Chapter Three - There's One Way To Live

Mimi remembers being terrified of the sky that night. She remembered being frozen down to her toes. Mentally, she remembered thanking her mother for telling her to pack sweaters because nights in the wild were cold no matter what you did. And no matter how civilized they made the campsite, it was still wilderness, no doubt about it.

She had been nice and warm until one of her friends had jostled her awake, looking baffled and scared. (Looking back, she can't remember her name. Miki?) Mimi remembers whining and lashing out in reflex, pulled from a finally comfortable sleep (The ground was too hard!) to have to stay awake.

"The sky, Mimi-chan," her friend had insisted. "Look!"

She hadn't wanted to. Maybe it was because of the way she was shaking, or that now that she was awake enough, she could feel the fact that no one was sleeping anymore. Or maybe it was the sick sense of dread rumbling in her throat but she remembers very clearly not wanting to wake up no matter what, not wanting to see because if she saw whatever it was, she would believe it.

Then, as the snow fell, she had felt that dread multiply, even as they marveled on the beauty of it. And then they all had been herded out to get a head count.

One was missing. Yagami Taichi.

She didn't know much about him. Not anything, actually. She knew his name from soccer club flyers, though why would she have joined? She had known of him as accidentally kicking a ball high enough to hit the classroom next door without breaking it. But Takenouchi Sora beside her had muttered something like annoyance. Like oh, he had done something again.

He must be another silly boy, she had decided.

And as she had thought that, someone had screamed and the sky had started to glow.

Palmon was the only one who made sense in this world and even she didn't make sense sometimes!

She was happy to walk all over, which the camp had promised would not be every day. She also liked dirt. But she was also a plant, so it made sense for her she supposed. She was not afraid to fight though, which was completely out of left-field. WHy would someone who liked to fight and would fight a giant bug (more ew!) be waiting a long time for her? She didn't want anything to do with any of that! SHe just wanted to go home.

And now there was someone else here. SOmeone else had ended up through a magical portal like on those old Sentai shows and just confirmed what they had unwillfully wanted to grasp: they were in another planet, with earth rules but monsters too and some of them were more involved than others. Some of them talked more than others.

Most just tried to kill them.

"What happened to you?" Jou, next to her, was clutching his medical bag as he asked the question with a quavering voice. It makes her twitch a little, because he's the oldest one here and he's supposed to be keeping it together and yet in all of their time together he never does.

The girl, Meiko-chan, her age probably, Mimi was usually able to tell these things even in a whirl of being so darn confused, was shivering with cold even by the fire. SHe nodded, sneezing a little. "I was at home with Mei-chan." She gestured to the wet and sneezing cat beside her who between every sneeze was glaring at them. Mimi resisted the urge to hide. What a rude cat! Even Taichi-san's cat wasn't that rude. "We were just washing up after dinner and then-" she frowned, quizzically. "There was a girl at my window. She… she was small and smiled at me. And then my window started to glow."

Mimi saw Jou's eyebrow rise with skepticism. But she believed it. There had been something at the campsite that day, something pushing them all closer together, loosely gesturing and such to push them forward. So her being here made sense. But…

"A girl?" That part she did not remember at all.

Meiko nodded slowly. "Uhm…" she closed her eyes. "Brown hair, about… his size." She gestured to Takeru, who stiffened by his brother and he couldn't grasp why. "And big, red eyes."

Taichi's jaw dropped. "You saw her?"

Mimi twitched with concern. Saw who?

Meiko nodded and looked at Taichi, which seemed like a relief for her. "Yes. You know her?"

Mimi saw Taichi's jaw tick, his expression shifting to hesitate to answer. But then he nodded. "That's… yeah. But she wasn't supposed to be real. That's my sister."

They all looked at each other.

"That's weird," Mimi finally proclaimed, likely what everyone was thinking.

Taichi snorted. "Yeah, no kidding."

Tailmon looked at them all and scowled, making to readjust her wet fur all over Taichi's shoulder. "She called you all here," she finally said.

Everyone looked at her, so baffled at the sound of her voice. Tailmon didn't talk. It just didn't happen. Not even eternal bubble soda Patamon could get much sound out of her. And they all looked at her like someone would a dog at the pound. For as tacturn as Tailmon was, it was kind of rude, as far as Mimi was concerned.

Too bad no one asked.

Tailmon then shrugged, something she must have learned from Taichi. "That's just my thought process. She wanted me to bring him here for something. You all are here. So she must have done it. So she must exist."

"How…" Taichi murmured. Then something seemed to settle in his eyes and he yawned. "I'm tired."

Mimi laughed. She couldn't help herself. It was the wrong response, but she was tired just as much as he was. It took forever to sleep around here! "Me too!"

Yamato made a face of concern and probably more than a little annoyance, but then Takeru did the same. The look of dismay, the desire for answers, melted when he leaned against his brother.

"Killed the tention huh," Gomamon said cheerfully, flopping back on Jou and causing him to fall over.

Something between Sora and Yamato and even Koushiro and Mimi looked down at her hands. "We're not going to gt any further for tonight, I think," Koushiro finally said, as if doing so was a great effort. She didn't know why, it wasn't that big of a deal. They'd all find out later.

Besides in Mimi's opinion, this was good. If someone could come in, that meant they could come out. Sounded like a plan to her!