Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was just another evening in Shinjuku. The sun was sinking slowly in the sky, while in the park, a trio of boys, two eleven years old and one aged nine, were at play.

Or, at least, that was what it would look like to a casual observer. Certainly, the way they shuffled cards and the youngest pet his cat would give that impression, as did the admittedly childish flag they draped over the entrance to their little hideaway. In reality, they were Digimon Tamers discussing important matters- well, they said they were important, anyway.

“So, I’m leaving this Saturday for vacation,” Sabo started. “Which means I won’t be here for a while.”

Ace nodded. Luffy grinned, before asking the obvious question. “Where are you going?”

“Okinawa. I’ve got relatives there, including Kai. He’s the cousin I told you about, remember?”

“The one that Koala accidentally shoved off the playground?” Ace ventured.

“I’m still not convinced that was an accident, but… yeah. Him. Please don’t burn down Shinjuku while I’m gone.”

“You don’t trust me?” Coronamon asked, trying to look hurt and failing miserably.

“I think he’s talking to our Tamers,” Mikemon corrected him, still not moving from her spot next to Luffy. “I wouldn’t trust them, either. Remember IceDevimon?”

“That was completely justified!” Ace snapped. Nobody seemed to believe him. “Besides, that was Sabo’s fault!”

“If I didn’t, you would.” Okay, true. But far from the point. “Just… I want the city to still be here when I come back.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Ace leaned back, his cards completely sorted, and what most sane people would call a completely crazy idea in his head. “I can’t say anything for Luffy… but he doesn’t ask Mikemon to use fire, anyway.”

“Promise you won’t burn down Shinjuku,” Sabo repeated.

“Sabo, I can safely promise you, we will not burn down Shinjuku.” It was hard to burn down a city you weren’t in, after all. Now, Okinawa, on the other hand….

Sabo did not ask for clarification. He probably should have. As it was, Ace had a plan. One that, as soon as he told Luffy, the youngest completely agreed with.

They were going to have a fun vacation.

“You know, I’ve heard dumb ideas, but this-” Nami cut herself off before shaking her head. “Nevermind, this actually is the brand of stupidity I’ve come to expect from you.”

“But it’ll be fun!” Luffy pointed out. She sighed. Why did her captain have to be such an idiot at times? Then again, if he weren’t, she would never have followed him.

Her life made no sense anymore. She knew it was a good thing, really, but she missed her sanity.

“I’m still not letting you take Calumon.” The little Digimon was already nigh-uncontrollable. Leaving him with a pair- trio, really, Sabo was just as bad- of D.s was only asking for trouble. “Unless, say, you were to pay me with fifty thousand yen up front…”

That was enough to get him to drop the subject. Luffy might not have been the brightest guy around, but even he knew better than to cross Nami while she was making demands.

“Okay… I guess I’ll see you in a week or so! I’ll bring a souvenir, shishishishi!” He waved while running off.

“Who were you talking to, calu?” Calumon wandered over to her and hopped up onto her shoulder.

“Luffy. He and his brothers are taking a vacation to Okinawa.”

“That sounds fun, calu. Can I go?”

“No.”

“Aww…”

“Can’t I come, too?” Suzie asked as her brother prepared to slip away to Okinawa.

“Sorry, Suzie, but Luffy and I will be hard enough to hide as it is. Even if you don’t factor in the Digimon. I’ll bring back something nice, okay?”

“You like Big Bwo Luffy and Big Bwo Sabo more than me, don’t you?”

“Would it helped if I said you’re my favorite little sister?” Sometimes she wished she could actually fall for that, but she’d been subject to so many of his tricks that she’d had to wise up.

“I’m your only little sister.” Coronamon burst out laughing.

“I told you it wouldn’t work!”

Ace shot his partner a death glare. “Shut up and help me pack.”

“Packing!”

In another… dimension, really. Actually, it was somewhere between dimensions… moving on. Someplace not in the world where the ASL Tamers operated, one Ultimate Digimon was faced with two Megas- and winning.

Lashing out, Mephistomon’s strike was enough to revert one of them to Rookie form, much to the horror of his partner. The second, an UlforceVeedramon, looked him in the eye.

