In one small part of the Digital World, it was possible to find a strange anomaly. There was an invisible wall covering a square, each side just over a quarter-mile long. There seemed no way past: trying to walk through was impassable. Flying over was possible, as long as you were fifty feet above the ground, but trying to descend into the anomaly would result in landing on thin air.

Except, at one small point in the square. If one looked from a direct facing, they could see a door. To enter this door would lead to an underground labyrinth of tunnels and hallways, and in the centre, a laboratory.  And scattered around many cavernous rooms, numerous statues of Digimon. Each sat on a strange podium, with a computer terminal beside it.

And in one of these rooms, one statue spoke.

He was, unfortunately, unheard.  But if that Guilmon statue was heard by anyone other than himself at the time, this was what he was saying.

'Hey! Takeru! Wake up!'

Daisuke eventually gained a response from the Dorumon statue he had been trying to talk to. The two had been given the ability to talk telepathically by their captors, an attempt to stave off madness, he had claimed.

'Huh... Wh... Oh. Sorry, Daisuke. I was dreaming again.'

Daisuke sighed in his mind. The two of them had been like this now for some time, one finding the other asleep at random and often awaking to repeated attempts for a response, or to silence. They estimated it was around a month, maybe longer or shorter, but they had been surprised to fall asleep as statues. Takeru had been the first to fall silent, causing Daisuke no end of panic until he awoke to hear Takeru frantically worrying he had blacked out and now Daisuke was not responding.

Both had dreamt. Both had dreamt of events when they were human, weeks before to them, but thanks to the nature of the lair they were trophies in, the two humans-turned-digimon-turned-statues had lost barely an hour of their lives outside the partition.

'So, what's up? Did anyone come in at all?' Takeru asked.

Daisuke tried to shake his head on instinct, even though a) his neck was solid rock and b) Takeru was to his side. The two could barely see out of the corner of their repositioned eyes, but their gazes were locked forward and everything but the empty podiums opposite was more or less invisible to them. Even their Digimon partners, petrified somewhere nearby, were practically on another planet.

'No. I was just bored... Hey, do you have any idea why we dream?'

Takeru was quiet.

'Not a clue. I've never been like this for long. I'm not sure I really care either. It's better than looking at the wall all day... or putting up with you.'

'Ha ha ha. You're so funny, Takeru...' Daisuke pretended he was rolling his eyes.

'Really?' Takeru's reply dripped sarcasm.

'No. Anyway, what did you dream about?'

'What? After you didn't tell me your dream before I fell asleep?'

'Alright, fine. I'll tell you. But I know you don't want to hear it. See, I dreamt me and Hikari...' Daisuke began.

'Okay, I've lost interest already.' Takeru hastily interrupted.

'Aw, but the dream got really weird once you showed up...'

There was a silence that would have been an eternity to them some time ago. Daisuke wondered if he had broken his friend's mind entirely or if the human-Dorumon-statue had found a way to fall asleep to escape deliberately, until Takeru's voice almost exploded in his head.

'...I was... I was there?! What the hell do you... I don't want to know, okay. No details... '

Daisuke snickered, making sure Takeru heard it. The real dream had been about Soccer. Hikari wasn't even present, and Takeru had made no cameos.

'Quiet! Did you hear something?'

Daisuke stopped his faux mental giggles, and listened. Footsteps.

'Crap. They're coming back. They must have got her...' He moaned.

Takeru was slightly closer to the noise.

'Wait a second... I think I can just about see them when they show up...'

Seeing was not needed, as a voice cried out.

"Oh no, Hikari... An Angemon and a Flamedramon... It's them!" Gatomon shouted.

"Great... Any way to help them? Any idea where Takeru and Daisuke might be?"

"Yeah. These terminals have a revert program it seems..." Gatomon said. They heard buttons being pressed.

The two boys-turned-digimon statues perked up. Hikari was safe and she was about to save them!

Then the penny dropped.

'Crap! We're statues of Digimon! She won't know who we are!' Daisuke realised.

'Maybe Angemon and Flamedramon can tell her...' Takeru said hopefully.

"What?! It says it'll take a week to revert!" Hikari cried.

If they hadn't already done that, both boys would have petrified in horror. A week before they could even learn. A week more to revert them. More than enough time for the Archivemon and his partner to come back and stop their friend.

"So, what do we do?"

Hikari was silent, but replied to her partner.

