It's a little funny, watching grown men and women hanging out on the brightly colored ground of the digital nursery, playing with baby digimon of all shapes and sizes. Shinsuke smiles, lazily trailing a hand up and down Coronamon's side. "Remember when that was us?"
"I do," his partner says, humming and leaning into Shinsuke's touch. "It feels like a long time ago, and yet only a short time. We've pretty much grown up together."
"We have," Shinsuke says quietly, settling in and wrapping an arm around Coronamon. "Did you ever think we'd get here?"
"I wasn't sure," Coronamon says honestly. "But I knew you and I would, little by little, change the world. We just gelled that well together, you know?"
"I'm glad we bucked the norms," Coronamon agrees. "I've heard so many stories about digimon losing their bond with their partners. I'm thankful that's never happened with us, no matter how old we may become."
"And it never will," Shinsuke tells him with a small grin, looking around at the new Digidestined. "Do you think they'll make it as well as we did?"
"Maybe not as well as we have," Coronamon says. "But they'll make it. Most do, in one way or another. It's all just a learning curve. No one knows how to save the world from the very first minute."
"That is very true," Shinsuke says with a soft laugh. They're still sitting there when Shinsuke's digivice goes off. He fumbles for it and finds a message for Luke waiting. "He says there's an overwhelming amount of distress calls right now. We should go."
He stands and approaches the others, who look up at him while they bond with the various baby Digimon hovering around. "Do we have to go?" Shayna asks, already moving to stand up, dusting her hands off on her pants.
"Have you all found your partners?" Shinsuke asks. A chorus of yesses echo out around him and he nods. "Yes, then. We have to return, Luke needs us."
Shinsuke doesn't like leaving the nursery, how calm and peaceful it is. But sometimes, there's little choice, so he guides the newer digidestined and their partners to the digiport to see what's going on with Luke.
