next to his bed. The moon was still out, though it wasn't quite where he remembered it. It was probably just a couple hours and the aches were claiming it was even less. But how could he sleep with those images of Hikari in his mind?

A sob. Hikari?! No, that wasn't her. It didn't sound like her though it wrenched his heart just the same. Was it Mimi? No, her crying was nothing new. It wouldn't bother him so much. A second one, just as painful to hear. And it was too deep to be Mimi… Sora!

His aches suddenly flared up and he clenched his teeth. What was- oh, he was sitting up and sliding off the bed. Sora did need him after all. It looked like Koromon was still sleeping. Good. The little guy needed it far more than Taichi did. He scanned the room for Sora's bed. There she was, on the opposite side of the room, sitting with her knees up to her chest. Ishida and TK were down there and Sora wanted to be close to TK.

Taichi slid out of his bed, biting back a pained yelp. Get out of my way, pain! Sora needs me! He stumbled as quietly as he could towards her. Yokomon was leaning against her and saying things he couldn't make out. Probably reassurances that wouldn't mean anything against something that could actually make Sora cry.

He sat next to her, answering Yokomon's desperate gaze with a smile he hoped was reassuring. He wasn't exactly Mister Sensitive, after all. If it was Mimi, he'd be better off staying out of it but he knew Sora. She looked at him with a devastated expression killed the usual plan: be a jerk and annoy her. Usually he'd just make fun of the problem, she'd get mad enough give him a good shove or even take a swing at him. He'd hit her back and it would end with the two bruised, worn out, but Sora feeling better.

But when she was this upset, that would only make things worse. In fact, the last time she looked this bad was when her father disappeared in that fishing accident. This time he'd have to use the Hikari plan: cram it and listen. Somehow, he'd figure out at least a somewhat right thing to say. Eventually.

He carefully put an arm around her, making sure to pay close attention to how she reacted. She tensed up and he tightened his grip slightly, telling her that he was here no matter what. She looked at him and nearly jolted out of his grip. "T-Taichi…" she choked out.

"What's wrong?" he asked as gently as he could.

"You still… You-You're still…" Still what? Sora immediately threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder. This really was as bad as her father's disappearance. Even knowing her as well as he did, this was going to be very hard.

A scream! Taichi jumped, barely pulled back down by Sora's grip. She immediately pulled away. Another scream. "TK-kun!" she exclaimed, her own problems clearly forgotten. The two broke apart as Taichi frantically slid off the bed to his feet. Where was TK sleeping again?! Everyone else was up too now, looking as panicked as he felt. His eyes fell on the ball hopping towards him.

"What's happening?!" Koromon asked frantically.

"No idea," Taichi answered, spotting a figure was moving towards a bed. That has to be Ishida! He rushed over as fast as he could, Sora and Koromon following right behind. Within moments, he was with TK, who was still screaming. Tsukaimon was tearfully clinging to him, saying something Taichi couldn't make out. "TK!"

Ishida grabbed the younger boy, pulling him into a tight hug while Tsukaimon hugged him from the other side. His screams finally started to die down, with loud sobs taking their place. "What's wrong with TK-chan?!" Mimi practically sobbed.

"I don't know!" Tsukaimon wailed, "We were sleeping and then he started screaming!" Taichi looked back at Sora, her eyes had the same question he was wondering. Did TK have a nightmare too? This was getting worrying. TK had nightmares during his sleepovers with Hikari, especially when the divorce was happening, but they never scared him this badly. The only time TK ever got this scared was… No! Please, no!

"I'm here, Takeru!" Ishida soothed. TK started to calm down a little.

"Everyone's here," Tsukaimon added, sounding a bit relieved.

"Y-Yama… Th-The m-monsters came…" TK sobbed, "The M-magic Light didn't w-work!" Taichi stiffened. Monsters?! No! No! No!

"Magic light?" Tsunomon asked, sounding confused, "What does he mean, Yamato?" Ishida looked thoughtful.

"I'm not sure, but I think it was from a while ago…"

"He had major nightmare," Taichi interrupted. He knew what the Magic Light was, though he couldn't blame Ishida for forgetting. It was a long time ago. Even so, the memories of an absolutely terrified four year old jumping at every noise and shadow assaulted his memory."I had one too and it was…" he shook his head, trying his hardest not to recall, "Nothing compared to it. I'm almost wondering if Phantomon came back somehow."