"We wait, I guess... You said this was partitioned so a week here is barely fifteen minutes in the real world and outside, so I guess it's not a huge wait, really. Assuming those two don't come back first."

"Okay. I'll try find some food or something then. Wait here and just run away screaming if they show up."

"Gatomon, do you have to make it sound so cowardly?" Hikari sighed.

"Hey, it'll get my attention. And save your butt..."

Gatomon then dashed past Takeru's sight, entering Daisuke's own field of view, when Hikari shouted.

"Wait!"

The girl ran into their sight.

"Gatomon... If you find the guys... Come get me right away."

Gatomon nodded.

"Sure. I'm sure they're okay, they'll be in a cell... If they haven't murdered each other."

Hikari facepalmed.

"That's mostly what I'm worried about... They get along but putting them in a cell for weeks together is just going to cause fights."

'I'm shocked that she trusts us so little...' Daisuke joked.

'Yeah. It would cause one fight, and end with me kicking your ass.' Takeru boasted back.

Gatomon however, had noticed the statues.

"A Dorumon? A Guilmon? Neither of them exist any more..."

Gatmon pressed a button on a computer panel, and gasped.

"Hikari... I found the guys..."

The human girl turned, then saw the panel. She looked at the statues.

'Yes! Gatomon, I could kiss you!' Takeru cheered.

'And it wouldn't be as weird if you were still a fluffy dinosaur at the time!' Daisuke noted.

"...They've been turned into these Digimon then petrified?"

Gatomon nodded.

"It says here that it's been for a month or so since they were changed."

Hikari shuddered. She knew her friends were likely aware, and likely able to hear.

"Oh man... Sorry guys, it was just an hour or so for us... Can we do anything to help them get out?"

"Yeah. I think we can turn them to flesh but not back human here. Maybe we should figure out how to revert them human before... Hikari, wait!" Gatomon shouted, as the beeps of buttons were pressed, and Hikari's head bobbed between both fields of view.

And then, a bright flash, and a quick scream, followed by a thump. Hikari had fallen.

'What just happened?!'

'I don't know, I can't see!'

"Hikari! Are you okay?!"

"Ugh... Yeah... I'm fine, Gatomon..."

Hikari stood up, grasping something to stand.

'Hey! Hikari! Get your hand off my foot!' Daisuke protested.

Hikari froze.

"...Daisuke?"

'She heard you?'

"...Takeru?"

"Hikari, what is it?"

"Did you hear anything, Gatomon?"

"No. Why?"

'Holy crap, she did hear me! Hey, Hikari! It's great to see you!'

"...Daisuke just said it was great to see me. I'm going crazy."

Gatomon examined the panel.

She then laughed.

"Hikari, you're not going nuts. You just linked your mind to theirs. They were able to talk to each other so their minds weren't isolated. Look, that Archivemon guy left notes."

Hikari blinked.

"...So they can talk to me now?"

'Yeah. But we can't share memories. By the way, good to see you here as well.' Takeru said.

Hikari backed up a little to look at them both.

"So... You guys... Are you okay?"

'Good as can be.' Daisuke replied.

"Okay, so... These computers, guys. They say I can revert you, but..."

'We know. One week, and we're still Digimon after it. It's better than nothing.' Takeru told her.

Hikari nodded.

"I'm really sorry, guys. But I have some good news."

She grinned.

'What's the good news? They both asked.

"...You're both adorable!" She laughed, quickly giving each statue a gentle hug.

'Damn it. We've been turned to stone digimon and you're teasing us?! You owe me a date to make up for this...' Daisuke fake-whined.

"I don't think so... Takeru looks like he'll be way cuter when he turns back..." Hikari taunted.

Both boys sighed. This was facing up to be a long week.

***

Hikari couldn't stay with them all the time, they knew, so after Gatomon reported she had found some food, she had left. It was as she walked away, she realised the two boys voices stayed just as loud in her head no mattter how far away she got. She explained this

"So... You hear them, they can't hear you? That could come in handy..." Gatomon smirked.

"Yeah, but I want to try not letting them know." The human female smirked, then paused.

"...Hikari, are you okay? You seem awfully red."

"...I think I should go back and tell them..." She realised, turning around.

"What? What were they thinking?" Gatomon asked, but only heard her human partner mutter something about "stupid boys".

***

Suffice to say, the boys kept their conversations a little cleaner when they were told Hikari had heard their discussion. She refused to let Gatomon know what had been said, leaving the unfortunate Digimon muttering something about "stupid humans".  

