~*~
Jyou Kido's "It's a Rather Bearable Life"
By Kyoko_Jyou
~*~
Author's Note: There are somethings that go perfectly together. Tea and biscuits, fish and chips, odds and ends, peanut butter and jelly, money and Me, and yes: Digimon and monochromatic holiday classic movies! In this train of thought, I present you a tender, digitally enhanced rendition of the Hollywood classic "It's a Wonderful Life". Now in Technicolor!
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, nor do I own 'It's a Wonderful Life'. I also don't own the other movie references referred to in this ficcy.
~*~
The scene begins in the darkness, with the outline of a Shogun Gekomon in a tuxedo and a bowtie shown in white. He looks like a bloated martian Alfred Hitchcock with a bad case of gas. He is whistling the Hitchcock theme until the spotlight falls on him.
"Gooood Eeeevening. The story you are about to see revolves around the rather depressing life of Jyou Kido. This story is a Jyoumi, although there is a bit of Taiora, Kenyako and Compushiro (gotta love Compushiro!) involved, too. Why did the author write a Christmas-themed story in the dead of summer? Nobody knows..."
Lights go dark again and Shogun Gekomon resumes whistling the Hitchcock theme.
~*~
"No... this... can't... be... happening..." Jyou muttered nervously as he read the formally printed letter in front of his apartment mailbox. On the front of the envelope was the black stamped address of the Japanese Medical Bar Examination Committee and on the letter was the red stamped words "FAILED".
Jyou's hands shook violently. His eyes twitched up and down, up and down, up and down. He was a nervous wreck. He had failed the Bar Exam. He wasn't going to be a doctor. Not yet, possibly not ever.
Of course, Jyou wasn't actually too old. At the age of twenty, he was the youngest in his family to attempt the Bar (that test you have to go through to be a Doctor, at least, I think that's the way it goes in Japan), but it was his father who held the record for the youngest Kido to pass the Bar Exam... at age twenty-one.
"Dad'll have my head on a platter for this all year..." He whispered to himself as he walked out his apartment.
It was snowing. The trees were bare and the ground was blanketed in fluffy cold whiteness. Jyou tucked the 'scarlet letter' inside his azure blue coat and walked out into the parking lot where his aptly-coloured Volkswagen Beetle sat quietly.
Getting in and warming up the engines, Jyou noticed that the car wasn't starting. "Now what?"
He got out and approached the engine. Opening the hood, fiery steam poured up and out fogging up Jyou's glasses. Clearing them, he began to look inside.
"If you were human, I would have known what was wrong with you by now..." He then remembered the stab of his examination's failure. "Or maybe not..."
Slamming the hood down, he goes out to the road where he catches a taxi.
~*~
Minutes later, Jyou got to the Tachikawa Residence where the digidestined had been celebrating Christmas since Mimi came back from the States. Her mother and father were accustomed to the American version of the Holiday; their house was decorated with mistletoe and Christmas Trees while the food was composed of turkeys and lamb chops and fig pudding and ham and Christmas Pie... much to Daisuke's delight.
~Ding-Ding-Dingy-Ding-aling~
The Tachikawa doorbell- new tunes almost every week.
"Who is it?" He heard Sora's voice from the inside.
"It's Jyou!"
Then, a silence... followed by murmurs... followed by Sora's quick opening of the door.
"Jyou-it's-a-pleasue-to-see-you-but-could-you-go-and-buy-these-things-for-a-while-so-go-away-pretty-please-now-gotta-hurry-lotsa-things-to-do-buh-bye!" Then, the slamming of the door at Jyou's face.
Jyou looked at the list. "Quick dry cement, shaving cream, vynil hot pants, the complete Barry Manilow Collection in cassette, a copy of 'How to Win Friends and Run Over Enemies with a Steam Roller', and Mimi's pink bicycle pedals".
Jyou paused... then yelled while banging on the door... "How the heck am I supposed to pay for all this?"
"Use your credit card, duh..." Mimi yelled from the inside, matter-of-factly.
He knew better than to argue with Mimi.
He though it would be best for him to just obey.
So off he went...
~*~
"That would be two hundred yen for the bike pedals."
"Thanks... and Merry Christmas!"
"Yeah, whatever..."
Jyou stepped out of the store and slid the bike pedals inside his jacket.
Four Hours, fifteen minutes, and eighty four closed-for-the-holidays stores later, Jyou finally completed his task.
Back on the Tachikawa porch, Jyou proceeded to knock... but was stopped when he began hearing noises indoors.
"So, Jyou's still not here?"
"Yeah, I can't believe he fell for that old trick..."
