It had been almost four years since the Digidestined had defeated MaloMyotismon. Life was doing what it always did after a terrible crisis, returning to its old ways. School was school, at least for Davis, Kari, TK, Yolei, Cody, and Ken. They were eighteen now, with the exception of Cody, who was sixteen, and were dealing with all those wonderful problems teenagers face. Problems of the more normal sort, that is; they had not been out saving the world for quite some time. Matt, Tai, Sora, Joe, Izzy, and Mimi were either in college or out living on their own, and Mimi had moved back to Japan after her father's job transferred him back to Tokyo, and the twelve stayed in touch with each other.
At least we don't have to save the world anymore, Izzy thought to himself. At the moment, his Digivice was sitting on the mantle over his fireplace, gathering dust, and had been there for a year. For a while after the MaloMyotismon problem, he wore it around with him, because he never knew when he might need it again. Or so he told himself. The rest of the Digidestined had stopped carrying them around a long time ago, but wearing his made Izzy feel needed, like he was a part of something bigger again.
College was a real drag at times. It was just so big, he felt like he was simply lost in the shuffle, that every face he saw was a new one. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy college, especially the challenge of the courses, and it wasn't that he didn't have friends; on the contrary, he had twenty-three very good ones, but he was so busy that he usually didn't get to see them more than once a week, and after a few years, his patience was getting thin.
His laptop beeped. He'd exchanged his old one for a newer one, this time for a purple-colored Macintosh laptop. It was insanely expensive, but he needed a laptop this powerful for some of the math he was taking, and so the university picked up some of the tab. It was worth it, anyway. Back when he got it, Tai had told him, "Hey, now you can browse uselessly around the Internet even faster!" Izzy smiled, as he always did at memories of his friends.
He realized that the beeping sound was the 'e-mail received' sound he had set his computer up to give. It wasn't often that he got e-mail, and when it was it was more often than not junk mail, but he thought that reading the e-mail would take his mind off the old times. It was from, of all people, Gennai. He'd sent a few e-mails to Izzy and the others every now and again over the last four years, usually just to keep up with old friends, so his writing an e-mail wasn't terribly unexpected. It had been a while since he'd written, after all.
What Izzy didn't expect was the massive size of the file. Izzy noticed it was some sort of visual movie format, and started downloading it. So it is a good thing I got that satellite hookup to the university's T3 line. The file was enormous, but it finished in a matter of minutes. Izzy patted his computer. Good old T3. Izzy was surprised to see that it was encrypted, but he ran it through some decryption algorithms, fortunately ones that Gennai himself had given Izzy, and a fullscreen video equivalent of the still-young Gennai appeared on Izzy's screen.
"Greetings from the Digital World, Izzy. I apologize for the unusual method of contact, but it can't really be helped. You see, I'm in a bit of a bind here. I can't tell you about it now; even sending out this message with its encryption is a great risk. I hope you still have those decryption programs I gave you, but of course if you're reading this, then you do. I need you, all of you, to come to the Digital World again. I'm not at home right now, but I'll fill you in when you get here. I've attached a little program to this e-mail, one that you might find very useful indeed.
I will see you soon, Izzy. Please come quickly."
Izzy practically leapt out of his chair. Anything, anything at all to get away from school for a while. He snatched his Digivice off the mantle will all the vigor of a ten-year-old grabbing his new toy at Christmas. "Tentomon!" he called, as he sat back down in front of his computer and brought up the program. It was some sort of map.
Izzy recognized it as the Digital World almost immediately, mostly because of all the work he had done with the D3s. But this picture was in full color and had detailed information on terrain features. He slid the mouse pointer over the "Activate" button. The computer paused for a moment, processing information.
"Activation sequence initiated, connecting to satellite…"
"Connection established, program running."
"Hardware update initiated."
Hardware update? Izzy thought. How could my computer update its own hardware? The computer glowed purple for a few moments. The screen popped back on.
"Hardware update completed."
"Touchscreen activated and installed."
"Voice commands now recognized."
Izzy thought for a moment, then reached up and touched the "OK" button on his screen. He was surprised, as his finger seemed to melt into the screen a little bit. It was just then he noticed the screen was 3-D. Man, Macintosh has nothing on Gennai. He pushed on until he touched the screen. The dialog box closed, and the map reappeared. But now it was covered with a number of dots. Izzy reached up and touched one. Information popped up on the sidebar on the right side of the screen. "Digitammamon, Ultimate level" plus a whole slew of information. He leaned in and said, "Where's Gennai?"
A small message appeared on the screen. "Command not recognized. Please restate."