"Me too," Sora added quietly, "It was… unbearable." She touched her cheek. "M-My mother even s-slapped me…" she started, her voice cracking, and then went silent. Taichi grimaced. Sora's mother would never hit her, so that would've been hard on her. But not nearly enough to upset her so badly. What else was it?

"I had one too," Ishida growled, "Did anyone else?" Koushiro, Jou, and Mimi looked at each other.

"I don't believe so," Koushiro said, "It would seem you were all attacked in some way. Are there digimon that can affect dreams?"

"More than one I'd expect," Tentomon said, "I don't know of any but there's a lot of digimon out there. And a lot of powers." That was a comforting thought.

"But I don't believe there are any nearby," Tsunomon said, "I'm certain one of us would've noticed."

"But that would make sense," Koushiro said, "given how Mimi-san, Jou-san, and myself are hardly the fighting types. Little reason to attack us so indirectly."

"But neither is TK-chan!" Mimi interrupted.

"I know and I don't have an answer." Koushiro shook his head. "But I simply cannot accept this as a coincidence." Taichi opened his mouth to remind Koushiro that Phantomon went after TK too. Bad idea. Let's not go reminding TK of that little incident. He's remembering enough as it is. One look told him that the kid wouldn't be able to take a simple "boo", let alone being reminded of his Phantomon-induced coma.

"So TK's being attacked too," Ishida growled again. He released TK and gently pushed him back. "I'm gonna find out who it is and-"

"And do what?!" Sora interrupted, "In case you forgot, we were torn up by the Weed Killers just hours ago! And our digimon aren't nearly ready to evolve!" Sora had a point, though Taichi had to admit he was siding more with Ishida at the moment. If it was just him, he'd find a way to endure it. But with Sora and TK suffering too? No way.

"So we just sit here and let T- us get attacked again?!" Ishida shot back, "In case you forgot, those trees covering us don't exist anymore!" Sora flinched a little under Ishida's tone, causing a flash of anger in Taichi.

"Don't take it out on her, Ishida! She was attacked too!" Guilt flashed over Ishida's face and he looked away.

"I'm sorry," TK spoke up suddenly, "I-It was j-just a dream. I sh-shouldn't have woken everyone."Damn it! I did it again!Taichi looked away, mentally kicking himself. As if the kid wasn't feeling bad enough already.

"Miracles, Destiny, and Equality," Ishida said, "One of them is doing this. I'm going to find out who." He stood up and faced the doorway leading outside. Taichi glanced down on Koromon. The Core was still powering him, so his bubbles would be fiery. But would such tiny fireballs be any help? But if we do nothing, more of those nightmares will come.

"And do what?" Sora demanded, "We can't do anything right now!" Okay, Sora had a point there. As much as Taichi wanted to find the Warden responsible and personally beat him to death, there really wasn't anything he, or anyone else, could do.

"Whatever I can," Ishida answered in a dark tone as he stormed towards the doorway with Tsunomon hopping after. Uh oh. Taichi looked at Sora, her eyes filled with worry.

"That idiot! What's he going to do if he finds a Warden?! Or any of their soldiers?! He's too hurt and Tsunomon has no energy!" That was all true, but at the same time, Tsunomon was still powered by Cryo. If Tsunomon freezes and Koromon burns, that might actually do something. Wouldn't be a lot, but this Warden was attacking like Phantomon, and given how weak Phantomon was…

"Yama's in trouble?" Uh oh. He forgot TK was right there. So did Sora from the look on her face.

"Oh, TK-kun! I, uh…" Sora looked at Taichi helplessly. He racked his brain, trying to come up with something reassuring but, thankfully, Koushiro spoke up instead.

"Please remember, Sora-san, that Tentomon and Gomamon are still combat ready."

"Mostly," Tentomon grumbled, "I still have bruises on my bruises."

"Yamato-san is smart. He'll call for help if he gets in danger, and I do believe he'll exercise caution. Unless it would better if we go after him now?" Taichi considered it. Ishida was going to need help but TK was just attacked. And Mimi was just as helpless. He shook his head.

"For now, stay with TK and Mimi." My dream reminds me of the nightmare Phantomon trapped us in and he went after TK too. The Tmail was met with a mild look of surprise on Sora, Koushiro, and Jou. He turned his attention to TK. "I'll get Yamato back, okay?" TK gave him a nod. "And try to remember, it's never your fault when we fight. It's ours." TK gave another nod though Taichi knew it didn't sink in. I have got to stop letting Ishida get to me.

