AN: Hey guys, hope everyone's having a good time! I'm doing pretty well.

Anyways, responses:

To smartalec121: Whether it is BG or Tasuke that is changing more, we'll find out over time. And Davis is a good guy, at heart. He's just stuck in an 'ends justify means' kind of job. You will eventually hear more and more about the events that lead to Henry being Taj's guardian, though I'll keep a bit of a lid on the when or how. And as for Calumon... well, as you'll learn in this chapter there were only so many options for the Cream Puff.

Now, I hope you guys enjoy! Leave a review if you have any questions, criticisms, or things you like that I can address. See you again soon!

Episode 11: Reprieve from Battle:Taking a Breather

I was more than happy to finally have some time off from learning how to be Secret Agent Man from the Kidnapper. After that guy and his Ogremon had attacked, everything had caught up with me. It was like all the exhaustion I'd fought over the past few weeks hit me like BlackGuilmon's Rock Crusher. Usually when I felt like this I'd be over at May's, or she'd be over at our house. But ever since the fight the day before, things were a bit... frosty, there. So I was, instead, at my desk working on designing a new project. While May was the best with computers, I was the engineering wiz. Not that this was an altogether original invention, but no one else was going to build it.

The idea had come to me a while after the fight with Ogremon as I realized that May and I didn't have any real way to defend ourselves. We obviously weren't going to be taking the guns to school, and if we couldn't get to the warehouse during the next attack or we got attacked at the warehouse again – or, worse, if we got attacked at school – then we needed something that we could take with us. I didn't feel like throwing a shoe at somebody again. It wasn't anything fancy or too original, but it was taking some thought on how to hide it and take it apart without it taking too long to put it together. After all, even a strong slingshot would probably get us suspended, at least. So the semi-mechanized slingshot I was designing had to look like it was maybe just some random crap in our backpacks. Huh, now that I think about it I guess I was just building a self-drawing crossbow designed to shoot pellets, smoke bombs, and whatever other stuff I could think up. So far the biggest issue I had was hiding the ammo. I finished my fifteenth sketch and pushed it back. It was getting better. I could maybe build a working version sometime in the next few weeks, if I was a little lucky.

For now, I couldn't help but think about what May might be doing. Unlike me, she actually had other friends, so maybe that's what she was up to. I leaned back in my desk chair and sighed. Why couldn't she just understand I had to do this? I didn't tell her to join the stupid D-CARD thing, and I didn't tell her to help me. She didn't have to be here, watching me and BlackGuilmon Load Digimon because we had to do it. She could leave if she wanted to!

No. No, that wasn't fair. I may not have asked her, but it was my fault they'd found her. And once that happened, it was join or have Dorimon taken away. Not to mention she was my best friend, so of course she'd help. She's wanted me to find my parents since we were in the first grade class play. She wasn't going to walk out on me now, even if she actually could have. And if she did leave now, they'd probably... I don't even want to think about it.

Still, BlackGuilmon as right. This was making us stronger, and at the end of the day May would just have to deal with it.

X X X

Davis smiled to himself as he shut off the crock pot and took a whiff of the green chili he'd made. "Delicious," Huckmon said, appearing beside him in the dining room. He was drooling like a maniac, now.

"Huckmon, you know you aren't supposed to be down here!" Davis hissed in surprise. "Mom can't see you, you know that!"

"Aw, come on! She won't be home for a few minutes, Davis," he pointed out in reply, leaning closer to the crockpot. "Just give me some real quick!"

"No, you have to wait," Davis responded, ignoring his partner to go back to stirring the chili. "Mom's almost home and you aren't exactly a clean eater."

"Who works on a Saturday?" Huckmon grumbled. He moved back, acquiescing to his partner's commands, and sat down on his haunches. "This is dumb. I'm hungry."

"The only reason you were able to run around the house all day is because Mom was at work," Davis pointed out dryly. He put the top back on the crockpot and turned to his partner. "And she works hard. The Director may have gotten her hired, but she runs the restaurant's crew on her own. And she doesn't know that, so she wants to make a good impression. Have everything running smooth."

