Dear Sora, I know it's been a little while since I've written, but boy, do I have a lot to tell you this time! It was good to see you at Tai's wedding, and great to see the old gang again. One precious week of vacation - and now I'm hard at work again. I wouldn't have it any other way. It was kind of sad though, wasn't it - didn't Tai want Davis to be his best man? It's been such a long time, I suppose we are the only ones who know he didn't die. And now I have proof that he's alright. Sora, you wouldn't believe the last couple of days I've just spent... Keeping in touch by Leto A young man with a briefcase steps through the doors of the train and looks for a seat. He stops, a usually calm face suddenly registering shock. He is looking at three children who sit, slumped in their seats, with toy monsters on their laps. Very *familiar* toys. The man finds a seat, positioning himself to keep watch on the children. The oldest, a blonde girl, cradles a large toy in the shape of a flower-creature. The second oldest is a boy with dark features, and he is holding a small, oddly shaped creature, difficult to liken to any real animal or plant. The youngest is another blonde, a girl with a large tadpole-like toy on her lap. As the young man watches these toys, he is certain he sees the flower move on its own - just a little - but definitely a twitch not caused by the movement of the train. He did not need any convincing though; the other toys were proof enough on their own. They are Digimon. The man smiles slightly. The children look tired, and their Digimon are convincingly still, for the most part - odd-looking dolls, but not anything that would arouse suspicion. He recognises that disguise as one he used himself once. He forgets his own tiredness and decides that returning to his home can wait a little longer. When the children get off at a station a little further along the line, Joe follows them. *** First, to answer a couple of your questions. My roommate is a her, not a him, and her name is Katie. She's a couple of years younger than me and studying Mechanical Engineering. So she is very smart but I think she must get bored easily because she is always looking for things to distract her from her work. She's one of those bright-eyed people who is full of energy and who talks a lot. She has freckles and she's always eating but she's very thin, and nearly as tall as I am. It's hard to get angry at her, she's so friendly, but she can be kind of unreasonable and nosy - I have to hide my letters... Anyway, that's my roommate. I'll have to write to Tai to congratulate him. That's great news! You sounded fairly pleased for him... are you? And now for what I've been itching to tell you. This may be a rather long letter. For once I think I've actually got something to tell *you* about the digital world. Because I know what's been happening!! You all may already know this, but if not, please tell everyone or show them this letter. I was coming home from the hospital and got on the Underground (train) that would take me back to my station, and there were three kids sitting there with stuffed toys on their laps. Well, they weren't really stuffed toys - they were Digimon! I watched the Digimon closely and they did move slightly - a sniff, a twitch - but generally they were convincingly inanimate. I only knew they were alive because I recognised them. One girl - she looked like the oldest, about 14, with long, ponytailed blonde hair and a netball uniform on - held a Digimon I didn't recognise (a Floramon, I later discovered). There was a boy about 11, with short dark hair, skin and eyes, who had some kind of vague accent, who held a Pagumon. And then there was a small girl, probably no more than 7 or 8, with brown hair in pigtails and an Otamamon. They were obviously doing what we had done, and pretending that their Digimon weren't real, so as not to arouse suspicion. Well, I forgot about going home and sat near them. They looked pretty tired and didn't speak much. But they didn't fall asleep like we did. I got off at the same stop as them and followed them until we were away from the public eye. I think they were getting a bit worried towards the end; wondering why this man was stalking them. I got a pretty good look at them. The oldest girl was taking charge, telling them which street to go down and telling them to keep walking, they'd be home soon. The boy didn't say much, but the little girl complained quite a lot and said she wished she could have Otamamon walk, because she was getting tired. Finally there were no other people around so I walked faster and overtook them. They looked at each other, worried. "Excuse me," I said, "I know you know I've been following you and I'm sorry if I scared you, but I recognised that you were carrying Digimon and I wanted to talk to you." They looked even more scared after I said that, but after I added that I was one of the original digidestined, the oldest girl's face brightened. "Really?! Is your name Joe?" I nodded. "Davis told us about you when we said we lived in London! It is very good to have met you!" "You too," I said, "I didn't know there were new digidestined. So you've met Davis?" "Of course," she said, sounding awed, "I feel so privileged to meet the legendary guardian of the digital world!" Turns out good old Davis has been filling their heads with nonsense about his being some mythical source of enlightenment. Anyway, I took them to a small cafe and bought them some food and they told me a lot about themselves and the digital world. It turns out that the flow of time in the digital world has suddenly been distorted again; they went into the digital world on that day of the freak storm three weeks ago and have been there for nearly a year. They have digivices that are different to ours and the D3s, and they have crests too. They have been battling with their Digimon in a similar way to ours - travelling around blindly at first, their Digimon gradually learning to reach Champion and then Ultimate level. Davis recently found them and taught them some stuff about who they are and what they are doing there. I don't know what Davis feels about this sudden change of events; in presenting himself as some guru (rather like Gennai!), he's cut himself off from being able to communicate with us through the new digidestined. Adrienne - that is the oldest girl's name - said that there are ten digidestined but that of the others, they live around the world; two in Australia, two in Japan and three in America. They communicate via their digivices, which are like little television screens. They were allowed to come back to the real world a week ago because they heard that some of their crests were here. Only four of them have found their crests so far. They don't quite know why they have to find these crests except that their enemies seem to be becoming stronger and Davis prophesied (!) that there would be an intense final battle against something. The boy with the Pagumon is named Nathan and he has the crest of Loyalty. Adrienne claims she was told that her crest is Leadership. Her younger sister - Amy, with the Otamamon - argued that it should be Bossiness. The two started fighting. Nathan just rolled his eyes and didn't say anything. I think he's used to those two. Amy's own crest is Imagination, but of those three, only Nathan actually has his crest. I offered to drive them around in their search for the crests and they were quite eager; they couldn't ask their parents to drive them because they are hiding their Digimon's identities and couldn't explain their reasons for wanting to drive around seemingly aimlessly. The new Japanese digidestined are named Rita Hatsumomo, with something called a Candlemon, and Tetsuya Iimuro, with an Elecmon. Look out for them if you can, they're both 12-year-olds. Apparently Rita lives in Odaiba and has her crest (Bravery) but she's helping Tetsuya to look for his crest (Reason). Joe waited at the Underground station after a long day; with a five hour dissection class and three lectures behind him, he was ready to go and crash for a few minutes before studying some more. For the first time that day, he had a few free minutes to think, and soon his thoughts turned to the digital world, as they often did. Izzy had emailed him and Mimi phoned him, but neither of them had much idea what had happened. Izzy said it was almost as though the digiworld didn't exist any more, for all he could tap into it using his computer, and Mimi was just upset because Palmon was on the other side of the gate. Then, something caught his eye; some people walking past him. Children. He watched them with idle interest, trying to work out why he'd noticed them - then - they were holding unusual stuffed toys. Joe started. They weren't toys at all! Joe wasn't familiar with the business of trailing people but he firmly told himself he had no intention of hiding behind ATMs, peeking (un)surreptitiously around public telephones, or slamming himself against walls whenever someone looked like they were going to turn around. It didn't work; he couldn't resist the temptation to act like a spy. Unfortunately, a tall, blue-haired man with a trenchcoat and dark glasses does look somewhat conspicuous - and, for that matter, suspicious. Despite attracting many strange looks, Joe *did* manage to keep the children in sight and slipped onto the same train as them. He sat in an adjacent seat, opened his briefcase and pretended to read through some of his notes. Actually, he was paying close attention to the children.