Pilot
###
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.
Forward: Well, I never thought I'd do this, but I started another fanfic, even though Those Left Behind isn't completely finished. One thing I've noticed on this website is that there doesn't seem to be much originality anymore, which is unfortunate. I know, you'll occasionally see a fic that tries to break the mold, but more often than not, almost every story I've seen is the same old shipping story, some involving couples that shouldn't exist in the first place (shudders…). Some don't even involve digimon, something I'm trying to focus more on in this story, particularly their personalities and their relationships with their human partners.
Anyway, this story definitely contains things you probably wouldn't see in other digimon stories. It's an elsewhere fic taking place in an alternate universe, but there's more than that. For one thing, the characters are college-aged or even older (one character is firmly middle-aged). Another thing, if the title didn't give it away, is that this story takes place in the far future, though due to some setbacks, technology is fairly near-future in its presentation. And then there's the case with the real and digital worlds. You'll find out that the nature of each isn't exactly what you'd expect, the former in this chapter and the latter later on.
Also, I'd like to put it out there that this story has a website: aklaino dot com / digimon (remove the spaces and replace the dot with a period). There aren't any pictures up, unfortunately, and it's not as flashy as some sites for fan seasons (Digimon Reboot comes to mind), but it does give you some extra info about this story and it allowed me to practice my web design and javascript skills. Anyway, I hope whoever reads this enjoys what I have planned.
###
Python Desert, Digital World, Assembler Continent
The harsh desert sun beat against his reddish feathers, causing the large bird to chug another swig from his flask as he wandered through the desolate landscape, ready for whatever he found.
Hawkmon was simply a scientist and one that ended up in the crosshairs of the local tyrannical government that ruled his area of the digital world. It didn't help that the ruler of that government, Ornismon, was trying to eradicate anyone he perceived as a threat to his rule, including educated digimon who didn't see any value in fighting. The Avian Duchy was headed for war with the neighboring kingdoms of the Digital World and Hawkmon wasn't about to let himself get caught in the middle of it.
He pulled out his recording device and spoke.
"About two weeks ago, I detected strange reading coming from the center of the Python Desert and I have chosen to investigate. Since my ruler has decided to ban me from improving my education, I have decided to embark on this journey for myself." The bird took a deep breath, being careful to look around him in case any brigands came out of the woodwork to attack him. So far he seemed to be the only one there in that parched land. "I am convinced that what I will find will change the world, though I have no idea what it may be. Still, a good part of a scientist's job is to investigate, which is what I shall do."
He turned off the recorder and continued moving forward, drinking from his flask at regular intervals. There was nothing for him in any of the feudal states of the Digital World, though he didn't have much of an alternative. He considered actually traveling across the sea to see what was over there, but as a rookie, he probably wouldn't last very long doing so. Finding the anomaly was the only option.
It took him several hours to find the source of the strange emissions, but there it was in the center of the desert, right on the ground. It was a strange, translucent sphere that appeared to have nothing on the inside. At least Hawkmon didn't see anything.
"What in the world is this thing?" he asked himself, not expecting an answer. He promptly pulled off his backpack and took out some instruments to scan the object but he was getting a negative reading. All he could guess was that it was some sort of hole in the fabric of space-time, but beyond that he was drawing a blank.
In time he would figure it out, but for now he just studied it, hoping that none of Ornismon's forces went this far into the desert.
###
Victory University, Victory City
A blue motorcycle made its way down the streets of downtown Victory City, cruising along at fairly high speeds until its red-haired rider reached the turnoff, slowed down, turned on his blinker and turned, making his way onto campus.
It was his first year and he was finally arriving that afternoon, only a few days before class started. He parked his motorcycle, made sure its parking sticker was perfectly visible to whoever patrolled those parking lots and stepped off his bike, putting its keys in his pocket.
There weren't too many cars in the specific parking lot that he parked in, one of many that the university had. He wasn't commuting so he had to park a bit farther in the residents' lot, so it took him a few minutes to walk to the building his dorm room was in. He walked in and saw a bespectacled blonde girl at the front desk, probably a fellow student working off part of her tuition. She was the one who spoke to him.
