The next two days quickly turned into a new routine. I'd wake up, hang around the empty house until Gabi came back from school. I'd make fun of him while he did his homework, and then it was time to work on the costume.
By the end of the second day, he'd managed to finally find the color combination he wanted, and was now working on making the clothes the right shape. I hadn't been joking when I said he might get it done in a week.
Once that was done, we settled in by watching an episode or two of 'Robin'. The longer we watched it the more we liked it. Complete ten out of ten and I was getting more and more worried that Rebel 1 will be a lot more united the next time he showed his face. And the worst part was, I was almost convinced to add onto it.
Once that was done, I'd sneak out and start heading towards the graveyard. The first night took me a while, but on the second night I cut the travel time almost in half. Mostly because once I arrived, Ghostmon wanted to play, and their favorite game was hide, seek, and chase.
AKA, the perfect way to explore and get used to the residential area until my mental map of it was complete.
At first glance it didn't look so bad, long narrow streets running in a grid. It should have been easy to navigate and map out. But there were two complications. The first was that I was also trying to map out things like small tunnels, climbable trees, roof accesses, and other ways to move around while using the roads as little as possible. The other was…
"Come on another one," I grit my teeth at the dead end in front of me. For some reason, a significant chunk of the streets in the residential area just had a pair of homes facing away from each other blocking the way. "Okay now how am I going to…"
"Caught… you," I jumped as I felt someone tackle me from behind. I rolled my eyes as the childish giggles filled my ears. Ghostmon was getting good at moving around unseen, which was the other main goal of these games.
"Okay, you can let me go now," Ghostmon giggled again as they let me go and smiled. If I had to guess she was already ready to go again. They didn't really get tired after the sun went down. The trade off was that they apparently crashed as soon as the sun came up.
Which was probably for the best. The less chance Ghostmon had to be seen by humans, the better. Outside of a single older man who tended to the graves, there was never anyone around. And even the older man was easy to keep track of in the giant graveyard. The big lantern he carried was the only other light source around, and it was bright enough to see through the hills and trees of the graveyard.
"Again… again," they whispered before gleefully, yet softly, clapping their hands. Yeah I was completely sure Ghostmon was a young digimon. They reminded me too much of playing with the younger Gazimon of my tribe back in the day. While I didn't like it, I was weirdly good at it.
And when you're good at something in a small community, you end up doing it, wherever you like it or not. At least it was coming in handy now.
"All right, switch?" Ghostmon nodded enthusiastically before flying off. I started counting to a hundred as I started thinking of the area around me. There were a couple of areas which would work as a hiding spot, and a few of them were close to dead ends like this one.
But I didn't think Ghostmon would go for any of them. I'd only been playing this game with them for two nights, but I was figuring them out. They wouldn't dig down and hide from sight.
No, as soon as I counted to one hundred, I looked over the building in front of me. All I had to do was climb up the fence, jump to that awning, and then the roof was right within my grasp.
I made my way up and started looking around. Ghostmon did not hide in place, they liked hiding high up and keeping an eye on me. And there, a few houses away, was Ghostmon. Their stitched mouth inched open as my eyes narrowed. I backed up a few feet to get a running start, and then I leapt across the gap.
Ghostmon's eyes widened as I landed on the next roof. They turned right around and started running away, starting the chase section of the game already.
A few minutes later I was running off a building, landing on an AC unit, and pouncing on Ghostmon. We both rolled onto the street as I made sure to wrap my arms around Ghostmon to take most of the impact.
"Well, looks like that one's my win," I got back to my back paws and helped Ghostmon back up. They floated back upright and stared at me.
"How did… you know?" They asked as I sat down with my back to the wall. We were in a pretty isolated spot, we wouldn't be spotted here, especially at this hour.
"You tried the same trick the last two times you were the one being chased," I used my best 'gentle scolding' voice. The one which let the recipient know they were not in trouble, but they could be if they didn't shape up. "If you keep using the same tricks, others will catch onto them. You have to mix it up, keep things different. It's okay to have favorite strategies, but never become predictable."
The longer I spoke, the more down Ghostmon looked. I finished my last statement and let it sit for a few seconds before getting back up. I needed to balance things out. I didn't just have criticism for the young mon.
"But you did pretty well in adapting once you got over your surprise," I winked at them as Ghostmon brightened up, "that chase across the roofs was pretty good."
"Thank you," they smiled at me before jumping onto me. I pretended to try and fail to fight them off before settling into the warm hug I was getting. "Better chaser."
