Digimon Re:Link

by wildwing64

It is the year 2008. An average Digimon fan learns the hard way that it was all real, all along. Now part of his daily life, our hapless hero must face his past as he bands together with a team of veterans and newcomers alike to protect the Digital World from a group of Hackers. Worlds collide and mysteries await, but all our hero wants is some peace and quiet and a cup of coffee.

2. Episode 01: Enter

Digimon Re:Link, Episode 01 : "Enter"

It was a day off like pretty much any other day off. I was sitting in my room, bored, on the computer, and not doing anything worthwhile. Just messing about on the internet and flipping through the same old websites as I apparently had nothing better to do.

Yeah, this is a scene you'll be seeing a lot. I don't really get out much.

It was the beginning of Easter Break. Having recently handed a load of assignments in, today was as good a day as any to chill out and do pretty much nothing. I'm sure there are better ways to spend your first day off, but at the time none immediately sprung to mind. Maybe I could have got on with some other work, or maybe start writing a novel. Oh well.

I went to check my email. I know, exciting right? Among all the spam that had flooded my inbox, I noticed this one that kept popping up which I thought was some kind of desperate plug for one of those generic free-to-play RPGs you see littered around the Internet, using little more than cheap illustrations to market the game. With a subject title like "Monster Tamer" in the email, you'd probably think the same too. This one email must've appeared at least three times, so I swiftly deleted them all.

And every time I did that, I got another one.

What a pain. Why do I keep getting these? Around this time, my brother was going through that phase where he played a lot of these kind of games, and much to my dismay he often used my email address for this stuff instead of his own, for no particular reason. I wondered if he had something to do with it. So, I popped down the corridor to pay him a visit.

"Damn it, Georgie!" I complained as I barged into his room.

"What?" he answered back, "What d'ya want, Steven?"

"What've you used my email for this time?"

"…What are you talking about?"

"Does 'Monster Tamer' ring any bells?"

"No?"

"Really?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yes!" Georgie raised his voice as I continued to distract him from whatever MMORPG he was playing this time, "Go away already!"

"Alright, alright…"

In case you haven't already guessed, my name's Steven. And that was my little brother Georgie. Why am I also revealing his name to you? Well, try and remember him for another time if you can. He's kind of important.

So, I went back to my room. Since I keep getting this email and there doesn't seem to be any way of stopping it, I may as well take a look. What harm could it possibly do? Well, opening up the email revealed to me an important keyword, one that you wouldn't think they'd just leave out of the subject title of all places:

Digimon.

That particular word resonates quite strongly with me. Looking back, it was a big part of my childhood. The virtual pets, the anime, the card game, I was a sucker for all of it. Heck, my fascination with the world of the Digital Monsters led me to write my very own fanfiction. That last part I'll hopefully never mention again, as recalling my writing ability from being a twelve year old makes me cringe.

This email though, it came out of nowhere. At the time, Digimon hadn't been around for what felt like an eternity. Three anime seasons, a fourth that never aired here on the British Isles, and basically nothing since. Have they suddenly decided to revive it? But more importantly, I don't remember signing up for anything like this. Where did they get my address from?

And more to the point, how do they know my name?

"Dear Steven," the email read, "We have sent you a link to a questionnaire to help us confirm your identity. Please fill it in as soon as possible. Thank you for your time."

Confirm my identity for what? Normally, you'd get this sort of email because you've forgotten a password. What made this part strange was that, again, I hadn't signed up for anything to do with Digimon. At least, not in a long time.

Well anyway, I clicked on the link and it took me to a webpage. It wasn't anything fancy, but for whatever reason this page had a really old Digimon logo on it. It was kinda scribbly, with the "O" having a disgruntled monster face drawn into it. It was clearly a product of its time, but in a way I found that charming. Probably helps that I grew up in that time period.

I looked around the page for this questionnaire. But it looked like it only loaded up one question. I guessed this was either because the page didn't load properly, or my brother's MMO was using up all our bloody bandwidth. I reloaded the page a couple of times, but was still seeing the same page with just the one question on it. No links to further questions after this one. It asked:

"What colour was your Digimon Virtual Pet?"

This just came across as incredibly stupid. How could a plastic toy's paintjob possibly serve as a way of confirming a person's identity? As far as I remember those things only came in blue, brown, or yellow if you were lucky. Your mileage may vary on that last one.

