[IC] Digimon: Recollection

[lord pringle]

It's September in the Bay Area, and that's one of the few hot months of the year, when the biting chill of the fog doesn't seep into every house every morning. Or at least if it does in September, it burns off by the afternoon. And today is a real scorcher. Fortunately, it's a weekend so kids are not forced to deal with the city's crippling lack of air conditioning in homes, but can instead deal with the heat in air conditioned stores, museums or just be outside, where at least your windows aren't turning your house into a greenhouse.
That's one of the things that brought you to the park today, but you have more personal ones too. And as you're relaxing on a bench, or waiting for a friend, or reading away from the noise of the city or just looking for a new place to take a new friend, a cool fog starts to roll in, though abnormally fast. And at a weird time, fog normally starts in the morning or at night, not at 3 in the afternoon. Please roll a perception check and only open the following spoiler if you get a 16 or above:
The fog isn't coming through the Golden Gate as you would expect but instead from directly above the park and seems to be almost making some kind of dome around you.For a brief second, as the fog rapidly descends, you swear you see a human shaped figure appear in the sky and fly off to the northwest.
Once the fog has truly covered everything, you notice that the bit of technology you keep with you at all times has changed shape. It instead looks like this (https://wikimon.net/images/6/69/D3.png), with the screen showing an 8-bit rendition of a hatched egg. What happens next depends on whether or not your character is wearing eyewear (glasses, goggles, sunglasses, etc.) or not. Or if your character is named Connor.
The fog comes down, cool and light, blanketing you and keeping you safe from the outside world. It feels like the world around you is indistinct, like a happy dream. You can see a good 100 feet in front of you, and from that boundary, where the world vanishes into the fog, you see some sort of creature heading towards you, and when looking at it, you feel like you're looking at an old friend who you haven't seen in years.
The fog around isn't the normal cool relaxing sleepy fog of a San Fransisco morning. It's a hateful oppressive thing that envelops everything and clouds your vision, so you can't see more than 10 feet in front of you. You are gripped with the sudden and irrepressible feeling that there are things out to get you, and they are surrounding you from every direction.
Then, out of the fog, comes some sort of monster, but something about it seems comforting.
((Real quick, I just want to mention that your bit of tech isn't a digivice yet on with the narration))
As the fog covers the world around you, Squid seems, you don't know how to describe it, more real? Like he somehow seems more distinct and solid than he already was. And he senses enemies all around him. Other digimon.

[dmarks]

Introduction: Evie List

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/55/26/21/55262166b98cb64ee6d44986ee2d80c3.png

Evie sat quietly on the bench, legs curled up underneath her as she listened to her music as it clattered in her ears.


Things are starting to accelerate into something
Never stopping always trouble bubbling...

Her family didn't really like the music she liked, but that shouldn't have been a surprise: they found a lot of the things she did weird. Still, the music let her escape and be in her own space for a while, so she sat in the sun, enjoying the quiet and peace.

So she was definitely not expecting the blossoming dome of mist to surround her - wait what was that... - something was up there. She stood up, suddenly wary of whatever was going on, but as she stood and watched, the mist came down and she was soon surrounded. Her music started to crackle and her headphones were filled with static. she pulled her headphones away just as her phone started to blaze with light. She almost dropped it, expecting to be burned but the light wasn't warm and didn't hurt, instead, as the light faded she held a strange device.

http://i39.servimg.com/u/f39/17/67/82/21/3219e610.png

She had little enough time to ponder on what had happened to her mobile - what is mom going to say - because something was walking towards. Something that looked like an animal but was a lot bigger than the normal parklife. Her eyes strained to pick out details in the fog, and it was only as the creature came within 10ft of her that she realised it was a bear cub. Wearing a hat.

Her knowledge of bears said you had to be as big as possible to scare them away, and almost instinctively Evie started flapping her arms as her mind was running in circles. Bears in Goldengate park? How is it standing up? It doesn't look like a normal bear? WHY IS IT WEARING A HAT?

The creature stopped a short distance from the flapping girl and tilted its head looking at her quizzically. Slowly, the creature raised its arms and began to flap them too, looking askance at the girl to check he was doing it right.

Evie's mind practically melted at this point, and she dropped her arms. "Wha- What are you?"

The bear stopped, clearly confused by the arm waving thing, but then said slowly: "I'm Rabu. I've come looking for you."

At this point, Evie was so certain that she was insane (like everyone had been telling her for years) that she just went along with it: "Looking for me? Why? What are you though?"

"We're partners, I think. I can feel it. I'm Bearmon, a digimon."
"Digimon? What is that?" She couldn't tell she was being rude, but Rabu blushed, feeling uncomfortable.
"We're digital monsters, and I've come to find you, I know that."
"Me?" A pause. "I'm Evie." Another pause. "What's with the hat?"
Rabu's blush deepened, though it was pretty hard to see under all the fur and he clutched his headgear protectively. "I like it."
There was another awkward pause as the two stood there awkwardly. "I like it too!" Evie blurted out. "Can I try it on?"
This time, Rabu's blush was clearly pleased, though he was still protective of his hat as he handed it over. "Haha, I look so weird with this on."
Rabu looked at the bench where Evie had been sitting, and caught sight of her own bobble hat left there (despite the summer heat). Evie caught him looking and immediately took off the bear's hat and thrust it back at him. She walked purposefully to the bench and clutched her hat between her hands. Rabu jumped up on to the bench beside her.
"Nice to meet you Evie. I hope we can be friends."
Evie tentatively took the outstretched poor and nodded slowly. "And you, Rabu. Friends would be nice."

[Seanfall]

Introduction: Joshua Canfield

https://68.media.tumblr.com/dbfe60c41f5b1d489bdb2d2c2997700b/tumblr_n24vbjwaIc1t8sih8o1_500.jpg

Joshua sat spread out on a bench, limbs taking up a lot of room, encouraging passerby to NOT sit there. Earbuds firmly stuck in he leaned back and closed his eyes. Listening.


It's been one week since you looked at me
Cocked your head to the side and said, "I'm angry"
Five days since you laughed at me, saying
"Get back together, come back and save me"
Three days since the living room
I realized it's all my fault, but couldn't tell you
Yesterday, you'd forgiven me
But it'll still be two days 'til I say I'm sorry


It was a weird song but he had always liked the rapid fire line delivery. He'd gotten off work a few hours ago, and decided to take a stroll through the park. The heat was starting to get to him though, that's the price you pay for dressing like he does. It'd been a long shift, people called off to enjoy the warm day. Didn't bother him, more hours = more money.

With his head laid back he was looking straight up when the fog started to come...down? Yeah it wasn't rolling in off the coast, it was forming a dome around the whole park. That alone wasn't enough to weird him out however, his music cut off into a static screech that made him rip his earbuds out. The used and scratched up Ipod shifted and changed into...well he wasn't sure. It was still green colored, but he had no idea what it was. The screen lit up with an image of a hatched egg.

"....Okay I think it's time I got the hell out of here."

Only by then the fog had started to settle around him. This wasn't your run of the mill fog, something about it seemed off to him. Dangerous, he started to regret reading that Stephen king book. As he was sure he was seeing things in the fog, no no ...has to be his senses playing tricks on him. When had he started running? Joshua was so busy keeping an eye on the fog that he didn't notice when something had moved into his path. At the last second he skidded to a halt thinking it was a child.

This wasn't a kid, kids didn't look like a Venus Fly Trap grew eyes and arms. Josh stared down at this thing certain he was hallucinating. Then...it spoke.

"I FOUND YOU!" The thing leapt up and grabbed Joshua...in a hug. So stunned was the teen that he didn't react for a full 3 seconds. Then he yelled out and fell backwards onto the ground.

"Wha...what are you what's going on?" The green thing rolled off of him and sat on the ground next to him.

"I'm Palmon, but you can call me Thorn. We're partners."

"That explained nothing."

"What? Oooh you asked WHAT not WHO. Okay okay let me try again." Palmon (Thorn) stood up and coughed into her 'hand'. "I'm a Digimon, a Digital Monster. I've been looking all over this fog for my partner, YOU!" Palmon extended a viny finger and pointed right at him. "And I'm from the....huh...that's odd I don't remember."

Joshua raised an eyebrow at this 'Digital Monster.' and took out the odd device his Ipod had changed into.

"Do you know what this is?" Palmon smiled and clapped her hands togther. "That's the proof that we're partners!"

"Well look, Palmon." "Thorn." "...Thorn, lets get out of this fog. We can talk more after okay?" Palmon nodded, Joshua stood up and started walking, Palmon hurried along and jumped on his back. Riding on his shoulders like a kid. The Teen just sighed and accepted it. Not entirely convinced he wasn't still dreaming about all this.

[dethkruzer]

He leaned back for a yawn as his hands fiddled with the volume controls of the dinosaur of an MP3 player he held in his hand. "I see my red door, I must have it painted black. Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts" He would utter along to the crackling lyrics that assaulted his ears through a pair of headphones. It wasn't the headphones that were ruining the sound quality, the old contacts within headphone jack on the players had been scratched up pretty good, even a slight jostle of the plug could disrupt the connection.

He could have gotten a new one, one with more memory, one where a fifth of the pixels on the screen weren't either dead or stuck, one that he could have put music he actually cared for on. But he didn't. His mind would wander, a small grin of a smile creeping onto his face. But it didn't last long, as his mind inevitably wandered back into a dark territory. His smile turned into a frown, before a long sigh escaped the young man. "Jerry..." Chris would utter slowly, his gaze slowly coming back into focus. He had been intending to get up then and there, maybe walk for a bit. Timothy was late, so unlike him.

But the teen would promptly forget this little detail as his skyward-bound eyes came across something odd. Fog, that wasn't there before, and he would have seen that coming. besides, it was barely half-way into the afternoon. A chill began creeping up his ankles, both literal and figurative. "The hell?" He wondered aloud, swinging back forward and onto his feet, before turning around to observe the fog again. It was coming in quick, almost... like a dome of some kind. His attention was drawn away from the fog, however briefly, when the music from the earphones started going completely haywire, the poorly rendered Paint it Black melting into a noise that he could only describe as a dial-up modem. His hand reached into his pocket to pull out the MP3 player, and as he looked down to see what was going on, Chris found himself blinded by a bright flash, before feeling a gentle tug on his earphones.

His eyes would reaccomodate as the light faded as quickly as it had appeared, but it was no longer the MP3 player he held in his hand, but something... larger. A white device, with electric yellow bits that appeared to serve as some kind of gripping surfaces. the small screen displayed... an egg? What was this, one of those cheap dollar store handhelds? but where'd the player go, and where did this thing come from? His other hand would come down to pull up on the cord of his headphones, only to find that plug, what was left of it anyways, crumpled.

Chris once again was given little time to wonder what was going on, as he could have sworn he saw... something moving in the fog. A sudden fear gripped him, something he usually diidn't find himself feeling, not in a place like this. His eyes darted about,breathing increasing in pace. Finally something came into view, something... Yellow? What looked like a large yellow caterpillar, with dark grey stripes shaped like lightning bolts along its back, three pairs of small claws of dark blue, a large matching stinger on its rear, and a slightly lighter... Was that a beak? Chris didn't even realize his mouth hung open as he tried to process what this thing was.

"I finally found you, do you know how long it took me to crawl all the way over.?" The caterpillar would ask in slightly chirping and clicking voice, much to the youth's shock.

It... It talks, what the hell are you?" Chris would ask, or rather almost shout at the strange critter, taking a step back.

"I'm not an "it", I'm Rei. But everyone just calls me... Rei... I really didn't think that through did I? Ehhh, whatever, that's not important. What's important is that I found you." The caterpillar replied in a tone that at first seemed to convey offence, but then the little thing went off muttering on its own little tangent, before again whipping back to a serious tone.

"What, so you can eat my face?" Chris tried to sound sarcastic, if only to mask his fear.

"No, I don't eat meat, especially not faces. I hear they're quite chewy and ful of all kinds of hard bits.... Uhhh.... What I meant to say was." The thign seemed almost flutered, the face-eating bit having pulled it onto a completely irrelevant tangent. "What I was gonna say was, because you're my... partner."

