Ugh. Between the holidays and everything else there was no time to really write. But I think that turned out to be the best thing, really.
When I wrote the first bit, I obviously wasn't thinking clearly. The game as created was a rush job, adapted from something else in different circumstances. For this, I tore out the bulk of the game's guts and built something new, centered around digimon. There are certainly still elements of that original idea present, but now it feels much more like a digimon story to me rather than something random with digimon dropped in for kicks. I'm keeping the other topic up because, well, I don't believe in taking my stuff down, even if it's complete crap (and if that one wasn't there yet, it was going there fast), in favor of this.
---
Matsuda Takato scribbled furiously away at his test paper, the setting sun shining directly in his brown eyes, giving them a reddish tint. He ignored it, letting his brown hair fall into his face to filter it enough to finish. It was getting late, and this was a make up test to boot, but he just needed to jot down a few more lines before he was finished.
Glancing at the clock as he did put the final touches on the paragraph, Takato noted that he was almost late and grimaced, grabbing his bag and hurrying up to the teacher's desk. ôBye Ms. Asagi!ö
ôJust a moment, Takato!ö
Grimacing, the boy, young man really, turned back to his teacher, his expression morphing into a hesitant smile. ôYes?ö
She sighed, and gave him an exasperated look. ôTakato. This is your third make up test this year. I can't give you another one, you know. You're smart Takato. Maybe not an honors student, but certainly smart enough to pass. I don't even need to really look at it to know that it's mostly correct. You just never seem to apply yourself to your schoolwork when it's actually time to do it. Why do you do this to yourself?ö
Takato stared at her helplessly. What the hell could he say to that? That he found things more interesting than school out there? He wasn't exactly lazy, it was just that he always had so much fun having fun that it seemed to overshadow other things. That wasn't an answer a teacher would accept, after all.
The silence stretched out for another minute or so, Takato grasping for something, anything, to placate his teacher long enough to get the hell out of there. Finally she sighed. ôIt just hurts to see someone with so much potential throwing it all away. Just try to apply yourself in a more timely fashion from now on, okay?ö
Nodding frantically, Takato bolted out of the classroom.
If he didn't hurry now, he was definitely going to be late.
---
Takato skidded to a stop in front of his house, or rather the family owned bakery it was under. Cursing slightly at the time, he slunk around towards the back and eased in the door, hoping to not catch his parent's attention. It was not to be.
ôTakato!ö Matsuda Yoshi did not sound in the least bit pleased.
Takato winced at his mother's voice, but turned towards it anyways. ôYes?ö
ôHow did the test go?ö
Takato sighed, but resigned himself to the fact that his immediate future would be taken up by his mother. He carefully placed his book bag down, so as not to give away the precious cargo within, which would almost certainly draw his mother's ire, and took a seat at the small table. ôIt went fine, mom. Ms. Asagi said she could tell that even without looking too hard at it.
Yoshi nodded and took both a seat across from him and his hands in hers, a sign she was desperate for him to give her his full focus. ôThat's good Takato, but you still need to learn to focus. You're sixteen now. In high school, and closing in on your entrance exams. I just need you to buckle down for a while and apply yourself. Can you do that?ö
Takato gave his mother a smile. ôSure. I can do that.ö He glanced around, as much to change the uncomfortable subject as anything else. ôDo you and dad need any help down here?ö
The older woman smiled. ôWe'll manage. You go up and study, okay?ö
Takato nodded, grabbing his book bag. ôAll right. You be sure to call if you need any help, okay?ö She nodded, and Takato went upstairs.
It would be the last contact she had with her son for years. Her only consolation was that it wasn't a fight.
---
A Digital Fantasy
Prologue Round 1
Install/Simple
---
To his credit, Takato did in fact study. For several hours even. This more than entitled him to a break, he felt, especially once it came time for lights out.
Takato's relationship were... well, strained was the wrong word. Non-existent would be a better way to phrase it. Of the friends he'd had when he was twelve, only Kenta really kept in touch, even if he was in a better school. Hirokazu was at the same one as him, but too obsessed with being cool, and Juri had simply gone to a different high school û not that he'd ever been able to speak more than a couple of words to her in any case. His lack of anyone else still made him consider her one of the people he was closest to, though, which struck him as rather sad on the few occasions he bothered to ponder it.
