138

Together

"Hey, what type of future, do you think, is growing on the other autumn's door?

Hey, lately, why has time suddenly been flowing faster and more confused? …

I've just realized that someday, we'll look back on these memories…

We laughed and we cried, and I won't forget any of the time we spent together, so don't worry, friend.

Where do you think the border between adulthood and childhood is hidden?

Have you been overreaching yourself? Or depending too much on others? But even halfway through is just fine.

…Do you remember how the cold wind and white snow soared forever beneath the never-ending sky?

Don't say 'goodbye,' because this is not a true parting. Don't change until we meet again, friend…

I won't lose any of the lost and shaky times that we had together. Is that alright, friend? …

Thank you. We'll be able to start walking each path from somewhere in our hearts.

Whether I'm with you… or we're apart, friend."

- Ai Maeda, "Friend ~I'll Never Forget You~"

The day had begun to wane by the time the six of them had finished eating. They'd gotten fast food, largely so that they could leave with a second round of ready-to-go meals to share with their partners, who as stuffed animals had had to settle for sneaking the occasional bite while still in the restaurant.

"Someday we'll be too old to carry around stuffed animals. We'll stand out just as much," Takeru said at one point. Since leaving his apartment he had worn a smile that had grown wholly natural during the time he'd spent with his friends, who had come safe out of so many dangers.

Now the Digimon too had finished their meals, and the group was taking a walk about Odaiba. By the time they approached Daiba Park by way of its bridge of land, the sun had already begun to sink in the sky, and an orange sunset would not be far off. Conversation had grown sporadic as many in the group took to admiring the scenery.

Despite some of them living very near, it wasn't often that they visited the quiet park on its little manmade island, and yet they associated it with certain memories and with each other. They had met here over a year ago as part of the August 1 memorial, and it was from here that they set out around the world on Imperialdramon last December. Both events came up as the group crossed the grassy, sunken area in the center of the former battery.

"That was the first day me and Minomon reached Ultimate level," Chibimon said.

"If we'd been able to evolve to Imperialdramon during the big fight a week ago, we could have beaten Dagomon no problem," said Daisuke.

"I doubt it," Miyako said, sounding partway between amused and irritated. "Magnamon wasn't able to hurt him permanently. We'd have been done for if it wasn't for Hikari-chan, and Tailmon evolving to Holydramon."

"Yeah, whatever," Daisuke grumbled. Though all was well that ended well, reminders of his recent failures to protect others remained a bit of a sore spot for him. But, even after all that had happened, he still wasn't given to brooding – and if at times he felt small and useless, he could usually bring himself out of it by recalling the way he had risked himself to save Hikari from Sato Katsu's knife.

In a brighter tone he said, "It was cool to see Hikari-chan's Digimon evolve to Ultimate again." He looked in Hikari's direction, and she smiled at him. Miyako nodded enthusiastic agreement.

"This time we got to show our true power," Tailmon said, walking beside her partner.

"I wonder if I'll ever evolve to Seraphimon again," Patamon said.

Takeru, who, happy for the childhood friend he cared so much about, had been smiling at the conversation, darkened a little as he answered, "Hopefully you won't have to."

"That's true," Iori said. "Even so, I do wonder what Upamon's Ultimate form would be like, if he could evolve beyond Shakkoumon."

"It would be so cool if Poromon could reach Ultimate," Miyako said, looking down at the ball of feathers in her arms.

Their talk went on from there, flowing naturally. It was like old times. They were not free of cares – no one is – but for now no shadow of evil loomed, and they could express themselves easily and freely. They hadn't even heard yet from Koshiro about Gennai's vision for a new world.

Of their remaining cares, they had said little to each other. Daisuke had talked a bit to his partner about Nat-chan. When he and the others had gone to the Village of Beginnings to make sure that the danger posed by the Cyclomon had really passed, he and V-mon had looked for any sign that one of those Digitama was hers, but they had been disappointed. Even so, Daisuke hadn't given up the hope of one day being reunited with her. His natural optimism had survived his ordeal in the World of Darkness, if not quite in the same form. Maybe someday their paths would cross again. He looked forward to it. Partner or no partner, he would introduce her to everyone, and he knew that they would love her as he did, and that her loneliness would finally melt away in the warmth of their friendship.

Ken, at this moment, was simply listening as his friends talked. When they had mentioned gathering here at Daiba Park on August 1 of the previous year, he had reflected on the fact that he hadn't been with them. Instead he had been the Digimon Kaiser, hiding in the Digital World, wrapped in the depths of his private darkness. How different August 1, 2003 had been!

The thought had led him to muse about his past. Memories had slowly begun to come back to him of his life before the nightmare of the Kaiser – the time he spent with Akiyama Ryo in the fight against Millenniumon – but they were still scattered and vague.

