Yesterday seemed to be an ordinary day. You went to school and hung out with your friends. You never expected your world to change the next day. Getting home from a long day you realize you receive an email from an unknown user. While it’s most likely junk, you curiously open the email just to see the contents with curiosity. What could they be try to scam you into this time;
To: 0̖͕͈͔̎̃ͪͦ̽̇ͅ1̷̬̈́̿͑͆0̷̯̫̩̔́ͣͧ̌̏͛0̣͈̓͋̌̓ͨͅ0̷̲̭̱ͪ́͊̍ͦͩ1͚͎̹͓͔̟ͪͭ̒̊͑͒ͥ0̗ͮ̽̄ͯ̅̉̎0̵̘̹͎̺̐̆̚ͅ ̀͟0̝̣̰̭̫ͧͣ̉ͅ1̯̼͓̭̳̪͓̎ͦ1̵̮̠͉̥̀͊̿̋͋͆̅0̣̲͈͔̓ͤ̍ͧͭ͂ͬͅ0͇͇͇͌͒ͩ̐͞1̭̦͕̏̐0͙̮̦ͤ̾ͪͨ̂͞1͔̋̌́ ̵̥0͑̊ͣ̑͑͗͊͏̱̙͈͈̲̟͈1̢̮̰͓͔1̟ͪͬ̍͘1̳̯̦͉͈̬̯̃͆͑͂0͙͖̭̮̗0̅̐͛͒͌1̜̜̘̖̗͍͇͘1̴̻̪̠͓̙͋́̐ͪ̂̿̚ ͣ̏͑ͩ̓͒̍0̵̤͎̗̪̬̹̰͊̑ͨ1͓̗̏͛ͅ1̛̾̍̂1̜̻̦̙̞̎ͅ0̮̘̭̖͋ͬ1̿̐ͬ͒̀ͮ҉̞͔͓ͅ0̹̟͑̈ͥͪ̈́͋́0̧̟̯͈̣̫̭ͮ̆̈́ ̶̯̻̪̺̰̟0͉̹̃͂1̱̰̳̘̮͈͂̎͑ͥͤͅ1͕̠̻̫̺̻̼ͮ͊ͨ̀͆̓0̛̪̼̳̼̉1̙͔̼̳̟͓͐00ͦ̂ͨ͒͏̩͎͙͚̥1̲̻͔̹͇̲ͮ͒̕ ̷̥̹͓̦͍ͦ͛ͯ0̢̬̤̟͉̩̙ͫ̆ͬ̆̆̇1̳͍̃͗̑̈́̇ͫ͡1͈͚͔̬͔͖̉ͫͮͨͦͅ0̹̺̻͔̰̂1̘͍̩ͥ̾̍͌1͖̘͉̲͙̬̒̓ͦ1̶̲̼̼̼͖̦̗̒ͨ̐́̊͐̒0̭̪͈̝̘̺̻̀̃̓̚ ̼͉̝͗̇́ͣ0͍͈͈ͮ͊͟1̭͉̬ͅ1͓̻͔̗͋ͭͪͥͅ0̈̇͗̌0̻͑ͮͤ͂1̵̙̞͇̻̍̍ͥ͆0̱̞͔̯̹̯͕̈́̀͝1̘̠̩̝̲͈̹ͪ̈ͭ͆́̐ͬ ̡̞͚̅ͪ̆͌̄̋̂0̗̼͒̔̔̇1̱̺̜͈̠̘͙̈́̉1̭̓͂ͧ̉̓͡0́ͪ0̯̝ͬ1̛ͩ0̮͐͛ͥͣ͊0͉̼͈̟̽ͩ̉̌͗͜ͅ
Laughing it off and closing out of the email you think nothing of it. It was an entertaining attempt at least for a practical joke.
Within the code of data an individual stood staring at a screen.
“I called them,”
“You called the Destined Ones?”
“They should be here soon,”
“What have you planned for them?”
“One final test,”
“Do we have time for that?”
“We have to be certain,”
“We cannot delay the inevitable for too long,”
“Trust me,”
“I don’t know if I can trust your plans, but I suppose I have no choice,”
Yggdrasil had been slain. Now it was only a matter of time, to know if those destined to save this world were apt for that job or not. Either they failed the last test and wandered lost in the Digital World until the chaos was slain. Or they succeeded and accomplished what they were foretold.
It’s so hot. Staring at the fan spinning from the ceiling, going around and around in dizzying circles. Even at night his clothes clung to his skin and a bath did little to relieve the sweat from rolling down his forehead again afterward. Mistah Furafu sat on the edge of the bed watching as he completed his summer homework.
“That’s a great idea,” Kei replied to Mistah Furafu, “We should make dinner for grandma and grandpa. Cold noodle soup.” he sighs lifting up his math book to block the fan’s nonexistent gust. Sometimes he felt like he didn’t do enough for his grandparents. Ever since then, he’s been in their house and burdens them with worry about his well being. If he picked up more chores maybe they wouldn’t feel like he was just taking up space.
Mistah Furafu hung over the edge slightly as if the bear were alive. Though he knew it was because the tatami mats rumbled with grandpa’s heavy footsteps. He stomped on his heels and shook the floors. It was something he was getting use to being in this house. A lone car would drive through the road, and then there would be the sound of the cicadas afterward. Disturbed by the vehicle, perhaps.
“Kei!” his grandmother called.
Maybe he got up with too much eagerness. A flutter of anxiety washed over him for a second. Maybe he should delay his arrival more? Would they think he’s too eager to come to their beck and call? Face goes hot for a second as he realizes he’s at his grandmother’s side in the family room within seconds of her calling him over.
“Yes obachan,” Kei mumbles.
“Can you help me with this email?” she ask nicely enough.
He fidgeted with his fingers, trying to stop himself from doing so by quickly putting them stiffly at his side only to dig into the fabric of his shorts. It’s just his grandmother, he shouldn’t be this nervous around here. Over an email. You’re overreacting. Why?
“What’s wrong?” he replies.
She looks over him a bit concerned, grabbing his hand, “Come sit down. The screen is messed up. Or something.”
Again? Maybe it was time for a new computer then. Grandfather have a cow about money again. He giggled. Have a cow. Everytime he used that expression he could only think of his grandfather, wrinkly skinned man, with wispy graying hair, opening his mouth wide like the cartoon shows they play on the television and swallowing a whole cow. His grandmother stares at him.
“Oh, nothing,” he says nervously, his voice shakes in an uncomfortable manner he wished it didn’t. Looking at the computer that his grandmother slides over for him to have a better look, he’s not sure what he’s looking at. The more he stares at the message, the less sense it makes. Till he swears the code began to form a shape, a cross with four pointed triangles crawls onto the screen. He’s cracking right now?
“Well,” his grandmother is impatient for an answer. “It’s...just a virus,” Kei replies, “....I think.” his head feels weird right now.
“A virus?” his grandmother ask, “How did I get one of those?”
Kei shrugs. Could he be excused?
“Maybe…..did you order….something online?” Kei ask.
“You should ask your ojichan that question!” she shouts so his grandfather can hear from the room he’s watching TV.
“I….’ll just fix it,” Kei replies.
“How do you do that?” his grandmother ask.
“I’ll restore from a previous update,” Kei replies.
Then he’d go to bed. Maybe it was the heat that was making his head suddenly feel fuzzy. He didn’t want to burden his grandparents with any more concerning behavior, so he wouldn’t say anything. It was just his imagination coupled with this heat. Finishing the restore, he smiled.
“There,” he tells her.
“How do I login again?” she ask staring at the computer asking for a password.
“Use the password,” he points to the password stickied on the screen.
“Oh yes,” his grandmother replies and begins to type it in.
Can he be excused? He’s so sorry he’s so selfish. He should want to help her with the computer more.
“I’m….going to bed early,” he mumbles. His grandmother merely nods and nods.
“Sweet dreams sweet boy,” she tells him.
He’s practically fleeing the situation now. He cannot get his heart to settle down. Why does his own grandmother make him feel this way? He should love them unconditionally and he shouldn’t be this boy. Mistah Furafu hangs off the edge of his bed. Grabbing Mistah Furafu and hugging him tightly, “I want to be a better grandson.” he whispers in Mistah Furafu tiny ears.
August 1st, 2011 - The Next Day
There’s no relief from the heat. He couldn’t sleep much due to it. Holding tightly on Mistah Furafu his first greeting is the cicadas. Loud, but he always found them quite easy to listen to. Staring at his clock it was frozen at 10:00 pm last night. A new computer and a new digital clock. Getting out of bed slowly and groggily, it’s hard to get his brain moving in upon waking. Sitting Mistah Furafu on the bed straight up, he begins to dig through his drawers. “What kind of ribbon should you wear today?” Kei asked Mistah Furafu.
Digging out a bright green one with yellow polka dots Kei smiles at it. It’s the first ribbon he bought with his own allowance for Mistah Furafu. Today felt like a special day, so he’d have him wear that one. Humming and tying it around Furafu’s neck, today was going to be a better day. He’d make his grandmother's breakfast and go to the fields to draw for a little bit. A pit in his stomach began to develop. What if other kids were playing in the fields today? He’d have to go back home. Or find somewhere more secluded.
The morning routine was relaxing as it was routine. Taking a shower before putting on fresh clothes, his favorite shirt with the hood and a pair of shorts. Heading down the stairs with a fresh new outlook. Despite having little sleep he felt a bit of zeal today. Slightly energetic he enters the kitchen and pauses. They are never up this early.
Staring at his grandparents sitting at the dining table. Breakfast has been set, but they haven’t taken a single bite. Three plates lay neatly on the table, piping hot, but he didn’t hear anyone up.
“Good morning Kei,” his grandmother smiles at him.
“We’re having breakfast,” his grandfather announces, “Please sit down.”
He wants to be a better grandson. A better son in general. He feels his chest beginning to tighten because he knows what he wants to do versus what he should do. He should sit down and eat with them. He should converse with them. He wants to go to the creek now. Maybe pack a lunch for later. Maybe come back for lunch later.
“I’m….going to go to the fields,” Kei tells them.
“Okay,” his grandmother is still smiling.
“We’re having breakfast,” his grandfather says again.
Does that mean he wants him to have breakfast with him? Something feels weird about all of this. He’s not sure quite what. Maybe he’s just being nervous, again. Maybe he’s being selfish, again. Holding Mistah Furafu in one hand and his art book in another, “Okay bye.” he says. Heading quickly to the genkan and putting on his black loafers, he’s a terrible grandson. He should have sat down when his grandfather prompted him again.
“Good morning Kei,” his grandmother says in the dining room.
Now he’s just having a weird dream right? He’s not even in the room. Heading out of the house he is greeted by the street he’s use to walking to the station to head to school. The roads are silent. Where are the people? His neighbor is watering a single bush. Seemingly frozen in time. He can hear his own heart beat beginning to rise. This is just a really weird dream, right?
