Yagami Taichi blazed down the street, probably breaking most traffic laws and speeding regulations in the process. Oh well, his degree was in international law, not national, he could get ticketed some other time.
“Agumon!” He shouted into the car.
“I’m okay, Taichi!” His voice rang loud and clear over his head. Good! He was safe on top of the vehicle. His feet were keeping him level.
“Awesome! Do you see anything up there?” Taichi made another desperate swerve, praying he wouldn’t be recognized too much as he drove. That was probably hopeless by now. He was the chosen child of courage, the hero of all or something, but most importantly he was a diplomat, and this would look like shit on his record if he failed.
Not that he was going to fail. He was older, not useless. He would get covered and save them all, get this right and not have a pile of people wondering who killed their precious sports stars from another company.
“Thank God my boss texts me updates at absurd times,” he said to himself, ignoring a furious car horn. Maki didn’t have a Digimon anymore but she didn’t need one. She had Daigo’s, had her brain still in remarkably good condition for someone who did the shit she pulled. And that was why she had warned him things were going too well.
If only he’d listened the night before. Now he was flying down another street, following her location signal and the reports blaring from his radio claiming “there was an explosion in a closed off Hasetsu at the local ice rink fifteen minutes ago.”
“Shit,” he whispered, and made his car cry with his deliberate ignorance on the speed limit.
There were at best just the skaters and at worst, Meiko. Which she would possibly be fine. Her partner was different now, better, less likely to murder anyone that wasn’t Meiko. Much more focused. But that didn’t make it easier it made things worse because—
Of a lot of things, most of which he couldn’t admit to himself without feeling positively barmy.
“Crews are moving into help. However there seems to be a large object in the smoke. We cannot quite see what it is, but it does not want us to get close. There appears to be a barrier—”
“That can mean absolutely anything,” he yelled into the car. “Agumon, can you see anything yet?”
“Not yet,” he heard back, somewhat muffled this time. “I can smell something like the sea though!”
“Agumon, Japan is an island! it usually smells like seawater!”
“Not like this! It’s thicker!”
That could mean anything at all really.
Leaving the tunnel, he drove the car to pull over a moment, needing to stop and breathe. Unfortunately, right when he did so, Taichi heard the woman’s voice go high and pitched.
“There’s… there is a man coming out of the smoke! He’s he’s bleeding! And laughing and—”
There was a burst of static.
Taichi stared at his car before turning it off and jumping out of it. Locking it was only an afterthought it was a rental anyway. But he did it and held out the digivice. It still looked new, not a trace of wear or tear. It was a cold comfort.
“Agumon!” He shouted. “We’re flying the rest of the way! Let’s hurry!”
“Okay, Taichi!”
His partner lit up the clouds and carried him off into the sky, going as full speed as you could on a giant dragon.
Taichi wished it was faster.
Yuuri uncurled from his pained spot on the ice and coughed out dust. “Yurio?” He wheezed.
There was, thankfully, a very loud stream of curses in response. Yuuri would take that as the younger teen was alive and likely not too hurt. His ears were ringing but he could hear petrified squeaks from that same area (he thought and hoped. It was unlikely for the plant to be able to get very far otherwise. He, like most babies, probably didn’t have legs.
Yuuri stumbled to his feet, sliding on the ice and stumbling in his skates. He rubbed his eyes and coughed, desperate to keep the dust out of his lungs and fight through the smoke. As he moved, there was a terrible, low groan. Not of pain, but like the shifting of a heavy weight…
The rink… The roof!
Whatever had hit them likely hit a support beam! He bolted across the ice, towards the sounds of strangled chirping.
“Yurio! Yurio we have to move!”
“What do you think i’m trying to do?”
Yuuri reached him then and much to his relief, there was a solid wall of bubbles popping right before his eyes. Those must have lessened the impact a little. Popomon was the most visible thing in the blurry group, followed by the blond hair of Yurio. Yuuri popped as many bubbles as he could, grateful to see the lack of red on his rival. He moved quickly and leaned to help Yurio to his feet. The teen was still cursing, lower this time, slowly. He sounded wrecked with exhaustion.
Yuuri grimaced and hefted him over one shoulder and began to mov, skating in quicky, rough jumps. The ground wobbled. There was a sound like whipping in the distance. Blades? One of the fans? A helicopter?
“Earthquake?” Yurio wheezed.
Yuuri shook his head. “Digimon. I’m sure of it. There’s a hole in the building.”
