In-Betweens

[armoredamphibian]

OOC: Now, this was originally an RP idea that didn't work, so I made it into the beginnings of a fanfic. If anyone wants to use this concept for another RP, I'm all for it.

A few things to clarify: It takes place in 2110. We've got flying cars, but they can only hover a few inches off the ground. Also, Digimon are now universally accepted in the real world, same with humans in the Digital world. DATS is still around, but they only deal with criminal Digimon, not the ones trying to make a living in the real world. All DigiDestineds, Chosen Children, Tamers, etc, are simply referred to as Chosen. Digimon are commonly referred to as monsters. And Golden Axe is a revived videogame.

Thank you and enjoy!

* * *

With a deep breath, Eric took in the first few sweet moments of freedom. Summer vacation was beginning and seventh grade was over, a year he thought he’d never survive. Elementary school was now a distant past fantasy to him.

Eric liked education, nothing doubting that. What he didn’t like were the annoying and rough kids from every other grade. The monsters were even worse, constantly showing off their superiority to the humans, and it was really bad if you ended up crossing a tough kid with a tough Digimon partner…

“Yo, Eric!”

The twelve-year-old boy turned and saw his two best friends, who had followed him from fifth grade into middle school, running to catch up with him; Dennis and Stevey.

Eric patiently stood still, then walked beside them when they finally reached them. “I only heard rumors. What happened this time?” He asked Dennis.

Dennis grinned proudly. “Well, this eighth grader thought he’d have an end-of-the-year rematch with me, but I showed him a thing or two. Then we had to spend the rest of the day in detention!” Dennis was short and skinny, but could win fights just with speed and trickery, something older jocks with their slow bulk couldn’t compete with. Dennis did not depend on his partner, unlike most Chosens. On the contrary, the two foot tall blue-skinned Veemon, Stevey, was just a few steps away from being a pacifist.

“For Sovereign’s sake, that’s nothing to be proud of!” Stevey scolded after the human had finished his glory story. “You got lucky this year, but if you keep this fighting streak up, they won’t even let you NEAR the school! Then how will you get an education and become a mechanic?”

“Me? I’ll just learn from my dad,” he stated casually, then added with a stiff and daggerish tone in his voice, “I don’t remember calling you Dad.”

Eric chuckled. “Why don’t you two settle this at my place? Super Smash Bros.: Warfront just arrived today.”

The other two just stared. “I…I thought the preorder delivery date for that game was June twenty-third!” Stevey stammered.

“I’m just as surprised as you are. Wanna come over today? You can play as the Golden Axe characters.”

“I’d love to, but…” Dennis shuddered slightly, “…my mom wants to take me shopping for summer clothes right after school.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, but I’ll ask her if we can come over later.”

“Great! Well, see you then, guys, and, uh, good luck with the shopping!”

“Many thanks, Eric, we will need it!” Stevey called. The two jogged a short distance away and then climbed onto the parked yellow school bus. Eric waved as it hissed to life, hovered about a foot from the ground, then gently shot down the road.

Eric lived in an apartment in Downtown Trenton, which the school wasn’t too far from. After seeing his friends off, he began making his way down the road and into the city. With fantasies of all the new levels and characters the SSBW trailers promised it would have, Eric was too busy to notice how deserted the streets were as he made his way through the downtown.

Only a piercing scream brought him out of his daydreams and started focusing. Startled pigeons fluttered up past the buildings, and Eric was suddenly gripped with a cold fear. Everyone was gone. Store doors hung ajar, still swaying as if the owners had only just burst out of them a little bit ago. A foul odor hung heavily in the air. The typical chatter, footsteps, and the soft, electronic hum of cars were gone.

Cursing, Eric spun around and began walking back, then running. This was far from normal, and he didn’t want to find out why.

It was a good thing too. A slithering, stampeding sort of noise suddenly came behind him, but he didn’t bother to look back to see what was chasing him, even when a screeching voice taunted, “Come here, you tasty little mouthful, I only want to have you for tea!!”

It could only be a Rogue…Digimon, that is. Most Digimon nowadays had settled down and had become more civilized, but there were still some that liked wreaking havoc in both worlds. A few scientists theorized that some Digimon just had problems dealing with their natural instincts, something they called “Digital Instinctual Compulsion Disorder,” or, “DICD.” Most people, however, agreed that some Digimon, like humans, were just big jerks.

