Digimon Adventure 03The Chosen Children, with their partners by their side have been able to defeat any and all Digimon that threatened either world, but when the enemy is human, the story is different. Can Daisuke and his team-mates cope without Ken, Kari and T.K. by their side? When their foe is so much easier to destroy, can Veemon, Hawkmon and Armadillomon battle this new foe without turning into the very thing they've been destroying all along? Meanwhile, back in Japan, an old foe and some new ones appear at Hightenview Terrace. How will the so called 'old guard' manage to help? Can it be just coincidence that all the ones left are those with the power of the crests? And when the Chosen Children find themselves unable to utilise the powerful bonds they have with their Digimon, robbing them of the power to digivolve once again, how will the Chosen Children be able to defend both worlds against this evil they failed to destroy last time? Various pairings are inside, all of which are intended to be a surprise. Except perhaps Takari which is undeniable.


Tai increased his pace as he sped towards the young man dribbling the ball.

"You can do it Tai!" Matt yelled from the sidelines as Takeru and Kari got to their feet.

"Is he going to make it?" Takeru asked excitedly leaning over the fence.

"I can hardly watch!" groaned Kari, half covering her face with her hands. Tai put on a final burst of speed and dropped to the ground, sliding in front of the teen and booting the ball out of his reach towards the sidelines. Matt jumped into the air, punching the sky.

"YES!" he cried, turning to hug his brother, Takeru grinned as the whistle blew and the goalie sank to his knees in relief. The scoreboard read 1 all and the game went into penalty shootouts. Tai wiped his forehead as he stood next to the fence, watching his goalie save the first shot.

"You did great out there Tai, I knew you could do it!" Matt said, unable to keep the grin off his face. Tai grinned back and Kari flung her arms around his neck.

"I'm so proud of you, brother!" she said.

"Well done, Tai," T.K. said happily. The goalie intercepted the ball with his head a third time and fell to the ground exhausted.

"Looks like I'm up," he said, gesturing to where the coach was standing.

"Good luck, Tai," T.K said happily.

"He doesn't need luck!" Matt said happily, "That's a scandalous suggestion, Taichi Yagami is unstoppable!" Unbeknownst to them, Ken had walked up behind them.

"Careful now," Ken said softly, making Matt jump, "Their goalie is one of the best in this league. Don't get too overconfident."

"Hey, trust me," Tai said grinning. He jogged out into the goal square and lined up his shot at goal. Ken watched him size up his opponent.

"If he doesn't get at least one of these then it's all over."

"I know…" Kari said, almost biting her nails in her nervousness.

"And with that scout here today as well…" Takeru said, watching Taichi intently.

"No sweat, Tai can do this," Matt said, looking out onto the pitch. Still he couldn't keep the nervousness out of his voice entirely. Tai took his run-up and the stadium went silent. He ran up and his boot connected with the ball, sending it flying towards the net. The goalie leapt into the air and with almost superhuman reflexes just managed to connect his fingers with the ball, knocking it off to the side. Tai frowned in concentration.

"Oh, bad luck to young mister Yagami as his opponent manages to block the first goal!" boomed the speakers next to them. Matt interlaced his fingers and leant his elbows on the fence, resting his head on the platform his hands created and leaning over the edge towards the field. Tai ran up again and booted the ball towards the goal, the goalie managed to catch it easily and throw it back. Tai grunted and punched the ground, muttering to himself.

"Oh, and a careless mistake leaves him with just one chance left and it looks like the pressure is getting to him…" Tai walked backwards from where the ball was set up and stopped to tighten his shoelaces. "The pressure is really on for young mister Yagami. The premiership comes down to just this one ki-"

"Shut up!" Matt yelled upwards at the commentators' box behind him. There was some embarrassed coughing and Matt stared intently at the field. "Come on, Tai…" he whispered. Tai frowned to himself as he sized up the ball and the goalie. He looked over to where Ken, Kari, T.K. and Matt were sitting and then over to where Sora, Joe and Izzy were cheering and waving their pennants. He grinned as he saw Mimi frantically running towards their seats, a humungous mad-hatter's hat with Tai's name embroidered on it in huge characters.

