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Daisuke was panting harshly, feeling the burn in her legs as she pushed them even harder. All the running she did in soccer meant that she was in really good shape, but after a long battle fighting against Arukenimon and Mummymon she was exhausted. Other members of her team who weren’t quite as active as she was (Yolei and Kari) were not faring quite as well. She knew that if she were on her own, she likely would have successfully escaped the Digimon that was now chasing them, but she absolutely refused to abandon her team. She could see Tai, Sora, Ken and TK (all seasoned athletes) were experiencing the same dilemma as her.
Cody let out a shout as he stumbled over a branch and started to fall but Daisuke reached out and all but picked him up off the ground by the scruff of his shirt and placed him back on his feet. Cody didn’t bother wasting his breath on a thank you, it was already all he could do to keep moving. Matt, who was definitely feeling the pressure, shouted at them, “Run, dammit!”
Daisuke shot him a glare that actually seemed to take him aback. “What do you think we’re doing? We’re not leaving anyone behind, and this is as fast as everyone can go!”
Any response Matt might have had died on his lips as Akatorimon crashed through the trees behind them. Daisuke gritted her teeth. Normally Akatorimon would have been no problem, but all of the Digimon were absolutely exhausted after their battles, none of them were able to digivolve. Demiveemon had tried but he’d almost passed out from the effort. Daisuke was carrying him in a modified sling made from her jacket so that she could keep her hands free. All of the other Digimon were in similar states, being carried by their Chosen as they ran for their lives.
The distraction of Akatorimon crashing through the trees proved to be their undoing. Joe flailed in surprise at the sound and ended up rolling his ankle and collapsing. All of the digidestined froze in horror and Joe tried to stand but his ankle couldn’t support his weight and he collapsed to the ground with a mangled cry of agony.
“What do we do?” Mimi cried, terrified. Matt and Tai both rushed forward to pick Joe up with an arm over each of their shoulders, but they were already carrying Agumon and Gabumon and they could barely move under the combined weight. They tried staggering forward but they quickly lost their balance and accidentally knocked Joe’s ankle into a rock which prompted another cry.
The team was vibrating in place, stuck between the need to get away and their adamant refusal to abandon a teammate. TK, shaking in terror at their helplessness, shouted, “We have to run!”
Daisuke felt an off sense of calm and resignation come over her. She knew what she was going to have to do and braced herself for it. She’d kept this secret for so long the thought of finally coming clean was so bizarre. “There’s no use,” she said calmly. “We’ll never be able to all get away.”
Unwilling to accept this simple truth and appalled at her callousness TK shouted, “We have to do something! We can’t just stand here and do nothing!”
Daisuke turned her back on TK and faced Akatorimon. She gently set Demiveemon on the ground and said, “This is your last chance to turn back. If you leave us alone, I’ll let you go.”
Matt was incensed. What was that idiot thinking? If they could take this Digimon they would have already, and it had to know that. Akatorimon unknowingly confirmed Matt’s thoughts when he laughed and took a swing at them tauntingly.
Daisuke pulled out a strange device that none of the others had seen before. She held up her other hand and something started glowing in a circle around her hand. She brought her hand up to the device which then sucked that thing in as she quickly pulled her hand away, spreading it along her whole body. They heard her shout the phrase “Execute: Spirit Evolution!” and had just enough time to wonder what the heck was going on when Daisuke…started turning into a Digimon?!
They watched as Daisuke(?) declared herself Agunimon and they watched as Akatorimon recoiled in horror. Dais-Agunimon leaped forward and punched Akatorimon, knocking him flat on his back. Akatorimon scrambled to stand and tried to awkwardly scoot away at the same time.
Tentomon let out a cry of shock and awe. “That’s Agunimon, one of the Ten Legendary Warriors! No one has seen or heard from the Legendary Warriors in hundreds of years.”
Agunimon tuned Tentomon out and ignored the shock and confusion of her teammates. She’d explain later, right now it was more important to eliminate the threat. She’d always felt a little corny when she of the warriors made puns about their elements, but right now she was feeling a little nostalgic. “Fire burns away all impurities. Pyro punch!”
They watched as Daisuke punched the other Digimon with hands that were literally coated in flames. A weird light (similar to the light that had circled Daisuke’s hand actually) formed around Akatorimon and Daisuke help that machine up in her hand. She lunged forward and her machine started to suck the data in. “Fractal code: Digitize!” she shouted, and they watched in horror as Akatorimon dematerialized into an egg.
TK stared at Daisuke in disgust and horror. “Did-did you just kill that Digimon?” he shouted.
