Isthian preened, showed off, and completely and utterly failed to look sexy. Being a scrawny twig'll do that to ya. However, since it was Isthian, he completely failed to realize this.

"Yeah, I got these upstairs." Thian gestured vaguely towards the stairwell. "There's a big chest up there. Whole buncha stuff." He grinned at her. "Really, lots of choices. Want me to come up with you and give you some suggestions?"

Fiona shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

Isthian might be perverted, but he wasn't stupid. "What?" He asked, surprised. "Er, yeah! Sure! Great!"

There was a long pause as Fiona waited for Isthian to say more. Finally, she just gave up and prompted him. "So... uhm... lead the way?"

Isthian shook himself out of his daydreams. "Oh, yeah, right! Sorry 'bout that. Well, c'mon then, lovely!" He dashed off towards the stairs, leapt up a few in a single bound, then paused and gestured back for her to follow. "Right this way!"

"So how'd we find all these clothes?" Fiona asked as she climbed up the steps.

Thian shrugged. "Oh, well, that new girl, what's-her-name, she found them. Then most of the rest of them, they went up and got some. Hayamon says they belong to Scuba-whatever, or something. I didn't pay too much attention to that."

"Ah, well," said Fiona. "New clothes are new clothes." By that time, they had made their way up the stairs. "Where now?"

"Just right here!" Isthian kicked a big wooden trunk that was over by the wall, then flipped up its lid. "No idea why that little guy wanted so much stuff..."

Fiona's eyes widened and she began to drool slightly. "Who CARES? So... many... clothes!" She cackled madly and threw herself at the trunk. Poor Isthian had made a mistake by coming up here with her. She held up various outfits to her body. "What do you think of this? What about this? Does this make me look fat?"

Thian was slightly stunned by her sudden energy and barrage of questions. "No, it's, uh... lovely! And... uh... yeah, that's nice, too! No, fat! Er, what?" He blinked, thoroughly confused.

Finally, Fiona had gone through the whole trunk and still hadn't found anything to wear. She blinked herself. "Oh, I don't know..." she said. "What do you think?"

Poor Thian was completely overstimulated by this. He shook his head sharply -- again -- and tried to regain a grip. "Well, how about this?" He grabbed a rather skimpy tanktop off the pile and held it out to her.

Fiona blinked and glared at Thian. "What? God, no! I don't want to look like some two-dollar whore!"

"Oh, no, I'm sure you'd look just great in it! Come on, why don't you try it on?"

"Fine," Fiona scowled. "But you turn around! And if I catch you looking, I will murder you."

"Aww!" protested Isthian. He realized that he was lucky to be getting even that, though, so he turned around and even put his hands over his eyes. "I won't peek!"

"Good," said Fiona, taking off her own shirt and putting the new on. After pausing to admire herself in the mirror, she turned back to Isthian. "'Kay. You can look now."

Amazingly, Thian had kept to his word and not looked. He took his hands off his eyes now, and turned around. His mouth fell open. "Whoa..."

Fiona blushed. "Well...?"

"You look STUNNING!" Isthian forced his mouth back closed -- but found that he was grinning like an idiot when he did so. He let it fall back open. "Just... wow."

"I dunno..." said Fiona. "Light blue has never really been my color..."

Isthian laughed out loud. "'Never been your color?!'" He grabbed her by the arms, swung her around, then stepped back and stared at her face, grinning broadly, with his hands on her shoulders. "You don't have a clue what you're talking about!"

Fiona blushed beet-red again. "Well... okay..." she said. "I...guess..."

Isthian smiled warmly at her. "You can be so ridiculous sometimes." He pulled her close into a hug, and gently kissed her.

"Mmph," was the only thing Fiona was able to say. But soon she just gave up trying to say something and kissed Isthian back.

Isthian enjoyed the kiss for a few more moments, then pulled slowly away. "So," he whispered, "are you going to kill me now?"

Fiona blushed once again. "Nah," she said grinning. "Maybe later."

Thian grinned back at her. "Glad to hear it." He stepped back briskly, and looked over the pile of clothes on the floor as if nothing had happened. "So, you want something else to wear, too?"

