~*The Fate Of Two Worlds*~

a Digimon Adventure Fanfic

- by darkened-storm

Chapter One: And So It begins... Again...

Here we go again, Stephanie Summers thought to herself as she slung her dufflebag over her shoulder. Summer Camp. A routine she'd endured every year since the tender age of twelve. She was seventeen now, and things had certainly changed dramatically from the first summer the Digidestined were summoned to the Digital World.

"I'm so over this," she grumbled, to no one but herself. Yes, she'd grown up a lot from the shy twelve year old that had found herself caught amongst a battle for both worlds, and things, so many things had changed. She'd changed.

Moving to Australia was the hardest thing Steph had ever done in her entire life. It hadn't been easy to uproot her entire life and move to another country, away from her best friends, away from her loved ones. She hadn't been the only one to move, though. Mimi had also moved, giving up the small suburban life in Odiaba for the busy streets of New York. She'd dyed her hair pink and gone to fashion college. Joe had graduated last summer and was now studying biomedicine at one of the top universities in Japan. This year, Sora and Izzy were sophmores, and Tai and Matt were seniors, in their last year of high school at Odiaba High. T.K and Kari were junior freshmen.

Since the move, Steph hadn't kept in touch with any of her fellow digidestined, save for Sora and Mimi. The time difference hadn't exactly made it easy for her, but if she was brutally honest with herself, she knew she could have tried harder. Over the years, she slowly fallen out with her fellow digidestined to the point where she had stopped coming to Summer Camp. For a time, considered not going to this summer.

Then, she got the email from Sora, and she couldn't refuse it. It was their last Summer Camp.

In truth, Steph missed her friends. Mimi still had family in Japan, so she visited them quite often. She, on the other hand, hadn't returned since last summer. Her friends had bugged her time and time again to visit them in Odaiba – Tai had even offered to sleep on his couch so she could stay at his house, but she had politely refused. It wasn't that she didn't want to see her friends – truly she did. She missed them all very much, Tai, Izzy, Joe, Kari, Sora, Mimi, T.K and – well... she just missed them.

The long trek up the hill was all too familiar to her as she struggled with her bags. By her second year, she'd learned to travel light rather than lug three times her own body weight up the steep incline from the bus depot to the camp site. It never got any easier, that was for sure. Certainly not when an extra sixty kilos of pinkishness had decided to add her weight to her already heavy load.

"Steph! You made it!" Mimi Tachikawa enveloped her friend in a spine breaking hug, her cowboy hat flying off in the wind. Steph staggered and struggled to hold her ground.

"Mimi!" she gasped. "Can't... breathe!"

Mimi blushed. "Oh, sorry," she exclaimed, letting go of her friend and pulling away to get a better look at her friend. Mimi looked exactly as she had when Steph had seen her last. She was happy to see that Mimi's hair was still bright pink. Some things never change...

"Oh here, let me help you," she said, taking one of Steph's bags and picking up her hat. "My daddy brought my luggage up for me when he dropped me off."

"Aren't you lucky," Steph laughed and together, the two girls reached the top of the hill, Mimi chatting animatedly all the way.

"It's so good to see you," she was saying. "Come on! They're announcing which rooms we've been assigned to."

Laughing, she allowed Mimi to drag her over to the mess hall where they were handing out room assignments to the crowd of girls. Despite having not been to camp since she was fifteen, Steph was surprised to realise she recognised some of the names.

"Anderson, Amy. Room 1D"

"Cross your fingers we'll be in the same room," Mimi whispered. Steph crossed her fingers.

"Summers, Stephanie. Room 2C." Steph heaved her dufflebag further up on her shoulder. "That's me," she said, glancing at Mimi.

"Tachikawa, Mimi. Room 2C."

Mimi met her friend's gaze with a girl. "Roomies!" It wasn't really a surprise. They'd had the same cabin assignments since their first year at camp. Some things just came down to fate.

The two girls hauled their luggage to their room, only to find that another roommate had made it there first.

"Sora!" Mimi exclaimed.

