Chapter 1
It was another typical day at school, kids were crowding in the halls with their handheld games to fight each other with their digital monsters. There was an especially large crowd huddled around Sarah Parker, a girl well known through the school as being a tough lone wolf. Online she was sought after by other users who wanted to be her friend and explore the game world together, but she believed they just wanted to use her to get to tougher areas.
She had long brown hair that hung down past her shoulders, on top of her head was a black beret. Her eyes were a dark blue, and they pierced anyone who would try to approach her.
"Who's next for Mushroomon?" She asked holding her blue handheld out in front of her. The device was white as snow and had a small screen and several buttons on the case. There was a blue ring around the screen, covered in strange runic symbols.
"I'll give it a go!" A boy said from the back of the crowd. It was Dominic Harris, a kid in the same class as Sarah. He was a bit of a slacker, skating by by the skin of his teeth most of the time. He had dirty blonde hair, messy as messy could be. His eyes were a light blue, almost silver.
He pushed through the crowd and fished his handheld game from his pocket. It looked the same as all the others, but the ring around his screen was purple. "Goblimon is a tough monster, I doubt you'll have much luck taking him down."
Sarah smirked and the two linked their devices through a wireless connection. "Don't cry when Mushroomon buries your pathetic hunk of data in the virtual graveyard."
In one of the other hallways at school, another girl was drawing a lot of attention. It was Brooke Morris. Her light brown hair was short, cut just to her chin level, her eyes almost the same color. She was twirling her handheld around her finger with a keychain she had attached to it. Even though it was spinning pretty fast, one could easily notice the green ring around the screen. "Yeah, Elecmon is pretty powerful, I bet he could take out one of the boss monsters alone."
Another girl sighed, "Sure Brooke, I bet he could." Elizabeth Scott was a year older than Brooke and didn't know much about her, but she was pretty sure Elecmon wasn't as strong as Brooke was making him sound. Elizabeth had her long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, it was a little dry and frizzy but that's what pool water does most of the time. She had a pair of swim goggles around her neck, ever ready to cover her blue eyes.
"Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and fight then?" Brooke challenged as she stopped spinning her handheld and grinned.
Elizabeth gulped, She couldn't tell if Brooke was bluffing or being serious anymore. She clenched her own handheld game tightly, her fingers running over the orange ring around the screen. "I uh, I would but," At that moment, her friend and fellow classmate Malachai caught her attention. "Malachai and I already have a battle set up for today."
Malachai Adams, who was only a few feet away, overhead his name. His dark brown hair was straight except for the tips which curled up, and hung down past his ears. He glanced down at his handheld, the gray ring around his screen staring back at him. He slipped the game into his backpack and slammed his locker. "Sorry Liz, I forgot my game at home today." He said as he hurried past the girls towards his first class, keeping his light brown eyes off them.
Brooke smirked, "Come on Elizabeth, are you really afraid of losing to an underclassman?"
Elizabeth was scared, she just didn't want to show it. "Me? Scared? No way. I just gotta run to the bathroom and then to my first class before the bell rings. Maybe we can battle later." She put her game in her pocket and ran off.
Brooke sighed, "Oh well. I guess when you know you'll lose it's better to run."
Another boy had overheard what was said, "I'll take you on." He said as he walked over to Brooke. He pulled a game from his pocket and tapped the yellow ring around the screen. "Lopmon is pretty tough, but you'll probably still beat me. Most people do."
"Hey, you're that depressed kid right? You sit in the back of my history class. Cole Wilson, right?" Brooke asked scratching her chin.
The boy shook his head, "No, Cale. Cale Williams. You were close though." Cale had short red hair and green eyes, although it was hard to notice under the hood of his black sweatshirt.
Brooke shrugged her shoulders, "Oh well. You sure you want to battle?"
Cale nodded and the two of them began their battle.
Outside of the school, a limousine pulled up to the sidewalk and a young girl stepped out. She had long bleached blonde hair and a condescending glare in her hazel eyes. Rebecca Nelson was the girl in question, she was the daughter of an extremely wealthy family. "Thank you Derrick, you're perhaps the best driver daddy hired." She slammed the door and made her way towards the school. She bumped into a boy with a large backpack.
"Hey! Watch it!" The boy shouted as he fell down. It was Tobias Cooper, he was in the same class as Rebecca. He had short black hair, buzzed as short as possible.
She stuck her nose up, "Maybe you should get out of my way next time, Toby."
Tobias frowned as he picked up his glasses and put them back on, "Nobody calls me Toby you little brat! You think just because everything is handed to you, you get to just walk all over people?"
Rebecca yawned sarcastically, "Are you done? I can't keep paying the teachers to ignore when I'm tardy so I can't be late."
Tobias rummaged through his bag and pulled out a handheld game, the ring around his was pink. "I'm gonna shut you up for good, fight me!"
Rebecca took one look at the pink game and laughed, "Pink? Why don't you paint it? You sure got paired with a crappy color!" She reached into her purse and pulled out a game with a teal ring, "Sure I'll have a battle with you! But you know I'll just wind up winning."
As the two were about to begin their battle, the three minute warning bell rang out. They put their games away and ran into the school. The halls which were once packed with students battling each other were now emptying out. Children poured into classrooms and filled the desks.
