Series: Hunting The Great Game||Title: The King's General
Characters: Taiki, Shoutmon, Beelzebumon, Xros Heart||Romance: N/A
Chapter: One||Words: 1,216
Genre: Drama, Friendship||Rated: G
Challenges: Diversity Writing, L19, series of 5 or more fics; Include The Word Boot Camp, #29, panoramic; Season Rewrite Boot Camp, #5, vanish; Season Rewrite Challenge: rewriting Digimon Hunters; Presents Under The Tree
Notes: This is a Digimon Hunters rewrite/AU. Instead of beginning a year after Xros Wars, this begins three years later. Taiki is sixteen. Answers will come eventually. This is written for Aiko Isari.
Summary: Nothing goes anywhere without an exchange of some kind. Sometimes those exchanged might not notice it. But in this case, Taiki can't help but realize he's not at home anymore.
Clouds of a thousand colors spun all around Taiki, but he couldn't see a single speck of blue sky. Or any other color of sky for that matter. Just clouds as far up and as far down as he could see. He thought he was falling, but he couldn't really tell.
All of that passed through his mind in a matter of moments. Something more important lodged in the center of his thoughts, cold and unyielding and terrifying.
He wasn't where he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be going to do a little sparring with Zenjirou. His friend had a match - he refused to let a little thing like high school get in the way of being a swordmaster - and he wanted to train against Taiki, still insisting Taiki was better than he was.
Taiki was - had been - on the way to their meeting, but he didn't recall any colored clouds on the way there. Just the usual buildings and people and cars, none of which he could see now.
He couldn't remember if he'd passed through anything like this before. The strange gateways in the Digital World were the only thing he could imagine that came close and those still didn't look like this.
But the closer the clouds pressed against him, the more he thought of those tunnels and the more he thought the air being sucked into his lungs by every gasping breath tasted and smelled like the Digital World itself.
As if thinking made it so, which wasn't all that far-fetched if this really was somewhere in the Digital World, the clouds parted and Taiki saw the most incredible panoramic view spread out beneath him.
The Digital World that he'd known had been divided into multiple tiny zones or a handful of countries. This was one world, and he moved far too fast to be able to see more than glittering golden sunlight, spreading emerald fields and forests, and a few stray places that were probably villages or towns.
Somewhere it dawned on him that he was falling and flailing, his hands grasping at the remaining clouds but to no avail.
Xros Loader! He had to find out if this really was the Digital World and if so where his friends were, because he could really use some help right now.
Especially of the tall dark flying variety.
Every day for the last three years, he'd faithfully put his Xros Loader into his pants pocket or his bookbag, wherever he had that would keep it safe. Now he scrambled for it again, as he had many times before when more lives than his depended on him getting to it.
There it was! He took one terrifyingly quick look down; did he even have time before he splatted all over the ground? He hoped he did. He didn't take the time to fear not to.
Pulling his Xros Loader up to his mouth, he shouted as loud as he could make his lungs work.
"Shoutmon! Wisemon! Beelzebumon! Anyone! Can you hear me?"
He wished he knew where they were. Where he was. They might not even be in the Xros Loader. Shoutmon was king now, wasn't he? Didn't he, wouldn't he have something more important to do? How would they hear him even if they weren't busy?
"Taiki!" Shoutmon's familiar cry filled Taiki with more warmth than he'd experienced in far too long. "Taiki, where are you? Your world?"
Taiki looked around one more time. The ground remained a lot closer than he wanted it to be and getting closer all the time. He thought maybe he should have hit it already but he didn't want to complain. Wrong time for that.
"I think yours. And I could crash any second now!"
He heard a mutter of voices from the Xros Loader, most of which he thought he recognized, though separating them wasn't the easiest of tasks right now. Then one clear voice separated itself.
"I see him!"
Taiki wanted to ask where they were, but with the way he passed over places, he had no idea on if it would mean anything to him.
Then a black feather appeared before him, gently drifting down, and before his mind fully processed what was going on, a black leather clad figure hovered beside him, one muscular arm circling around his waist, slowing his fall.
He looked up into Beelzebumon's face, heart beating a little faster as he began to process that he'd been falling more or less to his doom and now he wasn't. It wasn't the first time in his life he'd been close to death but certainly the most recent.
"Beelzebumon," he murmured, tension he hadn't even been aware of easing its way out of him. "Good to see you again."
The black feathered angel smiled back at him. "Good to see you again. You've gotten bigger."
"I didn't think it would be a good idea to get smaller," Taiki joked weakly. The side of Beelzebumon's mouth quirked, then he gathered Taiki closer and began to spiral down toward a collection of brightly colored buildings. Taiki stared at it as they got closer. Crashing into it would have been a nightmare but being able to stare at it meant he could enjoy the view. "What is that?"
"The new capital of the Digital World," Beelzebumon said. The closer they got, the more Taiki could see Digimon gathering all over, pouring out of homes and businesses and other buildings. No one building seemed bigger than the rest, not like a castle or palace, and the whole place, he saw now, was surrounded by a low wall more decorative than defensive.
Guarding that wall, however, was a familiar face. Or in fairness, group of faces: Knightmon and his PawnChessmon. Taiki waved at them, grinning when they waved back. He could see a few more he recognized, old friends he'd fought beside, even the occasional former enemy, just as he'd hoped, all of them revived and healed and working together.
Then he caught sight of something else that made his heart jump: or someone else. A little taller than he remembered, and with a few new accessories that Taiki knew he didn't remember, but he knew his partner when he saw him.
"Shoutmon!" He waved even more energetically as they dropped closer and the ground was solid and safe under his feet and Beelzebumon released him and Taiki started running almost before that, his heart pounding and his breath caught in his throat and he ran forward and Shoutmon met him somewhere in the middle and he wasn't crying, he really wasn't, and he didn't know when he had been this happy in his entire life.
To Be Continued
Notes: This is truly just the beginning.