Digital Helix [Digimon/Worm] [Fusion]
- Location
- parker colorado
Im kinda considering writing an omake, of war!dragon ... also armsmaster now is facing several uncomfortable inquiries into his taste.
HereticMIND
[happy_robot_dinosaur_noises.flac]
- Location
- Howard County, MD
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Yes. YES. YES.
My childhood is screaming in joy right now you don't even know. GAH this fic just makes me so happy...
Will other Digi-Destined show up? And what exactly is happening in the outside world?
My childhood is screaming in joy right now you don't even know. GAH this fic just makes me so happy...
Will other Digi-Destined show up? And what exactly is happening in the outside world?
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
Depends on how she goes back. Digimon have been known to realize in the Real World, after all.
*tilts head* I'll have to see the omake before I comment.
Thus far, Taichi Yagami has made an appearance.
- Location
- Earth Prime
True, though digidestined go back as themselves, typically. I guess it depends on whether she keeps her digimon (that is her new body).
I wonder if she'll be able to shapeshift, still.
Doru
Digital Disaster
- Location
- Canada, the internet
V-Tamers or Japanese Adventure? Because there is a huge difference between the two.
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
Check the stickied post and take a guess.
Egg 1.5.1
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
Egg 1.5.1 (Taylor)
*************************
One thing my father always told me, and I know it's a bit of a cliché, was "there's no such thing as a free lunch." Armadillomon and his Upamon friends may have given us some food, but that didn't mean that the giving was entirely for free. No. Apparently, there were some things that needed doing around the village, and since neither Armadillomon nor the Upamon had hands, let alone hands with opposable thumbs, it hadn't really gotten done. It made sense, but I really had no clue how they managed to pull it off without any human help normally. Maybe there were human-like Digimon? Dorumon didn't quite seem to count. I mean, claws didn't seem likely to help much with the job list that Armadillomon had given us.
The list was too long for us to complete one task at a time, so we split the group up, keeping Digimon with their partners, of course. For the first set of tasks, I ended up paired with Kid W—with Chris. He might have still been wearing his power armor, but he had taken his helmet off and hooked it to his belt back when Katia asked everyone to reveal themselves. MetalKoromon had taken to sitting inside the helmet where it hung, and it was cute looking at the little mouse Digimon's eyes sticking out at Chris's belt.
"So, what sort of job do we get to do?" Chris asked as he and I walked along the edge of town, following the directions that I had written down.
"We get to go fishing," I said, looking down at the sheet of paper. "That's literally the whole thing about the job. Go to the lake, catch fish, nothing more."
"Armadillomon does have to take care of all those Upamon," Dorumon said, leaning her head into me for a second. "And fish are better for them than eating non-stop pastries."
"Better for us too, I bet," I said. I wasn't exactly out of shape, but I definitely wasn't fully in shape yet. I'd intended on using part of this summer for that, maybe once I got back from camp. Emma'd probably help by shouting encouraging things while I exercised. Not everyone had a body for modeling naturally, after all. I grimaced.
"Something wrong?" Chris asked.
"Just thinking on home," I said with a small sigh. "I was going to be making a call to my friend Emma today, let her know about how Camp's been going. She was supposed to come, you know, but something came up and she ended up having a modeling session or three instead. I really think she would have enjoyed it."
"When we get back, you can at least tell her about this," Chris said with a grin. "You went fishing with a Ward, and you got to meet some others."
"I did, didn't I? Or at least I will, I mean," I said as the lake came into view. The rods we had were simply made, just bamboo poles with string and a hook. I had no clue how well this would work, but we had some bait too. "So, Chris, what about you? Back home, I mean."
"Huh?" Chris gave me a slightly confused look before he pursed his lips to mull it over. "Back home, I think my parents would be worrying about me. Especially my Mom. She's the one who found me after I… after my powers came in. When I started taking apart the toaster, she's the one who insisted on the Wards for my own safety."
"Safety?" I asked.
"You're from Brockton too, right?" Chris asked, and after I nodded, he continued. "You know how the gangs are back home. Imagine if they'd managed to get ahold of me."
"But I thought the Wards were like the Junior Protectorate. That you guys fought the gangs," I said. "Beating up bad guys, capturing criminals. Saving people. That sort of thing. How would that be safe?"
"We're actually not supposed to engage the gangs if we can avoid it," Chris said with a small wince. "At least not until we're with the Wards for a bit and we're cleared for it. I actually was on my first real patrol after two weeks of intensive testing and console duty. Before all this, I mean." He waved his hand before returning it to the fishing pole and giving it a twitch.
"So, being a Ward's boring at the beginning?" I asked.
"Sort of," he said. "Not that I'm knocking it, really. To get paid to learn how to be a superhero, to learn how to use my power effectively? That's a great thing. They actually pay a decent salary for us which gets put into a trust until we're eighteen. We make minimum wage on top of that, and they pay for our college, when we want to go. Plus, there's the Tinker benefits."
"You know I don't have powers, right?" I said with a small smile. "You don't have to sell me on the Wards since I know they wouldn't take me."
"You'd probably fit in fine," Chris said. "Triumph's pretty good as team lead, and you've met Vista. If you can bring Dorumon with you, you could probably pretend she's part of your power."
"I'm Taylor's partner," Dorumon said. "I'll come with her anywhere."
I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in a hug. "I'm glad you're with me, Dorumon."
"That Dokugumon would have gotten you for sure," Dorumon said with a nod.
"Chris?" MetalKoromon's tinny voice came from within Kid Win's helmet, hanging at his belt. "What's a Tinker? What do they do?"
"Tinkers… they're a type of superhero… powered human back on Earth Bet," Chris said. "We build things that normal science isn't far enough along on yet to build. The things we can build… they tend to be crazy things."
"Like your ray gun," I said.
"Like the ray gun, yes," Chris said with a nod as he twitched his fishing rod once more. "I actually had help with this iteration of it. Armsmaster doublechecked my work, and the two of us were supposed to be going over some blueprints later today… guess that's not happening now."
That's right, he got to work with Armsmaster. I can't believe Dad bought that pack of underwear the last time he went shopping. I'm not sure if he did it seriously, or if Dad just thought it was funny. It really could have been either. Of course, with how he's been since Mom's death… Never mind.
"So, what's he really like?" I asked, trying to keep myself from gushing. Chris didn't need to hear that. "Armsmaster, I mean. I've seen his PR appearances, but what's he like when the cameras aren't on him?"
"Honestly, pretty intimidating," Chris said with a small shudder. "He's the Tinker in Brockton Bay, and I'm just this new person. I mean, I'm a Tinker too, but I've barely made anything."
"The gun thing was neat," I said. "I couldn't imagine what it took to build something like that. Did it take you long?"
"Ah, that was easy." Chris twitched his fishing rod slightly, moving the lure. I followed his action. "I just reconfigured the capacitor so that it could discharge all at once, and the… and the…"
His face scrunched up a bit. "Okay, now I know how Missy feels."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Something to do with the powers thing?"