7.00pm UTC+8/Monday; August 1st 2011 - NanaZuika Sugbu Beach Resort - Hamada Residence (NanaZuika Big Cabana), Seven's Room Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines
Walking out of the covered dining area, Seven bit the bottom of his lip. Scratching the back of his head and ignoring the paintings his father had chosen to decorate their big cabana, he grumbled to himself. Was this a joke? Was he fixated too much on this?
"Seven-sama, do you want the rest of the staff to clean up the dining area?”
"Yes, Chiaki-kun, I'm leaving you in charge, I just happen to...check out this e-mail I received recently. Please tell Mom and Dad too that I'll be up all night with my homework, so...you know the drill."
"Very good, I'll put up the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on your door. You need coffee, tea or something else to drink?"
"I'm good, thanks. Good night, Chiaki-kun, sunny and green is the morrow."
"Good night, Seven-sama. Tomorrow's another day!"
Inside his room, Seven’s sitting in front of the desk filled with lots of stuff all over the place, and then the e-mail shows one unread at the Inbox folder on his device ‘Switch’.
Seven can't see through these glitch texts at all and what's worse for him is that it's in binary. The young techie may know a thing or two about codes himself, but this was the first time Seven was stumped.
"Oh, to heck with this one, I’ll get back here once I have my homework done. Heh.", Seven chuckled, as he unwittingly made a rhyme.
About two and a half hours later...
"All done! Now, to work on the...", he frowns, "Oh darn, look at the mess I have made."
Where was that notepad? Looking at the desk scattered with miscellaneous objects he couldn't describe. He needed better organization. Sorting through the junk, there you are. He picks up the notepad and loads up the converter site on his device.
CLANG!
"What was that?!”, he said as he jumped from his seat.
Great. He either was in a horror film about to die or it was just the wind banging against some metal sidings again. Getting up and putting on a jacket, he headed outside...
An empty metal oil drum reused as a makeshift griller broke off. Probably due to overuse from last night’s Sunday Luau party...
Without hesitation, Seven puts down the broken griller in the sand and away from the lounge chairs by the beachfront.
"Heat fatigue. And a substandard metal oil drum. Oh boy, this goes in the inventory."
He saw Lando in the distance fixing and tuning up his guitar? And a lone fire dancer?
"Lando-san, didn’t you just leave for home?", Seven asked, scrunching up his face.
This was getting weird, or maybe he was stuck in a time loop. Or maybe you’re getting too ahead of yourself, you probably just fell asleep while trying to decode, Seven...
"Where's Kazu, Lando-san? Is he hunting?", Seven asked while his gaze draws on a fire that should not be going. Didn't he put that a while ago? Watching as glowing flames of orange and yellow flickered. Embers crackling, spitting sparks in still time...
'BEEP!!!BEEP!!!BEEP!!!' is the sound heard in the home of one Carver Walker coming from his alarm clock. Carver still in bed he lifts his arm out of bed and smacks hits alarm clock but missing the button and it keeps beeping. Eventually he sits up and grabs and unplugged the alarm clock and sits there in bed. Yawning himself awake he stands up and starts rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Quickly getting dressed, he makes his way to the living room and he was alone. Sighing to himself he was alone at home and yet he wasnt surprised. His mother wasnt home she must have already gone to work. The same can be said about his father, his brother normally woke up earlier then Carver anyway and was most likely long gone.
Carver walks to the cupboards in his family's kitchen and pulls out a bowl and a box of cereal. Pours it into the bowl and goes to the fridge and sighs because there is no milk. He grabs the bowl and carries to the couch and sits there and grabs the remote to turn on the TV he clicks it and starts eats a bite of the cereal. It was stale, that was odd it was new it shouldnt be stale. Carver sighed as it might as well been a old box just now freshly opened. He stops and looks at the TV screen it was at first just him on the screen. He nearly dropped his bowl when it cut back to some random program, Carver grabbed the remote and rapidly start changing channels to try and explain what he just saw. Did his parents have some spy cameras? What is wrong with the TV. As he kept changing channels the TV turned off but he never hit the off button. Carver goes to turn the TV back on and it stays off, he smacks the remote a few times and the back comes of the remove and there were no batteries.
Shaking his head quickly putting the cereal down thinking something was wrong with what he ate. He walks to the washroom and starts to splash water in his face, he looks in the mirror and it was blacked out completely. He shook his head again deciding he needed some fresh air. Quickly going outside Carver noticed something was off outside as well, he didnt hear any cars. Something was wrong like seriously Carver calls out, "Hello! Where is everybody!? Hello?!" Carver starts to walk down the street trying to find someone anyone. Feeling like he just woke up in a horror movie or a movie where he was the only left in the world. He was looking for anyone that was in the area that could help him or at least find someone else that wasnt so bizarre right now.
Rachel looked over to see her sister walking through the door, closing it. She was sitting on the brown leather couch. Her emerald eyes glanced from the comic book she was reading over to Lilly.
“It’s alright, did you have a good time at your friend’s?” She asked curiously, going back to the book, flipping a few pages.
“Yeah, Delia was pretty happy that everyone showed up to her party. Wished you would’ve come though.” Lilly knew Rachel had some stuff to do. She was still taking self defense classes a few blocks away at the same time.
“The timing would’ve been great if it wasn’t at that time. Sorry, sis.” Rachel sighed, deciding to mark the page in her book, setting it on the desk. She quickly grabbed her laptop to listen to some music that she hadn’t illegally download. Well, at least not yet.
“Don’t worry about it.” Lilly walked over to the the rocking chair across from her, sitting down. The blonde haired girl crossed her pale arms across her chest, “They wanted to tell you hi. You should hang out with them some time with me.” She grinned, “It’ll be fun.”
Rachel sighed, grabbing a small bag of chips by the comic book she put down, grabbing one out of it. She munched on it, ignoring the fact it was almost midnight and she really shouldn’t be eating anything this late, but you live only once, “Not too sure if I’m fond of Sierra and her clique though. Rose had a pretty bad falling out with them. They literally called those bastards over there to harass them the night I saved her.” She started typing out her password on the computer while she was talking to her sister.
“Eh, I tolerate them.” Lilly shrugged before plopping onto the couch, nudging her older sister on the shoulder, “You could see Jack though. It would be great to see you two interact again…”
“Are you implying I should date him?” Rachel rolled her eyes, “He’s just a kid who sits behind me in study hall, you know?” This was irritating. Just because she made one male friend does not mean he’s boyfriend material, “He just talks to me.”
Lilly chuckled, “Eh, he’s a nice kid. Gets bullied by a couple of people you kicked around when you were a sophomore.” She remembered that pretty well. She walked into it too.
“Yeah, I remember getting suspended for that. Mom was pretty pissed.” Rachel shivered at her mom’s anger. She was one scary woman. At least she was on a work trip right now. She clicked to view her emails only to find a odd one.
The hell was that? It was from an unknown person. What a joke.
“Jeez,” Rachel laughed, closing out the email before shutting her laptop, “That’s some high class email scam.” She said sarcastically, rolling her eyes, putting her laptop by the comic book and chips, yawning.
“What? Did you get one of those ‘wait now and you’ll win such and such’ emails?” Lilly asked, tilting her head to the side playfully.
“Eh, it’s worse, it’s like they never tried to make it obvious.” She sat up, yawning once again, “Damn, I’m getting sleepy all of a sudden. You shouldn’t stay up too late, you have a Volleyball tournament tomorrow morning.” She stretched out, walking into her room to go to sleep.
XXXX
Beep beep BANG!
A punch to the alarm clock next to Rachel’s bed was knocked to the wooden tile floor. Rachel groaned, rolling over in her bed, wanting more sleep, but the alarm kept screaming and it was unfortunately out of her reach now.
“God damnit.” She groaned, sitting herself upright, removing the covers to shut the alarm off, only to realize it was near 9am.
Was her sister up yet? She had to check…
She rushed out of the room into her sister’s room, opening the door, “Lilly?!” She yelled only to noticed that she wasn’t in the room.
Well, she probably got up to go then, but wait, her Volleyball stuff was in her room.
That’s odd. It seemed like she did leave, but just to make sure...
Rachel immediately looked in the bathroom to see that Lilly wasn’t there. She raced into the kitchen, noticing there was no sight of her sister. She looked around in the living room as well. It was like her sister forgot her stuff or something.
Rachel rushed into her room, grabbing a few clothes and throwing them on before running out of her house, running to see if her sister had been around either.
Everything, was pretty damn bare for Chicago. On a Saturday morning nonetheless. In fact, it had be the first time in her life that she hadn’t seen anyone around the streets.
What the hell is happening?
Anxiety came crashing around, feeling her heart sank. Did some purge happen while she was asleep or something? What the fuck? Or was she blocking people out so much at this point she couldn’t see them anymore?
Ha, if only she was that lucky. Something else was going on. She decided to speed up her running. Now, she decided she needed to find at least someone.
“This is crazy.” She muttered. It was like straight out of a comic book or something. Did aliens abduct people or something? I mean, she would probably piss them off pretty badly.
She stopped, scratching the back of her head, “Oh hell no, this better not be a real thing. I hope I’m dreaming.” She sighed, deciding to look around for people.
His drumbeat heart pounded on. Stomach convulsing in uncertainty. Fearing his chest would become a chasm, with his intestines spilling out onto the library. His mouse hovered over his email’s inbox, like one holds a gun’s trigger. Receiving his first email from anyone. Anticipation coursed through the curious teenager's veins, opening Pandora’s Box. Face growing pale as the computer screen. Previously sitting alone, faced with an army of thousands. Binary code covered the canvas, but clicking continuously caused crashing. A message that appeared encrypted, flashed across the screen long enough to be read before his surroundings were shrouded in darkness. A computer melody twisted with static screeching pierced his ears. Did the place have one of those things described as a 'power outage'?
Sweat dripped from the tip of nose, tasting the salt when licked off. White light blasted from the monitor. Mirroring his perplexed expression, pinned to his seat like nails had been hammered through his soles. He couldn’t get up from the office chair, or look away as the reflected face began glitching. Contorting into a grotesque smile with rows of sharp teeth…
“Oww...” Tristan groaned. Groggy eyes staring up at the bed his upper half fell out of. His pillow, now the carpet his head conked down on. Tangled in his bed sheets, not dissimilar from a fish in a net. His MP3 player lying his bare chest. Music playing from the headphones, beginning to loosen the cord wrapped around his neck like a serpent. Just as a worm writhed about in the dirt. He squirmed backward on the ground, until his whole body touched the ground. Managing to thrust himself up on two feet. Turning his MP3 player off, and quickly setting his electronics on the cleared bedside table. Scratching at his bed head, wiping his warmly drenched forehead. Glancing at the mirror hanging from his room’s wall, beaming a pearly white grin.
