That day was as calm as any other. The sun hung high outside, shining down on the earth, and the children were all busy with their own lives.
Joe, buried in his books, had missed his train and was now frantically rushing so he wouldn't miss his exam. Matt and T.K. were out in the countryside at their grandmother's house, watching a baseball game. Mimi's whole family had gone to Hawaii, where she was lazily sunbathing on the beach. Sora was still wandering back and forth between her home and Tai's, and Izzy, as usual, was online, talking with children all over the world.
But Izzy noticed something was different.
The flow of data on the network had become abnormal. Countless streams of data were moving in strange patterns, and gradually they gathered together into a single Digi-Egg.
The cup in Izzy's hand slipped and fell.
"A Digimon…"
Realizing what this meant, Izzy hurriedly grabbed his laptop and ran toward Tai's house. At the same time, people all over the world were starting to notice this same strange phenomenon.
As for Tai, he was struggling with something that gave him a worse headache than any battle: writing an e-mail—and not just any e-mail, but an apology.
When it came to girls, there were three things a guy absolutely couldn't do:
He couldn't give the wrong gift.
He couldn't say the wrong thing.
And he definitely couldn't do the wrong thing afterward.
Tai, however, had managed to do all three: he'd given the wrong present, then said the wrong words, and then gone on to do the wrong thing after that. So now he was racking his brains trying to write an apology letter. Honestly, Tai would rather fight Millenniumon all over again than do this. At least in a fight with Millenniumon he knew exactly what he was supposed to do, but when it came to writing an apology, he had no idea how to phrase things so the other person would actually forgive him. Worst of all, this was something he couldn't ask anyone else for help with.
"Sora,
About what happened that day, I'm really sorry.
Please don't be mad at me anymore.
— Tai Kamiya"
Those few simple lines had taken Tai a full half hour to hammer out. He kept writing, deleting, rewriting, deleting again, until he finally produced an apology he felt was at least barely acceptable.
"At last, it's done," Tai sighed in relief and slumped back into his chair.
Suddenly a voice spoke up behind him.
"Huh? You're writing an e-mail?"
Tai jumped in shock, his hand hitting the keyboard by accident. When he spun around, he saw it was only his little sister, Kari.
He was just about to relax when he realized Kari was staring straight at the computer screen. He hurriedly threw a hand over it.
"Ah! N-no, don't look at that!"
Then he noticed Kari was wearing new clothes.
"Eh? Where are you going?"
"I'm going to a friend's birthday party. This is her present." She pulled a nicely wrapped gift box out from behind her.
"Mm." Tai suddenly stuck his hand out. "Give it here."
"No."
"Come on, give it."
"I said no."
Kari nimbly dodged Tai's grab and, taking advantage of the moment when Tai was distracted, darted over to the computer.
"If you want to send the e-mail, you click here," she said—and sent it.
"Hey! Hey!" Tai scrambled in a panic, trying to cancel it. "Don't just send my letter without asking me!"
But it was already too late. The e-mail had been sent.
Kari slipped toward the door, then leaned back in, her little head poking around the frame as she asked curiously,
"So who did you send it to?"
"Mind your own business about who I send it to," Tai grumbled.
"Mean." Kari pouted and trotted off, just in time to bump into their mom coming back with groceries.
"Ah, you're heading out?" their mom asked.
"Yeah!"
"Be careful, okay."
"I will!"
Meanwhile, the e-mail Kari had just sent on Tai's behalf was rejected by the recipient. Tai stared wide-eyed at the screen.
"The e-mail was refused by the other side? Seriously? Is Sora really that mad at me? Come on…"
Muttering, he changed the destination and resent the message to her DT Digivice instead, hoping it would reach her that way.
Feeling drained, Tai staggered out of his room and listlessly opened the fridge, hoping to find something to eat. But to his dismay, there wasn't a single thing he could eat right away. For someone as food-obsessed as Tai, this was completely unacceptable.
"Hey, there's nothing to eat?"
"Hm?" His mother clearly wasn't paying attention; she was too busy putting away the groceries she'd just bought.
Getting no response, Tai drooped even more.
"Seriously… Kari gets to eat cake at a birthday party," he grumbled, his voice full of envy.
At that moment, Yuko finally finished sorting the groceries.
"In that case, I'll bake you a cake."
The moment he heard the word "cake," Tai perked right up.
"Really?"
"Really. Go get me a few eggs," she said, then started rummaging again. "I'm sure I bought some flour…"
Tai had just picked up an egg when the doorbell rang. He went over to open the door and found Izzy standing there, clutching his laptop and drenched in sweat.
"Yo, Izzy, come on in," Tai said.
"T-that egg…" Izzy panted, completely out of breath.
"Huh?"
"That egg hatched!"
Tai glanced down at the egg in his hand, then slowly looked back up at Izzy with a very strange expression.
"N-not that," Izzy quickly clarified, realizing Tai had misunderstood. "The Digimon egg."
They went to Tai's bedroom, where Izzy opened his laptop so Tai could see the Digimon that had just hatched.
On the screen was a jellyfish-like Digimon, along with an e-mail that said "hello."
