Chapter 16: The Foreign World
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Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the OCs scattered about this fic.
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Ayaka felt the cool breeze of the latest in a string of new Digital Worlds that they've gone through, taking in the fresh air as the group walked made their way out of the latest portal they've opened. She was starting to feel a bit groggy, though, and wasn't sure how much longer she'd be moving forward. She wasn't the only one who felt that way as she stepped onto the damp green grass.
"Dude, can we stop for the night. I feel like I could pass out any second," Yuji complained, eliciting a glare from Tadashi.
"Come on, we just need to make our way to the next Dimensional Corridor." The blond then yawned himself. "It will only take a couple more hours."
"I'll have to admit, it's been a while since we've slept at all," Taizou remarked, scratching his chin. "I know in our Digital World, we didn't have to eat or sleep, but everywhere else it seems like it's the opposite."
As if on cue, Gunter's stomach started to growl. "Ich habe hunger," the large German said.
"Okay, we'll stop, eat and sleep, but first thing tomorrow morning, we'll head straight for that Corridor, got it?" Tadashi asked the group.
"I'm fine with that," Yuji said, dropping to the ground and sitting back. After a few seconds, the long-haired boy was out cold.
"What about keeping watch?" Ayaka asked Tadashi.
"I'll do that for the first hour and then you can do that for the second. We'll take turns," the blond suggested.
"Sounds like a good idea to me," the pig-tailed girl said with a smile.
"I guess I'll go and look for some fruit or something," Ed volunteered, walking off with Prokyomon.
"So, any digivice signals for this world, Taizou?" Tadashi asked his friend, who was sitting down as well. It was twilight and the stars were starting to appear. The brown-haired boy pulled out his digivice and looked at the radar function, stretching it out to encompass the entire digital world.
"There are about five of them about five hundred kilometers from here," Taizou responded. "Checking the data… Whatever they are, they aren't D-Arcs and, aha! The information on them shows that they aren't even Japanese, judging from their names."
Tadashi cursed under his breath. This was the fourth world that they've gone through but there still wasn't any sign of Takato or his team and he really wasn't looking forward to another long trek through another world just to find its dimensional corridor.
He lied back and looked at the vast, starry heavens, thinking about what they left behind and what they were looking for, hoping that soon this part of the journey would be over and that Takato and the others would be able to come back to their world to kick the butts of Marie and Crimson.
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Ed wandered around a little bit. He had a bag with him from his time on Zeppelinmon, and now was trying to fill it with as much fruit as possible. Actually, Prokyomon was doing most of the gathering. He was just checking out the area.
That was when he found some glyphs on the wall. Those look almost like some I saw in Oppidum Septentrionale, he thought, pulling out his notebook to mark them all down. Then he realized where else he had seen the glyphs.
He pulled his toy D-Terminal out of his laptop bag and opened it up. The symbols matched the alphabet that was on the toy.
"Let's see…" he said, "This symbol is an 'I'. This one is an 'M'." He was beginning to unravel it.
After a few minutes, he figured the whole thing out. Or he at least transliterated it. Unfortunately, he also wrote it in all capital letters and ran the words together. However, he was starting to notice the different words.
"Imperator… Emperor. I don't know what Symanski means. That must be a name. Let's see… Clavis… That's similar to Spanish clave or the more common llave, key. And dimensionalis must mean dimensional or dimension. Then the last word, est. Looks like Spanish es crossed with German ist. Is. Unscramble the word order and I get 'Emperor Symanski is the Dimension Key' or something along those lines. Wait, does Latin have a word for 'the'?"
Then he looked at the next line and was more than a little confused.
"Okay, I guess this is going to be a little more difficult than I expected," he thought out loud to himself. "I wonder who this Emperor Symanski is and what the heck the Dimension Key is supposed to be." He mused for a few seconds before he got up, grabbed the heavy bag that was filled to the brim, and headed back to camp, muttering what he read.
