Hi, this is Octavo! With my first story!

Looking over this notey-thing, I notice that it seems to have expanded my story into an additional page. Therefore, permission is definitely granted to skip any note that does not apply to you. Permission is not granted to skip any note that does apply to you. Enjoy!

The first one is about me and why I wrote the story.

The second is about the story and what's in it.

The third is a warning to anyone paranoid about strange pairings. Read it if you're, say, a Takari freak and can't stand the thought of, to pick a random example, Ken and Kari holding hands. Not to say that I will make them do such a thing. Or that I won't.

The fourth is the obligatory don't-own-digimon-disclaimy-thingy. Read it if you're paranoid about copyrights.

1. Mostly, I have an account 'cause I like reading Tyson Foxflame's stories, among others. But since I do write stuff on occasion, and I had an idea that could be applied to Digimon, I decided to join the productive community and write something. Here it is!

2. Oh, yeah, it's a Digimon Adventure AU with Digimon in. You won't see much of them in this chapter, but it picks up. This chapter is mostly spent on introductions, with Osamu jumping in for a bit to advance the plot. Did I mention he's not dead? Yeah, he's a good influence on Ken not to go all Kaiser on everyone.
And if it reads like science fiction, pardon me; I'm an SF writer at heart. For a similar reason, I shall number my chapters beginning with Zero.

3. Warning to the closed-minded:

If any romances occur, and you can bet your Digimon they will if I get that far, I will make liberal use of alternative pairings. I will not tell you right now what those are, but for reasons that shall soon become apparent, there will be no Daikari. At all. Nothing against it (although Davis was dumb as a rock in the dub) but this story has special circumstances that preclude it. Everything else (within plausible bounds, of course) is fair game.
Including shonen-ai; some of my best friends are gay or bi, and I see no reason a Digimon AU oughtn't accept that possibility. Besides, what are the odds that you take eight guys at random and they're all straight? Quite possibly lower than you think.
That doesn't mean I'll necessarily make use of shonen-ai pairings, or that I won't. I simply reserve that right.

4. Note on copyrights:

I own that of my story which is mine, which is a lot of the phrasing and the SF idea. However...
I don't own Digimon, or the characters, blah de blah de bla. If I did, we'd have more Ryo and less Digi-Egg of Destiny. Far less Digi-Egg of Destiny. It's redundant with Light, Hope, and Miracles. Do we really need four shining digi-eggs? Who said we needed digi-eggs in the first place? Ah yeah, Kaiser-Ken. Well, I don't have to like it. Ahem. The story. Right.

The Odaiba Project Chapter 0: Intro with Izzy

---/---/---

Hello, I'm Koushiro Izumi. You can call me Koushiro, or Koush, or Izzy, but please don't call be Izumi, because that's a girls' name.

Welcome to my first day of summer camp. I wasn't wild about the idea - two weeks without my prodigious new PowerBook?

Two things changed my mind.

One, my dad told me the lodge has power outlets, and power means PowerBook.

Two, he told me Tai was coming. Taichi Yagami's been my best friend since... well, as far back as I can remember. My father knew his father from their college days. Tai's great at soccer, and good at almost everything else - just don't let him near a computer. Back at school, he's the top of the social structure, and I of the academic.

So anyhow, here we are, in the lodge common room. I've heard a lot about summer camps, and this is the first one I've ever heard of with a big-screen TV. Next to Tai, the couch seats Daisuke Motomiya.

Looking at the two of them, one's first thought would be "Brothers!" They have the same build, and similarly tanned skin. They both wear those yellow goggles on their heads. Daisuke's brunet hair is shorter than Tai's, and a little more well-behaved. Actually, the same could be said of Dai's relation to Tai himself, but not so much as you'd notice. They both bring excitement wherever they go.

Fortunately, Daisuke's three years younger. Aside from that, you'd be hard-put to tell them apart!

They do have an excuse, though. Remember that my dad knows Tai's from college? Well, Mr. Yagami met Mr. Motomiya in high school. They were best buddies... but then Mr. Motomiya fell in love with Mr. Yagami's sister. It must have worked out, though, because she's now Mrs. Motomiya - and the former Miss Motomiya is now Mrs. Yagami! So Tai and Daisuke only have two pairs of grandparents between them.

