Another short one. Sorry folks. That's just the way the words fell into place.

War of the Crests

Part 1: Light

-Chapter 2: Not Alone-

Did seasons come to the digital world? It was a question Davis never really answered for himself. He'd been coming here for four years now, and as he gazed up at the trees in the forest that surrounded Gennai's little cottage, he thought Yes, seasons did occur here. The leaves were just beginning to turn a shade greenish-yellow, heading toward the beautiful goldenrods, oranges and browns that made autumn such a nice season.

He whistled a little as he walked down the path to Gennai's house. He was beginning to dry from the storm, and the thought of his date with Kimiko on Saturday was definitely something worth whistling over. The song was tuneless, but he didn't really need a tune. A rock sat in the middle of the road about ten feet ahead of him, and when he came close, he nuzzled it out of the dirt with the toe of his sneaker and started kicking it along the ground.

Davis stopped for a second. He was happy. He was enjoying the color-change of the leaves. He was kicking a rock. He was whistling for Christ's sake. He raised his eyebrows, looked at the rock by his toes, and kicked it again.

Good. He thought. Happy is good. He'd gotten so used to apathy, some real happiness was always welcome. Part of it, he thought, was the digital world. He always enjoyed it here. Whether he was racing across the plains on Raidramon, or just having a fireside chat with Gennai or Oikawa, he thanked his lucky stars that this world was open and available to him. It made him feel like he was at home. More than once, he'd thought of attempting to build a house here. Something small, similar to what Gennai had. Somewhere with a brick fireplace, a bookshelf and a couch. And maybe even a bed to stay overnight, should the pressures of the real world…pressure him too much.

It was a nice thought, but an unrealistic one. He didn't know how to build a house. And even if he did, he still had two more years of school left, and that was if he chose not to go to college (an option that was looking brighter every day he came to this world).

The cottage slowly came into view, and he could see through the trees someone running around outside. Two someones, actually. Both very short.

Looks like Veemon's got a friend. He continued his whistling, though he'd left his rock behind a while ago. As the trees cleared and the cottage came into clearer view, he got a better look at his partner, and at the cottage. It was small, quaint and homely. The way every cottage should be. Honestly, he had come to the conclusion that Gennai must have stolen the design from an Earth magazine or something, because the whole thing looked like it belonged in some small Irish village. Not-quite-brick housing, coated in places by moss. A small garden outside, stocked with cabbage, carrots and corn and surrounded by a lattice-work fence. A fish pond along the side, complete with water lilies and lily pads.

Veemon and his friend—a small dragon-like digimon with red horns that Davis had seen here a few times before were playing a one-on-one game of soccer. They'd made a single goal out of a pair of big sticks, and were struggling for the ball, itself a thickly-bound bundle of rags. Veemon won control and kicked for the goal. He kicked wide. The ball rolled to Davis, who kicked it up into his hands with the same toe he'd been using to kick the rock. Veemon smiled at the sight of his partner and ran to him.

"Davish! You came to visit!" he shouted, still with that minor speech impediment.

"Of course I did. Playing a game, I see?" Davis bounced the ball on his knee, then passed it through the air to Veemon, who caught it with his hands. The little digimon made a better goalie than a forward, that was for sure.

"Yeah. Me and Dracomon were jusht killing time while his partner talksh with Gennai," Veemon said. Dracomon, the small dragon digimon, approached and gave a little bow to Davis,

"Veemon's quite good at soccer."

"I learned from the besht," Veemon smiled.

"You guys want to play me?" Davis offered with a smirk.

"No!" Veemon shouted, catching Dracomon by surprise. "I remember what happened lasht time I played againsht you. Never again!"

Davis laughed. God, it was good to laugh. "All right, fine. I'll watch you two until Gennai's free." He would have told Veemon then and there about the date, but it felt wrong to interrupt their game with his news. And it was awkward announcing something like that in front of a stranger.

The two digimon played for another half-hour maybe. And they played hard…not particularly well, but hard. Footwork had always been Veemon's problem, and he was lucky that Dracomon didn't know what he was doing, else he would have been screwed. As it stood, they ended up panting with an even score of one to one, and a pair of smiles to join it.

