As they walked along, the woods seemed to get darker and thicker. The weight of Gomamon was starting to put a pain in Joe's side and his shorts were riding up again. I don't know why I'm doing this. It'll probably end up like the time I tried to climb Infinity Mountain. Only this time, I'll be stuck with Gomamon, and a koala bear that looks like it fell in a vat of lollipops. He shook his head to himself. I'm not good at this comforting thing. I hope this girl isn't going to cry her eyes out when she sees me and start saying how just wants to go home or that she wants her mom. "You're awfully quiet Joe," Gomamon twisted his head in front of Joe to look at him.
"Huh? I was just thinking, that's all."
"You're worried that the 9th child is going to make everyone care even less about you, right?"
"Where'd you get that idea?"
"You were muttering to yourself."
"Oh. Oops."
"We're almost there," interrupted Candymon." Only a little farther ways to go."
Fifteen minutes later, they came to a wall of flowers that seemed to surround a large circle of trees. Joe was about to push his way through when Candymon caught him by the ankle and said, "No, no, no! Not that way! You'll spook her just barging in like that!" She cupped her paws over her mouth, "Emily! I'm ba-ack! And I brought guests!"
"Ok Candymon! I'm just playing my guitar." A voice called out.
"A what?"
"Just come and see it! I'll explain to you how it works later!"
"Ok! Fine then! Come on you two!" Candymon hit a root sticking up from a tree and the flowers parted to reveal a teenage girl sitting under a canopy of leaves and flowers. She was strumming a guitar in her lap when she looked up.
"Back so soon Candy? Where did you- Oh!" She stopped when she saw Joe and Gomamon.
"Uh, hi! I'm uhhhhhh. Ummmmmm. My name is..."Joe stuttered.
"His name is Joe, and I'm Gomamon!" Gomamon hopped down off Joe's shoulder and extended his paw to her.
"Pleased to meet you! I'm Emily," She rose from her seat and faced Joe, "Hi Joe," she held out her hand, "I'm Emily. I didn't think I'd see another human around here ever."
"Hi," Joe murmured. Then he blurted out "You have really long hair!" and blushed in embarrassment.
Emily blushed too and laughed. It was true. If Emily's hair were to stand straight up, she'd be exactly 2 feet taller than Joe, because they were the same height. Besides having two foot long brown hair, Emily had deep brown eyes. She had medium toned skin and was rather thin. She was wearing a blue tank top with a metallic blue vest over it. She had on green denim flares and black army boots that were splattered with mud.
Joe eyed her vest, attracted to its shine. "Nice vest," he commented.
"Thanks," she smiled and then looked at his sweater-vest," Did you know there's a hole in yours?"
Joe blushed again, "Yeah, I got it from tripping on a rock and making Gomamon go flying through the air and hit Gabumo- oh on! I forgot!"
"What is it?"
"We have to get out of here! You need to come with me and go to the others. You have to come with us if you're the 9th child and they're waiting for us and-"
" The others? Who are they? And the 9th child? What are you talking about? Hey! You have one of these things too?" She held out her digivice. "What is this thing?"
"That's a digivice. It helps your digimon digivolve. Wait, who's your digimon?" Joe looked at Candymon, "Are you?"
"Yup."
"You're my what?" Emily was confused.
"Well, see," Joe sat down across from Emily, "Gomamon is my digimon. He's the first digimon I met when I got here, and he knew my name even though I'd never seen him before. Then we met the others and they all had digimon too, but we had no idea what we were doing here."
"This sounds like a long story," Emily put her guitar to the side, "Why don't you give me your sweater-vest and I'll fix the hole, while you tell me the whole story up to when you met Candymon, or until I'm done with you vest."
"Ok. Here goes. It all started one day at camp..."
An hour passed and Emily was finished with Joe's vest, but she urged him to go on with his story. He told her everything; about Devimon on Infinity Mountain, about Etemon and his dark network, about their search for the 8th child, and about the destruction of Myotismon.
