A New Challenge [Canons Only]

[Kazai]

From the look of it, things were beginning to start up once again, and the Digital World was starting to interfere in the affairs of the Human World. It was for that reason that Renamon, Guilmon, and Terriermon had all come into the Human World. While this was true, there was still much reason to be curious as to why this was happening and much discussion needed to be made between the Tamers.

It was for this reason that Rika had invited the other Tamers to her home, so that they alongside their Digimon, could discuss the issues at hand without having to worry about being seen by third parties. Granted, some level of secrecy would still have to be maintained. Although Rika had told her Grandma that Digimon were back in the Human World again, she still hadn't told her mother. She knew that her mother wouldn't take it as easily that Rika was getting involved in all of this once again. Luckily, her mother was now at a photoshoot, so once the other Tamers got there, they would be able to speak freely. Her mother was currently cooking refreshments, while Rika waited in the garden for the other Tamers to arrive. She sat on the bench, with Renamon standing right behind her.

[Stick]

Kazu and Hagurumon were feeling mighty good about being back together, since neither one of them felt like their old self with the other so far away. The two of them were ready for just about anything short of a full blown mega as he knew that they were not going to be able to beat one of those at the moment. The two of them had barely survived the last battle that they had gotten into, which meant that the two of them needed to begin practicing again in order to be ready for what may come.

This sort of brought him to the subject of where the two of them were going at them moment with Hagurumon in disguise as a weird looking backpack. Rika had invited them over to her house to talk about the reason why Digimon were showing up again in the Real World. Personally, Kazu was glad that it had happened as it meant that things were going to get interesting around this place again but he could understand the worry of his fellow tamers. This also meant that something was obviously wrong in the Digital World again.

Kazu walked through the doors that led into the area that was Rika's house. He walked around back where he assumed that was where they were meeting anyway. When he saw Rika and Renamon, Kazu figured it was time for his partner to cut the act. "Alright, it is time for you to get off my back, and hi Rika and Renamon. How's it hanging?"

[Impmon]

Mako and Ai's parents had been busy with a lot of stuff lately, so Mako and Ai were being babysat by Rika for the time being. The two siblings didn't mind too much. Rika was okay, and they got to see Renamon, which was a pretty cool digimon. Right now they were looking through their cards, wondering how they could use them to help Impmon. It wasn't a bad deck, and they had a general idea of what most of them did, but other than that, strategy was pretty much lost on them.

"Wizardmon's spell will protect him from attacks. It protected him from that trash monster thing right?"
"But he can't attack with it on..."
"Then we can make him strong with a digivice!"
"But he'll be wide open for attack!"
"Well, if he's stronger he can take more hits right?"
"But we don't want him to get hurt too much."
"That's true..."

Both kids looked miserably down at their cards. They wanted to be great tamers for Impmon, but this was just hard! "I think we need help..." He said, frowning, staring at their cards. They both looked towards Rika. They said she had invited her friends over and she had been standing there waiting for them for a while. Ai gathered up the cards and both the kids walked up to her. "Rika, could you teach us to be great tamers please?" Ai asked, looking up her with huge eyes.

Meanwhile, Impmon was still in the process of making his way to Rika's place. Running through town wasn't his greatest idea of fun. Most of the people gave him strange looks and made a noticable effort to avoid him, though he didn't care too much about what they thought. His only concern at the moment was getting to Rika's place

[Henry Wong]

Now this felt familiar. Terriermon had taken his place on Henry’s back, his little arms and his large ears hanging over the teenager’s shoulders in a way that could almost make the digimon appear as though he was little more than a stuffed animal. It was funny, as he headed for Rika’s house, it almost felt as though it was once again one of those days from two years ago, before they were separated from their digimon for so long. It kind of made it feel as though their digital partners had never even left in the first place.

”I don’t remember her house being so faaar,” Terriermon whined into the teenager’s ear before returning to the silent mode that he had been in practically the whole way since they’d left Henry’s house. He was eager to get there, that much was obvious, but it wouldn’t be long now. All he needed to do was to wait a few more minutes.

The blue-haired boy took a turn and was soon walking toward the garden area of Rika’s house where he spotted her by a bench. She was with Renamon, of course, and even Kazu was there with his digital partner, it seemed he had beaten him to the get-together. Those two little kids as well. ”Hey everyone. Looks like we made it in time,” Henry greeted with a faint smile, making his way closer toward the others.

”Momentai, Henry,” he heard the long-eared digimon say just before he jumped down from his shoulders, landing on his feet on the ground next to Henry.

