*** Standard disclaimer of Digimon not belonging to me, etc. This little fanfic features all the Digidestined, and it's about 3 years since the first season of the series came to a close. For some unknown reason, the Digidestined don't remember each other or the adventures they had in the Digital World. This is just the beginning, and I'm really not sure where the plot is going to go from here. I've been kicking around a few ideas in my head, but I'm not sure where I'm headed. I've started another story arc, and some of the plot ideas I've had may go to that series. Well, I've rambled enough as it is. Enjoy my new creation! o.o ***

The girl with the pink hair stepped out onto the street from the underground station, squinting as she emerged into the sunlight. The flight to Japan had been a rough one, so many hours spent crammed in a tiny seat with only one movie and a bag of peanuts to last for the duration. She hefted her backpack higher onto her back and returned to the familiar streets of Odaiba, where she'd grown up.

As she turned to head to her destination, the junior high soccer field, she found herself facing straight into the sun -- and running head-on with another pedestrian. Books and papers went flying, and the girl with the pink hair fell flat on her rear. She winced, and offered an irritated glare to the person who'd collided with her.

"Oh, hey, I'm sorry," said the young man, whose hair was bluish black and whose eyes were dark behind wire-rimmed glasses. He offered an apologetic smile to the girl before he began gathering up his books, which had scattered across the sidewalk, drawing them closer to him before other passers-by trampled them.

The girl frowned for a moment, annoyed from so many hours on a bad flight and a sore rear from where she fell. "If you'd watch where you were going..." she murmured, trailing off before she began to help him gather up his books as well. The sooner she could be on her way, the better.

The boy, who appeared to be sixteen or seventeen years of age, chuckled wryly. "Oh, no, you can't put the blame completely on me. You weren't watching where you were going either."

The statement made the girl angry, and she placed her hands on her hips from where she knelt. "Now that's not fair!" she exclaimed. "The sun was in my eyes!"

"Oh, yeah... Sure," said the boy. The girl noticed that he was blushing -- perhaps he found her attractive. A lot of men did. And he was cute too, the girl figured, in a nerdy, brainy sort of way. "Well, thanks for helping me pick up my things."

The boy rose to his feet and offered his hand to the girl. She took it, and pulled herself up, noting the soft warmth of his hand, the delicateness of its touch -- as if he were a musician, or a surgeon. "Don't mention it."

"You seem familiar," the boy said, tilting down his glasses to get a better look at the pink-haired girl. "Did we go to school together, maybe?"

The girl shrugged. "We could have. I went to Odaiba Elementary."

"I'm Jyou," the boy said. "Jyou Kido."

The girl shook her head. "Mimi Tachikawa," she replied, introducing herself as well. "But I don't think I ever knew anyone at school by the name of Jyou."

"Mimi," Jyou mused, as if feeling out the name. "No, I can't say that's familiar to me either. We must have been in different classes."

Mimi smiled faintly, although she was tiring of the conversation. She wanted to get going to the soccer field to meet up with her cousin -- and then she'd head straight to bed to recover from the jet lag. "Must have. Well, nice meeting you, Jyou. Maybe I'll see you around."

"Maybe," he said. "Sorry again." With that, he turned to walk away, and a flash of light caught Mimi's eyes. She looked to the disheveled pile of books in his hands, and saw at the top of the stack a small palm-sized device, much like the one she used to keep the dates, times, and phone numbers of her friends.

She took out her own palm-device from a pocket. She'd never known a time when she didn't own the thing, and yet she'd also never seen one like it before. It must have been an old model of an electronic planner. And yet, Jyou, the clumsy stranger, seemed to have one as well.

Mimi's device began to beep, and Jyou turned towards the sound, confused. As he looked down to his books, he noticed his own device was flashing an alert. Neither Jyou nor Mimi had ever known their devices to beep without provocation. The two looked up to each other, and their eyes -- his dark brown, hers a light amber -- met and locked.

Reliability, thought Mimi. An image of a scared young boy flashed before her eyes, a kid with blue-black scraggly hair and oversized glasses, running in fear from something small, cute, and completely unfamiliar chasing him.

Sincerity, thought Jyou. He imagined a pink-clad little girl, a spoiled little princess surrounded by a realm of small frog-princes.

Mimi found herself staring, and broke her gaze away. Jyou, as well, turned from the pretty girl with a distinct blush. He wanted to say more, to get to know the oddly familiar stranger better, but the reluctance within him held him back.

