Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

[Sign]

(Thoughts)

*SOUNDS*

++++++++++Flashback++++++++++

Chinese

Summary: Abandoned by the others, after he made Greymon digivolve into SkullGreymon, Tai seeks a meaning to his new life. Not as a Digi destined, but as a Digimon.    

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 Twist of fate

Prologue 

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Tai wandered through the desert. In his hands he held onto a small pink head. Looking around him, he vainly tried to find a shade or oasis for them. But all he could see where the endless sand dune and the burning hot air. He still felt the pang of pain as he recalled the last word from the one he thought were his friends.

A pang of anger arose in him as he remembered the harsh words that Matt had yelled at him. Then he had gotten a punch rather hard in the face as Matt seemingly got tired of yelling. As he tried to stand up again, a vicious kick hit him right in the ribs and he had gone down hard. As the other kids had left, he had blacked out. When he woke up, it was in the middle of the night and Koromon had been jumping on his back to wake him up. That had been almost a week ago, at least Koromon had stayed with him.

Now he had been wandering through the desert looking for a place or anything to tell him where he was. His top priority was to find some water for him and Koromon. The last oasis had been left behind yesterday, and they still hadn't seen another one. And by now, he was really starting to feel the effects of dehydration. "This look bad Koromon, really bad."

Koromon looked up from where he rested in Tai's hands. "We could always try to find out way back to the Koromon village. I'm sure they'll accept us in and help us." Trying to sound happy for Tai's sake, he spoke in happy voice, but felt just as lost as Tai did on the inside. Slowly, his eyes looked down on the sand again. "Tai. You think the others will accept us back anytime soon?"

Tai gave a half smile and gave Koromon a slight nudge. "I'm sure they'll forgive us. We just scared them a little. It might take a while, but they'll forgive eventually, I'm sure of it." Tai stopped and looked around the desert. "Right now we need to find some water and food." Turning to stare down the san dune they were on, Tai blinked his eyes. "Koromon, I think I see another oasis over there. We can finally get something to drink."  Holding his digimon closer, he began to slide down the dune and run towards the oasis. "Hold out little buddy, we can still make it."

"Not likely kid Ahuh"

Tai stopped in his tracks at the words. That voice, slowly turning around, the sight of two Gazimon's, and the main monkey himself, Etemon, met him. "Great, just what I needed."

Etemon grinned and pulled out a microphone from the very air itself. "Well Kid. It's time for our last meeting, and to celebrate it. I've written a song just for you. It's called. "I'm a dead goggle wearing kid" Feel free to sing along ahuh." Pulling out his electric guitar, he flashed a grin at Tai. "Dark network, Concert Crush"  

Pain, that was the only to describe what Tai felt as Etemon used his trademark move on him. The power of the attack sent him flying backwards into the sand roughly. "Koromon!!" Tai screamed as he felt, his friend fall out of his hands.

Koromon rolled a little through the sand before he stopped. Then he jumped back up and towards Etemon. "Koromon Digivolve to… Agumon" As he finish turning into the little orange dinosaur, he turned to face Etemon and summoned up his standard attack. "Pepper breath."

Etemon grinned and ducked the attack. "Wow we have a real hot audience tonight folks, well I have just the thing for them." Pulling his hand back, a green ball of energy formed in it. "Dark Network."

Agumon went down over Tai and rolled through the san before he stopped. Pulling him towards the digimon. Tai felt his eyes tearing up with water as the orange Digimon struggled to stand up again. "Agumon, Agumon!!"

The two Gazimon's jumped forward and grinned. "Here let us help you lizard. Maybe a little shock therapy is in order. "Electric Stun Blast." Looking at the digimon screaming in front off them, they grinned. "Maybe it shouldn't have been that strong a charge." Agumon opened his mouth to say something, but then his knees gave out and he fell forward into the sand.

Etemon stepped forward and lifted his hand. "Well it's been fun kid. But it's time to end it." Green energy formed around his hand as he brought it forward. "Dark Network." A geyser of sand shot up into the air from the blast. As it settled, Tai and Agumon lay halfway buried under it. "That should do it. Let's find the other kids shall we."

