Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon nor anything attributed or associated to/with it. Go away you sad lawyers. Go home and feed your vultures.

This is my second attempt at something like this. If you think it may be horrible for that reason alone, then go back to being simple minded somewhere else.

But enough with the threats. I thought I would try my hand at an original (well, at least in the non-canonical sense) story. Oops, I may have said too much :P .

Here goes nothing.

Chapter 1 – Reality is a vague term.

People say I'm obsessed. I tell them it's just being passionate about your hobby. They again say I'm obsessed.

The truth is that I probably am, but then again, doesn't everyone have a personal obsession of his or her own? I mean, everyone has something they care about more so than other people. Everyone has their comfort item or activity. It's how we stay sane. It gives us our sense of normalcy that we so desire.

But my obsession was a bit different from most people. Ever since I first laid eyes upon it, it became the main topic of my fantasies. I watched every show, collected every card, acquired most of the clothing, posted my favorite posters all around my room, and played every game. So yes, I can safely say that I am obsessed.

My obsession? Digimon. That's right, go ahead and laugh it up. Savor the laughable thought of a nerd slaving the night away playing the card game over the Internet with someone from Japan. Relish at the lack of social abilities you assume I don't have.

That won't change the fact that I still love it.

But enough about that. I had just gotten my newest item in my vast collection. The newest digimon game that I had just returned from the store with was screaming to be loaded onto my digimon-themed computer. I wasn't going to let it down either. I'd stood in line for over three hours to get it after all.

This particular piece of software was developed by a company called "Integral Designs" that was based out of Indianapolis, Indiana. The software claimed to be the next generation in MMO games. It was a MMO (Massively multiplayer online game. Best example: World of Warcraft…) that was set in the digimon universe. It wasn't much different from any other game out there except for four things. Four very influential things.

The first was that you were given a digimon to take care of, but you had no control over its actions in the game. You basically were its tamer so to speak. The game came with a small card scanner that you could use to scan cards that would modify your digimon's stats or let it use special attacks.

The second was that you played the game using mostly a microphone. The game was designed so that you guided the digimon with your voice commands, much like the kids from the TV shows. This alone was reason enough to make the game one of the hottest gifts of the holiday season.

However, the third reason was by far the best reason for its claim to fame. The game claimed to have human-like AI. The creators of the game claimed that if you talked to the digimon, it would think about it and response like a human would. I was a bit skeptical about this part for an obvious reason: If the best scientists in the world couldn't make an AI capable of this, then how could a game company do it in just 5 months? (The 5-month part was a feat on its own)

The fourth and final reason was that the game included a special webcam designed for use in the game. I just assumed it was for video chat between players. All the webcam consisted of was a Koromon-shaped camera with a microphone on it.

It was time for me to find out for myself how much was true. I sat at my computer in my room, happily installing the hyped game. The installation was taking a while, so I began pacing around the house like I did when I was bored. I walked to the modest living room with its average couch and TV, to the small-yet-well-equipped kitchen, to my parent's bedroom, back to my room. I stood gazing at myself in the mirror.

I was a bit short for a high-school junior and weighed in at just 130 pounds. My short, dark brown hair sat in its normal unkempt position. My brown eyes held a certain glint in them that I couldn't quite decipher. My black T-shirt exposed my lack of arm exercise and lack of body fat. I was just skin and bones, although I ran track and cross country for my high school. I was definitely a nerd who sat around the house.

As if on cue, the computer beeped loudly to indicate it had finished its task. I practically leaped into the chair and laughed in gleeful anticipation as the game loaded. In the mean time, I hooked up the webcam and card scanner to the computer. I also fished out my large collection of digimon cards to use with the scanner if the need arose.

The game loaded the splash screen revealing the name of the game, "Digimon World: Reality", in the large blue lettering with yellow outline that was the standard Digimon lettering. It then forced me to create an account. I choose my normal username: 2chaotic. Then I inserted all my information.

The game then asked me a few questions, which I immediately recognized as an attempt to identify my personality. It was probably going to try to match me with a digimon that suited my personality. Luckily, I was good at guessing which answers best suited my preferred method of play: sneakiness.

