"The Maltese War Greymon" By Chibi-chan

You may have seen the end of Digimon, how fate treated the Digi-Destined children twenty-five years later. However, that was only one possible ending. The universe is infinite; there are other realities other than that one, each spawned by the question “what if?” What if, for example, Yolei had married Mimi (hey, they could have traveled to Vermont…)? Or what if Yolei had become a professional wrestler? Or what if Yolei let loose the Clow cards and became a Card Captor? Destiny is not a fixed thing; one change along the line could have changed everything from the way you know it. This is the story of one such change…

The Maltese War Greymon

By: Chibi-chan

Hello. My name is Ken Ichijouji, and I’m a detective. I have a small rented office in that building about ten blocks down from where I am right now. I’m still trying to figure out how it all came to this: her deception, the scroll inside the statue, how Davis got there in time, everything. You must be confused as to what I’m talking about. I’ll go back to beginning and hope you can tell me when things all went to hell.

I was just sitting in my office, doing nothing in particular. My partner Stingmon was wrapping up the last case. I would have done it, if not for the fact the work had to be done in the Lost Cluster part of town. That’s were all the digimon who had lost their human partner through death or other circumstances and had nowhere else to go resided. They don’t particularly like humans there. They don’t particularly like digimon with living human partners either, but Stingmon was a special case. He worked at a shelter there in his off time, so they have a little more respect for him than others with living partners.

Anyway, I was there doing nothing when my secretary, Davis Motomiya entered. “Hey, Ken, there’s this girl here to see ya!” he said in his typically cheerful tone.

I groaned and told him, “While we’re in the office, it’s ‘Mister Ichijouji’.” He always was a friendly type; kinda dense but generally a sweet fellow.

“Oh, right, sorry, Ken, I keep forgetting…” he said. He quickly backpedaled and added, “Oops, I mean Mister Ichijouji!” Silly boy, at least he tends to get the big things right. “You want me to send her in?”

I nodded, and he left to tell her it was okay to step inside the main office.

Then she stepped into my office. Short brown hair, pink dress, and a presence that curiously put me at ease. “Are you the Ken Ichijouji?” she asked shyly.

I nodded and told her, “Yes, I am. So, what is it that you want with me?” I was just hoping she wasn’t one of those crazy fangirls that seemed to have popped up everywhere due to some high-profile cases I was on. I had just gotten this very, very stubborn one to leave me alone and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with another one.

“It’s my brother. He went missing after trying to find this,” she said. She took a picture out of her handbag to show me what “this” was. “This” was a pure black statue of a War Greymon. “He said it was the ‘Maltese War Greymon’. I don’t know why it’s called that, since he said it wasn’t from Malta, but I’ve long since given up finding logic when it comes to Tai,” she added, shaking her head.

I looked up from the picture. “Well, Miss… er…”

“Kamiya. Hikari Kamiya. Do you think you can help me?” she said.

“Miss Kamiya, I’ll do my best to find your brother,” I assured her. “Do you have any leads? Where he was when you last saw him, who he was talking to last, or anything else that might have any relevance to the case?”

“Well…” she began.

Her brother was Taichi Kamiya, a well-known diplomat and ambassador to the digital world. I checked what files I could on them both and contacted an associate of mine, Koushiro Izumi, to get further details. I was contacted later, but I didn’t just sit around waiting for a reply from Koushiro, or for that mater, until Stingmon returned. Time was of the essence in a missing persons case, after all. Instead, I decided to check out the last place Miss Kamiya had seen her brother, the Copa Cabana club in the area bordering the Lost Cluster section.

Copa Cabana. A stupid name for a cheesy place. Decadence and bad mambo music permeated the place like, as Davis would say, something that permeates stuff. OK, so sometimes his way of thinking’s actually the best way. Miss Kamiya said he had been talking to the band leader, she thought his name was Matt or Yamato or something like that, before he and her brother walked off, and then that was the last she saw of her brother. Obviously, I headed straight for the band leader himself. (The name was “Yamato”, by the way.)

The band leader was one of those pretty but aloof types. He tried to keep a mental distance from me during our talk, but it was one phrase that rattled him something fierce. I only said that Miss Kamiya’s brother might be dead by now, given the amount of time and the suspicious circumstances of his disappearance.

“D-dead?! He… he can’t be! I…” the band leader said. It was clear he was afraid, but I wasn’t completely sure if it was because of the fact that Mister Kamiya may be dead or not.