“Bingo!” A voice called through the smoke. It rang in his ears and made him stumble. Yuuri forced himself away from it, pushing himself to get them behind the bleachers. The doors were closer, but they were also vulnerable and visible. At least whatever hit them would have to get weakened by something else… he hoped.
He didn’t want to think about that voice. He just… he couldn’t. It was too familiar. It was—
“It’s been a long time, lad,” continued the voice with that extra edge of mockery. “Sorry I took so long, I didn’t want any witnesses, you see. Did you miss me?”
Yuuri said nothing. He didn’t dare risk it.
The speaker laughed. “Oh come on now. I expected a better reception than that. It’s not my fault you believed every word I said. Your parents should have raised you better.”
Yuuri bit his lip, the shame, guilt and pain welling up in uneven waves. Yurio manages to look up at him, bafflement likely ready to give way to anger. Yuuri breathed deeply before he whispered. “He was the one who helped us get to where we needed to go.”
“I was!”
Yuuri lifted his head and there, only half a meter away, was Gennai. The ponytail was familiar, the same blue eyes, the robes almost exactly alike… but for one detail that Yuuri could only vaguely remember.
“Gennai hated black,” he mused.
The man laughed. “I did say that didn’t I? Well, I decided to try it out, have a wardrobe change you see. How are you, Yuuri? You seem to have done well for yourself in the real world, without your friends. It was probably easier to drop them, wasn’t it? Move on and forget it all. If only you’d just ignored that phone call, things could have stayed that way. The worlds would have stayed apart.”
“What do I have to do with that?” Yuuri nudged Yurio to see if he could stand. When he only swayed a little, he pressed the shivering, softly squeaking Popomon into his arms from where he’d been set on Yuuri’s free shoulder. Just keep him talking Yuuri, just keep him focused on you. This is your job remember? This is what you devoted yourself to being. Be the center of attention, Yuuri.
He squinted in the slight gloom. The black robe was stained a little around the middle, an odd dark color… red?
“You’re bleeding,” he said, before the man calling himself Gennai could respond. The man looked down and as he stared at it, the man laughed. Yurio was already moving away, but neither of them made a move to stop him. The doors swung in the heavy pause between them.
“That’s quite new, isn’t it?” He sighed. “It’s your fault too. Before, we wouldn’t bleed. Before we would just feel pain, get a little dirt. Sure there’d be some scratches here and there, but nothing like this. We’d crack and fall apart. But because of you humans, because of your constant interference, it’s getting worse. The digital world, the creatures in it…” He took a step back and looked up at the gaping hole he’d made in the building. “We’re becoming more like you and now you’re just going to let it keep on going. With you, the relationship between human and Digimon is only going to expand and get worse, more thorough. You Chosen never change.”
“You told us to save the world!” Yuuri exclaimed, eyes wide, legs shaking. “You told us to work together!”
“And then we separated you!” Gennai chuckled. “Too late, of course, but we couldn’t have known the damage you would cause. We couldn’t have thought about that with everything going on. Besides, it doesn’t matter, in the end. If Maki had just done what I told her and then died peacefully, everything would have been wiped to zero. The chosen would have been dead or torn apart and we’d have had no problems. Though Daigo was a miscalculation too.”
“I bet I was,” Daigo muttered by Yuuri’s ear. Yuuri was proud he didn’t jump in his skates, so quickly was he furiously untying them. He could deal with cold feet later. ‘Didn’t think we’d actually go along with his bullshit of “pick one or the other’. Too bad, I did.”
“You did!” Gennai grinned wider and Yuuri was suddenly reminded of the time Phichit tried to show him ‘IT’ on YouTube. Was his mouth going to expand into rows and rows of fangs or something? “Which honestly, kudos to your own stupidity. It was a special brand. Too bad you couldn’t just die correctly! How did you manage that anyway?”
Daigo’s suit was clean, Yuuri realized, and the blood was still spreading into the robe. The ghost shook his head. “I don’t know. Really.”
“Well then what use are you?” Gennai waved his hand and an all too familiar serpentine form rose from the water, its golden cannon beginning to glow with white light. “I suppose you answered your own question before now—”
Yuuri froze, as his mind brought back that fall, that terrible fall from the clouds, his partner not fast enough to stop them from crashing but just fast enough to stop him from dying and that white hot light burning into his eyes.
“Katsuki!” Yurio’s voice was much too far away. Was he moving? Where were they? Daigo’s hand was on his arm. Or was it Viktor? He couldn’t move.
