Disclaimer: We do not own Digimon. This is a remake of the "Digi Unlock" story that was on an old account (ZeroOutput). We have revamped the whole story to be more in tune with our matured writing styles. Please go through the whole story over again, even if you have read it on our old account. We have added like a zillion of new pages and lots of new plot twists to the story. Thanks!
-Miles and Minot
Read and review please. Enjoy!
CHAPTER ONE
Digi-Unlock
In another world, in a once beautiful kingdom, stood a boy, his skin was tan, complementing his dark eyes and black hair that hung past his ears. Darkness surrounded the boy. He wore no shirt, sporting a red cape connected to the silver pauldrons on his shoulders. Tight leather pants clung to his legs, covered up just past the knees by long black boots.
A black tattoo crept up the left side of his torso, reaching out to his ribs in the middle. Attached to a thin chain around his neck was a key that rested on his collarbone. Following him to the tee was a black shadow in his image, only the shadow looked nothing like him. It was jagged and spiked, and much larger than it should have been. It was as though he were wearing a large suit of armor that couldn't be seen, but if one were to reach out and touch him they would feel no such thing.
The shadow began dashing around, finally out of rhythm with its keeper. It moved with unearthly speed from place to place, unable to touch anything but happy enough to simply dance around; its long legs twisting and moving in a way that didn't seem human. "Behind me," He commanded, as the shadow once again took its place behind him, mimicking his every move.
The boy was standing over an aged man who was on his knees. The man's hands were white from clutching one-another. He had been begging for mercy. The sun had just set under the ground, leaving the sky a coppery blue.
The boy held a smirk at the corner of his mouth as the elderly man finally realized his pleading was getting him nowhere, and with his last words the man managed to implore, "Tanek, please don't do this. You have no reason to do this! You cannot destroy our kingdom without reason!"
The elderly man's eyes went blurry as he looked over at the familiar black uniforms marching through the fires that were casting shadows of orange, pinks and reds throughout the town. His voice could barely be heard over the sounds of soldiers wreaking havoc in the background.
"I didn't do this," The boy spoke evenly, detached from the suffering around him and seeming vaguely distracted. "You all did this. All of you did this. You're all paying the price for what you've done." He corrected, his voice not raising a single octave as he contained any anger he might have felt toward this man. Drawing his sword at inhuman speeds, Tanek quickly beheaded the man, turning to leave once he was satisfied with the sight. Having failed in his overall goal but succeeding in sending a message to his prey, Tanek walked through the burning town that was once full of majestic brick housing, inns, shops and the great castle that were now burning to the ground. To him, this was just one place less to look.
Davis had barely walked through his front door and already he could hear his mother yelling for him to hurry up and come get his mail. He sighed upon entering, hanging up his coat only to watch it fall unceremoniously onto the ground. Ignoring it, he ran to his mom. "What's up?" He asked, curious as to why he had mail in the first place.
"You have a package." She said with a raised eyebrow. The last time Davis had got something in the mail it ended up being the make-it-yourself dirt bike he'd ordered without permission. The aforementioned bike had been sitting in pieces on Davis' floor for eight months now.
Davis ran over to the box on the kitchen counter, picking it up to test its weight. "Wow. First I beat Ken for two out of three in soccer, and now I get a package! Why, any second now, Kari will…" Davis trailed off, looking at his mom. Surprisingly enough, she was still listening to him, and so he decided not to finish that next sentence.
"Kari will do what?" His mother asked, unexpectedly curious as to the workings of her son's mind.
"She'll do…nothing. Any minute now Kari will do nothing. Since, you know, she's always doing something. It's unlikely, is all. Yeah," He babbled awkwardly. Davis wasn't really used to this kind of parental attention. Usually, in his house, whoever he was speaking with had left the room by now. Suddenly remembering why she rarely took an interest in Davis, Mrs. Motomiya continued going about her usual business. "That's nice, dear. Now go take your package to your room so you can finish your grounding."
"But what did I do?!" Davis protested, sure that he hadn't done anything this time, mostly sure.
She brushed him off and continued to cook dinner. "Oh, I don't remember, Davis. Go ask your father if you really want to know."
Davis shrugged, knowing his father could probably come up with something. While Mrs. Motomiya could come up with seemingly any reason to punish her son, Mr. Motomiya had a knack for remembering these reasons. Davis swore he saw a Rolodex full of reasons once, but they assured him it was a paranoid dream. "Never mind," He mumbled in defeat as he walked down the hall to his room. Upon opening the door, Veemon jumped onto the box and began chewing eagerly at the duck tape sealing it.
"What do I feed you, Veemon? This box is heavy enough." Davis yelped, nearly dropping the box under the weight of his little blue friend.
"I bet you bought me that new Digi-Scooter I've been beggin' ya for, huh?" The creature responded, not really remembering if a Digi-Scooter was a real thing or not.
Davis continued his struggle to keep the box in his arms and off of the ground, eventually getting a good grip on his cardboard opponent. "Nope, I think I have a secret admirer, so could ya get off please?"
Veemon lay down with his head propped up under his hand. "Hmm, I dunno. I wasted so much energy jumping onto the box. It might just be too much for these legs to jump back off again." The Digimon grinned, obviously messing with his friend.
Davis staggered over to his desk and set the box down, grumbling something about Kentucky Fried Veemon. "Mom's making dinner, Veemon; you'll get food in like twenty minutes. Now get off of my box so I can open it, will ya?"
Veemon sighed as got off the box. "Fine, fine," He muttered. "So, what's in the box?"
"I don't know yet!" Davis shouted in excitement, psyching himself up with possibilities. "Think it could be from Kari?" He asked, not caring that the answer would be no. It was always no. Veemon checked around the box, humoring Davis' question. "There's no return address, so probably not."
"Maybe she just doesn't want me to know it's from her," Davis countered, trying to find any way it could be from Kari. It wasn't totally impossible, was it?
"Oh get real. Who'd want to buy you a present, anyway?" The blue gremlin mocked, giggling as he rolled on Davis' desk.
"Hey!" Davis yelled indignantly. To think that this was one of his best friends was a sad thought at the moment, Davis mused jokingly.
Veemon sat patiently, waiting for an answer. Davis wouldn't subject-change his way out of this one. "Well?"
Davis thought a moment and shrugged, beginning to open his present. "My gramma likes buying me presents." He offered, figuring that was proof enough.
"Yeah, on your birthday, Davis," Veemon sighed, rolling his eyes at the spiky-haired boy. Davis' birthday wasn't for months.
Davis huffed as he halted opening the box just long enough to give his friend a noogie. Dragging his knuckles across his friend's head probably hurt Davis' knuckles more than Veemon's head, but it was the thought that counted.
Finishing his assault on poor Veemon's skull, Davis finished un-wrapping the clunky object inside the box. A small label on the side of it revealed the device to be the A1099X Masterbox. "Hah!" Davis shouted, sure this wasn't from his grandmother. The last video game his gramma bought him was Pong, and that was last year.
"It's the," Davis started, turning the box around and examining it closely before abandoning his sentence and beginning a new one. "I've never heard of this before in my life." He concluded. Davis didn't claim to be a huge gamer by any stretch of the imagination, but he thought he played enough games to know if a whole new system had been released. "Huh. Well that's pretty cool!" Davis figured, picking up the game that'd come with it and taking it out of its case. "Unlock, eh? Sounds like it might be fun."
T.K. had walked Kari home that day, as it had seemed to him like the perfect afternoon for a romantic stroll. She thanked him sweetly at the door and watched him as he headed back to the elevator, waving goodbye to him as the elevator doors closed. Once he was out of sight, she walked back inside her family's apartment. "I'm home!" She yelled, hanging up her coat and taking off her backpack to head for her room.
She opened her room's door to find Tai inspecting a big box that was on the white sheets covering her bed. For a long time it had felt a little strange not sharing Tai's room, but it had been almost nine years now, and she had learned to take care of herself without her brother, mostly. Kari seemed to be ground zero for extra-dimensional activity, and having Tai there at night still helped her sleep easier, so occasionally—when the nightmares would return—Kari would spend a night on her old top bunk. Gatomon probably provided Kari with more actual protection than her brother, but nobody made her feel as safe as Tai did.
"Hey Tai," She greeted. "Watcha doin'?"
