A/N: I'm sorry. I promised myself I'd upload something on this Saturday. It's currently almost one in the morning on Sunday. Oops. In my defense, I got talking to a fellow resident in my hall, and I almost forgot about doing this...

So. I loved writing this. Of course, I've changed a lot since the original draft, nearly two years ago, but I still love this one. Here, we introduce the Digimon 01 cast (well, the humans, at least).

Random thing before I actually let you read what you came here for: if any of you like to wander Deviant Art, go there and look up the profile Eighthchild. That's me. If you don't mind a few minor spoilers, I've posted some artwork pertaining to this story. None of it is good, but, then again, I'm not an artist. I also favorited some drawings that deal with a very similar concept as what I'm working with, by a stranger on the website, that are infinitely better than anything I could produce...


"Now, press the brake so you can change gear…" a tired man said from the right of a teenage boy, whose spiky brown hair nearly hit the top of the car. The boy frowned and pressed a pedal, then proceeded to try to pull the shift, to no avail. He frowned.

"This car is broken…it isn't working," he said, scratching his chin.

The instructor sighed. "Mr. Kamiya, that is the gas pedal. The other pedal is the brake."

"Oh…" The boy smirked. "I knew that." Ignoring his instructor's exhausted look, he put his foot on the brake pedal and shifted the handle. It moved willingly to D. "Now what?"

The instructor stifled a groan. "Now, release the brake gently, and put your foot on the gas. Press down slightly…slightly!" He gripped the side door as the car shot forward.

The boy pulled his goggles down from a blue headband, taking his eyes off the parking lot in front of him to see how he looked in the mirror. The instructor nearly had a heart attack there and then. "So, fast food, right? What'll you want, a shake with fries?" he grinned, tapping his fingers on the wheel.

"Taichi, we aren't leaving the parking lot today. Just go in a circle a few times, and…don't hit that light post!"

Half an hour later, and more gas wasted than should have due to the incessant shooting forward and braking, Tai left the car and began walking home, his lesson done for the day. He silently hummed to himself, a proud smile on his face, the blue of his shirt fading in and out as he passed under green trees in the park.

"Driving, then a girlfriend, then…who knows! This is the life!" he shouted to the sky, practically jumping in excitement. He hit his hand above him, elated.

Then he fell silent. What had that been? Tai looked around, slowing to a halt. Nobody was around him, only a few pigeons chewing on dirty wads of gum. They couldn't have created that fire…

He was imagining things. It was what came of getting older. He must have looked up, seen the sun, and thought it was fire…but that wasn't right. It was cloudy today. Really cloudy. Dark-and-stormy cloudy. Had the sun opened up to a patch of blue right when he had raised his fist?

That wasn't right, either. It was past five; the sun was starting to set, had been setting for a couple of hours. It wouldn't have been straight above him. The fire had shot, seemingly out of his raised fist, toward the dark clouds. He had felt the heat it had emitted. But that didn't make sense. He couldn't create fire…

Cautiously, he fist-pumped again. Nothing. Chuckling slightly as a pigeon glanced at him, Tai started walking again. Great. Now his hand, or pigeons, was emitting fire…not the strangest thing he had ever seen, given the events of a few years ago…

Ignoring the feeling of unease growing inside of his stomach, Taichi Yagami continued on his way home, keeping his arms, and head, down toward the ground, trying to think of nothing more than the soccer game he would be able to watch that night.


"…and if I fail this class, then I'll fail high school, and I won't be able to go to college, or get a job, or have a life, or…or anything!" a lanky blue-haired boy was muttering to himself as he entered a complex kitchen, grasping a piece of standard paper. It was starting to crinkle from his tight grasp.

"Calm down, Joe, this isn't the end of the world. Nope, just the end of my life…the world has nothing to do with it…for once…" he muttered, looking at the paper as if hoping it would change if he stared it down. He moaned and dropped the paper on a counter, grabbing at his head. "Why didn't I study for that test? I mean, I did study, but why didn't I study more!"