Someone began clapping behind Davis as the two digimon both collapsed onto their butts, finished with the game. He started a bit and whirled around. A boy about his age stood smiling at the game. How long had he been there? Davis had seen him here before, too, and had figured out the partnership between him and Dracomon. He had rusty red hair that looked like it had been through a tornado and a farmer's tan over a soft face, with high cheek bones and a sloping jaw-line. His eyes were his most prominent feature, though. They were crystal clear and bright blue—the kind of blue that creeps some people out.

"Nice game," he said. He turned to Davis. "Veemon your partner, then?"

"Yeah…you've met?"

"Met? Nah, but you know. I see him whenever I come here, and Dracomon talks. Nice to finally meet the man behind the mon," he held out his hand in greeting. Davis took it.

"My name's Davis," he said.

"Tommy. Nice to meet you," the boy replied. "You here to talk to Gennai?"

"And Veemon, yeah."

"Well, I left him in a good mood for you. Have fun." Tommy smiled and approached his digimon. Crouching beside him. "You need five to catch your breath?"

"Yeah," the little dragon said, still panting a bit. If dragons could sweat, Davis figured he'd be drenched.

"Veemon, I'm going in to see Gennai. Meet me in there?" he asked. Veemon gave him a thumbs up from his position on his back.

"No worries," Tommy said from his crouching position, "I'll keep an eye on him."

"Thanks," it was an automatic response. Veemon didn't really need 'looking after.' Even if the digital world weren't as peaceful as it was, if this guy knew how many battles Veemon had won…

He approached the cottage and knocked three times.

"Come on in," came Gennai's familiar voice.

Davis took the invitation, opened the door, and stepped inside. There was no fire in the hearth, but there was still a kind of house-like warmth to Gennai's home. It was more a mental coziness than actual, physical warmth. He closed the door behind himself, wiped any remnant dirt from his shoes, and walked through the entryway into the small living room. A bookcase stood to the left. Its shelves, he knew, housed a plethora of histories, textbooks, and novels, along with a healthy collection of ancient scrolls. Beyond the bookshelf, hundreds of photographs wallpapered the walls around the fireplace. Most were digidestined and digimon posing with Gennai, as both an old man, near-blind with age with white, silky hair; and a young one, clean-shaven with bright blue eyes and thick brown locks. One who didn't know Gennai might not know they were even the same man. He saw himself, and TK, and Cody and Yolei; Kari and Tai and Sora; Matt and Joe, and Izzy and Mimi. He saw others as well, digidestined and digimon from around the worlds, all come to see the old (or young) man. And yet beyond that, he saw Gennai in other locations. Cities and seas acted as backdrops to his memories, along with forests and plains. They mixed and matched and, though in no particular order, the whole of these photographs—these memories, painted a picture of a man.

Atop the hearth, like a centerpiece to the whole thing, rested Davis's special goggles; the ones he got from Tyron, the Smith; his destiny goggles. Yolei had her shield mounted in her home, above her bed. Cody's grandfather asked that the katana be mounted in their dojo, a testament to his honor. Cody agreed. Davis didn't really want to have his goggles up in his house. And, unless he put them in the soccer field, he didn't really have a shrine to mount them in. And they were way too gaudy to wear. Regardless of the honor they represented, he preferred the ones Tai gave him his first time in the digital world. He looked down at his old goggles, hanging around his neck. They'd been that way for a couple years now. A teacher told him that if he kept wearing those goggles on his forehead, they'd keep his brain from growing. It was a joke, and he knew it was a joke, but all the same he came to school the next day wearing them around his neck. They hadn't touched his forehead since.

Gennai sat on his couch, opposite the pictures, the goggles and the empty fireplace. He looked up from the cup of dark tea in his hand as Davis slipped into the room, and a smile lighted upon his face. He'd gotten older in the years since Davis's time as a digidestined. Lines were beginning to form at the corners of his eyes, and there were wings of gray at his temples. He sported a light goatee, and a dusting of stubble on his jaw line and cheeks suggested a future beard. He wore a thin, off-white bath robe, not too different from the more professional-looking white-and-silver robes he often wore.

