Note: A bit more about Jesi, if you didn't already know, she is Ken's girlfriend. (It's all in If I Never Knew You, read it read it .) I try not to Mary Sue... but BLAH, just bear with me. She is very best friends with Izzy and is also close to TK and Kari. There is a picture of her and her digimon here:







Chapter Eighteen- Reunited



"We're back!" Biyomon chirped as she, Tentomon, and Hawkmon flew in through the open window. She perched on the back of a chair, Hawkmon landed in the chair, and Tentomon sat himself down on the floor.

"That didn't take too long," Jesi said, smiling.

"We didn't see any of the others, but we made a map of the whole island just like you asked," Biyomon said.

Jesi was still at Primary Village with all of the digimon, and had been helping Elecmon take care of the babies. She had sent the three flying digimon to circle around the island and see if they could spot any of the other Digidestined and also asked them to draw a map of the terrain. Patamon wanted to accompany them, but he was so small, Jesi worried his wings might get tired out sooner than the others. She told him he needed to stay at Primary Village because he was doing such a good job taking care of the baby digimon.

"Good job, let me take a look," Jesi said. Hawkmon handed her the map and she unrolled it. At first glance, she thought maybe she was holding it upside down, so she turned it around, then squinted and tipped her head to the side.

"Um...it's a little, confusing," she said, staring at the mass of scribbles that looked like they could have been drawn by Tai.

"Hey! That's the best we could do, we don't have any thumbs!" Tentomon said in defense of their map.

"It's really quite simple," Hawkmon said, spreading the map out on the floor. "There are several basic regions on the island, the snowy mountain region, the desert, the forest, and all around the outside is the beach, of course. The area connecting the forest and the desert is the farming region where the a lot of Gekomon, Otamamon, Floramon, and Mushroomon live."

"There's a feudal village in that area," Biyomon interrupted.

"Yes, yes, I was just getting to that," Hawkmon said, and continued. "This lower region is where we are, in Primary Village. This area has a few small forests and there are some cities and villages scattered here and there.

"Like Toy Town," Tentomon buzzed.

Hawkmon glanced at Tentomon for a moment and finished explaining the map. "Over here at the edge of the forest region is the Yokomon Village and Mihirashi Mountain." Hawkmon pointed out different dots and squiggles drawn on the map as he explained where all the landmarks were.

"This dot over here is the pond where we spent our first night in the digital world with our partners 4 years ago," Tentomon said, pointing at the map with one of his long claws. "I drew that one myself."

"Will you stop interrupting!" Hawkmon yelled as more of an order than a question. Jesi just giggled and tried to pay attention.

"Ehem, and right in the middle of the island is Infinity Mountain which is surrounded on all sides by smaller mountains. Then over here-"

"Oh no!" Biyomon cried, "What if everyone else landed on another continent and we're the only ones on File Island!"

"Oh no! Izzy!" Tentomon yelled.

"I'm sure we didn't get scattered that far apart," Jesi comforted. She then stood up from the floor and dusted herself off.

"This afternoon Flotsymon and I are going to take your map and set out to look for the others," she said.

"What? You can't go all alone! And besides, I need to find Sora!" said Biyomon.

"And Izzy!" added Tentomon.

"We'll all go," said Agumon, who had just walked into the room with Gabumon and Veemon.

"But who will help Elecmon guard Primary Village?" Jesi said.

Elecmon, who had been outside with Patamon poked his head through the door.

"I've been taking care of every single baby in Primary Village since long before I knew all of you, I'm sure I'll manage by myself," he told them.

Later that day, Jesi packed a decent supply of food and water in her backpack, along with the map, and she and all 13 digimon set out towards Infinity Mountain to try and find the other children.



Tai stepped out of the temple when the grey sun had almost reached its highest point in the sky. Mimi and Sora stood around the water basin, still in their underwear, washing out their clothes with some help from the Gekomon and Otamamon. Kari and Davis sat on a bamboo seat wrapped up in blankets as their clothes were also in the water basin. Davis had managed to keep his nose from bleeding whenever he saw Mimi.

