Chapter Text
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
It was aware of many things upon waking up. Its body- an egg, it was an egg, why was it an egg, shifted side to side in distress. But the most important thing was that it was a digimon. A hungry digimon. A hungry digimon, born directly in the middle of a server overflowing with data free for the taking, and no way to do anything but wait for the data to fill it. The digimon rocked side to side, everything else deemed unimportant but eating to its small mind. It was a hungry digimon, still in the digitama phase, and at the moment it could no more comprehend anything beyond that than an ant could comprehend a human's mind. So it ate.
And ate.
And ate.
And ate.
It may have been hours or days or minutes before it was finally full, slowly absorbing data, unable to go faster even as its body ached for more, ached to change and grow and evolve.
The digitama finally stopped shaking, satisfied with its meal, and then it simply knew it had two options. Had it been older, had it had a true mind capable of thought higher than the musings of a hungry infant, it would have taken time to think of the options and their potential. But it did not have the mind of anything but an infant, and only one of these options had a mouth to eat better with.
The digitama shook side to side, quickly shaking faster as it began to glow. Code encircled it, swirling around rapidly, before plunging into the now-glowing egg as it began to shift in shape. “Dodomon!” It cried out as the code quickly formed into a small, purple ball, with two beady eyes and sharp purple ears. The ball then opened its mouth and let out a surprised, “Do!”
It blinked. It looked around. Flashing screens showcasing videos and pictures and texts all floated by, seemingly following nigh-transparent, swaying, blue glowing lines that stretched into infinity. These strings and screens led farther than Dodomon could see, stretching into a vast, constantly shifting void that Dodomon instictively knew was called cyberspace. It looked down. It was on a bright orange platform floating in the middle of the void, and now that it realized this it noticed other ones scattered about, all with more screens piled around them than normal. But they floated too far to even think of reaching, so it cast them from its mind.
It- it? He? It decided on he, because it could always change it later- now had enough room to think without the smaller processing speed and constant hunger of a digitama. Still, Dodomon felt like he was missing something. He knew things a newborn digimon shouldn’t, dancing at the edge of his mind but never quite coming into reach. Frustrated, his mouth began to burn as he growled, “Little iron beads!”
Small pebbles of iron formed in his mouth and shot out quickly, bouncing off one of the screens and breaking parts of it off. Dodomon blinked, watching the stray pieces of data quickly stop moving and simply float there, glowing.
Bouncing over and realizing the weightlessness of cyberspace, having for some reason expected something different, Dodomon quickly jumped up and ate the data. It was tasty! Forgetting his previous frustration at knowing he knew things but not knowing what, exactly, he knew, Dodomon happily continued lapping at the stray bits of data he had knocked free, and when he finished those, happily began gnawing at the floating screen. It tasted like shock wire and cotton candy and in the digimon’s short existence, he had never been happier.
I shouldn’t destroy these screens, came a thought from the corner of Dodomon’s mind that he couldn’t quite access. He paused in his joyful feast and, squinting his eyes, wondered why. They might be connected to something outside.
Connected? And if they got damaged, they might alert something that Dodomon couldn’t handle by himself, at least not like this. He gave himself a mental pat on the back for being so smart despite not knowing what a pat was nor having ever seen hands before and let go of the screen. It flickered briefly before more data flowed into it, repairing the nibbled corner.
Dodomon took the time to analyze some of the screens with videos on them now that he wasn’t as hungry and was beginning to worry about the consequences of disrupting cyberspace. Most of it was what he was pretty sure was normal- deaths, acts of kindness, charities, villain attacks, ads, a lot of ads, news reports, weather, superheroes, ongoing events around the world, was that human lifting up a building?
He paused. Something was tickling the back of his mind again, saying he knew who that was, where he was, but Dodomon failed to comprehend that beyond knowing he knew what was going on but not knowing why he knew what was going on. What he did pick up on was this:
Many things in this world could, and would, hurt him. Some of these threats would want to capture him and study him. Others might help him- or might view him as a monster to be put down. And Dodomon didn’t want to die when he had just been born.
Staying here wasn't an option, but he couldn't leave just yet. He needed to digivolve.
Dodomon stared at the screens and weighed the odds of damaging something outside. He could feel, instinctively, that he had multiple options for his next digivolution, and that it was rapidly approaching. His passive data absorption would have been more than enough to digivolve in a few hours, and actually eating some of the data he had knocked free had progressed it forward quickly. The first stage was never long.
He hopped around a bit more, observing the screens and absorbing the languages and some random facts used in the world as the data integrated with his core. Dodomon subtly bit off corners of data he thought wouldn’t be missed. It didn’t take long until knowledge filled his mind.
The part of him he couldn't access said, Keep it simple.
“Dorimon!” He called out as floating code flew into his changing body. His body rematerialized quickly, and with a flash of light, Dorimon let out a happy yip as he stretched out his new limbs. Four stubby legs kept him clumsily standing and Dorimon took the opportunity to jump up and down in excitement, tongue lolling from his mouth. A new power swirled inside him, and he was more than happy to use it.
Data was dragged to one spot, condensing so tight that after mere moments, reality temporarily broke, opening a portal out of cyberspace. A dark void with code breaking off the sides appeared in a small circle, just large enough for Dorimon to squeeze into.
