Liam: I'm cool! You wrote me as cool!
Peacekeeper, sighing: No, I wrote you as acting cool. Something that I fear may become one of my greater mistakes.
Liam: Hey! I'm cool!
Peacekeeper: You spend your days staring at a computer screen. The only reason you don't get your ass kicked at school is because the only person who hates you enough to fight you is also dumber than a brick wall. You are not cool.
Liam: That's mean.
Peacekeeper: Anyway, R&R. Don't sue. I don't own anything. Not even the creepy Osamu muse that is responsible for Relapse.
Liam: You're mean.
Peacekeeper: And you're a dolt.
Chapter Three—Destiny CallingAgainst his better survival instincts, Liam fainted at the sudden voice behind him. Once he woke up, he began cursing himself. Yeah, what a wonderful day. You've never fainted in your life, and now you've fainted twice in the same day.
Looking up at the faces above him, he resisted the urge to faint again. Instead, he curled up into a tight sitting position and closed his eyes as tight as possible.
Must remain…calm. Must not scream…must remain calm, Liam began to chant silently. This is just a dream. Dreams can't hurt me. Must remain calm. This is the most real dream I've ever had. Must remain calm. Can't look like a dork.
Yet, when he opened his eyes, the people still standing before him shocked the calm out of Liam.
"No! This isn't possible! You aren't possible!" screamed Liam, confronted with another contradiction to his already shaken rationality.
The brown-haired boy in the peculiar jacket and khaki shorts turned to his friends. "What's he talking about? I know I'm great, but I'm not impossible…"
A cute brown-haired girl with amazing reddish-brown eyes giggled at him. "Oh, Davis, he's right. You are impossible."
Her blond friend laughed with the girl. "That's Davis all right—modest as ever."
Liam took a deep breath and released his legs, while trying to regain his composure with the reality building around him. OK, if this is real, I must be…well, let's skip over where I am. Let's just not seem like an idiot, ok Liam? Deal? Deal.
"OK, you really are…" He stopped, trying to figure out how to phrase what logic told him could not be. "The Digidestined? Davis, Yolei, Cody, Kari, TK?" he asked, amazed at the question even forming.
All of the mirth in the group around him evaporated instantly. "How do you know us?" asked the short boy with his brown hair cut in a bowl shape, eyeing Liam with suspicion.
The blond boy and the brunette girl quit laughing and stared down at Liam. The blond asked, "Yeah, who are you, and how do you know our names?"
They are real! I'm really in the Digital World? OK, must act…normal.Liam shook his head in anger and puzzlement as he slipped back into his well-rehearsed personality. "One minute, I'm writing a story about the Digidestined, the next moment I'm sitting with them in the Digital World. This can't be happening. This definitely doesn't make sense."
The girl with the wine-colored hair adjusted her glasses, eyeing Liam with suspicion. "You're telling us it doesn't make sense? Just how do you know who we are?"
"Ok man, you know us, but who are you? And where did you come from?" asked the first boy who his friends had called Davis.
"This is going to sound really weird, and imagine what it sounds like for me to be saying it. Where I come from, there's a TV show about you all, and your adventures in the Digital World, err…here." Liam shook his head again, and pulled out the digimental, staring blankly at it and turning to the taller brunette boy. "If they're right, that means you're Davis and you are partnered to Veemon."
Turning to the suspicious girl and her much shorter friend, Liam continued, "You must be Yolei, and you are the new bearer of love and sincerity, and your digimon is Hawkmon. Cody, you carry Knowledge and Reliability, and yours is Armadillomon."
Turning to the last two, the blond boy and brunette girl, Liam finished, "TK, Hope, Patamon. And Kari…" Liam paused, trying to maintain his careful act that what he was saying wasn't impossible. "Light and Gatomon. Am I wrong on any of these?"
This time, the others jaws dropped as they heard Liam's identification of all of them. After a few moments, TK broke the shocked silence. "No, you're absolutely correct. I don't suppose you know who my brother is."
Liam sighed, still disbelieving the conversation he was having. "Yes, your older half-brother is Yamato, or Matt, and he's digidestined as well. His digimon is Gabumon. And Kari, your older brother is Tai, and his digimon is Agumon"
They looked at each other in shock. Somehow, the newcomer knew everything about them, yet they had never seen him before.