"Hmm... Maybe some new jeans... and a sweater might come in handy..." Fiona dug through the pile until she found some that fit. "Alright, I'm good..." she said. "We should probably be getting back to the others, shouldn't we?"

"Alright, yeah. Guess we should. They'll probably be wanting to come up here to change, too, anyway, and we wouldn't want them barging in on us." Isthian might have managed a sweet moment there, but he was still Isthian -- and pervy thoughts were never too far from his mind.

Fiona raised an eyebrow. "Watch that mind, Isthian. I only kissed you..." she paused. "You can go back downstairs. I'm going to change, and then I'll be right down."

Thian only laughed at her. "Yeah, sure. But I'll go." He turned and started walking towards the door, then paused and looked back at her with a wink. "I'll see you later, my little sugar girl!" Then he dashed lightly out the door and back downstairs.

Fiona watched Isthian leave and sighed. "...Well..." she said to herself. She quickly put the rest of her clothes on and ran back down the stairs.

Chris blinked. "Everyone's getting new...clothes. Meh. I may as well change these out, too." He looked at himself. "These are getting REALLY nasty..." He walked upstairs and found the room with... clothes strewn all over. "WHAT were those two doing up here? Wait... on second thought, I really don't need to know..." He twitched at the bad mental image, then got to work searching for clothes and tidying up a bit at the same time.

A few minutes later, he returned down, with his same bandanna on, but now with a simple black short-sleeve shirt with a 0101 on its front, and some normal-ish jeans. He'd also grabbed a gray-black sweatshirt with a lightning bolt on the back, just in case it got cold again.

Taira paused from her drowning of Foxmon when she heard a branch snap. "Poromon?"

"Shhh...I told you she could hear us..." The bush bluntly spoke aloud.

Taira picked up the wet Foxmon and covered herself. "Alright you little perverts come out or I'll have to do a little hedge trimming!"

The bush moved again as a pale seal-like creature came from out of the wild plants. Followed by another they stared at Taira for a few moments. "DO YOU MIND!" Taira flared at the top of her lungs. The Digimon erupted into apologies. "Turn around!" They did. Taira dashed out of the water and found the biggest leaf she could, and it was big, then wrapped it around her body. "Now what in the..." She paused to think, "WHAT EVER YOU CALL THIS PLACE!"

All the digimon spoke frightened.. "Digital World!"

This made Taira groan... "I call it hell, Now what were you doing...and who are you!"

They smiled confused. "What is He-"

The other digimon cut him off. "We are Gomamon and I am Charles..." He grinned coyly.

"No it's not! Your name is Cookie! YOUCH!"

The human sweatdropped. "And your name?"

He had to think... "Darik..." He wiggled his eyebrows.

"He is not very smart, I apologize...his REAL name is Nookie...we're twins...Call me Charles please...It's so human...." His tone started to get deep like when a guy is trying to sound cool, but miserably fails.

Isthian sauntered lazily over to Fiona again. "Hey, what's with all the warm clothes everybody's putting on? We're in the middle of a desert! Hard to get too much hotter than this!" He fanned his face with one hand.

Over by the pile of food, Hayamon was beginning to act strangely. He stumbled around moaning for a few seconds, then glowed brightly... "Hayamon digivolve to... Wollymon!"

Isthian glanced over at his now In-Training partner. "Hey, whaddya know! Blobby-head's back!"

Chris blinked. "Isthian, deserts get cold at night, too. You wait- soon you'll be losing toes to frostbite in that outfit. Prolly lose the nose, too." He looked around. "So, what do we do now? Go about saving the world again?"

Kamika shook her head. "Isthian. . . You DO know we won't be staying in the desert FOREVER. It's bound to get cold! Of course. . . That's just a guess. . ." She ended with a grin.

Puttimon laughed. "Now that we're ON that topic. . . What are we gonna do now??" She asked curiously to anyone who was near and heard her.