However, when he was about halfway back with Prokyomon, he spotted something utterly unexpected. Okay, maybe it wasn't completely unexpected, since it is the Digital World after all. Still, seeing a working TV set in the middle of the meadow was definitely an unusual sight and Ed had to stop and look at it. He dropped his fruit, pressed a button and saw the inside of a dark room.
"What do you think it is?" Prokyomon asked, just as curious as Ed was.
"Looks to me that this leads to somebody's bedroom in the real world," the black-haired teenager said before pointing to a spot on the television. "I think that's a bed right there, though it doesn't look like anybody's using it. Maybe they're out of town or something." Ed chuckled a little bit.
"Let me guess, you want to explore it?" Prokyomon asked, his eyes nearing in weariness. His partner was definitely curious about what was on the other side and held up his digivice to the screen, remembering the way the kids traveled between worlds on Adventure 02. He chuckled at the ridiculous notion.
"Yeah, right. As if this would work. Digiport Open!"
And they were sucked in by a white light.
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Landing in the middle of that bedroom on his feet with his partner on his shoulder, Ed walked over and turned on the light. He tried being as quiet as possible, not knowing whether anybody was at home or not. Thankfully, the door was already shut. The teen looked around and saw a basic bedroom. There was a bed against the wall across from the computer desk with black sheets, a pair of bookshelves, one on each side of the desk, and a few pictures here and there of who Ed would have assumed was the family of the room's owner. Ed looked around and noticed a note on the dresser which was right next to the door. He glanced at it, knowing it was definitely English. He also noticed that all of the books on the shelves were in English too, ranging from simple story books and novels to books on quantum physics and computer programing.
For the heck of it, Ed read the note. "To David: If you are reading this and have come home, please stay. We worry about you so much. Love, Mom, Dad and your sister." He paused, before hearing something on the other side of the door. Panicking, he ran straight to the computer and held his digivice out.
"Digi-port Open!"
He was sucked into the computer just as the door opened.
###
She had been sleeping for a few hours when she heard a noise across the hall coming from her brother's room. Getting up, she grabbed her D-3 and warily walked over to the door. She heard someone speaking on the other side, reading that note that she left for David.
Except the voice wasn't his.
She wondered if her brother somehow got someone else to start working for him. Still, there was an intruder in the house. So, she grabbed the doorknob and started to turn it.
As soon as she started to open the door, whoever was in her brother's room apparently freaked out and shouted. "Digi-port Open!"
She opened the door and there was nobody inside, even though the light was on, something that wasn't the case. As it was, she didn't want whoever this person was to see her the way she was dressed, wearing only a tank-top and some panties.
The brunette ran back to her room to put on her glasses before heading back into her brother's room. She looked at the digi-port program and noticed the screen showing a grassy meadow. She checked the location and it was nowhere near the Digimon Emperor's domain.
Still, she was curious about who was in here, so she checked the web-cam feed and had it stop recording. She then checked the end of the latest video of this room to see who it was. When she saw a heavy teen with black hair and a black shirt, she was disappointed, actually wishing that someone good-looking was in the room instead. At least that meant that she would have someone pleasant to look at.
The girl took a deep breath. She then glanced at the guy some more. He had a brown raccoon on his shoulder which she assumed was a digimon. From what she gathered, the guy was most likely European, probably of Hispanic, Italian or Irish decent, though he could easily be a light-skinned Arab. The accent was definitely American, possibly Canadian if she stretched it.
She decided to run a search for someone with his looks using a still. She couldn't find any exact matches.
Giving up, she started the recording on the web-cam again and put the computer in sleep mode before turning the light off. She couldn't shake the image of that mysterious, black-haired boy from her head, though, nor could she get rid of the image of his cute, brown raccoon friend.
###
Ed arrived at camp in record time after that little excursion, locking eyes with Tadashi, who was still on watch. "Where were you?"
"Getting food." He wasn't going to tell them he went to the local human world just yet, instead opting to drop to the ground after putting the bag of fruit and his computer bag on the ground as well. The black-haired boy was definitely a bit pooped from staying up so long. He was surprised to find himself on the same sleep schedule as the others, though, probably a symptom of leaving their digital world at the same time.
