Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Digital Awakenings ❯ All Too Familiar ( Chapter 2 )

[AN: Just a bit about names. In the 01 intro, they used the character's dub name as a nickname, unlike in other seasons where they just had the dub name fully replace the original. This is why, although I use most dub terms, most of the 01 characters use their original, Japanese names. And if I use characters from other seasons, they will probably have their original names too. The main exceptions are Kari, who only uses Hikari as a formal name; and Matt, who just likes the nickname.]

Chapter 2:All Too Familiar

"Where are we!" Ryo shouted. "What did you do, Kei?"

"Me!" Kei protested. "You think I had anything to do with this?"

"I don't know, but I know somebody did and it wasn't me!" Ryo raged. "What about you, Lily?"

"Not me either," Lily said meekly. "Hey, look up in the sky!"

Through the blue sky something came streaking towards the three. They all backed up, and the thing landed where they just had been.

"That's it, I'm getting out of here!" Ryo shouted, and bolted away from the small crater. Kei thought he might follow him, but he was curious about what had crashed. Was it a meteorite? That would be strange, but then again so was warping from bustling Odaiba to the middle of nowhere.

Cautiously, Lily approached the crater and Kei followed. A look of puzzlement crossed Lily's face, and she leaned down and scooped something out of the crater. Kei leaned over her shoulder to look, brushing some of Lily's flowing, dyed-green hair out of his face.

In her hand, Lily held three small devices. They looked kind of like that virtual pet thing that Kei's mom still had from her childhood. One of them was lit up and displayed a large red dot in the centre of the screen, but otherwise nothing. Lily hit one of the four buttons on the side of the glowing one.

All of a sudden, the device spewed forth a beam of light. Lily jumped back and dropped all three, the beam of light disappearing as they clattered to the ground. Kei picked one of the ones with a blank screen, and this one lit up. Again, there was the large red dot in the middle, although it was more of an oval.

Kei hit one of the buttons. Nothing. Then another. There was a map, with a tiny red dot in the centre of the screen. It seemed to display a landscape with plains, mountains and forests. A couple red dots were scattered about. At the edge of the screen, there was a small blue dot.

Lily cautiously picked the other two back up. One came to life in her hands, but the other remained dull. She put the dull one in her pocket. "What do you want to do?"

"What can we do?" Kei shrugged. "Maybe we're supposed to head towards the blue dot." He showed Lily his computer screen.

Lily wrinkled her nose. "But we have to go through mountains and forests to get there!" she protested.

"All right then, what do you suggest?" Kei asked.

Lily paused, and pointed to one of the red dots on Kei's screen. "Assuming the red dot in the centre is us, maybe those other red dots are other people. We should try to find one."

"All right," Kei said. "I guess it's off to the closest red dot, then."

After figuring out which direction everything was in, based off the shadow of the mountains in the background, the two grudgingly set off to what must have been the east.

* * *

Taichi didn't know what he intended to do. He just knew that his sister was in danger. In the back of his mind he knew that all he was doing was putting him in danger, but then he saw the smoke and lost all sense of self.

Almost the entire student body was out on the playground, backing away from the inferno. Firefighters had arrived, blasting their hoses at the school. Taichi parked his car and hopped out. He scanned the line of teachers, directing their classes back from the fire. No Kari.

Taichi was panicking until he saw a firefigher bring Kari out, her unconscious body slung over his shoulder. The firefighter set her down and Taichi rushed to her. She had burn marks all over her body, and her brown hair had been nearly all burnt away. Taichi shook her-her body was still hot from the fire-but she didn't awake. The firefighters set down a girl, with as many burns as Kari, beside Taichi's sister.

"Sir, if you'd please get away from the fire," a fireman said sternly. Taichi jumped, and then nodded. They were doing all they could here. Taichi needed to make sure something like this didn't happen again.

Taichi followed the smoke and destruction in his car. It seemed largely at random. A house here, a car there, a store here. Taichi wondered if the Digimon had any particular targets or was just destroying things.

Then Taichi saw the Digimon in the air and swerved into the parking lane. The Digimon's lower half was like a long gray snake, about as wide around as a tree. Its upper part was rougly humanoid. Instead of hands at the end of the Digimon's arms, there were what seemed to be small missile launchers. The Digimon had a snakelike head, half of which was covered by a metal helmet. Two ragged black wings extended from the Digimon's back.

