Champions of the Digital World

Aiko ran with Soo-Min in tow, grasping the other girl's wrist tightly so that she was sure that they didn't get separated with one had, and grasping BlackGatomon firmly to her chest with the other. However, there were more people at the convention than Aiko had counted on, and most, if not all, of them were working their way toward Exhibition Hall 3B. In the sea of people, Aiko fought her way through the currents toward where the announcement was going to be made.

<"Hey, slow down, Aiko!"> BlackGatomon complained, fighting the urge to extend her claws to get a better grip on her tamer, like some ordinary house cat.

<"I can't slow down, we'll miss the announcement."> The girl shifted her eyes to make sure that no one was watching her have a conversation with her "plushie" while trying to push into the doors.

<"Aiko, you realize you lost Soo-Min, don't you?"> The digimon narrowed her eyes slyly while she waited for the realization to dawn on her trainer.

Aiko turned around, and sure enough Soo-Min was no longer in tow. She had been foolishly walking around with her hand extended behind her for who knows how long, people probably thought she was crazy. She blushed as she tried to stop existing for the next few minutes. <"We should go find her,"> she decided, attempting to turn around, only to get pushed forward by the crowd.

<"Forget about it, there's no way you'll find her in this mess, even if you could fight against the current.">

Aiko apologized to the other girl in her head, then turned and found a spot facing the stage. If anything, they could always meet up with her later, Aiko's digivice should show her where she was, like it did the first time. As she thought it, she pulled out her Digivice and looked down at the screen. Several other blips had appeared now, signifying there were almost a dozen more real Digimon in the area.

This almost entirely pushed Soo-Min out of Aiko's mind, and immediately she tried to get a look at these people, wherever they were, but was unable to get a good look around, unsurprisingly. Her futile search was interrupted by the appearance of the important looking man on the stage.

"Blah blah blah," the man seemed to say as he spoke on the stage, all self-important like. Aiko was sure that he was actually saying words, obviously, but she really didn't care. Pretend Digimon wasn't exactly exciting when there was a real-life Digimon sitting in your arms. Of course, it appeared BlackGatomon was actually listening to the man, so if anything important was being said, at least it wasn't being completely ignored.

"We bring you this!" Finally, words Aiko recognized as the introduction of something that would probably prove interesting. The man put his fake Digivice into this big machine and a Digimon stepped out of a portal.

"Wait..." Aiko started, eying the Meramon with a raised eyebrow.

"How did he do that? That's not," BlackGatomon started to reel with questions before calming herself and evaluating. While Aiko pointed her Digivice at the creature and it registered completely, data written in Japanese sprang across her screen.

"It's real?"

BlackGatomon nodded, "it's real, but something's off. It just doesn't... feel right." The Digimon was trying to figure out exactly how this had happened, while her partner took a much different approach.

"That is so cool!" She shouted, completely ignoring BlackGatomon's statement. She sparked similar shouts from the people all around her as she excitedly spouted nonsense about how she and BlackGatomon would get a whole bunch of opponents to fight and grow stronger.

"Quiet, don't you realize what the consequences of something like this could be? This isn't the way it works, Aiko."

"But, it's a real Digimon, just like you. Maybe they're Tamers!"

"No, that is one thing they most certainly are not."

The entire room erupted into excited chatter at the man's announcement. A bunch of thirteen year olds nearby eagerly talked among themselves about getting a Digimon of their own. Yokomon also thought she saw a few college aged students and other adults look wistful at the idea of having a Digimon partner—something they thought only existed in comics. Still others were a bit skeptical about it all. After all, Digimon WERE supposed to only be fictional characters, but Yokomon knew better. She didn't need Renata's Digivice to tell her that the Meramon was very, very real...and very, very worrisome. One person was notably silent after the announcement.

Renata was still staring at the stage open mouthed. It was like she didn't realize how tightly she was clutching her Digivice. Yokomon would've thought that Renata would be jumping for joy and she would have to remind the human of the ramifications of that announcement. Not this time though.

“So it's a real Digimon...” Renata said in an unusually grave voice. She held up Yokomon so that she could look her Digimon partner in the eye. “I have a really bad feeling about this...”

Yokomon nodded slightly. “Me too.”

The Digimon was even more worried by Renata's tone and the look on her face than she was by the Meramon. It's the same expression Renata's father wore whenever something bad was about to happen. And if even Renata noticed something off about that Meramon...

“I can't exactly put it into words,” Renata said. “That Digimon wasn't like you and the others we met earlier. It just seems, well, unnatural. Like it's about two degrees away from being a zombie or something.”

“Well, that's a creative way of putting it,” said Yokomon. “I guess we can look on the bright side." In a way, it was as though the fact that Renata was taking this seriously calmed the Digimon down a little. "Once this news gets out I won't have to pretend to be a stuffed animal anymore.”

