No Girls Allowed (Ch. 17, Digific)

Jun 30, 2011 22:57

Title: No Girls Allowed
Author: Schnickledooger
Rating: T/PG-13
Genre: Romance/Humor
Summary: Jun keeps popping up in the most unexpected places. Tai is not pleased, especially when it gives his friends the wrong impression. AU Season 02 time-line and events.
Word Count: So far... 84,000+

Ch.1 Revenge
Ch.2 Backfired
Ch.3 The Way To A Man's Heart Is...
Ch.4 Love Is A Jealous Thing
Ch.5 Night Out
Ch.6 Eternal Darkness Of The Cluttered Mind
Ch.7 All The World's A Stage
Ch.8 Elementary, My Dear Jun
Ch.9 The Melancholy Of Taichi Kamiya
Ch. 10 All's Fair In Love And War
Ch.11 So Much For My Happy Ending
Interlude
Ch. 12 Accidentally In Love
Ch. 13 Just To Let You Know I Care
Ch. 14 With You
Ch. 15 Take My Hand
Ch. 16 Poisoned Bond


Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. Toei Animation does.

A/N: Definition of Japanese terms below after chapter.

Ch.17 Tidal Wave

Grey.

It was the first thing Tai saw when he passed through the gateway. A mixture of black and white that reflected the sun so brightly he had to squint his eyes against the glare of its sharpness.

Dead earth.

Dry-crusted, empty water-beds.

Bleak, overcast sky.

The entire Digital World lay shrouded under the spell of sickness the grim color cast upon it.

From behind, he heard the quiet footsteps of Izzy as he came to stop beside him.

"What happened here?" Tai asked dumb-founded.

"Hmm," Izzy mused, his mind already swiftly at work on a half-formed hypothesis. "When Azulongmon gave up some of his power to help us fight in the real world… it might have caused the defenses of the Digital World to weaken and now the balance is thrown off."

"So it's… our fault?" This vast expanse of ruined devastation as far as the eye could see was all to blame because the Digidestined, its defenders, were not strong enough on their own to defeat the evil once again threatening to consume both worlds?

"So fragile. So weak. You humans are pathetic."

Had the Virus known what was happening to the Digital World? Had it already started to erode when the Digimon had unleashed chaos at Matt's concert? Had they held the humans responsible? Was that why they had attacked so viciously?

If was true then they had every right to be angry then, had every grounds to accuse them of being weak.

Something thumped him on top of his head without force that caused his hair to actually lay flat for three seconds before springing back upright in place. He turned to see Izzy frowning at him clutching a rolled-up paper in his hand.

"I absolutely forbid you to sulk for the entirety of our stay here," was the warning he received before the boy brushed past him, calling over his shoulder as he went. "You can be worse than Matt at that when you put your mind to it."

Okay, that was an insult that even Tai wouldn't say to his worst enemies. "I do not," he said petulantly as he trudged after him. They walked along in silence for at least fifteen minutes across the ruined landscape until Tai finally relented and questioned, "Do I?" worriedly when Izzy failed to reply.

"No, I'm sorry, that was an over-exaggeration," Izzy said with a hint of laughter in his voice. "No one sulks on the scale Matt does. I just wanted to snap you out of the mood before you fell in completely. Koromon needs to feel your support right now, not your anxiety over your self-esteem issues."

Koromon… Tai thought gazing down in pained remorse at his partner sleeping in his arms. Look what I've done to you.

"It wasn't your fault, you know," Izzy said suddenly, stopping in front of the entrance to a forest composed up of bare, skeletal trees and dropping his supply pack. "Not entirely at least."

"What do you mean?" Tai asked walking over and standing uncertainly at where camp was indicated to be made. He didn't like the idea of spending the night at the base of what looked like a creepy, haunted forest-oh, god, he was losing his nerve if something so childish concerned him so much! Some Child of Courage he was.

"I mean it wasn't like you to back down in a situation like that especially if you had suspicions about something being wrong with Agumon," Izzy said coolly as he unpacked his laptop and looked him squarely in the eye. "That night at Matt's concert it wasn't only Agumon who had an unforeseen side affect-you got touched by a Bakemon's Dark Claw attack, didn't you?"

