Elena stormed into her room, angry over the fight she just had with her niece. She wished her brother would keep his daughter in her place, but he would never listen. Her family believes her squabbles with Ana Maria are nothing more than sibling rivalries.

Her partner, Kotemon, looked up to the teen-aged girl in concern. However, the warrior digimon learned to never bother her partner when angry as she is, especially after seeing what happens to Diego all the time.

Elena just sat down at the computer, planning to rant on the chat room Izumi Koushiro set aside for them. She opened the connection to the Digi-destined message board almost immediately. As the chat applet appeared, she noticed that everyone in the chat room was in a panic. Apparently, the map of the digital world keeps flashing random dots on the screen in different places. Most of the people there thought it was a bug in the program.

Carter managed to calm everyone down and explained what was going on. Apparently, the map went haywire as soon as the members of the San Antonio team disappeared from the Digital World.

Elena grinned, seeing the opportunity to possibly relieve some of the stress she had built up. Elena volunteered to investigate what was happening, much to the dismay of Rosa and some of her friends on the Mexico team.

Carter gave her the coordinates on a private messaging. Elena thanked him then added a bit about 'kicking some ass.' "Let's go, Kotemon," Elena told her partner in Spanish. Kotemon nodded and stood up as Elena held her D3 to the screen, opening the Digi-port to the location Carter gave her.

Carter started to regret giving Elena the coordinates. He immediately passed the coordinates onto Rosa and the others, hoping they'd be able to catch up to Elena before she did anything stupid.

Alamo Diaries
Entry 09: Overcoming Obstacles, Part 1
By: Izumi Ryu
Disclaimer: Diaries Universe belongs to Lord Archive. Carter belongs to Shaun Garin, and the Mexico team (with the exception of Rosa) belongs to Akino Ame. Digimon belongs to Toei, and the rest of the characters are mine. You know the drill.

Dwayne opened his eyes and looked around to see where he was at. All he could see was that he was in some stone-bricked corridor. However, he couldn't go much further, as there were several obstacles in his way. He looked back to see if there was another way out, but all he saw behind him was a solid brick wall. "Now, what am I supposed to do?" Dwayne asked. "Rich! Rita! Where are you?!"

"Mew," Dwayne heard what sounded like a cat nearby. He looked down to see what looked like a Calico cat, which had brown, tan, white, and black spots all over it with a black tail and thin fur.

"So, how did you get in little guy?" Dwayne asked. As if responding to his question, the cat bolted straight ahead towards the obstacles and started clearing them. "Heh, easy for you to do, maybe," Dwayne said. He started to walk towards the obstacle course, as Dwayne called it, but before he even reached the first obstacle, he felt his foot sink as he took a step. Almost immediately, he jumped back as an arrow whizzed right in front of his face, not even an inch from his nose. His eyes went wide with the realization that that arrow could've gone through his head.

"Damn, is that cat trying to kill me or something?" Dwayne asked.

Richard seemed to walk around in sheer darkness. He couldn't see in any direction, but there seemed to be nothing at all anyway. "Anyone here?" Richard called out, hoping he was in the same place as everyone else. He noticed a faint shape in the distance, which he knew it was human, but he couldn't tell who it was. He broke into a run towards the shape, trying to see who it was. However, once he got to the person there, he got a look of surprise when he saw that it was a mirror image of himself.

"Hey, you," the mirror image said, his voice even sounding like Richard's. "I challenge you to a duel." He motioned to an area that was quite a distance away. Floating in the air as if it was sitting on an invisible table was a deck. The mirror image of himself had his deck set up the same way.

"I don't have time for this. I need to find the others," Richard told him.

"I am your only way out," the mirror image said. "Beat me in a duel and you'll be free. Lose and you'll die."

"Oh, really," Richard said, skeptical about what he was just told. "How am I supposed to trust you when that's on the line?"

"Take a look at your deck," the mirror image said. Richard nodded and walked towards the deck. When he looked through half of the deck, he knew all of the cards in there were the same as the cards in his deck.

"Fine," Richard said. "I accept. I'll mop the floor with you, right now."

"Don't take me too lightly," the clone said, as both players shuffled their decks. "Minor thing you might want to know, this is not going to be like anything you've ever dealt with."

"I'll believe it when I see it, let's go," Richard said.

