Chapter 2: Monumental Meltdown
A/N: Set basically in the season three era but in America and (for now) there is no planned crossing between these characters and the characters of the Tamer series. All of the tamers are OC's and the blue cards are gone, replaced by two new cards, however one of them will be similar to it. 'Single' quotes mark thoughts, and "double" quotes mark speech.
Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon, the digivices, or the Digital World. I do own the OC's, the plot, and the two new cards.
Zack walked into Ravenwell high school in a really down mood. He had used a supposed rare card on his game and it froze. He had tried just about everything to get it working again. He shook it, trying to see if it had a loose part. He tried turning it off and then back on, it didn't even turn off. And finally, he tried removing the game and card reader, but both were stuck in the DS lite. The only thing that Zack could think of that he didn't try was popping open the back to see if he could remove the battery. With his frustration over his DS, he didn't think today's field trip would improve his mood.
With the city only being about a couple hours from Washington DC, they had many field trips to the Smithsonian Museum and other places like the Washington Monument. Today's field trip to the White House put him on the same bus as Dustin Rict, the meanest bully in school, who seemed to have made it his life's mission to tease Zack at any opportunity. Though Zack wasn't the only target on Dustin's radar, he just drew the short stick when Zack moved to the city in fourth grade and Dustin immediately saw him as fresh blood to torment. Now that they were both seventeen and juniors, things have just gotten worse.
Zack wasn't paying attention to where he was going as he remembered all the crap that Dustin had put him through and he ended up bumping into the demon himself.
"Hey!" the tall, dumb, sandy-haired sports jock shouted when he felt Zack's average height and slim build hit his shoulder. "Oh… if it isn't Zack Lamethon!" the dufus said jokingly to his large "friends" behind him.
"Get lost, Rict." Zack shot back, trying to keep his voice steady.
"Um… no," the oaf replied, "I think I'm gonna take out the garbage. What about you two?" he asked, turning to his no-brained buffoons. They both grinned and laughed as all three of them moved toward Zack. Zack's eyes shot open wider in fear as he recalled his least favorite type of torture: garbage day.
The thin boy stepped backward as Dustin's "hired help" got closer and got ready to grab him. Just as they were about to snatch him though, Zack ducked under there arms and ran down the hall with Rict's gang hot on his heels.
Half an hour later, Zack slipped into his homeroom, and stood around with the other kids as they waited for the teacher to return from checking on the bus. Zack looked up to see that Dustin was entering the room. His heart sank with dread till he realized that he was being lead into the room by a pink glove on his ear and he was groaning in pain. Entering the room behind him was Mrs. Izumi wearing her usual pink dress and pink cowgirl hat.
"That is it. I've had it with you mister. You're going to the principal's office a soon as I right up the referral," Mrs. Izumi scolded sternly, "I mean it's bad enough that you're the worst trouble maker in school, but giving a kid a wedgie so he'll tell you where to find another kid to beat that one up too? There is no way I'm letting you go on this field trip now."
All the while, Mrs. Izumi filled out a referral while keeping a firm hold on his ear; "Now here, hold this," Mrs. Izumi said as she shoved the pink slip into Dustin's mouth, "Maybe that'll stop your moaning for a sec." Then, the rather irate teacher turned to the rest of the class and said sweetly, "I'll be right back kids. I just have to take Mr. Rict up to the office, and after that it's on with the field trip."
Mrs. Izumi started to move Dustin back toward the door and said in a not so sweet voice, "Move it!"
After Mrs. Izumi and Dustin had left the room, it took the remaining students a couple seconds to realize what had happened before exploding into loud cheers. Zack's slightly shorter best friend, Paul Earling, struggled to make his way through the crowd;
"Yes!" he shouted along with all the cheers, "Mrs. Izumi is my hero, or heroine! Whatever, she's the best!"
Zack joined in on the cheering, "HAHA! Served him right! Did you see how she just dragged him along by his ear?"
By the time Mrs. Izumi returned the cheering had died down, but upon seeing her everyone once again broke into screams of thanks as each student ran up to shake the hand that had so mercilessly controlled Dustin.
It had taken a good ten minutes to get everyone back under control and onto the buses to head off toward Washington DC. Along the way, kids were making up songs with bad lyrics all about how great Mrs. Izumi was. Zack would have joined in but didn't want anybody to make fun of his voice. So instead, Zack just continued to try to fix his DS and enjoy the "music".
The binary code was still flashing as they pulled up in front of the White House. The bus came to a stop and Mrs. Izumi stood up to explain the rules and safety regulations that she had to recite every time they went on field trip, plus the added rules of the specific trip so she was going to be talking a while.
