Sad Love Story Neo Digidestined

by Hoshi Neko Ryu

Matt is at college, TK is in high school. A lady that Matt meets on the streets isn't who she appears to be, and their adventure will begin. Different languages are spoken throughout this story, though it's not really heavy wth it.

26. Chap 25 World Tour! Cold Death Mountain!

[Neon

"Neon, Neon!" A voice called to me. It was so tiny and innocent that I thought I was hearing one of my future children. I looked to see that it was only Gladiolusmon, "Neon! You're awake! I'm so glad." Tears were about to come out but I smiled them away.

"Where are we?" I started to get up slowly, feeling a great numbness. I noticed that I was lying in snow, really glad that I had fallen on my back. That meant that my children were safe.

"I don't know, but this isn't Japan." Gladiolusmon shivered so I gathered her up and placed her in her spot on my shoulder. It was much, much colder than in Japan. We were in the forest that held trees that weren't located in Japan. These trees were meant to survive in the harsh, cold winters of the north. Where the hell are we? Are we still in the Digital World?

I started walking, really glad that I had on winter clothing and protection so I wasn't too affected by the cold. I soon found Nereida and Lightningmon, both unconscious. It was dangerous to stay asleep in the cold so I ran to them, "Nereida! Lightningmon! Wake up!" I yelled as I made my way toward them.

I got right by Nereida's side and shook her, "Nereida! Nereida!"

She finally moaned, meaning that she was okay. "Nereida, are you okay?"

She blinked back her memory before sitting up, "Yeah, I think so. What happened?"

"Wake up Lightningmon first."

Nereida looked over to see Lightningmon by her side, "Lightningmon." She shook her shoulder and she moaned as well. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She pushed herself up.

"I'm not really sure what happened, but I know that we're somewhere else other than Japan and the Digital World." I was also glad that they were both dressed for the winter.

"What about everyone else?" Lightningmon asked.

"We only found you two so far."

Both of them got up. "We better start searching for something that will help us." Nereida said.

I nodded and got up carefully myself. "Let's go."

We walked for a while longer before we heard our names being called. We stopped and turned around to see Lily Dawn and Matt and their Digimon running towards us.

"I'm so glad that you're okay." Matt said. He looked like he could blend with the snow and he wasn't dressed right for winter.

"Are you okay Matt? You're really pale." I said.

"Don't worry about me."

"Lily Dawn, are there anyone else here?" Nereida asked.

"Not that I can tell."

"Do you guys know where we are?" Lightningmon asked.

"I do know that we're much more north than before so that leaves us with Russia or Canada." Matt answered. "We'll be able to cover more ground if Garurumon was here to carry some of you." Matt brought out his jewel and it started to glow.

"Gabumon Digievolves to……………………… Garurumon!"

I noticed that Matt got shaky after he evolved, but it wasn't that obvious. He helped Nereida, Lily Dawn, and me up onto Garurumon. Lily Dawn and mine Digimon were the only ones that could come with us since they were so small. Lightningmon and Matt were running along with Garurumon in some direction. Nereida was in front of me and Lily Dawn was behind me. Bellimon was making sure that we were all standing on Garurumon.

We were able to get to a clearing in the forest to see an old looking monastery that was covered with snow, which was the only way to know that it was there. It wasn't too big and there was fence. I didn't like the feeling that I was getting from it, but it was a good place to stop and rest. It was snowing while we were running, and it was coming down heavy as well.

Matt collapsed as he was coughing. It sounded like he coughed up something, and I heard the familiar sound of blood hitting the ground. I got down and went over to him since he wasn't facing us.

"Matt?" I got to a place where I could see if I was right and I unfortunately was. "Matt! What's wrong?" I got right by his side, alarming the others.

He tried to smile or say something, but he began coughing again, allowing the blood to come to his hand.

"What's happening to him?" Garurumon asked.

"I don' know. I know that his lungs have to be damaged in some way in order to have this happen." Why was he playing his sickness? Doesn't he know that this could be really serious if not treated? "We have to get him to that monastery. It's our only hope to help him."

Lily Dawn placed the arm that Matt was using to hold himself up around her neck and they began walking.

"Lightningmon, Garurumon, you two stay here for the moment until we know it's safe." Nereida said.

"Wouldn't Lightningmon freeze?" I asked.

"I'm able to handle it. My body isn't like yours." She answered.

I nodded and we went after Lily Dawn and Matt.

[Lily Dawn

"Hey! Can anyone hear me in there! We need some help!" I yelled as loud as I could. Matt had finally stopped coughing blood, but he was so dazed that he couldn't focus and he was a lot paler than before. "HEY! Is there anyone in here! We need some help!"

A tall, Western man came out from the door. He looked too cold-hearted to be holy. He asked something in a language I didn't know.

" Please! My friend, help! " I wasn't able to remember all the words needed in English, but he was able to understand what I was getting at. He ushered us inside as well as Nereida and Neon since they were right behind us. He led us to a room that faced the forest where we were. We got Matt into a bed, but he still wasn't resting. He didn't look well at all, but anyone could see that he was fighting something with everything he got. I wondered if the demon wasn't trying to come out.

" What are your names and where do you come from? " The man asked. He sounded like he could switch from soft to hard with one occurrence.

" We come from Japan and my name is Nereida. This is Neon, Lily Dawn and Matt. " Nereida answered in perfect English like his was.

" What are you doing here? "

" Where are we? "

" You're in Russia. How could you not know that? "

" We were traveling in a unique way. Can we stay here for a while? We won't be any trouble. "

" Of course you can stay. What's wrong with your friend? "

" We're not sure ourselves. " That was the truth.

" Stay for as long as you need. I'll get some rooms ready. " He went out of the room.

"+Matt?+" I asked when he was out. He opened his eyes and smiled very, very weakly. I knew that if Panther saw him like this, she would be very, very, very concern. I promise you, Panther, I won't leave his side. "+Can you talk?+"

He shook his head. I knew that we were all very worried about him now. " I got rooms prepared for all of you. " The man said when he came back.

" I'm staying. " I said, looking at him.

" Very well. And you two? "

"+Neon, you have to get a room.+" Nereida said.

"I know. We might as well share since we need to get Lightningmon with us."

" Neon and I will be sharing a room. "

" Very well. "

" You never gave us your name. "

He stopped at the door to face us again, " My name is Boris. "

" Thanks. " I said.

He nodded before leaving once more.

"+Matt, you should get some rest.+" Neon said. He shook his head. "+Why? You were coughing up blood not too long ago! You need to get better!+"

He smiled again, fighting to stay awake. He knew he was like this and yet he's still wants to stay awake? I knew that we couldn't convince him otherwise right now.

Boris came back in, " Neon, Nereida, please follow my associates to your room. "

" Okay. " Nereida said and they followed other people who were dressed like him, a black robe and a black hat thing but theirs were a cone shaped and covered their eyes. There were some blue on it, but not much.

" How is your friend fairing? " He asked.

" Not too fine, I fear. " I was a lot calmer than before so the words were coming to me easier.

"+Lily Dawn,+" Matt finally spoke, but it was so weak, "+What country are we in?+"

"+We're in Russia.+"

Matt looked at Boris and started to speak in a language that I didn't know. Boris seemed impressed as well as listening to what Matt was saying. He answered him before leaving the room.

"+What did you ask him?+" I looked at Matt.

"I need some tea so he's going to be kind and bring me some." Matt smiled.

"You need more than tea!"

"Trust me, tea is the only thing I really need right now."

Boris came back with a hot pot of tea and a cup. He said something to Matt in his native tongue and Matt nodded. I got Matt up as he brought over the tea. I was the one serving him, not really trusting Boris yet. I noticed that he was looking out the window too often for my liking.

"+Neon and Nereida went into town to see what they can find to get us home.+" Matt said once he had two cups. He was looking a lot better than a second ago. Most of the paleness was going away.

"+Are they going to be okay? It's still snowing.+" I looked out of the window to see that it hadn't lightened.

"+They'll be fine. I'm glad to see that Ceres was wrong about you leaving.+" He smiled.

I looked down at the floor, "I am."

Matt didn't say anything immediately. "Why?"

"Because everyone has taken Panther away from us. She used to come to Ryan and me for everything. Now, she doesn't."

"I think you're kidding yourself for saying that she came to you for everything." I looked at him, "I'm not sure what she had to do to gain the title "toughest gangster", but it probably was something not very kind or innocent."

I looked away from him again, remembering that Panther once told us that she had killed people, something that we didn't know about. But we still accepted her, more than what others have done. But Ken, TK, and Kari just accepted that fact and moved on, that was more than what we had done. I looked at Boris, seeing him smiling as he continued his watch outside. " Something interesting? " I asked.

He looked at me as if I had interrupted his thought, " Oh, nothing. Just admiring the snow. "

I knew right then that he was weird. I noticed that Matt was finished his cup so I poured him another.

"+Are you so unwilling to travel with us? Or are you going to put up with it because you know that it's the only way to get home?+" Matt asked in a way that I never thought would be directed at one of us.

"+It's not just you guys now.+"

"+What happened?+" He was really concerned about it.

I giggled, "Shouldn't you be worried about yourself? After all, I wasn't the one that collapsed from coughing."

"But I wasn't the one that got hurt emotionally."

I looked at him, wondering why he cared so much about us all. Other than that Styxmon was the one that had sent him on this journey, why else was this group so important to him? We weren't anything special.

"I just don't want to return to the Digital World." I didn't want a chance to run into Apollo. I hated for what he did to me. He probably had led the others to me, since he couldn't get to me himself. Everything had to be a plan to get me to talk about the group, to betray them.

"I hope it wasn't because the Deities kidnapped you, because you already know that we would go straight into their territory to bring you back. They've done it twice already."

"I know, but I don't want to see someone there. He was just using me to get to the others." The worst part is that I still might love him, even after all he has done to me.

"Apollo is a Deity Digimon?" He was able to read that quick.

"… Yeah…"

"I'm really sorry that you feel that way, but the Deities have to hide themselves from their others so they don't hurt the one they care about." I had forgotten that he was a victim of something similar too.

"But her family accepted you."

"Not really, she was trained to kill everyone and that included me. But she couldn't bring herself to do so. She ran away many times and got beaten for not completing the training that was meant to kill us all."

I never knew that about Styxmon. I thought that her family and friends were fine with the fact that she loved Matt and wanted them to grow. They all have helped us out a lot, so I guessed I just assumed something that wasn't always true. "So what are you saying?"

"I don't know how he left until you tell me, but I'm sure he left so you wouldn't get hurt."

I wasn't so sure so I just stayed quiet the rest of the time.

[Neon

Not many people were out, but we did learn that it was nearing nine. Back home, it was nearing eight but we sure didn't feel like it was nine.

"Man, all of this walking is taken a lot out of me." I commented as we were on the pathway back to the abbey, as we now know it to be.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I hope that Matt is okay now."

"Well, we need to come up with a plan anyway."

"He might ask how come you guys left." Lightningmon stated.

That silenced us, since we know that that might be true. What would we explain if he did? Nereida had a lot more to explain than I did, but I knew that I would have to talk as well. I wondered where Don was and hoped that he was okay.

"Oh, I'm glad to see that you two are back. It was getting heavier out there." Matt said with a lot of his health restored. I noticed that he had a cup within his hand and that Boris was here as well.

" Can we have some time to ourselves? " Nereida asked nicely.

" Of course. Please call me for anything you need. "

" Thank you. " She bowed and he left. I didn't like how he was staring outside this window whole time. Garurumon wanted to stay outside since he wanted to be ready to leave at any minute.

"+Where's Gabumon?+" Matt asked.

"He wanted to stay outside." I replied as I took a seat on the bed.

"Why? He can shrink himself so he won't be seen."

"He wants to be ready for when we leave." Nereida answered.

Matt smiled softly for one that was so sick not too long ago. "How are you holding up?" I asked.

"I'm getting a lot better. So, mind telling me what happened?"

I looked at Nereida, who was looking out of the window. She didn't seem to want to say anything, "Don and I left because we could see that not everyone believed in us. We could see it in Ryan and Lily Dawn's eyes. Damon had accused us of using everyone to gain something for ourselves."

"Have you?"

"There have been times when we've used people, but that was when we were training to manipulate others. Actually, Don was a lot better at it than I was. Now, he only does so for a game that he's really into."

"What game is that?" Lily Dawn asked.

"It's an Internet Racing game. He's the best one on it."

"He likes cars?" Matt asked.

"You wouldn't think so, but he does. He's a lot better on a motorcycle though." I covered my mouth, remembering that they didn't know that he knew how to drive both already.

"He can drive?" Nereida asked.

I sighed and nodded my head.

"So he raced?" Lily Dawn asked. I nodded and she smiled, "Panther used to race too. As a matter of fact, she was good at that. She never picked up the habit of liking cars though, but she was really good with any car she entered with. I know that Killer was good too, but not as good as her."

"Yeah, Don is the best now. Can I guess that her street name is the Bad Luck Death Cat?"

"It is." She smiled. "Does Don want to challenge her?"

"He's not allowed to race on the street anymore." I placed my hand on my children, who were silent for the moment.

"So Tim was wrong." Nereida said coldly. "So he really did want to leave this group and he wants to drag us down with him. I hate how he wants to control us."

"He did a good job until now." Matt said.

"That's because we believed in his words. We thought they were the only truth out there."

"Or maybe he thought it was his duty to keep you guys safe. I know that with TK, I thought it was my only purpose in life to protect him. He might've never had the chance like I did so early to realize that you don't need him there all the time. I'm sure that everything he does he does it with the best intentions. I'm sure that he thinks about your wellbeing all the time."

"How can he when he's up in his room all the time? All he does is study and study."

"How long did you allow this habit to occur? All your lives, right?" She nodded. "Then why should he think he would need to change anything? I know that everyone is fine with the others because otherwise you wouldn't have come to help when I called."

"It was because you said it was their duty to protect the Digital World. Otherwise, they wouldn't have come." Lightningmon said.

"Yeah, it really was because of the duty thing." I added

Lily Dawn nodded, "Even though we're mad at each other, the Digital World shouldn't suffer because we hate each other."

He chuckled a bit, "Well, at least I said the right word that got you there."

"But I don't want to go back to my house." Nereida said so coldly that it was surprising.

"Why?" Lily Dawn asked.

"I hate my brothers. Tim fears everything about us and nothing for everyone else."

"What is he fearing? That Panther or they coming over and trashing your house?" Lily Dawn asked as a joke.

"No… that the Deity Digimon would come and attack when we broke away."

"Why would he fear that?" I asked.

"Heka… is really a Deity Digimon." That shocked us all. "And I had known about her identity since I met her the second time. That's why she knew Apollo so well." She looked at Lily Dawn, "I already figured that you know about his true identity because Aphrodite took them back to their realm, though he's lucky because you didn't reveal anything about the group. I told her just about everything there is about our group. She knows our Crest names, powers, what we look like, who our Digimon are, just about anything I know about everyone."

"Do you know things about her? Anything she revealed to you? I'm not asking for you to tell us, but I am curious." Matt asked.

"She has. I know a few things about the other Deities and realms. She has also helped me with my fortune-telling skills."

"Did you feel like she had betrayed you?"

"I don't anymore. I know that what she did, she did it so we wouldn't get hurt. Aphrodite was threatening to do something to me if she didn't proclaim who she was."

"So you were the one that she faintly mentioned." Lily Dawn commented.

"If she was threatening you as well, then probably yea."

"I think you need to tell your brothers how you feel. Tim probably thinks that we stole you away from his protection, which is why he was probably so willing to leave than you are. The same could probably be said about Damon." I suggested.

She looked out the window, "I don't want to leave. I don't want to leave either group. Tim can be really stubborn when he has mind set on it."

"He has never told me what happened when your parents died, but I do know that that's when he turned into the person he is today. Maybe all that is really needed of Tim is for everyone to understand where he comes from. Or at least have someone understand his thought, not just follow it." Matt said.

"That could be true. No one has even told Damon or me what happened to them."

"Now that we got that out of the way, I don't want to leave Garurumon out there so we might as well leave soon."

"Could we rest? I can't handle too much travel." I said.

"Sure, then Nereida, could you call him in?"

She opened the window, allowing the cold air and snow in, "Garurumon! Matt would like you to come inside! We're going to be staying for the night!" She moved to the side and a small version of Garurumon entered. He De-Digievolved to Gabumon and went to Matt.

"I'm glad that you're feeling better." He said.

"All I needed was tea." He smiled as Nereida closed the window.

"We might as well get some sleep." Nereida said.

"Alright. Night." Matt smiled.

"Night." I said as I got up. Nereida and I walked out of the room.

[Me

"Lily Dawn, aren't you going as well?" I asked.

"I know that Panther would never leave your side. Since she's not here, I'm taking that job."

I smiled, "Thanks." Gabumon shrunk and I placed him on my shoulder. "How will you sleep?"

She laid her upper body on the bed, "Like this." She smiled. She looked really tired as her white hair fell over her eyes.

I smiled, "Okay, night." I laid back down, glad that I had some tea in my system. I wouldn't be able to sleep too soundly since I needed to keep up Courage for a while longer. I at least now know that it was really the lack of tea that was causing me to be so pale.

The next morning, Boris brought us something to eat for breakfast. They were all eating in the room that I was using.

"The easiest way to get across the mountains is to either take a train or plane." Nereida said, pointing to the mountains on a map that Boris is allowing us to use.

"I think we should just head down this way." I pointed a route that would take us to Caspian Sea. "We could then take a boat to go to Kazakhstan."

"Or if we don't want the trouble, we can always take a plane." Lily Dawn said.

"As much as I want to get home myself, it's going to take a while. We might as well see a few things while we're here. Besides, I didn't bring anything that would positively identify me as Matt Ishida or any money."

"And I'm sure that none of us brought anything either." Neon said.

"So we're going to have to depend on the kindness of others." Nereida said. "That's going to be tough."

"I'm sure we can get by. So we also have to be ready to work at any moment."

"I'm sorry guys." Neon said, placing her hand on her kids, "I won't be able to help out as much."

"That's okay." Nereida smiled, "We don't mind the work, right Lily Dawn?"

"Yeah! I'll get stronger muscles." She smiled.

"Thanks." Neon smiled.

"So, let's ask for a carriage to get us there." I said with a smile.

They all looked at me weird. "Why a carriage? Wouldn't a train be better?" Lily Dawn asked.

"Do we have money for a train ticket? Most likely no, so it's easier to get a carriage." Though truth is, I just wanted to ride in one and to get some sleep. It's going to be a long trip and I might as well be healed before reaching Japan. Plus, there wasn't any direct train route to the sea, it seemed. I was now wondering if TK was taken in as well.

"Fine. I'll see if Boris can help us. Neon, would you mind coming with me?" Nereida asked.

"Not at all." They got up and left.

"Wouldn't that be a long trip?" Lily Dawn asked.

"It might be."

[Nereida

" So you need a carriage. " Boris repeated my words.

" Yes, we would like to go here, " I pointed to it on the map, " We think that it will be a much easier route to take since we can take a boat. "

" I'll see what I can do. "

" Oh, we don't have much money either. "

" It's quite all right. We'll take care of it. "

" Thank you. " I said and bowed before we headed back.

"+I don't really trust that guy.+" Neon said out of the blue.

"+Why? He's done nothing but helped us.+"

"+Call it a feeling.+"

We entered the room, "Boris will be taking care of the carriage." I said.

"That's great. I hope we're not causing too much trouble for him." Matt said.

"I'm sure that we're fine." Neon sat on the bed, "I don't really trust him."

"Really?" Lily Dawn asked, "I don't either."

"Why?" I asked, "He has helped us all this time."

"I didn't like it how he was looking out of the window when Gabumon was out there."

"I didn't like it either." Neon added.

"Gabumon, was he looking at you?" Matt asked, looking at his shoulder.

"I wasn't sure if he could see me, but it did seem that he was looking at me."

"He probably was amazed, nothing more." I offered.

"Well, if he does do something, then we'll deal with it, but otherwise just smile." Matt said.

"Okay." Lily Dawn and Neon said.

"By the way, you never told us why you were coughing up blood." I said.

"Yes! Even I didn't know that you did!" Gabumon said.

He took a deep breath before looking defeated. "Fine, I'll tell you since it's one of the reasons I wanted to take a carriage." We were all looking at him, waiting in the silence. "When I was up in space, I had to use the Jewel of Friendship, Reliability, Courage and Kindness. I used Friendship twice, and if I didn't have Virtue I would only be able to use it once; Reliability: to protect us from meteors; Courage: because I was getting a bit sick; and Kindness: because I ran out of the dust that would make Gabumon invisible. And since I didn't have tea in me for five days, it was taking a toll on me, which is why I was coughing up blood. I'm still weak from it, even though I look fine, since I haven't stopped using Courage or Reliability yet."

"I thought you said you would have enough." Lily Dawn said.

"I thought I would too, but apparently I didn't."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Gabumon asked.

"I didn't want to worry you."

"I bet that you wouldn't have told anyone if it wasn't for this, right?" Neon asked.

"Nope. I have already told Seto Kaiba." He said with pride.

"Why him?" I asked.

"Because we're friends." He smiled.

There was a knock at the door. " Come in. " I said.

Boris came into the room, " I had found a carriage that will take you all the way. "

" Thank you very much. I hope we're not causing too much trouble. " Matt said.

" Not at all, it's been a pleasure. The carriage is waiting for you. " We all got up and followed Boris. Matt was able to walk on his own, showing that he was fine. The carriage was a troika, one that was pulled by three horses. We found that it could only fit four, because of Neon's size, so Lightningmon was willing to sit with the driver.

" About how long will it take us to get there? " I asked.

" About five days. "

" Thanks. " I got in and closed the door. The carriage then took off in some direction.

"+I'm going to sleep now. I probably won't wake up until I'm healed.+"

"+At least we know how the side effects work so take your time.+" Lily Dawn said.

He nodded and fell asleep really easily. It seemed like everything had just shut down, waiting to be rebooted.

"I'm glad that it isn't too rough." Neon commented.

"That is good." Lily Dawn said. The rest of the day, it was quiet.

[Neon

Two days passed since we left the abbey. We did have a few stops, since we need to eat and sleep and go to the bathroom. It was kinda like a taxi, but not at the same speed. It snowed off and on, making it dangerous to travel sometimes but he went through it all. Once, it stormed so hard that the carriage itself was threatening to tip over. Of course, all this rough movement wasn't good for my condition. My kids were complaining a lot as well, since they weren't getting feed the normal amount that they're used to, though everyone is making sure that I have more food than them.

"What do you guys do for New Years anyway?" Nereida asked. She was looking at us, since she was originally looking out of the window. "We always go all out since it's my Grandmothers favorite holiday. We're not allowed to do any homework during it since she believes that it's a time to reflect than doing work. We put on our best kimonos and have dinner together. After midnight, I always put on a short little play where I play all the characters. Then we go to a local shrine to sell charms and things since they know our family really well."

"Don and I always treat our folks to dinner at a bar or restaurant, or whatever is opened on that night and have a party. They really enjoy it since they get to relax for a night and allow all their worries to escape them. Don and I also pay for everything, so that's another plus for them."

"Stan and I just have dinner together. Sometimes he invites whatever girlfriend he has at the time, but that's normally rare around this time. Otherwise, it's nothing really special." Lily Dawn looked a lot sadder than what she was saying.

