Lost in the Digital World

by IcBlue-Dmoness

6/2013- I do plan on finishing this in the near future. ON HOLD. When Tai is attacked by a computer virus and starts turning into something other than human, how will his friends and family react to his transformations and a new threat to the digital world? Taiora.

11. Training, Digimon Style

Chapter XI: Training, Digimon Style

Sora shifted slightly and her hands accidentally inched a little past his hips, and Tai's breath hitched in his throat. His hands immediately went down to grab hers and he placed them on his shoulders just to be safe. He leaned over and whispered, 'just to be safe,' to explain why he had placed her hands on his shoulders and all of a sudden, a weird urge took over his body. As soon as those words came out of his mouth, his tongue followed after and licked the side of her ear. Tai slowly felt himself give into his feelings as he slowly kissed and teased the girl's earlobe.

Sora was shocked at first but gave into the feelings of lust momentarily as she closed her eyes and let out a very soft moan.

As soon as those feelings came, they were gone, and Taichi finally realized what he was doing. He pulled back as quick as possible, glanced at Sora's face, saw that her eyes were still closed and at that moment, Taichi bent down, grabbed his towel, wrapped it around his waist and ran to his room without glancing back.

Sora was in complete shock. Her hands dropped to her sides as she stared at Tai's closed bedroom door. Her mouth opened and closed, as if she was trying to say something, but her voice wouldn't cooperate.

"Sora, are you okay?" Biyomon said, trying to hold back her giggles. Agumon was currently rolling on the table, laughing his lungs out.

"I'm going to check on Tai," the yellow dinosaur said as he hoped off the table and ran to Taichi's bedroom door. He knocked on it twice and the door opened, letting the digimon into the room. Sora could hear laughter from the boy's bedroom, probably Agumon, she guessed and some whispering.

Finally turning to look at Biyomon, she found her voice and then asked, "what just happened?" Biyomon just stared at her, silently asking her 'are you that dumb?' Sora went and sat down at the dining table, trying to clear her mind. She then heard a room door opening and turned to see Tai and Agumon emerging from the brown haired boy's bedroom. Tai turned to Agumon quickly and winked at him, but Sora didn't catch that unfortunately.

"Hey Sora," Taichi started, as he approached her. Then he suddenly turned and walked into the kitchen, brought the three plates out onto the dining table and took a seat next to the blushing girl. "So, how are you?" he asked casually as he took a big bite into his sandwich. Agumon, meanwhile, pulled a chair back from the dining table, climbed onto that and started eating his sandwich too.

"Uhh… um…" Sora had no clue what to say after what had just happened.

"What's wrong?" the brown-eyed boy asked, looking slightly concerned.

"What's wrong?" Sora repeated, slightly flustered that her friend had almost made out with her in the kitchen, and he wasn't even her boyfriend. "You're asking me what's wrong? Do you even know what you did?" she asked, getting annoyed and angrier by the minute.

"What did I do?" Tai questioned, raising an eyebrow. "All I did was take a shower and then go to my room and changed."

"What?" Sora asked as she stood up. "You practically made out with me in the kitchen! What were you thinking?" she yelled out.

"Shhh! My parents and Kari are still asleep!" Tai whispered as he placed his finger to his lips. Sora glared at him and sat down again with a 'humph.' "What are you talking about? Are you having fantasies about me, Sora?" Tai teased as he wiggled a finger at her.

"What?" the redhead spitted out as she looked from him to her digimon. "You saw what happened, right Biyomon? Agumon?"

"What happened?" Agumon asked dumbly. "You were making sandwiches, and I saw Tai go to his room and changed and came out here. I went to his room to tell him that you came," Agumon claimed. Biyomon nodded her head frantically.

"Huh?" Sora asked, confused. "I swear! You came up behind me and took a sandwich, scaring the shit out of me. Look, I even dropped the knife then!" Sora said as she pointed to the knife on the kitchen floor.

"I don't even remember coming to the kitchen after my shower," Tai said cautiously, giving Sora a weird glance.

"I know what I saw!" Sora growled out.

"Are you sure?" Tai asked. "Because…" 'I know you just broke up with your boyfriend, but I don't know if I should tell you that I know,' Tai thought to himself, contemplating on whether or not he should tell her that he sort of eavesdropped on their conversation.

"Yes I'm sure! You came to the kitchen, clad in only a towel, scared me, and then proceeded to tease me," Sora said with an angry face.

Tai grinned. "So you are fantasizing about me!" he said with glee.

'Was it really all in my head?' Sora thought to herself. 'No, I can't be going crazy. I'm 100 percent sure of what happened! I'll get Tai to admit it!' Sora growled, stood up and grabbed Taichi by the ear, twisting it slightly.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Tai asked as he tried to pry her hand away from his ear.

"I know what I saw, and you're just annoying me now," Sora said. "Admit it."

"Admit what?" Tai asked. Sora twisted his ear a little further. "Hey!" Tai yelled out. After twisting his ear a few times, Sora finally got Tai to admit defeat. "Fine! Fine! You weren't imagining things…" Tai groaned out, rolling his eyes as the redhead finally let go of his ear. He rubbed his now red ear as he gave her a slight glare. Sora just stared back at him with a smug smile on her face. Then she turned to the two digimon on the table.

"Where you two in his stupid plans too?" she asked, glaring at them. They just looked at the table with a defeated look. Sora shook her head as she walked to the couch and took a seat in front of the television. Sighing, she finally said, "Whenever you guys are done eating, we'll leave for the digital world."

Taichi finished up his sandwich, placed the plate in the sink and came over to join Sora on the couch. The digimon were still taking their time eating. The brown haired teen took a seat next to his best friend and got comfortable.

"Um," he started, not knowing exactly how to explain what he did to her. He felt kind of bad afterwards, leaving her like that with no explanation whatsoever.

"What?" Sora asked, turning to face him.

"I'm… I'm sorry about what happened… in the kitchen," Tai confessed. Well, he wasn't completely sorry, he was just sorry that he might have taken it too fast and scared her off a bit. Sora nodded, indicating for him to continue.

"I know you broke up with Matt," Tai blurted out as he turned to look at the girl next to him.

"What?" Sora asked, wondering how news can travel so fast. She wasn't mad at him, after all, the rest of the digidestined were going to find out sooner or later. "What do you mean? Did Matt call you or something?"

"No… um… I think it's one more of those… digimon traits that I have. Sensitive hearing."

Now Sora was interested. She sat up a little striated and said, "continue."

Taking a deep breath, "Well, it actually comes and goes… I can hear things probably around a mile away? I think so. I was sitting here, watching TV, and all of a sudden, I can hear you and Matt talking. It feels as if I'm right next to you guys, but I'm not. It's weird. Anyways, I heard that you two broke up. Sorry," Tai said, feeling as if he had to apologize.

"Well, I guess it was coming anyways. I'm not too sad about it because I knew it was going to happen one of these days. We're not as close as we were when we were first dating and I think we're better off as friends anyways. Plus, I think he has a thing for Mimi or Jun, as much as I hate to say it. He used to hate that girl! But I caught him the other day, talking to her, and he sounded really happy too," Sora explained.

"I guess, it was just a huge crush that I had on him." Tai placed his hand on her shoulder for comfort and she smiled. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine. Actually, I feel a lot better now, not tied down to anyone. It was like, he was a really good friend, but because we were calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend, even though we were not doing anything, we sort of restricted ourselves from dating anyone else," Sora shrugged. "And I'm not mad at you," she added, looking at Tai.

"Of course you're not! How could you be mad at someone like me?" Tai asked, giving a puppy-dog look at her. Sora laughed and shook her head.

"That's why I fell in love with you," Sora muttered to herself, smiling. She thought Tai couldn't hear her, but she was wrong. He could hear it loud and clear and he grinned. He wouldn't ask her if it's true just yet, not wanting to embarrass her, but he would eventually. He was going to have fun teasing her, and letting her realize that she is still head over heels in love with him and there is nothing she can do about it. And he was going to thoroughly enjoy it.

"Let's get going to the digital world then," Tai finally said as he stood up when he saw the two digimon come over to the couch. Sora nodded and got up with him. "Oh, Izzy fixed my computer, so we can go from my room," Tai commented.

"What happened to the virus that was on it?" Sora asked.

"It's in me," Taichi said with a slightly downcast look on his face. Sora smiled sympathetically and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry, we'll get through this together. I think you need me more than Matt does, so I'll stay with you whenever you need me. Okay?" she reassured him as they walked to his room. Tai nodded in appreciation.

"Thanks."

"Now let's go to the digital world," Agumon said impatiently as he waited in front of the computer terminal, tapping his foot on the ground.

"Sheesh, someone's impatient," Biyomon commented as she flew over to Agumon's side.