"Oh, hey Kari," Tai waved distractedly, inspecting the box. "This package came for you today. Mom put it on my bed again, like she does with all your stuff," He grumbled. Truth be told, Mrs. Kamiya put most out-of-place things on Tai's bed. She claimed she was his little delivery boy, a title he did not appreciate.
She stood staring at him for a moment and then repeated, "A package?" It wasn't entirely uncommon for Kari to get a package, especially since T.K. and Davis had begun competing for her attention, but this box had neither T.K.'s delicately wrapped bows and shimmering wrapping paper, nor Davis' hilarious shoelace bows and wrapping paper made from goofy photos of his own face. Davis' shoelace budget must have been through the roof by now.
"Yeah," Tai answered, just as curious as Kari was about the whole thing. This didn't seem like it was from one of her admirers. It didn't have one of T.K.'s prissy bows or Davis' moronic wrapping paper and neither of them would get her a gift like this. "Were you expecting a game console?"
"Hm?" Kari mumbled. "No," She started before raising an eyebrow and glaring at Tai suspiciously. "And how exactly would you know it was a game console?"
"I… You… Game…" He stuttered, wiping some sweat from his brow and trying not to stare at the box. The package looked as though it had been carelessly ripped apart and then scotch-taped back together. "It was Agumon!" He accused suddenly, pointing at the nearby laundry hamper.
"It wasn't me!" Agumon defended as he dragged himself up out of the hamper, his mouth covered in a sweet smelling sticky brown substance. "I've been hiding in the laundry hamper eating these chocolates Tai bought for Sora! Honest!"
Tai frowned at Agumon, unimpressed as he noted the chocolate smothering Agumon's face. "Hey!" He blushed, equally unsurprised and disappointed that his little friend hadn't played along, but not expecting the matter of the chocolates to come up. "Those weren't for Sora, I just like chocolate. It's not like it's a big box. I can buy a gift for a friend, can't I? I mean, just because I used to like Sora doesn't mean I can't give her a big heart full of chocolate, right? It's not even big. A hundred pieces isn't that… Caramel isn't… Matt won't… Sora… It's not like she'll get it now anyways!" He stammered, throwing some nearby dirty pants at Agumon and quickly turning his attention back to Kari. "Open your box!" He shouted, feeling eager for any sort of distraction.
Kari rolled her eyes at the sad diversion, but decided it was Tai's business if he wanted to buy a highly questionable gift for his best friend's girlfriend. The last time she got caught up with those three she ended up in holding cell for three days. Putting the highly convoluted memory behind her, she began inspecting the remains of what was once the packages brown wrapping. "There's no return address." She confirmed, checking all six sides for any sign of where the box might have come from. It was possible Tai had ripped it off, but he wasn't giving any indication that he had.
Kari hadn't finished carefully un-wrapping the container by the time Tai had rushed over, pulled it out of her hands, and ripped it apart. This was exactly why Tai wasn't allowed to be near the presents.
"It's called the Masterbox!" He exclaimed with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. "I'm really not sure what it does. I think it's a video game!" He shrieked with girlish glee, eliciting some odd stares from his sister and Digimon. Tai wasn't exactly a huge electronics enthusiast. While Tai could hold his own against Izzy six or seven years ago, the video game hobby had largely taken a back seat to school, sports, girls, and saving the world; not necessarily in that order. These days Tai only played video games at parties, so neither Kari nor Agumon were sure why he seemed so excited.
"Did you have some of these chocolates, Tai? I could have sworn I ate them all." Agumon pondered, confused by Tai's enthusiasm. Tai wasn't exactly a laid back guy, getting excited when the situation seemed to call for it and occasionally when it didn't, but up until a few moments ago Tai had just been sitting there calmly inspecting the box and sipping his tea. He assumed it was tea, anyways. Tai usually had a tea when he came home, to help him relax; a fact he kept hidden from most of his friends.
Kari was less curious, taking a suspicious sniff of Tai's cup and understanding immediately what the problem was. "Tai, you know you're not supposed to drink espresso. Do I need to remind you about the holding cell?" She lectured, grabbing the console away from him and placing it on the floor to inspect more carefully.
"I only had one." Tai defended. Surely one couldn't hurt, he had figured. Who would know? It was only a silly house rule, anyways. "Besides," He continued. "Those cops were totally out to get us and you know it. They didn't even have any proof it was us!" Tai maintained, twitching slightly. "I think it's really starting to kick in now. Woo! Do you hear a beeping? I'll get it!" He yelled sporadically, rushing off to answer a phone that wasn't ringing. The effects of espresso on Tai were mostly psychological, with the caffeine having only minor actual effects on him. That didn't stop him from getting hyper whenever he had one, however.
Agumon and Kari merely looked each other for a moment before going back to looking over the video game. "It sure came with a lot of equipment." She noted, looking over a pile of assorted wires, plugs, and visors. "I don't see any way to hook it up to the TV, either." Agumon pointed out, attempting unsuccessfully to fit any of the cords into the television. "Well, this thing is weird." Kari concluded with a certain degree of mock-professionalism. She'd call Yolei about it later. Right now she was hungry.
Somewhere across the city, Ken had been sitting at his desk, engulfed in his history debate homework. He sat with his back straight and scrolled on his mouse as he, to Wormmon's exasperation, recited it aloud, as he had been doing for the past hour. Digimon and their Digi-Destined companions shared a bond: a bond of trust and friendship, a bond of communication and love… and unfortunately, an obligation to stand by one another for long speeches and boring history reviews. Ken licked his dry lips before saying, "And I conclude that-"
"Almost done?" Wormmon interrupted, his shriveled voice speaking for the first time in an hour. Most of the Digimon, although they loved their partners, preferred staying in the Digital World as opposed to the real world. There was something about the digital data flying in the air that made them feel much more comfortable and at ease, and it helped that the other Digimon were there with them. However, Wormmon was not a Digimon that shared this view. He quite preferred being in the humans' world where the pillows were fluffy and the food was plenty. He would often visit Ken for weeks on end where he would bask in his favorite cushion, a plush dog beg Ken had purchased online and plump himself full with the pink marshmallows he loved so. He adopted a cozy lifestyle of food and friends while staying at Ken's home. The only downside was that Ken occasionally felt the need to read things to him, school things.
"Just finishing this essay," Ken mumbled as he set down his reading glasses. He closed his word document and swiveled his chair around to Wormmon, who was sitting on the floor curled up in a bath towel. "You bored?" He asked with a wince, knowing full well that his digital friend was uninterested in the essay.
"A little hungry, too," Wormmon added. He didn't want to sound spoiled, but Ken had a bad habit of writing essays almost compulsively. If he thought there was even the slightest chance an essay would be required for any given subject, he would write one.
Ken nodded and knelt to pet Wormmon across the back, scratching the rough areas that Wormmon couldn't reach. He wasn't sure if this ever offended Wormmon, petting him like a dog, but he seemed to enjoy it none-the-less. Ken stood to leave the room and stopped at his door, looking back at Wormmon with a smile. "I'll go see when dinner's going to be ready."
When Ken walked out into the beige living room, he caught his mother walking in with a box. She placed it on the counter and looked up at him saying, "It's for you." She didn't seem surprised, as Ken had packages coming in all the time, be it from online bookstores or shipped soccer equipment from various brand names, asking him to sport their logos. She didn't mind, either. "I bet it's that new mini calculator you ordered!" She squealed. She was always so excited about his school supplies.
He looked at the size of the box and smirked. "No mom, I don't think that's it." He got a pair of scissors and began carefully unsealing the edges. As he removed the black box, he mused and held it in his hands. "Whoa," He said under his breath.
"What is it?" She asked while cocking her eyebrows in a confused manner.
"It's a game system!" He exclaimed.
She smiled at her sons receiving a gift but said, "No more than an hour a day." She cautioned, "Just because you only have one more semester until graduation doesn't mean you shouldn't stick to your studies!" She hollered while Ken ran back to his room, console in hand. "When you're in college I'm not going to be there to keep you straight!" Mrs. Ichijouji said and waited for even a murmur of a response. When none came, she walked up to Ken's door and opened it. "Ken," She said while sing-songing his name in an authoritative way only a mother could do.
Ken was sitting at his desk with the box on top of it. He turned his chair and looked up at his mother. "No more than an hour," He confirmed.
