A.N.: Goodness, it's been a while! The delay has been twofold, really. Partly due to the fact I am participating in the Digimon Adventure Bang, and have been focusing my efforts on that fic instead (there's a deadline), and partly because I ran into a couple of walls this chapter. For that reason, if some of the PoV transitions seem jarring, I apologise.

But, honestly, most of this chapter has been a lot of fun to write! It's come out a touch shorter than the last few, but I'd rather have it that way than try to pad it out. I am already aware that there's been a fair bit of talking in this story, and I don't want it to turn into a group of people stood around catching each other up.

In other news, I finally got around to updating the map I've been working from for Hope's Fire! If you're interested in taking a look, there's a link on my profile page! Thank you once again to everyone who has reviewed, followed or favourited. Your feedback is always huuugely appreciated. Thank you so much for reading and (hopefully!) enjoying this story so far.

Monday, 3:15pm

Iori grabbed the D-Terminal from his bag the moment his last lesson ended. He'd heard its muffled beep earlier, but there was no way he could pull out what honestly looked like a games console while he was meant to be paying attention and learning. In the year since the Diablomon incident, the rest of the world seemed to have more or less forgotten about the digimon attacks. Somehow he doubted that anyone would understand.

If he attracted odd looks for the uncharacteristic haste with which he packed his bag and raced out of the classroom once he had read the message, he didn't notice. For Miyako to have announced that she was calling his family…things had to be serious. Now he just had to hope there would be no one in the computer room.

He bolted down the corridors, mentally apologising to his teachers for running in school. It couldn't be helped.

What day does computer club meet? he thought, mind racing. Delays were something he needed to avoid at all costs, and who knew how long it would take him to find another access point he could use in private? His mind was awash with doomsday scenarios and peril. It was all too easy to imagine his friends in mortal danger, or the digital world in ruins. The sooner he was reunited with his partner and had a chance to catch up on the news, the better.

Iori reached the computer room and groaned. The timetable posted on the wall outside proclaimed that it was indeed club day. The silence from the other side suggested that he had arrived first, but he'd have to hurry in order to avoid anyone seeing-

"Iori?" came a voice from the other end of the corridor. "Did you want to join or something?"

He looked round in panic and spotted the club president, Ikeda Hinata. No doubt she'd followed him from their classroom. Too late to explain anything now.

Sliding the door open, he raced inside and closed it again, then looked around for something to wedge the door shut with. He had seconds before his erratic behaviour brought his classmate to the room at a run. No time to waste.

Hitting the power button on the nearest computer, Iori grabbed a textbook from the cupboard in the corner. He darted back to the door and opened the book, shoving as many of the pages into the gap made for the door runner as he could. With any luck the paper would jam it long enough for the computer to load and for him to get through the portal. He could - and would - replace the book when this was all over.

"Iori! What's going on?" came Hinata's voice from the other side of the door.

Iori ducked out of sight and grabbed the door-handle, moments before Hinata tried to open it, rattling the door backwards and forward when it refused to slide open. The monitor was stuck on its loading screen - he had to buy more time.

"Hey, Iori!" Hinata cried. "What happened to the door? What's going on in there?"

Drat, drat, drat. He was going to have to write some serious apologies when this was all over.

The door rattled once more.

"Iori! Let me in! How did you manage to lock this, anyway?"

Every instinct he possessed cried out for him to apologise, and try to explain somehow. But how exactly could he? By telling his classmate there was a serious problem, and his presence was required urgently in another world? He wouldn't be believed on his words alone, and if anyone saw him open the gate, it would just cause more problems.

How do I explain the fact I'm about to disappear, then?

The door rattled again. "That's it, Iori," Hinata said, sounding angry. "I'm fetching Mr. Fujiyama."

Footsteps, fading quickly away. Now was his chance.

Iori raced across the room and swung one of the windows open before returning to the computer. It had loaded, finally. He brought up the gate, tapped in the coordinates Miyako had provided in her message…and then hesitated, staring at the crumpled textbook.

No good. He couldn't just leave like that, without saying anything. It went against everything he stood for. Gritting his teeth, he pulled an exercise book out of his bag and ripped a page free.

