Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon

Gathering Clouds

Davis was surrounded, there was nowhere he could go. Anywhere he went would result in instant death, while the only safe method was clearly a trap. He could see the sinister sneer of his opponent, already confident with inevitable victory.

The leader of the younger Digidestined grinned and figured out his move. "Don't think you've won yet Ken!"

His opponent raised an eyebrow with curiosity, the situation was hopeless. There was no way he could get out of it. "Impossible, there's nowhere to run."

Davis grinned and unleashed his secret plan. "Idiot you left your units in a row, my king can chain jump and capture them all for victory!"

"That's not how the king works Davis." Tk groaned.

"But the king can move forwards and backwards, I read it in the rulebook." Davis insisted.

"Davis," Ken sighed, "We're playing chess, not checkers."

"There's a difference?"

Davis and Tk started to bicker like usual and Ken attempted to mediate. Situations like these had become regular ever since the Digidestined defeated Malomyotismon. The Digital World and the Human world were still uneasy with one another, but there was no immediate threat coming from either of them. No other threat of evil had appeared either… at least not until that day.

While the argument reached its peak a loud crash came from the other room, silencing the argument.

"Help me!" A muffled voice cried out. "Help!"

The boys rushed out of the room to check what was wrong and became shocked at the scene. Somehow, Demiveemon got his head stuck in a jar. Patamon and Wormmon struggled to pull it off of his head.

"Aw man, did you get into the peanut butter again." Davis groaned.

"N… no." The blue Digimon mumbled inside of the jar.

"Whatever." Davis replied, taking over in trying to help his partner. After a little while, the jar popped off.

"I'm free!" Demiveemon cheered and started jumping around happily around his partner, before tripping and staining Davis's clothes with peanut butter marks.

"Ah, Demiveemon! Stop it!" He complained, encouraging his partner to continue smearing food all over his partner's shirt.

How carefree. The onlookers thought as they watched the duo and their antics.

"AGGH!" Davis groaned, falling on his bed in a fresh change of clothing. "Where is everyone? I'm getting bored!"

"Bored!" Demiveemon repeated.

"Come on Davis, settle down." Ken sighed. "It's not like we're prepping for the end of the world."

"Of course, this is more important." Davis said. "It's been a while since we've all seen each other and I can't wait!"

"Davis, it's been a week." Tk sighed. "Remember, we got together after school and played in the Digital World."

"Yeah, and then that village caught fire and we had to deal with that. And then there was the massive hailstorm in the desert, and the time before that a random explosion started a giant forest fire, and don't even get me started on the earthquake clean up that took forever. It seems like every time we get together and relax something bad always has to happen to the Digital World. It's been like that ever since we beat tall, dark, and ugly and it never stops." Davis complained. "So is it a bad thing to wish that we'd have some fun before the inevitable happens this time."

The listeners were speechless. "I don't believe it." Tk said.

"What? That Davis used a five syllable word?" Ken asked to Davis's annoyance.

"No, not that. He has a point. Things have been pretty busy in the last couple of weeks. I wonder why?"

While Tk and the others were pondering on Davis's latest rant, a fierce pounding hammered away on the door with urgency. "Are the others already back?" Ken said as he went to the door.

He opened it door and felt something suddenly hit his chest. He yelled in shock as the unexpected weight rammed into him and knocked him off balance.

"What was that for?" He groaned weakly.

"Because you're such a gentleman for carrying in all of this food." Yolie said as she stepped over Ken, accidently hitting him in the head with another bag of groceries. Kari and Cody arrived as well, though they helped get some of the heavy bags from him.

"Great! We're all here, what should we do first? Davis asked as he helped his friend up.

"Snacks!" Demiveemon exclaimed as he charged into the bags and started eating.

"Save some for me!" The others said as they followed suit.

"Hey, I want some!" Davis cried out as he joined the rumble for food, accidently forgetting about Ken.

"Don't worry guys I brought some for us." Yolie said proudly as she held up a bag. "We won't go hungry today."

"Great." Tk said. "Now help he with Ken, he looks like he's in pain."

After the binge, the young Digidestined started to play video games. While the humans were having fun, their Digimon hung out in their own little group and played some games of their own.

"Davis! That is SO cheating!" Yolie exclaimed when Davis pulled off a difficult combo on their fighting game. "Come on and fight me fair and square."

"And get creamed instantly? No way, these items are the best. They're like shortcuts for winning." Davis bragged.

"If you beat someone with a cheap move then that only hurts you." Cody said wisely. "That kind of hollow victory will only benefit your enemy than yourself."

"Whatever." Davis scoffed as he attempted to use the same move on Yolie, only to see that she learned from the last time and avoided it. Defenseless, Davis got creamed.

"I told you. They'll bite you back if you don't beat them properly the first time." Cody reminded. "Now hand it over, it's my turn."

Davis slumped to the corner and sighed. He watched his friends all having a good time and felt glad that he set this day up. This is just what we needed. Some time to relax and unwind from all the disasters that occurred. So far so good, nothing bad has happened yet.

Yet.

As if on cue, the fighting game disappeared in a screen of static. A figure appeared in the screen behind the static.

"(static)- Hello, Digidestined. (static)- It's been a while."