One such Jerk was tailing Eric through the abandoned Downtown with shrieking laughter. Panicking, he knew that the monster was coming closer, though he still didn’t dare turn to see her.

As he turned the corner, he spotted an alleyway ahead of him and automatically turned into it. He slipped on something as he did so, falling right on his butt, but clambered back up despite the shooting pain and ducked behind a trashcan.

From his hiding place, he spied the ballooning yellow head emerge from around the corner and hesitate. It was a Blossomon. The name was a bit ironic, sounding like some cute, cheery flower Digimon, but in reality, she was a beastly behemoth. With a head ringed with razor-sharp petals, a body of twisting, thorny vines, and teeth the size, and shape, of swords, she was among the most frightening of monsters.

And judging by the smell, Eric was sure that this was Reflesia, an uncaptured Rogue often mentioned in the news. She could travel between both worlds with near effortlessness, and was said to command an army of Kiwimon, flightless bird Digimon. No one was sure why she smelled like compost and rotting meat, but everyone had their theories. Some said she had swallowed a Raremon, a sewage Digimon, at some point, while others claimed jokingly that it was the brand of perfume she used. Everyone agreed on one thing though: Reflesia was the perfect name for her.

Reflesia gazed from the alleyway Eric was crouched in to the store across the street that was, “For Sale!” the continuous grin spread across her face.

“My, my! What a clever little boy,” she said in a loud sarcastic voice. “I wonder, oh, I do, where he could have run off to.”

With a flash of vines, she suddenly struck the windows of the empty building, and proceeded to dissect it, tearing out walls and floorboards with her vines, for the boy who wasn’t hiding in it.

The real one across the street, however, forgot how to breath.

After practically demolishing the unpurchased shop, ensuring that it would never be sold, the only things Reflesia found were a few rats, which she popped into her cavernous mouth like peanuts. Then she turned to the alley.

There was no escape. The alley ended with a solid brick wall, and even if it hadn’t, Eric was rooted to the spot, unable to think or move. He wanted to scream a final plea of help, but his lungs were empty. If only Dennis’s mom hadn’t wanted to take him shopping today! Stevey would have rescued them, or the extra head would have warned the others before heading into the dangerous territory. Now Reflesia was going to literally comb the alleyway and surely find him!

Reflesia eyed the alley, let out a repulsed sounding grunt, and…and moved on.

Eric blinked with disbelief at what he was seeing. She was leaving, without bothering to check the alley! It was a miracle, and even though he wasn’t really that much a Christian, he sent a quick prayer up to God for thanks.

He waited for the sound shuffling of vines to disappear before allowing himself to breath normally again. With stiff legs and a sore butt, Eric pushed himself to his feet, took a few careful steps, and fell down once more.

That’s when he spotted it. It was the same thing he had tripped on before but hadn’t noticed it yet. It was perfectly round, about the size of a softball, and was white and pale blue in color. There was also a screen on it, bubbled with the construction, but completely dark.

Is that a Digivice? Eric thought hopefully, snatching it up from the ground and examining it. He had always wanted to be a DigiDestined, or a Tamer, or any of the other kinds of Chosens. Dennis was a Tamer, but this thing didn’t look anything like his D-Power, the Digivice that Tamers used.

This only added to Eric’s excitement as he anticipated the possibility of him being special and having a Digivice that no one else did. Reflesia will be sorry if she ever messes with me again, he thought with a smirk.

And besides, his train of thought continued, didn’t Mom want another kid? I know she was thinking about adopting someone, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind having a Digimon in the house.

But how could he turn it on, he wondered. There was a large orange triangular button at the bottom of the screen, so he pushed it…

…An act which he would forever regret.

Nothing bad happened at first. The screen suddenly flashed to life with yellow light. Floating luminescent specks began drifting out of it and floating around an entranced Eric like fireflies with their lights stuck on. Suddenly, one in front of him stopped moving, and flew forward, stricking him in the chest.

Eric might as well have been kicked. There wasn’t any real force to it, but the shock and pain that immediately followed the impact caused him to keel and drop the round Digivice.

