#(ME POINTING AT ESPIMON ' HI I WANT ONE ')

[detectiveichijouji]

Case 31 - Casually meeting a phantom thief

[AO3 version]

SPECIAL CASE!! It's a special chapter only featuring the Space Trio and Arsenemon... meeting Rui-kun.

THERE'S NO SPOILERS FOR 02 THE BEGINNING MOVIE. Don't worry.

---//---

A peculiar case, not related to Ken and his friends, has occurred. This case is related to Arsenemon and his crew. A destined encounter, a side-story.

“Sooooooooooooo we’re going camping!” Daisuke smiled, full of energy and excitement, at Noel as they were chatting, “We’re doing it! Don’t you want to come too? I’m sure you need to relax a little. Have fun… Look, it’s winter! It’s snowing! It will be fun!”

“I’m sorry, Motomiya-san… But I can’t.”

“Eh… Why?”

“I’m not supposed to be part of your group… We’re friends, but… I don’t think I should get involved in someone’s long term friendships’s activities.”

“Daisuke likes to make everyone get along,” V-mon explained, “But you said something important too.”

“I… I understand” Daisuke answered, “And yeah, you’re right. I think we can find something we can do later, together. Dang it, I wanna have fun with all of my friends!”

“I appreciate it,” Noel smiled, “We can do that then.”

And then… Daisuke and the others left town for camping. Noel knew the enemies wouldn’t attack if Ichijouji Ken and the others weren’t around. So all Noel and his other companions should worry about was keeping everything in peace and unmasking the mysterious faux Digimon Kaiser.

Or they thought that.

“Ohohoho, it’s surely snowing today!!” Lunamon scoffed Coronamon’s reactions to the snow.

“Y-Youta, it’s… It’s cold…”

“Don’t mock him, Lunamon,” Youta asked her, and then sneezed.

“Yeah Lunamon, you shouldn’t mock men who cannot endure winter~” Mizuki chuckled.

“Are you trying to pick a fight…?” he politely said and looked at the girl.

“Oh no, I’m just joking.”

“That’s no fun,” Coronamon spoke.

“...”

Noel looked at them and shook his head, “I think we should focus on looking for the faux Kaiser…”

“Yes, we should” Coronamon said immediately, “Is there any suspects in mind, Noel?”

“Hmmm, Ichijouji-san had this purple haired boy meeting him at school once and it was suspicious…”

“Purple haired…?” Lunamon blinked.

“Some sort of lilac shade. Maybe we should investigate him.”

“Alright, then we need to search for purple boys,” Mizuki nodded sagely, “Do you know his name or something?”

“Uh… I think it was Nokita Yuu or something, but I was watching very far from them and I couldn't hear or see them very well…”

“Then this means we will have to search for anyone with that detail” Youta shrugged, Coronamon shook his head.

“That will be hard…” the lion-like digimon commented.

“Can miss Espimon help?” Lunamon asked Noel.

“Hmm, She’s on the track of the bad guys too” he mused, “But we need to check this person first.”

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine” Mizuki sighed, “Then we need to spread out and search for any boy with purple hair.”

“We might not need that, cuz…” Lunamon points at a boy wearing a black jacket, purple hair and his right eye being covered with bangs, “There’s one purple haired suspect right in front of us!!”

“?!!”

“Lunamon, it’s rude to point at someone,” Coronamon said, deadpanned.

“HEY, YOU!!” Mizuki shouted, “STOP RIGHT THERE!!”

The boy did notice them staring at him, but by force of impulse… Ohwada Lui panicked and ran away.

“AH?? HE’S ESCAPING!!” Lunamon shouted.

“That’s because you shouldn’t yell at a stranger to stop like if they are a criminal,” Coronamon sighed again, and Youta facepalmed.

