The digital world woke to a day it had yet to see as tainted. No humans had yet brought them harm, and the binary on the horizon was a source of excited gossip, but little else. Project Download was a headline anywhere the digital world produced newspapers, but so few actually knew the technical details that the scrolling red band was not a threat.

In the morning light, groups of Floramon stretched their petals and played in ponds to refresh themselves. Herds of Tyranomon passed them by with hardly a glance, bumbling in their sleepiness and seeking the heat of the rising sun to stir their blood. Sleepy in-training digimon huddled together and alone in crevices where the night chill wouldn't find them, yet dreaming of human partners who would take them on perilous adventures to fight darkness in their world. The buzz of Flymon and the harsh cries of Cockatrimon and Akatorimon filled the air. It was just another dawn as usual outside of Babamon's home.

Yellow sunlight came through the window, and met the red light of the dying embers where Babamon snored in a chair scarcely large enough for a human child. The light lent an eerie copper glow to Tailmon's hooded eyes. This new day found her in an only slightly better mood than the previous night. Beside her, Hikari was in a thin, twitchy sleep. Her eyes were puffy, and the only reason she hadn't jerked awake in the night again was because her tears had worn her out.

Tailmon brushed her claws through the ponytail lying against Hikari's neck. It was about the same length as her mother's, but she still wore clips to control stray hair. Hikari would be an adult soon.

In a sudden, but not unprecedented moment of clarity, she found herself reflecting on just how good Hikari was. She had her flaws for sure. She'd become a little more like Taichi in the past few years, and in a pinch she could put on a brave face and charge forward just like he would, for better or worse. But she still had her insecurities that Tailmon was at a loss to help her with, and even in light of that, she was still the best thing that had ever happened in Tailmon's life. And as always, a cold needle of paranoia bit at the heel of this revelation. Maybe none of it was real, and she was still in hell, where her scars were fresh and nothing as good as this was ever going to come her way.

No. For the first time, she found she had a good rationalization for this reality. If I was in a really good dream, this bastard wouldn't be here.

She walked over to the trainer, and the Koromon on the other side of the room stared at her with red anticipation in their eyes. Had they slept at all during the night? She had been so focused on Hikari that she didn't know, but the idea that they had all watched him in a silent, venomous huddle bothered her. They'd all turn into virus digimon if they kept pouring it on like that. That, she reasoned, was all the more reason for what she was going to do.

She was sorry he was human, but it was Ken who told her once during the review of the early inter-world laws and ethics codes that digimon were on the same level as humans. It was he who said, while looking regretfully inward, that humans would need punishment for offenses against digimon, the same way digimon would need punishment for offenses against humans.

"Call me a lady of the law then," she said, and kicked one of the trainers mauled arms.

He came awake with a screech of pain, which Tailmon muffled it by stuffing one of her gloves in his mouth. "Shut up!" she whispered harshly.

Babamon snuffled in her chair, but didn't stir. Neither did Hikari.

"You've done enough damage. The least you could do is not wake Hikari with your howling." She scowled at the tears welling up in his eyes. "It couldn't possibly be painful. Not after you burned an entire village of digimon who are only a little stronger than a bunch of kids with sharp sticks. Before you start crying about how much pain you're in, think of what you did to them."

He nodded furiously, and she could see panic in his eyes. Her stomach twisted. It was therapeutic for sure to see him humbled, but that cowering expression with her face reflected in his eyes made her fur crawl.

"...I'm sorry." She retrieved her glove, and sat beside his head, staring down at the floor. "This situation frustrates me. You frustrate me…but I don't have the mean streak to be as hard on you as I want to be… So please don't look at me that way."

The terror slowly faded from his eyes. He still looked helpless, but that had more to do with his condition, Tailmon hoped.

"You're going to answer some questions for me, and I'm going to try to clarify what the existence of a digimon is to you. We're going to come to an understanding this morning, and then we'll see if you deserve to be forgiven." He nodded again, and she gingerly held up a pokéball, touching as little of the mechanism as she could. "Let's start with this. I've got a problem with giving anyone the benefit of the doubt, but I think if you knew ahead of time that you might end up like this, you wouldn't have thrown this. What is it? How does it contain living creatures?"

"Pokéball," he choked out. "Capsule system."

"That's not much to go off of..."

"I don't know… Pokémon go in and come out…It turns them into data, I think."

That caught her attention. "It can turn living things into data?"

He nodded. "Only works on pokémon…"

She smiled bitterly. "What you mean is it only works the way it should on pokémon. If it didn't work on digimon, you wouldn't be in this situation." She inspected the ball in her hand. "Is there one inside this one?"

He shook his head. "Seals."