Without turning back, Mimi began to walk away, the experience unnerving her. She wanted to question Jyou about what she'd felt, but she didn't want to look stupid. Her friends already thought of her as silly and scatterbrained, but she wasn't like that, really! Why compound that image further by saying something dumb to an obviously intelligent stranger?

Jyou sighed quietly and watched the pink-haired girl walk away, another missed opportunity. All the while, the flickering lights on his device dimmed little by little, until Mimi was out of sight.

*******

The redheaded boy trekked quietly across the baseball field, wondering why he'd let his parents talk him into attending today's soccer game. He'd rather be at home, figuring out the latest cracks to the newest computer games than sit out in the sunshine. No one ever talked to him -- it wasn't like he was going to make any new friends by emerging from his room out into the real world, he figured.

The boy sighed, hefting the straps that held his laptop to his back tighter. He'd only have so many hours of battery backup -- what would he do when the power ran out? Watch the game? How dull.

As he walked, his ears caught the sound of a harmonica played in the distance, a low mournful sound. 'Someone who knows how I feel,' he thought. The redheaded boy figured he could spare a few moments to listen to the music -- it was better than anything he could download over Napster.

He followed the sound of the harmonica to a small surrounding of trees on the outskirts of the playing field. Beneath the shade, he noticed two boys sitting together companionably. By the looks of them, they could very easily have been brothers, with their matching blond hair and crystal-blue eyes. The older one, who could have been the redheaded boy's age, was playing the harmonica while the younger one lounged sleepily nearby.

As the redheaded boy crept closer, his foot snapped a twig, causing the two boys to sit up and the harmonica playing to stop. Twin pairs of blue eyes stared at him, and he swallowed, not sure what to say.

The younger of the two other boys spoke up immediately. "Hi, Koushiro!" he exclaimed.

The redheaded boy's eyes widened, as did those of the younger boy's brother. "Um. Hi. How did you know my name?"

The younger boy blinked, appearing confused himself. "I -- I don't know. I just had a feeling. That is your name, isn't it?"

Koushiro nodded, feeling even more self-conscious with the two blond-haired boys staring at him. "Well, yes, but... Do I know yo--"

"Takeru," the older boy said, interrupting Koushiro as he tried to speak, "don't speak with strange people." He realized he was being overprotective, but the sudden revelation of his brother's weirded him out.

Koushiro took a step back, muttering, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I was just listening to the harmonica playing."

The older boy narrowed his eyes as he stared holes through Koushiro. He seemed about to say something when a loud beeping at his side made him jump. He reached into his pocket and took out the palm-sized device that was making such a din. His pale brows furrowed as he hit a few buttons on the contraption, but it still didn't stop beeping.

Koushiro eyed the device suspiciously -- it was all too weird, the boy Takeru knowing his name, and now the older boy having a palm pilot similar to his own. When he felt in his shirt pocket for his own device, he noticed it was vibrating like a pager, for no good reason. He withdrew it and looked from it, to the other boy's device, then to the staring eyes of the boy himself.

"Yamato, what's going on?" Takeru asked.

The older boy couldn't answer his brother, for he heard nothing but the sound of computer keys, as if they were typing the soundtrack to his life. Yamato felt a flash of deja vu he simply couldn't place.

Koushiro felt a gust of wind rush past him, and all around him he saw fluttering white feathers on the breeze. He forced himself to break away his gaze from Yamato, and without a word he turned to rush back to the soccer field. He didn't look back behind him, nor did Yamato or Takeru follow, but he could feel the hot breath of a wolf on the prowl upon the back of his neck.

*******

"Ha ha, look at that," remarked the wild-haired boy in the blue soccer uniform. He pointed to the bus that was letting off the members of the other team, clad in green. "They let a girl on their team!"

The younger girl, sitting by the sidelines, rolled her eyes. "Taichi, that's not very nice," she remarked. Then, quieter, she added, "Or mature."

The boy smirked at his sister. "Come on, Hikari, girls can't play soccer. You can't play soccer."

Hikari furrowed her brow. Taichi certainly didn't act his fifteen years of age sometimes, especially when it came to his favorite sport of soccer. Then, he could be outright cutting. "Just because I can't play soccer very well doesn't mean she can't. In fact, I'd say if she's made the final cut to get onto the team, there's probably a very good reason for it."

