...
"What?!"
"I-Invading the Human World?!"
"Is that even possible?!"
The room became a chaos of shouting, pointing, and dismissals by the Chosen Children towards Gennai. An atmosphere of denial and despair gripped the room and each Chosen Child.
Their Digimon, on the other hand, seemed excited to visit the land of their peers without being fully aware of the consequences involved.
Sora collapsed in his chair with a desperate look on his face as he tried and failed to deny Gennai. Noah leaned back on the table with bloodshot eyes, his mind racing a mile a minute. Izzy was simply beginning to dismiss the barbarity Gennai had just said. Mimi and TK looked as if the world was falling down on them as they nervously scoffed at the situation. Joe turned extremely pale as he looked down at his now healed arm.
And Matt...
"This is bullshit."
Matt's voice echoed in the room.
Everyone's gaze focused on the blond boy with crossed arms, who was glaring at Gennai.
"You know, ever since you showed up that day when we defeated Devimon, I've always suspected you. It couldn't be a coincidence that just when we defeated that idiot, you magically appeared out of nowhere to give us a new target to chase after. You didn't tell us anything" The blond boy paused, letting his words sink in to every person in the room. "Tag and Emblems. A piece of crap you only used to lure us in, and now, because of your 'powerful artifacts that will increase his strength to another level', Tai is missing or possibly dead. And we were foolish enough to follow you ignorantly, like a flock of sheep!"
Matt's words seemed to strike every person in the room mercilessly. But even then Matt didn't stop; he continued to speak bluntly.
"Not to mention that you never told us what this 'threat' was that hovered over the Server Continent; it could have been Vandemon, it could have been Etemon..."
Bam!
Matt's fist descended on the table echoing; Gabumon's companion glared with pure anger and contempt at Gennai, the latter completely silent letting Matt's words slap him steadily.
"... or it could simply be that you're using us to clear your path; who knows, maybe, just maybe, after Vandemon another Digimon will appear out of nowhere that we must take care of, and in exchange for what? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!"
Matt's frustrated voice made Sora, Joe, and Mimi grimace, but they didn't dare to refute his words. Even Sora, who normally contradicted Matt, remained silent as she watched the situation unfold.
"If you know that Vandemon is going to invade our World, you must also know, or at least have an idea of, how it is that this 'Vampire King' plans to go to our World" Noah looked at Gennai with a raised eyebrow. "Or am I wrong?"
The room went into a different kind of tension; this time it wasn't out of hopelessness knowing that they would have to face a new evil. But to a tension caused by trust, or rather, the lack of it.
Gennai simply nodded slowly, confirming Noah's words.
"No, you're not wrong."
It was as if a blow had fallen on the children, leaving him with nothing to say, but saying a lot at the same time.
"And-and why didn't you ever tell us? Because... why?" Mimi seemed to keep talking, but her voice began to crack slightly, feeling hundreds of emotions at the same time, leaving her speechless and not knowing what to really feel.
Instead of saying something to defend herself, Gennai instead asked a simple question.
"What is the Digital World to you?"
"What do I care what this world is, all I know is that it's garbage!" Lost in his fury, Matt stood up abruptly from his chair with both hands raised in a fist as he took a step towards Gennai. "And that you're an old piece of shit who deserves to be thrown to the bottom of the fucking ocean!!!"
"Matt! Calm down!" Gabumon's voice echoed in the room as he grabbed Matt's shirt, stopping him.
The room fell into another silence again, being broken only by the irregular blond breathing.
Finally, with an aggressive growl, Matt went back to sitting with his arms crossed not noticing the terrified look in TK's eyes.
After a tense one second, Gennai coughed into his fist before resuming his chatter. "...Perhaps I should have been more specific; let me rephrase the question. For you, where does the Digital World stand?"
Noticing that no one was in the mood to respond, Izzy replied with a wave of her hands. "On a supercomputer, one big enough to store enough data on everything... though I can't think of any computer powerful enough for this."
Gennai, on the other hand, shook his head as he rubbed his beard thoughtfully.