[Kazai]

Rika was just about to greet Kazu, but just before she did, the children, Ai and Mako broke her concentration as they approached her seeking advice about how to use their cards. She reached out to take their deck and took a moment to look through it. They really did seem to have a lot of interesting cards. Rika quickly began strategically shuffling around the cards in an order that she thought would be most generically useful, though she'd have to explain the order to them later. She then handed the cards back to them.

"That should do," she said before turning back to Kazu. It also seemed that by the time she had finished shuffling the cards, Henry and Terriermon had arrived. Great, so the gang was almost all here, aside from Gogglehead and the "Digimon King." Oh right, Jeri wasn't here either. Had she been invited? Hopefully Takato would have said something to her. They did go to school together, and she simply assumed that she would have gotten the word somehow. How could she have forgotten about Jeri? She quickly shook the thought away.

"Hey Henry. Kazu, it's been a while."

[Takato Matsuki]

((since its just some one on one interaction and I've already posted for Mako and Ai earlier I am just going to combine Impmon's interactions with Guilmon and Takato))

"Oh great oh great. I am sooo late!" Takato said as he scrambled to get his stuff together. He pulled his jacket on and jammed his feet into his shoes without even bothering to untie time. He checked his pockets, making sure his digivice, cellphone and cards were all in the right place. "Guilmon lets go!" He shouted, as he ran on the spot. Guilmon who had been in the kitchen watching Takato's parents work, whined. "Aww, right now? Your Dad is making me guilmon bread!"

Takato sighed, but didn't relent. "We're already late! Go now! It will still be good when we get back!" Guilmon whined a bit more, but relectantly came to Takato. "Hey Takato, be home before dinner! Call ahead if you are going to be late!" Came the voice of Takato's mom from the kitchen. "I will Mom!" Takato called back, before running out the door with Guilmon quick on his heels.

They ran down the sidewalk, Guilmon steadily running further and further ahead of Takato. "Hey, wait up!" said Takato as Guilmon began to pass him. Guilmon slowed down a bit. They slowed to fast walk after a while, only stopping for streetlights or when crowded sidewalks prevented them from running. Just a kid in a costume, just a kid in a costume Takato thought as Guilmon started attracting a few stares. It didn't seem like they were thinking Guilmon was much more than that, but Takato could only hope.

"Hey look! Isn't that Impmon?" Guilmon said, looking ahead to the purple figure who was standing at a streetlight waiting for the lights to turn. Takato looked ahead too, and sure enough there was Impmon. "Well, what do you know. Impmon made it back too." Takato thought outloud. While Takato wasn't watching, Guilmon ran ahead to meet Impmon. "Hi Impmon!" Guilmon greeted joyfully.

Impmon jumped back, barely avoiding falling back into traffic. "Ey! Watch where. Oh, so pineapple head's back. Wonderful." Impmon said, somewhat sarcastically, though his expression was tamer, and he gave Guilmon a friendly fist bump to his head. Though Impmon still frequently abused the red dinosaur, it was all in good fun between the both of them and he wasn't quite as bad as he used to be with him, though Guilmon still usually got the short end of the stick. "So where you two off in a hurry?"

Takato ran up to catch up with Guilmon. "What did I say about waiting up?" Takato said gasping for breath. Guilmon lowered his head apologetically, and Takato smiled. He couldn't bring himself to be angry with Guilmon long though. "We're headed over to Rika's right now. What about you? Been keeping out of trouble?" Takato responded, adding the last part doubtfully.

Impmon smirked. "Of course I have been staying out of trouble, and I'm heading over to Rika's too." His smirk soon became a more mischievous grin, before he added, "Race ya!" He then bolted as the light turned to allow them to go. Takato didn't even have a chance to object as Guilmon too ran off, faster than Takato could keep up.

At least Rika's place wasn't too far from there, but it wasn't exactly fun chasing after Guilmon when he could run so fast. Guilmon and Impmon however, were neck in neck, turning the last corner to Rika's house. But before they even got near the gate, Impmon jumped up onto the wall surrounding the property. Guilmon skidded to the stop looking up at Impmon. "Hey, no fair!" Guilmon whined, as he hopped up and down in failed attempts to get up on the wall after him.

Impmon smirked as he gazed down at Guilmon. "Oh fine, I'll help you up." He said, reaching down and grabbing Guilmons arms, beginning to pull him up. Before he pulled him all the way up, he suddenly let go. "Psyche!" Impmon shouted, just managing to catch his own balance to see Guilmon hit the ground a bit hard.

