Champions of the Digital World

[Tailon]

Jason awoke to a searing Saturday morning in Queens, New York. Sitting up slightly, he looked around a room plastered with Digimon posters of all shapes and sizes. On the opposite end of the room, a rather pointlessly large television set hung from the wall, several video game consoles and other media devices attached to it. The young man blinked some portion of the sleep from his eyes, then hauled himself out of bed and into the hallway. The teenager scratched at the medium brown hair on his head, yawning as he made his way to the bathroom for a shower. One short shower later, Jason stumbled back into his room, exchanging a towel for underclothes, followed by his usual outfit, consisting of a pair of dark grey jeans and a crimson shirt with the silhouette of some form of ancient helmet across the front in the same grey as his pants.

As the boy pulled on a pair of shoes, a shape seemingly tumbled from the formerly long abandoned upper bunk of his bed, causing him to jump and smack his head into wooden frame of the upper bed, shaking it. The small shape suddenly moved, then pulled itself into a bipedal standing position. The creature looked like a tiny, grey bear with rather long arms wrapped in belts, a belt across his chest, and a cap turned backwards with the word “Bears” on it in red, all colored purple. Bearmon turned around, rubbing one of his large, blue eyes sleepily.

Jason rubbed the top of his head as he stood up properly, speaking to the digital creature in what would seem to be an unusually calm voice, “Is it necessary to ruin every peaceful morning?” The teenager crossed the room to a desk that sat underneath a window overlooking the neighborhood, and picked up one of the loose papers on it. The paper was a flyer he had picked up a few weeks ago, and rather colorful, with large text across the top and bottom that read “DG CON-At the Javits Center July 16th-18th” and featured an orange, dinosaur-like creature “bursting” from the background. Jason looked up at the calendar and grinned as he realized it was the first day of one of the largest Digimon convention in the country.

“Alright Bearmon, I can’t carry you around all day at that size,” Jason told his Digimon partner matter of factly, “ so I need you to shrink down to Tsunomon”

“Do I have to?” the Digimon whined, “I never get to walk around!”

“Yes, you have to, I can’t be walking around New York City with a three foot tall bear,” Jason explained.

Bearmon gave a withering look as a white light enveloped him, shrinking down until it was a ball with a horn sticking out of the top. The light dissipated to reveal a small, brown furred creature, which hopped up and down a few times as if getting reacquainted with the body.

Jason nodded his approval, putting down the paper and opening a drawer on his desk, which contained a small, locked box. The teen grabbed a key from the top of his desk and opened the box, revealing a grey and white Digivice sitting inside. He took the small device and clipped it to his belt. Jason then caught the hopping Tsunomon as he made his way out of the door and down the stairs. “No time for breakfast, the convention starts today!” he called eagerly as he left the house and went toward the bus stop.

After an hour long trip on various public transports, Jason arrived at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. After attaining a map, the teen got to stand in a seemingly endless line of costumed strangers for well over an hour, and began to regret not eating anything. As soon as he acquired his entrance, Jason made a beeline for the first level food court, picking up some Bar B Q before scouting out a table, Tsunomon sitting on his head for lack of better transport.

OoC: That's right, it's finally time to start up~!

 

[Chadwyck]

OoC: Okay, just to clarify. I'm going to be doing what the webmanga MegaTokyo does, meaning that anytime my character is speaking Japanese, it'll be put between < and >. Example would be: <"Hello, my name is Aiko."> meaning that the sentence was spoken in Japanese, but translated for the sake of the RP. It won't come up frequently, since Aiko speaks fluent English, it'll mostly be when she accidentally slips into her native language, which happens when she starts to feel comfortable in a situation. [/long explanation]

BiC:

"Ugh..." Aiko Watanabe rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she peered angrily at the sun streaming in through the blinds. Her hair was a mess of tangles and her black tank top and baggy pajama bottoms were disheveled and damp with sweat. <"It should not be this hot in the morning!"> She grabbed her pillow and plopped it over her face, content to let herself drift back to sleep; until she remembered what day it was.

She sat bolt upright, her pillow being hurled off the foot of her bed by the sudden movement, and grabbed her digital clock. <"Eh!? How'd it already get to be so late?"> She rummaged through her piles of dirty laundry (yet another way to try and annoy her parents and force them back to Hiroshima) until she found clothes that she felt were clean. At least they didn't smell dirty when she sniffed them.

She stopped when she noticed a black creature gazing at her while perching upon the windowsill. "You couldn't have woken me up?" Aiko asked, switching to English as she wasn't sure whether or not the creature spoke Japanese.

"I'm not your servant, if you're late it's your own fault. No one else's." The creature replied coolly, indifferently. The BlackGatomon didn't partner herself with Aiko because she was looking for a friend. She admired Aiko's strength, intelligence, and will. Her personality could use some work though; she was far too scatterbrained, and BlackGatomon was beginning to regret pairing with a human at all. They had so many flaws.

Aiko frowned, "you mean, if we're late. You're coming too."

The Digimon raised an eyebrow at this, "how is this stupid convention going to make me any stronger? You forget that this partnership exists purely because we can both benefit from one another. I benefit nothing by going to this event."

"We're going to see if I can snag some cards from some other players in the card game room and there are a few panels that may give us some insight into your full capabilities."

"I still fail to see why I need to go, but I can see that it's pointless to argue with you."

Aiko smirked as she hurried from the room toward the shower. "We're starting to understand each other." She joked as the door closed behind her. Within a few minutes she returned, her short, black hair messy and slightly spiked so that the red, frosted tips were easy to see. She was wearing a black, men's-dress shirt with white stitching and black skinny jeans, with a few holes in the knees, and black skate-shoes.

Not long after that, the pair was out the door and jumping from transport to transport; buses and subways, whatever they needed to take. About an hour or so later, they arrived at the convention center; and it seemed that the admittance had only begun a few minutes ago. Aiko filed into a line and waited to get her badge that would allow her access into every day of the convention.

She held BlackGatomon in her arms like she was a stuffed animal, luckily she wasn't too big or heavy, and even though the Digimon disliked being carried around, she played her part and stayed quiet. Aiko had everything that she needed: her mp3 player was hanging around her neck with music playing into her headphones she currently had over her ears, her Digimon cards were tucked away in her shirt pocket, and the last thing she carried was a crimson and white digivice on the waistline of her jeans.

Once inside, she looked around at the convention center; it was odd seeing so many people in one place, she was glad the noise was being drowned out by her music. She looked at the map that came in the schedule book she received at check-in and made straight for the card game room. She wanted to try "playing for keeps" for some new cards while they waited for the ceremony to begin at 2:00.

They reached the card game room with little trouble, and Aiko found an open spot at one of the tables, now all that was left was to see if anyone wanted to challenge her and bet some cards; hopefully she wouldn't have to wait long.

 

[Carmen Lopez]

OOC: It's been a while since I've written an opening to an RP and since I've really written in third person so I'm extremely rusty ^^;; I promise subsequent posts will be better.


To say that Renata Karrens was buoyant would have been an understatement. She was coming off a week of college visits in what she thought was the best city in the whole wide world, and the highlight of the entire trip would be the DG Con at the Javis Center that she was going to now. To Renata’s surprise, it was hot; she didn’t expect New York City to be the Arctic circle, but she hadn’t expected it to be this warm…But still no where near as hot as Atlanta she thought. She was finding it very difficult to not look like a tourist because she was fascinated by the sheer number of skyscrapers, but she had to resist. For the sake of her poor partner Biyomon, who had de-digivolved into Yokomon on her own accord, she didn’t want to attract (too much) attention to herself.

She definitely contemplated it thought. New York City may be known for colorful characters, but a person would definitely get noticed for wearing something overtly outrageous. Yokomon nearly died when Renata joked that she would wear a wedding dress and was most relieved when she settled on her normal outfit: a purple t-shirt, beige cargo shorts, black short-sleeved jacket, black high top Converses, and wireless headphones. She didn’t carry a purse; her cards, her phone, her digivice and everything else she needed were in various pockets. Yokomon had wanted Renata to ditch the black cowboy hat but she refused. How could she give up her signature accessory?

Renata carried what looked like a pale pink plant bulb like stuff animal with blue leaves and orange-yellowish antennae. It was a good thing they were walking, because if someone looked closely, they could see that the thing was trembling slightly.

“Psst! Yokomon!” Renata said in amusement. “Stop shaking! There’s nothing to be afraid of here! Momentai!”

The Yokomon begged to differ. She knew from TV shows and movies that New York City was full of crime and all manner of criminal activity. Too bad her partner didn’t realize the danger they were both in. What if someone were to snatch them or something!? Honestly it was a miracle she hadn’t hyperventilated by now. Yokomon also resented being told “momentai.” Too bad she couldn’t say anything because she was pretending to be a stuffed animal.

Renata contemplated teasing Yokomon again, but decided to spare her nerves this time. The Digimon’s paranoia was fun sometimes, but if Renata took her too seriously, they’d both be dressed as ninjas sneaking from building to another. She shifted the Digimon to one arm while she adjusted her headphones with her free hand. She was getting directions from her phone’s GPS, though the hotel wasn’t far from the center. Mr. Karrens, Renata’s father, had told her to go directly to the center because he was as paranoid as Yokomon, but Renata couldn’t resist taking public transportation and doing a little bit of sightseeing before the conference. Besides, New York was gorgeous in the morning.

You have arrived at your destination, said her GPS in an Australian accent which made Renata smile. She had to hack her phone to change the accent, but it was so worth it. About the only thing Renata loved more than Digimon had to be technology. She would’ve liked to take her laptop, but she didn’t want to carry too much stuff, but it was very unlikely that she would miss it today. The Javis Center was easily the most impressive convention center Renata and Yokomon had ever seen…and it was currently teeming with people who loved Digimon. It wasn’t often that she got to be around people who liked Digimon as much as she did, so this was a special treat. Though she had plenty of good cards for the card game and she knew how to play, that wasn’t what she was here for. She was only there to get merchandise and meet some new friends who liked talking about Digimon was much as she did.

Renata smiled ruefully as she saw people with actual stuffed Digimon. She vaguely wondered what it would be like if she suddenly revealed that her Yokomon was in fact real. The reactions could range from fear to amazement. Still…she couldn’t be the only one with a Digimon, right? She and Yokomon went to the check-in and picked up a map of the center and the exhibitions.

“Whoa…there is so much to do! What should we do first, Yokomon—

Renata was interrupted by her stomach growling loudly. Though Yokomon was still as still as a statue, Renata could imagine the Digimon saying tsk, tsk, tsk.

“Eh heh! Maybe we better get some food first,” Renata said. She gazed at the map and saw a Greek restaurant and quickly decided to go there.

The center was enormous and already it was full of people. Renata hoped the restaurants wouldn’t be too packed. She let her eyes follow the signs of the restaurant so she wouldn’t pass it, but she stopped dead when she was passing the BBQ place. Yokomon stiffened in her arms. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an incredibly bright glow which was coming from the inside pocked of her jacket.

“No way…”

Renata shifted Yokomon into one arm and reached into that pocked and pulled out her digivice. The glow diminished when it had gotten her attention and instead displayed a glowing light blue compass which was currently pointing into the BBQ restaurant. How Yokomon was still able to remain completely still in this situation was beyond Renata.

“Time to do some investigating!”

 

[Sem]

Noah slid his debit card into the ATM, quickly punching in his pin and withdrawing a rather large amount of cash. The machine produced the bills and then ejected the debit card, allowing Noah to put them into his wallet, which his put into the back pocket of his fitted jeans. He looked pretty nice overall, and wasn't in costume like some people. It was warm out, so he was dressed in a simple green polo along with his jeans and some white leather sneakers. His light brown hair was worn short in a popular style and he toyed with it as he thought of where to go.

The young man pulled out a phone as he walked away from the ATM, tapping the screen and bringing up the display, checking the time - which he still had a bit to kill. He was on the first level right now, but he would soon be wandering the upper floors. He wasn't as interesting in the Digimon merchandise as he was in finding people like him. People who had real Digimon.

It had happened a few months prior. Noah was very involved with the Digimon TCG, but his other friends couldn't care less. His friends, like him, came from well to do families, and had far more important interests, such as which university to attend, when the next social gathering was at the country club. Those types of things. That's when a Digimon video game came to his attention, one that incorporated the cards using a digital scanner. To be fair, it was nothing like the TCG, but that was all fine with Noah. It was incredibly addicting, having nothing on WoW.

