Author's Note: Hey guys! I'm back again, once again with another update for Kari's New Friend! First off though, I want to sincerely thank every one of you guys who favourited, followed and more than anything, those who took the time out of their day to review! I saw a lot of familiar faces amongst the reviews, and the support you guys showed made me feel really happy. Thank you, you guys are the best!
Before we start the chapter, there is one thing I want to address and explain my reasoning for. I received a few remarks that Davis and Kari didn't act like they were 9 years old and yes, I can agree with that. But you can also argue that T.K and Kari didn't really act like 9 year olds in the show all the time either, especially not Kari. Also, keep in mind that Kari was feeling very sick and even a 9 year old can't remain cheerful and happy-go-lucky when they are feeling down, especially when she has the history with illnesses that Kari does.
Now, with that out of the way I hope that you will still be able to enjoy the story!
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.
"People live their lives bound by what they accept as correct and true. That's how they define reality."
Chapter I: Accepting the Truth
The bed creaked loudly in protest as 9 year old Davis Motomiya rolled over, trying his best to go back to sleep again. Even though he had went straight to bed yesterday once he got home, he had barely been able to get any sleep at all. His thoughts had kept spinning in his head, as he tried to make heads or tails of what Kari had told him. It wasn't like him to be so unsure of what he thought about something and if he was to be honest, it was starting to get a little annoying, especially since the unfamiliar feeling had kept him from getting any decent amount of sleep.
Sighing, he sat up in bed and flexed his stiff shoulders, only slightly wincing when they creaked almost as loudly as his bed had just a few seconds prior. The sun had began to leak in through his curtains and he could already hear the rest of his family getting ready for the day. With Jun up and about, he knew that there was no chance he would be going back to sleep now.
Reluctantly, he got out of bed and began rummaging through the pile of used clothes in search of something to wear for the day. Eventually, he settled on a pair of dark green shorts and a simple blue shirt. Once he was dressed, he yawned loudly and rolled his shoulder once again, feeling the stiffness from being cramped up in bed slowly disappear, before he left his room, not even bothering to pull the curtains up.
"Morning, sleepyhead." his mom greeted him as he entered the kitchen. "How was dinner with the Kamiyas? You went to sleep before I got a chance to ask you about it."
When Mrs Kamiya had invited Davis to stay over dinner, he had made a point to borrow their telephone to call home and make sure that his parents wouldn't start wondering about where he was. As annoying as his parents could be, he didn't want them to worry about him needlessly. He remembered one time when he had went over to his friend Muiri's house to play video games without his parents knowledge and they had completely freaked out and turned the apartment inside out and upside down in search of their "lost" son. Once he had made it home, he had received the scolding of his life by his almost hysteric mother and ever since, he had always made sure to inform her if he would be home late.
"It was good. Mrs Kamiya is a really good cook, though I could probably do without the overdose of vegetables she gave me." he grunted out the last part in slight distaste while he began preparing a sandwich for breakfast. He had never been a big fan of anything green you put in your cooking, and while he would admit that Mrs Kamiya's cooking had made it bearable, that didn't mean he believed her dishes needed all that spinach in it.
"You better not have said that to Yuuko's face, young man!" his mother gave him a disapproving look with her arms crossed over her chest. "How many times do I have to tell you? If you really want to grow and up become the best soccer player in the world, like you claim..."
"... I have to eat my vegetables." Davis broke her off with a sigh as he slapped the two halves of his sandwich together and put it on a plate. "Yes, I know. You've only said it like a million times already."
His mom scowled at the tone her son was taking for a moment, but sighed in defeat and went back to cleaning out the kitchen. Seeing that he was let off the hook this time, Davis went on to fill a glass with some apple juice and then left the kitchen to finish his breakfast in front of the television, as to not disturb his mom in her cleaning. As usual however, he didn't really pay any attention to what was on, instead thinking about what he was going to do today. There were still a good few weeks before school started up again, so he had the entire day to do whatever he wished, as long as he didn't forget to drop by the Kamiyas later to check Kari was doing.
