Episode S.1: The Lifestyle (Joshua and Lynn's Story)

"So, when you attack with your-" The brown-haired girl looked up expectantly at the boy sitting across the table from her.

"Kuwagamon," Joshua offered, the complicated name rolling easily off of his tongue.

Lynn picked up the trading card that depicted a bright red insect-like monster and studied it skeptically before putting it back on the picnic table. "-thing, I can stop it, right?" she finished asking.

"Yup," the boy said as he readjusted his card so that it lined up just right. "You have the 'Hiding Tree' card prepared, so you can save your Digimon from being deleted by my Kuwagamon's attack."

Joshua's enthusiasm had no effect on Lynn, who simply said, "Okay, I do that then."

"All right, that finishes my turn, so it's your move."

Deciding that he wasn't going to realize her indifference on his own, Lynn cleared her throat just loud enough to get Joshua to stop shuffling through the cards he was holding in his hand and look at her. "Joshua, do I really need to know this stuff?" she asked, smiling to soften the question's blow.

"Well, uh, not exactly," admitted Joshua as he reluctantly set his cards face down on the wooden table. "It's just that, when you texted me, you said-"

"I know, I know," said Lynn as she piled up the cards on her side of the table and pushed them towards Joshua. "But instead of showing me all of this Digimon stuff, do you think you could just tell me about it instead?"

"Well, uh, I guess so," Joshua said. "We can probably skip the rest of the card game lesson, huh?"

His nervous joke got a polite chuckle from Lynn. Sitting on the ground next to where Joshua was sitting, Penguinmon muttered, "I wish I could have skipped it."

Lynn and Kudamon had met Joshua and Penguinmon on the grounds of a country club where Lynn's father was a member. They club was closed early on Mondays, but Lynn had been able to concoct a story about needing to practice her golf swing and had it had worked. Now, the air around the picnic table where they were sitting was heavy with humidity and there were some storm clouds off in the distance, but those didn't take away from the beauty of the perfectly manicured golf courses and rolling hills around them. For Lynn and Kudamon, this was nothing they had not seen before, but Joshua felt like an interloper and he kept looking over his shoulder, half expecting to be asked to leave by a member of the club's staff. As for Penguinmon, he was still upset about being barred from the pool and was consoling himself by watching Netflix on Joshua's phone, shamelessly using up the tamer's data limits.

He and Kudamon had been trying to decipher lessons about human behavior and culture from old episodes of The Twilight Zone when Penguinmon had spoken up.

All day the stout Digimon had been irritable. Joshua had dragged him to the country club for his meeting with Lynn, but so far there hadn't been anything for him to do. Not that Joshua seemed to notice. The boy had been operating in a giddy daze since he had first gotten the text message from Lynn inviting him to tell her more about Digimon. Talking about his favorite franchise with a beautiful girl was a dream come true for Joshua and he had agreed without bothering to check with Penguinmon, or even inform the Digimon until he had turned off the television and dragged him to the door.

After shooting a quick glare towards Penguinmon for interrupting his time with Lynn, Joshua dredged up one of the pieces of advice he had gleaned from the excruciating experience of asking his older sister Molly for advice on talking to girls. "You look, uh, really nice," he blurted out without preamble.

Though it was definitely no lie as the young woman pulled off the look of a professional golfer with aplomb, Lynn merely accepted the compliment with only a wordless smile before changing the subject back to Digimon. "How was Floramon able to change like that? And now that weird little guy did it too. It looks so simple when it's the card game, but what about in real life?"

Joshua sighed, but tried to disguise his disappointment in being rerailed as appreciation of the gorgeous summer day. "Well, first of all, it's called 'digivolution' or 'digivolving,' which is actually a bit of a misnomer because it's really more like metamorphosis than anything Charles Darwin came up with," he recalled easily.

Lynn's smile didn't change and she asked, "But what is it?"

"Well, uh, like you saw," Joshua continued, "a Digimon will change forms and become much more powerful, progressing through several stages until reaching a final form."

"These stages are the same ones in the card game?"