###
Later on in the night, Salamon woke up to distant noises and so did Prokyomon apparently. "Did you hear something?" the small dog asked the raccoon.
"Yeah…" The digimon listened even more. Something was definitely coming. Looking in the distance, the raccoon saw some birds flying off, apparently escaping from something.
And surprisingly enough, nobody was on watch. Yuji was supposed to be on watch, but the boy was fast asleep instead and so was his partner, which was strange. So, taking action, Prokyomon shouted at the top of his lungs. "Everybody, wake up, something's coming!"
Ed woke up first, groggily, followed by Gunter, which was unusual, since the large German was normally fast asleep. "What's going on?" the black-haired boy asked his partner.
"Salamon and I heard something," the raccoon said. Deciding to follow up on his partner's observations, Ed pulled out his digivice and looked at it, searching for the digivice signals. The signals were all in the same place. However, there was a large amount of Digimon heading toward them along with weird signals appearing in certain places that were black on his digivice.
The teen noticed that the others were starting to get up as well, probably getting egged on by Salamon and Prokyomon's obsessive shouting.
"Guys, can you stop it? I'm trying to sleep," Tadashi complained.
"What's that noise?" Coronamon asked, notice the same noise that Prokyomon and Salamon did.
Ed looked in the direction of the noise, which he was starting to hear now. "Guys, I think we should get moving," he told the rest of the group, allowing his partner to repeat what he said to those that didn't understand him.
"What? Come on, are you sure you're not overreacting?" Miki asked.
"The digivice signals are in the same place," Taizou said, looking at his digivice. "There are a lot of digimon headed this way, but it could just be a coincidence."
"Taizou, what are the names of the Tamers in this world?" Ed inquired.
"Let's see, Cynthia Hall, Robert Battaglia, Stephanie Manzanares, David Symanski and Angela Rodriguez," the brown-haired teen read off his digivice.
"The Dimension Key…" Ed muttered. "You said David Symanski, right?"
"Uh, yeah? Why?"
Ed looked at the others, all of whom were waiting for an answer. "I went to his bedroom earlier tonight through a portal to the real world."
The rest was silent. "What? So that's why you took so long," Miki teased, causing Ed to give her a strange look.
"What? The room was empty except for a note to David. I headed back into this world as soon as I heard somebody starting to open the door," the black-haired boy explained.
"Yeah, nobody was home. So, can we get a move on or what?" Prokyomon asked the group.
"Come on, man, you could have easily tipped the bad guys off," Yuji objected.
Tadashi looked in the direction on the noises. "Guys, look at that." On a nearby hill was a black obelisk, a Control Spire.
"Okay, we gotta run!" Ed was about to make a break for it when Yuji grabbed his collar.
"Come on, man, we can fight these guys," the long-haired boy assured him. Then Ed noticed a digimon fly through the air and checked his digivice. "Megadramon, Ultimate Level… Oh, crap."
"Okay, maybe running isn't a bad idea after all," Tadashi said. "Where's the portal you were talking about?"
"This way!" Ed exclaimed, running with Prokyomon on his back. The boy looked behind him to see everyone doing well except for Ayaka and Gunter, the former was trying to lead the latter, but it was taking too long. Ed didn't want anything to happen to either of them, so he decided to digivolve his partner. "Prokyomon, go and get Gunter and Ayaka. Digivolution Activate!" he said, clutching onto his digivice.
"Prokyomon digivolve to… Guepardomon!" the digimon yelled out before jumping for Gunter and Ayaka, grabbing as the blond girl picked up her partner. Gunter was already clutching onto his partner, so he didn't need to worry about that. The large, humanoid digimon ran forward, catching up with his partner.
"Thanks for that," the girl told him.
"It's nothing," Guepardomon said.
"Okay, almost there!" He saw that he was well ahead of the others, but he had no choice but to do it anyway once he reached the TV. He found it weird that he could run so quickly. Maybe all that cardio he did with his father actually meant something. "Digi-port open!"
