Author's Notes
Thank you everyone who's read, reviewed, favourited or alerted this fic so far. You guys rule. :) Seriously, you've beaten any first chapter I've put up before in all four areas. I'd give cyber-chocolate…but allergies sadly. Cyber apples anyone? Hmm…bad idea if I ever wind up as a doctor. Okay, cyber candy for everyone!
I uploaded this chapter a little earlier than I planned. This is because I plan to update at the beginning and just past the middle of each month, but I uploaded the first chapter just before the middle. So this should equate it. Hopefully, the next chapter will be up between the fifteenth and the eighteenth of May, and the one after that at the beginning of June and so forth.
I'm pretty sure the English dub has messed up the schooling system, seeing as Yolei enters into junior high school in the post-02 movie (she's trying the uniform on at the beginning) and she's in seventh grade (which is supposed to be the first year of junior high school) throughout the series. She mentions it to Sora's dad. So we'll just have to assume that the seventh grade is part of Odaiba Elementary School. According to Wikipedia, Davis is also 13 and also in 7th grade, but in the jap. Version he's a year younger than her. Again, doesn't make sense. Four years from season 1 would mean sixth grade for TK and Kari, and by extension Davis as they're in the same homeroom. Therefore for the purposes of this fic, Yolei is in 7th (13 yrs old) and still in Elementary, Davis, TK and Kari are in sixth (and 12). Maybe they're renovating the campus. That happened once with us. The senior school campus had years 5-12 because there wasn't room for the year 5s at the primary campus. Ken has to be in primary school too if he plays against Davis in soccer. I don't think they'd pit a junior high team against an elementary team. After all, Tai wasn't on the team and they're in the same soccer club. So for this fic, Ken's 12 and in 6th grade too (even if he's supposed to 13 in the dub version). I would have stuck to the Japanese names, but there are differences in the sub that actually affect this fic, so that's a no go.
Enjoy.
Crests of Origin
02/04 x-over. Everything came from somewhere. They knew the crest power came from their hearts, but before that they came from the hearts of others. Now they're learning that story as they fight for the future…and the past.
Daisuke M/Davis & Takuya K
Chapter 2
A Black-Coated Digivice
Patamon was snoring. He'd have to remember to tease his partner about that in the morning. Provided he managed to get asleep. But it was proving difficult, and not because of his mother typing rapidly in the next room.
For some reason, the mystery digivice was stuck in his head. He and Yolei had dropped it by Izzy's apartment, and the fifteen year old had promised to work on it. He hoped to have something to tell once they checked up on him after school, seeing as any attempt to talk before that would probably be blotched with pressing time.
Izzy was an expert in anything related to computers; he'd figure it out. TK, the one who barely knew enough to work with his mother's PC (which was only a little more complicated than the normal operation due to the necessities of her job), should just wait patiently. But it just seemed somewhat ominous, finding a digivice in a cave in the middle of a forest.
He couldn't help but wonder if they had a new enemy to deal with. Just like the last time they'd been able to pass through the Gates after the defeat of the Digimon Emperor and the created Kimeramon. It h tad turned out then that they still had Arukenimon and Mummymon to deal with, the puppets pulling the strings of the Digimon Emperor, and then above that, MaloMyotismon. The mastermind of the entire problem. Except the Dark Ocean. They'd never figured out exactly what the place had wanted with Kari. But for days after they had returned after that epic battle, watching a distraught Ken disappear into the distance with a crest all of them had, at the time, wondered whether or not he deserved, he'd had nightmares. It had been, he was fairly sure, Kimeramon's doing. Or rather, the fact that someone had had the galls to create a digimon using that monster Devimon.
He gritted his teeth, staring blindly at the ceiling. Even after everything that had happened in between, Kimeramon still upset him. Devimon still got to him. His nightmares about Patamon disappearing out of his life for good still got to him…even when the bat-like digimon was right beside his head, snoring away on the white pillow they shared.
