In loving memory of Sean the golden Luxray. Thank you for teaching me what love is. I guess no good deed goes unpunished.


My younger sister once bought a videogame version of Toy Story 3. I shamefully admit to having played it much more often than she did. Remember that character Lotso? It was short for something I don't remember, but that doesn't matter. The game had this "Toybox" mode, and one part of it was called Lotso's Enchanted Forest or something (he wasn't a total asshole in Toybox). I think the Nursery looked pretty much exactly like that scene, complete with the waterfalls and rainbows.

Except Lotso's forest didn't have eggs scattered all over the ground in little cradles that, despite there having been no wind, were rocking. Some soothing mood music from the harpsichord would have really tied the whole thing together. The egg field stretched on for miles, way beyond my view, and they were in so many crazy patterns and designs that they reminded me of Easter eggs.

I tried to pick one up curiously, but before I could even touch it Byomon - Hawkmon devolved: slapped my hand with his wing. Ow. "Are you crazy? Don't just go around touching every egg you see! This is supposed to be a sacred place. Even the most evil Digimon wouldn't pick a fight here! Imagine what someone would think if they saw you messing around?"

"Yeesh, a simple 'don't do that' would have sufficed," I whined, "You didn't have to make me feel all bad about it. But, hey, if we don't go looking around, how are we supposed to know which egg is Veemon's?"

"If he's even here," Aman added onto that question.

"Easy," Byomon explained, "Do you see those patterns on the eggs?" I wanted to exclaim how would we not, but I let Byomon continue. "Just find one that looks like Veemon. Blue, white, maybe a little gold trim, maybe that V symbol."

"Well, fan out!" Thomas issued the order, and most everybody did.

"What? No!" I objected, "We're all splitting up? How are we supposed to deal with a potential threat?"

"It's the Nursery," Byomon reminded me. "No Digimon will give you trouble here." And then he wandered off, leaving me all alone. You know, with all the unborn Digimon babies.

I didn't care how peaceful and innocent the environment seemed. When I'd been left alone in the digital world, things seemed to go wrong historically. Sure, I met Veemon the first time, but I also got attacked by Meramon. Then even when I was with Veemon, Kuwagamon came for a visit. Yeah, I didn't have my fancy-schmancy gun back then, but it sure didn't work well against Monochromon. My guess was it was only effective on Rookie Digimon or lower level.

Not that I could ever recognize a Digimon's level just by looking at it, of course. And I didn't have any digivice to tell me, either. Nevertheless, the very few Digimon I ran across on my aimless search were obviously not Champions. Freshly hatched, I assumed. All of a sudden I was much more reluctant to touch the cradles' contents. Human babies disgusted me, and Digimon babies, the way they were just like little blobs, disgusted me at least as much.

I briefly wondered who was supposed to care for all those babies, but it sure as hell wouldn't be me.

Remember that comparison to Lotso I made earlier? I had no idea how scary accurate that was when I first thought it up, but when a giant teddy bear Pokemon made the ground vibrate as it walked by - thankfully without noticing me - I'll admit I freaked out a bit. Shit, right about then I really didn't want to be alone anymore.

Boy, how ironic was that? Me not wanting to be alone? Save band practices, I couldn't remember the last time I wasn't alone - or the last time I didn't enjoy it. Before this whole Digimon mess, at least.

"Veemon!" I called out stupidly. Yeah, right, like I'd get a call back from an egg. Besides, if I heard some stranger Digimon calling my name I would never call back. Sure, Veemon and I weren't strangers to each other, but if he was in the Nursery, as was explained to me on the trip there, he wouldn't remember me.

Yowch, that stings.

All I got in response was an echo of Veemon's name from my voice. Well... At least it beat checking every egg individually. So I started wandering about aimlessly and calling out Veemon's name at regular intervals. Oh, yeah, that was way more efficient. Way more fun, too. And only getting my own voice in reply for hours on end wasn't frustrating at all.

I once thought I indeed heard another voice call back at the same time I called out, but when I went quiet to listen, the environment went quiet, too. "Veemon?" I called back out into the air, this time more questioning. Still nothing. I guessed it was just my frustration and need to succeed playing a trick on my mind. "Gyaaaah!" I growled to myself at that as I stomped my foot hard into the ground.

