Digital Odyssey: Lights Out For Darkier Skies
 

Solmon floated between the stations of the nursery, the scales of her head shimmering with different hues as she twisted her head, allowing her eyes to take in the new angles this shifting provided. It would be difficult to discern if something was amiss from merely studying her face; aside from the constant emission of blissful light, her elongated face and rhythmically flapping mouth were difficult to read. The small creatures that bounced, skittered, and lolled below her were as attuned to Solmon’s minute mood changes as they were to the hardships happening outside their nursery, a state of obliviousness that Solmon, if not nurtured, did not object to.

A series of small yelps caused the caretaker to take interest in a farther part of the sanctuary whereupon she discovered two of her wards fighting. While she tolerated the playful exercises the young ones were so prone to, this was a level further, and unnecessary skirmish. As the two combatants separated for a moment of respite and recalculation, both found themselves scooped up by Solmon’s fins, an experience similar to a child being scolded by the sun.

“And just what is this all about?” Solmon held her fins up to the sides of her face, devoting an eye to each troublemaker. “Pabumon, why were you fighting?”

“kiimon started it, i was just-“

“I don’t care who started it, it’s ended now. Apologize, the both of you.”

While initially hesitant, the two infants grumbled out an apology under the gaze of Solmon. Just to be safe, she deposited both of them into separate groups, and it was then that she realized what felt wrong. Normally the older children helped to keep order in the infants. Now there seemed to be fewer groups, with infants going unsupervised as the strain spread itself out.

Gliding over the area, Solmon finally came upon a rather large group of children formed into a circle. As odd as that behavior would have been, each seemed to be rocking back and forth, staring intently at the center of their formation. Before Solmon could set about determining what this was all about, she felt incredibly woozy, a feeling she dimly remembered from a happier time much earlier in her life. She was briefly aware that she was glowing extra bright, and then she was very aware that the circle now contained a group of…things, two-legged creatures who seemed unaware of how odd their sudden appearance was. Their arrival seemed to break the spell on the digimon children, who happily bounded to each of the newcomers, seeming to already know their names. As they touched the new arrivals, Solmon witnessed the first advanced digivolutions she had been privy to since her own so long ago.

She became aware that the rest of the nursery had lined up behind her, a mixture of fear and wonderment coursing through their minds. As the newcomers began to appear moderately aligned with this new turn of events, Solmon drew herself up, presenting an even brighter ambassadorial front.

“And just what is this all about?”

The first thing Rosetta noticed when she finally regained her senses was that something was in her lap. Wriggling around, it kept saying her name over and over in a sickeningly cute voice. Daring to look down, she was met the gaze of a giant purple teardrop, which then smiled at her.

"I'm Moonmon! You are Rosetta, right?" it asked her.

Rosetta knew only one way to answer this question - by screaming.

Backing away, it fell off her lap, and she managed to get a few feet away before she bumped into the back of something else. With a little hesitation, she turned around, before sighing in relief.

It was another human, who looked just as confused as her. Actually, all around her were other people, and they seemed to have been greeted by other strange creatures as well - which didn't seem that dangerous now that she calmed down.

Finally finding her wits again, she went back to the tear, which seemed to be on the verge of crying itself. "Moonmon, is it? How do you know my name?"

"Isn't it obvious?" No, it wasn't. "I'm your digimon partner!"

"Digi...mon? Sounds like some lame Pokemon ripoff."

This time, Moonmon really did start crying.

"H-hey, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it, honest!"

Needless to say, Rosetta was too preoccupied to answer Solmon's question.

When his senses returned Cael noticed that floating right in front of his face was a missile of some sort. That had what looked like eyes. Ok try your best not to freak out, deep breath yeah that’s right deep breaths. Oh forget that, time to run. With that thought Cael started to turn around.

“Hi, I’m Misimon, and your name is Cael right.” The talking Missile asked him.
It talks, it talks, oh what in the name of all that is holy is going on. Ok I have to stop moving, if I move it will most likely explode.

