A Cyber Hero's Baby Steps.
In the Digital World... 15 Minutes after departure...
Alphamon and Mirei are standing just outside the portal, staring at the white space.
"Do you think he'll be okay?" Alphamon asks.
"Of course he will." Mirei answered confidently and puts her hand on her waist. "He wouldn't be my Takumi if he wasn't." Mirei giggled softly as Alphamon simply sighs. 'Haaah... Lovebirds...'
...
9 months after Takumi's arrival in NEO-Earth
...
Takumi felt an odd sensation when he arrived to this world. A familiar darkness, but he could feel his eyelids covering his eyes. He was asleep. He felt... weak? But also extremely comfortable. A childish feeling takes over him to keep on sleeping. A feeling that would almost immediately be replaced by the uncomfortable feeling of... himself being picked up?
"Aww... Look at our little one, honey!" A woman's sing-song voice rang out which caused him to involuntary open his eyes. What he saw were two humans who he presumed were his parents. The source of the voice was a woman with beautiful lemon yellow hair stretching down to her shoulders with a beautiful figure. She currently had a wide smile while talking to a crimson haired man who was about half a foot taller than her. His hair was swept back and had a well shaven beard and he was quite a well trained man. After a few seconds of their playful banter, they finally noticed that Takumi opened his eyes.
"Good morning, Son." His father said gently and flashed a calming smile towards the baby Takumi before reaching out to the little cyber sleuth with his hand. Takumi doesn't know why, but his body reacted instinctively, reaching his hands towards the hand and grabbing two of its fingers with his tiny hands. 'Ah... I know what this is.' It was the instinctual love of a child to its parents.
'Good morning, dad.' He tried to speak, but all that came out was cooing. 'Ah, right. Baby' Takumi thought before he let out a very infantile giggle. One which his mother found very adorable, causing her to hug Takumi and pinch his cheeks playfully. 'Hey!- Stop!' Unfortunately, his wishes fell on deaf ears as his yellow haired mother continued to cuddle him.
Yet despite this, he couldn't help but laugh. These were his parents now, huh? That's fine with him. But he would never forget everything his original parents for him. Perhaps he can find a way to tribute them? Maybe in the future. For now, he's enjoying his life in this new world.
...
...
"Aww, looks like he's asleep..." The yellow haired mother said with a pout, but she understood that a growing child such as Takumi would need as much energy as possible, so she put him back down inside his crib.
"That child is going to grow up to be fine man, Kazumi. I can just tell." He says as he gently touches the baby Takumi's head.
"Only because he's your son, Yoshiro..." She says with a giggle and leaning her head to his chest. Yoshiro could already tell what she wanted, so he raised his hand to above her head and patted her.
"*Our* son, dear. Takumi Kato."
...
4 years after Takumi's arrival in the NEO-Earth
...
It's a peaceful, early day in the Kato household. Yoshiro Kato is eating a classic English Breakfast made by his wife, Kazumi Kato, who was currently outside of a certain 4 year old sleuth's bedroom door. She gently knocks on the door.
"Are you up, Takumi?" No response. She grabs the doorknob and turns it to open the door slightly only to peek in. In his room, she saw her sleeping son.
His room was just as you would expect a typical child's bedroom would look like. His bed was in the farthest right corner and just above it was a window. Right beside his bed was a drawer cabinet with a little bookshelf filled with some picture books. Along side those are the odder types of books that you wouldn't normally see a child reading. Ranging from novels such as Sherlock Holmes and Case Closed to manga like Detective Conan. No matter the type of book, all of them had one common quality. Almost everything in his little bookshelf had some sort of detective and mystery solving aspect to it. Save some of the more educational books.
Speaking of detectives and mystery, the rosey haired child had a fascination with everything detective. Where most other children would have a poster of All-Might or some other hero in their room, he had posters and merchandise of his favorite detective shows and books.
Now normally, Kazumi would let the little detective sleep and go about his own day, but this day was special.
A mischievious giggle came out from the lemon haired mother as she decided to sneak to his bedside. She raises both of her hands and prepares to pounce!
"Wake up, 'Kumi!" The hunter strikes! Her mischievious smile turns into a full grin! Her fingers come down and she... Tickles Takumi, waking him up.
