I hate to do this again to you guys, but I heard in school while I was talking about this fic that "The 
Gatekeeper" was a character from a Ghostbusters movie or something like that. I've never even heard of 
the movie, much less anybody in it, so I never meant to clash my title with something that's already 
copyrighted: sorry. But if I change the title, that'll take a lot of thinking to come up with a replacement, 
and then nobody will know what this fic is or who I  am. So in everybody's best interests, this will remain 
as "The Gatekeeper" unless the issue presses, and then and only then I will change it.


Chapter 4 - Memories


	"Hey Vesper, I think she's waking up," Matt whispered aside to a close relation of his 
counterpart, and Vesper nodded slightly and took three steps in her direction in order to kneel down 
beside her.

	Sora scrunched her retinas once, then twice, and then her eyes shot open, accompanied by the 
confused words, "How did I get here?", which Vesper acknowledged with a simple nod and a knowing 
grin. She pushed down on the ground with her hands, almost making it to a sitting position on the dirt, 
but then she collapsed back down and asked Vesper, "I think I bumped my head really bad on something."

	"It seems as if you're doing quite well for what appears to be a severe concussion," Misty 
commented, looking her over to make sure she didn't have any other injuries, "but I guess that could be 
expected from a toughie like you. In case you don't remember, since it probably knocked you out on the 
first shot, from what Vesper's been saying, Vinera drilled you right in the top of the head with a 
sledgehammer, so that basically did you in. Then she went after you in a psychic battle, and she demanded 
that the one with the stronger heart would live and the other would die, so obviously you won, and then 
the mobile you reentered the KO'd you. Then, as Vesper was carrying you out of that creepy place, I asked 
him why you only awoke the first time to his words, so he decided to drop the bombshell on us and tell us 
that he was your big bro."

	"I probably would have told you that myself," Sora replied thoughtfully, readjusting her hat and 
pushing herself up into a cross-legged, relaxed pose, "but I wasn't sure of myself until he was taking me 
out of there. And just to inform you, I can still picture everything as it happened, from being utterly 
smashed upside the head with a big hammer to that confusing battle above myself, and believe me when I 
say my head hurts just thinking about it." She started to attempt standing, but dizziness took over and 
forced her back into her exact position before, and she asked everyone, "If that huge rock almost squashed 
me, how did you manage to scale that strange excavation?"

	"Once Vinera was defeated, it opened a uphill path in the rock wall just outside her dwelling, so 
we walked out of there and, thanks to the light that started to take over, we could rediscover where we 
were going," Ash answered. "As a matter of fact, I'm pretty pooped myself, and I can tell that if there's 
anything you could need right now, it'd be a solid rest, so why don't we set up some kind of camp and chill 
for a couple of hours?"

	"I'm game," Misty agreed, already prepared to stretch out on the ground and stay awhile, and no 
one could argue with Ash's suggestion, so they all settled in beneath the ascending sun, which was finally 
making its appearance. Misty was resting her hands beneath her head, staring intently at the sky that was 
no longer filled with stars, and when Ash noticed this he decided to non-sarcastically imitate her and 
watch the atmosphere alter in color. Vesper kept to himself for a little while, sharpening his sword and 
replaying all the events of the day in his mind, and Matt sat at the edge of a pond about two hundred yards 
away, skipping rocks along the surface. Sora leaned back on her heels, almost wanting to stand up, but she 
suppressed the urge to retest her walking skills with the added effect of the concussion, took Ash's advice, 
and just chilled.

	Sora enjoyed some everyday things with sudden happiness: the sun alternating between viewing 
points and being shielded by leaves, a cool wind gently scanning the land, and the occasional splash of a 
stone in a faraway body of water. She spotted Ash and Misty about twenty or so feet away, gazing 
thoughtfully at the sky whose stars had been rendered invisible, and they were so enveloped in their 
inspection of a semi-cloudy atmosphere that she didn't even attempt conversing with them. Upon rotating 
her head halfway to her right, she also detected that Vesper, her brother of more than ten years' experience 
on top of hers, was busy making his sword fit for battle, if there was one or more in their future. Likewise, 
he was totally immersed in his sword-sharpening procedure, so Sora decided that with no one to worry 
about her when it wasn't necessary, she'd try her best to take a walk and hopefully make it over to Matt 
and his mastery of stone-skipping.