But it didn’t stop. Eric was pelted everywhere by the once friendly lights. They came at him like bullets, each one feeling like a stab. He did scream, but only for a second, for one speck had flown into his open mouth, causing him to gag.

He finally crumpled to the ground. Had he been standing before? He didn’t quite know what had happened…wasn’t sure if he was still alive…the pain was growing distant…not going away…just like he couldn’t feel it anymore…life…flashed before his eyes…Eric blinked…he was getting drowsy…but it wasn’t his life…it was someone…fighting…must’ve been very short…bouncy…

…could spit pink bubbles…

[armoredamphibian]

A sound. A voice.

“Wake up! Wake up, already!”

A name. Mine.

“Eric…? Eric! Wake up this instant!”

So I did. I struggled to open my eyes. The sudden light was blinding, but I managed to keep them open long enough to get used to it. In front of me was a face I’d recognize anywhere, and it relieved me. After spending an endless amount of time with all those weird visions, I was happy to see something I knew. He was about two feet tall, had blue fur with a white belly with yellow markings on his face, and red eyes.

“…Stevey…” I muttered. Despite how much of an effort it was to say the simple name, it also pleased me: I hadn’t forgotten the real world.

Stevey seemed to hesitate. “Um, Eric, are you feeling well at all?”

What a weird question. Other than my sore butt and being completely exhausted, I felt fine. Well, actually, when I thought about it, I did feel that something was wrong. Completely wrong, but I couldn’t place my finger on it.

“Yeah…I’m okay,” I muttered, a half-lie.

“Very well, but…” once again, he seemed hesitant, “…you don’t--oh how should I put this--LOOK all that well, know what I mean?”

An icy chill spread over me. It felt as though I had been waiting for him to say that. “What…What do you mean?” I asked, unable to hide the tremble from my voice.

“Well…I…you…look at your hands,” Stevey ordered suddenly.

I did, even though there were a hundred alarms ringing in my head. I lifted them, and at first I didn’t notice anything wrong. Then I realized that they were pale.

Inhumanly pale.

I was no Indian, but even my skin hadn’t been that pale.

And, as I traced my arms with horror, they were pale too, and I was guessing the rest of me was that same supernatural color.

My eyes widened, and I heard Stevey gasp. “Come to think of it, your eyes are an odd color too. They’re bright red, almost like mine, but no whites that I can see.”

There wasn‘t a mirror anywhere nearby, so I just sort of stared at him.

“You are Eric, aren’t you?”

“Of course!” I croaked.

“Well, you smell different now. Almost like a…” he didn’t finish his sentence, partly because…

“HEY, STEVEY!” a deafening voice cried out, a voice I should have been glad to hear, but it was…so LOUD. “DID YOU FIND HIM YET?!”

“Yes, Dennis,” Stevey replied through clenched teeth. “And please talk a little softer. We Digimon have sensitive hearing.”

Another sickening thought hit me. Dennis was talking no louder than when we would joke together. The loud but not shouting voice he’d use to laugh with. Nothing that would make my eardrums hurt as much as they were now.

Speaking of ears, I could feel mine touching the brick wall Stevey had propped me up against, even though the back of my head wasn’t.

A boy my age, Dennis, suddenly appeared in front of me, skidding to a stop and staring. “WOAH, ERIC!” He exclaimed, ignoring Stevey’s request, “HAVE YOU BEEN COSPLAYING OR SOMETHING?? YOU LOOK SORTA LIKE A KOROMON!”

Koromon. That was the Digimon I had been looking through the eyes of while I was out. It made sense…in a way I didn’t understand. I wasn’t surprised, amazingly enough, which in itself was surprising, but I still felt that I was coming down with something. I was dizzy with terror.

“Bu-u-ut thi-i-is…can‘t…happen!” Each word was an athletic feat for me, but I persisted. I had to make sense of this, because even though half of me recognized what had happened, the other half was in denial. “Humans…they can’t…they just can’t…”

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!” Dennis demanded, “JUST CAUSE SOME NUTCASE DRESSED YOU UP IN YOUR SLEEP DOESN’T MEAN YOU NEED TO GET ALL…!”

