I don't own Digimon, I wish I did...

It's a really strange feeling.... I'm thinking of the dialogue in Japanese so
it gets really interesting trying to convert it into English.... @_@; Then
again, writing fanfiction is usually a really interesting experience for me
anyways.... here's the next part!

Digital Convergences Chapter 3 - "Reunions"
by Vivi-Chan

-----

Ryo had forgotten the earlier mystery of the Reload Machine in favor of trying
to restrain Monodramon. Monodramon hadn't been like this when they first
met...it had been after Monodramon had forced Zeed Milleniumon into a Jogress.
The Jogress had resulted in a Digi-egg...

It had hatched into Monodramon. Ryo had thought it was the same Monodramon...
he certainly acted quite normal... Curious, and quite a handful... Monodramon
lived with him in Fukuoka until it evolved into Cyberdramon during a fight
with a Digimon that had escaped from a Digital Field. It was a struggle to
keep Cyberdramon under control at least until it regressed back to Monodramon.
With each successive battle, the stronger Cyberdramon got, the more vicious it
became... the more feral and destructive it got.

That had been when he'd chosen to go to the Digital World and keep Cyberdramon
on a short leash. Ryo was not about to leave his Partner alone... even if it
had been the source of alot of pain and suffering. It was a decision made out
of pure desperation. Unchecked, Cyberdramon could easily become another form
of Milleniumon and wreak havoc on both the Digital World and the real world.

"I shouldn't have left you...." he said continuing to grip his D-Ark tightly.
"I'm sorry Monodramon...."

"Ryo-san.... can I help?" Takato asked.

Ryo shook his head glancing at the younger tamer. "Just calm everyone down and
try to explain things... I think Monodramon's calming down." He could tell
because his Partner wasn't straining so hard against him anymore.

"C'mon Monodramon...." said Ryo. "It's me... Ryo... your partner..."

He was vaguely aware of conversations being made in the background while he
exerted control over Monodramon, speaking to it. It felt almost like trying to
control a miniature Cyberdramon... except that he stood a MUCH better chance
of controlling Monodramon.

"Ryo...?" It was the first word to escape from Monodramon's mouth in what had
felt like an eternity. "What happened to me?"

Ryo breathed a sigh of relief, releasing the energy whip and allowing it to
retract. "You had me worried there for a while buddy." Ryo walked over to
kneel down next to his partner and give it a hug. "Everything's all right
now... I'm REALLY sorry Ruki... guys...."

"It's not your fault," said Takato. Ryo wasn't surprised to hear that from the
younger boy. If only he knew. "Besides... nothing bad happened!"

"Nothing bad?" asked Ruki, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She had gone over
to help inspect the boy's wound. "Ryo's partner only tried to kill someone."

"Anooo~ Ummmmm~" It was the girl with purple hair and glasses that spoke.
"Just who are you guys?" She was grinning and trying her best to look
friendly.

"I'm Takato Matsuda," Takato spoke up, stepping forward. "This is my partner
Guilmon."

Guilmon butted at Takato. "Neeee Takato.... did you bring any Guilmon bread
with you?" He sounded positively plantive.... and Ryo was hard pressed not to
grin. The red dinosaur-like digimon seemed to be ruled by one thing and one
thing alone - its stomach.

"Is it good?" asked the blue Digimon.... the one that had regressed from
Lighdramon. It was a V-mon. "I want some too!"

Guilmon made an affirmative noise which sounded like a faint giggle. "It's
very good. It's in the shape of Guilmon so it's called Guilmon bread!"

"Mou.... Guilmon.... I'm trying to be serious here," said Takato doing his
best to frown at his partner.

Jianliang seemed to know to take over, taking a step forward and bowing. "I'm
Jianliang Lee. Pleased to meet you all..."

"I'm Terriermon!" Jianliang's partner was hanging off of Jianliang's shoulder
with one ear wrapped partially around his tamer's head for support. It
giggled.

"Ruki Makino. My partner, Renamon." Renamon nodded slightly when Ruki
mentioned its name.

"Are you sure it doesn't hurt?" Ruki asked the boy while she tied a kerchief
around the injury. There were times that Ruki would thaw from her ice-queen
attitude. Ryo just wished it was more often.

"Yes... I'm fine. It's just a simple scratch. I'm sorry to cause all this
fuss," The voice sounded so familiar. Ryo couldn't place it immediately.

"I'm Daisuke Motomiya!" The boy with the goggles - not Takato. It was sort of
weird seeing another boy wearing goggles. Now that he though of it, they
rather reminded him of the goggles that he'd seen on someone else.

"I'm V-mon! Pleased to meet you!" So Daisuke was partnered to V-mon... they
seemed to have a smiliar personality.

