"Moshi, moshi. This is Yagami. Is Joe there? Huh, an exam? What exam? His junior high entrance exam?"
Right at that moment, because he'd missed his train, Joe was late for the test and was sprinting in a panic toward the exam hall.
"Okay, got it."
Tai hung up helplessly. Looked like Joe was no help today. He could only dial again.
"Matt's out? With T.K.? Could I ask where they went? Shimane? (Where even is that…?) Um, could you… tell me the phone number there?"
"Hurry up, hurry up…"
Once he got the number for Shimane, he immediately dialed.
"Hello?" Someone finally picked up.
"And who might you be?"
On the other end came an old, slow, drawling voice.
"I'm Yagami from Tokyo, sorry to bother you—" Tai started, but the person obviously hadn't heard a word.
"Sorry, could you say that one more time?"
Three dark lines practically slid down Tai's face. "Um… I'm looking for Matt."
"Mmm, mmm." Matt's grandmother seemed to think she understood and nodded along. "Matt is my grandson, he's a very good boy."
Right now Tai felt like a chicken trying to talk to a duck, but this was important. "Sorry, I really need to talk to him about something urgent."
"I see."
Click.
Listening to the dead "beep… beep…" on the line, Tai's mouth twitched nonstop. "She… hung up… Forget it, next one."
While Tai was frantically working the phone, his mom Yuko was chatting leisurely with Izzy over oolong tea.
"Izzy, do you have any plans for spring break?" she asked.
"Mm, nothing special," Izzy replied.
"You don't like going out much, huh?"
"Hello, Mimi?"
But on Mimi's side, only the voice on the answering machine played back: "This is Mimi, please leave a message after the beep."
"Can't get hold of anyone…" Tai muttered.
Over by the counter, Izzy was helping sift and beat the flour for the cake batter while Yuko cracked eggs into a bowl and chatted.
"Hey, do you know the phone number of the house Kari went to?" Tai called over his shoulder.
"Like this?" Izzy asked, thumping the box of flour just right.
"Yeah, that's it. Just don't let it get all clumpy."
He got zero response to his actual question.
"Mom!" Tai protested at last.
"Right, right, yes!" Yuko finally turned around to answer. "There's a note over there with the number. It's for the Chisato… I mean, Senri family."
"Here it is."
Tai quickly fished out the slip of paper and dialed.
Over at the birthday party, they'd just reached the most important part—blowing out the candles. But no one was blowing; they were all staring at Kari, who was on the phone. Feeling the weight of all those eyes, Kari hurriedly turned back to the receiver.
"I can't come home yet, we haven't blown out the candles," she said.
Tai pinched the bridge of his nose, utterly helpless. "Fine, just hurry back after you blow them out."
He hung up and stared at the very last number on his list, hesitating for a long moment… then decided to make Izzy do it.
He interrupted Izzy, who was still working the flour. "Izzy! Uh, can you call Sora for me?"
"Sora?" Izzy blinked. "Wouldn't it be better if you—"
Before he could finish, Tai shoved the phone at him, completely cutting him off. "Here, just do it."
"You're calling more friends over?" Yuko asked, looking at Tai.
Tai didn't answer, slumping into the chair instead. "I want oolong tea too."
"At least answer me when I talk to you," she grumbled, but still opened the fridge and got him a bottle of oolong tea.
On Sora's side, her mom answered the call first.
"Yes, I'll tell her someone called from the Yagami house, all right?" she said. Just then Sora opened the door and stepped in. "Please hold, she just got back."
Izzy could hear their conversation over the line.
"Who was it?" Sora asked.
"Someone from the Yagami home."
"Tell him I'm not here."
"But…"
"Just tell him that."
"Um… she asked me to tell you she's not at home," Sora's mom relayed awkwardly.
Izzy hung up, helpless, and turned to Tai with a very nosy look. "So what happened between you two?"
Hearing that, Yuko also subtly pricked up her ears.
"Nothing," Tai said at once, absolutely not wanting to talk about it.
"Something definitely happened, right?" Izzy pressed.
"Nothing at all."
"Now's really not the time for a lovers' quarrel, you know."
"We're not fighting!" Tai's pitch shot up several notes.
"So you are having a fight," Izzy concluded, totally satisfied with his deduction.
"It's just…"
"Mmm?" x2
"That day it was her birthday, so I gave her a hair clip. And then she goes, 'So what, you don't like the hat I always wear?' I was still thinking about how to answer when she just turned around and left. And ever since then she's been like this…"
"I see, I see." The other two nodded in complete understanding.
