Digidestiny 101
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, and even if you tried to sue me all you'd get out of me is a broken pair of roller blades. This takes place right after my two part fic Rimmer. Basically this if Ken's first adventure as a Digidestined, in my fic world anyway.
~~
"The stronger a person of the Light is, the more the Darkness wants to corrupt them."
-Bethany
~~
You're invited!
To a Party, and Believe Me When I Say,
It Won't be the Same Without You!
Held By: Yamato Ishida
When: November 30, 2000
Time: 7:00 till ??? ^_^
Where: My Place, Call for Directions if needed
555-6718
Why: Just the Heck of it!
(Actually, there is an occasion, I'm just not telling!)
Davis looked at the invitation. TK had just given one to him and all the rest of the Armor Digidestined. They had all agreed to meet in the park, just to hang out for a while. "Occasion but I'm not telling you?" Davis muttered confused. "Hey TK? What's with this? Who's the party for?" He asked.
"Jeez, can't a guy have a party just for the heck of it?" TK responded jestingly.
"It says that there's a reason." Cody commented.
"It also says that it's a secret."
"I bet you don't even know TK." Davis retorted.
"Of course I do!"
"Then why won't you tell us?"
"Because it's a secret. And I can actually keep a secret unlike some people I could mention!"
Kari placed a hand on her forehead while the two boys argued. After a few minutes she looked up. "Guys! Please, a party's a party, who cares what it's about as long as we get the chance to lay back and relax."
"Yeah, after that whole thing with The Digimon Emperor we need the break." Davis commented.
"Oh, yeah that reminds me, um..." TK trailed off.
"What?" Kari asked.
"Well, Ken's invited too."
"He is, why?" Davis asked.
"Just because, I mean according to my brother, he at least deserves a chance." After glancing at his friends' hesitant faces TK continued. "Look guys, just because he's invited doesn't mean that he's actually going to come. Besides, he really needs to get his mind off of what happened and move on to better things."
"I suppose." Davis muttered. "I mean, he has the Crest of Kindness, how bad could he be."
"Do you really need an answer to that question?" Cody asked dryly. "TK, I really don't trust him."
TK sighed heavily. "I don't trust him much either, think of it this way, he's pretty weak right now, if we don't keep our eyes on him. He will turn evil again, and we'll be back at where we started, if not worse."
"Point." Davis commented. "I guess, why not. Tell Matt I'm coming."
One by one everyone else agreed.
~~~
Ken looked at the invitation in his hand. His mother was sanding right in front of him looking at him a hopeful look on her face. Ken knew that all the Digidestined would be there. Ken figured he had gotten invited because when he stopped by the hospital to check on Kari and Izzy a week ago, they thought they had to. He really didn't want to go. His mom however really was beginning to nag at him to get out of the house and hang out with people. She was getting worried about her son. "Mom. I don't want to go."
"Why not, don't you think you'll have fun?"
"Fun is not the issue at hand. I'm just not feeling in the party mood." Ken said in the quiet depressed way that he had been talking in since he came back from the Digital world.
"Ken, sweetie, I know you're not going to tell me what happened. But that doesn't mean I won't worry about you. Please, go it might make you feel better."
"It's just a party, with people I hardly know. They probably just asked to be polite and don't really want me there."
A stern look crossed his mother's face. "Then you will be polite and go. This is the first time I've ordered you to do anything. You will go, your father will drop you off and he'll pick you up when it's time. Call when you want to leave, the shortest you can stay is three hours!"
Ken looked up and blinked surprised. Then looked down again, something inside told him that it would be a good idea to go, he'd never seen his mother look so stern.
~~
Ken nervously stood outside the apartment door. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. He could just leave, hang out in the library or the park for three hours then call his parents. Hesitantly Ken knocked on the door; it was almost like something was calling to him to do it. The door opened and Matt greeted him. "Hey Ken! Glad you could make it. How have you been lately?"
