Warning for slight spoilers and implications of suicide

Chapter One - Freefall

There was something obscenely wrong with this place.

Well, there was the wrongness with her not having a face. But at this point, Aiba Ami is kinda used to it. She was proud of her ability to adapt to everything, including being half-Digital, weird-smelling coffee, and following voices in her head. None of those things had steered her wrong before, and she had already found most of the stray data she needed. It would just be this last piece and she could at least look normal and go back out into the streets again.

Still. She let out a dramatic huff of a sigh. "I really was an idiot back there." In more ways than one. She had gone all the way into what was like the Dark Web of the virtual internet on nothing more than a dare and a threat of potential hacking (which apparently succeeded, wow). And now she was listening to a weird woman who lived in a telephone booth. And she didn't even like Doctor Who that much! (Okay, that was a lie.)

"Urgh." She looked at the blue binary running down where her palms would be. "Just one more… I hope." She had looked inside every nook and cranny of this place by now. Her baby Digimon were bouncing to do… something. Evolve, maybe? Probably. Mirei had mentioned that, she thought. WIth that DigiLab of hers. So she should probably do that on the way out of here. But first she had to get the last bit of garbage data.

This was also where she got attacked by that tentacle monster (what even was that thing?) , so understandably, Ami crept a little more carefully down the path, bright clothes suddenly feeling garish against the backdrop of blue. ANything could see her like this and decide to lunge before her and her babies were simply not prepared to handle anything that was actually a threat. Like that Chrysalimon. That had been all that strange Yuugo person…

The little orange orb hovered innocently by her hands as she approached it. Ami turned her head to Terriermon and nodded. Terriermon saluted cheerily with his ear, the two slimes bouncing by his side. Ami turned her head back and touched the orange light. It proceeded to explode with a tiny lego dinosaur landing on her chest.

Terriermon blasted it off and it screeched in pain. He grinned as the two babies mobbed it with bubbles, allowing Ami to get up from the ground. "Below," she called quickly as something shattered the ground from below. Ami resisted that horrible urge to shriek at the top of her lungs at the sight of a monster almost half her height with long, thin claws racing towards her. The spikes on its head began to glow and she jumped to the side.

No, she noticed a second later, something pulled her to the side, strong and heavy and somehow thin. But there was nothing there to tug her. So she nearly fell back in her attempt to land, ankle nearly twisting completely over before righting itself again. That was the wonderful thing about this world of inside the internet. It was nearly impossible to actually get injured. Well, she was apparently excluded now from that, but for the most part, it remained the case..

She felt the tug again on her arm, but Ami made to ignore it as the two Digimon fell. She watched the green tornado smack the… gizamon, yes that was its name, off and over the side. It screeched with fear and then fell silent within seconds, as if swallowed by a giant mouth.

"How was that?" Terriermon asked this as he ballooned down to the ground.

Ami managed a thumbs up, scooping up the smallest of the babies and putting them back into her Digivice. She knelt to pick up Terriermon herself for her shoulder perch. He hopped away.

"FIx your face!" He waved his ears in irritation. "Fix your everything! I hate not seeing your eyes!"

Ami couldn't help but roll her eyes, sweat dripping down the back of her neck. "Okay, okay…" They'd barely known each other for a day and he was so pushy. She went to get the orb of garbage data and it sank gleefully into her hand. Within a moment, she could see flesh and color over her. Ami let out a sigh of relief.

Was she going to have to change clothes? Was she going to be able to change clothes? Oh that sounded disgusting.

Terriermon took that thought as the prime opportunity to leap onto her shoulder. "Yes! Much better! Now I can be sitting on something!"

Ami blinked, utterly puzzled. "You could sit on my shoulder before though?"

"Yeah but it didn't look like a shoulder." Terriermon waved his tiny arms. "Like, maybe it was your head or a part of your spine or something. I dunno."

Digimon were weird, Ami decided, carrying him and heading to look at the gate that Arata had forced open. As soon as she pressed her foot onto it, it let out an angry noise like stepping on a squeaky toy for your dog.

