A week had passed since Bearmon had bioemerged. Things had been quiet. He wasn't used to it. Madi lived in a nice apartment. It was quiet there. No one bothered them and it was easy to sneak Bearmon out. They were having breakfast, the TV on in the background for noise. The two had used the downtime to catch up. Madi on her life, Bearmon on his. They were inseparable, save for when Madi had to attend classes. She got in the habit of parking further away from the school building so that he could wait in the nearby woods.
The channel made an urgent noise as a special report came up. It reported that there have been a lot of freak fog incidents in the last few days and that people had come up missing after. So far, 3 people were missing. Bearmon and Madi looked at each other, then back at the screen. It shows sped up footage of the the fog rolling in, then the picture goes fuzzy. The effect of the digital field. Then it fades.
"That can't be good." Bearmon whispers.
"Does it sound familiar?" Madi asks.
Bearmon shakes his head. "No, but it has to be right up our alley."
Madi agrees, nodding. "You know, Fisher isn't too far from here." She takes a bite of her fruit salad. "We could go check it out. You'd be able to sense anything around. Maybe we can figure out what happened."
Bearmon nods, "What about the other two cities?" He asks.
"They're in two different states. I'm not so sure about that." She finishes up her bowl. "It's about an hour drive from here." She grabs Bearmon's bowl and puts both bowls in the sink. "You ready to go?" She asks, heading for her jacket.
With a skitter on the linoleum, Bearmon is at the door. He turns to Madi, "This is going to be just like old times." He says with a grin.
Madi shrugs, putting her purse strap over her shoulder. "I think having a car may make it easier." She agrees, pulling out her keys.
It was a long drive, filled with empty corn fields. They arrived in town and after some trial and error, they finally found the location. It had been a day, but the area looked to be untouched. Madi looked around before looking back to see Bearmon still in the car. "Are you coming?" She asks.
"I'm just supposed to walk around in broad daylight?" He asks.
Madi shrugs, trust me, we'll be fine. It's October. People will just think it's a costume.
The two partners walk across the street. There's a back alley that Bearmon seems drawn to. Madi asks around about the fog, but the only information she can get is how crazy it was and how no one had seen anything like it before. "Thanks for your help. I was hoping to get some information for my paper." She explains. She turns to see Bearmon going into the alley. She thanks the last man she talked to before she goes after Bearmon, meeting up at the entrance. "What is it?" She asks.
"Something is here." He growls.
They walk through the alley, keeping their eyes peeled. "Maybe a higher view?" Madi asks, halfway down the alleyway. Bearmon jumps on a dumpster, then leaps straight up, grabbing the ledge of the roof. From there, he smoothly pulls himself up. Madi continues down the alley, Bearmon following from above. She looks up to him, "Anything?" She asks.
He looks down, shrugging. "Not sure the-" he trails off as he sees something, "Behind you!" He jumps from the roof, rolling as he hits the ground.
Madi turns in time to see a a purple blur shooting straight forward. She strikes out with the back of her hand, slapping it away from her and into the wall. Bearmon is at her side after, a low growl coming from him as he gets in front of her. She pulls out her digivice, the holographic display popping up with a summary Pagumon: It enjoys bullying other digimon and will flap its ears to mock others. It is capable of low level flight.
Madi looks up as it starts to stir. As it comes to, it focuses in on the two, "Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!! Please! I just want my friend back!!!!!! Don't hurt me!!!!!!!!" Her and Bearmon look at each other. Madi slowly moves toward it, holding her hands out. "Hey, it's okay. We're not here to hurt you." She says, gently.
Pagumon notices the digivice in her hand, he sniffles as he quiets down. "You *sniff* you're a tamer?"
Madi nods, "Yeah, me and Bearmon here are a team." She explains. "We're here to figure out what happened. We saw on the news that a digital field appeared here. Someone came up missing that same day. Was that your friend?" She asks.
Pagumon nods. "Uh huh. My friend James." He sniffs again. "He has one of those things too. He's a tamer."
Bearmon, a little more relaxed, moves closer. "Do you know what happened?"
Pagumon nods, "We were headed to get lunch and the fog moved in. It all happened so fast. This thing came out and attacked us. It's skin looked like a rainbow and *sniff* I wasn't strong enough to protect him." Pagumon starts to cry again.
Madi thinks for a moment, "So how did you escape?" Looking around. There wasn't a lot around and it would have been difficult for him to run away.
"He didn't." Bearmon answered. "Because I wouldn't have escaped. I would have fought to keep you safe." He looks up at her and back to Pagumon.
"He's right…..I didn't. It was worse." He sniffs a little more before taking a deep breath. "It knocked me into that dumpster and the lid fell down. I got stuck until they emptied it!"
Madi thinks for a moment. "They couldn't have gone right back to the Digital World from here."
Bearmon figures the same thing she is. "Is there a portal around here?" He asks.
Pagumon closes his eyes. "We haven't found one. Why does that matter?" He answers, quizzically.
"That's great!" Madi says excitedly. "If you don't know, then chances are they won't know either since they just got here. We might be able to get your friend back."
The little digimon opens his eyes, looking up at Madi, "Really?"
"If they don't know where that is, then they're probably not going anywhere for now." Bearmon agrees, "So they have to be nearby!"
Nodding, Madi asks, "Are there any good hiding spots around here?" She asks. "Places you can go when your friend has school or work?"
Pagumon hops up and down. "There's an abandoned warehouse I like to play in while I wait for James to get back. I've been practicing my attacks there. No one comes around."
About 30 minutes later, Madi, Bearmon, and Pagumon pull into a parking lot. They'd grabbed lunch before heading there, since Pagumon hadn't eaten anything decent since the attack. The warehouse was a bit of a hike from there, but they didn't want to chance giving anything away if the nonmon and James were inside the warehouse.
It was about a 15 minute walk from the lot to the warehouse. It looked like it used to be some sort of factory. No fences around it, easy access. They were on the side with a lot of trees, so there was plenty to hide in. Pagumon was keeping up well. But here and there he had to stop. So Madi carried him when he wanted to rest.
"Okay, if we sneak up to the side of the factory, there's a broken door. It's already open, so it won't make any noise." Pagumon says hurriedly.
Madi nods, "Okay, from here, we have to be quiet. We don't want to risk getting caught."
They all nod and make their way to the door. As they walk in, they tiptoe, being as quiet as they can. Bearmon moves ahead, checking around corners. The inside of the building has several collapsed floors. It's not a safe place. They can hear voices echo out though, so they continue on.
Bearmon gets to a ledge and holds his hand back, signaling Madi to stop. She's holding Pagumon now, which makes it easier to have everyone on the same page. Bearmon to signals them to move closer. Madi does, quietly. Peaking over the edge, they see a boy sitting on the ground. There are two other people with him and two other digimon. They couldn't tell what they were from here though. There are two raptor digimon circling them. A third, looking more like a centaur, larger than the other two watching over them all.
"This is going to be harder than I thought." Bearmon says.