“Is there something you should tell me?” I asked without changing my expression.

He lowered his head and looked away. “I guess there is, but can I tell you it somewhere a bit more private?” I didn’t see anything wrong with that; I may not have had Stingmon around, but I still was armed and hopefully a faster draw than him if necessary.

What he had to tell me left me rather stunned. “You were having an affair with him?” I all but shouted. I saw headlines on the front page of the supermarket tabloids about the ambassador carrying on with someone, but I didn’t think the tabloids could get something right.

“Ssssh! You want people to hear? The walls are paper-thin here!” Yamato replied in a harsh whisper. I shook my head and he continued speaking. “I know, it’s not right to do this behind my wife’s back, but there was just something about him that I... I couldn’t resist.”

My first thought after the initial shock was /Well, at least it means there won’t be any children to be used as a threat if things go south./ Yeah, I know, that wasn’t the right thing to be thinking at the time, but no one thinks the right thing all the time. I got my thoughts back on track and asked “And that has something to do with what happened on the night in question?”

He lowered his head. “Yes, it does. He did meet there, and we did leave together for some… ‘fun’, but he left about ten o’clock, I swear! If only he hadn’t been paged…”

“Paged? By who?” The plot was getting thicker by the moment. My first thought was that maybe Yamato here wasn’t the only one carrying on an affair…

“I don’t know, but he left the pager here,” he said. He rummaged through a drawer and produced a pager. “I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do,’ he told me as he handed me the pager.

I looked down at the small device. “It’s a lead, at least. Thank you.”

/345-7347/ That number was the last one on the pager. The time checked out; the call was placed at 9:57. I was running a check on the number at my desk when Davis came in with his digimon partner Veemon and some containers of Chinese food. “Thought you’d still be here. You always work too hard, Ken,” he said, same old smile on his face. He knows me too well.

“Can I eat now? I’m schtarving!” Veemon whined, his minor speech impediment apparent in his plea.

Davis smiled at the blue lizard-like digimon and gave him the go-ahead. The digimon wasted no time in literally tearing the top off the container it was holding and began eating like it was it hadn’t eaten in the past five years. Davis then walked up to my desk and set the food down. “So, what’cha doing? Catching up on some web comics?”

It’s amazing just how easily he can say things that’d either make one smile or be annoyed. Luckily for him, I tend to fall into the former category. “No, I’m just running a check on a phone number that was on Miss Kamiya’s brother’s pager in hopes it’ll tell me something.”

He stepped over to my side of the desk and took a look at the monitor in front of me. “Say, that’s the number for Miss Kamiya’s cell phone!” he exclaimed.

I looked and him and blinked. “Miss Kamiya’s cell phone? How do you know?” I asked, obviously wondering if there was a connection between him and Miss Kamiya.

He gave me one of those “Oh, don’t be silly!” grins he did when he finds something I can’t. “It’s on the form she filled out for the records, of course!”

I felt rather stupid for asking that. After all, why shouldn’t he have that information? The question I needed answered now was, “And how did you remember it?”

He blushed. “Well, she was pretty and I was thinking…”

He wanted a date with her? Why that… that… Oh, what am I thinking? It shouldn’t bother me…

Davis, suddenly thinking of something, took a quick look around the office. “Stingmon hasn’t returned yet?”

Stingmon! I hadn’t even thought of him since I started work on this case! I admit, ever since I started in this career, I keep getting more and more of a one-track mind. In fact, I’m probably getting more in the one-track rut even now. Anyway, as if to answer Davis’s question, there was a loud “thump” that came from the other side of the small reception area’s door. We both went to the door and opened it.

And there was Leafmon, my Leafmon, injured and unconscious.

I was never more relieved when I heard Joe say, “He’s going to be fine.” The digimon doctor had said it was mostly superficial injuries, but it was mostly likely because there were so many the pain probably caused Leafmon to pass out. “What happened to him anyway? It’s not everyday I see a digimon in that condition,” Joe asked.

I had no definite answer at the time. All I knew that I was getting too close in the Kamiya case and someone wanted to send a message for me to back off. If they would do this to my digimon, then I hoped to whatever benevolent higher power out there if one does in fact exist that they wouldn’t go after my parents or Davis next if I didn’t quit the case…

The next day, Yamato stopped by my office. It seems he remember something else that Mister Kamiya had left with him that he thought might help me. It was a black-enameled porcelain statue of a War Greymon, just like in the picture that Miss Kamiya showed me. “And you just remembered about this after I left?” I asked.

