Well, here it is.... I know it’s been such a long time. I was thinking about not writing the story anymore, but i just couldn’t leave it incomplete. Well, here is the new chapter. For feedbacks, lucky_sans@hotmail.com . Thanks to those who keep reading!!

Note: I don’t own any of the characters except Marlene and Veronica.

Chapter 7

“What is this place?” TK asked. “Who was that woman who attacked us? Where are the others? I want my brother. I want to know where the others are!” He would almost cry when he said the last words.

“Don’t worry, TK.” Sore tried to soothe him. “We’ll find them...”

“Of course if they are alive!” Mimi murmured angrily. “Why is it just the four of us in here? What if we’re the only ones left and these are our last seconds before the unbearable torture begins...”

Her words made TK even worse. The poor boy couldn’t help crying.

“Stop it!” Sore yelled at Mimi, but Mimi wasn’t listening. She was crying even more loudly than TK did.

“Allright ladies and gentleman!” Brock interrupted. He immediately understood that he had to be the big brother as usual. “We don’t have any proof that the others are dead or unwell, so don’t panic. We have to get out of here first. We can’t help them unless we get out. Now, be calm, OK?” The others nodded and stopped crying. There was a silence for a minute.

Then Mimi broke the silence. “Actually, it’s not that bad.” She was examining herself in the mirror. “I mean, look at that, we’re surrounded by mirrors. How fun!” Then she started to make faces and pose for herself. “Here i am, Princess Mimi, the future Grammy winning diva!”

Seeing the fun she had, TK soon joined her. And then Sora and Brock.

“Well, at least we’re relaxing now. We can find a way out more easily when we are calm.”

“Why are we in this labyrinth?” Misty shouted. “What are we trying to reach?”

“I don’t know.” Tracey answered. “But we have to get out. Or at least find each other.”

“But where are the others?” Misty insisted. “What if they are in trouble? What if they are here, too, but fainted? Or dead? Or...”

“Oh, shut up!” Tai yelled from his spot.

“Look who we have here...” Misty muttered to herself. “Ash, what about you?” Nobody answered. “Brock?” Still no answer.

“Er, Misty?” It was Matt. “I don’t think there’s anybody else... Not even TK. “

“But where are they?”

“Oh, shut UP!” Tai shouted again. “We don’t know. All we know is that we’re stuck in this stupid maze and we have to find a way out and to do that we should find each other. So please stop asking stupid questions and get moving!”

“Oh, you shut up!” Misty yelled back. “Just because your big empty head doesn’t get the possibility that the others might be in great danger doesn’t mean it is wrong to feel worried for them!”

“Misty, you’re unbelievable. Who else could have started a fight when we are not even side by side?”

“Oh, we get stuck in the weirdest place ever because of you and I am the one to blame? Just for your information, Mr. Know-it-all, I wasn’t the one to run to the bridge and get us separated in the first place. Get it?”

“Come on, blame it on the curious kid! The bridge was the only way out. Do you think we could find another way had we been together? No. I was just trying to help.”

“Well, thanks a lot.”

“Will you just shut up? I am separated from my friends, too. I am separated from my sister. My little sister! She may be in a place full of God knows what kinds of creatures... And I am stuck here, in a stupid maze with the most obnoxious person ever!”

Misy let out a sarcastic laugh. “Look who’s calling me obnoxious!”

“I don’t get it. You don’t treat anyone nicely. How can you claim that you’re worried now?”

“I may yell at Tracey, Brock and Ash from time to time. But it doesn’t mean i don’t love them!”

“Love them? You mean, Ash, too?” Tai asked confusedly.

“I knew it! I love you, too, Misty, my best friend...” Tracey interrupted in a funny voice. “Not as much as Ash loves you, though...”

“Tracey, shut up. What are you talking about?”

With the echoes and everything, the voice level in the maze had become unbearable.

“Allright, stop!” Matt yelled finally. The others stopped shouting at once. “Now, let’s get moving. We should find each other, OK? Keep talking, because it helps us understand where the others are. But don’t shout or scream. Get it?”

“Yes captain!” the others answered in unison. Then they all started to move in their corridors.