"What's happened?" Mimi whispered into Sora's ear. "I'm so sorry I'm late, customs is terrible nowadays!"

"It's a penalty shootout; Tai's got one chance left…" Izzy said. "I've looked up the stats for this goalie. Besides Ken, he's one of the best in the entire country…"

"Oooh…" she said. "But Tai'll be fine. What's this after beating the Diaboromon, right?" she said, smiling. She took off her enormous hat to reveal Palmon standing on her head. Tai waved and Palmon and Mimi waved back. Tai looked back towards Matt and then smiled, winking and giving a thumbs up to him. Matt grinned back and returned the gesture. Tai looked back towards the ball and furrowed his brow as he ran forwards at an angle. At the last second he dodged to the side and the booted it with the side of his foot in the opposite angle as the goalie leapt in the wrong direction.

The ball hit the back of the net with a satisfying swishing sound and the stadium erupted in cheers. Matt yelled and the digidestined leapt onto the field, followed closely by the rest of Tai's team and then quite a few of the fans from the sidelines.


"TAI!" Matt yelled over the deafening roars, throwing his arms around the young man's neck and almost knocking to the ground. "THAT WAS BRILLIANT!" the rest of the team gathered around them and lifted Tai onto their shoulders.

"Well done!" Izzy called. "He was a very difficult opponent and you defeated him admirably!" Ken smiled faintly as he stood beside Izzy.

"Indeed, we're all proud of you," he said. Kari patted his arm, it being the only part of him she could reach as he was crowd surfed and chucked into the air. Mimi and Palmon were cheering and doing a small dance as the team, surrounded by the digidestined and the soccer fans reached the makeshift podium that had been wheeled onto the centre of the pitch. Takeru and Matt walked up to Sora and Jo.

"That was excellent!" Joe said. I understand why you always go see these," he exclaimed.

"I'm going to have no voice for my concert tomorrow and yet I don't care somehow!" Matt replied.

"Well I'll be there," Sora said, "Whether you sound like Sean Connery or not."

"It'd only be fair after going to Tai's thing with his scout to see your first performance in front of that record company guy."

"Well, I'll be sure to put on a good show for you guys then," Matt said.

"Um… I'm usually terrible at speeches, I'm hardly cut out for politics, so I'll make this as short as possible so the team and I can go and celebrate," Tai's voice came booming through the speakers as he stood in front of the microphone, "I sometimes wish that there could be two premierships because our opponents today played admirably and especially their goalie who certainly kept me on my feet, I'd really enjoy working with him someday, but truly everyone who played today is a winner." There was applause and Tai waited until it calmed down before continuing. "But if there had to be a winning team, I'm glad it's us!" There were a few laughs. 'I'd really like to thank my friends and family, and indeed all the friends and family of all the players for putting up with us as we got up early for practise and dealt with out mood swings as we went from highs to lows during the season. But certainly I'd like to give the biggest thanks to the team." There was a big cheer at this. "We've worked so hard for this, it doesn't come easy and now all that hard work and all the early mornings have paid off!" The presenter walked up to him and shook his hand before handing him the huge trophy. He raised it into the air and the rest of the team cheered as the crowd erupted in applause, Matt and Kari clapping hardest of all.


"You really were magnificent," Matt said afterwards.

"You've really got to stop saying that!" Agumon said, smiling. "You'll give him a big head!"

"Indeed," Gabumon added. "But I really enjoyed watching that, thanks for smuggling us in."

"Palmon and Mimi were certainly happy about not missing that last shot," Matt said, as Tai downed another light beer.

"Well I'm glad you all enjoyed it, buddy," he replied, "The fact that the scout from the national team was watching just was the icing on the cake."

"You certainly gave him a good performance."

"Those five saves from that goalie were excellent, though," Tai said as Matt took a sip from his cup.

"I'm glad you thought so," said a voice from behind Matt. Tai's eyes widened and he grinned.

"Hi!" he said happily.

"A stirring speech, earlier," the young man said, holding out a hand, "Yamada Tarō," he said.

