Two years.

That's how long it had been. Two years since the fate of the world had once again been dropped into the hands of mere children. Since They had journeyed to the digital world. Since those youth had seen their Digimon, their second halves.

If TK really tried to think through it, it really shouldn't be that big of a deal, right? It's not like this was the first time this sort of thing had happened, where their partners had been ripped from them in such a violent matter. But it was different for him. The first time, during his first exploits in the digital world, he had been young and naive. Heck, TK half thought as he grew older that it was all a dream or a creation of his imagination that his brothers kind friends had been willing to play along with. But then Patamon had come back into his life again, when he had been older and at an age where his existence was undeniably real.

And losing him again. After all their work.

It was like losing Hope.

Their eternal separation hurt him every time he thought about it. To make things worse the group seemed to be splitting up, tearing at the seems. The original crew from so long ago were mostly torn apart by college and career pathways, things that were undeniable. As for the second group… well they all still seemed so close, so he could only blame himself in the end. He had been pushing people away, and he knew it.

Even Kari.

That was one of the worst parts. On one hand perhaps Kari was one of the people who understood what he was going through the best, having also been a key part of both journeys. But then she reminded him of both times he had been o the digital world, with Patamon, and old wounds just reopened all over again.

TK sat at his desk, attempting to work on his homework, doing his best not to glance up and expect to see Patamon playing with his nick nacks. A high pitched squeal suddenly emanated from one of his drawers causing him to flinch, alarmed. His phone was right next to him, and he couldn't think of anything in any of his drawers that could be making that noise…

He fumbled through a few drawers full of papers, until finally, his hand hovered over the one drawer he tried not to open. Slowly, gingerly, his hand grabbed the handle and pulled, revealing the green digivice, the small screen alive and full of static like it hadn't been in years.

Hand moving like it had a mind of it's own, it reached for it.

The digivice perfectly fit into his hand like it always had, and as he held it the light grew brighter and brighter until it was all that he could see, blinding him with it's brightness. It was hot to hold and TK could feel it move in his fingers, taking a new shape. The white overtook him until all he knew was black.

oOo

"Are you sure you're okay, buddy?" Takato asked nervously, and Guilmon gave a rumble of confirmation as he shifted in his makeshift bed, eyes droopy.

"I'm just tired." He yawned, and Takato smiled, patting him before heading back to his home. At least they agreed on one thing, Takato could probably sleep for a few million years at this point, his body feeling battered in a way that it had never before. The walk home was quiet, a refreshing change from the events of the night, and he let his mind wander as it attempted to take in everything that had happened. That lion digimon was nothing like anything else what had seen so far, and he didn't like what it seemed to foretell lay ahead for them. But he knew that as long as they stood together as a team, they could handle it.

It was with this positive thought that he arrived at his house, excited at the prospect of finally crawling into the covers of his bed. However, as he came to his doorstep the thought vanished from his mind. Right there, laying on the welcome mat, was a boy, unconscious. Takato didn't even thing as he tore open the door and yelled up the stairs.

"Mom, Dad, something happened!"

oOo

Riley heard the words through her comms. Somehow they had managed to get through the cacophony, in between the screams that had wrenched her gut. Her partner had already broken down, unable to take it, but she was made of something tougher than that. After all she had seen in her time, she could manage this.

'They're just data, they can;t be your friends.'She knew Yamaki was lying when he said that, there was no way he was buying what he was attempting to sell to these kids. Maybe he thought he was some big hero, trying to save these kids from their own heartbreak. Or maybe he really had become so jaded. It took everything not to cry for him, for how far he had fallen. You could think he'd remember all that he had learned about friendship.

oOo

TK woke up slowly, as if rising from a lake. Slowly, he blinked in the unfamiliar surroundings. He lay on a couch in someone's living room. To his side was a coffee table, on which sat his shoes and his hat. Brain kicking back into gear he remembered the whole event with his digivice and quickly dug his hand into his pocket, sighing with relief as he felt it's smooth surface. Though it had taken a new form, TK knew it was still his. It was smaller than his newer one but was still bigger than his original digivice. Unlike the previous designs, this one was sleek. It was silver with a goldenrod detailing on it. He tried pressing a few of the buttons, but the screen remained dark, causing his stomach to sink with disappointment. No sign of an egg, no image showing Poyomon…

He gave a sigh and looked at the ceiling, as if in prayer. What had he gotten himself into this time. Really, you'd think these digivices would eventually upgrade to have some sort of communication feature, then he could like ping Genai a message or something and try to figure things out. Maybe he should put in a buyer request. To whoever the heck made digivices. Or did like the universe just will them into existence? It wasn't really clear.

