2. Reaching Out

Arisu Shirogane looked over the rim of her cup at Shinyu. He was eating his breakfast in silence; his eyes downcast and shadowed as usual. He hadn't slept again.
She knew asking him about it would just make him uncomfortable, so she tried a different approach.
"You know, the shrine hasn't been getting as many visitors lately. The cold weather must be keeping people inside."
Shinyu swallowed a bite of salmon.
"I can put out some heaters. Make the place more inviting."
"No. That's okay." Arisu hoped her tone wasn't too worrying. "I just thought, maybe you could take a day off. Relax... get some rest."
Shinyu's chopsticks stopped halfway to his mouth. He stared intently at the tabletop for a few seconds before opening his mouth to reply.
Just then, a screeching ball of orange fur tore through the sheet of the kitchen door and began rolling around the table.
"Raaargh! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!"
Shinyu and Arisu jumped to their feet. In the chaos before them, they could make out Mamoru hissing and scratching at what looked like a large striped cat.
Arisu reached down and pulled Mamoru off of the creature before stepping back, and Shinyu placed himself in front of her.
Lying, groaning, on the floor in front of them; the cat-like being opened it's eyes and looked towards the humans.
"Please tell me one of you is Shinyu."

-

Doctor Zahin Babu had never considered himself a particularly spiritual man. He and his wife Gajara had both been raised in Hindu households and, out of respect to their families, had taught their children the customs of their faith. But he personally had always put his trust in science and logic over gods and spirits.
So when he went to check on what was taking his son Kartik so long; only to find him lying on the bathroom floor with an animal resembling an anthromorphic bull patting his forehead with a wet towel; he immediately started going through a mental list of all the logical explanations for this turn of events. He had yet to come to a satisfactory conclusion though. And it became even harder once the creature started talking.
"You've got a nice place here."
The bull was sitting across from Zahin in the living room. His hoofed feet didn't even reach the floor from his place on the sofa. His hands had three pointed hoof fingers and were currently running over the sofa and cushions like he'd never felt anything like them before. He was covered in chocolate brown hair with a tuft of darker brown on the end of his thin tail, and on his head between two white horns that curved forward. He spoke with a deep but gentle voice and his light brown eyes kept roaming around the room, often widening in awe.
"Um, thank you Mister..."
"Tarumon. Just Tarumon is fine."
Zahin gave a little nod, not sure where to take the conversation from there.
Kartik was sitting in an armchair to his left. He still looked a bit pale and hadn't spoken yet. Tarumon glanced over at him with an expectant expression, as if waiting for some sort of confirmation from the boy.
The silence was broken by Gajara entering the room. She'd taken their daughters Jalena and Saachi to the kitchen with instructions to run out the back door should they hear anything untoward.
A tray with two plates of paratha on it was in Gajara's hands. She placed one on the small table in front of Tarumon and gave the other to Kartik.
"Eat." She told her son. "You haven't had breakfast."
This seemed to snap Kartik out of his trance. He straightened up and took a bite out of the stuffed bread.
Gajara sat next to Zahin who gave her a questioning look.
"Human or not; he's still our guest." She said in a low voice.
"Mrrrrmmmmmm!"
Everyone looked over to Tarumon. His pupils had expanded and his ears were standing straight up.
"This is amazing! I've never tasted anything like this! So many flavours... the texture..."
He started scarfing down the paratha like it was his first meal in days, occasionally letting out little bellows of pleasure.
Gajara turned to her husband with a smile.
"He has good taste, at least."
"I don't know." Zahin leaned closer to whisper to her. "I feel like we should call somebody."
"Who could we possibly call?"

