It was quiet. Well, as quiet as one would expect a classroom to be. The one hosting this detention would be a senile old wort by the name of Mr Fujo. What could one say about this teacher except for his contempt towards the students. Even the slightest action against his own personal idea of what a good student should be would cause a student to receive a strict yelling. He was also notably liberal with his handouts of detention, course on the flip-side he never really escalated beyond that even for repeat offenders, something about "The joys of education are worth more then getting you expelled." That was his usual motto.

On the desk where he was furiously marking test results was a digital timer counting down the hour and half where you were expected to do productive things. Like homework or exam prep. Mr Fujo wouldn't check if you had a phone out or the like though. He was much too invested in marking those papers.

The indication that something weird was going to happen?

The digital timer. It began to glitch out displaying random numbers. Anyone on the phone would notice the screen been to glitch profusely, numbers and characters cascading across it like some sort of cryptic language then suddenly...

Mr Fujo's head hit the desk like a sack of potatoes as the building would quake as if caught in a surprise earthquake. Anything on the desks would quickly be thrown off them onto the floor as a result of the immense quaking. The buildings very foundation would groan under the resulting stress. As they intensified, the back wall with the door of the detention room began to collapse away. Tendrils of light and binary would snake out as it began to collapse away. Where once stood the back wall of the detention room was now a white-rift instead of the hallway and the windows to outside no longer showed the sky, instead that same mono-tone white light glared through.

Indeed you troublemakers had been left with both a messy classroom and a mysterious door to somewhere...

---

The Digital world had been rendered in a state of schism ever since the Yokai incident. Leading to each area suffering some sort of time dilation from each other. For some Digimon their next meeting with their old friends would be less then a year and for others it would have been after several lifetimes. Though there was an underlying sickness within the digital world whom symptoms had yet to truly rear their ugly head. The only ones that would know what it was would be those at the very centre of the digital world in a realm of data referred to only as Olympos, and they had seemingly closed themselves off completely a long time ago.

So for the unassuming Digimon, the resulting Digital quakes were most frightening... even more so would be that for a certain few Digimon whom would have been pulled down into chasms within the digital world and 'warped' to an auxiliary node of the digital world.

Given the connection certain (player) Digimon would have, they would be dumped outside the other side of the gate, From where they were standing, It would be a mysterious library, with rows upon rows of books comprised of solid data, that seemed to stretch on as far as the eye could see.

---

Test scores were out. Wakana was curious to see where exactly she ranked. Well, that’s implying she didn’t already know she was at least in the top five, if not ranked one. ”Hehe. I’m sure I’m already doing better than that Ojou-sama girl.” Soon enough, she made her way to the board that had the scores on them and she looked for her name. ”Wakana Toko….” To give herself a bit of dramatic tension, she started from the bottom of the highest ranks.

”Wakana…. Toko!” She exclaimed as she found her name. There, top five. Easy. And look at that. Right below her. ”Heh. Estelle, look at you.” She could help but let a smirk cross her face. She wasn’t entirely sure why she didn’t like that Estelle girl. A foreigner but she had this annoying personality that rubbed Wakana the wrong way.

Of course, just as Wakana made her way up to the board, the self satisfaction of victory spreading across her features, the person of her ire was making her way through the crowd. She could hear her before she could see the foreigner.

“Ohohoho!~” A grating, smug, laugh piercing the air. “No need to be so astonished, my fellow students. I'm sure everyone did well – though not as good as me, of course – so there is no need to fret.” Like the red sea, students seemed to give way to the rather prim and proper looking girl, not wanting to be one to be caught in the middle of her path either out of respect or mild fear. A few though, were poised to follow her around it seemed.

Estelle Antoinette Échecs. The heiress to both a fortune and a prestigious business. Of course she caused others to run green with envy, her skill, beauty and poise caused everyone to show proper respect. It was unthinkable she couldn't be good at something or not be the best.

“Indeed, I'll be quite impressed with anyone who even made it -close- to me in the...” As she approached the board however, a palpable silence fell over the crowd. She had lost to Wakana. Only a point or two below her in the test scores. Of course, she couldn't take this insult ungracefully. She accepted defeat with grace and poise - That uncouth heathen what was with that smirk?! Estelle turned towards Wakana, one of her arms resting just under her breasts, the other elbow resting on her hand.
“My my, seems someone's been studying hard! I must congratulate you on your narrow victory.”

”Oh my, Ojou-Sama. Thank you for your kind words. I’m sorry if you can’t retain quite the same amount of information in that pretty princess head of yours.” Wakana replied, the smirk never leaving her face. There was seriously something that jerked her the wrong way. ”Perhaps next time you can try to beat me again in test scores.” The girl scoffed as she gave a short laugh. ”If that’s possible.”

Seriously, what was with this girls problem?! One of Estelle's eyebrows twitched in annoyance.

“Oho?~ Jealousy of my pretty face is understandable.” Estelle replied, lightly touching the side of her face. “After all, I do put quite a bit of work into this body,” Estelle shook her head, smirking at Wakana. “Not that you would know about something like that, miss dead last during physical exams~”

Wakana’s eyebrow twitched in response to that. ”What was that?” The corners of her mouth started quivering. ”L-like physical exams matter!” She snapped back. Who needed good physical scores? Not like she’d get in trouble for those anyway. ”I’m sure if I even tried to practice I’d do better than you.” The glasses girl mentioned before turning her head as if trying to ignore Estelle.

“Ohohoh, I would love to see you try.” Estelle laughed lightly in her usual manner. “But with that big head of yours weighing you down, I'm afraid you'd only end up hurting yourself.” While she may not have been top athlete level herself, she was definitely up there in the top ten of the school. She had to be, of course. “But maybe if you ask really nicely, I wouldn't mind giving you a personal little lesson.”

”Help from you? Hah. If anyone here has a big head it’s you since you get your hands into every cookie jar around here. I’m surprised about that since I’d figure you had plenty of those at home.” Estelle was the heiress to a big baked goods thing right? Wakana didn’t really pay too much attention to her for that but she did like pissing her off. That was always fun.

“You say that like indulging in a little bit of everything is wrong.” Estelle replied with a laugh. “Like a deliciously baked ice cream cake, as long as there's a perfect balance there's nothing wrong with a little indulgence.” She tilted her head slightly to the side as she spoke. “But you, you're like a plain, tasteless piece of bread. Not even any flavor. You could be something greater, but you're nothing but content to wallow in your own banality.”

”I’d rather not indulge in every little thing around me. Not that I’d have the luxury to do so either.” Wakana said with a shrug. ”And I think plain bread is fine. Isn’t there a certain amount of elegance in not dressing yourself up too much? Or, perhaps I should say, plain bread can be dressed up however it wants? Cinnamon Sugar, Butter… I think I’d rather be a nice piece of plain bread than an extravagant cake.” Wakana scoffed. ”Plus, plain bread braids are better than those silly curls of yours.” The glasses girl held her hand up to her mouth as if she were trying to hold back a laugh while her mouth curled into a wicked smile.

Estelle fell silent.

How.

Dare.

She.

This glorious, pristine hair of hers was a work of art! The curls articulated just right! Just the perfect combination of mousse, oil and carefully planned styling! These curls weren't just a style! They were a status symbol! Before Estelle could even think about what she was doing, she reached into her pocket and with a swift motion had thrown something right at Wakana's face.

