EPISODE 33 - JUMP INTO THE FOG
Falling was a feeling Quinn knew well.
She’d been through it many times before. Every time she came in and out of the Digital World, there was that sensation in her stomach as she fell, the feeling of vertigo and excitement and adrenaline rushing through her veins. Every time she came in and out of the Digital World, she landed completely unharmed on the ground, not even with the breath knocked out of her, feeling no worse for the wear. She’d grown accustomed to it after five years. It was like second nature for her.
It didn’t really stop the fear, though, but she’d long ago given up on expecting it to.
This time, she landed in the middle of a street, surrounded by the rest of the group. She heard a car screech to a halt and she was instantly on her feet, ushering everyone up and out of the way.
She hadn’t had the chance to assess where they were falling toward, or if everyone had made it through. She’d gone through the rift last, making sure that nobody would stay behind, and then she and Alpha had stepped through - and the next thing she knew she was falling. It had lasted barely a few seconds, much shorter than it usually did, which gave her pause for thought, but there wasn’t time to think about that right now.
“Is everyone alright?” she called out. She couldn’t afford to worry about the fact there were likely onlookers, so focused on getting the rest of the group in order and making sure everyone was there and not injured. She looked around for the Digimon, trying to make them out through the mess of human bodies - had they come through at all? Sure, Alpha had come to the real world a few times, but that was always with Quinn, through the connection feature on her digivice, not through a rift Plutomon opened - maybe his portals worked differently -
As the rest of the humans slowly got to their feet, Quinn saw flashes of pink and white - Pop and Castor and Bunny, maybe?
But then the group spread out, and the colors most definitely did not belong to those Digimon.
They had… devolved to their in-training levels. She recognized Alpha’s orange fur and black horn, and she ducked down to scoop him into her arms as, around her, the rest of the group searched for their own partners in the commotion.
“We have to go,” she hissed, looking around at the others. She could hear people - human people - mumbling to themselves as they no doubt circled around the group to figure out what the fuck was going on. “Grab your partner or someone else’s partner or just any Digimon and let’s go.”
The humans seemed to finally recognize the urgency in her voice, and scrambled to pick up the Digimon. They had no way of knowing which one they were grabbing, if the little creature they held in their hands was their partner, but it didn’t matter. Around them, bystanders were starting to call out, worry and confusion evident in their voices and words.
“Are you alright?” one woman asked, reaching a hand out toward them but not coming any closer. “Where did you fall from?” She eyed the Digimon warily, but didn’t seem too suspicious. She wouldn’t have any reason to be - she couldn’t possibly know that they could transform into far larger, far more dangerous monsters, or that they were even monsters at all.
Another man, on the sidewalk across from her, furrowed his brow. “What in God’s name was that?” he said, gaze sweeping over the group as they slowly got their bearings and to their feet. “You just fell out of the sky. Is this some sort of social media stunt? Am I being filmed?” He whipped his head around, looking for a cameraman that did not exist.
“Get out of the road!” shouted a third voice, and Quinn turned to see the driver of the car that had thankfully stopped before hitting them leaning out of his window and shaking a fist at them. “You’re gonna get your asses run over! This isn’t a playground!”
“Are all humans this rude?” one of the Digimon - a little purple puffball that Quinn could only assume was Dare - mumbled, keeping her voice low so as not to alert any of their audience. Even so, a few of the bystanders zeroed in on her and Ryan when the latter tried to shush her.
“We need to go,” Quinn repeated, making sure that everyone could hear her. When nine pairs of human eyes turned to her, she nodded and turned around, walking as quickly as she could without drawing suspicion. Blessedly, the group followed her, keeping pace and sticking close to her.
The first woman who had called out to them turned to face them as they passed, once again reaching out a hand ineffectually. “Wait - are you sure you’re okay? It looked like you fell pretty hard!”
“We’re fine,” Quinn said, refusing to meet her eye. “It was…” She trailed off, failing to come up with an excuse, but fortunately someone had her back.
“We’re actors,” came Damien’s voice, loud and clear. “We were rehearsing one of our scenes. We had to do it in public because our auditorium burned down.”
The woman blinked, and for a moment Quinn was certain she was going to see right through them - but then her expression shifted into one of sympathy. “Oh, the one over on Maple Street? I heard about that. Such a tragedy. It’s good nobody was hurt, at least.”
“Yes,” Damien said with a clipped nod. “Sorry, but we need to get going now. Our next stunt is on… Fourth Street.” The Digimon in his arms - probably Bumble, if his yellow body and big bug eyes were any indication - wiggled a slight bit, but quickly stilled when Damien placed a hand on his head.
“Of course,” the woman said, then frowned and turned to point in the opposite direction they were heading. “But… Fourth is over that way…”
“We know that!” Quinn cut in, smiling in what she hoped was a convincing way. “We have to make a quick stop by my apartment first to pick up some props. You know, wigs and fake guns and… stuff like that.”
“Oh!” The woman nodded. “Of course. Well, good luck with your rehearsals!”
“Thanks,” Quinn said, not even waiting for her response before she started walking again, though she made sure that everyone was following her before she picked up the pace.
She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t know where they were. She… thought it felt a little bit familiar, but all downtowns sort of look the same, right? Most cities have a Maple Street and a Fourth Street, right?
She realized, then, just how lucky they were that they had ended up in an English-speaking city, and especially one that seemed to be in America. Not that being in America was a good thing, but if they had ended up in, say, Dubai, Quinn would have no idea what the fuck to do.
Maybe they were in Canada. That would be a good middle ground.
Although it was a little too warm to be Canada in April…
They finally slowed when they turned down a side street with a parking lot on the other side. Quinn came to a stop in between two buildings, ushering the rest of the group in after her. Hanging out in an alleyway might be a little suspicious if someone were to come across them, but they were mostly out of the way of any passerby, and that was good enough.
“First of all,” she said, speaking quietly, “roll call. Did everyone make it through in one piece? Do you each have your partners?”
“Well, I’m Castor, so no,” said the pink Digimon in Azure’s arms. He blinked up at them, his long pink… ears…? flicking slightly. His voice was higher-pitched than in his rookie stage, and though Quinn knew that he would sound different, she hadn’t been expecting that.
“Sorry,” Azure said, patting his head gently. “I just grabbed the closest little guy to me. Where’s Ko?”
“Here,” said a gelatinous pink blob, held in Miguel’s arms, as his head was occupied by a brown Digimon with large flippers and a tuft of bright pink fur on its head. The lighter pink Digimon wiggled up to place two club-like paws on Miguel’s arm, looking over at Azure. “Truly such a surprise that you couldn’t recognize me. I look so much like my rookie stage, don’t I?”
“I never thought I’d be in this form again,” mewed a little cat-like Digimon with a long tail and a large frill circling its head. Ezra squeezed it tighter and smiled down at it, and it stuck its tongue out at him - so, clearly Ember. “Don’t laugh at me! I’m sensitive!”
“But you’re so cute like this!”
“Don’t even -!”
A round of introductions on the Digimon’s parts went around. Quinn had been right in assuming the purple and yellow Digimon were Dare and Bumble respectively, and the brown Digimon on Miguel’s head was indeed Flip. Ren was a tiny fox with stubby legs and a tail nearly as long as her body; Bunny was a little white rabbit-thing built similarly to Ren, but with long ear-tendrils much like Castor and two rows of wickedly sharp teeth; Pop was a small pink bird head, a shade darker than Ko, with wings sprouting from the sides of her rotund body and a single feather on top of her head. Quinn took attendance; all of the humans had made it through without so much as a hair out of place.
“Quinn here,” she finished, then lifted the Digimon in her arms a bit higher. “This is Alpha. Tsunomon form. Isn’t he cute?”
“Don’t you dare,” he grumbled, but the pitch of his voice made it hard to take him seriously, and she barely resisted a smile.
“Why did we devolve?” Ember piped up, peeking out over the top of Ezra’s forearm. “Does that usually happen?”
“No,” Pop answered before Quinn could, and she looked to the little bird-head. “Bumble and I have come to the human world before and we’ve never devolved. I don’t know what it could be, but it’s not normal.”
“Same here,” Quinn said with a nod. “I can only assume it’s something to do with the fact we went through a rift that Plutomon opened. That’s also probably why we fell for such a short time, too.”
“I thought I was just going crazy,” Alex said, but the look on his face proved he didn’t really think so. “I swore when we first entered the Digital World -” he gestured to what Quinn guessed was the original group “- it lasted way longer. I mean, I had enough time to ask Azure how long we’d been falling for, and they said a minute?”
“I said almost a minute,” they corrected, but then nodded anyway. “It felt like ten seconds this time. Maybe longer, maybe shorter, but it definitely wasn’t as long as when we entered.”
“Another fuckin’ mystery,” Damien said quietly, tipping his head back to lean against the wall of one of the buildings. He looked over at Quinn, arching one eyebrow. “So what’s next, fearless leader?”
