The Search Begins

Devimon had been defeated by a group of other kids, and Cole seemed excited. I, however, was wondering where this group of other kids and their digimon had come from, and, now, where they had gone. Cole and I decided to go after them, but in order to do so, we had to find them. We decided to start with where we'd last seen them. To do that, we had to climb the mountain.

Dobermon helped us get up the mountain a lot easier than it would've been without him. As we rose higher, we noticed the island was coming back together. Cole seemed sad.

"What's wrong, Cole?"

"Oh, I was just thinking, now that the island is fixing itself, when it hits our raft, our raft is toast."

Dobermon looked at us funny. 'What's toast?"

I shook my head, laughing. "It's a a food that is burnt on purpose."

"Oh."

We continued up to the point where they were when they'd fought Devimon. There, on the ground, was some weird-looking pad. A pillar of light like a holographic projection spilled from it. "Ah, hello. I've heard so much about you."

Cole screams and jumped backwards, landing on his butt and panting heavily. "What the-" he cursed.

I remained calm, mostly. "Who are you?"

The man standing inside the pillar of light said, "I am Gennai. You are the Digidestined, right? I've heard a lot about you."

"Do you know why we're here?"

"You are here to defend this world."

"Besides that."

"No."

"Do you know who brought us here?"

"No."

"Do you know who those other kids were?"

"More Digidestined."

"More?"

"You are the 9th and 10th Digidestined children."

"There were 7 in that group."

Cole looked at me funny. "So that's what you were doing when you weren't talking… you were counting."

"Haha, very funny."

Gennai continued. "Yes, there is an 8th child in their group, that they must find… but all in good time. They will be going to the continent of Server and searching for the tags and crests. You, too, need to search for your tags and crests. But Devimon did not get your tags and hide them, as he did with theirs. Yours are hidden elsewhere. But your crests are also hidden on the continent of Server."

"Why do we want these tags and crests? Sounds like a lot of trouble to me."

"They will allow your digimon to digivolve to the next level."

Cole stood up finally. "Really? That could come in handy."

"And with the dangers you face ahead, you'll need it."

"Alright, so we'll just go hitch a ride with the other kids." I turned to go.

'No!!!"

"Why not?"

"Their path is different from yours, at least for now. Let it remain that way. Trust me. Come and see me when you have found your tags and crests."

"What do they look like?"

:"Oh, good point…" The image changed momentarily to an image of a yellow, oddly-shaped dog tag-looking object. The center section was clear. "These are the tags. You will know the crests when you see them." The image shifted back to show the old man.

"Do you at least know where the tags and crests are?"

"The tags are guarded by one who would recognize your digivice as a sign of entrance, somewhere in the southern part of the continent of Server. As for the crests, they are hidden, and your tags will guide you to them."

"And how do you expect us to find you?"

"Hmmm… that's a good question… the last group had a computer…"

I looked at Cole, and he looked at me. "We don't have anything like that…"

Cole blinked. "The digivices are electronic devices, right? Couldn't they act as a radar or something, too? Couldn't you load a radar or a map or both into them?"

Gennai considered this very carefully. "I suppose it's possible…"

I stared. Cole would have an idea like that. "You just wanna make these things cooler."

Cole glared. "So?"

Gennai nodded. "You already have one. However, your radar only detects digivice signals. Your digivice will also glow when danger is near. When you are near the guardian of your tags, they will glow also. I must be going now."

I blinked. "Oh, thanks, that's a lot of help…" But he was gone.

Cole looked at me. "Whaddaya think?"

"I think he's a few fries short of a happy meal. But as for what we should do about it? I dunno… He may be right. And if he is, we don't want to take that chance."

"But do we want to take the chance he's wrong? Safety in numbers."

"We've done good this far on our own… I think we can manage."

"Alright… Let's do it, then. Let's go to... Server, he said?"

"Yeah."

Dobermon looked at us and grinned. "You're going to need a ride, a boat or something. Maybe I can get some digimon to help us make a boat."

So, while Dobermon went off, we sat a ways away from the other kids and what they were doing, making sure that they didn't see us. When they left, we made sure so see which direction they set out in. When Dobermon returned, he had a small army of digimon with him. All the ones we'd helped were in there, plus a couple of others. Introduced to us were Leomon, Centarumon, Unimon, and Frigimon, MudFrigimon's cousin. In next to no time, we had a raft. It was a small raft, but it was all we needed. I took a quick liking to Leomon. He and Leormon were cousins, he said. Leomon told me, before we left, that if Cole and I ever needed anything else, not to hesitate to ask. It was "the least he could do for the Digidestined children."

As we set off across the ocean, we laid back. We'd brought food, enough for a week or two, but somehow we didn't think that would be enough. We drifted across the ocean lazily. When our digimon were hungry, we let them eat. I didn't get hungry often, and Cole seemed too distant to want to eat all that often, so food wasn't as much of a problem as we thought it would be. By the time we hit land, both digimon had digivolved back to their Rookie forms, and we were out of food. Now I was hungry.

We started the search for food, Leormon eventually catching some fish. Commandramon had gone hunting for other things to eat, but didn't find a whole lot. We had enough fish to go around, though, so we weren't too worried about it.

After we'd eaten, we checked our digivices to see that radar. Surprisingly, it wasn't there. "That lying rat!" Cole exclaimed.

I sighed. :This thing has buttons, Cole…"

"Oh, right…"

I started to push buttons, remembering what happened when I pushed what buttons. Not a lot happened with the first button… just a clock. The second one gave me a glowing screen. The other button (there were only three), called up a blank screen with 2 red dots, both in the center. I blinked. "They're right in the middle. These must be us… They have to be the digivices... Move that way for a moment." I pointed. Cole started to move. As one of the dots moved, I grinned. "The dot in the center is my digivice!!!"

Grinning from ear to ear, we looked around. "Well, we're here, on Server, where we're supposed to find the tags and crests," I said.

"Yeah. Now we just have to find them… The search begins."