[center][h3] [/h3][/center][h3][hr][color=#FBE3BF]Cavan Maynard[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]New York  ||  Midnight[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
[color=#FBE3BF]“Y-you can talk?”[/color] Cavan shut his mouth. Of course it could. Digimon could talk in the game—were said to be intelligent, sometimes even smarter than humans. [color=#FBE3BF]“Then why? How are you here?”[/color] he asked, sliding back into bewilderment. [color=#FBE3BF]“Aren’t you a video game character?”[/color]

The Tunomon narrowed its eyes, its teeth flashing. [color=#5B6356]“Tell me what [i]you[/i] are, first,”[/color] it growled. [color=#5B6356]“And why you brought me to this… this…”[/color] Its eyes flicked between the bed, the pile of clothes by the closet, and the lamp before focusing back on Cavan. [color=#5B6356]“Place.”[/color]

[color=#FBE3BF]“You mean my room?”[/color] Cavan asked, brows furrowing.

[color=#5B6356]“So it [i]is[/i] your den!”[/color] the Tunomon snarled. [color=#5B6356]“If you think I’m going to go down easy, think again! I’ll rip your face off and tear your limbs from—”[/color]

[color=#FBE3BF]“Woah, calm down, I’m not going to hurt you!”[/color] Cavan raised his palms. [color=#FBE3BF]“I just—I saw you outside, and you were—you’re a digimon, you know?”[/color]

[color=#5B6356]“Yeah, so?”[/color] the Tunomon asked, its teeth still bared. [color=#5B6356]“And you’re not?”[/color]

[color=#FBE3BF]“Me? No, I’m a person. Human. Definitely [i]not[/i] a digimon.”[/color]

This time it was the Tunomon who looked confused, though its teeth remained fully in view all the same. [color=#5B6356]“I don’t believe you,”[/color] it asserted with a growl.

[color=#FBE3BF]“Hey, I’m telling the truth, okay?”[/color] Cavan said, waving his palms. 

[color=#5B6356]“Then why did you bring me here?”[/color]

[color=#FBE3BF]“I… I just…”[/color] Cavan paused. Why [i]had[/i] he brought the Tunomon inside? It’d been a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing for sure, but past that… 

[color=#FBE3BF]“Cuz you’re a Tunomon,”[/color] he said at last. [color=#FBE3BF]“Cuz I thought… I thought you being here might have something to do with me.”[/color]

The Tunomon narrowed its eyes, and Cavan waved his palms again.

[color=#FBE3BF]“Look, I don’t know, okay? It’s just that in Digimon—Tamers, the game—my character’s a Tunomon. Well, he was before I digivolved him, but he was a Tunomon originally, and…”[/color] Cavan frowned. [color=#FBE3BF]“Are you a guy? Are you… my character?”[/color]

The Tunomon closed its mouth and stared at him. [color=#5B6356]“I get it,”[/color] it said at last. [color=#5B6356]“You’re crazy.”[/color]
[center][h3] [/h3][/center][h3][hr][color=#F44B52]Alice Takigawa[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]Tokyo  ||  Evening[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
Alice opened the door to her apartment, locked it behind her, and made a beeline for her room. Setting her school bag by her desk, she sat down at her desk and turned on her computer, clicking the mouse impatiently as she waited for the system to boot. The group raid was more than four hours away, but raiding was never her first priority. Sure it was important, considering that some items only dropped during raids, but Alice wasn’t in it for the items or experience, or even the game, sometimes. No, she was in it for the people. Years of chatting, battling, and growing with the same group had led her to make more than a few good friends, and she meant it literally when she said that she had stayed in the game for the people and not for the game itself. Even if she claimed that they’d supported her through her highs and lows and ups and downs without knowing a thing, that wouldn’t be untrue, because she’d been playing for that long now. In fact, she’d been playing for so long that could go through all the motions of opening the game, signing in, and shrinking the window down so that she could just look at the chatbox, all without looking. It wasn’t a skill she was particularly proud of, but it was a skill she possessed and considered vital to her daily routine. Case in point.

