I left my house, quickly checking the time on the rebel drive, before starting my trip. It wasn't even noon yet, and I was already tired.
The first thing I saw after waking up was a note left on my desk. It had been from Gazimon. It wasn't very long, just a quick message. She needed to talk to me as soon as she woke up. It would be a kind of long conversation, so I should look for a convenient spot to have it before then.
It spent the next few hours losing my mind like a headless chicken. She'd never left a message like that before. Normally she'd just talk to me as soon as she woke up. What did she need to talk about that was so important?
In the end, my best bet for a private spot turned out to be my room. As long as I kept quiet and worked by myself, I was sure I could avoid Laura's attention. I waited for Gazimon to wake up by trying to make shoes which would actually fit me.
By the time I got the notification she'd woken up, I'd made no progress. Too distracted by the upcoming conversation to use any of my brain.
When Gazimon appeared in a pop-up window, I almost jumped in surprise. She gave me a smirk before raising her paw up to the camera. Hanging on her claw was one of my failed shoe prototypes. She spun it around on her claw with a chuckle.
"Well, looks like you've been busy," it was a calm beginning to what had turned out to be less than calm conversation.
It hadn't been… easy to learn Gazmimon had been sneaking out almost every night in order to get a better lay of the land. But I also couldn't blame her after she explained herself. She'd done everything in her power to not be spotted, and she could apparently navigate pretty well now.
What I could be mad about was her finding a digimon in town and not telling me. She got lucky Ghostmon was friendly, she got even luckier that Ghostmon was willing to go along with all of her ideas.
I guess it was for the best that she found Ghostmon, but I felt as though she should have told me after that first night. She only came to me after another human got involved. And she'd even promised that I'd show up to a meeting with the young girl without even telling me about it first.
A part of him wanted to go back home and ignore all this, but Gazimon was right. Getting to know this new girl and teaching her the ropes was too important to not do. Especially with everything else going on. The clip of William escaping his cell was still circulating the internet, and until it faded away in time, we would all need to be careful.
But the least she could have done was pick any other location for the meeting.
"Haven't been here for a few years," I grumbled as I looked up at the large gate overlooking the entrance of the graveyard. Deep within the hills and trees of this place were my parents' graves. I'd been there twice. Once for the funeral, and another time one year later.
The year after that, I expected to go see the grave again, but none of my relatives cared enough to take me out here. And by the time I was old enough to go by myself, I just didn't have the habit of visiting the grave.
Was it a bit cold? Maybe, but that was just how I was. Still, maybe…
I shook my head and entered the graveyard.
"So where are they?" I asked into the rebel drive. There was a bit of static before Gazimon appeared on the screen.
"I told them to meet us near the back of the graveyard past the hills. Figured it would give us the most cover for this kind of thing," she explained before leading me through the lines of graves.
We crossed over a hill and I spotted someone who had to be the person I was looking for. She was a little girl, probably late elementary school age if I had to guess, wearing a jacket a size or three too big for her. She was standing in the little valley between this hill and the next, moving a few rocks on the ground with her foot. There were no graves here, just a small bench.
I took a single step forward before an annoying thought crossed my mind. I'd spent so much of my time with people who cared about me recently, that I let myself forget the reality of my life. I quickly scanned around and found a patch of dried leaves on the ground.
I stamped on them, getting the girl's attention. Last thing I needed was to accidentally sneak up on her if I had the wrong person. The girl jumped up and her head snapped towards me. Her features instantly grimaced as soon as they saw me.
"Luca right?" I glanced down at the slope and spotted a smooth bit of grass leading downwards. I jumped on it and slid down the rest of the hill, coming to a stop at the bottom.
"You're Gabriel Maurati right?" She took a slow and careful step back. "My mom told me not to talk to you. She said you were a bad seed."
Part of me wanted to argue back, but I knew that there was nothing I could say that would convince her otherwise. Fortunately for me, Gazimon came to my rescue, emerging from the rebel drive and appearing next to me.
"As someone who's been living with him for a couple months now, Gabi's no bad seed Luca." She smiled before jumping up and grabbing onto my head. I stumbled around as she climbed up atop my head. "See, completely harmless."
I could see what she was doing. I bit back a sigh and took the joke at my expense. If it won the girl over, it was worth it. I needed her to be comfortable around me if I wanted her to listen to me about keeping digimon a secret.
And based on how she was laughing, it seemed to be working.
"OKay, it looks like you made your point, mind getting off me?" I could feel Gazimon's smirk as she got off and landed in front of me. "Okay, now that you know I won't bite your hand off or whatever it is they say about me, could you show me the digivice?"
Luca smiled underneath her messy hair before reaching into her massive jacket's pocket and handing me the digivice. It was almost pure white with a small handful of blue buttons and a black antenna on one side. In other words, it looked just like Willaims.
"Huh, so why does mine look different," I muttered as I brought the rebel drive up next to it. Side by side, I could see the similarities. They both used the same strange symbols on the outside, and both had the same straight lines around the screen. The ones on the rebel drive's watch form were just harder to spot.
I handed it back to her and she put it back into her pocket before staring at me. I stared back for a couple of seconds, waiting for her to say something.