Well they weren't wrong. But they needed to be good at both if they wanted to…
Why was I doing this? Ghostmon didn't need to survive in the human world the way I did back in the desert. I was teaching them to survive, but survive against what? All You really had to do to survive in the human world was keep your head down. There was no reason to train them.
I let the warmth of the hug flow into me. I guess this was fine, Ghostmon was having fun and I could use the practice too. You never knew when it would come in handy.
I woke up nice and early with a grin on my face. It was a Saturday, and my family was planning on taking a day trip to Cascade City to do… well it didn't really matter. What mattered was that this meant I had the whole house to myself for almost the whole day.
And that meant nothing to stop me from spending the whole day working on the rebel 1 outfit. Gazimon told me I had a shot at finishing the whole thing in less than a week, and I still had four days to prove her right.
I checked the digital home, planning on wishing Gazimon a good morning in case she was awake. No such luck, she was still fast asleep. I just shrugged, I was pretty sure she stayed up a bit later than me, so it made sense for her to wake up later.
Instead, I just headed downstairs, finding my uncle making himself a coffee, still half asleep. He glanced my way for a second before snapping his head towards me. He stared at me as I walked to the fridge and took out some milk.
"It is Saturday right?" He finally asked as I grabbed an egg for the frying pan.
"It is, just up early today," I answered just as he took a massive swig of his coffee. I cracked the egg onto the hot pan, breaking the yoke open with a fork.
"You? Up early?" He raised his eyebrow at me before taking another drink of coffee. "Why the hell, are you up early? Are you planning something? Because if we come back to this house and there is a single thing out of place…"
"I am not having a party," I rolled my eyes as I moved the egg onto a plate, "I am planning something though. Going to have a bit of a movie marathon today by myself."
"Huh… well the point still stands, not a single thing out of place. And if you're going to go out and buy popcorn or something, get some for us too. And also make me a fried egg while you're up there."
I fought back a sigh. Instead of an apology for the assumption, my uncle just doubled down and asked me for something at the same time. I should have been used to this kind of interaction, but it still pricked me.
At least it wasn't my Aunt, or worse, Laura.
And as though summoned by my thoughts alone, they both walked in as I passed the plate of eggs to my uncle. I took one look at them and fought back a sigh before making them breakfast too.
Once they all had plates of food in front of them, I left the kitchen with my own plate to eat at the dining table in the living room. The family usually ate breakfast in the kitchen and ate dinner in the dining room, and those not of the family did the opposite.
It wasn't a rule, just the way things were. Wasn't even sure when it'd started. At least I was able to use the TV. Not much to watch at this hour, but the morning news could be interesting sometimes.
I turned the TV on and sat down, expecting to hear about some local mess out of Cascade City or a fluff piece about a god who knew how to surf. Instead I got something… new.
"It's taken the internet by storm and left all the experts arguing. Just what is this mysterious viral video making the rounds on social media?" The talking head asked before turning to his co host. "So what are we looking at Joy?"
"Well Dan, Two days ago, a viral video began taking the internet by storm," the image on the screen changed to what appeared to be a small prison cell seen from a security camera. At the far end of the room was a bed with a phone on top.
And in front of the bed was William, holding out his digivice towards the phone.
"The footage appears to show a young man escaping a prison cell through unknown means," my eyes widened as his digivice began to glow and he was sucked into the internet. It took me a second to realize the woman on TV was still speaking. "People still aren't sure if this is a part of a viral marketing campaign or just someone's art project."
"The original video's gone now right, Joy?" the other voice added.
"That's right Dan, the account which posted the video claimed it was real leaked footage from a juvenile detention center. The video was then taken down twenty-four hours later. Since then, copies of it have managed to keep it spreading."
A fork clattered onto a plate as the world around me began to spin. William had escaped from confinement, and he'd managed to reveal… a clue towards Digimon to the authorities in the process.
I stared at my eggs, wondering if the news was hitting anyone else as strongly.
At the same time, in the outskirts of Cascade City, a man's mood had been soured. He stared at the TV in front of him, only able to tear his eyes away to look at the white object in his hands. No matter what he did, both it and the one held by the boy in the video looked the same.
He sat back down as the segment ended, surrounded by sacks of ill gotten cash and a small sleeping green figure sleeping on a mattress.
He wanted to scream, but the last thing he needed right now was for someone to come investigate. He took several deep breaths until he was sure his next few words would come out as a whisper.
"This is a problem."