After thirty or so questions, the game finally started to load without even mention what it had chosen for me. Well, that's a little weird.

I will have to say the loading screen looked pretty amazing to me. It was a cutscene where two teams of assorted digimon were playing soccer. The scene itself was extremely detailed far beyond any computer graphics that I'd ever scene. It would have taken a very long time to create, so I said a silent kudos to the people who made this. It was only fair.

The scene ended as abruptly as it started.

"Hello."

That sure wasn't my voice. I looked on in astoundment as a humanoid raccoon spoke to me. It was around as tall as I was, and stood on two legs. It looked masculine, so I assumed "it" was a he. His bright, blue eyes shone out from behind the definitive "mask" of a raccoon He had two short, triangular ears and a short snout with its small black nose. His gray fur was accented by the large patch of white that extended from his neck, down his chest, and stopped at the groin. His clawed paws were slightly different from a real raccoon in the fact that his thumbs were opposable. A medium sized, bushy tail extended from his rear to complete the look.

He sure had a taste for a thief's apparel though. He wore a jet-black vest made definitely from thick cotton along with dark grey shorts. A small dagger hid in a small sheath attached to a ring of fabric on his pants.

He cleared his throat to get my attention, saying, "Are you going to just stare at me all day?"

I said in reply, "Oh, sorry. I just…Hey, wait a second. How did you know I was staring?"

He folded his arms, already getting an attitude. "I'm not blind. Your mouth was wide open."

My mouth dropped again. "You…can see me?"

He was starting to get annoyed. "Yes. Now are you going to tell me your name or ask dumb questions all day?"

It seems the webcam had more of a use than the company had let on. I smiled and said, "I'm Seth. Who are you?"

He answered, "I'm Roguemon. Nice to meet you."

The conversation reduced to an awkward silence for a moment as I finally took a look at the surroundings. Roguemon was standing randomly in the middle of a dirt street near a bunch of log cabins. There weren't any other digimon around which made the place seem desolate. Not that it mattered that much to me; the fewer people, the better.

Roguemon started taping his feet out of impatience. "Do you ever not stare? Come on, let's do something already."

He sure was bored easily, but then so was I. "Alright, but what is there to do?"

He spread his arms into a "Y" above his head and said, "There's a whole world to explore. Do you really have to ask?"

I laughed at the weird gesture. "So then, where do we start exploring?"

He turned around and pointed toward a large castle in the distance. "How about we start there?"

"Sounds good to me."

With that, we set out for the castle.

Ronald was not having a good day. Troubleshooting a half dozen servers at 1 o clock in the morning is not something he normally did. Ronald didn't like interruptions in his normal schedule.

However, things were far from normal right now. Just minutes ago, he had been sitting comfortably in the conference room sipping on a large cup of hot chocolate wondering if the launch could have gone any smoother. Everyone had been having a grand old time. Joey was attempting to beat Sonya at chess again, to no avail. Barrett and Chad were getting into a debate over which man had the better Christmas shirt on.

The Christmas party was something the whole maintenance team looked forward to every year. The festivities were planned long in advance. The Real Hacienda always catered the food of course. The conference room was decorated with just the right amount of holly and mistletoe, and everyone wore their favorite Christmas shirt.

The only difference this year was that the launch of Digimon World: Reality was on the eve of the Christmas party. But the maintenance crew was not going to cancel their party just because of this. Oh no, Ronald thought, It would take much more than a lousy launch to stop our party.

But this was more than just a lousy launch. Every server save one had just shut off simultaneously at the exact moment that the game had launched. This wasn't the worst possible thing that could happen on a launch night, but with since it was Integral Design's best selling game, the bosses would have maintenance's heads on a gold platter if they didn't find out what went wrong by sunrise.

As he was restarting servers and checking wires, he got to thinking. What if this wasn't just some freak coincidence? It sure was strange that only a single server survived the catastrophe unscathed. He had a bad feeling about this.

Ronald was never wrong when it came to bad feelings either.