Typical(?) Terminus (OPEN)

After what felt like days of them being lost, the Gallant Three had finally arrived in their destination of Terminus City and you would think Talia would be dying to go home to her own bed, own shower and own house. Yet, the adrenaline fueled thrill from their recent adventures in this land, flowing in veins like a river at high tide, was far stronger than her desire to go back to civilization. “Keep walking!” Terminus city was such an aesthetically amazing place that the girl had nearly stopped on the sidewalk to glance around hardly noticing she was getting in the way of other digimon who glared at her (and some of who towered over her and had hands as big as the twins together in one), causing Simba and Tohru to pull her along a bit.

“I didn’t even know the digital world could have places like this!” At first hearing the term ‘digital world’, Talia had expected to see some sort of vast pixelated wasteland like something from a low budget 80s game. “To be honest I didn’t know either, I don’t remember much from my time here!” The small bunny had hopped up onto the girls shoulder, flopping on top of her head, making the woman look like she wearing some kind of avant garde hat you would find for a marked up price at Urban Outfitters - it was nice for Talia to see Tohru opening up a little bit, loosening up as far as her affection went, knowing that it meant she was getting more comfortable around the human and in return the blonde was getting more and more attached to these twins by the day.

“Don’t carry me Talia! I wanna be uhh...how do you say it? Indefandant? Indepecent?” He couldn’t seem to recall the big word he was looking for, ugh humans used so many of them! Of course Tohru was happy to remind him, the rabbit loving taking advantage of any chance she could get to one up her brother. “Independent.” Pfft, like her kid brother could ever take care of himself - he would probably cry if they got separated for more than two seconds! Just kidding! No sibling of her would ever be that pathetic...or would he? She wouldn’t put it past him of course, what with how he seemed to be afraid of his own shadow at times. “I know we opted out of going home right now, but you guys think we should find the train station so we know where it is for next time?”

Both seemed to agree, and of course Tohru was the first to announce she knew where it was. “It’s that way! To the right! Eep-” Simba had jumped up onto Talia’s other shoulder and covered the hare’s mouth for a minute. “Sorry sis, but you’ll get us lost again!” Yep, this time however, Talia refused to believe her since she’d been the one who forgot to tell them that she had no idea how to get here in the first place. “I will not! My ears are practically satellite, they were just...off when I got us lost.” An approachable girl with green haired sitting in the park with what looked like a witch digimon seemed to be their best best for asking directions, Talia walking towards her with the twins perched on her shoulders. “Excuse me, but do you know the way to the train station from here? We’re kinda uhh...new to this place you could say.” 

“Really?” For some reason Talia had assumed there would be more tamers in the world as opposed to what the green haired woman reported. “I’d assume otherwise, but then again computer programming teaches you to never assume anything.” The nature of it was too tedious and error prone for someone who operated on assumptions or didn’t have the patience to check for any and all possible corrections since the way programming worked was that one tiny wrong character could screw up the entire thing. “Excuse you! We’re the farthest thing from dorks you can possibly get.” Using to generally being called every name in the book, Talia hadn’t paid too much attention to the Witchmons words and Simba had no idea what it even meant since he usually fell asleep first while they watched those human movies where people used that sort of jargon.

“Tohruuuuu come on…” She held her breath as the insulted little hare jumped down in front of them, her ears standing out a bit like a kitty cat with its fur raised, her human bending down to pick her up much to the digimons protest. Pissing off witches was never a good thing if books and movies were accurate right? “Sorry, please don’t mind her, she’s just a little bit sensitive sometimes.” Hmmph, as if! “I am not sensitive, I just have pride to upkeep.” Yeah well, said pride wouldn’t keep this Witchmon from turning them into toads or ants.

