A/N: Okay. So this is going to be my longest story ever probably. And I'm not writing it alone either. My brother's helping me. He's on here too…his name is Urazamay on here. You could look him up if you want. He doesn't have much up…but that's okay. We've divided up the characters, since we've decided to write it first person. The first chapter and last chapters will most likely be the only chapters with multiple perspectives, but we've labelled who's talking so you won't be so confused.

Anyway, I'm Taichi, Koushiro, Mimi, Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, Ken, and my brother will be doing Yamato, Sora, Jou, Takeru, Hikari, Willis. Michael will be there, but we don't like him enough to give him an actual chapter. Actually…we don't like him at all…

Well, I hope you enjoy it, and please leave a review if you feel so inclined.

Title: Digimon Adventure 03

By: YukiraKing

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or its characters.

_
Chapter 1: Before the Storm

Jou:

"Yamato, no!" I cried. "We can't bring anchovies!"

"Chill dude!" Yamato said, raising his arms in surrender, "I'll put 'em back!" Yamato placed the anchovies back on the second shelf of the convenience store. "There. Happy?"

"Yeah, I am." I sighed in relief.

"What's the big deal with anchovies anyway? Dude? Jou!"

"Mimi doesn't like anchovies."

"So she doesn't have to eat them! I think they taste… great."

"Sora likes them and now you're pretending to like them too right?"

"What?" Yamato said, his face turning red slightly. "No… no. That's just dumb."

I smiled. "That's me. Always being dumb…"

"You think this is enough?" Yamato asked looking into the almost empty cart that I had been pushing—with gloves on of course; do you know how many germs are on these things?

"No. Yamato, all we have is ketchup!" I sighed, "We are serving twelve people, and twelve digimon! One bottle of ketchup is not ENOUGH!"

"Chill! We'll get two then."

"Yamato we need food! When was the last time you ate just ketchup for a meal?"

"A while ago… like when I was five. Takeru and I—ha ha, it was funny because—"

"It was a rhetorical question Yamato…" I said grabbing a large box of rice off of the shelf.

"We should get eggs!" Yamato suggested.

"Good idea!" I smiled, "Grab some salt too. Oh and pepper!"

"Yeah, sure." Yamato said as he turned and walked to the next aisle.

I pulled out the list Takeru had written for us and could have cried. The list wasn't at all helpful…

-jellybeans

-chocolate bars

-licorice

-12 bags of chips (for me and Daisuke…)

-sugar

-Pumpkin seeds for Patamon…

-whatever everyone else needs.

"You got a sweet tooth eh?" I jumped at the person standing behind me.

"Sorry, no-no this isn't for me." I said smiling. "This is…"

"It's ok," Momoe said, "I like that kind of stuff too!"

"Yeah…" I said slowly and awkwardly, "How's Miyako?"

"Miyako? Oh she's fine I guess. She's at Iori's house right now I think…" Momoe said before a brief moment of silence, "Why?"

"Just… wondering." I said.

"You like her!" Momoe said clapping her hands together, "You like Miyako!"

"No." I said turning away from her and walking toward Yamato.

"Walking away doesn't hide your feelings Jou Kido!"

My face actually began to burn up now as I spun around and found Yamato.

"Oh great, here." Yamato said dropping twenty dozen eggs into the cart.

"Don't drop them!" I cried out, "They're eggs Yamato! EGGS!"

"Calm down."

"Here." Yamato said grabbing the front of the cart and leading it down the aisle and drop things into it.

"Maple syrup? Salsa? Jellybeans?" I said shocked. "Mustard? Cherries—Ok, what is going on here? Why are all of these foods in the same aisle? Momoe! You should really sort this out better! Yamato what are you doing?"

"Getting stuff to put on our eggs."

"Salt… and pepper?"

"Who eats that?" Yamato asked, truly shocked.

"Duh! Me!"

"You get that junk, I'll get the stuff for Takeru, and then we should get going and head to the camp."

"Yeah, you're probably right…" I said turning to find some salt and pepper.