“You're telling me to look on the bright side?” Renata said as a small smile returned to her face. “What is the world coming to?” She looked around the room at the still excited crowd. “Do you think that this announcement and that so many of us with natural Digimon met here are linked?”

“I don't know,” Yokomon admitted. “I really don't know.”

The two were silent for a little while before Renata spoke again.“Come on,” she said. “Let's go find Jason or some of the others we met. I want to see what they think of all this.” As they walked around the crowd and listened to what some of the people were saying, another thought occurred to Renata...she could've kept it to herself, but she couldn't resist messing with her partner a bit.

“Hey Yokomon,” she said darkly. “Can you imagine what it would be like if every thirteen year old in this room got their very own Digimon?”

“Ugh,” Yokomon groaned as she felt her paranoia rising. She immediately imagined a bunch of silly boys accosting them for a battle. “Did you really have to bring up such a horrifying image?”

(OOC: Anyone can feel free too run into Renata if they want to. She's the on wearing the cowboy hat ^^)

“Ah, yes; your digivice.” Rui started, and then pointed at his device and held it next to Rufus' own one. “I also got this when I first met Gaomon. I asked him what he knew of it, if it was something that came with all Digimon, but he doesn’t know any more about it than I do,” he explained.

"Well that's mighty helpful." Dracomon retorted,

“Well, I may not know the origin of where my digivice or Digimon came from, but I was able to figure out what it could do." Rui pointed to each button as he mentioned them, "Firstly, if you press the button below the screen here," A circular hologram appeared in front of the screen as he did so. “You can obtain information concerning a nearby digimon.” The hologram then showed a Cyan-Blue dragon with red horns and wing, Dracomon to perfect detail, and japanese characters on the screen with it.

"So it's like a digi-encyclopedia?" Rufus asked,

“And then, there’s this other significant function as well,” Rui continued, ignoring Rufus' question, or so it seemed at least. The boy reached for a leather pouch on his hip and took out a thin deck of cards. He pulled one of them from his hand and showed the card face up next to his digivice. It looked just like any other Digimon Trading Card, including the ones in Rufus' own bag, except this one was in Japanese.

“See this small slot on the left side here? You can swipe Trading Cards through here; once you do, the effects of the Trading Card are transferred over to your Digimon partner,” Rui explained.

"You mean like in the card game?" Rufus asked.

“Sort of. It’s kind of hard to explain just how it works. I’ve only used a couple of cards thus far, too. Actually, I wonder if cards in a different language will work.”

"Technology usually isn't very international. So I doubt it, but maybe-" Rufus stopped as a thunderous applause began to echo throughout the building, the epicentre coming from the exhibition hall ahead of them.

"Come on! We're missing it!" Gabriel shouted, pushing through the crowds to reach the double doors.

“What's all the buzz about he-“ but before Rufus could continue, he saw what the crowd was cheering for. His eyes popped open and his jaw dropped from his mouth. Stood on the stage was a man set ablaze. No, it was more like a man made of fire. It stood with blank, blue, beady eyes, and a loose stitching where its mouth should be. It's limbs flickered with orange flame as he stood before the crowd. One of the most iconic creatures of the entire franchise:

“Meramon," Rui whispered. Rufus looked over to see that he had his digivice pointed at the digimon on the stage, the holographic screen lit up and showed a picture of the same digimon. "Then this confirms it; that digimon over there is real," he exclaimed towards Rufus.

"Wait, are they actually marketing this?" Rufus asked. He quickly glanced over to Gabriel just a bit ahead of him. He looked dazed, dumfounded even. Real digimon was a dream of Gabriel, one that Rufus had been hiding from him for some time now, and now it was standing on the stage ahead of him, bowing before the world as the newest era in the digital franchise began to dawn.

Diane had started to lead him over to another person - a tamer, Tyson guessed - when he noticed a person get out onto the stage, stepping out from behind a red curtain. Tyson tugged at Diane's arm, and pointed at the man. She stopped, turned, and both of them looked at the man, awaiting his announcement.

"It has been ten years since we here at DG Corp introduced the first incarnation of what would become a sprawling franchise," at this, the man held up a virtual pet that looked a lot like Tyson's old one, "since then, we have produced works for television, card games, toys, video games..." The man continued to talk like this, Tyson hanging on his every word, "...Today, however, is the dawning of a new era, for DG Corp, and for the world at large. Today we bring you this!" the large red curtains behind the man flung open, causing Tyson to gasp.

It looked like a portal out of a sic-fi TV show his cousin sometimes let him watch when he stayed over. There was a large porthole connected to a conveyor belt attached to a machine. Without speaking, the announcer stepped up to the machine, took out a digitise, and plugged it into the machine. He flipped a large switch, and the machine started to hum. The porthole warped into a mass of swirling colour, and the conveyor belt started to move. Of of the colour stepped a thing that caused Tyson to gasp and clutch Diane's arm tightly. It was a humanoid that appeared to be made from flames. It's mouth looked as if it had been stitched closed, yet Tyson knew it could open that mouth if it wanted to. Blank eyes looked out at the crowd, as the Meramon became Real. "Today! We at DG Corp bring you the ultimate in the Digimon line! Real, live Digimon!"

