[h3][hr][color=#FBE3BF]Cavan Maynard[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]Mushroom Forest  ||  Night[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
[color=#FBE3BF]“Er, what do I call you?”[/color] Cavan asked as he walked along between Bax and the Kiwimon with the cracked mask, the former of whom was glaring at the latter, prepared to growl at any time. [color=#FBE3BF]“‘Kiwimon’ is, well, there’s a lot of Kiwimon around.”[/color]

The Kiwimon peered back at Bax, its lips curved in what Cavan could only assume was amusement. “Right,” it said, rolling its eyes. “Names. I’ll never understand why you tamers are so obsessed with them. I’m a Kiwimon, so call me a Kiwimon.” Then, after a pause, it looked back at Cavan, its one green eye giving nothing away as it looked at him in the darkness. “Flynn. You can call me Flynn,” it said, then focused its gaze forward.

[color=#FBE3BF]“Right, Flynn, you a guy then?”[/color] While he and Bax had to maintain speed walking and jogging speeds respectively to keep up with Flynn, the Kiwimon showed no signs of wanting to slow its pace, so Cavan didn't ask. 

“A guy?” Flynn repeated, glancing back again, his one green eye meeting Cavan’s gaze testily. “Don’t you have more important things to ask about?”

[color=#FBE3BF]“Er, I guess?”[/color] Cavan rubbed the back of his neck, unsure of how to come back from that. For most digimon, their voice was enough to tell their gender since they were distinctly feminine, masculine, or neither. In Flynn’s case, however, the Kiwimon’s voice was too scratchy for Cavan to make anything specific out, though he was leaning towards masculine just because he got that vibe from the Kiwimon. 

Flynn managed another eye roll. “Yeah I’m a ‘guy’. And to answer the other questions you’re probably thinking of asking, yes I’m blind in one eye, and yes these are injuries from fighting with the mushrooms, the sporous bastards.” He cocked his head the other way so that Cavan got a better look at the crack in his mask. “Mask got smashed in a fight with a Woodmon, which I don’t recommend you trying unless you can get that fluffball to digivolve, and my voice got messed up by the laughing gas,” he said, attempting a throat clear that sounded more like a wheeze than anything. “Laughing too much too long… Don’t recommend that either.”

[color=#FBE3BF]“R-right.”[/color] Though Cavan [i]had[/i] been wondering about those exact questions, having them answered so suddenly threw him off. Still, he was glad to have answers, especially since they lent themselves to more questions. [color=#FBE3BF]“You said you, er, you said something about a Woodmon?”[/color] Asking about past injuries didn’t seem like a good idea, so he’d sidestepped the ask. Clumsily, sure, but hopefully he’d caught himself early enough that Flynn hadn’t noticed. 

“Woodmon, Mushroomon’s digivolved form.” Flynn’s green eye lingered him, and he got the sense that the Kiwimon was considering him, which wasn’t a bad thing in itself. After another second, though, Flynn looked away, his pace as steady as it’d been when they’d set out. “A lot of things have changed since the last time tamers were here.”

[color=#FBE3BF]“I’m getting that,”[/color] Cavan said, frowning. Woodmon? Sure he remembered chancing across descriptions of Ninjamon and maybe a single Kiwimon NPC back in the day, but Woodmon? No way, unless he and his friends had somehow missed a large and entirely optional portion of the Mushroom Forest quests, which he doubted. Him missing it on his own was believable, but a group of four all missing a quest? Considering how much smarter some of his friends were, he didn’t think that likely. 

“Let’s start at the top. What do you know?” Flynn asked, his footsteps treading a low bass for the forest’s leafy ambience. 

[color=#FBE3BF]“I know that both Mushroomon and Floramon live in the forest, and that their digivolutions do too, apparently. And I know that Blossomon is the one in charge of this place.”[/color] And the one with access to the portal, but Cavan left that out. No need to make it seem like he was in to do anything else beside help. 