"The powers not working thing." Chris nodded. His voice turned wistful and disappointed. "I can't remember all the explanations on how my ray gun works and how I built it. I can barely visualize it in my mind right now."
"What's it like when your power does work?" MetalKoromon asked. "You're normally one of those power having humans, right?"
Chris twitched the fishing rod again. I wasn't sure if he was actually trying to catch anything at this point or if it had become more a nervous tick. "Yeah, I am, MetalKoromon. Normally."
"So, what's it like?"
"I don't know exactly how it is for other Tinkers, but Armsmaster implied that it tended to be similar. I'd get these ideas and the urge to build them. Sometimes, I really couldn't stop myself, even if I wanted to," Chris said. "But the feeling of putting something together, knowing that it would end up something amazing when I was done… something I could use to help make the city a better place? I wouldn't give it up for the world."
"Humans don't normally have powers, do they?" Dorumon asked.
"Not really," I said. "I know I don't. Most people don't, actually. Even parahumans don't start out with powers. They get them after something happens to give it to them."
"Let's worry about that another time," Chris said. "What about you, Taylor? You said something about a friend back home? What about your parents?"
I moved my own rod for a second. The line still seemed too loose for things to matter. Maybe we shouldn't have been talking so much during the fishing. I'd heard that was a thing.
I let out a sigh. "If they called his work and managed to reach him, Dad's probably pretty worried. I wasn't supposed to get back from camp for another two days." I very specifically didn't mention my mother. Hopefully he'd pick up on that.
"Chris mentioned a mom! Do you have a mom, Taylor?" MetalKoromon chirped its question. Because of course it did. Why would I have expected a Digimon to pick up on human subtlety?
"I did," I said, for once not feeling all too bitter about it. "She died in a car crash about a year ago."
"I'm sorry, Taylor," Chris said. "That can't be easy to deal with."
"Gets a little easier, every day, but I don't miss her any less," I said with a small sigh. "Wonder what she'd make of this."
"We could ask her!" MetalKoromon chirped. "We just need to go find her Digi-Egg at the Village of Beginnings!"
"Humans don't work like that, stupid!" Dorumon stood up and bopped the little mouse on its head. "We'd have to go to a hospital!"
"Not… exactly," I said. "Humans don't come back to life, Dorumon. They stay dead when they are killed, by whatever kills them."
"That's… not fair," Dorumon said. "If I die, I come back, but if you… No, I'm going to protect you better!"
"I'll do the same for Chris!" MetalKoromon chirped.
"That's okay, guys, tha—huh?" The line of my rod suddenly pulled tight. I reached to reel, only to realize there wasn't exactly a reel on this thing. "Okay, that's not going to work. Help me pull!"
Dorumon and Chris both reached to grab me. Chris helped with the rod, while my partner wrapped her arms around my waist and pulled backward. Whatever we were pulling felt huge. We pulled and pulled until we heard an unfortunate sound.
Snap. The line, and the upper part of my rod snapped off, pulled into the lake. I fell backward into Dorumon, and Chris fell next to me. I glared at the lake, and after a few seconds, a dog-sized Digimon's head popped out of the water. That is, the head of a dog-sized Digimon popped out of the water. It was primarily white-furred with purplish-blue markings and a mane of red fur on its head. It had lovely green eyes, and in its mouth was obviously my fishing line.
Which it promptly spat out. "Ptooie! The chewy thing's really tasty but the thing's too stringy! Oh, humans! And other Digimon. Hi! I'm Gomamon!"
I pulled out my digivice and flicked open Gomamon's entry. He was approximately on the same level as Dorumon, but he seemed friendly enough. "I'm Taylor, and this is Chris. We've got Dorumon and a MetalKoromon with us."
"So, whatcha trying to do?"
"We were trying to fish, but then you broke her fishing rod," Dorumon said.
"Pft, naah, that's not how you catch fish!" Gomamon laughed. "But I can help you! I will, as repayment for the food!"
"Okay…" Chris said. "How?"
"Like this!" Gomamon rose almost fully out of the water. He resembled some sort of seal, almost. "Marching fishes!"
Suddenly I realized how he was going to help as a veritable tidal wave of fish rose out of the lake and poured overtop of us. Gomamon was laughing. I couldn't really help it. I started to laugh too, followed shortly by Dorumon. Chris and MetalKoromon joined in after a few seconds.
We'd managed to succeed at getting the fish by failing to get the fish. It was too funny.
*************************
One thing my father always told me, and I know it's a bit of a cliché, was "there's no such thing as a free lunch." Armadillomon and his Upamon friends may have given us some food, but that didn't mean that the giving was entirely for free. No. Apparently, there were some things that needed doing around the village, and since neither Armadillomon nor the Upamon had hands, let alone hands with opposable thumbs, it hadn't really gotten done. It made sense, but I really had no clue how they managed to pull it off without any human help normally. Maybe there were human-like Digimon? Dorumon didn't quite seem to count. I mean, claws didn't seem likely to help much with the job list that Armadillomon had given us.
The list was too long for us to complete one task at a time, so we split the group up, keeping Digimon with their partners, of course. For the first set of tasks, I ended up paired with Kid W—with Chris. He might have still been wearing his power armor, but he had taken his helmet off and hooked it to his belt back when Katia asked everyone to reveal themselves. MetalKoromon had taken to sitting inside the helmet where it hung, and it was cute looking at the little mouse Digimon's eyes sticking out at Chris's belt.
"So, what sort of job do we get to do?" Chris asked as he and I walked along the edge of town, following the directions that I had written down.
"We get to go fishing," I said, looking down at the sheet of paper. "That's literally the whole thing about the job. Go to the lake, catch fish, nothing more."
"Armadillomon does have to take care of all those Upamon," Dorumon said, leaning her head into me for a second. "And fish are better for them than eating non-stop pastries."
"Better for us too, I bet," I said. I wasn't exactly out of shape, but I definitely wasn't fully in shape yet. I'd intended on using part of this summer for that, maybe once I got back from camp. Emma'd probably help by shouting encouraging things while I exercised. Not everyone had a body for modeling naturally, after all. I grimaced.
"Something wrong?" Chris asked.
"Just thinking on home," I said with a small sigh. "I was going to be making a call to my friend Emma today, let her know about how Camp's been going. She was supposed to come, you know, but something came up and she ended up having a modeling session or three instead. I really think she would have enjoyed it."
"When we get back, you can at least tell her about this," Chris said with a grin. "You went fishing with a Ward, and you got to meet some others."
"I did, didn't I? Or at least I will, I mean," I said as the lake came into view. The rods we had were simply made, just bamboo poles with string and a hook. I had no clue how well this would work, but we had some bait too. "So, Chris, what about you? Back home, I mean."
