1: Out With the Old
"Thanks so much for coming out, everyone; I hope to be back in Chicago soon!"
"Azuma, you rock!" his manager, Davis, said as he exhaustedly hobbled off stage. "That crowd loved you, and the new song you sung, 'Wait For You', will be your next single for sure!"
"Thanks guys," he replied. He wasn't in the mood to talk – Azuma was too tired. Being on a nation-wide tour takes a lot out of an 18-year-old. His short brown hair was sweaty, and his vocal chords were exhausted. He put on his brown American Eagle hoodie over a faded pink shirt and blue jeans. His gargantuan feet were almost bursting out of his ratty, black high-top Converses. "Back onto the bus?"
"Let's load'er up, we've gotta get all the way to Detroit by tomorrow!"
They started loading equipment. Azuma took two guitars onto the bus and set them down in the trunk. He went back to get another load of cables when something caught his eye.
"Hey, man," Azuma called. "This is private property. What are you doing back here?" An abnormally tall man loomed twenty feet away, and yet no one seemed to notice him. He wore a black fedora, complimenting a beige trench coat that stretched down to his black leather boots. His eyes were draped in shadow.
"Azuma Monuru?" a deep voice bellowed from the man.
"Yeah, what's it to ya?" He hesitated.
"Good," he said, revealing decaying teeth in a grotesque smile. Azuma grimaced.
And with that, he vanished. At Azuma's feet lay a pale device, about the size of a cell phone. It had four buttons on it – three white circular buttons on its face under a square screen and one rectangular strip on top. He didn't touch it.
"Did anyone else see that?" Azuma screamed; his exhaustion being nothing more than a memory.
"See what?" asked Davis.
"That man!" he exclaimed. "The huge hooded one, with the bad teeth! He was right there!"
"We heard ya talking to someone," joked the guitarist. "But didn't see any hooded man. You're hallucinating, kid – get on the bus."
"And pick up your cell phone," Davis scolded. "You'll need it." Azuma didn't know what this gadget was, but he did as instructed. He picked it up. The pale device slowly started to turn bright orange and the buttons black, as if Azuma's touch activated it. The small LED screen flickered, turned on, and read:
Welcome Azuma
The LED screen shone a blinding white light, and Azuma was knocked to the ground. After the light subsided, he stood up, astounded at what he saw.
He was still in the parking lot with the tour bus and everything, but it wasn't the same. In every direction, little cubes of material protruded from the surroundings. They were all sorts of cool colours – blue-green, yellow, green, etc. Vines and decay coated the bus and entwined themselves with the entrance to the venue. He looked towards the light red sky. Everyone was gone.
"Hello?" Azuma called reluctantly.
A crash came from the distance. Miles away over by a K-mart, a plume of smoke erupted. Azuma ran towards it.
What he found wasn't what he was expecting at all. Kneeling down in the K-mart parking lot in between all the vine-covered cars was a little creature Azuma had never seen before, only about as high as Azuma's hips. It was clutching its own arm; the orange fur that covered its entire body was matted and ruffled. The gauntlets it wore around its wrists held a fading orange light, akin to the emblem on its forehead.
"Are you okay?" Azuma asked it.
"H-human?" it stuttered. It could barely breathe.
"What's wrong?" I kept pressing. "How can I help?" Suddenly, another burst came from the building. Shattered glass flew everywhere and dissipated into a flurry of cubes. Another creature landed paws-first twenty feet away from them. This one was bigger and had wings.
"A human?" the new monster exclaimed. "What's a human doing in the DigiQuartz and why is he interfering, Coronamon?"
"I-I don't know," started Coronamon. "I'm just as surprised as you are, Gryphonmon. How did you get here?"
"I-I was trying to figure that out myself," Azuma stuttered. "My name's Azuma. I got sent here by this stupid thing." He held out the gadget, for both of them to see.
"That's – ugh," Coronamon stammered. He winced in pain and fell to the floor. Gryphonmon charged.
"Hey - don't touch him!" Azuma didn't know what he was doing, but he shouted and ran in between the two of them. That's when the device in his hand shone a blinding orange light.
