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Chapter 6
The Way Forward
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If it was obvious that I was made for fighting, it was undeniable that I had been made for Danny. And now he was gone forever.
Not that I admitted that for quite some time. I took his digivice and cards, along with his sketchbook and a few other personal things before the Watanabes packed up his belongings to ship back to his mother. I did some truly stupid things out of desperation, like writing the best description of Danny that I could manage on the back of a photo of him and then slashing it through the reader slot on his digivice, over and over again-- but I couldn't even get the damn thing to turn on.
I don't know why I thought that an artificial lump of solidified data like me could possibly bring a complex and unique person like Danny back to life but I wasn't thinking very clearly at all in those first weeks after his death. Could even a human tamer have done it? I'm sure they couldn't. Maybe they could have created a digimon that looked like Danny-- but it make my hackles raise just thinking about that.
I stopped seeking out Wild Ones and only fought them when they bothered to hunt me down. But then I let every bit of my frustration and anger come out. Those fights were short ones.
I slept many hours each night even though I didn't need to-- at least until I started dreaming. That last, awful day played out over and over in dream after dream, of course, but those weren't the worst. No, the dreams that were unbearable were the ones where Danny was alive again. Whenever I woke to cold reality from a simple dream of playing or talking with Danny-- well-- I don't know why I didn't just break apart from sheer grief. Sometimes I wanted to-- just so I'd stop hurting.
When I got to the point where I was afraid to go to sleep, I stared hunting again. I didn't call it 'patrolling' or 'downloading' or any of the nicer euphemisms. I hunted and killed other digimon. I was willfully careless about it, not even bothering to size up my victims before I attacked. Usually, the savageness of my attacks got me a long way with the more powerful ones but, even so, there were several times I only won the fight by a hair's breadth. I wonder now if I didn't want to lose, deep down inside.
The months went by and I found there were times when I wasn't hurting so bad. Something would distract me or I'd get interested is some weird thing people were doing and I'd forget to be miserable. Then I'd feel guilty for not being miserable. Life would have been so much easier if digimon were designed to be turned off when they weren't fighting-- but that wouldn't really be 'life', would it?
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Then came the day I met Weasel Boy. That wasn't his name, of course, but I never got around to asking it. I caught him curled up on a tree branch in the park, watching a bunch of kids playing football. He was a little guy but that doesn't mean much with digimon, so I was going to hit him with a full power Fang Flurry before he even knew I was there.
But I didn't.
He was so absorbed in the game that he didn't even sense my presence. He was smiling slightly, contentedly watching the boys run up and down the field. He seemed to be watching one boy in particular.
"Is he your tamer?" I asked from the shadows of the denser foliage behind him.
The little digimon nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around and I could feel attack energy rising in him.
"Go ahead," I told him, leaning forward so that he could see me clearly, "I'll let you have the first shot."
He let his energy dissipate. "No-- I'm sorry," he said, "but you startled me."
I frowned in puzzlement. "Don't you want to fight?" I sneered.
"If you like," he answered calmly, "but I'd rather watch the game."
I didn't know what to say. I couldn't attack him now-- I wasn't so far gone that I'd be that much of a jerk. So I settled myself on the branch next to him.
"So, who's the boy you're watching?" I asked after a while.
"I don't know," the little weasel admitted, "but I-- I like him. I was thinking-- maybe--"
"Maybe he'd make a good tamer?" I tried to keep my voice neutral.
"Yeah," Weasel Boy said, more than a little defensively, "what's wrong with that? You're not one of those idiots that goes on about 'Tainted Ones' are you?"
I barked out a short, bitter laugh. "Not me, pal."
"Good." He said and turned back to the game.
I got up, but couldn't leave until I'd had the last word. "Make sure he likes fighting-- real fighting and not just the pretend stuff. And--"
Weasel Boy looked up at me. "Yes?"
"Good luck."
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After that I started getting better. Oh, I still had some bad days-- sometimes several in a row-- lots of nights spent screaming my way awake from nightmares-- but they got less and less frequent. I stopped indiscriminately attacking other digimon. Not many were as friendly as Weasel Boy but a lot of them weren't completely hostile and destructive. Those ones I let live. I even got to talk with a few of them for a little while. I took more time to explore the city and tried to learn more about how people lived. They still baffled the heck out of me most of the time. It was on one of those exploration trips that I met Guilmon.
He was holed up in a neglected stone structure built into a hillside in a park clear across the city from my usual territory. When I first saw him, he was sleeping curled around a bag of bread rolls. I wondered how he'd gotten hold of those. He certainly wasn't a stealthy type-- a squat little dragon with thickly muscled limbs built for smashing through walls, not sneaking around.
I was trying to decide if I wanted to bother waking the little red guy-- he was smiling in his sleep and that made me feel sort of weird inside-- when a boy came bouncing up the steps toward the rusty gate that closed off the front of the digimon's sleeping place. There was a digivice hanging from his belt.
"Guilmon! Wake up, boy!" the kid called out.
Guilmon woke and rushed over to the boy as he opened the gate. "Takatomon!" he cried happily.
I could only watch them for a few minutes and then I had to leave. I sat on top of a cell tower thought the night, trying to make some sense out of my emotions. I had felt happiness, jealousy, anger, and sadness all within the space of a few seconds while watching the two partners greet each other. Oh how I wished I really was a robot then-- one with no feelings-- only cogs and gears inside.
I went back to the park the next day.
Guilmon was awake this time when Takato arrived. He was restless and sniffed the air occasionally. Takato noticed his disquiet and asked, "What's wrong, boy?"
"I think--" Guilmon said uncertainly, "--maybe there's another digimon around."
I was impressed. Usually, when I was wrapped in shadow, it took other digimon a concentrated effort to detect me. I had no idea what I was going to do when I let myself down from the tree limb and stepped out of the shadows-- maybe I just wanted to see what would happen.
Takato let out a "Whoah!" of surprise and Guilmon crouched and growled.
"Hi," I said.
Takato fumbled for his digivice and read off my stats. "Coyomon, Rookie, data type--"
"Does it say I like doughnuts?" I asked. "Those darned things never get the details right."
Guilmon forgot to growl. "What are doh-nuts?" he asked.
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He was my first digimon friend and always my best buddy. It was because of meeting him that day that I also met the love of my life and embarked on an incredible adventure--
But that's another story.
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Author's Notes:
If you've read all this and enjoyed it even a little bit, please leave a review, even if it's just one line.
(The rest is just blatant sentimentality. Feel free to skip it like a bad DVD commentary track.)
Time is the only thing that can heal the profound wound caused by the loss of a loved one. Inner strength helps you to endure that seemingly endless time-- but nothing helps as much a good and true friend.
To all the good and true friends I've been blessed with in my life: Thank you.
And thank you for reading.
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