"Exactly!" Joshua exclaimed. "Every Digimon is born from a Digi-Egg (or Digitama in the original Japanese) at the stage of 'Fresh' before progressing through the 'In-Training,' 'Rookie,' 'Champion,' 'Ultimate,' and 'Mega' levels!"

After mouthing the names of the stages to herself, Lynn asked another question, "So, does every Digimon go through all of those changes?"

"Yes," said Joshua at the same time that the two Digimon, without looking up from watching their show, said, "No."

"Well, I mean, they can-" Joshua began to say, only to falter when he saw that Penguinmon and Kudamon held Lynn's undivided attention.

"Why not?" she asked.

The two Digimon looked at each other, before silently agreeing that Penguinmon should explain, "In order to digivolve, we need a large amount of energy, which we get by deleting other Digimon. There are only so many Digimon out there and it gets harder and harder to digivolve each time, so we can't all be Megas."

Kudamon added in her crisp voice, "There is also the matter of danger. For Digimon, it is not enough to merely want to digivolve, there also has to be a need for it to occur. As we get more and more powerful, there is less likelihood that something will threaten us and provoke such a change."

"Kudamon, I don't think I've ever heard you talk so much," remarked Lynn, earning her a very slight grin from the Digimon.

"But what about the human factor?" Joshua interjected.

Penguinmon cocked his head to one side. "What do you mean?"

Happy to have Lynn looking at him again, Joshua elaborated, "Whenever we've seen Floramon, and now Dracmon, digivolve, their tamer was nearby! In the-" He stopped and cleared his throat before continuing sheepishly, "In the show, it's the bond between the human and Digimon, symbolized by a Digivice, that enables digivolving." With that, Joshua retrieved his white and blue phone and presented it to the others.

Forgetting about The Twilight Zone for the time being, Penguinmon and Kudamon stood up to join Lynn in studying Joshua's phone. They all looked at it blankly for a couple of seconds and then Penguinmon said simply, "I don't know anything about that."

"It could explain some things," Kudamon offered, her purple eyes still taking in every detail of Joshua's Digivice.

"Like what?" asked Lynn.

When Kudamon didn't immediately elaborate, Penguinmon filled the silence, "Normally, digivolving is a one-way street. You don't go back to your old form once it happens."

"Why?"

No one had an answer for Lynn's next question, but Joshua did not want to let the conversation die. "What do you think Kudamon will digivolve into?" he quickly asked Lynn.

If the Digimon in question was annoyed being blatantly ignored, she hid it well and instead let Lynn answer with a high, bright laugh. "I have no idea! Where would I even start? I'm having a hard enough time remembering the names of the Digimon we've actually met!"

"It's not that hard," Joshua said with a shy smile.

"Maybe not for you! I bet you're one of those guys who can remember the first hundred numbers in pi."

"Not me! I used up all of my brain remembering Digimon and other nerdy stuff like that," laughed Joshua with a rueful tap of his forefinger to his bang-covered forehead.

Lynn laughed with him, before asking, "Well, okay, then, what do you think Penguinmon will turn into?"

Now, Joshua's brown eyes lit up with excited as he contemplated the possibilities. "Well, hopefully something that can actually fight. Maybe he'll even be able to fly, or maybe his digivolutions will take a more aquatic route-"

Before Joshua could go on, Penguinmon brusquely said, "It's not going to happen" and stomped away as best he could manage with his webbed feet.

"What's his problem?" grumbled Joshua as his previous enthusiasm evaporated in an instant.

"Maybe you should go see what's wrong," Lynn suggested with only a hint of chiding in her tone. Joshua hemmed and hawed at first, but under Lynn's continued gaze, he got up from the picnic table and went after Penguinmon.

As Joshua walked away, Lynn turned to Kudamon. "How do you feel about digivolving?"

"If doing so was necessary to protect you, I would not hesitate to do so."

"But do you want to?" pressed Lynn.

Kudamon lowered herself back down onto the vibrant green grass, coiled her body around into a spiral, and rested her paws and head on the wall erected by her long tail. "What must happen will happen, whether we wish for it or not."