Agunimon focused her cold eyes on him and against his will TK squirmed in discomfort. She did not seem like the Daisuke they’d come to know, and it made him uncomfortable. How did she turn into a Digimon? How had she kept something like that a secret from them? She ignored TK’s question and discomfort and instead shifted her gaze over the rest of the team. She gently picked Joe up and cradled him in the crook of her arm, like a baby. Joe might have complained about it on any other day, but today he was dealing with a possibly broken ankle and a teammate that had somehow, inexplicably, turned into a Digimon. In light of these circumstances Joe quietly went along with the manhandling. The same couldn’t be said of the rest of the Chosen Children. Matt and Tai were furiously demanding answers and were getting more and more frustrated as Daisuke ignored them.
“Follow me,” Agunimon said. “We need to get out of here. I will protect us until we get back to the Human World, and then I’ll explain.” The promise of answers mollified the boys and she did have a point about them needing to go. Hadn’t they just been running for their lives for the chance to escape?
Thankfully they weren’t far from the nearest digiport. They wouldn’t have made it while being chased, but now that they weren’t in immediate danger the walk was almost anti-climactic. Daisuke gently passed Joe over to Matt and Tai who carefully walked through the digiport with him. Once they were through Daisuke took up a sentry position, defending them while they made their way through the TV. Once the last digidestined had gone through Daisuke let go of the evolution and picked up Demiveemon from where he was patiently waiting and then walked through the TV.
Predictably, every eye was on her, but she ignored them. She turned to Joe, who was propped up on a rolling chair, resting his ankle. “Do you need to go to the hospital? Or do you think you can wrap it yourself?”
Everyone turned to Joe. The reminder of their injured friend was enough to postpone their questions. Joe cautiously prodded at his ankle with a wince. “I think it’s just a sprain. I can wrap it myself, but I’ll need some help getting home.”
Daisuke reached over and lifted Joe’s ankle and sat on the chair, resting his ankle in her lap. She reached over and plucked the ace bandage from Kari’s hands and they watched as she deftly wrapped Joe’s ankle. Daisuke saw their suspicious looks and smirked. “Relax, I learned how to do this during soccer practice.”
Tai and Ken flushed, embarrassed. They knew full well that that was part of training and that most team captains were given additional first aid training.
Once Joe’s ankle was done everyone turned to Daisuke expectantly. She pulled out the strange digivice again and this time spoke into it. “Warriors, this is Fire. Respond.”
They all just kind of stared at her in confusion when they suddenly heard voices coming through. “Light here.” “Ice here.” “Wind here.” “Dark here.” “Thunder here.”
Before any of them could really respond Daisuke said, “I had to spirit evolve. I’m going to explain everything. Can you get to Odaiba Elementary?”
“We’ll be there. Over and out.”
Daisuke turned to face them and gestured for everyone to sit. “This is a long story, and it’s not going to make a lot of sense at first so please just listen to me.” They nodded, concerned by the unusually serious tone.
“It all started when I was twelve.”
Predictably, she was already being interrupted. “What do you mean when you were twelve? You’ve only been twelve a couple of months.” Tai didn’t sound accusatory, just really confused.
Daisuke wasn’t even upset at the interruption. She’d been expecting it. “Here’s the thing. I wasn’t born Daisuke Motomiya. That was the name I was given when I was adopted.”
This surprised them all. “You’re adopted? Why didn’t you tell us?” Kari was a little hurt. She’d always thought that she and Daisuke were pretty close, and they didn’t keep secrets from each other.
Daisuke could hear the hurt in Kari’s voice and winced. “I told you it wasn’t going to make sense at first. There’s a lot you don’t know about me. I used to be Takiko Kanbara. I had a little brother name Shinya and parents who honestly should have divorced when we were really young.” This bugged Matt and TK. They struggled so much with having divorced parents and hearing Daisuke say her parents should have been divorced was upsetting. She had no idea what that was like and how hard it was.
Daisuke rolled her eyes and ignored them. Matt was always determined to see the worst in her. He’d never really gotten over their initial bad impression. “My parents fought a lot. My dad was always working and would rather be anywhere else than with his family. My mom wanted my dad to be around more. They were always arguing. I tried to protect Shinya from it as much as possible but there’s only so much you can do. I remember it was Shinya’s birthday. That was the worst part. They were using his birthday to fight. We were waiting for my dad to get home so we could have dinner and do presents, and my dad called and said he’d be working late and to start without him. My mom started yelling at him and saying how he’s never here and that she didn’t sign up to be a single parent and that no one was eating until he got home.” Here Daisuke actually gave a small, self-deprecating smile. “You guys know me. I’m not so good at holding my temper. I was so mad, but I didn’t want to upset Shinya even more. I had our phone at the time, I don’t even remember why, but it got this weird message talking about my future and that my destiny was calling. I needed to get out of the house anyway, so I decided to follow the message. What happened next was the craziest mess of catching trains and running around following weird instructions from my phone. I ended up in Shibuya Station and was sent down to some kind of basement. It was full of kids and we were all told to choose a train. I kind of just picked one and at first, I thought it was empty, but it wasn’t. I met a boy around Shinya’s age named Tommy, and two kids my age; JP and Zoe.”
