Forever Branded by Fire

by The Light's Refrain

Just one screwup. Just one screwup was all that it took to make Takuya different from all his other friends. He may not be able to change it, but he can still pretend for now, right? But such bravery could lead to blindness. Slight Takumi. COMPLETE AND REVISED

7. The Elder Witnesses of Fate

Hello again! I hope you're having a good year so far. And yes, I have updated before two more years have passed XD.

I bring good news: I now know the plot from here on to the very end, which will make writing things much easier. It will also mean faster updates. And I'm guessing there are about four chapters left. Not many really.

Another thing: this will be connected to the Overwrite series, so therefore it will be following Overwrite guidelines. For those unfamiliar, this basically means that all the seasons (excluding Season 5, which I have only seen one episode of) are connected into one timeline, that the different generations of DDs will have issues will each other for various valid and invalid reasons, and that only certain older DDs will be able to appear at this time. In the Overwrite timeline, this story would come before a very highly revised Commencing Overwrite. All this Overwrite junk being said, this story will stand just fine on its own if the revised Commencing Overwrite never comes to be.

Oh, and because I forgot to mention it last time, congrats to those who guessed what Takuya's "mistake" was. Though I suppose it wasn't that hard to guess...

Revision Notes: Nothing special, just polishing things up.

Disclaimer: No, I don't own Digimon. Otherwise the chars would see me as a ruthless tyrant and all the DDs would be out to get me. Especially these guys.

Enjoy!

Data Set 7: The Elder Witnesses of Fate

Davis Motomiya couldn't have asked for a better life, no matter how much other people may laugh at his noodle-cart business. Those stuffy office workers didn't know what they were missing. On the verge of his twenty-second birthday, the brunette still had the goggles Tai had given him as a 12-year-old. Now they were hanging around his neck, the broken strap tied together in the back. Also hanging around his neck was a necklace Kari had given him a year later, bearing a black fragment with a piece of a golden ring attached to it.

As well as his noodle business, his side job as a high school janitor let him chat with the kids going there as they passed by. Kari also worked at the same school, so he got to see the caramel-haired teacher there quite a bit, which brightened his life any day. If it wasn't for the school's ongoing electrical problems for the past few months, things would have been perfect.

The youthful brown-haired man was pushing his depleted noodle-cart home for restocking when he noticed a kid from the high school he worked in sitting on a wooden bench nearby. The black-haired child was gazing up into the sky with half-drooped eyelids, a pale-skinned individual with a plain white shirt and khakis.

Kouichi, that was his name. The quiet kid who was always getting lost inside the school. Davis had often bumped into him when the kid had gone astray, and helped him get pointed in the right direction. The janitor didn't know it was possible for a kid to get that easily lost. He wondered if he was lost now.

"Yo, Kouichi!" the noodle-cart master called as he strolled over, parking said food carrier nearby. "How's it going?"

The light-skinned boy slowly turned his head to the brown-haired school-cleaner.

"…Hey."

As Davis sat down next to the black-haired teen, he noticed the slightly glazed look in the child's sapphire eyes.

"Hey, you feeling okay?" he asked. "You look kinda out of it."

"Haven't I always been out of it lately?" replied Kouichi, smirking slightly. "…Can I ask you a stupid question?"

"Sure! Can't be any stupider than something I'd come up with."

"…Where's the Travel Mark grocery store from here? I left the house to get some more milk, but I can't find it."

So he is lost, thought Davis, stretching his arms. "Dude, that's all the way on the other side of town."

"…No wonder I couldn't find it," the dark-haired boy responded, sighing.

"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself," laughed the brunette janitor. "This place is confusing sometimes. I've been going up and down these streets selling noodles for years, I and still get lost."

Then Davis noticed a tiny blue-and-white creature wiggling its way out of his empty noodle-cart, stretching and yawning. Davis smiled as the animal with zigzag ears jumped out and waddled its way over to the two of them, its big brown eyes still sleepy.

Here was his life-long partner, according to friendship and according to fate. Of course, he didn't tell people that he was a Digimon, but passed on off as an exotic dog that he'd named Bluesy. It worked surprisingly well.

Kouichi stared in wonder at the little mammal.

"Oh yeah, you haven't met this little guy, have you?" asked Davis, picking up the azul creature. "Yeah, can't bring him to my janitor job since no pets are allowed at the school, which really sucks. Anyway, his name is-"

"A DemiVeemon!" the boy in khaki pants interrupted, leaning closer for a better look. For the first time since the conversation began, his eyes were alert. "Hey, what are you doing here, little guy?"