"Bahaha!- Ok- Ok- I'm up!- I'm up!- Sto- hahahoooop!" Takumi pleaded. Kazumi pulled her hand away whilst cackling in amusement.
"Good! We've got to be early, you know?" Kazumi explained.
"Early? Early for what?-" Takumi's own thoughts interrupted his question. 'Wait... Today is...!' Takumi gasps and his face contorts into a face of realization, to which Kazumi giggles at his adorable expression.
"The Quirk Identification test!"
"That's right, 'Kumi!~" She says in a sing-song tone as she hugs Takumi. "You're so smart!~ Must be from all the books you've been reading!"
Takumi was a very gifted child in his parent's eyes. From being able to crawl at 4 months old, walking at 6 months, talking semi-coherently at 8, to learning how to read in merely 10 (They learned this when he was caught reading Yoshiro's confidential documents out loud to himself).
"Momma..." He says as hides his involuntarily blushing face in his shirt causing the lemon haired mother to giggle at his cuteness.
"Alright, alright. Let's get you dressed up now, okay?"
...
30 minutes later, at the Quirk Research Facility
...
"Good morning, Mrs. Kato. I'm glad and your child could make it today." The Doctor says in a formal manner.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world, Dr. Ayumi. It's my son's special day, after all." Kazumi smiled in response.
"His quirk is unlike anything we've ever seen before." Dr. Ayumi Saito said as she looks through a large window peering into a room. There's a child standing in the middle, Takumi Kato, who currently had the dorsal side of his palm and staring at a floating screen. 'It's probably a part of his quirk, I suppose.' Ayumi thinks, staring at the boy before turning to his mother. "And today, we'll see its capabilities." Despite the doctor's serious tone, she couldn't deny she was excited to see the birth of a completely unique quirk. Over her many years of experience in quirk research, she has seen many quirks. However, for every one unique quirk she sees, there's a hundred other carbon copy quirks.
"Then let's not delay, doctor."
"Of course, Mrs. Kato" Ayumi says before she leans into the microphone. "Are you ready, Takumi Kato?"
...
With Takumi a few minutes before
...
Takumi is currently standing in the middle of the testing room, observing the surroundings around him. Which isn't a lot. It was just covered in steel plating with speakers in every top corner of the room. There was also an obsevatory overlooking the whole room where he could see his mother and Ayumi were talking, so he figured it'd probably be a while before the actual test began, so he lifted the back side of his hand.
'DigiLab Access: Party'
_________________________________
[DIGIMON PARTY]
------
[BATTLE PARTY]
[TERRIERMON (LVL2)]
[COST: 4 MEMORY]
[STATS] [DIGIVOLUTION] [EQUIPMENT]
[HAGURUMON (LVL 3)]
[COST: 4 MEMORY]
[STATS] [DIGIVOLUTION] [EQUIPMENT]
[PALMON (LVL 2)]
[COST: 5 MEMORY]
[STATS] [DIGIVOLUTION] [EQUIPMENT]
------
------
[RESERVE PARTY]
[N/A]
------
[MEMORY: 13/60]
[DIGILINE]
_________________________________
He discovered that he could access the DigiLab at anytime, even without his glove when he was two years old to which his parents assumed it was his 'quirk'. 'Well, to be fair, it basically is my quirk here.' He laughed internally. He can still feel his mother's suffocating embrace and his father's hand ruffling his hair.
'DigiLine Access'
_________________________________
[DIGILINE]
[AI◎BA: Is everyone ready?]
[9:21]
[Terriermon: All ready, Takumi!]
[9:21]
[Hagurumon: YES, BOSS.]
[9:21]
[Palmon: Anytime, my friend.]
[9:21]
[AI◎BA: Good! When this test's over, I'll treat you guys to some of my mom's cooking.]
[9:22]
[Terriermon: Wahoo!]
[9:22]
[Palmon: Thank you, Aiba.]
[9:22]
[Hagurumon: AFFIRMATIVE. EXCITEMENT ENGAGED.]
[9:23]
_________________________________
As he was chatting, the speakers suddenly flared up.
"Are you ready, Takumi Aiba?"
_________________________________
[AI◎BA: Alright, that's our call. Are you guys SURE you're ready?]
[9:25]
[Hagurumon: ALL SYSTEMS ARE NOMINAL, BOSS.]