"Huh?" Chris gave me a slightly confused look before he pursed his lips to mull it over. "Back home, I think my parents would be worrying about me. Especially my Mom. She's the one who found me after I… after my powers came in. When I started taking apart the toaster, she's the one who insisted on the Wards for my own safety."
"Safety?" I asked.
"You're from Brockton too, right?" Chris asked, and after I nodded, he continued. "You know how the gangs are back home. Imagine if they'd managed to get ahold of me."
"But I thought the Wards were like the Junior Protectorate. That you guys fought the gangs," I said. "Beating up bad guys, capturing criminals. Saving people. That sort of thing. How would that be safe?"
"We're actually not supposed to engage the gangs if we can avoid it," Chris said with a small wince. "At least not until we're with the Wards for a bit and we're cleared for it. I actually was on my first real patrol after two weeks of intensive testing and console duty. Before all this, I mean." He waved his hand before returning it to the fishing pole and giving it a twitch.
"So, being a Ward's boring at the beginning?" I asked.
"Sort of," he said. "Not that I'm knocking it, really. To get paid to learn how to be a superhero, to learn how to use my power effectively? That's a great thing. They actually pay a decent salary for us which gets put into a trust until we're eighteen. We make minimum wage on top of that, and they pay for our college, when we want to go. Plus, there's the Tinker benefits."
"You know I don't have powers, right?" I said with a small smile. "You don't have to sell me on the Wards since I know they wouldn't take me."
"You'd probably fit in fine," Chris said. "Triumph's pretty good as team lead, and you've met Vista. If you can bring Dorumon with you, you could probably pretend she's part of your power."
"I'm Taylor's partner," Dorumon said. "I'll come with her anywhere."
I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in a hug. "I'm glad you're with me, Dorumon."
"That Dokugumon would have gotten you for sure," Dorumon said with a nod.
"Chris?" MetalKoromon's tinny voice came from within Kid Win's helmet, hanging at his belt. "What's a Tinker? What do they do?"
"Tinkers… they're a type of superhero… powered human back on Earth Bet," Chris said. "We build things that normal science isn't far enough along on yet to build. The things we can build… they tend to be crazy things."
"Like your ray gun," I said.
"Like the ray gun, yes," Chris said with a nod as he twitched his fishing rod once more. "I actually had help with this iteration of it. Armsmaster doublechecked my work, and the two of us were supposed to be going over some blueprints later today… guess that's not happening now."
That's right, he got to work with Armsmaster. I can't believe Dad bought that pack of underwear the last time he went shopping. I'm not sure if he did it seriously, or if Dad just thought it was funny. It really could have been either. Of course, with how he's been since Mom's death… Never mind.
"So, what's he really like?" I asked, trying to keep myself from gushing. Chris didn't need to hear that. "Armsmaster, I mean. I've seen his PR appearances, but what's he like when the cameras aren't on him?"
"Honestly, pretty intimidating," Chris said with a small shudder. "He's the Tinker in Brockton Bay, and I'm just this new person. I mean, I'm a Tinker too, but I've barely made anything."
"The gun thing was neat," I said. "I couldn't imagine what it took to build something like that. Did it take you long?"
"Ah, that was easy." Chris twitched his fishing rod slightly, moving the lure. I followed his action. "I just reconfigured the capacitor so that it could discharge all at once, and the… and the…"
His face scrunched up a bit. "Okay, now I know how Missy feels."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Something to do with the powers thing?"
"The powers not working thing." Chris nodded. His voice turned wistful and disappointed. "I can't remember all the explanations on how my ray gun works and how I built it. I can barely visualize it in my mind right now."
"What's it like when your power does work?" MetalKoromon asked. "You're normally one of those power having humans, right?"
Chris twitched the fishing rod again. I wasn't sure if he was actually trying to catch anything at this point or if it had become more a nervous tick. "Yeah, I am, MetalKoromon. Normally."
"So, what's it like?"
"I don't know exactly how it is for other Tinkers, but Armsmaster implied that it tended to be similar. I'd get these ideas and the urge to build them. Sometimes, I really couldn't stop myself, even if I wanted to," Chris said. "But the feeling of putting something together, knowing that it would end up something amazing when I was done… something I could use to help make the city a better place? I wouldn't give it up for the world."
"Humans don't normally have powers, do they?" Dorumon asked.
"Not really," I said. "I know I don't. Most people don't, actually. Even parahumans don't start out with powers. They get them after something happens to give it to them."
"Let's worry about that another time," Chris said. "What about you, Taylor? You said something about a friend back home? What about your parents?"
I moved my own rod for a second. The line still seemed too loose for things to matter. Maybe we shouldn't have been talking so much during the fishing. I'd heard that was a thing.
I let out a sigh. "If they called his work and managed to reach him, Dad's probably pretty worried. I wasn't supposed to get back from camp for another two days." I very specifically didn't mention my mother. Hopefully he'd pick up on that.
"Chris mentioned a mom! Do you have a mom, Taylor?" MetalKoromon chirped its question. Because of course it did. Why would I have expected a Digimon to pick up on human subtlety?
"I did," I said, for once not feeling all too bitter about it. "She died in a car crash about a year ago."
"I'm sorry, Taylor," Chris said. "That can't be easy to deal with."
"Gets a little easier, every day, but I don't miss her any less," I said with a small sigh. "Wonder what she'd make of this."
"We could ask her!" MetalKoromon chirped. "We just need to go find her Digi-Egg at the Village of Beginnings!"
"Humans don't work like that, stupid!" Dorumon stood up and bopped the little mouse on its head. "We'd have to go to a hospital!"
"Not… exactly," I said. "Humans don't come back to life, Dorumon. They stay dead when they are killed, by whatever kills them."
"That's… not fair," Dorumon said. "If I die, I come back, but if you… No, I'm going to protect you better!"
"I'll do the same for Chris!" MetalKoromon chirped.
"That's okay, guys, tha—huh?" The line of my rod suddenly pulled tight. I reached to reel, only to realize there wasn't exactly a reel on this thing. "Okay, that's not going to work. Help me pull!"
Dorumon and Chris both reached to grab me. Chris helped with the rod, while my partner wrapped her arms around my waist and pulled backward. Whatever we were pulling felt huge. We pulled and pulled until we heard an unfortunate sound.
Snap. The line, and the upper part of my rod snapped off, pulled into the lake. I fell backward into Dorumon, and Chris fell next to me. I glared at the lake, and after a few seconds, a dog-sized Digimon's head popped out of the water. That is, the head of a dog-sized Digimon popped out of the water. It was primarily white-furred with purplish-blue markings and a mane of red fur on its head. It had lovely green eyes, and in its mouth was obviously my fishing line.
Which it promptly spat out. "Ptooie! The chewy thing's really tasty but the thing's too stringy! Oh, humans! And other Digimon. Hi! I'm Gomamon!"