She raised a brow, and glanced at the pile of his belongings. On the few stray pokéballs there, some did indeed have stickers on them. She ignored them, and set the one she was holding aside...far aside. It'd be just her luck to get sucked into one of those hellish little devices. She turned her focus back to the trainer. He kept pokémon. They fought for him, and even though he'd captured them from somewhere when they were once free creatures, they were probably loyal. Tailmon suspected that it was only the partner bond that had prevented her from killing Hikari when they first met, but this boy was no such case. How could a human have that kind of power over a wild animal?

"When we made the gates, we included a filter so that only humans with partner digimon could come here... This is our world; the digital world. If you're here, you have a partner. Where are they?"

His eyes looked back at his seal-coated pokéballs. "All my pokémon are my partners..."

"I see," Hikari said softly. "So that's how you got in."

Tailmon looked over her shoulder like a caught child. Hikari was very much awake. In Babamon's low-roofed home of Babamon, she couldn't stand, so she scooted over on her knees, and seated herself opposite of Tailmon, on the other side of the brutalized trainer. They made eye contact for a short period, and Tailmon saw a certain something she couldn't name and didn't like. It wasn't disappointment, but it wasn't happiness either. There was no resignation, or bitterness, just an enigmatic tiredness, as though she had a dull ache that wouldn't go away. Tailmon continued to gaze worriedly at her partner, but Hikari was already focused on the boy.

"I think I understand now, and I think this warrants at least some forgiveness."

The Koromon immediately growled their displeasure, but Tailmon's glare challenged them to get any ideas about attacking her partner. When they were silent, she looked to Hikari.

Hikari picked up a pokéball with a sticker on it, and clicked the button on the front. The red one—Charmander, was it?—emerged in a flash of white. It was still beat up from yesterday, but it held no obvious malice. It looked around without interest in the Koromon and without fear of Tailmon, but when it saw its trainer, its entire demeanor changed. The fire on the end of its tail flickered, and something that may have been a roar or a scream caught deep in its throat. It paced up and down in frantic half-executed motions, looking him over, at how badly he was injured, and only then did it look at Tailmon. The fire on its tail surged, and it braced itself to launch at her. The trainer struggled against his bandages, trying to tell it to calm down, but in the end, Hikari tossed its pokéball at it, and it disappeared mid-leap.

"Remind you of anything?" she asked, setting the ball aside.

"If the way this boy acted with the Koromon is any indication, he catches pokémon by beating them up and putting them into pokéballs. But after they get over it, they get protective, like partner digimon."

Hikari nodded. "The barrier to keep people with no partner digimon out, and digimon with no partner human in, allows pokémon and their trainers. The pokéballs…if they really turn living creatures into data, maybe they just don't know what to do with digimon? You're alive, but you're data as well. Maybe…they just put it back wrong?"

Tailmon's ears dropped as she thought on it, but she quickly gave up. "It would take Koushiro or Miyako to really make sense of that. I can get behind the idea of these things not being built to handle digimon, though." She glared at the red and white objects, at rest on the floor. "I still don't like the system, but I can write this off as an accident, I guess..."

"Thank you…" the trainer mumbled.

Tailmon whipped her tail ring against the floor, right next to his head. "I didn't say I forgive you."

Hikari watched her partner leap to the window, and out of it, in the truly fickle fashion of a feline. This new world had rubbed Tailmon the wrong way, and Hikari didn't blame her. Pokéballs seemed dangerously similar to dark spirals. The saving grace was that free will still seemed like an option for the pokémon. Hikari glanced at the Koromon. They were unhappy, glaring, just waiting for her to leave. It struck that rare nerve in her, and her patience slipped.

"What would Taichi and Agumon think if they saw you like this? I don't blame you if you don't forgive him, but only cowardly digimon would gang up on someone who was sorry and defenseless."

Her tone and mention of Taichi worked. They diffused quietly and in shame, and some of them started sniffling like chastised children. She turned back to the trainer. Soon, she decided, she and Tailmon would leave this place. They would go see this world, which had replaced Hikari's home world. They would blend into it, and watch it, and if it really was so much like the world Ken had tried to make…

She didn't yet know how, but she would stop it. She vowed on her crest, warm and reassuring between the breasts she had grown since it was last there.

"Tell me what it means to be a trainer," she said to the boy. "Tell me where you go, what you do, what your goals are. Tell me everything. But first, tell me your name."

"Joey."