I looked in the cart, which I had taken with me and shook my head. Only Koushiro would eat eggs with mustard and jellybeans. Salsa didn't seem to go with eggs either… salt and pepper. That's all that they needed. Keep it simple. Or maple syrup. I've always thought that would nice. "Mimi…"

"Who is Mimi?" Momoe asked, peeking around my shoulder again, "Are you cheating on my sister with some weird girl?"

"Mimi is not weird!"

"Aha! But you admit that you are cheating on my sister!"

"I'm not even dating her!"

"But you like her…?"

"No-no-no!" I cried, "Ken and Miyako are dating!"

"Since when?" Momoe asked, "Last time I checked they were arguing!"

I turned and walked away once more. I found it the best way to avoid conversation with the insane girl. I found the check-out counter and waited for Yamato who arrived only moments later, arms filled with large sums of junk food.

"Voila." Yamato said, dropping it all into the cart.

I looked to the counter as Momoe sprung up from the floor smiling.

"Whahh!" I cried jumping back.

"I'll just digi-check your stuff out now." Momoe smiled, sliding everything across the scanner.

Yamato cocked his head to the side and stared at me for a moment.

"That's a lot of junk food Yamatomon." Momoe smiled, continuing.

Yamato cocked his head further to the side so he was viewing the world completely sideways.

"What's wrong? Am I digi-doing this wrong?"

"What are you—" Yamato started, but I cut him off.

"What's with all of the "digi" and "mon" stuff…?"

"Isn't that how you kids are talking nowadays?" Momoe asked.

"Uh… no." Yamato said as if it were obvious.

"Well I heard Miyako and Ken arguing last night… about… a hawk… and a worm."

I looked to Yamato and smiled, "I'm sure it was nothing."

"But then they were arguing about a digi-gate! And a digi-vice! And a Digi… MON!"

"Wow they sure are… careless." Yamato said flatly.

I elbowed him and said slowly "It was probably… their summer… reading?"

"I don't think so, it was really weird stuff, and I've never heard anything like it!"

"M'kay gotta go!" I said.

"But I haven't rung you through yet!" Momoe said quickly.

"Check us out already!" Yamato said, a little on edge.

"Well Jou looks awesome, but Yamato, you're hair is a little—"

"Not that kind of checking out!" I said quickly.

"And your face could use a paper bag!" Yamato growled protecting his hair's dignity by rebuking to Momoe's unsaid insult.

"Hurry." I said to Momoe who smiled slowly and finished scanning the items.

"Have a fun picnic…" Momoe said slowly, and almost sadly as the two of us grabbed the brown paper bags she had packed everything into and ran out the door.

Ken:

Daisuke was sitting across from me at his living room's coffee table. Papers and textbooks were spread out in front of us in an overwhelming pile. His exams were coming up soon, and he was going to fail if he couldn't focus on his schoolwork.

"Ken! I can't take it anymore. I need to play soccer, or goof around with Demi-Veemon or something. All this studying is killing me!" Daisuke shouted in exasperation.

"Daisuke, I don't want to get my old whip out, but if you keep interrupting your lessons, I just might revert back into the Digimon Kaiser. You wouldn't want that, now, would you?" I said in my most menacing voice. I really didn't like threatening him with my evil self—heck, I don't even like to remember my evil self—but desperate times call for desperate measures.

"No, of course not, Ken. I just don't know how much more of this I can take. I'm never going to remember any of this stuff anyway. Why don't we just unpack my bags and get it over with," he said, slumping into a chair.

"Hey, we aren't going to leave you behind," I said reassuringly. "But we won't be taking a slacker either. Now get to work, and tell me the eighth row of the multiplications table in consecutive order."

"But Ken, you know how much I hate math," he whined.

"That doesn't sound like a quick listing of numbers. You clearly don't want to go on this trip, do you? Eight weeks of freedom from your parents and your sister. No more disappointment about your intelligence, or your pigheadedness, just the light hearted teasing from twelve of your closest friends as the joke around and has the time of their lives. But you don't want that, do you. You want to spend your summer trapped in a stuffy classroom with other students that don't even know what a control spire is, or how to make a digimon armour digivolve. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"No!"

"Then let's hear some multiplication please," I said.

