I don't own digimon.
Session 82
A Father-Son Project
Shade Alkruz had known his days were numbered for quite some time.
The moment that Julie had brought those two 'golems' had signaled the start of his fall. He didn't even ask her what sort of things she had done to them like he usually did, suspecting that he didn't want to know.
They were his focus, his crowning achievement. Even greater than both Nora and Lazuli in both craftsmanship and independence.
Yet, whereas Nora at least was able to pass himself off as human and Lazuli could at least disguise herself as someone else if such a situation called for it (which still didn't explain why a couple hundred pound whale would need their soul placed into a robot body).
The next blow was dealt by Chaos of all people, who had somehow managed to piece the puzzle together. Or perhaps she had taken a shot in the dark. Either way, it was a cold water splash that he needed for some time.
After attempting to make a return and getting cleared by Cora medical-wise, he had went back to his lab and hatched a plan. At best, it was a lucky shot, seemingly impossible to make happen once, much less twice. At worst, he was dooming himself to a slow and painful death. He had spent quite a number of nights just agonising over this one decision than he had to anything related to his career.
Yet he stared down at his foster child, a feeling of wasted time and unseen possibilities seemed to whisper back into him.
"Dad?" Joey called out and watched Shade take a deep breath. "Something wrong?"
Shade didn't answer and focused on the ground.
"Let's get to work." the order scientist remarked, only for Joey to stand there and just stare at him. "What? Is there something wrong, Joey?"
"Yes." Joey answered and took a deep breath. "This is possibly the last time we might see each other and you just want to jump straight into the work?"
Shade refocused his gaze back to Joey and let out a sigh. In a way, the boy was probably right. There was still time before he would reach his predestined end. What harm could there be in at least giving themselves a chance to make up for all the time they had lost.
"Fine." Shade whispered and motioned for Joey to follow. "But you have to keep up."
Joey gave a nod and the two made their way over to a table. There a large piece of blueprint paper sat, having already been labeled with the basic drawing started.
Mira
"Personally, I would've chosen Alice for the name." Shade remarked as he picked up a stray piece of chalk off the table and handed it over to his son. "But that was the name that the client wanted for some reason."
He took a deep breath and looked towards Joey, who was currently focusing on the large somehow visible scar from Shade's only appearance on Tri Abridged.
"So, how did you get into this mess. The last time I heard anything about your whereabouts, you had been shipped off to Truth or Consequences."
Joey laughed and took a deep breath.
"Funny story." he explained and stared back towards Shade…
.
It had started with a ten hour drive down the I-25 from the quiet place known as Truth or Consequences to the bright jewel within the sand known as Las Vegas.
For Joey though, a feeling of indifference hung over him. His 'parents' were currently sitting up front, with him and his six 'siblings'. He didn't care enough to remember their names or what they had even looked like. They were just blank faces in the crowd, bored and uncaring to the world. The only real thing of note, was babble about some place called 'Medreth' and 'spin' stories about its heroes. They would talk about the relationship between a faerie performer and a gyroid trickster, about a goblin 'knight' and his search for the village he had lived in, to the catgirl mimic merchant with a habit of cleansing those less fortunate than her, even questionable tales about an incubus somehow managing to charm himself and a seemingly regular human boy who had cheated death. They spoke of what brought them together, a search for someone known simply as 'the one' while on training to become licensed to the medic's guild. Mentions of other world were mixed in as well, those parts were vague and dodgy at best.
Occasionally though, they would also made reference to a digimon series with app-based digimon. Which compared to his whole 'medreth' stuff, seemed slightly more farfetched. There were all sorts of obscure and unique digimon for the taking, yet they want to design almost 170 new ones for some reason. Heck, even the whole app fusing concept meant that you had to design twice as many 'appmon' in order to get the required result. It was both wasteful and counter-intuitive to the show itself.
By the time the lights of Las Vegas finally came into view, Joey was more than ready to get out. As fun as the storytelling was listen to, there was so much a guy could take.
"Your mother and I are going to go check-in to the hotel." the father explained and gave his children and Joey a wave as the scientist pulled his backpack out. "Have fun."
And then they drove away, leaving them to their own devices. In a way, it was an odd yet satisfying situation to find oneself in. They could go wherever they wanted, within reason of course.
"Ready to go, bud?" Joey whispered as he poked his head into his back, finding a slumbering Tsukaimon inside and carefully pulled him out.
"I guess?" the purple pig remarked and slowly noticed that he was out of the bag. "Personally, I just want some tea and some time to spread my wings."
"Let me some what I can do." he explained and made his way to the nearby McDonalds. They made their way inside, ignoring any potential looks they were getting from their entrance. An almost nonexistent line awaited them, with the sole register being manned by a teenage guy.
