I stared at the scene in front of me before looking down at my pinched arm, before looking back up.
"So cute!"
In all my years of knowing her, I would never have described Roxie as a girly-girl. She wasn't exactly a tomboy either just… tough. She had a jacket with spikes on it she wore whenever it got cold enough. In my opinion, it was the piece of clothing that fitted her best.
"You know I am!"
In the weeks since meeting Pagumon, I'd like to think I'd gotten to know the little monster well. She was tough, always striving to be self-sufficient when possible. Someone who stood on her own two legs and didn't back down from a challenge, even when she didn't have any legs.
And yet somehow, putting the two together resulted in the scene in front of me.
"How are you so fluffy?" Roxie squealed as she hugged Pagumon from behind, her arms holding the fuzzball up and in the air. The usually straight laced girl was sitting cross legged on my bed, leaving me by myself on the other side of the room.
"I have no idea!" Pagumon countered, sounding in no way annoyed like she usually did when I held her in my arms. Instead, she was smiling and laughing it up with Roxie.
Good thing my brain was too busy being confused to be jealous.
"Guys… we need to focus here," I tried to redirect their attention to the laptop on the desk in front of me. "The email, remember?"
"Did you find anything out yet?" Roxie set Pagumon down in front of her and looked me dead in the eye. I'd never seen a smile like that on her face before.
"Well no, but I could use…" My eyes met Pagumon's as her smile faded just the tiniest bit.
"Did you have to go through a long conversation with my aunt?" I'd also never been as afraid of Roxie as I was at this very moment.
"No, but…" Now Pagumon was slowly looking up at Roxie, slight concern emerging on her face.
"And then did you have to go through a whole round of bone crushing hugs and teary eyes after you two did your thing?" Oh god she was giggling. Is this what it feels like to confront death?
"No." The concern on Pagumon's face had reached its height. Instead of doing the sane thing and running away she just looked back at me and shrugged with her arm/ears.
"Then just be quiet for a little bit, and let me enjoy this." Roxie, please never make such a calm and peaceful smile ever again. I don't think I can take it.
"Alright fine… Wonder how you would handle her in her bigger form." I muttered that last part as I imagined her trying to to throw her arms around Gazimon in full cat rabbit mode.
Hmmm… Somehow I could see her still pulling it off.
I sighed and went back to looking over the email. The address was a seemingly random string of letters and numbers. I'd had the thought to put it through a few cipher websites, but none of them revealed anything. When that didn't work, I'd tried doing it again, but with the string backwards and still nothing. It was just filler, probably made by some sort of randomizer…
"Okay one last thing." I put my hands back on the keyboard as an idea popped up in my head. Sure the numbers and letters were nonsense when all together… but what if I split it up?
I separated the numbers and letters and ended up with two much shorter strings… that still meant nothing. I let out a sigh. I had hoped this guy was enough of a super villain to leave a hint of some kind, but sometimes real life was disappointing.
"And still nothing," I got to my feet and walked over to the pair. I placed my hand on Pagumon's head and closed my eyes feeling the fur under my fingers. "Looks like we're back on plan A."
"By plan A, do you mean sticking me into an email and seeing if I can go through?" I met Pagumon's gaze and fell silent. After a couple of seconds, Pagumon released a sigh of surender. "Well, okay let's do this."
"Maybe we should test this out first?" Roxie pointed out. "Put Pagumon in an email and send it somewhere safe? Maybe me?" Two pairs of eyes locked onto Roxie.
"You just want to have her on your phone," Pagumon nodded as Roxie pouted. Something I was pretty sure I had never seen before either.
"Doesn't mean I'm wrong…" I ignored the bizarre wrongness in front of me to focus on the important part.
"Well, you're right," I gritted my teeth as Pagumon's jaw dropped. "We're best off sending Pagumon somewhere safe to try this out… man I still don't like this plan. Feels like I'm shoving all the danger onto you."
"Why don't you just come with me?" Pagumon asked as she forced her way out of Roxie's arms and landed in front of me. "Last time around, the whole plan would have fallen apart if it wasn't for you. You were the one who played the video for the world to see, I just bought you time. Plus if you're around we might be able to…"
She broke off before glancing over to my desk. Specifically the drawer under the laptop. We both knew what was inside. The biggest question to come up since this whole thing started.
"But If I go, who will handle the return function…" I slowed down as I slowly turned to Roxie. I blinked as an unspoken question passed between us. She just shrugged.
"I mean, I'm already pretty deep into this. Might as well stick around. If that means playing mission control, that's fine with me."
"Which means now we have to find out if the return function works on you." Pagumon pointed at me with one of her ear/arms. "And we also have to find out if Humans can even go into emails… heck we still don't know if I can."
"Looks like we have a lot to research before we can start the operation," I turned back to my shelf and popped the drawer open. I shuffled some paper around until I reached the bottom before reaching for the plastic object underneath.
I felt it in my hands for a second. If I didn't know any better I could have guessed it was some sort of weird debit card. It was made from the same kind of tough plastic, even had a silver wireless symbol on one end, the kind that designated a contactless card.
But one look at it banished any thought of this being a debit card. On the front was an image of Snimon holding up one of its scythes for the 'camera' surrounded by a white border. Underneath were the words 'Snimon Slicer' written in plain white text. The back of the card was pretty eye-catching as well. It had a field of green with a light blue circle in the center surrounded by deep blue arrows. No text though.
Even after all this time, I had no idea where this thing had come from, and unlike most of my questions about… everything, Pagumon had no answers. She'd never seen anything like it either.