"So, do you think we got rid of him long enough?"
"I hope so. I don't see how we can get this party going with him around..."
"Yeah, he'd probably be fussing on Tai's banner by now..."
Jyou froze solid, laying the bag on the doorstep.
Moved by great emotional distress, he ran away.
Ran as fast as he could.
Ran as far as his feet would take him.
Farther... farther... farther away.
Out into the streets... until he reached the old bridge out of town where he slumped onto the railings. The sun setted on the horizon. Tears were in his eyes...
"I have no life... I have no friends... I... I... I just wish I've never been born so they can all just have their stupid fun! I'm sick of being everybody's third wheel! I'm a failure... a stupid.. stupid..."
"NOOOOO!" A voice cried from behind him, followed by the gentle laying of hands on his back.
"Huh..."
"Don't do it Jyou..."
"Do what?" Jyou looked around. On his back was Gennai.
"Don't kill yourself!"
"Kill myself? What the heck are you talking about?"
"Weren't you jumping off?"
"No."
"Oh. Then never mind."
They both looked at each other, terribly confused.
"What are you doing here?"
A soft white light fell on Gennai. "I'm here... to earn my WINGS!"
"Wings? You're not an angel..."
"Bear with me, kid. I'm into this Christmas gig for the job benefits. Anyway... we got your wish."
"What wish?" Jyou said, getting worried about his diminutive old friend.
"Your wish of never being born, of course!"
"Of all my dozens and dozens of wishes, you had to pick that one, didn't you?"
"Yeah, it's a holiday angel thing. We grant wishes like that once every year."
"Why'd you choose me then?"
"I dunno. You seemed like the perfect dork for this job. Good natured, human door mat, all around nice guy with a clean-ish heart."
"I feel sooo much better. Anyway, I guess there's not a lot of difference in the way things are now if I wasn't born."
"What do you mean, Jyou?"
"Well, to tell you frankly, I don't think I actually did anything during my life. At hindsight, I agree with my... uh... 'friends'... that all I've done was complain about everything. I really wasn't too great a digidestined, anyway. Nobody listened, and I wasn't Tai or Yamato to do anything about it."
"So you think that, since all you did was complain, since nobody listened to you, since all you had Gomamon evolve was into a turtle-shelled walrus... everything would pretty much be the same?"
"Yeah I guess..."
"Well, you have mistaken, Jyou. Boy, are you wrong..."
"Huh?"
Gennai then pulled a glowing ball out of nowhere and caused it to explode, bursting into a flash of blinding energy.
Soon, the entirety of Jyou's Odaiba was replaced by a rundown city. The skies were dark, not because of night but because of an impenetrable blanket of pullution. A dark tower sticks up into the toxic sky, lit by a thousand windows.
"Welcome to Myopolis, Jyou."
"GAAAAAAAAH!!! What have you done to Odaiba!..." Then, with confusion, he stared at the old man. "And whad'ya just say?"
"This is not Odaiba, Jyou. At least, not anymore. This is Myopolis, the stronghold of Emperor Myotismon."
"Emperor... Emperor WHAT!?"
"Myotismon, Jyou. Without you, Myotismon was not defeated. Now, the entire Earth is enslaved by dark digimon."
"What happened to the others? Why couldn't they have defeated him? War Greymon... Metal Garurumon..."
"They never exsisted..."
"How come... What happened to the other's... Taichi and Yamato?"
"It's funny how you should ask that." Gennai snapped his finger and they both vanished, reappearing in the Yagami Apartment. Although, while Taichi's apartment had always been... should I say... hyperactive... there was now only a dark, empty room with a stollid feeling of glumness in it now.
No lights. No soccer trophies. Nothing but a glum, albeit organized pad which still matches Taichi's to a T.
"Where's Tai?" Suddenly, a thin, sickly young man entered the room talking on a celphone. He seemed tired and very distressed, bowing up and down in apologies.
"Sorry Mr. Bakemon, sir. It will never happen again. I'm very sorry, sir. Forgive me sir..."
"What is that geek doing in Taichi's? And why is he speaking to a Bakemon?"
"That is Taichi, I'm afraid..."
"You've gotta be kidding me. That's not him! The Taichi I know would fight until the end. Even if this did happen, he'd die first before apologizing to Bakemon! Look at him, he looks worse than I do! That guy has Short Hair for crying out loud!"
"But that is Taichi Yagami. Although, not the Taichi Yagami you would recoognize."
"Darn right!"
"Jyou... remember the circumstances. You were never born."
"So?"
