~~~

Chapter 11 - I'm Not Like The Other Digimon

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Mitsuo walked into the hall outside of the operations room, another man in sunglasses and a suit, this one with brown hair, bombastically gelled to look like a wave, stood in front of him. Another person from the American Intelligence apparatus. The man walked up and tried to greet him with a handshake.

"Agent Sanders, pleased to meet you."

"Mitsuo, director of the Hypnos group's operations. Ah, shaking isn't the custom here." He corrected the agent. When in America, he shook hands. When in Hypnos HQ, he did whatever he damn well wanted, and he was not in the mood for anything but getting to the point.

"Ah, sorry. I always forget how you do things here."

Reika came rushing in, "Sorry, I had to take care of some issues!" she said.

"No worries, though perhaps we need to review operational security. This is top secret." He said. He wasn't really mad at Reika, because he knew—

The American agent spoke up "Sorry, I've been in Japan for the last couple days. Long story short, I was already in the area when I received a call from your… benefactors and was let in."

Mitsuo turned to Reika, whose face was flush with embarrassment over letting someone completely steamroll protocol without authorization. His face went red. He was furious. Why was this guy here? How did he even find the location of their building, let alone get through the lobbies and the hallways to get in without a damn escort?!?

"I really don't have time for this bullshit right now. And you can leave before you get escorted out of the building. Security is already on its way."

They did share the building with smaller groups, but none of them would let a random American walk in! Before he did anything he would regret, he took a breath and a moment to let himself collect his thoughts.

He would slip due to fatigue, and he knew it. Unfortunately the American guy wasn't don't just yet.

"Whoa whoa whoa, not so hasty! See, I was called in to check up on you guys since I heard you had a bit of trouble last night and this morning!"

"There's nothing you Americans can help us with."

"No, see, I don't think that's true." The man said, continuing to butt his nose in on activities that really weren't his. "See, I was already here. We're already commissioning y'all to come out and build pilot units in major cities, and I was scheduled to come in tomorrow."

"This bullshit stops here, 'agent'. You don—" The guy cut him off and kept going.

"Then we hear you're dealing with an event in action right now, and now my boss wants me to survey your operation and see how things run. And besides, surely our scientists and engineers can help understand the problem! This is a partnership, after all."

"Fine," Mitsuo said, finally giving up. Then a thought occurred to him— "We'll do your fucking tour and get you briefed when I can verify your identity. You're going to have to wait in the lobby until I can verify your identity."

"Aww c'mon. don't be like that. All you need is my FBI tag and we're good to go." He said, holding it out.

Mitsuo smiled, glancing back down the corridor. Security had already been waiting. "Unfortunately, no. You're going to have to wait."

The two stared at each other for a moment. The American was taller than him, by a couple inches, but he didn't allow that to intimidate him. The security officer approached, and the FBI agent caved, heading back down the hall.

"Make a note to revise security protocol. Unless there's a digimon outside the building threatening the city itself, no one gets past the lobby without a badge."

Reika started to apologize profusely, but he assured her it wasn't her mistake. If he had stepped into an FBI building, Mitsuo would have been laid flatH He had more important things than to berate his lead Operator for messing up OpSec.

Together, they walked into the main room. Domed, glowing screens all in the bowl. An overlay of the closest parts of the digital world laid on top of a map of the city. The portal, the main location Digimon used to cross the worlds, was locked down.

"Do we have any information on the Wild One we turned off Yuggoth and Shaggais offensive protocol for?" He asked.

"No information, but the creature did give a few probing attacks. Didn't stress the system more than 60% of its maximal energy output."

"That's not good. Did something happen to reduce total system capacity?"

Potential failures points in the protocols came to mind, as they always did.

"No, and there was no corruption of the memory or code from this morning. All code passes basic md5 hash and sum checks, system integrity is at maximum."

That was good, but it still bothered him.

"Then what do we know of the NullRenamon' influence on the program?"

"Nothing, though the logs indicate that she may as well have a root certificate key in her data."

"Well, we'll calculate a new one."

"But—"

"I know. But we'll need to get used to doing the calculations. We can't trust every group we build these for. To use the same one for each installation is probably a mistake."

It had taken months to run the calculation for the first go-round. A new certificate would take a long time. Toggling was easy. Just turn off the power. Creating a cert and binding it to a digital area, on the other hand, was the difficult part.

