The light wanes, and Ethan finds himself back in the hallway of the school. Night has fallen. He lets out a sigh, and then realizes he's still holding Swampy's sleeping form. The animon is back in its Fledgling stage of a baby alligator stuck inside half of its eggshell. He can't believe this is really happening. It must just be a dream.

Ethan starts heading home, bracing himself for what Dad is going to say with him getting back so late. He doesn't know what to do with Swampy. He can't really conceal the animon in any way if he takes them into the trailer. He's going to have to figure out a safe hiding place so they aren't discovered. After making it back home, Ethan searches for a good place to hide Swampy.

He hides Swampy underneath the trailer and pulls some stuff over them so they at least won't be visible from anyone passing by. It won't stand up to someone actually crawling under and checking, but nobody has any reason to do that...right? Ethan gulps and heads inside.

Ethan's dad is already asleep and snoring. There are empty bottles near him, and the smell of alcohol is in the air. Ethan lets out a sigh of relief. Dad was easier to deal with when he was already passed out. Ethan crawled into bed and went to sleep. He was exhausted, and wanted this dream to come to an end.

Ethan wakes up exactly on time, well before sunrise as usual. He stretches and is grateful that the dream yesterday with animon is finally over. He winces a bit when he stretches, and checks his leg. It's still wrapped up tight from where he was bitten.

Which means that wasn't a dream.

He falls out of bed with a thump, and Dad stirs in his sleep. Ethan sneaks out and checks underneath the trailer. Swampy is awake and quite bothered by their situation.

"Hm hm, what were you thinking putting me down here when my usual spot is inside with you?" They ask.

"I—okay, what? What do you mean 'usual spot'? We just met." Ethan whispers back. His mind is racing, confronted with all the evidence that this animon business was real.

"I've been with you for your whole life, Ethan. You just knew me as a stuffed animal, and now I'm finally here." Swampy nodded.

"You're...the same as the stuffed animal? How is that possible?" Ethan asks.

"The Animon World is fueled by human imagination. By focusing on Swampy the stuffed animal, you created me, Swampy, your partner, out of its essence. I am Swampy, and your emotions about Swampy, all rolled up into one. Now get me out of here, it's cold." Swampy rolls out from under the trailer.

"Stop, someone might see you. How am I going to explain that?" Ethan tries pushing Swampy back under the trailer, but the alligator is having none of it.

"Regular humans can't see animon. They'll see me as the stuffed animal, and you wrestling with it is going to attract even more attention." Swampy snaps back.

"What? Wait, then those other kids..." Ethan trailed off.

"Yes, they likely have their own animon with them as well. You'll be able to see them now that you have an ani-tool, so try not to be too spooked when they show up. Now let me out!" Swampy rolled out and bounced up in their eggshell. "Ah, much better."

"You're not coming with me to school, are you?" Ethan dreaded the answer to this question.

"Of course I am. What if you are dragged back into the Animon World without me there to protect you? Now open up your bag, I promise I'll fit." Swampy pointed at Ethan's backpack.

Ethan sighed and opened his bag to let the alligator in. True to their word, they were able to fit. Somehow. They sure seemed too big for the bag, but in a physics-defying maneuver, they compressed down and the bag zipped up without any issue.

"As if I wasn't bullied enough already, now I'm bringing a stuffed animal to school. Wonderful." Ethan mutters under his breath.

"I heard that! It will be fine!" Swampy said, muffled by the interior of the backpack.

With that, Ethan left for school, again arriving as the buses piled in. As he approaches, he sees the kids that usually bully him get off the bus. The last one off the bus is the one he saw in the Animon World, and his animon companion is a red bird with an oversized beak perched on his shoulder. Ethan is slightly taken aback, but regains his composure and doesn't draw attention to it. Today, instead of pushing him aside, the bullies ignore him. The animon kid makes eye contact with Ethan, but Ethan looks away and rushes inside.

The day was fairly normal, all things considered. Ethan kept his head down and avoided talking to anyone for most of it. Swampy made the occasional appearance to comment on the school curriculum. True to their word, nobody but Ethan seemed to be able to hear the animon when they complained, loudly, about the math textbook's understanding of infinity. Ethan grew more and more annoyed at them as they lamented throughout the day.

"Can't you be quiet?" He whispered to Swampy during class.

"You don't understand! It's not as simple as saying you can't subtract infinity from infinity, there are many possible outcomes depending on what kind of infinity it is." The animon wailed.

Ethan put his head in his hands and groaned.

"Ethan, cut that out and be quiet." The teacher scolded him from the front of the class and went on about math, or something.

Ethan sunk down in his chair, defeated.

The bell rang, and Ethan went into the hallway, only to bump into someone. After taking a step back, he realized it was the girl who'd tried to convince him to be their friend in the Animon World. Her eyes lit up when she saw him.