“Another good morning today.”
Exhaling through the clouds amassed behind the curtains, fogging the bathroom window. The hot pressurized water rained down on his back, cleansing soapy skin. Feeling like a god was massaging his shoulders. Still blessed everyday that electricity had been allowed in his previous Quasi-Amish farmer lifestyle. Happily singing a tune, while bending over and reaching for the shampoo. He stopped and held his breath. Hearing subtle noises creeping from the inside the bathroom. He knew it wasn’t coming from natural causes. Low growling breaths that weren’t his own. Noticing a black creature’s hands reaching inside the bathtub, opposite side to the showerhead. Grabbing ahold of the curtains and pulling them with a sudden burst!
“Rawr!” The black puppet popped out, his younger brother’s voice growled out with a laugh. Tristan glanced from behind he curtains, exchanging smiles with his sibling. Noticing multiple pairs of pajamas on the lying crumpled on the floor. His clean clothes all hanging from the towel rack.
“Don’t get Luci wet. You know he’ll get upset and melt like The Wicked Witch.” Tristan playfully remarked, mimicking the high and squeaky voice. “What a world. What a wooorld.” His younger brother smiled and gave a firm nod, stepping away from the shower.
“Dad wanted you to do laundry today, and wash both our dumb sisters bed sheets. Sable spilled paint all over her bed! And Alexa, wet the bed again!” The brother exclaimed in a disparaging tone.
“Alright. But don’t call them dumb, that’s not nice. Could you please put your P.J’s and mine in the laundry hamper?” Tristan’s polite tone sending his brother away, picking up the dirty clothes and heading off, closing the door behind him. Not long after, resuming his shower until he finished the rest of his typical morning routine…
Fully dressed, finished dealing with his sister’s sheets. Letting them play outside while waiting for his father to return home with the neighbors freshly baked raisin bread and jelly donuts for breakfast. Ascending the staircase to the second floor and heading into his room, approaching the bedside table. Noting his bedsheets were already made, with the black puppet resting atop his pillow. Picking up his music player in his right hand and putting his headphones on, off his ears. Inserting his hand into the puppet with the left, and turned around to look into the mirror. Beginning to move the puppet’s hands and mouth.
“Did we scare you?” Tristan chided playfully in Luci’s voice, a deeper tone. It danced about in triumph. Tristan shook his head.
“Nope, you’ll have to try harder than that to scare me.” Tristan answered back in his own voice. Luci tapped its chin a few times, as it pondered its response.
“Hmm. Maybe the next time your brother takes me out of the dresser. I’ll grab him by neck. Lead him into the bathroom and shove his head into a tub of water. Holding him underneath while he thrashes about helplessly, screaming as water fills his lungs. Until the last bubble-” The voice stopped with a gasp. Tristan’s felt shivers down the back of his spine and felt frozen in place. Luci danced again seemingly pleased with such a reaction. “Did I scare you now?”
Before responding, interrupted by the sound of his brother stampeding through the hallway toward his doorway. Tristan turned his attention to his brother with hands behind his back, stopping just beyond entering the room.
“I made your bed to apologize for playing with Luci without your permission.” The brother explained, extending his hands out with Luci within his grasp. “I’m here to give him back. Dad’s home.”
Tristan blinked and glanced in the mirror, seeing the white puppet he wore. After rubbing his eyes didn’t change reality, he simply smiled politely and took the puppet back. Carefully laying them both in his top dresser drawer, and shutting it without another word.
“Go downstairs and save me some jelly donuts. I might go for a walk...I just want to check the weather-” Tristan replied turning to look at the sunlight peeking through his window. But his young brother had already ran before finishing the sentence. Stepping up to his window and unlatching it. It was too fast to make out. A child sized shadow of a figure, plummeted outside from the rooftop. There was no conscious decision in that moment. Tristan immediately bolted out his room, leaping past half the staircase and rushed outside...
Max's alarm clock blared loudly, and Max slapped the snooze button to shut it up. There was no point in going back to sleep now, that obnoxious noise already woke him up. Besides, he had to be at school in a few hours. The young man sat up, stretched out his arms, and yawned loudly. "Why do the weekends have to be so short?" He mumbled to himself.
Max walked up to his closet, picked out his outfit for the day. All the while, singing a familiar song to himself. Something he could get away with, since he lived in an apartment alone, and didn't have to worry about somebody barging in.
♪Someday my prince will come Someday we'll meet again And away to his castle we'll go To be happy forever I know♪
He sang this while getting dressed, and twirling around the room like a Disney Princess.
♪Someday when spring is here We'll find our love anew And the birds will sing and wedding bells will ring Someday when my dreams come true♪
After brushing his teeth, and doing all those other boring morning routines, Max made himself a bowl of Frosted Flakes, and milk for breakfast. It was something quick and easy for a Monday morning. After that, he grabbed his purple shoulder bag, and went out the door.
As he made his way through the halls of his apartment building, and down the elevator to get outside, Max noticed that there was absolutely no one here. Normally, Max ran into the other tennants of the building, especially on a Monday when it was the start of the work week, but today, there wasn't a soul to be seen. This is weird... Max thought. Where are the people? Is there some kind of holiday going on that I don't know about?
Things got even weirder when Max finally stepped outside. His eyes widened at what he was seeing. "What the...?" He rubbed his eyes, and blinked, but everything he was seeing was still the same. "This isn't my street!" There was a Japanese style house, and an unfamiliar building across the way, and next door, there was an entire beach resort that definitely hadn't been there before. "Am I dreaming?" Max pinched himself to make sure, but he didn't magically wake up in bed. "Nope, this real..." Max wondered what in the world was going on, but didn't really worry about that for very long. "Hm, I guess I'm not going to school today... I suppose I should try to figure out what's going on, but on the other hand.... There is now a beach resort next door.... That means hot guys in swimsuits!" Max grinned and threw a fist in the air.
Ah, Chicago, Good old Chicago, Illinois... City of the Big Shoulders, home of the Bears, the Blues Brothers, and some of the best damn deep dish pizzas the world has ever seen.
Also the home of some of the largest Mafia syndicates in America, led by Al Capone himself, but that's neither here nor there. Sure, there were many problems this city has on the ground, it's infamous in more ways than one. Corrupt Mayors and politicians as usual, the streets below being filled with people whose had bad days, not to mention gang violence galore. Even so, there was good to be had in this city, as no one can deny the beauty of its metropolitan atmosphere from afar. The view of the night sky from a Chicago High-rise as the moon light reflects off the perpetual waves of Lake Michigan.
A pity then that rather than viewing the horizon of the giant lake amidst a clear starry sky, Tyler Falcon had his views on his computer. He probably should be in bed by this point; it's nearly midnight and there's school to be had. But the warnings of his brothers were ignored as usual, as he played his online games in the relaxing silence in the dead of night. This was unfortunately common for the boy, which might explain the complaints the teachers seems to give to his eldest Brother, Jordan, regarding his sleeping patterns on a near-daily basis. It's not like he isn't smart...albeit in a way that most teacher may not agree with necessarily, he does at least seem to understand the logic behind stuff in enough ways to earn a passing grade in more classes than not. It's just that, as the school councilors have pointed out to said Brother, the boy seems to run his life on laid-back chance and inappropriate optimism; he'll make it through classes that he's just barely passing, smiling as if he's acing classes left and right. At least one of his brothers, as a result, tend to hammer some sense into Ty so as to make him get a grip with the gravity of his situation... literally hammer it in, with a hammer of hard plastic. It was meant to be just a small bop on the head...only to wind up giving Ty a concussion.
Jordan did punish the other brother for this bit of violence and bandaged up the top of his head, but scolded Ty as well for how lax he is with his life and future, after which leaving him in his room using his computer.
Ty was navigating the internet, minding his own as he tried to watch some videos, listen to some music, the usual mellow things one does to pass time even when there is none left to waste. It was around then that something happened that he couldn't expect. His computer froze up, the soundbite of the video he was watching making a singular line of static noise for a good 20 seconds before the screen starting glitching up, black squares fading in and out in millisecond, things like the bottom right icons disappearing and reappearing at the same speed. Needless to say, this was annoying; he knew that he didn't go on any site that would create this bad a virus, so maybe one of his brothers did so while he was away.
He was about ready to reboot the computer when he noticed something...different flicker on the screen from the corner of his eye. Looking over at the screen with a degree of interest, he began to notice the glitching screen begin to form some kind of outline, that of a oddly shaped object, some kind of rounded vertical rectangle with a small circle that goes beyond the rectangle's border. Some kind of odd geometric symbol perhaps? Then he noticed two white angel wings fade in on both sides of the symbol... Oh, lovely, so this is either a bizarre religious cult hacker, or someone with that thinks itself some sort of cool angel. Before he could move once again to try and reboot the computer, only to then notice something even more bizarre, a voice, distorted and incoherent, being heard...from the computer?
"...Co-...Come...Need..." He could hear it say. Making him raise an eyebrow; was the hacker tapping into his speakers or something? He then noticed something REALLY bizarre, as his screen began to ripple, as if he was watching the surface of water, and before he could think of it in a rationale way, suddenly a human hand, pale white, emerged from the screen. He's seen this kind of thing in horror movies before, this is where the hand intends to grab and possibly choke him out. But no, oddly enough, as soon as most of the forearm was out of the computer screen, the hand that looked like it was reaching out to grab Ty flipped upside-down and became an extended hand, as if offering something with it. What exactly was it trying to say? Is there something invisible in his hand, is it asking to for him to take its hand, and if the latter, why?
Ty could only figure one conclusion from this: This had to be some kind of crazy hallucinating from the earlier concussion he suffered. Part of him wanted to go downstairs and tell his brothers about this, or just go to sleep and let the brain heal itself. But then he heard one of his siblings telling him to turn the computer off and get to bed, that in addition to school, there's a plentiful amount of chores awaiting him afterwards. At which point he figured, eh, may as well give into the concussion and enjoy the madness while it lasts, maybe he'll get lucky and he'll be called in sick because of it. With this in mind, he took the computer-hand, and let it grip tight to his wrist, far harder and stronger than he was anticipating, and pulled him into the screen.
In the split second he was thinking that this won't end well, as he's about to be hitting a flat hard surface in mere moments, he realized how wrong he was when he was pulled through the screen, once again feeling like jumping into water. He could see a bright light in the distance amidst streams of luminescent code flying past him in numerous ways. The light got bigger, and bigger, until it was blinding enough to make him shield his eyes.
He opened up his eyes again, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground, a rather hard gravel-like ground that suggests he was laying on stone of some kind, looking at a clear blue sky on a bright sunny day.