	She used a plentiful amount of might to press herself onto a knee, and then slowly she rose to 
stand, though a bit wobbly in doing so, and gradually walked over in the general direction of the large 
lake of clean water. Soft in stepping on the verdant grass and patches of impressible dirt, Sora took her 
sweet time in making it over to Matt's newfound sanctuary, where he gathered more rocks to skim across 
the water's surface. Approximately five minutes after her trek began, the speck that had represented Matt 
so far away was able to reach out and be touched, and rather than messing up his hair or anything casual 
like that, she just dropped on the dirt next to him.

	"How did you even make it over here?" he asked Sora, whose overly happy face made him 
wonder if the concussion was causing more than a little pain to her, but she batted his nose and dismissed 
his skeptical remark.

	"Oh Matt, if there were anyone that I'd think to always be worried about me, you'd promptly take 
the cake," she replied fondly, sitting up and taking a rock herself, which she caused to skip a good five 
times across the water.

	"I wish I could take a cake or something like that right about now," Matt said, with a side grin 
showing to Sora, "since it seems like the last time we ate, the world was actually normal in all possible 
ways. But apparently, nothing is going to revert back to the way it was before, which includes the whole 
Digital World crisis, our Digimon themselves, and whatever purpose we have with that guy Vesper. By 
the way, that really hit as a shocker for me, since I never knew you to have any close family besides your 
mom and dad, so what's the deal with you two being brother and sister?"

	"Yeah, Vesper is my brother," Sora said, temporarily trailing off to throw another stone, "and 
even though we've got barely eleven years between us now that I'm almost fifteen, we've got quite a history 
with one another."

	Matt suddenly softened inside, and the more he thought about what she said about her new 
sibling, the more he didn't want to force anything onto her, so he comfortingly said, "Look, if you don't 
want to say anything..."

	She looked back up to him, noticing that he was trying to be as nice as possible on what could 
have been a tender situation, and since she wasn't ready to say a word yet, she focused on the ground and 
whispered, "Thanks, Matt."

	Matt nodded his head once, and without shifting his eyes off of her, he again hummed a 
previously clutched rock across the surface of the abundance of crystal liquid, which had a perfect shape 
for its intentions. His soft glare never wavered as the oval assembly of granite finally plunged down into 
the water after seven full skips in its hurtle, and he said to Sora, with his eyes remaining locked on hers, 
"Top that."

	"It'll be a pleasure," she said, suddenly being gifted with the vigor to spring up, but just as she 
was about to throw the rock into the pond with that strength, the stone slipped out of her hand and she 
collapsed, lifeless, on top of Matt.

	"Sora, are you feeling all right?" he asked her, taking her off of himself and laying her onto the 
ground, and after shaking her a few times didn't work, he asked for the assistance of his friends in the 
form of a very loud scream. "Sora just collapsed!" he yelled above the top of his lungs as he waited for 
someone to come running, and instead of being useless in sitting there, he reverted to frantically shaking 
her by the shoulders and talking to her. "C'mon Sora, everybody needs you and we're empty inside when 
you're not around," Matt spoke normally in terms of resonance but anomalous in his tone, and he began 
fighting back tears, as this was the second case in ninety minutes where Sora's life hung in the balance. 
However, this time Matt was not about to feel as if the situation was hopeless, so he kept shouting as the 
others were nearing the site of the accident, and he kept trying to arouse Sora with the hopes that his 
empty space would be satisfyingly refilled.

	Finally, after at least a minute of being totally unaware of her surroundings, Sora's eyes slowly 
opened to see the face of Matt, who was still struggling to hide his emotion, and she smiled lightly to see a 
friendly face. "I'm sorry if I scared you there, but now I don't even know what's the matter with me," she 
said glumly, looking back on the situation and trying to imagine how upset Matt must have been at her 
collapsing sight. Matt let out an exhausted sigh, wondering whether or not Sora would survive the rest of 
the day at the rate she was proceeding toward disaster, and he leaned back onto his rear and palms to 
analyze her condition. Sora suddenly felt danger in some way, and her only instinct was to roll closer to 
Matt, the only person she had been truly close to recently, and he was surprised by her gesture but allowed 
her to grasp his shoulders in her fright.

	Eventually, the rest of the gang, led by Vesper and having Misty and Ash trailing no more than 
ten or fifteen feet behind him, rushed to her side, clueless as to the events that had taken place while they 
were away. Vesper put his palm on the ground as he slid to increase the friction, and he ended up right by 
her side to ask, "What happened to you, and how did you leave the campsite without someone noticing?"