“Well, sort of. I had the feeling he hid something in the apartment, but I didn’t know what it was or where he put him, so I couldn’t tell you anything about it. Sora found it in the couch right before I almost sat on it. Lucky break, huh?” He said. Sora, eh? So that was his wife’s name. Maybe she found out about his affair and… “Uh, are you there?” he asked, waving a hand in front of my face.

I snapped back to my senses and nodded. “Sorry about that. I was just thinking about something. Do you think I could talk to your-“

I then heard a female voice shouting from the other side of the door. “I don’t care if he’s in there with someone, this is urgent!” the woman said. I heard a cry and a glass breaking right before the door opened.

“Mister Ichijouji, I need to have a word with-“ the woman started, then noticed Yamato. “YOU!” she said, angrily pointing at him.

“Ow… man, she’s one strong chick…” I heard Davis mutter in the other room. Good, if he was still talking that meant he was all right.

“S-Sora! What are you doing here, dear?” Yamato asked the angry woman.

THIS was his wife?! Maybe she did find out he might be having an affair and wanted me to make sure of it. Then again, maybe she had something to hide…

“I should ask you the same question! What, are you here flirting with your new boyfriend?” she said.

“WHAT?!?” both Yamato and I exclaimed at the same time. She thought that I was the one fooling around with her husband? As if! Even if he wasn’t married, he’s really not my type…

“Madame, really, what makes you think I have anything of that nature going on with Mister Ishida here?” I asked, trying not to sound nervous. Mind you, I wasn’t nervous because she was in any way right, but because, well, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…”

“Because I saw you walking out of our apartment late last night, and I found these,” she said, pulling a pair of light blue boxers out of her purse, “After my no-good husband left the house. Now I know these aren’t his, and I know I haven’t been fooling around with anyone else, so…”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes after I figured out where she was going. Doesn’t she know that when you assume, you make an ass out of you and… uh… someone else? Damn, now I’m really starting to sound like Davis. “Madame, I assure you, those aren’t mine. I cannot say who those belong to because I’m not at liberty to discuss my current case, but-“

She cut me off. “’Case’, you call him? I’m rather call him a cheating son of a-“

“Wait!” Yamato interrupted. “Those aren’t his. They’re…” He paused, took a deep breath, and finished with, “… they’re Tai’s.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Tai’s? You mean the Tai we know? The Tai you said was just your ‘dear friend’? The Tai that hangs around with Agumon? Ambassador Tai?!”

He looked away from her. “Yes, that Tai. And he’s missing. Mister Ichijouji here is working on that case for ‘Kari and questioned me last night, since I was the last one ‘Kari saw him with.”

Sora had calmed down considerably after this revelation. “Oh my… Well, I hope he’s all right. Of course, this doesn’t excuse your behavior, Matt, but… oh my.”

It seemed sincere enough, but until all the facts were in, she was still on the suspects list. “… I’m going to be sleeping on the couch for a while, aren’t I?” Yamato asked.

Her face hardened again. “The couch is too good for you. You sleep in the bathtub.” She turned to me and softened her expression a bit. “If there’s anything we can do…”

“… I’ll contact you.” I finished for her. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

The evidence wasn’t making any sense. The band leader had the opportunity but no motive to kill Taichi, whereas his wife would have a motive had she known it was Taichi her husband was fooling around with. And there was still the matter of Miss Kamiya’s call to her brother and what had happened to Leafmon. If only Leafmon could remember what happened to him that night, I might’ve had a clue… And what of this statue? It wasn’t very aesthetically pleasing, nor did it seem to be of any value. Then again, I never had it appraised.

Any chance of an appraisal disappeared when Davis entered my office when I was trying to make sense out of the chaos. He thought he’d be cute and sit on my desk, but he ended up knocking the statue to the floor. It made a terrific crash as it hit the floor, which shattered it into little pieces. Davis was very apologetic about it until he noticed a scroll among the pieces of the War Greymon statue. He held it up and asked me, “Hey, what’s this thing?”

I took the scroll from his hands and inspected it closely. Was that why Taichi wanted the statue? Or was it the reason why he needed to hide it somewhere?

I had to see Miss Hikari about that new discovery. /Maybe she’ll know more about it,/ I thought. Boy, was I right, and boy, was it a mistake to go see her at night in that lot with only a weakened Wormmon with me.