"What's he doing here?" He's been my partner for years," the cheerful man announced proudly. "Hey, wait a sec. You know what he is?!"

"Yeah, he's a Digimon from the Digital World," Kouichi stated simply, as if it was common information. "How did you get him?"

"Like I said, he's my partner. We were fated to meet. I'm a DigiDestined, after all," explained the noodle-cart master. "But hey, you know about Digimon and the Digital World. Are you a DigiDestined too?"

"Uh, yeah," the black-haired boy replied, nodding and smiling.

"Yay! Another friend!" chirped DemiVeemon, jumping into Kouichi's lap. "Who's your partner Digimon? I don't see him anywhere. Does he have to stay at home 'cause he's too big?"

"Well, he's not with me anymore," began the black-haired boy, rubbing his forehead a bit. "But I don't get how this partnership between you and Davis works. Are you a reborn Legendary Warrior? And how do you help Davis digivolve when you're like this?"

The little blue-and-white animal gave him a long stare.

"Uh, what are you talking about?" asked Davis, mirroring his partner's gawk. "Dude, you must be confused. He doesn't digivolve me. I digivolve him. You know, all the DigiDestined get a Digimon partner and a DigiVice, and then they use that DigiVice to digivolve their Digimon to kick the bad guy's butts. It's standard DigiDestined stuff."

The pale teenager gave a look that was almost cold, his eyes dark blue.

"But can't you digivolve on your own, DemiVeemon?"

"Yeah, but it's a lot easier with the DigiVices," the little Digimon explained. "Usually Digimon of the DigiDestined stay in their Rookie or In-Training forms to save energy, like I am right now. But if I need to, I can go all the way to the Mega level with the help of DNA Digivolution, when DigiDestined can combine their Digimon. We don't stay fused forever, of course, but when we do it once we can do it again with that Digimon anytime. It's awesome."

"But what does your human partner do, besides help you digivolve?"

"Well…" Davis began. "We cheer them from the sidelines and warn them about incoming attacks. I guess it doesn't sound like much, but it's totally worth it. Be one of the proud and the few, Kouichi!"

Instead of a wholehearted agreement, or even a shy nod, Kouichi leered at the brown-haired man. The sharp gaze from the usually mild-mannered boy startled the janitor.

"…You're not a DigiDestined," the pale-skinned child growled. "You have your Digimon fight for you because you can't fight yourself."

"Hey, that's not true!" piped up DemiVeemon, hopping into Davis's lap. "Davis helps out a lot. If I didn't have him, I wouldn't be able to fight off all these bad Digimon over the years. Plus Davis is a great guy. He's willing to lay his life on the line for the Digital World."

"If he was really a DigiDestined, he wouldn't need to rely on you for everything," stated Kouichi. "I'm not saying that you can't help him out, or that he can't help you digivolve, but he should be the one leading the fight."

"Well excuse me for not being able to shoot laser beams from my mouth. Though that would be cool," Davis replied, a smirk crawling up his face as he imagined himself in a superhero outfit spitting out energy blasts. "I'd love to go out there and fight with my buddy, but even I'm not that stupid. I'm only human, you know."

"…Only human…"

"Dude, have you ever been to the Digital World?" questioned Davis, rubbing behind his blue-and-white creature's zigzag ears. "It's crazy. There's Digimon everywhere, and some of them can be really nasty. They'll eat you up quick if you don't have a Digimon to protect you."

"I know that!" snapped Kouichi, his dark eyes almost black. "Me and the others saved the Digital World a year ago. Of course we know what a dangerous place it is. I remember all the barren landscape of the dark lands, every rock and every ruin, every crater on the Digimon's three moons."

He gripped his forehead tightly.

"…Yet why is it…that I can't remember the street I live on, can't remember anything the teachers say or what rooms are in what buildings, can't remember my way to the damn grocery store even though I've followed Kouji there a dozen times. And yet I can remember every detail of our picnic in the Village of Beginnings, right down to the markings of the Digi-eggs in the trees and what the food smelled and tasted like…as if I'm still there now…"

"Kouichi…" Davis began, reaching out to the trembling teen. "Maybe you better lie down. You don't look good at all."

"Back off," the obsidian-haired boy snarled. "Imposter!"

Tendrils of darkness suddenly burst from the ground all around Kouichi, twisting and writhing.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Davis, as he and DemiVeemon hurriedly slid away from the tentacles of darkness and fell off the end of the bench in the process.