“So you know nothing about what happened after the tamers left. Explains why you kept bringing up Blossomon like some daft hatchling.” Flynn sniffed, then continued. “Blossomon’s gone. Corrupted. The Mushroomon population kept growing, and when Woodmon started popping up, the old flower couldn’t keep up. They got to him, and he put up a good fight, but he lost in the end.” His tone turned sharp towards the end, almost scathing, as if there was blame to be assigned there. It almost sounded like he was blaming Blossomon, which Cavan didn’t know what to make of. Virus-attribute digimon like Mushroomon were notoriously difficult to deal with when their populations grew too big, which was why most of [i]Digimon Tamers[/i] had been about battling them and keeping them in check. To hear that Blossomon had lost the fight, then, was disappointing but not difficult to believe, and Cavan had a sense that Blossomon was probably core to the mission announced on his digivice. 

[color=#FBE3BF]“Blossomon was corrupted? Did he turn virus?”[/color] The mere thought sent a shiver down Cavan’s spine. Blossomon was an Ultimate-level digimon, and in the game, players didn’t have to deal with Ultimate-level digimon until their characters were established Champion-level digimon. 

“Virus? No, but he did turn something.” Flynn’s tone had taken on that tone of annoyance again, and it was clear where he was assigning blame now. “We’re almost there, so you can see for yourself.”

Another few minutes of fast-paced walking saw the colorful forest fade out in favor of the bland green of heavy woodland. Soon enough, all they passed were tan-barked trees raising leafy greens overhead, which seemed to grow denser with every step forward. The forest almost seemed to close in on them, the gaps between the trunks and branches growing smaller and smaller as they moved forward.

“We’ll be climbing from here,” Flynn said when they reached a fence-like row of trees, the texture of the bark resembling rope more than wood.

[color=#FBE3BF]“Climbing?”[/color] Cavan looked around uncertainly. All he could see were trees.

Crouching down, Flynn boosted himself into a leap that easily cleared the top of Cavan’s head, landing cleanly on a branch above. “Yeah, climbing,” he said, looking down at Cavan and Bax with his one green eye. “You two coming?”

[color=#FBE3BF]“Er.”[/color] Cavan looked to Bax, eyes widening when he saw the Black Gabumon easily scale up the bark of the tree Flynn had jumped into. Right, Bax was a beast-type digimon equipped with a pair of long, sharp claws that made short work of anything digging and climbing. He’d have no problem climbing, unlike Cavan. 

Approaching a tree with a low-hanging branch, Cavan grasped it, attempting to raise himself but settling for inching up by trying to find leverage in the bark with his feet and kick himself up onto the branch. As he struggled to hoist himself up, his feet scrabbling against the bark, he caught Bax staring at him, and he grunted, managing a grin. [color=#FBE3BF]“I’m fine!”[/color]

Bax didn’t look like he believed him in the slightest, and he jumped over, easily landing on the branch Cavan was struggling with, his claws scoring the bark like it were clay. Leaning over, he opened his mouth, and at the sight of the row of sharp teeth, Cavan cried out and dodged his mouth. 

[color=#FBE3BF]“What was that for?”[/color] he demanded, looking at Bax with wide eyes. 

[color=#5B6356]“Hold still,”[/color] Bax snapped back, leaning over again and snapping up his sleeve. When he started tugging, it clicked for Cavan that he was trying to help, and with his help, Cavan managed to heft himself up onto the branch, breathing out a sigh of relief when he did. 

[color=#FBE3BF]“Thanks,”[/color] Cavan said when he caught his breath, giving Bax a thankful look that the Gabumon pointedly avoided. 

“You two planning on doing that for every single branch?” Flynn asked, his tone casual but betraying a note of amusement.

[color=#5B6356]“What’s it to you?”[/color] Bax snapped back, throwing a glare at Flynn, who managed a scratchy laugh.

“Well, I don’t want to be here forever, you see.” Flynn cocked his head, looking around, then jumped over to the branch Cavan and Bax were on as well. “Look, I’m only offering because I want to get this over with as fast as possible,” he said, bending his head down so that it was lower than his body, “so hurry up.”

Cavan widened his eyes. [color=#FBE3BF]“I, er, don’t think you’ll be able to carry me,”[/color] he said, frowning.

Flynn shot him an annoyed look. “Who’s carrying anyone? I’m telling you to use me to reach the next branch since Gabumon here’s too short to do it.”