Hikari and Gatomon had tried to take turns sleeping until the boys proved they could shout into Hikari's mind and wake her if there was a threat, meaning the two were able to sleep properly, albeit uncomfortably from lack of bedding.

The next morning, Hikari tried to see how far the boys could hear her, as well as trying to explore. Hikari had experimented, being able to try and block out the conversations in her head, as well as also managing to be able to speak back to them, but for some reason her own messages back were hazy and often had to be kept short, for trying too hard brought on a headache. She and Gatomon wandered through the maze of corridors and rooms, not hearing silence at all, the two males still talking away even as the pair made another surprise discovery.

"...Humans? I don't recognise them..." Hikari said.

Before them, two humans, a boy and a girl, roughly Hikari's age. The girl had twin pigtails, the boy messy but still short hair. They resembled each other slightly, so Hikari (correctly) guessed they were twins. They stood on the same podium/pedestal. The girl wore a dress, and the boy jeans and a t-shirt. Both had fake looking smiles plastered onto their faces.

"I'll check the panel." Gatomon volunteered.

"What does it say?" Hikari asked, looking closely at the two.

"...It says they're examples of both variants of human. I guess that Archivemon doesn't know about human genders or ethnic groups. There's not much other info about them, just that he caught them and... an Impmon? What next, Bigfoot?"

"...What's an Impmon?" Hikari pondered. Gatomon pointed at a nearby statue of a Digimon

"Extinct. Except, apparently, for that one over there. But... Whoa. That has to suck."

"What?"

"It says here they've been here for a hundred and twenty years. They were caught sixty days ago in the real world."

"Oh.... Wow. That really sucks... Wait, do you know if they can understand Japanese?"

Gatomon shook her head.

"Archivemon didn't learn much about them. He was surprised to see the Impmon too... Wait. He says they claimed to both be his... Tamer? I've never..."

Gatomon pondered this.

"Well, Hikari, this is going to sound crazy, but can you speak to these two as well?"

Hikari nodded.

"We can try. I'll try not to electrocute myself this time though."

"Okay. You talk to them, I'll take a look around. Shout if there's a problem"

Gatomon dashed off, as Hikari pressed the buttons,. She winced as she did get a slight shock. But a moment later, she heard two new voices.

'...I don't care how cute she is, Mako! She's...'

"Oh good, you guys are Japanese!" Hikari sighed with relief.

'Sis, what's the problem here exactly? She just said she's going to try turn us back!'

'She said this only "really sucks!" I've been stuck on this damn pedestal with you for years, you could read my mind for half of it, and it only "really sucks?!" That's the problem!'

Hikari flinched

"Oh... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound rude... I just..."

'Ai, she didn't know! She says so!'

'Well, she should... Wait. She heard us. How did she hear us?'

"Well... The computer here, it let me link my mind into yours but..."

The girl, Ai, then screamed.

'Now a complete stranger can read my memories!?'

"No! All I can do is hear your conversations."

'Oh good... Uh, how much did you hear?' The boy, Mako (Which Hikari assumed was short for Makoto or a similar name) asked.

"Well... Your sister didn't care how cute I was and..."

The boy groaned.

'Great, now I look weird, don't I...'

'You looked weird since you were born, idiot. Your new girlfriend won't be too put off by you acting a complete weirdo, she's probably trying not to look at your face in the first place.'

'We're twins! We look like each other! Why are you always like this when I talk to a girl?'

'Well, you keep scaring my boyfriends... Besides, you have a girlfriend already!'

The two began bickering, and Hikari simmered, before bursting.

"Shut up! I know you two are getting on each other's nerves, but please, just shut up! You two are in my head too!"

Both twins apologised.

"It's fine. I just haven't had a good rest... Two of my friends got caught the same way you did and I'm trying to rescue them... And I hope to get you two out but it'll take a week to revert you."

'All right... Um, we don't know your name, by the way.' Mako asked.

"I'm Hikari. I'm guessing the girl is Ai, and the boy is Makoto?"

'Yup. Only, call me Mako, I only get called Makoto when my mom is...'

He paused for a moment. Hikari recalled it was over a century since the twins would have saw their mother.

"Hey, I know it was rough but your friends and family will only have missed you for sixty days. So you'll see your parents again!" Hikari tried to cheer him up.

'It's not just that... We're not really from around here.'

"Oh? Where are you from? You accents sound like they're from Tokyo like me..."

'Well... Have you ever heard of Paralellmon?'