He finally closed his eyes when they began to burn in protest. Patamon was safe. And there might not be any new enemy; Gennai had told them in confidence that there was no need for DNA-digivolution any more, and had given Gatomon back her tail ring. He wouldn't have done that if there was still danger…right? They'd had their crests for almost a year after Apocylamon after all, although there hadn't been a need for them.
When we woke up in the morning, having slept rather badly, he couldn't help but wonder if he had driven himself to paranoia. He really should have remembered that was a sure-fire way to have nightmares. Not that he could help it.
'Hey.' Patamon fluttered onto his Monday hat. 'Want me to blow raspberries?'
TK grinned. He couldn't help himself; the image was always just too funny. 'I don't think we have time for that.'
'You don't,' Nancy validated from the next room, still typing away. Her son couldn't help but wonder if his mother had actually gotten any sleep the night before. It seemed Patamon was on his own in that regard. 'If you don't hurry, you'll be late as it is. Grab a few biscuits from the cupboards.'
And he hadn't even had his breakfast. And now he had to make do with breakfast crackers.
He stifled a yawn, looking for his shirt. He wondered how he was going to handle this sort of thing by April, when he joined junior high school. There would be the uniform to contend with too.
Really, it was amazing Tai made it to school on time, but that was probably his mother (or Kari) waking him. His own mum was normally as reliable as the clock…unless she was trying to meet deadlines.
Five minutes later, he left the apartment at a sprint. There was no point in waiting for the elevator…or for Cody and Yolei. They'd probably already gone without him. Neither of them liked being late. As for the elevator itself…waiting for one of those seemed to take even longer when one was already pressed for time.
'Whoops,' was the first word out of Davis' mouth as he stared at the broken glances still half-hanging on the other boy's face. Playing soccer during the lunch-break was a popular past time with quite a number of the sixth grade boys…enough to make two soccer teams and play a mock game. No-one really had a problem with the arrangement…until someone got injured or something got broken. And that wasn't technically against the rules, just troublesome when someone went to the nurse with a livid bruise, or worst case scenario, a busted shin.
Kicking the ball along the corridor was however not a part of that. Especially not past a teacher's shocked face.
Now, that might have simply earned him a detention, if the wayward ball hadn't hit a passing seventh grader in the face. One who wore glasses at that, and now the broken frames hung of her shocked face.
At least it hadn't been Yolei, otherwise he wouldn't be alive to be suspended. But he should have known he was going to cross that line eventually.
Of course, she might kill him afterwards anyway. Provided she could salvage something from his parents. He may have gotten quite a detention record, but he'd never been suspended yet.
Until now that was.
'You got suspended,' Tai repeated in his successor's ear. Davis had called the elder Kamiya up to inform him why he wouldn't be able to make it to the meeting at Izzy's, and to beg, in not as many words, that he pass on the message.
'Yes,' the burgundy-haired male responded, a little exasperated. 'You don't need to keep repeating it. As it is, I'm in for an earful as soon as my Dad makes it home.'
A sigh on the other end. 'How long?'
'Two days.' A pause. 'At least I won't miss the soccer match against Shibuya. The couch would have killed me too…provided my parents don't kill me first.' There was another pause, this one slightly more…panicky. 'Oh man. Maybe I can just pretend I'm-'
'Don't even think about it,' Mrs Motomiya yelled from the kitchen.
'You might have thought about that before you told your parents,' Tai pointed out.
'Big help that would have been,' the other complained, mouth widening to pronounce the syllables with forced emphasis. 'The vice principle rang Mum up.'
'And hurry up,' his mother added, the clattering of spoons and other utensils against a boiling pot accompanying her words.
'I'm hurrying,' Davis muttered before switching back to his conversation with Tai, not bothering to cover the phone. 'Could you explain to the others?'
'And get myself killed instead? No thanks.'
'Oh come on Tai. I can't tell them. Not to mention Mum's only allowed a single phone call before it's complete lock-down…except for emergencies.'
