24 Interlude: Digidestined

Night had fallen, street lights illuminated the darkness, and while most youngsters and students had returned to the warm safety of their homes, the eight digidestined found themselves congregating at the local Odaiba park. Once upon a time, the place where they met up to make plans to defeat Myotismon and find the eighth digidestined and chosen of the crest of light.

"Sooo," Tai began, sitting atop the bars of the jungle gym and looking over his gathered team, "Armour digivolution huh?"

They'd been mostly silent since they left the digital world behind for the day, after dealing with a horde of Monochromon under the control of the Digimon Emperor, and Davis being able to lift the Digi-egg of Courage.

"It's a fascinating concept, and we've never seen any type of digivolution like it before," Izzy practically vibrated in excitement from where he sat on one of the nearby benches, "I'd really like to take the time to analyze the new kids digivices and the digi-egg itself."

"It's not all that strong from what we saw," Joe input, "But it somehow gets around whatever is blocking our digimon from digivolving."

There was grimaces all around as the elephant in the room was brought up. Flamedramon, as helpful as he had been, was more or less just a champion level digimon. Great, but in the end, Veemon was not as strong as any of their digimon, so it wasn't quite as helpful as it could have been.

They'd had to deal with ten Monochromon chasing them down. Their digimon had all grown to the point where they could roughly fight on the level of champion level digimon, and one on one, their digimon had been able to handle a Monochromon each, two in Agumon's case. It would have even been near a cake walk if Gatomon hadn't lost much of her strength with the loss of her tail ring.

Veemon was strong, but he was a young, inexperienced digimon, as such, when he armour digivolved, he wasn't that much stronger than Agumon. If say, it was Tai who could pick up the egg and armour digivolve Agumon to Flamedramon, he would have been capable of defeating all ten Monochromon.

"We have to find out what's stopping our digimon from digivolving," Mimi clenched her fists, standing up, "We can't let this brat keep hurting all the innocent digimon and ruin all we did to save the digital world. We should find out what's stopping us digivolving, get around it, then we should add just take him down before he knows what's even happening."

"Any ideas on that front Izzy?" Sora asked.

"Sadly no," Izzy shook his head, "I'll need to spend some time investigating the digital world itself before I can figure that out."

"We need to find out who that Digimon Emperor is as well, if we catch him over here we can deal with things easier," TK hummed, "Do you think it might be Artus? From what I heard when we got back, he ditched class after lunch and didn't turn back up."

"I hope not," Kari bit her lip, "If it is, it'll be even harder to take him on here than over there without the digimon."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Tai crossed his arms, "Yeah, it's suspicious that Diaboromon said his name, and that he made the game and cards, but we can't really afford to go around making enemies without proof, especially not one as powerful as Artus."

There was a sigh, and everyone turned to see Matt slumping back against the slide he was sitting on, his phone dangling in his hand, "Seems the Emperor isn't our only problem," he groaned, tilting his head up to look around at the assembled teens, "I just got a message from Gabumon. He said he just saw another human in the digital world, riding around on an Airdramon, apparently, he liberated a village from the Digimon Emperor."

"So why's that a problem?" Mimi asked, "That sounds like a good thing."

Matt shook his head, "It'd be great, if Gabumon didn't also say that the guy apparently recruited all the Vegimon and Gazimon he saved, and then somehow sucked them all up into some strange device and then fly off," the blonde haired rockstar replied, "Could be the guy is just taking them someplace safe, but putting them in some device and carrying them about? I don't even get how that's possible, never mind the fact this guy might just be recruiting an army of his own."

"Well actually," Izzy spoke up, "I've been working on a project, a kind of digital space that digimon can enter and stay in. It's only been an idle thing, but now with how dangerous it is for our Digimon to stay in the digital world, it might be best that I focus on it and finish it so we can bring them back here safely."

"Yeah, get right on that Izzy," Tai nodded and ordered, "if the Digimon Emperor can enslave our digimon to, we'll have no way of fighting back, with that, we can bring them here without worrying about them being seen."

"Right, I'll get back to work as soon as I get home!" Izzy agreed.

"What about Artus? We at least can talk to him." TK asked.

Tai sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to rub away the beginnings of a headache. 'TK really doesn't like that shopkeeper Devimon thing.' he groaned inwardly. It would be suspicious if any of the older kids just went to him and started trying to talk to him. That, or come off as suck ups trying to get in with the rich, famous genius teen. So that left, TK, Davis and Kari. A thought came to mind, and he almost reconcile from it, but he swallowed his distaste, "Kari, you try and strike up some conversation with him, see what you can dig up from if possible."

"Why Kari?" Sora asked, raising an eyebrow at the boy, knowing how protective he was of his little sister.

"Kari's the least suspicious and least threatening person," he replied. When Sora's second eyebrow joined the first, he sighed in defeat, "...He's also a teenage boy, and as a teenage boy I am a foremost expert on the species."

Mimi giggled, "In other words, hope he lets his guard down around a cute girl?"

Tai sighed again, "...Yes...."

Kari had her arms crossed as her older brother looked over to her and met her eyes, "You up for it?" he asked.

"It's fine," Kari smiled gently, "Davis may throw a bit of a fit if I do though." the boy's hero worship of Tai and crush on his little sister that was born from that hero worship, was well known.

"I'll keep Davis and Veemon busy," Tai said, "Me and Agumon will put them through the ringer, get them in fighting shape."

The digidestined of courage looked to the resident computer expert, "Izzy, will you be able to hack our school records and make it so have some free periods tomorrow?" he asked, "Specifically, me and Davis early in the day to give Kari some time to talk to Artus, but then for everyone after lunch, that way, we can take Yolei and Cody into the Digital World as a group, and see about finding their partners." if Davis had Veemon with his new digivice, odds were, there were other digi-eggs and digimon partners for the other two.

"It shouldn't be a problem," Izzy nodded, "I'll have it all prepared by morning."

"Thanks," Tai nodded gratefully before looking around at his team, "Right, that's it for now guys, we should head home and get some rest, tomorrow will be busy."