"The Circle of the Digidestined," written by Freedom Fighter

Disclaimer:  None of the characters, human or Digimon, belong to me, the writer.

Author's Warning:  The following fanfic features gruesome character death, both of the human
and Digimon kind, violence of varying levels, some profane language, and some suggestive
situations.  Please do not read this fanfic if you're underage or feel that you cannot handle
any of said features.

This particular episode features character death, mildly descriptive.

======


The sky was bright and beeming with energy on this day in the Digital World.  Flowers were
blooming, Digimon were munching on the grass, and humans were taking a census.

"One hundred thirty-seven, one hundred thirty-eight, one hundred thirty-nine..."

Three men, all wearing lab coats and holding clipboards in their hands, were taking a tally of
the number of Digimon currently residing in the Digiworld.  At this particular moment, they
were counting Jagamon, which are the equivalent of rams or sheep in the real world.

"One hundred forty-four, one hundred forty-five..."

Among them was a familiar blue haired individual with glasses.  He was one of the world's
foremost experts on the Digiworld.  After all, he had spent some time here as a child.  Of
course, he didn't want to, but back then finding a way back to the real world was virtually
impossible.

"One hundred fifty..."

That was 28 years ago.  Today, humans and Digimon alike are able to travel freely between both
the real world and the Digital World.  Humans were more likely to make the jump through worlds
than Digimon were.  And when Digimon did go to the real world, most of them came in peace.

There were a few exceptions to that, but local law enforcements were able to keep those
incidents from becoming major threats to the world's security and safety.  After all, nearly
half of the human world's population had a Digimon that they kept with them.  The other half
had Digimon that they could only visit in the Digiworld.

"One hundred and fifty-three.  That should be all of them."

"I got the same count."

"Me too."

Unfortunately, it was much harder to keep order in the Digiworld.  The number of Digimon that
were capable of keeping the Digiworld safe were outnumber by far by those who would want to
destroy it.  And when things would get so bad that the Digimon couldn't handle things by
themselves, a team of human specialists were called in.

They were called the Digimon Protection Agency, or DPA for short.


***** Episode One - Don't Turn Your Back (10.15.02) *****


"Census complete in West Quadrant, Sector 3.19, Izzy."

"Good work, Joe.  Continue on to Sector 3.20."

"Negative."


======


Inside a research facility in the real world, an auburn-haired man was at the communication
panel, keeping tabs on his three associates in the real world.

"Why negative?"

"'Cause we're all famished.  Can we get an hour break for lunch?"

The guy at the console, Koushiro 'Izzy' Izumi, laughs before responding, "Okay, stand by.
I'll create a portal for you guys in a second."

Although humans could travel to and fro with the greatest of ease, there were still parts of
the Digital World which didn't have direct portals back to the real world.  To get back from
those places, a scientist would have to create a temporary portal.  Temporary portals could
last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the distance between the
departure and arrival points.

But just as Izzy starts typing away at the console to create such a portal, a small girl's
voice fills the air.

"Ooh, that looks fun!  Can I help you with that?"

The identity of the girl's voice immediately came to Izzy's mind.  He jumps out of his seat
and runs over to her.

"Chiharu?"

"Daddy!"

The young girl, Chiharu, was Izzy's daughter.  She had the same colored hair as her father,
but she also had a hairband to keep it in place.  She was wearing a hunter green knee-length
dress over a short sleeve lime green shirt.  She also had on a pair of yellow socks and black
shoes, with straps that ran across the foot to keep it in.

"What are you doing here?  Why aren't you in school?"

"A fourth grader set off the sprinklers in his classroom by accident this morning.  All of
the teachers have to clean the mess up."

"How did that happen?"

"I don't know," she huffed, "but I was looking forward to learning about reading decimal
numbers."

Izzy blinked his eyes in confusion.  "I thought you already knew how to do that."

"Yeah, but I don't want anyone else to know I do.  They'll think I'm a nerd."

"There's nothing wrong with admitting that you're smarter than them.  Besides, you shouldn't
worry about what other people say about you..."


======


Unaware that Izzy is away from his console, Joe and the others wait patiently for a portal to
appear.  Suddenly, two Jagamon come running over a nearby hill and towards them.

