This story is set the night of the Highton View Terrace incident. But it is written in a whole new perspective: what if the bad guy wasn't really who Kari and Tai thought he was?
Parrotmon, How I Loved You
By Hopelight
"TK! Matt! Bedtime!"
Matt's blonde head whipped around to face his mother. "Aw, Mom, do we have to?" the seven-year-old groaned. Beside him, his four-year-old brother TK also turned and simply pleaded a later bedtime with his big blue eyes.
"Bed," Nancy said firmly. She switched off the TV and pointed toward the bathroom.
"But it's Friday night," Matt complained, pouting.
Nancy sighed. Matt had been going through a rebellious phase and she didn't think she liked it very much. "That may well be, but we're leaving early tomorrow morning to go visit your grandparents, and you need your sleep. Now, get brushed up and help TK get into his pajamas."
"Fine."
The two blonde boys hopped off the couch and headed toward the bathroom. At that moment, her husband Malcolm walked through the apartment door with his briefcase in hand. He noticed his sons streaking by and frowned.
"How come they're not in bed yet?" he asked.
"Hello to you too." Nancy went up to him and kissed him on the cheek, though there was no warmth in her kiss. "They were hemming and hawing to stay up for another half hour, so I let them have that."
"Ah." He dropped his briefcase on the floor, removed his shoes and sighed. "What a day. We hired a new technician, and he can't do his job worth a damn. So Peterson had to set him straight, and…"
Nancy only half-listened to her husband's complaints as she tidied up the living room. Matt and TK had spilled popcorn all over the floor again. The little devils themselves popped out of the bathroom only minutes later, both with toothpaste still on their upper lip like foamy green mustaches.
"DADDY!" TK cried. He was only clad in his blue pajama pants with the feet on them. The small boy threw his arms around his dad's knees and hugged tight. Malcolm laughed and picked him up.
"Hey, Teeks!" he said, chucking him under the chin. Then he noticed Matt skulking away. "Matt, don't think you're going to get away without saying hello to me!" he said, chuckling.
Matt turned and gave him a barely perceptible nod. "Hi, Dad," he said tonelessly, continuing to walk into the room that he and TK shared. However, he failed to notice that the door was closed, and smacked right into it. "OW!"
Malcolm set TK down and laughed. "That's what you get for not acknowledging me, buddy," he said, bending down and hugging his son. Matt squirmed away, yanked open the door, and shut it in his dad's face.
"Matt…"
"Leave it, Nancy. He's probably just cranky and needing some sleep." Malcolm looked pointedly at her, and she had to look away.
After she had tucked her boys in, Nancy went into the living room to find Malcolm on the phone. He hung up and went into the porch to put on his shoes.
"Where are you going?"
"Back to the TV station."
"Oh, for God's sake, Malcolm. Why?"
"They're having problems with the satellites again. I'll be maybe three hours. Don't wait up." He leaned to kiss her briefly.
Nancy scowled. "Are you going to be awake for driving us out to the country tomorrow?"
He didn't exactly meet her eyes when he said, "I may not be able to go."
"WHAT?"
"They want me to put in overtime this weekend. They'll pay me, of course. I was going to ask you if you didn't mind…"
She paced around. "Malcolm, you promised that we'd get away for the weekend sometime. Now we have the chance, and you're just going to throw it away?"
"Nancy…"
She turned away. "Tell them that you're not going to work this weekend. Tell them, dammit!"
He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "All right."
"Good. Thank you."
He gave her a kiss on the nape of the neck and left. She waited until the door had closed behind him before she stole down the hall to the room she and Malcolm shared. She didn't feel like sleeping on the couch tonight.
The moment she entered her room, she saw that there was someone out on the balcony.
"Hello?" she asked quietly. "Who's there?" To be safe, she picked up the lamp next to her bed, just in case it was a burglar.
She stepped out onto the balcony and looked around. A large, hulking shape lay half-hidden in the shadows. "Hello?" she said again. "Who are you?"
She heard a rustling of feathers, and the sound of claws clicking as an old friend of hers stepped out of the shadows.
Her Digimon partner, Parrotmon.
"Nancy. Hello, my old friend. It's good to see you," he greeted her warmly.
"Parrotmon!" she gasped. "How did you get here?"
"I'm not quite sure," he admitted.
Nancy was hardly able to speak from joy. "I haven't seen you in twenty years!" she managed to gasp out. She stepped closer and ran her hands through his glossy green feathers. "What have you been doing?"
"Gennai got me a job working with the Andromon in a factory on File Island."
"And how is Gennai?"
"He's well, for a man his age."
They both shared a laugh. Gennai could just about qualify for a living fossil, if he didn't look so young.