The light sucked him in along with Guepardomon, Ayaka, Gunter and their partners.
Tadashi was prepared to do the same with the others when Megadramon shot a blast, destroying the TV in the process.
The group of four had to face this thing head on. And what was more, there were a large number of Tankmon headed their way as well as several Airdramon and a number of Mechanorimon. Oh, and there was a pair of ogre digimon that the duo didn't recognize as well.
"From the looks of that Megadramon, this Digimon Emperor mastered the Dark Spiral already," Taizou observed. "Okay, Digivolution Activate!"
The digivolution failed, unfortunately for the group, since another Spire had gone just a moment before, almost right when Ed and the others went in through the TV.
"Oh, crap, run like heck!" Tadashi yelled, running along with his partner, followed by Miki, who was holding Syakomon as well as Taizou and Yuji. Unfortunately, Yuji tripped shortly after making his way forward from the location of the destroyed TV. Taizou noticed this and made the mistake of looking back, tripping as well. Their partners went and helped them up but it was too late. The two of them were surrounded by Dark Ring and Dark Spiral-controlled Digimon.
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Taizou was groggy when he woke up and no less uncomfortable. He found himself shackled to a wall inside a prison cell along with Yuji, who was still fast asleep. Looking around, there was no sign of either his partner or his other friends. He knew that Ayaka, Ed and their partners managed to get away along with that mentally disabled German, Gunter, but not seeing any of the others made him worry.
Looking upward at the shackles, he realized he couldn't get out of them because of his lack of strength. Maybe there was a different way of doing so, but he couldn't figure it out just yet.
"Hello," Taizou shifted his gaze from the shackles to a figure on the other side of the prison bars wearing red. The figure was a teenage boy of European decent with light skin and medium-length brown hair combed to the side, just the type of pretty boy that Miki would fawn over. The buzz-haired Japanese boy narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
"Who are you?" Taizou snapped.
"Oh, skipping the greetings, are we? I could be asking you the same thing since I don't know your name either." The figure smiled malignantly. "I am the Digimon Emperor."
"You don't look like Ken Ichijouji to me," the Japanese boy shot back, eliciting a laugh from the Emperor. "Your name is David Symanski, isn't it?"
"You guess correctly. I would ask if you knew my family but it's obvious that you don't. You're not even from the United States. However, it's obvious how you figured out my name. You used your digivice, which happens to be of a different model than mine, and guessed my name. You had a choice between me and Robert Battaglia. Obviously Symanski with its Slavic root was the more menacing name, so you guessed that first." The teen chuckled. "Now, what's your name? Don't worry; I won't go after your family or anything."
"Taizou Aoyama," the Japanese boy said. "Where's my partner?"
"Solarmon is safe in my lab. I haven't fit him with a spiral just yet since I can't figure out how to put it on him, so he's just there, sedated. Wouldn't want some gears to come out of him and hit me." The Emperor grinned some more. "So, why are you here? Are you Digidestined, chosen by the Digital World's rulers to destroy all that I've set up so far?"
"What? Heck no. We were just passing through. We aren't even Digidestined," Taizou told David.
"You lie," the Emperor responded, his smile turning into a glare. "You were sent here to defeat me."
"Listen, if we were here to fight you, why did we land so far from your territory?" the Japanese teen said, trying to use logic with this guy.
David snorted. "I'll find a reason why."
"And how did you detect our digivices, anyway?"
"I didn't detect your digivices," the Emperor responded somewhat flamboyantly, looking at his nails before making eye-contact with Taizou again. "I detected the digivices belonging to Eduardo Diaz and Gunter Kaufmann." The Japanese boy cursed under his breath. "Of course, those two had to escape into the real world and the only two in this world that I haven't captured got away. And I can't detect them, so I'm in the dark." David smirked at Taizou. "Maybe you can help by telling me how the cloaking program works."
"I didn't even put it on there and I didn't even know it was installed on that thing until after it was put on. This guy who calls himself the Watchmaker installed it remotely." Taizou glared at the Emperor.
