It's Just a Game
The endless circuitry-board ground hummed with electricity. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but floor and ceiling. Agumon and Veemon stood watching each other, measuring each other up. Both seemed completely concentrated on the battle about to take place.
"Agumon, give it your best shot." A boy seemed to appear from nowhere behind Agumon. His hair was short and light brown, the same color as his eyes. He wore a blue and orange jersey and a blue vest. His light blue jeans came down to the tops of his black Nike sneakers. He took his blue sunglasses off.
"Don't worry, Lee." Agumon assured him. "I know his pattern now."
Across the battlefield, a larger boy stepped up behind Veemon. He was tall and quite a bit heavier. He wore a red shirt with the Atari logo on the front, baggy dark blue jeans that almost completely covered his red Converse high-tops. His hair was brown with the top spiked up and bleached blonde. A pair of black goggles adorned his head like a crown.
"Veemon, I will be quite vexed if you lose." His tone was cold, calculating and serious.
"Bryan... for the last time, I know what I'm doing."
"Good. Do it!"
As if on que, Veemon and Agumon dashed at each other, both landing their own blow, locking hands, trying to overpower each other.
"Veemon, get ready."
"Agumon, here we go!"
Both digimon were enveloped in a gold light. When it cleared, Greymon and Exveemon were still in a brute power struggle. After a minute, they both jumped back to their respective corners.
"NOVA BLAST!"
"Vee Laser!"
The two attacks collided and fizzled out. Greymon dashed at Exveemon and attempted to kick him, but the blue dragon easily evaded the attack.
"Greymon! One more time!"
Greymon was again enveloped in the gold light. Exveemon stood watching, apparently unafraid of the impending ultimate digimon's strike. Bryan just sneered. The floor rumbled and a tall black tower shot up from the ground. The gold light disappeared and Greymon looked back at Lee, confused and nervous. Lee looked across the battlefield at his opponent.
"Control Spire, Lee. One of my newer tricks."
"You led me into a trap, Bryan!"
"That I did... Exveemon, digivolve and finish it off. I do have other things to do today."
Lee looked at Greymon, sadly. "Sorry pal."
"It's ok, Lee. We'll get him next time."
Exveemon started to glow with the gold light. Bryan smiled triumphantly.
~~~
"Paildramon uses Deperado Blaster and Greymon is history!" Bryan flipped over the Stingmon card he had in the digivolution port and tossed the Paildramon card on top of Exveemon's and grinned.
Lee looked over the cards, dumbfounded. "Dude... I walked right into that one. How could I not have seen it coming?"
Bryan laughed and started collecting his cards. "I told you, Lee. Watch your opponents every move. Watch his moves... the amount of cards he gathers."
"Heh, well... I still got you beat when it comes to D3 battling."
"That you do, my friend." Bryan checked his watch. "Ack. We'd better get to school. Otherwise, we'll both end up in detention."
Lee quickly grabbed his cards and put them into the holster on his belt. "Yeh."
Bryan put his own cards into the pocket on the leg of his jeans and stood up. Both friends grabbed their bookbags and ran out of the old building. The building they played cards in was an old restaurant that had closed. The back door was always open, so they played in the front room on a table that was left there.
They took off across the parking lot and crossed the street onto the school campus. Running across the lawn, they made it inside just as the first bell rang.
"Damn! See ya this afternoon, Lee!"
"See ya, bro!"
The day went by like every other day, both of them only half paying attention in school. Lee spent a lot of his time writing Digimon fics. Bryan, on the other hand, spent most of his drawing digimon. Both of them paid enough attention to pass with B's, but neither of them really cared for school. They were both just glad it was Friday. It meant they had all weekend to indulge in their favorite obsession. As soon as the final bell rang, Bryan rushed out of school to wait for Lee under the big tree in front of the school, just like he did every day. While he was waiting, a group of popular kids walked by.
"Hey, it's one of the digi-dorks!" one of them called.
"You need to grow up, freak!" another shouted.
Bryan sighed and sat down on the ground. Hanging his head, he pulled his dark tinted goggles down over his eyes. This happened every day, but it never got any easier for him. A hand settled down on his shoulder. He looked up and saw a girl standing over him. He didn't take his goggles off, fearing they'd give away his emotions.
