Disclaimer: Same as the previous chapters.
Author Notes: Remember that italics thing! This chapter’s flashback takes place directly before Chapter Two’s.
Generations
"First Digital Bank," Os read aloud. "Cool." It was the groups third day together when their wanderings led them to a comparatively small city. After the attack, the previous day had been relatively uneventful. They had managed to get a bite to eat and some sandwiches for the road thanks to a good-natured restaurant owning Digimon. Apparently, as long as one didn’t ask for a recipe of what he was eating, the entrepreneur accepted I. O. U.s. They were told the policy had something to do with two very sincere young ladies...
"I wonder if Mom or Dad have an account," Hi mused. "If they do, maybe we can transfer some funds."
"Wouldn’t you need a signature for that?" Yellowmon asked from Hi’s side.
"Pfft. Dai’s an expert on forging Dad’s sig, ain’t ya, Dai-chan?" Hi teased her twin. Dai grinned.
"Guys, knock it off. This is serious. We need money to get around, and let’s face it, our only experience in that area is mooching off Mom and Dad. We might as well give it a shot here, too."
"Mooching off your parents? That’s really responsible, Osamu-chan," Solarmon said sarcastically.
"I’m eleven!" Os yelped in defense.
"Are we going to the bank or not?" Hi asked.
"We are," Os nodded. "Hey! Gang! We’re going inside now." Os and Hi, followed closely by Solarmon and Yellowmon entered first. Dai was delegated to dragging Rei in, who was transfixed with a small patch of wild flowers. Cities in the real world didn’t have wild flowers. Checkmon, Tsukimon and Wormmon sweatdropped and trailed a few feet behind.
"Should we try Mom or Dad first?" Os asked Wormmon, who, being the only one with experience dealing with humans, acted as a guide. Being with Ken’s children, especially Dai, who inherited most of his physical attributes from his father, helped Wormmon not miss his partner so much.
Wormmon considered Os’s question for a moment. Miyako-san probably didn’t have an account, but Wormmon knew Ken-chan set one up a long, long time ago. Of course, then he began a hostile take-over of the entire world... Though Wormmon knew very few Digimon still held a grudge after so long, especially after all Ken-chan did to help them and make up for his mistakes, there really was no telling the bank teller digimon’s temperament... Reluctantly, Wormmon suggested Miyako-san.
"How may I help you?" the teller asked when Os walked up to the window.
"Good afternoon," Os said politely. "I was wondering if an Inoue Miyako had an account with you. That’s I-N-O-U-E."
"No, I’m afraid not," the teller said after running a check.
"Okay. How about Ichijouji Ken? I-C-H-I-J-O-U-J-I."
The teller blinked. "What do you want with him?"
"His money."
"Pah, take it."
"Thanks," Os shrugged. "Do I need to fill something out..?"
"We don’t want anything to do with that rat. What name do you want this under?"
"Uh...Solarmon," the boy stated, quickly deciding that since he had very much to do with ‘that rat,’ his own name would be a bad idea.
"Okay," the digi-teller made a few modifications. "All set." The teller smiled and Os smiled back, albeit a bit forced.
"Great, can I get a checkbook or a credit card or something?"
"That will require paper work," the teller said, handing Os a pile of forms. Os sighed and set to work.
Hi, for her part, was leaning against the counter watching silently as her brother wrote. She noticed immediately that he didn’t have answers for a few of the things requested and rather than leave the space blank, he made something up. It wasn’t like anything he said could be disproven.
"Okay," Os said, "Finished." He pushed the forms back towards the teller.
"Here’s your temporary card," the digimon responded. "The permanent one will be mailed to the address on the forms. Have a nice day!"
As they walked away from the counter and the teller with three digimon on their heals, Hi elbowed her eldest brother in the ribs.
"We’ve got an address?"
"Sure," Os said with a shrug. "I put down 649--the six is our whole family, the four is us kids, and the nine is us four kids, our four digimon and Dad’s one Wormmon-- Digi Lane, Primary Village. It’s the only town I knew the name of," he quickly added. "Because of you and Dai find your digimon there."
"Um, speaking of Dai...Where is he? And Aba?"
"I thought they were with you!"
"Does it look like they’re with me?!?" Hi demanded, gesturing to the space around herself.
"Crap," Os muttered. He pushed the doors of the bank open and walked outside. He blinked. "That answers that question."
