Inquiries [Katherine/Talia]

To be honest, Talia envied those nine to five office workers who's job allowed them to leave at 5:00 on the dot. Unfortunately a programmers job was too detailed and deadlined filled for that. "Can we change back nowwww Talia?" A fuzzy fox and rabbit peeked out from under her desk, glancing back and forth at empty cubicles which signaled the end of the day. "Not yet! There's a few straddlers but I'm going to get some snacks for us, you can switch when I come back alright?" Grabbing her wallet and staff pass she took the elevator to the first floor, at first hardly noticing the stranger standing in the lobby but the confused, slightly disheveled expression on her face was eye catching. "Can I help you with something?" Didn't these kids know better than to drop off a resume right at closing time? Then again she looked a bit young to be interested in a job here. "Most of management is gone for the day, but I work on the design floor if you need something."

Normally Talia wasn't so inquisitive with strangers, but it was so rare they got traffic in this office that the blonde had a gut feeling there was something important about to happen. Meanwhile, the twins, bored, had wandered out and were currently exploring the floor - they weren't really supposed to wander off but uhh...curiosity got the best of them? As they snuck around, a large intimidating metal door with buttons caught their attention. "Hey! This is that door with the magic buttons that takes you to different places, what do you think will happen if press all of them at once Tohru?" Yep, too curious for sure. "Hmmm, lets find out!" The rabbit climbed on top of the top of the foxes head, climbing up pushing the fox down a bit. "Wait I wanna press some too, ow!" Tohru wobbled attempting to stay afoot. "You're too lanky to be the button pusher." That made Simba pout a bit, though his attention was quickly recaptured by the lit up buttons the rabbit pushed. "Push all of them!" "I can't reach all of them dodo!"

Talia quickly recognized the gadget as a digivice but her face said otherwise, the woman attempting to hide her surprise, wondering in her head how to respond without giving away that she knew what it was. "It's not but I recognize the manufacturer, might I ask where you got this?" It was more so a question out of pure curiosity for the woman's research notes. "Better yet, would you be alright with going up to my office? It'd be easier to speak there." She glanced over at the ear phone wearing lobby receptionist, who appeared to be typing out emails on a computer but in actuality was watching some youtube video of a golden retriever paddle boarding that she closed if a higher up walked by. Poor bored girl, this building didn't get a ton of foot traffic outside of the regular company employees. Still, this was too public of a place to discuss things like digimon. Crap, speaking of digimon, the twins had been promised snacks. "Actually, I need to run to the convenience store across the street first but you're welcome to join me."

Meanwhile, a certain pair had finally managed to press the elevator buttons and were ooohin and ahhing at the miniature light show before the giant steel door opened up. "Won't Talia will be upset at us?" Surprisingly it was Simba this time trying to be the voice of reason, nine times out of ten he was the one ready for an adventure while Tohru played cop. "Nah, we'll be back before she comes back!" Practical or not, the hare was as curious as her brother about these things. "Good, I wouldn't want to miss out on the snacks!" Although he had to admit, that opening door looked a bit scary - what if it closed and squished them? "Hurry Simba, its closing!" Upon jumping in, the fox was mind-blown to see the door open again and shut when he stepped out of its way. "Oooh, its like an anti squish door!" Had his sister not yanked him inside the shaft by the tail, that would have been a game on its own for the digimon. "Where are we going anyway?" "I dunno, its a magic portal door remember?"

"I see, interesting." was Talia's response before they went to the store, the blonde picking up a basket inside from a stack by the door, filling it with candies and chips and packages of microwaveable ramen and udon noodles. "This is just my stash for what I keep near my desk on hand when I'm super busy, I'm promise I'm not some kind of weird hoarder or junk food addict - Katherine did you say it was? I'm Talia nice to meet you!" If it appeared like the woman was in a hurry it was because she was trying to hurry back before the twins had time to find trouble, little did she know it was a bit too late for that.

The last question stumped her a bit as she tried to think of a quick, logical answer in between her train of babbling. "Hmmm, company went out of business, some limited edition thing from a con, a beta test for a cancelled launch, could be any reason really." She read the frazzled girl's face when they made eye contact, and was somehow reminded of herself when she'd first arrived here to study abroad. "By the way if you want anything just put it in the cart, its on the department credit card."

Meanwhile, the trouble two found themselves headed deep down the elevator, waiting to see where it let them off. "This is taking foreverrrr and I'm bored and hungry, can we go back now?" Ugh, did her brother not get the concept of a magic door? "Be patient!" Simba was too starving to care now about where this so called portal brought them to, unless it was to a kitchen full of ice cream maybe, oooh how he loved sweet ice cream, especially the mint chocolate chip kind! And while he fantasized about ice cream, the door finally opened.  

