Summary: Confusion and misunderstandings abound when Daisuke gets split into two people while leaving the Digital World. Nobody can quite figure out why he suddenly starts acting so strangely ... well, even stranger than Daisuke normally is! Rated PG-13 for a bit of shounen-ai.
Authors' Notes: This story represents a bit of a change for us, since we're posting the chapters pretty much as soon as we write them. That means if you review the story quickly enough, you may even be able to influence the plot! Just be aware that we plan on no-one knowing there are two Daisukes until chapter 4.
Standard Disclaimer
Patamon Can I do it, please?
Bradmon Uh, you got to do it the last time.
Patamon All right, I'll let someone else do
it.
V-mon Can I? Can I? Can I?
Cyan Sure ... you don't mind, do you, Cantomon?
Cantomon No, not really.
V-mon Great! OK, Bradmon and Cyan ...
Daisuke V-mon, you should evolve first.
V-mon Why?
Iori Well, you're pretty small, and big people and lawyers usually don't believe little blue digimon. But as XV-mon your words will carry a bit more weight.
V-mon Oh. OK. V-mon, evolve to -
XV-mon - XV-mon! All right, here goes! Bradmon and Cyan do not own Digimon; Toei Entertainment does.
Hawkmon Not bad, but not really correct, either.
XV-mon What?
Hawkmon Well, Toei Entertainment has the rights to produce and distribute an animated television series based on the Digimon characters, but they are not the actual copyright holder.
Tailmon They don't? Then who does own us?
Hawkmon I'm getting to that. You see, there are other parts to the Digimon enterprise as well. Another company called Bandai has a license to produce Digimon merchandise, including games, books, electronic toys, and plushies.
Armadimon I wish he'd hurry up.
Hawkmon The actual copyright on the Digimon characters is held by Akiyoshi Hongo.
Cyan Care to take another stab at it, XV-mon?
XV-mon Sure. Cyan and Bradmon do not own Digimon, Akiyoshi Hongo does. (Looks at Hawkmon) How's that?
Hawkmon Good.
XV-mon reverts to V-mon
V-mon How'd I do, Daisuke?
Davis (hugs V-mon) You were great, little guy!
Bradmon Thanks, guys!
Miyako OK, now that that's over with, can we get on with the story?
Chapter One
Raining Cats and Dogs
And just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, they suddenly do.
Motomiya Daisuke's day had begun badly enough. The morning before he had angrily smacked his alarm clock into silence after it had rudely awakened him from an oh-so-pleasant dream involving himself, Hikari, a grassy field in a shopping mall somewhere in the Digital World, and two strawberry milkshakes. He had forgotten to unsmack it afterwards, so it had sulkily refused to ring for him the next morning. As a result he was late again for school. He had been unable to come up with an excuse more original than, "I slept late."
Not even Hikari believed that one.
Now they were in the Digital World, and it seemed Daisuke's bad luck had followed them there. No sooner had they completed the journey through the digiport than they were beset by a mob of Dark Tower Veggiemon. A few quick evolutions had taken care of them, but the fight left their digimon tired.
And so it was that after walking through a forest, a desert, and now into grassland that the weather started turning bad. Great black ominous clouds were appearing on the horizon north of them, while even bigger, blacker, and more ominous clouds were appearing on the horizon south of them. But that didn't worry them as much as the very big, very black, and incredibly ominous clouds that were rushing toward them from the west.
The east was clear. So they ran that way.
"You know," said Iori, "I sure hope we don't get any black clouds appearing in this direction. It takes so long to iron the wrinkles out of this shirt if it gets wet."
"The sky looks pretty clear to me," said Ken.
"So you're going to fix it, huh?" asked Iori.
"Not even I could control the weather when I was the Kaizer," shot back Ken. "Just remember I'm on your side, now!"
"Miyako, are you getting a signal from any TV yet?" asked Takeru. "I'd prefer not to get rained on, either."
"Coming up!" said Miyako. "But from the looks of it, it will take us about five minutes to get there."
"Maybe our digimon can take us there!" cried Daisuke. "V-mon, evolve to Lighdramon!"
"Sorry, Daisuke," said the little blue digimon between gasps for breath. "Fighting those Veggimeon and now all this running has left me pooped! I couldn't even revert back Chibimon now!"
"And I can't evolve either!" said Patamon.
"Even if you could, I would prefer you got off my hat before doing so," said Takeru. "As Angemon you're not exactly light!"
"So let's keep going," said Hikari.
They ran on, hoping the big black, ominous clouds from the west would not overtake then, and that the big, black, ominous clouds from the north and south would just mind their own business and not bother going to visit the clouds from the west.