Once upon a time, Tai may have taken that as a challenge, but he had grown since then. 'All right,' he sighed dramatically. 'I'll call Izzy and tell him. They're not going to be happy with you, you know.'
'I know. It wasn't my fault that girl showed up out of no-where though!'
'Well, you really should stop playing soccer indoors.'
'You're not one to talk Tai.'
'What does DemiVeemon think?' It was a widely transparent attempt to change the subject, but it worked to some extent.
'He thinks it's the best as we'll have more time to play together,' Davis replied, tone bordering a little on suspicion. 'Why?'
'Oh…no reason. See you later.'
The dial tone was suddenly echoing in the sixth-grader's year.
'What the heck Tai?'
Yolei crossed her arms, before uncrossing them to take a biscuit from the tray Mrs Izumi had brought them. 'Mmm,' she mumbled, chewing slowly. 'These are delicious.'
'I'll be sure to tell Mum you say so,' Izzy replied, more calmly than the female who finished her biscuit before crossing her arms again. 'Where is Davis?'
'Suspended,' TK, Kari and Izzy replied simultaneously.
The purple-haired girl looked at them. The two sixth graders shrugged. 'News travels fast,' the blonde explained. 'But we don't know why he was suspended. There are all sorts of rumours going around.'
'He was kicking a soccer ball in the corridor and broke the glasses of a seventh grader,' Izzy explained. 'Tai called a little while ago. Apparently Davis called him and asked him to pass on the message.'
'Hmmph,' the Digidestined of Love and Sincerity huffed. 'That's just like him. Still as irresponsible as ever.' Then she paused as the rest of the statement registered. 'A seventh grader?'
She was in the same year level, but she didn't remember seeing anyone with broken glasses. And one would think the rumour would have spread to her as well.
'Are you sure it's not just some excuse?'
'Davis wouldn't miss a Digidestined meeting on purpose,' Cody pointed out rationally. 'I think it's probably the truth, but we should make a start. Izzy?'
The red-head nodded, swivelling around on his desk-chair so he faced his computer again. He manoeuvred the mouse with practiced ease, and soon an image of the digivice they had found the previous day was on screen.
'This digivice appears to be rather old,' the computer expert began. 'But also rather well preserved, so that makes guessing its date of origin rather difficult, particularly with all the changes the Digital World have been through. I can pretty safely say though that it doesn't belong to any of the digidestined I currently have contact with. I checked with them all yesterday, and they've never seen anything like it. The closest is the D-3 model, but as we know, they are only in the Tokyo area.'
'Us and the kids that Oikawa had picked up,' Yolei nodded. 'So you're saying it doesn't belong to any digidestined we know?'
Izzy nodded. 'I also emailed Gennai, but I haven't gotten a response from him. That's nothing to panic about,' he added, seeing as the younger digidestined weren't particularly used to his…unreliability. 'If there was something we needed to know, he'd have told us.'
'Sometimes I wonder if he finds it amusing to watch us chase our tails,' Tentomon commented, nibbling a biscuit. 'He certainly waits long enough to help us.'
'He was quite efficient when our world was being attacked,' Yolei pointed out.
'Are you sure you aren't more occupied with his appearance?' Hawkmon asked, not quailing under his partner's stare as anyone else would have done. He'd spent enough time with her after all to be used to her personality.
'Yes, I'm sure Hawkmon,' she replied, stressing the "yes".
'Well, if it's important and he knows the answer, he'll reply back soon,' the Digidestined of Knowledge cut in. 'But I don't have all that much to go on with right now. The digivice has some data on it, but my computer doesn't have the capacity to download the files; I can't even download a single one. I'll need to find a bigger processing machine before I can work on decoding it.'
'So you think there's something important on those files?' Kari asked.
'Maybe,' Izzy replied. 'Of course, if the digivice was still functional, we may have been able to read directly off it…assuming the files aren't encrypted in some way.'