There was not much that Lynn could say to that.

A far less friendly conversation awaited Joshua when he finally reached Penguinmon, who had managed to make surprisingly quick progress down a hillside by waddling. "Hey, wait!" Joshua shouted, unwilling to keep the razor-sharp edge of annoyance out of his voice. He had thought that everything had been going so well when Penguinmon had butted in.

He wasn't the only one who was feeling bitter. Joshua ended up having to sprint around Penguinmon and physically plant himself in front of the Digimon in order to get him to stop his angry march.

Even then, Penguinmon just stood there fuming. Glowering up at the human with a cold anger Joshua had never seen in his big red eyes before, Penguinmon said, "I want to go home," emphasizing every word so that each one felt like a complete sentence.

"We can't go home right now," Joshua said slowly, trying to keep the anger off of his own face and out of his own voice. "I'm helping Lynn."

"And Kudamon?" asked Penguinmon.

"Yeah, sure, we're all on the same side. We all have to be, because we're all working towards the same goal."

Penguinmon was not satisfied. "And what's that?"

"Getting you all to digivolve, of course!"

Penguinmon shot back irritably, "But I don't want to!"

Joshua did not seem to hear him, and he continued talking, "Rhinomon was just the beginning, I bet. There's going to be all kinds of new, more dangerous Digimon cropping up, and we have to be ready to stop them."

"I don't want to!" Penguinmon squawked at the top of his lungs, and he repeated it again and again until he was out of breath.

"Why the hell not?" demanded Joshua. "Don't you want to be stronger? Don't you want to be something more, something better?"

By the time that Penguinmon caught his breath, his voice had cooled to ice. "I'm happy the way that I am, Joshua. Are you?"

Joshua ignored Penguinmon's piercing question so that he could continue talking past the Digimon, "You'd be fine letting some evil Digimon hurt a bunch of people as long as you can keep mooching off of my Netflix account?"

"What evil Digimon have we met? Name one!"

"DemiDevimon," Joshua answered, with only the barest effort made to remove the crowing from his voice. "If it hadn't been for me, he would have killed you."

Now, it was Penguinmon's turn to struggle for an adequate response. "He might not have been evil," Penguinmon finally said quietly.

"What?" Joshua shouted.

"He was doing what Digimon do. They fight. Sometimes they win and grow stronger, sometimes they lose."

"You said 'they.'"

"What?"

Joshua was calmer now as well, but no less angry. "When talking about Digimon fighting, you didn't say 'we,' you said 'they.'"

Penguinmon approximated a shrug.

"You're a Digimon who doesn't like to fight. So, what does that make you? Defective?"

"Joshua."

"A mistake?" the boy said, lacing his barb with far more venom than he initially intended.

"Joshua."

"A-" Joshua did not get to finish the insult before Penguinmon leapt at him and headbutted Joshua's stomach. The surprised teenager toppled over and rolled partway down the hill before stopping himself.

Penguinmon waddled over to where Joshua was propping himself on his hands and said, "Do you know why I am never going to digivolve for you? Because I am never going to fight for you ever again! I'm done letting you put me in dangerous situations for no good reason! Let the rest of them fight! I'm finished!" Then, Penguinmon left Joshua and resumed walking towards the country club's entrance.

After picking himself up off the ground and straightening his glasses, Joshua called after the Digimon, "Penguinmon. Wait."

Penguinmon took a few more steps, simply to prove that he could, before he stopped and turned around. He did not say anything, but waited to see what Joshua would say.

"You can't get seen," was Joshua's first concern, then when he saw Penguinmon start to turn away again, he quickly added, "We can go home, if that's what you want, but just let me say goodbye to Lynn first, okay?"

Penguinmon's eyes softened somewhat, but his voice was still hard when he quietly said, "Five minutes."

Joshua still had enough of his pride left to ask Penguinmon to accompany him back to say goodbye to Lynn and Kudamon, but not enough to push the issue when the Digimon shook his head and instead said, "Four minutes now." With his head hung low, Joshua plodded his way back up the hill to face Lynn and Kudamon alone.

