Y/N: Yay, I wrote this one. It's a Taichi chapter, in case you didn't notice, and I'm sorry it's a day late. I don't even have an excuse to give. So I apologize. Reviews are always well received, and any comments on the voice, character development or plot is encouraged!

U/N: If you can review…great. If not…not as great, but I understand.

Title: Digimon Adventure 03

By: UrazamayKing

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or its characters.

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Chapter 14: Aftermath

Taichi

It was getting dark. I couldn't believe it. We'd searched for what seemed like hours, but we didn't find anybody. I didn't find anything to make me feel better either. Here I was, searching mindlessly through the digital world for my best friend Agumon, while we were apparently being hunted by these strange digimon creatures that fundamentally stole our crests from the digimon sovereigns.

Sure, I wasn't the bravest guy anymore, but I had actual priorities now. That didn't mean that I was done with my crest though. I still needed and wanted it. I wasn't going to let some no good, digimon loser get in my way of an incredibly romantic getaway with my soon-to-be-un-ex-girlfriend Sora.

Jou had been spouting off nonsense ever since he found me in the meadow. He had some pretty unusual theories as to why we were here, what our purpose was. No matter how many times I tried to tell him otherwise, he'd pull out the Koushiro card. If Koushiro believed these, then I had to take them into account. I mean, it did seem weird that Mimi wasn't being sincere, and how Sora just broke up with me. That seems to be the opposite of love if you ask me. Plus, I'm pretty sure she did it for Yamato too, which is totally against his crest. What friend would do that to the other? I was pretty sure best friends kept their love lives out of the others—unless the best friend was a girl and…well, you know.

That's beside the point in any case. Yamato was forsaking my friendship in his hunt for my girlfriend. Which to me is worse than Takeru giving up all hope. Luckily, that would never happen. We were safe on that front. Just as we were safe that Koushiro would never stop being smart and Hikari would always be that human light bulb, emitting light to all those she sees.

Sometimes I think she got the short end of the stick when it comes to the crests. I mean, I still don't understand what 'light' is supposed to represent in her personality. I understand traits like courage, love and friendship, and even kindness, but light?

"Hey Taichi," Jou called to me. "We should really get heading back. Michael, Daisuke and Lopmon are bound to be getting hungry by now, and I don't really trust them with the food supply."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I said with a sigh. I just couldn't shake my funk. I was so disappointed with the turn of events.

"Are you ready to tell me what happened?" he asked me as he waited—albeit impatiently—for me to catch up with him.

"No," I said. But I told him anyway. "Sora broke up with me."

He was just as shocked as me…maybe even more so. His eyes widened to an almost comical size, and his jaw nearly hit the ground. "You're kidding."

"Nope," I said kicking at the grass. "Apparently I'm not 'Taichi' enough for her. Now Yamato fits that bill. I don't understand. I really like Sora, but she seems to want Yamato instead. And I can't measure up to that. I'm just Taichi. But not the same Taichi. I don't even know…"

"No, I understand what she means," Jou said, surprising me. "Mimi's going through the same problem. I don't like the person she's becoming. It's almost as if the crests are working in reverse on the two of your personalities…"

"Jou, we've been through this already," I grumbled.

"Yeah, but I think I've got an idea of what's happening. Mimi saw the digi-monster-thing of Sincerity…and she's losing her sincerity. And you and Sora saw…"

"Sincerity, knowledge and love," I supplied.

"And was this before or after Sora broke up with you?" he asked. I know he just needed the information for his theory, but it sure seemed to me like he was just rubbing salt in the wound.

"After," I said softly. "But Biyomon also mentioned the creatures of reliability and friendship. In order for your theory to work—if it is in fact what I think it is—you and Koushiro also have to be losing your crests."

"You're right," Jou sighed. We walked together in silence for a short time, before he stopped suddenly. "But Koushiro is."

"Koushiro is what?" I asked.

"He's having difficulties," Jou insisted.

"You're just grasping at straws now. Koushiro just didn't have his computer and was forced to socialize in a typical teenage group of friends. He has little to no experience with those things. And Michael's cool, so he was probably feeling pressured," I insisted.

"I doubt it," he said. I could almost hear him rolling his eyes too.

"Think whatever you want. I think we should probably just wait in the meadow. Everyone will be headed there anyway. We should wait until we regroup before we try and come up with any theories or plans," I told him. "We want to be on the safe side after all."

"Hmm…" he mumbled. I could just barely hear him, but I'm sure I heard a whispered "I see what Sora was talking about" somewhere in there.

I didn't want to hear anymore. I felt bad enough about everything that had happened. I didn't need Jou to add insult to injury.

"I'm going back to the meadow. You can do whatever you want," I told him. Okay, I'll admit that I nearly stomped the entire way back to the meadow. I was angry. Anger makes me act a tad bit childish. I'll be the first to admit to that. I'm not entirely cowardly. I can admit fault to myself without feeling like a complete idiot.

What do you say to that Sora?

Hah. That'd show her. If I cared I mean. I ran off on her this time. I had to keep that in the forefront of my mind. I was the one that had the last say.

Come to think of it…I may have made the wrong decision…. but was too late to do anything about it. Even if I wanted to go back to what I was sure was a love-fest between my best friend and my girlfriend, I couldn't. I hadn't the slightest idea of where to find them. I was hit by another one of those pink things—the bunnies call them 'data streams'. I don't understand why. I'm sure Koushiro could explain it, if he were here. In any case, I got moved who knows how far away from them, and I didn't really know where they were to start with.

"Taichi!" Daisuke called to me as I came into the clearing. "Did you find anybody? Like maybe Hikari?"

"Who cares about that," Michael said. "Did you find anything?"