"Access invalid," blared over her eyes and Ami stumbled off of it. She wiped her arm over her face and was unsurprised to find no tears.

She slapped her cheeks and sighed. "It didn't have to be so loud about it." So much for an easy way hom. Ami got up and started to walk away. At least going that entrance would make it easier to run into Mirei's DigiLab and finish up for the time being.

As she walked on, however, Terriermon started sniffing around. "Someone's close by."

Ami tried not to shrug. "This place is a hangout for hackers. Isn't that normal?"

"Well yeah, I guess." Terriermon's nose seemed to twitch more. "But this one smells different. Not right. More like that DigiLab lady. I've never seen her around here."

"And this sure isn't the place for a friendly walk either." Ami followed Terriermon as he turned his head about and frowned. There was a small figure, standing at the edge of one of the higher ledges. Level One didn't exactly have many high up places, unless you counted the fact that below the area was an endless abyss that you were only supposed to fly through with key data passes on hand. And again, there were portals for that. You didn't just jump off of ledges and fly. That was for birds.

So whoever that was was standing there, they were likely thinking of something stupid. She had to stop them. There wasn't exactly a view to admire. But still!

"... Are they gonna jump?" The very thought made her stomach throb and rebel despite there being no food in her system… theoretically.

"Humans can't die from that in here though." Terriermon grumbled at the slight jostle as Ami sped up her steps. Not too fast, she didn't want to startle whoever it was, but enough that Terriermon was considering smacking her with his ears to make her at least let him move. She eventually did so, moving closer to the edge to see the girl more clearly.

"Actually you can." Ami winced. "The chance is low but if you jump and don't log out properly your data sometimes doesn't come back right."

"Sounds like what happened to you."

Except I came out of it. Ami paused to take note. She's so cute, she couldn't help but think. And purple. She was decked out in purple. Her hat was purple. Even this girl's hair was purple. Ami would bet if the chick turned around that her eyes were purple.

For some reason, her wrist hurt.

Okay, don't make assumptions… people sometimes need to force delete their accounts and they think it's worth the risk. Still… can't hurt to talk to her… Ami shook her head. "Uhm… excuse me?"

The girl turned her head and yep, Ami was close enough to tell, those eyes were such a bright purple, they were almost unbearable. The gaze looked her over with mild curiosity, then fastened on the Terriermon perched on her shoulder.

"A Tamer?" Her voice was soft and high, suited to her lack of height. She turned all the way to face them, seemingly unconcerned at how close she was to that edge. "Ah, they are more common here, than I thought. Are you a rookie?"

"It's that obvious, ain't it?" Terriermon waved his ears. "She's my rookie, you got a problem with that?"

"Terriermon, hush!" Ami tried to pat down the rising fluff of fur. "He's in a bad mood."

The girl nodded, thoughtfully. "Probably hungry." She looked barely perturbed by the series of events in front of her. A strange item sat on her chest, its screen glowing a soft grey. "Why did you approach me?"

"You look like you might fall." Ami snapped her mouth shut after saying that, face flushing pink.

The girl let out a snort. "Oh. That. Don't worry. It wouldn't do anything other than annoy Mirei-san if I fell."

Ami wanted to stare. "You know that weird woman?"

The girl seemed to bristle, but a quick exhale and her face was blank again. "Mmhm. Why would you- oh." She let out a sigh. "I suppose we should go talk to her then. If you're here, that means she's around somewhere."

"Where's the we in this?"

Ami tried not to glare at her digimon. "What is your problem?"

Terriermon scoffed. "I don't like her! SHe's weird!"'

The girl let out a laugh. "That's the nicest insult anyone has ever said to me."

Terriermon bared his tiny teeth. Ami had to laugh herself.

Sayo didn't smile. She only gestured back behind them once more. "LEad the way Miss…?"

"Ami." Ami, for some reason, felt her cheeks color. "Aiba Ami."

"Miss Aiba." She swept her hand forward. "Lead on."

"You could tell us your name, you weirdo," Terriermon muttered.

She did not, only made a sound almost like a laugh. It was a strangely nice sound.

