"Here's to another successful operation," I raised my cup of soda as two other cups joined it and three voices rang out. We three humans quickly glanced at each other before lowering our glasses to where Pagumon's glass waited. None of us knew how she managed to hold it up with her ears, and none of us had been willing to ask.
"Don't you patronize me," she pretended to growl before tossing the glass back and taking a sip. She let out a cute sigh before putting the glass back down. "Just you guys wait until I can become Gazimon in the material world. Then I'll be able to do so much more stuff."
She'd been talking about turning into Gazimon in the material world more often in the last few days. Apparently she felt like she was on the verge of a breakthrough about it. And while I was happy for her, part of me was not looking forward to it.
"Personally I'm not looking forward to it," I put my own glass down and walked over to Pagumon's side of the table. "After all, I won't be able to do this."
I reached out and scooped Pagumon up in my arms.
"Hey what are you doing, let me down!" Those were her words, but her laugh was all I needed to start spinning around the room like I was ballroom dancing with her.
"But man, you two have been really working hard these past few weeks," Francis, or should I say Rebel 4, coughed. After finding out about everything, he'd been surprisingly willing to help. What he lacked in useful skills, he more than made up for in one major way. His usually empty house with a basement which could easily be converted into a base. The same basement we were all in right now.
It wasn't too much to call home about to be honest. Stone walls with a wood frame and a few pipes crossing across the ceiling. Half of the space was taken up by random junk his family kept around, and the other half was mostly open space with a table in the center. There was also an old couch next to the wall, but it was covered with old junk none of us risked touching.
At least the floor was wood paneling instead of bare stone. The only realized part of what had been planned to be a major home improvement project from what Francis said.
"Yeah, two scam call centers, someone committing pension fraud, and now a second malware scammer." Roxie quickly added as Pagumon and I kept dancing around on the wooden floor. "Are you sure you two are doing all right?"
"Of course we are," I scoffed.
"All these missions have been a breeze," Pagumon scoffed along with me.
She wasn't wrong either, all of these missions had one major thing in common. None of them had involved dealing with other digimon. Despite my argument with Pagumon at the end of the skullgreymon incident, encounting another digimon had turned out to be the expectation instead of the rule.
And with no big monster to get in our way, the missions were laughably easy. I didn't even need Pagumon's help most of the time, most antivirus and cyber security measures just sort of died when they came in contact with us.
"I know, but maybe you two should take a break?" Roxie asked. As she glanced over at the still open laptop sitting at the corner of the table. On it were two open screens. The first was the digital home program in case we needed to throw Pagumon in there. The second was the key to our amazing progres.
The website was in black and purple, with the words 'Digital Rebel HQ' in big white letters at the top. Under it were several subsections, all of them leading to different forums, the most important of all named 'requests'.
You see, as it turned out one of the people who had seen my little chat with Andrew was a website designer. One who was more than willing to make what had been a fan website dedicated to the group who'd saved his data from the one holding it for ransom. Some of the other people who'd I helped had found the site, and had started talking to each other.
And then someone had posted the video to Youview, and next thing you knew we had a bunch of new people on the site. Some of whom brought their own stories of injustice.
From there the next step was logical. We found the people who we could help and went after those who had wronged them. Sure we had a couple of misses, people who in the end hadn't really done anything, but sorting between the two was easy.
All in all, the system worked.
"No way, we're on a roll," I pointed out before setting Pagumon down next to the laptop, "In fact, let's see what we can find right now. We haven't checked the request forum since yesterday."
"Come on, give us something spicy," Pagumon grinned as she got closer to the PC, "and hopefully close by. Last thing I want is to cross borders again."
I silently nodded, even if I didn't fully agree. If it meant going after a big enough scumbag, I'd happily go to the other side of the world.
"Okay you two do that… Francis and I will go get those snacks I left downstairs." I hooked my arm around Francis and started leading me up the stairs.
"Wait, did you two get those sour cream and cheddar flavor I like?" I heard Pagumon call out once we were halfway up. I looked back down and saw her eyes, sparkling in anticipation.
"You know I did," she did a little cheer before going back to the laptop. I could hear frantic whispering between her and Gabi as Francis and I emerged from the basement.
"Okay so he has to be doing this on purpose," I ripped my bag open and took out the chip bags I bought the day before.
"Are you sure?" Francis reached up to get something out of the cabinets. "He could just be acting friendly."
"Francis, we're his friends. Has he ever grabbed you and started pretending to ballroom dance? No? Well me neither." Francis pulled out a couple of bowels and set them in front of me. I stared at them for a second before he pointed to the chip bags.
"Okay, but counterpoint, neither of us are exactly small enough for him to pick up. He's always been the shortest kid in class, and before this whole digital rebel thing, he barely did any exercise." He pointed out as I pushed the bowles away and just held the chips in my arms. He sighed silently before opening up the fridge. "Plus there is something else to consider."
"Oh yeah, what?" Francis pulled out a bag of… cookies. Fudge cookies which would explain why they were in the fridge.
"Gabi has never really had someone this close to him before. He's too young to really remember his parents, and we both know what the rest of his family is like. We've always been around for him, but we only really saw him at school. This is the first time he's had someone who he can be open with 24/7."
