Chapter 4: Falling Out
Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon.
Special thanks to my beta, CrazyEight, for taking the time out of his busy life to work on this chapter.
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The two of them made their way through the junkyard where there was a bioemergence, walking past various debris, crushed cars, and other sorts of machinery. The digital field was only a few dozen meters in front of them and so they put on their sunglasses just as they entered into it.
Taizou was a little apprehensive. On one hand he hoped that this was the friendly digimon that would become his partner, however, he had learned over the preceding week not to hold his breath. His best friend's partner digimon seemingly materialized out of nowhere amongst the duo as they moved toward the center of the cloud-mass.
The group spotted the digimon in the center, a trio of gears of an orange color. Yuji, not knowing what digimon they were dealing with since he hadn't really looked deeply into the franchise, pulled his digivice out of his pocket to see what it was. "Solarmon, Rookie Level, Vaccine Attribute, Machine Digimon. Okay, buddy, what brings you to our world?" the long-haired teen asked the digimon, kneeling down.
Solarmon looked at Yuji somewhat frightened by the sight, trembling a bit as he spoke. "You… you're not going to delete me are you? I heard about what happens to the digimon that go to the human world."
"Nah, don't worry about it," Yuji said, scratching his chin. "You look friendly enough. I think you should get a Tamer."
"Can't you send me back to the digital world or something?" the digimon asked, now looking slightly confused.
"I have no way of send you back there. Sorry," the long-haired boy said, though his apology wasn't at all convincing. Solarmon looked on the edge of sadness.
"Don't worry about it," Taizou said, stepping in. "The name's Taizou, by the way."
Solarmon's expression changed from one of sorrow to one bordering on happiness. "My name is Solarmon. You know, I've never met a human, though I've heard of one traveling through the digital world."
"Yeah, that was probably our friends. A few months ago they went to the digital world to find a friend of theirs that got kidnapped," the buzz-haired boy said, smiling. "Anyway, it's good to meet you. So, Yuji, we can be partners, right?" Taizou looked toward his friend, who had narrowed eyes.
"Sorry, but I already promised a guy in Shibuya that I'd get him the next digimon that I found. Said he'd pay five thousand," Yuji stated much to Taizou's chagrin.
The buzz-haired teen objected. "What? Come on! You promised me that you'd get me a partner first."
"Oh, but that was before I got this offer," Yuji stated, annoying Taizou further.
"Uh, Taizou, what's happening?" Solarmon asked, slightly confused about what the two were talking about. He didn't really have any understanding of money, so that meant that a large part of what Yuji had said had gone completely over his head.
"You're going with us to meet this other guy," Taizou said, downcast. Solarmon looked at the boy in surprise, dumbfounded.
"Come on, let's go. We gotta get this guy to Shibuya before dinnertime!" Yuji exclaimed.
"Yeah, come on you slowpokes!" Commandramon chided them.
###
The trip was uneventful other than Yuji calling the guy in question to tell him that they were on their way. Taizou made sure that he talked to Solarmon as much as he could, hoping to develop some sort of friendship with the digimon. As it was, he felt uneasy about this whole thing, especially since it seemed like Yuji was arguing over the phone with his client.
A little while later and the four of them made it to Shibuya, the shopping district of Tokyo. Okay, so maybe there were stores everywhere, but Shibuya was filled to the brim with them. The two of them hoped that they would be noticed as they headed for far seedier sections of the district.
The group arrived to a secluded section. Thankfully, since this was Japan, the thought that anyone could have guns to rob them with didn't really even cross their mind and if some hoodlum decided to pull a knife on them… Well, Commandramon was an expert marksman and could attack from the shadows if need be. Plus, he somehow hid that gun of his so the cops couldn't see it.
The two humans and two digimon waited. And waited. And waited.
"When is this guy supposed to get here?" Taizou asked, indignant, getting a shrug from Yuji.
"He said a few minutes," Yuji stated defensively, leaning against a brick wall and watching as a pair of hoodlums traded illegal substances a few dozen meters from where they stood.
Solarmon was not impressed. "I personally don't like this place. You know, if this client of yours doesn't show, I can go with Taizou. This person that we're supposed to be meeting obviously doesn't care that much."
