"The Crest of Sincerity"

OK, here is the next chapter. I hope you guys like it. I'm really not sure when Daisuke will be getting her Crest, but I'll just have to see when it'll happen as the story progresses. Please review and enjoy!

After I was done crying, V-Mon walked me back over to the group, Sora asking if I was fine and I nodded to her, but avoided my brother's eyes not knowing how to act around him anymore.

I felt awful for the things I said and regretted them, but how would I tell him that?

What if he hated me now too?

The group was still walking through the desert, but it was way hotter than it was before.

"Man, this desert is so hot, even a lizard would need sunscreen." Matt said as everyone panted and groaned from the heat.

"Sora, can you carry me?" Biyomon asked.

"Not even." The orange haired girl said.

"The crew cut would look nice on you and its cooler." Tentomon said to Izzy.

"Hold still." V-Mon said taking off my ascot.

I stood still like he asked as he brushed my hair up out of my hair, my bangs being stubborn and falling into my eyes, but the rest was all tied up into a short ponytail.

"That better?" he asked.

"Yeah, thanks." I said with a smile.

"Do I look fat?" Gabumon asked.

"No, you look hot. Especially with the fur coat. That thing really needs a zipper." Matt said.

"Or maybe just removable shirt sleeves." The canine/lizard said.

"I haven't rested my feet." Gomamon whined.

"There's no place to sit, except on a cactus." Joe said.

"Great view up here." Tokomon said from his place on top TK's head.

"Next time I ride." The blonde panted.

"You look terrible, Koromon. If only I hadn't acted like such a bone head, you never would have digivolved." My brother said as he looked down at his weak partner in his arms, a pang of guilt throbbing in my chest as I remembered those things I said.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, although come to think of it, you really have made a super icky mess of things." Mimi giggled and I couldn't help but crack a small grin at the way she said it.

"Thanks, Mimi." Tai said sarcastically.

"Oh, don't mention it, Tai. I'm glad to help with the pep talk now and then." the pink loving girl said making my brother crack a small smile.

You know, at first I never thought I would like her since she was all whiney and girly, but after this time we've spend together, I've learned that she's actually a great girl and friend.

She's also very honest about everything and everyone.

"I haven't sweated this much since cheerleader try outs." Mimi said as she took her hat off to whip away sweat, Palmon panting with her tongue hanging out.

"Koromon doesn't look so good. I'm worried." Tai said.

My stomach was rumbling so bad from how empty it was and V-Mon's sounded like an angry bear, we need food and water or else we're both gonna pass out.

"you know what we need right now is a whole bunch of shade. A big umbrella or a really big tree. Or maybe I can grow into a giant cactus and smile down onto all of you as I provide cool, refreshing comfort." Palmon said making me smile despite the heat and hunger.

"It's official, the sun has just turned Palmon's brain into a French fry. Earth to Palmon. Come in." Matt called to the day dreaming plant/lizard.

"Palmon, look." Mimi said snapping her partner out of it as we all stared at the humongous cactus that was in front of us.

"Wow, I did that? Gee, I'm pretty amazing." Palmon said.

"Yeah, you better believe it, Palmon. Come on everybody, let's head for some shade." My brother said.

Everyone cheered as we all ran towards the cactus that was weirdly enough swaying back and forth looking really wobbly.

"What happened to the shade?" Tai asked when we stopped at the base of the cactus.

It slowly faded away from view, meaning it wasn't real at all.

"It was just a mirage. We've been tricked." Matt said as we all fell to our hands and knees or bottoms in defeat.

This sucks!

"Well, well. It's about time you got here." A familiar voice called out making us all look around.

One of those light things appeared in the ground, creating a transparent image of Gennai.

"And you're just about ready to give up on me." He said.

"It's Gennai." Matt said.

Thanks, captain obvious.

"Gennai, we've found the Tags and a couple of Crests like you wanted, but when we got into trouble, our digimon couldn't digivolve. They ended up worse off than when they started. Take a look at poor Agumon. He is just not himself and I'm supposed to helping me." Tai said holding up Koromon.

"I think those thingies are more trouble than they're worth." Mimi stated with a frown as she crossed her arms.

"Calm down, kids. Let me explain. The Tags and Crests are extremely important; please make sure no one gets a hold of them. In the end you shall see that they work together to help you create total harmony." Gennai said.

For the love of all that is good and pure, why does he talk like that?!