'What do you mean?' Cody asked.
'Well,' the older boy replied. 'You all recall when I borrowed Yolei's digivice, correct?'
They all nodded.
'I looked at the general scheme and was able to read the majority of its functions,' Izzy explained. 'I downloaded a couple of programmes onto it too if you recall.'
They nodded again.
'However, I wasn't able to use the programme to open up a Digital Gate, nor was I able to read and replicate it so it would work for our older models.'
'Oh, I get it.' Yolei nodded. 'That function didn't work for you because it was my D-3.'
'Exactly.' Izzy snapped his fingers and pointed at her. 'But my computer didn't have any problem reading anything in your digivice though, which makes me wonder exactly what those data files could be.'
'So we'll need to find you a bigger computer.' The thirteen year old sighed. 'If only we hadn't blown up the one at Arukenimon's.'
TK, Kari and Patamon giggled at that.
'I had nothing to do with it,' Gatomon sniffed.
'I know you didn't,' the brunette replied, ruffling her fur. 'How do we know the computer blow anyway?'
'I think BlackWarGreymon actually did the damage,' Tentomon pointed out. 'Although your fight with Arukenimon hadn't exactly left the place in good condition.'
'Huh?' Yolei blinked, then shrugged. 'It must have been something else we blew up.'
'We punched a hole in the washing machine,' Armadillamon offered.
'That's far away from the topic at hand,' Cody said, effectively steering the conversation back on track. 'So we don't know much from the digivice?'
'Well…' Izzy began. 'I think we can safely infer that the digivice belongs to a generation older than you guys, since we know the real and digital worlds went into sync after we defeated Apocylamon, and it is highly unlikely the digivice is any younger than that, judging from its condition. The data files will at least tell us the age, via Digital World time, if nothing else.'
'Is it worth the effort?' the Digidestined of Knowledge and Reliability asked. 'It won't be easy finding a processing system with enough capacity to be able to decode those files. Especially not one you'll be allowed to use.'
'I've thought about that,' Izzy replied. 'And I actually do have an idea. Firstly, Ken's PC has more processing power than mine, doesn't it? And Yolei's is similar.'
There were three shrugs, but Yolei nodded. 'Of course,' she murmured. 'Mine doesn't have a lot of free space on it though, and Ken's is somewhat outdated.'
'That won't be a problem,' the red-head responded. 'What we could do is link the processing capacities of our computers together, and hope the memory is enough. If need be, we can use an external hard-disk for the data storage. Of course, it will be a little tricky bypassing the firewalls without leaving both computers open to virus attack.'
'Why not use our computers too?' Kari asked.
'Same issue: the firewall,' Izzy replied. 'Although if the processing power isn't enough, we may have to. The more ideal situation would be to have them all in the same room, like I did when we dealt with Diaboromon-'
'-so it was you who moved Dad's computer?' The Digidestined of Light giggled. 'He was pretty mad when he came home, but Tai said it wasn't him and Dad believed him.'
Gatomon looked up at her. 'If I recall,' she said. 'You were at a birthday party.'
The brunette grinned sheepishly. 'You never know with Tai,' she confessed. 'I didn't think it was that much of an emergency.'
'Never mind,' TK sighed. 'As it was, I was pretty useless anyway.'
'I resent that,' Patamon muttered from his head. 'Can I have another business?'
'You don't want to be turning into a pig, do you?' A smile quirked the blonde's lips.
'TK!'
'Will you be able to reach Ken's computer?' Yolei asked, returning to the original topic. 'I mean, he's all the way in Tamachi.'