She smiled and said, "Good then." She walked back down the hallway and made herself cozy in the kitchen. She opened the freezer and, holding frozen chicken and meatloaf in her hands, she called, "Kenny, chicken for dinner?"
Inside Ken's room, Wormmon propped his head up at Ken and tried to view whatever it was that Ken was so enveloped in. "Is there food?" Wormmon asked curiously.
"Forget the food," Ken said, eliciting a frown from Wormmon. "Look at this," He said, sitting on the ground, placing the system sitting in between them.
"Can I eat it?" Wormmon asked.
Ken laughed and turned the box around. "Not unless you want really bad indigestion," He smiled. Wormmon frowned as he watched Ken fish a disc out of the box. It was a golden tinted disc with some faint writing on it.
"Who's it from?" Wormmon asked.
"I don't know," Ken responded and then read the title of the game. "This is so peculiar." Ken raised his eyebrow as he blindly fished through the Styrofoam bits left over in the box. "It came with a note!" Ken said as he picked up the paper and read it. "It says, please help us," He paused and looked over at Wormmon, who was now slightly less concerned with food. "It says that I should use this system to… enter a new world and save its inhabitance!" He exclaimed. There was a moment of silence as they both stared at the letter. It was written formally, with what almost seemed to be a feather pen. Whoever wrote it seemed like they were in a hurry, as indicated by the long scratches of ink across the paper. "Do you think it's from the Digital world?" Ken asked.
Wormmon hesitated and thought about the condition of the Digital world when he had left. He shook his head and shakily said, "No. Everyone there already knows you guys have a way in. We would send a… box."
Ken shook his head in confusion and said, "Really weird."
Ken could hear footsteps down the hall, which slowed as his door opened. His mother walked through the door with two plates in her hands and exclaimed, "Dinners ready! You never answered on the chicken or meatloaf, so it's just TV dinners tonight!"
"The kind with pudding?" Wormmon asked and responded happily as Mrs. Ichijouji nodded.
On the other side of the world, in New York City, Mimi Tachikawa was on her way home from a vigorous day at Crazy Paul's Discount Shoe Bonanza when she vaguely remembered her mother saying something about stopping off at the post office on her way home. In reality, her mother had said 'Mimi, don't forget to stop off at the post office on your way home', but things like that were hardly high on Mimi's list of memories to prioritize. She was entirely too busy crunching numbers in her head today to bother with things like that.
Mimi doing math was not as uncommon a thing as one might imagine. Very quickly after she discovered the joys of shopping, Mimi had discovered the annoyance of budgeting. Eagar to get back to the shopping part, Mimi had started to pay more attention to her math classes. Now at the end of high school, math had become one of her best subjects. Unfortunately, shopping had done little to help her with any of her other subjects.
"And that's… Oh wow." Mimi muttered to herself as she came to the conclusion that, altogether, she had spent just under seven hundred dollars on shoes at various different stores. Looking down at the giant bag of shoes, it suddenly made a little more sense to her. She was, after all, carrying them in a wagon due to the sheer weight of them all.
"Well, that's not…so bad." She grumbled, crossing the street to the post office. She could get a summer job to pay it off, just like she did last year. She would have to find some place better than the bookstore this year, though. Talk about a snooze fest. If it weren't for the magazine rack she might not have made it to her birthday!
Her trip into the post office and to her box was uneventful. She fumbled around in her purse for its keys and pulled out a pink heart key chain with the box office key attached to it. Sprinting over to box 16224 and seeing that there was a bright yellow package slip in it, she opened the little silver locker and removed its contents. Walking over to the receptionist, she politely rang the bell on the counter three times in quick succession. "Excuse me sir, this slip was in my box." She said in a tone so sweet that the man feared he might go into diabetic shock just by hearing it.
Mimi eagerly watched as the man walked into the back room and came out with a large package addressed to her. "Wow, thanks!" She cheered loudly, causing the man to wince as his ears were assailed. As she asked the man to help her carry her package and many shoes outside, she quickly hailed a cab and stuffed the boxes into the back seat. "Home!" She ordered vaguely, subsequently relating her address to the driver.
Mimi walked into her apartment door with a large wagon of boxes, hiding her shoe bag in the hallway closet. Keeping her new expenses from her parents was probably the best thing for now, and also for the next few years. Walking to the kitchen with the mail, Mimi stopped for a moment to ponder on her package. "It must be the clothes I ordered from the new designer store on fifth!" She supposed aloud to herself.
Mimi's high-pitched voice had alerted her mother to her presence, causing the middle-aged lady to follow the sound into the kitchen. She was wearing a highly fashionable yellow summer dress, and was holding a cup of coffee. Her mother, in an uninterested tone, asked, "Anything at the post office today?" The question was a formality, really. Mimi's mother hadn't cared about any of their mail since the time she'd ordered a collection of rare cacti from that smelly old man.
"Well," Mimi started as she put the package down and handed her mother some envelopes. "There were fourteen bills and a package!"
Mimi's mother took the bills unenthusiastically and frowned as she tossed them in the garbage. "Who's the package for?" She asked with a glimpse of hope in her voice. This hope was then shattered as Mimi giggled, picked the package back up, and began walking towards her room. "Me!" She squealed while entering her hot-pink bedroom and dancing all the way to the large canopy bed set in the middle of her room. She set the package in the middle of her pink satin sheets and began to tear it open with her long nails. "What's that?" Palmon asked, waddling out of Mimi's bathroom and climbing onto the bed.
"Well," Mimi paused, as though she had the most exciting news in the world. "It just so happens to be the new clothes I ordered!"
Mimi couldn't contain the giggles as she pulled out the black box wrapped in bubble wrap. Her smile began to fade into a frown as the wrap revealed the console. Mimi took a moment to evaluate the situation before dropping the box in shock and looking over at Palmon.
Palmon cocked her head to the side, "How do you wear it?" She asked, still not entirely familiar with human fashion in spite of her years living with Mimi.
"You don't," Mimi said through gritted teeth. She crossed her arms, shook her head sadly, and said, "It's not my clothes." Palmon raised an eyebrow and looked the box up and down. "But you said-"
"I know what I said, Palmon, but it's not them." She interrupted, looking the box over and placing it onto her soft pink sheets. "It looks like a big DVD player or something, maybe a video game." She said slowly, pausing for a moment to double-check. Perhaps there were clothes inside the smaller box.
Jumping into the large brown box, Palmon began to giggle and pretend she was a princess in a castle. At least someone was getting some joy out of the gift, Mimi figured. Suddenly, as Palmon tumbled the box around whilst defending it from oncoming doom, a packing slip floated out of the box and next to her partner's pillow. Hopping out of the package and slightly annoyed that she had to leave her castle. Palmon began attempting to read the message aloud to Mimi.
"It says… Um, it says," She struggled, drawing Mimi's attention as she attempted to decipher the symbols humans used to communicate back in Japan. Palmon had started learning to speak and read English with Mimi soon after the Digimon had reestablished contact with the Digidestined, but as far as Japanese went she could really only speak it. Mimi generally only communicated in Japanese with her family these days, unless she was visiting the old group back in the land of the rising sun. With how little Mimi wrote in Japanese anymore, it was little wonder Palmon had never learned to read or write any more than her own name. "It's in Japanese." She said timidly, handing Mimi the letter and waddling back over to play in her box.
"Oh!" Mimi exclaimed, finally understanding what Palmon was talking about as she noticed the letter in her hands. "Thanks! Well, this should clear some things up, huh?" She smiled, giggling slightly as she watched Palmon crawl back into the box. Palmon popped out long enough to give her a shrug, still a little embarrassed that she'd been unable to read the letter. She'd come to pride herself on her ability to read, being one of only a relatively few Digimon who could do so, and so when faced with one of the many other human languages it brought back frustrating memories of learning to read in the first place.
"Please save our world." Mimi began, her tone turning from cheery to dead serious halfway through the first sentence. "There should be enough overall for eight of you. This is not a joke. You are our last hope." She finished, turning the note over to find nothing written on the back.