[color=#FBE3BF]“Oh. Right.”[/color] Cavan got up, pausing to regain his balance before walking over to Flynn, his steps slow and careful. [color=#FBE3BF]“Thanks,”[/color] he said as he stepped onto Flynn’s head, then body, surprised when the Kiwimon barely budged at his weight.

“Just hurry up,” Flynn ground out as he hefted Cavan onto the next branch up with a push of his head. “We’ll need to climb another five, at least.”

Though Bax was clearly unhappy about Flynn’s earlier comment about him not being able to help, he didn’t protest much as he followed Cavan’s slow progression up the branches, which Cavan was grateful for. Bax was too short-tempered for his own good sometimes, and Cavan was glad to see that there were moments when the Gabumon knew to hold back his anger. As for Flynn, Cavan was glad to find that there was a decent soul underneath his can’t-phase-me exterior. Despite Flynn’s annoyance, the Kiwimon clearly wanted to help, and Cavan was getting the sense that there was more to Flynn’s story than he was letting on. His scars, for one, were uniquely his. The digimon Cavan had seen on the Flower Council lacked scars like Flynn’s, though Cavan admittedly hadn’t gotten a good look at many digimon there. Still, even Flynn’s annoyance at Blossomon seemed to stem from a deeper concern, either for the forest or its inhabitants, and that thought made him realize he could probably do to take this all more seriously. 

“Here is fine,” Flynn said, hopping up to the branch Cavan had hoisted himself up onto. 

[color=#FBE3BF]“What’re we looking for exactly?”[/color] Cavan asked between pants, his eyes flicking aimlessly over the woody landscape below. All he could see were trees, trees, and more trees.

“There, that thing.” Flynn stabbed his beak at a particularly strange set of woody stalks in the sea of forest. “Four legs, petal head?”

As soon as he pointed it out, Cavan saw it: A giant lizard made of wood and leaves, its tail and spines long and made entirely of brown ropes of wood that swirled in on themselves to form thick stalks. Even from a distance, Cavan could tell the thing was massive, the length of the ring of red, leaf-like petals around its head tall enough to clear the first row of branches near it. Though its eyes were closed, the leaves on its back rustled restlessly, and Cavan felt a shiver of fear crawl down his spine. 

[color=#FBE3BF]“What [i]is[/i] that?”[/color] he asked, his eyes not leaving the leafy lizard that he was this close to calling a dragon. The woody tendrils on its back were tall enough for Cavan to easily picture them as a set of large wings if they bound together, and its frill of red leaves didn’t help persuade him otherwise. 

“That, my friend, used to be Blossomon,” Flynn said, his tone hard. “More wood than flower these days, and a whole lot more hungry too.”

Cavan broke his stare to look at Flynn, eyes round. [color=#FBE3BF]“H-hungry?”[/color]

“Yeah, we feed him. Every other day, usually, or every three if we can’t get our hands on some Mushroomon.” Flynn shook his head. “There’s no way around it. If he doesn’t eat, he starts rampaging, and he ends up destroying the forest with these ‘trees’ he summons. You can tell,” he said, nodding at the trees beside them. “These things around here—they’re weird. Wrong. They don’t grow like normal, don’t seed and flower. They just… exist.”

Cavan’s eyes returned to the beast in the forest, his stomach sinking. He’d expected some virus-afflicted Blossomon, an Ultimate-level digimon, but that thing? That thing looked way bigger than Ultimate. Mega? Ultra? Cavan would believe either at this point.

A black structure a small distance from the beast caught his eyes, and he pointed at it, glancing at Flynn. [color=#FBE3BF]“What’s that?”[/color]

“That?” Flynn leaned forward, squinting his eye. “No idea. But it’s always been there.”

Cavan looked back at it, the weight in his gut growing heavier. It was the portal—or something like it. It had to be. Blossomon was the guardian of the forest, and he guarded the portal. That meant that the beast really was Blossomon, and was likely the key to his mission.

