Destined To Be Deceived
Author's Note: Well, here's the 'official' first chapter. Sorry about taking so long-I lost interest in it for awhile, though it's finished now. Finally, you get to learn the identities of the chosen…I think that this chapter is rightly named, don't you? Anyways…on to the story.
Chapter One: The Chosen
Another boring uneventful day at school was coming to a close, mused young fourteen year-old Rikui Hirotashi. Were days at school ever interesting and eventful? If so, he had never heard of a day that was like that. He only knew about the days where you could sit in class; mentally tune out, all the while looking to the front and pretending that you were actually paying attention, because of the look on your face. The boy rarely paid attention anymore, and besides, who did? It was almost summer, and soon there wouldn't be any school. Then, the days would really get to be interesting.
Like every other kid his age in the world at this time of year, Rikui longed for the summer to come. He longed to not have to go to school, to be able to wallow in bed for as long as he wanted, and to fully enjoy the streets of his hometown, Tokyo. He just wanted to not have to go to school ever again.
However, it seemed as if that wouldn't be so. As soon as school let out, his parents were going to send him off to a year-round boarding school, because they thought that his attitude needed to change. He should care about school, and stop being a slacker. At least, that was their opinion. Rikui did care about it; during the first part of the school year. The rest of it just seemed so pointless. The jet-black haired boy shoved his cream-toned hands into the pockets of his blue jeans, sighing lightly. What a wonderful life he had.
His light green eyes were rooted onto the annoyingly clean floor that he was walking on, not paying any attention to where he was going, or who else was in the halls. That was when he smacked into something, and he was sent sprawling onto the floor, his hands falling out of the pockets. The thing that he had bumped into, an obviously older and bigger boy, bent down and picked up the small-sized Rikui by the neck of his black shirt, pulling him close to his face. "Were you going somewhere, Hiro?" the larger boy asked, using the first part of his last name to address him. Very few people actually addressed Rikui by his full last name, and it was scarce to hear someone call him Rikui. In this school, little people respected the usually intelligent boy.
The bully, for that's what he was, looked to be at least a year older than him, possibly even two. His dark brown hair was oily, and in desperate need of being cleaned, just like the rest of him. He looked like the perfect picture of a slob, with his ripped jeans and food-stained, once white shirt. "As a matter of fact, he was coming with me, Lenorin," a stern and commanding voice said. The voice came from off to the side, from a fifteen year-old boy with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, and a scowl on his face. Lenorin, the bully, immediately let Rikui go and scurried off, glancing over at the newcomer as he went. "Hey, you okay?" the other boy asked, unfolding his hands and helping Rikui up to his feet.
"Yea, thanks. I just didn't see that guy," Rikui replied, nodding as he got to his feet, brushing himself off lightly, before looking at his rescuer. He had never seen the kid before, though that was no surprise. He barely knew anyone here; he was, in fact, the 'new kid' at the school, even though he had gone to the school for the past two years. He just wasn't accepted into the crowd. Yet. "I'm Rikui Hirotashi."
"I know. I guessed that from Lenorin. My name's Arian Tiysuki, though people sometimes call me just Ari. So, you're Hiro, huh? People say that you're strange, because you don't have any friends," Arian Tiysuki replied, as the two started to walk down the hall, and out of the school doors.
"Yep. That's me. The weird kid," Rikui said simply, shrugging a little as he walked. He had gotten used to being called weird, and it didn't come as a shock that Arian knew him, even though he himself had never met the other boy before. The two soon feel into a bit of an awkward silence as they walked along. However, the silence was broken as they walked by the ringing of the phones that each of them owned, currently residing in their pockets. Both took the cell phones out of their pockets and looked at the screen, only to find them blank. They glanced at each other, before looking back at the screens.
Hiro, there are those elsewhere who need you. They are calling to you, Hirotashi, and you must come meet them. Look inside yourself and find the strength to go and see who they are, to find them. You are direly needed. Those words came from Rikui's cell phone, and he frowned in confusion, not understanding what was meant. This was weird. The cell phone was now beginning to light up, and he felt like he would were he currently on a fast-moving roller coaster going down a steep incline.
