I got reviews? …lol. Amazing o_O
Thanks to all the feedback, I'm motivated to put OFF my history essay worth 20% of my final mark aaaaand work on this. Thanks to you guys. You're great, I love you. =D
Disclaimer: Maybe if I convinced my parents to buy some stock, I could own 0.0000013% of Digimon. As it stands right now however, what I own of Digimon sort of approaches 0%. Comprende?
To Redeem Oneself
Chapter 1: All the Difference
"TAKATO MATSUKI! GET UP THIS INSTANT!"
As he groggily lifted his head up from his table, Takato thought to himself, This is most definitely NOT a good way to wake up in the morning. Blinking a few times to clear his vision and reaching over to turn off his desk lamp, Takato stood back and stretched, yawning for all he was worth. Immediately afterwards he slumped forward in his chair, scratching his back, mumbling about 'another absolutely wonderful day at school'.
His mother poked her head into his room this time, intent on making sure that boy was not late again: "Takato! Hurry up or you'll be late for school again!"
Quite annoyed with his mother's actions, Takato turned his head to the side and with a death glare the likes of which had never graced his face before, retorted: "Why the hell should I go? It's not like it'll get me anywhere anyways!"
His mother, shocked beyond belief hearing such words from her 'little boy', stuttered, as if unable to find the right words, then closed the door behind her and left.
Takato blinked. He had just surprised himself with the words coming from his own mouth; it was like his mouth was working independently of his brain. Even so, it was strange, because what he had said… felt sort of good.
So engrossed in his thinking was Takato that as he changed he didn't notice the black mark across his chest, like some tattoo, except glowing with the slightest glimmer of red.
-----
Mie Matsuki literally collapsed, the wall the only thing keeping her from sagging to the floor. Breathing heavily, she thought back to what Takato had said to her. It just… didn't seem right! Takato had never talked back to her, and had never even sworn before!
Struggling to stand, she could only accept the fact that her little boy had started growing up. However, when he had turned his head, she could've sworn that she saw the tiniest flash of crimson in his eyes…
-----
Takato trudged to school with much on his mind. He had had the strangest dream last night. Of course, he had weird dreams every night, but this one was different… this one seemed too…… realistic. He recounted the events in his head:
Takato looked around. He seemed to be in a forest; experience told him it was one of the more remote areas of the West Shinjuku park. He looked around, confused as to his purpose there, before shouts of 'Thermal Mane!' and 'Diamond Storm!' caught his attention. Following the flashes of light, he entered a small clearing where a Lynxmon was battling a Renamon seemingly under the control of a violet-eyed orange-haired girl wearing her hair in a spiked ponytail.
He watched as the battle raged on, with the Renamon seemingly losing despite the girl's best efforts. In the end, a battered Renamon was driven into the ground, with the Lynxmon standing wounded but proud, claws outstretched, eyes seemingly focused not on the helpless digimon before her but rather the human beyond. With a snarl, the Lynxmon leapt over the Renamon, who could only give a weak cry and watch as the Lynxmon's claws drew every closer to the girl's throat.
With a shout of indignation, Takato leapt from the bushes without knowing what spurred him forward. Seemingly motivated by some innate desire not to see the girl hurt, he interposed himself between the girl and the Lynxmon with surprising speed, and threw a punch towards the Armour digimon. All present at the scene were surprised when the Lynxmon was thrown back with such force bits of data started streaming from its jaw. As it landed on its feet, Takato deigned to give it time to recover, instead forming a small fireball between his hands. As the Lynxmon's eyes widened, Takato thrust his arms forward, and with a desperate cry, called upon words that had seemingly formed in his mind:
CHAOS FLARE!
The dream had ended there. He had never met that girl before, but now that his curiosity had been piqued, he was determined to set out after school to see if he could find out who that girl was. Unfortunately, his train of thought was interrupted when the ringing of the school bell entered his ears. Cursing, he dashed the last few meters towards the entrance, literally flew up the stairs, and threw open the door with such force it left a mark on the wall where the handle had slammed against it.
-----
Rika Nonaka came to slowly, also awakened through a mother's incessant shouting. Similarly cursing to herself, she decided to shove the events of last night to the back of her mind while she got dressed. Pulling on that ever-hated drab gray school uniform, she stepped out onto her porch to take a breath of fresh air before heading back inside for breakfast.
"Ah, Rika! How nice of you to join us for breakfast!" Rika's grandmother, the ever patient and ever helpful one, set a plate of steaming hot food at Rika's usual spot at the table. Rika's mother was glancing over the morning's newspaper, and she cheerfully nodded to her daughter before going back to perusing the headlines.