Sayu had only been half-listening. She had listened to the others, and had been contemplating this whole save-the-world thing. Why bother? What was wrong with the Digiworld the way it was now? Life could be harder; she knew so, because she'd lived a harder life than this. But still... when she looked at Scubamon and Divermon, they were miserable, and the things causing this misery seemed to be the evil Digimon they fought. Sayu, feeling more at home in the Digiworld then she had in Cairo, for some reason felt as if her territory was threatened by these 'Dark Masters.' And even though she didn't need or care for anyone, she felt obliged to protect the space where she lived. So, hearing Puttimon's question, she made a decision on her path, right then and there.

"We're all gonna go'n find this Metalseadr'mon, an' then we're gonna beat 'im, an' once we get there we'll decide what t'do next." Sayu announced determinedly. Gizamon looked up at his Partner in surprise. She was actually going to do something nice for others? Cocking his head, he decided that she had found some excuse and had convinced herself that wasn't why she was doing it, but Gizamon was sure that was the reason. So, grinning impishly, he turned to say good-bye to his friends, Scubamon and Divermon. Hopefully not forever.

"Geez! Naggy, aren't you all?" Isthian made a big show of rolling his eyes. "Look, if it'll make you all be quiet, then I'll go get something warmer already! Sheesh!" With that, he sprang away upstairs -- not admitting even to himself that this was because the others had a good point.

Once up there, he scrounged around for a few moments before settling on a royal blue sweatshirt. He tied this loosely around his waist, then grabbed a white undershirt from the pile, tucking it behind his waist so that the sweatshirt held it against his back. Something to rip up to use for bandages -- other than his new clothing -- might be useful sometime.

He closed the lid of the trunk with a thud, gave it a heavy pat to make sure it was closed properly, then bounded back down the stairs.

"Okay, guys, I'm ready when you are!" He winked roguishly at the gang, and caught Wollymon as he leapt into his partner's arms.

"Whatever you say, guys." Chris grinned. "After all, saving the world is always a nice thing to do, eh?"

Tekumon looked up from finishing his pig-out on the remaining food, and nodded.

Chris then turned to Divermon and Scubamon. "Either of you know where this Metalseadramon person is? Maybe one of you could take us to him... or take us to someone who would take us to him?" He shrugged. "Walking around in the desert isn't all that fun for me."

"Saving the world, a nice thing? More like a pointless thing. I mean, look at it logically. Eventually the world'll be gone anyway, and we'll all be dead. What's the point?" Kyrainia stated.

Scubamon and Divermon both gave Tekumon a look of pure terror.

Gizamon chuckled. "I know the way." He told the group, not particularly interested in telling them how he did. "Follow me!" And he scampered out of the house. Sayu had the idea of grabbing a nearby canteen, and quickly filling it with water, before following her Partner out of the house.

The comment from Kyrainia hung in the air for a few seconds, and made Chris flinch and turn around from where he'd been filling up a canteen he'd found. "Jeez, Kyrainia, WHY is it that you always need to be so fatalistic?! This world has lots of things living in it! Maybe you should think about the idea that not ALL of them might want to just roll over and wait to die! You wanna do that, fine by me, but don't keep nattering about it! Cause, frankly, I'm sick of it."

Finishing an orange, Tekumon groaned. "Here they go AGAIN..."

"Oh bloody hell, you know what Chris dear? How often have I actually gone on about how everything's worthless and dying and all that shit you're referring to? Not actually as often as you're implying. Honestly. Besides, if I just roll over and die...then you don't have all your damned digidestined and then you can't save the damn world anyway. You might as well admit that I do have to be here. No matter how much you hate that fact. I'm not too keen on it either," Kyrainia stated calmly, glancing at her nails.

Sayu watched this with a smirk. "Y'know," She told Kyrainia. "He's so damned stupid words don' cut it. If you wanna make a point, then you send 'im to Anubis." As an example, she punched him in the gut then grabbed his hair, pulled him down, pulled his head up, quickly removed her hand from his hair and punched him in the jaw. She then turned to grin at Kyrainia. "I would kill 'im, but then 'is li'l girlfriend would throw a hissy fit, an' 'is weaklin' of a Pardner would be mad. An' I'm really not in the mood to kill three people." She shrugged. Gizamon sweatdropped.

"Um... shouldn't we get... going...?"