[quote=Synchai][code]@D00rmaus Hey Mau, hope u had a good day today![/code][/quote]
Alice grinned. Synchai, or Kelly, was one of her closest friends in the game. So close that they’d traded contacts years ago, but messaging each other while online was something they’d never stopped doing.

[quote=D00rmaus][code]@Synchai Chai!! I’m doing good (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ 
You?[/code][/quote]
[quote=Synchai][code]@D00rmaus Good too! I’m so glad the raid came together. Planning was such a pain but its paying off[/code][/quote]
[quote=D00rmaus][code]@Synchai Of course it did, you deserve it (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ
What chu up to now? ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ[/code][/quote]
[quote=Synchai][code]@D00rmaus Grinding some credits, u?[/code][/quote]
[quote=D00rmaus][code]@Synchai Just chatting (~˘▾˘)~
Good luck though! Hope you get a rare (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧[/code][/quote]
[quote=Synchai][code]@D00rmaus Thanks Mau, see u at the raid then~[/code][/quote]
[quote=D00rmaus][code]@Synchai See you (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ [/code][/quote]
Though few other messages cropped up, it seemed like most people weren’t online yet, which made sense. It was prudent to use the hours before the raid to get everything out of the way, if only to guarantee that there wouldn’t be any disruptions during the raid. Hence why she had her homework open in her main tab.

A thump sounded from behind the wall, and Alice froze. Judging by the direction it came from, it had to have come from the balcony, but that made no sense. She lived on the fifth floor, and though she usually walked up the stairs, that was still too tall for anyone to be climbing up to. So, it probably wasn’t a person. Probably a bird, or a stray ball someone threw for some unknown reason. Probably.

But, it’d been pretty heavy. And Alice was home alone. Sure, she usually was, given how late her parents worked, but she’d also never had to deal with sounds coming from the balcony. Sounds, plural, because there was another, and another, and another. 

Slowly, she rose from her chair, eyes flicking around her room as she looked for something with leverage. After a moment of deliberation, she settled for the bonsai plant on her window sill, which had a clay pot that was somewhat throwable in shape. It wasn’t the best weapon, but it was something, a gift from grandmother or not.

Attempting to get to the living room quietly wasn’t too hard given the socks and floorboards situation, but her heartbeat was loud and she kept worrying she’d slip and fall and give away her presence. Still, she managed, making it to her door and peeking around the corner at the balcony door. It was… empty. The balcony was empty.

[color=#F44B52]“What the,”[/color] she muttered, straightening and walking over to the door. She definitely heard something earlier. Multiple somethings, even, but where—

She [i]screamed[/i]. Well, shrieked, in a pitch higher than she’d like to claim and at a volume louder than she’d want to admit. But there, huddled at the side of the door, previously obscured by the potted plant beside it, was a shock of bright purple hair and large orange eyes.

It moved, and she shrieked again, scrambling back from the sliding door in such a rush that she dropped the bonsai pot she’d been holding. It hit the floor, shattering with a dull crack, its contents scattering across the living room floor, but Alice was too busy focusing on [i]it[/i]. [i]It[/i], whatever it was, was [i]alive[/i], and it moved, crawling—walking?—[i]walking[/i] towards her on stubby legs, its mouth rimmed with jagged edges as it looked at her, meeting her eyes.

[color=#7867D8]“Hello. Um. Sorry to bother you,”[/color] it said, [color=#7867D8]“but do you happen to know where we are?”[/color]

Alice shrieked again, tripping onto the sofa now, then continued to slide back across it, using her legs to kick her away from the door. It was [i]talking[/i].

