Digimon: Rise of a New Threat

It was true.  Crystal had indeed traveled through the Digi Port from the high school, but it hadn't been to this area of the digital world.  She had used her own coordinates to arrive at the hot spring resort.  It was mostly for convenience and so she wouldn't surprise her parents that she was returning to the same location, otherwise she might have just set the coordinates to transport her back to her own bedroom.  When Crystal arrived in the computer lab at the Odaiba high school she was holding Snow Agumon's In-Training form of Snow Koromon in one hand while she pocketed her D3 model digivice with the other.  She didn't like to leave things like this, but between whatever was taking place at the dark castle and the possibility of some huge digimon beginning to rise, Crystal didn't really want to be in the digital world without a plan.

"I guess we do go to the same school," Crystal admitted seeing Kristoph and Dorimon already in the computer lab ahead of her.  Fortunately, the students who actually made use of the computer lab for academic purposes had grown accustomed to the frequent bright flashes of light from the monitors whenever digidestined were coming and going, so they mostly just ignored them. Even so, Snow Koromon knew to keep quiet. "So, are you planning on heading home or would you like to try to help me come up with a break-in strategy?" Crystal asked Kristoph. "I don't know about you, but even if we're at a disadvantage, I don't like just letting those guys do whatever they want."

"Ah, so you actually know the girl who was captured," Crystal realized from Kristoph's explanation.  "I don't think I've ever actually met her.  And I don't really know any other digidestined personally either, but I do know there's this one upperclassman I've seen around with an Agumon sometimes.  And then there's Matt, the cool guy whose in the band, the Teenage Wolves, who I've sometimes spotted with a Gabumon.  I've also seen this one girl with a Biyomon.  And then there's this other guy named Izzy, whose partner is a Tentomon, but I've only ever really talked to him by e-mail, but I'm pretty sure he's also a student at this school.  I suppose it might be a good idea to try to contact him since he seems to have some real connections when it comes to getting in touch with other digidestined."

She pulled out her D-Terminal to start composing a message.

Izzy,

I've been to the area surrounding the dark castle and I'm back in the real world now with another digidestined who wants to help come up with a plan to bust in there to rescue Deanna and Teddymon.  It would be great if you could arrange a strategy meeting for us with some of the other digidestined on your contact list.  We're at the computer lab at the Odaiba high school right now, but if we have to travel someplace else to meet with everyone, just let us know and we'll do our best to get there.

~ Crystal

Crystal finished typing out the message and hit send.  "I guess now we wait."  There was an audible growl from the vicinity of Snow Koromon's stomach.  "Or, I guess we could make a quick trip to the school cafeteria to get some snacks out of the vending machines," Crystal said looking slightly embarrassed about her partner.

"I've never really thought about it, but yeah, I guess so," Crystal replied as she followed Kristoph out of the computer lab to accompany him to the cafeteria.  "Mine just kind of appeared along with my D3 when I met my partner."  By that point she had already stuffed her D-Terminal back in her pocket.  "It certainly makes sending e-mails convenient, although in terms of other digidestined my only real contact up until now has been Izzy."  In reality, Crystal actually wasn't as surprised as Kristoph about there being other humans with digimon who frequented the digital world, but she also wasn't surprised by the fact that she hadn't really met any others up until now.  Izzy had pretty much enlisted her help in charting out the uncharted regions of the digital world beyond the eastern quarter.  As a result, most of Crystal's visits to the digital world were actually spent exploring the western quarter cataloging what sort of digimon species could be found there, getting into fights with some of the more aggressive digimon that populated the landscape, and frequently getting into trouble.  It was only more recently that she'd been taking time off from those assignments to relax in the much more tranquil locales contained within the eastern quarter, such as the hot spring resort she had gone to today before this whole mess started.  "Mostly, I've just gone it alone with my partner to explore areas that haven't been explored yet by other digidestined so Izzy can collect data to piece together a more complete picture of what the digital world is really like," Crystal explained to Kristoph.

As they reached the cafeteria she began digging out some change for the vending machines. "Although, I do think it might be kind of nice to be around other digidestined for a change," Crystal added. "I'll admit, I don't have great social skills and I've probably been around digimon more than humans since becoming a digidestined, but I really wouldn't mind having more human friends."

"Says the girl who is perfectly willing to risk her neck to save someone she's never even met," noted Snow Koromon. "Really, I don't know why you are so self conscious about whether or not other humans your age are going to like you."

"Why are you bringing that up now?" Crystal groaned in annoyance. "Come on, I'm even buying you snacks for a power meal. Why are you embarrassing me like this?"

Izzy was certainly surprised by the e-mail he had gotten from Crystal. In all the time that he'd been contacting her to scout out new areas of the digital world for him, he'd never stopped to think that they might both go to the same high school. Then again, between classes and digital world surveillance, Izzy didn't really take any time off to pursue an active social life. Tai would occasionally pester him about it and Yolei even volunteered to handle the surveillance sometimes so Izzy could get out of his room to face reality every once in awhile, but with how suddenly the balance within the digital world could shift, the surveillance Izzy performed had become increasingly vital. Case in point, even though he'd been monitoring the digital world almost constantly, he hadn't spotted the distortion surrounding the dark castle until it was already too late to stop it from appearing.


Izzy included written instructions on how to get to his apartment from the high school as well as a crude text-based map of the city with the route shown in a red font so that it would be relatively easy to follow. After that he hit send and started composing a new message for the other original digidestined still presently living in Japan. Usually he could only really assemble the younger team that centered around Davis and Ken, but with the situation being what it was, Izzy had no doubt that Tai, Matt, and Sora would also be attending the strategy meeting. Poor Joe probably wasn't going to be able to make it since, in all likelihood, he was probably going to be stuck in one of his difficult required classes for the next few hours at the local college. The one major drawback of being the oldest one in the group was that Joe also had the busiest schedule out of everyone on the team.

Kristoph nodded a little, setting his food down as well and watching Dorimon tear into it. "Great. I get the feeling we're going to need all the help we can get for this. I'm sure I'd try it alone if I had to, but I'd rather not. Also we can come up with things to bring with us." He gave a slight smile, already starting to put together a list in his head. He was determined to make these people very sorry they took, and probably hurt, his friend.

"Good point," Crystal nodded.  "We have no way of knowing how long this might take so we'll definitely want to be as prepared as we can be," she agreed.  She looked at the screen on her D-Terminal again to consult the map that Izzy had sent along with the written instructions.  "And it looks like the place we're supposed to be meeting the other digidestined is within walking distance so it shouldn't take us long to get there at all."

Once Snow Koromon was finished with the snacks that Crystal had given him, he settled down becoming calm again.  Crystal picked him up with one hand, gathering up the empty wrappers in the other to toss them in a nearby trashcan.  "We can leave whenever you guys are ready," Crystal said to Kristoph.