Daisuke blinked at Cody's words, raising an eyebrow with a choked laugh before catching himself. Right, right, I'm not in Kansas anymore...so the only question remains is 'Where the hell is Toto?' An image of a disgruntled Ken dressed in a dog suit came to mind, and he snickered with a lopsided grin. "Trying to kill us? Dude, he couldn't kill a fly. Really. I've seen him. He like...had this fly and it kept, you know? Doing fly things. Aw, man! You should have seen it! When he hit the ketchup pack-..."

The rest of the Digidestined gathered in the group were staring at him with questionable expressions, all sets of brows furrowed in puzzlement before the silence got to them. TK coughed and rolled his eyes to Kari with a shake of his head before deciding to speak up. "Anyways, there's a control spire to the north of us so we should take that out before heading home. Unless Davis needs a trip to the hospital."

"Or the funny farm." Cody piped up in his serious little kid voice, twin emeralds glancing towards the cinnamon boy with slight disdain.

"HEY! That farm ain't so FUNNY!" A determined point of a finger broke the air between Daisuke and Cody. "You seen some of those cows? Most serious cows I've ever seen ..." The brown in his eyes hastened to slits. Huffing, Daisuke shoved his hands in his pockets and simply eyed the boy defensively, though was actually somewhat surprised. Normally people didn't outwardly insult him...Ah, but then again this wasn't home, nothing was normal. It's always hard to remember you're in a different place with different people even though they looked like the same people that threw spaghetti at your meatballs. And that horrid tasting sauce.

Damn, that sauce.

Kari nodded at TK's reasoning, clapping her hands together with a smile. "Let's go, then! I'm with you all the way TK."

God, I wish she'd stop rhyming. Daisuke's eyes widened with the italicization, and he clenched his fingers to his head in emphasis. Nobody seemed to notice his cross-eyed facial, his teeth with an irregular grind, diagonal. Can't. Stand. Her. Giggling she looked at the rest of the team, bubbling with sincere confidence and cheerfulness, while Daisuke made faces behind her. Gritting teeth never looked so disgusting. If this was the real world you'd think she had something on her mind...I mean, come on. Everything seemed too corny with the real Digidestined.

Yolei nodded and folded her arms, looking to Cody and then Daisuke-whom she currently thought to be Davis-with something of excitement and playfulness. "Hurry up Davis, you don't want to be left behind do you?" Looking past him as she ran up ahead with the others, she soon caught up with the rest of the team and their Digimon.

It took Daisuke a moment to realize that he had been left behind, widening both eyes before turning around to chase after the gang. "Hey! Wait for me! You guys can't just ditch me!"

Finally catching up to them he panted and puffed, filling his lungs with sweet digitized air before collapsing back on the soft grass beside Veemon. Sighing he leaned back on his hands that currently propped him up and looked at the others, wondering how they could be used to such things. Well duh, they're the Digidestined.

"Hey buddy, want me to take down that spire?" Veemon, the adorable dino rookie grinned at his partner with a clenched fist, always ready to go when the word was said. For a moment auburn eyes wavered at the sight of his friend, noticing something not right, but deciding to save it for later. Davis would probably let him know that something was going on before he brought up the question, but for now he didn't know what to make of the suspicion he felt.

Daisuke grinned at Veemon and sat up with crossed legs, resting his hands on the sides of his bent knees feeling his heart begin to slow down. A crash came to his attention and he snapped his focus to the looming control spire currently being attacked by TK, watching with interest as Pegasusmon shot an attack towards the base of the tower. Dude.

Smiling crookedly he pointed to the action that was happening, looking a bit sheepish as he addressed the anxious rookie. "Looks like someone beat you to it, pal." Seeing the obvious dissapointment Daisuke stared for a moment before smiling and reaching out to touch Veemon's shoulder,

"Hey don't sweat it, man. I'll take you out for a burger-or three-when we get back, okay? You did enough for today." He tried to cheer up the little guy, finding a fondness for him, the same fondness that he had towards Kiyoshi. Maybe this was what it was like to own a Digimon?

Veemon stared at the ground and nodded before perking up at the idea of food, turning around to grin up at Daisuke in that way only a dinosaur rookie could do. "Really? That's great!" He bounced in the air like an In-Training level, reeking of happiness.

Daisuke's inner eyebrow raised.

Man, things were really corny here.

As the control spire fell to the ground from the finishing blow of the armour Digimon an alarm sounded off in the owner's base, flashing lights and screaming bloody murder three times before silencing. As things suddenly died the temporary Emperor stood stock-still on the edge of a step in mid-stride. Frozen with wide eyes, it was apparent that he had the bejeebies scared out of him. Cause I mean, when the beejeebies are scared out of you, oh man. It's on. Like, you can be startled, not really scared, you know, but just kind of shocked like you didn't really-"Who the HELL puts a damn car alarm in their what-cha-ma-callit!?" He exclaimed, eyes ablaze, coming down from the sudden shock-fest with slight irritation. No, it wasn't fun getting the crap scared out of you.

Oh no, no sir.

Wormmon flinched from the scream, lowering his elevated claws to crawl towards the stand-in Emperor. "Master did. He wanted to know whenever they knocked down one of his control spires..." He explained sadly, trying to be helpful. Speaking of helpful, or thinking of it, rather, Wormmon then remembered the lunch he was preparing for this new replacement.

