The Gatekeeper by The Gatekeeper Chapter 1 "Misty? Hey, Misty! Rise and shine!" Ash shook his best friend a little and, after a few encouraging words of coming to, Misty, who seemed not to be having the best of slumbers, began to stir and awake. "Wha? Oh, hi Ash. Have a good sleep?" she said, a little nervous. "Not really, but I got in a good few hours. Why do you ask?" "Well, it's just that... something's not right here. It feels as though something's missing, or maybe everything's just not the same." Misty propped her head up with one hand and let the other out of her sleeping bag, and she toyed with the grass a little while she talked. "Like what?" he eyed her oddly, rather concerned that a change in her or the setting had totally slipped his mind, or that everybody's favorite villains, Team Rocket, had something to do with this sunny morning. "Like the fact that Pikachu is exactly nowhere in sight," Misty responded, somewhat up-set that she couldn't see Ash's banana-coated friend, but also happy that Ash overlooked something so obvious. "But that's imposs-" Ash paused to look around in every which way, and sure enough, the little yellow companion couldn't be seen. Ash glanced high and low, searching every tree branch, rummaging through every bush, investigating every hill and valley, but the lemon-colored Pikachu was in none of these places. "Pikachu!" he called out, with high hopes that Pikachu would call back to its master, and in a flash Misty was out of her sleeping bag and helping to call for Ash's first Pokemon. At first, the calls were totally fruitless, but after the third pair of yelps the crackling of stray branches between someone's footsteps could be heard. Ash cautiously turned around and began to say something when he was halted by the resounding recital of the worst poem he'd want to hear right now. "Prepare for trouble!" Jesse shouted out proudly. "And make it double!" James chimed in, equally as forceful with his words. "To protect the world from devastation!" "To unite all peoples within our nation!" "To denounce the evils of truth and love!" "To extend our reach to the stars above!" "Jesse!" "James!" "Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!" "Surrender now, or prepare to fight!" "Meowth!" the white cat shouted as he descended from the trees, sporting his catty, sharp-toothed smile and his nasty, dangerous claws. "That's right!" "Listen, guys, I don't really have time for this, so could you kindly get your butts out of here so I can FIND my Pikachu, and then you can come back and commit another failure in trying to steal him!" "Well, young twerp," Jesse said with a half-grin on her face, "you won't have to look very far." "That's because we got 'im!" Meowth declared, holding a tied-up and taped- up Pikachu with such pride that you could have sworn he won a million dollars. "Ppkkachhu!" was the muffled yell emanating from the struggling Pikachu, and Meowth put on little rubber paw gloves just before Pikachu attempted a lethal Thunderbolt attack on the kidnappers. The rubber absorbed all the electricity, and unfortunately for Ash and com-pany, Team Rocket was left unharmed by the potentially massive shock. "Hey, give us back Pikachu!" Misty shouted after them, not wanting the bandits to steal off with her smallest, most electrifying friend or Ash's first Pokemon. "Let's cut the chatter," James advised the rest of the gang and himself. "Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again," he said happily as the team turned and prepared to make their escape, but not a second after James faced the opposite direction was he met with a skillful and powerful punch to the skull, causing him to crumple to the ground, unconscious. Jesse made a quick note of this and tried to attack the assailant, but she shared the same fate and James had, and the mangy cat Meowth was thrown about twenty feet into a nearby tree, and all three Team Rocket members were incapacitated. With careful hands, the man untied Pikachu and gently removed the tape before picking him up and bringing it back to its grateful owner. Pikachu's rescuer wore complete attire of black and solid blue, with a long black cloak and hood tailing behind him and midnight pants and boots to go with it. His black and blue un-dershirt was partly concealed by the cloak flapping in the breeze, and a tight black belt fitted with many weapons was snug below this shirt. The man's skin was nearly pale, his eyes icy blue, his hair somewhat long, needle-thin, and dark in color, and his figure solid and only two inches taller than Ash, who had the same height advantage nowadays over Misty. He walked over to the duo, his footsteps silent on the forest floor, his eyes dancing from Ash to Misty, and in a surprisingly soft voice, he asked Ash, "Is this your Pikachu?" Pikachu answered with a light hop from the man's hands to its trainer's