Digimon Adventure 06: Data

by YukiraKing

Three years have passed since Yggdrasil's defeat, and the digidestined thought they had brought about peace, but things are not always as they seem. New foes threaten that peace, and the digidestined struggle to hold on to what little they can. Will they be able to fend off these foes, or will peace elude them forever?

38. Wild Goose Chase

Y/N: Mimi's was pretty intense this time around.

U/N: Okay, Michael xD So he goes a little insane in this one and it lasts for a while too... I guess it makes sense that not everyone can let everything they go through roll right off their back. It was kind of fun and really really easy to write, so that probably means it isn't good, but that's alright xD

Title: Digimon Adventure 06: Data

By: YukiraKing and UrazamayKing

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

Part 4: War

Chapter 38: Wild Goose Chase

Mimi Tachikawa:

I couldn't believe this was happening. Just a couple of minutes ago we were happy. We were heading to the Coliseum, we were going to be safe forever. My parents were finally in the Digital World, and Minervamon was here and they were all going to be safe with me. But we weren't safe, Palmon and me. We were running for our lives because Palmon had gotten tagged by one of their tracking devices.

I felt like such a failure.

I'd seen the welts on Takeru's face, I saw Fumiko nursing her wounded arm. They'd jumped in front of the tracking devices and taken the brunt of the blast, saving Meiyomon and his brothers from being hit. I hadn't done that for Palmon. When the first shot fired, I'd let go of her hand. I thought she'd run and escape and meet me at the Coliseum, or go back to Koushiro at the Temple. I didn't think she would wait around and get hit. I wanted to save her, by being the distraction.

I'd been stupid enough to forget I was invisible, and therefore unable to be an effective distraction.

Now Palmon had been hit, because of my own stupid mistakes, and I'd let Hideto save her. His voice was so calm, so relaxed. He knew what he was doing and he was still in charge of his actions. I was a mess. I knew it. Palmon knew it too, because she was the same. We both piled all of our emotions close to our heart, but tried to be strong for one another. I knew she cried when she thought I wasn't around. I tried so hard to keep my emotions in check, but they were always bubbling over. It was just so hard.

Everything was meant to be simpler. We were supposed to be enjoying picnics and baking cookies with Mom, enjoying the sunshine and the togetherness of all our friends. But it wasn't like that at all. We were on the run, Palmon bearing a tracking device that would always lead the enemy directly to us. We would never be able to take a break. We'd never be able to slow down and smell the roses. We had to keep moving at all times.

Those two blonde haired, glasses wearing demons weren't the only DWD in the Digital World. I was fairly certain that we had them all running at us all the time. We had to stay one step ahead. If we didn't, I'd lose Palmon. And I couldn't let that happen. So I kept her hand firmly grasped in my own, knowing that we couldn't go to Coliseum for safety, and we couldn't lead the DWD to Fanglongmon's old base, or Neverland, or Primary Village, or to Piximon's safe haven. We couldn't go anywhere, not even back to the Temple. There were so many of DWD's soldiers waiting there, we'd never get through them all. They'd know Palmon's exact location, and unless I let her digivolve—which would bring even more unwanted attention—she wouldn't be able to get into the Temple. She could fly over the walls as Lilymon, and Mari and I could slip through the gate. But they'd just shoot Lilymon out of the air and I'd still lose her.

So we ran, and we would keep running, forever if we had to. I would not lose Palmon.

But we wouldn't need to continue forever. Koushiro was working hard with his team to free the digimon from the very same tracking devices that Palmon wore. Once he could safely free all of the digimon at the Temple, I knew he'd come find me. He loved Palmon too. He'd never said it, but he'd barely ever told me that he loved me. It didn't make it any less true though. It just made it more special when he actually voiced his feelings.

He wouldn't let us be caught; he wouldn't leave us to die out here.

And then when he did come, we would go to the Coliseum, and we would be happy together with our friends and our families, and we'd be safe together within an invisible new home protected by a shield and everyone could be happy.

But for now, I ran.

Palmon was shaking like a leaf in my hand, and her legs were much short than mine. She kept tripping and stumbling and I felt like a horrid person for pushing her so much, forcing her to do more than she was able to, but I was so scared for her, I couldn't risk a slower pace. It helped that Mari was holding her other hand, so that every time Palmon tripped, we just pulled her arms higher—as though she was a carefree toddler and not in danger of losing her life—and swung her through the air, letting her feet touch the ground safely once more.