"Okay, then. Search: Gennai."
The screen centered on a small, purple dot. Gennai was fairly distant from his house, but he seemed in good condition. Izzy wondered what could be wrong.
Tentomon flew into the
room. "What's wrong, Izzy? I notice you're not doing your homework
right now. Oooh! Is that some new game? Let me see."
Izzy smiled at his friend, and flashed his Digivice. "No, Tentomon. It's a program from Gennai. Go get my D-Terminal out of my room, okay? We need to contact the others. We're going back to the Digital World!"
-----
To everyone:
Hi guys! It's me, Izzy. I've just gotten an e-mail from an old friend, Gennai! He needs our help in the Digital World again. He said he couldn't tell me what it was, but I get the feeling it's pretty important. Since my house is right in the middle of everyone, meet me here in two hours. Be sure to bring your Digivices and Digimon. Give me a call or send me an e-mail to let me know you're on your way or if you can't get here that fast. We're going back!
Izzy Izzumi
-----
It was almost like a party when Tai and Agumon walked in to Izzy's house. It had been nearly three hours since Izzy had sent his message out, but Tai was the last one to show up. He'd been in class when Izzy sent the e-mail. Once he'd gotten it, he also wanted to go home and talk to his parents before he left for the Digital World again. He'd knew they'd let him go, especially since they'd already given permission for Kari to go, but he knew they wouldn't like it, and wanted to say goodbye in person. After all, the Digiworld was a dangerous place, and who knows what might happen to him.
But hey, he was just going to meet with Gennai, and he could always get one of the kids with D3s to take him home if he had to go, right?
Everyone was there, and it was great seeing all of them together again. Actually, come to think of it, he saw them all the time, but it must have been different this time, because they were there with a purpose. The Digital World needed them again, and they were happy to respond.
Izzy was showing off his program to everyone as Tai and Agumon stepped through the door. Everyone rushed to see them. Sora gave Tai a quick hug, and Joe picked up Tai in a huge bear hug. It was quite out of character for him, but he was really excited, and Tai also suspected that he'd been picking up something of a goofy side at college. Last of all, Matt stepped up, and the two started one of the many strange handshakes they'd invented, which got everyone to laughing.
Yolei finally spoke up after some short conversation. "Are we ready to go, then?"
Izzy said, "Hang on a second Yolei, I haven't shown Tai the message that Gennai sent."
He replayed the message for Tai, who seemed to have a worried expression at the plight of their friend. Izzy explained the program that Gennai had sent, also, plus what he'd found out about it. "You see, it's some sort of map of the Digital World, and I can keep track of a number of Digimon with it. I can pick up Gennai on here too. It's also got a built-in Digimon Analyzer, like the one I used to have on my old laptop. I think, though, that it can only track Digimon that we've seen, because there were not very many Digimon on the screen when I first opened it up. I've plugged in everyone else's Digivices, and a few more showed up each time. Let me see yours."
Tai handed Izzy his Digivice. Izzy kept talking as he hooked them up. "I'm not sure how Gennai's done this, but it'll be a really useful program. He also picked out a portal for us within a few hours' walk of his location, so that's where we'll go." A few more dots winked on the screen as Izzy handed Tai's Digivice back to him. "Is everyone ready?"
"Hey Joe, cute fashion accessory you've got there, " Matt said.
It was true; Joe was carrying two packs, one of which was pink. Mimi wasn't carrying anything at all. Joe blushed a little bit, thought not as much as he would have seven years ago. Seven years ago, Joe would have probably dropped both packs, and his face would be so red you could cook eggs on it, Matt thought.
"I don't know about you, Mr. Rock Star, but some people around here can be nice to ladies," Joe said, winking at Matt.
Yolei joined in the laughter. When it subsided, she held up her D3. "Everyone ready? Digiport oo—" She was cut off by Davis' arm blocking hers.
"Come on Yolei, why do you always get to open the Digiport?"
"Because you're too slow to do it yourself, Mr. 'I-only-have-time-for-soccer!'"
"Well maybe I would have spent time with you if you were as interesting as soccer."
Everyone laughed. Cody thought to himself, it was a real mistake, those two trying to get together. Everyone knew that wasn't going to work out. They'd dated for almost ten weeks. Cody won the betting pool; he was the only one who thought they'd last more than two months. He knew they were both too stubborn to not stick it out till the bitter end. Not that it was all that bitter, but it had ended six months ago and the two were still sniping at each other. Cody raised his own D3.
"Digiport open!"
As the twenty-four beings were sucked into the computer, Davis called out, "He—eey…."