A decaying clawed hand shooting out from underneath a Bakemon's cloak and wrapping itself around his neck in an icy cold grip… his lungs convulsing… the world growing fuzzy…

"So what?" Tai asked the question catching him off guard.

"So it's not only an attack aimed at physically harming its victim. It also amplifies any doubts a person has in their hearts. I don't know what Agumon did or said this morning, but it obviously unnerved you enough that it prompted some small remnant of the attack to sweep over your mind-"

"Don't try and make me feel better, Izzy!" Tai snapped. "There's no excuse for what I did! None!"

"Fine, wallow in your own self-induced guilt if that's the only thing that will satisfy you!" Izzy shot back. "I wasn't trying to put the blame on something else for the purpose of easing your conscience. I was trying to prove a point that we all should be aware of for later battles: that the mental and internal attacks can be just as dangerous or perhaps even more than the physical ones. And that humans can be affected by them too, although they seem to differ slightly on us due to our anatomy. We should all be more careful in the future and not withhold information from each other."

There was a kind of quiet anger echoing in Izzy's voice faintly reminiscent of when Kari had been trapped in the Digital World and he had been left out of the rescue operation.

"I expect to be treated with the same respect I give to all of you," he had said back then.

Tai hadn't done the team any favors by keeping silent about Agumon's bevahior. The situation could have turned out a whole lot worse than what had happened. Yet he hadn't told Izzy when he had asked if anything was wrong and it wasn't just because he had been in denial that his own partner had threatened him.

It was because in order to tell Izzy about it, he would have had to explain what Agumon had said and reveal his and Jun's newfound relationship.

It wasn't that he was embarrassed about it. It was just that the others didn't know Jun like he had grown to. They had never seen all the multiple complex personalities the girl was capable of-the good as well as the bad. They would be on his case hounding him, giving him all sorts of reasons on how he had made a poor decision, thinking he was insane the minute they found out. Tai wanted to postpone all that for as long as possible. He wanted them to accept Jun. He wanted Jun to accept his friends. He was a long shot that wouldn't hit the mark so easily.

And yet… he had to tell someone. His relationship was affecting Agumon. What if it hadn't been just the Virus talking this morning? What if in some small measure Agumon felt as if he was being replaced in Tai's heart? It was abundantly clear that Agumon already thought he was of no more use as his partner.

There was no more point in trying to hide the fact.

Tai sat down heavily on a patch of dead grass and gave a weary sigh. "Jun and I are… um…" Well he couldn't exactly call it dating since they never had actually been on one. He wasn't sure if that night at the arcade counted since they weren't technically together then. He struggled for the right words. "Jun and I are…"

"A couple," Izzy finished as answering a fill in the blank question on a quiz.

Tai gaped at him. Izzy hadn't even sounded surprised. He didn't look it for that matter either. He was calmly unpacking his sleeping bag and the wrapped bentos his mom had made earlier for them. Then Izzy raised his eyes, caught sight of Tai's gob-smacked expression and looked as if he was refraining himself from laughing out loud.

"Well, you certainly aren't being very discreet about it," he said pointing to the charm bracelet on Tai's wrist.

It was one for thing for Davis to recognize an object that belonged to his sister. It was another thing for Izzy to do the same.

"How can you be so sure it isn't Kari's?" he asked covering the bracelet with his other hand.

"I know you care for your sister a lot, but I doubt it extends to wearing one of her accessories, regardless that you tried to force Matt to wear one. Plus, if it was Kari's bracelet I'm at a loss at why she would have the English letter 'J' as a charm on it. You'd think it'd be a 'T' or a 'D'," Izzy said grinning wryly.

"And I would kill them both after having a very long discussion with her," Tai growled before realizing his slip-up.

Izzy nodded satisfied that his assumption had been correct and Tai gnawed on his lower lip feeling unsure and wondering why his friend wasn't reacting more. "Well, aren't you going to try and convince me I'm out of my mind and demand an explanation for why I did something so crazy?" he asked.

"Do you believe that?"

"No," Tai said firmly.

"Then I can trust you know what you're doing and that you must really like her a great deal if you want to go out with her," Izzy stated.

