Melody was already packing her bag back up at that point. Gently, she nudged Lunamon.

"Probably best to pop back down into Moonmon, sweets," she murmured to her partner. "Easier to carry you that way." Lunamon mumbled a bit as she was woken up, but devolved back into Moonmon in a quick flash of light. Gently, Melody gathered her up.

"We should get going," she said, adjusting her bag on her shoulders and cuddling Moonmon. Her face was a bit flushed from the rush of energy she got back from her digimon.

"Going?" Ben asked as he finished the last of his berries. Melody nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "I want to try to make it back to the Biyomon village by dark so we have some shelter. They're up in the cloud forest." Ben blinked with a deer-in-the-headlights expression, but Coronamon looked curious.

"Biyomon?" he asked. "I've never met any of them before. Are they nice?"

"Very," Melody said, grinning. "They love visitors, and even more than that, they love storytellers, so they'll let us stay with them for the night if we tell them a few stories." She tipped her head towards the entrance to the cave. "I'm going to go scout out the path. Anyone want to come with me?"

"That sounds like it'll be perfect for you, Ben!" Casey grinned, following Melody out of the cave with Dorimon in tow. "I'm sure you'll get inspired for your stories if you haven't already been. They like any old story but I think something with a bit of humor that isn't too scary is best."

Jordan looked at Frimon who was eyeing the passage as each of the digimon and digidestined passed through it. After a moment he looked back at Jordan who picked him up and shuffled out of the cave. Frimon, of course, was ecstatic by the gesture, but did his best to keep it in just in case it spooked his partner.

Dorimon trotted along behind Casey as the group progressed up the path. Off and on she would stop to sniff around in case something was hiding in the bushes where they couldn't see but so far nothing was around that would be big enough to bother them. Her game of playing the guard was getting boring quickly and just when she was thinking about commenting on it Jordan stumbled over a rock half hidden under a thick bed of fallen leafs and nearly fell over on top of Frimon.

Frimon bounced out of his arms as they came toward the ground and rolled off onto another bed of leafs, but Jordan wasn't as lucky. Instead he half caught himself with his hands on the same hidden pile of angled rocks which caught his foot in the first place. He hissed and looked at his hands immediately after settling himself to check out the damage- scratches, like a severe rug burn off of the gritty rock surface. Who knows what kind of germs were all over those rocks and now there were dozens of tiny little cuts on his palms to invite them in. "Damn it..." He groaned, considering how he would stand himself up from the ground without further chancing the contamination of his hands.

"Well... that was spectacular." Casey giggled, a failed attempt to keep from laughing at the boy's clumsiness. Dorimon was smirking to herself similarly.

Frimon wasn't impressed with either of them. "That's not nice. Are you alright, Jordan? You didn't break anything, did you?"

Swallowing his pride a bit he nodded at Frimon. He didn't need a basketball sized cat with no legs and a built in costume to come defend his honor for falling but he doubted Frimon could help himself. It seemed to be programmed into thinking that was his job though in a way he supposed that was his job and Jordan could hardly blame him for that.

"You okay?" Melody asked when she saw Jordan get back up again. "Some of these rocks can be sharp. You didn't cut yourself, did you?" She turned and handed Moonmon to her brother. "Here, hold her for a minute."

Ben blinked when he suddenly found his arms full of sleeping digimon. He opened his mouth to ask his sister what she was doing, but Melody had already opened her bag, and was rummaging for something.

"Aha," she said, coming out of the bag again. She held up a spray container of Neosporin. She went over to Jordan. "Hold still," she said. Taking one of his hands, she sprayed the antibiotic on it. "There's really nothing that can get you sick in the digital world, short of an actual data virus, but your data still has pain protocols, just like your brain would register signals from your nerves, so this will make it stop hurting for a while."

Jordan winced, expecting the sting of iodine which, fortunately, never came. His family was a bit more old fashioned when it came to antiseptics. "Thanks, um, I'll do better not to trip anymore, though. I just didn't see it."

