A/N: I realize that my change in age difference is a stray from the canon and has made this story slightly AU. So I have decided to keep the age difference the same as it was in the series. Please ignore the note on the first chapter.
Ai Ishida: I put Catherine there for a minor reason; she might pop up from time to time. I hope you still like this story even though it features a bit of Catherine.
theladyknight: Thanks for the advice! I will be careful from now on. I did not intend to bash on Davis. He is a great leader and the team would be in more trouble with out him then with him around.
I apologize if I have offended anyone with my Davis bit. The reason that Catherine and Mimi don't know each other is because there were so many people during Malomyotismon's rampage, that the odds of them meeting and remembering each other are slim. The series also doesn't say what happens directly after Oikawa dies to save the Digital world. (read theladyknight's 'Rediscovering Destiny' for a great story following this event.) So I made it so they never met.
Many thanks to Ballet Kitty, Frodo007, genbo, JyouraKoumi, and naughty'Nnice
"I can't seem to translate the full prophecy." Gennai said to no one in particular. "Let's see… 'The chosen children will war against an old foe. Courage, Friendship, Love, Knowledge, Sincerity, Reliability, Hope and Light must unite against the new coming darkness. And on the last day, the Guardians of the Harmony will be all that stands in the way of the evil reborn.'"
Gennai sighed and wiped at his forehead. He looked at the candle burning on his table and took in the papers strewn around the rest of the room. "I have to complete the prophecy. We don't know how much time we have left."
Mr. and Mrs. Tachikawa listened carefully as Izzy and Joe explained the idea to them. "I don't know boys, we did sleep on the flight over and are well rested but Mimi might want to go straight home." Mr. Tachikawa said hesitantly.
His wife frowned and crossed her arms, "Oh come now dear, and when has Mimi ever said no to a shopping trip?" She turned to the boys and smiled. "I think it's a magnificent idea. I'll get started on cooking some snacks when we get home."
"That won't be necessary Mrs. Tachikawa," Joe interrupted "We already have many snacks in the car." Mrs. Tachikawa smiled at him and continued to ramble about the food she could whip up in fifteen minutes.
Her husband smiled lightly and placed his hands on Joe. "Once she gets started on food there's no stopping her. Better put your snacks away because she's gonna want to make an entire dinner out of it."
A few meters away, the girls were talking to Mimi about America. "Don't you miss all the excitement of living in New York, Mimi?" Yolei asked as imagined the tall building and bright lights.
"To be honest Yolei, its always felt like Odaiba was my home and I was just on a long vacation." Mimi replied with a smile.
"What about Michel?" Kari asked giggling. "Didn't he make it feel more like home?"
Mimi laughed along, "No, Michel and I were just friends. He's a Digi-destined so that meant that I could relate to him."
Yolei stared off starry-eyed as she mentioned, "Any place Michel is would make me feel like home."
At this point in the conversation Sora stepped in and whispered in her younger friend's ear. "Make sure Ken doesn't hear about that or else he might go in to a jealous fit." Yolei turned away blushing. Sora then turned to Mimi and told her, "You know this will always be home for everyone and whatever happens, you have a home with us."
Mimi smiled genuinely at her best friends sweet words. "I know." she said softly.
Sora continued, "So how about we get you really used to the place and go shopping." The grin she got in return was blinding. Mimi grabbed a hold of all their hands, quite a feat considering that there were three pairs of hands, and ran to her parents.
"Daddy," she said in the sweetest voice she could think of, "Can I please go shopping with the girls?"
Strangely enough, her father smiled and immediately withdrew his wallet. He pulled out a couple American dollar bills and pressed them into his daughters waiting hands as he said, "Of course dear, take the girls out and rediscover some of your old hangouts. I'm sure young Mr. Kido wouldn't mind dropping you off." Joe smiled and nodded his head.
If Mimi had stopped to think about the situation, she would have realized that her father never gives her money this willingly and Joe seemed to have agreed without anyone asking him. But the thought of exploring the mall with her friends seemed to push those questions out of the way. As she, Sora, Kari and Yolei piled into Joe's car at break-neck speed, Mrs. Tachikawa whispered to her husband, "That went well."