The purple haired girl spoke next, "I'm Miyako Inoue. You can call me Miyako-
chan! Oh! And this is my partner Hawkmon." It looked like the girl was in the
throes of infatuation looking between Jianliang and himself.

The girl's partner digimon raised a wing and saluted, "Pleased to meet you."

"Iori Hida..." said the youngest boy. "I'm very pleased to meet you all. My
partner Digimon is Armadimon."

"Takeru Takaishi..." It was the blonde-haired boy from earlier. The one that
had been riding Pegasmon. Cradled in his arms was a Patamon. There was
something vaguely familiar about this boy too... and it wasn't because of
earlier.

"I'm Patamon!" It waved a winged ear at him.

"Hikari... Yagami...." said the final girl. "This is my partner... Tailmon.
I'm pleased to meet you." She had a shy air about her.

The boy that had been injured finally introduced himself. He had a shy smile
and the most vivid blue eyes. He held a Wormmon in his arms. "Ichi-"

Then it hit him. Wormmon. That voice. Before Ken could even finish his
introduction Ryo was in motion. "Ken!!!" He wasted no time moving foward
to promptly give the boy a good noogie, touseling his hair. "You're so tall
now! How long has it been anyways?!"

"Ryo-san?" It was Wormmon that spoke, hopping out of Ken's arms to the ground
where it clutched at his pant leg. Wormmon hadn't changed at all, it seemed.
"It's you isn't it, Ryo-san?"

"Yo, Wormmon. You havn't changed at all," he replied with a grin, finally
relenting after thoroughly mussing Ken's hair till it looked like the boy's
older brother's hairstyle.

"Eh? You know Ryo-san as well Wormmon?" asked V-mon, ambling forward. "Are you
the-"

So it WAS this V-mon! "How have you been V-mon? Long time no see!" He hoped to
cut off the rest of V-mon's statement and distract him. V-mon was easy to
sidetrack. "Found your partner finally?"

V-mon gave a thumbs up. "Great! And yeah!"

"What do you mean by that?" asked Daisuke. The goggle-boy didn't seem to be
liking this conversation one bit. Daisuke seemed to have a kind of posessive
interest in Ken. "What's Ken to you anyways?"

"Ah... nothing... I'd met V-mon before... he hadn't found his partner yet at
the time..." He hoped V-mon would leave it at that....

Ken had apparently recovered from the greeting at last, and tried to smooth
back down his hair. Ryo found it strange that Ken hadn't said anything yet...
maybe Ken had forgotten him? Maybe Ken was angry? It wasn't like Ryo had
deliberately left Ken... it just sort of happened.

Wormmon spoke up, "Ryo-san and Ken-chan fought together to defeat
Milleniumon."

"Then... you're a Chosen Child like us?" asked Miyako excitedly.

"Not... exactly," Ryo replied with a wry grin. Kinda... sorta... I prefer to
be called a Digimon Tamer. "I can't really explain it all that well."

Ryo meanwhile noticed the look on Ken's face as he leaned down to pick Wormmon
back up. He looked confused. Ken HAD forgotten about him.... Part of him was
sad, the other part... a bit angry. He had been best friends with Ken.

"Ryo-kun.... you know these people....?" asked Takato. He sounded so
tentative.

"Technically.... I only know Ken, Wormmon and V-mon. It's a long story." Ryo
ticked off the names one-by-one on his fingers. "We fought Milleniumon
together before circumstances brought me... here."

"Where IS here?" asked Iori. "This doesn't look like the Digital World."

"It's.... again... a long story... and I'm really hungry... anyone got any
food on them?" Ryo realized just now, how hungry he was... it had to be around
7 or 8 o'clock by now... "And we really need to find a place to set up camp
before night hits."

"Takato.... Guilmon is hungry too...." Guilmon whined pointing to its loudly
growling stomach.

"Me too..." said V-mon. Across the board, as if in response to Guilmon's
growling stomach, there were responding noises from all around.

"Come to think of it..." said Takato looking chagrined. "We missed dinner
completely...."

"That's true..." Jianliang replied. "It'll be dark soon... Ideally we should
move to one of the higher levels where we stand a better chance of finding
food and shelter."

"I'd rather not risk it," replied Ryo. "Not with a group this large.... That's
it! The Reload Machine! Maybe it'll work..." Ryo sat down and pulled it back
out of his satchel. "Although..... I don't remember ever seeing one this
portable.... the last one I saw took up an entire wall. Maybe that old man
made some improvements!"

"Old man...?" "Reload Machine?" "Improvements?" Judging by the comments the
others were making he wasn't making an entire lot of sense to either team...
Eh. Who cared?

"I've been meaning to ask you," said Jianliang. "What does that do?"

"It allows the user to communicate across a dimensional rift to another Reload
Machine user.... I just hope there's someone friendly on the other end..."

He fiddled with it a bit before setting it down on the ground. Very carefully,
with his head as far away as possible, he pushed the activate button.