shoulder, and Ash said with gratitude, "Thanks a lot, I owe you one. What's your name?" The stranger walked approximately ten feet away from Ash, Misty and Pikachu before turning back and saying, with mysterious assurance, "That is of no importance. But I guar-antee our paths will cross again." Upon finishing that statement, he disappeared into the woods, leaving Ash to wonder who he was, why he had saved Pikachu and, most importantly, when their "paths would cross again." Misty wiped a tear from her eye. Meanwhile, in a completely different world, Sora and Matt were inching closer toward wanting to collapse into the soil, as rest seemed as if it was something not to be had for a week. They had been walking for many miles, only stopping once in the day for a drink and lunch, and as the sun sank they wondered in a quiescent fashion whether or not they could ever return to their old lives. Ever since they had become two of the eight "Digi-destined", their lives had been turned upside-down, and despite their affections toward their Digimon and the company they constantly provided, the old times were certainly more desirable. Now, with Tai, Kari, Mimi, Izzy, Joe and T.K. all off on the other side of the world, as it often seemed, and the Digimon also among the abundance of missing things, they couldn't know what to expect. "Well, at least we haven't run into any of the evil Digimon," Matt stated and breathed a sigh of relief at the thought. "Otherwise, we'd be in a whole lot of trouble without Gabumon and Biyomon to protect us and those lousy black gears flying around." "You betcha," Sora voiced, her legs growing tired from all the walking. "Besides, I don't have my lucky hat with me, and I guess I lost that when we all got separated, so it's really a miracle that we haven't encountered any danger yet." The two continued on through the rugged terrain for another half-hour before Matt spot-ted a good campsite, and so they tossed down their sleeping bags and gear, and Sora held down the fort while Matt went fishing for dinner. She got a good fire going with some stray sticks and one of the many matches she carried in her backpack, and she tended to the fire for a few minutes before Matt returned, sporting a half-dozen fish to be feasted upon for dinner. Matt impaled one of the fish with a stick and handed it to Sora, and then repeated the process so that they could actually get somewhere closer to a decent meal. Sora sat on the far end of her sleeping bag, holding the fish-stick a good foot over the flames, while Matt stayed standing, letting the flames partly lick the fish he was hoping to devour soon. Fifteen more minutes of time passed through the area, and cold wind took its place, once causing Sora to shiver despite the warmth the fire produced for the lonely pair. The fish were cooked well because of the fire's intensity, and Matt chewed on his first fish as if tomorrow would never come, but Sora had a more controlled appetite for whole fish. She poked at it a little, took a test bite, and soon just kept on eating until the fish's bones were as bare as possible. They quickly stuck another fish with the same sticks they had used before, and held them closer to the fire so that they may eat the second one a little faster. "Five bucks says Tai would just grab the fish and toast it with his hand if he were here," Matt cracked, and Sora laughed loudly at the thought of Tai risking his fingers just to get a nice-tasting fish. Tai had done that once in the past, and probably would have had to count his fingers when he was finished cooking his meal had Matt not showed him a way to save his hand and eat well in addition. Still, this brought even another wave of homesickness over Sora when the humor left, for she probably missed Tai and the others more than her regular life before the whole Digital Monsters thing came around. When the angelfish were suffi-ciently ready to be eaten, Sora took a few bites while she thought about the others, and just put it back down and declared she was filled. "Do you mind if I take the remains of that one?" Matt queried, trying not to force too much on her but have a good meal as well, and Sora nodded her head once in response and hugged her knees to her chest, thinking. She thought for a long while, not even paying atten-tion to Matt making a true meal out of his findings, and decided to doze off in her sleeping bag before anything else bad could possibly happen. Soon she was sound asleep under the majestic starlit night, and once Matt finished his fourth fish he wandered over to the sleep-ing Sora and stood over her for awhile. The fire slowly dissipated as the chilling air savagely bit at the landscape, though the shield of the surrounding trees took most of the blow, and Matt knelt down beside his sleeping guest, so innocently peaceful. A particularly frigid gust caught Sora shivering once