Tai had let Mimi and Sora wash his pants and then put them back on so they could wash out his shirt. Though it was still winter on earth, they were so close to the desert region that the temperature was near 90 degrees. They all wished now that they hadn't been wearing their winter clothes when they had entered the Digital World, and it felt good to get their hot clothes off.

"Hey, where's Matt?" Tai asked the girls.

"He's on the roof," Sora answered. "We offered to wash his clothes for him but he wouldn't take them off."

"Matt's not usually modest..." Tai said and headed for the ladder going up the side of the temple. When he had hoisted himself up he saw Matt sitting on the peak of the roof with his back to him, staring out into the desert.

"Yami?"

Tai walked carefully out to the end of the roof and sat down next to Matt. He glanced down and saw Mimi and Sora leaning over the water basin directly below them.

"Don't you want your clothes washed before we go?" Tai asked.

"I'm fine..."

"Yami, what's wrong?" Tai asked and inched closer to him.

"I don't know, I just feel weird. I've felt like this ever since we found each other at that weird glass pond."

"Did I do something wrong?" Tai said, and leaned over a bit, trying to look into Matt's eyes.

"No, it's not you..." Matt sighed and stood up. "I'm gonna go take a walk, ok?"

"Do you want to be alone?" Tai asked, not getting up.

Matt just nodded and climbed down off the roof. He wandered off into the forest kicking absentmindedly at rocks and sticks scattered along the path. As he walked, he didn't notice a strange darkness start to surround him, much like the darkness that had filled his heart three years ago when the Digidestined were fighting the Dark Masters. He was losing himself again, except this time there was no one around to bring him back. He was alone in a forest, or so he thought.

Matt sighed again and quickly ran his fingers through his hair, and suddenly he heard a voice calling out to him. It was faint, and for a moment Matt thought he had imagined hearing anything.

"Tai? Is that you?" he said softly.

"Matt..."

He tipped his head up a little and glanced back and forth, straining to hear who the voice belonged to. He turned slightly, to see a figure stepping out of the darkness.

"TK!" Matt smiled instinctively, momentarily forgetting about everything that had happened over the past few months. He stepped over to greet TK, but stopped a few yards away from him. He looked so...strange.

"Hello, brother." TK had been staring down at the ground, but now lifted his head up to meet Matt's gaze. He had that look on his face, the almost evil smile from Matt's dream. His eyelids were half closed, and his normally sparkling blue eyes appeared empty and hollow.

"TK...are you alright?" Matt asked hesitantly.

"Are you happy to see me, Matt?" TK asked, in a calm but somehow unsettling voice.

"Of course I am, but wait, are you all alone? Wasn't there anyone with you?" Matt said.

"Yes, the others....They're coming."

"Who's with you?" Matt asked him, taking a step closer. Even though he was talking to his own brother, he felt like he was having a conversation with a dark stranger he had never seen before.

"They're coming," TK repeated.

Matt raised his eyebrow and stepped back again. Something was not right.

"Are you sure you're ok?" he asked again.

"I saw you in the woods last night," TK said, and cocked his head to one side slightly. The same smile was still plastered across his face.

"When? Why didn't you say something to us? We've been looking everywhere for you and everyone else."

"Did you enjoy it?" TK said.

"What? What are you talking about?" Matt asked. He began to feel the tiniest bit nauseous, as if a part of him knew something terrible was about to happen.

"I'm curious, brother," TK said. His smile began to broaden a little. "Did you enjoy it with Tai as much as you did with me?"

Matt's eyes widened in horror. He hadn't just heard that...this couldn't be happening.

"You...you saw us?" he said, stuttering over his words. He wasn't even sure what to say.

"Yes, I watched. It was very interesting. The two of you moving as one, your sweat dripping onto Tai's body, pushing into him, making him cry out in ecstasy..."

