Keyo Red Angel of Hope: Normal rules apply. Digimon belongs to Bandai, the fan characters belong to us, and notes are at the end. As always, thank you for proof reading CrazyEight.
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Chapter 10
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The station was a busy place, with players and their partners shuttling around File Island upon the monsters train known as Trailmon. The Digimon itself came in a wide variety of types, from the 'worm' style resembling an a cross between a freight train and a caterpillar, looking to be made of wrought iron with a set of four head lights that resembled eyes and oversized pointed teeth emerging at the front of the boiler section to ones that resembled large pink moles.
Yeah…they were weird.
Wandering through the station, taking in the variety of maps and deals and help points as well as the general atmosphere of the station, Dainya whittled away time while Sythe rather zealously fought for tickets back at the queue. Lupmon padded along side her, eyes as wide as her partners as she swung her head around and walked sideways and backwards in an effort to see all that was around her. One ear then flapped up as she paused, catching an odd new sound in the air, Dainya doing the same as she joined her partner in turning her head as their eyes sought what their ears had already found. There, clad in loose black hakama and haori and sporting an oversized conical hat was a man, sitting cross legged against the station wall, plucking away at a banjo, filling the air with the a rendition of 'Yankee Doodle Dandy.' When the song ended, he held out his hand.
"That'll be 500 bits." He spoke in a smooth tone, causing Dainya to blanch.
"Wh…whaddya mean 500 bits!?" She cried out.
"You got to enjoy the song, so now you got to pay the piper…banjoist."
"But I never…I mean…"
"You alright here Dainya?" Sythe suddenly stepped in, clapping a hand down on her companions shoulder and directing the cold tone and stare at the banjoist.
"The plinky man wants out money." Lupmon piped up, pointing with a claw at the music man.
"A pushy busker eh?" She narrowed her eyes further.
"What's a busker?" The Digimon cocked her head.
"A beggar with an ounce of talent." The white clad player smirked in a predatory fashion.
"Now, now." The banjo player protested. "Isn't beggar a little…"
"You have three seconds then I call the mods and tell them you were trying to extort a helpless n00b."
With a 'meep', the banjo playing busker was up and darting out of the station,
With a sigh, Sythe returned her hands to her own sides and glared after the retreating figure.
"You gotta watch out for players like that Dainya. Not everyone here is benevolent and there are a whole bunch who like to chew on n00bs for their own profit."
Dainya took a worrying glance in the same direction, thoughts of Eight Ball and particularly Min flashed through her mind causing her to frown. Lupmon looked up at her with concern at her partner, and it did not take long for Sythe to also notice the distress etched on the girl's face.
"Hey! Don't worry!" She slapped her back in a hardy fashion. "Most of us are an alright sort, a bit mad but we're alright! Now c'mon, I got us some tickets and our train is about to depart!" Sidestepping behind the girl, she began to push her in the direction of their platform, her Agumon doing the same to Lupmon. "C'mon girl! Move, move, move!"
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In most games long distance transport is but a cut-scene, giving the start of the journey, and the end with the actually time of the journey filled in with the time it takes to load up the next area. This is infinitely shorter and far less scenic than a true train ride or boat trip, or a virtual one for that matter. While this method is used in Digimon Online for long trips between the continents and islands, internal journeys do take time. One of the officially given reasons is that players walking would appreciate actually comparative travel times; it is also unofficially believed to be because the programmer Yukio Kaizawa had a thing about trains and was adamant about actually having them with an accurate simulation of motion, rapidly blurring window images and interior cabin design.
Dainya just wished they hadn't simulated the fight for seats so well.
Cramped in amongst many other passengers aboard one of the caterpillar like Trailmon Dainya clung onto one of the standing loops, passively looking out of the windows at the flashing scenery of File Island, shifting from lush green to dusty red as they began to enter the Achieve Valley. She didn't really know if Cait could give any answers, but he was the only actual person she could talk to about what had happened who hadn't made maturity their dump stat.
"They're sure are a lot of people on the train." Lupmon pined from her location around about waist height, before standing fully upright to try and get a better view, sinking back to her haunches when it failed.
"Vague tips spread fast in the tavern world." Sythe explained with a shrug. "Adventurers don't need much more than the word 'treasure' to go running off."
"Especially if it comes from a tavern." Agumon commented, breaking his so far stoic presentation, arms folded across his chest, bright red training bracers standing out against the pale orange of his scales, eyes closed for a look of clam superiority, one of his eyes creaking open as Lupmon poked at his claws.
"What are these anyway?" She asked. "Aniki wears them too, but I don't know what they are."