Tai was silent feeling grateful towards Izzy for his acceptance and hoped that the rest of his friends would be just as understanding. In his lap, one of Koromon's ears twitched, draping itself over his arm and Tai's muscles stiffened as he remembered his problem.

"I think…" he said slowly. "I think Agumon believes that I'm only humoring him by keeping him as a partner-that I don't need him anymore. I think he might feel like I will forget about him with Jun in the picture now." Tai related the Virus-induced outbursts Agumon had spoken that morning. "And you know the worst part?" he murmured feeling his chest constrict. "I don't think my throwing him aside or that he's not as strong as he used to be is even what is causing him so much pain. It's the fact that someday… I will die… and he can't do anything to stop it."

"Ah," Izzy said quietly, his head bent over the ring of stones he was building to prepare a bonfire. "He said as much the night of Matt's concert."

"It's strange…" Tai murmured absentmindedly stroking Koromon's ears, "once you realize that Digimon don't really die, do they? That they can reconfigure themselves like broken Lego pieces."

"Nice analogy but you're wrong."

"What?" Tai blinked. A shadow had passed over Izzy's face as his hands balled up into fists at his side noting his tension.

"There is a way Digimon can die," he declared lifting his eyes up and reflecting the sadness stored away in them. "Remember what happened to Wizardmon?"

Tai's stomach gave a sickening swoop as a jolt like lightning raced throughout his body. His eyes widened in horror. "His data got stuck in the real world so it wasn't able to reform at Primary Village," he whispered.

"Our world is just as dangerous to them as theirs is to us," Izzy proclaimed grimly.

All those times. All those times their Digimon had fought in the real world sometimes only grasping at victory by a hairsbreadth… only an inch away from being permanently deleted without the option to be reborn. Forced forever to roam as misconfigured remnants of data-what a lonely, wretched existence, if you even could deign to call it an existence at all.

The conversation lulled after that, no one really wanting to delve deeper on the subject finding it extremely depressing. Camp was set up swiftly and dinner eaten almost in silence, the battle from early that morning taking its toll out on them. Sleep came effortlessly, all of them too tired to even dream.

oOo

The next day began on a more cheery note than it had yesterday. No evil entities had ventured out of the skeletal forest during the night to devour their souls. A healthy shine had appeared back in Koromon's eyes overnight and the heavy weight of despair seemed to have lifted from him at least temporarily. They feasted on a hearty breakfast of rice porridge, tamagoyaki and plum pickles. Mrs. Izumi's cooking still tasted good even at one day old. It was nice eating normally for once instead of having to fret about whether or not he would survive his mother's latest food invention. It would have made for a great camping trip if the scenery had been a bit more pleasant. Sometime mid-morning, Tentomon dropped out of the sky to join them. His enthusiasm at being reunited with Izzy and his merry banter seemed to lift everyone's spirits and provided adequate company for Koromon long enough for Izzy to take advantage and catch Tai unawares.

"Here, spend your time doing something useful," Izzy said dropping several books at his friend's feet without warning.

"What's this?" Tai asked picking up a book and leafing through its contents before dropping it like a red hot chili pepper. "I can't believe you!" he exclaimed shooting a glare at him. "How can you honestly expect me to write an essay on Plato's Ideals right now?"

"Your mind could use the exercise," Izzy said. "It should be a convenient method to distract yourself from brooding too much."

"How do you even have the correct homework assignments? You're not in my Literature class let alone my grade!"

"My Literature teacher recommended me to Takashi-sensei after I corrected him on the proper usage of asyndeton and alliteration in front of the entire class. Something about my deserving to be in 'that idiot's honors courses and get taught a real lesson', though I wasn't supposed to hear that last part. It's a total sham-the honors course for the first years is simply the same material you juniors are learning for the semester. However, this did allow me the opportunity to ensure you wouldn't fall behind on your studies." Upturning his backpack, Izzy unloaded a pile of notebooks and folders into his lap.

"I hate you… so much," Tai gritted out through his teeth.

"You're welcome," Izzy beamed cheerily, sounding far too smug for his own good.

