<div class="floatleft">(http://data.whicdn.com/images/17088347/large.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Elias Wright<br/><strong>Time:</strong>? ? ?<br/><strong>Location:</strong>The Deepwood<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>None, Open.<br/><strong>Warnings:</strong>None.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Elias groaned softly as he regained consciousness, his head pounding a little and his joints aching as if he'd just fallen from a great height, or moved particularly quickly without preparation, his mind still in a slight daze. Sound was the first thing to return to him, the sound of the wind whispering through the trees, rustling grass and leaves as it passed, small animals pattering through the undergrowth and birds chirping in the air...that would have been all well and good, except...it confused him a little. The birds he heard were not ones he recognised, and it forced a small frown to settle across his face. No crows or pigeons or bluejays or even owls, no, these sounds were alien to him...yes, he was hardly a bird connoisseur and he didn't go around committing birdsongs to memory - he wasn't quite that sad and lonely - but still...if you lived in an area long enough, you tended to pick up the ability to recognise regular local sounds, right? And that included the usual ambient sounds of your favourite places, so...evidently somebody had brought some extra birds to the park or something, right? The problem was, something else was bothering him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it...he concentrated for a moment, as much as he could with his headache, and after a moments thought managed to pinpoint it.<br/><br/>He couldn't hear any cars, or any other people around him; it was animal sounds and the wind, and that was it....further, there were trees in the park, but surely not enough to make as many rustling sounds as he's hearing right at that moment, right? Surely there shouldn't be nearly so many leaves to blow in the breeze when there're only one or two trees around and, being the middle of winter...shouldn't there be no leaves at all? That thought filled him with a spike of alarm. What was going on? He forced his eyes to open, wincing at the sudden blinding light that pierce his skull and forced a pained hiss from him as he turned his head away...to stare straight at a towering collection of trees that he'd never seen before. His eyes widened a little and he sat up immediately, headache and joint pain forgotten as he stared in shock around him; he was surrounded on all sides by towering green trees, more akin to oak than to the slender redwoods at their local park...he looked up, and had to blink more than a few times; the overhead canopy was one more akin to a jungle or forest than to any of the terrain in his "hometown," and as he watched, several smaller, unfamiliar birds and insects zipped across from one side of the Canopy to the other, across the overgrown and knotted-by-roots-and-vines clearing he currently occupied. He hated to admit it, but there was only really one way to put it; he wasn't in the park any more.<br/><br/>Could he be dreaming? Possibly, but...well, he'd never had a lucid dream before, and didn't you usually think that it was all perfectly normal until something weird happened and you realised that it was a dream? He idly pinched himself just in case...no. Wasn't that supposed to wake you up? Well, it didn't work. He pinched himself harder. No. Nothing. Either that didn't work...or he wasn't dreaming. An unfamiliar feeling settled into the pit of his stomach; fear. No, not fear...<em>terror.</em>He was in an alien place, surrounded by unfamiliar vegetation and animals, he had no way out - presumably - and he had no idea where to go....and he was alone. This was terrifying. He hadn't been properly alone in two years, and even before then, he had never really managed such isolation very well...he swallowed. What was the last thing he remembered? He concentrated, struggling to recall....there was....a light, right? A blinding light, and then he woke up...so, whatever that light was...must have knocked him unconscious, right? And maybe somebody carried his body to a forest or something? If so...then what day was it? That couldn't have happened in less than a day, so...he grimaced. What was he doing right before the light? It had been a school day...he was walking to school...took a detour through the park...<em>with Mei.