I pulled out my digivice and flicked open Gomamon's entry. He was approximately on the same level as Dorumon, but he seemed friendly enough. "I'm Taylor, and this is Chris. We've got Dorumon and a MetalKoromon with us."
"So, whatcha trying to do?"
"We were trying to fish, but then you broke her fishing rod," Dorumon said.
"Pft, naah, that's not how you catch fish!" Gomamon laughed. "But I can help you! I will, as repayment for the food!"
"Okay…" Chris said. "How?"
"Like this!" Gomamon rose almost fully out of the water. He resembled some sort of seal, almost. "Marching fishes!"
Suddenly I realized how he was going to help as a veritable tidal wave of fish rose out of the lake and poured overtop of us. Gomamon was laughing. I couldn't really help it. I started to laugh too, followed shortly by Dorumon. Chris and MetalKoromon joined in after a few seconds.
We'd managed to succeed at getting the fish by failing to get the fish. It was too funny.
Last edited:
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
So I decided to break this chapter up into sub-chapters. There will be five total. The first is with Kid Win, then comes Flechette, then Dragon, then Tecton, and finally Vista before the chapter is complete. Once the chapter is complete, I'll merge all five into a single post and threadmark at the end.
HereticMIND
[happy_robot_dinosaur_noises.flac]
- Location
- Howard County, MD
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Sounds good to me!
RexHeller
Title Incoming. Please Hold.
- Location
- Somewhere else.
Huh. That's a interesting point. I actually might use that in a story of my own. Only issue would be what trigger event Taylor could have at such a young age. Couldn't use Annette's death, since that doesn't fit so good with how triggers work. Usually, even if the trigger event is sudden, there's some stressful build up to it. But with Annette's death, there was no build up, just a sudden shift to awfulness forever. But I'd also like to keep Emma as Taylor's friend and if something happened to Danny, that would make things too dark...
Ah, sorry. I just realized that I probably shouldn't be brainstorming in this thread. Uh, the chapter was good! Happy Taylor is best Taylor in my opinion and while it's clear that she's missing Emma and her Dad, she's not depressed or in warlord mode, so that's refreshing. Plus, she's off on an adventure and making new friends, so on the whole she's pretty happy and I think that's pretty cute.
- Location
- USA
While it does seem that the buildup triggers are more common, instant triggers do happen. After all we've heard about people triggering in the middle of an Endbringer fight, or when the S9 comes to town. And if i recall correctly Miss Militia was living a normal life mere hours before her trigger.Huh. That's a interesting point. I actually might use that in a story of my own. Only issue would be what trigger event Taylor could have at such a young age. Couldn't use Annette's death, since that doesn't fit so good with how triggers work. Usually, even if the trigger event is sudden, there's some stressful build up to it. But with Annette's death, there was no build up, just a sudden shift to awfulness forever. But I'd also like to keep Emma as Taylor's friend and if something happened to Danny, that would make things too dark...
Ah, sorry. I just realized that I probably shouldn't be brainstorming in this thread. Uh, the chapter was good! Happy Taylor is best Taylor in my opinion and while it's clear that she's missing Emma and her Dad, she's not depressed or in warlord mode, so that's refreshing. Plus, she's off on an adventure and making new friends, so on the whole she's pretty happy and I think that's pretty cute.
RexHeller
Title Incoming. Please Hold.
- Location
- Somewhere else.
I'm not sure about MM. As I recall, her village was attacked, the children were captured while the adults were killed, and MM triggered when she was forced to march through a mine field to clear it out. However, I don't think the amount of time between the attack and her trigger was ever defined specifically. It might have been hours, or it might have been days.
kaelidoscopeCat
KC is fine too.
- Location
- Milky Way Galaxy
Yes, Digimon!
Childhood favourite for me. I watched Tamers many times over and in various different languages (read more than two).
I have not read Worm proper, but gotten some lore from decent fanfics here on SV. Interesting mix.
Appmon... I dropped that kinda early on. Anyone recommend finishing it?
Childhood favourite for me. I watched Tamers many times over and in various different languages (read more than two).
I have not read Worm proper, but gotten some lore from decent fanfics here on SV. Interesting mix.
The first season was decent, but the second was close to rubbish for me. Though I liked the all-star Digimon episode in the second season if only for the crossover of all the Digimon series prior.
Appmon... I dropped that kinda early on. Anyone recommend finishing it?
Egg 1.5.2 (Taylor)
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
Egg 1.5.2 (Taylor)
****************
After Chris and I brought the fish back to the village, he got snapped up by Missy for a project, leaving her partner free. Her human partner, that is. MetalKoromon and Chris teamed up with Missy and Chichimon for whatever project they were drafted for next. It didn't surprise me that Missy would want to go with her teammate. The two of them were Wards in Brockton, after all. Vista and Kid Win, even though both were relatively new, still had the camaraderie that came from being on the same team. It reminded me a bit of how Emma and I were when we were younger. Only Chris is a relatively cute boy, and the age difference between the two of them is a couple years rather than a couple months.
Regardless, this got Dorumon and I teamed up with Lily and her partner. The little fuzzball had taken up residence on the top of the Japanese girl's head. I couldn't help but grin at the adorable sight. It made Lily seem more approachable than she did otherwise. At least with Chris, we had the Brockton Bay connection, but Lily was a Ward from New York, and our first interaction was me borrowing her crossbow… arbalest… whatever. Still, she'd taken my plan quite well and been able to execute it in such a way that we dealt with our problem, albeit with the help of Katia, but I'd end up factoring her in next time. If there was a next time. Maybe Kyaromon and the others would grow like Dorumon had. I wondered idly what they would look like as I approached Lily.
"Got a new hat?" I asked, resting a hand on Dorumon's head lightly as she walked alongside me. "She looks good on you."
"I swear, she's just like a cat," Lily said. "Always wanting the highest place. Taylor, right?"
I nodded.
"Any idea what we're supposed to do next?" Lily glanced around the village. Somehow, her looks managed to miss the yellow armored Digimon walking up behind her.
"Villages like this need all sorts of help," Dorumon said. "They need to be protected."
"And food needs to be gathered," said Armadilomon. "Repairs to be made, wells to fix. Trees to chop. You two able to handle a hammer?"
"Well enough," I said, and Lily nodded, an impressive thing to see considering Kyaromon didn't move an inch. "What do you need?'
"There are some floors in a few of the buildings that need to be re-done. I can bring you the wood, but the two of you will have to place it," Armadilomon said.
"Got it," Lily said. "I suppose you don't get many able to help with that sort of thing."
"The last humans were able to do some," Armadilomon said, starting to walk. He looked back at us and made a beckoning motion with his head. Dorumon, Lily, and I followed. Kyaromon nuzzled into Lily's head.
"There were humans before them?" Dorumon asked. "I don't remember hearing about that."
"You're young," Armadilomon said. "Barely a rookie. Humans come every few years. Though not always through here."
