DISCLAIMER – I'm pretty sure… ::checks:: Yep, I don't own Digimon. So don't blame me for the Elvis Monkey.
Erm… this is brutally hacked from a series of shorter fics posted to alt.fan.digimon, which were part of the DigiWars, the least interactive interactive fanfic in the world. Readers there might have known Raine before this, but rest assured that it'll all be explained. You know as much as she does at this point…
So enjoy, or something. Please?
…/…/…/…/
Raine lifted her head carefully, as if to make sure that nothing would fall off. As it happened, even this slightly concussion-induced goal was defied by the dislodging of a small clod of earth which had somehow attached itself to her.
"Ungh…" moaned the young woman, pulling herself into a squatting position. Her entire body ached, and her arms and legs were feeling uncomfortably cold. Barely noticing her change of attire, she pulled the collar of her jacket up and fastened its metal clasps in the hope of warming up a little. Given the tropical look of her surroundings (the three incongruous road signs were currently being conveniently filtered out by Raine's waking mind), she was faintly surprised to be able to see her warm breath in the air.
Suddenly, a thought dawned on Raine despite her current sluggish mental state.
"Shit," she exclaimed to no-one in particular. "I'm dead, aren't I?" She paused for a second and rested her head against her knees. With a familiar jolt of fear, she found herself quite unable to remember exactly how she had died. She recalled the pain, and the feel of metal being thrust through her chest, but the details of her demise irritatingly eluded her, as if kept just on the threshold of memory, out of reach by inches. Raine sighed. Now she was concentrating on it, the lack of memories was quite intensely frustrating.
Ordinary things were still just that, strangely, as if the loss of recollection was selective somehow. When she looked at a tree, she knew it was a tree and remembered what one should look like. Ditto the road signs, clouds and earth. However, when she tried to remember, for example, where she had been born or the names of her parents, her mind drew an irritating blank.
Strangely rational given her sudden and near-total lack of life experiences, Raine looked around her. She saw no reason to panic. After all, this could well be where she lived, or a place she visited every day. On the other hand, said a decidedly less optimistic part of her, it could be hell. Or (she gulped) heaven, at that, although it would be against all odds. Raine shuddered.
"Well," she finally announced to the world in general. "I won't get anywhere just sitting here. Then again, maybe I will." She thought for a moment. This lack of experience was becoming a wall she ran into regularly. Beyond a faint memory of an instinct, there was no guarantee that something wouldn't happen simply because she stayed where she was.
Her legs hurt.
Pulling herself to her feet, Raine closed her eyes, stuck out her tongue in determination and stabbed out a finger, noting the way her jacket swished every time she moved. If nothing else, her current amnesiac state was allowing her to enjoy things as if new again, which she almost appreciated.
Just as Raine was about to make a suitably dramatic statement and strike out across this new world (or old one. For all she knew, and as I keep emphasising, she could well live here…) in her chosen direction, a faint whistling sound began to ring from the clouds above her. Opening one eye and glaring upwards at the whirling sky, Raine squinted in puzzlement at the tiny object, glinting in the light as it plummeted towards her, flipping over and over as it fell through an odd gap in the clouds.
With a small, understated thump, the falling D3, a nice shade of purple, struck Raine on the head with all the force of its fall. The device, seemingly unharmed, fell snugly into her hand as its unfortunate owner, an extremely surprised look on her face, succumbed to the head trauma and neatly folded up into an unconscious heap on the floor.
.//.//.//.
"Is she…like…alive?" asked a high-pitched voice. Raine thought she could hear genuine concern in its tone, but it might well just have been the after-effects of multiple unconsciousness mixed in with a little death and resurrection, all in what could loosely be called one day. Plus, she considered, she hadn't eaten in what could range from about twelve hours to a small eternity.
"I think so…", this voice was male, and sounded a little cracked, old maybe. "It's so hard to tell with humans. Then again…" The voice broke off there, as if afraid to continue. Raine groaned faintly, then opened her eyes. When the blurriness finally cleared, she found herself lying on a blanket in a fairly small room. On her left, a towel clutched protectively in his hand, stood a small man who almost defied the description 'wizened'. Raine made a face in an instinctive reaction to the way his eyes stuck out from the sides of his head. Fuzzy as her memory was, it reminded Raine strongly of a fish.
