Chapter 7

Back at the camp, the main power is out with only a few emergency lights on. The digidestined are able to use their digi-vices as flashlights. Gatomon sneaks into the administrate building, removing her gloves to pass for a more normal cat, and nobody's the wiser. A few people even acted sweet and try to pet her, much to Gatomon's dismay. Despite her best efforts, she discovers nothing about the where a bouts of Agumon and Katherine.

The others search the area where the flute sounds come from, but come up empty. Tai's been having trouble keeping up with everybody due to his injured ankle, and it's hurting more now than ever. Sternly ordered by the others to sit down and rest it, Tai reluctantly does so, all accept Rico continuing with the search. As Rico does his best to treat and set the ankle, Tai's amazed at Rico's first aid skills, forgetting that his teammate's actually the unofficial first aid provider for the team. As usual, Rico tries to shove it off.

"It's nothing."

"Quick acting like that Rico, it is something. You obviously care enough to stick with us and keep working on my ankle, and you don't have too. You've got a bigger heart then most of us realize."

Rico shrugs his shoulders; "Well, I'll admit it, I don't like seeing you hurt Tai, and I care about rescuing Katherine. And I guess I might as well admit I'm kind of growing fond of the little glutton too."

Rico suddenly feels some warm and wet licks on his leg; "You again;" he says to Oscar; "You've been following us all night."

Tai giggles; "Looks like you've got a new pet."

For once, Rico drops his façade and actually gives a little smile.

Suddenly, Oscar starts barking furiously and gets into a full defensive mode, seemingly focused on something behind the boys. Then a flash of light comes from behind and a crash is heard. The boys look and notice a knocked out plant. It had been right behind them!

"I thought you could sense danger from a mile away Tai!" The boys look up and see Davis and Ex-Veemon landing.

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Katherine slowly opens her eyes. She is completely soak and wet. She thought she had landed in a pool of water, however, she is laying only on wet grass right next to the road. Rubbing her head as she gets up, she realizes that apart from some minor scrapes and being all wet, she's not hurt that much.

What happened? What was that bright light? I all wet, could it really be..."AGUMON!" She him laying a few feet away, throwing up and also all wet, otherwise appearing no worse for wear then she.

She turns Agumon over, takes out small, beat-up flashlight, and checks him over; "Agumon, answer me." The digimon slowly opens his eyes, they are red and look much less dilated.

"Kat;" he replies in weak voice; "Is that really you?" Katherine hugs him joyfully; "Ouch."

"Sorry."

The duct tape bounding the digimon's hands and feet have lost stickiness due to getting wet, allowing Katherine to remove them more easily.

"Where's Tai?"

The girl gently rubs Agumon's cheek; "Tai's not here, just me."

Agumon's stomach roars furiously; "Hungry. So, so hungry. Weak."

"It's alright;" she finally removes all the tape; "I wish I could help more."

Agumon briefly looks around, it's dark, a little light provided by the dimming flashlight, stars and half-moon. "Where are we? What happened? Did you come to rescue me?"

Katherine shakes her head; "No, they wanted to use me as a hostage."

"A hostage? Why?"

"No idea, but how did you get captured Agumon?"

Agumon's memory is fuzzy; "I don't really know. The last thing I remember is trying to use the phone, a lady seeing me and screaming, some soldiers coming in, and feeling some very painful stings, then blank. I had some very weird dream; you were in it, the plants, crazy plant lady playing this horrible music…."

"That wasn't a dream Agumon;" Katherine explains; "They had us on a truck and were taking us somewhere. You were so drugged and out of it. We escaped, but I have no idea where we are.

Agumon lays his head down, feeling very weak and dizzy; "Please Kat, please, please tell me you've got food."

"No Agumon, I'm sorry;" she looks first at the road, then the surrounding woods, there's no lights or street signs, and no visible edible plants she'd dare risks. Then her beat-up flashlight gives out. She takes a deep breath.

"I don't think we can stay here long. They may come looking for us. It's risky staying on the open road, but we can't go far into the woods either. We'll stay near the road but out of sight." She stands up; "I believe we were going this direction, so the camp must be that way."

