The hiatus is officially over. I want to apologize to everyone who has waited so long. I work two jobs and have school so I don't get much time to work on this stuff anymore, but I'm going to try to fix that. I want to thank my fans who continued to support me during this dry time. I shout out to Evil Soul... thank you for believing in me. Even if you don't think it was that big of a deal, your messages helped me push forward. I also want to work on some of my other stories and finish them. I plan on setting up a work schedule for my writing like I use to have back in my more productive days. With that, please accept this late chapter with an assurance that better ones are coming. Thank you, JM

Chapter 14

The soft light that emanated off the computer screen was the only thing that kept the room from being completely engulfed by darkness and the soft hum of the system's fan being the only sound that could be heard outside of the occasional snore from Agumon down the hall. Tai waited as the small window made its security checks and relays connections before it finally allowed a chat window to appear.

Kaiser has entered the chat.

Kaiser: It's rare for you to actually contact me for a change. Should I feel flattered?

Richard I: I wanted an actual phone conversation, not this.

Kaiser: The risk is too high. This will have to do. Now, what was it you wanted?

Richard I: I want to be moved to Investigation.

Kaiser: No

Richard I: What? That's it? No questions, no reasons, just a plain NO?

Kaiser: No questions or reasons are needed. You simply wouldn't be much use on Investigation as your skills are far more suited for the field.

Richard I: I want to be in an area where my actions can make a difference.

Kaiser: Do you have any idea how many lives you save just by being stationed where you are?

Richard I: NO, because you don't tell me anything beyond a need to know!

Kaiser: You're upset. I don't know what brought about this chain of thought in you, but you do more than anyone could ever ask you to do.

Richard I: But I need to do more.

Kaiser: What you need is to trust me when I say no. Kaiser out!

Kaiser has left the chat.

Exit Y/N

"Damn! Fucking! Pretty! Faced! Bastard!" Each word was accentuated by a powerful kick to the punching bag in front of Tai.

"Calm down, Kamiya. The rest of us still want to use that punching bag when you're done, you know," an older, slightly balding, man joked. The man was probably in his mid-40s or 50s and though he displayed an impressive build in his upper body, he still suffered from a somewhat prominent gut common to middle age officer works.

"Sorry Kinoshita-san. I'm just trying to work out some stress."

"Well, I hate to be the person who stressed you out. Haven't seen you this worked up since you first came to this gym."

"It's not that bad."

"That's for sure. When I first saw you, I thought you were going to kill someone with that violent streak of yours. Sure, you weren't as skilled as the other boxers here, but sometimes being young and ruthless is all you need."

Tai stopped his practice as he wiped the sweat from his brow with his towel. "I wasn't that bad, was I?"

"Tai, with the way you took some of those punches and just kept going, I was pretty sure you just didn't care about your body. That was what, five years almost?"

"Five years, four years, who's counting?"

"I guess it doesn't matter. My point is, you've come a long way since then. You've gotten a lot more skilled and you've seen to calm down like you found some meaning in life again. So I got to ask, what's burning you?"

Tai hesitated for a moment on telling the old man anything. It wasn't like he was really a friend, more of just a gym buddy. Someone to spot him on the weights and nothing more, but if you trust a guy to not drop over 150 pounds of weights on your head they had to have some form of your trust.

"I don't know. Just some recent events got me thinking that I'm not doing enough with my life."

"Being an adult is doing what you can when you can. That's all anyone can really ask of you."

"You make it sound so simple."

"That's because it is simple, though it's not always easy. Now listen to your elder and take a break before you seriously hurt yourself."

"Take a break, but I've only been here for an hour?"

"Tai!" The voice of Agumon shouted, cutting into Tai's thoughts. The college student turned towards the small reptile, dressed in one of his many hoods that acted as the most basic of disguises.

"Agumon, what are you doing here?" Tai asked.

"What am I doing here? Tai, I know it's your workout day, but have you checked the time? You should have been home over an hour and a half ago." Tai faced towards the wall clock and took note of the time. His normal one-hour and a half workout and nearly doubled to three. He has really going to feel that in the morning.

"OK, so I lost track of time. That doesn't explain why you had to come get me. You could have just called."