Pushing himself back up, the brown-haired man looked into Kouichi's cold eyes. His eyes were so black that it was impossible to tell where his irises ended and his pupils began.

Abruptly the boy's icy glare broke, although his eyes were still darker than night. It was replaced by a wild-eyed stare as he whipped his head around to look at the long dark wisps surrounding them.

"W-What…?" he whispered, starting to shake. "Why…Why did the darkness come back to me? My Spirit's gone now…it shouldn't be coming anymore…"

"Wait, what was that? Someone took your spirit?!" hissed Davis, getting up off the ground. "Who was it? Who would do that?!"

"No, not my Spirit," Kouichi corrected, his onyx-hued eyes fixed on the tendrils of black around him. "The Spirit of the Legendary Warrior of Darkness. I once had it, but it's gone now, been gone for a while."

Davis narrowed his eyes.

"Legendary Warrior of Darkness?"

"Yeah," the black-haired boy affirmed, his eyelids drooping slightly as he held his head. "But that's over now. Why does the darkness return now of all times? It's supposed to be over. It's supposed to be over."

He squeezed his eyes tightly, as more shivers slid down his body.

Davis walked over to the boy guarded by the black.

"You're terrified of it, aren't you? Terrified that it'll control you again," the elder DigiDestined spoke in a solemn tone. "That's what happened last time, wasn't it? I dunno what you did to drive off the darkness before, but you've got to fight it. Fight the darkness."

"It's…it's not the darkness I'm afraid of," responded Kouichi, shaking his head and then squeezing his black eyes shut again. "It's…becoming…losing…"

"You kinda remind me of Willis, you know that? You don't have to fight this alone," Davis offered, holding out his hand. "Let me help you."

The dark tendrils suddenly became agitated, and one black tentacle swatted Davis's hand away while another hit him in the chest and knocked him on his back.

"Davis!" DemiVeemon exclaimed, running over to the stunned brunette. As the elder DigiDestined sat back up, he noticed the horror spiraling in Kouichi's eyes.

"My God, are you alright?!" he asked, the long wisps of obsidian mist growing taller around him, like iron bars. "I don't understand. I didn't want it to do that, but the darkness isn't listening to me. Why isn't it listening to me? It always listened to me before."

"Darkness is a fickle thing," Davis stated as he stood back up. "It'll serve you one moment, then eat you alive the next. Trust me, I know another DigiDestined who struggled with darkness too. Come with me. We can beat this."

He took one step forward, and Kouichi's eyes grew cold again.

"Don't," he commanded.

Davis froze.

"…Don't," Kouichi spoke again, his voice much quieter as his black eyes abruptly softened and his eyelids began to droop.

The black tendrils retreated back into the ground as Kouichi fell forward. Davis ran forward and caught him.

"Hey, Kouichi! Kouichi!" the elder DigiDestined called, but the only response he got was a faint moan.

IIIIII

"Should we go after the Greymon first, or the children being forced to digivolve?" questioned Gatomon, walking besides Kari on all fours as they strolled along the edge of the forest. Even though no one was out, the white feline with purple stripes decided it was safer to stay on all her paws instead of being caught standing on her hind legs. The sky was slowly growing darker.

"We better take care of this Greymon first. If it's as berserk as they say, it's very likely to go after innocent people, and we have to prevent that," Kari replied, holding a pink-and-grey cellphone up to her ear before slamming it shut and stuffing it into her pocket. "Why is it whenever there's trouble I can't get in touch with Davis? A DigiDestined is supposed to be ready for trouble at any moment."

"Well, it's not like anything major involving Digimon has happened in the real world since the D-Reaper incident," the cat with sky-hued eyes stated, her long ears perked up to pick up any suspicious noises. "There have been a few strays, but that's it. As for Davis, he's probably still running his noodle-cart around town and has forgotten to take his cellphone with him again."

The caramel-haired teacher sighed.

"Probably," she agreed, before halting her walk.

"Kari?" asked Gatomon, before looking forward.

Kari recognized her student, Zoë, immediately. The teenage blonde was walking down the opposite way, her lavender eyes looking drowsy. Lavender? But Kari thought her student had green eyes.

What also caught her attention, however, was a small orange-and-tan creature zipping around the girl's head, using its batwing-like ears to stay aloft. It was a Patamon, of course. Seeing one brought a stab of pain to her chest.

"Maybe you should go home," the Patamon was insisting in its usual squeaky voice, hovering over the blonde's shoulder. "I'm sure the others will be back soon. They wouldn't want you wandering around all sleepy like this."