For a split second, Quinn froze, unable to move or even think - and then she recollected herself, squaring her shoulders and facing the group as a whole. “Right. First we need to find out where we are, and then we can figure out the plan from there.” She shifted Alpha over to rest on one of her arms and dug into her pocket with her free hand, pulling out her digivice. She pressed the power button and watched with a barely-suppressed cringe as it very slowly and very painfully reverted - her phone was not used to being a phone. When it finished, she flicked it on and pulled up a map.
The page loaded, and she blinked, then zoomed in.
…Hmm.
She pulled down the top of the screen, refreshing the page. That had to be a mistake, right? Sure, California would be understandable, but not -
“What’s wrong?” Anna asked. “Where are we?”
It took Quinn a second to register the question. She blinked, refreshed the page again, and then bit her lip as it showed the same result for a third time. Two’s a coincidence, but three…
“We’re in California,” she said, slowly. Her mouth felt dry. “Santa Belina.”
“Oh!” Harmony gasped, perking up. “I’ve been here before! We’re only three hours south of Lilydale! That’s where we live,” she added, looking at Moxie and Damien and then Quinn.
“Well, that’s not too bad,” Ryan said, looking as if he wanted to cross his arms but then realized he couldn’t while holding Dare. He settled for bending one of his legs to rest his foot against the brick building behind him. “At least we’re not in Dubai or something.”
“Are you okay?”
Quinn blinked and looked up to see Anna staring at her, something like concern etched on her face. She didn’t say anything else, simply watched her for her reaction as, slowly, the rest of the group did as well.
Quinn looked down at her phone again, still showing the same results.
“This is where I grew up,” she said quietly.
That was why it had felt so strangely familiar.
She hadn’t been here in ages. She and her family had moved up to Oregon about, what… ten years ago? She’d been nine at the time. Long before she’d met Alpha, or Reagan, or Lily, or gotten involved with the Digital World, or came across Plutomon… it felt like a lifetime ago.
Why had Plutomon’s portal opened up here? Why here, of all places? Did he even know where it would open to? Was it random, or could he control it, like the gateways Quinn had opened so many times with her digivice? If he could control it, why here? Why had he wanted to come here?
And that was something else that gave her pause - none of the people they’d seen had seemed frightened or fearful or like there was a giant death monster in the real world that they had seen and had to run away from. Where was Plutomon? Was he hiding? Biding his time?
She couldn’t focus on that right now. They had to go - where, Quinn wasn’t sure, but they had to find somewhere.
“We need to keep moving,” she said, pointedly ignoring the looks that some of the group were giving her. “We can’t stay here.”
“Where do we go?” Azure asked, and Ko - safely returned to the embrace of his partner - blinked big black eyes over at Quinn.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, looking down at Alpha in her arms. “But we need to find somewhere. Somewhere safe. There’s got to be a motel somewhere we can stay at.”
“Hang on,” Miguel cut in, brow knit in worry. “Can we call our parents first? To let them know we’re alright? I know with the time dilation it probably hasn’t been super long, but surely they’ll find out soon, right? Shouldn’t we let them know we’re safe?”
“That’s probably not a good idea,” Ryan said, and at the same time, Moxie and Damien shared a very intense look. They were very visibly uncomfortable, and even Pop and Bumble looked concerned.
Quinn frowned, but turned to Miguel, ignoring the others. “No,” she said after a second of hesitation. “If they find out you somehow traveled three hours south in the span of fifteen minutes, they’re going to be concerned. They’ll want to come pick you up and take you home, and that can’t happen. Not yet.” She paused, looking down at Alpha again, and then heaved a sigh. “If they find out about the Digimon, they’ll want you to stay as far away from them as possible. No matter how hard you try to convince them that they’re safe.”
“How do you know that for certain?” Alex asked. Quinn simply looked at him, not offering an answer, and he retreated a half-step.
“Keep your digivices as digivices,” she said, looking at the rest of the group. “No switching back to your phones, even for a second. If your parents call you or track your location, they might be able to find you, and we can’t let that happen.”
Damien snorted. “You’re treating us like we’ve just escaped from prison.”
Once more, Quinn simply looked at him, then turned to head out of the alley. “The Digimon should stay quiet,” she said over her shoulder, checking to make sure everyone was following her. “Just to avoid raising any suspicions. I know talking toys are becoming more common these days, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“The nerve to pretend we’re toys,” Dare huffed, and Ryan clasped a hand over her mouth, all too belatedly, but thankfully before they were out of the alley entirely.
The group wound their way through the city, Quinn in the lead with her eyes on the map on her phone. Alex had asked her why she was allowed to have hers out - wouldn’t her parents be worried about her? - and she’d given him a vague enough answer to satisfy him.
He didn’t need to know the truth. None of them did.
They got a few strange looks as they walked. It wasn’t every day that a group of nine teenagers and one child were seen wandering throughout a city they were obviously unfamiliar with, carrying strange “stuffed animals” in their arms and pointedly avoiding making eye contact with anyone else. Nobody confronted them, but Quinn could feel eyes on the back of her neck the entire time. It wasn’t a new feeling for her, but it was just as uncomfortable as it had always been.
As they went, Quinn began to recognize places in the city. A restaurant she and her family had frequented, a road they’d drive down when heading to school, a building with old graffiti she remembered and new graffiti she didn’t. It was almost haunting to be back in a place she hadn’t thought of in nine years, with so many memories and so much importance, for a reason such as this. She couldn’t help but wonder, again, why they’d ended up here, specifically.
She also wondered if she’d made the wrong decision in coming here. It had seemed so obvious at the time that this was where they needed to go. Plutomon had gone through - they had to follow him. They couldn’t let him wreak havoc in the real world while they were stuck in the Digital World.
But if he could open portals at will, what if it was a trap? What if he had lured them through and then gone back to the Digital World, knowing they wouldn’t be able to find a way back?
(But… they’d seen in the portal that the time dilation had been undone after he had stepped through… so maybe they could open a gateway through their digivices now…?)
He’d said that he’d been stalling, wasting their time, and then he’d opened the portal. It had seemed like he really had needed to wait a little bit longer to open it, but what if that was just part of the facade? What if he really was back in the Digital World?
And what if he wasn’t? What if he was here in the real world? That was what she’d been hoping for, but now that she was here, in her childhood hometown, she didn’t know if that was a good thing to hope for.
She shook her head and looked back down at the map on her phone. Behind her, she could hear some of the group talking quietly amongst themselves, but she couldn’t make any words out. She hoped they were okay with this - whatever “this” encompassed.
Alpha, on the other hand, had barely said a word since they’d arrived here. Quinn had tried talking to him a little bit ago, but he’d just shook his head (or rather, his entire body) and remained silent. She’d taken it as him being fine and just not having anything to say, but she couldn’t help but worry.
…None of this was supposed to happen. She and Alpha were supposed to deal with Plutomon on their own. The others weren’t supposed to be here.
She wasn’t supposed to be leading them.
For not the first time that day, Quinn wondered if she’d done the right thing.
Eventually, the group reached the motel, on the far side of the town. It was a small, somewhat rural area, with more trees lining the streets than buildings and even fewer cars on the road than that. There were no vehicles in the parking lot of the motel, which was exactly what Quinn had been hoping for. They needed somewhere secluded and unoccupied where the Digimon could freely talk and that they could use as a base of operations, of sorts.
The woman at the front desk managed to look only a little suspicious as the ten humans entered the office to check in, but didn’t ask too many questions while Quinn booked two double-bed rooms for the week (after handing Alpha over to Ryan so she could pull her wallet out). It felt almost too normal to be paying for a motel room when they were in the middle of hunting down a potentially world-destroying monster that the world itself wasn’t even aware of yet - but even that small amount of normalcy was enough to help Quinn breathe a little easier as the group headed to their rooms to finally take a break.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Quinn said as, slowly, hesitantly, the other four in the room set their bags and partners down. She couldn’t deny it had been much too long since she had slept in a bed, but… the others needed it more. She could deal with it.
“Are you sure?” Harmony asked, looking over with her brow knit in worry. Ren was sitting next to her backpack at the end of the bed, disinterested as ever. “We could take turns, like one night you sleep on the floor but the next I could, and then…”
“I’ll be fine,” Quinn said, shaking her head. “Better than sleeping on stone and dirt, huh?” She looked down at Alpha, still in her arms. He blinked up at her, and nodded ever so subtly, but stayed quiet. Quinn frowned faintly, but quickly wiped it off her face.
When they regrouped outside, near the pool, they went over what they had in their bags: jars of water in Azure’s and Alex’s, medical supplies in Harmony’s and Ryan’s, extra food in some of the others. They each had one small jar of water, some snacks, a change of clothes (except for Anna, Moxie, and Damien), and their digivices in their own backpacks, as well as some small mementos (plucked flowers, a clay figurine of a Renamon, a bouncy ball). Quinn took mental notes of who had what, just in case. Their food and water was running low; they hadn’t had time to get more supplies in File City before they’d found Plutomon, and it had been weeks since they’d been in a settlement large enough for them to completely restock. Their clothes - both the ones they wore and the ones in their bags - were torn and ripped, dirtied and bloodied, which Quinn realized was probably what had been getting them the strange looks they’d received.