He would probably just decide to go down to the park to play some pick-up soccer. That's what he usually did whenever he had some time to spare, and he quite enjoyed it so he saw no reason not to. Maybe some exercise would do him good and help him clear his thoughts? They had been a jumbled mess that even he himself couldn't make any sense of since yesterday...
"Late yesterday evening," the voice of the news reporter penetrated his thoughts. "Tokyo was shaken by the appearence of yet annother unidentified giant creature, this time devastating a popular night club in a secluded part of the Odaiba Harbor. The creature was sighted while flying away from the scene, and sources states that it resembled a giant insect of some sort. Like the other monsters that also appeared in different parts of Tokyo yesterday, it is speculated that this one may have a connection to the two monsters that appeared by Highton View Terrace 4 years ago. "
As footage incidents mentioned was shown on the screen, Davis choked on the last piece of his sandwich and spit it out in his shock. The first footage was a short, low quality recording of what appeared to be a large burning bird fighting with an even larger hairy elephant. The second recording overlooked a bay, in which 2 white creatures, one hairy and one scaly, were fighting each other fiercely and the last footage showed a distant, somewhat insectoid silhouette flying away from a destroyed building in the Odaiba Harbor.
The plate that Davis had put his sandwich on was shattered as it hit the floor, falling out of the boy's lap when he hastily stood up from his seat. He felt his blood run cold as he listened to the news reporter talking about how these strange creatures had began appearing out of thin air since yesterday, but what really made him feel cold was what Kari had said about the so called "Digimon", when she had tried to explain the existance of a parallell world to him the previous day.
"Digimon live in a different world from ours usually, but occasionally they come here. I don't really know much about it, but when you found me earlier today my brother had just left to go to the Digital World along with our friend Koromon, who is a nice little Digimon we met 4 years ago when we still lived in Highton View Terrace."
There it was again. Highton View Terrace. The reporter had mentioned Highton View Terrace as being the sight of a fight between 2 monsters 4 years ago, and Kari had said that she used to live there and first met her supposed "Digimon" friend Koromon there. It couldn't just be a coinincidence, right? Something strange was going on, and Kari knew something about it that the rest of the world didn't.
-:-:-:-
Morning at the Kamiya Residence was a calm and quiet affair. Well, as calm and quiet as anything could be when Taichi Kamiya was in the vicinity. Kari's older brother had come home early from his summer camp after it got canceled due to poor weather conditions and had arrived at their doorstep late last night, shortly after Davis had left. While Kari had been overjoyed to see her brother again, it had quickly become evident that he was in no condition to spend any time with her at the moment, so she had resolved to talk to him in the morning instead.
Currently, the two siblings had retreated back to the safety of their shared bedroom, with Tai and Agumon lying on the floor rummaging through Tai's old stuff in search of his old phonebook, while Kari was watching the two from her bunkbed with a content smile playing at her lips. After having slept through the night knowing that her brother was safe and sound in the bed below her, she felt much better today. Her parents' were still wary of letting her go outside since she had told them that she had felt good enough to go outside yesterday as well, but as long as her brother was here she didn't mind staying inside.
"What do you need that phonebook for anyway, Tai?" she asked as her brother and his digimon partner was once again buried under a pile of old junk that had fallen onto them from one of the shelves they had been going through.
Sighing heavily as he dug himself out from the junkpile, Tai stood up and dusted himself off.
"Izzy believes that we may be able to find the 8th digidestined in one of our old phonebooks. Since all of us saw the fight between Greymon and Parrotmon at Highton View Terrace 4 years ago, he thinks that the 8th child must've also lived there at the time." he said, looking out over the mess he and Agumon had made while searching for the elusive little book. "But at this rate, I'll have to hope that Sora find hers instead. We were in the same class back then, so we would have the same book anyway."