Koshiro had suggested the possibility of using Shadramon's psychic abilities to salvage the missing information from Ken's subconscious. But Ken hadn't yet given him a definite response to the idea. The truth was that Ken wasn't sure he wanted to regain everything. Partly it was because of the pain he knew would be found in those memories, and partly also the risk deterred him. He remembered the sensation of Dagomon's delving into his mind – not only during that final battle, but in the nightmares, and perhaps even in his previous encounters with the Dark Ocean. His partner would never intentionally do anything to harm him, but the manipulation of thoughts and memories was an inherently dangerous business.

The main reason for Ken's hesitation, however, was not these forebodings but the possibility that regaining everything was not necessary. Despite his limited knowledge, or perhaps partly because of it, he had managed to come to terms – as nearly as possible – with what had happened to him. He had set aside the lost things, the things that he couldn't change. Before the events of this month he had been essentially at peace. It was the Dark Man and the unnatural nightmares that had dredged up the forgotten past, and Ken thought it would pay to remember that. The subject had not been broached in his best interests. For now, he was content to live in the present.

A little tired out by their walk, the Chosen Children and their partners (at least those who had been walking rather than carried), eventually sat down in the grass near the extreme end of the park, just short of the low rope fence where the grass sloped down to the edge of the artificial island. To their left was Odaiba, the distinctive television station of many memories clearly visible, while to their right was Rainbow Bridge. On all sides they could feel the presence of Tokyo Bay, with the great city beyond it, and the sun beginning to set in the distant, dreaming west.

Silence fell for a few moments as they rested there. In breaking it, Miyako summed up the general feeling with, "Beautiful, isn't it?" The others agreed with words or nods. "Hard to believe that the world was almost dark and gray forever." Again there was general agreement, but it was quieter, more solemn.

It struck Hikari again, as it had several times in the past few days, that she and the others had beaten the forces of the Dark Ocean. It seemed strange to her to think that she had no reason to fear any further attack from that quarter, with Dagomon destroyed. She hadn't realized, until the lurking threat had finally been overcome, how much it had weighed her down, even when not consciously on her mind. For over a year the fear of the unknown had been hanging over her like a black cloud, but now that cloud was gone.

Would another ever take its place? She had no way of knowing – the mental powers she had so recently come to grasp did not allow her to tell the future – but she dared to hope that nothing would. Challenges there might be, even complications arising from her abilities, or new threats to the lives of the Chosen Children and their loved ones, but with Homeostasis no longer within her, the powers of darkness might never again threaten to overwhelm her soul.

As for her remaining abilities, she did wonder sometimes about them. Since the battle she had made no conscious use of them. Without the impetus of danger, she wasn't sure whether she could. Perhaps time would tell. She didn't feel any different now than she always had. She was still herself.

Miyako broke in on Hikari's reflections by speaking again. "Sorry if I said something weird just now," she said, a little nervous because no one else had made any further comment for a few quiet seconds. "I mean," she went on, "we aren't here to think about depressing stuff like that."

Hikari surprised herself a little by speaking up. "No, I think it's fine. Remember the day Tailmon and Poromon Jogress Evolved, Miyako-san?"

"Yeah, of course."

"I think I said I was jealous of you."

"How could Hikari-chan ever be jealous of Miyako?" Daisuke wondered.

"Hey!" Miyako interjected. Hikari and the others laughed a little.

"I sometimes envy Miyako-san because she isn't afraid to speak her mind," Hikari continued. "I thought that maybe I kept getting pulled back into the Dark World because I kept so much inside. And… I guess I was right. Homeostasis-san showed me that. If we're honest, and talk about our fears, we can fight them better."

"Like, by helping each other, right?" Miyako said.

"By sharing the burden," said Iori, softly.

"I think you're right, Hikari-chan," Takeru said, his mind going back to the conversation he'd had with Patamon in his room. At the moment he said nothing about what had been on his mind, but he thought that perhaps one day – maybe very soon – he would tell them about the scar on his conscience that had cut so much deeper than the wounds the Pipismon had made in his leg. "In the nightmares we always wound up alone…" he said. "And the things in them…" He laughed a little. "We've been through a lot, haven't we?"

We have, Ken thought. All of us. "I wonder if it will ever become easier," he said aloud, as much to himself as to the others. "Will we ever be able to overcome the past entirely?"

"I think that's a little too much to hope for," Hikari said with a smile. "But I think I'm fine with that. As long as I'm not alone."

"And you'll never be alone," Tailmon said.

"We're all going to be friends forever, right?" said Daisuke with a grin.

Everyone assented enthusiastically, and the shadows fled from their thoughts.

"Daisuke, I'm hungry," piped Chibimon.

"Already? You haven't even been walking."

"A Digimon's stomach is bottomless," Takeru smiled.

"Alright!" Miyako said. "Back home for snacks? I know Poromon's gotta be hungry too. And maybe a game or something?"

