[center][h3] [/h3][/center][h3][hr][color=#FBE3BF]Cavan Maynard[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]New York  ||  Morning[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
Another member joined the group chat, pinging in with instant suspicion under the name “Clockmaker”. Cavan didn’t know them—him, he figured—probably because he joined after Cavan started his break from the game. From his message, though, it seemed that Clockmaker was either paranoid or joking, though Apollo cleared that up with his next message.

[color=#5B6356]“What’s happening?”[/color] Tunomon asked from beside Cavan, looking between him and the screen with narrowed eyes. 

[color=#FBE3BF]“Chat’s going. Looks like some other guild members found digimon too.”[/color] Cavan traced the screen with a finger. [color=#FBE3BF]“Four, five counting us. Not that many, but we’re not alone, at least.”[/color]

[color=#5B6356]“There're four other digimon?”[/color] Tunomon leaned in, then stared at Cavan, who nodded hastily.

[color=#FBE3BF]“Yeah, looks that way,”[/color] Cavan said, scratching his head. [color=#FBE3BF]“Weird crowd though. I guess we’ve all played for years. But, dunno about Clock.”[/color] His brows rose as he read the message that’d just blipped in. [color=#FBE3BF]“Hold up, you fell from the sky?”[/color]

[color=#5B6356]“Me?”[/color] Tunomon tipped his head, as if in thought. [color=#5B6356]“Maybe? I don’t remember much except wind and… the dark.”[/color]

[color=#FBE3BF]“But how’d you… Are you hurt then?”[/color] Cavan frowned, reaching for Tunomon and quickly retracting his hands when the digimon growled. [color=#FBE3BF]“I mean, if you fell, shouldn’t you be…”[/color]

[color=#5B6356]“You make it sound like you always get hurt when you fall,”[/color] Tunomon said, snorting. Noticing Cavan’s stare, he blinked. [color=#5B6356]“What? Do you?”[/color]

[color=#FBE3BF]“Er, yeah, kinda.”[/color] Cavan gave an awkward shrug, then refocused on the screen. [color=#FBE3BF]“Nice! Apollo to the rescue,”[/color] he said, typing out his number and sending it to chat. As the numbers rolled in, he grinned, sitting back on his chair. [color=#FBE3BF]“Never thought I’d get Ephie’s number.”[/color]

[color=#5B6356]“Who’s Ephie? And what’s a number?”[/color] Tunomon demanded from the table. 

Cavan looked at him, then pointed at the phone in his hand. [color=#FBE3BF]“Phone number. You get it, you punch it in, you call it.”[/color] 

Tunomon didn’t look like he got it, but he didn’t pursue it. [color=#5B6356]“Who’s Ephie then?”[/color]

[color=#FBE3BF]“Ephie? She’s the one with the Justimon here,”[/color] Cavan said, pulling up Ephie’s profile from the guild roster. [color=#FBE3BF]“Damn good player. See, she maxed all her stats here, which isn’t easy, and…”[/color] Glancing at Tunomon, he realized the digimon wasn’t listening and settled for a shrug, grinning. [color=#FBE3BF]“She’s just a lowkey legend, okay? Apollo’s the highkey legend, Ephie’s the lowkey one. You get me?”[/color]

Tunomon considered his words for a second. [color=#5B6356]“No,”[/color] he said at last, then looked back at the Justimon on the screen. [color=#5B6356]“But she looks strong. Is she dangerous? Will we be fighting her?”[/color]

[color=#FBE3BF]“What? No, we’re not fighting anyone,”[/color] Cavan said, alarmed when he saw a flash of Tunomon’s fangs. [color=#FBE3BF]“Chill, dude. They’re friends, not enemies.”[/color]

Tunomon didn’t seem fully convinced, but he settled down anyway. [color=#5B6356]“Good. But I can take them.”[/color]