Tai, Davis and Ken were busy dumping Mimi's pink luggage into Tai car when they saw that Mimi and the girls take off with Joe. "Hey Matt, the girls just left in Joe's car. Should we head off to Mimi's house to start on the party?"
Matt looked up after grabbing a large suitcase that TK had handed him. He looked at the extensive amount of luggage that Mimi and her mother had brought along and turned to Tai. "With all of this luggage; we'll probably still be here for a while."
"How did they allow this entire luggage on the plane?" Cody inquired as he piled some of the smaller suitcases into the backseat of Matt's car.
"I think the company that Mimi's father works for paid for the extra luggage costs." Izzy said returning after his talk with Mr. and Mrs. Tachikawa.
'Must have been a heck of a lot considering that this is Mimi and her mother we are talking about.' TK thought with a smirk.
Mr. Tachikawa then stepped up to the Tai and thanked him "I really appreciate all the help you boys are offering. It was nice of you to volunteer to help pick us up."
"It's a pleasure, sir." Tai replied smiling "Any thing for an old friend like Mimi."
"You're very sweet Tai. But tell me, what exactly are you planning on serving at the party?" Mimi's mother had just stepped in with a smile and was now in full party-planning mode.
Davis, anxious to prove himself worthy of party-planning material, butted in on the conversation. "It's going to be great Mrs. Tachikawa. Just you wait and see. We are going to have balloons and cake and soda and…"
"Oh my, soda! I don't like carbonated drinks, too gassy." Mrs. Tachikawa said in disgust.
"That's ok ma'am. We also have water and juices." Ken looked up at this. "Yes, Yolei made sure to supply us with a variety of drinks. She wanted to make sure that everyone was happy."
"That was kind of her" she replied with a sigh of relief.
Davis continued with his ramblings "We also have many types of food. Sweet, sour, sweet and sour, sweet and not so sour, sour but not…so…" He suddenly stopped counting them off his fingers and stared out. Ken turned his head to see what he was staring at. 'Ah,' he thought when he finally noticed what his best friend was looking at 'it seems that Kari is not the only person on Davis' mind.'
Tai looked up at Ken with a confused look and asked, "What's up with him?" Ken merely looked in the direction Davis was staring at. "Ah, someone's got a crush on Catherine." Tai teased his younger friend.
Davis, who couldn't seem to remove his eyes from the cute, young French Digi-destined suddenly snapped to attention. "Huh…no, it's not like that. I was…uh…looking for the car! Ya, the car."
Tai merely laughed and told Davis, "If you didn't know where the car was, the where did you put all the luggage?" Davis couldn't come up with a good excuse after that. Tai smiled at his protégé, "That's alright Davis, we still love ya."
Cody walked up to Tai who seemed to be laughing something or the other. 'Probably something that Davis did.' The youngest Digi-destined surmised. He stepped up to Tai and asked "Hey Tai, Izzy says we have a problem." Tai immediately looked up and stopped laughing. Davis and Ken joined him in asking what was wrong. "Izzy says that we won't be able to fit every one in the cars. There are just too many bags."
"Oh my. I'm sorry," Mrs. Tachikawa said "I didn't mean to bring so much luggage. I guess Mimi and I just got carried away."
"Not to worry Mrs. Tachikawa, we'll figure a way around it." Cody assured her ever optimistically. Tai, Davis, Ken and Cody then walked over to Matt, TK and Izzy who were still loading suitcases into Matt's car.
"Hey Izzy," Davis yelled as he ran up to them, "Cody say that there is a problem." The red headed boy looked up and placed the heavy suitcase that he was trying to lift down. The suitcase tipped over from the sudden movement and landed directly on Izzy's foot.
As the young computer genius yelped and jumped up and down, TK and Matt went over to steady him. "You okay, Izzy?" TK asked.
"Yes, I'll be fine." Izzy replied, "Anyway, back to our problem. It seems that we won't be able to fit everyone and the luggage into the cars."
"You don't need to fit everyone in the car. I can take the bus." Ken offered.
"As helpful as that is, I still don't think that every thing will fit."
"Well Mimi's parents have to come, they have the keys to the house and this is all their luggage." Tai stated.
"Right, and Tai and I are the only ones here who can drive." Matt added.
Cody counted off his fingers. "That leaves Izzy, Ken, Davis, TK and me."