Takato himself wasn't exactly blameless in this affair, either, having let his other interests turn him away and slowly seclude him. Takato was an idealist, a classic romantic, a dreamer. He sometimes wished for companionship, but most of the time his imagination served well enough. It wasn't anything like a full blown imaginary friend or anything, but he did imagine himself going on adventures with his favorite heroes, helping, being helped, saving the day, and sometimes even destroying the world. He was kind of an odd kid. Not in his otakuism, but in the way he let it isolate him.
ôWell,ö he commented to the little red notebook on top of the monitor that was his only real companion, ôI'll always have you, right?ö The notebook contained his continuous project over the last for years, his custom digimon, Guilmon. It's levels, abilities, stats and attacks from baby all the way through ultimate. Some of the drawings were fading, and that was kinda sad, but he had no idea how to preserve them.
On the verge of being a man, but unwilling to give up the trappings of childhood. Still, he did have limited interactions with others, but that was mostly through the magic of the internet, which led him up to today. Certain that everyone was asleep, he turned his computer's monitor back on and got it out of sleep mode, before turning and reaching into his book bag. He'd nearly been late today getting to the store before it closed. They'd promised to keep it for him through today, and he'd spent the last week scraping together the cash to finish paying it off.
It was called A Digital Fantasy. It was the latest game about his obsession, digimon. The limited edition even, with a card reader that would let you use the digimon game cards to power up your digimon in addition to the ones collected in the game. Opening up the box, he smiled as he pulled out the digivice shaped reader, and plugged it into his key board before fishing out the disk. Along with it came a single blue card. Eying it for a moment, he shrugged and put on the pile with his other cards. It was probably just something to synchronize the reader to the computer or something.
Inserting the DVD and starting up the install, he tore into the guide book of what was supposed to be the most amazing game ever. A living, breathing, evolving world that more or less constantly changed on its own around the various quests, making them harder or easier as various battles raged.
Takato, as said before, was a dreamer, an idealist. Takato looked into anything in the book that looked like story information. Places, digimon, people û every bit of lore he could find he added to what he already knew by heart from his frequent internet searches on the subject. He didn't so much as glance at character creation, tips, or anything of the sort. He knew that there were classes for the partner of the digimon that would let them take the front seat and fight along side the digimon û and that was fine, he guessed û but Takato was a true believer in the bond between man and digimon. The partner fighting alongside his digimon was pretty cool, he felt, but a lot of the class descriptions and short stories really had the human outshining the digimon, which decidedly wasn't.
He ignored it for the moment, deciding to figure it out as he went. A slight beep came from his computer, and Takato smiled as he saw the installation complete.
ôOkay,ö He commented to the little red notebook as he pulled it down and put it underneath the digivice, ôThey won't have anything as cool as you in here Guilmon, but give me some luck anyway, all right?ö He pulled on his goggles to get into the spirit of things, and then followed the first instruction on the screen. Swipe the blue card.
ôFair enough.ö Takato did just that.
---
Culumon was having a really bad day û and he'd had some pretty bad ones in the past, so he thought he was in a pretty good position to judge. He scrambled away like his life depended on it û which it did. ôIf you didn't want to play, you could just say so!ö
The Ganimon wasn't in the mood to talk, the crab like digimon just skittering at him on its six legs, gesturing menacingly with its mismatched claws.
ôI really don't like this!ö Culumon was in full blown panic mode, fleeing the scene of the beach with all the speed he could muster.
ôScissors Execution!ö Was the Ganimon's only reply, swiping with his massive, bladed left claw, that Culumon only barely hopped over. Being only a Baby II digimon however, his coordination left something to be desired, and he tripped at the wrong moment. His luck, it seemed, had finally run out.
ôAhhhh!ö And Culumon's world erupted in light.
It's a small mercy that the light in question was not Culumon's Digi-Entelechy. Instead, there 'sat' a very confused young man wearing blue and white pajamas, holding a digivice, with an empty hand raised, as if he'd just finished slashing a card. Of course, given that his computer chair hadn't made the trip with him, he crashed to the ground. It's a good thing Ganimon was there to break his fall.