"Then why can't she be here faster?" Huckmon whined. His glare was still locked on the crockpot.

Davis sighed. Obviously, Huckmon hadn't actually listened to anything that he'd said. When it came to food, Digimon did tend to have a one track mind, so he guessed he could forgive that for a moment. "Look, all you need to know is that you aren't getting food right now, Huckmon."

The Digimon sighed. "Fine, I'll just go to your room and -"

"And none of the chocolate before dinner. You'll ruin your appetite," Davis told his partner.

Huckmon stared at him, jaw dropped. "I... I wasn't..." Huckmon scoffed. "You just want to take all the fun out of everything, don't you!"

"We'll go for a ride later, Huckmon," Davis said without glancing at his partner. "And you can eat all the chocolate you want, you greedy Digimon."

"I don't think there's that much chocolate on Earth, Davis, but I'll try!" Huckmon shouted before vanishing into thin air, leaving Davis to wonder if he'd made a significant mistake with that promise.

Luckily, the door cracked open before he could really think about that. "Mijo, I'm home!"

"Mom!" Davis rushed to the front door to meet her, grinning. "I finished the chili, so well have dinner soon!" He jumped up and hugged her. "It's good to see you!"

Davis's mother blinked in surprise for a moment before hugging her son back. "Davis, you didn't have to make dinner," she said. "I take care of you, not the other way around."

Still hugging her tight, Davis couldn't help but think, If only you knew. "I know," he said instead before he let himself get pushed off. His mother was early middle aged now, with some gray in her black braid and along her temples. She was dressed in a gray skirt and jacket over her white blouse, her nametag from the restaurant still pinned to her lapel. Davis smiled at her and hugged her again. After everything she'd been through, he wasn't going to let her do everything. They may not have had the biggest house or newest cars, but she worked hard to get them everything they had and it was only fair he did, too. "But can't a kid do something for his mom?"

"Mijo," she sighed before hugging him back. She chuckled and shook her head after a moment. "I better check to see you made it right."

X X X

"May. May!" May stared at the Digivice on the floor beside her feet, thinking back to the night before. To when Tasuke had... killed a Digimon. Was it right to be soldiers in a war when they were kids? She didn't really see the difference between killing a Digimon and a human. After a certain point, an artificial intelligence was basically just an intelligence. A thinking, feeling creature. Murdering a Digimon was exactly like murdering a person. "May!"

Her eyes jerked up, blinking. "You okay?" Dan asked from her bed where he was playing with her Digimon.

May forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes, but he didn't notice. He was still too young to really pay attention. "Of course, Dan," she said, standing up and ruffling his hair, drawing an incredibly annoyed noise from the five year old. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You didn't bring Tasuke over. Are you mad at him?" he wondered sullenly. May's eyes widened. The Twerp could really figure that out?

She shook her head. "What are you even doing in here, Twerp?" she asked, deflecting the question.

He glared at her. "I wanted to play with Dory!" he protested, clutching the Digimon tighter until she yelped. "Stop hogging her, Meanie!"

May glared at him in return, then sighed and sat down. "Do you want to watch a show, Dan?" she asked, moving over to her computer.

Dan smiled wide. "Digimon!" The Digimon beside him tried to hide her laughter behind the noise of obviously fake barking.

May grimaced while staring away from him. "Oh, are you sure?"

That was when he started to chant, "Digimon!" at her.

"Fine," she grumbled with an eye roll. There went any chance of a day thinking about anything other than Digimon battles. She placed her computer on the end of the bed and pulled her brother up to the head of the bed so they could watch. Dorimon edged closer to the screen to get a better look. No one loved he Digimon fights more than a Digimon. "We just finished Adventure, so... Frontier, I guess?"

A few episodes into the show, Dan yawned and curled into his sister's shoulder. "May, why do they ab- abse – absoo – Uh..."

"Absorb the data?" May finished for her brother.

"Yeah, why?"

