Hi everyone, thank you for checking out my latest story! Digimon Adventure was one of my favorite shows growing up and the original DigiDestined were always my favorite. You can imagine how excited I was when they announced a followup after 15 years! I really enjoyed the last three movies, but Loss (SÅshitsu in the Japanese version) is where the series started to unravel for me, and the last two films were just very disappointing for me. I felt the first three films had so much potential, and I've tried my hand writing fanfiction before so...I decided to give it a try, rewriting the rest of Digimon Adventure Tri to the standard I hoped for...and hopefully, what many of you hoped for too.
So, our story begins with the last scene in Confession and continues through the events of Loss (the fourth film). Some scenes you'll recognize if you've seen the movie while others are different, but I tried to write this story so that someone who hasn't seen any of the movies can at least understand it. Digimon was a big part of my childhood, and I know many of you are as passionate about it as I was, so after one last disclaimer - I don't own Digimon Adventure or the Tri movies, I'm just a fan - *shudders* here we go...
Loss Part 1: Reboot
Interesting place...I chose for a nap.
A long nap too, going by how long it took my eyes to open. I woke up on my stomach, lying on fresh soil and surrounded by lush green grass. I tried standing up on two feet, but I still felt so groggy. I felt as if I had been sleeping for a long time, but everything about wherever I was seemed brand new. The stream flowing past me looked so clear that I could drink the water right from it. The air and the sky too...well, they were clear except the big white fluffy clouds up above. They looked like I could eat them for dessert.
The forest nearby looked so much like the one we used to live in...but I knew it wasn't the same. Home was wherever she - right at that moment, I wish I had dessert to distract me from my pounding head. It felt like someone had tried to open it up and rip out all my memories, but stopped halfway and left them all jumbled inside. I was having a hard time trying to remember exactly who SHE was. Such a hard time that the next thing I knew, I had just kicked a really big rock with my foot. Hard.
"OWWW!" My balance suddenly got a whole lot better as I reached for my claws and hobbled on one foot. "MY - "
Mei! That was her name! And mine too...Meicoomon. Why did it take me so long to remember?
I crawled to the stream on all fours, thinking a drink might not be such a bad idea after all. That explained why this world felt so different to me...this WAS the Digital World, where we all came from, but I stayed with Meiko ever since she was small. Well actually, I was always smaller, but not by as much back then.
I kept trying to remember more while I stared into my reflection in the water. Everyone kept saying how much I looked like a 'cat', an animal in her world that some humans kept in their houses too. I guess animals that looked something like me, with fluffy orange-and-white coats and pointy ears, were more commonly seen than what some other Digimon looked like. Other than that, I never fully got the comparison: I didn't see many cats with white manes, and maybe green eyes were common but Meiko's dad pointed out that cross-shaped pupils weren't. And then there were what Meiko once called my 'scarf-like arms'...'arm' didn't sound like the right word, but I could use them like a scarf when it was cold outside.
I stood up on my hind legs again, but I almost fell on my back when I thought I saw blood dripping from my claws into the stream. No, that was just a bit of mud. But it did remind me of...
"LET MEICOOMON GO!"
I gasped and looked around for the deep, scary voice that just growled my name. No, I hadn't really heard it...it was just inside my head. But it was so loud. And then, I could hear other voices screaming...
"Leomon!"
"NNNOOO!"
Something killed him...I...I could see my claw plunging through his chest. But it wasn't me. He was our friend! I didn't...I couldn't have...but then I heard more voices:
"MEI, NO!"
"It's turned into a monster!"
This time, I did land on my back after turning back to my reflection and thinking I saw a violet aura surrounding me. No, I was imagining all these things because I was scared! I remembered...I got sick, but I'd never hurt my friends, or Meiko! Whoever tried to erase my memories before, maybe they were also trying to make me remember doing things that I never did!
Meiko! She'd know how to help me! She always knew, I had to find her! She wouldn't leave me in the Digital World all by myself -
That whistle! I jumped up at the sound of it, because I knew that was no Digimon. I heard it before, in the human world! They loved making things that made all kinds of noise! I had to follow it...
After racing through the shrubs, I was disappointed to see from across the lake that it was a tiny Digimon blowing on it, though the whistle itself didn't look like it came from here. There wasn't just ONE little Digimon hanging out there....there were eight now, mostly bouncing heads without any limbs. Maybe that's why everything about the Digital World felt so new...somebody had reset everything somehow. They played and bickered with each other like they had just hatched. But why didn't the same thing happen to me?