Boy, that was stupid. The ground wasn't about to move, so all I really accomplished was sending a wave of pain up the length of my calf. Soon as I felt it I let the leg go limp to avoid even more and grimaced. I wasn't stupid enough to break my leg, but standing on it after didn't feel so fun. Oh, well, it wasn't like I could just abort the mission now.

Still, let's assess my situation: I was out all alone on a fool's errand in a strange dimension on the run from the government in a desperate attempt to save the same world that drove me out from total destruction when I'm the one human in this world without the ability to defend myself. I guess I had the fancy stun gun, but I felt no safer with it

Oh, and I lost a guitar here. Now that made it a truly shitty scenario.

I scoffed at my own downtroddenmnss."You'd think I'd be happy to not find Veemon where the dead Digimon go," I muttered aloud to myself, which admittedly was a little comforting but didn't really improve my status.

"Dylan!" Okay, I definitely heard it that time. Either I was going nuts or someone was calling out for me. So I tried going in the direction of the sound.

"Veemon? Is that you?"

"Dylan!" whatever that was it was getting closer, so I broke into a run. Hurting leg be damned, that voice was doubtlessly Veemon's, and I wanted to catch up with him quick! I was led by the calling voice to some sort of pond. Despite the deafening waterfall pouring into it (which created a rainbow because that just fit well with the atmosphere), there wasn't one wave on the pond's surface. I guess the laws of physics are only for us pathetic humans in our human world.

Though the waterfall rumbled on, Veemon's call was clear as day. The problem was I could no longer determine its direction. It seemed to be coming from only a few more yards away, but I was facing the waterfall when I tried to look towards the plea's source. Was Veemon on top? No, I didn't think the call was coming from above. It wasn't below was it?

Well, I could see the pond's sediment bottom, and Veemon was thankfully not trapped beneath the surface and struggling to breathe, which meant I wouldn't be down there struggling to breathe either. But that could only mean... "Tell me the digital world didn't steal from every video game ever made," I grumbled to myself before reluctantly jumping into the water, reluctantly because while I'm a plenty good swimmer (I actually have somewhat webbed toes. Yes, it is weird.) I hate water that isn't calm and as warm as I like my shower. At least it was calm, I guess.

So I swam to just before the waterfall and placed my hand under the stream. Oddly enough I didn't even feel a mist in the air, let alone a deluge into my hand. There was the water falling, I could see it, but I couldn't feel it. An illusion? "...this whole world is on acid," I decided just before swimming through the intangible waterfall stream into some sort of cavern behind it. Damn, the digital world really did steal from video game cliches.

Once I climbed up out of the water and got my feet under me, I heard a low rumbling before I fully registered the vibration beneath my feet. "Oh, shit..." I thought I was about to be crushed beneath a cave-in and turned tail to flee. However, I didn't have time to take a single step before a rockslide blocked my way (and my view of the corny rainbow). Well, that sucked.

But my name was called out again then from further in, which was actually really uplifting. It meant being trapped in there wasn't a complete waste of time. I took off in another run despite already having been pretty out of breath and, now, being able to see very little. There was some kind of little shining light in the distance, though, a literal light at the end of the tunnel. My footsteps were heavy and made sloshing sounds as my shoes were wet, which made the run very uncomfortable.

That, and I wasn't an in-shape guy, so I slowed to a walk when I thought I was nearly outside. The bright golden light, however, turned out not to be from the sun but from some shiny floating orb. Boy, what a letdown. Still, it was curious. Glowing floating orbs are curious objects, I think, but that's just my crazy opinion. So, I reached out to touch it.

I guess Veemon didn't think that was a good idea, because he shouted at me "Don't touch that!" which made me flinch and yank my hand back reflexively. He had to be close if he saw me, but his voice echoed all over the cave walls, which made finding the source difficult. But all I had to do was turn directly around, and there he was... the man of the hour. Digimon of the hour. Whatever.