Kamika glared at Sayu as she rushed to Chris's side. "Stop being so horrible!" She didn't really like the fact that she kept attacking Chris like that. "If you want to leave, then why don't you just stop attacking him?!" To Kyrainia, she sighed and spoke softly. "Yes the world may DIE out eventually. But that's STILL eventually. If anything it won't happen NOW. For now, we should just at least TRY to live life out and maybe not get ourselves killed. . ." Her comment ended there but she seemed to hold it through. Shaking her head, she hoped she had gotten the message through and tried to tend to the wounds her boyfriend had.

"But getting ourselves killed is just ever so much fun, don't you know?" Kyrainia smirked slightly.

Kamika grinned back at Kyrainia. "Sure if that's how you look at life. But hey, that's just you." She gave a small wink to the older female.

Isthian looked at the girls nervously. "Well!" he said, with an attempt at brisk authority, "I don't know about you, but I think it's time we got out of here!" Thian strode out the door... then a few moments later, strolled back in again, sweatdropping. "It's pretty hot out there, you know that?"

Wollymon tried to squirm down the neck of Isthian's shirt, hampered by the fact that Isthian easily picked him up and held him high over his head. "I'm not going out there without some shade!" the little Digimon squealed.

Chris twitched for a few seconds on the floor, and then, with Kamika's help, got up slowly, popping his jaw. He had a vein pulsing quite strongly on his forehead, and his teeth would have been grinding if his jaw wasn't in intense and blistering pain. "WHY IS IT THAT YOU MUST ALL CONTINUALLY BEAT UPON ME?!" He seethed for a few seconds, and then continued. "I am SICK and tired of you, Sayu, whacking on me at every opportunity. What is your PROBLEM?!" Chris was starting to work himself up into a frenzy. He growled. "If you're so hot to beat me up, then maybe you should... cool off!" He stepped up to Sayu and shoved her, HARD, into the lake. Chris then stormed off to another corner of the underground cave, still extraordinarily pissed off.

Sayu, for once, was speechless.

But that was probably because she had water in her mouth, which she hastily spit out.

"EEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" She screeched, getting drenched for the second time. She was out of the water as fast as she could, running after Chris and pouncing on him, eyes flashing red. "You are so dead, Podima." She seethed angrily, kneeing him in the crotch, and grabbing a sharp, almost dagger-like rock. She was completely and totally serious. She intended to kill Chris Podima. Lifting the rock above her head, she was about to bring it down and slice his throat open...

"SAYU! SAYU! STOP!" Gizamon shrieked, horrified. Seeing that she wouldn't listen to him, he tackled her, pushing her off of Chris. She grabbed him by one of his spikes and tossed him aside, eyes still red with fury. The Digimon banged into a wall and landed in a heap, shuddering. Sayu advanced on Chris again, still clutching the sharp rock.

"I swear I will kill you!" She hissed, totally serious. "By Ra, I swear it!" Sayu then pounced on Chris again.

Kamika was absolutely terrified and ABSOLUTELY furious. They had both gone absolutely crazy and she did not like it ONE bit. Rushing over to Chris, she pushed Sayu away. "STOP IT!" She stood before the girl, not wanting to have anymore fighting. "THAT'S IT! BOTH OF YOU ARE ACTING ABSOLUTELY CRAZY! I don't GIVE that she did this or he did that! Believe it or not WE ARE MEANT TO SAVE THIS WORLD! NOT FIGHT WITH EACH OTHER! Now either you two STOP the fighting and just IGNORE each other for the rest of this time or you can GO AHEAD AND KILL YOURSELVES AND THE REST OF US WHILE YOU'RE AT IT!" She panted heavily.

Sayu scowled at her. "I'll kill you too, if you don' move right NOW." She hissed, eyes narrowed dangerously, sharp and pointy object still grasped in her hand.

Gizamon was busy being a limp heap on the floor, but no one cares about him.

Kamika glared at Sayu with courage she didn't even know she had. "I don't THINK so. If you're going to kill me, then GO RIGHT AHEAD. But I'm NOT about to let you hurt anybody else in this group."

Sayu, pride sorely bruised from the drop-in-the-lake incident of a few minutes before, was quite willing to just go ahead and kill Kamika along with Chris. But Gizamon had finally hauled himself to his feet, and stood determinedly in front of Kamika now.