Sure enough, Rei and Tsukimon were only a few feet away, directly in Os and Hi’s line of sight. They seemed to be engrossed in conversation with a reddish-brown bird digimon. Dai was leaning against a outer wall of the bank, watching. Checkmon was leaning against his feet, the duo looking rather relaxed all-in-all.
Os stepped towards Dai.
"What’s going on?"
"Aba-chan makes friends easy here," Dai explained. "I guess," he amended.
"You’d think monsters would rate higher on the scary scale than second-graders," Hi observed.
"Ah, you haven’t spoken to Bird-boy over there. He’s about as scary as veggimite."
Hi made a face at her twin. "Dai-chan, that stuff is disgusting."
"Time to prioritize," Os announced. "Getting home ranks higher than Australian vegetable spread. To go home, we have to save the Digital World. In order to save it, we have to find out what’s wrong."
"Good digimon are going evil," Checkmon said with a yawn. "It’s obvious."
"I think he means why, buddy," Dai said with a chuckle.
"Oh. Well, that’s harder then, isn’t it?"
"Yeah..."
"Guess what!" The elder three Ichijouji siblings turned to their sister who had skipped up to their side unnoticed with a white rabbit and an eagle at her heals. "This is my new friend," she gestured to the bird digimon. "His name’s Hawkmon and he’s Mommy’s friend."
"Better make that 6410," Solarmon said. Os, Hi, Yellowmon and Wormmon laughed. They were met with odd looks from Dai, Rei and their digimon.
**********************
Quiet mornings, Miyako had decided long ago, were something she would never get used to. She grew up in a family with four children who had no qualms with arguing with one another. Similarly, she had four children of her own and while they rarely argued with one another outside of jest they were by no means quiet. On the second morning with no children in the apartment, Miyako cracked one brown eye open hoping to wake up in a busy household.
That hope was crushed when she realized she had fallen asleep on the couch again. Like the night before, Miyako had been unable to sleep and wound up watching television until she drifted off. She wondered for a moment how Ken had slept or if the children got gotten any sleep.
The Ken part of the inquiry was answered when she sat up. Ken was still asleep, his head pillowed in his arms at the computer desk across the living room, the keyboard having been shoved away. Smiling softly at her determined love, Miyako retrieved an afghan and draped it around him. Unable to keep from tinkering with the computer which held the answer to the other part of her inquiry, Miyako reached around Ken to the keyboard and set to work, ignoring the fact that she should have left for work hours ago.
"Purify through Kindness!"
"Purify through Sincerity!"
"I thought you were using the Crest of Love," Ken tossed over his shoulder.
"I was," Miyako responded, "but it didn’t work on any of the infected digimon, only you."
The two Chosen teens, flanked by their respective Digimon, raised the Crest charms that hung around their necks. As expected, the power of the Crests was enough to trouble shoot the strange virus that had been an epidemic throughout the Digital World. Infected digimon, once hit by the healing light of Ken and Miyako’s Crests, began to cease their attack on those who entered their world only to help them.
"Sticky Net!" Wormmon cried, holding a few digimon back with his weak attack. Seeing the digimon being held stationary, Ken aimed his Crest and healed them with another shout.
"We’re almost there!" Miyako exclaimed. Sure enough, there were only a handful of steps left to their destination. During a lengthy e-mail conversation with Koushiro, Ken and Miyako had been informed of an anomaly in the Digital World. Following the map Koushiro had provided had proved to be quite difficult. The anomaly had caused the mysterious virus that was capable of infecting both digimon and, as Ken had painfully learned, humans as well. Digimon attacked from all angles, barely allowing enough space for Wormmon and Hawkmon to go on the defense with Ken and Miyako providing offense.
Koushiro’s map led the quartet to a sort of digital bunker. The small building was only a few steps away. Hopefully, the Chosen teens and the Chosen digimon would be able to discover the secret behind the virus and how to wipe it from the Digital World.
Ken was the first to reach it. He pulled the door open and pushed Wormmon inside. Standing in the door frame the Guardian of Kindness continued to use his Crest to the benefit of the attacking digimon. When Miyako was within reach, Ken grabbed her arm and yanked her into the bunker. He winced with both sympathy and guilt as Miyako screamed, the wounds on her shoulder agitated. Hawkmon ducked into the bunker once Miyako was safe inside. Ken slammed the door behind the two. His black gloved hands patted the walls of the bunker until he found a light switch.