"There you are! I've been looking all over for you. Come on, come on!" She tugged at his sleeve.

Ethan didn't know what to do, and he got dragged down the hallway into the library. There, he saw the other three kids. They'd called themselves chosen, but they seemed like regular kids to Ethan. With the exception of their animon, of course.

"Okay! With everyone here, we can start this meeting of the Animon Club!" The girl proudly declared while dragging Ethan into the room.

"Why is he here?" The bully asked, glaring at Ethan.

"Well, he was chosen too, right? It only makes sense..." the other girl piped up.

"He doesn't want to be here, and we don't want him here. Seems straightforward enough to me." The bully crossed his arms.

The girl pulling Ethan along pouted. "We do want him here, and he does want to be here. He even brought his animon to school!"

Ethan pulled his arm free. "Actually, he's right. I don't want to be here." He took a step back from the startled girl. "And it sure sounds like not everyone wants me here anyway."

He turned to go, then stopped in the doorway. He turned back and asked: "How did you know I brought Swampy—err, the animon?"

"The ani-tool can detect them. That's how I found you, yours was the only signal I didn't recognize." She answered, and then gave a small smile. "Swampy is a cute name."

Ethan's face turned red. "Are yours the same as mine? With the emotions and stuff put into a physical object?" He asked, looking away.

Her smile widened. "That sounds like a good question for a club member, wouldn't you say?"

"F-forget it." Ethan turned back around and exited the library.

He heard the bully say "We don't need that loser" as he left.

The rest of the week continued on like this. Swampy started helping Ethan with his homework. The bullies largely left Ethan alone at school. And the girl would not stop hounding him about the Animon Club and being one of the chosen.

Her next tactic was to try introductions.

"We haven't really been introduced, have we?" She said while jogging to keep up with Ethan heading home. "My name's Emma. And this is Slapshot!" She gestured to her animon, a penguin waddling behind, its flippers pointing backwards as it tried to keep up.

"Okay." Ethan said, facing away from Emma.

"Oh come on, I don't even know your name yet. Isaac wouldn't tell me anything about you!" Emma protested.

"Who's Isaac?" Ethan asked.

"You know, the guy who was all," Emma scrunched up her face, " 'why is he here? He doesn't want to be here.' That guy."

The bully was Isaac, then. Ethan had never really learned the names of his tormentors before.

"He doesn't know anything about me." Ethan said after a long pause. "And I like it that way."

"Why are you like this? Why can't I even know who you are?" She asked.

"Maybe you should just tell her what she wants to know..." Swampy said from his backpack.

"Ah, that's right! Swampy, you can tell me his name, can't you?" Emma made pleading eyes towards the backpack.

"Um...I mean...only if it's okay with him...." Swampy said, shrinking back further into the bag.

"What's with you? You're normally not like this." Ethan said over his shoulder towards Swampy. He unzipped the bag to make sure everything was fine with the animon.

"It's okay! I'm okay. I'm just shy around people is all." Swampy was huddled down in the bag, not making any movements.

"You're fine when I talk to you though." Ethan scratched his head.

"You're different, you're not people, you're a person. It's totally different." Swampy said. "Can you close the bag now? She's staring."

Ethan looked up from the bag. Emma was staring, eyes wide into his backpack. "I don't get it. But okay." He zipped it up. "They don't want to talk to you either." He said to Emma.

"Come on, just a name. Please?" She made pouty puppy-dog eyes at him.

Ethan finally relented. "My name is Ethan. Will you go away now?"

"Ethan! Okay, good. I'll see you tomorrow, Ethan!" Emma took off running, scooping up Slapshot as she raced back to school, presumably to catch her bus home.

True to her word, Emma caught up with him again the next day. "Ethan! How is Swampy?"

"Do you have to be so loud?" Ethan asked, agitated. "What if other people hear you, or see you talking to me?"

"Why would that be a problem?" She asked, head cocked to one side.

"Are you really that dense?" Ethan said. "Why would you want to be involved with me anyway?"

"Well, why wouldn't I? You're one of us, whether you want to be or not." She crossed her arms and stomped her foot. "You are one of the chosen. That means we're in this together!"

"In what together? And chosen by who, anyway?" Ethan asked.

"Well maybe if you stuck around the club, we could have told you!" Emma shouted.

Other kids at school were starting to take notice of their argument, and started whispering amongst themselves. Ethan shrank back.

"Whatever. Just stop bothering us." He turned and walked away from her.

By the third day, Ethan just ignored Emma. She plied him with more personal questions and tried to bait him into asking more about animon, but he didn't bite.

On the fourth day, in the morning, Isaac jumped off the bus and grabbed Ethan by the back of his collar. "We have to talk." He dragged Ethan to the side of the school and shoved him to the ground.

"What are you doing with Emma?" Isaac growled.

"Nothing. She won't leave me alone." Ethan said, standing up and wiping himself off. "What do you want?"