Wait, so other humans had come here. I wondered if all of them had partner Digimon like we did. Well, most of us did. Katia kind of was her own partner there, but something just was odd about her. She was the oldest of us yet she seemed just uncomfortable in her own skin. That probably had something to do with the agoraphobia that she supposedly had. Still, other humans… I needed to know more.
"So, where do the humans usually go if not through here?" I asked.
"The Village of Beginnings," said Armadilomon. "Where all Digimon start out. They hatch from their Digi-Eggs and they're there until they reach In-Training. Then they usually go off and find places like this."
"The Village of Beginnings is where Digimon go to be reborn, Taylor, like MetalKoromon said," Dorumon said. "If a Digimon is deleted, their egg ends up there."
Kyaromon yawned. "Most of the time, yes. But we were special!"
"Just for us?" Lily asked, reaching up to pat Kyaromon's head. I swear, the two were adorable. If I could get a picture and just blur it so Lily wasn't so recognizable in the face, I'd post it to PHO in a heartbeat. "But if there were other humans, where are they now?"
Armadilomon stopped near a building that had some stairs leading up to its roof. "I wish I could tell you. But it's not like any of them came back here to tell ol' Armadilomon everything that happened with them. Maybe I worked them too hard and they resented me for it."
I shook my head. "I'm not sure that'd be it." It wasn't like he was working us all that hard. The work was even rewarding. We'd be helping a bunch of little Digimon have a better place to live in exchange for some food and lodging. "You're not working us too hard."
"Tell me that after you get done with that roof repair up there. There's some holes in that roof that need it," Armadilomon said. "Dorumon, I'll bring the wood here, you should carry the wood up for Taylor and Lily."
"Got it," she said. "You can count on me."
"What should I do?" Kyaromon asked.
"Maybe find a place to nap," Lily said. "I'm going to be bending over a lot and I don't want you falling off into the hole or something."
"Kay!" Kyaromon hopped down to the ground, following us as we climbed the stairs. "I'm going to go to the corner there, Lily."
Lily nodded. "That's a good spot. Looks like it'll be out of the way."
The rooftop itself was maybe a couple hundred square feet, and it had several holes in it. It was a mishmash of stonework, wood, some sort of hay and clay combination, and circuitry, like most things that we'd run into so far in the Digital World. I really wasn't entirely sure, but something told me that it was more the act of repairing that mattered than what materials we used to actually do the repairs.
Someone, I assumed Armadilomon, or maybe even the humans that had been in this village previously, had left a pair of hammers and some nails leaning against the side of the roof. Lily and I each grabbed one, and the handles immediately changed colors as we touched them. Mine turned a glossy black while Lily's turned purple, matching her Digivice's color.
"Huh," I said. "That's certainly weird."
"No kidding," Lily said. "But most things in this world are at least a little weird."
"True enough." I glanced down the stairs. Dorumon waved at me, and I returned her wave. Armadilomon still hadn't brought the wood as of yet, so I gave the hammer a few practice swings. "And we haven't even been here a full day yet."
"Yeah. Hard to believe." Lily looked over at Kyaromon. "Honestly, I'm half-worried that I'm stuck in some Master's dreamworld or something and my body's out doing something else without me in control."
"I… have no clue how to even handle that scenario," I said. "Because in that one, at the least, I would be some sort of creation by this dreamworld, and I'm definitely really here."
"Next thought I had was that this world itself could be a creation of a cape," Lily said. "Or an alternate, very strange, Earth."
"Like Aleph?"
"Exactly. The Protectorate doesn't like to talk about it much, but Professor Haywire very nearly kicked off a war with Aleph by making that connection," Lily said.
I nodded. "That's why they're called Aleph and we're Bet, even though our world is the one with more capes, right?"
"Exactly," Lily said. "So, if Aleph exists, surely there's Earths Gimel through Tav and beyond out there. Who's to say this isn't just Earth-Digital?"
I shook my head. "I don't think so. To get to Aleph, Haywire had to use his powers, and I don't know about you, but I didn't exactly come here under the direct influence of powers."
Lily shook her head. "No, I didn't use my powers to get here, and I'm pretty sure nobody else did."
"What are your powers, anyway?" I asked. There were so many different powers out there, and Lily… Flechette was a relatively new hero to the scene. Plus, she was from New York, not Brockton, so it wasn't like she'd be on the local news at all, anyway. "It can't be jut to fire that big crossbow. I mean, I did that. It wasn't super hard."
"Arbalest, Taylor. It's an arbalest," Lily said with a small grin. "Tinkertech even, made by my teammate, Trinity."
I nodded. "So, what's it do?"
"Normally, it's got an infinite chain, and it rewinds itself on its own. Power for it comes from a small fusion battery that I've got here. Back at the base, I have a kit that makes me more bolts," Flechette said. She was definitely Flechette there rather than Lily, even if she wasn't wearing the mask. "I can use my power to make sure everything's hitting where I want it to. Normally, anyway."
"Powers aren't working?" I asked.
"Yeah. I've tried," Lily said with a sigh. "No enhanced reflexes, no making things ignore laws of physics, no angular calculation… Of course, there's some plusses…"
"Plusses?" I asked.
"Don't worry about it. I'm not as upset about not having my powers as the others," Lily said with a smile. "Besides, the way you stepped up? Powers aren't completely necessary to be a hero. Sometimes you just need to know when to do the right thing."
I looked down for a moment and my cheeks heated up. "We needed to deal with it. The Dokugumon would have eaten us if we let it."
Lily nodded. "I hope that's not what happened to the other humans that came here. Armadilomon did say he didn't know what happened."
"Yeah," I said. "That they never came back to tell him anything. Maybe they got back home… wherever their home was."
"If it was Bet, I'm not sure why we hadn't heard of this before," Lily said, but then she shrugged. "Of course, with the whole thing with secret identities and unwritten rules, it could be something that I don't have clearance for."
"So, being a Ward doesn't get you all the information you want?" I asked. Then I shook my head. "While it would have been nice to know how they got back, if they did, it can't be helped that we don't."
"Dragon might," Lily said. "She's supposed to be an amazing hacker and tinker."
"I'll ask Katia when I talk with her," I said. "She's the oldest of us, anyway. She should be in charge."
"Maybe," said Lily. "You do a good job of it though. So—"
"I'm coming up with the wood now, Taylor!" Dorumon interrupted whatever Lily was about to say as she brought an armful of wooden slabs up the stairs. She held her arms out in front of her, and the wood rested on top of her arms and under her neck. She had another board on her back, being held up by a curling of her tail.
Lily and I quickly went to take some of it.
"Whoa, that's a lot of wood, Dorumon," Kyaromon said with a yawn. "I'm glad I'm not carrying it."
"Armadillomon dragged a whole sled here, but I could get it all," Dorumon said.
"You didn't have to do it all in one trip, silly," I said.