	"Sora was over here to keep me company and she just collapsed right on top of me," Matt replied 
absent-mindedly, as his attention was on the spooked Sora and whatever had caused this change of 
emotion. "I'm surprised she could even make it over here this early after her being on the losing side of 
that nasty scuffle," he continued, coaxing her face toward his to get a clear view of her eyes as the others 
slowed to a halt. Her scared expression began to diminish when Matt's deep stare tried to pierce her pupils 
and find the cause of her fear, and her smirk was returned to her as she realized he was so concerned 
about her, and she messed up his hair for it. He beamed at her change of attitude in the matter, and he 
brushed it back into place and helped her up by using his body to lift her under her left arm, and though 
she hobbled for a bit she found her walking trend and let go of him.

	"All of you seemed to be so enveloped in your own personal stuff, and I didn't want to disturb 
you, plus I didn't need somebody else worried about me," Sora said, raising her voice and flashing a quick 
look at Matt. "I figured that I might as well try walking now, since I wouldn't know if I could or not if I 
didn't try it, so I took my sweet time getting over to Matt and his skipping of stones, and I suppose I made 
his day that much more interesting."

	"I don't even know you, and I'm starting to worry myself," Ash informed her, starting to think 
what he'd be feeling if he actually understood her like Matt did, if that was possible for anyone else to do. 
"First you get walloped in the forehead by a psycho wielding a sledgehammer, then Vesper and you are 
big brother and little sister, and now you black out on top of Matt, and I still have no clue what's going on 
with you."

	"You got that right," Vesper exclaimed in response to what Ash had said, but spoke to no one in 
particular, and Sora just laughed his comment off and told everyone they could go back to their pleasure 
activities.

	"I really meant it when I said I was sorry for blacking out on you like that," Sora said 
apologetically as the others left the site, leaving Matt and Sora alone to talk about the day, already 
abundant with key events. "When I jumped up, I felt a sharp pain in my head, probably from aggravating 
my headache with such action, my eyes crossed right after that, and I spent my last second of 
consciousness under the influence of gravity."

	"It's no problem, Sora: I'm just worried about you and I'm hoping that you're gonna be all right," 
Matt answered, making sure that she didn't put the blame of collapsing on him on her own shoulders. "I 
mean, when you went from smiling big and standing tall to being oblivious to fate in that short of a time, I 
really panicked because I remembered when it happened before, and I screamed for the others to help you 
out. They came running and I kept talking to you, trying to say the right word that would wake you up 
again, but I guess it wasn't as serious this time around, because you woke up after a minute or so, and you 
know the rest." As they both sat down on the soft grass near the lake, Matt suddenly zoned out on Sora, 
who actually wasn't saying anything anyway, and compared this occurrence to when this happened before, 
a long time ago.

	"Where are the others?" he heard a voice crying out into the pouring rain, and he matched the 
sound of this clearly audible question to Tai, who had Kari by his side, so he sprung to his feet and ran 
towards them in mud-soaked footsteps. The last thing that he had remembered was that he and the six 
other Digidestined were fighting one of the monsters on a cliffside, and were gaining the upper hand 
when a bolt of lightning shattered the sky. It was so unbelievably powerful that it split the side of the cliff 
in two, leaving the monster that they were battling on terra firma, and causing them to plunge a hundred 
feet into the mix of rocky woodland and raging waters. He thought that he would land in the ocean, about 
twenty feet from the forest green shoreline, when he lost his grip on reality and plunged into darkness and 
the sea, but he must have washed up on shore after he landed.

	Looking up, he spotted Izzy and T.K. stuck in one of the trees about ten feet out of his reach, and 
as Izzy climbed down on his own, Matt decided to fetch T.K. with helping hands, carrying him down the 
precariously steep tree trunk. Ikkakumon, who had digivolved to battle the unidentified evil Digimon, also 
had landed in the water far away from where Matt and the three other rediscovered Digidestined sat, with 
Joe and a drenched Mimi on his back. Patamon and Birdramon suffered no damage from the fall due to 
their flying abilities, and while Patamon's wings were a bit too small to carry someone, Birdramon was 
circling overhead, ready to pick someone up or tell the others of their location. Tai took a head count, and 
compiling the visible and relatively unharmed bodies of Matt, Mimi, Izzy, T.K., Joe, Kari, and himself, he 
was left with a result of seven, so he thought about it and realized that he was missing someone… Sora.

