AN- Yep, I am alive. Sorry about the long wait. I just wanted to make sure I had this whole thing plotted out before I started so I wouldn't get half way through and realize I forgot something crucial. And my computer broke (damn it!) so I was with out internet for what felt like an ETERNITY. I hope you like the story!
Disclaimer- I do not own Digimon nor Disney (don't ask). So don't sue me!
Gone Awry
"Are you serious?"
Tai stared down at his cell phone where nine text messages appeared, all in varying degrees of apology, but all with the same meaning.
They weren't coming.
After letting out a string of some well chosen words, Tai started pacing his room, pulling his hand through his hair in frustration every few steps. He stopped suddenly when the girl sitting at a chair near his desk cleared her throat.
"I don't mean to interrupt your angry rampage, but you really shouldn't do that to your hair. It's already wild enough..." Sora trailed off meekly as Tai glared at her.
"My hair isn't the problem now," Tai pointed out angrily, but stopped when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He flattened his hair, somewhat, making it go back to its original shape. Sighing heavily, he walked over and sat down hard on his bed.
"I shouldn't snap at you. Sorry. You are the only one that bothered to show up," he apologized in a low voice that still sounded sulky, looking out his window to avoid meeting her gaze.
Sora looked at the floor, choosing her next words carefully. "We are still people, Tai. Just because we are digidestined doesn't mean we don't have other things in our lives."
"I know that!" Tai said indignantly. "I have a life too. I have school and soccer and other fun things I could be doing, but I'm here. I understand some things come first, and this is a job that can't be ignored!"
Sora looked taken a back at his outburst at her. "Taichi, I know-"
"I know. Sorry. Again." Tai groaned in frustration. "I'm taking this out on you when you are on my side. We should just go."
Sora nodded and stood up with Tai, and with their digimon partners following their lead, walked over to the computer where they opened up the digital portal and entered the digital world.
Once safely arriving, they started walking to their destination about a mile away from where they had landed. Sora, Biyomon and Agumon talked happily, while Tai walked deep in thought next to them.
Every day, for the past two years, the digidestined had patrolled the digital world. Natural disasters, large fights and the digidestined's last battle had caused lots of damage to villages and crucial areas, and the digidestined had to help repair them. Also, while no major threats had appeared, there were still powerful digimon from time to time that would try threatening certain areas, and even though the digidestined got rid of them relatively easily, the other digimon in the area couldn't do it without them.
The task had been split among each continent, each taking one day a week to go patrol, Asia taking the entire weekend to make up for the lack of anyone living, much less being a digidestined, in Antarctica. Japan took Saturdays, while Russia, China and India took Sundays.
At first, everyone was happy with the arrangements, excited after winning their final battle and being permanently reunited with their digimon. Tai was hard pressed to keep his team from over crowding his room every Saturday as they traveled to the digital world. However, once the newness of it wore off, and high school became more pressing for each teen, Saturdays started looking less and less appealing.
At first the numbers had dwindled till it reached about five of them showing up each Saturday, but then stayed that way for months. It wasn't a good turn out in Tai's opinion, but it was just enough. However, a month ago less people started coming again, which brought them to their current number of two. Tai had tried everything he knew, and just couldn't get them to come.
'What more can I do? I feel like such a horrible leader, not only because I can't get them to come, but because I wish I didn't have to be here either...' Tai thought to himself.
"He's looks so sad. What did you do?"
"I did nothing!"
Tai snapped out of his reverie, only to notice that they had already reached their destination. He looked to his left where two girls were arguing with each other.
"Ri-ight. Sora is perfectly innocent, is that it?" the brown haired girl teased.
The red head bopped her on the head with stick she had picked up from the ground. The other girl smiled sweetly up at her. "See what I mean? Did you physically abuse him too?"
Tai stepped in between them before this insanity could continue, causing each girl to smile at him innocently and laugh, showing him that they were only joking with each other.
Tai sighed. "Mimi, what are you doing here?"
Mimi didn't look hurt at his blunt statement at all, and kept up with her cheerful attitude. "I'm here to help you guys patrol, duh!"
"But you already help out every Wednesday with the North American digidestined. You don't have to do both, you know."
"I know! But I really miss you guys, and this is the only way to see you between vacation breaks," She explained happily, smiling and cocking her head to one side. She looked around at just the three of them and grinned awkwardly, scratching the back of her head. "Or at least to see some of you..."
Tai snorted as his anger at the others flared up again, and Sora looked at him worriedly. Mimi simply nodded in understanding.
"Ah, so that's what's bothering you," Mimi voiced, patting Tai on the shoulder.
"We should get started if we want to get this done anytime soon," Sora spoke up to change the subject, and the other two agreed.
Tai assigned each of them an area to investigate and they split up. Sora broke away from them right away to go to a village north of where they were. Tai and Mimi started walking to the east together, where then they would eventually split.
Palmon and Agumon were trading stories of life in Japan and America and Mimi smiled back at them, then turned to Tai.
"It has been a while since we've talked, Tai. How are things?"
Tai sighed heavily. "How do they look? The team is falling a part, school is hard, and I keep snapping at people I don't mean to."
Mimi frowned in thought, which caught Tai off guard, since it had been a while since he had seen her do anything but smile, much less look troubled.
"By people, you mean Sora, right?" Mimi asked.