"Is there something that happened on that day?" I asked, knowing fully well that I was walking on a sensitive area.

She looked at me before looking at the floor, "……… My mother left on that day."

"Sorry to hear that. My father left us as well, but not on any special day. Do you know why she left? I don't know why my father left."

"I'm not really sure if I was told or not, but I don't really care right now."

"I wonder what Matt does for New Years." Nereida said.

We all looked at him, who was still sleeping He looked really at peace right now, so we assume that's a good thing. "I bet it's something big." I commented.

"And all his friends are there with him." Lily Dawn offered.

"Lots of food too!" Gladiolusmon said.

"And there has to be music." Gabumon added.

"I guess we just have to ask him when he wakes up." Nereida smiled.

[Lily Dawn

Two more days passed, making this the final day that we should be on the road. Neon didn't always look good, but she never complained. It was quiet most of the time. I believe that we were no longer angry at each other. I still was debating on whether to return since I still believed that they took Panther away from us.

The carriage shook and tipped over. Nereida made sure that Neon was okay and I did the same for Matt. The horses were screaming, as if in fear. I made sure that Matt was okay before getting up to open the door. I lifted myself up to see that there was smoke coming from the front of the carriage. "Lightningmon, is everything okay?" I asked as I helped Neon get out.

"I'm afraid not." Lightningmon walked around to us and helped Neon get down. Nereida lifted Matt up and I handed him to Lightningmon.

"What happened?" Nereida asked as she got out. We both jumped down.

"Some lightning bolt hit him. I was able to absorb afterwards so it wouldn't have gotten you guys."

"Is the ash still there?" Nereida asked.

"Yea, but it's on the ground now."

"We better move the carriage since it's our only transportation." I said as I made my way around.

"But what about him? Shouldn't we do something?" Nereida asked.

"Other than bury the ash, there's nothing else we can do."

"I hope you don't think that this was a natural lightning bolt." Neon stated.

"And that's why I want to get moving." I didn't want to have to face a Deity just now. Plus, thunderbolts normally means Zeus.

Nereida helped me get the carriage upright again. We both noticed the ashes on the ground. We buried the ashes here and gave our respects to him.

"I hope you aren't thinking about leaving now." We heard a male voice ask.

We looked ahead of us to see a Viking looking character. He was carrying a hammer.

"Who are you?" Neon bravely asked.

"My name is Thormon and I have been assigned the task of killing you."

"And who assigned this task to you?" Nereida asked.

"Aphroditemon."

"I thought that you other deities didn't like to listen to the Greeks, so why are you? What do you have to gain from killing us?" I was impressed that Nereida would speak so boldly to them. Even I wasn't that brave when I had to face them. I guess Heka had helped her face them as any other Digimon we might come across.

"It was first because I believe that you were going to be a nuisance, but now that we know you have a power that was sought since the beginning of time; we want to have that power."

I was wondering if they were talking about me since I apparently have some power within me. "Wouldn't the Greeks see that this is what you're after and would want it for themselves?" I asked.

"Whenever they do, we'll deal with them then." He raised his hammer to the air and had a lightning bolt strike the carriage, making it exploded. We knew that we were trapped now. "Now you can't run." He smiled.

Lightningmon charged at him first, "Spark!" She yelled as she released it from her palms. Thor hit it with his hammer and sent it flying off in some direction. They were now fighting each other. I was amazed that Lightningmon can hold her own against a Deity.

"Gabumon, can you Digievolve?" I asked.

"I think so, why?" He looked at me.

"We need you to Digievolve to Metal Garurumon so Neon and Matt have something to ride on."

"You're planning on running away?" Neon asked, "We should stay and fight."

I looked at her in disbelief, "Incase you've forgotten, you're pregnant. This god is willing to kill us so we don't have too many options left, huh?"

"Do you not believe that Lightningmon can handle it?"

"Gabumon, just do it." Right then, Lightningmon was pushed to the ground.

"Lightningmon!!" Nereida called.

Thor jumped into the air and was able to strike, but I pushed all my power into his mind, causing him pain.

"Sword Leaf Dance!" Gladiolusmon cried and I dropped to the ground. I had never used so much at one time that it was making me dizzy.

"Lily Dawn?" Nereida asked.

"I'm fine." I pushed her hand away. "Gabumon!"

"Gabumon Warp Digievolves to………………… Metal Garurumon!" I got myself up as I heard them getting on.

I looked at Thor, seeing that he was having some trouble with the leaves that were in the shapes of swords. They were surrounding him, making it difficult for him to move for some reason. I looked at Metal Garurumon to see that Neon and Matt were on him and that Gladiolusmon was concentrating very hard.

"Okay, get out of here!" Neon looked worried as Metal Garurumon took off at a good speed.

I looked back at Lightningmon to see that she was up. "How fast can Lightningmon go?" I looked at Nereida.

"With two people? I don't know."

Bellimon jumped out in front, "Petal Dance!" She cried and petals went flying at Thor. I noticed that the leaf swords were losing power so I understood what she was doing.

"Lightningmon, can you carry both of us?" I asked, knowing that we don't have much time.

"I can but it wouldn't be safe."

"Bellimon can make it safe."

"Okay." She came to us. I was on her back and Nereida was in her arms. Bellimon was using her veins to make sure that I stayed on and she took off really fast. It didn't take us that long to catch up to Metal Garurumon.

"Don't ever do something like that again!" Neon said when we were beside them. "I was really worried."

"But Lily Dawn was right. We had to make sure that you two were okay first." Nereida said with a smile.

"And you would've done the same." I added.

We heard this battle cry behind us and I knew that it wasn't good. I looked to see that Thor was coming after us with the aid of a cloud. It was thundering as loud as his scream. I didn't know what else to do. I just didn't know.

But suddenly he dropped from the sky and wasn't getting back up. We didn't stop to make sure that he was okay, because that would've been dumb on our part.

We were able to reach a city rather quickly. We were in a local inn that had someone that spoke some English. Neon was resting since the ride wasn't that good for her and Matt was in the same room. So their Digimon were with them.

"What happened back there?" I asked Nereida. I noticed that she wasn't looking so well.

"I used my Crest Power."

"What? Do you have the jewel?"

"No, Tim has it…"

"But then how were you able to access it?" I know that we somehow have the power within us, but I know that most of us have to use the Jewel to access it.

"I was really hoping that using my Crest would somehow access it. Though I think that it only works three folds if we're using the Jewel." She smiled weakly.

"We better let you rest too." I was about to pick her hand up to help her, but she moved it. "Why?"

"We need to know how far we're from that port."

"But only Matt and the driver knew where that was."

"I was hoping that you might as well." She got up, and walked outside.

I followed her as well as Lightningmon. She was looking off in the distance for some reason. The town wasn't that big, but it wasn't small either.

"Nereida?" Lightningmon asked.

"I'm going to try it." She looked at her hands.

"Nereida, you were told not to use it." Lightningmon seemed to know something.

She turned to face her Digital partner, "We need to get to that town."

"I thought you didn't want to go home?" I stated.

"Neon needs Don and I'm sure that he's heading back. Plus, you need Panther and Ryan, right?" She smiled weakly, "I can't be selfish."

"But Heka told you that you need her to help you. You shouldn't do this without her." Lightningmon seemed fearful of something.

"Heka… No, Nereida, don't do it." I grabbed her hand, "It can't be anything good."

She struggled against my grip, but she didn't have enough strength to break free from it. "Let me go!"

"I would advise the same thing." Nereida stopped struggling as we turned to see Arsmon looking at us. He was leaning on the building and he was smiling.

I got between Nereida and him, but I was wondering why Lightningmon wasn't, "What do you want?"

"I only wanted to tell you that this is the town before your destination so Nereida doesn't weaken herself more by using that technique."

"Thanks, but how do you know where we are?" Nereida didn't sound afraid, but please.

"I'm not stalking you, if you think that." His smile was one of joking, "But I do have ways of knowing. My Master told me that you guys were all scattered around the world so I thought it best if I kept an eye out for you."

"We're going to be fine so you can…" I picked up my amulet, wondering why no one thought of this sooner.

"That wouldn't work," I looked at him, "Aphrodite made it so you can't use that to enter the Digital World."

"And how do you know this?" I asked, dropping my amulet to its place.

"Hades told me. He may not like the fact that my Master can rule over him, but he at least knows that he can't beat her. When I heard what happened, I went to go ask him. Heka is doing fine, by the way."

"Really?" Nereida was glad to hear about her.

"Yep, but she has to stay with Hades and watch what's going on as her punishment for not revealing your names."

"But they knew who we were since they sent us here." I commented.

"Someone revealed to them the number of your group, but not the names."

"And Collect Soulsmon doesn't mind you helping us out like this?" Nereida asked.

"She doesn't. Oh, Hades told me that he's gathering others to aid you as you travel. Aphrodite has Seth after Panther's group, but she hasn't found one for Ceres's yet."

"I guess he can't ask you to watch us, huh?" I looked at Nereida, seeing her smiling.

"Nope, my Master unfortunately wouldn't want me to interfere with the Deities. She many be stronger than most of them, but I am not and I'm not like her others."

"What does that mean?" I asked, hating how this is turning out.

"You don't need to know that." He narrowed his eyes at me. "Nereida, I need to take my leave. Use this day to rest." He walked away, like he was a normal human.

I heard Nereida turned around and I followed her back inside. We went to our own room since the rooms can only fit two. Lightningmon was going to stay with Neon and Matt since they need more protection than us. I didn't understand her logic, since we need the same amount as them.

"Nereida, why was he friendly towards you and you to him?" I was looking at the bed, since I was curled up against one of the walls that mine touched.

"Does it matter? He's helping us."

"How can you trust him so completely? He's a Super Level Digimon that tried to kill you."

"You're sounding like Sora." She said angrily. "It's exactly what you're fearing, okay. So you don't have to go around it."

I looked at her, "How can you still believe in them?! They're going to betray you! Heka has already!"

"She hasn't!" She got up from laying down, "If she did, she wouldn't be with Hades. They're still going to help us! Apollo hasn't betrayed you either."

I looked at the bed before looking back at her, "You can't trust them."

She got off the bed, losing her balance for a moment, "I can trust whomever I want! I don't need to be hearing this from you." She walked out. I just went back staring at the bed. Bellimon curled up next to me.

[Neon

Nereida entered the room and she looked mad.

"Is something wrong?" Lightningmon asked.

"Lily Dawn." She went over to the window, where I could see that she was really tired.

"What did she do?"

"She was acting like Sora. I don't need to hear it from her."

"What happened?" I asked, since I wasn't catching what they were saying.

She looked at me then back out the window, "It's nothing."

"How did we escape anyway? Did you come up with any ideas?"

"I used my Crest Power, though it wasn't it full affect."

"You should be resting then." I wish I could give up my bed for her, but my back was in pain.

"I know… but Lily Dawn is acting weird."

"How so?"

"She's telling me not to trust the Super Levels that I know."

"She might still be recovering from her shock of Apollo. I think that what's filling her right now."

"Huh?" She looked at me.

"She was a lot more demanding and fearful when we were facing Thor. I think that she holds some fear of the Deities because of Apollo and she doesn't want to face any of them because of him."

Nereida came over to the bed, "But she doesn't need to act like there's a problem."

"There's something here that you don't want to tell me." I smiled as she looked away.

"… I… I…" Nereida was trying to tell me something but we heard a moan coming from Matt's bed.

"Matt?" Gabumon asked, getting closer to him.

"Gabumon?... Are we at the port?" He asked sleepily.

"Not yet." He smiled.

"I'll get Lily Dawn." Lightningmon said as she went out of the door.

"How do you feel?" Nereida asked.

"I'll answer that when Lily Dawn gets here so I don't have to repeat it." I could sense his smile.

The door open and Lily Dawn came in, "Matt? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Can someone ask if they have tea here? I should have some before doing anything else."

"I'll get it." Nereida said as she left with Lightningmon. I noticed that they didn't make eye contact with each other.

"Can you move?" Lily Dawn walked over to his bed.

"I don't know. I haven't tried yet. Where are we, anyway?"

"We're a town before the port so we shouldn't have a long trip."

"Then why don't we just go there, unless it's night."

"Nah.. I'm not really sure what time it is, but it's not night yet."

"Then if we have some daylight to kill, why not kill it?"

"We have to wait until you two feel better. The ride was a bit rough for Neon." I noticed that she was trying to hide the fact that we were attack by Thor.

"Matt, we were recently attacked by Thor and our driver is dead." I stated wanting them to stop with all this secrecy.

"What?" He tried to get up. "Is that why Nereida looked drained?"

"Yea, she used her Crest Power but she believes it wasn't its fullest."

"And hers takes a while before wearing off…"

"I got some tea." Nereida said as they came in. Lily Dawn moved out of the way as Nereida gave Matt the cup. Lightningmon was handing us the others that they brought. Matt drank it.

"Thanks."

"Here, you can have mine." Lily Dawn said.

"Are you still mad at me?" Nereida asked as Matt took it.

"Matt looked better after two cups the last time." Lily Dawn went to the window that Nereida was at, looking out from it as well.

"It is true. I need two cups a day so his evil side doesn't come out." Matt smiled.

"Oh, okay."

"Why are you two mad at each other?" Matt looked at them.

"Apparently Nereida has a Digital Admirer and she still believes in Heka." Lily Dawn stated.

"You like a Digimon?" Matt looked at her.

Nereida narrowed her eyes at Lily Dawn before looking down at the floor, "I didn't want anyone to really know about it… since he works for Collect Soulsmon…"

"Who's this?" I asked.

"Arsmon."

"The one that held you under the water?" I asked. We all gave reports of what happened to us that day as well as the other time we helped the elders out.

"Yeah…"

"Which is why it's wrong for you to be thinking about him." Lily Dawn stated. Now I knew I was right.

"Why can't she believe in it?" Matt asked. I had completely forgotten that he is innocent to the issue.

"Collect Soulsmon is the leader of the mysterious group. Arsmon is one of her underlings and they had tried to destroy the Destiny Stones. They only got one though, since we were there to make sure that nothing happened." I reported.

"Apparently there's more that I still needed to hear from them." Matt smiled, "Nereida, is this your first time in love?"

"… Yea…"

"Then that's great to hear."

"How can you say that! He'll just use her!" Lily Dawn yelled. "This isn't good for anyone!"

"Apollo would never use you! He loves you more than anyone else he has gone after."

She looked at Nereida, her eyes wide, "What do you mean by that?"

"He's a god, what do you think I mean?" Nereida stated.

"Not all Gods are the same." Matt stated.

"What do you mean?" Lily Dawn had never looked away from Nereida.

"You know that Zeus is a womanizer, right?" Lily Dawn nodded, "Apollo was known for the same thing."

Lily Dawn stared at her before calmly walking out the door and closing it. "Lily Dawn.." Bellimon called before the door finally closed.

Matt tried to get up, but apparently wasn't strong enough to. Even though my back was in pain, I got up and followed Lily Dawn outside, leaving Gladiolusmon with them.

I found her outside, in the cold. She was walking somewhere, though I knew that she had no real destination.

"Lily Dawn." I called to her as I tried to catch up.

She looked back, "Neon, you shouldn't be outside." She came over to me.

I hugged her, "It's okay. You don't have to be so strong."

"What are you talking about? I'm not strong at all. I'm weak as anything…" She rested her head on my shoulder. "I can't live without someone. My brother taught me to always have someone that you can place your arms around. I've dated many, many people…" She wrapped her arms around me and cried, as I knew she would. She wanted to believe in him so much. This is how much she loves him.

[Me

"Nereida, you have to be sensitive around Lily Dawn." I stated.

"Why? She has to be reminded that Apollo didn't betray her. They haven't betrayed us."

"But she still loves him." We looked over at Bellimon, "So it hurts her even more since she believes he has."

"If she still loves him then why does she believe so?"

"That what's going through her mind. I don't know why she believes it."

"So as we wait for them to return, why not tell me how Lily Dawn learned about Arsmon? Or anything about him?" I asked.

"Don't tell my brothers, okay?"

"Haven't you kept enough things from them?" Gladiolusmon asked. "They didn't know about Heka and now you don't want them to know about Arsmon. Do you think they really don't want to know?"

Nereida looked away.

"She can tell her brothers whatever she wants." Lightningmon defended her.

"I'm agreeing with Gladiolusmon. She should tell her brothers, that way there are no more secrets." Bellimon said.

"And how honest do you think they are?"

"They probably wouldn't keep something like this away from her."

"Gabumon," I whispered to him as they began to argue more.

"Hm?"

"I'm sorry that you won't be able to hear this, but I'll tell you later."

"Okay." Gabumon got off the bed, "All Digimon, follow me." He opened the door and walked out. They all followed, not really understanding why and neither did Nereida.

"Where are they going?" She looked at me.

"Don't know. I didn't request a specific place."

"Why did you want them to leave?"

"You don't want me to tell your brothers, okay. I won't tell them." I smiled.

She smiled back, "He works for Collect Soulsmon. I know that he's loyal to her and she knows that he likes me. He helped out when we were facing against Machine Etemon as well. Whenever you talk to Sora, you might hear about that. She warned me about liking him, but I've decided that I'm going to since he does care about me."

"But you don't know much else, uh?"

"Not really…"

"I hope that you can. Has he helped you like Heka?"

"Only in protecting me… He was the one that told us that we're a town away from the port. And that we can't use our amulets to go to the Digital World."

"Didn't even think of that… anything else?"

"Yea, Heka is staying with Hades as a punishment, but she's doing okay."

"I'm glad to hear it." I smiled.

"So why did you have the Digimon out of the room?"

"They seemed to have fun arguing over you that I thought they should do it somewhere else as we talked."

She smiled. "Do you think I'm keeping too much from my brothers?"

"You don't have to tell them everything. Everyone has their secrets."

"Do you?"

"Of course." And I'm not going to reveal them just yet.

She smiled. "I'll get them now." She left.

When they returned, they were arguing with each other. Then Lily Dawn and Neon came back. "How are you feeling, Matt?" Lily Dawn asked.

"I'm fine. As long as I have someone helping, I'll be fine. My paralyze state seems to be gone and my energy is returning."

"But Ken has stayed paralyzed for a longer time." Neon stated.

"I don't have an explanation. My defenses are returning as well, but I think I can only fight close range."

"We still have a long time before we're back home so take your time in healing." Nereida said.

"Right." I smiled. I got up and Lily Dawn was helping me, "Now lets get going." Everyone nodded.

I got us to the port within the day and on a boat that would get us on the other side quickly. We would be arriving on the other side by tomorrow, but we were worried about having to show our passports since we don't have them with us. Plus, Neon and Lily Dawn never needed one.

"So, how are we going to be handling this?" Lily Dawn asked.

"As I was in space, I brought along some books to entertain me. One was on psychics and it said that you can bring up memory from the subconscious and bring it to the surface. I bet that you could do the same and manipulate what they remember."

"I don't know… I might be able to but I might not."

"It doesn't hurt to try." We had to do something and quick since it wasn't that long of a boat ride and we only have this time to prepare something. I wasn't going to steal someone else's if we could use another way of cheating.

"He's right, Lily Dawn. We have to do something so we don't have to worry about it." Neon agreed.

"Why don't you practice it for a while? That will give you an answer as to whether you're able to do something like that." I offered since I didn't want her to feel like she was obligated to do this. If she couldn't, I would find another way.

"Okay, I'll give it my best shot." She got up and walked away.

"I think she'll do fine." I commented with a smile.

Lily Dawn came back in a short time, "I don't know where to aim. The mind is much more vast than I thought it was."

"Come into my mind and I'll show you where you have to aim at." I said, since I was able to find out before the dark being and I merged together. I'll explain that later.

"Okay." She came in and lingered there. I led her through my mind, to the spot where she needed to implant thought and make it seem like they knew. "There."

She looked around, getting her bearings right before leaving, "Okay, thanks." She smiled and walked away again.

[Lily Dawn

I don't know why Matt wants me to do this. I know that I have to, so we can get home and all, but still. I don't really feel like it. I leaned against the railing on the deck, finding people that are standing around and tried it out on them. I at least know why Matt didn't want me to try it out on them, since the people I'm manipulating are speaking a different language than us. I could tell that I was doing something, but I wasn't sure what it was. It was like I did something to them, since I wasn't looking at their thoughts but hearing them, and it lasted for a while before wearing off. I could tell by the confusion they held on their faces.

Sometimes, I implanted happy thought phrases in that part of their mind. It made them happy for the time it lasted. For couples, I implanted thoughts that weren't so nice. I could tell that it was working, by the other's expression. When that wore off, the one I did it to had a hard time explaining themselves to their other.

I began to wonder if I can control what they said as well, so I picked on someone who was talking. I implanted Japanese in his mind, saying anything that came to mine.

"+I don't know why you're wearing that jacket with that hat. You should've gone with the green since that seem best to match your brown hair.+" The two gentlemen paused for a long time, confusion and puzzlement on their faces. They looked to be of high class or something, and it was killer to see how they were shocked.

A Japanese lady went up to the man, asking him about something in the town that we're heading towards. The only thing that the guy understood was the town, but nothing else. The lady felt embarrass and seemed to repeat it in his language. He was then relieved and answered her question. She seemed to thank him before moving along.

I went into her thoughts since I would be able to understand them. She was an investigator for the UN and he was some big time crime boss or something. I went back into his mind and looked instead of listen. She was right. The images that I was seeing could have only come from someone that dealt with the underground system. But I also found something interesting as I was looking through them, there was a small girl with him at one point. She was really skilled and smart for her age. But nearing the present, I noticed what he was after. He was going to Japan to find this girl, who had helped him on many other occasions but never during the same year. She helped him out, played her part in the actual crime and in the cover up, got her percent of the money and leave. She always came to him for a job, but it seems that this job needed her so he was going to find her. I don't know why he would be going to Japan, until I saw Ceres. She appeared in the same manner as the little girl, did everything that the girl did before leaving.

I went back to the other images, now seeing Ceres in them too. They had pink, frizzy hair with her silver jewel hair band to hold it up and her jewels and her amulet. I got out of his mind and turned around. I couldn't believe that Ceres would involve herself with people like him, even at an early age. The last thing she did for him was kill people.

I calmed myself down, before looking to see that the guy didn't even notice how I reacted, which was good. I wondered why he didn't seem bother that he was remembering so much about his past, since I never learned how to stop them from seeing the same thing.

I walked calmly passed them, heading back to Matt and the others.

"How did it go?" Matt asked as I sat down.

"I learned that Ceres is a criminal." I stated plainly.

"What? How would you know that?" Nereida asked.

"There's a crime boss that's wanted by the UN on board and he's heading over to Japan to find her since he needs her for a job."

"What job was it?" Matt asked, seemingly having no opinion.

"I didn't want to know, but the last thing that she did for him was kill people."

"She has worked for him before?" Neon asked.

"Yeah. Seems like we were wrong in trusting her." I didn't even look at Matt, since I didn't want to know how he was displaying his emotions right now. I know he cares a lot about all of us, so I didn't want to see.

"What did she do?" He didn't hint at anything in his voice.

"I didn't watch clearly since I didn't really want to know."

"If you didn't want to know then how can you be sure that we can't trust her?"

"Because he has done worst things and she can place herself so easily into that life. Those kinds of people can't be trusted."

"So just because she has done those things and is comfortable knowing those kinds of people means that she can't be trusted?" Neon asked.