"A what?" He replied in an extremely flat tone, not quite sure how to process that little(or not-so-little) detail

[RandomWombat]

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/46/8e/ab/468eab561e33d100277e5a62eb62db53--wallpaper-x-anime-people.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/761402580605997057/WcVhoNoU.jpg

Near mallard lake, Conner was nestled in among the greenery, out of view of the general public. His backpack was leaned up against a tree next to him, having been used to transport the other occupant of the small waterside clearing. Although Squid was his namesake, the Digimon seemed entirely unfamiliar with the concept of water. He'd seen rain before, and puddles, but never anything larger. Squid was prodding at the reflective surface and eyeing himself warily, as the ripples settled and the mirror image reappeared.

"Conner! Another me is down there!"

It was the weekend so, Conner wasn't in his school uniform. He'd picked a simple red t-shirt and a pair of brown camo shorts for the stiflingly hot day. The weight of the busted flip-phone made one of his cargo pockets sag - ever since Tsumemon's transformation, Conner had kept the device on hand, since it had some kind of connection to Squid. One hand stuffed into his pocket, the other was twirling a box of matches. Up, over, through his fingers, he glanced around at the heat-dried undergrowth. There was a lot of tinder, but starting a fire here would get people hurt. He knew better. Keep it small, keep it controlled. It was why he'd picked the lake as a possible hangout spot; he'd thought, maybe he could wade out into the water and burn a few tissues and things, then use the water to dunk them after he was done. The only problem was that the park was really, really public. What if somebody discovered Squid while Conner wasn't around?

"Nah, man. That's your reflection. It's, like... light bouncing off the water," taking a few steps over to the water's edge, Conner squatted down beside Squid and looked down at the two reflections. "See? I got one too."

Squid braced himself and plunged his head into the water, only to come up seconds later coughing and sputtering. Conner had to suppress a snicker , and took a step back to avoid the water spray as Squid shook and wiped his face dry, flicking water everywhere. "Yeah. Guess that's a no for breathing underwater, huh?"

"Eugh," Squid spit out some of the dirt from the bottom, where he'd apparently tried to bite into the ground. Then the comical display was suddenly gone as Squid's antennae perk up, standing straight in the air at attention. Looking up, he could see the fog falling from the sky. "Danger. Gotta go, gogogo!" Suddenly bursting with nervous energy, Squid bolted away through the underbrush.

"Whoa, hey!" quickly grabbing his pack and swinging it over one shoulder, Conner gave chase. "Don't go running onto the public paths-!" he tried to stage-whisper, but as he broke out into the open he found his way barred by a wall of fog. It was coming in at the edge of the park that Squid had been heading for, but Squid now came back out of the fog to cling to Conner's legs. The little critter was shaking like a leaf. Soon the fog overcame them and visibility became short. Where the fog hit Conner's skin he felt it crawl, like something was grabbing and pulling at him, and he could feel a hostile presence pervading the area.

"Bad Digimon!"

"Digimon... you mean like you?"

"Bad Digimon!"

It was hard to see. Trying to get his bearings, Conner took Squid by the hand and began leading him back towards the more public areas. Others of Squid's kind, here? What even were they, aliens? Squid had barely known anything about what he was when Conner asked, aside from 'Digimon', 'Tsumemon', and 'Keramon'. In any case, if they were dangerous, there was safety in numbers. Conner fought against the adrenal panic at the edges of his mind and looked around for more people in the fog. He instinctively had a match in his hand, as though that would do anything to help. He'd been unable to light it in the all-encompassing dampness.

"Hello?" Conner called out, the loud noise making Squid tense up.

[dmarks]

Evie and Rabu sat quietly on the bench together, staring into the fog. "Do you know what this is?"
"No, but it came from somewhere bad."
"The same place you came from? I wonder what it's made out of. Is it really fog, or just a heavy haze?"
"Are you sure we shouldn't go?"
"Go where, I can't see more than five paces in any direction. Besides. I was here first. The fog should leave."

"Hello?"

The two looked at each other. "We should go and find out who that was. Or what."
"Really?"
Evie slowly stood up, nerves writ large on her face, and Rabu followed, a couple of paces behind her. She sought the voice in the fog, stepping carefully so she didn't fall.

[lord pringle]

[Evie and Rabu]
As the two of you bond, the fog almost seems to shudder, and Rabu definitely feels it, his pupils dilating. There is a sudden chittering and then a few voices that seem to come from all around, like a song experimenting with stereo "What a shame, this subject already has a partner," says a feminine voice with an off-putting mix of sarcasm and sincerity. "Maybe it's for the best. Look at them, the host looks so frail and refuses to truely accept that the world doesn't care a whit about her," says a boyish voice with the same uncomfortable cadence, though this one seems to be on the verge of laughter. "Do Not Bother With Them," bellows a third voice, deep and masculine, every word reverberating in your skull like an explosion, "See What Can Be Done With Their Corpi."
With that last echoing word, the voices halt and another monster (https://wikimon.net/images/0/07/Arkadimon_baby2.jpeg) emerges from the mist, but with this one comes a pervasive feeling of uneasiness, the diametric opposite of the feeling you get looking at Rabu. It makes a noise that sounds like radio interference going through a cheap static-y megaphone and then lunges at you.
Please roll initiative. If you beat [roll0], then you go first and may react to the attacker. If you do not, please open the below spoiler.
The thing charges Evie, a stinger attached to an insectile arm, longer than the thing's body, bursting through its mouth. It tries to sting her, rolling a [roll1] to hit. If that hits, it has a damage of 2. Regardless, if you attack, here are its dodges 1st attack: [roll2]
2nd Attack: [roll3]
[Joshua and Thorn]
As the two of you bond, the fog almost seems to shudder, and Thorn definitely feels it, her pupils dilating. There is a sudden chittering and then a few voices that seem to come from all around, like a song experimenting with stereo "Another failed one. Pity, we could have probably used this one," says a boyish voice with an off-putting mix of sarcasm and sincerity, and the telltale sound of someone trying not to laugh. "Maybe it's for the best. Look at them, the host looks so frail and stinks of pointless rebellion," says a feminine voice with the same uncomfortable cadence, though this one seems better at keeping its laughter in. "Do Not Bother Dawdling," bellows a third voice, deep and masculine, every word reverberating in your skull like an explosion, "We Will Have Them See What Can Be Done With Their Corpi."
With that last echoing word, the voices halt and another monster (https://wikimon.net/images/0/07/Arkadimon_baby2.jpeg) emerges from the mist, but with this one comes a pervasive feeling of uneasiness, the diametric opposite of the feeling you get looking at Thorn. It makes a noise that sounds like radio interference going through a cheap static-y megaphone and then lunges at you.
Please roll initiative. If you beat [roll4], then you go first and may react to the attacker. If you do not, please open the below spoiler.
The thing charges Joshua, a stinger attached to an insectile arm, longer than the thing's body, bursting through its mouth. It tries to sting him, rolling a [roll5] to hit. If that hits, it has a damage of 2. Regardless, if you attack, here are its dodges 1st attack: [roll6]
2nd Attack: [roll7]
[Chris and Rei]
As the two of you bond, the fog almost seems to shudder, and Rei definitely feels it, his pupils dilating. There is a sudden chittering and then a few voices that seem to come from all around, like a song experimenting with stereo "Yet another failure. You'd think we were batting for the A's with our success rate," says a feminine voice with an off-putting mix of sarcasm and sincerity. "Come, look, we might have dodged a bullet here, this host can barely function without a nightlight," says a boyish voice with the same uncomfortable cadence, though this one seems to be on the verge of laughter. "Now, Now. Avoid Them," bellows a third voice, deep and masculine, every word reverberating in your skull like an explosion, "Tear Them Apart And See If Their Corpi Are Still Suitable."
With that last echoing word, the voices halt and another monster (https://wikimon.net/images/0/07/Arkadimon_baby2.jpeg) emerges from the mist, but with this one comes a pervasive feeling of uneasiness, the diametric opposite of the feeling you get looking at Rei. It makes a noise that sounds like radio interference going through a cheap static-y megaphone and then lunges at you.
Please roll initiative. If you beat [roll8], then you go first and may react to the attacker. If you do not, please open the below spoiler.
The thing charges Chris, a stinger attached to an insectile arm, longer than the thing's body, bursting through its mouth. It tries to sting him, rolling a [roll9] to hit. If that hits, it has a damage of 2. Regardless, if you attack, here are its dodges 1st attack: [roll10]
2nd Attack: [roll11]
[Connor and Squid]
As the two of you bond, the fog almost seems to shudder, and Squid definitely feels it. There is a sudden chittering and then a few voices that seem to come from all around, like a song experimenting with stereo "One more failure, how is it that-," says a boyish voice with an off-putting mix of sarcasm and sincerity, and the telltale sound of someone trying not to laugh, but then it stops suddenly, before shouting one word, though the word is staticy beyond recognition, "K̢҉͚̖͈̤̖̙̤͖̺͖̰̭̺̝́͜͠ę̧͎̱͈͖͉͙͡͡r҉̼̗͉̥͠͝a̷̶̡̡̟͔̠̣̰͟ ͔̤m҉̴̢̞̖̩̱̟̕O̡̳̭͕͙̘̥̥͍͜ͅN̶̸̴͡҉͚̰͎̙̜̠̫̣̻?̨̣̕̕͜͞ ̘͍̫͖"
A feminine voice cuts in, sounding nervous and like her connection is being dropped "Creator, what is going on, you said we'd- I'd- we'd-" that voice is interrupted by a third voice, deep and masculine, every word reverberating in your skull like an explosion, "Come My Poppets, We Shall Continue Our Work Elsewhere And Elsewhen."
With that, the voices stop, and the fog around you clears, giving you a good hundred yards of visibility. Coincidentally, you can see a human and their digimon engaged in battle with some weird insectile creature.
((Pick any other player, you can enter their combat after both they and their attacker go.))

[dethkruzer]

"So, let me get this straight? You can't remember where you came from, or why you showed up here? But you know that I'm your partner, and this... thing is supposedly proof of that?" The youth would ask the strange caterpillar, holding out the strange device that had seemingly replaced his old MP3 player. The caterpillar wold nod, or at least he assumed that vigorous up-and-down flexing of its front third constituted nodding, while also clicking its beak in what Chris interpreted to be excitement.

He would let out a short sigh. "Look, all things considered, I've no reason to believe you're lying, but... I can't just take you with me. You'd stick out like a sore thumb, and that would probably get us both into trouble." The caterpillar almost seemed to shrink a little, hanging its head as the teen spoke. He was about to continue, when he found himself suddenly confronted by several voices. The initial comment of "another failure" he disregarded, but with the words of the second voice, a sudden plume of anger flared up within him, Chris' pupils widening and his expression twisting into a teeth-baring snarl. "What's that? You want to come say that to my face, ya little punk?!" The tone of his voice very much matched the expression on his face, an angry bark of rebellion.

That anger would take a momentary backseat as the third voice then spoke, his free hand coming up to his head. Rei meanwhile looked around, seemingly worried. Then it came out, another monster.

What was that, some kind of tick? His teeth reamined bared, but a quivering of his lips betrayed the fear roiling underneath. Then this new monster started moving, lunging. Reflexively his hands came up to protect his face.

"Electric Thread!" Rei would suddenly cry out, violently swinging its head forward as several tin stings shout out from its mouth. A smell of ozone creeped into his nose as arcs of electricity ran down the silky threads. But it was a miss, only for the yellow bug to rear its head back, swiging it forward for another blast of silk. This time the threads seemed to connect, arcs of electircty running down those threads into the big grey tick-thing.

Chris is standing around dumbfounded
Rei attacks as a simple action with Electric Thread. misses.
Rei attacks as a simple action with Electric Thread. hits. Damage is 3 minus Armor. if damage is 2 or greater, enemy is Stunned for one round.

[dmarks]

Evie screamed as the creature flew towards her, and did her best to duck out of the way. She kicked out at the beast as hard as she could, trying to drive it away.

[roll0]

Accuracy [roll1] If packmaster applies to humans and rabu is within '3' of Evie, then an additional [roll2]
Damage 4

"Evie!" Rabu rushed into the fray, smashing into the creature with all his strength, before pouncing on it and grappling it.

Bear Roll (charge allows him to move and attack): [roll3]
Damage 3

Followed by Clashing: clash roll - [roll4] +size bonus (Rabu counts as Medium, so if the monster is Tiny,
then he gets +2 and the monster gets -2, if it's small then it's +1/-1

[RandomWombat]

Hearing bizarre voices in the fog, Conner recoiled from the broken, staticy shout and the booming voice that pulsed through the fog. He could feel Squid's death-grip on his arm slacken when the fog began to recede from around them. A sudden scream drew Conner's attention, and he picked up the pace. He spotted three shapes, becoming more distinct as he closed in. A girl and some kind of bear were caught up in a struggle with a giant bug.