Daisuke got a far away look. “There were these crazy lights and we all freaked out and then when we got off the train a voice came from my phone welcoming me to the Digital World. My phone then morphed into my D-Tector. JP, Zoe and Tommy got the same messages and then the train started talking to us! It told us to “find the spirits” if we wanted to go home and then left. Tommy started crying. He hadn’t even wanted to be on the train, but some older kids were picking on him and shoved him on. He didn’t really react well and tried to run back to our world. He was trying to run on train tracks, so I got really worried and tried to stop him. He just wanted to go home, and I tried telling him that we would find a spirit so we could get him home and he started to come back, but then he lost his balance. We ended up getting attacked by a Digimon. We didn’t really know what to do. One of the Digimon said something about a spirit being close and we all fell a bit. It was going to attack Tommy so I kinda tackled it. I was holding onto it’s tail and it jumped.”
The digidestined looked fascinated by the story, but several of them were looking at Daisuke like she was crazy. Who tackles a Digimon? Matt and Tai understood though. She’d already mentioned that this Tommy kid reminded her of her brother. They would (and had) done even crazier things to protect their siblings and they both knew it.
“Luckily for me the way the Digimon jumped actually led me to the spirit. It was so weird. I saw the spirit but then for a moment it was like time suspended and I could see the actual spirit of Agunimon in front of me. The same voice from before that welcomes us to the Digital World said, “It is time.” Super ominous right? I can’t even explain how I knew but instinctively I knew what I needed to do. I held my D-Tector out and absorbed the spirit. And for the first time I spirit evolved. It’s electrifying. It’s so hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. It’s like, the armor, the body, everything forms around you in the right shape and then your body changes to fit into this new shape. I was so much taller, and my center of gravity was different, but it was like I’d been in that body all my life. I knew my name, I knew my attacks, I was Agunimon, the Legendary Warrior of Fire. And I attacked Cerberumon and I knew exactly how to render his fractal code.”
“There were two other Digimon there, Bokomon and Neemon. They travelled with us after that. Bokomon had a book that was basically about the legends of the Digital World and he was the one who told us about the Legendary Warriors. After that we ran into this guy.” Daisuke smirked. “This guy was such a jerk. I’d seen him on my mad dash to the train station and he completely ignored me when I tried to talk to him. When we ran into him JP tried to suggest we stay together, but not this guy. No, he was a lone wolf and he didn’t want us dragging him down.”
Tai smirked over at Matt who blushed and looked away. Daisuke snickered into her hand. Their relationship reminded her a lot of her early days with Koji. “His name was Koji. We got attacked again and he attacked the Digimon with a pole. He ended up falling into a hole and finding his spirit. He turned into Lobomon, the Legendary Warrior of Light. We tried to get him to hang around, but he took off on us. We ended up making our way to the Forest Terminal and we got into a fight with some more Digimon. They were fire-type Digimon, so I wasn’t able to beat them, I was kinda making it worse. But then Tommy found his spirit and evolved into Kumamon, the Legendary Warrior of Ice. After that Zoe became Kazemon, the Legendary Warrior of Wind and JP became Beetlemon, the Legendary Warrior of Thunder.”
Daisuke’s smile dropped and she let out a sigh. “We started getting a little cocky then. We were all so full of ourselves and our own hype. We were the Legendary Warriors and we were there to save the Digital World. We ended up running into Koji again and some local Digimon ended up taking us prisoner. That’s when we found out about the evil Legendary Warriors. You might have noticed earlier that Tentomon referred to us as the Ten Legendary Warriors. I’ve only mentioned five of us.”
An ominous feeling came over the digidestined. “The world we went to was governed by three celestial Digimon: Seraphimon, Ophanimon and Cherubimon.” She ignored TK and Kari’s gasps of surprise. “Ophanimon was actually the one who called us to the Digital World. But Cherubimon ended up corrupting the Legendary Warriors of Darkness, Water, Earth, Steel and Wood. The Digimon holding us were being harassed by Grumblemon, the Legendary Warrior of Earth. We were shocked, but we managed to convince the Digimon to give us a chance and we attacked Grumblemon. We should have had the advantage. We did for a bit. But then Grumblemon digivolved into Gigasmon. We were so confused. Gigasmon was too powerful for us and we lost. The evil Digimon were going after the Digital World’s fractal codes, basically destroying the world around us. In our fight we accidentally exposed the mountain’s fractal code. Gigasmon took it and we fell and were separated. We ended up learning that there was a divide between human-type Digimon and beast-type Digimon. That was the entire basis for the conflict that was going on. So far, we’d only found our human spirits, but each Legendary Warrior had a human spirit and a beast spirit. The beast spirit is so much more powerful that the human spirit. Even five-on-one we stood no chance of winning.”