Footsteps announced company as a new face came into view. It was a boy around his own age, maybe a bit younger, talking on his phone.

"You don't go on patrol? Yes, I know it's 6:30 in the morning but - fine, I'll go alone." He hung up with a huff and shoved the phone angrily into his pocket before he noticed that I was sitting up. "Oh! You're awake!" Are you okay?" The brown haired boy rushed over to me and I scooted back a little, shocked by his excitement. I noticed the goggles on his head and smiled, reminded of Tai and Davis.

"Im, yeah, I'm fine." I awkwardly scratched the back of my head, smoothly pocketing my digivice with the other hand. "I assume you… found me?" The boy nodded as he tried to rub the sleep from his eyes.

"Yeah! You were passed out on our front porch - do you remember how you got there?" Well, TK wasn't about to just casually say 'oh, you know, my magical mini computery thingy just happened to teleport my there after knocking me out, no biggie'.

"No." He said, mind scrambling to pick up some kind of alibi. "I don't remember…. Anything?" Shoot. Way to go TK. Let's just go with a cliche amnesia story. The boy's face morphed into one of incredible concern and instantly TK felt guilty about lying, but it was way too late now. "Anything from the past while at least." There, that was somewhat better

"Do you remember your name?"

"Takeru." He replied. "But you can call be TK."

"I'm Takato, it's nice to meet you!" He held out his hand and TK happily accepted it.

"Can you tell me where I am?"

"Shinjuku." Takato replied easily, and TK desperately went through all of his knowledge on names of places near Odaiba. He had heard of Shinjuku, but one look out the window told him either his knowledge was wrong, or there was some kind of gap from where he had come from and where he was. The Shinjuku he knew of was a small town in the countryside, not this bustling city that say outside. "Here, my parents should already be up making bread, let's go let them know you're awake!"

It was Takato's mom that decided to come and deal with the situation that was TK while his dad continued to busy himself with opening the bakery. She decided that the best course of action would be to head down to the nearest police station. TK wasn't overly fond of the idea - he'd prefer to try and get familiarized with their surroundings and then deal with situation. He assumed his digivice had plopped him down here for a reason, so it was mostly a matter of trying to find out what needed to be done. Odds were that the others were also teleported here as well, so looking for them was definitely high on his list. It wasn't really like any of them had ever been 'chosen' for a new journey on their own before.

"So, your parents run a bakery?" He was trying not to look around too much at some of the devices people carried. It seemed far too advanced for the time, but then TK didn't know exactly where his digivice had taken him. For all he knew he was in an alternate universe or something.

"Yeah, it's pretty neat! We get the leftover bread so there's never really a shortage of it in my home. My dad used to run a noodle cart before he met my mom, then he shut down the cart and turned to bread after he got together with her."

"We're here." Takato's mom announced and she led us into the station. She talked to some men at the counter before they took us off to a side room, and sat TK down in a chair. He squirmed under the eyes of the men looking at him, but did his best to answer their questions as honestly as possible. He told them where he was from, his name, his age, everything short of how he had gotten here. Then they had the three of them wait in a room for an extremely boring half an hour. When they finally returned it was with a swung open door in an almost theatrical way, the policeman's voice booming through the room.

"We've searched out databanks." Everyone's heads lifted in anticipation. "We can't find any missing people with the name Takeru Takaishi. We even went back missing people reports up into 15 years ago to be sure, but no one matches your profile." I put on a devastated face, although internally I just catalogued the information for use later. Takato's mom talked with them more, argued, raised her voice, and then finally herded us out of the police station.

"So what's going to happen to TK?" Takato asked. She seemed to mull over his question as we walked back into the bakery.

"I don't know Takato. The police station really wanted to hold onto him or put into the system until they could track down his family…" TK stiffened. Putting him into a restricting position would only make it harder to find the others.

"Why don't we take him in?" Takato's dad entered the room, drying his hands on a towel. He had his apron on, a flour dusting covering all of his clothes and even sprinkled into his hair. I mean, he can share a room with Takato or sleep on the couch." His eyes drifted to look at TK and he paused, eyebrows scrunched up and his hands stopped moving. Takato didn't seem to notice as he excitedly grabbed TK's arm.

"Yes! Thank you dad! Come on, let me show you my room!"

oOo

Okay, so, I'm really go for it and gonna attempt to rewrite this? In this good year 2018? I don't know how far I'll get with this rewrite, since I am now a college kid, working on a comic, Inktober, and a book, but hey let's go ahead and pile another thing ontop of there.

Let me know what you think of it so far! If you wanna contact me I'm the-east-art on tumblr :)