Joe took a deep breath, fighting down growing hysteria. "This is nothing. Absolutely nothing. One test, only a hundred points, not the end of my life. Of course it's not," he muttered, chuckling nervously. "Just…just prepare something to eat. You'll feel better…that's it. If in shock, eat." Knowing that hysteria over a test didn't actually count as 'shock,' Jyou Kido grabbed a glass out of a cabinet, wiping it down with a washcloth.

Momentarily ignoring—turning away from as if it didn't exist—the paper, Joe turned on the faucet to the stainless steel sink, and filled the glass with water. Sighing, breathing a little slower, he took a gulp.

He spit it out almost instantly. The water was too hot, not boiling, not nearly, but warmer than a cool drink of water should be. He groaned. "Even my faucet hates me." He put his head down, one hand holding his glass, the other rubbing his forehead. "I'm not getting anywhere, am I?"

Then, he felt something change. Imperceptibly, at first. But then realization struck him. The glass of water. It felt…cool. Cold, even. Joe looked at the cup. It looked the same. Wait…was that frost on the edges? Quickly, he set the cup down. The water sloshed out of the glass and toward the test. Joe cried out in panic, and reached a hand out.

However, the water never reached the test. In mid-flight, it froze. Literally. The droplets of water froze in midair and dropped to the counter, millimeters from the paper. Joe frowned, eyeing the water suspiciously.

The water had just turned into ice. There had been no breeze, no chemicals, nothing to help out in the phase change. That didn't work, scientifically, logically, didn't make sense.

Of course, a lot of things don't make sense. Evolution, the missing link, for one. The idea of digital monsters existing in an alternate reality, for another.

But this one…this made even less sense. If that were possible. "Great, I'm going crazy. Just what I needed," Joe said, pushing his glasses up before leaning closer to examine the water-turned-ice crystals.


A tall girl walked forward, down the street. It looked like rain. Not that it was supposed to rain, but she didn't want to get caught out in the rain. That was never a comfortable experience, least of all wearing a pink dress.

She loved that dress, she really did. But the hem had been let down several times since when she had constantly worn it, three years ago, and she had other outfits to wear. She wasn't a cowgirl—she didn't even live in the West! Japan was about as far east as you could go—she had learned that in geography last year. After losing the matching cowgirl hat three years ago, the outfit was just a painful reminder of saying goodbye to a best friend, whom she hadn't seen since.

The only reason she had worn the pink cowgirl dress, complete with brown boots and red gloves, was because she was nostalgic. Summer always made her nostalgic, this summer even more so than usual. She had thought that, if she had worn the dress, let her hair go to its natural light brown shade, if she just found a way to be like before, she'd go back. That didn't make sense; she was fourteen, not eleven, and she had grown up a lot from the innocent little girl she had been.

But, still, she wasn't too grown up to not believe in magic or destiny. To not believe in a hope that it would happen again.

A phone rang in her brown purse, another remnant from three years ago, but the phone was new. Sighing, the girl dug into her bag and pulled out the cell, opening it. "Hi."

"Mimi! So, guess what, he asked me out! He walked up to me at the mall, you know, at that one store, and…" It was one of Mimi Tachikawa's various friends. She had a lot; it wasn't hard to get along with the girl. But she didn't want to hear from this one. She wanted to hear from a specific set of seven others. Along with eight random beings that didn't belong in this world.

The friend was prattling away, growing more and more excited. She didn't seem to even notice the other girl's silence; to say this scenario hadn't happened before would be false. But Mimi wasn't interested in boys or dating at the moment. Three years had passed, and it felt like a lifetime.

"…and we're going to the movies tonight, and to that really nice China place! Isn't this great! Mimi?"

"…oh, sorry. Spaced out for a moment. Yeah, that's wonderful! Glad to hear it!" Mimi said, smiling. Whether the smile was sincere or false, however, she couldn't tell. "Hey, I'll talk to you later, okay?" She hung up her phone and threw it in her bag.

