It was a beautiful sunny morning, the voices of children and teenagers filling the streets of the city, the sounds of their feet echoing as they ran from one shop to the next, looking in awe at all the new gadgets they could acquire. The new update had just been released and a lot of the items that made most people famous for owning, and were rare or sought after had now been replaced with even better objects.
The shops were alive, adorned with promotion and sales signs, attracting more customers than the last update.
Most of the new and inexperienced Tamers rushed into them right away to spend all their bits on whatever they could get their hands on, in the hopes of becoming better, impressing their friends, or just because they wanted to do something with their money.
A lot of attention was given to the new Digivice models that had been released. D-Tectors was their name, and they seemed to have a built in scan ability, making the acquiring of data that much easier for newer players.
Far away from all of the commotion, sitting with his back to the pole of File City's welcoming sign, was Sam. Watching the younger Tamers all excited and active, made him yearn for the days when he was still so oblivious about the true way to obtain glory within this game. Like most successful MMO's, Digimon World was all about player driven economy and the willingness of everyone to cooperate and work with one another, however most players striving to shape the economy within this world got their financial start by scamming the beginners of all their money.
Sam smirked as he looked down onto his own Digivice, the legendary D-1, which was strapped around his wrist like a watch. It was a special item which he had won during an event held last year. He had to beat a couple of boss Digimon, followed by a match against another Tamer, probably a Game Moderator, he assumed looking back at it.
The Digivice looked similar to a wrist brace, with a small antenna sticking out of it. A square display had been placed in the middle of it, which gave Sam information on his Digimon, as well as his opponents, items, and enabled him to give commands to his partner without even having to say a word.
It was a helpful tool, far better than the Digivices available to buy within File City. But he wouldn't tell the new players that. They had to figure it out for themselves, just like he had to.
He pulled up one of his legs, resting his arm on his knee, while studying the display of his Digivice further. On it, a small sprite was moving from one side of the screen to the other, traveling back and forth. It looked like a small green lizard, with a red saw on his back, and every so often it would stop walking to yell at him.
It was his partner Betamon, a Deep Saver, waiting to be released from his home, in order to join Sam on an adventure. A warm smile worked its way onto the boys lips as he watched it chew away at the stack of meat laying on the right side of the screen.
It had taken him two years to hatch a Betamon. During the time that he had started playing Digimon World, a bug had sneaked its way into the game, rendering it almost impossible to raise a Deep Saver. The company behind the game was unable to fix this for almost a year due to the unidentified nature of the bug, Sam's repeated attempts of raising a Betamon failed each time.
He obtained a fresh Deep Saver egg, which in itself was a hard task, and took care of it, bathed it, kept it warm, but every time it would hatch, there would be a message, telling him the data was corrupt, that they would instead give him another egg of his choosing. But he never gave up, and he kept trying, until he eventually beat the odds and a cute little Bukamon waved at him with a smile on its face.
Before that, most of his friends told him that it was useless and he should instead focus on raising his MetalGreymon into a WarGreymon, but he had no interest in that anymore.
Not that he didn't love his MetalGreymon, which he had named Ruby, but he had always been far more excited by the Seadramon evolution line.
Feeling a little guilty, he flipped the pages of the D-1 until it displayed his very first Digimon.
Sam waved it, uncertain if it would even react to him, but to his relief, the little sprite began smiling happily.
Sam shut his eyes and took a deep breath before hitting two buttons on his Digivice, causing the antenna to emit a blue beam in front of him, which quickly turned into the shape of a full grown MetalGreymon, until it eventually was standing in front of him.
Staring directly down at him, the beast watched anxiously as Sam got up and patted the dirt off of his jeans, before walking up to it, and affectionately rub it's knee.
"How are you Ruby?" he asked in a kind and soft tone.
The Digimon let out a quiet, meaningful roar, showing it's Tamer that it was fine.
He nodded and leaned against it's leg, something he hadn't done in quite a while, much to MetalGreymon's joy.
Taking a single look at Ruby: a massive, dark scaled beast with a giant, metallic claw in place of its left arm, metal plating covering the top of its head, and tattered, purple wings, with holes burned through them, growing out of its back, you would probably run.
Which is also exactly what a couple of younger players did, when they saw it materialize in front of the city gates.
To Sam however, this was a beautiful, smart creature, not intent on hurting anyone, unless given orders to do so. It loved its Tamer, and he loved it too. He was slightly saddened by this nice moment they were sharing, both enjoying each others presence like they had done many times before, despite the fact that he had recently chosen to abandon it's training for Betamon.
He was sure Ruby was aware of this too. But it didn't matter, it simply loved being out and next to him again.
"I remember when I got you as a Koromon." Sam reminisced. "You were so loud and needy."
Ruby seemed to become embarrassed by those memories, judging by the low sounds it was making. In its Baby and Child stages, it would always cling onto Sam, asking for pets whenever possible and was even a little scared of other Digimons.
Despite it's slightly cowardly nature, it had still grown into a huge beast, ready to fight anything it's Tamers way, if this was even necessary, seeing how most enemies would already be intimidated by its razor sharp teeth, the two scar ridden horns growing out of it's head plate, or the blade like horn placed over it's nose.
If all that proved to be insufficient, it still had two Nuclear Rockets waiting to be fired from behind the two metal plates covering it's chest. It truly was a terrifying enemy to face.
Yet here it was, wanting looking for it's Tamers love and approval, almost like a big guard dog. Content with it's current situation, the Digimon got on one knee, lowering itself enough for Sam to lean his head against it's. The boy put his hand on MetalGreymon's plate and gently pet it. He wasn't even sure if the Digimon underneath could feel it, but it certainly seemed to appreciate it as it closed it's eyes and produced a sound that resembled the purring of a cat.