"Looks like we missed two," Joe said.

Five more Jagamon then appear behind the first two, also running at them at full speed.

"More like a group or two," one of his assistants stated.

Before they knew it, the ground began to shake.  Several of the Jagamon that they had just
counted were running off in the direction of a nearby passage situated between two cliffs.

"Anyone get the feeling that we missed an entire herd?" the other assistant shouted over the
rumbling.

And true to his words, a whole flock of Jagamon came charging over the hill.  And they were
all heading in their direction.

"There must be hundreds of them!"

"We're going to die!"

"Izzy, this is Joe!  We need that portal now!"


======


"Izzy!  Izzy!"

"Daddy... the console is talking."

"That's just Joe, honey.  I guess I should get to work creating that portal."

"Izzy, we're in trouble!  Get us out of here!"

Izzy grabs the microphone on the console and speaks into it.

"In trouble?  What do you..."

"Aaaaahhhh..."

Suddenly, Joe's voice is replaced by a loud, crackling static.  Fearing the worst, Izzy types
as fast as humanely possible to open a portal to the sector.  At the same time, he changes his
communication channel from Joe's unit to the building's PA system.

"Code blue, code blue!  Weasel quail three point nineteen!  All emergency personnel to Beta
Portal at once!  Repeat, code blue, weasel quail three point nineteen!"

All of the personnel inside that very room went to their battlestations instantly.  A
dark-skinned young women with brown hair runs up and grabs Chiharu's right arm.

"Take Chiharu to a safe place," Izzy told the woman as he continues to type away.

"Let's get you out of here," the woman said to Chiharu as she pulled her towards the exit.

"Did I do something wrong?" Chiharu asked her.

"Of course not," the woman replied.

As the two left, Izzy continued to type away, frantically attempting to open a portal.

"Come on, come on..."

He continued to tap away at the keys for what seemed like minutes, even though it had been
only about 15 or 20 seconds.  Finally, one of the room's two portal generators, this one
located about a yard or two away from where Izzy was sitting, starts up.  A portal began to
materialize just as a squadron of eight men, all dressed in body armor, enter the room.  The
last two to enter were pulling a cart which had a defibrillator on top.

Making a few final adjustments, the portal stabilizes and is now ready to be used.  Izzy then
jumps out of his seat and points to the person nearest to him.

"Yoshi, I need you to keep this portal open as long as possible!"

"I'm on it!"

The Japanese young man slides his seat over to the console Izzy was just working at and
starts typing in commands.  Meanwhile, some of the armored soldiers are running into the
portal already.  Only the leader himself and the two who had pushed the cart in were still
standing there.

"You might need these," the leader suggested, holding out a helmet and a suit of body armor.

Without hesitation, Izzy straps all of it on.  But as he does, he can't help but worry about
Joe and the others.  He wondered if they were okay.  He knew he couldn't live with
himself if something had happened to them.  It was his fault for stepping away from the
console before opening an escape portal.  To not be there when one of his best friends
needed him was inexcusable.

Finally, his helmet and armor were secured on his person, and he leaps into the portal.  The
squad leader heads in after him, followed by the two men that were pushing the cart.


======


More than halfway across the world, a dark room at night is illuminated by a lamp that had
just been turned on.  The hand that had turned the lamp on belonged to a brown-haired woman
in her late thirties.  She hadn't been lying in bed long, so her hair was still pretty much
in place.  She glances at the digital alarm clock next to the lamp, which reads '12:34 AM.'

It was common that she'd lie in bed awake for hours on some nights.  After all, her husband
worked nights, so they rarely had the chance to sleep together.  But this time, it was more
than that.  She had a bad feeling that something was wrong.  Wrong with one her fellow former
Digidestined.

And when a friend is in trouble, Mimi Tachikawa can sense it from anywhere.

"I hate it when I feel like this.  It's as if I can tell when someone close to me is in
trouble."

Mimi pulls the bedsheets aside and hops out of her king-sized bed.  Pink was still her
favorite color, as evident by the nightgown she wore, which covered her body from neck to toe.
She heads directly for a nearby door, which led into one of her many wardrobe closets.  She
goes in and comes out seconds later with a dark green windbreaker.  She slips it on quickly
and then goes for the door leading out of the room.