“I should’ve expected that would happen…” Noel also sighed, but when he opened his eyes again, the other four had gone after that person “D-don’t let me behind!!” and he ran after them

Lui kept running until he stopped and looked around. Why am I running away!? -- he thought, trying to figure things out -- Some people and digimon were staring at me. They told me to stop and I decided to run instead.

He was heading home and… somehow those people… came after him. At first he believed it was about something else, but… Maybe their digimon can sense the…--

“AHA, I FOUND HIM!!” Lunamon screamed and Lui turned back, seeing the five coming at full speed in his direction. Aaaand he just started to move without thinking twice -- “OH NO, HE’S ESCAPING!!”

“STOP RIGHT THEEEEEEEEEEERE!!!” Mizuki screamed again

They were chasing poor Lui again.

“WHY ARE YOU RUNNING!?” Youta shouted at Lui, all of them running nonstop.

“WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME!?” Lui yelled back. He wanted a peaceful life at least ONCE!!

“CAN WE ALL STOP RUNNING?!” Noel shouted and then snapped his fingers, he stopped running and then made the other five float in the air, “S-sorry I had to.”

H-HOW DID THIS KID-- Lui was quite impressed by this. Only a digimon could do that, he supposed. Would he believe in magic? Not when you spent your childhood with a digimon. So at this point, Lui was skeptical, if something supernatural happens… It’s the cause of a digimon! (Very much like Daisuke’s explanation for the same subject)

“Can you really do that here!?” Youta blinked, Mizuki and the digimon looked around to check if no one else saw it happening.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

“...” Lui and the other four were put back on the ground. But before Lui could escape, Youta grabbed him by the wrist, “?!!”

“You shouldn't keep running, we only want to talk” but the other boy’s aura seemed pretty threatening… “If you run away--”

“SOLEIL DON’T DARE TO DO SOMETHING STUPID!” Mizuki pulled his ear, angrily.

“O-OUCH!!”

“...” Lui sighed, and once Youta released his wrist, he didn’t move. Maybe they know something he doesn’t… “Ok.”

Noel and the others felt relieved, so no more running. Though, Noel was quite curious about this boy, “Why were you running away?” the blonde asked him.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know??” Coronamon blinked, “But you were--”

“You were chasing me.”

“We were chasing you because you ran away!” Lunamon pouted.

“Uhh, let’s not start a discussion here” Noel interrupted them, “Hmm… I don’t think this is the person we’re looking for…”

“He isn’t??” Mizuki, Youta and their digimon exclaimed. Lui only felt even more confused -- So he wasn’t the one those people were looking for??

“Non.”

“... Can I ask one question…?” Lui looked at them, deadpanned. 

“What is it?” Coronamon got curious.

“... Are you a digimon?” and he looked at Noel, specifically.

“... H-how did you--” Lunamon was about to say something, but Mizuki, Youta and Coronamon covered her mouth.

“Hm?” Noel blinked, “Why do you ask…?”

“... You made us float, this means you’re a digimon, right?”

“Well, I’m just a humble magician--”

“I don’t think a magician would be able to levitate stuff without strings…”

“Oh you meant ‘stage magic’...? Ah, I mean I’m a real magic user.”

“Real Magic…”

“Étoile you’re talking too much…” Mizuki said, frowning.

“Real magic is only used by digimon beings.”

“If I were a digimon, how would you know?” Noel kept trading questions with that mysterious boy.

“I had a digimon before, and I’m aware of how digimon’s magic works.”

“Touché.”  

“So digimon can take the form of humans…” Lui seemed a little… bothered by that.

“Not all digimon can do that, only specific ones” Coronamon explained.

“... If you have a digimon--” Mizuki was about to ask him something, but she was interrupted by Noel’s wristwatch ringing.

“Attendez un moment, s'il vous plaît” Noel asked them, and then turned the communicator on, “What’s wrong, mademoiselle Espimon?”

“I’ve detected a shard near you!”

“Near us?” Youta blinked. “Do you mean…” and then the five looked at Lui.

“What??”

“Are you Nokita Yuu by any chance?” Coronamon asked.

