-Present year-

Inez opened the door to her apartment, bags in hand and wearing a look of defeat. Gatito greeted her with his usual high pitched meows and rubbing against her leg, which helped her mood a little.

She put her stuff down and reached to pet the big orange cat, "Gracias Gatito, I needed that."

He purred as her fingers run through his smooth fur.

Inez couldn't believe it. After all the constant studying and skipping a couple of grades, it all didn't matter. The college she dreamed going to expelled her after less than a week. The reason being they found a bottle of her anxiety medication lying in the hallway of the dorms, which must have fallen out of her bag by accident. The medication was a fairly new name so the old lady in charge that found the bottle didn't recognize it, and assumed it was some sort of controlled substance.

She didn't stick around long enough to hear the conversation between the lady and the dean, but she ended up getting a formal E-mail a few hours later confirming her expulsion.

The college formally apologized not long after finding out the accusations were false and invited her back, but the damage had already been done, both to her reputation and mental health. The best option was to find another college to apply to, one that didn't think she was some sort of junkie. But until then it's working in retail and freelance web related stuff for her. She was at least happy for her friends being successful in life, if not a slight bit jealous.

She flopped onto her workspace chair in her room to wake up her PC. She wanted to see if she or Matt and Jackie had any luck contacting anyone in Cyberspace as any attempts had failed ever since that incident 9 years ago. She had been worried sick about her friends there ever since. She and her earth friends made an app on their PCs that could in theory, communicate with Digit and Marbles like her skwak, but it only worked about as well as said skwak on good days.

She clicked the app, but as usual, no dice. She sighed heavily.

Just then, a message popped up on their group chat in the popular chatting application, Concord. It read as follows:

TouchdownD00D: "Heya Nezzie. I heard you had a rough day again today, wanna video chat with me and Jacks to get your mind off it? My schedule is pretty flexible so we can chat as long as you like."

Inez smiled a little, grateful that they've all stayed friends even after all this time. She typed her response:

X3naTheStr0ng: "I'd love to, Matt. I can talk after preparing dinner for me and Gatito. And don't call me Nezzie! =("

Jackie messaged too:

Capta1nJakb1rd: "Matt's gonna Matt, as usual. Friend invited me over for a movie night marathon in a few hours, but I can stay for a bit. 3"

X3naTheStr0ng: "Thanks guys. I'll be ready in a little more than an hour."

She decided to make chicken fajitas tonight, and could give leave a couple pieces of the chicken unseasoned to give to Gatito, else he'd be begging at the table.

While frying the chicken and the vegetables, the girl wished her friends could be here to share with her cuz she loved cooking for them, but undertstood that would be complicated at this hour.

When everything was done, she filled Gatito's dish with his cat food and added the unseasoned chicken in it. The sound of the dish being filled caused the cat to run into the room, meowing happily.

Smiling, she went back to the dining room to enjoy the fruits of her labor.

xxxxxx

The gang talked about how each of their days went. Matt retold a highlight of his.

"So me and my mom were feeding the chickens today, and get this! We found a young rooster with bluish purple head feathers. But guess what? We didn't have any chickens colored like that so we thought we somehow made a new breed. That was until we found him in the blueberries surrounded by hens also dyed purple! We discovered he was trying to impress the ladies with free food, so we're building a fence around them this week. Can't have that happen again or else we'll have to raise the price of blueberries."

The girls both laughed with him at the absurdity. "What a ladies' man. You could learn a thing or two from that rooster, Matt." Teased Jackie.

"Hey!" He said while still laughing.

"How was your day, Jacks?" Inez asked.

Jackie looked in thought for a moment. "Well, today my friend Donny invited me to lunch with his friends, who are also big actors like him. Now I got even more movies in my backlog! It was totally cool." She was smiling the whole time recounting it. "His friends also would like me to work on their costumes and makeup for their upcoming movies."

"I'm surprised you didn't end up a movie actor instead Jackie. You've got the drama for it." Teased Matt, partially to get back at her for teasing him.

After a bit more teasing and back and forth, the topic shifted to a more serious tone prompted by Inez.

"So... Have you guys had any luck contacting Digit this week? Or anyone in Cyberspace?"

"No luck, not one bit." Matt shook his head in defeat and sighed, "Do you think they're... Ya know...?"

"No! I refuse to believe that! Digit wouldn't give up to Hacker that easily! Not Slider, Shari, Fluff, or Creech either." Jackie raised her voice a little.