Yuji narrowed his eyes at the conglomeration of gears. He was going to get his money, and that was final. Then, in the distance, he spotted his client: a taller, bulkier fifteen-year-old wearing a blue suit and tie, looking at his watch. Obviously, he went to a high school that required such a get-up. The long-haired teen pointed him out. "There he is!"
"Oh, great, here we go," Taizou said, not liking this. Something in the air just got on his nerves. That and he noticed that Solarmon didn't seem to like it either. The quartet, Commandramon hiding in camouflage, walked toward the client.
"There you are! We've been waiting like an hour for you!" Yuji exclaimed, catching the client's attention.
"And I've been waiting an equally unacceptable thirty seconds," he responded haughtily in a voice befitting a stereotypical jock, looking at the digimon in front of him. "I had to stop at the pet store before coming here, anyway." Taizou was really taken aback by that. What the heck would this guy be doing in a pet store? Most people in Japan didn't even have pets.
"So, you got the yen?" the long-haired boy asked, smiling.
"Sure, where's my partner?" the client said rudely, getting to the point abruptly.
Yuji gestured at Solarmon. "Here he is! This is Solarmon, a vaccine-attribute, rookie-" The long-haired boy was cut off.
"I don't care about that. You know, this digimon doesn't look all that strong," the client said, making Solarmon feel even more uncomfortable. "But I'm sure that when he digivolves, he's going to kill everything that comes from the other side."
"I don't really want to kill anything unless I don't have to, though," Solarmon objected. The truth was that he didn't care for the dog-eat-dog nature of the digital world and had to arrive at his rookie form through other means.
"Sure you do. Okay, Solarmon," the client said with a bored expression on his face, "You are going to do what I say and when I say it." Then he pulled out a leash and collar. "I'm not sure how this will fit you, but you will wear this at all times. Understand?"
"No! We can't do this!" Taizou objected, his fists clenched and his face showing anger at what this client wanted to do.
"Of course we can. Now, Yuji, here is your payment," the client said, pulling out his money and wandering toward the long-haired boy.
"You know, I agree with Taizou. I don't want to go with you," Solarmon said. "In fact, I want to go with him instead. At least he's been nice to me and doesn't want me to be someone's pet."
The client gave Solarmon a dirty look. "I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable. Now, Yuji, I assume you are still willing to go along with this, am I right?"
"Oh, yeah, just give me the dough and he's yours," Yuji told the guy, ecstatic at being a little bit closer to getting what he wanted.
"Solarmon, let's get out of here!" Taizou said, getting in between the digimon and the client.
"Taizou, what the heck are you doing? You're not getting this digimon!" Yuji exclaimed.
"Don't you care about what this jerk is going to do to Solarmon after he gets him?" the buzz-haired boy asked, glaring at his friend. "This guy is bad news."
"Did you just call me a jerk?" the client asked, popping his knuckles for a fight.
"That's what you are. He's a digimon, not a pet, okay?" Taizou shouted. Solarmon watched on in amazement as the two confronted each other.
"Come on, man, who cares what happens to these guys. It's not like we're going to see them again," Yuji said, gesturing with his hands as the two locked gazes.
But what happened completely ruined the transaction between Yuji and his client. Suddenly, the glow of a digivice appeared in midair for several seconds before it dropped down into Taizou's hands. The long-haired boy looked dumbfounded at what had happened, his mouth dropping open. The client was positively angry at this point and decided to grab the digivice for himself, not knowing that it wouldn't work for him. "Come on, you idiot! Give me the stupid digivice!" he exclaimed as he lunged forward to try to grab the device. Taizou got out of the way just in time for Solarmon to tackle the client, knocking him several feet away.
Of course, Yuji was also angry at Taizou, glaring at him for ruining a perfectly good transaction. "Okay, that was not cool. You planned this from the start, didn't you?" the long-haired boy accused, pointing a finger at his best friend.
"Maybe I did, but only because you weren't going to give me a partner and this guy was way fishy."
"I know what you can do," the client said, getting up and aching all over his body from the gears' assault. "You have a partner, right? So have it delete his!"