Sora Takenouchi beamed at her two best friends. "Mimi! Steph!" she cried. "We have the same room!"

"This is so great!" Mimi said, tossing down her bags and jumping onto one of the beds without bothering to remove her shoes. "We're all together again!"

Steph rubbed her ear, wincing. Sometimes she was certain Mimi could break the sound barrier. "And now everyone else in the entire camp thinks we're weirdos," she muttered as she hauled her luggage through the door and tossed her dufflebag onto one of the bunks. "I shotgun the top bunk!" she declared.

Sora smiled. "I thought you might," she said, shoving her own, now empty suticase, under her bed and throwing herself down on the bed. "How have you both been? Catch me up?"

"Well, I've been on holiday in Hawaii," Mimi said excitedly. "I met the cutest boy there..."

As Mimi embarked on her tell all about the cute boy in Hawaii, Steph turned to her recently claimed bunk and began to unpack some of her clothes, folding them neatly into one of the drawers below the bunk.

"And he had a brother too," Mimi was saying. "If only you had been there Sora, we could have double dated."

Sora rolled her eyes. "Except that I already have a boyfriend," she said with a grin. To this, Mimi laughed. Steph to had to suppress a laugh. She could only imagine how Sora's boyfriend would react to the idea. She giggled.

"How is my good friend Taichi?"she asked.

Sora smiled. "He made the state team mid year," she said. "He's been training all summer." She ran her hands through her now long red hair, the silver ring Tai had given her for her seventeeth birthday catching the sun's rays as they shone through the open window.

"And everyone else?" Steph asked.

"Joe graduated top of his class," Mimi said proudly. "And Izzy got the I.T award for the third year in a row. T.K and his mom moved closer to the school, so he and Kari get to see each other more often now – those two are so cute together."

Steph smiled. T.K had always been the little brother she'd never had, and she adored Kari. "That's great," she agreed. "What about..." her voice trailed off and she bit her lip in hesitation. "Never mind," she said. "Forget I asked."

Mimi and Sora both looked uncomfortable. They knew who was on the other girls mind. A certain blonde with a too cool attitude.

"Hey,' Sora said with a quick glance at Mimi. "I think Kari said something about getting food from the mess hall, we should go find her."

At the mention of the younger digidestined, Steph's face immediately brightened and she pulled on her jacket. "Sure, let's go," she said.

*

Meanwhile, on the other side of the camp grounds, Steph wasn't the only one with mixed feelings about their last summer camp.

"Tell us what it was like," Dana Murphy squealed excitedly. "Did you get to meet any famous people?"

"Of course I did," Jun Motamiya replied, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulders. "Hollywood is so overrated." She stretched back and looped her arm through her boyfriend's, much to his dismay.

Yamato Ishida had grown up from being Mr. Cool in the seventh grade. He now had his own rock band, the Teenage Wolves. Over the years, he'd grown rather distant from Tai and his fellow digidestined, some of which he hadn't seen in over two years.

Matt liked to think he'd matured, even if only ever so slightly. Once, Matt had been all about becoming a better person. Now, once again, Matt found himself with very little purpose to his existence. That was perhaps why he was still with Jun – for lack of anything better to do, and for the certainty that he wasn't alone.

He'd always known Jun was a shallow person, but since he'd lost contact with his best friend, Matt found himself spending more and more time with an ever increasingly selfish Jun.

"Matt?"

He blinked. "Huh? Sorry?"

Jun huffed. "I asked if you like the way I did my hair today," she snapped, clearly annoyed. Both her friends, Dana and Diana were staring at him as though judging his answer. At first this had bothered him. Matt had never liked drawing attention to himself, but he had long ago fallen into the habit of acting as the poster boyfriend. It kept Jun happy and saved him from dealing with her temper tantrums later on.

He blinked again. "Um, yeah... it's nice Jun," he said, barely snapping from his riviere. The mess hall doors had just opened and Sora Takenouchi had walked in, flanked by Mimi and another girl he did not recognise.