We didn't talk, we just ran. We needed to get as much distance between us and those rotten DWD demons as possible, because they were worse than any digimon we'd ever faced, and I didn't want to have to deal with being in their presence. With all of our digimon enemies, we'd known that even if our digimon were killed, we'd get them back again. We didn't want it to happen of course, and I was so pleased and thankful that it had never happened to Palmon, but it could have if the very worst had happened. But with these humans, if she died, that was it, forever. I'd be alone and never see her again.

How could it be that the Great Evils had more humanity than humankind seemed to?

When we fought the Great Evils—so long as we were in the Digital World, and let's face it, we mostly always were—we had a failsafe. The Great Evils knew it too. That's why the tended to pick the Digital World as their battle ground. The failsafe worked in their favour too. They would be reborn and would have a chance to try again later. It was how Lucemon had fought against the original digidestined and was still around to work for Daemon when he was needed. It was how we'd faced Apocolymon and the Dark Masters and LadyDevimon so many times. It was the reason that Devimon was always trying to take over the Digital World—I had to hand it to the guy, he never accepted defeat; he always bounced back. Myotismon had even found a way around the death he would've been dealt when he was on Earth, by possessing that man.

But the DWD weren't going to give anyone the second—or third, or fourth, or fifth—chance that the Digital World was fond of giving. Each digimon had the choice to allow the darkness to influence them. A lot of them did, since courting the darkness allowed them to digivolve further, quicker. But they also had the choice to simply ignore it. And sometimes all it took was a kind action, or a thoughtful phrase to remind a digimon that there was still something good worth fighting for.

That's how Mom and Minervamon met after all.

The Digital World was a kind and beautiful place where second chances were always given. I'd been rotten so many times in my past, but by gifting me the crest of purity, the Digital World had afforded me so many chances too. It wasn't just a good place for Digimon. And even when the evils of the Digital World overflowed and threatened to destroy more than itself, the Digital World always had ways to ensure that it didn't happen. They had the Digidestined, and now they had the Knights and the Council. They were a self-sufficient world, that took care of their own problems, never asking for anything from anyone.

Earth was different.

I'd never thought it would be, but it was. They always wanted the Digital World to solve its problems—most were caused by the Digimon, but that was irrelevant—demanding that the issues be taken care of, but never doing anything in return.

I was there when the digimon were cast off of Earth into a black abyss. I'd travelled through so many years to be there, to see it happen. I knew that humans could be horrid, but I'd thought they'd changed. And I knew there was so much progress from that time to the modern one. Women were people, racism, while still around was criticized greatly, and had greatly diminished. We accepted different sexual orientations, and animal cruelty, abuse and bullying were all topics that people actively fought against. We were owning up to societies mistakes and trying to obliterate them.

But they still, after all of these years, couldn't accept digimon, even though they were a part of our world from the beginning. It was their natural home too until the humans banned them from calling it such. They threw them in a black hole and now they were chasing them down in the home Hiraga built for them, trying to take that away from them too.

I was almost glad that Gennai wasn't around to see it. He didn't deserve to see his hard work, Hiraga's hard work be attacked so furiously. He didn't need to see his precious friends being shot at, to see his handpicked digidestined unable to do anything to save it. He was better off not knowing.

I felt like I'd failed him too, not just Palmon.

Tears threatened to fall from my eyes, but still I forced my feet to keep going. I didn't have time to cry yet. I could cry later, when this was all over and Palmon was safe, and I was with my mother, and my father and all of my friends. I could cry out of relief and happiness. That was the best kind of crying. It meant things were going right, and that everything was fine.

I wished it was that way now.