"I don't want to go home," she answered dully. "I just want to know where the others are."

"Zoë!" Kari called out, she and Gatomon walking over to the lavender-eyed girl. "How have you been? I didn't know you were a DigiDestined."

Zoë lifted her head, eyes widening. The school instructor noticed all the twigs in her normally beautiful long hair, and all the cuts and smeared dirt on her arms and legs.

"DigiDestined? How did you know?"

"Well, this Patamon's your partner, isn't he?" asked the caramel-haired teacher, pointing to the orange-and-tan animal above the blonde's shoulder.

"Partner?" questioned the Patamon, cocking its head slightly. "We're friends, but I dunno if we count as partners."

"Do you have a DigiVice?" asked Gatomon.

"I did, but it's gone now," Zoë explained. "But what would that have to do with Patamon? It helped me out, not him."

"Helped you out?" asked Kari, her eyes narrowing. "Zoë, do you – Zoë?"

The lavender-eyed girl was holding her head and blinking her eyes rapidly, the Patamon floating over her worriedly.

"Sorry," she said, smiling but still holding her head. "I think I had one too many cups of coffee this morning, and now it's starting to go to my-"

Zoë found herself squeezing her eyes tightly and holding up her arms across her face as a whirlwind whipped up around her, tossing her long blonde hair in all directions. Three sharp gusts, one after another, whizzed by Kari and Gatomon and almost blew them over. The first one crashed into a garbage can and sent it flying. The second one uprooted a fire hydrant, causing a huge gush of water to erupt from underground. The third one, barely missing Kari, came across a young tree and effortlessly snapped it in half.

The winds around Zoë grew calmer, although the air still circled around her unnaturally. Kari and Gatomon stared at the destruction behind them. Zoë lowered her arms and opened her eyes to see the results of the triple gale's temper tantrum herself.

"Not…Not again…" Zoë murmured, her eyes growing tired once more. "I'm…not a Legendary Warrior anymore. This shouldn't…Is Takuya right?"

"So you are one of them," stated the caramel-haired teacher, reestablishing her calmness. "I was beginning to suspect it, after what you said about your DigiVice."

"…So you know about us, huh?" the Legendary Warrior of Wind spoke in a detached tone, before switching over to a more casual pitch. "But what just happened, that's not normal. Usually we have control over our powers, and we can only do stuff like that after we digivolve, not when we're human. I don't get it at all."

"You were saying something about Takuya earlier," Gatomon stated.

"Oh yeah, Takuya…" Zoë answered, rubbing her temples. "He was glowing when I talked to him earlier. He said he was digivolving, even though the Spirits were gone. He was terrified. Maybe…maybe that's what's happening to me…I've felt awful ever since I woke up this afternoon on the couch…don't even remember how I got there…but I've been feeling real achy and dizzy since…"

"She says she feels sick and stuff, but she won't go home," added the Patamon, resting on Zoë's shoulder.

"Well, what if my powers kicked in while I was at home?" Zoë asked. "I wouldn't have a home after that…"

Kari folded her arms.

"Hmm…you've got a point…"

"Hey Kari!"

The elder female DigiDestined looked behind her to see Davis running over to her, with DemiVeemon dashing right behind him. The noodle-cart master was carrying a person over his shoulder, a person Kari took no time in identify.

"Kouichi!" the caramel-haired teacher exclaimed, her cry summoning Zoë and the Patamon to her side. "What happened to him?"

"Dude, the forces of darkness are trying to take this guy!" the brunette janitor shouted. "There was a bunch of darkness seeping out of the ground and trying to take over his mind and stuff. He can never remember anything because the evil darkness has been trying to brainwash him!"

"Darkness isn't evil!" Zoë protested loudly. "It's only the things in the darkness or what's using the darkness that's evil! Kouichi has darkness appearing around him because his element as a Legendary Warrior was darkness."

"Oh, and I suppose light is evil now, huh?" challenged Davis.

"It's possible! We had to fight an angel Digimon to save the Digital World!"

"What?! An angel Digimon?!"

"Will you two stop it?!" snapped Kari. "This isn't the time! Zoë, do you know where the rest of the previous Legendary Warriors are?"

"What are these Legendary Warriors everyone's talking about?" questioned Davis.

DemiVeemon lifted up his head and sniffed the air.

"Davis? Hey Davis!" the blue-and-white Digimon called. "Do you smell smoke?"

"Huh?" the brunette man replied, as he and the others also sniffed the air. "Yeah…yeah I do. Where's it coming from?"