“This is no cosplay!” Stevey hissed, cutting his partner off. “I can assure you that Eric has really transformed.”

There was a long silence after this.

“What, he’s turning into a Digimon? Come on, what kind of idiot do you take me for?”

I found myself hating not being taken seriously.

“Shut up.” I wheezed. I had really wanted to shout it.

“Make me. Oh! Why don’t you Digivolve and teach me a lesson, eh?”

“Shut up!” A little louder this time.

“HEY! MAYBE YOU’RE A BIO-DIGIMON LIKE FROM THAT ONE MOVIE: ATTACK OF THE--”

“Shut UP!!”

The “up” had lasted for a full second, and I squeezed my eyes shut for emphasis, but I wish I hadn’t. I suddenly heard Dennis yelp, looked, and saw him clutching his arm, face convulsed in pain.

“WHAT’D JA DO THAT FOR, STEVEY!?!” He screamed at the Veemon.

“That was Eric, you idiot. I can’t shoot acid bubbles,” Stevey replied matter-of-factly. “And quite honestly, you deserved it.”

Upon hearing this, the other half of me surrendered, and so did Dennis. He sunk to the ground on trembling knees. “I…I believe it now, man.”

OOC: Now this chapter may have seemed a bit confusing. For one thing, I've switched perspectives, and I'll most likely be doing so for every scene, chapter, whatever these separate sections should be called. I'm not going to tell you whose, cause I think you're all smart enough people to figure it out on your own.

Also, in this time, it's been ages since anyone has biomerged, spirit evolved, hyper bio-evolved, etc, hence Eric's bewildered reaction to his transformation.

Oh yeah, and something I forgot to mention. These monsters have their own personal names. Why not? There's other Veemons besides Davis's and Dennis's, so why the heck shouldn't they have names to distinguish each other?

[lonewolf]

good stuff. I'm kind of halfway with the nickname issue, sometimes it's hard to come up with a good name. Since I have such a plain name I kind of like my names really out there, or symbolizing something, but you know all about that, don't you?

[armoredamphibian]

OOC: Thank you for reviewing, Lupine. In my story, monsters and humans are all on an equal social level, so a Veemon named Azudrac wouldn't be unheard of, but it's more likely to have a name that any mother would give her children. (In Stevey's case, he came to Dennis's family when Dennis was still in diapers, so his mom is sort of Stevey's foster mom.)

* * *

Despite all that had gone on in the city that day, everything seemed to have returned to normal. The familiar buzz of voices, wings, feet, cars, and laughter was back, but it was still less crowded than usual.

The calm was unreal to Eric. Something that had never happened before had just happened, and he, as a result, was forced to wear dark glasses to cover his eyes, and a hat for his ears, both given to him from Dennis. His skin and scent, unfortunately, could not be hidden, but no one looked at him long enough to realize how unnaturally pale he was, and Reflesia’s slowly fading stench made it hard for Digimon to distinguish one smell from another, so said Stevey. (But Eric himself noticed how confusing all the odors were as well.) He knew he was safe for now, but he couldn't understand the normality of everything else. Even if he hadn't changed partially into a Koromon, the Rogue attack...it was as though it had never happened, none of it.

“When did Reflesia leave?” Eric asked, peeking over the dark glasses.

“What? Oh, her,” Dennis replied, shrugging. “DATS already got her.”

Eric blinked. “They did? How?”

“I'm not sure. Details are foggy, but apparently, the Trenton DATS team attacked and drove her into the Digi-World, while another team happened to meet her on the other side.”

“But they didn’t reduce her to a Digi-egg,” piped in Stevey. “I heard that she was being sent to a research lab.” He sighed and shook his head. “Normally in situations like these, I’d begin a petition about how such a thing violates the Monster Rights treaty, but what has happened to YOU, Eric, requires immediate attention.”