But then again, mine happened to be a somewhat unique colour scheme. I don't know why I went to dig it up; I knew very well what colours mine was painted in. Maybe I wanted to confirm it, maybe I was about to enter another of my obsessive nostalgia phases. Either way, I spent a good five minutes digging through boxes in the corner of my room until I found it.

"Silver and red," I muttered to myself as I held the v-pet in my hand. The v-pet was cuboid in shape, designed to look like a brick wall. On the right there were three buttons arranged vertically, and much of the left side was occupied by the screen. Going with the deliberately mean and aggressive feel of the toy, the screen was bordered by what was supposed to resemble a cage door. On mine, the 'brick wall' shell was silver, and both the buttons and the cage door thing were red. I'm sure I wanted a red one when I was little as that's my favourite colour. But with that either being hard to find or not even existing, my Mum bought me this one instead. Just looking at this thing brought back a lot of memories from my junior school years, exactly nine years ago at the time.

Ah, yes. This was just one of many crazes that would come along and take over the school playground, before inevitably being banned. Much like Yo-Yos, and those weird alien egg things, and that other, more popular battling Mon franchise that appeared sometime after and had kids fighting over it instead. Out of all of those things, the Digimon v-pet probably stuck out the most in my mind. Much blood, sweat and tears went into raising my Digimon. At least it felt that way at the time, even though it only really involved a bit of button pushing. With this simple game I even managed to beat a school bully, and in retrospect given what was happening at the time I'm not sure if that was really a good or bad memory.

After this, I recalled a weird dream I had that very night after beating the bully. The Digimon I was raising appeared before me and then started vanishing, all while roaring in agony. I remember waking up that night and finding that the batteries had run out, in fact I could see the Digimon fading away on-screen. Looking back, there was something very symbolic about this; either way I never got around to getting new batteries for it. I mean, after they banned them from school and the fad died out it's not like I had anyone to battle with, which ironically defeats the very purpose of it.

…Oh, that's right. I have that "questionnaire" to fill out.

With the dusty old v-pet in my pocket, I went back over to the computer. Interestingly the question seemed to now have a drop-down menu, which I swear wasn't there before. Much to my annoyance, "Silver and red" was the only answer available. Oh well, whatever. Clicked the answer, clicked the send button, and got a message saying that they'd get back to me.

I was still wondering at this point how they got my email address in the first place, or how they could possibly have known what colour my v-pet was. I don't recall ever putting any information about it on the 'net. All I could do now was wait for a response, which would end up answering my questions and raising many more.

One half hour of internetting later, I went to check my email again. I got the following message:

"Dear Steven, thank you for answering the questionnaire that we sent you earlier…"

Again, what questionnaire?

"…Based on the information that you provided us with, we strongly believe that this game might be of interest to you. Please have fun, and enjoy!"

A game, huh? Well, I was half right, I guess.

So I went ahead and clicked the link as provided in the email. And I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw: a free-to-play MMO Digimon game! From what I could gather, it was like a cross between an MMORPG and a virtual pet. Thinking about it, this was pretty much the ideal concept for a Digimon game.

Well, needless to say I got a little hyped. I had no idea such a game ever existed, and bam: here it was right in front of me. Much excite.

After creating my account and logging in, the game interface loaded up. A few icons were dotted around the screen, which I guessed would serve the same or similar functions to the classic v-pet. Among other things you had a little icon for the Digimon's stats, a feeding menu, a variety of training options, and a button to clean up his… um, nevermind.

After a brief moment of loading, I was introduced to a bright and colourful village that appeared to be made up of giant painted wooden blocks – the kind that a baby would play with – and surrounded by a forest. This was the kind of thing that would more than likely scare off older players like me, but then again this environment looked very familiar. It strongly resembled an area from the anime which I recall being named the "Primary Village", where Digimon are born. If I'm being honest, it was a bit much.

A lot of eggs were dotted around all over, waiting to hatch. Of course, smack bang in the middle of the screen was my own egg. A shiny silver egg, decorated with red markings that were very similar to tiger stripes. I wondered if this was related to my v-pet's colour scheme, or if it was little more than a happy coincidence.

Seems I had to wait a little while for the egg to hatch. As I watched a variety of baby Digimon hatch and hop away in different directions, I took a moment to marvel at the game's graphics. For a free-to-play game, there was a surprising amount of detail in this village alone. I couldn't wait to explore more of this world.

Before I knew it, the egg started to hatch. Out of the egg came a small, cute, teddy bear head-shaped blob with no distinguishable facial features except for a pair of yellow eyes; this was Botamon.

