Daichi: I think this take of the adventure will be… let's go with realistic. Relatively. It's the Digital World. Basically, I shall, for this iteration, attempt to apply logical consequences and see where it goes from there.

Verity: If we owned this, it would come with logic pre-installed.

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Summer camp was generally a mixed bag for those involved. There were the ones that truly wanted to be there. There were the ones forced to attend by parents, for one reason or another. And there were the ones like Ib, who simply didn't care. She'd only showed up because she'd be home with nothing to do for the summer otherwise.

She sat on a large set of stone steps, because nothing was going on, and she wouldn't be particularly interested if it were. She turned the object in her hand over, before the sound of approaching footsteps caused her to stuff it back in her pocket and glance innocently at the clouds.

"You know you really shouldn't have that here," Joe pointed out. She shrugged.

"It won't even light. And it's not like I'll bring it out around anyone else. Do you really think I'd be that crazy? Don't answer that," She cut him off as he opened his mouth, because she got the feeling she knew exactly how he'd answer.

She wasn't too worried about him reporting her, mainly because they were the only two at camp who were willing to put up with each other. Joe had a tendency to drive people away with his apparent obsession for responsibility, and Ib's social skills were just barely on this side of nonexistent.

She shivered a bit, wondering where the sudden chill had come from. It was the middle of summer, and there didn't seem to be a breeze. Come to think of it, there hadn't been clouds until about three minutes ago, give or take a bit.

"Joe… isn't that snow?" she asked, uncertain. Snow wasn't really a big thing for her, but she was pretty sure that was what a snowflake looked like, if those nature documentaries hadn't been lying to her. Not that she'd put it past them. Or anyone.

"It- wait, what?" Joe clearly hadn't been looking up.

"Yeah, it looks like snow. Funny. I thought it was midsummer." Ib came to the sudden realization that in no way was she dressed for this. Short sleeves and an impromptu blizzard simply didn't mix. Her natural reaction was to run to the nearest shelter, which just so happened to be at the top of the stairs.

It then turned out that six other kids had gotten the exact same idea. Not too surprising, given that the other options- the cabins- were three minutes away at a dead sprint, not counting the stairs. She'd checked.

This was going to be a long snowstorm.

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All things considered, it wasn't that bad. It was true that the other kids weren't people that Ib would normally talk to, given that she barely put up with just Joe on a good day, but they were nice enough.

Of course, their new acquaintanceship would likely have been more pleasant if the weather outside wasn't just shy of freezing, but she'd take what she could get. From the redheaded Izzy complaining about internet going down- she hadn't even realized the camp had internet- to Tai and Matt fighting, she was honestly just glad when the storm died down. There was social awkwardness, and then there was just wanting to crawl in a hole and die.

Her plan for the immediate future had been to go to the cabin, pack her stuff because she knew there was no way the summer camp was staying open after the weather had done its best impression of midwinter, and try to ignore the rather blatant weirdness. She'd had enough of that back when she was nine, and didn't intend for more.

Her plans didn't pan out anywhere near as expected, as while she managed to push her way past the people gawking at the aurora, something crashing down in front of her was rather hard to ignore.

She only realized that grabbing the strange device was a bad idea after the portal had opened, which, to be fair, was about the same time everyone else did, too.

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"Ib… come on Ib, wake up." She didn't know that voice. Yet the voice somehow knew her name. And given that Ib was aware of the existence of other worlds and that she had gone through some sort of portal, that was definitely cause for alarm.

She pushed herself up, sparing a moment to be grateful that at least the pain wasn't blinding, this time, and opened her eyes. There was a cry from the small green ball that fell to the ground. It had a leaf for a tail, and was covered in spikes, which were now stuck in the dirt. "Help me…"

"What are you?" Ib asked the little thing, trying to sound cold, and failing miserably. The tiny creature wiggled a bit until she could pop out of the ground.

"M-my name's Budmon. I… I was w-waiting for you. For as long as I… as I can remember… I knew you'd come."

"How did you know that?" Ib had, over time, developed new guidelines to follow on the off chance she ended up in another dimension again. Her first rule was not to get attached to anything or anyone in this new world until some amount of trust had been established. She didn't want to avoid attachments entirely, if only because she had no clue if she could ever even go home, and could use some good friends if she couldn't, but she was still wary of possible betrayal.

"I'm… I'm meant to be your partner. To- to p-protect you. I'm not sure why… but I'll be the best Digimon you could ever have!" Budmon seemed to ignore her hostility, or be completely unaware of it.

Hostility that was slowly dissipating. Because the more Ib looked at the little- Digimon, was it?- the more she realized that, despite the thorns, and the knowledge that she really shouldn't have, she was, as far as she could tell, harmless. Which, admittedly, would make her declaration of protection laughable to anyone else.

"You want to protect me, huh?" Carefully, Ib picked up her Digimon, noting that Budmon fit almost perfectly into her hands. "That's fine. Just promise me something first."

"What's that?"

"Don't do anything stupid." That wasn't what she'd originally wanted to say, but it would work. Budmon's tail curled around Ib's hands.

"I promise." She got the feeling that this wasn't the only rule she'd end up breaking. But for now, she had to find the others.

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Daichi: Originally, Ib wanted to tell Budmon not to get herself killed. And odds are that Budmon will do something stupid in the future, purely because the DigiDestined, at times, seem to be a comedy of errors.