"Since your so confident, I'll let you go first." Both players picked up their starting hand of five cards. Richard was very glad when he picked up his first for cards, but his fifth card was something he never saw before. It said the card was a magic card called "Owl Totem", its image was of the totem he tried to pick up earlier, and its only effects were that it couldn't be destroyed or discarded. "What the hell is this card?" Richard asked. "This card isn't even in any sets I know of."

"The Owl Totem card will make or break this duel," the clone told him. "That will be the one card that will either win it or lose it for you."

"Yeah, right," Richard said, but he was bummed that this card would be holding him back throughout the duel. Richard drew his card for the turn. Then, he took a card and discarded it. "I'll discard Thunder Dragon to activate its effect and bring the other two Thunder Dragons in my deck to my hand." He quickly searched his deck, for the other two Thunder Dragon cards and put them into his hand before shuffling his deck again. "Then, I'll play Polymerization. I'll fuse both of the Thunder Dragons in my hand into the Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon." Richard discarded both of the Thunder Dragons, then the Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon card appeared in a spot on the invisible table. This monster was a level eight monster with 2800 attack points. On top of that, he looked up as some light flashed around a certain area. When it faded, a real Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon appeared in front of him, facing the clone. He wasn't kidding when he said that this wasn't like anything I've dealt with. It's like I'm actually on the show. I wonder if that's just an illusion, Richard thought. "And since fusion summons are considered Special summons, I can still normal summon or set another monster on the field. So I'll summon Dream Clown in Attack mode." As Richard placed, the Dream Clown card down in a monster slot, a real Dream Clown appeared on the field in the same way as the Twin Headed Thunder Dragon did. The Dream Clown was just a level three monster with 1200 Attack points, but Richard wanted it on the field for its effect. When it is switched from Attack mode to Defense mode, it can destroy one of his opponent's monsters automatically. "I'll end my turn, since I can't attack."

"Too bad for you, I can," the fake Richard said, drawing a card. "I'll play Dark Hole." Suddenly, both of Richard's monsters disappeared into an invisible vortex. The Dark Hole magic card destroys all monsters on the field.

"Dammit," Richard said. Then, Richard's eyes went wide when he saw the monsters he summoned during his turn appear on his opponent's side of the field. "What? Not only is he mirroring me, but he's mirroring my deck as well?"

"Direct attack," the clone said. Sparks started to fly from the dragon as it fired a lightning bolt at Richard. Richard screamed as the surge of electricity went through his body, getting only some relief when the attack stopped. He didn't even have time to catch his breath as he felt a fist impact into his gut. He looked up to see that the Dream Clown had charged at him and punched him. This caused Richard to cough up some of his own blood. As the Dream Clown jumped back, Richard doubled over in pain. Already, half of his life points were gone, and his question about this all being an illusion was answered.

Rita appeared to be in a plains region. However, she couldn't see anything that could tell her where she was. There wasn't any sort of landmark, or any sort of life for that matter. "Hello? Anyone out there?" Rita asked out loud. However, she heard nothing as she just continued walking in one direction. Maybe she would run into something if she just continued to walk in the same direction. However, hours seemed to pass by as she began to lose hope over finding anything, becoming exhausted.

She finally saw something that looked like a massive rock in the middle of the field in the distance. She continued toward it to see if she could find something, since as beautiful as this vast field looked, it was getting annoying to her.

As she got closer she saw that the "rock" was very much alive. It wasn't even a rock, but two quadruped digimon that seemed to be sleeping, cuddled together. It actually would've looked cute if it weren't for two things, that both were at least 4 times her size and that one of them had this smile of satisfaction on his face. She didn't want to know what the two were doing, but, unfortunately, she had a good idea on what they did.  

The one that was smiling suddenly woke up. Rita wanted to hide, but she had no where to go. However, he didn't seem to be disturbed. "Hi, I thought you were someone else." the Digimon Rita finally recognized as Lighdramon said. Then he turned his head and nudged his companion. Rita, then, realized that the partner was a Nefertimon. "Wake up, Nefertimon. We've got a guest," Lighdramon said in a soft voice.

Nefertimon finally lifted her head and looked down at Rita. "Hmmm...strange looking Digimon," Nefertimon said. "Must be a new Child-level digimon."

"Ummm...I'm not a digimon," Rita said, paling a bit. "I'm human."