"Hi, how are you doing today?" she greeted with a smile that he just knew was fake.
"Pretty good. I'm here to take my stuff to my room," he told her. "The name's Slade Bennett."
"Okay, just a minute," the girl said, typing in his name. "Okay, you're in room 438." She handed him a key. Her perkiness was kind of cute, even though Slade didn't buy even a little bit of it.
"So, has my roommate checked in yet?" he asked.
"Nope, according to this he hasn't. His name is Trevor Jackson. I don't know anything other than that," the girl explained. "Let me know if there's anything wrong with your room."
"Okay, thanks," Slade responded, making his way to a nearby elevator. He felt pretty nervous since this was actually his first time out of the house and he thought about that as he went up. He also wondered what his roommate was going to be like. He pulled his goggles over his eyes and turned them on, trying to bring up information on his mysterious roommate.
Thankfully, he found a quick social network page but found it was locked as soon as the elevator reached his floor. Good, this guy's smart. There was a picture of the guy. He was black and was with a girl that wasn't really Slade's type. She was a bit too curvy for him and she was a white brunette.
Then again, she's probably more real than any girl I've dated, Slade thought as he got off the elevator and pulled his smart goggle's up. They were very useful when finding the university since he was new in town and they synced with his cellphone. He walked down the hall a little bit, found his room and slid the keycard into the door. It reminded him a bit too much of various hotels he had been in over the years as he opened it up, walking inside to find a small one-bedroom apartment with two twin-sized beds in it. Slade just picked one and put his stuff down on its memory foam matress.
He didn't have much stuff with him, having left almost everything behind in Union City where he was from. He looked out the window and saw across the campus. It was practically a small city in the center of a far larger city. He looked over at the skyscrapers against the backdrop of nearby mountains. The city was quite beautiful. He didn't remember taking it in like this during his previous visits.
It truly was a new start for him and he was going to take advantage of it as much as possible.
He went over and opened up his large duffle bag, pulling out a box with a brand new tablet inside. He pulled it out of its packaging and started setting the device up. After a few minutes, he had everything set up that he needed and promptly turned on the news. He was interested in the massive particle accelerator that was set up in the nearby countryside and turned on a news story about that.
"The protests have reached a new high in the hours before the accelerator's activation," a red-haired reporter stated before going on about everything. Slade thought the amount of controversy surrounding the accelerator was a bit overblown, thinking about how there were other particle accelerators where nothing wrong happened. Supposedly this accelerator was going to put together elements in the Superactinide series as well as various subatomic particles that nobody had ever even heard of.
Still, it was interesting. After a while, Slade got bored again and decided to explore campus. There was a lot there to see, including a few things that he hadn't seen during his orientation. The sun was beginning to set, though, and he realized he was starting to feel more than a little bit hungry. He made his way to the university cafeteria and grabbed something, thankful for his meal plan. He then sat down in a corner away from everybody else.
It was nice to be away from home.
###
Digital World
Hawkmon continued to scan the mysterious sphere. "Researcher's log, I have determined that this object is a hole in space-time, though it seems to only be open on this end. More than likely it is part of a wormhole, though to where is something I cannot determine. I can't seem to see the other side of it, unfortunately, so I cannot risk entering into it."
The bird glanced around again. It was approaching night and he would have to make camp soon. Hawkmon felt more than a little paranoid looking around, fearing that someone could be after him. The sad thing was that it wasn't too farfetched of an assumption.
He listened to the night air. It was starting to get cooler quickly and pretty soon he would have to build a fire. Thankfully, he had brought some firewood, but he wasn't going to put it all together just yet.
As soon as it got dark enough, the bird flew upwards and looked over the horizon just in case. Hawkmon didn't spot anything at first, but then he noticed a large, hovering figure in the distance. "Oh, dear," he said, shivering. It was definitely a bit colder at higher altitudes.