"It seems you're coming around. I didn't expect humans like yourself to gain unconsciousness so quickly after arriving." A voice said to him. Ty looked around to see who it was, only to turn his head to the side and spotted a blonde-haired boy, looking around his own age, wearing a white toga, a bunch of colored tattoos lining across his body, golden rights around his wrists and ankles, and most notably of all, the 1..2..3..6 angel wings on both sides of his body, 12 in total.
Oh, It's just an angel........Wait, wha-
Immediately Ty jumped back a little as he spotted the angel-winged boy, then took another look at the area around him.
"Oh, so THAT'S why they say to stay away from the light...Gotta say, Heaven's not quite as grand as its cracked up to be, is it under renovation something." Ty asked the angel boy. Said angel was about to say something with a confident smile on his face, but stopped before he could get even a noise out, let alone a word, as he processed what the boy before him said.
"...Come again?" The Angel asked, perplexed written on his face as clear as day.
"I get a concussion, which probably led to my brain bleeding, then I get a hallucination, gave in, bright light, now I'm here with an Angel in hea-....umm...Actually I guess this is more like Purgatory huh? ...Yeah, I guess that makes more sense." Ty said, causing the blonde angel to blink his sapphire blue eyes, not quite sure what this boy was going on about.
"...Even if such conclusions were right, I must admit you are taking such a possibility...more well than I imagined a human would."
"I lived in a house filled with brothers who have much better chances at success than me, so I can't say I have any real...ambitions for myself, you know? ...Wait, you mean I'm not dead?"
"No, you are not...Perhaps I should introduce myself foremost, my name is Lucemon and this is-"
"Wait, Lucemon...? As in 'Lucifer' Luce?"
"I...suppose?" Lucemon said in response. It was God who gave him this name, but beyond its base symbolic signifance as a name that represented the Light, the mythology behind its etymology was something that he never knew, nor had any care of finding out. It just meant "Light", and that was enough for him.
"Oookay, so I'm actually in hell then, ...nicer than I imagined." Ty said as he looked at the sky again, Lucemon closing his eyes and instinctively showing irritation on his face. ...Apparently Lucemon did need to learn of his name etymology after all. In hindsight it did make sense all things considered for him these past years,
"As I have already said, you are not dead. Listen closely, I am not an actual angel as you humans know them."
"Well, yeah, obviously. ...Because you're the devil." Ty then said, Lucemon stating to show relief for a second when it seemed as if Ty was acknowledging him, and then immediately contorted to annoyance. As he then whacked his fist over Ty's head, causing Ty to yell out in pain.
"I am slowly but surely beginning to regret this decision...In any case, this is not the afterlife, you are not dead, now please listen; this is important information you need to know. I am what you humans call a Digital Monster, or Digimon for short." Lucemon muttered to himself before then explaining to Ty.
"Oooow, ...Digimon? ...You mean, like one of those V-Pets?"
"...I resent such a name for our race, but I suppose that is what you humans consider us as, yes."
"But...You don't have pixels or anything like that, and can actually hit me."
"It may be hard to understand the specifics as to why, but this is a world made entirely of Digital code manifesting as physical matter. This, is the Digital World, and all that resides in it are creatures made of digital information." Lucemon explained. Ty couldn't help but tilt his head in confusion.
"So in other words, ...I'm inside the computer?" He asked.
"That is one way of putting it, it's more accurate to say that you're inside a land created from the digital data of all computers of your world, manifested into a physical plain of matter."
"So...I'm inside the Internet then?"
"Not necessarily...I'll explain the details another time. We do not have much as is, and time is of the essence." Lucemon then said, tossing some kind of golden wrist device towards Ty, which he caught, and took a look at. Immediately he noticed the front of it is the exact design of the outline that appeared on his computer.
"...What's this?"
"That is known as a Digivice, It is how I manage to bring you to this world, the means by which to bring you back to your own, and the key to your survival in this place, as a Digidestined." Lucemon explained as Ty kept looking at, and playing around with, it.
"Umm...Phone home. ...Escape...Google how to get home...? ...I don't think it's working." Lucemon raised an eyebrow as he looked at this...dumbfounded scene of the boy treating the Digivice like some smart phone.
"...Creating the means to enter your world is not that simple. It requires a great amount of energy and a code in order to access, and I've already too much of it to get you here."
"Umm...Ok, but I have school tomorrow, and if I'm not dead, then I have a bunch of brothers who'll worry about me if I'm not back there...and more importantly, would kick my ass for worrying them." Ty said as he placed the Digivice on his wrist.
"Time varies between worlds; this world's time goes faster in parallel to your own, and as a result, by the time a day passes in this world, less than a day passes in yours. As such, you needn't worry, young one."
"It's Tyler, Tyler Falcon...or Ty for short. So...Why am I here exactly?"
"...Very well, Ty, I shall explain. You are a digidestined, chosen by that Digivice. As such, you are one tasked by fate to come to this world and be a part of its salvation. Under normal circumstances, you and others like yourself across your world would be called here to assist the digimon that live in this world, and achieve their protection from any that would harm them. ...However, I have alternative plans for one such as yourself. Each digidestined is given a digimon of their own to protect them and aid their will, and as fate would have it, I am your partner in this. One would be quite honored to have me at their side, this is not something that normally happens on a daily basis." Lucemon explained to him, a hint of confidence in his voice at the end.
"...So I'm partnered with the Devil?" Ty bluntly asked, annnnd, Lucemon falls to the ground in irritation.
"Please stop calling me that..."
"But why me though? I'm just some kid, not even a really good one. I'm sure one of my brothers would be more suited to this thing..."
"The skills of your siblings are irrelevant. The Digivice chooses its master, and it chose you, likely because you have something nobody else does, something about you worth being chosen for, just as it chose me to be your partner. It is something that cannot be explained, and will get nowhere with questioning. What matters is that now that you're here, I have need of your help." Lucemon explained.
"Umm...Ok, I mean, not like I have much choice. So, Lucy, What do you want with me?"
"Lucy...?Very well...I would like you to be stand as the ruler of this world...I would like you...to be the Digimon Emperor, Overlord of the Digital Realm." Lucemon said, his arms and wings extended outward proudly as he said it. Ty blinked for a few seconds before tilting his head in confusion.
"...Huh?" Ty simply said...Did he...Did he just say "Overlord"?
Present Day...
A bright sunny day was seen on the horizon of this world, however false in may be in actuality, the boy didn't care one bit about. a relatively peaceful land of grassy meadows and plant life galore stretched across the horizon as far as his eyes could see. In the distance, stood a small but thriving metropolis, covered head to toe in plant life and shaped in the form of a flower's blossom, hence why it was called...
"Blossom Town...Our first of many, many targets. This'll be fun, Can't wait to start actually throwing the word about us." Ty said, oddly holding a Demidevimon over his face.
"Eyheyheyhey! My face isn't a some mask or goggles, boss!" The little bat thing said, flapping his wings around in a panic.
I did NOT graduate from the Evil Familiar school of Mischief and Mayhem to be used like this! I can suck up blood with a Demi-dart, make minor curses, and even send bat buddies to get on peoples nerves, but being binoculars is not what I was made for, Boss!
...There's an Evil Familiar School in this world?
NOT the point, boss!
"Oh you're no fun..." Ty said in response as he lets go of Demidevimon, revealing that his face was now completely different. From his birth to when he first met Lucemon, he had short brown hair in no particular style and blue eyes. But for some reason, now his hair was messy and purple, as if spiked up wildly on purpose, and his eyes were just as purple.
His attire also changed...He came into the world with a white t-shirt with black outlines, and some black and green shorts, with no footwear at the time due to him arriving when he was in his room. Now he wears a white suit with multiple straps wrapped around his arms, and two straps hanging loose around his legs. Apparently, his pants are made to look like a piece of punk fashion with bondage pelts, but they are actually just fake belts sewed to thicker part of the thighs. His shirt is ripped at the hem and the collar part of it is completely gone, and big parts of the uniform are fixed with metal clips. He has multi-colored buttons running down the middle of his shirt, with a few usually hidden under his checkered black-and-white scarf, has military badges on his right, and wears two-colored black and purple slip flats. All over a black flowing cape and to finish off the evil dictator look, a leather-peaked hat with a golden badge at its top in the shape of the Digital World's Mark of evil.
It seems he now has the look worthy of the title of Digimon Emperor.
Behind him, in addition to Lucemon who was also staring down at the town in the distance, was an army of other Digimon, most of them humanoid and some of them clearly evil in appearance, and one in particular seemingly far more menacing with his massive stature and a black cloak over its body. Among the members of this army, one would be able to Spot a Wizardmon, Witchmon, Devimon, Meramon, Clockmon, and, oddly enough, a Renamon, and those were just some of the many digimon that seemed to follow Ty and Lucemon. Ty took one last good look at the town before looking back at his imperial army.
"Ok, so, Everyone knows the plan? ...Any questions? ...Good. This is gonna be our first big hit for this empire, and first impressions are key. This goes off without a hitch, there won't be a digimon anywhere in this server that didn't know who we are. Witchmon already provided me with the special spices that'll really get this thing started...Now I just need a good vehicle to ride down there with, does everybody got that done yet?" Ty asked. Some of them nodded and wheeled in this "vehicle" that Ty mentioned.
"It's... so beautiful! You guys did a great job with this! This'll surely bring chaos into the hearts of those poor little plants..." Ty said. Lucemon looked at it and then back at Ty, palm perfectly plastered upon his face in embarrassment as he stares at the "vehicle" in question.
"If I may, I still believe this plan of yours brings too much needless risk." Lucemon mentions to him.
"You worry too much, Lucy. It'll be fiiine, We'll strike terror and despair into the hearts of every last citizen before the day is done...and get our reward before lunch time." Ty said to him, leaning on Lucemon's shoulder as he does before then jumping onto his "vehicle", a pair of sunglasses from his pocket now on his face, as he takes off the bat medal from his hat and putting it in his pocket.
"Alright everyone, to your places. Remember, if anything DOES happen, I'm counting on the rest of you for some troubleshooting...potentially literally. Now then...It's time to commence Operation: Fiesta-Dura! Hi-Ho, Silver, AWAY!" Ty yelled out as he blasted off towards Blossom town on his...
The Digimon, as one might expect in a place like Blossom Town, were all essentially plant type Digimon, just about every plant digimon you can think of was here. Budmons, Floramons, Palmons, Togemons, Vegiemon, Lalamons, Sunflowmons, you name it, they're probably here. It seems the town is filled to the brim with in-trainings, Rookies, and Champions. There were a few ultimates, but they were either few and far between, or apparently were at the center castle of Blossomtown, where their mayor seems to reside, serving as guards for her. Aside from the bizarre plant-like architecture of the buildings, the place was completely covered in what appeared to be thorny vines, and the blossoms of roses as far as the eye could see were decorated throughout the city.