"Welcome to McDonalds. What can I get you?" the cashier greeted, only for his gaze to focus on Tsukaimon. "Crap. And I just got off psychiatric evaluation yesterday."
"Is there something wrong?" Joey inquired and watched the man take a deep breath and shift his focus back to the chosen.
"It's nothing." the cashier answered. "Just give me your order quick. I don't want a repeat of last time."
Joey gave a nod and made a quick glance up at the menu board.
"I'll take two cheeseburgers and some tea." he answered as the cashier punched his order in
"Your order number is 232."
Joey gave the person a confused glance, wondering if he had wandered into some weird alternate dimension. The last time he had checked, he had to pay for his meal. But considering what the cashier looked to be not right in the head at the moment, he accepted the receipt and the two made their way over to a nearby table.
"Well that was interesting…" Tsukaimon remarked and pull his teacup out, setting it down on the table. "He seems to have some sort of experience dealing with digimon."
"That or he's just crazy." Joey answered and pulled his notes out, giving them a quick scan. For a while he had been doing quite good, but now was seeming to run into dead ends. A change of perspective was possibly in order, but where exactly he wasn't quite sure. Of course, his train of thought got cut off by their food arriving.
"I don't think we ordered a computer disk though." Joey pointed out, but got no response from the cashier. He picked the object up and gave it a quick examination. Outside of a black sharpie label in the form of 'Digital Adventures Online', it looked most plain discs. Yet, someone had decided to leave instructions for it.
"I'm fairly certain that most kids are capable of using a disk loader." Joey whispered as he slipped the disc into his pocket. The two then chowed down on their meal, unaware of it being their last in the human world. "It's worth a shot at least."
After making their way out of the restaurant, they went searching for a quiet and out of the way place to try their new 'toy' out. This was surprisingly harder than one would expect it to be, with this being Vegas after all. One would expect to find at least one disk drive out on the street, happy to provide its services to those in need. Somehow, they ran into a person wearing a very faithful etemon costume. Heck, the guy even sounded just like Etemon for some reason. They would have taken the time to chat, but he got mad when he found out neither of them had a friend banana sandwich for him.
"This better be it." Joey whispered as the two made their way towards to a small abandoned home amid the many famous structures that made up this city. After opening the strangely unlocked door, the duo found themselves in a single room in the dark. A sense of comfort rushed over them, multiplied by the discovery of a disk drive to complete their objective.
"Ready for this?" Joey inquired and Tsukaimon gave a nod. "Good. There's no time like the present."
He slipped the disk in and watched it get accepted. Seconds later, the world began to spin around and the two were gone…
.
"And that's how I got involved in this mess." Joey finished and looked down at the blueprint. While by no means perfect, it was more than clear enough for the average person to follow. "So how about you, dad?"
Shade took a deep breath, only to sigh.
"I'm just some asshole scientist who chose to keep making the same mistakes instead of learning from his fuck-ups." the order scientist answered as his grip on the chalk seemed to slowly give way. "I left you behind for what I thought was a better future. But look at me. I'm nowhere near good enough to be your dad."
Shade collapsed to the floor, only to find Joey's arms wrapped around him.
"Not yet." Joey whispered as he felt Shade's life slowly fade from him. "I still haven't told you about my adventures…"
Shade only laughed, cracking one more smile as his eyes slid shut.
"You can come out now." he whispered and Joey turned around, finding a certain redhead standing behind him. "Chaos."
"Yep, it's little old me." the white mage greeted and took a deep breath. "No hard feelings?"
Shade gave a nod as Joey let go, watching as the last little bit left the one person he saw as family.
"I'm sorry for your loss." Chaos whispered and made a quick glance towards Joey. "I realize that we might not see eye-to-eye on this and that's alright. Life continues on. What does matter is how you choose to honor his legacy."
Joey didn't answer, choosing instead to give the table his focus. While he planned to take the white mage's words to heart, he needed a much better picture of who his foster dad was. In a way, he had hoped this meeting would be the cure. But the picture remained fuzzy.
"Thanks, I guess." he whispered, not at all noticing a faint white fingerprint in the place of where the blueprints had been. "See you around, I guess?"
"See you around." Chaos answered and watched the shadow scientist get teleported away...
.
As he stood within the ashes of his former abode, Olrumon wasn't quite sure what to think.
On one hand, it felt like a blessing to be able to maybe pull some salvageable piece out of the rubble. Yet, he knew it would last.
"Let's make this quick." he thought and got to searching...
Notes:
Well, I didn't intend for this to be quite as long as it turned out to be. The original plan was to flesh out Shade, which I got partway too. Then it turned into a Joey chapter and then Shade died.
And yes, the cashier is the same one who took Alpha's order in Project Digital. Also, there is a Las Vegas in New Mexico for some reason.
Feel free to speculate.
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Next Time: Shifting through the ashes of a world that never seems to let go...