At Least we'd managed to confirm that it worked a second time. It was a bit annoying that it wouldn't work unless I screamed out 'digimodify' but I could deal.
…This one card represented me at my most useful. I would have to make sure to take it with me when I went through that email. If I could go into one, I still had to find that out.
What had my life turned into? And the worst part was that I was way happier now than I'd been before all this started.
"Hey, Earth to Gabi," I flinched as I felt something warm and fuzzy hit the back of my head. A pair of ears wrapped themselves around my head which slowly climbed up until the fuzzy object was on top of my head.
I slowly turned back around again at Roxie who still had her arm stretched out at me. My brain connected the words she'd said, the object on top of my head, and her arm as I finally found my words.
"Did you just… throw Pagumon at me?"
"Don't worry, it was my idea." Pagumon peeked out past my head and looked down. "We needed to get your attention, this seemed like the fastest way."
"She said she could handle it," Roxie weakly argued, "and don't brood, it's not a good look for you."
"Yeah, so let's get started with the…" Pagumon was interrupted by a sudden knock on the door. She went limp and I, remembering her wishes, set her down on the bed so she could act the part of a lifeless toy. I then quickly threw the card back into the desk.
"Yo loser, you have another guest," Laura called before swinging the door open. She scanned the room, before clicking her tongue in disappointment. "Anyway. Here you go."
Roxie and I looked at the door as a familiar face walked in.
"Francis… good to see you again," the taller boy slowly walked into the room, his hands clutching the sides of his jacket as he carefully kept his eyes on me.
"Hey Gabi… how are you…" he looked lost, looking over to Roxie who just shrugged before reaching over and grabbing Pagumon again. The pair sat in place, trying their best to look like statues.
"See you guys," Laura announced before leaving, slamming the door behind her. Francis jumped, before laughing nervously.
"I'm fine," I reassured him before sitting down at my desk, "after the police confirmed I wasn't the guy who hacked into the school, it was smooth sailing."
"Is that so? And it really wasn't you right?" Oh I did not like this already. The hopeful gleam in his eye, the edge on his voice. Was it worth lying here? I needed to know more.
"Why would it matter?" Wrong move. Francis froze in place before clenching his fist.
"Because if you were… I'm not sure what I would do." He confessed before leaning back against the wall. "Ever since the night of the game… things have been weird."
"What do you mean weird? Coach K's been exposed as an abusive monster and you're free from him. I'd say that's worth a thank you." I pointed out, feeling my pulse speeding up.
"It's not that simple. If the person who did all this was right in front of me, I'm not sure if I would thank him or punch him." I felt my eyebrow twitch.
"What are you talking about? How could your life be any worse than how it was before?" I demanded. I almost got beaten black and blue from a crazy lizard with a wooden sword. Heck, Pagumon did take a few hits. I could deal with anonymity, but all that danger to get rewarded with a punch to the face?
"You don't get it do you man?" Did Francis just raise his voice at me? After all this? "Life under Coach K was harsh, maybe even brutal, but it was simple. All you had to do was work hard, and you could avoid the worst of it. But ever since you stuck your nose in, it's gotten complicated."
"What, you would prefer to get punched in the gut for not running fast enough!" I jumped out of my chair and got into his face.
"Maybe," he yelled back. "Gabi, did you know my family used to have a big barbecue every Sunday. They would invite a bunch of their friends and they would bring their kids and throw them all in a room while they drank beer and watched football. They can't do that anymore because they just watched some of those boys beating up their son."
"I fail to see the big deal. So you don't have to worry about some dumb party every week." I shot back.
"It's a big deal to my parents, and now they don't know who to trust and the worst part of it all is that my dad blames himself. He blames himself for my decision." He almost looked like he was ready to cry. "Every single day it's the same thing. The same uncomfortable silence, the same feeling like we need to talk about it, and then nothing."
"Maybe he's right."
Time froze as soon as I said the words. Roxie eye's widened as Pagumon's jaw dropped. I would have worried about her cover, but Francis' eyes were on no one but me.
"Do you want to say that again?"
"Francis, when I first noticed something going on with Coach K, do you remember what you said when I asked you about it? You couldn't quit because you didn't want to disappoint your dad. He's the only reason you stayed there and went through what you did. If your dad wants to blame himself for what happened, maybe he should."
A hand gripped my shirt as I felt myself getting pulled up to my tiptoes. My face fell flat as Francis held his fist up, shaking, but ready to swing. I could see the tears starting to form in his eyes, and his sniffles echoed around the room.
"Don't do something you'll regret Francis…" I whispered as I kept staring right at Francis, refusing to blink, "maybe it would be best if you left to cool your head."
Francis held onto me for an eternity and for a second I was afraid he was actually about to swing. Finally, he let go and left the room. I stood there in silence for a few seconds before I felt someone putting their hand on my shoulder. I glanced back and spotted a jittery Roxie.
"I'm… going to go see if he's okay. Just… I'll be right back." She quickly left the room, and I didn't blame her. If I'd been in her shoes, I'd also need a moment to myself to process what just happened. Instead I just sat down on my bed next to Pagumon who was silently watching me.
"Are you…" She started to say before I cut her off.
"Well, we have a lot of work to do before we go after this ransomware guy. Let's get started."
AN: Well that just happened. I have quite the intriguing writing style where sometimes I write scenes and they develop in ways I didn't intend them to. Scenes like this one right here. To be honest, I'm still not sure about this part, but I'm going to keep pressing on anyway...
That being said, if there was ever a part demanding feedback, this would be it. What do you guys think of the argument? Did you totally fall under one side? Did it come out balanced? Are you unsure? I have my own opinions but I don't want to pollute the results.