He needed to figure out what exactly he was going to do. He dropped down, looking at the hole. There was no way he was going to be able to force open the other side. It was at a subatomic width at the moment, possibly even shifting places, so he had a feeling that going through would be suicide.
"There is no way out of this unless I run," Hawkmon told himself. "But if Ornismon's group finds this, then there's no telling what they'd do."
He couldn't digivolve. There was no way. He had heard legends of the past, digimon able to digivolve at will with some sort of external help, but he had no idea what that could have possibly been. All the legends pointed to something that wasn't a digimon helping out in the process.
The bird stood there, taking in the late night air. Hoping for a miracle before whatever it was came.
###
Victory City, Particle Accelerator
The scientists turned on the accelerator, flipping switches at will and typing in info onto the computers. "Generators are at maximum," one of the department scientists stated.
"All detectors are up and running," another scientist said.
"Everything seems to be ready for the accelerator to go on line," a female scientist said.
"Okay, now let's start with something simple. Unbinilium," the director, a tall, bearded and heavyset man in his 50s, ordered.
"Starting acceleration," one of the scientists said as he pressed a button on his screen. "So far so good."
"The Niobium and the Uranium are both approaching light speed," another scientist indicated. "Time for collision in five… four… three… two… one…"
Unfortunately, something went completely wrong after that. "Detecting Unbinilium-299 but…" Another scientist said before sparks started to come out of his console.
"What was that?" the lead scientist asked, gritting his teeth.
"That wasn't supposed to happen! I'm detecting other particles along with the Unbinilium, sir. Doctor Barrowman, some of these particles are displaying behavior indicative of negative mass!"
"What? But… how is that even possible?" the director asked.
"Sir, it has to do with the radiation released. Some of the particles are inverting somehow!" another scientist, a female one exclaimed. "Oh no, that's not supposed to happen."
"What is it now?" Doctor Barrowman inquired.
"Someone sabotaged the system and there are now a number of small, artificial black holes. They've evaporated, emitting Hawking radiation which caused the inversion," the same scientist explained.
"You've got to be kidding me. Who would…" Suddenly, the computer screens all turned black and a voice spoke from them.
"Hello, a new world is beginning. Pretty soon, both this world and the other will be one." It was the voice of a man, though it was heavily distorted, sending chills down the director's spine.
"Who is this?" he asked.
"The answer is not important. All you should know is that the world is changing. Wormholes are about to open to the other side and they will come through."
"Wormholes? Who are coming through? Aliens?"
"In a way, Barrowman." The voice stopped transmitting and a bomb exploded in the facility.
"Sir, the negatively massed particles are escaping into the atmosphere."
"Wormholes… Is there any way we can detect when these open?" Doctor Barrowman asked, panicking. This wasn't supposed to happen. He knew there were nutcases out there but he had no idea that anyone would be willing to go this far.
"They developed a method before the fall," one of the other scientists replied, "but the only ones with that information are the Families."
"You've got to be kidding me," the director responded, dreading the thought of even making dealings with the most reasonable memory of the Families. "What about detecting concentrations of negatively massed particles?"
"We should be able to do that," the female scientist responded.
"Make it so," Director Barrowman ordered. They were going to solve this problem some way or another.
###
After dinner, Slade grabbed his duffle bag, put some workout clothes and swim trunks inside and jogged to the university recreation center. He felt like working out to relieve some stress and he was curious about the amenities that the rec center provided. At the same time, there was a side of him that was paranoid that it wasn't going to be as good as other gyms such as the two-storied one he used to go to back in Union City.
Slade felt a shiver down his spine and stopped. That was when he realized that he had made a mistake in going into the darkest area of the campus and that there was now a man in a balaclava with a gun held up to his head.
"Give me all your money!" the robber shouted in his ear as loudly as possible.
"Okay, okay, here you go," Slade pleaded, handing the man his wallet. "Please, leave me alone."
The man looked inside the wallet at a wad of hundred-dollar bills and grinned. "Wow, you're rich. You're coming with me now!"
"What?"
"I'm going to take you and hold you for ransom. Your family is going to pay for my tuition or you're going to die," the robber demanded.
