Author's Note: Hey guys, Red-Chan here! Long time no see, but welcome to chapter two! Been doing a lot of plot re-arranging, but I have an awesome new program that works REALLY WELL for the writing style I use in this story so it's so much easier to stay organized! Sorry if there is a little number confusion (10, 11, and 12 specifically) because I confused the heck out of myself in the editing process and I think it's all right now, but if those three numbers happen to confuse you while reading, don't worry I put my own head in a dizzy.

Disclaimer: I, Red-CHan, do not claim to own Digimon or any of it's characters and plot elements! They all belong to who they rightfully belong to! I just own my own characters!

Fixed at Zero

Chapter 2

Digital Disaster

Jomei Saito

Eight flashing lights flooded the ice cream shop, and Jomei looked down at her cousin as he pulled a yellow and white device from his pocket, staring at its white screen in bewilderment. Blue eyes soon met another pair of blue as they passed around their little crowd, each member bringing out their own devices varying in color and shape. The blonde at the far table held her gaze as she sent silent question after silent question in his direction, her knuckles turning white at how hard she gripped the back of Cody's chair.

The contact was broken as if a switch flipped on, seeming to turn the group into a flurry of panic. Heads whipped back and forth, exchanging worried expressions and soft words coated in concern. Curiosity bubbled in her chest, and Jomei searched every face for any trace of just what was happening, but none seemed to give it away. She could see it though, the hint of the reason behind their worry. As she glanced from person to person, her eyes landed briefly on the smaller girl to her left, Carter. It took a second for her brain to catch up with her, and she sent her eyes back to the other girl, who looked just as lost and confused as she did, but instead of surveying the others, all she did was look down at her hands that lay folded atop each other in her lap.

The erupted chaos suddenly came to a halt as a pair of tanned hands slammed down on the table.

"We need to get to the Digital World," Taichi said, his brown eyes catching Jomei's in that moment. "Izzy, do you have your laptop with you?"

The redhead's cheeks flushed in embarrassment as he scratched his cheek nervously, keeping his eyes trained at the ground. "Not today. It's under maintenance."

Taichi seemed to curse under his breath, his brain running a hundred miles a minute as thought after thought flooded through his mind and dismissed back out.

"I have one," Jomei said, breaking the tense silence around the group. All eyes turned to her, and she took in a deep breath. "At my house. It's like a ten minute walk from here."

For the first time in her life, there wasn't a thing her brain could do to process what was transpiring. Had she heard Taichi correctly? The Digital World? As in the residence of Digimon? What in the world did they have to do with the Digimon? She faintly remembered hearing the stories of the kids who saved the world alongside their Digimon three years ago, but she'd never gotten around to looking too in depth. There was no way these kids had anything to do with that.

Jomei felt the hard, green-eyed stare that bore into her from below, and she looked down to see Cody looking at her in contemplation, his still glowing device clenched tightly in his hand.

There was no way he was one of those heroes; surely she would have known.

"Why are we standing around here just staring at her?" Matt's eyes grabbed the attention of Jomei's as he spoke, walking around the table and gripping her elbow firmly. "Show us the way."

Just like that, Jomei was in motion, her mind on a permanent pause as she waded through the streets, certain of no one's presence aside from Matt, who kept her elbow between his fingers. She guided him (them she hoped) to a door at the bottom of her apartment complex, fishing her key out from beneath the mat with her now free arm and ushering the ten other kids inside.

As soon as she had the front door closed, eleven people packed into the confined space of the entrance hallway, a twelfth member peeked out from the family room.

"Jo?" Just to the left of the group sat a boy, around the age of eleven, with sandy brown hair and crystal blue eyes that observed the group in some kind of disbelieving wonder. One second later, and he came farther into view, the blue of his wheelchair glistening beneath the hallway bulb.

"Hey, Lane, Sweetie," she said softly, walking over and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, to which he immediately started scrubbing, muttering the word, 'gross'. This elicited a smile from his sister. "We're gonna head to my room. Where's Dad?"

