Keyo, Red Angel of Hope: As always, Digimon is not mine, don't use my fan-mon without permission, and author comments are at the end.
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Chapter 4: Logoff!
The people behind the players!
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"I don't think I understood any of that…"
"Well, English is hardly your forte."
"Explain it all to me again after school?"
"Just as long as you help me with my math work."
"Of course."
The two students walked onward towards the lunch-hall of the rather prestigious Discovery Private High, their class work the topic of the moment, and the four gold bands on the cuffs of their jackets marked them as 4th year students. The taller was Vincent Reeve, who bore a layered length of rather mussed brown hair that skimmed on the edges of the hair length allowed to male students, while his uniform was well kept, his shirt was slightly ruffled as his jacket, royal blue with gold trim and bearing the school's emblem on the right breast, was kept open, the shirts top buttons were left undone, though whatever they could show was hidden by his tie.
The shorter was named Jan Tepes, his uniform hung off his limbs, despite the efforts to tailor it to fit, his 10-year-old body just wasn't meant for the High School uniform, but to his credit, it looked as smart as it could upon his too-small body. He was a child prodigy, hailed as a rival to some of the most talented in his year, but his skills within the English department were some-what lacking, at least by the standards a 16 year old.
"Do you think Elizabeth will have been let out of the headmaster's office yet?" Jan inquired of his friend.
"Well…she didn't draw any blood…so she'll probably just be kept after school for awhile…"
Jan sighed, Elizabeth V. Sidhe was their 'diplomatically challenged' friend, who had spent a whole of 10 seconds in English class, wherein she entered, walked up to Charles Anderson, and punched him hard in the face before declaring she would show herself to the Headmaster's office.
"Oh yeah, remind me to chase Charles down after school for calling Liz a 'crazy bitch'."
Jan paled a little at Vincent's words.
"Do you really think that more violence is a wise course of action?"
"I was thinking more insults with the threat of sever reprimand, both for his comments in class, as well as for whatever Liz punched him for."
"You believe she had a reason?" Jan quirked an eyebrow in curiosity.
"She always has a reason." Vincent nodded. "She's just…"
"A little extreme?" The two 4th year students jumped as a hand, one on Vincent's shoulder, one on Jan's head. "What has my little sister done now?"
Richard H. Evans was two years above the others, and stood a good two inches over Vincent. His style seemed the opposite of the younger boy, his hair neatly cropped and blond, and sparkling blue eyes in contrast to Vincent's cloudy grey. He was defiantly handsome, with the kind of features that created a world shining smile, or a sultry pout, though with his disposition he more often wowed those around him with shining teeth.
"Liz gave a guy in our class a shiner." Vincent divulged as he forced his heart rate back to normal. "And would you stop doing that Rich?"
The sixth year laughed, releasing the pair, letting Jan sort out his mussed hair.
Joining the conversations of this and that, the three headed into the lunchroom. Despite being two years ahead of the others, Rich spent a fair amount of time with them, most of his friends being in the city's private school Richard's parents not believing in the private sector. They sat at their secondary regular table, their normal, the one nearer to the window, they continued going through details of their day, which lasted exactly until a lunch tray slammed down on the table, a bag was thrown roughly under to impact with Vincent's legs, and a living Fury dropped herself at the table.
"MEN!" She exclaimed, causing her male companions to finally react to her arrival. "Present company excluded." She pacified, receiving a nod of acceptance.
Elizabeth was quite clearly Richard's sister. Her hair was the same rich blonde, and though her features bore a feminine grace to them, they were clearly capable of the same stunning effects as her brother, though at present it was contorted in a mixture of anger and annoyance.
"I take it this is to do with your most recent detention?" Vincent commented off-handily, wincing as he received a swift kick to shin.
"The bastard has been picking on Annette again! He stuck his camera phone under her skirt!" As if for emphasis, she tugged on her own uniform skirt, the school having yet to submit to the campaign to allow girls trousers.
"And you thought punching him was the best course of action?" Liz had begun tucking into her soup when she responded.
"No, I thought pulling his trousers down in front of the class was the best course of action, but he was wearing a belt, so I settled for a swift public beating."
The three males groaned. Liz had always had a policy of justice that followed very much along the lines of 'an eye for an eye', a policy that generated a large number of detentions and an equivalent amount of stress for her friends. She had faced the threat of expulsion on more than one occasion and had often only been saved by protests from members of the student body (and in some cases parent's who's bullied children swore to her defence), her astoundingly high test scores were also a facet the school wasn't keen on loosing.
"I'll talk to him after school okay? See if I can straighten him out." Vincent sighed.
"Why do you think he'll listen to you?"
"Because violence doesn't solve everything?"
"Nothing wrong with a bit of violence, swift kick up the ass to sort them out…" Her head shot up suddenly to glare at the boy, making them jump. "You better not screw up okay!" Vincent nodded a little too enthusiastically while Jan sighed and Richard laughed.
"Speaking of violence, how'd you get on in Digimon Online last night?"
"Well, I had a little trouble in the ruins. You see, I ran into a rather amusing person…"
---
CRACK!
"WAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Tanya cried, shooting up right as Mrs Cartwright cracked her ruler off of her desk.
"Stay awake Miss Mills!" The wiry, sharp-eyed teacher scolded. "If I have to wake you once more I'm giving you detention!"
"Oui…" A large yawn interrupted her. "Madame Cartwright."
There were giggles and jeers from the class, silenced when Mrs Cartwright turned and swept her sharp eyes over them all before returning to her place at the front of the room and resumed trying to install a love of the French language in collected teenagers.
