The changes started to appear as the digidestined return to the digital world.

They all had a new bout of homesickness, a fresh reminder of what they were missing while in the world of zeros and ones. The last thing any of them wanted was things to appear that would drive their already fragile selves over the edge.

The first to notice a change had been Tai. Ever since their return home, he'd developed a steadily growing pain on the sides of his head. He's woken up one morning, frustrated to find that the throbbing sides of his head hadn't been slept off yet again. He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes - and cried out at the pain. The only one to react to his cry was Agumon, the rest still sleeping deeply and peacefully.

"What's wrong Tai?" Agumon asked, brow creased in worry. Tai blinked, looking at the dinosaur digimon and back at his hand. There didn't look like there was anything wrong with it, and with a bit more caution he brought it back to his eye and rubbed. Once again, he was met with a surprising roughness.

"I'm… not sure?" Was all Tai could offer. He touched the back of his hand with the other one and felt the odd texture that hadn't been there last night. Seeing how worried Agumon looked tugged at Tai's heart. He wished he had some kind of answer that would assuage Agumon's fear that something was wrong, but he didn't have any even for himself. All he could do was pat his partner's head.

And his hand was greeted by a matching courness. Tai's eyes widened, drawing back like he'd been burned and making Agumon look ever more confused.

"Agumon, I think something is very wrong."

Once the others have started to wake up but before they got moving for the day, Tai pulled Izzy and Joe aside. They were both smart, surely between the both of them they'd come up with an answer. Joe had pulled out some lotion his mom had added to his bag and gave it to Tai while Izzy touched his hand, rubbing the skin this way and that and looking quite fascinated, they comparing it to Agumon's.

"Is it like this all over your body?" Tai had shrugged again at Izzy's question and the boy started touching every part of uncovered skin on him curiously. Tai stopped paying attention at some point, busying himself with rubbing strawberry-scented lotion onto his skin. He hadn't thought about how much telling Joe would make the oldest digidestined worry over him, and how overbearing that would feel.

"Ouch, hey!" Tai flinched back as Izzy started to feel his hair, hand brushing the part of Tai's head that the pain had been radiating from.

"Wait, Tai," Izzy grabbed Tai's shoulder, eyes so focused that Tai stopped. Izzy slowly reached forward and touched the side of Tai's head again, more gently this time. "Tai, have you always had a bump on the side of your head?"

"What?!" Tai pushed Izzy's hand away to feel for himself and Joe hovered curiously off to the side.

They decided to keep it quiet, between the three of them for now. No need to worry the others, they were all going through enough stress as it was. If it became a bigger issue, of course they'd tell the other digidestined, they were in this together after all. But the less things they were all collectively worrying about, the better.

oOo

Matt glanced around, making sure none of the others were looking as he studied his hands. The color of his nails were even pinker than they had been the night before, and he worried his bottom lip as he looked at their tops. The steady point they'd been developing was still there and showed no sign of going away any time soon.

"It'll be okay, they're just claws." Gabumon put his hand over Matt's, smiling up at him comfortingly. Matt attempted a smile back. Gabumon said more or less the same thing every morning since Matt had noticed the change and had told his partner. Matt clenched his hand into a fist, the small, still pretty dull point digging into his hand and leaving little pinpricks behind.

"Humans don't normally have claws." Matt sighed. He'd said it every time in response. The first time he had all but shouted it at Gabumon, nearly pulling his hair out of his head. Now, he just slipped his gloves back on and wondered how long he might be able to keep it a secret.

oOo

Sora watched wide-eyed as Tai pushed back his mess of hair to reveal the small point on the side of his head. Even as small as it was, though, it was still an unmistakable horn. Tai didn't seem too bothered by it, not even looking subconscious. She looked around the group. Most of them seemed surprised, and Kari immediately ran up to her brother who in turn knelt down so that she could feel the small point. Joe and Izzy didn't seemed surprised though, and Matt was staring at Tai's horns with such intensity Sora took a step back.

"How long have you had these?" Kari asked the question they were all wondering.

"Just a couple days. I didn't want to worry you guys." Tai actually looked kind of sheepishly about that, scratching the back of his head. "But they're really starting to take shape, and I didn't want to surprise you guys or something."

"Do you think you can fight digimon now too?" Kari asked, and Tai chuckled.

"No, I don't think so."

"Yeah, he should leave that to the experts!" Gatomon crossed her arms, smiling.

"I…" Everybody's attention shifted off of Tai as Matt spoke. His eyes were shut, face screwed up as his hands shook. "I have claws!"

"No way!" TK ran up to his brother, basically ripping off the other's gloves. The group shifted so that they could all see the pointed tips where fingernails had once been. "Whoa, you're so cool now!"

"What, I wasn't cool before?" Matt pretended to be affronted. "It's not that big of a deal. I… it's fine. They're really not that weird."