"Davis. Can't say I'm too surprised to see you. Though, I did expect you'd arrive earlier. Isn't school out right now in your world?" Gennai asked.

"It is in Odaiba. Can't say about the rest of the planet," Davis replied. He sat beside Gennai on the couch (he owned no other furniture) and gazed up at the photos, trying to pick one out with Tommy.

"So, anything in particular bring you to my humble abode?" Gennai asked before taking a sip of his tea.

"Oh, you know. The usual," Davis replied. There were no pictures of Tommy. At least, not so far as he could see. He kept searching.

"Another status report?" Gennai's voice lilted a bit with the word "report," as if there was something ironic about it.

"Stop calling it that. It sounds so…official," Davis turned away from the photos to look directly at the aging man. Ever since he learned Gennai's title: Watcher, and his job: literally to watch over the digital world, he'd been asking if Gennai had seen anything unusual. Evidently, Gennai was either tiring of it, or found something quite funny about it.

"Just as you can't know if school is out around your world, neither can I tell you about the goings on throughout mine. I can tell you that the Koromon in Koromon Village are experiencing some inner turmoil in deciding their new Guardian. Likewise, I could tell you that negotiations between the Yokomon and the Meramon of mount Mihirashi are going smoothly. Chameleonmon's restaurant in Tribuo is serving delicious potato chowder today, and none of what I've told you is what you were hoping to hear." He punctuated his speech by taking another drink of his tea.

"Okay, okay. I get it. All's quiet on the Western front," Davis waved a hand at Gennai and poured himself a cup of tea. The only teacup available still had a few drops left within. Likely Tommy's, but Davis wasn't one to really care about such things. He took a sip, and let the almost savory-sweet tea linger on his tongue for a few seconds before swallowing it down. "So how are things around here?"

"Going quite well, actually," Gennai replied. "As you said, all's quiet. Even the unrest amongst the Koromon looks as if it will clear up soon. I really can't think of a time that the digital world has been so peaceful. It's quite soothing, actually."

"Peaceful," Davis tasted the word. He didn't much like the flavor. Peace was just a precursor to discord. In his world, when things got peaceful and serene, it was usually the calm before a storm. Rather than sharing such a dour outlook, he changed the subject, "So who's Tommy? A digidestined, obviously, but…I've never heard anything about him before."

"Not a digidestined, no," Gennai said, "not by my definition, anyway. He's got a digivice, and Dracomon. But a digidestined suggests something…more. A purpose, I guess. But those are just the words of a doubly-old Watcher. Tommy's a good kid. A bit too smart for his own good, but he's got a kind heart. We've got a mutual acquaintance, and I like to check in every once in a while, to see how things are going." His eyes faded a bit, deep in memory, before coming back a few seconds later, bright and blue (though not quite so creepily blue as Tommy's eyes).

"So I'm not the only one who likes to keep tabs," Davis said.

Gennai trained his gaze on Davis, studied him for a moment, and looked away, "I guess you're not."

The door opened, and both turned their heads to see Veemon shuffle inside, a dead-tired smile on his face. "I guesh I need more Exershise, Davish. I am pooped," he said through his grin. He dragged his feet over to the couch and Davis helped him up, where he lay back and let out a deep sigh of relief.

"Whoo…" he said, leaning his head on his partner. "I don't know how you do it, Davish. Shoccer is hard."

Davis wrapped his arm around his partner, and within seconds the little blue guy was snoring.

"So…any news in your life, Davis?" Gennai asked. Davis smiled.

"Well, I was going to tell this little guy some good news. But that's out of the question for a while, anyway."

"Tell me. Good news is always a good thing," Gennai smiled. His face was open and inviting.

"Sure. What the hell? We're friends. I've got a date on Saturday," He said, allowing the thought to ruminate a bit and a smile to grow on his face.

"Well, good for you! Anybody I know?" Gennai asked.