And so for the remainder of his short vacation was spent in grueling conditions where Tai racked his brain desperately for even the smallest seed of inspiration but nothing came. To be quite honest, he wondered how far Izzy had actually read into the material if he thought it would help take his mind off of the bleak circumstances that surrounded them. If anything, Plato's theories could have played cheerleader to the thoughts swirling around the back of his head like a violent typhoon.

Plato, for a dead, ancient Greek guy, seemed to have postulated the theory that reality was divided into two: the idea or ideal. That ultimate reality was permanent, eternal, spiritual. On the other hand, there was phenomena, which was a manifestation of the ideal. Phenomena were appearances-things as they looked to people-and were associated with matter, time, and space. Phenomena were illusions which decay and die. Ideals were unchanging, perfect.

The blatant parallel between humans and Phenomena and Ideals and Digimon was almost too blunt to handle. It made Tai wonder if Plato had ever stumbled upon a rogue gateway to the Digital World and Digimon that resided there the way his theories were worded so carefully.

His assignment certainly wasn't easing the stress and worry he had bottled up inside about what happened to Digimon once their human partners had died. It was merely amplifying those volatile emotions.

So it was hardly surprising that by the end of the day he only had the title of the essay typed out on Izzy's precious laptop that he had generously donated to him.

"'Plato's Ideals'? That's all you have typed?" Izzy exclaimed looking over his shoulder at the blank Word document. "What were you doing this whole time? Playing Minesweeper?"

"Forget it. I'm not writing this bogus essay. I'll just take the 'F'," Tai declared uncurling from his cross-legged position on the ground. His knees unlocked as he stood and his spine made a small cracking sound as it straightened which he hoped was the result from someone sitting so long hunched over and not his fractured vertebrae acting up.

He heard the sound of protest starting from within Izzy's throat and interjected him abruptly. "Please tell me you have seen the similarities also and I'm not just reading too much into things."

Izzy picked up a book that Tai had been using for potential reference quotes and noted the pages that had been dog-eared and the passages printed on them. Looking chagrined, he rubbed his temple with one hand and sighed. "I had forgotten about this particular theory. I did my essay on Plato's dichotomy between the body and soul. Sorry."

"You'll understand why I don't really want to hear anymore about what the old coot had to say or formulize then," Tai said walking over to check on Koromon who was snuggled up in his sleeping bag, a symphony of snores resounding in the air around him.

"Tai, I know you're worried about the future. We all are, but-"

"But what? Just accept it and move on with what's left of our lives? What about them? We'll be gone and they'll be left behind with an eternity to spend alone with memories that will only make them miserable!" A dull headache had formed between his eyes. Exhaustion came crashing down on him like a tidal wave. He flopped down beside Koromon feeling drained and stared out into the distance.

The sun was setting in the sky casting a fiery-red glow upon the dead blackened land below. It looked as if blood were seeping through the crust and staining the surface of the entire Digital World.

He wasn't sure if he was more relieved or disappointed when Izzy tactfully retreated from the argument striving to occur in order to avoid provoking him further. That for once, for all his and his position as the Chosen Child of Knowledge, Izzy had no response he could think of or any advice to give.

oOo

It was like being lost inside a funhouse. A world composed of eerie distorted colors that bent in and out of focus.

"Taiii… I won't let you down ever again… I can be strong now…"

Suddenly, a face formed out of the blackness-green eyes filmed over in death but still blazed just as fiercely, bleached white bones connecting to a monolith, corpselike dinosaur.

Horrified and appalled, he backed away but there was nowhere for him to go-he couldn't find his center on the ground that was tilting precariously from side to side like a giant see-saw beam.

"This is what you wanted," a voice hissed out of the depths of the gaping jaws. "Power. Don't deny it."

SkullGreymon reached out one elongated, skeletal claw towards him and the shadows danced gleefully as they expanded, ready to engulf him into never-ending darkness…

Tai shot upwards panting, his face and shoulders covered in sweat. Next to him, Koromon shifted and murmured incoherently in his sleep.

Dawn had barely arrived, with only the tiniest scraps of light tinting the eastern horizon. Running his hands through his hair and over his face, Tai exhaled shakily.

Just a dream. Just a nightmare, he tried to tell himself.