They also each have a sister. Hikari Yagami's out on the balcony, with her friends. She's only one year older than Daisuke, but whenever he has a problem, she takes care of him like an older sister. Sometimes one wonders what they would have been like if they hadn't been born cousins...

Anyhow, Daisuke's sister is named Jun Motomiya. And if anyone looks more like Tai than Daisuke does, she's the one. If Tai were a girl, with my reddish-brown hair color, you'd have Jun. Which automatically makes her hot. But she's completely obsessed with Tai's other friend, Matt.

Yamato Ishida is the neighborhood girl magnet. His blond bishonen hair and his style, it probably doesn't even matter that he's in a band. A rock band. Which makes the whole field completely unfair.

His younger brother is Takeru Takaishi. Their parents are divorced - Mr. Ishida took Matt, and Mrs. Takaishi took Takeru. The brothers only rediscovered each other a couple years ago, so they don't fight much.

Takeru is Kari's age. And obsessed with her. Which is fine, of course; they're cute together. But Daisuke doesn't like it, and even Tai's a little suspicious. On the whole, though, they all get along fine, and at present the three of them are playing Mario Kart 64 together.

And playing it with them, one finds Ken Ichijouji, kid genius. Take me, two years ago, add straight black hair and a healthy dose of fame. Most of that probably comes from his brother, Osamu, the Kid Prodigy. I readily admit that he's smarter than me. And two years older, too. He's off doing his own thing somewhere - probably studying, knowing him.

Also probably studying is Jyou Kido. He's Osamu's age, and while he's not famous, he can hold his own as well as I can. He also works twice as hard, to tell the truth.

His best friend is Iori Hida, our young martial-arts master. He's a year younger even than Daisuke, but he plays a mean game of Scrabble or Go.

The next-youngest is Miyako Inoue. She's out on the balcony talking to Hikari and Mimi. Her large family runs a convenience store - handy for discount snacks!

Mimi Tachikawa is Miyako's best friend. She's about my age, and wears the same pink hat everywhere. You'd think she'd know better, since she's obsessed with fashion! She can be rather insightful at times, though - she's helped me out of many a metaphorical hole.

Last but not by any stretch least, we have Sora Takenouchi. She's out on the balcony with the girls, but I get the feeling she'd rather be out playing soccer with Tai. Unfortunately for her, the soccer league is all-boys, and she'd never find enough girls for a team.

Meanwhile, I'm in here, poking at my laptop. There's power, but there's no network!

---/---/---

11:00, dark outside, and we just peeled Tai and friends off the Nintendo. Time for bed. This lodge has indoor plumbing, and two-bed rooms. I'm in with Tai and Daisuke. In one bed, we shall have the two Yagami/Motomiya boys. In the other, we shall have Izzy, with PowerBook. The light's in a wall socket!

Just one... more... round... of Tetris...

---/---/---

Osamu had been called down that night, after curfew so he wouldn't be missed. He was to help the adults with some problem they were having with the project. They weren't going to say what the problem was, but they left the problem routine up on the basement computer. Oh well, at least he was getting paid.

It was a trivial enough fix. Now it was going on midnight, so he'd better get upstairs.

---/---/---

Jun had snuck to the kitchen for a midnight snack. Sandwich in hand, she noticed the formerly locked basement door standing open. Ever the explorer, she tiptoed down to see what was in there.

Ah, just a computer terminal.

It was on, though, and she certainly wasn't going back up to Sora and Kari to eat; they'd berate her for waking them up, or demand to know why she hadn't woken them. Was there anything to do with it?

Right there, on the desktop, was an icon of some sort of creature. It was labeled "Our War Game." Sounded like fun, or at least a diversion. Time to launch it and find out!

---/---/---

Time to wake up, Izzy.

Where am I, and why don't I hear my computer humming?

Ah, here it is, right beside me.

That's right, I'm at that camp.

Now, time to get up.

Opening my eyes...

Aah! There's a giant bug on my bed!

Tell me, please, that it didn't just yell, "Izzy!"

---/---/---

And that's a chapter! Review! Constructive criticism appreciated, flames not, as always.