"Okay, does anybody have anything else have any other sudden mind-blowing revelations to share with the group?" Izzy stepped forward, looking at the other five who hadn't shared any thing. Nobody stepped forward, and Sora slowly reached up to touch her hair.

"My hair." She blurted out, and now everyone was looking at her. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and glanced down at Biyomon, who seemed to be giving her an encouraging smile - at least, the best that a digimon with a beak could manage. "When we went back to the real world, my hair started to get thicker, and now its like all of my hair's been replaced by feathers."

"Really? Let me see." Izzy reached up towards Sora's hair, but she swatted it away.

"Hey! Don't just touch my hair without permission!" Izzy blinked.

"Oh, sorry. May I see?" Sora carefully carded through her hair and plucked one out, handing it to Izzy. He held it close to his face, studying it.

"Prodigious!" Izzy cried, grinning. "Amazing! It truly does look like a feather."

"I wasn't lying!" Sora snapped, but there wasn't much heat behind it. She knew Izzy didn't really think that, he was just excited by something new to study.

"Does this mean the rest of us are going to become freaks?" Mimi asked, sounding a bit afraid. "I'm not going to start growing a giant nose or something am I?"

"We're not freaks!" Matt and Sora shouted back in unison. Sora blushed a bit, turning away and rubbing some of her hair between her fingers.

"As much as I'd like to say otherwise, I think it's safe to assume so." Izzy held up the feather as if it was proof. "We'll just have to wait and see what else happens. I wonder what caused this sudden mutation in us. Is it because we're the Chosen Children? Or perhaps because we came to the digital world at all?"

"At least we have our best brain on the case." Tai smiled, scratching Kari with side of his head as she pushed him away, giggling.

oOo

Mimi ran her hands through her hair, looking at her reflection in the water.

"I guess it's better than horns." She conceded, the stiff groups bending just a bit as she played with it but not nearly as much as hair should. She tried braiding and succeeded somewhat, though she couldn't get it nearly as tight as she used to. Off to the side Izzy was playing with a piece she had given him so that he'd stop messing with the rest of it. Honestly, when that boy had a scientific mystery to solve he forgot all about personal space.

"Mimi, can you prickle them again?" Mimi puffed out her cheeks, but swallowed down the retort. He'd already asked her to do so several times, couldn't he just let her play around with the new trait on her own?

"Oh alright. But just this one last time." She held up a single finger and gave the nerd a sharp look while her other hand removed the braid. Mimi took a breath in, closed her eyes, and tensed up her body. She peeked her eyes open again, still tensed, and could see the hairs on her arms sticking straight up, now rigid, and she was sure the hair on her head was quite a sight to behold.

"Amazing!" Izzy touched of the needle points. "And it happened so fast!"

It had only taken a day, maybe two, for Mimi's flowing, carefully washed hair, always so soft and shiny, to be replaced with the new stuff that sat on her head. It was still long, and still pretty shiny, but the softness was all gone. Now who would play with her hair?

"Okay, you've had your fun, now go science somewhere else. Don't you know ladys need some alone time?" Mimi sniffed. Izzy stood up and started to walk away, but paused before he got too far.

"Mimi?"

"Yes, Izzy?" Mimi brushed her hairs back down.

"I still think you look pretty." Mimi looked up and Izzy gave her a smile.

"... thank you Izzy."

"If anything, I think it looks even better!" Palmon added in once Izzy was out of sight, and Mimi laughed until she cried and hugged her partner close.

oOo

"It's based off of our digimon."

Everybody was sitting around a campfire, looking at Izzy as he more or less presented his scientific findings to them. Tai's horns had become more prominent by now. While they could still be hidden under his mop of hair, they usually weren't as Kari placed little flowers she found around them. They had darkened in color too, a dark brown with equally dark blue stripes. Matt's claws were more clearly claws now, and now Izzy could clearly see the resemblance between them and Garurumon's. Both Sora and Mimi hadn't shown much change with their hair, but Izzy had had enough change in himself to keep his research going.

"Agumon doesn't have horns." Tai pointed out.

"Yeah, I don't have horns." Agumon patted the side of his head.

"But Greymon does." Tentamon said. "Birdramon has feathers of sorts, flames would hard to put on a human. Togemon had needles, Garurumon had claws, and, well, when I'm Kabuterimon I have weird teeth."

On cue, Izzy opened up his mouth and showed off the six new and weird teeth. Instead of opening and closing horizontally, the new set moved vertically and could tuck neatly into the sides of his mouth. His cheeks puffed out just a little bit more now, and it had been painful during the day they had quickly grown in, but now they were fascinating to practice with.

"EW GROSS GROSS GROSS!" Mimi put her hands in front of her face, eyes squeezed shut and shaking her head back and forth.

"Mimi don't be rude!" Joe admonished, though he too looked a bit weirded out.