-

"Hello, Animal Control? There's a big spider in our house, and I mean big."
Jordan Laurent was pacing the living room, talking on her cellphone, while her sister Charlie was rummaging through the hall closet.
"No. Not tea saucer big. It's like the size of a cat, but one of those big cats - a maine coon! And it talks, and screams. Maybe it escaped from a zoo or a laboratory or something."
Charlie pulled a hockey stick out of the closet. She gave it a few experimental swings, nodded and reached back in for something else.
"No, I have not partaken in any alcohol or narcotics. What does that have to do with - Look, could you just send someone over with one of those big nets? And maybe a tranquilliser gun? Hello? Hello?"
She sighed and put her phone down.
"I don't think they believed me."
"The authorities are no help. Très surpris."
Charlie stepped back from the closet with an ice hockey helmet on her head.
"What do you think you are doing?"
Jordan marched into the hallway as Charlie began to ascend the stairs.
"I'm not going to just stand here while some overgrown arachnid has free run of my room. It could be laying eggs in my pillow as we speak." Charlie lowered the helmet's face guard and rested the hockey stick on her shoulder. "Now you can either grab something and help, or stay down here."
"Charlie! Get back here! That thing could be venomous!"
Jordan let out a frustrated growl as her sister disappeared upstairs. She reached into the closet, pulled out a broom, and set off after her.
While this was going on; the cause of the sisters' situation had squeezed itself into a gap on top of Charlie's wardrobe and was trying not to have a panic attack.
"W-What was I thinking? W-Why did I agree to this? I n-never wanted anything to do with humans! They're so b-big and loud and scary! This was a t-terrible idea! I-I'm going home!"
But before it could make a move, the door was kicked open and the humans stomped inside with some heavy looking weapons.
"Okay, Shelob! Are we doing this easy or hard?"
Charlie started whacking the bed with her hockey stick while Jordan stood by the door and scanned the room.
"I don't see it."
"It's gotta be around somewhere." Charlie started poking under her bed. "Something that big couldn't just disappear."
She cupped her chin in thought for a moment then grinned.
"We can smoke it out. Go grab some matches. I've got some text books we can use for kindling."
"You are not setting your room on fire!"
"Of course not. I'm gonna use the trashcan."
"Stop!"
The sisters looked up at the wardrobe where the spider was leaning out with four of it's limbs held above it's head.
"I-I surrender! I'll l-leave! Just please don't h-hit me or set me on f-fire!"
The hockey stick fell from Charlie's hand. She lifted up her face guard and stared open-mouthed at the creature. She then felt a push from her sister.
"I told you it spoke!"

-

Shinyu sat cross legged at the tea table watching Tigremon devouring some rice balls that Arisu had laid out. He was starting to accept that the creature before him wasn't an hallucination brought about by lack of sleep.
On closer inspection, it looked like a bipedal tiger cub; with burnt orange fur, a white muzzle and underbelly and thick black stripes. Around it's neck hung a pair of dark-tinted aviation goggles.
"So... what are you exactly?"
Tigremon swallowed a mouthful of rice and answered in a raspy feminine voice.
"Well, I'm a digimon of course." Her pale blue eyes went from Shinyu to Arisu and back; taking in their lack of response. "Digital monster? From the Digital World?"
Shinyu raised his hands in a half shrug.
"We have no idea what you're talking about."
"Seriously?" Tigremon rolled her eyes. "Of course. All those lectures about how I don't know anything, and Babamon gets the most important detail wrong. Well, this is going to make the next part tricky."
"What next part?"
Arisu had been observing silently up to now, holding Mamoru in her lap who still let out the odd hiss towards Tigremon. Now she leant forward, shifting slightly to move closer to Shinyu.
Tigremon either didn't notice this protective behaviour or chose to ignore it. She stood up to her full height; all three feet of it; and pointed a large paw at Shinyu.
"Shinyu Shirogane, for the sake of both of our homes; you must come with me to the Digital World."
Shinyu stared at Tigremon for a few seconds, waiting for elaboration. When none came, he responded the only way he could.