They were going about their day, minding their own, when one of the Floramon looked into the distance and saw something from the corner of her eye, something...odd, to say the least. As the others looked, they saw the small human riding atop a rocket-powered shopping cart, looking onward with sunglasses on as his black cape flapped in the wind. Turning off the rockets with a switched, he pressed on a step that appeared to be the breaks, making the shopping cart coming to a screeching halt...right in the middle of town. He could hear as the others starting to whisper among each other of this strange man that showed up out of nowhere, some of them calling him out for his recklessness in driving something like that in here. Ignoring the musings of the masses, Ty stood up on his cart and looked upon them with a big smile.
"...Denizens of Blossomtown, Lend me your ears! I am Falcon, ruler and Overlord of a Mighty Empire! The Digimon Emperor who shall one day cast dominion upon this world. As Emperor, I give you but one order to obey..." He declared, deepening his voice so as to sound as menacing as a 12 year old possibly could. He then jumped off his Cart and onto the ground below, and almost immediately threw off his cape.
What happened next was...odd. For starters, Ty now looked somewhat...smoky, as if some kind of steam or smoke was coming off him in very little quantity, to a point where most may not even notice it all that much. Secondly, his hat now looked like a round Mexican party hat, and around his waist was some kind of purple mp3 player, and two maracas behind him.
"...To Party Hard!" He said, as a certain song started playing, and he in turn started dancing, getting out his Maracas and shaking them about...then he started to sing to the song.
Eventually, in a few minutes, the Digimon began to dance with him, as he threw away his maracas towards a Togemon, and a Palmon started to sing with him, then the others started to join in the singing as well. Ty even went as far as temporarily tango dancing with a Floramon. The Lillymons and Lilamons in the Castle looking out towards the party that was going on outside suspiciously.
Everything was going according to plan...
As the party began in Blossomtown, Demidevimon looked over yonder at the party, and even began dancing a little himself as Lucemon kept his face in his palm.
"I don't believe it...The little boss is actually doing it!" Demidevimon said as he danced.
"May God forgive me for my sins...for I have created a monster." Lucemon thought as he struggled to look at the embarrassing display in the distance.
It should be noted that the tall cloaked member of the army, has disappeared from sight completely.
"What the fuck is that." Violet stared at the email she received the night prior and repeated her question at the time. This isn't even real binary. Geez, it's practically impossible to clear up, too. She ran another program to try to turn the text on her screen into something legible. Hell, give me ancient Mesopotamian or something, just anything I can read. How did they even make it THIS distorted? She scratched the back of her head and stretched, enjoying the lack of restriction from clothing. There was absolutely no way a virus was going to get through to her, and cryptology was fun enough to play around with, so the email made an interesting distraction for her.
Thinking on it, she decided to try a new approach and took a screenshot of the email, porting it to an image editor. Maybe it was a puzzle instead? After what seemed like hours her stomach finally complained enough to get her out of her seat and downstairs to the kitchen. It was Thursday so she didn't need to worry about her parents being home to see her topless. As she sat down to eat half a box of cereal she didn't notice that the blinds on the window behind her were open, not that she'd particularly care if she knew.
Looks like the clock broke too. I- Her train of thought was cut short as she realized that the clock stopped at exactly ten. By ten o'clock her vpets should have gone off to tell her they needed to be taken care of. All other thought left her as she stood up and ran back upstairs, knocking over her box of cereal and glass of milk in the process. Jumping onto her bed she slid over it to fall on the other side, bolting back up as she opened the drawer containing her neatly arranged toys. She pulled out the most recent and started to wake it up, but no matter what she tried she couldn't get it to respond. Panicking, she checked each of the others only to find that none of them would turn on. Even replacing the batteries in two of them didn't work.
This isn't happening! It's just another nightmare, it's just another nightmare. It's not real, calm down, it's not real. You know what happens next, and this time you'll... Her train of thought trailed off as she slowly realized that she was fully awake. But what could cause all of them to stop working, especially at the same time? An EMP? Maybe, but that would have stopped her computer as well, surely. Maybe it only hit the one side of the house? She ran back downstairs to check all the electronics she could find. After several minutes she returned to her room, her analytical mind in full force.
Everything but the fridge and my comps are down... Why only mine, though? It can't be a virus, that wouldn't hit everything like this. She looked out the window of her attic bedroom in thought. Slowly, as her mind started processing what it was seeing and not just confusion, it dawned on her that something was very wrong with the view. There appeared to be a high-rise outside. Violet quickly put on a shirt and pants, filled a carrying bag with her laptop, phone, and some food and drink, and went outside to investigate.
It was on July 31st, 2011, which Katheryn was reading a book in her room at her desk. She only reads books when it is a Sunday and it’s usually her mother’s short story. She is usually told not to play video games on Sunday because of her family’s traditions of family time. She looked up and noticed the time on her alarm clock, it was 4:00 PM CST. She gasped slightly since she completely forgot about the starting of family traditions start 3:30 PM CST.
”I am definitely enjoying my mother’s books but I should go see if they need my help,” Mugnai said a bit worried with a kind smile on her face.
She sets her mother’s short story on her desk gently since it has seen much of use throughout her lifetime. She gets up from her chair at her desk and walks out of her room into the front room, which looks as normal for a Japanese inspired home as possible. She noticed her mother and father in the kitchen talking about a certain thing.
”Mom and Dad do you need any help with anything for our family time?” Katheryn asked, kindly.
Her mother Claudia looks directly at her daughter with a smile as kind as her daughter’s smile. Her mother walks to her daughter and gives her a gentle hug. Katheryn giggled cutely when her mother hugged her.
“Yes, daughter, we do need some help,” Claudia said, happily.
”What is that you require mother?” Katheryn asked, curiously.
“Can you look for a recipe online for Oyakodon and check your emails too, because I heard that the latest JRPG is coming out from a email I got,” Claudia said.
”Oh okay, mother that sounds nice to try something new from our mainland, even though American food is all I get in School. Nice, I will definitely look at my email for any new JRPGs on the horizon,” Katheryn said, happily.
Claudia walks back into the kitchen to talk to her husband about the other things needed to make the certain things for dinner today.
“Oh goodie, I get to see if there’s any new releases are coming out for Japanese RPGs…,” Katheryn thought to herself as she watched her mother go back into the kitchen.
Katheryn turned around slowly and walked back into her room. She looked around her room for a bit and notices her plushie on her bed and looked at her desk. It had her mother’s short story and it also holds her computer too. She sat at her desk again and turns on her computer, which was sitting beside her desk on the floor. She looks at her computer monitor that was turning on, which always made her happy.
”I hope I have some emails from my childhood friend and my subbed to Japanese RPGs monthly,” Katheryn thought to herself a bit.
Katheryn looked at her alarm clock. It took about three to five minutes to startup the computer since it hasn’t been updated since 2010, and it’s almost 2012. She moves her mouse and clicks her favorite browser, which was Mozilla Firefox. She had a desktop background that had multiple different Japanese RPG characters saluting similarly to Full Metal Panic. She switches to her email service and looks at the emails, there is the usual ones, plus a new one at the top saying, ‘Urgent news!’ with an unknown sender and weird text in a language she has no idea what it says.
”What the…? It’s nice to know I got the emails I usually get from Japanese RPGs monthly but no emails from my childhood friend. What’s this email?” Katheryn thought to herself, with a confused look on her face.
She curiously clicks the Urgent news, email link to see if she could understand what’s going on. The entire email made no exact sense it was unique, however, it makes her think it was a sort of a game. She had a smile on her face but remembered that she had to look for a recipe for dinner tonight. She opened another tab, to search with google but her computer screen glitched and the computer screen turned itself off.
”Why is this happening now of all things? I guess I shouldn’t be clicking on random links, they could be embedded with a virus. My mother always told me to scan emails to see if they are truly safe,” Katheryn thought to herself, annoyed at the fact her computer screen glitched.
She looked around her room and then back at the computer screen she saw it back on and her reaction was a bit weirded out by that. She searched for the recipe and found it pretty simply, since she had the new tab open. She took a piece of paper, and wrote down the ingredients and turned off her computer to make sure nothing more strange happened. She walked to the kitchen with the ingredients.
”Mom, something weird happened to me when I clicked a email, my computer monitor glitched itself off and back on,” Katheryn said.
“That’s not good daughter, what was the email called?” Claudia asked, curiously.
”Urgent News! Is all I got from it which was strange,” Katheryn said.
“Hmm, never heard of the email called that but there’s stranger ways to get a virus out there and I usually disallow you to visit the darker parts of the internet,” Claudia said, happily.
”I love you mom for that… I hope my computer isn’t screwed up too badly… It’s the only way I get to watch video game trailers of JRPGs or otherwise,” Katheryn said, happily.
Her father interjected with a cough more or less wanting to say something, he looked a bit worried about the name of the email. He did notice she was holding a piece of paper of ingredients for things but he wanted to talk about what she did more than what she’s about to do.
“Good of you coming in here and telling us about it, Katheryn. Next time, don’t let the curiosity to kill the cat sort of speak and call us if you are confused about something,” Taro said.
”I will father, better to be safe than sorry as you always say,” Katheryn said, trying to imitate her father’s speech patterns when saying ‘better to be safe than sorry.’
Taro gave out a laugh when his daughter tried to imitate him, and he looked at his wife and then back as his daughter. He gave a smile and looked directly at the piece of paper she was holding.
“I noticed you got the ingredients written down on a sheet of paper. Therefore, are you going to give it to one of us so we can fix dinner?” Taro asked.
”Oh yeah… here you go father and mother, here’s the ingredients to Oyakodon. I can’t wait to try it,” Katheryn said, handing the sheet of paper to her father first since he did ask.
Taro held the sheet of paper in his hands and looked at the ingredients for a minute and looked at his wife and daughter, more or less giving them the look of let’s do this. He went to gather the ingredients. Katheryn gathered the required cookware to make the food on the stove. Claudia gathered the cooking oil, utensils and plates.
The three always enjoy cooking dinner together since it is a family effort other than just one person doing all the work. It usually takes the three of them working together about 2 hours to fix dinner. This is like clockwork most of the time and today isn’t no different and they sit down to eat and eat a wonderful meal. It was around 5:00 PM CST when they were
”Oyakodon was a good choice to try out, mother,” Katheryn said, happily.
“No problem, you should get ready for bed for tomorrow, we are going to go shopping for school supplies for you, since you go to school in 16 days,” Claudia said.
“That’s a wonderful idea, she can even get her own book to read at the local bookstore,” Taro added, to what his wife said.
”I really like that idea, dad. I definitely need more school supplies, since I used most of my coloring pencils all up last school year,” Katheryn said.
She got up out of the chair at the kitchen table, and walked into her room to go to sleep. Her parents stayed at the kitchen table for awhile before they decided to watch some TV.