[9:25]
[Terriermon: As ready as we'll ever be!]
[9:25]
[Palmon: Call on us when needed.]
[9:25]
_________________________________
Takumi smirked and let out a single laugh.
"Heh, Yeah. We're ready." He said before he nodded to signal his readiness. Then the speakers flared up again.
"Alright. There are some subjective reports about your quirk, young man. We'll be doing a test for every one of those qualities. The first up is enhanced speed." Ayumi said as a 20 meter long track rose up from the ground simultaneously. At the end of the track was a robot holding a flag and a soundmaker. "When you're ready, get on the starting line"
Takumi nodded before he walked over to the aforementioned starting line and got into a sprint starting position.
"The robot will count down from three. You're allowed to sprint the moment you hear the signal."
Suddenly, the robot begins to count down. "Three."
"Two." The robot says as Takumi raises himself up from the ground slightly.
"One."
'Hack: Accelerate!' Takumi thinks as his body suddenly has an odd visual glitch as zeroes and ones appear around him in an aura like fashion and in Takumi's perspective, the world just got two times slower. Ayumi simply writes down the visual aspects of his quirk down in a clipboard. Then... A loud bang! Takumi begins his sprint the moment he heard the noise. In only 5 seconds, he completed the sprint.
"Impressive work, Young man." Ayumi said in the speakers as the track slowly sunk back down into the floor before writing the details in her clipboard. 'Takumi Aiba is able to speed himself about to exactly two times speed. In the baseline test, Takumi Aiba had completed the 20 meter sprint in 10 seconds. Now that time has been cut down by exactly half.' She leans back into the microphone before speaking. "Now, the second quality of your quirk: Invisibilty." Unlike last time, he was left alone. "Just activate your invisibility at anytime."
In response, Takumi activated his hacking skill. 'Hack: Stealth Hide' All of the sudden he disappeared from their sight, leaving only an empty room. "Hmm... Peculiar." Ayumi says to herself as she observes the empty room. There wasn't a single trace that Takumi had ever been there. No shadows. Then she looked at a monitor. It was connected to a small camera in the room. She then switched the camera to infared. No heat signatures. 'Is this true invisibility?' She thought as she put her hand to her chin in wonder. Suddenly a radio on her desk suddenly flared up. 'Huh? I remember this being turned off...' After that, all sorts of chaos went off. The camera that had been watching began to have odd visual glitches, her phone began to send of notifications of literal nothing. It was then she realized... 'Wait... All of these things have something to do with radiowaves...' It was then that she spoke in the microphone once again.
"Y-ou can- tu-rn -off y-our inv-isib-ilit-y n-ow." The speaker sounded out in a very glitchy manner. In the moment he got the message, he turned off his stealth hide. All of the previously glitching devices ceased to glitch out. 'So it is that.' She confirms. "Thank you for your cooperation, Young man." She says as she looks down to her clipboard once again and begins to write. 'Takumi Aiba's invisibility seems to make him completely undetectable through normal means. Light pass through his invisible body and the invisibility also hides his body heat. However, his invisibility seems to cause radiological disruptions, causing any radiowave emitting device to act peculiarly.'
"Thank you for waiting. We'll now begin the third test. We don't have a name for this ability yet, but you were apparently able to 'jump into electronics' and appeared from one place to another, so I guess this ability should be called teleportation." Takumi quickly realized what they were talking about. His connect jump. His most unique ability, at least to himself. The ability to dive into any electronics that produce digital waves and make himself one with the data, allowing him to travel from one place to another. As long as they are connected in some way. "For this test, you're going to have your phone out. With that, please travel into our location." Takumi nodded in acknowledgement. Then he takes his phone out of his pocket and lays it on the ground. After all, he doesn't wanna drop his phone when he connect jumps into it. He reaches his hand out towards the phone. "Connect Jump!" A small portal appears infront of the phone as he gets sucked into the phone.
"Your child is quite the peculiar one, Mrs. Kato." Ayumi says, complimenting the little red haired cyber sleuth. "I know. He's quite the talented child, isn't he?" Kazumi giggles, but Ayumi isn't having any of it. "You know that's not what I meant, Kazumi." Ayumi's tone suddenly became slightly threatening. "Kazumi Kato. Quirk: Thunderous. Yoshiro Kato. Quirk: Machine King." Ayumi's now glaring at Kazumi, who was glaring right back. Her ever present smile has been wiped off her face and has been replaced by a scowl.