"That's because she's been waiting at the apartment for you for almost an hour now. I felt bad so I brought her along when I came to get you," The Digimon replied as he motioned to the girl standing behind him. Tai looked up at the young red-haired schoolgirl who was standing a few steps behind Agumon and trying her best to look uninterested.

"Rika? I didn't know you were going to stop by today, being a school day and all. Why didn't you call?"

She gave him a rather cold glare. "I did, you never answered."

"Hmm, maybe I put my phone on silent," Tai mused to himself.

"Kamiya, is this girl your sister or something?" Kinoshita asked.

"More like a girl I'm tutoring. I guess I'm late for her lesson."

"That's just like you Kamiya. Forgetting there are other people in the world. Well, don't keep the little lady waiting. Hurry up and shower so you can get to her lesson," The older man lectured as he shooed the college boy away.

"Give me a moment to wash up Rika and we'll head out, ok?" Rika merely nodded a response as her attention was a bit more focused on the way Tai's shirt, wet with sweat, stuck to his well-toned body than his words.

It was about ten minutes later that Tai came back out after having showered and gotten dressed. His workout bag hung over his shoulder as he met up with Rika and Agumon in the lobby.

"Where's Renamon?" Tai asked as he looked around unable to find the fox Digimon.

"She's around, just hidden," Rika answered as she stood up and picked up her bag.

"You know, she could probably pass as a normal person with a basic disguise like Agumon?" He suggested as they walked out of the gym and began to head to the nearby subway station.

Rika rolled her eyes. "And what would you suggest she wear?"

Tai thought for a moment before he snapped his fingers. "Blue jeans, a graphics mid-drift tee, denim vest jacket, and a baseball cap. Extra points if she goes with jean short-shorts instead."

"How the hell would that be a good disguise, especially if her legs were that exposed," Rika nearly shouted.

Well, I'm just suggesting what I think she should wear, not what would be a good disguise, but you're right. That outfit would make her look way too cute so she would start drawing attention to herself."

"You would like that wouldn't you, Mop-head?"

"Who wouldn't like to see a cute girl wear cute clothes?"

Rika rolled her eyes once more in frustration as she began walking ahead of the older man. "You are a hopeless pervert, Mop-head. She's not a doll."

"No, I didn't mean to imply that. Only dress her up if she really wanted too. We're not talking about objectifying or taking away her autonomy. Of course, she has the choice to go along with it or not and if she didn't want to I wouldn't force it. Maybe I would be a bit sad because I honestly think it would look cute on her, but that's all meaningless if it's done against her will, right?"

"Said like a true liberal arts student."

"Don't be like that, but speaking of cute." Tai stopped walking as he placed a hand on his chin and gave Rika an examining gaze. He then looked around as if to judge his location before he checked his phone.

"What are you doing, Mop-Head?"

"Just plotting, come with me," Tai enthusiastically ordered as he grabbed the young girl's hand and bolted in a different direction from their destination. It was a short run into a nearby shopping center as Tai quickly weaved through the throngs of people. Tai finally stopped at a small intersection to allow everyone to catch their breath.

"Tai," Agumon whined, "I don't mind a short run out of the blue sometimes, but I'm still really hungry."

"Sorry about that buddy. Here," Tai said as he pulled a few yen from his pocket, "Go buy some hot dogs and we'll see you here in about 10 minutes. The two of us will be right over there if you need anything." Rika looked at where he gestured to see a small clothing boutique that specialized in pre-teen and teenage girl styles. It was the type of shop her mom would have loved to drag her to.

"What's your angle mop-head?" She asked in a tone that was so acerbic that it took her several moments to even realize that she was the one who asked it.

"Calm down and just trust me," He assured her as he took her hand and lead her into the shop. Some Japanese pop band she never heard of was softly playing over the store speakers as rows of tween fashion lined the floor with a slight over-emphasis on placed on pink. Tai easily navigated the shop to small area towards the back that consisted mostly of accessories.

"Why does it seem like you know your way around her so well?"

"Before she moved to America, Mimi use to drag me here to help her shop. I mostly just carried bags, but you pick up a few things being around someone so hypersensitive to fashion like her."