"What? You can't do that!" Slade exclaimed, almost more worried about his family finding him than the madman killing him.
"Yeah? Well, it's not like you have any choice. Come with me or I'll shoot you in the leg!"
"No!" Slade exclaimed, hyperventilating. He didn't notice the slight glow around him when he yelled that.
###
"No!" Hawkmon heard from the other side of the wormhole inside the digital world. He looked on the other side.
"What is this?" he mused, his beak open wide. It was right on time because it was about then that a large, grey dragonfly flew over the horizon. The bird looked through the wormhole and saw a man holding a gun. "I guess I could be facing worse." Then Hawkmon jumped through, flying straight through the spherical hole in space and into the robber, knocking the gun upwards as the man fired, causing him to miss his intended target. The wormhole closed behind the bird as he tackled the robber, causing him to fall to the ground.
Hawkmon glanced up at the human that he had just inadvertently saved from serious injury, though he felt something at his foot. He picked up the strange, black, leathery object and handed it to the human. "Does this belong to you?"
"Uh, thanks. That's my wallet. You just saved my life!" The bird then got a tight hug from the human.
"Okay, whatever you are," the bird responded. It was then that he noticed the spherical wormhole open up again. "I'm afraid that you might have to hold onto that. Something else is coming out!"
"What?" the human asked as the same giant dragonfly that was pursuing Hawkmon came through, ready to strike the bird. "What the heck is going on?"
"I'm trying to figure that out."
"Oh crap! I'm totally getting out of here!" the robber exclaimed, running off with his gun in hand.
"I should probably go too," the human said, scared out of his mind. Hawkmon grabbed onto his hand. If the legends were true…
"Wait a second, please. We can fight this enemy together," the giant bird told him. "I'm Hawkmon, by the way."
"Slade." The giant bug flew upwards and made a loop-de-loop back down towards Hawkmon. "On second thought, maybe I should run!" Slade decided, making a dash. Hawkmon looked upward at the giant bug headed his way, however it didn't bother with the oversized bird and instead went after the human that had decided to run away.
"Slade!" Hawkmon yelled, jumping into the air and flying after the enemy digimon, but he knew that he was far too slow to go after him. The human that he had saved just minutes before looked back briefly and saw exactly the kind of situation he had put himself into. "No!" the bird exclaimed, realizing what had happened. "I'm the one you want!"
It was because of Hawkmon that this innocent human bystander had ended up in this situation, and there was no way that the bird was going to let anything happen to him. SandYanmamon continued to fly after Slade, far faster than anything Hawkmon could do, but the bird wasn't about to give up, so he landed and grabbed the feather on top of his head and flung it at the enemy. "Feather Strike!"
That got SandYanmamon's attention and the digimon turned around and went straight for Hawkmon. At least now he won't attack the… whatever he is. Still, he needed to win this fight and it wasn't as if he could digivolve unless somehow the human helped, so he figured he needed as much strategy as possible. He couldn't see anything useful against his champion-level opponent, just some streetlights, benches and buildings. At least no one else is around to get in danger.
He readied himself, glancing over at the human who had realized what had happened and turned around. The bird had a few tricks up his sleeve. As soon as SandYanmamon was only a few meters from Hawkmon, the bird jumped up into the air and brought his beak down on the giant dragonfly, pecking into its head. "Beak Pecker!"
As soon as the bird pecked into the dragonfly's head, he flipped over, landing behind the dragonfly who continued onward. Unfortunately, all the rookie did was make the giant dragonfly angry and it looped around, ready to strike again.
But this time, it got more resistance than it expected when Slade came at him with his fists. Unfortunately, the tamer didn't manage to do anything more than tick off the dragonfly who simply brushed him aside. The dragonfly decided then to go after the young man and looped around once again, ready to attack.
"No!" Hawkmon yelled, jumping up into the air.
"What the-!" Slade yelled as he saw the dragonfly head toward him. He didn't want to die, especially at the hands of a giant bug from another planet so soon after getting freedom from his family. There was no way. Luckily, he rolled out of the way just in time for the massive dragonfly to have to make another pass just to get at him.
