Digimon Paradox - Episode 1

Chapter #1 of Digimon Paradox
=Characters=
=Summary=
left|thumb|Reiji and Wanyamon's first meeting
Shinonome Reiji entered an alley full of cats, carrying a bat. The three men who were there were terrified of him but Reiji kicked one of them in the face anyways. Another asked him to drop the bat, which Reiji did as he didn't need it for thugs like them, then punched Motoyan in the face. The last one then ran away, carrying the other two with him and warning him they'd meet again, though Reiji didn't care. Reiji then thanked the cats for alerting him, then took the animal they were attacking out of a trash can, though it was not a cat as Reiji expected but a wounded, sleeping Wanyamon. 
Reiji then went back to his home, where, upon entering it, he heard his sister talking to someone else. He realized they were in his room and went to it, where she found both her sister and two of her friends drinking. Reiji berated his sister for going into his room without permission, which he had told her multiple times not to do, but she argued it was the best place in the house to watch the cherry blossoms. Her two friends then surrounded Reiji and asked him many things, which unnerved him. The embarassed Reiji then asked his sister to get her friends off his room but she offered him a beer instead as a way to enter adulthood. Both embarassed and angry, Reiji just pushed all three of them out of his room while shouting at them, then slammed the doors shut. Reiji's sister realized his stomach seemed swollen, but shrugged it off and decided to just keep drinking in her room with her friends. Reiji was still mad at them but also glad he kept them from finding out about Wanyamon which he kept below his shirt. Reiji then left Wanyamon on the floor as he wondered if he was really a cat, considering it had the face of a cat but nothing else. Wanyamon then woke up, looked all around, then screamed at Reiji as he offered to take care of his wounds, clearly angry. Reiji interpreted it as Wanyamon being hungry so he gave him tuna sashimi, but Wanyamon angrily smashed the plate with his tail, the pieces of said plate Reiji a scratch on his cheek. Reiji was seemingly angry himself and stretched his arm towards Wanyamon, who was now scared, but instead grabbed a piece of tuna and ate it to prove him it was edible. He then told Wanyamon to eat while trying to calm him down, which worked as Wanyamon finally lowered his guard and ate the tuna. Reiji thought he had managed to befriend him, but Wanyamon merely pulled away from him after eating, with Reiji's shouting at him alerting his sister that there was another living being with her brother. However, she thought it was just a cat. 
Talking to her friends, she explained they weren't allowed to keep pets as they were renting their house, but Reiji would still bring in strays every now and then. One of her friends wondered if he was a cat lover, but Reiji's sister explained that, back in elementary school, Reiji used to take care of a stray dog, Taro, in an empty lot, but one day he found two children harming it. Reiji's shouts made Taro grow aggressive, which caused the two kids to run away, and Reiji was glad that Taro seemed fine. However, the next day, Reiji only found Taro's collar, which was caused by the two kids who had one of their mothers get it to the pound by lying to her and saying Taro was dangerous. They were proud at themselves and hoped it was put down, which made Reiji sad as Taro just tried to survive. 
In the present, Reiji, who was in his bed, told Wanyamon, who was in a box looking at him, he was glad he could rescue him. Reiji's sister kept explaining to her friends that, ever since then, he kept bringing in stray dogs and cats from the neighbourhood to look after them and befriended them. One of her friends thought he had a surprising soft side for someone that seemed like a lone wolf, but she thought he just couldn't let anyone be, especially those in trouble. She explained them he had a huge collection of dog and cat toys, to their surprise.
Reiji named Wanyamon "Wanya", based on the noises he made. Wanya refused to open up to him even after several days went by. Reiji decided to leave for the convenience store and asked Wanya to stay quiet and keep an eye on their home while he was gone, but Wanya refused to even look at him, which angered Reiji as he was leaving because Wanya's stomach rumbled even after he was fed. Regardless, he still left while asking Wanya to hide in the closet if anyone came. However, Wanya ignored that order and instead turned himself into data while Reiji wasn't looking and went into his phone. Reiji told his sister he was leaving for the convenience store, which confused her as he had done so on the afternoon, but he argued he was hungry, which didn't convince her. Regardless, Reiji bought the fish sausages Wanya liked as he thought about how he's spent most of his money on food the last few days, though he was fine with it. 