"Without a person to counter Taichi's kamikaze antics, he went through a lot of soul-breaking experiences. He was brave, Jyou, not because he just was but because he knew he had somebody to fall on when he failed. You had been his net Jyou. Without you, he fell straight down into this pitiful creature. A paper pusher in the Bakemon bureaucracy."
"My Goodness. What happened to Daisuke?"
Gennai only nodded and snapped a finger, spiriting them to a back alley somewhere. There, a teen resembling Dai stood, picking out food from a dumpster. "There must be something in here edible".
"Without a chance of being a digidestined, Daisuke suffered a plummet of self esteem. He ends up as a panhandler and occasional theif."
Jyou shook his head in confusion.
"Ugh... What happened to Hikari? And Takeru?"
"Oh. They're dead."
"They're WHAT?"
"Dead". With another snap, they were now on a cematery.
"Oh my..." Jyou knelt on the grey twin graves. "Takaishi Takeru... Yagami Hikari...", each flanked with weeping cherubs. Jyou carresed the granite stones under the gnarled tree before him.
"Takeru died from drowning. I guess you know who saved him from that."
"And Hikari?"
"Myotismon got to her before the others did, I'm afraid."
"But how... why..."
"Loss of internal management."
"Internal management, well Sora's in charge of keeping the group in one piece!"
"Sora? I don't think she's in any condition to do that."
Snap. Scene change (simple plot, isn't it?) to the Odaiba Center for the Psychologically Entertaining. A dishevelled Sora was there in a straight-jacket, yelling at rats on her non-padded cell. "Hey! Don't go there! Listen to me! Hey, come back here!"
"What's with her?"
"She went insane trying to keep the group together when the little kids died. Yamato went berserk. Taichi became paranoid of everything. Actually, if you haven't noticed, you shared Sora's duty as caretaker to everybody."
"I... I... did? But nobody listened!"
"Oh, they listened. They might have mocked your views and made fun of you, but you've always got them together long enough to get them out of trouble."
"Speaking of trouble, what happened after 'Mato went berserk?"
"See for yourself."
Whoop, different scene. The two are now standing on a concert hall with thousands of screaming groupies.
"I guess Yamato's still his old lady killer self, huh?"
"Not exactly. Look..." Gennai pointed at the stage... at a disembodied Yama-head on a life-support machine.
"He's a trophy from the last battle. He's now forced to sing here every night unless they pull his plug."
"Yama..."
"He's been here for twenty odd years. Singing the same song every night. It's Myopolis' only form of entertainment.
"Ewww. That's disgusting!"
"You think that's disgusting wait until you see..."
Okay, okay, same thing. Snap, then a change of scene! This time, it's inside the tower.
"EYAAAAAHHHH"
"Koushiro."
"What... what... what... what..."
"Oh? What happened to his face? It was permanently fused into the monitor of his laptop so that his brain could operate the primary systems of the tower. He is now a complete cyborg symbiote. Actually, that's his wish come true."
"But why?"
"You were the only person Koushiro could ever talk to at the same intellectual level. Without such a catalyst, he never learned to socialize with anybody. He spent his time in the digital world in front of the computer... until vademon...
"... grafted his brain into a computer? Oh... I think I need an aspirin."
"I don't think you'd like what happened to the people who make aspirin..."
"They were affected too?"
"In unholy, wretched, foul, unspeakeable ways!"
"Hmm, so Tai's a geek, Dai's a bum, 'Keru and Kari are dead, Sora's insane, Yama's a trophy head and Koushiro's a mangled piece of circuitry. That leaves Ken..."
Gennai claps his hands, changing the scene once more.
"Hey you didn't snap your fingers!"
"The readers are wanting a change of pace. Well, about Ken... you've been like the brother he lost these past few years and it's no wonder why a lot of things would happen to him..."
"What happened to him?"
"Well..."
"What happened to him!"
"Well..."
Suddenly, they were finally dropped into a room in the ghettoes of Myotopia where a disgruntled Miyako was chasing a black haired boy.
"Junior! Come back here this instant."
"Who's the kid?"
"That's Junior. Actually, he's the twenty-seventh Ken Junior Miyako's given birth to."
"You mean to say?"
"No, they're not married. Just made a lotta kids, that's all."
"Oh. Where's Ken?"
Gennai pointed at an unshaven slob watching the Exxxtasy Channel on television. "Hey, bitch! I'm hankering for more of that luv thang!"
"Shut your trap Ken! I've had enough with you're home-made viagra!"
"Gennai, let's go. I don't like where this is going..."
"Uh-huh..."
Clapping once more, they shunted back into the streets.