"Bad Digimon," Squid pointed at the bug.

"Alright, so-" before Conner could finish asking what to do, Squid had charged forward.

The bear was in the middle of trying to pin down the bug, but Squid barreled in and raised both fists together to drop them on it in a lunging hammer-strike. "Dark Crusher!" Sparks of purple lightning flashed at the impact point where the fists made contact. Without hesitation, Squid immediately repeated the strike a second time, leaving behind little trails of acrid smoke.

"Squishing bugs it is," Conner took off after Squid and leapt into the air, coming down in a flying stomp on top of the bug, "Move it or lose it tickface!"

Not sure what the enemy stats are or if the clash will succeed, so DM modify these as needed.

Squid charges and uses Dark Crusher for 4? damage.
Squid uses Dark Crusher again for 7? damage.
Conner moves in and curbstomps for 1? damage.

[Seanfall]

Joshua was trying to find a way out of the fog. He hadn't been to the park enough to know it like the back of his hand. But he figured if he stayed on the path he'd find an exit. Thorn meanwhile, was humming to herself. Her legs hung down on the either side of his neck and her 'fingers' were tapping his head. So much for his theory that she was just a very vivid hallucination, or that he was dreaming. Things were quiet, until...those voices drifted in. Joshua stopped in his tracks and Thorn jumped down. Suddenly on guard.

"Wait...what's going on?"

Thorn didn't answer, something zipped out of the fog, Thorn was faster though her vines whipped out, she missed striking the ground and digging deep furrows. The thing zipped towards her with a stinger, but due to her attack or the fog, it missed as well. Joshua jumped back.

"What the?" Thorn called over her shoulder. "Stay back, I don't know what it is but it's dangerous." Thorn's Ivy again lashed out. "Poison Ivy!"

This time her Vines streaked past and struck a Tree, Joshua however had recovered and ran in delivering a Kick to the things side. "Rider KIIICK!" Joshua turned a little red at his own words, doubting any of these creatures would get that old reference.

[lord pringle]

[Chris and Rei]
While Chris stands on confused, the crackling strands from Rei's attack wrap around the thing. It makes another distorted noise, like an mp3 going through a garbage disposal. Then it disperses into a burst of pixels, most of which flying away from him like reverse snow, though some of it sizzles up the electrical line into Rei's body. After it disintegrates, the fog clears a little, giving the pair a clearer view of a punk looking kid about your age with a plant-like monster next to him, both of them looking like they just had a fight of their own.
[Joshua and Thorn]
Thorn and the bug trade blows for a bit, back and forth neither gaining any purchase, but then, as its distracted, Joshua drop kicks it. There is the horrible noise of carapace crushing a gooey interior, some of a purplish grey fluid oozing out and staining Josh's shoes and then the thing bursts into a cloud of data. As it dies, the fog clears a little, revealing a large athletic kid about Joshua's age and some sort of worm-monster, both looking like they just had a fight of their own.
[Evie and Rabu and Connor and Squid]
Evie manages to dodge out of the way of its writhing tendril but it leaps surprisingly high out of the way of her kick, though that moves it into the oncoming bear roll. Rabu claws the thing up and then gets it tightly into his grasp, where it already seems quite wounded, pixels leaking from its form into the fog. Then, as it seems to be getting its second wind, Squid barrels through the fog and crushes the thing beneath his fists, it screaming as it shatters into data that dissipates into the wind. Connor then crushes a an errant storm of pixels triumphantly.

[RandomWombat]

Scraping the bizarre digi-dust off of his shoe and onto the grass, Conner took a step back from the bizarre bear cub. He hooked his thumbs into his pockets and looked over at the girl who'd been screaming earlier, "Hey chick, who are you? And why's your pet dressed up like a wannabe rapper?"

"That's a Digimon, Conner, not pet," retreating to Conner's side, the little tentacle-monster shook his head.

"I thought Digimon were bug alien things like you and that little turd?" with an expression of confusion, Conner points at the spot where the tiny aggressor once was.

"Nooo, there are lots of Digimon."

"Okay, sure, whatever," turning to look at the girl again, Conner waited expectantly - and impatiently, foot tapping - for an explanation.

[dethkruzer]

that was... over faster than he'd expected. His hands came down just in time to see the weird tick-thing break apart into... something, like errants... Pixels? The hell?

"Rei, did you just..? Chris was a little uncertain how to word the question, not that he had to, as the caterpillar would answer before he could finish. "I had no choice but to destroy it. It was a bad Digimon." The caterpillar seemed a little distraught. Casting his gaze down onto the caterpillar, he felt a twinge of... something in his chest. Something that fell somewhere between gratitude, sympathy, and a sense of horror over how easily Rei had ended the other creature.

Taking a moment to gather himself, the young man then stepped closer, before crouching in front of the creature. Rei would lift his gaze up a little ust in time for Chris to bring his hand onto the caterpillar's head. "Thanks, for saving my hide just now." He would say, something of a forced smile forming on his face. Rei seemed to perk up from this.

The fog seemed to clear up a bit, enough for him to see someone else, and... something else. Another monster. "Rei, is that another bad one?" He whipspered, gesturing toward the pair with a nod of his head. The worm turned, before shaking its head. That's a Palmon, they're usually nice to be around, as long as you don't anger them." Chris would shrug at the name, but didn't question it.

The kid with the plant thing... what was he wearing? Well, not his problem. Chris would stand up. "Yo, you okay over there?" He would call out to the other.

[Seanfall]

Thorn blinked a few times, she hadn't expected that kick to do that much...anything really. She put a 'finger' up to her lips and thought for a moment. "Wow...that thing must be really weak for you to be able to beat it." Joshua, who had a look of triumph on his face looked over to her. Now with an incredulous look on his face.

"...Thanks for the vote of confidence." Joshua stood up and dusted off his pants. That thing was gooey, for a few seconds at least. It burst into pixels. Thorn said 'Digital Monsters'. It bust into pixels, that's gotta be connected. Joshua walked over to Palmon, and bent his knees to talk to her. He 'kneeled' with knees bent, feet flat and legs spread, his arms resting on his legs.

"So what was that?" Palmon looked over to him and plopped down, after using her attacks so rapidly she was a little tired.

"A Bad Digimon I think, not sure what kind."

"It looked like it was trying to kill us. Well either way It's a good thing we were with each other..." Joshua stopped, someone was calling out. The fog was clearing away, he hadn't noticed till now. He looked up and saw another person...with a yellow worm with him. "Is that a Digimon?" Josh asked pointing past Palmon to Chris and Rei.

Palmon jumped up and turned. "Yeah! A kunemon I think." Palmon raised her hand and waved over to the two. "I think he was asking you a question."

"I heard I don't know how I should answer." "Hmmm? Shouldn't you just tell him?" "Their were other voices in the fog, Thorn. For all we know one or both of them could be the others."

Something clicked in Thorn's head and she nodded, her vine fingers twitched. "I'll stay on guard." Joshua nodded, he was surprised how quickly she picked up on that. It had been roughly half a minute between Chris's question and Joshua finally responding to him.

"Yeah! We're good, but why don't you stay right there for a while." Lets see what they do next.

[dmarks]

Evie watched as the bear, Rabu, the Digimon, whatever it was, fearlessly rushed past her and tackled the creature, carrying it away from her. Things had been so strange that when a new creature showed up to help Rabu out, she didn't even feel surprised.

She did however, manage to feel affronted by the new arrival's manner. "You're not very polite," she announced grumpily.

"I'm Evie, and this Digimon is Rabu. Who are you? Do you know what those things were?" Rabu shifted to stand by Evie's leg, half nervous, half protective.

[dethkruzer]

The kid wasn't answering, weird. Maybe he hadn't heard? Chris was just about to call out to him again when the other finally did answer, though also asking that he'd stay where he was. He tilted his head slightly, confused. Well, it seems no immediate danger was present, so he just let out a small huff and shrugged.

He would lean back, dropping down into a sitting position, stretching his legs out slightly. "So, what now?" He'd ask, turning his head to Rei. "I dunno, I'd say stick together but he apparently wants us to stay here for whatever reason." The Kunemon would swing his head in the direction of the other male, in what Chris assumed was something akin to a pointing gesture. "But there doesn't seem to be any more bad digimon around so..."

"There's that word again, Digimon." He would cut the caterpillar off suddenly. "Who, or what, is this "digimon"?" Chris would then go on to ask.

The caterpillar hummed, before rolling over onto its back. "It's short for Digital Monster. Me, Palmon over there, probably even that... thing that attacked us, we're all digimon. We're what you'd call a digital lifeform." The kunemon started, before Chris interjected. "Digital?"

Rei nodded, before continuing. "Yeah, we're from the digital world. It's... It's... Uhhhh... I forgot." he would say, before quickly trailing off. "You... Forgot?" Chris wondered aloud, again tilting his head to express confusion. "Yeah, I... I can't remember anything. it's all coming up blank." The caterpillar seemed a little distressed over this.

He leaned over to the digimon. "Hey, calm down little guy. Don't stress out over it. Just... Go on where it picks up." Chris would tell him, the caterpillar rolling back over onto its feet, giving a slight nod.

[RandomWombat]

"You got a problem with me?" the rude boy snapped when called out on his rudeness. Mumbling a little under his breath, he answered, "Effin' women I swear. I'm Conner, this is Squid. If you were paying attention you'd know they're called Digimon."

Squid remained at Conner's heel, but cocked his head from side to side, examining Rabu at different angles from afar. "Conner what is a rapper?"

Taking a breath to soften his tone (but not too much), Conner explained, "They're a bunch of dumb people who act gangster and think reading poems really fast is music. And they swear a lot, like it makes their 'music' better somehow. They're awful."

Giggling with glee, Squid asked Rabu, "You're awful?" while innocently clueless that this could be parsed as an insult.

[dmarks]

Evie was just about to tell this Connor that she did indeed have a problem with him being rude to her, but she remembered her sister telling her that sometimes people asked questions they didn't expect an answer to. Evie guessed that this might be one of those times.

Pointedly speaking to Rabu rather than Connor and his strange Digimon, she asked, loud enough for the others to hear. "So are there good and bad Digimon? Why did that attack us when you seem perfectly reasonable."

Rabu shook his head. "I remember coming from a bad place, but I can't remember... But they were bad Digimon. They needed to be stopped, I needed to protect you Evie."

"I wonder if they'll come back. How often does this mist occur? It didn't seem natural, and the simplest explanation is that it had to do with the Digimon appearing. Did you hear those voices? It sounded like this was intentional, so the question remains, what was the purpose? Who or what are they looking for?"

[Seanfall]

Joshua was watching Chris and Rei, he was trying to figure out if they were a threat or not. They didn't seem hostile, not that that meant anything. Thorn looked up to him after a few moments. "Do you really think they're a threat?" Joshua stayed silent for a moment before answering her.

"Not everything dangerous is that obvious. But...hmm...let's check something." Joshua reached into his pocket where that Device was and held it up. "HEY!" he called out to Chris holding it up. "Did you get one of these too?"

[RandomWombat]

A scowl on his face, Conner walks on past Evie, intentionally bumping past her with his shoulder. "You can sit around here chatting in this creepy fog, or we can find a way outta here. Suit yourself."

When the subject of the voices comes up, Squid's antennae droop and he looks aside, "I hear one of them yelling my name."

"Huh? You serious?" though he doesn't break stride, carrying on down the walking path in what he hopes is the direction of 'out', Conner looks down at Squid with a raised eyebrow. "You mean that younger guy who was all screechy?" Squid nods and scratches the back of his hand bashfully.

[dmarks]

Evie didn't exactly like this Connor, but she also didn't like the idea of being left alone, so she hurried after the boy, not catching him up, Rabu in tow.

"Hello! Is anyone there?" She called, wondering how they were going to find their way out of the fog.

[dethkruzer]

So where was I? Right, digital lifeform, essentially data. I guess you could think of some of us as... I guess computer program would be a good comparison." Rei would continue, Chris interjecting again. "Programs?" The caterpillar nodded at this "only some of us though. Some of us are simply formed from raw data. I don't know what else..." Rei would continue, before the kid with the Palmon would suddenly call out to them, the Kunemon stopping what it was saying and rolling back over onto its legs. Chris similarly turned his attention to the punk, what did he want now?