A chocolate chip cookie slammed right into the other girls forehead, likely hard enough to knock her glasses off her face. It broke on impact, scattering its crumbs on the floor and some in her hair.

“Ohoho, I'm quite sorry! Those horrendous braids of yours just made me lose myself for a moment.” She returned Wakana’s wicked grin with one of her own. “At least you have some flavoring now, hmm? Chocolate does wonders to make even low quality bread like yourself palatable.”

Wakana clenched her teeth as the cookie shattered on her forehead. Something fierce came over her face as she stepped forward, almost crushing her glasses. ”Bitch you wanna--” Was all Wakana managed to get out before there was a loud voice nearby.

”Hey! YOU TWO, TEACHER’S OFFICE! NOW!”

Wakana stopped to give a look to the teacher that caught them and sighed. She wiped whatever bits of cookie might have been on her and bent down to grab her glasses. She gave a smirk to the Ojou-Sama she was arguing with before turning around heading towards the teacher’s office as instructed. This was a pyrrhic victory in her book.

”Hurry up, Toko!”

“Tch.” Estelle clicked her tongue. Hmph. Well, no matter. A pyrrhic victory was still a victory. Estelle didn't even glance in Wakana's direction as she passed, heading towards the office as she was instructed to. A queen knew when to gracefully step away from the spotlight.

---

So this was detention, huh? She couldn't say it wasn't an...interesting, if not entirely arbitrary and useless exercise. This was ill suiting towards teaching misbehaving kids how to behave or to solve behavioral problems. Mr. Fujo was ill equipped for this, really. He liked handing out detentions, but never so much as actually sought to cut out the root of the problem. In this case, the problem was sitting only a few seats away from her, but Estelle elected not to even give her the time of day.

She had spent most of detention doing as any proper student should. Studying and preparing herself for the next exam. She was going to make that bitch eat her own braids between two slices of bread. Really! She had tried being friendly, really she had! But every single time Wakana always did this. Did she just like pissing her off? She couldn't deny she herself, certainly found antagonizing the other girl amusing. Maybe she should do it more - Estelle sighed, closing a book and shoving the errant thought out of her head.

What was she? Some lame Otome Villainess? Such thoughts weren't quite befitting a queen, were they? Still, this detention was utterly boring. Nothing to amuse herself. It was then, she caught a glance at the digital timer. At first she thought she was simply seeing things. Yet, something about this seemed vaguely familiar. A wave of...nostalgia? Washed over her seeing the cryptic and odd characters playing out on the screen.

Suddenly, the building rocked, throwing her out of her thoughts. Estelle quickly shot to her feet, curls bouncing as she swiveled her head, looking around the room and not even caring about Mr. Fujo. Instead, her attention was quickly turned towards the door as tendrils of...was that...binary? Seemed to leak through the air itself, slowly fading from existence.

"...what...?" Estelle questioned lightly, not to anyone in particular as she stared, seemingly transfixed at the glowing portal, a harsh monotone light bleeding through the windows. For some reason this was making her heart race like it hadn't done in a long time. Not since...

"...Ohoho, well." Estelle laughed, a confident smirk on her face. "I don't know about you all, but I'm not waiting around here in this place for whatever this is to be over. I'd advise you to do the same, unless you wish to never leave your boring lives." Perhaps it was a reckless idea, she had no idea what was even going on, but she'd do it anyways. She didn't even wait for anyone else to say if they were following or not. She had to know. Had to. Estelle ran through the portal.

---

How long had it been? Time flowed differently in the digital world, but it had likely been awhile since that day. Long enough that the others in its troop had given up the hope and the desire to wait around for the one they had labeled their queen. Many weren't that willing to follow a human in the first place. Some simply got tired of waiting. Some were...Pawnchessmon were relatively weak digimon on their own.

Now, it was the only one left, still carrying an unwavering hope that its queen would return to it one day.

And now it had found itself...in a library? It had fallen in some chasm after a digital quake. Hm. Well, perhaps there would be some decent fights to have here. It had to keep itself sharp for its queens return, lest it be weak or gods forbid - die before they were reunited. Pawnchessmon hefted its spear, its tiny legs carrying it around the immediate area, taking a quick look around the books. A few other digimon seemed to be gathered here, but they were of no consequence. Some looked like decent fights, but it kept to itself for now. They were in a similar situation, making allies would be better than enemies until it understood the full scope of...

It turned its attention to some sort of gate. Something was coming through...

It readied its spear...

"...My queen?"

"Ohohoho, of course, nothing dangerous here...hmm...ah? Y-you...?" Estelle walked forwards, towards the Pawnchessmon, barely even taking note of her immediately surroundings. "Your...Ohohoh, I knew it! I couldn't have just imagined that whole thing, could I!"

"M-my queen! It's been so lon-bweh!?!" Before Pawnchessmon could say much else, Estelle had wrapped the Digimon in a hug, holding its body close to hers, aggressively rubbing its head. She seemed entirely caught up in her own little world, and the Pawnchessmon seemed entirely unhappy with its situation, but didn't seem like it had the heart to tell Estelle no.

Wakana Toko

Well, detention was about all it was cracked up to be. Wakana heard it was suppose to be a punishment of sorts but Fujo was a special sort of inattentive. This worked just fine for her since she got to read her book anyhow. She was silent enough, taking a peak over at Estelle to see if she was hating her life right now. Sadly, they never made eye contact. She was going to try and give an all knowing smirk but of course there was no chance.

She started to wonder if she was being too mean to Estelle. After all, the first incident between them was Wakana's own doing. Estelle's personality was such an abomination to her. Rich girls like her were an eyesore. Especially with those obnoxious curls of hers. Well, she was the most obvious person to antagonize in class at least so it made sense. For some reason, she felt more grounded because of it.

Since the one time ten years ago... She didn't really feel like reality was... It. Like there was more to it than this. Then, everything rumbled. "Ehh?" With everything shaking beneath her, Wakana braced herself and she stood as soon as she could. "The hell!?" Then there were strings of binary and a mysterious doorway behind her... "W-what?! What is this sense of... Deja Vu?" She... This was familiar. There was something. It reminded her of something. From the past? "I... I need to make sure!"

---

"Where the heck am I?" The small pixie questioned. This was definitely not Never-Ever Land. "What am I doing here? There are a lot of books." She looked at the background here and wondered about that. "Huh...."

Behind her, she heard something stumble and hit the floor. "Uwah!?" A girl with braided hair slide slightly across the ground. "Ouch. Damn floor... She looked familiar to Tinkermon. Familiar but, also strange? "Huh? Wait... You!?" The girl said, pointing at the Pixie.

"Ehh? What about me, tall girl?" Tinkermon stopped for a minute and poked at her temple. "Hey, wait a minute... You sound awful familiar." She scrunched up her mouth as she thought on it. "Oh! You're Wakana! Long time no see!" Tinkermon flew over to where Wakana stood and hovered in front of her.

"I... Ummm, Tinkermon?" The girl questioned as if unsure. "You're Tinkermon from ten years ago!" She had a highly confused face and crossed her arms. As if it were one of the oddest things to have happened to her, she bit her lips and seemed to concentrate hard.