He started listing off the first numbers that came to his head. Of course, that didn't mean they were right. Actually, a great deal of them were incredibly far off, but I could tell that he was trying. I suppose that counted for something. Not much, but still something.

"Now, in Spanish!"

"I don't know the math, how can translate it into a language I don't even know!"

"Then get it right," I said, running out of patience.

We'd be at this all day. Daisuke just wasn't making any improvement. He was the worst learner I'd ever met in my life. I should have known not to volunteer to be his tutor. His parents were offering payment for this job, but I just volunteered like a fool, thinking "How hard could it really be?" Apparently, it's very hard. And he only had today to learn everything he could cram into his thick head.

When his teachers had heard that Ken Ichijouji was going to be tutoring their 'delinquent child,' they allowed him the longest time they could afford to give him, before giving him his exams. They didn't want his poor marks to reflect upon their teaching ability. Daisuke just couldn't be taught. It's hardly their fault.

But the thing is Daisuke needed to pass at least three of his four upcoming exams in order to skip out on summer school for the year, so he could join the rest of us on our big camping trip. We were going to spend the whole summer in the digital world, with no parents, no rules, and most importantly: no world threats. It would be our first real visit to the digital world where nothing was desperately trying to destroy both that world and the real one. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about what we were going to find. I barely remember my first visit to the digital world. I remember travelling around with some guy. I don't remember his face, or his name, but I remember I pushed him out of the way of the dark spore, thus absorbing it myself, and becoming the Digimon Kaiser.

So, a chance to see the real digital world was something I'd been hoping for, for awhile.

As a bonus though, I'll be with Miyako for the entire summer. That's going to be great. If we last the whole summer, it might be worth introducing her to Mom and Dad. You know, as my girlfriend and all. Neither of us has felt the real need to inform our parents on what's going on with the two of us, since we don't really know. I know she asked me if I would be her boyfriend, and I pretty much jumped at the opportunity, but…we never really discussed it. And we haven't been out on more than one date in the whole month and a half we'd been 'dating,' so we'll see.

Oh, and we had an argument. It was nothing, but I'm pretty sure her sisters were listening in on the whole thing, because they were talking really strange when we came out of Miyako's bedroom. They were putting 'Digi' in front of the strangest words, such as the verbs in their sentences. And they stuck 'mon' on the end of every noun too.

"Hey, Momoe-mon, stop digi-changing the channel!" was a pretty common phrase. Apparently, they were trying to start a new sort of slang or something. I don't really understand where they got it either, since we only put 'Digi' in front of 'gate' in our argument, and 'mon' was only mentioned in terms like 'Digimon,' and 'Hawkmon,' and 'Wormmon.' I'm pretty sure Miyako's entire family is crazy. That might be where she gets her quirkiness from.

"Ken," Daisuke called. "Did you even listen to me? I checked the numbers over, and I got all but one of them right. You should have heard me! I'm going to ace this test now. You are the best genius friend a guy could ask for."

"Daisuke," I reminded him. "You only know the eighth row now. You need to learn more than just one row of the multiplications table. Maybe you should take a break from mathematics, and move on to your history notes."

"But!"

"No buts. We need you ready. Now, do as you're told," I instructed.

"How about, instead of my break being filled with talk of old, dead guys, we talk about cute girls and how to get them to go out with me," Daisuke suggested instead. "Like, I don't understand how you got Miyako to ask you out. She told me she would never date a younger guy, and last I checked you were my age, not hers."

"That's true. But I don't know why she asked me out," I replied honestly. "And now that we've covered the history of my love life, we'll move on to the history of the Japanese military."

"Or, we can be a little more adventurous, and talk about my future love life…with Hikari?"

Hikari:

"Hikari honey can you pass me the celery?" Mom asked, so I mindlessly picked it up and tossed it towards her. I was in a slump. Everyone was having loads of fun today except me… I asked if I could shop with Jou and Yamato but they both said no. Why? Because they had more important things to be talking about than Takeru. I didn't understand exactly what that meant at that time, but then I realized that they thought I would only be talking about Takeru. That's stupid. I would talk about a lot of interesting things other than Takeru… So I moved on to Ken who was attempting to teach Daisuke. He said no because Daisuke needed to focus on his notes and not on me. At least that excuse made sense… When I asked Iori if I could join him and the others in their practice he said it would be uneven due to the fact that he already had three other people over. I asked who, and he said that it was confidential… Lame… Koushiro and Mimi had some top secret mission to tend to in the digi-world, and Taichi and his new girlfriend were being all… gross in my bedroom.

