As evening swept across the fringe of the thick forest Hanako, Hayato, and their digimon entered the shade of it's trees. They were hungry, thirsty, and very tired, but they had made it. Hanako was certain she had never been this happy to see trees before in her entire life.

She stumbled to the closest of the giant plants and leaned against the trunk, "Ugh, I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

"Then I could probably eat an elephant," grumbled Hayato.

"What are you two talking about?" Yangmon grumbled, "Instead of thinking about what you want to eat why don't we find something to eat?"

Hanako laughed, "No, no, Yangmon, we don't actually want to eat those animals, it's just a figure of speech."

"Oh," Yangmon contemplated this.

"But," Hanako continued, "He is right. We should start looking around for some food. Who knows maybe we'll run into Yasu . . . and maybe he'll have food."

"'Problem is," Hayato turned his gaze skyward, "It's getting dark and we don't even know if there's anything we can eat around here. Maybe we should just find a place an wait out the night and look in the morning."

"I see your point, but . . ." Hanako trailed off, "Just a minute maybe we can at least find Yasu."

She pulled the blue device from her jacket pocket and checked the radar, "Looks like he's not too far from here. Come on."

Hanako started off into the woods with Hayato and the digimon trailing close behind. They pushed through the undergrowth carefully and finally stepped out into a small clearing, where Yasu stood by a stream with blue, dragon digimon.

The look of suspicion on Yasu's face melted into relief when he saw Hanako, then quickly changed to fear as she tackled him and nearly knocked him into the stream.

"Yasu!"

"Uwhaaa, Hanako, warn me before you tackle me!" Yasu managed to keep his balance, thankfully, "And Hayato? What are you doing here?"

"Got sucked into a computer like the rest of you, I suppose," Hayato shrugged.

Hanako chuckled as she released Yasu from her mandatory, greeting hug, "Ah, who's this?"

Dracomon stared in bewilderment at the girl who now scrutinized him, "Ah, me? I'm Dracomon, nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Hanako smiled, reassuringly, "I'm Hanako. So, I guess, you're Yasu's digimon partner?"

"Yeah," Dracomon nodded.

"Hey, why'd he get the cool one," Hayato joked.

"N-not fair!" cried Yangmon, "This one digivolved already!"

"Digivolved?" questioned Hanako, "What does that mean?"

"That's a whole lesson in itself," Yasu sighed, "Dracomon's been trying to explain it to me for the last hour and I still don't get it."

"Don't see why," grumbled Dracomon, "It's so simple."

"Yeah?" Yasu grinned, "Why don't you try explaining it to them the way you just explained it to me?"

Dracomon nodded, "Fine."

He turned to the others, "See when a digimon digivolves they go woosh and then there's a big flash and they get stronger. See, it's simple."

There was a long moment of silence.

". . . 'They go woosh'?" Hayato's comical tone and incredulous smirk was more then enough to send chuckles rippling through the small group.

Yangmon sighed, "Ahem, allow me. Digimon have several stages. Under certain circumstances, usually when we reach a certain power threshold we will 'digivolve' to the next stage. Pagumon and I are at the In-training stage, while Dracomon is a Rookie."

"I still like my explanation better," grumbled Dracomon.

"Anyway," Hayato shook his head, "Now that that's out of the way. We have other, more pressing matters, to deal with. You guys got any food?"

Yasu laughed, "Sure, come on. You guys must be starving. We'll talk more over some supper."

"Please, tell me you're not cooking," teased Hanako as Yasu led them into the undergrowth.

Yasu just laughed.

The small group were soon feasting on many different kinds of meat and fruits, all of them quite happy with the selection.

"Now, that we've got all the food we could ever want," Yasu began, "We should probably start talking about our missing companions."

"We can use the radar on these devices," Hanako held up the device to display the screen, "See, you can zoom out!"

"Ah, I see," Yasu studied his own device, "Which button does that?"

Hanako pressed the zoom out button in response.

"Got it," Yasu followed her example.

He studied the radar, carefully, "We need to get our little group back together as soon as possible. Hm, I think we should head north. Natsuki's all on her own and that's never good."

"R-right, Yuuki can take care of himself."

Yasu smiled, "Right. We'll head out first thing tomorrow morning. Okay?"

"Sounds good to me."

Hayato nodded in agreement.

"Good. After we meet up with Hotaru will head south and join Yuuki, then we have to figure out a way home."

The other two humans agreed to this plan, although the digimon looked a little upset.

"What's wrong, guys?"

Dracomon looked down at the other two and murmured, "I-it's just . . . No, nevermind. That's a good plan."

"Er, yes," Yangmon agreed, "Very good."

Pagumon snuggled up to Hayato's side and whispered, "But if you go . . . we-we'll miss you."

Yasu shifted, uncomfortably, as all the digimon turned their sad eyes on him, "We need to get back to our families and let them know we're okay . . . maybe we can take you with us."

Dracomon perked up, "You mean it?!"

"Yeah, of course," Yasu patted Dracomon's head, "I don't know how I'm gonna explain you to Mom and Akio, though."

"Just like I explained me to you!"

Yasu chuckled, "Yeah, . . . we'll see."

Yangmon looked up at Hanako. She smiled, "No worries," She picked the digimon up and cuddled him.

Hayato just put a hand on Pagumon and that seemed to be enough to reassure the tiny digimon that she was included as well.

With the digimon satisfied with this solution, Yasu finished, "Right, tomorrow morning we'll head out to get Natsuki. As much as I'd like to go now, it's probably not a good idea. We'll sleep here for the night."

The group agreed and soon settled in for the night.

Author's Notes

So our group's finally starting to reunite.

To be continued . . .