"Yep! I'm Tinkermon! Glad you remembered me after all this time." The pixie replied, frowning after that though. "That said, it's been more than ten years for me though. Are you sure you're right on that?" As if pretending she never frowned, Tinkermon smiled again. "Enough of that though, I'm so happy to see you again!" And with that, she wrapped her armors around Wakana's neck as much as she could and gave a nice hug to the girl.

Wakana for her part returned it, though not nearly as vigorous as the pixie. First off, she was still shocked by the situation. She was trying to figure out if she was going insane or possibly already there.... Or was this reality? The second was she wasn't sure if being too rough would hurt the fairy. "Is this all... Real?" She asked, concerned for everything.

"It's all real. You, me... This weird dang library." Tinkermon mentioned before redoubling her hug that Wakana seemed to return a bit more easily.

Just how real is it though?

A Flower in Bloom

---

Well, this blows. Shion thought to herself as she sat in detention, sitting in the furthest back seat right in the middle row. Unfortunately, there was nobody sitting in front of her to hide her, but on the other hand the teacher didn't seem to care very much. Her favorite headphones, or rather her favorite ones that she was willing to take outside her home, and her MP3 had been confiscated earlier in the day. To make matters worse, she had been ordered to go to detention at the time as well. Clearly this school wasn't as lenient towards its students as her previous was. Still, with Mr. Fujo distracted, she was able to sneak in a thin-corded earbud into her left ear, hidden by her hair, and listened to her phone's music as she sat there doodling a cartoon fox rather than doing the work she should probably be doing. She had looked around upon entering the classroom to see the two girls who had been fighting in front of the test scores earlier that day. Honestly, who cares about that kind of stuff? she thought. She'd been systematically answering on her tests to try to get the most average score possible. According to the results, she was one place off from the exact middle of the rankings, something that angered her enough to make her put on her headphones to calm down. If it weren't for that, she might not have been caught and put in detention in the first place.

Suddenly, the clock on Mr. Fujo's desk began to malfunction and a loud series of static bursts came from Shion's earbuds, temporarily deafening her ear and causing her to quickly pull the earbud out. "Shit!" she exclaimed before quickly covering her mouth as she realized that she'd just spoken aloud. Luckily, at least in her opinion, Mr. Fujo fell forward and smacked the desk he was sitting at head-first. Less fortunate was the earthquake that knocked her things off of her desk and nearly made her fall out of her own chair. After she regained her balance and composure she looked around the room. "Man, an earthquake? We should... Uh... Is it just me or is the sky... missing?" She glanced around again to see if Mr. Fujo was awake before getting up and walking over to a window. "Yep. There's some sort of white void going on out there..." Shion paused for a moment before grinning and running up to the teacher's desk, rummaging around in the drawers and humming to herself. "Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm-hmm hmm, hmm hm-hmm hm-hmm hmm... Aha!" she exclaimed as she pulled out her stolen MP3 and headphones. As she lifted her head in doing so, she noticed the back of the classroom for the first time.

She stood there staring for a moment as a deadpan expression crossed her face. This was quickly replaced with a grin. Today was turning out to be quite the day.

Then that idiot with the curls ran into the... portal? She ran into the portal at the back of the classroom. Sure, Shion was planning the same thing, but to do so in such a reckless way was too stupid even for... Did that bitch just taunt her? With a huff, Shion grabbed a pair of scissors from the teacher's desk and went towards the back of the classroom. She was passed by the girl with braided hair as she went through the rift as well, leaving Shion standing there in awe at the two girls' stupiditybravery. She turned back to the rest of the classroom. "Well, I'd say it's been fun, but it hasn't really. 'Those with weak stomachs should not proceed,' and all that. Here's hoping we'll meet again." And with that, she walked through the portal as well.

---

Falling Leaves

---

Re-chan found herself plummeting into a white abyss as she awoke from her nap. She looked around desperately, but the sides of the fissure were too far away to latch onto. She turned as she fell to fall belly-first and saw binary and light passing her by. Soon a room of some sort became visible beneath her, and as she landed within it she rolled quickly to her feet before looking around. She seemed to be in some sort of library. Curious. She found herself drawn to the books around her, attempting to read the titles to no avail. It appeared they weren't written in the language of the Digital World. Just then she heard something behind her.

"Ohohoho, of course, nothing dangerous here..." came from the human that had just appeared. Re-chan raised an eyebrow, or at least as much as a Renamon could. Firstly, a human? It seemed she wasn't in the Digital World any longer if there was a human here. Second, 'nothing dangerous?' Re-chan was almost insulted. And thirdly... it seemed that the human and one of the other digimon knew each other? Intriguing. And it only got more interesting when another human appeared. Yet another of the digimon seemed to know this human as well. At this rate, it seemed unlikely that this was coincidence. Still, she kept her guard up. Quickly after the second human appeared, so did a third.

"The library? What a dumb portal. Couldn't send us somewhere cooler?" This human looked around and quickly found itself drawn to the books rather than the digimon in the room. Not a great survival strategy for a human, though she supposed she did the same thing so there wasn't a lot of room to judge. Re-chan looked around. Was no-one going to claim this human like the previous two? Curious. Re-chan continued watching the portal. If the pattern continued, and humans continued to appear and be recognized by the digimon in the room, then perhaps... perhaps that young girl would appear for Re-chan as well? She stood vigilant for such a meeting. She would make her amends.

It had been another long, sleepless night. More night terrors about the incident ten years ago; not only had they been occurring more frequently, they were getting worse. Kuroko had stayed up surfing the net and tinkering with her airsoft guns before finally falling asleep... about an hour before her alarm went off. She'd barely made it to class on time, and struggled to stay awake. Then, around lunchtime, she'd decided to head up to the roof. The warm sun and the light breeze had lulled her to sleep.

When Kuroko woke up, it was almost time for school to end. Her teachers had had enough. She had confided in a few about her night terrors, but it seemed they didn't understand. So for the first time all year, Kuroko had been given detention. Luckily for her, it turned out to be a time to catch up on her sleep.

Until the entire room began violently shaking.

Kuroko had been leaning back in her chair with her feet on her desk, her head resting on the desk behind her. Everything began moving underneath her chair. Kuroko fell, cursing and grumbling under her breath. Just as suddenly as it had began, the earthquake stopped. She could hear the other students swearing and trying to figure out what had happened. Everyone seemed to be okay, except for Mr. Fujo. Concerned, she moved to check on him, even if she didn't particularly like the man.

Still breathing, Kuroko thought. Pulse seems okay. Must've just hit his head. Kuroko was suddenly aware of something else: the back of the room was gone, replaced by what seemed like neverending, blank whiteness. "The hell is going on?" she murmured to herself. There was a familiar sensation in the air. It felt electrically charged, as if a thunderstorm was brewing. She shuddered. It feels like back then... Ones and zeroes seemed to flicker and dance through the air like sparks.

There was something else: a bright light, like a shining glass window, had appeared where the back of the classroom had once been. The rational part of her brain told Kuroko to stay away from it. But something else was curious. If this was related to the Yokai Incident...

She followed the others, grabbing her bag. Only one way to find out, Kuroko thought. She took a deep breath, and stepped through the portal.

