Don't own One Week by Barenaked Ladies or Leggos :(
Sorry this took awhile! I've been busy and you know... I wrote this whole thing today and yesterday. Hope you enjoy!
Tuesday
"Alright, class," begun the teacher as she clasped her hands together causing her many bracelets to clang against one another, "I will be assigning each of your groups a topic, and I expect you all to begin working on it outside of school ASAP."
No groans came from the class, but you could expect the students to be imagining some very colorful thoughts. No one liked projects, let alone ones that were dragged outside of the classroom and into their lives.
The health teacher, Mrs. Zith, surveyed the room with her bulging, cinnamon eyes. As if on a whim, she pointed to the various groups seated around the classroom and gave them a topic. Upon reaching TK, Kari, and Davis, one word came out that caused TK to have to stop himself from laughing aloud at the irony.
"Amnesia."
To the blonde's surprise, Kari's eyes lighted up at the word.
After class, they walked down the hallway, Kari talking furiously.
"Isn't this great? Davis is in our group, and the topic is amnesia. It'll be too easy."
"What will?" He inquired.
She spoke as though it was obvious or he had already been informed of her little plan. "Seeing if Davis knows anything or could help us with those new digimon attacks."
TK delicately reminded, "His memory was completely erased, Kari. Besides, in a few weeks, we won't even be able to help."
"I know, I know," she dismissed waving a hand in the air, "That doesn't mean we can't talk to him."
The blonde observed her for a moment. He didn't understand why she'd even be thinking about this when the 02 team had been lost ages ago. Although wasn't it just the other day he saw Cody and felt the same need Kari did, to contact them, to change things, to not give up on their old friends.
It wasn't so much giving up, as moving on. Something they'd have to do anyway in a matter of weeks. The fact that Kari was thinking of contacting 02 showed that she wasn't thinking like her days were numbered yet another reminder to TK that it made perfect sense for her to have not taken the pill.
"TK," Kari said snapping a finger in front of the boy's face to draw his attention back to the present. "You better keep walking, or you'll get trampled in these hallways."
Tai did his best to shove six textbooks into his pint sized backpack, but every way of organization he tried ended with him carrying some of them which he normally wouldn't mind doing if it weren't for the three binders and a folder occupying his hands.
By some miracle, six of the textbooks were in the bag, and he watched the last with a look of indifference.
'I am already failing Home Ec.,' he thought before abandoning the textbook on his desk. He hauled the backpack over one shoulder and then the other, barely remembered to stick a pencil behind his ear, gathered all of his binders and lifted one foot in the air towards the door before an earsplitting noise coming from his pocket caused him to drop everything. Literally.
Chickity China the Chinese chicken
You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin'
Watchin' X-Files with no lights on
We're dans la mai-
He growled in frustration before whipping the cellular device to his ear without even bothering to check the caller ID. "What?"
There was a short pause on the other line before an uncertain Izzy could be heard. "Tai? I need you to do something…"
The brunette looked around at his scattered supplies. 'I really dropped everything for him?'
He took a seat in the middle of the mess while holding the phone between his shoulder and ear. His words came out just as harsh as intended. "Whadda do you want?"
The genius's voice sounded business-like and professional, but Tai could tell he hadn't appreciated the greeting. It almost made the leader feel bad… almost.
"I called to request your assistance with the Digital World. TK went there yesterday, and Digimon have been starting fights left and right about nothing, and our partner's are taking the brunt of it. I need you to stop by today and see if you can figure anything out."
Tai took the words in but felt he needed to ask the question that had been pestering him through the whole explanation. "Why me?"
Another pause. He strained his ears just in case Izzy had started saying something.
The redhead finally answered truthfully, "Everyone is busy or… I didn't know who else to call."
Tai nodded not that Izzy could see it. His answer remained cold, but it was an answer none the less
"Fine, I'll head over."
Between a rock and a hard place. That's how most might describe the investigator's current situation, but in an effort not to stand too cliché, Mori liked to think he was stuck between idiocy and fate.
No matter how you looked at it, he was in deep, deep trouble.
The police found out he'd been laid off, so now with no team, no resources, and no credibility, Mori was positively and utterly stuck. It was hopeless; there was nothing he could do to continue his case.
But then, from where he sat with his head down on the kitchen table lacking the motivation to even raise it, he watched his son Mikey innocently building miscolored Leggo blocks into what Mori thought was a watering can but Mikey knew was a space ship.
