Well, here we are, with the second straight Wendsday update! It's amazing I know…hopefully it'll stay that way. Again, this chapter isn't super exciting (no violence or anything), but it's still pretty good, and definitely important. Anyways, onto the story!

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon…period.

Last Time: Well, we had the first chapter, and Tai got a distress call from someone…and that's about it…maybe something more in this section next time.

Chapter 2: The Meeting

"Haven't you got it working yet?"

"Obviously not, otherwise something would have happened by now."

"Hey, there's no need to get all angry like that."

"Well there isn't any need for you to be all stupid either!"

"Who are you calling stupid?"

"Well, let's think about it…"

"Why you…"

Tai Kamiya shook his head as Davis reached across in an attempt to grab Yolei Inoue, who was on the other side of Ken. Yolei was a tall, purple haired nineteen year old who was nearly finished with her first year at Tokyo University. She was old friends with Davis, Kari, T.K., and Cody and was currently dating Ken, who was attempting to prevent her and Davis from breaking out into an all-out fist fight.

"Are they usually like this?" Tai asked, looking between Sora and Joe Kido, a tall blue haired twenty two year old enrolled at the local medical school. Joe was the oldest of the digidestined, and often times the most serious of them as well, though college seemed to have brought out a little of Joe's wild side from the stories he and Izzy would tell from time to time.

Joe shrugged while Sora nodded emphatically.

"They're always at each other's throats." Sora replied. "I swear, the two of them argue more than an old married couple."

"HEY!" Davis and Yolei, who were both trying to get to the other through Ken, called out in unison at Sora. "We aren't like an old married couple!"

Sora looked at Tai, with a look that Tai easily read to say, "See what I mean?" Tai smiled briefly at the look, which also caused Sora to smile, before he looked up to the thing which had caused the argument between Davis and Yolei.

"Any idea on how much longer, Izzy?" Tai asked the red haired genius.

"Less time if everyone would keep quiet." Izzy snapped back, before shooting an apologetic look at Tai. Tai just nodded, and then looked over to Yolei and Davis, who both returned to their seats on either side of Ken, looking away from each other.

Sora giggled again, along with Kari, who was sitting next to T.K. on the sofa opposite from Davis, Ken, and Yolei.

Tai just shook his head, looking around at the nearly complete collection of Digidestined. Luckily for him all but two of the Digidestined had been in the Tokyo area when he'd had Izzy send out his summons, which meant that most of them were already here. Izzy was working on a way to get the other two here sometime in the next hour, so they could hold Tai's meeting.

That was the main reason Izzy had snapped, at least that's what Tai assumed. He'd been working most of the morning with Tai to get the dimensional detection device working, and then had to turn around and create a portal that would transport Mimi and Matt straight from their apartments into Tai's. All of that was enough to try the patience of anyone, even someone like Izzy, who didn't usually get angry quickly.

Luckily it didn't seem like Izzy was going to take much longer as he suddenly scooted back from the computer.

"Ok, call them!" He exclaimed, looking to Sora and T.K., both of whom pulled out their phones to call Mimi and Matt. Seconds later the computer that Izzy had been working on lit up and Mimi Tachikawa shot out with her partner.

Mimi was the same age as Izzy, with long brown hair that came down to her shoulder. Her partner Palmon ended up getting tangled up with her, as would often happen when using one of the portals to or from the digital world. Joe was the first one there to help the two of them to their feet.

Seconds later the computer lit up once more, and Matt Ishida and his partner Gabumon shot out of the computer. Matt was the same age as Tai and Sora, with blond hair. His partner Gabumon was a small wolf like digimon, with a horn sticking out of his head. Luckily Gabumon's horn hadn't stabbed anyone, namely Matt, when the two of them had tumbled out of the computer.

Everyone spent the next several minutes catching up with those that hadn't seen recently, all of them except for Tai. He stayed to the outside of the group smiling as the others chatted together animatedly. It was his own decision to try and stay away from the others, even if it did seem sort of irrational.

Tai spent the couple of minutes that everyone was talking heading into the kitchen to look over the message once more before he was going to sit down with the others. He had barely sat down before he heard someone come in behind him. He looked up to see Matt sitting down opposite of him.