“Yeah my name is Cael, what’s it to you.” Cael told the missile while at the same time admiring the technological might that it would take to make a missile with some sort of artificial intelligence of this quality.

“Oh good, I’m your Digimon Partner we are going to have a lot of fun together” Misimon responded.

“Oh great I’m going crazy, am I dying, is this supposed to be heaven” Cael said out loud while turning around. At that moment he noticed other humans, with other creatures just like himself. But they had cute little blob like creatures, not some kind of missle.

Cael turned back to face Misimon, “Ok so let’s just say this is all real, and I am not going crazy, and this is not just a figment of my imagination, then where are we.”

Misimon’s reply was very vague for all he said was “The Digital World”

Jun squinted at all the bright colors and light. One second she was in her dimly lit workshop, carving away at a piece of clay and the next, she was whisked away to all this...brightness. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized two things: One, she wasn't in Japan anymore, and two, there was a blob like thing with dog ears in her lap. She looked at it, thinking it was kind of cute and then realized that it was talking and moving and breathing and bouncing and...she wanted to scream, but couldn't.

"Hihihihihi, you must be Jun! I'm Pupmon, your Digimon partner!" She raised an eyebrow at the thing before slapping herself in the face, hard. "Ow! Ok not dreaming..." She looked down at the thing again, "um...hi little blob thing...Pupmon...how do you know me?"

"We're destined to be partners, I've waited my whole short life to meet you."

"Ok...definitely not in Japan anymore..." She looked around, noticing other people with similar looks on their faces. She poked Pupmon in the cheek once, earning a giggle from it before picking it up. For some reason it felt like the right thing to do. "Um," she said outloud to anyone within earshot, "anyone know what's going on?"

There was a bright flash of light, then the next thing Lee knew he was standing somewhere which was not where he had just been, surrounded by people he did not recognise

"Hey! Hey, Lee! You are Lee aren't you?" An unknown voice was calling his name. Lee turned on the spot trying to see where it was coming from, until some girl wondered randomly into the back of him.

"Hey watch it!", he said automatically annoyed.

"HEY!! Why don't you watch it! Down here!", the voice called again. Lee finally looked down and found himself looking into the face of a small brown horned blob. He quickly took a step back from the surprise.

"Well finally! I was starting to think I'd turned invisible. I'm Bachamon, nice to meet ya!", it informed him cheerfully.

Lee was speechless. Everything was happening so suddenly he was barely registering anything. Yet at the same time the scientific questions that arose from seeing a small non-human creature speaking like a human demanded to be answered by his mind.

"Wha... what are you?", was the only one of those questions he could articulate.

"I'm a Digimon", Bachamon replied happily, as if that explained everything.

Looking around, Lee now saw that everyone around him seemed to be being greeted by these strange creatures.

Another voice called out at that moment: "anyone know what's going on?"

"Does it look like we know what the hell is going on??", Lee replied rudely. Inwardly he sighed; this was not going to be a good day.

"Wake up Charles." a whisper nearby attempted to wake up Charles.
"Five more minutes mom..." He muttered to a gray pillow.
"Can You at least get of, of me, and let me take a breath."
"Ok mom..." Charles rolled away a bit. "Wait a sec..." He made a pause "You don't sound like mom..." Another pause "And she never wakes me up on Saturday (I swear it's Saturday)..." He turned himself to the pillow again, a shiny red eye was looking at him without any expressions.
"You ready to go?".
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" Charles shouted in panic and started running around until He tripped on something an hit his head losing consciousness.
"How unexpected."

Jeremy spent the first few minutes of his day in the digital world running, only to find what was chasing after him could hop pretty quickly.

"Waiiit! Slow down! I'm your new friend!"

"Mother said that the strange creatures that offered to be my friend would go away after I took the special pills!"

"Good thing you don't have any pills on you, huh?"

"Not removing my fears! But I am lucky to have a pair of goggles on my head, so I'll have to make due!"

"How about I give you my name? I'm Hayaimon!"