"Nah. Her name's Kimiko. She works at a Starbucks I frequent…" he paused for a second, realizing that Gennai probably had no idea what Starbucks was, "Starbucks is a coffee shop in my world."

"Ah," Gennai said, looking down at his tea for a moment. "Do you like her?"

"I said yes, so I certainly hope so," Davis replied. Gennai was looking at his tea, a slight frown on his face. "Something's wrong. What's wrong?"

Gennai looked up, "Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just remembering something. As you can probably guess, I haven't been with someone for a long while."

"I didn't know you were with somebody, ever," Davis said. "You always seemed like…I don't know. A guardian angel or something. Someone beyond…" Davis waved his hand in the air, as if talking about God, "…our lowly mortal feelings. You know?"

Gennai let out a small laugh, "I'm not divine, Davis. I'm not human, either, but that doesn't mean I can't feel love or lust or any of those lowly mortal feelings. I did have someone once."

Gennai didn't look like he wanted to share, so Davis didn't pry. Instead, they sat together, finished their tea, and continued to chat about this and that. Chameleonmon's world-famous chowder came up, along with the Koromon unrest. They talked about events in Davis's world, America's ongoing war in the middle-east, the uprisings in the same area. They talked about the digidestined and soccer and Davis's schooling. And when Veemon woke, Davis told him about Kimiko, and Veemon gave him a weak high-five.

Maybe building a house out here wasn't out of the question.

Rain sucked. Hard.

TK grumbled as he exited the movie theater…alone. The movie, an actioner from America, wasn't very good. Kari hadn't come for some undisclosed reason, but TK decided that he'd rather go to a movie alone than sit around all night watching TV. Of course, as he reached into his pocket and gripped his keys, he realized that it was still only about six in the afternoon, and he'd probably still be sitting around doing nothing for the rest of the night unless he found something to do instead.

"It's still raining, isn't it?" Patamon asked from TK's backpack. Patamon liked movies, and it was easy enough to smuggle him in, and dark enough in the theater that usually nobody noticed if he sat on TK's head while he sat in the back row.

"Yeah," TK replied. He could feel Patamon shift, probably nuzzling his way under something like a cat to block the rain.

"I hate rain," he mumbled.

"Me too, buddy," TK said. He pulled the keys out of his pocket and ran out into the rain. The torrent beat down on his hat and shoulders, and he could hear it soaking his backpack. He sprinted to his car, a little silver two-door he picked up used a couple months ago when he got his license. His mom and dad had collaborated on it as a gift to him. The first thing they'd collaborated on since they both decided to get divorced. He unlocked the door, opened it, took off his backpack, and tossed it into the passenger's seat before scrambling into the driver's side and shutting the door. Patamon wormed his way out of the backpack, unzipping it from the inside and kicking it onto the floor once he was in the seat, and they both sighed in relief. TK buckled himself in, started the car, and listened to the weather report while he waited for the engine to warm up. Despite the sudden freak rainstorm, meteorologists predicted sun for at least the next week before things started to cloud up for autumn. TK turned on the defogging heater and scoffed at the report. He didn't trust weathermen. He switched over to a rock station and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the drums and hummed along with the guitar.

Once the windows were sufficiently un-foggy, he turned on the wipers, backed out of his spot and pulled out of the parking lot. Patamon reached up and buckled himself into the seat. It was an awkward sight, and only the waist-belt worked on him. It was better than nothing, however. Patamon didn't really trust cars, and preferred to fly whenever he could. The rapidity of the swinging wipers informed them both that his wings would find no use outside, at least not today.

The drive home was a quick one. TK's apartment building was close to the center of town, which made getting around easy. It was days like this that actually made him get his license. A stop light forced a stop, and he tapped the wheel in time to a rather rhythmic song on the station, and made near-silent "bum, bum" sounds along with the drums. He glanced at the clock. Still only about six-fifteen. Maybe he could hang at Kari's for a while.

No. he thought. If she can't come with you, it probably means you shouldn't try to force the issue by visiting her.