	"Matt, have you seen Sora since the fall?" the courageous leader asked his friend, his enemy, and 
his near-twin, and he shook his head and tore off in the opposite direction with the hopes of finding her. 
Gabumon and Palmon followed right behind him, while Kabuterimon joined Birdramon in the search 
from above, and Tai recruited Patamon, Gatomon, and Agumon to tag along with him on his quest to 
recover the missing companion. Patamon took to the skies just above the treetops, and Tai and Agumon 
ran just as frantically through the woods in the surrounding area to hopefully find an unhurt or at least a 
mostly intact Sora. Though Matt and Gabumon had split off from Palmon, who was swinging through the 
trees with her Poison Ivy attack, they had gotten nothing accomplished until Matt spotted a life-form 
through the branches and leaves. Sure enough, it was Sora, and she seemed to be all right, but upon closer 
inspection she was trembling against the side of the rocky cliff, fearing that she would be annihilated by 
the Digimon that stood before her.

	The evil black-and-silver thing that was staring at her with deep crimson eyes was a 
MetalVaromon, a horrible four-legged Digimon with razor-sharp talons and a temper as short as they 
come. Matt had the definite urge to scream for Sora to get away, and would quickly engage battle with the 
monster to ensure her safety, but Gabumon warned him that this one could snap in a bad way at any time. 
"It would be smarter if I could digivolve all the way to WereGarurumon without him noticing, so stay here 
and I'll be back as a lean, mean, fighting machine in no time," Gabumon whispered as he stole off back to 
Tai and company. A tear trickled down the left side of Sora's face while the menacing Digimon growled 
in a low voice and prepared to attack, but thankfully, he was unaware that Matt was behind him, which 
kept him from being provoked.

	Matt wanted so badly to dash over to Sora and kneel beside her, wiping the tears produced by her 
fear away, but he knew that with Gabumon gone, while a rescue mission was in the works, it was 
impossible to do. All he could do was clench his fists and use his eyes to plead with her to hang on, and 
her eyes wandered away from the nine-foot MetalVaromon to lock with his, wishing that something could 
be done. Though Matt's furry blue friend was only gone for about ninety seconds, it seemed like an 
eternity for the both of them, with one of them in extreme peril and the other swimming in an ocean of 
helplessness. WereGarurumon finally came back, not making a sound as he did his best to tiptoe between 
branches and twigs, but regardless of this, MetalVaromon snapped forward, tackling Sora with a mighty 
thrust into the side of the cliff. Matt completely froze when this happened, and as the steel-furred enemy 
raised its claw to slash directly at her broken body, WereGarurumon used his Wolf Claw to disperse of the 
threat and deflect the attack for the most part.

	Matt would have congratulated his friend, who was now de-digivolving back into Gabumon, for a 
great job in destroying their opponent, but Sora now had three broken ribs and a deep gash scored across 
her forehead. He raced right past Gabumon and cradled her limp frame in his arms, and as he began to 
scream for someone else to give him some help in the matter, Sora's helmet slipped off, revealing the six-
inch cut she had sustained. The rest of the Digidestined began to find their way through the forest maze, 
and one by one they began to surround the unconscious maiden and the teen by her side, each with their 
own emotion bottled up inside. Amazingly, through all the turmoil that had thrown her around like a rag 
doll, the one tear that she had shed out of dread stayed on her cheek, and while he wiped it away, saying, 
"I was too late,", he replaced it with one of his own.

	Sora stayed comatose for two full days, with Matt never eating, sleeping, or in any way leaving 
her side, and if she had known the hunger and sleep deprivation he had gone through for her, she would 
have torn at the seams. Finally, about three in the morning, more than two days after the attack, Sora 
began to toss and turn as if she were suffering through the worst nightmare of her life, and then her eyes 
shot open. Matt had begun to try and stop her while she was shaking, since she was already in bad enough 
condition, and he was grasping her shoulders while she fought off whatever was inflicting pain upon her 
mentally. When her pupils finally saw the miniscule light of the mid-morning sky, accompanied by an 
overjoyed Matt still clutching her shoulders, she stopped shaking immediately and just breathed in the air 
in gulps for the next five minutes.

