I don't own digimon.

Session 105

Family

Adrian Gostelow gazed into the room.

The room in question was a living area of sorts. It had been designed for those who needed their memories reconfigured in order to suit the needs of the order. But today, his wife Lauren was watching a VHS copy of Sesame Street on one of their many old box TV's. She was dressed in one of those snuggies things you can buy with a call on the phone and a couple easy payments to the advertisers.

"Fifteen more minutes." the inventor announced as he stuck his head in.

"Fine." Lauren answered back, not even turning to face her husband. Yet, he took the answer and made his way down the hall. It was a short walk to his destination, a door. A keypad was hung right beside it, some reminder of a time when it was not just the two of them running this particular facility. The inventor let out a grumble and began to punch in the code. After a couple failed attempts, he slammed his fist into the pad and watched the door open up. A ladder awaited him on the other side and allowed one to climb up at their own pace.
"Can I ask you something?"

He got no response, but seemed to notice the author telling him about said response.

"Are you still mad about the whole 'Usagi' thing?"

Silence fell over the shaft as Adrian reached the top. Once there, he pushed a small hatch open and found himself peeking into the closet of a home. Moths and dust bunnies hung out in solidarity within the forgotten coats of those that had left this place. Some via getting fired, others by way of 'accidents' during experiments. The only coats not laid to waste were those of his and Lauren's. Even then, it seemed that the moths were just waiting for them to let down their guards to begin their feat.

Adrian made his way towards the door and casually pushed it open. Compared to our last visit here oh so long ago, the was mostly unscathed by whatever event did this world in. The walls still had stupid eggshell white paint upon them, while the shag carpet laid in ignorant bliss of it all. The pictures of them and Polly still hung throughout, a reminder of what they did and the consequences of it.

He turned his attention to the nearby living room and casually walked over to an armchair. There, he sat himself down as his gaze focused in on the end table beside it. A pile of documents had been haphazardly stacked upon it, with couple in the process of being pulled out. Why the person stopped for some reason is beyond me.

"Maybe because I caught them in the act." Adrian remarked and stared up towards the sky. "You really need to work on improving your subordinates behavior."

Offscreen, the author let out a laugh. While he did have a point, it was not something that he could really change. Sure, he could give them the suggestion, but they would have to be the one to make the choice. He was nothing more than a neutral party in their life.

"There wasn't anything that useful in that pile to begin with."

Adrian than pulled one of the semi-loose papers out of the stack, revealing it to be nothing more than a child's doodles. "I'm not sure whether or not to be amused or disappointed."

Either one works in my book. I doubt your opinion means anything to my assistants. Especially when they have much greater things to be worrying about.

"As in what exactly?"

I don't know, training, building, fruit picking, all sorts of productive stuff.

The inventor stared up with a confused glance and tried to figure out what the author was even talking about. But when he did, his gaze caught a stray photograph hanging high above. In it, he and Lauren were relaxing at the order's then plantation base.

Lauren had just recently returned to the order base, her mission at Mahora complete. Though, that didn't explain why her disguise had been torn to shreds and getting delivered in just her underwear.

"Anything I can do for you, honey?" he had inquired and watched his wife open her mouth, only for no words to come out. "What happened?"

Lauren opened her mouth, but no words came out. So she went over to her locker and slipped her labcoat on.

"Much better." she remarked and watched her husband sigh. "Something the matter?"

"Julie wants to see you." he had continued. "Didn't say what she wanted though. Probably just a debriefing."

Yet, Lauren made her way out of the locker room and into the plantation outskirts. But he chose to wait in the locker room. His next shift wasn't for another half hour and he didn't want to deal with any of co-workers at the moment. Of course, life seemed to have other ideas for him.

"What was up with your wife?"

Adrian let his gaze refocus, finding a silver-haired man within it.

"As in?" he inquired and watched the man approach.

"That fucking slut blew up on me, that's what." the man shouted as Adrian got up. "I didn't even say anything to her initially."

A loud flick filled the air, the result of Adrian pulling his staff out and pointed it towards the man.

"Adrian…" the man whispered as fire formed in his hands. "Are we really going through this dance again?"

Adrian flipped him off with his free hand and Fate shook his head.

"I heard what happened to your wife." he whispered and sighed. "The mages at Mahora are many things, but we do not resort to petty things that those people did."

Adrian did a double take, following it up with a swing of his staff. His opponent caught it and took the opportunity to throw the fire in his hands at him.