Kari, Izzy, Ash and Joe had landed on a tiny island. It had taken them only fifteen minutes to walk around the whole island and see that there wasn’t anyone else. Now they had all gathered around the canvas and were trying to figure out what the dots and the lines meant.

“I don’t get it!” Ash shouted suddenly. “Why are we here? Where did the others go? Where’s Misty?”

“Pika pii...”

“I didn’t know that Team Rocket had such powers... I mean, they looked pretty dumb...” Joe commented.

“I don’t think it was them.” Kari whispered. She looked very pale. “It must have been that woman in black...”

“Are you all right, by the way?” Joe asked her. Kari nodded lightly.

“The woman in black? What did she want anyway?” Ash insisted. Izzy kept typing letters and numbers into his laptop.

Nobody spoke for a while. Kari kept seeing the same images in her head. Fog and smoke and fire and blasts... And amid all the mess, Veronica. And someone screaming. A boy. A familiar voice... Where were the others anyway? She wished Tai was with her now.

Ash was in a whole another dimension. While petting Pikachu, he was thinking about Misty, and what she had said the previous night. She was looking really worried. She hadn’t wanted him to go to the gym that day. She was right. She had been right most of the time. He would never admit this to her, though. He couldn’t help smiling when he thought about how they fought all the time. She was a real headache, sometimes. But a headache he liked the suffer, he thought with surprise. He was glad she travelled with him. She had helped him achieve more than he could’ve imagined. She was such a great friend and... Anyway, where was she now? What if she was in pain, or trouble, or...

He jumped and turned to others when Izzy started to talk.

“Well, guys... It seems that we don’t have any route to escape. Except for the sea, of course...” The others looked around. Their situation seemed hopeless. There was no way they would swim to find the others. They didn’t even know where they were. They couldn’t make a boat, either. There wasn’t a piece of log to build a fire, let alone making a boat. “Or...” Izzy continued after checking his computer again. “That canvas...”

“The canvas?” the others asked. They all looked confused.

“How?” Ash asked. “You mean there’s a gate or something behind it?” He started to look around the canvas.

“No. We have to paint.”

“Paint what?” Ash looked even more confused, if that is by any means possible. “You mean, paint a door?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe something else.”

Kari and Joe were examining the shapes closely, while Izzy was explaining his theory. None of the shapes made any sense.

“Hey, look at that...” Joe murmured after a while. Everyone turned to him. “The dots... They are different. It’s like... Different symbols... Maybe a secret code...”

“We’d better crack it soon.” Said Izzy and started to examine the canvas himself.

Hours had passed, and Mimi, Brock, TK and Sora hadn’t been able to figure out a way to escape yet. They were tired of playing and posing. Now they were sitting in different corners, all immersed in their own thoughts.

“I’m worried about Matt” thought TK. “I hope he is as safe and sound as I am... Is he with the others? Why are we separated anyway? And that woman... Is she a witch or what?”

Brock shared his emotions. He was worried about his friends, as well. Where were Ash, Misty and Tracey? How did Ash and Misty manage without him?

Mimi had different thoughts. The mirrors were fun at the beginning, but now they were starting to get on her nerves. She saw the same image wherever she looked. She started to get the feeling that she was surrounded by infinity... She wanted to find the others as soon as possible, but she knew they had to get out first. How?

Sora was thinking about Tai. Where was he? There was something weird going on between them. They were fine and all that, but the last few days... Tai hadn’t talked to her at all since they arrived at this weird dimension. All he did was... Pick on Misty. Why was he so interested in her anyway? She knew she had to worry about their safety, but she couldn’t help wondering if they were together...

Tai and Misty had stopped fighting now, and the group had started to move. It wasn’t easy, though. The labyrinth wasn’t as easy to pass as it seemed. They had to deal with the obstacles on their way. And sometimes the walls moved and their corridor turned into a dead end...

Everybody jumped when they heard a terrible scream. No doubt, it was Misty.

“Are you okay?”

Misty didn’t answer. Instead, she screamed again.

“Misty, where are you?” Tracey shouted.

“I’m... Fine.” Came the reply after a few seconds. “It’s just... There’s a pool of spiders.. And they are crawling up on me!!”