"Mom what are you making…?" I asked slowly, playing with my fingers. I was so bored that I resorted to my fingers as a play toy…

"Celery cake."

"Cake?" I said perking up, "Does it taste like… a real cake?"

"Yes!" Mom cheered, "A… no. No I don't think it will."

"I thought so…" I said slouching over once again and resting my head in my hands. Maybe I could convince Gatomon to stop helping the others set up and come play with me… or do something. Talk to me? "Mom I'm going to check my e-mail."

"Hikari you checked it three minutes ago. And five minutes before that, and eight minutes before that. Are you expecting an e-mail? Is it from a boy?"

"No mother." I said as I walked from the room, and into the room with the computer. I flopped myself into the soft grey chair as I flicked the computer on once more.

Daisuke studying…? The thought had just sunk in…. I almost laughed. "Poor Ken," I said to myself. Having to teach Daisuke? Maybe Daisuke would fail and have to go to summer school. That would suck… I would miss him and his… annoying personality.

Ding-Ding-Ding-Dong

The computer chimed its strange noise to tell me that it was on now, so I grabbed the mouse and opened my email. "You have no new mail." The computer said aloud.

"Oh thanks." I said sarcastically.

"You have one new message." The computer continued.

"But you just said—am I actually trying to reason with a computer?"

"Hikari, who are you talking to?" Mom asked poking her head into the room.

"Myself." I said flatly, as mom smiled and left the room. I looked to the monitor once more and smiled. Willis had sent me a message. I clicked it and it opened.

My smile fell from my face as I read it. I finished reading and I hit print and ran over to the printer and waited impatiently for it to shoot out at me. When it finally did I snatched it up and sped over to my bedroom door. "Taichi!" I said knocking repetitively, "I'm coming in."

"So?" He called back.

I shrugged my shoulders and opened the door. "Sora?" I asked, spotting her sitting on the bottom bunk—on my bed, while Taichi was lying on his own bed.

"Hey Hikari," Sora smiled up at me and brushed her hair aside.

"Yeah… hi." I said, "Taichi listen, Willis sent me an e-mail and—"

"Why?"

"I'm getting to that, but—"

"No, I mean why you? Why not Koushiro… or me… or Daisuke?"

"Not the time to be asking that Taichi." I said, "Listen,

Hey Hikari, how are you? I hope Daisuke isn't causing too much trouble—"

"Hikari," Taichi said, cutting me off, "If this is a love note I don't want to hear it."

"Taichi—let her finish." Sora said, "Go ahead Hikari."

I nodded to her in a gratified way and continued reading, "Been to the digi-world lately? No? Well I have. And it was easy to do so too because the digi-port has been open for a very long time, so I thought it would be ok to go inside. It's still as great as always, great scenery, beautiful skies… only it's different now. Why? Because I didn't see a single digimon. Not one—well besides Terriermon and Lopmon—Yeah, Chocomon digivolved, cool huh? Anyway, I searched for hours, but I didn't find a single digimon until I spotted the strangest creature. I can't even explain it, but I noticed something was on its head… a weird symbol. One that I had seen before, but only once. Hikari it was the crest of knowledge. I came out of the digi-world to send this to you, but I'm going back in, so I won't see your response. Just… come help if you think it seems fit. Love Willis."

"So…?" Taichi said slowly, "A creature has the crest of knowledge on its face… maybe it's a smart digimon."

"Taichi—" Sora started, "this… this is really strange!"

"That's what I thought," I said "I think that we should check it out and see if we can find Willis while we are in there… 'Kay?"

"Yeah sure," Taichi said. "I think you should stop being so protective of everything Hikari. I'm sure everything will work out fine, calm down."

"Have you forgotten that we are digi-destined? Our purpose is to protect the digi-world!"

