Chapter 2:
Humanized Digimon Part II

"Mom! Where's my binder?"

"I don't know, honey. Try looking on the table."

Kimi went into the kitchen and saw her binder sitting there. She sighed in relief as she grabbed it and stuffed it into her backpack. She was a little girl but she did have some smarts. She had short brown hair and she had pink clips in her hair. She wore a pink shirt with brown pants and pink sneakers. She grabbed her backpack and headed out the door. As she started to walk down the sidewalk, she heard someone calling her name.

"Hey Kimi! Wait up!"

She turned and smiled and said, "Hey Matsu! What's up?"

"Nothing much. Except I knocked over mom's plant."

"Matsu!"

"What? I said I was sorry. Momentai, would ya?"

She sighed as they walked together towards school. Along the way, they met up with two more of their friends.

"Hey you guys!"

They looked over and saw Cal and Angel head up to them. Cal was a boy on the short side but he wasn't too much shorter than Matsu and Kimi. He had such blonde hair that it almost appeared white. He had on a gray shirt with a weird triangle symbol on it with jeans and sneakers. The boy beside him was Angel. Angel had light pink hair, which they thought was weird but didn't say anything, a very light pink shirt with a red heart on the sleeve, black pants, and white shoes. Once they caught up, they headed toward the elementary school and talking about how Matsu knocked over the plant.

As Rachel sat down in her seat, her teacher was going to make an announcement.

"Today class, we have a new student. Please meet Mr. Yukio Ishida."

A brown-haired boy walked into the classroom wearing a dark brown shirt, black jeans, and brown shoes. He waved at the classroom.

"Hi. I'm Yukio. It's nice to meet you."

Yukio took his seat as the teacher started his lecture about feudal Japan. Rachel sighed and thought about what happened earlier that day. She wondered if she would ever talk to Neo again because it seemed like he was more of a loner than a people-person. Then again, it seemed like she never made the right friends so maybe this was a chance to try to make a good friend. After school, she saw Neo hanging out by the gate. She walked up to him and, when he saw her, he waved. She waved back and approached him.

"What's up?" she asked politely.

"Not much. Come on. Let's go before they spot us."

As they walked by an alleyway, a pair of hands grabbed Neo from behind and banged him against the brick wall. Rachel turned around and saw the group of boys from earlier that day. The one that was holding Neo against the wall she didn't see earlier that day, though. Neo struggled and opened his eyes to see who it was.

"Draco! So they decided to call you in, huh? Couldn't they handle me or are they just too weak?"

The kid named Draco banged Neo against the wall again, making Neo's head hurt even more. Draco had silvery hair that was spiked and he wore a gray shirt with a black jacket on him. He also had gray pants, red shoes, and spiked wristbands on both wrists.

"Shut it, Neo. I told you not to interfere with our activities when you decided not to be part of our gang. Since you did, we're going to beat you to a pulp and then we'll see if you interfere again."

" 'We'? Don't you mean 'you'?"

"I said shut it!" Draco said as he took his knee into Neo's stomach and punched his face a couple of times before letting him fall to the ground. Neo moaned as he wiped some blood off of his mouth.

"Stop it!" Rachel said.

She was about to punch Draco but he was fast. He grabbed her wrist and started to bend it back a little. She cringed and started to cry in pain. Neo saw this and quickly became enraged. He jumped on top of Draco and started punching him hard while the others watched. After a few hard punches, Draco grabbed Neo's arms and pushed Neo off of him with his feet. He quickly got up and started kicking Neo repeatedly. He couldn't get up as pain seared through his body with every kick. The guys behind him cheered him on as Rachel watched. She had to do something. She then remembered she had brought most of her books home and they were all pretty thick. She took her backpack into her hands, quickly ran up behind Draco, and swung her heavy backpack at his head. There was a smack, a cry of pain, and then Draco was on the ground. Rachel saw that the backpack had made impact on the boy's face because he was clutching his bloody nose. He looked at her and then at Neo. He saw he had done enough damage, for now. He got up and motioned the others to follow him in his retreat. Rachel heard Neo moan as she put down her backpack and went to him. He was curled up and he had some blood on his face from the punches he had received earlier.

"Neo?"

He opened his eyes and looked at her. He smiled and then proceeded to get up. It was painful and she helped him up.

"Come on. My house isn't far from here. We can walk there and treat your injuries. Just…lean on me, ok?" she said with a worried tone.

He nodded even though he would've normally declined the offer but even he could see that he needed some help. She picked up their backpacks and they started over to her house. Her parents were still at work and they wouldn't be home for a while so she knew it was safe for him to come in. She put him on the couch as she went to the medicine cabinet and also got a bag of ice. She handed him the ice.

"Here. Put this on your head. It must hurt."

"Yeah, a little. I'll let you know if I need any aspirin."

She nodded and cleaned off some of the blood off of his face. She then saw he had a cut on his arm and he must have gotten it when he was pushed off of Draco. She got a cloth, put some hydrogen peroxide on it, and wiped it on the cut.

"Ouch! Geez that hurt! What are you trying to do, kill me?" Neo said as the hydrogen peroxide started to burn on his cut.

"Oh, hush you big baby. Besides, it's Draco's job to kill you."

"Was that supposed to be a joke?"

She smiled and said, "Yeah."

He let her finish cleaning his cut and put a bandage on it. The bag of ice was still on his head and she told him to stay here until his head didn't hurt anymore. After a while, he asked for some aspirin and she gave him the medicine. He took it, even though he hated taking medicine.

"Thanks, toots."

"Toots?" she asked question.

"Yeah. Do you want me to not call you that?"

"Well, you can if you want. Its just…no one's called me that before," she said as a light pink blush appeared on her face.

Neo just smiled and said, "Well, I did and I'm going to keep calling you it too. Until you tell me to stop of course."

"Of course. So, what should I call you? Mr. Bad Boy?"

"Nah. Call me Sexy!"

She threw a pillow at his face and said, "Yeah, you wish."

Somewhere else, Kimi, Matsu, Angel, and Cal were all trudging home from school when they saw an old shed.

"Hey guys! Let's go in there," Matsu suggested.

"Why? It's just a run-down old shed," Kimi said.

"I know. I just wanna see if there's anything in there."

He ran up the stone steps. Kimi sighed, wondering how she could put up with him and followed him along with Angel and Cal. They approached it and went inside. The place was old where there were some cracks in the cement and the floor was dirt. Cal noticed a hole in the center of the place.

"Hey! What's that?"

They went to the hole and saw a light shining down there.

"What do you think it is?" Angel asked.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," Matsu said as he jumped into the hole.

"Matsu! Wait up!" Kimi said as she jumped in after him.

The others followed and soon they all saw a bright light coming at the end of the tunnel.

"Whatever it is, it sure is beautiful," Kimi said.

"We gotta keep this a secret. No one tells anyone else unless we agree it's ok. Agreed?" Matsu said.

"Agreed!" the others chorused together.

Little did they know that it was a portal to their old home and that soon everything would become clear to them.