Taichi watched the green-clad girl on the other team with a scrutinizing eye as she got herself suited up for the game. "She looks like she could break if someone breathed on her the wrong way."

"She looks familiar," Hikari murmured absently, a glazed sort of look coming over her eyes.

It wasn't the statement, but that expression on Hikari's face that made Taichi start. His sister, whether either of them liked it or not, seemed to have odd senses of deja vu on occasion, or strange hints of premonition. Taichi hated the way those psychic experiences seemed to drain the energy from her already frail form -- she was always a sickly kid, even now -- and he hated that half-sleepy look that came over her face. The way it had overtaken her now, as she stared at the girl on the other side of the playing field.

"Snap out of it, Hikari," Taichi muttered grumpily. "It's just a girl... Who's going to be sorely beaten at soccer today."

Hikari just made a low 'hrm' sound in her throat and stared off into space until the referee blew the whistle to start the game. She absently wished Taichi luck as he took his usual position of center. Her mind wasn't on Taichi, but on the girl whose soccer jersey read 'Sora.' So familiar, but she just couldn't place the face.

Sora took the center position opposite Taichi, much to his chagrin. Up close, Taichi could see that she was far from the breakable creature he'd originally assessed her to be. She had a sharp, attentive look in her blue eyes, and she was wiry, tightly muscled.

"Good luck," she said, catching Taichi off guard. No one from the opposing team had ever offered any words of encouragement to him before.

He looked her in the eye, hoping to stare her down. "Yeah. You're gonna need it."

Sora was unfazed, apparently. Taichi could see a bright fire in her eyes, and he could tell that she wasn't going to be an easy opponent. The referee's whistle jolted him out of his reverie, but Sora had the advantage -- with a feint to the left, she dashed around him, stealing the ball deftly from beneath his feet.

"Huh!" exclaimed Taichi, and he dashed after the girl -- the girl -- to try to compensate for his mistake. He couldn't let her beat him. In a determined run, he took off after her down the field, ignoring the cries of his teammates.

*******

Jyou's mind was still on the pretty pink-haired girl as he trudged through the stands to one of the upper rows. Sure, it made him dizzy to trek that high up, but it was a place where he could watch the game in relative seclusion. Apparently, someone else had the same idea as he did, he noted as he sat down. Jyou figured he wouldn't be threatened or bothered by the redheaded kid with the laptop, though, as he seemed deeply engrossed in whatever was on the screen.

Jyou himself took a book from the top of his stack and began to read, unmindful of the goal Sora scored down on the field below, and not noticing the humming of his device from atop the pile of books beside him.

*******

Mimi was exhausted as she picked her way through the crowd to find a seat, on the opposite side of the field as the boy who'd knocked her to the ground earlier in the day. The jet lag was taking its toll, and she sank into an empty spot on the bleachers. She hadn't even found her cousin yet, which was the worst part.

"Yamato, have you ever seen hair that color before?" came a youthful voice from behind her.

Mimi turned to give an annoyed glare to the boy who'd been talking about her behind her back. Instead of meeting the gaze of a young boy, however, she found herself staring into the eyes of an older, blond-haired boy about her age. He was sullen, a little rough around the edges, in a word: trouble. He was he kind of boy she usually fell for.

His voice was far from tough, though. "Sorry about my little brother," he said gently. From beside him, an eager kid about eleven years of age grinned widely. "Though I'll admit, that's quite a shade."

Mimi smiled, her cheeks turning the same shade of pink as her hair. "It's my favorite color," she said.

Yamato smiled easily, a glitter coming to his crystal-blue, narrowed eyes. "I can tell. Name's Yamato, and this loudmouth is my younger brother Takeru." His voice was soft but strong, and quiet.

"Mimi," she replied before giving a large yawn. "Oh, excuse me. I just flew in from America, and I'm still on U.S.-time."

Takeru grinned. "Were you out west?" he asked.

"No, New York City," Mimi replied, brow raising. "Why did you think I was out west?"

The kid shrugged. "I don't know. You just seemed to have that sort of look. Like someone who would be out among the cowboys."

But Mimi was intent on ignoring the annoying kid. Maybe she'd found her own cowboy today in Japan. She wanted to get to know Yamato better. And whatever Mimi wanted, Mimi got.