"A human, you say. Aren't humans that come here supposed to be partnered with a Digimon?" Nefertimon asked the girl in concern. Lighdramon looked at Nefertimon, thinking something was strange. Nefertimon usually never showed such concern to a stranger like this.

"I am, but I got separated from Floramon and my friends. I have no clue as to where I am," Rita explained.

"We may be able to help you," Lighdramon said. "But you look a bit exhausted. You can rest here for a while before we look."

"Thanks, but I don't want to be a burden," Rita said.

"You won't be. Besides, it would help you get to your partner a lot faster than you walking on foot," Lighdramon replied.

Rita couldn't argue with the two digimon. She was actually quite thankful for this. They seemed friendly enough, but she couldn't shake this uneasy feeling she had. To her, it felt like something bad was about to happen. She thought it was just that she was tired, though. She just walked over to Nefertimon and sat down on the ground leaning back against the Holy beast digimon. There just seemed to be some sort of warmth coming from Nefertimon, some sort of kindness she didn't think someone like her was capable of.

"Hey, I'm curious. What are things like in the human world?" Nefertimon asked. "It's gotta be quite different than here."

"Actually, the human world isn't that much different than the Digital World," Rita replied. "Of course, there's more cities. The cities and towns are more populated than the rural areas of course."

"Another thing, how do humans defend themselves? I mean, you must be pretty weak to need a digimon to protect you," Lighdramon remarked.

"We create weaponry for that sort of thing. Of course, there are also people that can train their bodies to be weapons. Not many humans prefer fighting though," Rita told them. "I'm not much of a fighter myself."

"I can definitely understand that," Lighdramon said, but he suddenly stood up. Something was visibly bothering him.

"Something wrong?" Nefertimon asked.

"Someone is coming. Someone very hostile," Lighdramon said.

Rita looked up at Nefertimon. She seemed to have a feeling of dread suddenly. Rita didn't have a clue as to why she'd feel so guilty.

"Get away from her, Lighdramon! Shooting Star!!" Lighdramon dashed forward as several star-shaped beams landed where he was.

"Pegasmon!!" Lighdramon shouted as he spun around, skidding as he did so. He looked up to see a light-brown colored horse digimon. "What's your problem?"

"She's mine, what are you doing with her?" Pegasmon asked.

"I have no clue what you're talking about," Lighdramon spat back.

"I should've known this would happen," Nefertimon remarked, her head starting to droop.

"What's wrong?" Rita asked.

"Lighdramon and Pegasmon have been rivals, even back when we were Child digimon. Of course, this was just frienldy rivalries back then," Nefertimon said. "Back then, those two were like brothers to me. We always looked out for each other."

"Then, why do they look ticked off?" Rita asked.

"Because of me," Nefertimon said.

"What?" Rita asked. She was about to press on further, but was interrupted when the fighting began.

"Blue Thunder!!" Lighdramon fired off an electric blast at Pegasmon.  Pegasmon merely dodged the attack.

"Rodeo..." Pegasmon started.

"Stop this at once!" Rita yelled out, grabbing the two digimon's attention. "What's wrong here? I don't see what Lighdramon did to you."

"This two-timing, back-stabbing excuse for a Digimon had been stealing my mate right from under my nose," Pegasmon growled.

"Stealing your mate? I have no clue what you're talking about," Lighdramon spat back. "I've never noticed Nefertimon with you like that."

Rita sighed. Oh, great. What have I gotten myself into? Rita thought to herself. "Isn't there any other way to settle this?"

"What did you have in mind?" Pegasmon asked, glaring down at the girl with a promise of death. Rita realized right then, that if she didn't come up with something that pleased both parties, both she could be killed.

Clint was confused as to what was going on. One moment, he grabbed some totem that had the image of a wolf carved on it, the next he ended up in this wooded area. He couldn't make sense of what happened. He looked at his D3, hoping to pick up some signals, but he noticed only one signal being picked up, but the odd thing was that it was near him. He looked around, but the only thing he saw was a wolf that was staring at him. Somehow, this wolf was being picked up by his D3.

Clint reached to his side for his knife, but once he gripped the handle, the wolf dashed further into the woods. Oh, great. I scared it, Clint thought. But how did it recognize me going for my knife? Why would it run instead of attack? However, Clint thought the only way to find out would be to track that wolf down.