Can't he see that we don't understand a thing he says?

"In English?" Mimi asked.

"Just trust me. After all, I'm the floating, glowing guy." Gennai said making me bite back a smirk.

"As for Koromon, he wouldn't be so helpless if you knew how to care for him in the proper way." He said.

OK, step off, gramps; I already gave my brother enough guilt over that.

"But I did the best I could." Tai said.

That's really not true.

"Patience is what you need to learn, my friends and you will learn it in time." Gennai said.

"But I wanna have Agumon back now." Tai said.

"I'm starting to lose my connection." Gennai said as he started to flicker out.

"That's something you're going to have to figure out all by yourself. Good luck." He said as he continued to flicker.

"Wait a minute!" Tai yelled.

"Sorry, I'm on a tight schedule." Was the last thing the man said before he completely vanished.

"It never fails. Every time I need to know about something, he hangs me out to dry." Tai complained.

"Are we being cared for properly?" Biyomon asked Gabumon.

"If we were, Agumon wouldn't have digivolved backwards." The canine/lizard said.

"Come on, don't freak me out!" Matt said.

I couldn't help but think about it too.

Was I taking proper care of V-Mon?

I mean, he turned back into Demiveemon after the battle with Devimon, but was that really my fault?

"I'm…better with computers." Izzy said sadly as he thought about it.

"That's ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned, you're the best." Tentomon said.

"You look bummed." Gomamon said to his partner.

"How am I supposed to take care of you? Is there a handbook somewhere? I feel very inadequate." Joe said.

"Me too." Gomamon said as some weird fog horn sounded off.

We all looked in front of us and were shocked to see that a yacht was driving right towards us.

How the heck is that even possible?!

Oh, right, anything is possible in the Digital World, I keep forgetting.

"Is that a battle ship?" Tai asked.

"Could be. But it looks more like a fancy cruise ship." Sora said.

"The passengers will want their money back if they see this place." Joe said as he stood.

"Yeah." Mimi said as everyone else stood.

"It could be just a mirage." TK said fearfully.

"Yeah, it looks pretty real to me!" Matt said as we all dived out of the way.

I tripped and fell down, groaning as I did so.

"Daisuke!" Tai said and soon enough I felt myself being lifted up into my brother's arms, seeing that he had given Koromon to V-Mon so he could come back for me.

"Are you OK?" my brother asked.

"Yeah…thanks." I said looking down sadly.

"You need to be more careful." He said teasingly making me look up to see a grin on his face and I returned it.

At least he didn't hate me now.

The yacht then stopped, making us all look up to see a digimon peering over the edge up at us.

"Ahoy!" the Numemon laughed dressed in a white sailor hat and vest.

"Numemon!" Mimi gasped as Koromon started to sob.

"Hey, fellow, could all of us come aboard and freshen up?" my brother called up to the sewer dweller as he saw how terrible his partner was feeling.

Numemon groaned and backed away from the side.

"If you don't mind, this needs a woman's touch." Mimi said as she walked forward with a confident smile.

"Well, het there, big boy. Your ship looks so, so inviting. How about letting us on board so that we can check it out? Oh, please?" Mimi begged with a flirty look, puckering her lips and fluttering her eyes.

"Am I the only one who's nauseous?" V-Mon whispered to me as Tai and I bit back a laugh since we felt the same.

Numemon went all gaga and lowered the stairs for us.

"Is it safe? Joe asked.

We all walked up the stairs and were amazed with how lux…luxur…um, luxurious the place looked on the inside.

"Uh, what? No linin table clothes?" Mimi asked when she saw the tables were bare.

"Well, I guess we can ruff it." she said.

The boys and girls all separated, me going along with Mimi, Sora, Biyomon and Palmon, V-Mon handing Koromon back to Tai before he followed after.

"Wow, nice!" Sora said as she opened the door closest to us, the girls all running in laughing.

"We can take a shower!" Mimi cheered.

"V, you go back and get something to eat. You haven't eaten in two days now, you need it." I said to him standing outside the closed bathroom door.

"Are you sure? I can stand out here and keep watch." He said.

"Uh uh. You go relax. We'll be fine." I said with a smile.

He looked like he didn't want to go, but shrugged and left to go find the kitchen.

Man, he's just as bad as Tai is at times, but I still love him for it.

I opened up the door and then locked it behind me as I started to strip out of my dirty, sweaty clothes, leaving them on the floor like the girls did before we all hopped into the showers to bath.