The other was holding up something, a phone? Chris' eyes would go wide as he came to realize that it look familiar, extremely familiar. His gaze would turn down, as his hand reached into his pocket, before pulling out the weird device from before. Fro a moment he would stare at the device for a few secs, before turning to look at the device held up by the other, and sure enough, they were very similar. He would hold up thehis own device for the other to see. "Yeah, I've got one as well. Any clue on what the hell these things are?"

[Seanfall]

Joshua finally stood up and walked over to Chris, Palmon running alongside him. "Thorn here said something about it 'being proof'. But That's all she knew. It used to be my Ipod." Joshua pressed the two arrow buttons on it. Not sure what they would do...if anything.

"Right when that fog came down...my Ipod screeched and turned into this thing. I think it's green cause of..." Joshua looked down to Thorn who smiled back up and waved to Chris and Kunemon.

"ME! I'm Thorn nice to meet ya!" Thorn held out one of her hands towards Chris and Rei.

"....So what was yours before it changed?"

[dethkruzer]

Seeing the other beginning to Approach would prompt Chris to bring his feet under himself and stand up, taking a few steps of his own to meet the other male. He held onto his own device as the kid started explaining the orgins of his device, Chris noticing quite a few parallels.

Thorn, that was what the Palmon called itself? The young man made a mental note to try and remember that.

"Same story pretty much, Rei here..." He'd pause for a moment to glance at the Kunemon. Rei would nod at the other two seemingly in greeating, but said nothing for now. "Explain that it's apparently proof of me being his partner, and that's about all before we got attacked by some big stupid tick-thing. As for this...." He'd pause again to bring the yellow-gripped device in his hand into view. "Used to be my bro's old MP3 player."

"I'm Chris, by the way." He would then say, offering his hand as a gesture of greeting.

[Seanfall]

Thorn beat Josh to the punch and grabbed Chris's hand. She clapped her other hand around his and shook his hand up and down smiling brightly.

"Nice ta meet ya Chris and Rei, since ya both have one of those things I guess that makes us allies don't it!?"

Thorn finally let his hand go and then looked up at Josh smiling and twirling slightly waiting for him to do the same. Joshua shrugged, bent down and shook one of Rei's legs.

"I'm Josh."

[RandomWombat]

Now that the voices are on his mind, Conner looks down at the cracks in the pavement thoughtfully.

"Hey," he stops for a moment and turns to face Evie behind him. A flurry of questions follows, "You said you heard those voices too, right? You said they did this somehow? Was it a loud older dude and two younger ones, a guy and a girl? What'd they say?"

[lord pringle]

As Evie calls out, her voice rebounds off the fog, turning into a cacophony of echoes. However, with each repetition the fog seems to yield, until eventually, a tunnel is formed through the mist. And at each end, are two pairs of digimon and their tamers.
It occurs to you that you were certain that there was no one else your age around you before the fog hit, let alone three others. And as you look around at the spots you were all in before the fog hit, you were in different parts of the park from each other. Golden Gate Park is quite large after all. And yet, somehow space has warped to put all these spaces less than a quarter mile from each other.
Something feels very wrong.

[Seanfall]

Josh's next words were lost as the fog seemed to shape itself and reveal a two more pairs of humans and their Digimon. He stares at the other four, blinking and then looks to Chris.

"You seeing this too right." Thorn raised her hand. "OH OH! I see them too!"

"Thank you Thorn."

[dethkruzer]

Well, he hadn't been expecting to shake hands with the plant creature, but just went with it. He would offer both the younger male and the digimon a nod. Chris seemed like he was about to say something when... Something changed. It took him a moment to realize that it was the mist. A tunnel had formed, in itself a strange phenomenon, but what was perhaps even stranger was that on the other end was another pair of teens, probably around his age, and what he assumed were digimon. A bear with a cap on it's head, and some kind of thin-limbed squid-thing with what was probably the second-most unnerving thing he'd seen today.

Josh, as the other youth had introduced himself, would ask if he saw the same. Something Thorn see,ed enthusiastic to answer. That energeticness was going to get irritating sooner rather than later. "Yes, I believe I do." He would speak in reply.

"Oh, more digimon. A Bearmon, and a... I don't think I've seen the other one before. Thorn?" The yellow little 'mon by Chris' side would add in, before tilting its head to give the palmon a questioning look.

[Seanfall]

Thorn stared intently at the tentacled Digimon. Her large green eyes narrowed and she brought one of her vine fingers up to her mouth. Joshua had seen her do this before, seemed to be a habit when she was thinking hard or trying to puzzle something out. Joshua took out the Digivice while she was thinking and pushed a couple of the buttons on it to see if it did anything.

"Mmm...I think...I've seen something like it before. But no I don't know what it is. It doesn't look anything like the things that attacked us though."

"That's worrying." Joshua looked up at Chris. "These guys have been able to identify each other on sight so far."

"Uhh...Well...we don't have genders technically but..."

"Just an expression Thorn."

[RandomWombat]

"Hold up," seeing other figures in the fog, Conner puts his question on hold and takes a more guarded posture. He calls out aggressively, "Whozzat? You those creeps from in the fog? Lemme hear you talk!" Sensing the aggravation, Squid moves between Conner and the other group. The Digimon bristles, with antennae jutting straight up to make himself look larger and arms poised to lunge forward at the first sign of danger. Wild eyes flicker between the Palmon and Kunemon.

[Seanfall]

Joshua looked up at the new comers, one of them was yelling their way. Thorn was about to say something when Josh gave his head a slight shake 'no'. She raised an eyebrow at him. Josh then looked at the guy yelling and mouthed 'WHAT?' Then leaned forward with his hand cupped to his ear.

Thorn clamped her mouth shut, suppressing a laugh.

[RandomWombat]

Conner grits his teeth and resists the urge to start swinging. Instead he crosses his arms and scowls in silence while refusing to acknowledge the mocking. At his feet, Squid remains tensely poised to respond should things escalate.

[Seanfall]

Thorn saw the other mans reaction and her smile frowned. She looked up to Joshua, "I think ya just made em mad." Joshua sighed. Thorn was an innocent one wasn't she? So he waved at Chris and spoke up.

"Sorry, you sounded a little commanding there so I thought I'd have some fun. No we heard the people in the mist too. You get attacked by some silver bug looking thing!?"

[RandomWombat]

"Yeah, we fought one of 'em too. Was that so hard to say?" hearing that neither the plant thing or the punk sound like the voices, Conner relaxes a little. He shoves his hands back in his pockets, and Squid's antennae droop back to their resting posture. "Dunno if you noticed, but the park is all eff'd up. Where we are now ain't even close to where I was when this fog hit, and I've barely even walked at all. So, I'm not really sure how to get out."

[dethkruzer]

"Maybe it's a regional thing? I can see a caterpillar and a... Flower knowing one another. That thing on the other hand looks like something that came out of a trash compactor." Chris would comment in a slightly dry, sarcastic tone.

So one of the others at the end of the "tunnel" was shouting something, asking them to speak? And sounded like another case with an attitude problem, bloody hell. it Seemed Rei didn't appreciate at the squid-digimon's attempts to seem more intimidating, as the kunemon huffed, ever so slightly bulging out the top-most section of the its body. It would have been kinda pathetic, if not for how hard the little thing was trying. Actually no, it was still... pretty pathetic. Chris, still considering how to repond, saw how Joshua would mouth something to the other, seemingly to mess with them, and jusging by what reaction he saw, the other kid didn't take it all that well.

Chris would close his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath, meanwhile Rei seemed to find this funny, snickering slightly. As well as a caterpillar with a beak could anyways. Joshua at least was quick to defuse the situation, the older male listening and nodding as the two spoke. Seems these two had gone through pretty much the same ordeal then. "Oh, I'm farily sure we all noticed that. Speaking of, did you end up with one of these?" Chris would end up asking, pulling out and presenting the strange device that his MP3 player had become.

[RandomWombat]

Conner can't see the device very well from where he is, so he walks over to get a better look at it. The glower on his face seems to be its default state, as he squints at the object and shrugs, "What's that, one of them little keychain games with the frogs trying to cross the road?"

While the humans discuss their tech, Squid moves over next to Rei and begins examining him from various angles. Coming to a stop back at Conner's feet, Squid tilts his head quizzically at the caterpillar, "Are you a rapper too?"

[lord pringle]

Evie seems engrossed in her thoughts, looking off into the mist. "When I asked if there was anyone here, the fog cleared..." she muses to herself, absent mindedly fiddling with her sweater. She then looks up. "Oh, hi! I'm Evie! And this is Rabu." "H-hey," The bear says, playing with his hat.

[Seanfall]

Joshua sighed and moved a little closer. "No one of these." He held out the device for Evie and Conner to see. He had no idea what game 'had frogs crossing the road' did he mean one of those retro games you see in really old stores? Either way he wanted to make it clear to the guy what they were talking about. Evie spoke up and Thorn ran right up to them offering both Evie and Rabu a hand to shake.

"I'm Thorn. That's Josh."

The Aforementioned Josh sighed at Thorn's exuberance. He responded to something Chris had said. "Regional...makes sense. Bug, Plant, bear....forest. Squid thing, sea." Evie's remark about the fog made him think. He looked up and asked, "Is there a way out of here?"

[RandomWombat]

"Yeah, I see it, doesn't mean I know what it is," Conner remarks sardonically, rolling his eyes. He does glance between the two devices, which look suspiciously similar. "Either way I don't got one."

Josh soon finds himself being corrected by the Squid digimon, "I don't come from the sea! I come from the garbage dump." The creature's tone suggests amusement at the mix-up, like he thinks Josh is just silly for thinking otherwise.

[lord pringle]

Josh's voice begins to reverberate, just like Evie's did, though this one reverberates more and louder than hers. When it hits a fever pitch, becoming a noise so loud that all you can do is slam your eyes shut in pain, it just suddenly stops. As you reopen your eyes, the fog has almost completely cleared, with the exception of a dome of fog that covers the entire circumference of the park. The rectangular park. Which is significantly larger than what this circle would indicate. Your brain kinda hurts thinking about it.
Please roll me Perception.

[Seanfall]

Josh and Thorn grab their ears or the rough equivalent and try to block the noise that's piercing their skulls.

[lord pringle]

A noise like nearby thunder roars across the sky and the skin of the dome flashes like lightning. When the light clears, the fog dome has changed to a view of a city, bent around you like the stars in a planetarium. The city seems to be bustling, though you can't really make out any features of it. Then an inhuman roar echoes across the world, nearly deafening you, but your digimon seem far worse off, momentarily blurring like they are about to burst into pixels before returning to normal, groaning with nausea. The city in the sky ignites as the roar touches it, the smoke rising up off of it and forming the fog
but then an inhuman roar nearly deafens you and the city is engulfed in flame, the smoke blowing up, covering the dome and turning it back to fog.
As you're distracted by the noise, some kind of creature (http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/digimon/images/a/ab/Arukadhimon_%28Rookie%29_b.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090130024152) jumps out the branches of a tree. It feels wrong like the bug things before, only this one feels worse and is significantly larger. It plunges its claws at Evie, sickeningly bellowing "Erase Crusher!" Though she manages to dodge out of the way in time.

[RandomWombat]

"Holy **** what the ****?!" staggering back, Conner is too startled to react immediately, ears still ringing and head pounding. Squid looks queasy, still unable to regain his composure after the roar.

[Seanfall]

Josh is frozen for a moment, but Thorn moves faster then he could see and struck back against their Attacker.

"I'll Try to hold it down! Ivy Wrap!" Thorn's Ivy fingers shot out towards her target once again.


Ivy Wrap. Acc of 3 +2 Data Optimization. Immobilize effect on hit.
[roll0]

[lord pringle]

Whatever this thing is leaps over the vines coming at it, jumping eerily similarly to a grasshopper. It lands behind Thorn, chittering maliciously. It screams, "Erase Crusher!" once more, though this time its claws connect with Thorn, leaving gashes in her body through which you can see a blue space full of floating white 1s, 0s and 2s. It seems immensely satisfied by this result. "Your move, Tamers," it says in its skin crawling voice that sounds like a tin can being forced down a garbage disposal.

[RandomWombat]

"Oh, I'll show you a move!" face contorted into an aggressive grimace, Conner charges up to the overgrown grasshopper and drives a knee up into its groin to... not as much effect as he was hoping for.