"And we did that!" Taichi said, raising his voice.

"And now we have to do it again!"

"No, it's all up to you and the new digi-destined!"

"Then why does it have the crest of knowledge Taichi?"

"I don't know, ask Iori! He has the digi-egg of knowledge. Maybe Willis just saw Digmon!"

"Taichi… you know this is different." I sighed, looking down, "Sora?"

"Keep me out of this," Sora said pulling her legs up onto the bed, and curling up.

"Whatever." I said turning from the room and slamming the door. Taichi and I rarely fought, and when we did it didn't usually last very long. I sat by the door and listened in, I was sure that he would be talking about what had just happened.

"…I don't think so," Taichi was saying.

"I think she's right… I feel like this is for us Taichi… all of us…"

"You're wrong Sora… but let's not talk about this right now; I don't want to argue with you."

I stood up and shuffled my feet, sliding away from my room. He was fine with arguing with me, but not with Sora… "Stupid Taichi…"

Iori:

"Okay," I called out, having observed everybody's form. "You have the stance right. Now we can start with the basic swing."

I was met with a cross between excitement, and boredom. Apparently perfecting their stance wasn't the way they were planning on spending the last hour and a half, but what did they expect? I wasn't going to let them start swinging wooden sticks at one another's head the moment they walked through the door. Kendo is an art form, as well as a fighting technique. If they want to get any good at it, they would have to listen to me and do as I said. I've been taking lessons from my Grandfather every week since I could remember. I know that Takeru and Miyako find it a little patronizing that a thirteen year old kid is teaching them how to properly hold the Kendo stick, and pointing out all of their flaws, but I want them to improve. They're just going to have to push my age out of their mind, and focus on the eight years of training I have instead.

Noriko on the other hand, is great, a prodigy almost. I'd say it could be the remnants of the dark spore that is making her so great at everything she tries, but I like to think that she just has a strong will and a lot of dedication. She was smart before the dark spore too, according to her mother. The two of us have gotten pretty close over the last four years. I really enjoyed having a digidestined friend my own age. She could understand my problems and troubles better than the others, since they'd already gone through this. They'd only say "Oh, it's normal to feel that way," or "You'll get over it, I did." It's like they've been through it, so they're the experts. But I don't want that, I want someone who can understand everything, even the issues involving my dad. And Noriko can provide that. She lost her dad too, so we even have that in common.

Since she grew her hair out, and stopped being so self-conscious, I have to say she's become really beautiful…inside and out. The dark spore hardly affects her anymore. She doesn't worry about it too much either. She used to dwell on the past so much, but I like to think I helped her through it, since I was one of her first friends and all.

"Iori," Miyako complained. "How important is this stance thing anyway? It's not like we're going to be standing still the whole time or anything. We're going to be moving the whole time. Moving and attacking. I want to learn how to hit somebody!"

"Miyako, do you want to start from the beginning again while I teach Noriko and Takeru the first of the basics?" I asked with a serious look on my face. Yeah, I know. That's not much of a shock…

"No, no, no, no, no, NO! I want to hit something," she cried desperately. "You said this was going to be fun! This isn't fun. This is less fun than watching paint dry. And trust me, I know. I did that once. It was more fun than standing perfectly still with a long piece of wood. C'mon Iori. Teach me something already!"

"Miyako, you must trust his decisions. He wouldn't make us practice this stance if it wasn't going to be important. Besides, you asked to come today. Weren't you going to help Ken study with Daisuke?" Takeru said, coming to my rescue. I don't know how to deal with people as enthusiastic as Miyako was all the time.

"Oh no, you won't catch me anywhere near them right now. Did you know that Daisuke is trying to ruin my summer? If he doesn't pass those exams, Ken won't be any fun all summer, and he'll be depressed, 'cause his best friend couldn't come with us on our trip. Will the fact that his incredibly witty and pretty girlfriend will be with him make any difference? No! Because he's too busy tutoring Daisuke to go on the date that we'd been planning for three weeks," Miyako ranted.

"So, you want Daisuke to fail?" Noriko asked her confused.