"I'm in heaven." Sora said.

"We can spend hours just pampering ourselves. Totally, yes." Mimi cheered.

"Yeah, we were getting pretty smelly.. Sora said from under the spray of warm water.

"Oh, wow! They even got tiny soap bars." She said.

I picked up mine, wetting it under the water and then used it to scrub my body, the scent of sweet peppermint coming from the bubbles.

"Hey, Daisuke, are you feeling any better?" Sora asked me making me look over at her.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, you were very upset before when you yelled at Tai." Biyomon stated as she ruffled her wet feathers.

I sighed looking down sadly when that same feeling of guilt hit me.

Mimi came over with some shampoo she had found and started to wash my hair for me.

"I just…I was so mad at my brother because he was changing into someone I didn't know. He was being so mean to everyone, especially Agumon and I hated it. I wanted him to stop, but he just got worse. He forced Agumon to digivolve and turn into that monster and I was so mad at me for it. It scared me because I don't wanna hurt V-Mon like that." I said.

"You don't have anything to worry about." Palmon said.

"Yeah, you're just about the sweetest person I've met. You also really care about V-Mon, so nothing bad will happen." Mimi said as she rinsed my hair.

I smiled at my friends, happy to have them in my life as we all continued washing.

After a while, we finally got out and started drying off with the white towels we found and washed our clothes in the sink next, then Biyomon helped dry them by fanning them as they were strung up.

"DAISUKE!" V-Mon's voice rang through the other side of the door as he bang against it.

"What in the world?" Mimi asked.

"V-Mon, calm down." Palmon said as she unlocked the door and let in my panting dragon.

"What's wrong?" Biyomon asked.

"Trap…it was trap. Kokatorimon is after us. He and the numemon captured the others and Kokatorimon has the Crests of Courage and Reliability." He said.

We gasped and exclaimed in shock at that.

"We have to get out of here." Mimi said.

"But if we run out in the hall then Kokaotorimon will see us." Biyomon said.

"Wait, I know." Sora said.

We watched as she climbed up to a window and opened it up.

"We can get out this way." She said.

There were footsteps coming from outside the door, making us tense up, and then V-Mon helped us all climb up and go out the window, my dragon jumping out after me as soon as we were safe.

The six of us ran away just as Kokatorimon barged into the bathroom, seeing us all gone.

What a pervert!

As we ran down the hall, a giant rooster came out in front of us, making us stop in place.

"It's Kokatorimon!" Biyomon, Palmon and V-Mon said.

"Is he the Easter chicken?" Sora asked.

"Who knows?" Biyomon said.

"That omelet head has Tai and Joe's crests just like V-Mon said!" Mimi gasped.

"I ran into several of your friends by the pool, but don't get your heads in a spin. They're just drying off. Nothing like little sunbaked faces fried to a crisp with curly fries and cold sloth." Kokatorimon laughed making the girls cower back as my dragon and I glared at him.

"Where are the digimon?" Biyomon asked.

"Don't worry about those guys. Confidentially, I find them to be a little bit on the stiff side. That just happens to be my personal opinion." The rooster said.

"Your opinion stinks." Palmon said.

"You're going to meet the same fate." Kokatorimon laughed.

"You've cackled once too long." Biyomon said flying up and using her Spiral Twister, sending the rooster back as Palmon used her Poison Ivy attack on him, just barely missing him.

The rooster then sent out these green blasts from his eyes making us all run back down the way.

"Come back you chickens!" he yelled.

"Who's he calling 'chicken'?" Sora asked.

"I know, right?" I said.

We ran out of the boat coming out to the bow of the boat.

"Come back!" Kokatorimon yelled as he followed after us.

A swarm of black swooped down in front of us, taking on the form of someone I hadn't seen in a while.

"Hello again, Daisuke, V-Mon." Kaitoumon said smirking at us.

"Oh no, it's Kaitoumon!" the two female digimon said.

"What do we do now? We're trapped." Sora said looking at Kaitoumon and Kokatorimon.

"Time to wlak the plank!" the rooster said.

"Biyomon, do your stuff!" Sora said as she pulled out her digivice.

"Biyomon digivolve too…BIRDRAMON!"

"Hey, that's not fair!" Kokatorimon said as the large red bird flew up.

"Your turn, V." I said pulling out my own digivice and smiled at him.