Matt stepped back again, he opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. Half of him was screaming at him to punch the living daylights out of his brother, and the other half was begging him to run away.

"Wasn't I good enough for you Matt? Screwing your little brother wasn't enough so now you have to screw your best friend?"

"NO!" Matt screamed. "I love Tai!! You're not my brother!! TK would never act this way!!"

TK's smile widened into a grin and his eyes flashed blood red. The dark aura that had formed whirled around him.

"Run away, brother..." said a voice that was not TK's.

Matt blinked, causing his eyes to overflow with hot tears, and he obeyed. He turned on the spot and started sprinting through the forest as fast as possible.

He ran until he thought his legs were going to give out, and finally stopped. He leaned with his head against a tree, panting and sobbing. His face was covered with sweat and tears.

Then he heard another voice cry out his name. His stood straight up and gasped, scared out of his wits.

"Matt!!" Before he knew exactly what was going on, Joe burst through the bushes and stopped as his feet, breathing heavily.

"I'm so...glad...we finally...found you!" Joe said between breaths.

Matt quickly turned away from him and dried his face off with his sleeves. He would never be able to live down the shame of letting someone other than Tai or Gabumon see him cry.

"Joe! Wait up!" Yolei called from behind the bushes Joe had just run through.

"Hey, Matt, what's wrong with you? You look like you've just seen a ghost," Joe said after finally catching his breath.

"I thought you were someone else..." Matt said softly.

"Hi Matt!"

He looked up to see Yolei and Cody entering the clearing.

"It's great to see you. We didn't think we'd EVER find anyone else," Cody said.

"Yeah," Matt just smiled and nodded.



Later, the group was gathered around the fire pit back at the temple. It was early afternoon now. They discussed with Joe, Yolei and Cody where they had been and their trip through the desert. They were so enthralled in their conversation, no one noticed Matt was not among them.

"Have you seen anyone else?" Sora asked.

"You're the first ones we've met up with," Yolei said.

"I don't know about any of you, but I'm starving," Cody said, rubbing his growling stomach.

"Oh, we haven't eaten all day!" Yolei said.

"Hey, there's a whole ton of food inside and the Gekomon said we can eat all we want!" Davis said.

As they all stood up, Tai glanced around quickly, wondering where Matt had gone off to.

Kari was first to the temple, and opened up the door. The site she saw when she looked inside made her gasp.

"Oh!"

Tai stepped up behind his little sister and now knew where his boyfriend was. He cried out,

"Yami!"

Tai ran over and fell to his knees next to Matt. He grabbed Matt's shoulders and started shaking him frantically.

"He's passed out!"

Matt's upper body was bent over, sprawled out on the table. His face was pressed against the hard surface of the tabletop. Scattered all around him were empty sake bottles and tiny dishes.

"Oh, Matt!" Sora rushed over next to her friends and helped Tai try to wake him up.

"Where did he get all this!?" Tai screamed at the Gekomon who had just hurried into the temple to see what all the commotion was.

"We keep the sake for special ceremonies only!" one of the Gekomon said, waving his hands in front of him.

Tai was sobbing and almost starting to hyperventilate. He picked up one sake bottle after another, they were all empty. He clenched his teeth and flung the bottle he was holding against the wall, causing it to shatter into pieces.

"He drank all of them!" he continued to scream.

"He's drunk himself into unconsciousness..." Cody said soft enough so Tai couldn't hear him.

Tai leaned closer to Matt's body and shook him harder.

"Yami! YAMI, WAKE UP!"

Sora grabbed onto Tai's wrist and pulled him away from Matt slightly.

"Tai, stop it! He's just blacked out, the best thing to do is get him in bed and wait for him to wake up on his own."

"No!" Tai yelled at her. He yanked his hand away from Sora and started shaking Matt again. "Yami! Yami, please, wake up!!"

"Tai, just bring him to bed!" Sora urged.

"Leave me alone! How did this happen!?" he looked up at the others still standing in the doorway, unsure of what to do. "Did one of you say something to him!?" Tai squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists. "Who did this!? WHO DID THIS!?"