Maybe she was just being silly, holding onto that hope. She knew that Joe had given up; he wouldn't admit it, but he had gone back to studying for the future, trying not to dwell on the past. Sora, too…she had tried to wait, but every day, the auburn grew more mature and less prone to childish wishes. Mimi barely ever saw her friends, her true friends, outside of school. If only it were different…

Why couldn't they go back? Mimi groaned, now angry. It wasn't fair. To be cut off from that terrifying place…from all the wonderful sights…it just wasn't fair! Mimi uncrossed her arms and threw them to her side with as much ferocity as she could muster. When she got home, she'd attack her toy animal, but until then, pretending to be visibly angry would help…

She caught herself as she almost tripped, just managing to stay erect and regain her balance. Glaring at the sidewalk, she looked behind her. A bump had appeared in the sidewalk. Sending a death stare at the imperfection in the cement, she pointed at it, wanting to scream, to find a way to destroy that lump; if Palmon were here, it would have already been demolished! What right did it have in disturbing her brooding thoughts? Angry with the world, she punched at the stone wall next to her.

However, her irate temper disappeared as soon as her hand hit the hard wall. It should have hurt. And it did throb. But...no. Trick of the light, maybe? Optical illusion? She loved those ideas of mirages. But this…she felt connected with it. There hadn't been a dent there before, had there? Confused, Mimi raised brought her gloved hand off of the hard surface.

Where it had hit the wall, there was now a small hole that hadn't been there before. But that was pure stone...she wasn't that strong...Mimi shoved her hand down and looked around. Humming to herself, she started to skip home as the rain began to sprinkle down. Something was happening; she was sure of it. Maybe it was time for a meeting…


Sora Takenouchi sighed, running her fingers through her auburn hair. Work was boring; that was to be expected. But working for her mother for a reduced pay at the age of fifteen—that was just plain torture.

It wasn't that Sora wasn't a grateful teenager. She loved her mother, her family, her life. She had the Crest of Love for a reason, as she would remind herself when the going got tough. But, still, there were better things to be doing with her time. Things not involving stacking vases and pruning flowers.

The girl straightened her teal apron and grabbed a stack of seed packets, groaned, and started to put them on a shelf in a neat little row. This wasn't her life, not with a part-time job downstairs from her bedroom, no, her life was soccer, tennis, sports in general.

She had had a different life. But she wasn't going to talk about that anytime soon.

The artificial lights overhead bore down on her, and she looked out the window at the grey sky. If only it would rain. Then she could close shop; with her mother out of town, she let Sora close shop if the weather turned nasty. No one would go to buy flowers if it started pouring. Of course, Sora would have preferred freedom in the sunlight, but that wasn't going to happen today of all days.

It wasn't supposed to rain. It was never supposed to rain, though. The newscaster had forecasted a sunny day since last Tuesday; however, the sun wasn't visible in the darkening sky. Later, the weather reporter had suggested clouds with no possibility of precipitation.

Apparently, the weather was dead set on proving the forecaster wrong.

Stumbling away from her stacking, the girl decided to water/drown the plants one more time. Always a good idea to keep fresh looking merchandise, right? Maybe she'd get a raise…she dourly thought as she maneuvered around the stacks of flowers and gardening utensils.

She must have been too lost in thought, for her arm hit over a stack of newly-budded daisies. Tripping on the mess, without any time to correct herself, she started to fall. A gust of wind picked up in the room as she breathed out, moments away from hitting the floor.

She stopped in midair, her face a foot from hitting the floor.

"What the…" She wasn't exactly stopped. Her eyebrows knit together as her face scrunched, trying to make sense of this development. She had tripped, fallen, was now suspended in midair—as if the wind were trying to push her back up. Letting out a gasp of confusion, she reached her hands forward...

And fell back down to the ground, managing to catch herself. Picking herself up, she took a deep breath, feeling the current rush down her throat. The rain had started up, slightly, but the sky looked as if it would promise more. Shaking her head, Sora turned the Open sign to Closed, and ran up to her room. Something just happened. She wasn't sure what exactly it was, but she would figure it out.


