Digimon Adventure: ReCode
Author's Notes: Digimon Adventure 01/02 Fanfiction - FYI, I have not seen Digimon Adventure Tri yet.
For nostalgia's sake, I'm using the old English dub names, which are the ones I grew up with. Similarly, I've followed the naming format for new human characters that was used in the dub.
As it's been awhile since I've watched the whole anime series through, please forgive any inconsistencies I may have with the 01/02 anime. And, as I am not as smart as Izzy, I apologize in advance if any of the computer jargon I've used is incorrect.
All the digimon I used are from the digimon franchise, even if they haven't appeared in 01/02. If you are unfamiliar with a digimon I've used and want to get a better idea of what they look like, I recommend looking them up on the Digimon Wiki ( wiki/Digimon_Wiki). The Digimon Wiki is also a good resource if you're planning on writing your own Digimon fanfiction.
Thanks in advance for reading!
Episode One: The DigiKnights of Darkness
In a darkened, abandoned warehouse in Tokyo, amongst the heaps of refuse and rubbish that littered the floor, whizzed and flashed the screen of an old, unplugged computer monitor…
Tai Kamiya had saved the world. In fact, he had saved two worlds – and he had done it more than once. That was why, while most sixteen-year-olds faced the prospect of a new school year with a tangled juxtaposition of excitement and dread, Tai Kamiya stood at the gate of Tsukishima General High School feeling listless.
It had been a year and a half since Tai Kamiya had last saved the world – or helped save the world, with the help of his friends and his digimon partner Agumon – from MaloMyotismon. There had been a great deal of fanfare afterwards, but once the pomp and circumstance was over, Tai soon settled back into his ordinary life, just as he did the first time, several years before, when he had helped saved the world, first from Myotismon and then Apocalymon. As mundane routine returned to Tokyo, no one thought much of the children who saved the world – or of the digimon who helped, the novelty quickly dissipating for most when they weren't seen digivolving into fantastical beasts and stomping around the streets of Tokyo on a regular basis. Digimon were, it seemed, a forgettable afterthought; while their existence was known, most did not think much about them, except for the few chosen children graced with the privilege of being friends with one of them.
Tai was one of those children, and did take the time to visit Agumon and the other digimon in the Digital World, or, in turn, invite them to visit in the Real World. But, while reminiscing and catching up on old times was enjoyable, it wasn't exactly as thrilling as experiencing it the first time around.
"Man, I feel like an old man," he mumbled to himself, disappointed that at sixteen he was already trying to recapture the youthful days of his childhood. With his backpack slung over his shoulder and a pair of goggles hanging around the collared shirt of his uniform, he sighed and slogged past the gate of Tsukishima General High School and into the crowd of other ordinary high school students.
Among the crowd was Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi, who was walking and fiddling with his smartphone. Glancing up momentarily, he noticed Tai with the throng of other students and jogged over to him, calling, "Hey, Tai."
"Hey, Izzy," replied Tai with a yawn, wishing school started later in the day. He continued walking and Izzy fell into pace with him.
"Check out what I've been working on during the break," said Izzy, working on his phone again. "We've previously only been able to contact the Digital World via a laptop or desktop computer, but I've been working on a program that will allow us to reach the Digital World via our mobile devices. See?"
Izzy raised his smartphone in front of Tai's face, causing Tai to halt in his tracks. On the smartphone screen was a video image of Tentomon, who greeted Tai with a chipper, "Good morning, Tai!"
Tai blinked a few times, surprised to see Tentomon on the phone screen. Taking the phone from Izzy, he said, "Oh, uh, good morning, Tentomon. I didn't expect to be talking to you on the phone today."
"It's basically a video calling and messaging app for phones and tablets, but that has a direct link to the Digital World, so we can call and message the Digital World and our digimon can call and message us here in the Real World. It uses the Bluetooth technology in the mobile device to sync with a digivice that is nearby, similar to how our digivice can be used to connect to a computer or laptop to tap into the Digital World. Potentially, rather than lugging around a laptop or being near a desktop, we should be able to connect and create a portal to the Digital World by just using our mobile devices, practically giving us access wherever we are," explained Izzy. "Pretty prodigious, right?"
"Well, it is convenient," admitted Tai, still trying to process everything Izzy had said and glancing behind him at the now lit-up digivice clipped onto the strap of his backpack. "Although I guess that explains why I didn't really see you during the break: you were too busy being some sort of super hacker. Do you ever kick back and relax, Izzy?"
"You know, I was telling Izzy the same thing," Tentomon chimed in. "Every time I came to visit, it was work, work, work. It can get a little boring watching you type away for hours on end, Izzy."
Izzy's face soured a bit. "I prefer the term 'computer programmer,' rather than 'super hacker,'" he corrected, ignoring the rest and taking the phone from Tai, who started walking again. Izzy followed. "Anyway, I already sent the program to you and the others, so you should be able to download the app and install it on your phone. I've already programmed it with the contact information for our partner digimon – that is, I've linked their names to the closest access points to each of their homes in the Digital World. Of course, if they know our numbers, they should be able to contact us via any access point within the Digital World and we, likewise, can contact other access points within the Digital World using the access point map, which you can find in the app menu's options."
"Uh-huh, Izzy, sounds great," said Tai, half-listening as they entered the school. His recent feeling of listlessness was creeping up on him again.
Izzy barely registered Tai's distracted response; he had never been able to read people very well. "See you later, Tentomon," he said, looking down at his phone. "And I promise next time I see you I'll try not to be on my computer so much."
"I really appreciate it, Izzy," said Tentomon. "Have a good first day of school."
Izzy smiled. "Thanks." He then ended the video call, placing the phone in his pants' pocket. He turned to Tai. "Anyway, I better head to class. Don't want to be late on the first day." Izzy was a first year student, and in a different wing of the school, than Tai, who was a second year student.
Tai shrugged, not feeling as motivated as Izzy to go out of his way to be punctual for class. "I'll see you at lunch then." As Izzy headed down the hall, Tai pulled out his phone from his backpack to see the message from Izzy. He opened the attachment and tapped "download" on the screen. He then placed the phone in his backpack and headed up the stairs to the second floor and toward his homeroom, 2-2.
As he walked down the hall, he passed the open door of homeroom 2-1, where several students were already chitchatting before class began. He stopped and backtracked, peering in through the door. Amongst the other students were Sora Takenouchi and Yamato "Matt" Ishida. Sora sat her desk and Matt was leaning against the back of the chair at the desk in front of hers, facing her as they talked and laughed.
Tai watched them for a moment from the doorway, thinking how ordinary they seemed as they conversed and wondering when they became such a typical high school couple. Worse still, they both seemed perfectly content with the safe monotony of their new, run-of-the-mill lot in life. Hadn't these two once helped save the world with him? Now they seemed undistinguishable from any other teenage sweethearts and their dull routine of a romance. But then he supposed that's what happened to all couples once they'd been dating for nearly two-years.
Trying to shake off some of the boredom he was feeling, Tai gave a sly grin and called out from the doorway, "Sora! Matt! How are you two lovebirds doing?" He spoke loudly enough for other students in the classroom to hear, purposely hoping to rile them up a bit.
It worked – a little. Sora and Matt's faces both turned a shade of pink as they quickly looked away from each other, failing to mask their embarrassment. When some of their other classmates began staring and giggling, the color in their cheeks turned from pink to red.
"Hello, Tai," said Sora with thinly veiled annoyance, but Tai had already started laughing. Sora sighed, but couldn't help but smile a little, while Matt only shook his head.
"See you guys later," he called back to them, waving with another sly grin. Sora and Matt went to wave goodbye, but Tai had already disappeared down the hall and into the classroom next door.
In homeroom 2-2, Tai took a seat in the back row by the window, slinging his backpack on the seat beside his desk. Like homeroom 2-1, other students were mingling with one another. Tai leaned back in his chair, taking out his phone again. For a moment, he wondered if he should have mentioned Izzy's new app to Matt and Sora, but then shrugged, figuring Izzy would get around to it eventually.
On his phone's screen, the app had already downloaded, and so Tai pressed "install." As the program began installing on his smartphone, a voice asked from beside him, "Is anyone sitting here?"
Tai looked up from his phone to see a pale young man with thick, wavy black hair standing in front of him and gesturing to the seat where Tai had thrown his backpack. Tai had a vague recollection of seeing him before during his first year at Tsukishima General High School, but they hadn't been in the same homeroom class and he wasn't sure his name.