"I didn't find my sister," I said rolling my eyes. "She's a big girl. She can handle herself. I'm more worried about Iori and Sora."

"Sora is a bigger girl," Jou pointed out. "She'd be better off than Hikari."

"Yeah," Daisuke said. "So we have to find her. It would be best if it was before Takerju found her."

"You mean Takeru," Michael corrected.

I had to chuckle there. Michael was new to the group and all, but he is quite the funny guy. Well, with his antics and…how should I say…less than intelligence? I don't even know if that made sense. At the very least he's cool, very cool. And he's rich. So he'll do fine in life.

"Hikari will be fine," Jou said as a thought struck him. "The control spire that hit Koushiro circled around, so it was probably the very same one that got Hikari."

"Meaning…?" Daisuke asked impatiently.

"Meaning she'll be with Koushiro," Jou said. "That means she'll be safe."

"And how does that make her safe?" Daisuke asked exasperatedly. "Koushiro can't even beat my grandmother in a fight."

"That's because your grandmother was a boxer in her day, Daisuke," I reminded him with a chuckle. "Besides, when we were younger, Koushiro wrote a love letter. Hikari was convinced it was for her. So…maybe Takeru's not your only competition for her."

"What?" Daisuke shouted. "That's not fair. It's hard enough with just Takeru, but with Koushiro too?"

"That love letter could have been for Mimi or Sora too, Taichi," Jou scolded me. "Don't scare him."

"Why not?" I asked with a smirk. "He makes it too easy."

"So you're saying that he doesn't love Hikari?" Daisuke asked.

"I'm not saying anything for certain," Jou said teasing him, despite his earlier judgement.

"What's next?" Michael interrupted. "We need a new plan of action. We can't just search the closest trees. At some point, we'll have to venture out further than that. Mimi left with Takeru, and we can only hope that she'll be okay. And you said you left Sora and Yamato in the mountains?"

"Something like that," I mumbled. Why did everyone have to bring it up?

"So, that only leaves five missing," he concluded.

"And that's only if nobody else hit another data stream," Jou added.

"Right," I agreed.

"So we're saying that we have absolutely no idea where anybody is?" Daisuke summarized.

"Pretty much," I sighed. "This is hopeless. We might as well just leave the meadow and go find a village or something. There might be one or two digimon in hiding there."

"That's actually…not a bad idea," Jou said smiling. "I was afraid you wouldn't have any more of those. I guess you proved me wrong."

"Ha ha," I said sarcastically. "Daisuke, do you have your D3? We'll need to look at the map to find the nearest village."

"Ha ha, that's actually a funny story…" he stalled.

"You didn't lose it did you?" Jou asked. He was always quick to get the worst possible question out of the way. He started with really low expectations so he would never be disappointed.

"Not exactly," Daisuke said, drawing out the words like a child in trouble.

"Daisuke, we don't have time for this, spit it out already," I said growing angry.

"I'll just show you instead," he said in a small voice. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small device. Much smaller than it should have been. It didn't look a thing like it was supposed to. Instead of being a vibrant shade of white with a stupid blue accent colour…okay. It's not fair to take my anger out on the colour blue, just because Yamato was making me mad. I'm sure it was a lovely shade of blue too. In any case, neither colour was present. Instead, it looked like he was holding an exact copy of my digi-vice. I could hardly believe my eyes.

"What happened?" I asked him in astonishment.

"I don't know. Hikari thinks it's just so that we can't leave here. She says that we need to be here to finish something and this is the digi-world's way of making us stay to finish that job. This also means that I can't do much of anything when it comes time to fight…you know, when we've got our digimon back," he rambled.

"You can go champion," Jou pointed out.

"That's all any of us can do," I added.

"But I'll feel useless without the jogress digivolution," he said sadly.

"Me too," I said with a forced smile. "But you have to make the best of what you've got. You and Veemon are unstoppable when you work together."

"Thanks Taichi," he said happily. "That means a lot."

Too bad I had to feel bad about it. I felt completely useless the entire time the new group of digi-destined were taking out the digimon Kaiser and all the other new enemies. There was a part of me that was excited for him to feel that too, I can't lie. But at the same time, I was giving him false hope here. I still wasn't used to the idea of fighting without WarGreymon by my side, let alone Metalgreymon. Fighting with just Greymon was agonizing to me. I could only imagine how he and Ken would feel fighting without their unstoppable jogressed digimon. I feel bad for them even.

"Okay, so we're going to have to find a digimon village without a map," Michael prompted. I got the feeling that he really wanted to be doing something right about then.

"It should be too much of a problem," I said cracking a smirk. "We came across enough of them that first time around without any trouble."

"I think we should just head west," Jou said, completely disregarding my comment.

"Why west?" Daisuke asked.

"Because picking a single direction will give us a way to go, and west just seemed like an easy direction to pick," Jou said with a shrug.

"That's good enough for me," I said trudging off in one direction.

"Taichi," Jou called. "That's south."

"Yeah, I was just testing you," I said completely embarrassed.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Michael asked. "I mean, if we leave the meadow, and somebody shows up, we'll miss them. And we'll have to leave most of the food behind, since there aren't enough of us to carry it."

"Can't you think of anything positive?" Jou asked.

I had to do a double take there. Jou was always the negative one on our trip, so to see him question someone else's positivity was new for me, if not slightly disturbing.

"Sure I can," Michael said. "When the situation calls for it."

"I give up," Jou said, throwing his hands in the air. He headed off in an entirely different direction to the one I had headed in. I took that to mean that he was headed west, and followed after him.

"If you're coming," I called back. "You'd better get a move on!"

It was only a few seconds before Lopmon, Michael and Daisuke had caught up to us, as we headed on our new 'mission.' We could only hope that we didn't miss anybody by leaving.