A column of light shot up, resolving into a almost completely solid blond-
haired guy. Who the HECK was that? There was some static inteference which
caused the image to flicker occasionally but otherwise, this guy could have
been standing here with them.

"Gennai-san!" exclaimed the boy who had introduced himself as Iori.

"Gennai-san?" asked Ryo. "Isn't Gennai supposed to be some SUPER old guy with
a topknot and a trenchcoat? This guy looks too cool!"

"Long time no see...." said the blond-haired figure, grinning wryly. "We had
wondered what happened to you, Ryo-kun... Ken said you had to be alive
somewhere... it seems he was correct."

"Man... do you age backwards or something?" Ryo asked, propping his chin on
his hands as he sat there indian style looking up at Gennai. "I don't get
it... but if you've got any food over there can you send some over?"

"I'm not certain how long we can communicate, this dimensional rift is very
unstable. How DID you find the Reload Machine? It was stolen from Piccolomon
when its home was destroyed. I have yet to re-establish contact."

"That's the strange thing about it all," said Ryo. "Food? We can talk while
transferring right?"

"Oh... yes, I believe that was one of the improvements...." Gennai began to
speak as a crate of apples seemed to coalesce from the digital ether.

Ryo snagged one biting into it. His mouth was filled with a crisp tartness,
and a bit of juice threatened to dribble down his chin. Wiping his mouth he
replied, "Well... this weird woman with silver hair gave the package to me.
Beats me how she knew my name, but she ran off after that. I didn't get a good
look at her."

"As if you could get a good look at her with that outfit she was wearing,"
said Ruki in disgust.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Daisuke.

"Well..." said Ryo. "She wore this bizarre red dress... sunglasses and a big
red hat."

That got an instant response from the other kids.

"It can't have been..." said Daisuke, vehemently. "Archnemon is dead!"

"Who...?" asked Takato, handing Guilmon a red-bean bun. At least they wouldn't
be hungry for long at the rate food was appearing.

"Waaaai! Bread! Bread!" Guilmon danced around with the bread causing something
of a minor distraction. "Waaaai!"

"Guilmon!!!" said Takato. "Quiet down."

"Takato... I'm sorry" Guilmon's ears drooped under Tatako's remonstration. The
red Digimon then focused on eating... well at least that would keep Guilmon
quiet for a while.

"About a year ago," said Daisuke. "After the battle with the Digimon Kai- mrf!
" Daisuke never got very far when Miyako grabbed Daisuke and promptly tried to
shut him up. She had grabbed him by the cheeks and was pulling them violently.
"Miyakhoh! Ugh! Tha- hurs! Owwowowowow-"

"Daisuke! We don't need to get into that right now!" Miyako hissed.

Hikari watched for a moment before she spoke, "We fought against Arachnemon
and Mummymon. Two Perfect-Level Digimon. They were using Dark Towers to create
souless Digimon and destabilize the Digital World. They were used by someone
that wanted to get into the Digital World but he was in reality being
controlled by Belial Vamdemon - who had been defeated in another form by eight
of us some three years ago...."

Digimon Kai-? What had Daisuke been about to say that the others didn't want
him to say? All of them had this sort of look on their face - they had their
attention focused on Ken it seemed. Ryo glanced towards Ken. Ken was looking
down on the ground while holding Wormmon, looking... well.. he knew that
look... he'd have to talk to Ken later.

"If it is Arachnemon... why would it help me. I get it," said Ryo. "Good
point... why would it go through the effort of destroying Piccolomon's
hideout, steal a Reload Machine... hop a dimension to give this to me?"

"That sums it up fairly well," said Takeru. He'd paused to select an apple.
"Can the Reload Device send us back?"

"I'm afraid that's not possible at this moment," replied Gennai. "I will
attempt to contact you when Taichi and the others arrive here."

"Taichi-san?!" exclaimed Ryo getting on his knees. "How is he? How's Agumon?"
he asked. That was a name he hadn't heard in so long. Taichi's Agumon had been
the reason he'd journeyed to the Digital World in the first place...

"He's fine," assured Gennai. "Now that everyone is accounted for... I will
attempt to find a way to bring everyone back... I will be in contact. Until
then, please be careful."

The transmission faded.

"Um.... Ryo-san?" asked Takato. "Who was that?"

Ryo glanced towards Takato grinning, "Well... it's sort of hard to explain but
he's a protector of the Digital World.... well... not this one.... He's not a
Digimon but he's been in the Digital World for ages and ages I think. I'm not
sure what he is - he's not human."

"That's right," said Takeru. "Gennai-san has been a great help to us."

"I don't really get it," said Takato, looking for the life of him like he was
trying his best to struggle through a difficult math problem - and failing.