"Oh, um, sorry," muttered Tai, pulling his backpack from the chair and dropping it next to his desk. He returned his focus back on his phone as the student slid into his seat at the desk next to Tai's.
As Izzy's app had already been installed, Tai opened it. A message popped up: "Welcome to the DigiPortal App!" A small icon of Tentomon appeared next to the message. He closed out of the message and was taken to the main menu, where a list of options appeared, including "messaging," "video call," "contact list," "access point map," and "more settings." Tai tapped on "messaging," when another message popped up, "Message from contact list?" Tai hastily tapped "yes" and then tapped the first name that appeared on the contact list, "Agumon."
A messaging window appeared on his phone screen and Tai began to text, "Hey, Agumon! It's Tai. Not sure if Izzy's let you know about his new app yet, but it's pretty cool to be texting you on my phone. Let me know if you get this message!"
"What are you doing on your phone?"
It was the same student who had sat next to him. Tai glanced sideways to see he was tilting forward, toward Tai's desk, trying to get a better look at the screen of Tai's smartphone.
"You sure are nosey," said Tai, quickly tapping "send" and shoving his phone into his pocket.
The student laughed, but didn't seem all that offended. "Just trying to make conversation, that's all," he said, leaning back in his seat. "And you didn't answer the question. What were you doing on your phone?"
"Just messaging a friend," said Tai, reluctantly half-relenting. "You know, the sort of thing every high school student does. It's not very exciting."
"That's surprising."
"What is?"
The student laughed again, but this time his laugh made Tai feel strangely uncomfortable. "Aren't you Tai Kamiya? I thought everything you did was exciting."
"What does that mean?"
"Didn't you save the world from the forces of darkness? You are that Tai Kamiya, aren't you?"
Tai was surprised. It had been awhile since someone had asked him about how he had saved the world. Normally he would enjoy gloating about it, but the way the student spoke, Tai wasn't sure if he was being sincere or was mocking him.
"Yeah, well, it's not like I'm always on some big adventure," said Tai dismissively, feigning disinterest.
Silence followed. After a few moments, Tai pulled his phone from his pocket halfway to peak at the screen. Unfortunately, Agumon hadn't responded yet.
Tai was sliding his phone back into his pocket, when the student started up again, "I'm Minato Arashi, by the way. Most people just call me Nate."
"Uh-huh," said Tai aloofly and purposely looking out the window, not interested in engaging in any further conversation.
"So why'd you want to save the world anyway?"
"What kind of question is that?" blurted Tai, finally turning to face Nate. "Why wouldn't I have wanted to save the world?"
"I don't know; why wouldn't you have?" said Nate, smirking. Now that he was finally really looking at him, Tai noticed just how smug Nate looked, to the point where it bordered on narcissism. His smirk was sharp, wide, and unsettling and his dark eyes seemed to glint with spite. His wild black hair curled up like horns on the sides of his head, and contrasted with his pallid complexion.
Tai scowled. "Are you just trying to mess with me?"
"No, not really," said Nate, but he was still smirking.
"Then what's your problem?"
Nate shrugged. "I was just thinking, not everyone would want to save the world from the forces of darkness. Maybe they'd be afraid." He eyed Tai and added, "Not you, though, of course. You wouldn't be afraid, would you? How could you be, considering…"
"Considering what?" pressed Tai when Nate trailed off.
"Well, you should know, Tai," said Nate, becoming exasperated. "It just wouldn't make any sense if you were afraid."
Tai felt a nervous twinge in his gut, but brushed it off. "Okay, whatever, dude," he said, hoping to end the conversation. He pulled out his phone again and pretended to surf the internet. He wished Agumon would message him back, if only to distract him from Nate.
"You know, I think there are a lot of people who wouldn't want to save the world," continued Nate. "I mean, I wouldn't want to save the world from the forces of darkness."
Tai scoffed. "Why? Because you'd be too chicken?" he asked, his tone biting. Couldn't this guy take a hint and leave him alone?
But Nate seemed unfettered by Tai's unnerved disposition and just laughed. "Nah, usually people are afraid of me, not the other way around."
"Why would anyone be afraid of you?" asked Tai, but refused to look up from his phone. When Nate didn't answer, Tai said, "Anyway, I'm busy."
"You know, I really hate people like you."
The nervous twinge in Tai's gut suddenly became a sharp jab. While Nate's previous musings had been marked with a light and playful lilt, these words were spoken with a dull and flat sobriety. Tai looked up; Nate's smug smirk had been replaced with cold and calculating animosity.
"You're lucky," continued Nate, his eyes still set toward the front of the classroom. "Everything always works out in your favor. No wonder why you always want to save the world, because the world always goes your way. It's not like that with the rest of us. The rest of us…" Nate paused, tilting his head back to Tai with a grin, before concluding, "Well, we'd welcome the darkness."
Tai forced a laugh, trying to mask his nerves. "Now I know you're just messing with me. What, are you jealous or something? You shouldn't be so hard on yourself – we can't all be heroes and save the…huh?"
Tai felt his phone vibrate in his hand. He glanced down, hoping it was a message from Agumon. But instead the message was from "Unknown."
"A message from a friend?" asked Nate, rolling his eyes.
Tai ignored him. He tapped the message from the unknown contact. Suddenly, a wall of symbols, letters, and numbers filled his screen and the screen became fuzzy and distorted. Tai scowled, muttering, "What the…?" He tried tapping the screen, but it was frozen and pixelated, flickering on and off. "Oh, come on!"
"What's wrong?" asked Nate, leaning forward again to get a better look at Tai's phone.
"Nothing," said Tai quickly, shoving his phone back in his pocket. He tried to keep his eyes averted, but he could feel Nate's glare drilling into him with suspicion.
Then Nate leaned back in his seat. "Suit yourself," he relinquished.
And, with that, the bell chimed signaling the start of homeroom.
It was only the morning of the first day of school and Joe Kido already felt inundated and overwhelmed with school work. As a third year student, Joe had looming university entrance exams to contend with, and was already on a strict regimen of studying and cram school to prepare, piled on top of the vast amount of arduous school work he received as a student of the prestigious Meiou Academy and his unrelenting and unforgiving homeroom teacher, Miss Nagai. Before the school year had even begun, she had assigned her class coursework to complete over the break, with an exam scheduled for that afternoon.
As other students chitchatted with one another in homeroom before class officially started, Joe sat at his desk, with his many books and notes sprawled out in front of him, trying to pick apart the information he needed for this afternoon's test, which had become muddled with everything else for which he had been studying.
The buzz of his phone was a welcome distraction, even if Joe knew it would only be a fleeting one. He opened the message he received from Izzy, which read, "Check out the new app I created to use to video call the Digital World from our mobile devices. Prodigious, right?" Joe smiled briefly, thinking how talking to the laidback Gomamon would ease some of the anxiety he was currently feeling, before tapping "download' on his screen and then install.
"Wow, you sure look exhausted," a familiar voice said from above him.
Joe's face immediately turned red and he hastily shoved the phone into his pocket. He looked up to see a pretty brunette standing in front of his desk. Her uniform was smartly pressed, her hair neatly trimmed, and her books stacked tidily in her arms. In contrast, Joe's glasses were tilted on his face, his hair sloppily combed, and his books a disheveled mess in front of him. While Joe had never been formally introduced to her, he knew her well; her name was Noriko "Lori" Kage, and she was undoubtedly the superstar of the third year students of Meiou Academy. While others struggled under the pressure of Meiou Academy's rigorous standards, Lori Kage excelled with seeming ease and poise. She was the student body president and was captain or president of several other school teams and clubs, but despite her active involvement on campus, she still found the time for her studies, earning the top scores on midterm and final exams for the last two years. She was as popular as she was meticulous, and walked around campus with an air of no-nonsense shrewdness and unwavering tenacity that garnered attention, admiration and even a little apprehension from her peers, two qualities which Joe – who was more often than not bumbling and awkward and ignored by his peers – lacked. Joe sometimes likened her to a highly-decorated and disciplined soldier marching down the school halls with steely resolve even as she smiled gracefully – well-liked by her fellow classmates even as she intimidated them. After all, while Joe and his classmates strived for success, success was never an option for Lori Kage; rather, it was a way of life.