"Yeah, he didn't see it so you can stop laughing." Frimon huffed at Dorimon and Casey.

Casey waved her hand at Frimon "Oh, relax. I'd be lying if I said I never did that, kiddo, don't worry! Dorimon trips up all the time!"

"Casey!!" Dorimon gasped. Certainly she deserved to be taken down a peg or two after her prissy behavior in the morning, but she didn't feel that way. The purple fuzz ball frowned at her partner, flustered and embarrassed that she would be betrayed in such a way. "I'm not clumsy."

"No, you're not. You just get going too fast and the leafs slide around." Casey winked and shook her head "Maybe we should think about what we want to do for lunch while we walk some more? Any preferences, newbies?"

"Ah--um-- something edible?" Ben volunteered cautiously. Now that they were actually going somewhere, he wasn't sure what was going to happen. They'd already been attacked once by a giant monster, after all, what was to say it wouldn't happen again?

"I'm sure we'll find something edible," Melody commented as she put her bag on her shoulders again and took her digimon from her brother. "I'm sure we'll find something you'll like, Ben, I know your tastes by now." She grinned. "If we're lucky, we'll make it to the Biyomon village early. And hopefully we won't run into anything that requires more digivolving. We'll get hungrier faster if any of our partners has to digivolve again."

"We'll be plenty strong enough to protect you from most digimon like this." Frimon assured Jordan, though he wasn't honestly certain of it himself. "The Biyomon are birdlike so don't expect anything like chicken or anything... we'll probably have something like cereal or rice given to us." The expression on his face read nothing but distaste for the very thought of eating anything involved in grain.

After a quick check to make sure nothing was stinging too badly Jordan scooped up Frimon and kept pace with the other digidestined "I'm not too picky I don't think... really anything we can get would be better than eating bark or something."

"Why would you eat bark?" Casey asked while Dorimon looked on at him incredulously.

"...That's the point. I don't want to eat bark."

Frimon shook his head "Me neither..."

"Maybe if we're not quite to the Biyomon village around lunch time we'll find that stream again... I bet there are fish we could smoke." Casey offered, and it was more than obvious that Dorimon and Frimon liked the idea of smoked fish by the way their ears perked up.

"Could we? Could we please??" Frimon begged, watching Melody with wide, sparkling eyes.

"Smoking fish takes a while," Melody said. "But we can roast it, or bake it, I know how to do that." She grinned. "We need to keep moving, though, get as far as we can before we stop for the night again."

Ben looked at Frimon curiously.

"Why do you always ask Mel?" he asked finally. "Isn't Jordan your person?" He glanced at his sister, knowing she had been thinking along similar lines. Melody didn't say anything, but Ben knew. Sometimes being a twin had its perks.

Frimon shrunk a bit and looked at Jordan. The two of them didn't get on as well as he had wanted to the moment they met and he was anxious about possibly making the situation worse by being too excited like he had been the first day. He couldn't say that of course, what would Jordan think? "W-well... she's the leader, is-isn't she?" He mumbled, peeling his eyes back toward the twins. "I mean she's making the decisions on where we're going so... I just thought it made sense asking her."

"Actually, I'm the leader." Dorimon gloated, smuggness written all over her little furry face.

Casey tried not to laugh out loud at that for the sake of Dorimon's ego. "You're doing a great job leading there, kiddo." The girl grinned despite herself "And for feeding your thoughts to Melody and I mentally."

Dorimon caught on quickly and smirked "You're all very good at picking up on the clues I leave you for what I want you to do."

"Riiiiight." Casey broke first and the pair of them burst into a fit of laughter.

Jordan shifted Frimon around his his arms a bit, still feeling it a bit strange that the pillow-sized object was moving about against his chest. "I think Frimon knows I don't know anything about... B-O-mon or this place or whatever and know you're experts. If I had it my way we'd all be staying up on top of a tree until that portal opens up."

"Yeah, you don't want to do that. You'd be Kuwagamon food for sure." Casey added nonchalantly making both Frimon and Jordan pause what they were doing and gulp.