Noah played and played until he had a Seadramon. He had gotten pretty attached to his digital partner, even though he knew it had no actual thoughts or feelings. He was very careful with the fights he chose, careful not to involve Seadramon in more than it could handle. They were a good team, and Noah frequently beat other players he encountered. It was getting pretty bad, to where that was all Noah did in his free time was play the game and make Seadramon more powerful. His parents didn't care - they probably didn't even know. They didn't tend to keep tabs on their son, and were instead more involved in their own personal interests. It was a large house that Noah lived in; it was very easy to go days without even running into his parents.

One night things went south though. Noah miscalculated and threw Seadramon into a bad situation. When he looked back he knew he had been too eager. Seadramon was close to digivolving, and that prospect had blinded him to the danger. In the end Seadramon was defeated and its data was absorbed by the Weregarurumon. Noah didn't much feel like playing anymore after that. He knew it was just a game, but still, he felt as if he had actually lost something. He couldn't really explain it.

Shortly after was when the haunting started. Every so often Noah would catch glimpses of something out of the corner of his eye. Objects would move on their own, doors would be left open. Noah was about to call a priest or something when he finally found the Bakemon that was wandering around his home. As soon as their eyes met, something strange happened. A small device formed from thin air and dropped into his hands. It was what he would later learn to be a Digivice, and the Bakemon was apparently his partner.

The Bakemon was a bit shy and unsure of himself, which was why he didn't introduce himself to Noah sooner. Noah himself was a bit confused and unsure what to make of the Digimon in the real world. Bakemon told him that the Digital World was actually a real place. That was a bit too much for Noah to accept, because if it was a real place, then Seadramon had been real. It did have feelings, thoughts. And Noah let it die. Not only that, but how many other Digimon had he and Seadramon killed?

Bakemon tried his very best to console the young man, telling him that Digimon didn't truly die. Their data was simply recycled. The circle of digital life, if you will. Bakemon had been born from some of Seadramon's left over data, but was essential a new creature. He didn't have Seadramon's memories or anything like that.

The two grew close very quickly, and it seemed that Bakemon wasn't very good at living up to his "Nightmare Soldier" classification, though his sense of humor could be a bit morbid.

Now Noah was there at the convention, hoping to run into other people with Digimon, and not simply stuffed animals that many seemed to be carrying. Bakemon was easy enough to hide, as he could turn invisible. He was actually right next to Noah, but no one else would be able to tell. Noah kept his eye out as he made his way up to the second level.

 

[Blazi]

"Alright squirt. Aunt Carol wanted me to drop you off at the convention, and here we are. You know the drill: don't talk to strangers, don't take anything from strangers, don't leave with strangers, the usual."

"I'm seeing a movie with Sarah, José and Luke, but feel free to call me if you need anything. You may be my cousin, but still, it would be bad for both of us if something happened to you. See you Tyson. You too Terriermon." Harry finished talking, ruffled the top of the soft toy's head, patted Tyson on the head, then stepped back into the bus. The eleven year-old Tyson watched him go, before turning around to face the large building which was housing the digimon convention.

The soft toy piped up, "Does he know I'm actually a digimon?"

Tyson looked down at the cream and yellow digimon, and smiled. "He has no idea, much like the rest of my family." Terriermon, nodded, then resumed looking like a soft toy. Tyson sighed, and walked in.

As Tyson entered, he marveled at how many people had been attracted to the convention. All around, people were dressed as characters from the videogames, and even digimon. He smirked a bit, before hearing Terriermon speak a bit.

"Should we get some food?" Tyson thought for a bit, before nodding. "I smelled some mexican food over there." Terriermon's ears subtly waved to one of the food courts.

Tyson set off in that direction, but was interrupted by a buzzing coming from the device clipped to his shorts. Tyson tucked terriermon under his arm, pulled the device off, and looked at it.

The golden D-Arc stopped buzzing, and showed a compass, pointing towards the stairs. Tyson looked in the direction that the D-Arc was pointing, stunned. He then regained his composure, and fixed his hat on his head. "Terriermon, you need to be on the lookout for any digimon, or anyone that looks like a digidestined." Terriermon nodded, dropping all pretence of a stuffed toy, before being lifted on to Tyson's head, where he grabbed hold of the hat.

Tyson the took off at a run towards the stairs, glancing at the D-Arc every now and then. He ran up the stairs, shivering a little as he passed by a boy. He got to the top of the stairs, and looked at the D-Arc. Tyson groaned as he saw the compass pointing back down the stairs. He decided to stay at the top, waiting for whatever the D-Arc was pointing at to come to him.

(OoC: Sorry for the (most likely) bad post. I had ideas at the start that just kinda got me nowhere. Let me know if anything's wrong, or if anything needs to be changed.

 

[Psycho Monkey]

Blake woke up in a groggy state with a slight headache to the sound of his hotel room's alarm clock. "That is the last time I eat a bag of Doritos before bed." he moaned reaching his hand over to smack it. He hit the alarm clock turning it off, but then as his hand slid down he felt a different device, one that felt both familiar yet unfamiliar.

"What the?" Blake grabbed the object and sat up in bed to get a better look at it. It was mostly white with green buttons, a green circle around a black screen, and a green strap coming out of the top. At the slight, Blake started trembling. "No way! So that really wasn't a junk food induced dream last night!" he shouted still staring at the D-ark.

"Who are you calling a dream human?" demanded a slightly high-pitched yet gruff voice. Blake looked to the floor to see a small white blob with a large orange eye that could best be described as a jellyfish crossed with a contact lens. With that, the events of last night came rushing back into the teen's mind.
------

He had been sitting at his laptop in the hotel looking up the floor plan and schedule for DG Con as well as directions on how to get there from his hotel. After clicking on one of the site's links, all the electronics in Blake's room started going haywire as an egg formed on the computer screen and then suddenly emerged onto his lap.

Attached to the egg by what looked like an umbilical cord was the green and white D-arc. When Blake touched the device, it caused the cord to dissolve spurring the egg to hatch.

"Hello!" greeted the creature inside. "My name is Kuramon. I'm your Digimon partner!"
------

"That's right. It wasn't a dream. And you belong to me now!" Blake said getting an excited smirk on his face. With his own Digimon, he'd be able to do all kinds of things that no ordinary person would be able to do.

"Not so fast!" yelled Kuramon. "I belong to no one! We're partners. PART-ners. Got it? I'm only using you to get stronger. In exchange and as incentive, you may also use my powers as you see fit as long as I still benefit."

"Fine, have it your way little guy." Blake conceded. "Let's see, you just hatched meaning you're in the Fresh stage now. Even with DG Con this weekend, I should be able to get you at least to the In-Training stage if not up to Rookie." assured the human. With his skills at the Digimon games, how hard could it be to raise a real life Digimon? Fresh Digimon may be the weakest level, but it's not like there was anything in the human world to compete with them. Then the teen started wondering if the convention was promoting a game like he had originally thought, or if they really had discovered the Digital World.

Finding that out of course wouldn't happen if Blake just sat in bed all day talking to a Digimon. He had wasted enough time already chatting with the Monster. The teen finally got out of bed and did his morning routine of going to the bathroom, taking a shower, gelling his black hair into spikes, and getting dressed.

His outfit was made up of black cargo shorts, a sleeveless blue and turquoise tye-dye shirt, a sunset colored Hawaiian shirt that he left unbuttoned, and black sneakers. Blake stuffed his cards and D-ark in the large pockets of his shorts then put on a pair of sunglasses obscuring his hazel eyes.

"Kuramon. Do you want to be carried or should I just stuff you in one of my pockets?"

"Carrying is fine. I want to see what your world has to offer me." the young Nightmare Soldier stated. Blake picked up his new partner and headed to the Javits Convention Center using the directions he had downloaded before obtaining the egg.
------

The line to get in was long, but after no more than an hour, the duo was inside. Blake decided to go to the game room first as it would be awhile before any of the interesting panels actually opened up. Who knew, maybe he could download Kuramon into one of the games and train him that way.

 

[Shocari]

It was approximately an hour before the doors to the convention opened, and Jesse was still feeling the effects of jetlag. He had flown out to New York City for a Digimon Convention, and the timezone shift hit him hard. Jesse was here to offer advice to people who played the card game, having just won the national championship a week prior. The Javits Center was pretty big, and right now, he was getting a small tour so he knew where the basic stuff was going on.

He had on the outfit he wore for the championship, as he thought it to be lucky: dark violet cargo shorts, dull orange flip-flops, and his favorite shirt - a light lavender with a golden circle in the middle, and golden "teeth" around it. It was a shirt designed after Dynasmon, which was one of the cards for the card game, but Jesse was personally neutral about the card; he just liked the design of the shirt.

The tour over, Jesse took to the card game room, and gently touched his semi-spiky brown hair. The gel he put in should keep it up for the duration of the convention, and he liked the way it made him look. Underneath the table he was going to be stationed at was a black backpack, which he unzipped, revealing a rather large candle.

"It's about time you opened this thing up! I could've suffocated or something!" the candle snarled.

"Sorry about that, but when they told me to go on the tour, I had completely forgotten you were in there." Jesse replied nonchalantly.

"Pfft, some friend you are, almost killing me." the candle joked.

"Chill out, Candlemon, it's not as if you really need oxygen, I mean, you're just data, right?" He reached into the backpack and pulled the candle out. Even though the wick was already lit, the backpack wasn't burned. Candlemon's candle body had a rather mean looking face, and the flame even had one as well. A golden stand held the body, and little tiny wax arms came off the main body just a little above the stand.

"I need oxygen if I say I need oxygen, okay?" Candlemon laughed.

"You better enjoy this while you can, because when people come in, I can't have you talking."

"I kinda know that, genius. You're just lucky I actually care about what people think of you. But at least let me hold onto your digivice. It'll make me seem like kind of a trophy or something. Maybe even a stuffed animal."

"Fine, here." Jesse reached into his pocket and pulled out a white device with an orange ring around the screen, and handed it to the Digimon. "I hear people coming, you better shut up."

"You shut up." The candle went as stiff as a...well, something stiff, the digivice between its hands.

People filed into the room, eager to play some card games. Jesse wasn't going to, he was just here to evaluate decks and give advice where needed. Although, if someone recognized that out to be a real digivice, he'd have to come up with a believable lie. Well, he could always think of one until someone comes up to him. Maybe this day would hurry up and end so he could go home and stare at a tv screen.

 

[Belle]

Though the streets of the city were crowded and busy, the traffic never seemed to phase the girl as she continued to strut along the sidewalk, her heavy grey boots thudding against the concrete in time with the heavy bass line pounding against her ears. For every time the thick rubber soles would hit the ground, another person in her path seemed to veer off to one side, clearing the way for the bobbing bright head of firey red hair. Being so close to the Javits Center, most of the crowd had seen stranger things certainly, but she still drew a fair amount of attention to herself with her personal belonging of choice.

She was making no fashion statements in an army-green summer romper, nor in the decorated khaki army jacket she had thrown over her shoulders in spite of the heat of the city, the sun beating down on the pavement and sparkling buildings in a blaze of lively fury. The feathers hanging from her ears were no matter of concern either; such a fashion statement had been seen hundreds of times before from the residents of the city- those who walked and breathed and bled the city's essence day in and day out. Rather, the most unconventional thing about the bold young woman was her insistence on toting about the heavy looking four-foot Coronamon doll slung over her shoulder about the city. A doll whose shiny wet nose had dampened a notable patch of her jacket, and who on occasion would blow loud raspberries under the guise of still being a doll and draw uncomfortable stares from the surrounding crowd. Granted, Harley would not have been able to hear the noise herself as she was far too engrossed in her music, but she was familiar enough with her partner to recognize that the attention was probably his doing. In retaliation, she would, on occasion, accidentally stop short for one reason or another and ram the face of her 'doll' into the person behind her before muttering an apology to the bystander and continuing on her merry way.

Such was their relationship.

