Disclaimer: Guess who doesn’t own Digimon! Me! Guess who earns no money from writing fanfics! me!

Slightly annoyed, the young boy with brown eyes hidden behind the strands of navy blue hair that forever hung in his face sighed. It was the long suffering sigh of those who were trapped, helpless in a poor situation. And of course, no situation was worse than when the last ten minutes of school for the year just seemed to drag on forever.

The second child to bear the name Ichijouji Osamu had no earth shattering plans for his summer vacation; at eleven, he was too young to get a job, he wasn’t going to camp, and he had found no interesting summer courses to take, he merely was looking forward to not having to deal with due dates and tests and teachers for a few weeks. Naturally, at this moment the last thing on his mind was the inevitable boredom that would over take him a week after school was out. Being a child, Osamu would likely never admit to anyone, including himself, that he liked school. He liked the due dates and the tests. The teachers could use some improvement, but all good things had there down sides.

A quick glance at the clock told Os-chan, as his younger siblings ‘cutely’ called him, that there was only seven minutes left in his wait. He drummed his fingers on the desk. His teacher had assigned a bit of busy work to keep the children occupied, but Osamu had finished long ago and was getting restless. Six more minutes. He wondered if perhaps his teacher would let him get a sip of water; that would kill some time and the short walk from his seat to the fountain in the hall would provide a tiny bit of simulation. After a short period of consideration, Osamu decided against it. As far as teachers go, this one was rather sadistic.

As usual, the announcements came through the classroom over the intercom when there were still five minutes left before dismissal. Osamu listened to the announcements, not because there was any interesting news, there was barely any at all being the last day as it was, but for the tiny bit of simulation that the speaker provided.

Finally, the students were dismissed. The disciplined youngsters that they were, the class stood and handed in their final assignment before exiting the classroom. Once outside the confines of the classroom, the excitement of summer break set in. Children ran and laughed, tugging at the stiff jackets of their school uniforms.

Osamu took off at a dead run to his youngest sibling’s class. The baby of the family, Rei, was only now leaving the second grade and the children were far less disciplined at that age. For the painfully shy Rei, days where excitement was abound in other children were terribly frightening.

"Os-chan!" the eight year old cried upon seeing her oldest brother. Osamu noticed immediately that his sister was the only student left in the classroom.

"Hey, Aba-chan," he said brightly, taking her hand so not to lose her in the crowd of jubilant children. "What do you say we go find the twins?" Rei nodded enthusiastically; in her opinion, the sharp violet-eyed twins were great fun.

Predictably, the twins, ten year old Ichijouji Daisuke and Ichijouji Hikari were outside, chucking whatever parts of their school uniforms they could without becoming indecent. The twins were both loud, excitable and somewhat obnoxious. Though they both were incredibly observant, they did poorly in school, most likely stemming from indifference. They were all about having fun and used their talents in the name of mischief.

"Os-chan! Aba-chan! Join the party!" Hikari had called out, waving the bright red scarf that was normally tied into a large bow on the front of her uniform.

"Hi-chan!" Osamu shouted over the crowd. He was answered with Daisuke’s blazer hitting him in the face. "You two are the most immature people I’ve ever met!" Osamu said, snatching the blazer from where it landed on his head. Rei just laughed at her siblings’ antics.

Daisuke and Hikari broke from the crowd. Daisuke swung Rei into the air.

"That’s our Aba-chan!! Encourage your crazy sibs!"

Osamu gave Daisuke a playful slap upside the head.

"Dai-chan, we have to go home anyway. Mom’s expecting us at the normal time."

"Right, right," Dai grumbled. "No fun for us. Hi-chan, Aba-chan, the eldest has spoken." Hi gave a melodramatic sigh, playing along with her twin. Rei chuckled. Osamu rolled his eyes.

The four siblings walked home together, as was the norm for the quartet any other day.

