In my first original story written for FA, we take a look at how Rocky arrived in the Digital World and became the Flamemon we now know him as. This is my first attempt at writing a story like this, so sorry if it feels a little short.

Also, seeing how this story ended, I think I may have to write a part 2 to this later.

=

Rocky pulled out his phone as he heard it make a ding sound effect, indicating that he received a notification.

“Maybe one of my friends got back to me,” he said. “Maybe not everyone decided to go away for most o’ the summer.”

He looked up to see that the crosswalk he was at still said “Don’t Walk” before reading the message that was just sent to his phone, adjusting his favorite cowboy hat so that the sun wouldn’t reflect off the screen and into his face when he looked at it.

Sorry, can’t stay this summer. Going up to Wisconsin to see parents.

Things for him have been pretty boring since college let out for the summer. On top of it, at this point, it almost seemed he was the only one of the group he hung out with that wasn’t going out of state for either a vacation or to stay with family. He was glad they were having fun, but he was hoping to have some fun too.

“Well, I’m sure I can find something to do.” Once the crosswalk changed to walk, Rocky crossed the street with the other people standing there. He continued down his path on the way to the subway to get home. When he was almost there, he heard another ding from his phone. He took it out as he continued to approach the subway tunnel and looked at the message that appeared on it.

New in App Store
Help save the Digital World and the real world in the new AR game Digimon Shift! You can partner with your own Digimon or play as a Digimon yourself as you aid the residents of the Digi-World with problems both big and small, complete objectives, and fight bosses! You can even form teams with other players and work together!

“An AR game, huh?” Rocky asked. “Eh, why not? The last one I played was okay enough while it lasted.”

As he approached the subway tunnel and got on the escalator down, Rocky unlocked his phone and went to the app store, where he saw Digimon Shift on the front page. He tapped on it to bring up the page, where he saw the same description as before, as well as the game’s logo, and some more information about the game. It looked like it was free-to-play and the phrase “May Contain In-App Purchases” was right next to it.

“Oh great,” he said sarcastically. “Hope this ain’t a paywall game. I’ll still give it a shot though.”

After tapping the button to download the app, he looked through more of the page. He saw pictures of some fierce looking monsters. Some of them looked like they would be cool to play as. He reached the end of the escalator before the app could finish downloading, so he walked to the pay terminal and paid his fare, then passed through the turnstile before sitting down on a nearby bench, waiting for the train to come in. Once it finished, he opened the app up. After a couple logo screens from who were probably the developers, he reached the game’s title screen.

Digimon Shift
Tap the screen to begin.

Rocky tapped the screen then saw a small white creature with white and purple ears and a red and black symbol on its forehead appeared on screen in a flash of light.

“Hi there. Welcome to the Digital World,” the creature said. “I’m Calumon. I’ll be your guide here in the Digital World.”

A picture popped up on screen next to Calumon before he continued. It showed more of the fierce monsters alongside some cuter looking ones. “The Digital World is home to several different kinds of Digital Monsters, or Digimon for short. Some are small and cute and others are big and fierce. Some even…”

“Ugh, is there any way to skip through this?” Rocky asked, tapping the screen which let him speed through the text. “Thank you.”

He kept skipping until he reached a screen where he was supposed to type something in. He reached a part where Calumon was asking for his name. He just typed in ‘Rocky’ and pressed okay.

“Great to meet you, Rocky!” Calumon said. “One more question. What are you going into the Digital World as?”

The screen changed to a different menu that read ‘Select Your Playstyle’.

Digimon Tamer: Partner up with a Digimon and assist them in battle by using ability and item cards.
Heroic Digimon: Become a Digimon yourself and explore the Digital World solo.

“Well, I am wondering how I’d go as one o’ these big, bad monster guys and that tamer thing sounds like microtransaction city,” Rocky said, selecting Heroic Digimon.

From there another selection screen popped up, with more of Calumon’s text explaining.

“Since you’re only starting out you only have access to rookie-level Digimon but as you gain more experience, you can change yourself into a stronger form. We call it Digivolving. You’ll find out more about that later, but for now let’s see what Digimon you are.”

Another screen popped up with the headline “Select Your Digimon” and a few pictures of some smaller Digimon.

“Wait, this is it? What happened to the big guys?” Rocky said, scrolling through the pictures. “Is this what they mean by rookie-level? All the big guys have to be unlocked? Ah well.”

He looked through the pictures until he found one that caught his eye. It had a lion-like appearance with a big red mane, a fiery looking tail, and feet with big, red claws. Its name was brought up when he tapped on the picture, along with some more details about the creature.

“Flamemon, huh?” Rocky said. “Looks good to me.”

With Flamemon selected, Rocky chose it as his character. Calumon came back onto the screen.

“I can tell you’re going to be a big hero in the Digital World! You already look promising!” he said enthusiastically. “Just give me a minute and I’ll get the portal ready for you.”

Just as the screen changed to read Loading, the train Rocky was waiting on finally arrived. With the phone still in his hand, Rocky got up and walked inside the train car once the doors opened. Looking around, he noticed he was the only one in the train car. No one else was sitting in there and no one else getting on with him. He thought this was weird since it was the middle of the day, but ultimately, brushed it off.

“Guess I get the whole car to myself,” he said, taking a seat close to the door. As the doors closed and the train started moving, Calumon reappeared on the screen.

