Dust in the Wind[o]

[Sora Takenouchi]

There probably wasn't anything that the girl needed to be ashamed off. In truth, it was common for kids to simply use the computer for gaming, and why wouldn't they? In the end, it was basically free time. As long as you weren't doing anything that could be considered well....disruptive, you were perfectly fine. In any case, Sora had come to the lab to study anyway...and get away. In the back of her mind, she was going over the entire event.

The arrangement she had made, it wasn't what her mother had expected. It wasn't even good in her eyes. Instantly, the blame went to the actives that Sora had been doing during her spare time. Instead of trying to work harder, she had been playing games and throwing her life away on things that where not important. Sora could only listen to her for so long, finding herself standing up and yelling right back about how her life wasn't being thrown away, it was being spent actually living it. Her hands balled into fist as she fought back her own tears, the teen walked down the hall towards the entrance of their apartment, putting on her shoes as she looks over her shoulder.

The floral arrangement, the one that her mother had thought was terrible, had taken her three weeks to do. She had went around the city, picking out what flowers she believed would help bring out it's appeal. She took careful time making it, trying to make it worth something. Only to feel it being worthless. She did not even look her mother in the eye as she left, slamming the door behind her as she walked off towards the lab.

Studying....yea...that would be the perfect idea for her right now. Yet, she found herself reaching into her jeans, retrieving the small Digi-vice from her pocket. Turning it around in her hand, her expression was blank as she wasn't even sure if she should bother. But again, it was a game....and Tai seemed to enjoy a lot. It was even good enough to take him far away from reality. Maybe doing so would be just the thing she needed. Plus, she did want to get better right?

A serious expression came over her as she then sighed, almost as if she had been defeated in the game already.

"I'll play for an hour.....then maybe do something else....."

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It was an interesting experience moving between one thing to another. Though Biyomon had never really been able to tell the difference. In truth, whether she was in one place, or in a much larger area, her body felt almost absent from her thoughts. She knew she was somewhere different, but she couldn't say where. But now, a bright light was surging towards her, pulling her into focus as she traveled down a blue tunnel, lit up by flashing streams and green numbers. Her body floated above it all, though she knew for certain it wasn't flight.

It wasn't the first time this had happened. This was the same experience she had when she was much smaller, a Yokomon. She floated like this the moment she went her tamer. It was odd though, her human name was a bit strange. It had been difficult for her to say at first, causing her to try and shorten it. What was then Loveaddict423 was changed to simply L.A. She liked the short version better, and it had caused the girl to laugh along with her.

Biyomon loved L.A. and she really wished they could talk more. But it didn't seem like the human really wanted to. It had been a really long time since she had talked to her, and her messages often were simply reminders of her feeding and about her sleeping. But nothing else really. Maybe that would change today? As the Digimon continued to travel through the information highway, the image of the girl appeared beside her, her eyes looking down towards the screen as she then looked over at Biyomon.

"Oh! Hello L.A!! I am so happy to see you again! It has been a long time since we have seen each other...."

Sora looked towards the creature with a blank expression, smiling sheepishly as she closed her eyes.

"Yea...sorry about that...I don't really play games that much so...yea..."

Biyomon blinked for a moment, her head tilted to the side as she then closed her eyes and smiled.

"Oh! Thats ok.....I understand! I'm just glad that you are here now! So where is it that you wish to explore today L.A?"

Sora was still mentally kicking herself. Did she really just apologize to a videgame character? Maybe she was hanging out with Tai way too much. That or this game was pretty engaging. It was almost as if the Digimon was really alive. Her expressions, her responses, everything was so life like. But...it was still game. A very advanced game.

"Oh..Right! Um...Let's see..."

As Biyomon continued to float through the tunnel, Sora brought up a screen that told her of status and possible missions or quests. Looking down the list, Biyomon did the same as she moved herself beside the floating image.

"I say we check out the BadLands server, we need to get some more experience points. Plus it seems that their a mission there that might be up our alley..."

Nodding in agreement, the pink bird soon entered a vortex, appearing in a dry area. The land around her was rocky, and covered over by blowing dust and a harsh sun.Already, Biyomon felt herself sweating as she watched Sora's username appeared before seeing her face once more on a flat screen beside her.

"Wow...This place doesn't look very cheery...."

Biyomon looked around as she blinked while seeing a tumble weed move past her feet, then looking over her shoulder towards Sora with concern.

"Its ok....Theres supposed to be an old town not too far from here...Just follow this path Im gonna set up...."

Within moments, a line of green dots came over the surface of the cracked earth, causing Biyomon to sigh in relief as she began to move towards it.