“Well, how about it, tamer?” Flynn asked, looking at him. “Any questions? Ideas on how you’re going to help? And if you still want to talk to Blossomon, be my guest. He might eat you, but that’d help too.”
[center][sup] [/sup][/center][h3][hr][color=#F44B52]Alice Takigawa[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]Mushroom Forest  ||  Night[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
Hearing that Izzy was clueless as well wasn’t comforting, but Alice supposed there was little that could comfort her except answers she didn’t have at this point. There was something about not being in the know—not being in control—that was profoundly irritating, but she was distracted by Sunny’s question of whether or not she and Doru would be okay alone. 

[color=#F44B52]“Reporting back?”[/color] That was a good idea. Why hadn’t she thought of that? But, now that Izzy had called the role, there was little point in leaving with her. The most she could do if she tagged along was confirm Izzy’s account, which no one would doubt anyway. Clockmaker didn’t joke around, and anyone who’d seen guild chats recently knew that. 

[color=#F44B52]“I-I think Doru and I will stick around, yeah. You report back,”[/color] Alice said, looking to Doru, who gave a delayed but confirming nod. [color=#F44B52]“We might not be here when you get back, but we’ll text when we head back ourselves.”[/color]

[color=#7867D8]“Nice to meet you both too, and stay safe,”[/color] Doru said from beside her, offering Sunny a wave as the bird digimon waddled away with Izzy. 

[color=#F44B52]“Yeah, that too,”[/color] Alice said, realizing that she probably should’ve said that. Honestly, in-person conversations were exhausting, with all the thinking and second-guessing she needed to do. On top of that was the matter of her missing her emoticons. With them, it was so much easier to make her words sound happy and kind. Without them, however, she came off sounding more awkward and depressed than she wanted to, and since trying to emote her emoticons was out of the question, she was stuck like this.

[color=#F44B52]“I should’ve remembered to say bye,”[/color] she muttered, kicking at a stray branch near her feet. It was such a basic thing, saying bye, and she’d forgotten it, getting too caught up with her next step to pay attention to Izzy’s. Her parents had taught her better, but she’d forgotten. 

[color=#7867D8]“That’s okay. I said bye,”[/color] Doru said, looking at her. His gaze was a little too interested in Alice’s comfort, and she clenched her teeth, crossing her arms as she looked around for a direction to walk them in. 

[color=#F44B52]“We’re going this way,”[/color] she said, starting off in said direction without waiting for Doru’s response. Within seconds, though, Doru had caught up with her, his steps larger than hers as he walked along beside her.

[color=#7867D8]“Where are we going?”[/color] he asked after another second, and Alice clenched her teeth tighter because she [i]didn’t know[/i]. She just didn’t want to stand there like some clueless person, but admitting that would be admitting that she was just a clueless person heading in a random direction, and she didn’t want to do that.

[color=#F44B52]“Forwards,”[/color] she managed at last, her annoyance too apparent in her tone for her liking, but Doru didn’t pursue the point further, so maybe it was fine. Silence was better than having to admit she was wrong, after all, and it gave her time to focus on the forest, which had started out calming but was beginning to strike her as creepy. What did this place look like in the daytime? Would it be equally dark, considering the dense foliage overhead, or would there be enough sunlight filtering through the leaves to light the place up?

[color=#7867D8]“There’s someone up ahead,”[/color] Doru said, and Alice froze, her eyes wide as the bushes ahead rustled. Out burst a tall, purple-haired girl whose shorts and platform boots were clearly not meant for forest-trekking. Her eyes were pink and flat—contacts, really?—as they looked over Alice and Doru, giving the impression that the girl wasn’t impressed, and the curl of annoyance that inspired was enough for Alice to guess who the girl was even before her Monodramon stepped out into the moonlight.

[color=#F44B52]“Afton? Effie?”[/color] she asked, crossing her arms.

[color=#BB818D]“Alice, Doormaus,”[/color] the girl replied, mimicking the delivery of her words but with none of her tone, which only irked Alice more. 