Tai slowly moved out his left hand and grabbed his partner. "Agumon, Agumon?" Getting no response, he slowly turned his head to stare at his friend. Blood coated the face and body of the little guy. "Agumon no!" Slowly the dinosaur broke into a million small pieces of data that floated away from him. As his hand finally fell down through the air where Agumon had been, Tai closed his eyes and tried to wake up from the nightmare.

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He had no idea how long he had been lying in the desert. But when he began to come around he could feel was someone digging away the sand around him. He couldn't see anything yet, but he could feel the painful pangs of hunger and thirst running through him.

"Who do you think it is?" A voice broke through the darkness as he felt someone tap him on the right cheek.

"Don't know. Hey are you awake?" A second voice, much more friendlier sounding then the first one replied to the first one.

Slowly, Tai opened his eyes and stared up into the sky. Pain rolled through his body as he tried to move and his head throbbed from the pain going through it. As the pain lessened he slowly focused on what he could see, which wasn't much. Everything was blurred when he looked around him, he couldn't even seen where the ground was. "Where Am I?" His voice sounded raspy and drawn out from his thirst.

A white blur moved in front of him and held out something. "Here drink this." As Tai drank it, a hushed conversation was taking place between the one holding him and the one with the water bottle. Finally the one holding him moved into his field of view, while still a blur he could make a large dark blue hat. "Can you tell us your name?"

Tai looked away from the water before he opened his mouth. "Tai… Chi…" The first part of his name came out in a broken whisper as his still had trouble speaking. From the way he felt it wasn't that big a surprise. But the last part was much stronger then the first and therefore the only thing the ones helping him heard.

The white blur moved away with the water. "Rest Chimon. We'll take you to the nearest Town."

{Chi…mon} Taichi last thought were at the strange thing he had been called. Then he passed out from the pain and hunger.

Tai rolled over in the bed and fell down onto the floor rather hard as he woke up. Blinking his eyes, he lifted his hand and grabbed his head. As he touched it, his right ear responded by twitching out of the way. Removing his hand fast, Tai looked down at it. Sharp claws shot out from the five fingers of his arm and the fur that covered it. Looking at his arm showed him, that it was also covered in a thin layer of light brown fur. Pulling himself up, he grimaced at the pain shooting through is body.

He never heard the door open as he leaned on the wall of the room. "Oh you're awake." Sitting up at the sudden sound, Tai grimaced as he remembered why he had stopped moving. "Wait, don't move!" Tai stopped and turned his head to face the one talking. Standing in the only door into the room was a humanoid digimon around his height, wearing a very weird costume. As he stepped closer he held out a hand. "Please, my name is Wizardmon. Try not to move. I haven't healed all your wounds yet."

A small cough, followed by the sound of feet moving over the floor came from the other end of the room. Tai turned to face the one who had just started to walk across the floor. "Well. Maybe you can tell us what you were doing half dead out in the desert, Chimon?" A white catlike digimon with two yellow gloves on the front paws walked towards him from the other end of the room, a long thin tail moved through the air as she walked, and the small ring near the end of it looked like it could fall off at any moment. "Well?" The cat spoke in a harsh voice as it looked up at him.

Scared, Tai latched onto the first thing he remembered they had said to him. "Chimon?"

Wizardmon grabbed his hand and led him back to the bed. "That is your name right. You told us it out in the desert." Looking closer at the boy, he moved a stand of hair out of his eyes. "You really did a number on you arms Chimon." Turning to face the cat he reached out a hand. "Gatomon, hand me the water, would you?"

As Wizardmon applied a bandaged to Tai's left arm, Gatomon jumped up on the bed and looked at him. "You didn't answer my question."  

Tai looked at the cat and followed her tail as it moved behind her. "Me and my friends were out in the desert. After an accident, they told me to get lost. As I was wandering through the desert with my buddy Agumon, we ran into Etemon. He killed Agumon and left me to die in the sun." Wizardmon blinked at the bitter- and sadness in Tai's voice. 

Gatomon narrowed her eyes as he answered her. "Your lucky, few digimons has survived a meeting with that lunatic. I heard that he was having problems lately with the so-called chosen children." Licking her glove covered paw, she looked at Tai from out of her eyes. "You look like you can fight. How about joining Lord Myotismon's army?"

Tai looked at the cat and smiled. "I don't know. I need time to think."