Claudia:
Taro:
The Following day, she woke up on the August 1st, it was around, 5:00 AM CST is when she usually wake up during summer time since her schedule is not strict but she wants to have a good sleeping schedule compared to her childhood friend, who sometimes sleeps in class. She stretched a bit and got up and went to her computer desk to try to turn on her computer. She had a confused look on her face, it wouldn’t turn on at all. She couldn’t really figure out why. She went to her room’s light switch and tried to turn it on, it was in the on position but nothing.
”What the…? That is a bit strange… I have never had this happen in this house before,” Katheryn said, a bit curiously.
She walked out of her room and noticed nothing was stirring not even a mouse. She looked around for a bit. She didn’t hear or see the normal laughter or talking from her parents about certain things she has done in the past.
“Mom, Dad? Are you there,” Katheryn asked, confused and a bit scared.
She walked back into her room and decided to look outside of her window since she was a bit terrified in what is exactly going on right now. She opened the window and saw a Japanese home across the street of her actual home. She had a bewildered look on her face, she always wanted to see a Japanese home before, but not like this exactly.
”This is out of this world, where am I? Don’t tell me I’m in a one of my favorite roleplaying games right now…,” Katheryn said, trying to come up with an explanation to this bizarre reality going on right now.
Katheryn looked at her room, it is more or less the same but the outside world is definitely different so she might as well try to investigate it alike some of the games she have played. She walked to the outside of her room and wondered if there’s any other strange things happening. She couldn’t help but feel a bit lost without her parents guiding her way since they always protected her from all the horrible things with her ex-boyfriend. She slowly walked outside of her home and walked mostly to the side of it and looked to the rear of her home and was shocked to see a High Rise, and a farm house in the distance. Her look on her face was a bit worried in who lived in the Farm house.
”What… the… hell? An Farmhouse & A high rise in the distance to the north of my home… Plus a Japanese home to my right… this is like a sick joke from whoever sent me that email,” Katheryn thought to herself, thinking that is the only explanation to this entire dilemma of what the hell is going on.
There was language he was meant to refrain from or else he’d get swatted on his hands. All though Grandma and Grandpa seemed a little weird right now. A bit of excitement bubbled up forth in him in this strange weird world. A beach resort that made him think of many words he wasn’t allowed to say stood right in the middle of a lot of western style buildings. Of course they had buildings like them in Japan, nothing quite like the two story house across the street.
“Mistah Furafu, it’s like Alice n Wonderland isn't it?” he asked his teddy bear whom he held close to his chest. Now what? Did he wait to wake from his dream? He was used to having such vivid dreams, but where did he think of a beach resort? When had he seen one to conjure one like the one right in the middle of the street nearly commanding the attention of the other buildings.
Slowly wandering the street. What should they explore first? He stops as a girl comes out of the two story home. It has a lot of windows. Why do Americans need so many windows? He counts seven on the outside. Nervously he considers approaching the girl. If this were a dream she couldn’t come to harm him later. Beside he didn’t know anyone like her. Teal colored hair and gray irises, she was very pretty with long lashes, and she seemed to have something in her eyes that made him feel slightly comfortable. Though still worried and tempted to put his hood up.
“Um,” he tries to speak up while crossing the street, checking for cars like he had been taught. Yet, there weren’t any cars parked on the sidewalk, or any driving on the road. Something about this felt really odd.
Did she hear him? Probably not. You need to speak louder Kei, his grandmother is always telling him.
“Um! Miss!” he says a little louder now, he wonders if she can hear him, even him yelling sounds more like he’s trying not to disturbed anyone at the library, “Excuse! Miss!” hopefully she hears him as he gets closer. He can barely hear himself through the rushing anxiety and pounding of his heart. What if she makes fun of him?
Katheryn was still looking in the north direction, mostly confused at the weird going ons in this world. She couldn’t help but feeling like she’s being watched but then a soft spoken voice was heard to the exact right of her. Her mind wandered for a bit as this is a bit of a shock to her mental facilities as a whole and a mindfuck that her ex-boyfriend could probably easy makeup on the spot.
”I do hope Lucius had no part in this mindfuckery…,” Katheryn thought to herself. She tightened her fist a bit but relaxed them when she heard the soft spoken voice a bit louder.
She turned her head to the right, slowly and saw a young boy and who is probably the voice. His looks were black hair, gray irises and holding a teddy bear with him. She smiled a bit and felt relief in another human’s presence. She waved towards the small boy, who was walking towards her and was very polite for his age.
”Oh hello, how are you doing today? I’m a bit confused in what’s going on…,” Katheryn said, with a gentle smile towards the small boy. She still wondered if this was a game or not but this child probably doesn’t play video games.
She turned around slowly to directly face the young boy, since her parents always told her to be kind to anyone she sees, including the people she hates. However, the latter always holds her up when it involves her ex-boyfriend. She smiled kindly towards the young child and just realizes she hasn’t introduced herself.
”Oh I am very sorry, my name is Mugnai D. Katheryn or you can call me Katheryn for short. It makes it easier for everyone to turn my name around…,” Katheryn said, informing the young boy about her name. She couldn’t help but notice the streets are empty with no cars, buses, or otherwise, it is like her and this young boy are the only ones here.
Her look turned to worry as this is a bit strange of all things, to a young boy in the middle of a deserted-esque neighborhood that has strange buildings from everywhere. She was lost in thought at if this was still a game or a hideous joke on her and the young boy. If it was the latter she will not enjoy it but if it is the earlier, she’s a bit curious how she got put into a game.
She noticed him, he wasn’t fully prepared for her to actually acknowledge him. Nervously he slipped his hood up in order to hide a bit better. Kyasarin Mugnai? He hadn’t done a lot of English classes yet, so he wondered if his English was acceptable.
“Kyasarin-san,” Kei bowed slightly, “Himura Kei.”
He looked around. He felt slightly embarrassed as he held Mistah Furafu up, “Mistah Furafu.” he says.Oh now she definitely was going to make fun of him. He wondered how much older she was compared to him. Probably laugh about him later on. If she wasn’t indeed a dream.
“I...am,” Kei looks around, “Trying to figure out….what here is. Then...I saw you. I am also trying to figure out….” his voice is a little unstable, “if you’re real or not.”
He first goes up on his tippy toes then falls slightly back on his heels nervously.Why was he so nervous in his own dream? Why couldn’t he steady this anxiety?
“Do you want to investigate with me?” Kei ask, “We….can be like detectives.”
On the sidewalk by Katheryn’s home while talking to a young boy.
Katheryn noticed the young boy’s hood being put up back on his head, she was very detailed since she has to be when playing all those video games. She enjoys the ones with customization even though there’s very few and far between ones for JRPGs. She heard her name from the young boy and smiled a bit. She listened to his name and only got Kei from it, since it was pretty simple to understand.
”It’s nice to meet you Kei.” Katheryn said to Kei.
She saw him lift up his bear and called him ‘Mistah Furafu’ and just had a gleeful smile on her face, not in a laughing matter but a serious matter, since she has a plushie like that but it’s a video game character, a chocobo to be specific.
”Aww, that’s cute, giving stuffed animals or plushies names is very good for imaginative needs. I have a bird plushie by the name of Choco, he’s always with me in my heart and mind,” Katheryn said, with a bit of a her chocobo plushie on her bed on her mind.
She listened to Kei talk and was grateful that he has no idea what’s going on either. She lets out a giggle on what he said last, if she is real or not. She moves one of her hands to her face and pinches her cheek and she lets something akin to what people feel.
”Owwie, I think I am definitely real, I had to make sure,” Katheryn said, rubbing her cheek since she pinched it herself a bit hard, she always forgets to clip her fingernails to a proper fineness.
She carefully watched Kei stand up on his tippy toes and look a bit nervous, while anxious at the same time. She just smiled kindly towards Kei, while this was happening, and wondered why she always has to pinch herself when people say that saying, it than just hit her it’s what her ex-boyfriend usually tortured her with. She just closed her eyes slowly and breathed in and out slowly and opened them back up, since she was told if she ever wants to calm down do what she just did. She heard what Kei asked, smiled and nodded to it.
”Yeah sure, I will help you investigate, this strange world we are in. I enjoyed that one video game that you were a detective trying to solve a crime, in a strange game that yells Objection. It always made me giggle when it happened though,” Katheryn said, happily remembering her fond memories of Phoenix Wright.
She always wondered what it would be like to do that in real life, but investigating a world with Kei does seem like the best opportunity to do something about that. She wondered who was also in this world with her and Kei.
Outside Carver looked around walking out into the middle of the street. Astonished by what was all around him. Carver looked back at his home. That's the apartments or english flats where he lived but looking around everything was different. A japanese style home next to his, 'That wasnt there yesterday? Where am I? That looks my house but everything else is different.', thinking to himself he turns and sees a beach like resort. Carver scratches his head trying to think while looking around quickly looking for any sign of life.
Going over what was obvious Carver woke up and seemingly was in his house but it isn't where it is normally is. Things in the apartment were very similar to the home he knew, but it was slightly off the odd glitch in the tv along with the mirrors just being blank. Now outside everything is drastically different. New buildings and locations that weren't there before.
'Am I alone?....wait who is that?!' Carver sees a girl seemingly talking to a boy who has a teddy bear with them. It was a sign of life. Carver's eyes got wide he wasted no time he starts sprinting over towards them yelling loudly, "Hey! You two! Don't move I have questions for you! Where am I!!!!!" Not looking to where or who is in his way Carver ran over to them as quickly as he can. Carver looking to contact the first two people he saw that loudest way and quickest way possible.
Once got close enough Carver says still yelling, "I am Carver Walker, who are you guys?" Not waiting for the answer to the first question. Carver springing ahead and telling them his name and asking for theirs in a rather blunt a loud way.
She’s nicer than what he expected, the pounding in his ear seems to be less now. He’s still nervous though and he’s not sure how to shake that aspect of himself. She seems to be enjoying herself, talking about a bird named Choco? Choco? Like Chocolate? That doesn’t seem like a very pretty color for a bird. He liked when birds were blue, green or yellow. Oh he supposed those were all male birds. You know what maybe people need to give female birds more credit?
“Choco sounds like a nice for a bird, do you make her outfits too?” Kei asked, knowing full well he learned sewing in order to put the clothes on Mistah Furafu that he did.
”It definitely is a nice name for a bird. I wish I did actually in terms of making outfits for Choco,” Katheryn said with a kind smile. She hadn’t really thought of making outfits for her plushie since it’s so cute as it is.
She didn’t laugh at him. In fact she was being super nice to him. She thought having outfits for his bear was a cute idea. Unless she was just saying that, that’s what grandmother says about their neighbor. She seems like a really nice person, but grandma doesn’t like her because she says things his grandmother wants to hear? He was unsure and he was still feeling nervous about this. If she were a dream or not.
