"Don't freak out." Takato said as he walked TK through the park, passing by the jungle gyms with young children climbing over them and progressing to the less populated areas. After he had shown TK around the house he had gotten super serious and even looked around to make sure his parents weren't listening before saying that there was something he needed to show TK.
"What exactly do I need to not be freaking out about?" TK asked as he eyes the small side pathway that led to a half destroyed cement shelter. He was beginning to develop an idea of what this was going to be, but he didn't want to over anticipate things.
"Well, you see-"
"Takato-mon!" A babyish voice exclaimed as a red figure burst out the shelter and pounced onto Takato, taking him down to the ground. In TK's pocket he felt his digivice vibrate. He pulled it out and was surprised to see the screen had lit up and projected a display of the creature - Guilmon apparently - showing some statistics and facts about the Digimon. Heh, useful. Certainly better than having to rely on Tentomon and Izzy to know everything. TK placed it back into his pocket as he sized up the new digimon. It looked like a dinosaur, mostly a dark red color with black markings all over it. Takato was patting it's side as he struggling to sit up.
"Woah, calm down buddy." Takato managed to get out and the digimon looked up from Takato, distracted by TK. He gave a curious sniff.
"Takato-mon, who's this?"
"Guilmon, this is TK. TK, this is Guilmon, my best friend." Takato eyed TK carefully, waiting for a freak out, but it never came. Instead as Guilmon approached TK he gave him a few pats on the head as he brought out his digivice.
"He smells funny." Guilmon commented as Takato gawked at the golden device, quickly pulling a red one out of his own pocket.
"TK, you're one of us?" He exclaimed happily, looking around with excitement. "Who's your partner? I understand that you wanted to hide him but we're friends, you don't have to worry about that." TK's stomach dropped and he fiddled with his digivice sadly, pushing the buttons even though the display had gone dark again.
"I, uh, I don't know where he is. Full confessional here Takato, I don't have any memory loss. I was taken here by my digivice, I don't know why but I assume to help you. But I lost my partner a long time ago. And my digivice, it's not reacting at all to tell me where he is." The last few words came out somewhat choked as his throat closed up and TK could've sworn at himself. He felt like a fool for getting emotional about this all over again. He should be better than this, used to this crap.
Takato almost immediately softened, somewhat at a loss for words and Guilmon stepped forward and wrapped his arms around TK.
"I'm sorry, that sounds very hard." Guilmon said and TK took a few stabilizing breaths. No point giving up hope that he would see Patamon again. They were bound to be reunited, the fact that his Digivice had changed just like before his second adventure proved that. Things would be okay as long as he kept himself together and didn't fall apart.
"It's okay. I just need to be patient, I think." He gave a resolute nod and Takato eyed him in concern for a little while longer before nodding as well.
"A few of my friends are waiting for us further in the park - they love playing with Guilmon. Do you want to come TK?" The boy shuffled his feet somewhat uncertainly.
"Come on, TK, play with us!" Guilmon explained, tugging on TK's shirt a little. Really that was all it took and he gave in, offering a small, somewhat shy smile. He trailed slightly behind them as they walked, approaching the sound of talking kids. As they came to the clearing there was a small group of kids, two of which immediately saw Takato step out of the trees, eyes lighting with excitement.
"Dude, you made it!" The one with dirty blonde hair exclaimed and ran over, a slightly shorter boy with dark hair and glasses close behind.
"We knew you'd come." The dark haired boy said confidently. TK watched as the one with the dirty blonde hair's eyes slid past Takato to look at him, eyebrows knitting together in curiosity.
"Who's the new guy?"
"Oh! He's uh, he's staying with my family for a bit." Takato replied, cutting out the complicated stuff. "TK, these are are my friends Kenta," he gestured to the one with the black hair. "...and Kazu." The one with the dirty blonde hair. "Guys, this is TK."