While Joe stared at Lori with a mix of panic and awe, Lori asked, "You're Joe Kido, right? I'm Lori Kage."
"I…um…I mean," stammered Joe, startled that was even talking to him, let alone that she actually knew his name. "Yes, I am," he finally answered. "But how do you….?"
"I've seen you around; you're always studying so hard," she said. "Unlike some of the other students at this school…" She trailed off when she noticed the messy spread of papers strewn across his desk. "How do you study like this?" she asked, confounded.
Embarrassed, Joe scrambled to gather up the papers in a more orderly fashion, but the results were just a cluttered mess spilling over his arms and onto the floor.
"Here, let me help," said Lori, placing her books on the desk in front of Joe's and picking up the papers that fell on the floor. In only a few moments, she had Joe's papers neatly stacked into three piles and organized on his desk. "That's the notes for chapter one, chapter two, and chapter three," she explained, pointing to each pile, and sliding into the seat in front of Joe's desk.
"Oh, um, thanks," said Joe, his cheeks still pink.
"Anyway, I'd focus mostly on chapter two; chapter one is really only general introduction information and, if you understand chapter two, the questions from chapter one should become more or less common sense. Chapter three obviously expands on chapter two, but you need to understand the basic foundations in chapter two to understand chapter three. Then again, you don't want to over-think or over-study too much. How many times have you reviewed the three chapters?"
"Well, um…"
"Here," interrupted Lori, pulling out a few sheets of loose-leaf from one of her folder. "This is my outline for the first three chapters. It goes over the main points from each chapter. If you read this a couple times during lunch, you should do fine on the exam this afternoon."
"But what will you use to study?"
Lori laughed. "Don't worry about me," she said, with a hint of conceit in her voice. "Besides, as I was saying, unlike most students our age, you're not a goof-off. I tried lending my outline to my boyfriend over the break to help him out, and he couldn't be bothered." She seemed a little bitter as she stated this, but her resentment didn't linger long and she smiled again. "I might as well lend it to someone who will actually appreciate it. And you seem like a pretty studious sort of guy."
"A lot of good that does me, though," blurted Joe, glancing downward.
"Hmm?"
"I didn't mean to say that aloud!" exclaimed Joe, flustered and waving his hands in front of him as though to dismiss the comment.
"I've seen your scores; you do pretty well for yourself," said Lori.
"Not good enough," admitted Joe.
"Yeah, but that's 'not good enough' at Meiou Academy, not any old school. It's hard to even get into this school."
"That's easy for you to say; you're Lori Kage, just the top student in the whole school."
Lori grinned. "Then you're lucky we're in the same class this year. I'll make sure you don't slack off!"
As Lori laughed, Joe gulped and gave a nervous smile, uncertain if she was joking or not. She then turned around in her seat to face the front of the class, preparing herself for the start of homeroom.
And that was that. Joe breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that he had managed to somehow get through an entire conversation with someone like Lori Kage without embarrassing himself too much. While he admired her for her academic achievements, there was something intimidating about her, even as she smiled and offered encouragement. Joe never imagined she would go out of her way to talk to him, given her social status within Meiou Academy and given his lack of any social status whatsoever.
Joe smiled a little, feeling a smidgen proud she had noticed him. She had even thought he was studious, which seemed like a high compliment coming from someone like Lori, whom Joe often thought was the sort of person who was going to make a name for herself someday – the sort of person who was going someplace and who was going to be someone important.
Joe was afraid he was the sort of person who was going nowhere.
Megumi "Meg" Oshiro had been eyeing Mimi Tachikawa all morning, whispering to her friends. While Meg and the other girls in their homeroom, homeroom 1-3, had attended Odaiba Junior High together before graduating to Tsukishima General High School, Mimi Tachikawa had been studying abroad in New York, only recently returning to Tokyo. In the years Mimi had been absent, Meg had earned quite the reputation: she was, undoubtedly, the most popular, affluent, and ruthless girl among the first year students. The friends in her inner circle were, likewise, attractive, albeit also similarly snooty and cliquish.
The other girls in their homeroom were decidedly much plainer and meeker – a group of mousy schoolgirls all hoping to into Meg's good graces and avoid her ire. But, while they were plain and cowardly and easily swayed, Meg noted that Mimi was cute, pretty, and charming, even if she seemed a little unsure of herself, now that she sat in an unfamiliar classroom with unfamiliar classmates. Meg thought Mimi was the sort of girl she could mold – the sort of girl who could be worthy enough to fit in with Meg and her friends. Meg, after all, only surrounded herself with those who, as she thought, were in the top tier: those who were desirable and good-looking and popular, that stood out above the throngs of boring, dull, unattractive people. And, despite Mimi's visible uncertainty, Meg could already tell Mimi, with her pretty face and stylish vibe, never blended into the crowd.
Mimi had noticed Meg and her friends staring at her and whispering throughout the morning. She worried what they were saying about her. She wished she had been placed in Izzy's class, so she at least knew someone in her homeroom, or she was a year older and could have been in a second year homeroom with Sora, Matt, or Tai. When she had arrived that morning to homeroom, her classmates were already chatting and gossiping with one another, while she sat by herself, feeling lonely and insecure. Now that she knew that some of the other girls were whispering about her, she felt even worse.
Mimi Tachikawa was grateful when the bell chimed, signaling lunch. She gathered her things, planning to meet her friends in the schoolyard. But, before she could get up from her seat, the girl sitting beside her said, "Your name is Mimi Tachikawa, right? I'm Tammy Shouta."
The girl – Tamiko "Tammy" Shouta – had glasses, freckles, and her pale brown hair in a big red bow. She was gathering up her things, too, and while her clothes were a little wrinkled and disheveled and she had a bit of an awkward appearance, she had a genuine smile. Mimi smiled back, grateful that someone had finally spoken to her.
"Yes, it's nice to meet you," said Mimi, smiling back. The two girls stood at the same time and started walking to the door.
"I remember you from a few years ago, back in Odaiba Elementary; you used to always wear a cowboy hat," said Tammy. "If you want, you can have lunch with me and my friends. I'm going to meet them in the library."
"Thanks for asking, but I'm not really much of a library person," admitted Mimi. "Also, I promised I'd meet some friends for lunch today. But maybe tomorrow…"
Mimi and Tammy stopped walking, as their path had been blocked by Meg, who was flanked by two other girls - Emi "Emily" Tsukino and Akatsuya "Kat" Kanto.
The petite Meg stood arms crossed, her short magenta hair styled in a chic, cute haircut. Despite her diminutive stature, her presence was bold and intimidating, commanding attention.
"Don't you have somewhere else to be rather than bothering the new girl?" Meg questioned, her fierce glare set on Tammy.
Tammy wilted, quickly dropping her eyes to her feet. "I was just…"
"Just what?" barked Meg. "It's an embarrassment, really. Do you want to embarrass the new girl?"
At this point, most of the other students had left for lunch, but a few had lingered, including a boy with shaggy, chin-length gray hair and a high-tech watch on his wrist. At the sign of Meg's wrath, those who remained either quickly scurried out or huddled together, snickering as they leisurely left. But the gray-hair boy remained at his desk in the back corner of the classroom, watching them intently with a curious smile.
At the sound of the snickers, Tammy's cheeks turned bright red. "No, of course not, Meg," she murmured in a shaky, quiet voice.
Meg looked to Mimi and smiled; the smile was not genuine like Tammy's. "Sorry about that – Mimi Tachikawa, right? I'm Meg Oshiro and this is Emily and Kat."
Mimi frowned, feeling sorry for Tammy. "Oh, um, it's all right," she offered. "She was only introducing herself..."
Meg laughed. "Oh, please, don't feel like you have to make excuses for her! It's sweet, but entirely unnecessary." Meg's expression became cold again as she looked at Tammy. "After all, the people you associate with are like wearing accessories. And, obviously, a cute, stylish girl like you wants to be seen wearing something appropriately glamorous, not something tacky, or ugly, or cheap-looking."
Tammy's cheeks reddened as Emily and Kat snickered behind Meg.
Meg gave a mean smirk, preparing to add salt to the wound. "And, by the way, Tammy, that bow in your hair is hideous. What, are you five, that you are wearing something so downright silly?" She laughed and the other girls laughed along, including poor Tammy, who cowered as Meg hurled insults at her.