He finished pouring the cookies before we started heading our way back downstairs. We made it to the door when we both stopped.
"So I guess the question now is…" he turned around and looked down at me dead in the eyes. "If the two of them become… together, what are we supposed to do about it?"
"Cheer them on?" I shrugged, my unsureness clear in my voice. "Pagumon's a nice enough… girl, and Gabi's our friend so it sounds like the right choice."
"But does it feel like the right choice?" We both stared at each other and grumbled under our breaths. After a few seconds he turned back around and opened up the door to the basement again.
"We're back," I called out as we made our way back down the stairs. Pagumon and Gabi were no longer looking at the screen, but instead sitting together with Pagumon on Gabi's lap. The two of them were smirking at us with their arms and ears crossed. Gabi tapped his foot twice against the wall as their smirks intensified.
"We've found a new target." They both spoke in unison, an obvious rehearsed bit, but it looked pretty impressive.
"Did you two practice that?" Francis asked as he set the bowl of cookies down on the table. I set the chips around it just as Pagumon jumped off Gabi's lap to get a better look at what we'd brought.
"A good question, but largely irrelevant," Gabi jumped out of his seat as I felt my eyes narrow in annoyance. Great, looked like we were dealing with 'rebel 1' at the moment. Recently I'd noticed Gabi changing his mannerisms when he was talking about his 'hobby' even when he wasn't in the costume. "You see my fine friends, I have a tale to tell, one of injustice to be corrected."
He grabbed the laptop and turned it towards us as Pagumon grabbed the bag of cheddar and sour cream chips she liked. She somehow managed to get it open just as Gabi started pointing towards the screen. I ignored the impossibility on the table to read off the forum post.
"We need help. My friends and I are being framed by a shop owner who says we broke into his store in the middle of the night and stole a bunch of stuff. I know my friends and I are all innocent because we were all at a party that night, but the cops don't care."
Below was the information on the store in question. I glanced up a the tabs in browser. Next to the Digital Rebel HQ tab was a Wooble search of the store in question. A quick tab switch alter and I was looking at the store info.
Compared to some of the other missions, it was pretty close. Just across state lines instead of out of the country. And the store had a website with an email, so getting in would be easy enough.
"Looks like they're in pretty hot water, you guys are going to need to act fast," Francis rubbed the small handful of hairs he called a beard. "I think I can have the house to myself tomorrow if you guys want to deal with this right away."
"You bet we do," Pagumon took a break from scarfing down her chips to nod along with Gabi. It would have been more impressive if she didn't have bits of chips all over her face. In her defense, it wasn't like he had thumbs… or hands. "Something like this needs to be taken care of right away."
"Okay, so the operation starts tomorrow then," Francis sat down and looked at all the snacks on the table. "Feels a bit weird to eat all this stuff in a victory party only to eat it all again tomorrow…"
"Well eat a bit of it today and then eat the rest tomorrow," Gabi said, 'Rebel 1' sliding back into his subconscious where it could stay if you asked me. "Have two mini parties instead of one big one."
We all agreed and dug in, just without the usual fervor we usually had. I took one last glance at the laptop, and couldn't help but worry about it. Something about this whole thing felt off, hopefully I was wrong.
Gabi sat down on my bed, his head freshly dry as I looked at him from my spot on the desk. He let out a sigh and stared at the wall in front of him. I could read the worry on his face like an open book.
"You alright?" I asked. For a second I thought he was ignoring me, but I could see the thoughts behind his eyes moving.
"I'm just wondering where it's all going from here," he finally answered, "are we just going to go after people for the rest of our lives? Will we stop one day because I got too old? Will we change the world so much that our actions will no longer be needed?"
The room fell silent for a second before I jumped off the table and sailed through the air. His eyes widened as I landed on him with enough force to push him onto his back. I looked down at him and placed one of my ears on his forehead.
"Don't worry about it. Save tomorrow for tomorrow, focus on the problems of today," I smiled at him as we both took a deep breath at the same time, "Plus I doubt that last one will happen anyway."
"Hey I can dream," he chuckled as I removed my ear from his forehead," thanks for the advice."
"If something like this was bothering you, why didn't you bring it up with Roxie and Francis today?" I pointed out as he glanced up at the ceiling.
"I don't know… maybe it's just…" he took a deep breath before picking me up so I was above his head. "Talking to you is easier. I don't know what it is about you, but I feel like I could tell you anything. With the rest of my friends, I have this need to… I don't know, keep my walls up."
"Meanwhile I bring them all down without trying?" I raised an eyebrow as he chuckled again.
"See you're doing it right now," he gave me that stupid wide, cheerful smile he only ever wore around me. I had to force myself to stay calm as another face appeared over his.
"Maybe I'm just good at getting in with people," I pointed out as he let me back down.
"You're probably right," he rose from his bed and started walking towards the laptop. "So… you ready to head back in? We have a long day tomorrow."
"Actually," I turned away from him and hopped to the head of the bed, "Do you mind If I sleep out here tonight. Your bed's more comfortable than mine."
A complete lie, but I wasn't going to admit that. Instead of answering, Gabi walked up to the bed and got in. He quickly fell asleep and I took the chance to get in close and join him.