I let out a grunt as I hit the ground.
"Am I back in one piece?" I mumbled as I got to my feet. The PC in front of me was still on. At the moment, it was showing a 16-bit image of the snimon that had just tried to…
"Wait, was that real?" I questioned before widely looking around the room. "Gazimon? Are you here? Did you come back with me?"
No answer. I was alone in the room.
Despite having just met the weird little cat rabbit, I was already pretty fond of them. I had been really hoping they had managed to come back with me. And if they weren't here then that meant I had accidently left them behind. And if that was the case…
I barely kept myself from punching the desk and making a mess. I had been telling the truth when I told them I was going to back them up.
But why was I so sure they would come with me when I activated the rebel drive? Well, I guess I didn't really have a lot of time to make the choice.
"Hello anyone there?" My eyes flashed towards the PC. There in the top right corner was a small window showing Gazimon leaning forward. "Are you there… um, whatever your name was?"
Had… had I really never told Gazimon my name? Now that I thought about it, I really hadn't. A little messed up but we had been in a hurry.
Okay, let's try to figure out what's going on first.
"Come on, is this thing on?" Gazimon said despite me standing right in front of the PC. I looked at the machine in question and noticed a lack of camera or microphone. So if I couldn't get through to them by voice, then I had to do it the old fashioned way.
I clicked inside of the window and hit enter, hoping that a text box would pop up. Fortunately, that's exactly what happened.
"Can you read this?" I typed the words out. "I can see you but I don't think you can see me. My name is Gabriel by the way, but my friends call me Gabi," I hit enter and leaned back as the text appeared on screen in front of Gazimon.
"Yeah I can read you," Gazimon read as I watched their eyes move back and forth. They smiled as they leaned back. "So do you know where the heck I am Gabi?"
"Well I'm back to where I was before I ended up in that place," I told them. "Where are you?"
"I'm in a small rectangular room," They explained while looking around. "There's a camera and screen in front of me, a weird wavy wall behind me and some letters on the side that spell out 'rebel drive'. Does any of that mean anything to you?"
I glanced over at the rebel drive that was still plugged into Coach K's PC.
"Yeah I think I might know something about that," I admitted over text. "Give me a minute to figure some stuff out on my side."
"Go right ahead," they told me as I opened up the file explorer and figured out just what was on the rebel drive.
The first thing I saw was a file labeled digihome. I opened it up and saw a few files like 'digihome interface' and 'camera' pretty basic stuff. However there were two that caught my eye. The first was 'network bridge' and the other one was simply labeled ' '.
Wait, 'mon' was a file type? I mean, gazimon was currently inside of a computer and they were in a place called a 'digital' home. And Gazimon had talked about 'data' like it was something you just ran into in day to day life. I guess all those other monsters were digital monsters as well…
"Quick question," I typed out, dreading the answer. "Is digimon short for anything?"
"Is it short for something? Yeah it's short for digital monster."
Oh that's so dumb, but it fits so well.
I backed out of the digihome file and looked at the rest of the contents of the rebel drive. There were a pair of programs labeled 'PtoD converter' and 'DtoP converter' as well as a file labeled storage.
I opened it up to find some video files. The same ones I came here to get in the first place.
"You're going down Coach K," I grinned as I closed that one too and went back to the interface. Now that I had what I came for, I needed to get out of here. I placed my mask back on before typing into the chat.
"I'm going to have to disconnect for a little while," I explained. If all goes well, I'll talk to you in a bit," ff course I would need to find a computer for that to work first. Hopefully it wouldn't be too much trouble to find one.
"Wait, why can't we talk now?" They demanded. "Where the heck am I?"
"The place where we are isn't safe," I explained. "I'm getting out of here. I'll contact you again when we're safe."
"Wait what do you mean 'we'? Are you getting me out of here?" They asked as I quickly typed.
"I don't have time to explain, I have to get out of here. I'll tell you later."
I gulped as I carefully closed the interface before doing what I needed to do to disconnect the rebel drive safely. Once I did everything right, I took a deep breath before unplugging it.
"I really hope I didn't mess anything up," I held the USB in front of me. It had changed while I'd been inside the computer. Instead of having the words 'digital rebel' written on a piece of tape, it was now printed in bold black letters. "Weird."