All the sudden, Slade noticed a small sphere of light appear and a device similar to his smart phone came out. Except that it was to one with rounded corners, a couple of small buttons, and a large button in the middle. What wowed him the most were the colors, though: it was blue with red buttons and a red border around the touchscreen. And it was glowing.
Suddenly, it shined with blinding light and Slade had to look away. The beam of light made its way to Hawkmon, who suddenly felt empowered by the beam.
So, this is how the legends go?
"Hawkmon digivolve to… Aquilamon!" The large bird changed into an even larger reddish-brown bird, with a tremendous wingspan and a pair of horns on his head.
SandYanmamon noticed this and made his way toward his new target, feeling a need to take out the stronger of his opponents first before going after the weaker one. He flew at him, but Aquilamon flew upward, determined to take this fight away from the middle of the university complex. They were lucky no one else had come through the area, one of the darkest parts of the university, but he wasn't going to let that luck run out.
As soon as SandYanmamon was in mid-air, Aquilamon turned around, readying his horns and dive-bombing the massive dragonfly. "Grand Horn!" he yelled as he did so, brutally injuring the fellow champion across the chest.
The dragonfly rebounded, making another loop and headed straight for Aquilamon again, this time readying another attack, but Aquilamon was ready and opened his mouth. "Blast Rings!" he yelled as rings of red energy flew out, striking the dragonfly head on, ripping him to shreds and causing him to disintegrate into data. The data then coalesced back into a digi-egg and it fell down to the ground, remaining whole.
After everything was done, Aquilamon flew downwards and devolved back into Hawkmon, landing in front of his new partner, a shocked Slade.
"That was … amazing!" the red-haired man exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.
"I'm glad you thought so," another voice said, causing Slade and Hawkmon to turn their heads. They saw a man with a white mask covering his eyes with long blond hair. His attire was odd but evoked the image of aristocracy with a white vest with a light blue tie and a long white trench coat. At the same time, he had a strange accent, an odd thing to Slade.
"Your accent… where are you from?" he asked. "And what's going on here?"
"You may know me as Prior and I am from another world."
Slade's eyes widened when he said that. "No way," he responded to the mysterious masked man.
"It is truth," Prior responded. "You are the first of this world to receive a partner digimon, but you won't be the last. You are the beginning of a revolution that will change this world for the better. I know about what you've been through, Slade, and how you've rejected the debaucheries and corruption of the Families. You will lead this world to greatness."
Slade looked the man in the eye, hidden behind one-way mirrors on the man's mask. "This is… You've got to be joking."
"I am not," the man responded. "Now, I will take that digi-egg from you. Your teammates will be joining you on this journey soon." The man walked over to the digi-egg, picked it up and tossed down a smoke bomb. When the smoke had dissipated, he was gone.
"What is going on?" Hawkmon asked, as confused as Slade was.
"I'm not quite sure myself," Slade replied.
"I guess I'm supposed to go home with you," the oversized bird told him, hesitant.
Slade didn't know what to do, exactly. "I guess so…" he responded. In fact, he didn't know how he was going to do this. All the sudden, he had a creature from another world with him. He had no idea how his roommate would react or even how the receptionist in the dorm building he was living would react. Still, he couldn't leave this digimon behind. "Okay, you'll come home with me, it's just that we can't let anybody see you so you'll have to go in my bag."
Hawkmon nodded. "Okay, that sounds good." So, Slade zipped his bag open and the digimon went inside, thankful that it was big enough.
###
When Slade entered his dorm building, he noticed the same receptionist girl from earlier sitting at the front desk, looking at something on her computer. She glanced up and smiled. "Hey."
"Hey, how's it going?"
"Pretty good, though you should have seen what happened earlier. I mean, this guy in a ski mask just ran in, screaming about a giant bird and a giant bug attacking." She pointed at her head and moved her index finger around. "Talk about wacko. He was waving a gun around and everything so I called campus security." She then looked Slade in the eye. "You didn't see anything weird out there yourself, did you? I mean, not that there could possibly be any giant birds or bugs, but, you know."