"Yeah. If she has no problems killing, what else is she able to do?"

Neon got up. I looked at her to see anger in her eyes. "I see that you still have no faith in anyone." She walked away, leaving no room for me to counter.

"What was that about? Is that what separated everyone else? Because no one else believed in them?" Nereida asked.

"Nereida, can you make sure that Neon is alright?" Matt asked calmly. She got up, as well as Lightningmon, and they went after her. "Lily Dawn, you're repeating yourself. You know that Panther has killed before."

"Panther killed to protect her and Killer. Ceres killed for money. There is a difference." I still didn't look at him.

"You do know why Neon left, right? Because you were talking about Don and her."

"I wasn't talking about them. I was talking about Ceres."

"Is there something about Ceres that you hate? Do you think that she plays superiority games with you?"

I smiled, since I knew what he was talking about. In Japanese class, she showed off how talented she was with language once. Later, she said that she was showing off her superiority to another student in the class who thought they were great. "She doesn't play that game with us in anything."

"Then why do you hate her?" I was surprised to hear him say 'hate' since I wasn't giving the impression that I hated her. I might be giving off that I dislike her, but not hate.

"Why are you using hate?"

"I can tell in your eyes. You want to get rid of her." I looked up, wondering if that was really showing in my eyes. "You wish that she was never here, that she would just go away. It angers you that she's here, taking something that's yours."

I got up from the table, this time Bellimon was with me, and walked away. I didn't want to hear it. I just didn't want to hear the truth.

[Me

I knew that I scared Lily Dawn with my words, but I also know that it wasn't by her eyes that I knew.

"Matt," Gabumon whispered on my shoulder, "how did you know that? It wasn't in her eyes."

"It might have something to do with the dark powers." I looked at my hands, suddenly realizing that it was growing. It was feeding off of what Lily Dawn was feeling towards Ceres. "This isn't good."

"What?" Gabumon was very concerned.

"It's feeding off of Lily Dawn's emotions. It's like when she realized what I said was true, it took it into itself, making it stronger." I didn't want the evil to grow.

[Neon

I was staying inside, but on the upper level. The sea was calm and it was pretty clear day for winter. Gladiolusmon was with me, looking out too. I couldn't believe that Lily Dawn still believed that. She might not have meant it at us, but that included us. We didn't tell them everything we did, we didn't even tell our parents or Digimon.

"Neon, there you are." Nereida came up to us, with Lightningmon following her.

"Why are you here?" I went back to looking outside.

"Well… Matt asked me to go look for you. Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay. I just wasn't expecting to hear that again."

"I'm sure that not everyone feels that way. I know that I don't."

"That's because you have a kind heart that wants to believe in the good of the world."

"So what if Lily Dawn doesn't like you? Everyone else does."

"Not your brothers." I corrected.

"Forget them. They're not important."

"You can't just forget about them. I can forget about my father since he hasn't shown his face around, but you still have to live with your brothers."

"What makes you think I'm going back home?"

"Where else are you going to live? Out on the streets? Surviving it like Panther, Don and I did?" I looked at her, "You're not strong enough to handle it out there, so don't think you are."

"I could always…"

"Live in the Digital World? Yeah, that's smart. Being surrounded by your enemies night and day. You're not strong enough for that either."

"You're… saying that I'm weak…"

"I will always be by her side." Lightningmon added, saying that she would protect her from anything.

"Right, and what will happen to the baby when you die protecting her, huh?"

Nereida face held no expression before she bowed and walked away. Lightningmon narrowed her eyes before following.

"That was kinda harsh, Neon." Gladiolusmon said.

"It's the truth." I went back to looking out of the window.

[Nereida

I couldn't believe that Neon said that. I wanted to believe it was her pregnancy, but I wasn't sure.

"Nereida, I'm sure that Neon will apologize." Lightningmon said.

"Yeah… but it still hurts." I was outside on the deck. It was relaxing being here.

Lightningmon wasn't talking, probably didn't have anything to say. But that was okay, since there wasn't much to talk about anyway.

Hours later, Matt came up to us. "We're about to land. Do you happen to know where the others are?"

"The last that I know, Neon was still inside. I haven't seen Lily Dawn."

"Okay, I'll look for Lily Dawn. Let Neon know that we need to gather before we land."

"Okay." I smiled.

"You okay?"

"A little, Neon was being a bit harsh earlier."

"Oh, I see. Do you want me to look for them then?"

"Nah, I'll get Neon. Where do you want to meet?"

"At the gate. I want to be one of first people off this boat."

"Okay." We separated.

Lightningmon and I found Neon in the dining room. The food was free so it seemed like she was helping herself. "You're not going to be able to lose all that weight." I said with little humor.

She was looking at me, "I'm watching what I eat." She seemed better.

"What's with all these plates then?" I lifted one up.

"I'm having a little of everything."

I looked at the plates, seeing little to no stain on them. "Are you done? We have to head to the gates."

"Yeah." She took the last bites before getting up. We walked up to the gates and waited for Matt and Lily Dawn to show.

"Sorry about earlier. I normally don't get those really extreme mood swings that most have." Neon said.

"It's okay." I smiled, glad that I was right.

It didn't take long for them to show up. Lily Dawn wasn't looking too happy, but I didn't pay much attention to it. The other guest started to gather when we were able to see land. Matt had the right idea of being one of the first since there were a lot of folks getting off.

Lily Dawn did her trick, allowing us to get by without any trouble. We walked into the bar place, and Matt was asking around.

"When has Matt known this language?" I asked.

"Beats me… He could've learned it while in space." Lily Dawn offered.

"The owner is allowing us to work here for a while to get some money. He'll also provide a room that we can stay in for a while." Matt said when he came back.

"Guess we can't rely on charm for too long, huh?"

"Not forever. Don't want to place a strain on your powers."

"So what is this place?" I asked.

"They sale all kinds of drinks. The owner trusts us enough to hire us under the table."

"What about me? I shouldn't be working." Neon said.

"I told him about you and only Lily Dawn, Lightningmon and I will be working. Nereida is going to be staying with you and you two can get a good look at the town and the best route to take from here."

"How long are we going to be here for?" Lightningmon asked.

"A few days at least. This money doesn't weigh much in other parts on the world so they're willing to pay in US dollars."

"Wow, how did you manage to get them agree to that?" I asked.

He smiled, "Trust them but do be wary of them, okay?"

We all nodded, since we all knew that this was too lucky on our part. Matt showed us to the rooms that we'll be using. They were simple and they were small. The Digimon would have to be up here while we stayed.

"Lily Dawn, Lightningmon, we have to get going. We start work right now." Matt said once having a good around.

"Okay." She said and they walked down the stairs.

"Should we take a look around?" Neon asked.

I looked at the Digimon, "Do you guys want to come?"

"We'll watch the room." Gabumon said with a smile.

I nodded and we walked out as well.

[Lily Dawn

Matt was working at the bar and Lightningmon and I were serving the drinks out. This took less talking and less knowledge on what alcoholic drinks were. We also had to clean the place. It was pretty easy, which is good for me. I noticed that they had a stage since near lunch and going throughout dinner, there were people performing up there. They were really amazing and I loved their moves. I was able to memorize them so I could try them out later on my own.

I also took note on the people that are giving us a place to stay and a job. They were a lady and a man whose eye was missing. They seemed like really strict people, but they never acted that way. They also seemed to be watching us intently, but it was probably to make sure that we didn't mess up. I was also surprise that Matt knew so much about the language and the drinks. He didn't seem to have a problem fitting in, and it was obvious that some of the guys were taking a liking to him, as well as all the ladies.

This was the first time that I noticed that Matt was in fact handsome. I never really noticed before because I kinda always saw him as someone that Panther liked to admire and someone that's like her father figure. But he does have good looks, and charming blue eyes. I know that he didn't do anything special to himself while we were getting dressed for our roles, but he seemed totally different. He was also handling the fact that guys were trying to hit on him pretty well. I might not know the language, but I've been on many dates to know what flirting is.

"That wasn't so bad." Matt said as we were getting out of the place.

"Yeah… and you seemed to be able to fit right in with the crowd." I said with a smile.

"Really? I'm glad. They have many nice people around here. What did you two think about your job?" He looked at me and Lightningmon.

"It wasn't difficult and it's much easier on me since I don't know the language as fluently as you."

"I don't know the language fluently."

"You could fool everyone else."

He laughed, "I guess that is a good thing."

"It wasn't hard for me either." Lightningmon said. Though, while we were working, I did notice that she was able to talk to the people. She was handling herself well, since some of the guys were hitting on her too.

There was a voice behind us. We looked to see that it was the people that ran the place. Matt talked to them in their language, holding a conversation. I could tell by his eyes that he was now questioning their motives. They followed us back to the place we were staying.

"Matt, what's going on?" I asked in a whispered.

"They want to talk to all of us about something. I'm sure it's nothing serious." Matt smiled it off.

I looked at them, knowing that this can't be good. They wanted something from us, but what? I looked back at Matt, "I could go into their minds to see what they're up to." I offered.

"It's fine. You should save that for when we really need it." He smiled it off yet again. I didn't understand why he was, since they could be endangering us in some way. I wondered if Matt had a blind eye to these kinds of people.

[Nereida

They came back with two old people following them. Neon and I had come back not too long ago, and now all the Digimon that had stayed are hiding.

"Welcome back." Neon greeted them, acting as the housewife. I just then realized how the place looked a bit Japanese.

"Thank you. Would you get something for our honorable guests?" Matt looked at them, talking in their language. They replied to his question before he faced Neon again, "Anything warm and tasty." He said with a smile.

Neon bowed, "Okay." She went into the kitchen. I wondered if her kids were affecting her again.

"So how was it?" I asked Lily Dawn and Lightningmon as they sat down next to me.

"It was a lot of fun. But they want something." She whispered the last part as if they knew what we were saying.

"Do you know what?"

"No, but I could tell that Matt didn't like the idea too well. That or he doesn't believe what they said was the reason."

I looked over at him, seeing that he was talking to the people. He seemed to be enjoying himself nicely. Neon came back with tea for everyone, being a good housewife. I knew that that is something that she doesn't want, but she's playing the part well.

"Okay, you requested that when it was right that I speak to you in Japanese. So what is that you want to say?" Matt addressed them.

"+Please, don't be alarm that we can speak your language,+" the old woman said in Japanese.

"+But we have to talk to you all about something important.+" The old man finished.

We were all shock and surprise to utter something, the girls at least.

"So what is it?" Matt didn't seem fazed.

"First, allow me to say that we are deities. My name is Freyja." The lady said.

"And my name is Odin."

I looked at Lily Dawn to see her hugging the pillow she was holding tighter. Her face showed courage that wasn't there.

"Freyja and Odin? Aren't you supposed to be evil?" Matt asked. "As a matter of fact, you and Thor are supposed to be rivals and Thor is the good one?"

"You know your legends well for someone that should know nothing." Freyja commented.

"Something I picked up. So now that we know we are working for deities, what else is there?"

"It is true that Thor and I are rivals, and you might believe that this is to gain some upper hand, but we really do have your interest at heart." Odin said.

"That Love Goddess is using the desires floating around to her own advantage. We need you to be strong enough to defeat Thor so he could return to his right mind." Freyja said.

"And if we were to help, what then? How does that help you?" I was surprised to hear that, since I figured that Matt would ask how it would help us.

"People think that Thor and I will always be rivals, which is nearly true. But with years of being forced to live together, I have more respect for my rival than I did before. I would like that peace to return." Odin explained.

"I am interested in having the Greeks shown that they aren't the best around." Freyja added.

"So Thor is acting as if possess or obsess." Matt summed up.

"Yes, but more than that. He normally wouldn't fall for a lustrous person that Aphrodite has become, but he is following her wishes, as well as Seth. We have to stop her." Odin said.

"So how do we become stronger? Do you know the status of the others?" That got us all interested, including Lily Dawn.

Odin smiled, "They are fine for now. You are separated into groups of four and spread across the world."

"What about my brother?" Matt didn't show it, but he was worried.

"Your brother is still home." Freyja said with her eyes closed, reminding me of Hecate. Matt just nodded.

"How do we get stronger?" Neon asked in the most serious voice that I've heard from her before. Even when she's motherly bossy, she never used that kind of voice before.

"You all must pass a test. If you can not, then you don't deserve to be the Neo Digi." Odin said, raising his old arm and that was the last thing that I remembered.

When I woke up, I found myself on a bed with annoying lights above my head.

" Darling, are you alright? " Some man asked in English.

I stared at him for a good while before answering, "+ Who are you?+" I didn't want to know the truth.

" Honey, I don't know Japanese. " The way he said that made me get up. I don't even know him and he hates me. There was a mirror nearby so I went over to it. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was much, much older than I am now. My face doesn't have that youthful joy that it has now. It has retained its beauty, but it has lost all joy, all happiness, all hope. My eyes are lifeless.

" Dear, you should probably rest. It was a more serious fall than I thought. " The man suggested to me.

I looked over to him, " Who are you? Why am I here? " I finally had to know.

The hurt and surprise look was more than I could handle. There was also confusion on his face. Why was he so hurt? Why did he care? I just took off.

The place seemed like a dream. I didn't know where I was going or how to navigate through the house.

" Mom? " I stopped when I heard someone ask. I looked to see a kid that had some of my features. Her eyes were hard with young, but wise, understanding like that of Tim. " Mom, are you feeling better? " When she stepped closer, I moved back. It also confused her, but her other emotion wasn't hurt, it was worry.

I ran from her as well. I didn't understand any of this. Why were they speaking English? Wouldn't they know some Japanese because of me? Sure, I can speak English, but I love Japanese more.

An even littler girl with growing features came running towards me with the biggest smile on her face, " Mommy, mommy, look, look, I drew another picture! "

"+Don't come near me!+" I yelled.

She stopped and held their same expression before tears started to come to her little eyes. I took off again.

I managed to get outside, seeing my beloved Japanese sky. I was hoping that this was some bad dream or something, "+Tim, Damon, Lightningmon, where are you?+" I yelled to the endless sky.

I fell to my knees, crying. Why was I alone?

"Nereida, you're being quiet today. Why is that?" TK asked. I looked around, but didn't see him. "How could you think that you're alone? You got lots of people around you that like you."

But they aren't here now! Why aren't they with me? I curled back up.

"We can't be with you all the time. We have to have some time alone. But whenever you need us, we'll come running to you, okay?"

I looked up to see a ghost like of him as he is now. He extended his hand to me, "I promise there will be someone that will always be with you."

With his warmth and smile, there was no way I couldn't believe him. I got on my feet, looking back at the house. Those people cared a lot about me. They seemed to be my family. I looked at TK and too his hand, "If this is my future, allow this moment to remind me that I'm not alone and this moment when I choose to be true to me."

TK smiled as I said that, "Let's get you home."

I smiled as I was taken away from here and back to where I belong. I also made up my mind and wanted to go home.

[Neon

"Gladiolusmon?" I called as soon as I gain consciousness. I got up slowly, suddenly noticing I felt a lot lighter than normal. I placed my hand on my stomach, having my flatness back. I looked to make sure I wasn't mistaken.

I got up. I couldn't believe that they were gone. "Gladiolusmon?" I called again, shaking badly. I then noticed that I was in some kind of vortex. I couldn't tell what the colors were.

I decided to walk, seeing how I was standing, but couldn't move. I noticed how cold my feet were. I slowly looked down to see ice keeping me in place.

A light shown in front of my. I looked to see a world. Suddenly, I was in the world, realizing it was the Digital World. There was a great war taking place. It wasn't the one we all thought it would be. There were no gods and no one that was controlling the minds of the others, but that didn't make it any less horrific. There was so much pain, suffering, tears. I felt the tears on my cheeks as I was watching it in fast motion, though slow enough for it to leave an impact on my soul.

A hero rose and brought peace. That's when I noticed that my legs were feeling cold. I looked to see an icy wing wrapping around my legs, freezing the air around it to form ice on my legs. I took a deep breath before looking back at the scene. I was hoping that my fear wasn't coming.

This hero was corrupted and overthrown, bringing three new people to power. But one was corrupted, throwing the world back into chaos. It only then hit me how much time had passed. I don't know how long it was, but it was a long time.

My fear was showing itself. I was watching as time flew passed me. I'm forced to watch it all. Now, the icy winds were at my thighs, telling me this is my fate.

Kids came into the world, able to turn into Digimon and have an adventure. Two of the kids looked familiar, but I didn't know where. When they went back to the Real World, I could see that a good amount of time had passed there too.

The wind had made it pass my shoulders. My cheeks were cold, so I was still crying.

I will keep you here for you to see my glory. A voice so evil said.

"Who are you?" I asked. My voice was going to be gone soon.

I am the darkness that will take over the world. And your precious children will get me here.

I wanted to scream, but my neck and mouth froze. The last thing I heard was his evil laughter.

I wondered if I would die like this. I wondered if this was real or some nightmare of my fear. It lasted too long for it to be a dream.

"Have you ever noticed how nearly everyone knows your name, Neon?"

I was shocked when I heard that. In front of me that moment was replaying, but only what TK was doing.

"Yeah, I was talking to a bunch of guys that Cody knows and they were asking about you. I was really surprised that they knew your name, but not Don's. So I went around to people I didn't know, saying I was doing a project, and I didn't find one person who didn't know your name or what you look like. Most even knew your married and your new name."

That day, when he told me that, it was a happy day for me. He even showed me the list of names, what grade they were and what they had first period. There were a lot of names taking up 50 pages. He said he would've asked more, but he's trying to get an easier way of finding out.

"Do you want to be that popular?"

Yes. I didn't tell him then, but I do want to be that popular. I wanted to be known throughout the world, if I could. The easiest way I saw was to be a singer. I didn't want to be forgotten.

I noticed that the ice around me was getting moist. I then noticed that there was a light melting the ice.

"Did you also realize that your Crest has a lasting impact on people? Ken's first Crest has the same effect."

I didn't know why he mentioned that before. He said it then moved on. But I think I understand now. Whether he meant to or not, he was telling me another way of being known. They might not know my name or know what I look like, but how I interact with them will be with them forever. And maybe that will also be passed on to others or their kids.

The ice suddenly broke. TK was there, smiling at me. This still felt like a dream, but I won't simply forget what I've learned. I reached out to touch him.

[Lily Dawn

A princess locked up in the tower is the perfect way to describe how I felt as I looked out the stone-made window. I didn't know where I was and I didn't feel comfortable being here. Those deities did this for a reason and no matter what they say; it couldn't be for anything good.

I didn't recognize the place I saw outside, but I didn't want to think about the interior. When I woke up, the room was very plain. A bed with framework that would put most others to shame, but the covers was dull and a bit raggy. It's wide enough to allow more things to be added, but nothing filled that space.

The sun here was going down. If the tower were lower, I would climb out of here.

The sound of a bolt opening echoed in the room. He walked into the room and there was no where for me to hide.

"Lily Dawn?" He, Apollo, dared to ask.

I turned my head away from his gaze. I started to wonder if I could withstand the fall.

"Lily Dawn!" His voice was loud as he called me again. His arms wrapped around me in a loving embrace. Before I realized what I was doing, I eased into the hold. I wanted to be held like that for a long time.

I pushed him away, moving away from him and the window, "Why am I here?" I demanded.

He was surprised by my reaction. When he advanced, I moved back. The pain on his face didn't move me either. He gave up so easily, sitting on his bed. "So like everyone else, you'll leave me too."

"You have no right to feel self pity."

He looked at me, "Why not?"

"Because you hurt me more."

"I was going to tell you that night, you and your brother."

I turned around so I didn't have to look at him. "It still hurts."

"Then ask me anything now. I govern over truth."

I hugged myself, "No thanks."

"Then go into my mind and see it."

"There's no point. Nothing you can say will ever change what you did." I leaned against the wall, wishing that this would all go away as if a dream. I slid down to the floor before some dark cloud covered my mind.

"Well, you could always look in my mind to find the answers." TK said.

It was when we were studying and he was trying to help me with an area in France. He didn't draw it right enough for me to see it and it was to help me answer a review question. Of course I refused to do so and failed that proportion.

"You might've been able to get the questions if you had looked." TK said as he looked over my test.

I told him that I would've felt as if I was cheating. He gave me a look as if he didn't believe me, but didn't say anything about it.

"You know what I've noticed. You don't seem to use your powers all too much. Any information you get comes to you and you barely go searching for it."

Again, I lied to him by saying that I do go searching for the information. I hated my power when I was a little girl. One day, I learned that my mother was going to leave. No one else knew this, they still don't know this, but she left to go with another man. They were even planning on killing my father. When I learned this, I tried everything I could to get her to stay and love my dad. She never got back her love for him, but she did decide to let him live. Then dad wanted to leave as well, but he couldn't leave us. I got close to Stan because he was the only one who thought about staying, or at least stayed with me.

I always hated studying since if I thought too hard or long, I couldn't keep the others out. Dancing only require the body to think.

Many boyfriends had to suffer through my knowing them too well or dumping them without any reason. My curiosity had always got me when dating and I always learn more than I want to. When I met Apollo, I vowed to never do so with him. He also never gave me reason to. He didn't seem cable to hide anything.

"When you meet your soul mate, it doesn't take much thought to know it. It's a feeling you get when you first met and you want to do everything you can to be with that person. And through that, you get to know them." TK said when I asked about soul mates. He and Kari are so perfect together that there is no way they couldn't be soul mates.

When I first met Apollo, everything seemed to disappear. I didn't worry about much and Panther came back. Then I met everyone in the group, the group that took her away. But in Apollo's arms, I knew I was safe.

Finally, I was able to open my eyes. Apollo was leaning over me with deep worry and concern. I noticed that his hand was on my head since I turned into it.

"Are you okay? You were scaring me for a while there." He asked with a small smile. I noticed that I was lying down, most likely on his bed.

I started at him. He had hurt me, true, but maybe some was on myself. I never allowed him to tell me the truth. He was willing to tell me before he left.

I raised my hands to touch his face, only to bring it down to kiss his lips. They were the same, he felt the same. Does he really love me, as if we were soul mates? Could I really love a being so immortal?

I brought him lower to me, undoing the rope belt that was now around him.

He kissed my forehead when we were done. Unfortunate for Apollo, he wasn't my first, though I know I wasn't his. I hugged him tightly, loving his bare skin against mine. "I love you, Lily Dawn." Apollo whispered into my ear.

"I love you, too."

"Are you still mad that I didn't tell you?"

"No… but the Neo group is another story." I noticed that it was still night.

"Why? I thought…"

"Whatever you thought is false. Everyone has a problem with each other. We're hardly friends now."

"But every time I saw you guys, you all seem so strong."

"It was probably a façade or something."

"Why do you hate them?"

"They took Panther away."

"How can they take her away?"

"She's with them more. She has a stronger connection with them than with me or Ryan. Us three were so close that we could guess what the others were going to say and say the same thing all together…"

"Didn't she leave to be with Killer?"

"Yeah… but she…"

"Whom do you think she is closer to now?"

".. Probably Ceres."

"Maybe there's a reason for it. I don't know much about them, but I do know that Ceres is very powerful because of her power and knowledge."

"But I want her to come back to me."

"Let her know that. Maybe she believes that you don't need her or something… Maybe you could learn more if you talk to Killer."

I looked at him before remembering that Killer had to stay with Hades. "Could I?"