Agumon tries to get up, but he's very dizzy and wobbly and forced to lean against a tree; "Kat, please carry me."

Katherine tries, but can barely lift the digimon off the ground; plus she's exhausted herself and her muscles are throbbing. At Agumon's urging, she agrees to hide and rest before they journey onward. As they lay on the ground looking up at the stars, she asked him what he sees when he looks at the stars.

"Sprinkles on ice cream, fried eggs, cinnamon and sugar cereal and toast;" Agumon's stomach growls louder as he speaks, causing him moan in pain.

"Try not to think of food;" says Katherine, her own stomach growling a little, not having eaten since breakfast. Realizing that wasn't him, Agumon looks at her, and they both laugh. Looking back up at the stars, Katherine remembers the light she saw earlier. What was it? Just then, a light appears next to her. Laying next to her is a strange looking, glowing device. She picks it up, and Agumon realizes that it looks like a cross between Tai's original digi-vice and Kari's D-3.

"Kat, that looks like a digi-vice."

"What do you mean?"

"That means that, you're a digi-destined, like Tai!"

Katherine doesn't believe it; "Impossible. I can't be."

"Nothing's impossible, but where's your digimon?"

The digi-vice glows even brighter, then a beam of light comes directly from Katherine's heart. They watch in awe as the two beams converge in front of them. The light dims, appearing in its place is an egg.

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"Davis;" says Tai; "You're here!"

"Of course I'm here." Davis rolls his eyes; "Why does everybody always say that?"

"What am I chopped-liver?" says Ex-Veemon.

Oscar barks at the duo, especially Ex-Veemon, then turns back towards the plant, which is getting up again.

"Looks like that things not quite dead yet!" yells Rico.

"Veemon, switch;" orders Davis.

"Again;" says Ex-Veemon exasperated; "Ok." Shirking down into Veemon, the dragon-like digimon armor-evolves into Flamedramon. "Fire Rocket;" it takes a few attempts before one of the rockets finally gets into the mouth, and Flamedramon hits it twice more to speed up the burning process. Then he shrinks again back into Veemon and catches his breath.

"Make-up your mind Davis, that's twice now I've switched digivolved. I'm going to run out of gas at this rate."

Rico picks up Oscar to calm him down; "Just what are supposed to be, a lizard?"

Veemon freaks and hides behind his partner; "Yikes, he sees me."

"Hey pal, what's the big idea…" Davis starts; "Hey wait, you're Rico Hosoda. Your soccer skills rival Tai's."

"Can't argue with that;" agrees Tai.

Rico's not flattered; "And you are?"

"What do you mean who am I?"

"Davis is Shinagawa Middle School's best soccer player!" exclaims Veemon.

"Never heard of you."

"What? Hey, that was rude."

"Get used to it;" says Tai. He then turns to Rico and whispers; "They're exaggerating. Kari's better than this guy."

"I hear that!" yells Davis; "Where's the others, we need help."

Tai's surprised; "You need help? We need help! Plants everywhere, Agumon and Katherine have been captured!"

"Agumon captured?" asked a shocked Veemon; "How, when, why, who? Impossible! He's too tough."

"Agumon captured?" repeats Davis; "Great! Now we've got 4 missing guys to find, Kaburterimon and Izzy are missing too. What a minute, who's Kathy?"

"That's Katherine;" then it's Tai's turn to be shocked; "Hold on, did you say Izzy and Kaburterimon are missing?"

"They were shot down;" Veemon burst out; "All we found was Izzy's laptop."

Davis shows them the laptop. Tai can't believe what he's hearing; "Shot down? How?"

"By those craze military canons!" Davis cringes his fists; "While Ex-Veemon was protecting citizens. Didn't they see that? Don't they care?"

"Don't judge them harshly Davis;" says Tai; "They act out of fear."

"It's all my fault;" says Veemon; "I should have been paying more attention. Kaburterimon was protecting me."

"Calm down guys;" says Tai; "The others are this way. Come on."

Tai's practically moving with a limp, and Davis notices; "Well well, I knew you'd get hurt sooner or later, Mr. Soccer Awesome."