Someone caught his eye outside the rain-soaked windows. He only caught intermittent glances of them between wiper-slashes, but there was something odd about them. He couldn't tell if it was a guy or a girl. They just stood on the far corner of the street, facing TK's lane. For a second, he thought they were looking at him, but he shook off the feeling as paranoia. He couldn't even tell anything about their face, much less if they were looking at him. His light turned green, and he sped forward, probably faster than he should have, and left the strange corner person standing. He glanced in his mirror, to see if they were still there as he pulled away. Whoever it had been was gone. Probably waiting to use the crosswalk.

Who the hell goes out in a storm like this? He asked himself.

As if in response, lightning cracked overhead. He started, gritting his teeth, and almost rammed the accelerator. His blood pumped hard and fast through his veins, and his muscles tensed. Patamon was looking at him, level-eyed, trying to decide if TK was safe to drive or not.

Calm down, he thought to himself. Deep breaths. You're a new driver, and it's a summer storm. Nothing to get worked up about. He followed his own advice and, soon enough, his pulse had slowed and his muscles were once more relaxed.

After maybe five more minutes, he pulled into his apartment building's parking lot. All the spots close to the front door were taken.

Of course they are. Because nothing can ever be easy, can it? He grumbled and pulled into an open spot between an SUV and a van. Patamon hopped back into the backpack, and TK squeezed out of the car, being careful not to hit the van on his way out. He shut the door and ran for the front door to the building. About halfway there, he stopped.

Damnit! He thought. He forgot to lock the door. Quick like a bunny, he rushed back to his car, stuck his key in the keyhole on the door, and locked it. Something caught his eye to the right. He glanced up, and spotted someone standing outside the parking lot, on the sidewalk. They were staring at him. He couldn't tell if he knew the person through the rain, so he just shouted,

"What are you looking at?"

The person turned away, hunched their shoulders, and walked down the street. It wasn't a nice thing to say to a random stranger. But then, today wasn't a particularly nice day. And even if it was, this wasn't a great neighborhood. TK lived alone with his mom, and he didn't have a job. She worked at a PR firm across the bridge, in the main city. The money was okay, but gas was more than pricey, and she probably treated TK too well.

He looked at the car she'd gone half on with his dad, and felt a pang of guilt.

"TK, the bag is leaking," Patamon's muffled voice reached his ears.

Damn, he thought as he flipped the bag around and held it, and Patamon, tight to his chest. He had schoolwork in there that he was supposed to be doing over break. His paper was probably soaked and illegible. Damn. Damn. Damn. He rushed to the front door again, and pushed it open with his shoulder. The girl at the front desk, he thought her name was Aoi, but always referred to her as Lobby Girl, glanced at him over a newspaper as he shook the rain off like a dog. As he wrung out his hat, she looked back to the newspaper and clucked her tongue in apparent self-importance. TK almost shot an insult at her, just something quick and dirty, but decided against it.

High road.

He decided to take the stairs. The elevator…wasn't necessarily in working order. It would function just fine sometimes. But it had a nasty habit of stopping at the third floor and not opening the doors. Someone—probably the damn landlord—left a crowbar in it about a month ago, so people could pry the doors open when it got to their floor (or the third, whichever came first). TK preferred the stairs. He began his ascent, and Patamon climbed out of the backpack and perched on his shoulder like a parrot. He stretched out his wings, and let the water drip from them with the rhythmic motion of TK's climbing.

"Your paper's wet," he said as they passed the second floor landing.

"I figured it would be," he replied. "At least that'll give me something to do tonight besides watch the history channel."

"There's never any history on it, anyway. Just reality shows about conspiracies and aliens," Patamon complained.

"Aren't you kind of a conspiracy?" TK asked, jogging onto and past the third floor landing. He lived on the fourth floor, the tip-top.

"We are a conspiracy," Patamon put extra emphasis on the 'we', as if TK didn't know what he meant. "But they never do anything on us, anyway. Everyone just believes that stuff about the once-in-a-lifetime eclipse or whatever."

"Yeah. Not very accurate for a history channel," TK just about panted as he finally reached his floor. He was getting out of shape. He used to run these stairs every day when he was still in basketball. But last year hadn't been great to him on the court, so he decided to take this season off and focus on other, more important matters.

