Prove yourself!
by Leto
Chapter Two - Come together
--Sora's POV--
WHY did the gate have to close at the one time when all our Digimon were on the other side? I mean, I know Matt often has Gabumon come to hang out in the real world, Hawkmon and Biyomon sometimes help sort orders after-hours in the store, Ken and Koushiro spend at least half their time in digiworld anyway...
But no, it happened so that most of us were separated. And I am worried about Davis; if something is going wrong, what can he do on our own? And our Digimon will be helpless because they can't digivolve with us.
Oh, Bi... I was just starting to think you would always be in my life, that we'd always be able to see each other regularly, that any time I felt down or needed a friend, you'd fly up to me with a huge welcoming smile on your face, always so excited to see me...
And to think of you maybe hurt, maybe wondering why I don't come... oh, Biyomon, it's even worse than the time the Digimon Emporer took over digiworld and I was left behind because I didn't have the right digivice; instead, I'd have to sit in class and hope, hope that you'd survived another day, that you hadn't been caught yet, that you were safe...
Because now there's this sudden new fear - what if digiworld doesn't exist? That sounds so ridiculous, it CAN'T be true, the love between Biyomon and I has to be real, it has to survive, but... Koushiro said that for all he could find of it, it's like digiworld doesn't exist any more. So I'm afraid.
In the meantime though, there's work to be done. I can hide my frightened feelings behind a smile as I help customers decide what they're looking for. I go to unlock the shop and start unpacking some things. There is a knock on the door.
"Sorry!" I call, "we don't open for another twenty min-oh!"
I see who it is. What a total surprise! "JOE!" I shout, and jump into his arms. He laughs and hugs me back.
Weird how happy I am to see him, but it's been so long! We've been exchanging letters for about a year now, but he never mentioned he was coming. He's just the same Joe, looking so reliable and strong and - well, I won't say handsome, I keep remembering him as a 12-year-old with glasses that kept slipping off his nose, and that ridiculous haircut... but he doesn't look too bad, although kind of tired.
I can't keep the smile off my face and for a moment the burden of worrying about my friends in digiworld is lightened.
"Sora, how have you been?" he asks, "you look like you haven't been sleeping well."
"So do you," I reply instantly, a little embarassed that it's that obvious.
"Well, I've just come from a sixteen hour shift!"
"Sixteen HOURS?! Joe, you overdo it way too much! It's so great to see you though! I didn't know you were coming to Japan!"
"Neither do I, until yesterday," he says sheepishly, and opens the door to the shop, calling out to someone outside, in English, "come on!"
Three children come running and enter the shop. They are all carrying Digimon. I can't help it; my mouth falls open.
"J-Joe! Digiworld..."
"Sora, may I introduce the new digidestined. This young lady with the Floramon is Adrienne, the boy with the Pagumon is Nathan, the girl with the Otamamon is Amy. They're from London, actually, so they have no idea what I'm saying."
"It's nice to meet you," I say to them in English, feeling rather awkward, "My name is Take - uh, Sora Takenouchi."
They smile and nod. I grab at Joe. "Joe, explain this to me right now! Sorry, but I can't wait another second while we make with the pleasantries!"
"Ooh, you've become impatient in my absence," he says, "I guess spending so much time with Yolei has rubbed off on you!"
"Joe!"
"Okay, Sora. The story in a nutshell - during that big storm a week or so ago, these three got sucked into digiworld. They've been there a couple of months, having similar experiences to the ones we seven did when we first went - travelling around confused, trying to find a way home, meeting their Digimon who learned to reach new levels."
"Right, right...?"
"They've each got crests, like we did, too - Authority, Integrity, Charity."
"Weird... they don't sound quite the same as ours."
"Anyway, apparently there is some evil threatening digiworld right now that they couldn't deal with on their own, so Davis - who has set himself up as some sort of all-knowing guardian of the digital world, can you believe it - and helped them out a bit -"
"Davis is alright! That's wonderful! What about our other Digimon?"
"Well, Davis told them to tell us that he hasn't seen them for ages - see, because of this evil, some of digiworld was reconfigured, and so some areas just aren't there any more, and others have moved, and he just doesn't know where to look. But he's sure they're fine."
I frown. "Okay... so why are the digidestined here?"
"Davis sent them here."
"If Davis can open the gate, why didn't he come through himself?"