Upon exiting the room and stepping into the dark hallway, she is greeted by one of her
butlers.  He blinks his eyes, wondering what she's doing out this late.

"Mistress Mimi... I thought you had already retired for the night," the butler said, holding
a lumiere in his right hand.

"Jerry, I need you to go to the vault and get my Digivice for me."

"Your Digivice, ma'am?"

"It's urgent!  Just get it and then bring it to my office."

"Right away, my lady."

Jerry bows before Mimi before walking off towards the vault.  Mimi heads off the other way,
and although she didn't have any light to guide her way, she knew the hallways like the back
of her hand.  And it wouldn't take her long to find her office...


======


Back in the Digital World, Izzy is now with the entire squadron as they exit the portal.
Immediately they begin to look around for Joe Kido and his team of researchers.

"We've spotted a whole mess of footprints, sir!" one of the squad members reported.

"Well, follow them and see where they lead!" the squad leader shouted back.

The squad member saluted and then led the others down the footprint trail and towards a
passage that lied in between two tall cliffs.  They didn't have to go far to find something.
It was part of a human's body.  Everything from the waist down looked pretty much intact,
except for the broken bones and a pool of blood under it.  But above the waist, there was
absolutely nothing.  Though it was easy to see that this particular man had been split in two
as a result of whatever had happened.

Izzy and the squad leader were waiting just outside the passage, unaware of what the team
had just found.  Izzy was now holding a magnifying glass, which he was using to identify the
tracks that had been left on the ground.

"These Digimon tracks all belong to Jagamon," Izzy concluded.  "There must have been a
stampede."

"Looks like it," the squad leader agreed.

The two then looked to where the passage narrowed.  There were a whole mess of footprints
around that area.  Many overlapped each other, making it tougher for Izzy to figure out just
how many Jagamon there were.

"I don't know how many there were, but it must have been enough that they all couldn't
squeeze into the passage in time.  I bet a good number of them got deleted in all of the
chaos."

"Do you think the research team got to safety?"

"I hope so.  I sure hope so."

Suddenly, one of the squad members comes running out.  He stops in front of the leader and
stands at attention, saluting him.

"Sir, I think you both should see this."

Izzy and the leader looked at each other before turning back to the soldier and nodding.  He
then leads them into the passage.


======


The lights were on in the room that Mimi used as an in-house office.  Scattered all across the
room were all sorts of cooking materials.  Pots and pans, cookbooks, recipe cards... you name
it.  Probably the only clean place in the entire room was Mimi's maple-colored desk.  On it
were her 17" computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse, as well as a stack of binders and several
neatly piled stacks of forms and other paperwork.

The computer had already booted up and Mimi was in the process of connecting to the Internet.
Seconds later, she pulled down her 'Favorite Websites' menu and started looking for one in
particular.  After opening a few folders, she finds the correct link.

At that moment, Jerry opens the door and enters, holding a red velvet pillow that had Mimi's
digivice on it.

"Mistress Mimi?  Your Digivice, as you requested."

"Could you bring it here, Jerry?  I'm kinda tied up right now."

Jerry nods and walks over to the desk.  He puts the pillow down on an empty space on the desk.
We can now see that the Digivice no longer looks like the old one she had when she first went
to the Digiworld 28 years ago.  It instead resembled the D-3s that were used by the second
generation three years later.  Izzy, with the help of Gennai, had created extra D-3s for the
older members of the Japanese Digidestined.  The new D-3s would allow them to gain entry into
the Digiworld in case of an emergency.

And just as every D-3 was designated by color, Mimi's was a bright carnation pink.

"Is there anything else you require?" Jerry asked.

"That's all!  Thanks!"

Jerry bows and then heads for the door.  Mimi takes the D-3 off of the pillow and holds it
in her hand.  On the screen of her computer monitor was a map of the world.  There were
about four or five red circles flashing in different parts of the world, but all in the
Eastern Hemisphere.  The circles represented where a Digiport was currently open.