"How the heck was I responsible for that?"
"Well, you see... Ken always liked Miyako, but was too afraid to ask her. That was because he was shadowing your relationship with Miyako's bestfriend... Mimi."
"Oh... and that's supposed to be a good thing?"
"Yes. Ken was too young and too unstable for an immediate relationship at the time this all started. They were, after all, only in the fourth grade."
"That leaves Iori, then."
"Oh, Iori is here somewhere... oh, there he is."
Gennai pointed at a teen, hanged At a lampost.
"Iori... my goodness... Gennai, what's going on?"
"Don't you get it? You were Iori's mentor. Without anybody like you to bring him into the right path, this happened. Iori, the ruthless homicidal maniac. Caught him yesterday and now he's hanging from his crimes..."
"No... stop it... let's go somewhere else..."
Jyou's eyes tried to shut out the image of Iori's dead body on the lampost gallows.
"Somewhere else? Maybe you'd prefer to see your brother Shin..."
The two were whisped away by a light, depositing them at the city hospital.
"Where's Shin's office?"
"Shin doesn't have an office here."
"How come? He's still a doctor, isn't he?"
"No he's not."
Suddenly, a body was carted out from the morgue.
"Shin... Gennai, what are they doing whit my BROTHER!"
"He's going to be dissected."
"You make it sound like it's no big deal!"
"Okay... He's going to be dissected!!!"
"Better... and why is he being dissected?"
"He sold his body to medical testing... to feed your mother and other brother."
"What about my father?"
"Oh, he sold his body before hand. You won't be seing him in this world."
Jyou stuttered. What's... what's going on in this world?"
"I told you... you were never born..."
"I know that! But what does it got to do with the apocalypse!"
"Jyou... everybody has some effect or another to the people around him. And those people have effects on the people around them. Take one person and a chain reaction occurs. Things happen, Jyou."
Jyou went silent.
"There's one more thing I want to show you..."
Snapping, Gennai spirited them off the top of the tower and into a palacial room. There laid a fat beast on a water bed.
"Who is that woman?"
"That's Mimi..."
"M...M...mmm...m... egad, this is whacked out. What happened to her?"
"She was taken here by Gomamon."
"Gomamon? My Gomamon?"
"Yes. Like Gatomon, Gomamon waited for your arrival. You never showed up. He stayed with Myotismon and became his general."
"Then what happened to M...M...mmm...m..."
"Myotismon took her in. She fell for his empty promises. Became his concubine. The regular stuff."
"And I'm to blame because..."
"She liked you, Jyou. Always has. If you were around, she'd choose you over Myotismon anyday. You weren't, she did."
A twinkle crossed Jyou's eyes.
"She did?"
"Yeah, sorta. Oooh, well, would you look at the time, my limit's up. Better return you to Odaiba..."
Raising his hand, he drew the light ball back in his hand and in a flash, Jyou was back, alone in Odaiba Bridge.
"She... did..."
~*~
A few minutes later...
"Jyou!" Called a familiar voice. It was Koushiro on his pick up truck.
"Koushiro... what are you doing here?"
"We were looking all over for you. Don't tell me you were here all the time..."
"Well..." He reached into his coat pocket and drew something hard... "Mimi's pedals!, would you look at that... Mimi's Pedals!"
"Uh yeah... sure... Now, c'mon, the party's gonna start."
"The party... but I heard... oh never mind..."
~*~
A few minutes later...
"SURPRISE!!!"
Jyou's jaws dropped upon entering the Tachikawa residence. It read... "Congradulations(sic) Jyou!" below the one that read "Merry Christmas!".
"What's this all about, guys?"
"Well..." Mimi approached him, slipping him an envelope.
It was an exact duplicate of the one he took this morning. Quickly opening it, he read... "Congratulations, Mr. Kido. You have passed the Japanese Bar Examination with flying colors. Please proceed to the Liscensing Department of the Medical Bar Office. You are now a certified Doctor of Medicine... Merry Christmas..."
Jyou went silent. Everybody was looking at him with smiles. Taichi, Daisuke, Hikari, Takeru, Sora, Yamato, Koushiro, Ken, Miyako, Iori, Shin... and Mimi. "I... I..."
"We had the letter swiped from the post office and Koushiro forged a new one. We were making the banner this afternoon, but we weren't finished so we had to get you to leave..."
Jyou and Mimi's eyes met. Under a hanging twig of mistletoe...
You figure out what happens next.
~*~
A few hours later.
"God bless us, everyone!"
"Iori, aren't you a bit too big to say that?"
~*~
Fin
~*~
Hew... finished at last.