"Coronamon!" Azuma shouted as he held his hand over the green strip on the top of the device. His hands felt like they were on fire; he felt like they were controlling themselves. The light emanating from the device concentrated itself on Coronamon. The light's power was so strong and hot that it pushed Gryphonmon away, and stood Coronamon up.
"Human," Coronamon muttered. "What's happening to me?"
Then, Coronamon started to change shape. The light from the device encased Coronamon's small humanoid body, and seemed to make it grow. Coronamon spread its enormous golden wings to shake away the remainder of the light still emanating from the monster, revealing the orange feathers coating its body. The emblem that Coronamon held proudly on its forehead shone even brighter on this new body.
"Human, what have you done?" Coronamon asked. "You've triggered Evolution!"
"Hmph, so what? As if I'd go down without a fight!" Gryphonmon howled. Coronamon was now twice the size of Gryphonmon. Azuma sighed in relief.
Then, the two monsters fought; they matched each other paw for paw and blow for blow. Azuma noticed the cars in the parking lot before the intense fighting started were no longer there, but the fight was too intense. Eventually, Gryphonmon hit the ground.
"Urk," Gryphonmon spat out. "How dare you side with a human. I'll retreat for now and tell the master what the Rebellion's new player is." As he finished speaking, Gryphonmon vanished into thin air just as Coronamon reverted normal size.
"What are you?" Azuma asked Coronamon.
"I'm a Digimon," he replied, proudly.
"A Digi-what?" asked a confused Azuma.
"This Digital plane of existence we're in now is a side-product of your own world; the discarded data from your communications networks piles up here and mimics your own world. So much so that it produces the same landforms that are in your world, right down to the things that live in it. In order to exist here, your body is composed of data cells. What you just saw was a process called Evolution – a process that temporarily grants the user transformation into its future self. I've only heard about that process in legends - I didn't think it was actually real," explained Coronamon.
"Does that make us a team or something?" Azuma asked again.
"Guess so," said the monster. Azuma's mind was still reeling. Why was he given this small device in the first place? He picked it up out of his pocket and examined it again, running his fingers across the pale skin. It was strange how a device that small could cause such a huge change. What was the Evolution process? Azuma looked around at the now empty parking lot. Every single car was gone.
"Anyways, do you have a place to stay? Do you want to sleep at my place?" asked Coronamon.
Better than a tour bus bed, Azuma thought. Coronamon led him further away from the familiar tour bus and parking lot. They ducked under rotten trees and weaved through eroded buildings; all swarmed with the same neon cubes as before. The city was dark. Azuma looked up for the first time and gasped. Above them in the light red sky, sheets of metalloid material floated alongside small grey clouds.
"Won't those fall on us?" Azuma screamed to Coronamon.
Coronamon laughed. "They've been floating there for ages. It's just spare data that comes from your world and isn't needed right now. When it's needed, it gets used. But for now, it just floats there."
After a lot of crawling and ducking, Coronamon stopped in front of a tree trunk.
"Here we are," Coronamon sighed happily. He stepped right through the tree trunk, much to Azuma's disbelief.
"Where'd you go, Coronamon?" Azuma screamed.
"Just do what I did!" Coronamon seemed to call from within the tree trunk. Azuma hesitated, and then followed. He gasped in astonishment at what he saw. The tree was five times the size on the inside.
"Digital projections," hollered Coronamon, who seemed to be compiling leaves adjacent to another pile. "I learned how to manipulate the data around the outside this place, to make it look like just an ordinary tree. Oh, and this is where you'll sleep." He pointed to the pile of leaves he'd just assembled. All that stood in this room were these two piles of leaves. It was an empty home, but a home at that.
Azuma was wrong, definitely not better than a tour bus bed. Nonetheless, the two of them said their goodnights. Although Azuma didn't know what time it was, he tried to sleep. The image of the man from earlier kept popping up into his mind. How could he have gone from being a normal teenage earth boy to this crazy place? Was he meant to be here? How could he ever get home? He stared at all of the neon cubes littered about as his eyes started to droop lower. The last thing in he could remember thinking about that night was how Coronamon's fiery tail didn't ignite the bed of leaves he was sleeping on.