"Don't worry about it, Takato-kun," said Ryo. "I've been through it all and I
STILL don't get it."

"Corny," replied Ruki. She had sat down on a rock where she was now sipping at
some tea. She never really seemed to like his lines.

----

Daisuke had been talking to Takato about the card-slash type thingamy that
Takato and his friends could do. It looked cool maybe if he could figure out
that thing, he could get Hikari to notice him.

Images of himself standing surrounded by an army of viral Digimon while he
stood there calm. He'd pull out a card and perform a cool card slash to power
up V-mon. Yeah... that was definitely on his list of cool. Maybe he'd beg a
card or two from Takato later.

Daisuke spoke up, "So how do you know Taichi-sempai?" It was clear that Ryo
knew something about where they came from unlike his other three companions.
They had camped down in the shadow of some cliffs, where it was protected
enough to start a fire.

"Well..." said Ryo grinning. "To make a long story short... I saved him and a
bunch of other Chosen Children once... That was when I had my first battle
with Millenniumon."

"AAAAAH! You're the one!" exclaimed Takeru extending his hand to Ryo. "You're
the one that saved us! Now I remember! It's good to see you again!"

Ryo grinned shaking Takeru's hand, "I thought I knew you from somewhere...
You're the kid I saw on the internet broadcast... with Diablomon and Omegamon.
Metal Garurumon's partner's younger brother... right?"

Takeru nodded, looking chagrined, "Yeah... that was me...."

"What are you talking about?" asked Daisuke, he'd tuned out mid-conversation
to disappear into his fantasy world. He rapped his knuckles on V-mon's head
when he caught sight of his Digimon edging towards the chocolate chip muffins.

"Ow..." V-mon protested.

"I saw you eying the chocolate muffins," said Daisuke. "Those are for dessert.
And who's this Milleniumon?"

"It was like four years ago," said Takeru. "Agumon was the only one... he went
to Gennai for help and they found a Chosen Child to help save us. I'm not sure
what it was all about... but somehow Ryo-san partnered with Agumon temporarily
to pull it off."

Daisuke watched Ryo turn his attention towards Ken.

"That sounds so cool!" said Miyako. "Is it possible to partner with another
Chosen's Digimon?"

"Ah... I'm not sure... apparently I'm the only one that's done it..." Ryo
replied rubbing the back of his head.

"Show-off...." Daisuke heard Ruki mutter.

"Ruki..." The fox Digimon? Renamon had nudged Ruki gently in the arm.

Daisuke hazarded a glance at Ken. His best friend was sitting a distance away
- probably the furthest from the fire and everyone else. Ken had that
difficult look on his face - like he was hurting inside. Wormmom was looking
up at him like a mothering hen.

"Ken? Why don't you join us?" Ryo asked. He'd gotten up and walked over to
where Ken was sitting. "You're not mad at me or anything are you?"

Ken looked up, guiltily, it seemed. "No... it's not that, Ryo-san..." He
looked back down. "It's just that I...."

"Ken-chan has amnesia," piped up Wormmon. "He only remembers bits and pieces
of his journey in the Digital World... It's not that he hates you... he can't
remember who you are..."

Ryo looked taken aback for a moment, "Hey, cheer up kid, I don't hold it
against you. I'll tell you all sorts of stories about our adventures and maybe
it'll help you remember?"

Ken smiled faintly, "Maybe another time... I'm sorry... I'm just not feeling
well today..."

Daisuke noticed that Ken was rubbing at his neck. Was it a sub... subcon...
was he doing it without knowing what he was doing?

"All right... try to get some rest Ken... I'm really sorry about Monodramon...
I'm not sure what set him off."

"Is that your partner now...?" asked Ken softly.

Ryo nodded, kneeling down in front of Ken. "Sounds like you remember just a
little bit..."

"I remember pushing you out of the way..." Ken answered quietly. "And
something hitting me in the neck... that's all really..."

"That's something of a start!" said Ryo, clapping Ken on the shoulder.
"Yeah... you were really sick for a while.... you had all of us really
worried."

"I'm sorry..." Ken replied. "I seem to have a bit of a headache... I think
I'll go for a walk..." Ken stood up slowly bowing slightly and walked off.

"Anyways...." said Takeru speaking to the boy named Jianliang. "We were on a
channel chatting when someone... or something came onto the channel.. His
username was Millenium. He started demanding to know where Ryo was and the
next thing we knew... here we were...."

"Is it possible that this Millenium is Milleniumon?" asked Jianliang
thoughtfully.

"You might be on to something," said Takeru.

"That's not possible..." said Ryo walking back over.

"Howso?" asked Daisuke.

Ryo answered, "Because.... Monodramon hatched from a Digi-egg that was
formed from the Jogress of Zeed Milleniumon and the Monodramon I had partnered
with during the quest to stop him. Milleniumon doesn't exist anymore."