"Of course not!" Miyako snapped. "I want Ken to be happy. But I wanted to go on this date before we spend the summer surrounded by a lot of other people. It's just not fair!"

"Hey, relax," I said. "Take a deep breath. In and out, in and out. Now, you have to focus both your mind and your body. Can you do that for me, Miyako?"

She took a deep breath. "Yeah, I suppose so."

"Good," I continued. "When I get all worked up, Grandpa usually says that it's time for a break. Hey, Noriko, could you go ask my mom for some juice and brownies? I had her make them last night. That should calm Miyako enough for her to enjoy herself."

"Sure thing Iori," she said with a bright smile. "You always know just what to do. I admire your ability to stay calm in stressful situations."

"T-thanks," I stammered, as she left the room. My cheeks warmed as I tried to hide my face from my friends.

"So, Iori," Takeru said mockingly with a laugh. "Did you know I admire your ability to stay calm in stressful situations?"

"Yeah Iori," Miyako said laughing. "She might have a little crush on you. Don't you think Takeru?"

"Maybe," Takeru agreed.

I was glad neither noticed my blush.

"You know," Miyako continued. "This might just be the distraction I need. So tell me, do you like her?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said placing my Kendo equipment back in its proper place. I could just tell that we wouldn't be doing any more Kendo during our lessons. Embarrassment, however, was clearly in my future.

Mimi:

I can't believe he's late. When is he ever late? I'm the one that comes last almost every time! Now, I'm sitting here, on a cold, hard, rock, freezing my butt off, waiting for Koushiro to come and check out this great discovery that Jou and I made two days ago. We'd been scouting out an area for the first night of our digital summer camping trip. We wanted to find somewhere that wouldn't be too dangerous. To be honest, everywhere that we looked seemed pretty safe. No monsters ever came to attack us, and everything was absolutely beautiful.

To be honest, it made me so much more excited to do this trip when I finally got to lay my eyes on the world I'd helped save twice in the past seven years. It was also my first real chance to spend more than a couple of hours with all of my Japanese friends. I haven't really spent much time with any of them since I left Japan six years ago. Other than the few trips my parents allowed me to take. They've been terrified of the "monsters" that threatened the world, and couldn't stand the idea of me being anywhere near them. But they don't understand. That's why I've been planning my own future without them knowing. Mom wants me to get into acting, and marry a rich young man that can take care of me. And I want to get married, but I want it to be for love, not money. Acting also doesn't hold much appeal to me. I'm already such an amazing and obscure person, being an ordinary girl in a movie doesn't excite me at all.

Anyway, I'm thinking of going to a culinary school in Japan. My parents are going to freak out, but it's not their life to lead. Cooking is a way for me to express myself through my different creations, while pleasing people in a way that movies just can't. I just don't know how to tell my parents yet.

"Sorry I'm late. I was doing something pretty important and I didn't want to stop doing that just so I could come and look at some rock paintings you found," Koushiro said without meeting my eye.

"Well, excuse me for wanting to show you what Jou and I found!"

"Jou was with you?" he asked. He said it in a way that was just screaming feigned aloofness. Not wanting to discourage his curiosity, I let it be.

"Yeah, we were just looking around. He was nice enough to include me in the preparation, unlike some people," I said rolling my eyes.

"Oh, well, that was…nice of him," he said. It was clear to me that he wasn't actually enjoying this conversation. Of course, it's really difficult for me to know whether or not he is interested in anything other than that computer of his.

"It was. He wanted me to feel like I was part of the group, you know, like I used to be," I continued.

"I'd include you too," he insisted. And I was touched for a moment…well, until he opened his big mouth and continued. "But you wouldn't understand anything I'm currently working on. I could give you the dumbed down version, but I wouldn't want to insult your intelligence."