'If I can connect to yours, I can connect to his,' Izzy replied. 'It's just a matter of forging a connection, similar to how spy-cams and other sorts of things like that work. I'll send you a file. Make sure you encrypt anything you don't want me to see. The other reason I don't want to use too many computers is that, not only will it be easier for an outsider to hack into any of our systems, but we can see each other's data files, and if there's a virus on the digivice, or on any of our computers, they'll all crash. Of course, I'll check with Ken first. Maybe his computer can handle the data, in which case we won't need to worry about the security issues. It'll be slow going though, because even if he can, he'll only be able to work with one file at a time. If only we could compress it somehow…but it's practically a dead cellphone'
'Even I didn't follow all of that,' Yolei commented after a blank pause.
'Right.' There was another pause. 'I think I'll call Ken.'
'I'll need to have the device to know for sure,' Ken replied once the Digidestined of Knowledge finished his explanation, receiver wedged between his right shoulder and ear as his hands were busy folding his soccer uniform into the sports bag.
'That's no problem,' Izzy's slightly muffled voice replied. 'One of the others can easily pass it to you through the Digital World. Are you going today?'
'I've got soccer practice soon,' the blue-haired male replied. 'But I was planning on going after dinner. I believe the others said they were going on ahead.'
'They're heading off now,' Izzy said. 'Except Davis. He's been suspended.'
'Suspended?' He felt a little worried. Davis was good at heart, but he did have a habit of getting into rather idiotic situations at times.
'He was kicking a soccer ball around in the corridor and hit a girl in the face. The glasses broke.'
'And the girl is okay?'
'Apparently so, although she had to go home considering how bad her eyesight turned out to be without the lenses.'
'I see.' It could have been worse, but it might be a problem if Davis was out of commission for too long. He hoped not though; there hadn't been any trouble lately. 'I'll give him a call later tonight.'
'Be careful. Mrs Motomiya isn't too thrilled.'
No, she certainly wouldn't be. Particularly if they wound up having to pay for the lenses.
'I'm so dead,' Davis wailed as he took Ken's call a little before dinner. He was actually surprised his parents had allowed him, but he'd apparently underestimated the effect Ken still seemed to have on some people.
Thank God Jun's busy with Jim, he thought with relief. Although that didn't make a whole lot of difference, all things considered. She still though his cohort of male friends were "cute".
Ken didn't bother asking why; he simply waited silently. He knew his friend well enough to know the other would tell him without the prompt.
'Mum and Dad cut my allowance, and I have to pay the cost for those glasses. Until then, zilch. No money, no TV, no computer or video games…and no digital world while I'm suspended from school.'
The last part was said in a whisper.
'How long?'
'Two days.'
Two days wasn't so bad as far as the Digital World was concerned.
'No bus fare either.'
It sounded to Ken like that was the point which worried Davis the most.
'We all can visit you,' Ken pointed out.
'I know…' The sigh dragged a little. 'I swear I didn't see that girl though.' There was a pause. 'I really do feel bad about breaking those glasses, but it was an accident. I can't do anything about that.'
Ken let him rant. There wasn't much he could add anyway. Except…
'I'll help.'
'No you won't,' the other said immediately.
'You're seriously going to make 8000 yen by yourself?'
'10 000 actually,' Davis admitted. 'I thought about maybe getting a paper-run. It's the best I can come up with…well, that and Jun offered half her allowance if I do all her chores for her.'
'The paper runs only give 521 yen a week,' Ken said sceptically.
'So it'll take me four weeks,' the Digidestined of Courage and Friendship said triumphantly.
'It'll take you 19 weeks,' the other corrected after a short pause as he did the calculation in his head. 'Give or take.'
It would only make a small dent in his prize money from the days as a boy genius. He hadn't used much of it; it didn't feel right. But he had a feeling Davis wasn't going to take the help unless an emergency came up.
'I'll live without the TV screen,' Davis said, but his voice sounded a little like a faux-Romeo. 'And I absolutely swear that once I'm out of this mess, I'm never kicking a soccer ball inside again.'
Ken couldn't help but let a small grin escape at that. Davis could always be peppy, no matter what the situation. There was very little doubt he wouldn't find a way to get that 10 000 yen.
