Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. If I did, I probably wouldn't be writing this.
The Wages of Fans is Fiction: Chapter 10
Shinjuku Park, same day.
Rika Nonaka walked through the park wearing her school uniform, having just been let out from school. Under normal circumstances she wouldn't have been caught dead in the park wearing her uniform, but today was different. She had a faraway, dreamy look in her eyes, and wasn't really focusing on her normally all-important pride. She had someone to see today…
Rika stopped suddenly and frowned, and the scene paused. The generic people around her vanished and a boy just appeared out of thin air in front of her. He looked at her with worry in his eyes.
"All right, Rika, what's the matter this time?"
Rika sighed. "I don't think that I can do this."
"Of course you can. You've done this plenty of times before."
"Yeah, though usually I've had way better writers than this. What I've seen so far of the script sucks. You have misspellings by the truckload and you can't seem to tell a verb from a noun, never mind the fact that your onomatopoeia makes me want to cringe every time I read it."
"Hey," said the boy. "That's what this is all about. I want to get better at this after all…"
"Then you're going to be working at this for a very long time."
"Hey!"
"You know, I can't decide what's worse. The fact that your writing style is so crappy or that you're having me kiss a girl in this fic."
The boy chuckled nervously and sweat dropped. "Like I said, Rika, you've worked this angle before…"
"And as I said, I've done this with better writers, and even then I'll sometimes delegate through doubles. The main reason though that I don't think that I can do this, is because of what you have planned for me and Jeri by the second chapter."
"You said in your profile that you keep an open mind…"
"That was before I read your profile. First, you're a guy, and second, you're not even gay. This leads me to believe that you're just another little pervert with a sick…"
Suddenly a screen appeared next to them facing downwards, and before they could say anything else it dumped a troop of kids and digimon onto the dirt ground.
"Hey…WHOAH! YAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
Thud!
There were quite an agreeable number of groans from the group as the screen winked out of existence and they began to recover. Rika looked them over and realized that she recognized some of them. Assuming an annoyed stance, Rika glared at them, tapping her foot impatiently on the ground.
"Ryan? Just what do you think that you're doing here? I thought that we weren't working again until my schedule was free."
As the author watched with bewildered eyes, a boy with brown hair and dark green eyes looked up at the sound of Rika's voice and groaned in exasperation.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Of all the people that we run into on an emergency trip to Shinjuku it's gotta be the self-proclaimed Digimon Queen. You know, I'd almost rather be back in Odaiba and face the Apocalypse again. At least I'd know death would be relatively painless by comparison."
"What's the matter?" Asked Rika, raising an eyebrow. "Not happy to see me?"
Ryan and the others picked themselves up from off the ground. "Yeah," began Ryan sarcastically. "You're balm for my tired eyes."
"Excuse me," said the boy next to Rika. "I don't know who you are, but ms. Nonaka here is on a busy schedule. Can you please find time to socialize later?"
"No," said Rika.
"Wha…?"
"I said no. I'm leaving. If you want to continue with this fic, either you find someone else to live out your sick fantasy or you hire my double. I've got better things to do."
"What?! I can't hire your double! Ruki broke my nose the last time she did any work for me!"
"Then I guess you're looking for someone else. Why don't you get one of those Mary Sue's to do this?"
"Rika?" Asked Chris. "Who's this?"
The boy looked at Chris with a startled expression on his face.
"I am an author, kid. I'm called Dichotomy of the Heart, and I'll have you know that Rika and I were in the middle of something important here…"
"Not anymore," said Rika as she walked away from him. "I'm sure that whatever these losers are up to is bound to be way more interesting than continuing with your fic."
"You can't just up and quit! You have to have a really good reason just to abandon a fic…"
Rika suddenly grabbed Ryan by his shirt and began shaking him like a rabbit. "Tell me that you guys have a reason for being here, 'cause I don't want to have to listen to this guy's voice anymore today! I don't care what it is, just make it sound important!"
"Uh…well, we were just escaping a crisis situation that's recently developed in Odaiba…"
"Good enough. Let's go!" And with that Rika began to drag Ryan away from the group, with the others watching with bewildered looks on their faces.
