“Of course, God doesn’t want us to have ANY freaking luck!”

“Jesanae saw it first and didn’t say anything, it’s her fault.”

“Oh shut up Kamiya, I didn’t actually think there was a giant slavering digital cockroach about to pounce.”

The day had not ended on a high note for the Digidestined as they collapsed to different places in the clearing they had found hidden among the trees.

“We might get to Spiral Mountain tomorrow, or, factoring out our current lucky streak, we’ll get there next week with four people killed and resurrected.”

“That’s not funny, Koushiro . . .”

“Well excuse me for trying to have a sense of humor!”

“Damn right! Nerds aren’t supposed to make jokes! It’s unnatural!”

“Will you two shut up? I’m trying to get some sleep here.”

At Jou’s complaint, Jesanae and Koushiro reluctantly subsided into quiet, but not without rebellious glares that promised a rematch. Jesanae had to agree with the notion of sleep, though; it was getting late, and the myriad battles of the day had added considerably to her rather colorful collection of bruises and scrapes. I look like a fucking sunset.

And I can’t get Yamato to bloody talk to me.

She chewed her lip, contemplating. He’s been acting bizarre all day, and even Takeru hasn’t been able to get a word out of him. Half the time he looks like he’ll explode if he doesn’t say something, and the other half he doesn’t let any of us near him.

She sighed. This was getting awfully frustrating, and as much as it galled her to admit it, she was worried about him. Even for him, loner that he was, this wasn’t normal behavior by any stretch of the imagination; something had obviously happened to him to make him like this. The fact that she didn’t even have a guess as to what made her even more aggravated.

Spiral Mountain was still a ways off, due to the detours they had made to avoid yet more fights, and they wouldn’t reach it until the day after tomorrow, or so Koushiro maintained. It loomed close and dark near them, not appearing as distant as it was. It almost reminded Jesanae of Japan. You could still see the mountains in most places even now, and her family had made a few trips to Mt. Fuji when she was just three or four. As much of a city girl as she was, she liked what she remembered of the mountains.

This mountain had no innocent shrines at the top, however. There was nothing but trouble both ahead and behind. They hadn’t yet had a discussion about what they were going to do once they got there; that was being put off. Jesanae intended to force the issue in the morning, assuming everyone was awake enough to participate. They needed a battle plan; they couldn’t just barge in and trust to brute strength to rescue the trapped humans, which would take much more than they could safely say they had, and there were no wild Digimon who were willing to help them out without a reward. As far as Jesanae could see, there was only one way to do this: infiltration. One or more of them would either have to go undercover, or be purposefully caught and taken prisoner so as to find out where her parents were being kept.

This rescue mission would require subterfuge and sneakiness, which none of them, Jesanae herself least of all, was very much suited to. She had an embarrassing tendency to punch first and ask questions later, and couldn’t lie her way out of a paper bag, especially when she was angry. She weighed the skills of the others in the group. Sora was her current favorite, with Mimi and Jou tied for a close second. Leadership skills Taichi might have, but he was fully as terrible a liar as Jesanae, and though Hikari was plain, unobtrusive, and knew when to be quiet, her overprotective brother would never allow her to be the one to go in. Yamato had a volatile temperament and an entirely too-stubborn attitude. Koushiro was a blusher, especially when he didn’t know what to say. Takeru was as out of the question as Hikari. That left three halfway-decent candidates: Sora knew how to lie, and was fairly self-effacing, which made her the best choice; Mimi and Jou would both be so nervous that it was doubtful the enemy would get anything coherent out of them even if they forgot to mislead. Even if Mimi kept her head (there wasn’t much chance that Jou would), she might be able to temporize by doing what she did best—chattering about things nobody cared about.

Taichi is going to blow up me for saying any of this. Yamato won’t be happy, either. But if I know Sora, which I might not, it’s possible she’ll agree with me.

As it happened, she was right.

“No way,” Yamato exploded when the next morning she outlined her ideas. “You can’t send Sora in there to get captured on purpose! In case you haven’t noticed, the Dark Masters don’t want to capture us, they want to kill us! No fucking way!”

Jesanae looked at him sharply. “You used one of my words!”

He ignored her. “It’s way too dangerous!” he insisted.

“If you have a better idea, I’d like to hear it!”

“That’s not the issue!”

“I think Jesanae is right. From what we’ve seen, they love to gloat. And Piedmon will be the most interested in you and Jesanae, since you’re supposed to be dead. If you go in with me, and follow my lead on what to say, we should all three be safe enough. I think,” Sora amended her speech.

The other girl shook her dark head. “I don’t trust my temper. Maybe you and Yamato—”

“No!” Takeru cried, clasping onto his brother’s arm. “Not Yamato!” Hikari, off to one side listening, nodded.