Lane rolled his eyes and shrugged, pulling away from the group to replace himself in front of the TV in the family room. "Dunno. But unless you want him to grill your friends, you might wanna make it quick."

Getting to Jomei's room was one story, eleven people trying to go down a narrow hallway, but inside her room was another matter altogether. Each of the Digidestined stood gawking in her doorway until one by one she ushered each of them in. Inside, their expressions of awe weren't any less evident, everyone captivated by what lie beyond their newest associate's bedroom walls.

Not only was the room twice the size of any of their own bedrooms, but the walls were lined inch by inch with bookshelves plastered with books. The wall adjacent to the door held a bright, baby blue bunkbed with white sheets on both beds. The bottom bunk had several drawers that slid out from beneath the mattress, while the top bunk had a canopy that looked like it could be pulled down to serve as a curtain. The rest of the room was rather bare aside from a TV in the top left corner of the room connected to a few gaming consoles and a wooden desk placed directly in front of a window with a laptop sitting idle on top of it.

While everyone seemed to ponder what to do with the space before them, Jomei sat in her computer chair, booting up her laptop and typing furiously at a set of codes that popped up upon start up. When she was finished, she leaned back towards the others.

"Is there anything I need to do before you can do . . . whatever it is you need to do?" Saying it out loud made her almost feel like a colossal idiot. She had just dragged ten people she barely knew (minus Cody) into her home, into her room, all so they could use her laptop for a reason no one had bothered yet to explain.

Koushiro appeared to notice the concern on Jomei's face and walked over, leaning slightly over her to reach the laptop's keyboard. His typing was fast and fluid, much like her own, and she hadn't even realized she'd been staring at his hands as they worked until she heard some kind of ding and he was moving his hands away. She looked towards the screen where something new had popped up. Whatever it was had a complex look to it, and seemed to have a screen of its own. Koushiro once again hit a key or two, and another beep rung out, this time causing the smaller of the two screens to turn red.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

All of the heads in the room turned to face the source of the voice: standing a good distance from the others, leaning against the bedpost, was Carter.

"I'm dragged halfway across town in a place I've never been before, and everyone but me seems to know what's going on," she said, her voice quiet but quivering. "What are those...phones...that you have? Why were they glowing? And why did that make everyone upset?"

It was Taichi this time that moved to answer, an uncomfortable look on his face. "A few really good friends of ours-our best friends, actually-are in trouble. That was them calling for us."

"Ugh! Then why are we still standing around?! The gate's open; I'm going to Veemon!" Davis suddenly sprang forward, brows creased in determination as he moved to stand beside Jomei, holding his strange device up to the laptop.

A white light, one similar to the flashing ones from before, filled the room, temporarily blinding most everyone, and when it faded, the maroon haired boy was no longer standing where he had been before. In fact, he wasn't in the room anymore at all.

"Guess that puts that out of the way," Taichi mumbled under his breath, shaking his head at Davis' rashness. "We'll have time for explanations later; for now our partners need us."

Ken was the next to disappear. Then TK and Kari, quickly followed by Matt, who Jomei could have sworn gave her some kind of wink.

Yolie moved to go next, but then took a step back towards Carter, holding the other girl's hands in her own. "I promise I'll explain all of this when we get back. Don't leave, alright? I did promise to watch out for you today." She gave her hands a squeeze and then a gentle smile before vanishing into the field of light.

Cody now stood beside his cousin, the little yellow device held tightly in his palm. His eyes were downcast, and he fiddled lightly with clenching and unclenching his other fist before decided on leaving it clenched and bravely catching Jomei's eyes.

"I'm really sorry about today. No, about the last three years. When I come back I'll tell you the truth, and then I'll call Mom and ask her if I can stay here tonight."

Jomei smiled warmly at him and ruffled his hair, which had grown into a little brown bush on the top of his head: much more fun to mess with than the scalp thin hair he'd usually kept before.

And then there were four: the ever confused Jomei, the silent, thoughtful Koushiro, the composed-yet-visibly-ticked-off Carter, and the fearless Taichi who crossed his arms and tapped his foot in thought.