“You realize, of course, that you still have to deal with us?” They asked. Mephistomon just laughed.

“Please. I know it was luck that led to you finding me here. Do you really think you can repeat it? You’d best just get your little DigiDestined friend home safely- if you can even manage that.”

With that, the Digimon turned and moved, blurring into nothingness and leaving the trio-quartet-whatever floating there in empty space.

“So… that didn’t work,” UlforceVeedramon sighed and deactivated their bracelet, the sword attached fading into nonexistence. “Law, Erismon, you want help getting back?”

The Surgeon of Death and his partner exchanged a glance before quickly shaking their heads. “We’ll take our chances,” The human decided, having considered it for a full half second before recognizing the obvious flaw in such a plan.

Erismon nodded. “Yeah, you’d probably wind up taking us someplace that humans can become Digimon- properly, I mean, not your… merging thingy.”

“It’s called Biomerge,” They responded. “And we’re not that bad!” Neither Law nor Erismon chose to justify that with a response. UlforceVeedramon’s human component was the entire reason they were there, after all.

More specifically, him getting lost and wandering into their dimension… again. At least this time there hadn’t been a Millenniummon in the area… but maybe that just made it worse. At least the Millenniummon could have been used as an excuse.

Actually, Veemon had absorbed Millenniummon’s data, hadn’t he? That probably explained it. Not that they’d ever know for sure, because Law had no idea how to scan a Digimon’s brain, and he didn’t intend on finding out anytime soon.

“I’d be more concerned with the fact that Mephistomon managed to get away.”

“If we’re lucky, wherever he ends up will be able to take care of him,” Erismon suggested.

“Do you really think we’re that lucky?” There was no response. They all knew they probably weren’t that lucky.

Oh, well. Either way, he was now officially someone else’s problem, at least until he turned up again. Now, to find a way back to his proper dimension… This was going to be a long week.

Chapter Text

“Welcome to Hyper Wings Airlines! Please hold on to any bags, Digimon, or other loose objects during the ride, because if you drop them, you’re not getting them back!” Ace grinned. He never thought he’d be able to give a speech like this in proper context, but this was great.

They were flying directly from Shinjuku to Okinawa- which, in this context, meant scanning the card and pointing Firamon in the right direction. While holding everything as tightly as possible and hoping they didn’t all fall to their deaths.

...Hey, you try getting plane tickets with five-thousand yen and three days notice.

“Why did I agree to this…?” Mikemon groaned.

“Because our Tamers are insane and didn’t give us any choice in the matter?” Firamon suggested, his new appendages twitching.

“Oh, right…” The cat’s ears drooped. “At least this one probably won’t end with anything on fire.”

“Why would anything be on fire?” Luffy asked.

“We’re flying with a Champion Fire Digimon and one of your older brothers. It is a very real concern.” Mikemon’s eyes narrowed, and she looked like she was seriously considering mutiny. For good reason, because nobody with a modicum of common sense would think this was a good plan.

Unfortunately for her, she had been recruited into a family that didn’t believe in common sense. The poor kitty.

“I’m not that bad,” Ace ground out, even though everyone present knew he was lying. At least, when he had Blue Cards to spare, and he currently did, because Luffy was far too generous with handing them out. His little habit of creating the badly-drawn Digivolution catalysts meant that there was no shortage of literal firepower. It was great. For them.

They’d caused Yamaki no end of grief, certainly, but it was really his own fault for getting in their way. And maybe they caused a bit more collateral damage than necessary… okay, so maybe there was a bit of a problem.

At least he had a way to distract himself without admitting that his pyromaniac tendencies could be a bit of an issue. “Come on, let’s get flying. I want to see the look on Sabo’s face when we show up!”

“He’s going to kill us,” Mikemon deadpanned. “But at least it means you won’t burn down Shinjuku.”

“I wouldn’t!” If only because he wouldn’t have the time to burn down a whole city. And he wanted the place he lived relatively intact.

(Yamaki saw them flying past his office window. This was the very last straw that drove him to drink.)

“Minato, I need you to do something for me.” Uehara Takehito was not the most serious man in the world. Not the least, either- far too much competition for that- but he generally did not involve his child in business matters, certified genius or not.