	From what Matt could perceive, Sora was in as much emotional pain as she was physical, and 
after whatever had gone on inside her head while she was out, her exterior agony must have hit her like a 
ton of bricks. Despite the fact that her broken ribs hampered everything she did, especially the breathing 
process, she still managed to overcome this rather large discomfort as if she was being killed right before 
she awoke. "Stay right here, Sora," Matt told her after she had a normal breathing rhythm back, and he 
raced back to camp to inform the others that not only would Sora make it, but she was back with the real 
world in full, and that was all anyone could ask for.

	"What was everyone doing while I was unconscious?" someone asked, breaking Matt's grasp on 
his reverie, and he looked at Sora strangely, but she just smiled knowingly and pursued her question.

	"All right, how did you know that's what I was thinking about?" he inquired in response, trying 
to figure out how a person he knew so well could read his thoughts like that, and she shrugged her 
shoulders and maintained the grin. He stood up for a second so that he could walk over to her, dropped to 
his knees about six inches from her face, and tilted her lucky hat back, brushing her hair off her forehead 
with the same action. Upon pushing a sufficient amount of her scarlet locks up to her scalp, he noticed the 
scar that she had suffered from that fight, which had always been covered by her capuche and her growing 
strands of lovely hair. He gently tapped it with his thumb, again getting her to remember how the normal 
life they used to live, which always included camping out, fighting evil Digimon, and bonding with one 
another, could sometimes go off course.

	"You didn't answer my question, Matt," she reminded him, and he backed off to where he had 
been sitting before, right after he put her helmet back on, and told the story of the Digidestined without 
Sora.

	"To start off, I don't think Tai was even in the same world as the rest of us were after you got so 
beaten up, and seeing as you two are as perfect as friends could be, I can understand that. He was crying 
for a long while after it happened, and sometimes I could even hear him sobbing in his sleep about a 
hundred feet away, and I don't think even Agumon could get through to him for those couple of days. He 
always made regular visits by your side, sometimes staying with you for hours at a time, and anyone else 
could see that you were the heart and soul of everything that he stood for, and with you severely injured, 
he looked so empty. Once the second day rolled around, though, I guess he started to accept the fact that 
you could be unconscious for a few more days, maybe even a month, but nobody had the heart to tell him 
you might have passed away... not even me."

	Sora looked down at her chest and stomach, thinking of all the work she had to put in to be able 
to walk again, never mind run and fight, and she couldn't fathom what the others were like without her. 
"Mimi was crying too, since you're basically the only other person besides Palmon that she can have a 
heart-to-heart with anymore, but she could also talk in normal conversation half of the time. She wasn't 
all that hungry for most of the time, like she just wanted to go to sleep and she'd starve herself if it could 
stop her from thinking about you and the pain you had to have been taking so harshly. Palmon was there 
for her throughout, and like the other Digimon, it was obvious that you getting the stuffing beaten out of 
you took a lot out of the little guys, as they weren't all there either.

	T.K. and Kari were sort of comforting each other for those two days, with Kari being more of the 
support for T.K. than vice versa, because the little guy seemed to be a lot more hurt than Kari was, even 
though she wasn't too good herself by any means. He looks at you like you're a mother to him: you're 
always feeding him truly encouraging words, always being as nice as possible, and always helping him out 
when something bad happens, no matter what. He really does look up to you, don't even think about being 
skeptical, and I know from personal experience, because at least half of the time I'm talking to him he 
brings you into the conversation." She softened horribly for a moment, never knowing that T.K. had ever 
thought of her as anything of the sort, but she quickly regained herself and continued to listen to Matt's 
telling of what she missed so long ago.

	"Everybody wonders about Joe once in a while, even you, but he acted exactly how everyone else 
would have expected him to act: he talked even less, only to Gomamon, and kind of felt responsible 
himself. He was and still is the oldest in our group by a couple of years, now that he's at least sixteen, so 
he shared basically all of the main responsibility with Tai, and regarded this as a failure to protect you. 
Izzy typed away at his computer, trying to forget everything that had happened to you, but anyone with the 
slightest shred of insight on a person could decipher that it really got to him on the inside. He appeared to 
be searching for the reason for something on his reliable little laptop, which is no surprise, but I think that 
maybe he was trying to find the reason why MetalVaromon went psycho on you."

	Sora pondered every word he had said about the others, from the feelings of the Digimon to what 
was eating Tai and the others, but then one final question came to her brain, and she asked, "What about 
you?"