"Hey, don't worry about them..." She was a girl about his age. Her reddish brown hair hung down to her shoulders. Her bangs half covering her dark green eyes. She wore a white tank top and light blue jeans. She smiled. "They just think they're better than everyone else. Take it easy. Later." She ruffled his hair and walked off.
"uh... goodbye."
"Whoa, dude!" Lee came walking up, grinning broadly. "That was most excellent."
"Oh, shut up!" Bryan couldn't hide the redness of his cheeks, even with the enormous goggles. "Ugh, you're impossible, Lee."
"Sure, whatever."
"Anyway, got any homework?" Bryan asked as he stood and grabbed his backpack.
"Nah. You?"
"Nope." Bryan smiled. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Rematch!"
"My house, let's get going."
The two friends started off across the grass field behind the school. It wasn't too far to Bryan's house, but in the still hot late-summer sun, it seemed much longer than it was. Arriving at his home, Bryan's mom greeted them in the kitchen. They grabbed a couple sodas and a bag of chips and started up the stairs.
"Oh, Bryan! I almost forgot... this package came for you today."
Bryan and Lee froze in their tracks. Both slowly turned to face each other, grins growing on their faces.
Bryan ran back down the stairs and grabbed the package from the table, smiling like an idiot. "Thanks, Mom!"
Giving Lee a high-five on the way up, he bolted up the stairs, whooping in triumph. They ran into Bryan's room and slammed the door behind them. Bryan tore the package open, revealing it's contents to the world.
"It's here!" Lee shouted.
Bryan just smiled. Reaching into the box, he pulled out three smaller boxes, all with digimon logos and Japanese writing all over them. "My digimon game! And my card scan!"
Lee grabbed the smallest of the boxes and looked it over, grinning broadly. "And my card reader!"
Bryan ran over to his computer and moved the hard drive out enough to plug in his new card scan. While he fiddled with the computer, installing the software for the scan and the game, Lee was trying desperately to decipher the half English, half Japanese instructions to his card reader. After a few minutes, Bryan let out a triumphant yell.
"It's installed!"
Lee walked over and looked at the screen. A bunch of digimon and their Japanese names were on the screen. "Well, Lee, which one should I go with?"
Lee pointed at the big bird on the screen. "Garudamon is a good choice."
"Nah... too easy. This is an adventure game, and I want a REAL challenge. Veemon, now there's something to work at." Bryan moved the mouse to click on Veemon's picture. The Veemon walked across the screen and the scenery changed to a forest.
"Hmmm... interesting game."
"Yeh."
Both of them sat and watched Veemon go through adventures in the digital world, with Bryan's help. It was growing somewhat boring until Veemon went up against a Devidramon.
"Dodge, c'mon!" It was no use, Veemon was just too slow to dodge.
"Use some cards!"
Bryan nodded and grabbed his card notebook, pulling out a few good choices. Placing one in the card scan, he swiped it.
"Fly Trap, activate!" A little black object appeared on Devidramon, somehow sucking his power, bringing it to the ground.
"Whoa, excellent graphics."
Bryan quickly scanned another card. "Black Gears, activate!" Three black gears appeared above Veemon, sinking into his back, his eyes glowed red and he left at Veedramon, fighting furiously. Lee's eyes widened. Bryan grinned evilly.
"And now, for the coupe de gras!" Bryan held up another card.
Lee's eyes widened. "Bryan, come on now. Don't you think it's had enough?"
"Yeh, but this way, I can assure his deletion. Veemon will get a lot stronger by absorbing his data. Besides, it's just a game." Bryan put the card in the scanner and swiped it through.
"Ultra Digivolve, Activate!" Veemon stopped pounding the badly beaten Devidramon. He began to glow with a golden light.
Veemon's voice came over the computer's speakers. "Veemon! Warp digivolve to..." The voice grew deeper, and way more menacing. "Aeroveedramon!"
Lee looked away. "Sometimes, I wonder if you're not the Digimon Emperor..."
"Awww, c'mon," he turned to look at his friend. "They're just programs. It's not like they're alive."
When they both looked back at the screen, the Devidramon exploded in a cloud of data, which Aeroveedramon began to absorb. When he was done, he turned his sights on the digimon that had been watching the fight. An evil grin slowly spread across his face.
"Uhm... what's he doing?"
