Tamers West

Chapter 7: Shadows

Torment, agony, pain, that was how she described what she was feeling right now. She ambled along a sandy beach, her mind nimb from her anguish.

Her body felt no pain, it was her mind that was tormented. Horrendous storms of dark thoughts raged within her mind and quakes of sadness and despair cracked it.

She smiled grimly at her own joke. She had to find humor when she could because it was rare for her to even smile much less crack wise.

Another thunder bolt of pain struck her mind and she collapsed to her knees, crying out in pain as she clutched her head tinghtly, as though trying to squeeze the pain out. When it finally subsided she exhaled sharply and fell face first in the sand.

How long had she been like this? Had it been months, or years even? She had lost tack of time long ago, assuming it had been long enough to have been long ago.

Relief flooded over her as the pain began to leave her small body leaving only a kind of mental itch instead of pain. She got up and brushed the sand off her black fur and shook her head to remove any sand from her pointed ears. Twitching her tail she looked at her surroundings.

A thick fog surrounded and covered everything as far as she could see, being much thicker over the water. It made the whole world seem grey and gloomy, like her. How much longer would she suffer? How much longer would she have to live in this grey gloomy world? Would it ever end?

She sighed sadly as she remembered when she used to be happy and carefree, when she would laugh and smile. Then one day that all changed when she assumed her present form, Black Gatomon.

She had lost the care free life she had and was forced into responsibility. She had tried her best but no matter how well she did it was never enough for the village elders. Not long afterwards she was sent away to, 'Grow up', as the elders had told her. They said she would accomplish this through self-sufficiency and experiance.

Bitterness filled her as more and more the truth became obvious. She was a dark digimon and in a community that consisted of many so called 'holy' digimon she was a stain, a pestilence that needed to be ridden of.

Not long after she had left the village the pain had started and somehow she had ended up here, in this place of perpetual grey, fog, and gloom.

She plopped down on the sand and stared up. "Am I just ment to suffer?"

In her peripheral vision she saw something black approaching from the water. Immediately she was on her feet in a defensive stance, ready to face it. Slight fear entered her as it came even closer. Even the fog seemed to fear the blackness as it parted to make way for the inky black shadow in the water.

"You do not need to suffer if you do not want to."

Black Gatomon was startled, the voice seemed to be coming from everywhere, as though whoever was speaking was the world itself and was deep and foreboding. Assuming the black shadow in the water was what was speaking she talked to it. "Who are you."

"I am the ruler of this relm", it replied. "I can help you."

Black Gatomon narrowed her eyes. "Help me how?"

There was a pause before the shadow answered. "The pain you feel is not your own, someone else is causing you to feel that pain, and is making no effort to end it.

Black Gatomon clenched her fists angrily, so filled with anger and hate she had no time to be surprised or curious. "You know where I can find this someone?"

"I could", the shadow answered, "But there would be no point, it's human and I cannot send you there."

Black Gatomon growled in frustration, so far the shadow had not been much help.

"But with you I can instead bring her here."

Black Gatomon's eyes brightned with hope, but only briefly as she thought of something. "There's a catch isn't there."

"Indeed. You are more or less a personification of that person's dark thoughts and feelings, her shadow, therefore you are bonded. If she dies, so do you."

Black Gatomon's heart sank. "So what do I do", she asked desperately?

"You are bonded to her, so the only way to make you able to kill her without dieing is by becoming bonded to me instead, as my servant."

Black Gatomon's eyes narrowed once more. She didn't like the thought of being anyone's servant, but it seemed she was already a slave to whomever was causing her this pain.

"What do I have to do?"

"For you to be truly free you and only you must kill the girl who's pain you feel. To do that I will have to bring her here, then I can bring you under my power, but I can only do so temporarily before she regains control."

Black Gatomon put her paws to gether thoughtfully. "Is that when I kill her?"

"Yes, once you are under my power I can give you the power to finish her."

Black Gatomon's eyes widened in shock. "You can make me digivolve?"

"I can and I must for only in your digivolved form can my power become fully manifested in you, therefore only in that form can you kill your enemy."

Back Gatomon crossed her arms. "Then I become your servant forever right?"

"No."

Back Gatomon was surprised, was this shadow really so benevolent?

"You will be my servant for a time, but eventually when you are ready I will free you so that you may fullfill your destiny."

Black Gatomon looked confused. "My destiny?"

The shadow chuckled. "You have no idea the great destiny in store for you, and once you achieve it, you will have no regrets."

Black Gatomon grinned, that sounded good enough for her. "Then we have a deal."

She could almost feel the shadow grin. "Good, now listen closely to the details because you are the one who must act it out."

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Ciel was on stage in front of a massive crowd wearing a dark blue dress, singing her absolute best, and loving it. She finished her song and the hall roared with the sounds of clapping hands as they gave her a standing ovation.

After a few curtain calls she retreated to her dressing room and stood in front of a large mirror to begin removing the ribbons from her hair. She heard the door open and assumed it was her mother. "I think that went very well", she said cheerfully.

Suddenly a loud crack was heard and Ciel fell to the floor in pain. Her eyes watering from pain she slowly turned over and looked up at her mother standing above her, angry and holding a whip.

"I was watching the guages", she growled. "You were five hertz off key."

Ciel desperately put up her hands in futile defense as she was whiped again and agian screaming she was sorry.

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Ciel sat up strait in her bed dripping slightly with a cold sweat. She looked around at her room, dark with only the moonlight coming through her window providing illumination.