	Matt took a minute to collect all his thoughts in order to give a complete answer to Sora, and 
when he thought he had found all he wanted to say, he spoke firmly in saying, "Sora, I was so 
inconsolable I never left you until you woke up. I bet you remember that you saw me and WereGarurumon 
fighting off that thing that probably would have killed you, and even though you're grateful that we were 
there, I still think I failed in trying to keep you safe. We weren't fast enough, especially me, and the thing 
that really tears me apart is what you looked like when I ran out there, after MetalVaromon knocked you 
out with the tackling and slashing of his. You had more broken ribs than you had hands, which I consider 
to be plenty of broken ribs, and aside from that, you hurt your back when you slammed into the cliffside, 
and you know about that terrible cut you also took. Because of that, I felt it to be my duty to make sure 
nothing like that ever happened to you again when I could have done something, so I didn't have a bite to 
eat, or a wink of sleep, or a word to say until you returned."

	"I wish I could say I believe you, but you're just being nice to make me feel better," Sora said to 
Matt, looking to the ground, and she quickly became more interested in the grass they were sitting on.

	Matt gently lifted her head with his outstretched hands, locking a stare on her that she couldn't 
deny, and he took his hands back and replied, with a strong tone beside him, "I would never lie to you, 
Sora." He pulled out his old harmonica, something that he hadn't referred to for relief when feeling down 
for a while, and after a deep breath, he pushed it into her hands and closed them tightly. "I'm not alone 
anymore, and you don't have to be either," he suggested, trying to spur her memory to recall the sequence 
of events where she and Matt were filled with darkness, and they worked to rid themselves of it. 
"Whenever you're lonely, or scared, or depressed, or you need someone for whatever reason, just have a 
look at this, and know that no matter how far away I may seem, I will always be by your side."

	He stood and began to reenter the makeshift base they had thrown together, feeling his Crest of 
Friendship shining a brilliant sapphire shade through his rugged shirt, but Sora stopped him by saying, 
"Matt, you're too far away."

	Matt froze in his tracks, completely dumbfounded after what she had said, since he only expected 
it to keep her from losing hope as long as she possessed what was his pocket-sized musical instrument. 
After he had swallowed his heart back into its original place, he stepped backwards twice and turned to 
watch her, still clutching her gift, and he extended his hand to help her up, which was accepted. "How 
about now?" he asked her happily, knowing that would give Sora the cue to shake her head, and as they 
walked off to wherever, she also knew it didn't matter where they were headed, or when they'd be back. As 
long as they were side by side, there wasn't a challenge in the world they couldn't overcome together, and 
while they went deeper and deeper into the forest, Sora squeezed his right hand for a persisting moment to 
let him know that she knew it too. Matt was peering between branches he was pushing away from their 
faces with his free hand, so he didn't notice Sora's actions, for she was quite intrigued by the peculiarly 
bright pink light that was glowing from her chest.


	"Imagine if we never met Vesper, Ash," Misty told him as they wondered what the past had 
brought, what the future would bring, and how perfect the moment they were experiencing was. "I 
probably wouldn't be among the living anymore, we would have no clue who Matt and Sora were, and you 
wouldn't have gotten the chance to kill that huge bird thing," she finished, smiling lightly at his success.

	"I wasn't too happy about having to fight that thing myself, even though I did have a sword, and 
I'm thinking it was quite the miracle that I survived the fight, let alone destroyed the stupid Raven," Ash 
voiced. "I do agree that it's pretty awesome knowing two teens like Sora and Matt to hang around with, 
even though we really don't know half the things about them, and it is better sometimes to hang around 
with other kids our age. But, like you said, if it weren't for Vesper being in the right place at the right 
time, and if it weren't for the man doing everything in his power to keep you with us... let's not think 
about what would have happened right now. Instead, I think that it's a lot better to stare up at the vast 
skies, trying to fathom how it occurred that we're so small, yet we have such an impact on others," he 
suggested, and she readily complied and started gazing. Even so, Misty couldn't find it possible to stay 
focused on all the emptiness of the colossal sky above them, and her mind slowly drifted off to the 
circumstances upon which they first met the sword-wielding Vesper.

	"You'll never get away with this, Giovanni!" she screamed at the evil crime lord as he 
approached the shackled girl, and he dismissed her shout by slapping her viciously across the left cheek, 
and Misty winced. The other Rocket members had already caused her to endure so much punishment, and 
she had the cuts and bruises all over her arms, legs, and face to make even the most skeptical of people 
believe her.