"They're training bracers." Agumon answered simply, closing his eyes and raising his snout again to present himself in a dignified fashion to defy low stature.
"But what do they train?" Lupmon asked, her tail coiling about in a manner that could be described as fidgeting while she ran her question through her head.
"Well they…that is to say…" Agumon's eyes drew open slowly as he proceeded to scratch at his head in an effort to recall their actual purpose.
Chuckling at the discomfort of her normally ruffle proof partner under Lupmon's rather curious child like gaze Sythe turned to look at Dainya and her far away eyes, a small, sneaky smirk spreading on her face as she once more clapped the girl on the back.
"Don't worry D!" She beamed. "We'll find your lost little lover boy."
Burning up immediately into red, Dainya whirled to face her companion, hands waving in defence of the verbal assault.
"He's not…I mean, how can you think I…that's not what I…I mean…it's…"
Whooping with laughter, Sythe slapped Dainya on the back.
"That got you out of your funk fast enough." Sythe grinned. "Now, stop looking so glum or I'll make even wilder accusations. Involving Numemon, a London bus and Ronnie Corbett."
Cooling down from the shock of the teasing, Dainya quirked an eyebrow.
"Who's Ronnie Corbett?"
Sythe simply sighed with a shake of the head and a comment of 'philistine', proceeding to amuse herself by ignoring Dainya's continued questioning regarding the diminutive comedian.
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Stepping down from the Trailmon, Dainya and Lupmon both let off a low 'woah' as they took in the bizarre shantytown that surrounded the small station. The station itself was wooden with a pair of sheds on either side of the double tracks to act as ticket offices, while the town was made up of tents and shacks and huts, the most complex being cobbled together sheds and the most basic being a tarp held up with a quartet of sticks. What made the town impressive though were the bones decorating the buildings. They all resembled dinosaur bones and many of the huts and skulls as door knockers or wind chimes made from smaller bones, there was even a large tarp supported by a rib cage.
"Cool huh?" Sythe grinned, startling Dainya back into focus with her usual clap on the shoulder. "Look up."
Following Sythe's outstretched arm and finger, Dainya almost did a double take when she saw the entrance way for the station was a massive, pointed teeth bearing skull, shafts of light shining down through the empty eye sockets and nose slits.
"Those are big teeth." Lupmon gulped.
"This is Fossil Town." Agumon nodded. "It acts like a home base for adventurers looking for treasure in the valley."
"And it's unique among all the towns in the game!" Sythe beamed, looping an arm around the shorter Dainya, steering her into the town, Agumon following at an even pace behind them while Lupmon scurried around them all, keeping her eyes on the town and everyone moving within it. "See, this place wasn't made by Pandai, it was originally just a blank and dusty spot and to get here you had to trek through the Fragment Desert. It was helluva dangerous, and some smart players figured they could make money by setting up tents at the mid-way point between the territories, so that once a player had trailed through the desert they could sap their bit bags dry by acting as merchants. They'd by a surplus of items and travel in a caravan, taking turns to sit and wait and sell stat discs on to tired travellers. When the Trailmon Network was installed, they decided this should be where the canyon's station should be. It did damage sales for awhile, but seeing as they got to become an actual town, people were forced to come through here if they wanted to use the train, and they didn't install any NPCs. Every merchant in here is an actual player."
"FS SD 500BTs Each!" A sign they past read, while voices that were similarly inarticulate cried out.
"It's a mixed blessing…" Agumon sighed at the persistence of n00b merchants.
"So do we go around and try and find the hottest tip?" Dainya asked.
"Whenever I've gone and run into Cait he's been pursuing some vague, shady tip from a questionable source." She snorted out a laugh. "Said it's the best way for a 'true adventurer' to work. So what we're after is the foggiest tip!"
'I know a certain little imp who's good at providing those." Dainya chuckled internally, a smile tweaking onto her face. "So what are we going to do then?"
Pausing, Sythe looked around for the nearest bar before nodding her head across to the building and pulling her in its direction.
"We go to where all tips hot and smoky hang out."
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Bathed in the musky scent of their smoky tip Sythe and Dainya trudged along a narrow rocky pathway leading up and along a high canyon wall. Ahead of them Lupmon scurried on all fours, nose to the ground as she tried to pick up Cait's scent while Agumon padded along at the back, arms folded and eyes half lidded in a nonchalant manner, looking a little bored but glad to be free of Lupmon's pestering.
"So somewhere this way? We couldn't get more exact than that?"
"The guy also said it should be under a great big rock shaped like a nose." Sythe waved her arms to emphasise the implied size.