“That Matt guy had the Maltese War Greymon? And your secretary broke it and found that scroll inside?” she asked. I nodded, and she asked me to let her see the scroll. Upon further review, telling her that she couldn’t wasn’t the smartest thing to do, for after I said no, she called her digimon partner, Gatomon, out and asked again, that time almost threateningly. I declined again and before I knew it her digimon partner had restrained Wormmon. Fortunately, I had my D3 on me. Unfortunately, so did she.

Wormmon, despite still not being fully recovered, digivolved to Stingmon, meaning he was at the same level as Gatomon. That was good. Gatomon, however, went to her Ultimate form of Angewomon, when meant she now out-classed Stingmon, who had yet to go to that level, in terms of power. That was very bad. I didn’t have time to pay attention to the ensuing digimon battle, for Miss Kamiya was trying to take by force the scroll from me.

Now it all made sense. The call, the statue, the attack on my digimon, everything. She had wanted what was in the statue, but Taichi was probably trying to hide it from her for some reason, so she put me on the case to find him and through him, the statue. But I found the statue and the scroll inside it first, thus what was happening then occured. All that was left to answer was where Taichi was, why he was hiding the statue, and were Stingmon and I going to make it out of that situation alive.

I heard a shout of “Vee LASER!” from the sky where the digimon battle was taking place. /ExVeemon? Here?/ I thought. That meant Davis was around. Luckily, he didn’t come out from wherever he was until I needed him.

While the two Champions kept the Ultimate busy, Miss Kamiya had not only backed away from me, but backed away with my gun. She had it pointed at me as she looked on resolutely. “Give me the scroll or you die, Mister Ichijouji,” she said, the calming aura about her all but gone completely. I figured the scroll wasn’t worth my life, so I tossed it to her. “Thank you,” she said. “However, you still have to die. You know too much.”

/Damn, there went hoping she’d go away…/ I thought.

“Good bye, Mister Ichijouji. It was nice knowing you…” she said. I could have sworn I heard a tinge of regret in her voice. A shot rang out, and she fell to the ground like a sack of rocks. The battle in midair stopped, and Angewomon de-digivolved back to Gatomon and checked on her partner.

Behind her stood Davis, and he was holding a smoking gun.

Davis, stunned at what he just did, dropped the weapon and fell to his knees. I rushed to him and knelt beside him. “I… I’m sorry… But I couldn’t let her kill you…”

There I was, by his side, trying to get him to think clearly. “There still might be a chance… If we can get her to a doctor in time…” I told him. I knew Miss Kamiya will most likely die, but if it’d comfort him just one bit…

“Yeah, we should try to help her…” he said. A forgiving sort, he is. Too forgiving, at times, but it’s better than being the opposite.

“I’ve done all I can,” Joe told us. “She’s lucky whoever got her isn’t that good of a shot or she’d be dead right now. A little to the left or right and it’d be all over. What happened to her anyway?”

We told Joe the part of the story we know, about Taichi’s disappearance, the statue, and how it came down to Davis shooting her to protect me. “So that’s it, huh?”

“Yeah,” Davis said, “I didn’t want to hurt anybody but…” A lightbulb went on in Davis’s head. “Oh, yeah, that Koushiro dude left a message at the office just after you left!” He pulled a note out of his pocket and handed it to me.

The message read, “Found Tai. Meet me at 7 at my place. All will be explained.”

/Lovely, now he tells me this,/ I thought. “Well, there’s about an hour before I have to go meet him, so we can just rest for a while,” I said.

All things aside, it was a lovely night that night... or should I say early morning? Cherry blossoms were in bloom, giving the night air their scent. I was out back behind Joe’s clinic, biding my time until it was time to meet up with Koushiro, when Davis stepped out with me. I know what you’re thinking, is he “my shadow” or something, with all the times he follows me, but a more loyal friend you’ll never find. Yes… a friend… nothing more… or so I thought. “Nice weather we’re having, eh?” he asked.

I was too… I don’t know, confused, upset, too something to care about the weather. The case was nearly closed and that was all I could think of. “Davis…”

One of those annoying awkward pauses decided to rear its bland head for what seemed to be eternity and a day. Davis shooed away the silence by saying, “You know, I worry about you…”

I was a bit taken off guard by that for some reason. “Worry? Why?”

“Because of things like what just happened a little while ago. You could have gotten killed!” he said, nearly crying it out.

“Occupational hazard,” I said. It worried me too, but I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

“And your big bad wolf… no, wait, was that lone wolf? Anyway, your wolf thing makes me worry too!” He was getting emotional, which was surprising me. Just how much did he care, anyway?