"They're making sure those Digimon can't hurt them again. They're trying to kill them, so they have to stop them completely," May responded without thinking. She glanced at Dorimon, who was staring excitedly at the show. Back when they'd met, Dorimon had talked about Loading Data a lot. It was probably something Digimon wanted to do instinctively, unlike in the show. She only didn't do it now because May had scolded the Digimon so much back when she'd explained the concept. Did that mean in the wild it helped them Digivolve? "In the show it's supposed clean them up. Save them."

"Huh," Dan muttered. He curled up closer. "And I bet they want to see their mommies and daddies again. I'd be so scared if we lost Mommy and Daddy..." He yawned and shut his eyes.

May stared at her Digivice and thought of her best friend. Who had had recurring nightmares about his parents leaving for twelve years. "Shit," she mouthed so her brother wouldn't know. Tasuke wasn't a bad guy. She didn't agree with him, but... the Digimon he fought were all trying to kill and probably Load his Digimon's data. And that's not even if they weren't trying to kill him. She supposed she could let that go. It's not like he was trying to Load good Digimon Data. Maybe it wasn't like the show, but... well, his motivation was, she supposed.

"I'll bring Tasuke over tomorrow, KayKay?" she asked her brother, shutting her computer as the credits rolled. "I'll tell him to teach you how to play the card game."

His eyes shot open, wide as plates now. "Really?" The kid loved Tasuke. The rest of their siblings were too close in age to him, so he didn't really idolize them. Five, six, and eight? Basically the same. But Tasuke was like a giant. His face got serious. "And you won't hog him like you usually do?"

May rolled her eyes. "Not the entire time, Twerp," she said, picking him up and dropping him on the floor. "Now get out of my room."

"KayKay!" he shouted, still too excited from hearing Tasuke would hang out with him the next day to care about his sister ordering him around. He turned and rushed out of the room, looking for one of their brothers to wrestle with.

X X X

I sighed as I drove up to the paintball arena and saw that May and the Kidnapper were already here. I was a good half hour late. I tried to be early, seriously! But then Henry made lunch and I... kind of forgot. Well, it's not like what we were here for mattered. When I parked I glared at the group message that Director Gethen had sent May, the Kidnapper, and me. He wanted us to do some kind of 'team bonding' exercise. I thought it was a garbage idea. May hadn't talked to me since the fight on Friday two days ago, and neither of us really cared about talking to the kidnapper. What was a round of paintball going to do for that kind of relationship? I mean, I was already thinking about shooting him in the back for fun. Of course, seeing as he was already secret agent man, he'd probably disassemble the other team before we got to do anything...

May and the Kidnapper weren't looking at each other, but when I drove up I received an annoyed glare from both of them. "You're late," the Kidnapper said, brow furrowed angrily. "The director was clear that you -"

"Late is his on time," May interjected, casting a glare at me. She turned to him. "Can we just get this started?"

The Kidnapper sighed and the military rigidness in his shoulders melted. "Right, sure..." he shook his head. "So, have either of you ever done this before?"

"No," I responded.

May shook her head, too.

The Kidnapper nodded. "Okay, uh... it hurts. A lot. This place has some puffy jackets and stuff so it doesn't hurt as much, but you might still bruise. They've also got masks for your faces," he explained. "The paintball hurts. And stains, so I hope you're wearing jeans and shoes you aren't afraid of losing."

"Uh..." May and I groaned.

He sighed. "Fine, I'll get D-CARD to expense it," he grumbled. He turned to the door. "It'll be us versus some other team that'll be here today. We'll need to work together if we want to win, and that is why the Director sent us here."

"We'll win with you here, easy. Do we need to work together?" I asked.

He turned and glared at me. "If you don't think that the Director made sure the other team would be military of some kind, then you're an idiot. They won't be special forces or anything, but we won't win if we don't play smart. And if we don't win, they will keep shooting us with paintballs. And that will suck."

May and I traded a glance before she quickly turned away. Okay, so she still wasn't happy with me. "Fine," I muttered, still looking at her for a moment before turning back to him. "We'll do what you tell us to, Commander."