“I’m Talia! Nice to meet you.” The blonde extended her hand offering a shake, unsure if the green haired female would take it based on her past experience with the frostiness of other women (and occasionally men, aka mostly other nerds in her major with inflated egos who’d felt threatened by the possibility of a woman surpassing them). “Yeahhhh we kind of got lost and the three of us really should get back to the human world, I have deadlines!” The blonde didn’t really know yet that time passed much slower in the human world when you were in the digital world. “But Taliaaaa, you promised we could explore more!” The protesting Simba tugged on her sleeve as he spoke, reminding her of her earlier promise. “Well, we can’t stay forever! Unless you both want me to get fired.” Contract hacking didn’t pay quite enough yet to sustain the three of them except maybe if they lived in a one room apartment with no windows.

“Yeah! You promised Talia.” For once Tohru agreed with her brother on the matter and Talia found herself in a 2 against one vote while the hare turned to the other two, waving a greeting with one of her ears who’s length seemed to go past the height of her actual body. “My name is Tohru by the way, and this is my brother.” The dragon dipped his head before introducing himself. “I’m Simba!” And with Talia out of the way Talia grunted a bit, annoyed at the twins having ganged up on her earlier. “Ugh, fiiiine, but its not going to be more than another two days, alright?” The twins cheered, exchanging a hug to celebrate getting their way for once. “Yeah it was that, the river! But for some reason it brought us to a random place in the jungle where a group of Dokunemon tried to mug us! How about you guys? Cool digimon by the way...” No, lie she was resisting the urge to nerd out over the pretty witch.   

“Worked up? We’re just naturally a hyper pair I guess!” If that was what worked up meant of course. “This brother of mine keeps me energized all the time, he’s quite the handful if you can’t tell, like a kid with too much candy!” Mmm, now Simba wanted some sweets - wait a minute that was an insult wasn’t it? “Hey! You’re the one who always gets us in trouble first.” And there was a reason she wouldn’t let him forget it. “Yep! Because I always have the better ideas.”

Alice didn’t have to say which group it was for Talia to know that she referring to the same club that Amelie had just a few days earlier and frankly if she heard about this stupid club one time she was more than likely going to rip a tree from the ground with all that hidden fury, a anger that felt legitimate and...confusing? As if part of her didn’t want to believe that Carlos could be unfaithful, but yet another part of her refused to accept anything but such a brash and shallow assumption. Hence, Talia was briefly silent for a moment before quietly agreeing with an “I guess…” while looking away a little bit.

Tohru was all too happy to step in explain the situation as best as she could without embarrassing her human, knowing she felt humiliated enough. “Don’t take it personally, my human was having issues with someone in your research club so there’s a little bit of raw tension. She doesn’t have a problem with you though!” In fact the person she was the most mad at was...herself? Did that make sense? “Don’t be sad Talia.” As he often did when she was sad, the child dragon nuzzled against the girls hand, the blonde picking him up in her arms. “Tohru’s right, I’m not judging you just by association, that’s something a 3rd grader would do.” And she was better than that right?

With her hands around his torso, Talia gently placed Simba back down on the ground, his clawed reptilian paws touching the ground first. “Go on bud, let the nice lady scan you okay?” At first the sound of it was a bit frightening to the digimon, who proceeded to scamper behind Talia’s legs, earning a chuckle out of the female who gave him a scratch on the head before nudging him towards the others again. “Don’t worry, it’s not gonna be painful, I’d never let anyone hurt you or Tohru, promise.”  

“Unfortunately these two are more like needy children than roommates.” In a good way, if that made sense. “Needy and yet fulfilling? Now I probably sound kind of cheesy but it’s nice to have someone to come home to at the end of the day waiting for you, although they’re usually with me nine times out of ten.” At first she’d left them home alone but quickly found that the more attached she got the more she felt guilty leaving them by themselves and then there was one occasion where she’d planned to only stay a little bit late, only to crash at her computer and wake up in the middle of the night, self inciting a near panic attack realizing she’d left the twins home alone for over 12 hours and after that never seemed to want to leave them alone for some reason.