01101110 01100101 01111000 01110100

The tall young man yawned as he walked through the bustling city streets. His larger than life brown hair was only contained by a strap of goggles. He had a soccer bag slung over his shoulders and a Digivice hanging on his hip. He wore a blue shirt decorated with orange stars.

"Lost." He murmured. "We're completely lost buddy."

"Are we going to be late?" The Digimon in his bag murmured.

"Most likely Koromon." Tai sighed. "Oh, man. They are going to be pissed."

That day, Mimi arriving in Japan today, and the original Digidestined planned to meet her at the Tokyo Airport. While the rest managed to get their before the meeting time they set, their fearless leader managed to get lost.

He shivered, imagining the scolding that he was going to get and started to advance through the crowd. In his haste he didn't notice the crowd splitting off in front of him.

"Excuse-me-let-me-through-please!" A voice exclaimed in rapid fire. As the crowd split in front of him, he could only see a brown haired girl in a wheelchair charging at him. There was no time for him to get out of the way, which resulted in him crashing into her.

"Are you alright?" He asked. The girl gave in a brief apology as she picked up her bag, reset her chair, and started to roll away.

Tai picked up his own bag and watched as she parted the crowd again. "That was a weird encounter, right buddy?" He question was met with silence. "Come on Koromon say something." He said as he opened the bag. His face paled when he noticed that the bag contained nothing but soccer cleats and a soccer ball. Though it's round, it's not his partner.

Instantly he charged and chased after the girl. "Hey wait!" He exclaimed as he set all of his skills of running and dodging to the test.

01101110 01100101 01111000 01110100

"I'm here!" Rei exclaimed as she met her friend and her brother. They stood in a vacant field and met with her when she arrived. "Did you two wait long? I got here as fast as I could."

The two boys shared a look. "Nope. Neo and I just got here a few minutes before you did." A boy with black hair said, despite the fact that they were waiting for nearly half an hour.

"Great, Hideto." Neo said, slicking back his white bleached hair. "It's time to settle this once and for all." He chuckled darkly.

"Neo, if you were trying to act cool, it came off more as creepy."

"More like disturbing." Hideto jabbed.

Neo became flushed. "Whatever, let's start the match." He unzipped the bag, stared at the contents for a moment, and zipped it again. After that, he threw it to Hideto who did the same actions before handing it back to Rei.

"What?" She asked before looking in the bag, and pulling out a round stuffed animal by the ears. "Is this? It's so cute. Where could it have come… Oh, It must have been that guy's bag… Oops."

"What guy?" Neo asked.

At that moment, Tai reached the field, panting heavily.

"That guy." Rei answered.

Tai could see Koromon pretending to be a stuffed animal like usual, but he could see that the Digimon was in pain from hanging by his ear.

"Hey – You – Dropped – This." He said between breaths.

"Yay! Problem solved." Rei said as she put Koromon back into the bag.

"Sorry about this." Neo said, taking the bag and throwing it at Tai.

"It's not a problem." Tai said, finally catching his breath. "I didn't have to go that far anyways." He returned the other bag to him. "So you're playing soccer?"

"Yes, I am going to prove that I am the best once I take out Hideto over there."

"That was creepy!" Rei jabbed.

"Take me out where? Is it fancy? I want to be pampered." Hideto joined in.

Tai watched the three arguing and chuckled a bit. He saw the girl's laughing face, and the white haired guy's smirk. Something clicked in his head. "Hey, have I met you guys before?" He said cautiously. There was something about them that he couldn't wrap his mind around.

"I don't think so, why." Hideto said.

"It's nothing, I just… feel something familiar from you guys, that's all. Oh, right! I have to get going, do you guys know which way Tokyo Airport is?"

"Yeah, it's a couple of blocks that way." Rei pointed.

"Thank you." Tai said. Before he left he saw the white haired boy looked uneasy. "It was nice to meet you. Maybe next time I can join in on your game. My name is Taichi Kamiya, but my friends call me Tai." He introduced, putting out his hand.

"Yeah, my name's Neo, Neo Saiba. It's nice to meet you too." He reached for Tai's hand with his own.

They gave a hearty shake, and then Tai tried to let go but found that he couldn't. Something in his head started to hurt, and then evolved into excruciating pain.. Tai shot his free hand up to his head, to try to control the pain, to keep it from hurting too much. He shot a glance in front of him and saw that Neo was having a similar experience.

"TAI!" He heard Koromon exclaim with worry. Rei and Hideto didn't notice the outburst, they were too preoccupied with Neo.

Tai dropped to his knees and somehow managed to use his other hand. He curled up, but there was nothing he could do to stop the pain. Then he saw images, images of Digimon, and a triumphant phrase ringing out the entire time.

He saw Leomon, but there were small Agumons with boxing gloves all around him.

WE

He saw Etemon, but he was wearing a weird leather jacket.

ARE

He saw a rampaging MetalGreymon. There was a blurred out creature beside him the entire time.

THE

A weird giant eyeball shot arrows at him. He was flying, flying on something. It was too blurred out.

100%

Piedmon! He faced Piedmon in a weird dimension… No, that doesn't seem right. When… when did that happen?

COMBINATION!

No, Omnimon? Why did he fight with Omnimon? What is going on?

Stop, it's too much! Make it STOP!

The two boys collapsed on the ground, out cold.

- 01100101 01101110 01100100 -

Hey, so getting back into the groove with a new story.

I'll probably work on CtE when I can remember where I was going with it.

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