"You see, the Digital World is, well, its own world. By that I mean it is in its own dimension, separate from your dimension, but overlapping with your world, like two sides of the same coin." Raising a hand, a hologram appeared above Gennai with two representations of the earth overlapping before separating them with a thick line down the middle. "In simple terms, The Human World and the Digital World are separated by a thin line called 'The Net'; it is this line that you humans know as 'The Internet'"
"That's false" Izzy scoffed with a smug grin as he leaned back in his chair. "Humans created the Internet; it was one of the most revolutionary creations in history."
"Humans didn't create 'The Net', they just discovered it. It was always there and possibly will still be there when we're all gone" Izzy frowned, but Gennai spoke again without allowing Izzy a chance to interrupt him. "Back on topic, humans managed to create machines called 'computers' capable of sending information through 'The Net' and leaving it there; things like web pages, documents, etc. All information is stored inside 'The Net' and will always stay inside 'The Net'"
"So--"
Before Izzy could say anything, Gennai quickly anticipated the red-haired boy's question and beat her to it.
"I don't have the permissions to talk about the creation of the Digital World, but I can tell you that it was born as a side effect of the discovery of 'The Net'" Gennai said as the hologram in his hand changed to a planet with two hands gently holding it before a lock replaced the image.
"...Haa" Izzy inhaled and exhaled for a few seconds; one of the things he hated most was being interrupted. Instead, Noah decided to continue with the questions, scratching his head lightly.
"Then it's highly likely that the Digital World was created at the same time we discovered The Net, isn't it?"
Gennai did not deny, nor did he affirm Noah's question. Instead, he simply shrugged as if the question had no relevance. "I think we're getting off topic."
The atmosphere in the room could almost be compared to a bomb, with the patience of all the kids being the fuse for the explosion. Even after Matt's angry outburst, Gennai was still silent as to why he had decided to keep the information from them so they could return to their world.
Perhaps sensing that the children's patience was running out, Gennai finally decided to stop beating around the bush. The little old man reached into one of his pockets before pulling out a thin rectangular object with a picture printed in the middle.
A Card.
Noting the confused looks on the faces of all the Chosen Children, Gennai cleared his throat uncomfortably. "This is the way you guys can go home. As I said a moment ago, 'The Net' functions as a kind of barrier separating our World from yours. Normally there would be no way to connect your dimension to ours; however, these Cards were created to travel between dimensions, even beyond our World, to dimensions never before seen."
Gennai paused for a moment to watch each child's reaction carefully, taking note of their personalities and thoughts. The old man would be lying if he said he did not expect this outcome considering his actions, but still he felt not a hint of regret in his soul.
"It takes a total of nine cards arranged in a specific order to travel to their world through a Terminal" Gennai finished his explanation before putting the card away in his pocket.
"Terminal?" Sora asked with a tilt of his head.
"Imagine a kitchen where chefs give orders to cooks on what dishes to prepare. Each order is written into a recipe, and when followed correctly, they get the desired result" Izzy replied, humming thoughtfully. "In the context of computing, a terminal is a device or interface that allows data input and output between a user and a computer. Although in this case we would use these Cards to send ourselves to our world."
"So... we just have to collect these Cards to get back home?" Joe asked, adjusting his glasses.
"Yes, but..." Piximon nodded enthusiastically before laughing nervously.
"But?" Noah asked despite the bad feeling he was getting.
"There's just one little problem with that, pi" Piximon said nervously.
The children looked at each other questioningly before Gennai let out a murmur.
"The other eight letters... are in Vandemon's possession."
...
...
A/N: I'm not dead, well, a little bit, I've been too busy to write.
I'm still busy (I have an exam tomorrow and two presentations on Tuesday along with a post-lab).
I wanted to do the special Matt chapter before publishing this chapter, but it got impossible.
Also, I don't know if I said this before, I think I did, but I'm starting to get a little fatigued from writing this (I've been writing the same thing for almost a year and a half). I won't drop it, I don't plan to, but I want to write other things.
(This was partly a recommendation I received from a friend so as not to affect my writing and make the story as trashy as my MHA FF, which, while it has interesting stuff, also has so much trash that in retrospect I shouldn't have written that.)
So it's possible I'll alternate between writing each week, meaning one week something about Digimon and the next week whatever I want to write.
I literally have a HUGE list of things that could be interesting, I just have to decide which idea to develop... or if I want to write another FF...