The one that grabbed her interest though was coming from Osaka, Japan.

"Izzy works at a research lab there.  They must have been working on one of their experiments
in the Digiworld.  I guess I'd better start there."

Mimi has the picture center in on Japan.  The screen begins to display some more information
regarding where the port is open.

"Western Quadrant, Sector 3.19.  Where the hell is that?"

Mimi shrugs her shoulders as she presses the Return key and then holds up her D-3 to the
computer screen.  The screen then begins to glow white.

"I just hope I'm dressed enough for wherever I'm going."

Mimi is enveloped in white light just before she is sucked into the computer monitor and to
her intended destination.


======


Izzy was completely stunned and dismayed at the exact same time.  His worst fear had come true.

Before him lies the now trampled body of one of his best friends, Joe Kido.  Out of the three
researchers, Joe's body was the only one that remained completely intact.  But the sight of
his partially smashed skull, major tears where skin should be, and a hole about three inches
in diameter where his heart would be were more than enough to make Izzy fall to his knees
and start to weep for his fallen comrade.

"Why?" Izzy shouted aloud.  "Why did I have to turn away for that one minute?  If I would have
opened that portal like I should have, you'd still be alive!"

Izzy pounds the ground with his fist, as he then lets out a scream of anger.  The entire
squad watches silently as Izzy continues to cry for his best friend.  The wind picks up
slightly as a few pieces of paper... the notes that Joe and his team had made today... are
blown out of the canyon and are scattered off in different directions.



Author's Notes for this Episode:
If you don't remember what the Jagamon looked like, they were the same Digimon that,
ironically enough, stampeded over a Meramon in the 'Digimon Tamers' series.  That's episode
25 from that season, "Brave New Digital World."

This fanfic assumes that the '25 years later' ending from 'Digimon Adventure 02' did take
place.  Everyone in the world has a Digimon of their own.  All of the former Japanese
Digidestined do have kids, and by my inference, most, if not all of them, are married.

Note though that the only confirmed marriages between two Japanese Digidestined are the only
two mentioned in the show itself: Matt/Sora and Ken/Yolei.  If I say that Mimi is also married
to a Digidestined, but not a Japanese one, and she still lives in New York... then it should
be easy to figure out who married her.

The decision for that couple is one made for this fanfic only, and does not change the ending
for a previous Digimon fanfic of mine, "Courting Miss Mimi."

As for the Matt/Sora coupling... personally, I prefer the Tai/Sora coupling.  But, as any good
author would do, I will not bash the Matt/Sora coupling in anyway, nor will I attempt to
change it so that Tai and Sora do get together.  There will be some scenes later on with Tai
and Sora, but by no means will it be an attempt to hook those two up.

Military personnel, or those of you who know someone in the military, might be aware that
instead of letters of the alphabet, they use full words to signify those letters.  Such as
'Bravo' for B or 'Charlie' for C (I'd do A, but I don't remember what word it stood for).
If deciphered properly, Izzy's message through the PA system meant WQ, sector 3.19.  'Weasel'
standing for W and 'Quail' standing for Q.  And WQ is just shorthand for 'Western Quadrant.'
Understand now?

And to round things off... why did I have Joe die first?  Simply put, I don't have a way that
he could contribute to the ending of this fanfic.  There's no love or hate lost at all.
Although I like some Digidestined more than others, I don't hate any of them.

But if it'll make any of the Joe fans happy... I will kill off one of my three favorite
Digidestined before this fanfic ends.  I won't tell you which one, though.  That's a surprise.
Of course, that only helps if you know who those three are.

If you don't already know, I'm not telling you.

I'm also not going to tell how many 'destined do get the axe either.  You'll have to keep
reading to find out!


That's all I'll explain for now, as things such as how the Digidestined's kids were named and
why the older 'destined had their Digivices reconfigured into D-3s will be explained in later
chapters, when they are more relevant to plot details.

***** Next Episode - Not an Ordinary Day *****
The other Japanese Digidestined learn of Joe's passing.  But will they lash out at Izzy or
focus their search on the true killer?  But two won't hear the news as of yet.  One's not on
Earth anymore, while the other might find a vacation in Paris to be her last.