“No? My name is Lui.”

“Lui huh…” Lunamon squinted her eyes at him.

“Yes, Ohwada Lui. I don’t know who this Nokita Yuu is…”

“Suspicious.” Mizuki said.

“??” Lui couldn't believe that these people didn't believe him.

“You could be lying about it,” Youta added.

“Why would I lie about myself, it makes no sense…?”

“Do you have an ID?” Coronamon asked.

“Are you the police…?”

“We’re more than the DigiPolice” Lunamon smirked, “Your documents, sir!”

“Why am I having to prove this, but here…” he took his wallet from his pocket, and from it his ID.

They didn’t get the ID from Lui’s hand, and just read them. The other felt like he was being framed for a crime, selling illegal things or stealing someone’s identity. But the photo had him with his bangs shorter yet, and his hair was also short. No bangs, just an eyepatch covering his eye.

“Eh, they don’t seem to be the same person” Lunamon shrugged, “Humans photo ID can’t have accessories…!”

“… I had to explain my medical condition” Lui felt more and more overwhelmed by them, “I got permission for it.”

“Medical condition?” Coronamon blinked, “What kind of medical condition prevents you to--”

“IT’S CLOSE NOW!!” Miss Espimon’s voice shouted from the communicator.

“Close…?!” they glanced at Lui again.

“Do you still think I’m involved with whatever those shards are or with this Nokita Yuu guy!?” he babbled.

“Only a suspicious person would say that!” Lunamon said with a pouty face.

“That makes no sense, I’m not lying about anything I told you.”

Sigh, why do all digimon have to be like this? -- Lui thought. It was tiring having to explain to those people and digimon that nothing they had said rang a bell. It was when Noel sensed something else…

“He’s not lying.”

“Huh??” the other four looked at him.

“He doesn’t seem to have a shard, it’s not him.”

“If Noel says so, then it’s true…” Coronamon nodded sagely.

“I was telling you that this whole ti--” suddenly something made Rui flinch. A crowd of people came in their direction and passed by them, running away from something. He discreetly put his hand on his right eye, still covered with the bang and eyepatch.

“Whoa where’s those people coming from!?” Lunamon gasped.

“I told ya!! It’s coming!!” Miss Espimon said via Noel’s wristwatch “It’s a MachGaogamon , Noel.”

“Really…?” Both Noel and Coronamon seemed kinda annoyed by that name.

 “... A digimon fighting another digimon…” Rui stopped covering his right eye and bangs to clench his hand. It was his fault… HIS FAULT. So he ran in the direction of the source, as if he had a ‘radar’ or something like.

Noel and the others came next, with the blonde boy finding odd this human acting like that…

Lui stopped in front of MachGaogamon and saw a masked human next to the enemy digimon. Are them partnered with this digimon? -- he thought.

“What do you plan to do??” Youta shouted from a distance.

“... I have to do this… I have to…”

Lui stood in front of the opponent and looked at them.

“Please stop harming the people and causing problems!” Lui screamed, in an attempt to stop MachGaogamon from attacking.

But this wouldn’t work. MachGaogamon was a blonde man who had been transformed into a digimon via the faux shard, and somehow the Neo Digimon Kaiser had total control over this one!?? The Space Trio noticed it very quickly: those shards are not like the others, and they had to act right now. But maybe only Arsenemon was able to retrieve the fragment.

So… how can Noel just switch forms??

“MachGaogamon, I beg you… Stop…!”

“That idiot will get wrecked if he does not get out of there” Mizuki snapped, then she took her digivice, “Lunamon let’s put those two to sleep!”

“Right--”

“Wait a minute!” Noel interrupted them.

MachGaogamon looked into Lui’s left eye for a second. Lui definitely felt that digimon was stopping, and then…

“Pathetic.”

The digimon tried throwing a whole car against him. Lui’s eyes widened, and he expected for the worst.