Agumon just replied, "I have an appointment with Blackwargreymon today." Tai and Sora just gave him weird looks as he said that.

"So now you have a show, and you're having meetings with other digimon? What's going on Agumon?" Tai questioned.

"Nothing, I'm just trying to find out what's going on in the digital world, see if anyone knows about those evil digimon that attack us and if someone else is behind all of this," Agumon told his friends.

"Wow, that's a lot coming from you, Agumon," Biyomon said as she settled down on the floor.

"Now can we go?" Agumon pleaded as Sora took her digivice out of her back pocket. Agumon told her where he had to meet Blackwargreymon and Sora took them there.

Once there, Agumon scampered off a little ways to the meeting point and told the rest of them that they could stay in the general area and he would come back within the hour. Tai rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Now even my digimon is taking charge of everything," Tai sighed.

Sora laughed. Then she remembered something. "Hey Tai, did you ever find your digivice?"

"Um… no I didn't. I'm not even sure where I lost it. I didn't have it when I came back from the digital world the other day, remember?" Tai questioned as he tried to think back to where his digivice could be. "I'm not sure, it might have fallen down in the digital world or something and a digimon might have picked it up perhaps… I remember I had it when I first came to the digital world on my virus-infested computer, and had it up till the point where we were in Gennai's house, but after that, I think I lost it somewhere…" Tai traced back.

"So then it probably is in the digital world. We can stop by Gennai's and ask if he's seen your digivice if you want," Sora offered.

"Yea, that would be great!" Tai replied. "Once Agumon's done chatting, Biyomon, do you think you can take us to Gennai's place?" Tai asked the small bird.

"Sure!"

After a couple minutes of silence while waiting for Agumon, Tai finally decided on talking to Biyomon about his… plans for Sora. "Biyomon, could I talk to you for a second?" Tai asked as he looked at the pink digimon.

"Okay…" Biyomon replied, looking slightly confused.

"Come with me then," Tai just said as he walked away. "Oh, Sora, could you please stay where you are?" Tai asked with a pleading face.

"Why?" Sora asked as she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"Um, cause I need to ask Biyomon something… just stay there, I promise nothing going to happen to her," Tai said as he dragged the flying digimon a few yards away from Sora. When he was finally sure that they were far enough from hearing distance, Taichi then turned to Biyomon and started explaining why he dragged the poor bird so far without an explanation.

"Sorry about that. I just wanted to ask you a couple of things about Sora."

"Okay, go ahead," Biyomon said.

"Well, first off, I wanted to ask you if you will be okay if… if Sora and I…" Tai didn't know how to even ask a digimon if she would be cool if he started dating her friend, if it ever came to that… first he had to make Sora actually fall in love with him… 'Should I even be asking Biyomon this? Shouldn't I ask Sora's mom and dad for permission instead?' Tai thought to himself, sighing loudly.

"What is it?" Biyomon asked as she flew onto Tai's shoulder.

"Nothing," Tai replied, shaking his head, his eyes closed.

"It's fine with me if you date Sora, if that was what you were trying to ask. It's up to her to date whoever she wants to, and I've known you and Agumon for a long time, so I know you won't do anything to hurt her. And I think her parents will be fine with it too," Biyomon consoled him.

"Do you even know if she likes me like that?" Tai asked the digimon on his shoulder.

"Maybe," Biyomon teased.

"What do you mean by that? It would really help if I know the girl that I'm chasing likes me or not… before I embarrass myself or something," Tai confessed. Biyomon smiled at the flustered teenager.

"I'll just tell you this. She broke up with Matt because she felt her heart was with someone else. I won't tell you who, but I think you can figure it out," Biyomon concluded.

Tai sighed. "I guess I'm not going to get anything out of you. Fine. I guess you would have told me if I didn't stand any chance anyways," Tai reasoned. "Well, don't mention any of this to Sora." Biyomon just laughed and flew back to Sora. 'Was that a yes?' Tai wondered as he walked back over to where Sora and Biyomon where. 'Whatever,' Tai sighed as he sat down on a patch of grass beside the redhead.

"So what did you need to talk about so desperately?" Sora finally asked, curiosity finally getting the best of her.

Tai just smiled in return. He placed an arm around her shoulders and said, "You do know that curiosity killed the cat, right?" as he watched Agumon walking back over to the group. Before the girl could reply, Tai stood up and joined Agumon, asking him how it went.

"That was pretty quick, Agumon. So what happened? Did Blackwargreymon know anything about what's going on?" Tai bombarded Agumon with questions.

"Well, he told me that it's probably a new evil in the digital world that's causing all these disturbances. He too is going to ask around and find out what's going on. We've decided to meet up again next week, same time, and same place. If he can't find us for some reason, then he'll go Gennai's and we can meet up with him there," Agumon told the group of three in front of him.

Taichi and Sora nodded. "Well, now we're planning on going to Gennai's house to look for my digivice. I seemed to have lost it and I most likely dropped it somewhere in the digital world. It might have turned up at Gennai's house so we've decided to go look there first," Tai told Agumon, to catch him up on the current events.

"Then let's go!" Agumon said as Biyomon digivolved into Birdramon and gave a mighty screech. Sora smiled at her friend and climbed onto one leg. Tai and Agumon got onto the other leg and then the massive bird took off into the skies towards Gennai's house. Once they were a couple of yards away from Gennai's house, Birdramon landed on the ground and devolved back into Biyomon. Then the group started walking towards the fountain of water that was placed on a patch of grass. Instead of a small hologram of Gennai beside the ocean side, the group of four found a small, yet magnificant fountain on a small piece of grass.

"I guess the old man decided to redecorate," Tai commented as he took a look at the fountain. "Interesting."

"How do we get in now?" Sora asked as she examined the water fountain. "Do you think this is sort of like a security system of sorts?" she asked as she found a small black button on the side of the fountain. Without thinking, she pressed it and waited for something to happen. Within the water, a transparent figure of Gennai appeared and started speaking.

"Who is it?" the small figurine asked.

"It's Tai and Sora," Sora replied.

"Oh, hello again. I hope you are completely recovered, Taichi," the small figure said as he turned to face Tai. Tai just blinked at him.

"Thanks; yes I'm fine now. Do you think you can let us in now?" he asked with a pleasant smile on his face.

"Of course," the figure said as he disappeared from view. The water fountain then suddenly split in two, straight through the middle and opened up to reveal the same steps that led down to Gennai's house. As the four of them made their way down, they could see fish and all kinds of water animals swim by them. A couple of them said 'hi' as they passed by and then saw a couple of Gomamon swim by.

"Gomamon?" Tai asked.

"Well, you can't expect that there's only one Gomamon in the whole digital world, Tai," Sora chided.

"Oh. Right," he laughed as he rubbed the back of his head. They finally arrived in front of Gennai's house and Agumon tried jumping for the doorbell a couple of times, but it was too high for him. Biyomon snickered at him in the background, covering her mouth to stiffle the laughs. Agumon just settled for knocking on the door then. Gennai came to answer the door and ushered them all in. As soon as they stepped inside, the stairway made of water disappeared as the two pieces of the water fountain came back together, hiding Gennai's house from view.

Sora and Tai were asked to take a seat at the dining table in another room and Gennai followed soon after.

"So how may I help you two?" Gennai asked.

"Was that a security system? The water fountain?" Sora asked.

"Yes it is. Especially since a new evil is running about… can't be too careful nowadays. I still have other computers and TV's to keep watch, but in this area, I thought a fountain would beautify the place and also be a nice security device," Gennai smiled.

"But isn't it weird? Coming upon a water fountain in the middle of nowhere?" Tai asked frowning.

"Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. It was snowing a couple days ago… anything can happen now," Gennai replied, a hint of mystery in his voice. "I used to be under the ocean remember? Well, since the land masses are shifting, it was a little too dangerous to go with the water now, so I decided to connect the water fountain to a small lake near by," Gennai explained. "So what are you guys here for?"

Tai knitted his eyebrows in wonderment and then remembered why he was here in the first place. "Oh, well, we came here because I seemed to have lost my digivice. Sora and I think that I must have lost it in the digital world because I remember having it when I came here last time, but after that, once I went back home, I couldn't find it," Tai explained.

"Hum… well, we can search this house if you would like, but I remember you having it with you when you left here. But feel free to look around," Gennai told the teenager. Tai nodded and thanked him.

All of a sudden, the whole place started shaking violently as items from various places in the house started falling. Tai, Sora, Agumon and Biyomon, all grabbed the table in front of them as if their life depended on it. Gennai just stood there, in that same spot throughout the whole thing. After a couple of minutes, things started to slow down and the shaking came to a halt.

"What's going on?" Agumon asked frantically.

