"Is that it?" Coach Yamaki asks Sayo.
"Yep," Sayo answers "Just a little maintenance. Most of which I should be able to do myself."
"Alright, get to it whenever you can."
"Mr. Yamaki," Matt approaches them.
"You're Tai's friend, an original digidestined," Yamaki noted. "Did you need anything?"
"Unfortunately," Matt scratches his head. "Tai won't be able to make it to practice today, or the semi-finals game."
"What?" Sayo yelped in surprise.
"I believe I saw a notice about that," Yamaki responded. "He been hospitalized, right?"
"That's right, I was just making sure you knew," Matt replies.
"Thanks, tell him to get better fast."
"Will do," Matt starts to walk away.
"Hold on!" Sayo stops him. "What happened to Tai?"
"He's… hurt," Matt had struggled to find the right words to use. "He has to stay in the hospital for a few days."
"Which hospital is he in?"
"Sayo, we have practice today." Yamaki reminded her.
"Hmm…" Sayo thought for a second. "Can you stop by the soccer field later? I'll see if I can think of something to give him by then."
"No problem," Matt nods. "We were going to visit him anyway."
"Okay, I'll see you then."
XXX
"Hey Izzy," Joe walks into his office. "I've got the bullet shards you asked for."
"Thank you Joe," Izzy finishes typing something. He points to a glowing red tube. "Just put it next to that."
Joe puts the small jar of bullets next to the tube.
"How did the surgery go?" Izzy asks.
"The doctor says that there were no problems at all. It'll just take him a while to heal up."
"So we can't send him into battle anytime soon," Izzy mumbles.
"I don't think that will stop Tai," Tentomon comments.
"Uh huh," Gomamon agrees. "He'll be right as rain soon enough."
"You're right," Izzy smiles. "We mustn't fall behind."
"What are you doing anyway?" Joe wonders.
"I've been looking into this surge of digimon reports," Izzy turned his monitor to Joe, there was a map with a lot of glowing dots.
"Allow me," Tentomon starts to explain. "Each dot represents a digidestined. This is the data we have based on the reports we've received." The bug digimon presses a button, the screen then showed the exact same map, but with fewer dots. "This is the data we had yesterday."
"Whoa!" Gomamon gasped as Tentomon swapped between the two maps. "And I thought the fish mating season was busy!"
"Gomamon!" Joe yells.
"While we were expecting a steady growth of digidestined as time goes by," Izzy tells them. "This is unprecedented. I've already contacted Matt and the others about this, it seems that there were some small incidents because of the sudden appearance of all the digimon but most of them were handled without too much trouble."
"Do you think that those strange people are behind this?" Joe asks.
"It's more likely that what they're doing is linked to this," Izzy starts thinking. "I want to confirm with Gennai before making any conclusions. Luckily he agreed to a meeting, I'm just looking for a time to get everyone together."
XXX
"There you are," Sayo walks up to Matt, Sora and their digimon.
"Sorry," Matt apologizes. "I had some things to take care of."
"Its fine," Sayo pulls out a water bottle with a small envelope taped to it. "Here, this is for Tai."
"That's it?" Sora asks.
"That's a very unusual gift," Biyomon noted.
"Most people would buy flowers," Gabumon pointed out.
"I couldn't think of anything else I could get in a short amount of time," Sayo smiles. "Besides, I'm not the bouquet of flowers type. He'll understand."
"T-thank you," Sora says softly.
"You seem distraught," Sayo notices. "Just what happened?"
Sora stayed quiet.
"I'm sorry," Matt interrupts. "It's something we don't want to talk about."
"I see..." Sayo backs away. "Just let me ask, how is Tai faring?"
"He's fine," Matt answers. "I heard that the surgery wasn't too hard, but it'll take time for him to heal."
"It's Tai," Sayo reminds them. "He'll be back on his feet soon enough."
The group smiles.
"Still," Sayo continues. "Just let him know that if he needs anyone to talk to… No, wait. All of you will be there, by the time I get to him he should be back to normal."
"He will be," Matt responds. "Or I'll make him."
"Hehe, alright, I need to get going now." Sayo slowly jogs away,
"Wait!" Sora calls to her, the purple haired girl stops and turns back. "Even we are there, I think he would still like to talk to you."
A gentle breeze blows through, causing Sayo's hair to dance about. The girl gave a friendly smile, shook her head and started to talk. But they couldn't hear anything. She then continued on her way.
"H-hey!" Sora calls out again. "What did you say?"
Matt kneels down next to Gabumon, "What did she say?"
"'No, he doesn't need me if he has you.'" Gabumon answered. "What does she mean?"
"I don't know."
XXX
"Whoa!" Sayo just barely avoided a fireball. She rushed to the soccer field to see three digimon fighting each other. One was an Agumon with red straps on his hands, another was a red and white dinosaur one similar to Agumon, the last was more human shaped with dark skin and wild red hair and pants. Marcus, Takato and Takuya were trying to handle the situation.
"Agumon," Marcus calls. "Don't make me drag you out of there!"
"Come on Guilmon," Takato pleaded to the red and white one. "Stop already."
"Flamemon," Takuya speaks to the red haired digimon. "Calm down."
Sayo grabs a soccer ball and kicks it into the digimon, hitting Guilmon in the chin.
"Ow!" The red and white digimon cried. "That hurt."
The digimon stop fighting and everyone turns to face Sayo.
"Somebody mind telling me what's going on?" She demanded.
"Well," Marcus nervously starts. "As you can see, we got our own digimon now."
"Your own digimon?" Sayo pointed back and forth between the digimon and the three boys. "These are yours?"