Please read and review!
Jyou Kido's "It's a Rather Bearable Life"
By Kyoko_Jyou
~*~
Author's Note: There are somethings that go perfectly together. Tea and biscuits, fish and chips, odds and ends, peanut butter and jelly, money and Me, and yes: Digimon and monochromatic holiday classic movies! In this train of thought, I present you a tender, digitally enhanced rendition of the Hollywood classic "It's a Wonderful Life". Now in Technicolor!
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, nor do I own 'It's a Wonderful Life'. I also don't own the other movie references referred to in this ficcy.
~*~
The scene begins in the darkness, with the outline of a Shogun Gekomon in a tuxedo and a bowtie shown in white. He looks like a bloated martian Alfred Hitchcock with a bad case of gas. He is whistling the Hitchcock theme until the spotlight falls on him.
"Gooood Eeeevening. The story you are about to see revolves around the rather depressing life of Jyou Kido. This story is a Jyoumi, although there is a bit of Taiora, Kenyako and Compushiro (gotta love Compushiro!) involved, too. Why did the author write a Christmas-themed story in the dead of summer? Nobody knows..."
Lights go dark again and Shogun Gekomon resumes whistling the Hitchcock theme.
~*~
"No... this... can't... be... happening..." Jyou muttered nervously as he read the formally printed letter in front of his apartment mailbox. On the front of the envelope was the black stamped address of the Japanese Medical Bar Examination Committee and on the letter was the red stamped words "FAILED".
Jyou's hands shook violently. His eyes twitched up and down, up and down, up and down. He was a nervous wreck. He had failed the Bar Exam. He wasn't going to be a doctor. Not yet, possibly not ever.
Of course, Jyou wasn't actually too old. At the age of twenty, he was the youngest in his family to attempt the Bar (that test you have to go through to be a Doctor, at least, I think that's the way it goes in Japan), but it was his father who held the record for the youngest Kido to pass the Bar Exam... at age twenty-one.
"Dad'll have my head on a platter for this all year..." He whispered to himself as he walked out his apartment.
It was snowing. The trees were bare and the ground was blanketed in fluffy cold whiteness. Jyou tucked the 'scarlet letter' inside his azure blue coat and walked out into the parking lot where his aptly-coloured Volkswagen Beetle sat quietly.
Getting in and warming up the engines, Jyou noticed that the car wasn't starting. "Now what?"
He got out and approached the engine. Opening the hood, fiery steam poured up and out fogging up Jyou's glasses. Clearing them, he began to look inside.
"If you were human, I would have known what was wrong with you by now..." He then remembered the stab of his examination's failure. "Or maybe not..."
Slamming the hood down, he goes out to the road where he catches a taxi.
~*~
Minutes later, Jyou got to the Tachikawa Residence where the digidestined had been celebrating Christmas since Mimi came back from the States. Her mother and father were accustomed to the American version of the Holiday; their house was decorated with mistletoe and Christmas Trees while the food was composed of turkeys and lamb chops and fig pudding and ham and Christmas Pie... much to Daisuke's delight.
~Ding-Ding-Dingy-Ding-aling~
The Tachikawa doorbell- new tunes almost every week.
"Who is it?" He heard Sora's voice from the inside.
"It's Jyou!"
Then, a silence... followed by murmurs... followed by Sora's quick opening of the door.
"Jyou-it's-a-pleasue-to-see-you-but-could-you-go-and-buy-these-things-for-a-while-so-go-away-pretty-please-now-gotta-hurry-lotsa-things-to-do-buh-bye!" Then, the slamming of the door at Jyou's face.
Jyou looked at the list. "Quick dry cement, shaving cream, vynil hot pants, the complete Barry Manilow Collection in cassette, a copy of 'How to Win Friends and Run Over Enemies with a Steam Roller', and Mimi's pink bicycle pedals".
Jyou paused... then yelled while banging on the door... "How the heck am I supposed to pay for all this?"
"Use your credit card, duh..." Mimi yelled from the inside, matter-of-factly.
He knew better than to argue with Mimi.
He though it would be best for him to just obey.
So off he went...
~*~
"That would be two hundred yen for the bike pedals."
"Thanks... and Merry Christmas!"
"Yeah, whatever..."
Jyou stepped out of the store and slid the bike pedals inside his jacket.
Four Hours, fifteen minutes, and eighty four closed-for-the-holidays stores later, Jyou finally completed his task.
Back on the Tachikawa porch, Jyou proceeded to knock... but was stopped when he began hearing noises indoors.
"So, Jyou's still not here?"
"Yeah, I can't believe he fell for that old trick..."