"It's not that bad;" replies Tai; "How about all those injuries you've had, Mr. Klutz."

"Hey, I resemble that."

"Can it and come on!" shouts Rico, allowing Tai to lean on him for support. As they move on, Veemon gets next to Rico.

"Hey I believe we haven't meet yet;" he grabs Rico's hand and shakes it vigorously; "Please to meet ya Rico, I'm Veemon, how ya doing, let's be friends."

Rico jerks his hand away; "Stop that! A simple I'm Veemon will do. And do all your names end in mon?"

Veemon rolls his eyes; "Jeez what a brute. You could say it a little nicer."

"We're moving too slow;" says Davis holding up his digi-vice; "Come on Veemon, let's speed this up."

Veemon's agitated; "If I'm going to keep re-digivolving, at least give me some of the kaki-pi to keep my energy up."

"Coming right up;" Davis pulls out a bag of kaki-pi (small crescent-shaped fragments of senbei (soy-flavored rice crisps) with peanuts) from his pocket and tosses it to his partner.

"May I have some?" ask Tai.

"Why?" ask Davis jokily, "You and Agumon never share."

"Sure;" replies Veemon allowing Tai to get a handful.

"Really you guys!" says Rico; "We don't have time for a snack."

Veemon offers some to Rico; "Digimon always have time for a snack. Here."

Rico refuses; "No thank you. Too spicy. Hey! Don't give any to that dog! It'll upset his stomach."

Tai smiles with his mouth full; "You really do care about him don't you?"

"Shut up."

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Katherine moves along, the egg tucked underneath her left arm, Agumon leaning on her right. She looks at the egg, which is cream colored with waves on it. It hasn't really hit her yet that inside is 'her' digimon. What will she be like, what will she look like? Will she be the cream-colored seahorse with blue eyes and the pestle pink dragon/angelic wings, with the Parasaurolophus crest and little pink heart on her right check? Well, she probably won't look like that at first, as Agumon informed her that the new digimon will be in her fresh baby form when she hatches, then in-training, then rookie, which would be her default form (usually).

As they try to climb a small hill, Agumon collapses and slides back down, bringing Katherine down with him. The digi-egg rolls down hill and gets close to the edge of a cliff, Agumon recovers enough to grab it, barely missing the edge of the cliff himself. Katherine drags them both back to safety and breathes a siege of relief.

"Thank you Agumon."

A sad look appears on his face; "I sorry Kat. It's my fault. I'm running on empty. I'll try harder to keep up."

Katherine rubs his cheek and kisses him; "Don't feel bad."

"But I do;" replies Agumon; "It's all my fault that you're even in this mess."

"If I wasn't in this mess, would this egg be here now?"

Agumon has no idea, but maybe she did have a point. When the egg appeared; Agumon had been so mesmerized that he almost forgot about food. He'd never seen or heard of a digi-egg forming that way.

As Agumon struggles to sit up, Katherine tells him to rest again while she checks the road. They've yet to see any signs, so there must be one soon. Seeing the egg through his blurry vision, Agumon must admit it looks rather tasty. He looks away and practically buries his face in the dirt, telling himself over and over not to look at it.

Using her new digivice for light, Katherine goes a little ways up the road, until she finally spots a sign. The town is 1 mile away. She rushes back towards Agumon's location. If they can only make it to the edge of town, maybe finding refugee and a phone or even before hitting the town limits. She then hears something, sounding like a strange voice yelling for help.

She makes her way to the river and is surprised at her discovery. Tangled up in the vines is a strange, dark pink bug like creator; "Izzy, help!"

"Hang on!" Katherine gets to the river bank. The bug's severely tangled and seems stuck in both the mud and between some rocks. Tentomon sees the unfamiliar girl and panics. "You're not Izzy!"

Katherine finds a sturdy stick and carefully walks through the sticky mud; "It's alright, I'm a friend of Agumon."

Tentomon's shocked; "How do you know Agumon?"

"I met him yesterday," she checks the vines, they're very tight. Also Tentomon's foot is embedded between two rocks. "If you could loosen these vines just a little, I can use my Super Shocker to free myself."