"Oh," Though Rika would be the first to admit she didn't really like this sort of fashion, it was rare for Tai to willing talk about his old friends so she held her tongue in regard to any snide comments she wanted to make. "What was she like?"

"Who? Mimi?" Tai let out a small chuckle as he stopped his search and looked up. His eyes momentarily glazed as he recalled the long passed memories. "Mimi… Mimi was the girl I would have fallen in love with if I didn't have my nose so close to the ground chasing Sora. Some may have called her a ditz and true she may not have been as smart as some in regards to simple academics, but she had emotional intelligence, almost like she had a sixth sense. Always knowing what you were feeling before you knew yourself and was capable of some rather insightful thoughts when she wanted."

He continued to browses a bin of accessories as he talked, "I remember this one time I was with her. I was standing right where you are and she was right where I am now and I asked her. Mimi, I said, what's the point of fashion anyway? She gave me a funny look and said that fashion is about dressing according to what's fashionable. Style is more about being yourself. Makes sense when you think about it. I mean, when was the last time you saw pink cowgirls being fashionable, yet she made it work."

He took a medium size package to the register as Rika followed. "So what does that mean for the rest of us?"

"Well if I had to rephrase it in a more pragmatic way," Tai handed some bills to the girl at the register to pay for his purchase, "You should be yourself and not be afraid if who you are is fashionable or not because style is what's important." He reached into the bag and pulled out a small, yellow, foxed-eared headband and placed it on Rika's head. "Now that looks cute, doesn't it?" He suddenly asked the girl at the register who willingly agreed with her customer.

The glare Rika leveled at Tai would have killed a lesser man. "You are incorrigible."

Tai, either ignoring or not noticing said glare, handed her the bag before he turned to leave. "I bought you a tail too, but a proper gentleman never asks a lady to put on a tail while he's watching."

Rika took the bag and looked in confusion at Tai's back before he left the store and then at the cashier as if she held some answer to whatever riddle plagued her adolescent mind. The cashier in question, a pretty teenage girl with strawberry blonde highlights, simply shrugged her shoulders towards Rika, just as lost by Tai's actions as Rika was.

As Tai excited the building he quickly scanned the area and found Agumon sitting at a nearby bench surrounded by the remains of at least a dozen hot dogs.

"Did you save me one?" He asked as he stood next to the Digimon.

"I didn't know you wanted one."

"It's fine. I'll pick up ramen on the way back."

"No way. I want ramen too."

"Well, you should have thought of that before you stuffed your face with hot dogs."

"Well, you should have..." Agumon's comment cut off as he looked past Tai to something behind the young man. His face contorted as he forced himself from chortling out loud.

"What's so funny?" Tai asked as he turned around to see what was causing his partner to laugh so hard. Before him stood Rika wearing both the fox ears and tail Tai had bought for her. The college student couldn't help but chuckle a bit at this sight.

"Why are you laughing, you jerk? You bought these dumb things for me!" She shouted.

Tai waved his hand in a calming motion towards her as he wiped a tear out of his eye with his other. "I'm not laughing at you cause it's funny. I'm laughing because it's cute."

"For the record, I'm laughing because it's funny," Agumon managed to mutter out before his laughter burst out.

"I hate you both," She snorted as she took the ears and tail off.

Tai shrugged and with a smirk, turned away and began to leave, "I never told you to wear them."

Rika followed closely by his side as she chewed her bottom lip. Was now a good time? There were so many questions she wanted to ask and none of them were going to be easy on him.

"Tai?" A murmur came from Tai signaling that he heard her. "Who killed Davis?"

If the mention of the name invoked any emotions in the veteran Digi-destined he hid them well.

"Telling you would probably be irresponsible of me."

"I think it would be irresponsible to not tell me, considering you know, I might die."

"You won't die!" Rika froze at the intensity of his words as he glared at her. She wasn't sure if he was assuring her or commanding her not to die. "I promised you that nothing bad would happen to you or Renamon. That same promise applies to Henry, Davis, and their Digimon as well."

"How can you be so certain?"