"Almost there!" cried Miyako.
BOOM! The thunderclap was so loud all the kids jumped, then dove for the ground. Looking up after a few seconds, they saw the clouds from the west were no longer in the west, but now directly overhead, and it looked like the clouds from the south had come along for the show. Little splats of water now patted to ground around them.
"Here it comes," said Cyan. "I think we're going to get a little wet."
[At this point is is necessary to digress somewhat from our story line to explain just who this Cyan character is. Cyan is none other than the Digimon persona of Cyan, one of the people represented by the fanfic storywriting pair Cyan and Bradmon. Bradmon tried to write him out of this particular fic, but Cyan simply insisted on being included. Besides, he may even be important to the plot. Bradmon doesn't really see how this could be, since the plot concerns Daisuke, and Cyan doesn't like Daisuke all that much.]
Cyan looked up from the ground, wondering where all the narration was coming from.
[Also, and I give you this purely for information purposes, his Digimon is Cantomon, and he looks like a small white cougar with blue stripes. Cantomon, that is. Not Cyan. Cyan looks like a big teenager when he is in the digital world, wears armour, and carries a sword. His digimon's standard evolution path, starting from fresh form, is Callomon, Cazomon, Cantomon, Knightmon, and Paladinmon, with some other side paths for things like armour and jogress evolution.]
"I have this sudden urge to hurt something called Bradmon," Cyan muttered.
Now the dark clouds from the east and the south grinned wildly, and started dumping out vast amounts of water. The rain poured down in bucketfuls, in a great, unfathomable torrential downpour, so much so that even cats and dogs came down with it, meowing and barking as they gently fluttered down through the sheets of water about them. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed about them, and the wind blew with a great force.
High up in the thundercloud, a small hailstone started traveling downward. It caught an updraft, changed directions, and went upward. It gained a little bit in size, and it felt good.
"Mom's going to angry with me now," said Iori. "She'll probably make me iron this shirt this time!"
"If it's so tough to take care of, you do you wear it?" asked Hikari.
"Because it helps keep me dry," said Iori.
Takeru looked at him. "Iori, you get a new set of clothes when you travel here. I don't. So I'll be the one with the wet shirt when we get back."
"Oh," was all Iori said in response.
"Hey, there's one good thing about this," said Daisuke.
"What?" asked Miyako, a little petulantly. She was not enjoying the downpour.
Daisuke grinned broadly through the rain. "I get to see Hikari in a wet t-shirt!"
SPLAT! Daisuke ended up face first on the ground. Looking at Takeru, Cyan said with a shrug, "I couldn't help it."
"Shouldn't we continue looking for a TV?" asked Hikari. "If it starts to hail, I'd much rather not be here."
"It should be pretty close," Miyako replied. She took out her digivice and started working it again, even as little chunks of white ice began pelting down through the rain.
The little hailstone in the thundercloud came into contact with two more on its downward course, and they merged together. That felt good, too. The now much larger chunk shuddered into another updraft, slowed to a stop, and started upward again. The large hailstone felt really quite happy now, and prepared itself for its eventual journey to the earth.
"Ow!" cried Daisuke as a small hailstone ploinked off his head. "That hurt!"
"We'd better get out of the open!" said Cyan. "If these hailstones get much bigger we'll get mashed into a pulp!"
"We're in luck!" said Hikari. "I can just make out the outline of a small building over there!" She pointed to the outline of a small building barely visible through the downpour.
The children and their digimon made a dash for the shed. Fortunately for them it was unlocked: apparently the digimon have not heard of locks, so the Digidestined can get into any building they want to. The shack was made of metal, so inside it was noisy from the hail clattering off the roof.
The hailstones got larger: pea sized, then slightly bigger than pea-sized, then slightly smaller than golf ball sized, then golf ball sized, then slightly larger than golf ball sized, then another size that is a bit larger than "slightly larger than golf ball sized" but smaller than "just smaller than baseball sized" but for which there is no common spherical object in Japan to describe it with. Fortunately the hail stopped getting larger at this point, otherwise it would have pummeled everything into the ground, even the building the digidestined took shelter in, and this story would be a lot shorter than it is.
By now our hailstone high up in the cloud had reached a size even larger than the just smaller than baseball size we just mentioned, and it felt simply wonderful. Down it went again, and this time plowing breezily through the updraft and joyfully plummeting to the earth.
At ground level the rain still poured down and the wind blew, and the hailstones made an unbelievable racket as they banged and plonked off of the metal roof of the house. Many of them hit the cats and dogs that were still coming down with the rain outside, and they yelped as the ice struck them.
"The good thing is," yelled Daisuke over the roar of the wind and the banging of hailstones, "that it probably can't get much worse!"
