Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. Or Heroes of Olympus.

Author's Note: Written for the Novel with Prompts Challenge found on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges forum. The prompt for this chapter is "letter".

I made a small error in the previous chapter that I have gone back to fix. It's not a big deal, so if you aren't a fan of rereading, don't worry about it. However, if you're meticulous about wanting to catch all of my foreshadowing, it may be worth a second look. Thank you all so much for the feedback. Every review means the world to me! As does every follow and favorite, of which I have way more than I could have ever anticipated! So, thank you so much.

Enjoy!

Chapter Thirteen

Takato woke to the sound of thunder. Then he realized it was just Guilmon's snoring.

The big red dino was curled up next to Izzy's bed, mumbling every so often about bread. The clothes Takato woke up in yesterday were cleaned and folded on the dresser next to the window, including the shirt that was pretty much destroyed beyond repair thanks to Thunderbirmon. Still, when Mrs Izumi asked him what he wanted to do with it, he had been unable to part with it. The destroyed piece of cloth was one of the only ties he had to where he was from. Someone that he knew and loved very much – his mother, he liked to think – was probably the last person to wash that shirt. There was something strangely sentimental about that.

Takato got up and rubbed his neck. His whole body felt stiff from bad sleep and being struck by lightning. That attack might have been easily enough shaken off at the time while high on adrenaline, but sleep just reminded him that he should probably be dead.

Next to the folded pile of old clothes, new clothes were laid out for him: jeans, sneakers, and a green t-shirt. A duffle bag with even more donated clothes and provisions sat next to that. The Izumis, he learned, were far too giving. He blushed at the reminder of how Mrs Izumi had fussed over him as if he had been over to her apartment a thousand times before. It made his heartache for things that he could no longer remember, and he tried not to feel guilty for appreciating the motherly attention when he couldn't even remember his own mother's face.

He thought about his dream, hoping more memories would come back to him about Shibumi or that old den in the park. He knew he'd been there before. That ghost-guy was real, but his head ached when he tried to remember. If he could find Gennai, he could find his past. Not to mention whatever was trying to hatch out of that black digi-egg, Takato had to stop it.

"Takato, is it breakfast time?"

He looked over at Guilmon. "I don't know, boy. We don't live here, remember?"

Guilmon smiled. "I know! I live in that shed from last night!"

Takato felt his heart skip a beat. "You remember that?"

"I remember burying lots and lots of bread in my tunnel!"

"Do you remember where it is?" Takato urged. "How to get there? What park it's in?"

"No. I'm sorry."

He felt his hope deflate.

"Don't worry, Takato," Guilmon said. "I know we'll find our way home, and we'll remember all of our friends. It'll all come back to us soon. I can feel it!"

He looked up at Guilmon standing there in front of him. His eyes were still just as wide and innocent as ever, but he seemed so confident in his words that Takato found it hard not to believe them. A small smile worked its way onto his face. "Wow, Guilmon. Yesterday, you were talking like a baby, and today you're giving me a pep talk. You're practically a whole different 'mon."

"Well, I learn from you!" Guilmon tilted his head to the side as Takato adopted a funny look on his face. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No," Takato said immediately, giving himself a little shake. "I just had the strangest feeling of déjà vu."

"Deva who?"

Takato laughed. "Déjà vu! It means that I think we've had this conversation before."

"Oh! I get that feeling all the time," Guilmon said. For a moment, Takato thought he had misunderstood him until he added, "Like when you used that card to give me wings… I felt like I had done that a hundred times before!"

"Yeah… Me too."

But there was really no way to know for sure until he got his memory back. Takato tried to take comfort in the fact that little fragments were working its way back into his psyche without him even trying, but it wasn't happening nearly fast enough. Takato had to find Gennai, and he had to get him to give his memory back.