Bryan's question was quickly answered when the rampaging digimon destroyed three Gotsumon who had just come to watch the fight. Their data was just a quick snack. Unsatisfied, Aeroveedramon turned towards some other digimon and destroyed them one by one.
"No... Aeroveedramon... stop..." Bryan's eyes began to water. Aeroveedramon just continued his rampage, destroying two Floramon. Bryan reached out and touched the screen. "Please stop."
"See what you did? Agh, what are you so upset about, it's just a damned game, remember? Bryan?"
Bryan was focused on the screen. His digimon was destroying innocent creatures, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
"Stop!"
"Bryan, what's your deal?"
"He's... He's killing them!"
"Calm down, man."
"But... this is murder!" Something happened. Maybe it was just a glitch in the game, maybe it was Bryan's intense emotions, maybe it was fate. But whatever it was, it was going to change their lives forever. The Ultra Digivolve card in his hand glowed with a low light. Bryan looked, bewildered, at the card while it changed into a blue metal card. The "D" on the front gave a final glow and stopped.
"What in the hell?"
"Uhm, Bryan? What just happened?"
"I have no idea..." He turned the metal card over in his fingers. The screen on the computer flickered and went black. "Lee, lemme see that card scanner, maybe it'll tell me what this card is."
"Uhm, sure." Lee handed his card reader over. Bryan turned it on scanned the card through. The card reader began to spark. Bryan and Lee shielded their eyes. The sparks from the card reader burned Bryan's hand, but for some reason, he couldn't drop it. When the blinding light faded, the card reader was gone. In its place was a strange-looking device. Later, they would find out that this was Bryan's very own digivice, his D-Arc.
Lee looked at his former card reader. "What did you do to my card reader!?"
"I didn't do anything! It changed into this thing on its own." Bryan looked closer at the strange thing. Pressing the buttons on the bottom, he cycled through empty screens. "It's empty."
"It looks like a digivice!"
"Yeh, must be some sort of contest."
Both of them examined it over and over again. Niether of them could figure out what it was supposed to be. Finally, it got late and Lee had to go home, still fuming about his reader, but he let Bryan keep it. Late that night, Bryan lay in his bed, looking at the digivice. Fianlly, he rolled over and went to sleep, holding the digivice tightly in his hands.
"It's only a game..."
The endless circuitry-board ground hummed with electricity. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but floor and ceiling. Agumon and Veemon stood watching each other, measuring each other up. Both seemed completely concentrated on the battle about to take place.
"Agumon, give it your best shot." A boy seemed to appear from nowhere behind Agumon. His hair was short and light brown, the same color as his eyes. He wore a blue and orange jersey and a blue vest. His light blue jeans came down to the tops of his black Nike sneakers. He took his blue sunglasses off.
"Don't worry, Lee." Agumon assured him. "I know his pattern now."
Across the battlefield, a larger boy stepped up behind Veemon. He was tall and quite a bit heavier. He wore a red shirt with the Atari logo on the front, baggy dark blue jeans that almost completely covered his red Converse high-tops. His hair was brown with the top spiked up and bleached blonde. A pair of black goggles adorned his head like a crown.
"Veemon, I will be quite vexed if you lose." His tone was cold, calculating and serious.
"Bryan... for the last time, I know what I'm doing."
"Good. Do it!"
As if on que, Veemon and Agumon dashed at each other, both landing their own blow, locking hands, trying to overpower each other.
"Veemon, get ready."
"Agumon, here we go!"
Both digimon were enveloped in a gold light. When it cleared, Greymon and Exveemon were still in a brute power struggle. After a minute, they both jumped back to their respective corners.
"NOVA BLAST!"
"Vee Laser!"
The two attacks collided and fizzled out. Greymon dashed at Exveemon and attempted to kick him, but the blue dragon easily evaded the attack.
"Greymon! One more time!"
Greymon was again enveloped in the gold light. Exveemon stood watching, apparently unafraid of the impending ultimate digimon's strike. Bryan just sneered. The floor rumbled and a tall black tower shot up from the ground. The gold light disappeared and Greymon looked back at Lee, confused and nervous. Lee looked across the battlefield at his opponent.
"Control Spire, Lee. One of my newer tricks."
"You led me into a trap, Bryan!"
"That I did... Exveemon, digivolve and finish it off. I do have other things to do today."
Lee looked at Greymon, sadly. "Sorry pal."
"It's ok, Lee. We'll get him next time."
