WILD CARD

Chapter 3

Sparring Partners

--

That first night always held a special place in my heart but the ones that followed just got better and better. Our chases became full-out competitions with no technique left untried. We shadow-walked and energy-phased and ran and leaped with all our strength, speed and skill. Each time one of us won, it just became that much harder-- and that much more enjoyable for one of us to beat the other the next time.

It wasn't all just Follow-the-Leader. Over the nights we caught and destroyed several bio-emerging digimon, each of us taking turns attacking at first, and then figuring out how to work together simultaneously.

One night, after we had slammed a spider type into a red haze and shared its data, Renamon turned to me and said, "This feels almost too easy."

I made frantic shushing motions and whispered to her in mock urgency, "Don't say that! The next thing you know, we'll have three Ultimates popping up at the same time!" I loved to make her laugh but if I had known what the future held, I wouldn't have made that joke.

"Hmmm--" Her eyes narrowed in thought.

"We could try fighting them blindfolded." I offered.

Without shifting her gaze from the skyline she gave me a light backhanded whack on the arm.

"Ow!" I made a big show of rubbing my completely uninjured arm. "Meanie."

"What about sparring?" She asked tentatively.

"Like human martial artists do?"

"Yes. They fight full speed but only touch each other. We could do that, don't you think?"

"I suppose--" I said doubtfully. "But what about energy attacks?"

"We could use as little force as possible-- or aim to miss."

I wasn't sure it was a good idea but I could see she was eager to try it, so I agreed. "Let's start off on a small scale," I suggested. "I'm going to try to touch your nose, using just my right hand. You try and stop me. No footwork."

"Okay," she said and put her left arm behind her back.

I slowly extended my forefinger toward her nose. She deflected it with a tap. I dipped my hand under hers and tried an upward flick. She turned her head just enough to make me miss and then snapped her finger out at my own nose. I tapped her arm up with the back of my hand and feinted to one side, intending to duck under her block as she began to move. She parried with a little half-circle motion and came right back at me. We moved faster and faster while trying more and more complex moves. Soon, even though we had limited the scope of our ersatz combat we were both giving it everything we could, using a considerable amount of energy.

It was like playing supersonic chess.

Finally after long minutes of finger fencing without either of us being able to touch the other, I stepped back. We were both breathing rapidly and Renamon had that totally focused look on her face that has scared the hell out of so many people.

She blinked and came back to herself with a little shake of her head. "Wow," she said quietly.

"Yeah-- wow," I echoed her. "That was--" I began to be aware that my arm ached a bit from the force of some of Renamon's blocks.

"--intense." She finished for me as she squeezed and relaxed her fist, no doubt starting to feel the effects of our little combat on her own arm. "But promising, don't you think?"

I had to agree.

We took it slowly, over the course of many nights, until we were actually fully fighting at something approaching our top speeds. Our special attacks still packed a wallop, even using the minimum amount of energy possible, but if we limited ourselves to one special attack per fight, we could have a pretty good bout and still recover fairly quickly.

Since we couldn't depend on brute force to win, we quickly got cleverer about our attacks, creating complex combinations and using subtle feints. It was absolutely wonderful. I didn't know about Renamon, but I was having the time of my life.

Then came the night that a really nasty Ultimate showed up.

It was an immense virus-type snake. I hate snakes. I've never met one that didn't use venom of some kind and with all that body and no limbs, it's really tough deciding where to kick them.

"Damn, it's big! You want to go get Rika?" I asked Renamon as we watched the digital field dissipate.

She thought about it for a moment before answering. "No. I think that I--" she glanced at me and corrected herself. "--that we can handle it."

We weregood, damned good. I knew that. We probably could handle it-- but venom is nasty and one good hit could be disastrous. "Okay," I said, as nonchalantly as I could, "I'll take the head, you take the tail, and I'll meet you in the middle!"

She gave me one of her cool, evaluating looks for a moment before nodding curtly and leaping away.

I wasn't going to mess around with Scaly McNastymon: My first move was to hit it with a Fang Flurry right in the face. It ducked its head to one side and managed to avoid taking my attack in its eyes as I had intended. The thing was a lot quicker than I'd hoped.

By that time, Renamon had started working her way up its tail. She solved my old snake-targeting problem with a very simple technique: She was kicking it everywhere. She'd slam it on one side and, as its head whipped around to strike at her, she'd hop over its back and let go with another ferocious kick on the other side. She leapt back and forth, kicking to the accompaniment of satisfying crunching noises. I don't know how many ribs that thing had but it looked like Renamon was determined to break each and every one.

McNastymon finally figured out it needed to rear up in order to be able to strike on either side of its body. But its sudden concern for its ribs made it expose its softer belly to me-- which is just what I had been waiting for. I went in kicking and punching with all my strength, feeling for any particularly weak spot. I guess I found one because, the next thing I knew, Scaly started thrashing around like it was being electrocuted.

I was knocked back in an ungraceful tumble and bounced to my feet just in time to see a wide-open maw full of dripping fangs lunging at me. Just as I was certain that I was going to get my fuzzy butt kicked, Renamon unleashed her Diamond Storm attack.

It may have been wildly foolish, but I stood frozen for an instant, struck by the beauty of the backlit spray of crystalline shards scattering off the back of McNastymon's head.