"Wha…? Hey! Ow! Not the ear! Not the ear!" Ryan began complaining.
"Well, stop dragging your feet and move you idiot! I don't have all day!"
Reno and Chris just shrugged and began following. William looked over at the author who had identified himself as Dichotomy of the Heart.
"Sorry," he apologized. "We didn't mean to interrupt your work. Really."
Dichotomy sighed. "No, it's okay. This story wasn't really working out so well anyway. Rika was just being a little too difficult for my tastes."
"What was your story about, anyway?"
Dichotomy smiled. "It was a tale of love. What more can a person ask for?"
William shrugged. Whatever it was, Rika hadn't seemed too happy with it, but he wasn't going to ask for details. "Well, if you ever do get finished with it, maybe you can send me a copy or something. I'd love to read it."
The boy brightened visibly. "Really?"
"What can I say?" Said William grinning. "I'm an old softie when it comes to romance. Anyway, I better catch up with the others, so I'll see you later."
As he left to catch up with the others, his partner Gaomon looked up at him. William noticed.
"What?"
Gaomon shook his head. "You really don't know what's going on do you?"
"Of course I don't know what's going on. Reno does though, and I'm interested in hearing what he's got to say…"
"I'm not talking about the incident back in Odaiba. I was referring to Dichotomy. I've read some of his work, and it's not…quite…what you think it is."
"What do you mean?"
Gaomon motioned for William to lean in closer and whispered his answer in his ear. A second later, William pulled back with a slightly surprised and thoughtful expression on his face.
"Now that's surprising."
"I don't know why you're so shocked over this revelation. These people have been around the FanFic domain for years."
"No," said William with a quiet laugh. "It's not that. I just never thought of you as the kind of mon who would read that stuff, Ed."
Gaomon began sputtering protests, and William laughed all the way along.
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Izzy and Mimi had just gotten the boy to their car and were in the process of getting him situated in the seat when a voice called out to them.
"IZZY! MIMI! HEY!"
Turning they found themselves staring at the figures of Kari and Davis walking towards them and…Izzy frowned. Were they holding hands? Izzy blinked, hoping that he had just been imagining it. He wasn't.
"Um…hey?" Said Izzy cautiously.
"Izzy? Are they holding hands?" Asked Mimi bluntly. Davis and Kari gave the pair an odd look. Izzy couldn't help but feel grateful that Mimi had noticed it to. For some reason he felt as though Davis and Kari were supposed to have a different relationship, but memories came unbidden to him; memories from their battles against Ken when he had been the Digimon Emperor.
Kari had twisted her ankle when Gatomon tackled her to the ground, just barely avoiding the Monochromon's Volcanic Strike attack. The Monochromon lunged at them, and neither one of them was in the position or condition to make a fast getaway.
"Have courage!" Tai shouted to Davis.
"Kari's in trouble," said Davis as he got up, still holding the digi-egg with the crest of courage emblazoned on it. "You want courage, I'll show you courage! DIGI-ARMOR ENERGIZE!" The digi-egg glowed with an orange light, enveloping the short blue digimon called Veemon.
Izzy shook his head, trying to clear it. Why am I remembering this? I wasn't there for that. Yet here he was, and he knew that had been the day that Kari and Davis had become inseparable, much to Tai's dismay but he had given them his blessings anyway. But there was something so, very, wrong about all this.
"Are you guys okay?" Asked Davis. Before Mimi could say anything in response to this, Izzy jumped in.
"Yes. Of course, though we were just involved in a fight with…well, I don't really know what. I think that we need to call the other Digi-destined though and have a discussion about this. But first we could use your help. This kid here," Izzy indicated the boy that he and Mimi had been packing into the backseat. "Was involved in the battle, and whether you believe it or not, I think that he turned into a digimon."
"What? No way!" Exclaimed Davis. Kari looked at Izzy skeptically.
"Izzy, are you sure?" She asked.
Izzy nodded. "Sure I'm sure. I suspect that he's at the center of whatever's going on this time, so we'll need your guy's help in getting him to our apartment and getting a hold of the others."
"Well, all right then!" Said Davis as his closed fist shot up towards the sky. "You can count me in!"