-

"What?!"
Tarumon looked between Kartik and his parents, wondering which outburst he should respond to. He was spared this decision by a knock on the living room door.
"Can I come in now? It doesn't sound like he's murdering you."
Before anyone could answer, a young girl in a pink skirt and blouse entered with an infant on her hip. Her eyes fell on Tarumon and she let out a delighted gasp.
"Oh my goodness; he's so cute! This is what you were afraid of?"
"Jalena! I told you to stay with Saachi." Gajara stood up and took the baby from her daughter. She then spoke in a whisper. "We just found out, he came to take your brother away to his home planet."
"Kartik?" Jalena looked at her brother, and then turned to Tarumon with a raised eyebrow. "What in the world would you want with him?"
"You don't have to sound so surprised!" Kartik sat up straight. He didn't want his sister embarrassing him in front of the alien. "Tarumon says that both our worlds need my help."
"But why Kartik?" Zahin was trying to stay calm, while wondering if his oath to do no harm applied to alien creatures trying to abduct one's children. "He's only a boy. Why, out of all the people in the world, did you choose him?"
Tarumon's eyes had been glued to Saachi since she'd been brought in. He was looking at her like she was the most beautiful sunset. Upon hearing Zahin's question, he blinked and refocused on the rest of the family.
"I didn't choose him. Yggdrasil did."

-

"The World Tree?"
Charlie, Jordan and the spider known as Kumomon were sat at the kitchen table with mugs of cocoa.
Now that the shock had worn off, Charlie thought that Kumomon wasn't all that frightening. Her proportions resembled that of a jumping spider; the objectively cutest of all the arachnids; and she spoke with a high soft sounding voice. Plus, the silver zigzag markings on her legs and back looked pretty cool.
"W-well, a World Computer actually." Kumomon took a sip of cocoa through a straw; her four black eyes looking shyly over the mug at Charlie. "I-It sort of runs the Digital World. B-Babamon made contact with it and got permission to send us to the Ph-Physical World. Th-That's what we call this place."
Jordan ran a hand through her hair.
"I still don't understand. What exactly is the Digital World? Where is it? Are we talking about a faraway planet?"
"N-No, not exactly. Th-The Digital World kinda exists in it's own dimension. W-What you call cyberspace."
"No way!" Charlie was grinning from ear to ear. "You're telling me there's a whole world existing, Tron-style, in the internet?"
Kumomon didn't know what 'Tron-style' meant, but gave a little nod regardless.
"This is so awesome!" Charlie leant back in her chair and threw her arms above her head. She let out a delighted laugh before leaning forward towards Kumomon. "So, how do we get there?"
"Excuse me?" Jordan exclaimed. "You're not seriously thinking of going, right?"
"Hey, you heard her. The fate of the world is at stake. How can we not go?"
"We don't even know if she's telling the truth! This could all be a ploy to feed us to her monster friends."
"Um, I-I'm right here; and we don't eat - "
"If she wanted to hurt us, she could've done so by now." Charlie reached out and put a hand on her sister's shoulder. "C'mon Jordan, we used to dream of adventures like this. How can you say no?"
"We're not children anymore." Jordan shrugged Charlie's hand off. "Or, at least one of us isn't. What would Mom and Dad say?"
"How am I supposed to know? They're never here!"
"O-Okay, this sound personal. M-Maybe I should leave the room."
"No need. This conversation is over." Jordan stood up and began clearing the table. "I'm sorry Kumomon, but whatever problems your world has; you're just going to have to sort them out yourself. It has nothing to do with us."

-

With the winter frost setting in, Inokashira Park was quiet and still. Even the animals were seeking shelter from the cold.
Despite that, there were still small digital cameras set up at various places around the park. They recorded the area for those online who hoped to get a glimpse of the park's animals, or simply enjoy the scenery, without leaving the warmth of their homes.
One such camera lay among the roots of a cherry tree. The air around it began to ripple and sparks shot out of the device. A large hole appeared with bright blue light shining through it.
Stone covered claws poked through the hole and, gripping the edges, tore a wide opening through which stepped a large simian-like creature. It raised it's red face and sniffed the air, exposing it's large white canines in a satisfied grin as the hole closed behind it.
"Smells like humans." It let out a deep chuckle. "It's hunting time."