Melody couldn't help but grin and giggle at Casey and Dorimon.

"You guys," she said, still snickering. Moonmon shifted in her arms a bit, but kept sleeping. She was used to sleeping through chatter and laughter.

Ben and Coronamon also looked a bit uneasy at the thought of being eaten by a big digimon. They looked at each other, and then back to Casey and Dorimon.

"We won't really get eaten, will we?" Coronamon asked.

"Not if you keep moving... Kuwagamon aren't terribly bright digimon. If you hide they'll forget you exist. I mean, they have bad attitudes like Shellmon do but they're not the type to seek you out like did was." Casey continued, smiling as if the thought was just any old odd and pleasant fact.

"Comforting." Jordan sighed under his breath.

Dorimon snickered "You're not afraid that Shellmon is going to drag himself out of the water after you this far are you?"

"No." Jordan said indignantly. "It's just not exactly the kind of thing you want to hear when you get stuck in a place, is it? That there are all of these big, nasty things out there that would be just so happy to take your head off or squash you into a stain in the dirt if it is at all possible."

"Kuwagamon would eat you at least." Dorimon muttered with half lidded eyes.

"Comforting!"

Casey turned Dorimon over and rubbed her belly, less to lavish affection on the little purple beastie but rather to put her in her place a bit. It wasn't too long ago really when Dorimon was learning the ropes and that, Casey supposed, was important to remember for the sake of the the new digidestineds' egos. "Again, don't worry about it. We can handle a Kuwagamon no problem right now. Especially with you two having Coronamon and Frimon around."

In the distance there were different sounds. Crunching- which didn't set well with Frimon or Jordan- and chattering. The distance was too great for any voices to really travel, but there was an odd percussion in the air, a noise without a natural rhythm like the forest would normally produce. Something else was out there and it's grand effect was to cause Jordan to subconsciously squeeze his arms around around Frimon a bit more.

Melody's attention was pulled from the discussion when she heard what sounded like footsteps in the distance. At the same time, all four of their digivices pinged, alerting them to new signals. Melody and Ben both pulled theirs out at the same time, with the same motion, although the mirrored expressions of curiosity turned into confusion on Ben's part and amusement on Melody's.

"Hey, another group," Melody said, grinning. Pushing a button on her digivice, she pulled up a hologram projection of a map of the area. There were two groups of signals on the map: one group with an American flag above it, and one group with a Canadian flag.

"Other people?" Ben asked, looking at the hologram. Melody nodded.

"The Canadian digidestined," she said. "Cool people, really. I've met them once or twice, and we exchange emails occasionally."

"Oh! It's been a while since we've spoken... Think they're alright?" Casey said, looking up from Dorimon.

Frimon looked curiously up at Jordan "What is a Canada?"

"It's a country. A big one north of where we are from."

Casey smirked some "Let's stop talking about them go say hello! Besides, maybe they'd appreciate actually seeing a Biyomon village. Last time we talked didn't one of them say that they had never seen a Biyomon?"

With a huff Dorimon flattened down a bit "It's not like they're uncommon."

"Maybe in there part of the digiworld they are." she offered. It was kind of a funny thought considering how many times she could remember being pulled outside to look at birds migrating to and from Canada by her father, ever the enthusiast. She practically defined the country as 'the place with all of the birds ever', but that didn't mean anything here in the Digiworld. For all she knew it could have been a giant ocean.

Jordan was the first one to shuffle toward the Canadians in the distance "It couldn't hurt to say 'hello' at least".

"I remember Brent saying something about never having met a Biyomon before," Melody agreed, nodding. She grinned. "They're not far, so I second the motion that we go say hello. I want to see what brings them to our sector, anyways."

"Brent...?" Ben echoed.

"Yeah, he's been a digidestined about as long as we have," Melody said. "He runs with a Tentamon, I believe." Ben blinked, a bit lost, so Melody grinned and pulled up the stats for a Tentamon on his digivice. "One of those."

"It looks like a beetle," Ben said.