~~~

He left me alone, which, given everything that had just happened…

Wow, was he stupid?

I was a Digimon! A Digimon picked by a God of another universe to bring oblivion to the world! And he left me alone to go do… whatever the fuck it was that he did.

Careful to dodge the back of the chair this time, I scooted forward and stood up. Was that really what it took? A bag of chips and a bottle of water and I lost all the fight?

I walked out of the room. Let's see if I can find my way back to Mia and Meicoomon. What was the real reason I didn't really get the want thing need? I shook my head. Stupid question, really. I gave myself a look over. Covered in dust and dirt Little bits of me just out of place.

A shower would work, but. Hm. Fur water dog. Fuck that right out. Shower? Nope.

"Meicoomon wants you to sleep!"

Ears perked up, I turned the corner, and followed the voice room located.

"But we can't eat here, we need to leave, she'll be back soon!"

I paused.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Mia makes more mistakes when she doesn't sleep before we leave!"

"What's going on?" I asked. A mess of food on the tables, and meicoomon standing in front of the doorway blocking Mia from leaving.

"Oh, uh. Well. We were just about to take a nap—" she said.

I ignored the lie. Didn't really matter anyway.

"We're leaving. Do you need me to carry you?" I asked.

Meicoomon and Mia both stared at me like I had a third eye.

"Want to stay here?"

They looked at each other. Then back at me.

"If you want to back out from this Evil stuff, go for it."

There were a few snacks still on the counter.

"You're tired though!" They both complained.

"More hungry than tired, but yeah that happens when you run for two or three hours straight and also don't get any food."

"Where do we go?"

"Haven't decided yet."

"I bet we could go back to the castle now!" Mia declared.

A good idea, assuming it was still there. Bad idea for right that moment.

"Just need a place to think that isn't here." I told her.

There's an easy way to get more information.

Just die.

That was… also a legitimate point.

No, that wouldn't help. Abaddomon was a moron. Possessing all that power, rivaling all but the invisible sky daddy, and he… Still got himself locked away and chose me, and my fucking deviantart original fan character as messenger.

"Nullrenamon?" They were tugging at me.

"She's doing it more!" Meicoomon said.

"Still getting used to things," I told them. "What's wrong?"

"We leaving?" Meicoomon asked. "Because this place sucks. I hate it."

"Yeah!" Mia said.

We left, proceeded through the hallways before anyone could come back. I was, briefly, worried that a security guard or something would try to stop us from leaving, but nothing came or happened. We found the elevator, I pushed the button marked "L" and left it there.

Mia was holding her stopwatch-thing, playing with it. Meicoomon practically hung off her.

"Did something happen while I was gone?"

She and Meicoomon both stiffened. Did I really care that much about them? About their problems I had? Well, I couldn't just leave them there, in the middle of Japan.

"Yes and No" Mia started, trying to play coy, but being bad at it. Something did happen, or they'd realized something.

"Mei thinks Mia's watch is breaking!" Did all digimon speaking patterns change with each evolution?

The door to the elevator opened, and we stepped out. The features of the building changed, going from antiseptic hospital white, to a generic lobby of what I'd imagined a Japanese high-rise might have been. Little fake plants acting as decoration.

"Your stopwatch is breaking? Why?"

"Uh—well—"

Actually, it was probably best not to talk about it here if it was magic.

Mia and Meicoomon both stepped in front of me, and ran up ahead, around the corner.

"HELLO THERE" A voice practically shouted. The voice sent a shiver down my spine and I recoiled back. I stepped around the corner, to be greeted by Meicoomon standing in front of the guy, claws out. He had the most obnoxious haircut and styling I'd ever seen. He was wearing a suit that was wrinkled like it hadn't been ironed out in weeks. A black tie with a knot that was comically small and wasn't even pulled up to the neck-button on the collar.

"Leave us alone!" Mia declared.

"What?" The guy asked, his face in what looked like shock as he noticed me.

"We finally tracked you down Mia!"

"We need to go!"

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," he said, his hand slyly moving toward the inside of his jacket.

"Run!" Mia shouted and, for a split second, I wondered whether I should follow her, when it was Meicoomon who grabbed my hand and with surprising strength for a small kitty that wasn't taller than my knees dragged me toward the doors.

I looked back, and Mia dodged as the guy tried to grab for her.

"Evolve!" Mia shouted, running from the guy and dodging his attempt to grab her a second time.