Palmon and Mimi simply sat in silence after the letter had been finished. The last time this request had been made of Mimi, she'd nearly died dozens of times. Their thoughts turned to the Digital World first, but even without speaking they came to the same conclusion. Unless contact with the Digital World had somehow been lost, they wouldn't need any special equipment to get there. Still, the only other worlds they knew of were the Dark Ocean and a few other sticky circumstances they encountered in the Digital World. This was going to be serious, no matter what the case was. As far as Mimi was concerned, something that serious could only call for one course of action. "I'd better call Tai."
The next day at Odaiba High School, Davis ran up to the group's usual lunch table with a cocky smirk on his face. Today was the perfect day for him to regale all his friends with the news of his new, presumably unique, video game. This was it; this was his day to shine! No more would T.K. hold the Donkey Madness high score over his head. What did a high score matter when you had the newest system? "Hey guys, guess what?" He shouted eagerly.
"Davis, we're not in the mood right now. Kari's in the middle of a story." Yolei chided, biting into a cucumber sandwich. She had always hated those mushy things, and yet she had been eating them every day for the last three years because Ken seemed to like them so much. She felt compelled to like something of his after she learned that Ken had ended a vegetarian diet he had been on for eight months simply because her family had made burgers for dinner one day while he was over.
Davis grumbled and sat with them in a huff, dropping his mushy lunch bag onto the table. He couldn't remember for the life of him what was in the bag, but it hadn't fared well in the sun as he sat on the bus earlier that day. The fact that he had thrown the bag at T.K. no less than four times during English class probably hadn't helped it.
"As I was saying," Kari spoke slowly, glaring slightly at Davis the interrupting cow. "The note said that someone needed help, and it somehow has to do with the game system that came with it. I'm not really sure what it's all about, but-"
"Wait." Davis interrupted yet again, his heart sinking slightly as he realized how little of a surprise his new video game was going to be if Kari already had one. "You got one of those things too, the box with that Unlock game?"
Kari looked at Davis dully for a moment, ready to chew him out for interrupting her again, when her expression changed to surprise as his question finally set in. "Wait, you have one too?" She asked, putting more emphasis on 'you' than was appropriate, as though she wouldn't expect Davis of all people to have one.
"Yeah," Davis responded, either ignoring the implications of her tone or simply not detecting them. "I nearly broke my back trying to get it into my room! It's pretty cool though, huh? Maybe we we're supposed to test them or something?" He guessed offhandedly, poking at what he was sure used to be something resembling a lunch.
Yolei thought for a moment before interjecting. "Did you get a note, too?" She asked, wondering why Davis would think something like that with a note begging him to save the world coming attached to the game. Even Davis wasn't that dense.
"Um, well…" Davis mumbled as he scratched at the back of his head and blushed. "I didn't really check the box afterwards. I actually kind of…threw it away." He admitted, chuckling in embarrassment as his friends sighed. "Why, did yours?" He asked, wondering what his note had said before it joined his various energy bar wrappers and old Band-Aids in the trash.
"Yeah," Kari started irately. "Before Tai tore into my package and destroyed it in the process. We couldn't find enough pieces of it to put it together, but from what we could see it probably said the same thing Mimi's did." She explained, noticing Davis' surprised expression. "Oh, right," She chuckled slightly, forgetting Davis had just joined the conversation.
T.K. raised a hand to Kari slightly, excusing her from explaining the situation once again, offering to do so in her place. "Mimi called Tai last night and said she got one of those things, too. I guess hers came with a note that was asking for help saving a world. Tai and Kari went to check out the Digital World, but it didn't seem to be having any serious problems," He clarified, receiving a grateful smile from Kari for his efforts.
Davis took a wild guess and said, "The Dark Ocean?" Hoping he was guessing wrong. If Kari's experience was any sort of example, the sort of help that the Dark Ocean wanted was not the sort they generally offered.
"We doubt it." Kari responded with relief, not wishing to return to that place for as long as she lived. If she never heard it spoken of again, it would be too soon. "The Dark Ocean calls to people with darkness in them, not people like…well…Mimi." She smiled slightly as laughably absurd images of a dark and despondent Mimi danced in her head. Mimi had her share of troubles just like everyone else, sure, but enough to warrant an invitation to the Dark Ocean? That was just silly.
"Besides," Cody added, recalling the dreadful battle against the horrifically powerful Deamon and the rather ingenious method the Digidestined had used to defeat him. "We can open a portal to the Dark Ocean if we really need to. Why would we need special equipment to do it again?"
"Good Point," Davis agreed. That still didn't answer the overall question, though. Who and where were the packages from? The only other world he could remember was that strange dream world MaloMyotismon had fought them in, and he was pretty sure that place didn't have anyone actually living in it. "So how do we figure out who sent it?" He asked, pretty sure nobody actually knew. It seemed like the thing to say, anyways.
"Did it have a return address on it?" Cody piped up; hoping they could track the sender and find out what this was all about. It was a long shot, sure, but it couldn't hurt to ask.
"No." Davis recalled clearly, happy to have a solid answer to a question for once, even if it didn't help them any. "Have you tried to play yours, Kari? I think mine's broken already." He griped while trying to steer the subject away from the dead-end direction it was headed in. Granted, Davis had only tried to hook up the odd machine for three minutes before he'd given up and eaten all of his dad's oyster crackers. As far as Davis was concerned, anything that took more than three minutes to finish was broken. Incidentally, his parents had long since forbidden him to prepare any meat that hadn't been pre-cooked.
Kari shook her head, recalling what Tai had told her after he'd come down from his caffeine high. "No. Tai said the whole thing looks too complicated, and that we might screw it up if we try to set it up ourselves." She explained, the others nodding in agreement. "Izzy's coming over later to help us with it, though, and if anyone can help us with it, it's Izzy," She finished and saw everyone else again nodding in agreement.
"I'd feel offended if this didn't sound so out of my league," Yolei chuckled feeling slightly embarrassed that she'd been unable to offer any advice on the mysterious object. Still, Yolei was no slouch with electronics herself, and she'd be there to help Izzy in any way she could. "Hey, we should get Ken, too!" She added. "It couldn't hurt to have two geniuses take a look at it, right?"
"Yeah, that's a good idea." Davis agreed, feeling happy things were coming together. "I'll call him when I get home and ask him to stop by Kari's tomorrow." He offered, happy to be of service to the group. He wasn't a computer whiz, but he could at least work a phone. Well, he could mostly work a phone. Davis still had no idea how to check his messages.
"Oh, it's no problem, Davis. I'll call him," Yolei proposed, more than happy for an excuse to call Ken. She spent most of her time talking to Ken in one form or another anyways, but one could never spend too much time on the phone talking to Ken Ichijouji.
"Don't worry about it," Davis assured, not willing to give up his one chance to help out Kari and the others. He was always left in the background with the preparations, and had to work twice as hard during the action to prove his worth. Not this time.
"Really, it's fine. I'll do it." Yolei proposed yet again, her tone much more demanding this time around. Nobody would claim this girl's right to call her boyfriend. Sure she could call him later, but if she invited him it would feel more like a date. If Davis invited him it would just be a hangout.
"No, you don't have to. I will." Davis insisted loudly, locking his eyes with Yolei's. Both of them knew where this was going, as they both began eyeing the school's payphones. Davis' toes twitched, waiting for Yolei to make the first move. He couldn't be the first one to run off, or he might seem like a crazy man; racing against nobody and claiming victory against what everyone assumed was an imaginary opponent. Oh no, not Davis. Fool him once, shame on Yolei. Fool him seven times, shame on Davis.
The two stayed like this for roughly a minute before Yolei began her dash. Davis reacted quickly, starting his run as quickly as he could after seeing Yolei start. Unfortunately, the two neglected to take positions into account while running, and wound up tripping over one-another and falling to the ground. Struggling to stand before the other could, Davis and Yolei were interrupted when they noticed T.K. standing over them, seemingly unaware that they were even below him.
"How about tomorrow after school," T.K. suggested to what seemed like nobody in particular. He drew some curious stares from his two arguing friends before Cody pointed to the cell phone he had been holding to his ear for the last couple minutes. T.K. had been sporadically talking into his phone in the background of the conversation since Ken had been brought up, but Yolei hadn't noticed, and Davis had simply figured T.K. had gone mad and started speaking to himself.
"Sounds great, thanks, Ken," He continued, drawing angry glares from both the goggle headed boy and the bespectacled girl. "Okay. See you tomorrow, then. Bye." He finished, hanging up the phone and putting it back in his pocket. Now neither Yolei nor Davis would need to bother calling Ken over.