"And you, Nancy? Tell me about your life," he instructed. "Do you still talk to the other Digidestined?"
She took a deep breath. "Well, I've kind of kept in touch with the others. Maia Shimada married Dave Kamiya, and they had two kids, a boy and a girl. I was actually pregnant with her for both her children; Tai and Kari. My kids are both boys. Their names are Matt and TK. Short for Takeru, after my grandfather. Matt's seven and TK is four."
"Are you married?"
"Yes," she said, sounding a bit on edge. The fingers of one slim white hand twisted her wedding ring around her finger. She barely ever wore it anymore, and it felt uncomfortably tight.
"You have problems," he said knowledgeably.
Nancy rested her head on him and sighed. "Malcolm's been working a lot lately. He works at the new TV station, and they're always having technical problems. I think…" she took a breath and blurted out her secret fear "…that he's seeing another woman."
"Why would he do that?"
"I don't know."
Parrotmon made a sympathetic noise.
"Hey, Parrotmon?" she asked suddenly. "Can you take me for a ride?"
He was taken aback. "Do you remember how we used to fly?"
"It's like riding a bike—you never forget."
"What about your boys? Will they wake up?"
"Oh, they sleep like logs. And besides, we don't have to go too far."
"Well…if you really want to…let's go."
She mounted his back and shifted her weight until she was comfortable. "Am I too heavy?" she asked.
"Nah, not a bit. You were always a light person."
She laughed a little, suddenly feeling uneasy. "I…I almost forget how I stayed on."
"You'll remember once we're in the air. Now hang on tight!"
He swooped off the balcony into the night air. At first he stayed low, sensing that she was a little nervous about their first flight in over two decades, but as time progressed he lifted them high into the air. Nancy laughed and shrieked with delight as he swooped around buildings, and circled higher and higher into the clouds. When they finally broke the surface of the thin white clouds, the fine mists tickled her face and she laughed.
"Now do you remember, Nancy?" he called to her over the rushing of the wind.
"Yes, yes!" she cried out. "Go higher!"
He obliged, but soon the thin air was making it hard for them to breathe. So he took a nosedive and went straight down, at breakneck speed. As they hurtled downward, she shrieked and whooped as though she was just a child on a roller coaster. Just as it seemed they were going to crash into a tall apartment building, he swooped up, with his tail feathers just barely skimming the top.
They flew around for about ten or fifteen minutes more before he brought her back to Highton View Terrace. "I can't remember the last time I had so much fun!" she gasped as she dismounted. The feeling of exhiliration that she had gotten from their flight had washed away her anxiety over her crumbling marriage, her tetchy relationship with her elder son, and the worry that her husband was being unfaithful. "Thank you so much, Parrotmon." Her arms encircled his neck and she hugged him tight.
He clicked his beak and chuckled. "You're very welcome, my friend. Anytime you wish to fly, I'll be…"
He stopped speaking all of a sudden. His sharp eyes narrowed, and he peered over the balcony toward a small footbridge not too far away.
"What do you see?" she asked curiously.
"A child. A little girl, with brown hair and light brown eyes. She looks an awful lot like Maia Shimada…do you think it could be her daughter?"
"What?!" Nancy looked over. She could just barely make out a small figure wearing red pajamas. "What would Kari be doing out in the streets, at this time of night? She's only four years old!"
Parrotmon scowled. "She's got company."
"Who?"
He craned his neck. "It's an Agumon," he said. "But he's not the normal size, and his eyes…Nancy, I think he's been infected by a Black Gear!"
Nancy's eyes widened. "Oh no! We've got to call Maia, and—"
"There's no time! I'm going to go get the little girl. You stay here."
Without a moment's hesitation, he spread his wings and soared over the balcony. The Agumon saw that he was coming and fired off a fireball at him. The flames just barely missed him, and he swooped out of the way to avoid them.
Parrotmon was faced with a difficult choice—should he attack, and risk hurting the little girl, or should he try to take Kari away from the scene? But he knew that his aim was good, and he could definitely attack the Agumon without hurting the child. So he fired off his attack, which the Agumon dodged. His attack slammed into the pavement, knocking the little girl aside.
"Koromon!" she cried out in her sweet baby voice. "Koromon!"
"Kari!" a boy's voice called out. Parrotmon was able to make out a small blue-clad figure run to his little sister before Agumon attacked him again. This time his aim was a bit better, and the fireball crashed into his tail. It sent him veering off course a little, and above him, Nancy cried out in fear.
He recovered easily and attacked again. This time, he hit the baby raptor hard in the face, and he fell over.
The little girl screamed. "Oh no!" she cried. "Koromon!"
