A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, L9 - a multichapter with over 100 chapters. This fic won't have much in the way of humans…hence the title. I am using the Japanese names for digimon species…largely because of how it's baby/child/adult which is a more natural progression of growth as opposed to rookie/champion which seems to focus more specifically on fighting capacity. As for the world itself…I'm sort of making up these rules as I go. It is going to be fun. :D

Digital World

Chapter 1
The Light of Digivolution

It was a dark night, again.

Chantilly wondered where the stars had gone after the cold came. Her childish mind thought it might be the chill reaching the sky, but the older piyomon scorned her. The sky was too high, they said. Elsewise their wings would have carried them to those far-seeming stars. And the sun.

They could not even fly high out of sight. Some whispered that such a feat would be possible only when the light of digivolution shone in their valley.

The parents tried to fester that belief. It kept the children from being reckless, from attempting to fly beyond their limits. But they did so anyway. Those who grew tired of waiting. Those who lost belief.

The light of digivolution had not shined bright in their valley for quite some years. Though the stars had shone then. Brightly, on the day she had hatched. That had been a warm day. There were precious few of those, now. The valley, with its thick cover of trees however bare they were, was especially cold.

It was too cold to live, year after year. But they'd hoped for at least a little light on their migration night.

Chantilly never understood how the migration day, or the length of the journey, was decided. She'd participated in two of them in total. Had she hatched earlier, she would have seen a third as well, riding on her mother's back. As it was, her mother had had to stay behind while the others flew to warmer lands. Watching her egg. Then the hatching that emerged. And the cold that…became unbearable.

The flock had come back to find the hatchling huddled in the feathers of her mother's corpse. But she was not the first to be born in such ill times. Nor was she the last. And they were the least reckless. The outcasts. The ones who did not care to see what lay beyond the cover of blue sky turned grey upon them. Who did not find their migrations an adventure. They had lived through the bitter cold that so frightened the other piyomon. They did not fear.

Perhaps that too was foolishness, because all their mothers had died in waiting the cold through. They had survived because they had been guarded. Kept safe. Wrapped in feathers and the oil and flesh underneath, all made from the data – the code that existed in everything: living, dead or existing.

The chill ate away at that data. Just like something in the sky burnt it. But though they had that knowledge, they had their experiences and their dreams. Some piyomon did not fear the sky. Others did not fear the cold.

But still, they longed for light. The light from the stars. The light of digivolution that would grant them power: a shield against the winter, and stronger, fiercer wings. They knew tales of great firebirds who had once flown the sky.

But in none of their lifetimes had one flown. And the light of digivolution, said to shine with all the radiance of the far off sun and more, had been a flickering, pale thing a long time before. Not strong enough to coax a child into an adult. Barely enough to coax a baby into childhood. And it took longer each time. The last hatchings, born just after their return from the last migration, had not yet reached that stage. Whispers had begun to rise that they never would. That the brief flicker of light that had last graced their valley had been spent. And now there was only darkness left, until the light shone again.

The eldest of all of them sighed. In the darkness, even moreso since the wind did not stir, the noise seemed especially loud. 'Light or not, we must start our flight tonight.'

The piyomon chattered in worry. Only for the youngest ones, the lack of light was off little concern. Their last migration had begun in almost-darkness as well.

Almost darkness, Chantilly thought, not pitch black.

And that was what surrounded them. The elder stood upon the stone of speech but they could not see him. Feathers scratched her; a neighbour standing too close. And her left side felt especially close. Another, standing too far.

But they could do nothing. Not yet. All the light they could create, they would use when the flock rose up. To light their ascent. To set their initial course.

And none of them wished for the forest in the valley to burn away to a crisp before their return.

The wood had been collected weeks prior, and kept safely so that rain nor snow would soak it. That day the stronger ones had brought it out. From the stone of speech, the elder would fire his Magical Fireand the wood would catch light.

There was just enough wood so that the cold would put the fire out before the trees were caught. As it was every year. And Chantilly, still young though she was fortunate enough to have reached the child stage where she could fly on her own, did not know that the wood collected grew in size every year.

But she did know no migration before had been done without the help of a single star.

'The prayer begins,' the elder spoke over the chatter, and Chantilly froze.