"Oh! Thank goodness!" squeaked the first voice. It sounded much too enthusiastic for Raine's liking. As a rule, she tended not to trust happy people, on the basis that they were probably hiding something. Nobody, in her experience, was ever happy based on their real situation. Then again, she had been killed, concussed by a high-speed Digivice and lost most of her memory that day, so it could be said that she was a little biased.
Rolling onto her side, Raine was hit full in the face by a brown and white blur of fuzz. It was like being struck, hard, by a mop. Raine recoiled as bat-like wings fluttered against her face.
"I'm so glad you're okay!" yelled Patamon, attaching herself firmly to Raine's head and giving little indication that she was likely to let go.
"Argh!" she exclaimed, rolling backwards, a sudden movement which dislodged the joyous flying hamster onto the floor. Raine squinted suspiciously at Patamon. "Do I know you?" she asked. The odd-looking animal didn't trigger any memories in her, but she was becoming more and more convinced that precious few memories remained to be triggered.
As Patamon shook her head and looked encouragingly at the old man, he indicated that Raine should follow him and shuffled through the doorway. Idly playing with her bright red hair, Raine climbed to her feet, staggered a little and followed, Patamon clinging to her shoulder.
"Erm… excuse me?" asked Raine, walking quickly to catch up. The old man, for all his ancient appearance, was surprisingly fast. "I kind of have a question…"
"Yes?" said the man, leading her into a small side-room, an entire wall of which appeared to be some kind of display screen.
"Well, I kind of have a few…" sighed Raine. Today, if this was even the same day, seemed to be becoming more and more troublesome. "First, off, who are you? And where am I?" Am I dead?" she asked, then realised that this was only skimming the surface of her curiosity. She sighed. "This could take a while…"
The man scratched his head. "Well, I'm not quite sure that even I understand all of this," he swept his arms around to indicate everything around him. "I, by the way, am called Gennai, and I try to offer assistance to those who find themselves here."
"And here is…?" asked Raine She had a lot of ground to make up.
"You really don't know, do you?" squeaked Patamon. Raine, becoming gradually more and more irritated by the Digimon's saccharine-happy tone, glared at the creature.
"No. That's sort of why I asked."
"This," said Gennai, as the screen behind him flickered into life, "Is the Digiworld. A world made entirely of digital code. Everything you see here, from the ground below us to Patamon there, me and even you, are made up from computer programming."
Raine looked puzzled. "And have I always lived here? I sort of remember dying…"
Patamon and Gennai exchanged worried glances. "Oh dear," muttered the old man. "It's worse than I thought…"
Raine narrowed her eyes. "I take it you mean this sudden lack of memory. I'd appreciate a bit of an explanation of that, too, if you don't mind…"
Gennai pointed at the screen behind him. As he indicated it, the static formed into an image of two planets, rotating slowly against a backdrop of mysterious symbols. "This," said Gennai dramatically, pointing to the planet on the left, "Is the Digiworld, created by the computer networks of the world on the right, Earth."
"And that's where I come from?" asked Raine, failing to understand much of what was being said. The fact that she had to concentrate to remember what a computer was worried her a little.
"No," answered Gennai, again exchanging glances with Patamon, who was still squatting protectively on Raine's shoulder. "The Digiworld is inhabited by Digimon, like the one currently sitting on you. Along with me, they are natives of this digital world. Earth is inhabited by humans like you, I'll admit, but that isn't your point of origin either."
Raine stared intently at the screen, feeling that the huge empty patches in her brain were being refilled, albeit slowly.
"You, it would appear, are from what is known as a parallel reality," Gennai continued. Not noticing the vacant look on Raine's face, he went on. "Millions of such realities exist, all divergent from each other in either small or large ways. As far as I can see, humans inhabit at least ten of these. You come from one of those ten."
"…kay," said Raine, squinting at the twinkling lights on the monitor, each of which, if the old man's words were correct, showed some kind of alternate planet. Anticipating a long answer, she glanced at Gennai.
"So how did I get here?" she asked, desperate to soak up as much knowledge as she could.
"You said that you died in your own world, yes?" asked Gennai, looking interested. Raine nodded, mentally noting how comfortable she had become with the concept of having been killed.
"And were you, by any chance, near a computer when you shuffled from your original mortal coil?"
Raine hesitated. "All I have are vague images. Some kind of monster, then a sword, then sparks, then waking up here. Sorry…" she said apologetically, annoyed at her amnesia for standing in the way of a proper explanation. It might not help matters any, but she reasoned that knowing how she had arrived might at least ease her curiosity a little.