"Um…I, um, actually kind of like Tammy's bow."
As soon as Mimi spoke these words, Meg and the other girls' laughter abruptly ceased. Their eyes locked onto Mimi, who forced a nervous smile.
"You like the bow?" questioned Meg, her voice oozing with disgust.
Mimi, uncertain, strained out a few chuckles. "I mean…well…" she stammered. "It's…uh…kind of cute and youthful, you know?" She forced another laugh.
Meg's brow twitched. "So, then, are you saying you would wear the bow?"
Emily and Kat snickered, this time at her. Mimi blushed. "No, not that I would wear it, but…"
Mimi glanced at Tammy as she trailed off, who looked ready to burst into tears, and guilt clawed at her gut as she realized she was making things worse.
Meg gave a satisfied smirk. "I thought you wouldn't." Her scowl returned to Tammy. "Shouldn't you be leaving, like, now?"
Tammy, head still lowered, fled the classroom. Meg, Emily, and Kat laughed, and Mimi again forced herself to laugh along with them.
Meg then gave Mimi a serious look. "You know, you don't have to coddle such obvious losers," she said. "I can tell you have some sort of weird sympathy for people who are clearly beneath you, but girls like us have to remember to stay above the crowd, not feed the egos of the bottom-dwellers."
Mimi tugged anxiously on one of the locks of her hair, twirling it around her feeling. "Tammy seemed okay to me..."
"It's that sort of attitude that makes everyone middle-of-the-pack. Just try to follow my lead from now on, all right?" snapped Meg and Mimi nodded nervously.
The door of the classroom slid open. In the doorway was Sora, who called out, "Hey, Mimi – there you are! I've been looking for you! Aren't you coming to lunch?
Mimi blushed again, feeling embarrassed – and guilty – that she was still talking with Meg and the other girls after what had happened. Not wanting Sora to know how ashamed she felt, she just smiled and answered quickly, "Oh, um, sorry, Sora! I'll be there in a few minutes!"
"Actually, Mimi's having lunch with us today," said Meg suddenly, a grin spreading across her face. "Isn't that right, Mimi?"
Mimi winced a little. "Um…I mean...that's right! I'm sorry, Sora – I totally forgot about lunch today and made plans to have lunch with Meg! Silly me, always spacing out!" She gave a flighty, ditzy sort of laugh, hoping Sora wouldn't catch on that something was wrong.
But Sora already suspected things were not quite right. Her stare wavered back from Mimi to Meg, Emily, and Kat, who had surrounded Mimi and who were looking at Sora with visible annoyance. She gave them a stern glare back to show she was not intimidated, and then looked back to Mimi. "That's all right, Mimi. I'll see you after school then? In the computer lab?"
Mimi nodded in a quick spurt.
Sora gave one further glance at Meg and the other girls, still unsure if she should leave her friend, but finally slipped back out of the classroom.
When Sora was gone, Meg asked, "You're friends with Sora Takenouchi?"
"Oh, yeah, Sora's awesome!" said Mimi cheerily.
"She's going out with Matt Ishida, isn't she?" asked Emily.
"He's totally dreamy," said Kat, becoming starry-eyed.
Meg side-eyed Mimi. "It's kind of bizarre how a Plain Jane like Sora Takenouchi is going out with such a cool guy like Matt Ishida, don't you think?"
Mimi frowned awkwardly. "I never really thought about it like that before…"
"Not that she's completely tragic or anything," said Meg. "But you have to admit she's kind of well…homely, in comparison."
Mimi scowled. "Sora's not – "
"I'm sure she's perfectly nice, of course," Meg interrupted, quickly quashing Mimi's protests. "After all, you are friends with her, so she must be fine enough. They just don't look like they go together, you know? Matt and Sora, I mean. They don't match up…it's kind of an unappealing sort of mix, when you see them together. He'd be better suited being paired up with someone cute like you, speaking in strictly an aesthetically-pleasing sense."
Mimi laughed, the thought absurd to her. "Matt and I wouldn't – "
"But what do I know?" said Meg, cutting Mimi off again. She shrugged. "I mean, like I said, you're friends with her. You're probably friends with both of them. So I assume you know the reason why they're together, right?"
"Well…I mean…" stammered Mimi, not sure how to answer. "They just like each other, I guess."
Meg smirked. "That doesn't really seem like a good reason to me." She cackled and Emily and Kat joined her. Mimi blushed, feeling foolish and wishing she had come up with a better answer - wishing she was sitting in the schoolyard with Sora and her real friends.
Instead, Mimi plastered a perky smile across her face and giggled along with them.
And the gray-haired boy who had lingered gathered his things and quietly slipped out of the classroom.
Izzy was typing away on his laptop and sitting in the schoolyard at lunch with Matt when Tai plopped down and said, "Your app totally fried my phone!" He shoved his phone into Izzy's face.
"Jeez, what a greeting," muttered Matt sarcastically. He was jotting down a few chords in his notebook, working on the latest song for his band, the Teenage Wolves.
Izzy blinked, taking the phone from Tai and staring at the pixilated, fuzzy screen with the jumble of letters, numbers, and symbols. "What happened?" asked Izzy, confounded.
"That's what I'm asking you," said Tai, not bothering to hide his frustration.
"I've had the app running on my phone for the last week and I haven't experienced any technical glitches," said Izzy.
"And I've been using the app since this morning messaging Gabumon and it's been working fine for me," said Matt. "Maybe something's wrong with your phone, not the app."
"Well, can't you fix it either way?" Tai asked Izzy. "And it happened when I was using the app. I got a message and went to open it and the whole thing freaked out on me."
"A message from Agumon?" asked Izzy, who had already begun pulling out a cord from his backpack to hook up Tai's phone to his laptop and plugging it into Tai's phone.
"No, a message from an 'Unknown' contact," said Tai.
"'Unknown?'" asked Izzy as he connected the cord into his laptop. As soon as he did, a window flashed onto his laptop screen, along with the garbled text on Tai's phone.
By this point, Matt had put down his notebook and was looking over Izzy's shoulder to see the laptop screen. "It looks like a bunch of nonsense," he said.
"Or maybe it's some sort of code," said Izzy, rubbing his chin. With a few quick strikes to his keyboard, he said, "A few months back, I designed a program that could quickly run through text to determine any patterns in order to translate or crack a code or cipher…"
A new window popped up, that said, "Running Translation."
In a matter of moments, the chaotic mix of symbols, letters, and numbers began to transform into discernible text:
"Our system has been compromised.
Long ago, there was only the Real World and the Digital World.
Corrupted data generated the Dark Ocean.
A barrier was created to protect the Real World and the Digital World from the expanding corruption of the Dark Ocean.
The seal was made with nine keys, nine keys that can be corrupted by Darkness or uncorrupted by Light.
Because there is always a balance, only five keys need to be corrupted to unlock the barrier.
Nine crests were created from the original three Master Crests to cleanse nine keys of their corrupted data and guard them from Darkness.
The keys were then hidden in the Real World and Digital World.
The system we had used to hide the keys is failing.
The keys are beginning to reveal themselves, and can be found.
These nine keys can still be corrupted.
To ensure the safety of both the Real World and the Digital World, those who bear the nine crests must find the nine keys before they are corrupted.
Those who bear the nine crests control the fate of the barrier and must remain uncorrupted.
Those who bear the nine crests can tip the scales toward Darkness or Light.
Only when Darkness overcomes the Light can the Dark Ocean free itself from the walls that now confine it.
The Light must always outshine the Darkness."
The three boys stared, not sure what to make of the cryptic message.
Finally, Tai asked, "Do you think…do you think whoever sent this is serious?"
"Well, we don't know much about the origin of the Dark Ocean or the barrier that seals it from our world and the Digital World," said Izzy. "We also don't know much about the creation of the crests, either."
"Which we don't even have anymore," said Tai. Tai, at one time, had the Crest of Courage, but his crest, like the others, had been destroyed during the battle with Apocalymon, only for the DigiDestined to discover that the power of the crests was within them all along.
"Not entirely true; we do have them, in a figurative sense," mused Izzy. "We still bear those traits in some way, which is how our digimon digivolve, so that would still make us the bearer of the crests – the ones tasked to protect the keys that seal the Dark Ocean."