"But I did!" Dorumon dropped the wood down near us. "I wanted to listen to you talking more."
"Oh?" I asked.
"Yeah, you're my partner, which means I need to know more about you and Kyaromon should be paying attention to hers," said Dorumon.
"Lily is Lily," Kyaromon said. "Even when she's wearing the mask thingy that makes her look like Not-Lily."
Lily and I locked eyes for a second. The older girl broke first, and we both giggled. Kyaromon was adorable. Ems would probably think she was like a little kitten, but personally I thought she more resembled either a pudgy fuzzy ferret or a puffball with legs and ears. Still, we had only had our partners for a short while, not even a day. It didn't make sense that we should trust them so quickly, but Dorumon had worked to help save our lives. Kyaromon had been looking specifically for Lily.
I wondered if the previous humans here had partners as well and what those Digimon would say if we found them. It probably didn't matter. Unless they knew why they'd come in the first place, I wasn't sure it would be all that helpful to us. That said, they might be able to help us with other things and surviving here.
"Taylor, grab that wood there?" Lily asked, and I complied. The two of us started to hammer the wood over the broken spots in the roof. "So, Dorumon, what do you know about Taylor so far?"
"I know that she was in camp, has a father, doesn't have powers like you and the others are supposed to," Dorumon said, taking a breath. "She's also kind and strong, and we're going to make lots of new friends and be strong together. No bad Digimon is going to come past the two of us when we work together."
Lily nodded. "You keep on doing that. Kyaromon, do you think you'll get stronger too?"
"Yeah!" Kyaromon said, puffing up. "I'll be awesome! With your help, of course. "
"Yes, I'll help you," Lily said. "We're partners, right?"
"Right."
I smiled at the two of them, and I gestured for Dorumon to help me with some of the wood. "It's easy to accept these guys, isn't it?"
Lily nodded as she adjusted the wood on the ground and grabbed some nails. "Yeah. I don't think it's a Master effect, but we'd really have no way of knowing."
"Master?" Dorumon asked.
"Mind control," Lily said. "Masters can usually control something, people, animals… whichever. Of course, without powers working here…"
"Might be something different," I said with a nod. Powers were complicated, and even though I wanted them myself, I wasn't sure they necessarily were worth it. Dorumon, so far anyway, seemed a bit better. Familiar, even. "Digital stuff, probably."
I hammered some of the nails into the wood, covering up the hole in the roof. Lily took the other side, doing her own hammering, and we worked together in silence for a while. Dorumon passed us more wood when we needed it, and Kyaromon just sat and watched. It was kind of nice, working in the sunlight, albeit not exactly something I wanted to do every day.
Once we finished covering the first hole and nailing in that last nail, something strange happened. A pinging sound came from each of our waists, and our Digivices gave off a bright light. As we picked them up, the roof rippled for a second, and where we'd covered the hole, the roof suddenly was smooth with the hole filled with matching material to what surrounded it previously.
"So… we repaired the roof… and it… what?" Lily asked, looking at the space the hole was at.
I lightly placed my foot where the hole was, and then I added more weight without feeling any give. Huh. It had fully repaired itself. That… only made sense if… "Digital. This world is digital, right?"
"Yep! Digital World!" Dorumon said, practically chirping. She seemed a bit too happy. "Full of digital monsters and other things…"
"So, this roof, this building… everything around us… it's digital. Made of data?" I asked. The idea seemed crazy, but crazy was the name of the game here.
"Uh huh," Dorumon said. "Taylor, are you feeling okay?"
"Fine," I said. "So, the wood acted like filler data, and the building… more or less reformatted it. Weird."
"You sure you're not a Thinker?" Lily asked. "Because I never would have gotten that."
I waved my hand. "Just was into computers a little in middle school. I hope my high school's got a good teacher for it."
"What does any of this have to do with computers?" Lily asked. "And for that matter, why does that make any sense?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. Digital World, remember? I just went with crazy ideas, and maybe they happened to be true."
Lily looked me up and down and shook her head lightly. "Some instincts you have, Taylor."
Emma'd probably say the same thing if she were here. Of course, she never got the chance since she wasn't at camp with me. Then again, she wasn't a cape, as far as I knew, but then again, neither was I.
I missed my best friend. I never got the chance to give her that call that I'd been planning on giving her today. There was just so much about camp that I needed to tell her. Of course, now I'd have even more to tell her when we got back.
I smiled at the Ward working with me. "Lily?"
"Yes, Taylor?"
"When we get back… if we get back… Do you think it'd be okay if I got your in-costume autograph?" I asked. "My best friend is more of a cape geek than me."
"Of course," Lily said. "Just keep up those instincts. And we'll definitely get back."
If I hadn't been looking at Lily right then, I might have missed it. A slight blush tinged her cheeks. It must have been from the sun. It wasn't like there was any other reason I could think of. She hadn't said anything embarrassing.
"Yeah," I said, getting back to work. "You're probably right."
Even if we didn't get back home, spending time with these people would be worth it.
****************
After Chris and I brought the fish back to the village, he got snapped up by Missy for a project, leaving her partner free. Her human partner, that is. MetalKoromon and Chris teamed up with Missy and Chichimon for whatever project they were drafted for next. It didn't surprise me that Missy would want to go with her teammate. The two of them were Wards in Brockton, after all. Vista and Kid Win, even though both were relatively new, still had the camaraderie that came from being on the same team. It reminded me a bit of how Emma and I were when we were younger. Only Chris is a relatively cute boy, and the age difference between the two of them is a couple years rather than a couple months.
Regardless, this got Dorumon and I teamed up with Lily and her partner. The little fuzzball had taken up residence on the top of the Japanese girl's head. I couldn't help but grin at the adorable sight. It made Lily seem more approachable than she did otherwise. At least with Chris, we had the Brockton Bay connection, but Lily was a Ward from New York, and our first interaction was me borrowing her crossbow… arbalest… whatever. Still, she'd taken my plan quite well and been able to execute it in such a way that we dealt with our problem, albeit with the help of Katia, but I'd end up factoring her in next time. If there was a next time. Maybe Kyaromon and the others would grow like Dorumon had. I wondered idly what they would look like as I approached Lily.
"Got a new hat?" I asked, resting a hand on Dorumon's head lightly as she walked alongside me. "She looks good on you."
"I swear, she's just like a cat," Lily said. "Always wanting the highest place. Taylor, right?"
I nodded.
"Any idea what we're supposed to do next?" Lily glanced around the village. Somehow, her looks managed to miss the yellow armored Digimon walking up behind her.
"Villages like this need all sorts of help," Dorumon said. "They need to be protected."
"And food needs to be gathered," said Armadilomon. "Repairs to be made, wells to fix. Trees to chop. You two able to handle a hammer?"
"Well enough," I said, and Lily nodded, an impressive thing to see considering Kyaromon didn't move an inch. "What do you need?'