[color=#7867D8]“Nice to meet you, I’m Doru,”[/color] Doru asserted, stepping forward with a careful glance at Alice. Despite the annoyed look Alice shot him, though, he focused on the Monodramon sizing him up, meeting the dragon digimon’s narrowed eyes with a small smile. 
[center][sup] [/sup][/center][h3][hr][color=#BB818D]Afton Reimer[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]Mushroom Forest  ||  Night[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
Sure Alice wasn’t completely what Afton was expecting for D00rmaus. D00rmaus emoted like she breathed, sounded as upbeat as a leaf blower full of flowers and glitter, but take the glitz and glamor away and Afton could see where the wannabe groupee ended and the awkward, deadpan girl began. If Alice’s crossed arms didn’t spell out her dislike for Afton clearly enough, the distaste on her face did, and Afton figured it a waste of time to try and correct that opinion. Having D00rmaus feel awkward around her seemed like a win-win.

The Dorumon at Alice’s side, however, was interesting. Alice had named him Doru, as if people couldn’t see what digimon he was and what line he was from, which showed her lack of creativity and originality. She was probably the type to gravitate towards math, science, and history, the type to interpret art literally and fail to understand the subtext of pieces she came across, be that of music, literature, or otherwise. But that was enough about her. The Dorumon was what intrigued Afton. Unlike Monodramon, Doru seemed to understand nuance, and the smile he directed at Monodramon despite the dragon digimon’s open hostility revealed his maturity. Where Monodramon was quick to judge Doru to be below him, turning up his nose with a sniff, Doru understood that hostility or not, they were allies for the moment, and being polite now would serve him well in the long run. He had more maturity and intellect than many humans, nevermind digimon, and Afton respected that.

That all said, Afton wouldn’t get along with him either, and in a strange way, Monodramon fit her more. Sure Monodramon was prone to anger and arrogance, and sure she’d have to work that streak of dishonesty out of him, but he was something Afton could work with. He wouldn’t think to settle, wouldn’t think she’d gone too far or been too rude. Doru, on the other hand, would end up limiting her just as he limited himself, pushing her to grow in directions she didn’t want to grow in, and Afton could live without that. She wanted to rein her digimon in, not the other way around, and Monodramon worked perfectly with that role. 

[color=#F44B52]“How did you find us?”[/color] Alice asked, and Afton met her eyes solidly, noticing the way she looked at Afton like she was trying to figure out designs on some strange piece of pottery. It’d taken her a lot to ask that question, and she didn’t want to talk to Afton any more than Afton wanted to talk to her.


[color=#BB818D]“We walked in one direction and got lucky,”[/color] Afton replied. The disapproval in Alice’s eyes was amusing, to say the least. What she wore was her business, and while she agreed she might look strange to most, she looked different, and that worked for her. Purple hair and pink colored contacts that matched her clothes and nails tied her look together, and if Alice thought her judgement meant anything to Afton, she could keep on. 

[color=#7867D8]“We met Clockmaker and Sunny earlier. They went back to inform the group,”[/color] Doru said, his voice cool but friendly. When Alice shot him another withering glare, Afton decided firmly that she liked Doru, if only because he too knew that Alice wasn’t doing herself any favors with that attitude.

[color=#BB818D]“We almost ran into some Mushroomon earlier,”[/color] Afton said, her words and gaze directed at Doru. [color=#BB818D]“I’m thinking they have something to do with the mission.”[/color]

Alice made a face, probably because she came to some realization she should’ve come to earlier. [color=#F44B52]“What about the Floramon?”[/color]

[color=#BB818D]“They’re probably our allies. Data versus virus and all,”[/color] Afton said, sparing her a glance. [color=#BB818D]“We should try and find a Floramon to talk to.”[/color]

[color=#A62A15]“Talk to the pansies? Count me out,”[/color] Monodramon said, sniffing.

[color=#BB818D]“Let’s go,”[/color] Afton said, turning towards the woods. [color=#BB818D]“No use in standing around.”[/color]

Alice glanced between her and Monodramon, brows furrowed, before shooting her one last look of annoyance. [color=#F44B52]“Fine.”[/color]

Dorumon nodded, reaffirming Afton’s view of him as the reasonable half of the pair. [color=#7867D8]“Lead the way.”[/color]

Beside Afton, Monodramon looked between them incredulously. When Afton's gaze flicked to him, however, he huffed. [color=#A62A15]“Fine. Let's find some pansies.”[/color]