“We have officially been in this world longer than the Digital World,” Azure said once they’d all put their things away. The group was seated on the lawn chairs circling the pool, practically strewn across them, taking the chance to sit back and relax for the first time in hours. When several of them turned to Azure, confused, they grinned. “Time dilation. We entered the Digital World at around 12:50 PM. Quinn’s phone said 2:10 PM when she first checked the map to see where we were, about five minutes after we arrived here - so, 2:05. The clock in the motel office said 3:38 PM. It’s been about fifteen minutes since then. That’s an hour and forty-three compared to an hour and fifteen.”
“I hate that,” Ryan said, leaning back in his chair.
“We could probably figure out the time dilation with that,” Moxie said, absentmindedly stroking Pop’s head. “Since you’ve been keeping track of the days in the Digital World, you’d know exactly how many you were there, so if we compare the time here to the time there…”
“Already on it,” Azure said, and then they paused. “Ah. I’d need a calculator.” They looked toward Quinn, tilting their head. “Could I borrow your phone?”
Quinn hesitated for a second, then pulled her phone out, punched in her passcode, and handed it over. “Don’t go looking through my texts.”
Azure gave her a thumbs-up before beginning to type, hunched over with Ko clinging to their back. Their brow furrowed in concentration as they muttered to themself, and their fingers occasionally curled in while they thought. Eventually they sat up, handing Quinn’s phone back, and then turned to face the entire group.
“One day in the Digital World is about one minute here,” they said, wiggling their fingers to emphasize the “about”. “That’s not too bad. Could be a lot worse.”
“Isn’t that kinda creepy?” Anna asked, hugging Bunny close to her chest. “Every day we were there was only a minute here. Everything that happened… we were there for weeks and it was just an hour here.”
“And now that we’re here, and the time dilation has been undone,” Alex said, “everything is happening in real time. It’s been three hours since we disappeared from school.” He paused, looking up at the sky, and then sighed. “Our parents definitely know by now.”
The group fell silent as reality washed over them, turning the mood somber. Quinn watched them, watched as they finally realized just where they were and why they were here and that they couldn’t go back home yet. She knew that feeling well. They were here, in their own world, but they couldn’t go home. Not until they found Plutomon.
And who knew how long that would take?
But they couldn’t let it get them down. They couldn’t lose hope. They couldn’t afford that.
So Quinn sat up straight, drawing all eyes to her, and she smiled the best smile she could manage.
She had the beginning of an idea.
An hour later, and the group was at the nearby mall, shopping for new clothes that weren’t torn to pieces and weren’t stained with the blood of injuries given by monsters from another world.
They couldn’t keep walking around the town looking like they’d just crawled out of hell. They had, in a sense, but it was still really suspicious to be wandering around in dirty, ripped, bloodied clothes, and even the spare clothes the others had had in their bags weren’t any better than their current outfits. This was entirely because of that. Completely one hundred percent. Not at all because Quinn knew they needed something to cheer them up and take their minds off of their current situation. Definitely not.
And… it seemed like it was working, so that was something, at least. They were smiling and laughing and chatting away with each other as they browsed the racks and shelves of clothing, holding up shirts and pants to see if they would fit and look good.
Quinn had been to this mall before, back when she’d lived in this city with her parents. She would come here all the time with them, whenever she had some money from her birthday or Christmas and wanted to spend it. “The Shops at Stoneridge”, read the sign out front, a sign that hadn’t been there the last time she had been here. This clothing store in particular was one she had never been in, but had always passed by on her way to the ice cream place.
She leaned back against a display table, making sure it would support her weight, and smiled as Harmony held up a pair of jorts and waved them at Ryan. He rolled his eyes and shoved her away, and she broke into a fit of giggles, Ren almost toppling off her shoulder with the sudden movement.
They were doing well. Even if it didn’t entirely take away the fear and uncertainty of what would come next, it was a start.
Quinn herself had already picked her own change of clothes - a cropped leather jacket, a plain white tank top, a navy T-shirt with some sort of heart design on the front, some black denim shorts. She’d also snagged some calf-high socks to keep her boots from chafing against her legs, something that had been bothering her the entire time she’d been wearing them (which was about four months now - or maybe just four hours. Time dilation and all).
The clothes the others had chosen were cute too. Harmony had found a blue tee with “MEOW” written on it in a thin font, with simplistic cat faces in place of the M and W. Ezra had an orange zip-up hoodie with an outline of a sun and, fittingly, the words “THE SUN” written in the middle; meanwhile, Anna had chosen a flowy cream shirt with a little moon. Damien’s denim jacket had embroidered flowers along the sleeves, and he’d picked out a grayscale striped button-up, a stark contrast to his sister’s simpler choices of a black vest and pink sweater.
They stopped by a convenience store on the way back to the motel, stocking up on water and snacks and some first-aid supplies. Damien tried to get Quinn to buy a lottery ticket, but she declined, much to his chagrin. Some of the group couldn’t help but dig into the chips and jerky as soon as they left, surreptitiously sneaking small portions to their partners, held in their arms or perched on their shoulders or heads. Even Alpha couldn’t resist a couple cheese crackers when Quinn offered them to him.
“Well?” Ezra asked, looking around at the group as they walked, his hands propped behind his head (on top of which Ember was curled up). “What do you guys think of our world?”
He was clearly talking to the Digimon, but even so, it took a few moments for any of them to speak up. Eventually Castor shuffled in Alex’s arms, peering up at his partner and then over at Quinn for a split second. “…When are we going to evolve?”
“Ah,” she said, feeling a bit put on the spot. “…I don’t know.”
“Cool.”
They split apart once they arrived back at the motel, Harmony and Ryan taking advantage of their human-oriented first aid supplies and setting to work on patching up wounds that they hadn’t been able to treat properly beforehand. Some of the group retreated to their rooms, needing a quick nap or just wanting to be inside, while others spread out around the pool, basking in the afternoon sun and talking to their partners.
Quinn sat down with Alpha on one of the lawn chairs and pulled her phone out, as far away from the others as she could. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be with them; there was just someone she had to talk to first.
She hesitated, looking from her phone to Alpha in her lap to the rest of the humans in the poolyard and then back to her phone. She didn’t know why she was nervous. She had to do this, both out of obligation and also because…
Quinn shook her head and tapped the call button, raising her phone to her ear, and not even a single ring later, the other side picked up.
“Hi.”
“Hello love,” Reagan said, her smile almost audible, and Quinn practically melted upon hearing her voice. “You’re back already? You were only gone for a couple hours. I thought you said it would take weeks.”
Quinn bit her lip. “There was an… unforeseen complication. Basically time isn’t real and I’ve actually been gone for about four months.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Reagan sighed. “But you’re back now? What happened? Did you defeat him?”
“God, no. We barely made a dent in him each time we met him.” Quinn paused, rubbing her arm as she scrambled for words. “…There’s other humans. With partners.”
Reagan didn’t answer immediately. Quinn could only imagine the confusion on her face, and she smiled faintly. “…What?”
“I know, I know,” Quinn mumbled. “I have no idea how. Or why. But he started talking about other humans being here, the first time he saw us again. He blamed it on me. Called me a coward for dragging more kids into my mess. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I knew he was telling the truth.” He always did. “And today, when Alpha and I were chasing him, we found him, and he was fighting them.”
“Are they okay?”
“They’re fine. A little worse for wear, but alive. They’ve been through hell trying to find me. Trying to figure out what’s going on. But they don’t know anything I don’t.” She paused, and then sighed, massaging her temples. “We still don’t know what’s going on.”
Reagan hummed, the same way she always did when she was comforting Quinn. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. We’ll find out eventually.”
The other end of the line was silent for a few moments, and then Reagan coughed quietly. “…Um. Can I ask where you are?”
Ah, right. She hadn’t said anything about that yet. “Uh. California. Specifically Santa Belina.”
“What the hell?” Reagan said, sounding more confused than upset. “Why did you go there?”
“We didn’t choose to,” Quinn said. “Plutomon confronted us in File City about an hour after we ran away from him, and he just… opened a gate.” She motioned with her hands even though she knew Reagan couldn’t see it. “We followed him through and ended up here.”
“He can just… do that,” Reagan said slowly. “Just open a gate to the real world.”
“I guess so.” Quinn shifted where she sat, running her unoccupied hand through her hair, and chewed on the inside of her mouth. “The more I see him do, the more scared I am of him.”
“Aw, Quinn.” There was a rustling sound from the other end, and then Reagan spoke again. “You’ll figure it out. I wish I could be there with you.”
“Me too,” Quinn said. Her mouth felt dry. “You know -” She cut herself off, raising a hand to her mouth and staring upwards for a few seconds. “He called me - us - the Catalyst. I had no idea what he meant by it. He didn’t explain. He never does. But he kept calling us that, and I guess after a while it stuck. And the others knew us by that name as well.”
Reagan was silent for a while, not a sound coming from her end of the line. Quinn sighed, reaching down to pat Alpha. He blinked up at her, but said nothing.