A pain in his chest reminded Tyson to breath, and he looked at Diane with a horror filled look. Gummymon was cowering on his shoulder, scared of the flame-like digimon. "A real Meramon! But he's not a tamer... How?" He whispered to Diane, stealing looks at the now-bowing Meramon.

OoC: Slight Modding of Diane, but oh well. It's gets my post out of the way in any case. Sorry about lateness!

Diane felt Tyson pull on the sleeve of her arm, causing her to stop in her tracks and look at him curiously. He seemed to be looking at the stage, though, and she realized that the announcement had already started. She nodded and turned to face the stage, and just in time, too.

The man in the spotlight babbled on about some new product they had, and revisited some of the older creations the franchise had made. She saw him hold up the original virtual pet device, and noticed how similar it was to her cousin’s Tamagotchi pet. “What, are they going to tell us they’ve made Digimon a virtual reality now?” she said with a laugh, only for Kokomon to nudge her nervously. She barely heard the last sentence before an audible gasp sounded from the people around her. Refocusing her eyes, Diane had to keep from gasping as well as she saw a flaming creature emerge onto the stage.

Tyson murmured something to her, but the girl, and her Digimon partner, were frozen in shock. They couldn’t be... Digimon only appeared to those who were chosen or something! Kokomon shuddered as she imagined others like herself rampaging around the city, unchecked, and saw how Gummymon was just as nervous as she was. Diane, though, got over being stupefied rather quickly, taking Kokomon off her shoulder and squeezing the Digimon tightly as she spoke.

“This is amazing! Not only are there tamers like us already around, but more of us can appear, too!” she said to who she thought was Tyson. However, the person she faced was far too old to be the boy, and she found herself blushing in shame, and felt Kokomon sink into her shoulder in embarrassment.

“Shhhh, we don’t want strangers to... to know that I’m here,” Kokomon stuttered worriedly, glancing at the guy to make sure he couldn't hear her. She noticed the Tsunomon in his arms, and looked at the Digimon suspiciously before turning her gaze away.

Diane, however, seemed to forget the guy immediately, for she was back to talking to Tyson. “Isn’t this just so cool?” she said to him. “I’m not sure what they did to bring that Meramon here, but this is just way too awesome to ignore, Ty!”

(OOC: Hee, it’s fine, Blazi. XD And looks like Diane gave Tyson a new nickname. :3)

“How long are we just going to keep going in circles?” Yokomon complained. “You could just quit being so stubborn and use the Digivice!”

“We'll walk around as long as it takes until we find someone we know,” Renata hissed. “It's not my fault that this place is so big. And we use the Digivice as a last resort. It's kinda cool doing it this way. It's like a scavenger hunt!”

Yokomon wanted to facepalm so badly right then. She decided not to dignify that with a response. “We wouldn't be in this situation if you hadn't left everyone in the first place,”she countered.

“Yeah well,” Renata began. “Okay, I admit it. You have a point. BUT! This also makes things more fun. I mean, what if we find someone else with a real Digimon? We could at least ask them what they think of...whatever that Digimon was that they presented.”

The crowd was still buzzing about what they had just seen. People were posting it to Twitter, Facebook, and any other social networking site they might use. It was sure to be all over the internet by now. Renata wondered just how huge the fallout from this would be. She was half-joking when she teased Yokomon about every thirteen year old boy having a Digimon, but that was a serious possibility. Or maybe this was for the best. Renata sighed. She was usually the upbeat one, but this time she just couldn't muster up feelings of optimism over this.

She could muster up enthusiasm for what she saw up ahead however. The man had long brown hair that had strangely white tips and awesome blue eyes. He had this amazingly cool jacket and jeans. Best of all, he was standing next to a Floramon.

“Yokomon, look!” Renata said excitedly as she pointed at the man.

“Didn't anyone ever teach you pointing is rude!” Yokomon said.

“The situation calls for it!” Renata responded while still pointing. “Now let's go meet him!”

“Wait, I don't think he's--

But Yokomon's words fell on deaf ears and Renata bounded over and almost comically stopped short into front of the man.

“Hey!” Renata said with a huge smile on her face. “So...I noticed your Floramon and I couldn't help but to come over and meet you!”

I guess I should be happy she didn't hug him Yokomon thought as she rolled her eyes.

OOC: Slightly redundant post, but I hope I didn't mess up anything.

[StellarWind Elsydeon]

"Hey! So...I noticed your Floramon and I couldn't help but to come over and meet you!"

Speaking of looking into Digivice signals... Looks like one of the signals just looked into them. The signal - or rather, the person that the signal represented - was a brown-eyed, black haired young woman - about his age, perhaps a bit younger. Her outfit had a black and purple motif and featured, of all the odd things, a cowboy hat. She seemed like she would stand out in just about any crowd - but not in a bad way.