"Rika, I was just wondering… you see, there's this blah blah blah yak yak yak -"
Rika always tuned out her mother if she started any sentence with "Rika, I was just wondering" or "Rika, I thought you might enjoy". Besides, she had more important things to think about – like the boy who had saved her last night. Of course, she was far too proud to admit that boy had saved her – he had merely sped up the Lynxmon's death. But besides that, there were several things about the boy that were just plain weird. For one, he had been a pale ghostly white colour, almost translucent, like a ghost. He had also managed to throw a champion back with a single punch; meaning, of course, he was probably a champion level digimon himself. The kicker had been the Chaos Flare attack – out of all the cards she had ever seen or owned, Demon was the only digimon to possess a Chaos Flare attack, and yet from her own experiences she also knew that a Demon looked far different from that almost frail-looking boy. Further disturbing was the fact that the boy had vanished right after he had launched his attack and right before the Lynxmon was deleted – Rika had been quick to order Renamon to absorb its data, something the boy had forgotten to do. Oh well, it was his loss anyhow. Still, something about that boy was off…
"… so what do you think, Rika?"
Rika, who hadn't even been listening, knew what her mother was asking her to do anyway, and with a resentful "no", she finished her breakfast, picked up her bag, and headed for the door. She would consider that strange boy later. She laughed to herself at the thought of what her classmates would think if they knew she had spent more than 10 seconds thinking about a boy. Then again, all of her classmates were just shallow airheads. Still, she berated herself for wasting so much of her precious time on such an insignificant thing and resolved not to spend any more time thinking about him.
Throughout the day, however, she could not help but let her mind wander back to that eerie boy and his well-timed intervention.
-----
"Jeri Katou?"
"Here!"
"Kenta Kitagawa?"
"Present."
Ms. Asaji looked at one specific seat in the classroom. Just as she had expected, Takato Matsuki wasn't there. Sighing, she was about to skip to the next name, when leisurely strolling into the classroom as if taking his sweet time was the one and only Takato Matsuki. Setting her clipboard down, Ms. Asaji cleared her throat. Either Takato didn't hear or didn't care; he simply put his bag down, sat down on his chair, and propped his legs up on the table. Ms. Asaji raised an eyebrow at that action.
"Takato Matsuki?"
Takato merely looked away.
"Takato, don't you dare ignore your teacher! You've been late again for the -"
She was silenced by a glare. Startled by this new change in Takato, she was left without words for a moment. This was when Takato struck back with:
"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"
Now visibly shaken, Ms. Asaji could only say, "Ta-Takato M-Matsuki, s-see me after class to-to-today…"
With a nonchalant smirk, Takato simply retorted with a "Yeah, sure, whatever" before taking his legs off the table and going to sleep on his desk.
Ms. Asaji shook her head, muttering to herself, before continuing with the roll call.
-----
Jeri poked her head into the classroom, not really expecting to see anyone but Takato. He was the only one there, sitting at his desk, completely engrossed in whatever he seemed to be doodling on a piece of notebook paper. Despite what he had done earlier that day, he seemed to be enjoying himself, allowing himself a small smile to develop as his hand gracefully sketched the curves and lines of what looked from that distance to be some sort of red dinosaur. Smiling to herself, she took her hand puppet out of her bag, slipping it onto her hand, before skipping into the room and heading down the aisle for Takato.
-----
Rock Smasher? Rock Cracker? Hum…
Busy pondering attacks for his little 'creation', Takato looked up, as if searching the classroom for inspiration, but as he did, he came eye to eye with Jeri, who had reached his table by that time. Caught slightly off guard, he eyed her warily, as if she were a counselor.
"Ruff! Ruff! Jeri wants to know how you're doing!"
Groaning as he set down his pencil crayon, Takato thought to himself, Damn that annoying sock puppet… somebody needs to burn it. Quickly shaking the darker thoughts out of his head, he fixated Jeri with an apathetic expression, and replied, "Why the hell would you care?"
"Ru… Ruff? Say… what?" Jeri sort of stood there with her mouth open, brain so numb that she even forgot to 'talk' with her sock puppet.
Developing a severely malicious grin, Takato asked again, "Do you not get it, you air headed bitch, or do I need to speak in 3rd person too?"
On the verge of tears, Jeri lowered her sock puppet hand, sniffled, and managed to sob out an "I'm… sorry…" before turning tail and running out of the room as fast as her legs could carry her.