“I don’t know,” Quinn said when the silence became too much to bear. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. What matters is that I found them, and we’re all together now, and… and Plutomon might be somewhere here in the real world and we have no idea what he wants and he’s so much stronger than even all of us combined and god fucking damnit.”
She inhaled sharply, her breath rattling in her chest as she leant forward, elbows on her knees and head in her hands. Her fingers curled around her phone, as if the tighter she held it the easier it would be for Reagan to just appear out of midair in front of her and help her with everything.
She couldn’t do this alone. How did she ever think she could do this all on her own?
“Hey, hey,” Reagan was saying, her voice an ever-soothing presence cutting through Quinn’s thoughts. “It’s alright. You’re okay. Take a few deep breaths.”
She did so, breathing in and out and slowly stretching back up to a proper sitting position. Alpha glanced up at her, his gaze full of concern, but he remained silent.
“Sorry,” Quinn mumbled once she was ready to speak again.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Reagan said. Quinn wished she could believe her. “This is a really hard thing you’re doing. Oh, Quinn… I wish I could help.”
Quinn stifled a sigh. “It’s… it’s not that I want Plutomon to show up, because that would be just about the worst thing imaginable, but… all this waiting and wondering what’s going to happen and why we’re here and what we’re even waiting for…” She took a long, shaky breath in, shaking her head out. “I just wish that… everything could be easier, now that I’ve found them. Like they said it would be.”
“Well, you have help now,” Reagan said, missing Quinn’s point entirely, but she didn’t say so. “That’s something, at least. You’ve managed to make it this far with just Alpha. You’ll do even better with the others, I’m sure.”
“Yeah,” she said, halfheartedly. Yeah. For sure. And Quinn definitely wasn’t entirely out of her element in a group of people and Digimon she’d never met before and was supposed to lead, despite the fact she’d never been able to lead anyone through anything in her life. She rubbed her face with a hand, letting it slide down to rest against her throat.
She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do. None of this was supposed to happen. She and Alpha were supposed to deal with Plutomon on their own so that Reagan and Lily didn’t get hurt. Nobody else was supposed to get involved.
She wasn’t supposed to be leading them. How could anyone have ever thought she would be able to do that?
Especially with what Macy had told her -
“Hey, Quinn?”
She blinked, startled out of her reverie by a voice coming from the other side of the pool, and she looked over to see Ezra, digivice in hand and a worried expression on his face, crossing over to her. Behind him, Azure and Alex followed, looking just as concerned as him. Only Azure was carrying their partner; the other two Digimon were hopping about near their partners’ feet, though Castor’s hops were more urgent than Ember’s.
“Hang on,” Quinn said to Reagan as they approached, and Reagan gave a noise of acknowledgement, falling silent.
“My digivice started freaking out,” Ezra said once they’d reached Quinn’s side. “So is everyone else’s. It’s something on the map.” He handed it over to Quinn, and she took it just as Ember and Castor hopped up onto the lawn chair beside her.
Quinn knew already that digivices worked a bit differently in the real world. They were a fraction of a second slower; a clock was visible at the top of the screen; the map of the real world was automatically filled out and did not have to be expanded via travel. Even so, when Quinn looked down at the screen of Ezra’s digivice, opened to the map, she was thrown for a bit of a loop.
It was zoomed out to show an area of roughly five square miles. At the center of the map was the orange dot signifying Ezra’s digivice, and a series of smaller dots in various colors showed the other nearby digivices. This was not a surprise. What was, however, was that near the top left corner of the screen, almost out of range, was another dot - this one pure white, looking almost like the one for Anna’s digivice. And unless her digivice had magically undergone mitosis…
Quinn tapped the dot, and a small box that read “???” popped up above it.
Hmm. Well, it wasn’t supposed to do that!
That could mean two things. One, that the map function worked differently in regards to other Digimon showing up on it here in the real world, or two, that the Digimon it was reading was something it didn’t know anything about. Even Digimon that had never been analyzed before brought up an entry on the map in the Digital World. Why was it acting so strange here?
…There was also the possibility that the map worked differently and it was a mysterious Digimon all at the same time, but, well… she didn’t really like the sound of that. She hoped it was one of the two. Ideally the first.
“It’s not telling me what Digimon it is,” she said, handing the digivice back to Ezra, and she blinked as his eyebrows practically rocketed off his face.
“It’s a Digimon?” he asked, and Quinn blinked again, looking from him to Ember to his digivice to Alpha, and then she realized.
…It was a Digimon. Which, you know, she already knew, logically, but the implications of that had passed her right on by, and only Ezra’s confused and horrified expression had been enough to tip her off to it.
She reacted to this pretty well.
“Oh, shit,” she blurted, getting to her feet so quickly that she almost knocked Ember and Castor off the chair, and she did end up knocking Alpha out of her lap. On the other line - she’d almost forgotten she was still on call with Reagan - she heard a muffled “what’s wrong?”, but she didn’t have the capacity to respond at that exact moment, because there was a Digimon in the real world.
“I have to go,” she said into her phone, reaching down to pick Alpha up with her unoccupied hand. “There’s a Digimon. I think it might be -” She cut herself off with a snap, but it was clear what she was about to say, to both Reagan and the various onlookers. Their expressions darkened, and Reagan murmured something indecipherable.
“Go,” she said, and Quinn’s shoulders tensed. “I’ll be here when you’re done. Wishing you luck. I love you.”
“Love you too,” Quinn said, then pulled her phone away to end the call. She wasted no time in launching her digivice, instantly opening the map. The dot indicating the unknown Digimon was still there; had it gotten closer to them?
She shook her head, and looked down at Alpha in her other hand. He nodded, just once, and she returned the gesture, then looked to the others.
“I - we have to go see what it is,” she said. Ezra clenched his empty fist, but she shook her head at him. “Just Alpha and I. We’ll be okay.”
“We have to come with you,” Alex said, spreading his hands out. “If it’s Plutomon, you can’t deal with him on your own.”
“We’ve been dealing with him on our own for five years,” Quinn said, feeling somewhat defensive. “You can’t - your Digimon are still out of commission from earlier. I don’t think they’ll be able to evolve.”
“Who’s to say Alpha will be able to?” Alex shot back. Behind him, Azure placed a hand on his shoulder, and he relaxed only slightly, crossing his arms. He looked like he was about to keep arguing, but he sighed and looked down at Castor, still on the lawn chair. “…If anything goes wrong, you have to call us. We’ll come help.” He looked back up at Quinn, fixing her with a hard stare, one that she didn’t think she could escape even if she’d tried to. “Promise?”
“Promise,” Quinn said, placing a hand on her heart. She tried to ignore just how fast she could feel it beating, and instead hoisted Alpha up into her arms. “We’ll be back. I’ll bring dinner for all of us.”
She didn’t wait to see if any of them would respond before she turned to leave, her digivice clutched firmly in her hand.
Quinn followed the map on her digivice closely as she walked through the city, paying no mind to the people she passed. They weren’t as focused on her when she was alone, a stark contrast to the looks that the group had been getting throughout the entire day. They probably thought she was just like any other teenager, glued to her phone and without a care in the world for what was going on around her.
They were, of course, wrong, but they had no way of knowing that, and Quinn certainly wasn’t going to correct them.
She kept tapping on the dot representing the strange Digimon, hoping (praying) that as she got closer, it would be able to figure out what it was, but nothing happened. It just showed those same three question marks, over and over again. Quinn grit her teeth. She’d scanned Plutomon before. It would be showing his name if it was him.
(But… she didn’t really know how it worked in the real world with regards to other Digimon… so maybe…)
Whatever it was, they had to deal with it. Whether that meant fighting or talking or something else was impossible to tell at the moment. She hoped they wouldn’t have to fight, but it wasn’t looking good, even aside from the way her heart had long since plummeted toward her feet and left her chest feeling empty and hollow.
She knew, deep down, that it probably was Plutomon, and she knew that Alpha wouldn’t be able to take him. Not when he was still worn out from their previous fight. Not when he was in this form. Not alone.
But she couldn’t put the others at risk. That was something she wouldn’t let herself do. That was the one thing she knew she had to do as their leader. Keep them safe and out of harm’s way as much as she could. If that meant dealing with Plutomon all on her own, so be it. That was just what she had to do.
…Maybe there was more to it than that, but…
“Quinn,” Alpha said quietly, and she nearly jumped. It was one of the first things he’d said since arriving in this world, and she met his gaze with concern. “I think we’re close. I feel something.”
“You do?” She blinked, looking down at her digivice. Indeed, they had been steadily growing closer to the Digimon on the map; they were just a short ways away from it by now. Quinn looked up from where she stood on a sidewalk corner, and looked out across the way at where the dot was located. On the other side of the street was a large, lightly forested park, trees blocking out the light of the setting sun and casting the park into darkness. She couldn’t see anything within the treeline, moving or otherwise, and there weren’t any people around.
That was as good as it was going to get, she supposed.
“I don’t feel anything,” she said to Alpha as the crosswalk light flashed and she started across. “You think it’s a Digimon thing? Some sort of instinct?”
