"But what about the pipe?"
Written by Calum Traveler
"Zenjiiiiroouuu~~!" Lila called out with a scowl as she strolled past the dining hall. Damned that man- where had he run off to now? "Big important news to share with him and it's like he's nowhere on the ship!"
"Like who's not on the ship?" A question was asked through a mouth-full of food down by her feet as she passed by.
Lila stopped, paused, turned around and looked down. "Oh, Hi, Wormmon."
"Hello," Wormmon waved up at her.
"I'm looking for my wandering swordsman-mechanic of a husband, seen him around lately?" Lila asked in what sounded like an intentionally exaggerated tone of concern, then drawing up her hair into the grassy spikes that seemed to be Zenjirou's style, "He's got hair like this, all sticky uppy? Oh please tell me you've seen him!"
"Ah! All sticky uppy hair!" Wormmon nodded, then pointed with a claw back into the kitchen, "He got recruited to help with fixing the fridge a while ago. And then the stove when that broke down next, and he's been stuck on a clog in the kitchen sink after that. Been there for about three hours now, I think. I can take you to him, if you want me to."
"Thank you, Wormmon," Lila knelt down to pet the Digimon on the head. "That'd be great."
"It would my pleasure to help, Ma'am!" Wormmon nodded.
Lila passed by a table where Davis and one of the girls from that other world, Giselle, were chatting about something or another while Vmon ate some kind of sugary foodstuff.
"And it was sooo stinky, I swear that he must have hit me with an apple-smell-o-ray or something," Davis was grumbling, and Lila had to cover her nose as she passed by him in particular. That strong scent of apples was wreaking havoc on her nose, threatening to trigger a sneezing storm she likely couldn't stop.
"Sorry about that," Wormmon apologized once they were out of Davis's hearing range, "That last Quartzmon thought it funny to make Davis smell like apples. It's quite pleasant once you get used to it."
"Pleasant?" Lila grimaced, "We must have different ideas of pleasant, Wormmon. That smelled horrid..."
"You're the first one to react that strongly to it," Wormmon remarked, "maybe Kaiyumi-san will have some idea how to get rid of it."
"Maybe," Lila frowned, "where is she anyways?"
"Watching Merry-chan for the moment while Rina-san and Hideaki-san talk with King Shoutmon," Wormmon said. "She doesn't do much but sleep right now, so I think Kaiyumi-san's taking the opportunity to sketch and plan. I think she's gotten an idea for something big, but as for what, I wouldn't know."
"Knowing her," Lila chuckled, "she could be planning out the designs for a giant battle robot the size of a universe to use to squash Quartzmon with it's pinky toe!"
"Hahah, a robot the size of the universe huh?" Wormmon laughed, "Now that I'd like to see!"
They reached the kitchen- where a foul smell was wafting up from beneath the sink (Lila once more covered her nose) and there also happened to be a pair of legs sticking out as well, belonging to a torso that was grunting as its arms tried to turn something unseen inside the sink's opened up frame.
"Thank you for following Worm-rails," Wormmon said in a cute mockery of a train announcer, "Now departing for the fridge...!" and with that, he absconded for the refrigerator.
"Um," Lila took a step over to the sink, "Zenji?"
Another grunt- but this one of confirmation, followed by a "Yeah, Lila?" that sounded just a tad distracted. Yup, that was Zenjirou alright.
"So...you remember the other night?" Lila asked. "When we were out on the lake?"
"Uh-huh..." she couldn't see his head moving, but she knew he was nodding.
"So..." Lila took a deep breath to steel herself. "I talked with Nene this morning. And... I'm pregnant."
There was a sudden THUD, followed by a rattling of metal, and equally followed by a yelping "OW!"
Before she could react- Zenjirou pulled himself out from under the sink, nursing a bump to the forehead with one of his hands, "Would you mind repeating that? I think I misheard you the first time due to hitting my head just now." He stared up at her with wide eyes, so terribly confused, shocked, and partially concussed all at the same time.