Tai felt a hand strike his face suddenly. He looked up, in shock, to see Kari, his own sister, standing over him, her hand still outstretched.

"Kari..."

"Dude, I never thought I'd see Kari slap Tai..." Davis whispered.

"I would have expected better from you, Tai!" Kari scolded him. "Now, if you love Matt you'll bring him to bed right now!" she ordered.

Tai lowered his eyes, unable to look his sister in the eye anymore.

"I'm sorry..." was all he managed to say.



"We were planning on leaving for the village today, but it looks like we're going to be spending another night here," Sora sighed.

Kari, Sora, Yolei and Mimi were sitting on the beds in the bedroom the girls had slept in the night before. Davis, Cody and Joe had made themselves some lunch and were sitting around the table in the main hall of the temple.

Mimi sat behind Yolei on the bed, brushing her long purple hair.

"Well, I think we should just leave Matt and Tai here and go on without them," she said.

"Mimi! How could you say something like that?" Sora asked.

"Well, it's their fault that we're stuck here, the two of them have been causing trouble this whole time, it's like they don't want us to succeed."

"Mimi..."

Kari looked back and forth between Mimi and Sora for a moment and began thinking hard.

"Sora, can I speak with you for a minute?" Kari asked quietly.

Sora and Kari got up to leave the room, and Mimi glared at them as they walked out. In the hallway, Kari whispered to Sora,

"Does it seem like Mimi is acting...not like her normal self? She's been so touchy since we got here, it seems like she gets upset about everything."

"I was actually thinking about how strange Tai's been acting. Ever since we passed that glass covered pond, we've been acting different. I can feel it too, it's like there's something controlling us," Sora said.

"Do you think whatever caused all this chaos in the digital world could be affecting us too?"

"I don't know..." Sora sighed. "I hope that digimon the Gekomon told us about isn't playing with our heads. If that's true, what chance do we have?" She thought. Sora glanced over to the boy's room, where Tai had been sitting over Matt's bed this whole time.

"Matt, why'd you have to go and do that? Did something happen to you in the woods?" he said softly.

"Nng...I think I'm going to throw up..." Matt rubbed the side of his head, having just woken up a few minutes before.

"Do you want me to hold your hair back?"

Matt glanced up at him and smiled. He took Tai's hand and held it tightly, kissing each of his fingertips.

"I love you so much..." he whispered.

Tai leaned over onto the bed and rested his head on the pillow next to Matt's.

"Yami, what happened? Why would you do something like that?"

"I saw TK..."

Tai sat up again, shocked.

"Why didn't you say something!? Are any of the others with him?"

"I...don't know...there was something wrong."

"What?"

"I think I might have imagined it...I don't even know if I really saw him at all...."

"Yamato..."



"Are you sure it was them!?" Jesi yelled, the wind blowing her hair in every direction. Flotsymon had digivolved to Kasurymon, and was carrying Jesi high above the surface of the Digital World. Tentomon, Patamon, Biyomon, and Hawkmon were circling around the area, keeping an eye out for the other children, and the non-flying Digimon were keeping up on foot, except for Wormmon. His legs were so short, Jesi had taken him up with her and was holding him in her arms. Of course, being that he was Ken's partner, she favored him over the rest, but couldn't let anyone know that.

"Without a doubt!" Tentomon answered.

Jesi grinned excitedly, and Kasurymon began to descend. Her feet touched down at the base of the mountain and Jesi hopped to the ground. Still carrying Wormmon, she began running towards the spot where Tentomon and the other flying digimon had landed. Kasurymon de-digivolved and Flotsymon scampered after her.

"Which way?" she asked.

"They're in this direction," Biyomon chirped, pointing through the woods.

"Ok, Hawkmon, Biyomon, go back and find the others and lead them here," Jesi instructed.

She raced after Tentomon and Patamon through the woods, until she saw a human coming into view. When she could see the orange shirt and red hair, she shrieked,

"IZZY!!"