~I'm sorry for jamming the door and causing this disruption. I will replace the textbook when I can. Hida Iori~ he scrawled, wincing a little at his sloppy writing.

Grabbing his bag, he opened the gate and held up his D3. As explanations went it was terrible, but what other choice did he have?

Monday, 1:25pm

"Basically…It's just us, Hikari, and Mimi left," Taichi said, hoping that Takeru would accept the short version.

He didn't. Of course, Taichi had known that would be the case from the moment he'd decided to attempt an explanation. Takeru and his brother might have very different personalities, but they had about the same tolerance for being fobbed off - pretty much zero.

Yamato would have glowered until he was told what he wanted to know. Takeru managed to turn essentially the same frown into an expression of such honest concern it tugged at the heartstrings.

"What do you mean, Taichi? What happened to everyone else?"

"Well, that's the problem. We don't know," Taichi said, leaning forward in the chair to try and get more comfortable. How did anyone sit in these damn things?

"Don't know what? Where they wound up? They didn't come back?" Takeru's face was creased with worry.

Taichi sighed. He was regretting his decision to be honest already.

"Apparently Jou managed to open up a fear gate, and Ken and Wormmon got pulled along with him. That was a little less than an hour ago now, and we've not heard from either of them. So that means they're caught up in something like you were, or…well. We don't know."

Takeru said nothing, but the look on his face more than made up for the silence.

"Look, there's every reason to believe they're fine," Taichi said. "Apparently Jou was worried because some kind of monster attacked him, but when he went back he had his digivice - and so did Ken. So that means they have Ikkakkumon and Stingmon, and both digimon are well-rested."

"Okay, but…what about Sora?"

Taichi flinched, and looked down at the crumpled sheets rather than meet Takeru's eyes.

"…We don't know," he said eventually.

"What do you mean 'you don't know'?" Takeru asked.

When Taichi didn't immediately answer, naturally Takeru's response was to lean forward. Probably he meant to be more intimidating while demanding to know what had happened to Sora, but the only real result was that he halted mid-motion, yelping with obvious pain.

"Takeru, what part of 'rest' did you not get?" Taichi said, rolling his eyes. "It took them a solid hour to patch you up last…whenever. Do them a favour and try not to put that work to waste, okay?"

He got to his feet and folded his arms, trying to keep his face level. Takeru was a mess, even more so than Koushiro. What little of his skin that wasn't covered by bandages was mottled with bruising, most of it still deep purple-blue. He knew from talking to the healers that the bruises extended all over the boy's back, and down his legs - falling through a roof had done a real number on him and Koushiro. And that was leaving aside his previous injuries: in addition to the burns, and the scratches from their trek through the woods, the healers had informed him that Takeru had also sustained a blow to the head at some point in the last few days. It had taken him a few minutes to remember the cause of that. In the chaos, he had almost forgotten Takeru's short trip to wherever it was that Yamato had ended up.

He still didn't know how to react to the last bit of diagnostic information they had given him. Something about a shadow over Takeru's mind. In all honesty, it had freaked him the hell out when they'd first mentioned it - shadows, particularly in the wake of all the disappearing they had been doing of late, were not something he wanted attaching themselves to his friends. Apparently the doctors - no, the healers, because doctors sure as hell didn't touch you and magically know what was wrong - had sensed his concerns though, and explained that it was a common enough phenomena. That it was more akin to a lingering fear, or an injury to the mind than a literal darkness.

All the more reason not to burden Takeru with worrying news. He'd been an idiot - he never should have let himself get started this topic in the first place. But now that he had, how in whatever world this was could he explain without making things worse?

Monday, 9:13am

Yamato had lost track of how long he'd sat beside Gabumon, letting guilt overwhelm him. It wasn't as though it mattered - there was no way of knowing how long they'd been trapped in this hellhole anyway.

Hunger pangs gnawed at his stomach and he swallowed heavily, wishing there had been more water, at least. The fact that they'd refused to allow Gabumon any food infuriated him, too. Who the hell were these people, and how long did they plan on keeping them locked up like this?