"So, do you think we got rid of him long enough?"
"I hope so. I don't see how we can get this party going with him around..."
"Yeah, he'd probably be fussing on Tai's banner by now..."
Jyou froze solid, laying the bag on the doorstep.
Moved by great emotional distress, he ran away.
Ran as fast as he could.
Ran as far as his feet would take him.
Farther... farther... farther away.
Out into the streets... until he reached the old bridge out of town where he slumped onto the railings. The sun setted on the horizon. Tears were in his eyes...
"I have no life... I have no friends... I... I... I just wish I've never been born so they can all just have their stupid fun! I'm sick of being everybody's third wheel! I'm a failure... a stupid.. stupid..."
"NOOOOO!" A voice cried from behind him, followed by the gentle laying of hands on his back.
"Huh..."
"Don't do it Jyou..."
"Do what?" Jyou looked around. On his back was Gennai.
"Don't kill yourself!"
"Kill myself? What the heck are you talking about?"
"Weren't you jumping off?"
"No."
"Oh. Then never mind."
They both looked at each other, terribly confused.
"What are you doing here?"
A soft white light fell on Gennai. "I'm here... to earn my WINGS!"
"Wings? You're not an angel..."
"Bear with me, kid. I'm into this Christmas gig for the job benefits. Anyway... we got your wish."
"What wish?" Jyou said, getting worried about his diminutive old friend.
"Your wish of never being born, of course!"
"Of all my dozens and dozens of wishes, you had to pick that one, didn't you?"
"Yeah, it's a holiday angel thing. We grant wishes like that once every year."
"Why'd you choose me then?"
"I dunno. You seemed like the perfect dork for this job. Good natured, human door mat, all around nice guy with a clean-ish heart."
"I feel sooo much better. Anyway, I guess there's not a lot of difference in the way things are now if I wasn't born."
"What do you mean, Jyou?"
"Well, to tell you frankly, I don't think I actually did anything during my life. At hindsight, I agree with my... uh... 'friends'... that all I've done was complain about everything. I really wasn't too great a digidestined, anyway. Nobody listened, and I wasn't Tai or Yamato to do anything about it."
"So you think that, since all you did was complain, since nobody listened to you, since all you had Gomamon evolve was into a turtle-shelled walrus... everything would pretty much be the same?"
"Yeah I guess..."
"Well, you have mistaken, Jyou. Boy, are you wrong..."
"Huh?"
Gennai then pulled a glowing ball out of nowhere and caused it to explode, bursting into a flash of blinding energy.
Soon, the entirety of Jyou's Odaiba was replaced by a rundown city. The skies were dark, not because of night but because of an impenetrable blanket of pullution. A dark tower sticks up into the toxic sky, lit by a thousand windows.
"Welcome to Myopolis, Jyou."
"GAAAAAAAAH!!! What have you done to Odaiba!..." Then, with confusion, he stared at the old man. "And whad'ya just say?"
"This is not Odaiba, Jyou. At least, not anymore. This is Myopolis, the stronghold of Emperor Myotismon."
"Emperor... Emperor WHAT!?"
"Myotismon, Jyou. Without you, Myotismon was not defeated. Now, the entire Earth is enslaved by dark digimon."
"What happened to the others? Why couldn't they have defeated him? War Greymon... Metal Garurumon..."
"They never exsisted..."
"How come... What happened to the other's... Taichi and Yamato?"
"It's funny how you should ask that." Gennai snapped his finger and they both vanished, reappearing in the Yagami Apartment. Although, while Taichi's apartment had always been... should I say... hyperactive... there was now only a dark, empty room with a stollid feeling of glumness in it now.
No lights. No soccer trophies. Nothing but a glum, albeit organized pad which still matches Taichi's to a T.
"Where's Tai?" Suddenly, a thin, sickly young man entered the room talking on a celphone. He seemed tired and very distressed, bowing up and down in apologies.
"Sorry Mr. Bakemon, sir. It will never happen again. I'm very sorry, sir. Forgive me sir..."
"What is that geek doing in Taichi's? And why is he speaking to a Bakemon?"
"That is Taichi, I'm afraid..."
"You've gotta be kidding me. That's not him! The Taichi I know would fight until the end. Even if this did happen, he'd die first before apologizing to Bakemon! Look at him, he looks worse than I do! That guy has Short Hair for crying out loud!"
"But that is Taichi Yagami. Although, not the Taichi Yagami you would recoognize."
"Darn right!"
"Jyou... remember the circumstances. You were never born."
"So?"