"What's up?" He asked with a smile.

"Oh, you know, the usual." Tai replied, looking down at the message.

"I see you're still doing your whole anti-social thing." Matt said after a few seconds. "You do realize that it's really messing with my reputation right?"

Tai looked up at that to see Matt grinning now.

"I'm supposed to be the loner who goes off on his own, not you." Matt said, winking as he did. "You're really cramping my style by doing this."

Tai let out a laugh at Matt's statement, surprised at how funny he actually found the statement. He hadn't laughed that hard in ages. Matt apparently could tell.

"Man, if you found that little joke that funny, you've got to get out more." He said, smiling again. "Why don't you come join the rest of us for a bit before this meeting starts?"

Tai sobered up, looking at him with a serious face now, which is exactly how Matt looked back at him.

"You know I'm not going to do that Matt." Tai replied, hoping this didn't turn into an argument.

"Well, I know that you've got this crazy notion in your head that you have to protect all of us." Matt started to say. "And that you can't be friends with any of us, including your freakin sister, because you don't want to show favoritism. Does that about sum it up?"

Tai looked at Matt fairly angrily, knowing that Matt was just over simplifying it, and that he didn't know how Tai felt.

"I do have to protect you, you don't hav…" Tai started to say, but Matt cut him off.

"I don't have any idea about the Demon Lords power?" He asked, and snorted. "Please Tai, I've seen two of them in action. Gabumon and I helped to stop one of them. I know how powerful they are."

"No Matt you don't." Tai replied, and then slid the paper he had across to Matt, including the pictures attached to them. Matt took them, and looked over them, his eyes opening in shock as he did.

"That's the real power of the Demon Lords." Tai said, as Matt looked at the pictures. "They're more destructive than you can possible imagine, even after Beelzemon and Belphemon."

"How…how is that possible? I just saw Tokyo out your window, none of that was going on." Matt said, looking completely shocked.

"Those pictures are from a different dimension, one the Demon Lords decided to conquer." Tai replied, but Matt still seemed shocked. "Matt you don't have to worry. That's not going to happen here, as long as all of you are protected…"

That statement seemed to snap Matt out of his stupor, as he shook his head looking at Tai.

"Ok, you have to protect us, I understand that Tai, I really do. What I don't understand is why you have to distance yourself from all of us to do that." Matt said, after he seemed to recover somewhat.

"Because I can't show any favoritism." Tai replied, preferring not to beat around the bush. "I'd never be able to live with myself if one of you died because I was protecting someone else."

Matt looked at him for a minute after Tai said that, and finally shook his head.

"Tai, do you really think that you distancing yourself from us is really going to change how you feel about any of us?" Matt asked. "You're going to show favoritism for the people you care most about, whether you talk to them a lot or not. That's human nature." At that Matt stood up, looking at Tai one last time. "No matter what you're going to do someone might die. If you place all this responsibility on you and you alone you're only going to make things worse, and we might even lose someone because of that. Think about that. Also think about this. We are the Digidestined. It's our job to go out and protect this world and the digital world. It's our responsibility, and you can't stop us from doing that."

At that Matt turned and left the small kitchen, returning to where the others were.

"You know, he's right." A voice said from behind Tai. Tai turned to see Agumon standing in the door leading to the bedrooms. All of the others digimon partners were with him. They had all been hanging out in Agumon's room while the humans were in the living room.

"About what?" Tai asked, looking at the yellow dinosaur like digimon.

"All of it." Biyomon, Sora's partner said.

"All of them are the Digidestined." Tentomon, Izzy's partner said.

"It's their job to protect the worlds." Gomamon, Joe's partner said.

"And possibly even give their lives for it." Gatomon, Kari's partner said.

"Just like us!" Patamon, T.K,'s partner said.

Tai looked at all of them, quite surprised at them. The digimon usually didn't talk like this, especially as a group.

"So you should loosen up a bit Tai! Live a little before we all die!" Gomamon exclaimed with a laugh, and Tai sighed. The moment of seriousness had passed from the group as Gomamon returned to his usual goofy self.

All of the partners started talking, and went right past Tai into the room that held the other Digidestined, all except Agumon.