"A card game would be nice," Iori offered.

"Or video games at my place!" said Daisuke.

By now everyone had stood up and was stretching their legs. Still chatting and laughing, the group crossed the park and headed back to Odaiba proper. The sun continued to sink towards the horizon, and a night free of terrors soon began.

THE END

Afterword

And so it's finished. It's almost hard to believe. A long week for the Chosen Children has been over five years for me, and the adventure has been interesting, and full of ups and downs. I suppose that I've just finished my first novel, though since it's Digimon fan fiction I suppose there will always be an asterisk beside that factoid. When I first started writing The Call, I had no idea of the size it would grow to become. In that way as in other ways it's been a learning experience.

Whether The Call should be considered successful or not, I leave it to the individual reader to decide. I think that if I were to write it again I would do things a little differently. It wound up being what M. R. James might have called "a cruelly long book," and I think it could have benefitted from being more streamlined, but it is what it is. I also wish that I'd made the average length of a chapter longer (if only so I wouldn't have had to hunt up so many epigraphs).

As far as the "feel" of the story, a number of readers have complimented me on how close the characters are to their canon depictions, which I'm glad of, since it was one of my central goals. On the other hand, I think that the tone may have been too uniformly grim when compared to the source material. Hopefully that hasn't struck many people as a major defect. One of the risks of writing fan fiction is offending people through your treatment of characters they know and love.

To all my readers, both on the With the Will Digimon forums, where the earlier chapters were posted, and on this site, thank you for reading. I hope that you have been rewarded for your time and patience. Thanks especially to my reviewers, whose comments both provided me with encouragement and let me know where I went wrong. Now that the story is finished, I hope that you will let me know what you thought of The Call as a whole.

At times during the production of the story I have considered doing some rewriting after it was finished, but I think it's better (certainly easier) to let the thing stand as it is. One major screw-up I made was the location of Sora's apartment, which should be in Odaiba Mansion rather than the Searea apartments, but making the change at this point would require more rewriting than I'd care to take on.

Will I return to writing fan fiction in the future? That depends on several things. One is my own level of interest. Remember that I resisted writing The Call for quite a while, though in the end I felt that the story needed to be told if I wanted it to let me alone. As with my professional writing, I have plenty of ideas for stories, but my time and energy are unfortunately limited. Time and effort spent on writing fan fiction could go towards more productive things, such as my career as an author.

Another factor is the interest in future stories that might be expressed by you, my readers. If you'd like me to take another whack at fan fiction, let me know, and you may be able to tip the balance. As I said, I have a number of ideas for Digimon stories. Of the definite conceptions, there are potential sequels to Tamers, Frontier, and Savers, an alternate universe version of Savers, a short story set in the timeline of The Call, and two ideas for novels taking place in my own, original universes (or "OUs"; I'm hoping the term will catch on). I am definitely not prepared to start on any of the three sequel novels at the moment. The announcement and release of Digimon Adventure Tri turned The Call into an AU, which wasn't my original intention, and while it's unlikely that we'll be seeing official sequels to other Digimon anime series, there's a possibility, so for the moment I'd rather wait until we find out what Toei's got coming next.

That leaves four possibilities for my next fanfic (if I ever write one), which I may as well say a few words about here.

1.) "Summer Memory"

A short story about Wallace and his partner Digimon, set mostly between the events of the third movie and the events of The Call. Just by virtue of its being a short story, I'm a little more likely to write this fanfic than one of the other, more ambitious ones.

2.) [Digimon Savers AU – title to be determined]

A rather different version of Savers based on some of the early conceptual ideas for the fifth anime series. From Yamaguchi Ryota's notes: "The counterplot I submitted to beat the first presented proposal was about banchou all over Japan who have partner Digimon, and the hero accomplishing nationwide conquest through fights with Digimon (of course, this was rejected immediately). If circumstances permitted, Yoshino, the Kansai, nunchaku-wielding female gang leader, and Touma, the American lone-wolf who crushed New York's mafia all by himself, would have possibly appeared."

3.) Gunman

An "OU" story that would basically be a Digimon Western, featuring only Digimon, with no human characters. Its hero (or possibly antihero) is MagnaKidmon. Widely known as "the Kid," he's a wanted outlaw and famous gunfighter whose past isn't entirely known even to himself. The novel would follow his adventures as he wanders through the Digital World.

4.) [OU novel – title to be determined]

In a Digital World without gods or rulers, six armies struggle for global domination. Each is led by one of the Big Death-Stars, and behind each of them is one of the humans known as Anarchs. Basically you'd have six Digimon Kaisers warring with each other, with various developments arising from that.

If one or more of these sounds particularly interesting, you can let me know in a review or private message, and maybe someday I'll return to the medium of fan fiction. For the moment, I can only thank you once again for reading The Call.