Outside the digital world, morning had come and gone in Kanto. It was lunchtime, and Taichi ate in the good company of his partner and the nurse who had bandaged them both. Taichi was not the only one who'd had a hard time with the geodude. Agumon seemed to have enraged them, and was covered in bruises from the long fight that marked his arrival. The nurse insisted that Agumon stay until she was sure of his condition and Taichi agreed. They had no idea where they were, or where to go, or what had happened to bring them here. The extra days to think it out wouldn't hurt them. That and he had a sneaking suspicion she would have her helpers—terrifying, bizarrely cute things that called chansey—sing them to sleep again if they tried to sneak off. They resigned themselves, not unhappily, to spending awhile at the Pokémon center.

Sora, so nearby that they would later wonder how they missed each other, was in a similar position. Piyomon had finally wakened, and was up and about and rather cheerful all things considered, but her wing was still damaged. As Birdramon, the wounds might be small enough to let her fly, but as Piyomon, the bites were serious. Sora refused to try digivolving until it was healed, so they were grounded. Piyomon had accepted this with a smile, on the condition that Sora take it easy. Piyomon was better able to create a worthwhile heat source with her Magical Fire, allowing Sora to rest in relative comfort for the first time since they'd arrived.

Gently exercising her damaged wing and exploring where Sora couldn't helped Piyomon pass the time. The deeper inside the cave she went, it became colder and colder, and she had almost turned back at the sight of ice. What kept her from leaving, even though the cold made her wing ache, was a yellow-feathered duck. It was nearly the same size as her, and it had a decidedly vacant look on its face. It was holding its head and looking around as though it might be lost. Piyomon's better nature thought to help it, but as soon as it wandered too close, she launched herself at it, and sank her talons into its neck until the frantic quacking stopped. She had heard somewhere that duck's meat was supposed to be very good for one's health.

In Hoenn, where the day was not quite so far along, Daisuke and V-mon continued to snore on the slopes of Sootopolis while Iori and Submarimon glided along far below the ocean's surface. They had made the decision to leave Dewford upon waking, and progressed deep into the water, where they wouldn't be seen by anything but the aquatic pokémon around them. It was an uncomfortable ride. Iori had grown since the first time he rode Submarimon, and Submarimon had not grown with him. He bore the tight kneeling position with his usual stoicism, and focused on the waters around them, and the creatures living in it. Mostly it was just jellyfish. Tentacool, he remembered, were what they were. They maintained their distance, and were relatively harmless even when they did bump into them. He occasionally saw and made a point to avoid the gigantic creatures which must be their evolutions. They were so unlike their oddly graceful counterparts in the real world, who were dangerous, but wispy and beautiful in a way only sea creatures can be. These creatures exuded nothing but cold menace, and their tentacles often lashed out at the thing closest to them, either paralyzing or killing it, so that it could be eaten. When the sunlight filtering from the surface brightened, staryu drifted down around them like falling leaves. They fell to the ocean floor, and didn't move no matter where they landed. Even the red gems at their centers were dull and silent. For some reason, their lifeless fall to the depths unnerved Iori. He let go of the controls, rested his head against his knees, and let Submarimon guide them through the unknown waters.

Mimi may have been the only one having a superb experience. In Johto, where afternoon was in full swing, she and Palmon were finding their niche. On the way to Union Cave, a guy had challenged her to a pokémon battle. Because Palmon was so obviously with her, she had not been allowed to refuse, even though Palmon was technically not a pokémon. It was just how things were done that trainers always challenged other trainers. The battle began and ended while Mimi was still wondering if maybe this was a world permanently trapped in a samurai lifestyle. She had nothing against the whole 'sharpening one's skills on someone of equal or better strength' thing, but it meant that she'd be walking in fear of everyone. She couldn't just leave Palmon, not when they were so unfamiliar with the area. Or at least, she had been thinking all of this until he tried to give her money. Palmon had beaten the kid's team of slowpoke absolutely senseless, and the kid was upset, but he had immediately walked up to her and flipped out a little device like a stylishly shaped PDA. When it became obvious she didn't have one, he rolled his eyes and pulled a different one from his back. It was beat up, and an obviously older model, but he tossed it at her, loading with 1500 of some currency whose symbol looked suspiciously like the one for yen. They made their way to and through Union Cave, and by the time they arrived on the other side, Mimi never wanted to see another bat—zubats, that skirt-flipper in Azalea said—again. The zubats aside, they had managed to find out how to use the pokégear from a hiker inside the cave, and Mimi was in love with the idea that other trainers might reward her for defeating them. Palmon did not object to the battles, since the money and eventually the supplies they would buy comforted Mimi's worry. A map function had once existed, but no more. It was inaccessible on account of a flashing red 'Out of Date', but it didn't get them down. A map would've been more than they could have hoped for anyway. The pair spent their afternoon headed vaguely in the direction of Violet City, happy smiles on their face the whole way. They battled, earned, rested, ate, and battled again to the tune of the Pokémon march.