A/N: Alright, so my familiarity with Digimon extends to the first four seasons (Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Tamers, and Digimon Frontier). Mostly the first three - I wasn't crazy about Frontier. Anyway, I watch the dubbed version. I have no particular reason for it, don't freak out on me, I just do. But that means I'm also writing with the terminology used in the dubbed version. I contemplated trying to write with the other terms, but eventually had to throw up my hands and concede defeat, because I think I'd just screw things up more. I wanted to be consistent and use all dub-terms or subtitle-terms, so I went with what I knew best.
This means, to clarify, digivolution levels are as follows: baby, in-training, rookie, champion, ultimate, mega. Gatomon's Tamer is referred to as 'Kari' instead of Hikari, etc.
I've never read digimon fic before, so if there's anything standard that I'm not doing, please feel free to inform me. Contructive criticism is always welcome.
Salamon has a mantra.
It is a simple mantra. It has to be simple, because life under Myotismon is hard, and complex, and becoming too distracted would be a death-sentence. So she looks at him, and every time she meets his gaze, she thinks one thing for the purpose of remembering herself. She thinks, I will find Kari.
It is a reminder, a promise, and a threat. It is a plea, though not to Myotismon. She is not that foolish: not that naive. But it fills her with a bitter perversion of pleasure when he looks at her, face twisted with rage, and raises his hand.
"Don't look at me with those eyes."
It would be an easy request to follow, but she looks, and she looks again, again, again. She always looks, and she always thinks, I will find Kari. It is an important thought. A very important thought.
Now, if she can just remember who Kari is...
Gatomon is Myotismon's most trusted servant, and with good reason. She is not his strongest soldier – though she is strong – but she is clever. And she knows this.
It is her job, among other things, to weed through the ranks. To pick through the layabouts, the weaklings, the plotters... and the spies.
"Apemon," she purrs, running a slow claw along his tightly bunched arm. "How have you been adapting to the mansion?"
"Myotismon's power is great," he says loyally. "It is an impressive place."
"So you approve of his ways?"
"His methods can be harsh, but generally, yes."
There are many ways she could play this, of course. Gatomon is a cat of many tricks. But why go for power or threats or innuendo, or even sheer cunning, when the simple route can be so easy?
She lowers her eyes, swishing her tails so her rune-ring catches the light. "I know just what you mean," she says. "By harsh. But I've lived here my whole life – what is there, besides Myotismon?"
Apemon looks at her.
She won't press. She drops to all fours, tail drooping, the picture of thought and loss and pretty, pretty dejection.
A week later, Myotismon has the information he wants; Apemon is an egg; and Gatomon is still trusted, still lovely, and still clever.
So, so clever, she congratulates herself bitterly.
Nyaromon waits, first.
It seems like the thing to do, waiting. She does what is necessary, absolutely necessary, to survive. She eats and finds water and tries to stay under the shade of trees. But mostly, she waits.
Nyaromon knows there is a girl – Kari – who is searching for her. Who will find her. And Nyaromon is small, so it follows that Kari will find Nyaromon if Nyaromon is patient. It won't do for Nyaromon to wander around and miss her.
So she waits. She sits through rain and snow and sleet and hail, through harsh winds and sun, and she waits.
Kari is coming. She is coming. She has to be coming.
This is a pattern Gatomon knows:
Search and find and capture and report. Easy, simple, routine.
Guilt – guilt, that is assumed. Obvious. She hardens her heart, and ignores it.
Laughter is an odd thing. It puzzles her. She does not understand. She dislikes not understanding.
She mentions this, only once, to Myotismon. He stares at her a long time, strikes her, and tells her she will understand eventually.
Also, he tells her not to look at him.
She does not like that stare of his. Sometimes, she laughs softly, coldly, and without feeling.
It doesn't much help.
After Nyaromon has waited awhile – some seasons, but it is hard to tell, and she is young – she is approached by another Digimon by the name of Mokumon.