"Oh, I don't know, Sora. Maybe he doesn't have the right type of digivice, maybe he wants to stay and make sure digiworld is safe, maybe the gate only opens for these digidestined. I don't know! But there is a time difference between worlds again."
"So the time we spend here could be months or even years passing in the digiworld..."
"That's right," says Joe seriously, "we have to be as quick as we can. The new digidestined came here to find all of us old digidestined to take us back to digiworld so we can help them defeat the enemy."
I can't help frowning again; this doesn't seem like a very efficient way of doing things. "If whatever destiny is ruling digiworld wanted us to fight, why don't they just let us get through the digital gate?"
"I really don't know, Sora, but my guess is that digiworld has *changed* when it was reconfigured, and the gate has changed too. We came here from London with the help of Nathan's Digimon, who can teleport when he goes Ultimate."
"Right," I say, and all I can think is that we can go back, "thanks for the update Joe, let's track down the others now!"
--Matt's POV--
Gaah, shut up! I don't have any lectures this morning, so it FIGURES that the one chance I get to sleep in, the phone starts ringing at some ungodly hour!... okay, so it's more like 8:30, but that's bad enough. Stop ringing!
It doesn't, so I groan and reach out for the stupid thing.
"H'lo?" I grunt.
"Hey Matt, how's it going?"
"JOE! Hey, dn-you know the time diff'rence, I was tryin' to sleep..."
"Sorry Matt. Actually, I'm calling you from right here in Japan. I have important news about the digital world."
"Digiworld?!" Suddenly I'm wide awake. Gabumon! Digiworld! The place where my identity is all tied up, where I really *met* my best friends, where I worried I might never get to see again.
"Could you come down to Sora's mother's store? It's an emergency meeting for the digi-"
"I'll be there! In five, ten minutes! Don't start without me, I'm coming! Seeya!"
I slam down the phone with great enthusiasm. News about the digital world! It's been just a week, but when you don't know what's happening, it feels like a *lifetime* of separation!
But... what if the meeting is about something bad? What if Joe's somehow figured out that something is seriously wrong? What if the digital world got deleted, like Izzy's been thinking? What if, what if, what if?
I get dressed in a mad hurry. When I'm halfway out the door it occurs to me that I never even told Joe I was glad to hear from him again.
--Takeru's POV--
Kari's sitting across from me, eating the omelette I made. She's looking small and thin and kind of vulnerable in her big fluffy pink bathrobe. She smiles at me as she sees me looking at her, but she does look tired, and distracted, again. Has she been having bad dreams again?
I'm glad we're sharing an apartment now, it means I can keep an eye on her and look after her. I worry about her when she's not around. Other people get the wrong idea - Matt's always at me to pop the question - but somehow the idea of *marrying* Kari sounds strange. We're really just friends, even if nobody ever believes me when I say that!
"Kari, are you -"
The phone rings. I grunt and walk over to get it.
"Hello, Takeru speaking."
"Takeru! It's Sora. Could you and Kari come to my shop right now? I'm sorry to bother you with an urgent message at this time of day but it really is important. We've found out new stuff about digiworld."
"What sort of new stuff?"
"Well, in a nutshell, Joe's just shown up after teleporting from London with three new digidestined children, and says we have to go back to digiworld for a new adventure."
Okay, that's not quite the answer I was expecting. That *does* sound important! A new adventure? I can't help feeling excited at the thought. And Patamon... Gatomon... Kari's been so worried lately.
"We'll be there right away, Sora! Bye!"
"See ya!"
I hang up and stand there grinning for a moment. Kari smiles a little.
"What are you so happy about? What did Sora say?"
"We have to get to her flower shop right away. You'll never believe this, Kari, but three new digidestined have shown up and it looks like a new adventure is about to start!"
"Three new..." she began, her eyes wide. "TK, my dream! Oh, we have to go right away to meet them!"
That's right... come to think of it, she did say something about a dream she had last week... three chosen ones. I didn't think too much of it, because I was just busy worrying about Patamon.
--Cody's POV--
Early to bed, early to rise. I always thought that was a very wise saying. Then I entered high school, and from there on it became impossible to implement. Bed at 3, up at 6. The bus will be leaving in half an hour, and hopefully I can read the next chapter of my biology textbook during the trip. There is no point in wasting time relaxing.
I can't help almost feeling a little envious of my older friends; they're in university or working by now, and it seems like they all have a lot of free time on their hands. But study is a duty I can't shirk. If I want to become a doctor, I have a lot of it ahead. I won't back down from it.