Agumon lay there, breathing shallow and barely moving. The little girl grasped the whistle that she wore around her neck and tried to blow on it, in an attempt to wake her friend. But she was coughing hard, and white spit flecked with blood was flying out of her mouth. Without warning, her brother grabbed the whistle from her, almost strangling her with the chain it was on. He took a deep breath and blew with all his heart.
Whether it was from the sound of the blast on the whistle or from his own natural resilience, Agumon stood up, enveloped in colored light. Parrotmon gasped as he realized that it was going to digivolve. Which meant that Parrotmon was going to have to fight harder in order to conquer this new enemy.
"Who…who are you?" the small boy asked feebly as Agumon's digivolved form became clear. His eyes were wider than dinner plates as he stared up at the hulking monster.
"I'm Greymon now," it said in a deep husky voice.
Tai looked visibly rattled. "You can call yourself anything you want…big guy."
Greymon turned to Parrotmon. "NOVA BLAST!" he shouted, and a fireball bigger than anything he could have issued as Agumon coursed through the air and hurtled into Parrotmon's chest.
"AAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHH!" he screamed in agony as he was being ripped apart. The sound was coupled with the little girl, screaming in terror as Greymon also began to dissolve into data. Not a sound left Nancy's lips, but she fell to her knees as tears fell down her face in a torrent.
The dying particles of Greymon drifted close to Parrotmon's. As they began to evaporate into oblivion, the Greymon, still infected by the Black Gear, said its final words that only Parrotmon heard. "I may not have been able to destroy the Bearer of Light, but others will. Do not think that the battle between light and darkness is over…for it has barely just begun." With that, it drifted away and its particles imploded on themselves.
"Nancy!" Parrotmon cried out in his final moments, just before he exploded outward in a brilliant shower of sparkles that dazzled the eyes of the two children huddled together on the pavement.
"Parrotmon…" Nancy cried weakly, clutching her chest. It felt like her heart was being torn from behind her ribs and was being exposed to something cruel and painful. As the last of her beloved partner drifted across the night sky, she buried her hands in her face and wept out of frustration and sorrow.
As she cried, a single green feather tipped with yellow and orange floated down on the breeze. It came to rest in her lap, and she lifted her tear-stained face to look at it.
"So a part of you will always be with me," she said aloud, pressing it to her chest. She wiped her eyes of her tears and stood. On her way in, she noticed a sudden movement at Matt and TK's window and frowned. Her sons were leaning out the window, their blonde heads close together, their necks craned eagerly.
Oh God…what if they'd seen the fight?
Nancy made her way into the apartment and went into her sons' room. "TK! Matt! What are you doing still up?" she asked them in her best scolding voice.
TK's eyes were wide under his white-blonde fringe of eyelashes. "Mommy, there's monsters outside," he said excitedly. "I thought Matt was kidding, but I saw them, I saw them!"
"Silly boys." She made a pretence of looking out the window, and looked from side to side. "I don't see any monsters. Do you, Matt? What about you, TK?"
The boys shook their heads dolefully. They both looked like they wanted to say more, but they knew not to press the issue. "It must have been a dream, then," Matt said, shrugging.
"All right, now. Go back to bed. I'll see you in the morning." She kissed them both on the forehead and tucked them back in, before going into the living room, unfolding the pull-out couch and crying herself to sleep on it.
She stood at the stove early the next morning, cooking bacon and eggs for Malcolm. Matt was busy slurping down his Cap'n Crunch cereal and TK, who had finished his oatmeal not five minutes before, was driving his toy truck across the floor, making loud noises with his lips.
Malcolm looked up from the paper he was reading. "It says here that last night, there was a disturbance at the footbridge near Highton View Terrace. Some think it was a bomb scare, and…Good Lord!" He stabbed at a photo in the paper. "That's Dave and Maia's kids! Apparently, they were found there by the authorities, scared out of their minds…" And he continued to talk about it, concluding that a D.C.I by the name of Oikawa was going to be investigating.
TK scooted over to his mother and tugged on her apron. "Mommy, I have a secret to tell you," he said urgently in a low tone.
"What is it TK?" she asked.
He looked up at her and said in a confidential voice, "Mommy, I saw two monsters outside my window last night. Big, scary monsters! Matt saw them too."
"That's silly, TK. You must have seen them in a dream or something," Nancy told her little boy, her tone cool and dismissive.
The little boy would not be ignored, however. "But I really did see monsters, mommy!" he declared, loudly enough that even his father had to look up from the paper.
"Now that's enough! I don't want to hear any more of these crazy stories!" she said sharply, tears pricking at her eyes. All the while, one hand stole into her apron pocket to caress the glossy green feather there. The feather she would keep all her life, to remind her about the one she loved dearest of all…the one she lost.
The End