"Davis…" said Kari.
Mimi looked back and forth between the two, unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong here.
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Reno took a look over Rika Nonaka's front yard, and found that he was able to say that he found it quite beautiful. It had a sense of peacefulness that he didn't think existed in the world, and he envied the girl for that. Sighing and shaking his head, Reno turned away from the scene. He didn't feel that this was the time for such sentimentalities; he had to steel himself for what he had to tell the others. Spying Ryan, Reno made his way over to him.
"Hey, what's up?"
Ryan looked at him and shrugged.
"I see," said Reno. "Are the other Tamers coming?"
"Tough to say," said Ryan. "All the other characters are stuck in one line of fiction or another, so we may not get to see all of them. There's a chance that Takato might make it, but he's currently involved in a story that has him getting run over by a car, and Henry's currently lost in another dimension with no other company except for Terriermon and his mouth."
"Ouch. Sucks to be him. Anyone else?"
"I just heard Rika yelling at Ryo over the phone so it's up in the air right now. Guess we'll know in a few minutes."
"I see," he said again. They were silent for a minute.
"I'm curious," said Ryan, breaking the silence. "Why is it that in just about every Tamer fic the heroes of the story always end up at Rika's house?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it just seems like whenever there's a Tamer meeting or the main hero gets knocked around a little too hard or something like that, somehow they always end up here. It's almost like it's a tradition or something."
Reno chuckled. "I don't know, but I think that the majority of stories that have that occurrence tend to be fixated on Rika and her relationships. And as for Tamer meetings happening here, it just makes more sense. We saw very little of Jeri's house in the series, and Takato's is a little small being a combination home and shop, and as for Henry well, his home is a little crowded. As for Kazu, Kenta, and Ryo, we never once saw their homes, except I think for Kazu. Heck, I'm not even sure if Ryo lives in the same city. It's best to go for what's already familiar when it comes to fan fiction. It cuts down time on writing and description. If everyone already knows what to expect, then you don't have to waste to much time and you can get to the meat of the story quickly."
"I guess you're right," said Ryan, though now he looked as though something else was troubling him.
"Is that all?" Asked Reno. Ryan looked over at him.
"No. What you said about stories focusing on relationships made me think of something. Before you saved us from Digidestined of Darkness, we fought a Black Wargreymon and were rescued by an author, at least that's what the digivice said, named Dean. When he attacked Black Wargreymon he shouted something about Matt and Sora forever."
"Your point?"
"Well, it just occurred to me that maybe it was a bad idea coming here. I mean, for whatever reasons that the authors are coming to Odaiba, they seem pretty fixated on couplings and settling old scores, and seeing as how we learned that Tai and Sora are getting married," Reno jerked at this.
"What? Tai and Sora are getting married?!"
"Dude, let me finish. As I was saying, we learned that Tai and Sora were getting married, and Tai didn't seem to know us at all despite the fact that Tai had called and asked to see me by name. And then William mentioned something about preferring Matt over Tai when it came to a coupling and Tai went ballistic. We first attributed this to a double but since the author's started showing up, I've been thinking…"
"Sounds dangerous," chuckled Reno trying to get a hold of himself from Ryan's little bombshell.
"Seriously, dude. Hear me out. We have a crisis on our hands here."
"Sorry."
"I'm just wondering, if it's an author that has changed things back in Odaiba, how long would it be before he or she sets his sights on Shinjuku? We might want to avoid the Tamers all together if that happens. I have a feeling that things could get bloody here in one hell of a hurry."
Reno thought about this for a second, and suddenly realized what Ryan was getting at. "You're worried about the whole Rukato, Jurato, Ryuki thing aren't you?"
"Dude, have you read the reviews for those stories, or for that matter read the stories? If we hook up with Ryo I don't think the Rukato supporters will stop at anything to knock us off in addition to him. I can't even begin to count the number of stories that have featured Ryo getting killed, committing suicide, getting kicked in the balls, or acting like a stuck-up jerk. I haven't read any of the Ryuki or Jurato fics, but I'm willing to bet that those authors are just as passionate about their beliefs as the Rukato ones. And if any of them are going to be like what we've faced so far, I think that we're going to be in trouble."