"You know I'm not working for HIM anymore. How DARE you even suggest something like that." Kazumi's rage filled gaze betrayed her calm tone. "So how is your kid doing... this, then? Unless you were able strike a deal with Shigaraki, it's mathematically impossible for your kid's quirk to deviate this much from yourself or your husband's." At this point, Kazumi wasn't having any of it. Her eyes turned almost completely yellow, only with the iris being completely black was it not monotone. Her eyes where also producing an electrical discharge to the side. Where her natural hair ended, high voltage electricity extended it, crackling loudly. Her previously shoulder length hair extended way farther down to knee height. Lastly for the physical changes, her fingers were covered with bright lightning claws.
"I just escaped that life! You're not ruining it for me!" Despite her thretening appearance, Ayumi merely stayed calm and stared her in the eyes before sighing loudly. "Calm down. I'm not reporting you to the authorities or anything. I just wanted to know." She explained before sitting down and crossing her arms. "Besides, you wouldn't want you kid to see you like this, right? I think it's about time he came out." After seconds of deliberation, Kazumi breathed deeply and turn her quirk back off. "Fine..."
Just as she did that, a blue ring manifested behind Kazumi. It quickly rose up as Takumi began to manifest back into the physical world. 'Shigaraki, huh? I'll keep that in mind for future reference.' Takumi completely heard that entire conversation. The only reason he didn't get to the room earlier is because he was waiting for their conversation to complete. 'Call me facebook, because I know how to invade other people's privacy' He quietly chuckled to himself before turning to his mother.
"Momma! Hello! Hello to you too, doctor!" He said in a childlike manner. 'I could choose to act more like his usual self, but I think it'd be really odd if a child suddenly changed overnight, so this'll do for now.'
"'Kumi! You're sooo cute!" His mother says before lifting him up in an embrace, to which Takumi hugged back. "Welcome back!"
"Indeed. Welcome back young man. Now let's get the guards to get back to the testing room." Ayumi says to which Takumi shakes his head. "No need for that, doctor!" He says much to Ayumi's confusion. He opens his palm in front of him as a small folder shaped object with the letter E on its cover. Then, he closes his palm, and crushing the card which caused a blue ring to appear above and below him. The ring above quickly went down on him. When the top ring touched the bottom ring, it compressed into an intangible ball of light which levitated upwards through the roof of the building. After that, the same ball of light went inside of the testing room and touched the ground. Once there, it disappeared to be replaced by the same blue rings, and in the middle materialized Takumi.
"I'm here now, Doctor! Let's start the next text" Takumi smiled widely. Not due to excitement, no, but rather to Ayumi and Kazumi's expressions. Ayumi simply sighed and facepalmed while Kazumi was giggling, much to Ayumi's annoyance. "Alright, young man. If you're that excited. The next one will be the last quality of your quirk which was listed to me as a 'Secret' by your mother. All I know is that it's a combat oriented ability." As she says that, something foreboding and heavy sounding is rising up from the ground. "So the goal here is to test your mettle." Finally, the mystery object was revealed. It was a one-pointer Villain Bot. He can tell since he went to the U.A sports festival with his parents just a few days ago.
"Defeat this Villain Bot by any means necessary. Signal me when you're ready." 'Here it is.' He thought before he opened the DigiLine once more
_________________________________
[AI◎BA: It's you guys' time to shine!]
[9:39]
[Terriermon: I've been waiting for this!]
[9:39]
[Hagurumon: AFFIRMATIVE. COMBAT MODE: ENGAGED]
[9:39]
[Palmon: We are ready for combat, Aiba.]
_________________________________
Takumi smirked before extending his arm out. "Come to me! Terriermon! Hagurumon! Palmon!" He shouts out, causing Ayumi and Kazumi to raise their eyebrows. While Kazumi has seen his son's summons before, these ones had different names. Meanwhile, Ayumi was confused.
