DISCLAIMER: To those of you who care, I'm sorry that this chapter took so long to write and upload. With school, and the fact that my computer was having fits, I lost all of my rough drafts of this and all subsequent chapters, so I had to start from scratch. Try not to flame too much, and feel free to review and submit suggestions for subsequent chapters.
Jake wiped the sweat off of his brow as he leaned back against a stack of boxes. It was his first day working for Victor in the warehouse, about three days after he got interviewed, and he was working hard to make a good first impression on his co-workers. After eight hours of working non- stop with hardly any rest, Jake felt as if he were ready to collapse from the effort he was putting in. Victor saw Jake leaning heavily against the stack of boxes, and walked over to talk to him.
"You're not used to working like this, are you, kid?" Jake smiled weakly and shook his head in agreement. "Take five, kid. Go get some air." Jake nodded his thanks and slowly walked out the door of the warehouse and into the bright sunshine. He had a white sweatshirt tied around his waist, and his black tank top was drenched with sweat. He let out a sigh of relief as he pulled a bottle of water from a canister attached to his belt, and proceeded to take a long drink from it. Almost unconsciously, his hand reached under his tank top and touched the mark that his parents' murderer had imprinted on his chest. As always, it felt deathly cold to the touch, and sent a chill running throughout the rest of his body. He moved the bottle back towards his mouth, and was about to take another drink, when he felt a hand grip his shoulder. Instinctively, he grabbed the wrist the hand was attached to, and whirled around, his other hand letting the water bottle fall to the ground and curling into a fist. When he caught a glimpse of the assailant's face, he turned his head to the side and sighed, removing his hand from the wrist it had been previously holding.
"What are you doing here, Tai?" he asked. Tai rubbed his wrist, working the circulation back into it.
"Looking for you, actually. What are you doing around these parts?" Jake bent down and picked up his fallen water bottle.
"Working." He took a drink from the bottle and offered it to Tai. Tai shook his head, and he looked into Jake's eyes, all hints of jokingness aside.
"I need to talk to you. Is there someplace private where we can talk?" Jake nodded slightly and motioned for Tai to follow him. The two of them walked into the warehouse, and crossed the grounds deeper inside the building.
"Can we use your office, Victor?" Jake asked the man, who was scribbling furiously on a clipboard. Victor looked up from his clipboard, nodded and returned his full attention to the clipboard. Jake led Tai through the maze of boxes and crates to Victor's office. Once inside, Jake shut the door and locked it. He turned to Tai, and crossed his arms across his chest.
"Alright. Let's hear what you have to say." Tai licked his parched lips and began to speak. "I, as well as some of my friends and kids all around the world, am what is called a Digidestined. We protect both the real world and the digital world from the forces of evil." Jake's eyebrows rose as Tai mentioned the digital world.
"The digital world...is that the weird image that was in the sky a few years ago?" Tai nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes, that's right. Now, we've recently discovered a prophecy that tells of a dark force intent on destroying both worlds."
"But what does that have to do with me?"
"We think that you're the one that the prophecy talks about." Jake looked curiously at Tai.
"How can you be sure?" Tai took a deep breath.
"We're sure for two reasons. First, the prophecy says that the chosen one will appear through tragedy. Your parents were killed, so that's one piece of evidence. Second, the prophecy says that the chosen one will be forced to bear the mark of evil. Do you have something like that anywhere on your body?" Jake's breath caught in his throat.
"Yes," he managed to choke out, the words almost getting lost in the midst of the pounding of his heartbeat. He slowly lifted up his tank top to show Tai the black mark on his chest. Tai reached out and touched the mark, jerking his hand back suddenly at the shock of feeling such...evil emanating from it.
"Well, this goes a long way to confirming that you're who we're looking for."
"I don't know about you, but I'm going to need a little bit more proof than this. This could all be just a series of strange coincidences." Tai rubbed his hand slowly up and down his jaw.
"What time do you get off work?" Jake looked at the clock hanging over the door of the office.
"In about an hour. Why?" Tai put a hand on Jake's shoulder.
"I think I can get you all the evidence you want. I'll be back when your shift ends." Jake nodded and opened the door of the office, allowing Tai to slip out into the main area of the warehouse. Jake drew in a slow breath, ran his fingers through his hair, and left the office, closing the door behind him.
Tai quickly worked his way through the warehouse and out the front door. He crossed the street and walked up the sidewalk until he reached a pay phone, inserted the correct amount of money, and dialed the number for Izzy's cell phone.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Izzy. I found him."
"So soon?" Izzy's voice had a tinge of surprise to it.
"Yeah, I could barely believe it either, but I did. Call the others and tell them that we've found him, then meet me at the coffee shop near Shinjuku station, and make sure you bring your laptop. We have to be absolutely sure that he's the one talked of in the prophecy. We have to see if he gets a digivice."