*******

Hikari was tired after her bout of premonition with Sora. She could barely keep her eyes open as she watched her brother struggling to maintain control throughout the soccer game. As she drifted off, her chin dipping to her chest, a glitter of light caught her eye -- a red flashing from the device she kept strung around her neck.

She picked it up and noted the seven flickering red points on the screen of the device. Her brow furrowed, as she'd never seen the computer-like machinery do anything like that before. No longer as tired as she'd been a few seconds earlier, she lifted her head and looked around.

Two minute flickerings of red flashed up from the stands behind her. Two lights came from the soccer field. Three more caught her eye from the visitors' stands.

Some bright light began to radiate from within, from her heart.

Hikari pushed herself to her feet, feeling an overwhelming rush of light and breathlessness starting to overtake her. Alarmed, she managed to call out, "Something's coming!" before vertigo overcame her and she fell over in a dead faint.

*******

Taichi panted, sweat pouring down his face as he raced after Sora. He was starting to tire, and she knew it. She'd been running circles around him this whole game. His team had only managed to score one goal against her team's five. His teammates were angry at him for controlling the play -- badly, at that -- but he didn't care. He couldn't let himself be beaten by a girl.

He kept to Sora's heels as she moved in to kick another goal. As she drew her foot back, he dashed forward to kick the ball out from under her feet, even though he knew it would probably draw him a foul. He miscalculated, and ended up tripping right in her path. He felt a sharp pain as her foot connected with his ribs instead of the ball.

The ref blew the whistle, and Sora glared down at him. "What do you think you're doing?"

Taichi rolled over and gasped, clutching at his aching ribs. "You -- you're --" He broke off, though, as something caught his eye on the sidelines.

Hikari was on her feet and screaming before falling over in a crumpled heap. Ignoring the angry glare of Sora, the cries of his teammates, and the annoying whistle of the ref, he staggered to his feet and ran to the edge of the field. "Hikari!"

He knew that if she was sick again, his mother would have his hide. The last time she'd gotten sick while the two were out, Hikari had been in the hospital and had nearly died. He just had to get to her, game or no game.

*******

"Jeez, what's up with that kid?" Yamato remarked as he watched the game. He'd been conversing off and on with the pink-haired girl, but he'd found her remarks rather vacuous. Perhaps it was due to lack of sleep, though, so he gave her some benefit of the doubt -- but not much.

"Which one?" Mimi asked, rubbing at one of her eyes with a hand.

"The one that's been chasing that girl around the whole game. And killing his team's chances for winning." Yamato's gentle voice held both an edge of sarcasm and mild amusement.

Mimi watched as Taichi rushed to the edge of the playing field, unmindful of the cries surrounding him. She saw the kid fall to his knees at the side of a younger girl, who'd been given some room by those around her. "It looks like something's wrong," she murmured absently.

*******

Jyou heard someone call for a paramedic and immediately looked up from his book. In his studies, he'd trained as an EMT and was certified. He grabbed the device from atop his stack of books, just so he could place the one he'd been holding on a balanced pile. The device, absently, was slipped into the pocket of his sports coat.

"Hey, kid," Jyou called over to Koushiro, who was obliviously typing away on his computer still. The pale kid looked up, startled, and stared at Jyou questioningly. "Could you watch my books?"

Without waiting for an answer, Jyou pushed his way down through the crowd of people in the stands. "EMT coming through!" he called out, and most people gave him the space he needed.

At the bottom, he had to fight harder to get through the throng of people that surrounded Taichi and Hikari. When he finally broke through the crowd, ignoring the oncoming claustrophobic attack, he saw the boy on his knees, cradling his sister in his arms.

"It's alright," Jyou said. "I'm a trained EMT." He took out his wallet and flashed the card proving his certification to Taichi.

"She -- she just fainted," the boy in the soccer uniform murmured, looking, to Jyou, paler than the computer geek who was hopefully watching his books.

"Alright," said Jyou, giving the young girl a quick initial assessment. "Give her some room!" In the back of his mind he wondered if he was calling that out for his own benefit as well. He looked between Taichi and the unconscious girl as he spoke. "Does she have any history of epilepsy, seizures, asthma, diabetes..." Jyou named a few other, more obscure conditions for good measure.

Taichi shook his head to each question as the older boy checked Hikari's vital signs. "No, no... She did have pneumonia once as a kid, and she almost died."

"Now that's not normal," Jyou remarked, drawing away from Hikari with wide eyes. The girl's body had begun to shimmer, then to glow with a white, inner light.

