My thanks to "Akino Ame" for this wonderful summary!
Images prepared by me (Julie).
In a universe unrelated to the previous seasons, we see a boy in goggles running maniacally through the streets of Jiyuugaoka, Tokyo. He looks at the time on his cell phone and whines, "5:40?" As he runs past a father and son playing soccer, the son loses control of the ball, sending it into the street. The goggle boy volunteers to get it, muttering, "It's these days." But as he finally gets it, a large truck straight out of the Oikawa saga or the movie comes careening toward him. All he can say is, "Ah, perfect! This is my destiny?" His name is Takuya Kanbara.
We are taken back several minutes in time to see him sitting at the kitchen table, bored out of his mind. The phone rings, and his mother answers. Takuya's father apparently can't make it to little brother Shinya's birthday. From the floor, Shinya requests a forklift while Takuya decides to steal one of the strawberries off the cake. Their mother reprimands the both of them. But then, as if answering his wish for an adventure, Takuya's cell phone displays an odd text message: "Do you want to start? Yes No" Takuya presses "Yes."
A woman's voice on the other end pronounces his name carefully, causing him to stare in surprise. She continues, "It's time to decide your future, Takuya." He is told to take the 5:45 outbound train from Jiyuugaoka station. Like any goggle head of the previous three seasons, he agrees.
Outside of memories, the truck just barely misses Takuya, but rather than being relieved that he didn't die there, he's frantic about getting to the station.
When he finally arrives, he remembers that he doesn't have more money and that he should have asked for more allowance. Exasperated, he slams his head against the ticket machine, receiving in return a red ticket with an odd shine about it. Believing it to be destiny, he runs onto the train and collapses from exhaustion. As he notices that a billion cell phones are going off at the same time, he soon observes that a boy his age pulls out his cell phone before a new message arrives, telling him to transfer to the 6:00 westbound train at Shibuya station. He glances at some guy's watch to see that it's 17:54 (5:54 P.M.) before screaming in frustration. The other boy stares at him like he's crazy. (Note: this scene is somewhat different in episode #22. In that, the other boy stares at Takuya as he collapses, not after he screams.)
The train stops, and Takuya looks around for anything that can clue him in on what to do. The other boy (whose name is Koji, FYI) walks directly past him and weaves in and out of lines to get to the elevator. Only Takuya seems to notice he even exists. But luckily he does, because it dawns on him to follow Koji to find out whether he has any idea what's going on. He runs and makes a wild jump to get into Koji's elevator before it closes-never knowing that we'll later learn that someone else was trying to get on as well.
Koji, apparently, is far from social. Takuya tries to ask him whether or not he got the same message, but the other boy ignores him. But Koji then looks up, almost as though expecting the sudden change in speed of the elevator as it descends past the basement levels. Takuya makes the very fair decision that his destiny is "really starting to bite."
The elevator lands, and Takuya mutters something about no more landing on his head. They are greeted with several kids and several trains. The voice on the phone informs, "It's up to you now. Which one will you choose?" Koji darts past without a single word to Takuya, who just wants to have some idea of where to go. His reaction? Takuya: "Geez, my phone talks more than that guy."
The clock strikes six. Two older kids (named Katsuharu and Teppei. And Teppei [glasses] looks a lot shorter later on, as does Katsuharu [but not as much]) push a little boy into a train while its doors close on a girl and an overweight boy. The trains depart, and Takuya runs toward the one with these three, jumping onto the rail just in the nick of time. But when he looks up, he sees Koji standing on the platform of the other train, staring coldly. Fortunately for Takuya, their trains go down separate tunnels.
He enters to see the three, who are named Tommy (Himi), Zoe (Orimoto), and J.P. (Shibayama) respectively. Unlike him, they didn't board the train for any special reason.