I placed the USB into my pocket and made sure to leave everything like how I found it. Leaving the room behind. I made my way out of the school with little trouble, getting out with no easily noticeable traces.
I made it back home as fast as I could. My mask was taken off and thrown away into a dumpster several blocks away from my house. Meanwhile the rope was tossed into an empty lot no one ever went into. I let out a sigh I hadn't even noticed I'd been keeping in as I made it through the doors.
"And just where have you been?" I tried to keep myself calm as I turned to face my Aunt. She was sitting at the dining room table, with perfect vision of the front door.
"There was some traffic on the way back," I explained as I remembered my cover story. I had told them I was going out to the pier to just walk around. It was something I did from time to time so they hopefully bought it. "So the bus took its time getting back here."
My aunt glared at me before getting out of her chair and walking towards me. She circled around me and gave me a few quick sniffs and then glanced at my back and then my pockets.
I watched as she circled before wordlessly pointing towards the stairs.
"See you tomorrow," I told her as I climbed the stairs.
"Oh, right. Almost forgot to tell you," I paused and looked back at her, "something came for you in the mail. Said that it was from an old friend of your parents. We left it in your room."
I blinked as I took that statement in. My parents hadn't had too many friends, and the ones they did have had fallen out of contact shortly after their… passing.
"Thanks, for that," I kept climbing the stairs as I wondered just who had really mailed me something.
A few minutes later I was sitting on top of my bed with a package in front of me. It was plain with no logos on it, except for our address and a message saying that it was for me from a friend of my parents. The whole message was written in black marker.
"Let's see what you are," I took a small pocket knife from my desk and flipped it open. I carefully placed the blade under the tape and cut it open. I popped the top open and slowly pulled the contents inside.
"Is this what I think it is?" I gulped as I placed the object in question onto my bed. I looked it over, flipping it upside down and inspecting it from every angle. "It is."
In my hands was a small black laptop. It had no logos on it, nor any other marks. Kind of like a certain drive…
"Gazimon," I gasped as I set the laptop down at my desk and took the rebel drive out of my pocket. I flipped it open and hit the power button. It booted up almost instantly and as soon as I was sure it was done, I plugged the rebel drive in.
As soon as the USB went in, it started to crackle with electricity. I flinched back as the blue plastic shifted and morphed. It had kept the same shape, but the plastic had changed to black with bold purple letters.
I looked at the impossibility in front of me and put it aside for now. Instead I hit the file explorer and opened up the interface. The familiar window opened up as Gazimon jumped to their feet.
"You're back," They said as they ran up the camera. "And I can see you this time."
I looked up at the small camera above the laptop's screen. That explained that part. I glanced down and spotted a small hole that was probably a microphone. Might as well try it out.
"Can you hear me too?" Gazimon nodded back.
"Loud and clear," They said as they glanced back.
"Everything okay back there?" I asked as I wondered where the heck this laptop had come from. It was way too weird that I had gotten a laptop just when I needed my own private PC. Had it been the dude in the robe that had given me the rebel drive in the first place?
I guess that would make sense.
"Maybe," Gazimon admitted as they fully turned around to look at the wall behind them. They glanced back at me for a second before standing to the side to let me get a better view.
The back wall of the digihome had a section that looked almost like floating fluid. On the other side, I could see another maze of floating glass roads.
"When I first got here, the place we escaped from was on the other side," they explained. "I could see the roads we walked down, as well as the Snimon and Monochromon that were still wandering inside. Then after you left, the door turned solid again. And now it's back to how it was but… different."
Different was right, I could see the changes from here. Instead of a blue void, I could see a black one with shades of purple near the bottom and points of silver light near the top. The roads were also different. They were still made of glass, but now the borders were colored gold with purple tinted glass between.
Something about it looked kind of familiar about it though. I took a careful look at the color before trying to figure out where…
Oh it was right in front of me. I was so focused on the interface window I had ignored the rest of the laptop. Including its eye-catching desktop background, a night sky with shades of purple at the bottom and silver stars near the top.
Now that I was paying attention, the windows were light purple with gold borders.
"Okay so I think I can explain what's up with the wall and the stuff behind it," I told Gazimon as they rushed back to the camera. "But this is going to take a while to explain."
