Digimon Sundial

Chapter 13: Suzaku City

"An accident?..." -Miura still found it hard to believe, they were almost at the Ether Jungle, the swamp's annoyingly unconsistent mud was finally going away as they entered a path surrounded by trees- "...How?"

"I fell into one of those MAGAMI portals in real lif..." -Aspen turns around to see Ventomon, Growlmon, and even Calizmon looking at him for what he said, quickly correcting himself- "...In the human dimension, I mean... And when I realized, I woke up in this world, alone and lost."

"...I see..." -Miura thinks about it for a while, this made no sense. This human was called Aspen, and looked exactly like his old friend, even down to the clothes... Yet both his last name and personality seemed to be completely different, it's like he forgot about everything they lived up to that point... Or was trying to make it look like he forgot... Right, maybe these digimons weren't supposed to know about his real identity? Miura decided to play along until then- "...Well, Aspen Mark, I'm Miura Nagase, nice to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine" -Replies Aspen, at least that was out of the way... He was still confused about the coincidence of sharing names with the leader of the original Seekers, but right now this wasn't the moment to think about it- "By the way, where are we going? Ventomon?"

"To our hideout, like I said, I'll happily look after Miura's allies, and being out in the wild at the south sector is dangerous right now." -Ventomon responds while leading the way, on closer look, he had a pair of straight and opaque wings, pointy shoulder armor, and legs that somewhat resembled the drop-shaped leg armor of Airdizmon, but these were the whole leg, and were even edgier. Finally, a long, also pointy tail stood out, being almost the same height as the mantis.

They reached a small river, but it was clear it was closer to civilization, as the bridges uniting both sides were clean, nice looking wooden constructions complemented with signals indicating where to go to reach Suzaku City.

"Are we going to Suzaku City?" -Asks Aspen.

"One day, I wish I could say 'yes'..." -Ventomon looks at the signal, pointing at the right, but keeps going to the left instead, headed to a hidden path- "...But MAGAMI still occupies that place."

"That day will come soon." -Growlmon replies, noting Ventomon's pessimism, seems like the red dragon was expecting that response.

"MAGAMI?... What's with them?" -Miura says- "What happened with the A.o.A?"

"We haven't heard about the A.o.A for years, they disappeared at the same time you original Seekers did..." -Ventomon answers, looking at Miura- "...Now the one that's slowly following their footsteps is MAGAMI, they may look and act different, but they sure are as rotten and oppressive."

"...I see..." -Miura says, looking at the signal as they left the place- "...So the world really changed that much, huh..."

...

Meanwhile... At Suzaku City...

The city was certainly an oriental-inspired beauty, made over the river, resting on wooden pillars and platforms, the city gave a traditional, warm feeling of simplicity with it's paper doors and markings on the walls. Torchs and gaslamps were used to keep it well lightened as the afternoon came.

At the end of it, there was a port, with the small canoes and fishing boats making way for a bigger, tougher ship with the digimon logo painted in its side docking at the pier.

A group of samurai-looking digimons was waiting at the pier, overseeing the docking, they were like Musyamons, but cleaner, healthier, and with Susaku City markings in their blue armors.

They were called Ward Musyamon.

"Moderator Geovasmon, from Asuka." -A WardMusyamon with a golden ornament on its helmet salutes to the squad sent by Asuka to reinforce their defenses as they left the ship- "Its an honor to meet you, we hope you had a nice trip."