"Humph," I grumbled, and headed off into the trees. If I was lucky, I'd remember the right place, and we wouldn't be spending most of our time just trying to track these old rocks. I suppose it was a building, or a temple, at some point, but it wasn`t anything that really resembled that anymore. Jou`s the one that thought it would be a good idea to bring Koushiro to look at it. I don`t think anyone should look at something so gross and old, but what can I do? Jou elected me to bring him too. Apparently he gets to go shopping while I'm stuck in a grimy, moss-covered, bug infested pile of old rocks. How does that make sense? Exactly, it doesn't. But Jou promised Yamato he'd go shopping for food with him, and Jou is way too reliable for his own good. He wouldn't dream of passing up a promise like that just for little ol' me. Why can't guys do that for me? They do it for Sora, and she just plays tennis, she's not the amazingly beautiful and talented girl that I am.

"Mimi, could you not run through the forest? It's kind of hard to keep up," Koushiro called from somewhere in the distance.

"Someone should have stayed in that soccer club, clearly," I muttered, before yelling back at him more clearly. "Maybe you should get some lighter computer stuff!"

"This is the best model available. Well, the best pineapple computer available. They don't make these things anymore you know. Plus, it's useless to try and sell it. Gennai did some major upgrading to its hard drive, as well as making it digivice compatible. I'm fairly positive that he altered it so much that it'll be years before it'll crash on me too," he said happily as he emerged from the trees. "I really should do something to thank him for that."

"Yeah, yeah, insert some computer geek pipsqueak thing to say here," I said quickening my pace. Sometimes I don't know what's going on in that head of his. Okay. It's more like I mostly don't know what's going on in his mind. He's the oddest of our bunch I would say. Even stranger than Jou, and let me tell you, he's a real basket case at the best of times.

"You could at least pretend to be interested in what I have to say. You did ask after all," he said annoyed.

"Well, next time I'll remember to keep my mouth shut," I said loudly.

"I feign interest you know," he said stubbornly. "Do you think I care about the hat you helped Michael pick out at H and Q or H and M or whatever that store is called in New York? No, but I listen."

"Hardly," I snorted. "You don't care about anything that I say. Half the time you tune the entire world out, so don't you lecture me on paying attention."

"I pay attention more than you think," he mumbled.

"What was that?" I asked just to clarify.

"I asked if we were almost there," he said a little louder.

"I suppose so," I sighed. "I'm not really sure. My internal compass is as broken as the one on my watch."

"Well, maybe you should climb a tree to survey the area or something," Koushiro suggested.

"You expect me to climb a tree? In this skirt? I don't think so buddy," I said. "Why don't you do it?"

"I'm not leaving you in charge of my laptop," he said with a shrug. "Besides, you're the only one that has seen the ruins, so I'd be of no assistance."

We argued for another like ten minutes about the stupidest things ever. I don't want to repeat it, for fear of making myself sound less than my perfect self. But argue we did, and as the argument went on, the louder we got. Soon we were yelling at each other at the top of our lungs. This turned out to be a good thing, oddly enough, since it brought some of our closest friends over to join our little…party.

"Mimi!"

"Koushiro!"

Palmon and Tentomon came out of the bushes towards us. Palmon had a great big grin spread across her face, and I'm sure if Tentomon could have, he would be grinning just as widely.

"Palmon, oh how I've missed you!" I shouted, wrapping her in a tight embrace.

"Tentomon, I'm sorry you had to witness that," Koushiro said, his face flushing a bright red.

"What are you yelling about this time? Did he ignore you again?" Palmon asked, giving Koushiro the stink eye.

"No, no," I said quickly, before things got hairy. "We're just a little lost. We're looking for a set of old rocks with writing on them, but I kind of went off the planned route."

"She can't find it," Koushiro said bluntly.

"Lucky for you," Tentomon said happily. "I happen to know where the ruins you're talking about are."

"You do? You're a life-saver," I cried.

"Follow me," he said, before floating off in a direction I never would have chose.

"I saw you and Jou talking there a few days ago," Tentomon announced proudly.

"Oh, did you?" Koushiro asked, raising an eyebrow. It was clear he was really saying 'I'll talk to you later.' I don't know what he's so interested about. I mean Jou and I discovered something he's really going to enjoy. But is he happy about it, no. He was as interested in it as I was in his computer talk. Someone must be interested in finding out about Jou. Maybe that's why he's so intent on discovering this stuff. It's probably Michael. Michael had been really weird since I told him I was moving to Japan again. Speaking of Michael…

"Hey, Koushiro," I asked tentatively. "I was going to ask Michael if he wanted to come along on our trip. What do you think?"