The train hits a bump or something in the tracks, and the four kids are thrown to the floor. As the bumping continues, Takuya notices odd forms superimposed on him and his comrades. What could any of this mean? His cell phone disintegrates and reforms into something new. An almost target symbol appears on the screen, and the voice informs him of everything that's happening.
Freaky disembodied female voice: "Welcome to the Digital World. This is your D-tector."
Takuya fittingly asks what he's gotten himself into before checking to see if everyone else got the message. They're all staring at their new D-tectors in fear. Obviously, they did.
After encounters with some creatures they would later know as Poyomon, they arrive in a fiery city on a ravaged world. To greet them are some tiny gray heads (known as Pagumon to us survivors of the last seasons) that comment on how they hope these new friends last longer than their old ones. The train rudely shoves them out on the floor before kind of mocking them. Takuya is surprised, but the train introduces itself as a living being called Trailmon. Trailmon explains that they're in Flame Terminal, the heart of a Digimon village. But before the kids can ask more, the Pagumon start scaring them and Tommy begins to cry. Lucky Trailmon leaves and tells them that they can leave if they find a Spirit.
Desperate to leave, Tommy runs along the tracks with Takuya after him. He carefully balances over the nothingness below him while Takuya reasons with him to come back. He offers to take care of Tommy like a brother, and just when it works, the small boy nearly falls. But as Takuya is prepared to make his way across to get him, green flames consume a large building.
Enter the most annoying creatures. One has a pseudo-British accent while the other sounds like movie Gargomon. They tackle Takuya, who kindly asks them to get off. But before they can, a large three-headed dog comes through the fire. The British Digimon explains that it's Cerberumon, whose special attack is Emerald Blaze-the entire reason why the two stooges need Takuya's help.
Cerberumon explains that he can sense the Spirit's presence in the town and that he must destroy it. Takuya declares, "No way! It's mine!" before he even has a clue what a Spirit is (kind of greedy, don't you think?). Cerberumon blasts at Takuya (missing him initially, but goggle head manages to run through the flames to get to Tommy) and devours a shining fractal that appears from the destroyed land. Unfortunately, this throws the track off-balance and sends them to the ground.
Takuya's D-tector shines a beam into a large fire, creating a column of light and flame. Inside, the Spirit of Flame is revealed. Cerberumon comes forth to destroy it, but Takuya fends him off with a pipe, commenting, "This ranks pretty high on a scale of 1-Stupid!" But Cerberumon leaps into the column with Takuya holding onto his tail. The Spirit's power casts out Cerberumon but accepts Takuya. The flames are reflected in his eyes as he and a manifestation of the Spirit walk to each other and unite. He calls out, "Spirit!" and reaches out for his D-tector, which flies to his hand. He uses it to fire a light beam at the Spirit, which enters the digivice and reveals a slightly distorted version of the kanji for "flame" on the screen.
Voice of Digivolution, er, D-tector: "It is time."
"Execute Spirit Evolution! Agunimon!"
At this sight, the British Digimon pulls out a green book and begins looking up Agunimon's stats. As just about anyone could figure out, he's the Legendary Warrior of Flame.
Agunimon gets Tommy and the two Digimon to safety before falling into one of Cerberumon's Portals of Darkness. Long story short, Cerberumon kicks his butt around before Agunimon uses Pyro Tornado and destroys him. From there, Agunimon scans the Fractal Code from Cerberumon, reducing him to no more than a shimmering digiegg. Agunimon gracefully falls to the ground as Fractal Code surrounds him, breaking down to reveal a winded Takuya. He doesn't have any clue how he knew what to do, but the voice explains everything.
Voice: "You are DigiDestined."
Takuya: "I'm what now?"
Voice: "DigiDestined. Chosen for great things. But don't be frightened; the one who chose you is you."
As Takuya wonders if anything will ever be normal again, a blue Trailmon passes by with Koji on board. The new narrator, Rika, implies that all of us have already seen the fansubs or read the spoilers by saying, "These guys have no idea what they've gotten themselves into, but I bet you know."