"Sayu, c'mon! Stop this! I'm not about to stop you from doing what you want to do, but at least think. Do you want to kill them before or after the Digiworld's saved?" Gizamon pleaded, hoping that if she managed to save the Digiworld with them she wouldn't want to kill them anymore. Sayu scowled at him. Finally, she made a decision. Taking her digivice, she threw it at Gizamon's feet, and ran off into the desert, as enraged as she'd ever been in her life. Gizamon whimpered, but stayed with the other Digidestined. Right now, he felt, they needed him more than Sayu did.

Okay, so Kamika was defended. But she still didn't think that they should lose Sayu no matter HOW cruel she was. She was still going to be a member of their group. Turning to Puttimon, she smiled. "I'm going to find her," she said confidently, although she knew herself she didn't have any. She turned on her heel and ran after the retreating Sayu, hoping that she could at LEAST convince the girl that she would stay. Kamika shook her head. 'This is the stupidest plan you've ever had,' she thought as she left behind the others.

Thian finally came to his senses and stopped gawking at the fight between the two girls, and the other boy. This was substantially helped by the two girls running off, leaving him little left to gawk at.

Deciding that he was either going to have to get moving or sit down soon, Thi strode over to Gizamon and looked down at the little, brightly colored creature. "I don't know much about that girl you're with, but it seems to me she's in the mood for a fight." Isthian smirked at his own understatement. "I think our best chance of finding her is to hunt down that thing she was talking about mauling earlier. Heh, by the looks of her, she could probably just smell out its scent to find it. Whaddya say?"

Wollymon, long forgotten, bounced over to Fiona to get some attention. "Hello!" he chirped merrily at Penguinmon. "These Humon creatures are really flighty, don't you think?"

Sayu glanced behind her, saw Kamika following, and promptly speeded up as she ran out into the desert. Before completely losing the other girl, she threw the sharp object back at Kamika, hoping it would hit and/or injure her. And with that, she expertly disappeared from Kamika's sight by vanishing into the mid-afternoon desert haze.

Gizamon, still depressed over Sayu's disappearance, nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right. Thanks." He turned to face the other children now. "Alright, let's head out!" he called, and marched off in the direction of the ocean where he knew Metalseadramon dwelled.

Penguinmon nodded. "I've never met a Digimon as violent as these kids... well, maybe evil Digimon, but those don't count." He frowned. "Maybe we should do something," he said to himself, but then thought about it. "...nah."

Kamika cursed loudly as first Sayu ran from her view and the rock she had thrown had cut her at the arm. It wasn't MUCH but she did start bleeding so all she could do was rip off a piece of cloth from her nice white shirt and try to tie it over the cut. Kamika had stopped running after a while and now she KNEW she was lost. "Great! Maybe I shouldn't have left Puttimon back there," she muttered to herself. At least WITH Puttimon she might have either been able to protect herself or get around much faster. She looked around and just kept running, not even sure if she was going the right direction, as long as she didn't stay in the same spot.

Puttimon sighed. "This isn't good. . ." She looked up in the direction Kamika had run off. "At least we might be able to find her," the digimon said, remembering the digivice she carried. She walked over to Chris and tried to see if she could stay with him while Kamika was away.

Chris got up painfully, and the bright sparkly dots cleared from his vision just in time for him to see Kamika running out after Sayu. "Hey, wait! Where're you goin'....owww." He clinched up for a few seconds as he felt the aftereffects of Sayu's punishment.

After the haze in his brain had cleared sufficiently for him to be coherent again, he sighed. "Great... once again, we're separated. Damn that Sayu!" He looked worriedly toward the entrance. "I hope Kamika will be okay... I better go after her." He pulled out his digivice just in time to see Kamika's dot disappear off the eastern side of the screen. "Tekumon, Puttimon, come on. We're going." He grabbed his canteen and left with Tekumon and Puttimon following. "That Metalseadramon will have to wait... Kamika's in danger." He entered the blowing sand outside, and started to disappear from view.

"NO!" Gizamon hissed angrily, running after Chris and grabbing the boy's foot in his teeth, pulling Chris backwards. "Stay with the group, baka!" He scolded as well as he could with Chris's foot in his mouth. Giza then proceeded to drag Chris back towards the others.

