Alice sighed, lightly hitting her head against the wall outside of the portal library. Rick had promised to come and play with her, but he was ill and wasn’t coming.
She sighed and looked at the towering building and walked in slowly with a sinking feeling, knowing she had no idea what to do. She looked around and saw a wall of elevators on the left and two desks at the right, one a registration desk and one a help desk.
She went straight to the registration desk and it didn’t take long to get through the queues. The walls were a rich, dark blue and the ceiling and floor were a refreshing white. It looked quite plain except for the large posters of ‘in game images’ on the wall opposite the entrance. The woman coughed as Alice didn’t notice she was now at the front of the queue.
“Oh.”
“Hello, would you like to sign up?”
Alice put on her best English accent. “Uhh, yes please.”
“Ok.” The woman pushed across a sheet of paper. “Could you please fill this out, if you have any questions feel free to ask.” She also pushed across a small white pen.
Alice picked up the pen and began to scribble into the boxes requiring things such as ‘name’, ‘age’, ‘gender’ etc…
“Done.”
“Thank you.” The woman took the paper and put it into some sort of machine under the desk. She waited a while until it beeped and pushed the paper back out.
“Alright.” She said, putting the paper on top of a neat pile of other lime coloured forms. “If you go to the second floor someone will be waiting for you there.”
Alice didn’t question her. She turned and walked towards the elevator. She pretty much skipped to it and pressed the button. She held her hands behind her back and swung herself slightly.
When it arrived (which wasn’t long) she stepped in and looked at the long rows of buttons. It went all the way from -2 up to 8. She didn’t think there were that many floors. She was extremely tempted to press them all. She started by pressing the second floor like she was told, then dragged her finger up watching all the lights flash. She giggled to herself, the perfect crime.
The elevator pinged and she arrived on her floor, she hadn’t even noticed the elevator had been moving. She stepped out and she saw someone pressing buttons on some sort of machine.
She walked over towards him and he turned to her and smiled.
“I’ll be with you in a second.”
It about 3.
“Hi, would you like to follow me please?” He walked past the ones he had previously done to another chamber closer to the elevator. “Could you lie down please?”
Alice nodded and climbed into the portal, lying down into the memory-foam-like plastic which molded around her body.
She watched as he shut the door and listened to the clicks of the buttons as he pressed them. All around her were dim blue lights which illuminated the case, making her feel calm and peaceful. She kept her gaze in line with her head to get a nasty shock when something flashed right in her eyes. She flinched and shut them tight before feeling a rush of dizziness. When she opened her eyes again she saw a matrix of colors rushing past as she landed in a field full of grass and sky. There was nothing other than the ever reaching green and blue. She laughed and took in the sight.
“Wow!” She said. Not only did things look real, they smelt real, they felt real, they sounded real etc… The wind rushed past for a second which startled her. She turned around towards where it had came from to see a small reptilian creature with a cloak and a mask. She fell back and shouted “AAHH!”
She landed with a thump and the small creature came running over. It put it’s hands where it’s mouth was as if gasping. She noticed the long stick it held which reminded her of some kind of sword.
“Woah!” She shouted again, holding her arms out to tell it to keep it’s distance. She jumped up quickly and dusted herself off, then she remembered what it was.
“You’re…a Digimon…right?”
The creature nodded.
“You’re…a uhh…” Alice had never seen a Digimon like this before. The Kotemon simply stared with those glowing yellow eyes. “Uhh…what are you?”
The Digimon flung his arms up in the air and his sleeves flopped down over his hands so she couldn’t see them.
“…uhhh.”
The Digimon kept holding it’s arms up higher but Alice still didn’t know it’s name.
“…I’m sorry, I don’t know what you are.”
The Kotemon seemed frustrated. He picked up his stick and lightly hit her side.
“Oww! Hey!” She noticed that she didn’t feel the stick properly, but something else dug into her side.
Hooked around the ribbon on her waist was a strange gadget. She clicked randomly between the three buttons and a message popped up. A large round screen appeared before it, a hologram displaying information, telling her that the name of this Digimon is a Kotemon. The voice started playing.
“Hello Alice.
Welcome to Digimon World Reality.
This is Kotemon, he will be your partner Digimon. Train him with love and care and all that hard work will one day pay off.
We hope you enjoy the game.
The DWR team.”
It clicked before the message had turned off.
“Oh I see.” She bend down to his level. “You’re a Kotemon.”
The Kotemon nodded happily.
“Hmm, I think you need a better name.”
The Kotemon’s head tilted in confusion.
“Hmm…” After much pondering Alice thought of a rather simplistic name. “KOTO!”
The Kotemon quickly shook his head to see the larger human descending towards him. By then it was too late and she had her arms clasped tightly around him, squeezing him tighter.
“You and I are going to be bestest friends!” She said, rubbing her face against his head as he struggled for freedom.
Alice dropped the poor Digimon and jumped up happily, looking at the device. “So I guess, this must be a Digivice. This is SOOOOO COOL!” She shouted, jumping with excitement…Then she realized where she was, with not a soul to be seen other than her new pal Koto.
“So uhh…what do we- huh?” Alice noticed the Kotemon was surrounded by green rings of light and was disappearing, she looked at her hand and was also doing the same. Before she could ask what was going on she was suddenly teleported to the middle of a bustling town filled with players, new and old. Someone bumped into her back.
“Hey! Get outta the way.”
“Well, that’s one way to make friends.” She said, glaring at him as he walked past.
The Kotemon looked down and shook his head.
“Comeon! Let’s explore!” She shouted, grabbing the Kotemon by the sleeve and running, almost dragging him along until he got his feet back on the ground properly. Surprisingly he was able to keep up with his little legs.
Alice ran through the streets watching all the other tamers with Digimon of their own. She didn’t realize where she was going before she smashed into something with a ‘clunk’.
She fell back onto her bum and rubbed her sore head. Even the pain was real…unfortunately.
The Kotemon ran towards his new tamer with one hand near his mouth.
“Hey, watch where you’re going.”
Without even looking Alice just replied. “Sorry.”
She sat there on the floor feeling embarrassed for a while. She felt the Kotemon behind her trying to push her up.
“Heh, thanks Koto.”
It nodded and held his arm up for her to take it.
“Hah. No thanks, I think it’s best we walk now.”
Koto just shrugged and they both continued to walk through the streets, looking at the buildings as she walked past.
There were pretty much every type of shop in the shopping district. She went to a cafe and ordered two glasses of juice. They sat on a table outside.
She took out her Digivice then experimented on the buttons while Koto happily slurped juice through a straw.
She then figured out how to work the contraption.
The left button is your Digimon status. The middle button is the menu which has many features. The right button is a map.
Alice looked at the map. The place she was at was known simply as ‘Central’. She looked at all the grey space surrounding the grey buildings of the central. She discovered the left button zooms out and the right zooms in while on the map. The middle button took her back to the main screen which consists of the DWR logo.
Alice finished her juice and so did Koto and they were ready to go and take on any obstacles that lay in the way of their adventure.