Every Rogue’s nightmare was being a prisoner of the DATS Research lab. Though the place was protected by the government, hundreds of horrible rumors circled the place like vultures. Nauseating, twisted legends whispered in the dead of night that made even the perfectly innocent, be they Digimon or human, tremble in fear. Only the strongest Megas and Ultimates went there…to be taken apart, byte by agonizing byte, and recycled. No one was even sure that the unfortunate Digimon were allowed to restore themselves as Digi-eggs…

Eric, for one, had no pity for Reflesia, however. After all, it was her fault for chasing him into that alley where he got partially turned into a Koromon. Then again, now that he was sort of a Digimon, the thought of that place was suddenly scarier…

Being sort of a Digimon by itself was terrifying. Eric had gotten over the initial shock, but he was still worried about how he had changed, and why. In a way, he was knowledge hungry, as he was with many subjects, but with this, what choice did he have but to learn all he could about this transformation? He had to turn back somehow. It was more of a horrified fascination.

“Yeah, Eric,” Dennis asked suddenly. “Why are you so worried about that stinky thug? Did she have something to do with your...you know?”

“Sort of,” Eric replied. “She chased me into that alley and that’s where I found a stupid Digivice, which I’m pretty sure made me like this.”

“You mean this thing?” Dennis asked while casually holding up the same spherical device.

Eric snapped his attention. “DON‘T TOUCH IT!!” he yelled, but too late. Dennis pressed the button…

…and nothing happened.

“Sweet Celestial Angels!” Stevey scolded. “Don’t scare me like that, Eric!”

Eric could only sigh with relief when he saw that the screen of the device remained dark.

“So I guess this Digivice already used its power on you,” Dennis said observantly.

“Yeah, but so what?” Eric replied defiantly. “I’m not touching that thing again. Next time it’ll probably make me a Koromon the rest of the way. If it doesn‘t do anything to you, you can keep it for all I care.”

Dennis shrugged. “Just makin’ sure. I knew it wouldn’t affect me anyway.”

Eric blinked. “Really? Why?”

“Cause none o’ the other ones did.”

“Other ones?”

“Yeah. My dad keeps, like, a ton of these in the garage.”

“I’d say about twelve, actually,” Stevey corrected. “Eric’s would make thirteen.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dennis continued. “So, anyway, yeah. We find them lying all over the city. From everywhere we’ve moved, actually. It’s like someone’s dropping them on purpose. And God knows how many we‘ve missed.”

The thought suddenly chilled Eric. A device capable of halfway turning certain humans into monsters, lying around in places where anyone could pick it up…then again, he’d never actually heard of something like this happening before. NOTHING like this had happened before in all the history of Digimon. Yeah, Digimon could disguise themselves as humans, which must have spawned all of the crazy myths and false history, but it was never like this, partly monster and partly human, not even in the movies. Humans were humans, monsters were monsters. Comparing the two was like trying to relate a carrot to a floppy disk. One doesn‘t spontaneously become another…

“So why don’t these things affect you or your dad?” Eric asked, trying to take his mind off of all the rules of anatomy and science, ones that had been drummed into his head in school, which were now being broken.

“Well, ‘cause they’re Digivices, duh!” Dennis said as if it were obvious. After the blank look on Eric’s face, Stevey sighed.

“Allow me to elaborate: All Digivices, even manmade ones like the iC series, are linked to the person who owns them, and therefore, cannot be used by anyone else. In other words, all those round, weird Digivices like yours that our father has, they all have an owner, we just don’t know who they are. That‘s our theory anyway.”

Eric hadn’t known any of that. He figured he could slash a card through Dennis’s D-Power and modify Stevey with permission, but apparently not. “And let me guess: Dennis is safe because he has his D-Power, and Chosens can’t have more than one Digivice, right?”

“Well, Eric,” the Veemon replied wistfully, glancing into the sky, “this Digivice has already broken what we thought as an unchangeable law, and it may or may not violate another.”

[armoredamphibian]

I was human again. I walked along a dark void, my only company a Koromon. We didn’t say anything to each other, not even to decide which direction to go. The Koromon would not leave my side, and I felt compelled not to leave his either.

The silence beginning to get to me, I finally gave in and turned to the little monster. He had done the same, as if he had been wanting what I did: a conversation.

I don’t remember what I said, only that the Koromon said the exact same thing as I said it, stopping in surprise as I had when I heard him. I said something else, and he copied my words with, once again, perfect timing. I took a step away from him, and he bounced back at the same time. I waved my right hand, he waved his left ear.

