Yolei woke up with a jolt, as it struck her that her alarm hadn't wakened her. She couldn't be late again, couldn't afford a detention. Blindly, she groped for her glasses on her nightstand... and found that, though she did locate her glasses, her nightstand was mysteriously absent. "What the-" she muttered. Still half-asleep, she fumbled her glasses onto her face and gasped. Why on earth was she sleeping on the ground? Her eyes landed on the still figure a short ways from her, and she sighed. Oh, right. The quest. She rubbed her eyes and walked over to where her digital nemesis slept. A small smile flitted across her face. He really didn't look so abhorrent asleep.

"First time I've seen the Emperor without his shades," she said softly to herself. Even his hair looked a bit more sane, dishevelled from sleep instead of sticking up at its habitual crazy angles. He even smiled a little in his sleep.

A mischevious impulse crept over Yolei. While it was true that he was the feared and hated Digimon Emperor, he was also a teenage boy. And Yolei was a teenage girl who loved shaking up teenage boys who didn't have a sense of humor. It was too bad she didn't have a can of whipped cream with her.

She knelt next to the slumbering boy and leaned over to whisper in his ear. "Ken, it's me." Quickly, she ran through a list of celebrities boys generally considered hot. "It's Tyra Banks." The smile on his face grew, and he mumbled something. "Oh Ken, you're so much more mature than all the celebrity boys I know. You... you're a real man. You're what I need to... satisfy me."

The young man's eyes drifted open. They were an unusual shade of violet that Yolei had forgotten, fighting him so long as the Digimon Emperor. She hastily turned and pretended to examine the ground. "Wha... where is she?" he asked groggily.

Yolei faced him and put on her most innocent expression. "I'm the only here. Were you expecting someone else?"

He sat up and narrowed his eyes. "What are you doing here?" She raised her eyebrows and looked expressively around them. Suspiciously, he glanced away from her and scanned their surroundings. "Oh. Now I remember. We're the sole hope of the digital world?"

She nodded. "That's right. Now, Mr... um, Spirit guy told us that time was running out, so I think we should get going."

Ken rose and glared imperiously down at her. "And where do you suggest we go, girl? Unless you carry a compass and a map of the Digital World with you, we're lost in this forest. I know that Infinity Mountain is west and slightly north of here but no more than that"

Yolei scrambled to her feet. "Gee, you know, my D3 would've been perfect for that." He didn't even bat an eye. "But luckily for you, I was a Wilderness Girl for a few years. Give me ten minutes, and I'll have us headed west." She rummaged around the forest floor until she found a good, solid stick. She planted it in the ground and dug a small hole to mark where its shadow fell. "Now we wait."

Silence.

And more silence.

"I think I'll go, uh, see if I can find us anything to eat. If I yell at you, yell back. I don't want to get lost." Yolei brushed off her dark jeans and searched for a tree or bush bearing fruit. It was early autumn here, so ripe fruit should hang plentiful on the vines. She was glad that she had thought to change into clothes before setting out for this place last night. She would hate to be stuck here in her pajamas. "Hey!" she shouted.

"What?" an irritable voice replied.

Yolei rolled her eyes. She would rather be stranded here with Davis, and that was saying something. After only a few minutes, she discovered a small stand of apple trees. Earlier in the year, fragrant white and pink blossoms would have decorated those branches, but an even more inviting sight presented itself now. Small, red and yellow apples hung heavily from the trees' limbs. She jumped, grasping for the fruit but failed miserably.

Quickly, she shimmied up one of the trees and plucked as many of the apples as she could fit in her shirt, the bottom held up to form a sort of bag against her chest. Mimi would've shaken her head in dismay at the girl's mistreatment of her formerly pristine white shirt.

"Hey!" she shouted.

"What?"

She retraced her steps and found Ken lounging against a tree trunk. Carefully, she took the apples from her shirt and set them near the stick, upright in the dirt. She made another hole at the location of its shadow and smiled. "West is that way. I hope these apples aren't wormy or something."

Ken gingerly took one, disgust clear on his face. She noticed that he had returned his glasses to his face.

"Oh come on, it won't kill you. You really should get out more. It can't be healthy for you to stay inside all day." Her own skin had developed a light tan over the summer months that had not yet begun to fade. She inspected her apple for spots and worm holes, then bit into it. It was sweet and flavorful and a little tart, all at the same time. "They're pretty good."

Grimacing, the Digimon Emperor nibbled at the apple he'd chosen. His face cleared a little when it didn't kill him or explode in his face. "Then let's go." His voice could've frozen molten lava.

Yolei gathered up the rest of the apples and stuffed them into the satchel she had brought with her. She thanked Providence again for her planning the night before. "This way, your Majesty," she said mockingly and set out.

Ken was too annoyed with his present circumstances to lord over Yolei much, at least while they walked. And they walked for a long time. If they had not been in a forest, shaded by huge, ancient trees, both would've turned a bright red by the end of the day. The sun was pleasantly warm and a breeze blew gently, ruffling the greenery.

Yolei stopped short. "Uhhhh, Ken?" He glared and didn't reply. "All right, be that way. Emperor?"