“I...am,” Kei looks around, “Trying to figure out….what here is. Then...I saw you. I am also trying to figure out….” his voice is a little unstable, “if you’re real or not.”
She moves one of her hands to her face and pinches her cheek and she lets something akin to what people feel.
”Owwie, I think I am definitely real, I had to make sure,” Katheryn said, rubbing her cheek since she pinched it herself a bit hard, she always forgets to clip her fingernails to a proper fineness.
Wouldn’t that be something a dream person would do to convince him they were real? Nobody actually pinches themselves to see whether they are in a dream or not, do they? He always liked where his dreams took him, even if sometimes they were some really scary places. This place didn’t really scare him, if you thought of it like a Wonderland.
“I….guess that test works for now,” Kei says, ““Do you want to investigate with me? We….can be like detectives.”
”Yeah sure, I will help you investigate, this strange world we are in. I enjoyed that one video game that you were a detective trying to solve a crime, in a strange game that yells Objection. It always made me giggle when it happened though,” Katheryn said, happily remembering her fond memories of Phoenix Wright.
Objection? What does that mean? Kyasarin-san is not like everybody else he gets the sense. His nervousness is starting to get better.
“Where shall we begin?” Kei ask looking at the tall building in front of them and a western style barn, there’s also the beach resort. He still wonders if it is haunted.
"Hey! You two! Don't move I have questions for you! Where am I!!!!!" Someone was shouting. Kei quickly turned his head only to see someone charging towards them. He didn’t check the street. Kei started to feel that nervous boiling inside of him, he’s about the same age and height as the kids at school. Kei inches himself closer to Kyasarin-san and holds onto her sleeve slightly.
Katheryn heard someone shouting at them. She turned to look in the person’s direction and noticed the person charging towards them. She had a confused look on her face, in why the person didn’t check the street since it’s common courtesy to look both ways, even though there’s no cars on the street. She did notice Kei inching himself closer to her and holding onto her sleeve. She just had a smile across her face while looking down at Kei since he’s a sweet kid.
"I am Carver Walker, who are you guys?"
Yet, the person running towards them started walking ahead of them. Should he respond? He looks to Kyasarin for direction. He looks to Kaba-san, as he introduced himself, Kei feels his heart racing like it was earlier, but he tries to move past that, “Kaba-san?” hopefully he got right, “Why were you running down the street like that? You….sur...surprise others when you rush towards them. Also….you didn’t check….the street….and that is a bad habit you can learn if you do it too often.” yet he was still holding on Kyasarin sleeve in case the other boy acted poorly to his advice.
Katheryn was a bit surprised at hearing a Englishmen here, but she can understand him, even though he has an British accent. She wondered how to respond, mostly because this guy didn’t check the street when he crossed it. ”Hi Carver, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Mugnai D. Katheryn. Why didn’t you look across the street while you were running down it?” Katheryn asked with a puzzled look on her face. She looked at Kei and smiled gently towards him, since they were on the same page about the whole situation with Carver.
Watching as glowing flames of orange and yellow flickered. Embers crackling, spitting sparks in still time...
Seeing a perfect opportunity, Max decided to run back into his house to change into his swimsuit. After all, how often does a beach resort magically appear next door?
"This is getting weird. They’re not answering me at all."
Lando and the fire dancer kept doing their stuff repeatedly, which is already obvious that it’s getting weird. But then, not far from where the ‘beachfront’ is, a visitor walks in.
"Welcome to the NanaZuika Sugbu! My name’s Seven, and would you care for something you may need, sir?", he said as he keeps a straight face dealing with the situation he’s in and at the same time, excellent service just like what his father does in dealing with guests.
After changing into his beach clothes, and getting into the resort, he looked around and saw it was suddenly nighttime.
“Wait...wasn't it morning a minute ago? How did it become night time?”
Max shrugged his shoulders. It wasn't the weirdest thing to happen today... Night time swims weren't bad either. He was then greeted by a young man named Seven. It was the first other person he had run into today, and he wasn't bad looking either...
“Your name is Seven? Where's One through Six?”, Max let out a laugh before continuing. “Anyway, do you work here? I'm Max. This whole place appeared next door to my apartment. And I thought I’d take the opportunity to go swimming. Where's the pool...or the ocean?”
Max was disappointed that there weren't a bunch of guys here, but there were two that caught his attention. One looked a fire dancer, and one of them was playing a guitar in front of a fire. He lowered his sunglasses.
”Hello! Who are they?”
"Beats me, Max-sama...I've a feeling we're not in Cebu anymore."
Seven took a deep breath, and then he spoke again.
"Seven’s just my nickname since childhood. It’s actually Shichirou Hamada, meaning ‘Seventh Son’ and ‘Beach Field’. Glad that I get that a lot as well, reminds me of my classmates both back home and in Cebu.", the young man from Sendai replied with a chuckle, all in a somewhat blended accent of Japanese and the locals’ Cebuano.
Seven as a person has been through good and bad times, and besides his friend Chiaki, the ‘visitor’ is doing well to keep the spirits up and to keep Seven’s sanity...
"And yes, Max-sama, I’ll soon inherit this family business from my Dad. The NanaZuika Sugbu, as I recall, started out as a simple hang-out place by the beach, and then it grew into a luxury beach resort. There’s still the ocean right behind me, and the pool’s not far from where we are... That good man over there is our family friend and resident entertainer Lando, and the fire dancer’s name is Kai, I think. I can’t seem to talk to them since they don’t answer me back... Anyway, you seem to be a nice guest, I can tell from your smiles, Max-sama. Nice choice too with the get-up, purple’s my signature color."
“Wow, I traveled far! I came all the way from America.”
“Heh, Max-sama. I like the sound of that.”, Max listened to Seven’s story. Then he got the part about how Kai and Lando weren't talking back.
“Wait... they're not talking back?”, he waved frantically in their direction and exclaimed, “HELLOOOOO!”
But the pair just kept doing what they were doing. “How disappointing…”, Max frowned.
His mood quickly picked up again. “Aw, thanks! You seem nice too!”
Then, Max gave the younger boy a hug, then let him go.
“Purple is my signature color too. It's such a magical color!”
“So, it looks like it's just the two of us then? Hm, I was expecting there would be more people.”
"Well, there’s only one way to find out..."
As both walked their way beyond the beach resort, Seven continued, "And, it’s the Japanese way to address a guest, we treat them as VIPs like what the beach resort’s built for. I think we’re getting along already, Max-sama, thanks..."
Seven was thinking of dropping the -sama eventually as they’re about to check out the rest of the immediate area, but for now, it’s seems fine.
"We’re in for a long, long, summer in all this weirdness."
At first Kei confused when Carver when he spoke initially. When Kei called him Kaba it took Carver a second to figure out that he was asking if that was his name. Before Carver could get a word out about why he didn't look both ways before crossing the road Katheryn introduced herself and asked the same question. Carver quickly stumbling out a few words not sure how to respond, "I just....you see...."
Quickly pausing what he was saying and now taking the time to down both sides of the road. Carver saw nothing was coming and then finally replies, "There is nothing coming, no cars, trucks just a lot of nothing." Carver didn't really know what to say or how to answer the question asked of him. Carver isn't the kind of person who would have thought to look both ways before cross a street unless it was busy. Carver's concerns now aren't about the traffic instead he is wanting to know what was going on and where was he.
Carver replies, "The road is the last thing I worried about. I am more concerned about where is this place, and where are we. Either of you two have any ideas of where this place is?" Getting straight to the point and straight to trying to figure out where is this place. Calming down from the inital shock and panic of believing he was alone now finding two others. Neglecting to ask first whether those two were actually in the same place he was. Carver just is quickly assuming that both Kei and Katheryn arent from around here and jumping to his conclusion.
Blinking, as if he blinked into a new schizophrenic existence. Rubbing his eyes only made him realize the shelved puppets were on both hands. Tristan felt so estranged by the familiarity of the home he loved. It was like the very fabric of reality reset, but the files were irreparably corrupted. Surrounded by unrecognizable homes filled by a sprawling countryside; the large barn beside their residence enclosed by their white-picket fence and harvested crop fields. A fabricated painted with perfect detail, it just happened to be detailed with numerous errors. Was that the sky glitching out? Was this a side-effect of the medicine? Oh, wait. He forgot he hadn’t taken his medicine yet...
“I’ve never had such an interesting dream before.” Tristan uttered with complete denial, messaging the back of his head; it was still sore from waking up. Quickly remembering why he ran out in panic in the first place, running around the house and noticing a couple red robins pulling out worms from the dirt. He sighed in relief, accepting the incongruity of the situation of the shadow of birds flying down for a morning snack, somehow appearing to be his sister falling from the roof. It must have been his imagination...
He glanced down at his puppets both pointed their arms in the same direction. Looking toward the barn; the doors were conspicuously creaked open. Heading that way to investigate; considering maybe he was the marionette attached to strings. Passing the stone well, hearing sounds like growling from the inside.
“Huh. Looks like Lassie needs a paw, anyone speak dog?” Angi chimed in, moving its mouth. Shushed by Tristan, Luci’s arm pressed against Angi’s lips. Slowly approaching and peeking down at the well, only seeing the water at the bottom.
“Doesn’t look like a boy is trapped in the well…” Tristan said with awkward laughter; partially to make light of these strange events, and also finding his own reference clever.”
“Not yet.” Luci commented with a sinister tone. Two beaming red eyes pierced through the water’s surface. Tristan bolted away from the well; and his house.
“That’s-it. You’re-both-so-grounded.” Tristan huffed between shallow breaths. Ending up amongst a group of three children, that were clearly not from around here. One boy and girl that both appeared to be similar in age, and an androgynous kid that couldn’t have been much older than his own younger brother. All of their expressions seemed to read that they were experiencing the same phenomenon; though overhearing the exact questions the older boy had asked confirmed that assumption.
“Uh. Pardon me?” Tristan interrupted with a polite smile, puppets both happily waving. Unfortunately, before uttering his own greeting. His stomach did so for him, letting out a moaning cry that donuts were calling his name. The puppets both immediately held their mouths, like they tried to stop themselves from bursting out into laughter. Was it too much to ask his dream, to boot up a new save?
[hider=My collab][b][i]This first half of the of the post is a collab between myself and @The Jest
4 days earlier...
A young man was sitting in his apartment, his computer was on, going through another update to the system which the man was sure was just there to annoy him. “You know, it's time like these I’m glad I have my video games to play” Mike said with a chuckle as he brushed his blonde hair out of his eyes. He checked his computer as he saw his Lucario background appear as he said “Finally, the update is done".