Looking back over at his friends, T.K. couldn't help but notice the rather fiery looks Davis and Yolei were giving him. Cody looked slightly worried, while Kari simply hid her face in her hands, snickering. T.K. glanced back and forth between the two angrier looking friends, and raised an eyebrow curiously. "What?"
The next day after school, the Digidestined had started slowly gathering at the Kamiya household. So far the group consisted only of Kari, Tai, and Izzy, all of whom were sitting in the computer room. The three of them had been inspecting the box for hours now. "It seems to be virtual reality." Izzy stated while looking at the finished product of the components Kari's package had come with. There were a large number of electrodes and several visors arranged next to the console itself.
"Can I ask you a question?" Izzy requested, unsuccessfully attempting for the seventh time to find a way to unscrew the box and check its hardware. "Have you tried to play the game yet?"
"Nope," Tai said. "That thing doesn't look like something you can just flip on and play." He maintained as he gestured to the various equipment that the package had come with. "I didn't want to get stuck in some world with no way back…again." He said, recalling his first time in the Digital World with both fondness and worry. He loved his time there, but the Digital World had a terrible tendency to endanger his life. "Besides," He continued, "It came with a few of those visor things, and if there's one thing I've learned about saving other worlds, it's that you need more than one person to do it."
"Makes sense, I guess." Izzy conceded. Digidestined who tried to do something alone it usually just ended up causing trouble. "I'm proud of you, Tai." Izzy joked. "In the old days, you'd have thrown caution to the wind."
Tai, sounding slightly offended, repeated, "In the old days?" He didn't exactly think of it all as having happening yesterday, but as time went on, and the group spent less and less time together, Tai began going into a mild form of denial. He acknowledged that everyone had gotten on with their life in some way or another, and he knew that the Digidestined would never truly separate no matter how far certain people drifted, but a part of him still wanted to rally the team again; to lead and be looked up to again. He knew in his head that he shouldn't feel unneeded or anything, but in his heart he felt obligated to keep up the level of importance he held when he was out saving the world. Besides, 'old days' somehow seemed like something his grandfather would say. "What are we, sixty? Come on, Izzy, it wasn't that long ago."
"It was nearly half your life ago." Izzy reminded, defending his use of the expression. He needed something to call their first trip to the Digital World, after all. 'Our first trip to the Digital World' simply took too long to say, and it certainly didn't happen yesterday. "I'd say that qualifies as the old days," Izzy finished with a teasing grin.
"Can we get back on track?" Kari asked with a roll of her eyes. Izzy and Tai had a tendency to bicker, and while it didn't seem to bother them, it tended to drag on and drive Kari to levels of boredom normally reserved for pretending to be interested in Joe's latest pop-quiz.
Before either of them could respond with the 'no' Kari was expecting, the telephone rang. Tai picked it up, giving Kari his patented 'don't sass me, brat' glare. As Kari's sense of humor had evolved to be more and more sardonic in nature, she began receiving this look more frequently. "Hello?" Tai greeted, taking his glare off of Kari and flopping back onto his bed with the phone.
"Hey, Tai, I won my game last week! Oh, and is Kari there?" Without technically knowing who was on the other end, Kari instinctively held out her hand to take the phone in the likely event that it was for her.
Tai sighed, not bothering to respond to the boy on the phone as he handed it to Kari. "It's Davis." He grumbled, repeating the words he spoke most every evening around this time of day. "It's always Davis…"
"Hi, Davis," Kari said with an unexciting sort of cheer in her voice that had come with talking to Davis every day for the last five years. Though, to be fair, on weekends and summer vacation Davis only called every day to ask if he could come over. It wasn't something she really minded—Davis being rather fun to talk to—but the monotony of it all had caused her cheery greetings to be laced with a sort of malaise.
"Hey Kari, what's up?" Davis asked eagerly, hoping this was one of those days where Kari had news and would engage him in long, detailed conversation.
"Hi, Davis," Kari repeated simply, feeling the sudden need to play one of her many mind games with Davis.
"Hey." Davis repeated, slightly confused. He could have sworn she'd already said that.
"Hi, Davis," Kari said once more, covering the mouthpiece of the phone to snicker a little at the poor boy on the other end.
"Awe, come on!" Davis begged, realizing what she was up to. She did this every few weeks, greeting him over and over until he finally gave up attempting conversation and tried again the next day. She justified it by saying that if he was going to call every day then she was going to take advantage of it. It was the price he paid for being such a pain in the behind to his friends, he supposed.
"Hi, Davis," Came her response. Kari loved this game, as cruel as it seemed to the outside listener. Davis and Kari had a unique relationship wherein Kari would test Davis' boundaries against his wishes and Davis would attempt to woo Kari against hers. It was a silent, if slightly dysfunctional, agreement they had with one another.
Davis sighed on the other end of the phone. "This is world saving stuff, Kari. Do you really think you should be playing around?" Davis appealed, hoping her sense of duty would override her sense of mischievousness. Kari was met with a grumble on the other end of the phone. "I'm coming over now. I'll bring my package." Davis surrendered, hanging up the phone in defeat. That girl could be trying on her bad days, but man was it ever worth it on her good ones.
"Bye, Davis," Kari said to the dial tone as she hung up her phone. She always felt a little guilty after doing that, but Davis never seemed to mind it the next day. If he wanted her to stop messing with him, she expected he would have said so at some point in the past few years.
"I count myself lucky Sora wasn't like you," Tai teased, smirking at his sister's less-than-admirable treatment of her loyal subject. Granted, he hadn't been quite as, diligent as Davis, but even so, Sora wasn't much for those kinds of games.
"Nope," Kari admitted, poking her brother playfully in the chest and figuring that the best defense was a good offense. "Sora rejected you pretty flat-out."
Years ago it would have been unexpectedly cruel of Kari to say something like this to someone she so revered, but over time Tai's wounds had healed and it became a silent agreement between the siblings that his failure at starting a relationship with Sora was something the two of them could joke about. Of course, it was also a silent agreement not to mention such things in front of Sora or Matt.
The most important silent agreement, however, was not to speak openly of Tai's lingering feelings for his best friend's girl. For a while now it had been Tai's policy that what Matt didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and that a little harmless flirtation never did any harm. Unfortunately for Sora, and all too frequently Kari, Tai's definition of 'a little' stopped just short of skywriting love messages. It was only through painstaking efforts that Kari and Sora had managed to keep the more serious infractions from Matt.
Tai grumbled for a moment, almost feeling defeated, before a mischievous grin crossed his features. Kari was entirely too smug these days, with her witty barbs and clever comebacks. Every so often Tai had to reminder who the king was. "Yeah, she sure did." He sighed in mock-sorrow. "I wouldn't wish that pain on Myotismon himself." He continued. "Yep, it'll sure hurt when you get around to turning down poor…" The older boy trailed off, clearly expecting his sister to finish the sentence.
Kari's expression had turned from innocently arrogant to mildly ashamed. "Touché," Kari conceded. The issue of Davis and T.K.'s affections had been a weak spot of Kari's for years now, and to this day she couldn't quite keep the two in balance.
She knew she was going to have to turn one—or both—of the boys down at some time or another. She just didn't like to think about it most of the time. She had enough on her mind trying to keep everyone happy without trying to decide whether she should break T.K's heart or send Davis into a conniption fit. Not that she took Davis less seriously at heart than T.K., but she knew Davis would structure his reaction in a way that kept anyone from seeing any legitimate pain.
"So which of them do you like, anyway?" Izzy asked absent-mindedly as he put the finishing touches on the system, pleased with how it had turned out. Upon asking this, Tai's eyes widened and an awkward smile replaced the victorious one he had worn a moment ago. Teasing Kari about the situation as a whole was one thing, but as far as Tai had experienced, depending on her mood, legitimately asking about how she was going to handle things had only ever lead to depression or anger on Kari's part.
To Kari's great pleasure, a loud banging noise coming from the door interrupted before she could begin deciding how to answer. "I'll get it!" Kari yelled while dashing out of the room to answer the door as Tai began to enlighten his clueless friend in the subtle ways of conversing with Hikari Kamiya. Occasionally, on a few blessed occasions, the Digidestined of Light caught a break.