[color=#7867D8]“Hi, yes, um, I’m not going to hurt you!”[/color] It waved a leg at her. [color=#7867D8]“I’m just lost. And hungry. Could you spare some food too?”[/color]

Okay, now Alice screamed.
[center][h3] [/h3][/center][h3][hr][color=#BB818D]Afton Reimer[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]Los Angeles  ||  Early Morning[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
With a piece of buttered toast in her mouth, Afton clicked away, her other hand matching buttons to each click with practiced ease. The raid was on, and though she was still tired, she wasn’t about to back out of something she’d agreed to do. Beyond the fact that Chai was annoying to cross, and beyond the fact that she needed a particular item that might drop during the raid, there was the fact that she hated going back on her word. There were times when she let people down, yes, but in that case she wouldn’t have committed. [i]Shouldn’t[/i] have, in this case, but how was she to know what could’ve, and had, happened?

A shift sounded from behind her, and she adjusted her bite on the toast. [color=#BB818D]“Fooths on the floor besithe you,”[/color] she managed, her eyes flicking between her character, her teammates, and the rogues on screen. 

[color=#A62A15]“W-what?”[/color]

She spat her toast out, letting it drop onto her plate with a small puff of crumbs that stayed within the edges of the plate. [color=#BB818D]“Food’s on the floor beside you.”[/color]

More shifting, then some chewing, then the sound of small thumps as the Hopmon came into view in her peripheral vision. She glanced over, registering confusion in the bacon-stuffed face, and refocused on her screen. [color=#BB818D]“You don’t like bacon?”[/color]

[color=#A62A15]“No ith gwood,”[/color] More chewing, then a swallow as the Hopmon stilled, staring at her. [color=#A62A15]“Afton?”[/color] he asked after a moment.

[color=#BB818D]“Yeah.”[/color] The rogue leader was close to death now. So far, Afton had been running Justimon’s Blitz Arm, but she was now switching over to the Critical Arm to get a better chance of landing the final blow. 

[color=#A62A15]“You’re a human?”[/color]

[color=#BB818D]“Yeah.”[/color] Just a few more attacks to go.

[color=#A62A15]“And I’m in the human world…”[/color]

[color=#BB818D]“Yeah.”[/color] Synchai was furiously DMing her, but Afton had resolved to ignore her. No reason she had to be that helpful.

[color=#A62A15]“Did I fall asleep last night?”[/color]

[color=#BB818D]“Yeah.”[/color] The definition of “enough” was applicable here.

[color=#A62A15]“I ate too much ‘pizza’...”[/color] 

[color=#BB818D]“Yeah.”[/color] This was starting to grate on her nerves.

[color=#A62A15]“And humans don’t have abilities…”[/color]

The raid ending banner popped up on her screen, and Afton exhaled, noting with satisfaction that she’d landed the last blow, which meant she got the bonus loot too. Then, turning to the Hopmon, she stared at him, stared at the gleam of grease on his mouth, at the mess of leftover bacon pieces on the floor. 

[color=#BB818D]“Yeah,”[/color] she said, grabbing her plate and rising from her seat. Then, retrieving the other plate from the ground beside her bed, she made for the kitchen, tossing her toast and placing both plates into the sink, rolling up her sleeves as she got the water running. 

[color=#A62A15]“What are you doing?”[/color] the Hopmon asked, bouncing over. 

[color=#BB818D]“Washing the plates,”[/color] Afton replied, sudsing up the sponge. [color=#BB818D]“My dad’s getting up in an hour. You’re gonna have to be quiet then.”[/color]

[color=#A62A15]“Your dad?”[/color] The Hopmon looked behind him towards the direction of the snores, and Afton looked at the Hopmon.

[color=#BB818D]“Stay still,”[/color] Afton said, plucking the Hopmon from the ground and sliding him into the sink.

[color=#A62A15]“Wh-what are you—”[/color]

[color=#BB818D]“Washing you. You have bacon grease and dirt on you.”[/color] Afton scrubbed him lightly with the sudsy sponge. [color=#BB818D]“I decided to wait until you woke up.”[/color]

[color=#A62A15]“Is this how humans clean themselves?”[/color] the Hopmon asked, stilling his struggles.

[color=#BB818D]“No.”[/color] Maybe she should’ve gone with her gut and toweled him off while he was asleep. He was a pretty heavy sleeper.

[color=#A62A15]“… Okay.”[/color]