The little Digimon hid themselves away when the tall walking monsters that had been watching them for a while made their move. Well, they didn't like being called monsters...I learned they went by a couple different names depending on what part of their world they lived on, but 'human' was what they all went by. They were humans too, just like Meiko...I could tell because they all looked the same from a distance unless you knew what to look for. The best way you could tell was by how they styled their head fur, and the second-best way was to recognize the different rags they wore - I think they were called 'clothes'? I never really understood why humans liked walking around in that stuff, unless humans also had a hard time telling each other apart. I remembered that Meiko would spend a lot of time in the mornings just trying to decide what color rags to put on when she went out where others could see her.
"Look at all of you!" One of the humans approached the group of Digimon just when I came close enough to hear exactly what they were saying. He looked really familiar to me, even if he wasn't someone I knew very well. He was the least-kempt one out of all of them. Most humans seemed to put a lot more thought into how they groomed their head fur, but seemed to be OK with his brown spiky hair flying all over the place and he also had these things called 'goggles' dangling carelessly around his neck. "It's great to see you again."
Meiko. This group reminded me so much of her. But the other Digimon acted like they didn't know them. Any of them. None of the eight across from me. I pulled myself away for a bit, only glancing back when I heard one of the Digimon scream something about not wanting to be eaten. But even though I counted eight of each, I thought...could one of them be Meiko? Even if I wasn't sure, maybe those humans knew her! When I changed my mind and turned myself back around, I could see the little Digimon WERE starting to trust them. Seeing that, and seeing the humans sharing food instead of trying to eat them, made me feel warm and fuzzy inside like I did before. And I remembered where: when they welcomed me and Meiko into their group after they saved us! I DID know these humans, and their partners too. They WERE our friends!
Just when I started feeling happy again, I moved in closer to look around for Meiko. I could never forget what SHE looked like; her long raven-colored hair, or those red rectangle-shaped she wore even when she cracked them. But she was nowhere to be seen, and I was way too shy to go up there and ask. What if I was wrong, and these people didn't know Meiko at all? Their own Digimon sound just as confused as I am -
The reboot. I remembered one of the humans who used to look after me and Meiko said something about a "reboot." Just the sound of the word made me think about how new this world was, and why the humans were trying to make friends with their Digimon partners all over again...everything had been reset.
And it was because of something I did.
Thinking that made me feel sick again. I couldn't remember what I did, but something told me that it wouldn't matter to Meiko, or to her human friends. I knew...I just knew...that this was all my fault. Because I had gotten sick...and I should have been reset too, just like all the other Digimon, but I wasn't. They'd never trust me now...and they wouldn't help me find Meiko. If she wanted to find me, she'd be there with them!
"Alright, whoever you are!" The boy with the goggles...he must have heard me. I knew I should have run off sooner. He didn't sound happy at all now. "Show yourself!"
They ALL knew I was there now. I could have run but I just buried my eyes into my paws and sobbed until he saw me. I wanted him to blame me, tell me all this was my fault and I ruined everything and I didn't deserve to see Meiko again. But he just froze there and said my name...
"Meicoomon?!"
I lowered my paws from my eyes, even though tears were still coming.
"You guys know this Digimon?" The Digimon had followed him too, even though none of them remembered me.
"No way!" But the humans did. They WERE Meiko's friends! "And she's still in her champion level!"
"Mei! Where's Mei?" I felt even worse about being so selfish, crying out for MY partner when theirs didn't even remember them. But I couldn't help it, I needed to know if I really was on this planet alone without her. I thought the humans would all start yelling, but instead they gasped together in shock.
"So you remember her?" One of the humans I remembered most asked me next, the one whose hair was a reddish-orange sort of color. Sora...her name was Sora. Her maroon eyes stared back at me. "Meiko?"
"MEI!" I cried for her to come out from behind them, if she was hiding there somewhere. But she wasn't. Everyone else's partner had come back for them, except mine. And now I remembered why. I couldn't take it anymore: I ran back the way I came and jumped into the nearest tree branch. I darted from tree-to-tree trying to get away, but the boy with the goggles chased after me from the ground below.
"Meicoomon, stop!" He shouted upwards. "We only wanna help!"
He might have sounded like he really did want me to come with them, but I knew he really hated me. I could hear it in his voice: he was happy I was running away, just like Meiko was happy to be rid of me. I never meant for all this to happen. I just wanted to disappear...
Someone must have granted my wish. One minute,I was dashing from tree-to-tree and the next I was on solid ground again. But I don't remember falling, or jumping down. It was like I had jumped through one of those weird shifty field-like distortion things that drops you in another place. Sora and the boy who chased me were nowhere to be seen now. It was dark now, except for a field of flowers glowing in the twilight and reflecting the stars. They looked so pretty...flowers always helped me forget when I was sad or scared, at least for a little while.