“Are any of you actually thinking about what you’re saying?” demanded Taichi incredulously. “We can’t send any of us in to get captured! The only way we can pull this off is to beat them! If all our Digimon Digivolve, we should be able to get in long enough to rescue Jesanae’s parents, and that’s all we need!”

Jesanae looked at him sourly, a bitter twist to her lips. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve been getting your asses kicked so far when it comes to the Dark Masters. What happened to me and Yamato was no exception, according to what you told us. I’d really rather not die again.”

Taichi flinched. “You won’t.”

“If we go waltzing into their stronghold with something less than half the strength we need to win, you can safely bet we’ll all die.”

“I said you won’t!” His voice was angry now. “I’m the leader here,” he said after a moment of silence. “I’ll decide what to do. And I won’t let you put Sora in danger!”

Koushiro, obviously about to add his piece, stared at the other boy, surprised into silence. Mimi put a hand to her mouth.

“Why not?” Jesanae demanded. “You know it’s our only chance! Why are you so much against this? And I want the truth, Kamiya!”

“For one thing, she’s a girl!”

The amber eyes narrowed. “So. You think that matters.”

“I mean I won’t send her to get killed!”

“You couldn’t send your own ass a postcard! I knew you were an idiot, but up until now I haven’t heard one peep out of you that made me think you were an arrogant bastard! The fact that she’s a girl has nothing to do with anything! I’m a girl, and I can kick your ass ten ways to Wednesday!”

“That’s not what I meant! I’m not saying she couldn’t do it! I’m saying she shouldn’t have to!”

“How chivalrous of you.” She curled her lip.

“If she gets captured, she’ll get tortured or something!”

The tone in his voice unexpectedly mollified her; he really sounded afraid. “Fine. I see what you mean. But don’t ever say it that way again unless you want my fist in your face.”

Jou broke in, clearly confused. “What are you two arguing about? I don’t get what you mean.”

Unexpectedly, Jesanae heard herself laugh. “Oh, I just accused Taichi of being stupider than he actually is. An honest mistake.”

“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Koushiro reminded them. “I was about to agree with Sora. This may be our best chance to rescue Jesanae’s parents.”

“But what about getting them out?” Yamato asked, finally putting a word in. “It’s easy to get captured. How are they gonna escape?”

There was a pause, and Jesanae had the grace to blush. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I was hoping you guys would have some suggestions.”

The computer expert blinked. “I thought that was obvious.”

“Um, what’s going on?” Mimi asked blankly. “Yamato, what’s he mean?”

The blonde was nonplused, plainly wondering why she was asking him. “I dunno, Mimi. What do you mean, Koushiro?”

Koushiro pushed his laptop closed. “We’ve sent our Digimon in undercover before. Why not now? With a few of them pretending to work for Piedmon, Sora and Jesanae will be able to get in, locate the prisoners, and then signal for the Digimon to spring them. Once they’re free, they can all escape with the Digimon protecting them. The rest of us will be waiting to cover their retreat.”

“Hey, I already said I shouldn’t go!” Jesanae protested. No one paid attention.

“That’s a great idea, Koushiro!” Jou said, leaning forward with real interest now. “That just might work!”

“I already said no!” Taichi exploded, tired of being ignored. “It’s a stupid idea and we’re not doing it!” He looked as if he might punch Jou if he disagreed.

“Shut up, Kamiya! You’re overruled!” Jesanae snapped, her bad temper returning. “You might have had a point about being tortured, but if she’s willing to do it, you can’t tell her not to!”

“You shut up! I’m the leader!”

“You’re an ass, is what you are!”

“Don’t call me that!”

“I’ll call you that and more, moron!”

Agumon edged towards the group of humans. “Hey, cool it!” he said nervously.

“You shouldn’t be fighting!” added Lyeernmon.

Taichi ignored them entirely, but Jesanae was startled out of her anger. She leaned to her right to look past the furious brunette. “Do you have any ideas?” she asked the group of Digimon who stood silently near them.

“Huh?” said Taichi. He looked surprised.

“Who, us?” Tentomon responded.

“Yeah, you. We’ve been leaving you out of everything for the past three days, and you haven’t said anything about it. But I wanna know what all of you think.”

The group of digital monsters looked uniformly uncomfortable. Gomamon spoke up after a pause. “We didn’t want to be in the way. You’ve all been really upset, and we didn’t know what to do.”

All of the Digidestined looked shocked, then guilty, and their Digimon partners went hesitantly over to them to sit down in the circle. Sora, Jesanae, Takeru and Mimi hugged their Digimon, while the rest of the guys rubbed the backs of their heads contritely. “Have I really been ignoring you, Palmon?” Mimi asked.