Tai really didn't want this topic to drag on, so he quickly changed the subject. "Anyway, shouldn't we be acting already?"
Over at Sora's place, she opened her email inbox but found no message from Tai. Her fingers tightened on the hair clip, and her expression immediately soured. Just then, the DT Digivice in her pocket pinged. She opened it and saw it was Tai's message.
Sora read the apology mail with a satisfied little smile—but when she saw the little heart he'd drawn next to his name at the end, her face flushed bright red.
"Tai, you idiot…"
Meanwhile, the huge Ferris wheel outside the Yagami apartment kept on turning. Lots of people were riding it, enjoying the view of Odaiba. But as data kept being devoured, the Ferris wheel's rotation speed suddenly shot up, making the people inside scream at the top of their lungs.
At last, Tentomon and Agumon finished transferring.
Inside the network, Tentomon and Agumon raced toward their target at high speed.
"Tai, Izzy, we're here," Agumon reported to his partner.
"We're counting on you, Agumon," Tai said.
"Tentomon, let's strike first," Izzy urged. "That thing hasn't noticed you yet."
When Agumon and Tentomon reached a central hub in the network, they finally spotted that Digimon—its mouth wide open, devouring an absolutely staggering amount of data.
"Let's go, all at once."
"Right!"
The two split up and moved in from both sides.
"Super Shocker!"
Tentomon struck first, hitting Keramon squarely while it was still gorging on data and too distracted to react.
"Pepper Breath!"
Agumon seized the moment to kick it while it was down, spewing a stream of small fireballs toward the fallen Keramon.
"Got him!" Izzy shouted, thrilled.
But Keramon barely seemed hurt. Instead, it sent out an email like a challenge letter: "Come play."
"What do you mean, 'come play'? Take him down already!" Tai yelled at Agumon.
"Tentomon, time to digivolve," Izzy said, feeling just as played.
Light from the Digivice system surged into Agumon and Tentomon.
"Agumon digivolve to… Greymon!"
"Tentomon digivolve to… Kabuterimon!"
Kids all around the world who were watching this were stunned, eyes glued to the screen as they watched this unbelievable scene.
Greymon and Kabuterimon kicked off the wall and used the rebound to launch themselves toward Keramon, unleashing their special attacks mid-air.
Keramon, still moving constantly, fired back as it went.
Greymon and Kabuterimon's attacks landed, throwing up a thick cloud of smoke that hid Keramon's body.
Tai and Izzy stared nervously at the center of the smoke.
When it finally cleared, a completely different Digimon stood there.
"It evolved again. This is Infermon." Tai hurriedly brought up its data. "It actually skipped straight past Champion and evolved directly into an Ultimate-level form."
Infermon: a Digimon that Keramon evolves into, scuttling along the ground like a spider. It's said to be a messenger from hell, a very mysterious Digimon. Its six arms evolved from Keramon's tentacles, which lets it move at incredible speed. It invades every kind of network and destroys data. It can retract its limbs and head into its body and assume a cocoon-like form, and when it closes in, it only moves in a straight line.
Special attack:
Hell's Grenade – spits out searing flames from its mouth to burn its enemies.
An Ultimate-level Infermon was completely out of Greymon and Kabuterimon's league. Their attacks barely scratched it, and they couldn't keep up at all with its blistering speed.
"Damn it!" Tai slammed his fist down. "Greymon, go straight to Mega and finish it!"
"Hold it," Datamon cut in quickly. "This network hub can't handle the data load of a Mega-level Digimon. It's already starting to overload just from an Ultimate. You'll have to find a stronger server that can take a Mega, otherwise if the server crashes, who knows what kind of disaster it'll cause."
"Tch… no choice, then. Just go up to Ultimate," Tai said reluctantly.
"Greymon digivolve to… MetalGreymon!"
"Kabuterimon digivolve to… MegaKabuterimon!"
But just as Greymon and Kabuterimon were in the middle of evolving, Infermon locked onto the columns of light around them. It suddenly leapt into the air and launched Hell's Grenade straight at them while they were still mid-evolution, blowing them out of their digivolution.
"Attacking during a digivolution…" Izzy and Tai were both stunned. In all their past battles, nothing like this had ever happened.
With its ambush successful, Infermon let out a triumphant, mocking laugh. Then it tore open an exit in the network and slipped away from the battlefield.
Having been hit so hard mid-evolution, Greymon and Kabuterimon both reverted all the way back down to Rookie. The kids' first operation ended in complete failure—and their enemy had already reached Ultimate-level.
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