Unfortunately, Commandramon was all too willing to attempt it, coming out of camouflage and shooting at Solarmon, who tried shielding his main gear with his smaller one, feeling the energy burns hit his chest.
"Solarmon!" Taizou yelled, pulling out a pair of cards he had packed just in case and sliding one of them. "Digi-Modify, Defense activate!"
Solarmon immediately felt stronger as Commandramon's bullets harmlessly bounced off his chest. The fact was that he hated fighting but he was willing to defend himself.
Yuji was shocked at how everything had fallen apart so quickly. He pulled out his grey digivice along with a card of his own. "Digi-Modify! Attack Activate!" he yelled, causing Commandramon to become stronger. As the reptile shot some more, the long-haired boy felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning around, he received a punch to the face, landing him on the ground. "What was that for?!"
"Wasting two hours of my life," the client said. "I'll spend my cash somewhere else, loser." He then walked away, fuming over the waste of an afternoon.
###
With an added advantage for Commandramon, Solarmon wasn't doing well again. Even though he wanted to defend himself, he wasn't a fighter. In fact, he wished he could get out of there and explore the human world. There was so much out there that he wanted to see, even if he didn't know much about it. True, he still wanted to go back to the digital world as well, at least he had something new to do.
But now, as he fell backwards, he realized he wouldn't be able to do that anymore. He didn't want to give up. He wanted to learn. He wanted to grow.
He wanted to live.
"Solarmon!" Taizou yelled out, getting in between his partner and Commandramon. "Don't shoot him again!"
Commandramon faltered slightly. There was a part of him that told him that this was wrong, but all his military training told him to suppress that emotion and he held his gun up to fire.
"No…" Solarmon mumbled. He wouldn't let this happen.
Taizou was willing to befriend him, to stand up for him against the client for wanting to treat him like some kind of animal.
He was going to protect him.
All the sudden, Taizou's digivice exploded with yellow-orange light.
DIGIVOLUTION_
"Solarmon digivolve to…" Commandramon dropped his gun at the sight, not shooting Taizou with any bullets. The buzz-haired boy turned around, shocked at the sight of his partner becoming something bigger, something far bigger. In fact, the digimon could barely fit in the alleyway from the looks of it. Solarmon had become a large, heavily armed blimp. "… Blimpmon!"
Yuji was still angry at Taizou for ruining everything, however even he knew to back down. "Commandramon, stand down. There's no way you can win this unless you digivolve."
"Then that's what I'll do!" the reptile exclaimed.
"No, you won't because this battle's over. Digivolve against a different enemy, okay?" the long-haired boy ordered.
"You're just going to give up, huh?" Taizou asked, surprised. Maybe there was hope for this friendship, after all.
"Yeah, pretty much. Here's the thing man, if it weren't for you getting all mushy over there and partnering with my 5000 yen, we wouldn't be in this mess," Yuji said, a dirty look on his face.
"Oh, come on, man, you were going to sell him to some sort of slave-driver!" Taizou exclaimed.
"Yeah? Well, here's the number one rule of selling stuff. You shouldn't care about what the customer does with what he buys afterwards," the long-haired boy said, angrily, clenching his fists.
"Well, maybe you shouldn't be selling living things!" Taizou exclaimed, walking toward his digimon.
"Yeah? I guess this friendship is officially over!" Yuji yelled as Blimpmon let a rope-ladder down from his starboard side and Taizou climbed it.
"Well, I don't want to be friends with someone like you anyway!" the buzz-haired boy yelled back, climbing up and into the cockpit. The ladder came back up and Blimpmon flew away, heading off into the distance.
###
After landing Blimpmon on the roof of his apartment building, Taizou made his way down to his apartment, entered, walked past his mother and sister who were calmly eating dinner and went in his room, shutting his door shut. He wasn't in the mood for anything.
His friendship was ruined and he was a Tamer.
He held his digivice up and looked into it. What had he gotten himself into? Now he had the duty to go and deal with bioemergences for real and with his own partner to boot. He wasn't sure whether he was ready for this or not. True, he had wanted a partner, but now he didn't know if he was qualified.
That and he would have to tell his mother sooner or later.