The Kidnapper sighed. "Okay. Let's get started."

When we walked inside, we immediately noticed three men, all twenty-something with identical buzzcuts. I looked anywhere besides the Kidnapper when I realized they were, of course, military of some kind. They were laughing and joking around. They were friends, or at least more than we were.

Fifteen minutes later, the three of us were all wearing black jackets and masks, holding paintball guns full of white paint and waiting for the start signal. The arena was a floor in a fake office, it looked like. Desks, chairs, doors with windows. We were huddled just outside the entrance, a false stairwell. "So, the arena is this office area, a break room in the middle, and another office area," the Kidnapper explained, his voice slightly muffled by the mask. "Both offices are also connected to a side hall on that side." He pointed to the wall to the right of the door.

"We should probably play it defensively," he said, gesturing at the room. "Use the desks for cover and wait for them to come to us. We'll figure them out and beat them in the second and third rounds."

"Why would they come to us?" I asked in disbelief.

"Because this is a game of patience." He gestured around at himself and us. "They get bored and they make a mistake."

I rolled my eyes. "That's stupid. This won't work," I responded turning away and shaking my head. "We should just attack them head on and take them out. Staying here is just waiting to get beaten."

"You said you'd listen," the Kidnapper pointed out with an exaggerated sigh.

"Uh, guys."

"Cause I thought you'd have a better idea than hiding like a coward!" I snapped back at him.

"Guys."

"It's called tactics," he retorted angrily. "I swear, BlackGuilmon isn't becoming smarter, you're getting dumber."

"Wow, is that the best you've got?"

"Guys!"

"What!?" the Kidnapper and I snapped, whirling on May just as a trio of yellow paintballs flew towards us and splattered against our jackets, leaving yellow Jackson Pollock paintings all over them.

"Shit!" May and I snapped. It had hurt, a lot more than I'd expected.

May turned and glared at the Kidnapper and me. "The game started," she growled, ticked off.

I shut my eyes. "Shiiiiiit," I groaned, trying to ignore the congratulatory high fives of the other team.

"Now can we do it my way?" the Kidnapper growled.

I chuckled nervously. "I, uh... yep..."

Five minutes later, we were in the exact same place, waiting for the bell. "Remember, defensive fighting. We'll each cover an area. I'll guard the outer hallway, you two cover that door." The Kidnapper pointed at the door to the break room before continuing, "Treat it like it's real."

The bell rang and he nodded at us, then walked through the side door. "Careful." And then he was gone.

I sighed and marched over to the closest desk, crouching behind it and waiting. May walked over to the desk on the other side and crouched, leaving us staring at each other. I glanced over the desk at the door so we wouldn't be stuck glaring at each other. "So what did you do yesterday?"

I crouched again and looked over at her. "What?"

"What did you do yesterday?" she asked, glancing around the corner. The door was still shut.

I sighed and glanced over at the door the Kidnapper had left through. "Nothing much," I replied after a moment. This was what we were reduced to? Small talk? I bit my lip and returned my attention to the door. "Some designs I've been thinking about. You?"

"Dan begged me to watch Digimon with him," she explained, and I could hear the smile in her voice. "It was fun, even if Frontier isn't as good as Adventure. It's more real with the..."

"The Fractal loading?" I suggested when she grew quiet.

"Yeah." She shifted her paintball gun and nodded. "I guess they did what they had to do in that to get strong enough to survive." Her head turned towards me and I could tell she wasn't talking about the show.

I glanced at her and smiled before remembering that my mask made it so she couldn't see it. "Yeah, they did."

We returned our attention to the door again, waiting for someone to come through. "SHIT!" May and I glanced at one another, then over at the hallway that the Kidnapper's shout had come from.

May and I both stood up slightly and aimed at the door, waiting for the other team to come through. Hopefully the Kidnapper had managed to take one of them out for us. We took deep breaths and waited, then opened fire as the door flew open. White paintballs slammed into the first one through the door, staining his jacket just as ours had been.