"Come on in!" The pink-clad Kamyia girl called with a mix of enthusiasm and relief, not even sure who was at the door just yet. As it turned out, it was Joe. "Oh!" Kari yelped in mild surprise. It wasn't often that she saw Joe these days. Of all the Digidestined, Joe was probably the second most distant with his friends. As usual, he could always be called upon when something worth gathering for came up, but to this day his studies didn't allow for much hangout time. He looked disheveled; his clothes half-buttoned and his hair a mess. His left side was wet with puddle-water, which Kari found strange considering it hadn't rained in over a week. His appearance would have been cause for concern if it had been anyone else, but that kind of thing was par for the course as far as Joe Kido went.
"Hi, Joe," Kari greeted cheerfully, if slightly uncomfortable. There wasn't anything wrong with Joe, killjoy tendencies aside, but Kari and Joe didn't exactly have anything in common. If she were to be entirely honest, Kari found Joe's high aspirations slightly intimidating. Nevertheless, he was an old friend and she would be damned if she wasn't going to make him comfortable in her home. "You look…" Kari started, looking Joe up and down. He looked like Joe, really. Nothing was especially different. Tousled and wet clothes aside, he didn't look any worse of the wear. Deciding she didn't want to know the story behind the wet clothes, Kari abandoned her sentence. Pulling him into an awkward hug instead, Kari continued her greeting. "It's good to see you again. It's been a while, huh?" She asked, letting him go.
"Umm… Uhh, yeah," Joe responded, squirming slightly at the hug. He saw most of his old friends rarely these days. Tai visited him more often than others, in what he assumed was more of an effort to keep the old group mentality than a personal interest, but he appreciated it anyways. Cody dropped by occasionally out of respect for one of his mentors; awkward though it was for Joe to call himself that. The only other one he saw with any regularity was Matt, which was to be expected from Digidestined of Friendship. The rest he generally only saw at parties or other gatherings. This generally wasn't as big an issue as he was afraid it would be at first, as the Internet had allowed him to stay in better touch with everyone than he'd predicted. He knew what was going on most of the time, and the majority of his friends had stopped dramatically changing physically years ago.
Kari, however, was one of his younger friends, and one of the Digidestined he saw the least. Kari's growth since the last time he saw her made the hug slightly uncomfortable. She was taller, her hair had grown out a little more, and she had, taken shape. "You look…" He started, deciding against that train of thought. "Is everyone here?" He asked, trying to take his mind off of Kari's looks. Joe didn't see her in that way, but a beautiful woman was a beautiful woman, and even reliable Joe's eyes had been known to wander from time to time. "I hope I'm not late."
"Nope," Assured Kari, deciding to ignore the odd looks Joe had been giving her a moment ago and then trying desperately not to give her a moment later. Kari had gotten kind of used to the attention over the years. She tried to take it as a compliment, even though it could be uncomfortable when old friends were checking her out. Yolei had caught Ken looking a little too long once, and the following were the most uncomfortable two hours of arguing she'd endured since her sixteenth birthday when T.K. went over the price limit he'd agreed on with Davis. "You're actually the second one here. Izzy's in the computer room with Tai."
"Oh good," Joe sighed in relief. "Some of these drivers are crazy, you know. I was almost hit seven times on my way here! Seven!" He exclaimed, shocked by the state of traffic these days. Kari knew Joe's definition of 'almost hit' probably involved a car moving anywhere within sight while he was crossing the street, but she pretended to share his disapproving attitude toward people who dared to drive their cars. "Anyway, is the computer room still-"
"Still off of the living room," Kari smiled as she gestured down the hallway.
Joe nodded politely, taking off his coat and putting it on the rack in such a way as to keep it from touching the other coats. He wouldn't want the other coats getting wet, after all. It would be rude, and might promote mold growth. He would have to remember to check his home for mold when he got back, now that he thought of it.
"Joe?" Kari said with a mild impatience, sure that whatever was keeping Joe sitting there staring at the coat rack was probably not worth the fuss he was building up in his head.
"Oh, sorry," Joe apologized as he took his shoes off and headed into the hall closet, and then her parents' room, and then finally the computer room. "Third time's a charm, Joe!" Kari called out to the poor lost Kido, realizing, as Joe stumbled to find his way, how long it had been since Joe had been over.
As Kari went to close the door behind her, she heard the elevator ding down the hall. Poking her head out to see who had come up, just in case it was anyone she was expecting, she saw Matt, Sora, and T.K. walk out among some assorted neighbors. Sora and T.K. waved enthusiastically upon seeing Kari, and T.K. actually broke into a dash for her apartment as soon as he saw her. Matt, meanwhile, merely smiled coolly at her. Matt was too cool for waving now, it seemed. Kari would have rolled her eyes at the way he insisted upon keeping up appearances if he weren't looking right at her, so instead she waved at everyone. T.K. reached her first, who she greeted with a hug that was easily more comfortable than her awkward embrace with Joe.
"Hey guys." Kari smiled, as Sora and Matt approached at a more appropriate speed. The two looked pretty good together, Kari thought, although they were a little overdressed for the situation. Matt had a black, long sleeved collared shirt with a vest over it. A bowtie was hanging undone around his neck, and it occurred to Kari that Matt's ties were generally undone in this fashion. He probably figured it was cool, but even if that were true, everyone knew he didn't know how to tie it. Sora, on the other hand, was wearing a little black dress and heels. Her makeup was done a little more attentively than usual, although Kari doubted that Matt actually noticed this. "Where's the party?" She joked, wondering what exactly they were so dressed up for.
"We-" Sora and Matt both opened their mouths and began to speak, only to stop for one-another. This happened two or three times before Sora finally gestured for Matt to begin. He nodded his thanks to his ladylove and said simply, "I have a gig later and since Sora's only here for the weekend," He paused, referring to the fact that Sora was now in university in Kyoto, "We though we'd have dinner or something," He finished.
Kari merely nodded before T.K. jumped in, saying, "By the way, Yolei and Cody are with us, too." Kari smiled and looked behind him to try and see her two friends but was met with the view of an empty hallway. She cocked her eyebrow and looked back at T.K. "They're still in the lobby. They got into a conversation with the doorman about quantum theories," T.K. laughed.
"We told them not to be long," Came a little voice from T.K.'s backpack. Patamon quickly popped his head out from the snuggly black backpack's zipper and flew out. "I'm here too, I hope you don't mind!"
"Of 'course not!" Kari said as she opened the front door wider. "Well come on in, you guys. There's a few of us here already, we're all meeting in the computer room."
Kari walked with her friends into her computer room and watched everyone take their place in the room. The Kamiya home was the staple household for group hangouts, though as they got older it was more frequently becoming the bakery and coffee house down the street. Nevertheless, all the children felt comfortable enough to seat themselves inside the house.
Matt and Sora, though never usually showing displays of affection in front of their friends, took a seat together on the bean bag chair in the computer room and looked quite snuggly together. Sora pulled out a bottle of water from her purse and kept putting it to her mouth only to have Matt make slurping noises whenever she tried to take a sip, resulting in laughter. Kari smiled at the pair and focused her attention to T.K. "Excited?" She asked.
T.K. shrugged as he watched Joe invest himself in Izzy and Tai's dealings with the box. Joe and Izzy had become quite the tag-team, taking on some questionable tasks involving the Digital World and one, best forgotten, experience involving a microwave, a computer theory and an explosion. Not exactly enthused about entering another unknown world, but figuring it was probably not as weird as the Digital World, T.K. said "I guess, you?"
Kari didn't respond as she watched Joe and Izzy shoo Tai away from the game systems. She laughed and looked back at T.K. and said, "I wonder what it'll be like. I wonder how they think we're going to be able to help them."
"I have no idea," T.K. responded to the rhetorical question his friend had posed. T.K. was about to speak again when he heard a knocking at the front door. Having an abundance of friends was amazing, but he imagined that sometimes it would be a little frustrating for Kari and Tai, the house of gatherings, to wait for ten different people to arrive. Upon realizing how many people would be present, T.K. was getting a better idea of how long this mission was going to take. Good thing it was the weekend.