By the time she reached the Javits Center, the convention had been open for about half an hour. The line out the front of the building had been ushered inside, and the mass of attendees had grown thicker and thicker. All the same, she managed to clear a path of her own similar to the way that the traffic outside had parted; the only difference being that inside the convention, her movement was restricted by the crowd of con-goers that would stop her and gush over the craftsmanship of her giant plush.
"You can't even see the seam!"
"The fur is so soft, it feels so real!"
"Oh my gosh it's so warm, how did you do that?"

Smiling politely and pushing her way through, Harley would nod and grin and laugh in response, muttering occasional responses as she moved through the masses.
"Thank you, yeah, thanks, uh- microwave."
It took easily ten minutes to reach the tabled area after pictures had been posed for and she had stopped for the umpteenth time to let the other teens pet the doll slung over her shoulder - the doll whose tail struggled to keep from twitching with each scratching hand running down his back.
The tabled area, she soon realized, was the portion of the convention set aside for the fans who were devoted to the card games. In an effort to avoid taking a table being used for one of the many matches already laid out, she adjusted the Coronamon slung over her shoulder and weaved through the stations to a table that was unoccupied for the time being.
With a heavy thud, she flopped the doll onto the chair and loomed over the slumped figure to pick and fluff at the firey mane as though she were mending it.
"How're you holding up, bub?"
For the first time since they'd left the house that morning, the digimon cracked a grin up at his tamer and shrugged.
"Better than you, bub-ette, having to lug my fat ass around"
At this she flicked his nose, though the grin remained on her face.
"Language, there are children here."
The coronamon made as if to blow yet another raspberry before the girl grabbed his tongue and used it to bobble his head around wildly, after which they both struggled to stifle their giggles and maintain the facade of the digimon's alleged lifeless-ness.
However, before it could cross either of their minds to be concerned about any or all onlookers, a faint buzzing rattled in the pocket of the girl's jacket, and she fished her digivice out amidst the keys and trinkets she had stuffed in with it.
A look of surprise crossed her grey eyes as the bronze ring around the gridded screen flashed, and within a moment a small compass was displayed on the screen, the needle spinning wildly before settling on a direction back in the midst of the tables she had just passed through. At this the girl's fine red brows drew together and she ran a hand through the short mess of hair on top of her head before tearing her gaze away from the screen, up into the crowd of teens gathered around the dozens of tables.

This would prove to be interesting.






ooc| HERP DERP.
aw man I am a rusty rust bucket :c sry guis

 

[Jenova]

(OOC: WHERE DOIN THIS MANG. WERE DOING THIS. Also sorry for my horrible skills. Still working on it.)

Soo Min awoke to a scorching hot wave of air, compressing her entire body down onto her bedsheets. Her eyes were wide and alert, staring at the plaster ceiling’s various cracks and peelings. She sat up straight, and silently observed her surroundings. She shared her bedroom with her older sister, and it was obvious to see who took which side. Despite them not being allowed to paint the room, her sister had heavily decorated most of the room with pictures and pages of celebrities and models in fashion magazines, whereas Soo Min’s side was bare and devoid of any color, aside from a few pictures of her old friends in South Korea. However, just as she was beginning to feel a bit of nostalgia, the minuscule moment of silence was broken with car horns and heavy shouting being its replacement. She definitely heard glass being shattered, as well as car alarms and ambulance sirens. “Aiish... it’s so noisy.”

In the midst of the sudden noise, she slowly attempted to retrace her steps, rewinding back to the mystical dream she had earlier and what may have caused them. Slowly embracing herself, her eyelids gradually closed themselves as she envisioned herself plunging into the hold of the dark blue ocean. A pink being with purple markings swirled around her before telling her to dive deeper. Ah, that’s right - she was exploring a new underwater map on Ottoke Online. Lunamon was intrigued by the game’s recent features, as it was the first time she displayed full interest in Soo Min’s love of multi-player online role-playing games. It was then that she realized a certain presence was missing from her room.

Her eyes jumped out as she suddenly shouted, “Eh?! Lunamon!”

The Korean girl jumped out from her bed and immediately ran through the doorway and ran down the cramped passage cluttered with boxes and bags of clothing and trash. She entered the living room, and saw her pink companion fiddling with the doorknob of her apartment entrance. The digimon was just barely tall enough to reach it, and had trouble turning it all the way. Lunamon glanced over to the human’s direction and was shocked. She blushed, and awkwardly chuckled.

“Lunamon, you wanted to go out?” Soo Min asked.

Ignoring the fact that she had stated the obvious, the digimon just smiled and replied yes. Soo Min walked over and lowered Lunamon’s hands down. She then crouched down and ruffled the digimon’s hair.

“We’ll go to the convention soon. Just let me get ready.”

“Alright then,” said Lunamon.

Soo Min stood up, and went back down the hallway to the bathroom for her “daily routine.” Occasionally, she checked to see if the pink and purple creature would try to open the door again. However, every time she’d look back, Lunamon was smiling and giggling as usual. It gave her a sense of relief that her partner was such a good girl, or so she thought. After closing the bathroom door, Lunamon growled to herself.

“Damn it. Just a tad bit more and I would have gone myself,” she remarked.

She scowled and looked over to the door. It was old, wooden and covered with slashes and scratches. It was a wonder how it could even prove to be some use of protection. Even the doorknob and hinges had some dents and marks on it. Forget oil, everything needed to be replaced. Although that could be said about the entire apartment itself. Above the doorknob was a column of complex locks and latches, all of which were unlocked through the use of some household items Lunamon found lying around. All of them opened through trial and error. Then again, looking at the number of contraptions, there was probably a pretty good reason why they were there.

“... Maybe I should at least have the girl with me. For bait in case of an... unfortunate circumstance,” Lunamon said, trying to reassure herself.

Humans and other beings were merely obstacles that could easily be manipulated to do her being. That’s all. Soo Min being one of the more important pieces of the puzzle. After all, it had been a little over two weeks since Lunamon was “born” into Soo Min’s care. She had to give the girl credit for being her caretaker alone. Even if the only means of shelter was a run down, shabby excuse of a home. Oh well. It would have to do for the time being.

An hour or so later after waiting, Soo Min was ready and finally dressed in a thin, white button-up shirtdress and dark navy leggings. She had white slip-on sandals and a lavender digivice on her matching lanyard. The girl made sure to lock all the windows, and headed out the door before realizing that she forgot something. She grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the living room and started to scribble some words down in Korean.

“Let’s see... Appa... geumbang gassda... olkkeyo...” she muttered to herself while writing. “There! Here we go.”

She put the pen away and stuck the note on the door, using a thumb tack. She didn’t have a phone, so they often stuck notes all over the apartment. She just had to tell him so he wouldn’t get worried... Of course, “Father, I’ll come back soon” was a bit vague, but at least he would know that she wasn’t kidnapped or anything. Soo Min stepped out and closed the door behind her. She smiled at her partner, and held her hand as they walked down the hallway and down the flights of staircases. She felt that today was going to be different; she just knew it. Lunamon definitely felt it as well. By the end of today, they were going to be one step closer. Closer to each other, and closer to power.

 

[Brendan Savem]

(Heyo, I'm Kal's replacement, since he said he couldn't join. And Tailon offered me the spot afterwards, so here I am now.)

“Wake up boys,” a voice echoed through Rufus’s head. He slowly stirred to see his mother, a plump but lovely figure with her jet-black hair in a bun. “It’s almost nine, you’re going to be late for your convention, and don’t even think about skipping breakfast.” She moved over to the window and pulled aside the curtains, flushing the darkness of the hotel bedroom away with the bright sunlight of New York. Rufus raised his hand to cup his eyes and shield them from the glare.

“Alright, alright mom, I’ll just wake Gabriel and meet you downstairs in ten minutes, okay?” Rufus mumbled, his mother accepted that answer and left the room, closing the door behind them. Rufus looked over the bed next to him, occupied by his ten-year-old brother, still happily snoring away in dreamland. At the foot of his bed was a massive mess of digimon trading cards, and that wasn’t even half of what Gabriel brought with, the rest were still in the huge deck holder on his bedside, take into account that he has even more cards at their home in Kentucky and you have an idea of how dedicated to digimon Gabriel was. The eighteen-year-old then turned to the foot of his own bed, where his bag rested, with the main pocket unzipped. And poking out from that pocket…

“Did she really have to wake us awakening that rudely? You can’t possibly get a good sleep when she’s under the same roof.” A small teal dragon creature, with red eyes, two red, antler-like horns, red wings, a cream belly and lower jaw, and small sharp teeth carving a line across the inside of its maw.

“I think you should have gotten used to it by now Dracomon.” Rufus answered,

“Still, Gabriel managed to sleep through it. Look at him, such a cute and gentle looking creature; a harmless rookie in your mind. When he’s awake and on the field though, he tears through his opponents like they’re paper, and you see the strength of an ultimate, a mega even.”

“It’s only a card game, anybody could get as good as he is with some effort.”

“And you don’t have that?”

“Clearly not. Still, if it wasn’t for him winning that card tournament, we wouldn’t have won those VIP passes.” Rufus said,

“I wonder if there are other real digimon like me there, man then I can go hang out with my own friends and leave you on a bookshelf all day”

“I hope not,” Rufus muttered, then threw his pillow at his little brother, effectively awakening the deep sleeper.


“So you know what to do, stay together, don’t talk to strangers, and stay hydrated.” Rufus’s father instructed from within the taxi.

“I promise dad!” Gabriel swore,

“I’ll make sure he stays fed too.” Rufus promised,

“Those are my boys, now go get them with your… digit mutants, or whatever they’re called.”

“Digimon dad,” Gabriel corrected,

"Whatever you say son." The taxi started moving off immediately, leaving the two brothers in front of the bustling Javits Center. Gabriel in full costume with blue shorts, sneakers, shirt, and goggles, Rufus in a loose green jacket, white shirt, jeans, black shoes, and his dyed-red hair held by a dark green and yellow bandana. His backpack was slung over his shoulder with Dracomon’s head out and slung over his shoulder, effectively pulling off the doll image.

“Did I ever tell you of that dream I had?” Gabriel asked, after staring at Dracomon for a while,

“Yes, you did. Ten times, the one about how you dreamed that he jumped out of the computer the night before Christmas. And every single time, I told you that I got him from the pawnshop across town.” Rufus answered.

“It still bugs me how real it looks, just like a real Dracomon, it even has its Gekirin there on its neck.” Gabriel commented, pointing towards the reverse-pointing scale. Rufus remembered that time when he tested it, and the neighbors mysteriously lost their garden gnomes.

“Took my entire old toy car collection to get him, maybe he’ll catch a few eyes in the convention.” Rufus said, cautiously turning away in case Gabriel wanted to test it himself. “That's besides the point though, you got us here, so you get dibs on the action."

"I think... we should see the place first, I didn't bring my best deck with me."

"Sounds like a plan, let's go." Rufus smiled. Of course, they forgot about one small problem


"Are we really inside yet?" Gabriel asked.

"After an hour in that line, yes we are." Rufus confirmed, finally able to take in the massive scale of the center and the entire convention, why would they even need the line? The place could way more people than this without a problem. Rufus heard his stomach growl, "I think we're going to need some extra fuel after that, quick snack before we get started?"

"Yes please." Gabriel said, it should have been impossible to mix an excited cheer and a groan of frustration in a single phrase. Yet somehow, Gabriel succeeded. They made a beeline for a food court, picking the one with the smallest line: A small stall that sold nothing but sandwiches, and a few soft drinks, that was all they needed though. Rufus made a point to take the largest sandwich, because when he tried to take a bite, Dracomon made a quick snap and a whole chunk of bread with salami with cheese disappeared down the dragon's gullet. Gabriel and Dracomon were well fed, but Rufus only got several bites.

"Hey, we should see the second floor, I heard they're doing a demo for a new video game up there." Gabriel suggested, after they finished their sandwiches.

"Sounds good, let's go" Rufus agreed, and they went for the stairs. Suddenly, a young boy about Gabriel's age suddenly barged between them. The child was wearing a yellow shirt and a newsboy cap, was carrying a fairly large doll, and that was all Rufus saw before the youngster was swallowed up by the crowd again. Dracomon stirred slightly, his feet shifting in his backpack for some reason, probably to get comfortable, even though there was nothing else in the backpack other than Dracomon and the device that came with him.Rufus nudged Dracomon's head slightly, silently warning him to stay still. Rufus could hear a faint buzz for a second, a ringing not unlike his phone, which was in his pocket with his wallet, so Rufus dismissed it.