---

The little reptile Digimon had been searching for food again when the quake struck. The ground split open, cutting him off from the little hut where he and a few other Digimon lived. And then the ground opened up, and he was in freefall. He seemed to fall for hours before he landed face-first in a pile of books. "Owwwww..." he murmured.

The little Digimon popped his head out of the book pile. He could hear voices. Was it someone that could hurt him? His nostrils twitched. There were a few Digimon nearby. But the others... Humans?

But there was one scent that was familiar. It had been years since he'd encountered the human who had given him food, and here she was. The little Digimon leaped up, surging forward. "It's you! It's you! It's been so long!" He ran past the first few humans before leaping at one of them.

---

Less than a minute after Kuroko stepped through the portal, a black, dinosaurian creature plowed past the others and jumped up high. The first thing that caught her eye were the large claws and sharp, pointed teeth. The caveman part of Kuroko's brain told her this was a predator. And yet, it looked so happy. And why was it speaking like a human? Before she could figure that out, the creature bowled her over, nuzzling at her happily. "I missed you! Did you bring more for me to eat?"

Kuroko blinked. "Is... Is it really you, Buck?"

"In the data!" The Digimon grinned, and Kuroko hugged his snout.

"I never got to thank you for saving me," she said.

"You can thank me with more candy bars."

Kuroko couldn't help but laugh.

^☀️SUNNY

Since Sunny stepped through the classroom door, they had been having the most boring detention of the term.

The other students might recognise Sunny as a detention regular - if by nothing else, then the way they had arrived five minutes early and made a beeline for a particular desk.

They had been warned twice already by Mr. Fujo to stop fiddling with erasers and do some work, and since then Sunny had been methodically adding to a rather intricate series of blind etchings in the underside of the table with the pointy end of a pair of compasses. The steady scribbling noise was just about muffled enough to make it sound like Sunny was actually catching up with the practice test they'd brought in. Other than an occasional glare down at the sheet, they had no intention of making themselves look any more foolish. The test remained untouched.

The unnatural warmth of an untouched yet overheating calculator under their hand caught their attention first. Then the jarring feeling of the shaking ground was at once terrifying and incredibly exciting, and Sunny's hands grasped fervently at the edges of the desk as they sat bolt upright and stared around, debating whether to dive for cover - and finally, following the cues of the other detentionees, Sunny peered over their shoulder.

The inexplicable white light had a pull like nothing else. All thoughts of earthquake safety faded. Slowly, Sunny rose from their seat.

"Anyone else see that? Wait - wait, are you guys really-!?"

...But Estelle was already forward-marching. Sunny spared a bewildered stare around the room, noted the unconscious form of Mr. Fujo, and then all of a sudden their mouth dropped slightly open and seemed to chew thoughtfully on the words before anything came out.

"Is... Is he okay?" They watched the other student go to check, and when Kuroko looked relieved, Sunny decided that was that. "...Nobody tell him, right?"

As they watched the students begin to wander into the light at the back of the room, Sunny figured there definitely wasn't a precedent in the school rules about this. And if there was no precedent, maybe there was no rule against it. The others sure seemed confident.

Sunny kicked their chair back, swung their bag onto their shoulder, and took off jogging into the light. "Wait! Wait, wait! This is crazy, wait for me-!"

---

^☀️IMPMON

Somewhere in the library, a Digimon anxiously pulled book after book off the shelves.

Most were tossed over the shoulder, dropped in disgust, or shoved more or less back into place. Nothing here was what the Digimon was looking for. At this point, he wasn't even sure what he ought to be hunting, but he'd know it when he saw it, surely! He had a plan, even if that plan right now was just to research. That was at least something. Better than wandering lost in a library he didn't recognise. He'd had quite enough of that.

Impmon pulled a particularly hefty tome from the shelf.

A flash of orange hair passed behind the empty space behind it, and the Digimon froze.

It took another few seconds or so of peering at the human between the shelves and listening to the others chatter before Impmon dared to speak up.

"Hey!" he hissed. "Psst! You!"

The ginger human turned. Stared at the creature peering at them from halfway behind a shelf corner. Raised an eyebrow and gave a very, very familiar, very confused, lopsided grin.

They glanced around, blinking, and then managed to match the voice to the creature. The grin widened. "I'm dreaming, right?"

For a split second, Impmon almost looked disappointed. He folded his arms haughtily. "Probably not. Are you looking for a picture book or something?" He paused, and tilted his head. "You, uh, look different. Did you Digivolve?"

"Haha, what? Picture book?" There was a long pause. Sunny's grin melted off their face and was replaced with a look of disbelief. "You're him. You're the kitty orb."

Impmon opened his mouth to speak, but was cut short as the human bolted the distance between them and roughly scooped him up, spinning on their heel and beaming like a maniac.

"Holy shit! It's been ten years! I almost thought I was wrong!"

"Wha-? Gah!"

They tucked him under one arm like a sack and used the other arm to wave excitedly at the others. The heavy book Impmon had been clutching was shaken loose and fell noisily to the floor as he began struggling to extricate himself.

"Guys! Look! I know this little guy!"

Detention: a fate as inexorable as the cycle of night and day, never to be escaped no matter how she tried. Not that it was something Aoi exactly went out of her way to avoid beyond making sure that Fujo didn't catch her after school but... even if she was playing by all the rules she would end up here. The last time she had listened to his insistence on fulling the uniform code until she ''got home'', he had somehow found it in him to award detention for bleached hair that violated the uniform code.

So if she was going to get detention for not dyeing her hair, why try?

Sure enough, once they were in detention all his powers of observation went out the window and it wasn't like Aoi was even trying to hide that she had just thrown a uniform skirt and blouse over her normal clothing. She'd even missed some of the buttons. Like the delinquent she supposedly was, the girl was giving the purpose of the detention no heed, flicking through things on her phone and eventually just playing some match-3 game to pass the time.

It was weird how many people had wound up in detention today. Sunny was a regular--same desk every time, much like Aoi compulsively went to a window seat. But... what the hell was that bookworm doing in here with the bakery girl? Ah, not that it mattered, but maybe she'd go get some pastry or something when she was done instead of going straight to swimming.

Playing on her phone made it impossible to not notice when everything went wrong. So, too, did her window seat: no views of the school outside, only monochromatic white. Slipping her phone into her pocket--and, given that Fujo was out cold, undoing those annoying buttons--Aoi stood up and stretched, watching everyone else beeline for the white light. Ten years of normality, huh? It was probably about time something happened.

---

The past two weeks had been the most exciting of her life... oh, it had all been very strange, being dragged out to a strange and unfamiliar beach, but what an opportunity it had been! Her, merely in-training, getting to witness to the embodied conflict of good against evil, the clashing of two enemies so far beyond her power and comprehension... watching Beelzemon and Seraphimon go at it was terrifying but amazing. It was impossible to hope for anything more inspiring for the path of righteousness. Or the sneaking suspicion that guns were a really cool thing to fight with...

That girl and the ice-cream were even more important, though. If she'd been on her own, Silvia knew that she would have cowered and turned away from the fight, never seen what was going on... but that girl? Her bravery and the offering of food had been enough to overcome her fear and that was a debt the newly-turned nun hoped to repay!

