One would think, after everything, that leading a group of Digidestined would be nothing. After all, Drake had helped the Carter family with day to day business, he had been general manager of 205 Live while managing the careers of Akam and Razer (briefly). He has experience. But still, it nags at him, every failure, every uncertainty as he leads the group of NXT Digidestined from place to place, trying to get things right, save as many villages and digimon and whatever else as they can. Each failure weighs at him, each success calming his distress for at least a few minutes.
And now they're here, listening to Luke with a pensive frown as he explains. It had started with the Raw team. They'd been sent off to a mission and... hadn't returned or communicated since. So he'd sent the Smackdown team. They too had fallen off of the grid after leaving through the portal to find the others.
"This leaves you," Luke says with some, slow reluctance, looking at the newest group of digidestined. "I would rather not risk another of you all, but... we can't leave the others twisting in the wind. If you can find them, if you can help them, please do. Try to report back. If you cannot, do whatever you can to stay safe. I'll do my best to figure this out from my end, but for now, this is all I have."
Drake nods, sharply. Jerkily. Wishes, not for the first time, that Dain was here with him. "Yessir, we'll do our best," he promises. Glances over his shoulder at Ciampa, at Dakota, Priest, Dream and Rhea. "Everyone ready to go?"
They're not a very talkative group, even on good days, but he gets some level of agreement from all of them, and exhales slowly. It'll have to do, he decides before walking over to the portal and holding his digivice up, not sure what to expect. Surrendering to the unknown that awaits them on the other side as he calls out, "Digiport open!"
The subtle tug of his digivice pulling the portal open, that drags him into the data field, and through to the other side, leaves him breathless, as always, and he closes his eyes against the swirling lights that swirl and undulate as he's sent careening deeper into the digiworld, searching for that one connecting portal that will take him where Luke needs him to be. Hang on, guys, we're coming. We'll do our best to help you. I promise.