Katherine and Tentomon sink deeper in the mud as she works the vines with the stick and a rock. After a few attempts, the right one loosens enough and Tentomon does the rest. Its then his turn to pull Katherine out of the mud.

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Agumon chews on sticks and grass attempting to appease his hunger and detour himself from the egg, to no avail. Despite himself, he's soon able to switch his thoughts to the digimon inside. Would it even hatch tonight considering, their situation? Digi-eggs could hatch anywhere from an hour after creation (or reincarnation) to several weeks. He crawls next to the egg, taps on it, and starts talking to it, since he'd never talk to his food.

"Hello in there. I'm Agumon, Tai's partner. You know you're a partner right? That's very unique amongst digimon. Are you a newly created digimon? What kind of digimon are you? What colors will you be? What kind of foods will you like? I'll introduce you to all the great foods and people out here. This is the human world you're going to see. There's another world, the digi-world. I'll take you there someday, but we can't get there now. I miss it sometimes but I feel quite at home in this world, especially since I get to be with Tai all the time. Are you a girl? We need more girl digimon."

His stomach growls, more painful than ever. The famished digmon hugs his belly and rolls on the ground. The next hunger pang is even louder and more painful, yet Agumon thinks he hears another growl in sync with his own.

"Man, sounds like my belly is double growling."

He hears the growl again, only this time realizing that ones not coming from him. He listens again, that growl, which sounds more like a grunt, seems to be coming from the bushes.

"Hello, is somebody there?"

Suddenly, a boar emerges and heads straight for the egg, attempting to bite into it. Agumon's horrified; "Hey, that egg's not food!" Trying to conger his Pepper Breath, the weakened digimon only manages a few sparks, hitting the boar and making him angry. The boar charges Agumon and knocks him out of the way, then turns his attention back towards the egg, attempting to roll it away. Agumon recovers and charges at the boar, biting it's leg. Now really furious, the wild boar charges again, sending the digimon rolling towards the river edge. Somehow, the egg also rolls down the slight hill. As the enraged boar makes one last charge, Agumon quickly grabs the egg before being knocked into the river.

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Tentomon and Katherine wash the mud off along the river bank. Tentomon quickly explains that he landed in the muddy bank when he was shot down and got tangled in the vines. Izzy landed somewhere else, and Tentomon's impatient to find him. Katherine offers to help, but informs the insect digimon they must retrieve Agumon and the egg. Tentomon quickly figured the girl out as a digi-destined by her digi-vice, although he's never seen that model. He's even more blow-away when she said that the digi-egg formed from a light in her heart; nothing Tentomon's ever heard of.

Izzy will surely be interested in that.

"Why is Augmon all the way out here, and not at the camp with Tai?"

"Long story;" replies Katherine.

They suddenly hear a cry for help, it's Agumon, floating down the river, clinging to the egg. Tentomon quickly flies out.

"Agumon, grab hold."

Agumon can't believe he's actually seeing his fellow digimon, but grabs Tentomon's hands and holds on tightly to the egg. They make it to safety, Katherine embraces the dino and the egg in relief.

"Agumon;" says Tentomon catching his breath; "You really need to cut back on the junk food."

Agumon hugs him; "I can't believe you're here. Where's Izzy?"

"He fell into the woods, back that way;" replies Tentomon; "He can't be far, but I don't hear him. He may be hurt. Wait, Katherine your digi-vice. If Izzy's nearby, your digi-vice will pick up on his, if it works the same way."

Katherine takes out her digi-vice and points it in the direction Tentomon pointed out, there's nothing.

"Let's get closer;" suggest Agumon, but he doesn't get far before collapsing again, breathing heavily. "Tentomon, I need a left please pal."

Tentomon's eyes would be rolling if they could move; "Really Agumon, how did you manage to get so weak, and can't your stomach rumble a little quieter."

"Can't help it, and your one to talk."

"Don't remind me."

"Guys, shooooo;" says Katherine; "Listen." Its voices. They dash behind some rocks and bushes and peak. They can't believe what they're seeing, two young men in camp shirts, pulling two large wagons full of small Audrey plants inside pots. Despite his blurry vision, Agumon recognizes them as the two guys the plant lady threatened from earlier.