Malachai sat at his desk, uninterested in the lessons he would learn today. He had received a strange email earlier from another user of the Digital Monster Adventure game. He couldn't trace the sender, and the email was corrupted. Normally he would have thought it was just a spam email, but he had filters in place to prevent spam.
He opened a notebook and began doodling to pass the time, the thoughts of that email still running through his mind. As he was wasting time, he heard a voice calling out to him. He couldn't make out what it was saying, but he could definitely tell his name was in there. He needed to find out what was going on, so he shot his hand in the air.
"Yes Malachai?" His teacher asked.
"I'm not feeling well, may I have the bathroom pass?" He said with his best sick face.
The teacher sighed and pulled a wood block from her desk, "Yes, come get it."
He grabbed his backpack and went to the front of the class to get the bathroom pass. "Thank you." He said as he left the classroom.
As he walked through the halls the voice kept calling to him, every step he took the voice became clearer, "Help... Me... Malachai..." He picked up the pace, hoping to find the source of the voice. "Help me, Malachai."
Finally, he came to the source of the voice, the computer lab. He gripped the handle tightly and swung the door open. To his surprise, there were seven other students inside the lab: Brooke, Cale, Dominic, Elizabeth, Rebecca, Sarah, and Tobias. They were each as confused as Malachai was. "So, what brough the rest of you here?"
Dominic sat down in one of the chairs, "I heard someone calling for help, so I came running." The others all stared at him, they all had similar looks of surprise.
Tobias shook his head, "This is clearly a joke. I'm going back to my studies." He said as he made his way to the door.
Suddenly, the large computer screen at the front of the room lit up and a voice filled the room. "This is no joke. I need all of you to help me." The screen began displaying strange runic characters, similar to the ones on their handheld games. Before they had a chance to react, a bright light came from the computer screen. It grew brighter and brighter until they could no longer see anything.
When the light vanished they were no longer in their computer lab. Instead they were now in a desert. Surrounding them were eight creatures, the digital monsters they had been paired with in the Digital Monster Adventure game.
"This is pretty freaky." Dominic said staring at the them.
Tobias looked around, "Where are we?"
Hagurumon, partner to Tobias, floated around his head. "You're in the Digital World!"
Rebecca stared at Dorumon, her partner. "I don't remember having to sign a permission slip to come here."
Sarah rolled her eyes at Rebecca, then turned to Mushroomon. "Digital World? Like the video game?"
Mushroomon laughed, "Keh heh heh. It's not a video game, this is our home."
Goblimon hit the ground with his club. "We Digimon!" He said with a roar. "You our partners."
Before anyone else could speak, a horde of thirty angry Otamamon came charging at them from the distance. The Digimon rushed in front of their human partners to protect them.
"Don't worry! We'll take care of these Otamamon!" Fanbeemon said as he hovered in the air prepared to battle.
One of the Otamamon stepped forward, "You are trespassing on our land! You need to pay the price!"
Lopmon stepped forward to meet Otamamon in the middle, "What price do we have to pay?"
The Otamamon thought for a moment before snapping it's fingers. "Three hundred Digi dollars or your data."
Candlemon turned away from the Otamamon to look at the kids, "Do you have any Digi dollars?"
Rebecca pulled a credit card from her purse, "I don't know what the exchange rate is, but daddy has enough money, I'm sure of it."
The Otamamon scowled, "No! Your data it is!" They all leapt at the Digimon and the children when a lightning strike stopped them. A large book appeared where the lightning had struck. The Otamamon looked terrified. "Ah! Run away!" They said as they scattered away.
The book slowly opened and another Digimon appeared. It had a long robe that covered its face. "I am Wisemon, and you are not Digimon." Wisemon said pointing to the humans.
"How do we get home?" Tobias asked Wisemon.
"You're clearly viruses." Wisemon began. "Your only home is going to be the afterlife."
"They're not viruses!" Candlemon said as he hopped over to Wisemon.
"One moment. If any of you move, I won't hesitate to destroy you." Wisemon said as he stepped off his book and flipped some pages. When he stopped, a hologram burst from the pages and the face of a man appeared.
The hologram spoke to the children, "I noticed you broke into my game, you are either excellent hackers or top notch computer viruses. However, given the fact that I can't analyze your code I have no clue what you are."
"We're humans." Malachai said.
"We were sucked in here by a blinding light" Elizabeth said.
"Who are you anyway?" Tobias asked.
"I? You want to know who I am?" The hologram asked. "I am David Thompson, creator of Digital Monster Adventure." David's hologram stared at the children. "A blinding light? I noticed a change in the code, I thought it was a simple bug. I see now it was more than that."
"So like, what's going to happen to us?" Dominic asked, scratching his head.
"Well," David said. "I would lay low, avoid drawing attention. Try not to be seen by other players. I'll be working on a way to get you out of there."
"What do we do if somebody sees us?" Cale asked.
Sarah smirked, "Obviously, we crush them."
"Don't worry, I'll keep players away from here. Wisemon and I will be here checking the code to find out how to get you home." David said. "If you need anything, just come back here." With that, the hologram vanished and Wisemon took his place on top of the book.
"You should head as far north as you can," Wisemon began. "Players tend to avoid that area due to glitches so you should be safe."
"Won't we be affected by the glitches?" Brooke asked.
"In my mind you already are glitches, so I don't care." Wisemon said as he began reading through his book.