"Plus Ken still has his," said Tai, remembering that Ken Ichijouji, his sister Kari's friend, hadn't received his crest until much later, sometime after Tai and the others had faced-off against Apocalypmon. "Although that doesn't help the rest of us."
"Yeah, but how can we even trust this message?" asked Matt now, growing skeptical. "It was sent by someone 'unknown.' The whole thing could be a trap."
"Or maybe some sort of elaborate prank," added Tai.
"That's true, too," agreed Izzy. "Although we can agree that, whoever sent this, knows much more detail than most people would, which makes me believe that we are dealing with either a digimon or an individual who is at least knowledgeable about the Digital World, and that therefore some of what is written is possibly true. After all, while most people know about the existence of digimon and the Digital World, and that we saved the world from some unpleasant digimon, very few knew about the crests or the Dark Ocean."
Tai frowned, fairly certain that Izzy was right and that most people didn't know about the crests or the Dark Ocean.
"There's another thing," continued Izzy, rubbing his chin again. "It says 'Nine crests were created from the original three Master Crests.' That seems to indicate there were three crests before the nine we know of – Courage, Friendship, Love, Knowledge, Sincerity, Reliability, Hope, Light, and Kindness. More importantly, these crests were powerful enough to create our crests. Remember how Gennai once told us, there were chosen children who came to the Digital World before us? Maybe these three Master Crests belonged to them – to the original DigiDestined, before us. And maybe the reason they were chosen to be DigiDestined in the first place was to seal off the Dark Ocean when it was first created."
"Isn't that jumping to a lot of conclusions, Izzy?" asked Matt, still skeptical.
"Well, there has to be a reason why the original DigiDestined were brought to the Digital World, right? And who else would own the three Master Crests but the original DigiDestined?"
"Yeah, but not all of the DigiDestined have crests, so it's possible they didn't have any," said Tai. "Remember, Davis, Yolei, and Cody never had any crests."
"That is peculiar, if the crests are as important as this message makes them out to be," said Izzy, wavering in his theory. "At the same time, Davis, Yolei, and Cody were all able to tap into the power of the crests using the DigiEggs, so maybe that's what makes them DigiDestined. They still possess the traits of courage, friendship, love…they can still use the strength of those attributes to combat darkness and help their digimon digivolve."
"Aren't we not focusing on the real problem here?" asked Matt. "If this message is true, then don't we have to find these keys, wherever they are? Even if the message isn't true, clearly something is up, and it has to do with the Dark Ocean, which we all know is dangerous."
"The message said the keys were hidden, but the system that was put in place to hide them is now failing," said Izzy. "If the keys were created in the Digital World, I imagine they are some sort of data that has been masked in some way, sort of like phishing on the internet – users can make an email address, for example, look like it's coming from someone else; applying that concept to the keys, maybe they were made to look like other objects as to hide their true identity."
"Great, Izzy; so they can basically be anywhere in either the Digital World or Real World and can look like anything," said Tai miserably. "That's real helpful."
"Well, if the system is failing, that means that we can maybe track them down now – that whatever disguising them isn't doing the job anymore. Again, if the keys are really data, I could maybe track them down if I can spot some sort of energy or data anomalies…"
"But maybe it really is a trap," argued Matt. "Maybe, whoever sent this, wants us to find the keys because they can't, and we'll lead them right to them."
"I imagine they're not going to all be in one spot," said Izzy. "And they would need to get five of the nine, which by then we would hopefully be on to them. However, if the message was sent by someone not ill-intended, and someone else is hunting down the keys and we don't do anything, then we wouldn't even know they had all the keys they need before it's too late, when the barrier of the Dark Ocean is already broken."
"How do we even know anyone else is looking for the keys?" argued Matt. "We're going to go on some wild goose chase nine times to find some keys that no one else may even be looking for? If there really are even any keys to begin with. The whole thing is fishy to me."
While Matt and Izzy argued, Tai was looking across the schoolyard. He could see Nate Arashi, who was lingering in the shadows by the stone wall of the school, talking with another student he didn't recognize – a shorter boy with shaggy, chin-length gray hair, a high-tech watch on his wrist, and a relaxed, easy-going smile. He looked younger than Nate, and Tai surmised he was probably a first year student. He also seemed more affable than Nate, who continued to wear a smug, diabolical sort of grin. Tai scowled, wondering why any decent-seeming person would want to associate with such an unpleasant creep like Nate.
"Hey, Tai! Earth to Tai!" exclaimed Matt, and Tai shook his head, returning his attention back to his friends.
"Huh? What is it?"
"Jeez, Tai, we're just having a conversation here," said Matt, clearly annoyed. "What were you staring at anyway?" he then asked, looking toward the direction Tai had been watching.
"I just noticed someone from my homeroom class," answered Tai dismissively, wanting to change the subject before it even began. "Where's Sora, by the way? Aren't you two always joined at the hip nowadays?"
Matt's cheeks flushed, but chose to ignore most of Tai's comments. "She just went to find Mimi before you got here…"
"She's not coming."
The three boys looked up to see Sora arrived, as if on cue, and having a difficult time masking the disappointment on her face.
"What do you means 'she's not coming?'" asked Tai.
Sora sighed, sitting down. "Mimi couldn't make it. It's not a big deal. I'm going to see her after school, anyway." She tried to smile to prove this. Wanting to change the subject before the boys could pry, she asked, "What's with all the serious faces, anyway? What are you doing around Izzy's computer for?"
"You know, the usual stuff: some mysterious message from an unknown sender about the fate of the world," said Matt.
"What?" asked Sora, surprised. Matt gestured to Izzy's laptop, and Sora quickly read through the message. "Oh, wow. I guess it is a good thing I'm seeing Mimi after school today; I can fill her in…"
Sora leaned against the computer desk in the computer lab after school as Izzy worked. Izzy had his laptop, desktop, and phone out, his eyes shifting from screen to screen as he typed away. Outside the lab was a sign that read "Computer Club: After School," but the so-called "club" was practically nonexistent save for Izzy, who more or less created the club as an excuse to commandeer the computer lab for his own personal, private use.
Sora glanced at the clock, seeing it was already a quarter to four in the afternoon, an hour after school let out. "I really thought Mimi would be here by now…"
"Maybe she got held up?" said Izzy, although he seemed distracted by his keyboard and the three screens.
"I guess," said Sora glumly, slumping into the chair next to Izzy. "She was hanging out with some girls for lunch…I think one of them was named Meg. She seemed kind of like a mean girl. You're a first year student, Izzy. Do you know her?"
Izzy shuddered. Unfortunately, every first year student was familiar with Meg Oshiro. "I would say 'mean girl' is a pretty accurate assessment."
Sora sighed. "Well, thanks for letting me hang out with you while Matt's at rehearsal in the auditorium with his band."
"Sorry I'm probably not as interesting of a conversationalist as Mimi."
Sora smiled. "It's all right, Izzy. If you weren't here, I'd be waiting by myself, since Mimi bailed on me."
Silence followed, save for Izzy's typing. Sora pulled out her phone; a message had arrived from Mimi only a short while ago: "Sorry, Sora! I lost track of time! Maybe tomorrow?" It was followed by a smiley face.
Sora typed back: "Where are you? I've been waiting."
A few moments passed. A message popped up: "Some new friends I met today invited me to hang out. I didn't want to be rude, since I just met them." There was another pause, and a new message appeared: "You're not mad, are you?"
Sora frowned. She definitely wanted to be mad, but her conscience got the better of her. She typed into her phone: "It's okay, Mimi. I'm glad you're making new friends. I'm with Izzy, anyway, and Matt should be done with band practice soon."
After a moment, another message popped up from Mimi: "Thanks, Sora! You're the best!" It was followed this time by another smiley face and a heart.
Sora smiled, even though she felt a little sad. "Sure, no problem," she sent back, followed by a smiley face. She waited awhile, but no new messages came from Mimi. Growing bored, she looked over at Izzy, who was furiously typing away. "So are you working on finding the keys?" she asked, breaking the silence between them.
Izzy gave a curt nod. "I'm trying to set up a network to detect any possible anomalies; since the Digital World and Real World overlap, I should be able to lay the same interface over both…"
Sora hummed a little, mulling this over. "Do you really think that message was true? That there really are these keys that we need to find, that can potentially be used to break the seal on the Dark Ocean?"
"It's a possibility."