So soon, too, to be dumped into a library... and there was a girl like the girl Silvia remembered, but... taller. And with a much more brazen outfit. That... how could someone show off that much flesh? It was scandalous! But the eyes, the expression of "huh, I guess this is happening"... that seemed the same! Unfortunately, it now occurred to her that they had never shared names.

"You! Ice-cream girl!"

Aoi, for her part, took a little longer to catch up. Taking in the other odd creatures around, that this suspiciously human one did have a feeling kind of like the angel she had watched fight... bringing up the ice-cream... oh. "You've gotten bigger. Hey...

"Did everyone else meet ten years ago?"

"It was only two weeks, miss... um..."

"Aoi."

An earthquake. God King Gilgamesh closed his eyes. It had been a literal lifetime ago since the incident. Out here in the open plains of the Digital World, earthquakes were less dangerous since there was no risk of anything falling on you, and being a four-legged creature, Gil wasn't going to lose his footing and crack his head open no matter how intense the shaking. So unless the earth split open directly beneath him, he was relatively safe. But inside a building, where tremendous weight could collapse on you, that was where the real danger lay.

Gil reminisced about the moment of his death. Gil had found himself in a building in a strange new world. He had been quietly exploring his new environs when he found a child sleeping. However, another, larger digimon had materialized outside and went on a rampage. The violence and destruction it wrought not only woke the child, but caused the building to lose structural integrity and collapse. Gil remembered bracing his armored back to the falling rubble and preventing the child from coming to harm, but they were buried, and keeping the rubble from crushing the child had prevented Gil from doing anything else. The child was understandably frightened, and with no other recourse, All Gil could do was reassure the child. Yes, that was when he chose his name, formed of a random, stray piece of data that happened to be part of Gil's digital essence. He had to exude strength and courage, even if he was lying, even if he was in pain. Gil had introduced himself as "God King Gilgamesh", omnipotent and invincible, conqueror of nations. For hours, Gil regaled the child with made up stories of his heroic and awe-inspiring deeds, but always reminding the child that the most noble of deeds was helping those in trouble. Gil wasn't sure how long his digital body would last, as his strength was slowly sapping away and he could feel his final hour approaching. But his worries had been washed away as the sound of digging and rays of light began seep through the rubble. The last thing Gil saw was the looked of overjoyed relief on the child's face as rescue workers pulled him from the remains of his collapsed home. Closing his eyes, Gil felt his body dissipate into bits of data and return to the Digital World to be reborn.

Gil opened his eyes as the rumbling dissipated and the swirling, churning sensation of vertigo in his stomach had subsided. Since then, he had spent his time training, until he had achieved his Armadimon form again. But he needed to be stronger. Last time, all he could do was delay harm, he hadn't been strong enough to rescue the child by his own power. And with all the chaos happening in the Digital World, it was time to step up and do something about it. But as Gil opened his eyes, he realized he was in a different place entirely. Apparently the vertigo had been from teleportation and not merely from the earth shaking beneath his feet. Here he was surrounded by shelves of books and several digimon. Several beings appeared through a portal, confused and disoriented; humans. From the looks of things, the humans seemed to be 'reuniting' with the digimon, which was a relief since that at least meant that the humans had some comfort despite their strange situation. Deciding to take the lead, Gil called out, "Worry not! We find ourselves in an unfamiliar place. I do not know what is happening, but I'm sure if we work together, we'll find a solution." Gil put on a smug smile in the hopes that confidence, albeit false, will reassure everyone present.

Its alright, its ok, its alright, its ok!

A mantra of sorts. An often repeated line that played endlessly in Taijis mind when life became stressful, words became too loud, thoughts became too red, when things in life became just that much heavier. It was a perpetuated state of mind spoken in a voice far removed from his own that had stayed in their mind since childhood. The event itself was so far removed it had honestly ceased to make sense, the therapy had clouded everything but the relief of rescue even now, but that voice remained. Every time that voice spoke the words it reminded Taiji that it HAD happened. It was real. They were real and they were out there telling him it was going to be ok.

It was because things had turned out ok that they had become the safety blanket to Taijis mind.

So it was today, trapped in the detention room. Despite his isolation at the school grounds it never truly stopped a dedicated bully from giving him trouble when the need to use a washroom became required. The calm words had stopped hands from connecting but not words from being shouted. Short tempered, Taiji had blown up relatively quickly as the usual problem called him names in the hallway and had caused a scene to the classes in session.

"This sucks.."

Looking up from his notebook, something was different. Very different. The calm just before a storm to Taijis reckoning. Another panic attack? But why! His heart was racing a single instant before the earthquake hit and he was thrown from his desk to the floor, all but throwing themselves down while the very building was tossed and crumbling. Crumbling. CRUMBLING. THE WALLS WERE GOING TO CRUMBLE! Taijis greatest fear was this exact moment, to relive the helplessness of being crushed by concrete. When the walls began to shimmer and what looked like an escape had come, Taiji didn't hesitate in the decision to flee. Grabbing his bag and rushing through the portal, they were dumped on the other side face down on the ground.. right in front of Armadillomon.

That voice..

Looking up, terrified, Taiji saw Gil for the first time.

---

---

Wisemon, A Digimon with motives shrouded in mystery. The custodian of the Trajan node. A keeper of knowledge that records, Analyses and experiments with anything it comes across to expand the information it possesses. It is an effective Custodian of information both in its fairness of how it treats visitors and in how it values exchanges of equivalence. For what then would cause such a calm Digimon to become lose its cool.

Someone had taken one of the Grimoires. The holy scriptures. The spoken words of the gods themselves. The core tenants of the mightiest. The greatest books in the collection. It invalidated his entire purpose as a Custodian. For a creäture of such strict logic and pride. The idea of being tricked was never considered. The Thief must still be here? They must.

Wisemon cocked its head. Did it hear voices just outside this room? Its eyes shone with righteous fury. It lamented to itself of its failures as it began to process the information and formulate a plan. Intruders. Thieves. Scan. Find. Others. Anomalous Data near other Digital Fauna. Virus? Infection? Mutation? Unknown. Interrogate. Contain. TERMINATE. As it finished its line of thought it would step upon its open book and in an instant it would teleport in front of the gate. Behind the distracted anomalies and the Digimon.

Analysis. There was a gate behind it leading to the perilous unknown, a realm of taboo knowledge certainly. It would turn to study the humanoid anomalies, No recorded Digimon that it knew of. Data seemed complex. Organic coding with a central programming network of electric impulses. Comparison with humanoid digimon would conclude that the head was a critical point of weakness. It immediately concluded that none of them appeared to have the tome on their person. They must had transported it somewhere. Wisemon couldn't leave the library. It would have to take prisoners. But it would be effective to only take one prisoner. The Anomalies seemed infinitely more interesting than the Digital Fauna present. So it would rank the capture of them over the Digimon. This entire analysis took place within a second.

"01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111" It said audibly sounding out the binary for a moment in a monotone voice, its voice shifted pitches and tone. Settling on a voice that sounded like a hybrid of text to speech devices.