"What was his problem?" Gabriel asked, referring to the child that just rocketed past.

"Don't ask me. Although I bet he lost his parents or his friends or something." Rufus answered, "come on, let's keep moving, we're holding up the staircase."

 

[Satoren]

Ooc: Last one posting lolololol. Also, gonna follow what Chad’s doing, so everytime I use these <>, it means that the statement is in Japanese.

<Man, I thought Shibuya was crowded, but it seems like New York could give it a run for its money.> A young man with raven-black hair muttered to himself as he shuffled through the crowded sidewalk, skilfully avoiding bumping into the other pedestrians. Growing up in a similarly overpopulated city, Rui was used to dodging fellow travellers while still hastily making his way towards his destination. Unfortunately, his companion wasn’t as agile as he was, and he had to turn around every once in a while to make sure, he did not vanish into the crowd.

<What’s the matter?> The young man asked with a smirk. <Can’t keep up?> Knowing that only one individual would understand him in his native tongue, he didn’t mind the few stares the people gave him. As it was, most of the people were instead focused on a most curious sight as it hobbled its way towards Rui.

<S-shut up,> the short, blue creature said between pants. <This is no problem for me,> he added triumphantly as he caught his breath. More and more people began to stare at the pair as they continued to converse in Japanese. Grabbing the digimon by its gloved paw, Rui quickly pulled him deeper into the crowd.

<Well, come on then, slowpoke. Let’s not sit around here and bring attention to ourselves,> he remarked. With expert precision, the young man then dragged his blue companion through the crowd; squeezing between people while maintaining a speedy pace. Rui was not one to admit it, but weaving through a crowded street always got his heart running excitedly. He was just a city-boy that way. He loved the abundance of life and the noise all around him coming together in a symphony of energy.

<Everyone’s looking at us funny because you’re tugging something like me around,> the blue digimon retorted, now more able to keep up with his partner. Gaomon was a fighter after all, and the kind of battles he fought required speed, dexterity and grace. However, he did find it difficult to train when he was stuck in a city that didn’t know what he was and only found his appearance suspicious. Come to think of it, with the little battle prowess he has developed over the year, it was a wonder he got this far at all. Still, it wasn’t something he’d be willing to admit. Rui oh so enjoys ridiculing him after all.

<Would you rather I have you change into a less conspicuous, more adorable form?> Rui responded, causing The digimon to gulp in exasperation. As much as he hated going around where humans could see him, Gaomon especially hated changing into his smaller, more vulnerable form. It didn’t help that it looked so adorably sappy and undignified either.

<Let’s just hurry up and get to this conference thing of yours,” the digimon muttered. Rui chuckled at his friend’s inability to master the subtle art of retort, and soon enough, they found themselves at their destination.

The pair looked up at the towering triumph of architecture before them with awe. Shibuya had its impressive buildings, that much was sure; but growing up there, Rui could go see them anytime. Once the convention had concluded, he was hoping to go to the other famous sites in New York before his family vacation was over.

Rui briefly thought about his parents, and hoped they weren’t too angry that he and Gaomon sneaked out to attend the event. His mother, wanting them to spend the rare time they had together as a family, suggested they all go to the convention. That was just too embarrassing to consider, though. Besides, while his mother had somehow accepted Gaomon’s existence (albeit through some small lies here and there) Rui’s dad had absolutely no clue about his son having a digimon partner. It was his mom’s plan that they reveal it to him today at the convention. Rui, however had no intention of doing such a thing. It was by mere accident that his mother discovered Gaomon’s existence; and apart from her, he didn’t want anyone else to know about him. At least not until today.

<Say Gaomon,> Rui whispered to his blue companion. <How do you think today’s going to turn out?> The digimon looked at the young man with his head tilted in curiousity. <It’s just…well, do you think we’ll be able to make friends…or will we be seen as enemies?>

Honestly, Gaomon didn’t really care too much about it. Digimon weren’t really one to make friends. At least, not the ones he and Rui had encountered so far. It was because of these digimon that Gaomon had decided to get stronger. He believed it was a digimon’s instinct to fight, and that it was all they were supposed to do. Such ruthlessness, though, was something Rui still wasn’t comfortable with. Though they’ve managed to defeat many opponents already, Rui always felt somehow guilty about it. It wasn’t like in the fictional material, where digimon would just turn back into digieggs. Here, in the real world, digimon die, just like humans did. Both he and gaomon risked their lives everytime they went off to battle. And though Gaomon didn’t pay it any real heed, he could somehow feel that it was troubling his partner.

<It’ll be alright,> Gaomon said. Rui then looked at his partner digimon, but he just continued to stare up at the building. <Whatever happens, I’ll keep us safe,> he added.

No use in having a partner that can’t focus, Gaomon thought. If such an issue was going to trouble Rui, than it was best that he try and assure him that it was going to be alright. He would never admit it, but despite his shortcomings, Rui was in many other aspects, his ideal partner. It wasn’t like they got along perfectly, after all.

“Hm,” whispered Rui. He looked up at the Convention Center again and smiled to himself. “Don’t try to sound cool, you idiot.”

<Eh?> Gaomon blinked. <Hey, no fair using that weird language I don’t understand!> the digimon stamped his foot and pouted at his partner, who was no chuckling at the flustered digimon. <What? What did you say?> Gaomon demanded.

<It’s…a…secret!> Rui told him with a wink. The digimon bounced up and down as the young man quickly ran inside.

<I know you said something insulting! Just admit it!> Gaomon then quickly followed him inside, waving his fists and yelling all the while. But the minute he set foot inside the convention center, he quickly grew still. His ears perked up, and he began to whiff at the air. Rui turned around and noticed that his partner was now acting very differently. He knew what this meant, and quickly retrieved something from his pocket.

The small white-and-blue device in his hand was beeping incessantly. And on the small round LCD screen on its face, a blinking red arrow had appeared. It spun around the screen briefly before focusing at one point. <No way,> Rui whispered to himself. <Gaomon, can you->

<I can,> Gaomon replied before Rui could finish. The blue digimon turned his head slowly, his nose sniffing the air around them. <I can feel it. There’s definitely one here,> he said with a growl.

 

[Chadwyck]

OoC: I know that technically Tailon is before me in the cycle, but since we're all separate groups, atm, I'm gonna go ahead and post now :'D

BiC:

"Good game, Rory-kun," Aiko smiled as she relieved the boy before her of some of his more rare cards. That is to say, she smiled with her lips, her eyes were telling a different story; something close to: "you never even stood a chance, now hand over your cards and call it a day."

She began sorting through her deck and picking out the cards that she could use to digimodify BlackGatomon should the need arise. She picked out her favorites and put the rest back into her pocket; she was entirely content with herself and her abilities to separate novices from their cards. If they couldn't play the game well, they shouldn't have such good cards; and Aiko could actually use them.

She checked the time, there was still a way to go before she was meant to go to the panel at 2:00, but there wasn't much time left before she was meant to be somewhere else. Only, she had forgotten that she was meant to be anywhere. "<Ah! I forgot I'm supposed to meet with Bappu-san today!>" Aiko scratched her head and closed her eyes. "<Ehhh... Where was I supposed to meet him, again?>"

"You made plans to meet someone?" BlackGatomon said quietly, so that only Aiko would hear.

"<Yeah, a friend of mine from a primarily Japanese speaking forum, it helps me keep in touch with home.>" Aiko nodded, then she paused and looked at her Digimon partner. "<Wait... I didn't know you spoke Japanese. Why didn't you ever say anything!?>"

"You never asked."

Aiko started talking quietly to herself. "<You mean that all those times I was complimenting BlackGatomon and calling her cute thinking she couldn't understand me. Even those times I was insulting her..!?>" Her face grew bright red and she became incredibly embarrassed.

BlackGatomon sighed, "baka." With everything that had been going on, Aiko didn't notice her Digivice vibrating and humming lightly, neither did she notice BlackGatomon sniffing the air. "I wasn't going to say anything, but since it seems you won't notice it for yourself, there are others here with Digimon."

Suddenly, Aiko became serious, the red hue draining from her face as she reached down and produced her Digivice. It was displaying a compass, and there was an arrow pointing toward, what she assumed, would be the other person with a Digimon. Then she noticed a second arrow, apparently there were two people really close by; probably in the same room.

"<How long have you known?>"

"Since we walked in the room."

Aiko glanced at the clock again, she needed to meet her friend soon; but that didn't mean that she wouldn't be able to find these other people who had allied themselves with Digimon, just to see who they were. Aiko had never met another person with a real life Digimon before.

 

[Tailon]

Just as Jason was tucking in to his sandwich, a chill ran through the Digital creature sitting on the table in front of him, and a painfully bright light accompanied by a chime shone from his belt. The teen unclipped his Digivice, which dimmed as he raised it to his eyes. The light had been replaced by a compass like display on the device’s small screen, pointing toward the exit of the BBQ place.

“That’s…pretty much impossible…” Jason said to himself, leaving his tray as he stood, and placing Tsunomon on his head. “Shouldn’t it be impossible?” the teenager asked his Digimon partner.

“How should I know,” the Digimon whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “It’s not like I’ve ever actually seen another Digimon out here.”

Jason stepped out of the BBQ place, turning this way and that as the compass spun around in quite possibly the most inefficient way possible, until it finally pointed in one direction. Jason began slipping through the crowd in the appropriate direction, several times avoiding people asking him how he kept Tsunomon balanced on his head. Finally, the compass seemed to be pointing at a specific person, a girl wearing a cowboy hat of all things. Jason approached the girl, who seemed to be searching for something as well, and tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention.

“’Scuse me, but I couldn’t help noticing that device you’re carrying, are you looking for something?”

 

[Carmen Lopez]

Renata's heart began to race as she looked into the thick throngs of people. It had to mean that there was a person with a real life Digimon around...and right after she cautiously wished that something like this would happen. Her smile widened at the prospect as she gazed wildly around trying to figure out who the compass was pointing at. She shifted Yokomon to try to hide the compass from people throwing her curious glances...

"Yokomon! Stop being still as a statue!" Renata said eagerly to the still stiff Digimon. "Don't you realize what this could mean?! We could be on the verge of something huge! Don't you even care! Say something!"

"Calm down!" muttered the Yokomon as her partner's starting talking faster and faster. "I can sense the Digimon too! But we can't get ahead of ourse--

"Wait, you can sense a Digimon around?" Renata interrupted. Her heart was beating double time now. She continued to look around not noticing the compass was now pointing over her shoulder. She jumped slightly when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Scuse me, but I couldn't help noticing that device you're carrying, are you looking for something?" said a voice.

Renata spun around and found herself facing a boy wearing dark gray jeans and a red shirt with some sort of helmet on it. A Tsunomon perched atop his head; no one had to tell Renata that it was the real deal--not even Yokomon breaking character to gaze up at the Digimon. His gray and white Digivice displayed a compass that was pointing at her. She looked down at her own light blue and white Digivice which was otherwise identical to his. Her compass was pointing directly at him.

"According to this, I'm looking for you!" Renata said joyfully. And without warning, she launched herself at the boy and gave him a huge hug. "Oh my goodness, I can't believe this is happening!"

"Honestly!" said the Yokomon who nearly slipped out of Renata's grip but even she had to admit that she was excited about finding another Digimon.

 

[Jenova]

(OOC: After this post, every time Soo Min speaks in Korean, I’ll use [ ] brackets because my knowledge of the Korean language pretty much stops here. XD )

After what seemed like an eternity to Soo Min and Lunamon after running down countless asphalt and concrete sidewalks, and never-ending subway train hopping and taxi whistling, they finally reached their destination. Even for New York standards, it seemed like the jam-packed hustle and bustle only prevented traffic from advancing as so much as a single inch. Luckily for Soo Min, she faced transportation challenges such as this every day ever since she moved to the United States. It wasn’t timing and practice that helped her the past few years; it was pure luck whether or not you could make it to your destination in time. She was also exceptionally fortunate not to have crossed paths with a single New York garbage truck. 어휴.

