"Hold on, I got you," I heard the voice say as I came to a sudden stop. I looked up and saw a pair of clawed hands wrapped around my arm. Past them was a furry face scrunched up in effort. It didn't look like they were going to be able to keep me from falling for long…
I grabbed onto the glass road with my other hand and pulled myself up with their help.
"Thanks… uh, wow I have no idea what you are," I told them as I got to my feet.
"Geez, thanks," they told me as I finally got a good look at my savoir, "you're lucky I caught you, if I hadn't you would have gone splat and then straight to the trash."
They kind of reminded me of a bipedal gray rabbit. On their hands were three long claws. On their back was a long tail with… were those leather straps wrapped around the end? They were pretty short, only coming up to my chest, and that was with their ears sticking up and to the side.
I would have guessed that they were a monster like the rest of the things in here. But there was something in their crimson red eyes, a glint of intelligence that let me know that I wasn't dealing with a normal animal.
The fact that they were talking also helped.
"Sorry, I've been having… a weird time since I fell in here," I admitted as they scratched one of their ears.
"Don't worry about it, I Just fell in here too," they explained before looking out over the void. "Looks like I wasn't alone either."
"Do you know what those things are?" Looked like I was about to get some answers.
"What? Never seen a Snimon or Monochromon before?"
"Yeah I have no idea what either of those things are," I admitted before remembering why I was sent down here in the first place. I looked back up at the giant mantis slashing around at the top.
"What is it even doing up there?" I wondered aloud.
"Probably doing the same thing we should be doing," I looked back down at my fuzzy savoir who had their arms crossed as they glared at the monster above us, "trying to find a way out of here."
"That's true. I have what I came here for, time to get out," I brought the Digital Rebel to my face and used the buttons to access the data I got.
I went to the video from earlier today. While I really didn't want to watch myself get punched over and over, I needed to make sure that it looked good and incriminating.
Okay so the video was starting up…
"What are you doing?" The clawed rabbit asked as they got closer to me to watch the video as well.
"Making sure that I didn't waste my time and risk my life not nothing," I adjusted the projector so that they could see too. "Also, do you have a name I can use or something?"
"What? Never seen a Gazimon before?" They asked before rolling their eyes. "Oh right you already said you had no idea what I was. By the way… why are we watching a video with nothing happening in it?"
"Well that's not good," I quickly glanced at the date at the bottom left. No, this video was from earlier today. I wasn't too sure what time I'd gotten beaten up, but I was pretty sure that we'd gone past… What was that?
I re winded the video a little and kept a careful watch on the bottom of the screen. For a split second the light from outside peaks in as the door opens, and the next second it goes back to normal.
"He edited the video," I felt my fist clench as the edges of my vision turned to red. "He cut out the part where he beat me. I took those blows for no reason."
"Are you okay… um, what are you actually?" They asked as I gave them an odd eye.
"What? Never seen a human before?" I fire back the creature's own words back to them. Despite the dig at them, they didn't seem to mind too much.
"Nope, I'm a Digimon, a Gazimon to be exact. Never heard of a human though, but since you don't have 'mon' at the end of that I'm just going to guess that you're not a Digimon," they said with a bit too much pep in their voice for my liking. But I guess I couldn't be too mad at them. They did save me from falling down into the…
"What did you say you saved me from falling into?" I asked as I snapped towards her.
"Ugh," they jumped back a bit as I got closer. "I told you, if I hadn't caught you, you would have fallen into the trash. You know, like that Monochromon down there."
They pointed downwards as one of the big gray lizards stood surrounded by three of the mantis monsters. Despite what I would have expected, there was no blood anywhere in sight. Instead the lizard had large cuts all over its body that just revealed a black void underneath.
The mantis monsters circled around it for a little while longer until one of them dashed in from the side. A split second later, the scythe cut under the dinosaur's neck and it crumbled to the ground.
The mantis that got the killing blow landed on the dinosaur as the other two flew off. The mantis started biting into the dinosaur as they started to dissolve into the air. After a little while, the particles started falling over the side and towards the bottom of the void.
"What's going to happen to that stuff?" I asked as the… Gazimon raised an eyebrow at me.
"Loose data falls, how sheltered are you that you don't know that?"
I'd been called many things over the course of my life, but I was pretty sure that this was the first time anyone ever called me sheltered.
"That's not the case where I'm from," I put it simply.
"Wow, what kind of weird land did you come from before falling into those stupid portals?" Falling? Did this Gazimon and the rest of the monsters in here all come from the same place?
"I have a feeling that we'd be here a while if I tried to explain it," I told them as I started walking away. "Well, thanks again for saving me, but I have to get going."
"Hey you're going the wrong way," they warned me. "You have to head upwards for the exit," well that explained what that mantis monster from earlier was doing.
"That's good to know, but I have to head somewhere else first," I told them. "If the trash is at the bottom of this place, then that's where I'm heading."
"Are you insane?" I noticed that they had started walking after me. "Don't you know anything about these kinds of places?"
"I have a vague idea."
"Then you know that we have to get out of here as fast as possible. I've seen countless digimon fall into those portals and I've only ever seen one of them come out again. They said that they got out as the space began to close in on itself."
Well if we were inside a computer that was turned on, then that was probably what happened when it was shut down. And if that was the case…
"I have a good feeling that that won't happen as long as I'm around," If this place was stable as long as the computer was shut down, then I was safe…
I turned around and knelt down at the Gazimon.