"I was completely serious Tai." Agumon said. "You can't take all of this on yourself. Otherwise you'll end up worse than you did after Jane and the others."

Tai cringed for a second as Agumon mentioned three of his former comrades, but quickly got over it. Jane had been a girl he had met on his dimensional travels. Tai had loved her and thought that she had loved him as well, but he couldn't have been farther from the truth. Jane had simply been using him to conquer a dimension for the Demon Lords, and her betrayal, along with those of her cohorts Ethan and Xavier, had left Tai broken and scared. He'd only recently been able to fully get over it thanks to the Digidestined in the next room.

"I'll think about it Agumon." Tai said, after a long pause. "For now, we've got other things we need to worry about."

"Ok Tai, but don't take too long, or it will be too late." Agumon replied before leading the way into the other room. The Digidestined and their partners were filling the room with noise enough to wake the dead, but all of them quieted down as Tai came into the room with Agumon. Though he'd been there when they'd started, the look on his face told all of them that he was getting down to business.

"Ok, thanks for coming so quickly." Tai started off, looking around at everyone. They'd all pretty much dropped what they'd been doing to come and see what Tai had to say. "Earlier today one of the devices I have received a message."

"What type of message?"

"Who was it from?"

"Do we know them?"

Questions started coming up quickly, but Tai help up a hand to silence the Digidestined. Tai noticed that Matt was one of the few who hadn't started asking questions.

"The message was from some of the allies I made while I was traveling dimensions." Tai replied, leaning against one of the sofas.

"Which ones?" Davis asked quickly, having seen pictures of several of them before.

"The Tamers." Tai replied, "The message was a distress call."

"A distress call?" Mimi asked looking around.

"Oh, I know about those!" Hawkmon exclaimed suddenly. "Don't ships send them out when they're in trouble or something?"

Everyone looked at the digimon, who suddenly realized this and had gone quite red all over his face.

"Anything can send them out, not just ships." Izzy answered for Tai, looking out at the group. Tai then nodded to Izzy who stood up. "The message Tai received was addressed to him, and was asking for help. It was accompanied by these images."

Izzy turned the monitor on the desk next to him around, showing several images of a familiar city. On all of the pictures Tokyo burned and was blasted to near rubble. Several of them showed bodies strewn around the street, not moving. Massive craters were shown in other parts, along with buildings blown to pieces and scattered all around. Every picture showed death and destruction, and most of the Digidestined looked away after a few of them.

"This is what's happening to the Tamer's world as we speak." Tai said, his voice very quiet, matching the mood that had descended upon the room.

"Is it the Demon Lords?" Ken asked after a few seconds of silence.

"They're the only ones with the power to do this." Tai replied, looking over at the monitor. "At least four of the Tamers can Biomerge with their partners, and most of the others can reach at least the ultimate level. There is no one single digimon capable of doing this and the only group with the strength to do this is the Demon Lords."

"It's horrible." Yolei suddenly exclaimed from where she was sitting next to Ken. "How could anyone do that to an entire city?"

"They'd do it to an entire world, and probably will." Tai replied, his voice cold. "This is why the Demon Lords can never be allowed to come here."

Silence once more claimed the room as everyone digested what Tai had said. Finally Sora looked up at Tai and asked the question that hung over them.

"Tai, what are we going to do about this?" Sora asked, looking up at him.

Tai looked right back, and she knew exactly what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth.

"I'm going to go there, and help them." Tai replied, looking right at Sora.

"NO!" Everyone's attention was drawn to Kari who had stood up when her brother said that. "I'm not letting you go back out into some other dimension and get lost for years. Not again!"

"I'm not going to get lost Kari." Tai replied, but then Davis spoke up.

"Do you really think that we're going to let you walk into that place all alone Tai?" He asked, looking up at his onetime idol.

"I think none of you really have much of an option." Tai replied. "I can't leave the Tamers like this. They helped me get back here, which could be the reason they're getting attacked now. I have to help them."

"Well, of course." Davis replied, cocking his head to the side as he look at Tai. "Who said anything about them not getting help?"

"But, you just said…" Tai started to answer, but Matt stood up with a laugh.