"How do we know you aren't working with the Digimon Emperor?" Yolei asked, stomping her foot down.
Digimon Emperor? "Ken? I can't prove to you that I'm not with him, unless you want to call him up and ask. Besides…" Liam stopped himself, weighing how much to say from what he knew from the television show. He was already shocked at how much he knew and how accurate his knowledge had been, yet there was still a lingering fear he couldn't yet identify…
The Digidestined exchanged looks of shock with one and other. He knew the name of the Digimon Emperor, which the rest of them had only learned a few days earlier. "OK, so you know all about us, so how did you end up in the digital world?" TK asked, with curiosity and a faint bite of hostility.
Liam scratched his head. He was both nervous about the hostility of the group and shaken by the strangeness of the day. More than anything, he wanted to earn some trust from the group to try to smooth over his bumpy day. But the only way to do that was to keep up his act that this was all relatively normal.
"Well, Izzy might have a theory or two." His comment elicited a slight laughter from the group despite the chilling fact that Liam inexplicably knew everything about them, including their friends.
"Hey man, what're those? I've never seen a digiegg like that, or a watch like that one! Do you get Donkey Madness on that thing?" Davis said, noticing Liam's Digimental and digivice for the first time.
TK looked at Kari and sighed. "Why does he always want to know if the latest version of the Digivice gets Donkey Madness?"
Liam looked down at the odd digivice. "Well, the digimental appears to be the Digimental of Spirit, if the crest information on my computer is accurate. As for this watch, I think it's a digivice that I was designing on my computer, before I found out that the Digital World is real. I had named my version of the Digivice the DV-X, Digivice Mark Ten."
"You designed your own digivice?" Cody's question had a slight bite to it, and Liam remembered that Ken's digivice had been the first of its kind, too. Still, something in the youngest boy's face made Liam feel slightly more comfortable with his question.
"I don't really remember anymore. I guess it just came to me in one of these weird dreams I've been having. Even those dreams don't compare with how weird today has been, though," Liam answered, shaking his head slightly in disbelief.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. "Why were you guys in here today, anyway? Trying to take care of Ken?"
"Why should it matter to you? You can't prove that you're not one of Ken's toys, and you want us to trust you?" Yolei's rage and suspicion at Liam startled him.
"Well, let's put it another way. I'm from America. I like you guys, and have dreamt about coming to the Digital World and…" his voice drifted off as he stopped the thought, and revised it. "I've dreamt about coming to the Digital World with you guys since I first saw the TV show."
Now I'm beginning to wonder if that wish was so smart, Liam added to himself.
A soft giggling caught Liam's attention, and a small brown furry creature flew out from behind TK. The creature's voice was soft and lilting, and trusting. "So, you're here to help us fight Ken?"
Liam chuckled at Patamon's question. "I guess…the problem is I haven't found my digimon partner yet. That is, if I'm even supposed to have one…I'm not too sure of anything right now."
Davis, ever the optimist, tried to cheer up Liam. "Don't worry man. We'll help you! We're here to save the world and help people, and maybe you're here to help us!"
For a moment, Yolei seemed to be ready to object, then she just shrugged her shoulders in resignation.
Liam ignored Yolei's silent objection and laughed hesitantly, getting to his feet. Considering the way the day had progressed, he was beginning to think sitting down and twiddling his thumbs would be a safer course of action. Looking around at the faces that surrounded him, though, he felt surer of himself. "Well, then let's get moving. If I'm going to be here for a while, I want to at least find my partner, and maybe figure out a way to get home before dark."
With that, they got moving on the trail, five pairs of Digidestined and the newcomer to the Digital World.
• • • • •
"Hmmm, what is this? A new human in the Digital World? Honestly, when did it become so easy for people to get in? The barrier must be lowering its standards."
The Digimon Emperor scowled at the display in front of him. "Who dressed him, anyway? A colorblind Drimogenmon? Hmmmph. Oh well, no matter. Just one more Digidestined to destroy."
Suddenly, something on the newcomer caught the Emperor's attention. "What's that…a digivice? But I've never seen anything like that one before…"
The Emperor's tone grew more vicious as he glared through the purple glasses at the object on the newcomer's wrist. "I hate it when people upstage me."
Suddenly angered, the Emperor stalked off in his base to find Wormmon so he could properly unleash his frustration by practicing soccer kicks on the rookie virus digimon.