"Fine I guess." Ken said quietly. Ken remembered that Matt had once held the Crest of Friendship. 'Is this why he's being nice to me, because of his Crest?' Ken walked in; everyone was standing around the room. Kari, TK, and Izzy stood next to each other; Izzy's arm was still in a sling. Every once in a while Kari would turn to Izzy and ask if his arm hurt, a guilty look on her face. Izzy would say no, Kari would say are you sure, Izzy would say yes and then say something to TK to change the subject. The first time, it was cute, the second, funny, third, it was corny. Ken stood against the wall apart from everyone else.
After a few minutes Matt called everyone's attention. "Okay, I'm going to tell you guys the real reason I'm having this party."
"Finally!" Tai called out from his place next to Sora.
"I'm actually throwing this party for someone. She's spent the last ten years or so in America, and she just got back. So I figured that this was the best way for her to meet the coolest people in Odaiba! Her name is Bethany and she's my cousin. So you'd better be nice to her, or I'll have to kill you." Matt said joking. "Come on out!"
Matt's bedroom door opened and Bethany walked out. Ken's jaw dropped along with Davis, Joe, Izzy and Tai. Cody's eyes widened slightly. Bethany had the tall graceful body of a dancer, and she walked with such grace that she could have been an angel or royalty. She had a titan of chestnut brown hair that flowed down to the middle of her back in waves. Her indigo blue eyes shone with shuch a tender sweetness, that Ken could have stared at them day and night. Ken had no idea how old she was, though she looked about Joe's age. She was gently smiling, Matt told her everyone's names, and she looked like she tried to remember who was who.
After that was done she began walking around, speaking with everyone. 'I think...I feel drawn to her...I can sense that there's something different about her, I don't get that feeling from anyone else. Why is she different?'
Bethany was talking with Joe; she looked like she was really enjoying his company. Then she glanced over and saw Ken standing by himself, she excused herself and walked over to him. "Hey," She said gently. "Why aren't you mingling?"
"I," Ken wasn't sure what to say. "I don't really feel like it."
"Oh," She frowned slightly. "That's too bad, some nice people out there." She turned and stood next to him against the wall, watching everyone else talking and having fun.
"Yeah, too nice." Ken sighed slightly. "I could never be that perfect."
"No one is perfect." Bethany stated.
Ken shook his head, disagreeing. "Look at them," He said nodding his head in TK and Kari's direction. "They're perfect, they've never brushed paths with the Darkness, much less been consumed by it."
She looked at the two Digidestined Ken had pointed out. "TK and Kari are just as capable of feeling dark emotions as anyone." She sighed. "If anything they are more at risk than the others. The stronger a person of the Light is, the more the Darkness wants to corrupt them. Light and Dark exist right next to each other, even the slightest wavering, and it will grow and attack, it will change you into the complete opposite of what you were before."
Ken looked at Bethany's serious face. "What if it does? How do you get out of it? And after you have, how can you deal with what you had done while under its control?"
She looked at the ceiling "I'm not sure, I don't know everything." She looked at him and smiled. "Sorry."
"Wisest is she who knows she does not know." Ken replied, quoting a bit of philosophy he had read once.
"What cannot be changed you should bear, not blame." She returned.
They went back and forth spitting out various philosophies. It was a rather interesting exchange, but soon they ran out of one liners. "Uh, a penny saved is a penny earned!" Ken said after scrambling to find one at the quick pace they had been going.
Bethany looked at him for a second before laughing. "Oh jeez, umm, a rolling stone gathers no moss!!!!" She said triumphantly. Ken began to laugh something he hadn't done in a while. It felt so good to laugh, he hadn't felt this happy in...years.
Just then TK walked up to them. "Hey, what are you guys talking about?" He asked curious as to what was so funny.
"Moss and pennies!" Bethany said smiling at TK's confused look.
"Whatever." He muttered. "Matt is looking for you. I think he wants to break out the guitars."
"Oh, I don't want to sing! He's going to make me sing isn't he?" TK nodded. Bethany pouted in response.