[color=#FBE3BF]“Er.”[/color] Cavan glanced at Tunomon, then decided it’d be easier not to address whatever this was for the moment. [color=#FBE3BF]“Maybe.”[/color]
[center][h3] [/h3][/center][h3][hr][color=#F44B52]Alice Takigawa[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]Tokyo  ||  Night[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
[color=#F44B52]“So you’ve fought other digimon before?”[/color] 

[color=#7867D8]“Yes. It’s pretty normal for you to fight those around you if there’s something you can’t agree with them on, like who gets how much territory,”[/color] Doru said, looking at Alice. [color=#7867D8]“Do humans not fight each other then?”[/color]

[color=#F44B52]“No, fighting someone is against the law. It’s assault, I think, and laws are rules that the government put in place to keep peace and order and…”[/color] Realizing that introducing all these new words in her explanation wasn’t helping her explain much at all, Alice trailed off, sighing. [color=#F44B52]“Basically, humans don’t fight each other.”[/color]

[color=#7867D8]“What happens when you don’t agree with someone then?”[/color] Doru asked.

Alice paused, thinking over her words. [color=#F44B52]“There are ways to fight people, but it’s usually not actually fighting them. We can fight with our words or actions, but usually we don’t end up punching someone.”[/color] She shrugged. [color=#F44B52]“Also we’re just not that strong. Most digimon could take out a person easily.”[/color]

Doru nodded, and Alice could see that he was still thinking about what she’d said, but she was distracted by the entrance of Clockmaker, whose first move was to openly announce their suspicion. Apollo, ever the shining example, responded quickly with a reminder about trusting guildmates, but Alice figured she’d say a bit too. After all, Clock wasn’t a bad person—just a bit cold, standoffish, and not the most active. But not bad.

[quote=D00rmaus][color=#FFC304]@StarWatching[/color][code] @The_Clockmaker There’s no way to know over chat, but the government probably doesn’t know yet (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞[/code][/quote]
And if they did know, pointing it out would make them more suspicious. Plus, the chat record didn’t currently specify why they’d grouped together, so any government agents crawling the web couldn’t use their words against them. With the exception of Ollie, of course. 
[color=#7867D8]“Is something happening?”[/color] Doru asked.

[color=#F44B52]“Yeah, those of us who found digimon are going to take it to text, apparently,”[/color] Alice said, typing in her own numbers. [color=#F44B52]“Move the conversation off the game and onto our phones,”[/color] she clarified, letting it settle at that. Apollo had just blatantly stated the purpose of the group, and Alice wondered whether Clockmaker would get annoyed. On one hand, they could all pass it off as a silly guild thing they all got together to do for no reason; on the other, if someone who knew what they were looking for was really monitoring the game’s chat rooms, it’d look pretty suspicious. But it wasn’t the end of the world, and it was Apollo, soo Alice was willing to look the other way.

[quote=Synchai][color=#FFC304]@D00rmaus[/color][code] Missed u at the raid! Everything alright?[/code][/quote]
Alice read the new message with a growing note of guilt, realizing that attending the raid, or at least informing people of her inability to attend said raid, had all but slipped her mind. While it was true that a living, breathing digimon could be said to be a sufficient distraction, Alice didn’t feel that it excused her completely, and she attempted a message back.

[quote=D00rmaus][color=#FFC304]@Synchai[/color][code] Sorry Chai!!! Something happened irl that needed my attention... ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Next time for sure though ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ[/code][/quote]
[color=#7867D8]“Did something happen now?”[/color] Doru asked, and Alice gave him a pursed smile. 