"Yep," Takato answers. "We found them just this morning."
"Apparently they all just appeared when we woke up," Takuya explained. "It's not just us, some of my friends got digimon too."
"Same with mine," Takato added.
"My friends mentioned getting digimon today too," Marcus tells them. "This is too weird. Sayo, did Tai mention any of this?"
"Tai's not coming today," Sayo informs him. "They won't tell me why, but he's in the hospital."
"In the hospital? Did something happen in the digital world?" Takato asks.
"That's the only reason I can think of," Sayo tells him.
"Alright everyone!" Yamaki yells over. "Settle in. Sayo, do you think you can handle those digimon?"
"No problem," Sayo responds cheerily. "Come on you guys, you can watch them from over there."
"But… Takatomon…" Guilmon whined.
"It's okay Guilmon," Takato calms him down. "Sayo's a friend. Be sure to listen to her and be good."
"Okay," Guilmon responded happily.
"That goes for you too Agumon," Marcus tells his partner.
"Just don't cause any trouble okay Flamemon?" Takuya addresses Flamemon.
XXX
Matt, Sora and their digimon walk down the hospital hallway towards the room where Tai is. Opening the door, they see Kari and TK in the room already. Kari was sitting on the bed Tai was lying down on.
"… meet all the new digidestined," Kari finished saying.
"Hey!" Tai greeted them and waved. "Ow…"
"Tai!" Kari yelled at him. "How many times do we have to tell you not to move your arm that fast!"
"Looks like you've got your energy back," Matt comments. "That didn't take long."
"He's been wanting to get out of here since he woke up," TK tells him, holding back a chuckle. "Agumon and Gatomon have their hands full keeping him here. It takes Kari to really calm him down."
"Lying down here all day is driving me crazy!" Tai complains.
Sora giggles. "You really are eager, aren't you?"
"Well, yeah." Tai answers. "I don't know if I can stand being here too much longer."
"There's not enough food here," Agumon voices his main concern.
"That I agree with," Tai joins.
"We can't exactly bring a lot of food into a hospital," Kari mentions.
"Ugh," Tai groans.
"You need to relax," Sora walks up to him. "Here."
"A water bottle?" Tai takes the bottle and sees the letter. "This is a little odd."
"So is your manager," Sora smiles. "This was her get well present."
"This is Sayo's?" Tai slowly peels off the letter and hands it to Sora. "Here, I think I can guess what it's going to say."
"What?"
"'Don't dry up now, okay?'"
Sora opens up the letter and reads. "You're right. That's the only thing written on here."
"That's Sayo alright," Tai opens the bottle and takes starts to drink the water. After a couple gulps he sets it on the table beside him. "I don't know what is about the water Sayo gives us. Every time we drink it after a practice or game, it's really refreshing. But only after, it tastes like regular water otherwise, it's really weird."
"I told you she was strange," Sora smiles.
"Yeah, she is a little out there at times. That's right, my team has practice today."
"No!" Kari preemptively held him down. "You are not going anywhere."
"Oh darn…" Tai sighed.
The others got a chuckle in.
"Do you know when and where your next game is Tai?" Sora asks.
"It's in a couple days, just at the school," Tai answers. "But I don't think they're going to let me play even if I do manage to get out of here by then."
"If you are allowed out at that time," Sora starts. "We can still come by to cheer on your team."
"I'd still rather be out on the field myself though," Tai mentions. "You don't know how hard it is for me to just watch as my team plays."
"I think we do," Kari tells him. "You're always running out in front."
Tai quieted down at that comment, then he turns to Matt. "So, is there anything new?"
"Nothing yet," Matt informs. "Izzy's been trying to see if any of the digimon have seen those three. For an odd group, they're good at hiding."
"What about Gennai?"
"Izzy managed to get in touch with Gennai. He agreed to meet with us tomorrow. Izzy's trying to set a time for everyone to gather at the building."
"We need to come up with a name for that place," Tai comments. "Hopefully, I'll be able to get out of here soon."
"You need to rest," Sora tells him. "You'll heal faster."
"Hrmgh," Tai grumbled. "Waiting and healing aren't exactly my strong suits."
"You certainly have the energy," Matt tells him. "Use it rest up instead of complaining. Just leave everything to us for the time being."
"You're right," Tai sighed. "I really hate it when that happens. Just let me know if anything comes up. Especially those three." Tai gets ready to lie down. "I know we're going to talk about this tomorrow, but what do you think of those two… people?"
The room went quiet.
"They just look like us," Matt breaks the silence. "That's all there is too it."
"I don't think so Matt," Gabumon mentions. "I was able to get a scent. It's almost exactly like yours."
"And the Apollomon guy smells like Tai," Agumon adds.
"Are you saying that there is something about them besides their looks?" Matt asks.
"They seem to know about us pretty well," Tai tells him. "Like it's personal."
"I have a few ideas," TK speaks up. "But I think it's better to wait until we meet with everyone."
"Then I guess we'll have to discuss it tomorrow then," Matt concludes. "So you better heal up if you don't want to be left behind."
Tai sighed and lied down. "Guess we'll see you later."
"Come on you two," Kari speaks to Gatomon and Agumon. "I'll bring you back here tomorrow."
Everyone begins to leave the room. Sora stayed a few seconds longer before heading out.
"I looked back," Tai spoke as Sora reached the door. "I saw the reason I stay in front. To protect those behind me. Especially-"
"Sora?" Biyomon calls out to her partner.
"Huh?" Sora turned to Biyomon, whom was waiting for her on the hallway. "I'm coming." She turned back to Tai. There was only silence for a moment before she left the room.