"So where's yours?" She finally asked as I rolled my eyes. I got close to her and titled my wrist towards her.
"This is it," I explained, as she got a good look at it, "don't ask me why it looks different, I don't know."
"So what can it do?" She asked as I glanced over at the bench. I could already tell where this was going. I sat down on one end and motioned for her to sit down at the other end. Gazimon, for her part, climbed up onto my back so she was laying down on my back and head.
"Sit down and get your digivice out, we're going over this." Luca sat down next to me and we spent a good while going over everything the rebel drive could do, and figuring out how much of it her own digivice could do.
The long and short of it, my rebel drive was the better digivice. Luca's digivice couldn't be used as a storage device, or house Ghostmon the way Gazimon could live in the Rebel drive. And when they did have a feature in common, the rebel drive always had the better version.
I could tell she was getting bummed out the longer we went, but It wasn't like I could upgrade her digivice. I had the better one and there wasn't a lot I could do to change that.
"Hey, tell her about the internet thing. We know these digivices can do that." Gazimon cut in as I raised an eyebrow at her. It probably wasn't the best idea to give a girl in elementary school unlimited physical access to the internet. But Gaizmon had let the cat out of the bag, and Luca's eyes had widened as soon as Gazimon brought it up. I wasn't about to get out of this without telling her something.
Not unless I wanted her to wander around the internet on her own.
"Okay, I'll tell her, but not right now," I raised my finger to cut Luca off before she could speak, "not without her digimon partner around. If we're going to head into the internet, I want your digimon around to watch your back. Where is Ghostmon anyway?"
"She usually sleeps all day and wakes up when the sun goes down," Luca pointed to a spot a good deal away. I grimaced as soon as I figured out what the spot was. "She sleeps over there, in the tree above that grave."
Of course. Of all of the graves Ghostmon could have chosen to make a home near, she just had to choose my parent's. Right next to the twin headstones was a huge tree with a large hollow in the trunk. One big enough for a small digimon to fit inside.
"Is that alright?" Gazimon seemed hesitant. "You know for her to make her home so close to a grave? Won't the next of kin come around? That's one conversation I wouldn't want to have."
"It'll be fine," I stared at the two graves and tried to keep my voice even, "I know who's buried there. No one will come visit those, and the next of kin will understand."
There was a bit of silence as I slowly raised my head to meet Gazimon's. We stared at each other for several seconds, almost as though we were each daring the other to speak first.
"So are you going to elaborate on that?" She was the first to break the silence.
"No," I was the second.
"Uhm… so when are you teaching me this internet thing?" Luca was the third and last, getting both of our attention. I'd honestly almost forgotten she was here.
"Oh right… probably shouldn't be encouraging a kid to sneak out after dark but… Okay this is what we're going to do." I quickly told her the plan as she nodded along every now and then.
We parted ways and I headed back home, spending the rest of my peaceful Sunday working on the shoes. By the time night fell, I was pretty sure I had them working. Now all I had to do was make a version of the clothing with the armor enhancements and give the hood its face hiding properties.
But that would have to wait until the next day. For now, I had an… apprentice to teach the ropes too. I shuddered at the thought of the word. I was not fit to be a teacher in any way shape or form, but these were the cards life was dealing me at the moment.
I took Gazimon out in the Rebel drive and made my way through the streets until I found what I'd been looking for. A Skybucks halfway between the graveyard and a small stripmall. One with open wifi.
I found Luca standing near the coffee chain, nervously looking around. The few people who were still passing by ignored her for the most part. As I got closer, I noticed a brown stain on the shoulder of her jacket which she'd tried to clean up the best she could. I could ask her about it later, for now I needed to get us on the internet.
"Is Ghostmon around?" I leaned with my back to the wall as she jumped a little. She looked over at me before immediately calming down and pointing upwards.
"She's on the roof," I followed her finger and spotted a small blue object watching us from up there.
"Works better for us," Gazimon chimed in from the Rebel Drive, "we have to get up there too if we want to find a way in."
I grimaced as I looked up at how high the roof was. Apparently gazimon had found an open access port on the roof of this building a few nights ago. How was this our best option to access the internet?
We both went round the back quickly finding a ladder leading upwards. By sheer luck, the lock on the ladder was open and we were clear to go up. I grabbed onto the rungs as Gazimon emerged from the rebel drive. She waved me forward as I heard two more sets of arms grabbing onto the ladder by the time I got to the top.
Waiting for us at the top was Luca's digimon. The little blue ghost snickered at us as I sat down on the roof and started to rub my leg.
I was still a day away from getting the all clear, but Luke had contacted me earlier in the day. Mostly to tell me to start light on my leg, to get it used to doing things again. As far as I could tell, a walk to the graveyard and a stroll through the internet counted as light.
Luca and Gazimon soon joined us and I got back to my feet. In front of us was… an old antenna.
"Really? This was the best thing you could find?" I whispered to Gazimon as the four of us approached the antenna.
"Listen, you wanted something in public, but out of sight. This was the best I could manage." She whispered back as Luca and Ghostmon giggled in unison. It might have even sounded cute if they weren't laughing at us.
"Let's just go," I said before turning to Luca. "Okay, so take out your digivice and repeat after me."