Takato watched her retreating figure until she left the classroom, before giving himself an indifferent shrug and going back to developing his dream partner digimon.
-----
Takato sighed as he shut the door behind him, doing his best to shut out the strains of his mother's yelling that was still seeping in through the bottom. It had been a very confusing day for him; the last thing he needed was an agitated mother to drive him up the wall for coming home at 'such a late hour'. It wasn't like what he did with his own time was her business; after all, he had only been searching for that orange-haired girl (with no luck, unfortunately). Dumping his bag on his already messy floor, he plopped into his seat, and with a yawn, retrieved the picture he had been working on that day in school from his pocket. He allowed himself a small smile as he fingered his drawing. He had designed his Guilmon to be slightly more powerful than the average rookie; this, of course, meant that its other forms would most likely be more powerful than others of the same stage. Setting it down, he bent over to retrieve a tin can out of his bag, one that held some of his most prized possessions: his digimon cards. He always kept them with him now; he didn't know why, but he always felt safer when he had them on hand.
Reaching for his card reader, he allowed himself a small gasp of shock when the small device shook violently at the touch. Emitting a high-pitched whine, white light poured from the body of the card reader. Withdrawing his hand with due haste, he stared at the object until the light eventually died down. It had been transformed somehow; instead of the toy card reader that had once been present, in its place now was some sort of new device. It was a solid red with black highlights; the colour scheme initially reminded him of Guilmon, the digimon he had created with a similar skin colour. Pushing that thought out of his head, he examined it closely, and noticed it had some sort of slot that seemed to match the one his card reader had. An idea quickly formed in his mind.
He would later admit to not knowing what compelled him to slash his picture of Guilmon through his new 'card reader'. It might have been that part of him had foolishly hoped with whatever little naïveté he had left that the picture might turn into a living, breathing Guilmon. Perhaps he had expected that the object he held in his hand was a new type of digivice and that he had already been chosen to become a digidestined. Whatever the reason, when he slashed his picture through his card reader, it seemed to turn itself on, its dim gray screen becoming instead some sort of radar, with a small red blip first flashing in and out rapidly and then slowly turning into a solid red light.
Takato stared at his screen in sheer disbelief, seemingly mimicking the actions of the people who had the misfortune to run into him earlier that day. Suddenly snapping to attention when he realized the implications of what had just transpired, he this time allowed himself a large smile – though more a smirk than a smile. Strolling over to his window, he heaved it open with a solid push, leapt over the side, and down to the ground below. He landed on his feet, and, not even pausing for a moment to catch his breath, sped off noiselessly into the night.
-----
"Yamaki, we've got something!"
Mitsuo Yamaki was snapped out of his reverie. Clicking the lid of his lighter shut one last time, he turned around and walked towards the dome that housed Hypnos' tracking system. Casually leaning over the rail, he asked, "What is it?"
"We've got what looks to be a Wild One coming in fast. Its power levels are amazing - I've never seen anything like it!"
After Reika had finished, Megumi continued for her: "It's too fast. It's going to breach!"
Growling, Yamaki could only shoot off a "Where?" as he turned to view the rapidly moving red target travel across the screen towards the green destination marker.
Reika affirmed his worst fears: "Realization in West Shinjuku in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…"
-----
In the middle of a construction site which workers had long abandoned in favour of their comfortable couches, entertaining televisions, and voluptuous wives, a pillar of solid red light streaked towards the sky, followed by a heavy fog seemingly generated at the base of aforementioned pillar that spread out rapidly in a concentric pattern.
-----
A rapidly advancing fog confirmed Takato's hunch: whatever that red dot on his digivice (as he liked to think of it) was, it was probably located where the construction site was. Scaling the fence with relative ease, he set off towards where the fog seemed heaviest.
Ducking below some girders, he entered a small part of the site where the foundation was just being built. Noting that the fog had mostly cleared off now, he headed towards where it was still most condensed. Stepping forward, he realized he had just walked into a large pipe-like structure, where there was no fog and light from nearby street lamps was cast onto the floor from several holes in the top. As he took in his immediate surroundings, he became aware of a red dinosaur-like digimon with its back to him. He started to take another step forward, but was startled when the digimon reared its head back, then let loose a shout of "Pyro Sphere" alongside a large red fireball. The attack struck home, nailing two unfortunate rodents who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The digimon then turned around to face Takato. Though somewhat shocked at what his slashing of a picture had done, he maintained his poker face. The digimon's eyes seemed to dilate rapidly – a clear signal that he was a virus. They stood there in mutual silence for quite a while, before Takato decided to venture forth with a "Guilmon."