"You know it." he said nodding.

"V-Mon digivolve too…XV-MON!"

"Finally." Kaitoumon said as he and my blue dragon took to the sky.

"What's the matter you big cluck? Can't you fly?" Sora taunted Kokatorimon as he jumped away from Birdramon's Meteor Wing attack.

"Palmon, it's your turn." Mimi said holding out her digivice.

"Right." Palmon nodded.

"Palmon digivolve too…TOGEMON!"

Birdramon used her Meteor Wing, scaring the rooster off and he dropped the Crests and then Togemon used her Needle Spray on the big chicken while XV-Mon was locked in hand to hand combat with Kaitoumon, both far too high up in the sky for me to see them.

Togemon punched Kokatorimon, sending him flying up into the chimney thing of the boat; I'm not sure what it's called.

The spout thing made some weird noises before it started to smoke and fire shot up out of it as Mimi and Sora got the Crests.

"Fried chicken." Mimi joked.

We all laughed, then looked back up as XV-Mon was kicked back down to us, but he spread out his wings to stop.

"You may have won this time, but I'll be back. You will pay." Kaitoumon threatened before he flew off.

"Can we get dressed now?" I asked hugging the towel closer to my body.

Us girls went back and got our dry clothes, then ran out to meet with the digimon who were helping down the boys from this net they were tied on, looking almost baked.

"Tai!" I yelled jumping on him.

"Whoa, Dai!" he laughed catching me as Agumon appeared, clasping hands with V-Mon.

"I'm so sorry for all those bad things I said. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." I said crying into his chest.

He smiled down at me and hugged me.

"It's fine, I know you didn't mean any of it. You were just scared. I forgive you." He said.

I smile din relief at that as he and Joe were given their Crests back and then we all watched as the Numemon threw off their sailor suits and ran off of the yacht.

"I say we do the same as they are and abandon ship." Tai said.

"I guess it's a little late for mutiny." Izzy said.

"Don't worry. The captain's already been fricasseed." Sora said.

We all ran down the stairs, happy to be getting as far away from that ship as we could before something bad happens.

"Well, the weather sure hasn't gotten any cooler." Joe said as we walked into the desert.

"Do you hear something?" Mimi asked.

We turned at the sound of a fog horn, yelling at the sight of the yacht sailing right at us.

That stupid chicken just won't give up!

We all ran away again, yelling as we did so.

"That's one mad digimon with his feather out of joint." Matt said as the yacht gained on us.

"Look!" Mimi said.

"The giant cactus is back." Palmon said as we saw it.

"Oh no, not another mirage." Mimi whined.

"What were you expecting, an outlet mall?" Tai asked.

"Hurry, get over on the other side." Matt yelled.

We did as he said; Kokatorimon sailing the boat right into the cactus, but the large green thing destroyed the yacht and flung it back.

"AAHHH! I can fly! I can fly! I can't fly!" Kokatorimon yelled.

The ship exploded above us, the rooster going down with his ship.

"Wow, it's even bigger than a skyscraper!" Mimi said about the cactus.

"You're right. What's a skyscraper, Mimi?" Palmon asked.

"Look up there. Check it out you guys." Tai said as a pretty dark pink flower bloomed on top of the cactus.

A stone block with a tear drop on it came out of the flower making us all exclaim in wonder.

"What's that?" Mimi asked.

"Maybe it's a Crest." Tai said as the block tilted towards us.

Mimi's Tag slipped out from under her dress, glowing a light green color.

The stone tablet did the same thing as it started to shrink and float down to where Mimi was, sliding into place in her Tag.

"He was right. It's just like Gennai said. The Tags and Crests somehow work together, Mimi." Sora said as the glowing stopped.

"It's the Crest of Sincerity." Mimi said picking up her new Crest, knowing what it was by touching it.

I was so sure that it would be pink, this is a surprise.

"I don't deserve it, but if it can help me take care of Palmon, then I'll keep it." she said.

"Aw, thanks Mimi." Palmon said.

"But I think I'm going to have to teach you some manners. Do you know you slurp when you eat soup? But don't worry a single leaf on that pretty little head, Mimi's going to help you." The girl said making us all sigh, but smile at her.

I think the Crest of Sincerity is in great hands.

Now that everything is good between us, I can't wait to find my own Crest and see what V-Mon will become so that we can defeat Kaitoumon once and for all.

TBC