The cowboy hat was not the only unusual thing about the young woman, though. She was holding a Yokomon - certainly a living, breathing one... and certainly not a blank, mind-wiped creature like that artificial Meramon. In fact, the little creature seemed almost exasperated. Judging by how outgoing this young woman seemed to be, he could probably safely assume this sort of thing happened a lot - and that her partner was not quite as ecstatic about it.

He definitely understood: he always felt kind of awkward around people he didn't know and really wasn't the type to initiate first contact - he tended to leave that to others. He shot a brief look to Floramon, who returned his look with a mildly amused grin. She noticed it too. She would, of course. He shot her a dark glare, and she grinned, lightly prodding him with a look that could only mean Later. We have a random encounter on our hands. And I do mean -random-.

Reid turned his eye back to the girl and her partner, and nodded at them lightly.

"Er... Hi." He replied, smiling back "To the both of you."
"What he said." Floramon chimed in, lightly waving. "It's been a while since I've seen a Yokomon."

From where Blake stood he saw a cowboy hat bobbing up and down in the crowd a few rows in front of him. Unless there was some other chick with weird fashion sense, he knew right away that it must have been the girl from before with the Yokomon. The teen pulled his Digivice from his pocket and sure enough one of the dots was moving in that same direction until meeting up with another dot.

"Change of plans Tsumemon." he said lowering the device. "We probably should find out who all has Digimon and what kinds of Digimon they have. Better to scout out the competition than wait for one of them to find us."

"Good plan. Once we know who to look for, it'll be easier to find them when there are less people around. Then we can fight the weakest ones first." said the In-Training Digimon. Blake gave his partner a grinning nod then started wading through the crowd following his radar.

The closest two dots were coming from two boys having a conversation. Standing near them were a small cyan dragon with red horns and a bipedal wolf with blue fir on its back and white fur on its belly. Blake's Digivice instantly came to life producing a holographic image of the dragon, identified as Dracomon, followed by the wolf which was apparently called Gaomon. Both were Rookie levels. Blake decided it probably wasn't a smart decision to approach them too closely and moved on. As he got closer to two more blips, the teen noted that they were coming from the kids he had seen earlier near the cafe. This time he was able to identify their Digimon as Gumimon and and Kokomon, both In-Trainings. Blake turned around to find more Tamers only to bump into someone.

"Hey watch it!" he yelled at the person only to realize he already knew the boy and the Tsunomon with him. "You again?" he said in annoyance. Blake noticed the boy looked a bit concerned about something. "What's wrong? Can't find your girlfriend?" Blake taunted.

(OOC:That's right Tailon, I'ma comin' after you! >:3)

Before Jason could approach the signal he had found, it faded away completely, and someone bumped into him. A familiar voice shouted at him, "Hey watch it!" Jason turned to find the boy he had attacked before as a distraction, "You again?" he said, "What's wrong? Can't find your girlfriend?"

"Renata's not my girlfriend, first of all, and more importantly, there is a freaking Digimon on the stage you idiot!" Jason shouted back, then noticed that the jellyfish that was with him had grown larger and hand-like, "Oh, did your jelly get to In-Training? Does that make you think you can take me on?"

"Er... Hi." said the man with a smile. "To the both of you."

"What he said." his partner Floramon said. "It's been a while since I've seen a Yokomon."

Renata and Yokomon took a good look at the Floramon and were relieved to see that the thing wasn't a zombie digimon thing. She was just as real as Yokomon and the other Digimon they had seen that day—nothing like that Meramon. The man seemed a bit shy and reserved which was completely unlike Renata. She also couldn't help noticing just how beautiful his eyes were now that she was up close to him...Renata found herself mesmerized and had to shake herself out of it.

“Yeah, Yokomon is quite the adorable one isn't she?” said Renata as she happily squeezed the plant bulb Digimon. Teasing Yokomon was too fun sometimes.

“Stop squeezing me!” Yokomon grunted. “Please excuse my partner here. She can actually act normally but--

“Again, where's the fun in that?” Renata finished. She smiled at man. “But where are my manners? My name is Renata Karrens and this is Yokomon. “Very glad to meet someone whose partner Digimon doesn't have that undead look.”

“Yes, it's very nice to meet you,” said Yokomon who was still slightly amazed that the man didn't look more uncomfortable at Renata's exuberance.

[StellarWind Elsydeon]

"Arden. Reid Arden. Pleased to meet you two." Reid smiled in response, then his expression seemed to darken "And yes, that undead look. This Meramon... There's definitely something unnatural about it. I have a feeling this marketing scheme of DG Corp's is going to land us in a whole heap of trouble."

"Yeah. If whatever it is they do to those Digimon they bring in through the gate gives them complete control over their data matrix... Let's just say that some people should not be trusted with that kind of power." Floramon nodded "And from what I've seen of humanity, no offense, that's exactly the type of people that are going to try to get the most powerful possible Digimon they can."