Gatomon jumped down from the bed, and looked back at him over her shoulder. "Well, we'll be in town all week. If you decided to join him, give us a call." Walking on all fours, the white cat Digimon left the room.

Wizardmon stood up as well and looked down at the boy. "I fixed most of your wounds, but you should take it easy for awhile." Putting the bandages away, he held out a hand. "It was nice meeting you Chimon. I hope to meet you again."

Tai looked at the hand briefly, then he lifted his own to shake it. "Yeah you too. Thanks for the help." As the Digimon left the room, Tai sat still for a moment. His eyes locked onto his hand, or the lack of it. Feeling a sudden dread, he stood up. "This is to weird, I gotta find a mirror." While it still hurt to move, he found that whatever that guy Wizardmon had done, it had at least made it possible for him to move around with almost no pain.

As he dropped down from the bed and onto the floor, he learned one other thing. He had gotten a bit smaller. Well a lot smaller. While he wasn't as small as Gatomon, he would still have to look up at most Digimon and humans. Looking at the bed, he groaned. From the looks of it, he was just as t tall as Agumon had been. Wobbling a bit as he took a few test steps, Tai nearly fell over on all fours, as he hadn't tried to walk around in his body for that long. After a solid minute of trying to control the movement of his legs, Tai found the correct, although, still a bit clumsy way of moving around on his hind legs like he had done when he was a human.

It didn't take long to find a mirror in the room. Getting up to it was another matter, he was just to small to reach the top of the table, it was to risky for him to climb it, he had no intention of testing out how well he could jump in this body. In the end it was solved by pushing the only chair in the room over to the table the mirror stood on and from the seat of it, he stepped up onto the arm rest and from there up onto the tabletop.

Staring at the reflection of himself, he ran the small stump of a finger he had on his paws over his face. Brown fur covered his body from the head to his toe or hind paws, he still had his trademark hairstyle but it had become a multicolored mess, with two large cat ears breaking through the mass of hair and rising in an angle from his head. He had lost his blue shirt and brown shorts, but instead of them, he wore a pair of pants made out of a dark blue material. Shaking his head a bit, Tai continued with his examination. Both his arms now had a bracer around the wrists made out of gold. Under each of the bracers, a furred hand was plainly visible, and as he looked at them, he felt his muscle in each finger on them tense as he tried to flex them. Tai blinked when he noticed the five claws poking out from the tip of the fingers. Tai eyes drifted up as he tried to forget about his claws to gaze at something around his neck. A strange golden ring glowed from the small amount of light in the room when he moved around. A little form fitting, it spun around his neck and for a brief moment, Tai thought of it as a collar. Then his eyes caught a movement above his head, behind him, a long tail brushed back and forth, a simple ring adorning it beneath the fluffy tip. Leaning closer, he noticed his eyes hadn't change their color and still looked like they did when he was human. But all in all, he looked like a strange mix between a human boy and a cat. "A Digimon. I'm a Digimon." Dropping down on his knees, he shook his head. "I can't believe it."

"Neither can I Taichi."

Spinning around. Tai stared at the old man standing in the doorway, while he was wearing a pretty good disguise, meaning a large robe with a hood on it. He was still the only one who looked 100% human in the digital world so far "Gennai, what happened, where's Agumon? Why am I a Digimon?" Grabbing the older man's robe with his hands nearly ripping a hole in the cloth with his claws in the porcess. Tai shook it violently as he went into hysteria.

Gennai looked a bit troubled for a moment "Calm down Tai or is it Chimon now?" As the boy stopped shaking him, he gave a small laugh. Then his face turned serious and he gently removed the hands holding him, frowing a little as he noticed Tai's claws were stuck in the fabric of his robe. As the claws came lose, he coughed a single time; then he gave a serious look at Tai. "We need to talk."

Tai blinked at those words, he had never heard Gennai sound so serious before. But then again, he could understand it well.

Tbc: Feline Digimon Chimon.

AN: Rewrite in progress. Hope this makes the story a little better. I already know that there is a story that uses Chimon as a name for Taichi's new digimon form, but I got permission from the author to use it as well.

"I'll have a drawing of Chimon up on my site when I post the next chapter of this story."

Well that was one promise that never happened. I'm redesigning my site to make it more people friendly. I'll post a notice when it is ready.

Dak.