"We could probably fit Mimi's parents with one other person in Tai's car, and then put all the left over luggage and another person with Matt's car." Izzy said as he calculated the permutations.
"Fine then, Davis, Ken and I will take the bus once we get directions and we'll meet you there." TK volunteered.
"Sounds fine to me."
"Yeah, sure." The other two agreed.
"Okay then, I'll ride with Mr. and Mrs. Tachikawa in Tai's car, and Cody and Matt can take his car with the extra luggage." Izzy said finalizing their plans.
"Fine, but someone's going to have to help Cody and I load the rest of these bags." Matt said while surveying the number of suitcases still left.
After all the belongings were stuffed into the elder blonde's car, Matt and Cody took of behind Tai's car. This left TK, Ken and Davis waiting for the bus. As TK and Ken were chatting about the party Davis walked along silently. Ken noticed this and asked him, "Hey, what's wrong Davis?"
Davis looked up from his dream-like state and whispered. "I have a weird feeling. Something doesn't feel right."
"Let's try this store next!" The young girl repeated the words for the seventeenth time this day. Behind her a red head her age and two younger girls, a brunette and a lilac-haired girl trotted behind at a slow pace. While they each carried eight bags, half of which belonged to their hyper and energetic friend, their companion carried an astounding twelve bags and still wanted to continue shopping.
"Mimi," Sora said exhausted "can we stop now. We've seen every store in the mall."
Mimi looked up and observed that she was the only one who wasn't gasping for breath. 'I guess the girls have gotten soft while I was away.' she thought smiling. "Ok, we can take a small break. Let's stop at the food court and I'll buy you all ice cream."
Yolei looked up immediately, "NO, ice cream will spoil your appetite and we can't have that." She quickly slapped a hand across her mouth, worried that she had revealed too much information. Mimi however just looked confused.
Sora got up and laughed nervously, "Ha ha… ha…um what Yolei means is that we should waste time with ice cream when we could be shopping."
"But I thought that you girls wanted a break to rest."
Kari rose to the occasion and smiled at her older friend. She twirled around and said "See, all rested up. Now let's go shopping!"
Mimi was faced with an offer she couldn't refuse and so she picked up her shopping bags, grabbed her friends' hands and sped off in search of the next perfect store. 'The things we do to keep her happy' Sora thought while other shoppers flew past her.
"You know, you guys didn't have to help me carry all this stuff home." Mimi said as he walked up to the front door to her house.
"It's no trouble Meems, plus we just want to spend more time catching up." Yolei said. She was quite happy how the plan was going. A few minutes ago Matt had called Sora on her cell and told her that the house was 'decked out in style.' They then took a taxi back to Mimi's place to drop off Mimi and her stuff while Sora, Kari and Yolei would take the cab home.
Mimi pulled out the key that her father had given her earlier and placed it in the keyhole. As she swung open the door and reached for the lights she wondered out loud, "That's weird, the house shouldn't be in darknes…"
"SURPRISE!"
Her closest friends jumped out from all awkward places. Matt and Tai leaped from under the table. TK, Davis and Ken stood up from their hiding place behind the couch. Cody hopped up from behind a chair, Izzy stepped away from the curtain he was behind and Joe popped his head from behind the front door.
Mimi blinked away the initial moments of shock as she turned towards the girls. "How…what… when…"
Sora smiled and said "Surprise!" She then stepped up to her best friend and hugged her as she tearfully said "Welcome back home Meems, we've missed you." Mimi smiled and opened her arms as Kari and Yolei joined in the hug.
"It's good to have you back Mimi."
"Ya, don't ever leave again."
Mimi laughed at the last comment as tears of joy trailed down her face. She stepped away and looked at her other friends that had stepped away from their hiding places and were smiling at the group hug. Joe, the closest to her opened up his arms as Mimi hugged him tightly. He welcomed her back and stepped away allowing the other guys to give her a hug and wish her.
After she received hugs from everyone, and extra hugs from Yolei who was excited to finally spend time with the person she looked up to, Mimi noticed that her parents were standing by what seemed to be the kitchen of their new house. She walked up to them with tears still staining her face and a big grin that anyone would have found blinding and asked them, "Did you know about this?"