Welp, neither one of them had expected this - the area they elevator let them out in was dark and dingy with lots of intimidating looking pipes and machines making odd noises. "I-I don't think we should be here Tohru, what if there’s monsters?!” To a human, it would have been a regular old boiler room, but to two small foreigners of this world, the place looked like some kind of house of horrors. “Aww don’t be a baby, c’mon let’s look around! Ugh, something smells really bad in here...” Simba smelled it too, holding a claw over his nose. It was like a burning rubber sulfate-ish smell, one sort of familiar to both twins but neither able to directly pinpoint it. That was, until pink piles of the undesirable came flinging at them out of nowhere followed by a bug eyed repulsive shelless slug like beast, screeching at them with an ‘eyeeyeeyee!’ sound while sticking out its tongue, making the twins scream. “NUMEMON!!!”

They ran back to the elevator as quick as they could with the slug following after them. “Don’t run little digimon, I just want to play, we can play all day!” Luckily the twins were prone to picking up on things fast enough they knew which elevator button was the force door shut, the door closing just before the stinky slug could climb inside with them, the twins high fiving after catching their breath, and practically letting go of their breath when they made it back to Talia’s desk just before she arrived back.

“I hope you don’t mind pets!” The blonde said to the girl right before they got to their floor stop. “I have a pet fox and rabbit who hang out here with me, they-” The way they were sitting with smiles looked way too suspicious, but since there was a guest and they seemed to both be in one piece she let it slide for now. "...like snacks, lets just say."

“Eeep! Eat?” The rabbit tightly held in the urge to squeak very in a very un-rabbit like manner but did wiggle a bit as if silently begging the human not to cook her - she knew from the television and movies that a lot of western human cultures ate rabbit as a regular meal. “This little human wouldn’t dare, besides I’ll just freeze her if she tries, yeah! Eh eh, wait I’m not supposed to do that right? We’re not supposed to disturb the human balance - I’ll just bite her, perfect. Rabbits bite right?”

The television had also taught her that were rabbits were portrayed often in fiction as cute and cuddly critters prone to stealing from the private vegetable gardens of humans, but in reality they made rather unpleasant human pets due to their anti social nature as well holding a tendency to be dirty, often carrying an unpleasant smell and defecating on just about anything. Unfortunately, the one thing TV and movies had not taught them was that it was common for humans use to non-literal phrases to express things.

“Doesn’t surprise me one bit.” This kid was clearly clever, it made sense why whoever it was that matched digimon seemingly picked her to be a tamer despite her being a bit younger. “Remember I mentioned how I recognized the manufacturer of these? If I said that said maker wasn’t of this world, would you believe me or think me to be totally crazy?”

The blonde sat in her desk chair, bending back lazily a bit. It was a standard clean desk space, complete with computer and office supplies, much of it being decorated with expensive figures and pop culture props that the girl had probably paid way too much for. On a busy week the space could be littered with empty cups and snack wrappers but Tohru made sure the woman’s desk was clean and often lectured her about being a slob. “Don’t worry, it’s not aliens...ish.” The message ding from her computer pinged, indicating a client had sent a request which the blonde made a note to look at a bit later. Had to fund that figure collection somehow right? “Nah trust me, we don’t judge here at Overlord, our director wears a mask because she’s shy.”  

The blonde pointed downwards to the two animals digging around inside the bag of snacks. “Not exactly me but, you’re close.” Picking up a key, she opened a small drawer containing what she considered classified information - names and records of hacking clients, drafts of codes for games in development, etc; basically nothing she’d want stolen should a burglar, spy from a competitor company, or crazy fan come in here snooping. Inside was also a device which looked extremely similar to Katherine save for that it was white with a red bar on the site. “Would you look at that, we almost match!”  

“I mean as in, if you really want answers, you’re gonna have to think outside the box a little bit.” The blonde was trying to explain the situation to the girl little by little as opposed to bombarding her with dumps of information so her head wouldn’t spin and so she wouldn’t get confused, misunderstand and run away with the idea that Talia was some kind of psycho. “Before I proceed, let me ask you this, do you believe in the idea that other worlds exist outside of this one?” Well technically the digital world was a connective plane of earth, but keeping her phrasing simple was important right now. “If not, you may wanna start.”

She debated how to answer Katherine’s question clearly without using confusing terms, placing a finger on her chin, her face scrunched up. “Long story, but let’s just say it began with a pair of lost critters that had no one but one another.” She debated deactivating the twin’s holosuits, but figured it would be too much of a shock right now in addition to all this other information. “By any chance, did that device come with say, a pet? An animal? Stuffed doll? Weird looking egg?”

In Talia’s own experience the trend seemed to be that if a digivice appeared, it meant that the the digimon partner wasn’t too far away - that gave her an idea though for the future - since digimon were made of data, there was no reason they couldn’t be tracked online right? Granted that could prove difficult since their core makeup was probably complex and varied next to your standard manmade software, making things difficult to melt but it was definitely something to consider, it could be something as simple as a tool that plugged a digivice into a tracker, being those gadgets seemed extremely connected to the digimon partner.  