"That my friends, was the shifting of lands in the digital world. I believe you all have experienced this before, when you were taken to a different part of the digital world when you were trying to find a computer the other time," Gennai said. "Ever since the evil has made it's presence in the digital world, the lands in the digital world have been shifting like this. Luckily my fountain comes wherever I go."

"What do you mean 'wherever I go'?" Biyomon asked.

"Well, if the lands shift, the lake and myself get taken to a new place, and my fountain comes with me too," Gennai explained.

"You've been living with this the whole time?" Tai asked, shocked. "When did this start happening?"

"It started about a month before you had your accident digidestined of Courage. And yes, I've been living with it. It's not that bad, compared to how it is like on the surface. I believe since we are under ground, it's about two to five times less violent than it is on top," Gennai averaged out. "But I think he's just toying with us right now. As if he's playing around with new puzzle pieces that he can move around as he feels."

"WHAT?" Tai yelled out, as he stood up, knocking his chair to the ground. Sora has to place a hand on his arm to make him calm down and take a seat again.

"Are you telling us that this evil digimon is that powerful? To change the landscape of the digital world itself?" Sora asked, her eyes wide with worry.

"Yes, and that might not be the only thing he's capable of," Gennai said.

The house started shaking again, a lot less violent compared to the previous one, but it was shaking nonetheless. "Does it always happen this often?" Tai gasped out as the house soon stopped quaking.

"Sometimes. On other days, it's as if nothing has ever happened," said Gennai as he picked a fallen vase off the floor and placed it back on its stand in the corner. "Luckily, not much in this house is capable of breaking easily."

Once things calmed down, Gennai then said, "I think you all should stay the night or at least for a couple of hours. You can take your time looking through the house and around the outside, but who knows when the next tremor will occur. I don't want you kids out wandering the digital world when "he" decides to change the digital world again. If you get trapped while the land piece starts shifting, I don't know where you might end up. You'll still be in the digital world, but I'm not sure where, and there are still some uncharted territories in this world," with a warning tone.

"Well, I have some things to finish up, so feel free to look around the house, and I expect you to stay for dinner and perhaps, the night, if you feel like it," Gennai said with a nod. Then he left the room, leaving the four of them alone to start their search.

"So… where do you want to start searching?" Agumon asked, kind of scared that the house might start shaking again as he stayed glued to his seat.

"If that first one was that bad, imagine how bad it was outside! I'm glad that we're inside," Taichi said as he got out of his seat and stretched his tired arm muscles. "I think I'll wait for about half an hour, to see if the tremors have really stopped, before we start searching the house. Who knows how big this house is. If the house starts shaking while we are looking and something happens to one of us that would not be good. So we'll start looking in a bit," Tai said with a note of finality.

"Ok then, we'll start looking in about half an hour or so. I guess I'll email my mom and let her know that I won't be back before dinner time," Sora said as she took her d-terminal out of her backpack that she brought along for Biyomon. Once her message was sent, Tai borrowed it and emailed Kari, letting her know what was going on and that he was at Gennai's so there was nothing to worry about.

Once that was done, Tai got up and said, "I'm going to go look around the living room and the kitchen to see if I might have dropped it around there."

"I'll come with you," Agumon said as he jumped out of his seat and raced after his friend.

"I guess we're going too Biyomon," Sora said as she and her friend followed the other two. As the two teenagers walked around the house together, looking through the kitchen area and the dining areas, Sora commented, "Hey you guys, remember the very first time we came to Gennai's house? When we were trying to get back to the digital world to fight Myotismon? Since then, this place has really changed."

"Yeah your right," Tai said, looking around. "I remember there used to be paper screen doors that you could slide back and forth, and now, most of the doors have knobs on them that you can pull or push to open. And he has two more floors added to the house," Tai mentioned as he remembered how the house looked from the outside. "I think it's going to take a while to search this house," Tai sighed.

"Don't worry Tai, we'll find your digivice!" Agumon assured his friend.

-----

The so-called 'evil digimon' was currently sitting on his chair in his… throne room, as he calls it. He picked up a small piece of metal from the ground and examined it. "So this thing gives those disgusting creatures the power to digivolve, correct?" the digimon asked to his subordinate in front of him. There were torches placed in specific places on the wall, illuminating the room in a soft yellow glow. Apparently this digimon didn't take too much to light bulbs and bright lights.

"Yes master," the tall, curvy figure said as it kneeled down to the ground.

"Ah, LadyDevimon, how nice of you to show," the master commented lightly as his left hand, the one that did not hold the digivice, stretched out and grabbed LadyDevimon by the throat in a moments notice.

"Master!" Ladydevimon choked out as she gasped for breath.

"How dare you disobey me? I asked for you to kill that insolent little brat with a mop on his head! What did you do? You didn't kill him, you let him live!" the master roared out as he squeezed her neck a little tighter.

"I'm sorry my lord!" the digimon pleaded as her face slowly turned blue from the lack of oxygen. She dare not disobey him because he could kill her in an instant as he was currently toying with her.

"My lord, your order," a digimon said as it shimmered into view.

"Ah, Devimon, thank you," the Lord said as he released Ladydevimon and took the steaming hot cup of coffee from Devimon who held it out for him. It seemed like the Lord had picked up some likings from watching the people in the real world, such as coffee.

"Thank you Devimon," Ladydevimon whispered as she rubbed her throat. Devimon just nodded and kneeled down in front of their master.

"Master, is there anything I can do for you?" Devimon asked, his head practically touching the ground.

"Yes Devimon. Can you tell me more about these little contraptions?" the master asked as he held the digivice in front of him.

"Ah, I remember those blasted things," Devimon said as he thought back to the time where Patamon digivolved and defeated him. Even though he was defeated, his current master brought his data back from where it was stored and gave him a new life. That is how much power this new evil has. "That digivice can give any digimon the ability to digivolve and become more powerful," Devimon said.

"So it can make me stronger?" the evil digimon asked.

"Yes, but you will need one of those digidestined, or another child who has the power to make you digivolve. They are the true source of the power. These digivices are just a medium to digivolve. You will need one of those digidestined to digivolve. But my lord, I believe you are more powerful than any of those digimon in their ultimate forms. Why would you need to digivolve?" Devimon asked.

"I want you and your little girlfriend over there, to find me one of those digidestined," the digimon spat out as he placed the digivice on a small table next to him. He extended his fingers out towards the ground and thin, very transparent threads came flying out of his fingertips and penetrated down into the ground. His eyes slowly grew dark, his irises disappearing until all you could see was pitch black when you looked at his eyes. He went down to the core of the digital world once again and brought up various images in front of him.

This evil digimon was able to slowly gain control of the core of the digital world by injecting small virus particles into the heart of this world and started taking over the digital world this way. He was able to manipulate the landmasses, as he was currently doing, and was able to survey anything that was going on in the digital world. He brought up a picture of Tai and Sora in Gennai's house. It showed both of them looking through a massive kitchen, looking for something in various cabinets and under other places.

"I think she will be fine," the dark lord said as he pointed to Sora. "Ladydevimon, I will ask you once again to kill this man. If you cannot do so, then I will kill you myself. I don't care about your little squabble with that bloody angel, you are to kill this boy!" the master roared out. Ladydevimon started quivering under his massive power. "I gave you extra powers just for this assignment. Do not fail me again."

"I understand," Ladydevimon gulped as she shimmered out of view.

"Devimon, I want you to retrieve this girl for me," the master ordered.

"Yes my lord," Devimon said, as he got ready to take his leave. Before he could do so, another voice pierced through the darkness.

"My lord, would it not be better to go for someone a little more innocent and easier to manipulate?" a figure said as it emerged from the darkness that covered certain portions of the walls. "Perhaps this boy?" the figure said as he pointed towards Cody on another screen.

"Malomyotismon," Devimon growled out. "It's a wonder how you can hide such a big body in the dark like that…" Devimon coughed under his breath.

"Malomyotismon, it's always a pleasure when you decide to show up. Perhaps you're right about this little bug. Hum… First get me the girl, if that doesn't work, then I shall use your idea, Malomyotismon," the evil digimon said as he turned to Devimon and nodded his head.

Devimon nodded back, bowed in respect and then disappeared from view.

"Malomyotismon, I would like you and your brother to watch over Ladydevimon and Devimon. I do not trust those two… and seeing as they are pathetic weaklings, they may not finish their jobs properly. See to it that their jobs are complete."

MaloMyotismon nodded and walked out of the throne room into another part of the cavern. "VenomMyotismon, we have a job to do. Get up and clean yourself off," MaloMyotismon growled out after seeing his brother's disgusting state. VenomMyotismon wiped the blood off his mouth and grinned at his brother.

"What's the job?" he asked.