“It looked like you’ve reached the Digi-Portal,” the little creature said. “In just a few minutes, you’ll be ready to fight for the safety of the Digital World.”

The screen changed again to say Preparing Your Character.

“There’s a lot of loading screens and selection screens. When do I get to play the actual ga…” Before he could finish his sentence, he looked out the windows of the train. For a moment, it looked as though the windows were showing a blue sky instead of the tunnels of the subway.

“What was that?” he asked. Just then, what seemed to be several waves of energy shot from the front of the train car to the back, passing through Rocky as it did.

His phone dropped out of his hand and his hat fell off his head as he found himself engulfed in more of that strange energy, almost making him seem as if he was glowing with it. Along with the glowing, he could also feel this strange pressure throughout his body. Following it were different sensations. He couldn’t see anything, but he could feel it. He felt his clothes disappear and at least some of them were replaced by something different. His hair felt like it was getting tugged. His face felt like it was getting pushed out. He could feel something extending out of his lower back. His feet and toes just plain felt weird.

What's happening to me?! He thought to himself. After about a minute, the light started to fade, along with the strange sensations. He couldn’t move while he was engulfed in the strange lights, but now that they were gone, he could just let himself fall to the bench he was sitting on.

“Geez. What the heck was that?” Rocky asked. He leaned against the armrest of the bench as he tried to get his thoughts together, but as he did he got a glimpse of his hand and his eyes went wide as he noticed that his hands were now covered in a light amount of reddish-tan hair. He would even go so far as to call it fur.

At that he looked down at the rest of his body. The fur spread across his body and he could even see symbols on different parts of his body like a large one on his chest and a couple on top of both of his feet. Speaking of his feet, his shoes had disappeared and he could see that he feet now had three toes each and with big red claws on each toe. Along with his shoes, the rest of his outfit seemed to have disappeared, replaced by a pair of red pants with two black belts and a symbol on the buckle that was holding them, anklets around his ankles, and a pair of mostly red wrist-guards on his wrists. Feeling something at his back, Rocky looked behind him and saw that a tail, red and orange in color and almost appearing as if on fire, was coming out of his back just above his waistline.

At that moment, he had to look at his face. He looked around for anything that might have a reflective surface for him to look at himself. The only thing he saw that seemed like it might work was his phone, which went to sleep as the man (or creature? he thought) was going through his change, along with his hat, which he guessed didn’t disappear since it came off while whatever happened in the past couple of minutes was going on. He put his hat back on then picked up the phone, staring hard at the back screen to tell what his head and face looked like. The face that stared back looked far different from his normal face. It looked more like some kind of animal, with its small black nose, fanged mouth, more markings under the eyes, long pointed ears, what sort of looked like stumps of horns on his forehead (though he didn’t remember feeling much in that particular area), and a large mane of red hair. He could almost say he looked just like that character he selected from the game he was just on.

Wait... The game! Rocky thought. He quickly unlocked his phone. The game he thought he was downloading must have had something to do with this. He was greeted with a screen that read Character Loaded. Conversion Complete.

“Conversion complete? So the game DID do this to me?!” Rocky asked. A button appeared at the bottom of the screen that said Continue. He pressed it and was once again greeted with Calumon’s smiling face.

“Hi again, Rocky. If the conversion worked, you should now be a fiery Flamemon,” Calumon said.

“If it worked? You know what’s going on? What happened to me, you little rodent?!” Rocky shouted.

“I’m sorry if that was a little weird, but if we’re going to the Digital World, you did say you wanted to be a Digimon and now you are one,” the Digimon on the phone answered, giving no clear indication that it could actually hear what Rocky was saying.

“I don’t know if you can actually hear me or if this is just part of that stupid app, but I’m startin’ to get tired o’ this.” Rocky said. At that point, he could hear the train starting to slow down.

“Now approaching Desert Terminal. All passengers prepare to depart,” a loud, gruff voice could be heard throughout the train.

“Approaching where?” Rocky asked. He looked out of the window just behind him and saw that the train was now riding through what looked like a desert; sand, large rocks, mountains off in the distance, a big blue sky, and the sun shining brightly upon it.

“What in blazes is this place?” he asked. He could feel the train start to slow down as it prepared to stop.

When the train came to a complete stop, the doors all slid open. Rocky felt a little apprehensive about stepping out of the train, but he wanted some clue as to what he had gotten himself into. So, he got out of his seat and walked out of the door. Looking around, he saw that the train had brought him to a small town that looked like it came straight out of an old western movie, except instead of human people walking up and down the streets and in and out of the buildings, there were monsters of different shapes and sizes, everything from wolves to dragons to goblins to things he couldn’t even guess at. Looking around, he even saw a couple more of the Digimon walking out of the other cars of the train, as if they’d been there the whole time.

“Welcome to the Digital World, Rocky!” Rocky looked back at his phone, which now displayed a map of the current area, including the town now in front of him. Calumon could now be seen in a circle in the lower left corner of the screen. “You are now in the home world of the Digimon and you yourself are now a Digimon! Your grand adventure starts here. I’ll be back later if you need some help, but for now, I have to go. I’ll see you later!”

“What? No! Wait!” Rocky said, but the bubble that Calumon was in disappeared from the screen, leaving only the map and no amount of tapping was bringing him back up. Giving up, Rocky sat back down on some nearby steps, looking at his phone, then looking down at his furry self, then looking up at the busy little town.

“What the hell did I get myself into?”