"Gaomon, you're scaring all of my new friends away again!" a young, blonde boy complained as he sat at a round lunch table, picking at the disgusting heap of slime that they called grape jelly in this school. He had the left side of his cheek pressed into his left palm while his right held the spork, gently stabbing at the slime and pushing it around in its tray. He was alone at the round table now, but just a moment ago there had been a small group of friends sitting around him throwing some kind of cards down on the table now that they had finished eating. The cards themselves had rather interested him, as they not only looked kind of cool, but there seemed to be some kind of game made out of them. He could barely follow what was going on as the game was moving at a ridiculously fast pace, with cards getting thrown down on the table, moved to a discard pile of some kind while other cards were flipped over consistently. He had started asking what it was about, but it had been at that point that Gaomon had finally caught up with him again. Soon afterward, they had left. He couldn't understand the reason why.

"Master Henry, they were hardly friends," Gaomon replied flatly, sitting on the seat beside him. The blue, bipedal dog-like Digimon wore boxing gloves on his arms at all times, a practice which Henry constantly vocalized its oddity. "You did not know a single one of them. And they were already giving you dark looks as you talked. If they left you simply because your servant continues to follow you, then that must be something wrong with them." 

"That's always your excuse," Henry complained in response. "Oh well, it can't be helped." He then smiled slightly and lifted his head again, looking over at Gaomon. "I suppose it is better that I kept my Digimon. I mean, I would have been rather upset if it turned out that you had died like the others or something. Haha...wouldn't that have put a damper on things this weekend?" 

"Master, with all due respect, I humbly request that you speak of such ill things with a greater regard for their dark nature." the digimon said, bowing his head slightly. "And we have no reason to suspect the...incapacitation of the other Digimon." 

"Well, they're gone, aren't they?" Henry replied, waving Gaomon's sentiments away with his right arm, accidentally splattering some of the jelly that had been stuck to the spork in his hand in Gaomon's direction. The digimon did not move, although he had plenty of time to do just that. The jelly struck him on top of his muzzle, which he ignored completely. "That's as good as dead to me." 

In truth, Henry was the reason the other kids had deserted the table. He had spoken of Gaomon and the other kids' Digimon in a much similar manner. This was a typical day for the two at this point. Ever since the other Digimon in the world seemed to simply vanish into thin air one morning, everybody else avoided them even more than they had before. They were probably just jealous that his Digimon had stuck around, but he didn't particularly care. After all, it was entirely possible that they had all been taken away for a specific reason. And since Gaomon hadn't been taken away, he must not have done anything wrong. If anything, this was a good sign for him, right? He was even more special now than he was before.

It wasn't long until the middle school's bell rang once again, causing him to stand up from his seat and make his way to his sixth period classroom, with Gaomon at his heels like usual. When they arrived at the classroom, Gaomon followed him inside. Usually, a Digimon would have been required to wait outside until class was over, since they did not want the children to have such a distraction or, worse, use their special powers to cheat. However, Gaomon always stuck with him and he refused to leave, no matter how much the teachers insisted otherwise. Eventually, his parents had had a discussion with the principal of the school and gotten him special permission. Gaomon was not to let him out of his sight, so it was imperative that he stay with him in the classrooms as well. It also probably helped that none of Gaomon's special abilities would assist him in any unfair manner.

Eventually, school was let out and the two began to take their usual walk home in moderate silence. Occasionally, Henry would point something out and laugh about it while Gaomon simply listened to him and acknowledged his words. This time, however, there was an unusual incident that occurred merely a block away from  their return home. There was a trio of loud honking sounds, followed by what seemed to be screeching tires and then a loud, almost disturbing crunching sound that caused Gaomon to flinch slightly. A vehicle that had spun around a corner much too quickly had ended up crashing head-on with another vehicle that had been making its way around the same corner.

"Oh wow, wasn't that cool?" Henry asked, a grin appearing on his face. "I've never seen a crash in real life before! I wonder if somebody died?" he then paused for a moment as he thought harder about it. "...That would be a drag, actually. I don't want a bunch of police cars taking up the street. Those lights are really annoying to look at."

"Master, I do not mean to interrupt, but perhaps we should be on our way?" Gaomon insisted, looking up at Henry. "We never know what kind of characters might-" 

But Henry was already dashing toward the accident, rather than away from it. However, it was not the accident that now had his attention. Rather, it was the small figure beneath the two automobiles. The figure had four legs and a short yet bushy tail. It was a small dog of some description. One of the vehicles had caught fire, causing both drivers to abandon their vehicles and move to a safer distance, just to be safe. The dog was hiding under the opposite one, away from the flames. Henry made his way out onto the street, despite the protests of the dog digimon at his heels and the other people around him. He had already climbed down onto the street road and attempted to push his arms underneath so that he could grab the dog by the scruff of the neck. However, he was not able to pull the dog out like he wanted to. The vehicle was crumpled in such a way that the metal framework had been lowered so much that this was an impossible escape route. He then looked back, expecting his Digimon to be by his side as he usually was.