I was never very good at reading the expressions of Digimon, but it was clear that the fear and shock on his face was only my own as the truth slowly dawned on me. I had been watching this whole scene from a third person perspective. The human looked like me, but only part of me. The Koromon was the other part. And there I was in the middle, somewhere in between my two sides as they gaped at each other. In between…middle…torn in half…neither but both…Eric…

“Eric? Are you alright? You’ve been there since I came home yesterday. Are you still sick?”

Putting on my best sore throat voice, I creaked, “Yeah.”

I heard a fumbling with the doorknob and quickly hid my head under the covers of my bed before my mom came into the room.

“I have some cream of wheat and some clean pajamas for you,” she offered. I then heard a nearing of footsteps and her voice becoming irritated and impatient. “Come on! At least come out and play your new game!”

“No!” I moaned. “I don’t feel like it right now.”

I heard her make a frustrated sound as the tray clattered gently onto the bedside table. “If you’re still in bed by the time I come back, I’m taking you to the doctor, got it?”

“Fine,” I muttered apathetically, internally panicking. The door shut again, and all was silent. A few minutes later, I heard her bustle out the front door.

I got out of bed and crept toward the window, crawling with one hand and using the other to hold my ears out of sight. I looked out and saw the small parking lot, which was pretty full, seeing as it was Saturday. We lived in a small square-shaped building, with the rooms surrounding a small courtyard--I think it used to be a hotel or something. My room happened to be facing the parking lot outside, which I was now looking down upon. Our apartment was on the fourth floor, but I could still pick out my brown-haired, finely dressed mother walking out to our white car. She worked most of the day ever since my dad divorced her several years before. She got into a white car and drifted away. Once I was sure she was gone, I got up and went to the bathroom, and in the mirror I saw a creature.

Not a human, not a Koromon, but a human with Koromon skin, eyes, and ears.

It took me three full seconds to remember that it was me.

My eyes scared me the most. I didn’t see any differently with them, but they didn’t look like they belonged to me at all. The combination of red and black made me look like I was wearing contacts and heavy eyeliner. However, even that description doesn’t sum up the fierce, alien look I had as I regarded myself. Even if I did claim to be a furry, there were no two ways about it: I looked like a freak.

For an instant, I was wondering how this had happened until yesterday’s events came rushing back to me. Dennis’ mom taking him and Stevey shopping; me being stupid enough to wander into a Digimon’s territory; getting chased into the alley by Reflesia, the stinky Blossomon; finding the weird sphere-shaped Digivice; my life as a Koromon.

Enough of this, I thought angrily while grabbing some an aspirin, Dennis said he and his dad would figure this out. I should just stop thinking for a while and relax.

The first step to this was to make sure that when my mom did come home, I could at least delay the inevitable with a decent disguise. I found my mom’s make-up kit--God, the thought chills me even today--and spread some of the skin-colored goop all over my face. With the sunglasses, a long-sleeved shirt, and a baseball cap, I did look more or less normal again. It was just hot, so I opened all the windows.

Even so, I knew it wouldn’t last forever. My mom’s no idiot, and I wasn’t sure that Dennis and his dad could turn me back to normal before she found out. But it was all I could do.

So what better way to keep my mind off of things than to play an early-released Super Smash Bros.: Warfront? I hadn’t been able to play it since I had to fake sick, but now that I had finished my disguise, I eagerly rushed to the living room and switched the TV on.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t already on the consol station, and the news report that was on gave me bigger things to worry about than my transformation.

“Police report that at 6:00 AM this morning, a criminal Blossomon, widely known as ‘the Reflesia,’ broke out of the DATS Research lab and apparently vanished into the Digital world. Tracers have been repeatedly sent by our Hypnos headquarters, all failing to find her. We will keep you updated on this story.”

Wonderful, I thought as I quickly changed the station. As if it wasn’t enough for me to get chased into an alleyway and get messed up. But for myself, I felt strangely secure. As I recalled, something about the alley I had been hiding in had repelled Reflesia, made her decide that I wasn’t worth it. And now that I had witnessed the power of that weird Digivice, I had little doubt what it had been that made her hesitate.