“I… I’m sorry. I don’t mean to worry anyone…” I said before I realized it. /Heh, Davis is more influential than I previously thought…/

He came face to face with me and put a hand on my shoulder. “I know you don’t. But please, try not to go into situations like that without enough back-up, OK?” he said with a sincerely gentle tone I rarely hear from the far-from-delicate man in front of me. He started leaning in towards me and…

“Hey, I got in touch with Koushiro and-“ Joe said as he opened the door. He stopped when he saw that Davis’s lips were mere millimeters from mine. “Oops, never mind; tell ya later,” he said before closing the door.

There we were, both stuck in the position, the mood not just killed, but buried, dug up, pissed on, and buried upside-down by that sudden interruption. “… later?” Davis asked as he backed away, knowing that the left-off message would drive me nuts if I didn’t go get the rest right away.

I nodded. “Later,” I agreed.

And here I am now. Waiting for Koushiro to come here and tell us what he knows.

Koushiro came through the door at precisely seven o’clock. This was typical; he’s always on time. He brought Taichi with him? /How’d he manage that,/ I think.

Koushiro smiles at the group. “I think Mister Kamiya here can explain everything. Right, Mister Kamiya?” he says.

Taichi nods. “Right.” He sits down and gathers his thoughts briefly, then speaks. “You see, my sister heard something about the Maltese War Greymon, that it was the key to unlocking the secrets to the digital world. She took that as a way to unlock the binds that keep many digimon from digivolving further. If it was that, then it’d be horrible for her to get her hands on! Just imagine, the chaos that virus-types could cause if they could go to Ultimate or even Mega! It could possibly destroy both worlds! So, I had no choice once that statue fell into my hands but to keep it from her. I thought hiding it with Yamato would keep it safe, but apparently it didn’t. Sorry about all the trouble my sister caused, Mister Ichijouji, but she was thinking about all digikind and when she get focused on something, she really gets focused on it.”

Davis didn’t pay much attention to Taichi after he heard what the scroll might be. He was too busy looking on what was on the scroll. “Key to unlocking digivolving? Toll House cookies must be more powerful than I thought!” he says.

“A recipe for cookies?! I nearly got killed over a recipe for cookies?!” I exclaim.

Davis turns his head to me and grins. “But you didn’t because I was there!” he says right before quickly kissing me in front of everyone. I can’t help but sit there and blush madly.

Joe clears his throat. “Koushiro, I believe you owe me something,’ he says, holding his hand out to the computer expert. Koushiro, grumbling, takes out some money and puts it in the waiting hand.

/Unbelievable, they were betting on… THIS?! I will have to have a talk with them later,/ I think. I gather was thoughts of mine I can and say, “Well, what do we do now?”

Taichi says, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of my sister, and hopefully she’ll believe that scroll is the real one…”

A week later, I have a visitor at my office. “Hey, Ken!” Davis happily chimes upon entering my office, “There’s someone here to see you!”

He never learns. “In the office, it’s ‘Mister Ichijouji’, Mister Motomiya,” I say tiredly, knowing full well he’ll forget it by the next time he comes in. “Anyway, just send the person in.’

“’K,” he says, then leaves to get the person.

She steps into my office. The woman who had tried to kill me a week previously. She steps up to my desk, sets a neatly-bound inch-thick pile of money left of my computer, and steps away. “I’m sorry, Mister Ichijouji. Anyway, there’s the payment; you did find my brother after all,” she says. She then walks away without taking one last glance.

And there ends this tale. Well, I hope that this is the end of this tale. With my luck this’ll be just the beginning-

“Hey, Ken! Missis Ishida is here! Says she has a new case for you!” Davis yells from the next room, ruining my dramatic ending speech. Oh well, typical day for Ken Ichijouji-

“You wanna see her now?” Davis calls out again.

His timing’s impeccable, as always. Fine, I’ll make this quick. The tale you’ve heard ends here, but the end is just another beginning for me, for him, and for the Ichijouji Detective Agency…

End

Chibi’s notes:

Just what the world needs, another Digimon fic from another writer. Anyway, this is the product of an idea entering my fragile little mind and my mind wrapping around it so tightly I have to write it. Yes, it’s crazy, stupid, and kinda weird, but hell, it’s FUN! Er… it is fun, right? *no response* RIGHT?! *crickets chirping* Well, damn.

Comments? E-mail: Lessa990@aol.com