"Hey, be happy, he never asks me to sing with him, and I have a decent voice." TK stated.
Bethany gave Ken a look that said, 'See what I meant?' Ken nodded.
She walked over to where Matt was setting up an amplifier, leaving Ken and TK alone.
"Hey TK," Ken said hesitantly.
"Yeah?" He replied turning to look at him.
"Umm, are you," Ken fumbled, he didn't want to offend TK, as the basketball player had a rather good punch. "jealous of Bethany?"
TK looked at Ken blinking in surprise. Then he turned and watched Matt and Bethany set up. "Well," He thought for a second. "Maybe... a little." A saddened look crossed his face. " Okay, maybe a lot." He ran his hand through his hair. "She's been here about a week now, and well." TK shook his head. "She can do everything I can't do with Matt. I mean they will talk for hours about how that amp is more powerful than that one. Of how that guitar is better sounding than that one. All I can do is sit there lost in the musical jargon. You would think they're siblings, not cousins."
"Well, she's been gone so long... and if she goes away again, he won't see her anymore, maybe he's just cramming in as much time with her as he can before she leaves." Ken thought about that for a second. "How long is she staying?"
TK shrugged. "That's the weird thing, she never said when she was leaving. Come to think, she never said she was coming. She just showed up with Dad last week when he came home from work."
"Okay, that's weird, wouldn't she have sent word ahead?"
TK nodded. "I would think so too, and the fact is, I never knew about a cousin named Bethany anywhere. There's a few in Osaka that I know about, but Bethany isn't one of them."
"Do you remember anything about her from when she still lived here?"
"Not a thing. I was too young."
"What about Matt, what does he remember?" Ken asked.
"A lot of stuff, the way he tells it she was over by our place a lot." TK paused debating about what he was going to say next. "One of the other Digidestined, Mimi, lives in New York. She's met another Digidestined boy, Michael, we never knew about before."
"Shifting subject?" Ken asked.
"No." TK replied. "Thing was, Mimi said she could feel that Michael was different from the rest of the kids. She knew he was a Digidestined without him telling her. Mimi's not the only one that can sense things either; some of the others can as well. Different kinds of people will feel different if you use your sixth sense, it's kind of like..." TK pused trying to find a way to explain.
"Like a wavelength." Kne murmmered.
"Yeah! That's it" TK smiled relived that Ken understood what he had been trying to say. Bethany's wavelength feels different form a normal person. She doesn't have one like a Digidestined either. She's not controlled by Darkness, I can sense that."
"Not evil just different." Ken murmured.
"Whatever it is, good or bad, I want to know. If she's here for a reason I want to know what that is."
"Yeah," Ken said quietly. "Do you think something's going to happen."
"Senses point to yes." TK's eyes turned serious. "Something bad is coming, it's big too, whatever it is. Have you sensed anything?"
Ken thought about it for a second, he had been having odd feelings every once in a while. "Well, sometimes," He faltered, not sure how to describe it. "I get this tingling on the back of my neck."
"That's a danger sense." TK replied.
"Well, it's not going off now..." Ken said as he watched Bethany, thinking that if he looked at her and she was a danger, the sense would go off, nothing. Instead a different sense came over him. It was like energy moved from his mind to the center of his chest and buzzed there, a feeling of peace and serenity and of contained power.
Matt and Bethany had set up the guitars. On the side stand Bethany also had an acoustic guitar, besides her electric one. Joe shouted out "Hey Bethany, why don't you sing a solo first! We've all heard Matt sing before." Laughs filled the room.
"Okay, okay." She said. She switched guitars and began her song.
(AN: If you've ever played the video game Lunar, you've heard this song before.)
Wishing on a dream that seems far off,
Hoping it will come today,
And to the starlit night
Foolish dreamers turn their gaze,
Waiting on that shooting star,
But, what if that star is not to come,
Will their dreams fade to nothing?
When the horizon darkens most,
We all need to believe there is hope,
Is an angel watching closely over me?