"Thank you L.A., I was worried that I would end up joining a lot of the bones here..."

"Nah....I figured out how to use the navigation system for the game...with some help from the local champ..."

Biyomon giggled as she kept walking, Sora's image moving right beside her as they continued west towards the Town of New Gluppton.

[Kazu Shioda]

Being on the computer was the last thing that he was supposed to be doing at the moment, but what his teachers didn’t know wouldn’t get him sent to detention for another week. Normally, he would have checked on the game this morning before going to school, but his mother had neglected to get him up as early as she usually did. Okay, she might have mentioned something about him needing to set his alarm clock before going to bed, but that was practically impossible given the fact that he couldn’t find it under all of his important stuff like his comics. Regardless of who was to blame, Kazu was on the computer at school and was waiting for the game to load.

Of course, Kazu wasn’t really sure how long he was going to be able to stay on the computer before someone ratted him out, so he was going to make sure that it every second was used wisely. Glancing around the computer room, he made sure no one had noticed him hooking his Digivice to the computer so that he could play the game, and while no one was paying attention to him there was a part of his brain that wished some of his friends had been there to act as lookouts. Then again, they probably would have wanted to play the game as well, which would have made them even more likely to get caught by a member of the faculty.

”Alright, I’ll just stay on long enough to kill the time that I am going to be stuck here,” muttered Kazu into the microphone that he had brought with him. Alas, he would probably be sitting there for another half hour, and by the time it got close to the end he would be too entrenched into the game to even think about stopping. The day that he got his game was also the day that he was cursed to play it until one of them was destroyed, and at this rate it was going to be him that became worn down. Of course, Kazu thought it would be worth it if he ended up being number one, which he didn’t think would be a difficult task to achieve.

**********************

This place seemed rather dull to him, but at least he had more room to move around in. Of course, he half expected to be dropped into a more civilized environment. He was a machine Digimon after all, so it would have made sense to put him somewhere that was comfortable. Unless, this was a quest of some kind where he could assist someone, which meant that he needed to toughen himself up a little bit and quit the bellyaching that was going through his mind. Scanning the area, the Hagurumon didn’t see anyone that looked as though they needed any help, but that probably meant he was supposed to look for them.

”Alright, BoomKing. Where is the damsel in distress? Where is the fiend that I must destroy? Where is the television?”

The Hagurumon seemed to be a little confused as to what was going on, but maybe he could use this to his advantage. Of course, he hadn’t really thought about what he was going to make his monster do today, so maybe he should just ask the Hagurumon where he wanted to go. Then he remembered that the Hagurumon was just a character in a game, which meant that there was no way to pawn the decision off on him. After a minute, Kazu came up with a plan after looking through the list.

”The damsel is in the Badlands server, so let’s head there.”

[/b]

The Hagurumon did his version of a nod and then entered the correct vortex, and then a flash of light appeared and vanished to show that the floating mass of gears was standing in a desolate area within the Digital World. Now, Kazu was going to have to choose which direction they should go in, so he consulted the map that was on the screen. From what he could tell, there was a town that was pretty close to where Hagurumon had entered the area, but he wasn’t sure that they were going to find a decent fight in it. Maybe if they wandered around the area for a little while, then a wild Digimon would just attack them, but there was no guarantee on that.

Then he remembered the mission aspect of the game, and Kazu figured that maybe it would be easier to see if someone had a quest that would lead them to a strong Digimon that they could do battle with.

”Alright, buddy. Turn to your right and start floating in that direction, and after a few minutes you should see a town. I am pretty sure that we can get some directions to the damsel you are supposed to save there.”[/color]

The Hagurumon complied quickly with the command, and he swiftly moved toward the town. It wasn’t long after that the sight of a pink bird came into view, and the Hagurumon started to think that maybe this bird was a damsel in distress that he was supposed to save.

”Hello there! You wouldn’t happen to be a princess in need of rescuing?”
[/blockquote]

[Sora Takenouchi]

((sorry for the late response stick))

Sora leaned back in the chair within the lab, her finger twirling the shoe lace like strap of her hat as she watched the pink bird move in the indicated direction. As she did, she began to question some of the things she'd noticed so far. One would probably be the first reaction she received from the digital creation upon log in. It seemed genuinely happy to see her, which was likely programming, but still. Even when she had been into those small electronic pets, they never reacted like this...in fact...they were dead.

As the camera continued to follow behind the digimon, Sora continued to run through the list of possibilities in her head. Was is possible...that life could exist in virtual reality? That something that was made up, could really have a life of their own? It seemed silly, but....the way the bird looked at her, almost as if she were everything to her, it was so....lifelike. It was then that Biyomon looked over her shoulder, smiling as she watched Sora blink in surprise before blushing slightly and smiling as well.