He blinked again, shocked to realise he was staring at her. She looks familiar... he realised. The girl was slightly smaller than the other two, with long dark hair that fell in curls to her waist, covering her face. she had pale skin and a petite frame, but her warm brown eyes shone with excitement as she was shoved playfully by Kari Kamiya. I know her... he thought.

"Just nice?" Jun demanded. "Is that all?" she tugged on his hair again and he pushed her hand away self consciously. Jun hated his hairstyle. For most of high school, he'd kept his hair long. This summer, however, he'd decided to cut it short again. His sandy blonde hair fell onto his face, hiding his dark sapphire eyes.

"Jun, stop it," he snapped.

Upset, or perhaps just irritated at the lack of attention she was getting, Jun got to her feet and stormed off without another word. Dana and Diana followed her with disapproving glances in his direction, whispering to each other.

He sighed. She'll be back, he thought grimly.

"Man, that Jun is really annoying. I can't believe she followed us to camp," Tai was grumbling. "She should have gone to cheerleading camp."

Matt grimaced. Jun, although the most logical choice for him, considering her popularity, was not the sort of person Matt would have imagined himself with, but then again, neither had Sora.

Dating Sora had been awkward. Sure, they had both been good friends, and they enjoyed each other's company. But when he'd kissed her, he didn't feel that spark – the spark he'd felt with her.

In the end, he and Sora had a mutual break up. They both knew that she really loved Tai, and that neither of them felt anything for each other more than friendship. Once they'd admitted that, there had been no point in continuing the relationship. Tai and Sora got together a few months later and he, having nothing better to do, had agreed to go out on a date with Jun, and she hadn't left him alone since.

But things were about to change for him – and for the rest of the digidestined. And it was all starting with the appearance of the girl who looked all too familiar.

"Hey Tai," he said, shoving his friend. "Who's that girl?"

Tai didn't look up from his copy of Sports Illustrated. "Which girl?" he asked absentmindedly.

"The one sitting with Sora and your sister," Matt told him.

With a sigh, Tai tore his gaze from the magazine and looked up in the direction Matt was looking. He frowned, glaring at his best friend. "Dude, don't tell me you don't know who that is," he said.

Matt matched Tai's glare with his own. "If I knew," he said through gritted teeth. "I wouldn't be asking, now would I?"

Tai rolled his eyes. "That's Steph Summers," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Matt felt his jaw drop. "No way," he said. "That can't be her." It couldn't be, she looked so grown up, so sophisticated, and so very different from the little girl he'd once known. He'd always thought she looked beautiful, but the girl sitting across the hall from him now was a very different kind of beautiful. Then again... it had been so long since he'd seen her...

Again, Tai glared at his friend, unimpressed. "Sure it can," he said. "It's been two years man, we've all changed."

Some of us more than others, obviously," Matt though grimly.

Tai was getting to his feet. "You coming?" he asked. "I'm going to say hi." But Matt didn't move. Tai hesitated, staring at his best friend expectantly. "You're not coming?"

Matt shook his head. "No, I think I'll just wait here."

Tai frowned. "Listen, I know things have been kind of tense between you two since she moved, but this is our last summer camp, man. It might be your last chance to patch things up with her."

"There's nothing to patch up," Matt said, looking away. "She lives in Australia, I live here."

"But she's here now, this summer. For the whole summer. That's a whole six weeks," Tai urged.

Matt shot him a dark glare that said 'back off'. "Just drop it man, I've got nothing to say to her."

Tai matched his glare with his own. "I know you do, you're just too chicken to do anything about it." And with that, he turned his back. Matt glared after him as he watched his best friend wander over to Sora and Mimi's table and put his hands over the new girl's eyes.

"I have nothing to say to her," Matt grumbled, more to himself than to anyone else before getting to his feet and storming out of the mess hall without a second glance, leaving poor Izzy, who hadn't once looked up from his laptop throughout the entire conversation, completely dumbfounded.

Things at Summer Camp had definitely taken an interesting turn for the remaining Digidestined, so much so, that not a single one of them noticed the bizarre rainbow coloured light in the sky above the camp ground.

=] first Digimon Adventure fic. Be nice please.