He stepped out of a flickering phone into a dark and grimy alley filled with dumpsters and smelling of trash. Humans chatted in the streets and cars rushed by. The air itself felt like smog, with an almost perceptible feeling of dislike, like the atmosphere itself hated the creatures breathing it in.
All in all, it was far too much for Dorimon, who had only known the sweet quiet of cyberspace for his short life. He stumbled, ears pinned against his back as a car roared by, practically sending a shockwave through his body. Dorimon tripped over a piece of trash and cowered, trying to cover his face with his arms. This was a terrible idea.
After a while, Dorimon felt more used to the terrible stimulation and cracked open an eye. Cautiously he stood back up, scanning the floor and spotting a newspaper. It read Gotham Gazette, and his stomach dropped when he read the name. It brought up images of darkness and what he tentatively dubbed villains who wouldn’t hesitate to use and abuse him. He would be avoiding those guys for sure.
He looked up. The sun was beginning to set, and with it, less humans roaming the streets. Dorimon crept out of the alleyway and looked around. What had once been bustling with humans now looked abandoned. Dorimon sniffed the air and almost gagged. It was disgusting. But, if he focused hard, past the terrible rotting scents and the sweat and the trash invading his nose, there was a pleasant scent in the mix that made his mouth water. He began trotting off towards it as if in a trance. There wasn’t anything he could particularly compare the smell to…But it also had that familiar feel in his mind, and it smelt delicious, and a higher capacity to think did not change the fact that he had only been concious for an hour at most, and digimon just so happened to not be the most rational when it came to food, especially at lower stages.
Hiding in the shadows to stay out of sight of the few stray souls still wandering the streets, Dorimon set out to locate the source of the smell and, hopefully, eat it. It was a perilous task. Despite most humansgoing inside and there being less distraction, the place still stank, and Dorimon had to keep hopping over puddles of mysterious liquids. But the thought of being able to chow down on whatever was making that smell was enough to motivate him onward and ignore the difficulty of the journey in favor of daydreaming about the prize at the end of it.
He was very close to the smell when his next obstacle revealed itself: a locked metal door.
Dorimon looked around the alleyway he had wandered into without conscious thought. He didn’t see any other entrances to the building from here- not even a window! It was just a solid wall and an even more solid metal door. But wait! If Dorimon could shoot out iron pellets as Dodomon, maybe this form had something similar!
Dorimon backed up and took a deep breath, focusing on the feeling of power that welled up inside him. It condensed into energy as he let out a harsh shout of, “Metal Drop!” His body shot forward instinctively, ears forward like horns as he charged the door.
The door won. Dorimon fell back with a yelp and a new bruise growing on his head. After wallowing in his pain for a few minutes, frustrated at being unable to reach what must have been delicious food inside, he got up to check how much damage he had done and was deeply disappointed to only see a slight dent in the door for his efforts. He was tempted to give up. Surely the dumpsters in this alley had some leftovers he could eat from?
…But he wanted the fresh stuff! Pride was what made him get back up to look for an entrance again, this time with a more critical eye. A vent he hadn’t noticed before, hidden in the back of the alley in the shadows and high above his head, was his new ticket inside.
He used Metal Drop again, this time with a great leap and stopping before he crashed, to try loosening the vent grate. It seemed to work, to some extent, but the discovery of Acid Bubbles was what actually got it off, melting the sides and making the entire thing fall to the ground with a loud CRASH That made Dorimon jump back.
He could get inside now!
Sharp voices inside began to get louder, as if approaching him. Dorimon only now realized the building was actively populated by humans, and the knowledge that the humans would be arriving to search the area was a powerful motivator for Dorimon to get moving, so he did. A jump and some wriggling about later, he was in the vents just in time to avoid the humans coming outside.
They made quite a ruckus behind him as Dorimon crawled through the large shafts, following the strongest scent. He peered out of the grates when he passed, looking at the things on the tables below as humans shuffled about. None of them lit up his mind as anything beyond vaguely familiar. He just knew he would know what the smell was coming from when he saw it, like he had seen it before, like he knew it personally. Maybe he did. Dorimon didn't put any more thought into it as he came across a back room filled with ingredients and things to eat.
Dorimon nudged the grate. It didn't budge. The smell was stronger down there, but he knew what he was looking for was somewhere else. Continuing through the vents was an option…But so was going down below and eating what he found while looking for the source of the smell!
It was a few moments later Dorimon got up, dizzy from his fall, and began to look around the room. It was filled with various foods- more than he knew the name of. He took a bite out of every single one. But none of them tasted the best, so Dorimon eventually left the room and entered a long hallway instead. He took a moment to consider its empty state. Was it closing? Had the humans inside been alerted something had broken in? His ears went down at that. He needed to be extra careful, now. He had no desire to end up hurt.
Creeping through the very prominent shadows, with the flickering lights only helping him hide, Dorimon eventually came across an open door. He poked his head into the room. There was a high table with stuff he couldn't see well on top, no humans, various foods-smells, and a rustling bag in the corner. Nothing that he recognized as familiar in the way he knew the source of the smell he had been following would be. Dorimon considered the room as he trotted inside. The bag was still rustling, and letting out faint Chi sounds.
Dorimon walked over to it. It was zipped closed. He took the small dangling metal thing in his mouth without conscious thought and began to pull on it, unzipping the bag before he pulled himself up to look inside.
Terrified pink eyes stared back at him.