What followed was one of the longest and strangest conversations that I had ever had. I explained the concepts of stuff like 'computers' and 'UBS' and a bunch of other things that helped Gazimon figure out where they were.
"Oh, that's weird," They mumbled as I held up the laptop to a mirror so that they could see themselves. "So I'm basically in that?"
"Yeah, pretty much," I set the Laptop back down on my desk and leaned back.
"Have to say, don't know how to feel about the fact that I'm stuck inside something so small and fragile looking," they had a nervous smile on their face. "And I'm not even going to get into the fact that you just plugged this place into something you got from someone you don't know."
"Don't worry I'm not going to drop you," I reassured them. "And it's not like I had much of a choice. If this thing hadn't shown up, I would have either needed to wait until tomorrow or risk getting caught."
"I guess you have a point," They agreed before looking around again. "But I think I'll stay here for now, Even if this place is a little boring."
"Got it," I went over to the file explorer again and went into the digital rebel's storage file. As I did, I heard Gazimon freak out over something. "You alright?"
"Did you do something? Cause a weird door just appeared in here," they told me as I saw them walk off screen.
"All I did was open the storage file."
"And as soon as you did, a door showed up," they paused, "well it's more like a doorway without the door. Leads into a hallway and everything."
"That's weird, did that happen the last time I opened up the storage file?" I asked as the camera of the digihome shifted to show me a long hallway. At the very end of it was Gazimon standing under an open doorway.
"No it didn't," they answered back with an echo probably from the blank walls of the hallway, "or maybe it did. I wasn't paying too much attention to anything but the screen. Since you know, you were only text and everything,"
"Makes sense," I said as Gazimon walked forward into the hallway towards the camera.
"I'm walking in, it looks like a hallway like I said," they narrated for me. I should probably tell them I still had eyes on them.
"I can see it too. As soon as you walked into the hallway, the camera switched to one at the end of the hallway. Can you see it?"
They looked up and straight at me. Their eyes narrowed a bit before they relaxed.
"Yeah I see you," they kept walking towards the camera until something else caught their eye.
They stopped halfway through, right in front of the only door in the hallway.
"There's something written on this door," They clicked a claw against the door as it opened. They walked through and the camera changed again to the main room.
"Gazimon? Can you hear me?"
"Yeah I can still hear you? Did the camera not change again?"
"No, I can't see you all now…" Or at least I couldn't until something odd happened in the explorer window that I'd opened, starting this whole thing. A little door materialized and opened as a… I want to say 16-bit version of Gazimon who walked out.
"Well this place looks weird, it's like a big white field. There's a couple of other things here though," I heard them say as I watched the little 16-bit Gazimon approach the video files.
"I can see you but not from the camera. I'm going to do something, tell me if you see something moving around," I put my finger on the mouse pad and moved the mouse around the file explorer.
"Whoa, there's this weird arrow thing moving around here."
"That's me, I'm controlling it," I told Gazimon who I saw tap their foot.
"Well keep it away from me. That thing looks sharp."
"Sure thing," I moved the mouse away from Gazimon and towards the files that I got from Coach K's computer. I looked at the files and clicked the one I needed twice. A video player opened as it started to play.
"Something came out of one of the things here. It's like a big, flat, box floating in the air," they explained, "and now some stuff is appearing on the screen and… oh."
They trailed off as the file played and we both watched me get brutally treated by Coach K and his meatheads. I felt an ugly sensation in my gut as I remembered what I felt back then.
"He really got you good," Gazimon said quietly. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah I'm okay," I reassured them as a smile came onto my face. "Especially since I now have the proof I needed to take him down."
"You going to need any help with that?" Their voice had a bit of a vindictive tint to it. As much I wanted to do the kind of thing Gazimon's tone implied. I wanted to take down Coach K as simply as possible. Leave no room for error, and the best way to do that was to go to the person above him.
Principal Verden was a good man, and I didn't think for a second that he would tolerate Coach K's actions when they were right in front of him.
I told Gazimon my plan. I could tell that they didn't fully agree with it, but did say that they would let me handle it.
"Of course if your plan crashes and burns, I'll be right here if you need me for plan b," they smirked from back inside the digihome. I raised an eyebrow at the gray cat rabbit. They almost looked like they wanted my plan to fail.