Yuuri couldn’t breathe. Hawkmon couldn’t save him this time.
This was why he had forgotten. This was why he had run and run and run as far as he could. Hawkmon wouldn’t be able to help him. He was alone. Even with Viktor, Viktor couldn’t stop this.
Viktor…
I don’t want to die, Yuuri thought, madly. I don’t want to die for some stupid reason like this!
There was a loud whirring whine and the hot light seared towards him. Yuuri tried to move his leg. He failed. He yelled before he could stop himself, prepared for pain with screwed shut eyes.
But none came.
Yuuri opened his eyes. A spider web of ruby red light was spreading over his body.
“Finally!” A high pitched voice cried in the middle, where the light was pulsing the strongest. ‘I can’t believe it took another laser to the face to call me over. What a travesty!’ They paused. “Well… I suppose it’s forgivable. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
Yuuri almost choked. “Ha-Hawkmon!”
The voice laughed. “Not just me, you idiot. You really think I could do this by myself? We’re all here, waiting for you all to come to us again.”
And he saw the other four lights, silver, gold, emerald, and sapphire, stood starkly, spreading along further and further, beyond anything Yuuri could see in this screeching color.
He watched as the laser beam exploded into little more than lightning bugs. The serpent floated there still, unharmed as the five lights settled in front of Yuuri himself. Daigo’s hand was gone and he suddenly felt Viktor’s hand pulling him back.
“Come on!”
Yuuri almost collapsed on him instead of ran, but he obediently bolted after his husband. The lights followed him out, the silver one zipping about.
He heard Gennai start to shout something but a brown blur rammed the man from behind. (Yuuri heard the grunt).
“Get ’em Lopmon!” shouted Makiko from up ahead. “Knock his block off!”
“How is he?” Maki demanded as the two of them reached her. She took the silver light from the air, but stared at the gold like she was afraid to blink.
“Fine,” Yuuri wheezed. “I’m fine… thanks to—”
“Me,” said the red light primly. “And the rest of you, I suppose. But of course, we still have to deal with big, lanky and laser prone over there.”
“We can’t afford to pay for this,” Takeshi managed to wheeze, Lutz and Loop clutched underneath an arm each.
“Not the time, Takeshi!” Yuuko managed over Axel’s head.
“Always the time!”
Maki managed to tear her gaze away from the golden light as something twinkled in the sky and Lopmon was knocked to the ground. She grabbed hold of Makiko’s shirt as the girl screeched and twisted.
“This is wonderful!” Gennai coughed the words as he stumbled towards them. “All of you together, in one place… how perfect.”
The laser began to charge. Yuuri grabbed Viktor’s hand.
Then, two things happened, completely out of nowhere.
The first was the sight of a little girl running into Gennai and ramming him so hard they both disappeared into the air.
The second was a golden tornado ripping into the large serpent like a paper toy.
It exploded, much like its laser, into particles. The tornado ceased immediately, turning into a man that almost looked like a mechanical dragon. “Phew,” it said without moving its mouth, shrinking before their eyes into something much smaller. “I told you we’d make it Taichi!”
“You did not, Agumon.” A man peered around the destruction. At the sight of them all, he saluted. “Yagami Taichi, reporting in as requested.”
“That may be the best timing you’ve ever had Yagami.” Maki let Makiko go, eyes full of relief. She determinedly did not look at the golden light that was now resting by her shoulder.
“Oh thanks.” the man nodded at them all. “The local authorities have been notified and there are crews headed to fix this up as we speak. We should relocate.”
Maki raised an eyebrow and the man flushed. Then she almost smiled. “Fair enough. This lot needs a check up anyway.”
“What about us?” came the indignant voice from the sapphire light. The silver burst, turning into the tiny cat head of Wanyamon.
It snorted. “Just turn back and be caught already.”
“This isn’t pokemon you know…”
Yuuri looked back at the ruby light. It didn’t have eyes to stare at him but he was sure that was what was happen.
“Are you sure? He managed to say, eyes welling with tears before he could stop them.
“Are you sure?” the light countered. “This is your one life I’m walking into. I can come back a thousand, thousand times now.”
Yuuri swallowed, throat dry. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to say no. He wanted to say so many things, but he didn’t know where to start. So he reached out and touched the light with one hand. He squeezed Viktor’s in the process.
Viktor whispered. “We will make it work.”
As the light transformed into little more than a pink blob with eyes, Yuuri nodded.
“You bet we will.”