The sight almost brought a smile to the defeated man's face. There was still his son, still his wife too, to think about.
A sigh escaped the investigator as he rolled his head in the other direction. He knew all along, but it had just returned to the forefront of his mind: They were his reason for completing this case, and he would… no matter what it takes.
The youngest Kamiya scratched the side of her head thoughtfully as she looked over the guidelines. "So we need information on the definition, history, causes, effects and… a lot of other stuff and to present it in an 'interesting' and 'creative' way."
Davis snorted from his seat at the Kamiya's kitchen table across from TK. "The rest of the class is freshmen; interesting and creative means a power point."
Kari laughed boisterously while TK just smiled half-heartedly. While he found the whole situation extremely uncomfortable, she was taking the opportunity to do anything she could to get close to Davis. She just knew that somewhere inside of him was their old friend.
She placed her elbow on the table while leaning in towards Davis. "So what do you know about amnesia?"
He shrugged, hands flittering the pages of his closed textbook. "Not much, it happens in movies. They'll hit their head and forget who they are."
Kari nodded in a teacher like manner. "Right, amnesia is what you call memory loss, so when someone can't remember something or someone from the past… it's called amnesia. Have you ever forgotten anything important, Davis?"
He looked a tad confused by the suggestive question, but he answered bluntly, "My math homework sometimes, but it's not always an accident."
She forced another giggle and tried again, possibly with even more eerie sweetness, "I mean something really important like… family, friends, events, places, people, adventures."
To her delight, Davis's eyes lit up at the mention of adventure, but they dimmed again once he said, "I'd never forget an adventure! It's too much… of an adventure!"
TK pried his eyes away from the textbook page he'd pretended to be reading to give Kari a suspicious sideways glance. "What are you talking about?"
"The project," she answered innocently, but her sweet smile didn't fool him for a second.
"The project's not about him," TK stated hoping she'd get the message that none of this was about finding the old Davis.
The teenagers spent the next couple of hours working on their project, sometimes feverishly and sometimes absentmindedly. Either way, they got a lot of work done, but TK had spent a majority of the night keeping Kari from mentioning anything about the Digimon to Davis. After the soccer player left, he confronted her.
"Kari," he started shaking his head slowly while packing up his things, "you can't."
She folded her arms knowing exactly what he meant. "And why not?"
"You know why," he reminded gently.
She threw her hands in the air and cried out in frustration, "So what if we only have a few weeks? So what if they don't know who we are? What's wrong with trying? If we succeed, we get to work with them one more time, and if we fail no harm done because they'll just think we're insane and move on! Please, TK, don't you get it? The problems in the Digiworld now, those digimon… this is our last chance to fight alongside 02 and the older kids."
TK froze, two trains of thought going through his head simultaneously.
The first, and he'll admit the more dominant, was honing in on how she said 'our last' implying that she had taken the pill. Of course, she could just be saying that, and it really meant his last…
The second mulled over what she was saying. He was going to miss the other digidestined more than anything (Ignoring that he'd forget them which really only darkens the situation). They had been his friends, his teammates, for years. Maybe they did need one last hurrah, but to recruit the 02 team? Could it even be done?
He shrugged off the last thought. There was no point in not trying.
"Alright," he decided, a huge smile spreading over Kari's face, "we'll recruit 02."
After hours of classes, it was already dark out by the time Tai got his chance. He chucked his stuff down on his bed, whipped out his digivice, and brought up a digi-port on the computer.
By force of habit, he took one last look around the room to make sure no one was watching before holding up the device and bracing himself for what was to come.
Not even a moment passed before he opened his eyes to a barren landscape and a sore shoulder. He stood up wrenching his poor shoulder while getting a better picture of the area Izzy had asked him to enter into.
He stood on the side of a not-so-steep mountain. In all directions there was nothing but dust, dirt, and stone. It felt completely lifeless, and he was surprised that there was actually supposed to be something worth finding here.
Only moments later, he spotted someone well worth the search.
At the bottom of the mountain, Tai could make out the outline of a small dinosaur, and a grin spread past both his cheeks.
