Digimon Peace Keepers: Chapter 7

Chapter 7 of the t story by the here. Hope you enjoy!

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“As the sun shines through the closed curtains of her room, Mai stares intently at the recent posts, looking for something interesting. Ah, has she spotted it? A post from someone looking love advice. The writer seems more like a stalker then an irer though. How will Mai respond? Will she spam the feed with pictures of ramen, or will she give the AU terrible advice no one in their right mind would believe?”

Mai’s monologue was interrupted by a loud beep, originating from a tab on her second monitor.

“And it seems her fun has been cut short. She has been summoned, and must respond immediately to her summoners. But first…”

Mai dragged in a picture of pork ramen and hit post, then turned her attention to the second monitor. She had received a message from a friend she made online, someone she knows as ‘Omni’.

Omni: Up to mischief I assume?

Mai couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Of course’ was the correct answer. Was she that predictable? Pushing back her orange glasses, she responded.

You: How dare you accuse me of such foolishness? You must know I am better than that

Omni: Pfft yeah right

Mai flicked back her long amber hair. Reaching into her olive-coloured jacket, she pulled out a lollypop and removed the wrapper, sticking it firmly in her mouth. Stretching her arm in front of her, she began typing.

You: Like you can talk. What were you up to?

Omni: Being productive, working on my resume

You: Yeah right. I was reading through 2chan, I saw you shitposting

Omni: You don’t know that was me

You: You gonna deny it then?

Mai removed the sweet from her mouth, purposely causing a large ‘pop’ sound. Even though they had never met in real life, she knew her friend all too well. Rather than confirm Mai’s suspicions, Omni of course went to their default retaliation; changing the subject.

Omni: Anyway, Katsu found this weird site.

Omni: It looks like something that will be taken down soon.

Omni: He’s currently data mining it for more info

Omni: You should check it out too

Omni posted a link to the chat. Mai had nothing better to do, so why not check out the site? Clicking the link, Mai was immediately taken to a black web page. It wasn’t empty though, the screen immediately filled with various white symbols, covering her screen with what looked like junk code. It only took a few seconds to reach the bottom of her page, but the code didn’t stop. Dragging the page down, the code continued.

“Fuck… Did they link me to a virus or something?” Mai muttered to herself. She hit ctrl and w, hoping to close the tab. Instead, it set the window to full screen, covering not one but both her monitors. She hit F11, but the screen failed to minimise. Nothing was working, her mouse icon had disappeared and she was running out of keyboard shortcuts. There was one button that had to still work though. Mai reached down and held down the power, no luck. She sighed, only one last thing she could try. Climbing underneath her table, she yanked out the power cord. She poked her head back up to double check the computer had turned off. To her surprise, all logic had been thrown out the window. The computer continued to scroll down the incoming code, however it was coming to a slow. Without knowing what else to do, she climbed back into her chair and watched the code. The masses of junk suddenly started showing something cohesive, a name, in all red. A name Mai didn’t recognise.

“Nicole… O’Brian?”

The name changed from a bright red to a calming green. More names started appearing in the code, all names she had never seen before, each appearing in a red before changing to a green. Well, that was until the final name appeared.

“Mai… Kurusu… but that’s me…”

The last thing she saw was the bright red letters that made up her name changing to the same green as the other names as her vision faded.

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Mai awoke with the feel of crunchy leaves beneath her body. The sun shinned through the foliage of the forest that surrounded her.

“Where am I?” she muttered to herself sitting upright.

“The Digital World,” a voice she had never heard before answered her question. Mai turned to see a white dragon looking creature wearing a red scarf sitting behind her. She immediately shuffled backwards.

“It’s ok, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to protect you, partner. My name is Hackmon,” the dragon politely bowed its head.

“Yeah right. And why would I believe some weird dragon looking thing?”

“Because you’re alone in a strange world. Additionally, you’ll have worse things to worry about then some ‘weird dragon looking thing’.”

Mai sighed. It seemed she didn’t exactly have a choice. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

“Uh, question. Hackerman was it?”

“Hackmon.”

“Yeah yeah whatever. You said this was the ‘Digital World’ right?”

“Indeed I did.”

