Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or any of the
characters, yada, yada, yada. You know the drill.
Author's Note: Sorry Tai fans. I'll try to get better at
writing his personality. (If I don't Akia will KILL
me...I'll simply disapper from the face of the earth
without a trace...)
Chapter II
Kari weaved through the crowd. She had spotted her
brother headed out the door.
"Come on Take!" she exclaimed and ran to catch up
with her brother.
"Tai...Taichi Kamiya!!!" Kari yelled.
Tai turned to the sound of someone calling his name.
He didn't see anyone he knew, so he went to his car. He
waited for Kari, who was supposed to be catching a ride
home with him.
"Tai! Why didn't you stop when I called?" Kari asked
him, as she got into the car.
"I couldn't see you. I thought I was hearing things."
Tai apologized.
"Yeah, I'll make you see things..." Kari muttered
under her breath.
"What?" Tai asked.
"I said, can Take get a ride home with us?"
"Sure..." Tai looked around, "uh...where is he?" Tai
asked, confused. (As usual!)
"What do you mean?" Kari asked, and turned, "That's
odd...he was right behind me. I wonder where he went..."
Kari trailed off.
"He probably caught a ride with Yamato." Taichi
assured her.
"No, he suggested we find you, because Yamato only
has a motorcycle, and you have a car." Kari informed
him.
"Well, we'd better go find him." Tai told her.
Tai and Kari went off in search of Take. They got
around to the back of the school and found Jyou in
shock.
"Tai! Kari! You won't believe what just happened..."
Jyou started rapidly.
"Wait Jyou, first of all, have you seen Take? He was
supposed to catch a ride home with us." Tai informed
him.
"Yeah, I saw him, he just almost got struck by
lightning. And THEN he was sucked through a rift, or
something. I think he's in the digital world." Jyou
explained.
"The digiworld! How did he get the rift open?" Tai
asked.
"I don't know. Maybe if he had his digivice and
crest, maybe they reacted to the lightning that struck
less than two feet from him..."
"Maybe...Whatever happened, we have to find him."
Kari said, worried.
"Now wait a minute, why don't we get everyone
together to go. Logically..."
"Since when do you think logically?" Jyou asked.
Jyou laughed, and after a minute Kari joined in.
Tai wrinkled his forehead. "Actually, I think this is
the first time..." He trailed off.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The eight digimon wandered from place to place,
making sure everything was alright. Ever since the
digidestened had left, the digimon thought it was up to
them to keep the digiworld at peace. And it was, until
this storm came up. It had been storming for a few days
straight now. Right now there was a short break in the
weather.
"Does anyone else smell that, or am I going crazy?"
Agumon asked.
"Smell what? What's there to smell besides rain?"
Gomamon asked.
"I'm serious! Anyone?" Agumon asked.
Palmon, Gatomon, Gabumon, Gomamon, Biyomon, and
Tentomon shook their heads.
"Patamon? Do you smell it?" Agumon asked anxiously.
"Yeah...Something does smell funny. I don't know what
it is...but it smells like...bubble gum maybe?" Patamon
concluded.
"Well, let's get some firewood and some food. We
don't know how long this break in the storm will last.
If we have time, we can check out that odd smell..."
Agumon trailed off. The digimon had been following him
as their leader, since he was Tai's digimon, and Tai was
the leader. So when Tai and the others left, they voted
Agumon to be the leader.
Twenty minutes later they had gathered enough sticks,
fruit, and caught some fish for food.
"Looks like it's going to start up soon..." Agumon
said, staring at the sky.
"Can we go find out what that smell is?" Patamon
asked, "It's been driving me nuts! And I've been
thinking...where have we smelled bubble gum before?"
Nobody answered.
"The last time I smelled it, was when me and T.K.
were saying good-bye. That's how I knew what it was,
because he told me."
"Let's go then!" Agumon said. He lifted his nose to
the wind and caught the scent almost immediately. "That
way!" he exclaimed. The digimon followed the scent until
they came upon someone lying face down in the mud. It
started raining, soon it was pouring and they were all
soaking wet. But they didn't care.