***

Ai and Mako explained that first, they were from another dimension, and another Digital World. They then explained that years before, when they had been only four, they had been Tamers for Impmon. They hadn't really done very much, their age and a slight problem with Impmon that was apparently long resolved (It was, after all, nearly a hundred and thirty years ago to them) meant older Tamers had been the ones to really fight the threats.

But those tamers had got older, and now they and another younger tamer from before, plus some newer ones their own age, had been roped into trying to save their own Digital World from a threat: A Paralellmon in their dimension had become infected with a virus, and had begun causing glitches that were slowly causing whole areas of their Digital World to simply freeze in time. The cause was the code of other Digital worlds leaking through the bored holes.

Some of the older tamers, now in their twenties, had become trapped in one such frozen area. Ai and Mako said that one of those first trapped was the half-sister and (half?) brother in law of one of the "new" tamers. They had been rescued though. And this kind of unfreezing was the reason the pair were here.

At each frozen site, the Paralellmon left a tunnel to another digital world. He had kept slingshotting in and out of their world, boring new dimension tunnels to other worlds, the virus leaving behind a single infected Digimon that kept the gate open. The Tamers had to find, and capture, that Digimon and take it back. The process closed the gate, sent the Digimon back but kept the virus fragment, and the Tamers then had to fight the virus. Since that meant two battles in a row, they had split into groups.

The tunnels had no pattern, made at random to other dimensions. In addition, the timelines were not in sync either. They had wound up in the real-world years all the way back to the seventies,  to years technically the future, though in another dimension.

The twins however, had been sent into the hole here during a very busy spell. The group was stretched to breaking point, only just able to send one tamer in and leave one outside to fight the virus. It was high risk, and the older tamer they had left behind had been extremely nervous about letting the twins go in. They'd assured her they'd be back in no time.

Ai and Mako had noted the irony that the year-inside day-outside sort of time distortion that had left them here for a century also meant that from their own real world view they would have been here for two and a half fours, for the cause of the freezing was that no other digital world was in sync with theirs, where time flowed twice as fast. And the one time where it had, saw their own real world frozen in time, the tamers only protected by their D-terminals shielding them from the effects of the glitch that stopped the world.

Hikari didn't miss the parallels, explaining her own situation, as a member of the older group, but also of the younger group too. Though their problem at the moment was Archivemon, and the fact Takeru and Daisuke were trapped.

The twins had been amused to learn what Daisuke had become. They knew a Guilmon themselves, they said.

Gatomon had then returned, and, after some careful use of the panel, they managed to link Daisuke and Takeru to speak to Ai and Mako. Hikari almost immediately regretted it, as Daisuke and Mako both got on alarmingly well, to the concern of Ai. At least, when she wasn't trying to figure out if Takeru was cute when he was human.

That had sparked another scuffle with the twins, until Hikari put her foot down again. Takeru was horrified to then learn that Hikari was verbally telling Ai's statue all the things she wanted to hear. By the end of it, the boys were friends, if only united to oppose the conspiracy of the girls who were far too eager to share teasing information with each other.

In the end though, the five got along, Gatomon generally doing some careful exploration that had helped find such valuable commodities like a pillow and blanket for her human partner to be able to sleep with some more comfort.  The five could separate various conversations, though still overhear them. The conversations generally compared worlds, where they learned that on the whole, things were similar in their real worlds bar the Digimon card-game from Ai and Mako's world.

It wound up an almost peaceful time, Hikari going from pair to pair, loathe to release any other Digimon trapped for fear that the large numbers of Digimon freed at once would be as big a problem for their escape as it would be for Archivemon. But it didn't last. With barely an hour or so before Takeru and Daisuke would be free, disaster struck

***

"What are you doing here?!" Archivemon bellowed, having found Hikari and Gatomon lurking in his laboratory.

"Saving our friends!" Gatomon cried, digivolving to Angewomon, and trying to attack.

LadyDevimon intercepted it.

"Archivemon, she'll have tried to save her friends!"

"I know. Keep her busy, I will save the archives!"

He raced to a terminal, Angewomon trying to stop him, but LadyDevimon and she began brawling.

"Oh no you don't!"  Hikari shouted, charging the Digimon herself.

He bemusedly knocked her away, and finished his attempt. Takeru and Daisuke's statues appeared in the lab.

"Hmm... Revert cancelled... And on the others too. Good. You failed, human." Archivemon smirked, as Hikari heard Takeru and Daisuke wail in frustration.