"I'm pregnant," Lila repeated, hands crossed in front of her stomach nervously.
He blinked for a moment- then stared ahead blankly. "Huh. So I didn't mishear that the first time."
"Are you okay?" Lila asked, getting down on her knees to pull his hand away from his head to inspect the damage from the pipe. She hissed slightly, if they were lucky it wouldn't bruise over.
"Yeah, I think I'll be fine," Zenjirou said quietly, "but I think I'm still processing this new information to really feel any pain at the moment..." He turned to look at her, "So...you and me, huh?"
"Yup," Lila nodded, smiling slightly.
"Me...a dad..." Zenjirou laughed slightly, "and here my parents thought I wasn't ever going to follow through with even asking you to marry me in the first place. Shows them, right?" It wasn't meant as anything but a joke, not from the tone of his voice to the slowly forming grin on his face.
"Yeah, shows them, alright," Lila nodded, giggling in agreement, "and they're going to be grandparents too!"
"Crap," Zenjirou's eyes shrunk slightly, "mom is going to go nuts over this. I can just imagine it now. Baby showers every month til the kid's born, and maybe even after that." He waved a hand out through the air looking horribly scared, "Just baby showers, baby showers everywhere."
Lila started laughing, until the full spectrum of that comment hit her full on, and she realized- "Shit." -he was completely and totaly serious with that remark, and was not joking at all.
"Maybe..." Zenjirou began, "maybe we should hold off on telling my parents for a while."
"Definitely," Lila agreed.
"Are we Back In time?"
Written By Calum Traveler
"And you're sure about this...?" Sylen's voice echoed down the halls of the SpaceTrailmon's neck as Akari walked up the steps towards the bridge.
"One hundred percent," Rina's voice next. "If it were just ours, I wouldn't be so sure, but coupled with the Friday..."
"Yo," Akari called out as she stepped into the bridge, "What'd I miss?"
"We lost the trail, Akari," Sylen said flatly, not even turning away from the monitor he was looking at.
"So, what now?" Akari asked.
"We've got an estimated path through space time," Hideaki explained. "But even if we reach those girl's planet, we're not going to arrive at the same time they left. That bridge- that tunnel- it's gone."
"How long?" Akari asked.
"At least a week, rough average," Rina said, "could be more, could be less. We won't know until we get there."
"Can't we just transport with the time engine?" Akari asked. "Skip ahead to that world, then jump back?"
"The Friday doesn't do those long range jumps, remember?" Rina reminded her. "Besides that, the time engines require precise coordinates to jump properly so we don't crash into anything, and we've got neither space nor time coordinates."
"I remember that," Akari frowned. "I just don't get why we don't have the coordinates, is all. Usually we're able to pinpoint everything down to a T."
"The bridge we were following was technically a wormhole when it formed, navigating through a large distance of space rather quickly, and it intersected a solar flare at least once when it sent those girls through," Hideaki explained. "Stuff like that tends to screws up the scanners really badly."
"So we're taking the long way then," Akari sighed, "alright. Makes sense."
"It could be worse," Sylen said, standing up and turning around to cross his arms as he looked at everyone, "we could have lost the world's estimated position entirely. Then we'd be stuck with three exiles with no way to get them home."
"We've still got to tell them," Hideaki said, scowling. "And I, for one, don't look forwards to being the bearer of bad news."
"So beyond that," Sylen said, "the plan remains unchanged." He paused for a moment, and completely changed subjects, "Hey, Akari, did Knightmon and the PawnChessmonz come with us?"
"Yeah, they're crashed out in their quarters though," Akari nodded. "I think they've slept through the entire trip since we left the last world, came home, and left again. Why do you ask?"
"Just making conversation," Syeln brushed it off, even though clearly he was thinking about contingency plans. "Dorulumon?"
"Kiriha had him working on something when your call came in," Akari clarified. "So he wasn't with us when we left."
(Hideaki turned to Rina, and whispered, "I'm going to go check in on Merry.")
"MetalGarurumon then?" Sylen asked, referring to the former Digi-memory Oblivion Knight.