The child digimon let out a grumble as Takato's ass connected with his head. Takato glanced down, saw that he was sitting on a digimon, and commenced freaking out. ôAhhh!!ö
He scrambled off the digimon, but the crab's right arm snapped out, catching Takato's ankle. Culumon paused in his staring for a moment, to address the newcomer. ôAre you okay?ö
Takato tried to pull his foot from Ganimon's grip, and considered this. ôNo,ö he confirmed finally as he failed, ônot really.ö
ôScissors Ex-gah!ö Ganimon was cut off as his raised claw û along with the rest of him û was crushed underneath Takato's falling computer table, narrowly missing the young man himself. The claw released on reflex, fortunately, and Takato scrambled back away from the fallen furniture.
A slight whistling made him look up, and he paled. Culumon, curious, also looked up. Both resumed screaming and frantic dodging as Takato's furniture crashed down around them, even the bike he kept in the corner. A louder whistle made Takato gulp, and a quick glance told him that yes, his bed had finally joined the list of projectiles.
It wasn't going to hit him, though. Screwing up every bit of courage he could muster, he ran towards it's landing zone and dive tackled the small white digimon out of the way. The rolled jostled and squeezed the small digimon a little too much, and he let out an 'oof' as a light shot into the sky, blowing through Takato's little red notebook.
There was a smashing noise as Ganimon finally tore its way out from underneath the desk and glared at them next to the remains of the bed. ôAha! Now I've got you, you-ö
And then Ganimon was clocked in the head with an egg at terminal velocity, knocking it completely out. The egg itself was miraculously unharmed, and it's black hazard sigil flashed red once, before it shifted in the sand, content.
There was a long, long moment, as Takato and Culumon just started at the egg then the both of them, Takato from being in a new world, and Culumon from the near miss and Takato doing it too, started screaming again.
---
I should note that there are elements of all the first 5 seasons in here, though none of them survived completely intact. 4, in fact was strip-mined for a couple ideas, then tossed out almost entirely which is probably as it should be.
Also, I really hope I've gotten all those formatting errors nipped in the bud.
When I wrote the first bit, I obviously wasn't thinking clearly. The game as created was a rush job, adapted from something else in different circumstances. For this, I tore out the bulk of the game's guts and built something new, centered around digimon. There are certainly still elements of that original idea present, but now it feels much more like a digimon story to me rather than something random with digimon dropped in for kicks. I'm keeping the other topic up because, well, I don't believe in taking my stuff down, even if it's complete crap (and if that one wasn't there yet, it was going there fast), in favor of this.
---
Matsuda Takato scribbled furiously away at his test paper, the setting sun shining directly in his brown eyes, giving them a reddish tint. He ignored it, letting his brown hair fall into his face to filter it enough to finish. It was getting late, and this was a make up test to boot, but he just needed to jot down a few more lines before he was finished.
Glancing at the clock as he did put the final touches on the paragraph, Takato noted that he was almost late and grimaced, grabbing his bag and hurrying up to the teacher's desk. ôBye Ms. Asagi!ö
ôJust a moment, Takato!ö
Grimacing, the boy, young man really, turned back to his teacher, his expression morphing into a hesitant smile. ôYes?ö
She sighed, and gave him an exasperated look. ôTakato. This is your third make up test this year. I can't give you another one, you know. You're smart Takato. Maybe not an honors student, but certainly smart enough to pass. I don't even need to really look at it to know that it's mostly correct. You just never seem to apply yourself to your schoolwork when it's actually time to do it. Why do you do this to yourself?ö
Takato stared at her helplessly. What the hell could he say to that? That he found things more interesting than school out there? He wasn't exactly lazy, it was just that he always had so much fun having fun that it seemed to overshadow other things. That wasn't an answer a teacher would accept, after all.
The silence stretched out for another minute or so, Takato grasping for something, anything, to placate his teacher long enough to get the hell out of there. Finally she sighed. ôIt just hurts to see someone with so much potential throwing it all away. Just try to apply yourself in a more timely fashion from now on, okay?ö
Nodding frantically, Takato bolted out of the classroom.