He was about to rest his eyes when his mother entered into the room. She wasn't a very tall woman nor was she very good looking. She held her brown hair back in a bun and wore a simple blue dress. The look on her face showed her concern for her downtrodden son.
"Taizou, is everything alright?" she asked, hoping for an answer. After several seconds, the boy sat up on his bed and spoke.
"No, it's not. Yuji and I had a falling out," he said, holding his digivice and hoping she didn't notice. He would have to tell her sooner rather than later. He might as well tell her now. "Mom… I'm… I'm a Digimon Tamer."
The woman's face showed shock. She didn't know what to say to that one. True, she kind of had something like that in the back of her mind for a while since her son hung around the heroes of the D-Reaper invasion, but so soon…
"Taizou, I want you to know that I'll always love you, no matter what you do in life," she said. She didn't want him to be put in harm's way; however she knew that he had a strong sense of duty that would keep her from preventing him from dealing with these enemies. "Just… Be safe. It's a dangerous job and I don't know why you children have to deal with it yourselves."
The brown-haired boy looked down at his digivice. It was easier to tell her than he thought it would be. "I… I'll be careful. Don't worry, mom."
"And about Yuji, you'll get over it. Who knows, maybe you'll be friends again. In the meantime, there's always Tadashi or one of the other kids from school. Remember, just because your friendship fell apart doesn't mean it's the end of the world." Coming from a woman who had to deal with a divorce shortly after giving birth to him, she knew what she was talking about.
Taizou looked her in the eyes with a slight smile. "Thanks."
"So, where is this partner of yours?" the woman asked, putting her hands on her hips and smiling. Her son raised his eyebrows.
"He's flying around. Unfortunately, he's a bit big for this apartment and we worried that someone would call the cops on him if they find him up there," Taizou said, gesturing toward the ceiling. He hoped that when people saw him in the sky that they'd think he was just a regular, brown blimp. "If you want, you can meet him a little later on."
"I'd love to. Whenever you feel like it. Don't be in too much of a hurry. Also, there's food for whenever you're ready." She turned and walked out the door, hoping that her son got better. In the meantime, Taizou got up and turned on his desktop computer.
###
The next day, a bioemergence appeared. Since it was the weekend, just about any of the Tamers could arrive at the site. Though, since it was the top of a building, chances were that only someone with the ability to fly would make it there. Because Blimpmon still hasn't devolved and because Taizou was flying him around, he decided to send the brown battle-ship towards the emergence site.
"Scanning fog… It seems we have a large figure inside of it," Blimpmon said while Taizou rode in the cockpit. Blimpmon's cramped insides were very utilitarian with rust-colored walls and seats attached to the sides with the exception of the pilot and co-pilot seats. Not to mention all the exposed pipes inside that made it look like a steampunk nightmare.
"Alright, getting a reading using my digivice," Taizou said as a figure appeared, his face getting more concerned as he read the stats. "IceLeomon… Ultimate level? Oh, crap…"
Just then, another figure jumped upward from a nearby building, heading into the fog. What happened next was an interesting sight to say the least. The two digimon battled after the IceLeomon proved to be hostile and the next thing Taizou and Blimpmon knew, the lion had been hurled out of the digital field and a large, brown rabbit walked out.
"Holy crap, what is that?" Taizou asked as he checked his digivice. "Antylamon, another Ultimate-level… Oh, isn't that a tamed Digimon?" He made a face, moving his lips to the side in thought. "Hmm… I wonder who his or her Tamer is."
In reality, Taizou was somewhat grateful that he got to sit this one out and he hoped that the rabbit would prove victorious.
"Ice King Fist!" IceLeomon yelled, launching an ice attack against Antylamon, who dodged it gracefully. The lion launched a number of attacks, all of which were dodged by the large rabbit, whose arms morphed into axes.
"Treasure Axe!" she yelled, slicing into the fellow Ultimate, creating a massive gash on its chest. IceLeomon grasped at his wound as data poured out of it before disintegrating into numerous particles. Antylamon simply watched as they flew off into the distance before turning to Blimpmon.