My cell phone goes off in home group; who could be calling me at this hour? And how could I have forgotten to turn it off? But wait - it's a text message from - JOE'S cell phone? Joe? Why would he be sending me a long-distance message like this? He knows I have email.
But the message makes me catch my breath. Today I have an important chemistry practical session, and a calculus test, as well as a physics class I really should attend to take important notes from. I can't afford to take a day off school, and I certainly don't want to have to lie and make up a reason for being absent.
I know all this, but it doesn't stop me from rising from my seat and running out of the classroom.
--Mimi's POV--
I've been staying with Yolei for the last few days. I was just so upset to find out about the digital world being closed, I couldn't stay away from my friends any more. I needed to be with other people who understood. Michael was a digidestined but he couldn't really understand; he hadn't been part of one of our groups, he didn't know just how much digiworld meant to us who'd had to live there and fight to save it.
Not to mention, it's not like I can do much interesting work with the digigate closed anyway. I like studying all the pretty flowers and interesting plant species and getting famous, but my success mostly depends on being able to get those digital plants.
It sucks too, that Palmon was on the other side of the gate at the time it closed. I mean it really, REALLY sucks! She used to help me find cool species and told me about some of their properties, then we'd do lab work together... ohh, Palmon... I miss her cheerful grin, the way she used to look up at me expectantly as she waited for my opinion on something, the way we promised to always stick together...
It feels totally weird being with Yolei and the others again, instead of with Michael. I've never gone on a holiday without him before. But then, this isn't really a holiday.
Yolei's phone rings... and again... and again... "Yolei, are you going to answer that?" I call, but she just groans something incoherant. Yolei is not a morning person. Neither am I, or I'd be answering the phone too.
The answering machine goes off. "Hello, this is Yolei Inoue, I'm not home right now, but my answering machine is, so talk at it instead, and I'll get back to you unless you're Simon or Jared or Tetsuya."
I can't help sweatdropping... but then, after the beep, I hear - Joe? Joe! I jump up, kicking off my fluffy quilt, and shoving my feet into slippers as I make a mad dash for the living room. I end up tripping over the couch in my hurry and sit there in frustration as I hear the beep - signalling the message ending.
"Gaaaah!" I shriek, "not faiiiiir!"
"Was that Joe?" asks Yolei, shuffling out of her room, "or was it my imagination?"
"Yeah, it was Joe," I sigh, "I can't believe he called here and I didn't even get to the phone in time!"
"What did he say?" asked Yolei, "I couldn't hear the message, you were making so much noise getting to the phone."
Well... if it comes to that, I didn't hear it either. So I press the 'play' button...
--General POV--
Ken ran into the flower shop; everyone else was already there. He looked dishevelled, and was out of breath.
"S- sorry I'm late," he puffed, "you got me on my cell phone while I was in the middle of a lecture. I couldn't check the message until the lecture was finished, I had no idea it was so important! What about Davis? He's alright, right? And Wormmon? And -"
"Relax, Ken," said Sora, "Joe will explain everything from the start."
"Yeah, finally," scowled Tai, "he insisted on waiting until everyone came so he wouldn't have to explain things a dozen times."
"Again, I'm very sorry!" said Ken, then turned to Joe. "Joe! What can you tell us? And who are these kids and Digimon?"
The three children were looking a little uncomfortable by now; surrounded by Japanese-speaking adults, and not really having a clue what was going on.
Joe smiled at everyone from where he was slumped, half-asleep, in a chair. "Right," he said quietly, and everyone fell silent as he began to explain.
***
"Right," said Koushiro, taking the lead, "let's see these digivices."
"Could we see your digivice, please?" asked Mimi in English.
"Digivice?" repeated Nathan, not recognising the word.
"The thing that helps your Digimon to digivolve?"
"Oh, we call them d-powers," said Adrienne, "but I think I know what you mean."
Amy held hers out. Koushiro grabbed it and turned it over in his hands, scrutinising it. Ken looked over his shoulder with interest.
Amy's 'd-power' was a blue device roughly the size and shape of a small pencil tin. It had a screen and a number of different buttons.
"These are do what?" asked Ken, in bad English, pointing to the buttons.