"Excuse me," called Hawkmon in as polite and proper a yell as he could manage, "but I think perhaps you should take a look to the west. There is something there that appears to be even more black and ominous than the black and omnious clouds!"
They ran to a window at the back of the warehouse and looked out. An evil, dark, swirling thing could be seen twisting and writhing its way across the plain.
"Augh!" cried Takeru. "It's a cyclone!"
"No, a tornado!" yelled Miyako over the din. "A cyclone is a large circular weather system that generates high winds and rain, while a tornado is -"
"SHUT UP!" said Takeru, Cyan, and Iori at the same time.
The Great Hailstone merrily continued its downward journey, looking forward with great anticipation to its meeting with the ground.
"I don't know about you ..." Iori began, but he couldn't make his sweet little voice be heard because of all the noise.
"I don't know about you!" yelled Daisuke, repeating Iori's words without even knowing he had done so, "but it looks like that thing's headed our way! I think we'd better find that TV set, and fast!"
"Got it!" Hikari cried, looking up from her pink D-3. "It's pretty close, too! This way!"
BOOM! Lightning flashed very close by and sharp a crash of thunder blasted about them. The kids ran out of the barn ahead of the approaching tornado, taking care not to step on the sodden cats and dogs whimpering about their feet. Through the dark haze about them they could make out the faint glow of a forlorn TV set sitting on a wooden table set amongst a clump of bushes. The odd hailstone rapped down upon it, threatening to shatter either the case or the screen. The children pulled out their D-3s and activated them as they approached.
"Digiport open!" Miyako shrieked. The brightness on the screen began ramping up.
And just as they started going through, the Great Hailstone From The Western Storm completed its heroic plunge from the stratosphere and joyously smashed full force onto the TV set. It happily carried on through the casing, through the picture tube, through the delicate circuit board beneath, and then ecstatically blew itself to tiny bits on the wooden table. Rain poured into the gaping jagged hole left behind. Water met electricity. There was a loud zap and a huge shower of sparks.
The kids were hurled through the computer screen at the other end, landing in a heap against the far wall. Unscrambling themselves, they looked around, making puddles on the floor as water dripped from their clothing and hair.
"Hey, where's Ken?" asked Hikari.
"Maybe he didn't make it through," said Iori. "Did you hear anything funny as we came through the digiport?"
"Yes," said Tailmon. "There was a really loud noise like thunder."
"No, harder than that," said Patamon. "Like something hit the TV set."
"Oh no!" Miyako shrieked. "I've lost Ken! How will I be able to live?"
"The same way you lived before you met him!" said Hikari. "But let's see if we can find him on the computer. He's easier to trace now that he's on our side."
Takeru went back to the computer and started the tracking program. Miyako calmed down enough to come over and watch. "Oh, there he is," she said, her voice one big sigh of relief.
Iori squinted at the screen. "Looks like two people there. Who's that with him?"
"I don't know," Takeru replied. "Probably Wormmon."
"Wormmon?" asked Cyan. "Our digimon usually don't show up on the display."
"Perhaps Ken's D-3 works differently. Or maybe it's just an echo of some sort."
"Will he be able to make it back?" asked Daisuke. "Ken and I have something planned this evening."
"Like what?" asked Miyako with an edge to her voice that could have sliced tissue paper.
"Uh, he was going to help me with some homework. Then we were going to watch a couple of movies. We even planned to stay all night!"
"What?!" exclaimed Miyako. "Just what are you and Ken planning to do together all night?"
"Hey, it's not what you're thinking! I'm not interested in him - uh - well - I like him as a friend and not just as a member of our group" - he shot a glance at Iori - "but I'm not interested in him in that way and you can chase him for that if you want to because I don't really want to if you know what I mean and besides as TK can tell you I've been trying to get Hikari out on a date with me for since ever and -"
Miyako's and Hikari's laughter finally drowned out Daisuke's frantic ramblings, and Takeru and even Iori joined in. Takeru was laughing so hard he didn't even notice Daisuke had said his name correctly. Cyan missed it, too.
"I'm afraid you'll have to cancel the sleepover," said Miyako. "I can see him heading for another TV set, but it could be as long as an hour before he gets there. He'll be all right: he can work a digiport even faster than I can."
"Oh well," said Daisuke, a slight downcast tone in his voice. "It doesn't really matter. And I think the rain and whatever happened when we came back have affected me, because I'm not feeling very well, and would be better off going back home, getting dry, then getting some rest. Perhaps Ken can help me with my homework tomorrow night."
"And I'm getting cold." said Takeru. "I want to go home and get out of these wet clothes."