Misty’s situation didn’t look bright at all. She was in the middle of everything she hated: Cold, darkness, dampness and bugs... Plus, she couldn’t stop worying about the others. Especially, Ash. What if he was hurt? That woman attacked in the middle of his battle, right? Was she after him? Or was she a new member of Team Rocket? Where was Ash? She hoped Pikachu was with him. Ash would get through anything as long as Pikachu he was with Pikachu. “Maybe he doesn’t need me at all...” she thought. And a second after that, she felt the spiders crawling up her leg.

“What kind of a place is this?” she thought to herself. She hated bugs. She thought she was going to faint. “Be strong, Misty.” she muttered to herself. “I have to go on. Just ignore them...” Her jaws tightly locked, she kept walking. “I’m doing this to find others.” she told herself. “I’m doing this to find Ash...”

The others’ situation wasn’t much brighter then hers, they soon realized. The walls and the ground kept moving, and they often had to deal with ghosts, fairies and other kinds of beasts. None of the passages were safe, none of the ways guaranteed them a way out.

“I hope Kari is in a better place.” Tai thought to himself as he was trying to find cover from a dragon’s flames. “She didn’t look well at all...” Suddenly he felt a pang of remorse in his stomach. What if Misty was right? It would be all his fault if something bad happened to his sister. To any of them. Even Misty. “Why do i have to be so reckless? I shouldn’t have run to that bridge. We could’ve been together now...” Then his thoughts focused on someone else. “I wonder if Sora is with her... She wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She wouldn’t let anything happen to any of us. I should find them. I want to get out of here...” He slowed down, and stopped running. The dragon had stopped chasing him. He sighed. Suddenly the ground started shaking, and before he could hold on to the walls, he fell on the ground. The ground was moving. When it stopped, his passage had become a dead end. He sighed and turned around to try another lane. “The ground moved again.” he let the others know.

Kari, Izzy, Joe, Ash and Pikachu still had no idea what the shapes or dots meant. It wasn’t easy to just sit there and look at a weird drawing for hours, their eyes were hurting.

“I don’t know, guys” commented Joe finally. “I mean, if we are supposed to paint this, how are we going to do that? We don’t have any crayons or anything...”

“Maybe it’s something like connecting the dots.” Ash suggested. “The similar ones...”

“Or maybe a secret language.” Izzy thought out loud.

“Or maybe there’s a door or something...” Ash insisted. He wanted to move the canvas, but to his surprise, he couldn’t make it move an inch. The others tried to help him, but it was all in vain. Pikachu sighed and lowered its ears. It seemed that the canvas was glued to the ground. Or even it was part of the ground... In this strange place, anything was possible.

“Maybe we should give up the possibilty of that canvas being a door. We should save our strength for later. Looks like we’re going to be here for longer than we hope...” commented Izzy. Ash looked at him with disappointment, but he didn’t say anything. None of his ideas (or his only idea, shall we say? :p) had worked so far. Of course he knew they had to save their strength. But it was worth trying, right? He just wanted to be helpful, but instead he felt really stupid. He wished he was with Brock or Tracey. And Misty... He was sure he wouldn’t feel so vain, then.

“I’m thirsty.” Kari murmured. Everybody looked at her with surprise. Actually, she was quite right. They were thirsty, too. And hungry. It must have been hours since they arrived on the island.

Joe looked around. “Maybe we should take a break now and look for some food.”

“What about water?” Kari insisted.

Joe didn’t seem so hopeful about that. “Maybe we can find some near those plants... But it is such a small island. Let’s just hope that water isn’t salty. Please try to hold on, Kari.”

Kari nodded with pessimism. She still had the headache, but the images and the voices had started to fade now. She was surprised to find out that she was worried about that instead of being relieved. “I should find a way out.” she thought to herself. “Whatever spirits are haunting me, they should be of some help...”

Joe tried to cheer her up as though he had read her mind. “Please, you can’t give up so easily. We’ll find food. And water. I promised your brother I’ll take good care of you... And you can be sure I will.” Kari looked at him with gratitude.