He started towards the doorway but as he reached it, someone grabbed his arm. "I'll sleep with TK-kun," Sora said, "I want to be there if he has another nightmare."

"And what if you have another one?" She gave him a hard look.

"I'll endure it."


Reaching the forest exit, Taichi shook his head. It was definitely easier without the Treewall; just turn on the map and beeline for whatever district he wanted through this very overstretched forest. We really aren't hidden anymore. He had passed by plenty of other buildings but most were practically rubble. Small wonder the children were found so quickly.

Now ahead, in the Equality district, he could barely see something, like some sort of purplish light, though it was hard to tell with that purple and black sky. But it did look like there was something there, so the attacker probably was Equality. What does Equality have to do with bad dreams? With my luck, it's the same thing Death had to do with Phantomon's tricks. He shuddered at the thought of facing anything like that again and commanded the DigiScanner to scan whatever it was he was seeing. Right now he was out of range, but the scanner would wait.

"You okay?" Sora asked from behind making him jump a little. Why was she here? She was supposed to be back with TK.

"Did TK's dreams suddenly stop?" That came out a little harsher than he wanted but this was going to lead to conversation he desperately didn't want to have.

"He's not going back to sleep until Yamato-kun is back," Sora said evenly, "You know that. Now you're going to tell me what's going on." Crap.

"What do you mean? We're being attacked with nightmares, somehow." Even as he said it, he knew it wouldn't work.

Her voice became a growl. "Taichi."

"I just don't like TK being tormented like that! He's even younger than Hikari!"

"I don't want him suffering like that again anymore than you do, but he knows he's safe with us." But he wasn't. That was the whole problem. "What it is, Taichi?" she voice softened, "You once told me TK-kun had terrifying experience." Crap. She would remember that. "That's what the dream was about?" This was exactly the conversion he didn't want to have. Couldn't have.

"It was," he admitted, "a-and that's all I'm saying. I'm sorry but, I just…" I just feel like talking about it will bring them back. He could still remember TK struggling to describe the monsters. The poor kid was so scared he could barely speak but Taichi only needed a basic idea. Then he would rip into them the way he went after the monsters Hikari might dream about, or the ones that appear in horror movie commercials. He always had Hikari laughing at them in no time, so surely it wouldn't be any harder to do it for TK.

But then he started imagining them. Somehow, those barely coherent words stumbling out of the four year old's mouth formed crystal clear images in his head, scaring away anything he could've said. It took everything he had just to stay calm and, even then, it was only because Hikari was there too.

"It was that bad?" Sora closed her eyes and took a breath. "I won't push it then. But we have to work something out. TK-kun's easily the most helpless of us, yet he was attacked when Koushiro-kun, Jou-kun, and Mimi-san weren't."

"Phantomon went after him too," Taichi reminded and Sora gave a nod.

"We're dragging Yamato-kun back, and then we're working something. At least one of us has to be with TK-kun at all times." Taichi nodded, forcing back his protest. As much as he liked Sora's idea, the fact was if it really was those creatures, there wouldn't be a thing any of them could do about it. Only Hikari was able to drive them off and she's not here. But it wasn't like he had any better ideas, either.

He jolted back as the DigiScanner suddenly began burning information into his head. "Gah! Forgot I had that thing on!"

"Taichi!" Koromon cried out, "Are you okay?!"

"DigiScanner?" Sora asked, her worry mostly masked.

"Yeah, I had it set on that the glowy thing up ahead," he said, "Okay, um, it's a… uh…" He had to run it through his head a few times to make sure he was reading it right. "It's a dual-sided one-way barrier. One side affects humans, the other digimon." Sora looked thoughtful.

"Um, okay, let's just not touch anything when we get there." Taichi nodded, his injuries from Tailmon warning him of what they'll do if he tried anything. But at the same time, if he had a shot at stopping those nightmares, making sure TK never encountered those things again…

"You're here," Ishida's voice snapped him back to reality. Ishida was in front of the barrier, which covered quite a bit of the city. Taichi brought up his map and the barrier appeared on it, covering as much of the Equality district as a circle could without touching any of the other territories.