"Intruders-Guests-PREY are not welcome within my Library-Abode-LAIR." It stated first. Always putting emphasis on every third word with an aggressive tone that only an angry synthetic voice could produce. Vibrations of static included. "My terms-conditions-ORDERS to prevent the immediate ending of your freedom-playtime-LIFE is that what you return the stolen Grimoire-Holy Scripture-BOOK immediately." Its yelling was filled with the rage of a being that had its very purpose challenged.

"The stolen item is one of the 7 sacred relics of the Olympos XII. Capable of allowing a Digimon to bypass its natural life-cycle and rapidly increase its power in a short amount of time via a great intake of information. Should it fall into the wrong hands, Since it cannot be opened by a standard Digimon I must consider the anomalies are at fault." For that brief reprieve of when the voices were calm enough to speak in harmony it would lecture them why it was so mad. So these inferior lifeforms could understand. The calm wouldn't last long though of course. "It could bring an Extinction Event-Calamity-GENOCIDE to the digital world." It would finally bring itself to its closing and most threatening words.

"Failure to talk-tell-SPEAK of its whereabouts will result in immediate TERMINATION. Failure to comply peacefully will result in immediate ANNIHILATION. Taking longer than allotted time of 10 minutes will result in immediate DESTRUCTION. Failure to close the rift at the end of the interrogation will result in immediate MACERATION."

Safe to say, Wisemon was pretty mad.

---

Having learned that they in fact did have a deeper connection as everyone else seemed to, Shion and Renamon turned towards Wisemon.

"... I bet I can take him."

"No you can't, he's a Perfect level digimon. It would take all of us here to take down an Adult, and it would take all of us in our own Adult forms to take down a Perfect without major casualties."

"I don't know what that means, but I have scissors. Does that help?"

"No, not really. Our best bet would be to find what it's looking for or to run." With that, Renamon turned and addressed the remaining digimon and humans. "What are we going to do? The way I see it, we can either split up and look for this book it wants, or split up and run. Or... if we're feeling suicidal, we can try to fight." She looked over the other digimon. Pawnchessmon. BlackAgumon. Sistermon. Impmon. Armadimon. Tinkermon. And of course herself, a Renamon. She quickly calculated in her head. "I say we split into a fighting group and a searching group, in case we can't find it in time. The fighting group can try to buy the searching group some more time. But then we have no way of winning. Whereas if we all run, he might not be able to catch all of us. But that would be sacrificing those of us who would have been in the fighting group, seeing as the group criteria is based on speed. Any other plans?"

Shion paused a moment. "I'm not entirely convinced that this guy knows what maceration is, either."

Renamon turned to stare at Shion. "That... that's not relevant right now?"

"So..." Aoi started, looking around at the library in curiosity before turning her attention back to the child-nun that had apparently been a small dog thing only a few weeks ago, "You grew pretty fast, uh...?"

"Silvia, Miss Aoi!" was the enthusiastic reply, Silvia puffing her chest out with pride, "It's thanks to your example that I was able to become Sistermon (Blanc) so quickly!" It was definitely weird how you could hear the parentheses dropping into place, Aoi thought. Maybe something to ask about later--if she was Blanc, there had to be other varieties, right? And how did one get from a small dog thing to a nun? What were all these others around?

... oh well, this would all have to wait until later, someone was speaking to them. Someone pretty angry by the sound of it--nice distortion effect, and Silvia was moving into position to fight for the protection of the girl she owed--

A girl who was placing a hand on her shoulder, listening to the talking fox and Shion. Mmm, something about Ultimate and Champion. Okay, that was interesting, but not really a scale she could work with. "Hey, Silvia, this guy's weaker than that angel and the gunner, right?"

"E-eh? Seraphimon and Beelzemon are Mega-level, yes, they're really strong!"

So this guy was still weaker. That was nice to know; if this went wrong she wasn't likely to be shot full of holes or stabbed through with a glowing sword instantly. One deep breath to steady herself a little and Aoi walked forward (backwards?), closer to the floaty spooky librarian and the exit.

"We just got here through... that," Aoi stated, helpfully pointing behind Wisemon at the rift thingy to their classroom, "It must have been someone else that took your book. Uh... but if you let us go we could help you look for it?"

---

"Queen Estelle-"

"Hmm, chessy?~"

"Perhaps you could-mmf-release me-"

"Ohoho, sorry, it's just been so long." Estelle giggled, not paying much attention to the others. She released Chessy from the hug, taking a quick look around the area. "Mhm...maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought there was more of you?"

"Well," Chessy straightened himself, resting his spear on his shoulder as he replied. "Some of the others-fools as they are-broke their vows of loyalty to you and found another liege. Others...well, we Chessmon are not particularly strong on our own."

"Oh...I...see..." Estelle frowned lightly. Well, that was annoying. And they all had such fun together when she was little! Well, she supposed she could understand. She herself had thought she'd never see the darling little things again. Hearing that some might have gotten killed, though, or injured, was a bit disheartening. Tsk, if only she could have been there...! "Well, my darling little Chessy, you have my promise as a Queen I shall never leave again." The reunion, however, was soon interrupted by quite a curious looking individual. Some sort of creature dressed in a robe and talking in quite the difficult manner.

"Keh...!" Chessy readied its shield and spear, placing himself between Estelle and the other digimon. "Tch...looks like it wants a fight, my queen. Should I teach it a lesson?"

"Hmm..." Estelle narrowed her eyes at the digimon. "Stay your spear for a moment Chessy." Estelle lightly patted the head of her digimon. "My companion here speaks the truth. Thievery is beneath me."

"I don't think we can reason with it, my queen. Easiest solution is to crush it before it can harm us."

"Now now, force should be a queens last method of solving problems." Estelle replied. "We find ourselves in a strange library thanks to some strange force. Perhaps whoever stole this book of yours used this same phenomena to steal the book, and leave us as scapegoats."

Chessy made a few stabbing motions with his spear, before the spear suddenly slid forward in his hands, causing him to stumble forwards a few feet. He quickly righted himself and acted completely like nothing happened.

Wakana hadn't noticed all the others around her yet. "Oh, why is everyone else from the detention room here?" She looked around and... Well, there was the rich bitch... And most of the others were fairly the same... Well, except the one foreigner. Suni? Something like that. She never really took the time to get to know the others of her grade. Maybe she should have. "How odd though. This isn't... Never-Ever Land, right?" The girl asked as she looked around. It wasn't the pseudo-paradise she remembered.

Tinkermon landed on top of Wakana's head and sat there for a bit. She felt like she didn't weigh much of anything. "It's not. I just showed up here in a BIG thud! Like bwam!" The little pixie exclaimed as she threw her arms out. "And then you were here! And then all these others were too!" Tinkermon seemed excited as she detailed her experiences until now.

"I see..." Wakana responded despondently. Then, like everyone else in the room, the duo saw something interesting. A Digimon, Wakana inferred. "Is that... A Digimon? She questioned. She had a rough idea of what they were from her experience but she had never seen this.

"UWaawawa..." Tinkermon stuttered over her own tongue. "I uhhh... That's... Wisemon, I think? If he is, he's strong! An Ultimate level! I don't mind a good fight but... If all of the Digimon in this room worked together it would be... Hard. Probably." The pixie was more than a bit worried, anyone could tell from looking at her. In fact, she looked around the room and noted that at least a few of the faces were... Well, not as frightened as she thought they should be.