"It's been awhile since we had to worry about saving the world; I've kind of gotten used to just being normal…"
"Prodigious!" exclaimed Izzy.
"You found something?" asked Sora, standing up and looking over Izzy's shoulder to look. She could see several maps running in multiple windows across two screens – on the laptop, were maps of the Digital World and on the desktop computer, maps of the Real World.
Izzy zoomed in on one of the maps of the Real World, highlighting the city of Tokyo. "I'm registering some sort of anomaly…it seems to resemble almost an electromagnetic pulse, but not quite…"
The map zoomed in further, until the map was focused on a specific crossroad in an industrial district in Tokyo and a satellite image of an abandoned warehouse. "It looks like it's coming from here."
Sora frowned. "There? That seems kind of far from us, but I guess we can head there and check it out."
"Or better yet…" Izzy zoomed out from the warehouse to a broader map of Tokyo. "Here, you can see the anomaly," he explained, pointing to a red, flashing point on the map. "Now, see here?" he asked, pointing to a cluster of smaller blue points more south on the map, which were flashing over Tsukishima General High School. "That's us."
"Us?"
"Well, more specifically, there are three signals – you, me, and Matt." He ran his mouse over the three blue points, and Matt, Sora, and Izzy's name popped up on the screen. "Over here…" He scrolled the mouse a couple blocks south to the local arcade, where another blue point flashed and Mimi's name popped up, "…is Mimi."
"Probably with those girls," mumbled Sora, remembering Mimi's messages. "But, Izzy, how are you finding us like that?"
"The app you all installed on your phone," explained Izzy and Sora glanced at her phone, which was running the DigiPortal app. "I hadn't initially intended to use it to track you all, obviously, but when I started creating this interface, the app was registering as an anomaly – or well, multiple anomalies – most likely because of its ability to access the Digital World. As the signals were cellular, I quickly determined that they belonged to our phones, and so, I color-coded them blue and registered each signal to each of your names as to not confuse them with other anomalies. And, as we may be facing a significant threat, I thought it may be necessary to have some sort of way to track each other in place, in the event that one of us is in danger…"
He moved his mouse farther east. "Anyway, this blue mark here over Meiou Academy is obviously Joe." Sora nodded and Izzy jagged back northwest. "And over here at Odaiba Junior High is obviously Kari, TK, Davis, Yolei, Cody, and Ken."
"Okay, so that's everyone, right?"
"Correct," said Izzy, "except Tai, who is…right here."
He brought the mouse further northwest, north of Tsukishima General High School and just south of the flashing red point, landing on a lone blue point.
"Hey, he's pretty close to that warehouse!" said Sora.
Izzy smiled. "Well, not that close, but closer than any of us," he said, picking up his smartphone and opening the DigiPortal app.
Tai glanced at his phone as he walked home from school, his backpack hung over one of his shoulders. He was glad that his smartphone was no longer frozen, but he still hadn't heard back from Agumon. He let out a sigh, putting his phone back in his pants' pocket, finally reaching the front entrance to his apartment building.
His phone suddenly buzzed. Tai took out his phone again to see Izzy was calling via the DigiPortal app. Tai accepted the video call, and Izzy appeared on his phone screen.
"Hey, Izzy, what's up?"
"I've found an anomaly that I think might be worth checking out."
Tai's eyes widened. "You mean, you've found the first key?" he asked.
"Possibly," stressed Izzy, wary to confirm that the anomaly was indeed a key.
"Well, where is it?"
"It's about a twenty minute walk from you."
"From me?"
"I'm sending you the coordinates now…"
"Do you think it's a good idea for him to go by himself?" a voice asked beside Izzy. It was Sora, who now shared the screen with Izzy. "It might be dangerous, and he doesn't even have Agumon with him."
"Well, currently we don't have any known, specific threat, nor do we know if it's really a key, or if the existence of the keys is even true," reasoned Izzy. "Besides, it's more of a reconnaissance mission rather than a combative mission."
"Yeah, I'm just going to check it out, Sora," said Tai, disregarding her concerns. "If anything seems too shady, I'll just retreat and wait for you guys to come."
Sora scoffed, putting her hands on her hips. "You? Retreat? You're too cocky and bull-headed to ever retreat."
"Shouldn't you be making googly-eyes at Matt or something, Sora?"
Sora's cheeks reddened and she scowled. "Shouldn't you be keeping your juvenile comments to yourself, Tai?"
"Come on, you guys," intervened Izzy. "Now's not the time to argue."
"Fine," Sora grumbled, crossing her arms. "Just be careful and don't do anything too dumb, okay?" she resigned.
Tai gave Sora a brash grin, relishing in his victory. "Relax, Sora! When am I not careful?"
"That's what I'm afraid of," muttered Sora.
"I'll keep you guys posted!" exclaimed Tai, still grinning, and then ended the call.
Tai was not grinning when he reached the abandoned warehouse. It was desolate, and the isolation made him guarded.
He sent a message to Izzy from his phone: "I'm here."
A short moment later, Izzy wrote back, "Good. Let us know your progress."
Tai then glanced at the unanswered message he had sent to Agumon. He frowned, but tapping his screen, wrote to him, "Hey, Agumon! Where you've been today? I guess you haven't gotten my message yet, buddy. Hope you're doing okay. I've got a lot to talk to you about, so hopefully I hear from you soon!"
He tapped "send" on his phone and then turned his attention to the dilapidated warehouse.
Since the warehouse was in such disrepair, it was not too difficult to get into; one of the windows had already been broken, and so Tai slipped his way in. Inside, there was no electricity, but pale sunlight at least made the large space visible, even if it was filtered in through and obscured by gray, dusty glass. There were, however, piles upon piles of garbage, horded in heaps across the expansive floor.
Tai gaped in horror, looking at the massive amounts of junk surrounding him. "How is anyone supposed to find anything in this mess!" he exclaimed. His shoulders slumped and he groaned, until at last he pushed himself to start digging.
He had spent a good fifteen minutes sifting and slogging through an assortment of rubbish and grumbling irritably to himself when, suddenly, a merry voice called out from above him, "Hello!"
Startled by the sound of the unfamiliar voice, Tai let out a quick gasp and stumbled back, falling onto his backside. He looked up to see a teenage boy a few feet above him, crouching on top of the pile of junk he had just been picking through. He was wearing a Tsukishima General High School uniform and a warm smile, along with a high-tech watch; Tai recognized him as the student had been talking with Nate Arashi at lunch.
"I'm Tom Sato. It's nice to meet you," he said. The student – Tomiichi "Tom" Sato – gave a wave, still crouching on the mountain of rubbish and peering down at Tai. Tai continued to stare at him, confounded. Tom's expression seemed gentle and genuine, and yet Tai's instinct told him something was off.
"Do you really have to make such pleasantries, Tom?" boomed a voice from the other side of the warehouse, confirming Tai's suspicions. Tai glanced to his right and saw Nate Arashi standing on another junk heap, looking annoyed. "Especially to a worm like him?"
Tom shrugged and smiled, standing up straight. "You know, I really think he likes you," he said to Tai without a hint of irony.
"What are you doing here?" questioned Tai, scowling at Nate.
"The same reason you're here," said Nate, his cold expression contrasting with Tom's sunshiny disposition. "Allow me to make a more formal introduction. We call ourselves the DigiKnights of Darkness."
"DigiKnights of Darkness?" scoffed Tai, brushing himself off as he stood up. "You can call yourself whatever you want, but that doesn't actually mean anything. It's cute that you followed me all the way here so you can play make-believe with your friend Tom here, but, unlike you, I was actually chosen to do something, so try not to get in my way, all right?"
Nate sneered. "You mean you're one of the 'lucky' few. A DigiDestined. But why should the world continue to serve only people like you? The world should return to the rest of us – the ones who welcome the darkness. That's why we were recruited...to find the keys and break the seal of the Dark Ocean, so we can change the world."
Tai's confidence began to crack. How did Nate know about the Dark Ocean or the keys? He clutched his backpack close to him, which still hung on his shoulder and had the digivice – the primary tool of the DigiDestined – still clipped onto one of the straps.
Nate noticed Tai's expression change from one of impudence to one of caution. "So now you're starting to believe me?" he asked.
Nate reached behind him, swiftly pulling out a strange metal object from his backpack. It was a pentagon shaped device, an empty socket in each of its five corners. In the center was a large glass sphere; a strange black shadow circled around inside the sphere, but the sphere was only partially full.