Izzy turned around suddenly, just in time to see someone come crashing into him, knocking him to the ground. Wormmon went flying.

"AGH!!"

"Jesi!"

In the middle of hugging Izzy, Jesi turned around to see Ken standing over them.

"Ken!" She grinned and jumped up, Ken caught her in his arms and spun her around.

"Would someone mind helping me up!?" Izzy yelled, still on the ground.

"Izzy!!"

Izzy sat up to see Tentomon hovering over him. He grabbed onto Tentomon's claws and stood himself up.

"I'm sorry, Izzy, I just got so excited to see you," Jesi said, Ken's arms still around her.

"It's alright," he said, dusting himself off. "It's good to see you..." he said softly.

Jesi stepped over and gave Izzy a proper hug, and he held her tightly to him. The two best friends had not seen each other in over a year.

"I've missed you so much," she said.

Wormmon crawled over to Ken, and he picked him up.

"How long have you been looking for us?" Ken asked.

"We just left this morning," Wormmon said. "Is anyone else with you?"

"Yes, TK, but..." Ken looked over towards the dense forest at the base of the mountain.

"What's wrong, Ken?" Wormmon asked.

"He's wandered off by himself, I think there's something wrong with him."

Ken looked back over at Jesi and Izzy, who were now talking with Tentomon, and Patamon was perched on Jesi's head.

"Jesi, are you all alone?" Ken asked.

"No, I've got all the Digimon with me, but if you mean are there any other Digidestined with me, you're the first humans I've seen since I got here."

"Did you leave at the same time we did?"

"Well, I called Mimi and we left at the same time, it was almost 9 am in California when I went through the digi-port," she answered.

"So we all left at the same time, because it was about 2 in the morning in Japan," Izzy said.

"Where's TK?" Patamon said suddenly.

"What?" Jesi said, looking up at the Patamon on her head.

"Ken just said TK was with them,"

"How do you know?" Jesi asked.

"You think I couldn't hear him with these huge ears?"

"He went on ahead of us, he's off in the woods somewhere," Ken said.

"I need to find him, Teeeeekkkaaayyy!" Patamon said, and took off.

"I'll go with you!" Tentomon said, buzzing after him.

Jesi sat down in the grass and Flotsymon climbed into her lap. She patted her blue Digimon on the head.

"The others are on the way, I can hear them," she said.

"I guess you have pretty big ears too, huh?" Jesi said to her. Flotsymon just twitched her ear and looked behind her, the group of Digimon that were on foot had almost reached their location.

Izzy and Ken sat down next to her.

"There's something wrong..." Jesi turned towards the mountain, not even knowing she was looking in the direction of the glass covered pond. "Can you feel it?"

Ken nodded.

"I don't understand, how come everyone else can sense something going on except me?" Izzy complained.

"Be happy you can't feel it," Jesi said. She tilted her head up and held her breath, listening. "There's someone out there, watching us."

"You know, everyone started acting weird right after we passed that peculiar pond," Izzy said. "I wonder...TK said he felt a presence, like something that was only half there."

Jesi gasped, "He knows..."

"Jesi, what's wrong, do you mean TK?" Ken asked.

"No...him, Monomanemon! Flotsymon, do you remember that digimon Elecmon told us about that could control people's minds?" she said.

"Yes, a whole bunch of Digimon have been talking about that guy, but I've never seen him. Some digimon think it's just a myth somebody made up to explain what's going on."

"Like an urban legend," Izzy said.

Jesi shook her head, "He's here, I can feel him all around." She nudged Flotsymon off her lap and stood up. "We need to find TK, right away. He's not safe all by himself."

"I wish I could contact Gennai somehow..." Izzy said as he and Ken got up to follow Jesi.

"Hey! Don't forget us!" they heard someone call. From the woods emerged the rest of the Digimon, with Agumon in the lead.

"Alright, let's go," said Ken. The group set off into the dark forest to find TK and the others.