"Oh, I do believe she notices us," Blimpmon remarked as Taizou panicked. He hoped that this wouldn't result in his partner getting a premature deletion. Then again, he still had a hard time believing that he was a Digimon Tamer and was still getting used to the concept, so he definitely did not want that to happen. "By the way, I can put you on loudspeaker."
"You can?" Taizou asked, surprised.
"Of course, what do you think that microphone is for?" the brown-haired boy rolled his eyes when he noticed the old-fashioned mic amongst the various dials and controls that were in front of his chair. Then he grabbed it and spoke into it.
"Hey, uh… The name's Taizou. You must be Antylamon. Don't worry about us, we're friendly," he said, grinning uneasily.
"Interesting…" was the giant rabbit's only response.
"By the way, you have a Tamer? And if so, can we meet him… her… whatever?" the nervous Tamer asked, shaking.
"May I ask what for?" she said.
"Just want to meet another Tamer, that's all. There's nothing wrong with that, right?" Now Taizou was really shaking. He was glad that the chair he was in was at least bolted down.
"If you insist… Just follow me," she said, resigning to Taizou's offer and jumping to another building while Blimpmon followed. She stopped every so often to let him catch up. Eventually, the giant rabbit stopped on the roof of a nearby building and Blimpmon landed right by her. Taizou immediately got out of the large, weaponized blimp as Antylamon devolved back to her rookie form, a far smaller brown rabbit.
"Just follow me," she said as the brown-haired boy did so.
###
A few minutes later, they were in front of the door. Taizou couldn't believe it. He was finally about to meet another Tamer that wasn't one of the ones he knew from before. His various worries went through his mind: What would she be like? How long has she been at this? Why wasn't she taken with any of the others? Was he dressed well enough? And isn't this Henry's building?
The door then opened and a tall, middle-aged man with somewhat long hair opened up. "Wait, you're not the Tamer, are you?" Taizou asked in confusion.
"What? No. Lopmon is my daughter's partner," the man explained, gesturing toward the little girl behind him who was grabbing hold of the brown rabbit.
"You're a Tamer? Aren't you one of Henry's friends?" the girl asked.
That was when it dawned on him. That hair, those features. Oh crap, this is Henry's dad, isn't it?
Janyu didn't know what to think of this kid showing up at his door after his daughter's partner dealt with a bioemergence. Still, he decided to talk to him for a little bit. "So, what is your partner?" he asked out of curiosity.
Taizou stood nervously for a second, scratching the back of his head. "His name is Solarmon or Blimpmon. He hasn't devolved yet from his Champion form."
The middle-aged man nodded in understanding. "That will take a little while. I know my son's partner usually took a few hours at least before reverting back to his rookie form." Janyu twitched a little bit at the mention of his missing son. He hadn't been so worried since the boy went to the digital world the first time.
"You alright?" Taizou asked, realizing what the man was probably thinking about. In response, he got a shaking of the head from Janyu.
The response was abrupt. "I'm fine. What's your name?"
"Taizou, Taizou Aoyama. You're Henry's dad, right?" the brown-haired boy asked.
"Yes. My name is Janyu Wong. It is nice to meet you. Now, since you know my son, I am going to tell you that you shouldn't go to the digital world after him," the man said with a straight face. He realized what he was doing, but at the same time, he didn't want to have any other parent go what he was going through.
Suzie didn't quite agree with her dad. "But, daddy, somebody has to go after him."
Taizou nodded. "Yeah, she's right. And that's easier said than done. I probably won't go to the digital world, but I have a friend named Yuji who wants to head straight there and be known as the guy who saved the Tamers."
Janyu shook his head. "If he's going in for that reason, then I'm not sure if I can trust him." He then thought for a second. "He isn't the Yuji that Hypnos said is trying to sell digimon, is he?"
"Yeah, he is," the brown-haired boy said, clenching his fists. "In fact, he almost sold the digimon that became my partner to some rich dirtbag who wanted to put him on a leash."
The Chinese man shook his head in disbelief. "That's going too far. If I were you, I would report that to Hypnos right away. In fact, I might just do that."
Taizou looked up at the man in shock, dreading the thought of talking to Hypnos about his friend. "Now, hold on a second. You're telling me that I should turn myself in to Hypnos?"