"People keep seeing you two together, and now your rep is rubbing off on her and they're starting to say things about her. So whatever you're doing with her, knock it off. We don't need you." Isaac crossed his arms.

Ethan gaped at him. "You really think I'm the one causing all this? I just want to be left alone. You guys do whatever you want, this animon business has nothing to do with me."

"Whatever. If I see you hanging around her again, I'm gonna do something about it." Isaac spit on the ground to make his point.

"Please do. She's annoying." Ethan tried to walk past Isaac, but the bully put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him into the wall.

"Listen here, punk. You got an animon by mistake. You're not one of us, and you never will be. We're going to save the world and you're not going to get in our way." He sneered right into Ethan's face.

"Whatever." Ethan said, trying to keep his cool.

Isaac grunted and released him, put his hands in his pockets, and rejoined his group of friends who were watching from a distance. They couldn't have heard anything they said, but probably just assumed that Isaac was roughing up Ethan as usual.

"What's his problem?" Swampy asked from the backpack.

"Don't worry about him. He's just another bully." Ethan put his head down and walked into school.

Swampy wouldn't let it rest. "What he was saying about Emma though—"

"It's just a misunderstanding." Ethan interrupted. "He thinks we're instigating, when it's all Emma. Ugh. I told her not to get involved with me. Of course people are talking behind her back now."

"Does that mean you were looking out for her when you tried to brush her off all those times?" Swampy asked.

"No." Ethan answered quickly. "It's not like that. she's just annoying."

"Ethan, your face is turning red. You really do care, don't you?" Swampy teased.

"You can't even see my face." Ethan said, but he still covered his face in his hands.

"Oh, I can tell." Swampy said smugly.

"Whatever." Ethan said, and tried to focus on classes for the day.

It didn't really work. His thoughts kept circling back to Emma, Isaac, and the whole animon situation. He did feel bad that Emma was getting bullied because of her association with him. He was also starting to piece together that this whole 'chosen' business was a lot more important than he'd realized at first, with Isaac mentioning that they were going to save the world.

"Do you know what Isaac was talking about when he said the chosen were going to save the world?" Ethan whispered to Swampy.

"The Animon World will sometimes choose human children to safeguard it when it's threatened by an overbearing surge of human negativity. That negativity manifests as powerful evil animon that threaten the stability of both of our worlds. That's probably what he meant." Swampy replied matter-of-factly.

"You didn't think to tell me that when this all started?" Ethan asked.

"You didn't ask, and I thought you already knew." Swampy said.

Ethan chewed on that thought for a bit. "So the world itself chose us? Not like, a person or an animon?" He finally asked.

"Yes. And when it did, it manifested me as your partner, and did the same for the others." Swampy said.

"How did it make that decision though? How did it know we were good enough? Like, what if it made a mistake?" Ethan was worried about the answer to that one.

"The world can't make a mistake. It can see into your hearts, your emotions, and selects kids with pure intentions. The rest is up to you." Ethan felt Swampy shrug from inside the backpack.

The Animon World really thought he was good enough? And it thought that Isaac had pure intentions? That sure came as a shock. Ethan opened his mouth to ask more questions when Emma caught up with him and pumped both her fists.

"There you are!" She exclaimed. "What did you and Isaac say to each other? He's been weird about it all day."

Ethan turned away from her and started walking the opposite direction. He wasn't going to get any more involved with the chosen, especially if his presence was going to hurt them.

"Hey!" Emma raced up beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. Ethan shrugged it off without a word and kept moving.

She pleaded with him while he wordlessly walked through the halls and outside the school. Eventually, she got enough on his nerves that he whirled around to face her.

"Listen. I don't know what you want, but you're not getting it from me." He snapped at her, and Emma recoiled in surprise. "I don't know why I got an ani-tool. I don't know why I have an animon partner. The world chose wrong, okay? So listen to Isaac and just forget about me. I'm not one of you. Look at what's already happening to you just by talking to me."

"What are you talking about? Nothing's happened to me..." Emma said.

"Oh yeah? Look at them." Ethan pointed at a group of girls nearby who were gossiping. "And them." He pointed at Isaac's other friends, the bullies who usually tormented him. "And all those things people are saying behind your back because you've been talking to me. It's my fault, okay? That's what happens when someone tries to get close to me, alright? Is that what you wanted? To be their next target?"

"Ethan, calm down. What are you talking about?" Emma put her hands out, and Ethan swatted her away.

"Stop talking to me like we're friends. It's just going to cause both of us trouble. Just forget all about me and go on with saving the world, or whatever you're doing. I'm not part of it." As he spoke, the ani-tool in his pocket started vibrating. "And you can take this thing back with you to the Animon World, I won't be needing it." He pulled out the ani-tool, and Emma gasped. The tool lit up, and a blinding light enveloped the two of them. They vanished from the school, while everyone was watching.