Exveemon started to glow with the gold light. Bryan smiled triumphantly.
~~~
"Paildramon uses Deperado Blaster and Greymon is history!" Bryan flipped over the Stingmon card he had in the digivolution port and tossed the Paildramon card on top of Exveemon's and grinned.
Lee looked over the cards, dumbfounded. "Dude... I walked right into that one. How could I not have seen it coming?"
Bryan laughed and started collecting his cards. "I told you, Lee. Watch your opponents every move. Watch his moves... the amount of cards he gathers."
"Heh, well... I still got you beat when it comes to D3 battling."
"That you do, my friend." Bryan checked his watch. "Ack. We'd better get to school. Otherwise, we'll both end up in detention."
Lee quickly grabbed his cards and put them into the holster on his belt. "Yeh."
Bryan put his own cards into the pocket on the leg of his jeans and stood up. Both friends grabbed their bookbags and ran out of the old building. The building they played cards in was an old restaurant that had closed. The back door was always open, so they played in the front room on a table that was left there.
They took off across the parking lot and crossed the street onto the school campus. Running across the lawn, they made it inside just as the first bell rang.
"Damn! See ya this afternoon, Lee!"
"See ya, bro!"
The day went by like every other day, both of them only half paying attention in school. Lee spent a lot of his time writing Digimon fics. Bryan, on the other hand, spent most of his drawing digimon. Both of them paid enough attention to pass with B's, but neither of them really cared for school. They were both just glad it was Friday. It meant they had all weekend to indulge in their favorite obsession. As soon as the final bell rang, Bryan rushed out of school to wait for Lee under the big tree in front of the school, just like he did every day. While he was waiting, a group of popular kids walked by.
"Hey, it's one of the digi-dorks!" one of them called.
"You need to grow up, freak!" another shouted.
Bryan sighed and sat down on the ground. Hanging his head, he pulled his dark tinted goggles down over his eyes. This happened every day, but it never got any easier for him. A hand settled down on his shoulder. He looked up and saw a girl standing over him. He didn't take his goggles off, fearing they'd give away his emotions.
"Hey, don't worry about them..." She was a girl about his age. Her reddish brown hair hung down to her shoulders. Her bangs half covering her dark green eyes. She wore a white tank top and light blue jeans. She smiled. "They just think they're better than everyone else. Take it easy. Later." She ruffled his hair and walked off.
"uh... goodbye."
"Whoa, dude!" Lee came walking up, grinning broadly. "That was most excellent."
"Oh, shut up!" Bryan couldn't hide the redness of his cheeks, even with the enormous goggles. "Ugh, you're impossible, Lee."
"Sure, whatever."
"Anyway, got any homework?" Bryan asked as he stood and grabbed his backpack.
"Nah. You?"
"Nope." Bryan smiled. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Rematch!"
"My house, let's get going."
The two friends started off across the grass field behind the school. It wasn't too far to Bryan's house, but in the still hot late-summer sun, it seemed much longer than it was. Arriving at his home, Bryan's mom greeted them in the kitchen. They grabbed a couple sodas and a bag of chips and started up the stairs.
"Oh, Bryan! I almost forgot... this package came for you today."
Bryan and Lee froze in their tracks. Both slowly turned to face each other, grins growing on their faces.
Bryan ran back down the stairs and grabbed the package from the table, smiling like an idiot. "Thanks, Mom!"
Giving Lee a high-five on the way up, he bolted up the stairs, whooping in triumph. They ran into Bryan's room and slammed the door behind them. Bryan tore the package open, revealing it's contents to the world.
"It's here!" Lee shouted.
Bryan just smiled. Reaching into the box, he pulled out three smaller boxes, all with digimon logos and Japanese writing all over them. "My digimon game! And my card scan!"
Lee grabbed the smallest of the boxes and looked it over, grinning broadly. "And my card reader!"
Bryan ran over to his computer and moved the hard drive out enough to plug in his new card scan. While he fiddled with the computer, installing the software for the scan and the game, Lee was trying desperately to decipher the half English, half Japanese instructions to his card reader. After a few minutes, Bryan let out a triumphant yell.
"It's installed!"
Lee walked over and looked at the screen. A bunch of digimon and their Japanese names were on the screen. "Well, Lee, which one should I go with?"
Lee pointed at the big bird on the screen. "Garudamon is a good choice."