"What are we going to do?" Dai asked later that afternoon. Like Osamu, neither the twins nor Rei had any plans for the summer and boredom had already begun to set in.

"Vegetate," Hi replied as she flipped through the channels on the TV. Dai made a face at her before turning back to his game of chess with Osamu.

"Checkmate," Dai sighed. "You’re too easy, Os-chan."

"Can I play?" Rei asked, leaning over the shoulder of her oldest brother.

"Do you know how?" Osamu asked, knowing the answer already.

"No, can’t you teach me?"

"Dai can, can’t you, Dai-chan?"

"Sure," Dai said. Rei happily spread herself out on the carpet in front of the wooden chessboard that Dai had set up on the floor. Osamu stood and stretched, making room for Rei. He crossed the living room, ruffling Hi’s lavender hair as he passed where she was seated on the couch. Osamu seated himself at the family’s computer, and tried to call up a computer game.

"Hey! Guys, the mouse isn’t working!" Osamu shouted. He started poking around the wiring connections but couldn’t find anything wrong. Finding the computer malfunctions more interesting than television reruns, Hi similarly started poking around the computer.

"Just reboot it," Dai suggested between explaining the functions of rooks and knights. Osamu shrugged and pushed the smaller button below the on/off switch. Instead of the normal DOS screen however, the monitor began to glow. A white light filled the room and when visibility returned to normal, not a single one of the Ichijouji siblings remained in the room.

**********************

"Os-chan! Dai-chan! Hi-chan! Rei-chan!" No answer. Ichijouji Miyako scowled. She couldn’t think of an instance of when she arrived home from work and none of her children were present. Her long lavender hair with strands of gray running through was pulled back into a bun, with a few wisps around her face. Suddenly, she was far more aware of those wisps and kept trying to push them away from her eyes. Not able to even find a note from one of the kids, Miyako was getting agitated. The simple fact was Osamu was far too responsible to go off, or even let one of the other children leave, without telling anyone. Even if Dai and Hi decided to do something spontaneously, which they did often, Os and Rei should still be home.

Miyako took a few deep breaths and began to investigate. She found nothing out of place, not a single sign of struggle. She noticed the television was on; a good sign. Someone had paused to watch it. She noticed Dai’s chessboard on the floor; the black player had a large advantage over the white player. Two people had stopped to play, another good sign. She noticed the computer was on; someone had stopped to turn it on.

Her children had been home, that she knew for certain. They were there no longer.

**********************

The second child to bear the name Ichijouji Osamu sat up, rubbing his head.

"Hi-chan?" he called. Last he knew, the female twin was beside him. Now she was no where to be seen. "Dai-chan?" he ventured. Nothing. "Aba-chan?" There was no answer from Rei either.

"Who are you looking for?"

"My brother and sisters," Osamu answered, paying attention only to the voice and not to the speaker.

"Oh, well, don’t worry, Osamu-chan, we’ll find them!"

"We? Osamu-chan? How do you know my name? And who said you could call me ‘chan?’" Osamu whipped his head around, trying to see who had spoken to him. He didn’t see anyone.

"We’re friend for life, Osamu-chan! Of course I can call you ‘chan!’

"Who and where are you?"

"Right here."

It was then that Osamu noticed a stunningly bright yellow ball whose shining black eyes made a sharp contrast. The ...thing’s... body had only two other distinctions: a pair of orange appendages that were almost triangle shaped. It was then that Osamu made a rather obscure comparison between the creature and how young children might draw the sun, only this one had just two ‘rays.’

"I’m Solarmon," the thing continued. "I’m your Digimon partner, Osamu-chan." Solarmon bounced onto to Osamu’s lap. Almost instinctively, Os picked up the digimon. He supposed the link he made to the creature and a drawing of the sun wasn’t obscure after all.

"So, what’s a digimon?" Osamu asked.

"You don’t know?" Solarmon asked, surprised. "I thought you would..."

"How would I?"