Palmon would never blame me for letting go of her hand. I knew she wouldn't, because that was the way she was. But I would never forgive myself. It was a mistake that shouldn't have happened. If I'd just held on to her hand I could've protected her from that stupid tracking device and we wouldn't be running now. I hated to run. I wasn't good at it. I worked at a restaurant—preferably in the kitchen—or I used to. I didn't have any real need to be able to run a marathon. I was on my feet enough to get a healthy amount of exercise, but that was it. No. I wouldn't forgive myself for doing this to Palmon—she hated running even more than me. She preferred to fly in the open skies as Lilymon and see the world from above. And I couldn't even give her that right now. But Hideto was my saving grace. He protected Palmon when I couldn't, and I'd never had a chance to properly thank him for it. We'd had such a short amount of time, and he was on a mission. He was going to save as many digimon as he could in as short of time as he could. It was commendable really.

And I felt like such a horrid person. If I could put any digimon at all in Palmon's position right now I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd still be running with them at my side, but I wanted so desperately for it to not be Palmon. And it made me feel so bad. It was a selfish desire, but it was real. I wanted it so badly, and I hated myself for wishing another digimon was in danger. I loved all the digimon, but Palmon was special and precious to me. I knew who I was, and I could be selfish, I could be petulant and I was whiny and annoying sometimes. But I couldn't—and wouldn't—change that. That was what my crest meant, owning up to my faults and keeping them anyway, loving myself for who I was.

I just found it so hard to love that part of me in that moment.

But I would be strong and fight for Palmon, because she was my best friend in the entire world. She was the other half of my coin, the bread to my butter. She was the best part of me, and the sweetest, most beautiful person I'd ever met in my entire life. She was everything to me. And I wouldn't let DWD take that away. They were demons in my eyes, not soldiers. Soldiers fought for their country. These guys were out and about before the war was declared. They were just rebels that had infiltrated the government and the police force and the schools. They were everywhere, but they weren't soldiers. They were manipulative, and preyed on whatever weaknesses they could find in a person's mind, converting them over to their beliefs little by little, just as a demon did.

It might be a bold statement, but I stood by it. Because to me, what they were doing, was worse than anything the Great Evils had ever done—except perhaps Daemon and Lucemon, when they fused with the other five deadly sin digimon and killed Lalamon while Mari watched helplessly—and it was unforgivable.

I glanced over my shoulder, looking for the woman. Yorokobi. Hideto had said her name. Taichi had said something about her. Said that she took Gomamon, by calling her mother and brother to track down Momoe and take him from her by force. Taichi had also come right out and said that they were Hideto's family. Yorokobi and the man had looked similar enough for me to name him as her father. But neither looked much like Hideto at all. His colouring was the opposite of theirs, and he generally had a smile—smirks or otherwise—on his face. They looked cold and mean. Hideto hadn't even looked that serious and frightening when he was actively working against us as a member of Alias III.

I knew they were bad news.

I also knew that I wanted to be with Hideto right then, trying to help him through whatever it was he was dealing with right then. He'd never mentioned his family to me before, not even in passing. And he still hadn't. I didn't know if he knew that Taichi had told everyone at the Temple. I didn't know if word had spread over to the Coliseum yet. I didn't want him to be shunned because of his relatives the way the fight club digimon, Wizardmon and Andromon were shunned because of their tracking devices.

Palmon could be added to that list now, I supposed. Wincing, I put more oomph in my strides. Palmon was clinging tighter to me now; her long purple vine talons were crawling up and circling my arms. She wasn't ever going to let me go again.

"You don't need to come with me Mimi," Palmon said, her voice wavering with each word. "You don't need to get caught with me."

"If you're in danger, I'm in danger," I told her firmly. "We're a team. I won't leave you."

"But I don't want you to get hurt because of me," she sniffled.

"That's why I'm here," Mari said firmly. "So that neither of you can hurt the other with your desperate need to take the hit for each other instead of running away."

"I know how to run," I said trying to sound calm about everything, but I couldn't. She was right. If they came towards us with guns—tracking or otherwise—I would take the hit for Palmon. I wouldn't let her be hurt again. It had been my plan for a long time. I wouldn't let my best friend die.

And I didn't really appreciate the idea that Mari didn't have confidence in my abilities to keep Palmon safe. She didn't really know me, and we weren't really friends, so who did she think she was, judging me like that? I didn't have the time or the energy to put into asking her though. I didn't want a fight. Not when she was so willingly helping keep Palmon away from the DWD.

"How long do we need to keep running?" Palmon asked, gasping for breath.

"Forever," I said determinedly.