"If you've helped your friend in any way, you should. They'll go easy on you," Janyu said told him. Tadashi realized that the Chinese man was probably right.
"Okay, I guess I'll go do that!" he exclaimed, determined. He felt like he was about to wake up from a dream with all the digimon activity, his becoming a Tamer and finally doing this. He was nervous about it, most definitely, but he knew it had to be done. The next time Yuji attempted such a sale, he would need to be there to stop him from going ahead with it, lest a digimon fall into the wrong hands. He had heard about some turf wars between Tamers overseas and he wasn't about to let that happen here.
"Well, good luck. I'll call Yamaki or whoever's in charge over there right now and let him know you're coming," Janyu stated, giving the boy an uneasy smile. He saw Henry in him and he wasn't about to let another Tamer end up in like his boy.
Suzie, upon seeing that Taizou was about to leave, walked over to him and asked, "You're leaving already?"
"Yeah, I have some things I need to do," he said, uneasy. He wasn't used to dealing with small children, although Suzie was actually about eight years old. Still, he smiled. "It's good meeting another Tamer."
"Maybe we can fight a bad digimon together," the girl suggested, smiling.
"Fighting is only the last resort," Taizou said, lowering himself to her level, "but if I run into a big bad digimon that's too tough, I'll call you, okay?"
The girl's smile got really wide at that. "Bye, Taizou!" she exclaimed, hugging the boy tightly. Then he got up and turned to leave, waving at the two as he left.
"It was good talking to both of you," he said, walking away.
"Likewise," Janyu said, his hope rekindling. If a team were to go save his son, it would have to include Taizou, despite his admonition for him not to go to the digital world. Maybe in a few months' time…
###
Tadashi's mother found her son busy playing a strategy game on his computer while Coronamon slept on his bed. She and her husband had finally given in and let his partner come stay with them. The woman didn't expect the digimon to be so upbeat or intelligent, even though he really wasn't that smart. In fact, she simply assumed the digimon would be some sort of mindless beast like the Parasimon that had invaded only a couple months before.
"Tadashi, the phone's for you," she said in her slight foreign accent. Her son turned around and looked up, smiling before grabbing the phone from her.
"Thanks, mom," he said before greeting the person on the other line. "Hello, this is Tadashi."
"Hello, Tadashi, this is Yamaki. You are to come to Hypnos immediately. This is urgent," the stern man said on the other line.
"Okay. Just remember that I can't go fight wild digimon," the blond boy told the man, hating that fact.
"I am aware of that and this is nothing of the sort. Instead, it involves your friend Yuji. Come to Hypnos and you will be briefed."
"Alright, I'm on my way," he said, hanging up and getting up out of his chair before shutting off his game and walking over to his partner. He shook the lion-like digimon slightly to rouse him. It worked, but the digimon was slightly cranky.
"Come on, this is my afternoon nap! Can't I finish it?" Coronamon asked, eliciting an eye-roll from his Tamer.
"Hypnos called. They want us to attend a meeting," Tadashi explained, annoyed with his partner.
"A meeting. Meetings are boring, but if it involves fighting…" the lion said before his blond partner interrupted him.
"We won't be fighting wild digimon, Coronamon. At least not together. My parents are willing to let me direct you from far away, but helping you in a battle is out of the question."
"No fun! Okay, I'll come to the meeting. It better be good."
###
Taizou hadn't expected his explanation to Yamaki to be so easy. It was almost as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He sat there in the conference room and waited. Then, all the sudden, someone opened the door. The brown-haired teen looked to see an unfamiliar strawberry-blond man looking around in confusion.
"Have you seen Yamaki around?" he asked.
"Uh, he left for a few minutes to call my friends. What is it?" Taizou deduced that the man was most likely another worker there at Hypnos.
"Well, I was hoping to talk to him about this for approval first, but I guess I could talk to you about it. A colleague of mine who used to go to Palo Alto with us has finished his upgrade of the D-Arc's operating system," the man explained. "By the way, my name is Gorou Mizuno."
Taizou now understood the importance of the middle-aged man in front of him and realized who he was from the information packet that he read. "So you're Shibumi. Wait, how could this guy create this new operating system without a digivice?"