Its eyes still dilated into its viral form, the Guilmon uttered a low growl, before snarling "Takatomon" in return.
Then, Takato turned around, and with his hands in his pockets, proceeded to walk away, seemingly expecting the digimon to follow. And follow he did, as Guilmon proceeded wordlessly to catch up with Takato, then continued to walk beside his partner as if all was right with the world.
-----
As he reached his home, Takato was now faced with two major problems: first off, where to keep Guilmon, and second off, how to get back home. Having left his home in haste, he had neglected to consider how he would go home. He rounded his house into the alley, where he spotted a large cardboard box among several others that his family's bakery had recycled that day. Grabbing the largest one, he turned around, and handed it to Guilmon. Seemingly reading his partner's thoughts, Guilmon accepted the box before turning it over and placing it on his head. He then walked, box and all, back into the alley, where he sat down and began to rest.
Having solved one problem, Takato exited the alley and traveled over to the main entrance of the bakery once more. Considering how to climb in, he looked over the front of the building. Inspecting the brick wall closely, he noticed several dents in the bricks. Smirking to himself at his good fortune, he secured his hand around one of the bricks, placed his foot on another, and started climbing.
Of course, his progress was eventually impeded by a lack of suitable places to step on. Noting that the tops of his hands were still a good half-meter from the ledge of his window, he decided to jump. Summoning all the power he had, he coiled his body up, muscles tensing, then leapt with as much might as he could muster, hands outstretched and reaching for the window.
Funnily enough, he seemed to have used too much power, as his head struck the ledge with such force that it broke clean off. The two wooden ends separated from the wall and fell to the street below, echoing along the sidewalk with a loud clatter. All the while, Takato, despite his concussion-like injury, managed to grab onto the sides of the window, and proceeded to perform a little flip into his room an Olympic gymnast would have been proud of.
Congratulating himself on a job while done, he brushed the wood shards off his shirt, before starting to change into pajamas for the night. His door had been locked, so his parents probably didn't know he was out. Whatever they didn't know wouldn't hurt them anyway.
Settling in for the night, he smirked at the thought of having attained a digimon partner. Maybe now he could fulfill his dreams of becoming a digidestined. Hopefully there would be no others to ruin his quest to become the most powerful digidestined in his world. He laughed at the thought of deleting the other digidestined's digimon and absorbing their data in front of their human counterparts.
All the while, the digital hazard on his chest shone with a dim, though still unnatural red light.
-----
The next morning, Takato woke up without any prompting. Sitting up and yawning, he felt refreshed and completely rested for once. Glancing over to the clock, he noticed that it was only 7:30 AM. Wondering why he had woken up so early and why he wasn't as fatigued as he used to be, he decided to take any extra time he received to look for that red-headed girl he had 'met' earlier. Hopping out of bed with unheard-of enthusiasm (for anyone waking up at 7:30 AM anyways) he dressed rather quickly, not wanting to waste any time, once again missing the symbol on his chest. Gathering his notebooks, pencil crayons, sketchpads, and the various other materials he would need to pass his time at school, he stuffed them all into his backpack before flinging it over his right shoulder.
Cracking the door open, the smell of fresh baked bread quickly permeated his senses. Breathing in the fresh smell deeply, he swung open his door and stepped out, straining his ears. He heard tidbits of conversation down in the kitchen, but decided not to linger around eavesdropping, and quickly headed downstairs. Passing by the counter, he reached for a small pastry slathered with gratuitous amounts of butter. Continuing on his path, he stopped before he left, then turned around and reached for a large loaf of bread. Returning now to his original heading, he exited the door.
The ding of the door chime alerted Mie Matsuki from her dialogue with her husband about their son. Rushing towards the counter (not really expecting any customers at this time of day), she only caught site of a backpack and a tuft of brown hair – it was gone immediately thereafter. Allowing the implications of that sighting to sink into her head, she stood there for a moment as her husband set down his bread to come forward, before dashing out the open door. Taking in all the surroundings, she couldn't spot her son anywhere. Upon reentering the bakery, her husband gave her a look that suggested 'are you feeling all right?'
Ignoring that, she walked up the stairs. Noting the open door to Takato's bedroom, she walked over shakily, before almost jumping inside, taking in the neatly made bed, well organized room, and missing backpack.
She simply couldn't decide if this 'new' Takato was for better or for worse.