"Carter," he called, looking back towards her and placing a small smile on his lips. "Give us a chance; I know this entire day was kind of sprung on you last minute, and our predicament probably isn't helping but-give us a chance." The grin he gave her then lit up his entire face, and he held his little translucent device up to the laptop.

"I'm going to stay and monitor you all from here," Koushiro said, making Taichi raise his brow at him. "I seem to have forgotten my Digivice at home."

Taichi just shrugged his shoulders and immersed himself in the white light, leaving the three of them to stare into the laptop screen with little to no idea what was happening.

"Thank you for your hospitality," came Carter's voice. "But I'd best be going."

Jomei almost tried to convince the younger girl to stay, but before she had a chance the girl had bowed politely and exited her room, giving the door a much harder tug than was necessary. Sighing, she faced her laptop once again, glancing up at Koushiro as he gazed thoughtfully into it as well.

Just what in the world was going on here today?

Carter Jones

Carter hadn't even intended to follow the group to that Jomei person's house. She'd fully intended to let them all rush out of the ice cream shop, sit dutifully for a few minutes, and then retrieve directions from one of the cashiers on how to get back to the university. However, as the group hurried out, Yolie had taken a hold of Carter's wrist, dragging her along and saying, "It's important, I promise."

Now, the entire group had more or less abandoned her to a foreign place with foreign people, and that in the grand scheme of things, didn't do anything but grind her gears. She hadn't asked for any of this, for the mystery, for the people, and especially not for any empty promises. There was no 'later'; it was simply a measurement of time that didn't exist. Either she was informed right then, or it wasn't important enough for her to know.

That's why she had stormed off. Not because she felt abandoned and hurt, but because it just simply wasn't worth it to sit around and wait on people who didn't care about her and who she had no interest in caring about.

So, as she stood outside of the room, red tints to her cheeks as numbers slowly scaled down in her head, she was surprised to feel the trickle of tears piling up behind her closed eyes. And as she contemplated the reasoning behind the pain that stabbed her chest, a spark of pain in the small of her back had her gasping and opening her eyes wide. That spark continued, sizzling just beneath her skin, shooting up between her shoulder blades, and then what felt like a jolt of electricity traveled from that same spot on her back through her chest, feeling as if the electricity encased her heart and began to squeeze it.

A feeling of intrusion surged through her body; something didn't belong, didn't feel right, and most importantly, it hurt. She clutched at her chest tighter, as if the possibility of ripping her heart out would be less painful. Tears spilled over and she staggered forward, quick, clipped breaths cascading past her lips.

From the living room, the younger boy in the wheelchair could hear the sounds of stumbling in his direction, and he rolled his eyes at his sister's lame attempt to scare him. "I don't wanna ride around today, Jo; go rollin' with your friends or-Woah careful there's a lamp there!"

As he wheeled around to scold his sister, it wasn't his sister but one of the many people she had brought in earlier that he saw. She was hunched over, a pained expression etched on her face that he understood all too well. But before his warning reached her, she'd knocked into the table, collapsing the lamp, and herself, onto the ground.

It was then that another sudden shock hit her, but this time the pressure in her chest intensified to the point that every muscle, every heartstring ached as though she were being torn open. And then for a moment, everything went blank, and when she could finally see in front of her again, the pain had eased, but now in her hands was something cold and gold and orange and . . . Yolie had something like this, didn't she?

Dazed eyes met confused eyes as the latter made the distance between them smaller and offered the fallen girl his arm. With a grateful smile, Carter put her hand on his forearm and hoisted herself to her feet, bowing courteously to him.

The device in her hand beckoned her attention, and after turning it over a few times, she was still at loss for what exactly she was supposed to do with it. Her brows knit together as she thought of the individuals (namely Yolie) who had these back in the room. What was it they had done? Held it out in front of them like-

Light pierced the room, blinding those around, and as the room began to settle back into its natural glow, only one inhabitant remained.

"Dad is going to be all over this." Lane sighed as he started wheeling into the hallway. "I hope sis knows what she's gotten herself into."

Jomei Saito

"Jo, why do you make Dad's job so easy?"