And then I felt something slam into my shoulder, causing paint to explode all over me. A growl of pain from May confirmed it had happened to her, too. We turned towards the break room entrance, where the man's remaining partner had taken us down. The Kidnapper walked in from the hallway a moment after the other team left the room to return to their side for the last round. He marched up to us, and shouldered his paintball gun. "Well..." he glanced between the two of us. "That actually didn't go too bad."

"What?" I scoffed. "We lost."

"You took one of them down and I took another. A big improvement from getting wiped out." He pulled up his mask and grinned. "Good job, you two."

May cocked her head to the side. "Really?"

The Kidnapper looked over at the door. "Yeah, but we'll need to do better." He turned to me. "I think you're right."

"Huh?" I asked in confusion as I pointed at myself.

"We go on the offensive. When they attacked me, they did it three to one, then split up to surprise you two," he explained. He gestured at the break room. "They want to take us out one by one, so we're going to get the jump on them by giving them what they want. I'll head in there, you two will take chairs and move through the hallway behind them."

"Do you think that will work?" May asked, already moving to grab a chair. She turned back to us. "I mean, won't they get you in that room then take us out from behind?"

"I won't get taken out. I'll use a table for cover in there and I'll be fine," the Kidnapper brushed her words off. He chuckled. "Thanks for the concern, though."

The bell rang and the Kidnapper brought his mask down again. "Let's go."

May and I pushed our rolling chairs out into the hallway, facing the back down the hallway and crouching behind it, pushing it ahead of us like riot shields. "I think we've got this," I said as we began walking down the hall, aiming our guns to hit whoever would pop through the door at the end of the hallway.

We were rewarded for our vigilance when he walked right through the door and fired at us, the yellow paint crashing into the backs of the chairs. May and I returned fire, and she was able to hit his shoulder as he tried to wheel behind the door. "What!?" He sighed and stepped back, letting the door slam shut.

Well, there went the element of surprise. "You open the door, I'll take, uh..."

"Point?" she supplied.

"Yeah, that!" I agreed sheepishly as we got into position. She looked at me expectantly from behind the door. I readjusted the chair, and nodded. She pulled it open and I raised my gun, firing once. The white ball exploded against one soldier's arm. He was holding the door to the middle room open, and it fell shut with a curse. I glanced to my right and saw the last guy wheeling towards me. I fired at him and missed, but he jumped to the side. "Two o clock!" May wheeled around over me and fired, the paintball slamming into the guy's chest.

I stared in disbelief.

We won?

We won!

I turned towards May and we yanked off our masks. "We won!" we shouted, jumping towards one another.

X X X

May's house was a breath of fresh air after worrying I'd never be back here the night before. And hell, we'd even dragged the – Eh, let's go with Davis for now. Everything he'd taught us had helped us stay alive against that agent guy. That guy or someone like him would have found us eventually, and we never would have won. Davis is the only reason we were even alive, so I guessed I could cut him some slack.

Anyways, May's house. Dan had nearly tackled me when we got inside, excited I was there and begging me to play with him. May's mom and dad seemed relieved that one of their sons would be quiet for a while and made sure I said yes for at least a while. I did, and after some quick introductions of Davis to May's parents and vice versa, we were in May's room with Dan. And then he dragged out all of her old Digimon cards and forced me to play with him.

Deciding to go very, very easy on him, I was playing with a Numemon deck. He was getting better if the fact that I was actually getting close to digivolving before I beat him. To be fair, he was mostly just choosing cool looking cards. Not the best for the game, but definitely the same thing I did as a kid. And I let him have a few, too. He wasn't actually digivolving a Vikemon, but he liked to think it was. And who beats a five year old every time? "Oh, darn. You won again," I told him as he surged to his feet and laughed, shouting out congratulations to the Vikemon card. I smiled at him and dropped my cards on the ground, leaning back as he danced.

"He used to be good at that game, Dan," May told her brother. She was smirking at me when I turned to her and stuck out my tongue. Dorimon did the same to me from her lap, then hid a laugh with the word bark. Not the noise, the word. Dumb, ugly Digimon. It's only because Dan was five that he didn't catch it.