"Not yet... We'll kick your butt and save my friends!" Hikari boasted, hoping Angewomon had the upper hand. She did, but it was still a brawl. Hikari merely stalled for time.

"I doubt it." Archivemon said, consulting a small PDA-like device.

Hikari gasped. She heard the pounding pulse in her ears slow down, and couldn't breathe....

"Angewomon! Cease your attacks, or I will  shut this human down entirely."

'What are you doing to her?!' Hikari heard Takeru cry out, as Daisuke started swearing at the Archivemon.

"What... What did you do to her?"

"I have used the data of human beings to identify key processes, and I have paused them. She is a few moments from complete system failure unless they reactivate."

Angewomon saw her friend and partner was on her knees, turning blue as her heart rate was slowing and her functionless lungs choked her.

"Okay! You win! Let her go."

Hikari gasped, collapsing as her body switched back on fully. The boys both kicked up a stream of insults and threats, but Hikari had passed out. She was, however, unharmed.

"Good. Now, get in that tube. And your human will be transformed too." LadyDevimon said, placing the prone Hikari in another tube while Archivemon sent the boys back to their proper places.

"When our friends come..." Angewomon threatened, as the tube was sealed.

"They will join you. Now, as for your human, I think... Yes, a Cutemon. That will do."

Angewomon's time to retort was over. Her tube filled with the gas that would convert her to stone. She would be unable to watch what happened to Hikari.

Her tube glowed, and the human began to turn pink all over. It deepened, and she began shrinking. Her clothing was absorbed into her pink skin, except that more clothing seemed to grow: a scarf around her neck, headphones on her ears, and her shoes and socks were replaced by small red boots on ever-shrinking limbs

She grew smaller and pinker, limbs becoming almost stublike, and her head larger. She grew two large ears from the top of her head, and when the process ended, she was a pink rabbit-like creature.

"Excellent. Now, we awaken her..."

Archivemon accessed his PDA, forcing her awake with a gasp.

"Ow... What.. Angewomon!"

The gas in the other tube was cleared. Angewomon was now stone.

"Have no fear, former human. You will be just like her. I will put you both across from your friends.

As Hikari/Cutemon's tube filled with the green gas, it was zero consolation to her.

***

It was even less consolation that she wound up falling unconscious again, not awakening until she was stone, and facing an alarmed Takeru and Daisuke, with Ai and Mako also voicing their own concern. It had been eighteen hours since they had supposed to have reverted Takeru and Daisuke to a more mobile form

'Ow, guys, don't all talk at once! I'm okay!'

She then relayed the full bad news to the twins, that the reversions had been cancelled.

'So...What now?' Ai asked.

'Well, they left after they transformed me, but the five of us are still linked obviously. And guys, I'm sorry, I screwed up. I managed to let you all down.' Hikari sighed.

'Um, Hikari... Hold that thought a minute...' Mako said.

'What?'

His reply, however, was indistinct, and then the twins were silent.

For an hour, the trio wondered what had happened, fearing that the connection between them had been severed. The truth was a little more bearable.

"Hey, there's the Angemon she said about!" A new voice said

"Impmon, quiet! We've no idea if the Archivemon is still around or not!"

'Hikari... What did Archivemon say when he undid the reversion?'

If they could grin, they would have.

Ai and Mako, however, could, and did.

"Hi guys! He must have not known you found us. We turned back... Uh, wait, where are... Ah, yeah. The Guilmon was Daisuke, right?" Ai said.

She frowned.

"Hikari, the Dorumon is NOT cuter."

'Sue me.'

Mako shook his head.

"Nah. We're going to go one better and revert you guys."

'Wait, don't. That's no good. Just leave and track down our friends, get them to come. Beat those two first!' Daisuke added.

The two once-more humans paused.

"...Are you sure? We could try and free you..."

'Daisuke's right. You guys have been waiting years. Just get our friends, send them here, and go save your own world.'

"No way. We're coming to get you guys, then saving our world."

'Whatever, go! Oh, and Ai, don't hit on Ken! He's Miyako's!'

"Sure thing. She's the girl who dyes her hair purple, yeah?"

Hikari confirmed this.

"Can I hit on her?" Mako asked. Ai punched his arm.

"Jerk! What would Suzie say?!"

The twins did leave, bickering quietly, leaving the three transformed humans behind.

'So... What did you guys do to pass the time last month?' Hikari began.