"It is, pretty much. Except it throws electricity." Melody gestured to the others. "Come on, the Canadians are this way, they aren't far I don't think."

Leigh stopped and looked down at her digivice "The American digidestined are heading our way now... should we wait for them or head off their way? I mean they're probably curious as to why we're here...". Under her elbow her partner, Babydmon nodded and looked up at their company. "It's been a while since we've seen Melody and Casey, anyways."

Michael shrugged his shoulders. He didn't care if they were meeting anyone new or not... this whole place was a new experience and he was certain they'd have some plans on the next leg of their adventure. "If they're friends of your's then I'm game and I'm sure Kudamon is as well."

"You bet." Kudamon beamed, bounding off toward the American party almost comically as his long body came and went from sight above some of the low vegetation off of the cleared forest paths. "Come on Michael!"

He didn't hesitate a moment to go crashing after Kudamon toward the others. After a few dozen feet he looked back at the rest of his Canadian friends and grinned "We're gonna be talking to them if we like it or not, guys, we might as well meet in the middle."

"Chill out, Mike," Brent called as the new digidestined started bouncing through the brush. "We'll get there, it's not like they're moving fast."

"No kidding," Tentamon commented, looking at Brent's digivice. "Slower than a Sunflowmon on a cloudy day." Brent just rolled his eyes and gestured for them to follow Mike and Kudamon.

Ben watched on Melody's digivice map as one of the Canadian signals sped up to meet them, and Melody just grinned.

"I'm thinking Brent and Leigh have a newbie," she said to Casey. "Not sure who of them is coming to meet us, but we may as well hurry up so they don't have to run far." Keeping her digivice out, she moved towards the Canadian group. Ben blinked, but scrambled to follow, Coronamon next to him.

Casey smirked and picked up the pace after Melody, "And someone is either excited or terrified of Brent and looking for sanctuary with us. How many newbies do you think they got? Hopefully it isn't too many in case the Biyomon can't accommodate us in their huts."

"They'll have enough room. Biyomon are small." Dorimon offered looking fairly certain of herself.

"Speak for yourself, fun-sized." Casey grinned as Dorimon gave her a jokingly venomous look. The two started laughing almost immediately. "I can say that now when you're not a Ultimate at least."

"Yeah, because I'd sit on you if you said it to me then!"

"How... how big do you get?" Jordan boggled, coming up behind everyone with Frimon in his arms.

Dorimon looked around Casey's arm toward them and gave the pair a wicked little grin "Huge."

The American indicators were spread out a bit more now... there were four of them! Michael could see that they were heading his way now- well, toward all of his group- and he could introduce himself. "You might slow down a bit there, Kudamon. They might think you're out to get them or something."

"What? This cute face?" Kudamon laughed and pressed on to get there before Michael. It was a race afterall. Even if he hadn't told Michael that.

"Can't be more than two," Melody replied. "Three signals right now, and at least one of them has to be either Brent or Leigh. So I'm guessing they can't have more than two newbies."

"Can you tell who they are?" Ben asked curiously, looking at the signals on the map. Melody shook her head.

"No," she said. "Not on here. The digivices only recognize that there are other digivices around, and that they're registered to the Canadian digidestined. But they can't pick out who the individuals are."

"Interesting..." Ben mused. Coronamon nudged him.

"But it'll always tell you where I am!" he said. "Because it's connected to you and me!"

Brent rolled his eyes at Michael and jogged to catch up. They weren't far from the Americans now.

A white form bobbed up and down through the undergrowth toward the American group. Behind it was another boy, strawberry blonde and on the taller side of average for his age. Michael, of course, was also grinning like an idiot at seeing the other people. He was certain they'd be travelling together now that they had met up and all... That would make sense, wouldn't it? He waved his hand toward them, just to make sure they saw he was there "Hey! You're the Americans, right?"

"Hi Americans!" Kudamon said mid bound above the ferns before disappearing and reappearing again for another outburst "I'm Kudamon..." once more he vanished and reappeared in sight "And that's Michael!"