"Where's Penguinmon?" was the first thing that Lynn asked and the question hit Joshua like a punch.

His response was muttered half-heartedly, "He's feeling pretty sick. We need to get going home."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Lynn said sympathetically. "Is it contagious? Is Kudamon going to get sick, too?"

"No, no, it was just something he ate," Joshua said quickly. "So, nothing for you to worry about!"

Lynn studied Joshua for a few silent seconds before she said, "Say goodbye to him for us, please, and tell him that I hope he feels better soon."

"Yeah, me too." Joshua hesitated, and, after shifting from one foot to the other a few times, he blurted out, "You know, this was actually kind of fun. Maybe we could do it again sometime?"

The polo-wearing vision sitting before Joshua smiled a dazzling smile that made him feel dizzy, even though all Lynn offered him was, "If I ever have any more Digimon questions, you're my guy."

Lynn waited for Joshua to vanish completely from sight before she spoke again, "Well, Kudamon, we should get going too." The lithe Digimon began to raise herself up and uncoil her body from her resting place when Lynn added, "Not just yet though."

"You wish to still enjoy this day, Lynnette?" Kudamon asked as she settled back into her previous pose without complaint.

"Yes, and-" Lynn mulled over how to best phrase things before settling upon, "I don't want to run into Joshua and Penguinmon on our way out. That was an okay goodbye, just now. Anything more will be awkward."

With a slight bow of her sleek head, Kudamon accepted Lynn's explanation. "May I hunt while we wait?"

Kudamon's routine request made it easy for Lynn to relax. "You can try, but I don't think that you're going to have much luck finding anything. This place is pretty well cared for."

Lynn's polite discouragement was neither challenged or affirmed by Kudamon, but merely accepted with a small enigmatic smile before the white Digimon darted off into the meticulously-kept grass with startling speed given that Kudamon only possessed two limbs. Similarly, when Kudamon returned far more sluggishly than she had been when she had departed and with a violent splash of red around her deceptively small mouth and on her usually pristine paws, Lynn received no words of reproach or gloating for having doubted the Digimon's skills or the abundance of prey. Even without words, there was an air of satisfaction around Kudamon that had nothing to do with her full stomach.

"What did you find?" asked Lynn before she could stop herself from being courteous, and she quickly looked away in anticipation of her coming disgust.

"A kind of stubby creature living in a hole," Kudamon answered in-between cleaning her paws with quick darts of her pink tongue.

As Kudamon moved onto cleaning her face, Lynn gagged and exclaimed, "And you just ate it? Raw?"

"I recall you telling me that you did not wish to hear any details from my hunts. 'Never, ever, ever' were your exact words, I believe."

"Yeah, you're right," admitted Lynn, "it's my own fault for asking." Then, when she had mastered her nausea, she asked, "What do you make of all of this?" When Kudamon didn't answer, Lynn elaborated, "You're one of them, a Digimon, I mean. Don't you think it's weird that someone like Joshua knows so much about your, uh, kind?"

All that Lynn got in response to that was, "Perhaps."

"You don't wonder about that at all?" When an answer was again not forthcoming, Lynn sighed and stood up, smoothing her white skirt. "They're probably gone by now." Kudamon started towards her tamer, but stopped when Lynn did not reach down to pick her up. "No way! I don't want you crawling on me after you ate a gopher raw! Yuck!" Instead, Lynn opened up her purse and ushered the sinewy Digimon inside of it, which Kudamon did, making room for herself among the loose change, a half-empty pack of chewing gum, and other common nonessentials that were already there.

Only after the two of them had walked past the wrought-iron gate that provided the only entrance through the high fence surrounding the country club did Kudamon speak. "I have seen many strange things in your world," she said amicably. "What is one more bizarre aspect when it is stacked atop so many?"

"My world is not that weird," argued Lynn.

Kudamon merely smiled an enigmatic smile and then she ducked out of sight into her tamer's purse to rest and digest her meal.

"Well, maybe it is now that there's Digimon in it."