The little ball of smoke rolls around her, making Nyaromon sneeze and sniffle, but she stoically endures. Mokumon chuckles, and he comments, "I've seen you here before. Aren't you lonely?"
"I'm waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"For my partner."
"What's that?"
Nyaromon considers this question, then says, "Everything."
Mokumon hums. His body crackles like a miniature flame. His heat sears Nyaromon; she trembles with his proximity. "Did it occur to you," he asks, "That she could be waiting for you to find her?"
...Nyaromon says nothing.
Mokumon laughs at her, and slowly drifts away through the hot summer breeze.
Nyaromon stops waiting. She starts searching.
Gatomon does not know why Myotismon hates her eyes so much. They are blue, like his own, so that is not it. But the scars he leaves are deep. He manages to wound her physical form, and she has to make her own gloves to hide the gouges from the questioning eyes of the other soldiers. It is a hard thing, to leave scars on a Digimon. She is sometimes amazed that she is not dead, and is also grateful for it. She would hate to have to go through the whole Digivolving process again. It was hard enough the first time.
Digivolving is a dark thing, alone in the world. Myotismon is no help; if anything, he is a hindrance. Amused with her weakness, he sends Salamon to increasingly dangerous reaches of Server, alone, untried. She is his servant, and stronger than many, but still one of many. She is expendable.
In the western lakes she meets with a local Gizamon tribe, seeking recruits for her master. Always, always, she is seeking recruits.
She is strong, for a Rookie. Not so strong that she can fend off a whole tribe of rookies, who seek, foolishly, to ransom her back to Myotismon (as though he would pay!).
Her high-pitched howl paralyzes more than a few Gizamon in their tracks, but there are too many. She can't attack in every direction at once. Her tongue rolls. Her limbs grow sluggish. But she fights. And she feels, like a slow burn, the glow of her collar. It radiates a bright, blinding light.
And because it is light-light-light, she thinks, for the first time in months, Kari.
The world dissolves into pixels.
It's a strange feeling, to heal, to grow, to change shape and aspect and being. She Knows her new name, shape, and body as intimately as though she has inhabited it for years. In a way, she has. She is Gatomon. She has always been Gatomon.
And because she is a Champion, and the Gizamon are not, she knows how this fight shall end.
When she returns to Myotismon, he takes one look at her and laughs.
Then he hits her for looking him in the eyes, and tells her to go back to the city for more recruits.
When Nyaromon collapses in the forest, exhausted and alone -
When Wizardmon collapses in the town, ignored by the masses of virus Digimon bustling all around him -
- she waits for someone to come for her.
- he doesn't expect anyone to come for him.
Then she sees a shadow.
But a shadow stoops by his form, though he doesn't see it.
With her last, lingering thought, she experiences a flicker of hope: Kari?
Wizardmon knows better than to hope.
When Nyaromon wakes, she is alone, and cold, but she is alive.
When Wizardmon awakes, he is surprised to be alive, comforted in the warm glow of a fire and the soft caress of a blanket.
"You're awake," a voice pronounces.
"Ah, you're awake." Gatomon hums.
"You saved me?" Nyaromon whispers.
"Did you save me?" Wizardmon croaks.
"Yes," the cloaked man says.
"I didn't do that much, I just couldn't leave you lying there."
"Thank you," Nyaromon remembers to say.
"Well, I guess I'll be going now," Wizardmon says.
"I don't know why you were alone," Myotismon tells her gently, stepping into the light. "But whatever you were doing... It can't be so important. Surely you can stay here for awhile?"
"Don't be silly, you're not strong enough to go," Gatomon scoffs.
"You're really not strong enough to be alone, and besides... you owe me."
"I know you saved me. I don't have anything for you."
"Well, I..."
"I don't want anything. You must be very lonely, to say a thing like that." Gatomon observes.
"I insist," the man tells her.