Seeing Conner rush into range of the thing's claws, Squid panics and scrambles in after him, "Conner what are you doing don't get close to it! As soon as he's in range, Squid takes a swing at the monster with his "Dark Crusher!", thumping against the unnatural pink flesh with a crackling noise. Before the monster can move away, Squid belches a small puff of purple "Crazy Smoke!" up into its face.

Conner attacks ??? for 1 damage.
Squid uses Dark Crusher as a charge on ???, hitting for 5 damage.
Squid uses Crazy Smoke on ??? and hits, inflicting 1 Poison for 3 rounds.

[dethkruzer]

welp, the kid didn't recognize it, and Chris was in no mood to try and explain it, so he simply shrugged. His eyes would come off the other for a bit, shifting to the weird squid-thing as it came closer. It didn't seem to have harmful intent, but he couldn't help but have a sense of a... uncertainty about it. The squid would ask if Rei was a rapper, and Chris honestly couldn't tell whether it was him or Rei that was more confused by the question. Rei would tilt its head, before looking up at Chris. "Chris, what's a rapper."

Chris' eyes came down to face Rei's. "A rapper is usually a talentless hack of a musician who thinks that shouting vaguely rhyming lyrics really fast constitutes actual music, usually interspersed with far more obscenities and racial slurs than you can shake a stick at." He would reply, dryly, the caterpillar tilting its head at this, apparently not understanding.

Meawhile the last of the group would give a name, Evie. Chris would give a nod to this. "I'm Chris, this is Rei." He said in a sharp, concise tone. His tilted first to one side, then the other, before his hand came up to his forehead. Felt like a headache was coming on. What didin't help was when the voice of one of the others started to echo through the fog again.His other hand came up, both hands shifting to cover his ears. After the awful noise subsided, his attention turned up, and his mouth would hang open at what he saw. "What the?..." Was all he could say at the... questionable things he was seeing. He wasn't given much time to contemplate this, when another hellish noise assaulted his senses, this time bringing his attention to... something else.

A larger pink... thing. It had an insect-like quality to it, as well as that sense of wrongness that came with the tick from before. only this felt... Worse, much worse. It hopped about, slashig at them with vicious looking scythe-arms. He stared at it, blinking several times. He felt dizzy, almost like the inside of his head was spinning. Rei, despite the phenomenon that had just finished rattling its data about, did not take well to the sight of Thorn being slashed with those wicked claw-thing. "Electric thread!" It cried out, before shooting off lines of silk, a whiff of ozone fluttering throguh the air as the silk threads sparked. Alas the attack could not land on the agile foe. Chris gazed on this, it was clear the little insect wasn't all that experience in combat. "Rei,
try leading your shot. Don't aim where it's at, aim where it's gonna be!" He would shout a few words of advice for it. "Alright, Electric thread!" Rei would give him a look, before swinging around and launching another thread volley. This time they seemed to connect, arcs of electricty running down the threads.

Rei simple: attacks with Electric thread, missed
Chris simple: uses Direct to give Rei a +2 to accuracy for the next attack.
Rei Simple: attacks with Electric Thread, accuracy successes equal to dodge successes, 2 wounds minus armor damage. if 2 or more points of damage are dealt, stunned for 1 round.

[lord pringle]

Rabu rushes at the thing though it weaves out of the way. Evie shouts, "You're behind him now, aim for his back." Rabu follows that up by leaping and spinning, claws out into the creatures back. The thing seems badly hurt, barely standing up as its form starts to pixalate. It somehow gathers its strength and claws wildly at Thorn and Squid, still capable of acting despite all the effects thrown its way. It cuts into Squid, causing the same trinary gashes in his body.

[Seanfall]

My body moved without thinking

Joshua didn't really think anything through when he threw himself in front of Thorn. He felt the thing's blades slash into him. At least one bone broke from the blow, adrenaline and endorphins flooded his system. He'd be in a lot of pain, later. Right now he and Thorn had bigger problems. Thorn herself blinked and looked up at her bleeding Tamer.

"Josh?" Thorn saw the red seeping from him and her face contorted in anger and rage. "POISON IVY!"

[RandomWombat]

The blow sends Squid reeling, feeling at the bizarre injury. The Digimon panics and swings wildly at the pink mantis-creature, but the reckless attacks strike only air and dirt.

Clenching his teeth, Conner steps in closer to make a right jab. His fist strikes the monster with 'thwack', like something hitting wet cement. Grunting, Conner flaps his hand a little in response to the hard impact. Despite this, Conner seems not to be deterred. He simply switches to using the other hand to deliver a second jab to the neck.

Conner deals 2 damage total.
Squid misses twice.

Poison inflicts 1 damage, with 2 rounds left.

[lord pringle]

As Connor lays his fists into the thing, he feels its carapace crack as bits of the same goo from the other monster splatter across his shirt and arms. It makes a soft childlike coughing noise before screaming in four discordant static-y voices. It explodes into another shower of sparks and pixels, but not entirely.
In its place is a small boy, eight at the oldest, dressed in a striped shirt and cargo shorts. He makes a burbling noise and falls over, not like he tripped but instead just collapsing, falling flat on his face with no attempt to catch himself. The back of his shirt has a hole the size of a large man's fist punched through it, which continues through much of the kid's abdomen.
The devices that appeared out of your technology vibrate and flash before displaying a message "Good Job! Arkadimon Defeated!" The text then glitches out, the entire screen turning into a static-y mess, followed by color bars and then a second message. "Seeing You Soon, Hosts"
With that the fog vanishes as suddenly as it arrived, retreating back to its central point, and that strange technology three of you have reverts back to its original form.

[Seanfall]

Joshua rolled over on his side. Thorn stands up weakly, both of them are still injured. "Yay...we're not dead. Someone feel like calling me an ambulance?" He looked over to Thorn. "You okay?"

"I'll be fine...WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUMPING IN FRONT OF AN ATTACK LIKE THAT!?" Thorn yells at him and starts to grab at the leafs of the flower on her head, exasperated and clearly upset.

"....Don't know...so our stuff changed back to normal." He grunted addressing the others.

[RandomWombat]

Conner's grin of triumph is short-lived as the kid suddenly appears out of the monster. He lurches forward to catch the boy and lower him to the ground, "What the hell? There was somebody in that thing!" Dropping his backpack next to him, Conner snatches his jacket out of it and starts trying to cover up the large hole in the kid's abdomen to stop the bleeding.

"What's wrong?" approaching with a look of confusion, Squid is pushed back by Conner before he can start poking at the kid.

"Okay, chill out and move back, not question time right now," with more space now, Conner lifts the boy up in his arms, keeping pressure on the injury. He looks down at Squid, "Hold onto that cut you got and keep pressure on it. I uh, I don't know if you bleed, but- just do it okay." With a befuddled nod, Squid grasps his wound with both of his hands and tries to pull it closed.

"Does anybody have a cell?" Conner looks around to figure out where exactly in the park they are, so that he can get the kid to the nearest road for the ambulance to find them.

[Seanfall]

Joshua, hadn't been looking towards the Digimon. He hadn't seen the kid, when he did he sat bolt upright and struggled to his feet. "Wait...that kid isn't digital?" He took a few steps and grabbed his side in pain, "Oh yeah...broken bone." Thorn is looking from the kid to the Joshua unsure what to do.

"Th-their was a kid inside that thing?"

"Is he even breathing?"

[RandomWombat]

"I don't freaking know, do I look like a doctor?!" Conner snaps at Joshua's question.

[Seanfall]

”No you look like someone old enough to know how to check.” Joshua, still in pain walked up to Conner and checked the boy for a pulse. Fingers on the boys neck. Nothing, next he laid his head down on the kids chest and listened. Nothing.

“It’s to late. He’s gone.” Joshua took a step back and hung his head. “That wound, it’s about the size of the stinger from that first monster.”

[RandomWombat]

"So what, that thing infected him with something?" Conner stops trying to put pressure on the wound, but to his credit he doesn't just drop the kid on the ground. "What do we do with him, then? Should we take him to a doctor or what?"

"You have a hole in you too," Squid points out, having wandered over to where Thorn is. "Conner says we should keep them closed shut."

[Seanfall]

Thorn looked wearily at Squid and shuffled behind Josh. "Mine are more like slashes, I'll be fine."

Joshua nodded. "...They called us failures. Before the little tick things attacked they said 'another failure'. Maybe this is their idea of a success." Eyes still on the kid he went on. "Yeah...we'd best call an ambulance...and the cops. Hold on." Josh patted down his pockets, eventually finding an old flip top cellphone that he'd been given.

"Yeah this definitely counts as an emergency." Joshua dialed 9-1-1.

[RandomWombat]

Glancing down at Squid, Conner reaches out to stop Joshua from calling just yet, "Before you get the cops involved, hold up a second. What do we do about the Digimon? Other people can't know about them, they'd be like... captured and experimented on or something. They'll need somewhere to crash where people won't find 'em. That's why I came here in the first place, looking for somewhere for Squid."

[Seanfall]

"....You understand that hiding them first then calling for help would mean we'd be carrying A DEAD CHILD WITH US!?" Joshua stared blankly Conner for a moment after his outburst and sighed.

"Not that your wrong but...look can't we pretend that their...stuffed animals or something?" Thorn pulled on Joshua's shirt and pointed to her wounds.

"....So you popped a stitch."

"Unless Stuffed animals in your world are filled with numbers I don't think that's gonna work."

[RandomWombat]

"Between that idea and screaming out loud about dead kids right when we're talking about how we don't want to be seen, I'm gettin' the impression you ain't too bright," Conner grimaced as he threw a verbal jab back at Josh, looking around to make sure nobody came to investigate the shouts. "Either one of us has to go with the Digimon to find somewhere to hide out, or they'll have to figure it out on their own. Backpacks are a no-go, the cops will want to search them."

[dethkruzer]

It hit, it had hit, and seemed to hurt it. The onslaught of the other digimon left it barely standing. But still able to attack, the pink insect-thing contued its attack, one Josh jumper in front of? Is that kid insane? The other was bleeding, and Chris could have sworn he heard something crack, but at least he seemed to be alive. Thorn and squid attacked in retaliation, before Conner stepped in and threw a punch at the thing. Strangely it was that last bit blow that broke the proverbial back of the equally proverbial camel. Like the tick thing, it burst apart, well, not exactly alike. The older boy's face twisted in confusion as a young child was left in the thing's place, the child promptly collapsing. He only caught a fleeting glimpse of the wound on his back, but it was enough. Enough to make his stomach turn.

Thankfully his attention was at least momentarily drawn away from the horrifying sight by the vibration of the strange device. He would bring the device up to his face, only to find some rather interesting text. "Arkadimon? Hosts?" He would wonder the text aloud. His attention was drawn back to the wounded Josh. "That was a pretty stupid thing to do,
but I really don't think I can blame you." He would watch him get up, Josh and Conner bickering over the kid, finally coming to the conclusion he was dead. Chris' face twisted into an ugly sneer over this as he spat out a curse under his breath. The two would go on with their bickering, not exactly helping when he was trying to sort out his thoughts. "Can we all just shurt our mouth's for two seconds and, oh I don't know, actually think this out?" He would say, almost raising his voice in the process.

He'd let out a loud exhale, before the slowly dragging his gaze over the group, before finally landing on the corpse. This... Is bad. We have a dead body right here, and a bunch of critters the government would probably love to get their hands on. I don't think we can really report this to the police, not as a group anyways, otherwise we'd probably have to try and explain Josh's injuries." He would pause for a moment And then the digimon, what should we...? ****!" He would continue, before suddenly cutting himself off with a swear, bringing one hand up to his temples.

[RandomWombat]

"So we send him and the girl with the Digimon, and the two of us bring the kid to whoever," Conner suggests to Chris.

[Seanfall]

"Thorn was already injured, I didn't want her getting...hit...again..." Joshua slowly turned and looked down to his leg, Thorn's eyes had welled up and she wrapped her arms around his leg bawling. Mumbling about his selfless act, Joshua took in a long breath and closed his eyes mentally counting until he had control of his words again.

"Yeah one problem with that...I'm still hurt. I have a broken bone, plus the gashes. How about this, during the fog I backed into a railing one with those decorative iron spurs and toppled over it. That explains my wounds. When the fog cleared we ran into each other and found the kid. One of you two should stay with the Digimon." It's not that he was being selfish, he was being scared. He'd never been hurt like this before and he'd be lying if said it hadn't gotten to him. But he had to keep focused for now.

"Unless one of you knows enough to patch me up and check the bone."

