Gryzmon = Grizzlymon
Alraumon = Aruraumon
Chapter 40: Real World: The average day
The sun was steadily rising over Odaiba, tainting the sky orange and piercing through curtains to awake school girls who wanted to sleep some more.
Jun Motomiya groaned, rolled to the side and draped her pillow over her eyes. After too short precious moments of drowsiness her alarm exploded into noise beside her head.
With a practiced motion, an arm reached out, patting around on the bedstand and fiddled with the old fashioned clock.
Blessed silence followed.
"Jun! Are you up?"
'Or not', the girl thought grumpily, rolling over and out of bed. She groaned, but at least falling out of bed convinced her that yes, getting up was possible now.
Reluctantly, Jun crawled out of her oh-so-warm and comfortable cocoon of blankets, groggily blinking at the distance between her and the door. And thinking of the many steps she would have to take before reaching the bathroom.
Damn, she hated early mornings.
Weak and unmotivated, Jun rolled once more, staring up at the ceiling. Where, her brain registered, a bob of color flashed across her vision, yelling, "wake up, Jun! Wake up, upupup!"
Again, with practice, Jun rolled more to the side and Hopmon grumbled, disappointed.
'High time to get up, Jun', she told herself. 'The door is already so much closer. Plus if you don't, Hopmon is going to attack you and that will cost your room. Which you will have to clean up.'
With a heartfelt exhale, Jun heaved to all fours and then to her feet. She yawned, tugging her bathrobe over her shoulder and stumbled to the door. "Don't destroy my room," she told her partner half heartily on her way out.
There was no reply and, looking back, the girl threw a foul glare at the little digimon who had fallen asleep in her still warm bed.
Stumbling, she made her way into the shower and let the cold water startle her awake.
With her clinging tiredness blown away, Jun found herself immediately in a better mood, humming as she switched the water to hot and let it run over her skin for a long moment.
Awake, however, Jun was never one for inactivity and far from enjoying a hot shower, she got bored quickly. After slipping into her bathrobe and wrapping a towel around her head, Jun passed her room again on the way down. "Breakfast, Hopmon."
There was an automatic squeak, followed by some thuds and then the little digimon caught up with her on the stairs, bouncing them down like the balloon he resembled.
(She passed Davis' room on the way; empty, cold, silent, no curses or fight over who got to use the bathroom first. Lost and gone and without word disappeared into a different and dangerous world. A world in chaos and war-)
"Good morning, sweety," her mother greeted, just putting the last dishes for breakfast on the table. "Put the paper away, dear. We are eating now."
Her father obeyed, folding the news and putting them aside. Jun just caught the headline of today: Contact still broken – where are the Ambassadors?
Jun lowered her eyes away from it, shoving food into her mouth, deliberately not looking at her parents. But, sure enough: "Have you heard anything from Davis and Veemon, Jun?"
"No. Nothing new." She hadn't checker her D-terminal yet today, but as of yesterday evening, no gate was opening and no new messages from Gennai (or anyone Gennai-like) or had arrived. Honestly, it was not that Jun expected any, though it would certainly be a nice surprise and a weight of her shoulders.
Right, she hadn't had any messages from Gennai or the first and second generation. "But I'm sure they are fine. Davis isn't new to this." She said something like this or a variant thereof very morning, too.
"I suppose so," her father conceded, not without a note of pride. "Now that Junior is there, whatever crisis they'll have is bound to disappear soon."
'Right', Jun thought, still preferring eye-contact with her food over her parents. "I don't think it's that easy." Not at all, actually. "But I guess you are right. Davis has Veemon and the others are there too. They already have experience with saving the digital world after all."
Only, of course, the first generation took months to do their job the first time and just no one remembers it since it hardly amounted to more than a few days in reality and Davis had not exactly been fast with his world saving either.
Though it had definitely worked. No pressure.
Blessed be Hopmon's silence; oh, the great advantages of food. Digimon so hardly turned down a chance to talk about the legends of the Chosen Children. It amounted to bedtime stories or something.
Jun did not need that.