"Sounds like a good idea, TK," said Daisuke.
Again, neither Takeru nor Cyan noticed Daisuke had said Takeru's name correctly twice in a row, and that was awfully close to his record of three.
They left the computer lab and headed for home, discussing what stories they should tell for getting completely soaked on a beautiful sunny day.
Splish splish splish splish splash meow.
"Sorry, cat."
Splish-splash splish-splash splish splish splish-splash woof.
"Go away, dog."
Splish/splish-splash/splash splish/splash-splish/splash splash/splish-splash/splish splish/splash-splash/splish mew..
"Shut up, cat."
Splishsplashsplishsplashsplishsplashsplishsplash woof zwoop "Yaugh!" splash "GET LOST YOU STUPID DOG!"
"Daisuke, calm down." Ken extended a hand to Daisuke laying down in the mud, who had averted his eyes from the sidewalk they were on for just a moment and tripped over a wet dog. "Here, I'll help you up."
"Thanks, but I think I can manage." Daisuke scrambled to his feet. "Luckily I won't be wearing these when I get back to the real world. I just hope they're clean when I return. There aren't exactly a lot of laundromats in the Digital World!"
"They will be clean," said Ken. "Just watch your step, the cats and dogs are still pretty thick on the ground here."
"How long before we get to that TV set?"
"I estimate about twenty minutes. From the looks of the terrain as it appears on my D-3, we're almost out of this area. After that it should be easier walking: we shouldn't have to keep our eyes on the ground as much."
"Okay. Thanks. Let's go."
Daisuke, Ken, V-mon, and Wormmon started walking again down the long concrete sidewalk. The wildlife that had come down with the rain appeared to have migrated to it, for it was the driest place around. The ground on either side had been horribly churned up by the tornado, and was incredibly muddy. So the two boys had to keep a close eye on the sidewalk to avoid treading on cats and dogs laying there, drying themselves off in the brilliant sunshine. Some of the drier ones were actually quite friendly. Three dogs and two cats were now following them.
By and by the churned up ground became less and less churned up and more and more grassland again, so the sidewalk was clearer of half dried animals. The sidewalk itself carried merrily along over hills and through dales and hollows. Water had collected in some of the dips, and a couple of times Ken and Daisuke had to remove their footwear and wade through pools that came halfway up to their knees. Two more dogs and another cat had joined them by now: the dogs and V-mon swam across, while Daisuke carried two of the cats, and Ken carried one and Wormmon.
"I hope we don't get many more cats in this little party," said Ken. "If we have to wade through another of these small lakes we won't have enough arms to carry them."
"We can leave them. We'll have to, in fact. There's no way we can take all of these back with us."
"You're right. The television set is only five minutes away."
"Good. We still on for tonight?"
"Yes. I see no reason for a near disaster in the Digital World to change our plans. Have you figured out yet which movie you're going to rent? I'm getting Remains of the Day."
"What?" asked a very puzzled Daisuke.
"Remains of the Day," Ken repeated. "It's a period piece based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro about a butler in England who's completely dedicated to his work. It has received many very good reviews. What were you planning to get?"
"Gojira vs. the Smog Monster."
Ken groaned. "I expected you would get something silly like that," he said. Godzilla movies definitely were not his thing.
They walked on. Still more cats and dogs joined them. By now they were coming in great numbers, streaming toward them like seagulls to a garbage dump. The cats, not really a herd animal, came along in a large, loose group with the boys at the centre, while the dogs merrily ran through them, jumping and leaping happily. By the time Ken and Daisuke got to the TV, no less than five hundred assorted canines and felines were with them.
Ken's D-3 worked flawlessly. He, Daisuke, Wormmon and V-mon went into the TV, transversed the divide between the Digital World and the real, and came out in Ken's bedroom just as he had intended them to, all standing neatly side by side instead of in an undignified and embarrassing heap on the floor.
As for the great assemblage of cats and dogs so suddenly left behind, they were amazed and perplexed by the disappearance of their gods. But quickly word spread through the crowd that they would be back again in a fierce storm and two tornadoes, and they decided to wait for them there. Unfortunately, the Digidestined never used that TV again, so the wait was a long one. Eventually the dogs set up a commune around the venerated TV set, while the cats split off singly or in groups of two or three, and dotted the hills about with small stone huts where they passed the days in quiet contemplation on these marvellous things while sunning themselves on the roofs.
Narrator: Will Cyan do hurtful things to Bradmon? Will Ken actually enjoy Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster? Will Iori have to iron his shirt? Find out in the next chapter of Dual Daisuke!
Iori: Acutally, even if you do read the next chapter, you probably
won't find the answers to those questions ...