[RandomWombat]

"Kid's blood is already all over my jacket, so I'm going. Don't need to wind up a suspect cause they found my DNA or whatever," Conner insists.

Squid is seated in the grass nearby, one hand clutching his injury, the other ripping out grass and tossing it on the sidewalk. He looks up, "What's a dee-enn-ayy?"

"It's like, the stuff that makes up my body. Like your weird glowing data stuff."

"Is the red stuff coming out of Josh and the little .man their dee-enn-ayy?"

"Kinda? It's blood. If a human loses too much we'll die, like this kid."

"Is Josh gonna die?"

[dethkruzer]

Chris would only nod to what Josh had to say on his actions. It was stupid, but though Chris himself probably wouldn't admit it it, he might very well have done the same for Rei.

"So, two of us go with the digimon, and the other two... stay here with the kid and call the cops? Or am I missing something?" He would continue to rub his temples as he spoke. He would pause for a moment, hearing how Conner's partner was wondering if Josh was gonna die. "I don't think he's going to be dying any time soon." He would say, addressing mostly Squid with this. "But he still needs to get to the Emergency room ASAP. If your lucky, its just a bruised or fractured rib. If you're not, it's broken, and it'll only continue hurting you more for so much as breathing"

[Seanfall]

"Yeah that sounds good. No arguments here." Thorn looked up from soaking Joshua's pant leg in tears and spoke up.

"I don't want you to go off alone."

Joshua knelt down as best he could. "Thorn I need to go to a hospital. You heard what Chris said, I need to see how bad I got hit and get the bone set. I'll come back for you okay."

"You promise?"

Joshua held out a pinkie. Thorn put one of her vines around it. "Promise."

[RandomWombat]

Squid's attitude brightens a bit at the news that Josh won't be dying. With that no longer drawing his attention, he begins to wander a bit and look at things - in garbage cans, under rocks. He finds a beetle crawling around in the grass and eats it.

"What am I, chopped liver?" Conner mutters aside at the comment about Josh going alone. "So are we settled, then? Me and Josh to the cops, and Christ and Evie go with Squi-"

"Conner!" Squid suddenly pipes up and causes the boy to glance over. "You forget to tell them our names!"

"Oh. Yeah, right. Conner. This is Squid. Like I was saying, we good to go? I'm not thrilled about carrying this kid around any longer than I gotta."

[dethkruzer]

"I guess that's best." Chris would reply with a nod.His gaze turned to Evie to see if she had any objections, only for a small kinda-goraning sound at his feet to draw his attention. Here he saw Rei, lying on its back kinda curled up and fiddling with what seemed to be a dirty old coin. In fact, as he looked down, he saw a number of small holes on the ground around his feet, a small handful of coins, old zipper slides, buttons, and other junk having seemingly been dug up by the bug.

Rei, seemingly noticing that he had his partners attention, immediately discarded the coin it had been fiddling with, rolled over, and crawled over to his leg. "Chriiis, I'm bored..." The bug-mon would complain, before starting to climb up his leg. "Ahh, wait, what are you- Stop. Stop it. Stop, that tickles." The young man would protest, though it wasn't necessarily something one could take seriously, as his words were interspersed with bout of laughter as the digimon would first crawl up his leg, the up around his back, before perching on his shoulder. Rei seemed to pay this no heed, instead simply leaning his head against his partner while making a low sound of what Chris assumed was satisfaction.

He would toss a glare at the bug, but said nothing, instead just letting the digimon sit on his shoulder. Instead he turned his attention back to Conner and Josh. He would reach into his pocket, and pulled out a phone. "Beofre you two go, it's probably best we exchange contact information." He'd speak as he tapped at the screen, before pausing. "Oh, and Conner, if you're gonna go to the police, you'll probably want to get rid of that jacket before it. I dunno, burn it or something."

[RandomWombat]

"I don't have a phone," Conner points out. "I mean, I have a phone. It doesn't work. And the jacket is what's keeping this kid's insides from spilling all over me. 'Sides, it's pretty obvious I was trying to use it to stop the bleeding."

"... 'Course, it is ruined now. Might as well give it a proper pyre later."

[lord pringle]

Days end.
Even the most action packed, adrenaline pumping, hair raising day inevitably ends. Even today. The first day of the rest of your lives. A new beginning.
The cop isn't happy, but he believes your lies. He's happier to live in ignorance than believe that kids (even teens) could be capable of killing a child they'd never seen before. His brain probably would buckle under the real truth.
The digimon are fine. Within minutes Thorn and Squid's wounds seal up on their own, leaving them just as healthy as before.
Josh's arm is another story. According to the doctors at the ER (the cop was insistent he got there as soon as possible) it'd take about 6 weeks to heal. That said, it feels like it's healing way faster than they predicted. Zacks is more than a little horrified by all of this, but is just happy that he's okay now.
The kid's name was Gregory Wong. His dad is a public defender and his mom is a clerk in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He was about as energetic as any young kid, but brighter than most. He attended a fancy private school in Oakland and was the star of the lower school's chess team. He only left his mom's side for a moment when the fog hit, separating the two. He is the only one of the three kids who went missing that day to get found.
~~~~~
In a basement below a basement, a printer whirs to life. It's old, made over two decades ago, and hasn't been used since around then. It prints one piece of paper, before several alarms go off. It has one simple sentence, four simple words, printed under a fancy, professional letterhead: "It is happening again."
~~~~~
End of Episode One: A Walk in the Park

[Seanfall]

Joshua had been through a lot that day. He had put on a brave face and faced it with his usual brand of sarcasm and stoicism. However after he got home, stitched up and his arm wrapped up, after Zacks freaked out despite Joshua’s assurances he was fine he fell onto his bed and finally broke down.

It was to much for him, two attacks, a major injury and the dead kid. He’d never be able to get that image out of his mind. But something else bubbled beneath that fear and anxiety. Anger, righteous rage at those unseen figures who dared use even children. So he’d heal he’d get use those feelings, and with Thorn, he’d keep fighting.

Speaking of which....he was gonna need a way to explain her when he got her home.

[dethkruzer]

Thankfully his parents had gone out that night, made sneaking Rei inside a whole lot easier. Unfortunately what was not easy, was sleep. He tossed and turned throughout the night, daring not turn off the lights, as the events of the day had reminded him all too much of Jerry. Rei was at least willing to stay up and chat. The bug had little more insight to offer on the nature of himself and of digimon beyond what he'd already relinquished, but at least it passed the time at a tolerable pace.

A few days later, he would open the door to his room with his back, carrying in one hand a huge mug of steaming hot coffee, and in the other a small plate carrying a precariously stacked pile of cookies. Oatmeal and raisin.

He looked awful, dark bags had formed under his eyes, which flickered open and shut constantly. His stride was sluggish, uncoordinated, looking like he was constantly on the edge of stumbling. Chris would sit down, setting the plate and mug and both sides of his laptop, before taking a long sip of the black sludge. Rei was also on the table, apparently daydreaming, but seemed to grow alert at the soft click of the plate coming onto the table. Letting out a short hum, the bug would wiggle over, snatching one of the cookies from the plate.

He would much on the cookie for a little while, meanwhile Chris would go to work, typing away on the keyboard. "You really should try getting some sleep." The little bug digimon would say amidst his cookie-nibbling. Chris would turn his eyes at the 'mon with a frustrated, almost glassy-eyed stare. "And have a go at the nightmares? No thanks. I'm fine." He would say, or rather, growl at the digimon. He wasn't fine, he just couldn't bring himself to say it.

"You've said the same thing for the past three days now. What is it that's so important that you're ignoring sleep over it?" Rei would then ask, having seized his cookie munching, inseadgiving his partner a worried look. Chris assumed it was a worried look, it's a little hard to say for sure when the other didn't have any visible eyes that he could recognize as such.

"I'm looking into digimon, maybe if they've been here before, or if there's been any oher encounters with them. Anything, really. Anything that could help make sense of this." He would pause for a moment as he just tapped the "enter" key, staring at the screen for a moment, before sighing and reaching over with one hand to take a cookie. "Unfortunately its all been dead ends thus far. At most I've found some Pokemon and Code Lyoko crossover fanfiction written by someone who was probably on drugs at the time." His free hand would come up to his forehead, the youth leaning on it as he took a bit of the cookie. "Damn, that's actually pretty good."

[RandomWombat]

It wasn't the first time Conner had gotten a ride home in a police car, but it was the first time he'd done so without being in trouble. Not to say he hadn't been under suspicion given his record, but nobody had any ideas as to how the kid even wound up with that hole in him. It didn't match any sort of weapon a couple of punk teens could get their hands on. So the cops bought the story for now and sent Conner and Josh on their way.

Conner's jacket was ruined. That was fine, it was a cheap summer jacket. Of course, David confiscated it before any 'clothing funerals' could take place. There were a lot of questions that night. Heck, Conner felt like the Reeves were interrogating him more than the police had. Things between him and his caretakers were distant for a while after that, with Conner ignoring them more than usual out of frustration. He considered talking to Cleo about what had really happened, but then he remembered the other missing kids. Better to keep Cleo as far away from this as possible.

Over the following week Conner skipped class less, visited Squid less. It wasn't that he suddenly cared about school, but he'd started distancing himself from this 'Digimon' thing. It wasn't Squid's fault, but those voices had known Squid somehow, recognized him. What if they came back? There was a lot on Conner's mind, and the stress left him in a foul mood at school. During one lunch hour, Frederick had forgotten to take his backpack with him to the washroom. Conner had gone in and chopped up all of Fred's recent notes using a pair of scissors. As usual, Frederick didn't go to the teachers. Conner had made it clear before that things would only get worse for tattletales.

And all the stress was giving Conner that mental itch. He really wanted to burn something right now. Something big.

The Digimon who couldn't be taken home had been brought to an abandoned house, thankfully occupied by neither ghosts nor drug addicts. Shortly after things had settled down, Evie had taken Rabu with her, and Chris had taken Rei home. That left Thorn and Squid at the 'hideout'. Often, Squid would hunt down the vermin infesting the old house for sport. Conner visited once or twice, but seemed like his thoughts were somewhere else. Despite Squid's best attempts to play around and get attention, whatever was bothering Conner remained inconsolable. Later into the week the visits stopped altogether. Squid had become sullen and lazy after that, not even bothering to chase the resident rats and cockroaches around. It was clear that some sort of gap has formed between the two.

[Seanfall]

Joshua made a habit of visiting Thorn every day he could. Which was usually everyday. At her request he started bringing her flowers and snacks for her and squid. One day on his way to visit, with a pack of seeds he stopped in front of the house. One of them, Joshua was guessing Thorn, had drawn faces in the dust on the windows. As he made his way to the back to get in. He found that part of the backyard had been cleaned up and the ground torn up and looked ready for planting.

"BANZI!" The words echoed from above, Josh had time to look up as Thorn landed on him knocking the boy to the ground. Thorn sat legs folded under her on his chest. "Your early today. DIDJA BRING EM? DIDJA DIDJA DIDA!?" With one hand Josh picked thorn up plopped her next to him. He sat up and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Thorn we talked about this, no jumping on me from the second floor."

Thorn nodded, Joshua held out the seed packets. "Oh you did bring them!" Thorn snatched them away and laid them out infront of her little makeshift garden. Joshua sat up, and rubbed the cast still on his arm. His stitches were due out, bone still needed some time though.

"Hmmm...not sure I recognize some of these. Cucumber, Zucchini, Tomato..you humans have some odd fruit."

"...I think only tomatos are fruits out of those." Joshua bent his knees and lowered himself in his usual manner.
You know how to grow these? I can look it up if you want."

Thorn waved her hand. "Nah it's fine. I found...what did you call them. A book inside on gardening, looks kinda beaten up. Here let me...oh wait...SQUID CAN YOU THROW MY BOOK DOWN?!" Thorn called up to the window. A moment later a rather large book came soaring out of it. And it was heading right for Joshua's head. Rather then move the teenager stayed still, accepting his fate. When Thron's vines shot out and interceded. "Thanks!"

As she was flipping through the book, Josh eyed the window and pulled out a pack of gum, sliding a piece into his mouth and offering Thorn one. She gladly took it.
"Brought some food for you too...speaking of Squid. How's he been? Has Conner been coming over?"

A large pink bubble greeted Josh as his turned back to Thorn. After a second it popped and thorn went back to chewing, moving it over to one side so she could still speak. "Kinda hard to say. He seems fine, but I haven't seen his partner, but Squid doesn't talk to me much." Thorn flipped to the Tomatos and made a suprised oooh sound. "Looks like I need to make these little wooden hangers for the Tomatoes once they sprout."