"Gaomon," he said calmly, despite the roaring flames of the opposite car a few feet away from him. "Can you...er...man, what was that called again?" Finally, after a few moments of silent thinking, shook his head, fed up with trying to remember. "Just do, the, uh...the thing. You know. The thing you do." 

Gaomon did not need to be told twice. He got into a stance and raised his gloved fists, facing the car. "Gao Rush!" he called, slamming his punches in such a flurry that they were nothing more than a blur of red rubber. He slammed his fists against the car door, punching it farther inward with each punch. As the metal bent inward, it lifted itself away from the ground, widening the gap between the ground and the frame.

Finally, Henry managed to barely pull the dog out from underneath the car. "There ya go, little guy." Henry said with a smile. "You could've died if you stayed down there. But you can go now." He then set the now-panicked dog back on the ground, who immediately started running in the opposite direction.

Now that the dog was gone, Gaomon reached out, opened his boxing glove hands, grabbed hold of Henry's wrist and pulled him back down the road, away from the crowd of onlookers that were already starting to applaud him. The last thing that Gaomon wanted was for Henry to be the center of attention. Thankfully, none of the crowd followed them and they were able to escape into a small alleyway, hidden away from the main street.

"Aww, what was that for, Gaomon?" Henry muttered, putting his hands behind his head, now that he had finally been let go. "I was starting to make some new friends again." 

"Deepest apologies, sir." Gaomon replied, bowing his head in apology. "However, I felt it necessary to remove you from the situation before something more happened." 

"Oh well." the boy said. "Let's just go home, huh? As fun as that was, nobody died and it wasn't as interesting as I thought it'd be." 

Gaomon withheld a sigh and instead directed his attention above him, toward the boy's face. "Sir, if you do not mind my asking...why did you go help that animal, then?" 

"I dunno." Henry replied. "I just saw a dog and I didn't want him to die for some reason." 

Gaomon looked questioningly at Henry, as though the response baffled him. However, he merely shrugged his shoulders, trying to ignore his curiosity. "Come, Master, I believe it is time that we returned home for the day." 

"Right, right." Henry said. Together, the two began making their way back toward their home, with Gaomon leading them down a path away from where the police lights were already starting to become visible. 

---

Eventually, the two found themselves back in Henry's room as though nothing had ever happened in the first place. Neither one of them mentioned the incident and Henry found himself sitting down in his usual spot in his mostly-bare room, laying down on his bed and twirling a plain hat that he always kept in his room, yet never wore on his fingertip. Although sometimes, he liked to place it on Gaomon's head. He did always look relatively nice in a hat.

Eventually growing bored of sitting there with Gaomon staring at the door, he decided to reach down into his pocket and retrieve his cell phone from his pocket. He clicked a few icons on it, eventually loading up his internet browser. For a short while, he watched videos on his phone about various different subjects until his phone beeped at him. He recognized the sound immediately and knew what it was before the notification showed up from the top of the phone's screen. He tapped the notification and it immediately brought a new window on his phone's display. The e-mail that he had assigned to his phone came up quickly and he looked at the new message. He usually ignored them, as nobody important ever bothered to take the time to write to him. And curiously enough, the message was from the familiar "EBE" and bore the word "TIME" in its subject line. He wasn't sure why the combination looked so familiar...but it caused him to click it.

On the phone, a simple message was displayed.

[indent]"Quite an eventful day you have had. Care to make it more interesting?"[/indent]

"...Huh?" Henry murmured as he looked at the e-mail. "Wow, that's cool. This guy knows what happened today. Maybe he was-" but he stopped there, immediately flinching in pain and dropping the phone onto the soft cushion of his bed. The motion caused Gaomon's head to immediately jerk in his direction and caused him to jump to his feet.

"Master!" Gaomon exclaimed, quickly rushing to his bedside. "Are you alright!?" 

"Yeah, don't worry so much." Henry murmured, looking down at the now-glowing phone. "It's just a little burn." 

Before their very eyes, the phone began to undergo a metamorphosis, the light growing brighter until they both eventually were forced to look away. Finally, the light faded and the phone had transformed into what was clearly a different device altogether. Henry reached down and picked the strange device up. "Aw man!" he complained, rolling his eyes. "Mom and Dad were still paying that phone's stuff...off...?"

Suddenly, a dizzy spell washed over him. "Gaomon...I think I'm...taking a..." he murmured sleepily, but he did not get to finish his sentence. He heard a vague "M-Master!" somewhere off to his side, a pair of gloved hands grabbing his head....

And then, nothing but darkness.