“After that we started searching for our beast spirits. Koji actually ended up finding his first. He evolved into Kendogarurumon.” Matt started at the familiar name. Daisuke smiled. “I always wondered about that. You and Koji are so similar Matt. Lone wolf personalities, second in command,” she gave him a pointed look, “bad attitudes.” Matt started to object but realized that she kind of had a point and settled for a scowl. “It was really interesting to me that you guys would share the same kind of Digimon. We thought it would be like when we got out human spirits, but it wasn’t. The beast spirit is just so different and so powerful. Koji wasn’t able to control the form and almost died. The next time he spirit evolved he could control himself better, but not that first time.”
“I was the next one to find their beast spirit.” Daisuke’s voice was quiet, not bragging like they might have expected. She almost sounded ashamed. “My beast spirit was possessing another digimon and we were fighting it. I managed to get it away from him, but it ended up possessing me. I can’t even begin to describe it. It was like seeing through a filter. I could see all my friends, but they were my enemies, I couldn’t make out anything they were saying. I attacked JP. Koji had to spirit evolve to fight me. They were trying so hard not to hurt me. I almost killed Tommy. He approached me as a friend and talked to me and I attacked him. When we started crying it was like the veil peeled away and I could see again. When I realized what I had done I was so ashamed and the worst part was that none of them blamed me, not even Koji. I was so angry at myself and I wanted someone else to be angry at me too.”
Ken reached over and wrapped him arms around her. He might be upset and a little hurt to find out there was so much he didn’t know about his best friend, but there was no way he was going to just sit there while she was in so much pain and guilt. The group said nothing and gave the two friends time to collect themselves. This was clearly hard for Daisuke to talk about and the least they could do was give her time.
Daisuke buried her face in Ken’s shoulder and held on for dear life. Even after so many years that day still haunted her. She took a deep breath and sat back up, nodding to Ken in thanks for his support. “I avoided using my beast spirit after that. I was afraid of it and of losing control again. I must have sounded pretty pathetic because Koji actually reached out to me and tried to help. We were attacked by Gigasmon pretty soon and Koji was captured and not able to evolve. When Tommy was in danger, I knew I had no choice. I tried fighting as Agunimon, but I just wasn’t strong enough. And so, I slide evolved into Burninggreymon.” It was Tai’s turn to jerk in shock. “The beast spirit isn’t like the human spirit, it’s not this gentle re-making. It hurts. It’s so strong and all-consuming and unfamiliar. But I cam through it and this time I had control.”
“After that we met Seraphimon who told us all about what was happening. We were attacked by Grumblemon, Ranamon, the Legendary Warrior of Water, Arbormon, the Legendary Warrior of Wood, and Mercurymon, the Legendary Warrior of Steel. They took Seraphimon’s fractal code and he turned into a digiegg. We managed to escape and set out to find Ophanimon. JP found his beast spirit next. He was pretty excited about that since he was the last one to find his human spirit. He evolved into Metalkabuterimon.” She flashed a grin over to Izzy who managed to look only faintly surprised. “He didn’t have control right away and he ended up bringing the cave we were in down on us and we barely escaped.”
“Zoe got her beast spirit during a fight with Calmeramon, the Beast Spirit of Water. Zoe had complete control of Zephyrmon from the start. She tried to claim it was a girl thing but Calmermamon was barely in control of herself and accidentally knocked herself out of the fight twice. Right before that fight we had out D-Tectors stolen They were being traded at this swap market thing. Tommy was the one to get them all back, He wouldn’t tell us exactly what he said or did, but he ended up moving that miserly pawn shop guy enough that he returned our D-Tectors. And I guess he’d had the Beast Spirit of Ice and he installed it for Tommy. He evolved into Korikakumon.” A small smile at Joe. “He didn’t lose control the way we did, but he also didn’t have the perfect control that Zoe did. We helped him defeat Petaldramon, the Beast Spirit of Wood. Ophanimon contacted us and offered us the chance to go home now that we’d found the spirits, but we were determined to help out.”