	"Trust me, as the leader of Team Rocket, I will get away with this, you pest," he exchanged, with 
his low yet stern voice, and his words came from a man who was much calmer than his ten-hour hostage. 
"The first to step forward to me will be granted the pleasure of executing one of our main problems in this 
world," he said, motioning to his minions, all five hundred of the Team Rocket members standing in 
ranks. None of them wanted to move at all, except for a few, and shoving people out of the way from the 
back came two young people, a boy and a girl, accompanied by a sharp-clawed cat Pokemon by their side.

	"She's been giving us so much trouble, it would make us feel whole inside if you granted us the 
honor of killing her, once and for all," Jesse stated, supported by nods from James and Meowth and 
mumbles from the other Rockets.

	"Come to think of it, that would be quite fitting, but since you three are such bumbling idiots that 
I had to capture that Pikachu myself, I'd rather put her out of her misery on my own," Giovanni replied, 
altering his own words. He glanced over at Pikachu, who was fighting to break free of his rubbery prison, 
and Ash, who was held back by handcuffs and five Rocket members as he clenched his teeth, wishing he 
could eliminate Giovanni from this world. He and the Rocket prison guards were torturing the both of 
them all day and night, but the evil beatings laid by the vile gangsters had stopped at sunset, which Ash 
estimated to be about forty minutes ago. They had brought the trainers out from their disgusting prisons, 
along with all remaining members of the Team Rocket faction, for a ceremony, and Giovanni explained to 
them that they would now be "disposed of".

	Giovanni raised the gun at Misty, prepared to shoot her between the eyes twice from his stance 
only five feet away, but commotion on the other side of the room disrupted his concentration and 
redirected his attention to another struggle. Ash had kicked his way free from the clamping hands of two 
Rocket members by his sides, and with a powerful forward thrust of his weight, he came completely loose 
and stumbled onto center stage and Giovanni. "This isn't gonna happen, Giovanni, not if I can do 
anything about it," he growled at the grown man, and the leader of the Pokemon thieves raised his gun at 
Ash, but the quick kid knocked it away with a roundhouse kick. Everyone watched the gun spiraling 
across the room until it landed safely in the hands of a young man, who happened to be covered in folds of 
black, and he fired all the bullets out of the gun directly downward, tossed it away, and charged at 
Giovanni.

	Many other Rocket gangsters lunged forward and pulled the rebellious boy back, despite his 
attempts to again break loose, and he grinned between his closed lips, knowing that they would escape in 
due time. Giovanni drew another gun, trying not to notice the newest threat to him and his plans to 
annihilate the redheaded pest, but before he could fire any shots, his chest was impaled by the mean side 
of the man's extremely sharp sword. He grabbed the key from the pocket of the dying Giovanni after 
retrieving his bloodied weapon, hastily unlocked the handcuffs of the children running towards him, and 
screamed for them to exit the premises out the window he had designated. He was no longer in the mood 
for killing when it wasn't avoidable, so he dodged the rest of the Team Rocket members as he followed 
Misty and Ash, and he thrust his blood-soaked sword into the bottom of the window's concrete base and 
vaulted out of sight.

	"Are you done imagining yet, or were you thinking about when we met the guy?" a familiar voice 
asked, accompanied by a shake of her shoulder, and Misty calmly entered back into the world with actual 
people in it.

	"Guilty of the second charge, Ash," she cracked, raising her hand to admit her thoughts, and Ash 
voiced his take on the matter with an ambient laugh and a few pokes at Misty's humor and at her ribs. 
"You know, that sky won't be leaving anytime soon, and obviously neither will we, so why don't we check 
back in on our newest friends of nearest age, especially Sora, and see what they've been doing?"

	"I've no objections," Ash stated, completing his series of four pokes on Misty's slender 
midsection, "so as soon as you're prepped to leave, we'll be off in that direction," he finished, pointing 
south-east to the lake. "Wait just a minute, Misty, because according to what my eyes are telling me, 
they've been and gone," Ash informed her, and when she became alert and jumped to see if he was 
correct, she found his statement to be indeed true.

	"Maybe they just wandered off somewhere, but that doesn't sound like them at all to me," Misty 
sorted out vocally, and she and Ash practiced a brisk walk on their way in case assistance was 
unfortunately needed.