Nu-huh, definitely not.
"Jun, don't you have to hurry?" Her mother asked.
Taking her eyes away from her by now empty plate, Jun directed them at the nice, big kitchen clock. It proudly displayed 7:55.
Cursing, Jun jumped up and raced up the stairs. In her room she threw off her bathrobe and dropped her towel unceremoniously as she tore through her wardrobe. Two minutes later, she was clothed in jeans, a thick sweater and mismatched socks.
Notebooks and homework she had only just finished yesterday evening were carelessly shoved into a her bag, her D-Terminal and Digivice last and on top, in easy reach.
Briefly, her eyes fell on her pc and, unable to just leave, Jun cursed again, powering it up. Jun hardly gave it enough time to build the system before she pointed her device at it. "Gate open!" She demanded with all her authority and confidence.
The red sign refused to switch to green.
Feeling decidedly let down, but refusing to acknowledge it, Jun spun on her heel, leaving.
"You forgot this, Jun."
In the door way, the red head looked over her shoulder, finding her partner once more on her bed. He was holding something with his flapping limps. Jun hesitated.
Then, angry, she stomped over and pulled the goggles over her head, having them hang on her neck. She so did not want to wear them.
"Why can't someone who actually wanted them wear them?"
"Because," Hopmon exclaimed as they were hurrying the stairs down again, "they fit you best."
For all that, hearing what was not only her partner's opinion made her feel all warm and fuzzy. (And a great deal of arrogant that she was aware of and beat it ruthlessly down.) Jun was so much in over her head, it wasn't even funny.
She felt like a louse trying to stop a flood. But whatever. Best not think about it.
"I'll be back in the evening," she yelled into the house and only got a 'have fun and be careful' back before the door slammed behind her and Jun was already out on the street.
Jun's breath puffed in the winter air and, once again she was convinced winter was a season invented by the devil. To torture poor, innocent girls, because a) running in fat and heavy winter clothes would make them sweat and b) climbing over and balancing on walls-that-were-short cuts was just about impossible.
Jun didn't have a choice with either. If she didn't want to be late(er) than she already was, she had to run, if she wanted to avoid the press, she had to take ways she wouldn't be ambushed on.
That was the ugly reality.
Once the girl had successfully tiptoed over a garden wall belonging to a particular mean old lady, she dug around in her bag.
"Want this?" A silvery rectangular object was lowered in her face, the culprit always traveling on Jun's head (as apparently it was the only thing guaranteed not to be forgotten and because he could see the most from there). "You got lots of new messages."
Jun breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks. I almost thought I forgot it." Which would mean she would have had to turn around and pick it up, because Jun could not just afford to be out of contact for a day.
Habitually, she flipped the useful device open and checked her D-terminal inbox. Three new messages from Daniel, one from Noriko, several round mails, two from Michael and, as expected, no messages from Gennai or First and Second generation. Not even Izzy. Jun didn't know if she was supposed to be grateful or resenting. On the one hand, no new (bad) information, on the other hand, no new information.
Jun didn't know exactly when, but she guessed that a few days ago, when the genius had literally been in the internet and therefore visible on anything remotely being connected to the world wide net, he had, between whatever else he had done, send a lot of information out. Information of the kind that should not necessarily be shared and that Jun had received. He had likely done it, Izzy's friend from the US, Daniel, had explained so that the real world's DigiDestined would not be unprepared for if the fighting for one reason or another could not be contained to the digital world. (Jun preferred not to think about that...)
Problem was, he had only sent it only to a very few of the Third Generation, Jun being one of those.
Shuu Kido was another and Jun was incredibly grateful that she was not the only one to bear that responsibility even though it still turned out to be her who called the shots with the Third Generation.
Even now, she wasn't sure how she got landed in that role.
Hopmon had said something or another about that, but the girl had stopped listening somewhere after the first sentence, too busy telling others what to do and what not to do.
But seriously, why her? She was not the responsible or the leader type.
Even weirder was that she was actually listened to. Even by those who were years older than her.
Probably, she thought darkly, they just didn't want to deal with all that stress and pressure.