[color=#F44B52]“Kind of. I forgot to tell a friend I couldn’t do something with them, mainly because I was distracted by… all of this,”[/color] she said, waving her hand in a general fashion, [color=#F44B52]“but I’ll explain it to her later. After I figure out what’s going on myself, I mean.”[/color]

When a few more numbers were in, Alice started typing them into her phone, labelling each of them under their username before adding them all to a text group. Apollo hadn’t sent his number yet, for some reason, but she figured she’d get the group started first.
[center][h3] [/h3][/center][h3][hr][color=#BB818D]Afton Reimer[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]Los Angeles  ||  Morning[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
[quote=+8163772xxxx][code]D00rmaus here, hi everyone (◕‿◕✿)
Let’s get along (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ [/code][/quote][quote=212-855-xxxx][code]Cavan
O11ie
What r ur names[/code][/quote][quote=213-110-xxxx][code]Ephie. Afton.[/code][/quote][quote=+8163772xxxx][code]I’m Alice (ᵔᴥᵔ)
Nice to meet everyone (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧[/code][/quote]
“Afton?”

Afton looked up from her phone and met her English teacher’s eyes. A few quotes from chapter four of [i]Slaughterhouse-Five[/i] were written on the whiteboard, which had taken a shade of multicolored grey from all the marker ink it’d seen over the years. Even from her seat in the back of the classroom, it was clear that attention was focused on her, and she set her phone on her lap.

[color=#BB818D]“The Tralfamadorians don't ask ‘why me’ because in their concept of time, what happens will always happen, so there’s no need to discuss why. For them it’s just what will happen, and can’s and might’s don’t exist,”[/color] she said, maintaining eye contact with the greying, bespectacled man at the head of the classroom, who no doubt guessed what she was holding under the table.

“Yes,” he said, and he was professional enough to roll with his surprise. “That’s right, it’s about how the Tralfamadorians view time. Because their concept of time is so different from ours, we, like Billy, have a difficult time understanding them, but if you think about it from their point of view, what Billy’s question really [i]doesn’t[/i] make sense.”

Afton’s attention dropped back to her phone as he went on. Cavan and Alice had found a Tunomon and a Dorimon respectively, confirming that they were finding the digimon they played as. That it was coordinated made it that much more probable that someone was behind it all, but then again the digimon had fallen from the sky. Last time Afton checked, there weren’t many insitutitions, much less people, capable of dropping meteors.

[quote=Afton][code]Hopmon here.[/code][/quote][quote=Cavan][code]Nice[/code][/quote]
Newest to the group was Clockmaker, who Afton knew as a competent player and raider. They were similar to her in that they also kept to themselves, and Afton respected that, just as she respected the direct questions they asked. Respecting their actions, though, didn’t mean that she’d get along with them, but she suspected that she wouldn’t dislike them anyway.

[quote=Afton][code]Mine fell in the yard. Empty crater.[/code][/quote]
That she quickly buried after looking it over for anything other than the moving spike of purple that’d left it. And, since her dad wasn’t the type to question her much, that was the end of it.

[quote=Alice][code]Doru climbed up to my balcony so I’m not sure (• ε •)[/code][/quote][quote=Cavan][code]I found him on the street[/code][/quote][quote=Afton][code]Where’s Apollo?[/code][/quote][quote=Cavan][code]Dunno he hasnt responded[/code][/quote][quote=Alice][code]I’ll try DMing him ◉_◉[/code][/quote]
It was unlike Apollo to fail to respond for so long, especially given how important the subject at hand was, but Afton was distracted by something else. She’d been so caught up with covering her tracks last night that she didn’t go back to check on the hole. It’d been smoking when she buried it, and the fumes coming from it had an odd, ebbing quality to them that had only encouraged her to work faster, but now that she thought about it… 

She rose from her seat suddenly, surprising the teacher enough for him and the class to turn and look at her. [color=#BB818D]“I don’t feel well,”[/color] she said. [color=#BB818D]“I’m going to go to the nurse’s office.”[/color]

“R-right. Okay.” Her teacher didn’t seem too familiar with the situation she’d put him in, and he watched her pack for another second before nodding and redirecting the class’ attention. By then, though, Afton was already out the door, her mind focused on the shimmery quality of the smoke she’d seen last night, which she’d put down to strange chemicals but was now beginning to suspect was something different altogether.