"Yeah, that's going to be a problem for all of us," Mari said, sounding like she was rolling her eyes. "We aren't machines; we're going to need some rest."

"We don't have time," I hissed. "They're coming after us."

"I think we're far enough ahead to warrant a bit of a break," Mari insisted. Palmon cheered.

I glared at the space I was sure she would be—you know, if she wasn't completely invisible.

She was putting Palmon at risk right now. She wanted us to have a break, to relax and get caught off guard. Even if she planned on helping us run away if the bad guys showed up, we could only run so fast. They would catch us for sure. I remembered being in gym class, and running like mad, thinking no one could ever catch me...and then I took a break and my legs felt like lead and I didn't want to take another step, let alone run a marathon.

And that was when I was forced to exercise on a daily basis.

Now, when I exercised as little as possible...it was going to be impossible to continue. I didn't want to do this, I wanted to keep going, to find a hiding tree, or a secret base that threw off the tracking device's signal. I wanted to smell Mom's burning cookies, as she attempted to bake for Palmon and Tentomon, I wanted to feel Koushiro's arms around me as we had a secret, whispered conversation about how we'd get rid of those cookies so that Palmon and Tentomon wouldn't need to actually eat any. I wanted to be surrounded by love and laughter, I wanted to hear the chatter of thousands of digimon as they too took refuge in the Coliseum.

I wanted to be safe.

There would be no burnt cookies to burry in the back yard for me and Palmon. We were alone out here, and I didn't even know if anyone had told Koushiro yet. Maybe this was the motivation he needed to find the way to remove the tracking device, and he'd swoop in to our rescue and help take us away to the Coliseum where all my hopes and dreams for the immediate future could come true.

Chances were, no one had told him though, because he was locked in the lab in the Temple basement, refusing to see anyone that wasn't helping to solve the problem. I wasn't useful in that regard, and so I hadn't seen him since before he started the project. He hadn't even come up to say goodbye to us. Haruhiko had, he came to see Shuu off, and to promise to take care of Meramon. But that was it. Kiyoko didn't even emerge to say anything, and we'd had the other two thirds of Alias III with us.

But knowing now that Palmon might not make it out of this—and by extension, I also wouldn't make it out, because my contingency plan involved dying in her place to give her a few extra seconds to come up with an escape plan—and never see Tentomon or Koushiro, or Mom and Dad, or Minervamon...it made me want to cry. What if we didn't live long enough to see Dad get a digimon partner? I knew he had one out there, somewhere. And I wanted to meet him—or her.

"Mimi," Mari hissed. "Shut off the faucet. If you're so worried they're going to catch us, maybe don't start crying like it's the end of the world."

"But it could be," I whined. Palmon tightened her grip on my wrist and I heard her start crying too. Both of us were just wailing out all of our frustrations and pains and then Mari's free hand was on my shoulder, and she was shaking me.

"Shut up," she whispered pleadingly. "Someone's coming."

It was hard to turn off the waterworks once I'd let them start, but I tried to silence the tears at least, if I couldn't get them to stop. Palmon was much better at controlling herself. She just tightened her grip on me—and presumably Mari too—and took three deep breaths, before becoming completely silent.

I kind of envied her that ability.

We listened in silence for whoever it could be. I was prepared to smack whoever it was before running again. I really was. We heard twigs snapping, and shuffling footsteps. The closer they got, the more we could hear. There were two low, gruff voices, but no one else spoke. I took that to mean there were two men coming towards us. Their footsteps made them sound huge, and I got worried. There was no way I'd be able to fight off two big guys, not as weak as I was.

"Do you think the word has spread across the whole world?"

"It seems too presumptuous to assume that."

"I wish though."

"Me too."

"Where are we going to go next?"

"I don't know, but the Temple no longer remains an option."

Temple?

"Leomon! Ogremon!" I shouted happily. They were still alive! That was good to know. They rushed forward, emerging from the trees, looking frantically around for the source of my voice.

"It was her, I know it was," Ogremon said firmly.

"Mimi?" Leomon called out curiously.

"I'm here!" I said cheerfully.

"She's invisible," Mari filled in when they continued to look confused. Oops. I'd forgotten that already. It wasn't easy remembering you were invisible. It wasn't exactly something I was used to being after all. It was a new development.