"Who is it?" Gabumon asked. "It doesn't smell like
Matt."
Agumon reached out, and with the help of Gabumon,
rolled the person over. It was T.K.!
Take had a scrape on the side of his forehead, and
his wrist was swollen. He was a lot taller now, and
looked perfectly healthy, except...they couldn't wake
him up.
"He's uncon... uncon... sleeping unwillingly."
Patamon struggled.
"You mean he's unconscious," Tentomon supplied.
Patamon gave him an evil look. "I know. I just forgot
how to pronounce it, got a PROBLEM?!"
"Quit it you two! The LAST thing we need is another
pair of Matt and Tai. You know fighting gets us nowhere.
And that it leads to trouble." Agumon broke them up.
"Let's get T.K. back to the cave."
It took Agumon, Gabumon, Palmon, Gatomon, Biyomon,
and Gomamon to carry Take back to the cave. Patamon and
Tentomon carried his backpack between them, while
flying. Lightning streaked acrossed the sky in a
spider-web pattern. Tentomon and Patamon landed to walk
the rest of the way.
"Hurry! We don't want to be out in this any longer
than we have to." Agumon motivated them.
"I HATE water!" Gatomon mumbled.
They finally reached the cave and raced inside,
carrying Take. They set him down, and Agumon Pepper Breathed to
start a fire. The rain had washed most of the mud off
Take, but his head was still bleeding from the scrape.
"We should clean that... It looks nasty." Tentomon
said.
"Well, Mimi gave me her bag, and there's a bunch of
stuff in there, including some small cloths..." Palmon
looked up at the other digimon, "will those do?"
"Yeah, I guess. They'll have to do." Agumon told her.
Palmon nodded, and pulled out the handkerchiefs. She
cleaned Take's scrape. Then she wet it in the rain, and
placed it on Take's forehead.
Patamon hovered over Takeru, worried. "How long do
you think he's been unconscious?" Patamon asked.
"He looks soaked to the bone. I'd say a while."
Gabumon concluded.
"Gabumon, he looks cold, could you warm him up?"
Patamon asked.
"Good idea." Gabumon said, as he lay down on the cold
stone floor, next to Takeru.
That night...
Agumon had an uneventful first watch. When it was
over, he went over and poked Patamon in his side,
startling him awake.
"Boom bub..." he started, but stopped when he saw it
was Agumon. "Sorry..." Patamon said, giving Agumon an
'if looks could kill' look.
"It's your watch." Agumon yawned.
Patamon flew over to Take, and hovered over him for a
few seconds. 'I hope he's alright.' he thought. He went
back over to the door, and looked out. The rain was
coming down even harder than before. It poured down in
sheets, and gave no sign of letting up anytime soon.
There were puddles everywhere, tons of trees had been
toppled over from erosion, and the wind. The trees that
were still standing, were kind of droopy. Patamon heard
a groan, and turned. T.K. was holding his head.
"T.K.!" Patamon squeaked, "You're all right!"
Takeru looked up sharply. Recognition registered.
"Patamon!" Takeru said, surprised. He sat up and hugged
him. "I missed you Patamon!" Takeru held back tears that
threatened to overflow. After a few minutes of silence,
both digimon and digidestened pulled away from each
other.
"Is everyone else here?" Takeru asked.
"The digimon are... You're the only person we've seen
since you all left last time."
"No one else is back? I'm the only one?" Take asked.
"That's what I said T.K." Patamon confirmed.
Take winced at the mention of his childhood name. He
had his reasons for not liking it much anymore, not
since...
"Patamon? Could you call me Takeru? I've sort of...
grown out of T.K."
"No problem Takeru... hmm... it's so formal. That's
weird."
Takeru thought for a moment. "Okay then, call me
Take."
Patamon nodded. "Kay."
Takeru felt a warm liquid running down his forehead.
He reached up and wiped some of it off. He pulled his
hand back so he could look at it. It was crimson red,
and it had a distinct smell. It was blood.
