Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but my original creations and the plot. Thanks to all those who have been reviewing and I'm sorry this took me so long. =)

Together with Friends

"Ah, that would be me, or at least my name is T.K. ." T.K. said in a hesitant voice, how did this guy know his name and why did he have the feeling that the fact that he did know his name was a bad thing. A very bad thing. "Out of curiosity how do you know my name and why do I get the feeling that you knowing it isn't exactly a good thing?"

Not answering Ryo looked the kid over then drawing the conclusion that there was no way that his girlfriend could be interested in the kid grinned as he moved to stand beside Rika, wrapping an arm casually around her waist. Looks like the strange digimon had just been pulling his chain and there had been no reason to worry. He suppoused that some girls might have found the other guy attractive but he looked too much like Takato around the edges. Too nice and goody goody. Not Rika's type at all. "We met up with a digimon who seemed to feel it was its duty to taunt me with the fact that Alice and Rika were here, he mentioned your name while he was at it and I was curious. Hi you guys by the way." Ryo added as he smiled at the other people and digimon from his world, having sudden;y remembered that they too had sacraficed and risked a lot to come here and help him out even though there had been no need to do so. "So is it true that Suzi is here somewhere with Lopmon? And not with you guys or was the annoying bugger just playing with my head again?"

"No, it was lying and we've lost a kid by the name of Cody too, he got sucked into a data stream along with his digimon before we could get to him." Alice said with a small frown as what she was talking about wasn't a smiling matter even though they had found Ryo and Impmon which was a good thing. They'd found the two inidivduals they had been looking for but now they were looking for four individuals and that was not good. Two had been bad enough but four was mind boggling considering the fact that they could be anywhere, not even necessarily with their partners. "He and his digimon were with these guys who we tagged to get us here earlier, they've been helping us look for Suzi and Lopmon, now we're looking for them plus the other two."

"Then I owe them big time for getting you guys here safely. Cody...not Ken's friend Cody? Around Suzi's age with dark features and really quiet?" Ryo said as he looked over at the group questioningly. Both Izzy and Ken had mentioned a kid named Cody that they hung out with and had an Armadillomon. Ken had shown him a picture as well and the kid had looked like a nice guy, Ken and Izzy obviously liked him.

"You know Ken?" Yolei blurted out as she stepped forward, unsure but wanting to be heard. She'd remained silent up until then out of shock of the events of the last 12 hours which were more then catching up with them. First they find some friends of the annoying girls they'd picked up who admittedly were nice enough even though Calumon tended to wear you out quickly with his constant chatter and games. Then they'd lost Cody and Armadillomon to something called a data stream. Then they'd apparently found Rika's boyfriend along with a purple digimon and now it would appear that the annoying redhead's boyfriend knew her boyfriend. This was all so confusing and her head spun with all the different things it was trying to process at once.

"Yeah, he and that other annoy jerk friend of his got us transported here." Impmon said as he came very close to snuggling into Rika's leg so happy was he to see her and know that he wasn't going to have to spend the rest of his life with the pretty boy. His arms wrapped around her lower leg he looked up at her pathetically. "Boy am I glad we found you Rika, Pretty Boy was getting so annoying I considered incinerating him too many times to count. This whole thing is his and his stupid friends' faults."

"Thanks for not doing that, Impmon. I would have been very upset with you had you lit then on fire with one of your fireballs" Rika said with a smirk as she looked down at the digimon with a mixture of amusement, exasperation and affection. She'd bet a lot of money that Impmon and Ryo had had a very stress filled time since they'd arrived here together without her or any of the other Tamers to play referee. Especially since the two got on each others nerves more easily the Kazu shot off his mouth. In other words it happened as constantly as the sun rose and set.

Alice smirked, she rather pitied Ryo's friends, odds were Impmon had been a royal pain in the ass this entire time and probably had all been wanting to wring the digimon's little neck. She could think of plenty of instances when she'd wanted to do it herself. Mostly the small digimon was okay but he had an ego the size of the galaxy anda tendency to show off that was very grating on the nerves.