Her mother smiled at her and answered "We found out at the airport. Everything was already planned out by Sora."
Mimi turned to look at all the decorations that hung on all the walls. Balloons floated up to the top as streamers fell all over the place. Nearby was a table filled with an assortment of food and drinks. She turned to everyone and said, "Let's party!"
"You didn't really say that!"
"I'm telling you Matt, I told her the assignment got lost in my vast expanse of hair care products and she believed me."
"Considering that we're talking about your hair Tai, I might find that believable."
"I agree with Joe, you are easy to spot in a crowd with that on your head."
Matt and Joe laughed at the situation Tai placed himself in. It was always amusing to see the leader of the elder Digi-destined try to defend his hairstyle.
Around the rest of the house there was laughter and mirth. Davis and TK were arguing about which was the more popular sport, basketball or football. Izzy was conversing with Mimi's dad about the use of computers in the world of business and finance.
On the other side of the room Ken was being dragged into a Yolei and Cody's discussion on methods of travel. However, the most amount of gaiety and laughter came from three girls sitting on the couch reliving the good old days.
"Oh, do you remember when Joe first found his crest. He was so stunned that he found it in a soccer goal of all places." Mimi laughed out.
"I miss those old days. It was more of an adventure. We were just… more into it." Kari said with a sigh.
"I know the feeling." Sora replied, staring off. She was about to say something when she was interrupted by Mrs. Tachikawa who had entered the room with a few adults. Davis recognized them as his parents and Cody's grandfather.
"Kids, your parents are here to pick you up." Mrs. Tachikawa explained.
Davis looked at his watch, "Wow, it got late pretty quickly."
"Alrighty then," Tai said standing up "Who's riding with me."
Izzy quickly computed the best permutations and stated "TK and Yolei live in the same building as Cody, so it's easier if they take one car. Davis can go with his parents, and Ken can…" He was interrupted by the other genius in the group.
"Actually Izzy, I already told my parents that I would be staying at Davis' house. We made plans yesterday."
"Okay, then. We'll do that and Sora can go with Tai and Kari since she live a few blocks away, while I go with Matt."
"Sounds good to me"
"Ya fine."
"I'm good."
Sora turned towards Mimi and gave her best friend a hug. "Bye Meems. I'll see you tomorrow okay?"
Mimi smiled and told her "Definitely." Kari and Yolei then stepped up and hugged Mimi. As they gave way to the others, Mimi noticed that Sora and Matt only hugged each other goodbye. 'That's odd,' she thought 'I figured that they would have at least given each other a goodnight kiss.'
She was about to ask TK that when Davis bounded up to her and said with open arms, "My turn for a hug!" Mimi gladly obliged with a smile.
"Um, Matt?"
"Yea Izzy?" Matt replied looking over at his friend. They had just bid their friends goodnight and he was now driving Izzy home. "You okay there, Iz?"
Izzy looked up at the boy driving and asked, "Can I ask you a question?"
Matt raised an eyebrow. Normally the roles were reversed and he would be the one seeking answers from the computer genius. "Sure Izzy, ask away."
Izzy looked Matt in the eye and then looked up at the stoplight that they were stuck at. 'Still red. Good that gives me time to ask him.' Once more he looked up at Matt who was now interested on what the genius was debating about. "Matt can I ask you about your relationship with Sora?"
This through the blonde off. Relationship advice was the last thing that he expected from Izzy. 'Tai or TK asking would be understandable. Even Davis and Ken made sense. Possibly even Joe. No wait, scratch that. Joe asking for dating advice is just as weird as Izzy asking.' "Ah, Iz are you asking me for dating advice."
Izzy's face turned a crimson that rivaled the color of his hair. "How do you know when you've found the right person, the one you want to build a relationship with?"
Matt turned his head and stared out of the window as he thought about the question. "I guess it's just about being around that one person who makes you feel special, makes you smile when she's around. You can't stop looking in her eyes and you never want to let go of her hand. You…"
"Ah Matt?" "Huh?" Matt snapped out of his trance and looked at Izzy who was pointing out to the traffic signal. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that the light had turned green. Matt looked ahead and drove towards Izzy's house. His friend just looked at him, smiled and said, "You know, you ramble when you're talking about Sora."
"Shut it Izzy!"