"You're bleeding again." (Patamon is once again
stating the obvious.) "I'll get the cloths." Patamon
flew over to a soft leather bag. Take recognized it as
Mimi's old bag. "Here ya go." Patamon handed him a damp,
white cloth.
"Thanks." Take thought for a moment, looking at his
digimon. "Hey Patamon, why don't you get some sleep? You
look tired, and I'm wide awake." Takeru offered, while
placing the cloth over his scrape.
"Are you sure?" Patamon asked. "You'll be alright?"
"Yeah buddy. You look tired. I'll be fine," Takeru
assured his digimon partner. Patamon lay down and went
to sleep next to Gabumon.
Takeru looked over the sleeping digimon. They all
looked pretty much the same. In fact, he could see no
difference at all. Takeru stood watch the rest of the
night.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back in the real world...
"Hi, is Koushiro there?"
"May I ask who's calling?" the woman asked.
"It's Taichi Kamiya, we went to summer camp
together."
"Alright, one moment," the woman told him. A second
later he heard her call him for the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hi Izzy. I'd talk longer, but this is important.
Could you come over right away?"
"Yeah, sure Tai, but...what's this all about?"
"The digital world...we think. I'll explain when you
get here," Tai said and hung up.
"Prodigious." Izzy said as he hung up the phone. He
packed up his laptop, and was about to leave, when he
heard a strange noise coming from his desk drawer.
"That's odd..." Izzy opened his drawer and dug out the
small object that was beeping. His digivice. It hadn't
worked since they came back from the digiworld. He
clipped it to his belt, and with a second thought,
grabbed his crest as well. There was a blinding flash of
light, and Izzy was gone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I wonder where Izzy is..." Tai thought aloud.
"Are you sure you called him?" Kari asked.
"Yeah...he said he would be right over. I wonder
what's keeping him?" Tai wondered.
"He probably got wrapped up in his computer again,
like he always does." Yamato put in as he entered the
Kamiya residence. He glanced around and saw Jyou, Kari,
Sora, Mimi, and of course, Mr. Leader, Taichi.
"Where's Takeru?" Yamato asked.
"That's what this meeting is all about. Take
disappered today before the storm hit bad," Kari told
him.
"Take's missing?" Yamato asked, alarmed.
"We suspect he's been sucked back into the digital
world," Sora put in.
"We have to go after him. He may need us. He's been
sensitive since..." Yamato didn't finish.
"Wait a minute. I say we figure out for sure that
he's in the digital world," Tai commented.
"What do you mean? Where else could he be?" Yamato's
temper flared up.
The four other digidestened that were there knew what
was coming. "Tai/Matt!" Jyou, Mimi, Sora, and Kari said
simultaniously, "Stop it!"
"Whatever..." Yamato glared at Taichi, then walked
away and leaned up against the wall, his arms crossed.
Tai ground his teeth together. 'Matt will never
change. He's always against me. Never agreeing with me.
Why does he always have to...'
"Earth to Tai," Jyou said, waving his hand in front
of Tai's face.
"What?" Tai asked, and blinked.
"Kari suggested we take a vote on whether to go or
not," Jyou told him.
"I vote we go," Yamato stated simply.
"Me too, I want to help Take," Kari added.
"No--------------ooo! I don't want to go!!!" Mimi
whined. "Haven't we done enough for that stupid world
yet?"
"Mimi, don't you want to see Palmon?" Kari asked.
"I'm sure she misses you."
"Oh PALMON! I miss her
Soo----------------------------------------------------
---ooo MUCH!!!"
"Well, I do want to see what's happening in the
digital world... and I want to see how Biyomon's doing.
So I'll go," Sora voted.
"I do want to see Gomamon. I even miss his jokes,"
Jyou thought aloud.
"Well, if you all are going, so am I. Somebody's got
to keep you kids out of trouble," Tai teased, "But
before we go, we have to wait for Izzy."
The six digidestened waited for a half hour, and Izzy
never came.
Author's Note: So did ya'll like it? It will be a little
bit before Part III comes out. PLEASE send me feedback.
I crave it. ~Akira~