"There are some floors in a few of the buildings that need to be re-done. I can bring you the wood, but the two of you will have to place it," Armadilomon said.
"Got it," Lily said. "I suppose you don't get many able to help with that sort of thing."
"The last humans were able to do some," Armadilomon said, starting to walk. He looked back at us and made a beckoning motion with his head. Dorumon, Lily, and I followed. Kyaromon nuzzled into Lily's head.
"There were humans before them?" Dorumon asked. "I don't remember hearing about that."
"You're young," Armadilomon said. "Barely a rookie. Humans come every few years. Though not always through here."
Wait, so other humans had come here. I wondered if all of them had partner Digimon like we did. Well, most of us did. Katia kind of was her own partner there, but something just was odd about her. She was the oldest of us yet she seemed just uncomfortable in her own skin. That probably had something to do with the agoraphobia that she supposedly had. Still, other humans… I needed to know more.
"So, where do the humans usually go if not through here?" I asked.
"The Village of Beginnings," said Armadilomon. "Where all Digimon start out. They hatch from their Digi-Eggs and they're there until they reach In-Training. Then they usually go off and find places like this."
"The Village of Beginnings is where Digimon go to be reborn, Taylor, like MetalKoromon said," Dorumon said. "If a Digimon is deleted, their egg ends up there."
Kyaromon yawned. "Most of the time, yes. But we were special!"
"Just for us?" Lily asked, reaching up to pat Kyaromon's head. I swear, the two were adorable. If I could get a picture and just blur it so Lily wasn't so recognizable in the face, I'd post it to PHO in a heartbeat. "But if there were other humans, where are they now?"
Armadilomon stopped near a building that had some stairs leading up to its roof. "I wish I could tell you. But it's not like any of them came back here to tell ol' Armadilomon everything that happened with them. Maybe I worked them too hard and they resented me for it."
I shook my head. "I'm not sure that'd be it." It wasn't like he was working us all that hard. The work was even rewarding. We'd be helping a bunch of little Digimon have a better place to live in exchange for some food and lodging. "You're not working us too hard."
"Tell me that after you get done with that roof repair up there. There's some holes in that roof that need it," Armadilomon said. "Dorumon, I'll bring the wood here, you should carry the wood up for Taylor and Lily."
"Got it," she said. "You can count on me."
"What should I do?" Kyaromon asked.
"Maybe find a place to nap," Lily said. "I'm going to be bending over a lot and I don't want you falling off into the hole or something."
"Kay!" Kyaromon hopped down to the ground, following us as we climbed the stairs. "I'm going to go to the corner there, Lily."
Lily nodded. "That's a good spot. Looks like it'll be out of the way."
The rooftop itself was maybe a couple hundred square feet, and it had several holes in it. It was a mishmash of stonework, wood, some sort of hay and clay combination, and circuitry, like most things that we'd run into so far in the Digital World. I really wasn't entirely sure, but something told me that it was more the act of repairing that mattered than what materials we used to actually do the repairs.
Someone, I assumed Armadilomon, or maybe even the humans that had been in this village previously, had left a pair of hammers and some nails leaning against the side of the roof. Lily and I each grabbed one, and the handles immediately changed colors as we touched them. Mine turned a glossy black while Lily's turned purple, matching her Digivice's color.
"Huh," I said. "That's certainly weird."
"No kidding," Lily said. "But most things in this world are at least a little weird."
"True enough." I glanced down the stairs. Dorumon waved at me, and I returned her wave. Armadilomon still hadn't brought the wood as of yet, so I gave the hammer a few practice swings. "And we haven't even been here a full day yet."
"Yeah. Hard to believe." Lily looked over at Kyaromon. "Honestly, I'm half-worried that I'm stuck in some Master's dreamworld or something and my body's out doing something else without me in control."
"I… have no clue how to even handle that scenario," I said. "Because in that one, at the least, I would be some sort of creation by this dreamworld, and I'm definitely really here."
"Next thought I had was that this world itself could be a creation of a cape," Lily said. "Or an alternate, very strange, Earth."
"Like Aleph?"
"Exactly. The Protectorate doesn't like to talk about it much, but Professor Haywire very nearly kicked off a war with Aleph by making that connection," Lily said.
I nodded. "That's why they're called Aleph and we're Bet, even though our world is the one with more capes, right?"
"Exactly," Lily said. "So, if Aleph exists, surely there's Earths Gimel through Tav and beyond out there. Who's to say this isn't just Earth-Digital?"
I shook my head. "I don't think so. To get to Aleph, Haywire had to use his powers, and I don't know about you, but I didn't exactly come here under the direct influence of powers."
Lily shook her head. "No, I didn't use my powers to get here, and I'm pretty sure nobody else did."
"What are your powers, anyway?" I asked. There were so many different powers out there, and Lily… Flechette was a relatively new hero to the scene. Plus, she was from New York, not Brockton, so it wasn't like she'd be on the local news at all, anyway. "It can't be jut to fire that big crossbow. I mean, I did that. It wasn't super hard."
"Arbalest, Taylor. It's an arbalest," Lily said with a small grin. "Tinkertech even, made by my teammate, Trinity."
I nodded. "So, what's it do?"
"Normally, it's got an infinite chain, and it rewinds itself on its own. Power for it comes from a small fusion battery that I've got here. Back at the base, I have a kit that makes me more bolts," Flechette said. She was definitely Flechette there rather than Lily, even if she wasn't wearing the mask. "I can use my power to make sure everything's hitting where I want it to. Normally, anyway."
"Powers aren't working?" I asked.
"Yeah. I've tried," Lily said with a sigh. "No enhanced reflexes, no making things ignore laws of physics, no angular calculation… Of course, there's some plusses…"
"Plusses?" I asked.
"Don't worry about it. I'm not as upset about not having my powers as the others," Lily said with a smile. "Besides, the way you stepped up? Powers aren't completely necessary to be a hero. Sometimes you just need to know when to do the right thing."
I looked down for a moment and my cheeks heated up. "We needed to deal with it. The Dokugumon would have eaten us if we let it."
Lily nodded. "I hope that's not what happened to the other humans that came here. Armadilomon did say he didn't know what happened."
"Yeah," I said. "That they never came back to tell him anything. Maybe they got back home… wherever their home was."
"If it was Bet, I'm not sure why we hadn't heard of this before," Lily said, but then she shrugged. "Of course, with the whole thing with secret identities and unwritten rules, it could be something that I don't have clearance for."
"So, being a Ward doesn't get you all the information you want?" I asked. Then I shook my head. "While it would have been nice to know how they got back, if they did, it can't be helped that we don't."
"Dragon might," Lily said. "She's supposed to be an amazing hacker and tinker."
"I'll ask Katia when I talk with her," I said. "She's the oldest of us, anyway. She should be in charge."