“What is it, yoi?” Marco asked, significantly more focused on his food. If it was something really important, odds were it wouldn’t be discussed at the breakfast table. Maybe.

The best word to describe the Uehara family would be ‘functional’. It wasn’t anything wrong with the members themselves- a single father and his unusually intelligent son- but in the way they related to each other. Or, rather, the fact that they didn’t.

Marco was willing to admit that it was probably his fault. He simply didn’t fit in with normal people- and he’d tried. A natural pitfall of his reincarnation, when there was nobody around with the same circumstances, was the gap that seemed to naturally form between himself and the people that saw him as just another kid, albeit a smart one.

Takehito sighed. “A virus has appeared in the V-Pet network. It hasn’t spread far, but I’d like to make sure yours isn’t infected.” Fair enough. Marco didn’t want to have to uninstall Birdramon after all the effort he’d put into raising her. He still hadn’t looked into other Digimon media, but taking care of the virtual bird had been surprisingly addicting.

It was still difficult to hand the computer over, though. But if that would prevent the system from being fried, it was a small price to pay.

“All I have to do is disconnect it from the network… at least for now. I’ll see if I can’t develop a vaccine program later, but everything should be safe now.” Takehito passed the laptop back. “But this virus is a big problem. I’ll probably be working late tonight, just to make sure it doesn’t break anything important… you’ll have to figure out dinner for yourself tonight. If you want to eat out, you know where the money is.”

“I understand, yoi.” And that was that.

Sabo wasn’t entirely sure what to think about today. The first, and most obvious, was the fact that his brothers were morons. As glad as he was that Ace was willing to let others use his Digimon for transport, even if it was just Luffy, he could have done without them following him all the way from Shinjuku.

“Do your parents even know you’re here?” He asked.

“I left a note!” Luffy cheerfully explained. Ace shrugged.

“I mean, I told Suzie, so as long as she tells them when they ask…” He’d always known he was the smart one, but sometimes he really didn’t like the reminder.

Worse was the fact that they’d managed to lose Kai. As in, the one person who knew where they were going, so the trio was wandering around lost.

“You’re going to be in so much trouble,” Flamemon pointed out. “And aren’t you worried about Nami and Calumon?”

“I asked if they wanted to come,” Luffy replied. “Nami said no. They can take care of themselves, it’ll be fine!”

“Thanks for the help, calu!” Calumon told the duo of Champions from his spot on Nami’s shoulder.

“It’s not a problem,” Turuiemon responded. “Don’t you agree, Gargomon?” Her twin glanced to the side.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. Can we go home soon? Our Tamers are probably missing us by now.”

Nami nodded. “It doesn’t look like any others will show up. Figures that after those three left Digimon would start appearing more often…” What she wouldn’t give for a normal day.

“If you say so…” Sabo wasn’t entirely convinced, but he supposed that it would be fine, if only because they weren’t the only Tamers in Shinjuku. They were the only ones who could read the cards, however, so it was easy to forget.

It had been so much easier before the Devas. But that was the way things were, that it simply couldn’t be peaceful around them. Nor would any of them want them to, peace was boring.

“It’s at times like this that I wish the Digivice had a function for tracking humans,” Mikemon sighed.

Coronamon tilted his head. “Wouldn’t that just make it harder to figure out? We still don’t know everything that it does… not for lack of trying. Such as how it can make us Digivolve with just an index card and some blue pencil.”

“I think that’s more Luffy than anything,” Ace commented. “Though we haven’t seen if one of them could make a new Digivice yet…”

“Ace, we don’t have anyone to use as a guinea pig. I don’t think Kai even owns a card scanner, even if he’d listen to us. I mean, if you can find somebody that will believe you, go ahead and try, but- are you even listening?”

“So you say we can experiment if we find someone willing to listen?” Ace asked, peering into the crowd. Sabo was beginning to get a bad feeling about this- worse than usual, anyway.

“Do you see anyone?” Luffy asked, already bouncing in place. Sabo reminded himself to never give his brothers ideas ever again. It could never end well.

“You could say that. Hey, birdbrain!” And with those two words, Sabo’s hopes of a semi-normal vacation went down in flames.

Really, he didn’t know what he was expecting by this point.