Zack kept fiddling with his DS, only half listening when the screen whited out; starting to glow brightly, and whine at the same time.
"Ow!" someone shouted.
"Ugh, it sounds like my baby sister when she decides to fill her diaper and be hungry at the same time," someone else said.
Slamming the DS closed, the whining stopped and everyone sighed in relief. Zack shoved the glitching electronic device into his bag and zipped it up, hoping it wouldn't make that sound again and Mrs. Izumi continued to explain things as if nothing happened, but she was talking a bit louder seeing as if the loud sound had damaged her hearing.
After Mrs. Izumi had finished, everyone got off the bus received nametags from the security officer standing at the door.
"Hey, Zack," Paul said to get the other teen's attention as the students filed into the large foyer, "do you have a flash light on in your backpack?"
"What?" Zack asked as he pulled off his bag. Sure enough, the light from the DS was shining through and you could even hear a faint whining. Zack ran up to Mrs. Izumi and asked for permission to use the rest room. Once given the O.K., Zack dashed to the nearest bathroom, locked the door and pulled out his DS.
The light was now so bright that it seemed to consume the game system, and the whining made him think that his ears were going to start bleeding. Finally the whining stopped and the light was getting dimmer; however, along with that, Zack's DS was shrinking and changing in shape.
Now, in his hand, Zack held an oddly shaped device that had a strap at the top of it and atop the strap was a clip. The device had a ring in the center of it that encircled a square screen. Beneath the ring were four buttons. Each button pointed in a certain direction, up: down, left: right. The strap, ring, and buttons were all a bright orange that stood out against the dull gray of the rest of the device. Tilting it so the left side of the device was facing up, Zack saw a connection port of some kind. Flipping it so the right side was facing up, he saw a narrow slot go done the side. On the left side of this thin gap it said, "slide", and on the right side it had three arrows pointing down. Rotating it back to the right side up position, Zack held it in the palm of his right hand. It felt natural there and seemed to be right where it belonged.
A knock on the bathroom door jerked him out of his thoughts; "Hey Zack! Come on man!" Paul's voice called through the door, "Something is going on and they're evacuating the city."
Zack pulled open the door, "Why what's going on?"
"I don't know. I heard a security guard's radio say that there was loads of fog outside, especially around the Washington Monument and that something is causing everything to freeze," Paul answered in a rushed voice, " and in order to get back home we have to pass right by the Monument."
"Boys!" Mrs. Izumi called, "We have to go, now!"
Zack and Paul joined the rest of the fast moving kids as they raced back to the bus. Once everybody was on, Mrs. Izumi did a quick head count and told the bus driver to head back to the school. As they were pulling away, Zack's new device that used to be his DS started beeping and the screen was flashing green.
Zack tried to get it to stop by pressing the bottom button, but this only resulted in a hologram being projected from the screen. The hologram appeared to be a compass pointing at the Washington Monument as they went around it. The "needle" of the compass continued to point at the Monument, which appeared to be the center of the fog, as the bus lurched to a sudden halt; flinging half the people out of their seats and onto the floor.
While everyone tried to pull themselves out of whatever awkward situations they landed in, the device in Zack's hand continued to beep and point in the direction of the center of the fog, supposedly the Washington Monument.
That's it,' Zack thought, 'I'm finding out what's out there.' He pulled himself out of his seat and started to pick his way through the mass of moving teenagers. When Zack got to the front of the bus, he saw Mrs. Izumi typing furiously at her laptop.
'I wonder if she's trying to e-mail for help…' Zack thought as he continued to stand next to the driver. The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, unconscious. Shrugging his shoulders, Zack grabbed the door lever and moved it over to open the door. When the door opened, the bus was filled with freezing cold air;
"Mr. Lathon! What do you think you're doing?" Mrs. Izumi asked, seeing Zack when she looked up at the cold air.
"I'm going outside to take a look around," he answered, "Maybe there's someone out there who can help." And before Mrs. Izumi could see past his lie, he dove out into the fog and started to walk around. As he got closer to the bus tires, Zack saw that they had been frozen to the ground.
'Huh, how odd,' he thought.
Deciding to go with his original plan, Zack started to follow the compass point until he was at the base of the Monument. Then, the needle vanished and four arrows were pointing at the center of the compass, indicating he had made it.
" But made it where?" Zack questioned aloud.
"Why, you made it to the party," said a voice behind Zack. Whirling around, Zack saw the one thing he never expected to see. A big, blue ogre with an ice sword.
A Digimon.