He changed out of the night clothes that Mrs Izumi had handed him the night before and put on the clean clothes waiting for him on the dresser. He checked his reflection in the vanity. It wasn't as bad as it was yesterday when he had first seen his reflection upon walking into the room. For half a second, he hadn't recognized himself, and it was the strangest feeling. Now, he knew that those were his eyes, his cheekbones, and his completely untamable hair. He pulled on his goggles, the only thing he did feel like he recognized about himself, but just like every other half-memory he seemed to come across, the full story seemed just out of his reach.

He pulled on his windbreaker, and his hands went to his pockets out of habit. He felt the folded up piece of paper in his hand, and he slowly sank down onto the edge of Izzy's bed where he had spent the night. The note remained mostly untouched by the destruction of Elecmon's home save for a few ash smears across the paper. Takato ran his thumb over the pink heart that had been meticulously colored in. His cheeks threatened to the turn the same shade, and despite having read the note a hundred times since being handed it by Cody, he unfolded it once more.

Takato,

Don't forget about Friday!

Love,

Jeri

As Takato ran his fingers over the inked words, he had a really strong feeling that he never did make it on Friday, and an even stronger feeling that it hadn't been his fault. He really hoped that Jeri – whoever she was – hadn't waited for hours upon hours for him to show up. He really hoped that she would forgive him for missing out on their plans, whatever they had been.

"Does it say anything important?" someone said.

Takato turned as Guilmon perked up.

Izzy stood in the doorway as he looked at the crinkled piece of paper in Takato's hands. His expression was inquisitive, like he really wanted to read the paper for himself but knew better than to invade his privacy like that. "Sorry, I should have knocked."

"It's fine," Takato said. "This is technically your room anyway…"

Izzy was dressed for travel, with a winter coat over his lighter traveling gear, his digivice on his belt, and a backpack slung over his shoulder.

Takato continued, "And no… it doesn't say anything about who I am." He looked over at him. "I don't suppose you or any of the others have changed your mind about coming with us?"

He shook his head. "Don't underestimate your team. They're really good. The rest of us need to focus on looking for TK."

Takato was a little disappointed. He would've appreciated having somebody on the trip that seemed as wise and knowledgeable as Izzy, so that he didn't feel like he was leading everybody unfortunate enough to be stuck with him off of a cliff.

"You'll be fine," Izzy promised. "Something tells me you know more about what you're doing than you realize. And like I said, don't underestimate the others… though with Davis, I know it's a little hard not to."

Takato had a vague suspicion that he was right about him having gone on a mission through the Digital World before, but that didn't make him feel any better. He wished he could be as brave and confident as everybody else seemed to be, but he just felt completely lost. How could anyone trust him when he didn't even know who he was?

"And I'll be there!" Guilmon offered. "We'll handle whatever they throw at us."

He managed to smile at Guilmon's attempt to cheer him up before he was forced to look away. Izzy's walls were covered in pictures of the digidestined, ranging from all sorts of ages. Several pictures had a young blonde boy that Takato didn't remember seeing yesterday that he realized must be TK. These kids must really like this TK guy a lot to search for him so hard, and that made Takato a little envious. Was anyone searching for him right now? What if somebody cared for him that much and was going out of their mind with worry, and he couldn't even remember his old life?

"You know who we are," he guessed. "Don't you?"

Izzy's fingers twitched as if he wished to reach for his laptop that was nowhere to be seen. "Honestly, Takato… I'm not sure. My best guess, you were pulled into the Digital World at just the wrong time when you were traveling or something… and that's why nobody's noticed you missing yet. Or maybe you're a loner or a runaway… somebody who people have trouble keeping track of."

Takato didn't like any of those ideas at all, but he knew Izzy was just trying to help. He pulled out his digivice. "And this?"