The prayer was a prayer of safety, of warmth, and of light. Where they asked for a migration that would steal none of them away. Where they asked for the cold to slink back to the shadows whence it came, to stop eating them alive. Where they asked for strength and prosperity, for growth: for all that the light of digivolution represented and offered to them.

'…and so may it be.'

She clasped her talons and bowed her head. Though she could make out no face or form around her, she was sure the others were similarly posed. Thus was their tradition, their prayer that marked the start of their migration.

'Magical Flame!'

Chantilly unclasped her talons and raised her head. The green spirals of fire exploded from above the stone of speech. They lit the elder's weary face a moment before they spread too far, too thin.

A moment later, the wood crackled and caught light.

The piyomon arranged themselves into rows. The fastest ones at the front and behind: to scout ahead and keep watch behind. To catch any who began to waver and lose their path. The slowest ones, and the ones who carried baby yokomon with them, were in the centre, where they would be the most protected.

Chantilly took her place not quite at the back, but close to it. The elder remained on the stone of speech. He would be the first to fly. The one to lead, until the scouters were sent ahead of him.

He raised his head and spread his wings – and then froze as light, not pale orange and cackling like the fire around them but a pure white, exploded in the distance.

'The light of digivolution,' the piyomon whispered. 'It has come.' It faded before the words, but they had all seen.

They looked amongst themselves. Which of them would be graced. Which of them would evolve? The yokomon strained their heads to see. The oldest piyomon as well. They'd tired of their childhood form, their limitations. And the elder, their leader, most of all.

He was the one who began to finally glow. Whose skin changed. Who was replaced, for a moment, by code that none of them could read. Who became a shimmering form of light that began to grow, and then redefine itself.

The cheers began. Though most of them craved the firebird form, the ascension to adulthood had been something not witnessed for a long time – not in any of their memories.

And then they froze.

It was no firebird standing before them, aglow in the ring of fire meant to give them light.

Chantilly had never seen such a digimon. The legs were so huge and the wings small. Red it was, yes, but hardly a bird. The elder had become…something other than the great firebirds of legends.

The great monster shuddered, then fell sideways off the stone of speech. The piyomon broke formation and crowded around as the elder curled, huddling in to himself.

Seeing his flock surround him, he smiled weakly. His beak had grown as well, and now they were lined with thirty teeth. 'It seems I feel the cold more…strongly now.'

The piyomon closest to him helped him up. He stood, double their height and width, most of his colour gone. The digivolution had stripped him of that. What remained was a little red tipping his wings, tail and beard. The rest of him was white. They could see that even with the flames that surrounded them.

'We must fly,' one of the other piyomon, one of the scouters, urged. 'The flight will give you strength, and our destination the warmth you need.'

The elder groaned on his feet, but spread his stubby wings.

After a moment, it was plain his wings could not fly.

The elder lowered them. 'I cannot fly,' he said. 'I must brave the growing chill this time, I'm afraid.'

The piyomon began to chatter again: a mix of fear and anger. The light of digivolution it must have been, and yet it had cruelly stripped the elder of his ability to fly. They had never heard of such a thing. And their faith was sorely shaken.

'The thicker pelt will see me through,' the elder said. 'Fly! You must fly tonight!'

Finally, after much urging, the scouters took off. The rest rearranged themselves into their rows, the slowest and the ones with children in the centre again. Chantilly cast one final glance at the elder, at his aged and sorrowful place, before taking her place in the penultimate row.

They rose in the air, row by row, and just as the scouters began to fly east, the flame below them flickered out.

Chantilly looked down. There was nothing to see save a blanket of darkness where the valley stood.

The piyomon still chattered. They flew more slowly than they normally would. Perhaps they hoped the elder would rise and join them, take his place at the helm. But he did not. And the whisper spread amongst their ranks. About the light. The light of digivolution.

It had been far away. Chantilly looked north, where it had come from. There was a small light there: a speck in the darkness. She could have mistaken it for a star if she weren't in the air, if she had seen it from the valley floor. But the trees had hidden it then.

It was the temple, she guessed. The temple on the mountain. Where only the angels went.

And she was not the only one to come to that conclusion.

'Of course, it is the angels who are blessed by the Gods.'

Chantilly remembered the tales. The last time the light of digivolution had shown, it had been strongest to the north. It had been for the angels then as well, or so the mutters went.

The bitterness was especially strong that night, leaving their elder behind.