Despite not even taking a step into the convention center, there were plenty of Digimon propaganda and advertising decorated all around her surroundings. There were crazed fans with handfuls to piles of merchandise, and there were even people in costumes. It was truly a wonder to behold- for Soo Min it was awe struck and amazement, but for Lunamon it was simply peculiar. Still, she managed to be as composed and poised as possible. Unfortunately, being calm and collected was perhaps the worst thing she could have done.

“Hey, is that a Lunamon plushie you’ve got there?”

The girly duo turned around and before either one of them could even react, Soo Min was brushed aside and her voice was cut off by someone else.

“No way dude, look- it’s a costume. It looks pretty sweet!”

Suddenly, it seemed like a whole army of fans swarmed around them. Soo Min was grabbed by the arm by a random stranger, with various other unknown folk asking multiple questions, chattering away so fast the girl couldn’t even think straight. The sheer force of the amount of people pushing her away was just extreme, as she couldn’t even see where Lunamon was anymore. Soo Min couldn’t shout, as the sounds of camera shutters snapping and clipping were unbelievably loud and drowned out her timid voice. People were touching and grabbing Lunamon’s face, ears, hands- basically just about anywhere so they could feel how lifelike and “nearly authentic” she was. The pink and purple Digimon had about half a mind to just end all their lives with a single lash. However, she knew that in a world she is unfamiliar with, she would certainly be overpowered sooner or later, so she merely tried to push them all back. Finally, someone pinched a vulnerable, soft part of her head, causing her to yelp in pain.

As if it were a miracle, Soo Min was able to break free from the crowd at the sound of Lunamon’s voice. She sprinted towards Lunamon, pushing and shoving anyone that got in her way. She snatched the Digimon into her arms, and smuggled her away and into the building. No matter what franchise it is, it seemed as though that there would always some rabid fans.

About half an hour later, they were finally able to get readjusted and settled. Soo Min managed to receive her badge, as well as some food and drinks for the two. She smiled sweetly at Lunamon, who managed to prop herself on a chair. However, despite the Korean’s usual sunny expression, she felt extremely guilty of how her partner had to endure such roughhousing. She set the food tray on the table, and sat down next to Lunamon. The Digimon merely looked away with a neutral expression.

Soo Min frowned and softly said,“Lunamon... Jwesonghamnida-”

“No need for apologies,” the Digimon replied back. “It was my fault; I wanted to stay in this form, knowing that it would be of inconvenience for you.”

“That’s not true,” Soo Min responded. “I should have been more prepared, and we should have gone here earlier. We arrived at noon, so there were bound to be a large number of people arriving.”

Lunamon placed her hand on Soo Min’s and looked at her in the eye. She smiled and said, “As long as you didn’t get hurt, I’ll be fine.” She then eyed the tray and chuckled. “Now let’s eat first before the food starts harassing us. We still have some time to spare before the big announcement.”

After they were finished eating, they started to really enjoy the convention. The duo wandered around as they explored various rooms and stalls as they smiled held each other’s hand. Occasionally, Lunamon received a compliment or two about her “costume” from other con-goers. Soo Min could tell that the Digimon enjoyed the amount of praise she had gotten from them, as the creature practically seeped in joy and delight. They eventually entered a card game room, and watched as people challenged each other, some for betting purposes against each other’s cards. For Soo Min, it was interesting and fun to see people play with such enthusiasm. On the other hand, Lunamon merely observed how each individual opponent played and looked to see if there was a particular pattern or strategy they go by. It will prove itself to be useful later... that is, if Soo Min were to try playing for cards. She rarely takes risks unless she’s absolutely sure she’s going to win.

Suddenly, Lunamon’s ears sprung up as her eyes widened, breaking her train of thought. Soo Min looked over at her partner, and immediately her Digivice started to beep. The lavender and white device emitted a high, frequent sound that seemed to be ceaseless. Its screen showed a compass-like design with two arrows pointing in different directions. Lunamon scoffed - she didn’t need a Digivice to know that there were real Digimon present. Nevertheless, she looked up at Soo Min with a curious expression and pretended that she didn’t know.

“What’s that noise?” she asked.

Soo Min replied, “It’s my digivice... I think there’s Digimon close by. They’re probably not alone, though.”

“Atta girl,” Lunamon thought to herself. She then questioned, “Are they in this room?”

“I think one of them is...” Soo Min said.

She looked at where one of the arrows was pointing, and started to walk towards its general direction. Lunamon followed suit, content with knowing the fact that her partner wasn’t completely clueless. That would have made things more aggravating for the two. Soo Min eventually saw a spiky-haired girl with a BlackGatomon. “So she’s Japanese...” Soo Min thought to herself. She walked over behind the girl, and tapped the stranger’s shoulder. Soo Min then smiled and greeted her.

“Hello, I’m Soo Min. I... erm, how do you say it- oh, I saw your Digivice and mine happened to point towards you. I believe that I was looking for you and your BlackGatomon over there.”

 

[Shocari]

Jesse soon became engrossed in giving out tips for making a better deck. About a dozen people came up to him within the first half hour, and Jesse was making sure he was going over every minute detail. For some, their decks were pretty solid before he got to them, so there wasn't really much he had to do other than just say "Watch out for this," or "Maybe you should have this in there," which was still fine by him. He might battle one of them someday, so he might as well make it a challenge.

After the most recent person walked off, Jesse found himself a few minutes alone. He turned his head towards Candlemon, who breathed "You sure are popular. Can we go somewhere for a few minutes so I can stretch a little?"

"Maybe in a few-" he stopped short when he noticed his orange-ringed digivice emitting a faint glow. He grabbed it from the Digimon and looked at it more closely. The glowing stopped, and was replaced by a compass-like arrow that spun around a few times before focusing on a single direction. What on Earth could this mean? "On second thought, yeah. Let's go."

Jesse reached into his backpack and pulled out a small sign that said "Gone to lunch," which he placed on the table. To Candlemon's dismay, Jesse unceremoniously shoved him into the backpack, zipped it up, and headed off, digivce in hand.

"What was that for, you jerk?! You could have at least warned me before you put me back in here!" the candle yelled with a quiet muffle. Candlemon gave a semi-gentle shove in Jesse's direction, nearly causing him to trip.

He composed himself and looked back at the digivice, which would spin around, point at the same direction as earlier, and spin around again. He looked up and saw several people, but one that caught his eye was a girl with a stuffed Coronamon. She would seem the most likely suspect of whatever the digivice was pointing to. Jesse's suspicion was enhanced when he noticed her looking around as well.

Whoever she was, she had definitely caught his attention with the strange way she looked. Short firey hair, a dull green one-piece...thing that he didn't know the technical female term for, and a khaki jacket. The feathers attached to her ears were also completely strange. Feathers belonged on birds, not people.

With a deep breath, he walked up to her and said "I don't know about you, but I think it was...erm, fate that brought us together."

"Way to go, Jesse. You managed to sound like you two are destined to get married or something. Nice." Candlemon whispered.

He silently cursed himself for that, now that he thought about it. But maybe if she turned around and saw his digivice, she might forgive him.

 

[Chadwyck]

Aiko and BlackGatomon were scanning the room, there were apparently two people in the room, at least according to Aiko's digivice. She stuck the device back onto her jeans and stood up, looking at the different people in the room. There were a few potential people that could be partners with Digimon. She was just about to start looking, when someone tapped her shoulder.

She made an embarrassing squeak-like noise and turned to see who had tapped her. A girl that appeared to be slightly younger than herself. The girl introduced herself as Soo Min and pointed out Aiko's Digivice. "<Oh, I'm sorry, you surprised me. I was... focused on something else. My name is Watanabe Aiko, nice to meet you.>" She chuckled slightly as she blushed out of embarrassment. Then she realized that she had been really rude and spoke in Japanese. Again, she felt really stupid and cleared her throat.

"Ehm... Hi. My name is Wata-- I mean, Aiko Watanabe. Sorry about that, when I'm flustered I tend slip into Japanese, and you surprised me." She laughed again. Then, it seemed to dawn on her exactly what Soo Min had said. "Did you say my BlackGatomon?" Aiko looked at her Digivice again and noticed a new arrow, pointing directly at Soo Min. Then she noticed the Lunamon at her side.

"Oh. Oh! I'm sorry I didn't realize." She looked around at the crowded room and saw the table she had been sitting at was still fairly unoccupied. "Come on, let's have a seat. I've never met anyone else with a Digimon partner. This is BlackGatomon and we've just been spending some time waiting for the announcement at two."

She realized that she may be late to her meeting with Bappu-san, so she decided to send him an email. She typed in his number and sent a quick message during her conversation with Soo Min. "<Bappu-san, I am in the card game room. I'm sorry, but I may be late to our meeting. I hope to see you soon. - Yuki>"

OoC:Short post is short, yes.

 

[Psycho Monkey]

"I'm done here. Whoever has next can play." offered Blake holding up a game controller. For the past hour he had been dominating opponents in the Digimon videogames. Every now and then a challenger would make for a tough battle, but if they took the lead even once, Blake would use his trump card. Kuramon would use his Glare Eyes attack to zap the opponent's hands throwing them off balance and allowing Blake to clean up. No one suspected a thing from the "stuffed" Digimon on Blake's lap nor did anyone have an tangible evidence that the teen had been cheating.

"I'll play." said a girl in a Penguinmon cosplay taking the controller.

"I've helped you win, but you've done nothing to help me get stronger." Kuramon complained accusingly once the duo was out of the game room. Blake groaned.

"It's not my fault. It's not like I can train you in a crowd of people without drawing attention to us." he pointed out. "I was hoping you'd gain some experience from the game, but I digress. Anyway, let's get some food we can decide what to do once--" Suddenly Blake's digivice started glowing and beeping loudly. Great, just what he needed. Something else that might draw attention to his real Digimon.

Blake pulled his Digivice from his pocket to try and find away to quiet it down. Touching it seemed to stop the noise and glowing, but now there were several arrows pointing in different directions.

"There are Digimon nearby!" Kuramon stated eagerly.

"Well don't get too excited Freshy. For all we know we're dealing with Rookies or Champions. We play this tactfully and try to get the jump on them." devised the teen. He continued on his way to the food court where two of the arrows were pointing, wading through the crowd as if he were still simply headed to lunch.

"There!" called the Fresh Digimon drawing Blake's attention to two other con-goers; a boy and a girl hugging. At first he wondered if Kuramon was mistaken as he saw nothing out of the ordinary with them. They were probably boyfriend and girlfriend displaying too much PDA. Then he noticed the Tsunomon on the boy's head and the Yokomon in the girl's arms. They were fellow Tamers! There was no reason Kuramon couldn't battle with In-Training level Digimon.

"Ok, here's the deal Kuramon. We eat now while keeping our eyes on them. Then we-- Kuramon!" zblake yelled as his partner jumped out of his arms bouncing over to the other monsters.

"And wait for them to find us first? No way! I'm attacking now, with or without you!" shouted the little Digimon defiantly. "Glare Eyes!" he called shooting a small zap of energy from his eyes at the Tsunomon.

"Dammit Kuramon! Don't be so careless!" scolded the teen angrily at his Digimon's reckless actions.

(OOC: I hope this is passable ^^; )

 

[Satoren]

Rui and Gaomon’s chase through the convention center was suddenly interrupted by a loud ringing from Rui’s pocket. Taking out his cellphone, he read the message he received from his friend. It seemed that Yuki was in the card game room, and she would be late for their scheduled meeting.

“Gaomon,” Rui called to her partner. The Digimon ceased his sniffing about and quickly returned to the young man’s side.

<What’s up?> He asked, but Rui did not answer. He continued to look down at his phone, deep in thought. His Digivice, still firmly held in his other hand, continued beeping incessantly.

<Maybe it’s…no, it couldn’t be…could it?> Rui whispered to himself for some time. Hesitantly, he put his phone away and looked back at his digivice. The arrow on its screen was moving ever so slightly to the left, indicating that their target was moving.

<The Card Game area…that would be on the third floor…>

As Rui continued analyzing the situation, Gaomon was growing impatient with him. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to do if he did meet up with a Digimon. Would they instinctively fight? Or maybe they’d actually try and act friendly with one another? It never really crossed his mind. All he knew was that they had to meet. There was no real reason, he just strongly felt it. And with every second that passed, his instincts were tugging ever so tightly at his collar.

<Hey, hey,> Gaomon fussed. <Are we doing this or what? What’re you planning?>

<Gaomon, how close would you say the other Digimon is?> Rui suddenly said.