He closed his left eye, the eye only visible while his right one was covered and remained a mystery to everyone else. And then… Noel sensed the presence of something nearby the boy.

-- I will protect you. --

Something like transparent tentacles came from behind the boy and slashed the car, tearing it multiple times and hitting the enemy as well.

“Wha--” Mizuki blinked; Noel took this opportunity to go into an alley and switch forms.

“No time to waste!!” Youta shouted, and took his digivice from his pocket.

“R-right!” she nodded.

Lunamon evolved into Lekismon meanwhile Coronamon warp evolved into Flaremon and they attacked MachGaogamon. Lui opened his eye and was astonished: His attempts to stop a digimon battle were futile. A fight really started in front of his own eyes.

Youta had to drag him away from the fight, and he did not resist and went with them.

“Why… Why is this happening again…”

“Again?” Mizuki looked at him.

“Those fights… I did not ask for this…”

“This is not your fault” Youta said seriously, “That dude right there is the one to blame.”

“...”

“Lekismon, put MachGaogamon to sleep now!” Mizuki ordered.

“Alright!!” Lekismon nodded, and then created bubble bombs with her gloves, “Moon Night Bomb!!” and threw them at MachGaogamon.

The bombs hit the opponent, making him drowsy. Flaremon came in and immobilized MachGaogamon with his arms.

“NOW, CATCH THE FRAGMENT!” Flaremon shouted.

“I won’t let you do that.” Matadrmon appeared from nowhere and knocked Flaremon. They started wrestling in the background.

“Dang it!” Youta clenched his hands.

The shard was on MachGaogamon’s hands, merged with its yellow chip. Arsenemon came quickly in the daylight and used his tricks:

“Un Deux Trois!” He snapped his fingers and an invisible barrier isolated MachGaogamon and Matadrmon from Lekismon and Flaremon, respectively.

“Ah finally you're here, why did it take you too long!?” Lekismon complained, “Catch that shard already!!”

“... Matadrmon, let’s retrieve. Ichijouji Ken and his friends are not here, which is a disappointment.” The masked human said, and then he and Matadrmon vanished.

“...” Lui was still in denial.

“Malchanceux.” Arsenemon charged his hand with a black blue aura and snatched the piece from the yellow chip in MachGaogamon’s hand.

MachGaogamon turned back into the blonde man. Arsenemon tossed the fragment to Flaremon, who destroyed it with his fist covered in flames.

But Lui was still in denial he couldn’t notice what happened or that a human being was forcibly turned into a digimon. Youta and Mizuki went to meet with their partners and let Lui escape, who did not say anything and left in silence.

“That dude escaped again!” Lunamon pouted.

“It’s okay, he wasn’t the person I saw with Ichijouji-san before,” Noel explained, “But… This Ohwada Lui…”

“What is it…?” Coronamon asked, and they all turned to Noel.

“Nothing, just… I had a strange feeling he might be a special case.”

“Well, we have yet to find that lavender haired person” Youta shrugged, “If this one wasn’t our suspect, then who could they be?”

“Hmm… Lune-san, did you access the database from the high school Ichijouji-san attends?”

“Wait, I did! Why were we looking for a random dude in Tokyo if we could catch the info straight from his school records!?”

“I’m the one to make this question” Youta and Coronamon said with a deep sigh at the end.

The mysterious Lui… What is his connection to the digimon? What happened to his partner digimon, since the trio didn’t see him with one? Why were those transparent tentacles coming from nowhere and protecting that human?

Many many questions are left open. Someday… You will uncover this mystery.

[kichimiangra]

...Well now I gave to ask about Shalconimon. Tell me more?

Shalconimon was my childhood fan digimon. I had been a digimon fan since about when the toy town episode first aired in the usa and that was only because despite seeing the ad for "the show that is like Pokemon but they're DIGITAL MONSTER" I couldn't remember what channel it was suppossed to be airing on so I missed a good chunk of the initial airings of the first arc. I had immediately fell in love with the franchise and wondered "If I had a digimon, what one would it be?"