"Is this the last of them, I hope;" says the taller and skinnier of the two.

"It is;" replies the other; "178 specimen and seedlings. You got the notes and keys?"

The taller young stops in his tracks; "Oh, I ah…."

"You didn't get the keys? Or the notes! You dimwit."

"But I thought she told you to retrieve them. Why would she need them anyway? She knows all those notes by heart. Besides, why does she insists on letting #'s 1-15 loose anyway? They're so humongous and deadly! Why didn't they destroy them?"

"Because;" answers the shorter; "Their her babies and she views it as murder. Now that her old man's out of the way, she wants revenge for the ones already killed, plus she wants to see what they can do against those monsters and the military."

"Even her old man isn't that crazy!"

"You know what will happen if we don't corporate! Can't say I don't agree with you. At least she isn't letting the "It" out. Even she wouldn't do that."

"Are you sure about…..OUCH!" One of the mini-planets grabs his hand; "Hey, let go 88!"

"That's 84."

"How can you tell? Give me back my figures you little devil!" He hits 84 on the head and she lets go, his fingers bleeding. "OUCH! THIS HURTS!" he takes out a handkerchief and wraps his fingers; "I've already lost one pinky and two more figure tips to this plants. I can barely grab anything with my left hand anymore."

"Just wash and set those fingers;" says his unsympathetic partner; "We've got to rondevu with Yoshi. She's trying to work out a deal with this secret underground unit to release her old man as we speak, not that she really cares about him."

"How did ever get involved with this mess? We don't even paid in money."

"I'll finish loading these girls, you go back and fetch those things. And in case you forgot, the notes should still be in the filing cabinet inside the trailer, bottom file. The keys are in a secret compartment inside the freezer. We'll come back later and burn everything else."

The tall one gets frightened; "But but, the python's inside the trailer."

"So. It's docile."

"Not recently! Professor and Yoshi's been injecting hormones and who knows what else into her. She's become very vicious. Plus, she hasn't eaten in weeks."

"So, she should be secure, and if she isn't, do something useful with those otherwise useless tricks of yours for a change. Stop being such a big baby. NOW GO!"

They part ways, the tall one heads back the other way reluctantly. While Katherine's curious to follow find out more, she knows they must find Izzy first. Tentomon's reluctant to carry the weakened Agumon, mostly because he's running low on flumes himself, but agrees.

Several minutes pass when Katherine's divi-vice finally picks up a signal. It must be Izzy, and Tentomon picks up his pace considerably. They are heading the same direction that the young men had come from, and soon enter a clearing, with a run downed trailer and what looks like an equally run downed. According to the signal, Izzy's nearby.

Suddenly the door to the trailer flies open, the man runs out in a panic, holding what must be the keys. "I don't care about the notes, I'm not coming back!"

Coming out of the door appears to be about a 23 or 24ft, maybe even 25ft, "hairy" Burmese python on steroids. It slithers into the overgrown. This isn't good. While wondering what to do next, the digi-vice signal beeps again. They cautiously move into the clearing and follow the signal, it's coming behind the barn. Tentomon drops Agumon and flies towards a large hole, and inside that hole is none other then Izzy.

"IZZY!" Tentomon flies into his partner's arms.

"Tentomon, I knew you'd find me."

"I've brought help."

"Hey Izzy, how's it going?" ask Agumon looking into the hole.

"Agumon! Thank goodness. Tell Tai to get a some rope."

"Kat's already on it."

Did Izzy hear that right; "Who?"

"AGUMON!" yells Katherine; "LOOK OUT!"

The python's heading straight for him. Grabbing a bushy stick, Katherine tries to detour the snake away from the digimon. Agumon grabs the tail, but has no strength left to hold on and is easily flipped away. Before the girl can react, snake starts to strangle her. Tentomon attacks, but his Super Shocker is weak and only stings the snake.

Just then, the egg actually leaps from Katherine's arms and lands in front of the snake. It glows very, very brightly, not only blinding the python, but the warmth also causes the snake's body temperature to rise to an uncomfortable level. The snake let's Katherine go and retreats.

Pretty PLEASE review with a cherry on top!