“It was after that that we met the last warrior, Duskmon, the Legendary Warrior of Darkness. He was stronger than anyone else that we’d fought. He absolutely wiped the floor with us. We were all in our beast forms and he was in his human form. I was too cocky. Koji tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen. I’ve never been as scared of anyone as I was of Duskmon after that fight. Koji almost died taking a hit to protect me. We ended up trapped and separated and from what I heard Seraphimon gave Koji the power to fuse his human and beast spirits and he fusion evolved into Beowulfmon. I ended up getting the power too and becoming Aldamon. It was while Beowulfmon and Velgemon (the Beast Spirit of Darkness) were fighting that we learned the truth. There was a person in there, he was Koji’s twin brother Koichi.”
Daisuke almost enjoyed the looks of shock she was getting. Their story was so unbelievable that she completely understood why they were enthralled, but it was weird for her since she’d actually lived it. “See, their parents divorced when they were little, and their dad took Koji and their mom took Koichi. And they didn’t tell either one they had a twin.” TK and Matt looked outraged. They couldn’t imagine not knowing about their brother. “Koichi’s grandmother got sick and she told him the truth. Koichi started following Koji to try and get to know him. He followed us to Shibuya Station, but something happened, and he fell and woke up in the Digital World. Cherubimon got a hold of him and suppressed his memories. After he got the memories back Koji and I teamed up to defeat him and we took his spirits away. He was horrified by his actions and tried to isolate himself from us, but Koji would not stand for it. We tried to assure him that nobody blamed him, and he’d been used and that no one thought he was a monster.” Daisuke gave Ken a small smile, seeing the look of recognition and gratitude. “I told him that the way he was reacting now, when he was aware of what had been done, said more about who he truly was than his actions before. I think Koichi still struggled with that for a while, but he was able to awaken the true Spirits of Darkness.”
Daisuke turned to Kari with a serious look. “I understand why you feel the way you do, but Darkness is not Evil and Light is not Good.” Kari immediately started to protest, but Daisuke cut her off with a look. “Light and Dark are brothers, they cannot exist without each other. Darkness happens to be misused more often and so it gets a bad rap. But I think the twins represent this dichotomy the best. Koji represents light, he’s as harsh as the blinding sun and overbearing like a summer day beating down on you during grueling soccer practice, burning your skin and making you sweat. And Koichi is gentle, like the darkness that you fall asleep in late at night and the wonder and awe of the night sky lit up with stars and galaxies. Neither one is inherently good nor bad, both have sides that aren’t necessarily pleasant. Something that we learned with Koichi is that sometimes you just need someone strong enough to bring out the true Spirit of Darkness to remind people of that.” Kari actually looked thoughtful at that. Her encounter with the Dark Ocean had left her absolutely terrified of darkness, but what Daisuke was saying did make sense.
Seeing that Kari, and by default everyone else, were at least considering her words meant Daisuke could continue. “As a group we all tried to take on Cherubimon, but he was too strong. Ophanimon told us to combine our spirits. As we took down the other Legendary Warriors, we purified their fractal codes and took their spirits. We transferred the spirits around so that I had five human and best spirits and so did Koji. We became Magnagarurumon and Empressgraymon. We ended up defeating Cherubimon and purifying him, but that just made things worse. When the original Legendary Warriors appeared, they did so to defeat Lucemon, basically the king of the Digital World. They sealed him away, but Cherubimon’s defeat partially released the seal and allowed him to bring forth some of the Royal Knights.”
A dark look came over Daisuke’s face which worried the Chosen. What had happened to prompt such a reaction? Demiveemon whined a little and snuggled into Daisuke’s arm. Daisuke gave him a fierce hug and turned to the others. “I doubt any of you really noticed, but I had a very hard time bonding with Veemon when we met.” They were shocked. They really hadn’t noticed. Veemon was so cheerful and upbeat about everything that they all assumed they would be fast friends. “You see, Veemon is a Royal Knight. And everything I know says the Royal Knights are pure evil.” The venom in her voice was shocking. She was cuddling Demiveemon and stroking his fur gently. “The ones I met were Dynasmon and Crusadermon. They were bent on destroying the Digital World and gathering the energy they needed to free Lucemon, and they didn’t care who they hurt in the process. And they were so strong. Even in our unified evolutions Koji and I could not beat them.”
To their shock and worry there were tears in Daisuke’s eyes. “They destroyed the Village of Beginnings,” she whispered, grief stricken.
Hesitant to interrupt her grief, Ken quietly asked, “What is the Village of Beginnings?”