"Nah... too easy. This is an adventure game, and I want a REAL challenge. Veemon, now there's something to work at." Bryan moved the mouse to click on Veemon's picture. The Veemon walked across the screen and the scenery changed to a forest.
"Hmmm... interesting game."
"Yeh."
Both of them sat and watched Veemon go through adventures in the digital world, with Bryan's help. It was growing somewhat boring until Veemon went up against a Devidramon.
"Dodge, c'mon!" It was no use, Veemon was just too slow to dodge.
"Use some cards!"
Bryan nodded and grabbed his card notebook, pulling out a few good choices. Placing one in the card scan, he swiped it.
"Fly Trap, activate!" A little black object appeared on Devidramon, somehow sucking his power, bringing it to the ground.
"Whoa, excellent graphics."
Bryan quickly scanned another card. "Black Gears, activate!" Three black gears appeared above Veemon, sinking into his back, his eyes glowed red and he left at Veedramon, fighting furiously. Lee's eyes widened. Bryan grinned evilly.
"And now, for the coupe de gras!" Bryan held up another card.
Lee's eyes widened. "Bryan, come on now. Don't you think it's had enough?"
"Yeh, but this way, I can assure his deletion. Veemon will get a lot stronger by absorbing his data. Besides, it's just a game." Bryan put the card in the scanner and swiped it through.
"Ultra Digivolve, Activate!" Veemon stopped pounding the badly beaten Devidramon. He began to glow with a golden light.
Veemon's voice came over the computer's speakers. "Veemon! Warp digivolve to..." The voice grew deeper, and way more menacing. "Aeroveedramon!"
Lee looked away. "Sometimes, I wonder if you're not the Digimon Emperor..."
"Awww, c'mon," he turned to look at his friend. "They're just programs. It's not like they're alive."
When they both looked back at the screen, the Devidramon exploded in a cloud of data, which Aeroveedramon began to absorb. When he was done, he turned his sights on the digimon that had been watching the fight. An evil grin slowly spread across his face.
"Uhm... what's he doing?"
Bryan's question was quickly answered when the rampaging digimon destroyed three Gotsumon who had just come to watch the fight. Their data was just a quick snack. Unsatisfied, Aeroveedramon turned towards some other digimon and destroyed them one by one.
"No... Aeroveedramon... stop..." Bryan's eyes began to water. Aeroveedramon just continued his rampage, destroying two Floramon. Bryan reached out and touched the screen. "Please stop."
"See what you did? Agh, what are you so upset about, it's just a damned game, remember? Bryan?"
Bryan was focused on the screen. His digimon was destroying innocent creatures, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
"Stop!"
"Bryan, what's your deal?"
"He's... He's killing them!"
"Calm down, man."
"But... this is murder!" Something happened. Maybe it was just a glitch in the game, maybe it was Bryan's intense emotions, maybe it was fate. But whatever it was, it was going to change their lives forever. The Ultra Digivolve card in his hand glowed with a low light. Bryan looked, bewildered, at the card while it changed into a blue metal card. The "D" on the front gave a final glow and stopped.
"What in the hell?"
"Uhm, Bryan? What just happened?"
"I have no idea..." He turned the metal card over in his fingers. The screen on the computer flickered and went black. "Lee, lemme see that card scanner, maybe it'll tell me what this card is."
"Uhm, sure." Lee handed his card reader over. Bryan turned it on scanned the card through. The card reader began to spark. Bryan and Lee shielded their eyes. The sparks from the card reader burned Bryan's hand, but for some reason, he couldn't drop it. When the blinding light faded, the card reader was gone. In its place was a strange-looking device. Later, they would find out that this was Bryan's very own digivice, his D-Arc.
Lee looked at his former card reader. "What did you do to my card reader!?"
"I didn't do anything! It changed into this thing on its own." Bryan looked closer at the strange thing. Pressing the buttons on the bottom, he cycled through empty screens. "It's empty."
"It looks like a digivice!"
"Yeh, must be some sort of contest."
Both of them examined it over and over again. Niether of them could figure out what it was supposed to be. Finally, it got late and Lee had to go home, still fuming about his reader, but he let Bryan keep it. Late that night, Bryan lay in his bed, looking at the digivice. Fianlly, he rolled over and went to sleep, holding the digivice tightly in his hands.
"It's only a game..."