There was another Digimon up ahead, with a gray metal helmet and big blue eyes, already picking them. He was about my size. I meant to leave him to it, and find my own patch to play in, but a human laugh stopped me. This one didn't sound like one of the others, and when I saw her running towards the Digimon, I noticed she looked older. Her hair was short, almost as short as a human boy's, and she was dressed differently too, wearing one of those things humans called a 'business suit'.
"Tapirmon! I finally found you!" Other than looking different, she acted just like she knew him too. But if he was someone's partner, I was sure I didn't remember them.
"Hmmm?" And just like I imagined the others did back there, Tapirmon faced the human and tilted his head, looking confused.
The human woman clutched her heart - at least, I think human hearts go in the same place? - as if it just split in two. But she knelt down and put her arms around his shoulders in a big hug."Aren't you glad to see me too? We're together again! I missed you so much!"
"Are you a...human?" When Tapirmon asked, she pulled away from him a bit and reflected his blank stare. What they looked like was common knowledge, even around here, but I guessed that wasn't why.
"Uh...I am! And I'm your partner! We're a team!" She said it smiling, but even from where I was standing, I could see a bead of sweat drip from the side of her head..
"No we're not!" Tapirmon backed away, clutching his flowers even more tightly. Her arms were still stretched out as if she was still hugging him, even as he ran away from her. "I don't know you and I don't want to! Now leave me alone!"
"Tapirmon!" He did turn back when she called him by name again. And then...something about her changed. This time, she walked towards him a lot more slowly. "You may not remember me yet, or believe that we're partners...but it's true all the same!" Just the way she said it creeped me out, and then she grabbed Tapirmon by the shoulders...and started shaking him. "And now that I've found you, I'll NEVER LOSE YOU AGAIN!"
"HEY!" Maybe I wasn't very smart, calling to her like that, but I had to do something to help that Digimon. It's what Meiko would have wanted me to do...before she started hating me. Still, I was kinda surprised when the woman did stop shaking him...and looked at me with bulging amber eyes that froze me in place.
"Meicoomon!" SHE knew me too?! "You remember me, don't you? It's me, Hime!"
She'd calmed down a little bit while speaking to me, enough that I did recognize her voice. Himekawa! She was one of the grown-ups who looked after me and Meiko! But...she didn't look like the Himekawa I remembered, the one who picked me up and went to get me sweets. This Himekawa...looked more like a monster. "I looked after you and Meiko, remember? Tell Tapirmon you know me!"
It didn't sound like she was asking me...she was TELLING me. I remembered seeing THIS Himekawa once before...when she threw her arm up in front of two other humans who were supposed to be watching me and told them "no. No outsiders." Then I saw her reach for something hidden under the side of her suit and heard a clicking sound. I noticed there was a cylinder sticking out from under the side of her jacket. She tucked something under there...a human gun. I heard Himekawa say something else to the humans she worked with while she was with me and Meiko...something about them "modifying" their tools to shoot electricity at Digimon who weren't supposed to be in their world. I never thought Himekawa would test one of those things on me...but she looked more like a monster right now.
"TELL HIM!"
To Be Continued
A/N: There it is, my first chapter! I stuck fairly close to the movie with this one (ending of Confession through the start of Loss) though with a key difference. I thought about including a "how it happened in the movie" section to share what's different, though I'm a little worried about spoiling it for those who haven't seen. I'd like to hear if you think adding that section is a good idea.
From what I've read, I don't think first-person Digimon stories are all that common so that might have caught you off-guard, though if you've read my other stuff you've probably noticed I have a lot of fun putting you guys in different characters' heads. I liked the mystery over who the narrator might be, and I think we're so used to the show focusing on the DigiDestined I thought it would be fun to see more of the Digimon's side of the story (even if it's trickier!) I know Meiko and Meicoomon are a bit polarizing as some fans understandably felt they stole screentime away from the characters we came back for, but she seemed like the most interesting choice to start telling the story here. She may not narrate the whole thing as covering the whole movie means some switching is necessary, and we may see one of the DigiDestined tell it once in a while...but I do think Meicoomon's an interesting character, and she's a favorite of mine going forward.
I have other plans for how things might change (I admit I don't remember the Adventure 02 kids very well, but even I feel the movies handled their absence very poorly), and I'd be happy to share with anyone who's interested. For now, I just want to say: thank you so much for reading this through to the end! I hope you'll let me know how I did on my first try :)