"I'll it get," Joe said, feeling a need to be productive. Everyone was so used to getting the door at the Kamiya household. He walked to the front door and opened it. Mimi was standing before him with a bunch of different flavored muffins in a small basket, finished off with a great big pink bow. She was wearing tight jeans, yellow high-heeled shoes and a small black t-shirt stamped with the logo of an American band Joe had never heard of before. Her hair was curled and back to being strawberry blonde. Mimi often played with colors for her hair but always seemed to go back to strawberry blonde. Joe personally thought Mimi looked good with any color hair, but that was beside the point.
She greeted him with some English phrases he didn't understand and hugged him in an excited manner. "Joe!" She cheered as she dropped the gift basket and a large yellow purse to the ground in the midst of her hug. "Lemme look at you," She mused as she backed away from and eyed him up and down. "Oh Joe, you don't change a bit, do you?" She said and picked her things up off the floor.
"Thanks Mimi, you look great." He said shyly as he closed the door behind her. "Was it a long flight?"
"I'm not really sure, I was asleep for most of it, but this very nice old man woke me at the end. I mean can you imagine if I had just slept right through and went all the way back to New York?" She giggled. "I suppose it would have been a great conversational piece at parties, but it really doesn't matter, does it Joe?" She smiled and side stepped by Joe to get to her other friends.
"Hi Mimi," Tai said and others greeted her as well. Tai looked up from the Masterbox to Mimi and asked, "Did you bring the system?"
She nodded. "It's so heavy," She complained as she pulled the system out of her large purse. She placed it and her visor on the futon and sat beside it. The children exchanged some stories about their Digimon and some general happenings since the last time they were all together, school, relationships, family and such things. As Izzy lined the consoles he had next to one another he could help but notice that Mimi's visor was white, as opposed to the black ones everyone else had received. He shrugged and figured it was probably a newer model… Still, something seemed a bit off.
"We let ourselves in!" Yolei called from the kitchen. "Ken's here too!"
T.K. and Kari exchanged a knowing glance and Kari wondered how much therapy her doorman was going to need after trying to argue theories with Cody and Yolei. "We're in the computer room, cat burglars!" She yelled. She could hear a ruckus from the kitchen and poked her head out of the computer room. "Snooping?" She giggled.
Yolei didn't turn to meet Kari's greeting as she rummaged through the fridge in search of something to eat. "No food?" Yolei complained as she turned around.
"Grocery day isn't until Monday," Tai said as he made his way onto the living room couch. He slid his body down the cushions from the back of the couch and sighed. "Where's Davis? This is taking forever," He complained.
"Davis isn't here yet?" Cody piped up. "We just saw him in the lobby not too long ago. I wonder where he could be."
Kari raised her eyebrow curiously and wondered what kind of ridiculous scheme Davis was up to. Twenty minutes passed and the children all watched as Izzy, Joe, Yolei and Cody curiously shuffled the furniture about and began moving the futon mattress onto the ground in front of the computer room closet. Joe himself became a little frightened when Izzy removed some rope from his backpack. They set up all of the consoles in a row and Izzy began attaching all of the visors.
"I don't get it," Tai said with an overly suspicious tone in his voice. He leaned against the computer room door with one leg on the door and crossed his arms. "There's no wire or anything, so how are we supposed to get in the thing?'
Izzy looked up from the mess he was collectively making on the floor and held up his index finger at Tai. "Matt, could you bring me all those visors, please?"
Matt complied and picked up all the visors that were placed in a cardboard box near the door. "Here," He said as he passed the box over to Izzy. "What are you gonna do with them?"
"Precisely this," Izzy said as he plucked the visors out of the box. He carefully opened a hidden panel on the black box and removed a computer chip. "I've collected four chips from each system. Now, if you look at the visors," He pointed out as he raised the visor to Matt's view, "On the side there, there's a placeholder for a computer chip."
"Oh sure," Tai pouted as he left his stance at the door, "Matt gets an answer, but when Tai is curious about something it would just be silly to answer him."
Joe took one of the chips from Izzy and took the visor from Matt. He placed the blue computer chip in the side of the visor and the whole visor began to glow blue and purple.
"Talk about a portable disco ball!" Mimi cheered in delight at the colors.
"Hurts my eyes," Joe mumbled as he removed the chip. He placed the chip back into Izzy's hand and took a loud breath before he said, "We're pretty sure the chip connects the visor to what's happening inside of the box."
"So does the box take us to a new world, or is the world actually inside the box?" Sora asked, tapping her index finger against her bottom lip.
Just then there was a knock on the door. Kari rushed out and opened the door to reveal Davis standing before her, drenched in sweat. "Hi Davis," She giggled. He was wearing dark blue jeans, a red hoodie, and of course his goggles, which were draped around his neck. Upon seeing her he acquired a large grin that epitomized happiness, as was her usual greeting from him.
"Hey Kari," Davis managed to squeak as he gasped for air. "I ran… All the way here… With Demiveemon on my shoulder," He huffed. The truth was, Davis seen T.K., Matt and Sora all enter the elevator before him and had made an effort to race them by means of the stairs and failed utterly, having to take two juice breaks along the way… But he wouldn't be revealing this information to Kari. "I brought snacks," He said as he gestured to the grocery bag in his hands. "Rice balls, chips, cherry soda and…" He dug through the bag and grumbled, "Oh, well I forgot the pudding but I think this should be enough for everyone, or at least for Demiveemon and I."
Demiveemon grinned as he crawled down off of Davis' shoulder and busied himself inside the bag. "Good, 'cause I like to eat!" He cheered from inside the bag.
"Well guys, come on in!" Kari cheered as she happily took Davis' goodie bag off his hands. Although sometimes annoying, Kari did appreciate Davis' inner sweetness, especially when it involved him going out of his way to buy her favorite flavor soda in bulk. "We're going in the computer room," She said as she gestured down the hall. As they approached the door, Kari stopped as she placed her one hand on the knob and began to turn it. Before opening it, though, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Davis on the cheek. "Thanks for the snacks, Davis." She smiled.
Davis grinned and followed her into the computer room. Although he basked in her smooches, Davis knew she meant nothing romantic by them. This was the prize he received for enduring Kari's various jokes at his expense. "Hey everyone, sorry I'm late!" Davis called to his friends. He grimaced, but was not surprised by the lack of enthusiasm he received.
Matt and Sora were nestled in the corner on a large beanbag chair. They were sitting with their legs intertwined with one another. Sora smiled and waved at Davis, while Matt ignored Davis altogether as he whispered something into Sora's ear and played with her hair.
T.K was sitting with Yolei and Mimi. He had an amused look on his face as he watched the two girls argue over whose hair had more shine. As Davis entered into the room they all looked up and greeted him with a quiet but friendly hello.
Ken, Joe, Izzy and Tai were all huddled in the middle of the room on the orange shag throw rug. They were poking at the system and had all their 'Save our world' letters laid out in a row on the floor and Joe had scribbled in red pen on various parts of all the letters. There were notes and paragraphs circled and written on, which Davis assumed were theories they had come up with while he was absent. "Hi Davis," Izzy said plainly, not looking up from the strange new system.
"Man, I said I was sorry for being late!" Davis mused defensively as he looked around the room again. "Can't you guys cut me a little slack?" He huffed. "I mean come on, I brought food!" At hearing that there were snacks, everyone looked up at Davis and began snatching items from the bag Kari was carrying.
"Thanks Davis; primo snacks!" Tai grinned as he quickly grabbed two cherry sodas. Kari walked over to the stereo, which was playing. She turned the stereo off, as she assumed Tai or Izzy would probably have a 'safety first', or some other type of inspirational type speech ready for when they suited up to save the world. She sat down on the futon that was in the computer room and invited Davis to come sit beside her. It was kept in the computer room for the nights when their father would have to get up extra early and wouldn't want to wake up their mother. Hence, he would sleep in the computer room.
"So, you guys figure anything out yet?" Davis asked.
"Well," Izzy began as he walked up to Davis. "Did you bring your system and visors?"
Davis nodded and handed Izzy his backpack, which held the system, visors, a digital camera and various zipped plastic bags with stale pizza inside. "Right there," Davis said as he gestured to the visor that poked out of the side of the bag.