Malomyotismon explained what they had to do as VenomMyotismon took some water from a bucket nearby and rinsed his mouth of his meal. Before they left their 'room' in the cavern, MaloMyotismon commented, "Do you always have to leave your food to rot on the floor? Clean it up will you? I don't like to see dead, half eaten digimon before I go to sleep and then see them again first thing in the morning."

"Fine fine, I'll clean it up when we get back," VenomMyotismon promised as he rolled his eyes at his brother's complaining. The two massive digimon shimmered out of the cavern, off to find the two love birds- Ladydevimon and Devimon.

-----

Back at Gennai's house, the two teenagers were frantically looking around the kitchen area and dining area for about half an hour before they gave up, realizing that Tai's digivice was not there. Panting, Tai said, "I guess it's not around here. We can probably look in the room I was in, next. Then we can go to the second and third floors."

"Sounds like a plan," Biyomon said as she flew over to a futon nearby.

"But first a break," Agumon panted out as he threw himself on the futon. Sora and Tai took a seat there too, waiting for Agumon and Biyomon to catch their breaths. Tai leaned back and rested his head against the wall, closing his eyes.

"You okay? Your eyes don't hurt again do they?" Sora asked, concern filling her voice. Tai shook his head.

"I'm fine," he said as he turned his head and opened his eyes to look at her. "Thanks though," he smiled. "I just didn't get much sleep last night," he said as his head fell onto Sora's shoulder and he closed his eyes once again.

Sora scooted over a little more so Tai wouldn't have to stretch his neck that far and then ran a hand through his hair. "You know, your hair is actually silky. I would have thought that it would be really rough with knots and all, seeing as you never brush your hair," Sora muttered.

"Hey! I do brush my hair! Hah. Actually mom's been pestering me about getting a hair cut before I go to college," Tai mentioned. "That feels nice," he said as he closed his eyes once again while Sora ran her hand through his hair a couple of times.

"Are you going to get a haircut?" Sora asked, thinking 'He probably won't, he's had this hairstyle ever since he was little. I doubt he would get it any shorter than this, maybe a trim at most.'

"Definitely not," Tai said adamantly as he shook his head from side to side. Sora laughed.

For the next five to six hours, the four guests searched the house from top to bottom, but were unable to find anything that remotely resembled a digivice.

"Well kids, it's around dinner time. Would you like some dinner now?" Gennai called up the stairs. Four heads looked around the corner and nodded.

Once everyone was sitting around the dining table, Tai told Gennai about the search. "Well, it seems like I didn't drop my digivice around here. We've searched the whole place and couldn't find it. So that means it must have fallen somewhere out in the digital world…" Tai sighed.

"The digital world is a big place," Gennai nodded. "Well, I can send word out to my friends and let you know if they find anything," Gennai promised as he cleared the table of the plates and other dining utensils.

After dinner, Tai and Sora heard Gennai's doorbell ring a couple of times until it finally stopped. "Now who could that be?" Gennai muttered under his breath. "I don't think I have any visitors planned for today."

Gennai went to the door and Tai and Sora were able to hear a couple of whispers and then Gennai's footsteps as he walked back into the dining room. "Well, it seems we do have a guest tonight," Gennai announced as a small fur ball flew through the door and landed on the ground.

"Piximon!" Biyomon and Tai said at the same time as soon as they saw the pink fur ball with wings touch the ground.

"How are you?" The small digimon asked, looking particularly at Tai.

"I'm much better, thank you," Tai said. "We're fine."

"Good, because I've heard of what has happened to you Taichi. Particularly the changes that have been taking place," Piximon announced.

"Huh? How? I don't think I've told anyone else except for Sora and Matt, and the digimon," Tai said.

"Well, apparently if something interesting happens in the digital world, news travels fast, and other digimon have seen you," Piximon reminded him. Tai nodded.

"So I am here to offer you four some special training. Mainly for Taichi, to get used to his powers, but if you three want to come along, that is fine with me," Piximon told them.

"It sounds fine to me," Sora said with Biyomon and Agumon nodding their heads in approval.

"You guys are just going to assume that I'm going to do this training thing?" Tai asked with his arms crossed across his chest.

"Tai, Piximon is offering to train you and help you with your powers. I think this is the best offer yet unless you plan on training yourself," Sora explained. Tai looked at the ground then back up at Piximon, finally making up his mind.

"Fine, when do we leave?"

"If it is okay with Gennai, we shall leave tonight. I have heard from some digimon that I passed by tonight, that the evil digimon has sent some of his minions after you two and I think they are planning to attack tonight. Gennai, watch yourself," Piximon warned the old digimon. Gennai nodded.

"Then you four, take care of yourselves," Gennai ordered as they got up and got their supplies. Gennai gave them an extra pair of clothes and a little bit of food, which Sora placed in her backpack. Once she slid it on her back, they were ready to go.

"Look's like we won't be going back home tonight," Tai commented as they went up the flight of stairs that led back up to the surface. Once back on land, instead of under water, Piximon twirled his stick that was in his hand and a bubble surrounded the four of them along with Piximon.

"Off we go!" Piximon announced as the bubble took off into the air and flew towards the desert. After about a fifteen-minute ride, the bubble slowly landed on the cool desert ground.

"Pixie portal open!" Piximon said suddenly, as he waved his staff around in the air. The group walked in and took a look around.

"Looks like someone redecorated," Sora commented as she saw that they were currently walking on a beach with the ocean lapping at their feet. There was a jungle around 100 feet from where they were currently standing.

"Well, don't stand there all day, come along now," Piximon ushered. They followed the small pink ball up to the very long flight of stairs that led to his house.

"You still have these damn stairs?" Tai muttered as he started to climb. Biyomon took to the air immediately but was hit on the head by Piximon's staff.

"You'll have to take the stairs too Biyomon. No short cuts." Biyomon groaned.

"Let's get going then," Tai started. It took a good half an hour until they were finally at the top.

"I'm exhausted," Agumon commented as he swayed lightly on his feet.

"Good then, off to bed. You'll have a nice sleep since you're all tired," Piximon said as he led them to one of the millions of rooms around the coliseum. "Tomorrow we shall start your training Tai," Piximon told the brown haired boy as he stopped in front of an intricately decorated door that was carved with wood. "This will be your room during your stay here. The four of you," he mentioned as the door opened with a touch of his staff.

"Uh, the four of us?" Sora stammered out as she looked at the big room that lay in front of her.

"I'm not made of money you know," Piximon chastised. "This is a training ground first, and then a hotel second. I don't have time to make separate rooms with nicely decorated beds and dressers and everything like Gennai does, you know," Piximon glowered as he waved his staff once again. Four futons appeared on the floor, one next to another on one side of the room, and a dresser that spanned the length of the room on the other side. A big mirror covered the wall above the dresser and another door on the other side of the room led to a somewhat grand looking bathroom.

"Beds!" Agumon yelled out as he collapsed on the nearest one and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Tai decided to sleep next to his friend, Sora next to him and Biyomon on other end, not really wanting to be squished between two humans that were bigger than her. Piximon had also created a bird swing a little higher up if she felt like sleeping higher up. She thanked him and went to the swing and fell asleep with one leg under her and her face turned to her back, just like any other bird.

"Looks like it's just us then," Tai said. "Thanks Piximon." Tai nodded to Piximon and went into the room.

"Piximon, do you have a computer located in here? Just incase we need to reach home or go home for extra supplies or anything," Sora asked.

"Yes I do actually. I had one installed this past month or so." Waving his staff around again, the computer and a small table appeared in another corner of the room; the monitor screen was a pitch black as the monitor was turned off. "It has a digi port if that is what you're looking for. As soon as you turn it on, the program to bring up the digi port is right on the desktop," Piximon said before he flew off. "Good night. And remember, training starts in the morning!"

Sora entered the room and sighed as she placed her backpack in a corner, next to Biyomon's bed and closed the door behind her. Soft torchlights illuminated the room, two by the dresser and two by the bathroom entrance. Sora bent down and grabbed the pair of shorts that she had brought, out of the backpack.

"Looks like the digimon are fast asleep," Tai said softly as he walked out of the bathroom with his pants in his hand.

"Uhh…." Sora said as she took in his clothing attire.

"What? This is what I wear to bed! At least be happy I'm wearing clothes!" Tai said jokingly. Sora's eyes widened as her face flushed a light pink. "What? Would you like me to sleep naked or something?" Tai asked, chuckling at her pink face. "Well, I'd be happy to oblige seeing as it's only you and not Izzy or something," Tai joked as his hands went to the top of his boxers.

"Tai!" Sora yelled out as she smacked him with the pair of shorts in her hand as she stomped of towards the bathroom. Sora emerged from the bathroom five minutes later, placed her jeans next to her backpack and then laid down on her futon, next to Tai. She turned to her friend then asked, "You still awake?"

"Yeah."