</em><br/><br/>He froze suddenly, shocked that he hadn't thought about it earlier; he blamed the wake-up daze he had been in, the confused and disorientated state he had found himself in, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to forgive himself for not considering her sooner...he already felt horribly guilty for not instantly worrying about her, for<em>forgetting</em>her even momentarily like that...where was she? She had been right next to him, standing right there, hand in his...and they'd been pulled away from each other. He felt physically, violently sick for a moment. What if she'd been hurt? What if whoever had taken his body and dumped it wherever-this-was had taken her body, too? What would they be doing to it, right at this moment, while he sat there gormlessly staring at the trees round him? He scrambled to his feet sharply, looking around wildly. Was there any sign of her? He looked, but...no, no scrap of red hair, no innocently adorable face sleeping on the canopy beside him...he was utterly alone, and that meant that Mei was alone as well...at least, he hoped so. He couldn't even bear to think about what could be happening to her if she was in the hands of whoever had knocked them unconscious...he growled softly, the guilt and fear for her safety replaced by<em>rage.</em>If somebody had even so much as hurt a<em>single fucking hair</em>on her head, he was going to put them through a new, rarely seen level of pain and suffering.<br/><br/>But which direction to go in? He had no idea where he was, or where she might be, or what kind of environment he was in...so how the hell could he decide where to go? He frowned, then growled in the back of his throat. He couldn't just stay where he was, right? Not when Mei needed saving, protecting, finding! He shook his head, picked a random direction...and set off. Or at least, he would have done, had he not been interrupted.<br/>"And where d'y' think you're goin'? You don't even know where y' are!" A small, infuriatingly laughing voice said from behind him, causing him to freeze sharply. "What are y' anyway? Never seen your like in these parts before...what kinda Digimon are y'?" Elias span around, searching for the source of the voice, angry now; this person was delaying him from finding his sister, and had actually even mocked him! He opened his mouth to reply angrily...and then his eyes alighted on the source of the voice. It was a...small...blob....thing, with oversized ears and a weird colour...it was literally just a bouncing blob on the floor behind him with a face. He frowned a little.<br/><br/>"And...what exactly are you?" He demanded, bewildered. The blob snorted.<br/>"I think I asked first, d'in I? And in a much more polite way! But if you<em>must</em>know, I'm Pagumon! Wha', they don't have Pagumongs where you come from?"<br/>Elias just looked at it, dumbfounded. What the hell was a Pagumon? He'd never even heard of something like that, let alone something sentient that could<em>talk!</em>"...no. We don't. What's a Pagumon? And you can talk?" He just stared. He couldn't even get angry; he had to understand what was going on to get angry. "Pagumon" just rolled his eyes.<br/>"Well, DUH, I can talk! And what d'ya mean, 'What's a Pagumon?' I'm a Digimon, same as you! ....you are a Digimon, right?" A....digimon? What the hell was a Digimon? Pagumon must have spotted Elias's confusion, because it visibly rolled its eyes. "Wow. You're either<em>really</em>new here, or y' hit your head hard when y' fell...'pparently, light don't protect you much."<br/><br/>Elias blinked. This creature had seen him fall? Maybe it had seen Mei fall as well! He took a step towards Pagumon - who promptly bounced back warily - and went to one knee. "You saw me fall? Did you see anybody else fall? What happened? Where did I fall from?"<br/>Pagumon blinked sharply at Elias's sudden change in demeanour. "Um...yeah, I saw you fall. You fell from the sky, just'a beam'a light...there were a few other beams, so I guess there were others..." A....beam of light. He fell in a beam of light. You know, he would have been sceptical of that claim, were he not in an unrecognisable forest, speaking with a blob with a face. At this point, just the hope that this creature had seen Mei was enough for him to accept that crazy bullshit...he would believe any nonsense this thing told him, if it meant he got to find his sister. He leaned forwards.<br/>"Was one of the people who fell a girl? Shorter than me by a decent foot and a bit, long red hair, wide, expressive eyes? Did you see if she was ok? Where is she?"<br/>Pagumon looked at him flatly. "What part'a 'Beam'a light' did y' not understand? Didn' even know what<em>you</em>looked like 'fore I got here, 'n you were the closest t' me! I saw kinda where th' other beams hit, but not who was in 'em. As for where she is, well, same place you are; The Digital World! More specific than that, I 'unno."