"Geeze Joe! You must have been awfully brave to have gone through all that!"
"Me? Brave? No way! Tai and Matt, they're the brave ones, not me!"
"Well, he does have his moments," Gomamon said hesitantly.
"Like when?"
"Like when you climbed Infinity Mountain with me and tried to get rid of the black gear. Or how about when you figured out how to stop the Bakemon leader? Or when you threw yourself on Vegimon to save TK? Or when you charged off to stop Myotismon after my inspiring speech?"
"Gomamon, all you said was 'All for Mon and Mon for all.'"
"I know! Wasn't it great? And you wanna know the two other extremely brave things Joe's done?"
"What?" Emily leaned forward, waiting it hear what heroic feat Gomamon would bring up next.
"There was when He, Tai, Agumon, and I all sang kareoke. He sang the longest and the best. He had to be pretty brave to do that for a bunch of gekomon!"
"And what's the other thing he did?"
"Well, we had just come back from the Digiworld and we needed a ride home so he-"
"Oh no! Gomamon! Don't!" Joe screamed in terror.
"He and Izzy went out into the street and they-"
"Nooooooo!" Joe hid his face in his hands.
"They went out in the street and did the 'Taxi Dance!'"
"Aaaah! Gomamon how could you?"
"It went like this!" Gomamon got up and danced around with his paws in the air, kicking one of his back flippers up behind him in a crazy rhythm as he yelled out "Taxi! Heeeeeey Taxi!"
Emily was in hysterics and Candymon has on her back, kicking her feet up in the air with her laughter. Joe blushed and the glared and the smiling Gomamon, "Traitor!"
On the way back to the others, the story of Emily slowly unfolded. She was on her way to go practice with her band GQ, when a strange object fell from the sky. She picked it up and was suddenly brought here by a flash of blinding light. "You'd think I'd have learned about picking up strange objects by now. That's how I got my super powers."
"So Gennai was right! You do have powers!"
"Gennai? I s he the guy that lives in the lake? Oh never mind. I was telling you about how I got my powers.
"Well one day, my friends (and band members) Katie, Betsy and I were coming back from a movie when we saw these credit cards on the ground. We each picked one up and then read the label on them. Katie's said 'N'sync', Betsy's said 'Korn', and mine said 'Star Wars'. Well once we read them, this flash of lightning comes down and we have on these weird costumes. My friend Katie's purse had turned into a ray gun, my friend Betsy's hair had turned into snakes and her phone choker had turned into a phone. Katie screamed when she saw Betsy's snakes, and threw her hands up, causing her to break a window. That's how we figured out that Katie's power was to control sound. Betsy's was that she could make the snakes in her hair do what ever she wanted. Then I picked up a lotto ticket. It turned out to be a loosing one and I crumpled it up with my hand. When I squeezed it, it turned into a gold card. We decided that, since we had powers, we should become heroes. My super name is Gold Card, Katie goes by CATastrophe, and Betsy goes by Madame Medusa. Then the bad guys started to show up and we had to deal with them. First there was the Pokefreak, then there was the Nose, and then…" she stopped and looked away.
"What's wrong?" Joe touched Emily's arm gently, and he felt her relax under his touch.
"Well," she sniffed, "I had this boyfriend named Greg. He was the only other person who knew that we were super heroes. He saw me change when we first met the Nose, and he was sworn to secrecy. Then, one week, his family went on vacation. Betsy, Katie and I went to the mall, and Katie suddenly spotted Greg talking to a girl we'd never seen before. I was so angry that we all transformed and I confronted him. When I did, he closed his eyes and his head stated to inflate like a balloon. When it stopped, he looked different, and he revealed to us that he was the super villain known as the Brain. We defeated him, and never heard from him again. We saved the world, but now, I'm all alone.
"I know I have my friends Katie and Betsy, but they both have guys that love them. Katie has her boyfriend, Jesse and Betsy has her boyfriend Alex. But me, their leader, I'm alone. There's no one that loves me like that. I can hold it back for the sake of the band and our team, but when I'm not with them, I feel so alone!" Emily hugged herself as a tear rolled down her cheek.