She turned her body to the side so she could look at him clearly. "We'll have to go back home sometime tomorrow, preferably in the morning or something to get bathroom supplies and a change of clothes," she told him and he nodded in agreement.

"We can do that first thing in the morning if you like. We'll just tell Piximon that when he wakes us up," Tai said as he pulled the blanket that was placed at his feet, over his body. "Well, good night," he said as he lay back down on his back and closed his eyes.

"Night," Sora whispered as she too pulled her blanket over her and fell asleep.

-----

The next morning, the four that were fast asleep in a room in Piximon's house, or coliseum if you would like to call it, had a very rude wake up call. Piximon flew through the door and started yelling, "Wake up! It's a new day! Up, up!" Who knew the little creature had such a loud voice? Well, it definitely worked because Agumon and Biyomon were up in an instant.

"Who stole my pizza!" Agumon yelled out as he jumped to his feet, his eyes half closed with sleep.

Sora groaned as she opened her eyes, wondering why it was so loud this early in the morning. As she opened her eyes, a pink fur ball flew right into her face and started screaming 'wake up' at her. Well, that woke her up. "Fine! I'm up! Just stop screaming!" Sora yelled as she tried to sit up, her hands trying to wave away the annoying digimon flying in front of her face. She was only able to sit up partially before she fell back onto the futon because of a heavy weight around her midsection. "What the-" Sora started as she threw her sheets off her body, wondering why she couldn't get up. Then, all of a sudden, she was pulled by the waist into something warm.

"Five more minutes," Tai muttered as he snuggled up a little closer to the source of warmth next to him. Somehow in the middle of the night, Tai ended up on Sora's futon, his arm around her waist and her body spooned up against his. Sora blushed and tried to pry her best friends' arm off of her but that only made him hold her tighter.

Piximon was getting tired of waiting so he flew out of the room and then came back a minute later with a trumpet in his hand. Blowing it really loudly right next to the boy's ear definitely woke him up. Tai was up and on his feet in an instant, wondering what was going on.

"Is it a fire?" Tai asked sleepily.

"No, but it is your first day of training," Piximon said as he pushed Tai towards the bathroom.

"Huh? What training?" Tai asked, his brain still fogged with sleep.

"Just wash your face and be ready in five minutes!" Piximon yelled as he closed the door behind the confused boy.

"Wait, don't I need my clothes?" Tai asked from behind the door.

"I have provided you with a set of clothes next to the sink. Those clothes will help you move better," Piximon explained. Then Piximon turned to the other three in the room. "I would also like you three to be ready in five minutes too. If you and Biyomon would like to watch my training methods today and then decide if you like to be trained also, that's fine," Piximon told Sora. Sora nodded as she got a new pair of clothes that Gennai had provided for her, out of her backpack and waited for Tai to come out of the bathroom.

"What time is it?" Sora asked.

"Six a.m." Agumon almost fainted.

"That's way to early to be up!" Agumon complained. Piximon just ignored him.

"Oh Piximon, I was wondering if we could go back to the real world to get some bathroom supplies and everything," Sora asked the small digimon that was about to fly out the door.

"Everything has been provided for you," Piximon said as he flew out the door. Sora just guessed that he had provided some toothpaste, a brush and other bathroom supplies when he came in this morning.

As soon as Taichi came out of the bathroom, Sora went in and changed. Once she came out, she saw Tai lacing up his shoes and slipping on a pair of fingerless gloves.

"Interesting outfit," Sora commented as she took in his new attire. He was clad in a plain white shirt and very baggy kaki colored pants that looked one size too big for him. Other than that, his shoes and gloves, there was nothing else on him.

"What do you think these gloves are made out of?" Tai asked as he felt the glove material. "It looks like leather to me."

"Hum… you might be right," Sora said as she came over and touched the material. Piximon then chose that time to fly in and as if the four of them were ready. They nodded and Piximon led them out of the room. They went down a couple of levels and arrived at the base of the coliseum.

"Okay then. Tai, you will stand in the middle there," Piximon ordered as he pointed his staff towards the center of the big open area. "The rest of you will have to sit in the stands up there," Piximon said, pointing to some seats that were a couple of stories high.

"Why so far up?" Biyomon asked.

"I do not know what your friend is capable of yet and I do not want any of you to be caught up in the middle of something," Piximon warned. "And Agumon cannot help out in any of these trials. It is to test Tai's strength and if Agumon interferes, I will not be able to train your friend properly."

Agumon nodded. "But beware, no matter what happens, you cannot interfere. I shall be placing a barrier around you three to protect you. I will only stop a test if Tai is in life-threatening danger, but you three must make sure that you do not hinder with these tests," Piximon stressed as he closed the three in a bubble and it slowly floated up several stories into the air.

"We're so high up… oh, I hope Tai will be ok," Sora said as she sat down on the bench underneath her. The bubble expanded and contracted depending on the three's movements and allowed them some breathing space.

"Now let's get started," they heard Piximon say to Tai. "We'll start with a couple of exercises to get your body stretched out," Piximon told Tai as he asked the boy to run three laps around the edge of the sandy field. Tai sighed but complied. He ran three rounds around the field and had a light coating of sweat on him by the time he was done.

"Good. Now stretch your legs and arms first. Then your back and neck," the small digimon ordered. Tai stretched, following Piximon's commands and then stood back up onto his feet.

"Okay. I'm going to throw some attacks at you, I want you to dodge them the best you can." Tai nodded.

The small, pink fur ball took a deep breath and launched a series of attacks.

"Bit Bomb!" Piximon yelled as millions of bat like bombs flew at the brown haired teen. Tai ducked and rolled to the side, dodging the brunt of the attack. "You know you can use anything to help you, except for your digimon," Piximon told him as he launched another attack. "Bit Bomb!"

Another group of bombs flew at the boy. Tai tried swatting them away with his hands but only got his hands burnt as they blew up upon contact. "Shit," he muttered under his breath as he continued to dodge, jump and roll out of the way of the flying bombs. After about fifteen minutes of this, Piximon suddenly stopped his attacks.

"That's good. Very good. Better than I thought," Piximon congratulated. Tai, finally getting a break, sat down on the ground and tried to catch his breath.

"Is there a water fountain near by?" Tai asked as he lied down on the sand of the coliseum on his back, panting. Piximon flew out for a second and then returned with a bottle of water in his hand. Tai gratefully accepted it and gulped half the bottle down at once.

"We'll take a break now, and get some food in you. I want you back here within the next hour and half to resume your trials," Piximon instructed. He then signaled for Sora, Biyomon and Agumon to stand up and the bubble that took them to their seats, brought them back down to the sandy grounds.

"Tai!" Agumon rushed up to his partner and hugged his legs.

"Haha. I'm fine. Now let's get something to eat!" Tai said as he pumped his fist into the air. His hands that were once black and blue from the bombs were completely clean of bruises as his digimon side of him healed his cuts and bruises in a matter of minutes.

Piximon led the group down to the kitchens where a couple of digimon were cooking food for the group. They sat down in front of a table in the kitchen and waited for their food. During the next hour and half that they had, Tai just rested his body and gained back his energy for the next set of trails. Tai and Sora and their partners just made idle talk about what they were going to do after this and if Sora was planning on joining Piximon's training regime.

"It doesn't look too bad actually," Sora mused. "It would help keep me in shape and keep me fast on my feet." Biyomon nodded.

"I wonder if he could train us too," Agumon voiced out for Biyomon and himself. Before they could discuss the topic any further, Piximon returned again and asked them to be out waiting in the coliseum grounds in the next five minutes. Then, as soon as he had appeared, Piximon flew back out the kitchen doors.

"I guess that means we have to go back now," Tai groaned as he pulled himself up out of his seat and led the way back to the sandy grounds.

Once he was standing in the middle of the coliseum once again with Sora and Agumon on either side of him, Piximon decided to appear once again. "Alright. We will now resume your training. I hope you had enough to eat because you will definitely be using up all of the food you ate pretty quickly," Piximon told Tai with a smile. Tai gulped in response.

"I'll have to have you three back up on the stands again," Piximon told them once again as a bubble took them pretty high up in the stands. "You might have thought the bubble was kind of useless when I started the training, but you'll thank me now," Piximon whispered under his breath, but Tai caught it with his very sensitive ears. Turning to Tai, he then asked, "Are you ready boy?" Before Tai could even answer, Piximon started attacking him again. Once again, he had to dodge those small, annoying bombs and found it easier than the first time. Once Piximon stopped his attack, Tai asked him about it.

"How come I found it easier to dodge your attacks the second time around?" Tai asked as he was covered in a light sweat again. But this time, he wasn't panting and wasn't looking like he had the wind knocked out of him.

"Your body is quickly adapting to various situations. Your body and mind now know how to dodge my attacks after seeing it once. Impressive," Piximon commented.