"Oh, really, and he didn't put it on Eduardo or Gunter's digivices?" David asked slyly.
"Listen, we're not even from this digital world. We were just passing through to find some friends who are trapped in a different world, okay?" Taizou told the Emperor point blank.
"And I don't believe you," David said. "By the way, I don't go by David here. I am Emperor Damien."
"And why did you change your name to that?" Taizou inquired.
"It's more menacing. When you think of David, you think of David and Goliath. When you think of Damien, you think of some horror movie," the Emperor explained.
"Wow, this is kind of like a horror movie, come to think of it," the Japanese teen joked. "Just needs a little more torture and blood and maybe a script written by Stephen King just to round things off and what do you know? We were just kidnapped by some maniac who is killing us for some unknown reason. Of course, you kind of ruined that by revealing your name."
Damien chuckled a bit. "Well, anyway, I'll just keep you around, I guess. In the meantime, I'll try to find your friends. It shouldn't take too long. Oh, and I'll be interrogating your other friend here once he wakes up."
"He doesn't speak a word of English, so you won't get a peep out of him," Taizou told his enemy.
"Right… Well, in that case, I'll just implant the English language into his mind using this Sorcerymon that I have here in my castle with a dark ring around his neck." With that, the Digimon Emperor walked away.
###
Miki woke up in a cave. She had no idea where she was or how long she had been out, but there she was. She wandered around and tried finding the others before coming across Tadashi having a little chat with Coronamon and Syakomon. The dark-haired girl walked down to where the blond was, sliding a little bit and causing some noise that got the blond's attention.
"Oh, you're awake. How are you feeling?" Tadashi asked, concerned.
"I'm alright, I just have a bit of a headache, that's all," Miki told him. "What happened?"
"You tripped and hit your head. Luckily, I had just gotten out of the way of one of those Control Spires and digivolved my partner to help. We got away just in time." Tadashi was really worried now. He knew what the dark-haired girl thought of him and he could guess what she would think of being alone with him. In fact, the girl was starting to fume.
"What? You mean it's just the two of us? Is this some kind of sick joke?" Miki shouted.
"Well, it's actually the four of us," Coronamon corrected, eliciting a glare from the irate girl.
Tadashi tried to explain things as best as he could. "There was nothing we could do. The last I saw of Taizou and Yuji was them getting picked up by Airdramon and with the number of Digimon around, going after them right then and there would be suicide." Miki grumbled under her breath. "I'm sorry. This was the best I could do."
The girl just dropped to the ground and sat back. This was a lot to take in. "Please tell me you have a plan."
Tadashi shook his head. "I can't think of anything."
"We should just go in and kick this guy's butt!" Coronamon exclaimed.
"On the TV show, the spires caused the characters' partners to revert to their previous level. We would have to take out the spires to even digivolve," Tadashi explained.
"So, let me get this straight: this guy won't let us even digivolve?" Miki asked, disbelieving.
"Yeah, that's what I tried at the camp, remember?" the blond asked, annoyed by the girl's lack of knowledge on the subject.
"Well, what about the source of those spires?" Coronamon inquired.
"The source is the Digimon Emperor's base. True, we know where it's at, but it's bound to be heavily guarded and, looking at the map, it's surrounded by hundreds of spires," Tadashi explained. "And then there's the source of that: the Dark Ocean. Remember what Heimdallmon said about that place? It's off-limits and for good reason."
"What's so bad about some ocean?" Miki asked, clueless.
"Yeah, I go swimming all the time!" Syakomon exclaimed.
"Ever see the episode of Digimon Adventure 02 with the title 'Dagomon's Call'?" Tadashi asked.
"Um, I don't watch the show, you know?" the dark-haired girl responded, annoyed that he would even ask.
"In that episode, one character, Kari, gets brought to this dark world by the digimon Dagomon, who wants to mate with her." Upon hearing Tadashi say that, Miki got a really disturbed look on her face.
"And this was a kids' show?" she asked, really disturbed by the concept. "Freaky."