The red dinosaur groaned, this time looking quite hurt by Impmon's prank. "Impmon! That was mean..." Guilmon pouted, staring up miserably at him.

Impmon stopped laughing, and scratched his head. Now that he thought of it, that was a bit overboard. "Ehhhh... Okay yeah, I guess that was a bit much. Sorry bout that Pineapple Head. Come on, for real this time." he said, offering another lift, this time pulling him up, with quite a bit of effort. "Urgh, you need to lay off all those bread rolls!" Impmon complained as he pulled. After a massive effort of Impmon pulling and Guilmon scraping his claws to try and push himself up. Eventually Guilmon got up... and over, both digimon falling into the garden, guilmon landing right on top of Impmon. "I guess I deserved that..." Impmon grumbled, getting shakily to his feet only after Guilmon got up. This time it was Guilmon laughing at Impmon.

Takato had only just rounded the corner when he saw Guilmon's tail go over the wall. "Guys! The -- gate was -- right there!" Takato shouted between gasps, having been out of breath from chasing Guilmon and Impmon. He then rounded the gate and looked to where Guilmon and Impmon had landed. A large patch of flowers there were now pretty much flattened. They looked like they were pretty nice too. "Aw Guilmon, Impmon, look what you did!" Takato scolded.

Guilmon and Impmon looked at the result of their little mishap. "I'm sorry Takato. I fix?" Guilmon offered, though Takato was quite skeptical of how Guilmon would actually 'help'. He then could only dare to look at Rika, whom he imagined probably wasn't too happy about this herself. "Err... Hi." He said sheepishly.

Meanwhile, Impmon could must a "Oops." as he looked a the mess. He instantly regretted it though as Ai suddenly appeared behind him, looking very cross, with Mako just behind her with his arms cross. "Err, hi guys!" He said, trying to sound innocent. Kazu and Henry were here too. That just left Jeri, and maybe Kenta? He had talked to Jeri about the meeting, only to find out that Rika hadn't invited her. He had assured Jeri that Rika probably just lost track of who she called and hadn't, but he wasn't sure if Jeri believed it or not.

"That wasn't nice what you did to Guilmon!" Aye scolded, as she glared at Impmon. "And you wrecked Rika's flowers too!" Mako piped in. From an outward perspective, this probably appeared quite hilarious, Impmon getting told off by his six year old partners, while he could only stand there and sputter. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He said frantically, eyes practically dots as he slowly attempted to back away from Ai.

Ai however, didn't let him get away, pulling him back and marching him toward Rika's house. "Not good enough! You are going to the wall to think about what you did!" She scolded, stopping only when he was facing the house. Impmon sputtered as they went, but there was very little he could do to go against his tamer, and nothing he'd ever do. "How long do I have to stay here?" He asked, looking back at Ai. "Stay facing the wall! You have ten minutes!" Ai said, and stalked away back to where the newcomers were gathering with Mako following close behind.

[Kaze]

Jeri slowly walked down the street, looking around as she saw Salamon peek her head from out of her bag. The small digimon blinked as she smirked mischievously from her hiding space. Humans really didn't pay much attention to details, and perhaps that was a good thing. All that time they had been on the train, no one seemed to notice her moving around. Of course, Jeri had asked her to be still, but it was impossible to do that when you were within a paper bag with food. At least, it did have food within it. The digimon only hoped that the girl wouldn't mind that she had started lunch early.

Keeping a slow pace, she wondered what it was that Rika had wanted everyone to meet for? It just seemed strange that they would be doing it at her house and not somewhere else. Not only that, but the fact that Impmon had been the one to tell her about it and not Rika herself? Maybe she had forgotten about her, or did she really not want her there? It would make sense, after all she was the weakest out of everyone there. Not only that, but she was a risk just being around, since she couldn't really defend herself.

Then why am I even going?......They probably don't even like me anymore....I'm not a tamer like them....I'm...

Stopping in front of the temple, the girl looked up towards the building with a expression of concern as she wasn't sure if she could continue or just turn around and go home? Jeri wanted to shake off the feeling of doubt in their friendship, but it just seemed to linger. What if they really did think she was weak? Or even unreliable? It wasn't as if a bag of goodies would actually change their opinion. Why did she even go and buy these things? Did she want to buy their trust back? The girl was so confused that she held on hand to her heart, afraid to actually move another step.