"Okay. I'm bumping it up a level," Piximon said as he waved his staff around in the air like a cheerleading baton. All of a sudden, the wall around the coliseum arena disappeared and was replaced with hundreds of cages. Since the cages were embedded into the coliseum walls, the whole cage was not visible, just the front of it, and so Tai could not see what was in the cages. Darkness shrouded the creatures inside.

"Here's your next test," Piximon announced. He increased his voice a little more so Sora, Biyomon and Agumon could hear what he was saying too because this related to them too. "You all must be wondering why you haven't encountered any more of those possessed digimon like Elecmon when you were trying to get back home. Well, a couple of other digimon, including myself, have rounded these digimon up and have placed them in these cages."

"Are you saying my next test is to face those digimon?" Tai screamed out.

Piximon ignored Tai's outburst and continued explaining. "You will face off with one of these digimon. You can use any method of fighting except Agumon will not be there to help you, so you will be on your own. I will tell you this: these digimon are brainwashed/ raised by evil himself and do not possess any goodness to them. I have had a couple of digimon friends who have tried to talk to these dark digimon, but nothing good came out of it. They intend to kill once released, so be careful. You will have to kill them or injure them in such a way that they cannot kill you. If things get very rough, then I will come to the rescue, but not a moment sooner," Piximon told Tai.

"Remember, they are not the kind of digimon that will go away if you talk to them or if you hit them once. They are out for blood. If you cannot handle one of these digimon on your own, then you won't be able to face the heart of evil alongside your comrades. Now brace yourself," Piximon said as he flew to the far end of the arena.

"Now show me your true powers Taichi Yagami. Show me what you are capable of," Piximon whispered to himself as he watched the boy take a few deep breaths of air in and out. When he saw Tai was ready to go, Piximon shouted, "Gate 1 open!"

The cage door straight across from Tai, who was standing in the middle of the arena once again, started to open with a groan. Tai could see bright red eyes shining directly at him. He could hear Sora whispering, "Oh Tai, please be careful!" Flexing his hands, Tai waited for the digimon to make an appearance in the arena. It felt like forever, but in reality about half a minute passed by for the digimon to make its appearance.

The massive digimon walked into the sandy arena with a loud roar. A black Tyrannomon with red stripes came into view, its eyes and teeth shining brightly. DarkTyrannomon's head swiveled and looked straight at Tai, saliva dripping down the digimon's open mouth. The digimon was probably at least four times as tall and about five times as wide as Tai.

"Are you sure about this Piximon? This is a champion level digimon!" Tai yelled out at the pink digimon, but got no response. Tai took that as a yes. Sighing, the brown haired boy turned back to the massive digimon and examined the digimon. 'How the hell do I attack this thing? Can I even make a dent in it?' Tai thought as he got into a fighting position, one leg back and one leg front, bent at the knees.

Before Tai could even get ready or think of a plan, the digimon started attacking. "FIRE BLAST!" DarkTyrannomon roared out as a big ball of fire flew out of its mouth. Tai jumped to the side just in time to save his skin. Tyrannomon, seeing an opening, jumped at Tai and attacked again.

"Slash Claw!" DarkTyrannomon brought his large clawed arm down onto Tai slashing him across the chest, his shirt now sporting three wide cuts through the front. Tai yelled out in pain as he was thrown back from the force of the attack. His chest was bleeding, as the claw marks were really deep. He definitely felt the pain, but only for a few seconds as his body easily repaired those wounds. Tai growled and stood up again.

The digimon did not wait to attack again as it jumped up and landed right in front of Tai. It turned around and swung its tail around, hitting Tai right in the stomach and sent him flying against the wall of the coliseum. Unfortunately he landed in front of another cage and could hear a pair of teeth snapping viciously at him. The teen's eyes widened as he scampered away from the cages. The digimon let out another roar and let another Fire Blast at Tai. Tai's eyes widened as he found himself still on the ground and did not have enough time to move out of the way of the blast. He stuck his left hand out to protect himself as his right arm went over to protect his face.

Tai could feel the heat of the blast engulf his hand but as soon as the heat touched his hand, it disappeared. Looking up, Tai wondered if Piximon interfered in the battle and was ready to thank the small digimon. As he looked around, he spotted the tiny digimon in the corner still watching him. "Huh? What happened?" Tai asked himself. He then looked at his hand and could see a small ball of flames in the palm of his hand.

"Did I do that?" he asked dumbly. Then he finally realized what was in his hand. It was the Fire Blast from the digimon standing in front of him. Tai grinned and threw the ball back at the digimon with full force. It seemed like there was a little too much force in that throw because as the fireball flew towards the massive digimon, it started to grow in size until it was two times as big as the one that the digimon had aimed at Tai and the ball hit the digimon straight in the gut and went right through the other side of the digimon, leaving a gaping hole in the creature. DarkTyrannomon's eyes widened and then closed as he fell onto his back. His data slowly began to disintegrate, pieces of data flying everywhere. Then they started to collect where the body had previously been.

"What's happening?" Tai asked as Piximon flew over to the boy.

"It seems that since you did not have the intent to kill the creature, the data from the DarkTyrannomon is reforming back into an egg," Piximon explained as he pointed to the new digimon egg on the ground. He flew over and picked the digi egg off the ground and then announced, "Round Two!" as another gate started to open.

"So basically, if I have anything other than the intent to kill, towards these digimon, I can allow them to have a second life, in other words?" Tai asked as he waited for the second digimon to appear.

"It seems so," Piximon yelled back.

"But how do I kill them without having the intent to kill? Kill them by accident?" Tai muttered under his breath. "That will be hard to do…"

Out from the second cage came a massive bird. Once again, it was black and had red eyes. "Kiwimon… but this one is bigger than the ones that you usually find," Tai muttered under his breath. This Kiwimon that ran out of its cage was probably one and a half times bigger than a regular Kiwimon that one would find in the wild. As soon as it was free, it came running at Tai, launching its attack. "Pummel Peck!" the bird squawked as millions of little chibiKiwimon came flying out at Tai. Tai could only dodge the first few until they all overwhelmed him. Tai let out a scream as he swatted at the tiny birds that started pecking him to death.

Tai slowly found his way out from under the pile of pecking digimon and slowly crawled up the massive bird digimon without it noticing him. Once on the digimon's back, Tai went up to Kiwimon's head and suddenly gripped the digimon's beak with his hands. Pulling back, Tai violently twisted the digimon's neck around until he heard a snap and finally let the digimon fall to the ground, its eyes rolled back into its head.

As the digimon's data slowly disappeared and then reappeared in the form of an egg, Piximon flew over to Tai and congratulated him on his second win.

"That wasn't so bad was it?" Piximon asked the brown haired boy.

"Well, if you take out the point where I have to kill the digimon or get killed, then I guess it's not that bad… but still, to fight a digimon?" Tai asked.

"It's in your blood now," Piximon reminded him as the bubble with Sora, Agumon and Biyomon landed back on the ground next to Tai. "Well, today's trial runs are done. You can have the rest of the day off. You can return to your world if you want but I want your answer on whether you would like to continue this training."

"I guess I won't mind it for a couple of days," Tai said looking over to Sora and Agumon. Sora just shrugged at him.

"Then I'll give you another task tomorrow. Let me know if you still want to continue your training after that," Piximon said with a small glint in his eyes. Tai and Sora were left confused by this. "Well, like I said, the rest of the day is for you. We will resume training tomorrow morning once again. If you do go to your world, make sure you both are back here again before night falls," Piximon told them as he flew out of the coliseum.

"So what do you want to do now?" Tai asked as he turned to face Sora.

"I guess we can go back to the real world. I need to get some fresh clothes if I'm going to come back tonight," Sora said. Tai nodded.

"Alright then, that means we'll have to go back up to the room and use the computer there."

Once back at their room, Sora turned the computer monitor on and went to the corner of the room to pick up her backpack. She came back in front of the computer and placed her bag next to it. Then all of a sudden, Tai remembered he left some of his clothes in the bathroom.

"Hold on! I left my clothes in the bathroom and I could really get them washed," he announced as he ran into the bathroom. He came back with folded clothes and laid them down on top of Sora's bag.

"You ready to go now?" Sora asked.

"Yup! All ready!" Tai said with a grin as he casually wrapped an arm around the redhead's shoulders next to him.

"Yuck! Tai, you're all sweaty!" Sora yelped as she pushed the boy away from her, but that just made him come right back to her.

"Well you never complained about me hugging you when we were at soccer camp… I think I was drenched in sweat back then," Tai said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders once again.