"And well, with this Dark Ocean place, it's full of Control Spires as well as freaky things that can turn into digimon. They were all disguised as Divermon in the episode," Tadashi added, gesturing to describe how freaky it was. "And well, that was also where Daemon got sealed."
"But didn't that happen around Christmas?" Coronamon inquired. "And the show took place in 2002, which is this year. Okay, I'm really confused now."
"So, maybe Daemon isn't there," Miki suggested.
"But in the episode that Daemon got sealed, he indicated that he knew that Dagomon ruled that place, so that meant that he probably wasn't going to be stuck in there for very long," Tadashi said, pondering. "Now that I think about it, 02 had a lot of unresolved plotlines. The Dark Ocean, Daemon… Plus, those stupid Destiny Stones…"
"Of course, it's just a work of fiction," Miki said.
"Of course! That's it! Maybe only the first part of Adventure 02 really happened and the latter part was the way it was because the writers ran out of material to work with." Tadashi chuckled. "That makes about as much sense as anything, I guess."
Miki narrowed her eyes at him. "Wow, you are such a nerd."
"But think about it. Ryo apparently knew the cast of Digimon Adventure, so it had to have happened in some capacity, except for the parts that didn't make sense." Tadashi was smiling widely. "You know what; I think we can resolve one plotline."
"You're suggesting we go to this world with the digimon that wanted a thirteen-year-old girl?" Miki asked with a grimace. "Yuck. What did this digimon even look like?"
"Like a giant octopus," Tadashi said, grossing the girl out even further. "What we should do is find a way to the real world and get back together with the others. If we do that, then we should find a way to the Dark Ocean, probably by using the local Dimensional Corridor."
"Sounds good to me," Coronamon exclaimed.
"Yeah, I'm in," Syakomon said.
"And we're going to have to deal with some giant octopus guy? No thank you," Miki said, shaking her head.
"Come on! You want to save Taizou and Yuji, right?" Tadashi asked.
The dark haired girl stood there for a while, questioning her attitude for the first time.
###
The group landed on the ground with a loud thud. Ed knew that there was a high chance that someone had heard the six of them land on the floor of that empty bedroom. The teen got up and looked at the clock. It said 10:00 a.m. Before it said 4:00, so that meant that they were asleep for a good six hours. The black-haired boy got up and whispered the words to make his partner revert from Guepardomon back into Prokyomon before going and sitting on the bed. The others started to get up as well. Ed gestured for them to keep quiet with a finger to his mouth.
There wasn't anybody coming from what they could hear. Maybe the others were out of the house. If that was the case, they'd just wait for the others.
So they waited for ten minutes. Nobody came through from the other side. Ayaka was about to speak when Ed once again gestured for her to keep quiet before tip-toeing over to the window. Looking out, on the other side was just an alleyway that led straight to the front yard. The black-haired boy proceeded to open it slowly and then he climbed out along with his partner digimon followed by Ayaka and Gunter and their partners. Ed then proceeded to shut the window back the way it was before walking toward the front yard. So far, they didn't see anybody other than a woman that was working on the other side of another window, which caused Ed to crouch down to sneak past the brunette woman. Then they made it to the street after walking across a grassy yard.
The asphalt felt strange on his feet. He hoped that nobody were notice this suspicious group of teenagers. Then again, it wasn't like they were dressed like gangsters. They just needed to find out where they were.
When they made it out of the neighborhood, Ayaka finally broke the silence. "So, we're in the real world, but not our real world."
"Right, and that means we'll have to figure out what to do about everything," Ed said. "Where we're going to live, what we're going to eat, how we're going to afford any of those things."
"What are you thinking of doing?" Ayaka asked.
"I have a few ideas that I was going to implement when I ran away from that orphanage in France. Have you ever read the book 'Jumper'?" the chubby boy asked as they continued along.
"Jumper? Never heard of it," the blonde replied. "What's it about?"