"How are you doing?" I asked them, cordially.

"Well enough," Leomon said. They spent the next two minutes regaling us with stories of their trip around the world, about the dangers they faced and the digimon they saved. But this brief respite from the danger of our situation was cut to an end by the super mean Mari.

"This has been nice and all," Mari started off. "But Palmon's got a tracking device on her, and we're on the run. You should head to the Coliseum when you're finished your mission or whatever, but you've got to stay away from us. We'll just lead the DWD directly to you."

Okay.

So she had a point.

But she was still being super mean taking away the one thing that was helping me keep my head through all of this mess. I was mad at her, and I was mad at Yorokobi. I was even mad at myself. But when Palmon tugged on my hand, I knew that I couldn't stay mad. Palmon wanted to keep Leomon and Ogremon safe just as badly as I wanted to keep her safe. I knew she didn't want anyone to get hurt because of her, so I allowed myself to be dragged away after a tearful goodbye to two of my very favourite digimon friends.

I wanted them to be happy, and safe, but I knew they were still on a mission for Taichi, a mission they'd created for themselves. I couldn't stand in their way, because doing so could mean the lives of hundreds of digimon. I just didn't like leaving them in the middle of a forest that we knew had DWD crawling around. How was I supposed to know they'd be safe once we left them? How could I handle the idea of leaving my friends—any of them, all of them—out there without knowing they were safe? If I couldn't see they were safe, how could I be sure?

I couldn't be.

But for now, we ran.

Michael Washington:

For being captured I was having a surprisingly fun time.

It had been days, and since Veronica continued to tell Marshall that she wanted to use me for something important, he was unable to do anything no matter how often I insulted him. Veronica was a really annoying girl which I'd known from when Jenna and Mari had come back from their very first DWD meeting. That seemed like so long ago but was really only a month.

Oh, how slow time goes whilst the worlds are in danger of being destroyed by humanity.

I'd had a lot of time to think while I was here too. About the crest of trust mostly. Meyiomon was still trusting Ken and I to find a home for it in the heart of the true Digidestined who was meant to bear the trait. I didn't know who it was, but we did know they were meant to fight against the final Great Evil. Now, somehow my aunts on my mother's side—Winter, Summer and Spring—knew everything ever. That seemed fishy to me, since they refused to give us the answers we wanted, and because if they knew everything, they'd know I was imprisoned, and they'd come save me, because I am their nephew. True story.

The conclusion I came to was that they were crazy liars.

They didn't really know anything. Except my mom. I bet she was the smartest of them all, and probably the prettiest. I couldn't remember what the others looked like, but my mom was beautiful. Fact.

The fairies told us that the nine great evils were as follows: Malomyotismon for the Land of Dreams, Fanglongmon for the Digital World, the Shadow King was for the Dark Ocean, Lucemon for Heaven, Sigma for the fairy land, Daemon for Witchenly, Millenniummon for the World of Time and Apocalymon was for the In-Between.

This information was entirely unhelpful. We'd defeated like all of them when they told us that. Aside from the Shadow King and Sigma. But there were also only eight. There were supposed to be nine. The last one was for Earth. But what if Myotismon was always supposed to be the evil for Earth, and secretly the evil for the Land of Dreams was still out there?!

Though that seemed ridiculous.

Because I knew now, without a doubt, that the great evil of Earth was Marshall Taft.

True story.

He always scratched his butt in a way that was very, very evil. And he would smell his hands after as if he was checking for anything he didn't manage to wipe off. Gross. You know who else was gross? The Shadow King. He kissed me and possessed my body, then when I proved to be too strong for him he went after my sister. Gross.

Marshall also had a way of controlling his flunkies. Like he was inside their minds. He would ask them for something and they'd just do it. You know who else could control their minions? Fanglongmon.

It all fit. Every trait about Marshall pointed directly to the absolute truth that he was the final Great Evil. The fact that he'd captured me, a digidestined was just bonus. Who else would captured a digidestined? No one. Only the Great Evils.

I knew it wasn't my destiny to put an end to him though. I needed to wait for the bearer of trust to come along and wipe Marshall out of existence. Hopefully that would happen soon though because seriously as fun as this could get, I still really wanted to go home, or to the Coliseum, or the Temple, or somewhere.