"Yeah, her mostly. Which is stupid, because she is the only one that consistently comes to the digital world."
Mimi stopped looking serious and plastered a silly grin on her face.
"I think I know wh-hy!" she said in a sing song voice.
Tai rolled his eyes. "There is nothing between Sora and me. She made her decision on that a long time ago."
"Yeah, 'a long time ago'. Things change! Her and Matt broke up only a few months after they started going out, and it's been well over a year since then! Sora liked you once, right? How do you know things won't work if you don't give them a try?"
"Who said my feelings haven't changed?" Tai asked simply.
"Are you telling me they have?" Mimi asked, incredulous.
Tai just shrugged, and Mimi frowned but let the subject drop. They walked a while longer in silence till they reached their splitting point. Tai was about to walk away, but Mimi stopped him.
"Maybe if I called and talked to the others, I could get them to come," she said in a hopeful voice.
"It's pointless Mimi. I can't get them to do anything together anymore."
"I know, but maybe if I-"
"No! Don't you get it Mimi? There is no conflict free way for you to fix it this time! You just don't understand the situation, I do. Let me handle it," Tai snapped.
Tai realized that he hadn't picked the nicest words when Mimi's face turned from hopeful to down right pissed in a split second.
"Oh? You have all the answers, do you? Then why haven't you fixed things yet, huh?" She countered him. "You are our leader, not our master, Tai. You have to participate in teamwork too. You could listen to someone else for a change!"
Mimi turned and started to stomp away, but stopped and stood still a little distance away.
"I listen to you, Tai," she said in a calm voice, speaking just loud enough for Tai to hear. "I might be in America, but I'm still part of the team. I could help you, if you let me."
Then she walked away with Palmon, leaving Tai and Agumon by themselves. Tai groaned, but simply started walking to his village in the south.
About half way there, Tai stopped for him and Agumon to rest and get some water. As they sat on a log in the middle of a field, sipping water from the two water bottles Tai brought, Tai spoke.
"Why do I keep passing my anger on to other people?" Tai moaned to his partner, who simply shrugged his shoulders.
"Maybe you are taking on too much responsibility. Mimi said that she would help you out. You might finally get to have a day off too."
"I just can't. If something goes wrong, I will always know it was because of me. I can't let my friends down like that," Tai explained.
Agumon nodded and patted Tai on the back. Tai hesitated, wanting to say more but not sure if he should, but his partner looked at him with trusting eyes, and Tai figured that he wouldn't take his next statement the wrong way.
"Being a digidestined is so hard sometimes. It seems wrong, but sometimes I wish that we had never gone to the digital world."
Agumon looked hurt, but Tai quickly said, "Not that I don't like you! I-"
He simply nodded. "I know what you mean, Tai."
"Awe, how touching!" A female voice said nearby.
Tai and Agumon turned around and got into fighting stances. They stood there and blinked when they realized there was no one there.
"Didn't you hear that too?" Tai asked, confused.
"Yeah..." Agumon looked around in every direction again.
"Excuse me? I'm right here!" The voice came again. Tai and Agumon looked up to where a small fairy was floating.
Tai noticed that she looked a lot like that fairy from that popular animation studio in America, except this fairy was dressed in a little pink dress with light brown hair.
Agumon was the first to speak. "You don't LOOK like a digimon..."
The fairy screwed her face up in anger. "At least I don't look like a stupid character off a kid's show!"
"Actually, you do," Tai admitted, trying hard to suppress a laugh.
"Humph!" She grumped, and then got a wicked smile on her face. She spun around really fast, and when she stopped, her appearance had changed. She was wearing a light yellow dress now, with red hair, cut exactly like Sora's. "How is this, lover boy?" She asked, blowing him a kiss.
Tai promptly swatted her out of the air with a flick of his hand. She screamed and flew backwards. Gaining her balance, she flew right back up to him, finger in his face.
"You-!"
"What are you going to do? Agumon here could crush you flat," Tai said, laughing with Agumon.
The fairy smiled sarcastically, raised her hand and then blew hard, causing powder from her hand to fly into Tai's face. Tai coughed and rubbed his eyes, but recovered quickly. He was about to rub it in her face, but he's knees suddenly gave out and he found himself on all four. His head started to ache, and he couldn't see.
"I don't need to do anything more. You are the one that is going to hurt yourself the most."
Tai gasped as his stomach clenched and he lowered himself to the ground, trying to fight off the pain. "Who are you?"
She grinned wickedly. Agumon was trying to comfort Tai, but it wasn't helping. The fairy flew up to his face and said, "I am Mirimon." She leaned in and whispered something into his ear. Tai's eyes got wide, but then he coughed and blacked out, the fairy's last words bouncing in his head.
"And you are going to learn that you should be careful about what you wish for..."
AN- I know, it's kind of a short chapter, but the first one is always to hard to get going. Oh, well. By the way, this will be a Taiora (incase some of you were getting worried), my gift to all of you wonderful people who read What Women Want and were severely disappointed that it was a Michi. I hope you like this story!
Uh... Oh yeah-
1. Tai is a senior, making him 17 or 18
2. Mimi never moved back to Japan (obviously)
3. The other characters are going to be OOC in the next chapters. Integral part of the story people! They are in an AU! (oops, plot spoiler...) Just letting you know, cause a lot of people hate characters being, well, out of character.