Izzy glanced at the device. Clearly, it bothered him. "It's definitely a different model from my digivice or the D-3's. It would make sense that it's a sign that a new generation of digidestined must have been chosen, except we haven't heard a thing about any of this, and we've been constantly connected to the Digital World for the past four years. It's possible that you're just one of the many kids who became partnered with a digimon four or eight years ago, but why you'd have a special digivice so completely different from ours makes very little sense…"

Neither of those scenarios seemed to ring true to Takato. It also didn't sit right that he was some sort of runaway without any place to really call home. But what else made sense? Izzy had been pretty clear – no kid named Takato was currently missing in all of Japan, and as far as he knew, no new digidestined had been chosen.

"I, um… had a weird dream last night," he said.

"Me too!" Guilmon piped up. "I saw lots and lots of bread."

It seemed like a stupid thing to confide, but Izzy just appeared curious. "What was it about?"

He told him about the DigiGnomes, the ghostly figure, and the two glowing runes. As he talked, Izzy started pacing, looking more and more agitated – as if Takato was just adding more variables to an already difficult equation.

"You don't remember where this park is?" he asked.

Takato shook his head. "But I'm sure I've been there before. A lot. I think it's not too far from where I live."

"A wooded park," Izzy mused. "Could be Higashi Yashio Park, but more than likely, it's somewhere outside of Odaiba. And… DigiGnomes, is that right?"

"They're really friendly!" Guilmon added.

"I've studied all types of digital entities since learning about the Digital World eight years ago, and I've never heard of anything like that."

"It might be completely wrong. I mean, it was just a dream, right?"

"The Digital World is more connected to dreams than you realize, and right now, your dreams might be the only clue to what is going on. So that digiegg that you saw trying to hatch—?" Izzy's expression darkened. "It has to be stopped."

"But Elecmon said that digieggs are the source of all life," Guilmon pointed out. "Why would we want to stop one from hatching?"

"It's hard to explain…"

"You know what it is, don't you?" Takato asked. "Or at least, you've got a guess. Something from that prophecy you won't share with us…"

Izzy hesitated. "Takato, the thing about prophecies… if you know them at the wrong time or you try to change them, things can turn out disastrous. The first truly terrible enemy we ever faced was Devimon. He knew how he was going to be destroyed based on a prophecy he had intercepted. It wasn't until years later that I ever heard the prophecy for myself. See, Devimon knew from the prophecy that the smallest one of us would be the one to destroy him."

"So, he tried to change it?" Takato guessed.

Izzy nodded.

"I'm guessing it didn't work?"

"No."

Takato saw a picture out of the corner of his eye that showed eight smiling kids, an old man, and several digimon. Standing next to a much younger Kari was that same unknown blonde kid in the other photos. "You're talking about TK."

"Devimon had us beat. He could have easily destroyed us, but he was more concerned with trying to avert the prophecy than win… In doing so, he brought about his own destruction. When he tried to destroy TK and Patamon, he actually gave them the power they needed to finally digivolve."

"I'm guessing there's a moral to the story somewhere in there?" Takato asked.

Izzy smiled slightly. "The point is… even if I do know something, I don't think now is the right time to say. I don't want us to be the next Devimon."

"But I don't even know where to start. Where are we supposed to go?"

"Follow the enemy," Izzy suggested.

"Thunderbirmon!" Guilmon said.

Takato thought about that. Thunderbirmon was long gone by now, there was no doubt about that, but he had mentioned being recalled to his boss. If Takato could somehow figure out who Thunderbirmon's boss was, it would at least lead them to who was probably the one that had given him the ability to digivolve into that supposedly extreme rare form of digivolution. And maybe through that boss, it would lead them to Gennai's prison.

"Okay," he said. "Who has the power to give digimon the ability to digivolve into armor forms?"

"You'll want to ask the Four Holy Beasts. They have digicores that grant digivolution of all kinds. Even if the power didn't come from them, they probably would have a good idea where to go next," Izzy said. "Azulongmon is the Holy Beast we're most familiar with, but File Island exists outside of Azulongmon's sphere of protection. The Holy Beast you'll want is probably Baihumon."