She sighed in relief and relaxed her body, thankful it was only a dream. She looked at her digital clock, it's bright red digits indicting it was six a.m.

Frowning she got out of bed. She usually up at seven a.m so she would never get back to sleep anyway. She took off her nightgown and cotton undergarments then went into her bathroom to shower.

As she entered the stall and turned on the warm water. She thought about how some other girls would react to having such a nightmare. Perhaps they would scream or even cry, but not her. She didn't allow herself the luxury of crying, instead the feelings just ate her up inside.

After she finished her shower and dried herself off she walked over to her closet. On the way she passed her full body mirror and stopped to look at her naked body. There wasn't much to see since she was only twelve, but like her mother told her she would begin to 'blossom' as her mother put it, very soon.

She looked at a fashion magazine on her dresser in front of her vanity mirror. It was filled with steriotypical models, some of them were her mothers clients. Unlike many girls, especially those having parents in the same sort of work as her mother, she wan't pressured to look like them.

Firstly even her mother didn't want her to look like a collection of sticks wrapped in skin. She had been very vocal on the point that men didn't want to hug a girl they would cut themself on.

Grinning she remembered the second reason: her friends thought the same. Elle thought that their idea of an ideal woman was one of their own creation. She said that boys were visually stimulated, and no guy would be stimulated by a bag of bones in overpriced rags. The boys had voiced their agreement very clearly, though they weren't really at the age yet where they would know about such things.

'Speaking of which', she walked over to her computer and moved the mouse to bring it out of it's low power state or 'sleep mode' as it was more commonly called. She opened her internet browser and clicked the link to a website she had in her favorites folder, '' a website of very exclusive membership.

She logged in by typing in her username or call sign as it was called on the site, then her three different passwords. The security was necesarry to protect the identity of it's users. Real names weren't used but E-mails and other information and statistics could allow for someone to investigate into the identity of that person or more likely someones username on another website or Xbox Live.

All the members of the stratega club were members of the Juno Legion for which the website was made. The Juno Legion was an exclusive group of hardcore gamers that played with a level of professionalism. It was all still for fun but they played mostly team oriented games and despite how odd it would sound to many it was still fun despite some of the seriousness asociated with their playing.

A message appeared on her screen indicating someone from her unit was on the site. A unit was basically a group of members who were officially grouped up and played together often. She opened the onsite chatroom and invited her friend to a private chat.

Director has logged in.

Director: Why r u here so early? Have another nightmare?

She frowned, Xander knew her too well.

Muskette: Yes, I'm sitting at my computer naked.

She grinned as there was a long pause before he started typing again. Despite being so young he was still a boy and it was fun to play with his head.

Director: Why?

Muskette: Cause i was to lzy to put my clother on. Why? R u stiff?

If eaither of their parents caught them conversing like this they would be in big trouble and they would ask where they learned this kind of talk. The answer was that a lot of people who played online were older than eighteen.

Director: Sorry, we're both still too young. XD

Muskette: Liar :p

Director: u wish.

Muskette: Whatever

There was a pause before Xander replied.

Director: wanna talk abt ur nightmare?

Ciel sighed. The truth was that she did, but she didn't want to get her friends involved in her problem, because they would act on it whether she wanted them to or not and they would tell her parents which was the opposite of what she wanted.

Muskette: nt rlly.

Director: u can't keep your feelings locked up forever. If u don't pop them they'll pop u.

Muskette: It's nt as bad as u think.

Director: Considering how many nightmares u've had I doubt it.

Muskette: I'm fine, rlly.

Director: Fine if u won't talk 2 me then at least talk 2 Elle.

Muskette: I'm fine. I'm not the only person with nightmares u know.

Director: Not every 1 is as bothered by them as you. U try to hide it but we can all C it.

Muskette: I promise I'll talk someday, but not now.

Director: Fine. But if u don't talk soon we'll rip it out of you.

Ciel couldn't help but smile. Her friends were loyal to a fault, always so concerned about her always trying to help her, occasionaly by butting into her buisness but she always apprechiated it. She looked accross the room at the dagger hanging behind glass on her wall. Haunting memories of a cold steel blade pressed against her throat, by her own hand. That was the day she almost comitted suicide, and her friends had stopped her. Since then they had been paranoid about any nightmares or problems she would be facing. She didn't blame them.

Fortunately for her they promised not to tell her parents on the condition that she never keep her problems secret from them unless they were private family matters. She had told them she had tried to do it out of sadness that one of her best friends had died in a car accident, which did indeed happen. They accepted the tale, which wasn't the same as believing it. She also promised to herself and them that she would never attempt such a cowardly act again. It took more strenght and courage to live, than to die.

Director: Muskette?

Ciel shook her head clear.

Muskette: Sorry, just sorta zoned out.

Director: OK, I gotta get ready for school. Se ya.

Muskette: bye.

Director has logged out.

Sighing Ciel logged off the website and shut off her computer. Looking back at her digital clock on the other side of the room she felt that she should start getting ready for school.

When she got up off her chair her vision suddenly became clouded. Strangely it made it seem like her whole room was foggy. She moved over to her door and turned on the light. The lights came on and the fog vanished. Ciel thought it was odd but dismissed it with a shrug and as she gathered her school clothes she quickly forgot about it.

The plot thickens yet again and the tamers have what amy be considered a very odd hobby. Anyway, stay tuned for the next one.