Speaking of which: Mostly, Jun hated that the judgment of what to do with all the knowledge fell to her.
Spread it? Nu-huh. If the humans couldn't even accept a digital world, then they could never accept a second human world. (Interdimensional war, a cynical voice whispered.) That there were possibly other versions of each and every one of them running around somewhere was frightening enough without taking a look at the examples. Jun didn't particularly want to recall all the details, but fact was that each and every one of these other, foreign Chosen Children was dead; here, in this world.
Not a nice thought. At all.
That, Jun had decided, was to be kept silent.
Humans literally turning into digimon? Same. Though she did give a cautiously edited version to the Third Generation.
The little fact that the chaos in the Digital World came from just as beyond? Once more, better to be kept silent.
The actual truth and all facts about what the situation really was like and how it didn't look good at all? Jun was still thinking about that. But if the rumor mill continued the way it was going, then the truth would soon become one of the more positive scenarios.
Seriously, as if people didn't have better things to do.
Quickly, she punched a reply to Noriko (Jun didn't know what she would do without the girl), then jumped down from the wall, landing on the school grounds. With a cautious glance she confirmed that for now, the back of the school grounds were still perfectly from the press.
With that motivating thought, Jun started on the next part over her unwanted job that could be done before lessons; check DigiDestined discussion forums.
"Hey Jun, hi Hopmon. Have a good morning?"
Jun glanced with half an eye up from her D-terminal to a boy with reddish brown hair and dark brown eyes, which currently held some mixture of curiosity, sympathy and teasing. "What do you think?"
"I think a problem shared is a problem halved," he said, promptly, before he grimaced slightly. "Not that it seems to be much good lately."
"Actually you can," she said. "This forum here," she held him her terminal under the nose as they hurried to their classroom. "Post some things to calm them down, Kenji. It has not even been a week and they are completely losing their heads up in Hokkaido."
Kenji dug out his own terminal and copied the link. "Sure." As he read, Jun was not surprised to see his frown deepen. "I see what you mean. A house divided can't stand."
Blowing out a breath of relief at having that covered, Jun started around a corner, stumbling when Hopmon jumped from her head to a windowsill and out the first story into a tree. Lots of squeaking and branch shaking followed.
Jun didn't even pause in her stride, assuming her partner found some other digimon on the grounds to play with. Probably Kenji's partner, Budmon.
Hopmon was very lively, as it was usual for In-training digimon, but unlike most, he also had an edge to his playfulness that was a too aggressive for some. Not everyone liked him. But Budmon was his best friend because not many digimon would play with him either, due to the large stingers the little botanical digimon had growing from his head. That those stingers were exactly what made Hopmon like playing with his friends so much, was something Jun was not sure she was happy she understood so well.
"Are we doing teamwork training again today?" A voice asked from behind Jun, the sound of the 'door' to the 'changing room' getting closed almost making the soft voice inaudible.
Jun tied her shoes, and then pulled a comfortable sports shirt over her head, anticipation making her twitchy. Training was fun, active. "Yeah. Why?"
Noriko hesitated for a moment, unsure, before shrugging with one shoulder. "I just thought maybe it'd be better if we do some one-on-one training. Since we can't always be sure there are going to be others with us."
Spelling what she thought unedited right out. Jun admired that a great deal. It took lots of courage and was yet another point why Jun felt grossly unfit for the position she held here in Japan. Noriko didn't have much confidence in herself, but she never shrunk back from things other people didn't even want to think about. Jun included.
"Right." The red head sighed and a hand went up to fiddle with the goggles on her neck. Jun hadn't wanted to think about it, so she hadn't, so she hadn't included it in training. The worst case. The very thing these now far more intense training sessions were supposed to be for. "But one against one is what our partners do all the time. They call it playing, but it counts for the same."
Noriko nodded, agreeing. "But I was thinking of In-training against Rookies one on one." He black eyes darted to meet Jun's before flickering somewhere off to the side. "That way the younger ones would need to get more creative to score a hit. And it's not like bubbles are much good against champion level. Or higher. No matter how much bubbles they make," her voice gained an almost bitter edge to it.