"You sure was a messy kid, Tai." Agumon added as he mirrored his partner's actions and dusted himself off after crawling out of the pile of junk,
This earned them an amused giggle from the girl of the bed, who found their antics to be very entertaining. As she watched Tai attempting (and failing) to deny that he used to be and still was disorganized, Kari's thoughts turned to the conversation she had yesterday with the boy who had helped her get home after her illness got worse. Davis had mentioned that his sister had been able to see the monsters on television, just like her brother and herself. What if...?
"Hey Tai? There is something..." she began, but her brother didn't seem to hear her as he spotted the clock on the wall.
"Damn, look at the time! I'm late!" he exclaimed as he realized that he was supposed to have met up with the other Digidestined 5 minutes ago. "Sorry Kari, we can talk later. I got to get going! Agumon, you have to take the window since mom's home, I'll meet you outside!"
As if they had practiced the manouver a hundred times before, Agumon was out the window in 5 seconds flat while Tai threw the door to their room open and rushed to the entrance hall, only stopping briefly to tell their mom that he was going out for a while. Left behind was Kari, who blinked in incomprehension, not quite sure what had just happened. After a few seconds, she sighed and stood up from her seat at the edge of the bunkbed. She would have to wait until later when Tai came home again to tell him about Davis and his sister.
"Miko? Where are you?" she called, wondering where her pet kitty had run off to.
After searching through their apartment for Miko, which only took about 5 minutes since their apartment was pretty small, she figured that he had probably left yesterday when Davis went out and just not come back since. While she didn't blame him for wanting to be outside for a while and stretch his limbs in the nice weather, she was starting to feel a little lonely with Tai out and about and Miko nowhere to be found.
"Mom, I think I'm going out for a little while as well to look for Miko." she said as she passed the kitchen, deciding that she might as well go outside and enjoy the late summer climate while it lasted. After all, the weather had become quite unpredictable lately so who knew when the sun would show itself like this again?
Unfortunately for Kari, her mom had other plans.
"Stop right there, Kari! I thought we agreed that you would stay home today, just in case your fever starts acting up again?" she said as she rounded the corner that connected the entrance hall to the living room.
Reminded of the agreement that she had come to with her parents, Kari looked away guiltily. She had in fact agreed to stay inside today to avoid any further complications with her fever, but right now she was feeling fine and being home all alone with nothing fun on television was boring.
"But mom~." she whined. "I'm feeling fine! Please, I just want to go look for Miko."
As she said it, she tried to offer up her cutest and most convincing smile. It usually worked when trying to convince her dad that she was a big girl who should be allowed to stay up after 9 in the evening, or when convincing Tai to let her take the last cookie from the jar. Her mom however, was not impressed by this display as she put her hands on her hips and gave her daughter a stern look.
"Don't you look at me like that, young lady." she said with a steady voice that left no room for argument. "We agreed that you would stay inside today to make sure your fever wouldn't get worse again, so that's what you're going to do. Am I making myself clear?"
Knowing that there was no reasoning with her mom when she got like this, and not wanting to risk upsetting her any further by trying to push her luck, Kari relented and lowered her head with a disappointed sigh.
"Yes mom."
After a few seconds of tense silence, her mom sighed and leant down so she was on eye level with her daughter, putting a comforting hand on the young girl's shoulder to show that she wasn't angry with her. Kari was a very sensitive girl who didn't like to argue with anyone, least of all her parents and her brother. While she was starting to grow up and become a little more independant these days, she was still very much mommy's little girl.
"Listen sweety, you know I'm only doing this because I want what's the best for you." she whispered softly. "I don't want a repeat of what happened 3 years ago."
Kari shuddered at the memory and enbraced her mom in a hug, suddenly feeling very small and weak again. 3 years ago, Kari had been hit with a particularly nasty flu for a few days and had been forced to stay home from kindergarden. One day when her brother came home from school early, he had wanted to go to the park to play soccer, but at the same time he didn't want to leave Kari at home all alone. Reasoning that a little fresh air would help her recover faster, Tai had brought her along when he went outside.