"Oh you poor sweetie!" Candymon squeezed Emily's leg and then went back to walking.
That's funny. Where have I heard this before?
Joe thought back to his thoughts from earlier today. That's it! I said the exact same thing! But her, she's felt it so much worse than I have. Her boyfriend that she loved, turning out to be a super villain that she had to defeat. I wish there were something I could so to help her feel better. Wait! I know what I can do! "I know how you feel Emily" Joe murmured, "I know that I can't feel the way you did when you had to defeat you boyfriend to save the world, but I know how it feels to be alone. Back in the group where we're going, mostly everyone ignores me, or makes fun of me. And to make matters worse, they've all got someone that loves them, and I don't. Tai has Kari and Sora, Matt has his brother TK, and Izzy has Mimi. I'm by myself most of the time, but with Gomamon at least.""Well you know what Joe? I think that we both should try to be there for each other. From the way you put it though, it seems like all your friends will want to get as much information and help out of me as they can. But I'll make you a deal." Emily put her hand on Joe's shoulder.
"Ok." Joe shrugged.
"I'll promise not to ignore you or forget about you if you promise to stick with me. Deal?"
"Deal" He reached out to shake her hand, but she pulled him to her and kissed him on the cheek.
"Sealed with a kiss" Candymon smiled with Gomamon as they looked at their humans staring at each other. Then Candymon's' ears perked up. "I thought I heard something."
"Joe? Uh, Joe?" Gomamon tugged on Joe's sock. Joe didn't answer; he was lost in Emily's eyes.
"Emily? Sugar?" Candymon pawed at Emily's leg. Emily didn't' answer, she was lost in Joe's smile.
Then, out of no where, a huge pack of Nuemomon came flying at them. Emily screamed and clutched her digivice, guitar, and bag to her.
"Gomamon! Go!" Joe yelled as he grabbed Emily and did his best to help her get away. There was a flash and Gomamon digivolved into Ikkakumon.
"Harpoon torpedo!" Ikkakumon fired his torpedoes at the nuemomon, but it only made then more excited.
"Sugar beat!" Candymon threw her paws together and a pile of sugar poured on top of some of the nuemomon. The sugar dissolved and the nuemomon were wrapped up in little candy wrappers in different colors. Then, she heard Emily scream. She turned to see Emily cornered by a pack of nuemomon with Joe trying vainly to fight them off. Then Emily's digivice began to glow and there was a flash. Candymon suddenly digivolved from in-training Candymon to her rookie form, Goobermon.
Goobermon was like a larger version of Candymon, only her stripes were all different shades of blue, and everything above her waist, except for her arms, neck, and head, was covered in a rich, chocolate coating. "Emily! I'll save you!" Goobermon stood up straight and yelled "Caffeine charge!" A blue flame flew out of her and exploded on the nuemomon, who scattered in fear. The nuemomon who had been caught in Candymon's sugar beat had broken out of their wrappers and were running away. But Ikkakumon leapt out and caught one of them before it could escape.
"Quick! Joe! Hold on to him! I'm losing my energy!" Joe grabbed the struggling nuemomon just before Ikkakumon de-digivolved into Gomamon again.
"Woah! What happened to Gomamon, Joe?" Emily was shaky, and so Joe tried to help her pick up her things, while Goobermon took the nuemomon from him.
"Are you all right Emily?" Goobermon was concerned about her friend.
"Aaaah! What happened to you Candymon?"
"I digivolved to a higher level, Goobermon. But that took a lot of my energy up, so I'll probably de-digivolve, like Gomamon did, in a minute."
"So Gomamon went to a higher level?"
"Yeah. He's called Ikkakumon." Joe motioned to Gomamon who tried to look as fierce as he did when he digivolved.
"Uh oh! Quick! Someone get him!" Joe grabbed the nuemomon from Goobermon, as a light flashed suddenly, turning Goobermon back to Candymon.