“Presumably,” Alpha said with a nod. “This hasn’t happened in the Digital World. It’s not really a physical feeling. More like…” He paused, searching for words, and continued once Quinn had reached the other side. “A sensation. Like a magnet.”
“Better hope that other magnet isn’t going to try to repel you,” Quinn muttered. She stopped at the edge of the park, right in front of a path leading inward. She could see from this vantage point that the trees thinned out toward the center of the park, surrounding a small stone plaza with some benches and picnic tables scattered around.
Quinn looked up at the sky, then around herself, then back at the path in front of her. She hesitated, took a deep breath in, and started forward, looking to her digivice for guidance as she went.
It was a short walk to the park center through the trees, and as Quinn brushed aside a stray branch once she’d reached the end of the path, she instantly saw the Digimon.
It was not Plutomon, that much was obvious. Quinn wasn’t sure whether that was a blessing or a curse, but that was far from the forefront of her concerns.
The Digimon was tall and humanoid, covered in golden armor from head to toe with red accents along its thighs, calves, and pauldrons. Two long blades, looking like vestigial wings, stretched from its upper back, just above the deep blue cape it wore. At its sides hung two sheathed swords, and as it saw Quinn and Alpha approach, its hands darted toward them.
Quinn instantly raised her hand, the one not holding Alpha, though it did hold her digivice, and she quickly realized she was going to need it. It was too difficult to get a good look at the Digimon’s face, for a number of reasons (the setting sun, its height, the fact Quinn didn’t even know if it had a face), and it was better to be safe.
“Grademon,” Quinn’s digivice read out as she analyzed it, and the Digimon’s head tilted. “Ultimate level warrior Digimon. It is called the Golden Meteor due to the way it fights with dauntless courage, but due to the cursed swords it wields, it cannot control itself.”
“What is this vile technology you wield?” Grademon said, one hand clenched into a fist and the other still resting on the hilt of her sword. “Do you not believe I can respond to a threat from one as small as you?”
“We’re not threatening you,” Quinn said, holding her digivice-clutching hand out once more in what she hoped was a good display of peace. “We just want to know why you’re here. Digimon aren’t supposed to be in… this world.”
“Ha!” Grademon tipped her head back, laughing. “You clearly know nothing about Digimon, then. And yet I see you hold one in your arms.” She nodded down at Alpha, who managed to remain still, though his eyes narrowed up at her.
“Okay,” Quinn said, electing not to share that she’d known about Digimon for five years now and was pretty damn sure they shouldn’t be in the real world. “Why are you here, then? Do you have a reason?”
“Of course I do,” Grademon said. “I’m here to fulfill my duty. It took too long for me to break through to this side, but I’ve finally done it!” She spread her arms wide and gestured around, turning in a small circle, before looking back at Quinn. She tilted her head, and Quinn was finally able to make out her facial features.
Her eyes were white.
“He’ll be so pleased to learn I’ve made it to the other side,” Grademon continued. “I have a very important mission now. All I have to do is lie in wait… but I can’t do that if someone has seen me.”
Quicker than Quinn could blink, Grademon drew her swords, pointing one down at the two of them. “You must be disposed of,” she said, crossing her swords as they began to glow. “
Quinn barely leapt out of the way of the attack in time, the beam of X-shaped energy flying directly over her head and crashing into a tree behind her. She rolled to a stop and pushed herself up instantly, looking around for Alpha, and her vision was flooded with pitch black light for a second. When it cleared, Alpha stood against Grademon in his rookie form, and he opened his mouth to shoot a burst of yellow flames up at her.
“
The attack hadn’t even reached Grademon before Alpha went up in black light once more, fading away to reveal his champion form, a large black and white dinosaur with massive claws and horns.
Grademon raised a sword to deflect the flame, then pointed both down at Alpha. “So that’s what that device was for,” she hissed, and jumped high into the air above his head. “
“
As Grademon dove toward him, swords outstretched, Alpha jumped up to meet her, slamming a fist crackling with energy directly into her chest. The impact knocked her to the side, and her blades just barely scraped across Alpha’s back as she landed on the ground with a thump.
Immediately Alpha rounded on her, opening his jaws wide as golden flames began to build in the back of his throat. “
“Pathetic,” she said, crossing her swords again. “
The attack hit Alpha head-on, and Quinn grit her teeth as he was thrown against a tree, sliding to the ground and landing in a heap. It took all her willpower not to run to his side. She knew better than that.
And, indeed, Grademon turned to her as soon as Alpha had hit the ground. She pointed one blade at her, taking a few steps forward but stopping before she got too close. “I wasn’t even here for you in the first place,” she said, the fading sunlight illuminating her face just so. “And yet as always you had to come along and make this more difficult. You truly will never learn.”
“There’s nothing to learn in this situation,” Alpha growled as he pushed himself up, his hand igniting with golden energy. He glared at Grademon and raised his fist, and leapt toward her.
But he did not call his attack. When Grademon darted to the right to avoid his punch, he stretched a leg out to push her to the ground, and as she fell and he bounced higher, he twisted in midair and opened his mouth to release a stream of golden flames. “
This was one of his favorite feints, and Quinn couldn’t resist a smile. Grademon was not expecting the follow-up attack, and though she was not harmed by the uncalled punch, the impact of his kick managed to down her long enough for the fire to hit her square in the chest. She cried out in pain, forcing herself upright and swiping her blades through the fire to disperse it, but it had already done what it was meant to do.
As she struggled to her feet, Alpha’s hands sparked with energy again, and he rushed forward almost before she’d stood upright fully, once more without calling the attack. Grademon barked a laugh and drifted to the left, the opposite direction she’d gone last time. “Ha! You truly think I would fall for -”
“
Alpha whirled around and jumped for Grademon, delivering the punch directly to her abdomen. He’d made it look as if he was going to use the same trick again, and Grademon had reacted accordingly. What she didn’t know was that Alpha never pulled the same ruse twice in a row.
Quinn knew it, though.
Alpha stepped toward Grademon as she pulled herself up into a kneel, glaring daggers at him, but he did not attack again. “Following Plutomon will only lead to your own ruin,” he said, breathing heavily, but it seemed to be more out of exertion than pain. “He’s controlling you. He doesn’t care about you.”
“You judge him too harshly,” Grademon said, stabbing one sword down into the earth in front of her. “He cared about me enough to grant me this power. He promised me revelation. A new start to life. I would be a fool to turn him down.”
Quinn furrowed her brow and chanced a step forward, drawing both Digimon’s attention. “What power?” she called out, clenching her fists. “What exactly did he give you?”
“Irrelevant,” Grademon said, and quick as a flash, she was lunging for Alpha again. “
“
The attacks collided in an explosion of gold and white light, and when the scene settled, Alpha stood in his ultimate form, gripping Grademon’s swords by the blade and shoving her back.
He bared his teeth, his wings flaring out behind him and tail thrashing. “I’d say it’s relevant,” he said, and shoved his hand outward, sending Grademon skidding backward across the plaza. She reached her swords down to scrape across the tiles, slowing her in her tracks and leaving deep grooves in the stone with a painful grating sound.
“You will have to do much better than this,” she said when she came to a stop, “if you want to have a chance at stopping him.
“
“
When the attack faded, he jumped for Grademon, but he was not aiming directly at her. She steeled herself in preparation for him to attack or grab her, but he sailed over her head, and the moment he hit the ground behind her he spun on his heel and reached forward, claws already beginning to leak energy. “
Grademon howled in pain as his claws made contact, stumbling forward as the energy ripped away from her. She hissed and turned to face him, her swords tapping against the stone below as her arms hung at her sides.
She did not move or speak or attack for a few long seconds, simply stared Alpha down. Eventually she raised her head and looked over at Quinn, her eyes glinting in the last few rays of the dying sun.
“There is a truly special bounty on your head,” she said, and Quinn’s blood ran cold as ice for a split second. “You have been too much of a setback for him to let you go free. I did not expect to be so lucky as to encounter you. In the same way you have continuously sabotaged us, you have made my mission all the more easier to achieve.”
“Then go for it,” Quinn said, spreading her arms out. She knew she was tempting fate, but they had to get something out of Grademon. She knew something that Plutomon had never let on about. Something that Quinn had a feeling was more immediately important than anything else they knew so far. Whatever her mission was, whatever she had been sent here for, whatever she had meant by “breaking through” and “a new start to life”, they had to find something to go off of.
“Quinn,” Alpha warned, but Grademon didn’t pay him any mind. If she’d had a mouth, Quinn was sure she would have smiled.
Instead, she drew herself taller and lunged for Quinn. “
“
Grademon’s blades struck the earth just to Quinn’s side, knocked off course by Alpha’s attack. She grunted and rolled as she hit the ground, shoving herself up and flinging herself at Alpha before she was even standing. “
Alpha feinted to the side, letting Grademon crash-land where he’d stood just a second before, and instantly pounced on her, pinning her to the ground by her arms and snarling.
“What is the power he granted you,” he growled, bringing his face closer to hers. “How did you get to this world. What are you waiting for here?”