<Huh? Uhm…uh…> Gaomon was caught off guard by Rui’s sudden lapse back to reality and wasn’t sure how to put it. As a dog, Gaomon had an incredible sense of smell. And as a Digimon, that ability was greatly multiplied. It wasn’t just Digimon he could smell. Humans, food, anything that gave some sort of odor, he could sense then all. But Digimon had a different scent from organic things, not that he knew what the word ‘organic’ meant. He took a deep whiff of the air around him, once again clearing his thoughts and focussing on the task at hand. There were many people inside the convention center, but it only made the Digimons’ scents all the easier to find. That’s when he realized that there were indeed several scents within the building. There seemed to be multiple Digimon within the vicinity.

<Huh, well that’s a little surprising,> he told Rui. <I thought I smelled just one, but as it turns out, there’re a lot more Digimon in this place than I thought. And the nearest one…> Gaomon then took another sniff at the air.

<The nearest one is on the second floor,> Gaomon concluded.

<Yuki-chan is on the third,> Rui whispered to himself. He breathed a sigh of relief, though he wasn’t sure why he had gotten so tense in the first place. <Maybe it was just a coincidence after all.>

<Huh?> Gaomon perked his ears at Rui.

<Oh, it’s nothing,> Rui quickly changed the subject. <Anyway, let’s head up to the second floor.> The young man then took out a folded-up pamphlet from his pocket. He only remembered just now that he had managed to snatch one of these earlier. It was a map detailing what events were happening throughout the center. He placed his finger on the section showing the second floor, and looked through it to see what would be taking place there.

<Well, this is interesting,> Rui remarked. <The second floor of the convention center; it’s where they’re holding demos for the video games,> he explained to Gaomon. The blue digimon just tilted his head, unsure of what to make of it.

<It’s just, you came from a video game I got; remember?> Rui told Gaomon. The young man remembered that day quite vividly, even though it had happened almost a year ago. It was on that faithful day that he had received a rather unique package in the mail. The disk was sealed inside a paper envelope, and neither had any sort of label on them. Glancing at the shiny side, Rui could tell that there was something…other-worldly about the package. Still, what it could have possibly contained he could only speculate. But never would he have imagined that once he had loaded the disk onto his console, would it suddenly materialize from his TV screen, a digi-egg.

Rui was surprised when it had happened, though he wasn’t really terrified. Perhaps it was because he had previously heard rumours about such strange events; that digimon were real, and that a select few had appeared in the real world. He remembered doing a bit of research on it after Gaomon hatched, but couldn’t find anything aside from rumours and hoaxes. He tried to investigate the origins of the disk he had received Gaomon from, but found nothing of significance. For all he knew, the package had simply been stashed with the mail and was never sent from anywhere.

Looking at the map, and the games booths marked on it, Rui wondered if he might be able to resume his investigation here. Looking at Gaomon and then at his digivice, however, he was quickly reminded of what they were doing at the moment.

<Alright then, let’s head over to the second floor, and see what we can find,> he told Gaomon. The blue digimon nodded to this as the two hastily made their way towards a set of escalators.

 

[Sem]

As Noah ascended the stairs he felt something vibrate in one of his pockets. Reaching into a pocket he pulled out his buzzing Digivice. The screen was lit and there was an arrow pointing directly behind him, becoming bigger and bigger.

"Weird," the young man muttered. "It's never done this before..." Just as the arrow seemed to fill almost half of the screen a kid pushed past him, racing up the stairs. Noah cast a glare at the boy's back and then turned his attention back to his D-Arc. The arrow was now pointing straight ahead and getting smaller. After a moment the arrow simply stopped shrinking.

"I sense a Digimon," Soulmon said quietly in Noah's ear. "I'm pretty sure it was with the boy that just ran by us."

"Really now?" Noah replied with a raised brow. He looked ahead and saw the boy in question facing the stairs, a D-Arc of his own in his hand. There was also what appeared to be a Terriermon on his head - an extremely life-like Terriermon. Another quick glance at his Digivice confirmed that this boy was indeed what it was reacting to.

That was easy. He'd only just got there and already he had seemed to find someone who was in the same boat as he was - someone who had a real-life Digimon partner. The boy was pretty young, not much older than ten, but it was definitely better than nothing.

"I'm Noah," the young man introduced himself, extending a hand.

 

[Blazi]

The arrow on Tyson's D-Arc was growing larger and larger, until the person he had ran past earlier came up the stairs to him, and held out his hand. "I'm Noah," he said, looking slightly relieved.

"T-Tyson." Tyson stammered, shaking Noah's, breaking the first of his cousin's rules. "M-my Digivice was just... Pointing to you... But I d-don't see your digimon..."

Terriermon piped up from his perch on Tyson's hat, saying, "I smell a Digimon..."

"I know you do... Perhaps... It can turn invisible?" Tyson turned back to Noah. "Um... Can your... Er... Digimon turn... Ah... Invisible?" Tyson blushed a little bit at this question, looking away a little bit.

OoC: Short post is short. I'm hoping I've done the whole shyness thing right, despite the fact I made him. Sorry it's late.

 

[Brendan Savem]

(blegh, I don't like this post much, but I needed to set the scene for a later post)

Two minutes later, they arrived in one of the exhibition halls, rows of games and entertainment of all types formed corridors throughout the hall; arcades, consoles, handhelds, even the V-Pet models. People were crowded around each one, either excited for playing for their first time, or nostalgically recalling the times when they first played it. The walls were lined with posters advertising the various games, from the early versions from years back, to the teasers for the upcoming games, many of which were set to be announced at this convention. Finally, at the far end of the room, there was a long row of consoles and TVs, and one large poster behind them. This was the newest game, a demo of the MMO that promised so much and had everyone hyped over it. And as Rufus looked at the enormous crowds that crowded around each console, those claims must have held true.

“Come on Rufus! Look those guys are leaving!” Gabriel almost shouted, pointing to one of the spots where a large group of teenagers disengaged themselves from the machine, leaving the machine wide open. Not for long though, Gabriel made a rapid dash and managed to grab the controller before anybody noticed the open spot. Before Rufus could catch up to him, the crowd swallowed up Gabriel as they filled the space around him. Rufus sighed, he wasn’t going to get through them easily, and so he had to settle with a small fraction of a window through the people to see Gabriel with the game. It didn’t matter though: Rufus couldn’t care less about the game. This was Gabriel’s day after all, and the convention was still long.

Dracomon suddenly started to shift about in Rufus’s bag again, troubled by something. Rufus felt the digimon shifting in his bag, probably pushing past one of Rufus’s other belongings from under one of his feet. Though all that Rufus had in that bag, apart from Dracomon himself, was a bottle of water, his keys, emergency money, and the strange device that Rufus also obtained when Dracomon first appeared. Oh what Rufus could have done if he knew what he was about to get into...

 

[Belle]

"I don't know about you, but I think it was...erm, fate that brought us together."



What.
Tearing her eyes up from the bronze digivice in her hands, her gaze leveled and a brow rose quizzically before she turned on her heel to face the boy that had approached her. Already bemused by his one-liner, the corners of her lips had pulled into a wry grin as she met the taller boy's eyes with a steady stare.

She didn't speak for a moment and instead took in his appearance, her eyes darting from his tousled, spiked hair to his cheeks and his mouth and finally back to boring into his own blue eyes. She felt that she likely would have been more taken aback by his manner of dress and presentation were it not for the environment that they were in - in which case it was very much the norm. As it was, in this case the most suspicious thing about him was the muffled mumbles she could just discern coming from his backpack, and even that was more than likely an ipod or other electronic device he had left turned on and playing. Finally, she cracked a smile and sidled into one hip as she spoke.

"Goodness. Are you always this charming?"

The grin on her face vanished, however, as she caught a glimpse of the small device clutched in his hand, the compass-arrow still glowing brightly on the screen before it blipped out of sight. From her hand, she could see in her peripheral vision the very same thin point disappearing from the screen of her digivice, and she rolled it around between her hands as her mouth formed a small 'o'.

"Oh, you..."

From the chair he had been left draped over, Coronamon had been laying very still with his arms flung over the back. It was only at Harley's shock that he finally showed even the slightest sign of life - and even then it was little more than the movement of a fiery orange iris and the protective, predatory shrinking of the pupil buried within the dash of color as he carefully watched the newcomer from his post.

 

[Jenova]

OOC: BLARGH. If this doesn't work, I'm going to smack a bitch D:< Also, we really got to move on with this |D *doesn't want this RP to die* Also, <> brackets indicate Japanese and [] brackets indicate Korean as usual, although this will pretty much be the only time I'll use the former.
-

Soo Min jumped up at the other girl's loud squeak. Whoops- perhaps she should have found a more polite way to get her attention. Nevertheless, she smiled warmly and introduced herself. The stranger reciprocated her friendliness, although perhaps a bit too much as it seemed like she was smacked in the face with a foreign language dictionary.

"Oh, so she's Japanese..." Soo Min thought to herself, taking note of the girl's behavior. She shook her head- the past was all behind her now, and there was no need for former prejudices to rise up. She was in America now, not in South Korea. The Japanese girl then reintroduced herself, this time in English. Soo Min smiled; Aiko was just like her, as they both had the same tendencies to slip into their native languages.

"Come on, let's have a seat. I've never met anyone else with a Digimon partner. This is BlackGatomon and we've just been spending some time waiting for the announcement at two."

Lunamon looked at Aiko and BlackGatomon questionably, for it was her first time seeing another pair like Soo Min and herself as well. The pink and purple Digimon then quickly brushed off any other thoughts she had- she shouldn't trust them just yet. Besides, if these two were here, who knows how many other pairs like them were there? Especially at this convention center, no less?

Nevertheless, Lunamon smiled and nodded, following Soo Min to a vacant table. Odd how no one seemed to have even bother to sit down at this location. Huh. Must have been a coincidence, although Lunamon didn't think so.

"<So, you say you're Japanese?>" Soo Min asked, chuckling. "Sorry, I'm afraid that's the only bit of Nihongo I know."

Soo Min loosened up in her seat, glad to have finally made a friend, or at least an acquaintance that didn't talk to her just because she was her sister Sun Hee's shadow. "So, are you born here or did you come from Japan? I was from Seoul a few years ago. My English isn't very good, but I'm still trying."

Lunamon winced a little; her partner was getting too relaxed. She nudged the girl and tilted her head a little, as if she was speaking a secret code. Soo Min immediately knew what the Digimon wanted, and snapped out of her rather dazed expression. She sat back in her seat and sheepishly grinned.

"Sorry, I also tend to talk a bit too much," Soo Min said, blushing.

 

[Tailon]

OoC: I won't let this die. Not yet!

The girl Jason had questioned only responded, "According to this, I'm looking for you!" before grabbing him in a tight hug and saying, "Oh my goodness, I can't believe this is happening!"
Jason just managed to return the hug before his digivice projected another arrow, pointing nearby, a small voice cried, "Glare Eyes!", and he felt Tsunomon's weight fly from his head.

Jason cursed to himself, feeling his body disentangle itself and move toward the compass on instinct while his eyes scanned for another Digimon. He spotted the Kuramon on the floor, then its partner shouting at it nearby. Thinking quickly, though not especially hard, Jason tossed himself at the other young man, hoping to create a large enough distraction that the two Digimon wouldn't be noticed.

OoC: However I don't have a whole ton to say so...yeah >>

 

[Satoren]

[So, this is…]

Rui and Gaomon found themselves at one of the many exhibit halls on the second floor. The particular area they were in was showcasing many of the Digimon franchise’s electronic goods. Rui honestly never really liked any of the video games. They were divided into mundane and simplistic RPGs and overly complicated card games that involved purchasing cards upon cards to advance to the next level. In fact, the only Digimon game he had ever played was the one Gaomon had emerged from. Since then, he attempted to be a bit more patient with the games, though he still didn’t like them all that much.

‘hmm,’ muttered Rui as he peered down at his digivice. Now that they were on the second floor, the arrow on the screen had grown much larger, and it’s beeping more gratuitous. No doubt they were extremely close to whatever the device was leading them to.

[Come on, then,] Rui told Gaomon. The blue digimon nodded and followed him as he made his way through the displays and crowds of people.