Apollo nodded, "Get dressed and I'll let Hades know I'm coming."

I got dressed quickly, shivering from the digital cold. I touched my stomach, feeling a bit strange.

"Lily Dawn, are you done?" Apollo asked when he entered the room with Lethemon.

"Yeah." I walked over to them.

"Stay behind me." She said as she turned around.

Apollo took my hand as we followed after her. When we came across someone, they seem dumbfounded and stood there as we walked by. Apollo made sure that no one from behind saw me.

Lethemon stopped at a cave before looking at us. "Apollo, keep her safe."

"I will." Apollo assured her before we head down the cave.

I held on to him tightly so I wouldn't loose him in the dark. I noticed that the ground surrounding us was wet.

"Welcome!" Hades said once we were out of the cave and adjusted to the light. "It's good to see that you made it without any problems."

There was a table with food out. Persephone was sitting there with Killer, Ceres's boyfriend and Nereida's goddess friend. Hades guided us to the table, having us sat near him.

"Please, eat something." Hades's wife offered. We started eating. The Greeks, or really the deities, were talking about nothing. The morals were eating few and talking even less. I was hoping for a quiet talk with Killer, but it seemed like I wouldn't get the chance. I just remembered that everyone else was back in Russia so I couldn't spend a lot of time here.

"Killer, from when Panther left until you died, tell me what changed her." I asked in a low voice since he was close to me.

"Where do I begin? I probably wouldn't be able to give you an accurate list."

"Just tell me anything you remember."

"Why are you interested in knowing? Killer had told me that she was really close to you and Ryan." Ceres's boyfriend said.

"Ceres took her away from us."

He blinked for a moment before laughing, "Ceres hates followers."

"Well, she's allowing Panther to follow."

"Panther hates following. She never liked rules no matter where they are." Killer stated.

"So then why would they be so close? They have completely different personalities."

"Ceres can seem hard and tough, but she has a really sensitive, tender side to her. I don't know why she takes great pains to hide it."

"Panther always seemed to be searching for something. It's like nothing she ever did bought her peace. She became really attached to me while showing her worst sides to the others. After her family died, she never left my side until Matt showed up."

"So she changed after her family died?" I asked.

"Kinda. I mean, that was the biggest change, but there were other changes. She did form friendships with other people."

"Then why didn't they keep her there?"

"I really don't know. Maybe she formed them to keep her emotions busy or to ease tension."

"Tension in the gang?"

"And in the people themselves. You know, like the new members."

"Did she ever care for them? Like when they were hurt." Ceres's boyfriend asked.

"Yeah, she would take care of them until they got better. And if any died, she would personally take revenge for them if someone hadn't already."

"I can't say anything about the revenge part, but I do know that Ceres cared for any injured when she was with us."

"She does kill." I stated.

"I don't doubt it. People don't have cold stares unless they've killed a lot of people. Personally, I never had such eyes, but I know a good many that did."

"Then how can you love someone that kills?"

"Because you didn't have to see her wake up during the night with a cold sweat and terror and tears in her eyes. I've never seen that in the eyes of those I've known. She didn't want to kill them or at least felt remorse for what she did."

"Panther was the same way. She killed left and right, so long as she didn't see who she killed or have blood on her. Otherwise, she would go into a state of shock."

"How so?" I asked.

"Her eyes were wide for a while and she takes showers every chance she got. When she wasn't taking showers or sleeping, she kept herself busy."

"But you told us that she would take revenge for some. What happened after that?" Ilpalo asked.

"Same thing, but she gave herself more solitude."

"Even from you?"

"I was her solitude." Killer said with pride.

"How did you help Ceres?" I looked at Ilpalo.

"Before, she would play it off as nothing. When we were dating, I would hold her until she was calm again. Now that I'm remembering, she always acted clingy after nights like that as if she needed the comfort."

"Did it happen often?" Killer asked.

"It occurred for three nights when she first came. Then it was many months before it started again. She was having them every night until the fateful day."

"Then why did she go to sleep?" I asked.

"Because she believed that they would end."

"Did she ever tell you about them?" Killer asked.

"No, she didn't even tell me that she had killed before. I believe the first time was because she had recently killed someone. The others were just memories. I could also tell which ones were worst."

I finally knew what brought them together. They had similar lives and similar reactions to when they killed. Maybe they could sense it, or have seen it in each other's eyes. Panther did tell me about when they were heading back to Matt's house the first day we met Ceres. How she was in total control over the situation, not even giving out any signs that she was worried. She was still all jokes. Panther has also told me that she could now tell when Ceres was joking to lighten a mood and joking to cover up what she actually knows. Somehow, acting dumb allows her to get by with more.

I looked at Apollo, noticing how they were still talking about nothing. I wondered if they were listening in. "Apollo, I would like to go back to my friends."

He looked at me and nodded, "Okay, but can you wait here for a moment?"

"Sure. I need your help to get me back anyway."

He smiled before he kissed me. "I'll be right back."

I nodded as he got up and left. Hades and his wife left the table, leaving the mortals and Heka with us.

"Panther is fine, incase you were ever wondering." She informed me.

"And Ryan?"

"Also fine. He's with Ceres."

"Tell who is with whom. I think it would help ease Matt's mind if he knew."

"Panther, Kari, Don and Damon are in Australia with Seth chasing them. Ryan, Ceres, Ken and Tim are in America with no one chasing them, as of late."

"Where is Arsmon?"

"I don't know. He's not near your group and that's all I know."

"Okay, Lily Dawn, we can go now." Apollo said as he was at the entrance of the cave.

"Thank you." I bowed to everyone before leaving to go to him.

He took my hand as we went back up the cave to a point where we were back in the tunnel we used to get to the Celtics. Apollo turned around to face me, "Before we go farther, I need to tell you something."

"What?"

He opened his other hand, revealing a very simple but beautiful ring made out of some kind of stone. "I know that you mortals have ceremonies and all, but I can't give you that. Will you marry me?"

I was really surprised. I looked at him, unable to say anything.

"This will be your wedding ring."

"Yours?" Was all I could ask.

"Don't worry, I won't be unfaithful." He smiled at me. "And this is so for something else, as well."

"What?"

"I learned about your role with us and…"

"What's my role?" My sentences were getting longer.

"It's to either be mortal or be immortal."

"Does… this mean that I have to be immortal?"

"It's up to you. I'm not going to be making that choice for you."

I fell to my knees. I couldn't believe that all this would happen. He got next to me, "You don't have to decide now." He touched my face, "But I would like it if you decide on being my wife."

I looked at him and smiled. I kissed his lips, "I do." I gave him my hand.

He smiled as he slipped the ring on. He kissed me afterwards. "Thank you."

I smiled, hugging him tightly. I didn't want to think about the immortality, so I will as we're traveling. I pulled back after a while, "Okay, now can I go home?"

Apollo smiled, kissing me once more as he helped me up. So now hand in hand, he led me back to the others.

[Me

"Gabumon?" I called as I walked down the cave. I could hardly see anything it was so dark. I noticed that the air was damp and the ground tough. It seemed like many came down here before.

I started remembering the Dark Cave. The feelings that I felt were fresh again, but they weren't having the same impact. They showed me how far I've come along.

I was remembering my own group. Everyone had some troubles with the others. I never realized how much they could analyze everything. I wanted them to be more united when I got back. I wanted them to be stronger since no one knows what we'll face.

"Gabumon?" I wanted to believe that he was here. I needed him to be with me.

Now, my old friends hate the new group. Tai hates Panther; he and Sora hate Ceres and Neon; Joe and Mimi hate Ryan and Don. I've heard that TK has made them mad. I don't really believe that he was taking my place or feeling moody because I wasn't there. TK looked like he's going through some kind of change. I think that this is what causing his change.

But I was wondering why they hated the group now. They were allowed to know so they could help with any cover story. Ken and Kari were torn between the groups, but slowly agreeing to stay with us. Maybe we've pushed them too much.

"Gabumon?" I called again. I stopped where I was, leaning against the wall. I wasn't tired, but I was fighting the urge to give up.

I tried to think positively, but I had received no good news since I've been home. Izzy can't be trusted with the books. TK had to take them away from him, nearly stealing it. They never said this, but I could see it in his eyes that he only trusted this group.

I was really worried about him, being all alone with no one close to turn to. I know that he wouldn't go to Tai or Izzy. He wouldn't go to Davis or Cody. I doubt Seto would be of any help to him. I didn't know who could help him.

I sank down the wall, but quickly got back up. I couldn't bear the old emotions again. I need to be over them. I started to walk again, "Gabumon?"

A new thought came to my head. What if they are somehow being possessed by the Gods? They should know who they are, or at least recognize them. I bet that someone is controlling them to turn against us. But they should be stronger than that and no one is strong enough to control that many people and Digimon. I want to believe that they're fighting against whatever is going on with them, but I can't be sure. I wondered when the turning started. They were totally supportive when I first presented this to them, but why aren't they now? Why can't they believe in them like I do? They know three people that are in this group very well. Shouldn't that be enough for them to trust it?

"Gabumon!!" I yelled into the cave, having only my voice call back to me. I fell to my knees, knowing that I was alone here. I'll probably never get out of here.

Styxmon came into my mind. She gave me this task, and I failed her. I didn't know what I was doing, and the group that's supposed to be the strongest has fallen. I don't even know how it would be possible for them to be complete again. She wanted so much from me, and in the end, I couldn't give it to her. I failed everyone who ever had faith me in before. They were wrong. I was wrong to think that I could ever change. Back then, I was a coward, a jerk, everything but what I pretended to be. I'm no different now. I pretended to be strong, pretended to be wise, pretended to be loving, pretended to be caring, pretended to be trusting.

I leaned against the wall of the cave. Even her family believed in me. They hoped for so much and I failed them. I was their last hope. I was her friends' last hope. I can't even get out of a stupid cave. I promised so much too many people. My promises became the core of this group. I'm no good as a leader. Tai should have been the leader.

And all of them know it. They have no faith in my abilities. I was only fooling myself to think that I was any good. That maybe I could make a difference in this world and the Real World. I misread everything, believed in the wrongs things, and trusted the wrong words.

I closed my eyes. I was tried of all this fighting. I didn't know what I was fighting for anymore.

"Let Matt go!" I heard my brother yell. I opened my eyes, seeing him looking angry. I was trying my hardest to remember when he said this.

"Matt, get that thing out of you!" TK believed in me, but he also has misplaced it. I wasn't anything that should be believed in. I can't help you either.

"TK, what are you doing?" Kari asked with worry in her voice. TK was handing over a knocked out Patamon to her.

"I'm going to save my brother." TK had this look in his eyes that said that he wasn't scared.

"How?" Ken asked.

TK started to walk but Panther grabbed his arm, "We'll find a way to get him out, don't go." I then remembered when this occurred. It was when I allowed myself to be controlled by the evil in the darkness that I have possessed. I closed my eyes. I was being reminded that once I'm gone, that side will come out. He will kill TK and destroy this group and all because I'm too weak to stop him. I didn't have the power to fight someone like him and he knew it.

"He's my brother. I have to do this." No, TK, you don't. You'll only get yourself killed.

"Trying to be brave I see." The evil said.

"Then there's no way that you'll be able to harm me. Matt cares way too much to let anything bad happen to me." TK was wrong. I couldn't control him. I wasn't in any way able to do anything for him.

"I'm leaving my fate in your hands. Do what you want if you think you can but I know that Matt will stop you."

"Because Matt and I are brothers. We would never do any harm to the other with our knowing."

"You might be in his mind but not in his heart."

"Why do you think I face that guy? To show you that I was brave? I wanted my brother back."

"That's why I faced him. I still need you around."

"TK…" I noticed that I was crying. He didn't realize how happy I was to hear that. I was planning on leaving forever, disappearing somewhere in the Digital World. But he brought me back, back to the world and light.

In the past, I might've been able to leave him. Be gone forever without worrying about him so much. I couldn't now. We are all we have of our family. Our lives are wrapped in mysteries and suppressed memories, things we need answers to.

I opened my eyes, seeing that an image of TK when he was younger was standing near my ghost girl. She was smiling at me with so much love and devotion. Did she believe in me as much as TK did? She looked at TK, "Go to him. He's ready."

TK started to run to me. I sat up as he got closer, growing up as he ran to me. When he finally embraced me, he was as he was now. I hugged him back, "TK."

"Matt, you have no place in this world anymore. You're much stronger than any darkness."

"I'm not, TK. I'm not strong. I thought I was…"

"You are strong, Matt. You just need to believe in yourself. You have more strength than anyone else. Everyone knows it."

"But I failed. I couldn't keep this group together."

"Because you forgot that you have another Crest. You've only used Virtue that you forgot about Friendship. Sometimes, going back is helpful."

I did notice that. I've been trying to uphold the Crest of Virtue. I thought by holding up this Crest that I would also hold up Friendship. Are they two completely different feelings? "How? I don't know how to do so."

He pulled back to look at me. I noticed that he didn't have his hat on, and he seemed to be in PJs or something. "You need to show them trust. The kind of trust that doesn't come from faith or having complete virtue, but the one that comes from the ability to make mistakes and to lose faith and the one that, even when things aren't going well, one look in the other's eyes and you'll have confidence. The type of trust that only comes from loyalty, the bond friends share."

I was surprised that my little brother could come up with something like that. He was a novelist, so maybe they are now becoming the wise. I nodded my head, "Thank you, TK."

"You're not perfect, Matt. So live like a human."

The cave shattered and I started to fall. I looked up, seeing TK smiling at me. The girl was also smiling at me, as if glad that I was leaving. I smiled back.

I still have my responsibilities, and I still have a group that needs a leader. But now I know that there's a way I can help them. It's not by trying to be perfect; it's by letting them know that it's okay to make mistakes. It's to be their friend, as well as leader. A voice whispered 'I'm proud of you, Matt' before I closed my eyes with a smile.

"Good, you're awake." Odin said. I slowly opened my eyes, looking at him. He now seemed like a God. I sat up, and looked around. The girls were still out.

"Where are our Digimon?" I looked at him.

"They're training with Freyja. It took them a while to trust us." He was cooking something.

"So they want to be stronger too." I commented to myself, remembering what he said before throwing us somewhere. "What did you do?"

"Sent you to places that you needed to be in to get stronger."

I looked at them again, realizing that Lily Dawn wasn't there. "Where's Lily Dawn?" I looked at him.

"I don't know. I don't know where any of you went."

A portal was opening in the tent that we were in. Odin got a weapon ready. Then Apollo and Lily Dawn appeared with the portal closing.

"Matt!" She came over, hugging me for a moment.

"Are you okay?" I looked at her when she pulled away.

"What are you doing here?" Odin questioned Apollo.

"So, you are helping them. I thank you." That seemed to surprise Odin. "I'm in your debt."

"Why?"

Apollo looked over to Lily Dawn. I looked at her to see that she was smiling. "Because you're protecting Lily Dawn."

"You mean the one that…"

"That can turn the tides or favor us, yes. But that title doesn't concern me. She's my wife."

"You, having a wife. HA!"

"It's true!" Lily Dawn said. She went over to Apollo. "We are married."

"Why are you married to your enemy?"

This was reminding me of something, something that happened a long time ago. I wasn't sure what it was, but I knew it wasn't good. "Odin," they looked at me, "its okay. I think they love each other. I mean, I didn't see any signs that Apollo was ever disloyal to her."

"That's not the point. He's one of the Greek Deities and they are out to destroy you."

"But we have friends in that group." We looked to see Nereida getting up. "I have a friend in that group. She's loyal to us."

"And we have more loyal friends in there too." Neon got up, her hand on her stomach. "Hades and his wife are helping us."

"And we have two more with us. We're not helpless." Lily Dawn added.

I walked over to Odin, "And now, we have you and Freyja."

Odin looked at me, as if studying me for some reason. "I believe that you've passed the test. All of you have passed." He looked at the others.

"Good… Where are our Digimon?" Nereida asked.

"Freyja is training them outside." They all ran out to go meet them.

"Aren't you going too?" Apollo asked.

"What's Lily Dawn's role? I promise I won't tell her."

Apollo studied me as well, "Her role is to either stay a mortal or become an immortal."

"If she becomes an immortal?" I was asking as if I just wanted to know.

"She'll live with us and her powers will increase. She'll be a lot stronger than she ever was before."

"If she stays?"

"You have a greater chance of winning. But somehow, it's not enough."

"So we are going to be fighting you?"

"Yes. Gennai isn't going to be apart of your fight. He never was."

"I see… Okay… Thanks." I smiled before heading out.

"You wanted him to be?" Odin asked, stopping me.

"He killed Styxmon and her family and her friends. I wanted to get revenge for what he did."

"So, tell me, is that all this group is good for? To help you get your revenge?" Apollo asked.

I looked at them, "No. It's not what I wanted of the group. I thought it was the group's destiny to fight him. But maybe, they have another propose."

"You think it's to fight us?"

"No."

"Then what?" Odin asked.

I looked out of the tent, seeing them happy to have their Digimon with them again. I looked at them, "To restore what has been lost." I walked out. Gabumon ran over to me and hugged my legs. "Were you worried?"

"No… I trusted them."

I got down to his level, "I'm not trying to be perfect anymore."

He looked at me before smiling, "Okay. Then yes, I was."

I smiled.

"Your Digimon are all stronger warriors, but you need to be a lot stronger before you can face Thor." Freyja said.

"We'll get that strength as we travel." I stated. "Thanks for your help."

"Where are we?" Neon looked around. That's when we all noticed that we weren't where we stopped.

"We've got you far as China." Odin said. He and Apollo were coming out of the tent. "But we were told that we weren't allowed to take you any farther."

"By whom?" Nereida asked.

"The Chinese Deities."

"How many days have gone by?" I asked.

"Only a day. You should probably rest before going on." Freyja suggested. It was getting close to night.

"Alright. What do you guys say?" I looked at everyone else.

They all nodded.

"Thanks for the meal." I said to Odin.

"You're welcome." He smiled.

Lily Dawn and Bellimon were talking to Apollo. Nereida and Neon were talking to each other. Everyone seemed to be on good terms again.

"Remember, that you have to be strong. Stronger than you ever thought it was possible." Freyja said.

I looked at them, "We'll save your friend." I smiled.

"Thank you." Odin smiled back.

"Thanks again for helping us." Neon said. It was morning so we were heading out. Apollo was standing near Odin and Freyja.

"You are quite welcome. Be safe on your journey home." Odin said.

"Stay safe." Apollo said.

"I will." Lily Dawn smiled.

We turned to head on the path to home.

It wasn't that long until we came to a town. I don't know where we were, but I was able to see that it wasn't a big town. We had stopped at a restaurant and ordered something for Neon. She wasn't particularly hungry, but she knew that she needed it so she accepted.

"::::Excuse me, sir,::::" I turned around to see this old man talking to me in his native dialect. I was surprised that I understood him, since we were talking in Mandarin to the hostess. "::::But I was hoping that you would come with me. I have people who would like to see you and your friends before you leave this town.::::"

":But we don't know anyone here. How could someone want to meet us and why not meet us here?:" I asked in Mandarin so they could understand.

":I know that it's strange to hear something like this from a stranger, but it's important for your return home.:" That caught all of our attention.

"+It could be some Chinese Deities.+" Nereida offered.

"+I say that we should go.+" Lily Dawn said. Neon nodded her approval.

I looked back at the guy, ":Thank you for letting us know. We'll go with you in a moment.:" Neon was still eating.

":Thank you. I will be waiting for you outside.:" He bowed before walking away.

"+Do you think he's a servant to one of them?+" Neon asked.

"+I don't know, but I guess he is lower than them for him to be so humble.+"

"+We'll find out soon enough.+" Lily Dawn said.

"You seem over your fear." Neon smiled.

"I am married to a god, so I have his protection." She smiled. We all told each other what we went through, since our Digimon were curious.

Once Neon was done with her meal, we went out to see the old man sitting there in a style that Ceres was when she was mediating. I really hoped that their group would be okay. He looked at us, ":Follow me, please.:" He got up and started to walk.

":What's your name?:" I asked.

":Tu-ti, and you might meet many more like me as you travel across China. We are quite popular.:" He smiled.

":Why?:" Nereida asked.

":We're find nearly everywhere. There are a few places that don't contain us, but they have their own reasons for that.:"

":Who are we meeting?:" Neon asked. It's a good thing that everyone learned the other languages.

"Xuan Wu, P'an-Chin-Lien, and Yan-lo."

"And they are?" Lily Dawn asked.

"They will introduce themselves to you when you meet them. Only two will be traveling along with you."

"Why do they want to travel with us?" I asked.

"I don't know of their reasons, but I'm sure they will tell you if you ask."

We arrived at a small house that seemed to be for the poor. He allowed us to enter and we saw a woman who wasn't hiding her job, a black robe man with a sword, and a young guy that seemed to have some dark aura around him. The young man was the only one that was wearing modern clothing. Tu-ti left as he closed the door. The girls sat down as I continued to stand.

[Neon

"+Thank you for coming.+" The black robe man greeted in Japanese.

"+What are your names?+" Nereida asked.

"I am Xuan Wu." The black robe man said.

"I am P'an-Chin-Lien." The prostitute said.

"Yan-lo." The boy said.

"Would you like our names?" Matt asked.

"If you would." P'an-Chin-Lien said with a smile that showed what was on her mind.

"I am Matt Ishida and this is Gabumon." He motioned to him.

"I'm Nereida and this is Lightningmon." She smiled.

"Lily Dawn and this is Bellimon."

"Neon and this is Gladiolusmon."

"Would you mind telling us why you wanted to meet with us?" Matt asked.

"Allow me to start off." Xuan Wu said, "I need you to do a favor for me." He was only looking at Matt.

"Okay, and why?" Matt told us that he was trying to be perfect before. That meant that he would first trust that the people were okay people and that he had faith in them. Now, he was still going to have faith and trust, but not as complete as he would've before. He told us that it started after Panther came to his life.

"I was recently told that this needs to go over to Japan." He held out some kind of metallic piece with an image on it. Matt walked over to him, looking at the image. "I will give you more details if you're willing to help me."

Matt looked at us. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to help, maybe not because he wanted to help, but because he was curious. I nodded my approval, as did the others. Matt looked back at Xuan Wu, "Okay, tell us more."

"I'm handing this mission to you, Matt." He gave it to him, "because you're the only one that needs to fulfill it."

"Okay, so what do I have to do?" Matt seemed excited about doing this for some reason.

"There is a woman that you need to seek out as soon as you return." He gave Matt a picture, "And tell her that this belongs to her grandson. It will aid him on his journey."

"Okay. But what would I do if that doesn't satisfy her?"

"Use your good judgment, but I believe that she will accept it with just that."

"Okay, count on me." Matt smiled, "So, I guess that means that you two will be accompany us through China. Why do you want to?"

"I thought that I should lend a helping hand." P'an said. I'm shortening her name to that.

"And I want to see what the God of Death can do." That hushed us. "What?"

"I'm not a god." Matt said, since he was the only guy in our group.

"Of course you are. You're part of a higher older of Deities that most don't know about. We're the Deities that rule the Earth, and there are others, or none, that rule other planets. But your kind rules everything. You're the highest of the Deities and I want to learn from you. I'm a Prince of the Underworld as well as a judge, so I need to learn from the best."

"But I can die." I could tell that it was a shock to his system. After all, he had learned that he is hosting some kind of ancient power of light and darkness, with the darkness gaining some evil over time and now he learns that he is a god.