It would have been easy, in the wake of Cahir's 'interrogation', to let his underlying fears build into a panic. Now that he was with his partner, he could have clung tightly to Gabumon and thought about what might happen until he made his way back home. But how could he do that when Sora might be here too? He couldn't just abandon her. If there was even the slightest chance that she was trapped in another of these cells, he'd never forgive himself for making it home only to find that she wasn't there.

Besides. How long would he really have at home before he found himself right back where he'd started?

It wasn't fair. None of it was - he'd saved the goddamn world, and now he was stuck in a cold, slightly damp prison with no idea where he was or how long he had left before…before…

No, he thought vehemently. I'm not going there.

Despite his slight light-headedness, he got to his feet and started pacing. The worst part about being trapped there wasn't even the lack of food or water - it was the boredom. The room was barren, with only a small, dim bulb in the ceiling to illuminate it. The only reason it wasn't dark and shadowy was that there was nothing in the cell to actually cast a shadow.

The weight of the manacles pulled at his arms and hands, and rubbed wrists that were already red raw. He ached all over, too, from sleeping on a cold, hard floor. The walls closed in on him - he wanted to be out in the fresh air again, under the open sky. Even if he couldn't be home, it had to be better than being cooped up in this tiny cell.

Frustration and anger welled up inside of him and he let it, gladly. Anything was better than dwelling on might-have-beens and possible futures. In a fit of desperation he stalked over to the door and hammered the manacles against it, wincing as the blow jarred his wrists and arms. Maybe if he caught someone's attention they would give him some information about what was going on.

"Hey!" he cried, bashing the door again. The metal clanked and rattled, adding to the din. "Hey!"

At the very least, he reasoned, when the guards came to shut him up he could ask for some water.

After three blows he had to stop and rest against the door. The room was spinning, and the floor seemed to waver in front of him. Sparks flashed across his eyes. No good. He couldn't keep this up on an empty-

"Yamato?"

The voice was some way off and hoarse, but there was no mistaking it.

"Sora!" he yelled, pressing his face to the bars. His heart raced in his chest. She was here! "Sora!"

"Hoi! Pack it in!" a guard called loudly.

Yamato could see him marching down the corridor, and stepped back from the door as his captor reached it. He wouldn't have put it past the man to try and hit him if he presented a target.

"We don't need your racket, y'hear?" the guard said, glowering.

"Where is she?" Yamato snapped, his thirst momentarily forgotten. "What did you people do to her?"

The guard sighed.

"Look, don't make this difficult, okay? I got my orders, and they don't include gabbling with prisoners."

Yamato gritted his teeth and grabbed the bars of the little window in the door. "I don't care about your orders; I want to know where she is! You people did something and if you've harmed one hair on her head I swear-"

"Listen kid, word of advice. Don't go making threats unless you can make good on them. Now, I don't know what exactly you did to end up here-"

"I didn't do anything!" Yamato said indignantly.

The guard rolled his eyes. "Sure. Never heard that one before. Look, night shift just started, okay? Neither of us is going anywhere, so you might as well just settle down."

Yamato took a breath to reply, but he could feel already the anger and energy draining out of him. Everything had drained out of him - if it weren't for his concern for Sora, he was reasonably sure he would have collapsed to the ground and been unable to get back up. He let his head fall against the bars, and stared numbly at the metal cuffs around his wrists.

"I just want to know she's okay," he said. "Surely you can tell me that?"

The guard huffed.

"Like I said, kid. I got my orders." There was a pause. "But…I'll see what I can do."

Yamato looked up in time to see the guard shake his head and walk away, muttering something about getting soft. It was agony to stand there in silence and watch that retreating back disappear out of sight.

Waiting was impossible, anyway. How could he just sit tight and be quiet? He forced himself to stay silent for a few more seconds while the guard walked off, biting his lip hard to keep himself from shouting. Finally he could take it no more.

"SORA!" he yelled, coughing. His throat was so dry he could almost choke.

"Yamato!" Her voice was faint enough that she had to be a bit of a distance away. He tried to remember the layout of the prison. How long were the corridors? How many cells were there?

He swallowed heavily a few times, trying to call some moisture to his throat.

"Sora! Are you okay?"

"I think…where are we?"