A group of giggling girls (try saying that three times fast) quickly approached, shoving each other forward across the hot sidewalk. A boy tried to ignore him as they pursued onward, his mind on other matters. Matters not concerning fan girls.

It was all his little brother's fault, for the fan girls and the autographs and the media. Well, not so much media as school newspapers. TK had liked his music, and had suggested to perform at a concert in the community center with his band—they only met a few times each month, and none of them really knew each other outside of their meetings, but they were the Teenage Wolves, and he couldn't help that their popularity had spread with each performance.

As it was, Yamato Ishida wasn't thinking about the girls following him, or his band, or even his brother. He was thinking about the rain.

It had been raining steadily for the last five minutes, although the forecast hadn't suggested rain in any way. It had predicted cloudy skies, sure, but no precipitation. Not that the weather man wasn't usually wrong, but…the clouds were moving fast across the sky. Faster than they should have. Matt wasn't worried about the clouds, though, or the wrong forecast. He was worried about getting wet.

Or, rather, the lack of getting wet. Because, for the last five minutes of the steady drizzle, wearing only a black T-shirt and jeans that should have been soaked through in minutes, Matt Ishida hadn't felt a drop of rain hit his body.

The fan girls behind him were soaked, were splashing in puddles for fun. Wet hair clung to faces. Around him, rain was pouring. But right before it hit him, it seemed to bounce away, at some invisible barrier. Not that Matt didn't mind being dry. He was just perplexed.

Maybe he was going crazy. Celebrities seemed to do that a lot. Not that he was a celebrity, but, according to that stalker organization, being the singer/bassist for a teenage band made him enough. That was it—the instant success of his band was making his head spin.

The blond sighed. Here he was, fifteen, worrying about impossible feats and growing popularity. Isn't that what most kids wanted to achieve? He usually didn't worry about impossible feats…him and seven of his friends had basically defined the impossible three summers ago. But this…this was just weird, and he knew weird. And he didn't know this.

"Yama!" one of the girls called, ducking under a tree. "Wait up! Can you dedicate a song to me? I want a CD!"

Matt continued walking, ignoring them. If he wasn't part of a band, they wouldn't even look at him like that. He was tall, but not as tall as some. His blond hair was getting longer, but at the moment was at that awkward phase where it wasn't short or long. He wasn't great at sports…average. But being in a band seemed to change the course of the world to those girls…it made him scoff.

One of the girls, a spiky-haired brunette, ran forward, rain splattering down her bangs. She was one of the most obsessed Matt had ever met. She gave the word stalking a whole new definition. "Mattie, meet me here tonight at seven, okay? Just you and me…it'll be perfect, just come and see." She reached forward and grabbed his arm in an intimate way.

Matt pulled back, away from her. Not to be ignored, she grabbed his midriff, hugging tightly. The girls behind her giggled and cursed at their friend's success.

Groaning, Matt pulled away and turned around. "Can you stop grabbing me? I'm not interested…when will you realize what that means?!" He threw his hands in the air and sucked in breath, prepared to continue on his rampage…and stopped as the girl looked at him…through a small film of water.

Raindrops were collecting, forming a visible wall between him and the girl. That was impossible. Rain didn't collect midair like that…Matt cocked his head, frowning, and reached out to touch it, the girl already forgotten under the light of this new development.

As soon as his finger touched the sheet of water, it dropped to the ground with a splat. Suddenly, rain started bombarding him, soaking him. Matt gasped as the cold settled in, something he hadn't noticed being dry. Shivering, he turned around, away from the girl, and ran down the sidewalk, away from the posse, away from that street…away from what he had just done.

It was impossible, after all.


It had moved. He had seen it, watched it…caused it. Not intentionally, of course. What use would he have of moving a sidewalk? But, nevertheless, after tripping on a root that rose under the cement, he had landed on all fours, his hands scratching upon impact…and the sidewalk now had two dents where his hands had landed.