"Yup... And be dumb enough to try and mess around with the safety features. And we all know it's inevitable before they succeed." Reid sighed "Technology: A race between corporations trying to produce better, idiot-proof devices and the universe trying to produce better idiots."

"And the universe always wins." Floramon and Reid proceeded to say in unison.

The tamer and his plant companion paused for a moment and looked at each other. Apparently, One of the end results of spending as many years together as they did was an odd ability to complete each other's sentences.

"Anyway." Reid continued, taking a look at his digivice for a moment "There certainly seems to be a lot of Digimon activity around here... And I don't mean the Walking, Burning Dead there on the stage."

"Well, it is a convention, I'm sure most of them came here for the same reason we did. And now they're probably going to spend enough time talking about it to fill a few pages." Floramon muttered "Have you two run into any of the others?"

(Subject to minor edits. I am still trying to find Fiona's true voice.)

"Thank you for the ride, Vivian."

"Yes, yes, I'll be there in a minute. Hold on," Fiona's mother put a hand on her cell phone before turning to look at her daughter. "This is the place, right?"

"Yes, mother." Fiona replied, barely keeping her attention towards the conversation. She made sure her shoes were tied up and that she had her ensemble together. "Let me get something from the trunk." The woman driving the rather expensive car simply nodded and went back to chatting on the phone. Fiona exited the vehicle and went to the back, pulling open the unlocked trunk with ease. Normally, one would be surprised, even terrified, to find a large bee-like creature inside their car, but Fiona simply pushed it aside and picked up her shoulder bag she had placed in there. The creature seemed to gawk at her whilst she performed the act.

"Mi-milady! Don't ignore me!" It buzzed out in a high-pitched voice. Fiona simply gave the Puroromon a ghost of a smile before picking him up in her hands and stuffing it in the aforementioned shoulder bag. "Milady!"

"Hush." She said, and Puroromon immediately quieted. She closed the trunk of the car and began to walk down the street, not bothering to see if her mother had left yet or not. "Now, do you remember our goal?"

"To increase our knowledge of Digimon, due to the lack of history on real life ones, as you say, milady." Puroromon repeated from memory, forcing his head out of the bag, making him look akin to a chihuahua in a purse.

"Yes. But," She said, emphasizing the word. "If we find no others on our status, then having you fly around would be disastrous."

"Ah, yes, Miss Fay. I apologize." They were nearing the Javits Center now. It was a rather large building, if not a tad tacky for Fiona's taste. The front seemed littered with Digimon memorabilia and cosplayers. She sighed and made her way down to the entrance, flashing her card and showing the pre-registration papers. Once the process was finished, Fiona Fay, with Puroromon in tow, entered DG Con.

"Ah, milady, it appears we are late." The lobby of the convention had some people, but not as many as were to be expected from a convention.

"Hm. It appears to be so." Fiona responded, passively buttoning the bottom end of her vest up, partially covering the light yellow t-shirt underneath. She stuffed the itinerary she had received earlier into her shoulder bag, earning a surprised squeak from Puroromon. "What's happening now?" She asked before beginning to examine the many bracelets that resided on her arms.

"Ah, it appears, erm," The Digimon's voice came from within the small bag as the noise of paper rustling about accompanied it. "Oh my! It appears the main event is in Exhibition Hall 3B! We should get there posthaste!"

"Ah, convenient." Fiona responded, finding the double doors to the hall nearby where she was at. She pushed open the doors, immediately finding herself surrounded by a crowd of people. Her expression turned to one of disgust as she did her best to avoid coming into physical contact with anyone. The man appeared to have already been speaking, but Fiona only caught his last few words, which caused her to stop and gawk.

"Today! We at DG Corp bring you the ultimate in the Digimon line! Real, live Digimon!" Before her eyes, a flaming creature appeared onstage next to the man. Puroromon's large bug eyes seemed to overtake his face, although he quickly composed himself.

"What...is that really a...?" She said, mostly to herself as the crowd erupted in cheers around her.

"Milady, it might be best if you utilized the Digivice."

"That old thing? I left it at home." Fiona said, dismissing the idea entirely.

"I had brought it with me just in case something akin to this happened. It's been flashing on and off for some time now. Here." Puroromon's head popped out of the bag once more, an odd white device with pink outlines clamped tightly by a strap in its mouth. Fiona immediately snatched it up and raised it towards the fiery creature in question. Sure enough, the creature's image appeared on the device. Along with a name. Meramon. Fiona's lips curled in disgust.

"Charlatan." The words flew off her mouth as she seemed to spit them up from the depths of her hatred.

"Milady, let us not be too hasty..." Fiona's inward response was to flay Puroromon for his treason, but kept it to herself. "But, I admit that something is wrong with it. It appears...I believe the word you would use would be indoctrinated." Puroromon stuck his head out of the bag for a better look. "Should I digivolve to FanBeemon now, Miss Fay?"