"A super computer," Miyako breathed. "The Digital World is as good as saved!"
Grinning like a young child in a candy store, Ken slid onto the single chair facing the computer console. His hands played across the keys, letting him familiarize himself with the computer’s capabilities.
"The computer has some sort of virus," Ken said after a few moments, his expression long since returned to normal. "Apparently, that’s the cause of those anomalies we saw. Our options are shutting the computer down or wiping it."
"There’s no telling how important a computer could be in the Digital World," Miyako said. "There must be some sort of anti-virus program on it."
"There’s a possibly we could create a back-up file, wipe the memory and reprogram it sans virus."
As the two continued discussing the options, running anything they could think of past each other, pounding on the door of the bunker began as infected digimon tried to enter. Hawkmon and Wormmon tensed, preparing to digi-volve once it was needed.
"We shouldn’t wipe it; Koushiro-kun once told me about one of his experiences with Digital World computers. He shut the power down in a factory and made it run backwards just by making a few minor alterations. There’s no telling what besides the virus this computer is connected to. There’s got to be a way to just isolate the virus itself."
Once again Ken’s fingers thundered over the console. Miyako stood behind him and would reach over his shoulders to type when ever an idea struck her. Within moments the two computer gurus had slipped into a comfortable rapport of typing together, the ideas running through their minds almost synchronized.
"Hey!" Miyako said suddenly. "Look right there!" She pointed to a line of data running along the view screen. Ken quickly called up the program she indicated and set to work on it.
"Hurry, Ken-chan!" Wormmon urged.
"I’ve almost got it, buddy," Ken responded. "I’ve got the program with the virus isolated. I think I can shut it down."
"If you think you can, Ken-chan," Wormmon confirmed, "you can."
The computer emitted a low pitched whir. The bunker’s four occupants froze, daring not to even breathe. When the silence had commenced, Ken pulled his D-terminal out of his wrist guard. A quick run through of the Digital World map told him the anomalies had stopped being produced, though the existing ones were still there.
"I wonder if digimon can still be affected now that the origin of the virus has been digi-vaccinated," Miyako mused, still leaning over Ken’s shoulders. Before Ken could throw in a few theories, a new window popped up on the view screen.
"An open Digi-port!" the teens exclaimed in unison.
"We can go ho-ome! We can go ho-ome!" Miyako sang swinging Hawkmon by the wings.
"I suppose that answers your question," Hawkmon replied to the earlier question. With a flash of light, Hawkmon found himself suspended in the air by his own power. Without acting on their own, Ken and Miyako disappeared through the port. The port promptly shut behind them and vanished.
"Miyako..?"
"Ken-chan..?"
**********************
"Tea-time," Dai muttered, staring upwards.
"Huh?" Checkmon asked.
"Judging by the sun, it’s about four o’clock in the afternoon," the boy answered.
"So?"
"Just thought I’d make notice, that’s all. Ask exciting as walking in empty fields is there’s not much in the way of conversation material."
Dai and Checkmon trailed a few feet behind the others, not for any particular reason, just to do something a bit different.
"Hey--! Dai-chan, did you hear that?"
"Um, no. What did you hear?"
"THAT!"
A plant-like digimon jumped between the duo and the rest of the group.
"What is that?!" Dai erupted.
"It looks like a Vinemon," Checkmon said, "I’m not too sure though."
"GUYS! A little help here!" Dai shouted. The digimon, a Vinemon?, attacked Dai, sending Checkmon into action.
"Checkmon digi-volve to...ROOKMON!"
Rookmon, much like his previous form of Checkmon, appeared to be white stained wood but also greatly resembled a rook piece from a classical chess board.
"Vertical Beam!"
"Moon Shine!" Tsukimon shouted, coming to the aid of Dai and Rookmon. Yellowmon prepared to attack, but was cut off by a shout of "Sun Spot!"
"Solarmon," Os laughed, "you’re a rookie!"
"Just call me Sunmon," the digimon replied.
Badly beaten, the plant digimon, whom no one had been able to identify for certain, retreated.
"Dai-chan," Os reprimanded, "stick closer to the group."
"Righty-o," Dai said, stepping beside Hi.
To Be Continued...