Tiysuki, the boy who is calm in the face of everything that comes your way. Your will and inner strength are needed, as well as your sense of what is right. Look inside, and find what is needed. Everything that you will ever need resides in there. Arian's cell phone was having the same phenomenon as Rikui's, with the light and the feeling of being on a roller coaster. A few minutes later, Lenorin walked through the space where they had been, looking for them; they weren't there anymore.
Things just couldn't be better…or could they? Was his life not as good as he thought it was? Could it go differently? Young eleven year-old Calin Jiyasaki didn't know the answer to that question, but he could guess. He thought that he had everything in the world; rich parents, no younger or older brothers to keep the attention off of him, good food, and good clothes. However, there was something that he was lacking. Something that he had only heard about and never actually witnessed. The love of a family. His parents were too busy with this or that, and he always had to act proper and good, with the best of manners, especially when he was around guests. The house servants paid him some attention, that was true, but no where near what he guessed that the average, normal person received from others.
He just wasn't normal. That came from coming from one of the families that were better off; besides, he had lived his whole life so far like this, so why change it now? He really wanted to know if his parents even cared about him. At the moment, he knew that they cared about money. A lot. He just didn't know if they cared about him. That's what was bothering the boy; the fact that he wasn't sure if they cared about him. Sighing, he walked out of his room and headed downstairs towards the entrance room, and quickly calling out that he was going outside, he walked onto the streets of Sariwon, North Korea. Dark brown eyes surveyed those were around, before he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. This day, he had chosen to wear more ordinary, casual clothes. Sighing again, he reached up with one hand to brush a lock of his dark black hair. He didn't know where he was going to go, but he wanted to go somewhere away from his house.
While he was walking, he came to one of the shops on the street that sold TV's. He stopped and looked at them; the TV's were currently showing some sort of Anime on them, though he couldn't remember which one it was exactly. However, it looked interesting, so he watched it. Calin jumped in surprise as, oddly, the TV shut off. It now had a black screen on it. Frowning, he turned to walk away, thinking that it had been shut off by someone from inside, before a glint and a sound caught his attention. Young Jiyasaki, boredom does not suit a boy of your age. Look within, and find the solution to your boredom, and your insecurity. Come to what calls your very soul and nature. Look inside the screen said a voice. It seemed to be coming from the TV, but that couldn't happen, could it? The object was off. Frowning some more, he looked around to find the voice, but he saw no one. Even more strange, a light was coming from the screen. He stared at it, the light seemingly pulling him into it as it grew to encompass the entire once-dark screen. To any passerby's, they would only see a turned off TV and an empty spot where once an eleven year-old boy had stood.
Like Calin Jiyasaki, another figure walked the streets of her hometown Cairo, Egypt, though for different reasons. Her parents weren't rich like his, but neither were they poor; one could say they were of middle class. The girl walking the streets, 13 year-old Kakrasi Hieh, was looking for her younger twin brother, Atsuhar Hieh. The brown tan toned skin of the girl was mostly covered from her face on downwards with her clothing, and she wore a plain, white hat on top of her flowing black hair-which went down past her shoulders-to keep the sun off her face and out of her eyes. She had lived here for most of her life, and the tan-grey tone of her clothes showed this. They were light colors, and light clothes, so that she wouldn't get over-heated in the hot desert sun.
"Kakra! What are you doing outside?" a voice called. She looked over at the speaker, a boy about her age who also shared her hair and light brown colored eyes, and she smiled. That voice could only be her brother, and Kakra was her nickname. She was told that Kakra was the way to say twin for a female, and her brother's name, Atsu, was the way to say twin for a male.