"So, if I look him up on Digi-maps—"

"Oh, he won't be hard to find," Izzy promised. "Ever since the Destiny Stones were all but destroyed, the protection around the Holy Beasts that allowed them to exist just outside of the Digital World's realm has fallen. Baihumon, like the other Four Holy Beasts, has settled in the Digital World itself. You'll find him on the most western continent."

"Which is?"

"Server."

Takato actually felt a spark of excitement. Server—it was an entire continent, sure, but at least now he had a goal. Find the Holy Beast of the West, track down the bad guy handing out digivolutions to other bad guys, find out who they're all working for, and find the ruined castle. Free Gennai. All in three days. Piece of Cake.

"Thanks, Izzy." He looked back at the picture from before. Something was nagging him about that photo, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "That's Gennai, right?" He pointed to the old man sitting atop some mechanical digimon.

"One of his forms," Izzy said. "After we defeated the Dark Masters, Gennai was able to return to a much younger and taller form. That's probably the version you talked to."

Guilmon wandered over to the photo to look at it curiously. He tilted his head to the side. "He did seem taller!"

Takato nodded distractedly. He kept thinking that this photo of the eight of them was important. He was missing something. He felt a strange sense of connection to this picture – like he understood what they all had been feeling on that day, like he had somehow experienced it with them. But that was impossible, and he tried to tell himself that Izzy's earlier theory must have been correct… He had his own digidestined team somewhere, and he was just missing that sense of connection from them. But another voice inside him, an insistent whisper, said: You are not a digidestined. You don't belong.

"When was this taken?" he asked.

"A long time ago. It was right after we were all deleted and managed to reform our data. Pretty miraculous feat, actually."

"What?"

His expression must've been pretty good, because Izzy laughed. "Don't worry. It's not something all digidestined go through. It's a long story, but… That picture was taken about eight years ago."

Something that Shibumi had said in his dream nagged at Takato. He found himself asking, "Had you all just defeated someone?"

Izzy nodded. "It was our final battle, the one that finally brought peace back to the Digital World. For a short while anyway."

Takato waited.

"Apocalymon," Izzy said. "The enemy's name was Apocalymon."

Takato's eyes went wide. His digivice clattered to the floor.

"You okay?" Guilmon asked.

A shred of memory had ignited – maybe a tiny piece that the Digital Stream had forgotten to steal. Or maybe it was left behind on purpose – just enough for him to remember that name, and know that digging up his past was only going to bring about more questions than answers and could be terribly dangerous.

"What is it?" Izzy pressed.

Takato couldn't keep this to himself. He could just tell Guilmon, keep it a secret between the two of them, but he felt like Izzy knew more than the two of them combined. Maybe he could advise him on what to do.

"You have to swear not to tell anyone else," he said.

"What's going on?" Guilmon asked.

"Swear it," he urged. "Until I figure out what's going on, what this all means—" He bent down to pick his digivice back up. "You have to keep it a secret."

Izzy hesitated, but his curiosity won out. "Alright. Until you tell me it's okay, I won't share what you say with anyone else. I swear."

And it also happens to be one of your favorite episodes, Shibumi had said. Takato ran his fingers over the framed photo. "I think I saw this battle," he said.

"You remember something?" Izzy said. "That's good. But thousands of people saw that battle."

"No, I mean…" He looked back at Izzy. You're a kid who really, really likes Digimon. "I think I saw this battle after it happened. On the television. On a show called Digimon."

Izzy's eyes widened. Then he went pale. Takato could see him wrestling with disbelief, confusion, even anger. He thought he was lying. His claim was impossible. Digimon wasn't a kid's show; it was a real world with real living creatures. And part of Takato felt the same way, but as soon as he spoke the words, he knew they were true.

Then a light knocking pulled their attention to the door. Mrs Izumi poked her head in. "Izzy? Tai and the others are here. They're ready to go."