"You want me to use my nose to find that nose?" Lupmon sniggered.
"That won't be necessary." Agumon cut in, causing the group to pause. "Look over there."
Following the nod the small lizard gave with his over sized head the travelling party looked over the ravine to the opposite side, spying the large, bulbous, rocky outcrop that stood over the ridge, shaped very distinctly like a nose.
"Ahhhhhhhhh, just typical!" Sythe threw her arms up in exasperation. "We're on the wrong side of the canyon!"
Fuming in a very vocal fashion, Sythe ran through all of the curse words she knew that wouldn't be censored, which was a surprisingly high number, while Dainya focused on a strange series of flashes that were springing up near the nose rock. Suddenly there was a great noise, 'crack-a-boom', that was accompanied by a large plume of dust and the sight of a large scar emerging along the nose.
"What the bloop was that?" Sythe cried.
"Whatever it was is going to take at least an hour to regenerate terrain." Agumon sighed, leaning back against the canyon wall, idly watching the repeat series of explosions appear and move closer to them.
It was then there came something that made their eyes shoot wide open as two figures launched themselves from the opposite ridge, fire and dust blasting out behind them, as they hurtled down, they turned breaking into a smile as they spotted the figures on the rocky causeway. Pointing at the Digimon of the pair, Lupmon cried out.
"Hey! There's Aniki!"
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Raven: Sorry for the long notes today. And there's not much here except set-up sadly, but it should get us prepped for a semi-awesome chapter next week (We're almost like volleybal players, setting up a shot before spiking it in).
Now, Keyo usually answers each reviewer's questions privately, but I feel that a few of these need to be told to everyone, so I'm gonna talk about a few reviews we've gotten lately. (by the way, we love you all. Without you, we prolly wouldn't be keeping on, and we hope our ideas continue to bring you happines)
Kaen: You're my new favorite reviewer. Don't feel so bad about your review, I loved it. And yeah, I made Sephy's full name after remembering the dozens of "Super Saiyan 4 Sephiroth"s that plagued the first PSOs on the Dreamcast. And to answer Flaming Guitar, Digital Kaiser Sephiroth is a cross beween the previously mentioned name, the Digimon Emporer's name, and the word Kaiser, German for King (not connected to Fubuki at all, though Bobby may have been thinking of him when he made the name).
Dragonchad: Seeing as Dragon Drive is not an MMO like The World in dot.hack, yes there are more similarities. However, in Dragon Drive, it is Player vs. Player, something that we are focusing on in this story for time's sake (We only referenced some destruction of Betamon to show that this is indeed also a Player vs. Enviroment game). Also, as stated before, The World has you with a weapon, Dragon Drive has you with a partner dragon, something Digimon is much more similar to (though some Digimon have weapons of their own).
Alphamech: You get the kudos bar. Cait is indeed named after Cait Sith (though White Sythe is not part of the trick and is a different name we made more for her personality).
Shaveza: I hope it doesn't become as confusing (or depressing, for that matter) as dot.hack. We have a pretty decent idea that makes sense, and while we are planning plot twists and a red herring or two, I don't want anything as crazy as Tsukasa's little exteded stay in The World.
Opusj (and anyone else with characters): We are welcome to hearing any ideas anyone has involving their own characters. We can't guarentee that they'll make it in, but we can always hope you don't notice when we throw them in another story (nothing's planned, in case you're wondering. I would need to spur Keyo into action, and even then, I'd hafta wait until we're done with this behemoth of a story). Email me at or and give me something to tinker with. Let's just hope you don't throw an OC we're already planning.
For those non-apathetic sorts, I have finished Infection, working on Mutation (dad gum Moonstone, so effin' weak), and halfway through //Sign with a few episodes of //Roots watched as well. (I now know which is which). Yep, it's amazing how many coincidental parallels we got with dot.hack. But we've had some of these ideas months before touching dot.hack, so please don't hit us for copywrite infringement.
Keyo: I like trains.
Okay, I'll take up more space.
My liking of trains is part of why there are Trailmon here, but it's also because many MMO's have a system for getting players across great distances. This is ours.
Fossil Town was fun to design, inspiration kind of came from the archaeological site in FFVII (damn, a lot of links there) as well as my love of the western frontier style, the expansion of players into the wild without the discipline and control of the moderators.
Cait and Komodomon return! And amazingly a Wile E. Coytoe cartoon didn't inspire their entrance.
My buffer has once more disintegrated as I ran into a bit of mental block on Chapter 11, but I'll get it back…hopefully.
God I miss my 'h' key.
Keyo & Raven