Adrienne leaned over and pointed at each button in turn. "That one switches to clock mode, these two are just selection keys, that one means digivolving mode is switched on, that one is for videoconference mode, that one is data transfer mode when we connect our d-powers together, that one lets us contact the Great Enlightened One, and I don't know what those two do. Nothing happened when we tried them."
Ken looked helplessly around the group. Mimi sighed and started translating. Koushiro was more interested in a jack at the back of the d-power.
He pointed at it and raised his eyebrows at the new digidestined. Amy shrugged.
"I don't know what that does," said Adrienne.
"Can I... take this?" asked Koushiro haltingly.
"No!" said Amy, grabbing it back, "that's mine, I need it to help Otamamon digivolve!"
"I think he meant he wanted to borrow it," said Joe, "Izzy's really into computers and electronics, he probably just wants to try something. You can trust him; he's a digidestined."
Amy frowned and handed the d-power back. "Be REALLY careful with it," she warned, and Koushiro nodded, although he didn't know what she said.
"Sora, is there a computer somewhere in this store?" asked Koushiro.
Sora looked at him quizzically; he was carrying his laptop's bag on his back.
"In the back room, we use it to keep a database of our orders."
"Right, let's go."
The digidestined all trailed into the backroom, where Sora's mother was sitting with a pair of scissors in one hand, smoothing back some fern fronds with her other hand. She looked up when they entered, and her eyes widened.
"Sora! Who are all these people?"
Sora sweatdropped. "Just a few friends of mine! Didn't you know they were here? Most of them have been in the shop for the last hour!"
"I didn't know," said her mother, "I was engrossed in my work. What do you think of this combination for the Makimachi's dinner party tonight?"
"It's nice," said Sora, leaning over to inspect, "but do you think maybe you should use some of those pink zinnias instead of the white ones?"
"Hmm. I'll try it."
Mimi leaned on the table Mrs Takenouchi was working at, and began to offer her unsolicited opinions about what were the best and most resilient plants to use. Mrs Takenouchi steadily ignored her as she pried open petals to the right distances.
Koushiro plugged the d-power into the back of the Takenouchi's computer and booted it up. Everyone except Mimi and Floramon (who was excitedly trying to peek at all the flowers in the backroom without being noticed by Sora's mother) gathered around it with interest.
Windows 2004 loaded, and a window came up - new peripheral detected, did they want to run through the installation process? Koushiro did, and suddenly the screen changed entirely, to a display that was simply a black screen with white characters printed on it.
"Is that written in Japanese?" asked Nathan, pointing at the characters.
"No," said Cody, narrowing his eyes in confusion.
"I wonder what it says," said Takeru.
Koushiro appeared to be thinking hard. After a moment, he opened his eyes and held up a finger. "Now I remember! I saw these characters in digiworld back when I was ten!"
"Oh," said Mimi, coming over, "do you mean those annoying things that you wasted hours trying to decode and you spent the whole time ignoring me?"
"That's right," he said happily, "let's see, this says... um... 'press any key to continue'."
Everyone facefaulted.
"Izzy!" said Matt, "this isn't a joke!"
"Sorry, sorry!" he said, "seriously, it says... uh... 'three ports... three crests, three keys'."
"How can you POSSIBLY remember what those symbols meant?" asked Tai, "it's not like you've read them in the last ten years."
Izzy grinned sheepishly. "Well, a photographic memory comes in useful sometimes."
"Lucky," scowled Yolei, "I wish I could remember things that easily, then I wouldn't have to spend so much time studying!"
"Well, I think it's pretty obvious what that's meant to mean," said Kari, "if we want to get to digiworld, plug the other two digivices into ports at the back of the computer, and then combine the power of these kids' crests."
"I didn't think it was that obvious," said Matt, with a little sweatdrop.
"It's worth a try," said Ken, "at this stage, anything's worth a try."
"Joe," said Nathan, tugging on his sleeve, "what is everyone saying?"
"This language barrier is a real pain," said Mimi. Joe smiled.
"Izzy and Kari think that if you and Adrienne insert your d-powers into that computer as well, maybe your crests will react and open the digital gate."
"That's not exactly what they said," said Mimi.
Joe rolled his eyes. "Mimi, does it matter?"
"Well," said Adrienne to the other two children, "I guess our break in the real world is over already."
"I don't wanna go back," sighed Amy.
"We don't have a choice," said Nathan, and handed his d-power to Koushiro. Adrienne nodded and did the same.
"I'm sure we'll get to come back real soon," said Adrienne, and patted Amy on the head.