"It really does look like a jellyfish. I'll look up its data." Saying that, Tai turned to the computer and began searching for information on this Digimon. After all, they'd never seen this type of Digimon before.
As he typed, Tai asked, "So how did this guy show up in the first place?"
"It seems like a bunch of computer bugs gathered together and formed this egg," Izzy replied. "A friend of mine in Los Angeles decrypted the data making up the shell. He's still only an elementary school student himself, but he's already in university."
Tai turned around and glared at Izzy in indignation.
"I'm an elementary school student too—but I'm only in elementary school."
He furiously attacked the keyboard. That kind of kid was the very definition of a prodigy—and the classic "other people's kid" everyone loved to hate.
Just then, the jellyfish on the screen began to change.
It morphed from a jellyfish shape into a Digimon that looked a bit like a rabbit.
"It Digivolved!"
Right after that, another e-mail popped open:
"I'm sooooo hungry."
"This is… an e-mail from that jellyfish. It says it's hungry."
"Found it." Tai finally dug up this Digimon's profile from Steel City's database.
Kuramon is a Fresh-level Digimon with an adorable appearance. It suddenly appears on computer networks and is an unidentified Digimon.
The malicious use of computer networks and the viruses humans create, along with the conflicts humans wage across the internet, cause aggression to take on solid form. From a small fragment of unknown data, a Digi-Egg is born, condensed from humanity's destructive impulses, and from it hatches this mysterious Digimon. Kuramon multiplies on computer networks like a germ, causing network malfunctions.
Special move: Glare Eye—it releases blinding bubbles of light from its large eye to confuse its target.
Tsumemon is an In-Training Digimon capable of destroying data at terrifying speed. It moves extremely fast and is very hard to detect. Not only its appearance but its nature are quite vicious.
Special move: Nail Scratch—it slashes with the claws at the tips of its feelers.
"It grows by devouring data. Its appetite is enormous…" Izzy said in shock. After all, none of the Digimon they'd met so far could directly consume human network data in order to grow.
"What?" Tai was stunned. Digimon actually eating data straight from the network—this was something that had never happened before.
"Right now it's only at the In-Training level, but if it keeps Digivolving, it'll devour all the data on the entire network. When that happens, every computer everywhere will go haywire," Izzy said anxiously.
And by now, thanks to Tsumemon's feeding, the barcodes at supermarkets and convenience stores all over Japan were already scrambled. The scanners no longer worked properly, and every price showed up as 1,000,000.
"Welcome," the cashier said, following the usual procedure. "That'll be one hundred twenty-five yen."
Then she leaned in close to the register screen and her jaw dropped.
"Ah—ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands… That comes to one million and one hundred twenty-five yen in total."
The customer paying at the register dropped all the coins in her hand. She'd been completely shocked speechless by the price.
The same thing was happening in every supermarket and convenience store across Japan. Every product cost one million yen. The entire system at these stores had broken down, plunging everything into chaos.
The news picked up the story as well:
"Cash registers at supermarkets and convenience stores nationwide are repeatedly suffering malfunctions…"
"This can't go on. We have to find a way to delete that thing," Izzy said angrily.
"Yeah." Tai nodded. "I've already had Datamon open up a link—a sort of Transfer Gate—between the Digital World and the network. We'll send Agumon and the others into the network and use the Digivice to help them Digivolve and destroy Tsumemon."
"It evolved again," Izzy exclaimed. "It's Digivolved up to Rookie level already."
Keramon is a Digimon with a demonic appearance that loves to cause trouble. It's the Digimon that Tsumemon Digivolves into. Now that it's reached Rookie level, its mouth has become even more powerful; the amount of data it can rapidly consume can reach 100 megabytes per second. It thinks that destroying data is just a game.
Special move:
Crazy Giggle – it laughs as it spews a highly destructive ball of light from its mouth.
Signature techniques:
Fool Out – it emits an unbearable discordant noise.
Crazy Turn – it spins around with both arms spread wide to strike its enemies.
Crazy Smoke – it breathes out a poisonous smoke.
As they were talking, a new window suddenly appeared on Tai's computer screen. Agumon and Tentomon were already there, and the other six Digimon quickly appeared in the window one after another.
"This is really dangerous, Tai. It's a very ferocious Digimon," Agumon said.
Tentomon, speaking in his Kansai twang, chimed in, "If we just leave it be, it's gonna cause a real disaster."
"We'll go into the network," Gabumon said.
Patamon picked up the thread. "Just like when you all saved the Digital World."
"Now it's our turn to help you and Izzy," Tentomon added.
"I'm counting on you," Tai said. "Izzy, did you bring your Digivice?"
"Of course. I always carry it with me." Izzy pulled out his Digivice.
Tai turned back to the Digimon. "All right, we'll use the Digivice to help you Digivolve. Agumon, Tentomon, you go in first. I'll contact everyone else and have the other Digimon join in afterward."
"OK!"
"I'll start transferring Agumon and Tentomon onto the network now. Please wait a moment," Datamon said in its mechanical voice.
"Got it. Izzy, while that's happening I'm going to call everyone," Tai said, and dashed out of the house.
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