Future 2.0

((Okay! Dawn got transported thirty years into the future. Actually, I'll just make it twenty.))

Dawn looked around. She had no idea what was happening.

"Hello, Dawn." A voice drifted from behind Dawn.

Dawn whirled. She was facing a woman. She was younger, pretty, but still older - maybe in her early to mid thirties. She was average height, maybe 5'7", and she had shoulder length silky black hair and her eyes - they're just like mine, Dawn thought.

"Um, uh, hi?" Dawn stammered. "Who are you? Where am I? How do you know my name?"

The woman laughed. "Oh, Dawn, one at a time. All the questions are pretty much interconnected - I know everything about you Dawn. You're past, your friends, your favorite food, even your future."

Dawn looked startled. "How can you know my future? Phoebe tells me that the future's always changing."

The woman's smile faded. "Because Dawn, twenty and a half years ago, I was standing where you are right now.

"My name is also Dawn. For, twenty and a half years ago, I was you."

((I would die myself if I saw myself at 34! O.O))

((ROFL!!! WHAT IF DAWN'S MARRIED NOW???? AND HAS KIDS??? ))

(((OMG!!!! BUT WHO WOULD SHE BE MARRIED TO?!))

Dawn, the one that was fourteen, stared at this woman who claimed to be her older self. "You're joking."

The older Dawn's smile faded. "I wish. But hey. I know our middle name. I know our last name, the one that was given to us by our birth parents. I know our strange connection with Spike."

The younger Dawn trusted the older one. "Okay. Say you are me, for the sake of arguement. Why am I here? And this -" Dawn gestured to the surrounding forest. "This can't be the Dark Forest."

Older Dawn was no longer smiling, not even a trace. "It is. It was. You are here, Dawn, so that I may give you a warning, to stop this from happening. Come, I have to show you something."

A tall fox girl walked over, who was skinny enough to look like a gust of wind would knock her over. She wore a black leather jacket and black leather pants, using a chain as a belt and collar. There was a green emerald on her forehead.

"Who's the kid?" She asked. "And where have you been all day? I was almost dead meat back there."

There was a giant cat walking behind her, the size of a leopard. He was white, but with bloodstains and ragged dirty fur.

Just then, a tall, dark haired man stepped out of a small patch of trees. He had on a suit and tie, and was wolding a suitcase with the word "Johnathan" on the side in gold letters.

He walked over to Dawn and put his arm around her. "Wow, you were right. I didn't think she'd come..."

((Okay, to make things less confusing, I'm going to make older Dawn's words this color, while younger Dawn's color will be her normal one. Got it?))

Older Dawn smiled at them. "I've been waiting for this one. We all have. She can help us change this. Think, Emerald, can you really not recognize her?"

Dawn looked up at the fox. "You're Emerald?" And then she looked at Johnathon. "And your Jonathon?" Her voice betrayed her disbelief.

((Shyups! =3))

Johnathan looked a bit confused then chuckled quietly. "I forgot, you only knew me as the nerd I was when I was eight. Yes, I am Johnathan." he looked at her in a very strange way... "You will save us all...." he turned to "older" Dawn. "How should we tell her?"

Older Dawn shrugged. "I don't know. We don't want to let her know too much about the future, and if we take too long they might sense her." She sent Emerald and Jonathon a look - it was hard to not know who she meant when she said they. "But I suppose she should know."

Dawn looked up at them. "What are you talking about?"

Older Dawn smiled. "Jonathon and I are married, Dawn."

Dawn couldn't help looking revolted.

Older Dawn laughed. "Don't worry. He gets cooler the older he gets. But he'll be in his twenties before we start dating him."

Dawn looked still a little faint, but she managed to nod. "Next thing I know, Phoebe will be married to Chuck," she mumbled.

Johnathan laughed at Dawn's look, and turned back to his wife. He couldn't help but shudder a little at "they"...

"If they havn't senced her already...we should get to our house..."

((Hey, guys, how bout everyone in the resistance lives together? LIke, in a cluster of caves in the dark forest?))

Older Dawn nodded. "We really should. The others have awaited her arrival for so long . . . they'll be happy to know that I was right." She turned to Dawn and Emerald. "Come on, guys. We have to get out of plain sight."

((Yeah, and they call it "The House" so no one suspects them?))

Johnathan followed, being sure to keep Dawn behind him, and out of sight of anything alive, even birds. You just couldn't trust anything anymore...

Dawn walked between her older self and Emerald.

She looked around. "Why is everything so . . . ugly?"

Older Dawn's smile faded. "We'll all explain once we get back, Dawn. But, mainly, because of the battle."

Johnathan fingered a small scar just above his left eye, you could hardly see it now, unless you looked for it.

Dawn frowned at their actions, but she understood that look on her older self's face. It was a look of grim resolve. Dawn had worn it now and again.

"Where's Spike?" she asked, changing the subject.

Older Dawn looked up. "Back at the cave."

Johnathan smiled "Along with Kayt and Steve..."

Dawn frowned. "Who?"

Older Dawn smiled at the thought. "You'll see soon enough . . . Spike doesn't guard me anymore. I know how to use our powers anymore. But, they're passed down through generation, to the oldest child. So, Kayt has them now too. He guards her and Steven, or Steve."

Johnathan smiled. "Kayt is just like you...." he said to Dawn.

Older Dawn smiled back.

Dawn looked shocked. "You guys have a kid?!"

"Two. And be quieter, Dawn. Some of the trees we can't even trust. Luckily, the ones around our cave are on our side."

((How bout Kayt and Steve are like the pups were as babies, like no one can resist them?))

Emerald followed.

"Your younger self came? Well it's about #%@$ time!" She said, laughing a little. The cat followed.

Meanwhile...

"I see someone." Said a twenty-year-old brown fox.

"Strange, not many new ones come." Said a black fox.

Johnathan covered Dawn a little more, he scratched his nose with the hand with the suitcase, so that it covered Dawn't face from view of a particularlly large tree.

Dawn looked uncertain. "Okay, this whole 'we've been waiting for you' Sci-Fi thing is pretty creepy."

Older Dawn smiled. "You'll understand soon, Dawn."

Meanwhile . . .
A blue fox of the same age walked over. "That is strange. Is this someone familar?

A darker, reddish brown fox also came over. "Do we know them? Have we met? Perhaps oneo f the cowards that fled have the nerve to return."

Johnathan tried to control his breathing. He saw a black crow on a branch watching them. He knew what it was looking for.

Older Dawn saw it also. She snapped her fingers, narrowed her eyes. In a rustle of feathers, and a bright light, the bird was sent . . . elsewhere.

"We have to hurry!" she said urgently. "That was risky. They can sense us better if we've used our powers!"

A shriek sounded in the distance.

"Get down!" Hissed Emerald.

A black shape was flung over their heads and into a tree. Instead of getting smashed into the tree, the creature clung to it and turned around.
It was Nightmare, but she looked the same.

"Ha!" Said a voice, also in the distance. L-Fang appeared, also looking the same. "You're going down." She growled.

"You're dead meat 'Fang!" Nightmare screamed, tackling L-Fang.

Meanwhile...

"Black hair... a child. People have been waiting for her." Said Santos. His voice changed into a lower tone. "Change."

Tusumi straightened up. "Female or male? Human or creature? Mortal, or powers?"