"We can die." Yan-lo pointed out.

"Before you were Digimon?" Lily Dawn asked.

"The Indian Deities weren't immortal, though they can live for a long time."

"But they also believe in reincarnation so they don't consider anything as dying, just moving from one stage into another." Nereida pointed out. We had all done research on other religion to get ready.

He thought about that for a moment, "I'm sure there is some that didn't make themselves immortal, but in either case, you can turn it on and off as you wish." He looked at Matt.

"So if I didn't want to die, I could."

"And if you did, you would." He nodded, "That's another power of the highest."

"Do they have a name?" I asked.

"Not that we know of."

"Does that mean that they get reincarnated into other people?" Lily Dawn asked.

"Not really. Their power is transfer into others, sometimes, but they choose what they want to do. Sometimes they merge fully with the person and sometimes they just live within them."

"Why do they do that?" Matt asked.

He shrugged his shoulders, "But at least I know that there is another god that's a Digidestined, but we don't know who that is."

"It's Cody and he has the God of Life." Nereida said. "We learned that through Megamon's group."

"Megamon? You mean the Digimon that's from the future?" P'an asked.

"Yeah, we were protecting the other two groups when they attacked. That's when we learned that Cody was called the God of Life."

"What else did you learn from him?" Yan-lo got excited.

"You can learn more on our journey back home." Matt said. I looked at him, seeing him getting nervous about something. I figured it had to do with the evil within him. "Neon, do you need to rest?" He looked at me, trying to hide it.

I was debating if I should wait or should I get him on his way. I looked outside to see that it was okay to walk. I thought that it was probably best that we get going, anyway. I just remembered that Ceres figured out the legend would happen on the Chinese New Years and that was coming up. If we were home, then we stood a better chance of facing whatever Deity it would be. I looked at Matt, not wanting him to worry about that for a while, "I'm fine. We should cover as much ground as possible."

He nodded and looked at the two would be coming with us, "I guess that you two can be our guides." He smiled.

"Would Thor attack us?" Lily Dawn asked.

"No, we're allowing no other Deity in here unless they go through the proper channels." Xuan Wu said, "You're safe during your stay."

"Why can't you go to Japan?"

"Because even the Gods have tension, just like the nations they govern."

"Would they not allow you to go to give her that metal piece?" Nereida asked.

"No, they would not. I have tried, because it is important, but they don't believe in my word."

"Would they get mad if I take it over then?" Matt asked.

"I believe that they wouldn't. If they do, then let them know that it was my doing." I was respecting this guy a lot. He wanted to give this boy that piece, and was willing to take full blame if anything should go wrong.

"Thank you." Matt smiled and we all got up. Matt held the door as we all walked out.

"Okay, follow us. We can get you home the quick way." P'an smiled. I don't know why I don't like her, other than for how she's dressed, but she doesn't seem like a bad person. But something told me to keep an eye on her, so I was.

[Lily Dawn

They got us on camels since we were in the desert. Though, that being said, we were still dressed as if for winter. Whenever I hear that word, I tend to think heat and endless sun. We were getting that sun, but not the heat. P'an-Chin-Lien had gotten us warmer clothes, especially for Neon.

Neon hasn't been particularly cold to her, but it's a bit obvious that she doesn't like her. Normally, we give Deities a chance before we make a judgment on them. So having her just not liking her is something that's odd. Yan-lo was talking a lot, with Nereida mostly answering. Matt was quiet for the most part.

We made good distance before night hit. I thought it would be better if we kept on moving, but Yan-lo said that we shouldn't.

"But any fire we make would be blown away." I stated.

"It's safer this way." Yan-lo said.

"Why?" Matt asked, though he was making the fire needed.

"So we don't exhaust the camels. And so that we can keep better warm."

"Is that why you wanted the camels to surround us?" Nereida asked, since they were already placed like that.

"Yep." Yan-lo summoned up a meal for us. It was all traditionally Chinese. "Let's eat."

As we were eating, Yan-lo tried to get Matt to talk about his dark powers. We all could see that he didn't want to talk about them, but he didn't want Yan-lo to see that because he was answerng his questions. Though, we interrupted a lot because we knew. Matt was grateful that we were, and Yan-lo never caught on. Nereida and I were trying to save some of the tea by hiding the pots or our cups. Neon and Don told us that it's a tradition in China to make sure that a cup is never empty. Yan-lo didn't seem to mind, for some reason, and it didn't seem like the Deities were catching on.

"Do you think we have enough?" Nereida asked as we were up keeping watch. We had managed to take four pots and two cups. They were hidden under the camels.

"I hope so." I looked at Matt, "He's sleeping so that's a good sign that we were doing the right thing."

"Why not just tell them?" Lightningmon asked.

"Only if he mentions it. He doesn't like it when too many people worry about him."

"How long to you think this will take?" Nereida asked.

"I don't know…" I looked up at the moon, suddenly remembering about the prophecy, "But we need to get back soon."

"You're right. Not only for us anymore, huh?" I looked at her, seeing her looking at the moon too. She looked at me and smiled, "So even though someone might not want to go back, their duty will make them come back."

"That's if they remember, but I'm sure that everyone will go back."

[Nereida

We traveled a good while before we were able to catch a ride on a train. It wouldn't take us to where we needed to go, but it would get us there. Even though they were giving us food, Neon still needed to eat when we got to the town. I can see that she was worried about something. I could see her stressing about it. We, including Neon, had made sure that Matt got tea twice in the morning. He always drank a lot during the night, but that was just for reassurance.

"Neon, are you okay?" I asked as we were on the train. Somehow, we all had gotten our own rooms, so I went into hers.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" She looked like she wasn't getting sleep.

"I just think I see you stressing out." I sat down across from her, "We're going to get home in time." I smiled.

She smiled back, "It's not that… it's just that the travel is taking a toll on me. I'm trying not to slow everyone down, but I'm pushing myself."

"We can slow down for you."

"No.. we need to get home…" She placed her hand on her stomach. "I've also never been away from Don for this long… So I guess I'm not all together as I normally am."

"Do you want me and Lightningmon to stay with you then?"

She nodded.

"Okay, I'll go get her right now. I know that these beds aren't comfortable, but do try to get some sleep, okay?"

"I'll try." She smiled.

I went out and got Lightningmon to come back with me. Neon was already asleep by this time. We took the beds opposite of her and fell asleep as well. As I fell asleep, I hoped that what she told me was true. That there wasn't more that she didn't want me to worry about.

[Lily Dawn

I knocked on Matt's room. I had Bellimon with me, even though I didn't really need to. I just didn't want to leave her there if Gabumon was unwilling to leave us have some time alone. He opened the door, "Yes?" He widened it, as if he thought I was someone else before, maybe Yan-lo.

"I just wanted to talk to you." I smiled, since he knew what the topic was going to be. He was worried about it. We didn't even need to wonder if he was trying to hide it, because we knew that he was whether it was obvious or not.

He allowed us to come inside. "Gabumon, no one is up." I looked at him.

He looked at Matt before getting up and coming over to me. Bellimon got on him and they headed out. I didn't know if Matt had talked about it with Gabumon, but at least Gabumon allowed us to talk. I might not be Panther, or Ceres, but I was still pretty good. We all were, but Nereida had told me that Neon wasn't looking so well. I sat down on one of the beds.

He went over to the table that was near the window. I could see the moon lighting the earth, a reminder of our duty, a timer for when we needed to get back home. It wasn't full, but it was getting there. None of us wanted to tell him until he had this issue under control. We didn't want to stress him out more. "I don't know what to make of it." He said after a while.

"Why can't you just ask that demon?" I asked.

"Because… I completely fused with him now… The same with the light that was balancing him out." He looked at me, "So I can't talk to him anymore."

"Do you think that it's because of the demon that Yan-lo thinks that you're a god?"

"No… because you guys mentioned that Cody was referred to as a god, and Yan-lo said that we're both of the same sect."

"Are you really worried about that? I mean, wouldn't being a deity be kinda cool?" I hid my own thoughts of it, because I still hadn't decided which I wanted to be.

"I'm not really worried about it, because if I am, then I am. What worries me is that I might've been told this a long time ago and I just now can't remember. If there is a god inside me, I don't know if he's like the dark being and has his own consciousness within me or if I just have his powers. And I also don't know him, so I don't know what he's like. I mean… Gods of Death normally are calm about things, but still…" I could see that he was worried. He wanted to know this other person within him. "Before this, I had mastered the dark being. What if I had something similar with the God of Death and now that I can't remember, he's angry because he was being suppressed by the light."

"Well, if he remembers that he was mastered and didn't mind, I'm sure he'll allow you to do it again. Have you been looking for him?" I only asked because he referred to this god as a person, like the dark being before.

"I have, and I still haven't heard anything from him. I would also think that the dark being would've told me if I had some other being within my head… I don't know, maybe I just have his powers."

"But Yan-lo doesn't think so." I pointed out his thoughts.

He nodded, "Yeah… He thinks I am this god and I have no way of confirming it."

"What if you ask him? I mean, he seems to know a lot about these kinds of deities." I was wondering if I was one of these deities. He said that they could turn off their immortality, and they didn't have to just live within the body, they could just give up their powers. What if one of them had the ability to give out immortality?

"You're wondering if you're one too?" He smiled. "I asked Apollo about it."

I nodded, "Yeah… I mean, I'm supposed to be this great balancer, but I don't know why my decision has any affect on what's going on."

Matt got up and sat down next to me, placing a fatherly arm around me. "It's not fun being in the dark about it, huh?" He smiled.

I smiled back, "Yeah, it's no fun at all."

"Tell you what. I'll ask Yan-lo tomorrow if there's a way to tell if one has them or their powers. Once I know that, we can see if you do, okay?"

"You don't have to do that." I was glad that he offered, though. I was just brought back to what Stan asked once. At how Matt could bring us all together. It was partly because of our duty, but it was because of this that we all respected him, wanted to call him our leader. He was willing to put himself in harm's way, if it meant that we would be okay. He could've just said that we'll go together and have Yan-lo test us both, but he didn't. He offered only himself as the test subject, keeping my wonder hidden from Yan-lo.

"Yeah, I know, but I've been used by creatures before and if this is just a way for him to get something from me, then I don't want you to be in the same boat. I would need someone on the outside to make sure that he isn't doing something funny."

I was at first surprised, but then realized that this was Matt. This wasn't the 'trying to be perfect' Matt, this was the Matt that worried, that was insecure. This was the Matt that wanted to trust others, but had some experiences to know that they can't be completely trusted. I smiled. "I see. Okay. But Neon and Nereida and our Digimon would be there."

"We don't know much about the Chinese Deities, so we don't know what their powers are. Nereida would need to make sure that Neon is okay and our Digimon can't attack while on the train."

I was becoming more impressed. I don't know what the other Matt would've said, but I could see that this one was strategic and thought things through. He didn't want to leave things to chance, as if he wanted to make sure that he got the win. I was also glad that he was becoming more human, because I was beginning to wonder if I needed to do something to be like him, to be that perfect being. Even his human self, I still wanted him to be our leader. I doubt that what I want matters at the end, but still. "Do you think that they have other motives?"

"I don't think Yan-lo does, but P'an-Chin-Lien is another story. She really doesn't have any real reason to being here."

"Then why be weary of Yan-lo?"

"Because I've been tricked once, twice really, and I'm trying to learn from those mistakes." He smiled.

I really liked this imperfect side of him. "You need to meet my brother some time."

"Why? I won't mind, so you know."

"Because he doesn't see why we love you so much. Plus, he likes meeting the parents of the girl he's dating."

It only took him a slit second for him to get what I was saying, "Which one?" He sounded like a mix between being a brother and being a father.

"Your first one." I smiled.

"Why? Not that I'm saying that your brother is bad or anything."

I laughed since he asked it like he couldn't believe it. "Her cooking is great."

"That better not be the only thing." I could see that he considered himself her father, even though Matt never really says it. I don't really know if Panther has accepted him like that, but she has in some way.

"It's not, but it was the deciding factor. He normally wants to know how well they cook before going anywhere serious." I started laughing after that. I couldn't believe what I was seeing in his eyes. He had this look that was asking if he had done anything improper with her, but he already knew the answer, but he was still wondering because he was worried.

Matt then pouted, "Fine, when we get back, I'll ask Panther myself. That or just interrogate your brother. Besides, why wouldn't her cooking be good? She learned from the best. I would be insulted if he called her cooking bad."

"What if he did jokingly?" I asked once I stopped.

"How did Panther take it?"

"She was mad but then later accepted his apology."

Matt thought about it. "I'm not insulted. But we are going to have a long chat."

I began to wonder if he noticed how he acts when it comes to Panther. He acts like her best friend, her brother, but more often than not, he's her father. I thought it was interesting. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind. Plus, he wants to understand you. He can see that Panther cares a lot about you."

"Why does he want to know why everyone loves me anyway?" I didn't realize that Matt could act like Ceres. That sounded like something she would say.

"Because Panther blew up in his face about you and I told him that we would all defend you the same way."

He smiled. "Thanks… What do you guys think of the older ones?"

"That they're becoming pricks. I mean, we keep saving their butts and all they do is hound Kari, Ken and TK. It's like nothing we do will please them. I think that's why TK is getting so frustrated."

"He says that he has lost trust with them."

"Well, it's not like he tells us everything they say to him."

"Do you like them?"

"They're okay."

"Okay, thanks." He smiled.

I got up, "I'll get Gabumon back to you. See ya in the morning."

"Night." He said. I went back to my room, seeing that Gabumon was eating with Bellimon. We got some food so they would have something to do while we talked.

"How is he?" Gabumon asked.

"A lot better." I smiled. "We have a plan to get some answers."

He nodded, "I'm glad that he's better."

I looked around before letting him out into the hallway and watched him made his way to Matt's room.

"What was he worried about?" Bellimon asked. "Gabumon couldn't really figure it out."

"He was more worried that the god would be angry since he doesn't know whether he was being suppressed by the light like the demon."

"Oh, I see." Bellimon yawned.

"Let's head to bed." I smiled as I changed and got in bed.

[Me

I told Gabumon everything that Lily Dawn and I talked about, including Panther and Stan. I know that I shouldn't have anything to worry about. I mean, it should be a good thing, but I somehow knew that it wasn't. I just somehow knew that something was missing from it.

After I told Gabumon, we went to sleep. I couldn't really fall asleep. I noticed how we were sleeping, reminding me of when my father came to get me up when we were being trapped by Myotismon. That made me think about the legend that was told to us wrongly. The King of the Undead, or something like that. I wondered if they had figured out what was going on in that legend. I placed my head on Gabumon's fur. It was soft, air dry only. I don't know why that seemed funny, but it was. Maybe because he doesn't take it off so it could only be air dry.

My thoughts went to Ceres. I wondered how she's taking Panther's new relationship. I doubt that she would voice them, but I wonder if she has the same feeling as me. That something is missing. She could probably see it, being there more. She seemed to be really calm, calmer than I have seen her. Her trial, I wondered what it was. She cared about the group, as I knew she would. I wished that I saw the process myself, but I had a job to do.

I heard my door open. I wondered if it was Lily Dawn. Neon hadn't looked good for a while so I figured that Nereida was with her. I looked to see that it was P'an-Chin-Lien. I sat up, "Do you need something?" I asked.

She had some clothe around her. She looked like she had a nightmare and wanted some company. She came to the side of my bed, "I think there's something lurking in my room."

I knew that there wasn't. It was obvious that she was lying. "Is it something that a goddess can't handle?" I made sure that I sounded like I knew she was lying.

"I'm not lying to you."

"If you don't want to be alone, go to Yan-lo." I was now getting a bit annoyed.

"But I fear that he might do something improper with me." The way she sounded, it didn't seem believable. But that wasn't a lie, at least.

"There's a bed over there. You can stay there." I pointed over to it.

She looked over before looking back at me, "Why can't I stay with you?"

"Because I have someone sleeping me with, and besides that, I don't trust those who were lying to me." I didn't want to say that I didn't trust her, since she's helping us to get back home.

She got up and went over to the bed. She let the clothe fall down from her shoulders, revealing that she was bare underneath it. I got back to my spot, figuring she just sleeps like that. I felt something happening just then. I opened my eyes to see that she was over me in her nakedness. I wasn't lying on my side, I was on my back. I looked over to my side to see that somehow I was moved over here.

With her hand, she brought my face back to hers. She smiled as she lowered her head to mine.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I asked, really ticked off now. She hadn't taken off my clothes, yet.

"I want to know what you feel like." She wasn't that far from my face now.

"Get off me."

"You can't move." She smiled.

I only now noticed that I couldn't. I sighed, "Get off me or placed me back with Gabumon."

"You must want a body to lie next to. How long has it been since you were in Styxmon?" She seemed to be mocking her, by the sound of her voice.

I used my powers to push her all the way up to the ceiling, "I love her."

"So.. you're unwilling to sleep with any other."

"She's the only one I have slept with." Somehow, I broke the spell she had on my body. I got up and walked over to my bed, "You can still stay here, but try anything again and I'll send you off this train." I looked at her.

"Understood." I let her down onto the bed she would be using as I got in mine. I heard her getting under the covers.

I noticed that even if I wanted to go to sleep, I couldn't. Well, not completely anyway. It's a weird feeling, I must admit. I didn't even know how my body was doing it. It was like I could only rest a bit, but I couldn't get to a deep sleep. I could hear everything going on in this room. The Digimon breathing, the train moving along the tracks, the wind created by the train; I heard it all like I was paying attention to them. But I wasn't really. I was trying to sleep. I then noticed something else. I wasn't just listening, but I was also feeling. I was sensing what was in this room, outside this room, in the rooms next to this one. I don't know why my body was doing it, but I felt a smile on my face as I began to take note of what was going on. I touched my face, feeling that it was true.

I had no idea why I was smiling though. It was like feeling this, knowing that I could do this, was a pleasing idea. I shut my eyes, getting annoyed that it was happening. Maybe if I knew why, I would be please, but I don't. I wanted some sleep.

[Neon

After breakfast, Matt had told us what he was going to do today. He did feel kinda bad about doing it so secretly, but only slightly. So around lunch, they had joined up with us. Matt asked him then, and Yan-lo was more than happy to see. He told us that it would take him a few days to find out the ritual, but he would do so. We were all hoping for it to be quick, but it seemed like we would all need to pay attention when he does it. P'an seemed mad about something, though giving looks to Matt, who was ignoring them.

"Did she do something?" I asked as we were all heading to bed.

"She tried." He answered.

"Then why are we still traveling with her?" My opinion finally showing.

He sighed, "Because it's better to let foes become friends then friends become foes."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I wasn't really clear what he was trying to say.

"She was a friend that got turned into a foe by what she was trying to do. So now, we have to let her become a friend again because it's safer that way."

"You're willing to give her another chance? What if she's always the foe?"

"By showing a lot of kindness to the foe, you soften their hearts. No one is immune to kindness." He smiled.

That reminded me what TK said about my Crest. I looked down at the floor, "No one is immune to forgiveness too."

"Something wrong?"

I looked up at him, "TK said that kindness is something that can last for a long time. He said the same thing about forgiveness." I smiled.

He smiled back, "I thought it was something bad."

"No, not at all. TK is a great person when you need to cheer up."

"I hope he's a great person either way."

"He is, but when you really need someone to just give you some encouragement about nothing, he's the best. It's like he could tell and knows just what to do to get the person happy again."

"Why are you saying person?"

"Don agrees with me." I smiled.

"I'm glad. Night." He headed to his room.

I nodded before heading to mine.

[Me

I got bored during the night. I wasn't getting any sleep and I could only think so much. I was looking at my computer, things that I needed to get done. Hota hasn't sent me anything new, which was good. P'an-Chin-Lien was staying in her room, which was good. I then did a quick search for which probes were near each other. I had up a world map, seeing our current location and the others. Though, since I also had the Digital World map up, I noticed there was group in the Digital World. Considering that we couldn't go there, I zoomed in on them. It was Ceres, Tim, Ryan and Ken. I went into Ken's probe, being the only one conscious. He was looking at younger versions of me, TK, Kari and Izzy, but they had our Crest on them. The TK one commented that a Kenmon had failed, making Ken realize that TK, and not his Crest, gives everyone hope and that these guys were some dark form of our Crest that was tainted by the blood of some group of Digimon. I made a comment, since it was unlike him to be so poetic about his thoughts.

The Kari one said something that made Ken noticed how weak their teamwork was. It was kinda creepy to hear her sound so nasty, so I was impressed that Ken could handle it. He activated his Crest power, which was cool because it was surrounding him and the bird part was over one of his eyes. They dodged and he grabbed the others and started running.

Ceres woke up, helping Ken carry the others and commented that TK was cute back when he was young since he was in front of them. The TK one made a comment about merging TK with him, adding a wink that disgusted Ken so he started shooting him. He was able to dodge it all and when he went to kick Ken, Ken was able to block and knock him out. That's when they left the area for a safer place, though how any place in there is safer, I don't know.

Ken did some kind of motion with his arms, trying to tell Ceres that she needed to use her Crest power. Even though I wouldn't be able to guess that by how he was showing it, it seemed liked Ceres would. But in the end, she didn't and it was kinda funny. He was about to repeat it, but just held his amulet. It was like he was believing, having faith in Ceres. He mouthed what he wanted her to do, and from there, they got out. I was impressed that Ken was giving out faith like TK can give out hope. I thought it was interesting, and I was also glad to see that they were much closer, since he mentioned that Ceres was losing to TK in a game of reading his signs.

I then left them, since they seem to be doing fine for the moment. I kinda wished that Ryan and Tim were up so I could see how they were doing, but I guess I just had to wait for the next time. I looked at Panther's probe, to see that she was glowing really brightly. I checked the intensity of it on the probe, since they were also designed to be able to go near the sun without hurting the eyes of the on-looker, and it read her brightness as close to the sun in it's relative, meaning that she was really bright since the sun in it's absolute wasn't that bright compare to other stars. I wondered if the others could get protection from it, but at least it wouldn't cook them. Before I had a chance to look at Heka's probe, I felt something in the air. I turned it off and got Gabumon up.

"What is it?" He asked sleepily, since he knew that I couldn't sleep.

"I think someone is around here that shouldn't be."

He got up, almost reluctantly it seemed, and we headed out. I looked around somehow getting a familiar feeling from this behavior. I found someone sneaking around Neon's room.

"What are you doing?"

He turned to face me with readiness to fight, but then relaxed a bit, "Oh, for a moment there I thought it was one of those idiots."

"Who are you?" I wasn't surprised that he wasn't afraid of me, but I was wondering why he wasn't worried when he saw me.

"Arsmon."

I now got a better look at him. So this is the Digimon that Nereida likes. I see, I see… "You're about to go into Neon's room."

Now he looked confused, looking at the door before looking back at me, "Where's Nereida?"

"Wait until morning. It is rather late. You can stay in my room and I'll let her know where you are." It's not like I didn't trust him, but I didn't want Neon to go crazy on him because he woke her up. Besides, I wanted to get to know him.

He was watching me carefully. I noticed that he only liked Nereida, because even though I'm a friend of hers, he didn't care about me or my suggestions. I could also see why Lily Dawn would have a problem with him, since he didn't respect those involve in Nereida's life.

"Okay." He said with an evil look in his eyes.