It had backfired horribly and Kari's regular flu had grown into a severe case of pneumonia, almost killing her in the process. Kari herself didn't remember a lot about the illness itself, but she remembered how broken her normally cheerful and energic big brother had been when he realized what he had done, and how horrified her parents had been after the incident. If anything, she didn't want them to ever go through that again because of her.
"I'm sorry, mom." she whispered tearfully, feeling her throat constrict at the memory of what her family had gone through.
"Don't be sorry, Kari." her mother said as she stroked her daughter's hair. She hadn't meant to upset her, she just wanted to remind her of what the consequences could be if she wasn't careful about her health. "But you've got to take better care of yourself. You're a big girl now, and big girls need to be able to take care of themselves, right?"
Hearing her mom's encouraging words, Kari felt her mood lifting somewhat. As they let go of each other, her mom reached up to dry Kari's unshed tears with the sleeve of her shirt, before offering her daughter a soft smile, a gesture which was returned by the young girl herself.
"Thanks mom." she said, feeling a bit better knowing that she potentially spared her mother from a lot of worry by staying home just for today. "You're right, I'll try to be more careful from now on."
Satisfied with her daughter's response, Yuuko Kamiya stood up with an appreciative smile on her face, before turning around and going back into the house to complete whatever task she had been half-way through when Kari had announced that she wanted to go outside. Once she was out of earshot, Kari let out a sigh. She still felt like she was good enough to go outside today, but if it would put her mom at ease to have her stay inside one more day, then she wasn't as opposed to staying home.
Casting a longing glance at the door, she eventually decided to go see if maybe she could help her mother with any of the chores to pass her time. Taking of her left shoe, which she had already managed to tie on her foot before she had been stopped, she was just about to follow her mother back into the apartment when the sound of the doorbell ringing interrupted her.
Frowning, she turned around and went back to the door. They weren't expecting any visitors this early in the morning, at least not to her knowledge. For a split moment, she thought that maybe Tai had come back from his meeting already, but then she reminded herself that her brother would never ring the doorbell at his own apartment. Curious about who it could be, she opened the door and let out a slight gasp when she recognized their visitor.
Davis was standing opposite to the door, leaning casually against the railing with his hands in his pockets. But despite his relaxed outward appearence, he appeared to be nervous about something. As soon as he noticed that the door had opened, he pushed off the railings and walked over towards her. Realizing that she had frozen up in her surprise on seeing her new friend so unexpectedly, Kari shook her head to clear it up.
"Davis? You're early, we weren't expecting you until at least early afternoon." she said.
As the boy in question came to a stop in front of her, he grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck in a way that reminded Kari a lot about her brother when he was nervous about something, confirming her suspicions that Davis was indeed nervous.
"Err, yeah. Hope it's not any trouble." he said awkwardly, still not feeling completely comfortable around his newfound friend. Not only was she a girl, but she had also claimed the existance of a parallell world inhabited by digital creatures just the other day. Which, admitedly, was why he had decided to drop by early. "Hey, do you mind if I come inside for a while? There are a few questions I would like to ask you."
-:-:-:-
While Kari was letting Davis into their apartment and Tai met up with the rest of the 7 currently identified Digidestined, a certain white feline digimon sat perched at the roof of a recreation center. While she could easily be mistaken for a regular if somewhat large cat, she was anything but, as was hinted by the green gloves she wore over her paws and the large metallic ring that was attached to the end of her abnormally long tail.
This creature was known as Gatomon, one of Myotismon's most trusted minions. Like the rest of her master's army, she had been dispatched to track down the 8th Digidestined, using a copy of the Crest of Light that was designed to react when it came in close proximity with the Digivice that was connected to the original Crest. However, so far neither she nor any of the other digimon she had recruited to her master's cause had receive a reaction.
Gatomon sighed as she checked her crest for what had to be the hundredth time. It still wouldn't even give off as much as a flash. Whoever the 8th child was, he obviously wasn't here and probably wouldn't come here anytime soon either.
'Searching for this brat is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.' she thought bitterly as she gave up on the recreation center and jumped off the roof to try and find another place where a lot of children gathered.