"What do you mean?"
Nyaromon is so, so tired – and so alone -
"When you've been alone a long time, your heart becomes very hard."
"You can stay here forever," Myotismon promises.
"It happens to everyone you know," Gatomon says. "Even me."
"...Okay."
Nyaromon hears of a group of Digimon waiting, waiting, waiting for their children. Waiting for destiny. Waiting, together, for the Digi-destined.
It sounds – familiar -
(She keeps searching.)
One day, just thinking, Gatomon is napping in Myotismon's castle when she remembers this:
There is a girl, and her name is Kari. She is – she is a something, not a Digimon but a something, and she is Light. Light, Light, Light. Gatomon is certain of that much. Her mind glows and shivers with the association, like cool moon-bows and fading stars, gentle and radiant light twisting through her skin. Kari is Light and Kari is Gatomon's and she is important. She is Lost. She needs to be found.
Gatomon sits up, and intends to set about finding her.
Then a shadow flickers over the doorway, skipping over the dungeon's flagstones. A simple, harmless shadow sent out by a candle-flame. It catches the cat's eye, and Gatomon frowns, puzzled. Her head is clouded.
She was just thinking about...
Well, nothing important.
If it mattered, she would remember.
Salamon wonders if there is something waiting for her outside.
She has not been outside in a long, long while. Her every thought is Hunger. Hunger is a beast in its own right, living and feral, clawing and scraping at her stomach, consuming her mind and her being. It's impossible to think about anything but the raw, hollow ache in her stomach, except perhaps for the shakiness in her legs, or the scratchiness in her throat. Perhaps, in rare moments, the sting of her paws when Myotismon catches a glimpse of her eyes and grows wrathful.
But there's something outside, she is certain...
A light in the darkness: Nyaromon clings to this memory, this feeling, to survive.
When this feeling makes her become Salamon, she feels vindicated, and her eyes grow stronger.
Myotism hates, hates, hates her eyes.
Sometimes the simple act of thinking is like trying to catch a bird in a room full of cobwebs. With every swipe of her claw, a dozen webs tug free, floating thickly through the air and clogging it like smoke. And the bird flutters wildly, wildly, fluttering farther from her grasp while the strings entwine and choke around her throat. In the end they stick so tightly around her claws, her mouth, her eyes, that the bird is gone. She is blind and deaf. There is no hope.
So she stops trying.
(If there is no one to see, no one to know – if Gatomon herself forgets the fight – then is it really surrender?)
Gatomon wanders far while recruiting for Myotismon. She typically sticks to the territories of virus Digimon, where her offers will be welcome and her reputation is known. It is not that she is afraid to be outside Myotismon's shadow – she has long since abandoned the need for his protection, dubious and whimsical as that is. But her work needs to be quiet.
And something about the other parts of Server – areas with gentle, smiling Digimon that greet her kindly, obliviously, and are Enemies – rankle her. Fools, all of them.
One of Gatomon's primary ports is Adra city. It's home to dozens of Gazimon and Kokuwamon, who are always ready to flock to the highest bidder, and often attract enterprising Goburimon, Numemon, Sukamon, and other mercenary types. When she's fortunate she can even find Ultimate-level wanderers, but that's rare.
It's in Adra that she first hears of Primary Village.
It's a Gazimon that first mentions it.
"That Elecmon up on File Island made me change my mind," he's explaining to Gatomon. "Everyone kept saying the Island was such a nice place, you know? Thought I'd give it a visit, relax, have a nice break, you know?"
"Uh-huh," she mutters, filing a claw. She hopes the idiot finishes soon; schmoozing potential recruits is boring work. Terrifying them into submission after all the vows are said and done – much more satisfying.