“So am I like inside my computer or…”

“Not exactly. I’m unsure precisely the make-up of this world, but it does have some similarities to the digital devices of your own world.”

“Ok, so if that’s the case…”

Mai held her blank phone into Hackmon’s face and angry exclaimed, “why don’t my electronic devices work?”

“I… I have no idea,” Hackmon shuffled backwards, “I don’t have a strong understanding on how my world works. I hope to discover more about it as time goes on however.”

Mai stared at Hackmon, then smiled, “OK, you seem to be telling the truth. I think anyway… Anyway, I’m Mai! And there’s no need to be talking so formally, if we’re going to be partners we might as well be friendly about it.”

Mai reached into her pocket and pulled out two lollypops. She took off the wrapper and stuck one in her mouth, offering the second to Hackmon. He seemed confused, but accepted the gift all the same. Suddenly, a glowing object appeared in front of Mai. She reached out, and watched a silver device materialise in her hand.

“That’s your digivice. It symbolises the bond we share,” Hackmon explained, “you should be careful with- wait what are you doing?”

“Figuring out how it works,” Mai had proceeded to click random buttons, experimenting with her new toy.

“We should just sit here calmly and wait for-”

“Hey I got something!”

Mai bent down and showed Hackmon. On the screen was a single dot, with a group of dots moving closer further in the distance.

“A tracking function?” Mai questioned, spinning in a circle as if her digivice was a com and watched the dots move.

“I believe so. That must be the others.”

“Others?”

“Yes, the other people like you.”

“Then let’s meet them!”

Mai stood up and started running forward, giving Hackmon no choice but to follow.

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“How much further?” Kouta complained dragging his feet towards the back of the group.

“Still a bit further, your last ally appeared a fair bit away from you all,” Tentomon exclaimed. A collective sigh was heard from Kouta, Victor, Ryudamon and Impmon.

“Hey cheer up, not much longer!” Nikki tried to lift the mood, but most the group ignored her. Anzu however nudged her and smiled, “you were first to be found right? You should be complaining the most!”

Tsumo and Fiona walked together, Tsumo keeping an eye on their partners who looked like they were going to snap at anytime. Fiona instead was looking at Shou, who had distanced himself from everyone else and directed all his attention to his book. After meeting him, he had barely muttered a single word. The group's attention however was suddenly interrupted by the sound of chatter.

“Ten, what’s that?” Mommon asked their guide.

“Possibly something dangerous. Everyone, keep your guard up.”

The entire group stopped, tensing for the situation. What appeared however was a girl with long orange hair wearing headphones and a small silver dragon.

“Mai? How did you find us?” Tentomon buzzed forward to their last member.

“You’re the others? Awesome! Oh, yeah, I just used the tracking function,” Mai showed her digivice to the group.

“There’s a function like that? Why didn’t you tell us about it? This all could’ve been so much faster,” Victor pressured Tentomon.

“I didn’t know it existed…”

Mai directed the attention back towards herself, “anyway, I’m Mai, and this is my Hackerman.”

“…Hackmon,” her partner corrected.

Tentomon landed on the ground, “Fantastic! We have the entire group here!” The ladybug then proceeded to introduce each member to the final recruit. The names sounded familiar to Mai, but where from? She racked her brain, trying to what happened before arriving here, but was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder.

“Sorry, would it bother you to display to me how you accessed the tracking function?” Shou politely asked.

“Oh, sure,” Mai clicked through the buttons on Shou’s digivice, bringing him to the screen. He thanked her, then proceeded to write something in his journal.

Tentomon took to the sky once again, drawing everyone’s attention to him, “OK, now we have all assembled, we can all work together to-”

“May I interrupt?” Shou spoke up, causing the group to look to the older boy.

“Of course, what is it Shou?”

“Our optimal strategy seems obvious, wouldn’t you all agree? We should disassociate ourselves from one another.”

“…what?” Nikki tilted her head in confusion.

Fiona spoke calmly and surely, her elegance drawing everyone to her voice.

“He means we should split up.”

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Everyone has finally gathered, but is the group really going to disband this quickly? As always, thanks for reading!

Edited by: Jono