"I was looking for you, Atsu. Mom says it's time to come home. You've been out all day!" the female girl replied, both twins now having a smile on their faces. They were definitely optimistic ones. Atsu nodded, and the two turned around and made their way down the street back to their home, Kakra brushing small grains of sand from her shirt; Atsu had thrown a handful of the yellow and white stuff at her playfully. Shaking her head slightly, she continued on walking. They soon came to a house much like the others on the street, and walked in; this was their home. Their mother had left the radio on after going into her room to continue the painting that she was working on. Seeing this, Atsu walked over to it and made to turn it off, but before he could the music stopped. He looked over at Kakra and beckoned for her to come over, and she did so. Words soon seemed to come from the radio itself.
Hieh twins, you will always be there to support each other, and keep the other safe. Now is the time to meet your destiny, and the others who share your fate. The two of you have the duty of keeping the others like you safe, and being with them throughout hardships, keeping your ties of friendship strong. They await you. A frown crossed the faces of both of the twins, and they glanced at each other again, and each shrugged before looking back at the radio. A strange radiance was coming from the radio's antennae, and they watched it with shared looks. They felt like they were being sucked down into a whirlpool. Not long after, their mother came back into the room to see who was there, and seeing no one, she walked over to the radio which was now playing the song from earlier again. She shut it off, and went back to work on her painting.
If Rikui and Calin thought that they were bored, they didn't know what the feeling was like. They hadn't ever been so bored out of their wits that some silly childish thing like coloring suddenly seemed like the best thing in the world. They hadn't experienced a thirst for telling tales, for not doing homework and then coming up with things that are inexcusable lies, yet everyone takes them as the truth. For Vannon Carson was good at coming up with lies. Some could call him a pathological liar; still others could call the fifteen year-old the most honest teenager. Depends on what you knew of him, as well as your past experiences with the boy. It also depended on if you were someone worth sucking up to or someone worth being on your good side. A psychologist would probably pronounce him as mentally unstable and send him off to an institution with some therapy sessions; his parents, teachers, and classmates would call him brilliant.
Vannon Carson never did horribly in school. He was a kind, smart, honest individual. Whenever a new student came to town, he would always be the first to become their friend, and he would show that person around the school. He always volunteered to hand out papers, and all his teachers trusted him with things like bringing the attendance sheets to the office, keeping track of the score for games, and other such stuff. No one seemed to get that it was all a game for this boy from Moscow, Russia; no one seemed to get that he was a liar and a manipulator at heart. As good as he was at lying, he was even better at hiding his innermost nature.
Thus, it leads to his current actions. Vannon was currently in the computer lab of his school, typing up a speech that he was supposed to say during the assembly tomorrow in honor of the graduating students. He paused in his typing for a moment, tapping a pen lightly against the keyboard as he thought. Frowning, he deleted the last sentence that he had written. It hadn't gone with the rest of the piece at all. His once brown eyes were tinted a distinct black; products of the black-tinted contacts that he wore. When he took the contacts off, his normal, light brown-hazel colored eyes could be seen. Eyes that didn't seem to go with his violet-blue or indigo hair color-he had dyed it that color a little more than a year ago. It used to be brown, like his eyes, but he didn't like that color much. Interfered with his thinking process and how he wanted to be received by people. Or so he thought.
He frowned once more. A few lines down from where he had been typing his speech, some other typing had begun to appear. The odd thing was that his hands were far from the keyboard. He read it out loud:
Vannon Carson, your home is not what you think it is. So many secrets…so many things kept hidden. It is time that you share your inner self with others. It is time you feel a sense of being, a sense that you belong. You are not alone.
An hour later a teacher came in to see how Vannon's progress was going. She only saw the screen with his almost done speech on it and an empty chair. Vannon was gone, and the search for the missing boy would soon begin.
Over in London, England, Kiyar Sargo was sleeping. It was a few hours before dawn, and the blond haired boy was blissfully filled with non-existent dreams in his light-sleeping mood. Yes, he was a light sleeper. If someone were to walk into his room right at that moment, he would wake up, and wonder what someone was doing in his room at this late hour. Unluckily for him, the thing that woke him up was not a person; it was the sudden blaring of the lamp on his bedside table that interrupted the fourteen year-olds sleep. He groggily opened his dark blue eyes, squinted at the light that filled them. They were used to the lamp light, and were still in sleeping mode. "Wha…"he questioned in a voice still filled with his tired self; he just wanted to sleep, and whoever turned on the light wasn't very nice. "Turn off the light mom…." He murmured, rolling over onto his side and pulling a blanket up over his face.