But for the most part they kept me in their shoe factory. The upstairs was pretty nice, and there was a really big shower that Veronica kept forcing me to use. Marshall had to stand in the bathroom to make sure I didn't get away. As if there was anywhere to run. And would I go anywhere soaking wet and naked? Probably not. The food was crappy because Veronica sucked at cooking, but all the boys would compliment her endlessly and feed her enormous ego. And seriously she thought she was the bee's knees or a luck rabbit foot or like a cat's elbows and whatever other animal body parts meant something good. She would float around the place ranting about how pretty and smart and funny she was, but she wasn't. Well she was pretty.

But not funny.

One of her jokes was literally, "Why did the digimon cross the road?" And Marshall was all "Why, my dear sweet lovely beautiful precious girlfriend who is pretty?" and Veronica was like "Because it didn't know I was driving a hummer and then I hit it."

Like, even if that wasn't horrible disgusting and about murder it wouldn't be funny. But Marshall, Ricky and Tyler all laughed and laughed.

So yeah, I spent every day in the shoe factory, with different guards. Ricky was my favourite guard because he was so dumb and he sometimes fell asleep which gave me time to try to escape. The ropes they tied me with were thick though and they were wrapped around so many different things and tied so tightly.

Tyler was an alright body guard too. He just sat and watched tv, offering me treats and then not giving them to me, because like Veronica, he was apparently funny.

Veronica was the guard that watched me the closest though. She was afraid I'd leave and tell people what I'd overheard, which was nothing but she wouldn't believe me. Not that I would have believed me either. If I was a Great Evil's girlfriend I'd be pretty nervous too. She talked about this Friday a lot. That was all I really gathered from her over the time I spent here. She would say something like, "If only we could be on top... well, before this Friday." Or, "I'm so excited for tomorrow, because then it's closer to Friday."

What was going on Friday? I did not know.

Nor did I really care...

Marshall's guarding was the most irritating. He would poke me with sticks, or forks or whatever he happened to have near him, and he'd move the chair he always tied me to in front of his exercise equipment. He wanted me to watch him work out so I would understand how much stronger than me he was. But that was really obvious already because his muscles were huge.

The freak.

But today I didn't need a guard, because we were out, gong for a walk.

The light initially blinded me when we'd gotten to the Digital World, where our walk was to play out. They'd used some weird round device that opened the space in the world. I offered to show them how my digivice worked, and for a moment I thought it might work, and we'd go to the Temple and Jenna or Mimi could save me, but Veronica, who kept my digivice attached to her hip made the call. She voted to use their usual method unfortunately.

The colours in the Digital World were darker than usual. The pink and purple hues in the sky were bold and harsh, the grass was a dark green, the trees looked violent and upset. As if trees could look upset. Well one of them really looked upset, but he was a Cherrymon. I didn't point him out though, because they'd just put a tracking device on him.

One thing that was really fun to do was point out how they weren't high up in the chain of command. Not the Cherrymon, my captors. They'd not been trusted with guns that shoot to kill, only the ones that can track digimon. Marshall recently used the tracking device to shoot my leg when I'd mentioned it, so I hadn't insulted them for a good solid ten minutes. Before that I was going on and on about how Willis and Mari, and Jenna and Tatum saved Marshall's life three years ago. I didn't know the whole story, but it seemed he didn't remember it well anyway, because no matter what I said it annoyed him as if it were true. He didn't like that he should be in dept to the people he hated so much.

Oh well.

I was silent on our walk—well no, I wasn't.

I kept asking things like "Where are we going?" and "Are we there yet?" Neither question was ever answered though. So without an active conversation I had time to think about life, and what I would do in the future. It was difficult to think that there could be a future because I knew a lot of the things we'd taken for granted were soon going to end, but there were always my future six children to name.

I was thinking Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta and Marta. From the Sound of Music, but then I would be leaving out Gretl, and I didn't want seven children. Just six. And I knew Tatum only wanted two. So I'd have to pick two names. Louisa and Brigitta were the best. They would be my babies.

Oh, but what if I had a boy?

Oh well. Boys have girl names all the time. We could shorten it to Gitta... or Brig.