"No, that will not be necessary. We shouldn't make a fuss." She replied, holding her tongue. She rolled up some strands of her blonde hair on her finger and tugged at it in frustration. "But we must do something."

"Wait, are they actually marketing this?" Fiona's ears perked up as she caught the conversation between two others nearby. One with red hair and another of some Asian descent, going by the tongue he was speaking in. Her Digivice seemed to point towards them, flashing in excitement. She could only assume they were akin to her, and so without waiting to introduce herself, she moved over to them.

Upon closer inspection, it appeared they had Digimon themselves, and not some abomination like the one onstage, either. Encouraged by this, she spoke up. "They had better not. Such an..." She paused, trying to find the words as Puroromon flew out of the bag and landed on top of her head. She immediately pushed the poor digimon off, however, opting to compromise by putting him on her shoulder. "Abomination of a Digimon does not deserve to fall into the hands of those not destined for greatness. It is making a mockery of me," She took a breath. "And all others whom were chosen by fate to own a true Digimon."

"Now we have a very special announcement," the announcer called to the crowd, "tonight, at this very convention we will be selling very special sets of Digivices, based off of all of the Digivice designs, and, depending on their price, a Digimon of your choice at the Rookie, or even Champion level! They will also include an exclusive booster pack of cards for use in the card reader slot built right into the device. All this will be available for purchase in the Exhibit Hall next door in just a few minutes!"

The curtains closed in front of the announcer, and people immediately began streaming out of the Exhibit Hall in droves, some very, very quickly, other moving at a normal pace, but almost no one stayed in the room save for Jason and a few stragglers.

Irea took in a slow breath as she narrowed her eyes at the announcer. She lifted Tapirmon up a bit higher so he rested against the base of her neck, and could hear her better as she whispered, “They are selling Digimon...this is just too..wrong.”

They listened for a moment longer, and Tapirmon was the first to notice the crowd dispersing as Irea just glared at the stage. “Irea...please check your digivice.”

Exhaling slowly, Irea felt like a weight was lifted from her shoulders as the crowd quickly thinned around her. “Gah, I can breathe a little better now... Alright, digivice...” She muttered, pulling her digivice back out from the bottom pocket of her cargo shorts, while still holding Tapirmon up to her neck with her left hand. “Ah.. Just the others with Digimon are staying..” There was panicky edge to her voice and she talked faster, quieter. “What do I do? I really don't want to stay here, it will force me into talking to them. Can we just leave now? Maybe they won't notice if I follow the crowd.”

Tapirmon pushes his head closer to Irea's ear. “Irea, please listen to me.” His voice was as calm and relaxing as ever. “I feel as if this is where we need to be. There is a reason we are here.”

“We're here because my parents couldn't butt out.” Irea replied quickly.

“No. Irea. We are here because we are meant to be here. Just as I was sent to you because I am meant to help you. I feel that this is where it begins. Please. For me.”

“Tapirmon..” Irea pulled him away from her so she could look at him better. She immediately found an immense amount of strength in his eyes. He was the first best friend she had had since... “Okay. For you.”

Irea swallowed and turned on her heel, holding Tapirmon back against her. She looked over the other kids with digimon, wondering whether she should approach them first or not. “Ah hell.”

Tapirmon gave a reassuring nod. “Go on. I am here.”

“Screw it.” Irea gathered her courage and strode confidently over to the cowboy hat girl and the interesting looking boy. “Do you guys understand what's going on here?”

[StellarWind Elsydeon]

Before Renata had a chance to reply, the sales rep made an announcement about the first few units being sold outside - and as if by a wave of a wizard's staff, the ocean of humans became a rushing torrent of consumerism headed outside as fast as it could. Within moments, only few people remained in the room and it didn't take a rocket scientist to understand why - all the people who remained in the room matched the signal map on Reid's digivice. They were all tamers.

Reid took a quick glance around the room. Close to the center of the room were a rather nondescript looking teenage boy with a Tsunomon who was arguing (louder and louder) with another teenager, spiky-haired and sunglassed, a Tsumemon hovering by his side. Not too far away from the two, a red-haired boy was talking to a young man of what seemed like Japanese descent, a Dracomon and a Gaomon standing nearby... His scan was interrupted by another girl - black haired, blue-eyed, holding a Tapirmon in her arms and strangely familiar looking - who approached Renata and himself and asked them if they knew what was going on.

"Looks like the others just ran into us." Floramon grinned. "Hey there. Perfect timing."

"Don't mind my partner, she just loves it when coincidences like this happen. She thinks it's hilarious." Reid smiled apologetically and lightly poked his partner's side. Floramon squeaked - an oddly high-pitched sound from the normally low-register voiced Digimon - turning her eyes to her partner and glaring at him in mock-annoyance for a second, before lapsing into a grin again. "I was just asking Renata if she ran into any of the others around here. As for what's going on..."