I smiled back, "Follow me." I walked back to my room, letting him go in first. "So, I heard that you destroyed a Destiny Stone. I thought they served their purpose so they're useless." I sat down at the table as Gabumon went back to sleep, maybe as a sign that we trusted him?

"It was the quickest way for us to get your attention. Why weren't you there?" Arsmon sat down across from me. I noticed how pale he looked with the moonlight.

"I was doing my job, traveling in space. What did you want us for?"

"We wanted to be known to the others."

"Oh, okay. How did you know about Nereida?"

"I can't say." In other words, he was watching her.

"Fair enough. I'm glad that Collect Soulsmon approves of your love for her and allows you to help her." I smiled.

"How do you know my Master's name?"

"Nereida and the others don't call her Master."

He frowned for a moment, "No one was supposed to know her name."

I shrugged, "I think only this group knows. I'm doubtful that the other two would ever learn it."

"Why?"

"My brother isn't on friendly terms with them right now… Oh, wait… The first group might know.. Maybe…" I kinda forgot about Kari for a moment. I also remembered that I had the picture of our ghost gals with me.

"And what about you?"

"I hadn't had a chance to see them yet, so I can't say."

"So why don't you want me to see Nereida?"

"She needs her sleep."

"And you?"

"Haven't been able to get any."

"Why?"

"I'm not really sure as to the reason why."

"Wouldn't you have some guess?"

"… Nope, not really." I probably would if I knew why my body was subconscious happy that I was doing this.

"Or is it that you don't want to tell me?"

"I'm wary of you, but I do trust you enough to tell you things. I mean, it's not like you can do very much with my sleeping pattern."

"You're wary of me?"

"Yep, hearing that your master isn't all nice and friendly, and knowing that you want something from my other friends, I'm wary. I've becoming less trusting of other's motivates, but I don't mind waiting to see it." I smiled, "Do you care about her brothers?"

"Not really."

"So, let's say they wanted you over to their house so they could talk to you, would you go?"

"No."

"Even though one of those brothers had a lot of control over her?"

"What?" He looked very surprised.

"You never saw that?"

"Which one?" Now he looked like he wanted to kill that person.

"… You do realize that she loves them both, right?"

"What does that got anything to do with this?"

"Considering how you were ready to kill that brother, I think it matters a lot."

He relaxed, "How can she love someone that's controlling?"

"Why do you have a master?"

"Because she created me."

Created? "They raised her. Her parents died when she was about a year old so all she had were her brothers. Only through this group did she gain some rebellious side to herself."

"You're keeping it pretty vague on whom the brother is."

"Of course." I smiled. "I don't want you to go killing them. I would think that would look pretty bad, considering that she believes in you and your love for her so much."

"She does?" He seemed surprised.

I nodded, "Yep, very much so. Lily Dawn got mad at her because of it. I'm also guessing that Sora got mad at her too, for some reason, but she doesn't care. She wants to believe in what you say. So, at most, be honest with her and also don't get mad if she tells us things that you told her."

"Why?"

"Because we're her only friends, and if she can't tell us things, who's she going to tell? She doesn't tell her brothers everything and she wants you to be a secret from them, as of late." Besides that, TK and I will always know what you two are talking about because we'll read it later. Wmhahahahahahahaha!!!!

"If she loves them so much then why is she keeping it a secret?"

"Maybe because you tried to destroy the Destiny Stones? Maybe because they know that your master isn't friendly and nice? Maybe they like being overprotective?"

"Why don't you know?"

"I haven't lived with them and I don't know everything they know. It wasn't that long ago that I was coughing up blood."

"From what?" I noticed right there that I got him at a point where he was comfortable around me, maybe going towards being nice towards me too.

"You know about the Crest Powers, right?"

"The first two groups used theirs against Megamon's group."

"They did?" He nodded, "Oh… Well… Yeah, I used mine too. Both of them, so I was really drained since I had to keep it up for several days." I hope they're okay.

"When did you leave for this trip?"

"The day after I got back. Um… fourteen to fifteen days ago."

"You seem fine now."

"Lots of sleep does that." I kinda figured he didn't need to know about the dark being. "Can you tell me anything about Megamon's group?"

"They're all gathered from present time, but he and his creation, Loyalmon, came from the future. They also have two Digimon that claim to know things beyond the first Super Levels."

"How do you know that they're from the future?"

"They have vast amount of information. They even came to our secret hideout to let us know that we better leave the Digidestined alone because it would be them that will kill them. They both have incredible powers, much more advance than any other Super Level to date. It is said that they want to kill Izzy for some reason."

"Why did they come to the past then? If they appear now, then won't that affect the time they were born in?"

"Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But I don't think he cares all that much. Meeting his goal would be good enough for him. He has also gathered your old enemies into his army as well as clones of you that have your Crest Power."

"It seems like we need to be wary of him. Clones?"

"No one is really sure who created the clones, but most think it was Gennai trying to create Super Levels on his own. It's not an easy feat."

"How about the Siblings? The one that has Mirrormon in it."

"They were the first Super Levels to be born. They created all the other Super Levels, most knowing this."

"But Megamon and your master also have the power to create."

"My Master is like them. As for Megamon, no one knows where he got the knowledge to create."

"How many are there in this group?"

"Three, Mirrormon is like the youngest. Fightomon is the middle and the only guy. Ful Evimon is the oldest. People know more about Mirrormon because she's more outgoing and likes to interact with other Digimon. Ful Evimon has a small band with her, but no one knows who they are."

"How is your master like them, if I may ask?"

"She has the same new Type as them. The one that has all the types mixed together and she isn't created by them."

"The deities also have that type. I was told about it when we were first meeting them."

"That doesn't mean anything. That type isn't given out to many, but it is very powerful."

"Do you have it as well?"

"No. I'm a normal virus."

"Oh… I see." I felt something outside again. "Hold on." It felt like when someone was up. I went to see that it was Neon, Nereida and Lightningmon. "What are you guys doing up?"

They looked at me. "This is the time we normally get up." Neon said.

I looked out the window, seeing that it was true, "Nereida, you have a guest."

"Who?"

"Your boyfriend." I smiled.

She looked quite surprised and almost thought I was joking until Arsmon came out from the room. I then realized that either of them really knew what to do, since on normal occasions they were supposed to run to each other. I motioned for Neon towards me as Arsmon walked over to her after a moment.

"Is it okay?" Neon asked.

"Yeah, it's okay." I smiled. I moved Neon into my room, figuring that Lightningmon would do whatever Nereida needed her to do, but I did leave my door open. "He might be evil and will do anything his master wants him to, but I could see that he does love Nereida."

"That doesn't do anything for us, though." She pointed out the obvious. "It's only her."

I smiled, "I know, it's complicated, but I understand it." After all, Styxmon was the same way. She was only willing to help me, even though she knew that I cared a lot about TK.

"You understand a lot, so it's comes to no surprise." She sat down, "I thought you were being more careful."

"I am." I smiled.

[Nereida

I couldn't believe that Arsmon was here again. I was actually glad to see Matt so willing to talk to him, something that I fear that Tim can't do. He even called Neon over to give us a moment alone before Lily Dawn came out.

"I'm so glad that you're here." I said when he was closer. I gave him a hug, "What brings you here?"

"I need to tell you something, in private." He looked at Lightningmon.

"Why?" She looked at him, though not with any hate.

"Do I need to give you a reason?" He was getting mad, though. I thought it was kinda funny how Heka made sure that Lightningmon know that she wasn't a threat and Arsmon doesn't care. I guess it has to do with the fact that Arsmon is supposed to be our enemy.

"It's okay, Lightningmon. It's because you're trying to warn me about something and it has to do with the others as well and you don't want Lightningmon to give you cold feet, huh?" I said with a smile. I didn't see it, or anything, but it was obvious, considering who he was.

"Yeah…" He seemed shocked.

I looked at Lightningmon, "Don't worry." I smiled, saying to her that I would say it later, if it really was that important.

She sighed, nodding, "I'll make sure that Lily Dawn knows. Use the room to talk then." She went over to the door and leaning on the wall.

I took Arsmon's hand and brought him into the room, closing it before sitting down on the bed. "What did you think of Matt?"

"He's an open person." He sat down.

"Yeah, he does appear to be, but actually he's more helpful and caring than open. So, what did you want to talk about?" I don't know why I was excited, but I was.

He looked at the floor, which wasn't a good sign, "You heard about the prophecy, right? The one with King of the Undead Digimon?"

"Yeah… We also know when it's going to occur. Why?"

"Because… My Master is hoping that there'll be a lot of carnage when it occurs. If you guys get involved, I'm supposed to take your souls when you die."

"Would that be a bad thing?" I could tell he was holding back, because that didn't sound like it would be his fault, which was what his face was giving me.

"No… I'm not really sure. She might give you Digital forms if she decides to bring you back. She might just allow me the honor of keeping you with me forever…"

"What are you holding back?" I touched his shoulder. When I did, it seemed like he was disguised with himself. I took his hand, which made him look at me and I smiled, "If you don't want me to tell, I won't. I will have to tell Lightningmon, because ever since Heka came into my life, I promised her that I would tell her everything. But, if it's something that I can prevent, I'll try my hardest to prevent it, okay? We both will try."

He looked at me for a moment before sighing, "My Master has set me to check up on Matt because we know that he's that King in the prophecy. Since he's one of these Ultimate deities, we know that it's him. The reason it doesn't always occur isn't because of the moon itself, but because Matt needs to absorb souls into his body to make the god stronger. Since I'm a container of souls, I have to put all the souls in me into him. The bats will be your signal that he's rising. We don't know what he's going to do after that, but we at least know that a battle will occur. My Master is hoping for your deaths."

"Why did you need to check up on Matt?" I was wondering how I was going to hide this, since Matt seems really good at reading people now.

"Because we needed to know if he was ready. Apparently, my Master believes that Matt can overcome the God, or maybe is the God himself, so she wanted to make sure."

"Is he?"

"He is… But after talking to him, I came to respect him. He even referred to my Master as 'your master'. I'm still going to follow through on it, but I would have regrets. I'm not use to this kind of emotions, either."

I smiled, laying my head on his shoulder. It felt nice, knowing that I had someone that I could do this with. "Matt is an interesting person. And I'm glad that you would feel regret."

"Why? I'm not supposed to." He moved slightly, though only his head.

"Because that means that if this wasn't an order, you wouldn't do it. I'll try my best to prevent it, but if we can't then have faith in us that we'll get through it alright."

"But I can't be sure of what my Master will order. Yes, she would tell me her plans, but even she can change. She's planning on watching it, not because of me but to see if there's a way to get more souls since we're not sure what he needs. She's even readying her army."

I looked at him from his shoulder, "Does that mean that you care about my group?"

He seemed taken back by that question, "I… I don't know…"

"It's okay." I got up and smiled at him, "We'll get through it. Matt isn't a weak person and he has all of us to give him the courage he needs to fight it. Believe in us and we can do anything. Though, do know that everyone has their rights of being mad at you and your master."

"Why?"

"Because you're attacking us, kinda. Well.. It involves us, but our anger won't last because we'll come to see that it was orders. We understand that people around us need to have an appearance sometimes."

"Nereida," he took my hands, "I don't want to lose you. Yes, your soul will live on, but souls brought back from the dead don't come back complete. I've seen it before, and they are loyal to my Master's will."

I smiled, "We won't die."

"You don't know that for sure. You don't know the future that completely."

I then remembered my trial, remembering the man's face, his words, the girls' words. I pulled myself closer to Arsmon, wondering if that was another life or something. I remembered how I looked, lifeless and draining. It felt too real to be an illusion. "Only if I look, but I'm afraid to look right now."

"Nereida," he brought my face to his, "I have something important to ask you."

[Lily Dawn

I was feeling really weird. I wasn't sure what it was, though. I mean, it felt like I should be getting sick, but I wasn't. It was a really odd feeling and I thought I should talk to Matt about, though I kinda doubted that he had the answers for me. When I got out of my room, I noticed that Lightningmon was leaning on the wall next to door, looking as if she was guarding me.

"Come with me." She said in her commanding voice. I looked Bellimon, who shrugged her shoulders before I followed her to Matt's room to see that Neon was there and Matt was sitting on the other bed there.

"What's going on? Where's Nereida?" I asked, seeing that she wasn't there.

"We're giving her some alone time." Matt said with a particular smile. "Anyway, are you feeling okay?"

"Do I look ill?" I asked as I rush over to see. I didn't think I did when I woke up.

"No… I just thought it was odd that you're now out of the room. Is there something the matter?"

I looked at him, "I feel like I should be getting sick, but I'm not. It's a very confusing feeling."

"Have you done anything in particular that could cause this feeling?" Neon asked.

"Not really… Nothing I could think of."

"Maybe it's the travel. Some people aren't made for it." Matt suggested. "Maybe you should take it easy for a while before it becomes a serious problem."

"And this coming from the man who was coughing up blood." I said with a smile and he started to laugh.

"Which is why I'm suggesting it."

"Why does Nereida need some alone time?"

"She has a guest." Lightningmon said.

I looked at her, wondering who that would be until I remembered the only person that could come see her anywhere. I was about to rush out but Lightningmon stopped me. "Why aren't…"

"She'll do the right thing." Lightningmon said firmly. I looked at her again, seeing that she had that much faith in her partner. I relaxed and nodded.

"Don't worry about him." I looked at Matt, "He really does love her. He might not be comfortable or knows how to express it correctly, but he does love her deeply. And she loves him just as much, so it's okay. It's so obvious, don't you agree, Neon?" He looked over at her. I remembered something that Panther once told me about Matt. That there are moments where Matt sounds and behaves like nothing is wrong, but if you watch him, you see another emotion on his face, a hidden one that he doesn't even realize. I think I'm seeing that right now, because he looked like he could use some alone time himself.

Neon nodded, "They do. Can anything grow from that kind of love, though? We all know that friendships can, but what about that kind of love?"

"I'm sure it's no different than what people thought about mortals loving gods or gods loving mortals. They might think of it odd, but as long as both beings love each other, what can be wrong about that?"

"How long have they been talking?" I asked.

"For about a good hour." Matt said. "Oh, Lightningmon do you think that Nereida would be mad if we had breakfast without her or should we still wait?" When he mentioned breakfast, I had this weird craving for chocolate.

"We'll have breakfast without her. We shouldn't make Neon wait." She said without a second thought so we all left for breakfast.

I was really craving chocolate; anything chocolate seemed to be enough to satisfy it. I looked at everything they had, seeing nothing with chocolate in it and no chocolate thing here. I felt like I would go mad if I didn't have chocolate right then.

"Are you okay?" Neon asked as I was looking at the food still.

"I have this bad craving for chocolate."

She gave me this weird look before sighing, "Eat something now and I'll give you some when Nereida is done."

"Really?" I felt myself lose myself for a moment, since I was acting like she was doing the greatest thing for me.

"Yeah…"

I gave her a hug, "Thank you." I then went to getting food.

"You are acting unusual." Matt commented when I came to the table with lots of food. "I'm pretty sure that traveling can't make you act like this."

"I can't explain it either." I said in my defense. I was eating in a normal manner, at least.

Throughout breakfast, Matt and Neon were commenting on what could be the problem as I ate, half listening to them. I also noticed that Matt was out of that sad state, which I thought was odd because I thought he would be in it for a long while by the way Panther put it. Once I was done, and that's saying something because I kept getting more, Nereida came over to our table. I just then noticed that we haven't seen the deities and Nereida had that afterglow of…

"What did you do?" I asked when she sat down.

She blushed deeply, unable to answer and I knew that we all knew what took place.

Matt laughed warm-heartily. "Is he still here?"

She shook her head, though looking down as if embarrassed.

"Can you tell us what you two talked about?" He smiled at her.

She didn't gain her composure at all. She whispered to Lightningmon. "She said that it has to deal with this group, but also the other two groups. It sounds like it could be prevented so she's going to try her hardest to because it's part of Collect Soulsmon's plans so she can't reveal it. He's also going to be involved with the plan deeply, but she wants everyone to understand that if this wasn't an order then he wouldn't be doing it."

"Though, we should be given our rights to being angry." Matt said, "We can understand, but we can also be angry for a little bit." He looked over at Lily Dawn, "That should also go to the deities." I nodded and she nodded. "By the way, have you done it with Apollo yet?"

I was more surprised that Matt was asking than anything else, "Yeah, why are you asking?"

"Was he also your first?"

"No, he wasn't."

"That means that you're out of the 'first timers with their beloved' group." He smiled with a playful look on his face.

"Wait, that means that Styxmon was your first?" I asked and he nodded, "I would've thought that you would've done it with Sora."

"Nope. Never came up and I don't think I would've anyways."

Nereida suddenly got up, dashed to Matt and dragged him away. We were all left there, dumbfounded.

"Have you guys seen the Chinese Deities?" I looked at Neon and the rest after a moment.

"No, now that you've mentioned it. Should we go look?"

I nodded, "What are you two going to do?" I looked at Gabumon and Lightningmon.

"I'm waiting here. We'll probably need new sheets too." Lightningmon commented.

"I'll wait here too." Gabumon said.

Neon and I got up and went looking for the deities.

[Nereida

I was embarrassed that they could see it so easily. I was, of course, reluctant at first, but gave in. He explained it as his only chance, in case something happens that prevents us from being with each other. I wanted to talk to Matt, since he had experienced with a Digimon as his first too. I didn't realize that I brought him back to Neon's room until I looked at the bed. "Can I get pregnant?"

"She didn't live long enough for me to find out." He answered with a sad smile, "But I don't think so, unless you felt him releasing something warm deep in you."

I thought about it for a moment, not remembering if he did or not. I blushed at the memory of it, "I… can't remember…"

Matt closed his eyes, as if remembering his experience. "I wonder if I can find out."

"What do you mean?" I was worried about that, not knowing what he was thinking.

"It's called trials. It's where we test those blankets as much as we can until we come with a positive conclusion one way or another."

"I, um…" I wasn't sure what to say, blushing more as I turned away from the bed.

"Well, if you don't want us to, we can always wait and see. I'm sure that you would have to go through the normal birth-giving cycle, and you already know the signs of that because of Neon. Though, do remember that my case was different because Styxmon was still a goddess. He is purely data… Wait.. I remember hearing somewhere that… Oh, never mind. Anyway, I don't think that anything would come from it." He smiled. I was getting really confused, but glad that he finally came to a conclusion.

"So I won't have to explain this to Tim?"

"Yep, and we'll keep it from them as well, until you're ready to tell them." He moved over to the blankets, gathering them up before opening up the window, "Do you want them for anything?" He asked me. I shook my head and he tossed them out. "Okay." He smiled. He walked over to me, "He's a good person, deep down, so keep believing in him and I'm sure that you can change him into someone that he will always be proud of."

I smiled, glad to have heard encouragement rather than disappointment. "Thanks. Why were you referring to Collect Soulsmon as his master?" I was wondering that.

"Well, she is."

"But we all call her by her name."

"He told me that she wanted her name to be a secret. I know that I don't have to respect those of evil's wishes, but I felt like it was okay for me to keep her name locked up. I mean, she's allowing him the freedom to love you and to express that love and allow him to help you. He even told you her plans, whether or not she knows, and you're keeping it because you don't want him to be hurt because of that freedom. Styxmon was beaten because of her love for me, so I'm glad that yours is different from mine. Apollo also can't see Lily Dawn, so you're a luckily one. So, because of her kindness that she can have, I'll be referring to her as Arsmon's master."

I smiled, "I'm glad that she does, but do remember that she does want to harm your old friends and us when given the chance." I remembered what he told me about her plans for Matt and the God of Death within him.

"I realize that, but Ken was willing to do the same thing and look how he came." Matt smiled, "Evil within someone can be overturned with faith in their kindness."

I nodded, gaining some hope for her to be a good Digimon, someone that could help us instead of looking for the next chance to attack us. "Thanks."

"Comes from experience. Oh, never reveal that Tim controls you to Arsmon until you can tell he's ready to not kill him."

"What?" I was surprised to hear that, not sure what to make of it.

"You're making the right choose." Matt smiled, "I'm glad. Styxmon told me that she was willing to kill everyone, including TK, and I loved her anyway."

"Why? I thought…"

"TK does mean the world to me, and I wouldn't want him to die, but I also knew that I loved her greatly. So great that I was willing to leave them behind for her. Whether or not that's the right thinking, I don't really know. Anyway, yeah, make sure that they're comfortable around each other before letting Arsmon know."

I nodded, right then, a knock was heard. Matt went over and opened it to see that it was Lily Dawn and Neon.

"We can't find those deities." Neon said. I then noticed that Lightningmon and Gabumon with them since they walked in. "What are we going to do?" She sat down on her bed.

Matt closed his eyes for a moment. I immediately felt something happening, but there was no way to described it. I couldn't even tell whether I should be at ease or afraid. When he opened his eyes, he looked fine and everything went back to normal. "We're not near anything, so we still have to be on the train for a while."

"Do you know where this is going?" Lily Dawn asked.

"Shanghai. That's its final destination anyway."

"Should we go to Shanghai, then?" Neon asked.

"We need to, otherwise we won't get home. So, I guess the question becomes, should we stay on this train?"

"We should. If we find out that they know we've hitched a ride, then Lily Dawn can change their minds. Neon shouldn't be traveling so much as it is." I said.

"Neon?" Matt looked at her.

"I hate to admit it, but I think we should. We can't be too reckless." She agreed.

"You mean you shouldn't be too reckless." Lily Dawn corrected, "Anyway, you promised me chocolate."

"Since when and for what?" I asked as Neon was looking through her secret stash of candies.

"I have this really bad craving this morning for it. I thought I would go mad." She took it and took a bit from the bar, being in heaven instantly.

I rubbed my hands together to get the magic going through them. This is something that Ceres taught me so I could keep a check on Neon's condition. I touched her stomach, getting the immediate feeling that there was a life in her, but this technique wasn't for the first trimester. "You're pregnant, chocolate girl." I said with a smile.

She took another bit before it sunk in. She dropped the bar and her eyes widened. I couldn't tell if this was something she was proud of as she sat down.

"I thought your craving was similar." Neon laughed.

"We're getting three kids." Matt said with a smile. "How exciting."

"Should…" Lily Dawn tried to ask.

"Yeah, you should be happy. You're married to him after all." Matt said.

She had the expression of 'oh yeah'. I laughed a bit.

"You better do the same thing to yourself, missy." Neon said, "Otherwise you won't be able to hide what happened from your brothers."

Matt started to laugh at my expression.

[Neon

I was surprised by how much food Lily Dawn was taking. It was like she was a machine that's sole purpose was to eat. I mean, I wasn't that bad at the beginning. We were all trying to make sure that she wasn't over doing it, and I'm sure she was as well. And even though we both felt bad about the fact that Matt decided to eat less so we could eat more, we couldn't help it. The only reason Nereida was eating was because she might in the same situation as us. Matt would also not allow the Digimon to not eat, because they needed to be strong for anything.

"I'm sorry we weren't here yesterday." Yan-lo said as he and P'an came up to us, "We decided to get that scroll for you." He smiled.

"Does it need a specific time for it to be performed?" Matt asked.

"No, we can do it right now if you want."

"Let's wait on that." He sounded nervous. "Why did it take most of yesterday for you to find it?" Matt offered them a seat.

"I had to attend a meeting that Hadesmon called for."

"Why did he call it?" Lily Dawn asked.