The duo stayed like this for a while, before Sam turned his head towards his partner.
"Do you want to evolve?" he asked suddenly.
Ruby's eyes instantly opened wide and moved to meet it's Tamers gaze. A long silence followed as both of them just stared into each others eyes, Sam sunken into deep thoughts.
He began chewing on his lip anxiously before directing his words back at his Digimon.
"I mean most Tamers eventually attempt to get an Ultimate Digimon." the Tamer reminded it. "But if you don't want to risk it, we won't."
Finally his smile returned to his face as he seemed to escape his thoughts.
"So what do you want to do?"
A few hours later, a blue flame flickered up within the middle of File City, quickly growing to a larger size, before taking on the shape of a human. Eneris had just logged into the game. As the light faded, a beautiful girl, with brown hair that reached down to her waist, a couple of purple strands mixed into it, emerged from it.
She had chocolate colored eyes, clashing with her rather pale skin. She was wearing a black hoodie, with a blue cat paw on the front of it, and gray shorts that went down to her knees.
The girl was wearing a hat in the shape of cat ears, which she had won at an auction a couple of days ago, costing her most of her remaining bits. Her Digivice, a standard D-Power, was hanging from the key-chain on the side of her shorts.
She quickly scanned the area for someone, shaking her head after she was certain he wasn't here, and then made her way out of File city, through the west exit, into the Home Forest. The second she stepped through the gate, she could see a couple of ModikBetamon fighting against younger Tamers.
One of them, who had a Hawkman as his partner, seemed to do really well, acting as a unit with his Digimon, moving with it and giving it intelligent commands beyond simply "Attack!" or "Dodge!".
She smiled and watched for a while, before moving deeper into the forest, past the first couple of clearings, taking a glance at the path to the north west, which lead into Mt. Panorama, checking to see if the person she was looking for had gone there. Unable to see him between the entrance and the fork in the road at the horizon, she shook her head once more and turned around to move towards the Dragon Eye Lake.
As she moved past the building in the center of the biggest clearing of the home forest, which happened to be a toilet for Digimon, she spotted a Tamer about the age of twelve and her Palmon racing each other from the cliff side, off to the right side of the clearing, all the way to the lake, and then running straight back. It seemed to be some sort of exercise for them, which Eneris admired.
That age and already training hard, she thought, as she continued towards the south end of the lake. She passed by a couple of wild Goburimon and pushed her way through some weeds in desperate need of being cut down, before finally reaching the small shore.
As she had expected, sitting on the edge, his feet dipped into the water was Sam. His gaze resting on the horizon, wondering what other lands would wait out there with the coming expansion to the game.
She crept up behind him, watching his curly, black hair sway in the wind. It reached down to his chin, and had one or two blue strands on it. She wasn't the biggest fan of them, but considering the fun she had with her own hair, she could hardly argue with his decision.
He wore a black hoodie similar to herself, with a zipper going diagonally from his right shoulder down to his waist. On it was the logo of the original Digimon Virtual Pets. It was an item he had won within a Tournament he had placed second in. Not because he wasn't good enough to take first, but simply because he preferred the hoodie over the Digivice the winner took home. After all, he already had his D-1.
His black jeans began to soak up the water he exposed it to, but he seemed to take no notice of that.
A splash nearby made her jerk a bit. She took a quick glance and discovered that a Betamon had been swimming next to Sam this entire time. It had to be Nappy.
"So your meeting went well I take it?" Sam said, his back still turned to her.
Eneris smiled, before taking a seat right next to him, putting her right arm around him.
"Yeah, I got the job. Should be an easy commission." she replied, while staring at the reflection of the sinking sun upon the water surface.
The two sat next to each other in silence for a little while, before Sam finally lifted his head and looked around.
"Where is Lizzie?" he wanted to know.
Eneris nodded and quickly removed her Digivice from it's chain, and with the push of a few buttons, a blinding light shot out of it, forming itself into a small blue blob.
DemiVeemon, or Lizzie as Eneris had called her, was the girls pride. Being a lot less competitive than her counterpart, she had never won that many trophies or title as Sam, but the tournament she simply had to win was the Adventure-Two Cup. It was special event that not only made it possible to hatch specific Digimon for a limited time, but also had a huge tournament at the end, with the winner receiving a ExVeemon Egg in order to raise it's own Veemon line.
She had always had a huge interest in this particular Digimon, so when the girl read the announcement, she immediately began training with the already raised Antylamon, Cloe. For weeks the two spent all her free time doing nothing but seeking out other tamers or wild Digimon in order to battle them, and sometimes simply went to the Green Gym if there was no one willing to fight.
When the day of the tournament had finally come, Eneris and Antylamon destroyed their competition, and made it to the Semi-Finale, where she was put up against her boyfriend himself. The without a doubt most interesting battle within the event, lasting for almost an hour, finally had a winner when Ruby missed Cloe with one of its missiles, causing debris to fill the air, behind which Antylamon could hide until the right moment to strike had come.
Taking first place and hearing the cheers of the crowd echo within the halls of the arena gave both Tamer and Digimon more confidence in their combined strength.
However now that she had obtained a new baby Digimon, it was time for Eneris to start all over with its training. DemiVeemon jumped into her lap, staring up at Eneris with big, expecting eyes, until the girl began petting it, which caused the Digimon to squeal with joy.
"Little guy sure does love you." Sam stated quietly, while reaching for her hand. "So do I."
Eneris smiled, resting her head on his shoulder, as both of them continued watching the water sway, and the sun disappear behind the horizon.