Casey smirked toward Melody and stroked Dorimon's slightly bristled fur. "Hey... where are your friends? We know you're not alone here."

"Of course he's not... I'm here with him!... We're partners!" Kudamon laughed, still making his way toward them.

Not impressed Dorimon huffed and suddenly threw open her eyes when Casey shook her arms a little bit to indicate that she heard and wasn't pleased with the attitude Dorimon was starting to give. Dorimon rested her chin on Casey's arm and looked up at her a little mopey, but not all-together bothered.

Jordan looked at Frimon, who was fascinated by the fact that there were other people so nearby. Frimon hadn't seen any humans before Jordan after all... it was all just so terrible fascinating and they had so many different colors to them as well!

Michael wasn't going to be put off by any measure of silence. He was excited to get to know these people in case they had any advice on how to get around the digiworld easily or if they were just interesting people in general. "Hey, come on, I'll show you to everyone. They were talking like they'd met you before... do you know Brent and Leigh?"

((Sorry about the long pause. For some reason I thought I replied already.))

"A Kudamon," Melody mused. "Fun stuff." She grinned. "You must be the newbie Canadian, then, right? I'm Melody, this is Moonmon." She tilted her head towards her brother. "My twin Ben, and Coronamon." She grinned again. "Sure we know Brent and Leigh. Casey and I do, anyways." She gestured to her friend. "Casey and Dorimon, and Jordan and Frimon."

Ben just blinked at the sudden rush of information. How was this Michael guy so chipper? Why wasn't he jumpy and cautious like any smart person would be in a strange world? It was almost like he had no idea how dangerous the place was. Although, Ben mused, to be fair, he himself was kind of having fun now that he knew Coronamon would be able to protect him eventually. Once he was sure they would be alright, he would likely do what he was sure his sister did and strike out on his own for a while to explore.

By this point, Brent and Tentamon had made it through the brush and found the group.

"Hey!" he called, waving.

"Nice to meet you all. Er- Hey Brent!" Michael turned around and waved at him "Is Leigh back there with you? I found your American friends!"

Kudamon giggled and sat up on his back legs "I think he sees that, Michael!"

With half a moment to process that, Michael turned to Kudamon and shook his head with a grin "I guess so, yeah..." Suddenly his attention was brought back to the Americans in his company and he smiled up at them brightly, still brimming with excitement "So! Where are you all headed? Is there something cool up this hill?"

"That's for us to know and you to figure out." Dorimon scoffed before receiving another shake from Casey.

"Be nice, Dorimon."

Michael processed that differently than what the little digimon meant, though, and his eyes grew almost as big as his grin "It's nice of you to invite us along. We'll have to talk about it... I think Brent and Leigh had plans on exploring a bit." Kudamon at his feet looked similarly excited at the prospect of adventuring with a larger group... it would mean more people to talk to and get to know more about the world these humans came from. Michael, on the other hand, was excited beyond the fact that there'd be more people to talk to by the fact that some of them were, in his opinion, fairly easy on the eyes.

Leigh and Babydmon were now in sight, navigating the trail blazed by their enthusiastic new teammate. She would call out to them, but she figured their focus would be taken up by the outburst of energy that was Michael... and that's all anyone really needed to deal with at one time.

"You've gotten taller since the last time we saw each other." Casey grinned at Brent as he and Tentamon broke into the loose semicircle people had formed.

Brent rolled his eyes and put a hand on Michael's shoulder.

"That's wasn't them inviting us along, Mike," he said, grinning a bit. "That was Dorimon being a bit snippy."

"So what are you all doing in our sector, anyways?" Melody asked, a bit teasingly.

"Just exploring," Brent replied, "Like Mike said. Showing the new kid around and all."

"Funny, so are we," Melody replied. "Ben and Jordan fell on us yesterday."

"Mike the day before," Brent said, nodding. "So you all are just exploring?"

"We're headed back to the cliffs, for the portal home," Melody said. "It's the closest spot to us here that the portal appears." She grinned. "Then there's this city floating about a mile off the cliffs that Casey and I are going to explore."