	Vesper and his instincts of sudden motion caused him to snap his head up in the direction of the 
movement and, seeing that Ash and Misty were in a hurry over to his sister's and her friend's spot, he 
decided to follow. Because he had a naturally faster stride than most, and because he was taller than the 
others, he had no trouble catching up with half of the teens in his self-assembled team within a minute or 
so. "Any reason you two are off so quickly?" he inquired of them, trying to not come off harsh and/or 
demanding, and they kept walking, only changing their actions to glance back at him and to indicate that 
they had left only because the others had.

	Eventually, they reached the abandoned campsite to only find two pairs of footprints headed off 
into the forest, so they figured the two Digidestined had only gone for a walk and would be back in due 
time. To their surprise, Sora and Matt emerged from the timberland almost simultaneous with their 
arrival at their supposed resting place, and Sora declared, with great happiness, "Now I've got my head 
straight."

	"I guess the effects of your concussion are starting to dwindle, though I don't see how that's 
humanly possible to recover so quickly," Vesper said, but then noticed that Misty wasn't paying attention. 
She was obviously seeing something in the water that nobody else was, and he peered over her shoulder, 
trying to discover what had caught her eye so suddenly and so effectively.

	"I would have jumped in for a quick swim," she told everyone while her eyes remained fixated on 
whatever she had spotted, "but then I recognized an odd shape in the water, and it was moving by itself, 
which I find rather different. It started making these weird motions in the water before it disappeared, 
and-" She was interrupted by an enormous blue hand, probably four feet across, flying out of the water, 
and without an arm attached to it, it floated over to Misty and clenched a fist directly in her face. Nobody 
around her cared that they had been soaked by its appearance, but they, along with Misty, seemed amazed 
that a fist of all things appeared before her, but as suddenly as it became visible, it motioned down and 
vanished beneath the surface.

	"Call me crazy, but I think that's supposed to mean something," Misty shouted after it, bending 
over to see if she could see that gigantic hand while it sunk deeper and deeper below her grasp of vision, 
but she couldn't find it again. "I bet the next thing you're going to say is I've got to fight either that fist, 
which is bound to have special powers, or something that sent the hand up after me," she addressed 
Vesper, waiting expectantly for an affirmation.

	"Thanks to you and your mind-reading skills, that lecture is no longer necessary," Vesper stated, 
but then duty overcame him, and he asked her, "but before we make any plans, are you positive that you're 
ready for this challenge?"

	"Back me up, everyone," she asked them, not waiting for an answer, and she dived gracefully 
into the uncharted waters, paddling swiftly down toward the ocean floor and the unknown force that 
awaited her.

	Vesper probably would have immediately jumped in after her, along with Ash, but he halted the 
rest of the group as his sword disappeared in a flash out of its compartment, and he proclaimed, "Guys, 
we're going swimming," and then he splashed in.

	Ash followed right behind him, which left only Matt and Sora, but just before he could hop in 
with the others, Sora's hand rested on his forearm as she bent over and picked up a simple rock. She 
skimmed it across the surface of their own private lake, and as it smacked the water's edge for the eighth 
time, she removed her hat, diving in with him concurrently, and she smiled, saying, "Let's see you beat 
that." Matt's grin beamed for miles around as their intake of deep breaths began, and no more than a 
second later they were filled with all the air they could take, and the water came to a halt a few seconds 
after the diving had ended. Though the gang was descending further to the bottom, they had no idea that 
the black cloud that materialized over the lake could produce a thunderbolt that would strike the surface 
and could annihilate them all.


End of Chapter 4





	For the first time in my life, I've created the end of a chapter as a cliffhanger... a thunderbolt with 
the destructive power to kill EVERYONE that's still alive! How will they survive this, the latest and 
swiftest threat to their lives? How will Misty overcome the force hat was created by tidal darkness to 
destroy her? And how will Matt be able to function at all after what is about to happen to him? You've got 
to wait until Chapter 5, I guess! (I'm so mean!) If you want the titles I just created for Chapters 1-3, 
Chapter 1 is The Rendezvous, Chapter 2 is Ash Ketchum, and Chapter 3 is Sora Takenouchi. Because I'll 
be leaving home for over a month, you shouldn't expect the completion and posting of Chapter 5 until 
probably September, but I hope it'll be worth the wait. Like I've said enough times before, mail me at 
David8285@aol.com and give me either constructive or destructive criticism on my story, because I 
always love to hear from you guys! Until our paths cross again... au revoir!