"Well, David Rice is a teenager with an abusive dad. Just as his dad is about to really wallop him for not mowing the lawn, he teleports to the local library," Ed explained. "They mention a few of the things he did to keep alive in the first part of the book such as helping to pick fruit and sleeping on park benches. Eventually he teleports again, learns how to control it and robs a bank in New York." The black-haired teen chuckled at that one. "Not that we're going to do that. Basically, it goes into what he does such as how he 'borrows' money from his father and rents an apartment that he teleports in and out of. One of the first things he does, though, is get a fake ID and Social Security Number."
"Sounds like this guy did a lot of illegal things," Ayaka said, not liking it.
"Yeah, but he did them to survive. And once he started making money, he made sure he paid back what he stole into charities and whatnot. He felt really bad about what he did. It was an interesting book."
"Sounds like it," the blond said. Just then, they found a gas station. They didn't want to make themselves suspicious so Ed just walked in without any of the others, even Coonmon, and he made an inquiry.
"Excuse me, do you know what part of town we're in?" he asked a disgruntled, middle-aged woman at the counter.
"We're in Lakewood, kid. Are you lost?" she replied in a raspy voice, probably from all the cigarettes she had smoked over the years.
"Okay, thank you very much. How much is a map?"
"A dollar," she replied, looking positively irritated. Ed pulled out his wallet and looked at his money.
"What's the exchange rate between American dollars and Chilean pesos?" he inquired.
"How should I know? Do I look like a bank teller to you?" the woman asked angrily with her hands on her hips.
"I guess not. Well, see you later," Ed responded with a smile. As soon as he walked out of the corner store, he commented. "What a mean woman."
"So, what happened in the rest of the story?" Prokyomon asked, getting on his partner's shoulder.
"Well, a bunch of things happen. He meets this girl named Millie at a play. She had glasses. Oh, and he gets reunited with his mom, who ran away from his dad because of the abuse. Then things get sad." Ed hesitated to talk about the rest of the book.
"Why, what happened?" the brown raccoon inquired.
"His mom kind of dies. She got killed by Islamic terrorists that hijack planes. And yes, the book was written before 9/11. I would hate to see what would happen if it got turned into a movie." The rest of the group stopped and stood with open mouths with the exception of Gunter and Keramon.
"That's horrible!" Ayaka exclaimed.
"Yes it is. So, what do you say we stop by a bank and cash in whatever foreign currency we have?" Ed suggested.
###
When the brunette girl got home at just a little after noon, she walked straight to her room. "Hey, Cutemon, how are things going?" the girl asked and a certain rabbit came out from under the bed.
"Oh, not bad. Things are as boring as usual," the pink rabbit replied as her partner took off her dress and changed into something more comfortable, namely a pair of blue jeans and a teal shirt. The girl then equipped her D-3 onto her belt. "I think I may have heard something coming from David's room again."
The bespectacled brunette looked at her partner. "Okay, I'll go check it out."
The girl walked across the hall into her brother's room and checked things out. It looked normal, but she could tell someone had sat on her brother's bed since it was ruffled a little bit. The girl then walked over to the computer to check the video log to verify that someone had indeed come through the portal.
Sure enough someone had. There were three humans and three digimon, including the black-haired boy from earlier. But along with him was an Asian girl, possibly Japanese, and a Salamon. And then there was a tall, muscular guy of European descent. She assumed he was American, but that was because the black-haired guy was.
And to make matters worse, they were there for a whole ten minutes. Maybe they were waiting for someone else to come from the Digital World. She was amazed that her mother hadn't noticed since she was working from home in the next room over.
The brown-haired girl sighed. She still had friends in the Digital World, all of whom were trapped by her own brother. Cynthia, Angela, Stephanie… Robert…
She had to rescue them. There was a chance that these new, unidentified Digidestined could help, which meant that she had to find them.
She then started the recording and put the computer back in sleep mode.
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A/N: How's that for the beginning of a new arc. This one is called the Two Emperors, largely because Damien is getting help from another world…
And now there are three plotlines going on concurrently. Don't worry, they'll all be solved.