“Hmph! They better be respectful, or I’ll make them, we’ll make them right guys?” The three of them high fived, the blonde bending down to their level to do so. “Yeah! The gallant three will show them who’s boss.” While a silly title, it was a fun concept that seemed to bond them as a family, albeit a dorky one but a family nonetheless. “But wait, how are we supposed to protect the digital world if we haven’t evolved yet?” Ah Tohru, always the voice of reason. “Don’t worry, you’ll get there soon!” But the words of encouragement were nothing but just that since Talia didn’t really know a whole lot about evolution - K had said it happened through bonding, hadn’t she bonded enough with these two now? Was there a limit or was it completely infinite? “I’ll bet it was surreal! I can’t wait to see what Tohru and Simba look like in their next stage. Uh, hmmm where to begin...”

She sat in the grass, laying back a little bit, enjoying the fresh air, the feeling foreign to the workhaholic female if anything. “You know, society teaches us that unless we’re working nine hours a day, seventy five hours a week we aren’t living our lives correctly, but to me this is way more important than any of that.” Not that she didn’t love programming or helping the helpeless and innocent through hacking but sometimes she just wanted to stop and the roses, or in this case, get a new sense of self connection through exploring the great outdoors of the digitial world. “But anyway, I found these two trying to break into a vending machine while I was staying late in the office one night, I had no idea who they were, where they came from, actually at first I thought they were press release samples from a new line of plushes the company was going to be launching or something until they started talking and then I freaked out. How about you? How did you manage to meet Dorothy?”  

“They’re like kids but a lot less whiny and snot nosed.” Talia didn’t hate kids, but didn’t like how they had a tendency to be annoying and bratty, pulling on their mothers coats to leave a store they were bored in or throwing a tantrum fit when they weren’t allowed to buy candy - having Tohru and Simba around was like having kids but without the inherent human traits that made kids completely undesirable to be around if that made any sense. The twins, they truly and genuinely appreciated the girl for taking care of them without a mean or self centered bone in either of their digital bodies. “You know, that kinda makes me curious about what twin’s next forms’ll be, but do digimon change a lot in personality when they evolve? I guess that’s a silly question, that’s the whole idea of evolution, but I kinda like how they are now as partners…”

But at the same time Talia didn’t want what she wanted to hold the two of them back from growing up if that made sense - see, part of her own change in having these two around was that she found there was else to care about besides herself. Before all this, she’d only taken care of, made decisions for, and looked out for herself (well, she’d done a little bit of Carlos but Carlos could take care of himself to a degree so it wasn’t the same). Was she being selfish with such thoughts? Or just protective of the twins in general? The world, both human and digital could be such a scary place and in a way the blonde wished that she could shield the both of them from the horrors of both worlds, if only that was the reality.

“I agree, curiosity is a healthy thing to have - it’s what drives forward pioneering and discovery!” The twins were just as vested as Dorothy in fact. “Simba and I are a little too small and new to go out exploring on our own yet, so most of our learning about the human cultures comes mostly from books, movies, and television shows.” The dragon took offense to being called petite as Tohru giggled. “Hey, I’m not small, humans are just too big and messy!” The rabbit tended to agree there with her brother - culturally, humans were one big modern mess, granted it was more for them to explore but still a mess nonetheless.

Talia returned the smile to the green haired girl. “It is pretty interesting! It’s fun to hear all the different experiences tamers have - with me, I wasn’t really sure just what these two were, and then my boyfriend brought over his Pagumon which confused me even more, and then one day in the park I met being unlike anything I’d ever seen before, it was a mega level digimon that seemed to be a fox species, a very wise and sentient one at that, who cleared up some things for me, and then the twins reached their child forms that same day.” She’d never seen K again after that but often wondered what the fox lady was up to and where she was these days. “Recently we came to the conclusion that Tohru and Simba are missing some memories of their past lives, so we’re here to kind of see if we can figure out some of those blank spots, and just explore in general I guess.”