"In fact, I also have a feeling that as soon as I leave, this place will disappear," I explained as their eyes went wide. Even if I left the PC on for Coach K to find in the morning, a terrible idea by itself, he'd just turn it off himself. "If you come with me and help me get what I need from the trash, then I can make sure that I leave after you do."
I couldn't save everyone in here, but I could at least time it so the Gazimon made it out too. It was the least I could do since they saved my life.
"Well, I guess I'm coming with you," they said as we started walking. "So what are we looking for down there anyway?"
I tried to quickly explain the deal with Francis and Coach K, trying to avoid any topics that might require a tangent since I was pretty sure that they didn't have American football or storage buildings where they was from. They did have security cameras through, which struck me a bit odd but it gave me less to explain so I was cool with it.
"So why doesn't your friend just leave if it's that bad?"
"Because he's a prideful idiot," I snapped before taking a breath. "No, that's too harsh. It's because this thing that K runs has been around forever, and Francis' dad was the big star on it back in the day."
"I'm just going to assume 'dad' means someone close to this Francis friend of yours," Gazimon said as their ears twitched and their eyes narrowed. "Get down."
I followed their lead as the two of us knelt down at the edge of the glass road and watched as one of the Monochromon, as Gazimon had called the gray lizards, slowly walked past us on the glass road below.
"Good thing their hearing is as bad as their sight," Gazimon smirked as they motioned for me to hand them the rope. I gave them the stone to hold as they wrapped the rest of the rope around their arm. I grabbed hold of the other end and slowly dropped down, Gazimoin being sure to only give me a bit of the rope at a time.
My feet touched the glass below and I motioned for Gazimon to jump. They nodded and leapt down into my waiting arms. They were surprisingly light. I quickly set them down before looking for the next place where we could go down.
We kept going down a few more roads like this, making sure to avoid the Snimon and Monochormon as we went. We were making some pretty good progress when we came into a bit of a snag.
"Alright, that's going to be it," Gazimon pointed at a lone road with a single screen right at the end. It was the same one that I had been on when I first got in here to boot. Of course that brought with it some complications.
"So how are we getting past the big one?" I whispered as we watched the same Monochromon that had chased me earlier walk up and down the path. The path was pretty solitary, with nothing above it in range of my rope. The usual plan wouldn't work for this one.
"We don't," they said as they got to their feet. "It shouldn't take you too long to get the videos right?"
"Right," I didn't like where this was going.
"I'll get the big guy's attention if you run and download the videos. Once you have them, we can get out of here."
"Are you sure?" I wanted to take Coach K down, but was I really going to put other people in danger in the process?
Their ears twitched and eyes narrowed at me before looking back at the Monochromon. "Better get moving, this is our chance."
Before I could explain myself, Gazimon jumped down in front of the Monochromon and started waving their arms.
"Hey ugly, come get me," they taunted before breaking out into a run. The Monochromon roared as it chased after Gazimon.
Looks like the question would go unanswered due to the person putting themselves into the danger. Well, I wasn't about to let the opportunity pass by. I made sure that the Monochromon was too far away to hear me before dropping down onto the glass road below. I ran to the screen and pounded it open.
"Come on, come on," I muttered as the load time felt so much longer now. I saw a couple of video files and didn't bother going through them. Soon all of them were downloaded onto the rebel drive. I turned the screen off as soon as I was done and ran off.
As I ran, I saw Gazimon running towards me with the Monochromon chasing after them. We met up in the center and scrambled up the road which had saved me before.
"Looks like we did it," I laughed as we watched the Monochromon growling at us before walking away…
There was a gust of wind as a green flash swept down and cut through the Monochromon. Gazimon and I both gulped as a Snimon landed on the glass road in front of us.
"Don't move a…" Gazimon started to whisper before the Snimon pointed its scythe at us and started flying again.
"Are you kidding me?" Gazimon yelled as they broke out into a run. They didn't have to tell me anything for me to run after them.
I glanced up and saw the scythe coming down out of the corner of my eye. I jumped forward and grabbed onto Gazimon, tackling us to the ground as the scythe passed right over our heads.
"Close call," they giggled as their eye twitched. We scrambled back to our feet only for the Snimon to land right in front of us.
"I don't think it's going to let us out here," I said as the mantis approached.
"Nope," Gazimon raised their claws as they started to slightly glow. "Looks like we'll have to fight our way through,."
"I guess I'm backing you up," I said as I looked at the scythes in front of me. I had gotten us into this mess, it was only fair that I helped us get out of it. "Fair warning, if I get hit, a lot of sticky red stuff is going to come out of me."
"Is that normal?" Gazimon asked as the Snimon got closer.
"Not really, but don't be shocked when it happens." I told Gazimon.
"Alright, then we're in this, together."
I nodded and then noticed a light coming from the Digital Rebel.
"Extra processing acquired, Rebel Drive functions have been activated," a voice from the Rebel Drive said as the screen produced the word 'escape' with the text. At the edge of the screen were two options labeled 'yes' and 'no', each next to a button.
"Gazimon, change of plans, we're getting out of here," I told them as their head snapped to me.
"What are you talking about?" They demanded as I grabbed onto her.
"Hold on cause I have no idea what's about to happen," I warned as I wrapped myself around them in a hug and pressed the button.