more, and Matt temporarily removed one glove and gingerly touched her cheek with his palm, watching her every breath, and it was many minutes before Matt decided himself that sleep was the best option now. He settled into his sleeping bag, eyes gazing at the wonderful sky, and in a short five minutes he, too, fell asleep under the cold blanket of the sky and the warm hope for tomorrow. It was a good hour before a stranger clad in a flowing black came walking through the for-est, trying his best not to make a sound as the wind snapped violently at everything in exis-tence. He took out a small piece of paper and a pen, and promptly began to write something very short on the paper, and then slipped the pen back into his pants pocket. Also, he held a round-shaped item in his right hand, which he dusted off with a breath as he approached Sora, who was completely off in Dreamland and had no idea of the man's presence. The black- clothed figure silently dropped to a knee and slipped the round object over Sora's head, careful not to wake her, and folded up the note to place into her pocket. He stared at her face for a minute, intrigued, before he tore off into the woods unnoticed by neither Matt, who slept only five feet from where he was, or Sora, the object of his return. Ash, Misty, and Pikachu, who was riding shotgun for the time being on Ash's head, stepped lightly among the path that was currently leading to the edge of the woods and the Carmine City Pokemon Center. "Hey Misty, when's the last time you heard of Carmine City?" "I never heard of it before we saw that sign a couple miles back," Misty supplied, taking out her map. "And according to this map, which we got only a few months ago, these woods lead to nothing but more woods. Well, you can see the lights of the city not too far out there, so my guess is it's a new development or something." "Hey, kid!" a boy about Ash's age shouted from behind them, and Ash instinctively whirled around, clutching a Pokeball, ready to fight if the situation persisted, but soon he recognized the running boy. "Damien? It's been awhile!" Ash spotted the distinct features of the boy with the hard accent he met all of four and a half years ago. Damien's Charmander was abandoned, and the small, yet powerful, little fire lizard decided to travel as Ash's Pokemon when it realized Damien's plans to leave it alone in the world. Charmander eventually evolved to Charmeleon and then to Charizard, and though it used to constantly disobey Ash, especially causing Ash to lose in the fifth round of his Pokemon League debut, Ash learned to control it. "Yeah, quit your yappin'," Damien smartly said in his hard accent when he caught up with Ash. "I challenge you to a Pokemon match, three on three!" "Ha! I accept your challenge," Ash happily accepted with a flare in his eyes, and Misty stood to the sidelines as the battlefield lines were drawn. A small crowd began to gather to watch the match, possibly some of the inhabitants of Carmine City, and so the battle began. "Go, Ivysaur!" Damien shouted loudly, and the flowery grass Pokemon appeared in front of him, crying, "Ivy!" "This ought to be quick," Ash spoke confidently as he turned his hat backwards and grabbed a Pokeball from his belt. "Cloyster, I choose you!" "Cloyster!" the bivalve Pokemon echoed inside its extremely hard shell. "Not only are you a moron at regular life, but you're equally stupid at Pokemon!" Damien yelled over to Ash, taunting him. "Ivysaur, Razor Leaf! Slice that Cloyster to bits!" "Ivy!" the Ivysaur cried happily as it summoned razor-sharp leaves to propel at the de-fending Cloyster. "Cloyster, prepare to launch your Ice Beam after the leaves hit you!" Ash advised his Pokemon, so Cloyster just stuck tight and let the Razor Leaf attack hit, only slightly dam-aging it despite its weakness to the grass element. Upon feeling the impact of the attack, Cloyster unloaded with a beam of solid ice, which froze the Ivysaur promptly and caused Da-mien to grunt in frustration. "Ooh, I'll show you! Return, Ivysaur!" A thin beam of red light shot out from the Pokeball Damien held, which sucked the frozen plant Pokemon back into its sanctuary. "Electabuzz, take this Cloyster to school!" The ape-like electric Pokemon pounded its chest in approval and immediately started to launch its Thunder Punch attack upon Cloyster. "Cloyster, return!" and the Cloyster escaped immense pain from the powerful attack as it disappeared into the Pokeball a fraction of a second before Electabuzz could strike. "Dugtrio, take him out!" Ash tossed out the Pokeball releasing the triple mole Pokemon, and on Ash's call, it dug into the earth, thus avoiding any attack that could have proved effective against it. Electabuzz looked around in confusion for a second before the Dig attack blasted Electabuzz backward, and then the Earthquake attack that Dugtrio skillfully