Rui noticed a significant number of the franchise’s older fans. Not surprising really, when you think about it. The Digimon franchise is fairly old; almost as old as that other game series with fictional creatures. Perhaps these people were one-time fans visiting for the sake of nostalgia, or possibly fans who never really outgrew it. Rui then pondered what he would be like five years from now. Would he still be with Gaomon? And what would life be like having him as a constant accomplice? He couldn’t even imagine how he could sneak something like him into the University he was planning to go to.

As Rui continued to follow the trail, Gaomon was temporarily distracted by what seemed to be a large digimon approaching him. He tightened his fists and bared his teeth, but soon realized that the Digimon that was coming towards him wasn’t a digimon at all. In fact, the foam skin and vacant eyes made it terribly obvious that this was simply a costume of some sort.

‘Whoa, dude. Awesome costume!’ The Digimon wannabe exclaimed. ‘T hat fur looks so real! Did you make it yourself?’ The strange man continued to bombard Gaomon with questions, and Gaomon could do nothing but stare at him in confusion and horror.

‘Gaomon!’ Rui called out to him. The blue digimon perked his ears up and ran straight to his partner.

“O-oh,” Rui stuttered as he noticed the cosplayer that was attempting to converse with his digimon. “I-I’m sorry; you’ll have to excuse my…little brother,’ Rui explained. ‘He’s rather shy around other people.’ Leaving it at that, the boy and his digimon quickly turned around and swiftly strode away.

[That was…] Gaomon hesitated. He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t really know how to respond to such a situation. […odd.]

[Cosplayers. I don’t really get them,] Rui replied.

[Really? That’s kinda funny coming from you, considering…] Rui quickly placed his hand on Gaomon’s lips. The digimon looked up at him, and the young man then pointed him towards a large crowd a few feet away from them. The device in his hand was beeping incessantly now, and the arrow on its screen was blinking red.

Slowly, Rui walked over to the crowd, his hands covering up his digivice to muffle the sound it was making. Opening his palms slightly to have a look at where the arrow was pointing now, the young man saw that it was no directing him to his left. Turning his head, Rui was face to face with a man with wavy red hair.

 

[Brendan Savem]

Rufus watched as Gabriel won another random encounter, indicating that he was already getting the hang of the game, after only ten minutes too. Rufus then noticed someone next to him and looked over to see a young man, about the same age as him, a bit shorter, but the about same age nonetheless. He had tan skin, brown eyes, and medium-length brown hair, with part of it hanging over his face, covering half of his eye. Rufus looked down and saw that the young man wasn't alone, he was accompanied by a smaller person, a young child perhaps, in a full costume of a blue dog digimon with red boxing gloves. Rufus couldn't remember what the digimon was called, but he knew that his brother had a card for-

"Wow! A Gaomon cosplayer!" Gabriel suddenly said, having broken through the crowds after passing the controller to the next person. "Where did you get this costume? It looks so real, you even got the fur right! I especially like the goggles, they look so cool there!"

Rufus stood back while Gabriel showered the compliments. He then noticed Dracomon getting uncomfortable again, scratching at the inside of Rufus's backpack with his foot claws.

"Dracomon, will you knock it off?" Rufus whispered, thankful that both new figures were focused on Gabriel right now.

"But something's tickling my foot." Dracomon whispered back,

"It's probably my keys, or something, but you can't do that here." Rufus said, then promptly pushed Dracomon's head back into the bag. "You can poke your head out again when you get comfortable, you won't be missing much" Rufus felt Dracomon squirm slightly in the backpack, hopefully somebody behind him won't realize that something's alive in there. Rufus turned back to Gabriel to see that he was just finishing his rant, and only just noticed the man that the Gaomon cosplayer was accompanied by.

"Rufus, do you know them?" Gabriel asked, Rufus was about to say no. However, after looking into the young man's eyes, he realized that he had something to say. Perhaps they did know each other.

"I was... about to ask the same thing." Rufus replied, then looked towards the young man for an answer.

 

[Psycho Monkey]

Before Blake knew it, he had been tackled to the ground by the boy Tamer he had encountered.

"Get off of me!" he yelled pushing the boy off and punching him in the face. From Blake's perspective the tackle was an attack meaning this had just turned into a four-on-two fight: him and Kuramon verses these Tamers and their Digimon.

"Now look what you've done Kuramon!" chided the teen. "You better be able to handle those two In-Trainings on your own because it looks like I have to deal with the humans!" This hadn't been his intention, in fact Blake had hoped to avoid an open confrontation, but it looked like there was no avoiding this brawl now. The girl would be easy to beat if she even joined in, Blake thought, but the guy would definitely be tough as he had already proven to be an attack first, ask questions later type of fighter.

"You want your girlfriend to back you up, or should we handle this one on one like real men?" Blake antagonized with his fists balled. As the teen threw another punch, Kuramon shot Tsunomon with another Glare Eyes hoping it hadn't had time to regroup from the first one.

(OOC: Yup, these two are going to be trouble makers until set straight.)

 

[Carmen Lopez]

Wowee wow thought Renata. Before she could say another word to the guy she'd just met, his Tsunomon was attacked by a Kuramon--a digimon cute in its own way. The next second the guy himself was in a fight with Kuramon's spikey haired partner. If Yokomon had hands she'd be facepalming right now. This really wasn't a good situation. If they didn't knock it off, they were going to attract some unwanted attention. But Renata was far from anxious; in fact she was excited.

"Oh this is so stupid!" Yokomon said, not bothering to whisper this time. "What the heck are they thinking?"

"They probably aren't thinking," Renata said in amusement. Tsunamon's tamer (she didn't even get the chance to learn his name) likely didn't realize his distraction would backfire quite like this. Their fight was drawing more people and neither of them seemed to realize that stopping their Digimon was more important than right now.

"You want your girlfriend to back you up or should we handle this one like real men?" taunted Kuramon's tamer.

"Pfft, as if!" Renata said.

"What are you gonna do?" Yokomon said cautiously, for she knew Renata could be extremely over-dramatic if the occasion called for it.

"Be a large ham," Renata said, smiling deviously.

"Wha- no wait!" Yokomon squeaked.

Renata stomped over to the two battling tamers and put on her bossy schoolgirl persona. "OI YOU TWO! Let's just ignore the fact that we're in a crowded convention center shall we? CONTROL YOURSELVES!" she yelled in a very loud voice as she stuck out her fist. Everyone in the crowd turned to face her.

Now that is how you create a distraction Renata thought. She was unaware that her Digimon who had become a motionless doll again wanted to vanish on the spot of embarrassment.

 

[Shocari]

"Goodness, are you always this charming?" she asked, cracking a small smile. Well, it looked like he had made a basic marriage proposal after all. Loser points: 1. This was a prime example of why he liked to stay at home and play video games.

Jesse began to open his mouth to explain, but he noticed her noticing his Digivice, a look of realization playing across her face. At least he was spared the trouble of having to speak again...or not. It would be rude of him to not introduce himself.

"Hi. Sorry for my...um, tactlessness a moment ago." he stammered.

"Yeah, tactlessness. That's it." Candlemon whispered maliciously, provoking Jesse to quickly elbow his backpack. Now that he thought of it, that was probably a strange thing for someone like her to witness. Wait, no it wasn't. They both had a Digivice in their hands, so she probably already guessed that if he had a Digimon, it might be stuffed in his bag.

"I'm Jesse." he quickly added in order to cover his tracks anyway, extending his hand. From somewhere in the building there was a faint chanting. Crowd-like. Did someone just win at a game of some sorts? Was there people waiting for someone to appear? Was it a fight?

Whatever the case, Jesse was interested. He moved towards the direction of the sound, teetering between a fast walk and a run.

"Maybe I should've let her tell me her name...." he muttered, stopping in his tracks. "Well, maybe she'll...oh! Nevermind!" was the much louder response, followed by a return to chasing down the source of the chanting.

 

[Shiny Motley]

Diane stepped out of the taxi and thanked the driver, smiling rather sweetly as she did so. The man nodded back at her, avoiding her gaze as he did, speeding away after she closed the door. “He’s kind quiet, isn’t he, Kokomon?” the girl said to the lilac-colored stuffed animal she held in her arms as she watched the car rush past a red light. When the toy didn’t respond, she rolled her eyes and continued, “Kind of like you.”

Shrugging, the girl entered the building and was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer number of people present wearing strange cosplays, carrying around piles of Digimon-related merchandise, or just otherwise completely decked out with a Digimon shirt and pants and backpack and whatnot. Man, are all of these people really just fans of the game? Diane thought to herself as she glanced this way and that, trying to find any sort of normal-looking person. She began to feel very self-conscious of her own attire, which consisted of a simple white blouse, a maroon jacket, and blue jeans. She had brought along with her only a leather purse, which she had borrowed from her mom so that she could have a place to carry her belongings and money, and the very-still Kokomon plushie, which had refused to move or even whisper anything to her. It was the only Digimon-related item she had on her, and she hoped it was enough to avoid any strange looks she might’ve gotten otherwise.

If she had known how hardcore these Digimon fans were, perhaps she would’ve packed up some more items for her vacation that showed her love for the franchise. She silently cursed her cousin for not having warned her about it ahead of time.

Deciding that standing around would’ve made her look even more like an idiot, Diane began wandering around the stands, looking at all the various items people had on sale. There were posters, figurines, cards, strategy books, and even... oh gosh, was that a bikini on display? The eleven year old quickly averted her eyes and turned around, only to catch sight of a shop exhibiting a lot of Digimon stuffed animals. “Hey Kokomon, look,” said the girl as she lifted up her own stuffed toy, “that one looks just like you!” As she compared the two, she noticed some small differences, like how hers had slightly smaller eyes and the space between the horns on hers were a little farther apart than the one on the counter, and, of course, hers had a bandana around its neck, but for the most part they were identical. Her Digimon, though, still refused to speak, not even bothering to note how much cuter it was than the wannabe it was facing.

The girl sighed and took another look at the area, already bored with the convention. Suddenly, she noticed a flight of stairs on the other side of the room, leading up to the next floor. Deciding that she’d had more than enough time to admire the various items on sale, Diane ran upstairs, shoving past several people as she did so. As she moved, she became aware of a sort of buzzing noise coming from her purse, but she assumed that it was just someone trying to reach her mom’s cell phone. It was probably telemarketing or something.

However, unlike a cell phone, the buzzing continued, even after a good two minutes had passed and she was already halfway up the stairs. After she reached the top of the stairs, Diane went over to some unoccupied corner and rummaged through the main pocket of her purse, trying to find the source of the noise. Wallet, phone, keys, iPod... everything she touched was as still as a rock, but she could still feel the vibrations. It couldn’t be...

“Check the front pocket,” someone murmured to her. Shocked, Diane looked down at the Kokomon stuffed animal in her arms, except this time its posture had changed from looking straight to slightly tilted, almost as if it was watching her search for the mysterious buzzing item. It wasn’t the first time Kokomon had talked, but it certainly was the first the Digimon had dared to speak out in public. Nodding, Diane unzipped the front pocket of her purse, and took out the only item in there: a white and maroon digivice.

The girl shook her head, not really believing her eyes. She had never felt the device acting this strangely before, especially not back home in Ohio. Peering down onto the screen, she saw the arrow pointing at a boy who couldn’t have been much older than she was, who carried a Terriermon stuffed animal. At least, she would’ve thought it was a stuffed animal had the thing not lifted its nose into the air and moved its mouth like it was speaking. Diane glanced down at Kokomon, who also looked rather shocked at the apparent discovery of another person with a Digimon.

Diane ran over to the boy and noticed that he was talking to an older teen. Were they friends? Not really caring anymore, Diane poked the boy with the Terriermon on his back, and Kokomon seemed to cringe when she saw how hard her partner had poked the person. “Nice Terriermon you have there,” the girl said, ignoring the fact that she had interrupted the conversation between the two guys. Grinning just ever so slyly, she asked, “Where’d you get it?

She was quickly distracted by the sound of banging from under the stairs. Diane grabbed the boy’s hand like they’ve known each other for years and dragged him down them, wanting to see what was going on.