Tai slowly turned away from her, his gaze drawn to the distant yet familiar form of the central building where they had fought Mihiramon, "Because they damn well know what I'll do to them if it ever happens again."

Elsewhere, in places far and unknown to their enemies, a young man sat at an impressive computer workstation consisting of half a dozen monitors. A seemingly never-ending supply of data flashing across them. The youngster had long, dark blue hair that was braided and wore a solid gray school uniform with gold trimming. Over the right breast of the uniform, several strings hung haphazardly as if someone had ripped a patch or insignia off from there. On his unnaturally beautiful face he wore a pair of absurdly dark sunglasses, the kind that one would question if he could even see with, especially in a room so dark.

Nearby, on top of a dusty desk pushed to the side, sat another much smaller and stranger figure. A tiny green creature, like a worm or caterpillar, sat before a rather modest laptop casually surfing random websites. The worm creature didn't seem too interested in anything on his screen until a small beep emitted from it as it received an alert.

"Oh, this is new," The small worm noted as it clicked on the alert.

"Did something interesting happen, Wormmon?" The young man called out.

"Maybe, I mean, I'm just checking your social media account."

"I don't know why you still bother with that thing. No one contacts me anymore."

"Well, you never know when one of your friends might say hi. I mean look here, it seems you were tagged in a photo."

The blue hair youth frowned his eyes as he rolled his chair over to where Wormmon was and looked at the post. It was a photo post by Davis's sister, Jun, and all Digi-destined had been tagged. The post read:

"Hey everyone, I'm back from my trip visiting my parents and check out this elusive cutie I managed to sneak a photo of when he wasn't looking. I think it came out really well."

Below the post was a picture of a young man in a blue hoodie and with messy brown hair to seemed to wave perfectly in the breeze of the moment. He sat on a small grassy hill that overlooked a field where some children were playing, a tranquil wisp of a smile just noticeable on his handsome face. His hand rested on the head of small orange dinosaur that had fallen asleep on his lap. It was the type of picture you expected to see on the cover of a fashion magazine. The blue-haired man's eyes widened in fear as he took note of who the picture was of and the following comments.

"Oh shit! Damn it, Tai, I told you to stay away from social media. I mean when you are fighting a corrupt, government, shadow organization one of the first things they monitor is your social media," The chair and teen rolled back their workstation as the offending site and photo appeared on the monitor. His fingers blurred across the keyboard as speeds one would think inhuman as strings of green code appeared on another screen. Faster. he typed, racing against the speed of the very internet. With every second more likes, more comments, more views. To protect him he had had to do more than remove it, he had to erase it's existence, erase its mention, it's log, it's cache, everything he could think of.

"God damn that woman. Have to erase it. It was originally uploaded from a smartphone. Maybe if I knock out the wireless internet in the location it might give us time to contact her and stop her from doing this again. Then again, if she doesn't agree we'd have a security risk. Maybe send a data spike and just fry her phone altogether. Harder to do, but more secure. Damn it, Tai, why do you have to always be so stupid around pretty faces?"

Five minutes passed before the page and photo vanished from the internet, five more minutes and Jun would suddenly experience a sudden lag on her phone's internet making it almost entirely useless, and five more minutes a data spike was ready and his finger hovered over the "Y" key. After a moment of deliberation, he hit the "N" key.

"It's a risk, but she might be useful."

"I'm sorry, Ken," Wormmon apologized after a moment.

Ken laughed a bit, allowing some of the tension to melt away, "Why are you apologizing? I should be thanking you for keeping me informed on that."

"Well, you see..." Wormmon began shyly as he pressed some keys on the laptop pulling up a saved copy of the photo, "I sort of saved a copy of the picture without your permission before you removed it."

"Encrypted channel?"

"Yeah, what, you think I'm some amateur?" Wormmon jested.

"That was risky, Wormmon, but," Ken stared at the picture for a moment, a bright blush appearing on his face before he turned away to hide it, "She was right. It really is a good picture of him."

"Should I make it your phone's background?"

Ken turned away towards his monitors once again as his fingers surfed across the keys. The humming of power supplies accompanied by the tapping of keys being the only sound that filled the room.

End chapter 14