I didn't have internet at the time, but my grandparents did and I would try to find pictures of what other digimon existed that maybe weren't in the show when I would visit them, or if a classmate had the old cardgame I would ask if I could look at their cards so I could just know what digimon existed to be options for!

I was (and am) an indecisive child tho so I never could just point at one and say "Obviously THAT would be my digimon!' Unlike say, my older sister who took one look at he Pink Gabumon running around Gear Savanah in Digimon World and said "ah yes. Psychemon. There is my partner." (Though in modern times she's a big fan of Labramon)

It wasn't until the day that the finale to Adventure 02 aired, and right after it ended the trailer for Tamers aired; "I used to watch show show... I used to play the cardgame... I even made up my very own digimon! But now.... everything is real." (don't remember if that's how the trailer went) Just with the line " I made up my very own digimon, my dumb ass was like "Wait.... I can make up original fancharacters for things?????" And with that I went to work desigining my very own digimon!

I have always been a huge fan of dinosaurs and I always thought the dinosaur digimon where some of the coolest! The Triceratops were always my favorite (Though I like a LOT of dinos) and although Monochromon and Triceramon already existed I wanted my own Triceratops in my favorite color! (HOW DARE GAMMAMON bE like FIVE CERATOPSIANS IN A TRENCH COAT!!!!) I remember as a kid I could only draw him from the side as ya do, but no art from that era remains.

I remember me and my sister writing our own digital world adventures with our made up digimon and I can't remember really what they were about, but I think Shalconimon was intended to be... kinda an asshole? Like imagine instead of the usual Digimon/Tamer partnership where they almost immediately get along you had more like something from early Medabots where Ikki and Medabee were at each other's throats, or what if Hiro from Ghost Game had gotten Espimon as his partner from the start instead of Gammamon and Espimon just didn't like to listen? At the time with only Adventure and 02 out, and Tamers only having barely started airing the idea of that kind of partnership seemed novel and unique, and maybe inside my baby author brain, just maybe the idea of "Starting off on the wrong foot and having room to grow" sounded narratively satisfying?

About half a decade ago when I revisted him I redesigned him a bit. He was a little over designed from the beginning and decided to upgrade Shalconimon to a Champion Level digimon. Shalconimon was originally the rookie form. I don't remember giving him a Baby I, Champion, or Ultimate but he did have a stupidly conceived Mega that I now call PajamaAngemon because that is exactly what he looked like. Angemon in Pajamas... god why did I give him an angemon form that was so stupid? Anyway after his level promotion he ended up getting a new rookie who... doesn't have a 'mon' name? I just call it the Protocerakeet, because it looks like a fusion of a protoceratops and a Parakeet.

Somewhere in the mid 2010's, I think it was around 2014 or 2015, I had been feeling bummed at the lack of digimon world vpet rpg style games to scratch a digimon world itch, considering World for the ps1 was getting on 15-20 years old and the newest game in that style was Re:Digitize that STILL to this day doesn't have an official English release. I didn't know Next 0rder was in the works, so it just felt like Vpet Rpgs were just... not being made and if they were not being ported over. There had been a rise in games in the indie scene creating spiritual successors to games that the dev had loved growing up but the mainstream and AAA scenes just don't develope anymore and so I had started thinking up two potential game ideas that where intended to have that vpet rpg feel. One was about Cryptids, but it evolved into something less vpet rpg-ish and into a more LoZMajora's Mask/ Stardew Valley calendar based resource time management game. The other was about some kids finding themselves isekai'd to NOT!File Island to help NOT!Jijimon return NOT!Digimon back to NOT!File City while stopping one of the only other humans on the island, NOT!Analogman. So the second one was more of a scratch the serial numbers off Digimon world Clone, replacing Digital Monsters with Monster's based on Extinct Species. The Protocerakeet lives there as that idea's mascot/NOT!Agumon.