Izzy sat back on the floor and set the system up with the rest of them. "Here's what we're going to do," Izzy said as he led everyone over to the futon. He instructed them to lie on the bed and to stay calm. "So," He paused as he looked over his friends who were all lying down. "Mimi, Sora, Kari, Matt, Tai, Ken, T.K. and Davis, you are all going into the system, we are going to place the visors over your eyes and from what I can tell, that should lock you into the system."
Ken turned to Davis who was lying next to him and nervously asked, "From what he can tell?"
As Joe went to put the visor over Sora's eyes she put her hand in front of his and looked at Tai and Kari, who were lying beside each other. "What if your mom comes in the room?" She asked.
"Then we tell her the truth, you are all playing a type of virtual reality on the packaged consoles you received," Izzy said plainly. "She'll just think it's a video game. Now, while you guys are in there I am going to try and find a way to hack myself in, along with items you might need along the way. We conquered the Digital World's problems and we'll conquer this one, too!"
"You guys game for this?" Yolei called to her futon comfy friends. There was a collective cheer as the computer chips were inserted into the eight visors. Just as the visors began to glow, Patamon flew over to T.K. and sat on his chest. "T.K.?" He asked curiously and began to glow blue and purple and soon disappeared into a puff of smoke that ended with a small lightening bold about two inches tall.
Inside the system, the children stood in a white abyss and the only color they were greeted with was a small girl in the distance. She was small and looked very young, standing at two feet tall. She had red hair that was wavy and cut just above her ears. Her eyes were green. She wore a soft green dress that was fringed and ripped at the bottom and folded into hundreds of layers. She looked like she was in terrible pain as she clutched her arms and was knelt over, this pain seemed to cease as she caught sight of the seven children. She rose and ran eagerly to them. She smiled, showing off her small teeth in such a smile that only a young child could give. She reached her small, stubby arms up towards Matt as though she was going to hug him but instead she lowered her arms and stood before them.
"You came," She said, her voice was small but deep for a child. Her statement came out in confusion, as though she couldn't tell to be happy or sad by their presence. Still, there was a fluttering behind her and it soon became clear that she possessed fairy wings. Small and clear with a hint of white, sparkling as they flitted with happiness the same way a dog would shake his tail.
"Yeah, we got your letter." Davis said, taking a wild guess that she was the one who wrote it.
She wrinkled her nose in confusion and repeated, "Letter?" She shook her head sadly as though she now understood and said, "No, I never wrote one." Before anyone could say anything, she piped up again saying, "My name is Asrai. I am here to guide you through this process.'
"Nice to meet you," T.K shifted awkwardly at viewing the girl's sadness and asked, "So, what do we do here, exactly?"
As T.K. waited for an answer, Sora looked around at the group of her friends and turned to Kari with a worried look on her face and whispered, "Where's Mimi?" Kari looked around and could only respond with a worried shrug.
"Well," Asrai started, "Since you are all foreign to my world's design, we will take your human DNA and transport it to a sprite from my world."
Ken raised his brow and said, "A sprite, like in a video game?"
"Something you might compare to a video game," Asrai nodded. "This is no game, though. This will make it easier for us to process your data. You will all be transported into my world with completely different names, identities and different responsibilities." She waved her hand and flew three feet off the ground. She flew over to a hologram model of a sprite she had made appear.
The sprite was of a knight with brown hair and a chainmail suit. He held a sword and was standing in a generic hero pose. "Since you will all be processed into different sprites that have been living according to their character up until now, I will have no choice but to split you up into different areas of the world. If by chance you do cross each others paths you will most likely not recognize each other."
The children exchanged their share of frowns and concerned faces at the prospect of being introduced into a new world without one another. Trying to bring some positive, or possibly cool tidbits into the experience Ken asked, "So do we get weapons and magic?"
"Some of you will," Asrai said softly. "You will have to find out as you go along. We have a few sprites available, a knight, a ninja, a paladin, a princess, some others though it isn't up to me to decide who becomes who. This could be a lengthy process."
"Speaking of which," Matt said, "I kind of have a gig to do, so, what if we need out?"
Asrai set her feet on the ground again and her wings quickly stopped moving. She looked up at him and raised her eyebrow, repeating, "Out?"
"That's…not a good sign." Ken said, now wishing he had volunteered to stay outside of the experience along with Izzy and Yolei.
"Yeah, out. Like, exit the game?" Matt repeated nervously. He knew that this was an important mission, but gigs were important too. He had an overwhelming suspicion that this would be much like the Digital World and that getting out of the experience would take more than hitting a pause button.
"Ah, yes, exit." Asrai nodded in acknowledgement. "To exit the mission you must complete it." With a few waves of her hands she said, "I must send you all now, please stay still."
The group of children exchanged their goodbyes and plans to find one another. The experience would hopefully prove as successful as their excursion to the Digital World, and possibly include meeting some new friends as well. As the children were transported separately into a world of magic and mystery, Mimi was only now appearing in the abyss, which was darkening in color. Gone was the friendly guide. Taking her place was a boy clad in a dark red cloak. All she could see of him were his glowing eyes and the strands of dark hair that fell from the cloak's hood.
"Hello there," Mimi greeted the stranger cheerily.
"Hello," He smirked suavely and in a low voice he said, "I want to thank you for responding to my letter in such short notice."
"Oh, it's no problem, really. I'm always up for helping a friend in need!" She giggled, "My name is Mimi."
"Mimi... What a lovely name," He said quietly, as though contemplating her name's greatness in his mind. That being acknowledged, Mimi was beginning to enjoy this experience. "It's been so long since I've had a friend, Mimi." His voice was smooth but something about him seemed off. She chalked it up to him being part of an alternate universe, and hey, Palmon was a little strange at first too, but now they were great friends.
"I have some bad news, Mimi," He said with a look of deep regret covering his face. "You're the only one of your friends that made it through safely." He watched her expression change to concern and panic; approaching her as it did. He put his hand on her arm and said, "Let me explain myself. You see, there is an old man threatening my world. His name is Xander and he is one of the most powerful wizards in the land. He once prophesied that seven dark warriors would rise up and destroy our land, and in the end it turns out that he prophesied this because he himself planned on summoning them."
"Oh dear, that's awful!" Mimi shrieked before asking, "Isn't it?"
"Indeed," He said and scratched his chin. He sat her down on the floor of the great abyss and said, "It gets worse I'm afraid. In my haste to stop him, I sent out for the eight legendary warriors of light. It was a foolish mistake on my part, for the dark warriors were, in fact, the corrupt warriors of light. Why, even now Xander is brainwashing your friends. You are the only one I could manage to save, as he was not expecting an eighth."
Mimi gasped at the prospect of her friends being soldiers of the darkness and looked up at her new friend, hoping for some answers. "But there is yet hope, Mimi," He said. "If you can defeat both your friends and Xander then you will have saved my land and you will return home unharmed with your friends." He then sternly said, "Only so long as long as you're willing to cooperate."
Mimi nodded and said, "Of course, I'll do anything to save my friends!"
"Of course," He said softly as he tried to stop the slight smirk that was creeping at the corner of his lips. "That is the attitude of a true warrior of light. I will grant you the equipment you will need to defeat the dark warriors," He said and with a wave of his hand he brought forth a wave of dark winds.
Her once trendy pink hair was now midnight blue, falling to her waist and her thin and frail figure was now an athletic build, strong enough to carry the black long sword that was floating before her eyes. While the blade itself was polished black, the handle was silver with a black diamond rose at the bottom of the hilt. There looked to be red glowing ivy wrapping around the grip. Although the said situation overcame her with sadness, the sword began to remind her of Palmon, giving her the hope that she needed that her friends would be saved.
Sealing her fate, she grabbed the sword. Her hands now clad in black gloves, preventing her hands from being affected by the ivy. A long black cloak now billowed behind her, clasped at the neck by a glass rose. She now looked to her guide as to what to do next.
"I will show you the way, Kanzas." His voice was haunting but reassuring as he renamed her. He snapped his fingers and within an instant a chariot with black horses appeared before them, he gestured for her to get in and assured he would be close behind. The chariot took off with Mimi beginning to doze off in her seat.
The cloaked boy began to chuckle to himself as the mist cleared and the chariot had vanished. He mentally congratulated himself on a job well done. He always loved the part of his job that involved lies and deception, then again that was pretty much all his work consisted of. After all, what else is a villain to do?
There's more chapters up, too, so keep reading :) Hope you liked it so far!
M&M