There was a quaver to her voice that he didn't like. She was more or less shouting - anything she said ought to be clear and strong. What could have happened to her? The memory of Cahir's eyes haunted him; if that bastard had done anything to her…

Footsteps in the corridor halted his train of thought. He glanced in their direction to see the guard from before approaching. The man had a curious expression on his face.

"Well, ain't you the lucky one! Honoured guest, almost. Seems orders have changed since my last shift, and I'm to 'accommodate your needs'. Guess that means I get to play messenger."

Yamato took a breath, then exhaled, heavily. He didn't want to pass messages, or to have to shout down a corridor to hear Sora's voice. He wanted to see her - to see that she was safe and unharmed. What assurances could anyone in this place give him to believe their word?

"I want to know what they did to her. What… what Cahir did to her."

He spat the name out, and watched as the guard took a step back, looking him over carefully.

"That damned Fae, huh? Might've guessed it. Everyone gets the same haunted expression after an interview with him."

He stared blankly at the man. "Fae?"

"You think he's human? One of us? Their Graces wouldn't put a human in charge of interrogation when they've one of their own to fill the role instead. And there's no human alive who can reach into your head like that."

Yamato shuddered. "Look, right now I don't care what he is. I just want to know if Sora's okay. And…tell her I'm sorry. It's my fault she's here."

The guard nodded and walked off, heading further down the corridor. Yamato watched him go, feeling his stomach tie up in knots. It wasn't enough to just find out if she was okay. He wanted to know if the others were okay too. What had happened to Takeru? Was he hurt? Safe? Had he and the others made it home, or learnt anything about whatever the hell was going on? He'd had nothing to do but sit and worry, and now he couldn't even ask, because there was no way he wanted to bellow that conversation down a corridor with an unknown amount of people listening in.

He couldn't have physically managed it anyway. Even before the guard walked out of sight he felt his knees buckle, and sank heavily to the ground, letting his head rest against the wood of the door. Gabumon ran over.

"Yamato, are you okay?" his partner asked.

"I'm fine, Gabumon."

He didn't look up. That would have meant meeting Gabumon's eyes, and acknowledging that the lie wasn't believed by either of them.

Monday, 3:29pm

Armadimon was waiting for him not far from the gate, along with Daisuke and Lighdramon. Iori was reasonably certain he'd never seen such a serious expression on the older boy's face.

"What's happening?" he asked. "Miyako's email didn't really have much information."

Daisuke shook his head and held out a hand. "Honestly, it's a mess. Hop up and I'll explain as we go. We're heading over to Gennai's place."

"Gennai's?"

Daisuke nodded as Iori handed his partner up first. Armadimon looked distinctly uncomfortable on his new perch. Iori scrambled up onto Lighdramon's back and clung to Daisuke as the digmon surged forward. He'd not had many opportunities to travel this way - a fact for which he was very thankful.

"What's going on then?" he said, closing his eyes tightly. Give him Sabmarmon any day.

"Well, it's just the three of us, for starters. Four at the minute, but that's because Mimi came back. Jou did too, but Gomamon got left behind and Jou was so worried he did a Takeru - and he dragged Ken with him. We haven't heard anything from either of them since. Did you get the message about Sora?"

Iori shook his head as much as he dared, then realised that as he was behind Daisuke that probably wouldn't mean anything. "What about Sora?"

"Right, forgot," Daisuke said. "Well, we didn't want to worry you or anything while you were at school, but Sora kinda vanished. No idea where she is, but I mean, we've seen two of those fear gates now, so our money is that it was one of those. Oh. And Hikari got back late last night, and she brought a fairy. He was pretty cool actually. Turns out the others all got name-checked in some prophecy and have to save the world without us."

"What?!" Iori's head was spinning, and it wasn't just the motion sickness. How could they have let him just go to school while all this was happening without him? They hadn't even sent a memo!

"Yeah, well, we've got our own work to do here," Daisuke said, with relative calmness. "Look, there's Gennai's place just up ahead."

"I'll take your word for it," Iori muttered. "Just let me know when I can get down."

One or two entirely unpleasant minutes later, Lighdramon finally came to a halt beside a wide, open lake. Iori practically fell off in his haste to get onto to solid ground. How Daisuke managed to ride on the back of his partner without feeling sick was a mystery he hoped never to solve.