"You're lucky I didn't ask one of the guys to delete you. I think deletion would have almost been preferable to spending another day listening to you whine and complain." Ryo said with a dark look at the digimon who was hanging off of his girlfriend like a limpet. He hated when the annoying idiot did that, run to Rika like a child to its mother for protection. Some big bad digimon he was Ryo thought with a smirk. "And yeah I know a guy named Ken, he's about ten minutes from here at the moment with Izzy and their digimon. Are you, Yolei?"

"Yes, that's me." Yolei said with a quick nod in his direction as she smiled at him uncertainly. She wasn't quite sure whether she liked him or not since he seemed like a nice guy but he was with Rika which made her question the guy's sanity. Big time.

"Ken's told me a lot about you." Ryo said with a smile for his friend's girlfriend who was quite pretty with her purple hair and pretty eyes behind her glasses. Well at least she and Rika didn't appear to be at each other's throats at the moment. That was a good thing. "It's nice to meet you."

"I don't know why those two don't get along." Calumon asked in a puzzled tone from Jaarin's feet as he looked at Ryo and Impmon with a puzzled look on his face. Those two fought like cats and dogs and Henry said it was cause they were fighting over Rika but why would they fight over her? She liked them both and they were both really nice to her so why would they feel they needed to dislike each other? It just didn't make sense to him.

"My brother is that close? Don't worry Jaarin, I'm sure that he can help us find your sister and Cody." Mickey beamed as he vibrated with happiness at the thought that everything was going to be all right soon. Everything was going to be all right now that Izzy was there, he was sure to be able to find them.

"Yeah, with Izzy and Alice we can't not find them." Tai said with an encouraging look and a thumbs up in Jaarin's direction as he came to a stop beside her, placing a friendly and reassuring hand on her shoulder. "And that's not even counting what our digimon are capable of doing. No worries."

"I'm sure you're right, Mickey, Tai." Jaarin said with a bright smile that was just slight frayed around the edges. Ever minute she didn't know where Suzi and Lopmon were felt like an eternity. "It's good to see you too, Ryo." Jaarin added as an after thought. "And I guess like Terriermon is always saying I need to Momenti."

"Same, Jaarin." Ryo said with a nod in her direction, seeing how distraught she was even though she was trying to hide it. Poor Henry must be going out of his mind worrying about everyone Ryo thought with a slight wince. And even though he hadn't asked to be brought here he still felt guilty over it. "They'll be on there way here on foot, lets go meet them and then we'll figure out how to find everyone as quickly as possible. With all of us working together I'm sure we can figure something out."

"Yes, I'm sure that it will prove no great difficulty." Renamon agreed with a nod of her head. "I'm sure that we'll find them shortly. In the mean time we shouldn't worry, we have no reason to as of yet."

In another part of the Digital World

"So Cody, do you have a girlfriend?" Suzi asked brightly as they continued to speed off in the direction her lap top was indicating Rika and hopefully the rest were. And the way she figured it they deserved a break or two. They'd been together for nearly a half an hour and he wasn't very talkative and she was starting to run out of things to ask him. He was a really nice guy, it was too bad that he didn't live in her dimension.

"Me? Ah no, I don't have a girlfriend." Cody said as he blushed a rather interesting shade of red at the innocent question. What was with all the beautiful girls that were showing up out of nowhere? First Rika and Alice, then Jaarin and now Jaarin's sister. It was like it was raining angels all of a sudden. "You have a boyfriend, right?" Cody said with a sigh, no one this cute and nice could not have one.

"Me? Oh I don't have a boyfriend." Suzi said with a bright smile as she shook her head at his question. "My brothers would scare him off in a second and well there are lots of great guys at my school but there usually afraid of Rika and what she'd do to them. Rika's a really good friend of the family's and she let it be known that she'll break any guy who tries to pull a move on me. But I figure that's okay cause any guy who could be scared off by my siblings and friends isn't worth my time. I'll just wait around for a guy that can stand up to them and then I'll know he's for me. After all who wants a coward for a boyfriend right? I'm surprised you don't have a girlfriend, you're really nice and cute."