Grademon rolled her eyes, evident enough even without irises. “If you believe I would ever tell you anything, you are sorely mistaken. I have said far too much already. You will not hear anything else from me.”
“You’re at my mercy,” Alpha snapped, digging his claws into her armor. She hissed and squirmed, which only served to make Alpha tighten his grip even more. “Tell me what you know. What has he told you?”
Grademon spat, her hands tightening around her swords. “Go to hell,” she hissed, and before Alpha or Quinn could do anything, one of her hands darted up above her chest, her sword held tightly in its grasp.
She brought her hand down, and the sword pierced her chest, sliding in between a slot in her armor. With a flash, she exploded into pixels, and Alpha’s claws hit the ground with a thump as she disappeared beneath him.
He stared down at where she had been for a few long seconds, unmoving, unspeaking. He didn’t look up, or over, or around. His claws tightened against the stone beneath him with a faint scraping noise.
Quinn went numb.
…Grademon had taken her own life. All because she didn’t want to - couldn’t, perhaps - tell Alpha what she knew. Quinn knew that Alpha would have defeated her anyways if she hadn’t told them anything, but…
She hadn’t expected that. Digimon weren’t supposed to do that. They wanted to live, above all else. That was why they fought. To grow and evolve and survive and live.
And yet one had just killed itself right in front of her. Because she couldn’t afford to give them any information. Everything she’d said already, about the power and breaking through and everything else - that had already been too much.
And Plutomon had allowed it.
He easily could have taken over and forced herself up, forced her to keep fighting, forced her to stay alive. But he didn’t. He let it happen. He must have known Grademon wouldn’t have given them anything even if she’d kept going, so…
Why?
With a flash of black, Alpha devolved, head still bowed and paws still pressed against the ground.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said as Quinn slowly crept toward him. She knelt down next to him and placed a hand on his head, her fingers spread around his horn. He didn’t react to her touch; his gaze was still trained on the stone below. “She would’ve kept fighting if I hadn’t trapped her.”
“You would’ve had to defeat her eventually,” Quinn said gently, trying to reassure him, but Alpha shook his head.
“It’s different,” he murmured, and Quinn closed her mouth. She couldn’t argue with that, no matter how much she wished she could.
They sat there for a good few minutes, saying nothing as they took in the scene around them. Trees had been cracked and slashed, their branches snapped or torn off and strewn around the plaza. Benches had been ripped from their positions. Deep grooves were cut in the stone tile, the resulting debris and dust scattered everywhere. Quinn reached a hand down to the ground at her side and picked up a pinch of dust and stone shards, rubbing them between her fingers and letting them fall to the ground.
She hoped no one had been nearby, hiding in the trees and watching the fight. The damage could be written off as vandalism, done by someone in the night who had gone unseen. It wasn’t that far off from the truth.
“Do you think,” she said, breaking the silence, “there’ll be more Digimon showing up in the next few days?”
“Most likely,” Alpha said with a nod, not missing a beat. He paused, looking down at his paws, and then straightened up, glancing around the clearing. “With what she said about ‘breaking through’ and having some sort of mission to carry out… I think that Plutomon must be sending Digimon through, somehow.”
“So he’s not here after all,” Quinn mumbled, her shoulders tensing. “It was a feint.” She steeled herself as she felt the panic rising in her chest, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.
“I don’t think so,” Alpha said, and Quinn opened her eyes to see him shaking his head. “We saw him step through. He did come here. Even if he’s not here anymore, he was for a short while.”
Quinn swallowed a lump in her throat. “But - nobody’s been talking about him. Nobody saw him. I checked online earlier, there’s nothing about him.”
“He might have ended up somewhere with nobody around. And… I don’t think he’s here anymore.”
Quinn frowned. “Isn’t that a bad thing? That’s why we came here in the first place.”
Alpha shook his head again. “He had to come through to do something. We saw that he undid the time dilation when he stepped through. I think that’s what allowed Grademon to come through. But he wouldn’t have stopped with just one…” He trailed off, tapping his tail against the ground, and then exhaled and looked up at Quinn. “I think we’ll be seeing many more Digimon soon. Plutomon may not be here, but our troubles are far from over.”
“I had a feeling,” Quinn said, sighing. “I just… wish we knew where Plutomon was. Or what he wanted. Or anything about him at all.”
Alpha placed a paw on her knee, blinking up at her. “We’ll be alright,” he said quietly, gently.
Alpha never smiled. He rarely showed emotion. Sometimes Quinn wondered if he ever felt any. But as he looked up at her, there was something in his eyes that soothed at least some of Quinn’s worries. Assuaged her doubts. Reassured her that they would, indeed, be alright.
Even if she didn’t fully believe him, even if there were a thousand other things going around in her head, it helped a little bit, knowing that he was and would always be there for her.
They stopped to get dinner for the group on their way back to the motel, some pre-made sandwiches from a nearby grocery store. Alpha had a bit of trouble navigating the city in his new form, having to hide in bushes and alleyways while Quinn did her best to carry on without him to not look suspicious, while at the same time not getting too far ahead of him.
They couldn’t talk to each other while they went. Quinn hated it. All of her thoughts were swirling around her head and congregating into a dark mass full of fears and anxieties. It was getting worse as she walked. There was nobody to talk to to help take her mind off of it. Every step she took, she could have sworn that another Digimon was going to show up. Maybe it would be Plutomon. Even with everything Alpha had said, about Plutomon not being here, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was right. That Alpha was wrong.
That Plutomon was watching them.
When they finally reached the motel, the sun had sunk below the earth far in the distance, casting the world into night. They had to circle around to the pool area, not wanting to stroll in through the room’s front door while Alpha was too big to pass as a stuffed animal. For Quinn, jumping the fence was easy, or as easy as it could be while carrying two heavy grocery bags - for Alpha, it was anything but. After a bit of finagling, however, he managed to get himself over, landing on the other side with a flump and a grunt.
“Probably would have been smart to bring the keys with us,” she whispered to Alpha as they reorganized themselves. Alpha huffed in his imitation of a laugh, and even despite herself, Quinn smiled.
On the other side of the pool, the group caught sight of them, raising their hands to wave them down. They were seated around a couple of tables, and as Quinn and Alpha approached, a couple stood up to greet them properly.
“How’d it go?” Moxie asked, reaching out to take Quinn’s bags and place them on the table. Instantly a few of the Digimon pounced on it, eager to see what was inside, and they let out cries of excitement when they saw the sandwiches. Harmony and Miguel set to divvying up the food while the others turned to Quinn and Alpha, waiting for their story.
“It wasn’t Plutomon,” Alpha said, and Quinn could practically feel the collective sigh of relief that emanated from the group. “It was a Grademon. I think she was sent here by Plutomon, though.”
“What?” Miguel said, pausing in the middle of passing a sandwich to Pop. “What do you mean?”
“I was getting to that,” Alpha muttered, quietly enough to go unheard, and Quinn nudged him with a foot. “She said that she had a mission to fulfill. That she’d finally managed to ‘break through’ to the other side.” He paused, looking up at Quinn as he lost a bit of steam, and she took over.
“We think there’s going to be more Digimon coming through. We -” She was cut off by Harmony handing her a sandwich. She raised a hand to protest, but Harmony shook both her head and the sandwich, and Quinn relented. At her side, Miguel gave one to Alpha, who took it with slightly less hesitance than Quinn.
Quinn took a single small bite and swallowed before continuing. “We should be on our guards going forward. Ezra, how did you first notice Grademon’s reading on the map? Were you looking at it?”
“No,” Ezra said, shaking his head. He set his sandwich down, batting Ember away from it as he leaned forward, and pulled his digivice out of his pocket. “It just went off with a weird noise. One I haven’t heard from it before. Everyone’s digivice did. I think yours didn’t because… well, it wasn’t a digivice at the time.”
Quinn felt a pang of something guilty strike her in the chest, but she did a good job (or so she hoped) at hiding it, and nodded at Ezra to continue.
“When I turned it on, it was already open to the map, and I saw the reading pretty quickly.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t know it was a Digimon at first. I know that that’s the only thing it could have been, but it… didn’t seem possible at the time. Maybe even now it doesn’t.”
“Right?” Harmony agreed, nodding emphatically. “Because why would there be another Digimon here? And if it had been Plutomon, his name would have shown up, instead of just question marks, right? I was thinking maybe it was another digivice.”
“As if someone had lost theirs in an area we haven’t been to yet?” Flip said sarcastically, and Harmony stuck her tongue out.
“Obviously not. I thought maybe there was another human we haven’t met yet. Sorta like Moxie and Damien, you know?”
“As far as I’m aware,” Quinn said before anyone else could get into it, “the ten of us plus Reagan are the only ones with digivices. Other than Macy’s group, of course, but I don’t know if any of them still have their old digivices. Or if they’d show up on the map at all.” She pulled her digivice out of her pocket, turning it over in her hand as she took another pensive bite of sandwich. It tasted pretty good, for what it was.