"So you're a tiny, jamaican demon?"

"What is that supposed to mean? I'm a digimon!"

"'ey mon, tis tink is all good, yah?"

"Huh?"

"Attempt to communicate has failed! Running away!"

"No, Wait!"

Jamario woke up to the sound of tiny flapping wings. He looked over to see a flying purple thing with wings staring him in the face with an annoyed look in it's eye. The creature said in an amazingly deep bass voice"You're Jamario, I'm Pippimon, You're my human partner I'm your digimon, you're in the digital world, get up, let's go."
Jamario just stared
"Di--digimon?" He reached out slowly, and poked the creature in the eye.
it jerked back and snarled "OW! what the hell? damn kid, stop screwing around and get up!" He nudged jamario's head weakly and flapped hard to try to push him up.

Rosetta wasn't exactly who Moonmon thought she would be. That was, of course, to be expected since they had never actually met before. Still, it hurt her a little the way her partner had reacted.

After a moment, though, it seemed that it wasn't quite so bad after all. Compared the other humans - what she managed to pay attention to them, at least - Rosetta was handling this fairly well. At the very least, Rosetta hadn't decided to run away from her.

Instead, she sat and listened to Moonmon's explanation of the world they were in. However, as interesting as that was, Rosetta seemed to be more interested in Moonmon herself, which was a good thing.

Probably.

"So, you're my digimon partner?" Rosetta suddenly asked. "That's nice to know, but does that make you some kind of pet?"

"No!" Moonmon shook her head (and therefore, her entire body). "We're not pets, we're partners!"

"Uh-huh. So, what exactly are you supposed to do?"

Honestly, Moonmon herself hadn't thought about that all too much. "Well, for one thing, I wanna be your friend."

Well, Rosetta supposed that make sense.

"That's cool. Anything else?"

Moonmon furrowed her eyebrows. Was there anything else that mattered? "Oh!" she said. "You're also supposed to help us digivolve!"

"Digivolve?"

Moonmon sighed. Clearly this was another thing she would have to explain.

"It's what we do to get bigger and stronger!"

Rosetta thought about this for a moment. Digivolution sounded pretty interesting. Of course, if Moonmon was her partner, and the rest of them had partners as well, clearly she had no choice but to have the strongest one.

Pounding her fist in her palm, she came up with an idea. Or rather, to be more precise, an order. "Do it now, Moonmon."

"Ex-excuse me?"

"You heard me. Digivolve now. I want to see it for myself."

Truly, Moonmon had no idea what she had gotten into.

---

Normally, a digimon would only digivolve during times of danger. Thinking about the situation, and the look in Rosetta's eyes, Moonmon could not help but think that this probably counted.

That wasn't to say it would be easy, but she had to try. Gathering all her spirit, she focused on her next form.

"Moonmon digivolve to..."

There was only one problem. She had no idea what is was.

"Nothing happened," said Rosetta, master of observation. "Is there a problem."

There were plenty of problems! First of all, she had never done this before!

"That's no excuse. Anything else?"

Flustered, Moonmon bowed her head. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to turn in to."

Rosetta paused. She could see that being a problem, after all. "You turn into an entirely new digimon, right? So, how about Lunamon - that makes sense, doesn't it?"

"Rosetta," Moonmon said, sweatdropping. "I don't think that's how it works."

"Do you have any other ideas?"

"No..."

"Then just do it!"

Jumping in surprise, Moonmon once again readied herself. Not that she believed it would work. There was just no way -

"Moonmon digivolve to..."

- and yet it was.

Moonmon felt her entire body change. From a strangely animate teardrop, her body grew larger. The ears were the first to appear, together larger than her original body, and after that came her limbs. Soon, she had arms - and presumably legs too, underneath that strange looking dress of hers.

"Lunamon!"

Lunamon blinked in surprise. Rosetta did too, but for a different reason.

"You know, you still don't look all that powerful," she said, nonetheless impressed.

