A Lost Factor

Chapter 4-Rearranging Memories

A few days later, Jasmine got off the ship, at Fairy Beach, a beach in California, not too far from Acamina. She wasn't sure how'd she get there, but at least she was on the right side of the ocean. She stopped by a 7-11 to get a map, and began walking to Acamina, since it was better than sitting and doing nothing.

She got to Acamina in a reasonable amount of time. It was just about lunchtime. She was a little surprised at a noticible lack of digimon, if the worlds have been fused together. For all she knew, maybe it was a big trick and she wasn't even in the right dimension. But, if Dr. Wasiku had sent her here, and everyone thought that something was happening, it probably was. Maybe there was just stuff going on right now at Japan, and any attacks in California were done. She shoved that idea out of her head. She didn't like thinking that her friends had lost.

The first place she went to was Kenny's house, where Jenni used to live before she went to college. Several of the other digidestined lived near here, and maybe Realemon wouldn't have taken Kenny, since he might be considered useless, compared to some of the others. She soon found out that Kenny wasn't there, and often would hang out with Ponce, somewhere else. Since Kenny would now be about 13, it wasn't too illogical. But his mom did notice that Pirelli never came over, something she had been doing since she met Kenny at school.

Just as Jasmine was trying to decide what to do(go to Wazumi's old appartment to see if there was anything there), she noticed a crowd of people getting off a nearby bus, talking about how dangerous downtown was getting. Remembering that downtown usually wasn't bad, she went to the busstop to wait for the bus to take her there.

Once on the bus near downtown, she saw why people would see downtown as dangerous. There were some digimon here, some attacking, some not. The area nearby looked like it had been bombed or something, and in the middle of the area, there was a tall black tower. It was strange looking, and extremely out of place. It seemed to give an evil feel to it. Passing over a bridge on the bus, she thought she saw a small glimmer along the side of the black tower, but when she looked again, it was gone.

Getting off the bus, Jasmine began walking towards the dark area. She felt a bit glad that the area wasn't at all near CSUA, where she, Jenni, and the others had gone to college. The dark area creeped her out.

The closer she got to the dark area, she saw the building get darker, some covered in ash and soot. Some were broken, some streets were filled with trash. She noticed some digimon hiding in broken buildings and abandoned cars. Everything just saddened her. She saw no people in this area. Perhaps it was originally from the digital world and got placed here, which could explain the lack of people.

A couple blocks away from the tower, she found a very tall fence, surrounding the whole perimeter. Some digimon were guarding any entrences. She still saw no people, and hadn't found the glimmer she had seen.

The dark area ended at the seashore, leaving a black, soot covered beach, with a small island in the distance, and from Jasmine's angle, covered in mist and trees. A small glimmer of hope appeared in Jasmine's mind, as she thought about the past. She followed the beach, until she found a bridge that looked like it would lead right up to the island. The bridge looked fairly new, the beach was clean and tidy.

Jasmine ran down the bridge to the island, desperately hoping that it was something safe, unlike the dark area. Nearing closer to the island, she couldn't see through the mist, except for a small light that was more inland, near the forest she had seen while on the beach. She blindly followed the light, remembering the past, hoping she knew where she was.

As she reached the foot of a hill, she recalled a bad experience here, and knew exactly where she was. Running up the hill and out of most of the mist and fog, she soon saw a tall golden tower, out of place with anything normally found in Acamina. It was about 5 stories tall, and surrounded by a small forest. The plain existance of the tower confirmed what Jasmine knew about this place. She ran past the trees, and up to the tower. A light purple mist was clinging it, but as Jasmine walked through the door, nothing happened. She walked up the spiraling staircase, up to the entrance to the main room of the tower. A dark shadow was in place of the door, but Jasmine walked through it like it was nothing;for her, it was nothing.

The room was empty, bare of anything. There were windows, the floor, and the ceiling. A small doorway in the back lead to another room, and a catlike digimon sat on those stairs. The digimon was black, and had small streaks of gold mixed in with the fur. It had gold eyes, a gold collar, and a unhappy and annoyed face. The digimon wasn't looking at Jasmine, but still spoke to her. "Welcome to Lulu Tower, Digidestined. Why in the world would you come here, and if you touch a thing, you're dead."

Jasmine smiled, walking in. "Glad to see that you haven't changed one bit at all, Lunamon. Even Realemon can't change you."

Lunamon looked at Jasmine, and climbed down the stairs, into the big room. "Just what we needed. Proof that the world has gone nuts. Welcome back, miss dimension girl."