They made their way to the rest of the group of kids, Kenta and Kazu talking up a storm with Takato and playing around with Guilmon already. There was a small cry of joy as some of the other kids noticed Guilmon too. It was a little bizarre for TK to see - they didn't really flaunt their digimon during their escapades in the real world during any of his adventures. To see Takato just have him out in the open…
"Hey, Takato?" He asked, drawing the boy's attention from where he was watching some of the kids. "Are all of these kids digidestined?" Sure they had learned that there were technically a ton of them, but for so many to be in the same place… Takato's eyes widened at the question and he vigorously shook his head.
"No! Not at all. Only two other people I know have digivices. Well, besides you." TK nodded at that, glancing over at the group of kids again. They had put him in a shopping cart and were wheeling him around.
"That makes more sense. Kenta and Kazu, right?" Again Takato gave him a funny look and motioned a 'no'.
"No, they're actually not here right now. Kenta and Kazu are just my friends from school." That did make TK frown a little. He had thought for sure…
"Well, it's neat that your friends are so cool about Guilmon." Takato smiled at that and nodded, walking over to join in the fun. TK felt fine to stand off to the side and watch. He was out of place here, a boy from somewhere else missing all the different pieces of himself. If he really thought about it, over the years he had become less and less of a whole. There was losing his tag and crest, losing Patamon, and then his friends dropping off one by one. All the things that completed him. Watching all the kids playing just seemed to emphasize his loneliness without the other Digidestined.
"Wow, you sure seem to be havin' a good time." A voice came from a tree, causing most of the crowd to look up. There was another digimon, this one smaller than Guilmon, roughly the size of a normal Rookie (or at least most the rookies TK's companions had over the course of their adventure). Purple with horns and a bandana, he sneered down at Takato who had stopped and was looking up at him with a sour expression on his face.
"What do you want, Impmon?" He said exasperatedly.
"Nothin', just seein' what a good time you're havin'. You know, while your friends fighting for their poor lives in the subway." Takato's shoulders dropped and his eyes widened.
"Henry and Rika? In the subway?"
"Yeah, gettin' real bad down there. But I see you're tooo busy to help them protect the town." Impmon mocked before hopping back into the trees, his cackling growing softer as he got farther and farther away. Takato stood there for a moment, fists clenched, biting his lip as he internally beat himself up. TK considered going over and putting a supportive hand on his shoulder or something, at least try to cheer him up, but before he could Takato turned, eyes full of determination.
"Come on Guilmon, we need to get down to the subway quick." Guilmon turned reluctantly from the crowd of kids and nodded.
"Right."
"Awesome! Are you guys going to be doing a real life Digimon battle?" One of the kids exclaimed. "That's so cool! We're definitely coming." The kids nodded their agreement, and TK's stomach squirmed. He actually felt a little bad for the kids, he hadn't asked Takato how long he'd had his digivice, but it couldn't be long if there was still this romanticization of battles among his friends.
"Stop it!" Takato yelled, face uncharacteristically angry. "This - this isn't game, okay?" He reached his hand into his pockets and pulled out a stack of cards, flipping through them. "You guys can't come with me!" He shot the others such a withering glare, full of so much frustration and so emotionally torn. It was something TK could recognize from his friends in the past.
He was going to follow that train of thought as most of the others kids were herded away by Kenta and Kazu who were saying things like 'nothing to see here, everyone away' but instead he was distracted as Takato selected one of the cards, holding it up with a focused look on his face.
"Okay Guilmon, if we're going to get down there as soon as possible, we're going to need to cut out the middle man here." He took the card and ran it through the digivice. "Digimodify! Digmon's drills!"
TK could only gawk as Guilmon's code for his hands changed, warping into a very familiar pair of drills - and if that didn't just tug at his heart strings. Digmon may not have been his digimon, but he had been Cody's, and with their close bond from being DNA partners some days it had felt like he was. Guilmon then just drilled down to the sewer, Takato preparing to go after him.