But he couldn't help but think that was the Digital World's way of reminding him that whenever the Digidestined had tried help out, they essentially caused even bigger blunders than before.

The air around him felt heavy and tight like the moment before a bolt of lightning strikes the ground from a thunderstorm.

Standing up, Tai stumbled away from the campsite, dead grass crunching under his feet as he made his way to the creek bed to splash water on his face. It was only when he reached it and the empty bowel filled his vision did he remember the state of the Digital World.

A cool breeze whipped through the air, wafting across his face like silken cobweb strands, whispering accusations in his ear…

Dust swirled up in brown little clouds a few feet away in front of him as the dry, crumbling ground was trod upon. Tai glanced up thinking it was Izzy joining him.

The figure stood tall, camouflaged so completely into the monochrome background that only the tell-tale rays of the early morning light gleaming off the obsidian and silver armor revealed his identity...

BlackWarGreymon stood on the opposite side of the empty bank staring at him with calculating golden eyes much like a wolf that has stumbled upon its quarry quite by accident and was debating whether or not he was in the mood for sport.

Tai felt the coldness tighten around his chest as his limbs locked into place rooting him to the spot. His mind spun wildly assessing the situation, possibilities of what his next move should be to escape his current predicament rushed forward.

His options were very limited. He could either turn tail and run-run like a coward-back to the encampment and hope by some miracle that either BlackWarGreymon decided he didn't like fast food or in the off-chance that he might, hope that Koromon and Tentomon had the strength to fight him. Yeah, right.

Or he could stay and face him, find out what he wanted. Agumon had talked to him before. He stoutly defended that he wasn't all bad.

Option two weighed out as the better choice. The old mentality "if it runs, it's prey" was bludgeoning its way all about the inside of his skull with a kind of frantic repentance and he really didn't feel like disproving it.

So Tai refused to back down and remained where he stood not moving a muscle for what seemed like an eternity returning the Mega Digimon's assessing gaze and wondering how long it would take for one of them to cave into doing something first.

Stoic as ever, BlackWarGreymon slowly lifted one dangerously-sharp armored claw… and pointed in the direction of the camp in the distance.

"That Koromon," he said. "It was once an Agumon was it not? We conversed before."

Tai said nothing though he knew he should. Say something, anything to keep BlackWarGreymon distracted from the fact that he had essentially wandered onto a nest of sitting targets, but his throat seemed to have lost what little moisture it had left.

BlackWarGreymon's eyes narrowed underneath his horned helmet at the lack of response to his question. "You are one of those human children," he spoke with deliberate composure as if addressing a particularly dim-witted sheep. "You fight so hard to preserve the state of this world and yet your quest has been in vain." Golden pupils swiveled to and fro at their ruined surroundings. "You seem to be doing an inadequate job."

"Yeah, well if you cared about it so much, you should have thought twice before going on a Destiny Stone destroying spree!" Tai shot back carelessly, his pride stinging from the verbal smack.

He hated this. Of having any shred of control ripped from his grasp. Of being completely helpless like a mouse caught between a cat's paws. All it would take was one swift swipe of those claws to cut his life short…

"I? Care?" BlackWarGreymon seemed to find that notion extremely amusing. "How can one who does not possess a heart care for something? It is not possible. This world does not concern me for it holds no answers." Disdain had colored BlackWarGreymon's tone quite thickly. "Let it all dissolve into nothing." The Mega Digimon turned to leave appearing to have lost interest in the conversation. Tai felt the tightness in his chest dissipate ever so slightly.

BlackWarGreymon halted in his tracks and tilted his horned helmet sideways suddenly, his slit-pupiled eyes swiveling towards him, holding a questioning light. "Azulongmon said that every life has a purpose, a meaning to their existence. Do you know what yours is?"

Confusion attempted to envelope his mind. Tai struggled valiantly to push it back. This was not the time to lose composure. He had a feeling if he didn't answer the question to BlackWarGreymon's satisfaction, he would be grinded into dust beneath the Digimon's feet. Clearing his throat, he spoke in what he hoped was a strong voice, "I'm a Digidestined-"

"Don't give me such a trite answer as that." BlackWarGreymon cut him off abruptly, taking a warning step towards him. "I am not one of those weaklings that you have rescued and therefore feel compelled to worship you out of pure gratitude."