Clint walked up to where the wolf was and took a good look at the tracks left in the dirt. Then, he followed the trail the wolf left. As he walked through the woods, he noted some of the twigs off of branches from the trees had been broken off while the wolf had been running.

"That makes some things easier," Clint muttered, as he soon came to an opening. The clearing was surrounded by trees in brush in every direction. Looking down at the ground, the tracks seemed to scatter in various directions. It would take forever just to find where it went.

Suddenly, Clint heard something snap, but he couldn't tell which direction it came from. Aware that something was around, he reached down for his knife, looking around for what it could be.

Clint then, noticed something jump out towards him in the corner of his eye. He side-stepped the wolf, letting it land nearby. The wolf tried to pounce on Clint again, but this time, Clint ducked underneath the wolf and drew his knife. He quickly slashed the wolf's underside, leaving a huge gash down the middle of it. The wolf landed behind him, trying to land on his feet, but he stumbled and landed on his side, having problems getting up.

"That was easy," Clint said. He looked down at his blood-stained knife, as if confirming that wolf was real. He turned around to look at the wolf, but he got a surprise when he saw the wolf was standing up and growling at him, blood dripping onto the ground from it. "What the...?"

Bright light flashed from the wolf, causing Clint to shield his eyes from it. When the flash died down, the wolf was no longer there. In its place stood a Garurumon, now growling at him. Garurumon's size alone intimidated Clint, but the fact that it was pissed off made him even more worried. He just tightened his grip on his knife and waited for Garurumon to make the first move.

Jorge hid against a steel wall and periodically glanced around the corner. He saw what looked like a heavily armed man, the most notable was the automatic rifle he had in his hands. Jorge had encounters with armed men before, but nothing like this. What seemed weird though was how relaxed that guard looked. He could probably somehow sneak up on him and take him out.

Jorge heard a small squeaking noise. He looked down the corridor to see a mouse scurrying down the hallway. Within the next instant a laser hit the mouse and completely vaporized it. Jorge's eyes would've been wide with fear if he showed emotion at all. All he could do was try to figure out how to get out without being killed. He looked at where the laser came from and saw it was fired from the security camera. The cameras killed anything that didn't belong here, and Jorge didn't belong.

He then noticed a snake slithering along the wall. He was thinking the security camera would kill it as well, but the snake just went right under the security camera. Those cameras had a certain range of motion, and there wasn't anything other than a lazy human guard to make up for it. Jorge waited for the camera to turn away from him, then he turned made a dash for the wall right under it. He pressed his back flat against the wall and looked out for anymore cameras.

There didn't seem to be any cameras between him and the guard at the next intersection of corridors. He had to make his next move quick. Knocking out the guard was priority, but he also needed to find out why the cameras won't pick up the guards. There had to be something on him that prevented it. Some sort of badge, maybe?

When the camera looked away from Jorge's next vector, he made another dash straight for the guard. The guard still hadn't turned to look at him. When Jorge came into range, he started punching the guard in the back of the head several times. He took out all his frustrations with each blow on the guard, then let him fall to the ground unconscious.

Jorge turned the guy over to see what he could find. Jorge found a identification badge clipped on the guy's shirt. He quickly grabbed it and clipped it on his own shirt, hoping it would work. Of course, the badge only took care of the cameras, so he needed to deal with the guards. He grabbed a hand gun, seeing it being the only thing he could carry with him, made sure it was loaded, and tried to decide which way to go.

He then saw the snake that went by the guard earlier slither down the corridor to his right. The snake seemed smarter than it should be, so Jorge decided to follow it, and ran after the snake, hoping it would lead him out of this place.

Victoria wandered into a small meadow within a forested area. She just couldn't tell where she was exactly, which scared her. She never had to deal with being anywhere besides school without her brother or mother. The young girl had no way to know what was beyond those trees or what would happen next.

Walking straight into the middle of the meadow, she stopped as she heard what sounded like whining or crying. Her curiosity getting the best of her, she slowly approached where the sound came from. As soon as she walked up to a patch of tall grass, she looked in it to see a couple of creatures that looked like nothing more than heads.

"Awww...they look so cute," Victoria said, looking at the Botamon and Poyomon, two baby digimon, and both of them looked scared. Victoria extended a hand to the digimon, trying to show that she wouldn't harm them.