"Dude let me see!" Tai scooted closer to Izzy. "That's so cool!"

"So wait, does that mean I'm going to get something that's like Ikkakumon?" Joe asked. "Please tell me I'm not going to become a hairy yeti."

"I don't think there's anyway to know until you start to manifest it. There doesn't seem to be much pattern or reason behind when we start showing signs of mutating. We can only wait."

oOo

As it turns out, Joe, Kari, and TK don't have time for their change to show before they leave the Digital World for what the eight of them thought was forever.

Right after the events, as they try to slot into a world that just doesn't feel right anymore, they meet up almost every other day. It was like a support group of sorts, composed of the only people who could understand what the others had been through. It was one a few days after the defeat of Apocalymon that Joe arrived with a beanie tugged over his head, hiding every strand of hair from sight.

"You know, Sora pulls off that look way better than you." Mimi snatches the beanie off of Joe's head before he can stop her, and the general chatter between Digidestined hushed as the familiar grey-blue they had become accustomed to on their journey was nowhere to be seen. Instead, snow-white hair tumbled out

"Hey, give that back!" Joe snatched the hat back and shoved it back on his head, but the damage had already been done.

"Well it's about time." Matt said, putting his hands on his hips and smirking.

"Oh, it's so soft!" Mimi cooed, pulling the hat off once more and carding her fingers through the hair as Joe pushed her hands away. "No fair, how come all you get is hair dyed for free?"

"Maybe it effects you less the older you are." Joe reasoned, having by now given up and accepted his fate as Mimi played with his hair.

It wouldn't be for a few more months until they found out Joe's second effect as the eight went swimming in the ocean. Joe barely noticed he'd been underwater for over five minutes until he comes back up to see the other seven panicking.

oOo

TK's baby teeth fall out, his adult teeth grow it, and something twitches beneath the skin on his back. He doesn't tell his dad right away, or his mom, or even six of the other Digidestined. Instead when he first notices the change he walks by himself all the way to Matt's apartment and the two figure it out together.

Matt's there with TK, holding his hand as the small wings break out of the skin and helps clean up the blood on his back. TK sleeps over that night, hugging a pillow he wishes was Patamon and sleeping with Matt in the same bed, the safest place he can think of. They tell the rest of their group the next day, and TK flaps the little featherless wings weakly, the area still raw. He thinks of Angemon and tries not to cry. He fails, and the meeting ends with a big group hug.

When the wings get bigger and really start taking shape, fluffy down feathers covering them, Matt and TK get their mom and dad together to reveal the wings to them. Matt's claws had been easy enough to hide, and they had agreed they would continue to not tell their parents about that. Wings, white angelic wings, were much harder to keep hidden, and at least their parents needed to know that.

"How- what- how did this happen?" TK's dad asked, a hand just barely touching a wing. His mom had a hand covering her mouth, staring at them with clear confusion. TK did his best not to twitch them, not wanting to spook his parents more than they already were.

"We think it may have to do with the Digital World." Matt said, and luckily their parents dropped it there.

Wings were much harder to hide than anything else the others had had, and maybe Joe was on to something with getting worse because TK was younger. But Matt didn't complain too much. He thought about Angemon's three pairs of wings and thanked any deity that existed that TK only got one.

oOo

Kari sprouts a tail overnight.

It happens months after everyone else has had their 'thing' and she's not expecting it. The night had been restless, she couldn't get comfortable, and her tailbone had hurt, like she'd fallen from the top of their apartment building and landed on it. At some point she managed to get some sleep, and when the morning light came through the window and she woke up she had a new limb.

The tail had purple and white fur with a particular tuft at the end, just like Gatomon's, and what hit Kari right after the surprise was the overwhelming grief of her friend, her other half that was cut off from her. When Tai came into the bathroom after having pounded on the door for a while, he was greeted by Kari sobbing and holding the purple tuft in her hands.

Kari supposed she should be happy that it was easier to hide than TK's wings. Her best friend now had to wear baggy jackets everywhere he went to help hide his new appendages, but all he had to do was fold them up. That's what wings do anyway. A tail wasn't meant to wrap so tightly around a body, like she had to have it when out in public.

She was incredibly glad that her brother was a Digidestined too. There was something so comforting about knowing that her brother also had to be careful, making sure his hair was a wide mess that kept the horns out of view. They had yet to get really big, but there were still there. You could even spot them, if you knew what you were looking for.

Their parents took the tail well - they'd taken Tai's horns well too - and soon there was a bottle of cat shampoo 'in case human isn't good for it' in the shower.

On the reunion of the day they went to the digital world, the day Wizardmon died and Kari met her partner, after the small party the eight held, Tai gave her a small present. A smile golden band that was obviously supposed to look sort of like Gatomon's. Kari had sobbed and thanked Tai. Remembering hurt, but even as young as she was she knew that forgetting would be worse.