Tanya flushed bright red, wholly unused to receiving attention. But, with an ill conceived yawn, her head wobbled as she tried to remain awake. She had succeeded in staying up until 3 am playing the game, engaging in the early missions with Cait and Komodomon backing her up, helping her pick out useful stat modifiers and some cool new gear. Her avatar didn't look so n00bish now, thanks to all the treasure she and Cait had hauled from the Eniac ruins. It had taken her awhile to realise the adventurer was effectively letting her spend more than was her fair share of treasure, having only stocked up on stat discs himself, but he claimed to have put most of his share into savings, having already acquired the attire he wanted. Yawning again, she took to wondering what she would be able to do tonight in the game. Lupmon had yet to digivolve to champion, and she was really curious as to what she would look like. Maybe she would be a werewolf type thing like Weregarurumon, or maybe she'd become something like Gaogamon, her mind began to trail with ideas of what Lupmon's ultimate and mega forms would be like, she was sure they would be awesome…maybe something really big like MirageGaogamo…
CRACK
"WAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
"Miss Mills! I'm giving you lunchtime detention!"
Clamping a hand to her heart, Tanya sighed.
"Mon dieu…"
---
Tanya looked at distinct combination of tired and embarrassed as she trudged home. The teacher taking detention had been surprised to see the normally attentive student, and eventually gave up on keeping her awake.
Tanya was a good student, though very shy and withdrawn. Today had landed her in more trouble, and drawn more attention to her than she had suffered before.
"Well, you're certainly a woman of your word."
Turning her head to the side, dragging it up from where it had previously been hanging facing the pavement, Tanya gave her friend a tired, but cheery, smile.
"Totally worth it though."
The girl beside her shook her head in exasperation, causing her shoulder length dark ahir to swish about her face.
"Your geekyness will be the end of you."
Blushing, Tanya tucked her chin into her neck. She wasn't embarrassed of her 'status', but she wasn't keen on being called on it. She made to retort, but a large yawn obliterated the words. Chuckling, her friend patted her shoulder as they came to a stop outside Tanya's apartment building.
"Do yourself a favour and get some rest, k'?"
"Sh…sure." Tanya waved, the tail end of the yawn still trailing from her mouth. "See you tomorrow Charley."
"See ya Tanya."
Slouching through the door of her home the weary student dropped her bag at the coat rack, opting not to expend the effort to pick it up when it missed and landed upon the floor, and proceeded to drop listlessly onto the couch, placed her glasses onto the armrest and let her eyes sink closed. Never again would she play to 3am on a school night. Right now she would take a small nap, get changed, and then play a bit more, but first, that nap.
Dreams grew in her mind, being the sort of geek she was, they brought her to her game world, and Cait and Komodomon were down and in trouble. Her hand glowing a bright gold, she drew out her digivice, the light exploding outward and engulfing Lupmon.
"LUPMON DIGIVOLVE TO…"
"TANYA!"
The girl attempted to shoot upright, failed, and fell off of the couch.
"Yeowowow." She groaned, pulling herself into a seated position before letting her hand flail around and locate her glasses, allowing her to put the fuzzy figure before her into perspective.
"Oh…ah…Hi Mum." She blushed, had she been asleep this long.
Her mother simply chuckled and shook her head before helping her daughter back to her feet.
"What was I thinking letting you stay up so late last night?" She sighed, shaking her head. "In any case, I hope you've got your energy back, you do remember what you're doing tonight?"
The wry grin on her mother's face jogged Tanya's memory. Her mother knew exactly what she had been thinking when she had allowed her daughter to play her new game until an ungodly hour on a school night. With her face draining of blood, Tanya hung her head.
"When does he get here?"
"You still have an hour. Go and get changed."
Tanya sighed, what had she been thinking when she had agreed to this?
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Metal Raven: Not much to say here, this chapter is mostly all Keyo. But if you can find out who is who between worlds, a kudos candy bar to you.
Keyo: This chapter has been a pain. It was a pain to write, then I wasn't happy with it and re-wrote it, then I got that back from CrazyEight and had to fix it again and then we had to run some name changes XP
That aside, I liked it because I finally got to bring in Liz and Jan, who I've been looking forward to having around. Liz is your flaming sword of justice, fabulously violent and proactive, I have a strange liking for girls who could, and would, kick my ass and Liz falls into that category. She also fills some of my personal dreams of getting back at the bullies that harass people.
Jan is something of your classic 'child genius'. There a character type I love (when done well, such as Azu Mang Daioh's Chiyo-chan.) I'm looking forward to expanding his background a bit. Speaking of which, Vincent probably has the most extensive background so far, which I'm also going to enjoy bringing in.
Incidentally, I didn't originally have Tanya talk to anyone on her way home, but then I realised she needed some more exposition, and thus Charley was born, named for a friend of my sister.
Thanks once again to CrazyEight for his help, and now to respond to someone anonymous comments.
Kriegel: Thanks for pointing my error with name usage, and as for your complaints about the name 'Pandai' our options were to come up with something original, or parody Bandai, we chose to parody because it made us chuckle and I like Pandas. Incidently, Pandai's logo is a chibi panda.
yeh: This has to be the most scathing, and yet complimentary review I've received. It's sad that I do have grammatical errors, being an English student :P
And to the blank one, yeah, I remember Digimon World 3, and I believe there is a fan made MMO out there somewhere.
Thanks for reading, and see you all next week where we'll have yet another new character!
Keyo & Raven.