Reid paused for a moment.

"It seems DG Corp found a way to open digital gates and force bio-emergences. Except... I've seen natural bio-emergences before, this is NOT one. The pattern's all backwards. Something's sent in before something is pulled out."

"It gets worse. Something happens to the Digimon they pull out - have you noticed their eyes?" Floramon continued "Whatever it is they do to these Digimon, it seems to bind their data to these digivice toys. Full control. Long story short, we've got a marketing scheme slated to go horribly wrong. Humans. Go figure."

"Anyway. Now that we've taken care of plot exposition, we should probably introduce ourselves. I'm Reid, she's Floramon, we fight crime. Er, that is, we're partners. The girl with the Yokomon there is Renata. And you two are?"

(OOC: Chinese in {} brackets, since Korean's been taken in [] and Jap in <>)

Diane hugged Kokomon closer to her chest when the DG Corp announcer was done talking. “They’re actually selling them! Ty, we have to go look at them right now,” she exclaimed as she dragged Tyson along behind her. Kokomon yelped in surprise, not expecting her partner to be so excited to see soulless Digimon these humans were offering.

As the pair left, another person watched as two of the vectors on his Digivice faded away, until only nine of them remained on the screen. His attire was out-of-place for the convention. He wore a white, long-sleeved shirt and red tie with a black vest on top of it, black dress pants, and polished black shoes. The boy looked up and saw a few stragglers still standing around in the room, most, if not all of them, teenagers like himself. Several of them held on to In-Training Digimon disguised as plushies, while others were accompanied by what most people would assume to be young cosplayers. Around his own neck he had a golden scarf-like thing, with a large spiked head at one end. Petting the head, the boy said softly, “What do you think, Kyokyomon?”

The Digimon narrowed its eyes in thought and said, “Eric, it’s not right. Forcing a Digimon and a human into a bond like that... it doesn’t work out. There’s no honor, no pride in the pairing, and it can only end in disaster.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he replied. Hearing the loud argument that had broken out between two boys who were about the same age as him, Eric sighed. {"How silly, they’re just drawing attention to themselves.”} The teen shook his head before looking back at his Digivice. “Suppose we try seeing who some of these arrows are, hm?” he asked his partner. Kyokyomon shrugged, and Eric walked over to the nearest person an arrow was pointing at.

He could immediately tell that it was a girl of Asian descent, like him; she was most likely Japanese, since the shape of her face, eyes, and cheeks were just slightly different from his, and he’d had a few Korean friends in school to know what they looked like. Kyokyomon leaped off his neck and, with a short burst of light, Digivolved into Ryudamon.

“Pardon me, Miss,” he said in that cool, formal tone he often used around strangers, “but it’s always nice to see ladies like you at a convention as hectic as this.” He paused for a bit, hoping she would get the unsaid meaning behind his words. Giving a small smile, he continued, “My name’s Liu Donghai, but you can call me Eric.”

Ryudamon, on the other hand, was already talking to the BlackGatomon as if they had known each other for a while. “Your fur is so sleek and shiny, and it makes you look very powerful! You must’ve been taking good care of yourself to be able to have such beautiful fur like this.”

{"Ryudamon, tone it down a bit, please. You're being rude to the lady."}

Last edited by Shiny Eevee on Wed Apr 11, 2012 6:12 pm, edited 5 times in total.

"Renata's not my girlfriend, first of all, and more importantly, there is a freaking Digimon on the stage you idiot! Oh, did your jelly get to In-Training? Does that make you think you can take me on?" the boy shouted in response. Blake scowled at him.

"How dare you call me an idiot! I'm well aware of that Meramon up there! And if you must know, Tsumemon and I defeated a Digimon earlier and absorbed its data which is what allowed him to Digivolve." With that sentence Blake smirked. "So yes, I'm sure we can handle you. Right Tsumemon?"

"Right! I could beat you in my sleep." the In-Training taunted.

The man on stage made one more announcement about giving all of them their own Digimon, an idea that disgusted Blake. The ignorant masses began flooding out of the room to get in line for this promotion.

"Why don't you stick around? Once everyone leaves we'll have the room to ourselves and no one can stop our battle." Blake challenged. He patiently waited with a smug look on his face until only a few people remained. The teen growled in annoyance when he realized that everyone who stayed behind was accompanied by a Digimon.

"I don't think I can take on this many Digimon, especially when half are Rookies." lamented Tsumemon. Blake clenched his fists in frustration.

With the announcement that Digimon were being sold, most of the people in the huge room quickly streamed out. Looking around, Ryan noted that every remaining human had a Digimon. The teen dropped Sammy, and fished his Digivice out of his pocket.

"Ow!" the Dorumon said as he hit the ground, "The hell you do that for?"

"Shut up, look around," Ryan answered.

