Hideaki looked around him, observing the school life of the students that attended this school. He was currently standing in the hallway of a new school, one that he had found the night before while looking at maps of the city again. After all, today was one of the few chances he had to explore the town a little bit more, since he did not have any particularly difficult school work to do back at the house unlike usual. Although in all honesty, he didn't particularly mind all of the busy work he was getting. After all, he was going to be something great when he grew up, and he'd be used to putting forth a lot of effort in what he was doing. So doing a real job would seem even easier than usual. Or at least, that's what his mother would tell him, though he wasn't sure how accurate that was.

He shifted his footing and adjusted the bag that was resting on his back. He hadn't wanted to look out of place to the other students, so he'd brought his book bag with him. In it, he carried a decent amount of supplies that either his parents forced him to bring with him whenever he left the house or simply random items to give it some additional weight. It also contained a few books for him to read when he was done looking in on classrooms. As he took another look around while a kid pushed past him in a hurry to make it to his next classroom, a loud ringing sounded throughout the hallway, and the leftover kids were now quickly pushing their way through open doorways into the classrooms that they were supposed to be in. He always found it rather amusing to watch the students hanging out in front of the lockers for a while until the bell rang, which would inevitably result in them hurrying the conversation to an end and rushing to their class to avoid being tardy.

Before long, the young man found himself in an empty hallway, with every classroom door closing, likely to make it obvious when a tardy student would make his way inside. He peeked through the nearest classroom door window and saw a familiar sight. According to the list of classes posted on the doorframe, the class being taught here right now was a Statistics class. An older woman was standing near the front of the class, preparing to turn a projector on. He let out a small sigh. He had seen enough of Statistics studies to last him until law school. And so, he decided to step away from the door and see what he could do next.

As the boy moved through the hallway, he ended up passing in front of a restroom. He decided to make a quick stop here before looking for a different classroom. He stepped into the bathroom and was finished with his break quickly enough. He fastened his belt back into place and stepped up to the sink. He reached to twist the faucet and let out the water, but he was suddenly alerted by a beeping sound at his waist. He looked down and grabbed hold of the cell phone his parents had given him. He looked at the screen and noticed that he had a text message from an unknown number.

[I]'That's...strange,'[/I] he thought. [I]'Nobody ever gets a hold of me through texts. They all know that they're supposed to call me....'[/I] Curious, he unlocked the phone and selected the text message icon. Stranger still, there did not seem to even be a message with the text. After all, the spot where it would usually give you a preview of the text beneath the number was completely empty. He selected the message...and then suddenly everything went black.

~~~~~

"Hey, you!" a voice suddenly shouted. "What d'you think you're doing, still sleeping like that? Great, of all the humans I could have gotten stuck with, I guess I must've gotten the lazy one." 

Suddenly, a thud to his side jolted the human awake. Hide's eyes finally opened and he let out a low groan as he sat himself upright. He reached up and rubbed his skull with an open palm. "What...?" he murmured, looking around him to try to figure out what had just happened. "Where...?" A moment later, he was silenced by his surroundings. No longer was he in the school he had been exploring just a short while ago. Instead, he found himself in a small field...no, rather a clearing in perhaps one of the strangest forests he'd ever seen. If he had to make a snap judgment, it would be that he had somehow ended up in some kind of industrial forest, created by someone with a strange hobby and too much time on their hands.

As he began to stand up, though, the voice spoke up again.

"Geez, it's about time. C'mon already, everybody's already awake and doing stuff!" 

"Huh...?" Hide murmured, looking down to find the source of the voice. At his feet, staring up at him, was a small, black creature of some kind. The appearance of the creature startled him for a moment, but he quickly recovered. "W...wait. Are you talking to me...?" he asked it.

"No, I'm talking to the OTHER human still passed out on the floor." the black creature replied. Hide had a feeling that if he could have, he would have rolled his eyes.

Hide was stunned. What was this thing? And how was it talking...? "Erm...s-sorry...?" he murmured, pushing himself back up again.

"Well whatever," the thing said. "I guess we should probably introduce ourselves or something. The name's Botamon." He then hopped in place for a moment. "And you sure are a lucky one, 'cause I'm gonna be the strongest Digimon in the world one day." 

"...Erm..." Hide mumbled, clearly still not quite comfortable with talking to a weird black blob with goldenrod eyes. "H-Hideaki Saitou." he finished uncomfortably. He currently had roughly twenty questions swimming around in his mind right now, but he could voice them later. Right now, he needed to gather his bearings....

"Well c'mon, the other guys are doing stuff already, so hurry up!" With that, he immediately turned around and started bouncing forward, making his way toward where most of the action was going on, in Nadica's direction. Or at least, from what he could tell after hearing that somewhat higher-pitched squealing sound. It was too quiet for Hide to pick up, but Botamon was just able to pick it up.

Hide was still just as stunned as before. But it seemed like this strange creature, or Botamon as he called himself, seemed to know a bit more than he did. And, at least on the surface, he didn't seem to be hostile. So for now, he decided to just accept what he was looking at. After all, this little guy was definitely real. He had hit him in the side in order to wake him, if the bruise he had on his side was any indication. So he had no real reason to doubt the reality of what was going on. At least, not yet. So if he wanted to learn more, he would undoubtedly need to stay with him. After coming to this conclusion, he nodded to himself and began to step forward, following Botamon toward where Nadica was currently located. He quickly took note of the other humans and creatures that were also nearby, but decided to approach them later. Right now, he wanted to stick close to Botamon.

"Hey, what's happening over here?" Botamon suddenly called out with a particular lack of subtlety toward the girl and the Pabumon he found over there.

Hide remained silent, content with simply observing from behind for now. He always thought it was too risky to make any moves without any information, unless he was otherwise forced to.