"That's the thing. My friend has two digivices to work on, one of them his own and the other belonging to his son, a non-Tamer. I know it may come to a shock, but my friend has been a Tamer since our college days."
Taizou had a hard time believing that one. "And how old is he again?"
"Thirty-seven. So, I guess he's been a Tamer for eighteen years. The digimon was a new species that had appeared in our experiments back then and somehow it bioemerged. It scared Daisy so that she destroyed all our monitors to keep it from emerging, but somehow my friend ended up encountering it instead a little later on." Seeing the blank stare from Taizou, he said, somewhat embarrassed. "Sorry, I kind of rambled on again, didn't I?"
Taizou smiled at that one. "Don't worry, it's alright. This is going to be interesting. I've got to see his new program."
"What new program?" the two turned to see Tadashi and Coronamon at the door. The blond was the one who had spoken.
"Shibumi said that apparently this Tamer he knows created a new operating system for the digivice. I just gotta know what it contains, being the tech geek that I am," the brown-haired boy said, smiling. "Also, what language did this friend of yours use to make it?"
"He designed the new operating system using C++," Mizuno explained, glad that he had found someone among the group that had an interest in computer science. The answer naturally went way over Tadashi's head but Taizou knew exactly what the guy was talking about.
Taizou scratched the back of his head. "C++ is hard, man. Especially pointers. Man, who created such an evil feature? Besides, when do you ever need a variables address?"
"Yes, I hear they can be a bit hard to get used to. Then again, I disassembled my parents' computer by hand and wrote everything down in notebooks. That was back in the seventies, though."
Tadashi had just about enough of what they were talking about. "Uh, so, what am I here for again?"
"Yamaki wanted us to get together and have a meeting to discuss Yuji," Taizou explained, realizing he had probably accidentally alienated one of his best friends by talking about overly technical computer stuff.
"So, are you a Tamer now?" the blonde asked his friend, smiling at the sight of the digivice.
"Yeah, more or less. My partner's on the roof and he still hasn't de-digivolved. We… we kind of got into a fight with Yuji yesterday and… well, that's what I'm here to discuss." The brown-haired teen frowned and Tadashi had a look of shock since he almost couldn't believe it.
"That… You're his best friend. What happened?"
"Let me guess, Commandramon gunned a digimon down?" Coronamon suggested, scratching his chin and not knowing what he was talking about.
"That's not something Yuji would have him do," Tadashi objected, though Taizou shook his head at that statement.
"Commandramon opened fire on my partner after we became partners. You see, my partner was supposed to go to this guy that paid money for him but he was a total jerk. I couldn't let that happen."
Tadashi now understood and got into a fighting stance. "We have to go stop him!" he exclaimed.
"Yeah!" Coronamon cheered.
"I… I hope we can reason with him and that it doesn't come to that," Taizou said. He still had trouble grasping his friend's betrayal. Or did he betray Yuji? He did intend to partner himself with Solarmon even before he found out that the client was a total jerk.
"I agree with Taizou," Ayaka said, coming into the room with Salamon in her arms.
"You heard the whole thing, huh?" Taizou asked, surprised.
"Yes, I did," the girl said with a bit of a frown.
"Well, I guess that totally ruins the point of this stupid meeting, doesn't it?" Coronamon asked the group, elated that it was over.
"Well, I guess I'll leave you to your own devices," Shibumi said before walking out of the room. "I'm sure Yamaki will be back in a couple minutes and you should probably wait for him."
Tadashi looked at his two friends and smiled. He could tell that the team was almost formed. After that, he would just have to reach the Ultimate level and then they could go to the digital world. Then again, getting his parents' permission for that would be almost impossible.
He just hoped they could get Yuji to listen to reason.
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A/N: Shibumi's backstory as revealed in this chapter is based on what I read about the guy who programmed the game Earthbound (or Mother 2) from scratch over a really short period of time and saved the project. It may seem farfetched, but it's true. The guy did disassemble his parents' computer byte by byte.
BTW, sorry for the long delay. That was all my fault, since, for some reason, I waited a week and a half before actually doing the corrections my beta gave me. Hopefully the next chapter will take a lot less time.