Meicoomon nodded, a half-second later, Meicrackmon was back, batting the guy's hand away right as he managed to get a hold of Mia's wrist in his attempt to restrain her. Bits of blood started to drip where the guy was smacked. Meicrackmon grabbed her partner and we left the building out the front door, the outer world not knowing about what was going on.

"What the hell was that?!?" I asked. Not angry, just shocked at how quick it had escalated.

"He's not really your type," Meicrackmon said, Mia still in her arms. We ran a couple blocks down.

"I don't follow," I said. What was that supposed to mean?

"Whatever that man is," Meicrackmon said, "he's not on our side."

"You know him?"

"It's complicated. He's part of the US special agencies. He's been following us around wherever we go."

"He shouldn't be here!" Mia shouted.

We passed a couple blocks, the late morning sun starting to break past the buildings above and around us.

"Is he a kill on sight person?"

What was I saying? Was this the kind of dream where I couldn't do anything and was pursued by some impossible-to-defeat source?

Was it real?

Did it matter?

"Not exactly kill on sight, but not too far off from that." Ugh. This wasn't going anywhere at this rate.

"Do you know what he wants?"

"He wants to take digimon away from kids! He wants to make it so only adults can go to the digital world!"

Hm. That was probably impossible, but… definitely an actual villain. One with actual motivations. She looked at Meicrackmon.

"What does pink mean?" Mia asked.

Huh?

"Red means you're angry, white means you're relaxed, I think… Purple means you're going to be silly. What does pink mean?"

Mia, even in Meicrackmon's arms, grew a huge shit-eating grin.

I didn't need this treatment!

"Oh, that explains everything!"

"Explains what?!?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, playing mysterious now?" I barked back. The smile didn't fade.

We slowed down when we were at least a couple miles away. Not near a park, but the ocean, the seabirds floating overhead, and the dull hum of waves crashing on various barriers starting to grow.

"I'll have to arrange a date!" Mia said.

"NO!" Meicrackmon and I both said at once. "You're eight years old," you should not be playing captain of the ship!

"Yeah that won't be necessary."

"Yeah, It's not really like that. We barely even know each other and also there's that weird thing with evolution, how does that even work and…"

Mia tut-tutted. "Meicrackmon looks, acts, and sounds like an adult to me."

"She's even pinker!"

Oh.

My.

God.

~~~

He flipped his lighter in annoyance.

Both the digimon and the girl had not, in fact, stayed in the lunchroom like he'd asked.

Reika would not be getting to interview the kid. That was bad. But, as he walked back down, deciding whether or not he should break protocol from his superiors and their unfathomable idiocy, he realized it was probably for the best that they had left. He just hoped they'd used the back exit instead of the front one.

He sneered at having to work with the guy, but unfortunately, the people bankrolling the entire operation wanted cooperation with the US Gov. Damn Globalist nature of the modern world really got in the way of being able to actually just do the right thing. Unfortunately, Japan hadn't recovered from tariffs levied against the country's auto manufacturers in the last ten years.

Then there was the whole "actually, no one really knows what happened to the D-Reaper, and the only other person who knows about it is probably insane."

And he knew that if they stuck around, they'd meet agent Sander. Opening the door to the lobby, yes, it was probably the best thing for the world that they had left the building.

"Mitsuo, you bastard! Not only have you kept me waiting for three fucking hour, you didn't tell me there was a kid who showed up that was American!"

"Well, it took a long time for my superiors to call your superiors and verify your identity, Agent ?" He left that last bit off.

"Agent sanders."

The type of person took every inch you gave them and gave nothing back, and also tried to force you to back down by sheer force of personality.

"Right, Agent Saunders."

Then, when others caved, called it divine providence.

"Sanders, you prick."

"Duly noted."

"We don't have much time. Let's get to the tour and chat then. I take it that you know the purpose of our facilities?"

"Yeah yeah yeah, I want to know everything you know about digimon," Agent Sander demanded.

"We'll be happy to debrief you with everything we know when we get it collected, but that will take some time, agent Sonders."

When dealing with people like this, it was the little things.

The twitch on the agent's face.

The face turning red.

The blood vessels starting to emerge.

Little things.

~~~

"But no, seriously, even if I think Meicrackmon is very good looking, I just… I just can't."

The crazy-looking cat anthro smiled. god those insane eyes and sharp teeth.

"Don't worry." she said.

"I understand."

~~~