"What's he been eating?"

"Whatever's slower then him."

Joshua ran his palm down his face, groaning. "Your sharing your food right?"

"Some of it." Thorn held up her book and hid her face from Josh. "That's why I want to get a garden going.
If we can grow our own food you won't have to bring so much."

Speaking of which Josh dropped a brown bag full of groceries outside the back door.

"Well I got a couple hours before I gotta get home. Let me help you set it up."

[lord pringle]

[Chris]
For a creature with digital in its name, there is surprisingly little information on them on the internet. All you manage to find is a Geocities page from 1999, though most of its links are to dead pages. It's called Charlotte and Lunamon's Digimon Database and it is full of images that are no longer hosted. There is garish pink on black background text that's broken up by photos that reads:
"hey guys this is me and lunamons own corner of the net! werre gonna put all the pictures of our adventures here and probably write up stuff weve learned (Editor's Note: This is Lunamon, I promise I'm going to clean up Charlotte's writing soon charlotte's note, my writing is fine dweeb [Editor's Note: Why did you tell me to edit if you won't let me edit? charlotte's note i meant check for broken fotos eat a dik{Editor's Note: I'm going to do it anyway. Your essays aren't much better, to be blunt.}])

me and lunamon kicking ass in colma

lunamon stuffing her face with dim sum (Editor's Note: Uh the image is broken, please take down this embarrassing picture)"
[Broken Image]
all of us solving the mystery of the missing ice cream look at his stupid sherlok homes hat
[Broken Image]
group photo of all 8 of us we just beat a monochromon
Lunamon's Journal (Dead Link)|charlottes journal (Dead Link)|Mission Log (Dead Link)|Digimon Database (Dead Link)"
[B][Connor]
Saturday night, slightly less than a week after the events in the park, Danse walks into your room, "Hey, um, s-sorry to b-bother you, but um, Cleo and I, and um, some f-friends from school wanted to B-BART into Colma around six tomorrow. And, uh, and Ms. Reeves said that, uh, we couldn't go out after d-dark without you, he stammers, not making eye contact as he shifts his weight and wrings his hands.
"Could you, uh, please come with us? She said you could b-bring along friends if you want."
[Josh]
On Saturday night, slightly less than a week after the events in the park, when you return from bringing the groceries to the abandoned house, Zacks is waiting for you in the living room, sitting on a couch. "[B]Hey, uh, we need to talk. I'm kinda worried about you. First you get beaten up and now I see you're buying groceries and bringing them somewhere else." he pauses and winces before saying, "You, uh, you aren't in a gang, are you?"

[RandomWombat]

Conner had been sitting on his bed, turning over Squid's phone in his hands. His troubled thoughts were interrupted by Danse appearing at his door. His first reaction was to glance up and look annoyed. Cleo's name drop softened him up a bit, but he also figured Danse had done that on purpose. With a sigh Conner asked, "First, why do a bunch of kids want to go to Colma after dark? Isn't that place full of graveyards?"

[dethkruzer]

Silence resumed, the only real sound being the hum of the computer fan and the low sounds of Rei nibbling on one cookie after another. His eyes would stare at the screen, almost blank as he sfifted through junk. "No. No. No. Is that even legal? No. No. Yes! No wait, false alarm." H would mentally categorize the flow of junk data as he opened and closed tabs. THe only breaks Chris allowed himself were the occasional cookie, and a slightly longer pause when he went to fill out his mug with more coffee.

The qaulity of his search results, or rather lack thereof, quickly put his brain on autopilot, leading to him having gone through and closed two other tabs before the young man even realized he might have stumbled onto something. Something in his eyes lit up as the cursors on the screen opened up the "recently closed tabs" menu, and clicked the third choice from the top. "Lunamon?" He would mumble, his words almost startling the Kunemon beside him. "You say something?" The digimon would asking, tilting its head in a fashion not too dissimilar to a puppy.

"I think I might have just found something..."

[Seanfall]

Josh stopped in his tracks and looked Zacks right in his eyes, like a deer caught in the headlines. The question had caught him off guard and he wasn't sure how to respond. He could make some jokes, but...no Zacks seemed genuinely worried.

"It's not like that. I made some friends, now don't faint from surprise. We've been hanging out, even got ourselves a little clubhouse. We're not a gang. Just a couple of kids my age." That kinda sounded like a gang if you think about it.

Josh put his hands up to his face and ran them down.

"I'm making it sound sketchier then it is. We're starting a little garden. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, figured after this." Joshua raised his injured limb. "It would just have made you worry more....seems like that was inevitable."

[lord pringle]

[Connor]
"That, uh, that's why we're going," he says, smiling awkwardly, "My f-friends and I, we're the p-p-paranormal investigation club-" he stops and shrinks back. "Don't laugh! It's my friends' c-club; I don't even believe in supernatural stuff! B-b-but, we're, uh, we're hunting a ghost."
Cleo pops into the doorway triumphantly holding what appears to be a gutted walkie talkie with several circuit boards attached to it. "I get to look for eemphs!" She proudly announces, scanning the device around the room.
"It's, uh, they're EMFs."
[Josh]
"Is this a gang garden?" he says, his face trying and failing to hide his obvious facetiousness. But seriously, you don't need to hide these things from me, man. I could even hook you up with some petty cash, if you need it. I just got a raise at the bar." He shifts around a bit, "Please don't get me wrong with this, it's good you have friends and I really don't want to go all 1984 like your parents, but, um, you need to check in with me more. I have to know that you're okay; you're my responsibility now."
He pauses, a pained look on his face, "Want a diet Dr. Pepper?" He says trying to cut the tension.

[Seanfall]

Joshua technically wasn't lying. But that didn't stop that acidic feeling of guilt from bubbling up. He owed Zacks...well everything. If it wasn't for him he'd either be on the street or worse....with his parents. He didn't want to lie to him, but what else could he do? Oh yeah that would go well. 'The truth is,
we meet creatures from another dimension, befriended some then one tried to kill us. Better yet, their was a DEAD KID inside it.' Yeah no.

"Yeah I'll take one, I'm sorry Zacks I wasn't thinking. Things have been kinda weird since that fog hit the park." And it was probably gonna get weirder.

"I'm good on cash, Employee discount remember? Sides once the 'gang's garden' starts producing. Fresh Vegetables."

Their was one thing still on his mind though, that bothered him a lot...that he had just agreed to drink Diet soda. Might as well chug mouthwash.

[RandomWombat]

"Oh good, this sh- remembering the house rules, Conner stops himself short of cussing and restarts, "This crap is as dumb as I thought." His mind was racing about all the ways this could go wrong. All those kids in one place would be a big target for these weird bug aliens. And even if Danse and Cleo didn't go, the rest of this dumbass club would probably go without them. Without protection. As much as it irritated him, he didn't think he could deal with that on his conscience if he could have stopped it. Chewing the inside of his cheek and then letting out a sigh, Conner reluctantly answered, "No promises. I'll check if some friends want to go. If I change my mind, no complaining. And the two of you stay within ten feet of me at all times. Got it? I'm not getting in any crap because you two ran off and got hurt tripping over gravestones or whatever."

Getting up, Conner went to use the house phone down in the kitchen. He had taken down the other guys' numbers from the park when they exchanged with each other, but he didn't have a (working) cell of his own, so he hadn't given them his number. Hopefully they would pick up. Conner picked up the phone and dialed the number for that Chris guy's cellphone.

[dethkruzer]

The kunemon would pick up another cookie in its beak before wriggling over, all to the tune of some rapid and quite frantic clicking. Chris goraned in frustration as he clicked through thel inks, and tried to force the images the work, but it wasn't having any of it. But even with the borken images and dead links, there was still something worthwhile in the midst.

"Shmoo?... Rei would mumble, cookie still in mouth as it leaned in to look at the screen. "Looks like some kind of old blog, dating all the way back to 1999. Apparently kep by some girl named Charlotte... He'd explain, before taking a moment to pause to further eyeball the text. "Lunamon, Monochromon. Do those say anything to you?" He'd turn his head at Rei, the little bug leaning forward to scratch his beak against the table. "I think I've heard of Monochormon before but Lunamon..." The kunemon would trail off before shaking its head while making a displeased noise.

In a somewhat uncharacteristic move, Chris' hand would come off the mouse, giving the 'mon a pat on the head, prompting Rei to rub up against him. Chris couldn't help but crack a small smile at this, even in his fatigued and aggravated state. "But we've got something. Even if it was almost 20 years ago.

"She mentioned Colma in there, what's that?" Rei would ask, Chris giving him one more pat before bringing his hand down to the mouse. A few clicks, a bit of typing, and he'd have a map of the bay area open on the screen. "A small town, founded as a big graveyard from what I understand, a few miles from here." He would explain, before pausing.

"Still, if digimon showed up there back in -99, then it must have caused... something. I wonder if they have a newspaper archive or-" Was about as far as Chris would get, before his phone blared to life, thoroughly startling both of them. Picking the phone up, he saw a number he couldn't recognize, staring it for a little bit. He would then tap the small green icon and brought it up to his ear. "Chris Winchester."

[RandomWombat]

"Oh, uh, hey. It's Conner. From the park," taking the cordless phone into the washroom, Conner closed the door and took a seat on the counter. "Just found out a bunch of kids are going to Colma tomorrow evening around six. My, uh, my foster brother's paranormal club. Looking for ghosts," asking for help was never really Conner's strong suit, and he had to pause here to formulate what he was trying to say, "I'm worried all those dumb kids in one place might be a target for those... things. I think we should get us and the Digimon together and make sure nothing happens to 'em. Was just gonna call that Josh guy after. So uh, you in?"

[dethkruzer]

Paranormal club? The thought brought a slightly mocking smile to his face. What a bunch of dweebs. Still Conner did make a point. "Ghosts... Aren't really my thing. That said,
it wouldn't hurt to be too care-" He would pause suddenly as he went over what the other had said in his head. The pause actually went on a few more seconds than might be considered necessary. "Did you just mention Colma?" He would then blurt out suddenly.

Chris would look around him for a bit, before speaking into the phone again, this time in much more hushed tone. "Do you have this one speaker? I did some digging and... I think I might have found something."

[RandomWombat]

Switching the phone to the other ear, Conner presses his ear to the door to listen outside for eavesdroppers. He makes sure to lock the door and retreats further into the room, continuing to speak at a hush, "Something about Colma ya mean? Nobody should be able to overhear, what'd you find?"

[dethkruzer]

He'd pause again to look around, before continuing. "Did a bit of searching online for digimon. And it looks lime this might not be the first time they've appeared."

Again he paused. "Give me a sec, I'll set the phone down for a bit." Chris then said, before setting down the phone but leaving the line open. He'd walk over to the door of his room, before peaking out just to check that anyone hadn't come back while he had been searching.

Silence. Dead silence. He'd let a small sigh of relief before walking back over to his laptop and sitting down, one hand reaching down to pick up the phone. "I'm back. Anyways.
I found this old blog, from 1999. Apparently it was being kept by some some girl named Charlotte, and her partner Lunamon. It was mostly broken at this point, all unhosted images and dead links. What was still there mentioned fighting a digimon named Monochromon, as well as doing something in Colma."

Again Chris paused, both to give the the boy on the other end of the line a chance to digest a bit of what he'd said, but also to collect his own thoughts. "And since we had digimon appearing, chances are there was some kind of ruckus caused by them. But because it was so long ago, I probably wouldn't be able to find anything on the internet. So instead I was thinking if they maybe had some kind of newspaper archives over there."

[RandomWombat]

Conner waits impatiently while Chris sets down the phone and wanders off immediately after dropping that cliffhanger.

When Chris gets back and finishes explaining, Conner comments, "That was before I was even born. This Charlotte chick is probably grown up now. Did it say her last name anywhere? Maybe we could find 'er on facebook."

"And if monsters were appearing all over before, why don't we know about it? Some kinda cover up?"

[dethkruzer]

"Facebook..." He'd mutter for a moment, before shaking his head. "I dunno. This site doesn't have a surname or anything, and all the pictures are dead. And it's not exactly an uncommon name, so even if she did decide to stick around, finding her would take forever"

He'd pause again for a moment, considering what Conner said about a cover up. Maybe, I wasn't born then either. MAybe there was something to stop info from getting out, but I wonder how much that might have gotten into things like local newspapers back then?"