---
Or at least, that’s how it seemed. Apparently, however, it seemed at first glance that whatever that update was, it decided it did not like the computer it was one, for just seconds after Mike said that, he would notice as the desktop wallpaper started to glitch out. To anyone who was an amateur, it just looked like a bad update or a that Mike caught a very bad bug. But an expert like Mike would likely know better. The way this computer was glitching, its menus and command prompts opening on their own and immediately disappearing, the bottom right sidebar phasing in and out as it was...this was not normal in the slightest. Oddly enough, just to top this all off, any anti-virus software that Mike had on his computer were not responding to this mess in the slightest.
This wasn’t some update mistake, or some trojan virus or horrific malware, this was something Mike was sure to have seen somewhere before, ...or have done himself.
This was clearly a cyber-attack of some kind, potentially a very bad doxxing, but whatever it was, if it was a hacker...it was definitely an amateur one, not even a hint of subtlety.
---
Mike began to grumble as he noticed all these things going wrong with his computer. “God dammit, another person who thinks that can outdo me, well guess what chum. I’m not called a master hacker for nothing" Mike said to himself as he pulled up his chair. Mike immediately began to type and check his codes to see where the other person was hitting his system so he could counter them whenever they attack him. --- As soon as he found out which code he was notice the command prompt screen once again appearing, but this time, showing some kind of symbol on his computer now, that of a round vertical rectangle with a circle intersecting at the bottom. The symbol of the digivice, although Mike understandably wouldn’t know that.
Then something...bizarre happened while the screen prompt was there, something rather small started coming onto the prompt screen from the side. It looked like an 8-bit sprite of a purple haired boy wearing a black hat and cape, trying to pull himself into the screen from the side of the prompt, in a similar way as to how a cartoon tried to enter from the side of a tv screen, or a comic book character trying to leave or enter a comic panel. Eventually he broke through, gasping for air in exhaustion the voice sounding real and live as if on a stream or an online call.
“Wooo...I thought I’d never get in here. Lucy made this look much easier than it is. ...Oh!” The sprite said, clearly with the voice of a young boy, likely in his pre-teens, looking directly towards Mike.
“Umm...Hi there. Sorry for the intrusion, apparently it’s harder than I thought to contact people from where I am. So...By any chance, are you the guy they call Bloodwolf? That expert british-japanese hacker I’ve been hearing about?” The boy asked.
--- Mike was clearly surprised by what happen after he found the glitchy code. “What the hell is happen to my computer” Mike muttered to himself though he saw the strange symbol. It looked like a deep blue computer thingy though he noticed the silver screen.
Before Mike could question it, he noticed a young man walking across his screen and then started talking to him like it was a video call which gave Mike pause and he did not answer the question, the spite posed straight away.
It took probably 2 minutes before Mike decided to try and speak to this strange person inside his computer as he said “I am Bloodwolf, though I would like to know if I’m finally losing my mind”
---
“Well, if you are, you must have been preparing for it, cause with all of this stuff going on...I mean, I accepted it pretty well too, but I had a concussion, so in my defense, I thought for sure this was because I was dying or something. ...Yeah, this happened to me too, I only decided to do it in place of the guy who did it to me because, well, I figured it’d make things easier to understand, long story. ...Anyways, My name is Tyler Falcon, from Chicago Illinois, or was anyways. I’m the head of a Digital Empire that just started up, oh, a couple of days ago I think, and I need your help. As it turns out, seems we’re both hand-picked by God or something to do some sort of deed of some kind. I haven’t really gotten all the details yet, but long story short, I need some help and it seems you’re the only one I can turn to.” The little 8-bit sprite explained as he tried to mess around with the symbol on the screen, looking to see if he could actually touch it, seemingly out of curiosity, as he grabbed the bottom end of the circle and started swinging on it like a monkey bar.
--- It was a good thing Mike had an open mind as he listened to this sprite, sorry Tyler Falcon explain the situation to him though when he mentioned about being chosen by god, Mike was clearly annoyed at that. “Why can’t that guy leave me alone, this knowledge and brain power he gave me has caused me more grief than anything. My sibling hate me and I have no friends because everyone is intimidated by me, it's not fair" Mike said as he slammed his fist on the table knocking open his book on the supernatural and a drawing he made of what he called a bloodwolf.
Mike sighed, and shook his head as he cleaned up his desk and faced Ty again seeing him playing with the weird symbol in the corner of his screen. “Well, at least your keeping yourself entertained Ty” Mike said as he poked at the symbol on his computer as he asked “So your an empire? What are you leading then a cult or something?” --- As the book opened up to the bloodwolf, Ty looked towards it, as if looking right at it. He then looked back towards Mike, snapping back to reality as he started his question.
“More like an Army. But not just any army, not a human one like we know of out here in this world. ...You really like the fantasy stuff right? I can tell...Look, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but hear me out on this. ...I’m not in this world right now, not on Earth. There’s a whole other world inside the computers of the world, they all seem to form this fantasy world of monsters and angels and demons and all kinds of these creatures. They’re all over the place here, and we’re not the only two who’ll be here. In about 4 days, some crazy email gonna come to others like us, chosen like us, and they’ll be whisked away to this place just like I was. Only difference, other than the early pass, is that we’re on a more fun side than they are. I can take you there, and it sounds like you don’t have much to lose if you go. So, I’d like you to take part in this army, and in exchange, I show you some crazy wonders, like you’ve never seen before. Who knows, maybe for you, it’ll be just like going into one of those books down there. Better yet, there’s a possibility you’ll be more than a visitor, you’ll be someone of power, maybe even a hero, but only if you say yes...So, what do you say?” Ty asked as he let go, his sprite extending its arm outward as if for a handshake.
---
It was certainly an interesting proposal that Ty seemed to be offering him. It certainly sounded like this world was pretty cool, Mike had played some MMO’s that had promised what Ty did and it was fun for a couple of days before it got boring again.
Being a Hacker, Mike had made it a mission of his to destroy anyone in an online game who bullied others. But Ty seemed to believe strongly in what he was telling Mike, and honestly Mike had considered things. He still believed Ty was basically a cult leader but what did he have to lose.
He was curious about these other people Ty spoke of, he noticed the sprite looking like it wanted him to shake it's hand. “You know What, Fuck it, I’ll join your Army/Cult Ty but please don’t make me wear a ridiculous outfit” Mike said as he reached to his computer screen to shake Ty hand. “My name is Michael Fertar but everyone calls me Mike. And yes, I am known as Bloodwolf throughout the internet” --- “...Heh, Alrighty then Mikey...Don’t worry about the outfit thing, We’ll get you whatever attires you want. Now then, I suggest you relax, and try not to have a heart attack...Cause this is gonna get really weird, really fast. You ever see the Ring, ...or Ringu as its called over there?” Ty said. Holding some kind of trinket in one of his hands, his other hand kept itself outward. Eventually the screen started to flicker and glitch once more, then, as Ty predicted, something really weird, unnatural in fact, happened. The glitches began to merge at the center of the screen and glow with a bright light and from out of it, an actual human hand phased out of the screen in front of Mike, and grabbed him by the hand.
“Now then, Hold on tight...things are about to get trippy.” Ty said to him, as the hand pulled back into the screen, pulling Mike in as a result.
When his face reaches the inside of the screen, he could see a long stretched-out hand pulling him into a bright sphere in the distance, as streams of data and information flew past him in all sorts of directions. As he came into the light, it would fade out, and from it, Mike would see a beautiful grassland amidst a sunny sky.
---
Mike was still not expecting a lot from this transaction, so he was absolutely shocked when all of a sudden Ty hand became real, and grab Mike’s hand.
Mike was even less prepared when Ty dragged him into his own computer screen, Mike hacker mind went into overdrive when he saw all the data code going past him.
It was then he noticed the bright Sphere where the hand seemed to be dragging him. For the first time, in a few years, Mike actually had a genuine smile on his face, dispute seeing the very rules of logic. Mike held the hand tight as he could see himself heading to a grassland where he hopped to final meet this strange man inside his computer.
---
Sure enough, right by him was an actualized version of the sprite from before, same set of colors and clothes, but on a pre-teen boy, just as expected.
“Hi there. Hope you enjoyed the trip.” He said, a whimsically mischievous smile on his face as he tipped his leather hat towards the man.
“Let me reintroduce myself. The name’s Tyler Falcon, Emperor of the Digital Monsters, or Digimon Emperor for short. Welcome, to the Digital World. A whole place made of digital data to explore and adventure how we see fit. ...Here’s a Welcome present for ya.” Ty said to him. He then took from the back of his cape a wristwatch digivice of a deep blue, with a silver screen and strap, and along side it a giant egg with a blue pattern to it, just about to hatch. As Ty gently places the two on to the ground in front of Mike. Finally, as the wind began to blow, Ty pushed his cape to the side, revealing a considerably large group of monsters behind him, Lucemon, the human-like angel, being among the frontliners of this group. As Ty allows Mike a glimpse of this army behind him, he then once again extends his hand towards Mike.
“Welcome to the family, mate.” He said with that same smile.
---
Mike was not sure what to think about Ty get up and the way he proclaimed himself to be a Digimon Emperor, still though, Mike was somewhat at ease within the entire digital world.
Though he did notice the army behind Ty and Lucemon, who almost immediately Mike did not trust him at all. But when Ty handed him, a welcome present, Mike smiled somewhat as he bent down to pick up the items though he knew he would have to play the game correctly so he bowed to Ty before he picked up both items and said “Thank you Emperor” as he shook Ty hand.
Once Mike let go of Ty hand, his digivice began to glow before the egg appeared and hatched in front of Mike, unknown to Mike, beginning a friendship that would last forever. His first real friend.[/hider]
Present day:
Mike and his partner Gaubumon who he named Wolfy were watching the events unfold on a cliff that overlook the town as Mike turned to Wolfy as he said "I tell you something Wolfy, I still believe Ty leading a cult of some kind. But I do trust him, its Lucemon I don't trust". Wolfy nodded as he said "I know, I've seen the darkness in his eyes whenever we've had to speak to him when we with Ty". Mike nodded before he noticed his Laptop dinged as he brought it up to see a Agumon on the screen. "What up's Agumon?" Mike asked the yellow dinosaur who answered "Well, There here. You remember those other people the emperor mentioned. I just saw houses appear as if from no where and about 5 or 6 human walk out of them. They seem to be confused, should I engage them or stay back?".
Mike eyes glowed when he heard that info as he thought about his options, While Ty was the digital emperor, Mike had what he called a Black ops group of digimon spys who would keep him up to date on all the going's on. "Hmm, Stay back and keep watch on them. If they were dragged into this world like me, eventually they should come there digivice and their partners. Keep watch and inform me when they get their partners. Then I'll see what Ty wants to do" Mike said which got a nod before the connection ended.
Mike then brought up his camaras to watch everything else unfold around the town.