"Veemon!" I grinned ear-to-ear at the sight of him. I guess I got caved in at a bad time for him, because he was wearing an expression I thought I'd never see, let alone expected to see now: a glare. He actually looked pissed off at me! Yeesh, what'd I do?

"What makes you think you deserve that? Do you have any idea what is?" Veemon was pointing aggressively at the orb, which must have meant that's what he was talking about. Unless he was talking about the cave wall, which would have been very confusing, so I went with the orb.

"Uh... I assume the correct answer to the first question is 'no,' and I can honestly say I have no idea what that is. You wanna explain that?"

"You need it," someone who wasn't Veemon informed me. I had to turn about 180 degrees once more to find Renamon. How did she get in here? I guessed there was another entrance to the waterfall tunnel - which implied an exit as well. "But you need to earn the right to that. It can't just be taken by any passerby."

"Uh..." Can you blame me for having been completely dumbstruck? What was this, Be As Vague As Possible Day? "I have no idea what you two are talking about. Do you wanna consider starting over from the beginning?"

"What does it matter?" A new figure appeared on the scene, then, and once again I couldn't have seen the person enter. But this time I really wanted to know, because the person was Jessica. Remember Jessica? She was one of the former bandmates that moved to kick me out. Yeah, good times. "You'll never be able to touch it even if you try. You can't even play an arpeggio off the top of your head, and you think you're worthy of that kind of power?"

Now I was intrigued. "Did you just say 'power?' Forget that, how are you even here? And who are you to decide who's worthy of the 'power?'" Just to shut these judgemental people up I reached out to touch the orb. I figured explanations could come in later. I didn't get the chance to lay my hand on it, though; Brad's hand grabbed my wrist and squeezed it uncomfortably hard, stopping my arm in its tracks.

"Don't. Even. Think about it," Bradley growled at me. Now I was getting frustrated. Things were happening that I didn't understand, and I was getting emotional because of it. That's an explanation, mind you, and not an excuse. When I reached forward with the other hand, Bradley took my other wrist and started bending them the wrong way, which made me yell in pain and brought me to my knees. "What are you even doing in this world? You can't take down one guy. Forget about lasting in a fight against Digimon."

Jessica chimed in then, "You want to save the world when you can't even save yourself?"

"Yes!" I declared defiantly. Tears were forming in my eyes as they returned to Brad. "You're certainly doing a shitty job of it, or I wouldn't even be in this mess! Who are you to be so self-righteous? Do you think after all the bullshit you put me through that you get to just put me through some more?" I sniffed and snarled. "I trusted you! I trusted you to have my back against middle school bullies, and you became the worst one! I trusted you to watch my house, and you robbed me as soon as my back was turned!" I don't think Bradley liked that because he bent my wrists farther. They didn't break, but that threshold was approaching. I trusted you to repent and to go back to being my friend, and I practically never saw you again when you live four fucking houses down! I trusted you to clean up your act, and you could never stop lying to me! How can I trust you now?" By the end I was shouting an octave above my normal voice and probably ruining my vocal chords while I was crying Bradley a river. I couldn't believe that things could get still worse.

"What about us trusting you?" One more new player to the game showed up to inquire. When I saw him... my heart sank. No, it didn't, but I wish it did. My heart doubled in size and started pounding on my ribs in a desperate endeavor to escape that prison. Ribs must be sharper than I thought they were, because at some point I felt it get sliced right down the middle. From this sensation, the terms "heartbreak" and "broken heart" were coined. The pain wasn't just psychological; I truly felt a stinging and burning and ripping apart sort of sensation happening to my heart like Satan had taken hold of it and was digging his claws through it slowly and deliberately to savor my suffering.

Bradley pushed me backwards and released me, but he didn't really have to push me to make me fall; I would have anyway. I also didn't need his kick as encouragement to ball up in the fetal position, as I was a step ahead. Don't worry, though. It didn't hurt. A person can only feel so much pain, and I was all full up. My hands groped my face as I uttered the name with a stammer, "A-A-A-A-Alex..."

My first ex boyfriend didn't scold me like the others. He was more sad and remorseful. "You told me coming out would make my life better, but you were wrong," he painfully reminded me. Oh, man, why was this happening to me? How was this happening to me? There was absolutely no conceivable reason Alex of all people should have been there.