"Will do. See you in a nano." Tai hung up the phone and walked into a nearby music store to kill time until Jake got off his shift. He let his gaze move across the whole of the store, checking the faces of the people browsing the various shelves to see if anyone he knew was inside. His gaze came across a poster of the Teenage Wolves, and he smirked, knowing that Matt would get a kick out of seeing a poster of his band displayed so prominently. Maybe if I get Matt to sign this poster, the manager of the store would give me some free CD's, Tai thought to himself.
After fourty-five minutes of light browsing through the store, he left the store and returned to the warehouse where Jake worked. He found Jake waiting for him at the street corner, rather than inside the warehouse as Tai had assumed he would be waiting. The sweatshirt which had been previously wrapped around his waist was not there anymore, and he was now wearing his jacket over his wet tank top.
"Let's get going. I'm anxious to see what this is all about." Tai nodded in agreement and the two of them walked to the coffee shop where they were to meet Izzy. They entered the shop, placed their orders at the counter, and sat down at a small, round table near the window to keep a look-out for Izzy's appearance. A few moments after sitting down, Jake became curious about what Tai had said to him earlier in the day.
"Why exactly am I so important? I mean, I'm nobody. I'm just an average ordinary guy." Tai shook his head furiously.
"That's not true, Jake. In all my years of either leading or advising the digidestined, I've come to know that prophecies in regards to the digital world cannot be taken lightly. If we had ignored the first prophecy we ever found, a digimon named Myotismon would be controlling the world right now." Tai's glance moved from Jake to the window, where he saw Izzy jogging towards the coffee shop, with his laptop in tow. He turned his gaze back to Jake. "Anyways, we should get some definitive answers right now. Here comes Izzy."
Izzy came through the door of the shop, looked around and, when he caught a glimpse of Tai and Jake, waved and walked over to their table.
"Jake, this is Izzy Izumi. Izzy, this is Jake Stevens, the guy I was telling you about." As Jake and Izzy shook hands, a waitress came over and delivered Jake and Tai's drinks. She turned to Izzy and asked to take his order. Izzy politely smiled and shook his head, and sat down in an empty chair as the waitress walked off. He placed his laptop on the table, opened it up and turned it on. As the system booted up, Izzy turned to Jake.
"Well, Jake, it looks as if the proof you so desire to see will be shown to you very shortly." As soon as the process of booting finished, Izzy began typing furiously, and brought a digital port onto the screen. He looked at Tai and nodded quickly, motioning to the window. Tai touched Jake's shoulder and urged him to move his seat towards the window. Jake obliged, and the three of them were sitting huddled in front of the laptop, preparing to see the evidence that each of them were looking for. Tai looked over to Izzy, who nodded slowly.
"Do it, Izzy." Izzy tapped a few keys, and the digital gate opened in a bright flash of pure white light. Jake peered curiously at the screen, and reached his hand out to touch the screen. As soon as his fingers made contact with the screen, the white light, which had previously been a soft glow, became a blinding pulse of light, which blinded everyone in the coffee shop. Jake's arm instinctively moved to his face to cover his eyes, and when he was finally able to see again, he felt an object being clutched in his hand. He slowly removed his arm, and opened his hand to see a small device within it. The face of the device was divided into two colours, white and silver, with the middle of the device being white, with silver on each side. With their sight restored, Tai and Izzy looked at Jake, and saw the device being clutched in his hand.
"Well, then. This digivice clinches it. You're our guy," Tai stated matter-of-factly. Izzy reached out his hand to the digivice, and looked imploringly at Jake.
"May I?" he asked. Jake nodded, and let Izzy take the digivice from his hand. Izzy examined it closely, rolling it between his hands, when something caught his eye. On the back of the digivice, directly in the middle, a small symbol seemed to be engraved into it.
"What is that?" he thought aloud. Tai move his head and peered at the symbol.
"It looks like...a set of scales, but what does that have to do with anything?"
"I think I have a pretty good idea," Jake said, his arms crossed across his chest. "In America, a set of scales normally represents justice." Izzy nodded, and returned the digivice to Jake.
"It seems like this is a D-3 which has integrated a crest into its design. In this case, it's the Crest of Justice. I had always assumed that there were only eight crests, the ones that we had when we were on our adventure. Although, now that I think about it, it would make sense if there were quite a large number of crests, one for every possible positive, or negative, attribute." Tai nodded in understanding, and slowly pushed himself to his feet.
"Well, now that we know you're one of us, you'll need to know what we're dealing with. Talk to Izzy, he'll tell you when and where we'll be meeting. Now, I've got to go: I have a prior engagement that I have to get to. I'll talk to you later, Jake. Izzy, I'll call you later tonight, and we'll go over the schedule for the next couple of days." Izzy nodded, and got up.
"I should be leaving too. I only told my mother that I was going to the drugstore. I'm pretty sure she's worrying about me as we speak." Jake reached out and shook first Tai's, then Izzy's hand.
"I'll see you guys soon." Tai and Izzy left the coffee shop, leaving Jake to think over what had just happened. He rolled his new digivice between his hands, picked up his coffee cup and took a drink.
So what do you guys think? Please review, and check out my other stories. Thanks in advance.