“Interesting, I like the answer, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t expecting a more...tunnel vision sounding one? It’s not you, its just know, as kids we’re taught that real life is real life and fantasy is fantasy, and that there’s absolutely no in between.” They were meant to believe that things like separate worlds didn’t exist and so weren’t important to focus on. “And while I don’t exactly believe you can walk through a magical closet where a goat man in a red scarf will greet you, I think subverse travel is definitely scientifically possible.” Actually, she knew so but wasn’t quite ready to reveal it just yet. “Oooh, was he cute? They say dreams are partially formed by your subconscious, whatever that means I guess. Makes me wonder if other people can really visit another person’s dreams.”

Now that had to be a bit more complicated than hopping through multiple verses - how in the world could you get into someone’s mind? Through a close bond maybe? They did say couples and best friends started to look and act alike after a while, definitely an interesting question for a psychologist. “Forgive me if this sounds nosy, but any idea what he was saying?” Dream sequences tended to be kind of personal, really really personal in fact if you had those kinds of subconscious feelings. “Those little things tend to have a mind of their own, I even tried taking mine apart and you’d think it was made of adamantium or something - I even took it to a parts shop and he couldn’t do it either.” At least she’d gotten a friend out of that experience? “What I will say though is that getting one is a sign you’re part of an awesome group of people!” Well mostly awesome, Talia hadn’t met any so far who were mean but she was sure they existed out there as with any group - but why hadn’t her partner come with the digivice? “And you’re sure there wasn’t anything that came with this? No egg?”

While slurping on some noodles, Tohru looked up at the two humans, debating if she should answer for Talia (as she did most often). “Don’t you think she gets the picture?” Unless one was looking right at the twins at that moment, that childlike voice coming from the hare would have seemed to come out of nowhere - that was, until the rabbit stood unnaturally human like on its hind legs as if some sort of CGI animation, waving at the younger girl. “My name’s Tohru and I’m a digimon, and this is my brother Simba.” Hearing his name, the fox stopped his eating to join his sister, his bushy tail swishing around as he went to nuzzle against Katherine’s hand. “Don’t scare her, sis! Don’t forget, animals don’t talk in the human world.” “Then how come they do in so many movies?!”

Hmm, or maybe humans just didn’t have the brain capacity to understand them - most of the movies she’d seen with animals talking were silly and geared toward entertaining young children except for one they’d recently seen called The Animals of Farthing Wood, which featured a group of wild animals looking for a new home after humans destroyed their old one and portrayed many of the characters dying on the journey thanks to mostly manmade things like cars and guns; a lot of what the twins knew about human culture was from watching movies, and the Animals of Farthing Wood seemed to represent the darker side of humans, but they knew not all of them were so careless. Talia meanwhile, was facepalming from the two of them revealing themselves. “And you’re talking too, Simba. But no, these aren’t regular pets, they’re what you’d call..otherworldly companions.”

The presence of the Tsukaimon made Talia’s digivice trill as well, the blonde getting briefly distracted by the deviation so that she saw Katherine bolting when it was too late - didn’t stop her from going after the younger girl though. “Hey come back! You can’t just approach strange digimo- I mean wild animals! Come on.” The twins followed behind. “We have to hurry, Tsukaimon aren’t nice digimon!”  

Up until now Talia had never had an experience with malevolent digimon, but like a protagonist from a video game she ran to the elevator with her faithful duo in tow, stopping just before the elevator, looking down at the two. “I don’t know what we’ll find up there, but I’m more than ready to face it with you two; thoughts?” The two looked at eachother before fistbumping and then back at Talia, both rabbit and dragon (now unholosuited) giving her a nod of approval, the human kneeling down to their level holding out her hand for the other two to merge with. “On three, the Gallant Three to the rescue!”

The underwhelmingly sized fat purple flying pigs didn’t look very threatening to the three, but Lopmon was quick to remind them that Tsukaimon possessed strong demonic powers to look for - that didn’t stop her of course from sending the twins to attack the hams head on. “Blazing Ice!” Leaping at the two, the rabbit glided with her ears, sending a breath of cold air towards air toward the Tsukaimon. “Fifth Rush!” Simba jumped in the opposite latitudinal direction his sister did so that the two of them made a full frontal attack from both left and right, the dragon swiping his claws at the enemy. “You know, it’s not nice to name call, I mean I could call you guys flying bacon but will I? Nah, cause that’d be an insult to BLTs, and I happen to really like BLTs.”

The woman had spoken before sauntering into a vision of sight, posing not unlike (yet again some action video game main character. While the twins were preoccupied detaining the flying porker bat like creatures, Talia went to grab Katherine to safety, swiping the girl gently by the arm away from the fighting. “Rule number 1 of digimon - don’t randomly approach ones who look like they could be minions of Ridley, got it?”

They didddd sort of look like they would for an evil flesh eating space pirate, and Talia was blonde like Samus (just no cool armor unfortunately) so it was perfect. "By the way, I kind of forgot to mention earlier that I'm a digimon tamer, and so are you, well you will be I guess whenever your partner decides to show up." These things just seemed to work by random chance.