Wakana didn't fully follow... "So he's really strong and more than a match for you?"

Tinkermon nodded rapidly, "And VERY mad!"

The glasses girl crossed her arms and looked at Wisemon as she thought. This... Was just a big delusion right? She had convinced herself so long ago that Never-Ever Land was fake and that the Digimon were just a mass delusion after she learned about it... But... She'll play into this for now. Wisemon would just destroy them if they didn't give him a book back or something. Then the student that had a little nun girl with her spoke up. She... Seemed to make sense at least.

So Wakana stepped closer to Aoi. "Ehh? Wakana?" Tinkermon questioned as she rushed in front of Wakana to stop her. "We're getting closer? Are you trying to kick his butt or something?" She questioned.

"You said he was dangerous right? We try to talk him down. If not, well..." The glasses girl smirked. "I guess we try to kick his ass, right?"

Tinkermon seemed astounded and dumbfounded as her face showed. Then her face relaxed as she smiled and shook her head some. "Boy, oh boy. What have I gotten myself into?" Then she gave a big toothy grin, "But, I guess when you put it like that I feel pretty confident about it!"

Wakana gave a smile back back as they got closer to Aoi. "She's right. I don't think any of us have that book you're looking for. We've been here not long at all. Logically, we couldn't have taken a book and ran. We're still here, after all." The glasses girl argued as if Wisemon would listen to reason. She then took a look around though. No one would have ran but they might have taken it. "What does said book look like? We can only find it after we know it's description." She queried. She was worried this Digimon was going to go berserk all the while though.

^{☀️SUNNY & IMPMON}

Currently caught up in Impmon's struggles to get Sunny to put him down, neither seemed to notice the larger Digimon until it was practically upon them. Impmon was first, freezing perfectly still under Sunny's arm and peering up at Wisemon with an uncertain expression - and then Sunny realised how still he'd gone and promptly followed his gaze.

The two remained silent until Wisemon was done talking, and then Sunny adjusted their glasses with a free hand and cleared their throat.

"That's a big librarian," they remarked, and then Sunny unceremoniously loosed their arm from around Impmon's body and dumped him to the floor. "You should probably put those books back on the shelf," they muttered out of the corner of their mouth.

"...I don't think any of these are what it's looking for," Impmon hissed back. "Stand back. If it tries anything, it'll have to go through me." He jabbed a thumb to his chest.

Sunny wasn't listening. They glanced around at their fellow human-and-partner combos, did a quick mental assessment, and decided the others had the right idea. Sunny chimed in with a smile usually reserved for whoever was about to tell them off for flicking erasers at the whiteboard.

"See, the trouble is, we've already had our detention," they declared, mock-polite, "and we're innocent as lambs, anyway, the lot of us. But they're right - we can help you have a look."

Impmon glared over his shoulder at Sunny.

Sunny snapped their fingers at him and gestured urgently to the books on the floor. "And we'll tidy up his mess, while we're at it."

The happy reunion was, unfortunately, short-lived. The being that appeared before the group looked human, but between the glowing eyes, the clawed hands, and the bizarre way it spoke, it was obviously another one of these monsters. Kuroko stood up, trying to speak to it. "These guys are right, we don't have your book," she said. "We just got here, and we're not itching for a fight."

A puff of steam rose from Buck's nostrils. "Speak for yourself," he muttered. Kuroko frowned at the reptile.

"You heard... uh..." She turned to Renamon. "Sorry, didn't catch your name."

@The World

Collab with @Zelosse

Having only met Taiji when the boy was much younger in the darkness of Taiji's collapsed home and partially thanks to mild data loss from having been reborn after the Yokai Incident, Gil did not immediately recognize Taiji. But seeing the other digimon pair off with the other humans, Gil noticed the look of terror in Taiji's face, not realizing that Gil was the source of Taiji's terror. He didn't like the idea of the boy being alone and terrified, so he offered some assurance, "Welp, looks like we're partners, kid. It's alright, it's okay. I know you're confused, but don't worry, while you're here, you can leave everything up to me until we figure this all out!"

its alright, its ok!

Those words! The holy mantra of Ogata Taiji given unto him by the storyteller, they who had spoken in the darkness until the light had come! This was Gilgamesh wasn't it?! The being who had saved him from the collapse and vanished into motes of light as Taiji had been pulled from the rubble.

"Pa-partners? Like- you and me are teammates? Who the fuck just decides this kind of thing! Where the hell are we, who are you, what are you, THIS IS- Fuck, fuck fuck fuck, no, no! I'm hallucinating! This isn't real!"

Taiji's hands shook as he reached for the medicine in his coat pocket, fumbling the cap open to a mild sedative type pill he took as his heart began beating rapidly. Confronted with a ghost too real and a place too strange he was on the verge of quite likely the biggest panic attack of his life! The fistful of pills in his hands was also an overabundance! Taking that many... might be fatal.

This wasn't going well, instead of calming Taiji down, Gil had somehow only exacerbated the situation. "Woah there, kid, now's not the time for candy!" Gil said completely unaware of the implications of drugs and the possibility of a fatal overdose. But Wisemon's appearance caused Gil to turn around and face the much more powerful digimon and listen to it's accusations. Though Gil was ready to defend everyone behind him with his life, he knew he was outclassed, and that little trepidation in his heart caused him to apprehensively take a step back, resulting in him bumping into Taiji's shins and causing Taiji to scatter his pills on the ground.

"Wh- HEY! I NEED THESE!" Taiji's pills were life and death, in a sense. life meaning the continuation of existence without being overwhelmed and death because taking that many can and would have likely killed him. The only thing stopping them from taking those pills off the ground was the approach of Wisemon and a mild germophobia. The accusations and the strange speech of the larger monster had Taiji on the ropes mentally, heightened heartbeat, sweaty palms, and knuckles turned white from clenching so hard. There were far too many things happening with each and every thing here only making his sensitive mood swing wildly from one extreme to the other.

To be accused of theft and threatened for it was the last straw.

"WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!"

"Oh! Sorry about that. I'll help you gather them later. We have some bigger problems to deal with right now," Gil apologized. But when Taiji lashed out, Gil hoped that exuding calm would soothe the riled up boy. "I think he's the owner of this library," Gil added unhelpfully, then empathized with Wisemon, "If I found strangers in my home, I'd be pretty ornery too. But I think the Renamon is right." He gestured with his head to the humanoid fox digimon before continuing, "I think a majority should go look for this book of his, while a minority should remain and hold him off. I volunteer to stand my ground."

With that, Gil turned his attention back to Wisemon, and widened his stance for stability. He had died once defending someone, he could do it again. Sure, he had just recently gotten strong enough to attain his Armadimon digivolution again, and it sucked to have to lose all that progress and growth all over again, but what was the point of living, if not to live by one's own code?

The anomalies had spent the gracious time the Liberian had given them protesting or declaring innocence, or in some cases insulting them with a mannerism that they did not comprehend. Save for the aggression. In the interim Wisemon had been personally analysing everyone present. He had pertinent words for each of them but firstly they had to address the confusion before these wretched individuals continued to blight their presence. Indeed each one of them had something about them that bothered this Digimon whom held themselves in the utmost esteem.