utilized finished off the challenger's electric Pokemon. "I can't believe this!" Damien wondered aloud as he called Electabuzz back, and he pulled out his final chance for a win from his belt and held it tightly in his hand. "Choose your Pokemon first!" he dared Ash. "As you wish," Ash's face lit up in approval as he tugged another Pokeball from his waist after calling back the victorious Dugtrio. "It's time for a reunion! Charizard, go!" Ash wisely threw out the massive fiery Pokemon, and it snorted a mixture of fire and smoke when it saw its old trainer. "Now I'll show you why I abandoned you! Machamp, pound this Charizard into the ground!" Damien simultaneously released the Pokeball holding the muscular, four-armed beast as he spoke his final word, and he commanded his final Pokemon to use the Karate Chop to de-stroy Charizard. "Charizard, use your Flamethrower and finish him off quick!" Ash ordered, and the winged demon blew out a titanic wave of fire from its mouth, toasting the Machamp as if it were breakfast. Damien called back the medium-rare Machamp and ran back into the woods as quickly as possible, and as he disappeared, Ash dusted off his hands triumphantly and called back Charizard. As Damien faded into the seemingly endless forest, sounds of clap-ping began to emanate from some of the crowd members, with Misty leading the applause. Ash's face began to gain a slightly pinkish tint as he reattached Charizard's Pokeball to his inhabited belt and took a gentlemanly, but not overly conceited, bow for everyone. "Stupendous job, Master Ash!" Misty spoke mockingly and appraisingly as the applause began to die, and then she joined the victorious trainer and his furry Pokemon on their lacka-daisical ten-minute journey to the Carmine City Pokemon Center. The lights of this quaint but active development were small enough to be easily navigated and big enough to enjoy a much-needed break from nature's cottage. Whistling his favorite tune, and walking with his head unsubstantially higher after his battle with Damien, Ash soon found himself turning the doorknob of the recognizable safe haven of the Pokemon Center. "Welcome, visitors!" Nurse Joy gleefully greeted Pikachu, Misty, and Ash nearly as soon as they first set foot on the sterling-colored floor of the Pokemon Center. "Hi, Nurse Joy," Ash said half-repetitively, half-pleasantly when he heard the young nurse's greeting, and he shunned off Joy's wondering of whether or not they'd met before with a shake of the head. "If you wouldn't mind rejuvenating my Pokemon and hers," Ash said, pointing a thumb toward Misty, "you'd be a huge help to us." "Anything to heal a Pokemon," Joy smiled with her words as she motioned for two Chan-seys to carry the trays with Ash's and Misty's Pokeballs and Pikachu to the healing room, which the puffy egg Pokemon did without second thought. "Oh, I almost forgot," she re-minded herself out loud as she reached into her pocket and emerged with a note folded into quarters, and she held it out to Ash. "A man dressed in black came by about five minutes ago, and he was looking for a boy with a Pikachu and a redhead girl, which I presume are you two. I told him I hadn't seen him, so he just handed me this note and asked me if I'd give it to you if I saw you, so this is yours and you can come back in twenty minutes to get your Poke-mon." "Hey, thanks Nurse Joy!" Ash exclaimed as he commandeered the note and began to exit the Pokemon Center, with Misty eagerly on his trail. He and his crimson-haired companion went back into the security of the forest to read the note, and Ash slowly opened the note and began to read silently, with Misty looking on over his shoulder. Dear Friends, I told you our paths would cross again. First of all, I would like to congratulate you both on reaching Carmine City, and especially praise you, Ash, for defeating the boy you call Damien, for that was quite an impressive show. In addition, I think that one of you knows a little more about me than you'd like to convince yourself, but pretty soon any fears you had of yourself about me will diminish. Ash shrugged and looked at Misty, who was holding back emotions well and keeping a straight face, and then they turned back to the note. My advice to both of you is to rent Room 223 from the hotel about a mile east from the Pokemon Center, for it will definitely change your journey for the better. Also, it will make my encounter with you and the others worthwhile, which is surely the reason you met me in the first place. If, and hopefully when, you show up, I guarantee my presence there, so if you want to see me again, make it a point to stop by and spend the night. ~______________ This left Ash and Misty with at least twice as many questions as they had about this man before tonight. Who were the others, and was there really a necessity to meet up with them? Who is this