Cody figured that he deserved a medal for not falling off her digimon when she said that. She thought he was nice and cute. His blood pressure reaching rather astronomical heights Cody could only gap at her in complete and other shock as he turned a rather scary fire engine red in the face. He looked like he was going to keel over at any moment.

"Better close you're mouth Cody before you swallow something." Armadillomon said with a chuckle as he smiled at his partner. Poor kid, wasn't use to this at all and wasn't doing too well either. Worse then T.K. And Kari and all the skirting around they did or had done. "So how long should it take us to get to our friends, Suzi?"

"Well that will all depend on them and how long Antylamon can hold up this pace." Suzi said with a shrug, blushing slight because she was pretty sure that she'd caused Cody to take on the look of a really over ripe tomato. "Our friends will be moving around and if a data stream or something picks them up or something like that happens who knows. We can just hope that everything works out okay."

"I'm-I'm sure it will, Suzi." Cody finally managed as his blush reduced for bright red to a dull pink for the time being. "I mean I know that they're looking for us and I know that they won't give up until they find us."

"I know that." Suzi said as she beamed at him. He was so sweet to try and cheer her up, what a nice guy. "Rika and Alice, not to mention my sister who will be worse then both of them put together would never stop looking for me, even if the odds were almost zero of ever finding me. I'm not worried in the slightest about that. I'm just worried that they might need me and I won't be there to help them." Suzi said with a slight worried half smile. "I may not look it but we Wong's are pretty tough and can kick some serious butt when necessary. I'm just worried they might get into a situation they can't handle by themselves."

"Well my friends would never stand by and let any of your friends or your sister get hurt so don't worry about it, Suzi." Cody said reassuringly as he placed a hand on her shoulder as they continued to run through a nice stretch of meadow. Of course Yolei might he added mentally but the others at least would help out. "And they aren't exactly weak, I'm sure that with their help it wouldn't matter what they came up against, they'd win no problem."

"Well if they're your friends I'm sure that they're great and I have nothing to worry about." Suzi said as she smiled at him more brightly. "You know you remind me of my brother Henry, I bet you and him would get along really well if you guys ever meet. You're both really good at school and like karate and that kind of stuff. Plus he's really quiet too and since you don't talk much either you wouldn't annoy him the way my friend Kasumi does. She's a real chatterbox, worse then me."

Well since she'd stated that her brother had the tendency to hurt anyone who was interested in his sister Cody doubted very much that Henry would be thrilled to meet him. There was just something about her Cody thought as he watched her out of the corner of her eye. It was her smile that really got you, it was so cheerful and warm. Even if she wasn't so pretty with that smile she likely attracted guys like bees to honey. Not that he'd ever stand a chance with a girl like her but there was no harm in dreaming. Guys like Matt, Tai and T.K. Got girls like her but it was nice to talk with her and pretend that he could stand a chance. "I'm sure I'd like him, Suzi." Cody said with a quiet smile, pretty sure that his face had finally gone back to its normal color.

Meanwhile

Kurokitsunmon watched the little digimons playing and smirked slightly as he watched their antics. He'd come here to get away from those humans, they were becoming almost an obsession and the idea bothered him like nothing before it. Therefore he'd deliberately left them alone and yet here he was itching to go back and see what they were doing. It was like he was a puppet and they had his strings. They pulled him to them and he was becoming increasingly unable to pull back. What was it that they had that made him seek them as a starved digimon hunted for food to quench its hunger. Especially the one called Alice, what was it about her especially that set her apart from the others? Feh, this had to end and it would end here. He'd avoid them from now on and their paths would never cross again. Somehow he would rid himself of this affliction, he would find a way, he had to.