Daisuke wiper her eyes. “You all know Primary Village as the birthplace of Digimon. That’s where their eggs are, they hatch and then they go into the world. I almost cried when I saw it. It is such a pale replacement for the Village of Beginnings. It’s where Digimon were born and where they lived as babies. It was beautiful, peaceful, serene. And they attacked it. Koji and I begged them not to, that it was sacred, but they didn’t listen. We managed to evacuate all of the eggs and babies, but we had to watch them destroy it. And it is the deepest regret of my life. So, when I found out my partner Digimon was a Royal Knight I couldn’t trust him. And he knew it. He didn’t understand why, but he knew I didn’t like him. It wasn’t until the whole thing with the Digiegg of Friendship that I kind of accepted that I needed to get past my prejudices and that what I was doing wasn’t fair. I told him everything and I think knowing where I was coming from helped him to move past the hurt. It wasn’t okay, but it was at least understandable. We had to talk again after the thing with the Golden Digiegg.” She saw their confusion and continued. “Magnamon is a Royal Knight. The actual Royal Knight form. And seeing him turn into something I hated so much was hard for me. But I knew who he really was and that he would never do what they had done.”
“Eventually Koji and I got strong enough to beat them, but then Lucemon was able to break free, at some point Koichi realized that he wasn’t physically in the Digital World. We all took a train to get there but he just woke up there. He ended up giving his spirits to Koji and sacrificing himself for us. We combined all of our spirits and formed Susanoomon. We were able to defeat Lucemon at first but then his good and evil sides split and then the evil side went crazy. We were all able to evolve together and create an even more powerful Susanoomon. We saved the day, saved the Digital World, hip hip hooray, but the barrier between the worlds was closing and the spirits had to kind of throw us out so we could get home before it was too late. We were in a kind of limbo when Ophanimon spoke to us and told us that Koichi was dying.”
Kari and Sora gasped while Matt and Tai recoiled in horror. They’d been fortunate enough to never lose a team member and they were absurdly grateful for that. “When Koichi followed Koji, he tripped and fell down the stairs, hitting his head. His spirit left his body to go to the Digital World, but his body remained there. He was taken to the hospital and they were working to save his life, but they would not succeed.” Daisuke took a shaky breath. “I’m sure you can understand how none of us were okay with that. We begged Ophanimon to save him. There had to be something that could be done. She was quiet for a while, but then she told us there was a way, but we would all need to pay the price for it, and the price would be a heavy one.” The feeling of foreboding was back, and the Chosen Children couldn’t help the sensation of dread creeping up their spines.
“We all agreed, even without asking what the price would be. There was no other option, we had to save him. And then there was a big flash of light and when I opened my eyes, I was back in Shibuya Station. And I was with Zoe, JP, Tommy, Koji and Koichi. Tommy was a baby and the rest of us were four.”
“What?” Tai asked, incredulous. “Why?”
Daisuke smiled humorlessly. “We wondered that for a long time but now we finally know. The price Ophanimon was talking about was this. I’d lead a new team and save the Digital World again. But the digidestined are always children. And so, we were de-aged so that I could do this.”
The digidestined looked at her in shock. A few of the older team had felt a little hurt that they were not a part of the new team. They helped out, but it was different than it was before. They couldn’t imagine losing eight years of your life just so that you could do it all over again.
Daisuke nodded, seeing they understood the situation. “We had to have a long talk when we came back. We never regretted for a second the decision we made, but it did have some long-reaching consequences. How could we possibly explain any of this to our parents? How do we explain to anyone the fact that we were suddenly eight years younger? And Tommy was a baby, would his family even recognize him? And we all knew what we would have to do. We would have to…start over. It was not an easy decision to make. It was Shinya’s birthday. And now he’ll always remember it as the day I went missing. And Koji was a brat to his stepmom, and he’d gone out that day to get flowers for their anniversary to finally apologize to her. And now he went missing on the day of his dad and stepmom’s anniversary. We all decided we needed to stick together so we turned ourselves in, we didn’t tell anyone our names or where we’d come from and there were no missing children with our descriptions. We were soon adopted separately, but we insisted to our new families that we always be able to contact each other, and they found it cute, so we stayed in touch.”
Daisuke wiped her eyes. “I peeked.” She confessed. “I think we all did, but still. My parents finally divorced. My mom blamed my dad for not being there. My dad blamed my mom for losing me. Shinya blamed both of them. He’s so angry now. He was always so sweet, but now he’s angry at my parents for being the reason I either ran away or was able to be abducted. He’s angry at me for leaving him, he’s angry at the world for my being gone, he’s just angry. Koji’s dad divorced his wife. He knew Koji didn’t like her and couldn’t help blaming her for his disappearance. Zoe’s family was from Italy and they were only in Japan temporarily. They moved their entire lives over here so they could be here if Zoe ever tried to go home.”