As it turned out, the SSBW version I had must have been a beta, because it was extremely buggy, and some of the levels and characters I tried to use made the game crash. There was no wi-fi, most likely because I was the only kid in the US to own this game, and Japanese kids were probably sleeping at this time, and the story mode was about as epic as a Naruto plotline with twice as many cutscenes. Being stubborn and desperate to keep my mind occupied with something other than a loose fugitive, I kept at it, trying to find which characters to play as and which levels to fight on.

If only I had watched the news.

It was about nine o’ clock when I heard a loud crash from the door of our apartment. I, acting on impulse, darted for the door, but didn’t even make it halfway. Something grabbed me by the collar of my nightshirt and flung me back against the couch. Struggling, I looked up and saw the intruder.

It was a Kiwimon. Six feet tall, long-legged, wingless, brown feathered, large green leaves for a crest, and a metal mask that started from the back of his head to the tip of his needle-like beak. With emerald colored eyes, he regarded me more with curiosity than malice. My hat and glasses had fallen off from the flight, so it was a small wonder why.

“So you’re the strange scent I picked up?” he squawked, a parrot-with-a-sore-throat sort of voice. “Aah! You are strange-looking yourself.”

“I don’t need some overgrown emu to tell me that!” I snapped angrily. Yeah, I know. That should have been the last thing I needed to be worried about, but I had a feeling comments like that were going to be said about me an awful lot in the near future, and I was already sick of them.

The bird gave a great, cackling laugh. “Overgrown emu! That’s a good one! I get ostrich-thing a lot, or also filthy bird. Gotta love the funny names you humans give us!” He took a step toward me.

I began to get nervous. If this was a Rogue, which there was little doubt in my mind that he was, the last thing I wanted to do was get on his bad side. “Listen, buddy. I was just mad, okay? Don’t take the emu thing personally.”

“Aw, I could care less,” he replied, still chuckling. “But I gotta say, you are a strange little thing. I bet you’ll make an exotic meal for the Mistress.” He drew even nearer.

Terror-stricken, I stammered, “Y-you don’t m-mean…Reflesia, do you?”

“Z’at watcha humans call ‘er? Yeah, Reflesia then, and you better believe she’s hungry after losing forty-three megabytes in the lab yesterday.”

I was so scared my breaths became ragged and uneven. “Wait! P-p-p-please! I…I don’t want to…to…to…”

“Die? Pah! Who does?” Kiwimon snorted. He was about to snatch me up again when I, almost involuntarily, gagged as if I had coughed and hiccupped at the same time. To my horror, or joy, or whatever I was feeling at that moment, a pink bubble flew from my mouth and popped, bull’s-eye, right on his eye.

“Holy Drimoge!” he yelped, backing away and spasmodically shaking his head. I don’t think I really hurt him that badly, but the shock of an actual attack by a half-Digimon person was enough to stop him in his tracks. In any case, I used this opportunity to duck past the startled bird, out the door, and into the complex‘s parking lot.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get far. Before I realized it, I was facedown on the asphalt with a giant bird’s foot pinning me there. The sudden blow left me slightly disorientated.

“Nice try, you little brat,” cackled a second Kiwimon, the one that was holding me down.

Footsteps, and I could just see the first one running up from my position. “Thanks, Beatrice, now hand ‘im over?”

“WHAT!” the second one, Beatrice, exclaimed loudly. “No way, Jose! I caught ‘im, and I’m gonna be the one who wins her favor!”

“Yeah, well I spotted ‘im bifore ya!” the first (Jose?) snapped. “And ‘n case ya haven’t noticed, it ain’t no ordinary kid!”

Beatrice scowled. “I ain’t blind, Jose! I see this bratty freak and the mistress will thank me fer givin’ her such a nice snack.”

Jose suddenly butted Beatrice, which pushed her back and caused her to lose her grip on me. Before I could get up though, he had already snatched my arm. “No, the mistress will be thanking ME!”

Beatrice grabbed my other one, and I, in order to prevent a tug o’ war which could have had very bloody result, cried out, “If you two are such suck-ups, don’t kill me! I heard Reflesia hates dead meat!”

“Eh, whadda YOU know?!” hissed Jose.

“But she does,” admitted Beatrice thoughtfully.

OOC: In case you're wondering how Eric was allowed to preorder a Super Smash Bros game if his mom works full time, it's simple. Video games in a future where Digimon are common place a just cheaper.