"I've never really played," Davis admitted from another chair where he'd been watching the game intently. May and I looked over in surprise. Then why did he download the app and become Digidestined?

"Tasuke, tell me about these Digimon!" Dan shouted, plopping next to me with May's box of cards and shoving an Armadillomon card in my face. "I like this one in the show. Tell me more!"

May was the one who decided to voice our question, given I was busy."Then how did you..?" May cut off and glanced down at the Digimon in her lap. "Know so much about Digimon?"

"Ah, I... Downloaded the game on someone else's phone. And you can guess what happened next," he explained, choosing his words carefully. And he was right, we knew what happened next. That phone was sitting in his pocket, connecting him to a dragon that could evolve into a living weapon of mass destruction. Wonder who lost their phone when he got... what? Chosen? Huh, makes me wonder who chose us.

"Tasuke, Tasuke! Who's this!?"

I glanced over at Dan. "Sakuyamon. She's like this magic priestess," I explained. I smiled. "She's one of my old favorites."

"Oh, really?" May asked, smirking at me.

"Not like that!" I shouted, waving my hands back and forth quickly to dispel what she was suggesting.

"Like what?" Dan asked. He dropped the cards and glanced up at his sister. "May, like what?"

It was my turn to smirk at May. Her joke having backfired, she turned pink. "Uh, I... Nothing you need to worry about," she explained. She groaned and smacked her Digimon's head to keep her from laughing. "Just... Dan, why don't you go ask Mom and Dad for some food? It's late, right?"

Dan narrowed his eyes at his sister, and she sighed. "I'll watch an episode of Digimon with you tomorrow if you leave now," she promised, and the kid's eyes widened.

"KayKay!" he shouted, surging to his feet. He ran up and pet Dorimon, then hugged his sister. "Bye Tasuke! Bye Davey!"

"Davey?" Davis wondered. But Dan was gone before Davis could try to correct him. "Why Davey? Davis is easier than Tasuke!"

"Doesn't matter, Davey," I said dismissively. I put the cards and mat back in the box and pushed myself to my feet so I could sit beside May. "So, whose phone was it?"

Davis groaned and looked tot he side just as Huckmon appeared and laughed. "Oh, come on, Davey! Tell them!"

"Traitor," he told the armored dragon. He turned back to us. "I... it's my mom's. I downloaded the game when she wasn't looking and she grounded me when she thought I stole it."

"Which you did! You stole your mom's phone," Dorimon said before bursting out in laughter. "Oh! That's great! The cop stole his mom's phone!"

"I'm not a cop," Davis told her, annoyed. He sighed and shook his head when she just laughed harder instead.

"It is funny," Huckmon stated, chuckling under his breath despite his partner's obvious, silent requests that he not.

"Huh. For some reason I'd always assumed that it only happened because it was my phone," May said, placing a hand on her chin. "If that's not the case, then the photo it takes must have more importance than I thought."

"The R&D of D-CARD doesn't even know the ins and outs of the process," Davis said. "There just aren't enough Digidestined Digivices out there for them to look at. In fact, this is the first time three Digidestined have been together at all. Most countries lose one or two in an assassination before this can even happen."

"Cheery," I muttered, drawing an apologetic chuckle from Davis. I shrugged. "But I guess knowing that is better than dying."

"Now who's cheery?" May asked dryly.

Yeah, this was going to get bad fast. Knowing this, Davis quickly asked, "So, what's the deal with calling him Taj? Is it just because his last name begins with 'J?'"

May's face brightened and I covered my face with my hands. "KayKay, it's great!" May shouted. She grinned evilly at me. "He hates it."

"I don't hate it! It's just..." I shook my head. "Come on, it's stupid."

"Okay, so, it's not what you think," May explained with a grin. "Have you ever heard of a show called JoJo's Bizarre Adventure?" Davis stared blankly. "Well, it's about this anime about this hyper manly family who all have the nickname JoJo. In one of them, they mention that the kanji for 'Suke,' the end of Taj's name, can be pronounced 'Jo' instead. Taj wouldn't let me call him JoJo, so this was the best I could manage."