"Your parents were Chosen Children when they were your age. In fact, your father even tried to rule this world. I never imagined that they would kept that from you."

"‘Chosen Children?’ ‘This world?’"

"Look around, Osamu-chan, you’re in the Digital World now. You’ve been chosen to save the it. Your brother and sisters are here, too. You four are Chosen Children." Osamu nodded.

"I’m not sure what we’ll be doing now that we’re here, but I think first we’d better find my sibs. If I know them, Aba’s going to be scared and Dai and Hi will be causing trouble."

"T-trouble? Like evil digimon?"

"No, like getting themselves into scrapes."

"Talking about us behind our backs?"

"We’re insulted."

Osamu grinned. The twins stood before him, each one with a creature in their arms.

"Solarmon," Osamu said, "allow me to introduce you to the twins. This is Daisuke," the younger boy with violet eyes and dark blue hair bowed slightly. "And this is Hikari." The girl with violet eyes and lavender hair who stood beside her twin bowed in the same fashion he had. "We just call them Dai and Hi."

"Pleased to meet you, Dai-san and Hi-san," Solarmon said.

"Likewise," the twins said in unison. "Now allow us to introduce you to our Digimon, Os-chan," Dai continued. "This is Checkmon." Dai’s digimon was round, much like Solarmon, but with the two appendages. He looked like a ball carved out of wood and then stained white.

"And this," Hi said, "is Orangemon." Orangemon was also round. She had light orange fur and eyes of a darker shade of orange. "She digi-vovled from Redmon and Checkmon digi-volved from Pawnmon. What did Solarmon digi-volve from?"

"Digi-volve?" Osamu asked.

"Didn’t you find Solarmon in a Digi-Egg at Primary Village? That’s where we just came from. We woke up in a place that looked like a town built especially for babies and there were huge eggs everywhere." Dai said. "Then two of the eggs started glowing. Pawnmon and Redmon hatched when we touched the eggs, and then they digi-volved when we picked them up."

"Solarmon was like this when I woke up," Osamu said. "In fact, I haven’t moved since we got here. Solarmon started telling me about Chosen Children and I guess finding you guys took a back seat to knowing why we’re here."

"We’re here to save the Digital World, right?" Hi asked. "Why else would we be?"

Dai looked sharply at his twin.

"How do know this stuff, Hi-chan?"

Hi rolled her eyes.

"Don’t tell me you bought Mom and Dad’s story about how they met in a wallpaper store. They were both Chosen Children. It took a while for me to get the whole story out of them, but I guess they knew I can tell when they’re lying. It’s secret though, so I couldn’t tell you. There were a bunch more kids here, too. Mom and Dad wouldn’t tell me who they were."

"Enough chat," Osamu said, "We still have to find Aba."

"But how?" Dai asked.

Hi reached in her pocket and pulled out a small mechanical device.

"We can track her using our Digi-vices," she said, waving her black with pink trimmed Digi-vice.

"Where did you get that?" Dai asked, jealous.

"I had it when we got here. I knew what to expect, I guess. You have one, too. Check your pockets," Hi told them. Her brothers did so. All three digi-vices resembled cell phones; they were a few inches long, flat and had a screen, a short antennae and many buttons. Each one was black, except for a stripe going around the screen and the buttons. Hi’s was pink trimmed, Dai’s was blue trimmed and Osamu’s was teal trimmed. On the square screen, four glowing lights were present. The pink, blue and teal lights were positioned together, but the fourth light, a red one was on the other side of the screen.

"We must follow the red light to Aba," Osamu assumed.

"That would be my guess," Hi said with a shrug.

"So what are we waiting for?" Dai asked. With no answer, the three set off to locate their missing sister.

**********************

There was no answer. Very unlike Ken, Miyako mused. She tried dialing his work number again, but there was still no answer. She hoped the children were just with their father; that would make everything so much easier and far less frightening. Miyako knew it was to early in the game to get truly worried, she was a woman of science and knew there was a reasonable explanation for everything.