Ken mumbled and shook his spikey head, folding his arms before turning around on his heel and heading back towards the control room. "For curiosity's sake I want to see how this stuff works. Umn...I forget what to say to it. Oh. Ohh yeah...Yeah, I get it." Looking up at the monitor he slid his hands behind his back beneath the cape, folding them together against the small of his back with a tilt of his head aimed at the monitor. "Actually I don't. Duhh..."

"Uhhh..."

"...Uhmmnn..."

... Are there crickets in the Digiworld? :

No.

His head drooped and he sighed, "I just want to see the little area thingy they knocked down! Is that too much to ask!? Huh!? Stupid machine!" If there was anything to kick, he would have done so. And for a moment, he thought about placing things next to this machine just to kick it. Like, a pillow, or Wormmon, or a Wormmon pillow, or an Avril Lavigne music video in solid form. Watching the screens suddenly change he stared as that familiar map came up, the little black and white squares showing the Kaiser's area of control. "Wow...He's got a lot of chess pieces."

Wormmon nodded beside Ken, looking up at the map. "He went on a control spree before you got here...Where did you come from anyway?"

"Mars."

"...Mars? I haven't heard of it."

"I want a Mars bar. Have you ever tried them? I forget if they have peanuts in them or something, I don't know. They are pretty good though, my kid-bro likes them...gck..." Ken finally went silent after a moment of rambling, at first the thought of candy excited him, but then the mention of Kiyoshi made him worried. Who could think about candy at a time like this? And when one could not think of candy, one could not be. Sighing he lifted a finger and pressed the index against the smooth surface of the glasses, pushing them up his nose. Philosophy could be so heartbreaking.

"Show me the Digidestined." He suddenly sounded serious as he looked up to that main screen, watching all of them take on a seperate child. "Davis Motomiya." The view of Daisuke came before him and he narrowed his eyes through the mauve tinted lenses, taking a step forward to have a closer look. Wondering if that was Daisuke or just Davis, he looked a little forlorn at the sight of his best friend's clone.

Seeing that look on his master's face, whether it be his Ken or another Ken, Wormmon couldn't help but feel a deep, heartfelt concern. "What's wrong?" Hey, do digimon have estrogen?

Still scanning the boy's face through the monitor Ken looked away and made a move to shove his hands in a pair of nonexistant pockets, glancing down at his gloved hands before shrugging those slender shoulders masked by covers of molded gold. "Everything. I don't want to be here, it's disorienting."

Having a flashback of what it was like to first arrive in America, how he spent most of his time in his personal trailer with Kiyoshi-only speaking Japanese amongst themselves and practicing his English-he felt the same way now as he did then: Alienated.

What's strange is, Ken didn't even notice Wormmon wasn't listening. In fact, Wormmon wasn't even in the room anymore.

"What's worse is I don't know who that kid is." Ken keeps talking, as usual. Without looking he thrust a finger towards the moniter, its tip focused on Daisuke, and he turned his head away with a shake. "You try being zapped through some crazy spinny thing, slamming into a wall, waking up in another world, and see if nothing's wrong."

"Master .. your toast is ready."

"Wha? Hmm!?"

"Your .. your toast is ready. I heard the thing pop up about five minutes ago, but you were too busy ..."

"YOU LEAVE ME BE IN ANGST, you, child! Go! Fetch the toast! I mean..." He narrowed his eyes, lurking his gaze in a slow pan to the right, away from Wormmon. His shoulderblades arched upward to rival his neck and he spoke low, coarse. Angst. "Lock me in a dark room ... with ... poetry ..."

"Well...we don't have any poetry here, Ma-I mean...Ken. But, about the boy...you could always try to find out who he really is. What I mean is, whether he's the real Davis or...well, y-you know..." Two serene blue eyes gave a slow blink as he spoke unsurely, always expecting some form of lashing for anything he said though he knew that this was not the boy he was used to talking to. While he looked exactly like him he didn't act like him, but the looks were so exact it made Wormmon shiver just to speak to this new child. Master...he began so many thoughts with just one word.

Ken stopped and set his hands on his hips, leaning back to crack a few vertibrate that were still sore from the impact earlier. Hmph, no poetry. What kind of asylum was this. He groaned and paused to suck in a breath after listening to Wormmon, raising an eyebrow over golden frames as an idea was thrown at him. Wheeling around he set his foot down and grinned at the bug-dude, nodding. "Oi! Good idea grasshopper. I think I'll do just that...but Kaiser style, neee...?" He extended the word as he extended his grin.

Slowly the grin stretched into a smile, not evil or anything, just amusement. Wondering how he would approach the Digidestined before they left, or even the next time they arrived, he wandered towards his lone chair in the middle of the room and plopped down in the cushiony seat. "Is today too late to play with them? I don't think it is...eee, what time is it anyway?"

Wormmon blinked, tilting his head to look up at Ken before it was displayed on screen, answering both their questions. "6:29 PM" the monitor displayed in soft white letters before a black background, reflecting off the purple lenses Ken currently adorned.

"...Shimatta."