----
Entering the narrow alley again, Takato noticed the box was still where he had left it yesterday night. Heading over, he gave it a light kick, and waited expectantly. A few seconds passed before Takato gave it another kick, this time slightly harder than the last. Finally, Guilmon poked his head through the top, blinking rapidly, as he was still sleepy. Eyes rapidly dilating in the presence of his partner, he easily shrugged the cardboard box off, nearly destroying the flimsy material in the process, before turning to his tamer as if awaiting an order.
Handing the loaf of bread to his partner, Takato turned around and started off, intent on finding that girl he had saved. As for Guilmon, he wordlessly accepted the bread, and started off behind Takato, devouring his food slowly as his kept his eyes on his tamer.
-----
Passing by the park, Takato was instantly struck with an idea of where to keep his digimon partner. Entering, he headed directly for the place where he had often played digimon with the two stooges, Kazu and Kenta. Passing by a small hill, he proceeded towards the small concrete enclosure half-hidden by the thick foliage and luscious ferns that were common to the area. Walking up the semi-concealed staircase, he swung open the small metal gate, and stepped inside, Guilmon still behind him. Turning his head around, he noticed his partner had just finished off his loaf of bread. With a command of 'Stay here, Guilmon', as if ordering a dog to heel, Takato turned and left quickly, not wanting to waste any more time that he could be using to find that other girl with a partner digimon. Staring at the retreating form of his tamer, Guilmon's eyes returned to their normal form as the Takato walked further away, but he still seemed to maintain his air of professionalism (of sorts) as he started forward. Though Takato had ordered him not to do so, he was keen on leaving to follow his tamer; after all, Takato was his partner. He sat down, bent on attempting to resist the temptation of following Takato, but decided against him. Looking around for something to do, he noticed that the hut he was in was rather cramped… it could be dangerous if he were caught inside. So, heading to the back, Guilmon took a look at the cement, readied his claws, and began to dig.
-----
His day at school just as uneventful as his last, Takato headed out of the yard, intent on going to continuing his search for the girl. Heading back to the park, he seemed to notice something in the air. Perhaps it was just him, but… something seemed off. Something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Senses alert, he stopped, scanning the nearby area. Standing very quietly for a few moments, he detected a faint rustle that seemed to stand out among the rest of the park's usual cacophony of birds chirping and leaves rustling amongst the wind. Smirking to himself, he decided to humour the digimon and whoever its tamer was, and mentally kept track of where the noises emanated from behind him.
-----
Rika, already used to her digimon's habits, was not surprised in any way as Renamon phased in behind her.
"Well?"
Renamon spoke. "I sense a digimon near here, but didn't see any digital fields. Perhaps it's another digimon partner."
Rika nodded. "Well, let's go check it out."
Renamon was hesitant to add this, but: "Also… I noticed that strange boy from two nights ago, when we were battling the Lynxmon."
Rika's eyebrow rose at this.
"He was heading in the direction of the digimon I sensed earlier too."
Rika's expression lit up at this. "Then that's two birds with one stone. Lead the way, Renamon."
Nodding, Renamon took off in the direction of the digimon, her tamer jogging behind her.
-----
Having picked up Guilmon and glared at him slightly for cracking the concrete in the hut, he decided to let his digimon off since it would be pretty boring to be stuck in a little hut all day. Still keeping track of the ever approaching digimon, Takato decided to head to the park's playground, where the open area would give Guilmon the advantage as whatever digimon that seemed to be following them had a habit of darting from tree to tree.
Entering the playground, he noticed it was vacant. Excellent, he thought to himself. Walking to the center of the park, he stood there as Guilmon obediently stayed behind him. They stood still in the clearing for a few moments.
Then, Takato's sense went wild like they never had before. All time seemed to slow down as he felt, no knew what was going to happen next. Whirling around, he ordered: "Guilmon! Pyro Sphere! NOW!"
Imitating his tamer's actions, Guilmon spun around on a dime while charging up his fire attack, and unleashed it. It struck something in the chest, something white and yellow as far as Takato could make out. Performing a back flip, it landed on the ground near a tree, slightly burnt, in a crouching position. From behind the tree stepped out –
Takato raised an eyebrow. It was THAT girl!
-----
Rika's eyes narrowed. It was THAT boy.
-----
The Rant Place
I'd rant here, but I already ranted in Yuuhi no Yakusoku, and I'm too lazy to do it here. I will, however, comment on a few things – hopefully I've kept most everyone here (except Takato, obviously) in character… if you spot any OOC errors, tell me please, so I know what I'm doing wrong.
Not much besides that. I'd rant more, but I really wanna play Diablo 2. J
Once again, comments and insults go in the review box below or to sarukada@hotmail.com.