"This is the Darkness Meter," explained Nate, holding it with one hand. "As you can see, there are five keyholes for five corrupted keys. Once we corrupt a key, its data will be entered into one of the keyholes of the Darkness Meter and, once there are five corrupted keys in each keyhole, the lock sealing the Dark Ocean from the Digital World and Real World will be broken."
Tai glowered. "Who recruited you?"
"Dragomon," answered Nate. "Or, well, I was recruited by Dragomon…a few years ago. It's a little bit more complicated now."
"'Complicated?'"
Nate shrugged. "Darkness is darkness; what does it matter where the darkness comes from?" he answered vaguely.
"You really ought to believe him," chimed in Tom, still smiling cheerfully. "He's telling the truth, you know. We really were recruited to break the seal of the Dark Ocean."
Tai hesitated, Tom's strange, off-kilter gaiety making him feel oddly unsettled. "Even if you really were 'recruited'…" he began, choosing his words carefully. "…what can you do against the DigiDestined?"
That smug smirk snaked its way back onto Nate's face. "I'm glad you asked." With his free hand, he pulled out from his under his shirt a tag and crest that was hanging from his neck. Tom did the same. But, rather than the colors and gold that made up the DigiDestined tags and crests, these were a dull mix of black and grey, and a dark violet glow shone around them.
The dark energy spilled out from the crests in front of Nate and Tom, and from the darkness, two creatures began to form, like a pixilated image slowly going into focus. Within a matter of moments, two large winged beasts were overhead: the ultimate digimon DoruGreymon and Chirinmon.
Tai took a step back from Nate and Tom, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of them as the two fierce digimon loomed over him.
"They're Shadow Crests," explained Tom politely, noticing Tai's shocked and bewildered expression. "Mine's the Shadow Crest of Illusion, the mirror to the Crest of Knowledge. Nate's is the Shadow Crest of Fear…"
"…the mirror to the Crest of Courage," finished Nate, narrowing his eyes on Tai, the original owner of the Crest of Courage.
Tom continued to speak lightly, "You see, the crests have the power to generate artificial digimon partners for us...Shadow Digimon, we like to call them. While you are able to make digimon digivolve by harnessing the light of your crests, the Shadow Digimon are created and powered by darkness."
"Except, it seems, you don't have any digimon with you to digivolve," noted Nate.
"That is a shame," said Tom with a sympathetic frown, before giving an encouraging smile. "Better luck next time?"
Tai gulped, feeling a cold bead of sweat run down the back of his neck. "You're not going to attack me in the middle of the city," he tried to reason, although his voice was shaky. "You know how much attention you'll attract?"
"Oh, I can fix that," said Tom, as if he was doing Tai a favor. He raised his wrist and began tapping buttons on his high-tech watch. Suddenly, a green data field appeared, forming like a series of connecting digital blocks, starting on the floor underneath Tai and then spreading every which way, climbing up the walls and covering the ceiling. The field buzzed and glowed around Tai and the abandoned warehouse. "You see, it's a simulated pocket reality, similar to the technology used to disguise the keys, although sadly not as powerful. We can cause as much damage as we like, and it will only affect the simulated warehouse, plus those on the outside won't even know, because I've made an artificial simulation to replicate the exterior and mask the simulated reality we are now in. Now for the interior…"
"Why do you have to create the interior for?" asked Nate, growing impatient. "Will you quit wasting time?"
Tom sighed. "You're no fun." He stopped and the green glow disappeared, to be replaced with pristine walls, marble floors, stained glass windows, and stone pillars, like the inside of mansion, save for the incongruent piles of garbage that still remained. "It's not very creative," admitted Tom. "But at least I prettied it up a bit."
A chill ran down Tai's spine as he glanced around the changed surroundings, a simulation that seemed so eerily realistic, and he was reminded of how, back on File Island, Devimon had been able to do the same with his mansion, and make the dilapidated estate appear to the DigiDestined as though it were in immaculate condition. But it had been only an illusion, just like Tom had done – Tom, who carried a Shadow Crest of Illusion.
"As the leader of the DigiKnights, I have decided to make an official declaration of war against the DigiDestined," said Nate with damning resolve. "That makes you an enemy. And, while we had initially come here to track down the First Key, we might as well take the time to get rid of you."
Then, he ordered, "DoruGreymon – attack!"
DoruGreymon's white dragon wings flapped more rapidly, raising him toward the ceiling as he roared, "Metal Meteor!"
A massive iron sphere appeared in front of DoruGreymon, and, with a snap of his wings, the sphere went hurtling down, right toward Tai.
Tai gasped and ran, barely darting from the iron sphere, which crashed into the ground where he had just been standing, sizzling with heat. The collision caused the floor to shake and Tai stumbled as Chirinmon joined the onslaught, bellowing, "Wind Cutter Sword!"
Chirinmon swooped toward Tai, his sharp, blade-like horn pointed directly at Tai. Tai let out a cry and ducked to the ground, Chirinmon soaring past him and smacking into one of the mounds of refuse behind him and causing an assortment of junk to scatter across the floor.
Tai scrambled to his feet and started running again, as DoruGreymon shouted "Metal Meteor!" again, another iron sphere slamming into the floor only a couple yards behind him, first knocking into one of the simulated pillars Tom had created, which crumbled like it was real. Chirinmon was starting to rise again from the ground, and was again taking aim for him. Tai zigzagged deeper into the warehouse, between the heaps of refuse, hoping to find cover and narrowly avoiding the speeding Chirinmon, who swept in and crashed through another pile of junk, scattering more debris across the floor. But this time, the pegasus-like digimon sliced straight through it with tremendous force, and up into the air again, circling around again for Tai as DoruGreymon sent another metal meteor barreling toward the ground. This time, the massive sphere hit a junk heap and debris exploded every which way, dust and smoke bursting from the now burning metal scraps, paper, and office supplies that had been abandoned in the warehouse.
This smoke and dust was just enough of a temporary screen for Tai to get out of view, and he dashed further toward the back of the junk piles, crouching behind a particularly tall mound of useless trash. Trembling, he yanked his phone out, remembering that Izzy had said the newly installed app could be used as a portal from the Real World to the Digital World, and scrambled to type: "Agumon! Help! I need you!"
As soon as he hit "send," Chirinmon collided into the pile he had been using to hide behind. Tai dropped his phone and it skidded across the floor with the force of the wind coming from Chirinmon's powerful wings. Tai ducked, covering his head with his arms to try to protect himself from falling debris. When the ground stopped shuddering, he glanced up and noticed, amongst the junk now strewn across the floor, an old, decrepit, unplugged computer monitor, that was strangely buzzing and flickering on and off.
"Huh?" Tai blinked a few times, until it registered. "The key!" he gasped.
Looking up and seeing Chirinmon was circling again, his sharp horn glinting with ill-intent, and DoruGreymon was extending his wings backwards, readying another attack, Tai knew he had to get running again. Steely-eyed, his stare set on the glowing computer monitor, Tai raced toward the monitor as another metal meteor crashed into the floor behind him, causing the ground to quake. Tai staggered forward, slamming hard onto the floor a few yards away from where the lit-up monitor was. Tai tried to shake off the pain from his bruised and scrapes, pulling himself up to his knees. He felt dizzy, but raised his head, trying to refocus his vision as clouds of dust blew up around him from the last impact of DoruGreymon's metal meteor. His eyes shifted around the room, until at last landing on the glowing monitor, which Tom was now standing behind.
The monitor buzzed louder and then crackled, like it was short-circuiting, before flashing in and out of sight, like a projection experiencing a sudden glitch. In a matter of seconds, the image of the monitor disappeared entirely, revealing what it had been hiding all along: a bright and shining white keycard.
"No, wait…" Tai tried to protest, standing on wobbly legs, but it was too late. Tom picked up the keycard and the card sparked, running white electricity around Tom's hand and wrist. Darkness poured from Tom's crest, spinning and snaking down his arm as fast as lightning and overcoming the light and consuming the keycard. The keycard turned black, the white glow being swallowed by shadow and replaced with a dark, purplish energy. In a flash, the keycard zoomed out of Tom's hand and across the warehouse, like a black lightning bolt streaking across air.