"Tai!" Sora whined. "That was when I was like 10! I didn't know better and I was happy we won the game! Plus, I was covered in sweat too so it didn't really matter," she pointed out as she tried to push him away again. Tai just grinned at her in response and held on tight. "Tai, we're going to fall!" Sora screamed lightly as she lost her footing as she tried to push Tai away from her once again, but to no avail. Luckily, the beds were right behind them so they fell onto that, Sora on top of Tai, their noses less than an inch apart from one another.

Sora gulped, unsure of what to do in such a situation. Part of her wanted to get away from him as fast as possible and another part of her wanted to stay like this forever, or at least until something else interrupted them. Not sure what to do, she just stayed on top of him, waiting for him to make the first move.

Taichi could feel Sora's breath upon his lips as he looked straight into her eyes. He could see she was fighting with her inner self. 'Probably thinking if she should give into my manly charms or give into the 'I- just- broke- up- with- Matt- so- I- need- some- time' concept,' Tai thought as he mentally laughed, but he didn't bother to move either.

Sora started to lean a little closer to Tai, his lips looking a little more inviting than she thought it would. His dark chocolate eyes were tugging at her very soul as she brought her bright red eyes up to meet his. Her lips were just about to brush his when there was a sudden bird-like squawk coming from the corner of the room. That definitely broke the little trance that Sora was in. She immediately rolled off of Taichi and looked for the source of the sound. She saw Biyomon slap Agumon with the back of her wing as she proceeded to yell at him for stepping on her tail feathers. The yellow critter was apologizing furiously, his arms above his head to protect himself from her onslaught. Sora took a deep breath and calmed her raging hormones and laughed at the sight of her digimon chasing Agumon around the room. She then dared to take a look at her best friend, who was finally sitting in an upright position and blushed at the thought of what was about to happen. Shaking her head, Sora got back up onto her feet and decided they should head back to the real world.

"We should get going," she muttered as she caught the attention of the other three in the room. Tai nodded and got to his feet, all thoughts of what was about to happen with Sora swiftly flying of his head. Their digimon came over and stood beside their partners as Sora fished through her pockets for her digivice. She then pointed her digivice at the computer.

Before they were taken into the computer, Sora asked, "Do you guys want to stay here until we get back? You can hang around with the digimon here and maybe talk to Piximon about training you two," she offered.

The digimon looked at each other and the nodded at their partners. "Sure! Then I'll see you guys in a few hours?" Agumon asked. Tai and Sora nodded and waved at their digimon right before they were sucked into the digiport. Once they came back to the real world, they found themselves in Tai's room once again. Tai crawled towards the door and opened it a crack, just enough to see if anyone was in the hallway.

All of a sudden, he found himself looking right at someone. The boy screamed and threw himself away from the door, wondering who that could be. He ended up backing up right onto Sora's lap as he heard someone laugh on the other side of the door. As the room door opened up, it revealed the small form of Kari standing next to a laughing Gatomon. Looks like he came face to face with Gatomon who smelled something fishy going on in Tai's room and came to investigate.

"Welcome back Tai, Sora," Kari greeted as she lifted an eyebrow after seeing them on the floor, one on top of another. Tai scrambled off his friend and offered her a hand as she took up his offer and stood up. "What's up with those clothes?" the brown haired girl asked as she took in her brother's choice of dressing wear. Then she turned to Sora and asked, "You let him take you out dressed like that? Tsk, tsk."

"We're not going out! I went to the digital world and ran into Piximon, who decided to train me," Tai told his sister. Sora turned a bright red as flashes from yesterday came back to her.

"Train?" Kari asked. Both of them decided they did not want to explain everything this very moment and kept quiet.

"What time is it?" Sora then asked as she looked out Tai's bedroom window. She found it to be completely dark outside, with the occasional street light lighting the sidewalk and road.

"It's close to 11 p.m. now. Remember time moves twice as slow here than it does in the digital world?" Kari reminded them.

"That's right… then that means we'll have to get back to the digital world in another five hours or so," Tai told Sora.

"Then I'll grab some stuff from home and let my mom and dad know what's up and come back here for the night," Sora told the Yagami siblings as she made her way to the front door.

"Sounds like a plan," Tai replied as he waved to Sora and she disappeared from view.

"So what's going on Tai?" Kari asked as she sat on Tai's bed, looking him straight in the eye.

"Um…" he started, as he took a seat on his computer chair. He decided to give her a quick run down of what was going on, but not to go too in depth of why he was recieving training from Piximon. "Well, we originally went to the digital world to look for my digivice, so we went to Gennai's place to see if I might have dropped it there. We searched his whole house and came up with nothing. We had dinner at his house, and then Piximon showed up wondering if we could like to be trained with him, just like when we went to the digital world the first time," Tai said. Then he remembered that Kari wasn't with them at that time. "Oh right, you weren't in the digital world then. But anyways, he made the rest of the digidestined clean the place up while he threw Agumon and I in a cave and asked us to find the way out," Tai grumbled.

"So, we went to Piximon's place and he's going to train the four of us for a while," Tai informed his sister. "I'm not sure how long it will be though."

"Do you think he could train the rest of us?" Kari asked.

"You know, I'm not sure about that. I could ask him when we go back to his place. He's planning on mainly teaching us to dodge attacks and be fast on our feet," Tai told his sister what he thought Piximon would teach him and Sora.

"Ok. Well I'm getting pretty tired," Kari said as she was interrupted by a big yawn. "I had a rough sleep this morning because of some racket in the kitchen," she said as she glared at her brother.

"What are you looking at me for?" Tai said as he tried to act innocent.

"Oh, and I heard from T.K., who heard from Matt that Sora's single now," she informed her brother.

"Heard about that already. And by the way, I'll probably be staying in the digital world for the next few days, so I might not be back home tomorrow night or the day after. I'll take my d-terminal and send you an email and let you know what's going on when I get there," Tai told his little sister. She just nodded in response and went to her room and climbed into bed, Gatomon following right after her.

Tai gathered a week's worth of clothes and his toothbrush, toothpaste, some soap, shaving cream and razor. He placed them in a duffle bag along with his d-terminal and placed it next to his computer. He walked out into the living room and took a seat on the couch, waiting for Sora to return. Suddenly getting up again, he decided it might be better to freshen up before going back to the digital world as he looked at his torn clothes. Tai went to his room, got a towel and went to the bathroom. He figured it would take a little longer for Sora to come back, and since the rest of his family was asleep now, it would be really easy to walk back to his room and then change in his room instead of the bathroom.

About ten minutes later, as Tai was stepping out of the bathtub, he heard footsteps approaching his apartment door with his overly sensitive hearing. 'Oh, I should get that before the doorbell wakes everyone in the house,' Tai thought to himself as he quickly wrapped the towel around his waist, this time holding the knot in his hand and went to open the door. Tai opened the door even before Sora could knock on the door and saw her with her arm in the air, her fist ready to come in contact with the door in front of her.

"Oh," was the only thing Sora could say as she took in the state Tai was in. "Um…"

"Your starting to make it a habit of running into me while I'm in just a towel… is there something you want to tell me, Sora?" Tai teased as he leaned over, their foreheads almost touching. Sora just blinked back at him and then got angry.

"Taichi," she growled.

"Yes, yes, I know you love me," the brown haired boy grinned. Before she could say anything, Tai interrupted her and said, "Well, don't just stand there all day, and I'm getting kind of cold with the door open," he pointed out as he ushered her in. She walked in stiffly and bent down to remove her shoes, glaring at her friend the whole time. She went to his room and placed her duffle bag next to his and sat down on the couch. Tai quickly went into his room, changed, came back out and took a seat next to the redhead on the couch.

Then the two of them passed the time with a movie and then got ready to go back to the digital world once the movie was over.

"Well, let's head back," Taichi said as he stretched his body like a cat would. He got up off the couch, turned the TV off and then offered his hand towards Sora. She took it and stood up and followed Tai as he led them back to his room, their hands still linked together, unknowingly. Once in front of the computer, Sora let go of his hand to take out her digivice and Tai grabbed both their duffle bags.

"Ready?" she asked. Tai nodded and the digiport took them back to the digital world. They landed back in their room at Piximon's massive house/ coliseum and Tai placed their duffle bags next to the row of futons. Then the two of them walked out of the room and went down to the main floor where they found their digimon playing with a couple of other digimon they found near by.

"Hey guys," Tai greeted as he walked up to Agumon.

"Tai! Your back!" the small digimon yelled as he launched himself at Tai.

"Hi Biyomon," Sora said as she picked her digimon up and gave her a hug. "Who are your friends?"

"They're a couple digimon who are also getting training from Piximon, and they work off their fees by cleaning the place," Biyomon told her human friends.

"Fees?" Tai asked as he accidentally dropped Agumon. Piximon decided to show up at that moment and greeted them with a hello.

"Nice timing Piximon. We were just talking about you," Tai told him.

"And what about?"