Earlier she had seen a huge amount of people heading towards the beach, which made sense considering the unusually hot weather. Maybe the 8th child would be there? It couldn't hurt to look, at least not any more than it would hurt to fail Myotismon in finding the child before the other Digidestined did.
With that thought in mind, Gatomon began to make her way towards her new destination, hoping against hope that she would receive a reaction from the Crest soon. If she didn't pick up a trail soon, her master would not be happy.
-:-:-:-
Davis swallowed as Kari closed the door to the room she shared with her brother behind them. Mrs Kamiya had been pleasantly surprised that he had decided to drop by early and had immediately asked if he would be staying over lunch. While he had been tempted to decline in order to avoid another overdose of spinach, he would admit that he had quite enjoyed her cooking yesterday and if today's lunch would even be close to that, he would take it over his own mom's cooking 8 days a week.
As the two young children sat down on top of the bed covers in the lower part of the bunkbed, Davis frantically tried to organize his thoughts. If he was going to get some answers about this whole mess, he would need to at least know what he was going to ask. He felt like there was so much he wanted answers on, yet he couldn't seem to put together a single coherent question.
"So? What did you want to ask?" Kari's voice brought him out of his thoughts.
Looking over towards the girl who was sitting a little further up on the edge of the bed, Davis noticed that she appeared to be in a much better condition than she had been last night when he had left. Her skin wasn't as pale and her eyes held a lively, mischievous look in them that he couldn't say he had ever seen in them before (though admitedly he had only really known her well enough to care for about 14 hours at most). It was almost as if she had never been sick to begin with.
"You look a lot better today. How are you feeling?" the words were out of his mouth before he realized that he had spoken out loud.
Kari blinked in surprise, not having expected him to ask that out of all the questions he could've possibly asked. She had figured that since he had sought her out ahead of their agreed time, he wanted to talk about what she had told him yesterday about the Digimon and their world.
"Well, I feel fine. However, I promised my mom I would stay inside for today to not risk my fever rising again." she said, feeling her lips being drawn out into a sincere smile. She hadn't known him for long, but Davis actually seemed to care about how she felt. The thought that there was someone outside her family who cared about her well-being made her feel warm inside.
"That's good to hear." Davis returned the smile, before his face turned serious again. "But that wasn't the only reason I wanted to talk to you."
At this, Kari immediately re-focused on the task at hand. Yesterday, she had only told Davis what little she knew about the Digital World from what Koromon had told her, and her brief interraction with it 4 years ago. Davis had seemed sceptical about it when they had talked about it, but he hadn't downright dismissed her either. She just hoped that she would be able to answer whatever questions Davis might have about it.
"You want to know more about the Digiworld." she stated.
Davis just nodded thoughtfully, not really knowing what it was he wanted to ask. He wanted to know more, but what exactly did he want to know? There was probably thousands of things that he could ask about the Digiworld, but what was it really he was after? Turning away from Kari to try and gather his thoughts, he focused on the information that had made him resolve to visit his new friend early.
"Highton View Terrace." he said, before turning back to face Kari again, only to be met by a look of confusion by his classmate. "Do you remember what happened there when you met Coremon for the first time?"
It took Kari a moment to register what it was Davis had asked, but once she realized that he had been trying to say Koromon's name, she couldn't help but sweatdrop.
"His name isn't Coremon, it's Kor-o-mon." she giggled, intentionally drawing out the syllables on the "o".
Humming thoughtfully, Kari leaned back and rested herself against the pillows of the bed as she tried to recall exactly what had happened 4 years ago, during the Highton View Terrace incident.
"Hmm, well I remember that I was woken up in the middle of the night by our computer starting itself up." she began, remembering how the light from the flashing computer screen had caught her attention. "When Tai and I went to check on it, Koromon's egg came out through the computer screen."
"Wait..." Davis interrupted, thinking that me must've heard something wrong. "Koromon's egg came out through the computer screen?"