"Over there! In the woods!" Gatomon exclaimed, pointing one of her gloved paws in the direction of the forest. A billowing tower of smoke rose up from the middle of the trees.

"It must be the rogue Agumon," Zoë stated.

"What rogue Agumon?!" Davis questioned. "Why won't anyone tell me anything around here?!"

"If you had kept your cellphone with you today, you'd already know," growled Kari, heading for the heart of the woods. "We'll explain everything along the way. Let's go!"

IIIIII

Willis had been expecting many strange things in Japan, when he had come from Colorado to visit a couple old friends. This, however, wasn't one of the things he had planned on, not this chaos of elements running rampant around him.

It all started on a walk, an innocent nature walk through the woods with his twin doggy-rabbit Digimon, Terriermon and Lopmon. The yellow-haired man with blue eyes did this sort of thing all the time, being a wanderer made by necessity. They had hiked their way through half the woods when an enormous orange dinosaur wearing a brown skull, a Greymon, came stomping his way.

Willis had been surprised by the fierce Digimon's appearance, of course, but it didn't make him panic. He occasionally came across stray Digimon like this one in his travels. He had once encountered a Monochromon while he was in Africa. He preferred to talk things out with the stray Digimon he came across, but this particular Digimon looked too vicious to be up for negotiations. He let Terriermon, white-and-green and always ready for a fight, digivolve into Gargomon.

A cartoonish yellow dog, a beat-up Doggymon, pounced from out of the woods and latched onto the Greymon's tail with its large jaws. The purple-striped lizard flicked the golden canine off its tail with ease, and it crashed into a nearby tree, knocked unconscious.

He heard anxious shouts from nearby, teenager's shouts. That was the first sign that something was going to go wrong. Two boys, a brown-haired boy with goggles and a black-haired boy with a dark bandana on his head, ran over to the Doggymon, asking if it was alright. The Doggymon came to and gave out a groggy reply he couldn't hear.

The Greymon was treading heavily toward the boys and the injured Doggymon, each step making the trees shiver. Gargomon prepared his attack.

Then the brown-haired boy looked up, his face twisted into a snarl. Willis could've sworn that his eyes changed from auburn to blazing orange. The one thing Willis was sure of, however, was that the air grew to be unbearably torrid.

That's when the real pandemonium began.

Suddenly fire was everywhere. Trees were bursting into flame without warning. Fireballs danced in the air, some of which threw themselves onto the Greymon's body, though with little effect. Others targeted Gargomon instead, leaving the larger doggy-rabbit too busy evading the flames to attack the Greymon. The other boy, the black-haired boy, was yelling to the brown-haired one, but his words had no effect.

As the Greymon began charging its Nova Blast in his mouth, suddenly the black-haired by's expression became more bestial, and his eyes shifted from pale blue to white, he was sure of it. A pillar of light erupted from the ground, striking the oversized reptile in the jaw and interrupting its attack. Now towers of radiance were exploding everywhere, as well as the swirling flames. Willis had to hastily leap out of the way when he felt the ground underneath his feet quiver intensely. Not a second later after he had jumped, an especially large eruption of luminosity shot forth from where he stood, soon followed by a hail of fireballs. Gargomon, needing the sleek body and agility of his Ultimate form, digivolved into the sky-soaring Rapidmon and picked up the yellow-haired man and Lopmon.

Willis had hardly the time to wrap his mind around humans summoning light and fire when the other two kids showed up, riding on a Boarmon no less. The larger one of the two, a chubby boy with caramel hair, wasted no time in throwing his own power into the fight. His expression turning cold as his golden-brown eyes turned yellow, his hair standing on end as he released thunderbolt after thunderbolt into the fight, three of them striking the Digimon opponent. He had also given his younger friend and the Boarmon a shock each time, so the flaming pig stopped to let the children dismount. As soon as the small boy with the mushroom hat stepped onto the ground, violent tremors swept through him as his green-blue eyes abruptly paled to ice blue. Suddenly calm, the young boy did little more than glare in the direction of the Greymon when ice spikes punched out of the ground and the orange dinosaur's arm became encased in ice. It roared. During the chaos the Boarmon put the hurt Doggymon onto his back and carried him off, presumably to a safer place.

It was this elemental bedlam he was beholding when his two old friends, Kari and Davis, came flying onto the scene with Gatomon, a lavender-eyed blonde, a groggy black-eyed boy, and a Patamon in tow. They were all riding on the back of Davis's Champion-level Digimon, the blue-and-white dragon ExVeemon.