"Maybe," said Lily. "You do a good job of it though. So—"
"I'm coming up with the wood now, Taylor!" Dorumon interrupted whatever Lily was about to say as she brought an armful of wooden slabs up the stairs. She held her arms out in front of her, and the wood rested on top of her arms and under her neck. She had another board on her back, being held up by a curling of her tail.
Lily and I quickly went to take some of it.
"Whoa, that's a lot of wood, Dorumon," Kyaromon said with a yawn. "I'm glad I'm not carrying it."
"Armadillomon dragged a whole sled here, but I could get it all," Dorumon said.
"You didn't have to do it all in one trip, silly," I said.
"But I did!" Dorumon dropped the wood down near us. "I wanted to listen to you talking more."
"Oh?" I asked.
"Yeah, you're my partner, which means I need to know more about you and Kyaromon should be paying attention to hers," said Dorumon.
"Lily is Lily," Kyaromon said. "Even when she's wearing the mask thingy that makes her look like Not-Lily."
Lily and I locked eyes for a second. The older girl broke first, and we both giggled. Kyaromon was adorable. Ems would probably think she was like a little kitten, but personally I thought she more resembled either a pudgy fuzzy ferret or a puffball with legs and ears. Still, we had only had our partners for a short while, not even a day. It didn't make sense that we should trust them so quickly, but Dorumon had worked to help save our lives. Kyaromon had been looking specifically for Lily.
I wondered if the previous humans here had partners as well and what those Digimon would say if we found them. It probably didn't matter. Unless they knew why they'd come in the first place, I wasn't sure it would be all that helpful to us. That said, they might be able to help us with other things and surviving here.
"Taylor, grab that wood there?" Lily asked, and I complied. The two of us started to hammer the wood over the broken spots in the roof. "So, Dorumon, what do you know about Taylor so far?"
"I know that she was in camp, has a father, doesn't have powers like you and the others are supposed to," Dorumon said, taking a breath. "She's also kind and strong, and we're going to make lots of new friends and be strong together. No bad Digimon is going to come past the two of us when we work together."
Lily nodded. "You keep on doing that. Kyaromon, do you think you'll get stronger too?"
"Yeah!" Kyaromon said, puffing up. "I'll be awesome! With your help, of course. "
"Yes, I'll help you," Lily said. "We're partners, right?"
"Right."
I smiled at the two of them, and I gestured for Dorumon to help me with some of the wood. "It's easy to accept these guys, isn't it?"
Lily nodded as she adjusted the wood on the ground and grabbed some nails. "Yeah. I don't think it's a Master effect, but we'd really have no way of knowing."
"Master?" Dorumon asked.
"Mind control," Lily said. "Masters can usually control something, people, animals… whichever. Of course, without powers working here…"
"Might be something different," I said with a nod. Powers were complicated, and even though I wanted them myself, I wasn't sure they necessarily were worth it. Dorumon, so far anyway, seemed a bit better. Familiar, even. "Digital stuff, probably."
I hammered some of the nails into the wood, covering up the hole in the roof. Lily took the other side, doing her own hammering, and we worked together in silence for a while. Dorumon passed us more wood when we needed it, and Kyaromon just sat and watched. It was kind of nice, working in the sunlight, albeit not exactly something I wanted to do every day.
Once we finished covering the first hole and nailing in that last nail, something strange happened. A pinging sound came from each of our waists, and our Digivices gave off a bright light. As we picked them up, the roof rippled for a second, and where we'd covered the hole, the roof suddenly was smooth with the hole filled with matching material to what surrounded it previously.
"So… we repaired the roof… and it… what?" Lily asked, looking at the space the hole was at.
I lightly placed my foot where the hole was, and then I added more weight without feeling any give. Huh. It had fully repaired itself. That… only made sense if… "Digital. This world is digital, right?"
"Yep! Digital World!" Dorumon said, practically chirping. She seemed a bit too happy. "Full of digital monsters and other things…"
"So, this roof, this building… everything around us… it's digital. Made of data?" I asked. The idea seemed crazy, but crazy was the name of the game here.
"Uh huh," Dorumon said. "Taylor, are you feeling okay?"
"Fine," I said. "So, the wood acted like filler data, and the building… more or less reformatted it. Weird."
"You sure you're not a Thinker?" Lily asked. "Because I never would have gotten that."
I waved my hand. "Just was into computers a little in middle school. I hope my high school's got a good teacher for it."
"What does any of this have to do with computers?" Lily asked. "And for that matter, why does that make any sense?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. Digital World, remember? I just went with crazy ideas, and maybe they happened to be true."
Lily looked me up and down and shook her head lightly. "Some instincts you have, Taylor."
Emma'd probably say the same thing if she were here. Of course, she never got the chance since she wasn't at camp with me. Then again, she wasn't a cape, as far as I knew, but then again, neither was I.
I missed my best friend. I never got the chance to give her that call that I'd been planning on giving her today. There was just so much about camp that I needed to tell her. Of course, now I'd have even more to tell her when we got back.
I smiled at the Ward working with me. "Lily?"
"Yes, Taylor?"
"When we get back… if we get back… Do you think it'd be okay if I got your in-costume autograph?" I asked. "My best friend is more of a cape geek than me."
"Of course," Lily said. "Just keep up those instincts. And we'll definitely get back."
If I hadn't been looking at Lily right then, I might have missed it. A slight blush tinged her cheeks. It must have been from the sun. It wasn't like there was any other reason I could think of. She hadn't said anything embarrassing.
"Yeah," I said, getting back to work. "You're probably right."
Even if we didn't get back home, spending time with these people would be worth it.
- Location
- Canada
Nice, a new chapter! This was pretty good. I like seeing Taylor kind of accidentally sliding into the leader role (and it seems so does Lily ), and she definitely looks to be adapting to their new environment quickly. I wonder how long it'll be before she starts to suspect about Dragon.
), and she definitely looks to be adapting to their new environment quickly. I wonder how long it'll be before she starts to suspect about Dragon.
- Location
- San Jose
Burn the vile Necroma....
Holy crow an Update!
So, I'm not as versed in Worm but what Earth Gimel and Tav?
Holy crow an Update!
So, I'm not as versed in Worm but what Earth Gimel and Tav?
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
Gimel is the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Tav is the final one. Lily was basically assuming other Earths exist beyond Aleph and Bet. (Which they do)
- Location
- USA
If it happens it's a long LONG way off. We havent even met the Big Bad yet, so speculating about getting out of the Digital World is mostly pointless.
Though the automatic DigiDestined tag is an amusing concept.
- Location
- Earth Prime
Oh, dear. Lil's got a cru~ush. Unfortunately for her, Taylor bats for the home team. (...I think that's how that metaphor is constructed, anyway; "batting for the other team" being what Lily does, right?) But Taylor's a good friend to have anyway. A very good friend to have. ...you don't want to be not-her-friend.
Hey! I resemble that remark! Burning me is rude!