"Su-tii-bun!" The baby Digimon squeaked happily as it bounced up and down on the spot. It was a strangely cute sight. But I think he was trying to say my name, and that was a bit creepy.

I wasn't sure if I was seeing things, but something about his character model seemed… off. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was. Maybe he was slightly bigger than his compatriots surrounding him? Maybe I was seeing things. Maybe it was a bug. I thought about reporting this, but if my memory of the v-pets served me right, he wasn't going to stay like this for very long anyway, so whatever I guess.

My next thought was, let's get him out of this village already. I wondered how to move him, before noticing that this was a point-and-click game, much to my dismay as I'd rather have directional buttons to move. Oh well, here we go. Click, click, click, click, click, down south east and out of the village according to the small radar-like map at the top right of the screen.

And then Botamon started squeaking.

…Oh, that's right. He must be hungry. As I remember, feeding him and satisfying his hunger was the first thing you were supposed to do after he hatched from the egg in the v-pet. So I clicked on the food menu, which brought up the options of either a chunk of meat on a bone, or a vitamin pill thing. I fed him a few pieces of meat, watching each one as it slowly fell from the sky and gently landed in front of him. He even did the thing where he shakes his head – or rather, his whole body – if you tried to feed him after he's full up. That was kinda funny, and a nice nod to the old v-pet.

Speaking of which, the next thing you always had to do on the v-pets was increase the little guy's strength, which meant either training him or feeding him pills. The pills apparently had the side effect of shortening the Digimon's life span, which I guess was punishment for being a lazy tamer. Either that or it was a subtle message about drug abuse. But anyway, I clicked on the dropdown menu and was presented with a nice range of training options. Can't remember them all off the top of my head, but I clicked on one that looked like a brick wall.

And lo and behold, a brick wall fell from the sky and landed in front of Botamon, taking him by surprise. To be fair, I would be too if a wall of bricks appeared right out of nowhere and crash landed in front of me. I guessed that this training exercise was related to attack power as he started blowing bubbles at the wall. Much to the baby's apparent dismay, the wall remained intact with no signs of damage whatsoever – I mean, come on, do you really expect to take down a brick wall with bubbles? Frickin' bubbles?

After failing that he let out this long, angry sounding squeak, followed by a more powerful stream of bubbles which totally obliterated the brick wall. The baby Digimon was overcome with joy while I was laughing my head off at the sight. Only through videogame logic could a brick wall be totally demolished by blowing bubbles at it. Whoever programmed this game clearly had a sense of humour, I thought.

Botamon was already tired after this brief training session, and fell asleep next to a nearby tree. If I recall correctly, baby Digimon don't stay asleep for very long. So I took the opportunity to pop downstairs and grab a drink while he was taking his Digi-power nap.

By the time I got back, Botamon had not only woken up, but he had changed shape and gotten bigger: he Digivolved. Wow, that was quick.

He had evolved into a creature called Koromon: a slightly bigger, orange blob with these stringy rabbit ear-like things coming from the top of his head. He had a larger, more detailed pair of red eyes, and this time you could actually see his mouth complete with a few little fangs poking out. He had now reached the In-Training level.

…Wait, orange?

No, that can't be right. Koromon is pink. I don't mind him in orange, but he is supposed to be pink. Was this another bug, or a deliberate change to make the character more appealing to the target audience, even though you don't have him for very long? I wondered about this for a moment, but I'd also seen a couple more Koromon in their correct pink colour. In fact, they among several other In-Training level Digimon were conversing with my Digimon on screen.

It's definitely a bug, I thought to myself.

As I pondered this, I then noticed the Digimon staring in horror at something off-screen.

"What's wrong? What're you all looking at?" I moved the game camera around so I could get a look.

"Oh, crap." In hindsight, leading Koromon out of the village probably wasn't my best idea.

I stopped thinking about the game's bugs, as an even bigger one was now heading their way. This was Kuwagamon, a giant red stag beetle monster with four arms and a pair of bipedal legs. It also had a pair of wings on its back, and one sharp looking pair of pincers at its mouth. As the giant insectoid got closer, all the other small Digimon began darting off in different directions.

"NOPE."

I wasn't having any of it either, and was now frantically clicking to get my Koromon away. I've only been playing for five minutes, and I wasn't letting the little guy die now. I mean, what would happen then? Would I have to start raising him all over again? Sure, it would only be a minor inconvenience at this stage in his life, but, y'know, I'd rather not do that.

