Episode One : Dawn of a New Adventure

PART I

Two children are running through a jungle: one boy, one girl. The boy is chasing the girl through hanging ferns, stumbling over gnarled roots and nearly slipping in dry mud beds. After passing through so many clearings and dodging so many rocky outcroppings, the girl's breathing intensifies as a familiar pain in her chest begins to gradually return.

"Hey, I need to stop. My chest is hurting." She says between gasps for air.

Retrieving an inhaler from her pocket, she takes several breaths from it while leaning against a tree. She does this until the growing pain in her chest subsides.

"Kent?" She calls out.

There is nothing else to be heard but for the natural sounds of the forest: chirping birds, buzzing insects, and the sound of a babbling stream somewhere in the distance, that she could remember having visited before on one memorable occasion. She moves away from the tree and warily continues on, at a slow walk.

"This isn't funny, Kent. If you jump out of the bushes and scare me or something, I swear I'll-"

Something weighty lands on top of her head, causing her to scream and slip backward. She lands on her butt. Groaning as her eyelids flutter open, her gaze introduces her to the smiling face of a small round creature with four legs and a plant sprouting out of its head, that now sat on her chest.

"Tanemon!" The girl exclaims.

A boy with wavy light brown hair emerges from the brush, laughing. In his arms he is holding a pink blob-like creature with tiny, clawed hands.

"Sorry Setsu, we just couldn't let the opportunity go to waste." He says as he sets the pink creature on the ground. "And we tagged Motimon too, so we win."

She looks down, the bangs of her dark red hair fall and cover her eyes. A frown forms across her lips, causing Tanemon, the pink creature called Motimon and the boy to exchange concerned glances.

"Setsuko, is your chest alright? That scare didn't give you a heart attack or something, did it?" The pink creature says, clinging unto her arm. "I tried to get them to stop, I really did."

"What's wrong, Setsu?" Tanemon asks worriedly.

Out of nowhere, Setsuko bursts into laughter. The other three flinch out of surprise.

"Motimon, I'm fine." She assures him, patting him on the head.

"Well I just wanted to be sure." Motimon says, blushing.

Setsuko glares at the boy. "You can at least help me up now, Kent. You jerk." She smiles again and laughs to show she wasn't serious.

Grinning, Kent offers helps pull her back up to her feet.

"By the way I know you're behind me, Gem." He declares confidently.

A girl with spiky blonde hair lunges out of a nearby bush, positively flabbergasted. "What?! How did you know?"

A shorter boy with long orange hair holding a spherical head appears behind her quietly. He has a blank look on his face, and is holding a spherical creature covered in orange fur with a dagger-like horn jutting out of its head.

"It's just a sixth sense I have. You wouldn't understand." He says coolly.

"Well, I saw you coming from a mile away, while I was in the tree." Tanemon says, grinning proudly, and much to the chagrin of Kent."But I didn't see Yamato-chan." It admits with a frown.

"Well he's always been pretty good at blending in, hasn't he?" Gem says while ruffling the hair of the small boy. He swiftly swats her hand away as if it were a pesky fly, looking somewhat annoyed.

Setsuko, Motimon, Kent and Tanemon laugh.

"Hey, why'd you-"

Before she can finish, she is interrupted by the sudden onset of an incessant beeping noise. Feeling a vibration in her pocket, Setsuko withdraws from it a rectangular, light blue object small enough to fit into the palm of her hand. It is clearly an electronic device, with its reflective monitor screen and several buttons lined up along its face. This was the source of the beeping noise.

She clicks a button with her thumb and the screen immediately comes to life. In it, she sees the face of a man who looks to be in his thirties. He has short, dark red hair much like her's and the same dark eyes crowned by a pair of bushy eyebrows that were always pulled back as though he were constantly in a state of deep contemplation.

"Yeah, dad?" Setsuko speaks into the device.

Koushiro Izumi is communicating with her through a computer from someplace that is not anywhere near a jungle of any magnitude. He dons a lab coat similar to those worn by the many people seated at other desks all around him, typing away on their own computers.

"How are you doing, honey?" He asks her, slurring the 'honey' bit awkwardly.

"I'm fine, dad." She looks around at the other children quickly. "We're having a blast."

Izumi smiles in the strange way that he does, in that the look in his eyes never loses its seriousness. "I'm glad to hear it."

Setsuko is about to say something but she is pushed aside by the always cheerful Gem, whose beaming profile now takes up the nearly the entire screen on Izumi's end. "Hello, Setsuko's dad!"

"Hello, Nyoko-kun." He responds, sounding less than enthused.

After the sound of a minor struggle Setsuko returns to Izumi's screen, looking flustered.

"So what is it?"

"You should start saying goodbye to Motimon and the others. We're going home, soon."

Setsuko's expression immediately sinks, and when she turns to face the group she sees that the reaction was contagious. It was as though all of the joy had been sucked out of them.

"It's not that bad. We'll get to come back next weekend, like always." Setsuko says reassuringly, although it was as much an attempt to cheer them up as it was to cheer herself up.

"A week full of the same old school, homework, buses and chores." Kent grumbles, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, no big deal."

"He's kind of got a point." Gem agrees, running a hand through her hair like she usually does when she's stressed. "The weekend never seems to come soon enough."

