You make sure to slow down the simulation massively, so that Phascomon can get used to moving in a lagging space. After some consideration, you climb into the deck yourself and become beholden to its effects. It's what you imagine Podding to feel like. Everything is moving at a crawl, but your mind is still racing. Your cognition moves faster than your eyes, causing a blurred, watery effect as your field of view shifts around. It causes motion to turn into a blur, and it's made worse whenever you turn around and add things to your periphery.

"This sucks!"

"Good thing we're testing it out... I don't think I would have been able to adapt on the fly."

You try it out for a bit more, but Phascomon's dreams of assassinating all your enemies in slowed time turns out to be impossible. You're just moving too slow. You soon realize that panicked movements make everything worse. If you thrash about, your body gets locked into whatever motion you attempt. But the processing speed allows you to change your mind constantly, so you end up twitching and spasming while trying to carry out multiple inputs simultaneously. You step out of the holodeck, exhausted, and replay footage of it in real time. The both of you watch silently as you're mirrored on the screen in lower-poly. Both of you look like you're having seizures while upright.

"That's weird. Was I really moving like that?"

"I couldn't pay attention. I was doing THAT."

He points to himself, right as he faceplants into the hard floor and gets surrounded by simulated Commandramon.

"We need to think of a way past that."

Phascomon hits the button to replay it, watching the three-dimensional shapes move around again. You find your answer after a bit more observation.

"Okay. I think I've got it. We need to commit to whatever we do."

"Commit?"

"Our instinct is to struggle hard when we get trapped in the lag, right? But if we struggle, we end up freezing from it."

"Yeah. So when you say commit, you mean following through with the action?"

"That's right. If you punch, don't try to pull it back until it connects. I think the trick here is to stay perfectly calm, until we can get to the exit or land a good blow. Try not to force any new actions while our bodies are trying to respond."

"Got it! Let's go again!

You try out one more session. It takes a while to get used to, but your theory holds up. Phascomon claws an enemy model through the lag, while you make long strides towards the edge of the deck, where your designated exit point is. Unfortunately, the deck can't render reactive behavior, so the Digimon just keep fighting unimpeded. You feel like a real Digimon will panic just as much as you were doing.

You get tired after an hour, but your Rookie training has been fruitful. You resolve to squeeze in a few more sessions, so the both of you are well covered.

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