"Fees," Tai demanded.

"Ah. Well you digidestined don't have fees, luckily. Well, I shouldn't say that, because your fees would be saving the digital world from this new evil," Piximon told them.

"Is that all?" Tai asked as grinned. "Then no problem!"

"Let's see you say that again after you get trained," Piximon said. "Come along now, if you want your dinner," he told them as he flew towards the kitchen without waiting to see if the digidestined were following him or not. Once in the kitchen, they saw a small and simple dinner for them. "Once you're done with this, it's off to bed with you two. You'll have a long day of training ahead of you," Piximon warned as he flew out the door once again.

Once dinner was done, the four of them said goodnight to the rest of the digimon in the kitchens and went to their room and promptly fell asleep.

The next morning, they were woken up once again with Piximon shouting in their ears and Sora found herself once again in Tai's arms. She rolled her eyes and figured that sweet-talking him to release her wouldn't work, so she decided to pull him off of her, with the help of Agumon. Unfortunately, Tai had gotten a little stronger and even with Sora and Agumon together, they couldn't pry the brown haired boy off. Piximon once again flew in with a trumpet in hand and blew it, making Tai jump up in shock.

"Maybe I should start using this in the mornings from now on," Piximon said as he looked at the trumpet in his small hands. Sora nodded.

"Please do," she laughed as she caught sight of Tai falling asleep on his feet.

Piximon flew over to Tai and shouted in his ear, "I want you ready in five minutes!" and then flew out the door.

"Huh?" Tai said, finally snapping awake. "Oh right," he said after a few minutes, remembering he was back at Piximon's training grounds. Sighing, he went to the bathroom to wash his face and he found a new pair of training clothes by the sink. He freshened up and changed into his training clothes and walked out of the bathroom, allowing Sora to get ready. Sora came out after a couple of minutes and also had new training clothes on, except she had on kaki colored shorts and a white sleeveless shirt on. 'I guess that allows for more movement then,' Tai thought to himself as they and their digimon made their way down to the first floor.

Piximon came in and instructed them to run three laps around the stadium. Tai, since this was the second time he did this, was okay, but Sora had sweat pouring off of her as she came panting back to where Tai and Piximon were waiting.

"We'll take a five minute break and then resume again," Piximon said after seeing Sora's state. "I guess your stamina has increased, probably around five to ten fold because you have digimon blood in you." Tai nodded.

After their five-minute break, Piximon then said, "Ok, now we'll start with some easy drills and then move onto a couple of dodging techniques." He worked mainly with Sora, but Tai was there too, for the next hour or so on dodging and running. After that, they had an hour for breakfast and resting. When the came back out onto the field, Piximon announced, "Here's where the real training starts," with a grin.

"I would like you three back on the stands. I think that should be enough for today, Sora. I want your muscles to get used to these exercises slowly," Piximon explained as a bubble closed around the two digimon and Sora and took them back up to their seats in the stands. "Now let's get started," the small digimon said to Tai.

"Cage three, open!" Piximon boomed out as he waved his staff in the air.

As the cage slowly opened, red eyes glowed from the darkness, piercing into Tai. As soon as the cage door was open wide enough, a massive bird flew out of the cage and into the air. Once again, it was black but had gold and green wings and red eyes. "Parrotmon," Tai said. "Great, this one is even bigger than the last one, and it can fly," Tai sighed.

As soon as it was free, the gigantic bird flew into the air and launched attack after attack. "Sonic Destroyer!" the bird squawked out. Electricity flew out from the bird's feathers on his head and Tai, on the ground, was just like a sitting duck.

"Yikes!" Tai screamed as he ran around the field like a headless chicken. He dodged the first few attacks, but since he had no way into the air to fly away from the attacks, he ended up getting hit by the last few, one after another.

The brown haired boy screamed in pain as his whole body was shocked with hundreds of volts of electricity. No ordinary human would be able to survive such an attack. Unfortunately, the bird did not give him a break to recover as it immediately swooped down at attacked and slashed down on him with its talons. Talon after talon dug into the boy's skin as blood oozed out of the freshly made cuts. As soon as the fresh air and sweat touched the wounds, Tai felt a painful stinging sensation. His shirt was now hanging off of him in pieces, his pants ripped in various places. If he was lucky, there would still be some clothes on him after this battle is over.

Parrotmon let out a loud squawk as it flew back into the air and attacked with electricity again. This hurt more than it did the first time unfortunately, because now Tai had millions of deep cuts all over his body. As Tai simmered under the electricity, the big bird flew down and grabbed Tai with one of its claws. It flew into the air and then swooped down once again, letting go of Tai in such a way that he came crashing down onto the ground with a sickening thud.

Sora, looking down on the battle, couldn't watch anymore. This was murder and Piximon called this training. Tai was getting beaten down there and Piximon just watched him. Blood was oozing out from Tai's back, his clothes charred and black, his right arm dislocated because of the bird's violent attacks. She could hear the boy screaming over and over again in pain and couldn't stand it anymore. "TAI!" she yelled out, a tear slipping down her face.

Tai forced himself to roll over onto his back and let out a hiss as the sand underneath him came in contact with more of his deeper wounds. Luckily the bird was giving him a little bit of space now as it circled up ahead of him and Tai's wounds were slowly being repaired.

Tai's eyes widened as he saw the bird's talons came down upon him once again. Just as the bird's talons came crashing down onto Tai's body, Tai lifted his left arm up and stopped the digimon from going any further. His arm was slowly giving in because of the weight of the bird, so before he could get crushed under the digimon's feet, Tai rolled out of the way and got back up to his feet, panting.

Tai gulped and found he couldn't move his right arm. 'Great… this is going to hurt,' he thought as he gripped his right arm with his left hand and pulled down as hard as he could. The brown haired boy gave a mighty scream as his arm fell back in place and he hunched over, his hands on his knees, as he tried to catch his breath. He slowly felt his cuts and bruises slowly healing, the pain fading away. In a minute, he was back on his feet, as if nothing happened to him.

"So how do I bring this bird down now?" Tai asked himself. Tai turned to where Piximon was and ran over to the small digimon. "Piximon, I can't do this! Parrotmon has wings and I don't! This is suicide! The other two digimon that I fought were ground digimon."

"What about your digimon side?" Piximon asked.

"I still don't have full control over my other side. Stuff just happens," Tai said as he rolled out of the way as the massive digimon came swooping down again. "And on top of that, I don't have much of an incentive to actually hurt that digimon because I can heal myself… the pain is just there momentarily, but I can heal my wounds, so it's not much of a problem… unless it's a life or death situation," Tai mentioned, as he thought about what was going on. The fact is that since Tai has such a fast recovery rate, there would not be much of an incentive for him to fight unless he was in a very tight spot like with that DarkTyrannomon.

"Hum… so it's an incentive that you need, correct?" Piximon asked without waiting for Tai's response. "Then an incentive you shall get," he said suddenly as he waved his wand in the air. All of a sudden, Sora found herself floating down to the coliseum grounds.

"What's going on?" Sora asked. Tai turned round suddenly and found that Sora was now standing on the sandy grounds along with him.

"Piximon, what are you trying to do!" Tai yelled out as he ran towards Sora.

"This is your incentive," Piximon said quietly. "Now show me what you are capable of. Show me your true power if you want me to train you properly."

As soon as the brown haired boy took off towards Sora, he saw out of the corner of his eye that Parrotmon had also seen the girl and had decided to make her its new target.

"SORA! RUN!" Tai screamed on the top of his lungs as he willed his body to go faster and faster. Unfortunately Parrotmon reached the girl before the brown haired boy could and slashed down upon her with its talons. Sora screamed as the bird's talons slashed down her shirt and arms. She was thrown backwards and onto the ground. Parrotmon continued to pursue the girl, Tai continuing to race after the massive bird.

Sora could feel the blood drip off her arms and legs and briefly wondered if this was how Tai felt when the Monochromon were attacking him, but did not have much time to contemplate because Parrotmon was on top of her once again, slashing at her violently. She was surprised that her clothes had not completely ripped off yet at the rate they were being torn. The redhead suddenly felt very light headed, 'probably from the loss of blood,' she thought as she slipped back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness.

Somewhere very far away Sora heard a feral roar as she slowly slipped into an unconscious state.

-----

A/N: Well, looks like I managed to get this chapter out a week earlier than planned! But unfortunately, i wont be able to update again until the end of May. I'm pretty sure the next chapter will be up before the end of May, but it will be posted towards the last week of May or so because I have final exams coming up in a couple of weeks. Well, i hope you've enjoyed this extra long chapter. I was planning on making it longer, but I wanted to get it out as soon as possible, and thought it was a good place to stop.

Well let me know what you think!

Want more? Let me know in a review and you'll be seeing more very soon!