The Phantoms of their Second Battlefield

by reminiscent-afterthought

[01/02] First they were Chosen fighting in the digital world, then their powers blossoms and they found themselves fighting phantoms in their own. But fate has a funny way of running in circles.

2. Taichi

The Phantoms of their Second Battlefield
2. Taichi

It was many little boys' dreams to be heroes, but he's had too much of a taste of it after the digital world.

And then there are the phantoms. Monsters of a different flavour and, at the beginning, he doesn't even have Agumon to help. But he does have Agumon's fire, and a certain charisma that has become almost magic in how it feeds not only the flames, but the others' newfound powers as well.

But he has the power, and the ability, and even some of the experience. He can't turn away after all that. He couldn't have turned away from the digital world either, even if they had been trapped with no way out at the time.

He can't ignore the phantoms when they're at school, on the way home, all over the news.

And he knows he's pulled the others in as well, because they can't ignore him or them.

So he throws around fire and confidence and relies on Yamato and Jyou to douse those flames if he gets carried away, and Sora to point them in the right direction, and his little sister to tell him when not to fire at all, and they go on saving the world and the life of a hero gets less glamorous, more heavy, but he grins his way through it all.

And then the digital world comes calling again. He winds up mentoring Daisuke and he stops grinning as much then, partially because the other's grin is as infectious as his own and they've occasionally wound up in painful laughing fits because of it, but also because he doesn't want this kid repeating his mistakes (like SkullGreymon), and maybe his smiles become a little more honest out of it. Especially when they've made it four years now and he's more a mediator for a government than a front line man and Daisuke's holding the home front with lots of little mistakes dotting his record but nothing that's gotten someone else mutated or badly hurt or killed, and he'll count that as a win by association.