Lunamon ignored her comment, too excited by just what happened. Jumping into Rosetta's arms, she yelled excitedly, "I did it - I really digivolved!"

---

Setting her partner down after a few moments of celebration, Rosetta realized she had no idea what to do from here. Thinking about it, the logical thing would be to find a way home...but Moonmon - no, it was Lunamon now - had no idea when she asked her earlier.

The humans like herself seemed to have no clue either.

If there was anything that could tell her how to get home, it would probably have been...that weird looking sun thing.

"That's Solmon," Lunamon explained. "She's been taking care of the nursery since before I hatched from my egg!"

They came from eggs? Well, that was beside the point.

"She looks like she's waiting for an answer."

"Well, you humans are pretty strange looking."

"I don't want to hear that from you. Besides, I need one as well."

Picking up Lunamon once more, Rosetta walked over to Solmon.

"Oi," she said, trying to get the caretaker's attention. "Are you the one that brought us here?"

Jenna's morning routine was essentially set in stone: get up, shower, get dressed, check email, make breakfast, eat breakfast, get stuff, nearly miss bus. As a teenager who had to set her own schedule, time tended to be tight, with minimal room for variation. The most it changed was how much Kevin dawdled from day to day. He rarely dawdled much.

Today, so far, was highly irregular.

She hadn't even gotten past checking her email before that weird dialogue box had popped up--she could have sworn it was a virus, but it wouldn't let her click away--and then that light. Oh, right, and before that, she had to knock on Kevin's door, the kid was oversleeping. What was up with that? Weird.

"Are you all right?"

That was the first thing she heard as the light cleared. A voice, high as though it had been said by a child, but so serious in intonation. As her vision came back, painful after that flash, she groaned faintly and tried to identify what was speaking to her. There were people, all around, talking, yelling, muttering, but only one thing was paying her any attention.

Big yellow eyes watched from a round, blue face. It crawled an inch closer with a small, clawed fin. "Miss Jenna?"

Even if she hadn't already been lying on the floor, she was pretty sure her jaw would have hit the ground. "Hwhuh," she managed.

"Um?" it replied.

"Geh-you..." It stared back, bemused by her behavior. "You--you are so... cute." She sat up, quite suddenly, and picked up the little blue creature. "Omigod. You are... this is amazing. You're adorable. Are you--do I--omigod they're all over."

She gaped around at the other people standing around, staring at their own little creatures (and one running away very quickly). "This is so cool. Omigod. What--wow. Is this--this is real, right? No way. Omigod. What?" A grin spread on her face, and she beamed at the thing in her grasp.

It stared back, clearly thoroughly perturbed by being held. "Um. Yes. Well, see, I'm Likumon, and--"

It was saying something about partners and digisomething and digisomething else and all that, but she wasn't listening, gawking around at the others, at the strange place around them. This was surreal. This was insane. This was... she didn't know what this was, but god, it was cool. And--"Omigod, omigod, how'd you do that, omigod that is so epic." The dark-haired girl standing nearby had somehow gotten her little friend to completely transform, into a totally different...thing.

The little seal-guy--Likumon, that was it--had stopped talking to watch, with a strange expression. "Digivolution," he murmured. "It's a transformation that we go through to become more powerful..." He looked up at her, yellow eyes serious. "And only you can help us do it."

Jenna beamed. "You can do that too? Oh wow. Really? How? What do you look like when you change?

Likumon faltered, before looking away, turning its head as much as its neckless body would allow. "I don't know."

Oh god he's embarrassed, that is just too precious. "Well, that other guy did it!" she grinned and put him down, finally. "Just try!"

"Um. Now? I don't think I can..."

"Yes now! You can do it! I belieeeeeve in youuuu!"

Likumon stared up at her smile, nonplussed, and, quite suddenly, began to glow. "Likumon, digivolve to..." His semi-body grew, sprouting long arms and webbed hands, and small legs. The light faded, and red eyes opened behind a beaked mask. "...Akuamon."

"...Oh wow." Oh god this was like the best dream ever.