The Digimon seemed to be eyeing a large office building. Tons of people in there. Taichi knew he had to do something before somebody died. He jumped out of the car and shouted up at the Digimon. "Hey, numbskull!" The Digimon's head snapped down to glare at Taichi. The Digidestined of Courage gulped, but continued on. "Why don't you try to hit me? I don't think you could!"

The dragon Digimon opened up his missile launchers and grinned. "The Lord of the Night shall fly forever! Dark Side Attack!" A barrage of missiles flew at Taichi. All of a sudden, there was a sharp pain in Taichi's chest. He looked down and saw the glowing symbol of the Crest of Courage.

Something slammed into Taichi, sending him rolling head over heels with it. The missiles hit the spot where Taichi had been, blasting a hole in the sidewalk. "What the. . ." Tai began, but stopped as he saw that the one who had tackled him had been Greymon. His Greymon.

Greymon looked up in the sky. "That's a Gigadramon. I don't know how it got there, but I'd better take care of it." Again Taichi felt energy flowing through him as Greymon drew off his power to digivolve.

"Greymon warp digivolve to. . .WarGreymon!"

WarGreymon stood there, as gallant as Taichi remembered him. Gigadramon recoiled and started to fly away, but it was too late. WarGreymon flew up in to the air and slammed his clawed fist into Gigadramon's chest. "Dramon Destroyer!" With a burst of light, Gigadramon was no more.

WarGreymon settled on the ground and devolved to Agumon. The battle, the stupid courage, had been familiar to Taichi. Yes, battle was all too familiar.

"Tai, I'm so glad to see you!" Agumon said cheerfully, jumping up and hugging Taichi. "So much has changed in the Digital World!"

"I'm sure," Taichi said, patting his Digimon on the back. "You can tell me all about it. But we should probably get out of here, before someone comes around here and thinks that you're the one who caused all this direction."

The two got into Taichi's car, Agumon having a little trouble with the seat belt. "So Tai," Agumon began. "What have you been doing for the past twenty-five years?"

"Well, I went through school, and after doing a couple jobs, I ended up in politics," Taichi said. "Oh, me and Sora got married."

"Biyomon always said you would," Agumon said. "How about the others?"

"Well, Matt's still trying to be a rock star. Sora plays amateur tennis. Mimi moved over to America and became a movie star. Jou became a doctor. Takeru's an accountant or something, but he's trying to get this novel of his published. And Kari's a teacher."

"Takeru? Jou?" Agumon grinned. "You sure have gotten a lot more formal since I last saw you. Wait, you didn't mention Izzy."

Taichi sighed. "Well, Izzy. . .how should I say this. . .he kind of left us a couple years ago. Took his own life."

"Oh," was all Agumon could say.

"You said that the Digital World has changed," Taichi said, changing the subject. "Tell me about it,"

"Well," Agumon said, "About ten years ago, strange Digimon began to appear. They were stronger than most others of their type, and they all spoke of a mysterious lord. Then their lords began to appear. They were more powerful than any Digimon ever before. They took over the Digital World, each forming their own domain. There are sixteen now, I think. Some of them are good, some of them are evil, and some of them are kind of neutral. I think the only area a Digital Lord dosen't control is the edges of the world. And any Digimon that dosen't live there swears loyalty to one of the Digital Lords."

"Do you?" Taichi asked softly.

"Yes," Agumon answered. "One of them named Beastdramon. He's pretty good, actually. His domain is basically just wildlife with a few villages. Now that I think about it, that Gigadramon I just killed served Nightdramon, based on his battle cry and the symbols on his chest. I wonder why he was here?"

"Well, here we are," Taichi said as they pulled into the hospital parking lot.

Agumon glanced up. "Why are we at the hospital, Tai?"

"They'll probably take Kari here," Taichi answered. "She looked pretty hurt when I last saw her, and I couldn't stand not knowing how she's doing. You pretend to be a doll when someone's watching, okay?"

Taichi muttered a silent prayer as he entered the hospital.

[AN:I plan to go into more detail about Izzy's death later on. Until then, maintain the level of scepticism that you would if a comic book character died.]