The Dragon Ball Compass seemed to be pointing at each of the Digimon left in the room. They were all real. There were a hell of a lot more then he imagined. He pocketed the device again, and looked down at Sammy.

"None of these are like that Meramon?" he asked.

The Digimon looked around himself, taking in each of the other Digimon, "Nope. They're all true blue Digimon."

"Great," Ryan sighed.

He definitely recognized the three he'd met earlier around the room. The peppy cowgirl seemed to be engaged in a conversation already. That suited Ryan just fine, as she was a bit... Off. The girl who had been spying on them was with the cowgirl, and they seemed to be talking to a third guy, with a Digimon he didn't recognize.

However, something else caught his eye. The leader-like boy he'd met briefly seemed to be engaged in a heated argument with another man and his Digimon. He brought his Digivice out, and checked it. It was a Tsumemon, a rather ugly Digimon. To Ryan, it looked like a hand with a tumor that grew an eye and two antennae. It reminded him of a guy from a game he played once, Burkin, or Barkin, something like that.

Shrugging, Ryan wandered over to the arguing duo. The one looked like he was itching for a fight, and this didn't seem like the time or place for one. Hopefully if he acknowledged the one he knew, the violent looking one would back down. Sammy followed after him. Once close enough, he called out to the older teen.

"Hey Red Shirt, you seem to be in the know, mind running a few things by me again now that things are a bit quieter?" he asked.

Rufus continued to stare at the man as he took his surprise announcement another step further. Digimon. On sale. Right now. Cheaply. The first one to react was Gabriel.

“Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Do you still have the money Dad gave you?” Gabriel almost yanked Rufus down to the ground, forcing all of his attention away from anything else.

“I only have a hundred bucks.” Rufus explained, pulling out the money from his pocket to emphasize his point, Gabriel quickly snatched the money and clutched it to his side.

“That has to be enough! Thank you Rufus! This will be so awesome!”

“Gabriel, don’t get-“ Rufus tried to say, but Gabriel quickly turned around and slipped through the crowd, all warnings his parents gave thrown out the window. “… lost”

“A hundred bucks for a digital monster that can walk and talk, and maybe burn down a building or two?” Dracomon summarized, having thrown caution to the wind himself, “I’m calling a rip-off”

“Dracomon… are you okay with this?”

“No sweat, Gabriel would make a great tamer. He has the fire, let me tell you that.”

“I don’t mean Gabriel, I mean… nevermind.” Rufus turned back to Rui, who waited patiently behind him.

“Okay, so now what?”

"Now, you stop ignoring the young lady behind you and introduce yourself." Dracomon answered into Rufus's ear, Rufus whirled around to see a woman about his age with a fair face framed by blonde hair that draped over her shoulders. She wore a light-blue t-shirt under a black vest and tight jeans that wrapped themselves tightly around her legs.

"Stop gawking Rufus, she's not a mannequin." Dracomon butted in. Wow, there goes the neighbourhood, Dracomon just went and revealed himself. Rufus then noticed the giant bee on her shoulder, completely yellow, three pairs of wings, and wide pure-green eyes that looked akin to puppy eyes. Rufus looked down and realised that he still had his digivice in his hand, and it lit up to show the same creature; Puroromon.

"Wait, so you have a digimon too?" Rufus finally asked.

(added more stuff to fix a certain accident I made when writing this. 'Tis impolite to give a lady ignorance. Although I may have meddled with future events <<)

Last edited by Brendan Savem on Sat Apr 14, 2012 11:33 am, edited 2 times in total.

"Wait, are they actually marketing this?"

"They had better not. Such an abomination of a Digimon does not deserve to fall into the hands of those not destined for greatness. It is making a mockery of me, and all others whom were chosen by fate to own a true Digimon."

Rui heard the haughty voice of a young girl behind him. As he turned, to his surprise he found not only the owner of the voice, but a large bee-like creature perched on her shoulder.

<Could it be that that is also…> Instinctively, the boy pointed his digivice towards the girl. As he suspected, a hologram of the creature appeared on the screen, indicating that the Digimon was a ‘Puroromon.’

<Another one showed up!> Gaomon exclaimed. Having finally torn himself away from Rufus’ younger brother, he rushed to his partner’s side. <Hey, Rui, what the heck’s going on? A Digimon just appeared on that stage down there, and now this one’s here, too.>

“Chosen by fate to own a true Digimon?” Rui repeated the words the young lady had uttered. “Wait, so you’re implying that the Digimon down there is not, as you say, a true Digimon?” As he asked her this, Rufus called his attention. Gabriel, his younger brother was rushing down towards the stage with several other people, a thick wad of cash in his hands.

“Okay, so now what?” Rufus asked him. Rui wished he knew. These chain of developments were happening so quickly that he hadn’t the time to piece any of the links together. But for now, it seemed that someone knew what was going on, and without anything to lose, he turned to her.

“I think this young lady here might be able to answer that,” Rui told Rufus. “But first, I’d like to know who you are exactly, miss…”