Kari frowned slightly at being interrupted, but took a moment to think about it. It felt like it had been so long since it happened, the memory of it had become kind of fuzzy, even to her. She knew that she remembered it better than her brother did, but that didn't mean that she remembered every single detail.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's where it came from at least." she said as if it was the most natural thing in the entire world. "There were no other digital devices there that it could've come from."
Her reasoning caused Davis to sweatdrop. How did that make any kind of sense? Digital or not, eggs just didn't come flying out of computer screens. Even Davis knew that it was completely illogical for anything solid to pass through a computer screen. However, as Kari had already began explaining what had happened after the egg had appeared, he let it pass for now and instead re-focused on his friend's tale.
Kari went on to explain how she had fed the infant digimon some candies and how he had "digivolved" twice, first into Koromon and then later into a dinosaur-like creature that she had later learned was called Agumon. While Davis questioned both the logic of a creature gaining enough energy from a few candy bars to suddenly morph into a completely different being, and the fact that said creature for some reason suddenly was called by a completely different name, Kari just shrugged and said that it was natural by their standard. She told him that after Koromon had digivolved to Agumon, she had left the apartment and rode around the block on the back of the dinosaur-like digimon in the middle of the night...
"Eventually, Tai caught up with us just outside Highton View Terrace." Kari explained as she suddenly got a serious look in her eyes. "But he wasn't the only one. Another digimon, Parrotmon, also crossed over to the human world and he attacked me and Agumon..."
-:Flashback:-
"Koromon, please don't fight!"
5 year old Kari Kamiya was in tears as she begged her new friend not to fight. Ever since the giant green bird showed up, Koromon had been entirerly focused on it and Kari wasn't even sure if he still remembered that she was there. Before that, she and Koromon had been having a fun time riding around the city, but now it was as if the lovable little yellow dinosaur had she had gotten to know had been replaced with something else, something scary.
"Kari!" the young girl flinched as she felt her brother grab her shoulder from behind and attempt to drag her away. "Come on, Kari! We've got to get away from here! It's too dangerous!"
But Kari didn't listen. She didn't want Koromon to fight, and she didn't want to leave him behind. However, Tai was stronger than her and was able to drag her a few feet away from the yellow dinosaur, before said monster resumed his assault.
"Pepper Breath!" he growled in a guttural voice as he spit a barrage of fireballs towards the giant green bird that had landed opposite to him, at the other end of the road.
Kari didn't know exactly what happened after that, but a few seconds later she covered her ears as the bridge above them was hit by a bolt of lightning, sent towards them by the green big bird. Looking up, she screamed in fear and began crying as she saw the bridge collapse over them before her brother pulled her close and laid himself flat on top of her in a vain attempt to protect her.
She didn't know how long they just laid there, but after what felt like an eternity the two siblings realized that they were both still alive, and sat up. A low grumbling alerted Kari to the presence of a third being. Feeling herself tremble in fright, she looked up to find a huge reptilian eye look back down at her. It's red iris was highlighted by the light that reflected in it from the burning remains of the bridge all around them, making it appear as if it was glowing in the dark.
"W-who is that?" Kari stuttered in fear of this unfamiliar face.
"Koromon?" Tai questioned with a stunned voice.
Kari felt her lower lip tremble as she studied the monster that was kneeling above them with its arms protectively around the two. Now that Tai mentioned it, it kind of did remind her of Koromon a little, but he was much larger and had blue stripes on his arms, legs and belly. The upper part of his head was covered by a large, brown faceplate that was adorned by 3 horns and his eyes were a glowing red instead of the green ones she remembered Koromon having.
"I am Greymon now!" he declared as he shook himself to get rid of the rubble on his back before rising in his full height.
Letting out a loud roar, Greymon charged towards the giant bird at the other end of the street, leaving Kari and Tai behind. The ground shook as the two colossal beasts clashed in the middle of the street and Kari had to hold on to her big brother to not lose her balance.