"No, not a thing," Slade responded nervously, giving her an uneasy grin.
"You are totally lying. Then again, I can't blame you since if I saw something like that, nobody would believe me. That was a pretty quick trip to the gym for you, though. Only enough for one or two workouts and that's without changing." She smiled at him. "My name's Penelope Vaughn, by the way."
"Slade Bennett," he told her.
"And I already knew that. I checked you in earlier," she chastised herself while she looked at her computer. "Oh, wow, it's almost time to close. See you later." She smiled at him again as he went up the escalator.
"Wow, that was pretty close. You really think they'd freak out if they saw me?" Hawkmon asked from within the giant red gym bag.
"Probably," Slade responded as the elevator door opened and he walked out the elevator door and down the hall.
"You know, you clothes are awfully smelly in here. When was the last time you washed them?" the large bird asked as Slade opened his dorm door and walked inside.
"Just a couple days ago," he said, putting the bag on his bed and zipping it open. Hawkmon took a deep breath as he came up for air. "Sorry about that."
"This must be a lot to take in," the bird told him. "It is for me too."
"Yeah, it is. So, what planet are you from?" Slade asked out of the blue.
"The Digital World. Well, it's not much of a planet and more of a separate dimension… I think," the bird explained.
"And here I thought you were just an alien from another planet. I know you couldn't possibly be from anywhere within sixty light-years of here, but whatever," the red-haired man replied.
"I'm not exactly sure what you mean. So, how many humans are there, anyway?" the bird asked, curious.
"It's hard to say," Slade replied. He had wondered what the answer to that question was himself. "A couple hundred years ago… Well, we were all over the place, living in a sphere 120 light-years in diameter and on many worlds, including this one. Then we were all cut off from each other. Technology went backwards for a while but now it's back to going forward again."
"And you never heard anything about digimon?"
Slade shook his head. "Nobody knows what exactly the Fall was, but I'm pretty sure we never met your kind before then. This planet's name is Lincoln and it was colonized in the mid-twenty-second century by people from the former United States of America. There are a half a billion people on this world."
Hawkmon thought for a second. "That's pretty interesting. However, I heard about humans or someone before meeting you. According to legend, you have the power to help us achieve higher levels through the use of emotion. I guess the legends were true, but for them to be true, we had to have met your race in the past."
Slade nodded. "Crazy. That must have been hundreds of years ago."
"Maybe we'll find out on our own when it was and what happened," the large bird responded with a smile.
###
While Penelope locked the doors to the reception area, she glanced around outside for anything out of the ordinary. That Slade boy was definitely hiding something and she wondered what exactly. Still, she realized a need to be cautious.
She left the reception area and made her way to her dorm on the topmost story of the building before sliding her keycard in, opening it up and entering. After turning on the lights, though, she noticed something strange on her desk, a pink device that reminded her of a smart phone like what everyone had those days. That wasn't there before.
She walked over to it and turned it on. All she got was a map giving her directions.
She wasn't willing to hazard what it was, but she had a feeling Slade knew and she was going to ask him the following morning.
###
Doctor Barrowman sat in his office that night with a bottle of scotch. He only drank alcohol on special occasions and when he felt down. That night was definitely an example of the latter. So far, their wormhole detection grid wasn't up yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time before either aliens or humans from one of the other colony worlds came through and he wasn't going to hazard that they were friendly.
He was going to find out who did this and they were going to pay. But first, he needed to make a call, so he grabbed the cordless phone and called one of his best benefactors, the patriarch of the Giorno family. He hated the thought of dealing with any of the Families, but Garrett Giorno was probably the one member of the Families that he could trust. After a few seconds, he got someone.
"Hello, is Mr. Giorno there?" he asked, his tone serious. After a few seconds, he got the man he was asking for. "Hi, the particle accelerator was hijacked earlier this evening and we may have a crisis on our hands."
###