I don't own digimon or any franchise referenced here.
Digital Butterfly
World 1-1
Hunters - An old threat
Ace Resterez opened his eyes once more.
Out of all the days to wake up, today felt off. It was as if he had already lived this day and went to sleep, only for the day to restart on him. Maybe, a bit more sleep would fix it and he could just continue on with life.
So he closed his eyes and hoped to get back into some sort of slumber. Maybe have a nice dream or two. If he was really lucky, it could lead to a wet one.
But all that got him was a full-on assault. It started with an impaling through the stomach by scythe heads, followed by a similar with floor spikes. Next came the swinging of the bat and then the instruments. Though, he wasn't quite certain how exactly that was supposed to kill him. But it had.
Then there was that time where they were facing down their past selves, which counted as a death in someone's eyes. Then came the laser, with it's scorching heat and blinding light. He hated that one most of all. And for the grand finale, an assault by the very thing he and his friends had been chasing - a white cat. Mind you, it was an overpowered white cat who was intent on killing everyone with robot angels things for some reason. Still hurt like hell. Especially when all the phoenixes shot forth from his body and caught fire.
"Do you wish to change your fate?" a voice called out as a figure appeared. If he had to take a guess, they were probably standing over his gnarled and burnt corpse.
"No." Ace answered and watched the figure crack a smile. "Whatever you're proposing, I refuse your deal and all your counter offers."
While by no means the sharpest tool in the shed, he already knew the consequences of attempting to change things through cheating death. The last couple attempts, while successful, had brought about disaster again and again. At least they made a dent against their opponents in their 'final battle'.
"Who said I was giving you the option to refuse?" the figure taunted as a wide grin formed on their face. "You have no choice this time, Ace Resterez. For a better future, this is your one and only option."
With that, the swordsman's eyes opened. Carefully, he sat himself up and looked about the room. Compared to his first adventure, things felt more quiet. Back then, he had been surrounded by others.
Ruby the ice phoenix, a loose cannon and a bit of a scatterbrain. While not the smartest or the toughest, she had least had some love within her heart of ice. Then there was Ted, who I guess you can call a father? He was more useless than anything else. Which brought right to Ninjara. Cringe-worthy name, cringe-worthy skills. But they were still his teammates. Or were, for a time until they were all shot a year into the future for some reason.
"I get it." Ace muttered and let his eyes open back up, getting up for real this time. "Stop acting like this is somehow a new experience. Because it isn't."
He had hoped that the voice would argue back and maybe prove him wrong. But no voice echoed back. Which was quite disappointing in his book. He preferred it when the author at least talked back. It least made things a tiny bit less hollow on his end.
Pushing those thoughts to the back of his head for the moment, he got himself dressed. It was the same outfit as usual, a plain shirt and a pair of shorts. You would think he would at least try to spice it up, but nah. That just left grabbing his katanas. While both blades had seen their fair share of chipping and damages, this pair seemed untarnished. Or at least looked that way.
Nonetheless, Ace made his way over to the other side of the bed. There, a woman slept in peace. Strands of platinum blonde hair snuck through from the covers, while a pair of sapphire blue eyes stayed hidden under a set of eyelids.
"Time to wake up, Clara." the swordsman whispered and carefully placed a hand on her, giving her a slight shake. Slowly, his partner woke up… and proceeded to fling him against a wall.
"Ugh." the mage remarked as she took the current situation in. "Wait… why are we back here? Shouldn't we be dead?"
Clara's question seemed to catch Ace off-guard, with him choosing to just stand there like some confused idiot. Which he most definitely was at times.
"It wasn't all bad, right?" he countered and got a glare from his partner. "You're probably right."
But that left a huge question for the duo. What happened? Was this case of the future getting rewritten or perhaps some other outcome? Or was this something else?
Ace took a deep breath and peeled himself off. After, he made his way towards the window.
"So now what?" Clara inquired and watched her partner give a shrug, only for his gaze to focus on something outside. "Ace, for all that is holy, please do-"
Before she had a chance to finish whatever she was going shout at him, Ace jumped out of the window. Somehow, he managed to throw one of his katanas at whatever he saw in the process.
Reluctantly, Clara followed right behind, making sure that her cyan dress or anything else on her body was not sliced apart by the broken shards of glass. Which was accomplished by just pushing that stuff into a nearby corner and hoping for the best. Considering that it was just the two of them and not the original four, the chances of a dangerous accident are slightly down. Not by much, mind you. Just enough that a difference could be seen.
Once both she and Ace were back on solid ground, their gazes focused on whatever the swordsman hit. On closer inspection, it would appear that the target was a white tabby cat. A very angry one, at that.
"Caught you." Ace whispered and took a deep breath. "So, care to give us some proper answers this time?"
Ace got no response, so he gave his partner a quick glance. But Clara gave him silence as well.
"I realize that you mean nothing to us, that we are nothing but your fucking playthings. But that ends now." he muttered and took a deep breath, slamming his katana quite close to the cat's body.
"You didn't seem to care when you escaped Heck." the cat muttered and tried to pull itself up, only to find the hands of Clara. "I didn't expect my son and his guardian-"
She got a punch in the gut for that remark. It was well deserved, especially after all that she had put both her children and their friends through. All for supposed answers. Which for the record, she never actually gave. Which is bad advertising on her part. At any point, you could have given clear answers, but no.
"Like you even care." Clara countered and made a glance towards her partner, who was taking the announcement with a mix of confusion and understanding. While he sort of remembered hearing something like that, the memory felt hazy, almost fake to some extent. Which could be chalked up to it coming from a place that existed and didn't.
"Care to elaborate?" Ace whispered, getting no response in return. "Wonderful. You could at least pretend to be the author, a tiny bit."
Butt still no response.
He took a deep breath, letting his gaze focus back on their opponent. While it would be a good idea to asking how he was related to this… thing, it was overshadowed by a variety of other things. Things such as why their target was casually just letting them capture her.
"Just give it a few minutes." the cat remarked and cracked a smile. "Not everyone is here yet."
Almost to mock him, she broke free from her captors bonds and stood up. This was then followed by a cocoon of light.
"Also, call me Yami." the woman explained and got the middle finger. "Good job, both of you."
Patch Notes:
Added -
World:
-Hunters
Characters:
Ace Resterez
Clara
Yami
.
And so begins a project that actually started before the end of Hunters as a standalone chapter for DAO. Which got put onto the back burner for a bit. Mostly so I could work on at the time, Azure Shift.
But after that fell through, I saw a chance to bring this back. Which brings us to Digital Butterfly itself. A literal 'speedun' through both my works and a majority of the digimon anime (Young Hunters, Applimonsters and maybe the currently untitled adventure sequel thing not included). Of course, expect a lot of relationships, some clones of characters and above all else, me butchering a good chunk of the anime characters.
.
Next Time: Romance and Angst, what more could you ask for?