<br/><br/>It had a cheeky grin on its face, as if it had just told the funniest joke ever. The Digital World? What kinda bullshit was that? Did it expect him to believe he was on some other planet, or in Cyber Space or something? Granted, Pagumon wasn't like anything he'd ever seen or heard of before, but...well, he was obviously just a machine sent to fuck with him, or even a hallucination; he had no idea how long it had been since he'd eaten or drank anything, right? So yeah, it was probably that. Still, anger spiked in Elias. This "Pagumon" was just wasting his goddamn time. He pushed himself up from the floor angrily, then turned to leave the way he had chosen before this impossible drug-dream had interrupted him. At this point, he didn't care if all of this was impossible, he just needed to find his sister.<br/>"Where y' goin, chuckles?" Chimed Pagumon, bouncing its way towards him. Elias grimaced. Why was this thing following him?<br/>"To find my s-" he stopped himself. No need to spill that too soon, to complete strangers, no matter how pissed he was. "- girlfriend. Partner. Now fuck off."<br/>Pagumon ignored his demand. "Where y' gonna look for her?"<br/>"I don't know. Need to start somewhere though."<br/>"How do you know where to start? How do you know you aren't goin' in the wrong direction?"<br/>Elias hesitated, then glared at Pagumon. "Why are you still here?" he snarled.<br/><br/>Pagumon flopped its...ears?...upwards in what Elias guessed was a shrug. "You're the most int'resting thing t' happen around here for ages. 'Sides, I kinda feel like I have'ta follow ya, or y're just gonna end up eaten or somethin'. Things a lot bigger than me around here, and you'd make a tasty dessert for some of 'em!"<br/>Elias hesitated through his growing anger and frustration. Bigger animals? That could be a problem, especially if he didn't know anything about them or have any weapons. He grimaced, then sighed, swallowing his rage a little...he needed to find Mei, and if that meant playing nice with Pagumon - who obviously knew the area better than he did - then...that was what he had to do. "Well then. What do<em>you</em>suggest I do?"<br/>Pagumon grinned. "Askin' me for help after telling me to go away? That's a bit'f a U-Turn!" He grinned in a smug, self satisfied way that made Elias want to punt him over the nearest tree, but he restrained himself. "...yes, it is. You gonna help me or not?"<br/><br/>Pagumon "Hmmmmed" as if he was thinking about it, then grinned and nodded. "Yeah, ok. Got nothin' better to do!" He turned on the spot and indicated in a specific direction. Elias looked that way and, through the trees, saw what looked to be a large pillar of some kind, extending into the sky in the distance. He frowned a little. He'd never heard about anything like<em>that</em>back home...where on Earth was he? "See that? That's The Skyrock...That's in the middle of where y' and the other lights fell. It's the biggest landmark for miles around...I'd start there. Maybe y' partner is making her way to it, hopin' to meet with y'?" Elias considered for a moment...it made sense, at least; head for the nearest landmark and hope that your lost loved ones made the same decision, but...what if she didn't make it there? Or didn't see it and head to it? He frowned...but what else did he have? Just wandering around aimlessly, hoping to run into her by chance? He...really didn't have a choice here. He sighed, and looked at Pagumon...he already hated the little bastard and his smug, smarmy attitude, but...well, he knew the area better than he did, and he needed a guide to get to "The Skyrock," so...he grimaced. He was going to regret this.<br/><br/>"...come on. I need a guide."<br/>"No." Elias just stared. "Not 'ntil you ask nicely!<br/>Elias grimaced yet again, no small amount of anger building up inside him at the impertinence of this little shit...but exploding wouldn't help, and he needed to get to his sister, and for that, he needed Pagumon. He sucked in a sharp, calming breath, biting back his rage, and managed to say, albeit through gritted teeth, "Please can you help me get to The Skyrock, Pagumon?"<br/>Pagumon beamed in that shit-eating grinning way of his. "Sure! This way!" and he bounded off into the undergrowth. Letting out his held breath, Elias sighed. This was going to be a long day...he just hoped he found Mei soon. The sooner he found her, the sooner he could tell Pagumon where to shove it, and the sooner he and Mei could figure out how to get home. He just had to endure without lashing out at Pagumon until then. Easy, right?<br/><br/>He had a horrible feeling about this.