'Terriermon? Hagurumon? Palmon? What-' Her thoughts were interrupted by zeroes and ones appearing in front of him, as three blue rings appear from the ground and materialize three monsters. A white and green... dog? Rabbit? They didn't know. It looked quite the energetic creature. To its left was a mechanical looking creature made of gears. Even its body looked like a gear. Lastly was Palmon. A green plantlike creature with lanky arms, sharp claws, and a tropical looking flower on top of its head.
"Excuse me? We're ready!" Takumi said with excitement which knocked Ayumi out of her stupor. "Right. Activating Villain Bot: Victorious now." The Villain Bot flared up twitching as it calibrated itself. 'Hack: Accelerate' "Terriermon! Palmon! With me! Hagurumon, wait here! Attack on my signal!" He ran towards with Terriermon and Palmon following not far behind to which the robot responded by raising its shields up to defend. What it didn't know was that Takumi was the feint.
"So much for an advanced AI!" He mocked the robot. When Takumi watched the sports festival, he noticed that the Victorious model had two tendencies. The first to block in front of their face which obscured their vision. The second is the tendency is to let the enemy attack first to set up a counter. Thus justifying the feint.
"Palmon! Open up its defenses with Poison Ivy!" Takumi commanded. "Right! Take this! Poison Ivy!" Palmon shouts out from behind the Villain Bot as her venomous claws extend to wrap around the One-pointer's arms. Then, she pulls back, setting the shields apart and leaving the one-pointer open to damage! That move also sunk the sharp ends of her claws into the robot. While of course, the Villain Bot wasn't a being that could be poisoned normally, being that it's a robot, it still had a digtal being to it. Meaning Palmon's digital venom could still affect it.
The poison's effect was noticable almost instantaneously as it started to resist Palmon's vines less and less. "Alright! Terriermon, bust its armor open!" "Okay! Stay back, Takumi!" Terriermon opens its mouth as a large amount of heat gathers in his maw. "Blazing Fire!" Terriermon says before spewing out a superheated blast of air, causing the armor of the Victorious to melt and revealing its delicate wiring.
"Okay! You know what to do, Hagurumon!" "AFFIRMATIVE." The cog creature responded robotically. The gears to its side begin to spin around quicker and quicker and they are surrounded by a dark and sinister aura. "INITIATING ATTACK PROGRAM: DARKNESS GEARS" Hagurumon launches the two gears directly at the exposed part of the Villain Bot, crushing it as the two gears work in tandem to grind on the robot's wiring and slowly eating and corroding through it until it eventually pierces through and returns to back Hagurumon like a boomerang. The Villain Bot is defeated!
_________________________________
[VICTORY!]
[EXP: 150]
[YEN: 200]
[ITEMS: N/A]
"Nice! We won! Nice job everybody!" All of his digimon relax for a moment before exploding out into cheers. "Heck yeah!" "All in a day's work, Aiba." "COMBAT MODE: DISENGAGED" He raises his palm for a high five, only for them to try to do it all at once. "Hey! One at a time, dinguses." The sleuth gang laugh together. It was good to be back again.
Meanwhile, with the two adults, they were shocked at what they witnessed. Kazumi was more impressed that she was shocked, but still, it was a hell of a sight. She was definitely proud of her son. With Ayumi, however, it was astonishing. She was completely speechless. A venom that could affect machines? Melting air? Corroding gears? 'I'm pretty sure I've seen everything in this life...' Her jaw hung open at what she had seen. "Careful, 'Yumi. You might swallow a fly." Kazumi teases the Doctor, which earned her a glare.
"Alright kid, that's all the tests done. Come to the observatory." Takumi listened to the speaker before nodding, and leaving the room.
...
Moments later at the observatory.
...
"You've got an extremely powerful child, Mrs. Kato" Ayumi compliments the powerful boy, to which he laughs. "It's nothing, really." Takumi humbly replies. "Of course my son's powerful! He's my son, after all." She laughs, to which Ayumi smirks, much to Takumi's confusion. 'Hm. Must be an inside joke.' "Now that all the tests are out of the way, all we need now is a name for your quirk. Usually, the parents or the doctor would be the ones to name a child's quirk... But since you're a... special case... We've decided to let you name it." Ayumi says before Takumi perks up. "Oh- Actually I already had a name for it!"
"Oh? What is it then, young man?"
"It's gonna be Digital Nexus!"