Kiyar Sargo. I am not your mother, nor is now the time to sleep. I need you. Others your age and younger need you. You are destined as a Chosen, boy, and now is not the time to be filled with happy dreams or horrible nightmares. Time waits for no one. Wake up, get dressed, and come. We will be waiting for you.
Kiyar frowned and threw off the blanket, staring up at his blue painted ceiling for a while. He didn't get anything that the odd-sounding voce had said, and there wasn't anyone around, either. The voice then repeated its previous words, this time in what seemed a more urgent tone. Sighing, he stood up and pulled on a blue shirt and jeans, and he put on his sneakers. He grabbed his backpack and stuffed some food into it as well as a flashlight and his cell phone, and made his way to the door. Before he could even go two steps, the lamp sucked him in and the room was left empty. The lamp was also shut off.
Like Kiyar Sargo, Soren Yars was also asleep in his hometown of Dublin, Ireland. Though his morning wake up time was sooner than Kiyar's, he was still fast asleep. His strawberry red colored hair seemed small in comparison to his big, white, fluffy pillow. The multitude of freckles on his face were indiscernible in the dark, though if one knew the Irish you could probably get that he had freckles all over his twelve year-old body. His light blue eyes were firmly closed, and he wore the clothes that he would wear in the morning while he slept. He wore a white shirt and brown pants, plain and simple, which was how the rather uncaring, seemingly cold boy liked it. He had no friends, nor did he socialize all that often; he tended to be quiet, yet when he did speak, it was meaningful. He also seemed to be without feelings in regard to others.
His peaceful dreaming of riding his horse Lightning over the plains was interrupted by a loud, annoying, and ear-piercing beeping. It was his alarm clock. He reached over to shut it off, but before he could, it shut off on its own. He rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed, staring at the clock. It shouldn't have gone off for another hour at least. That was when the least thing he had expected happened; the alarm clock talked.
Soren Yars, your differences often set you apart, and make it so that your innermost nature is rarely ever seen. It is time to throw off the shields of your childhood and show people who you really are, to engage with others at last. This I say to you, and this I say to all Chosen. It is time for you to come to where you belong.
The boy didn't know that appliances could talk. They couldn't, could they? Yet here he was, listening intently to the things every word. What was wrong with it? Was it broken? More importantly, what was wrong with him? I must be going crazy…he decided, shaking his head. I must be becoming really crazy…the sun is making my room white…Indeed his room was becoming a mass of blinding light, though it wasn't the sun. The whiteness was coming from the alarm clock, and like the other Chosen around the world, he too disappeared from where he should have been.
Unlike both Kiyar and Soren, Ryena Aresin was quite awake. She was, in fact, sitting under a tree in a park close to her house in Queens, New York. The young nine year-old girl was playing a game on her game boy, happily engrossed in it. She liked playing games; they let her escape from the real world, and then she didn't have to think about all the annoying, bratty, evil other kids of her age. Well, she was kind of bratty herself, but you'd never find her admitting that. After awhile of playing, her dark green eyes looked up and wandered over this kid and his dog that had just run past her; the kid was older than her, but she sent him an annoyed look. The horrid barking of the boy's dog had interrupted her concentrated, and she had lost a life. She never lost a life. Actually she did, but again, she wouldn't admit that. She was the 'I'll-pretend-that-I'm-perfect' brand of a kid, and she knew it. She was also quite outspoken about her rights and opinions, and when she got going in a tirade, it was nearly impossible to shut her up.