'And it had started out as such a nice day, too,' he thought with an inward groan.

*******

Koushiro sighed to himself after Jyou dashed off. Yet another person who barely acknowledged his existence before leaving. And there he was, stuck watching the other boy's books. He shrugged and bent over the keyboard of his laptop again, not caring whether or not those belongings were stolen.

Oddly enough, he was the first to notice when the world froze. As he typed, the characters stopped flowing across the computer screen, and he looked up with something of concern in his eyes. He'd safeguarded his computer against most types of crashes and viruses. Within his pocket, his device was starting to hum again.

All around him, people were frozen in various states of emotion. Some were caught mid-jeer of the halted game. Others were craning to see the problem down at the bottom of the field. The soccer players were unmoving dots on the green.

"Curious," Koushiro murmured. He closed his laptop, his mind latching onto a new mystery now, and he scanned the area around him for some movement, any movement. Yet his attention was drawn back to a light down on the playing field that just seemed to be glowing brighter by the second.

*******

Sora had bent down to tie her shoe when the world froze around her. She'd been speaking with a teammate when he suddenly went silent. In fact, the entire field fell to a disturbing hush. Sora was unnerved, especially when she gave her stone-still teammate a nudge. It was like touching a granite statue.

Yet, she could still make out some movement. There was a trio in the visitors' stands looking about themselves with confusion, two blond boys and a well-dressed, pink-haired girl. They slowly wove their way around the unmoving spectators, seemingly intent on something in the distance.

Sora turned, spotting the spreading glow of bright light, even as her device she kept in her back pocket began to beep in a high-pitched alarm.

*******

"What's going on?" Taichi whispered, letting his hands fall from his sister's shoulders. Hikari seemed to radiate light with a center around her heart. Concern washed over him, although it didn't overpower his curiosity. "Hikari? Hikari, can you her me?"

Jyou, the EMT, was too startled to move. "Oh, this isn't good. Not good at all," he babbled, just barely keeping his fear under control. "I'll probably get blamed for this."

"What's wrong with my sister?" Taichi demanded, anger rising within him.

"Never mind your sister," Jyou replied. "Look around you. What about them?" He seemed uncertain where to focus his attention -- the glowing young girl, or the unmoving crowd around them.

"Hunh?" exclaimed Taichi. He'd been so concerned for Hikari, he didn't even notice that the world had gone silent.

A voice from behind him spoke up, calm and calculating, "Well, this is an intriguing paradox." It was Koushiro, the pale, redheaded computer nerd.

They were quickly joined by Sora, and then by the two brothers and Mimi. They'd all been attracted by the light -- and they were the only ones still unaffected by whatever force had frozen the crowd.

"You!" Mimi cried out as she spotted Jyou. The older boy blushed and started to his feet.

Takeru grinned at Koushiro. "Hey. Next time you don't have to run away."

Sora knelt beside Taichi and Hikari. "Oh no, is she going to be alright?" Despite the supernatural glow emanating from Hikari, Sora seemed genuinely concerned.

As if in answer to her question, Hikari opened her eyes -- two glowing slits of white light, both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. The chatter among the teens stopped abruptly. The girl sat up, shrugging off Taichi's protective arms.

"It is time," she said in a resonating, unearthly voice. It certainly wasn't the voice of Hikari. "Take out your Digi-vices."

Although none of them knew what a 'Digi-vice' was, they immediately removed identical palm-sized computers, that each had figured to be some form or another of palm pilot. All of them were beeping or flashing like crazy.

"Prodigious," whispered Koushiro as he looked around, noting only startled gazes from those around him.

The Digi-vices concentrated the glow that had surrounded Hikari, and vibrated fiercely before shooting beams of light to the sky. The seven surrounding teens watched as the light from Hikari and their devices soared to infinity.

"You must follow me if you want your world to survive," the voice emanated through Hikari. The girl's body began to follow the beams up to the sky.

"But..." murmured Mimi, "that's not possible!"

Jyou cried out as some force lifted him from the ground, as if gravity had just given out beneath his feet. "I don't think we have much of a choice!"

Taichi waved his arms for balance as he started to rise. "Hang on, everyone. I think we're in for a ride!"

Against their will, the eight young men and women soared skyward, following their respective beams of light to whatever destination lay ahead. All the while, Jyou could be heard uttering in succession, "This is not good. This is not good."

...to be continued...