Tai's breath froze in his lungs. His tongue felt as if it were stuck to the roof of his mouth, every instinct inside him screaming for him to run as far and fast away as possible. But numbness seemed to have hijacked his nervous system.

"You were made to be a protector of this world and its inhabitants be it by Fate or the Digital Sovereigns or whatever you want to call it just as I was made to be its destroyer." BlackWarGreymon said stepping closer. "Let's both forget our origins for a short while and pretend we are creators of our own destiny." Another step. "If you had never been burdened with this role that has been placed on you, would you still know which path would lead you to your purpose, the reason for your existence?" And then he was directly in front of him gazing down with such intensity that Tai felt like he was drowning in twin pools of liquid gold. They were bright enough that he could see his own reflection: a tall, scrawny not-yet full-grown human with wild, unkempt hair and a frightened expression upon his face.

He felt disoriented. He had never given it much thought-about what his life would be like if he had never been chosen as a Digidestined, never had met Agumon, never had saved both their worlds. What would he be doing right now if he were an ordinary kid? He had often said he wanted to be a pro-soccer player, but really that was a dream, just like any kid often wished they could be a famous movie star. There had been an arrogant, vain pride he had never noticed he possessed before towards the fact that he was a Chosen Child and now to think what it would be like to have the title stripped from him terrified him more than being confronted by BlackWarGreymon at the moment.

oOo

"Keep your precious monsters all to yourself! You think you're someone special because you have one? You think it makes you a better person?"

oOo

And quite suddenly, Tai realized this was how Jun must feel. An outcast, alone, floundering in the harsh sea that was the normalcy of life, fighting against the waves that threatened to drag her under, and clinging to a fragile hope, a shard of a fallen star that was her dream, her life-line to surviving.

To be no different than anybody else, not to stand out or know he was special… would he still know the reason for his existence? To find his purpose?

BlackWarGreymon's patience had run thin at his silence. "You don't even know, do you?" he scoffed in contempt. "I cannot believe a heart would be wasted on someone like you."

The Mega turned quick on his heel, demonstrating that the discussion was now over. From behind, he looked no different than WarGreymon, the only discrepancies being his darker coloring and glaring lack of the symbol of Courage that the onyx shield he carried upon his back was so abysmally devoid of.

The sight jarred Tai's senses fully awake.

How dare he come and subject him to an interrogation and assume he could answer such bizarre questions. How dare he come and cause doubt to infiltrate his already distressed mind. How dare he come and make him feel like he didn't deserve to be a Digidestined!

A cool rage swelled up inside him. His muscles contracted as tiny shivers of anger shook throughout his body. Before he knew it, he had already scrambled down the bank, across the empty creek-bed and up the other side without thinking.

"Don't act so condescending!" he shouted in a blind fury. "Don't you know that to have a heart means it's never fully yours to begin with? You have to be prepared to give it away before you can ever truly own one!"

Far too late, after the words were already spoken, did the full gravity of what he had just done wash over him. Tai stood there in a state of dread amazed at his own recklessness. He had just pounded the final nail into his own coffin. Who mouths off to BlackWarGreymon and lives?

BlackWarGreymon had paused in his progression to leave, his golden eyes widening in bewilderment. He seemed rattled to the core. "Your words… make no sense," he finally said though there was a subtle reservation in his tone. The Mega gave him one last glance over as if doing a double take, as if trying to figure this puny, inferior human out. "Your Agumon said something of a similar kind not long ago." His gaze hardened. "I think you both a pair of fools."

He lifted into the sky with a mighty flurry of his wings and soared high up into the breaking dawn. With the splendor of its golden colors reflecting off his obsidian armor, he resembled WarGreymon for the briefest of moments before his silhouette was swallowed up by the sun.

Tai fell backwards against the dead grass as his legs gave out underneath him and placed one hand over his chest where he could feel the wild thumping of his heart inside his ribcage pumping out blood frantically to join the adrenalin that was coursing through his veins.

That was he was found a half hour later still sitting in the same spot. He could hear the quiet padding of the Digimon's feet long before they reached him, but he wasn't alarmed. Over the years, he had grown accustomed to the sound of the familiar gait.