Joe’s words made her remember she was separated from her brother. Where was he? She wanted to find Tai more than anything else in the world now. She hoped he was alive. She wouldn’t be able to bear if he was dead or in pain.

Meanwhile, in the other dimension, Jessie, James and Meowth were waiting for Marlene to calm down to find out more about Veronica. She had stopped crying. She was just quietly sobbing from time to time now. “I should have understood.” she murmured. “I should have seen it coming... I had the dream. I heard the oracle.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Jessie interrupted. “What do you mean, oracles, dreams? What are you, a fortune teller? A necromancer?”

Marlene nodded to indicate Jessie was wrong. “I’m none of that.” she replied. “It’s just... I have psychic powers to some extend. I can’t see the future... But i can tell when danger approaches. And I failed... I could have stopped all this from happening... And now there’s nothing i can do. I can’t even save those poor kids! They are the only ones who can save us all now. Save all the universes... And too bad they’re not strong enough to do that!”

“What do you mean, they’ll all be destroyed?” James shouted. “You mean, the little one, too?”

Jessie and Meowth stared at him as though they were seeing him for the first time. “What do you mean, the little one?” Meowth asked. “Are you allright?”

“The little girl... The one with the pink pants, remember?” James started to explain with starry eyes. “The purest little creature one could ever see... A little princess... An angel...”

“He has totally lost it.” Meowth whispered to Jessie. Jessie nodded. What had been going on with James for the past few days? The way he talked... It was so unlike him. It was like... He was possessed by another spirit or something. He became a different person when he was talking about Kari.

And then James screamed, startling everyone. “And you’re saying she’s going to be destroyed!!!!!!!!”

“James, what is wrong with you?” Jessie tried to ask, but James wasn’t listening.

“We can’t let that happen. We can’t just sit there and talk. We should do something! Get up, we should save them!”

“James!” Jessie smacked him with her fan. “What are you talking about? How are we going to help them? How do you know they are in danger?” She turned to Marlene. “How do you know they are in danger?”

“If you ask my opinion, i’d say the only think we should worry about now is to explain to da boss the reason we let Pikachu and the new pokémon slip from right between our fingers.” Meowth commented.

“Listen.” Marlene interrupted the fight. “That Veronica... She is a very dangerous lady.”

“Thanks for saying that, honey.” Jessie answered. “She wouldn’t be an ally of Team Rocket if she wasn’t...”

“You don’t understand.” Marlene interrupted again. “There won’t be a Team Rocket left if she succeeds in her plan...”

“A plan about what?” James asked. He looked worried.

“A plan that will change the balance of our world. Of the Digiworld. Of all worlds...”

“We have one powerful ally...” sung Jessie.

“You don’t get it. She just used you. All she wanted you to do was to distract the kids so she could lure them to that hole and capture the Digimon... And she seems to have achieved that.”

“You mean, she captured those weird pokémon? And she didn’t even tell us?”

“Exactly. And the worse is about to come... Veronica has more powers than you could ever imagine. She could bury this town deep into the ground by just a twist of her finger...”

Suddenly James felt he remembered something. There were blasts, and people screaming and running around, hiding... Hiding from a dark cloud or something... His head started to hurt, but the images kept changing. It was as though someone was flipping channels in his brain. Now he was in a palace, a room decorated with the richest furniture he could ever imagine. And then a battle again. And a black shadow. A shadow covering everything. Mosquitos flying around... The pain had grown so intense he screamed and fell on his knees.

“James!”

Jessie, Meowth and Marlene were trying to bring him back to their world, but it was in vain. He kept seeing the mosquitos until they blocked his sight like a wall... Then he blacked out.

Jessie lightly slapped his cheeks. He had flushed like crazy and his cheeks were burning now. She could feel it even with her gloves on. “Meowth, James is very sick!” Jessie screamed, her eyes full of tears. “That’s why he had been acting weird. Oh James!”

He was fine until a few days ago. Then he had started acting weird... Talking weird... He became a totally different person. Especially... “Especially when he was around Veronica.” Jessie thought out loud. “Tell us everything you know, Marlene.”

Well, that’s it! I hope you like it. Chapter 8 is coming up... Soon, hopefully. Thanks for reading and the feedbacks!