Everyone was silent as the processed the depth of their loss. They couldn’t believe how badly their lives had been messed up. They’d originally been focused on just being younger and how difficult that would be, but they hadn’t really considered what it must have done to their families.
Daisuke continued. “None of us were really that eager to start kindergarten again, but we agreed that it was probably a bad idea to draw too much attention to ourselves. A group of children abandoned at a train station is tragic, but not completely unheard of. Every single one of those children being advanced for their age might be a little more suspicious. We did independent study though. It is mind numbing to repeat elementary school. Some of it was good review but I didn’t need to learn how to add and subtract again. And its challenging to try and make friends with young children when you are so much older.”
“Because we’re the only ones who could possibly understand we’ve tended to keep to ourselves for the most part. Koji and I started dating not long after we got back. It allowed our relationship to grow and develop without hormones getting in the way which was nice, but do you know how amazingly awkward and uncomfortable it is to want to kiss a four-year-old? And absolutely no one takes your relationship seriously. Our families think its cute that we’re “dating.” And now they’re starting to hint that maybe we should date other people as well just so we can be sure of what we want. We’ve been together for eight years. We should be getting married, moving in together, starting our life together and instead we’re living with our parents and being treated like children.”
No one was really sure how to respond to this rant and so they sat quietly. The silence made it easy to hear voices coming from Daisuke’s D-Tector. “Warriors to Fire. We’re here. Where are you?”
“Computer room. Follow my signal.” She responded. To their shock she opened the digiport on the computer.
“What are you doing? We just barely got out of there and now you want to go back?” TK accused, confused by her recklessness.
Daisuke smirked; she was feeling much more confident now that her team was here. “I assumed you’d want to see us all spirit evolve. And there aren’t many Digimon around who are willing or able to challenge the Legendary Warriors. But if it makes you uncomfortable, we can definitely stay here.” She pretended to turn away as if she was going back to her seat and almost cackled in glee when just about everyone in the room shouted at her to open the gate. She waited until she heard the sound of the door opening and then help up her D3, sucking her and everyone else back into the Digital World. They all landed in a heap, something the Chosen Children were fairly used to by now, but the warriors were less than impressed. Koji gave Daisuke one of his scorching glares and kicked lightly at her ankle. She stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at him. Koichi and Zoe sighed at the immaturity, but they had long since stopped getting in the middle of their little fights.
Yolei was angry for a moment because she thought Daisuke was sticking her tongue out at her, but she realized she was laying almost entirely on top of a blue haired hunk. She must have been staring for too long because he heaved an irritated sigh and shoved her off of him. She fell to the ground with an indignant yelp and rubbed her side, glaring at the rude boy. Tai, Matt, TK and Mimi all glared at the boy as well. Men were not supposed to shove girls. Daisuke giggled at the glares, especially the fact that they didn’t even register to Koji. “I told you he was kind of a jerk.”
It was Kari’s turn to stare. “That’s Koji?” she asked incredulously. She really wasn’t trying to be mean, but she was honestly surprised Daisuke had such a good-looking boyfriend. The boy was fairly tall and had his long hair tied up in a man bun on the top of his head. He was wearing a yellow shirt and a blue jean jacket that matched his dark blue jeans. There was another boy with the same face, Daisuke hadn’t mentioned they were identical twins, who looked honestly exasperated by his brother.
Everyone carefully extracted themselves from the pile and turned to the new faces. The twins were fairly easy to distinguish based on the simple fact that there were two of them, the only girl must be Zoe, the kid had to be Tommy, which meant the husky boy was JP. They didn’t know it, but Daisuke talked about them a lot to the warriors, so they knew who they were as well.
Koichi could see that awkwardness was starting to creep in and no one seemed to want to be the one to initiate conversation, so he cleared his throat. “How much was Takiko able to tell you before we got here?”
It was jarring for the digidestined to realize he meant Daisuke. Several of them had to fight the instinctive urge to tell him that that was not her name. But it was, wasn’t it? She was Takiko Kanbara, and it was only because of impossible happenstance that she’d ever become Daisuke Motomiya.
Takiko could see the effect her name was having on her new team but couldn’t bring herself to care. They’d all taken on new names when they were adopted, a side effect of refusing to tell anyone what your name was, but they’d always referred to each other by their proper names. Some of their families had caught on over time but they insisted they were meaningless nicknames. They weren’t terribly concerned about anyone overhearing their real names. It wasn’t like they’d be able to use that information to discover the truth.