(OOC: So yeah, I’m apparently taking Sem’s spot. So not only am I replacing him, I’m also taking over where he was in the story, to a certain extent. Man, playing catch up was kind of hard XD)

 

[Tailon]

Jason managed to block the other Tamer's punch with his arm and shoved him away as the girl intervened, stopping the fight before it could continue. "Yeah you're right," he said, stepping forward. Jason took the other Tamer's hand as if to force him to shake, but pulled him closer and hissed, "This was just a distraction while Bearmon calms your little In-Training down. He almost blew our cover." Jason then pulled back and appeared to amiably shake hands in apology.

---

Outside the focused crowd, Tsunomon easily dodged the other Digimon's Glare Eyes and aimed to tackle him into a nearby supply closet, then digivolved in a quick flash of light. The Bear Digimon caught the eyed jellyfish and looked it in its eye, "This is neither the time or the place little buddy, if you want to fight me, be polite about it, and don't blow the cover out Tamers work so hard to keep up!" Bearmon then tossed the creature back outside, de-digivolved and hopped out, falling motionless near him.

 

[Blazi]

Tyson was waiting for Noah to answer when he was poked hard. He turned around to the poker to see a girl, with what seemed like a Kokomon plushie. Without checking his digivice, he knew the girl had a real digimon, which was most likely that Kokomon.

"Nice Terriermon you have there," The girl said, "Where'd you get it?" Tyson just blushed and took Terriermon off his hat, looking away. Tyson cuddled Terriermon close, so that he seemed more like a plush toy, and was about to answer when the girl suddenly grabbed him by the hand and took off.

Tyson was so startled he almost let go of Terriermon, but instead clutched him closer and held onto the girl's hand. Despite her sudden and quirky nature, Tyson knew he would like this girl. It would take ages before he'd start talking to her without stuttering, but it would be quicker than with others.

Looking back, Tyson saw that Noah had answered his phone or something, and was walking off at an alarming rate. Noah was then gone from his sight, and Tyson had no choice but to clench hold of the girl's hand, and try not to drop Terriermon.

OoC: Bleh, it's bad, I know. Oh well. Maybe once Shiny gets to the site of her curiosity I can get Tyson to ask her name~

 

[Chadwyck]

Aiko tended to be a complete spazz when it came to interpersonal relationships, and she almost zoned out more than once while the girl was talking. The only reason she could keep paying attention was because of BlackGatomon nudging her every time her attention wavered.

"Oh, no. I wasn't born here. I can't stand this place, all I want is to go back home to Hiroshima. My father was relocated for work to this city, so I'm trying to figure out a way to get him to move back home. I had to leave all of my friends and the rest of my family and I hate it, I just wanna go back home." She threw her hands over her mouth, realizing that she was spouting out a mass of words at her new acquaintance. BlackGatomon shook her head, and rolled her eyes; sneering at the fact she was partnered with this girl.

<"Stupid, stupid, stupid."> She muttered to herself before laughing nervously again. "I think that I talk a fair bit more than you, so don't worry about it. Sorry about that, I've been a bit frustrated about my moving situation you see."

OoC: Wow, this sucks. Happy now, Tailon? ARE YOU? D:< I apologize, I've gotta try and get back in sync with this charrie...

 

[Shiny Motley]

Diane felt the boy’s grip on her hand tighten as they ran down the stairs, but she didn’t mind so much. In fact, had she not been concentrating on trying to find the source of the banging, the girl might’ve found the action kind of cute. Or disgusting. You never know with kids these days.

As she neared the end of the stairs, she began to doubt that she had actually heard the noise. It sounded almost as if someone, or someones, were in a fight, but it was so hard to tell with all the people around her. Diane soon realized that it would be impossible to find it now anyways, since it wasn’t the sort of noise that repeated every so often, but rather had only occurred once. Wanting to hide her embarrassment, the girl led her companion to one of the food courts in the first floor and muttered some lame excuse about being hungry and not wanting to eat alone. She was well aware that eating with Kokomon wouldn’t have been “alone”, but she hoped that the boy would overlook that.

“Find a seat for us,” Diane said to the boy as she finally let go of his hand. “I’m-a go get us something to eat.”

Walking over to a sandwich-making area, the girl absentmindedly took a few pieces of bread and other things people would put in a sandwich. She wasn’t paying attention to anything she was putting on her bread, since she was too preoccupied with thinking about her new discovery of another Tamer like her. As she continued to make her meal, Kokomon looked down from her shoulders and whispered, “Isn’t that a little too much mayonnaise, Diane?”

Diane immediately snapped out of her stupor and noticed that she had a huge glob of creamy, oily sauce on her ham, lettuce, and Swiss cheese sandwich. “Ah, crap!” she yelped, quickly putting a slice of bread to cover it up and bringing it to the counter. The cashier weighed her sandwiches, and Diane ended up paying a whooping fifteen bucks, just because her super-mayonnaise sandwich was, well, too big.

With her wallet now half-emptied, the girl skipped over to the table and placed a plate in front of her companion. “Here’s yours,” she said, putting the good sandwich on the plate. She took a seat next to him and sighed miserably to herself as she took a bite out of her own meal, making the white goodness dribble down her chin.

And that, she thought to herself, is why you shouldn’t talk to boys, Diane.

 

[Blazi]

Tyson was dragged over to the food court by the girl, hearing a half-mumbled excuse of she was hungry and didn't want to eat alone. Tyson didn't mind so he sat down at a table while the girl went off to et some food.

"Geh! You almost killed me, Tyson!" Terriermon said, rubbing his throat, where Tyson's arm had tightened. Tyson laughed, and apologized.

"Sorry about that Terriermon," He said, losing all traces of shyness now the girl was gone. "Hey, if it's too much trouble, why don't you de-digivolve?" Terriermon nodded, and was surrounded by a glowing light for a second, before the light dissipating, and Gummymon taking the place of Terriermon.

"Whee~ It's fun being me~" Gummymon said, almost losing his all maturity through the de-digivolution. Tyson laughed, before noticing the girl come back with two sandwiches, one looking normal and the other dripping with mayonnaise, and he slipped back into his shy state.

"Here's yours..." she muttered handing Tyson the normal-looking sandwich and taking a bite the one drenched in mayonnaise. Tyson took a bite out of the sandwich, before noticing Gummymon making his way over to the girl's Kokomon. Tyson gasped as he realised the two digimon looked almost exactly alike.

The girl didn't look at him, so he decided to keep the similarities to himself unless she noticed them. Tyson realised he didn't know the girl's name, so, breaking his cousin's rule for the second time today, he spoke up. "I d-didn't really get your n-name... I'm T-Tyson..." He murmured, and almost blushed. Gummymon just giggled and proceeded to bounce up and down while staying attached to the ground, making him look like an accordion.

OoC: Blegh, It's bad, I know. But hey, I posted.

 

[Psycho Monkey]

This other Tamer was better than Blake gave him credit for as the teen once again found himself thrown to the ground. Before he could retaliate,the girl jumped in and made a big scene about self control. Blake found himself speechless and momentarily distracted by how flamboyant she was not to mention hypocritical. She was making a bigger scene after all.

At the very least she seemed to pacify her boyfriend who grabbed Blake's hand to help him up. "This was just a distraction while Bearmon calms your little In-Training down. He almost blew our cover." spat the Tamer in a hushed tone in Blake's ear. The Tamer then shook the teen's hand as a sign of truce.

"Well you didn't have to be so convincing." Blake shot back. Then something registered in his mind that sent a chill down his spine. The other boy said Bearmon which was a Rookie stage even though he only had the In-Training Tsunomon with him. Did this mean they could already Digivolve!?
---

Kuromon stared up in terror at the newly Digivolved Bearmon in front of him. Taking on an In-Training was a daring move as it was, but there was no way a Fresh Digimon could beat a Rookie. This is it. I'll be deleted and assimilated by this Digimon. Before I could do a single thing with my life it's over.

They way Bearmon talked though made it seem he was more interested in fighting on a level field away from humans. Kuramon flinched as Bearmon picked him up believing that this would be his end. Instead he was simple thrown aside. Bearmon then reverted back to Tsunomon as if nothing had happened.
---

Blake noticed his partner on the ground shaking with his eye fixed on Tsunomon. He had a pretty good idea what had just transpired between the two Digimon based on the other boy's comment.

"Come on Kuramon. These two aren't worth the effort." Blake ordered coolly.

"Right." the young Digimon agreed bouncing into his Tamer's palm. Blake gave the other Tamers an aside glance as he walked towards the food court. Even with that scuffle he was still hungry. As they got near, Blake's Digivice started going off again showing two more readings.

"Again?" he groaned. Just how many other Tamers were at this convention? "This time follow my strategy." Blake hissed at Kuramon not wanting to get in another embarrassing situation like that.

"Yeah, yeah." Kuramon retorted. Blake walked casually through the food court trying not to draw attention to himself while still trying to find the sourse of these new Digimon. This time stealth had to work.

 

[Shiny Motley]

Kokomon eyed the Gummymon warily before slowly making her way down the purse’s shoulder strap. “Q-quit bouncing,” she murmured in an undertone as she landed next to the other Digimon, glancing around to see if any of the humans had caught sight of their movement. “P-please, so we, um, don’t attract too much... attention.” The Kokomon purposefully avoided eye contact, socially awkward since she’d never had the opportunity to become acquaintances with people other than Diane.

Meanwhile, Diane was busy talking to the boy, who had introduced himself as “T-Tyson”. “I’m Diane,” she replied with a smile, mayonnaise still dripping down to her chin, “and I guess I needa introduce- ah, Kokomon, where’d you go?” Diane looked around for her friend before spying the three-horned blob on the table, looking very deflated as it tried to bury itself into the table. Snorting with annoyance, the girl muttered, “Idiot,” before picking Kokomon up. “And this is the shy, midget partner of mine, Kokomon.” The little Digimon hiccupped a little as she was set back down on the table. “Aw, come on now, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“T-then why is, um, someone w-walking towards us, Diane?” Kokomon asked, casting a swift glance over her shoulder. When the girl heard this, she immediately looked back and saw a figure, much taller than she was, coming in her direction. Almost at the exact same second she felt the D-Arc in her purse vibrating again, and she didn’t need to take it out to figure out that the device would’ve been pointing at the newcomer.

Rolling her eyes in annoyance at her partner’s scaredy-cat, or rather, scaredy-bunny ways, Diane said, “Look out, we have company, Tyson.”

(OOC: I had mine all written out and ready to go on paper, but P_M just made me have to edit the ending. Ah wells, it made my post sound less awkward XD)

 

[Blazi]

"Diane..." Tyson murmured to himself, as Diane introduced Kokomon.

Gummymon giggled at Kokomon's nervousness, and said, "Hee hee! You sound like Tyson!" Gummymon stopped bouncing, however, and just stood there, looking like a regular doll.

"Look out, we have company, Tyson." Tyson looked up from Gummymon to see a man walking towards them. His digivice was going off, so he guessed the man had a digimon with him.

"So, uh, should we, um... Leave or something?" Tyson asked, already loosening up a little bit in the shyness department, "Or should we, eh, stay?"

OoC: Short I know, but hey, who cares.

 

[Jenova]

OOC: Jebus Christ, I've been so inactive on 'Charms. Blaaaaaaargh. My apologies to Chad. Also very short post is very short.
--

"Ah, is that so?" Soo Min replied, smiling weakly. Aiko's story hit a bit too close to home, as all of Soo Min's past memories reeled into her head. "I have lived in America for... a little more than a year. I also miss my friends in Seoul, although I don't think they feel the same- I, I mean, I don't think they're worried about me. I only managed to get by in school because of my unnie- er, my sister. She's very popular." Despite Soo Min's attempt to lighten up the mood, there was a hint of sadness in her voice.

Trying to save the conversation from dying any further, Lunamon spoke up. "It's hard adjusting to anything, really. Imagine my surprise when the first thing I saw in this world was a stranger sitting way too close to my face."

Soo Min squeaked in embarrassment. "I-I didn't know what you w-were, so I h-had to look closer!"

Lunamon laughed a cheery tone before calming herself down, sighing contently. "Nevertheless, I do hope things turn for the better, Miss Watanabe. However, there is something that strikes me as odd..."

The pink and purple Digimon's ears twitched as she gave sideways glances. Lowering her voice, Lunamon continued to speak. "Don't you find it odd that it seems that you and my partner are the only ones with actual Digimon? It's a rather strange coincidence."