The redhead stood up quickly, ignoring the rain that was dripping through the leaves above. Those dents. It was impossible, of course. At any other moment, the boy might have had a theory, might have tried to figure it out.

As it was, he didn't have time to wonder about the strength of sidewalk cement against bare hands and gravity. He needed to get to his house, to his laptop—his mother had said it would be a nice day, that it wouldn't rain, that he wouldn't need his computer. How wrong she was on all accounts.

Rushing past people trying to stay dry from the storm that had come in the last hour, Koushiro Izumi didn't seem to notice the slight dent his shoes were making every time he stepped. He did notice, of course; he had been eyeing everyone else to see if they were having similar problems with the cement. He appeared to be the only one that was noticing anything, doing anything. Everyone else was just trying to stay dry, not causing dents in the sidewalk beneath them.

Someone would trip if he wasn't careful. But he didn't have time to be careful. He had to get to his laptop.

Earlier that day, Izzy had said a word he hadn't said in years—prodigious.

Prodigious, as the definition goes, can mean sizable, in a great amount. It could mean marvelous, very impressive, amazing. It was the opposite of average. That wouldn't be fun to say, average. Luckily, Izzy had plenty to be amazed at.

That word had one more meaning. It meant that a small, watch-like digital device clipped onto his jeans pocket had emitted a high humming sound and a flash of light earlier that day.


"But, Mom, I'm old enough to take care of myself!"

A brunette woman looked sternly at a blond boy. "Honey, you're only eleven. You can't go outside right now. It's raining, you could get lost, or slip in a puddle, or…"

She left the messy bedroom, closing the door behind her. The boy glared at the door for a moment, before sighing and taking a waterproof hat off of his head. His blond hair stuck up at random angles.

"I've done more dangerous stuff than go to the store in a rainstorm," he muttered to himself, lying down on his bed, not bothering to correct the sheets that were falling off. Around the room, items were strewn all over: action figures, mostly; an expensive-looking guitar; various colors and designs of hats. A notebook or two lay open, their pages showing the illustrations of what appeared to be strange creatures—an orange pig with wings, an angel, a lion standing erect. The drawings weren't prize worthy, TK would admit, but they were all he could do by himself.

Now, if only he could figure out what to do with his time that didn't involve dying of boredom.

The boy sat up and grabbed a wired phone from his bedside table. Dialing a number from memory, he waited as the tone was sent out. After a few rings, someone answered.

"Ishida, Yamato. What is it?" came a voice TK new all too well. He smiled.

"I'd like a four-cheese pizza, stuffed crust, hold the mozzarella," the young blond said in as serious a voice as he could muster.

Takeru Takaishi could practically hear his brother smile on the other end of the line. "TK. Anything going on? This had better be good; you do realize it's storming outside?"

"Why are you outside, then?"

"Hey, I've got to get home somehow. If my cell phone dies from water exposure, you owe me new one."

TK laughed. "Sure, sure. As soon as you get me that pizza. Nothing's happening; that's the problem. I'm bored, and Mom won't let me go outside to do anything. What's up with you?"

Matt's voice grew quiet, and TK could hear him draw a breath. "Um…this is going to sound crazy, but…something's going on. Something strange. You sure nothing weird has happened with you?"

TK grew genuinely serious, and stood up. He was taller than he had been three years ago, only a head shorter than his brother. "Well, I did fly earlier."

"I'm being serious here, you know?" came his brother's stern reply. TK grinned to himself.

"So am I. I…well, it wasn't flying, not really. More like jumping really high, in the alley next to our apartment. You know, basketball, trying out a slam dunk…but either I'm the world's best jumper, or something really unnatural happened, because I found myself somehow standing on the rim. Don't even ask how I got down from there. I came inside to grab my jacket, since it looked nasty outside, but now I can't go back outside to test it again."

"You're kidding, right?" Matt waited a moment before continuing. "That's…something similar happened to me. I was trying to get away from some girls, and I wasn't getting wet at all, and then I think I created this water wall between me and my chief stalker."