She had thought about this. No, more likely she recalled some unwelcome memories and those memories made her think about the worst case.
Right. She looked at Noriko, the desire to do better, to be better, to help and protect and the fear of what might come spelled never far from her lately. 'Pull yourself together, Jun. You are relied on. And right now, your friend needs you. Don't be weak!'
Suddenly, feeling not ready for what was expected of her was very small and unimportant.
Noriko had trouble holding eye-contact, but she managed to stare at Jun now. "We haven't heard anything in almost half a week and the last thing was Izzy hacking in the internet and then leaving to the other side. If he left to go there and didn't come back to us, knowing how we would be left hanging, how bad is it on the other side?"
Jun had been thinking along those lines as well, but... "That doesn't matter," she said, as confidently as she could, determinedly. "We are training now and all around doing whatever we can. The real world has been left to us, one way or another. What kind of Chosen Children would we be if we didn't rise to the occasion? We will protect this world. And," she grinned, with a bit of a smirk, "We have our partners. What else are they good for? I know I don't put up with Hopmon for his good manners."
That at least got a flicker of amusement from Noriko, her closed of expression melting into something softer and a small smile.
"Let's go!" Jun proclaimed. "Can't keep my dear followers waiting." She threw the door open with a loud screech of the rusted metal work and it smacked against the wall. Very efficiently, Jun had gotten all, maybe one hundred, pairs of eyes on her. "We are doing something different today! Everyone organize after highest evolution. Rookies there, In-training there and Fresh over there." Pointing in different corners of the abandoned warehouse, Jun was pleased to note that her directions were followed and both Noriko and she joined the Rookies.
The largest cluster of digimon and humans was the In-training group. No surprise there. They had no one with Champion level here. The numbers were somewhat odd, but well... Everyone had their digivices in hand.
Taking a deep breath, Jun continued with her explanation. "We are going to do some more fighting today. The In-training group-"
Training proceeded as normal after that; definitely chaotic, fun, loud and challenging. Digimon were at least in part programmed to fight and pulling punches wasn't in their nature. Which was different from going all out, but bumps and bruises and some tears -for that, everyone had always their digimon's favorite sweets along; nothing better to dry tears- by the younger ones were expected.
Everything proceeded as normal for maybe the first hour.
"Poisoned Thorns!" Budmon exclaimed loudly, bouncing forward, jumping just before he came into the range of Monodramon's claws from one container to the wall and pushing off like a bouncing ball at Monodramon's exposed back.
It was the best move of today yet, but even as a spike of worry reflexively shot through Jun, Monodramon turned and hit his friend with the back of his claw. Budmon was smacked into the ground, none too kindly.
"Budmon!" Kenji shouted, the worry and fear all too real. Then his digivice started glowing. Then Budmon's crumbled form started glowing.
All activity, digimon and humans alike, came to a stop, staring.
"Budmon. Digivolve to," the little digimon's voice was heard with that automatic and somewhat monotone announcement of evolution. "Alraumon!"
The light receded, revealing Kenji's partner's new form.
Jun stared, then blinked, perplexed. 'Alraumon?'
Apparently she wasn't the only one to have some trouble processing what she saw, because someone else from the staring masses spoke. "Alraumon? Are you sure you didn't mix something up? Cause that's a Palmon."
Kenji still has trouble closing his mouth, so there was no proverb smacked back into anyone's face, but Alraumon huffed and crossed his leafy arms. "Are you blind? Of course I'm an Alraumon."
Jun wished she had something to say to that, but all she saw was a Palmon. Therefore: she turned a pleading gaze to Noriko, who almost immediately noticed the eyes on her. The younger girl took off and fetched her laptop.
Seeing a fight might just break out between that loudmouthed boy, the still overly energized and vivacious Alraumon, Jun whistled sharply. "How about we wait for Noriko to let her digianalyzer run," she suggested with a tone that made it clear she wasn't suggesting at all.