He'd shrug at this. "still, that's secondary at most. Digimon might have appeared there before,
and those things we saw before might actually be targetting kids. Having a whole bunch of them in one place certainly sounds like asking for trouble."

[RandomWombat]

"Right. Colma, tomorrow at six. I'll call Josh and see if he's in," after waiting for confirmation Chris would be there, Conner ends the call and punches in the next number on his note, calling Josh's cellphone.

[Seanfall]

Josh was currently asleep on the couch. His head lolled back, and Zacks trying to ignore his snoring as he watched the TV. A half drunk can of Diet soda sat on the table. When his phone started ringing Josh didn't stir, until Zacks hit him with a pillow to the chest to wake him up. With a snort, he jumped up and after a second grabbed his phone. Still a little disoriented he answered, in a sleepy slur.

"Hhhszat, bleh. Wh...what? Who is this? The Dinosaur has my money." Zacks stifled a laugh.

Josh glanced at him and walked out of earshot so the man could actually hear the TV now.

[RandomWombat]

"Hey? This is Josh, right?" the voice on the other end asks when Josh picks up. "It's Conner, from the park. The Chris guy and I have a new Digimon lead."

[Seanfall]

Josh looked over to Zacks, then decided to take the call into his own room. He didn't slam the door, making it a point to close it gently before he started speaking.

"Alright, let me hear it. Oh wait...have you been visiting Squid? Thorn said you weren't coming around. I've been dropping off supplies but I think you should drop by and see how he's doing."

[RandomWombat]

"What?" the question catches Conner off guard, which just serves to irritate him. He takes a moment to steady himself so that he doesn't raise his voice, "That's, I didn't have time, okay? Whatever, that's not what I called to talk about. Chris found that this happened before, with Digimon appearing. Apparently some chick named Charlotte had a Lunamon and fought some other Digimon at Colma. This was way back in the 90s."

"The real problem is that a bunch of kids from my foster brother's paranormal club are going ghost-hunting in Colma tomorrow evening. I'm worried all those kids in one place will be a target for those creeps in the fog."

[Seanfall]

What a none answer.

"Colma? Never been there. So let me guess, you want to go there with our Digimon just in case?" It wasn't a bad idea, and this time maybe they could grab one of the voices in the fog. Get some answers about what the hell was going on.

"Wait...happened before? So this isn't the first time these creatures were in our world?" That had Government conspiracy written all over it.

[RandomWombat]

"Yeah. Chris found an old online blog. Not much left on it though," Conner slides down off the counter and leans back on it, simply for a change of position. "The two of us are going. You coming too?"

[Seanfall]

“Of course. Maybe this time we can plan ahead and grab one of those fog voices. Beat some answers out of them.” Josh sat down on the edge of his bed.

“How many besides us are gonna be there?”

[RandomWombat]

"I dunno. It's a paranormal club, probably just a couple nerds. I give it like four or five, tops."

[Seanfall]

”Should you really call them nerds? When we are in fact dealing well with what I can only comprehend as inter dimensional quasi digital life forms?” Josh gave that a moment to sink in.

“I mean if that’s not paranormal what is?”

[RandomWombat]

"Six tomorrow, come or don't," Conner grumbles, then abruptly hangs up the phone. He leaves the washroom and replaces the phone on its charging port, then goes back to his room to find Danse and Cleo.

[Seanfall]

Josh eyed the phone for a moment. That guy needs a horse sized chill pill. Putting his phone away, Josh walked back into the main room and up to Zacks.

"Hey. My friends are getting together tomorrow night in Coma...Colma...around 6. Some kind of Paranormal club, You mind if I go?"

[lord pringle]

[Josh]
Zacks giggles, "I don't know, are you going to be able to keep yourself safe from all the ghosts, Mulder?" he stretches out, cracking his knuckles, "Nah, I don't mind. Just be safe and be back by a reasonable time, kay? There's still like $2.34 or something on the BART ticket on the kitchen table."
[Connor]
"Is anyone else coming? I n-n-need to tell Sayeed so he can plan stuff, Danse stammers out before adding in a softer voice, wincing, And, uh, they aren't g-going to pick on us, are they?"
"They wouldn't!" Cleo adds, emphatically, "Only mean people pick on other people and they wouldn't be Connor's friends if they were mean!"

[RandomWombat]

"Relax," Conner tells Danse as he walks past and flops back onto his bed. "Just two other guys coming along. I don't want to have to babysit a whole bunch of kids by myself. How many in this paranormal club of yours' anyways?"

[Seanfall]

"You don't mind if I use it?" Josh said as he slid back onto the couch. "Thanks. And sure thing Sculley. But you know...the Truth...is out there.""

[lord pringle]

[Josh]
Zacks giggles as he turns on the tv. "Yeah, totally. I walk to work now."
[Connor]
"Well, uh, only three of us are g-going, but there's s-seven in the club," Danse says, counting on his fingers, "Me, Sayeed and Mike-" "And me!" "And Cleo makes f-four."

[dethkruzer]

"Right, six it is then. Call me back once you know if Josh is in and we can see where to meet up." He would say, before ending the call. Chris would tap at the touch screen for a bit, saving the number he'd just gotten the call from.

"Shoo, who was sthat?" Rei would ask, cookie crumbs falling from his beak as he spoke. "It was Conner, the other guy we met at the park. Looks like we're gonna be going to Colma tomorrow."

[lord pringle]

...
Glen Park
...
Balboa Park
...
Daily City
...
Colma
The muffled voice of the BART conductor announces each stop on the SFO line as the train waits the requisite minutes at it. It finally pulls into Colma station, about an hour from sundown, and you exit. Standing there, in the middle of the station, are two 9th graders holding a map and comparing it to their phone. One is a well built but twice as fat as he is muscular Iranian kid and the other is a short gangly Japanese boy.
Connor sees Danse run for it and jump on to the bigger kid's back, in some sort of impromptu piggyback ride. The two of them tussle and while they do, the shorter kid, Mike, walks over to Connor. "So, uh, did Danse tell you what we're doing here? And are you just here as a chaperone or do you, you know, believe?"

[RandomWombat]

On the way to the BART, Conner had stopped by the Digi-House to pick up Squid. The little monster had been so excited to see him, Conner couldn't help but feel guilty for leaving him alone for so long. Now, the heavy weight of the Digimon is contorted into Conner's backpack along with a flashlight and some snacks (placed in a different pocket to avoid mysterious crunching during the BART ride).

Stepping out onto the platform, Conner gauges the two kids. Mike was more the sort of scrawny dork he was expecting. Rolling his eyes at Danse's antics with Sayeed, Conner adjusts his backpack and moves away from the train, "I guess you could say I'm open to the supernatural. ... How do you feel about aliens?" He glances around the train platform, watching for the other guys from the park.

[Seanfall]

Like Conner Joshua had stopped by to grab Thorn, her garden was all set up but it would be a while before it showed anything for her efforts. She leapt at him when she saw him and tightly embraced him. Joshua had brought an old duffel bag slung across his shoulder. She had more room, though she shared it with a baseball bat, a flashlight and some snacks. Mostly those chocolate covered oatmeal bars. (They were on sale this week.) Though he got some fresh fruit for Thorn. She had sat with her head popped out when they were alone, munching on an apple.

Once they arrived, Thorn was watching the others through a small hole in the bag. When the kid, Mike posed his question Joshua took a moment to think before answering. "Ehhhh....I'm a skeptic, I'll believe anything you can show me evidence for. I don't think ghosts are real though. That said I see any of you doing some voodoo ritual **** and I'm calling it a night then and there."

[RandomWombat]

Conner shoots Josh a glare, "Hey. There's kids here, watch your language."

[Seanfall]

Joshua blinked several times then slowly turned his head to look at Conner. A look of complete disbelief on his face, Thorn snickered in the bag. Prompting Josh to shake the bag and readjust it. Thorn vowed vengeance upon being knocked around in the bag.

"...Sure thing oh unassailable moral Paragon."

[lord pringle]

Mike gives Connor a weird look. "Aliens? That's stupid. Aliens are clearly fake, otherwise there'd be way more evidence, dating back to the foundation of man. Like ghosts have. Like the ghost we're hunting today goes back to the gold rush!" He digs through his backpack and pulls out a manila folder full of old photos of various parts of the bay area with phantasmal figures and spectral orbs imposed on the photo. "They call it the Lost Miner's Lure. It's supposedly the soul of a miner who burned to death in a mine shaft fire. He appears as a ball of glowing light that leads you back to his mineshaft where he takes a form like a burning corpse and burns you TO DEATH!"
He shouts those last words, whipping directly to Cleo, who shrieks and tries to hide herself behind Connor's legs.
"Anyway, we're going to get pictures of the ghost once it shows up. It's supposed to do so every new moon. And don't worry, we aren't going to try to tamper with the ghost just get incontrovertible evidence of its existence. We'd have to be stupid to mess with it, it's a murderer!" He smiles, self satisfied at his sound logic, while Cleo cowers and shakes behind Connor.

[RandomWombat]

Conner rolls his eyes at Josh.

"Yeah well, we'll see," Conner flicks Mike in the forehead with a finger and bumps his way past. Glancing back at Cleo, he holds out a hand. "C'mon. Don't worry, I got a secret weapon. Just stick close and you'll be fine."

[Seanfall]

"Yeah don't worry I got a secret weapon to." Josh unzipped the duffel bag. Thorn looked up and mouthed the word 'now?' Josh gave a quick shake of his head. 'no' and reached into the bag and pulled out the Baseball Bat.

"It's called Blunt Force Trauma."

[lord pringle]

When Josh opens his backpack, the weird device that Cleo is holding goes nuts, beeping whirring and buzzing. Danse and Sayeed come rushing over, but Mike interrupts them before they can start. "Come on guys, it's not a ghost detector, it's an EMF detector. It's good for ghosts, but we're like right next to an electric third rail. It'll pick up anything that emits lots of energy." And then as he zips up the bag, the device returns to it's stationary state, even as the train departs.
"Alright, guys, the bus to the cemetery is going to be arriving in front of the station like 5 minutes. I'll meet you guys out there if you have anything else you need to do before going out. And maybe hide that bat. I don't want people to think we're going to like destroy tombstones or anything."

[RandomWombat]

The sudden screeching causes Conner to jump. He glances over at Josh, then at the EMF detector, the correlation not lost on him.

Well, at least they'd have warning before any Digimon showed up.

"I got everything I'm gonna need. Any of you need the bathroom? Don't need anybody wetting themselves."

[dethkruzer]

Sorry it took this long. the past few days have been a mess.

The sports bag occasionally smacks against his back as he pedaled down the street. Sweat ran down his forehead in beads. The youth knew he was late. Finally he got close enough, finding a place to lock up his bike before bursting into a sprint toward the station, even as his lungs screamed for oxygen. He took a turn into the terminal doors, his pace only slowing down when he saw Josh and Conner, along with some kids. "Sorry I'm late..." He'd pant an apology, pausing to catch his breath for a few moments before continuing. "... Had a flat tire on my bike."

The young man would wipe the sweat off with his forearm, before taking a moment to glance at the kids. "So uhhh... Did I miss anything?"

[Seanfall]

Josh sweats a little when the EMF goes off, he didn't miss the correlation between the two. But he wasn't eager to test it. Thankfully the final member of their little group showed up. Josh also didn't comment on how mature Mike seemed in that moment.

"Yeah actually yeah I gotta go before we start this little expedition."

Josh walked towards the Bathrooms passing Chris on his way, he stopped to say high extending a hand to shake his. He leaned in and whispered to him.

"The kids have an 'EMF' detector. It picked up on Thorn when I unzipped the bag, be careful."

After that he walked into the restroom and unzipped the Bag, Thorn popped up.

"Okay what was that screeching a minute ago?"

"One of the kids. They have some kind of EMF detector."

Thorn stared Josh right in the eyes. "I don't know what that is..."

"I think it means, Electro Magnetic Frequency. Not sure how it works...but I think it picked up on you cause your a Digimon. You know Digital...maybe something like that."

Thorn tapped a vine to her chin, then nodded a moment later as if contemplating his words deeply.

"Anyways we're gonna need to be careful." Josh sat the bag on the counter, and handed Thorn the bat. "Sorry but I do actually need to use the bathroom..."

Thorn grimaced and slide back down in her bag and sipped it shut from the Inside. A few minutes later Josh sprinted out of the Bathroom bag in tow.