They like you....Their your friends. They probably just forgot to ask you. Your fine...Its fine....I won't even think about it anymore...

Looking down as she noticed Salamon's head poking out from the large paper bag, the young teen gasped as she stared at the digimon, which was enough to make her put her head back within the depths of the bag. Jeri could only hope that no one saw her as she jogged slowly up the stairs to the temple home, moving around the side as she looked for the others. The girl made sure to smile, hiding her fears like she always did. It was probably the best cover she had, if not for it then she'd probably be as easy to see through than glass.

"Hi everyone! Sorry we're late....Impmon? Why are you staring at a wall?"

Jeri blinked as she saw the digimon seemed to be looking at something upon it, setting the bag down with a giggle as Salamon jumped from it with a blank expression. She seemed to be just as curious as well, walking towards the imp as she stared at the wall as well. Was there something there that she was missing? Maybe he was seeing a picture of some kind.

"What? Is there a picture or something in there?"

[Stick]

Kazu hadn't known that Rika was going to be bringing the youngsters to this meeting, but he figured that meant Henry's little sister was going to be here as well. He wasn't sure if they were here because Rika invited them or because she was babysitting them, but Kazu wasn't going to ask. The entrance of Henry distracted his mind though, which was probably a good thing. "Hey Henry and Terriermon. What kept you guys?"

There was a brief moment of silence as the sounds of someone else showing up made Kazu look to the wall near the gate. First Impmon appeared, followed by Guilmon popping up , and ended with the two of them landing in Rika's flower patch. Kazu would have laughed if it didn't seem like the mood wasn't right. Impmon got reprimanded by his tamers, which almost brought him back to the point of laughing. Hagurumon wasn't sure what was going on at this point as he had this blank expression on his face. Although, no one could really tell as his face was a gear, which made it difficult to form emotions with. "What is the significance of the flowers that Guilmon and Impmon crushed? Do they have special healing properties of something?"

"They have the ability to make certain people happy when they are angry or sad. Other than that, they are just there to be colorful" His eyes went back to the gate when Jeri walked in with a Salamon in a bag. He hadn't known that she had gotten a new Digimon, but he was glad for her. He figured it was about time that Jeri caught a break. "Hey Jeri. Who's your friend?" They were almost all there now with the exception of Ryo, Kenta, and Suzie. He figured Henry would explain Suzie's abscence, and he didn't have a clue about Ryo. Kenta was probably too busy trying to remember where Rika lived at, so Kazu wasn't worried about him being late.

[Henry Wong]

As the two digimon came tumbling in, landing on top of a bed of flowers, the bunny-like digimon hopped into the air in surprise. Mouth opening wide in shock, he stared over at the two troublemakers. ”Hey, that’s not very nice... I wanna play too!” Terriermon called over to Guilmon and Impmon just before they were yelled at by the others for their actions. At that moment, he took a jump-step backward. ”Woah, nevermind,” now standing a short distance away from Henry’s feet, the digimon’s eyes followed along as Impmon was led over to stare at a wall. Tch, as if they’d ever get him to do something as boring as that.

Henry's attention had been focused on Terriermon to make sure he didn't do anything wrong, but he soon realized that someone had been speaking to him. Well, it was more of a greeting... same thing. ”Nothing really, I figured it would be a while before everyone made it here anyway,” he answered Kazu, tilting his head in his direction before turning his attention over to the new arrival, Jeri, and what appeared to be a digimon that she had brought along with her.

With mostly everyone present now, the teenager momentarily took notice of Rika again, she had yet to say much thus far, though she had been the one who had called for them all to gather here. ”So, Rika, what did you wanna talk about? Most of us are here now,” he spoke, trying to get this thing started already.

[/size]

[Kazai]

Rika simply shook her head as she watched all that went on between Impmon and Guilmon. Damaging the flowers didn't particularly bother her, though she knew it would matter much more to her mother than it did to her, so maybe the Digimon getting in a little bit of trouble for what they had done wasn't exactly a bad thing. In any case, now that most of everyone was here, Rika reasoned that they may as well start their meeting. They were really only missing Kenta and Ryo.

"Well, as you've noticed, Digimon are back in our world," Rika gesticulated to all of the Digimon in the current area. She already knew that some of them were back in the Human World, as she had been there when Guilmon and Terriermon bioemerged. She had heard about Salamon emerging as well. But on the other hand, there were still some new faces, such as the Hagurumon, which she presumed to be a preevolutionary form of Guardromon.

"We really need to figure out why this is happening... and how to get to the bottom of this."