Alpha cleared his throat. “To get back on track,” he said, looking up and around at the group, “you’ll need to be very alert going forward. We’re not in the clear yet. Be aware of your surroundings and don’t be an idiot.”
“That sounds like an insult,” Ryan said, folding his arms.
Alpha fixed him with a hard stare. “It’s only an insult if you are an idiot. Don’t try to be a hero. If you get into something that’s too much for you, call for help, even if you’d rather die.”
“Nice caveat,” Damien mumbled, leaning back in his chair. In front of him, on the table, Dare swallowed the rest of her sandwich in one big bite and then turned to look at Damien.
“Hey, I mean, without it,” she said, pointing one stubby paw at Ryan, “he’d never agree to it, so it’s a good thing he tossed that in there.” Ryan reached forward to grab her, and she struggled against his hold until he placed her in his lap and covered her mouth with a hand.
“He’s right, though,” Quinn said, nodding down at her partner. “We can’t risk something happening to one of us. If you’re in over your heads, call someone to come help, even if you think you can handle it yourself.”
“What about you?” Anna said, scrunching her nose up as her gaze flicked between Alpha and Quinn. “You went out on your own tonight.”
Quinn faltered, scrambling for words, but Alpha was quicker on the draw. “We weren’t ‘in over our heads’,” he said smoothly, and Anna leaned back in her seat somewhat. “We’ve been doing this for five years. You’ve all only known your partners for three months. There’s a bit of a difference there.”
“What about Moxie and Damien?” Ezra said, inclining his head toward the humans in question. “They’ve known their partners for five years too. Shouldn’t they be in the same boat as you?”
“I’d rather not,” Pop said softly from her position on Moxie’s shoulder, at the same time as Bumble shook his head.
“We’re not nearly as used to this as they are,” he said, looking at Quinn and then Alpha in turn. “We’ve evolved and fought before, yes, but nothing on Plutomon’s level. We’re no better at this than you all are.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, buddy,” Damien said, flicking one of Bumble’s tiny antennae. “You’re pretty good at what you do.”
“If there’s going to be more Digimon,” Miguel said then, drawing all eyes to him, and he continued quickly even despite his audience, “then… people are going to find out about them, right? Especially if they’re sent by Plutomon, cause that means they’ll be fighting us, right? So… what are we supposed to do about that?”
“What do you mean?” Alex asked, folding his hands under his chin. “We’ll just fight back against them. What else are we going to do?”
“I think what he means,” Azure cut in as Miguel began to wave his hands ineffectually, “is that, if people are finding out about the Digimon, they’re not going to be happy about it. We’ll have to focus on fighting back,” and they started counting off on their fingers here, “minimizing property damage, keeping bystanders out of harm’s way, and keeping ourselves away from anyone recording.”
“Why would anyone -” Alex started, and then smacked himself in the face. “Right. People have fucking worms for brains. Anything for engagement and that sweet sweet ad revenue.”
“I was more thinking of them sendin’ the videos to journalists and our families seeing us on national news next to giant monsters, but that works too,” Azure said, holding their palms up.
A frown tugged at Quinn’s lips.
Everything about this seemed to be… too much all at once. It wasn’t that she’d failed to realize what Azure was pointing out - she knew that there would be complications with more Digimon coming through. Hell, there had been complications today, when they’d first arrived here, with everyone watching and yelling at them when they’d fallen into the road. The Digimon hadn’t even been the main focus of that - it was just the act of something seemingly impossible happening right in front of their eyes that had caused so much commotion, and falling out of the sky wasn’t even that bad.
If more Digimon started coming through, and people caught wind of that (as they surely would, she knew)… what were they supposed to do about that? Nothing? Just let the general public know about the monsters from another world? What if they turned on the partner Digimon?
For the past five years, Quinn had hidden Alpha from everyone save her immediate family, Reagan, and Macy. Her parents knew not to tell anyone about the Digital World or the creatures who lived there, but their initial reaction to its existence had been bad enough. How were they supposed to deal with it if the entire world had similar reactions?
And Azure’s additional point about not being filmed was… a difficult one. Alpha was right - their troubles weren’t over yet.
“I think,” Quinn said gently, breaking into the discussion in front of her that had continued throughout her internal monologue, “we’re going to have to be very careful over the next few days. I know I already said it, but… it bears repeating. Just…” She raised a hand to her mouth, chewing on her lip. “Be safe, okay? Plutomon isn’t here, but these other Digimon still pose a threat.”
“We’ll be okay,” Alpha said, and Quinn wondered whether he was reassuring her or everyone else. “I know that everything is still all up in the air. We’ll figure it out.” He exhaled and stood up, looking first at Quinn and then the rest of the group. “Don’t stay up too late tonight. You’ve had a long few months. You deserve the rest.”
“And dear god I am going to take it,” Ezra sighed, stretching his arms above his head. “I am so ready to pass out and get a full night’s rest on a bed. Without worrying about being woken up in the middle of the night by Digimon.” He paused, and looked down at his digivice in his hand. “…Well, an immediately dangerous Digimon, at least.”
“That’s the spirit,” Alex said, reaching over to plant a kiss on his cheek. Ezra flushed a rather startling shade of scarlet, and Quinn smiled faintly. The two of them reminded her a lot of how she and Reagan had been when they’d first started dating.
Slowly the group dispersed, splitting into smaller parties around the pool or heading into the rooms to get an early sleep. Quinn and Alpha wandered over to where they’d been sitting earlier, when Quinn had called Reagan.
…Right, she should probably tell Reagan that everything was fine and it wasn’t Plutomon and Quinn hadn’t gotten herself killed. She deactivated her digivice and checked the clock on her phone - 10:36 PM. Underneath the time was a series of texts from her parents and Reagan - or rather, a series of texts from her parents, and one text from Reagan: Let me know once you’ve handled everything. You’ve got this. Love you.
She exhaled softly, some of the tension finally slipping out of her shoulders. Not all of it, of course, because there was still the issue of her parents’ texts.
She didn’t want to read all of them. She scrolled down through her notifications, mostly just skimming, but she saw enough to get the gist of it.
Heard you went out again. Don’t do anything stupid. was one of the first from her dad, sent at around 12:30 PM (just around when Quinn and Alpha had first entered the Digital World), and Quinn bit her lip to keep from screaming. It was followed (or preceded, rather) by one from her mom, reading Will you stop going to that world? It’s driving me insane. You don’t need to be doing this. You shouldn’t be doing this.
There were more texts from them that had come in after those, but she didn’t pay much attention to them. They were mostly just the same recycled garbage of “this is dangerous and stupid and why the hell is it you who’s doing this, anyway? Why not someone more competent? Also we hate your partner and think he’s turning you into a Satanist so could you just give him up to the Humane Society already so we don’t have to see him anymore?”
She flicked her finger across the screen, not wanting to read any more, but just as quickly pressed down again to stop the scroll. There was one single name amidst the stream of “mom” and “dad” that caught her eye, and it was not Reagan’s name.
One single text from Takota, sent at 8:47 PM exactly - which was, Quinn realized, around when she and Alpha had set out to deal with Grademon. It was short, nowhere near the length of some of the paragraphs that their parents had been sending her, but it hit her all the harder for it, and she drew in a shaky breath.
Please come home soon.
Quinn closed her eyes and set her phone down.
She knew she had to text him. Text their parents. Let them all know that she was fine, she wasn’t dead, she was just an eleven hours’ drive south in the city they’d lived in ten years ago with nine other humans and Digimon and she had to stay here because there were going to be more Digimon coming through soon plus they still didn’t know where Plutomon was. But how the fuck was she supposed to convey any of that in a succinct and comprehensible manner, as well as in a way where her parents wouldn’t just blow up on her immediately?
…She could deal with that later.
She opened her phone via the notification from Reagan and set to typing. everything’s good. it wasn’t plutomon, it was a grademon. she /was/ sent thru by plutomon tho, so it’s not like it was just some rando digimon who stumbled thru a portal and needed help getting home
She hit send, and then, after deliberating for a second, started typing a second message. alpha handled her fine. she said some weird stuff about being sent thru for some sort of mission. so we think there’s going to be more digimon coming thru soon
Reagan began typing almost instantly, and a wave of relief crashed over Quinn at even just seeing her icon and the three dots pop up. I’m glad to hear that. I never had any doubts, but it’s good to know you’re both OK. Interesting about the Digimon, though. You think you’ll be OK dealing with that?
Quinn exhaled through her nose and leaned back, laying her head against the back of the lawn chair. Down on the ground next to it, Alpha shifted, resting his head on his paws and glancing up at Quinn.
She looked back down at her phone, her fingers hovering above the keyboard for a second before she began to type. we’ll be fine. it’s just kinda … yknow? like the idea of digimon, other than alpha and lily, and i guess everyone else’s partners now, showing up here is really strange to me. digimon aren’t supposed to be here. and since they’ll be plutomon’s little minions they’re going to be fighting us. which is not looking good when it comes to “reassuring the populace”
I get that. came Reagan’s response, and Quinn set her jaw when she continued to type. It’s going to be strange, for sure. I suppose our world will now finally know about theirs. My mom never thought it would happen. Maybe now she’ll finally be able to convince her parents that she really did go to another world.