…

For some reason, in that first meeting, Ami had gotten this distinct feeling that Mikagura Mirei lived in a state of perpetual lack of surprise. That single raised eyebrow Mirei wore when she arrived with Sayo in tow destroyed that thought fairly quickly.

"I didn't expect you for a while, Sayo."

"I didn't expect you to like multitasking so quickly," 'Sayo' replied. Her purple eyebrows were both raised. She seemed to radiate confusion herself. "Is she like me then?"

"Of course not." Mirei returned her gaze to her laptop. "You're special, Sayo, surely I must have told you that by now."

"Once or twice." She waved a petite, dismissive hand. "And this one?" She looked at Ami, who made herself look away and back to her DigiBank.

"Supremely unlucky," Mirei replied with a sigh. "Partial Digitization. She's rather lucky she's alive."

"And she's in the room too," Terriermon sneered from his perch. He went ignored.

Sayo nodded, looking at Ami. "And you have a bleeding heart."

"So you say." Mirei smiled as she spoke, the gesture dangerously close to a smirk.

"I do."

Sayo shrugged this off and looked at Mirei. "There are traces of that data in the area, the Chrono Data that I'm looking for."

"Are there really?" Mirei looked up. "Fascinating. Would you like to deal with them?"

"Do I have much of a choice?" Mirei opened her mouth to speak and was cut off with ease. "You always have a choice, yes I know about the illusion of free will, Mirei-san."

There was an amused chuckle from that side. "Yes, indeed you do."

Sayo watched Ami's screen and tilted her head. "Your farm is incomplete."

"Well, duh," Terriermon said with a scowl. "It's new."

Sayo shook her head absently. "No, here." she went to the program and pulled it up like these things weren't under lock and key. "Your food source isn't automatic, and these training modules are too close together. Someone's going to get hurt." She scanned the screen as Ami jumped over to watch. "Also these babies are more in need of love than these modules. Talk to them as much as possible. You're their parent now and you have that app, at least." That girl was staring at her. "What?"

Ami shook her head. "Just… wow. Mirei-san wasn't really telling me…"

Sayo shook her head, letting Mirei laugh outright without offense. "She wouldn't. I tame Digimon for a living. This is something natural to me."

Those blue eyes were ridiculous, really. So innocent and young. And, Sayo thought. She had to be older than her. How else would she look so much further along and yet like a sack of al dente noodles? Sayo looked away, suddenly self-conscious.

"I mean, they're just the basics anyway," she muttered.

"If those are the basics then i'm screwed!"

Sayo blinked at the innocent curiosity there. "I… huh?"

"I didn't even know that!" Ami continued, leaning closer to Sayo and causing her smaller hands to twitch into a fist. "Could you teach me?"

"Uh…"

"You could," Mirei pointed out. Sayo didn't even have to look to see the mischief playing over the interfering woman's face. "Your Digimon aren't going to be here anytime soon and you're still investigating the Chrono Data anyway."

Sayo's eye twitched with annoyance. "Way to decide that for me."" She looked at the eager look on Ami's face and shrugged once more. Honestly she kind of just wanted to deck them both and leave. Though she had a feeling that would be like kicking a puppy. A dopey looking puppy. Like Koh. Urgh.

She sighed, a bit dramatically, even for her. "I suppose I can try."

Ami pumped her gloved fist and cheered. "Thank you! I'll do anything you say!"

"Go home," Sayo muttered. Her head was starting to hurt.

Ami seemed too happy to obey or at least, very excited to leave. As she left, Sayo felt a tug on her arm, only for it to disappear when the redhead did. Sayo sighed and flopped with relief onto the floor.

"You were easy to convince," Mirei noted, back at her own work.

Sayo shrugged. "I'm not completely heartless."

Mirei chuckled. "Were you ever that excitable?"

"Sadly no." Sayo laid back and shut her eyes. "Or if I did, I've forgotten about it. Were you?"

"No, but looking at records, I doubt that myself."

Sayo almost laughed, but went to sleep instead.

A/N: Wait, there's more!

Challenges: digiotpweek, Novella Masterclass Story 10, three-sided box challenge, interseason boot camp prompt - peaceful, Diversity Writing GG J13