"This is Tamers business." Takato said, looking over at TK. "Do you want to come?" Tk would like nothing more but…
"No, I'm good up here. I'd just get in the way." He waved him away and watched as Takato followed Guilmon down to the subway to help. TK couldn't stop himself from pulling out his digivice and surveying it again, fingers tracing over the slot that he had overlooked earlier as aesthetic design. Dang these upgrades could be pretty cool.
oOo
"We did it!" Takato yelled in success as the snake Digimon started to disappear into data, flakes of it flying into the air like snow.
"This is not over, Tamers." Sandiramon hissed, his dying voice like the sound of a cockroach. "While I may fall, my brethren will rise up! How arrogant you are! You will see the others are worth the time of all four of you - and even then you shall not be enough!" It started to laugh, voice ringing out through the cold tunnel as it's form simply disappeared into nothingness. Rika turned to Henry and Takato.
"What does he mean 'all four of you'?" She looked at them accusingly, and Henry just shrugged, fiddling through his deck of cards.
"Who knows? He was probably just trying to throw us off." Takato let out a little cough, biting his lip nervously.
"Uh, actually, I kind of know what he's talking about…"
oOo
"I'm home!" Henry called out as he entered his house, carefully carrying Terriermon in his arms like a stuffed animal. He could feel his long, deep breaths against his chest as Terriermon tried to make his breathing as unnoticeable as possible. His dad was sitting at the table going over some papers and looked up at his son, adjusting his glasses. Henry carefully maneuvered his right arm to be more covered by Terriermon's big ears.
Henry's dad was pretty much the epitome of a nerd. His face was longer and he had cobalt blue hair, which was where Henry had gotten it. Fairly skinny and dark eyes behind wire frames he had been Henry's hero when he was younger, mostly because of his work for the company that had created the Digimon card and video game. Sitting at the table Henry's father stood surrounded by stacks of paperwork, the reality of his job.
"Oh, Henry, good to see you." His eyes looked his son up and down and stalled on Terriermon for just a moment too long. Henry would be freaking out a bit at that if it didn't happen every time that his dad saw Terriermon, and it hadn't become a problem yet so Henry was willing to pray that it was no big deal. "I hope you weren't down in the subway today. Apparently there was a gas leak."
"Don't worry about it, I wasn't." Henry assured, amused by the stories that people came up with to describe Digimon. His father's eyes continued to rove over him in concern before landing on his arm. Looks like he hadn't hid it as well as he thought.
"Henry, come over here and let me take a look at that." He had to resist the temptation to roll his eyes as he walked over, offering his arm in defeat. It was sporting a long but relatively shallow cut from their fight with Sandiramon today. His dad reached into a nearby drawer and pulled out a medical supplies kit, withdrawing some bandages, a cotton ball, and a small bottle of rubbing alcohol. He winced a little as the alcohol was rubbed on, the cotton ball coming back slightly pink.
The story goes that his dad had originally wanted to be a doctor, for pretty much all of his childhood, had even gone to college for it. Eventually he had found out about his knack for coding video games and had switched career choices, following the trends of the times, but Henry knew that his dad's heart would always lay in the medical field. It showed in his enthusiasm to play nurse whenever any of them had any scrape or bruise. How he tenderly moved and placed the bandage on, a soft but focused look on his face.
"Thanks dad, sorry to bother you, I fell down some stairs."
"Well try to be more careful." His father replied, nodding as he bought the lie hook, line, and sinker. Henry scooped Terriermon back into his arms and headed to his room, just praying he wouldn't run into Suzie before he got there.
oOo
I hope you liked this chapter! A major change I want to make in this rewrite is that we have less communication errors in this - honesty is the key in any relationship and TK is gonna use it! I do realize that it is pretty similar to the original, but most of it should be just with better writing and descriptions :)
Thank you for your time, I hope you enjoyed it and are having a good day/night!