The younger blond laughed nervously. "That's a statement I never thought I'd ever hear. Um…do you know if anyone else has done something strange?"

"I dunno, bro. I'm going to call Tai and see what he's up to," Matt said in reply. It was a tacit agreement that, if something off happened, they would contact Tai, and then Izzy. "Maybe it's just because we're related, but I think it's more than that…"

"Me too. Something's about to happen." TK hung up his phone, and sat down again. He hadn't flown, but he wasn't about to toss out that possibility.

Something was about to happen. He could just feel it.


A young girl sat on a balcony, staring at the town stretched out below her. It was raining; every now and then, a few drops managed to evade the cement several feet above her head and landed on her, cold and wet and dismal. She shivered as a particular gust brought drip after drip down on her head.

Even if she wanted to go back inside, away from the cold, she couldn't. Her brother had claimed their room, talking animatedly on the phone to a friend. He seemed serious-never a good sign, especially since today had been his first driving practice. He had been looking forward to it all week, had practically sprinted out of the house when he realized it was time to go. But when he had returned, he had moved slowly, cautiously...he had kept looking around, as if waiting for something to magically appear.

And he wouldn't tell his sister what was going on. He had just shrugged his shoulders when she had asked how the drive went. Instead of turning on the television to watch a soccer game that she knew he had been waiting to see, he had sat down on the lower bunk of their two beds, crossed his arms, and stared at the wall, deep in thought.

That wasn't like Tai. Not at all.

So, when the phone rang and forced him out of his pondering, Kari had excused herself. Onto the balcony. Because it wasn't supposed to rain. She must have been in as deep a trance as Tai, because she hadn't noticed the precipitation pouring, pounding the walls. Or maybe she had noticed, and had just wanted to be outside, where memories still abounded.

But that decision had been made, and she was outside, and it was cold. Hikari Yagami shivered again, her hands stretched outright, close to her chest, palms up. She winced as more rain came flying at her; she closed her eyes until the gust stopped, then peeked at her hands.

Good. It was still there. She had been afraid the water would destroy it, make it cease to exist. It was heat, and it was comforting, even if it shouldn't exist. Why shouldn't it exist? It had every right to be there. It wasn't harming anything. So long as she didn't drop it, everything would be fine. And she knew that she wouldn't drop it.

Kari blew on it a little, wishing it to get bigger. And, flickering a little, the fire in her palms grew in size, until it was as big as her fist. She smiled slightly and nodded at it in appreciation. Its light reflected off of her necklace, a golden pendant with a pink eight-point flower, one of several copies of the original. The petals seemed to move with the changing fire, as if responding to the wind and heat.

The sliding door opened behind her; she looked up as her older brother stepped onto the balcony. "Kari, you can come inside now. Matt and TK are going crazy..." Tai stopped in mid-sentence, staring at his younger sister. Or, more specifically, at the flame she was holding.

"Maybe Matt and TK are the sane ones," she responded, one corner of her mouth lifting into a half-smile. "Don't deny it; you did something earlier, too."

"...how did you do that? How did you know that?" His eyes were still on the dancing flame.

"You were too serious when you came home. And that," Kari said, motioning at the house with her head," is Izzy." A moment later, the phone rang.

Tai shook his head and ran inside to grab the phone. "Yagami residence...Izzy? Yeah, it's Tai...yeah..." He stared outside as he talked, every now and then glancing at his younger sister. His expression changed from confusion, to bewilderment, to barely contained excitement. "Seriously? When? Yeah, we'll be there in a bit." He shut off the phone and ran onto the balcony once again.

"Izzy...he said...a message..." he stuttered, a crazy grin alighting his face. "We're meeting in the park in five minutes. Come on!" Once again, he ran back into the dry building.

Kari stood up slowly, staring at her flame. She let her arms fall to her sides; the fire disappeared, leaving the space in front of her slightly warm, until the warmth too vanished with a new gust of wind.

After three years, it was time.