"Alex, p-p-please..." I begged. I should have been happy to hear his voice again, but I couldn't bear to hear what he had to say. Speech didn't come easily because breath was hard to take, and when I finally managed to inhale air I spent most of it exhaling in a miserable wail. "I didn't know! I c-couldn't know!"

"I know you didn't. But that doesn't change what happened, did it?"

"Quit groveling, man!" Brad jumped in, pulling me back up by the arms to a standing position to my reluctance. "It's embarrassing." Even standing up straight, Alex still towered over me by at least five inches. Well, I always liked tall guys. Now I was forced to face him head on.

I resumed my pathetic whining, "I just wanted you to be h-happy... happier than you were at the time." I sniffed and made a move to hug him. "I'm sorry!" I cried as my arms wrapped around him... Wait, no they didn't! He was just like the waterfall: my arms went right through him like he wasn't there. I guess him not having been there would have made more sense, though. Still, when I couldn't touch him... that hurt. I just wanted to die. At least then I would be able to see him again for real. "I never even got to touch you..."

Alex was a long-distance relationship. Video chat was the most intimate quality time we ever got to have together, but that was rare because of his mother. I knew she was homophobic, even an extremist, but I had no idea to what lengths she would go to quash her son's deviancy. As soon as she found out about me she cut him off from the outside world. No phone, no computer, nothing that could send a correspondence. The next time I got a message from him, it was just his mother informing me - with a smile emoticon - about his death.

"Alex... Who killed you? Did you do it to yourself, or...?" Silence. I guessed I would never know the truth about who killed Alex, but I did know, or at least felt and believed, that I handed that person the blade. "Alex, please answer me," I managed to beg despite my caught voice. He didn't.

As far as I knew, there was only one way to shut all these phantasms up. I guess there were two ways if you count finding a nice, sharp rock and slitting my own throat, but I'm kind of glad I let that be Plan B. Plan A was lunging for that floating orb. I jumped and dived for it, but phantom-Renamon took hold of my legs and broke my forward momentum, bringing me down onto my stomach. However, she didn't expect me to kick her in the gut before I hit the ground, forcing her to release me.

Charged with emotion, I was like a wild, rabid animal. I would not be tied down. Phantom-Jessica moved in to restrain me next but I pushed her away before she could get a good hold, and I watched her dissolve into some kind of vapor as she hit the cave wall. Looking behind me, I couldn't find phantom-Renamon anymore either. Oh, well, good riddance. Just as I was about to be running steadily and completely off the ground, Phantom-Veemon jumped on my back and tried to wrestle me down. It pained me to do it a little even in my rabid state, but to deal with him I intentionally fell backwards as hard as I can. He was pained by colliding with the ground, but his exclamation of that pain was very short before he became vapor.

I almost thought I was in the clear when I was close enough for my arm to be outstretched, but less than an inch away from the orb Phantom-Bradley got a hold of my upper arms from behind and kept them from extending even though my lower arms were free. So close, yet so far. I glared and snarled and thrashed and flailed, but it all seemed to be in vain until one arm got free. Yes! Not wasting the chance, the arm reached out, snatched the orb, and brought it close to my chest like a baby it had just rescued.

God, I was so stressed and angry and every other bad feeling in the book that I barely remember the whole thing from Alex's appearance onward, but I think I shut my eyes after retrieving the orb, or at least blinked, because everything had disappeared the next thing I knew. The cave, the waterfall, the pond, all of the phantasms, and even the orb was gone. I was left kneeling in the nursery hugging something so close I'm shocked it didn't break.

It looked to be over. I was surrounded by that Lotso-like peaceful scenery and atmosphere again, although that didn't mean I wasn't still in turmoil inside. You don't see your murdered first love again without sustaining some major psychological damage, perhaps permanent. Still, I was slowly coming down as minutes passed from that rabid emotional state. I couldn't do it all at once, but at least I did it. I was shocked that I managed it at all, though, and didn't go insane. I'll take it.