"Where are we going?" I asked again, annoyed at my own wandering mind.

Veronica turned to me, her dark braid whipping around and hitting Ricky in the side of the head. "Shut up," She said, annoyed. "We're meeting some of our trusted supporters, okay? That's all you need to know." Then she was suddenly very dramatic as she stood, her hands on her hips, "And together we will conquer all."

"Sounds good," I said with a nod, "Then can we go out for pizza? I'm starving."

Suddenly my face was flying toward the ground from a sharp push behind me, and I slammed into the grass. "Then eat dirt." Marshall laughed from behind me. All four of them laughed, and I joined in, just to annoy them. Marshall, annoyed, pulled me to my feet by the rope that had me tied up. "Stop laughing." He said, annoyed when my laughter lasted a full minute longer than theirs did.

"Has anyone told you you're incredibly annoying?" Veronica asked.

"All the time," I told her, "See when I first joined the good guys—you probably don't know them because you're not the good guys—they all didn't like me. I don't really know why, but they all thought I was annoying, and now we're such good friends. Maybe I'll be good friends with you all someday too?"

"Fat chance." Marshall laughed.

"Ah well," I sighed, "You are the bad guys. I did join the bad guys once. Fanglongmon tricked me. You might know him, he was evil too. He was big and golden. And a dragon. Ring any bells?"

"I'll ring your neck like a bell if you don't shut up." Marshall said loudly.

"Okay, okay." I agreed as a beeping started up, "now where are these friends of yours?" No one answered me, and instead they all started looking through their pockets and their backpacks. "Hello?" Finally Veronica found the source of the annoying beeping and she pulled out a black rectangular device. It looked like a really thick remote control with a touch screen and an antenna. "What's that?"

"It's a tracker." Veronica said, hardly paying attention. "It tracks the digimon, using our devices. It says here that this one is running rampage. Do you think we should stop it?" She looked to Marshall, turning her body just the right way that her shirt lifted and I saw my digivice, blinking away. There were two dots coming toward our own.

"SO THAT TRACKS DIGIMON?" I asked as loud as I could, "AND YOU WANT TO GO CATCH IT? AND WHOEVER IS COMING TOWARD—" I looked up and saw a twisty tree with no branches, "THIS WEIRD TREE SHOULD RUN FROM YOU AND YOUR AMAZING TRACKING SKILLS?"

Marshall, Ricky and Tyler were quick to push me to the ground again, and then turn back to Veronica. I pulled myself to my feet, annoyed. I was about to say something sarcastic but noticed that none of them were looking at me.

Slowly I stepped backward and then spun and ran as quietly as I could toward where I'd seen the beeping of the digivice. I looked over my shoulder and still they had not noticed I was missing.

I ducked under a branch and into the trees.

"Michael?"

"SHHH!" two hisses stopped Mimi from speaking any further.

"Mimi?" I asked quietly. "Where are you?"

"I'm here," She said, "We're invisible."

"Oh good." I said, "Well you should go the other way. There are some people nearby who want whatever digimon you're saving." I explained quickly, looking around. I heard Marshall's frustrated yell sound from afar. He was going to come for me soon.

"It's me." Palmon's voice said quickly.

"Okay, go quickly, I'll cause a distraction and they'll be too busy to catch up to you." I told them quickly, looking over my shoulder again.

"No, come with us!" Mimi hissed, "come here!" She pulled on my arm which felt really weird, not being able to see her hand. "Are you invisible? No. Why not? This should work!"

"Being kidnapped isn't so bad," I told her with a shrug, "You go run off and if we come close to you I'll start howling, okay? Like a wolf. Run away from the howling."

"Thanks Michael," It was Mari this time. Mimi struggled, but Mari eventually pulled her off, and that was that. Marshall was making a lot of noise looking for me. It actually was a possibility to get away. I could go. I didn't have to stay with them...

But then Marshall found me, his eyes locked with mine and I smiled sheepishly. "Just peeing," I told him.

"Well come on." He said, annoyed and disgusted. "We're on a tight schedule. We have some things to get done.

Some evil things, no doubt. Marshall was after all... the great evil of Earth.

Probably.

Next on Digimon Adventure 06: Mari and Koushiro are on the road again in a last ditch effort to calm the storm.