"The book is no longer present-in range-here, It has been removed-taken-stolen in such as manner as to make it vacate the entire library!" Wisemon said stressing to these intruders that if they knew where the book was they most certainly wouldn't be bothering themselves with questioning. "I can sense any information record within this place. It is not here, therefore, you must of transported it through this dangerous-intriguing-DISGUSTING portal. "Even if your telling the truth. I cannot help but... find you all GUILTY" Wisemon would say, indeed given how the air crackled around the ultimate digimon, it was a hair-trigger away from attacking. Held back only by its need and compulsion to break down its view of each of them.

It pointed first to the girl and her Renamon. "Maceration, A process whereby one can obtain a clean skeleton in order to display it, much like how I would prefer to display you as a means to ward off intruders should you insult me further"

They glanced over the Sistermon, They hadn't said anything of note. He may have commented on their apparel but the Digimon had no reference for what was decent where the anomaly was from but given that they themselves wore such heavy robes a revealing outfit like that was unmentionable. Though Wisemon refrained from making the comment, the fact their gaze lingered a bit too long meant it must of had something to say.

It next directed its attention to the woman with the audacity to claim royalty. "Do not think I cannot hear you suggest that you yourself are royalty before me, I have seen-witnessed-helped in the destruction of royalty before. Do not act in a way to make me consider you a Tyrant-Dictator-Enemy even more so then you already are."

He would pass over the other two, whom had merely subscribed to the logic of the room. Finally resting his eyes on the most loudest and observably terrified of them all. "You." He said looking directly at Taiji. "If you think that You have the audacity to ask such a question, then I will tell you who I am. I am Wisemon. The guardian of this library of which you have all broken into. A library that contains more knowledge then you could comprehend"

Wisemon would stand there for what seemed like a few more awkward moments. "But. You have all told the truth at least from the way your body language tells it. Thus I will show you where the book was taken from." The Digimon reasoned thinking that if any of them showed increase agitation to be in the same room. That too would be a sign of guilt. As he pointed to the great door behind the group. "Step through there. You should notice one of the great books to be missing." He said considering to simply remove the problem of all the anomalies back attacking them from behind if they all turned towards the door.

Indeed he felt the need to destroy them all... but he also hadn't had visitors in such a while. He could get away with explaining everything about this place to them before he destroyed them... They weren't allowed to leave after all.

---

^{☀️SUNNY & IMPMON}

Well, this was admittedly kind of terrifying. Sunny was not well-versed in what one was supposed to do when threatened by a magic librarian, but god help the kid they were going to make the best of it. And despite their terrible grades, they were actually pretty good at paying attention to little details. Like how at least one of the others was panicking.

Sunny glanced down at the scattering sound of the spilled pills, and gave their owner an uneasy once-over. What was that kid's name, again...?

"Uh - aha, ha. Right you are, Librarian - er - Wisemon! No ma-ce-ra-tion necessary!" Hopefully someone would see the funny side. Sunny gave a cheerful thumbs-up motion at Wisemon to emphasise that they were cooperating, and then turned to face everyone else and pulled a pleading face. "I don't really know you guys that well, but if I end up with all my bones on the outside, someone better have the decency to call my da."

Sunny gave Taiji a searching look, beckoned with one hand, and began marching towards the big door. Hopefully a little human guidance might snap him out of it...

After a second's thought, Impmon began walking backwards after his partner - and pointed with both gloved hands at the rest of the group.

"Impmon, by the way," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "If Wisemon doesn't recycle us, I'd like to get to know everyone. I'm sorry we met like this." With that, he turned to face the way he was going and ran to catch up with Sunny.

---

When Wisemon finished, Shion was slightly taken aback, before she burst out laughing. "I didn't think of that! That's a creative way to use it, I'm actually kind of impressed now!" she managed to say in between her laughter. It was notable by her voice that the laughter was not mean-spirited, but rather good-natured in origin. "I like this guy, we should help him."

Meanwhile, Renamon turned to Kuroko. "Renamon."

Shion interrupted before anything further could be said, calling behind her as she walked into the room that Wisemon had pointed to. "That's such a mouthful. If you're Renamon, and this guy is Wisemon, that girl with the nun outfit mentioned three other 'mon' names... Do all of your species have that as part of their name? Would that just make you Rena-kun?"

"Firstly, I'd rather you not address me as a boy. Secondly, if your purpose is to shorten the name, woudn't 'Rena-kun' defeat the purpose?" Renamon asked as she followed her partner.

"Hmm. That's a good point. So... how about 'Re-chan,' then?"

Renamon stifled a smile. "I haven't been called that since I was a Relemon. Alright, I don't mind." Renamon looked around. "Wisemon is right, there are only six important looking books here. If there are supposed to be seven, then one is certainly missing. But if it's not in the library at all, then I doubt we'll be able to find it... Unless you happened to see it before you came here?" She turned to Shion.

Shion shrugged. "I haven't seen any other books this ornate since going to a Renaissance Fair back in America. Hey, Wisemon, can you tell us more about these books? I get that they're important and can 'lead to calamity' if in the wrong hands, but what's so special about them?"

"Wisemon already said that they can bypass our life-cycles, which I have to assume means inducing evolution, or perhaps data corruption of some form... That certainly is dangerous, but I too am curious about their importance. Surely they don't take the form of books purely for cosmetic reasons, do they?"

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking. They've got to at least have something written in them if they're gonna be books. Magical Mcguffins tend to have a form for a reason. Since they're books, we can assume they were created by something, which means they have a reason for being books, otherwise why not make them something less... Obvious, I guess. More plain looking, so they don't tempt potential thieves. Because I'd expect these things to be worth a lot on appearance alone." Shion walked from book to book. "What do these symbols mean, even? Any information we can get would help, I would think."

"I'd also wonder if there's some sort of forensic data we could use. Though it may be contaminated now that we've been here..."

"Ooh, we can be like those cop drama shows, we can dust for prints! Though if they only stole one book, there might not be any on the others... And considering we just learned that portals apparently exist, there's no guarantee that they didn't just teleport in through one, grab it, and leave through it again. But there's got to be some security system, right?" Shion reached a hand out towards a book with a black diamond on the front, but stopped before touching it.

"Evidently not, or I doubt we'd have been accused; there must be no information to gather on the culprit. I'd also recommend that you not reach for these books when Wisemon is so upset at one being stolen. He could interpret that as trying to steal another."

Shion retracted her hand and put it in her sweatshirt pocket. "Both good points. Sorry if that scared you, I just wanted to check for force-fields and such. The more we can learn about the thief the more likely they'll be to find, right? Being able to bypass some security system would imply that they're particularly strong or skilled, but without one they could be just anyone who was fast enough or had a quick exit."

"That they didn't steal more than one is concerning. It could mean that they feared Wisemon, or that they knew we would arrive and be a scapegoat. A Mega level, for example, would have no reason not to simply defeat Wisemon and take all seven."

Shion held her chin in her hand as she thought, but simply shrugged after a moment. "What I really want to know is what's in these books. Can we read them if we don't pick them up? This is like finding out the necronomicon is real, I have to know why it's forbidden."

"Perhaps the thief felt the same way and simply took it to read it? Maybe it'll be returned someday."

@PsyBlade@1Charak2