Quinn frowned. doesn’t that worry you tho?
What do you mean? Reagan asked.
people knowing about digimon she said, and then realized she needed to elaborate further. i mean obviously we’re going to do our best to keep people safe, but someone’s going to get hurt eventually. people aren’t going to be happy about the idea of monsters from another world. that’s what i’m worried about. people getting hurt. and people hating the digimon. it’s bad enough already
She didn’t say anything more than that, but she didn’t need to. Reagan’s icon popped up and down a couple times while she worked on her response, and Quinn set her phone down for a second to look out across the pool, at where the last small remaining group still sat at the tables near their rooms.
On the ground, Alpha stirred, blinking up at her. “How’s it going with your parents?”
Quinn huffed and lifted an arm to place behind her head. “I’m talking to Reagan. I don’t want to deal with them right now. Sent me a bunch of the usual. It’s getting old at this point.”
“To be fair,” Alpha said, tilting his head, “so are you.”
Quinn swept a leg off the chair to reach down and kick him, and he chuffed, scooting away from her. “Unnecessary,” she said, putting on a faux-angry face, but she couldn’t hold the facade for long and quickly broke into a fit of giggles. “…God, I really am, aren’t I.”
Her phone pinged, and she lifted it to read Reagan’s response. I know. I’m not trying to downplay that. It’s going to be very difficult to navigate. I’m beyond lucky not to be in your position right now. (Quinn’s heart sank in her chest at that.) I more meant that people are finally going to be faced with the fact that we are not alone. There’s another world existing alongside ours. Even if they don’t immediately realize the Digimon are from another world, there’s going to be theories - and the source of the monsters isn’t going to matter in the grand scheme of things. People will be more focused on the fact that monsters exist in the first place.
Another text from Reagan came in while Quinn was reading the first one, and her eyes flicked down to it as soon as she’d finished with the first. I am worried about people getting hurt. And I’m worried about you getting hurt too. That’s just part of this. That’s what we both signed up for. You signed up for the possibility of getting your ass kicked, and by sitting this out, I signed up for knowing that there’s nothing I can do if you do get your ass kicked. You’ve done a good job protecting yourself so far. I’m sure you’ll do just fine with these new kids. And the rest of the world.
How had Reagan so effortlessly deduced that Quinn was actually worried about the other humans in the group getting hurt?
She cared about other, non-Digimon-related humans getting hurt, too, of course. But they wouldn’t be the ones directly in the line of fire, unless they were incredibly stupid and/or brave. But the partnered humans - her humans - were going to be right there with their partners throughout it all. She’d seen that from them already, from the way they’d stood against Plutomon, beside their partners, despite everything he’d done to them. They were going to be the ones in the most immediate danger.
i’ll do my best she said to Reagan. It was a weak response, she knew. It couldn’t possibly encompass everything she was feeling and all the worst case scenarios she was imagining.
But even so, Reagan seemed to understand. I’m sure you will. ♥ she replied, and Quinn let go of a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
She turned her phone off and held it against her stomach, closing her eyes for a few seconds. She wished so badly that Reagan could be here with her and help her with everything, but… she’d made her choices, as had Lily. She didn’t really want either of them to be caught up in all of this, anyways. It was better for them to sit this out. To stay safe.
“Are you busy?”
Quinn opened her eyes to see Alex standing in front of her, Castor in his arms. He dipped his head, looking at Alpha for a split second, and Quinn straightened up.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to see if you’re doing okay,” he said, shrugging one shoulder.
Quinn blinked. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s just…” Alex paused, searching for words, and then shook his own head. “I know we just met you today, but… I’ve been in your position before. A lot of times.” He scratched his cheek with a finger, smiling down at Castor in his arms. “Going off on my own so the others don’t get hurt. It’s gone pretty badly for me in the past.”
“It sure has,” Castor said, and Alex rolled his eyes, but the smile did not leave his face. “You’ve seen his scars. I’ve tried to get him to stop, but there’s nothing he loves more than running directly into the line of fire of an attacking Digimon.”
“That was one time,” Alex said.
“One time too many. And it’s happened at least three times.”
“You were their leader before us,” Alpha cut in. He said it as a flat statement, not a question, as if he already knew the answer. Quinn’s brow furrowed lightly, and she looked at Alex.
He hesitated for a moment, and then nodded and shrugged. “At first. I ended up splitting it with Damien at some points, but… I guess so. I was just the only one who wanted to take charge.”
“I think you’re being a little overconfident assuming we’ve taken over the leadership role,” Quinn said, nudging Alpha with a foot, but he was unmoved - as were Alex and Castor.
Alex in particular frowned at her statement. “But… you have, right? You’re the Catalyst. You’re supposed to lead us.”
Oh, if only Alex knew just how deeply that pained her. The hope in his words and voice and the way he seemed so sure of himself as he said it, as if it was clear as day that she and Alpha were the last piece of the puzzle, the ones who would lead them to victory. She almost said something about him being overconfident, but…
There was something in his eyes, some sort of misplaced certainty, that killed the words in her throat.
How could he be so sure of her? She barely knew any more than he did. She wasn’t fit to be their leader. For five long years it had just been her and Alpha, and up until a few months ago (from the Digital World’s point of view, anyway), she’d thought it always would be. She and Alpha would be the only ones getting involved in any of this and nobody else would get hurt.
That was what she and Reagan had agreed on. That was what Macy had said to Quinn. That was what she had been telling herself every day for the past five years. That she and Alpha would do this alone, and nobody else would have to suffer.
How wrong she was.
She didn’t say any of this out loud. Of course she didn’t. She couldn’t tell anyone that they weren’t supposed to be here and they weren’t supposed to have ever gone to the Digital World. She couldn’t break them like that.
“Yeah,” she said to Alex, working the words as best she could around the dryness of her throat. “Yeah, we’ll lead you. I just meant…” She shook her head out, looking down at where her hands rested in her lap.
Alex didn’t reply for a moment, and then he sat down next to her on the chair. She blinked and looked up at him, and he smiled at her. He didn’t say anything. He barely even moved. He just smiled at her, in what she knew was an attempt at reassurance. A way to tell her that everything would be okay. They’d be alright. They had each other; they were all in this together.
Quinn saw so much of herself in him, and that terrified her.
She tore her gaze away from him, looking over at where the lights in their rooms still shone. “You should probably get to bed. It’s getting late. We practically pulled an all-nighter today. Time dilation and all.” She was joking, trying to lighten the mood, and she knew she wasn’t doing a good job at it, but she had to try.
“Yeah,” Alex said, standing up and brushing himself off with one hand. He looked back at her and smiled again, and then down at Alpha. “You should get some sleep too. Goodnight.”
“Night,” Quinn said as he turned to leave. When he was out of earshot, she sighed, long and loud, tipping her head back against the chair once more.
It had been far too long a day.
“He’s right, you know.”
Quinn closed her eyes, not even bothering to look down at her partner. “About what?”
“Everything.” There was a shuffling noise from his position, and then he stilled. “Mostly about us leading them. I think that’s what we need to do.”
“But why?” Quinn asked, sitting up and wrapping her arms around her knees. “Why us? I’ve never had to lead anyone before. Neither of us have. How can we possibly do this?”
Alpha reached up to place a paw on the chair beside her, and she bit her lip as he met her gaze evenly. “We’ve been at this for far longer than they have. We may not know more about the situation than they do, but we know how this works.” He huffed, looking back over his shoulder at the rooms for a moment. “I think we’ll be just fine. They’re good kids. And they want to do this just as much as we do.”
“But they shouldn’t be doing it,” Quinn mumbled. “They’re not supposed to -”
“It doesn’t matter if they’re supposed to or not,” Alpha said forcefully, but his tone was gentle. “The fact of the matter is that they are. They made their choices. All of them. Just like you and I did.” He blinked up at her, his amber eyes melting into the night, practically glowing. “Whether you like it or not, we’re not on our own anymore. We have a responsibility to them. No matter how hard it seems, we at least owe them that much.”
Quinn watched him for a few long seconds, waiting for him to say something else, but he didn’t. He just stared at her, waiting for a response, an acknowledgement of some kind.
She had nothing. The only thing she could manage was a weak nod, but even that seemed to be good enough for him, as he took his paws off the chair and stood up fully, stretching himself out.
“Let’s get some sleep,” he said, voice quiet, and Quinn nodded and stood up as well to follow him back to their room.
…Alpha was right. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right, and that… Quinn didn’t know what to make of that.
They weren’t on their own anymore. They likely wouldn’t be ever again. For five years Quinn had only had her partner with her, and now she was surrounded by nine other humans and Digimon, who she was supposed to lead throughout all of what was to come.
She didn’t know if she could do that.
But she had to try. She knew she did. No matter how much she wished it was still just her and Alpha and that none of the others had ever gotten involved, there was nothing she could do to change that.
They’d made their decision. Just as she and Alpha had made theirs.
She hoped that she’d made the right one.