"Because I'm not a JoJo, May!" I explained, exasperated. "Come on, you know that!"

Huckmon piped in, then. "So, if that's the case... then you could say that getting his Digivice makes all this... his JoJo's Bizarre Adventure?"

The room got very silent as I fell facefirst onto the bed. "Nooooooooo," I groaned hollowly just before May, Dorimon, and Davis began laughing at me. "Please, no..."

"You know, everyone being so happy makes me think... maybe BG would benefit from being here?" I supplied as their laughter died down. "He can't be an angry, nasty Digimon forever, right?"

May, Davis, Dorimon, and Huckmon grimaced and glanced at one another. "Yeah, I wasn't even sure I believed that," I admitted.

X X X

BlackGuilmon glared at the couch in front of him, smoke rising from his nostrils and hunger echoing from his stomach. "I... wonder," he muttered to himself. "Could I load Data from this?" He stood up to his full height. "Pyro Grenade!"

The couch exploded into flames and the Digimon took a step forward, grinning excitedly as he awaited the moment it would explode into Data and he could Load it.

Instead, the air started screaming at him and rain began to fall from the ceiling. "Ach! What's going on? What's going on!?" He glared at the ceiling and, panicking, shouted, "PYRO GRENADE!"

X X X

Henry frowned as he glared at the D-Power. "Why the hell would I expect you to just start acting normal?" Henry asked it. He leaned back and picked up the Digivice so he could press a few buttons and cycle through its functions. Functions that, as far as he knew, it hadn't had when he'd first received it. Video calls? His phone hadn't been able to do that back then, and Digivices tended to exist at best at the current level of technology. That their hardware apparently had been restructured even with the Firewall he and all the other old Tamers had put up to keep the Digital and Human Worlds from interfering with one another was beyond him, and he'd spent all of the night from Friday to Saturday taking the thing apart and putting it back together to try and figure that out. And now he knew even less about the hardware of the thing than he did before. "Even when you're working you're more annoying than ever. Just like that floppy eared Terriermon..."

He sighed and pressed one of the buttons, cycling through the new functions. Video call, instant messaging, scanning. Most of them were grayed out and inaccessible, but the fact that he could even view them was beyond him. He put his free hand on his chin and frowned. It had to have something to do with the appearance of that BlackGuilmon, which made him even more certain that it was connected to Takato in some way. Even beyond Takato's partner being Guilmon, Takato was one of the three Tamers that had to go to the Digital World to create the Firewall. This jump in functionality had to have something to do with the new Digivices, whatever they were. Meaning Gethen had to have sent one of his Tamers here to find the Digimon. "And here I thought finding the Digimon was up to me," he muttered to himself. His frown deepened. "Or does this mean you've already found them and didn't tell me?" He wasn't sure which possibility he was worried about more, that it was free or that Gethen had it in hand.

Henry put the Digivice down and resigned himself to the truth. If he wanted answers, he would have to wait or work more directly for Gethen, and he refused to do that. So waiting it was. Eventually, more functionality would be unlocked on the D-Power, and he could perhaps use the functions to find one of the Digimon Gethen wanted, or even better the Tamer that he had sent in response to the appearance of those Digimon. Then he might be able to get his hands on one of the new Digivices to figure out how it worked, and find a way to get Takato, Rika, and Ryo out of the Digital World.

Actually, knowing Ryo he'd probably stay anyways.

X X X

Wow, great. I'm stuck in the Digital World and Tasuke and the others are playing games and making jokes. Just once could a Tamer other than me be on task? Still, nice to see that any version of the Gogglehead's partner is still an idiot. Even if this one's more of an evil idiot.

But the worst part is knowing that Ryo is stuck in the Digital World with us. I'm just glad he apparently wasn't hanging around with us. But why just the three of us in the Digital World? Where are all the others?

Maybe we'll find out more next time on Digimon: Digital Monsters!