Maybe it helped that I had something to squeeze and pour all my stress into. Wait, what was that? I almost forgot about it! Looking down, it seemed I had inadvertently picked up an egg. Whoops. Wow, digieggs must be made of tougher stuff than ours if it survived as, essentially, a stress ball. I didn't remember picking the egg up, but I supposed I had better put it back down, so I made to do so.

However, I took note of the design on the shell as I did so. That main shade of light blue was awfully familiar, but I only got confirmation when I turned the egg around and caught that signature marking reminiscent of a golden letter V. Holy crap! I had found it!

"Damn, Dylan, are you okay?" Birdramon had landed just behind me, and Thomas was sprinting for me but just slowing down seeing that I wasn't in any apparent danger.

The honest answer was no, but I wasn't just going to pour my heart out to a stranger. My nose was still congested from crying so much, so I had to breathe through my mouth and resist the urge not to sniff in order to not give that away. I didn't breathe too deeply, else that would have set off irregular breathing and given it away anyway. "Yeah, I'm good. Why?"

Thomas shouted, "'Cause it sounded like you were being tortured or some shit!" Well, he wasn't wrong. But I wasn't going to tell him that.

"No, no torture. I did trip over this thing-" I held out the egg. "-and it hurt like hell, but I think I found what we're looking for." I declared that last part proudly, and some of the pride I expressed in that declaration was true. Hey, I went through hell to get that egg. "So, how do we make it hatch?"

Thomas went quiet when I asked that. It took neither a great intellect nor his confirmation to figure out that, "Uh... I dunno."

But that was okay. I'd hate to think I went through that whole ordeal for nothing, so I tried to look back at that for clues. The phantoms referred to that orb as a power of some sort, a power I inferrably obtained when I touched it, although what it could be the power to do was a bit of a mystery. What I did know was that I was only able to touch it when I dug deep into my heart and felt my innermost buried feelings, which got me to think... was that the whole point all along?

Well, I had to try. Going back to that state wasn't so hard when it was still fresh in my mind, but as I "searched my feelings" (the Star Wars term sounds like the only one that can describe the action) I ran across something else, some sort of... warmth? I dunno, but it felt good, so I figured maybe that was the power. But how would I direct it to do what I want? Did it even have that capability?

I'd find out. The best way I can describe what happened next was that I used a bit of mental muscle to "push" the entity in the direction I wanted it to go. It didn't seem to like that and even "pushed" back at me. I demanded for Veemon to hatch, though, and channelled all the willpower I had into making that happen. It seems crazy, but I think that was the key, because the egg began to glow then.

"...whoa," Thomas and I remarked at exactly the same time. That's when I put the egg down, and I'm glad I did. It didn't hatch. It exploded like a grenade, only without the harmful heat and shock waves. The eggshell fractured and flew out like shrapnel, but luckily most of it went upward rather than outward. That's lucky because, again, digieggs were apparently made of tough stuff, and I didn't trust it not to pierce skin if not bone.

Where the egg had been placed down instead stood... not Veemon. Not even something that looked like Veemon. I guessed baby Digimon looked different from their rookie forms. But that's when something unexpected happened: it instantly digivolved. When it did it became something still a lot smaller than the Veemon I knew but matching the body design and color scheme of my friend.

"Demiveemon," Thomas identified him for me, showing the digivice entry as proof. "Veemon's In Training form. Man, how'd you do that?"

"I'm not sure," I responded, "But I think..." I concentrated hard again on my need for Demiveemon to digivolve one more time and, amazingly to us both... It happened. There was Veemon in all his former glory, essentially raised from the dead.

By me.

How trippy is that?

But I think what happened next wasn't just the most amazing thing to have ever happened to me - and that is saying something - was Veemon's reaction to that whole thing. I didn't hear any, "Where am I?" There was no, "Who are you people?" like everybody expected.

There were only wide, surprised eyes, a big grin, and the exclamation, "Dylan! You came back!"


I told some people I had writer's block on this chapter, but I lied. This was just a really hard chapter to write, and it took some willpower and psychological breakthroughs to make it happen.

Don't forget if you like this story, you should show your interest in it by reviewing in the box just below this text. Since your mind is already on reviewing now that I said it, it would be a waste of your time not to review. :)