Tai's head jolted, his eyes darting to follow the keycard, which he saw as the card struck the central orb of the Darkness Meter, which was spinning midair in front of Nate with the energy emanating from the card. As it struck, the card was transformed into dark energy, flowing around the Darkness Meter and sparking like a surge of electrical power. The darkness in the orb expanded as the energy pivoted and focused on one corner of the pentagon. In a few moments, the spinning of the Darkness Meter slowed and the sparks sputtered to a stop until Nate finally snatched it back from the air. One of the five corners of the Darkness Meter was now filled with a glowing dark purple circular object, having been corrupted and reshaped from the one white and shining keycard to fit the keyholes of the Darkness Meter.
Nate grinned with wicked triumph. He then set his glare on Tai, countenance full of disdain. "Your luck's finally run out, Tai. You lose."
Tai glowered. "It's not over yet. You still need four more to do anything."
"True," said Nate, but was smirking smugly. "But it is over for you."
He glanced up and Tai followed his stare to see DoruGreymon and Chirinmon were circling overhead right above him.
"Don't worry! I'm sure it won't hurt very badly," said Tom, sounding sweet and assuring, even though Tai was fairly certain he was lying.
Tai swallowed hard and took a cautious step back, watching the two digimon circle above him. Only this morning he had been longing for excitement; now he was longing to return to his listless life again.
Suddenly, a sound: a combination of a chime and a buzz, cutting through the tense air. "Huh?" Tai's stare broke from the digimon and down, to wear the sound was coming from. It was his phone, which he had dropped a few minutes early, vibrating on the floor with a phone call. The vibrating seemed normal at first, but then grew, until it was shaking wildly on the floor, the screen lighting up.
Tai noticed a glow with the corner of his eye and he glanced behind him to see the digivice clipped to the strap of his backpack was lit-up, just like his phone screen. A sudden jolt of hope ran through him as he saw the glowing digivice and his eyes darted back to his phone just as a beam of light burst from it, extending all the way to the ceiling, between the circling DoruGreymon and Chirinmon. And, from the light, materialized a steely-eyed Agumon.
Tai let out a laugh, relieved to see his friend. "Agumon! I knew I could count on you! What took so long?"
"Sorry for the wait, Tai," said Agumon. "But, all of a sudden, I sensed you were in danger and there was this light. Then I found myself here."
"Well, good-timing!" said Tai, grinning and getting his confidence back. They were outnumbered, but, with Agumon at his side, Tai knew he could win this fight.
Nate, however, was displeased. "What good will a rookie digimon do against two ultimates?" he asked coldly. "DoruGreymon!"
"Chirinmon!" followed Tom with a chipper smile. The dark crests both boys wore pulsed with black energy.
"Metal Meteor!"
"Wind Sword Cutter!"
Tai felt a zap on his hand, like a static shock. He lifted his hand to see on the back was a glowing symbol, as if tattooed into his skin. "The Crest of Courage!" he exclaimed. With only seconds to spare, Tai shouted out, "Agumon! Digivolve!"
Agumon glowed, digivolving first into Greymon and then into MetalGreymon just in time, shoving into Chirinmon as he swooped down toward Tai. Chirinmon went sideways, colliding with DoruGreymon's metal meteor attack, and the massive metal sphere was deflected, both it and Chirinmon sailing across the warehouse and crashing into one of the walls.
"It may be two against one, but you're no match for MetalGreymon!" said Tai, grinning.
"Giga Blaster!" shouted MetalGreymon and a series of torpedoes went zooming upward, hitting DoruGreymon, who let out a roar and went colliding with the ceiling before plummeting to the ground. The warehouse quaked with the tremendous force of DoruGreymon's body slamming against the floor.
Nate scowled, now furious. Both DoruGreymon and Chirinmon were trying to stand, but were losing strength, black energy sparking around them as if ready to transform into energy and retreat back into the safety of Nate's Shadow Crest. Tom hummed a little, noticing Nate's ire and that the situation took a sudden turn that was no longer in their favor. "How does that saying go again?" he asked. "'He who fights and runs away…'"
Nate grunted, grinding his teeth. "I won't lose to him."
Tom smiled calmly even as Nate boiled with anger. "And here I thought we already won and were just putting on an elaborate encore." He then shrugged. "Oh, well. I'm sure there will be other keys if we stay here and fight a little longer and lose the one we just won. You do know I like a good show, so fight away!"
MetalGreymon approached DoruGreymon, but was soon distracted by Chirinmon, bellowing again, "Wind Cutter Sword!" MetalGreymon dug his giant feet into the floor to brace himself as Chirinmon hit, but was propelled backwards, hitting into the opposite wall.
"MetalGreymon!" cried Tai, racing to his digimon's side. But MetalGreymon was already shaking himself off, preparing for Chirinmon's onslaught.
"Mega Claw!" shouted MetalGreymon, launching a tethered metal claw from his arm that wrapped around the flying Chirinmon. He gave a tug and Chirinmon went swinging, slamming into the wall before sliding down the wall and hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
Chirinmon, now weakened, transformed back into dark energy, which zapped its way back into Tom's crest, as though storing itself there in order to replenish its power. Tai's eyes followed the energy to see, to his surprise, that Tom was up above, riding on the back of DoruGreymon with Nate, still holding onto the Darkness Meter. "Weren't you forgetting something?" asked Nate, smirking smugly as he shook the Darkness Meter tauntingly.
"The key!" exclaimed Tai.
Nate's grin widened as he slid the Darkness Meter behind him into his backpack. "Tom," he ordered and Tom gave a nod, fiddling with his watch.
The image of the marble, pillared, now crumbling mansion disappeared, returning back to the real, gritty, dirty warehouse. "Metal Meteor!" shouted DoruGreymon, sending a blast right through the ceiling which caused Tai to cringe, pieces of the ceiling falling around the warehouse, and fairly certain now that Tom's simulated reality was gone, someone would notice the blast.
"This isn't over," said Nate gravely.
"Nice to meet you! See you in school tomorrow!" said Tom, with the same eerily pleasant smile and a cheerful wave.
Then, with a rush of wind from DoruGreymon's wings, the ultimate digimon with the two DigiKnights of Darkness swooped up and out the hole in the ceiling, disappearing out of the warehouse as it fled into the sky and out of sight.
With the danger gone, MetalGreymon dedigivolved back to Agumon. Exhausted, he plopped onto the floor.
"Agumon!" exclaimed Tai, rushing to his side and kneeling next to him.
"Sorry they got away, Tai," said Agumon.
Tai smiled, shaking his head. "Don't worry about it. I'm just grateful you came when you did."
"Who were those guys?"
"That's kind of a long story," said Tai. "How about I explain it to you over dinner?"
Agumon nodded and smiled, while Tai laughed and patted his head.
Police sirens sounded nearby. "Uh, it sounds like we better get out of here quick before we're the ones who get in trouble for the mess," said Tai, particularly glancing at the giant hole in the ceiling.
"Right!" agreed Agumon.
The two quickly scurried out of the warehouse before the police arrived. And, while the glowing diminished, the Crest of Courage remained faintly sketched on the back of Tai's hand.
The sun was setting when DoruGreymon landed on a fenced rooftop in Tokyo. As soon as Nate and Tom slid off, DoruGreymon disappeared, returning to electrical dark energy like Chirinmon had before and returning to the darkness of Nate's Shadow Crest.
Nate growled, slamming his fist against the fence that encircled the rooftop as to prevent people from falling. "Damn it!" he snarled.
"It's not so bad," said Tom, trying to remain optimistic. "We've got a key, didn't we? We're halfway there!"
"How is one key halfway there when we need to get four more?"
Tom shrugged and corrected, "Well, one-fifth the way there, which is practically half."
Nate sighed. "But we still lost and it was two against one," he said, glancing down at his Shadow Crest. "We don't have enough darkness to power the Shadow Crests and our Shadow Digimon – we need more dark energy to make them stronger."
"Ah, it is a shame," admitted Tom, tapping his finger to his chin. "But, don't worry, Nate. The dynamic duo of the DigiKnights of Darkness will prevail against the dynamic…um…how many DigiDestined are there again?"
Nate glowered. "Too many."
"There is strength in numbers, isn't there?" mused Tom. "We should think about making some more friends."
Nate grinned, the wheels beginning to turn in his head. "The DigiKnights of Darkness could use some new members…"
Tom smiled. "And I have the perfect recruit in mind."