"Willis?! Rapidmon?! What are you Yankees doing here?!" Davis exclaimed, as ExVeemon flew up to Rapidmon's side.

"Who'd ya expect, the Red Sox?" Rapidmon answered in his usual sarcastic tone.

The two airborne Digimon had to briefly separate to avoid a rogue lightning bolt.

"I would tell you what's this is all about," Willis began. "…But I honestly have no idea."

"Willis the genius doesn't know what's going on? That's a first," teased Davis. "It wouldn't happen to have anything to do with a buncha kids throwing elemental attacks around, would it?"

"Hey, how'd you know?!" Rapidmon exclaimed with genuine astonishment.

"It's a long story," the brunette DigiDestined replied, before a screeching roar was heard.

The Greymon came into view. Or rather, limped into view, for it right leg was covered in ice and burns. The rest of its gigantic body bore wounds as well, results of the elemental attacks that had hit their mark. Despite its myriad injuries, it still snarled fiercely. It began to open its huge maw to fire a Nova Blast.

The expressions of the two children aboard ExVeemon first became shocked, but then immediately grew feral, as a violent wind blew in and a lake of darkness bled from the scarred ground.

"These kids too?!" Rapidmon exclaimed, as green robotic rabbit darted away a few feet. "Geez, was there some mutant toxic spill or something we didn't hear about?"

The malevolent wind blew over a few trees and the Greymon, causing it to fall hard onto its back. Multiple black tentacles rose from the black mass the skull-wearing dinosaur had fallen on, binding the terrible lizard like a demonic tar pit and stripping nearby trees of their limbs. Even its giant snout was bound by the tendrils, leaving it unable to breathe fire. Now a stationary, if wriggling, target, the other elemental attacks became more focused and started striking the Greymon with more accuracy.

Willis stared at the sight partly in wonder but mostly in horror. Looking back, he saw Davis and Kari trying to snap the blonde girl and the black-haired boy out of their predatory trance. The children made no response and bore as animal of an expression as before, but their bodies were shaking. The Patamon watched it all with wide-eyed amazement.

"They're just children," he heard Kari say, snapping her fingers in front of the girl's eyes to try to get her attention. "How could anyone, human or Digimon, do something like this to children?"

The Greymon finally disintegrated into fragments of data under the relentless attacks, though the elemental onslaught persisted on the spot of land on which the great lizard had fallen. The deluge of power raged on for another full minute before it abruptly stopped, leaving the forest dead silent except for a few trees burning like candles.

The other children stumbled out onto the scene, eyes wide but still hued in inhuman colors. The boy and girl on ExVeemon snapped out of their beastly reverie and shuddered at the sight before them, but still asked to be let off to join the other dazed children. They slowly paced around the wounded area, where the few trees left standing were either charred black and on fire, stripped of all their limbs, or frozen solid. Ice spikes and glowing embers littered the ashy ground.

Though they wandered aimlessly, eventually all six children met in the middle. They gathered in a circle, their faces turned to the disaster scene and their back turned to each other.

"Oh my god," spoke one of them, the fire-bearer with the brown hair and the goggles. "What have we done?"

"Takuya! Everyone! Are all of you allright?!" yelled the Boarmon, as it stampeded out of the remaining woods and to the isolated circle of youths. "Don't worry, I've gotten Doggymon back to the Digital World safe and sound, so he should be fine. The Greymon, is it-"

"Yeah, it's gone," the boy called Takuya answered quietly.

"That's what I thought. It would be either you guys or it that would be left when I got back," the living barbeque stated. "…I'm sorry that I wasn't much help."

"It's okay," responded Takuya. "…Hey Boarmon?"

The fiery swine turned to the boy with the goggles.

"Yes?"

The brunette lifted his outstandingly orange eyes to the smoky sky.

"…It's time to go back to the Digital World, isn't it?"

IIIIIIIIII

I hope the beginning part of Willis's POV wasn't boring. I didn't want to spend 20 pages writing out a fight scene that wasn't that important. And I have a feeling that some people are going to find the first part with Davis unintentionally funny b/c of Davis's gallant ignorance on the subject. At least I found it funny.

And since I know the story's plot now, I can now give chapter previews

NEXT CHAPTER: The former(?) Legendary Warriors didn't know what to expect when they arrived in the Digital World, but they never expected this. And how can they turn down destiny, especially if it can save so many? And where one set of DDs go, another is sure to follow. Suspicions of true identities help to spur the chase...