thumb|Kuwagamon's arrival
When Reiji got back home, he saw cherry blossoms floating down from his room, which made him think his sister had gone into it again as he had closed the window. However, who he found there was a woman he didn't know instead sitting on his window. She pointed out cherry blossoms, which she had never seen before, were beautiful. Reiji wondered if she was one of his sister's friends and told her said sister's room was downstairs on the other side of the hall. However, the mysterious woman instead got close to him and accused him of being the one hiding "it". She then went and touched him all around while holding her head to his chest, which made Reiji's heart race. What she wanted, however, was Reiji's phone, from which she made an angry Wanyamon emerge, to Reiji's surprise. The woman was similarly confused at Reiji not knowing this, as it'd mean the Digimon, as she called it, went with him out of its own free will, an impossibility. Reiji didn't know what a Digimon was but also thought that unlikely because Wanyamon treated him poorly. The woman explained that Digital Monsters, or Digimon for short, used electronic machines as a medium to serve as cyber weapons for the future. Reiji thought she was crazy and ordered her to leave or else he'd call the police. The woman accepted that was an ordinary response and told him to observe what the gadget on her arm could do as proof that she, too, had come from 300 years in the future. To Reiji's surprise, the setting sun came back up, which she explained happened because the time outside of his room was being rewounded. Reiji finally believed her but asked her what she wanted with him, with his calmness surprising her, although Reiji answered he was shocked but hadn't processed the situation yet. Nonetheless, the woman explained that the Digimon, Wanyamon, was a cyber weapon mistakenly sent to that era, and her mission was to prevent an annihilation paradox that would destroy humanity caused by a Digimon sent to the past, which was predicted by a future artificial intelligence. The woman then called her Partner Digimon, Kuwagamon, into the room and had him attack Wanyamon as she refused to explain herself, as Reiji would forget everything after she winded back time. However, Reiji protected Wanya and intercepted Kuwagamon's attack with his bat, which shocked the woman as she tried to explain that Digimon were just weapons. Reiji said that the future must be a crappy place to live, so much he couldn't even understand it, and refused to let her kill Wanya. The woman tried to rewind time again to erase Wanya from an earlier point in time, while considering Reiji's reasoning absurd, but a draconic hand came out of Reiji's computer and seemingly broke her device before she could. The woman was taken by surprise as only one Digitama should've been sent back in time but two Digimon were there, both Wanya and the newly-arrived Devidramon, which fully emerged from Reiji's computer. Devidramon took Wanya and went back to Reiji's computer. However, the woman was more worried about her time machine, which wasn't broken but stolen so she couldn't return to the future. Reiji asked her where that black thing disappeared to and she explained it went into the cyberspace on the other side of the monitor but it was too risky to dive into it in such an ancient time. However, Reiji refused to listen to her and just went in anyways as she explained it, with Kuwagamon making her realize it even happened. 
thumb|Devidramon flying through cyberspace
As it travelled through cyberspace, Devidramon told Zen that mission A was fully complete while mission B was partly complete. The mysterious voice thought this was enough and ordered it to come back, but Reiji suddenly assaulted it with his bat and rescued Wanya. 
The woman and Kuwagamon pursued Reiji through cyberspace as the former complained about Reiji's recklessness while wondering about Devidramon's aim and if it was following someone else's orders. They then found Reiji grabbed by Devidramon. The woman ordered him to abandon Wanya and save himself but Reiji refused. She shouted at him that he was a human from the past with no relation to the future and didn't understand why he went so far to protect a Digimon, which were merely data, weapons. As he bled from his mouth, Reiji rejected her words, screaming that Wanya was a living being who got scared, hurt and hungry, but still did his best to survive, so he'd save Wanya, while he remembered Taro who he couldn't save. Wanya, who was touched by Reiji protecting him, decided to save Reiji to pay him back for saving him before, and evolved into Elecmon. He then attacked Devidramon. The ferocity of his attack surprised the woman, as did the fact that he was able to overpower an Adult/Level IV Digimon, which made him too strong and too dangerous in her eyes. Reiji, however, was happy about it, as he realized it meant Wanya was quite a punk just like him. The woman was very confused that a clueless human made a Digimon evolve, that a Child level could match an Adult, and that a human and a Digimon weapon could fight side-by-side. Regardless, Reiji still joined the fight alongside Wanya to prove everyone that Wanya was not a weapon but a living being. 
After their clash, the group was violently ejected from Reiji's computer back into his room. Despite being in pain, Reiji reached out to Wanya to see if he was okay. The woman tried to stop him, as Digimon were dangerous, but Wanya merely leaped into Reiji's chest. The woman thought both them fighting together and them understanding each other was unthinkable and thought Reiji may be something. Reiji then apologised because her time machine didn't come back after they defeated Devidramon. The woman explained it still had partial functionality but many of its functions were stolen away. Nonetheless, she could still use it to rewind time in Reiji's room to fix it. She explained that Devidramon likely escaped after their attack. As Wanya climbed into his shoulder, Reiji pointed out that meant she couldn't go back to the future so he offered to help her out, to her confusion. He pointed out they just had to steal the time machine back from the Digimon he couldn't name, but she didn't understand why he was helping her at all, which was simply because she was in trouble and he couldn't leave her alone. This made her think he was too kind for his own good, which Reiji was accustomed to hearing though he didn't like it. That said, he put a condition on his help: that she wouldn't even think about killing Wanya, else she should just leave and never come back. The woman thought she couldn't let such a dangerous Digimon unsupervised and the annihilation paradox's cause may be something else. Reiji stretched out his hand to her and introduced himself. The woman thought she had no choice, introduced herself as Eve and grabbed Reiji's hand with both of hers, embarassing him. Eve asked him to let her stay in his room, which got him flustered, but Wanya thought it should be fine because Reiji was really nice. This surprised Reiji as Wanya could now speak. Wanya refused that name, saying he was Elecmon.
"This is a story that begins with "once upon a time"".
=External Links=
*Episode 1 on Digimon Web official website:
**Japanese
**English
=Additional Information=
Category:Digimon Paradox chapters