"Yagami Taichi," Tai replied. "This is my friend Ishida Yamato,"

"Ah, the lead singer of Teenaged Wolves, correct?" the man replied. "I enjoyed your last concert; my younger sister dragged me along."

"Thankyou," Matt replied, "We're having a charity benefit concert tomorrow evening at the dome in town square."

"I'll be sure to drop by then," Tarō replied, sitting down and looking over at Tai. "I must congratulate you on that feint you did, it totally had me fooled."

"You're starting to sound like Yama-chan here," Tai laughed, "He's still not stopped congratulating me."

"Ah, you were the one he winked to before taking the shot, yes?"

"You're very observant, Yamada-san," Matt replied, bristling slightly at Tai's nickname for him.

"I like to think I try," the man laughed. Matt looked at the clock above the bar and his eyes widened.

"Shit, I've got that concert tomorrow…" he murmured. "I need to get to sleep and rest my voice!" He looked over at Tarō. "Do you know if any buses go near Hightenview Terrace at this time of night?

"Not that I know of…" he replied. "There's a period between midnight and four-thirty where the entire service is shut down."

"Shit…" Matt murmured. "And that record company guy is going to be there as well…"

"I'll drive you," Tai said.

"I couldn't let you do that," Matt exclaimed, "It's your party!"

"If I could digivolve into Garurumon you could ride me home," Gabumon said and then looked up at Tarō. "Oops, I forgot, I wasn't supposed to reveal myself in public." Tarō, to his credit, seemed relatively unfazed.

"You would be Gabumon, right?" he asked. "I saw that battle you had on the internet. Very intense, you did well."

"Uh… thankyou, Yamada-san," Gabumon replied, a bit taken aback.

"As it is, I'm sure that would be tiring, not to mention would result in 'revealing yourself in public', therefore I must insist that I drive you two home."

"Um…"

"It's not like if I turn out to be a dangerous psychopath Gabumon couldn't protect you," Tarō interjected.

"True," Matt replied, laughing, "but I simply can't, it would be rude."

"Not at all, I was about to leave but I thought I'd congratulate mister Yagami first."

"I live near Hightenview Terrace, it's probably miles out of your way," Matt countered.

"Not at all, in fact it's on the way," Tarō replied. Matt sighed.

"Alright then." Tai frowned.

"Make sure you rest up for the performance," Tai said. "See ya around, Yama-chan."

"Bye, Tai," Matt replied, following Tarō out to his car. The drive home was relatively uneventful and the two talked about the soccer game for a while. Matt got out of the car with Gabumon and waved goodbye as he trekked up the front steps towards the front doors of the apartment block.

"Hey, son," Hiroaki called.

"Hi dad," he replied, walking through the door.

"Party go okay?"

"Yeah, I'm going to need as much sleep as possible if I'm going to do alright tomorrow though. Could you have some pineapple juice and lemon tea waiting for me when I get up?"

"Sure thing,"

"I'm going to hit the hay. Don't wake me up before noon, kay?" Hiroaki chuckled as Matt closed the door to his room. Matt slipped off his trousers and shirt and pulled on his nightshirt, slipping beneath the covers. "I'm so going to rock their world tomorrow," he murmured before falling asleep.


"Hey," Izzy said, sitting next to Tai, "A most enjoyable party."

"Glad you think so," Tai replied, smiling. "I might turn in for the night, need a lift?"

"I'll be alright," Koushiro replied, setting up his laptop on bar. "Ken and the Ichijouji's invited me to stay at his place."

"Alright," Tai said, "See ya later." He walked up to the car with Agumon in hot pursuit and leant against his car, breathing in the cold air.

"We going yet?" Agumon asked.

"Just a second, Agumon," Tai replied. "It's the end of an era for me… I'm no longer a teenager in a week and I'm out of the little leagues, no more school, and it's just ended perfectly… I want to savour it all…" Agumon walked up to Tai and rested a clawed hand on his shin. "I'm glad I was able to share it with you, old buddy…"

"And the rest of the gang?"

"Yeah, despite how much Yama-chan gets on my nerves sometimes…" Tai smiled to himself before laughing and opening the door. "But you especially… Let's go, a whole new world awaits us now…"