"Apparently, Panther's group was attacked by Sethmon and Hinamon was with them before hand. Panther is important to them, and apparently the Egyptians want her for something."

I looked at Matt as I was eating my food, something that Mackenzie-sensei taught me. He was hiding his worry. "Who's Hinamon?" Matt asked.

"An Australian goddess of the underworld. She seemed to have some motive for her, but she wouldn't reveal it to us so she was banished from this world."

"Banished?" Nereida asked. We were all looking at him.

He nodded, "She was enclosed in an asteroid and will have to remain there for a long time. She wasn't the first one to have that happened to, and it's also the most severe that they can do to us."

"Are you worried about her?" I asked, wondering the somber tone.

"Not really, but they might start to think that we have another motive, when we don't. I mean, Lily Dawn is here and she has some importance to them as well." He looked at her.

"We could find our way around if you need it." Nereida said. None of us wanted to get them in trouble, though, I also thought it would be cowardly if they did except the offer we were giving them. I don't know how the others feel about that, though.

"If we run then that means we do have other means and are afraid of getting caught for it. Plus, they all think themselves superior and Hinamon had shown us all that we don't have to accept it. We can still have dignity." He smiled. I could see that this Hina was very impressive, and we were all sad that she had to be punished.

"What was she doing for Panther?" Lily Dawn asked before Matt could.

"Giving her advice. It was something that made Sethmon angry at her, since she was placing herself above a god when she's a mortal."

"Panther has that attitude sometimes." Matt said, "I think it comes from her past."

He nodded, "We don't care one way or another. Would you like to see now?" He looked at Matt.

He looked at all of us, including the Digimon, and we nodded. We all got up and went over to some other part of the train. Gabumon was with Matt as we headed there, as if he needed the support. That was the first time I have ever seen him like that, needing support. Normally, he tried to play it as if he didn't need help and had enough faith that everything was okay. It was god like, or angel like, how perfect Matt had made himself to appear. Seeing him be human was kinda… weird.

[Me!

I felt a hand on my shoulder as we followed them. I looked to see Neon, who smiled at me. I guess I was showing my worry, smiling back in a thank you. She was right, I had everyone here. I looked at Gabumon and he looked at me, smiling at me too. I really felt like everything was going to be okay, now. When we got to the cabin Yan-lo was using, we all entered and Nereida closed the door. I took a deep breath as he looked straight at me. I was ready, I hoped.

"Know that I have no ill intentions towards knowing you and my only wish is to gain favor of someone who has given to me my powers that I now wield." He bowed to me.

"Alright." I figured I should respond.

He looked back at me, "Oh, the ones above those we know

May we who desire to see your face

See the light of your power. Show unto

Us that we have not discovered and

Pondered in vain. We desire to see

You in your glory, to know that we

Have looked well. Our hearts are pure

And will be more so with your

Guidance and advice. Your host

Will not be harm, and they will never be

As long as they are with us. They may

Had suffered under you, but we have come

To know them well. We wish for their well being

No more than you wished of it. Grant

Us, we who are now begging, the

Way to your divinity, to your place

Of worship. I open up the doors

For you to walk through."

I started to feel weird. I wasn't sure what it was, but soon I felt like I was in a daze, but able to hear at the same time.

[Nereida

Matt was holding himself as he said the chant. I knew that the first part wasn't part of it, but some pre-ritual that needed to be done. I looked at Lily Dawn, seeing that she wasn't being affected by it, which was kinda odd. Then something came out of Matt, though he was still standing and seemed to be just there now. The spirit didn't have a form, though, since it looked like Matt in a way. Yan-lo and P'an bowed to it, though.

"God of Death, thank you for allowing us in your presence." Yan-lo said.

He looked over at us, nodding before returning to Yan-lo, "Is that all?" His voice was much deeper than Matt's but his voice nonetheless.

"Yes, thank you." Yan-lo never lifted his head.

"Guard them well until they have left your land."

"As you wish."

He went back into Matt. I now had the chance to see the being that Arsmon wanted to use, and the being which will bring out carnage if he succeeds. He didn't seem all that evil, but maybe there is another side to being that represented evil that I had never given too much thought about. That maybe our decision to hold out until we know for sure is the right way to go.

[Me

I heard the voice, grateful he wanted us to be safe and that he wasn't revengeful. When he came back, it felt like I was whole again. It was just an odd feeling. I looked at Yan-lo when everything was settled, "What happened?"

"You are the God of Death." He smiled. "And as ordered, we will take you the rest of the way." He bowed. Even knowing that I was a god, I didn't like the fact that he was bowing to me. Something about that seemed wrong, like how I think the titles are wrong, which is why I hardly, if ever, use them. If I know your first name, I'll use that with no prefix. Lots of people don't like that, but that's what I can do with my fame.

"Please, you don't have to bow." I said with a smile. "You're protecting us so we need to be thanking you."

"Alright." He smiled, "Though it is really us who are honored. So please, tell us what you need and we'll provide it for you."

"We could use some more food." I said, thinking only of Lily Dawn and Neon. "And if it's not too much trouble, could you also get chocolate here as well?" Lily Dawn seemed to want that the most.

He nodded, "We'll be right back." He and P'an-Chin-Lien left after that in a mist.

I looked at Lily Dawn, "Anything?"

She shook her head, "Though, if it was a chant, you would think it would affect me too."

"Well," Nereida started, "I know that some spells aren't towards a crowd, but to a person. Maybe this spell is that kind of spell. I believe that what he said before hand, about his intentions, was for a pre-ritual thing, since no purification was needed."

"Why would there be a purification thing?" Neon asked.

"Because whenever you face a god, you must appear to them in your purest form because they are holy beings. If you can't be pure, then why should just beings give you help?"

"I guess that makes sense." Lily Dawn commented.

"So, what he did was kinda like that, stating that he was pure and having you, Matt, judge that."

"So what should we do in Lily Dawn's case?" Neon asked.

"I suggest that we state towards Lily Dawn as much as we can. That, or have either Panther or Ryan perform the chant."

"Why them?" I was curious, seeing Lily Dawn smiling a bit.

"Because they're a lot closer to Lily Dawn than the rest of us, and so any pre-ritual of purification will already be met because she already knows their intentions and hearts. There would be no fear, like there was with you, Matt."

"Was it that obvious?" I somehow felt like I failed at something.

She nodded, "But, we like that side to you." She smiled. "Because we now know that we don't have to reach so far to be like you."

I blinked, "You tried to reach me?" They all nodded. I started to laugh, "I was trying to uphold Virtue."

"We realized that, but it still made you god-like." Neon said. "And we thought that we had to have the same thing."

I laughed some more, "Then if I ever get kids, I need to be careful. I never knew how much influence I had. Sorry."

They laughed as well. Neon came over to me, placing her arm around my neck, "Don't worry Matt, you have three kids to test the right amount of influence you'll need for your own."

I just then noticed that this wasn't really like Neon, though I smiled since I thought it was her pregnancy. "That's true."

"Who would you marry, though?" Nereida asked after jumping on my back.

"I don't know. I'm still kinda hoping that Styxmon comes back to the living."

Lily Dawn wrapped her arms around the other arm that Neon wasn't on, "I'm sure she'll come back." She smiled.

I smiled back before noticing a flash. I looked in front to see something coming out of a field of lightning. Lightningmon went over to it, flapping it as I noticed that Gabumon was in the space that Neon, Lily Dawn and I created and that Gladiolusmon was on Gabumon's head. Lightningmon came over to us, showing that she took a picture of us like that., Bellimon on Lily Dawn's shoulder. I laughed, "I got to make copies of that." It looked like we were trying to pose for a statue or something.

"We all need one. Now let's eat!" Lily Dawn started to pull me over with her, making me trip over Gabumon and brought down the structure we had. Once I made sure that everyone was okay, we all started to laugh before getting up and heading back over so that the future children can eat.

[Neon

Yan-lo and P'an did get us more food, though Lily Dawn sat near me so they wouldn't think that she was feeding a child too. Matt and Nereida and Lightningmon were all having their fun with fat jokes because she was eating most of the chocolate. I wondered what this meant, knowing fully well that I wouldn't have a problem asking Mackenzie-sensei when we got back. I mean, if it wasn't in solid form, I'm sure Lily Dawn would put it on everything. We also invited them to join us, though I still didn't like P'an. Matt wanted them to feel like they were friends, not servants. I could understand that, though I still didn't like her.

Then I heard that we had arrived in Shanghai. I looked at Matt and he looked confused too. He looked at Yan-lo, "How did we get here so quickly?"

"I figured you wouldn't want to wait." Yan-lo said. "We can't get you a boat to get you back home, though."

"Where are we?" Lily Dawn asked.

"Shanghai." I answered.

"Where we that close?" Nereida asked.

"Nope."

"Okay, thanks." Matt said, getting up, "I'm sure we can find a way to get back from here."

Yan-lo nodded as they got up too. "We'll get boxes for your food." And they left.

"We still have a money problem." Lily Dawn said. "And now two of us have to eat."

"We'll figure that out later." Matt smiled. Yan-lo and P'an came back with food boxes and we were placing the food into them. Matt was talking to them about the money issue, though making it seem like it wasn't a big deal. Yan-lo said that P'an would come along with us so she can get them the money they need. I wasn't really sure what that meant, but I couldn't tell what Matt thought about that. Nereida and Lightningmon were carrying the boxes as we headed off the train.

Matt got us in an inn in a place that didn't seem to be all that friendly. I looked outside, getting this feeling that we should be very careful. Matt got us all one room, which made me feel a bit more secure.

"P'an-Chin-Lien, you don't have to go out alone." Matt offered. I hid my puzzlement, since that sounded like he cared. I wasn't sure why he was offering.

She smiled slyly. "I have to."

"Then don't worry about us. I don't want to force you to do something for our sake." I wondered if he caught something that I didn't.

"But it's my honor to serve you." She bowed. "So please, your highness, let me take care of this for you."

"It's really okay. Please, don't worry about it. We'll be fine. Thanks for your help." He smiled.

She bowed again, "As you wish, your highness." She then took her leave.

"Was something wrong?" Lily Dawn asked.

Matt looked at her, "I don't like all this respect."

"Why?" Nereida asked.

"I never liked them. They seem wrong, somehow."

"We're not the only country that shows respect to others, though." I pointed out. "Everyone has a polite way of speaking to each other."

"I know.. but monarchy set ups aren't my thing." He smiled, "Which is why I don't like using the suffixes and don't like to be addressed in them."

"So why were you offering yourself to go with her?" I asked.

"I wanted her to know that I was willing to go with her so she doesn't have to think of this as a job, but a favor."

"And since she wasn't taking it as that, you politely sent her away?" Nereida asked.

"Right."

"So what are we going to do?" Lily Dawn asked, lying on the bed.

"Well, we can have a look around or come up with a few plans of action."

"I'm very comfortable with coming up with a plan." I sat down on the bed.

"Alright." Matt pulled up chairs for the ones that were still standing. "Okay, so let's go over what we need to do. One, get some money so we can get home; two, find a way to get home; three, worry about food; four, worry about Thor coming after us."

"Why is food the third thing?" Bellimon asked.

"Because if we can get home quickly, then food won't be a problem."

"And Thor?" Lightningmon asked.

"Because there's a chance that we won't run into him."

"What do you suggest we do?" Nereida asked.

"I'll go ahead and look around to see what there is to do around here."

"You do remember that only two of us know Chinese while enough to work here and one of them can't work." I pointed out.

"I'm sure there are English places that Nereida and Lily Dawn can help at."

"For quick cash?"

"Oh… good point…" I just then realized, as he was thinking, that he probably still didn't know about the prophecy. I looked at Lily Dawn and Nereida, with them realizing the same thing. We didn't know whether or not to tell him.

"Don't worry, Matt." Nereida said, "I'm sure we can get jobs too."

"How if you don't know the language that well?" Matt looked at her.

"We'll find a way!" She was being cheerful for some reason, probably to cover our worry about the time. "Oh! I got an idea! What if we call Kaiba-sama?"

Matt blinked for a moment, "That's a good idea."

"Okay! We'll go look around for a phone for you!"

"But we still have to worry about food."

"Lightningmon and I will take care of that." She smiled.

"How?" Matt asked in a way that said that he had an idea on the method.

"To survive, one sometimes has to sink low to keep them alive."

"We're not that bad, yet."

"But we are in a bind, aren't we?"

"Why are you trying to make sure that I don't work?"

"Does it seem that way?" She looked at all of us. Lily Dawn, me and the Digimon nodded our heads. "Oh, sorry. Well, how lucky can you be in finding a job that will pay a lot and give it to you on that day?"

"How are you going to be crafty when you never stolen before?"

"I'm an actress." She said with pride.

"Acting and real life aren't the same thing. Besides, acting can only be a help to you if you know the language since they would be watching a foreigner more than a native." I kinda thought it was funny how he was poking holes in her plan.

"Do you not want me to do this?"

"If you could pull it off, I won't mind. But you can't so your chance of success is about thirty percent."

"Why not do what Nereida wants to do?" Lily Dawn asked.

He thought about it for a moment, "My chances are higher, and I could pull it off, but there is that chance that I won't succeed and what do I do then? Since we're not in a…"

"Matt." He looked over at me, "I'm on my last run before they are born." I pointed out that we are in a situation where food is important. "I know that I can't be greedy about this, but I do need food."

He nodded before looking at Nereida, "Okay, come over here and I'll place something so you can speak the language."

"You can do that?" Nereida went over.

"Yeah, the demon can do a lot." He touched her forehead, "Okay, so tomorrow, put on your best face and see what you can do. Do you have the device that Izzy made?"

"Yeah, I do." She pulled it out from her back.

"Get a bag and place the food in there." He looked at Lily Dawn and me, "You two can be in charge of finding a way of contacting Seto."

"What are you going to do?" Gladiolusmon asked.

"I can find a job, help with the stealing, or help with a way of getting Seto."

"The more food we have, the better." I stated.

"Okay, you two rest while we go search for the places to hit then." He got up.

I nodded and they headed out.

"I'm actually surprised that Matt is willing to do this. I kinda thought that when Nereida was bringing it up, he would object to it." Lily Dawn said.

I shrugged, "I didn't think much of it."

"Why?" Bellimon asked.

"Because I understand doing what you need to in order to stay afloat. We were like that a lot, and I'm very grateful of the group since my mom doesn't have to stress over my state."

"You're not well off?" Lily Dawn asked.

"Nope. We do alright, but still not in any shape if I did this without your support."

"How did you get in West Odaiba?"

"Grades. The same with Don. What about you?"

"My dad makes enough to get me in; my grades alone wouldn't have gotten me in."

"Why did you want to go?"

"Ryan got an art scholarship to go there and Panther got in because of her grades. We were always together, so I thought that we can keep that up. But then Panther went her way and Ryan drifted away, so it wasn't as I thought for the first two years."

I went over to her, placing my hand on her shoulder, "Do realize that they're not mind readers. Come on, let's see what we need and also start our job."

Lily Dawn nodded and we headed out too.

[Nereida

I don't know why I wanted to steal, though kinda surprised that Matt was allowing me to. I knew that Tim would be against it all together, so I was kinda glad. I guess I just wanted to experience it or something.

"Lightningmon, have you stolen before?" Matt asked her.

"Nope."

"Okay, then I should probably teach you want to look out for before I let you do anything." He walked into one of the stores and we followed. It was pretty small and it smelled. He went over to the fruits. "First, you have to check out what kind of security they have."

"Why?"

"Because you don't want to be caught and that be used against you when you make it big, right?" He smiled, "That's why I was reluctant to do this. Anyway, tell me what you see?"

"Lightningmon," I looked at her, "What do you feel?"

She looked around, "Cameras and a sensory."

"I guess I don't have to worry about you two then. Have you've gotten faster with your movements?"

"Not really. We decided that we would wait until you came back to train."

"Oh.. okay, show me how fast you can move. Just pick up something as fast as you can."

I picked up some fruit that was magenta color as fast as I could. I would've done the motion of placing it in something, but then it would've been obvious what we were planning.

"Okay, that should be good. Lightningmon, mess around with whatever you can so she doesn't get caught." He looked at her and she nodded.

I placed the fruit back as we headed out. We were looking around at the bags I would be using since Matt was going to use his pockets. Matt was also showing me how to act like I'm going to buy something, showing me expressions to practice. As it was getting late, we went to a place that had a lot of security. This is where Matt was demonstrating what he had taught to me today, which was interesting since he was able to walk out with all kinds of food without any help from Lightningmon.

"So, think you can do that?" Matt asked as we headed back to the hotel.

"I'm going to try." I said with determination.

He started to laugh, "Just be careful, okay. Oh, and also remember that you're not the only one out there."

I nodded, though not really understanding why he added that in. We got inside to see that Neon and Lily Dawn and their Digimon weren't here. "Where are they?" I asked as Matt sat down the food. I only then noticed that Gabumon was doing the same thing.

"When did you do that?" Lightningmon and I asked at the same time with the same amount of shock in our voice.

They blinked at us before looking at each other and laughing.

"You need to pay more attention around you." Gabumon said.

"I'm sure they're getting a head start on their part." Matt said, placing the food away.

We looked at each other, "Lightningmon, we have to beat them!" I said in my determine voice.

She smiled kinda evilly and nodded, "We won't let them beat us."

"Why do you want to make this a contest?" Gabumon asked as Matt was making something.

"Because that would make it more fun!" I said, "Besides that, this gives me a way of seeing how good of a liar I am."

"So even you want to be bad." Matt commented, "Were you able to show this side too much?"

"Of course not. I could only act it out, I could never do it. I would be in so much trouble if Tim ever found out."

"If he gives you a hard time, let me talk to him then."

"Okay." I smiled before jumping onto the bed, "Should we get clothes too?"

"Are we in need of them?"

"Not really… but Neon could use them and we shouldn't be in the same clothes all the time."

"That sounds like something Ceres taught you." Gabumon commented.

"She mentioned it once to TK, because he wanted some idea on what a thief should be like."

"When they get back, ask what they want." Matt said, "but nothing that stands out, okay?"

"Right! So can we make this into a contest?"

"I don't see why not." Matt brought out the food, "but I don't lose so easily."

"We're going to beat you!" I laughed, "We're going to be called… Fortune Spark."

"Fortune Spark?"

"I'm learning to be a fortune-teller and Lightningmon has electric attacks."

"I see…… Then we'll be called Timeless Memories."

"Why?" That struck at me for some reason.

"We know a lot about the Digital World's past, making them timeless and memories." He smiled.

"And today doesn't count."

"Fair enough."

Then Lily Dawn and Neon walked in. "Wow! You got that much?" Lily Dawn asked since Matt made a big dinner.

"Yep!" Matt smiled, "And it's still warm so go ahead and eat. Where were you guys anyway?" We all came to the table. I just then realized that they also didn't just steal food.

"We went looking around." Neon said before picking up a piece of meat. "So far, nothing looks promising."

"Maybe you should look around the business strict." I offered.

"We would need to take the bus." Lily Dawn said, pouring chocolate onto her food since they got the chocolate syrup.

I looked at Matt and he sighed, "Fine."

"You're giving in a bit too easily." Gabumon commented.

"If we need it, we need it, what can I say?" He ate something.

"What?" Lily Dawn and Neon asked.

"We're going to have a contest on who can steal the most." I smiled.

"Why am I going to be the first to say that that's not a good idea?" Lily Dawn looked at Matt, "I mean, I know we need food, but money too?"

"And clothes." Matt added, "Besides that, it's not a bad skill to have."

"I can't believe I just heard that." Neon said.

"You trained in a bit of ninjijutsu, right?" Neon nodded, "And stealing information and such is apart of that. Digimon," He looked at them, "Don't you think that this skill is a useful one?"

Bellimon and Gladiolusmon thought about it for a while. "It's not always good, but I do have to admit that it can be useful." Gladiolusmon said.

"I would also have to agree." Bellimon said.

"Nereida," Lily Dawn looked at me, "If you do this for things other than what's approved by the group, Tim isn't the only one that's going to be chewing your ass off, got it?"

I blinked before smiling softly, "Understood."

"That goes for me too." Neon said.

"And Matt," She looked at him, making him pause. "you need to stop being a bad influence and you better not let Panther do this when we get back, otherwise I'm going to do the same thing to you."

Matt started to laugh, "Panther doesn't want to go back to what she was, so don't worry about that." He smiled.

When we were done, we all went to sleep. Matt and Gabumon were sleeping on the floor since Lightningmon was with me and Neon and Lily Dawn were together. There wasn't enough room for Gabumon on the bed.

"Lightningmon," I whispered to her.

"Hm?" She opened her eyes to look at me.

I smiled, "I love this group."

She hugged me, "I know."

"Are you okay with this?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." I closed my eyes. With what Lily Dawn and Neon said made me happy, since they just told me that they care about me. I hugged Lightningmon, glad that she was here with me. She was like a mother and a sister. Grandmother was awesome and all, but I didn't feel like I could connect with her too well. I really wished I could have Heka back.

[Matt

So, the next morning, we headed out. Neon and Lily Dawn were still going to try around here, since they needed money for the trip to the business side. Before we headed out, we decided to have it on what we could steal and how much we stole. We would place them in our corners in the room, returning for lunch and dinner. I wouldn't allow us to go out during the night because that's too dangerous for Nereida. Not that she couldn't defend herself against anyone, I just didn't want to put her in that situation. Gabumon and I were walking around the open market that was out, looking at all the clothes that were there. Some of the things, I was kinda embarrassed that I was seeing them.

I stopped to look at some wonderful robes. Something about them seemed to draw me to them, but for our game, I couldn't steal it because it would make us stand out way too much. I noticed some clothes in the next stand, glad I would watch it from where I was. I noticed that it wouldn't be too much trouble to steal anything from him. I also realized that I would need sunglasses and a hat since I stand out too much as it is.

":Pardon me, your highness.:" I turned around to see this beautiful woman weaving another robe on the spot, but I could swear that she wasn't there before, ":Are you interested in a robe?:"

":No thanks. They're beautiful, though.:" I looked at them, not lying about that.

":Only fit for deities.:" She smiled.

I looked at her, "You're…"

"Of course." She bowed, "I would be honor to weave you and your friends robes to wear if you wish."

"Don't you need our measurements?"

"We know your group." She went back to weaving. "What do you say?"

I didn't know what to say, since for some reason I wanted to. "Okay, but only one and make it amazing. It's not for wear."

"Robes are meant to be worn." She pointed out as she pulled out another shuttle.

"I just want something else to remember this. Can you show the ones that aren't in China?"

She smiled, "I'll have it ready by tomorrow."

"Thanks. Um…"

"Your highness, do not worry about money."

"Thanks. And thank you for doing this."

"It is an honor." She bowed.

I bowed back before heading out. I decided that I would hit something else far away, because I didn't want her to see it. I needed to remember to ask for her name later. I then started to hit stands left and right, with Gabumon helping. We got a lot of clothes before hitting the food places. I wasn't doing anything in order to steal everything. I know this isn't a natural thing for me to do, but at the same time, it was. We took a break, drinking some tea that we stole too.

"Should we head back?" Gabumon asked. We were on the roof of a building. It was really dirty so I cleaned it before we sat down. The city looked awesome like this.

I looked at the sun, "I guess... Should we get meat on our next run?"

Gabumon nodded, "Do you trust that goddess?"