man, why didn't he sign his name in the closing, and most importantly, what's his specific business with us? And finally, why do they have to rent Room 223 at the downtown hotel? Ash was puzzled, as most could expect of him, but Misty wasn't curious as to who this man truly was, for an underlying meaning existed between the two, and not even Ash himself could figure out exactly what. "Well, I guess we're leaving," Ash commented as he stretched, stood upright, and began to trudge toward the hotel. "Don't leave without me," Misty said solemnly, and the two stopped by the Pokemon Cen-ter to have their healthy Pokemon returned, which went by swiftly. Pokeballs attached, Pi-kachu aboard, and a massive mystery waiting, Ash and company journeyed on in the general direction of the aforementioned "hotel", whose lights were extremely bright and visible from a hefty distance. Misty didn't bother to read the name of the hotel, but began running toward the hotel at blazing speed, with Ash trailing behind, and he eventually stopped to wonder why Misty was so obsessed with reaching the hotel. She bolted through the front revolving door, slammed forty dollars onto the desk, grasped the keys for Room 223, and dashed up the stairs toward the man who she couldn't stand not to see. Her hand was shaking violently as she unsteadily reached for the key and stuck it into the doorknob, slowly turning it left, and then she yanked the key back out as soon as the door unlocked. She was about to take the doorknob to find what she'd been searching for, but surprisingly, the door flew open just before she could open it herself. However, she wasn't frightened by this gesture, and stood unmoving as the door flung open, and the first thing her eyes spotted was the mysterious man in the ebony folds, sitting on the bed and facing the window on the room's opposite side. She took one step into the room, trying her hardest not to make any sounds whatsoever, but as soon as her foot touched the rugged second-story floor, the figure said, "Beautiful night, isn't it?" Misty, a bit taken aback by his remark, only stated, "Yes." "There's no need to be formal with me," the blue-eyed fellow replied casually, standing to his full height and whirling around to face her, his inky cloak twirling in a clockwise fashion. His intense blue pupils searched her face for any emotion or reason to come unattended, and continued, "Can't stand not to know, can you?" She didn't reply for a couple of seconds, and he went on in her place, saying, "I figured from the beginning you'd be that kind of girl. There's no reason to be scared of me, since I don't bite or anything like that, so come and sit down over here." Somewhat surprised by his gesture, she obediently complied with his re-quest and had a seat toward the foot of the bed, the window within arms' reach, and he sat down next to her, but kept his distance. "You know there's a definite reason why you're here before your friend is, Misty," the man spoke, and if Misty hadn't been so deathly afraid of him at that very moment, she would have jumped a meter and run screaming into the hall. "But my guess is that you don't really know yourself, and for some strange reason you had to get here early to find out who I really am," and Misty just nodded. "Yes, two years ago, I was that man you saw in Team Rocket Headquarters, and yes, I did come only because I felt your wave of danger. I've got no an-swers for my actions, but whatever damage it caused to the world couldn't have been irrepa- rable, since you're still around and you've got no visible handicaps." "You know, I never really got the chance to thank you," Misty said, wiggling her toes inside her shoes and playing with her thumbs, and her nervousness could be sensed by her new-found companion. "You just kinda flew off as soon as it was over, and I wish you'd have stuck around for a little while, but I'd just like you to know just how indebted I am." "No problem, Misty," he said, half-smiling, and then pursued the subject by saying, "By the way, if my calculations are correct, that's two years tomorrow that we first met." If it weren't for his serious look, she would have thought him to be figuratively pulling her leg, and then she thought back to that fateful March night where her life changed forever. The entire sequence relayed itself again in her mind, and when water began to trickle down her face, the stranger lifted his index finger to catch her tear, and she turned to him and embraced him in a huge hug. He returned the hug with about half as much enthusiasm, which was quite a lot considering Misty's forceful grip, and whispered in her ear, "I just couldn't let you die." Ash eventually reached the hotel after a few minutes, and quickly explained to the middle-aged woman behind the front desk he'd been traveling with the girl who paid for the room and took off upstairs. Before