She smiled slightly to herself and brushed a lock of her brown hair away from her face, concentrating once more on her game. But…the game wasn't showing up on her screen. She frowned at it and whacked it several times with her hand, only to no avail. Thinking that she had run out of battery power the girl muttered a curse under her breathe before leaning back against a tree. Only to be startled a moment later as this white light and voice came from her beloved game boy.
Outspoken Ryena Aresin, your views and ideas are direly needed. Your clear head will help the group. You belong with the others like you, others who will listen to what you say. Come to the world which is so mirrored after the things that you love. Step away from the boundaries of what you believe to be real and step into your adventure.
Like all the others before her, Ryena was soon sucked up into the game boy, though unlike the others the object used for telling her the message went with her. All nine of the children had disappeared at the exact same time, and it would take a good detective to find out this. No one would realize the connection between them for awhile, and link it to what had happened to the other Chosen in the past. Those nine were the Chosen of destiny.
In the Digital World which the Chosen were heading towards, a figure sat back in her chair and sighed lightly. She was relieved; they had been called just in time. Even now, her screens which had allowed her to pick out the children were dulling and becoming black. The evil of the Digital World did not like having screens into the human world exist which he could not control. This was Ariana, a human female around 23 years old. She had been one of three females in the last group of Digi-destined, out of five. Five hadn't been enough-they had failed, though the Digital World hadn't been destroyed. The evil that was now running things had just been allowed to grow, to become even more powerful. It was up to the nine children.
She hated choosing them like this…and she hated lying to them even more. Well, she wasn't lying exactly, but she wasn't telling them everything. There was a whole lot more to their own pasts that they didn't even understand. The one of time would eventually be able to understand, as well as the one of courage; they would help the others to that understanding. All of them had their destiny…and no one, not even she, knew exactly what that was. She hated the unknowns more than anything else. But like they had to learn, so too did she. It was time for her to head off to meet them. Ariana stood up, made her way to the door in shadows at the back room and opened it. She took one last look around before shutting off the lights and closing the door behind her, never to return to that room herself. That was for another at another time. A shadowed figure padded along besides her as she walked down the hall.
Thus we were the Chosen; the group of children picked out to save the Digital World from a growing evil that we didn't know existed yet. We didn't even know there was a place beyond our own world, thought it was all made-up Television. All except for Ryena, that is. She was the youngest of us, and still held on to the belief that all the stories and the things in movies and on TV were real. She was the smartest of us, and the only one who was right at that point in time. Though, deep down inside, Kiyar and I knew that the place existed. We just couldn't explain how we knew back then; I now know why, but that's something for a later date. For now, let it suffice that we were the Chosen for a quest that was as big a mystery to us back then as it is for you right at this moment in the telling. We would learn. Oh yes, we would learn.
There were nine of us Chosen; Ari, Calin, Kakra, Atsu, Ry, Soren, Vannon, Kiyar, and myself, Rikui, also known to the group as Rik. Those were what we called ourselves, along with other things; other elements, other feelings. Nine, when the original plan had called for eight. Nine of us to fight the growing evil; some could call that an advantage in our favor, right? None would call it what it was till a much later date; disaster. We were the Chosen destined for….disaster? No. That's not the right word. There's another meaning to exactly what we were destined for, but you'll find that out later. Only know that it had something to do with fire, time, dark, earth, ice, air, thunder, water, and light. Only know that it also had to deal with will, hope, courage, kindness, protection, freedom, friendship, unity, and deception.
That was us back then, and that was us throughout, and that was us at the end. That's even what we are now. There's so much to tell, but not enough time. Time…one of us would know more about that then any other. The one who was symbolic of time was a dear friend of mine. Oh yes. Time is a very important thing in our tale of what happened, as is deception, unity, friendship, and courage. We were all so different, yet all so alike. Now you know the beginning, the way that we were chosen and who chose us, as well as who we are and the way that we came together. Sort of-we haven't met. There's still much that you don't know yet. Still so much that I don't know, and of anyone partaking in this tale, I should know the most out of anyone. After all, I am the one telling it. We all have changed so much from that first day…