Reno thought it over. Ryan did have a point there. "Well, there are some honorable authors out there who might pitch in to help if things do get rowdy, but I don't think that we have anything to worry about."
"How come you're so sure?"
"I've read some of the stuff of the author who's behind all this. He sticks strictly with season 01 and 02."
"I see," said Ryan. "Still, I don't think that we should depend on season preference alone."
"Why are you so worried about the whole Rukato, Ryuki thing? I can understand Ryuki, but isn't your author a Rukato supporter?"
"Didn't I just get done saying that if we end up backing Ryo we'll end up being a target? Some of those guys do not like Ryo at all, and if there's anything that scares me more than a rampaging digimon like Black Wargreymon, it's a zealot. I am very afraid of zealots. They sometimes have that look in their eyes that makes me think that I'll get burned just by talking to them."
"Take it easy Ryan, if worst comes to worst, we can always depend on Ryo lovers to protect us."
"That's a lovely piece of irony. Ryuki supporters having to protect the characters of a Rukato supporter from Rukato supporters."
"See? You're already looking at the bright side of things. But like I said, I don't think that we have to worry about that. The lives of this season are still undecided and probably will never be. I imagine that it will make it a little bit harder to change things."
"How would it be harder than something that's already set in stone?"
"Because when something's undecided it has a constantly shifting nature, it becomes difficult to tack it down. When something's already decided it becomes stuck and doesn't really go anywhere else."
Ryan looked at Reno. "You know, I don't think that made a whole lot of sense. In fact, I'd swear that would be the sort of thing that a fan fic writer would come up with just to provide an explanation for that line of reasoning…"
"Just trust me on this, all right? I once did a report for school on how authors of history change the past even though you're not supposed to be able to change what happened. But it is easy to change what people already know about it. It's that way with season's one and two. Everyone knows what happened, but not everyone is willing to accept that, so they change it around. And if someone is good enough and sneaky enough, they can change what everyone knows about it, from beginning to end. With season's three and four, the creators didn't really finish things up like they did with the original Digi-destined, so they left things hanging. That's why it will be hard to change what people already know about them."
"That still doesn't make sense," said Ryan. Reno sighed.
"Fine, I give up. I think I could probably explain this to Guilmon and expect him to understand better than you…"
"Hey!"
The door to Rika's house slid open and out stormed a fuming Rika. Ryan and Reno both blinked.
"Um…is everything all right?"
"No one else is able to make it," was all Rika said.
"Oh. Well, in that case we might as well just collect Chris and the others and get going…"
"I'm coming to!"
"What?" Exclaimed Ryan and Reno's eyes just bugged out of his head.
"Hey, I'm bored out of my skull, and I want to know what the deal is around here. And I'm not going back to that poor excuse for an author just to kill time between fics. So unless you've got a problem with that…!"
"Okay! Okay!" Ryan said raising his hands in a warding gesture. "Take it easy, will ya?" He looked over at Reno. "Jeez, forget about the authors. Rika will probably kill us long before we get to the bottom of this." Reno didn't say a word. He just looked up at the sky and started whistling while Rika glared at Ryan.
Chris appeared at the doorway. "Hey guys! You seriously got to try this food that Rika's grandmother made. It's awso…" He stopped suddenly as Ryan and Reno both shoved their way past him, knocking him to the floor. Looking after their retreating forms, Chris wondered just what had gotten into them. Then he looked at the look on Rika's face and got a pretty good idea as to what happened. Chris sweat dropped as he got up and slowly backed away from the red-haired girl.
Heh Heh. Okay, no sudden movements Chris…Rika cocked her head at him and hmmphed before walking past him towards the kitchen. Satisfied that death wasn't going to be his lot today, Chris breathed a sigh of relief and followed, wondering just what it was that set her off this time.
I'll probably find out when I get a last confession out of Ryan or something, provided that Rika lets him breathe long enough for that. As he entered the kitchen Reno told the others to gather around the table and listen to what he had to tell them, as it concerned what happened in Odaiba.
This should be interesting, thought Chris.
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