Koromon hopped up to the barrier and spit out a few fiery bubbles. They struck the barrier but instead of popping into embers, they slid along it floating off at the top. And now that Taichi was looking, he could just see traces of energy flowing upwards. "I knew my fire wasn't going to do much," Koromon said, "but I wasn't expecting that."

"My ice had the same effect," Tsunomon said.

"My PyroBlaster just shot right through it" Ishida said, "but my PhotoSaber got stuck."

"Stuck?" Taichi repeated as he summoned his GeoSaber, "Let's see how it likes something straight physical." He swung the blade down into the barrier. It swung right through the barrier as if it wasn't there, and then stopped. He couldn't feel the blade hit anything; there was no bounce, it just stopped and he couldn't push it down any further. He slowly retracted the swing and it moved just as easily as before. He swung down again, same result.

"That's what happened with me," Ishida said.

"Double sided, one way," Sora muttered thoughtfully, "Okay I got it. One way means we can enter but not exit." Ishida nodded.

"And double sided means that one side only humans can pass through. The other side, only digimon. I'm guessing our weapons are considered human."

Taichi took another swing and this time took a good look at the blade when it stuck. "Looks like it's pointing down a tiny bit," he said, "So that would be when it's cutting back out."

"So we can go in, but not our digimon," Ishida said.

"No!" Yokomon exclaimed, "You can't go without me, Sora!"

"I won't," Sora assured, "None of us will. We're turning back now."

"What?!" Ishida glared at her.

"We're turning back now," she repeated, her voice hard, "We're injured, tired, and our digimon have no energy. We know it's Equality and we have a barrier to get by. We're turning back." Ishida clenched his jaw and fists.

"I'm not abandoning TK!"

"None of us are!" Sora visibly calmed herself down, "One of the three of us will stay with him at all times. At night I'll be sleeping with him so if he has another nightmare, I'll be right there."

"You," Ishida practically hissed. Taichi clenched his own mouth shut. Sora was making sense and he wanted to back her up, but he just knew if he tried to say anything, he would end up blurting out something about the monsters. And Ishida had no idea of the incident. Besides, Sora could handle herself. She met Ishida's glare while Taichi held his breath. Between Ishida's temper and Sora's stubbornness, this could get ugly.

"Taichi…" Koromon muttered.

"Not now, Koromon," he whispered. If he had to play mediator, he was going to need to be two hundred and twenty percent focused.

"But Taichi-"

"Not now!" he repeated. Something hit him in the back, nearly throwing him off his feet. He stumbled forward, struggling to keep his balance, his scars screaming out. He fell on to his stomach, purple flashing through his eyes as he went down. What was that?!

Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself up as quickly as the pain would allow, quickly glancing around the empty room, just in case his assailant had friends. No one else was here… Wait, room? I'm outside! But no, he was inside some sort of large room with a gray stone floor. The ceiling looked like it was made out of the same stone but it was hard to tell in the thick darkness… Just like Phantomon's darkness!

Someone landed next to him. Sora! He reached down to help her up with Ishida crashed down next to her. What the hell's going on?! He ran to the barrier, just in time to see Tailmon swinging Tsunomon by the horn. She slammed him into Koromon and Yokomon before slamming him into the ground. "Koromon!" With an angry shout, Taichi drove his fist into the barrier. It stopped, just like the sword. He didn't even feel it hit anything, he just couldn't move it any further forward.

"Yokomon!"

"Tsunomon!" Sora's and Ishida's cries were accompanied with Pyro shots that exploded against the barrier. Taichi ran back a few meters, summoned his GeoSaber, and charged, plunging with both arms into the barrier. It stopped again, his hands crashing against the guard. With a growl, he stepped back and started swinging. That barrier had to give in sooner or later!

Tailmon casually walked up with a pleasant smile. He stopped swinging and glared at her while Sora's and Ishida's fireballs ceased. "You bitch!" he spat out, looking over at Koromon. Not moving, neither were Yokomon and Tsunomon, though at least they weren't disappearing.

Tailmon waved a finger. "No, no, goggle boy, I'm a kitty cat."

"What do you want?!" Sora demanded. Tailmon shrugged and gave a pleasant smile that made Taichi swing again.

"Oh, you know, kitty things. Sunbeams to sleep in, furniture to scratch, string to play with. We kitties like to play, you know." Her smile shifted into something more predatory, turning Taichi's blood into ice. "Especially with little kids."


Afterword: I have no idea why, but this was, by far, the hardest chapter for me to write.