The blonde haired girl turned at the sound of her brother's voice, watching him wheel into her room with an exasperated yet amused look on his face. Before she could say a word, he had already opened his mouth to speak again.

"The Digidestined have disappeared too," he said, looking around the room with a slight frown.

Jomei turned fully away from her laptop, nodding to her brother. "Mhmm, they had an emergen-wait did you say 'too'?"

He nodded and wheeled up beside her. "That girl you brought with you, the quiet, cute one. She held something up to the TV and disappeared."

"She wha-! Did you just call Carter 'cute?" She shook her head. "No. No. Roll in here for a minute."

Just as she said, Lane rolled his wheelchair closer to her, stopping just beside Koushiro to peer at the computer screen. "I'm listening. Ask away."

Jomei narrowed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, but then just sighed and crossed her arms. "You called them the 'Digidestined'. What do you mean?"

This time when her brother looked at her, his face was marked with the look of exasperation. "The Digidestined. Are you saying you don't know who they are?"

"Of course I know who they are, you twerp, but I don't get why you called the-Oh my," immediately she turned her attention to Koushiro. "You guys are not the famous Digidestined that saved the world three years ago!"

Koushiro nearly fell out of his chair from the sudden way Jomei shook it.

"Uh-Indeed-Jomei-we-are--could you please stop shaking me?"

A blush crawled up the girl's face, and she immediately retracted her hands, holding them securely behind her back.

"Ah, sorry, Koushiro," she said. "How did I not know my cousin is a Digi-Destined?"

Lane raised his eyebrow. "Because you haven't learned how to use the internet?"

"Oh hush it," she snapped back, face red with embarrassment. "If you knew, I'm surprised you and Cody haven't been all buddy-buddy. You're the biggest Digimon Fanatic I know!"

At that, Lane hung his head, rubbing his fingers up and down the wheels on his chair. "You know how Dad is... And you've been so busy..."

Jomei immediately dropped the conversation at that. Of course she knew how their father was; she knew every fault, every quirk, every detail that set the man off. And, sadly, he wasn't wrong about how busy she'd been either, but really, she was only so busy so she could find the perfect way to make him smile.

With that thought, she sighed and turned her attention to Koushiro. "So, what are your friends up to in there? Some kind of massive, digital party or something?"

"No," he answered sharply, almost as if he was offended but was trying to remain polite. "We never receive a signal like that for social calls from our partners, and they're never in the Digital World for long. It had to have been an emergency for us to be contacted like that. Besides, that wasn't the work of our partners." He stopped again and turned to face her. "That was the Digital World itself."

Carter Jones

"Wha-wha-wha-wha-WHAT IS THAT THING?"

Confused would have been putting lightly the way Carter felt when she landed face first into a pile gooey mud and crunchy leaves. Worried would have been too great of an understatement when she realized that she was in some kind of decaying forest and not the bustling city she had been in moments before. Terrified would have been but on small dot on the scale of fear she felt when-when-when-a large, flaming, furry THING came charging at her.

It didn't take her long to start running, her clumsy feet stumbling beneath her, knocking her down. Athletics really never were a strong point of hers, and that thing was catching up on her much faster than she could fall and climb back to her feet with the amount of times she had to.

As if her coordination wasn't bad enough, all it took was one wrong slip of the foot, one wrong step, and suddenly she was being pulled into the air, tangled up in a...a...a net?!

"Wha-what the-How the-" In her fumbling mess, both in words and a feeble attempt to escape the net, she barely caught the beast out of the corner of her eye, and all she could think to do was scream and shut her eyes tight.

"Pepper Breath!"

Suddenly, a roar shot out through the forest, loud enough to bust an eardrum if you were close enough (which Carter most definitely was; thankfully she was smart enough to cover her ears). When she uncovered them (still too scared to open her eyes) her ears were met with a momentary silence before a voice filled the air.

"Marsmon! What are you doing? What's got you in such a panic?"

Carter's eyes shot open wide immediately; she knew that voice!

"Tai!" she called out.