"Without a person to counter Taichi's kamikaze antics, he went through a lot of soul-breaking experiences. He was brave, Jyou, not because he just was but because he knew he had somebody to fall on when he failed. You had been his net Jyou. Without you, he fell straight down into this pitiful creature. A paper pusher in the Bakemon bureaucracy."
"My Goodness. What happened to Daisuke?"
Gennai only nodded and snapped a finger, spiriting them to a back alley somewhere. There, a teen resembling Dai stood, picking out food from a dumpster. "There must be something in here edible".
"Without a chance of being a digidestined, Daisuke suffered a plummet of self esteem. He ends up as a panhandler and occasional theif."
Jyou shook his head in confusion.
"Ugh... What happened to Hikari? And Takeru?"
"Oh. They're dead."
"They're WHAT?"
"Dead". With another snap, they were now on a cematery.
"Oh my..." Jyou knelt on the grey twin graves. "Takaishi Takeru... Yagami Hikari...", each flanked with weeping cherubs. Jyou carresed the granite stones under the gnarled tree before him.
"Takeru died from drowning. I guess you know who saved him from that."
"And Hikari?"
"Myotismon got to her before the others did, I'm afraid."
"But how... why..."
"Loss of internal management."
"Internal management, well Sora's in charge of keeping the group in one piece!"
"Sora? I don't think she's in any condition to do that."
Snap. Scene change (simple plot, isn't it?) to the Odaiba Center for the Psychologically Entertaining. A dishevelled Sora was there in a straight-jacket, yelling at rats on her non-padded cell. "Hey! Don't go there! Listen to me! Hey, come back here!"
"What's with her?"
"She went insane trying to keep the group together when the little kids died. Yamato went berserk. Taichi became paranoid of everything. Actually, if you haven't noticed, you shared Sora's duty as caretaker to everybody."
"I... I... did? But nobody listened!"
"Oh, they listened. They might have mocked your views and made fun of you, but you've always got them together long enough to get them out of trouble."
"Speaking of trouble, what happened after 'Mato went berserk?"
"See for yourself."
Whoop, different scene. The two are now standing on a concert hall with thousands of screaming groupies.
"I guess Yamato's still his old lady killer self, huh?"
"Not exactly. Look..." Gennai pointed at the stage... at a disembodied Yama-head on a life-support machine.
"He's a trophy from the last battle. He's now forced to sing here every night unless they pull his plug."
"Yama..."
"He's been here for twenty odd years. Singing the same song every night. It's Myopolis' only form of entertainment.
"Ewww. That's disgusting!"
"You think that's disgusting wait until you see..."
Okay, okay, same thing. Snap, then a change of scene! This time, it's inside the tower.
"EYAAAAAHHHH"
"Koushiro."
"What... what... what... what..."
"Oh? What happened to his face? It was permanently fused into the monitor of his laptop so that his brain could operate the primary systems of the tower. He is now a complete cyborg symbiote. Actually, that's his wish come true."
"But why?"
"You were the only person Koushiro could ever talk to at the same intellectual level. Without such a catalyst, he never learned to socialize with anybody. He spent his time in the digital world in front of the computer... until vademon...
"... grafted his brain into a computer? Oh... I think I need an aspirin."
"I don't think you'd like what happened to the people who make aspirin..."
"They were affected too?"
"In unholy, wretched, foul, unspeakeable ways!"
"Hmm, so Tai's a geek, Dai's a bum, 'Keru and Kari are dead, Sora's insane, Yama's a trophy head and Koushiro's a mangled piece of circuitry. That leaves Ken..."
Gennai claps his hands, changing the scene once more.
"Hey you didn't snap your fingers!"
"The readers are wanting a change of pace. Well, about Ken... you've been like the brother he lost these past few years and it's no wonder why a lot of things would happen to him..."
"What happened to him?"
"Well..."
"What happened to him!"
"Well..."
Suddenly, they were finally dropped into a room in the ghettoes of Myotopia where a disgruntled Miyako was chasing a black haired boy.
"Junior! Come back here this instant."
"Who's the kid?"
"That's Junior. Actually, he's the twenty-seventh Ken Junior Miyako's given birth to."
"You mean to say?"
"No, they're not married. Just made a lotta kids, that's all."
"Oh. Where's Ken?"
Gennai pointed at an unshaven slob watching the Exxxtasy Channel on television. "Hey, bitch! I'm hankering for more of that luv thang!"
"Shut your trap Ken! I've had enough with you're home-made viagra!"
"Gennai, let's go. I don't like where this is going..."
"Uh-huh..."
Clapping once more, they shunted back into the streets.