What Patamon said was true. After their final battle against MaloMyotismon, the world didn't know what to do with itself for a while. There had been an event where the entire world (or at least the half that was still experiencing daylight) was covered in darkness, until millions of people around the world pointed their cell phones (and digivices) at the sky. Nobody knew what to think of it. Until some European scientist came out and gave an explanation. Something to do with a special kind of eclipse and an asteroid or something. All TK knew was that it was bullshit, and he could just smell the cover-up.

He walked into the hallway and found his apartment, number four-nineteen. He unlocked the door (his mom didn't get home until around eight at night) and entered, flicking on a light and locking the door again once inside. He tossed his soggy backpack aside and hung up his coat on the hangers beside the door.

It was a small apartment, but then they were only two. The kitchen greeted him immediately on his right as he entered, the living room on the left. A sliding-glass door sat inset into the far wall, leading out to a small concrete balcony that overlooked the street, and the building across the street. A hallway in the far corner led to TK's bedroom, the bathroom, and the master bedroom.

It wasn't much, but it was home.

Patamon, his wings now dry enough, glided from TK's shoulder down to the couch in the living room. TK stripped off his wet shirt and jeans, tossing them into a laundry basket in the bathroom (where the washer and dryer resided) before changing into some pajama bottoms and an old, but dry, tee-shirt. He grabbed up a pad of paper and a pencil from his room, headed out into the living room, and tossed them on the couch beside the now-curled up Patamon. One visit to the kitchen later, he was munching on yesterday's dinner, now also today's dinner. Rice, some mixed frozen veggies, and chicken, with a sauce he'd thrown together with a few spices around the kitchen. It was pretty good, if he said so himself. He sat down on the couch, shared his dinner with Patamon, and flipped through channels to see if there was anything on. Nothing but reality shows and the news. He decided on the news.

It wasn't very interesting. The same crap they'd been talking about for the last month. Dinner finished, he set the bowl and chopsticks on the coffee table in front of him, where his bare feet soon joined them. He balanced the notebook on his knees and began to write. The paper was on Japanese history, specifically the feudal era. They were allowed to pick their own topic so long as they connected it to that era. He had already done his on the rise of myths and legends during that time. However, that copy sat bleeding all over itself in his backpack.

An hour later, he set his pencil aside and stretched his hand, the paper half-complete. Patamon stared at the TV with eyes half-lidded while TK picked up his bowl and took it to the kitchen to wash it.

Something caught his attention outside the sliding-glass door. It wouldn't have, except that, subconsciously, he'd noted it when he'd arrived home as well. He put the bowl in the sink and walked to the door. Through the wet glass, down on the sidewalk four stories below, someone stood in the rain. That…person…was there an hour ago when he got home. He hadn't realized it then, but he did now as he thought back on it. He got the distinct impression that he was being stared at again. This time, he didn't pass it off as paranoia. He also got the distinct impression that this was the same person who was staring at him as he locked his car, and maybe the same person staring at him at the stop light.

Through the rain, he saw two black arms rise up from the mysterious stranger's silhouette, almost in greeting. TK waved back.

Yeah, I see you, he thought. I'm also locking my door and windows, tonight. Good luck getting in, whoever-you-are.

The figure's arms swept down, and TK realized they weren't arms. It lifted up, into the air, about twenty feet, and with another beat of what TK now realized were wings, soared up into the sky, disappearing into the storm.

"Holy shit…" he said, and Patamon perked up.

"What is it?" the little digimon asked, flying over and landing on his shoulder. Together, they gazed out into the storm. Another bolt of lightning flashed overhead, met immediately with a roar of thunder.

"I think I just saw a digimon outside. It…flew up, into the storm," TK blinked a few times and just stared outside, searching the skies.

"That is definitely weird," Patamon's voice was close to unbelieving. "You think it was one of the others? ExVeemon maybe? Or Stingmon?"

"I…" TK turned away from the glass and swept the curtains to its sides across, blocking his view. "…don't know."