Persona 5 Royal

“Not surprised that you picked a harem anime bullshit cashgrab, how’s it supposed to get you cash though?” Jenny asked, once the three returned to her apartment. Hannah was in the central living room playing her pick from the store, GTA V, while her mother and her mother’s “boyfriend” talked in the connected kitchen. “Heck, Hannah picked a better game to use your point-whatever with, you know how much moolah you get in that game?”

Leonard replied “I’m not sure that I’d enjoy playing that particular genre.” as the two watched Hannah gun down and run over various innocent bystanders in a setting reminiscent of Los Angeles across three different characters. “Besides, my game still has you get money and valuables. It’s just… brain treasures taken from bad peoples’ mental landscapes. And I can maybe finesse some magic JRPG powers out of it.”

“Okay, fair enough. Still feel like getting a rocket launcher or a helicopter would’ve been cooler, though.” Jenny pointed out as Hannah commandeered a speedboat and fired an RPG at a pursuing police vehicle that had a large set of propellers that allowed it to fly.

“Where would I keep either of those things and not get arrested? Anyway, it’ll be a time commitment to get anything good. The game’s a lifesim-style RPG, and goes through a whole year in-game with dozens of available options at any given moment. Not to mention the things you can get in New Game+, so it’ll take hours of playtime.” Leonard explained as Hannah walked the streets of Los Santos and did various activities such as bowling and getting a haircut.

As her daughter cycled through a list of achievements a mile long, Jenny asked “Alright, fair point. Why not let me play it for you then? I’m not doing much outside of… photoshoot…” while muttering that last part under her breath since her daughter was slightly in earshot.

“The transfer probably works better if I’m the one who grinded for yen or ghost-dollars or whatever the game’s currencies are. I bought a game attached to a DS cartridge to get my Digimon stuff, but I still gave up plenty for that to work out as well as it did. Whatever it is that I’m doing, it works better the more I personally sacrifice for it.” Lenny explained for the last time, before looking at his phone’s clock and saying “It’s five o’clock, I should be getting back with the others. If you want help with Hannah or anything else, call anytime.” before waving the two goodbye and exiting the apartment.

He walked over to his own residence next door, realizing mid-step that he hadn’t had his keys in the pocket of his pants thanks to Jenny suddenly grabbing him mid-meeting.

It turned out that six people hanging out in an apartment that all know you was just about as good as a key to a door, so he was let back into the living room to see all that had changed while he was gone.

It turned out, lots had actually changed in his absence. Specifically, three out of his four materialized Digi-Eggs had seemingly hatched.

Ann’s and Cheryl’s eggs had hatched and apparently digivolved, while one of Mara’s two claimed eggs had hatched.

“Mine took a lot more encouragement to hatch, I can imagine why though.” the teen explained, as an honest-to-goodness Renamon stood next to her as she held the Black Egg, presumably having hatched out of “Evil Spot”.

“Most likely the data requirements necessary to digivolve to Rookie Level are similar to the requirements to hatch as a Rookie. That explains why Kuzuhamon hasn’t hatched yet, the Black Egg hatches her already at Mega Level.” the yellow anthropomorphic fox said plainly, crossing her arms. It made Lenny feel ridiculously surreal, seeing such a well-known (and extensively depicted) Digimon standing in front of him exactly like he had seen on TV years ago.

Even odder were the two almost identical Digimon sitting in Ann’s and Cheryl’s laps. Both looked like they had stubby green bodies, with pink petal-like “faces” with simple features, almost like just three black dots (two eyes and a mouth). At the top of their heads(?) was a kind of propellor made of what would traditionally be considered the flower’s stamen/pistil, though this was still an identical feature the two shared.

From the little Lenny remembered about Digimon Data Squad, the two of them were both probably Lalamons, the main trio’s girl character’s partner. Ann’s had a more upbeat or extroverted air to her, and Cheryl’s seemed quiet and contemplative. If one needed a visual cue, they could picture it like the two Digimons’ eyes were drawn slightly differently to convey their contrasting temperaments.

Ann’s Lalamon (#1) added “Me and my twin sis here popped out as Budmons, so it was pretty awkward. We got spikes on us, you know, like thorns on a flower stem?” with a remarkably casual tone.

“… we ended up drawing blood, I’m not sure you should talk so flippantly about such matters…” Cheryl’s Lalamon (#2) muttered, noticeably more distant and remorseful.

Cheryl sighed “They were only pokes and pinpricks, you don’t have to be that self-conscious about it.” before holding out a hand with four or five bandaids wrapping around its fingers. “See? Ready to heal, so chin up.”

Ann herself was fiddling with the latex and fabric curled around her own hand’s fingers, muttering “Well if these leave a scar we’re gonna have words. You got that?” as she addressed the carefree flower baby lazing in her lap.

Said digital monster replied “Yeah whatever, everything’ll probably be fine.” as she yawned.

“… aw, I can’t stay mad at you! Man, I was exactly right with all that stuff I said when you were an egg!” Ann chuckled, wrapping her arms around Lalamon #1 as she giggled from the embrace.

Cheryl patted her own Digimon’s flower head, saying “I seem to have been correct too. I’m sure we’ll get along well.” as Lalamon #2 nodded slightly.

Leonard, seeing all this, went to sit next to Erica, asking “Anything else that I should know about?” as he tried to settle down after that rapid-fire paradigm shift.

“Angie and Lili’s pregnancies might have a reasonable explanation.” Erica said simply, like that wasn’t a big deal.

“You’re kidding.”

Angie sat on the other side of Lenny, replying “No, it’s true, we have an actual theory for it. It lies in the Cauldrons, and how they ‘replenish life points’.”

Lili then sat on Angie’s lap, leaning back as she continued “LP is something a ‘duelist’ has, or rather something a ‘human’ has~! Drinking that green goop probably gave us ‘human life points’, making us half-human in the process when it Digivolved us~! That’s how we made like Arukenimon and Mummymon, since those two had human DNA that let them take human form too~!” despite Angie’s muffled protests from under her.

Eventually the conservatively dressed Digimon pushed her scantily dressed sister off of herself, and panted “And… if Digimon can… be part human… it probably means they’re… biologically compatible… in some way… whew…” as she tried to recover from Lili sitting on her unprompted.

Leonard nodded, saying “That actually does make some sense, wow. I guess it means that 9000 LP and 10500 LP is enough to reach Ultimate Level, then. And today’s count should be… 12000 LP.” as he did some mental math with the help of his fingers to reach that last result.

Next to him, Erica pondered “They both seemed to be about the same in regards to their reaction, Digivolving two times. The Yu-Gi-Oh! player in me is thinking that maybe they got to Ultimate because they got 8000 or more LP at a time, with 4000 being enough to get up to Champion level.”

Mara asked “So you think Lenny could make one of the Digimon here into a Mega Level…!?” with an air of awe and amazement as she felt Renamon’s bicep, her head craned over at the conversation developing on the couch. “W-Which one’re you gonna do!?” she excitedly asked, clearly interested to see her new Digimon skip to the highest level.