The Poyomon looked more curious than afraid as it approached the human girl's hand. Victoria rewarded it by petting it as it came into reach, which it smiled in return. The Poyomon turned to the Botamon and started talking to it, as if it were telling the Botamon that it was safe. The Botamon's eyes seemed to soften as it approached Victoria.

Victoria smiled as she reached over with her free hand and slowly petted the black bear-head shaped digimon. Botamon closed its eyes, probably smiling as it relaxed. 

"Are you lost?" Victoria asked, pulling back and looking down on the Digimon. The digimon looked at each other then looked back, nodding. This caused Victoria to sigh, she could sympathize with them. "Hermano," she muttered, wondering where he was.

A loud roar could be heard through the forest. Victoria looked around, feeling the ground tremor as something seemed to be walking towards them. "What is that?" Victoria asked. The two digimon with her were now stunned with fear.

A skeletal foot stepped into the meadow. She looked up to see a skeleton of a dinosaur looked down at them, obviously hungry. To Victoria, it just looked like an exhibit from the museum came to life, but this being in the Digital World, she knew a lot better. 

"Run!" Victoria yelled. She suddenly picked up the two digimon and ran into the woods. The dinosaur started chasing after them, but the trees slowed down its pace a bit. Victoria was pulling away slowly. It continued to knock down trees as he chased after its meal. 

When Victoria thought she had enough cover, she noticed that there was a bush large enough for her to hide in. She dove right for the bush, ignoring the branches and twigs that scratched at her body, and hoped she could give her assailant the slip.

Victoria just waited for a while, placing her hands around the mouths of the two baby digimon to muffle any noise they might make. She became paralyzed with fear herself as she saw a bony leg stop right in front of her. She peeked out of the bush to see what was going on. The skeleton just stopped right where it was and was looking around for its prey. After what seemed like forever to Victoria, the dinosaur finally walked off in search for other prey. When the tremors caused by the walking skeleton stopped, Victoria knew it was safe.

"Botamon! Poyomon!" a young voice called out. "Man, mom's gonna kill me if that Skull Greymon ate them." Victoria saw an Elecmon run towards them from the ravaged path the previous digimon left.

At that, Victoria let go of the two baby digimon as they jumped out of the bush and towards the Elecmon. Victoria started to get up, but her foot bumped a small, thick piece of wood. When she looked at what she hit, she saw the totem she had seen before, a rabbit carved on it. She reached down for it and grabbed it. Immediately, blinding light flashed, forcing her to cover her eyes.

When the light dimmed, she looked around, seeing that she was back in the center of what seemed like a fort. Her right hand gripped around the totem she just picked up. "I must be back at the Alamo," she mused. "I wonder if those digimon will be okay."

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of fighting outside. The battle must still be going on outside, she thought. Then, she began to worry. "Terriermon!" she yelled as she ran towards the front entrance to the fort.

Were Garurumon had a bad feeling as he waited for the kids, surrounded by the six child-level digimon. He knew the trials the children were going through were potentially deadly, but he had complete faith that they could make it through alive. His uneasiness came from something else. Something hostile was approaching the group.

"Where is the San Antonio team?" an angry female voice asked in Spanish. The group of digimon looked to see a Mexican girl standing right next to a Dino Humon, a green humanoid lizard digimon with various bladed weapons attached to different parts of its body.

"What did you say?" Were Garurumon asked, but before the girl replied, Dino Humon swung one of the blades attached to its wrist down at the Perfection level digimon. Were Garurumon easily blocked it with his staff. Why is a digi-destined attacking me? Were Garurumon asked himself. He didn't want to fight back, but Dino Humon continuously attempted to slash at Were Garurumon, each time blocked by the staff.

Eventually, Were Garurumon lost his grip on his staff and it flew from his hands. Dino Humon pointed a sword at Were Garurumon.

"Stop it!" a young girl's voice yelled as she stepped between the two fighting digimon.

"Ana Maria?" Elena asked, her eyes dilating as she saw the young girl.

"Victoria! Don't!!" Terriermon yelled to her partner, trying to get her away as Dino Humon swung his sword down at Were Garurumon and Victoria.

"Dino Humon! Stop!" Elena ordered, hoping it wasn't too late.

Next chapter: Overcoming Obstacles, Part 2.--While Victoria tries to set things straight with Elena and the rest of Mexico team, the rest of San Antonio team is still stuck in their trials, doubting that any of them will survive.