Puttimon sweatdropped as Chris got pulled back to the group. Here was her chance to find her partner but then Gizamon had to go stop that. She sighed and walked behind Chris, knowing that she couldn't go off on her own or else she'd be lost like the other two that were already out there.

"Come on, stop whining! Spikey-thingy's right. If we go and split up into a dozen little groups, it'll just take us that much longer to find each other, right? Besides, Chris's girl is following that new girl. So if we go to where the new girl's going, then we'll get to where everybody'll be -- once we all get to where we're going, that is."

Wollymon blinked at Penguinmon with confusion, having stuck with him as the group started moving. "I don't think it can be a good thing when you can't even understand your own partner..." He gave an extra big squish on his downward bounce for emphasis. "They might be nice, but they are confusing!" His eyes shrank to little dots. "And, yeah, violent, too. What freaky creatures they are."

"Sayu doesn't deserve to be part of the team!" Christo raged, "She's mean, she's violent, and she doesn't even seem to treat Gizamon with the respect you should give to your partner," she turned to Gizamon, "No offence, I mean, I know she's your partner, but we're all just sick to death of her! And if she wants to leave, I for one am not going to stop her. She can take care of herself out there!"

Labramon walked up to her partner, knowing she had to calm Christo down. "Christo, it's not that simple. There has to be eight digidestined, to fit the eight Heavenly Digieggs in the heart of Infinity Mountain. If there are less than eight children, the team will fail," She smiled--if it was possible for a dog to smile, "Didn't you wonder why, the moment Tina died, a new member showed up to fill the gap? One, two, three, all the way up to seven digidestined can still win battles, defeat evil, but they will never reach full potential, never be able to save the digiworld, and if the team is not completed, there will come a time when they will be defeated, and the incomplete team will die."

Wait. That didn't seem quite right.

"But... Sayu got here, like, two or three days before we first met you guys. So, that means at one point there were nine Digidestined." Gizamon frowned. "How does that fit in?"

Puttimon thought to herself. "I think it was more of destiny's work. Like the Digiworld knew that one of the digidestined was meant to die soon and for that reason, it brought forth Sayu early just in time for her to find us and fill in our spot." She sweatdropped slightly, adding in, "Of course, that's just my theory. . ."

Penguinmon nodded. "Right you are. Very freaky."

Puttimon nodded slowly. "Yeah. . ." She really couldn't add anymore, now could she? Looking out into the distance, she hoped that Kamika was safe.

Kamika had stopped running. She was tired! It wasn't like she was used to running around. 'Hmm. . . That tree looks familiar. . .' She groaned as she smacked her forehead. 'Don't tell me I've been running in circles. . . Or does everything just HAPPEN to look the same out here?' She shook her head as she trudged on. This was NOT going good. Pulling out her digivice, she looked at it. Everyone was rather far from her and she STILL had to find Sayu. Only way that would be possible was through luck and she HOPED she had enough of that as she continued on.

"Man... I must've been asleep during this class!" complained Wollymon as he listened in to the other Digimon's conversation.

"Either that, or they're just making it all up," joked Isthian, in an attempt to hide his abject confusion. "But whatever! This isn't getting us anywhere... Keep it moving, people!" Thian set a slightly faster pace.

Puttimon laughed. "I think it's more of us making it up." She grinned at the digimon and his partner. "Which makes me wonder. . ." She turned to Isthian. "We're going somewhere. . . But. . . Are we going to go find Sayu or Kamika?" she asked curiously. "Because I don't want to be a bother out of nowhere. . ."

Wollymon smiled happily. "That's good to hear!" He joined in her laughter.

"Umm..." Isthian looked at Puttimon with a frown for a moment, but then looked away to hide his uncertain eyes. "To find them both, of course! We're all going to meet up at the same place! It's the perfect plan!"

Puttimon smiled at both Wollymon and Isthian. She liked his answer so she decided that she'd just leave it at that. "Great! I'm glad. . ." She said happily. Of course, she hid the fact that she knew something was up and that maybe they might not be ABLE to find Kamika. She started humming as she walked alongside the two.

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