If he didn't hurry now, he was definitely going to be late.
---
Takato skidded to a stop in front of his house, or rather the family owned bakery it was under. Cursing slightly at the time, he slunk around towards the back and eased in the door, hoping to not catch his parent's attention. It was not to be.
ôTakato!ö Matsuda Yoshi did not sound in the least bit pleased.
Takato winced at his mother's voice, but turned towards it anyways. ôYes?ö
ôHow did the test go?ö
Takato sighed, but resigned himself to the fact that his immediate future would be taken up by his mother. He carefully placed his book bag down, so as not to give away the precious cargo within, which would almost certainly draw his mother's ire, and took a seat at the small table. ôIt went fine, mom. Ms. Asagi said she could tell that even without looking too hard at it.
Yoshi nodded and took both a seat across from him and his hands in hers, a sign she was desperate for him to give her his full focus. ôThat's good Takato, but you still need to learn to focus. You're sixteen now. In high school, and closing in on your entrance exams. I just need you to buckle down for a while and apply yourself. Can you do that?ö
Takato gave his mother a smile. ôSure. I can do that.ö He glanced around, as much to change the uncomfortable subject as anything else. ôDo you and dad need any help down here?ö
The older woman smiled. ôWe'll manage. You go up and study, okay?ö
Takato nodded, grabbing his book bag. ôAll right. You be sure to call if you need any help, okay?ö She nodded, and Takato went upstairs.
It would be the last contact she had with her son for years. Her only consolation was that it wasn't a fight.
---
A Digital Fantasy
Prologue Round 1
Install/Simple
---
To his credit, Takato did in fact study. For several hours even. This more than entitled him to a break, he felt, especially once it came time for lights out.
Takato's relationship were... well, strained was the wrong word. Non-existent would be a better way to phrase it. Of the friends he'd had when he was twelve, only Kenta really kept in touch, even if he was in a better school. Hirokazu was at the same one as him, but too obsessed with being cool, and Juri had simply gone to a different high school û not that he'd ever been able to speak more than a couple of words to her in any case. His lack of anyone else still made him consider her one of the people he was closest to, though, which struck him as rather sad on the few occasions he bothered to ponder it.
Takato himself wasn't exactly blameless in this affair, either, having let his other interests turn him away and slowly seclude him. Takato was an idealist, a classic romantic, a dreamer. He sometimes wished for companionship, but most of the time his imagination served well enough. It wasn't anything like a full blown imaginary friend or anything, but he did imagine himself going on adventures with his favorite heroes, helping, being helped, saving the day, and sometimes even destroying the world. He was kind of an odd kid. Not in his otakuism, but in the way he let it isolate him.
ôWell,ö he commented to the little red notebook on top of the monitor that was his only real companion, ôI'll always have you, right?ö The notebook contained his continuous project over the last for years, his custom digimon, Guilmon. It's levels, abilities, stats and attacks from baby all the way through ultimate. Some of the drawings were fading, and that was kinda sad, but he had no idea how to preserve them.
On the verge of being a man, but unwilling to give up the trappings of childhood. Still, he did have limited interactions with others, but that was mostly through the magic of the internet, which led him up to today. Certain that everyone was asleep, he turned his computer's monitor back on and got it out of sleep mode, before turning and reaching into his book bag. He'd nearly been late today getting to the store before it closed. They'd promised to keep it for him through today, and he'd spent the last week scraping together the cash to finish paying it off.
It was called A Digital Fantasy. It was the latest game about his obsession, digimon. The limited edition even, with a card reader that would let you use the digimon game cards to power up your digimon in addition to the ones collected in the game. Opening up the box, he smiled as he pulled out the digivice shaped reader, and plugged it into his key board before fishing out the disk. Along with it came a single blue card. Eying it for a moment, he shrugged and put on the pile with his other cards. It was probably just something to synchronize the reader to the computer or something.
Inserting the DVD and starting up the install, he tore into the guide book of what was supposed to be the most amazing game ever. A living, breathing, evolving world that more or less constantly changed on its own around the various quests, making them harder or easier as various battles raged.