Agumon, having at last drawn in enough energy to digivolve, came to stand next to him. His nostrils gave a tiny twitch as they inhaled the air. "You met him," he said happily.

There was no need to ask who he was. "Yes," Tai said staring up into the space of sky where BlackWarGreymon had vanished.

Surprisingly, Agumon didn't ask what their conversation had been about. "What did you think of him?" the orange dinosaur asked sounding eagerly curious.

"I think he needs to read Plato's Ideals to find the answers he's seeking," Tai said humorlessly.

To Be Continued…

A/N: Definition of Japanese terms below:

Tamagoyaki: Japanese-styled omelet made by rolling together several layers of cooked egg. (Looks sort of like an egg sushi if you ask me^^)

This chapter caused me no end of grief. I literally would work on it every single day for the past month and piece by piece the pages would come ever so slowly. I couldn't rush it no matter how hard I tried. This chapter is mostly a prop for future chapters: plotage set-up something major. Nothing much happens here, but it will link to later events I promise.

I've had numerous reviewers ask why any Digimon unleashed on the real world feels compelled to attack it. I've wondered that myself. I'm not sure if it is simply a poor choice of the show's writers or because most of the Digimon set loose are Viruses and it is in their nature to seek and destroy. Who knows? I wanted to give them a reason other than that here though, hence the whole Digital World slowly dying and of course they'll be angry at that.

I also wanted Tai to meet BlackWarGreymon and have a little talk with him like Agumon did. Heck, I wanted that when I first watched the show years back! Come on, the guy is like a freaking Greymon magnet if you take into account the Highton View Terrace Incident. Something about him draws Greymon to him like bees to honey. In any case, I plan to have a few more meetings/convos between the two before the end. More of Plato's theories will be brought up. Should be interesting^-~

So now Izzy knows about Tai and Jun too. He's pretty perceptive so I figured it would go against his character if he didn't notice the truth. I think it's too funny when someone is dreading to tell something and the other person guesses before it is revealed and isn't surprised at all. Anti-climatic revelations are always hilarious. But never fear, as much as the other Digidestined are aware something is going on between Tai and Jun, they are too steeped in denial to actually believe it's anything this serious, haha! They'll soon get a rude awakening on the matter.

Fun Facts: You know what I realized while writing this chapter? Tai is an Unreliable Narrator. XD I was looking through my other fics and wondering why the feel of this one was so… weird. It wasn't just because it was humorous or the various, odd writing styles dotted within like the haikus, plays, and logical premises. No, it's simply because this story is written solely from Tai's POV and you can't really believe what he tells you because largely it is composed up from his emotions and opinions. Take the play he wrote for example. I had reviewers asking if all that had really happened. Yes it did, all except the ending where WarGreymon pops in. Tai wrote the play as a vent for his frustration and anger and instead of physically hurting everyone like he wanted, he acted out his desires on paper. As much as 90% or maybe even less of what he says is true, about 10% or more isn't and part of that is because he jumps to conclusions too quickly thus his credibility at presenting the facts shouldn't be trusted.

I listened to Owl City a lot while writing this chapter, most specifically, "Tidal Wave" which whoa, describes Tai's mentality at this point in the story, hence the shameless naming of the title. Plus there are multiple allusions to water and waves and whatnot. It's fitting. I did switch to "Dance of the Headless Corpse" by Zombie Girl while I was writing Tai's nightmare. My gosh, that song is creepy! I would not want to listen to that while exploring a haunted house or being anyplace dark! *shivers*

Next chapter: Back in the real world! I might reveal Tai and Jun's relationship to everyone or wait until the chapter after. It all depends on how long the chapter becomes.

P.S. I have a Progress With Fics section in my profile on Fanfiction.net (pename: Schnickledooger) that I will try and keep updated on how far I have typed the next chapter so reviewers won't get so angsty next time it takes this long.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this! Please review and share your thoughts and favorite scenes. I love hearing what you liked best and it's the only reward a fanfic author gets. I like knowing what my readers think and feel. Thank you!^^

On to next chapter: Centrifugal Motion

digimon, fic:no girls allowed, fanfic

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