"Davis is absolutely right. We're going with you!" He exclaimed, looking over at Tai. Seconds later all of the Digidestined were saying the same thing, standing up as they did so.

"You can't, it would lower the barrier for our world!" Tai exclaimed after several minutes of everyone talking, cutting through their noise.

"Maybe, but this is also a perfect opportunity Tai." Izzy said, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

"Exactly." Ken replied. "If that's the Demon Lord's main strength we could combine with the Tamers and finally defeat them!"

Tai looked around as Ken said that, and knew at once that there was no stopping the others. They weren't going to let him go on his own, even if they had to follow him without his consent.

It would make life simpler if I just accepted that they were coming along. Tai thought to himself. Though, then they would be in a huge amount of danger. As Tai thought that, the words said by both Matt and the digimon came back to him, reminding him of how the Digidestined felt about it.

Tai looked around at all of them, and held up a hand to silence all of them.

"Ok, I see there isn't really any stopping you guys, so we'll all go." Tai declared, looking out at the Digidestined and hoping this wasn't a mistake.

~Chapter End~

So could it be a mistake? Or will the combined strength of the Tamers and the Digidestined be enough to stop the Demon Lords once and for all?

So, hopefully you guys enjoyed that a little. I know most of you were expecting Sora to be the one to have the talk with Tai…but I had to give Matt at least one good Best Friend moment, since he doesn't seem to get a lot of those, at least without hitting Tai. (which may still come/probably will come.)

Anyways, until next week!

Review Replies!

First off, I'd like to take a second and thank everyone who has already reviewed this story. Reviews really do help motivate me to keep writing. Anyways, off to your replies!

Dark Anbu Knight: oh yea, they're going to get transdimensional in a big way, though how do you think they're going to get to the Tamerverse? And yes, Jane, Xavier, and Ethan will all be making an appearance. They'll have their own upgrade though, so they won't really need the X-Antibody.

Phantomgirl96: Always Davis…lol. And hopefully, though I think the backup will certainly be welcome for him.

TheOmegaMan: I'm not sure if that's slightly creepy, or just slightly creepy. You'll probably get your real hope for that particular situation though, I'm leaning more towards it at this point. And yes, I agree completely, though I also agree with Matt in this chapter. Just avoiding someone won't really help you avoid the favoritism. And see you in the fight?

Ezio Uchiha: Well, he may not get the choice, and I haven't yet decided if the story will have that sort of turn to it. But yes, his mind is going to get more and more twisted as he travels the dimensions once more, which might not be unique. I mean, do you really think that dimensional travel would really leave your mind not messed up? What's going to happen to everyone when they travel now? And why would he do that? Then he might lose his most powerful weapons, namely his digimodifying and his Biomerging. And thanks!

Elite Beauty:Thanks! And I'm actually not entirely certain. I'm not really partial to any particular Mimi coupling, though I might make a Izzy-Mimi-Joe love triangle for fun/plot point. Other than that, none of the other DD (other than Tai and Sora and TK and Kari) will have couplings, with each other. The Tamers and DATS will be entering the scene soon, and things are going to get different…

PrincessOfDestiny14: Thanks! And sadly no. I planned out this story before I watched frontier/when I thought the idea of not having partners was bogus (also known as when I had no idea how awesome Frontier is), so I didn't include them in the plot, and adding them in would just complicate things a little too much. Sorry!

TheOtherGuy4544: No, mostly win on that one. And, just for you I'm going to make sure I go over everything again. I'm trying to make a sequel here, not just continue the last story, so some recapping has to happen. AS I told you, very good guessing. You hit what's going to happen right on the head, though not quite the journey up to that point. And matter of fact, it was a Thursday. None of these guys could ever get a good handle on Thursdays. And maybe the most awesome best friend medal (from TK) and the next dead thing medal (from Tai).

Supershooter: Hahahaha, I had to laugh at your review. Thanks, both for the review, and the laugh!

Sunwraith: I think you might be the first person who was glad of that lol. Thanks!

TaioraWarrior: Not so much, more like knowing Taiora looks, and a Tai/Matt moment (I had to give him a best friend moment, without fists flying). And well, that wasn't Tai's plan, but it's what happened.