"I didn't sense anything to worry about, but we'll keep an eye open." I got up, "What did you think?" I looked at him.

He got up too, "I think the Chinese deities like you."

I smiled, "Don't know why, though. Should we do something for them before we leave then?"

"I think they would like that."

I looked out into the direction of the sea, remembering that we still have to heal another Deity. I wondered if he could come after us here. "I guess we can look around to see how we can honor them." I said as I jumped down from the building in an ally way.

"That can work." Gabumon was running down the side of the building, jumping off and landing when we were closer. "Then we can get those and not let Nereida know."

"Okay. Let's go see whose winning." Gabumon and I then went back to the hotel.

Lily Dawn and Neon were there first. "Is Nereida back?" I asked as I started to unload our stuff in our corner.

"Not yet… why did you get all that?" Lily Dawn came over to look.

"For the contest. I don't like to lose." I smiled. I got a notebook and pen so we can keep track. I already took down my inventory, so Neon was putting away the food.

"I can't believe you're doing this, though." Neon said.

Then Lightningmon and Nereida came in, first looking at our pile. "Aw man!" She said as they unloaded theirs. It was clear who won this time. I went over to her, handing over the notebook and pen. She then wrote what she got.

"Did anyone get money?" Neon asked.

"Want to make that the goal for this trip?" I looked at her.

"Okay!" She said with determination, it was kinda funny.

We had lunch together, hearing that Neon and Lily Dawn weren't having any luck around here. They would go out when we did, though.

So, once we were done, we headed out again. Gabumon and I went to a place that was run down. I was asking the old folk if they remember the time when they had deities. Some remembered, but only a few remembered how they were honored. It was pretty much prayer worship, with incense to grab their attention. There weren't any sacrifices, which was probably a good thing. Once we got that, we went into a public area and were taking money left and right. When it was pretty late, we went to a roof top again and counted what we got. With wallets, I sent them back to the owner without the cash in it. We got a lot of money this way.

"Do you think that you should teach Nereida tomorrow?" Gabumon asked as we were heading back.

"Why?" I looked at him.

"Do you want to be fair?"

I thought about it, "Well, orphans have to learn their own tricks. And if she wants to be an actress, then she has to use that talent for this. She's able to get what she needs once she finds what works."

I handed over the money to Lily Dawn when we got back in, writing the amount down in the notebook.

"Where did you learn to do this?" Lily Dawn asked.

"Don't know." I sat down. "Any luck?"

"Nope." Neon said. "We should be able to eat and head over with all that money. Should we be saving some too?"

I shrugged, "I just get the money."

Then they came back in. She went straight for the notebook and wrote down her amount as Lightningmon placed it down. It was quite a bit, making me look at her number.

"I got one more coin than you." I laughed.

She growled.

"How did you get this?" Lily Dawn asked.

"I did a sideshow, street performance of literature from China that I knew." I smiled to myself, glad that she found a way to use her talent. "And while I was doing that, Lightningmon was at the back of the crowd, taking things as she could."

"Matt, why not perform too?" Neon offered as she lay out the food, "I mean, you were once a singer."

"Okay, tomorrow morning, we'll do that then." I looked at Nereida, "Do you want to try that again or go with actual pick pocketing?"

"I tried to pick pocket, but I wasn't able to do it." She confessed.

"I'll teach you after dinner then."

So once the meal was done, I started to show Nereida the tricks of pick pocketing. Lily Dawn and Neon and the Digimon were watching as I was showing her. She got it down fast, so she was perfecting it before we went to bed.

[Nereida

Lightningmon and I were in an open market, since the people would need cash here more. I was able to get the money from the people more easily. I was also distracting everyone by making witty comments or loud comments in crowded areas and start complaining to draw crowd. All of this was tiring work but it was a lot of fun. I was even able to practice some of the motions and expressions that I've seen Ceres do. I found that how Ceres acts is the best way of doing this kind of work. I wondered if she ever had to steal before.

"I wonder how Matt did." I said as we were walking back over. Lightningmon had already counted the money by this time.

"We'll soon find out." She opened the door, and we saw him placing the food on the table. It wasn't as big as all the other times, since Lily Dawn and Neon were going to eat in the city. I went over to the notebook and wrote down what we did. "How did you do?" I asked as Lightningmon placed it in a jar that one of us got.

"I did pretty well." He said.

"Better than me?" I wanted to know.

"The same amount."

"What did you do?"

"I performed and Gabumon took. I played my harmonica and sang songs of old and new."

"And you did the same as me?"

"Yep. Most of it came from Gabumon's job, though."

"Ours was equal." Lightningmon informed.

"So, how did it go?" Gabumon asked.

"We toped your number." I said with an attitude.

"So you think you're hot now?" Matt asked with a laugh. "Now, let's try meat tonight."

"Meat?"

"Yeah, from a slaughter house."

"How?"

"I'll show you the target place afterwards." He smiled.

We then ate the meal, talking about the people we saw while we were performing. When we were done, Matt led us to a place that was an open food market in a building. He first showed me what was here, allowing me to get a feel of the place. The top was where the meat was, so that's where we were going to start. We were going to steal as much as we could from each floor. Matt informed me that we were going to cook and clean everything thoroughly so I didn't have to worry about how I got it hidden or wrapped.

I was excited for this challenge. This was like placing everything I had on the line. I couldn't mess up on this, because I couldn't pretend like I was doing something else with it like I could in the market. We each got a different part of the building to start out, but we were allowed to enter each other's area. And to add to the fun, we were even allowed to steal from each other if we saw it right. To make it fair as well, we changed the location where the device was placed so we had to also figure out where we were placing it.

I studied the people first, making sure I knew how this thing functioned. Tim had always preached that we should always understand what was around us, and the only way to do that was study. I normally used that philosophy to pick up behaviors and lines and expressions. Once I got the mode of the place, I went to work.

I was drawing in a crowd anyway I could. Once I did that, I took my chance of taking the meat that he was cutting, seeing that that was the easiest way of doing it. As I was doing so, and succeeding, I noticed that it took a lot of confidence that I didn't have to pull that off. I had kept my calm and my cool and look as if everything was fine. I knew that Ceres was like that a lot, in fact, a lot of them were. They had that look that they are in control of everything. I was never like that before, which made me smile as I went around.

I tried different ways of getting it, even getting bold with just talking to the butcher himself. Lightningmon was also stealing meat when she could. We did go over to Matt's side, though we didn't see him. I could tell where he hit though, since they had a confused look on their faces. I got even bolder and hit there as well. I let Lightningmon get the meat, since I wasn't sure how Matt got them.

Once we were done, we headed to the next level. I didn't run into Matt until the last floor. He acted like he didn't see me, though I was positive that he did. I was minding my own business when I sense that something was going to happen soon. I grabbed to the left of me, where Lightningmon was, to find that Gabumon was about to steal from me.

"Nice try." I said as I let go.

He laughed, "Yep. Good job." He then went over to where Matt was talking to one of the ladies there. He was flirting with her, giving a quick wink to me as Gabumon reached him. I went back to what I was doing, though soon tried to go after Matt. I wasn't able to get anything from him, though.

"Are you done?" Matt asked after my twentieth time of my attempt.

"Yeah." I said in an annoyed voice.

He smiled, "Let's go then." And we headed out.

"What should we do next?" I asked.

"We'll decide that when we get back. We should first find out if we need to do anything for tomorrow."

"Good point." I said and then we talked about the people we stole from, laughing at them a bit.

"Who won in the morning?" Neon asked as we came into the door.

"I did!" I raised my hand.

"And we're about to see who won this time." Matt said as we went into the kitchen. "Did you just get back?"

"Yeah, and we couldn't get into the buildings to see if they knew Kaiba-sama." Lily Dawn said. "We're going to try again tomorrow, though."

"Okay, good, you can help us prepare the fresh food we got then." He then laid out what he got on one side. I was really impressed that he got all that. As Neon was taking the inventory, we reached to find that we had one thing each. We looked at each other before quickly looking at Matt, "How?!" We both asked, making them laugh.

"You have to be aware of your surroundings. What I did was just a decoy." Gabumon said.

"And every time you tried to steal from us, we stole from you." Matt revealed.

"You were stealing from each other?" Lily Dawn asked.

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Because, when you're out on the streets, you not only have to be careful of those you're stealing from, but other thieves who are willing to steal from you."

We pouted as we cleaned the meat and cooked everything we had. It was a good thing that Neon and Lily Dawn could eat a lot, since they were able to finish it off. Tomorrow, we decided that the morning would be another steal or be stolen contest.

We were in an open mall place for this one. It was quite busy with people walking around the place.

"Okay, I'll start at the other end of it. Also, not only money, but things too."

"Why things?" Lightningmon asked.

"Because thieves also steal things, not just food and money. Once you can steal one thing, it becomes easier to steal other things off of people."

"I didn't realize you wanted me to be so bad." I said with a laugh.

Matt laughed, "If you don't want to, we don't have to. I just thought you would want to add excitement every time we go out. We've up the level every time."

That was true, "So, what are you trying to teach me through this?"

"Who knows when this will be useful, right? If there comes a time when stealing is needed, and the prime two aren't there for some reason, then there's another that can do so. Also, you're very quick on your toes, so if you're able to take things without anyone, and I mean anyone, then you'll be able to gain upper hands in many situations."

"I see… so if I can steal these small things, then I can steal bigger things?"

"Right." He smiled, "I know that Ceres and Panther are also quick on their feet, but having more than one can't hurt. Besides, they would be uncomfortable doing, it seems, at least Panther. Also, people that know them would be watching them more than they would be watching you."

I nodded, "Alright! I'll try my best."

He smiled before he and Gabumon left. I then took a deep breath before looking at Lightningmon, "Ready?"

She smiled, "Always." And we went into the crowd.

[Me

We were able to get quite a good amount before meeting back up with them. I smiled at how they tried to hide when they spotted us, not knowing that we saw them long before that. As we were trying to steal from each other, I gave them lots of openings, including the ones that weren't obvious. Though, since I was looking out for her, I didn't allow her to get anything from me, but she also didn't allow me to get anything either. I was glad, though, that she was able to see all the openings that I gave her.

After a while of this, as well as stealing from others, I looked at Gabumon. He gave me a smile that told me he got them. I nodded and headed back over to where we began since I haven't been down there yet. I was still stealing, as I headed down, taking a seat near the entrance to show that I was waiting.

She came over after an hour or so since she went over to where I was. "Are we done?" She asked.

"Yep." I got up, "Let's go."

"What are we going to do about the items?" She asked as we were closer to the hotel.

"I haven't thought that far yet."

"Well, it's not like we can give them back." She sighed.

"I can."

"How?" She looked at me.

"I can teleport them back to their owner."

She stared at me for a moment before smiling, "Okay."

When we lay out what we got, I found out that Nereida went for a lot of jewelry. We did the inventory before we went through each one to see what was actually valuable. We discovered that not many were, and that was from both groups. I also put that into the notebook before I sent everything that wasn't money back to the owners.

"So why were we checking the value?" Lightningmon asked.

"If it has no value, then why steal it?"

"So I guess that you weren't good at seeing that either, huh?"

"Not when I have to get a quick look at it and decided with that first glance."

"Who won?" Gabumon asked.

I went through it all, since we have to factor the thought value and the real value. "Fortune Spark."

"Alright!" They said as they gave each other a high five. I looked out the window to see that it was pass the time we go out for the second run.

"What do you want to do tomorrow?"

"How about you teach us to steal so that no one knows that we did? Obviously, we were caught when we tried and Gabumon was able to get things from us." Lightningmon said. "If we need to be good, then we might as well try it."

"I agree." Gabumon said. "We should now teach."

"Okay, so tomorrow morning will be for training and then tomorrow evening, we'll test it out again?" I offered.

They nodded and we then cooked the food that we still had in the place.

[Lily Dawn

We got back to find that Matt and Nereida were cooking already. They were using up the food that they had gotten before.

"Who won?" Neon asked.

"Nereida and Lightningmon." Gabumon said.

"How was your day?" Matt asked.

"We got half of the place looked at, but still nothing. I don't know if this will give us anything." I said as we sat down.

"Do you still need money?" Nereida asked as she placed the food down.

"We have enough for tomorrow." Neon said.

"Okay. I'm sure you'll be able to find someone." She smiled.

"The problem isn't finding someone; it's getting to talk to that person. I guess they don't believe us when we say that we know him."

"If you don't feel revengeful, then don't take down names." Matt warned from the kitchen.

"Why?" I asked.

He placed the last of it down since they sat down once he did, "Because I'm sure that Seto is looking for us as well. Besides, if he's not and learned that we could've come back sooner through a connection of his, I'm sure he'll make that person pay."

"Because of you?" Bellimon asked.

He smiled, "We're friends."

"Oh yeah, TK said that you were with Kaiba-sama at that conference, the day you got back, is that true?" I asked.

"Yeah, I was with him. I also worried him because I was coughing up blood in front of him." He laughed a bit. "I was planning on heading back home before the conference, but that didn't happen."

I wondered how it would've been if he was there before going. How would things have played out? I guess we'll never know.

The bus is pretty crowded when we get on in the morning. I let Neon sit since she's the more obvious out of the two of us. She also talks to the ladies on the bus, though I never know what they're talking about since they talk really fast. They're in their fourth year of it, so I can only understand the words and a few phrases. They've been teaching us the basic, though Matt had helped with everything else before Ceres came. Since the school doesn't have anything higher, they're going to go into a college for it. Though, why they had always wanted to learn Chinese, I never learned.

"Why did you learn Chinese?" I asked as we were walking around the crowded, though cold, city. I am grateful for the clothes that they got us, but I don't like the idea that it was stolen.

"When I make it big, China is going to be my start for the world." She smiled, "So I learned it on my own for a while before Don decided to join me. Once he did, we got better quickly and then our parents managed to get us into a class for it four years ago."

"That's pretty awesome."

"Do you want to go to America after Japan?"

"Yeah! My idol did that so I'm mimicking her a bit." I smiled. I then placed my hand on my stomach, "Though, I guess I would have to wait for a while before that."

"Maybe." She smiled, "Having two deities for parents might make a miracle happen."

I smiled, "If I choose to be a goddess."

We then went into the building that was a big corporation. They wouldn't let us talk to the boss, again, even though we were saying that we knew Kaiba-sama. We do this for every one, but no one let us talk to their boss.

As we were taking a break, I wrote down all the ones that we couldn't get inside, not for the revenge thing, but so we know which ones we don't need to hit. I looked down the road, seeing that we only had a few more to go before we can give up on that idea. Though, if we could find out where the nearest space company is, we could always get Matt here so he could talk to them.

Then, we heard an explosion. We looked at each other before looking where the screaming Chinese were running away from. We saw lightning coming up from the ground and we ran towards there. Thor was hitting random things as he was coming down the road. We were standing out rather quickly, and there was nothing behind him. He smiled wickedly at us as he raised his hammer.

Right then, the police came from behind him, and then behind us. They grabbed our arms and pulled us behind them, yelling something at us. They then took aim and started to fire, but none were being affective. When he looked like he had had enough, he swung his hammer all around him, getting everyone there. I noticed that he put enough power behind that to kill them, since they were frying afterwards. I never felt more afraid. Before, I didn't want to deal with them, but now I have a child coming.

[Neon

Lily Dawn wasn't able to do anything, and I couldn't allow him to get us without a fight.

"Gladiolusmon Digievolves to…………………… Sunflowermon!" She looked like a sunflower too, though with pink petals. "Sun Shine!" A beam came from her head and shot at Thor, blinding him.

"Lily Dawn!" I yelled at her and grabbed her shoulder so she could face me, "You can't be scared!"

"But…"

I smiled kindly at her, "Your child wants you to live too. Believe in that."

It took her a while before she could nod. At that moment, Bellimon jumped away from her, "Bellimon Warp Digievolves to…………………….. L-Valleimon!" She grew into a huge plant with a white, bell shaped flowers on her, one for her head and two more for her hands and others scattered on her body in random spots. "Sweet Bell!" She then started to do this dance, making a bell sound as she was doing so. The sound was aimed at Thor, making him also back up a bit, but then he swung his hammer. Sunflowermon ran over to L-Valleimon, placing her roots on her as the attack went to her. And through them, it went into the ground, missing us. They seemed fine as well.

Thor now looked pissed off.

"Thor!" I yelled over to him, "Why are you helping the Greeks? What do you have to gain from them?"

"I will gain back our glory!" He said and swung. Lily Dawn moved me away from the path.

"Do you think that they'll allow you the chance?" I asked. "If they rule now with an iron fist, then why would they allow it? Why would they give you the chance?"

"I have nothing else!" He swung again. "I have nothing else to aim for! Odin is ruling now! I have nothing else!" And he now kept on swinging.

"He wants you back! He wants you two to be friends once again!"

"What?" He stopped.

"Whatever history you two have has passed. Over the years, he has grown to respect you and care for you. He asked us to bring you back. He doesn't want you to work for the Greeks."

He looked confused for a moment before smiling. At that moment, he started to scream and hold his head. I couldn't tell what was going on, though. He then looked at us again and started to swing again. I knew he was glad, so why was he still attacking? I then felt my Crest coming from him. He wanted us to forgive him for this.

"Sunflowermon Warp Digievolves to…………………………… Maho Elfmon!" She became an elf, with a lyre in her hands. She also had pig tails and orange hair. She was relatively my height and had on clothes that kinda made her look like she was from a desert region.

"Maho Elfmon!" I called to her before she did anything. She looked at me, allowing me to see that she also had make-up and earrings on as well, "Something's wrong with him. I don't know what it is, but he wants to stop."

She nodded and before she could do something, she was hit with lightning. I was about to as well, since I was away from Lily Dawn by this point, but Lightningmon absorbed it and shot it back at Thor.

"Are you guys okay?" I looked back to see that Nereida and Matt were riding on Garurumon. He landed and Nereida came over to me.

I looked at Lily Dawn to make sure that she was before running over to Maho Elfmon. "Are you okay?" I got down with her.

"Yeah," She smiled at me, getting up, "You should stay with the others." She was now standing.

"I'm not about…"

"Neon." Nereida said, making me look at her because of her tone. "Think of your kids." She then pulled me over to where Lily Dawn and Matt were.

"Are you really going to let only the Digimon to fight?" I asked as Gabumon came back. "Thor doesn't want to do this anymore."

"Then we'll hold him down." Gabumon went over to the other Digimon, who were now in a line.

"Gabumon Warp Digievolves to…………………………………… Metal Garurumon!"

"Matt!" I looked at him.

"Do you really thing that anything but a Mega would be able to hold him down?" Matt asked.

I looked back when I heard him releasing his lightning. Lightningmon took it and the others were going around him. She shot it back again and the others shot their attacks. L-Valleimon did her Sweet Bell, Metal Garurumon did his Icy Breath, and Maho Elfmon was playing sweet music with her lyre, but I didn't hear what her attack was. They all hit Thor at the same time, but he was still standing up. He then called thunder clouds over us, making it now really cold and wet. Matt placed his jacket over Lily Dawn and Nereida did the same for me.

Lightning was now striking everywhere. They were protecting us from it and the Digimon were dodging it and his attacks. Lightningmon was using this to her advantage, though. I could feel his sorrow, his desire to stop. I wanted them to heal him. Right then, Metal Garurumon was able to get him knocked down to the ground. Lightningmon used her lightning to tie him down. Maho Elfmon and L-Valleimon looked at each other and nodded.

"Healing!" L-Valleimon yelled and a spray of pollen came from her flowers.

"Flower Spell! Take out the evil within!" Maho Elfmon yelled, her hands glowing as she did.

The pollen went straight for Thor, attaching to him instantly. He started to scream again, as though not in pain like it was before. The pollen then collected above him and Lightningmon, with him fainting and Lightningmon letting him go.

"Spark!" She yelled.

"Metal Wolf Claw!" Metal Garurumon yelled, both aiming for the ball of pollen, destroying it.

I went over to Thor as our Digimon went back down. "Thor?" I asked as I got near him.

He moaned as he opened his eyes. He looked at me, taking a moment before smiling. "Thank you."

I smiled back, "You're welcome."

"Are you okay?" Matt asked as he came up with everyone, handing me a tired Gladiolusmon to me.

"Yes, I am." He got up, "Thank you."

Matt smiled, "I'm just glad that you're alright."

Thor seemed taken back for a moment, "I have always heard that you wouldn't…"

"That's not this group. The other two groups, I would have to say that they wouldn't care. But we do."

He nodded, "I am sorry for the trouble I have caused."

"But it did help us, so don't worry about it." Nereida said. I could tell that even though he did kill the driver, we all didn't mind it. I thought that was kinda funny.

Then the clouds went away, "I am glad that I was able to provide assistance." He then started to walk away.

"Say hi to Odin and Freyja for us." Lily Dawn said.

He looked at us and nodded before continuing.

"Okay, now we have to get back as well." Matt said and we all headed away from the place. Before we did, though, I paid my respects for the fallen police officers.

"Are you two okay?" Nereida asked as we were on the bus.

"Yeah, though we should probably put up the heater." Lily Dawn said, holding Larkspurmon in her arms.

"Okay. We'll also get a bath going. So, any luck?" Matt asked.

"Nope. No one was willing to let us inside." I said.

"Do you think that I should come with you?"

"It couldn't hurt."

"Are you going to steal?" Lily Dawn looked at Nereida.

She smiled, "Maybe."

"Who won?" I asked after Lily Dawn and I took a warm bath. Matt also got the room warm and they were cooking dinner.

"We did." Matt said. "So we're winning so far." He smiled as Nereida pouted.

"Are you going to steal tomorrow?"

"When we're outside, but otherwise no."

"Even on the bus?" I asked, "Because I know some of the ladies on the bus we take."

"Not on the bus then." He smiled. "Okay, the food is ready."

The next morning, everyone was coming along. Matt was also talking to the ladies. They were giving me pointers on what to do after I have my kids and what I shouldn't do. I was remembering it, since they were all very useful tips. They liked that Matt was charming them, though they knew that he wasn't my husband since I told them all about Don. Nereida was keeping Lily Dawn company.

When we got into the city, we went to where we had stopped and was about to start it up again, but we started to hear a helicopter. We looked up, as did everyone else, to see that it was black and pretty big and heavy since it needed two rotors. The side door opened and a ladder was thrown down to us, since it was right above us. Then Kaiba-sama popped his head out.

"Okay," Matt said as he grabbed the ladder to make it steady with a big smile, "Head on up."

Lightningmon and Nereida went up first, followed by Lily Dawn. I went up after her, finding a bit of a pain in my stomach as I did so. I didn't like it one bit, since I knew this wasn't a good sign, but I ignored it. Lily Dawn and Nereida helped me up. Kaiba-sama showed us where to sit, though once making sure that we were fastened, he went back to the door. He grabbed Matt's hand, who had smiled as he was being pulled up. He got into a seat as Kaiba-sama closed the door.

"Is everyone okay?" He asked in his cold voice.

"Yeah, we're all fine." Matt said.

"Good. We're getting everyone else as well."

"What?" We all asked together.

"I managed to find where everyone was, and sent my copters to get them. TK should also be happy to see everyone back."

Matt smiled, "I'm sorry for worrying you and for not keeping my promise."

"You're fine now."

I kinda wondered what that was about, but then didn't really care. I was so glad that I would see Don again. I held my tears in, because I didn't want to cry in front of Kaiba-sama.