"That's right," said Mimi, "just believe in yourselves! And because of the time difference between worlds, you won't miss out on much in this world anyway!"
Amy smiled. "That's good, 'cos I have a ballet performance in two weeks!"
"Oh, you take ballet?" asked Mimi, crouching down to Amy-height, "is it fun?"
"Mm hmm! My teacher said if I practise really hard maybe I can get a main part in our NEXT performance so I wanna do really really well in this one!"
"That's great! Have you been practising in digiworld?"
"You bet she does," said Adrienne, "at the most inopportune moments, she just doesn't shut up about her stupid ballet."
Amy stuck her tongue out. "You're just jealous 'cos you have three left feet!"
"Hey girls, pay attention," said Nathan, and the three looked at the computer; the three d-powers were now plugged in, and the screen was a simple blank, silvery-white colour.
"That's weird," said Matt, tapping the monitor.
The children looked at each other.
"Ready?" asked Adrienne, clutching her crest with one hand.
"As always," said Nathan, clutching his and trying to look more determined than scared.
"If we have to," sighed Amy, and took her crest up too. From their hands came a faint glow, and Adrienne instinctively moved toward the computer and touched the screen. Her fingers went through it, so she pushed her whole hand through, and then, suddenly, there was a great flash and all digidestined in the room vanished.
Sora's mother finished tucking in a particularly stubborn leaf, and looked up in surprise.
"Oh... they're gone suddenly."
She blinked, and then went back to her work, apparently unconcerned.
--Nathan's POV--
We just experienced that unreal feeling of travelling through dimensions, and now it looks like we're on a beach, but where are Joe, and Mimi, and Sora, and the others?
"Adrienne, Amy," I say, "are you girls alright?"
"I fell on my butt," scowls Adrienne. She's so forward, a slightly strange girl...
"I'm okay," says Amy, "but where did the others go? What HAPPENED?"
I don't know. "Maybe something went wrong."
"Don't say things like that," said Pagumon, "we're back, aren't we? We did our best, didn't we?"
"We're definitely in digiworld," says Adrienne.
We just stand there for a while, looking around. The sky is full of ominous-looking clouds; in fact, there's a whole sort of evil atmosphere. It looks like our enemies have become more powerful in our absence. I hope the friendly Digimon we've met, and the Great Enlightened One, are alright.
I glance down, realising my d-power is back on me, sticking out of my pocket. It's as though I never gave it up.
"Wonder how long we've been gone," whispers Adrienne. She looks kind of upset. She's right to, maybe, because it is not nice here. When we were here a few days ago - a few years ago? - it was bright and clean and it felt safe, even if there were evil Digimon somewhere.
Floramon fidgets nervously.
"This isn't good, this isn't good," she says, "this isn't the same digiworld as we left, is it? And we absolutely hafta figure out how to digivolve to Ultimate! At least your crests glowed a leetle bit in the real world, that's a sign of hope, isn't it? But I don't think it's so good for us... even if we CAN digivolve to Ultimate... it feels like evil's just everywhere now, and the idea that the Great Enlightened One had, our last hope, just fell through, it looks like we're really on our own and -"
"Hush up," hisses Otamamon, who doesn't usually speak sharply, but she is looking at Amy, and I can see why she wants Floramon to stop panicking.
"Addy, I'm scared," says Amy, her blue eyes filling with sudden tears. Adrienne automatically moves to touch her sister's head, and they stand there in silence for a moment.
"What are we going to do now?" I ask - well, I'm really asking Adrienne. Amy looks up at her sister expectantly. I think we both tend to look to Adrienne for ideas and leadership, especially when we're at a loss.
I think Adrienne is scared too, but she comes through, as always, and grins with a determined, rather roguish look on her face.
"Right!" she says, pounding her fist into her palm, "first we're going to walk around and find out what we can about what's happened in our absence! Since we've somehow still got our d-powers, we can try to home in on the Great Enlightened One. We'll look for something to eat, maybe get a little rest - I swear I feel like we're still on England time, 4am or whatever it is by now."
"And then what?" asks Otamamon hesitantly.
"And theeeen," she says, with hands on hips, "we go and kick butt! C'mon, everything that happens in digiworld seems to go by chance, so let's play it by ear, stick together, we'll be just fine!"
She grins at us and Amy smiles back. But I can see uncertainty in her eyes, and it makes me a little worried.