Oh, hell no. As Sod's law would have it, Kuwagamon is chasing my Koromon around because it happens to be the nearest target. Yeah, this is fair. Evidently, the game developer really does have a sense of humour. I clicked and I clicked and I clicked in a futile attempt to get my Digimon away.

And then a bright, white light started glaring from the computer screen.

"What the f-AAARGH!"

After a brief moment, the light faded and I started moving my arms away from my face.

"Steven, get away from here! It's too dangerous!" I heard a voice calling me.

As I slowly regained my vision, it became apparent that I was now standing in the middle of a forest, and… hang on, is that Kuwagamon chasing my Koromon around?

"What are you doing?! Get outta here!"

…

I'm inside the game.

What the actual… what.

Well, before I had any more time to take in the current situation I found myself running towards Koromon to try and save him. Ow, my feet. I didn't even have time to put any shoes on. Owowowowow. And then I made a superbly heroic dive, catching Koromon in my arms and rolling out of Kuwagamon's way. Frankly I'm surprised I didn't injure myself in the process. That bloody hurt.

"You alright buddy?" I asked, as if he was an old friend of mine.

"Ugh… yeah, I'm fine," Koromon caught his breath before he spotted Kuwagamon running back towards us at full pelt, "Steven! Watch out!"

I shot back up, watching as this giant bug thing sped towards us. This has to be a dream, right? Yeah, that's right! I didn't get enough sleep last night, nodded off at the desk and was now daydreaming! Right? Nope. Somehow, this was really happening. And I really wished it weren't.

As I tried to make sense of it all, the Kuwagamon suddenly screeched to a halt right in front of us. Yeah, just like that, it stopped. I couldn't see if it had any eyes, but it appeared to be staring right at me. It even tilted its head sideways, letting out this confused grunt.

Good God, was this a lucky break.

"Alright, that does it!" Koromon snarled as he jumped out of my arms, "Steven, now it's my turn to save you!"

Wow, he's quite brave for a little guy. Or rather, for someone who was only born five minutes ago.

Just then, I noticed a glow from the corner of my eye – holy Jeebus! A beam of light shot out of my pocket, curving around and then hitting Koromon, who started glowing. He was growing bigger. He was evolving again.

"Koromon, Digivolve to…" his body started taking the shape of a raptor-like dinosaur. In an instant he had grown to almost the same height as me. The bright light disappeared, revealing that the creature was orange, and had a three-horned helmet thing on its head.

"Agu… rei… mon?" The Digimon looked at itself, trying to work out its own name. Was it a new species or something?

Well, not really. I recognised this Digimon's appearance all too well. He was like a smaller version of Greymon, one of the de facto mascots of the franchise, or something to that effect. Yet somehow, this smaller Greymon looked familiar to me for an entirely different reason.

Wait. He's not…?

…No, he can't be.

I had to hold that thought as my Digimon snarled at the Kuwagamon. The giant bug backed away, knowing that this new, unknown Digimon was now a bigger threat despite being one fifth its size. It then lunged at him, and luckily my 'Mon was able to jump right out of the way of this attack. Even luckier, I'd already backed away moments ago as its giant pincers pierced the ground right where I was standing before.

My miniature Greymon began blowing fireballs at Kuwagamon. The giant bug screeched in pain as each blast hit it, but then a few shots started flying right past him without much effort on Kuwagamon's behalf. What's going on? Are you just trying to scare him off?

As I pondered this, it became apparent that my Digimon wasn't too well focused on the fight. One swing and a whack from Kuwagamon's arm then sent the little dinosaur flying, right over my head and smack bang into a tree. Bloody hell, that's gotta hurt in the morning.

Before I could run over to help him, Kuwagamon then turned his attention to me. No, this isn't happening. It can't be. It's way too unreal. I must've passed out and fallen asleep at the keyboard for some reason, or I haven't had my coffee yet… right? Right? Well, I pinched myself just to be sure. Nope. I'm here. I'm really here. And most certainly wide awake. I have a pretty cool partner Digimon too, but no means of making him stronger. If this were a dream then, I dunno, I would have started chucking fireballs at this monster. Or I'd be going Super Mode and beating him up on the spot. But, alas, this is no dream. Or someone's terrible fanfiction.

Welp. I'm screwed.

And then the giant bug got hit by another projectile, wincing as this attack took him by surprise. Good God, another lucky break for me. I turned to see a small, humanoid sea creature Digimon, had these horns growing out from the side of his head, and some tufts of white fur on his forehead and chest. Standing beside him was a girl who was clearly into Gothic Lolita fashion.