“I covered everything. The important bits anyway. I left out some of the minor stuff, but we all know that was just filler anyway.” Takiko grinned wickedly as all of the warriors facepalmed. It was a long-standing argument between Takiko and Zoe about the proper way to provide information or tell a story. Zoe thought it was important to include all of the details to provide as thorough a picture as possible whereas Takiko liked to provide general plot points and if anyone cared enough to ask questions then she’d share a little bit more.
Sure enough Zoe’s face was growing red. “Did you even tell them anything?” she demanded.
Takiko scowled. “I told them everything that was relevant!”
“Bokomon and Neemon?”
“Yes.”
“The evil warriors?”
“Yes.”
“Ophanimon?”
Now Takiko was getting angry. “How the hell do I tell the story without mentioning Ophanimon? Like, is it even possible to describe any of it without mentioning her? And I mentioned Seraphimon and Cherubimon too. And the Royal Knights. And Lucemon. The relevant points.”
Zoe was not willing to back down. “Katsuharu and the others?”
The digidestined had thus far been watching the argument with rapt attention. But they were thrown by the unfamiliar names. “Who?” TK asked, curious.
Zoe rounded on Takiko as if to say, “I knew it!” with her hands on her hips glaring at the other girl.
Takiko objected. “They were so not relevant! They were such a minor detail. They didn’t really do anything, and we didn’t have to—well I guess we did have to rescue them when the Royal Knights kidnapped them,” the digidestined were now looking very alarmed. Had there been other kids in the Digital World with them? And ones who had apparently been kidnapped by those incredibly powerful Digimon? “But in the end, it wasn’t anything special. They were some bullies that lucked their way into the Digital World, didn’t leave when they were told to, and caused a massive inconvenience for everyone because of their own self-importance. They were such a minor part of everything that, yes, I left them out. Would anyone else but you have mentioned them?”
They both looked around, silently demanding support. Tommy was the only one brave enough to answer. “I probably would have, since they were the ones who pushed me on the train in the first place. They weren’t so bad.”
Zoe and Takiko both had to concede that Tommy probably only would have mentioned them because they were personally significant to him, but ultimately, they weren’t such a major detail.
Seeing that the argument had been thoroughly derailed Koichi quickly stepped in to change the subject. “Wow, the Digital World looks really different than it did when we were here.”
Takiko nodded, she’d often been struck by the differences between then and now. “Yeah, I haven’t seen any terminals or Trailmon since I got here. The only way to get around is walking. It’s so slow.”
The older team was a little defensive. They’d often made the same complaint when they were stuck in the Digital World the first time, but they didn’t like anyone else complaining about it.
“What are Trailmon?” Izzy asked, curious as ever for new information.
This time all of the warriors turned to face Takiko with their eyebrows raised. Takiko flushed a little in embarrassment. “Okay, fine, I might have left the Trailmon out and they were a big part of everything, but its not a big deal.” Turning to the digidestined she said, “Trailmon are basically train-like Digimon. The Digital World was divided by train tracks and the Trailmon would take us where we needed to go. Its how we got around long distances.” Her eyes dimmed. “It’s also how we evacuated the Village of Beginnings.”
All of the warriors felt the familiar regret settle on their shoulders. Even after all these years they all still felt the pain of their failure at protecting the sacred place. The digidestined watched silently as the warriors bowed their heads. It was jarring to them. There had been a few occasions where a Digimon had died for them but they had the comfort of knowing that Digimon were reborn and so they hadn’t really lost anyone for good. They couldn’t imagine having the actual fate of the world on their shoulders and watching as the world was destroyed piece by piece. They’d been taken aback when Daisuke started crying when talking about the Village of Beginnings. They couldn’t imagine what it would feel like for them to see Primary Village destroyed. Matt and Tai felt a little better seeing Koji’s grief. He hadn’t made a very good impression what with shoving Yolei like that, and they had been worried that he wasn’t good for Daisuke and she was just clinging to him as a part of her former life. But now they could see that he wasn’t just this huge, unfeeling jerk. Just kind of a jerk.
Takiko cleared her throat and determinedly changed the subject. “The world has changed a lot from when we were here. I think it’s safe to say that most of the things we learned about it are no longer a thing. Like, I’ve been asking around and no one has ever heard of meat apples.”
Kari gagged. “Did you say meat apples?” She asked, sounding horrified and disgusted.
Takiko grinned, eyeing the matching grins on the warriors faces. “Oh yeah. And you had to cook them otherwise they tasted like raw meat.” It was obvious that the digidestined were trying to figure out if she was telling the truth or lying to them. They really, really wanted her to be lying, but they had the horrible feeling that she was telling the truth. That sounded like the kind of bizarre thing that could be found in the Digital World.
Zoe decided to take the time to give them a more detailed account of their time in the Digital World and set about describing every single detail to make sure they didn’t miss a thing.