"What?"

"Shhh... do you hear that?" He waited expectantly for a few seconds, then shook his head. "I hear nothing, girl. Just the wind rustling the leaves."

Yolei shook her head. "In case you didn't notice, there is no wind right now. Something else is rustling." She peered around, but only vegetation met her gaze. "Well, whatever it is, it's staying out of sight." And with that, she started walking again.

After several hours, Ken began to tire. When he was younger and a top athlete, he would've been able to keep up with this girl all day. Now he stayed indoors and controlled his empire from his fortress, with little chance for exercise. Embarrassed, he had to call for Yolei before she turned around.

"What's wrong," she called out irritably. Several times, she had tried to make casual conversations, but Ken had squashed those efforts effectively. She saw him sitting on a bent tree trunk and nodded. "Oh, okay. I guess this is a good time to stop." She tossed him an apple, which he caught and ate. "It does look a little darker. This looks like as good a place as any."

They ate in silence. "Give me one reason I should stay here for another minute," Ken demanded suddenly. "I am beginning to believe this is a monumental waste of time. If that being was telling us the truth, we should just abandon this world."

Yolei's head whipped around. "What?? We can't just... abandon the digital world! There are plants and animals here. I have friends here! I will not just let them die."

Ken approached Yolei and sat next to her. "Listen to me." His voice was low but forceful. "I don't want to give this up either. I've been developing a battle plan which I am sure would have defeated you and your friends within the month. But I will not starve myself and tramp through a forest for God knows how many days for a game."

Yolei could have screamed. "It isn't a game, you nitwit!" Ken straightened as if he'd been slapped. "It's just different from our world! You know, like how in sci-fi, they have all these different kinds of life? Well, it's the same here, except it's real! How do you think Hawkmon came through the portal with me?" She bonked her open hand against the side of his head. "Wake up! It's real! And besides, the spirit said the shadow-thing would come into our world, remember? So you can't run away forever, even if you wanted."

"You remember this, girl. You will not strike me again... and I do not run away. I have not, and I will not." This time he sounded very angry.

"You don't run away, huh? What do you call leaving your own world, huh? What do you call leaving your family to think you'd been kidnapped and probably murdered? You call that, what, a strategic retreat or something?!" Yolei had a temper to match the best of them. "You were just a scared little boy, and that's what you are now!"

He made a move to hit her, but Yolei ducked the blow. "Nice try. Solve this the way you solve everything."

Ken's face was suffused with crimson, and he opened his mouth to respond, but a screeching cut him short. Both jumped at the noise, then jumped again at a crash that sounded very near them. A digimon appeared out of the forest, pointing at Ken. "There he is! It's the Emperor--and he doesn't have his army with him. If we get him, we can make sure that he never hurts another one of us again!"

Yolei's eyes widened, and she was sure that, behind his glasses, Ken's did as well. "If we don't get out here, I don't think you'll be around much longer for me to yell at." After she took a deep breath, Yolei grabbed the boy's hand and sprinted in the opposite direction of the voices. Branches tore at their hair and clothes and tried to slow them. In their hurry, neither heard the gurgle of a stream and only realized it was there when water soaked through their shoes. Yolei made a face, but growls behind them spurred them on. Now with their shoes wet, they slipped on rocks and dead leaves.

Only too late did the pair notice a black expanse in front of them. "Oh, crap!" Yolei cursed as they tumbled headlong into a ravine. Ken pressed his fingers to his lips, and she quieted. They stayed motionless for several minutes until they were sure that the chase had ended. They stood warily, trying to assess their situation, squinting into the palely moonlit night. "Oh, I almost forgot!" Yolei produced a lantern from her satchel, hoping desperately that it hadn't broken in their fall. In its silver illumination, she could see where they had fallen. "Ew, it smells horrible here." Murky water pooled at the bottom of the ditch and bubbled slightly.

"I suppose there is one positive aspect to our flight," Ken said coolly, just as if he had not fled for his life and ended up head over heels in a smelly hole. "I know that stream. It begins at Infinity Mountain and flows past my fortress. We should be able to follow it to our goal."

A giggle escaped Yolei's lips. "We just barely escaped a... a digimon lynch mob, we're covered in stuff I hope is just mud, and... and you're the one finding the silver living in all this?" She thought she detected a small smile on Ken's face, but if so, it disappeared instantly. "Mimi will kill me when she sees what I did to this shirt she bought me." With a shrug, she dug her shoes into the side of the ravine and began attempting to climb. "Come on." The sounds of squelching mud behind her told Yolei that he was struggling to follow her. With a melodramatic sigh, she reached a hand down and pulled him up by his collar. He protested hotly, but they were over the edge in a few minutes.

She carefully wiped the lantern and her glasses with a less muddy part of her shirt. "Now that we're wet, cold, and filthy, I guess we should go to sleep. Maybe we'll have better luck tomorrow."

**A/N--I realized after writing this that their clothes always changed when they went through the portal. But, um, this is years later, so they can wear whatever they like wherever they are. Yeah, that's it.