Takato, as said before, was a dreamer, an idealist. Takato looked into anything in the book that looked like story information. Places, digimon, people û every bit of lore he could find he added to what he already knew by heart from his frequent internet searches on the subject. He didn't so much as glance at character creation, tips, or anything of the sort. He knew that there were classes for the partner of the digimon that would let them take the front seat and fight along side the digimon û and that was fine, he guessed û but Takato was a true believer in the bond between man and digimon. The partner fighting alongside his digimon was pretty cool, he felt, but a lot of the class descriptions and short stories really had the human outshining the digimon, which decidedly wasn't.
He ignored it for the moment, deciding to figure it out as he went. A slight beep came from his computer, and Takato smiled as he saw the installation complete.
ôOkay,ö He commented to the little red notebook as he pulled it down and put it underneath the digivice, ôThey won't have anything as cool as you in here Guilmon, but give me some luck anyway, all right?ö He pulled on his goggles to get into the spirit of things, and then followed the first instruction on the screen. Swipe the blue card.
ôFair enough.ö Takato did just that.
---
Culumon was having a really bad day û and he'd had some pretty bad ones in the past, so he thought he was in a pretty good position to judge. He scrambled away like his life depended on it û which it did. ôIf you didn't want to play, you could just say so!ö
The Ganimon wasn't in the mood to talk, the crab like digimon just skittering at him on its six legs, gesturing menacingly with its mismatched claws.
ôI really don't like this!ö Culumon was in full blown panic mode, fleeing the scene of the beach with all the speed he could muster.
ôScissors Execution!ö Was the Ganimon's only reply, swiping with his massive, bladed left claw, that Culumon only barely hopped over. Being only a Baby II digimon however, his coordination left something to be desired, and he tripped at the wrong moment. His luck, it seemed, had finally run out.
ôAhhhh!ö And Culumon's world erupted in light.
It's a small mercy that the light in question was not Culumon's Digi-Entelechy. Instead, there 'sat' a very confused young man wearing blue and white pajamas, holding a digivice, with an empty hand raised, as if he'd just finished slashing a card. Of course, given that his computer chair hadn't made the trip with him, he crashed to the ground. It's a good thing Ganimon was there to break his fall.
The child digimon let out a grumble as Takato's ass connected with his head. Takato glanced down, saw that he was sitting on a digimon, and commenced freaking out. ôAhhh!!ö
He scrambled off the digimon, but the crab's right arm snapped out, catching Takato's ankle. Culumon paused in his staring for a moment, to address the newcomer. ôAre you okay?ö
Takato tried to pull his foot from Ganimon's grip, and considered this. ôNo,ö he confirmed finally as he failed, ônot really.ö
ôScissors Ex-gah!ö Ganimon was cut off as his raised claw û along with the rest of him û was crushed underneath Takato's falling computer table, narrowly missing the young man himself. The claw released on reflex, fortunately, and Takato scrambled back away from the fallen furniture.
A slight whistling made him look up, and he paled. Culumon, curious, also looked up. Both resumed screaming and frantic dodging as Takato's furniture crashed down around them, even the bike he kept in the corner. A louder whistle made Takato gulp, and a quick glance told him that yes, his bed had finally joined the list of projectiles.
It wasn't going to hit him, though. Screwing up every bit of courage he could muster, he ran towards it's landing zone and dive tackled the small white digimon out of the way. The rolled jostled and squeezed the small digimon a little too much, and he let out an 'oof' as a light shot into the sky, blowing through Takato's little red notebook.
There was a smashing noise as Ganimon finally tore its way out from underneath the desk and glared at them next to the remains of the bed. ôAha! Now I've got you, you-ö
And then Ganimon was clocked in the head with an egg at terminal velocity, knocking it completely out. The egg itself was miraculously unharmed, and it's black hazard sigil flashed red once, before it shifted in the sand, content.
There was a long, long moment, as Takato and Culumon just started at the egg then the both of them, Takato from being in a new world, and Culumon from the near miss and Takato doing it too, started screaming again.
---
I should note that there are elements of all the first 5 seasons in here, though none of them survived completely intact. 4, in fact was strip-mined for a couple ideas, then tossed out almost entirely which is probably as it should be.
Also, I really hope I've gotten all those formatting errors nipped in the bud.