Peacekeeper: Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it?

Liam: I feel like I've been thrown through a dryer, then left to sit in a dark box for three months.

Peacekeeper: Ohh…yeah…I forgot to pay the electricity bill on the Muse Box.

Liam: Great.

Peacekeeper: Anyway, I'm back after a 3 month sabbatical from fanfiction. Expect more good stuff from me in the next few months. And the rest of Path of the Spirit.

Liam: Hey, what's that supposed to mean?!?

Peacekeeper: Yeah. Read, review, and don't sue. I don't own Digimon. Nor ff.net. Nor Liam…no, wait…I do own Liam…

Liam sweatdrops…

Chapter Two-Awakening

As Liam gradually woke up, two thoughts occurred to him: first, the world was spinning; and second, he wasn't in Pennsylvania anymore. And his surroundings sure didn't look like any postcards he had seen of Kansas.

With the world still spinning around him, Liam resisted the urge to throw up as he rubbed his head. Once the urge to hurl abated, he sat bolt upright realizing his situation. "Where the hell am I?"

Glancing around the small grove where he now sat, Liam began to realize that his situation was a bit more unusual than simply passing out at the computer. He glanced down at the strange device that had appeared on his desk as it began to blink and chirp.

"What the hell is this thing? Did it really bring me here? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"

While the device on his wrist refused to give him any answers, a small display popped up that looked like a crossbreed between a digital compass and a radar screen. On it, a small arrow pointed forward, and a small blue dot appeared in the center of the screen. "Is that supposed to be me?"

Trying to make sense of the display, he suddenly realized that the new watch and the odd setting wasn't the only change in his life; his clothes were completely different. Liam stared in shock at his clothing. Holy shit…someone swapped my clothes on me.

His normal t-shirt and jeans combination had been replaced by a simple black jacket with a light colored Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants. His sneakers were also replaced by more utilitarian leather hiking boots. On a hunch, Liam took off his glasses to examine them. His normal aviator glasses somehow had become a trendy square-wire job.

"What the hell is up with these clothes? And my glasses?" the bewildered teen puzzled with a mix of anger and confusion.

A chirp from the watch elicited Liam's attention, suddenly becoming irritated with the new fashion accessory from hell as he frantically tried to turn off the chirping. As he fiddled with the digivice, Liam noticed a new golden dot blinking on the screen and the arrow on the screen apparently trying to direct him towards the new dot.

What the hell… Liam growled, as he dusted himself off and studied the digivice. He sighed softly and shrugged, deciding to follow the digivice instructions. What do I have to lose? Maybe it'll be a way to get back home. Mom's going to be pissed if I miss dinner.

After following the small screen in front of him for a few minutes, Liam became aware of something unsettling. Before, there had only been the one golden blip, but as he walked several blue blips appeared on the screen beyond the golden one, and they seemed to be coming towards him. Shuddering slightly in fear, he decided to pick up his pace towards the dot.

Quickly, he found himself standing over what had attracted the watch. Looking down, he saw a golden object on the ground. It was small, and looked like a union between an egg and a cylinder, with flattened sides lengthwise and an odd silver emblem on a top facet. The emblem is what drew Liam's attention, as he gradually recognized the design.

"The Crest of Spirit…" he whispered in shock as he absent-mindedly touched the object. A blast of golden energy knocked him backwards and left him lying on the ground and staring at the sky, regretting his decision to touch the item.

"OK, can anything else go wrong today?" he pondered aloud. Just then, he noticed the odd object hovering above his chest.

"No, this just can't be…" he choked out, as the object settled on his chest. "This thing is behaving just like…but…but…but" he stuttered, touching the object and trying to think back to what he knew about Digimon.

"If this is a digimental, then that means I'm in the Digital World," he surmised as he slowly stood up and dusted himself off. He shook his head and tried to force himself to think rationally, despite the fact the rest of the world didn't appear to be behaving rationally.

Suddenly, the watch chirped again, and Liam remembered the other blips he had noticed earlier. They were much closer, and so he decided it would be in his best interest not to find out what they were.

Rushing back through the underbrush, he stopped a few hundred meters away to catch his breath and analyze his situation.

"This is unreal," he panted as he examined the golden object.

"This looks like a digimental, and this place looks like the Digital World. If this is a digimental and this is the Digital World, then this is a digivice," he reasoned, examining the new fashion accessory on his hand. Everything had pointed back towards the object being a digivice, despite Liam's stubborn refusal to believe the simplest explanation. It bore striking resemblance to the schematic of the digivice he had been designing back at home; yet there was no explanation for how it had appeared.

"This is ridiculous. It makes rational sense, except the Digital World isn't real! It's the fantasy of some cartoonist in Japan, who created a children's show. The Digital World is fictional, so it's illogical that I'm in the Digital World." He tried to believe what he was reasoning, but glancing around at his surroundings, Liam was at a loss to figure out how else to explain everything that had happened to him in the last twenty minutes outside of dreaming. And it was just too real to be a dream.

He was about to give up to make sense of anything around him as anything other than a delusion when a voice called out behind him.

"Hey, who are you?"

Oh shit Liam thought as rationality suddenly abandoned him, and he turned around to find out who-or what-was behind him.

• • • • •

Somewhere in the infinite diversity and conundrum that humans call the universe, a female phantom sighed.

It's beginning, she thought as she turned away from her viewing of the Digital World. An ephemeral tear traced its way down her cheek as she walked away.

Liam, I hope you're ready for this. I'm sorry I couldn't save you from this fate…