The ground was reassuringly stationary, but Iori headed over to the lake. With any luck, splashing some water on his face would help his nausea to go away faster. However, before he reached the lake's edge, the water in the lake parted to reveal a staircase. His jaw dropped.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Daisuke said. "I mean, I kinda always figured the others were exaggerating when they said about this place, but it is every bit as good as their stories. You just wait til we get down there!"

It was a touch unnerving to be walking down a flight of stairs with water either side of him, but Iori was comforted by his partner's presence. After all, if anything went wrong he did have Sabmarimon to fall back on. And it certainly couldn't be worse than having to ride Lighdramon again. At last they reached the end of the staircase, to find themselves in what looked like a traditional walled garden, with a small house in the centre. Iori gaped.

"Ah, Iori, it's good to see you," Gennai said from the door. "Please, come inside. I'm afraid I need to attend quite closely to Palmon for a little while. "

Iori frowned. "Mimi's here?"

"No, it's too dangerous for her to be in the digital world at the moment," Gennai replied, shaking his head. "If she disappeared here, it could make the distortions worse."

"Is someone actually going to explain what's going on?" Iori said, folding his arms. "So far everyone seems to think I need to be kept safe from finding out."

Daisuke sighed as they walked into the building. "It's not so much that, Iori. We all kinda overslept this morning, and then you were already at school, so there wasn't really a chance to get you a message you could do anything about. The worst of it didn't kick off until after lunch - which is when Miyako did send that mail, but we knew you wouldn't get it until now."

"Well, now that I am here, what happened? You mentioned Hikari - is she okay? And…she met a fairy?"

Daisuke nodded. "They just popped right out of thin air in the middle of the night. Apparently this world the others are stuck in is full of stuff like that."

Gennai cleared his throat. "And I have reason to believe the problems we are having in this world are connected to whatever is happening there. Hikari's travelling companion has confirmed that digimon are somehow crossing over into his own world, and I believe it is through the distortions we've observed. Most troublingly, digimon have apparently been there for some time, which means that the distortions first appeared in the digital world far earlier than I had realised. If the document which Koushiro, Miyako and Ken have been working to translate is correct, I fear it is only a matter of time before this distortion spreads to Earth as well."

"So do we know how to fix the distortions?" Iori asked, although he had a feeling he knew what the answer would be.

Daisuke shook his head. "Not a clue. I was taking a look around one of them earlier, and I don't think it's safe to get too close. Some of the digimon nearby looked…dark. Like something was sucking the colour out of them. We got charged by a Monochromon, and it just wouldn't back down. It was like… well. Like it was being controlled by a dark ring, only there wasn't a ring anywhere. And after that, we ran into a weird…thing, and when it was defeated it didn't seem to have any data at all. It just turned into this black smoke."

"It's the presence of that smoke which worries me," Gennai said. "I suspect that this time the distortion is coming from another world. If that's the case, there may not be a way to reverse it from here."

"If that's the case, what can we do?" Iori asked.

Daisuke's mouth set into a line. "We stay here and make sure there aren't enough of those things to spill over to the real world and do any harm. Miyako said she told you not to go back, yeah?"

Iori nodded. "You mean…that wasn't just 'until I know what's going on'?"

"Nope," Daisuke said. "The others are all trapped in the other world, and seeing as it's not the holidays, people will notice they're not at school. We don't know how long it's going to take to fix this, so the only thing their - our - parents can do is report everyone missing. And I mean, it would have been hard enough for us to be at school anyway, knowing what was going on. But now things are kicking off here too, and we're down to just you, me, and Miyako who can do anything about it."

Iori leant against a wall, not sure what to say. Intentionally going missing and skipping school seemed like an extreme step - but equally, he could see that with only three of them here to fight, they couldn't allow their enemies to build up in number or they would be overwhelmed.

"How do we know this will help?" he said at last. "And what do we do if these creatures do get into the real world?"

Gennai sighed. "Our last resort would be to call upon the other Chosen Children from around the world, as happened before. But they are unfamiliar with the digital world, and most have very little experience fighting with their partners. Against an unknown foe… It would be a last resort. My hope is that you three will be able to learn more about the nature of these distortions and their origin, at which point I will be better able to judge whether we need to call upon them for assistance."