The boy grumbled something, but was more than satisfied with waiting. Alraumon wasn't, bouncing in place and Monodramon was just as interested, sniffing the air around the newly evolved digimon and not waiting before throwing himself back at his friend in a playful brawl.
Hundred people can only be silent for so long and everyone broke out into whispers, some exited, some envious, Kenji's slack jawed expression was slowly turning into a goofy grin and Jun allowed herself a grin of her own.
Things did work. 'See? It will all turn out alright.'
Kenji's Alraumon, who was a legitimate evolution indeed and not a Palmon, was only the first of half a dozen evolutions that day.
Jun felt like the most tired person on this side of the galaxy, dragging her feet along the oh so long way back home. How much would she give for just a short break; leaning against a wall, a few deep breaths... But it wasn't that simple; just the thought of that kind of inactivity made her skin itch. Stillness had never sat well with Jun (early mornings the lone exception).
...taking a bus still would have been nice...given their nature, there were no buses or trains or hell, ships passing by abandoned warehouses to ride home and so, after three grueling hours of directing people of (almost) all ages and dodging attacks and helping her partner fight, Jun was at the end of her usually dependable energy.
At least she didn't have to carry Hopmon.
She was hungry and tired and dirty and miserable and the bags she had dumped on Monodramon to carry were way too heavy, even just by their presence and she licked her dry lips to taste soap.
Urgh.
'Happy thoughts, Jun. Think happy thoughts.'
Like how great it was to have three more Rookie level digimon around and three more In-Training digimon and how Noriko's partner has evolved into a Gryzmon (first Champion!), no matter how funny a coincidence of all it happening almost at once was.
Or dinner.
Dinner sounded real good right about now.
Jun's stomach growled, the only sound this late in the evening on the streets in their neighborhood.
Or almost the only sound. Monodramon's stomach seemed to be just as empty as Jun's. "I'm hungry," stated to her partner.
"Hmm." It wasn't far anymore. "I hope Mom made a lot today." Her mouth watered. "I don't even care what."
Monodramon pattered a few steps ahead, going faster. "Maybe if I eat a lot, I can evolve just like Bearmon." Jun's partner was not one to be sentimental or even emotional beyond anything at face value, but right now, he sounded just that.
Jun's dead mind dredged up some coherent thought. "You are plenty strong already."
"But not strong enough," said the walking lizard with vehemence. "Not strong enough to protect you yet."
Jun felt absolutely empty, but still fixed her partner with as evil a look as she managed. "If you think I'm ever just gonna let you protect me and, I don't know, hide behind some paper bin, Alraumon hit you too hard on the head. Or his toxins blew out your brain."
Monodramon stared at her with wide, round eyes. "But I'm here to protect you."
Unlocking the little gate to their property, Jun made a strangled sound at the back of her throat. "I don't care. About Chosen or whatever. You are my digidestined partner," she closed gate behind Mondramon's tail, "but you are also my very best friend." She yawned, ringing the bell and not having the energy to dig out another key. "As if I'd ever leave you to fend for yourself." The door opened. "Hi Mom. What's for dinner?"
Later, unable to be still even in the bathtub, Jun ticked down the final things she had to do that day before she could drop dead in her bed; a couple round mails, asking if her group was the only one with seven new evolutions within the span of three hours, browsing the latest anti-digimon propaganda, doing homework and checking the digital gate.
...All in all, more than what Jun thought manageable, but she'd do it anyway.
Jun Motomiya was a carefree girl.
Nothing could keep her down for long. Be it her crush's obvious interest in another or her brother's latest traceless disappearance into the digital world or something lowly as stress and pressure.
This is the chapter for June.
It is also the first chapter published with the help of my new beta smfan. Many thanks!
This chapter is a look into what is going on in the real world without the Digidestined and how things are dealt with. Jun is my first choice of character for this, because while she was totally annoying in the first part of 02, she also isn't stupid. And there is nothing wrong with being a spirited girl. I wanted to expand on that, rather than to create an OC or use even-less-scree-time Shuu Kido or Noriko.
Be so kind as to leave your opinion.
TBC...