Though as the bird's attention was shifted, she found herself returning to see the image of another Digimon. Halting in her tracks, the pink bird blinked while listening to him ask if she were a princess to be rescued? This caused the female digimon to giggle into her wing, shaking her head while smiling.

"Actually no...I'm not a princess. But I think we were going to search for one within town...were we not L.A?"

Her gaze looking towards her human companion, Sora nodded as she tilted her head slightly.

"Um yea....actually she's supposed to be captured by Starmon...Weird name...."

By now, Sora was already looking up the other monster, learning that he was a Hagurumon belonging to a Boomking.

"Boomking? huh?"

"Oh oh!! L.A! We should ask if they would like to come with us!"

Sora held her mouth open slightly, not really sure about traveling with some random stranger online. It seemed almost as bad as doing so in real life.

"I don't know...Besides they might be trying to do something else....We should probably leave them to it..."

[Kazu Shioda]

Kazu could see that the Hagurumon seemed to be a little sad at the fact that the pink bird wasn't a damsel, but he didn't really understand why. It wasn't like these game characters were supposed to show emotion, or was that an update that he had missed? Either way, the Biyomon had mentioned that they were going to be looking for one in the town, so he naturally thought that Hagurumon should tag along. After all, the bird and her controller looked as though they would probably need help managing this task, and who better to help them than Kazu and Hagurumon? The correct answer was no one. Of course, he did find it strange that the two of them had the same idea about which mission they should do today, so maybe it was fate giving him a chance to make a new buddy of sorts.

"Alright, Hagurumon. If you really want to go and save a damsel, then you better hurry up and offer your services, or else they are going to leave without you."

The floating mass of gears had actually been thinking of turning around and asking the next Digimon that he could find if it was a damsel in distress, but Kazu's voice made compelled him to do what the human had suggested. After all, it wasn't like ignoring Kazu would do him any good even if the Hagurumon preferred to find his own missions instead of jumping in on other people's, but there seemed to be a sense of urgency in Kazu's voice.

"If you don't mind, then it would an extreme honor to accompany you on your quest to free the damsel from the clutches of this sinister Starmon."

Kazu gave a non-visible nod to show that he approved of such an idea, which was obviously pointless. Now the question was how they were going to go about this. He had never performed a co-opt mission with anyone, so he didn't know if there was some special thing that they were supposed to do to make it official. Well, Hagurumon wasn't going to wait for his partner to figure it out.

"So should we get going?"

[Sora Takenouchi]

"Yay! The honor would be all ours! Wouldn't it L.A?!"

"Um...yea...sure...."

Sora looked towards the gear shaped creature, shrugging her shoulders as she then noticed a look from another person on a computer nearby. Location..location..location. If there was possibly the worst location to be doing this, it was in a college computer lab. Thankfully, the good news was that she wasn't the only one from what she could tell from a brief look. Upon looking towards one of the students staring towards her, she noticed a much larger man on a computer not too far, his head lowered and eyes focused on a screen similar to the one on her own.

Well....when in college...

Upon hearing Hagurumon, Sora face nodded upon from the image panel floating behind Biyomon, as the two digimon began walking together towards the lit up direction from before. All the while, the pink bird giggle as she started to ask the metal digimon many questions.

"So how long have you and your tamer known each other!? Does he talk to you often? How far have you traveled!?"

Sora could only watch and giggle to herself as her partner continued to grill the other monster for information on his own relationship with his human player. A game with this kind of creature had to be enough for some kind of reward...or even a presentation. Why wasn't something like this being used in modern technology?

[Kazu Shioda]

It seemed to be agreed that they were going to be working together, which was to Hagurumon’s delight as beating up other Digimon was even more fun with a pal to help out. In his head, they could exchange quips about their battle moves, and if he was lucky then they might even share war stories. Of course, they needed to find a Digimon to battle so that they could bond properly, which probably came after all these questions that the Biyomon was asking.

”We have known each other for a few months now, and he is constantly giving me praise for all my killer moves as he calls it. So far, we have been sticking with the safe zones where we could practice some strategies before we went after an actual challenge.”

Naturally, Kazu figured that this type of information should be a two way street, so he decided to make it known. After all, he was the brains of this operation, while Hagurumon was the muscle as well as the boom factor.

”So how about the two of you? What were your answers to those particular questions be?”

[/b]

Not wanting to seem like a total rusted gear, Hagurumon thought he should also come up with a question, but there was only one thing that the thought worth asking.

”Oh, and have you ever got into a fight where you thought that you were going to lose?”
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