Michael turned his head toward Brent suddenly "Okay, you can't pass that up... really. Could we, like, follow you guys? We have our own stuff, we can hunt or whatever...!" Kudamon nodded enthusiastically below him, eyes wide as they could be. "Are you serious that it's a floating city? How high off the ground is it floating?"

"Several meters." Casey smirked at Brent and moved a bit out of the group to pacify the ever-prickly Dorimon. "Calm down, they're not going to try anything shifty, little bit." She whispered but Dorimon kept an eye on them none-the-less. "You're just worrying yourself for no reason."

Jordan put Frimon down on the ground so he could associate with Kudamon and Tentamon some. "Could you even use that portal? Wouldn't it send you to our part of the world? I guess that'd be a cost effective way to do vacations."

"They don't work like doorways." Leigh interjected, finally within the group. "We would go to where we all left the real world for the digital world just like we would have through one of the portals in our region... But let's not get in their way. I'm sure you eight have places you want to be and we're just holding you up." Babydmon nodded her head and looked over at Sunmon passively. He was interesting... different. She hadn't met one before at least but unlike Kudamon and Michael she had the ability to maintain a quiet presence around something new and curious.

After Dorimon's reassurance that she wouldn't do anything too brash Casey let her down on the ground and rejoined the pack. With a grin she put her arms around Ben and Melody "Yeah, I'm sure we could find room for six more to come along... lots of mouths to feed, but if you do your own hunting and gathering we can all go check it out!"

"Actually," Ben piped up, "Mel and Casey were showing us the way back to the portal thing, so we could go home." He looked slightly embarrassed to have said it, now that he'd seen how enthusiastic other people were about being in the digital world. He was starting to second-guess his decision to go home.

"But he'll come back," Coronamon added confidently. "And then we'll go on all sorts of adventures, and you can come with us!" He beamed at Michael and Kudamon.

"I don't mind you all tagging along," Melody added. She shrugged. "I mean, you're here anyways, it's not like anyone can say 'go back to Canadaland' or anything." She grinned. "Your sector is kind of a hike, though," she said to Brent and Leigh. "How long did it take you guys to get here? A few days?"

"We had been heading this way before Mike showed up... he was near the border and we've been walking ever since." Leigh nodded and fiddled with her hair. "I suppose we covered some good amount of distance in that time since he got here two days ago."

Dorimon and Casey exchange glances for a moment before they both nodded "We should be well beyond two days of walking this far into our sector. Didn't you have to manage some hills or water or anything?"

Sufficiently pleased with the way her hair was laying at this point Leigh dropped her hands down to her sides and shrugged "A few, but we got some help crossing the river. You should really consider sticking around the Digiworld for a while, Ben and Jordan, it gets better the longer you're here and you wouldn't want to miss out on anything these two could find."

"Yeah, how could you pass up a floating city?" Michael smirked.

Jordan rubbed his neck and looked sheepishly over at Ben "I'll think about it... I mean I was trying to go somewhere when I got brought here and I... I mean if I could prepare to come here instead of being surprised like I was. How do you even get here by choice?" Frimon smiled up at Jordan, his day certainly made a full direction turn from last night when all his digidestined could talk about was leaving. Casey also gave a little smile to Melody.

There was a snapping of fallen twigs off to the right.

"There's a thing," Melody said. "On computers, a special code that you type in to tell the computer that it has to connect to the Digital World."

Ben blinked.

"A code?" he asked.

"Yeah, not a lot, just one line of code, and it makes the computer search for devices, and if it pings a digivice, it opens the Earth side of the portal and sends the digivice and the person connected to the Digital World," Melody replied, nodding. "I've got the code written somewhere at home, remind me to show it to you." Ben just nodded, and both twins froze when they heard the twig snapping.

"Mel...?" Ben asked warily.

"Hush," Melody replied, glancing around.

Brent also glanced around, and Tentamon moved a bit closer to his digidestined. As far as they knew, they and the Americans were the only humans in the sector, so it had to be a digimon.