Of course, being the fairly irrational person she was, that provided little help and her anxiety grew.

A few moments after Miyako fourth attempt to call Ken and her third try at IMing him, the door to the apartment opened.

"Ken!" Miyako cried. "Do you know where the kids are?"

"Aren’t they were they normally are on a Wednesday afternoon?" Ken asked cautiously. It appeared to him that Miyako was desperately trying to hold back a bout of hysteria, which meant something was either going very well or extraordinarily bad.

"If you mean home, then no. There was no one here when I got home from work."

"They didn’t leave a note?" Ken’s eyes got that particular look in them that Miyako had come to recognize instantly; the one that meant his mind was going far faster than she could possibly imagine to solve a problem. Miyako shook her head.

"The TV was on, Dai had a chess game set up..." Miyako started once again running through the things she’d found when she arrived. "...Their shoes are gone, there were no signs of struggle..." She noticed Ken was staring vacantly at the computer against the wall. "You don’t think..."

"Miyako, call Koushiro-san." Ken’s tone was a bit harsher than what Miyako was used to, but she had heard it before and didn’t question him. After all, Ken had experience when it came to disappearing without a trace.

**********************

"Daddy’s nice," the child answered. She cocked her head to one side, looking the being that had asked the question up and down. He looked like a big caterpillar, but he said he was a worm. She sat on a branch in a tree, swinging her legs. Absentmindedly, she petted Moonmon, the digimon on her lap. She wasn’t very soft or cute, but Rei liked the creature anyway. The caterpillar was next to her. It didn’t smile or anything, but Rei thought he was happy. She just had this feeling like he was happy, because Daddy was nice.

"Hey, look, Moonmon, look Wormmon, it’s my brothers and sister!" Rei pointed downwards and the digital looked down. "Os-chan! Dai-chan! Hi-chan! Up here!"

"Aba-chan!" Osamu called. "How did you get up there?"

"I woke up here," she responded. "I can get down, though. Wormmon said he could get us down easy."

"Us?" Osamu questioned.

Rei held Moonmon in her brother’s view.

"Sticky net!" Wormmon shouted, and spit out a net from the branch to the ground. "Just climb down," he told Rei.

"What should I do with Moonmon?" Rei asked. Before anyone could answer, the digimon leapt from her lap to the ground. "Oh." Carefully, Rei climbed down the net rung by rung. Wormmon used a sticky thread to lower himself to the ground.

"Are you okay, Moonmon?" Rei asked her digimon.

"Fine," the creature responded.

"You look a lot like Ken-chan," Wormmon breathed, looking at Dai. "Just like how Rei-chan looks a lot like Miyako-san."

"Um, yeah," Dai said. "Anyway, I’m Daisuke, but everyone calls me ‘Dai’ and these are Hikari and Osamu. We call ‘em ‘Hi’ and ‘Os.’ And we call Rei ‘Aba.’"

"Daisuke? Hikari?" Wormmon questioned. "Like Motomiya-san and Yagami-san?"

Dai shrugged.

"We were named after some friends of our parents. If that’s who you mean, then I guess so."

"Motomiya Daisuke and Ken-chan were Jogress partners," Wormmon said. "Their digimon, Veemon and myself could digi-volve into one when we were in our Champion stages. Yagami Hikari and Miyako-san could do the same thing with their digimon."

"Mystery solved," Dai said with another shrug.

"Here’s another mystery then," Hi said walking over the Dai, Checkmon and Wormmon with Orangemon in tow. "What’s wrong with the Digital World that we’re here?"

"A lot of good digimon have been going bad lately," Wormmon said sadly. "No one knows why. You must have been chosen to uncover the problem and fix it."

"Like a computer virus? Corrupting the digimon?" Hi asked.

"Maybe," Wormmon said. "No one knows for sure."

"So, we’ll find out," Hi said.

"Just don’t ask ‘How hard can it be,’" Orangemon said.