"Care to tell me more?" Adrian taunted as Fate's face shifted to one of caution. "Or do I have to beat it out of you?"

He took another swing, not even giving the mage time to even answer him.

Terra Archens (Blazing Earth)!

A short stream of magma shot out of Fate's hands, forcing Adrian back a few steps. He then made his way towards the exit, only for his opponent to cut him off.

"Stop." the mage whispered and pushed Adrian away. "I wish to keep at least some semblance of a bridge going forward."

"Shut up."

Adrian flung his opponent against the wall and used his free hand to punch him.

"Give it up and admit what you did."

But he got no answer. Instead, Fate ducked down and punched his pursuer in the groin. Then he made his escape.

Reality returned to Adrian, who was now in a daze. It was as if his memory had been subtly altered and he had never noticed it before.

"Do you have any idea why?"

He got no answer, so he let his mind race with the possibilities. But within that mess, it came up with two.

The first was that he had let his judgement get the better of him and reshape his memory of the incident. The second, was that he had gone in for the annual psychological evaluation and had let Julie mess around in his head.

It's most obviously the first one. After all, who would be dumb enough to let a person who strangles small cuddly anim-

Adrian gave a nod and the author took a deep breath offscreen.

"I'm guessing that is a problem?" the inventor remarked and took the silence as a 'yes'. "It was that or interrogation. Thinking back, that stupid harem mage may of had the right idea."

Adrian turned his attention away from the photo and to the nearby stairs, casually making his way upstairs. He wanted to beat himself up over this, tear himself apart into a million and then repair himself with what remained. And then he would do it all again, until he was satisfied that he had cleansed himself of this sin. Yet that would not be enough to fix this in his head.

Even as the top of the stairs came into view, it was tempting to just fall backwards and let that be the end for him. But Adrian managed to shake that thought out of his head as his feet reached the top, continuing on into the master bedroom.

Like the living room, this room had chosen to go for the eggshell white paint and shag carpet. A king-sized bed sat against the back wall, the sheets left in a bit of a mess from someone tossing and turning in their sleep. A nightstand had been placed at both sides with a handful of family pictures on top to give it that sense of home. Yet as his gaze fell over them, he saw not the girl they created but, the amalgamation of flesh and bone they had brought forth together.

"I think I get it now." he whispered and walked over to the window, gazing over the large 'Jester's Entertainment' sign that glowed in the background. "And while I doubt that I can ever make it back up to you, I'm sorry for what I did."

Amid the silence, the inventor could just make out an almost silent 'thank you'. He took a deep breath and reluctantly pulled out his staff, giving it a glance. For a minute or two, he let his eyes close and took the chaos in. At first, everything seemed to match up. But as he let it sift within his mind, the less it seemed to make sense to him. At first it was just minor things like the color of the lamp changing between the daily visits into the plantation base. But that leads right into bigger things, like the sudden absence of people that should be there and the opposite. More and more, Julie seemed to make more and more of an effort to be a part of their lives, whether they wanted her too or not. It was only when the memories of things falling apart did his eyes finally open.

"I can't do this anymore." he whispered and took a deep breath, choosing to reluctantly make his way over to the door and head on through. Once through, he made his way over to Polly's room and cautiously entered. Dolls of all sorts and states of condition had been scattered all about the floor. Their faces had been been locked in terrors and the eyes closed.

What are you?

His world began to spin around, only to go dark. When it did return to him, the dolls and the sign had disappeared.

"Fuck." Adrian whispered and made his way down, making quick work of the stairs and the ladder. By the time he had just about set foot in the living area, his mind was ready to start racing a mile a minute.

"Ready to go, Lauren?" he inquired, but got no answer. He poked his head into the room and did a double take. "No..."

Lauren laid on the floor, her hands around her neck.

"Sucks to be you, Adrian!"

With that, the bell rang ten times. With each ring, it seemed to bring forth rage and anger within the inventor.

Notes:

Happy Easter and April Fools Day! Or not, if you're looking at this after that day has passed.

Here's an actual chapter of Digital Adventures Online. For the moment, new chapters will come on a weekly basis until May 1st. While all the chapters are written up, it just makes my life easier while I write up character sheets and wrap some other things up.

Originally, this and the next chapter were never planned to be written. Heck, this was originally planned to be the last chapter. But, it wouldn't be that good of an ending. That, and it would've meant four months of waiting and twiddling my thumbs. Which isn't that fun.

.

Next Time: Food safety and Sesame Street. Also, mages.