"How the heck was I responsible for that?"
"Well, you see... Ken always liked Miyako, but was too afraid to ask her. That was because he was shadowing your relationship with Miyako's bestfriend... Mimi."
"Oh... and that's supposed to be a good thing?"
"Yes. Ken was too young and too unstable for an immediate relationship at the time this all started. They were, after all, only in the fourth grade."
"That leaves Iori, then."
"Oh, Iori is here somewhere... oh, there he is."
Gennai pointed at a teen, hanged At a lampost.
"Iori... my goodness... Gennai, what's going on?"
"Don't you get it? You were Iori's mentor. Without anybody like you to bring him into the right path, this happened. Iori, the ruthless homicidal maniac. Caught him yesterday and now he's hanging from his crimes..."
"No... stop it... let's go somewhere else..."
Jyou's eyes tried to shut out the image of Iori's dead body on the lampost gallows.
"Somewhere else? Maybe you'd prefer to see your brother Shin..."
The two were whisped away by a light, depositing them at the city hospital.
"Where's Shin's office?"
"Shin doesn't have an office here."
"How come? He's still a doctor, isn't he?"
"No he's not."
Suddenly, a body was carted out from the morgue.
"Shin... Gennai, what are they doing whit my BROTHER!"
"He's going to be dissected."
"You make it sound like it's no big deal!"
"Okay... He's going to be dissected!!!"
"Better... and why is he being dissected?"
"He sold his body to medical testing... to feed your mother and other brother."
"What about my father?"
"Oh, he sold his body before hand. You won't be seing him in this world."
Jyou stuttered. What's... what's going on in this world?"
"I told you... you were never born..."
"I know that! But what does it got to do with the apocalypse!"
"Jyou... everybody has some effect or another to the people around him. And those people have effects on the people around them. Take one person and a chain reaction occurs. Things happen, Jyou."
Jyou went silent.
"There's one more thing I want to show you..."
Snapping, Gennai spirited them off the top of the tower and into a palacial room. There laid a fat beast on a water bed.
"Who is that woman?"
"That's Mimi..."
"M...M...mmm...m... egad, this is whacked out. What happened to her?"
"She was taken here by Gomamon."
"Gomamon? My Gomamon?"
"Yes. Like Gatomon, Gomamon waited for your arrival. You never showed up. He stayed with Myotismon and became his general."
"Then what happened to M...M...mmm...m..."
"Myotismon took her in. She fell for his empty promises. Became his concubine. The regular stuff."
"And I'm to blame because..."
"She liked you, Jyou. Always has. If you were around, she'd choose you over Myotismon anyday. You weren't, she did."
A twinkle crossed Jyou's eyes.
"She did?"
"Yeah, sorta. Oooh, well, would you look at the time, my limit's up. Better return you to Odaiba..."
Raising his hand, he drew the light ball back in his hand and in a flash, Jyou was back, alone in Odaiba Bridge.
"She... did..."
~*~
A few minutes later...
"Jyou!" Called a familiar voice. It was Koushiro on his pick up truck.
"Koushiro... what are you doing here?"
"We were looking all over for you. Don't tell me you were here all the time..."
"Well..." He reached into his coat pocket and drew something hard... "Mimi's pedals!, would you look at that... Mimi's Pedals!"
"Uh yeah... sure... Now, c'mon, the party's gonna start."
"The party... but I heard... oh never mind..."
~*~
A few minutes later...
"SURPRISE!!!"
Jyou's jaws dropped upon entering the Tachikawa residence. It read... "Congradulations(sic) Jyou!" below the one that read "Merry Christmas!".
"What's this all about, guys?"
"Well..." Mimi approached him, slipping him an envelope.
It was an exact duplicate of the one he took this morning. Quickly opening it, he read... "Congratulations, Mr. Kido. You have passed the Japanese Bar Examination with flying colors. Please proceed to the Liscensing Department of the Medical Bar Office. You are now a certified Doctor of Medicine... Merry Christmas..."
Jyou went silent. Everybody was looking at him with smiles. Taichi, Daisuke, Hikari, Takeru, Sora, Yamato, Koushiro, Ken, Miyako, Iori, Shin... and Mimi. "I... I..."
"We had the letter swiped from the post office and Koushiro forged a new one. We were making the banner this afternoon, but we weren't finished so we had to get you to leave..."
Jyou and Mimi's eyes met. Under a hanging twig of mistletoe...
You figure out what happens next.
~*~
A few hours later.
"God bless us, everyone!"
"Iori, aren't you a bit too big to say that?"
~*~
Fin
~*~
Hew... finished at last.
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