His eyes caught hers for a moment as he gave her a reassuring smile before he took on a serious expression, turning his attention back to the beast (Marsmon, was that what he called it?). At that, Carter decided to do the same, and that sense of dread from before came pouring back into her.

Whatever this 'Marsmon' was, it definitely wasn't something she wanted to get acquainted with. The creature was large; she hadn't overexaggerated that: even as she hug from the tree, it's head was a good two or three feet above her. It's head looked almost like a mix between a sabertooth tiger and a unicorn, with a little bit of leopard spots stuck on for fun. It's torso was a brilliant red, scorched with flames that seemed to have no effect on the creature what-so-ever. The rest of it looked like it was dressed in some kind of medieval warrior garb; it really looked like something out of a kid's cartoon.

It snorted in reply to Tai's statement, eyes gazing hard at Carter which caused her to squeal. Again, it snorted and focused back on Tai, crossing it's massive arms (How was that even possible with those gauntlets?!)

"With the state the Digital World is in, you'd charge head first into any intruders yourself, human."

While the voice was definitely the deep, throaty growl she had anticipated, it still made her shiver and cower back, despite having nowhere to cower to.

"What happened here, Marsmon? Why does it look like . . . everything is dying?"

"If we knew, we would have found a way to fix it already. That's why you Chosen Children were called here: to figure it out."

Tai sighed exasperatedly and put his hands on his hips, forming a smile that almost said 'well, what can you do?'.

"Can you at least let my friend down?" He asked, pointing up towards the helpless girl.

With a grunt, Marsmon did as asked, yanking the net down from the top and setting in on the ground. As she fumbled with the mesh, trying to find a way out, she heard heavy footsteps thudding away, followed by grumbled words that she couldn't make out. In her predicament, she huffed and puffed at just how much more tangled she ended up in the net.

"Let me help!" said another voice, not belonging to Tai or Marsmon, but higher and raspier.

She heard the sound of tearing, and then the net fell away into a heap around her. When she looked up to see who helped her, she jumped back in shock at the yellow, dinosaur-like thing. There sure were a lot of things in this wherever-she-was.

Tai's laughter brought her out of the shocked state she was stuck in, looking up just in time to see him offer a hand out to her.

"You're not hurt are you?" he asked as she grabbed hold of his hand and hoisted her up.

Carter was definitely shorter than Tai by at least five or six inches, if not more, and his mountain of hair was definitely not helping in that matter. She wondered exactly how tall he was, and if his hair was measured into that or if it had it's own height completely separate from-

"I'm fine," she answered in a small voice, still holding onto Tai's hand like a lifeline.

His smile never faltered, and he let the younger girl keep his hand in her grasp as he spoke. "How'd you get here anyway? The Digital World is no place for people without partners; it's pretty dangerous."

Carter looked up, brows furrowed and mouth in a thin line before reaching into her pocket with her free hand and pulling out the device that had suddenly appeared earlier. "I think this brought me here."

Tai's eyes widened to twice their size, and the open-mouthed look of surprise didn't hang around long as his lips spread into a grin.

"Looks like we've definitely got a new adventure on our hands. I wonder how Davis will feel about not being the newest generation of Digidestined anymore!" Tai said, breaking out into a fit of laughter.

When Carter gingerly removed her hand from his, the older boy seemed to calm down, and reached out to grab her hand again. "Let's go find the others: We've got a lot of explaining to do."

Author's Note: Woot, another chapter down! Thanks for reading, even though it's been like, almost a year since the first chapter went up. I don't expect that to be a problem again, but that doesn't mean I won't get delayed. With Digimon Tri out now, I'm so much more excited for everything! I'm re-watching the adventure seasons again, so if there are any inconsistancies that I missed over, don't worry, I re-read these all the time, and if I catch something, I'll update it! Feel free to let me know! It could be something I'll explain later, or it could really be an error on my part! I'd love it so much if you'd review. What you liked, what you didn't. Any feedback is accepted, just please don't flame because I'm not bothered by them and I have a fire extinguisher!

Have a good day/night/morning/evening/afternoon/whatever-it-is!