“Well, maybe a little,” the plant Digimon temporized.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” The girl hugged Palmon again.

“Aw, it’s okay, Mimi.”

“I’m sorry too, Patamon,” Takeru apologized.

“And me,” Taichi said.

“I guess all of us are,” said Jou. “We really have been leaving you guys out.”

Gabumon smiled. “No hard feelings, right, guys?”

They chorused assent, and everyone smiled, for the moment feeling better.

Yamato looked up and frowned, restoring the discussion. “I still don’t like this idea. There has to be a better way.”

Sora climbed to her feet. “We can talk about this more later. Right now we should get going; we wanna get to Spiral Mountain as soon as we can. We can ask the Digimon about their ideas on the way.”

Everyone agreed to this, and they were on their way. Jesanae and Taichi exchanged one last hostile glance, acknowledging that their argument wasn’t over. There was identical anger—and identical fear—in their eyes.

* * *

Jesanae walked down a long, straight corridor. It was windowless and door-less, just a simple path that led in only one direction.

“Where the hell am I?” Jesanae asked herself softly, staring into the darkness in front of her. She could see maybe a hundred feet down the hallway, but beyond that was nothing but black.

Continue . . . came a soft call. Jesanae nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard it. The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.

“What?” Jesanae yelled into the darkness. “What do you mean?”

Continue to the end, and you will see . . .

“I hate disembodied voices . . .” Jesanae muttered to herself before continuing forward.

It took her nearly an hour by her count, but she finally came to the end of the corridor. Breathing hard and slightly perspiring, Jesanae took in the sight that beheld her.

The corridor ended in a dead-end, but against the wall in front of her was a statue. The figure was a human wearing deep blue sorcerer robes with red patterns stitched into them. The person wore a choker with a beautiful violet stone set at the throat. Jesanae gaped at the figure.

“Those are my eyes . . .” she said almost dreamily, staring at the statue. “And that’s Yamato’s hair. What the fu—” A sudden noise behind Jesanae made the girl spin around.

There was another figure behind her, not a statue this time, but a living, breathing creature. Jesanae could see nothing of the creature, except for the hooded blue cloak that shrouded the entire figure. The cloak was held together by a blood-red stone set in a gold casing.

“Who are you?” Jesanae asked.

“A figment of your imagination,” the figure replied in a soft, raspy voice.

“Really?” Jesanae said, resting a hand on her slim hip. “So you’re not real?”

“Not exactly,” the figure said, relaxing its stance a bit, allowing the cloak to fall open, revealing the creature’s body.

It was a girl, Jesanae could tell that much easily. She looked to be about fourteen or fifteen and was wearing a long-sleeved black body suit without legs. She wore a pair of soft boots that appeared to be made of the same material as the cloak, and had a belt made up of more blood stones like that one that held the cloak together. Jesanae could still not see her face because of the hood.

“I am real, but I am not real right now. Do you understand?” the girl asked.

“Yeah,” Jesanae answered, “you’re like projecting yourself into my dreams or something.” She glanced over her shoulder at the statue. “So, are you responsible for our friend back there?”

“Not yet, but I will be,” the girl replied. “In order to recover what was lost, but must be found again, you will come here, to this place, to me.”

“Why?”

“To discover the truth. You and Yamato are more important to this world’s existence, and to my own, than you know. You will come here and take this—” at this, the girl pointed to the stone holding her cloak together, “—from me. You need it to discover the truth, but I cannot simply give it to you. You must fight me for it.”

Jesanae studied the girl. “You know, the bad guys don’t usually come bearing exact instruction on how to beat them.”

Jesanae thought she could sense the girl smile. “Then I guess I’m not a very good bad guy, or not a bad guy at all, am I?”

“I don’t know yet. I don’t know what’s going on at all,” Jesanae said, shaking her head.

The girl turned and began walking away. Suddenly she stopped and turned back to Jesanae. “Also, Taichi is quite a nuisance, isn’t he? He will stand between you and Yamato and the truth. In time, you may need to destroy him. Talk with Yamato, he will help you.”

“But how?” Jesanae called after the girl. “How can he help me?”

The girl replied, “Because I’m in his dreams right now as well, telling him where his jewel can be found.”

* * *

Jesanae bolted awake, sweating profusely and breathing hard in the darkness. Her heart pounded in her chest, threatening to explode in adrenaline-induce frenzy. She slowly turned her head to the left, just in time to meet Yamato, who was turning his head to the right. Their eyes locked and they muttered, “The girl . . . you too? . . . What was that . . .?”