he could leave, the woman shoved four ten-dollar bills back across the table and said, "Give this to your spunky friend. That room's already been paid for to-night by some guy waiting for a couple of kids and a Pikachu," and Ash gratefully accepted the money and scrambled up the stairs toward Misty and their mysterious jet-black friend. Approaching the room, his shoes clattering weakly along the hard tile floor, Misty released her lone companion from her squeezing hug when she recognized Ash's steps and attempted to regain herself, and a fraction of a second later his figure appeared in the doorway. "Remove your gloves and take this," the stranger suggested before Ash could finish his before-speech breath, and he tossed Ash a small, round, black object that strikingly resem-bled a marble for Ash to catch. He dutifully separated his gloves from his hands, placing them into his front shirt pockets, clasped grasped the marble-like contraband with both hands, tenderly enclosing it between his palms. The man also took Misty's hand, placed in it a similar circular object, despite its differentiating blue shade, and closed it for her, which she immediately retracted and drew into her chest as if the item were sacred. "Now, you must wait here together and I'll return in five minutes," he said, leapfrogging over the bed and tearing into the hall at breakneck speed, practically shifting time as he progressed into the hallway and evaporated into the air, which no stray humans spotted. When he materialized again, he was standing high in the shelter of the towering and healthily verdant trees, watching over a pair of travelers who were just awaking from a rather eventful night. One, who he recognized as the receiver of the note and object, began to stir in her sleeping bag, and eventually found her way to the real world. Her eyes popped open over time, and almost instantly her hands found their way up to whatever object now inhabited her scalp, which she soon found to be her long-lost lucky hat. She smiled her best smile when she was made aware of its presence, and her hands roamed their way into her pocket to fish out the note she wasn't even sure was there. Slowly opening it, she began to follow the in-structions on the note, turning into the forest on the southeast and taking twenty steps into the timberland, and as soon as she stopped a gloved hand covered her mouth, prevent-ing any screaming from shock. "Don't worry," he reassured so quietly that any harder wind would have taken his words to a faraway place, and he removed his hand very slowly, for his sureness of her reaction was shady, and she thankfully didn't make a peep. "Well, I think you just saved the both of us from a heap of trouble," he continued, and she turned around to face the cerulean-eyed man, whose face temporarily held a big smirk, but then turned to seriousness. "It really doesn't matter when or where I found your favorite hat, but what does matter is that you take these two bags and give the red one to Matt after you wake him up, and then you bring him back here." She investigated the miniscule green bag she'd been handed from the outside, then she turned quickly and dashed back to the campsite, softly shaking Matt's shoulder to bring him around. "Hey, Sora, you're up pretty early," Matt commented, barely seeing the sun's edges in the brightening sky, and she placed the red bag upon his stomach and motioned for him to fol-low as she returned to the woods. He clenched the bag in one gloved hand, flung himself up with his hands, and pursued Sora in her reentering of the woods, but he stopped when he no-ticed her talking to another being which he'd never seen before. "Matt and Sora, transport your gloves away from your hands, open the bags you pos-sess and hold the items inside each bag within your palms," the newcomer instructed, and the two confused teenagers did so. Matt's red jewel glimmered the brightest shade of scar-let he'd ever witnessed, and Sora's corresponding jewel had the most fascinatingly intense emerald color about it. "Now, so long as you don't move a muscle, you'll be fine," he advised, and almost instantaneously he saw two straight-backed kids stiff as concrete in front of him, even cautious of blinking. Upon watching this, the man whipped out a gun and fired two shots, one for each adolescent, and the gun's ammunition splashed upon their bodies in an ocean of whiteness, and they abruptly disappeared from the scene. "At least you made it easy," he smiled smugly, and precisely as he had done less than five minutes ago, and no different than from what Matt and Sora recently experienced, he vanished. Reappearing in the exact hallway he'd visited before his departure, the same man ran hur-riedly through the hall, slid into the room Ash and Misty inhabited, and fired unerring shots at them as well. Though they weren't paying attention to