"Well, I can only assume, but I'd wager that your expiration coincided with a glitch in the Digiworld."
Patamon's ears twitched.
"A glitch?" she asked, sounding a little worried.
"Nothing to worry about," answered Gennai in a reassuring tone. "They happen all the time. Since digital life such as you and I are independent programs, we hardly notice. The worst effect you'd feel is a little dizziness. However, by some quirk of fate, I would guess that Raine here was caught by a glitch in whatever subroutine calls DigiDestined to this world when they are needed."
Raine opened her mouth to inquire, but Patamon shot her an 'I'll explain later' look. The young woman sighed, sure that she would never understand the full picture, and went back to listening to Gennai's rambling explanation.
"Instead of calling a human from Earth, the program somehow brought Raine's brain pattern here. It probably helped that her mind's connection to its body had been severed by death…" Gennai mused, tapping a finger on the screen in thought.
"That's explain the D3, too," mused Patamon, indicating the object which had knocked Raine unconscious. It now lay on a side table, its case opened to reveal a distinct lack of contents. Without its electronics it was useless, little more than a small chunk of plastic unable to interface with the Digiworld's systems.
Gennai nodded happily, impressed by the little Digimon's intelligence, then seemed to remember something and returned to his serious look.
"It's likely a symptom of the same thing. It seems as if parts of the calling code have been activated, but only briefly. One thing this does mean, however, is that Raine here is definitely not a DigiDestined. Her lack of body proves that."
"Um… on that subject, what happened to my body?" asked Raine, looking concerned.
"Oh, it's probably wherever you left it," said Gennai airily, as if it was some loose change Raine had misplaced. "Quite dead, of course. All that's left of you is the residual self-image standing here. You're a complete entity in the digital world, but nowhere else. Even if you were to find a portal back to your world, there would be nothing for you to inhabit. You're just a wisp of data now, like me and Patamon…" Gennai trailed off, sounding regretful.
Patamon narrowed her eyes, deep in thought.
"But Digimon have travelled back to Earth before," she squeaked. "The first DigiDestined took theirs back with them a few times…"
Gennai glanced at the winged hamster. "Hmm. You're right, you know. Maybe it's related to attributes in some way… Anyway, I wouldn't risk it, Raine, even if you were to find a gateway. You might appear fine, or you might be deleted."
Raine nodded slowly. "Yeah. I think I'll steer clear of anything portal-like. I've had just about enough universe-hopping for a day. Not to mention ceasing to exist…"
Gennai nodded.
"You haven't said anything about…um…" Raine looked pointedly at the ball of fur on her shoulder. "… was it Pagumon?"
Patamon looked offended. "PATAmon," she said, emphasising the first part of her name without shouting. "Pagumon is an evil Digimon…"
Gennai looked bored, as if repeating an explanation he had given many times before.
Surprisingly enough, some time passed.
Raine stood on the edge of a vast lake, staring out through the morning mist into the deep jungle of Server.
"So… what you're saying is that I can't stay?"
"Yup!" exclaimed Gennai cheerily, waving goodbye as he hoisted his backpack and began to walk away. "Sorry about this, but I have to see a man about a Salamon…"
Raine sighed. Not that she'd desperately wanted to stay with the old man, whose presence she still didn't quite understand and whose rescue of her she found a little disturbing. Still, she thought, he'd given her a meal, and maybe saved her from another death, this one a little colder than the last. And he seemed to have introduced her to Patamon, who, for all her irritating tendencies, was company, something which she needed at the moment. Actually, she considered as Gennai stopped waving, grinned surreptitiously and hobbled away, she still wasn't quite sure why Patamon seemed to have joined her. Putting the question aside as one which was unlikely to be answered anytime soon, Raine shrugged her own backpack, freshly refilled with food from Gennai's undersea home, onto her shoulders, checked that the airborne hamster was with her and struck out into the foliage.
Watching her wander away, Gennai risked a glance back over his shoulder. He felt a pang of guilt at sending the woman out into the Digiworld alone. He couldn't have done anything else, though, he thought. The idea gave him a little comfort. The digital world inevitably caught up with glitches in its systems, and the young lady was definitely that. It was better that nobody was close to her when it happened, he thought. Deletion wasn't a fate he wanted to share.
It was a shame about Patamon, though. The little Digimon had visited every day for some time now, and Gennai would inevitably miss her cheery company.
Still, there would be other Digimon.
There always were.