"But that Elecmon! I just wanted to visit Primary Village! It's not like I'd hurt the babies – I mean, what's the point? They'd just be born again anyway," the Gazimon says, and seems to see nothing wrong with this statement. "I mean, I can barely remember the place. But I'd barely stepped a paw inside before he blasted me out – not!" Gazimon adds hastily, "That it's normal, I mean, for me to be chased off like that – I just didn't want to fight and, errrm, hurt the babies, understand - "
"The babies?"
"In the village."
"You got defeated by a village of baby digimon?" Gatomon asks dubiously.
"No! The guardian of Primary Village! You know. Primary Village?"
Gatomon looks at him blankly.
"They wouldn't let just anyone guard that place," Gazimon flails, misinterpreting the look.
"What's Primary Village?"
"What's – Where you were born, of course!"
He explains; Gatomon makes him explain. Primary Village is where all Digimon are born. And then when baby Digimon Digivolve to their in-training forms, or (rarely) before, they're taken to villages with the same in-training Digimon. But sometimes, when the type of Digimon is very rare, they're just released in groups and everyone hopes for the best.
"Of course, it doesn't take long, so no one really remembers it, you know?" Gazimon asks. "I mean, can you remember your egg-days?"
"No," Gatomon says. "I suppose not."
A small, lone egg, forgotten. It quivers, soft pings resounding from the shell. No one is around to hear; but the sounds continue, and tiny, excited squeaks come next. Thin cracks emerge, and small white splinters fall to the ground. The sounds stop. Then, in a sudden, triumphant burst, a gray shape bursts from the top of the oval, breaking through the egg's surface with the triumph of a great battle hard-won.
There is no witness. Yukimibotamon coos curiously, scooting around and nosing at her surroundings. It's cold. No one comes.
Quietly, softly, she starts to cry.
Wizardmon looks at Gatomon strangely, sometimes. It rankles her fur. He's one of her few competent subordinates, and oddly it feels like he isn't liable to betray her – though that's an odd feeling, and she's suspected more than once that he might have cast some strange magic on her. But if he has, than she wouldn't be able to suspect him of casting such magic, now would she, so he obviously hasn't, but...
Pah. Nevermind.
But just yesterday, for example, he came up beside her while Gatomon was sunning. He sat right down, and said, "Hello, Gatomon. How are you feeling, today?"
And she said, "What do you want, Wizardmon?"
"One of those, then?"
She didn't understand. She still doesn't. She'd asked, "Did Myotismon send you?" And he had smiled. So she had hissed, and he'd kept smiling, which wasn't exactly the desired (or usual) reaction.
Weirdly, though, she hadn't really felt angry.
"I'll come back later," he'd said, and he'd left, just like that.
She has a feeling he will be back, too, just as he said.
She'll just have to remember this strange encounter, then, and ask about it.
"My whole life I just keep waiting and searching. But I just can't find her."
"Find who? Who are you waiting and searching for?"
"I can't remember. It was too long ago. All I know is I'm waiting for someone."
"I've never understood how that works," Gatomon observes idly.
One of her Gazimon lounges at her side, eyeing the group of Sukamon and Chuumon disdainfully. "What, the head thing?"
"Would you want to exist without a real mind of your own?"
"Without a mind of your own, would you realize? Besides - " Gazimon snickers. "If I were a Sukamon, I wouldn't want to think too hard about my lot in life, either."
Gatomon wrinkles her nose. "Well, there's that."
Gatomon feels restless most days, filled with energy. But there's no activity that satisfies her. She's left circling the grounds, and the continent, in ever-widening circles. Myotismon thinks she's very diligent. Sometimes she thinks she's searching. Searching for...
Herself?
Gatomon has never been very existential. But she supposes she'll know what she wants when she sees it.
"How are you today, Gatomon?" Wizardmon asks.
"I remember you," is the soft answer.
Wizardmon smiles, stretching his gray stitching in an oddly endearing gesture. "Then today is a good day, my old friend," he says gently. "Today, we can search for her together."
"Search for who?"
He holds out his hand. "I'll explain as we walk," he tells her.