"Attack him, Samanomon," the girl issued a command, with all the non-enthusiasm of a bored shopkeeper.

"I'm on it!" Samanomon happily obliged, and began shooting ice pellets out of his mouth at Kuwagamon.

So I turned to face the girl, "Who are y–"

"Go and help your Digimon," she replied sharply.

My eye twitched. Hey, at least let me finish my sentence!

She glared at me again, "Well? What are you waiting for?"

"Alright, alright!" God almighty.

As her Samanomon continued distracting Kuwagamon, I ran over to my partner, again regretting not having anything on my feet.

"Are you alright, DemiGreymon?"

Wait… how did I know to call him that?

Oh no. Don't tell me. It can't be.

"Ah, so that's what my name was!" DemiGreymon regained his energy all of a sudden, "Thanks for the reminder. Now I can concentrate on fighting again!"

He ran towards Kuwagamon and shot out a powerful flame at him. As Kuwagamon suffered burns and backed away, DemiGreymon caught him off guard, jumping right into him and piercing his torso with the horn on the front of his helmet. The giant bug screeched in pain.

"Thanks for the help!" Samanomon waved at DemiGreymon.

"Just returning the favour!" the dinosaur grinned.

"Why don't we squash this bug together?"

"I like your thinking!"

The two Rookie Digimon started running in circles around Kuwagamon in an attempt to confuse him.

"Pepper Flame!" DemiGreymon shot fireballs from his mouth.

"Ice Torpedo!" and Samanomon shot ice pellets from his.

Kuwagamon froze on the spot, and couldn't move. Parts of his body were badly burnt and destroyed by fire, and other parts were frozen over with ice. As it let out a final roar of pain and confusion, the giant insectoid collapsed on the ground, and dissolved into hundreds of tiny, glowing particles which flew up into the air.

Watching their victory, I couldn't help but high five my Digimon. Well, there's something to add to and cross off my bucket list. I just high fived a dinosaur. Meanwhile the girl rewarded her partner with a tuna steak that materialised from a small device she was holding in her hand.

"Well done!" I turned to see a short, old man approaching us, "You saved this Primary Village!"

I had to ask as I recognised his appearance from the anime, "Gennai?"

"No, no!" the little old man laughed, "I'm his British counterpart, Dave!"

Following this, we all took a stroll down the forest as Dave gave us the lowdown, and it seemed the girl and her Samanomon decided to tag along too, despite her already knowing everything he had to share.

To summarise, this isn't a game, but we are in fact in a parallel dimension made up of computer data: the Digital World. The game I saw on my computer screen was actually an interface that's used to communicate with and connect to the Digital World. As it turns out, all this time the old Virtual Pets served a similar function. I had a hard time believing that they could have possibly achieved such a feat with such simple technology back in the day, but, okay.

"…And you might be interested to know," Dave continued, "that DemiGreymon right here used to be the Digimon linked to your v-pet!"

"So that's how you knew my name?" I turned to DemiGreymon.

"I guess so!" the dinosaur nodded back at me, "I'm not sure how I knew, but I just… did!"

"So, how did he evolve in this way?" I asked Dave, "I mean, if he's the same as in my v-pet, surely he would have just turned into Agumon?"

"You make a valid point!" Dave nodded, "But that's not all. It seems an odd glitch occurred within your Digimon, caused by a combination of some data stored away in your v-pet and… something else. Now, what was it again…?"

Please don't tell me.

"Oh, that's right! There was some more data extracted from a fanfiction you published on the internet!"

God damn it. I knew it. I didn't want to believe it, but I freakin' knew it.

So, let me explain. I made this character up as my own Digimon partner back in the day, and wrote a fanfic about me, him, and our nonsensical yet mediocre adventures. I even had a NeoCities webpage set up for it. Everyone else was doing it back then, usually pairing themselves or an Original Character with a made up Digimon of their own design. Me being the fanboy that I typically am, I just had to have the Greymon line, and yet wanted something to differentiate myself from the anime lead. So, I came up with DemiGreymon… who I guess was more of an Unoriginal Character. All I did was harmlessly follow in the footsteps of that old friend of mine but, uh, I'll talk about him another time.

As I grew slightly older and wiser, I decided that everything I had written was crap, and took my website down. It thankfully never got enough views to leave a significant mark on the internet, "So how could that possibly have been found?!"

"You ever heard of the Internet Archive?"