Inez clutched her fist in her chest. She knew them being dead was a possibility, but the thought alone made her anxiety skyrocket and caused her to space out a little. The outside noise sounded more distant.

"Inez, are you ok?" Matt asked worryingly. He noticed her breathing got a bit quicker.

"You don't look so good." Jackie added, frowning.

The girl snapped out of it, "Sorry about that guys. I guess I forgot to take my medication today." She laughed nervously. Her response just made her friends more worried. There was a few seconds of silence until Jackie chimed in again.

"Maybe we should call it a night guys. Matt?"

"Yeah, some sleep will help you feel better. It always does for me after a stressful day."

Inez nodded, but was a little disappointed she couldn't stay longer. "You're right, both of you. Goodnight guys."

The other two said their good nights and they all logged off.

After brushing her teeth and settling into bed, Inez hoped that tomorrow would be better, for all of them.

However the next day would both be better in a way, but at the same time not.

xxxxxx

"Oh no! I'm late!" Inez ran out the door as fast as her legs would allow.

Today she was supposed to be at work an hour earlier today as her shift got moved, but she was so distracted she forgot to set a new alarm.

She bolted to the public bus stop, all the while colliding with a number of people, a number a bit higher than zero.

"Hey! Watching where you're fuckin' runnin', dumb bitch!" yelled a very angry middle aged man. One of her accidental victims.

"Sorry!" She yelled. She wanted to berate him back, but knew that would just make her even more late.

She got a little frightened as he decided to approach her, still very angry. But as she reached for the pepper spray in her bag, the bus finally arrived. Probably saving her life.

She pushed through the crowd of people to safety.

As she sat down in her seat, she could see the guy out the window, yelling even more derogatory terms at her as the bus drove away.

"Alright, that's enough drama for today." She thought, slumping over in her seat out of exhaustion.

Her brief moment of rest didn't last long however, as a few minutes into the drive, the bus came to a sudden stop. So sudden she hit her head on the seat in front of her. She shook it off and readjusted her glasses.

"Sorry about the jolt, folks. There seems to be some weird stuff appearing on the road." The driver said over the speaker.

Sure enough, looking out there confirmed that something was out there, but not just anything. It kinda resembled...

"A portal? And why in the middle of the road? And why are there so many?" Inez thought out loud. She left the bus to get a closer look... only to trip on some stray beer bottle on the road and fall into it.

In a matter of moments she was in a place she hadn't been to in years. The place had changed a lot since last time she and her friends were here.

She couldn't believe her eyes. Everything looked destroyed and deserted. It was so different that she at first couldn't tell which site it sent her to.

"Inez? Is that you?" Said a familiar voice, albeit a little more gruff sounding. The person it was coming from wasn't as familiar looking though.

"Digit?" Inez said in disbelief. "But you look so... different."

The cybird looked way taller than she last saw him, his body shape almost resembling how he looked when Wicked and Wanda turned him into someone "perfect" for the former. Instead of his usual bowtie and backwards cap with yellow sneakers, he wore a black leather biker jacket, a red neck tie, some black boots, and a red headband keeping up his very messy hair.

"It's a long story." He sighed. "I could say the same for you! Look at how much you've grown!" He sounded like he was about to cry a little. He gave her a big hug which she welcomed.

"You got a point. Though I wish my full height was a little taller than this." She said with a hint of disappointment in her tone. She had only grown up to be 5 feet tall, and that was with her boots on. She was between 4' 10" or 4' 11" without them.

Digit let go, "Anyway, I'm so glad you're back. Hacker's been opening portals in random bullshit places in an attempt to fuse our two worlds together, and that's how you ended up here. Some crazy shit."

"We'll help you stop him Digit, just like old times." She gave him a confident smile.

"That's the spirit! Let me show you the base me and the doc built while you were away. And chances are that Jackie and the Mattster are on their way as we speak. The amount of portals opened up was unusually high today."

"By the way Dige, where are we?" She asked.

He led her in the direction of the building they'll do their operations from. "We're in Eureeka. I don't blame you for not being able to recognize it." He continued, "Oh yeah, Inez. I forgot to tell you I got married a few years ago. We didn't have a big ceremony since the world was and still is fucked up, but we really hope to in the future when all this chaos dies down. She's a strong, beautiful boid. I'll introduce everyone to her."

Inez was happy for her Cybird friend. He found a silver lining amidst the storm. She still did feel pretty uneasy though. Everything is a lot to take in, and she was still worried about where her other friends like Slider or Shari went. She hoped Matt and Jackie will be here soon.