Can there be a guiding light I've yet see,
I know my heart should guide me
But there's a hole within my soul,
What will fill this emptiness inside of me?
Am I to be satisfied without knowing?
I wish then, for a chance to see,
Now all I need, despratly, is my star to come.
"Encore! Encore!" Everyone shouted, and Bethany was more than happy to oblige.
~~
It was a few days after the party, Ken was in his room, when he heard the phone ring. He glanced up from the book he had been reading. He listened intently for a few seconds, then, "Ken! It's for you!" His mother shouted.
Ken quickly went to the phone and picked it up. He had given his phone number to TK at the party. He had also given it to Izzy, Kari and Davis, they were the only ones who asked. "Hello?" He said into the phone.
"Hey Ken, it's TK."
"Oh, hey."
"I was wondering, do you want to go the rec center and shoot some hoops? I wasn't sure wheather or not you liked basketball, but I didn't see any harm in asking."
"Hmmm, I've never played basketball before." Ken hesitated.
"Yolei will be there." TK sated.
"So?" Ken replied.
"Hey, I saw you staring at her during the party!"
"I was not!"
"Yeah, sure you weren't. Do you want to go? Afterwards, I think we're going to a pizza place."
"I guess, I haven't eaten yet. Hey, how hard is basketball anyway?" Ken asked.
"Not that hard, takes a lot of teamwork though." TK replied.
"Okay, I'll be there." Ken hung up the phone, and went into his room to get ready. Leafmon looked up from where he had been sleeping on Ken's bed.
"What's going on?" He asked as he watched Ken going through his drawers.
"I'm going to play some basketball, and I think maybe I should get in some approprite clothes. Somehow I don't think my school uniform would be a good thing to play in."
"Basketball?" Leafmon asked.
"Yeah, it's a sport like soccer is. You want to come? Patamon will more than likely be there, you can hang with him." Ken smiled. "Of cource you'd have to do that annoyingly cute stuffed animal impression."
"Hee, hee. Last time I did that, an annoyingly cute girl stopped to talk to you." Leafmon reminded.
Ken shook his head. "No, not annoyingly cute, besides she had no brains."
"Unlike a certain Digidestined?" Leafmon teased.
"What is with this!!!! I don't like Yolei!!!!"
"Hey, I didn't say Yolei, you said it, for all you know, I was talking about Kari."
Ken just shook his head.
~~
"So where's Ken? I thought he was coming?" Yolei asked TK.
TK smirked, "Why do you want to know Yolei? I thought you didn't like him."
"Will you stop it!!!!!!!!!! I am NOT in love with him!!!!!" She stamped her foot on the ground. She looked up as she heard someone enter the gym. "Oh, hey! He actually came."
TK turned to look, sure enough, Ken was walking nervously into the court. TK waved his hand over his head and Ken walked up.
"Hey where's everyone else?" Ken asked looking at the smaller than he expected group. The only Digidestined that were present were TK, Kari, and Yolei.
Kari smiled, "Davis had soccer practice, and Cody had kendo lessons. Sora is on a date with Tai, and everyone else is busy."
Ken's eyes narrowed, something was going on... "So I guess that means two on two."
TK nodded. "Yep, Kari's on my team so that leaves..."
Ken and Yolei looked at each other. 'I am SO going to kill those two!" Yolei thought.
~~
End of Part One! Should I keep going? You decide, let me know when, and if, you review. It might have a slow start but I know where I'm going... It just might take a bit to get there! By the way, TK and Kari are not a confrimed couple. TK is still a little unsure about weather or not he can trust Kari, and Kari is still mad at herself so it's just friends ...for now. In the next part, another girl arrives on the scene and seems to have taken an interest in TK and that definatly isn't to Kari's liking. But are Kari's feelings just jelousy or is she sensing something as well? Also, Bethany's real identity is revealed when an unexpected tragedy befalls the Digidestined. Well, all this in the next chaper... if you want me to write it.