Chapter Text
Takato ambled down the now familiar path to Guilmon’s home, once happy memories now tinged with a bittersweet edge. At first, he seemed to be content with walking on by, but something seemed to call to him, and so he walked back up to the place where his best friend used to live. There, in the dirt, lay a small portal to a world sealed off forever.
Takato smiled, hope in his eyes… and credits.
“... That’s it?” I muttered as I paused the video, Crunchyroll skidding to a stop. “That’s how it ends? No reunion? What about the promise they made? What about their happy ending? After everything they went through…”
‘No, Aaron. They’re fictional characters. The show ended over 20 years ago. You just got into the franchise, you of all people shouldn’t be…’
I shook those thoughts away and stood up, looking around at my extremely messy room. Dirty clothes were strewn around the floor, a few Dr Pepper cans were resting on my bedside table, and a dirty plate from lunch rested about half a foot from my Switch. Mom’d kill me if she knew how dirty this room was… but taking a look at that plate reminded me that I needed something to eat.
“I think we’ve got some snacks in the pantry…” I muttered to myself as I walked to my door. I could probably clean up after grabbing one. “But still… Takato, Ruki, Jianliang and the rest… they deserved their happy ending. I kinda wish I could help ‘em… but they ain’t real, right? Fanfiction’s probably my best bet.”
I chuckled to myself as I ambled down to the pantry, not noticing the new window on my laptop screen and the binary that slowly filled it up…
01010010 01000101 01000001 01000100 01011001 00101110 00100000 00101101 00111110
01011001 01001111 01010101 01010010 00100000 01000100 01000101 01010011 01001001 01010010 01000101 00100000 01001000 01000001 01010011 00100000 01000010 01000101 01000101 01001110 00100000 01001000 01000101 01000001 01010010 01000100 00101110 00100000 00101101 00111110
01010111 01000101 00100000 01010111 01001001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01000111 01010010 01000001 01001110 01010100 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 01010010 00100000 01010111 01001001 01010011 01001000 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 00101101 00111110
I returned a few minutes later with a Swiss Roll, ready to finally buckle down and start studying for a test I had in a few days, when I finally noticed the strange window.
“... That wasn’t there before…” I muttered, planning on X-ing out of the window and running a virus scan, just in case. However, the window wouldn’t go away!
“That’s not good… what do I do…?” I muttered, whipping out my phone and trying to search for an answer online. As I did so, more binary text started to fill the window, adding to my panic.
00110011 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 00101101 00111110
00110010 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 00101101 00111110
00110001 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 00101101 00111110
Now, I wasn’t fluent in binary, but I was pretty sure that the first number in those strings were… well, numbers. And they were counting down.
“W-what are they counting down to?” I whispered to myself under my breath. I wanted to run, scream, do something, but I was frozen in place. All I could do was watch, the Swiss Roll I had grabbed fallen to the floor, forgotten.
01000111 01001111 00100001 00100000 00101101 00111110
Suddenly, my computer shut itself off. Nothing happened. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, and cautiously walked to my computer. I was going into Computer Science for a living, I needed to know how to deal with weird viruses like this. So, while my Google Search was loading, I turned on my Laptop again…
Only for a blinding light to shine forth from the screen.
I tried to call for help, but my call was absorbed by the light…
I wasn’t sure where I was… but it was foggy. I somehow knew this before I even opened my eyes. It was so foggy, I could barely see an inch in front of me. I pushed my glasses up closer to my eyes, hoping that would somehow clear the fog a little, but I was too out of it to notice if it did or not.
In any case, I staggered forward, trying to find out where I was, but I couldn’t. The fog was too thick. So, I kept walking. Eventually, the fog thinned just enough for me to make out my surroundings… and I was in a park of some kind?
“What…?” I muttered. When did I get here? Where… is here? I… I needed to get home. I continued to stumble forward until I saw a small concrete building. I needed to get home… but I was exhausted. I didn’t know why, but I needed to sleep. So, figuring that I could find home tomorrow, I walked up to the building, pushed open the gate, and slumped against the wall, falling into a dreamless sleep.
(3rd Person P.o.V)
Not too far away from where Aaron slept, a young girl walked out of what seemed to be a concentration of fog, a grimace on her face.
“Renamon.” She said coldly to the empty park around her. “You said you sensed a Digimon around here, right? It’s not showing up on my Digivice. Where is it?”
Suddenly, as if materializing from nowhere, an anthropomorphic yellow fox appeared in front of the girl.
“It’s fast, whatever it is. Its presence is faint already… but I can feel it in the direction of that small shed over there.” The fox, presumably Renamon, gestured to the concrete fixture in the middle of the park.
“I take it you checked to see if the digimon is hiding there?” The girl asked.
“I did. There is no Digimon there. The only one in that shed is a homeless human boy, about your age, if I were to hazard a guess. There’s barely any room to hide in that place anyway.”
“... This was a worthless trip, then.” The girl said. “If the Digimon was able to run away that quickly, we won’t be able to find it tonight. I’m heading home. Keep an eye out for the Digimon. Tomorrow, we take it out.”
“Of course, Ruki.” Renamon said, vanishing from sight. The girl, Ruki, let out a frustrated sigh as she walked away, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her trench coat. Tomorrow will be a new day. Tomorrow… everything would begin.