As Dave reminded me of my old shame, I felt like I was on the receiving end of a thousand stares, weighing me down as if I had committed some horrific crime. And yet the only person looking at me was the Gothic Lolita girl, who despite her blank expression appeared to be holding in laughter. Either that or I was just being paranoid.

"That aside, it seems that he carries a glitch where his forms show traits of the next stage. It just so happens that your DemiGreymon character fit into that mold!"

A glitch, huh? Yeah, he's a glitch. Let's just go with that.

As DemiGreymon appeared to ponder his new form and his existence, I turned my attention to the girl's Samanomon. I was curious, but more importantly I wanted to steer the topic of conversation as far away from my old fanfic as I possibly could.

"So what about this guy?" I asked, "I've never seen him before."

"Victoria drew me!" Samanomon threw his arms around his tamer. The girl didn't appear to be too pleased at her name being revealed in that manner. She sharply glared at her partner, who was apologetically giggling.

So, she drew him, and he came to life. Somehow I was surprised to learn of this, and yet I really shouldn't have been at this point. Similarly, my own creation - if I can really call it that - was standing before me. But weirder still was that I was even standing in the Digital World, let alone the fact that it existed in the first place.

"It seems the power of human imagination has a lot of influence on this world," Dave chuckled. Yeah, you got that right.

Well, that's enough weirdness for one day. I've gotta get home so I can wrap my head around all this. As I looked up to the sky I could see a rectangular shape in which I could see my room, back in the Real World.

But how do I get there? Do I now have to learn how to fly? Or do I click my heels while proclaiming that there's no place like home over and over again?

"No need for that," Dave laughed again, "just use your Digivice!"

"My what?" I then reached into my pocket and… oh.

Yeah, instead of the V-pet that was there before I was now holding a silver and red Digivice. While still cuboid in shape, it was quite a departure from the cage door in brick wall look that it sported previously. It was now a much sleeker, modern looking device with a screen on top and three buttons arranged underneath.

"As you can see, it's been upgraded to the latest model!" Dave nodded.

Oh well. There goes its value in the collectors market.

"If you want to return to your world, you simply need to point it up at the sky and press the middle button."

As he explained the process to me, Victoria and Samanomon had already started walking away. The little sea creature kept looking back at us, with a slight look of sadness in his eyes.

"Uh… guess I'll see you around then?" I asked her.

"We'll see."

Well, whatever. Time for me go too.

"I'll see you next time, buddy!" I exchanged fist bumps with DemiGreymon, "You take care of yourself!"

"Don't worry about me!" he replied with enthusiasm.

So, I did as Dave instructed and pointed the Digivice up at the sky. I pressed the button, and then felt myself floating up in the air. I was once again blinded by a flash of bright light…

And then I opened my eyes to find that I was lying flat on my bedroom floor. Huh. Maybe it was all a dream after all?

Either way; home, sweet home.

"You can say that again!"

Turned out that DemiGreymon had followed me home… wait, what?! What are you doing here?! If anyone sees you in here they'll friggin' kill me!

"Relax, Steven!" the dinosaur reassured me, "I had to follow you here because Dave needed me to tell you something that he almost forgot."

"Well, why couldn't you have just done it from there?!" I frantically pointed at the computer screen.

"This isn't something I can just 'do from there'. Seriously, all you have to do is point the back of the Digivice at me, and press the right button!"

Uh, okay?

Seems there was a small, camera lens-ish thing on the back of the device. Well, I went ahead and did as he said, and then he instantaneously dissolved into hundreds of tiny particles that then flew inside the Digivice… ah, I see where this is going!

I then looked at the Digivice screen to see that DemiGreymon was now inside.

"This is perfect!" he was apparently very excited to be in there, even though it looked a bit cramped, "And it's got everything I need! An unlimited supply of food, a punching bag to train on, an unlimited supply of food… did I mention there's an unlimited supply of food?"

Yup, just like old times. I couldn't help but smile. I safely assumed that he was hungry, so I fed him a piece of meat.

"Aaaw yeah!" and he began chowing down, "That's what I'm talking abou-om nom nom."

In all this, it occurred to me that I hadn't even had my lunch yet, so I went to get a sandwich. Funnily enough, that was about the most normal thing to happen all day.

Of course, the madness that I endured today wasn't simply going to end there. I wasn't even able to get much of a breather as my adventures and mishaps would continue the very next day.

つづく

In Memory of
Paul Gordon
1963 - 2016

and
Kōji Wada
1974 - 2016