Once the two monsters were far enough away that the ground didn't shake beneath Tai's and Kari's feet anymore, Kari felt tears well up in her eyes as she watched her new friend open his mouth and release a large blast of searing hot flames towards his opponent.
"Nova Blast!" Greymon's guttural voice echoed around the area.
-:Flashback Ends:-
"... and that's about all I remember from that night." Kari finished her tale. "When I woke up the following morning, Greymon and Parrotmon were both already gone, and all that was left was the destruction caused by their battle. I hadn't seen him again until... well, yesterday."
As she finished her tale, she took a deep breath and laid down on top of the bed covers. Davis, who had stayed surprisingly quiet after that first interruption, mirrored her actions and leaned back until he was stretched out opposite to her on the bed. Silence settled over the two, as Davis pondered what Kari had just told him. It all sounded so unreal to him and yet, he knew for a fact that something had happened at Highton View Terrace 4 years ago, thanks to the news reporter. As much as his rational mind wanted to deny the existance of another world besides their own, he was beginning to think that maybe Kari was right after all.
Opposite to him, Kari bit her lip nervously. Davis had given no indication of what he felt or thought throughout her story, aside from that short interruption at the beginning. What was he thinking right now? Did he think that she was completely crazy? Less than 2 days ago, she wouldn't have cared if he did or not, but for some reason the thought of him walking out on her now was frightening.
Kari had never had any real friends before, at least none that she hung out with regularly outside of school. While she got along with most of the girls in her class, she didn't share any common interests with them, which ranged from unicorns and rainbows to sports and games. The best thing Kari knew was to spend time with her family, whatever activities that might entail. As such, she was regarded as kind of a weird kid, even by the other girls.
While this had never been an issue for her with the other girls, as she felt happy as long as she had her family, Davis was different from her other friends now. She had only really known him for 2 days, but in those 2 days he had made a deeper impression on her than any of her girl friends had done in over 3 years. It was hard for the 9 year old girl to pinpoint exactly why his friendship felt so different from the others, but whatever it was it made her not want to lose what little friendship they had developed.
"Well," Davis voice brought Kari out of her thoughts. "I have to tell you, this is a lot to take in, and I didn't even follow everything you just said."
As soon as the words left his mouth, Kari felt her heart sink in her chest. What did that mean? Did it mean that he didn't like her anymore? Now that she thought about it, she wasn't even sure if he had ever liked her to begin with. Yesterday, he had said that he just helped her because she looked like she needed it, not because she was his friend or anything. Had she just fooled herself when thinking that they could be friends? The thought made her throat constrict painfully.
"However, my gut tells me that I should trust you on this." he continued, sitting up again and facing Kari. "I still think this whole thing is crazy, but at the same time it strangely makes sense. It would explain all that's been happening lately, with the monsters showing up around town and all."
Instantly, Kari perked up.
"Does that mean that you believe me?" she asked hopefully.
For the first time since she had let him into the apartment, Davis met her gaze and offered her a smile. It was a slightly unnerved and stiff smile, but a smile nonetheless. Seeing him smile at her like that, Kari felt the cold fear about him not wanting to be her friend leave her chest. Before he even opened his mouth to reply, she knew what his answer would be, and it made her feel warm inside, in a way she didn't recognize.
"Yeah, I guess I do."
Author's Note: Well, I guess this is as good a spot to end it off at as any. I originally intended to write longer chapters, but trying to force an extra 4k words into this wouldn't benefit neither me nor the story. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter!
Before I go, I just want to make a quick note of Veemon. A lot of people were asking about him in the reviews, but sadly I can't answer the question right now. I got ideas for how the story could go both with or without Veemon featured in it, so I want to hold off on making that decision right now.
Now, if you really liked this chapter and haven't done it already, there is this nice little button that says "Follow/Favourite" somewhere on the screen right now that you can press to show your support. Also, I again want to thank all of you guys who reviewed the prologue. 21 reviews in 3 days for a new story is pretty good. Can we SMASH 50 reviews before I post Chapter 2? I would be more than happy if you could, so go ahead! Leave a review and tell me what you thought!