McNastymon was not half so appreciative. I can't say I blame it. Having the back of your head pin-cushioned with hundreds of razor-sharp fragments can't be a whole lot of fun. It twisted around in agony, completely forgetting about me while trying to get at the source of its pain. Of course, Renamon had flashed away, going back to her old game of rib smashing. The snake reared up high above her, its mouth gaping wide and its jaw muscles quivering. Not a good sign.

I wasn't about to give it enough time to hit Renamon with a special attack. Besides-- I don't like being ignored. I went up.

"Oh, Scaly!" I called out as I began falling from the apex of my leap. It started to turn back in my direction and its eyes went wide with surprise. Which was very convenient as it made it easier to slam my feet into one of them just as I triggered an Earth Splitter.

Now, I've already said how much I hate venom attacks, so you can pretty much figure out how much I enjoyed the Flaming Venom that Scaly McNastymon started wildly spewing. Yeah-- poisonous napalm: About as much fun as a bucket full of ticks. Fortunately, with only one eye and a good chunk of its head missing, its targeting wasn't so great.

But I still got burned pretty badly. I hit the ground and rolled, trying to put out the flames and wipe most of the vile stuff from my fur. Waves of pain and nausea washed through me and I ended up in a scorched heap with just enough energy left to roll over when I saw the shadow of the snake's head fall across the ground in front of me.

Its mouth gaped above me and I was sure I was about to become a charbroiled snack when Scaly's head rocked from a terrific impact and twisted away from me. I struggled to my knees and caught the magnificent sight of Renamon, legs clamped around the thing's neck just behind its head, doing her best to punch her way through its skull. Her fists blurred and McNastymon bellowed out its death-cry and burst into red bits.

Renamon landed beside me and helped me to my feet.

"Hey," I said, gesturing weakly at the drifting fragments of data, "You're missing out on the feast."

"You need it more than I do, Coyomon," she told me as she half-carried me toward the evaporating cloud. I was too busy trying to remember how to make my legs work to argue with her.

Even with all the data I absorbed, it took me an entire day to fully recover.

--

"Boy, everybody sure is happy!" said Calumon.

I hadn't thought that digimon came any smaller or cuter than Terriermon until I'd met this little guy. He was so cute he actually creeped me out a bit.

"Yeah," Terriermon answered him, "better than when everyone was so gloomy."

"The world's a wonderful place," I told them as I did back handsprings along the top of the baseball field's fence. "Look at that beautiful sky! How could anybody be unhappy?"

They looked at the empty, perfectly ordinary sky and then at each other and Terriermon pointed one of his ears at his head and made little circles with it. I jumped off the fence with a twist and a roll and came to a stop right in front of them.

"Okay, maybe I'm crazy but--" I reached into my vest and pulled out a paper bag. "--I've got cookies!"

"Yay!" They chorused. Evidently sanity was of less concern to them than sugary snacks.

We all had our mouths full when Rika showed up. "Coyomon, I need to talk with you."

I swallowed while glancing around for Renamon. She didn't seem to be with Rika. "Of course, Rika," I said as I jumped to my feet and made a little bow. "Anything for such a lovely lady!"

"Stuff it, flea-bag," she snapped. "I want to talk--" she repeated while glancing at my friends,"--privately."

"Sure," I said amiably. She hadn't really meant anything by the 'flea-bag' crack; that was just the way she was. "Let's go up the path a ways." I waved goodbye to Calumon and Terriermon who were engrossed in an argument over the last cookie and strolled into the woods with Rika.

She didn't say anything until we were way out of earshot of the others-- and with those guys, that's a long way.

"Okay," she said finally and I turned to face her. "I want to know what's going on between you and Renamon." With anyone else it wound have been an angry accusation but I had gotten more used to Rika's ways and I was fairly sure she was just very serious about this and not ready to bite my head off.

Fairly sure.

"Okay--" I said hesitantly, "Have you asked her?"

"Of course I have, dummy. Now I want to hear what you have to say."

"You know about the games and the fights?"

"Don't waste my time, Coyomon. I already know all about what you guys have been doing together. What I want to know is why. Why are you waiting outside my house every night? Why do you spend every moment you can with her? Don't you have other things to do?"

"Well, we're friends--" I began. Rika just stood there giving me the stink-eye. She didn't buy it. I was trapped. I either had to tell her an outright lie or the whole truth. What a horrible situation. I knelt down so that I was at eye level with her. "I-- I'm-- " I couldn't look her in the eye when I said it. I hung my head. "I'm in love with her, Rika."

I expected an exclamation or a sarcastic remark or-- something like that. What I got was silence. I looked up. Rika was just staring at me.

"You aren't human," she said slowly, as if I were a moron and she had to explain things very carefully to me. "You don't know what you're talking about. You're just data."

"Just data?" I snorted. "You're just molecules-- chemicals, minerals, and a lot of water held together in a bag of skin. Explain to me how love comes out of that mess!"

"Both of you are crazy," she muttered, shaking her head.

"You-- " Suddenly my brain caught up with my mouth. "Huh? What do you mean 'both'?"

"You and Renamon, dummy! All morning she's been blathering on about love and now you're doing it." She scowled ferociously at me. "I'm getting really tired of hearing all this nonsense."

"Uh--" I was in shock. "What did she say exactly?"

"Oh, brother!" Rika groaned and rolled her eyes. "Look, I don't care what you two do as long as Renamon comes when I call and does what I tell her. Just don't get in my way. You got that, flea-bag?"

I stood up straight and saluted her. "Yes, sir!"

Rika flicked her sunglasses open with one hand and slipped them on. "Wiseass."

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