He took in a deep breath and placed both hands around his mouth bellowing, "AGUMON!" There was no response, so he came running down the mountain, quickly picking up speed, all the while shouting out his partner's name. When he was only about eight feet away, the digimon heard the call and turned around just to see his partner trip and stumble. With a sly smirk, he finished the accident by going into a barrel roll and jumping onto Agumon, embracing him wholly.
Agumon, muffled by being pressed into Tai's shirt, said, "Thanks, Tai, but I'm kind of sore right now."
Tai's face fell instantly, and he stepped away from his partner all the while keeping a firm hand to his shoulder. "I heard about the fighting. How's it been going?"
The dinosaur digimon didn't meet the human's eyes as he spoke gloomily, "Bad digimon have been coming out of nowhere. They're attacking left and right. Things have been tough… especially without you." He took a step back allowing Tai's hand to fall from his shoulder.
Guilt swept over him instantly, guilt he'd convinced himself wasn't there. He tried to defend himself, "I've been busy; we all have. I promise we'll help you with these Digimon from now on!" He bit his tongue knowing he had just made a promise that couldn't be kept for long.
A new hope twinkled in Agumon's eyes, but they still appeared dull and tired. Tai finally looked his partner up and down.
Agumon was leaning heavily on one side and was covered in bruises and marks that were obviously from the recent fights. Tai even thought he saw a burn mark on the rookie's side.
His chocolate brown eyes looked to Agumon with pure concern, but the digimon merely shrugged it off. Before even giving his partner a chance to speak, Agumon assured, "I'll be fine, Tai. I'm built for this."
The brunette nodded slowly, faking a smile. "I know. Just be careful, alright?"
"I'm always careful!" Agumon protested causing Tai to chuckle.
"SOLAR RAY!" shouted a voice from the distance only mere seconds before Agumon was blown back by a golden beam. He went flying a few yards and landed hard on his back.
"Agumon!" Tai called. All of his old habits coming back to him, he clutched his digivice tightly in his hand and ran over to his fallen partner. On the way he caught sight of the attacker, a centarumon.
"Here, let me help you! You can digivolve to Wargreymon!"
To the human's surprise, Agumon hesitated for a moment. He'd gotten so use to working without Tai's help, that he almost didn't want the cushion just in case it would be pulled out from under him not long after.
"Come on!" There was obvious irritation in Tai's voice that Agumon knew was only concern. Tai's eyes never left the quickly approaching enemy.
The digimon nodded slowly, and Tai held up his digivice.
A few words later, replaced with the small, orange dinosaur was a metal clad monster decked out in armor. Tai couldn't help but grin with pride at the sight. He missed Wargreymon.
The centarumon was picking up speed and seconds away from colliding with Wargreymon.
"Great tornado!" Tai's digimon turned and whirled itself as hard and as fast as digitally possible at centarumon. Needless to say, he went flying but not before getting a good look at Tai.
Looking the digimon in the eye surprised the boy. Normally, digimon would totally ignore him when immersed in a fight, but this one focused on him on its entire trip back and into a large rock positioned on the side of the mountain.
Good thing he wears a helmet. Centarumon was down for less than a second before shooting right up and attacking with another solar ray.
Wargreymon braced himself, ready to dodge before realizing the attack wasn't headed for him at all.
Tai stood stiff. Every instinct he had told him to move, but his shock and fear paralyzed him long enough for the attack to get close.
Wargreymon came diving in, shoving his partner out of the way but not without getting hit himself dead on. The digimon cried out in pain then wordlessly scooped up his partner and flew over the mountain to a crevice out of sight.
Tai was breathing hard; Wargreymon was breathing harder. The human forgot his panic for a moment to focus on his partner. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," came the gruff voice, "just tired. This fight is not what I need right now. Here, stay here, and I'll go finish him off." And with that, Wargreymon flew out leaving Tai to wait.
It didn't make any sense that a digimon would go for him. Sure, it had happened before, but that was because they were specifically out to get the digidestined… which couldn't be the case here because the digimon didn't care about them anymore. They already saved the world; they weren't needed, weren't wanted.
And yet there was centarumon thinking the puny human was a more valuable target than a mega. There had to be a reason.
Tai dared to peak out of the crevice where he saw no signs of Wargreymon yet. He sighed and went back to sitting and twiddling his thumbs, shaken and confused.
TK's situation, my friends, with Kari and the pill is what we like to call dramatic irony. Who knew I could take something from English class and apply it to my writing!
Thanks for reading! :)