("Okay," Rina nodded.)
"Should be in the armory," Akari said. "You thinking of something?"
"Just trying to make early substitutions if we need to Xros," Sylen replied. "And Yuu has Starmon with him, right?"
"Yeah," Akari nodded even as Hideaki slipped past her with an "Excuse me."
"Solution, meet problem."
Written by Calum Traveler
Kaiyumi- as her human form was known- was a smart girl, and had always been such even when an amateur Xros Loader modder back when she had still been a Lopmon in the Village of Smiles.
As such- it frustrated her to no end that her designs and plans for a Temporal Synchronization Device refused to follow through into functionality. "Bloody fate of the multiverse on my shoulders, can't even figure out how to get that much energy to flow through such a small space..."
She looked over at the crib where a sleeping baby lay, and sighed. "Merry, I hope you never have to go through what I'm going through right now."
With a shake of her head, she returned back to her sketching.
The problem simply was that generating that much power was easy with an engine the size of Space Trailmon's- but condensing it down any smaller was simply impossible unless they stuck a - And then she face palmed. "How did I Miss That!?"
Unless they stuck one of The Good Friday's size-gate generators on it, or...if they still had access to Sparrowmon's hover board, the size-adjustment data that made Xros-Five able to shift sizes according to the enemy.
The Generator would have to do for now- but producing something of that size in the first place would be nearly impossible without alerting the others to her plans. Plus then there needed to be the matter generation systems, plus Simon's drill summoning factors to keep in mind... And then the overwhelming power of adding a Xros Loader into the mix, the physics of it all would break her mind if she had to work out the minute details of every single problem...
"For every solution, there's a problem," she grumbled, glancing at her watch. One year was almost up. The Butterfly effect would be reaching Emmit soon, and if Future Her was right about the calculations... "Grraahhh!" Kaiyumi turned to a different page in her sketch book. Dinosaurs. She had no clue why, but there was just something stress-relieving about drawing robotic dinosaurs when she hit a road block.
"Not liking how it's working out?" Asked Hideaki as he came walking into the lounge room that they were in.
"No, just...road blocks," Kaiyumi sighed. "I know what I want to build, just not how to build it."
Hideaki looked over her shoulder at the displayed Dinosaurs as he walked by, "Since when did T-Rexes have straw for hair?"
"They're feathers," Kaiyumi corrected. "I didn't just want to rip off the MetalGreymon design from Davis' universe. So...feathers."
"Ah-" Hideaki nodded in approval, "so you want to build a giant robot T-Rex then?"
"No, drawing Dinosaurs is my escape from my real work," Kaiyumi replied. "Sometimes I get inspiration from trying to figure these things out." She tapped at a diagram of a Stegosaurus opening it's mouth to receive something, "They eat rechargeable power cells to stay energized."
"Like...batteries?" Hideaki asked as he walked over to the crib to look in on Merry.
"Batteries?" Kaiyumi laughed. "Why would I use batteries? I was thinking more like..." She flipped through her note book to show a tapered, crystalline cylinder, colored crudely in yellows, oranges, and reds. "This." She held the book up, turned around so Hideaki could see it from where he was.
"A ZPM from Atlantis?" Hideaki raised an eyebrow. "You do realize that if they knew how to recharge those damned things, we wouldn't have had to-"
"Yeah, yeah, I Knoooow," Kaiyumi groaned, leaning back against what she was sitting next to and laying her head back so she stared up at the ceiling. "Friggin' impossible, is what the ZPMs are, and their one downside is that if they die, they're dead. I want to make them rechargeable so we can return the favor to Atlantis..." And for other reasons she dare not say.
"So...rechargeable batteries, then," Hideaki remarked.
"Yes, I want to make Rechargeable, Zero Point Energy Batteries," Kaiyumi sighed in defeat.
And then.
She blinked.
"Batteries, huh?"
A.N.: Apologies for the long delay. Been distracted with other things, such as a BRS/SAO Xros Over idea that I'm still hammering out details on...