"Why would you bring him?" he asked quickly.

"Why not," I said neutrally. "He's my friend, and I'm spending my summer with my digidestined friends, aren't I?"

"Just friends, huh?" Koushiro said, thinking it over. "I suppose that would be fine."

Yep. He's doing spy work for Michael. That must be why he mentioned him earlier with the hat.

"Good."

"Here we are," Tentomon declared.

And he was right. There was the crumbled pile of rocks in the corner, and the vines that weaved in and around everything. The only thing still standing was one wall on the far side. And on it was the same type of writing that Koushiro had gone into computer dork mode countless times over. It was the perfect spot for him to be…well, Koushiro.

"Wow," he said in awe, just as I thought he would. "This has to be ancient! What if it's a lost story about the history of the Digital World?"

"I don't know what it is. All I know is that you'd like it, and I'd say you'd be nothing short of amazing if you could actually translate that to plain Japanese," I said shrugging my shoulders.

"Thank you for bringing me here," Koushiro said barely managing to take his eyes off of the wall long enough to look me in the eye. "This could be the breakthrough I need to start a career in research of the Digital World."

"That's what you want to do with the rest of your life? Learn about things that have already happened? You can't just live in the past forever, Koushiro. Someday you're going to have to make a choice."

"You mean an ultimatum?"

"A what?" I asked confused.

"To pick between two things that will end with a negative result for you no matter what your decision is. Actually, they are a pretty terrible thing to do to a person," he explained.

"So, are you going to give this code a try?" I said, stifling a yawn, and settling down for a good, long, tanning session

"Oh, I'm going to break this code," Koushiro said grinning as he set his laptop on his lap in his seat on the damp earth.

And he sure did try. He sat there for hours. Once in awhile he would give a small indication of having gotten somewhere with the decoding process. I know, because he'd whisper 'Prodigious' under his breath whenever he got excited.

"Do you know what this is, Mimi?" he asked finally.

"No, I don't know how to understand this junk," I said, flipping over to even out my tan.

"It's talking about the origins of our crests. For instance, did you know that mine came from some girl called Izumi? Isn't that ironic? My last name is her first name," he said happily.

"And mine?" I asked, just a little interested.

"I'm sure yours came from the leader of their group. He was the most powerful and the most awesome…let me check," he said. "Oh, I'm wrong. It was the runt of the group, some kid named Tomoki."

"I hope he was at least cute," I said sighing.

"I'm sure he was…" he said rolling his eyes. "But that doesn't matter. The whole point is this next part, about the cycle of the crests. It's absolutely fascinating. It even explains why we had to give up our crests in the first place. Now, I can probably decode the rest of it in a few short hours."

"Hours! I'm going to burn soon," I cried. "You can only tan for so long, Koushiro."

"But this is important!"

"More important than my silky, smooth skin?"

"Uh…Yeah!"

"Fine then," I said, gathering my things and standing up. "I'll just be taking this." I reached around him and swiped his laptop right off of his lap. I'm kind of surprised he doesn't have some super laptop-retrieving reflexes, but he doesn't. He just sat there. Maybe I'm just that awesome. In any case, I started running, immediately.

"Hey, I need that!"

"Come and get it then," I called back, running off into the trees.

"Hey Mimi, isn't that Koushiro's?" Palmon asked, running up beside me for no reason in particular, other than to be with me I suppose.

"I know it is. Stall him for me!"

"Okay."

She stopped running, and turned around. But I didn't stop. I heard her cry out "Poison Ivy" in the distance, and chuckled to myself. There was no way he was catching up to me.

"Mimi, really, give it back!" he yelled loudly, as I reached the gateway back to New York.

"Not until tomorrow!"

I was sucked into the gateway, and ended up back in my bedroom, facing my pink laptop.

"Digiport close, digiport close!" I shouted, but it wasn't working. I could see him coming towards the screen. I had to do something fast. I grabbed the biggest textbook off of my unused bookshelf, and started slamming it into the laptop. The screen flashed a few times, and then it died a slow death.

"Well, that works."