Yamato, Motimon and Tanemon all look down sadly.

Setsuko gets down and hugs Motimon. "Next weekend. Same time, same place."

Motimon nods limply, and attempts to wrap its small arms around her. "We'll still talk, so don't worry."

Before she could say anything, Setsuko is basked by a bright, white light. She reactively rears away from Motimon.

"Bye, guys." She says softly, as she is lifted into the air by an invisible force.

The children and creatures watch as the light slowly envelops the girl, from bottom to top, until she totally disappears into its glow. And when the light disperses following the process, leaving no trace of her behind as it vanishes completely, it would seem to all those watching as if she were never there at all.

PART II

I've known about the Digital World since I was eleven years old.

About a year ago my father, Kent's mother, and Gem and Yamato's parents introduced us to our partner Digimon, which are the inhabitants of the Digital World. Motimon happens to be my partner and, although I'm not exactly sure what that means, I feel closer to him than any other Digimon I've met so far. He's kind of like the little brother I never had, sometimes.

Dad told me once that he had the same partner Digimon when he was younger. But, since he doesn't log in to the Digital World anymore, I've never had the chance to meet his Motimon. Instead he's a server moderator now, which means it's his job to make sure that everything stays in order when humans visit the Digital World. And, because he has to work on the weekends, I get to log on during the weekends for as long as I want to, until he's finished working for the day. Kent, Gem and Yamato's parents let them on during the weekends too, so we usually meet up and have loads of fun together.

I feel guilty for thinking so but, honestly, I sometimes wish that I could go to the Digital World on more than just the weekends.

It's a long train ride home, and by the we get back it's well past dark and nearly ten'o'clock at night. The first thing I do is drop my backpack and collapse unto the living room couch, the leather upholstery groaning beneath me. Dad comes through the door shortly after, dragging his feet from exhaustion.

We moved here four months ago. It's an apartment in downtown Tokyo, like most of the other places we've lived. Dad says we move so much because of his job, but since I get to go to the same school, I don't mind so much. It's just having to get used to a new place every couple of months that's difficult.

I wonder what's on right now.

I flick on the TV. I do so just in time to tune in to the tail end of a commercial featuring a Tanemon and, I think, a Tokomon, advertising a fruit-flavored Popsicle brand. It got me thinking about the ice cream we have stashed away in the fridge, and made me realize that I hadn't eaten since lunchtime.

Before I could act on my sudden craving for mint chocolate chip, however, I am stopped by a return of the beeping noise from earlier. It was my digivice again.

I quickly take it out and answer the call. Motimon's face fills the screen.

"Oh hi, Motimon. ?" I half-whisper to him. "You know I can't talk at night. I must have forgotten to turn my digivice off earlier." Even though I could explicitly remember dad telling me to turn it off on the ride home. Tomorrow was a school day after all, so I wasn't allowed to stay up late.

"Oh" Motimon says sadly. "Well that's fine, I only wanted to say good night."

I probably should have left it at that and gone to bed, but a question sprung up in my mind that I just had to ask. "What are nights like in the Digital World, anyway?" I ask him, also hoping that the change in topic would cheer him up. I was sick of seeing the little guy look so depressed. "Do you sleep among any of the other Digimon? And where?"

It's strange how only recently have I become curious about how the Digital World works. Just a year ago, I simply thought of it as a kind of virtual playground; choosing not to dwell extensively on why or how it exists. You would think that I'd know more about the Digital World by now, other than the fact that it's some kind of a parallel world made up of data and that the digivice I received somehow allows me to communicate with Motimon from on Earth.

There is an animated music video playing on the TV. It looks like the opening for an Anime. From what I could tell, only half paying attention, it had something to do with a boy and his Koromon fighting against an evil organization.

Motimon seems mildly distracted by the loud rock number of the music video when he responds to my query:"I sometimes share a tree with Tanemon or sleep with the other Motimon but, usually, I sleep alone."

"Really? Sleeping, in a jungle, all by yourself?" He nods. "Is that safe?"

He gives me a confused look. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well..."

I stop to think about it for a moment. Were there not any dangerous Digimon? Or at least, like among the animals of Earth, carnivorous species of Digimon? I'd never met one before but it seemed like that would be more natural. Then again, maybe the Digital World was never meant to be based on the "natural" rules of our world. If that is the case, how "real" is the Digital World supposed to be? Is it more like some video game or more like real life? My brain was coming up with all sorts of things to wonder about, but I really had no definitive answers.

"Good night, Setsuko." I hear dad say from his room, which gave me an idea I can't believe I was only now coming up with.

"I think I'll ask dad about it in the morning." I tell Motimon, which seems to pique his interest:

"He probably knows more about the Digital World than even I do!" He exclaims exuberantly. "So if you learn anything interesting, I'd like to hear about it too."

I've never talked to dad about his job before, and certainly never about the nature of the Digital World. I wonder how I would even bring it up, especially since tomorrow was a weekday so I wouldn't be going to the Digital World at all.

I don't have time to wonder for long, however, when dad yells from his room again: "Oh, and say good night to Motimon for me too."

Motimon and I gape at each other.

Ah, how much did he overhear?