anything but the jewels they held, the alien's reappearance was enough to make notice of, though they had no chance of eva-sion from the shots' dead accuracy. Right after Ash and Misty evanesced, Pikachu, who was not struck by either shot, also dissolved, but in a different way and ultimately to a different place from where his master was going. The assailant then turned the gun on himself and, pulling the trigger, nonchalantly creating a temporary yet direct path between hotel room 223 and the destiny of the world. "What just happened to us?" Sora wondered aloud, speaking to no one in particular, when she and Matt were hastily transported to a location where the only solid things in sight were the black floor and walls. Above, nothing but stars reigned over the sky, millions upon mil-lions of giant lightbulbs, and the otherwise black sky was illuminated by this countless amount of magnificent stars. Despite the titanic population of lightness in the heavens, there was still a vast portion of darkness that had a far greater size than the stars' area, which was really saying something. Matt and Sora still held the jewels, which glowed brighter than ever, and with his free hand Matt pressed upon the walls in an investigating manner, finding that they could neither be scaled to escape nor pushed over, for they somehow wouldn't budge. A few seconds later, a pair of teenagers from another world joined Sora and Matt in their ebony prison, also not aware of their surroundings or whether or not they'd ever see again after being fired at. Ash noticed Sora staring at the sky of bleakness and brightness to-gether, and she looked strikingly familiar in some sort, so he walked over and introduced himself, and got her name in exchange. In addition, Misty was doing her best to act innocent in case anyone else was there, and Matt approached her from behind, as if he'd known her from somewhere before, and they swapped quick greetings. Soon after everyone was friendly toward one another, and an engaging group conversation soon ensued about nothing impor-tant, and it probably would have continued had another not also entered the dark room. Ash immediately recognized the figure as the one who'd just shot the mysterious solu-tion upon him, which he pointed out to the rest of them, and the man was bombarded by a sea of questions, demands, and wild shouting. "Look everyone, you were never in danger of physical harm," the accused spoke over the quartet's roar, "so give me a minute to explain everything." Once everyone zipped their lips tight and listened attentively, he continued, say-ing, "The solvent I sprayed at you had to be ejected from a gun, for drinking it would be highly poisonous. Its purpose is to teleport the target to a predetermined place, which I bet you've figured out already, and now that we're all together, you'll be told the meaning of your jewels. "First of all, Matt, you hold the Crimson Stone of Fire, which allows you to summon the powers of the ultimate fire monster, and is also very influential in your quests to follow. Misty, your Sapphire Jewel of Water allows you to call upon the strength of water and its goddess, and it's also the second of the Five Jewels of Creation that are necessary in this operation. Sora, your Emerald Jewel of Remedy gives you the ability to cure yourself and your friends to a certain extent, which can be classified as the third Jewel of Creation as well. Fi-nally, Ash here possesses the Raven Jewel of Destruction, which you could probably decipher the meaning of, and it just so happens to be the fourth Jewel of Creation. When we reach the gate that separates your worlds, we'll need the power of all five jewels to be able to pass through and begin our mission." "Well then, who are you and where's the fifth jewel?" Misty asked, knowing that there would be no avoiding the question this time. Slowly reaching into his pants pocket, he removed the white-and-black jewel that he had always carried around there, and displayed it to the awestruck children, whose pupils were fixated on the pulsating jewel of magical proportions. He said, "This is the Portal Stone of Twilight, and my name is Vesper, but I'm just the gatekeeper." Eventually, he got around to removing his black finger gloves and securing it beneath his cream-colored hands, but as soon he did a mysterious light glowed from each jewel corresponding to the jewel's tincture. The lights converged onto one central area in the room, which yielded a spiral black portal, and Vesper, the esoteric human whose techniques summoned the pathway to another world, lightly spoke, "After you." End of Chapter 1 Whaddaya think? E-mail me at David8285@aol.com and let me know! As you read this, I'm working on at least the second part, so in case you actually think this hunk o' junk is any good, I can guarantee a sequel! Until our paths cross again… au revoir!